but he muttered some incoherent reply which he would not repeat, shed a few childish tears, and told her to go away. How sadly changed he was from the kind, cheerful, jolly uncle who had loved and petted her a year before! Who would then have better enjoyed such an occasion? How he would have shone out for an entire evening as the most talkative, frisky, hilarious old Puritan alive; praising the plum-cake as heartily as he ate it, and toasting the bride in the sincerest of brimming bumpers.

In those days of Yankeedom, a wedding was usually an occasion of unrestrained joviality; the entire day, even in the gravest families, being often devoted to merry-making, rural games, eating, and drinking. The spirits of the population, corked up all the year round by grim laws and a stern faith, naturally burst forth in noisy effervescence on every such permissible holiday. Clergymen sometimes preached loudly against these jubilations; all the louder, ill-natured people said, because they were seldom called on to officiate in marriages; for, early in Massachusetts history, the office of joining persons in wedlock had been taken from the priesthood and conferred on the magistracy. In 1686, indeed, this restriction was removed; but fashions changed slowly among a grave, simple people; and, for long afterward, most hymeneal knots were tied by the justice of the peace.

Mark and Rachel, however, had called in their kind old pastor and friend, Elder Higginson. There he stood, tall and dignified, mechanically brushing back the white hair which curled over his temples, his kindly eyes fixed on the bride, and his face beautiful with a mild solemnity. It was with an evident flutter that the two lovers rose and faced his venerable composure. I decline to countenance the very natural supposition that they were handsomer at this moment than they ever were before or after. I think that Mark was altogether too red, and Rachel too pale. To Aunt Ann they were lovely; but she did not see them very distinctly; her eyes were too much blinded by tears. Well might she weep; for what had happened since this love-match began? Where was the bride's father-her own and only brother? Was not his face whiter than the face of that girl who stood there trembling in the last hour of her maidenhood? Oh, what founVOL. IX.-40

tains of tears were upspringing in the bygone summer! The evil that threatens may not fall; but who shall deliver us from the evil that is past?

While Aunt Ann was wiping her eyes, and trying to lift up her heavy heart, Elder Higginson pronounced Mark and Rachel to be wedded man and wife. Then he kissed the bride, and received an inaudible kiss in return; after which came a row of kisses from the company, intermixed with hand-shakings of a very energetic character. But people were a little in the dumps, as Cousin Jehoida Mix phrased it, until the ale and canary had circulated pretty freely. These liquors melted a funny story out of young Mix: after which Good-wife Stanton related some wedding reminiscences; after which several persons related anecdotes in a pleasant chorus; after which Goody Bowson cackled a psalm-tune, and Frisk gave a yell of sympathy; and, generally speaking, folks made themselves as merry as could be reasonably expected. Sarah Carrier, with a pocket full of raisins, a huge piece of cake in one hand, and half a glass of canary in the other, had evidently quite forgotten that she was one of the afflicted children. At nine there was a sudden search for cloaks and hats; and, in half an hour thereafter, everybody was at home and abed.

At last, then, at last, Mark! Well. we will not say a word to you about it now, my good fellow. You have somebody else to talk to you; or, rather, somebody else to whom you can talk : for the little girl who sits beside you is strangely silent. But I really wish, Mark, that you had lived in our day, so that you could have read the song of songs-the Bridal of Gerald Massey

"His arms her hyacinth head caress,
And fold her fragrant slenderness,
With all its touching tenderness.
"And now she trembles to his breast,
To make it aye her happy nest,
And proudly crowns his loving quest.
"Dear God! that he alone hath grace
To light such splendor in her face,
And win the blessing of embrace."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE agony of Noyse at the completion of this marriage was indescribable. and almost puzzles comprehension. It was a paroxysm of mingled shame, re

morse, disappointment, jealousy, revenge, and hatred, so dreadful that it seemed as if his eternal wailings and gnashings had come upon him before their time. The last struggles of a goaded and heavy-laden conscience formed no inconsiderable element of his wretchedness. He was like those unfortunates of ancient days, out of whom devils were cast, but who were left torn, foaming, and wallowing; only in his case it was not the evil angel, but the good one, who, with convulsive struggles and moanings unspeakable, was dragged from his soul. His housekeeper, Goody Bibber, who by accident occasionally listened at his keyhole, declared that she heard him wailing over some lost sinner as David wailed over Absalom. She never could have guessed who that lost sinner was. It was not many days before that same reverend sinner had occasion to learn that he was unable to resist the nakedest, the coarsest of temptations, and could be persuaded to stick his head frankly and fairly into the collar of the devil.

