_ CHAPTER X. CHARLES AND MR. PARRIS
Night is the time for rest,
How sweet when labors close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed.
--Montgomery.
Jealousy, for the first time, entered the heart of Cora Waters. Blessed is the being free from this curse. The green-eyed monster, unbidden, enters the heart and enthrones himself as ruler of the happiness of the individual over whom it assumes sway. She heard all that mother and son said, and then watched him as he went out. Then she closed the door of her apartment and retired to her bedroom.
It was almost evening, and when Mrs. Stevens informed her that tea was ready, she feigned headache and asked to be excused. It was the heart rather than the head that ached.
Charles Stevens was gathering in the herds as was the custom for the night, when he came rather suddenly upon John Louder, returning from the forest.
"Ho, Charles Stevens, where were you last Lord's Day?" asked Louder.
"Was I missed?"
"You were, and I trow the patrol could not find you."
"I was in Boston."
"Do you know that Mr. Parris hath begun to cry out against some of the people?"
"I have heard as much, and I think the pastor should be more careful, lest he will do an injustice."
Louder shook his head and, seating himself on the green bank of a brooklet, answered:
"Goody Nurse is a witch. She hath grievously tormented me on divers occasions and in divers ways. Fain would I believe her other but I cannot."
"John Louder, you are a deceived and deluded man."
"Nay, nay, Charles, you mock me. I have had her come and sit upon my chest and oppress me greatly with her torments. Have I not been turned into a beast and ridden through thorns and briars at night and awoke to find myself in bed?"
Charles, laughing, answered:
"It was the troubled dream from which you awoke."
"Nay; I found the thorns and briars pricking my hands and legs."
"Perchance you walked in your sleep."
"Charles, why seek to deceive me in that way, when I know full well that what I tell you is surely truth? I see with my eyes, I hear with my ears, and I feel with my senses. Only night before last, I was ridden into a field where they partook of a witches' sacrament."
"And what was it, pray?" asked Charles with a smile of incredulity.
"The flesh and blood of a murdered victim."
Charles laughed outright.
"Nay, nay, Charles, you need not laugh," cried Louder, angrily. "She was there, too."
"Who?"
"The maid who hath lived at your house. The offspring of a vile player. Behold, I saw her partake of the sacrament."
Charles Stevens' face alternately paled and flushed as he answered:
"John Louder, you are the prince of liars, and beware how you repeat your falsehoods, or I shall crack your skull."
Louder, who was a coward, as well as superstitious, had a wholesome dread of the stout youth.
He sprung back a few paces and stammered:
"No, no, I don't mean any harm. I--I am not saying anything against you."
"John Louder, you are a notorious liar, and I warn you to be careful in the future how your vile tongue breathes calumny against innocent people. Begone!"
Louder slowly rose and slunk away, and Charles Stevens returned home. The evening air fanned his heated brow, and he sought to cool his angry temper before he reached home. The silent stars watched the sullen youth who, pausing at the gate, gazed in his helpless misery on the broad-faced moon and murmured:
"How will all this end?"
It was his usual bedtime when Charles Stevens entered the house, and his face was calm as a summer sky over which a storm had never swept. His mother was still plying her wheel, and the heap of wool rolls had grown less and continued to diminish. She asked her son no questions. He sat down near the table, took up a book of psalms and proceeded to read.
There was one in the next apartment who heard him enter. It was Cora, and, rising, she crouched near the door to listen. Perhaps they would say something more of Adelpha Leisler; but he did not mention her name again, and she almost hoped he cared nothing for her now, although he had confessed that in his boyhood he had looked upon her as his future wife. Almost every man selects his wife in his early boyhood; but the child lover seldom becomes the husband. The love of a play-mate, tender as it may be, is not the love of maturity. Cora strove to console herself with these thoughts; but there was another danger that would obtrude itself in her way. That was the knowledge that he had not seen Adelpha for years, and she had developed from a child to a beautiful woman. Long she sat near the door, feeling decidedly guilty at playing the part of an eavesdropper; but when Charles rose, closed his book and went to his room, and the mother put away her work, Cora rose and went to her bed. Despite her sorrow and mental worry, she had sweet dreams. Somebody, who was Charles, appeared to her in light, and she rose with the sun in her eyes, which at first produced the effect of a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on coming out of the dream was of a smiling nature, and she felt quite reassured. The dream had been so pleasant and sweet; life seemed so peaceful and full of hope; nature smiled so brightly on this holy morn, that she almost forgot the hot words of the pastor and her jealousy of the night before. She began hoping with all her strength, without knowing why, and suffered from a contraction of the heart. It was a bright day; but the sunbeam was still nearly horizontal, so she reasoned that it was quite early; but she thought she ought to rise in order to assist Charles' mother in her household duties. She would see Charles himself, feel the warmth of his glance and hear the music of his voice. No objection was admissible; all was certain. It was monstrous enough to have suffered the pangs of jealousy on the night before; but now that the bright dreams and glorious dawn had dispelled these, she felt sure that good news had come at last. Youth is so constituted, that it quickly wipes its tears away, for it is natural for youth to be happy, while its breath is made up of hope.
