CHAPTER VIII.
In a note at the end of Chapter V. of “Waverley,” Sir Walter Scott remarks:—“These introductory chapters have been a good deal censured as tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances recorded in them which the author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or cancel.” So if, in giving certain loose hints rather than sketches of characters and manners in a very interesting town, ardently beloved by all who have ever had any near connection with it, during a former generation of its inhabitants, I should be thought to have set down too many “unconsidered trifles,” I can only shelter myself under the shadow of his great name, and plead that I had not the heart to leave them out, as they occurred to my memory while writing; and however 160 they may lack, as they necessarily must, the storied value of Sir Walter’s fascinating fictions, they have at least this merit,—that every narrative and anecdote in these pages is a veritable fact.
I should not wonder, however, if a couple of stories or so, which I am about to relate, were looked upon as purely fictitious by the philosophical reader. I do not pretend that the facts stated were within my own experience, only that I positively heard them related by persons of the strictest veracity, who were actual observers or actors in the transactions of which they professed to give an account. People ridicule, nowadays, when in company, the superstitions of earlier times; though it is not unlikely that the nerves of some of the boldest contemners of marvellous manifestations, once universally accepted as true, might still tremble, if alone and under circumstances calculated to awaken apprehension and to puzzle the understanding. Notwithstanding 161 the accepted theory, that the very pretence of witchcraft, for example, was exploded a hundred and fifty years ago, and the idea of an apparition, in spite of Dr. Johnson’s belief, and that of others as wise and stout as he, would be scouted as preposterous in cultivated circles, I believe that there are many places in New England where undoubting faith in both superstitions still prevails, and I know that within a third part of the period above mentioned, very many creditable persons in a certain place in New England accepted the strangest occurrences of both kinds, upon the supposed evidence of their sober senses.
We will imagine, then, that we are sitting in a circle around the fire-place in Uncle Richard’s spacious kitchen, on the evening of Christmas-day, the room lighted only by the blazing logs upon the hearth, the glow of which glanced along the walls and drew brilliant reflections from the brightly-scoured 162 dishes and other utensils of metal, which stood ranged upon the shelves. We were quite a party, and had made merry, according to our fashion, during the day. Uncle Richard was himself the most conspicuous of the group. I have said that he was well-to-do, and he was certainly a gentleman in spirit and bearing. The black dress which he assumed on Sundays, and other occasions of public importance, set off his figure well, and his white hair gathered into a pig-tail behind and tied up with a ribbon by some one of his daughters, of a morning, gave him a venerable appearance, at least in the eyes of us youngsters, beyond what the actual number of his years warranted. For I have observed that those who may have seemed to us approaching the verge of old age, in our youth, begin to look almost like coevals again, as we ourselves have advanced in the stage of manhood. Aunt Judith, on the other hand, who was a maiden lady 163 of a certain age, was dressed with all the care and neatness which somewhat scanty means enabled her to apply, and, as I am about to produce her as a witness, I feel it incumbent upon me to asseverate, that, being a devoutly religious woman, I have never met in my life with a more conscientious and scrupulously truth-telling person. After tea, my uncle had requested the young people present to sing a new Christmas Hymn, not to be found in the Prayer Book, but the production of a devout poetical acquaintance, in the performance of which he joined with a bass voice of singular compass and melody.
The conversation, at such times, is very apt to run into story-telling, among those who have any stores of memory, or are possessed of inventive faculties, and often turns upon such inexplicable incidents as might well bewilder the imaginations of 165 simple country folks. My uncle gave us an account of a lad not long before in his employ, who laughed at the idea of supernatural appearances, and was indeed afraid of nothing. “The young scamp,” said he, “though I don’t know why I should call him so, for he was as honest as he was bold,—appeared so thoroughly fearless, that it sometimes looked like mere bravado (I am afraid he pronounced it brave-ardor); and a companion who also lived with us resolved to put his courage to the test. Accordingly, at dusk one evening, when Jack was about to lead the horse to the pasture, he provided himself with a sheet, and placed himself on one end of the crossbeam which rested on the rather high posts of the gate. Jack came whistling along, leading the horse, and, opening the gate, slipping off the halter, gave the animal a slap with it; and as he shut the gate cocked up his eye at the elevated figure. “And as for you, Mr. Devil,” says he, “you may 166 sit there just as long as you please.” A decent respect for the proprieties of his position kept the scarecrow quiet until Jack was well on his way to the house which was not far distant. Pretty soon the door was burst open, and, to our alarm, some one tumbled in upon the floor in an agony of terror, as we soon discovered, pale as a ghost and scarcely able to speak. As soon as he recovered some degree of self-possession, he could barely stutter out,—“When Jack got out of sight—I turned to get down—and there sat another one, on the other post—looking just like me!”[11]
A great deal was thereupon said about 167 the power of the imagination and the effect it was likely to have upon one who had placed himself in such an equivocal situation, and the terrors which, under its influence, might naturally revert to him, who in an excited state of his own nerves had endeavored to inflict such terrors upon another. Hereupon there was a general call upon Aunt Judith, from the youngsters present, to tell us something about reputed witches in her younger days,—a subject in regard to which she was said to be able to make some remarkable statements, though as yet we had never obtained from her any satisfactory information about it. She seemed a little reluctant to indulge our curiosity.
“As to witches,” said my uncle Richard, gravely, “I don’t know. Whether the denunciations of them in Holy Writ are intended to apply to any actually supernatural power possessed by them, or only to the pretence of it,—and both are mischievous 168 in their effect on the popular mind,—I shall not undertake to say. It is certain that the poor old women who are thus stigmatized seem to have little power to help themselves in this world, or, if real tamperers with the powers of darkness, any enjoyable expectations from the other. But this I do know, that I was riding, not many days since, with my lawyer, a man of considerable acuteness, though a little eccentric at times, coming from K—’s Island, where we had been on some business; and as we neared the turn of the causeway to the main road, he pulled up the chaise, jumped out, and placing himself on a broad flat rock by the road-side, began violently to dance up and down and to shake his clothes. ‘Good Heavens!’ cried I, ‘are you mad?’ ‘Oh, no,’ said he, resuming his seat, ‘but my mother always told me, that whenever I was coming away from K—’s Island, I must stand upon that rock and shake the witches off!’” 169