THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES. BUTTER. BUTTER. No, thank you. It's against the law to I always speak officially. To prove it, smoke. Rising and giving a paper. KEMPTHORN. And here's my hand upon it. And look you, when I say I'll do a thing The thing is done. go? Am I now free to BUTTER. What say? KEMPTHORN. I say, confound the tedious man With his strange speaking- trumpet! Can I go? BUTTER. You're free to go, by order of the [Exit. KEMPTHORN (shouting from the window). ton, Reënter BUTTER. BUTTER. Pray, did you call? KEMPTHORN. Call? Yes, I hailed the Swallow. BUTTER. That's not my name. My name is Edward Butter. You need not speak so loud. KEMPTHORN (shaking hands). Good-by! Good-by! BUTTER. Your servant, sir. KEMPTHORN. Ah, the wind has shifted! And yours a thousand times! [Exeunt. KEMPTHORN. I pray you, do you speak officially ? Then it was very sudden; for I saw him Standing where you now stand, not long ago. BELLINGHAM. By his own fireside, in the afternoon, sword Pointed towards them, and they rushed upon it! Yet now I would that I had taken no part A faintness and a giddiness came o'er In all that bloody work. him; And, leaning on the chimney-piece, he cried, BELLINGHAM. The guilt of it "The hand of God is on me!" and fell Be on their heads, not ours. dead. Had given him this memento of affection, And whispered in his ear, "Remember me!" How placid and how quiet is his face, The ship that brought them sails this Now that the struggle and the strife are very hour, But carries no one back. A distant cannon. ENDICOTT. What is that gun? BELLINGHAM. ended! DELUSIONS of the days that once have been, It was the wind. There's no one in the Witchcraft and wonders of the world O ghastly sight! Like one who has Who would believe that in the quiet been hanged! town Where quiet reigns, and breathes Of Sabbath bells, a Witch was burned through brain and breast The only men of dignity and state Were then the Minister and the Magistrate, Who ruled their little realm with iron rod, Less in the love than in the fear of God; And who believed devoutly in the Powers Of Darkness, working in this world of ours, In spells of Witchcraft, incantations dread, And shrouded apparitions of the dead. Upon this simple folk "with fire and flame," Saith the old chronicle, "the Devil came; Scattering his firebrands and his poisonous darts, To set on fire of Hell all tongues and hearts! And 't is no wonder; for, with all his host, There most he rages where he hateth most, And is most hated; so on us he brings All these stupendous and portentous things!" Something of this our scene to-night will show ; And ye who listen to the Tale of Woe, or drowned. ACT I. SCENE - The woods near Salem Village. Enter TITUBA, with a basket of herbs. TITUBA. Here's monk's-hood, that breeds fever in the blood; And deadly nightshade, that makes men see ghosts; And henbane, that will shake them with convulsions; And meadow-saffron and black hellebore, That rack the nerves, and puff the skin with dropsy; And bitter-sweet, and briony, and eyebright, That cause eruptions, nosebleed, rheumatisms; I know them, and the places where they hide In field and meadow; and I know their secrets, And gather them because they give me power Over all men and women. these, Armed with Can make their daughters see and talk Exceeding fierce, that none may pass Rightly, it is Scribonius the learned I am Tituba the Witch, That tells the story of a man who, pray-Wife of John Indian. ing For one that was possessed by Evil Into this thicket, struck me in the face With branches of the trees, and so entangled The fetlocks of my horse with vines and brambles, That I must needs dismount, and search on foot The Lord forbid! What would the people think, For the lost pathway leading to the vil- If they should see the Reverend Cotton lage. Reënter TITUBA. What shape is this? What monstrous apparition, Mather Ride into Salem with a Witch behind him? The Lord forbid! |