Rachel Dyer

by John Neal

Speak softly to Bridget Pope at such a time, or look at her with a look of love, and her quiet eyes would fill, and her childish heart would run over—it would be impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to her, when her head was at the little window, and her thoughts were away, nobody knew where, the poor little thing would grow pale and serious, and look at you with such a look of sorrow—and then go away and do what she was bid with a gravity that would go to your heart. And it would require a whole day after such a rebuke to restore the dye of her sweet lips, or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have appeared. At every sound of your voice, at every step that came near, she would catch her breath, and start and look up, as if she expected something dreadful to happen.

But as for Abigail Paris, the pretty little blue-eyed cousin of Bridget Pope, there was no dealing with her in that way. If you shook your finger at her, she would laugh in your face; and if you did it with a grave air, ten to one but she made you laugh too. If you scolded her, she would scold you in return but always in such a way that you could not possibly be angry with her; she would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the toss of your head, or the very curb of your mouth perhaps, while you were trying to terrify her. The little wretch!—everybody was tired to death of her in half an hour, and yet everybody was glad to see her again. Such was Abigail Paris, before Bridget Pope came to live in the house with her, but in the course of about half a year after that, she was so altered that her very play-fellows twitted her with being “afeard o’ Bridgee Pope.” She began to be tidy in her dress, to comb her bright hair, to speak low, to keep her shoes on her feet, and her stockings from about her heels, and before a twelvemonth was over, she left off wading in the snow, and grew very fond of her book.

They were always together now, creeping about under the old beach-trees, or hunting for hazle nuts, or searching for sun-baked apples in the short thick grass, or feeding the fish in the smooth clear sea—Bridget poring over a story that she had picked up, nobody knows where, and Abigail, whatever the story might be, and although the water might stand in her eyes at the time, always ready for a roll in the wet grass, a dip in the salt wave, or a slide from the very top of the haymow. They rambled about in the great woods together on tip-toe, holding their breath and saying their prayers at every step; they lay down together and slept together on the very track of the wolf, or the she-bear; and if they heard a noise afar off, a howl or a war-whoop, they crept in among the flowers of the solitary spot and were safe, or hid themselves in the shadow of trees that were spread out over the whole sky, or of shrubbery that appeared to cover the whole earth—

Where the wild grape hangs dropping in the shade,

O’er unfledged minstrels that beneath are laid;

Where the scarlet barberry glittered among the sharp green leaves like threaded bunches of coral,—where at every step the more brilliant ivory-plumbs or clustered bunch-berries rattled among the withered herbage and rolled about their feet like a handful of beads,—where they delighted to go even while they were afraid to speak above a whisper, and kept fast hold of each other’s hands, every step of the way. Such was their love, such their companionship, such their behaviour while oppressed with fear. They were never apart for a day, till the time of our story; they were together all day and all night, going to sleep together and waking up together, feeding out of the same cup, and sleeping in the same bed, year after year.

But just when the preacher was ready to believe that his Father above had not altogether deserted him—for he was ready to cry out with joy whenever he looked upon these dear children; they were so good and so beautiful, and they loved each other so entirely; just when there appeared to be no evil in his path, no shadow in his way to the grave, a most alarming change took place in their behavior to each other. He tried to find out the cause, but they avoided all inquiry. He talked with them together, he talked with them apart, he tried every means in his power to know the truth, but all to no purpose. They were afraid of each other, and that was all that either would say. Both were full of mischief and appeared to be possessed with a new temper. They were noisy and spiteful toward each other, and toward every body else. They were continually hiding away from each other in holes and corners, and if they were pursued and plucked forth to the light, they were always found occupied with mischief above their age. Instead of playing together as they were wont, or sitting together in peace, they would creep away under the tables and chairs and beds, and behave as if they were hunted by something which nobody else could see; and they would lie there by the hour, snapping and snarling at each other, and at everybody that passed near. They had no longer the look of health, or of childhood, or of innocence. They were meagre and pale, and their eyes were fiery, and their fingers were skinny and sharp, and they delighted in devilish tricks and in outcries yet more devilish. They would play by themselves in the dead of the night, and shriek with a preternatural voice, and wake everybody with strange laughter—a sort of smothered giggle, which would appear to issue from the garret, or from the top of the house, while they were asleep, or pretending to be dead asleep in the great room below. They would break out all over in a fine sweat like the dew on a rose bush, and fall down as if they were struck to the heart with a knife, while they were on the way to meeting or school, or when the elders of the church were talking to them and every eye was fixed on their faces with pity or terror. They would grow pale as death in a moment, and seem to hear voices in the wind, and shake as with an ague while standing before a great fire, and look about on every side with such a piteous look for children, whenever it thundered or lightened, or whenever the sea roared, that the eyes of all who saw them would fill with tears. They would creep away backwards from each other on their hands and feet, or hide their faces in the lap of the female Indian Tituba, and if the preacher spoke to them, they would fall into a stupor, and awake with fearful cries and appear instantly covered all over with marks and spots like those which are left by pinching or bruising the flesh. They would be struck dumb while repeating the Lord’s prayer, and all their features would be distorted with a savage and hateful expression.

The heads of the church were now called together, and a day of general fasting, humiliation and prayer was appointed, and after that, the best medical men of the whole country were consulted, the pious and the gifted, the interpreters of dreams, the soothsayers, and the prophets of the Lord, every man of power, and every woman of power,—but no relief was had, no cure, no hope of cure.

Matthew Paris now began to be afraid of his own child. She was no longer the hope of his heart, the joy his old age, the live miniature of his buried wife. She was an evil thing—she was what he had no courage to think of, as he covered his old face and tore his white hair with a grief that would not be rebuked nor appeased. A new fear fell upon him, and his knees smote together, and the hair of his flesh rose, and he saw a spirit, and the spirit said to him look! And he looked, and lo! the truth appeared to him; for he saw neighbour after neighbour flying from his path, and all the heads of the church keeping aloof and whispering together in a low voice. Then knew he that Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris were bewitched.

A week passed over, a whole week, and every day and every hour they grew worse and worse, and the solitude in which he lived, more dreadful to him; but just when there appeared to be no hope left, no chance for escape, just when he and the few that were still courageous enough to speak with him, were beginning to despair, and to wish for the speedy death of the little sufferers, dear as they had been but a few weeks before to everybody that knew them, a discovery was made which threw the whole country into a new paroxysm of terror. The savages who had been for a great while in the habit of going to the house of the preacher to eat and sleep “without money and without price,” were now seen to keep aloof and to be more than usually grave; and yet when they were told of the children’s behaviour, they showed no sort of surprise, but shook their heads with a smile, and went their way, very much as if they were prepared for it.