CHAPTER II.
Butenough. It is quite impossible to doubt the sincerity of the Plymouth settlers, the Pilgrims, or Fathers of New-England, who escaping over sea laid the foundations of a mighty empire on the perpetual rocks of New-Plymouth, and along the desolate shores of a new world, or their belief in witchcraft and sorcery, whatever we may happen to believe now; for, at a period of sore and bitter perplexity for them and theirs, while they were yet wrestling for life, about four hundred of their hardy brave industrious population were either in prison for the alleged practice of witchcraft, or under accusation for matters which were looked upon as fatal evidence thereof. By referring to the sober and faithful records of that age, it will be found that in the course of about fifteen months, while the Fathers of New-England were beset on every side by the exasperated savages, or by the more exasperated French, who led the former through every part of the British-American territory, twenty-eight persons received sentence of death (of which number nineteen were executed) one died in jail, to whom our narrative relates, and one was deliberately crushed to death—according to British law, because forsooth, being a stout full-hearted man, he would not make a plea, nor open his mouth to the charge of sorcery, before the twelve, who up to that hour had permitted no one who did open his mouth to escape; that a few more succeeded in getting away before they were capitally charged; that one hundred and fifty were set free afterthe outcry was over; and that full two hundred more of the accused who were in great peril without knowing it, were never proceeded against, after the death of the individual whose character we have attempted a sketch of, in the following story.
Of these four hundred poor creatures, a large part of whom were people of good repute in the prime of life, above two-score made confession of their guilt—and this although about one half, being privately charged, had no opportunity for confession. The laws of nature, it would seemwereset aside—if not by Jehovah, at least by the judges acting under the high and holy sanction of British law, in this day of sorrow; for at the trial of a woman who appears to have been celebrated for beauty and held in great fear because of her temper, both by the settlers and the savages, three of her children stood up, and children though they were, in the presence of their mother, avowed themselves to be witches, and gave a particular account of their voyages through the air and over sea, and of the cruel mischief they had perpetrated by her advice and direction; for she was endowed, say the records of the day, with great power and prerogative, and the Father of lies had promised her, at one of their church-yard gatherings that she should be “Queen of Hell.”
But before we go further into the particulars of our narrative which relates to a period when the frightful superstition we speak of was raging with irresistible power, a rapid review of so much of the earlier parts of the New-England history, as immediately concerns the breaking out, and the growth of a belief in witchcraft among the settlers of our savage country, may be of use to the reader, who, but for some such preparation, would never be able to credit a fiftieth part of what is undoubtedly true in the following story.
The pilgrims or “Fathers” of New-England, as they are now called by the writers of America, were but a ship-load of pious brave men, who while they were in search of a spot of earth where they might worship their God without fear, and build up a faith, if so it pleased him, without reproach, went ashore partly of their own accord, but more from necessity, in the terrible winter of 1620-21, upon a rock of Massachusetts-Bay, to which they gave the name of New-Plymouth, after that of the port of England from which they embarked.
They left England forever.... England their home and the home of their mighty fathers—turned their backs forever upon all that was dear to them in their beloved country, their friends, their houses, their tombs and their churches, their laws and their literature with all that other men cared for in that age; and this merely to avoid persecution for a religious faith; fled away as it were to the ends of the earth, over a sea the very name of which was doubtful, toward a shore that was like a shadow to the navigators of Europe, in search of a place where they might kneel down before their Father, and pray to him without molestation.
But, alas for their faith! No sooner had these pilgrims touched the shore of the new world, no sooner were they established in comparative power and security, than they fell upon the Quakers, who had followed them over the same sea, with the same hope; and scourged and banished them, and imprisoned them, and put some to death, for not believing as the new church taught in the new world. Such is the nature of man! The persecuted of to-day become the persecutors of to-morrow. They flourish, not because they are right, but because they are persecuted; and they persecute because they have the power, not because they whom they persecute are wrong.