All this while, just as if to spite the miserable minister, Mark and Rachel were uncommonly happy. Even the griefs of the past and the anxieties still remaining in the present, seemed to sail far away and become hazily distant, like clouds receding in a golden sunlight. We will not prate much, how ever, on this subject, because it is apt to be a sickening one to all but the parties concerned. It rather hurts our vanity to think that two people can be so supremely blissful, without any thought of us, or any need of our good wishes. I dare say also, that there may be a young bachelor or so among the readers of this history, who is disgusted that Rachel did not wait and marry him. I have had such feelings about various unattainable ladies, real or imaginary, and I can readily excuse them in any other lord of creation, provided he is still under twenty-five. After that he ought to have a flesh and blood lady of his own.

Aside from the pleasures common to brides, Rachel felt a sense of positive enjoyment in getting out of the house where she had borne so many sorrows, the evilest of evil tidings, sickness, the persecutions of Noyse, the teasing of her uncle, and the uproarious plague of Sarah Carrier. She could not miss her aunt, for she saw her many times every

day, and made her a visit, or got one from her, every evening. They could talk to each other across the garden, or help each other draw water at the well; for Rachel was able to draw water and do a great deal of tough household lifting and pulling of other descriptions. Indeed, she had such a Junonian pair of arms as one does not get by tossing fans or lifting champagne glasses. It was a pleasure to see how stoutly they could wash, and how round and sound they were through the fragile lacework of soap-flakes. A thorough good housewife she was, as well as a sweet, loving girl; and Mark was perfectly right for the present in considering himself the luckiest fellow in Salem.

But pretty

Good-wife Stanton was as proud as a peacock of the girl's beauty, breeding, cleverness, and education. I have observed that mothers are apt to be oversweet on their daughters-in-law at first, and terribly peckish on them afterwards. Ma is delighted to have John marry— vain of his success in winning such a nice girl as Susan-pleased to think that Susan will relieve her old self of the cares of housewifery. soon she finds that Susan is her successful rival in John's heart; that John will stick to his wife, even against his much wiser and more affectionate mother: and that Susan is either no housekeeper at all, or else wants to manage everything in her own way. The consequence is, that hardly a day passes without its spat; the two women mutually throw each other into dismal tears, and John's happiness is riddled horribly between the opposing broadsides.

But of Good-wife Stanton it could never be discovered that she got in the least tired of her daughter-in-law. She was not one of your sharp housekeepers, nor one of your astonishingly decided and strong-minded women, nor even one of your stiff, angular, feminine pillars of the Church. Who but a Socrates, by the way, would ever desire to wedlock himself with one of those Caryatides of orthodoxy? No; Mark's mother was a slow, easy, kind creature; a little slip-shod, it must be owned, in her domestic affairs, but ever ready to watch with a sick person, or lend her best pewter to a neighbor. "Everybody has their own way," she used to remark; "and Rachel has hers, naterally, and a pooty nice way it is, a'most always."

Sarah Carrier was very eager to patch

up her modest duds, and move in with the newly-married people-Rachel and Mark were quite willing to receive her, and Good-wife Stanton consented to the proposal, although she winced a little when she thought of her great lookingglass in the keeping-room. "But," said she, 64 the looking-glass can be locked up safe in one of the closets, and there ain't much else about the house to hurt. Also Sairy hain't done a mite of damage under my roof as yet, and like enough she wouldn't be so taken if she could git away from the deacon's, where, to be sure, she has fits, and breaks things at a most awful rate."

But our unhappy deacon was as perverse in holding on to Sarah as Pharaoh in keeping fast hands on the Israelites. He had an idea that, by her means, he should eventually worm out the whole plot of the devils for overthrowing religion in New England, for which reason he vetoed the proposition for removing the child, and got quite angry at the very natural urgings of Mrs. Bowson. Thus Sarah remained when Rachel left, from which day the devils persecuted her with such vehemence that for a week the house was almost uninhabitable. The deacon was delighted with the new vigor of the manifestations; they excited him, kept him on the look-out and filled him with hopes of a discovery. No cat, watching a mousehole, no puppy, tugging at a root, could be more persevering and eager. Such zeal, such steadiness of search, obtained its reward; and this amateur detective soon ferreted out a good deal more than he hoped, or even wanted to. It was on the second Thursday after the wedding, at nine in the evening, that he returned from a prayer-meeting at the parsonage. He was restless, feverish, more than commonly-wild in his talk, and wanted to sit up by the fire all night, for fear the wizards would steal his hospitality by coming in through the keyhole and warming themselves over the smouldering coals. His wife coaxed him into going to bed, and Rachel, who was there on a visit, set to work cheerily to brew some herb-tea, potent for provoking perspiration and killing off colds. The deacon swallowed it, complained that it was bad-tasted, and allowed himself to be gallanted to the bedroom. Rachel and Mark then ran home through the garden, and danced into Good-wife Stanton's, glowing with

the fresh winter wind and their own young happiness.

