CHAPTER XI.
The chief judge would not reply—could not perhaps, till after he and his brothers had prayed together; and when he did speak, he spoke with a subdued voice, like one troubled with fear.
Gentlemen of the jury, said he; I have but a few words to urge in reply.
1. You have been told that one should be a witch to prove that she is not guilty of witchcraft. I admire the ingenuity of the speaker; but my answer is, that by the same rule, a man should be a wizard to prove that he is not a manslayer—he beingproveda manslayer. And yet,beingproved a manslayer, we put him to death. So here—being proved a witch, if you are satisfied by the proof, we put the prisoner to death, even though it would require the exertion of diabolical power to overthrow the proof.
2. You are told by one speaker that we are prone to believe in the marvellous; and that, therefore, when a marvellous thing is related, we ought to be on our guard against that proneness to belief, and require more proof. Now it appears to me that if we are prone to a belief in the marvellous, instead of requiring more proof to witchcraft, we should require less. For why require much, if less will do?
3. But by another, it has been said that we arenotprone to belief in the marvellous; that on the contrary, so prone are we to disbelieve in what may appear marvellous,that proof, which we would be satisfied with in the ordinary affairs of life, we should pay no regard to, if it were adduced in favor of what we consider preternatural; and that therefore in the case you are now to try, you should require more proof than you would in support of a charge not marvellous. To which we reply—that where you have the same number of witnesses, of the same character, in support of a marvellous charge, youactually have more proof, than you would have in the like testimony of the same witnesses, to a charge not marvellous. And why?—Because by the supposition of the speaker, as they are prone to adisbeliefin the marvellous,theywould have required much proof, and would not have been persuaded to believe what they testify to, but upon irresistable proof—more proof than would have satisfied them in the ordinary affairs of life.
4. It has been said moreover—that the greater the crime charged, the more incredible it is; that great crimes are perpetrated less frequently than small ones; and that, therefore, more proof should be required of parricide than of theft. Our reply to which is, that if a witness declare to a parricide on oath,you have more proofthan you would have to a theft sworn to by the very same witness; that, if the greater the crime, the less credible it is, you are bound to attach more value to his testimony where he testifies to parricide than where he testifies to theft. And why?—Because, the greater the crime charged, the greater the crime of the witness if he charge falsely; and therefore the less likely is it, by the supposition, that he does charge falsely.
But here I would have you observe that proof is proof, and that after all, the proof which at law or otherwise would be enough to establish one charge, would be enough to establish any other. In every case you are tobe satisfied—you are to believe: and in the case now before you, perhaps it may be well for you to look upon the two improbabilities which I have now spoken of, as neutralizing each other. If witchcraft is incredible—it is incredible also that one should falsely charge another with witchcraft.
5. It has been said too that the witnesses contradict each other. Be it so. I confess that I see no such contradiction—but if I did, I might be called upon to say that perjured witnesses are remarkable for the plausibility and straight-forwardness of their stories; and that such plausibility and straight-forwardness are now regarded, like unanimity, as a sign of bad-faith by judges of experience. You are to be told moreover, that where slight contradictions appear in what may be said by several witnesses to the same fact, such contradictions are a sign of good-faith—showing that no preconcerted story has been told. I might refer, and I may venture to do so perhaps, in a matter of such awful moment, to the gospels in proof. It is a mighty argument for their truth my friends, that no two of them perfectly agree—no two of the whole as they could have agreed, if, as there have been people wicked enough to say (though not to believe) they had been prepared for deception by a body of conspirators——
Brother—brother—put off thy shoes ... the ground is holy—said Governor Phips.
I have.... I have—
The people groaned aloud.
——If you were called upon, each of you, five years from to-day, to give a particular account of what you now see and hear, and if each of you depended upon himself, your stories would be unlike; but if you consulted together, your stories would be sure to approximate. So much for this head.
6. I have gone so far as to say that proof is proof, whatever may be the case; but I do not say that you are to require at any time, in any case, more proof than the nature of the case will admit of. In other words, you are not to insist upon the same sort and degree of proof in every case. You are to be satisfied with such proof as you can get—if you suppose that none better is left behind. So says the law—
Nonsense—for if that rule is good, you might prove any-thing—byany thing, said Burroughs.
