Sewall glances over at Rebecca Nurse. She is still staring straight ahead, apparently oblivious of being quoted. Stoughton continues: ‘Since the Hobbs women are also facing charges of witchcraft, the interpretation of Nurse’s words is clear enough. She was astonished at being accused by other members of her coven. These witches are not even loyal to their own kind. You may be acquainted with the phrase, socii criminis.’ Fiske’s bewildered look makes it evident that he has no such acquaintanceship. ‘Partners in crime,’ explains Mr. Stoughton. ‘Both Keble in his Statutes and Glanvil in Sadducismus make it clear that guilt by association is a valid argument.’
Fiske puffs out his cheeks. Seeing the greengrocer’s confusion Sewall suddenly understands that it’s his duty as a justice to make a contribution now. The judges are a team of diverse men, each with his own point of view, and it therefore behooves Sewall to express his. ‘It is surely the jury’s responsibility to interpret the significance of the defendant’s comment,’ he says.
Stoughton’s face turns slowly towards his, and the eyes in their dark sockets inspect him tiredly. Sewall hears his own heart thudding and wonders if Stoughton can hear it too. Finally, Stoughton speaks. ‘You’re quite right, Mr. Sewall.’ Sewall takes in a deep breath and sighs it out in relief. Meanwhile, Stoughton turns back towards Fiske. ‘Mr. Foreman,’ he says, ‘you have heard Judge Sewall’s comment. Please retire with your fellow jurors and consider your interpretation of the accused’s remark.’
Sewall opens his mouth to protest. This is not what he meant at all. The jury have already had the opportunity to interpret. It’s improper to ask them to reconsider.
Or is it? Surely all that matters is the truth, and truth, as he has had cause to remind himself on several occasions recently, endures through time or, looked at from another angle, is independent of time altogether. That being the case what does it matter if the jury are engaged in seeking the truth for the second, or the hundredth, time? All that matters is that they should find it.
Or is this a contrived argument to justify his unwillingness to confront Stoughton yet again?
The jury file out once more but return after just a few minutes. ‘Well,’ asks Stoughton, ‘have you reached a verdict?’
‘No, sir.’ Fiske’s tone is one he must normally reserve for informing a valuable customer he’s run out of beans or onions. Stoughton closes his mouth with a little plink. A low deep sound begins to proceed from the afflicted girls. ‘We wish to ask the accused a question. We will then give our verdict in accordance with her reply.’
‘You will then give your verdict, will you? That is very kind of you. Please proceed.’
‘Goody Nurse, can you tell us what you meant when you told Goody Hobbs and her daughter that they used to be with you?’
Nurse is still staring straight ahead but gradually becomes aware she’s being looked at by all the judges and jurymen and allows herself a quick glance at the banks of faces, then flicks back again, overawed by their mute enquiry. There is silence.
‘The jury has agreed that if she has no defence to offer, the verdict must be guilty,’ says Fiske.
‘So be it,’ Stoughton replies with satisfaction. The five witches are sentenced to be hanged on 19 July and Sewall can return to Boston.
He sits in his study on a lovely sunny morning in early July. Daughter Hannah has written to him from Rowley, a letter full of complaints and reproaches.
She doesn’t like cousin William’s cattle. Gurnippers hover around them all the time, and bite her too. The cows are very big and moo at her. When she has to go across the fields to fetch them her knee hurts. And cousin Abigail said her stitches were too large. The letter is tear-stained where she wrote how much she missed him and her mother and Betty and Joseph and Mary. She didn’t mention young Sam because of course she didn’t know he’d returned home.
Sewall puts his thumb gently on the blotches as if he’s resting it on her cheek in order to smudge away her sorrow. He will have to be careful how to inform her about Sam because that will certainly increase her sense of injustice. He wonders whether he ought to bring her home, particularly now the Susannah Martin case has shown that the witchcraft has a foothold in the Rowley area. But of course the whole purpose of her stay with the Dummers is to help her grow up a little, and her letter, poignant as it is, shows she still has some way to go in that direction. As for the witchcraft, it is becoming more and more apparent that if you scratch the surface anywhere in Massachusetts, you will find witchcraft bubbling up underneath.
