There is nothing that moves the imagination like a light-house. John Quincy Adams said when he saw one in the evening he was reminded of the light Columbus saw the night he discovered the New World. I have been moved to call them telegraph posts, standing along the coast, each flashing its spark from cape to headland, the almost commingling rays being golden threads of happy intelligence to all mariners. What a glorious vision it would be to see the kindling of each tower from Florida to Prima Vista, as the broad streets of the city are lighted, lamp by lamp!

Here ended my wanderings among these islands, seated like immortals in the midst of eternity. The strong south-westerly current bore me swiftly from the light-house rock. We hoisted sail, and laid the prow of our little bark for the river's mouth; but I leaned over the taffrail and looked back at the beacon-tower 'til it faded and was lost.

"Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base;
A speechless wrath that rises and subsides
In the white lip and tremor of the face.

"Sail on!" it says, "Sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man.'"

CHAPTER XIII.

NEWCASTLE AND NEIGHBORHOOD.

"Yes—from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers,
Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers,
Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf,
Then lay our limbs along the tender turf."—Byron.

Another delightfully ruinous old corner is Newcastle, which occupies the island opposite Kittery Point, usually called Great Island. Between Newcastle and Kittery is the main ship-channel, with deep water and plenty of sea-room. On the south of Great Island is another entrance called Little Harbor, with shallow water and sandy bottom; its communication with the main river is now valueless, and little used except by fishing-craft of small tonnage.

There appeared some symptoms of activity in the island fishery. As I passed down, I noticed two Bankers lying in the diminutive harbor, and an acre or so of ground spread with flakes, on which cod-fish were being cured.

The little cove which makes the harbor of Newcastle has several wharves, some of them in ruins, and all left "high and dry" at low tide. The rotting timbers, sticking in crevices of the rocks, hung with sea-weed and studded with barnacles, told very plainly that the trade of the island was numbered among the things of the past.

Between the upper end of Great Island and the town of Portsmouth is a broad, deep, still basin, called in former times, and yet, as I suspect, by some of the oldsters, the Pool. This was the anchorage of the mast ships, which made annual voyages between England and the Piscataqua, convoyed in war-time by a vessel of force. The arrival, lading, and departure of the mast ships were the three events of the year in this old sea-place. Sometimes as many as seven were loading here at once, even as early as 1665. In the Pool, the Astrea, a twenty-gun ship, was destroyed by fire one cold morning in January, 1744.

The Earl of Bellomont, an Irish peer, writes to the Lords of Trade, in 1699, of the Piscataqua: "It is a most noble harbour," says his lordship; "the biggest ships the king hath can lie against the bank at Portsmouth." He then advises the building of war vessels there for the king's service; and mentions that Charles II. had complimented the French king with the draughts of the best ships in the British navy, and had thereby "given vent to that precious secret."

In the day when all of old Portsmouth was crowded between what is now Pleasant Street and the river, it is easy to imagine the water-side streets and alleys frequented by sailors in pigtails and petticoats; the mighty carousals and roaring choruses; the dingy, well-smoked dram-shops; the stews and slums of back streets, and the jolly larks and affrays with the night-watch. Rear-admiral "the brave Benbow, sirs," has landed at these old quays from his barge, followed as closely as a rolling gait would permit by some old sea-dog of a valet, with cutlass stuck in a broad, leathern belt, exactly at the middle of his back. The admiral was doubtless on his way to some convivial rencounter, where the punch was strong, and where the night not infrequently terminated little to the advantage of the quarter-deck over the forecastle.

The ships of that day were wonderfully made. Their bows crouched low in the water, their curiously carved and ornamented sterns rose high above it. The bowsprit was crossed by a heavy spar, on which a square-sail was hoisted. Chain cables had not been invented, and hempen ones, as thick as the mainmast, held the ship at her anchors. Colored battle lanterns were fixed above the taffrail; watches and broadsides were regulated by the hour-glass. The sterns and bulging quarter-galleries of Spanish, French, and Portuguese war ships were so incrusted with gilding it seemed a pity to batter them with shot. Think of Nelson knocking the Holy Trinity into a cocked hat, or the Twelve Apostles into the middle of next week!

