The Witch of Salem Part 40

"No, you mistake----" began Charles; but Henry Waters signed him to keep quiet. The Waters brothers, as the reader is aware, were twins and looked so much alike, that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Charles was not slow to grasp at the idea of Henry Waters. He would suffer himself to be taken to Virginia in his brother's stead, where he would make his ident.i.ty known and establish an alibi; but there was danger of the revengeful Martin killing his prisoner before he reached Virginia, and Charles said:

"Will you promise, on your honor as a Virginian, not to harm the prisoner until he reaches a court of justice?"

The Virginian gave his promise, and then the three led Mr. Waters hurriedly away, mounted horses, hastened to Boston and took a vessel for Virginia.

Charles Stevens went to Mr. George Waters and told him what had happened. Mr. Waters' face grew troubled; but he said nothing.

That night there was an alarm of savages in the neighborhood and Charles Stevens and Mr. Waters went with a train-band to meet the foe. In a skirmish, Mr. Waters was wounded, and it was thought best for him to go to Boston for medical treatment.

"I have friends and relatives there," Charles said, "and we might be safe."

Next day the four secretly set out for Boston, where they lodged for awhile with some relatives of Charles and his mother, who kept their presence a secret.

Before concluding this chapter, it is the duty of the author, although stepping aside from the narrative, to relate what befell their brave friends, the Dustins, during the progress of King William's war. The atrocities committed upon the colonists by the French and Indians were equal to any recorded in the annals of barbarous ages. Connected with these were instances of heroic valor on the part of the heroic sufferers, which are not surpa.s.sed. On March 15th, 1697, the last year of King William's war, an attack was suddenly made on Haverhill by a party of about twenty Indians. It was a rapid, but fatal onset, and a fitting _finale_ of so dreadful a ten years' war. Eight houses were destroyed, twenty-seven persons killed, and thirteen carried away prisoners. One of these houses, standing in the outskirts of the village and, in fact, over the hill, so as to be almost out of sight of the people in the town, was the home of Mr. Dustin, the house which had afforded shelter to the fugitives from the Salem witchcraft persecution.

On that fatal morning, Mr. Dustin had gone to the field to commence his spring work. The season was early, and the plow and shovel had already begun to turn over the rich, black soil. The industrious farmer had but just harnessed his horse, when the animal began to sniff the air, and, turning his eyes toward some bushes, Mr. Dustin discovered two painted faces, with heads adorned by feathers.

At the same moment, a rattling crash of firearms and the terrible war-whoop announced the attack on Haverhill. He unharnessed his horse, seized his gun, which he always kept near at hand, and galloped away like the wind toward the house, pursued by arrows of the Indians.

Reaching the house before the Indians, he cried to his family to fly, and he would cover their retreat.

"Mrs. Neff, take Mrs. Dustin and fly for your lives," he cried.

Mrs. Dustin had an infant, but a few days old, and was confined to her bed. Mrs. Neff was her nurse. The husband made an attempt to remove his wife; but it was too late. The Indians, like ravenous wolves, were rushing on the house. Mrs. Dustin turned to her husband and said:

"Go, Thomas, you cannot save me, go and save the children."

Moved by her urgent appeal, he leaped on his horse and, with his gun in his hand, galloped away after the children, seven in number, who were already running down the road. The first thought of the father was to seize one, place it on the horse before him, and escape; but he was unable to select one from the others. All were alike dear to him, and he resolved to defend all or perish in the effort. They had reached a point below the town, where the road ran between two hills in a narrow pa.s.s. A party of Indians, eleven in number, had seen the children and were running after them. Mr. Dustin spurred his horse between the children and the savage foe, and shouting to his darlings to fly, and bidding the oldest carry the youngest, he drew rein at the pa.s.s and c.o.c.ked his gun.

Thomas Dustin was a dead shot, and his rifle was the best made at that day.

Facing the savages, he fired and shot the leader dead in his tracks. His followers were appalled at the fate of their brawny chieftain, and for a moment hesitated. Mr. Dustin hesitated not a single instant, but proceeded, without a moment's delay, to reload his gun. Five of the Indians fired at the resolute father, as he rode away after his flying children.

"Run! run! run for your lives!" he shouted.

The Indians, with a whoop of vengeance followed the father. He had four b.a.l.l.s in his gun, and, wheeling his horse about, he fired this terrible charge at them. Though none were killed instantly at this shot, three were wounded, two so severely that they died next day. The Indians abandoned the pursuit of the resolute father, who continued to fight as he retreated, and turned their attention to less dangerous victories, so Mr. Dustin escaped with his children.