What he can do to sweeten the pill is to explain that young Sam is now taking lessons in Latin with Nathaniel Cheever, New England’s oldest (and most rigorous) schoolmaster.
As he begins to write, in comes Susan. ‘Master,’ she says, ‘here is—,’ but, before she can say it, brother Stephen enters in her wake.
‘I’m sorry, Sam. I’m like a bad penny. I know it’s only been a couple of days since we were in each other’s company but this is urgent business.’ Stephen seems to have lost much of his brightness and cheer recently, and Sewall thinks with a pang that that is his fault for suggesting his name to Mr. Stoughton.
‘Stephen,’ he says quietly, resting a hand on his shoulder, ‘I’m always happy to be in your company.’
‘Not this time, I suspect, brother. I’ve received a letter in my capacity as clerk of the court from Goody Nurse.’ He opens a small satchel that hangs from his shoulder and draws out a paper. ‘I made a copy for each of the judges and jurymen and am delivering them in person, since the matter is urgent.’ He passes over the copy of the letter and Sewall sits back down at his desk to read it.
To the Honoured Court and Jury
It has been explained to me that I have been found guilty for saying that Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter were of our company. All I meant by this was that they were in prison with me and, as I believed and believe, cannot legally give evidence against their fellow prisoners. And I being hard of hearing and full of grief, no one made clear to me how the court interpreted my words, and so I wasn’t able to take the opportunity of explaining what I really meant.
Rebecca Nurse
‘Of course,’ says Stephen, when Sewall has had time to absorb the letter, ‘her argument is invalid, since there is no law that prisoners can’t give evidence against each other. As I understand, anyhow.’
‘True. But that’s not the point.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘The court took her words to mean that she was a member of a coven. She denies she meant that. That’s the point. The rightness or wrongness of what she did mean, or claims she meant, is neither here nor there. Also, the jury convicted her because she failed to answer their question on this issue. Here she gives an explanation for that failure.’ Sewall shakes his head at the sheer banality of it. ‘She’s deaf.’
‘Does this mean the court will have to reconvene to consider her case again?’ Stephen asks.
‘Nurse’s letter is an appeal against the court’s judgment. The court should not hear an appeal against itself.’ Ever since the fiasco of the pirates he has believed this. ‘I’ll take her letter to the governor.’
‘Pisspots,’ says Governor Phips. ‘The thing is a botch. You sat there on your bench in your red robes like so many’— he hesitates, searching for an appropriate simile, words not coming into his mind as speedily as rage—‘so many great red beetles, and you didn’t take the trouble to discover that the defendant hadn’t got a clue what you were talking about. God give me strength.’ He paces up and down in the hall of his mansion, one hand where the hilt of his sword would be if he was wearing one, as if to make clear he would like to run Sewall through.
‘I tried—,’ begins Sewall.
‘Trying isn’t good enough. You needed to succeed, God damn your eyes. A woman’s life is at stake here. I didn’t just try to find that treasure on the bottom of the ocean. I succee
ded. Nothing counts until you’re counting the money. Or in this case, taking account of whatever God-forsaken muddled drivel the defendant wants to spew out at you.’
‘I thought it best if I—’
‘I’m going to have to reprieve the deaf old basket. I’ve no choice in the matter. You’d better let her out of jail. She can fly away home on a stick, for all I care. And for pity’s sake, don’t put me in this position again. I’ve only been in my post a couple of months. It does me no good at all to cross swords with the very court I set up when I first got here. It makes me look a damned idiot. Or it makes you justices look damned idiots, which amounts to the same thing.’
This message is repeated four days later when Mr. Stoughton is standing in Sewall’s study. ‘You have brought our proceedings into disrepute,’ he says in a voice bleak beyond fury. ‘And in particular you have discredited me.’
Now perhaps the pirates are exorcised, thinks Sewall, since I’ve managed to fall foul of two of my superiors in quick succession.