The quakers died in their belief, and as the great always die—without a word or a tear; praying for the misguided people to their last breath, but prophecying heavy sorrow to them and to theirs—a sorrow without a name—a wo without a shape, to their whole race forever; with a mighty series of near and bitter affliction to the judges of the land, who while they were uttering the words of death to an aged woman of the Quakers, (Mary Dyer) were commanded with a loud voice to set their houses in order, to get ready the accounts of their stewardship, and to prepare with the priesthood of all the earth, to go before the Judge of the quick and the dead. It was the voice of Elizabeth Hutchinson, the dear and familiar friend of Mary Dyer. She spoke as one having authority from above, so that all who heard her were afraid—all! even the judges who were dealing out their judgment of death upon a fellow creature. And lo! after a few years, the daughter of the chief judge, before whom the prophecy had been uttered with such awful power, was tried for witchcraft and put to death for witchcraft on the very spot (so says the tradition of the people) where she stayed to scoff at Mary Dyer, who was on her way to the scaffold at the time, with her little withered hands locked upon her bosom ... her grey head lifted up ... not bowed in her unspeakable distress ... but lifted up, as if in prayer to something visible above, something whatever it was, the shadow of which fell upon the path and walked by the side of the aged martyr; something whatever it was, that moved like a spirit over the green smooth turf ... now at her elbow, now high up and afar off ... now in the blue, bright air; something whose holy guardianship was betrayed to the multitude by the devout slow motion of the eyes that were about to be extinguished forever.
Not long after the death of the daughter of the chiefjudge, another female was executed for witchcraft, and other stories of a similar nature were spread over the whole country, to prove that she too had gone out of her way to scoff at the poor quaker-woman. This occurred in 1655, only thirty-five years after the arrival of the Fathers in America. From this period, until 1691, there were but few trials for witchcraft among the Plymouth settlers, though the practice of the art was believed to be common throughout Europe as well as America, and a persuasion was rooted in the very hearts of the people, that the prophecy of the quakers and of Elizabeth Hutchinson would assuredly be accomplished.
Itwasaccomplished. A shadow fell upon the earth at noon-day. The waters grew dark as midnight. Every thing alive was quiet with fear—the trees, the birds, the cattle, the very hearts of men who were gathered together in the houses of the Lord, every where, throughout all the land, for worship and for mutual succor. It was indeed a “Dark Day”—a day never to be thought of by those who were alive at the time, nor by their children’s children, without fear. The shadow of the grave was abroad, with a voice like the voice of the grave. Earthquake, fire, and a furious bright storm followed; inundation, war and strife in the church. Stars fell in a shower, heavy cannon were heard in the deep of the wilderness, low music from the sea—trumpets, horses, armies, mustering for battle in the deep sea. Apparitions were met in the high way, people whom nobody knew, men of a most unearthly stature; evil spirits going abroad on the sabbath day. The print of huge feet and hoof-marks were continually discovered in the snow, in the white sand of the sea-shore—nay, in the solid rocks and along the steep side of high mountains,where no mortal hoof could go; and sometimes they could be traced from roof to roof on the house-tops, though the buildings were very far apart; and the shape of Elizabeth Hutchinson herself, was said to have appeared to a traveller, on the very spot where she and her large family, after being driven forth out of New-England by the power of the new church, were put to death by the savages. He that saw the shape knew it, and was afraid for the people; for the look of the woman was a look of wrath, and her speech a speech of power.
Elizabeth Hutchinson was one of the most extraordinary women of the age—haughty, ambitious and crafty; and when it was told every where through the Plymouth colony that she had appeared to one of the church that expelled her, they knew that she had come back, to be seen of the judges and elders, according to her oath, and were siezed with a deep fear. They knew that she had been able to draw away from their peculiar mode of worship, a tithe of their whole number when she was alive, and a setter forth, if not of strange gods, at least of strange doctrines: and who should say that her mischievous power had not been fearfully augmented by death?
