‘No, Bastian,’ says Sewall, squeezing his arm, ‘it is quite the other way around.’
Bastian shakes his head and to Sewall’s relief (since he doesn’t want a witness to his log-splitting) backs away to find some other work to do. Sewall raises the axe once more. At the exact moment he commits himself to his swing, another voice. ‘Father,’ says young Sam. With a mighty effort Sewall arrests his swing and carefully rests the axe against the log block. Sam is standing with his head bowed.
‘What are you doing here, my boy?’
‘Mr. Perry sent me home.’
‘And why did he do that? Don’t people want to buy books any more?’
Sewall knows for a fact that the opposite is the case. Mr. Perry explained to him that sales have increased since the governor returned and promptly suspended the trials, as if the people were trying to find guidance as to the best course of action. There is no shortage of books to advise them on their quest. Indeed several have appeared in the last few weeks. Cotton Mather for one has already published his defence of the trials, with the arresting title of Wonders of the Invisible World. He dealt with five cases and this time endorsed the procedure of the court in each one.
His father, however, has written what amounts to a counterblast, called Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits. The Devil, Increase Mather explains, has great skill in optics and can cause things to appear far differently from what they actually are. Indeed, he remarks, a journal published in Leipzig, the Acta Eruditorum, tells the story of a Frenchman who learned from a demon to use Borax water to produce glittering optical effects and even to create the shapes of innocent people afflicting others. The suggestion is clearly that the accusers, jury and judges were all deluded.
Even more disturbingly, Mr. Willard has ventured into print with a dialogue, Between S and B, in which S and B argue over the merits of the witchcraft trials, with B taking the sceptic’s part, and S the supporter’s one. Sewall guesses that S stands for himself, with B representing Mr. Brattle. B crushes S’s arguments about the witches’ guilt by asserting ‘None knows another’s heart’—a poor reward for providing Mr. Willard, along with Mrs. Willard and all the little Willards, with that golden September day on Hogg Island.
Sam understands that his father’s question is ironic, indeed sarcastic, and doesn’t reply at first.
‘Well?’
‘No.’
‘No, which? No, they aren’t buying? Or no, they—’
‘No, father, they are still buying. It’s very busy.’
‘If it’s so busy perhaps you can tell me why you’ve come home early.’ He glares. ‘I would have thought—’
‘I’ve been rushing around so much, serving all the customers. My feet are sore.’
‘A little while ago you were complaining that your legs were swollen with the heat. And before that, as I remember, your feet were blistered.’ Oddly, the listing of these absurd infirmities snaps Sewall out of his bad mood.
‘The floor gets harder in cold weather. The flagstones make my feet ache so much I can hardly walk.’
‘I see.’ He smiles at his son. ‘Well, since you’re home now, you might as well rest those weary feet of yours so that they will be ready for the cold flagstones tomorrow.’
‘Yes, father,’ says Sam joyfully, and scuttles into the house.
A crack like a musket shot, then a clatter as each half of the split log hits the ground. After a few minutes with no further interruptions Sewall’s body surrenders to the rhythm of his task, collecting a new log, placing it on the block, raising the axe, sighting the path, bringing it down, fetching another and repeating the sequence. But while his body becomes absorbed in the work, his mind teems with difficult and uneasy thoughts.
Stephen groaned and winced as Sewall took him back by carriage to Salem the morning after he had brought the trial transcripts for Mr. Mather to quarry. He had insisted on returning home despite a high temperature and painful joints. Since then the fever and weakness have steadily increased. Sewall visited just the other day and Stephen was in a poor way indeed. When he became aware of Sewall’s presence he slowly turned his head and fixed him with unnaturally bright eyes. ‘I wish—,’ he whispered.
‘Yes?’
‘I wish I may live.’ The nakedness of his fear brought Sewall to the verge of weeping and for a moment he didn’t dare try to reply. Instead he wiped his hand gently over his brother’s forehead. ‘I wish I may live,’ Stephen said again.
‘I’m sure that—’
‘So I may serve God better than I have done.’
