by Graeme Davis
Before many months had elapsed a great bustling street passed through the very centre of the Webber garden, just where Wolfert had dreamed of finding a treasure. His golden dream was accomplished; he did indeed find an unlooked-for source of wealth; for, when his paternal lands were distributed into building lots, and rented out to safe tenants, instead of producing a paltry crop of cabbages, they returned him an abundant crop of rents; insomuch that on quarter day, it was a goodly sight to see his tenants rapping at his door, from morning to night, each with a little round-bellied bag of money, the golden produce of the soil.
The ancient mansion of his forefathers was still kept up, but instead of being a little yellow-fronted Dutch house in a garden, it now stood boldly in the midst of a street, the grand house of the neighborhood; for Wolfert enlarged it with a wing on each side, and a cupola or tea room on top, where he might climb up and smoke his pipe in hot weather; and in the course of time the whole mansion was overrun by the chubby-faced progeny of Amy Webber and Dirk Waldron.
As Wolfert waxed old and rich and corpulent, he also set up a great gingerbread-colored carriage drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares with tails that swept the ground; and to commemorate the origin of his greatness he had for a crest a fullblown cabbage painted on the pannels, with the pithy motto Alles Kopf that is to say, ALL HEAD; meaning thereby that he had risen by sheer head-work.
To fill the measure of his greatness, in the fullness of time the renowned Ramm Rapelye slept with his fathers, and Wolfert Webber succeeded to the leathern-bottomed arm-chair in the inn parlor at Corlears Hook; where he long reigned greatly honored and respected, insomuch that he was never known to tell a story without its being believed, nor to utter a joke without its being laughed at.
RACHEL DYER
John Neal
1828
A Quaker from Portland, Maine, John Neal was born in 1793. He entered law school in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1815, and began writing to support himself there. He founded a literary society called the Delphian Club and edited their monthly journal, The Portico.
Among his fellow Delphians, Neal was renowned for the speed with which he wrote. They dubbed him “Jehu O’Cataract” for his prolific output, and he wrote at this time that “I shall write, as others drink, for exhilaration.” In 1823 he left for England, on a mission to win recognition there for American literature, writing articles for the influential Blackwood’s Magazine among others, and publishing a novel titled Brother Jonathan, or the New Englanders.
Neal returned to Portland in 1827, establishing a law practice and founding a short-lived literary journal called The Yankee. He was an accomplished boxer and architect, and was active in the fields of women’s rights, temperance and prohibition, and health and fitness. He founded several gymnasiums, and is sometimes called “the father of Maine athletics.” He remained healthy and vigorous into old age, throwing a stubborn cigar smoker off a nonsmoking streetcar at the age of seventy-nine.
Subtitled A North American Story, his novel Rachel Dyer deals with the bigotry and scapegoating that surrounded the Salem witch trials, and shows the dangers of religious hysteria. Chapter IV, reproduced here, gives a fictionalized account of the origins and early growth of the Salem witch hysteria, which is no less horrific for its lack of overt supernatural content.
Neal shows the prejudices of his day against nonwhite races—and strangely, he makes the slave Tituba Native American instead of African—but perhaps the most difficult aspect of his writing to the modern reader will be the torrent of passionate dialogue at the end of the chapter, delivered entirely without quotation marks. As with earlier writers, his text has not been amended for this collection, but is presented here in its original form.
CHAPTER IV
Bridget Pope was of a thoughtful serious turn—the little Abby the veriest romp that ever breathed. Bridget was the elder, by about a year and a half, but she looked five years older than Abby, and was in every way a remarkable child. Her beauty was like her stature, and both were above her age; and her aptitude for learning was the talk of all that knew her. She was a favorite every where and with every body—she had such a sweet way with her, and was so unlike the other children of her age—so that when she appeared to merit reproof, as who will not in the heyday of innocent youth, it was quite impossible to reprove her, except with a mild voice, or a kind look, or a very affectionate word or two. She would keep away from her slate and book for whole days together, and sit for half an hour at a time without moving her eyes off the page, or turning away her head from the little window of their school-house (a log-hut plastered with blue clay in stripes and patches, and lighted with horn, oiled-paper and isinglass) which commanded a view of Naumkeag, or Salem village, with a part of the original woods of North America—huge trees that were found there on the first arrival of the white man; crowded together and covered with moss and dropping to pieces of old age; a meeting-house with a short wooden spire, and the figure of death on the top for a weathercock, a multitude of cottages that appeared to be lost in the landscape, and a broad beautiful approach from the sea.
Speak softly to Bridget Pope at such a time, or look at her with a look of love, and her quiet eyes would fill, and her childish heart would run over—it would be impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to her, when her head was at the little window, and her thoughts were away, nobody knew where, the poor little thing would grow pale and serious, and look at you with such a look of sorrow—and then go away and do what she was bid with a gravity that would go to your heart. And it would require a whole day after such a rebuke to restore the dye of her sweet lips, or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have appeared. At every sound of your voice, at every step that came near, she would catch her breath, and start and look up, as if she expected something dreadful to happen.