‘Did it completely slip your mind that I am the senior judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer?’ continues Stoughton. ‘It should have been my responsibility to bring the matter of the Nurse letter to the attention of the governor.’
Except that you never would have done it, Sewall thinks.
‘Except that I never would have done it,’ Stoughton informs him. ‘And do you know why?’ Sewall shakes his head. ‘I will tell you why. Because the court did nothing wrong, that’s why. Because there were no grounds for the appeal, that’s why. It is not the responsibility of the jury—or of the justices, for that matter—to endorse Goody Nurse’s explanation of her meaning, and to run off to the governor with it. It’s our job, as a court, to make our own interpretation of her meaning, and that we did punctiliously. When it seemed that the jury had ignored this particular issue they were given the opportunity of considering it. Considering it, I might add, with a specific instruction from me that they should bear in mind what you yourself said, that they should arrive at their own interpretation of Nurse’s words.’
‘But they asked for further elucidation of Nurse’s meaning, and they didn’t get it because of her deafness.’
‘Deafness is not a defence against a capital charge. Deafness is not an excuse for witchcraft. Don’t you understand, Mr. Sewall? If one witch escapes our justice, she will leave a path that others will follow. Our plantation in the wilderness is facing comprehensive destruction. We must counter it with comprehensive defence.’
There’s a long pause. ‘What do you propose to do?’ Sewall asks at last.
‘I’ve already done it. I asked a deputation of Salem gentlemen under the leadership of Mr. Noyes to talk to the governor. Your brother refused to make one of them, incidentally, on the grounds that as an official of the court he had to remain neutral.’
‘Mr. Noyes? But he is Goody Nurse’s minister! Surely he should remain neutral too. She’s a covenanted member of his congregation. Isn’t that a conflict of interest?’
‘Goody Nurse is no longer a member of Mr. Noyes’s congregation. The day after she was found guilty by our court he went to her in prison with some elders of his church and excommunicated her.’
‘That seems . . .’ Sewall is at a loss for words. Then he fixes on one. ‘Precipitate.’ The deliberateness with which he has chosen it makes him think of the word’s Latin origin, meaning headfirst or headlong, and he has a sudden mental picture of Goody Nurse falling, falling, from a high and dizzy cliff, falling infinitely and forever, utterly lost, unsaveable.
‘It is Goody Nurse who has precipitated the situation,’ Stoughton replies, ‘to use your own word. As Mr. Noyes said to me, the excommunication was no more than a recognition of what had already happened. Nurse excommunicated herself when she made an alliance with the Devil and signed his book. When Mr. Noyes and the other Salem gentlemen fully explained this state of affairs to the governor he withdrew the reprieve.’ Stoughton gives Sewall a long restraining look, as you might to a horse that wishes to bolt, reining it back by the power of your gaze. ‘She will hang with the others on the nineteenth,’ he continues, ‘according to the sentence of our court.’ He says the last phrase with a certain emphasis, to remind Sewall of his joint ownership of its decision.
Sewall’s breathing is coming heavily as if he has been running. Not guilty, then guilty, reprieved, then having the reprieve withdrawn. It is as if the voice of the state has stammered in addressing this elderly woman. He can hardly bear to think of how she has shuttled from danger to safety, from safety to danger, to safety again, then to doom. It’s equally terrible to think of the loneliness of excommunication, notwithstanding Stoughton’s justification of it, that complete isolation and consequent despair. Sometimes Sewall wakes at night in panic at the thought that he may not be a covenanted member of his own church, because of that wretched episode where he forgot to confess his sins when he stood before the congregation.
But still, she must be able to bear it, because the option is open to her to confess and rejoin the faithful. He, Sewall, is a husband, father, church member, justice, merchant, representative, his whole life a series of how-de-dos, handshakes and (where appropriate) kisses. Just as a sculpture is shaped by innumerable carvings and scrapings on the part of the sculptor’s tools, so he, Sewall, is formed by the innumerable contacts he has with his surrounding community, his very contours determined by constant intricate pressures from life in society. He pictures diminutive Goody Nurse, standing rigid as one of Joseph’s toy soldiers. Recalls her in the dock, remote from the proceedings, with those oblivious ears. Perhaps she has learned to love her silence, to inhabit it snugly like a cocoon?
