Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 4 (1925-04).djvu/53
Q. We did not send for you to pray, but to tell why you hurt these children.
A. I am an innocent person. I never had to do with witchcraft since I was born. I am a Gospel woman.
Q. How could you tell, then, that the child was bid to observe what clothes you wore when someone came to speak with you?
A. I suspected it.
Q. You dare thus to lie in all this assembly? I expect the truth. Speak, now, and tell who told you what clothes?
A. Nobody.
At this point one of the afflicted children suddenly cried out, "Look, look! There stands a great black man beside her. He is whispering in her ear!" (Mr. Parris records this incident, but fails to give the name of the "afflicted" in his notes.)
Magistrate Hathorn immediately asked the old lady what her invisible counselor said, and she replied: "We must not believe all these distracted children say." Thereupon, to quote Mr. Parris' notes, “there was extreme agony among all the afflicted."
"It was noted that when she bit her lip [again quoting the reverend scribe's report] several of the afflicted were bitten.
"The Marshal said, 'She hath bit her lip,' and immediately the afflicted were in uproar."
In such circumstances, it is not surprizing that Hathorn and Corwin, the magistrates, should have found sufficient grounds for holding the old lady for the autumn assizes. She was accordingly lodged in jail till the court should convene in September.
Her trial, at the fall term of court, presents little difference from similar hearings, save for one single incident. Among the "afflicted" was a young matron, a Mrs. Pope, wife of a well-to-do citizen of Salem. During the trial this Christian young woman hurled her muff at the accused as she stood in the prison's dock. Her shot, as is often the way when women throw missiles, went wild; but if she lacked accuracy of aim she certainly was not wanting in spirit. Stooping, she unfastened the buckle of her heavy, rough-weather brogan and flung it with all her might at Martha Corey. Practise had improved her marksmanship. The iron-studded heel of the heavy footgear struck the old lady full in the mouth. Tipstaves and court attendants made no move to interfere. With bruised and swollen lips Martha Corey stood to receive sentence of death by hanging.
Another entry in the Reverend Mr. Parris' notes furnishes us with the penultimate chapter of Martha Corey’s tragedy: "Accordingly, this 14 September, the 3 aforesaid brethren [Lieutenant Nathaniel Putnam and two deacons of Salem Village Church] went with the pastor to her in Salem Prison; whom we found very obdurate, justifying herself, and condemning all that had done anything to her discovery or condemnation. Whereupon, after a little discourse (for her imperiousness would not suffer much), and after prayer, the dreadful sentence of excommunication was pronounced against her."
Six days after Martha Corey's arrest on a charge of witchcraft, her husband, Giles Corey, was haled before the magistrates on a similar accusation.
The same "afflicted children" who had sworn away the wife's life appeared in the rôle of prosecuting witnesses against the husband, and so greatly did they suffer that, though the old man stood a good ten yards from them, his hands were lashed behind his back to keep him from pinching the girls by magic.
After the children's tale of hauntings, pinchings, beatings and other