When the dancing ceased, the personage who first engaged him came with a book for him to sign, and an ink horn containing something like blood. But the fiddler refused his name, and casting his eyes downward he saw that cloven foot which had been the terror of all New England for half a century, and in his distress he called upon God for help. At once a horrid hysteric laugh burst upon his ears, and then suddenly all was darkness, and he found himself in the crotch of a great pine tree, cold and comfortless, in a lonely plain, and the stars of midnight winking down upon him. He descended as well as he could, wandered about in the woods until morning light, and then found his way home; but he could never again find that pine tree that made the witch palace.
From that time forth the witches and demons had power over him and used him as they pleased. And Mather says “that whenever he was brought unto their hellish meetings, and showed any disobedience one of the first thing they did unto him was, to give him a knock on the back, whereupon he was ever as if bound with chains, incapable of stirring out of the place till they should release him.”
After this strange testimony was in, the court asked Martin what she had to say for herself. She replied that she had always led a virtuous and holy life, that she knew nothing of the crime whereof she was accused, and she protested against the proceedings and the evidence against her. Yet the jury soon returned a verdict of guilty, and the court pronounced sentence of death. On the following day Elizabeth Howe was tried. The evidence against her was very similar to that against Martin. She was of Ipswich, and first became noted as a witch by an abortive attempt to join the church in that place, which led to an investigation of her character, and brought out her witchcrafts. This woman it was thought had a burning witch bridle, which tortured any horse that wore it to efforts beyond its strength; it would also turn to a horse any man or beast on whom it was placed. Isaac Cammins swore that he had a very spirited mare, which he believed Howe used freely in her witch frolics. The mare grew sick and weak without apparent cause, and upon examination she seemed bruised and lamed as if rapidly ridden over rocks and rough places, and the marks of the burning witch bridle were visible upon her; nay, she was found so sulphurious that, the owner passing near her one night in the stable with his lantern, she took fire, and emitted a blue brimstone blaze, fine as a knitting needle, and which singed her own hair and endangered the barn. The beast died soon after in strange spasms. It further appeared by the confessing witches that Goody Howe was one of those who had been baptized by the devil at Newbury Falls, and before which baptism he made them all kneel down by the river’s brink and worship him.
Elizabeth Howe was indicted for witchcraft upon Mary Walcott and Mary Lewis; the jury returned her guilty and the court sentenced her to death.
At this same session were also tried Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Wilde, and found guilty.
On the 19th of July these five were executed. At the gallows Noyes urged Sarah Good to confess, and told her she was a witch and she knew it; to which she replied: “Sir, you are a liar; I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take my life God will give you blood to drink.”
Stoughton and his associates were now the terror and scourge of the country. On the fifth of August they sat at Salem. Six unresisting and helpless females they had already hung without law or crime; and whose terror-stricken kindred dare not raise even a murmur of discontent. Indeed so subdued appeared the public mind, that they now adventured upon the trial of the Rev. George Burroughs, the only gospel teacher ever hung for witchcraft in this or any other Christian country. He had formerly been the settled minister of Salem village, and now an avowed infidel in the current notions of witchcraft. The Rev. Mr. Lawson, also once a teacher in the same place, was more pliant, and wrote a book flattering to the afflicted and their managers; had Burrows followed his example he might have escaped hanging.
Warily indeed did the prosecutors cast their entanglements about this devoted man. We first see a fictitious witch sacrament, with appropriate deacons;—next a clergyman, black-haired, short and thick set, with the devil to administer. All knew that this aimed at Burroughs. Then eight confessing witches affirmed that so great was his fidelity and zeal, that he was to be a king in Satan’s kingdom about to be established in Massachusetts. They multiplied his indictments to four; for afflicting those four bloody impostors, Mary Walcott, Elizabeth Hobart, Mary Lewis and Ann Putnam. And he stood before a prejudiced court and jury without hope of justice, or even of compassion.
The afflicted began their evidence with fits and outcries. They said Burroughs bit them, and showed what they alleged were the prints of his teeth on their flesh; and Ann Putnam said that even now his spectre presented her the devil’s book, boasting that he was above the ordinary rank of witches. Again they were cast into convulsions and could not proceed. Stoughton asked Burroughs, who he thought hindered those witnesses from testifying. He replied, perhaps it was the devil. “How comes the devil,” said his Honor, “so loth to have any testimony borne against you?” A foul response, but in keeping with his general conduct.
One of the afflicted declared that she was once in a trance, and that Burroughs carried her into a very high mountain and showed her all the kingdoms of the earth, and said that he would give her all these, if she would write her name in his book. She did not bid him get behind her, but told him that the kingdoms were not his to give, and refused to sign. This was a girl of eleven years, how could she distinguish between a trance and a dream? Yet her story went as evidence into the case.