Judge Lollimour: And when you refuse to sign?
Sorrow: Oh, she pinches and torments us, or lets her fiends and familiars torment us. They but do her bidding and I do not think are as wicked as she. Once she set my father’s great black bull Ahab upon us. He tramples us like to break our bones.
The mother interrupted to say, yes, this was true. The bull was a witch’s familiar beyond good doubt, and they but waited the finding of the Court before they butchered him.
Sorrow: Sometimes the witch shakes us cruelly.
Thumb: Sir, it is true. Those small and puny girls were so shaken two strong men could not hold them in their beds.
Judge Bride: What, young Thumb, is this girl, even though proved a witch, so strong, she can best two strong men—how think you?
Thumb: Sir, I think the Devil helps her and he gives her strength.
Judge Bride: You who were once her lover—you should know her strength. Was she then so brawny-strong those times you bundled her?
Titus was confused. He believed the Court to be against him. The congregation was angry, for bundling is a pleasantry for yokels, and no more likely to occur in Salem than in Boston, nor in the Thumb house than in the house of Bride or Lollimour. It was felt the Judge intended an insult. Some feared the magistrates might dismiss the whole case but from caprice. But Judge Bride was a godly man, who would not lift his nose from a scent until Justice herself was satisfied, although those who knew him best said he often seemed to pause and idly bay the moon.
Thumb: I never got such favour from her.