Mrs. Neff, the nurse in attendance on Mrs. Dustin, heroically resolved to share the fate of her patient, even when she could have escaped. The Indians entered the house, and, having made the sick woman rise and sit quietly in the corner of the fire-place, they pillaged the dwelling, and set it on fire, taking the occupants out of it. At the approach of night, Mrs. Dustin was forced to march into the wilderness and seek repose on the hard, cold ground. Mrs. Neff attempted to escape with the baby, but was intercepted. The infant had its brains beaten out against a tree, and the body was thrown into the bushes. The captives of Haverhill, when collected, were thirteen miserable, wretched people.

That same day they were marched twelve miles before camping, although it was nearly night before they set out. Succeeding this, for several days they were compelled to keep up with the savage captors, over an extent of country of not less than one hundred and forty or fifty miles.

Feeble as she was, it seems wonderful that Mrs. Dustin should have borne up under the trials and fatigues of the journey; but she did.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The resolute father continued to fire as he retreated.]

After this, the Indians, according to their custom, divided their prisoners. Mrs. Dustin, Mrs. Neff and a captive lad from Worcester fell to the share of an Indian family consisting of twelve persons. These now took charge of the captives and treated them with no particular unkindness, save that of forcing them to extend their journey still further toward an Indian settlement. One day they told the prisoners that there was one ceremony to which they must submit after their arrival at their destination, and that was running the gauntlet between two files of Indians. This announcement filled Mrs. Dustin and her companions with so much dread, that they mutually resolved to make a desperate attempt to escape.

Mrs. Hannah Dustin, Mrs. Mary Neff the nurse, and the lad Samuel Leonardson, only eleven years of age, were certainly not persons to excite the fear of a dozen st.u.r.dy warriors. The Indians believed the lad faithful to them, and never dreamed that the women would have courage enough to attempt to escape, and no strict watch was kept over them.

In order to throw the savage captors off their guard, Mrs. Dustin seemed to take well to them, and on the day before the plan of escape was carried out, she ascertained, through inquiries made by the lad, how to kill a man instantly and how to take off his scalp.

"Strike him here," the Indian explained, placing his finger on his temple, "and take off his scalp so," showing the lad how it was done.

With this information, the plot was ripe. Just before dawn of day, when the Indians sleep most profound, Mrs. Dustin softly rose from her bed of earth and touched Mary Neff on the shoulder. A single touch was sufficient to awake her, and she sat up. Next the lad had to be aroused.

Being young and wearied, his slumbers were profound. An Indian lay near asleep. Mrs. Dustin seized his tomahawk, and Mrs. Neff seized another Indian's weapons. The nurse shook Samuel. The lad rose, rubbed his eyes and went over to where the man lay, who had instructed him in the art of killing. He seized his hatchet and held it in his hand ready. At a signal from Mrs. Dustin, three blows fell on three temples, and with a quiver three sleepers in life had pa.s.sed to the sleep of death. Once more the hatchets were raised, and six of the twelve were dead. The little noise they were compelled to make disturbed the slumbers of the others, and the three hatchets, now red with blood, fell on three more.

Mrs. Neff, growing nervous and excited, cut her man's head a little too far forward, and he started up with a yell. The blood blinded him, however, and she stabbed him.

The yell had roused the others, and a squaw with a child fled to the woods, while the tenth, a young warrior, was a.s.sailed by Mrs. Dustin and the lad and slain ere he was fully awake. Ten of the twelve were dead, and the escaped prisoners, after scuttling all the boats save one, to prevent pursuit, started in that down the river, with what provisions they could take from the Indians. They had not gone far, when Mrs.

Dustin said:

"We have not scalped the Indians."

"Why should we?" asked Mrs. Neff.

"When we get home and tell our friends that we three slew ten Indians, they will demand some proof of the a.s.sertion, and the ten scalps will be proof."

Samuel Leonardson, boy like, was anxious to have the scalps of his foes, and so they overruled Mrs. Neff and, turning about, went back to the camp which was now deserted save by the ghastly dead, their gla.s.sy eyes gazing upward at the skies.

"This is the way he told me to do it," said Samuel, seizing the tuft of hair on the head of the man who had instructed him in scalping. He ran the keen edge of a knife around the skull and, by a quick jerk, pulled off the scalp.

Being novices in the art, it took them some time to remove the scalps from the heads of all; but the b.l.o.o.d.y task was finally accomplished and putting the scalps in a bag, they once more embarked in the Indian canoe and started down the stream.

"With strong hearts, the three voyagers went down the Merrimac to their homes, every moment in peril from savages or the elements, and were received as persons risen from the dead. Mrs. Dustin found her husband and children saved. Soon after, she went to Boston, carrying with her a gun and tomahawk, which she had brought from the wigwam, and her ten trophies, and the general court of Ma.s.sachusetts gave these brave sufferers fifty pounds as a reward for their heroism. Ex-Governor Nicholson, of Maryland, sent a metal tankard to Mrs. Dustin and Mrs.

