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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 by Richard Francis
First publication 2016 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
www.mekkanografici.com
ISBN 9781609453565
Richard Francis
CRANE POND
A NOVEL OF SALEM
For Jo
First, We have the Peoples Enjoyment, That was,
An Hedge. The Hebrew word here notes, A Wall, made either of Stone or Wood. The Metaphor Signifies,
The Protection of God, about our Comforts; with a Defence and Shelter from Innumerable Mischiefs . . .
Next, We have the Peoples Misery. That was, A Gap.
The Hebrew word here notes, A Breach, at which Destroying Enemies may make their Entrance . . .
Lastly, We have the Expectation of our God concerning such a People. He says, I Sought for a Man, that should make up the Hedge, and stand in the Gap. . . .
So then, there is a most Solemn and Weighty CASE; indeed, the more Solemn and Weighty, because it is, OUR OWN, Case: where-with I am now to Entertain you.
—COTTON MATHER, Memorable Passages, relating to New-England (Boston, 1694)
LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
Sewall Household:
Samuel Sewall, merchant and part-time judge; Hannah, his wife
Their children: Hannah Jr; Samuel Jr; Elizabeth (Betty); Joseph; Mary; Sarah
Their dead children: John; Hull; Stephen; Judith
Their servants: Sarah; Bastian; Susan
Pirates:
Thomas Hawkins, captain of a Salem fishing boat
Thomas Pound, pilot of HM Rose
Thomas Johnson, who glared at Sewall
Four common pirates
Stephen Sewall household:
Stephen Sewall, brother of Samuel; Margaret Sewall, his wife
Betty Parris, 9, daughter of Samuel Parris, the minister at Salem Village, temporarily fostered in this household
Samuel Sewall’s fellow judges:
Jonathan Corwin, one of the justices involved in the preliminary examinations
Thomas Danforth, who became a critic of the trials
John Hathorne, chief interrogator during the preliminary examinations
Nathaniel Saltonstall, who also became a critic of the trials
Wait Still Winthrop, advocate of the pirates’ cause
William Stoughton, chief judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer; also acting deputy governor, later acting governor, Massachusetts Bay
Ministers:
James Bayley, former minister at Salem Village
Cotton Mather, perhaps the most learned man in New England; his father Increase Mather, who negotiated the new Massachusetts Bay charter; both of the North Church, Boston
Nicholas Noyes, minister at Salem Town, hater of wigs and witchcraft
Samuel Parris, minister at Salem Village, in whose manse the witchcraft began
Samuel Willard, South Church, Boston, Samuel Sewall’s minister
Those accused of witchcraft:
John Alden, friend of Samuel Sewall, sailor and Indian fighter
Bridget Bishop, first witch to be tried
George Burroughs, former minister at Salem Village
Martha Carrier, designated consort of George Burroughs in American Hell
Giles Corey, who refused to plead; Martha Corey, his wife
Sarah Good, a muttering woman
Tituba Indian, slave of Samuel Parris, also an accuser
George Jacobs, an old man on crutches; Margaret Jacobs, his granddaughter (briefly an accuser)
Susannah Martin, who was beaten by John Pressy in 1668
Rebecca Nurse, whose sisters Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyse were also accused
Sarah Osborne, who was visited by a thing
John Proctor, innkeeper, and his wife Elizabeth
John Willard, no relation of the minister Samuel Willard
Accusers:
George Barker, auditor of witches
Sarah Churchill, servant of George Jacobs
John Pressy, who described an encounter with Susannah Martin in 1668
Ann Putnam, aged 11, the most prolific accuser
Mary Warren, the serving girl in the Proctors’ inn
Mary Walcott, aged 17
Abigail Williams, aged 11
Susan Wilson, who witnessed Mr. Burroughs’ Satanic sacrament
