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me. ers."

Elder Noyse, give me your pray

A startling murmur, like a passion of smothered ejaculations, burst from the spectators. It rose again, and gathered to a wail, when Elder George Burroughs, once the minister of Salem village, ascended the ladder. More had only talked with this man once; but he had been won by his noble bearing during the trial, and that impression was quickened by his present demeanor and expressions. It seemed as if there were no crowd there, so utter was the silence, when this misjudged victim spoke, declaring at once his innocence and his forgiving resignation. The same stillness continued as he prayed with the mildest composure, and ended by repeating, with solemn fervency, the Lord's Prayer. Then, suddenly, an angry murmur rose from the multitude, and it surged tumultuously toward the gibbet, as if it would have attempted a rescue. Hawthorne, drawing his sword, sprang to the foot of the ladder; while Curwin's trusty musketeers beat back the people with their heavy gunbreeches. More had been standing in the rear of the press; but he bounded forward now, hoping to gain the front ranks and lead the spectators to an attack upon the soldiers. The retreating tide of men carried him backward in spite of his strength; and, looking up, he saw that the ladder had been torn away, and the agony of Burroughs completed. At the same moment, Cotton Mather, sitting on his horse by the gallows, looked around with that Roman face of his, so young, yet so austere and unpitying, and, uplifting his sonorous voice, bade the people desist from opposition to the laws. "I tell you, men of Salem," he proceeded, "that this George Burroughs was no true minister, but came among us in some other way than by the door of holy ordination. Ye are moved at the devout expressions which he has used, and certainly they seem to the ear edifying; but how do ye know that the black man stood not by, invisibly, and dictated to him? Certain it is, that Satan himself is often transformed, in appearance, into an angel of light."

"Cotton Mather," yelled More, in a frenzy, "it is thou who art that very Satan."

People turned round and faced the reckless speaker, some with warm sym

pathy, some with fierce anger in their pallid faces. He shook his fist at them like a madman, and whirling on his heel, hurried away from the abominable spot. From this frightful day there were many who more or less boldly encouraged him in his lonely struggle against the fanatical supporters of the delusion; and their sympathy, though uttered for the most part in timid whispers, gave him fresh courage, and made him hardier than ever in his denunciations of Juggernaut. In the mean time, Rachel trembled every time he left the cabin, lest he would never return. Mark, too, was anxious, and tried to persuade him to make a journey to Connecticut. Even Goodwife Stanton cried, as she said: "Take care, Master More. You ain't half enough afeard. Parris, there, is mighty spiteful."

Another week dragged on, ere this contest between a man and a community came to a crisis. A little before sundown, on a certain blazing August day, the reverend Elders Parris and Noyse, with that Cromwellian Puritan, Justice Curwin, repaired to the cottage of Goody Margaret Cory in the outskirts of Salem village, bent on worrying the antiquated witch into a confession. They twisted her shriveled neck and tumbled her gray hair in search of witch-marks; they entreated her, urged her, bullied her, threatened her with torments, mortal and infernal; they called her a midnight hag, a daughter of Endor, and a fire-brand from the gulf of perdition. The old creature wrung her feeble hands; tears of terror ran down the deep wrinkles of her cheeks; but she persisted in affirming that she was innocent of sorcery. "What!" roared Parris. "Are you not a Witch of Endor? Will you say that there was no Witch of Endor? How dare you thus deny the Scriptures? If you deny them, you make yourself a liar, and have your part in the lake of fire and brimstone. Will you tell me there is no such lake? I tell you there is. Woe to you for an infidel and an atheist, saying in your heart there is no God! Confess, Satan-confess! Thou art a woman with a familiar spirit."

"I ain't," sobbed the goody, indignantly, brushing back her disheveled locks. "I never see no sperits more familiar than you be."

The noise of this severe discussion had attracted to the cabin half a score

of children, who, like most of the young ones of Salem now, had the reputation of being afflicted. They easily discovered what was going on within, by peeping through the ragged windows and listening at the shabby door. It was a capital chance to make a sensation, and they were not long in improving it. A knotty rail, from a neighboring fence, furnished a convenient ladder, whereby the little scamps and scampesses conveyed themselves, unseen, to the low back roof of the cabin. The boldest then kicked the rail away, and the whole pack opened, at the signal, in a chorus of shrill yelps and howlings which struck Goody Cory speechless, and started up her three inquisitors in an ecstasy of amazement and scared triumph. Out rushed the two zealous elders, and after them leaped the lengthy justice, scurrying around to the rear of the cabin, to see what demon was in the wind now. At sight of their upturned, goggling eyes, and arms thrown aloft in wonder, the children went off into a louder uproar, writhing and kicking, until it seemed as if the crazy roof would give way under the tempest of their monkey-shines. "Goody Cory called us!" they screamed, wringing their hands and beating their breasts as if in unimaginable agonies. "Her devils brought us here. They brought us through the air. They told us to come to the witch-meeting."

