"Plenty of them, people are beginning to find out that the best way to protect themselves is to sham being 'afflicted,' and accuse somebody else."
"I saw that a good while ago."
"And when a girl or a woman is accused, her relatives and her friends gather around her, and implore her to confess, to save her life. For they have found that not one person who has been accused of being a witch, and has admitted the fact, has been convicted.
"And yet it would seem that a confession of witchcraft ought to be a better proof of it, than the mere assertion of possible enemies," responded Master Raymond.
"Of course—if there was any show of reason or fairness in the prosecutions, from first to last; but as it is all sheer malice and wickedness, on the part of the accusers, from the beginning to the end, it would be vain to expect any reasonableness or fairness from them."
"We must admit, however, that there is some delusion in it. It would be too uncharitable to believe otherwise," said Master Raymond thoughtfully.
"There may have been at the very first—on the part of the children," replied Master Putnam. "They might have supposed that Tituba and friendless Sarah Good tormented them—but since then, there has not been more than one part of delusion to twenty parts of wickedness. Why, can any sane man suppose that she-wolf sister-in-law of mine does not know she is lying, when she brings such horrible charges against the best men and women in Salem?"
"No, I give up Mistress Ann, she is possessed by a lying devil," admitted Master Raymond.
"It is well she does not hear that speech," said Joseph Putnam.
"Why?"