Crane Pond (24 page)

Sewall's breathing is coming heavily as if he has been running. Not guilty, then guilty, reprieved, then having the reprieve withdrawn. It is as if the voice of the state has stammered in addressing this elderly woman. He can hardly bear to think of how she has shuttled from danger to safety, from safety to danger, to safety again, then to doom. It's equally terrible to think of the loneliness of excommunication, notwithstanding Stoughton's justification of it, that complete isolation and consequent despair. Sometimes Sewall wakes at night in panic at the thought that he may not be a covenanted member of his own church, because of that wretched episode where he forgot to confess his sins when he stood before the congregation.

But still, she
must
be able to bear it, because the option is open to her to confess and rejoin the faithful. He, Sewall, is a husband, father, church member, justice, merchant, representative, his whole life a series of how-de-dos, handshakes and (where appropriate) kisses. Just as a sculpture is shaped by innumerable carvings and scrapings on the part of the sculptor's tools, so he, Sewall, is formed by the innumerable contacts he has with his surrounding community, his very contours determined by constant intricate pressures from life in society. He pictures diminutive Goody Nurse, standing rigid as one of Joseph's toy soldiers. Recalls her in the dock, remote from the proceedings, with those oblivious ears. Perhaps she has learned to love her silence, to inhabit it snugly like a cocoon?

‘That man,' says Stoughton bitterly.

‘The Devil?' asks Sewall, surfacing in confusion from these reflections.

‘The governor.'

‘Oh.'

‘I can't imagine what Increase Mather thought he was up to, securing the post for that dolt.'

‘Perhaps he thought he would be able to manipulate him.'

‘Perhaps he did. But the drawback in choosing a man you can manipulate is that others can do so too. As
you
did.' Stoughton says this with contempt, as though to suggest that if Sewall can make Phips dance to his tune absolutely anyone can. ‘And as the Salem gentlemen did after you,' he continues. ‘Governor Phips sneers and struts and rages and covers his chest with gold braiding, and yet petitioners can bat him like a shuttlecock from one side of the fence to the other. Anyhow, the court shouldn't be troubled by any more interference from him. He's gone off to fight our enemies in the west of the province.'

‘I didn't know there was any trouble there at present.'

‘He'll no doubt find some. He'll bumble about until he succeeds in flushing some Indian out of the undergrowth. And while he's doing that, he'll leave the rest of us alone, thank God.'

I
t hasn't rained for some weeks, and the sun beats down day after day. On 18 July, Sewall decides to go to Salem to see the witches hang the following day. He doesn't normally watch the deaths of those he has sentenced himself, fearing that attendance at the foot of the gallows would be interpreted as gloating or revenge. But in the case of witchcraft there is the possibility of last-minute confession, and it has been decided by the judges that confessors should be spared, at least for the time being, since they can provide testimony in other cases. In Sewall's opinion they should be spared indefinitely, pardoned even. A witch is not guilty of a crime in her own right; rather, she
contains
guilt as a bottle may contain poison. If the poison is poured away, the bottle becomes clean again. A witch can be returned to innocence up till the moment the rope takes hold.

It's too late for the ferry so Sewall sets out on horseback. By mid-afternoon he is passing near the town of Saugus, at about the halfway point on his journey. He is clopping through small fields with stony outcrops and clumps of pine to his right. Every now and then there is a sharp report as a rock splits in the heat. The sky is cloudless and the track dry and cracked, with an occasional flurry of dust kicked up by the sea breeze from Cape Ann. Over the fence to the left a man is harvesting corn, and Sewall suddenly realises there is something strange about him.

He pauses his horse and puts his hand flat to his brow to cut out the glare. The man is some distance away, busily scything. Sewall realises he's wearing no clothes at all except a pair of boots. He calls him over.

‘You lost, sir?' the man asks brusquely when he has approached the fence.

‘I might ask you the same.'

‘What?' The man screws his eyes to look up at him.

Sewall points down at his body. The man looks down at himself then back up. ‘I have to wear them,' he explains. ‘The stalks are hard.'

