The Witch of Salem Part 23

Louder, who was a coward, as well as superst.i.tious, had a wholesome dread of the stout youth.

He sprung back a few paces and stammered:

"No, no, I don't mean any harm. I--I am not saying anything against you."

"John Louder, you are a notorious liar, and I warn you to be careful in the future how your vile tongue breathes calumny against innocent people. Begone!"

Louder slowly rose and slunk away, and Charles Stevens returned home.

The evening air fanned his heated brow, and he sought to cool his angry temper before he reached home. The silent stars watched the sullen youth who, pausing at the gate, gazed in his helpless misery on the broad-faced moon and murmured:

"How will all this end?"

It was his usual bedtime when Charles Stevens entered the house, and his face was calm as a summer sky over which a storm had never swept. His mother was still plying her wheel, and the heap of wool rolls had grown less and continued to diminish. She asked her son no questions. He sat down near the table, took up a book of psalms and proceeded to read.

There was one in the next apartment who heard him enter. It was Cora, and, rising, she crouched near the door to listen. Perhaps they would say something more of Adelpha Leisler; but he did not mention her name again, and she almost hoped he cared nothing for her now, although he had confessed that in his boyhood he had looked upon her as his future wife. Almost every man selects his wife in his early boyhood; but the child lover seldom becomes the husband. The love of a play-mate, tender as it may be, is not the love of maturity. Cora strove to console herself with these thoughts; but there was another danger that would obtrude itself in her way. That was the knowledge that he had not seen Adelpha for years, and she had developed from a child to a beautiful woman. Long she sat near the door, feeling decidedly guilty at playing the part of an eavesdropper; but when Charles rose, closed his book and went to his room, and the mother put away her work, Cora rose and went to her bed. Despite her sorrow and mental worry, she had sweet dreams.

Somebody, who was Charles, appeared to her in light, and she rose with the sun in her eyes, which at first produced the effect of a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on coming out of the dream was of a smiling nature, and she felt quite rea.s.sured. The dream had been so pleasant and sweet; life seemed so peaceful and full of hope; nature smiled so brightly on this holy morn, that she almost forgot the hot words of the pastor and her jealousy of the night before. She began hoping with all her strength, without knowing why, and suffered from a contraction of the heart. It was a bright day; but the sunbeam was still nearly horizontal, so she reasoned that it was quite early; but she thought she ought to rise in order to a.s.sist Charles' mother in her household duties. She would see Charles himself, feel the warmth of his glance and hear the music of his voice. No objection was admissible; all was certain. It was monstrous enough to have suffered the pangs of jealousy on the night before; but now that the bright dreams and glorious dawn had dispelled these, she felt sure that good news had come at last. Youth is so const.i.tuted, that it quickly wipes its tears away, for it is natural for youth to be happy, while its breath is made up of hope.

Cora could not have recalled a single instance in which Charles Stevens had uttered a word of hope or encouragement to her. Her thoughts seemed to play at hide and seek in her brain, and she was so strangely, peculiarly happy this morning, that she preferred to enjoy the revels of day-dreams to the realities of life. Leaving her bed, she bathed her face and said her prayers.

Voices were heard without, and she listened. One was the well beloved voice of Charles Stevens. He was speaking with some one, whom she rightly guessed had just arrived. The voice of the new-comer was too far distant for her to recognize it at first: but her eye, glancing through the lattice, descried the form of a man coming toward the house. That tall form, with thin, cadaverous features and stern, unbending eye, was the man who had publicly condemned her and held her up to the scorn of the whole congregation, because she was the child of a player. Cora did not hate him, for she was too pure, too good, too heavenly to hate even the man who had declared her to be a firebrand of perdition. What was his object this lovely morn? His appearance dispelled all the rosy dreams and once more plunged her into that horrible, oppressive gloom, which seemed heavier than lead upon her heart.

"You are abroad early, this morning, Mr. Parris," Charles answered to the minister's morning greeting.

"Not too soon, however," the reverend gentleman answered. "The devil does not sleep. He is abroad continually, and, verily, one needs must rise early to be before him and his minions."

"Where are you going, Mr. Parris?" asked the youth.

"I am coming here."

"Your call is early."

"Not earlier than Satan's. I trow he is here even already and hath abided with you, before I came."

Charles made no answer to this, for there is no wrath like the wrath of an angry preacher, whose zeal warps his judgment and makes a fanatic of him. Bigoted, tyrannical, haughty and cruel, Parris swooped down on his enemies with the fury of an eagle.

Charles Stevens was a little amazed at the manner of the minister and asked:

"Is your business with me?"

"It is."

"What is it?"

"It seems best that we converse where there is no danger of being overheard, Charles, as what I have to say is of a very grave and serious nature and concerns your soul's welfare."

When a bigoted, ambitious zealot becomes interested in the welfare of a person, that person is in danger.

The anxious girl, whose face was pressed close to the window lattice watching the men, heard all and turned so pale, that even the warm rays of the sun failed to give the tint and glow of life to the cheek. She saw them walk away down the path and go across the brook among the trees and over the distant hill.

To Charles, it was like making a pilgrimage to some place of evil, the end of which he dreaded. Across the hill, hidden from the town by trees and intervening slope, they paused near the corner of a stone fence, and Mr. Parris leaned against the wall and gazed on Charles in silence.

"What have you to say, Mr. Parris?" the young man asked, as the cold, gray eye, like a gleam of steel fell upon him. Mr. Parris, in slow and measured tones, answered:

"No man knows until the time comes what depths are within him. To some men it never comes. Let them rest and be thankful. To me it was brought--it was forced upon me. I am despised, misused and abused by the world for the fact that I stand in the hand of G.o.d to do his holy will."

