Dulcibel: A Tale of Old Salem

  CHAPTER XLVI.

  Mistress Ann's Opinion of the Matter.

  While the foregoing conversation was taking place, one of a verydifferent kind was passing between Mistress Ann and her worthy husband.He had gathered up all the particulars he could of the examination andhad brought them home to his wife for her instruction.

  After listening to all that he had to tell, with at least outwardcalmness, she said bitterly: "The whole thing was a trick, you see, tokeep you and me away from Salem."

  "Do you think so? Do you think then, that no man really wanted to see meat Ipswich?"

  "It is as plain as the nose on your face," replied his wife. "You wereto be decoyed off to Ipswich, my horse sent out of the way, and thenJoseph's madcap horse offered to me, they knowing well that theworthless creature would not behave himself with any woman on his back."

  "Oh, pshaw, Ann; you do not mean that my simple-hearted brother, JosephPutnam, ever planned and carried out a subtle scheme of that kind?" saidhonest Thomas, with an older brother's undervaluation of thecapabilities of a mere boy like Joseph.

  "I do not say that Joseph thought it all out, for very probably he didnot; doubtless that Master Raymond put him up to it--for he seemscunning and unprincipled enough for anything, judging, by what you havetold me of his ridiculous doings."

  "You may call them ridiculous, Ann; but they impressed everybody verymuch indeed. Dr. Griggs, told me that he had no doubt whatever that an'evil hand' was on him."

  "Dr. Griggs is an old simpleton," said his wife crossly.

  "And even Squire Hathorne says that he never saw a stronger case ofspectral persecution. Why, when one of the young men thrust the point ofhis rapier at the yellow bird, some of its feathers were cut off andcame fluttering to the ground. Squire Hathorne says he never sawanything more wonderful."

  "Nonsense--it is all trickery!"

  "Trickery? Why, my dear wife, the Squire has the feathers!--and he meansto send them at once to Master Cotton Mather by a special messenger, toconfute all the scoffers and unbelievers in Boston and Plymouth!"

  A scornful reply was at the end of his wife's tongue but, on secondthought, she did not allow it to get any farther. Suppose that she didconvince her husband and Squire Hathorne that they had been grosslydeceived and imposed upon--and that Master Raymond's apparentafflictions and spectral appearance were the result of skilful juggling,what then? Would their enlightenment stop there? How about the pins thatthe girls had concealed around their necks, and taken up with theirmouths? How about Mary Walcot secretly biting herself, and thenscreaming out that good Rebecca Nurse had bitten her? How about thelittle prints on the arms of the "afflicted girls," which they allowedwere made by the teeth of little Dorcas Good, that child not five yearsold; and which Mistress Ann knew were made by the girls themselves? Howabout the bites and streaks and bruises which she herself had shown asthe visible proof that the spectre of good Rebecca Nurse, then lying injail, was biting her and beating her with her chains? For Edward Putnamhad sworn: "I saw the marks both of bite and chains."

  Perhaps it was safer to let Master Raymond's juggling go unexposed,considering that she herself and the "afflicted girls" had done so verymuch of it.

  Therefore she said, "I have no faith in Master Raymond nevertheless; nomore than Moses had in King Pharaoh's sorcerers, when they did the verysame miracles before the king that he had done. I believe him now to bea cunning and a very bad young man, and I think if I had been on thespot, instead of his being at this very moment as I have very littledoubt, over at brother's, where they are congratulating each other onthe success of their unprincipled plans, Master Raymond would now belying in Salem jail."

  "Probably you are correct, my dear," responded her husband meekly; "andI think it not unlikely that Master Raymond may have thought the same,and planned to keep you away--but it was evident to me, that if the'afflicted girls' had taken one side or the other in the matter, itwould not have been yours. Why, even our own daughter Ann, was laughingand joking with him when I entered the court room."

  "Yes," said his wife disdainfully--"that is girl-nature, all over theearth! Just put a handsome young man before them, who has seen theworld, and is full of his smiles and flatteries and cajolements, andthe wisest of women can do nothing with them. But the cold years bringthem out of that!" she added bitterly. "They find what they call love,is a folly and a snare."

  Her husband looked out of the window into the dark night, and made noreply to this outburst. He had always loved his wife, and he thought,when he married her, that she loved him--although he was an excellentmatch, so far as property and family were concerned. Still she wouldoccasionally talk in this way; and he hoped and trusted that it did notmean much.

  "I think myself," he said at length, "that it is quite as much thepretty gifts he has made them, and has promised to send them fromEngland, as his handsome face and pleasant manners."

  "Oh, of course, it all goes together. They are a set of mere gigglinggirls; and that is all you can make of them. And our daughter Ann is asbad as any of the lot. I wish she did not take so much after yourfamily, Thomas."

  This roused her husband a little. "I am sure, Ann, that our family aremuch stronger and healthier than your own are. And as to Ann's beinglike the other girls, I wish she was. She is about the only delicate andnervous one among them."

  "Well, Thomas, if you have got at last upon that matter of thesuperiority of the Putnams to everybody else in the Province, I think Ishall go to bed," retorted his wife. "That is the only thing that youare thoroughly unreasonable about. But I do not think you ever had asingle minister, or any learned scholar, in your family, or ever owned awhole island, in the Merrimack river as my family, the Harmons, alwayshave done, since the country was first settled--and probably alwaysshall, for the next five hundred years."

  To this Thomas Putnam had no answer. He knew well that he had nominister and no island in his family--and those two things, in hiswife's estimation, were things that no family of any reputation shouldbe without. He had not brought on the discussion, although his wife hadaccused him of so doing, and had only asserted what he thought the truthin stating that the Putnams were the stronger and sturdier race.

  "I do not wish to hurt your feelings, Thomas, in reminding you of thesethings," continued his wife, finding he was not intending to reply; "Iwill admit that your family is a very reputable and worthy one, even ifit is not especially gifted with intellect like the Harmons, else youmay be sure that I should not have married into it. But I have aheadache, and do not wish to continue this discussion any longer, as itis unpleasant to me, and besides in very bad taste."

  And so, taking the hint, Master Putnam, like a dutiful husband, whoreally loved his somewhat peevish and fretful wife, acknowledged by hissilence in the future that the Harmons were much superior to any familythat could not boast of possessing a minister and an island; the latterfor five hundred years!