The visitor, as in duty bound, should go to the chamber of the selectmen, where the town charter given by William and Mary, in 1693, is displayed on the wall, engrossed in almost unintelligible black-letter.[123] The records of Newcastle have had a curious history. After a disappearance of nearly fifty years, they were recovered within a year or two in England. The first volume is bound in vellum, and, though somewhat dog-eared, is perfect. The entries are in a fair round-hand, beginning in 1693, when Lieutenant-governor Usher signed the grant for the township of Newcastle.

Among the earliest records, I noticed one of five shillings paid for a pair of stocks; and of a gallery put up, in 1694, in the meeting-house, for the women to sit in. Any townsman entertaining a stranger above fourteen days, without acquainting the selectmen, was to be fined. What would now be thought of domiciliary visits like the following? "One householder or more to walk every day in sermon-time with the constable to every publick-house in ye town, to suppress ill orders, and, if they think convenient, to private houses also."

A charming ramble of an afternoon is to Fort Constitution, built on a protruding point of rocks washed by the tide. When I saw it the old fortress was casting its shell, lobster-like, for a stronger. The odd old foot-paths among the ledges zigzag now to the right or left, as they are thrust aside by intruding ledges. Much history is contained within the four walls of the work.[124] Adjoining is a light-house, originally erected in 1771.

Another pleasant walk is to Little Harbor, taking by the way a look at the old house near Jaffrey's Point, that is verging on two hundred years, yet seems staunch and strong. The owner believes it to be the same in which Governor Cranfield[125] held colonial courts. This was one of the attractive sites of the island, until Government began the construction of formidable earth-works at a short distance from the farmstead. The Isles of Shoals are plainly distinguished, and with a field-glass the little church on Star Island may be made out in clear weather. I enjoyed a walk on the rampart at evening, when the lights on Whale's Back, Boon Island, White Island, and Squam were seen flashing their take-heed through the darkness.

Little Harbor, where there is a summer hotel, was the site of the first settlement on the island. At Odiorne's Point, on the opposite shore, was commenced, in 1623, the settlement of New Hampshire. It is now proposed to commemorate the event itself, and the spot on which the first house was built, by a monument.[126]

Captain John Mason is known as the founder of New Hampshire. His biography is interwoven with the times of the giant Richelieu and the pigmy Buckingham. He was treasurer and pay-master of the king's armies during the war with Spain. He was governor of Portsmouth Castle when Felton struck his knife into the duke's left side; it is said, in Mason's own house. The name of Portsmouth in New Hampshire was given by him to this outgrowth of Portsmouth in old Hampshire. At a time when all England was fermenting, it seems passing strange Gorges and Mason should have persisted in their scheme to gain a lodgment in New England.

In Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" the following passage occurs: "The ancient forest of Sherwood lay between Sheffield and Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still to be seen at the noble seat of Wentworth. * * * Here hunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley, and here were fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses; and here also flourished in ancient times those bands of gallant outlaws whose deeds have been rendered so popular in English story."

Reginald Wentworth, lord of the manor of Wentworth, in Berks, a.d. 1066, is considered the common ancestor of the Wentworths of England and America. The unfortunate Earl of Strafford was a Wentworth. On the dissolution of the monasteries, Newstead Abbey was conferred on Sir John Byron by Henry VIII. Its site was in the midst of the fertile and interesting region once known as Sherwood Forest. Here was passed the early youth of the brilliant and gifted George, Lord Byron, and in the little church of Newstead his remains were laid. The name and title of Baroness Wentworth were in 1856 assumed by Lady Byron, whose grandfather was Sir Edward Noel, Lord Wentworth.

Another of the distinguished of this illustrious family was the Marquis of Rockingham, who voted for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and acted with Chatham against Lord North.[127] It was at him, while minister, the pasquinade was leveled,

"You had better declare, which you may without shocking 'em,
The nation's asleep and the minister Rocking'em."

