Crane Pond (23 page)

The jury retire to consider their verdict. When they are back in place Justice Stoughton asks the foreman, Thomas Fiske, to rise to his feet. ‘How do you find the accused?' he asks.

Fiske gives a little cough. ‘Not guilty, your honour.'

Stoughton is already passing his gaze along the line of his fellow justices, seeking their tacit endorsement of the death sentence he is about to pass on their behalf. As the verdict strikes home his pale face goes suddenly paler. Over in her makeshift dock, Rebecca Nurse blinks confusedly as she continues to stare straight ahead, obviously not sure what has happened. Slowly Stoughton turns his head towards Fiske, whose spindly form cringes in his glare. ‘Please repeat that.'

‘Not guilty,' replies Fiske in not much more than a whisper. There's an abrupt outcry from the afflicted girls, shrieks and screams like the wailing of the damned. Strangely, despite the opposition of her interest to theirs, Nurse is crying too, a thin distracted wavering noise, though all the while she continues to stand at attention.

Stoughton raises his arms and the girls quieten. ‘I am not satisfied with this verdict,' he informs Fiske.

‘Oh?' The foreman is inspecting the floor.

‘I will tell you my reason. I don't think you and the other jurors have given sufficient weight to a vital piece of evidence.'

Now Fiske looks up, and manages to acquire a somewhat petulant tone in his voice. ‘Which piece is that?'

‘It occurred during the testimony of Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter Abigail. They made a series of allegations against the accused. But what was particularly significant was Nurse's reply. As I recall, her exact words were: “What? Are these people giving evidence
against
us now? They used to be
with
us.”'

Sewall glances over at Rebecca Nurse. She is still staring straight ahead, apparently oblivious of being quoted. Stoughton continues: ‘Since the Hobbs women are also facing charges of witchcraft, the interpretation of Nurse's words is clear enough. She was astonished at being accused by other members of her coven. These witches are not even loyal to their own kind. You may be acquainted with the phrase,
socii criminis
.' Fiske's bewildered look makes it evident that he has no such acquaintanceship. ‘Partners in crime,' explains Mr. Stoughton. ‘Both Keble in his
Statutes
and Glanvil in
Sadducismus
make it clear that guilt by association is a valid argument.'

Fiske puffs out his cheeks. Seeing the greengrocer's confusion Sewall suddenly understands that it's his duty as a justice to make a contribution now. The judges are a team of diverse men, each with his own point of view, and it therefore behooves Sewall to express his. ‘It is surely the
jury
's responsibility to interpret the significance of the defendant's comment,' he says.

Stoughton's face turns slowly towards his, and the eyes in their dark sockets inspect him tiredly. Sewall hears his own heart thudding and wonders if Stoughton can hear it too. Finally, Stoughton speaks. ‘You're quite right, Mr. Sewall.' Sewall takes in a deep breath and sighs it out in relief. Meanwhile, Stoughton turns back towards Fiske. ‘Mr. Foreman,' he says, ‘you have heard Judge Sewall's comment. Please retire with your fellow jurors and consider your interpretation of the accused's remark.'

Sewall opens his mouth to protest. This is not what he meant at all. The jury have already had the opportunity to interpret. It's improper to ask them to reconsider.

Or is it? Surely all that matters is the truth, and truth, as he has had cause to remind himself on several occasions recently, endures through time or, looked at from another angle, is independent of time altogether. That being the case what does it matter if the jury are engaged in seeking the truth for the second, or the hundredth, time? All that matters is that they should find it.

Or is this a contrived argument to justify his unwillingness to confront Stoughton yet again?

The jury file out once more but return after just a few minutes. ‘Well,' asks Stoughton, ‘have you reached a verdict?'

‘No, sir.' Fiske's tone is one he must normally reserve for informing a valuable customer he's run out of beans or onions. Stoughton closes his mouth with a little plink. A low deep sound begins to proceed from the afflicted girls. ‘We wish to ask the accused a question. We will then give our verdict in accordance with her reply.'

‘You will then give your verdict, will you? That is very kind of you. Please proceed.'

‘Goody Nurse, can you tell us what you meant when you told Goody Hobbs and her daughter that they used to be
with
you?'

