Inside and out, the meeting-house was beset with a breathless throng. The windows were open, though the air was sharp and full of frost, that the curious crowd, which trampled down the snow without, might get a glimpse of that pale face. The forest, out of whose bosom the city of Boston had been cut, swept down close to the building, and the crowd extended into its margin. It was observed that a few Indians mingled with the people in this direction, and that others were occasionally seen moving among the naked trees farther up the woods, where a hemlock hollow broke off the view.
When the trial commenced, and the prosecuting attorney was about to open his case, drawing all eyes to the meeting-house and the proceedings within, a train of savages came gliding out of these hemlock shadows, and mingling imperceptibly with the crowd, through which they moved like a brook stirring the long grass of a meadow.
It was a common thing for friendly Indians to mix in such crowds, and no one observed that a sort of military precision marked the movement of these seemingly friendly savages, even while penetrating the multitude, and that they dropped into line, after entering the meeting-house, forming a cordon from the platform, on which the judges sat, to the front entrance doors.
Had these savages been in full costume, their number might have seemed formidable enough to excite some anxiety; but they wore no war-paint, and came after the fashion of a friendly nation, with blankets to keep them from the cold, and a movement so quiet that their very presence gave little apprehension.
At their head, and walking so far in advance that no one but a keen observer would have guessed him of the party, came a young man, handsomely garbed after the fashion of the times, as a person of condition might be, and with a certain air of self-centred ease that would have distinguished him in any place where the general attention was not fixed on one point.
He was a young man of wonderful presence, dark like a Spaniard, with quick, brilliant eyes, and features finely chiselled, bold in the outline, and yet delicate. His mouth had a beautiful power of expression, and his forehead was like dusky marble, cut when the artist was thinking of war and tempest. This man had made his way close up to the platform, where the judges were seated, and listened with keen attention to the proceedings.
The prosecuting counsel opened his case with great vigor and eloquence. Then witnesses for the crown were called, and Samuel Parris stood forth. The old man was agitated, but firm in his sense of right. It was seldom that a witness of so much dignity appeared upon a trial like that, for usually the accusers, like their victims, were persons of low position and small attainments. Here the wisdom and piety of the crowd rose up in array against one helpless woman.
Samuel Parris required no questioning. He told his story with brief earnestness, unconsciously drawing conclusions from the facts he related, fatal to the prisoner, but with a solemn conviction of their truth.
"Did he recognize the prisoner at the bar?" he was asked. "Yes, he had known her some months; it had seemed to him from the first that she must have been familiar to him years ago. That was doubtless one of her delusions; but the feeling had led him to think of her with friendly interest, and extend hospitalities which had conducted him and his family into a deadly snare."
"Where had he seen her first?"