nicated her from his church; and Margret feels dreadfully about it, I know she does. She's a good woman, Margaret is, and 'll get to heaven a long sight afore any of them cussed elders, I know she will. I don't care so much for myself; but I feel real bad about Margaret, that's a fact. Did you hear what happened when they brought her to the examination? Margaret asked leave to pray, so as to compose her mind. No,' says Justice Curwin; 'you answer our questions; we come here to examine you, and not to hear you pray,' says he."

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It was singular to note the contrast of the man's calm manner and unimpassioned words with the deep emotion which brimmed his eyelids with tears. More tried to give him his hand, but they were chained too far apart to admit of this expression of sympathy. Cory," said he, "do just as you like about pleading. Perhaps you had better not plead, if you feel able to hold out to the death. It may put off your trial until the public opinion changes, and saves you. There are more every day now who feel for us, and abominate these prosecutions. At all events, even if you die for it, it will be a good example, and a grand protest against the courts. But I shall plead. I have had some education; and I think I can speak to the purpose on this subject. I shall say all that I can, and give them more, perhaps, than they will care to hear."

A new rustling of feet in the passage interrupted the conversation.

"That's Parris, I reckon," muttered the farmer. "I know the scrape of his shoes. He's always a scraping 'em and a rubbing his hands."

The door opened, and Parris, with a stern scowl on his swollen visage, walked in, followed by Noyse. They passed Cory with an air of pharisaical hauteur, which the farmer avenged by munching at his dinner without looking up. More civilly returned their stiff salute, and begged them, in an ironical tone, to make themselves comfortable on his heap of straw; but they declined the invitation, and remained standing at a cautious distance from the athletic prisoner. "Well," snarled Parris, "how does Samson relish his captivity? Has he not become sick of the Dalilah of witchcraft? Has she not shorn his locks, at last, and brought him to grind at the mill ?"

"that

"I suppose," replied More, these are the elders of the Philistines, come to make sport of their captive."

"Thou art a Philistine, thou enemy of the ark of God!" roared Parris. "Thou art worse than a Philistine, thou Anakim, thou hissing Sadducee, thou denier of devils, and, therefore, denier of God."

How the mean venomous toad swelled in his cowardly triumph, as he stood there mocking at the weakness of that man who, three days before, could have made him run with a look! He went on soon in a quieter, but not less hateful, tone, accusing More of numberless sorceries, and trying to browbeat him into a confession. Insolent as he was, the prisoner did not get angry, but answer ed him with cool arguments and the most serene, yet cutting sarcasm. More's danger had calmed him; he repressed his natural excitability; he was resolved to fight for life with every weapon; he was collected, wary, and provokingly ready. As Parris found himself confuted and ridiculed, he grew outrageous, and fell into a strain of brutal reviling. At last, he went on his knees, at a safe distance from More, and commenced a boisterous, declamatory prayer, in which he argued against his opponent, and insulted him by various spiteful epithets. He enjoyed this, and kept it up a long while it gave him the appearance of a triumph; he did all the talking, and More could not reply.

Noyse, all this time, said little, and evidently found the scene most painful. He spoke with embarrassment, left the argument chiefly to Parris, and only threw in an occasional remark when the dispute heated him for a moment by its infection. In secret, he vibrated miserably between two conflicting emotions: he dreaded More, and had even learned to hate him; yet he felt pushed, by an inward necessity, to try and save his life. He watched his face with unutterable wistfulness, and wondered whether he would not now be willing to give up Rachel. If that prisoner would only have whispered to him, " Noyse, you may have my daughter," he would have rushed out, and never rested nor slept, until the dungeon doors were thrown open to his liberated feet. He hoped, from moment to moment, that More would thus whisper; would motion him to approach; would look at him with significant eyes. He waited pa

tiently for Parris; he even prolonged the interview in such useless expectation. Then he became angry, although still silent; and thought, with a flushed face, of this enemy to his love ascending the ladder of the gallows. Did he believe, all this while, More was a wizard? It is difficult to conjecture. It is certain. at all events, that he had not yet joined in publicly denouncing him for sorcery, Indeed, he was so confused now-a-days, that he hardly knew himself what he believed. One thing alone was dreadful sure his self-conscious hypocrisy was daily increasing; he was falling more and more from grace, under the pressure of his passion; he felt that he had it in his heart to save the prisoner, though guilty, and condemn him, though innocent; to save a wizard for the bribe of a ringleted girl, and condemn a guiltless man if that bribe were withheld. After having left the cell with Parris, he returned to it alone, and lingered there fifteen minutes longer. Forever what he wished to say seemed to rise violently from the bottom of his heart to his lips, and die there, like a bubble struggling to the surface of waters, and breaking as soon as it has reached the light. He could have had Cory taken Dut; he could have whispered his shameful offer unheard; but he dared not do it, and went away with his secret unspoken. Such was his nature, that if he was to be a villain, he must be only half a one, too cowardly to ask the reward of villainy until it was beyond hope.

