Crane Pond (28 page)

‘What else did the man say?'

‘Nothing.' Sam shakes his head as vigorously as he nodded it a few moments before. Sewall continues to gaze steadily at him. Sure enough his son's evasiveness rapidly disperses. ‘He said if anyone was a witch it was you,' he admits at last.

‘Did he now?' Though he'd guessed before the boy even spoke, Sewall's heart thumps in his chest and he has to restrain it consciously, like a wilful horse. ‘What did Mr. Perry say about that?'

‘I didn't tell him. About you being a witch. I just told him about the hypocrisy part.'

Even this abridged accusation would have confirmed the very fears Mr. Perry expressed about employing Sam in the first place. Poor boy, this is not his fault. In fact, it not being his fault was exactly the point Sewall had wanted to get across. ‘Was he upset? Or annoyed?'

‘He said I should come home.'

‘I see.'

‘And re-join the fray tomorrow. That's what he said. The fray.' Sam is obviously a little puzzled by the word.

‘Ah ha!' says Sewall. Mr. Perry is a good-hearted man, after all. He might have had reservations about employing Sam, but now feels loyalty towards the lad.

‘But perhaps I shouldn't. I don't want to harm his trade.'

‘The man who said those foolish things to you was hardly likely to be a customer anyway. If he read books, he would be able to argue more cleverly.'

Sam ponders on this for a moment, like a chess player whose opponent has surprised him with a cunning move. ‘Father,' he then says, somewhat tentatively.

‘Yes, my son.'

‘I don't like to look at Mr. Perry's face.'

‘Why ever not?'

‘Because he has that barnacle on it.'

‘Barnacle? Ah, I think you mean carbuncle.'

‘Carbuncle then. He looks as if he is going to grow a horn.'

‘You're being silly, my boy,' Sewall replies, alarmed at this flight of fancy, a horn surfacing above that benign bookseller's countenance. Because the Devil is on the loose in Massachusetts, people are imagining him everywhere.

Sam continues unexpectedly, ‘Standing behind the counter all day in this hot weather has made my legs swell up.'

‘Is that so?' Sewall peers down at the part of his son's legs exposed below his breeches. Sam peers down as well. ‘They look fine to me,' Sewall says, straightening up again.

‘They must have cooled down by now. But maybe it would be better if I gave them a rest for a while.'

‘Legs are for standing on, Sam.'

 

The following afternoon there's a knock on the door, Mr. Stoughton. Sewall receives him in the hall since his family are still in the garden and they have the room to themselves. He offers him cider to refresh himself with after his journey in the heat, but Stoughton has to be off as soon as he has said what he has to say. ‘Mr. Sewall, I will come straight to the point. The next executions are on Thursday. Do you intend to be there?'

Sewall starts, as you do when another person asks a question you've been asking yourself. He has no desire whatsoever to attend the next batch of executions but wonders whether his attendance might be advisable, given that one of those condemned is a clergyman, that most of them are men, that the unrest in the community is becoming more and more audible. He is about to put this case when Stoughton speaks again: ‘Don't.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I would prefer you not to attend.'

Even though this is Sewall's own preference too, he finds himself bridling. ‘I think—it may be politic—there is an audible—buzz . . .' He falters.

‘Buzz! It's not our business to listen to
buzz
, as you call it. We simply do our duty. But in this instance our duty calls us in a different direction.'

‘Oh. And which direction is that?'

‘To Watertown.'

Sewall is taken aback at this reply. Watertown is a small community to the west of Boston, the opposite direction from Salem. ‘The selectmen of the township are mired in a dispute. They have no meeting house and no minister. But they can't decide who to appoint, and at which end of the town, west or east, they should build.'

The whole point about such matters is that they are the community's own responsibility. Sewall tries to imagine why in this case they should be of concern to Mr. Stoughton and himself. ‘They are a divided community, just as Salem Village was,' Stoughton continues. ‘We don't want to see those sorts of grievance festering again. Perhaps advice from impartial outsiders might be helpful to them.'