Two or three hours afterward the deacon awoke, shrieking from a frightful nightmare. A hideous, black visage, seamed and horny, and blistered, from the eternal fires, appeared bending over his own, its bloody eyes fixed on his, its claw-like hands holding him by the throat, and its baked lips chattering in his ear some damning formula which he must repeat or die. Ever the hands pressed harder, and the diabolical mutterings grew fiercer, while towards him swept a figure like Rachel, bearing in one hand a bowl, and in the other a torch that flamed high into the heavens. On the verge of strangulation he burst away from the monster's clutch, and rolled with a loud shriek upon the floor. Mistress Bowson awoke at the noise and found her husband in a swoon, under the bedstead. She lighted a candle, flung some water in his face, and presently saw him open his eyes and glare affrightedly round the chamber. The dreadful illusion had vanished from his senses, but not from his belief. He repeated Rachel's name with a shudder, and then mutterd some incoherences about a damned brother-in-law, hellbroth, devil's covenants and witch communions. He would not be quieted; insisted upon dressing himself; knocked Teague up, and sent him off after Noyse. In ten minutes the somnolent Irishman was banging at the minister's door, swearing in a soliloquy at the poor prospect there was of making anybody hear him in a hurry. But Noyse, neither asleep nor sleepy, sate alone in his study, cowering over a dim fire, frightful to him in that its fitful blazes wrought endless mirages of the lake of brimstone. ran to the door, and, cautiously opening it, peered out on the untimely visit

or.

He

"Be ja―! bless your riverence," said Teague. "Sorry to throuble ye at this time o' day; but Masther Bowson's found the divil at last, an' he wants yer riverence right away. Not the divil, I mane to say, but Masther Bowson," he added, rubbing his eyes, and blinking at the minister's candle.

Several confused questions and answers made Noyse comprehend that something extraordinary had happened at the deacon's house, which made his pastoral presence there immediately desirable. He put on his cloak, lighted a tin lantern, bored with holes like a pep

Α

per castor, and rejoined Teague. cold wind furiously shook the bare trees in front of the house, whistled scoffingly among the projecting roofs of the gables, and tossed a few wandering snow-flakes in the faces of the two pedestrians. The village was dark in slumber, and the night starless and moonless, no light being anywhere discoverable but the glimmer of the lantern. They reached the house and found Mrs. Bowson, dressed, in the kitchen.

"What is the matter?" Noyse asked. "I think my husband has had some dream," she said. "I truly think that

She led him up stairs, and presently returned to crouch in a corner of the fireplace, while Teague sat at the other end of the great cavity, watching her in silence. 66 If ye'll plase to excuse ine, maam," he finally said, "I am just a thinkin', maam, that it 'ud be well for yiz to be up there loikewise. I'm afraid Masther Bowson has got a good bit ahead of his wits to-night, and wud be just as loikely as not to ask somebody to chop his head off or do somethin' else that wasn't raisonable. I hope ye'll plase to excuse me for bein' so bowld."

66

He sent me away, Teague," replied Mrs. Bowson. "He said he must talk with the elder alone. But I trust Master Noyse will see his condition, and know how to take his wild fantasies."

Meantime, the reverend visitor questioned Bowson, who, wrapped in a white blanket, paced up and down the chamber in a ludicrous agitation. "Oh, what a dreadful thing, Elder Noyse!" he said at last. "Oh, that I should be a cold professor, and follow the world to that extent that Satan could get a grip on me and marry me into a family of witches!" He went on to describe his frightful dream; the burnt and charred visage; the clutching hands; the demoniac chatterings; the figure of Rachel with her bowl and torch. "Oh, Elder, my punishment is greater than I can bear!" he whined. "Why should it

come upon me so like a thief in the night! I have prayed to God. I have sought him lustily with tears, but he has no pity on me. To think that I shoud marry the sister of a wizard, so that he could have power to come up out of hell and tempt me! It was Henry More-I know it-I know it too well. Oh, if I had repeated what he muttered at me, I would have been lost forever! And Rachel, too, with her witch-broth, which she wants to have me drink, and so drink damnation to myself! Those were witch-yarbs that she stewed for me, I know they were. Oh, I wonder if they made me a wizard! I wonder if I am lost!"