Is it possible that the small rascals were not afraid to play such a shallow trick as this; not afraid of being lashed indignantly by the grown men whom they tried to deceive with such a satirical impudence of humbug? No. Why should they have any such fears? A thousand impositions as silly had been practiced that summer in Salem, and not one of them had been exposed. How long did it take our own sagacious century to discover who broke the Stratford crockery, and who rapped on the Rochester floors?

Strong in the faith, refreshed by this new example of the power of Beelzebub, the magistrate and elders bolted into the cottage again and renewed their attack upon the unfortunate old granny. "Confess!" thundered Curwin. "The proof against thee is near and mighty. The prince of the powers of the air has himself discovered thee. Listen, thou rampant witch, to the anguish of thy victims !"

"I never bewitched 'em, so help me God," whimpered the poor woman. "I don't know how they come there no more nor the dead. I done no harm to nobody. Oh, don't look at me so, Master Curwin. I can't bear it; indeed I can't."

"Don't master him!" broke in Parris. "He is not thy master. Apollyon is thy master, thou scholar of the pit."

66

Why can't you let me alone?" shrieked the goody, driven to desperation. "I'd go away, if you'd let me. But you keep me here as if you wanted to make me a witch, and wanted to have me torment you. You've taken my son away from me; you've got Giles in prison; and now you want to take me there, too. Well, take me. I'm all alone. I'm most starvin'. I don't care. Take me. Hang me, if you want to. But don't try to make me own I'm a witch. I ain't one, no more nor you, Jonathan Curwin."

"No more than I!" exclaimed the justice, in amazement at the impertinent comparison. "I am a member of the church."

"So's my son's wife, and so was Rebecca Nurse, and so was Martha Carrier," replied the old woman. "But what did that help 'em? I wish you'd let me alone."

While this conversation passed inside the cabin, and the children whooped at intervals on the roof, More, with a basket of trout on his left arm and a tough lithe fish-pole twelve feet long over his right shoulder, was coming down the road alone, on his way home from a fishing excursion among the brooklets north of Salem village. He heard the juvenile uproar at a considerable distance; and, seeing the children, was at no loss to guess the nature of the disturbance. Covered by the clumps of bushes which fringed the path, he reached the cabin without being discovered by the biped caterwaulers who enjoyed their wriggles and spasms on the easy slope of the hinder roof. Listening a moment at the door, he satisfied himself perfectly as to what was going on, and resolved to interfere after his usual energetic fashion. He set down his basket, took his fishpole in his teeth, and, laying hold of the projecting beams at a corner of the log edifice, swung himself up to the roof with a few powerful struggles. The huge chimney covered his cautious advance, so that he managed to reach the

ridge-board without being discovered by the children. They had ranged themselves in rows on the mossy slope, facing in the other direction, and were keeping up a regular tattoo with their feet, diversifying the clamor by barks, grunts, and screeches. Wetting his right hand, More set the butt of his pole fast in its iron grasp, and gave a grin of vindictive anticipation. The next moment the lithe hickory whistled through the air, and quivered, with a sharp crash, across the unsuspecting behinds of the four nearest juvenile roarers. A scream of childish anguish burst forth, in the midst of which the stinging scourge rose and descended once more with terrible emphasis. Every little face was turned over its owner's shoulder; every one of that score of eyes was fixed in horror on the well-known and much-dreaded visage of More; and then, as the fish-pole swung a third time on its mission of castigation, the whole pack plunged forward in headlong fright, and rolled, shrieking and writhing, down the roof, like an avalanche of monkeys. The fall was too slight to hurt any one seriously; aside from the mitigating circumstance that a sow and her pigs had just lain down under the eaves. The whole

litter of afflicted ones-sow, pigs, and children-picked themselves up, and scattered in all directions, with a most ludicrous uproar of squeals, grunts, and yelpings. More burst into a shout of laughter, and stood on the roof, fishpole in hand, when the three catechists of the cottage rushed out to discover the nature of this new and deafening phase of the manifestation. The two elders stared at him with an openmouthed dismay; but the readier and braver Curwin shouted, savagely: "What are you about there, you Sadducee?"

"Breaking the devil's 'spell,” answered More, contemptuously, as he leaped down and faced them.

