Crane Pond (31 page)

Stoughton indicates to Sturgis that he should pause in his work. He then approaches Corey, kneels once more, and asks if he will plead.

At eleven, a start is made on putting a second row of rocks in place.

There is now a continuous deep growling from the crowd, like the noise an angry dog makes in the back of its throat except that it comes from all quarters, the dog being a general dog.

When these stones are all in position, Sewall notices that Corey's face has gone from red to blue, and his breathing is now shallow and rapid. Every now and again his eyes seem to roll up into his head and it is with a seeming effort of will that he brings them back down again. They are perhaps the last part of himself over which he can assert some sort of control.

There's another wait. Then towards noon Mr. Stoughton approaches the condemned man for a final time. Once again he kneels and asks him the question, though this time it's not clear whether Corey could reply even if he wished to. Then he straightens up and nods to Sturgis to continue piling up the rocks.

Sewall daren't turn away—it would seem like a shirking of his judicial responsibility, with the hostile crowd looking on. By the same token he daren't even close his eyes, but he manages somehow to withdraw from his own gaze, as if his eyes are a pair of windows that his inner self has chosen not to look through. He is aware though of the third row of rocks being completed, of Sturgis looking up at Mr. Stoughton, of Mr. Stoughton giving a nod, of a fourth row being commenced.

Then he hears a low detonation, faint but deep, followed by another. The sounds are like the remote crumps of a cannon fired in some faraway fort. He realises with horror that he is hearing Corey's ribs collapse, and there's another noise too, that of himself whimpering, which he aborts at once with a brisk clearing of his throat.

A sudden tiny movement snags his attention and now he is looking out of his eyes once more, seeing in fact with a sudden clarity as if he has put on a pair of spectacles. Corey's own eyes stare fixedly upwards, and his tongue has sprouted from his mouth like a toadstool. As Sewall watches, the marshall steps over, raises his staff, places the tip delicately on the end of Corey's tongue and pushes it neatly back into his mouth again.

Mr. Mather steps over to Sewall. His face is ashen but his eyes are bright with excitement. ‘Consider,' he says, ‘the French for tongue is
langue
, which also means language, that is to say, a form of speech. Giles Corey is being executed for remaining silent. But now it's as if his body has agreed to obey the court even while his mind stays obstinate. In short, he's ceased to hold his tongue.'

The symbolic symmetry of this obviously pleases him immensely, gives him the sense that a task has been completed. But in fact Sewall can't see that anything has been achieved. Corey has defied the court despite his tongue's waywardness; the court has in turn been as implacable as the condemned man. Sewall wonders at the strength of a Devil's contract that can bind a man to silence in the face of such appalling suffering.

Now Mr. Stoughton addresses the crowd. ‘All signs of life are extinct. The execution is completed. The body will remain in position for another hour, and then will be released for burial.'

Sewall waits fearfully for the crowd's reaction to this bald assertion, but none comes. They seem too sick at heart to respond and gradually start turning away and trudging off.

Mr. Noyes comes over with strange jerky movements as if suffering from St Vitus' dance. ‘Well, well,' he says. ‘Well!' His eyes are feverish. ‘I must say, the court is vindicated. It has vindicated itself. People will think twice before trying to defy it again. I must hurry home and tell Anne all that has happened.'

Just as Sewall is leaving the execution ground he is confronted by a man he faintly recognises. ‘We are well rid of that creature,' says the man. ‘He tormented my daughter Ann on innumerable occasions.'

In his confusion Sewall thinks for a moment that the man is referring to Mr. Noyes's housekeeper, but then realises that he's the father of the most tormented of all the accusers, Ann Putnam (according to Stephen the little girl has been the victim of over seventy witches to date). He opens his mouth to reply but no words come out and to his horror he finds himself weeping, tears blinding his eyes and streaming down his face. All he can think of is the pain, the terrible pain,
peine forte et dure
, pain lasting so long, and so endured!

I
t is boiled bacon and cabbage, and he eats and eats, not tasting the food. Afterwards, a tart Margaret has made with preserved raspberries from earlier in the summer, and cream. When at last he has finished Sewall sits where he is, not daring to speak.