But as for Abigail Paris, the pretty little blue-eyed cousin of Bridget Pope, there was no dealing with her in that way. If you shook your finger at her, she would laugh in your face; and if you did it with a grave air, ten to one but she made you laugh too. If you scolded her, she would scold you in return but always in such a way that you could not possibly be angry with her; she would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the toss of your head, or the very curb of your mouth perhaps, while you were trying to terrify her. The little wretch!—everybody was tired to death of her in half an hour, and yet everybody was glad to see her again. Such was Abigail Paris, before Bridget Pope came to live in the house with her, but in the course of about half a year after that, she was so altered that her very play-fellows twitted her with being “afeard o’ Bridgee Pope.” She began to be tidy in her dress, to comb her bright hair, to speak low, to keep her shoes on her feet, and her stockings from about her heels, and before a twelve-month was over, she left off wading in the snow, and grew very fond of her book.
They were always together now, creeping about under the old beach-trees, or hunting for hazle nuts, or searching for sun-baked apples in the short thick grass, or feeding the fish in the smooth clear sea—Bridget poring over a story that she had picked up, nobody knows where, and Abigail, whatever the story might be, and although the water might stand in her eyes at the time, always ready for a roll in the wet grass, a dip in the salt wave, or a slide from the very top of the hay-mow. They rambled about in the great woods together on tip-toe, holding their breath and saying their prayers at every step; they lay down together and slept together on the very track of the wolf, or the she-bear; and if they heard a noise afar off, a howl or a war-whoop, they crept in among the flowers of the solitary spot and were safe, or hid themselves in the shadow of trees that were spread out over the whole sky, or of shrubbery that appeared to cover the whole earth—
Where the wild grape hangs dropping in the shade,
O’er unfledged minstrels that beneath are laid;
Where the scarlet barberry glittered among the sharp green leaves like threaded bunches of coral,—where at every step the mo
re brilliant ivory-plumbs or clustered bunch-berries rattled among the withered herbage and rolled about their feet like a handful of beads,—where they delighted to go even while they were afraid to speak above a whisper, and kept fast hold of each other’s hands, every step of the way. Such was their love, such their companionship, such their behaviour while •p pressed with fear. They were never apart for a day, till the time of our story; they were together all day and all night, going to sleep together and waking up together, feeding out of the same cup, and sleeping in the same bed, year after year.
But just when the preacher was ready to believe that his Father above had not altogether deserted him—for he was ready to cry out with joy whenever he looked upon these dear children; they were so good and so beautiful, and they loved each other so entirely; just when there appeared to be no evil in his path, no shadow in his way to the grave, a most alarming change took place in their behavior to each other. He tried to find out the cause, but they avoided all inquiry. He talked with them together, he talked with them apart, he tried every means in his power to know the truth, but all to no purpose. They were afraid of each other, and that was all that either would say. Both were full of mischief and appeared to be possessed with a new temper. They were noisy and spiteful toward each other, and toward every body else. They were continually hiding away from each other in holes and corners, and if they were pursued and plucked forth to the light, they were always found occupied with mischief above their age. Instead of playing together as they were wont, or sitting together in peace, they would creep away under the tables and chairs and beds, and behave as if they were hunted by something which nobody else could see; and they would lie there by the hour, snapping and snarling at each other, and at everybody that passed near. They had no longer the look of health, or of childhood, or of innocence. They were meagre and pale, and their eyes were fiery, and their fingers were skinny and sharp, and they delighted in devilish tricks and in outcries yet more devilish. They would play by themselves in the dead of the night, and shriek with a preternatural voice, and wake everybody with strange laughter—a sort of smothered giggle, which would appear to issue from the garret, or from the top of the house, while they were asleep, or pretending to be dead asleep in the great room below. They would break out all over in a fine sweat like the dew on a rose bush, and fall down as if they were struck to the heart with a knife, while they were on the way to meeting or school, or when the elders of the church were talking to them and every eye was fixed on their faces with pity or terror. They would grow pale as death in a moment, and seem to hear voices in the wind, and shake as with an ague while standing before a great fire, and look about on every side with such a piteous look for children, whenever it thundered or lightened, or whenever the sea roared, that the eyes of all who saw them would fill with tears. They would creep away backwards from each other on their hands and feet, or hide their faces in the lap of the female Indian Tituba, and if the preacher spoke to them, they would fall into a stupor, and awake with fearful cries and appear instantly covered all over with marks and spots like those which are left by pinching or bruising the flesh. They would be struck dumb while repeating the Lord’s prayer, and all their features would be distorted with a savage and hateful expression.
The heads of the church were now called together, and a day of general fasting, humiliation and prayer was appointed, and after that, the best medical men of the whole country were consulted, the pious and the gifted, the interpreters of dreams, the soothsayers, and the prophets of the Lord, every man of power, and every woman of power,—but no relief was had, no cure, no hope of cure.