I'll teach you to vex afflicted children," thundered Curwin, springing for ward to grapple with the hunter. More stepped aside, and got one swing with his fish-pole, making it absolutely double about Parris's dumpy legs, and sending that heroic divine skipping after the sow and pigs. The next instant, our New England Don Quixote, our protector of oppressed good-wives, felt the grasp of the tall, vigorous, enraged magistrate.

Curwin, unquestionably, knew his opponent's immense strength; but he was as brave as a bull-dog, and, when his temper was up, would have fought the devil. For a moment he seemed to throttle More, forcing him back by sheer weight and shouting, hoarsely-"Have at ye, Agag!" But the next instant his hands were torn from their hold, and he was hurled against the wall of the cottage with a stunning violence. He spun round once, reeled against the petrified Noyse, and then came up to the scratch again, like a good one. The elder also advanced a little behind him, with both hands extended; although, perhaps, he had no other intention than to separate the combatants. More seized one by the breast, the other by the feckcloth, and, flinging them both prostrate, proceeded to shake them out of their senses. Noyse was pale, speechless, and unresisting; while Curwin only grew crimson with fury, and struck out desperately with his fists and heavy boots. He ceased the useless struggle after a while, but still glared undismayed on his assailant, and snarled, like a hyæna, "Take your heathen hands off me. I'll teach you to attack a justice in his duty."

"A justice!" said More, still holding him down. "What did you grip me for? Where is your commitment?"

"You'll see my commitment before you are a day older," retorted the unterrified Puritan.

"I will, eh?” sneered More, who, certainly, was not in one of his most gentlemanly moods. "Well, you feel mine

now.

Have you had enough of it, good

people?"

Noyse humbly begged to be let up, while Curwin responded with a fierce growl. More loosened his hold, and, stepping back, allowed them to rise. The elder was trembling from head to foot; he brushed his clothes ruefully, and slunk away behind the cottage. The justice followed him, after shaking his fist at the victor, and saying: "Now, fellow, take care of yourself. I'll follow you to England for this."

More laughed with the impoliteness of a man excited by fighting, and turned about to look for Parris. That cautious person, flanked by five or six urchins, stood tip-toe on a stone wall nearly a quarter of a mile off, bobbing up and down in an unsatisfactory attempt to discover how the conflict had

terminated. The conqueror hallooed at him, upon which he left his post, and resumed his flight toward the village. More now walked into the cabin, and made a present of his fish to Goody Cory, who, to his indignation, was, if anything, more scared than grateful at her deliverance.

CHAPTER XV.

As More walked homeward from the scene of his provocation, his strife, and his victory, he had time to reflect calmly on the whole circumstance. He was glad that he had trounced the children; he could not blame himself for having resisted Curwin; he laughed as he fancied the black and blue streaks on the legs of Parris; it served them all quite right, he thought, to teach them that sauce for goose was sauce for gander. But he remembered, with a twinge of shame and regret, his violence toward Noyse. He had never received any harm from that man, and he had never caused him anything but pain. He certainly owed him much forbearance, in consideration of the bitter disappointment that he had helped to force upon him. He did not consider him a leader in the present delusion; nothing worse, certainly, than a silly follower of an absurd public. He reflected, too, what he had not thought of in the fury of the scuffle, that the minister, timid as he was, could hardly have intended more by his advance than to separate the combatants. "I will do what a brave man should do," he muttered to himself. "I will go and ask the elder's pardon." He immediately set about this duty, not even turning off in the first place to his cabin, notwithstanding that Rachel might be alarmed at his long absence. He kept the main road, pushed rapidly onward and entered the village of Salem. People stared at him strangely, and some evidently tried to avoid meeting him, so that it was clear the afternoon's adventure had become public. Without stopping to speak to any one, he hurried forward to the house of Noyse. Good-wife Bibber, the elder's housekeeper, answered his knock, and fell back with both hands raised when she saw who demanded admittance. He marched by her, and, entering the open door-way of the ministerial study, came full upon Noyse, Higginson, Bowson, and half-a

dozen other leading members of the church. The aggrieved elder was speaking angrily of the outrage which had been committed; nor were the countenances of his audience marked by any lesser degree of indignation; and there was a general start, followed by a menacing murmur, as More stepped in among them. Noyse looked around, as if to see whether he would be protected, and two or three of the boldest advanced between him and the intruder, while Deacon Bowson overturned a chair as he backed hastily into the furthest corner. "Elder Noyse," said More, "I have come to ask your pardon for my violence toward you this afternoon. In the haste of anger-of a riotous scuffle-I treated you as as unseemly in a gentleman. It was especially unseemly thus to touch a minister of the gospel. I beg your forgiveness for it, sir, with my whole heart; and I call upon all these gentlemen here present, to witness my humble acknowledgment of wrong."