‘You did what you were called upon to do,’ Sewall told him. ‘As did I,’ he adds a little tentatively.
Tomorrow Mr. Stoughton will once more ask the governor and Council whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit again in a week’s time, when the governor’s suspension will have expired. Stoughton, with that iron will of his, is determined to continue. Consistency is all-important, in matters of law as well as matters of religion, he told the Council at its last meeting. ‘Oh yes,’ said Mr. Brattle, meeting Sewall on the street, ‘for the sake of those who have already died, the only fair procedure will be to execute everyone. Then nobody can complain about being singled out.’
Whatever the outcome, Sewall senses that the crisis is over. He has felt this since the night he made his disgraceful and unuxorious assault upon Hannah’s person (though afterwards she peacefully slept as though nothing untoward had happened), and then comforted himself by reading from John’s first epistle: ‘if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.’ The congregation of the saints has been terribly divided and now is becoming reconciled once more.
Swing, bang, clatter. Bastian has sidled back and is picking up the split logs and piling them in a lean-to against the side wall. Sewall loves his Bible, his accounts, his legal books, his toing and froing in the affairs of city and province, but for the time being he thinks how delicious it would be to do nothing but doing, without any pause for thought.
Then: a shriek, scratched on the grey October air like the call of a bird. And another. It’s Betty, and her scream contains that terrible unrefusable demand of a child: you must help me.
Now, another cry, voice deeper, that barking awkward almost-manly timbre of his boy Sam. And even in these lower notes, the same demand: you must help me.
Sewall has dropped his axe and is running towards the house, but hearing Sam’s voice underlining Betty’s he turns and picks it up again. Bastian scurries towards him from the lean-to with a split log as weapon in each hand. As the two men near the back door, Betty bursts out of it like a cannonball and flies straight past them, on down the garden.
Now more screams are adding to the medley, high-pitched sobs from Susan, angry shouts from Sarah, woebegone cries from young Hannah, wavering uncertain moans from Joseph, lusty baby-bawling from little Mary.
Sewall rushes through the kitchen gripping the shaft of his axe with both hands, Bastian, less encumbered (and more fleet of foot) just ahead of him. Bastian crashes through the door into the hall which swings back and cracks Sewall’s forehead and several of the fingers that grasp his axe, but he follows valiantly, deferring the pain in that strange way you can when pressing business is in hand.
First thing he sees: wife Hannah. She is leaning against the wall and laughing, her fist against her mouth. Scattered around the room are the others, faces pink, eyes wide, mouths like Os, each one (even little Mary in her chair) transfixed by—of all things—a bear! It must have let itself in through the front door and now stands on its hind legs in the middle of the room.
The bear is brown and furry with a long snout, yet there is something wrong with it (quite apart from its presence in a house). Sewall’s eyes track down from head to foot—yes, that’s what’s wrong, it does indeed have feet rather than a bear’s enormous paws, and those
feet are shod in shoes.
Bastian is standing in front of the strange beast, his hands, or at least his logs, on his hips, and suddenly he too bursts into laughter. Sarah strides past him, right up to the creature, raises her arm and grasps its nose, giving it a sharp indignant tug. The bear’s snout is nothing more than a fold of material, and with Sarah’s tug the whole pelt comes off, revealing itself to be an old brown rug beneath which stands an elderly woman in wrinkled skirt and apron, a cap lopsidedly on her head. She raises both arms in front of her, fingers bent like claws, and gives a small growl, then shakes with silent merriment. It’s Goodwife Duerden. She lives alone in a little shack not far off and is addled in her wits. Indeed there have been rumours of witchcraft.
Bastian turns, shaking his head at the performance. ‘I will go and fetch Miss Betty from down the garden,’ he informs Sewall.
‘I’ll go,’ says Sam. He looks hot with shame at his recent terror and obviously wants to redeem himself by comforting his sister.
