University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—The Meeting-House.
Justice Fisk, presiding—Deacon Gidney, Susanna Peache—Jarvis Dane—Topsfield—Good. Prawl, &c., discovered.
Deacon G.
[To Witnesses.]
When enters Ambla Bodish, turn you
A steadfast gaze on her, in which be shot
Your whole soul's strength, as against one who dooms
Your souls to the red fire.

Witnesses.
We fear to look on her.

Deacon G.
Fear you not. I shall stand by you,
And with constant silent prayer, and loud
Rebuke, make good your footing to resist.

Witnesses.
She draws near now; we feel her,
And begin to quake.

Deacon G.
Freshen your spirits, and be bold to speak
All things.

Justice F.
Bring forward Ambla Bodish.

[Ambla is brought in, followed by Gideon and a crowd of Citizens.]
Deacon G.
Mistress Bodish, keep thou thine eyes upon
The Justice fixed.

Justice F.
Who is the first tormented?

Deacon G.
Susanna Peache, answer how has it gone
With you? Fear not to speak.

Susanna.
Oh, sadly, sadly.
For hours, for days, for weeks, I have not been
Myself! She, the sole sovereignty of all
My powers has kept, nor let me think, nor feel,
Other than with a pulse unnatural;
This Jarvis Dane, an excellent young citizen,
I loved; but in a night, or in a glance,
As with a rudder's touch, she turned my whole
Soul's bulk out of its stream.

Deacon G.
Whither? For this
Will show the art.

Susanna.
Whatever thought I of:
A fancy of a wood had I, or of a hall,
Or of a street, there always at its end,
The self-same image stood and smiled on me!
Dreamed I of drowning, this, with its prompt hand
Outstretched, held me from sinking, if flying,
This bore me up into the air, and when,
As oft I was, rapt to a shining place,
Full of an ample light, but yet no sun,
Nor moon, nor lamp—he still appeared again,
Fair as the bright red blossom of the maple-tree,
First of the Spring.

Jarvis.
The truth of Scripture-writ!

Justice F.
And who was he, so constant, in all seasons
Of your thought?

Susanna.
Gideon!—None other, mine own dear Gideon!

Justice F.
Say, Mistress Bodish, why falls she away,
As into a dream-locked sleep, whene'er you
Look on her?

Ambla.
You ask, what wisdom more than yours
Might falter in the answering: I look on her,
She sleeps. She sleeps and I look on her?
Make more of it, if you can.

Deacon G.
Brave Thomas, what have you to tell?
You have eye-witnessed much.

“Topsfield.
I have seen much, good Deacon Gidney,
“But whether, with the eye, or with the mind—
“I cannot always tell. I know that Salem trembleth,
“To her base, with a strange palsy taken,
“I know that Ambla Bodish moves mysteriously,
“And that in the shadow of her way, her
“Gideon lives, as doth a star, amid
“A wild star's trailing.

“Justice F.
Know you of aught that passed,
“A few nights gone, on Maple Hill? Have you
“Been witness to a witch-meeting?

Topsfield.
All that I have seen, or thought that I had seen,
I dare not tell; of bloody, strange, and damnable,
For nature would not go with me.

Gideon.
Speak forth—nor palter ruin on our heads!
I charge you, in an old boyhood's friendship,
Speak, in the name of woods we 've wandered through,
In the name of flowers we have gathered,
In the name of blameless streams we 've drunk from,
And in the name which once we both believed in,
Speak forth your secret'st thought!

Topsfield.
It is the very woods,
And flowers, and streams, you call on, that accuse you,
Gideon, for in an uproar indescribable,
They seemed to move, the night that Ambla Bodish
Walked, and we looked on—as though they were
Her servile messengers,—a flap of wings
About, voices uninterpretable
In the air, and tremblings of the earth.

Deacon G.
Many confederates,
You do suppose, Goodman Topsfield?