Noyse tried to speak, but tears of anger and mortification forced their way into his eyes, and he could say nothing.

"You ought to ask pardon of the law and the church," broke in an indignant somebody.

"I shall be willing to answer the law before its courts," said More. "What I do now is, to utter my shame for discourtesy toward a man who has always treated me with courtesy. As for those children, I did right in trouncing them; and I would do it again. And as for Justice Curwin, I properly resisted and chastised his attack upon me."

"But what do you say for your behavior to Elder Parris?" asked the same speaker as before. "I'm from Salem Village. I don't like my minister to be abused like a runaway apprentice."

"The day will come, Good-man Ingersoll, that you will want to flog Parris yourself," responded More excitedly. "He is the Titus Oates of this country. He is the greatest villain unhanged."

A murmur of indignation ran from mouth to mouth, in reply to this bitter attack on a man who was, for the moment, the chief martyr and apostle of the generation. Noyse plucked up courage from the expression of those angry faces, and made a single step of

would-be menace toward the hunter. 44 Ah, Master More," said the mild old

Higginson, "such violent doings as

these would make men think ill of the best cause in the world."

"I confess it with shame, reverend sir," was the reply. "I have slipped out of myself to-day. But do not think ill of me altogether, nor condemn my belief, because I am imperfect. I am sure it is enough to drive one furious, to see a few madmen leading our colony to destruction, as they do. But I will leave you, gentlemen. I have said all I came to say. I bid you a good-evening."

He saluted them and walked quietly out of the house. "He is afraid; he will go, now, and humble himself to Master Curwin," said one. "No he won't," said Deacon Bowson; and the deacon was right.

People saluted More in the street, but no one addressed him, until he was met by Mark Stanton, who came up with a face of very serious anxiety. "Sir, this will be a bad case; I am afraid," said he. "Some people think you did right; but very few dare say it. I have heard loud talk of a com. mitment to be made out this very night. I wish you would quit Salem, sir, for a while. Master English has fled to Providence; perhaps you could reach there, too, on horseback. There are no ships going for some days; I have been to the wharves to ask."

"Never fear for me, Mark," said the hunter. “I am not alone now, as I was a fortnight ago. Many a man gives me the hand now secretly, who, before another fortnight, will stand with me shoulder to shoulder. It never will do for Henry More to turn his back just as the victory is about to be gained. I shall stick it out, and fight it out where I am; and if I die, it will be in a good cause. Don't you see, Mark, that it would disgrace all I have done hitherto, if I should run away now."

Mark said nothing in direct reply, but his face flushed up with a fine sympathy, and he shook More's hand energetically. Then he preferred a request that he might be allowed to go and pass that night, at least, in the cabin. He would sleep on the floor, anywhere; and he would bring his good duck gun along with him. "No, my boy, I don't want your head broke, too," said the bunter. "If anything should happen,

I want you to keep out of harm's way, to take care of Rachel. I would send our little lass to her uncle's; but it's too late now; she would suspect something, and wouldn't go. Better sleep at home, lad; but take a run out to the cabin in the morning to see if all is right."

They parted. More looked kindly after the stalwart young fellow, as he entered his mother's gate, and muttered: "A brave lad-a stout lad. He would fight for me well. But it would be a pity. It would help little; and it might bring him to Gallows Hill, and break his mother's heart, not to say-"

He did not finish the sentence aloud; but we may suppose that he thought of Rachel. He found that handsome damsel at the cabin, perfectly alone, and in considerable tribulation about both himself and Margaret Jacobs. She told him that Margaret had gone to Salem to visit the family of a brother, and had promised to return by twilight, but was as yet missing. More wondered, suspected arrests, but did not think it worth while to go back in search of the lost servant-maid; and presently asked for his supper, to which he did the calmest justice. He said not a word of the occurrences of the afternoon, and Rachel could not remember afterwards that he had seemed more silent or anxious than usual. The August evening passed slowly away in a hot tranquil obscurity; for Rachel did not light the tallow candles, lest the mosquitoes should accept their glimmer as an invitation to enter the family circle. They read nothing, therefore, but they talked in their usual style, and More jested with his habitual gayety. They sat up late, partly because it was too warm to sleep, and partly to keep open house for Margaret Jacobs. Neither of them knew, until the next day, that poor Margaret had been cried out upon; had been committed while at her brother's, and was at that moment crying and wringing her hands in a room of the Cat and Wheel Tavern, where she had been confined, because the prison was already overcrowded. That was the way people disappeared in the earnest old days when table-turning, and so forth, still had a strong hold on the faith of the people.

Rachel passed the evening wondering and uneasy, but at last went to bed, and fell asleep. The house had three

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