‘That man,’ says Stoughton bitterly.
‘The Devil?’ asks Sewall, surfacing in confusion from these reflections.
‘The governor.’
‘Oh.’
‘I can’t imagine what Increase Mather thought he was up to, securing the post for that dolt.’
‘Perhaps he thought he would be able to manipulate him.’
‘Perhaps he did. But the drawback in choosing a man you can manipulate is that others can do so too. As you did.’ Stoughton says this with contempt, as though to suggest that if Sewall can make Phips dance to his tune absolutely anyone can. ‘And as the Salem gentlemen did after you,’ he continues. ‘Governor Phips sneers and struts and rages and covers his chest with gold braiding, and yet petitioners can bat him like a shuttlecock from one side of the fence to the other. Anyhow, the court shouldn’t be troubled by any more interference from him. He’s gone off to fight our enemies in the west of the province.’
‘I didn’t know there was any trouble there at present.’
‘He’ll no doubt find some. He’ll bumble about until he succeeds in flushing some Indian out of the undergrowth. And while he’s doing that, he’ll leave the rest of us alone, thank God.’
CHAPTER 19
It hasn’t rained for some weeks, and the sun beats down day after day. On 18 July, Sewall decides to go to Salem to see the witches hang the following day. He doesn’t normally watch the deaths of those he has sentenced himself, fearing that attendance at the foot of the gallows would be interpreted as gloating or revenge. But in the case of witchcraft there is the possibility of last-minute confession, and it has been decided by the judges that confessors should be spared, at least for the time being, since they can provide testimony in other cases. In Sewall’s opinion they should be spared indefinitely, pardoned even. A witch is not guilty of a crime in her own right; rather, she contains guilt as a bottle may contain poison. If the poison is poured away, the bottle becomes clean again. A witch can be returned to innocence up till the moment the rope takes hold.
It’s too late for the ferry so Sewall sets out on horseback. By mid-afternoon he is passing near the town of Saugus, at about the halfway point on his journey. He is clopping through small fields
with stony outcrops and clumps of pine to his right. Every now and then there is a sharp report as a rock splits in the heat. The sky is cloudless and the track dry and cracked, with an occasional flurry of dust kicked up by the sea breeze from Cape Ann. Over the fence to the left a man is harvesting corn, and Sewall suddenly realises there is something strange about him.
He pauses his horse and puts his hand flat to his brow to cut out the glare. The man is some distance away, busily scything. Sewall realises he’s wearing no clothes at all except a pair of boots. He calls him over.
‘You lost, sir?’ the man asks brusquely when he has approached the fence.
‘I might ask you the same.’
‘What?’ The man screws his eyes to look up at him.
Sewall points down at his body. The man looks down at himself then back up. ‘I have to wear them,’ he explains. ‘The stalks are hard.’
‘I meant,’ says Sewall, ‘the lack of anything else, to supplement your boots.’
The man blinks in puzzlement, then inspects his feet again. ‘These are just working boots,’ he says.
It occurs to Sewall that the man thinks he’s complaining that the boots are not well cared for, having taken ‘supplement’ to mean ‘clean’ or ‘polish’. ‘Where are your clothes?’
The man points to a little heap on the stubble some distance away. ‘There,’ he says. ‘Working clothes. Like my boots.’ Suddenly he almost snarls. ‘Rags! Just rags.’
‘But why aren’t you wearing them?’
The man raises his arm. Sewall realises he’s pointing at the sun. Sewall sighs. ‘Clothes are for decency, not just protection from inclement weather,’ he tells him. Strangely the man doesn’t look particularly indecent, or if he does the effect is entirely due to his incongruous boots. What strikes Sewall about his naked form is how ordinary it looks, how normal, one might say.
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