Margaret glances at Stephen, who looks back at her. His honest troubled face then turns towards Sewall, who doesn't catch his eye but continues to look slightly downwards at his empty plate. ‘Brother,' says Stephen, ‘you must remember it was Mr. Stoughton who chose this punishment, as senior justice of the court. It was not your doing. I doubt you had even heard of it before he dug it out of some old law book.'

Sewall thinks: yes, but I promised myself I would defy Mr. Stoughton, or any other man in authority, if I thought he turned from the right way. After the pirates, that was my resolution. But all I have done is protest about little things, tweaked a decision here, made a small objection there. When it came to crushing a man to death I did nothing to stop it. He would like to tell Stephen this. But if he opens his mouth to speak, his words will be swept away on his breaking tears like drowning voyagers in the middle of the ocean.

‘Also, Giles Corey was given ample opportunity to plead to the court. You tried with him over and again, and so did others. It was his choice to remain silent, and suffer the consequences.'

Sewall thinks: if Giles Corey had chosen to plead he would have pleaded not guilty, and then he would have been found guilty, like all the others.

It could be that this is because the evidence is true, and its repetitive nature simply reflects the repeated attacks of the witches to gain purchase in New England. That is what Sewall has always believed. But the fact remains that not one of those condemned has so far confessed to avoid execution, despite the fact that no actual confessor has yet been executed. They have gone to their deaths firm in their assertions of innocence. And Corey has gone to the most terrible death of all without even spelling innocence
out
, as if the word would simply be wasted on the sceptical ears of the judges. He died a mute martyr and left his crushed body to plead for him. If you plead not guilty and then are found guilty you have been contradicted. If you don't plead no one can answer you.

And if he is innocent what does that make Sewall, and the other judges?

From far away there is a knocking and Sewall wants to say I hear death knocking for me, the Devil has come to my door, but he daren't open his mouth, not for fear of tears this time but of vomit, for fear that what will fly out will be vomit.

Stephen comes into the room, though Sewall is unaware he'd left it. ‘This is a strange thing,' he says. ‘There was no one there. And then I found this letter had been slipped underneath the door. Sam, it's addressed to you.' He holds the letter over the table top, then withdraws it. It's one of those moments when Sewall can read what is in his brother's mind as if it were in his own. The thought has occurred to Stephen that the letter might contain abuse relating to Corey's execution. ‘Shall I open it for you, brother?'

Sewall holds out his hand and Stephen gingerly passes it over. It's simply a piece of folded paper, without a seal, addressed to Justice Sewall. The letter is from Thomas Putnam. In it he explains that his daughter Ann was visited by a ghost in a winding-sheet just last night. The spectre told her that he was a farmworker called Jacob Goodale. Nearly twenty years previously Giles Corey had murdered him in an argument over wages. Then he had made a pact with the Devil, who had promised that he would never hang. Strangely during Corey's appearances in court no one remembered that this had happened.

Sewall hands the letter over to Stephen who reads it out to Margaret, then springs to his feet. ‘As it happens I have the Salem court records in my study,' he says. ‘I borrowed them so that I could make my account of the Oyer and Terminer proceedings conform. I will check to see if there is any record of a case involving the murder of this Jacob Goodale.'

Sewall also rises to his feet, and follows Stephen into the study. It takes the latter about twenty minutes to find the reference. One day, eighteen years ago, Corey beat Jacob Goodale over a hundred times with a stick. The poor man died a few days later, having refused to swear a complaint against his master. As a result of this silence Corey was merely charged with abuse, and fined. Because the case itself (as opposed to the actual assault) was a minor one, it wasn't referred to in the witchcraft hearings. And perhaps the neighbours of the violent old farmer were too intimidated to bring this old story to anyone's attention.

Thomas Putnam said in his letter: ‘God so hardened his heart that he wouldn't listen to the advice of the court and so die an easy death.' Perhaps. Another explanation might be that Corey's own sense of guilt stopped him pleading; that is to say, because his victim hadn't sworn against
him
, Corey refused to swear in turn.