The seat of the Wentworths at Little Harbor is at the mouth of Sagamore Creek, not more than two miles from town. Among a group of aged houses in the older quarter of Portsmouth, that of Samuel Wentworth is still pointed out.[128] His monument may also be seen in the ancient burial-place of Point of Graves. The family seem to have been statesmen by inheritance. There were three chief-magistrates of New Hampshire of the name, viz.: John, the son of Samuel; Benning, the son of John; and John, the nephew of Benning.

The exterior of the mansion does not of itself keep touch and time with the preconceived idea of colonial magnificence. Its architectural deformity would have put Ruskin beside himself. A rambling collection of buildings, seemingly the outgrowth of different periods and conditions, are incorporated into an inharmonious whole. The result is an oddity in wood. Doubtless the builder was content with it. If so, I have little disposition to be critical.

Beyond this, the visitor may not refuse his unqualified approval of the site, which is charming, of the surroundings—the mansion was embowered in blooming lilacs when I saw it—and of the general air of snugness and of comfort, rather than elegance, which seems the proper atmosphere of the Wentworth House.

Built in 1750, it commands a view up and down Little Harbor, though concealed by an eminence from the road. I had a brief glimpse of it while going on Great Island via the bridges. It is said it originally contained as many as fifty-two rooms, though by the removal of a good-sized tenement to the opposite island the number has been diminished to forty-five. There is, therefore, plenty of elbow-room. The cellar was sometimes used as a stable: it was large enough to have accommodated a troop, or, at a pinch, a squadron.

"Within unwonted splendors met the eye,
Panels and floors of oak and tapestry;
Carved chimney-pieces where on brazen dogs
Reveled and roared the Christmas fires of logs;
Doors opening into darkness unawares,
Mysterious passages and flights of stairs;
And on the walls in heavy gilded frames,
The ancestral Wentworths with old Scripture names."

The council chamber contains a gem of a mantel, enriched with elaborate carving of busts of Indian princesses, chaplets, and garlands—a year's labor, it is said, of the workman. The wainscot is waist-high, and heavy beams divide the ceiling. As we entered we noticed the rack in which the muskets of the Governor's guard were deposited.

But what catches the eye of the visitor soonest and retains it longest, is the portraits on the walls. First is a canvas representing the Earl of Strafford[129] dictating to his secretary, in the Tower, on the day before his execution. At his trial, says an eye-witness, "he was always in the same suit of black, as in doole" (mourning). When the lieutenant of the Tower offered him a coach, lest he should be torn in pieces by the mob in going to execution, he replied, "I die to please the people, and I will die in their own way."

Here is a portrait from the brush of Copley, who reveled in rich draperies and in the accessories of his portraits quite as much as in painting rounded arms, beautiful hands, and shapely figures. This one in pink satin, with over-dress of white lace, short sleeves with deep ruffles, and coquettish lace cap, is Dorothy Quincy, the greatest belle and breaker of hearts of her day. It was not, it is said, her fault that she became Mrs. Governor Hancock, instead of Mrs. Aaron Burr. When in later years, as Madam Scott, she retained all the vivacity of eighteen, she was fond of relating how the hand now seen touching rather than supporting her cheek, had been kissed by marquises, dukes, and counts, who had experienced the hospitality of the Hancock mansion; and how D'Estaing, put to bed after too much wine, had torn her best damask coverlet with the spurs he had forgotten to remove.

Other portraits are—Of Queen Christina of Sweden, who looks down with the same pitiless eyes that exulted in the murder of her equerry, Monaldeschi; one said to be Secretary Waldron, a right noble countenance and martial figure; and of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Sheaffe.

I could be loquacious on the subject of these portraits, the fading impressions of histories varied or startling, of experiences more curious than profitable to narrate. In their presence we take a step backward into the past, that past whose lessons we will not heed. Hawthorne, standing before a wall covered with such old counterfeits, was moved to say: "Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy, of a family being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct, than these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits."