What were the feelings of More with regard to himself, and those without the prison whom he loved? He believed that he could face his accusers bravely, defend himself coolly and skillfully, and face death in a manner which would be an example to all who should ever suffer after him by injustice. But now and then his heart quivered as he thought of good, faithful sister Ann, and, worse still, of his poor little Rachel. It was a hard thing to part-how hard he had not before comprehended; but he could realize it now in his lonely meditations. He thought how she had always been with him; how she had almost shut out the whole world from his vision; how she had just reached the full unfolding of her beauty; and now his eyes were about to be closed upon her, not to reopen. He tried every way to steady himself for the final blow of se

paration. "I am glad that she has found some one whom she can love," said he; yet even that was bitter, to think that any one could fill his vacant place.

But in general he strove to dismiss these sad feelings, and keep his soul collected for the struggle which awaited it. At times he had a vehement hope in the success of that struggle, and raised his eyes exultingly as if no prison wall darkened between him and the free heavens. It was inconceivable that this tide of horrors should forever advance; perhaps it was even now at its highest wave, soon to falter backward in mighty reaction. If so, he would find the jury already half convinced of his innocence; and his earnest defense might break the remnant of the delusion; so that he would deliver all in delivering one.

But what were they thinking and doing outside, his friends and his enemies? In three days after the arrest, Rachel looked quite worn out with sleeplessness and crying. It seemed as if hope had already passed out of the world, leaving it a waste of dreary desolation such as she had not previously seen it. It is true that Mark and aunt Ann still wandered through it by her side; but how did she know that another day would not see them also buried in its deadly sands? It was in vain that these two sorrowful comforters tried to cheer her, by telling how this good-man and that good-wife had whispered their belief in More's innocence. Did she believe in the guilt of those who had already ascended the gallows? counted up, on her fingers, over and over again, those who had been tried, and found that they had every one been declared guilty, and sentenced to death. It was horrible; she could not have it so; she lived in a kind of nightmare; she wrung her hands sometimes before strangers. Yet, after all, there was a vague, baseless, yet persistent emotion of hope. They could not, they would not hang her father; no, not her father that she loved so; other people's fathers, perhaps, but not hers; no, no, she could not bear it, and they would not do it.

She

As for her uncle, so far from being a comfort to her, he rather tore open her sorrows, sometimes even to the rousing of her indignation. He shook his head woefully at the case of his brother-inlaw; was afraid Master More had been tampering in some unguarded moment

with Satan; had mourned a long time over his tendencies towards Sadducism and other such heresies. He used to repeat at the table what Parris had said against the prisoner, or what Curwin had declared on the probability of his "having a narrow squeak of it." It was no wonder that Rachel repeatedly got up from dinner in a passion of angry tears and sobs; for even Mrs. Bowson once lost her customary meekness, and became spunky at these outrageous impertinences. A believer in the delulusion at first, its horrors had gradually drawn her towards incredulity, and this home blow had completed the reaction in her spirit. She defended Henry with such fervor and firmness, that her husband opened his eyes and shut his mouth, half cowed and half astonished. Then he retorted angrily; asserted his rights as master of the house; and quoted Paul, to the effect that a woman should not attempt to teach, but should be silent. The result was, quarrel number two of their married life; and Mrs. Bowson sobbed out of the room after Rachel. After that, Sarah Carrier had a convulsion, broke half a dozen dishes, threw a mug of beer in Goody Bowson's face, and scalded the deacon's legs, by plastering them with a platter full of smoking clam chowder. It seemed as if the devil had really entered into everybody in Salem, so filled were all households with bad blood, stripes, backbitings, and miseries of every little as woll as every horrible nature.

"We must do something more than ory, Rachel," said sister Ann. "We must be up and doing, if we wish to save your father. We must intercede for him with people in authority; and those who are truly in authority now, are the elders. One of us must apply to Elder Noyse, and the other to Elder Parris. As for good Master Higginson, I fear he could help us little."

Rachel assented tearfully to all this, and asked if she should go and see Elder Parris. Aunt Ann easily guessed why Rachel did not wish to face Noyse; and she felt that her niece's instinctive delicacy was right; so that, taking that duty upon herself, she sent the girl to Salem village.

