When the morning came he went forth, and, mounting his horse, rode to the nearest magistrate, who was a deacon in his own church, and a man of iron domination. Samuel Parris knew well that after his appeal to this man, there could be little free will left to him.
No wonder then that he walked heavily, and paused long upon the door-step before entering. He shrunk from hunting down the life of a helpless woman, and shuddered at the thought of making a charge from which there was no chance of retreat.
The minister went in at last, and the door closed heavily after him. The sound of a muffled drum could not have followed his footsteps more solemnly.
After an hour the old man came forth again, and moved with a slow tread down the village street toward his own dwelling. As he passed the doors of his parishioners, men and women came out and questioned him in low tones, and with looks of awe, regarding the condition of his child. He answered them all patiently, but with a sad weariness of manner that turned curiosity into compassion.
On the threshold of his home Samuel Parris met three men, members of his own congregation, who greeted him in silence, as neighbors salute the chief mourners at a funeral. Then the four passed in, and mounted to the chamber where Elizabeth lay, with her wild eyes lifted to the ceiling, and her hands waving about in the air.
These four good men—for after the manner of the times they were good—sat down in silence, and each gathered from the lips of the delirious girl the evidence which was to imperil a human life. When they had listened an hour keenly and conscientiously, each according to his light, they arose and went forth, shaking Samuel Parris by the hand with touching solemnity.
The old minister saw his friends file away from the house, and bend their course toward that of the magistrate, and then he felt with a pang of unutterable sorrow that the fate of Barbara Stafford had passed out of his hands.
That day a posse of men, headed by a constable, armed with a warrant to arrest Barbara Stafford for witchcraft, passed through the village and into the forest, taking the track which the unhappy woman had pursued. The moss and forest sward was moist yet, and with the keen eyes of men accustomed to pursue an Indian trail they found traces of her progress—now a faint footprint—then a broken twig or a fragment of her garments. Thus step by step they pursued her, till at last the whole group stood upon a swell of land that overlooked the hollow in which the Indians had built that sylvan lodge. At the entrance a red shawl had been stretched, which was now folded back to let the daylight through, and in the warm shadow beyond they saw the object of their search sitting in dreary thought.
A single Indian lay upon the turf a little way off, guarding the lodge with a vigilance the more watchful because his companions had gone forth in search of food.
The posse of men held a whispered consultation. They understood the condition of things, and resolved to act promptly before help came.