Captain Wormwood, who accused George Burroughs of supernatural feats of strength
Other characters:
Anne, housekeeper to the Salem Town minister Nicholas Noyes
Jeremiah Belcher, Samuel Sewall’s tenant on Hogg Island; Mrs. Belcher, his wife; the young Belcher
Simon Bradstreet, acting governor of Massachusetts Bay colony
Thomas Brattle, critic of the witchcraft trials
Mr. Checkley, general store owner, employer of Sam Sewall Jr
William and Abigail Dummer, kinfolk of Hannah Sewall, farmers
John Eliot, translator of the Bible into Algonquian
Thomas Fiske, greengrocer, foreman of the witchcraft jury
Samuel Gaskill, who fell into Boston harbour, friend of Sam Sewall Jr
Jacob Goodale, the victim of Giles Corey in 1675
Mr. Hobart, Sam Sewall Jr’s tutor
John Hurd, tailor and neighbour of Samuel Sewall; Nurse Hurd, his wife
Jane, a slave, the sweetheart, then wife, of Bastian, the Sewall household servant
Jacob Melyen, a critic of the trials
Michael Perry, bookshop owner, employer of Sam Sewall Jr
Sir William Phips, governor of Massachusetts Bay
Thomas Putnam, father of Ann Putnam, accuser
Robert Walker, elderly member of South Church congregation, sufferer from sleeping sickness
Josiah Willard, son of the minister, friend of Sam Sewall Jr
Captain Wing, landlord of the Castle Tavern, maker of fine pies
Madam Winthrop, defender of the pirates; wife of Wait Still Winthrop, judge
PART 1
PIRATES
The Unsettlements that we have had since the Revolution, have they not rendred us like the Sea, which cannot rest, whose Waters cast up Mire and Mud?
—COTTON MATHER, Memorable Passages,
relating to New-England (Boston, 1694)
CHAPTER 1
Here comes Samuel Sewall, making his way to breakfast on a cold January morning in 1690, the windows filled with snow-light.
‘My dear,’ wife Hannah says. ‘You’ve brought the bed with you.’
He pats the coverlet that is spread over his ample nightshirt like a shawl and smiles. The fire is burning brightly in the grate but their hall is large, and Boston is cold in the winter. ‘First prayer,’ he says, ‘then pie.’
‘Pie?’ Hannah asks.
‘Ha, pie,’ says young Sam.
‘Pie!’ Betty exclaims, as if it’s a war cry.
Daughter Hannah gives her shy smile, not sure whether to be for pie or against.
Two-year-old Joseph, sitting on a heap of cushions to raise him up in his chair, waves his spoon.
Sewall’s own sm
ile has faded. ‘The venison pie, from yesterday,’ he explains.
‘I know the pie,’ Hannah tells him. ‘I made the pie. Well, Sarah made it while I talked to her. But I just wondered if it elbowed out the prayer a little. You put the two so close together.’
‘Father is full of pie-ety,’ cries Sam suddenly.
Sam is eleven, unable to do the simplest sum. He’ll bend over his book for hours, trying to figure out, if one apple costs such and such, then how much for seven? Or rather look out of the window or scribble drawings on the page while he should be doing the calculation. But then he will fire off some quip as if being young is itself a trigger of wit.
‘It’s Hannah’s turn to read the lesson,’ Sewall says, taking his chair at the head of the table. Hannah blushes and squirms. She’s ten, but youth doesn’t spark her. In fact her long and bony awkwardness already has a spinsterish quality to it. Her spectacles look anxiously across at him, two pale discs. Her mother looks anxiously across at him too, hand grasping young Hannah’s forearm. Sewall, abashed, suddenly chilled, raises his arms to pull the coverlet tighter.
‘Father,’ Betty tells him, ‘you look just like an angel flapping his wings.’
She is nine, but hardly needs her youth to generate wit, having plenty of that on her own account. Sewall knows too well how daughter Hannah will read the lesson, bumping into word after word like obstacles in a fog. ‘Perhaps Betty needs to read the lesson instead, to stop her being so foolish,’ he says.