Cora could not have recalled a single instance in which Charles Stevens had uttered a word of hope or encouragement to her. Her thoughts seemed to play at hide and seek in her brain, and she was so strangely, peculiarly happy this morning, that she preferred to enjoy the revels of day-dreams to the realities of life. Leaving her bed, she bathed her face and said her prayers.
Voices were heard without, and she listened. One was the well beloved voice of Charles Stevens. He was speaking with some one, whom she rightly guessed had just arrived. The voice of the new-comer was too far distant for her to recognize it at first: but her eye, glancing through the lattice, descried the form of a man coming toward the house. That tall form, with thin, cadaverous features and stern, unbending eye, was the man who had publicly condemned her and held her up to the scorn of the whole congregation, because she was the child of a player. Cora did not hate him, for she was too pure, too good, too heavenly to hate even the man who had declared her to be a firebrand of perdition. What was his object this lovely morn? His appearance dispelled all the rosy dreams and once more plunged her into that horrible, oppressive gloom, which seemed heavier than lead upon her heart.
"You are abroad early, this morning, Mr. Parris," Charles answered to the minister's morning greeting.
"Not too soon, however," the reverend gentleman answered. "The devil does not sleep. He is abroad continually, and, verily, one needs must rise early to be before him and his minions."
"Where are you going, Mr. Parris?" asked the youth.
"I am coming here."
"Your call is early."
"Not earlier than Satan's. I trow he is here even already and hath abided with you, before I came."
Charles made no answer to this, for there is no wrath like the wrath of an angry preacher, whose zeal warps his judgment and makes a fanatic of him. Bigoted, tyrannical, haughty and cruel, Parris swooped down on his enemies with the fury of an eagle.
Charles Stevens was a little amazed at the manner of the minister and asked:
"Is your business with me?"
"It is."
"What is it?"
"It seems best that we converse where there is no danger of being overheard, Charles, as what I have to say is of a very grave and serious nature and concerns your soul's welfare."
When a bigoted, ambitious zealot becomes interested in the welfare of a person, that person is in danger.
The anxious girl, whose face was pressed close to the window lattice watching the men, heard all and turned so pale, that even the warm rays of the sun failed to give the tint and glow of life to the cheek. She saw them walk away down the path and go across the brook among the trees and over the distant hill.
To Charles, it was like making a pilgrimage to some place of evil, the end of which he dreaded. Across the hill, hidden from the town by trees and intervening slope, they paused near the corner of a stone fence, and Mr. Parris leaned against the wall and gazed on Charles in silence.
"What have you to say, Mr. Parris?" the young man asked, as the cold, gray eye, like a gleam of steel fell upon him. Mr. Parris, in slow and measured tones, answered:
"No man knows until the time comes what depths are within him. To some men it never comes. Let them rest and be thankful. To me it was brought--it was forced upon me. I am despised, misused and abused by the world for the fact that I stand in the hand of God to do his holy will."
"You talk strangely, Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the wild-eyed fanatic had finished and turned his haggard face up toward heaven. "I think your earnestness and zeal are mistaken."
"Yes, mistaken by all; but I know the Lord ordains me for this good and holy work, and I will serve my Master, hard as the task may be."
"Mr. Parris, may we not be mistaken in what constitutes the service of the Master?"
"Aye! Is not the way so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein?"
"Yet, 'they shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.' The great question to decide is which is right. 'Not every one that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"
"I am right!" cried Mr. Parris, his face flaming with passion.
"So Melendez believed, when he drenched the soil of Fort Carolinia with the blood of innocent women and children."
"Young man, I am the preacher, not you. It is for me to speak and you to listen. Satan has been unchained, and the air is full of evil spirits."