Sewall is shocked as Stoughton's motive dawns on him. Two judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer are to be seen assisting in the appointment of a clergyman to a troubled community, while thirty miles away, a clergyman from another troubled community is being hanged in accordance with the sentence passed on him by those very judges, along with their colleagues. Stoughton gives him a long unflinching look. ‘It was you who introduced the word “politic” into our conversation,' he says.

 

There are two rival plots of land for the construction of a meeting house at Watertown. One, at the western end, is objected to by the eastern faction on the grounds of its proximity to the woods, which would leave it vulnerable to the onslaughts of Indians. The other is convenient for the dwellings of the easterners, and is therefore objected to by the westerners, in particular those on the outlying farms, on the grounds of the distance they would have to travel.

Despite the deadlock the township is in a great hurry to appoint a minister, only too aware of its need for spiritual protection from the plague of witchcraft all around. While the arguments rage Sewall thinks of the events taking place that day over in Salem Town.

Mr. Stoughton has told him that several other justices are attending the executions, along with a whole bevy of ministers. The hope of course is that one of the condemned will confess, perhaps to be followed by the others, as when a stone in a dam is dislodged and shortly the whole structure collapses. Sewall feels a deep impatience that he is here and not there, almost a jealousy of those who are able to attend. Finally he makes an exasperated suggestion. ‘Given that you cannot agree on a place for a meeting house, but need a minister, perhaps you should appoint one first, and ordain him in the open air.'

To his amazement this proposal is greeted with enthusiasm. Mr. Stoughton raises an inquiring eyebrow at him across the congratulations. As they ride away, Sewall explains that he proffered this plan of action in the spirit of Solomon's solution to the problem of the baby, to concentrate the minds of the townsfolk on coming to an agreement (though when he remembers the dilapidated meeting house in Salem Village it occurs to him that open-air religion might not be a bad idea after all).

 

After Mr. Stoughton has taken off down the Dorchester road, Sewall heads straight for Cotton Mather's house to get news of the executions. Mr. Mather arrives from Salem Town at the very same moment and they talk on horseback at his garden gate, bobbing a little with the restiveness of the animals.

None of the witches confessed before they were turned off their ladders, despite the presence of six clergymen. ‘Not even Carrier?' Sewall asks. It's hard to imagine a hard-bitten old country-woman like her forsaking her own best interest, or rather continuing to believe, in the face of the rope, that it is in her best interest to be Mr. Burroughs's consort in hell.

‘Not even Carrier.'

Mr. Mather explains he stayed mounted during the executions so that he would not have to look upwards at the faces of the condemned. ‘I did not want to crick my neck as if I were the supplicant and those wretches were raised on high.'

This could be Sewall's opportunity to discover how George Jacobs's death was managed but he cannot bring himself to ask the question. In any case Mather is in no mood to chat. He wants to get inside his house and have his supper.

Sewall heads his horse towards home. But as luck would have it, just as he arrives at his own gate Mr. Brattle appears.

‘I've just attended a sad spectacle,' he announces. ‘I had expected to find you there, in fact, but I gather you and Mr. Stoughton had a more important appointment somewhere else.'

Sewall does what he can to draw the sting from Mr. Brattle's irony. ‘Indeed we did. There's nothing more important than assisting in the spiritual well-being of our fellows.' Mr. Brattle says nothing to this but continues to regard Sewall with a cold eye. To think, thinks Sewall, I have listened to
trumpets
with this man in London. ‘I've just been speaking to Mr. Mather about it,' Sewall adds.

‘Ah yes, Mr. Mather,' says Brattle. ‘I hope he told you all that happened. I hope he told you how dignified the condemned were in meeting their fate. I hope he told you how they forgave the jury that found them guilty and the judges that condemned them to death.' He pauses to ensure this last shot has struck home. ‘There's one thing I'll wager he
did
n't tell you. The condemned asked if one of the clergymen in attendance, the
six
clergymen in attendance, they asked if one of these six would pray with them before they died, and all of them refused. Your friend Mr. Noyes refused, Mr. Sewall. Your friend Cotton Mather refused. And I have to tell you that seeing these distinguished ministers of our province refuse outright to perform the duties of their office, many in the crowd began to mutter angrily. At that moment I felt the tide begin to turn. I felt the wind swing.'