‘I meant,' says Sewall, ‘the lack of anything
else
, to supplement your boots.'

The man blinks in puzzlement, then inspects his feet again. ‘These are just working boots,' he says.

It occurs to Sewall that the man thinks he's complaining that the boots are not well cared for, having taken ‘supplement' to mean ‘clean' or ‘polish'. ‘Where are your clothes?'

The man points to a little heap on the stubble some distance away. ‘There,' he says. ‘Working clothes. Like my boots.' Suddenly he almost snarls. ‘Rags! Just rags.'

‘But why aren't you wearing them?'

The man raises his arm. Sewall realises he's pointing at the sun. Sewall sighs. ‘Clothes are for decency, not just protection from inclement weather,' he tells him. Strangely the man doesn't look particularly
in
decent, or if he does the effect is entirely due to his incongruous boots. What strikes Sewall about his naked form is how ordinary it looks, how
normal
, one might say.

He remembers the allure of Madam Winthrop as she showed him her miry skirts. Perhaps she would also look normal (so to speak) if she wore no clothes at all. He tries to think through this question judiciously but finds himself taking out a handkerchief to mop his forehead (it is oppressively hot). Adam and Eve, having eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, stitched themselves little aprons from fig leaves, and then God sewed them coats of goatskins to wear when expelled from the Garden. He must remind daughter Hannah, unhappy at being taught to sew, that God Himself was willing to ply needle and thread.

Perhaps true indecency is when you can see nakedness
beneath
or
within
clothing, so that the whole sad story of the Fall is as it were compressed into a single image.

‘Nobody about,' says the man. He points round at the absence of onlookers, at the presence of insensate fields, trees and rocks.

‘
I
am about,' says Sewall.

‘You stopped and looked at me a purpose. You could have just rid on.'

‘But even before I came along
some
one was looking at you.
God
was looking at you.'

‘But God made me naked,' the man says after a pause. ‘So why should He care?'

Sewall is impressed by his logic. ‘One day, here in America,' he tells him, ‘a new dispensation, or should I say, the oldest dispensation of all, will be established and we will be returned to the Garden which was our earliest home. But in the meantime we are a fallen people and have to wear our clothes.' If the man didn't understand ‘supplement' he is not likely to comprehend ‘dispensation', but in this lonely place Sewall needs polysyllabic buttressing to establish his authority. The thought strikes him that if he was naked too there would be an enforced equality of the body, since social distinctions depend on dress. But those distinctions are as necessary to the sublunary world as big and little cogs are necessary in a clock (he is expecting delivery of a new longcase clock from England)—though of course in
heaven
there will be no need to keep time, no time to keep.

The man pauses for a moment, as if to emphasise that he isn't cowed. Then he shrugs his shoulders, turns and walks slowly towards his pile of clothes, his bearing stiff with resentment, his arse glaring sullenly back at Sewall.

*

The witches are to be hanged from a single frame, a sad coven indeed.

Sewall waits with Nicholas Noyes and other interested gentlemen for the cart to arrive. Around them a hotch-potch of onlookers, relatives come to mourn, accusers and afflicted (a number of the young girls are present, Ann Putnam holding her father's hand) to witness the lifting of their oppression, or at least part of it, and lastly the execution-gawpers, here for entertainment.

The gallows is situated on a low hill not far from the sea, which today is a rich navy-blue with white horses riding the breakers. The sky is much paler than the waters below it, as if the intense heat of the sun has washed away its colour. ‘I feel like a lump of fat melting in a pan,' grumbles Noyes. ‘I'm sure they should be here by now,' he adds, as though the condemned witches are carelessly late for an appointment. Sewall wonders whether they too resent the delay and wish their suffering over and done with, or whether they cherish these extra minutes, each with the sunshiny world within it.

