LETTER VII.
Dear Charles,—I have acted like a Turkish story-teller;
and without doubt you are on pins till you know the rest!—
and it is a pin story too.
Well, in proof of her daughter's bewitchment, the affrighted
mother showed to the doctor more than fifty pins
which she had that very day taken from the feet of the girl!
And the girl herself affirmed that her whole body was full of
the same, and that they felt as if they would all work down
and come out at her feet!
The marvellous story soon spread through the country, and
presently multitudes of wondering folks arrived, as eager for
the sight of the bewitched young woman's foot, as devout
papists for the sight of a martyr's big toe. And all had
ocular demonstration—for there were the pins, and there the
pin holes in the feet of the damsel. And when asked how
the pins came into her body, her invariable reply was,
“I don't know how, only Satan filled me with them when I
was in fits!”
Here then was a plain, manifest, decided case of witchcraft;
and to doubt, was felt by the whole community to be
madness. Indeed, every body had corroborative instances of
witchcraft to relate; and all the old women, aye, all the old
men too, of the settlement, declared it was high time to be
looking out for the witch. And one very acute and knowing
old patriarch took the doctor aside, and in a very solemn tone
offered to impart to him, in confidence, a mode of detecting
the witch that had been tried by his own father in detecting
“old Peg Steinburg.”
And as this method is perhaps the most efficacious of all
known recipes, I shall, by way of episode, garnish my epic
with it. The direction is as follows:
“You must,” said the worthy old farmer, “take a corn
cake, about the size of your hand, and then you must make
on a good fire of hickory; and when you have plenty of
coals, you must make a hole in the fire and chuck in the
cake. Well, when your cake is covered up, you must think
of the witch, and then the cake will work out; but you
must keep it well covered with hot coals; and though you feel
ever so sleepy you must watch all night; and then the old
witch you suspect will be burned over just like the cake!
And I tell you, doctor, it will do it; for my father told me
before he died, that he made a cake for Old Peg Steinburg—
and when he put it in the fire he heard noises about the
house; but he was determined not to be frightened; and
that it was as much as he could do to keep awake; and that
he could hardly make the cake stay in the fire; and the next
morning he went to Peg's house, and she was in bed, and
when she wouldn't say what was the matter with her, he
pulled down the bed clothes, and she was burnt all over just
like a red blister!”
Potent and certain as was this method, our doctor declined
trying its effects: and although he was somewhat puzzled,
yet observing what others in their
willing and pleasant blindness
had not cared to remark, that
the pins were all without
heads! he thought he had a clue to the mystery.
Nothing is so common as the fact that we believe and disbelieve
as we wish; and very often our very senses are
affected by our desires. Truth has always its evidence,
and falsehood its follies and inconsistencies, if we possess
sufficient skill, perseverance and honesty, to discover their
criteria: but our skill, perseverance and honesty depend so
much upon the state of our feelings and wishes, that our first
care must ever be to keep cool. Hence it happened that, of
all the hundreds of visitors and examiners, none except my
friend the doctor, saw that the pins were headless; or if they
saw, they drew no adverse inferences—why? Because they
did not wish to see; or, rather than give up the theory of
witchcraft, the popular and darling theory of the day, they
were ready to believe that Satan, in a strange fit of tenderheartedness
had clipt off the heads and used them in lieu of
needles, of which article he was probably in want.
Hence the self-styled doctors and professors of mesmerism
and clairvoyance, rather than abandon one folly, will
propagate another; or, for instance, they will deny the attraction
of matter, or will contend that matter is only another
form of spirit; and offer even to tell out of what the world
is made! Nay—they will irreverently and with shocking
impiety discuss the mysterious existence of the Most High!
And the mob, willing to believe one folly, will admit the
others!
My friend did, indeed, venture to express his dissent from
the popular opinion that the girl was bewtiched; but his resistance
was about as efficacious to stay the current of opinion,
as would be these letters of mine, to break up the business
of an impudent and shameless mesmerizing rascal, who
was picking the pockets of willing fools, under pretext of
looking by his clairvoyant into their inner man, and prescribing
for their imaginary diseases. The simpletons wish
to be guzzled, and purposely keep their eyes and ears closed
against truth!—Aye, Charles, the gullable part of the world
tie “red flannel” over their own eyes and ears, as well as
over their pump noses—an allusion, perhaps, you cannot understand
unless you have been favored with as extraordinary
gooses out there as in here; which is hardly possible, as
with you schoolmasters are not
so abroad in the land as with
us, nor your folks so learned and scientific as ours.
But to return. After some days our physician, accompanied
by an intelligent friend, repaired to Mr. Herwig's
house, where he found the mother in an outer room alone,
and greatly distressed at the state in which her daughter continued,
fresh pins daily being taken from her feet. The doctor
informed the mother that he had come, not as a physician,
and with no intention of curing or dis-bewitching the girl,
but with a wish to show her that the whole affair was a case
of wickedness and imposture, in which Satan had no other
agency than that of instigating her daughter to commit sin.
Leaving, therefore, his friend in the outer room with the
mother, our doctor entered the chamber where the girl
lay upon a bed, awaiting the visits of the wondering neighbors.
He closed the door, and indeed locked it: and then
with a solemn air advanced and addressed the daughter:
“Harriet,” said he, “I know very well that you are
practising a wicked deception—”
“I am not, doctor,” was her reply, “and I don't know
how the pins got in me.”
“Yes, you do know—and I insist on the truth—you shall
tell me,” rejoined he.
“I have told the truth, doctor—Satan filled me with
them,” was, as usual, her answer.
On this, the doctor looking her in the face, said, “Harriet!
do you know, that although you are not sick as you
pretend to be, you may possibly die very suddenly? If you
are not sorry for the deep affliction of your mother, have you
no fears of the bar of God before which you may possibly
stand in a few hours?”
Here the poor creature, suddenly seized with great agitation,
as if conscience was struggling with pride, at last,
bursting into tears, cried out,
“Oh! doctor! doctor! I am wicked!—I did it all—I
ain't bewitched—I did it myself!”
And that, Charles, was the case. This foolish girl had
actually counterfeited spasms as of a fit! And, with her
own hands, after cutting off the heads, had inserted scores
of pins laterally into the soles of her feet! And all for revenge!
and the satisfaction of being the wonder of an hour!!
But such
is human nature; and we doubtless
will suspect
lying where we are called to believe impossibilities or
follies.
The doctor now opened the door, being desirous of conveying
the confession of the penitent to her afflicted mother,
when lo!—to his astonishment, his friend sat in one corner of
the room, and Mrs. Herwig in another!—and both pale and
speechless! For, while the doctor had been exhorting the
girl to the confession, a very large black-snake arose slowly
and spirally through a knot-hole in the floor, and after looking
around him, spitefully moved towards the girl's chamber
door! But when the confession was uttered, amid sobs and
tears, the serpent, retreating from the door, quickly withdrew
from the outer room, as he had entered! And so amazed
and terrified were the two persons, as to have neither inclination
nor power to kill the reptile!
Charles, it was not so wonderful that both, but especially
the mother, should have thought the serpent was Satan, and
that he had come to prevent the cure of his victim, and
when disappointed, had hurried away in a rage!
Had not the girl confessed, this singular accident would
have established the truth of witchcraft, even as a thousand
accidents strengthen men's belief in phrenology and mesmerism;
although I do not mean to say the devil has nothing
at all to do with them.