Be quiet Sir ... few people see spectres; and witches will do their mischief, not in the light of day, and before a multitude, but afar and apart from all but their associates. You are to be satisfied with less proof therefore in such a case, than it would be proper and reasonable for you to require in a case of property—
And if so—why not in murder? ... murders being perpetrated afar and apart from the world—
Peace I bid you.... Having—
How dare you!
—Having disposed of what has been urged respecting the proof, gentlemen of the jury, I should now leave the case with you, but for a remark which fell from a neighbour a few minutes ago. Doctor Mather will now touch upon what I would gladly pass over—the growth and origin of the evil wherewith we are afflicted.
Here a man of majestic presence of about fifty years of age arose, and laying aside his hat, and smoothing away a large quantity of thick glossy hair, which parting on his forehead, fell in a rich heavy mass upon his broad shoulders, prayed the jury and his brethren of the church to bear with him for a few moments; he should try to be very brief. Brother George—he did not question his motive he said, but brother George Burroughs would have you believe that witches and wizardsare no longer permitted upon our earth; and that sorcery, witchcraft, and spells are done with.
Whereto I reply.... First—that there has been hitherto throughout all ages and among every people, and is now a general, if not a universal, belief in witchcraft and so forth. Now if such universality of belief respecting the appearance of departed souls after death, has been, as it certainly has, a great argument for the immortality of the soul with such as never heard of the Scriptures of Truth, I would ask why a like universality of belief respecting witchcraft and sorcery should be thought of no value, as an argument? Every where the multitude believe in witchcraft or in that which is of a piece with it. Spirits and fairies, goblins and wizards, prophets and witches, astrologers and soothsayers are found mixed up with the traditionary love and the religious faith of every people on earth, savage and civilized—(so far as we know, I should say);—with that of people who inhabit the isles of the sea, afar and apart from each other and from all the rest of the world. I speak advisedly. They believe in spirits, and they believe in a future state—in sorcery and immortality. The wild Irish have what they call their banshees, and the Scotch their second-sight, and the French their loup-garoux, or men turned into wolves—and so also have the Irish; and a part of our jocular superstition is the posterity of that which existed among the terrible Goths. Maria—a word that we hear from the lips of the idle and profane, before they have got reconciled to the wholesome severity of our law, was in old Runic a goblin that seized upon the sleeper and took away all power of motion. Old Nicka too—he that we are in the habit of alluding to, in a grave way, as Old Nick, was a spright who used to strangle such as fell into the water. Bo—was a fierce Gothic captain, the warlike son ofOdin, whose name was made use of in battle to scare a surprised enemy. Every where indeed, and with every people, earth sea and air have been crowded with specters, and the overpeopled sky with mighty shadows—I do not know a——
Here the great black horse which Burroughs had left underneath a tree, trotted up to the very door, and stood still, with the reigns afloat upon his neck, and thrust his head in over the heads of the people, who gave way on every side, as he struck his iron hoofs on the step, and for a second or two there was a dead quiet over the whole house. The speaker stopped and appeared astonished, for the eyes of the animal in the strong light of the torches, were like two balls of fire, and his loose mane was blowing forward in the draught of the door, so as actually to sound aloud.
Why do you stop—what are you afraid of, Doctor Mather? Not afraid of old Pompey are you?
Hadn’t you better tie him up? asked a judge.
No—I have something else to do, but I desire that somebody at the door will. But nobody would go near the creature.
—History abounds with proof, I say, respecting witchcraft and sorcery, witches and wizards, magic, spells and wicked power. If we put all trust in the records of history for one purpose, why not for another? If a witness is worthy of belief in one thing—why is he not another? If we find no treachery nor falsehood in a writer; if we meet with nothing but confirmation of what he says, when we refer to other writers of the same people and age, why disbelieve him when he speaks of that which, being new to our experience, we cannot be able to judge of? Able and pious men should be trusted, whatever they may say, so long as they are not contradicted by other able and pious men—
We are to believe not only in witches then, but in fairies and loups-garoux—
Be quiet Sir—
Softly judge.... And we are to believe that he who in the course of a tale about the ordinary affairs of ordinary life—
Have done Sir.
—Testifies to a miracle, should be credited as much for what he says of the miracle as for the rest of the—
Be quiet Sir.