Topsfield.
I could not see them, nor could I count them,
They made a great noise, as of a cataract,
And prattled in a sort of speech, of baptism
At Newberry Falls.

Deacon G.
And now, what news from Newberry Falls?
That, most of all, we 'd know—for that will teach us
How far extends her supernatural power,
And, by its fatal hue, decide her doom.

Topsfield.
Of that will Simon Braybrook bring report.
While hither I sped to give this testimony,
He tarried to learn the end: for 'twixt death
And life the young child lay.

Deacon G.
Meanwhile, what of these heathen images,
And swart counterfeits dug in the dark pit—
You see them, Master Topsfield?

Topsfield.
I see them,
And they dazzle me. They 're subtle spirits,
And not clay, as you suppose. You, good Deacon,
And worship Fisk, are tortured, severely,
When you know it not, in these, and made to writhe,
In deep-kindled fires, when you do sleep,
To mortal seeming.

Justice F.
This dark woman's work?

Deacon G.
How is it, Mistress Bodish, now speak the truth,
That these are vital, strangely? That thus
These doings come about?

Ambla.
The lightning of the soul, whose kindling force,
Out of the clay, created these as forms
To worship and to wonder at, in the dusk age
That 's past and passing; that makes yon girl
To peak and pine for this young son of mine
Cannot be vialled here, nor caught as are
The glittering spider's threads, by idle hands!

[The Witnesses crowd around Ambla.
Gideon.
Stand off! stand off! do you not see that something
Holy, lives in her looks and prompts her when she speaks?
And as for these— [Seizing the Images.]
Accursed! I dash you into pieces—
Thus defying you, and your dark devilish power,
With all your torments, engines, images!

Deacon G.
Be still, thou Gideon, you put a seal
Upon her doom! Lead forth the child, and see,
How innocency, white as snow, is changed
To soot by sorcery.

[A little Child is led forward.
Topsfield.
We cannot stand before him, our knees do knock,
Our eye-balls inward turn, when we regard him.

Deacon G.
See, in what torment this, a five years' boy,
Can cast these creatures: who gives him power
To do this?

Good. Prawl and Witnesses.
Ambla Bodish!
She gives him power to vex us endlessly.

Gideon.
You 're false as hags of hell! He has no power,
Save that his pure and guileless look, can shake
Your guilty frames, though twenty fold in bulk.

Ambla.
If what these creatures say and feel be true—
Oh! rear that mighty infant gently up;
There 's virtue in his heart beyond us all—
Inherent force of soul, that man gives not,
Nor can he take; which flows abroad, is felt
Where he is not, and lives throughout the world,
Th' immediate sunshine of our mortal sphere—
A power next unto God's.

[The Child is sent off L. H.
Deacon G.
Oh, blasphemy
Of a black dye! Come, Goodwife Prawl, boldly
Declare in the face of Heaven, in this
His holy house, was it this prisoner
That so oft appeared to you?

Good. Prawl.
If I know anything,
This right hand from this left one, your worship,
It was her shape that whipped me, as I told you,
With rods of iron, that I should make confession
To her, as my chief.

Deacon G.
And did you?

Good. Prawl.
She beat me to it,—
Look, look, they walk along the aisle!

Justice F.
What now? What see you?

Good. Prawl.
They 're toward her, and will be at her throat,
Each moment, two spectres of two murdered men;
They point to Ambla Bodish, and cry
For vengeance. She is their murderer!

Enter Braybrook, L. H.
Braybrook.
The thunder-stricken child, at Newberry Falls,
Is dead!

Deacon G.
Seize her, and drag her to her doom!
It is enough. The dead speak out against her:
Will the Court appoint the hour that she be hanged?

Justice F.
Instantly: there is no motive for delay.
Know all men here—forthwith be Ambla Bodish,
Led from this, to execution, as a common witch.

Carpenter.
Aye, hang her, hang her; to the gallows
With the witch.

Blacksmith.

