Crane Pond (33 page)

‘And the dismal rolling of thunder, no doubt,' suggests Mather.

‘And some thunder, yes.'

‘God's anger at seeing those wicked witches take their place in hell.'

‘Brother,' says Stephen, ‘I'm not feeling well.' His teeth have begun to chatter though the fire is now burning brightly.

Mr. Mather gathers up the records Stephen has brought him, stuffs them under his coat to protect them from the weather, and takes his leave. He will decide on the exemplary cases himself. Soon afterwards Sewall and Hannah usher Stephen up to bed. They haven't long done so when there's a knock on the door.

‘It will be Mr. Mather,' Sewall tells his wife. ‘He must have forgotten something.'

In fact it's Mr. Stoughton. He is wet to a most extraordinary degree, water cascading from every orifice and fold in his clothing. ‘The tide washed over the causeway,' Stoughton explains, ‘and dragged me half off my horse. The water was swollen with the downpour and a wave washed away my hat. I nearly drowned.'

Once again, Hannah rushes off to fetch towels and spare clothing. Sewall finds it strange to see Stoughton kitted out just as Stephen was—as if the house is filling up with smaller (or at least thinner) simulacra of himself. She drapes the two guests' sopping garments over a clothes horse and puts it in front of the fire for the night, then retires to bed. Sewall warms his guest with a glass of brandy (and takes one himself for company's sake), and the two men play a game of checkers before saying a prayer together and retiring (Mr. Stoughton will share Stephen's room).

When Sewall enters his own chamber, Hannah is still awake. ‘Poor brother Stephen,' she whispers. ‘I hope he will feel better in the morning.'

‘Poor Mr. Stoughton,' Sewall says in turn, putting his candle on the table by the bed. ‘He was all but washed away.' Suddenly he pauses. Mr. Stoughton is the chief judge of the witch trials—could his adventure foretell the washing away of the Court of Oyer and Terminer?

‘He was dreadfully wet,' says Hannah. ‘Very very wet indeed. He was like a drowned rat.' Suddenly she begins to laugh. Into Sewall's mind comes the picture of Mr. Stoughton's low-crowned hat, upside down in the water and revolving like a small coracle just as Sam's friend Sam Gaskill's had when the boys went on their fishing expedition, and now he is laughing too at the indignities that have overtaken that important man (including of course being humbled at checkers).

He gets into bed, still laughing, and then an odd thing happens. Amusement turns into passion, and the passion immediately transmogrifies itself into ugly lust.

There is no trace of husbandly affection in it—while he caresses Hannah his mind is teeming with evil images, as it did once before. This time he is being visited by the two most attractive witches. The freshly widowed Elizabeth Proctor returns and is accompanied by young Margaret Jacobs, the girl who withdrew her confession in order to save her grandfather, and Sewall rejoices in his own status and power as judge over these women; leers at them. Other images mingle with these: whores he has seen on the wharves, the doxies that hang around the entrances of London's theatres (perhaps Mr. Brattle has sampled these, in his play-going days, making full use, as Sewall failed to do, of the fact that he was for a time inhabiting a different place, where being New Englandy was not demanded of him). Sewall pictures pimpled and dirty women, draggled women, women with nothing to lose and just one thing to offer. Mixed up with them, those respectable ladies who have been degraded in his previous wicked thoughts. Madam Winthrop showing her legs, showing
every
thing, in exchange for his signature on the pirates' reprieves; lovely buxom Margaret, wife of his own brother Stephen who even now is lying ill in the bedroom along the landing.

All these female bodies swirl and twist like fleshy flames, beckoning with their hands, flaunting their breasts, pushing their hips at him, looming and fading in the smoky atmosphere of his mind even as his body engages with Hannah's. And then the imperative of desire takes him beyond these fantasies, beyond everything and everyone except desire itself, and he finds himself vanishing into the enormousness of his own need, leaving only a home-made bonnet floating on its surface to mark where he once was.