Neff, as a token of his admiration. That tankard is now (1875) in the possession of Mr. Emry Coffin, of Newburyport, Ma.s.sachusetts. During the summer of 1874, one hundred and seventy-seven years after the event, citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts and New Hampshire erected on the highest point of Dustin's Island an elegant monument, commemorative of the heroic deed. It displays a figure of Mrs. Dustin, holding in her right hand, raised in the att.i.tude of striking, a tomahawk, and a bunch of scalps in the other. On it are inscribed the names of Hannah Dustin, Mary Neff and Samuel Leonardson, the English lad."[E]

[Footnote E: Lossing's "Our Country," vol. iii., p. 418.]

Haverhill was a second time attacked and desolated during King William's war, and other places suffered. The treaty at Ryswick, a village near the Hague, in Holland, soon after, put an end to the indiscriminate slaughter in Europe and America. At this insignificant little village, a peace was agreed upon between Louis XIV. of France and England, Spain and Holland, and the German Empire, which ended a war of more than seven years' duration. Louis was compelled to acknowledge William of Orange to be the sovereign of England. That war cost Great Britain one hundred and fifty millions of dollars in cash, besides a hundred millions loaned.

The latter laid the foundation of England's enormous national debt, which, to-day, amounts to five thousand millions of dollars.

Prior to the treaty at Ryswick, a Board of Trade and Plantations was established in England, whose duty it was to have a general oversight of the affairs of the American colonies. It was a permanent commission, the members of which were called "Lords of Trade and Plantations." It consisted of seven members, with a president, and was always a ready instrument of oppression in the hands of the sovereign, and became a powerful promoter of those discontents in the colonies, which broke out in open rebellion in 1775.

The peace of Ryswick was of short duration. Aspirants for power again tormented the people with the evils of war. King James II. died in France, September, 1701. He had been shielded by Louis after his flight from his throne to France, and now the French monarch acknowledged James' son, James Francis Edward (known in history as the pretender) to be the lawful king of England. This act greatly offended the English, because the crown had been settled upon Anne, James' second Protestant daughter. Louis, in addition, had offended the English by placing his grandson, Philip of Anjou, on the throne of Spain, so increasing the influence of France among the dynasties of Europe. King William was enraged and was preparing for war, when a fall from his horse, while hunting, caused his death. He was succeeded by Anne, and a war ensued, which lasted almost a dozen years and is known in history as Queen Anne's War. We have, however, too long dwelt on the general history of the country. It will be essential to our story that we return to the village of Salem where superst.i.tion was reigning, while the chief characters of our story were resting in security at Boston, not daring to go abroad by day.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SUPERSt.i.tION REIGNS.

The awful tragedy was through, And friends and enemies withdrew.

Some smite their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and trembling say, "Unlawful deeds were done to-day."

--Paxton.

After the escape of Mrs. Stevens and Cora Waters, a wave of superst.i.tion swept over the village of Salem with such irresistible fury, that it seemed in greater danger than the frontier settlements did from the French and Indians. The Nurse family and all their relatives came in for a greater share than any other. Mrs. Cloyse was second of the family to be accused by Parris and his minions. Mrs. Cloyse drew ill-will upon herself at the outset by doing as her brother and sister Nurse did. They all absented themselves from the examinations in the church, and, when the interruptions of the services became too flagrant, from Sabbath worship. They declared that they took that course, because they disapproved of the permission given to the profanation of the place and the service. At last Mrs. Cloyse, or Goody Cloyse, as she was called in the records of the day, was arrested. Mary Easty and Elizabeth Proctor were also arrested. Mary Easty, sister of Mrs. Nurse, was tried and condemned. On her condemnation and sentence, she made an affective memorial while under sentence of death, and fully aware of the hopelessness of her case, addressing the judges, the magistrates and the reverend ministers, imploring them to consider what they were doing, and how far their course in regard to accused persons was inconsistent with the principles and rules of justice.

"I ask nothing for myself," she said. "I am satisfied with my own innocence and certain of my doom on earth and my hope in Heaven. What I do desire, is to induce the authorities to take time, and to use caution in receiving and strictness in sifting testimony; and so shall they ascertain the truth, and absolve the innocent, the blessing of G.o.d being upon your conscientious endeavors."

No effect was produced by her warnings or remonstrances. Before setting forth from the jail to the Witches' Hill on the day of her death, she serenely bade farewell to her husband and many children, and many of her friends, some of whom afterward related that "her sayings were so serious, religious, distinct and affectionate as could well be expressed, drawing tears from the eyes of all present."