"Mr. Parris, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be better for you and better for me. Let me go home."
"Not yet. The Lord commands, and it must and shall be spoken. I have been in torments ever since I stopped short of it before. Look not amazed nor alarmed when I tell you that the day of the wrath of the Lord is coming, and the minions of hell that torment this accursed land will be gathered into the fires of destruction. Charles, forgive this earnestness, it is for your sake. It is another of my miseries. I cannot speak on that subject nor of that subject without stumbling at every syllable, unless I let go my check and run mad;" and as Charles Stevens gazed into those wild eyes and hollow cheeks, he thought the man must already be mad.
"Let us return home, Mr. Parris. Take another day to think, before you give expression to what you would say."
"No, no; you must hear me now! Here is a man driving his cows forth to graze. He will be gone directly. I entreat you let us walk down the road and return, for what I would say, Charles, must be for your ears alone."
He yielded to the entreaty. How could he do otherwise, for there could be no harm in walking with the pastor? Mr. Parris, among his other accomplishments, had the power of dissembling. He could assume a smiling exterior while a devil raged in his heart. After they had gone aside some distance, and the farmer had passed on with his cows, they returned to the old stone wall, and Charles waited, very much as a criminal might, who stood to receive his sentence.
"You know what I am going to say," the pastor began, his austere face once more assuming its terrible expression. "You don't like me, your mother don't like me, and the congregation is divided, doing all in their power to dispossess me; but I am right. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell. What I mean is that I am under the influence of some tremendous power, which I know is God Almighty, Himself, and resist that power I dare not. I may be called a fanatic, cruel, mad; but the great and good God who made me ordains me in all things. This power--this spirit--this will, whatever it may be, is the chief motive that moves me. It could draw me to fire; it could draw me to water; it could draw me to the rack, as it did martyrs of old; it could draw me to any death--to anything pleasing, or repulsive; but I am mistaken, misunderstood by people, and the future as well as the present generation may condemn me in their narrow views as being dishonest, as being revengeful, as being even bloodthirsty; but, Charles, when God did command Peter to slay, did he refuse? No. If my God commands me to slay, I will do it, though rivers of blood shall flow----"
The face of the wild fanatic was terrible to look upon. Charles Stevens, bold as he was, gazing on him in the full light of day, could not repress a shudder. His thin, cadaverous face, smooth shaven and of an ashen hue, was upturned to heaven, and those great, awful eyes seemed gazing on things unlawful for man to see. The long right arm was raised toward the sky, and again that deep voice called out:
"O thou great Jehovah, do but command me, and rivers of blood shall flow----"
"Mr. Parris!" began Charles, alarmed.
"Stop! I implore you do not interrupt me, Charles. Wait until, by fasting and prayer and long, solemn meditation on these mysterious subjects, the Lord has opened your eyes to the invisible world, then you may judge. If you become weary with long standing, sit down, and I will pour into your ears such proofs that you can no longer deny the existence of witchcraft."
Charles felt the strange spell of the fanatic's presence, and he merely bowed his head as a signal for him to proceed. Mr. Parris, in his deep sepulchral voice, continued:[B]
[Footnote B: Like argument is used by Cotton Mather in his "Invisible World."]
"Mr. John Higginson, that reverend and excellent person, says that the Indians, which came from far to settle about Mexico, were, in their progress to that settlement, under a conduct of a Devil, very strangely emulating the blessed covenant which God gave Israel in the wilderness. Acosta says that the Devil, in their idol Vitzlipultzli, governed that mighty nation. He commanded them to leave their country, promising to make them lords over all the provinces possessed by six other nations of Indians, and give them a land abounding with all precious things. They went forth, carrying their idol with them in a coffer of reeds, supported by four of their principal priests, with whom he still discoursed in secret, revealing to them the successes and accidents of their way. He advised them when to march and where to stay, and, without his command, they moved not. The first thing they did wherever they came, was to erect a tabernacle for their false god, which they always set in the midst of their camp, and they placed the ark upon an altar. When, wearied with the pains and fatigues of travel, they talked of proceeding no further in their journey than a certain pleasant stage, whereto they were arrived, the Devil, in one night, horribly killed the ones who had started this talk by pulling out their hearts, and so they passed on till they came to Mexico.
