Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  “You were gone for ten years, yet you came back, and I had not changed.”

  “But you have.”

  “I have?’

  “In the most beautiful sense, yes, but I fear that place in the last month has gone into a darkness from which it will never lift itself.”

  She studied his face as if she he was right. Tears welled up, and she wiped them with a hanky.

  They’d started back for their lodgings now, but Jeremy intentionally moved her along a path that would not take them by the jail again. “Forget about Salem; imagine us flourishing here in Boston.”

  “Safe from superstitious minds? Liars and thieves?”

  “Not entirely, of course, no, but—”

  “And strangling notions of right and wrong?”

  “Not entirely, no. But things here are better. You can’t argue that.”

  “I can always argue. You forget how many brothers I have.”

  “Serena.” He took hold of both her shoulders and turned her to face him, staring into her eyes. “I could make you happy here. In time, we could find a plot of land, build a house, have children.”

  She nodded, still fighting back tears. “And wash our hands of Salem, eh?”

  “It’s a temptation I am willing to give into, yes.”

  “And what of the accused, those awaiting trial?”

  “In time, this fire storm will pass. It’s tempest in a teapot.”

  “You don’t believe that, now do you?”

  “It will whistle and brew hot, but-but an end to it will come; just a matter of time.”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” she conceded, “but I have to know that my parents, my brothers, my sisters—that they’re all right.”

  “Write to them.” He shrugged. “I’m sure that with Goode’s execution, this entire ordeal will burn itself out like the crucible it is. I mean look how they’ve sent Tituba out of the fray. Parris could not see her hung.”

  “Do you think it’s so?”

  “It appears so.”

  “Still, in any crucible, the circumstances subject people to forces that test them.”

  “And often make them change, Serena, and we have a right to choose our destiny and make our own changes amid this . . . turmoil.”

  She leaned into him as they continued, man and wife, toward Mrs. Fahey’s. “A place of our own,” she whispered in his ear. “Find a place of peace. Is it possible?”

  “We will make it so.” Even as he said it, even as he felt her on his arm, even as others stared at the unfamiliar pair, even as Jeremy wanted to believe it himself, he desperately wanted to know the secrets held back by one Tituba L’englesian. In fact, he felt an irresistible urge to seek the Barbados woman out tonight, perhaps on his way to his meeting with Reverend Mather.

  However, on his way to Mather’s Jeremy could not get near the jail window to speak to Tituba, and he hadn’t the money to pay the jailer for five minutes with her. He determined to get Mather to have Tituba brought to them, to interrogate her about her time with Parris in Barbados, the true nature of their relationship, and how she had lost her child. But when Jeremy sought Mather, he was confronted by Mather’s apprentice in the ministry at the North Church and told that Mr. Mather had left the city.

  “Left the city? For where?”

  “For Salem. Eveyone’s gone to Salem.”

  “He’s followed Saltonstall and the court to Salem?”

  “Now you’ve got it.”

  “But we had an appointment.”

  “He left me to make his apologies to you, Mr. Wakely.”

  “But I have secret papers for him!”

  “I would be happy to take anything you’d care to leave for Mr. Mather and keep it in a safe place.”

  Jeremy stormed off, angry and upset at the turn of events, and again when he tried to get near Tituba, he saw this, too, was an impossibility.

  His head filled with a burning, hot frustration when he saw a discarded copy of the newspaper he’d been thrown off of. Its headline read that Governor Phipps had left Boston as well, and scanning the story, he learned that William Phipps was quoted as saying, “I’d rather fight pagans of this world than any creatures in the Invisible World of Satan.”

  Chapter Six

  May 2, evening in Salem Village

  Magistrates Jonathan Hathorne and John Corwin stood as the stalwart enforcers of the Inferior Court Sessions in Salem Town and Village; together they formed a two-man commission in an area extending to the borders of Essex County. Still the two magistrates who dealt principally with minor offenses, complaints, and misdemeanor seldom to never entertained spirits or supernatural elements in their courtrooms save for the rantings of farmers who believed a broken cart wheel or a dried up cow had to do with a curse. They tried minor cases, and they seldom entertained members of the Superior Court of Assistants of the true seat of power, Boston.

