Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  “Doctor, those things you did for me when in the convulsions, relieved me greatly,” and he took out his purse. “Yes, Doctor, I insist upon it. Skill like yours is always worth its recompense. We must not muzzle the ox, you know, that treads out the corn.” And he put a gold piece into Dr. Grigg’s palm — which was not often favored with anything but silver in Salem.

  Dr. Griggs was glad that he had been able to render him a little service; and said that, if there had been the least necessity for it, he would have gone on the platform, and testified as to the complete absurdity of the charge that that excellent woman, Mistress Ann Putnam, evidently in mistake, had brought against him.

  Then the “afflicted circle” had to be spoken to, who this afternoon did not appear to be in the least afflicted, but in the very best of spirits. They now felt more admiration for him than ever; and greeted him with great cordiality as he came to where they were standing. “When are you going back to England?” was a frequent question; and he assured them he now hoped to go before many weeks; and then, smiling, added that they would be certain to hear from him.

  As the crowd thinned out a little, Abigail Williams called him aside; “and did you really see the yellow bird, Master Raymond?” said she archly.

  “The yellow bird!” replied he dreamily. “Ah! you know that when we that are ‘afflicted’ go into trances, we are not conscious of all that we see.”

  “For it seemed to me,” continued the girl in a low tone, “that those feathers looked very much like chicken feathers.” Then she laughed cunningly, and peered into his face.

  “Indeed!” replied the young man gravely; “well, a chicken’s bill, pecking at your eyes, is not a thing to be made light of. I knew of a girl, one of whose eyes was put entirely out by her pet canary.”

  And as he moved at once toward the rest of the group, the quick-witted and precocious child was compelled to follow.

  The magistrates had left the Court House, with the majority of the people, including Jethro Sands, when who should come in, walking hastily, and his face flushed with hard riding, but Thomas Putnam.

  “Am I too late? What was done?” he said quickly to Leah Herrick, who was standing near the door.

  “Oh, the charge broke down, and Master Raymond was discharged.”

  “Ah! Where is my wife?”

  “She did not come. It was said by your daughter, that she probably found she was mistaken in the person, and stayed for that reason.”

  “I do not believe it — she would have told me. What did Jethro Sands do?”

  “Oh, he withdrew the charges, so far as he was concerned. There was a great deal more danger that Master Raymond would prove him to be a witch, than he Master Raymond.”

  “I see — it is a case of conspiracy!” exclaimed Master Putnam hotly. “Had you any hand in this, Master Raymond?” turning to the young Englishman, who had drawn near, on his way to the door.

  “Ah, Master Putnam, glad to see you. You did get here early enough however to witness my triumphant vindication. Here is learned Dr. Griggs, and young Mistress Williams, and your own gifted daughter, and handsome Mistress Herrick, and half-a-dozen others of my old friends who were ready to testify in my behalf, if any testimony had been needed. Make my compliments to Mistress Putnam; and give her my best thanks for her noble course, in confessing by her absence that she was mistaken, and that she had accused the wrong person.”

  The cool assurance with which this was uttered, quite confused Thomas Putnam. Could his wife have stayed away purposely? Perhaps so, for she was accustomed to rapid changes of her plans. But why then had he been lured off on a wild-goose chase all the way to Ipswich?

  While he was standing there musing, his daughter came up. “I think, father, you and mother, next time, had better take my advice,” said that incorrigible and unmanageable young lady; just about as opposite a character to the usual child of that period as could well be imagined. But these witchcraft trials, in which she figured so prominently had utterly demoralized her in this as in certain other respects.

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  Why Thomas Putnam Went to Ipswich.

  What young Master Joseph Putnam undertook to do, he was apt to do pretty thoroughly. When he had once made up his mind to keep both his brother’s wife and his brother himself, away from the examination, he had rapidly thought over various plans, and adopted two which he felt pretty certain would not fail. They all involved a little deceit, or at least double dealing — and he hated both those things with a righteous hatred — but it was to prevent a great injustice, and perhaps to save life.

