The Dumb Shall Sing

by Stephen Lewis

  “Do you mean to say,” Governor Peters said, “that the girl’s words killed your child.”

  “I can only tell you what I did see. My wife had fallen asleep after she gave the babe to the girl, and when I came into the room from outside where I had set my nephew to work sharpening our ax to chop wood with less effort, I see the girl kneeling over the babe, and she has a pitcher of water in one hand that is dripping onto the babe, and she is saying these words, Latin words from the papist mass or something akin to that, calling Satan I wouldn’t doubt she was, and when I took the babe from her, she looked at me with eyes that was rolling back into her head, and the words kept coming out of her even though her lips did not move anymore. And my babe was not breathing. I put my ear to its little chest, and I could not hear its heart, which had been beating strong as you please that very morning.” He paused for breath, and then he pointed at the girl. “That is what I saw.”

  Catherine listened to Henry’s accusation, wishing that she could question his odd story. As she could not, she hoped Woolsey would. She fixed her eyes on him to will that placid man into action. He had listened to Henry without any visible change of expression. As Henry finished his statement, punctuated with the flourish of his gesture pointing at Margaret, an audible gasp rose from the audience, and Catherine reminded herself that many of these people had been in attendance in front of the Jameson house when Margaret was put to trial by touch. As if reminding himself of that moment at the same time that Catherine thought of it, Henry now shook his outstretched hand at Margaret.

  “Yes, you saw the proof, many of you did. We put her to the test. And where her fingers touched our poor babe’s body, still warm it was, it bled. You who were there saw the babe bleed under her hands!”

  The gasp rising to the rafters of the meetinghouse now seemed to gather itself into an angrier swell as it swirled around the heavy air and landed on Margaret’s bowed head. The sound intensified until Margaret stood up and turned to face her accusers. Her face pale, and her chest heaving, she brought her hand down from her forehead and then from shoulder to shoulder in the sign of the cross.

  “By the blessed Virgin, I swear I did not harm that babe,” she said.

  But the gesture and her words only inflamed the people and instead of a hostile murmuring there was now heard words of hate hurled in her direction.

  “Listen to her,” one said, “she convicts herself with her own words.”

  “She makes the sign of the papist,” said another, “and it is a call to the wicked one, well we know.”

  “We have heard enough,” cried out a third.

  Woolsey’s face reddened as the voices in the meetinghouse rose to a chaotic crescendo, and he cleared his throat to announce his intention to speak. Finally, he rose to his feet and pounded on the table with his fist. When that noise failed to quiet the audience, he walked over to Henry who still stood with his arm pointing at Margaret. Woolsey seized Henry’s arm and lowered it to his side. This gesture silenced the crowd. Woolsey then returned to his place behind the table and again took his seat.

  “Now, Jameson,” he said, “let me understand what you are saying.”

  “Let us hear how the girl answers the charge,” came a voice from the middle of the crowd. Catherine saw that it came from the pock marked sailor who had cried out several times that night in front of the Jameson house when Henry stood there holding his dead child in his outstretched arms. Woolsey glanced in the direction from which the voice came, but ignored the request. Instead, he turned back to Henry. “Are you saying that the girl drowned your babe, or that she caused it to stop breathing by uttering a malediction?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Which did she do?” Woolsey demanded.

  Henry shrugged.

  “She did both, and the babe died. Maybe something else while I was out chopping wood. That is all I can tell you.”

  Governor Peters nudged Woolsey and whispered something in his ear. Woolsey nodded.

  “Now, Goody Jameson,” Woolsey said, “can you add anything to what your husband has just told us?”

  Martha did not respond. She looked at the magistrates as though she did not understand the question. Her eyes appeared glazed. She rubbed the back of her hand across them, and they focused, narrowing into a bright accusatory stare as though she now saw her enemies.

  “My babe is dead,” she said.

  “Yes,” Woolsey encouraged in gentle tones, but how came him to be dead?”

  Martha nodded her head vigorously.

  “We buried him, we did, as soon as you gave him back to us.”

  “Can you not tell us anything further about your servant girl?”

  Martha turned sharply for a moment toward Margaret and then snapped her head back as though unable to look at her servant.

  “No,” she said. “I cannot.”

  Ann took her hand, and Martha sat back down. Henry took his seat next to her, stroking her arm. She did not seem to notice him.

  The building was silent. Nobody seemed to be sure what to do or say next. In the lull, Catherine gathered herself, rose, and stepped forward to stand next to Margaret. She had considered the significance of this gesture, knew that it would bring the opprobrium of her neighbors down on her head, and still thought she must do it.

  “I would like to tell the court what I know.”

  “Mistress Williams,” Governor Peters said, “we know you were there when the babe was born, but not when it died. Is that not right?”

  “Yes,” Catherine replied. “But how the babe was at birth is important.”

  “In due time,” the governor said, “we will hear what you wish to tell us.”

  “Do you only want to hear from the Jamesons then?” Catherine demanded.

  “Catherine,” Woolsey soothed, “we will hear you out fully.”

  Catherine squeezed Margaret’s arm, and the girl looked up. Her eyes were full of an unspeakable fear.