  However, tonight was a special occasion indeed as Sir William Stoughton, Chief Justice of the Colonies, had come to Salem to confer with the local magistrates. With him came Judge Richard Addington, and the well-published, popular Judge Samuel Sewell and David Saltonstall. They’d come to confer over the recent discovery of widespread witchcraft in these environs.

  The gentlemen from Boston did not come quietly in the night as had Jeremiah Wakely, but rather in fine carriages by day, carriages that effectively blocked the small mud street before Hathorne’s black-shuttered, white house.

  Inside, Hathorne was saying, “I have survived as Judge Advocate of Salem Farms longer than any before me. Elected and reelected by the freeman vote. Through the Mason threat, when thieves in Plymouth Bay Company claimed title to all lands between the Kennebec and the Merrimac, gentlemen—and I was instrumental in quelling that nasty bit of business, I can tell you.”

  “Massachusetts Bay Company property,” added Judge Corwin, toasting. “Here, here! Mr. Hathorne was in office through King Phillip’s War.”

  “Aye. . . . 1675, a difficult time,” muttered Addington, sipping his brandy.

  “Yes, indeed,” Hathorne piped back in, a smile on his face. “When that savage who took the title of King and the name Phillip, led his people against us in that unholy war, I was here in the forefront.”

  “Metacom,” said Sewell thoughtfully.

  “Sir?” asked Corwin.

  “King Phillips true name, Metacom.” Saltonstall, the eldest of the group, chewed on sore gums.

  “Ahhh, yes, of course.”

  “Do you mean to say you took up arms? Went out into the wilderness?” Chief Justice Stoughton’s expression conveyed how this news had hit him. “I’m impressed.”

  “No, I didn’t mean to imply . . . that is, I meant.” Hathorne back-peddled

  Stoughton frowned. “What did you mean, Mr. Hathorne?”

  “During time of war, civil order is even more important.” Hathorne gulped his drink.

  Corwin continued to support his colleague. “Scarce a man in all of Salem who doesn’t owe Jonathan some debt of gratitude.”

  “Or some debt,” joked Hathorne. “On my books at my Customs House at the Harbor, eh what?”

  This drew a mild laughter from the others.

  Corwin quickly added, “He’s helped many a drowning man stay aloft through famine and want.”

  Addington pointedly asked Hathorne and Corwin, “But where did the two of you stand during the Andros years?”

  The question unsettled both the Inferior Court judges. They shrugged, hemmed, hawed for a moment, Hathorne exchanged glances with Reverend Higginson, who’d forced his weary body from his sickbed to be on hand, and beside him, Nicholas Noyes, who, along with Reverend Hale and Samuel Parris had been summoned to meet the Superior Court judges. The lower judges had made a festival of it; all present had consumed food, ale, and canary wine at cost to the Salem judges. Reverend Parris today stood mute, not offering a word, as if he’d been castigated or ordered to remain silent before the meeting.

  “Gentle
men,” began Hathorne, “we’re not Boston by any stretch, and we may be small, but our seaport thrives as well as any, and we are a courageous people . . . and-and as for those troubled years, well sirs—”

  Reverend Higginson raised his cane and banged it like a gavel. “I knew the great John Winthrop, first governor of our wonderful experiment, this our colony.”

  Nicholas Noyes muttered in the old man’s ear that perhaps he should save his strength, which Higginson shook off. “Knew Winthrop, yes, when hardly more than a boy. I’ve studied his life and have found no man’s wisdom greater than his, either as a statesman or a religious leader.”

  Hathorne tried to capitalize on this. “I often use Winthrop’s wisdom in my courtroom.”

  “You rule by Winthrop’s pronouncements then?” asked the round, balding Sewell.

  “And yours, sir,” added Hathorne, holding up Sewell’s sermons.

  “I should think you’d rule by God’s pronouncements,” countered Sewell.

  “Of course, of course. Both Corwin and I do exactly that. I didn’t mean to imply other—”

  “Tempered with Winthrop’s wisdom and that of Solomon?” asked Saltonstall with a quick grin.