Sewall casts his eyes around the others. Young Hannah’s lips are still trembling and she is looking reproachfully at her tormentor. Little Joseph is marching around the room, perhaps trying to imitate a bear, or at least a cub, himself. Baby Mary has noticed she is the only one still distressed and is undecided whether to continue to be, or to recover. Wife Hannah has got over her amusement and is looking at Goodwife Duerden with an expression of sympathy and concern. Susan has her hand over her mouth as if to stifle laughter or shock. Sarah is glaring. ‘What on earth did you think you were up to?’ she demands.
The goodwife gives her a cunning look, her shoulders hunched and a finger over her lips as if insisting on the need for secrecy. ‘I wanted to say boo to the children,’ she replies.
Mr. Stoughton rises to his feet. ‘Your Excellency,’ he says, ‘fellow councillors.’ His gaze passes over the council chamber. Sewall flinches when it strikes him, conscious of the bandage round his head where he was struck by the swinging door during that alarm of the bear. ‘On three occasions in the last month I have stood before you and asked that the suspension of the Court of Oyer and Terminer be lifted so as to enable it to resume its duty. That duty is to try the cases of sundry citizens of our province who have been accused of witchcraft, a heinous crime and one that threatens the very existence of this Christian plantation of ours.’ Again his look passes over the whole assembly. ‘This is the last time I will ask you,’ he says finally.
There’s more shuffling, a shifting of backsides on benches, a rustle of papers. Stoughton remains standing, his head still methodically scanning the members of Council, pausing occasionally when he manages to catch the eye of one. The power of his gaze slowly eradicates the small defensive noises of the members; these die away to be replaced by total silence. It’s as if no one is even breathing. Initially Sewall interprets this as preliminary to a response but then understands that none will be forthcoming. Or rather, that the silence is itself the response.
This realisation strikes Stoughton at the same moment. He emits a long contemptuous sigh, turns on his heel, strides out.
Excited chatter breaks out all over the chamber, some members rising to their feet and stretching as if they have been seated for hours instead of just a few minutes. Sewall himself feels a huge sense of relief. Ever since the night when poor Stephen came over from Salem to deliver the papers for Cotton Mather, he’s felt that the trials had run their course and come to an inevitable termination. Now the silence of the council chamber confirms that indeed they have.
The incessant rain tails off for a moment and the sun peeps out. Sewall peers hopefully through his study window. Sure enough, after a few minutes a rainbow shimmers into existence, forming an arc from ocean to land. ‘Laus Deo,’ he whispers.
A little later, there’s a knock on his door. In comes Susan and gives a bob. ‘Someone to see you, master.’
It’s Mr. Brattle, who sweeps in, takes off his wet coat (he has received yet another wetting on his way here) and places it on the back of a chair, upon which he promptly seats himself.
‘I have just seen a rainbow,’ Sewall tells him, pointing towards the window.
‘Ah!’
‘I took it as a sign.’ No doubt Mr. Brattle will attribute his interpretation of it to yet more mysticism and superstition.
‘Well, I do come with news, though of a worldly sort rather than a heavenly one.’
‘I see.’
‘The governor has announced his nominations for the Superior Court of Massachusetts. Apparently he wishes the Council to ratify the names tomorrow.’
A panel of five judges is to be appointed to this new Superior Court, one of whom will be chief justice of Massachusetts. Sewall has taken this proposal as a rebuff to the cancelled Court of Oyer and Terminer since it points to a wish to give a professional status to the justices who will be entrusted with the province’s most serious cases. The implication is that the witchcraft judges were inadequate to their task. This suspicion is confirmed by Mr. Brattle’s obvious glee at his imminent announcement (he seems to have had the ear of the governor ever since sending him his letter). Sewall looks dolefully across his desk at him. ‘Oh well,’ he says, ‘I have many other affairs to see to.’
‘A finger in lots of pies,’ agrees Mr. Brattle. He is a lean man himself so his reference is perhaps a sly dig. Sewall feels a sudden ridiculous urge to defend the consumption of pies. So many discussions and meetings take place over a good meal; so much business can be transacted; so many friendships cemented. Dinner is at the heart of family life, just as the Lord’s Supper is at the heart of congregational worship. Indeed, eating is a kind of discourse, spoken not in English or Latin or Algonquian but in the language of meat and fish and cheese, vegetables and fruit, bread and pastry.