  As he rode rapidly homeward, turning over various plans, in his mind, he had passed through the village, when he saw some one approaching on what seemed to be the skeleton of an old horse. He at once recognized the rider as an odd character, a carpenter, whom he at one time had occasion to employ in doing some work on a small property he owned in Ipswich. Reining up his horse, Master Putnam stopped to have a chat with the man — whose oddity mainly consisted in his taciturnity, which was broken only by brief and pithy sentences.

  “A fine day Ezekiel — how are things in Ipswich?”

  “Grunty!”

  “Ah! I am sorry to hear it. Why, what is the matter?”

  “Broomsticks, chiefly.”

  “You mean the witches. That is a bad business. But how shall we mend it?”

  The old carpenter was too shrewd to commit himself. He glanced at Master Putnam, and then turning his head aside, and giving a little laugh, said, “Burn all the broomsticks.”

  “A good idea,” replied Master Putnam, also laughing. “Oh, by the way, Ezekiel, I wonder if you could do a little errand for me?” and the young man took out his purse and began opening it. “You are not in a great hurry, are you?”

  “Hurry, is for fools!”

  “You know where my brother Thomas lives? Up this road?” They were just where two roads joined, one leading by his own house, and the other past his brother’s.

  “I wish I knew the road to heaven as well.”

  “You know how to keep silent, and how to talk also, Ezekiel — especially when you are well paid for it?”

  The old man laughed. “A little bullet sometimes makes a big hole,” he said.

  “I want you to go to my brother Thomas, and say simply these words: — Ipswich Crown and Anchor. Very important indeed. At once. Wait till he comes.”

  “All right.” And he held out his hand, into which Master Joseph put as much silver as the old man could make in a whole week’s work.

  “You are not to remember who sent you, or anything else than those words. Perhaps you have been drinking rather too much cider, you know. Do you understand?”

  The old man’s face assumed at once a very dull and vacant expression, and he said in that impressive manner which rather too many glasses is apt to give, “Ipswich. Crown and Anchor. Very important indeed. At once. Wait till he comes.”

  “That will do very well, Ezekiel. But not a word more, mind!”

  “Tight as a rat-trap,” replied the old man — and he turned his skeleton’s head, and went up the road towards Thomas Putnam’s.

  Joseph felt certain that this would take his brother to Ipswich. Both of them were greatly interested in a lawsuit with certain of the Ipswich people, regarding the northern boundary of the Putnam farms. Thomas was managing the matter for the family; and was continually on the look-out for fresh evidence to support the Putnam claim. In fact, bright Master Raymond had once said that, between the Salem witches and the Ips-witches, Master Thomas seemed to have no peace of his life. But this was before the witch persecutions had assumed such a tragical aspect.

  When Ezekiel had found Thomas Putnam and delivered his brief message, without dismounting from his skeleton steed, Master Putnam asked at once who sent the message.

  “Ipswich. Crown and Anchor. Very important indeed! At once. Wait till he comes,” repeated the old man, with a face of the most impassive solemnity, and emphasizing
every sentence with his long fore-finger.

  And that was all Master Thomas could get out of him. That much came just as often as he wished it; but no more — not a word.

  Mistress Ann Putnam had come out to the gate by that time. “He has been drinking too much cider,” she said.

  This gave a suggestion to Ezekiel.

  “Yes, too much cider. Rum — steady me!”

  Mistress Putnam thought that it might produce an effect of that kind, and, going back into the house, soon reappeared with a rather stiff drink of West India rum; which the old man tossed off with no perceptible difficulty.

  He smiled as he handed back the tin cup which had held it. “Yes — steady now!” he said.

  “Who gave you the message?” again asked Master Putnam.

  Ezekiel looked solemn and thoughtful. “Who gave ’im the message,” replied Ezekiel slowly.

  “Yes — who sent you to me?”

  “Who sent yer — to — me?” again repeated Ezekiel. “Ipswich. Crown and Anchor. At once. Wait till he comes.” Then the old man’s countenance cleared up, as if everything now must be perfectly satisfactory.