  “Take your seat, Mistress Williams, if you please,” Governor Peters said.

  Catherine released Margaret’s arm and sat down.

  Ned now rose to speak. Catherine recalled how he had been acting strangely since the babe was born, picking a fight with the much stronger Massaquoit, and then turning savagely on Margaret when Catherine now had reason to believe the two young people had either been lovers or that Ned had forced his attentions on the girl. In either case, Catherine now feared that what Ned would say might provoke another outburst from Margaret. If she held up her beads or made the sign of the cross one more time, this pious congregation would condemn her without the need for further testimony.

  Ned glanced at Henry, who nodded, and then he began.

  “I cannot say I saw her harm the babe. I was not in my uncle’s house at that precise moment, as I had just finished sharpening the ax and chopping wood when I entered the house and saw her sitting in a corner mumbling her curses and making those strange signs across her body as just she did when she forgot herself and where she was. For most of the time, she did these things when she thought she would not be observed, but I have a keen eye, I do, and a keener nose to smell out Satan serving papists wherever they may be, and one of them she is as surely as I am standing here before you.”

  “Do you not pray yourself?” The question came from Margaret who had finally roused herself, realizing that nobody else in that building would, or could, help her. Her eyes had lost their panicked look as they focused on Ned, and now held the expression of a soul fighting for its survival against terrible odds. “Do you not pray, both in private, as I have seen many of you do, or in public, as I have seen you all do, in those meetings you force me to attend even against my conscience and the religion I was raised in?”

  “Aye,” Ned answered, something approaching a smirk on his face, “but we pray to Our Lord in a proper way, and not the way such as you do. I have seen you. I have seen you with your beads, counting them like they were the very thirty pieces of silver that is mentioned in th
e Bible.”

  “Your tongue is running away from your thought,” Governor Peters interrupted in a dry tone.

  “Yes, that it is,” Ned said, but still he smiled.

  Woolsey raised his hand, palm outward toward Ned, as a way of announcing the significance of his next questions, as though Ned’s words would float to his outstretched hand where he could weigh their credibility and relevance.

  “Now, Ned, tell us this. Did you see Margaret Mary Donovan harm the babe?”

  Ned’s face reddened, and it looked as though he was about to offer an inappropriate rejoinder, such as he might give a slow-witted companion. But the magistrate was not his companion, and he restrained the impulse.

  “No.”

  “Because you were not in your house at the time, isn’t that so?” Woolsey continued.

  “Yes.”

  “What you did see was that she was praying, in her fashion, after the babe was dead?”

  “Yes,” Ned said, “after her heathenish fashion.”

  “You are merely establishing a pattern of popish prayers, using dumb pieces of wood, as though they could carry the words to God’s ear. Is that not so?” Governor Peters asked, and Ned’s face again relaxed into a grin.

  “I don’t know what she hoped to do with those beads, but she did speak to them.”

  “That is not it all,” Margaret said. “It’s the counting of my prayers I do with my beads, my paternosters and aves.”

  “Why if it is counting you are after, you have ten fingers and ten toes,” Ned replied.

  A ripple of laughter began in the front rows, closest to Ned, and as Margaret’s face darkened, in shame and anger, the ripple grew until it rolled to the very back rows and then filled the hot, moist air of the building with an explosion of derisive mirth, which hung suspended for a moment and then dissolved into the ongoing murmur of hostility. Margaret, however, had now so lost her original trepidation that she seemed to grow in courage against the waves of derision. She waved her rosary above her head, holding it by a small cross on one end. The wooden beads clicked in the suddenly silent building.

  “Since I’ve come to this forsaken land you have not permitted me holy communion, keeping the wafer and the wine only for yourselves, while I sit on the back bench compelled to listen to your blasphemy, nor has there been a priest to hear my confession, so if I was to die I would die heavy with my sin, and you call yourselves good Christians after all!” She clasped the rosary over her head in both hands. “With this, I can still offer my devotions to my God as I was taught to do as a little girl.”

  The murmur again intensified, now into a roar until both Governor Peters and Magistrate Woolsey struggled to their feet in haste to quell the angry energy of the townspeople of Newbury whose patience with this ignorant immigrant girl from that benighted country of Ireland had now reached its limit.

  “I say quiet,” Governor Peters said, and Woolsey added his voice, but to no effect. Then Master Davis, who all this time had sat with his head in his hands in the first row of benches arose and walked past the table to his usual place at the pulpit, and as he ascended the three steps that led to the small platform that elevated him above the stanchion supporting the great Bible, the crowd’s noise subsided before he said a word. He waited until everyone’s eyes were on him.

  “We are to hear evidence of a crime committed by this girl, and not to argue theology with such as her. She is in error in these matters, of course, and she will be corrected, whether she is allowed to continue peacefully among us, or whether she awaits the gallows. And it will be my office to offer that correction for the better hope for her immortal soul. As a first step in her education into become proper Christian, I will need to have your beads.”

  “No,” Margaret shrieked, and she clutched her rosary to her breast.

  “Constable,” Governor Peters said, and a sturdy young man of about twenty-five approached Margaret. “Take them from her,” Peters said.