At last the cart comes swaying up the hill with the five witches sitting awkwardly on its planking. There are five nooses dangling and beside each rests a ladder. The hangman places each witch at the base of her own ladder (puffing his pipe the meanwhile) and when they are in position the marshall reads out the confirmation of their death sentences. Then Sewall seizes his moment to speak. ‘As one of the judges of the court that sentenced you,' he says, ‘I must remind you that you will not die today if you repudiate Satan. The way to do this is to admit your guilt. If you confess to your witchcraft even at this late hour, you will be returned to prison, and if it is determined that your confession is sincere may even be freed.'

The witches remain in place, saying nothing. Sewall wonders whether Nurse has even heard. She is standing just as she did at her trial, stiffly upright and looking straight ahead. He steps towards her and asks in a loud voice if she has understood. Without turning to face him she replies, ‘Sir, I am not a witch. I have nothing to confess. If I should say I was a witch I would be lying to God Himself.''

Sewall sighs and steps back to Mr. Noyes. ‘Perhaps
you
should speak to her,' he says, ‘as her man of God. The twists and turns she has experienced may have confused her. Or made her obdurate.'

‘I am
not
her man of God,' asserts Noyes. ‘Not now, nor ever was. This Nurse was a hypocrite at the Lord's feast. I excommunicated her as a matter of form but she wasn't one of the saints in the first place. She was a viper in our bosom.' He thumps his own bosom as if to establish the absence of any viper remaining there now. ‘I will speak to Goody Good instead. Her name and honorific are two good omens.' He catches Sewall's eye to check this wordplay has struck home, then steps over to Sarah Good, the muttering woman, a forlorn figure in raggedy dress and shawl, even now talking to herself under her breath. ‘You must confess,' says Noyes. ‘You must seize this final opportunity to redeem your soul and save your life. You're a witch and you know it.'

For a few moments Goody Good continues to mouth her imprecations. Then an amazing thing happens: her voice suddenly rings out across the broad day, loud and true. ‘You are a
li
ar!'

Noyes emits a sort of high-pitched whinny. Good continues: ‘I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink!'

Immediately the crowd begins to murmur, the afflicted with indignation at her impudence but the gawpers (Sewall suspects) to register their approval of this terrible prophecy. Meanwhile Mr. Noyes backs away incongruously on tiptoe. Only when he's level with Sewall does he dare turn round. His paunchy cheeks are white, his eyes bulge, there are drops of sweat on his bald pate.

The marshall has seen (and heard) enough—he waves his hand at the hangman who immediately goes up to Goody Good and signals her to begin to climb her ladder. He seizes one of her ankles to let her know that she has arrived at a suitable rung, then climbs up behind her (still puffing smoke) and ties her hands together behind her back. Then he places the rope around her neck and climbs back down again. Sewall notices how, now that she can't hold on with her hands, Good has flattened her body against the ladder out of blind need to preserve her life for as long as possible. The hangman repeats the process with each of the witches in turn. Several of them are whimpering and groaning in terror and anguish, but Nurse and Good remain silent.

Mr. Noyes begins to recite the Lord's Prayer to a throbbing undercurrent of noise from the crowd, and a few hostile and sacrilegious shouts. The hangman approaches Good's ladder again, gives it a quick twist then drops it to the ground. He does the same to the others.

And there the witches are, dancing at the end of their ropes.

 

Next day there's a fast in Captain Alden's house, organised by Sewall himself. It's in order to ask God to keep his old friend safe, both spiritually and bodily. Alden himself isn't present of course—he's in jail, awaiting trial—but his wife and newly ransomed son participate in the devotions. These are led by Samuel Willard, who is minister both to Alden and to Sewall himself, but Cotton Mather also attends out of respect to a brave defender of the community as well as to Mr. Alden's late father,
Mayflower
veteran and one of the founders of New England (as Mather announces somewhat floridly at the beginning of the little ceremony).

At the very moment Sewall opens the front door to take his leave, there's a rumble of thunder. Suddenly the rain is beating down on the Aldens' small front garden and the roadway beyond, sending up a pleasant aroma of refreshed vegetation and heated dust. This break in the weather is a good omen, both for the perturbations of Massachusetts in general and for the fate of John Alden in particular.