  Corwin returned the smile. “We do what we can.”

  Stoughton corrected his loose powdered wig. Sir William had been knighted and made Chief Justice of the Colonies under Sir Edmund Andros, the Governor who had been literally torn from office and hung before cooler head could prevail as many had argued for his banishment, to have him placed on a ship sailing for England, to allow authorities there to deal with him. How Sir William Stoughton, the now Chief Justice, had achieved knighthood and position no one knew, and even more curious was how he’d weathered the storm when almost every official connected with the infamous Governor Andros had either been hung or tarred, feathred, and chased from the colony. Somehow this man Stoughton had escaped the stonings and the tarrings of those riotous days. And somehow he’d remained in office, untainted and untouched by it all. “Do you utilize the Pentateuch then in your deliberations?” asked Stoughton now.

  “It is the law of Moses,” said Corwin, nodding.

  “First five books of the Bible,” said Hathorne, sipping at his wine. “Written by Moses to convey the word of our Lord.”

  “Good, solid law, solid teachings.”

  Everyone agreed, a wave of yeses and nods going about the room.

  “Moses was a great man and a great mind,” added Higginson. “His precepts are still applicable today, and if you interpret them correctly, you will not allow the telltale stories of spirits and hobgoblins and rumors of ghosts at bedtime to take the place of testimony of the sort required in a courtroom.” The effort left Higginson sorely coughing and hacking.

  “So were you an Andros man, Mr. Hathorne?” asked Stoughton, pressing the point. “You never quite answered the question.”

  Nervous laughter erupted from the others. Hathorne gritted his teeth, unsure how to put the truth. “I signed Andros’ oath of allegiance to the King, sir, same as you.”

  This froze everyone. An icy silence filled the house until Stoughton said, “Go on, Mr. Hathorne.”

  Corwin was visibly shaking, his drink in hand telling the tale.

  Higginson wryly smiled, curious how this might go.

  “I rule by the dictates of my Maker, sir,” began Hathorne, knowing that Stoughton could have him removed from office at any time. “And . . . and I did so the entire time that Andros was in power, tyrant that he was. If I must work within a system I find fault with, as at that time, that is if there is no recourse, then I ask God’s gracious guiding hand to guide my thoughts in guiding others . . . that is to help . . . ”

  “Jonathan and I both followed Winthrop’s dictum,” said Corwin. “When human reason fails and war divides a land, fall to your knees and pray to God, and then do nothing.” Corwin laughed, raised his ale, and tried to lighten the moment.

  “A good politician would agree,” said Addington, his pinched, severe features on the verge of a smile but not quite.

  Judge Sewell, who’d also managed to remain in office through this difficult period, added, “Doing nothing is an acceptable maneuver in . . . in the face of overwhelming and difficult circumstances, after all.”

  “Perhaps we ought to begin a political party and call ourselves the Do Nothings,” finished Stoughton.

  A nervous laughter moved about the room.

  Stoughton added, “Oh, I know the wait and see attitude is practiced most deftly by everyone in office, gentlemen, from our present Governor down. Do you wish to know what Governor Phipps has to say on your witch problem here in Salem?”

  “Indeed . . . indeed we do,” said Higginson. “Here, here and about time he made some stand.”

  “He says he’d rather fight Indians and invaders than shadows and spirits, that he wanted his shot and dagger to pierce something when he rode into battle.”

  “He is a gallant man on a horse.” It was Nicholas Noyes’ summation of Sir William Phipps.

  “The man has ended the Indian problem,” said Hale thoughtfully. “Leastways in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”

  “He’s gone to Maine to help see to the scourge there,” said Sewell.

  Stoughton countered with a raised glass. “And perhaps to run from the scourge here.”

  The others laughed.