The old furniture standing about was richly carved, and covered with faded green damask. In the billiard-room was an ancient spinet, quite as much out of tune as out of date. Doubtless, the flashing of white hands across those same yellow keys has often struck an answering chord in the breasts of colonial youth. Here are more portraits; and a buffet, a sideboard, and a sedan-chair. Punch has flowed, and laughter echoed here.

The reader knows the pretty story, so gracefully told by Mr. Longfellow, of Martha Hilton, who became the second wife of Governor Benning,[130] and thus Lady Wentworth of the Hall.

We can see her as she goes along the street, swinging the pail, a trifle heavy for her, and splashing with the water her naked feet. We hear her ringing laughter, and the saucy answer to Mistress Stavers in her furbelows, as that buxom landlady flings at her, in passing, the sharp reproof:

"O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you go
About the town half-dressed and looking so?"

The poet's tale is at once a history and a picture, full of pretty conceits and picturesque situations. Fancy the battered effigy of the Earl of Halifax on the innkeeper's sign falling at the feet of Mrs. Stavers to declare his passion.

But Benning Wentworth, governor though he was, was none too good for Martha Hilton.[131] It was the pride of the Hiltons made her say, "I yet shall ride in my own chariot." The widowed governor was gouty, passionate, and had imbibed with his long residence in Spain the hauteur of the Spaniard. He left office in 1766 in disgrace.

The last of the colonial Wentworths was Sir John, in whose favor his uncle had been allowed to screen himself by a resignation. There are some odd coincidences in the family records of both uncle and nephew. The former's widow made a second marriage to a Wentworth; the latter married his widowed cousin, Frances Wentworth.[132]

The mansion of Sir John may be seen in Pleasant Street, Portsmouth. He was the last royal governor of New Hampshire. John Adams mentions that as he was leaving his box at the theatre one night in Paris, a gentleman seized him by the hand: "'Governor Wentworth, sir,' said the gentleman. At first I was embarrassed, and knew not how to behave toward him. As my classmate and friend at college, and ever since, I could have pressed him to my bosom with most cordial affection. But we now belonged to two different nations, at war with each other, and consequently were enemies."

In 1777 Baron Steuben arrived in Portsmouth, in the Flamand. Franklin had snubbed him, St. Germain urged him, but Beaumarchais offered him a thousand louis-d'or.[133] On the day the baron joined the army at Valley Forge his name was the watchword in all the camps.

CHAPTER XIV.

SALEM VILLAGE, AND '92.

Banquo. "Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten of the insane root,
That takes the reason prisoner?"—Macbeth.

Salem Village has a sorrowful celebrity. It would seem as if an adverse spell still hung over it, for in the changes brought by time to its neighbors it has no part, remaining, as it is likely to remain, Salem Village—that is to say, distinctively antiquated, sombre, and lifeless.

A collection of houses scattered along the old high-road from Salem to Andover, decent-looking, brown-roofed, though humble dwellings, a somewhat pretending village church, and pleasant, home-like, parsonage; old trees, partly verdant, partly withered, stretching naked boughs above the gables of houses even older than themselves, embody something of the impressions of oft-repeated walks in what is known as the "Witch Neighborhood."

The village contains one central point of paramount interest. It is an inclosed space of grass ground, a short distance from the principal and only street, reached by a well-trodden by-path. Within this now naked field once stood a house, with a garden and orchard surrounding. Of the house nothing remains except a slight depression in the soil; of the orchard and garden there is no trace; yet hard by I chanced on a bank of aromatic thyme once held of singular potency in witchcraft—as in the "Faerie Queen," the tree laments to the knight:

"I chanced to see her in her proper hue,
Bathing herself in origan and thyme."

In this quiet, out-of-the-way little nook, Salem witchcraft had its beginning. The sunken cavity is what remains of the Ministry House, so called, pulled down in 1785 (not a day too soon); the den of error in which the plague-spot first appeared. No one would have thought, standing here, that he surveyed the focus of malevolence so deadly as the wretched delirium of '92.

The well-informed reader is everywhere familiar with the origin and development of Salem witchcraft.[134] It has employed the best pens as it has puzzled the best brains among us; until to-day the whole affair remains enveloped in a mystery which the theories of nearly two hundred years have failed wholly to penetrate.