—As for the rest of the tale.... You cannot escape me brother—
Will you be quiet Sir?
No.
—The Bible is crowded with proof, continued the Doctor. Sooth-sayers and sorcerers, interpreters of dreams, false-prophets, and a witch with power to make the grave and the sea give up their dead; men whose little rods became live serpents while they strove with Aaron the High-priest, multitudes who were clothed with a mischievous power ... all these are spoken of in the Bible.
It has been said here that credulity is a sign of ignorance. It may be so, my dear friends—but you must know as well as I do, that incredulity is everywhere found among the ignorant. Able men believe much,becausethey are able men. The weak disbelieve much because they are weak. Who are they that laugh when they hear that our earth is a globe, and that once in every twenty-four hours, it turns completely round underneath our feet—
Much whispering here, and a look of surprise on every side of the speaker, encouraged him to a more emphatic delivery.
Who are they that refuse to believe much that thelearned and the wise, fortified in their wisdom by the beauty of holiness, and the gravity of age, are steadfastly assured of? The truth is that extraordinary minds have a courage that ordinary minds have not—for they dare to believe what may expose them to ridicule. The longer we live and the more we know, the more assured we are that impossible things are possible—
To be sure Doctor, said a judge.
—That nothing is impossible therefore.... Now, my friends of the jury—it appears to me that if witchcrafthadbeen a common thing with every people, and in all ages, we could not possibly have had more evidence of it, than we have now. We have the records of History, sacred as well as profane. We have a great body of laws, made year after year, among the most enlightened people that ever inhabited the earth, about conjurations, spells and witchcraft, and this, in all parts of the globe and especially in the land of our Fathers; judgment of death, day after day, and year after year, under that law; confessions without number by people charged with sorcery and witchcraft, not only in various parts of England, but by our very fire-sides and at our very doors. Added to all this, we have the universal faith of which I spoke, and altogether, a body of proof, which if it be false—would be more wonderful than witchcraft is——
True ... true ... fearfully and wonderfully true, brother.
—But if such thingsareelsewhere why may they not be here? If they have been heretofore, why may they not be now, and forever? We do not know, worms that we are, how the Lord God of Heaven and earth operates in His pavillion of thick darkness—we do not know whether he will or will not work in a given way. We only know that he may do whatever he will ... thatfor Him there is no such law as the law of nature. And if so, why may not witches be employed as the wicked are, as great warriors are, for scourging the nations of our earth, and for the glory of our Father above.—Let us pray.
Prayer followed, and after the prayer, the multitude sung a psalm together, and the jury withdrew.
They were not gone long, and when they came back there was but just light enough to see their faces. Not a breath could be heard ... not a whisper—and the foreman stood up and was about to speak in the name of the twelve, when Burroughs, who could bear it no longer, leaped upon his feet, and turned to the jury with tenfold power, and gasping for breath, called upon each man by name, as he hoped for mercy hereafter, to speak for himself.
Brother Burroughs!
Brother Moody—
Be quiet Master Burroughs.
I will not be quiet, Master Judge—
Officer!
I will not be quiet I say! And hereafter you will remember my words, and if they prevail with you, men of Massachusetts-Bay, ye will be ready to cry out for joy that I was not brow-beaten by your looks; nor scared by your threats—
Have done Sir.—Do your duty Master High-Sheriff.
—Begone Sir. Touch me if you dare.—You see this staff.—You know something of me and of my ways.—Touch me if you dare. What I have to say shall be said, though I die for it. By our Sovereign Lord and Master and Mary his Queen, I charge you to hear me! You are shedding the blood of the innocent! You are driving away the good and the brave by scores from the land! You are saying to people of no courage, as tothat poor woman there—as I live she is fast asleep—asleep! ... while that grey-headed man who stoops over her is about to pronounce the judgment of death upon her—
Wake the prisoner ... what, ho, there! cried the chief judge.
The officer went up to poor Martha and shook her; but she did not appear to know where she was, and fell asleep again with her little withered hands crossed in her lap.