Nurse is still staring straight ahead but gradually becomes aware she's being looked at by all the judges and jurymen and allows herself a quick glance at the banks of faces, then flicks back again, overawed by their mute enquiry. There is silence.

‘The jury has agreed that if she has no defence to offer, the verdict must be guilty,' says Fiske.

‘So be it,' Stoughton replies with satisfaction. The five witches are sentenced to be hanged on 19 July and Sewall can return to Boston.

 

He sits in his study on a lovely sunny morning in early July. Daughter Hannah has written to him from Rowley, a letter full of complaints and reproaches.

She doesn't like cousin William's cattle. Gurnippers hover around them all the time, and bite her too. The cows are very big and moo at her. When she has to go across the fields to fetch them her knee hurts. And cousin Abigail said her stitches were too large. The letter is tear-stained where she wrote how much she missed him and her mother and Betty and Joseph and Mary. She didn't mention young Sam because of course she didn't know he'd returned home.

Sewall puts his thumb gently on the blotches as if he's resting it on her cheek in order to smudge away her sorrow. He will have to be careful how to inform her about Sam because that will certainly increase her sense of injustice. He wonders whether he ought to bring her home, particularly now the Susannah Martin case has shown that the witchcraft has a foothold in the Rowley area. But of course the whole purpose of her stay with the Dummers is to help her grow up a little, and her letter, poignant as it is, shows she still has some way to go in that direction. As for the witchcraft, it is becoming more and more apparent that if you scratch the surface anywhere in Massachusetts, you will find witchcraft bubbling up underneath.

What he can do to sweeten the pill is to explain that young Sam is now taking lessons in Latin with Nathaniel Cheever, New England's oldest (and most rigorous) schoolmaster.

As he begins to write, in comes Susan. ‘Master,' she says, ‘here is—,' but, before she can say it, brother Stephen enters in her wake.

‘I'm sorry, Sam. I'm like a bad penny. I know it's only been a couple of days since we were in each other's company but this is urgent business.' Stephen seems to have lost much of his brightness and cheer recently, and Sewall thinks with a pang that that is
his
fault for suggesting his name to Mr. Stoughton.

‘Stephen,' he says quietly, resting a hand on his shoulder, ‘I'm always happy to be in your company.'

‘Not this time, I suspect, brother. I've received a letter in my capacity as clerk of the court from Goody Nurse.' He opens a small satchel that hangs from his shoulder and draws out a paper. ‘I made a copy for each of the judges and jurymen and am delivering them in person, since the matter is urgent.' He passes over the copy of the letter and Sewall sits back down at his desk to read it.

 

To the Honoured Court and Jury

 

It has been explained to me that I have been found guilty for saying that Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter were of our company. All I meant by this was that they were in prison with me and, as I believed and believe, cannot legally give evidence against their fellow prisoners. And I being hard of hearing and full of grief, no one made clear to me how the court interpreted my words, and so I wasn't able to take the opportunity of explaining what I really meant.

 

Rebecca Nurse

 

‘Of course,' says Stephen, when Sewall has had time to absorb the letter, ‘her argument is invalid, since there is no law that prisoners can't give evidence against each other. As I understand, anyhow.'

‘True. But that's not the point.'

‘Isn't it?'

‘The court took her words to mean that she was a member of a coven. She denies she meant that.
That
's the point. The rightness or wrongness of what she
did
mean, or claims she meant, is neither here nor there. Also, the jury convicted her because she failed to answer their question on this issue. Here she gives an explanation for that failure.' Sewall shakes his head at the sheer banality of it. ‘She's deaf.'

‘Does this mean the court will have to reconvene to consider her case again?' Stephen asks.

‘Nurse's letter is an appeal against the court's judgment. The court should not hear an appeal against itself.' Ever since the fiasco of the pirates he has believed this. ‘I'll take her letter to the governor.'

 

‘Pisspots,' says Governor Phips. ‘The thing is a botch. You sat there on your bench in your red robes like so many'— he hesitates, searching for an appropriate simile, words not coming into his mind as speedily as rage—‘so many great red
beetles
, and you didn't take the trouble to discover that the defendant hadn't got a clue what you were
talking
about. God give me strength.' He paces up and down in the hall of his mansion, one hand where the hilt of his sword would be if he was wearing one, as if to make clear he would like to run Sewall through.