The writer has had frequent occasion to know how wide-spread is the belief that witchcraft began in New England, and particularly in Salem. This is to be classed among popular errors upon which repeated denials have little effect. Nevertheless, witchcraft did not originate in New England; no, nor in old England either, for that matter. The belief in it was earlier than the Mayflower, older than the Norman Conquest, and antedated the Roman Empire. The first written account of it is contained in Scripture.[135]

Saul incurred the anger of God by consulting the Witch of Endor. Joan of Arc was burned as a witch in 1431. About fifty years later the Church of Rome fulminated a bull against witchcraft. The number of suspected persons already burned at the stake or subjected to the most cruel torments is estimated at many thousands.

In taking leave of the Dark Ages we do not take our leave of witchcraft. More than a hundred thousand victims had perished in Germany and France alone before the Mayflower sailed from Delft. The Pilgrims, I engage, believed in it to a man.

Old England! Why, the statute against witchcraft was not repealed until 1736, in the second George's time, though it had lain dormant some years. The last recorded execution in the British Islands occurred in Scotland, as late as 1722. The sixth chapter of Lord Coke's "Third Institutes" is devoted to a panegyric on the statutes for punishing "conjuration, sorcery, witchcraft, or enchantment." The laws of England were the fundamental law of New England; witchcraft was in the list of recognized crimes throughout Christendom.

France, under Louis le Grand, whose style history will change, notwithstanding his famous "L'etat c'est moi," to Louis the Little, was immeshed in the net of superstition. The highest personages of the court resorted to the astrologers for horoscopes, charms, or philters. We might see later the magic and sorcery of the sixteenth century and of the seventeenth transformed into studies in chemistry under the Regency, and become experiments in magnetism in the eighteenth century.

The settlers in New England, who brought all their Old-World superstitions with them, were not surprised to find the Indians fully impregnated with a belief in magic equal to their own. The wonderful cures of the Indian magicians or medicine-men were thoroughly believed in, and are vouched for by white evidence. One of their favorite methods of revenging private injury was by enchanting a hair, which entered the bodies of their enemies and killed them while sleeping. It is noted that Tituba, an Indian, had much to do with the outbreak in Salem village.

Sir William Phips, an illiterate but not incapable man, had been appointed Governor of Massachusetts Bay, under the new charter of William and Mary. The charter conferred the power of civil government, and separated the legislative from the judicial authority. Sir William constituted a commission of seven to try the witchcraft cases at Salem. As he had no power to create such a court under the charter, one of the saddest reflections that arise from these bloody proceedings is that twenty persons suffered death for an imaginary crime, inflicted by an illegal tribunal. The province law of 1692 decreed death for "enchantment, sorcery, charm, or conjuration, or invocation, or to feed any wicked spirit."

The first authenticated case of witchcraft in New England, and also the first execution, took place at Boston, as early as 1648. The culprit, Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, was suspected of having and using the "malignant touch." She professed some knowledge of medicine, and probably availed herself of the awe in which she was held by the superstitious to ply her trade. Many other cases are mentioned in the other colonies, Connecticut bearing her full share, before the climax of 1692 is reached. Then, as afterward, the accusations fell chiefly upon women; the old, friendless, or half-witted bearing the burden of every accident in their neighborhood.

An English writer gravely says in 1690: "Several old women suspected for witches in and about Lancashire have been often noted to have beards of considerable growth, tho' that's no general rule, some of the reverend and virtuous being often liable to the same." Everywhere witchcraft was received as a stubborn fact. The criminal codes of nearly if not quite all the colonies recognized it. In Pennsylvania, if tradition may be believed, the fact was met by no less stubborn common sense. It is said, when Philadelphia was three years old, a woman was brought before Governor Penn, charged with witchcraft and riding through the air on a broomstick. Although the woman confessed her guilt, she was dismissed by the Quaker magistrate with the assurance that, as there was no law against it, she might ride a broomstick as often as she pleased.