‘Oh yes, father,’ whispers Hannah. She looks nervously at Betty to see her reaction but Betty is pleased. She loves to read.
Both his daughters are happy at this outcome. Is that a good thing? Perhaps it would be better for Hannah if she were forced. She might learn to improve. And perhaps Betty wants to read for the wrong reason or in the wrong way, to show off. Every action is weighed, each and every one, however small, and sometimes you can’t tell which way the scales have moved.
‘Pay attention to the meaning,’ he tells Betty. She nods vigorously. ‘You, too,’ he tells Hannah, who also nods. Their mother, head bowed towards the table top, gives one nod, grown-up currency being more valuable. Her nod is one of agreement, of parental alliance, to encourage the children. He turns to Sam. ‘We must all pay attention to the meaning.’ Sam doesn’t nod. He has put a horrible grimace on his face, picked up the knife from beside his plate, and is trying to see himself reflected in the blade. Sewall gives him a long look but Sam is impervious to looks.
The reading is Isaiah, Chapter 24, one of the most dismal passages in the whole Bible. Betty makes the most of its gloom, so much so that Sewall’s uneasiness increases. It’s one thing being expressive, quite another to sound like an actress. Play-acting is banned in New England for good reason, because it’s a sort of lying.
‘“Behold”,’ Betty says. She looks up from the Bible and screws up her eyes as if the breakfast table is a vast wilderness. ‘”The Lord maketh the earth empty, and turneth it upside down”’—her voice sinks to a whisper—‘and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.”’
Suddenly she stops dead. For a moment Sewall thinks it’s a pause for effect and this time he decides he must intervene. These are not her words, they belong to God. Then he looks up and sees her raspberry face, eyes brimming with tears. Before he can speak she has left the room.
Suddenly all is quiet. The three remaining children, Sam, Hannah, and little Joseph, stare at her empty chair as if in amazement that she has suddenly become invisible. Wife Hannah looks at the door through which Betty has passed. The unspoken words of today’s text hang in the air. God’s people have broken the everlasting covenant.
‘I’ll go to her,’ wife Hannah says. As she leaves the room she almost collides with Sarah coming in with the remains of the pie on a large platter. Pieces of venison have tumbled out of the pastry following yesterday’s dissection at dinnertime and the gravy has jellied a little so it gleams pleasantly. Sarah poises her body as one might hold a finger to the wind to gauge its direction. Then she puts the pie down on the table, gives everyone a long-suffering look as if whatever difficulty that has arisen has been aimed at her personally, and leaves without a word.
‘Hannah,’ Sewall tells his daughter, ‘you may serve the pie.’
Hannah gives a sigh of pleasure. This she can do. But his pie is compromised. He can’t enjoy it with Betty so full of woe. He remembers, fourteen months before, standing on the deck of the ship America on his way to England and eating the pasty his wife had prepared—without assistance on that occasion from Sarah, talking to no one as she baked except (silently) to him, as if composing an intimate message out of pastry and mutton. Pie is meant to be a happy dish. He sighs.
Wife Hannah comes back in. ‘She’s in the cupboard again,’ she tells Sewall. He nods, dabs his mouth, and rises to his feet. The cupboard is in fact a little cloakroom off the vestibule. Betty has turned it into an occasional chapel for her most despairing devotions. Sewall knocks on the door. ‘Can I come in?’ he asks, and is answered by a little snuffle. He enters anyway. He’s still wearing his coverlet and is almost too wide for the doorway.
Betty is crouched in the corner, sobbing. Sewall closes the door on the two of them. ‘Is it as before?’ he whispers. The room is now completely dark. Perhaps Betty hopes God can’t find her here. He gropes for her himself, locates her thin shoulder, lowers himself beside her. ‘Dearest child,’ he says, ‘tell me.’
As she tries to speak, her sobs turn into hiccups like a baby’s do. ‘I’m so frightened—,’ she says.
‘What are you frightened of?’