"The same Devil, which then thus imitated what was in the church of the Old Testament, now among us, would imitate the affairs of the church in the New. The witches do say that they form themselves after the manner of Congregational Churches, and that they have baptism and a supper and officers among them, abominably resembling those of our Lord. What is their striking down with a fierce look? What is their making of the afflicted rise with a touch of their hand? What is their transportation through the air? What is their travelling in spirit, while their body is cast into a trance? What is their causing cattle to run mad and perish? What is their entering their names in a book, their coming together from all parts at the sound of a trumpet, their appearing sometimes clothed with light and fire upon them, then covering themselves and their instruments with invisibility? Are not all these but a blasphemous imitation of certain things recorded about our Saviour, or his prophets, or the saints in the kingdom of God?"
"Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the fanatic had paused in his wild harangue for want of breath, "you seem in earnest; but you must bear in mind that there is a mistaken zeal----"
"Hold, Charles, I know what you would say; but God has opened my eyes to the abominations of witchcraft."
"So Bishop Mendoza thought, when he ordered the innocent slain. Beware of false prophets, Mr. Parris. They are more to be dreaded than the protean devil of which you speak. Be sure that you remove the beam from your own eye, before you try to see the mote in the eye of your brother."
The sallow face of the fanatic grew more ghastly than before. His teeth gnashed, and his great eyes seemed starting in hatred from his head. Seizing the wrist of Charles with his hand, he clutched it so tightly as to almost make him cry out in pain.
"Charles, Charles, why persecutest thou me? Have not the scales of infidelity fallen from your eyes? Would you deny the power of God?"
Charles Stevens, by an effort, freed his hand and, with a boldness which increased as he spoke, answered:
"It is not God whom I deny, but man. God is good and just and kind. He who, in the name of the Lord, would pervert His holy word is an impostor and blasphemer more base than a thief or an infidel."
"Charles, beware!"
"I have listened patiently to you, Mr. Parris. Now listen to me. Where do you find in Scripture justification for the charges you lay at the doors of innocent people such as Goody Nurse, Goody Easty, Goody Cloyse and the poor little maid Cora Waters? What harm have they ever done you, that you, as a Christian man, might not forgive them?"
"Charles----" interrupted Mr. Parris.
"Hold, sir; you shall hear me through. Mr. Parris, you must be a man of singular shamelessness, craft, ruthlessness and impudence, withal. You began your operations with sharp bargaining about your stipend and sharp practice in appropriating the house and land assigned for the use of successive pastors. You wrought so diligently, under the stimulus of your ambition, that you have got the meeting-house sanctioned as a true church and yourself ordained as the first pastor of Salem Village. Because you were opposed by Goody Nurse, her sisters and others, you seek to charge them with offences made punishable under our laws with death."
The sallow face of the pastor grew almost white; but, in a voice of forced calmness, he said:
"Go on--go on!"
"No; it is for you to tell, without further discussion, why you brought me here. Rather let me guess it. You have brought me to say something to me about Cora Waters. You have come to tell me she is a witch, and I tell you it is false."
The passionate minister glared at the youth for a moment and said:
"Charles, do you deny that she is the child of a player?"
"I do not; but what sin follows being the child of a player, or being even a player? Nowhere does the Bible condemn the actor for his profession; and, if the player be godly, his calling is unobjectionable. Oh, Mr. Parris, eradicate from your heart the deadly poison of prejudice, and there will appear no harm in that fair, innocent and much-abused young maid. She has ever been a child of sorrow and of tears, one who never in thought wronged any one. Tell me that child is a witch? Mr. Parris, it is false!"
"Then," cried the pastor, suddenly changing his tone, turning to Charles, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone fence with a force that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; "then you may both go down--down to the infernal regions together!" The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from his livid lips, and with which he stood holding out his bruised and bleeding hand, made Charles shudder and turn to go home; but the pastor caught his arm.
"Mr. Parris, let me go. I have heard quite enough. We understand each other thoroughly."
"And you will not give her up?"
"Never."
"Verily, she hath bewitched you."
"I do not believe in witchcraft."
"What! Do you deny the word of God? Have a care! You are going too far in this. And your mother?"
"She does not believe in it, either."
"Charles, why have you and your mother grievously opposed me?" he demanded, his eyes glaring with hatred and his breath coming hard, while a white froth, tinged with blood, exuded from his lips.
"Because you are a bad man, Mr. Parris," cried Charles. "You are a saintly fraud."
The rage of the pastor knew no bounds. Pointing his wounded and bleeding hand at Charles, he cried:
"Go! and may the curse of an outraged God go with you!"
Charles went home. _