Harvard Yard (20 page)

“The people are unthinking,” answered Sewall.

And now Burroughs said, “’Tis a known fact that a witch, a wizard, or any other in thrall to Satan, cannot utter the Lord’s prayer. So hear you this.” And he began to speak the words: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name . . .”

And the murmuring crowd grew quiet.

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The crowd drew closer.

“Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Those words, offered by a condemned man, no matter the cause of his condemnation, brought a sob from the breast of a goodwife standing near Isaac.

Suddenly, one of the afflicted girls cried out, “The black man! I see the black man whisper in Burroughs’s ear.” And then she swooned, which brought forth loud cries from the other girls.

Several in the crowd told them to quiet themselves, as if their antics might work in the courtroom but not in the bright sunlight of Gallows Hill.

And Burroughs thundered on, the power of his voice overwhelming the girlish cries: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

“Deliver us all,” said a big man in a fishmonger’s apron.

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.”

An “amen” echoed through the crowd like a stone dropped into a puddle, sending out ripples that then rippled back, just as the crowd now pressed in toward the gallows.

“He is a goodly man,” cried another goodwife.

“A godly man!” cried a farmer.

“Judge Samuel”—the fishmonger pushed his face close to Sewall—“are you not moved? Hear you how he prays? No wizard can pray like that!”

Sewall looked from the crowd to the sheriff to the condemned on the gallows, all of them now looking to him with new expectation. And another of the condemned cried out, “We are all innocent!”

“Innocent, indeed,” whispered a man in Isaac’s ear. He was tall and better dressed than most, a merchant by the name of Robert Calef, who seemed always to wear a wry smile, as if perpetually amused by human folly. “Condemned they were, by the holy ignorance of men like your son and Cotton Mather.”

“You’re a long way from Boston,” said Isaac, keeping his eyes on the gallows.

“The story of this travesty must be told, so as not to be repeated.”

Sewall nodded to the sheriff, who prodded Burroughs toward the nooses.

As Burroughs stretched his neck, the whole crowd seemed to stretch toward him. The good people of Salem, so respectful of their leaders, so willing to believe that it was evil they saw if evil it was called, gave out with a sound that was part cry of horror, part roar of anger.

Calef said, “I sense a change. Perhaps you should speak up.”

“Perhaps you should,” said Isaac.

“People of Salem!” A voice pierced the air, rising above the sound of hundreds of shuffling feet and cutting through the dust raised by the shuffling. It was Cotton Mather, round-faced and red-faced, standing high in his stirrups. “The devil has oft been transformed into an angel of light! Take care that he does not deceive you all this day!”

“But Reverend Burroughs recites the Lord’s Prayer!” cried one of the goodwives.

“He is no reverend,” answered Mather.

“He is the dark man!” cried one of the girls, gaining courage from Mather.

“He is not even ordained!” Mather added.

That, thought Isaac, was too fine a point, but Cotton Mather was a man who believed in fine points.

The fishmonger shouted, “But the Lord’s Prayer—”

“Do you not see it?” Mather roared. “As he deceives you to believe he is a minister, he can deceive you with a minister’s words. ’Twould be no different if he took the form of an old crone and spun wool that did not warm.”

“What should we do, then?” cried another.

“See that they all receive their righteous sentence!”

Isaac had worked his way to the edge of the crowd, where Mather and John sat their horses. He made eye contact with his son, and mouthed the word “righteous?”

Judge John Wedge simply folded his hands on the pommel of his saddle and fixed his eyes on the gallows.

It was for Mather to answer, “Yes, Isaac Wedge! Righteous begun and righteous concluded.”

And John Wedge said, “Sheriff, if Judge Sewall concur, do your duty.”

With no further ceremony, and no words from any respectable preacher, for no respectable preacher would pray over them, the nooses were fitted and the warrants read. When the gallows dropped, there was no great shriek of bloodthirsty joy, only the sound of three necks snapped and two windpipes crushed, and five minions of Satan were left twitching in the air like puppets.

ii

The riders of righteousness did not rest in September. There were more trials and more hangings, but as the weather cooled, more learned men came to see the trials as Isaac had seen them, as persecutions instead of prosecutions.