Rachel dismounted before Parris's dwelling, and fastened the sorrel to a bar of the rude paling. Her heart beat dreadfully and tried to suffocate her as she timidly knocked at the door. Abi

gail Williams opened it, and, seeing who was there, made an ill-natured little grimace as she bade her walk in; for Rachel's father had whipped her uncle, and she felt bound to resent the family indignity. Mrs. Parris waddled forward to meet the visitor without any perceptible signs of spitefulness on her limp and flabby countenance. Laws, Rachel More!" said she, "how de do? So, yer father's took up? Well, what was the manufestations? Mistress Johnson told me all about it; but I should so like to hear it from one of the family. It's awful refreshing to the Christian spirit. It sort o' brings heaven near to one; don't it now?"

Perhaps she meant hell or the spirit world generally; but her ideas were always vaguely conceived, and still more indistinctly stated. Rachel said little to satisfy the stupid, good-natured soul's curiosity, and presently asked for Elder Parris.

"Laws and testimonies, child," was the answer, "he's exactly as busy as a bee. He's meditating his lecter. I misremember the text now; but it's some passage of Scripter about repairing Salem's courts."

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Repairing to Salem's courts, spouse, although, to be sure, Salem's courts need repairing enough, if one speaks by that term of our poor tabernacle," said the minister himself, as he poked his head into the kitchen, apparently to discover who was the visitor. "Aha, Rachel More!" he continued with acid dignity, as the girl timidly saluted him, I wish you a good-morning, Rachel More. I thank God I wish you nothing worse, Rachel More, whatever your father may be, and 'owever much he may have sought to dishonor my profession. I thank God for that; and you may thank God for it also, Rachel More. Do you not thank God for it? What a sin to have an unthankful 'eart! Do you say that I do not thank him for it? Why do you say so? You wrong I do."

me.

til I 'ave taken care of the business of my own 'ousehold."

He hefted the piece of venison which was laid out for roasting; then he looked into the pot, and carefully counted the turnips. Spouse," said he, "I behold 'ere sixteen turnips, whereas our ordinary daily ration is but twelve. What sayest thou to this, spouse. Are there not sixteen? I say there are."

“Dear me, elder, do tell!" responded his helpmate, throwing up her hands in deprecation. "Oh, laws! I know now, Elder; they was smaller; that's it; they was a mite smaller."

"It is possible," drawled the elder; then turning to the waiting suppliant, he said: "Now, Rachel More, what desire you? Speak quickly; for is not my time short? Yea, verily, as the apostle says unto all, the time is short."

The girl was about to reply as well as her disposition to sob would let her, when the door flew open, and Elizabeth Parris entered, her yellow face stained with berries, and one dirty hand charged with a small basket. The elder again waved his hand in token of silence, and turning his back on Rachel, asked Elizabeth where she had been. "I've been berrying, sir," she replied. "I told you where I was going, before breakfast, sir. I went with Charity Chubb." "And had you no breakfast but the wild fruits of the forest-but berries, my love?" demanded the anxious father.

"Oh yes, sir; mother put some bread and cheese and sausage in my basket." "And Charity Chubb, that poor infant, had she any breakfast?" continued Parris, sentimentally.

"No, father, she hadn't any, and so I gave her some of mine."

Elizabeth," exclaimed the elder, with a look of alarm, and a tone of warning solemnity, "we can't board Charity Chubb-can we? I say we cannot. Who says we can board Charity

Chubb?"

forgive you for wasting moments that should have been consecrated to the good of my flock!"

"Oh, Elder Parris, have pity on my father," was Rachel's only answer.

"Your father!" returned Parris, striking up into a bellow of indignation. "Have I 'armed your father? He is in prison, and likely to be 'anged-is he? Well, what is that to me? Did I send him there? Or, was it his own infernal debauches with Satan, and his own devilish fury against both law and gospel? I tell you, that I 'ave nothing to do with him, except that my innocence is a condemnation of his guilt. Yea, I tell you to your face, that I stand not responsible for your father's being in a dungeon; nor shall I stand responsible for it, if he is led to Gallows Hill."

Oh, forgive me, Elder Parris," implored Rachel, with joined hands and wet cheeks. "I never meant to say that you sent my father to prison. But, I know you are very powerful; and I wanted to ask you to intercede for him, if, perhaps, you would be so good. Oh, please, say something for him before the court. You won't let him die if you can help it, will you, sir? Because he's all the parent I have in the world; and my mother died when I was a little baby; and I've loved him ever since, as if he was mother and father both. Won't you, please, to be so pitiful as to intercede for him? Let them put him in prison, and keep him there a long while; only don't let them kill him,

sir."