Could a full and candid confession be obtained of the present generation there would appear more superstition than we wot of, such as would show us legitimate descendants of credulous colonists. It is not long since a staid old town in Massachusetts was in consternation at the report of a ghost in a school-room. Signs and portents have been handed down and are religiously believed in by other than the ignorant and credulous, as has been already stated in a former chapter. A very small proportion of the skeptical could be induced to enter a church-yard at night. There is some subtle principle of our nature that gives ready adhesion to the mystical or the marvelous; and it is believed they were not differently constituted in 1692.

Leaving the Witch Ground, the visitor, in retracing his steps, will pass near the old Nurse House, a memorial of one of the most damning of the innocent sacrifices to superstition. It is not easy to sit down and write of it with the indifference of the professional historian.

Rebecca Nurse, aged and infirm, universally beloved by her neighbors, was accused. The jury, moved by her innocence, having brought in a verdict of "not guilty," the court sent them out again with instructions to find her guilty. She was executed. The tradition is that her sons disinterred her body by stealth from the foot of the gallows, where it had been thrown, and brought it to the old homestead, laying it reverently and with many tears in the little burying-ground which the family always kept, and which is still seen near by.

But briefly to our history. We there discover that twenty persons lost their lives through the denunciation of eight simple country girls, the youngest being eleven, and the oldest not more than twenty years of age.[136] These maidens met at the house of Samuel Parris, the then minister of the village, and on the spot where the earth is now trying to heal the scar left by the old cellar. They formed what was then and is still known as a "circle" in New England, devoted in these more modern days to clothing the heathen and bewitching the youth who enter their influence.

The most plausible, and therefore the commonly received opinion is, that these girls, having at first practiced some of the well-known methods of performing magic, were led into a series of false accusations which, from being conceived in a spirit of mischief, grew into crimes of the first magnitude as they found themselves carried away by a frenzy they had not moral courage to stay. Another presumption supposes the girls believers in their own powers. This view is sustained by the universal belief in witchcraft, the ready adhesion given to their charges, the support they received from the judges, and the terrible power with which they found themselves possessed. Another solution is found in the occult influences of second-sight so widely credited in Scotland in years by-gone, the psychology and clairvoyance of the present day. Dr. Samuel Johnson said he would rather believe in second-sight than in the poetry of Ossian. If the soundest thinkers of the nineteenth century are staggered to account for the phenomena of spirit-rappings, it is wise to defer a hasty condemnation of the "possessed damosels" of Salem village.

The accusing girls were believed infallible witch-finders. Their services were consequently in demand as their fame spread abroad. Some of them were taken to Andover, leaving distrust, dismay, and death in the quiet old West Parish. "In a short time," says the annalist, "it was commonly reported forty men of Andover could raise the devil as well as any astrologer."

A "Boston Man" having taken his sick child to Salem in order to consult the afflicted ones, obtained the names of two of his own towns-people as the authors of its distemper; but the Boston justices refused warrants to apprehend them, and Increase Mather asked the father if there was not a God in Boston that he must go to the devil in Salem. These two persons are said to have been Mrs. Thatcher, mother-in-law of Curwin, one of the judges,[137] and the wife of Sir William Phips.

As soon as the prosecutions stopped, it was remarked that the apparitions ceased. Once or twice the accuser recoiled before a sharp and swift reproof, as at Lieutenant Ingersoll's, when one of them cried out, "There's Goody Procter!" Raymond and Goody Ingersoll told her flatly she lied; there was nothing. The girl was cowed, and "said she did it for sport."

Even the witchcraft horrors have a humorous side—grimly humorous, it is true, like the jokes cracked in a dissecting-room. The thought of pots and kettles jumping on the crane, of anchors leaping overboard of themselves, and of hay-cocks found hanging to trees is rather mirth-provoking. Mirrors were daily consulted by maids and widows looking for a husband. A matter of life and death could not prevent George Jacobs, the old grandfather, from laughing heartily at the spasmodic antics of Abigail Williams.