‘You know.’
‘It’s good to say it aloud.’
‘That I am not saved,’ Betty says.
‘The passage concerned the people of God. It wasn’t about you in particular.’
‘But we are the people of God. Perhaps we have broken the cov—covenant.’
These words send a chill down Sewall’s spine. Everywhere you look, in Boston, in Massachusetts Bay, you can find examples of backsliding, of loss of faith. Of course you can find examples of piety and virtue too, but who knows how good and evil balance out? And Indians allied with the French attack the settlements at regular intervals, as if they wish to reclaim the land for their pagan deities, turning the earth upside down and scattering the inhabitants thereof. ‘What I mean is, we each have a separate soul,’ Sewall says. ‘You can only be responsible for your own.’
‘But that’s what frightens me, my own. I’m so afraid.’ She hiccups again then suddenly she is crying loudly, and Sewall feels a sympathetic sob rise up in his own chest. ‘I am afraid that you, and mother,’ she finally manages to gasp out, ‘and my brothers and sister will go to heaven, and I will go to hell all alone. I will never see any of you again, and the torments will torment so much I won’t be able to bear them.’
‘If that should happen, do you know what I would do? I would ask God if very kindly He would let me go to hell myself, so that I could be with you again.’
‘That’s silly, father.’
‘In heaven you can have what you wish. And that would be what I would wish, so that you would never be alone. For all eternity.’ His voice wobbles at the solemnity of the thought.
Her hand, like a small animal, seeks his out. ‘Shall we pray together?’ he asks. Her knees thud softly on to the planks as she kneels, and he manoeuvres himself into prayer beside her.
On go his breeches, his shirt, his waistcoat, his cravat. Then his coat and finally a special bonnet of his own design.
He’s not yet forty but his hair is thinning (even though he frequently washes it with rum). He fears a cold in the head but abominates wigs, which nowadays are everywhere.
Sewall’s bonnet is black, with flaps to go over his ears, and it fastens under his chin to prevent it from being blown off in a high wind. He cut out the cloth and stitched it himse
lf, peering at the work by candlelight through a succession of winter evenings. Hannah asked him why he didn’t commission their neighbour John Hurd, who is a tailor, to make him one and Sewall told her that the man’s eyesight had deteriorated with age and his expertise could no longer be relied on, which was true enough but not the complete reason. He felt strangely obstinate about completing his own design but at the same time was nervous that a craftsman would laugh at it.
He first wore his home-made bonnet two weeks before to the meeting house. He was uneasy about his reception not simply because of possible imperfections but also because he was well-known amongst the congregation of the South Church for his stance on the topic of wigs. Perhaps the wig-wearers would have their revenge?
In fact no one said a word (though he did hear some muttering behind his back as he went to his pew). And the bonnet has been a boon in the severe cold of this winter. Sewall tried to write an aide-mémoire to himself in his bedchamber this morning but despite a good fire in the room the ink was frozen in his inkwell. It was because of this that he decided to wear his coverlet (on top of his nightshirt) to breakfast.
The note was to have been about this morning’s proceedings at the Court of Assistants, the body charged with administering governance and justice to the colony of Massachusetts Bay. He is one of the Assistants and therefore, ex officio, a part-time judge.
Pirates.
His wife comes to the door with him to bid farewell.
‘Betty is calmer now,’ she tells him. She wants him not to worry.
‘See if you can persuade her to eat something,’ he suggests. ‘She could have my pie. Or a portion of it.’
Hannah smiles up at him. He can read her smile. Or rather he knows that her smile means she can read him: he thinks (she thinks) that appetite is an index of spiritual recovery. Well, so it is, so he does. The body will be resurrected so it makes sense to build it up, like a squirrel preparing for winter. Also he thinks (she thinks) that though he wants Betty to be fed, he would nevertheless like some small piece of his pie, some insignificant morsel that would not deprive his daughter, to be reserved until he comes back. Well, so he does.
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