John Neal

“ A shadow was upon every visage of the twelve—the shadow of death; a look in the eyes of everybody there, a gravity and a paleness, which when the poor prisoner saw, she started up with a low cry—a cry of reproach—a cry of despair—and stood with her hands locked, and her mouth quivering, and her lips apart before God—lips white with fear, though not with the fear of death; and looked about her on every side, as if she had no longer a hope left—no hope from the jury, no hope from the multitude; nay as if while she had no longer a hope, she had no longer a desire to live. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In a word, whatever the philosophy of our age may say, I cannot look upon witchcraft and sorcery as the unbeliever does. I know enough what the fashion is now; but I cannot believe, I do not believe that we know much more of the matter than our great progenitors did; or that we are much wiser than a multitude who have been for ages, and are now, renowned for their wisdom; or that we are much more pious than our noble fathers were, who died in their belief—died for their belief, I should say, and are a proverb to this hour on account of their piety. ”

“ Away with her! why do you let her live! why permit her to profane the House of the Lord, where the righteous are now gathered together, as ye believe? why do ye spare the few that confess—would ye bribe them to live? Would ye teach them to swear away the lives and characters of all whom they are afraid of? and thus to preserve their own? Look there!—that is her child—her only child—the babe that you see there in the lap of that aged woman—she has no other hope in this world, nothing to love, nothing to care for but that babe, the man-child of her beauty. ”

“ Speak out like a man ... like a preacher of truth—what have I done?
What have you done, brother George—how do I know?
Matthew Paris ... are we never to meet again as we have met? never while we two breathe the breath of life?
I hope ... I do hope.... I am not less glad to see you than I should be; I do not mean to give you up, whatever others may do, but—but these are ticklish times brother, and just now (in a whisper) situated as we are, we cannot be too cautious. To tell you the truth ... ”

“ If they put me to death now—I do not wish to live—I am tired and sick of life, and I have been so ever since dear boy and his poor father—I told them how it would be if they went away when the moon was at the full—they were shipwrecked on the shore just underneath the window of my chamber—if they put me to death now, I shall die satisfied, for I shall not go to my grave now, as I thought I should before you came, without a word or a look of pity, nor any thing to make me comfortable. ”

“ Why do you, as all men of the law have done for ages and still do—why say over and over again every day of your lives, that it is the characteristic of the law, that law of which you are the expounders, to regard every man as innocent, until he be proved to be guilty? Why not say the truth? Why quibble with rhetoric? Why not say that where a man is charged with a crime, you are, in the very nature of things, under the necessity of taking that for proof which is not proof? Look you Sir—how came you by the coat you wear? ”

“ His abrupt appearance at the trial of Sarah Good, his behaviour, his look of premature age—that look whereof the people never spoke but with a whisper, as if they were afraid of being overheard—that extraordinary voice—that swarthy complexion—that bold haughty carriage—that wonderful power of words—what were they to believe? Where had he gathered so much wisdom? Where had he been to acquire that—whatever it was, with which he was able to overawe and outbrave and subdue everything and everybody? All hearts were in fear—all tongues mute before him. Death—even death he was not afraid of. ”

“ Very wise are you, and holy and fixed in your faith, or how could you have borne with the speech of that bold man, who appeared to you in court, and stood face to face before you, when you believed him to be afar off or lying at the bottom of the sea, and would not suffer you to take away the life even of such a poor unhappy old creature as I am, without reproving you as if he had authority from the Judge of judges and the King of kings to stay you in your faith! ”

“ We should remember that his faith after all, was the faith, not so much of the man, as of the age he lived in, the race he came of, and the life that he led. Hereafter, when posterity shall be occupied with our doings, they may wonder at our faith—perhaps at our credulity, as we now wonder at his.
But the babe grew, and a new hope flowered in his heart, for she was the very image of her mother; and there was her little cousin too, Bridget Pope, a child of singular beauty and very tall of her age—how could he be unhappy, when he heard their sweet voices ringing together? ”

“ If we do not believe those who go up to the altar and make oath before the Everlasting God, not as men do now, one after another, but nation by nation, to that which is very new to us, or wonderful, why should posterity believe us when we testify to that which hereafter may be very new to them or very wonderful? Is every day to be like every other day, every age like every other age in the Diary of the Universe? Earthquake, war and revolution—the overthrow of States and of empires, are they to be repeated forever, lest men should not believe the stories that are told of them? ”

“ Who is there alive to harm a cub of the Big Bear? I am your chief—who is there alive to harm the child of your chief? Behold my daughter!—who is there alive to strike her sagamore? Warriors—look at him—He is no longer a pale man—he is one of our tribe. He is no longer the scourge of the Iroquois. The beloved of our daughter—who is there alive to touch him in wrath?
Here all the warriors of the tribe and all the chief men of the tribe stood up; and but one of the whole drew his arrow to the head—the signal of warfare.
White man—brother, said the Big Bear. Behold these arrows! ”

“ 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 ”