‘I tried—,' begins Sewall.

‘Trying isn't good enough. You needed to
succeed
, God damn your eyes. A woman's life is at stake here. I didn't just
try
to find that treasure on the bottom of the ocean. I
succeeded
. Nothing counts until you're counting the money. Or in this case,
taking
account of whatever God-forsaken muddled drivel the defendant wants to spew out at you.'

‘I thought it best if I—'

‘I'm going to have to reprieve the deaf old basket. I've no choice in the matter. You'd better let her out of jail. She can fly away home on a stick, for all I care. And for pity's sake, don't put me in this position again. I've only been in my post a couple of months. It does me no good at all to cross swords with the very court I set up when I first got here. It makes me look a damned idiot. Or it makes you justices look damned idiots, which amounts to the same thing.'

 

This message is repeated four days later when Mr. Stoughton is standing in Sewall's study. ‘You have brought our proceedings into disrepute,' he says in a voice bleak beyond fury. ‘And in particular you have discredited me.'

Now
perhaps the pirates are exorcised, thinks Sewall, since I've managed to fall foul of
two
of my superiors in quick succession.

‘Did it completely slip your mind that
I
am the senior judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer?' continues Stoughton. ‘It should have been
my
responsibility to bring the matter of the Nurse letter to the attention of the governor.'

Except that you never would have done it, Sewall thinks.

‘Except that I never would have done it,' Stoughton informs him. ‘And do you know why?' Sewall shakes his head. ‘I will tell you why. Because the court did nothing wrong, that's why. Because there were no grounds for the appeal, that's why. It is not the responsibility of the jury—or of the justices, for that matter—to endorse Goody Nurse's explanation of her meaning, and to run off to the governor with it. It's our job, as a court, to make our own interpretation of her meaning, and that we did punctiliously. When it seemed that the jury had ignored this particular issue they were given the opportunity of considering it. Considering it, I might add, with a specific instruction from me that they should bear in mind what you yourself said, that they should arrive at their own interpretation of Nurse's words.'

‘But they asked for further elucidation of Nurse's meaning, and they didn't get it because of her deafness.'

‘Deafness is not a defence against a capital charge. Deafness is not an excuse for witchcraft. Don't you understand, Mr. Sewall? If one witch escapes our justice, she will leave a path that others will follow. Our plantation in the wilderness is facing comprehensive destruction. We must counter it with comprehensive defence.'

There's a long pause. ‘What do you propose to do?' Sewall asks at last.

‘I've already done it. I asked a deputation of Salem gentlemen under the leadership of Mr. Noyes to talk to the governor. Your brother refused to make one of them, incidentally, on the grounds that as an official of the court he had to remain neutral.'

‘Mr. Noyes? But he is Goody Nurse's minister! Surely he should remain neutral too. She's a covenanted member of his congregation. Isn't that a conflict of interest?'

‘Goody Nurse is no longer a member of Mr. Noyes's congregation. The day after she was found guilty by our court he went to her in prison with some elders of his church and excommunicated her.'

‘That seems . . .' Sewall is at a loss for words. Then he fixes on one. ‘Precipitate.' The deliberateness with which he has chosen it makes him think of the word's Latin origin, meaning headfirst or headlong, and he has a sudden mental picture of Goody Nurse falling, falling, from a high and dizzy cliff, falling infinitely and forever, utterly lost, unsaveable.

‘It is Goody Nurse who has precipitated the situation,' Stoughton replies, ‘to use your own word. As Mr. Noyes said to me, the excommunication was no more than a recognition of what had already happened. Nurse excommunicated her
self
when she made an alliance with the Devil and signed his book. When Mr. Noyes and the other Salem gentlemen fully explained this state of affairs to the governor he withdrew the reprieve.' Stoughton gives Sewall a long restraining look, as you might to a horse that wishes to bolt, reining it back by the power of your gaze. ‘She will hang with the others on the nineteenth,' he continues, ‘according to the sentence of our court.' He says the last phrase with a certain emphasis, to remind Sewall of his joint ownership of its decision.