read the passage as she had spoken it. But the moment the Deacon took the Bible into his own hands, all the letters disappeared, and it became as blank paper.

The case of a lad, a nephew of the deacon's, is too important to be omitted. He had ventured very near to the old store-house, to indulge his curiosity by examining the witch-tracks which some people were supposed to have seen; and when there, he declared that he had heard Goody Clawson and Mercy Disborough chattering together in the cellar. He was thereupon sadly dealt with, being often suddenly and violently seized and knocked about at a terrible rate, dashed against the walls, &c. His bed would fly from under him in the night-time; and when one day his uncle attempted to hold him in a chair, the chair itself fell to dancing; and soon afterwards the deacon was also constrained to dance, and afterwards the poor boy likewise-so that all three were obliged to dance around the house, for the amusement of the demons. But the lad was subsequently still more grievously afflicted. Coming home from the field one night, he suddenly screeched out that he was stabbed; and on examination one of Mr. Disborough's three-pronged forks was found sticking in his back. At another time, while groaning in great agony, a spindle was thrust into his back, which was believed to be Goody Clawson's; and again a whole paper of pins were found sticking in his shoulder as upon a pin-cushion. Knives

were many times thrust into his flesh, and were pulled out by the spectators. Often was the afflicted boy thrown into the fire, and not unfrequently into the water. Sometimes he could not speak, but the demons possessing him barked through his mouth like dogs, or cackled like hens; and when thrown into ecstasies he could often discern the appearance of Mercy Disborough, laughing and pointing at him.

CHAPTER VI.

Thyself shalt see the act :

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured,

Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest.

If I shall be condemned

Upon surmises; all proofs sleeping else,

SHAKSPEARE.

But what your jealousies await; I tell you
'Tis rigour, and not law.-Idem.'

THE character of the evidence of the existence of witchcraft, as gathered from the most respectable sources by the selectmen of Menunkatuck, has been disclosed in the preceding chapter.

It is a plain homely collection of facts, I admit, and the demons may justly be denounced for the paucity of their ideas, and the poverty of their inventions-in short, for being very "poor devils”— Nor were the chroniclers of those days much better

else they would have imparted spirit to their narratives by the eloquent breathings, and the lofty poetical conceptions of more ancient days, and the legends would have descended to us invested with the deeper passions and darker images which overshadowed the demonology of the land of Odin. Still was the testimony, though stripped of the daring or sublime, considered abundantly sufficient to call for the trial and summary punishment of the offenders. For this purpose a general court was summoned, and the ill-fated Goody Clawson, and the still more unfortunate Mercy Disborough, placed under arrest. The spirits of the latter had been harassed and tortured exceedingly, by the cruel suspicions to which, regardless of her protestations of innocence, she had been subjected for many weeks. And when the blow came, grief and indignation alternately struggled for the mastery. "O foolish Galatians !" she exclaimed, "who hath bewitched you, that I should be thus tormented in mine own innocency of the crime whereof these men of Belial do charge me withal !"

There were numerous other arrests upon suspicion of being concerned in these abominable practices, and many and powerful were the efforts made. to wring confessions from the accused, by the minister, and those in authority. In some instances, by promises of pardon, and other smooth appliances, particularly those of Deacon Goodspeed, they were somewhat successful, and many shocking secrets of the prison-house were revealed by the poor

victims who had been persuaded to become the instruments and familiars of the demons. It so happened, moreover, that in all, or nearly all, the confessions made by the persuasion of the deacon, the two prominent sorcerers whose sufferings are commemorated in this narrative, were particularly inculpated.

When, however, the good minister, with the selectmen for she would not endure the presence of the deacon-endeavoured to persuade Mercy into a confession, she rejected their approaches with a lofty and indignant spirit. "I know," said she, "that no one will do violence to the tenth commandment, by coveting the state wherein I at present stand, beset as I am on all sides by the Amalekites and the Jebusites. And as to this matter of witchcraft, about which these Ahithophels would constrain me, ye all must needs acknowledge, for ye wot well enough, that albeit I have been continually essayed, if I ever seemed to consent against mine own innocency, I should therein grievously offend, and the very stones would cry out against me withal."

Poor old Goodwife Clawson being alike invincible, having nothing, as she averred, whereof to confess herself but her poverty, and her ill-favoured countenance, since it had been sadly marred by adversity, the two were duly arraigned for trial, on the indictments previously found against them. These indictments were in the usual form as to the technical terms of the law, and contained several

counts, charging the prisoners of evil practices, separately, and together, in a variety of ways. Mercy Disborough was charged not only with wilfully, maliciously, and feloniously using, practising, and exercising the wicked arts of Satan, but of having "a covenant made, and signed the devil's book, and taken the devil to be her god, and renounced her Christian baptism, and promising to be the devil's both body and soul for ever." The principal charge against Goody Clawson, was for having "tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted and tormented, by means of familiarity with Satan," divers good subjects of his majesty, against his crown and dignity, &c., and against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, &c. When the noble-spirited girl, who was first required to stand up, was told to answer "guilty," or not guilty," to the indictment, she hesitated and faltered for an instant; but recovering herself, with a countenance glowing with merited indignation, though the tears yet glittered in her fine blue eyes, she replied: "I know of a truth that I am here penned and locked up, to be used very extremely at the pleasure of this court; and such is the malice of the arch-hypocrite whom I well wot is at the bottom of those sorceries, against this poor lump of sinful clay, because it would not let him mould it to his purposes, that my guiltless blood may cry before the Lord. Albeit, if mine accusers will bethink themselves that they play not the dog of which the Roman heathen speaketh, that,

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