Meanwhile the men of New Plymouth, and of Massachusetts Bay, had multiplied so that all the neighborhood was tributary to them, and they were able to send forth large bodies of their young men to war, six hundred, seven hundred, and a thousand at a time, year after year, to fight with Philip of Mount Hope, a royal barbarian, who had wit enough to make war as the great men of Europe would make war now, and to persuade the white people that the prophecy of the Quakers related to him. It is true enough that he made war likea savage—and who would not, if he were surrounded as Philip of Mount Hope was, by a foe whose hatred was a part of his religion, a part of his very blood and being? if his territory were ploughed up or laid waste by a superior foe? if the very wilderness about him were fired while it was the burial-place and sanctuary of his mighty fathers? if their form of worship were scouted, and every grave and every secret place of prayer laid open to the light, with all their treasures and all their mysteries? every temple not made with hands, every church built by the Builder of the Skies, invaded by such a foe and polluted with the rites of a new faith, or levelled without mercy—every church and every temple, whether of rock or wood, whether perpetual from the first, or planted as the churches and temples of the solitude are, with leave to perpetuate themselves forever, to renew their strength and beauty every year and to multiply themselves on every side forever and ever, in spite of deluge and fire, storm, strife and earthquake; every church and every temple whether roofed as the skies are, and floored as the mountains are, with great clouds and with huge rocks, or covered in with tree-branches and paved with fresh turf, lighted with stars and purified with high winds? Would not the man of Europe make war now like a savage, and without mercy, if he were beset by a foe—for such was the foe that Philip of Mount Hope had to contend with in the fierce pale men of Massachusetts Bay,—a foe that no weapon of his could reach, a foe coming up out of the sea with irresistible power, and with a new shape? What if armies were to spring up out of the solid earth before the man of Europe—it would not be more wonderful to him than it was to the man of America to see armies issuing from the deep. What if they were to approach in balloons—or in great ships of the air, armed all over as the foe ofthe poor savage appeared to be, when the ships of the water drew near, charged with thunder and with lightning, and with four-footed creatures, and with sudden death? Would the man of Europe make war in such a case according to what are now called the usages of war?
The struggle with this haughty savage was regarded for a time as the wo without a shape, to which the prophecy referred, the sorrow without a name; for it occupied the whole force of the country, long and long after the bow of the red-chief was broken forever, his people scattered from the face of the earth, and his royalty reduced to a shadow—a shadow it is true, but still the shadow of a king; for up to the last hour of his life, when he died as no king had ever the courage to die, he showed no sign of terror, betrayed no wish to conciliate the foe, and smote all that were near without mercy, whenever they talked of submission; though he had no hope left, no path for escape, and every shot of the enemy was fatal to some one of the few that stood near him. It was a war, which but for the accidental discovery of a league embracing all the chief tribes of the north, before they were able to muster their strength for the meditated blow, would have swept away the white men, literally to the four winds of heaven, and left that earth free which they had set up their dominion over by falsehood and by treachery. By and by however, just when the issue of that war was near, and the fright of the pale men over, just when the hearts of the church had begun to heave with a new hope, and the prophecy of wrath and sorrow was no longer to be heard in the market-place, and by the way-side, or wherever the people were gathered together for business or worship, with a look of awe and a subdued breath—just when it came to be no longer thought of nor cared for by thejudges and the elders, to whom week after week and year after year, it had been a familiar proverb of death (if bad news from the war had come over night, or news of trouble to the church, at home or abroad, in Europe or in America) they saw it suddenly and wholly accomplished before their faces—every word of it and every letter.
The shadow of the destroyer went by ... the type was no more. But lo! in the stead thereof, while every mother was happy, and every father in peace, and every child asleep in security, because the shadow and the typehadgone by—lo! the Destroyer himself appeared! The shadow of death gave way for the visage of death—filling every heart with terror, and every house with lamentation. The people cried out for fear, as with one voice. They prayed as with one prayer. They had no hope; for they saw the children of those who had offered outrage to the poor quaker-woman gathered up, on every side, from the rest of the people, and after a few days and a brief inquiry, afflicted in their turn with reproach and outcry, with misery, torture and cruel death;—and when they saw this, they thought of the speech of Elizabeth Hutchinson before the priesthood of the land, the judges and the people, when they drove her out from among them, because of her new faith, and left her to perish for it in the depth of a howling wilderness; her, and her babes, and her beautiful daughter, and her two or three brave disciples, away from hope and afar from succor;—and as they thought of this, they were filled anew with unspeakable dread: for Mary Dyer and Elizabeth Hutchinson, were they not familiar, and very dear friends? were they not sisters in life, and sisters in death? gifted alike with a spirit of sure prophecy, though of a different faith? and martyrs alike to the church?