“ Pray—pray—don’t interrupt me; you will be overheard—you will put me out.—In a word, ye Judges of Israel! I have had a notion that arbitrary power would betray itself in every case, and every-where on earth, by its mode of dealing with liberty and life—being, I persuade myself, more and more summary and careless, in proportion as it is more and more absolute of a truth, not as it is more and more absolute by character. You had for a time, while the northern savages were at your door, a downright military government.—You know therefore that my words are true. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Pawteeda should be wife to some warrior, who, when he goes forth to war, will strike every foe of his tribe, without asking, as I should, who is he—and what is he? As a white man, I will not war with white men. As the adopted of the red men ... with the blood of a red man boiling in my heart, as the captive and nursling of the brave Iroquois, I will not be the foe of a red man. ”

“ It is a law and a history of itself—to every people—and throughout all time—in literature and morals—in character and passion—yea—in what may be called the fire-side biography of nations. It would be, if rightly managed, a picture of the present for futurity—a picture of human nature, not only here but every where—a portrait of man—a history of the human heart—a book therefore, written not only in a universal, but in what may be considered as an everlasting language—the language of immortal, indistructable spirits. Such are the parables of Him who spoke that language best. ”

“ But we should find our way in the dark better.
Rachel made no reply, but she stood looking at her sister, with her lips apart and her head up, as if she were going to speak, till her eyes ran over, and then she fell upon her neck and wept aloud for a single moment, and then arose and, with a violent effort, broke away from Elizabeth, and hurried into their little bedroom, where she staid so long that Elizabeth followed her—and the preacher soon heard their voices and their sobs die away, and saw the linked shadows of both in prayer, projected along the white roof. ”

“ Leave the jury to me—what I have to say Sir, may provoke a smile, but if I do not much mistake, a smile for the advantage of poor Martha. We have been too serious ... we may do better by showing that we have no fear—if the lawgivers of that country are what I say they are—if the judges are what I say they are, and what I shall prove them to be—and if the people of that country are what I am afraid they are, under such law—why should we bow to its authority? ”

“ Every eye was riveted upon him, for he stood high upon a sort of stage, in full view of everybody, and face to face to all who had sworn to the spectre-knife, and his beauty was terrible.
Stand back, stand back ... what does that child do there? said another of the judges, pointing to a poor little creature with a pale anxious face and very black hair, who had crept close up to the side of Robert Eveleth, and sat there with her eyes lifted to his, and her sweet lips apart, as if she were holding her breath. ”

“ We may smile now to hear witchcraft spoken seriously of; but we forget perhaps that a belief in it is like a belief in the after appearance of the dead among the blue waters, the green graves, the still starry atmosphere and the great shadowy woods of our earth; or like the beautiful deep instinct of our nature for worship,—older than the skies, it may be, universal as thought, and sure as the steadfast hope of immortality. ”

“ 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. I will have it so.... I will have 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. ”

“ What right have we to say that witches and witchcraft are no more, that sorcery is done with forever, that miracles are never to be wrought again, or that Prophecy shall never be heard again by the people of God, uplifting her voice like a thousand echoes from the everlasting solitudes of the sea, or like uninterrupted heavy thunder breaking over the terrible and haughty nations of our earth? ”

“ You are afraid, I see—
Afraid of what? Man—man—it is you and your fellows that are afraid. Ye are men of a terrible faith—I am not.
You have only to say yes or no, said Judge Sewall.
What mockery! Ye that have buried them that were precious to you—very precious—
You are not obliged to answer that question, whispered the lawyer, who had been at his elbow during the trial of Martha Cory—nor any other—unless you like—
Ah—and are you of them that believe the story? ”

“ The negative witnesses are of our age and of our people; the affirmative were of another age and of another people. The former too, it should be remarked were not only not present, but they were not born—they were not alive, when the matters which they deny the truth of, took place—if they ever took place at all. Now, if oaths are to be answered by conjecture, bloodshed by a sneer, absolute martyrdom by hypothesis, much grave testimony of the great and the pious, by a speculative argument, a brief syllogism, or a joke—of what use are the rules by which our trust in what we hear is regulated? ”

“ Which is the greater sin—to die when you have it in your power to escape death, if you will, by a word? or to speak a word of untruth to save your life—
George Burroughs—I pray thee—suffer me to bid thee farewell.
No no, not yet. Hear me through—hear all I have to say. By this word of untruth, you save your own life, and perhaps many other lives. You punish the guilty. You have leisure to repent in this world of that very untruth—if such untruth be sinful. ”

“ As if it were a mark of deplorable fatuity for a babe to believe now as a multitude of wise and great and gifted men have heretofore believed in every age of the world! As if to think it possible for such to have been right in their belief, were too absurd for excuse now—such men as the holy Greek, the upright immovable Socrates, who persuaded himself that he was watched over by a sort of household spirit ”

“ Burroughs!—Mr. Burroughs!
Well—what’s the matter now?
Lord have mercy upon us! Lord have mercy upon us!
You’ll break your neck Job Hardy, if you’re not careful.
O Lord, O lord! what will become of my poor wife?
Ah, ha—now do you believe me?
Out broke the tremendous war-whoop of the Pequods, with peal after peal of musketry, and before the preacher could make himself heard in the uproar, two or three white men appeared afar off, running for their lives, and pursued by a score of savages. ”

“ But though he had been too ready to believe in such things, from his youth up, he had never been much afraid of them, till after he found himself widowed forever, as he drew near, arm in arm with an angel, to the very threshold of eternity; separated by death, in his old age, from a good and beautiful, and young wife, just when he had no other hope—no other joy—nothing but her and her sweet image, the babe, to care for underneath the sky. ”