But Mr. Brattle will think him foolish if he takes his comment so literally. ‘So who are the nominees for the Superior Court?’ he finally asks.
Mr. Brattle gives him a look of sharp-eyed amusement. ‘Well, John Richards for one.’
‘Mr. Richards? But he served with me in the Court of Oyer and Terminer!’
‘Also Mr. Winthrop.’
‘And he did too!’ Sewall stares at Mr. Brattle in astonishment. For a moment he wonders if this is some sort of trick to discomfit or confuse him. But no, sceptic he may be but Mr. Brattle wouldn’t stoop to lying. Sewall can’t stop a feeling of jealousy, that these colleagues of his have been forgiven, so to speak, for their participation in a court of which the governor disapproved, while he himself has been sidelined. Perhaps it’s the price you pay for trying to maintain a certain independence of mind. ‘And who is to be the chief justice?’ he asks.
‘Mr. Stoughton is to be given that honour.’
Now Sewall is speechless. The implacable Stoughton. Mr. Stoughton, who demanded that Council support him, and was rebuffed. Mr. Stoughton, who turned his back on fellow members (and on the governor himself!) and strode from the hall.
‘You look as if you have seen a ghost,’ Mr. Brattle says in that pungent ironical way of his, giving a little laugh. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. You have been nominated to the bench as well. Congratulations, old friend.’ He gets to his feet, steps over to the desk and shakes Sewall’s hand.
‘But I thought—you dis, you dis—’
‘I did, I do. I disapproved, I distrusted, I disliked. I hated those witch trials while they were in progress. But I know an honest man when I see one. And law and honesty don’t always go together.’
‘I’m lost for words,’ Sewall says. He feels oddly tearful at this unexpected turn of events and in particular at the sudden kindness of Mr. Brattle, who for months now he has seen as an enemy. Those words from John’s first epistle come into his head once again: fellowship one with another. ‘But how—I mean, the governor was so angry with our court.’
‘And he has swept that court away. And I can’t say I’m sorry. Bu
t he is a politic man. He has changed the judicial system as a result of the trials but he has also appointed certain of the men associated with them. Change and continuance, that’s how he thinks. He wants to keep opponents happy, like myself, and supporters, like yourself. And this I think he has successfully done. The fifth member of the Superior Court is to be Mr. Danforth, who of course became an opponent of the trials. Just to provide a little grit in the oyster.’
In fact Sewall had been most perplexed on discovering that Mr. Danforth (rather like Mr. Willard) had turned against the trials in the course of the summer, having seemed so implacably against witchcraft during the examination of the Proctors, and so familiar with the legal precedents for the trials. But already that worry seems irrelevant in this new fellowship that has been established. ‘Mr. Brattle,’ he says, ‘we will be eating shortly. It would be a great pleasure to have you dine with us.’
After dinner Sewall shows Mr. Brattle to the door. When he opens it, there on the step, just about to knock, is brother Stephen.
‘My rainbow!’ Sewall cries.
‘Rainbow?’ asks Stephen. His face is very thin—indeed, his whole body is emaciated from his illness, and of course just like the last time he came here, he is soaking wet.
‘Stephen, Stephen,’ Sewall says. He and Mr. Brattle both back themselves into the vestibule to allow Stephen to come in out of the rain. Then Sewall shakes his head in disapproval. ‘Stephen,’ he says again, ‘what do you think you’re doing coming all the way from Salem in this weather?’
‘I knew how worried you were, brother. I told myself that as soon as I was able to leave my bed I would come and reassure you.’ Sewall understands what he is saying of course—that he doesn’t blame his brother for nominating him as clerk of the court and thereby (perhaps) bringing about this long illness in the first place.
‘I am pleased to see you’re up and about,’ Mr. Brattle tells him. ‘I believe you’ve been ill in bed for weeks.’
Crane Pond Page 26