You are saying to her and such as her.... Confess and you are safe. Deny, and you perish—
To the point Mr. Burroughs.... We are tired of this; we have put up with enough to-day—
I will. I demand of you judges that you call upon every man there in that box to say, each man for himself, whether it be his opinion that Martha Cory should suffer death. Iwillhave it so.... Iwillhave it on record—I will not permit a man of the twelve in such a case to hide himself under the cloak of the majority—
It cannot be master Burroughs—it cannot be—such a thing was never heard of ... gentlemen of the jury, look upon the prisoner.
Hear me but a word more! I see death in the very eyes of the jury—I see that we have no hope. Hear me nevertheless ... hear me for a minute or two, and I will go away from you forever—
Let us hear him, said another judge.
I proved to you the other day that an accuser had perjured herself in this court, before your faces, ye mighty and grave men. What was my reward? You gave judgment of death on the accused—You let the accuser go free—I see that accuser now. What will be said of your justice at home, if you permit her toescape? Will the judges of England forget you? or the majesty of England forgive you?—
The horse at the door began to grow impatient—snorting and striking with his feet.
—Ye know that the knife was a forgery; and the sheet which has made so much talk here, why even that was a——
He stopped short, and looking at a female who sat near him, appeared to lose himself entirely, and forget what he was going to say.
Well Sir——
Excuse me ... I ... I ... excuse me ... although I have no doubt of the fact, although as I hope to see the face of my Redeemer, I do believe the story of the sheet and the story of the spindle, to be of a piece with the story of the knife; a trick and a forgery, yet—yet—
Here he made a sign to the female, as if to encourage her.
—Yet I dare not saynow, I dare not sayhere, on what my belief is founded. But hear me ... they talk of teeth and of whole sets of teeth being discoverable by the prints which appear in their flesh. How does it happen I pray you that all these marks turn out to be on parts of the body which might be bitten by the afflicted themselves? And how does it happen, I pray you, that instead of corresponding teeth, or sets of teeth being found in the accused, ye have repeatedly found her as now, without a tooth in her head? Nay ... how does it happen that Abigail Paris and Bridget Pope, who are indeed sufferers by a strange malady, babes that are innocent as the dove, I am sure ... God forbid that I should lay the mischief at their door—
Seven and seven pence—muttered the man, who kept an account of the oaths.
——How does it happen I say, that of all the accusersthey and they alone have escaped the mark of the teeth? How! ... because they alone speak the truth; because they are the deceived ... we know not how, judges, but in a fearful way. They are deceived ... poor children, but they do not seek to deceive others. Nor do they lie in wait for a——
He was interrupted by a loud furious neigh, so loud and so furious from the great black stallion at the door, that Martha awoke and started up with a scream that thrilled the very blood of the judges, and made the people hurry away from the bar.
Burroughs now saw that he had no hope, and that in a moment the poor soul before him would bear the sentence of death. He caught up his iron-shod staff, and breaking through the crowd which recoiled from his path as if he were something whose touch would be fatal to life, sprang upon the back of the horse, and gallopped away toward the sea-shore.
No language on earth, no power on earth can describe the scene that followed his departure, the confusion, the outcry, the terror of the people who saw the fire fly from his rocky path, and heard leap after leap of the charger bounding toward the precipice; nor the fright of the judges; nor the pitiable distress and perplexity of the poor childish woman, when she was made fully to understand, after the tumult was over and the dread clamor and fire-flashing had passed away, and everything was quiet as the grave—nothing to be heard but a heavy trample afar off and the dull roar of the sea—that she must be prepared for death.
She could not believe it ... she would not believe it—she did not ... such was her perfect simplicity, till the chief judge came to her and assured her with tears in his eyes, over and over again, that it must be so.
Ah me! said poor Martha, looking out toward the quarter of the sky where the horseman had so hastily disappeared, and where she had seen the last of the fire-light struck from his path; Ah me, bending her head to listen, and holding up her finger as if she could hear him on his way back. Ah me!—ah me ... and that was all she said in reply to her judges, and all she said when they drove her up to the place of her death, decked out in all her tattered finery, as if it were not so much for the grave, as for a bridal that she was prepared.
Ah me! said poor Martha when they put the rope about her neck.... Ah me!—and she died while she was playing with her little withered fingers, and blowing the loose grey hair from about her mouth as it strayed away from her tawdry cap ... saying over the words of a child in the voice of a child, Ah me—ah me—with her last breath—
God forgive her judges!