  “Oh there is no use in trying to get any more out of him — he is too much fuddled,” said Mistress Putnam impatiently.

  “More rum — steady me!” mumbled Ezekiel.

  “No, not a drop more,” said Thomas Putnam peremptorily. “You have had too much already.”

  The old man frowned — and turning the skeleton steed after considerable effort, he gave his parting shot— “Crown and anchor — wait till he comes!” and rode off in a spasmodic trot down the lane.

  “I shall have to go to Ipswich, and see about this, it may supply the missing link in our chain of evidence!”

  “But how about this afternoon?” queried his wife.

  “Oh, I can get to Salem by three o’clock, by fast riding. I will leave the roan horse for you.”

  “Saddle the grey mare, Jehosaphat.”

  And thus it was that his brother Joseph, looking out of his sitting-room window, about an hour after his arrival at home, saw Master Thomas Putnam, on his well-known grey mare, riding along the road past his house on the most direct route to Ipswich.

  “He is out of the way, for one — if he waits an hour or two for any person to meet him on important business at the Crown and Anchor,” thought the young man. “It is important indeed though that he should go, and keep himself out of mischief; and from helping to take any more innocent lives. And when he comes to his senses — in the next world, if not in this — he will thank me for deceiving him. Now let me see whether I can do as good a turn for that delectable wife of his.”

  CHAPTER XLIV.

  How Master Joseph Circumvented Mistress Ann.

  About an hour afterwards, Master Joseph saw one of his farm-hands coming over the fields from the direction of his brother’s house, which was about two miles almost directly to the west of his own house. Going out to meet him, he said —

  “Well, Simon Peter, I see that you got the rake.”

  “Yes, Master Joseph; but they wish me to return it as soon as we can.”

  “That is right. Finish your job in the garden this afternoon, and take it back early tomorrow morning. You can go to work now.”

  The man walked off toward the garden.

  “Wait a moment!” his master cried. The man stopped. “Anything new at brother Thomas’s? Are they all at home?”

  “No, indeed! Master Thomas has gone off to Ipswich — and little Ann is at Salem town.”

  “I could not borrow a horse, then, of them, you think?”

  “No, indeed, sir. There is only one left in the stable; and Mistress Putnam means to use that to go to the trial this afternoon.”

  “Oh, well, I do not care much;” and his master walked off to the house, while Simon Peter went to his work.

  Then, after a somewhat earlier dinner than usual, Master Joseph ordered his young horse, Sweetbriar, saddled; and after kissing his wife “in a scandalous manner” — that is, out of doors, where some one might have seen him do it — he mounted, and cantered off down the lane.

  The young man loved a good horse and he claimed that Sweetbriar, with a year or two more of age and hardening, would be the fastest horse in the Province. As to temper, the horse was well named; for he could be as sweet, when properly handled, as a rose; and as sharp and briary as any rose-stalk under contrary conditions. A nervous, sensitive, high-mettled animal; Mistress Putnam, though a good rider, said it was too much work to manage him. While her husband always responded that Sweetbriar could be ridden by any one, for he was as gentle as a lamb.

  Just as Mistress Ann Putnam had got through her dinner, she saw her brother-in-law Joseph riding up the lane. The brothers, as has been seen, differed very widely relative to the Witchcraft prosecutions; but still they visited one another, as they were held together by various family ties, and especially by the old lawsuit against certain of the Ipswich men, to which I have alluded.

  Therefore Mistress Putnam opened the door and went out to the garden gate, where by this time the young man had dismounted, and fastened his horse.

  “Is brother Thomas at home, Sister Ann?”

  “No — he had a call to Ipswich this morning.”

  “Ah — the lawsuit business.”

  “I suppose so. But the messenger was so overcome with liquor, that he could not even remember who sent him.”

  “Why, how could Thomas know where to go then?”