It seems a pity that New England in her greatest need should have found no champion, like St. Dunstan, to argue with and finally compel the devil to own himself confuted, as, according to vulgar belief, he did, by taking the fiend by the nose with a pair of red-hot tongs; or as Ignatius Loyola, who, when disturbed at his devotions by the devil, seized his cudgel and drubbed him away.[138] Montmorency, a peer and marshal of France, son of the famous Bouteville, whom Richelieu had caused to be decapitated for fighting a duel at midday in the Place Royal, was weak enough to visit La Voisin, the renowned conjuror and fabricator of poisons in the reign of Louis XIV. La Voisin had promised to show him the devil, and the duke was curious. When the maréchal whipped out his rapier and thrust vigorously at the spectre, it fell on its knees, and begged its life. The devil proved to be a confederate of La Voisin. Archibald, duke of Argyle, was haunted by blue phantoms—the origin of our epithet for melancholy, "blue devils."

In the village tavern there was a battle with spectres that Abigail Williams and Mary Walcut declared were present. Benjamin Hutchinson and Eleazer Williams pulled out their swords and cut and stabbed the air until, as the two girls averred, the floor was deep in ghostly blood!

A ride through the woods then was little coveted by the stoutest hearts. A spark of fear is soon blown into uncontrollable panic. Bushes grew spectres and trees outstretched goblin arms. Elizabeth Hubbard was riding home from meeting on the crupper, behind old Clement Coldum. The rustling leaves were witches' whisperings, the white birches seemed ghosts in their winding-sheets. The woman, faint-hearted and overmastered by a nameless dread, cried out to the goodman to ride for life—the woods were full of devils. Though he could see none, the valiant rider spurred his horse like mad, and rode as Tam O'Shanter rode his fearful race when pursued by the witches of Kirk Alloway.

The trysting-place of the witches was in Parris's pasture. It was here Abigail Hobbs, who had sold herself to the "Old Boy," attending, saw the sacrament of the "red bread and the red wine" administered to the devil's elect. Poor George Burroughs, whom we met for a moment in our walk through Wells, was denounced for summoning with a trumpet the attending witches. Obedient to the sound, from far and near, the withered beldams, toothless hags in short petticoats, white linen hoods, and conical high crowned hats, come flocking on flying broomsticks. Satan is there in person, not playing the bagpipe, as in Tam O'Shanter's fearful conclave, but with the conventional book written in letters of blood.

Certes, these were but rude ghosts. Nowadays the devil is raised as easily, but conducts himself with greater propriety, as becomes the devil of the nineteenth century. The damp grass of the church-yard and the witches' den are bugbears no longer. We sit in a comfortable apartment around a mahogany table. Our ghost no more appears in mouldy shroud, but, like a well-bred spectre, knocks for admittance. Soon his card will be handed in on a salver, and we may perhaps in time expect daily weather reports from the nether world.

Before leaving the village, I turned into one of those old abandoned roads in which I like so well to walk. Left on one side by a shorter cut, saving some rods to this hurrying age, the deserted by-way conducts you into solitudes proper for communion with the past. Grass has sprung up so thickly as almost to conceal traces of the once well-worn ruts, now only two indistinct lines of lighter green. Young pines, a foot high, are rooted in the cart-way; stone walls, moss-grown and tumbling down. Here and there are the ghastly remains of some old orchard, the ground strewed with withered branches. A half-obliterated cellar denotes a former habitation; even the land betrays evidences of having been turned by the plows of two centuries ago. Who have passed this way? Perhaps the laying-out of this very road begot disputes transmitted from father to son.

A mile beyond the Witch Neighborhood the Andover road crosses the Newburyport turnpike. At the junction of the two roads stands the old farm-house in which Israel Putnam, the "Old Put" of the Revolutionary army, was born.

The house, or rather houses, for two structures compose it, is still occupied by Putnams. The newer building, already old by comparison with some of its neighbors, was built in 1744; the original in 1650, or thereabouts, according to family tradition. One object, to which the attention of every visitor is directed, is the old pollard of enormous girth standing near the house. House and tree seem types of the sturdy, indomitable old man, who at nearly three-score was full of the rage of battle.