  “Meanwhile the jails in Salem are bulging with the indicted here,” replied Nehemia Higginson, drawing a stare from Addington. Higginson’s mind raced with many concerns. Members of the Superior Court, also called the General Court were trained in both the ministry and the law, as law was based on biblical strictures meant as common belief, custom, and rule. That men might cooperate and combine and grow in community and harmony. New England for the Puritans on these shores was the great purging, the starting over of God’s Eden, his New Jerusalem, a Utopia to be cherished and defended against any attack, perceived or otherwise. At the same time, despite the hold on the colonies by the King of England, most in Massachusetts and perhaps all the colonies found swearing an oath to any earthly king or governor—the king’s man—part and parcel of the old and perverted world across the sea. The contemptible, wicked, shameful, and sinful Old England of the Episcopal Faith. To such men, swearing an Oath to King William was to bend to the will of a tyrant and his petty tyrants sent to the colonies to collect taxes and to chain men for not genuflecting. Tyrants and tax collectors in black cloaks, men like Andros who made people sign in his book.

  The Puritans had rejected both the Church of England and the Vatican; they’d run from England, braving all manner of danger to escape a tainted world, to escape the blood and poison of a toxic universe where kings bent the rule of law and the rule of God to their perverse and often greedy and self-serving ends. Some said the taint of England had come with them to the New World; that such things as witches and wizards had also come over right along with the wharf rats and other vermin.

  Such men, and the sons of such men as Nehemia Higginson, stood in this room now, come together to fight this new threat to Utopia. “You men of Boston,” said Higginson, “know that we men of Salem agree with your politics. England has failed God, but we will not fail Him.”

  This profound remark silenced the others. Higginson got to his feet with great effort, telling his underling, Noyes, to fetch his wrap and coat. He said to the others as he waited, “I can see you are men of learning, knowledge, theology, law—a nd that you are influential. All to the good. All to help us in Salem to heal. I pray you use your offices wisely, knowing you are men with a just cause—to end this damable witch hunt before it goes any further.”

  No one responded, and the old minister, looking as thin and gaunt as a buzzard, allowed Noyes to help him on with cape and hat. Noyes helped him out the door as well, but the elder minister stopped at the entry and said pointedly to Stoughton, “Don’t forget what we talked about, Sir William.”

  Stoughton cleared his throat and replied, “I wil
l remember, Reverend sir. And thank you for taking such effort to be here.”

  With Higginson and Noyes gone, Saltonstalll took center stage. “I think it time we magistrates conferred now in private, gentlemen.”

  From the look Stoughton and Addington shared, it was time for the other ministers to follow old Higginson’s example right out the door, to leave them with the magistrates of the lower court to talk statutes and laws and precedent in a situation without precedent on these shores, and so to allow them to talk about the legal aspects of what was going on here.

  Once every clergyman had bid adieu, Sir William Stoughton took charge, saying, “At last, gentlemen, we might speak frankly and to the point. We are here to eradicate demons.”

  # # # # #

  Stoughton firmly took Hathorne by the arm and led him to sit with him before the hearth. “Jonathan . . . may I call you Jonathan?”

  “By all means, Sir William.”

  Sewell and Addington hung back, glancing at one another.

  Corwin kept his distance.

  “It appears to me, Jonathan,” continued Stoughton, imbibing between phrases, “appears this next election will be decided along the loyalty issue.”

  “A major concern among the mob, I’d say,” replied Hathorne.

  “Regardless of your reasoning . . . ” Stoughton shrugged. “However moral it may or may not’ve been to stand with Andros when Governor, now in today’s climate, we may all of us suffer the fate of those who’ve been tossed from office.”

  “I understand and it comes with our duties.”

  “Held accountable, even me—even Sewell there.”

  “But-but—”

  “Unless we find a way to keep the voters’ minds’ well distracted.”

  “Distracted, yes. I take your point.”

  Hathorne’s black maidservant, Callie, entered, asked if anything additional was needed, and Hathorne scolded her for interrupting, finishing with, “Be off to bed, now!” He then apologized to his guests.

  His servant’s interrupting them had given him pause; enough to consider what precisely the Boston judges had in mind. Clearly, it had all to do with its being an election year, and the polls would decide all their fates. He said to Stoughton, loud enough for the others in the room to hear, “It’s true the people have been aroused against Corwin and me on the single issue, but in general, we are well respected here.”