  “Oh, the man managed to say that his employee would be waiting for Thomas at the “Crown and Anchor,” where he usually stops you know.”

  “Well, I am glad that Thomas went. I stopped to see if Jehosaphat could do a little errand for me — I might have sent one of my own men, but I forget matters sometimes.”

  “You will find him at the barn,” replied Mistress

  Putnam, a little anxious to cut short the conversation, as she wished to get ready for her ride to Salem.

  Going to the barn, Master Joseph soon found Jehosaphat. “How do, Fatty!” this was the not very dignified diminutive into which Jehosaphat had dwindled in common use. “How are you getting along?”

  “Fair to middlin, sir. Not as well though as on the old place, Master Joseph.”

  “I do not want to interfere with my brother, remember; but if at any time he should not want you any more, remember the old place is still open for you. It was your own fault, you know, that you went.”

  “I did not know when I was well off, Master Joseph. I was a fool, that was all.”

  “I thought so,” replied Master Joseph pithily. “But no matter about that now — can you do an errand for me?”

  “Of course I can — the mistress willing.”

  “Well, I said I wished to send you on an errand, and she told me where to find you.”

  “That is all right then.”

  “Go to Goodman Buckley’s, in Salem village, and ask him for a bundle I left — bring it to my house, you know, you can take the roan horse there. And, by the way, Fatty, if you want to stop an hour or two to see the widow Jones’s pretty daughter, I guess no great harm will be done.”

  Jehosaphat giggled — but then his face clouded. “But Mistress Putnam wants to take the roan herself this afternoon. The trial comes off, you know.”

  “Oh, it is not a trial — it is only an examination. And it is all fiddlesticks, anyhow. My sister-in-law is ruining her health by all this witch business. But if she insists upon going, I will lend her one of my horses. Therefore that need not keep you.”

  So Jehosaphat, in high glee at having an afternoon’s holiday, with the roan horse, threw on the saddle and mounted.

  As he rode at a rapid canter down the lane, Mistress Ann heard the noise, but supposed it was Master Joseph riding off again, — and did not even trouble herself to look out of the window, especially as she was just then changing her gown.

  Not long after, coming into the family room, who should she see ther
e, sitting demurely, reading one of the Reverend Cotton Mather’s most popular sermons, but the same Master Joseph Putnam whom she had thought she was well rid of.

  “I thought you had gone. I surely heard you riding down the lane,” she said in a surprised tone.

  “Oh, no, I wanted to speak with you about something.”

  “Who was it then? — I surely heard some one.”

  “Perhaps it was one of those spectral horses, with a spectral rider. As Master Mather says: These are very wonderful and appalling times!” And the young man laughed a little scornfully.

  “Brother Joseph, I do not care to talk with you upon this question. I greatly regret, as do your brothers and your uncles, that you have gone over to the infidels and the scoffers.”

  “And I regret that they are making such fools of themselves,” replied Joseph hotly.

  “I have no time to discuss this question, brother Joseph,” said Mistress Ann with dignity. “I am going to Salem town this afternoon, very much in the cross, to give my testimony against a young friend of yours. Would that I could have been spared this trial!” and his sister-in-law looked up to the ceiling sanctimoniously. As Joseph told his young wife that night, her hypocrisy hardened his heart against her; so that he could have kept her at home by sheer force, if it were necessary, and at all expedient — in fact he would have preferred that rough but sincere way.

  “If you testify to anything that throws doubt upon Master Raymond’s perfect innocency and goodness, you will testify to a lie,” replied Master Joseph severely.

  “As I said, I have no time for argument. Will you be good enough to tell Jehosaphat to saddle the roan for me.”

  “You know that I had your permission to send Fatty off on an errand — and he is not back yet.”

  Mistress Putnam started and bit her lip. She had made a mistake. “I suppose he will be back before long.”

  “I doubt it. I sent him to the village.”

  “Well, I suppose I can put on the saddle myself. Your conscience probably would not allow you to do it — even if common courtesy towards a woman, and that woman your sister, demanded it.”