‘Mr. Brattle, the condemned died by a righteous sentence. They had no
cause
to forgive the jury or the judges. And since they didn't confess their sin, the ministers had no cause to pray with them. It would have been hypocrisy—'

‘Talking of hypocrisy,' Mr. Brattle butts in, ‘I don't suppose Mr. Mather mentioned the episode of the Lord's Prayer either. While on the very ladder facing imminent death, Mr. Burroughs recited the Lord's Prayer without a hesitation or a stumble. While standing beside him on the very next ladder was John Willard, who had been condemned for his
failure
to do that exact same thing. And in front of them there was Mr. Mather, who condemned the Lord's Prayer test in his
Return
, along with all such jiggery-pokery, and yet who still manages to endorse the trials out of loyalty to his friends who conduct them.'

Mr. Brattle shakes his head. ‘And another thing Mr. Mather won't have admitted, I'm sure. He remained on his horse the whole time, as if watching innocent people die was just something you might do
en passant
. Or more likely he was all prepared for a swift departure if one of the condemned uttered a not-unjustifiable curse, as happened at the last hangings. Though these people were too serious, and too polite, had too much of a sense of occasion, since it was their last occasion, to indulge in any such vulgarity as a curse. Nevertheless, I expected Mr. Mather to bolt off into the blue at any moment.'

For a second Sewall is tempted to tell his erstwhile friend that he was wrong, at least in respect of Cotton Mather's motive for remaining on his horse, but thinks better of it.

 

That night Sewall has another unpleasant and turbid dream. In it he recollects that Elizabeth Proctor has now been widowed and he feels a strange, unhealthy empowerment in respect of her because this is (in part) the result of his own signature on her husband's death warrant. She is in fact an attractive woman, and for a moment Sewall understands what it is to succumb to the ruthlessness of an animal that has killed a rival male.

Then her features dissolve into those of Madam Winthrop and he once again witnesses the lifting of those damnified skirts of hers, more comprehensively than in life. And to complete this perverted harem of the imagination, the image of his sister-in-law appears, smiling across the table at him in her sunny parlour in Salem Town, a shimmer of reflected sea-glitter brushing across her face and shoulders as she offers him a portion of fried alewife on a spoon . . .

At last Sewall wakes up. As he lies in his bed (luckily Hannah is fast asleep) he reminds himself who and what he is or at least wants to be. A man trying to do his best in a difficult world, a man who loves his children, and his wife, and his community (most of it, at least). A man who wishes to be decent and kind where possible. How, then, can he have been thinking such wretched thoughts, wishing such wicked wishes?

He remembers John Proctor's charge, that the judges themselves were bewitched. And one of the customers of Mr. Perry's shop told young Sam that his father was a witch.

Sewall feels once again that the world is upside down, this time literally, so that he has to cling on to his mattress to avoid falling off it. Yesterday a clergyman was hanged. What if he was innocent after all? That would be a work of the Devil—and of his minions. And what sort of man has lubricious dreams of the widow of a man he has hanged, and of the consort of a fellow judge? And of his own brother's wife?

 

The following afternoon he is at work on some accounts in his study when there's a knock on the door and Susan peeps timidly round it. ‘Excuse me, sir, a visitor for you.'

He sighs at the interruption. ‘Who is it, Susan?'

‘Your brother Mr. Stephen, sir.'

Sewall nearly jumps out of his chair. ‘Show him in, my girl, show him in,' he tells her, affecting briskness and animation as a substitute for the cheeriness he should normally feel at his beloved brother's arrival. While Susan is gone he steps round from behind his desk and paces agitatedly up and down the room.

‘Hello, Sam,' says Stephen gravely as he comes through the door.

‘Ah, Stephen!'

Stephen looks pale, smaller than his usual robust self. ‘I had to come,' he says. ‘I knew how you'd be feeling.'

‘Ah,' Sewall replies. ‘Yes.' He nods noncommittally.