  Margaret turned as though to run, her eyes now white and starting. Catherine hurried to the girl’s side. She hugged her to her chest.

  “You must give them to me,” she whispered. “I will hold them safely for you and get them back to you.”

  Margaret nodded dumbly.

  “Will it suffice if I take the beads from her?” Catherine asked.

  “Yes,” Woolsey said before Peters could deny such a reasonable request.

  Margaret handed the rosary to Catherine. The beads were coated with her perspiration.

  “I would like to have those,” Minister Davis said.

  “I have given my word to the girl,” Catherine said, “that I would hold them for her.”

  Minister Davis considered for a moment.

  “I am content,” he said, “so long as she has been stripped of that superstitious nonsense, which encourages her to mumble prayers over and over so that the very words are reduced to little better than a mindless incantation.”

  The crowd murmured its assent. Catherine remained standing next to Margaret with the rosary in her hand. Governor Peters turned back to Ned.

  “Do you have anything else to add?”

  “No.”

  Peters looked at Margaret.

  “And you will please to answer questions relevant to our investigation, and not give voice to your heathenish views.”

  In response, Margaret stared at the magistrate and then sat down.

  Jailer Drake now rose to speak.

  “While that girl was in my jail, she played the whore with Simon Oldcastle. I found them together and had to pull them apart.”

  Catherine felt the blood rush to her head, and then it seemed to settle in her troublesome tooth, which commenced a terrible throbbing.

  “That is not so. I was there,” she said.

  Drake bowed in her direction.

  “It is true Mistress Williams was there. She held me in conversation while the girl and Oldcastle were alone. When I then opened the door they were lying together. Is that not how it was Mistress Williams?”

  “Yes,” Catherine agreed. “We stopped Oldcastle from forcing himself upon the poor girl.”

  “No,” Drake said with a malicious smile, “we stopped her from seducing him for the coins he had in his pocket. He told me as much when I took him out for his punishment.” Drake reached into his pocket. He held up two bright silver coins. “These are the very coins he gave me for saving him from himself and the girl, those being his very words.”

  “The girl tells a different story,” Catherine insisted. She glanced over her shoulder at the people on their benches, and she could see that they believed Drake and would not be budged from a conviction that conformed to their view of Margaret. So she simply said, “God, at least, cannot be fooled by lies.”

  “That will be enough.” Minister Davis’ voice rolled down from the pulpit.

  “Yes,” Woolsey said. “We have heard what you said and what the jailer said.” He looked at Margaret, but she only sat, her eyes again vacant and defeated.

  “Fornication, at least it was that,” Drake said, “even if there was no exchange of money.”

  “Do you have anything to tell us about the death of the Jameson babe?” Peters asked.

  “Why that, too,” Drake said. “Oldcastle told me the girl said something about that matter to him.”

  “Why would she do that?” Woolsey asked.

  “What did he say?” Peters asked.

  “Why he said that she said that she only wanted to stop it from crying, and that is how it happened.”

  Catherine squeezed Margaret’s shoulder and leaned down to talk into her ear.

  “Tell, them, child, “ she said, “tell them what you did.”

  “The babe was not crying,” Margaret said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “What is that?” Woolsey asked, cupping his hand to his ear.

  “Louder,” Catherine encouraged.

  “The babe never cried.” Margaret said in a fully audible voice.
“It was a good babe. I only wanted to baptize it when I found that it would not wake up. There was no priest.”

  “And what else did you do?” Catherine asked.

  “I said my beads, again and again, but it did not stir.”

  “She’s leaving out the important part, what she did before all that.” Henry’s voice carried to where Margaret sat like the slap of his hand. “I tell you I saw her kneeling over my babe, and when I pulled her away the babe was dead.”

  “I think we have heard enough,” Governor Peters declared.

  “The babe bled when she touched it,” Henry insisted.

  “We have heard you so say,” Woolsey said.

  “We will make our recommendation to the grand jury,” Peters said.

  Woolsey nudged his colleague.

  “Sir Edward Coke, you know, two witnesses in a hanging crime,” he said.

  “Yes,” Peters said dryly. “We will confer and we will make our recommendation, remembering the wisdom of Sir Edward, who I do not need to remind you died in old England these several years past, while we are here on New England marrying English law to the law of Scripture.”

  The governor stacked the papers on which he had been recording his notes so that their edges were even. He replaced the cap onto his inkwell. Then he drew on his gloves. Woolsey looked toward Catherine.

  “Ah, yes, Mistress Williams,” Peters said. “I remember me now that you wanted to tell us something of the babe’s birth.”

  “Yes,” Catherine replied, although she realized that there was not now anything very useful she could say. What purpose would be served by declaring that the babe was healthy when it was born, since they had already concluded that the girl had killed it? And nothing she could say about the birth itself would exculpate the girl. She could not swear she did not see red spots on its flesh when Margaret touched it, and what could she tell them about the mark on its back that she was not, even now, sure was there, and if it were, she did not herself know what to make of it.

  “Only this. After the babe was born I handed it to the girl and watched how tender she was of it, so careful the way she swaddled it. I do not believe she would harm it.”

  “Yet that she did,” Henry’s voice boomed.