Matthew Paris now began to be afraid of his own child. She was no longer the hope of his heart, the joy of his old age, the live miniature of his buried wife. She was an evil thing—she was what he had no courage to think of, as he covered his old face and tore his white hair with a grief that would not be rebuked nor appeased. A new fear fell upon him, and his knees smote together, and the hair of his flesh rose, and he saw a spirit, and the spirit said to him look! And he looked, and lo! the truth appeared to him; for he saw neighbour after neighbour flying from his path, and all the heads of the church keeping aloof and whispering together in a low voice. Then knew he that Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris were bewitched.
A week passed over, a whole week, and every day and every hour they grew worse and worse, and the solitude in which he lived, more dreadful to him; but just when there appeared to be no hope left, no chance for escape, just when he and the few that were still courageous enough to speak with him, were beginning to despair, and to wish for the speedy death of the little sufferers, dear as they had been but a few weeks before to every body that knew them, a discovery was made which threw the whole country into a new paroxysm of terror. The savages who had been for a great while in the habit of going to the house of the preacher to eat and sleep “without money and without price,” were now seen to keep aloof and to be more than usually grave; and yet when they were told of the children’s behaviour, they showed no sort of surprise, but shook their heads with a smile, and went their way, very much as if they were prepared for it.
When the preacher heard this, he called up the two Indians before him, and spoke to Tituba and prayed to know why her people who for years had been in the habit of lying before his hearth, and eating at his table, and coming in and going out of his habitation at all hours of the day and night, were no longer seen to approach his door.
“Tituppa no say—Tituppa no know,” she replied.
But as she replied, the preacher saw her make a sign to Peter Wawpee, her Sagamore, who began to show his teeth as if he knew something more than he chose to tell; but before the preacher could rebuke him as he deserved, or pursue the inquiry with Tituba, his daughter screamed out and fell upon her face and lay for a long while as if she were death-struck.
The preacher now bethought him of a new course, and after watching Tituba and Wawpee for several nights, became satisfied from what he saw, that she was a woman of diabolical power. A part of what he saw, he was afraid even to speak of; but he declared on oath before the judges, that he had seen sights, and heard noises that took away his bodily strength, his hearing and his breath for a time; that for nearly five weeks no one of her tribe, nor of Wawpee’s tribe had slept upon his hearth, or eaten of his bread, or lifted the latch of his door either by night or by day; that notwithstanding this, the very night before, as he went by the grave-yard where his poor wife lay, he heard the whispering of a multitude; that having no fear in such a place, he made a search; and that after a long while he found his help Tituba concealed in the bushes, that he said nothing but went his way, satisfied in his own soul however that the voices he heard were the voices of her tribe; and that after the moon rose he saw her employed with a great black Shadow on the rock of death, where as every body knew, sacrifices had been offered up in other days by another people to the god of the Pagan—the deity of the savage—employed in a way that made him shiver with fright where he stood; for between her and the huge black shadow there lay what he knew to be the dead body of his own dear child stretched out under the awful trees—her image rather, for she was at home and abed and asleep at the time. He would have spoken to it if he could—for he saw what he believed to be the shape of his wife; he would have screamed for help if he could, but he could not get his breath, and that was the last he knew; for when he came to himself he was lying in his own bed, and Tituba was sitting by his side with a cup of broth in her hand which he took care to throw away the moment her back was turned; for she was a creature of extraordinary art, and would have persuaded him that he had never been out of his bed for the whole day.
The judges immediately issued a warrant for Tituba and Wawpee, both of whom were hurried off to jail, and after a few days of proper inquiry, by torture, she was put upon trial for witchcraft. Being sorely pressed by the word of the preacher and by the testimony of Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris, who with two more afflicted childr
en (for the mischief had spread now in every quarter) charged her and Sarah Good with appearing to them at all hours, and in all places, by day and by night, when they were awake and when they were asleep, and with tormenting their flesh. Tituba pleaded guilty and confessed before the judges and the people that the poor children spoke true, that she was indeed a witch, and that, with several of her sister witches of great power—among whom was mother Good, a miserable woman who lived a great way off, nobody knew where—and passed the greater part of her time by the sea-side, nobody knew how, she had been persuaded by the black man to pursue and worry and vex them. But the words were hardly out of her mouth before she herself was taken with a fit, which lasted so long that the judges believed her to be dead. She was lifted up and carried out into the air; but though she recovered her speech and her strength in a little time, she was altered in her looks from that day to the day of her death.
But as to mother Good, when they brought her up for trial, she would neither confess to the charge nor pray the court for mercy; but she stood up and mocked the jury and the people, and reproved the judges for hearkening to a body of accusers who were collected from all parts of the country, were of all ages, and swore to facts, which if they ever occurred at all, had occurred years and years before—facts which it would have been impossible for her to contradict, even though they had all been, as a large part of them obviously were, the growth of mistake or of superstitious dread. Her behavior was full of courage during the trial; and after the trial was over, and up to the last hour and last breath of her life, it was the same.