When it is over he lies face-down on the bed, too ashamed to look at Hannah. He feels like a sea-monster washed up on the beach, some disgusting creature intended to live its life out of sight, in the darkness of deep waters. How can he have become such a thing? Is it possible to be evil without even realising that you are, without ever making a choice? Perhaps he has been a witch all along but has simply not been aware of it. He has lived his life as Judge Sewall, respectable member of the community, brother of his dear brother Stephen, doting father of his children, lover, husband, friend of wife Hannah, while all along, while his own back was turned, so to speak, he has been practising wickedness, the dark arts.

After a while he pushes himself up into a sitting position. Hannah is now asleep. The candle is still glowing dimly and he picks up the Bible from beside it and opens it at random. He finds himself reading from the beginning of the first epistle of John.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin
.

He puts the book back and lies down again. The rain drums faintly on the roof; Hannah is breathing softly beside him. He thinks of the words he has just read: ‘if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.' And when that is achieved, Christ will cleanse us from all sin.

Then he sleeps.

I
t's a dull October day with a chill in the air. Bastian is about to begin splitting logs for the winter pile when Sewall interrupts—he wants to do it himself, get warm with the exercise, become tired. Bastian hands over the axe and Sewall raises it. He stares down at the log, trying to look at it so intently his eyes will make a path for the descending axe to follow. Then he gathers his shoulders together for the swing.

At exactly the last possible second, Bastian speaks: ‘Master.'

Sewall gives out a whimper of baffled exertion and lowers the axe. ‘What is it, Bastian?'

‘I wish you to marry me.'

Sewall stares at him for a moment, perplexed. ‘Marry you?'

‘Yes, master. Marry me to Jane.'

‘Ah, to Jane! That is good news indeed.' Sewall puts the axe down and shakes his servant's hand. ‘I wish you both joy of it.'

‘Thank you, master. Will you? Since you're a justice, you have the authority.'

‘Of course I will! It will be a pleasure. It will be a privilege. Ah, but one thing. Jane is a slave. What does her mistress say?'

There's a pause. ‘We haven't asked her yet,' Bastian says finally.

‘I see. Do you want me to speak to her?'

‘Oh please, master. You are so good to me.'

‘No, Bastian,' says Sewall, squeezing his arm, ‘it is quite the other way around.'

Bastian shakes his head and to Sewall's relief (since he doesn't want a witness to his log-splitting) backs away to find some other work to do. Sewall raises the axe once more. At the exact moment he commits himself to his swing, another voice. ‘Father,' says young Sam. With a mighty effort Sewall arrests his swing and carefully rests the axe against the log block. Sam is standing with his head bowed.

‘What are you doing here, my boy?'

‘Mr. Perry sent me home.'

‘And why did he do that? Don't people want to buy books any more?'

Sewall knows for a fact that the opposite is the case. Mr. Perry explained to him that sales have increased since the governor returned and promptly suspended the trials, as if the people were trying to find guidance as to the best course of action. There is no shortage of books to advise them on their quest. Indeed several have appeared in the last few weeks. Cotton Mather for one has already published his defence of the trials, with the arresting title of
Wonders of the Invisible World
. He dealt with five cases and this time endorsed the procedure of the court in each one.

His father, however, has written what amounts to a counterblast, called
Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits
. The Devil, Increase Mather explains, has great skill in optics and can cause things to appear far differently from what they actually are. Indeed, he remarks, a journal published in Leipzig, the
Acta Eruditorum
, tells the story of a Frenchman who learned from a demon to use Borax water to produce glittering optical effects and even to create the shapes of innocent people afflicting others. The suggestion is clearly that the accusers, jury and judges were all deluded.

Even more disturbingly, Mr. Willard has ventured into print with a dialogue,
Between S and B
, in which S and B argue over the merits of the witchcraft trials, with B taking the sceptic's part, and S the supporter's one. Sewall guesses that S stands for himself, with B representing Mr. Brattle. B crushes S's arguments about the witches' guilt by asserting ‘None knows another's heart'—a poor reward for providing Mr. Willard, along with Mrs. Willard and all the little Willards, with that golden September day on Hogg Island.