And so he went on, raving, crying, wringing his hands, and occasionally dropping on his knees to mutter inaudibly. There was no pity for Rachel in what he said-no doubting of caution or mercy in her favor-no shadow remaining of the love and pride with which he had once regarded her. And now a fiendish temptation held out its evil hand to the bruised, festered spirit of Noyse. He might use this semimadman, use him with perfect safety, to work out the most complete vengeance that man could desire. He, too, fell on his knees and prayed; but it was a crazed, wicked prayer; a supplication half to God, and half to Satan; and it was Satan alone who heard and answered it. When he arose, he dared throw his arms around that pitiable fanatic, and tell him that Rachel Stanton was a witch dangerous to his soul. He wept copiously as he talked, though from what emotions he could not have told. The tempter and the dupe came out of the chamber with the same intention. Both were nearly frenzied: the one by superstition acting on a weak intellect, the other by bad passions acting on a weak moral nature. Noyse made no explanations to Mrs. Bowson, but led the deacon hurriedly away to his own house, and, putting him to bed there, kept him until morning. Bowson slept a little, holding fast to the minister's hand; and the latter sat by him most of the night, dozing now and then, to wake abruptly from ghastly dreams. He tried to collect himself and mature his plot, but his mind remained painfully excited and confused. It seemed to him as if he could not answer for what any coming moment would see him do or say. A strange disposition to laugh haunted

him, even when he thought of the court, or of his sermons; for, in comparison with his huge misery, with his deformed conscience, every other grave thing seemed trivial and ludicrous. What were they worth, these oaths and testimonies, and solemn judgments, and long prayers, and pious discourses? He was about to make a mock of them all now; to render them a matter of laughter to devils; to show that there was nothing serious in the world but his own enormous wickedness. At the same time he felt, by comparing the present with particular hours of a month or two months before, that remorse had less power on him than formerly, in proportion to his guilt. It was no longer so terrible to look back upou slow apostasy; to look down into a hateful heart; to look forward into the mysterious future. He was growing hardened to it, he thought; his conscience was as an eel that was getting used to skinning; and he laughed here, for it struck him that the comparison was very amusing. His merriment was increased, perhaps, by a quantity of rum, which he took in frequent sips from a stone flask. The liquor, too, steadied his brain, and gave him a boldness of thought beyond his nature. Indeed, as he drank on, his speculations in theology and ethics became decidedly skeptical. Who could tell whether, after all, there was not a great deal of exaggeration in the common opinions about holiness, sin, the reward of one and the punishment of the other? He had surely been a Christian, if there was such a thing, and what was he now? He had been fooling himself; that was as clear as the broadest noontide; and it was more than probable that his brother professors were fooling themselves also; only they, unlike him, had not yet trampled hard enough on the thin crust of deception to burst through it.

Well, he mused a long time; came to no conclusion; had cat-naps occasionally; took fresh sips of rum after each waking; laughed at the poor fool who lay before him; laughed several times as he remembered the trials and the convulsions of the witnesses; stamped his feet and clenched his fist, as he thought of Mark and Rachel in innocent slumber; and started up at the first whiteness of daylight, excited still. but resolute, vigorous, unrelenting. He roused the deacon, and hurried him off immediately to

The

the house of Justice Hawthorne. magistrate had just built a fire in his keeping-room, and set himself down before a table strewed with legal papers. He stared immensely when his minister and one of his deacons asked him to write a commitment for Rachel Stanton. He was evidently about to remonstrate, but Noyse commenced the story of last night's adventures; Bowson broke in with piteous whinings and endless repetitions; and Hawthorne, dumbfounded, almost angry, was obliged to listen. When the pair had ended their statement, he seemed still undecided; said it was strange, passing strange; Rachel had borne a blameless character; she was young, and a sweet lass to look upon; not a soul among the afflicted had cried out upon her. The elder sternly replied that he might be at ease in doing his duty; for that full evidence of the woman's guilt should be forthcoming.

66

Well, Master Noyse," said the justice, "I can but commit her. If she is not culpable, I hope it will be proved. The Lord have mercy on all innocent persons."

He made out the necessary papers, and said he would hand them that morning to Herrick. The accusers then retired, leaving the magistrate to a more unpleasant reverie than had fallen to the lot of his clear, cool, self-possessed nature for many days previous. Noyse instructed his puppet to keep silence on the occurrences of the morning, as he wished to see justice done on the guilty, and to disentangle himself from the toils of the wicked one. Bowson promised all, with a faith which would have held good at the stake.

The first act of the minister, on finding himself alone in his study, was, to take another draught from the stone flask. Then, after eating a hearty breakfast, he had family service, as usual, and, returning to the study, sat down in a moody meditation. In half an hour or so, he seemed to have settled on some plan; for he put the stone bottle in his pocket, ordered his horse, and rode rapidly away. Dismounting at the door of a lonely, dilapidated hovel in the outskirts of the town, he entered without knocking, and stood face to face with a woman, apparently half Indian and half negro. She was a ragged wretch, short and squat in form, with a broad, heavy visage, bloated and carbuncled by liquor. The single room of