Barbara would have said more, but at the sound of her voice Elizabeth began to writhe and moan in her chair, till the sound of her anguish drove the old man wild.
"Oh, my God! my God! why hast thou forsaken this household!" he cried, while his quivering hands dropped apart and fell downward, and his deploring eyes turned upon his child.
"Oh, woman, are you not potent to redeem as well as to inflict? Is your power all evil?"
"I have no power save that which belongs to a weak woman," replied Barbara; "but if you can unbind my hands, I will strive to soothe the poor child."
"Unbind her hands," said the magistrate, who had not spoken till then. "Let the spirit within have full sway. Heaven forbid that we judge without sure evidence. Constable, set her limbs free!"
The constable unknotted the red shawl from Barbara's shoulders, and loosened the thongs that tied her wrists together. A broad purple mark was left on the delicate skin, and her fair hands were swollen with pain. She drew a deep breath, for the sense of relief was pleasant; and moving gently across the floor, she laid her two hands on Elizabeth's forehead.
Up to this moment the girl had moaned and writhed as with overwhelming pain, but as the hands of Barbara Stafford fell upon her forehead and rested there, the tension left her nerves, and with a sigh she sank back in the chair. Barbara smiled, passing her hands softly down the now pale cheek, till they rested for a moment on the muslin that covered Elizabeth's bosom. She again lifted them to the drooping forehead, and let them glide to the bosom again, leaving quiet with each gentle touch.
At last Elizabeth Parris turned her head drowsily, and the lids fell over her eyes like white rose-leaves folding themselves to sleep, and with what seemed a blissful shudder, she resigned herself to perfect rest. Then Barbara looked at her accusers with a sad smile, and took her seat by the window, little dreaming that the holy impulses of pity that had just soothed the pain of a fellow-creature would be the most fatal evidence offered at her trial.
"Take her away—take the woman hence!" cried the magistrate, rising up, hardened in all his iron nature. "The devil, her master, has for once betrayed her into what might seem an angel's work, but it proves more than an angel's power—away with her!"
In his supreme ignorance, this magistrate of the seventeenth century followed the example of the rabble that hunted our Saviour to death. Surely the world had progressed but slowly in its soul knowledge since that awful day of the crucifixion.