Sam understands that his father's question is ironic, indeed sarcastic, and doesn't reply at first.

‘Well?'

‘No.'

‘No, which? No, they aren't buying? Or no, they—'

‘No, father, they
are
still buying. It's very busy.'

‘If it's so busy perhaps you can tell me why you've come home early.' He glares. ‘I would have thought—'

‘I've been rushing around so much, serving all the customers. My feet are sore.'

‘A little while ago you were complaining that your legs were swollen with the heat. And before
that
, as I remember, your feet were blistered.' Oddly, the listing of these absurd infirmities snaps Sewall out of his bad mood.

‘The floor gets harder in cold weather. The flagstones make my feet ache so much I can hardly walk.'

‘I see.' He smiles at his son. ‘Well, since you're home now, you might as well rest those weary feet of yours so that they will be ready for the cold flagstones tomorrow.'

‘Yes, father,' says Sam joyfully, and scuttles into the house.

 

A crack like a musket shot, then a clatter as each half of the split log hits the ground. After a few minutes with no further interruptions Sewall's body surrenders to the rhythm of his task, collecting a new log, placing it on the block, raising the axe, sighting the path, bringing it down, fetching another and repeating the sequence. But while his body becomes absorbed in the work, his mind teems with difficult and uneasy thoughts.

Stephen groaned and winced as Sewall took him back by carriage to Salem the morning after he had brought the trial transcripts for Mr. Mather to quarry. He had insisted on returning home despite a high temperature and painful joints. Since then the fever and weakness have steadily increased. Sewall visited just the other day and Stephen was in a poor way indeed. When he became aware of Sewall's presence he slowly turned his head and fixed him with unnaturally bright eyes. ‘I wish—,' he whispered.

‘Yes?'

‘I wish I may live.' The nakedness of his fear brought Sewall to the verge of weeping and for a moment he didn't dare try to reply. Instead he wiped his hand gently over his brother's forehead. ‘I wish I may live,' Stephen said again.

‘I'm sure that—'

‘So I may serve God better than I have done.'

‘You did what you were called upon to do,' Sewall told him. ‘As did I,' he adds a little tentatively.

Tomorrow Mr. Stoughton will once more ask the governor and Council whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit again in a week's time, when the governor's suspension will have expired. Stoughton, with that iron will of his, is determined to continue. Consistency is all-important, in matters of law as well as matters of religion, he told the Council at its last meeting. ‘Oh yes,' said Mr. Brattle, meeting Sewall on the street, ‘for the sake of those who have already died, the only fair procedure will be to execute
every
one. Then nobody can complain about being singled out.'

Whatever the outcome, Sewall senses that the crisis is over. He has felt this since the night he made his disgraceful and unuxorious assault upon Hannah's person (though afterwards she peacefully slept as though nothing untoward had happened), and then comforted himself by reading from John's first epistle: ‘if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.' The congregation of the saints has been terribly divided and now is becoming reconciled once more.

Swing, bang, clatter. Bastian has sidled back and is picking up the split logs and piling them in a lean-to against the side wall. Sewall loves his Bible, his accounts, his legal books, his toing and froing in the affairs of city and province, but for the time being he thinks how delicious it would be to do nothing
but
doing, without any pause for thought.

Then: a shriek, scratched on the grey October air like the call of a bird. And another. It's Betty, and her scream contains that terrible unrefusable demand of a child:
you must help me
.

Now, another cry, voice deeper, that barking awkward almost-manly timbre of his boy Sam. And even in these lower notes, the same demand:
you must help me
.

Sewall has dropped his axe and is running towards the house, but hearing Sam's voice underlining Betty's he turns and picks it up again. Bastian scurries towards him from the lean-to with a split log as weapon in each hand. As the two men near the back door, Betty bursts out of it like a cannonball and flies straight past them, on down the garden.