By January, the governor had released anyone still awaiting trial for witchcraft.

Even Increase Mather saw the truth. He had returned from England with a new charter for the colony and had once more assumed his duties as pastor of the Second Church and president of the college. Coming late to the controversy, he had written, “To take away the life of anyone, merely because a Spectre or Devil in a bewitched person accuses them, will bring the Guilt of Innocent Blood on the Land.”

His son had agreed, at least in principle. But Cotton Mather’s pen had proved one of the most prolific resources in all of New England, and he had written a book called
Wonders of the Invisible World,
to uphold the righteousness of the trials and remind the province of Satan’s universal presence.

The Mathers had their differences, then, but they remained faithful servants to the community, the college, and each other. Cotton supported the new charter, though it permitted any Protestant sect to worship in what once had been a Puritan colony. And Increase wrote of his pride in his son’s book: “Nothing but my Relation to him hinders me from recommending it to the world.”

John Wedge often wished that he had been as close to his father, or that his father had risen as high as Reverend Increase. How much better would be the impression that John made in Boston, had his father been minister to a respectable Middlesex congregation rather than a disillusioned preacher and failed farmer teaching grammar to the sons of bumpkins?

But some men, thought John, were destined for great service while others were doomed by their dreams, their disappointments, and their own stubborn sense of themselves to live on the edge of God’s community. John considered himself the former and his father the latter, and that was why they argued whenever they were together.

Indeed, they planned their arguments. They met in Cambridge once a month, just before the regular meeting of the Harvard Corporation. John would ride out from Boston, and Isaac would travel from his little school in Sudbury. They would dine together; they would argue until meeting time. And afterward, they would argue all the way back to John’s home in Boston, and argue there until the last call of the town crier.

So they were arguing on a bright October afternoon . . . about a seventeen-year-old girl named Margaret Rule, who had fallen to fits in the Mathers’ meetinghouse and had been taken home hysterically proclaiming that the devil was upon her.

“I tell you,” said Isaac, “the stories of this Rule girl are nonsense.”

“Father,” said John, “the devil levitated her from her bed. She rose near to the ceiling. I have seen the affidavits of men who were there.”

“And did they see
her
affidavits, or did her nightgown cover them?”

Father and son were crossing the greensward where the Old College once stood.

John went with the regal, slow gait of a man who knew his worth in the world, one who had married well, who had inherited his father-in-law’s ships, and whose success in managing them had earned him a place on both the governor’s council and the Harvard Corporation. There were thirteen Congregational ministers on the governing board, and John Wedge, so highly did President Increase Mather respect him.

Isaac moved slowly, too, but with no touch of regality. He had lived too long and seen too much, and a fall from a horse had frozen one of his hips.

Not only did their manner of motion distinguish them. The son kept his princely dark beard carefully trimmed. The father went clean-shaven but let his white hair grow to his shoulders.

John said, “Our goal in Salem was to root out true evil. We will do as much in Boston, if we must. Otherwise, we invite Satan back in.”

“The trials were a disgrace,” said Isaac. “Spectral evidence used against friends, neighbors, classmates—”

“Only Burroughs was charged from any college class. And half the judges on the court were educated here as well . . . Stoughton, Saltonstall, Sewall—”

“Sewall speaks of making public repentance. So should you. Burroughs was no more guilty of witchcraft than I.”

“Don’t say that so loud, Father. Should that remark be heard by the wrong ears—”

“Such as his?” Isaac gestured toward the courtyard between Harvard Hall and the president’s house. There Cotton Mather stood in conversation with several other ministers of the corporation.

At the approach of the Wedges, Mather doffed his wide-brimmed black hat. “Our meeting may begin, now that Judge Wedge is here.”

“A judge no longer, Reverend Mather,” said John, responding with similar formality, though they were lifelong friends.

“You may be called on yet again,” answered Mather, “should we fail to stop the devil’s incursion into the body of Margaret Rule.”