Mrs. Parris seemed to be extremely affected by the poor girl's agony, for she pulled a dirty apron up over her face, and burst into a mild roar of weeping. The elder himself was a little softened. Rachel's submissive air gratified his revenge; and her confession of his influence in the community flattered his conceit. But the next moment he thought of More's fish-pole doubling across his legs, and of the bitter opposition which the hunter had ever made to the witchcraft excitement and its supporters. His anger rose at the remembrance, yet he quelled all its outward expression, and vestured himself in the garb of hypocritical humility.

"Rachel," said he, "you have applied to one, who, in his weakness, is incapable of granting you aid. Behold me-I am no magistrate, no member of the council, no governor, no mighty po

tentate. I am only a poor feeble shepherd, in the tents of righteousness. It is not committed unto me, the keeping of prisons, and the loosing of captives, and the bonds of life and death. I 'avo no authority among men, to destroy, or to save. I am a lamb among wolves, rather than a wolf among lambs. Will anybody say that I am a wolf among lambs? No, no, Rachel, you do me wrong."

Rachel began again with a sobbing "Elder Parris," but he refused to hear her, and strode out of the room, shutting the door after him. Mrs. Parris, who had stopped crying by this time, having, apparently, been much edified and consoled by her husband's eloquence, stepped between Rachel and the door, as if to prevent the girl from following Parris, and wasting his valuable time any further.

Laws and testimonies, child," said she," don't worrit him. He ain't ono of your idle heathen potentates who don't know what to do with theirselves all day long, He's a Christian preacher, and he's got lecters to meditate, and ever so much else to work.at."

All this time no one had signified to Rachel that she might sit down, so that she had remained on her feet, trembling in every fibre with the fatigue of painful emotions; and now, in this moment of perished hope, the room whirled around her, the floor rose wavering, and she had to totter to a chair, to keep herself from falling with faintness. Mrs. Parris sprang quickly away from her, and stood at a little distance with hands and eyebrows uplifted. When she saw, however, that the girl only sobbed and hung her head, she recovered courage and came forward, saying: "Dear life! feel afaint, do ye? I thought you was a going to have a manufestation--Elizabeth, run quick and fetch a mug of water."

Rachel drank, and, as the color came back to her face, she arose, bade them good-by, and left the house. But she was still so dizzy, that she could not at first get into the saddle; she leaned her forehead against it, and stood there moving her lips for a few moments. That quiet old sorrel seemed to comprehend her grief, for he put his inquiring nose almost into her face, with all the sympathy of a kindly ancient family-horse. She felt absolutely grateful to the dumb animal-she patted him, talked to him,

and finally put her arms around his shaggy neck.

"Laws and laws," exclaimed Mrs. Parris in the window. "I wonder if that Rachel More ain't one of 'em. I wonder if that old hoss is her familiar."

And the elder's wife looked very suspiciously after the sad-hearted girl, as she rode away homeward.

CHAPTER XVII.

He

IT is not worth while to relate Mrs. Bowson's interview with Noyse. In reality, she succeeded as ill as Rachel, although the elder treated her with great civility, and made her many vague and incomprehensible promises. counseled her to prayer, and resignation; she must try to feel the hand of heaven through all these earthly anguishes; she must be strenuous in seeking to save her brother's soul, whatever became of his body. He uttered these devout phrases from sheer habit, without any spiritual sensation of their power. His soul had shrunk within him under the fire of his passion; and his piety hung loose upon it, like the folds of a rhinoceros's skin. His character might have rattled inside of his profession, like the kernel of a shriveled filbert within its shell.

Elder Higginson came to see the two sorrowful women, without waiting till they went to him. He could do nothing for them, however, except tell them in mild earnestness those same things which Noyse had said like a parrot. He confessed, with a mournful shake of the head, that his influence was almost gone in the village, and added: " Well, perhaps I deserve it; perhaps I am wrong; but time will tell; and if not time, then eternity. Let us look forward to that, Mistress Bowson, and we shall not feel the present to be so mighty and terrible. I would gladly do something for you. but I can do nothing for myself; at least, the plague has reached my own family. My daughter Anu, who married William Dollibar of Gloucester, she, too, has been cried out upon and apprehended. I do not believe she is guilty, I cannot believe it. But God's will be done."

Mark all this while worked untiringly and bravely to make interest in behalf of the prisoner. He rode post-haste to Boston, and solicited the countenance of Major Saltonstall and of the Rever