These thoughts swirl around in Sewall's mind after Stephen has read out the relevant entry in the court report. ‘Beating is a kind of pressing, isn't it, a sharp and sudden kind?' Sewall asks him.

Stephen frowns at the odd question. ‘Perhaps,' he says in a humouring voice, unsure of Sewall's drift.

His drift is that in these circumstances
peine forte et dure
wasn't an arbitrary and cruel punishment, but one that turned out to be surprisingly appropriate for the case, though the judges themselves didn't even know it; that behind the judicial deliberations it is possible after all to discover God's guiding hand.

He steps round the desk and hugs his brother. Margaret, hearing affirmative noises, comes into the room, and Sewall hugs her in turn (in a chaste and brotherly fashion). He feels, despite those pounds of boiled bacon, despite that mountain of cabbage, despite successive wedges of raspberry tart, strangely light.

 

Next day he's off to see his pastor, Mr. Willard, hoping to discuss his discovery about the Corey case with him. The minister answers the door himself, peering round it cautiously. He motions with his head for Sewall to come in. It's comical to see his grave furtiveness.

Safely in his study, he explains: ‘There has been some talk.'

‘Talk?'

‘People have been talking about me.'

‘What can people have to say about
you
?' asks Sewall, realising straightaway that this hardly sounds polite.

Mr. Willard looks about his study as if to make absolutely sure nobody is spying on them. ‘They've been saying I'm a witch.'

Sewall looks at him in astonishment.

‘Also Mrs. Willard,' the minister continues.

‘
Mrs.
Willard?' That is even more absurd. Mrs. Willard is a quiet, somewhat mousey woman, very much in the thrall of her husband. Wife Hannah laughs a little at her tendency to preface every statement with Mr. Willard thinks that, or says this. ‘Who has been saying such things?'

Willard gives a bitter little laugh. ‘Everyone. No one. You know how it is. Do you remember how in that remote time before this terrible heatwave began we used to sometimes say, “There's rain in the air”? When you couldn't see it and you couldn't exactly feel it but there it was, as though hiding round some corner of the breeze?' Persecution and fear seems to have brought out a poetical side to Mr. Willard. ‘That's how it is with these whispers.'

‘I'm amazed,' Sewall says. He nearly adds: since the witches already
have
their minister, Mr. Burroughs, but thinks better of it.

‘And as you know,' continues Willard, ‘one of my congregation, my good friend John Alden, has had to flee for his life.''

‘My good friend, also,' says Sewall. ‘As are you too, of course.'

Mr. Willard nods in appreciation of this compliment. ‘That's exactly why I seemed cautious when I saw you at my front door. I was alarmed someone would see us and think I was suborning you in some way, seeking your protection from a charge of witchcraft. Mr. Sewall, I think this witch business has gone on long enough. It's running out of control.'

Sewall came here to share his sense of relief in the matter of Giles Corey, and now here is Mr. Willard sounding just like Mr. Brattle! Yet only a few weeks ago he gave that militant sermon in which he described the Devil roaming about New England like a roaring lion. ‘That's out of my hands,' Sewall tells him grumpily. ‘I'm simply a member of a properly constituted court to try the witchcraft cases that are sent to it. The governor will be here soon. He will decide on the future.'

‘I shall be speaking to him about it,' says Mr. Willard grimly. ‘I understand his lady is being harassed in the same way.'

Somehow it doesn't seem the moment to announce the court's vindication in the case of Giles Corey. Instead, Sewall says (as if he has been intending to all along), ‘We shall go for a picnic to Hogg Island. Tomorrow, while this weather lasts.' (He doesn't say, before the next hangings take place the day after.) ‘You must come, and Mrs. Willard, and all the young Willards. My Sam will be so pleased to have Josiah there. That will take your minds off these anxieties.' (
Our
minds, he secretly thinks.) ‘It will be'— a happy phrase comes into his head, made available by some recent conversation or other—‘a
déjeuner sur l'herbe.
'