“Have you seen her rise to the ceiling?” asked Isaac.

Mather ignored Isaac and said to John, “I fast for her soul tomorrow. I would have you join me at her home. I hope for an audience as we pray over her and drive Satan out.”

“An audience?” cried Isaac.

“We must show Satan our minions,” Mather answered.

“I shall be there,” said John. “And I shall make a fast for your success.”

“I won’t fast,” said Isaac. “Old men need their victuals. But I’ll be there, too.”

“Come in the right spirit,” said Mather, “one of vigilance. As my father says, we’ve claimed a corner of the world where the devil reigned without control for ages. We’ve claimed it from his Indians and his witches, too. We must be vigilant.”

“Aye . . . vigilant,” said Isaac. “I be ever vigilant.”

Mather glanced at the sundial on Harvard Hall and went inside.

“Father, you must control your words,” whispered John.

Isaac patted his son on the shoulder. “Go do your business. I’ll go and visit my book. ’Tis a fine work of natural philosophy, but so sadly neglected that only two students have signed it out in sixteen years. One died of consumption. The other made no comment. And then there was Burroughs. Do you think the girls called him a devil because they knew he’d read the devil Shakespeare?”

“Father,” said John in a low, angry voice, “I may have resigned from the court, but I have responsibilities to the colony. You should not speak to me of such things.”

“Someday, I’ll speak to the
world
of such things. But when simple ministers are hanged as witches, what fate would befall him who preserved the work of Shakespeare?”

Section twelve, shelf eight, space six. To Isaac’s relief,
Corporei Insectii
had not been read by anyone since last he had been there. Indeed, it seemed not to have been moved. The Lord, he concluded, still approved of its presence in the college library.

And that became the topic of argument that evening in Boston.

John’s wife, Mary, was racked by a cough that left her weak and feverish. So she retired early, leaving father and son to dispute the question of God’s favor on a playwright whom some considered a devil but many others had come to revere.

“You’ve read the play,” said Isaac, “and you would agree that this Shakespeare has much to say to man about men.”

“’Tis why I’ve never cast out
Love’s Labours Won
. But the law—”

“The law.” Isaac Wedge laughed. “The belief that the devil can speak through playwrights is as crazy as the belief that he can raise a woman to the ceiling.”

“Father,” said John in all seriousness, “the devil can do anything. He is a spirit.”

“We will find out tomorrow.”

When the first shaft of sunlight struck his eyes, John Wedge awoke. His bed was empty, for his wife slept in another room. She did this, she said, so as not to disturb him with her coughing. She also did this, he surmised, so as not to be disturbed by a husband whose needs she could no longer fulfill.

He pulled on his breeches and threw himself onto the floor, so that his face was pressed against the smooth red nap of the Turkish carpet and his body was stretched out in the morning sun. Ordinarily, when he prayed, he retired to his study with his books and his thoughts. But on days when prayer preceded a fast, he began in prostration.

“Oh, Lord,” he said aloud. “One of our neighbors is horribly arrested by evil spirits. I beg Thy help to free her. Send us Thy bright angels, to watch over us and guide us in this and all our torments and sadnesses, that we may serve Thee as Thou wish.”

John had never seen his father fast or prostrate himself in prayer. These aspects of piety John had learned from Cotton Mather. And he had learned well, because God had blessed him.

John needed only to look out his window to see the Lord’s bounty upon him. He could gaze across his vegetable garden and down to the Great Cove, to his ships—half a dozen his by his wife’s inheritance, half a dozen his by his own intelligence. Some of them sat at the wharves, loading on the goods of New England, and some of them sailed in with the products of the wide world.

But his piety and faith had not been great enough, because the richest of the Lord’s blessings—a house filled with happy noise—had not come to John Wedge. His morning sounds were always the same—the humming of the slave woman who stirred his porridge, the whisk of a broom worked by an indentured servant, and the quiet coughing of his wife. He heard no childish bickering, no motherly voice rising to calm a dispute, and for those, he would have surrendered everything else.