"You talk strangely, Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the wild-eyed fanatic had finished and turned his haggard face up toward heaven. "I think your earnestness and zeal are mistaken."

"Yes, mistaken by all; but I know the Lord ordains me for this good and holy work, and I will serve my Master, hard as the task may be."

"Mr. Parris, may we not be mistaken in what const.i.tutes the service of the Master?"

"Aye! Is not the way so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein?"

"Yet, 'they shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth G.o.d service.' The great question to decide is which is right. 'Not every one that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"

"I am right!" cried Mr. Parris, his face flaming with pa.s.sion.

"So Melendez believed, when he drenched the soil of Fort Carolinia with the blood of innocent women and children."

"Young man, I am the preacher, not you. It is for me to speak and you to listen. Satan has been unchained, and the air is full of evil spirits."

"Mr. Parris, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be better for you and better for me. Let me go home."

"Not yet. The Lord commands, and it must and shall be spoken. I have been in torments ever since I stopped short of it before. Look not amazed nor alarmed when I tell you that the day of the wrath of the Lord is coming, and the minions of h.e.l.l that torment this accursed land will be gathered into the fires of destruction. Charles, forgive this earnestness, it is for your sake. It is another of my miseries. I cannot speak on that subject nor of that subject without stumbling at every syllable, unless I let go my check and run mad;" and as Charles Stevens gazed into those wild eyes and hollow cheeks, he thought the man must already be mad.

"Let us return home, Mr. Parris. Take another day to think, before you give expression to what you would say."

"No, no; you must hear me now! Here is a man driving his cows forth to graze. He will be gone directly. I entreat you let us walk down the road and return, for what I would say, Charles, must be for your ears alone."

He yielded to the entreaty. How could he do otherwise, for there could be no harm in walking with the pastor? Mr. Parris, among his other accomplishments, had the power of dissembling. He could a.s.sume a smiling exterior while a devil raged in his heart. After they had gone aside some distance, and the farmer had pa.s.sed on with his cows, they returned to the old stone wall, and Charles waited, very much as a criminal might, who stood to receive his sentence.

"You know what I am going to say," the pastor began, his austere face once more a.s.suming its terrible expression. "You don't like me, your mother don't like me, and the congregation is divided, doing all in their power to dispossess me; but I am right. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell. What I mean is that I am under the influence of some tremendous power, which I know is G.o.d Almighty, Himself, and resist that power I dare not. I may be called a fanatic, cruel, mad; but the great and good G.o.d who made me ordains me in all things. This power--this spirit--this will, whatever it may be, is the chief motive that moves me. It could draw me to fire; it could draw me to water; it could draw me to the rack, as it did martyrs of old; it could draw me to any death--to anything pleasing, or repulsive; but I am mistaken, misunderstood by people, and the future as well as the present generation may condemn me in their narrow views as being dishonest, as being revengeful, as being even bloodthirsty; but, Charles, when G.o.d did command Peter to slay, did he refuse? No. If my G.o.d commands me to slay, I will do it, though rivers of blood shall flow----"

The face of the wild fanatic was terrible to look upon. Charles Stevens, bold as he was, gazing on him in the full light of day, could not repress a shudder. His thin, cadaverous face, smooth shaven and of an ashen hue, was upturned to heaven, and those great, awful eyes seemed gazing on things unlawful for man to see. The long right arm was raised toward the sky, and again that deep voice called out:

"O thou great Jehovah, do but command me, and rivers of blood shall flow----"

"Mr. Parris!" began Charles, alarmed.

"Stop! I implore you do not interrupt me, Charles. Wait until, by fasting and prayer and long, solemn meditation on these mysterious subjects, the Lord has opened your eyes to the invisible world, then you may judge. If you become weary with long standing, sit down, and I will pour into your ears such proofs that you can no longer deny the existence of witchcraft."

Charles felt the strange spell of the fanatic's presence, and he merely bowed his head as a signal for him to proceed. Mr. Parris, in his deep sepulchral voice, continued:[B]

[Footnote B: Like argument is used by Cotton Mather in his "Invisible World."]

"Mr. John Higginson, that reverend and excellent person, says that the Indians, which came from far to settle about Mexico, were, in their progress to that settlement, under a conduct of a Devil, very strangely emulating the blessed covenant which G.o.d gave Israel in the wilderness.

Acosta says that the Devil, in their idol Vitzlipultzli, governed that mighty nation. He commanded them to leave their country, promising to make them lords over all the provinces possessed by six other nations of Indians, and give them a land abounding with all precious things. They went forth, carrying their idol with them in a coffer of reeds, supported by four of their princ.i.p.al priests, with whom he still discoursed in secret, revealing to them the successes and accidents of their way. He advised them when to march and where to stay, and, without his command, they moved not. The first thing they did wherever they came, was to erect a tabernacle for their false G.o.d, which they always set in the midst of their camp, and they placed the ark upon an altar. When, wearied with the pains and fatigues of travel, they talked of proceeding no further in their journey than a certain pleasant stage, whereto they were arrived, the Devil, in one night, horribly killed the ones who had started this talk by pulling out their hearts, and so they pa.s.sed on till they came to Mexico.

"The same Devil, which then thus imitated what was in the church of the Old Testament, now among us, would imitate the affairs of the church in the New. The witches do say that they form themselves after the manner of Congregational Churches, and that they have baptism and a supper and officers among them, abominably resembling those of our Lord. What is their striking down with a fierce look? What is their making of the afflicted rise with a touch of their hand? What is their transportation through the air? What is their travelling in spirit, while their body is cast into a trance? What is their causing cattle to run mad and perish?