'Way with her. She hath stopped the pulse of Salem, and made all trades and occupations, idleness.

All.
Aye, hang her! hang her!

Gideon.
Hold back awhile, ye sons of Salem,
And listen to me now! No more as a wronged son,
But as a man—with like desires and feelings
With yourselves, whose pulse is natural,
Who sleeps, who wakes, who walks as free as you;
Whose heart beats on or stops, whose arm 's uplifted,
Like yours, in joy, in grief, in hate 'gainst wrong—
I ask you, here and now—will you permit
This judgment to o'erwhelm an ancient head—
The whitest, noblest, the most reverend head
Of Salem? Ye cannot be so lost, so drifted
Far away from what you were and should be;
Call back that doom—repeal the bigot's voice,
And stand up here, full-statured, men of Salem!

Jarvis.
We will not set aside the doom decreed—
The law has spoken and she must die—death
To Ambla Bodish, the accursed witch!

All.
Death to the witch.

Gideon.
Then, take ye on your heads what comes,
And if your children should repent this hour,
And mournfully remember Salem—be with you
The crime, and the black memory linger
Near your graves, forever! Look on your deed,
What have ye done? Thou sepulchre of all belief
[To Dea. G.]
And truth, stares not this lie you have enacted,
Stark and o'erwhelming as a dead man's face,
Against your path! What have ye proven to drive
This penalty against a venerable breast?
Some solitary walks, sacred as night,
Familiar love for hills, and woods and stars,
A way through life, out of your beaten path—
But ever in the road to the pure truth
And goodness of a heart, troubled too much
In conscience, for a deed that would have been
A feather's weight upon your brutish souls.
Ye are the most accursed deceivers,
Most pitiful, deluded men, this clime
Or century hath hatched: Ye have enfogged,
Darkened, and led astray my childish love,
Made this aged mother seem a horror and a hag,
To one who, drop by drop, would once have died—and will—
To save or serve her: blasted this blest place,
And made its men and women beasts of prey.

Justice F.
[Passionately.]
Sheriff, seize Gideon Bodish—
And bear him to prison, for this outrageous
Insolence and scorn of law.

Gideon.
Let him dare it!—
Where desperation nerves the arm, and justice
Grasps the sword, numbers avail not!

Ambla.
Oppose them not, my son, these bitter persecutors,
Remember the just Heaven they mock, and yet
Aspire to.—Though but a simple aged woman
Worn with grief, and frail with many cares,
Above you all I lift myself, and from this height
Of holy truth whereon I stand, far down
Upon your wretched heads, I look with scorn,—
My spirit is not quelled, nor should it be
By millions of such servile enemies.

Gideon.
With one fell stroke they should be swept from earth!

Ambla.
Be patient, in this time of trial, Gideon;
You know your mother's heart, how she is racked,
And what it is that pangs her—
Though evil tongues asperse, and though her grave
Be held, an impious ante-chamber,
That leads to darkness endless, come you
And lie by my side, when you are called away!
My son! my son! my old heart hath lived through
Many flaws, but this alone goes near it—
That I must part at last from you!
Courage, my child—we two shall walk together,
Yet, hereafter!

Gideon.
[Amazed.]
Who is it seizes me? By either arm,
Lifts me on high, and dashes me about,
I cannot catch the earth, nor can I breathe
The air! What chains are these before me?
Are you a dead woman whose face I look in?
[To Amb.
And who are these?

Ambla.
You know your mother, Gideon?

Gideon.
I do, I do—Oh blissful death!
When draws your last hour near, mine flies with it,
Upon an equal wing.

Justice F.
Officers, lead forth your prisoner.

[The officers advance to seize Ambla.
Gideon.
Stand back, nor dare to lay a hand
Upon her sacred form—a curse for time,
And for eternity, body and soul,
Wither the touch, that first affronts her.

[Gideon is forced up the stage, Officers guard Ambla off, L. H.]