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"You were convinced of that." Morton's glance was keen, keener than he knew. "If you admit that one of these manifestations is true you open the door for the witches." Britt was a little nettled. "All this took place precisely as I relate it, in the dark, of course. But one sense, that of touch, controlled the situation hearing took the rest." "It all shows the inadequacy of human evidence.
Later he had had to do with the Taunton cases of 1626; indeed, he seems to have had a prominent part in this affair. Presumably he had displayed some anxiety lest the witches should not receive fair treatment, for in his Guide to Grand-Jurymen ... in cases of Witchcraft, published in 1627, he explained the book as a "plaine countrey Minister's testimony."
Efforts were made by the legislature to make amends for some of the great wrongs done at Salem; but such wrongs can never be righted. The victims of Parris' hate and avarice have slept for two hundred years on Witches' Hill, and there await the trump that shall rouse the dead, when the just shall be separated from the unjust. Salem Village is peaceful, happy and quiet.
It is reported that the inhabitants of the country at the Cape of Good Hope are great witches, and by inchantment bring certain serpents so much under command, that they preserve their churches, churchyards, gardens, orchards, barns, and cattle, both from wild beasts and thieves.
"You demand to know the name of your future wife and a hollow voice from out the wash boiler will tell you her name." "I shan't try that one. There's too good a chance for Roger to put in some of his tricks. What's the next?" "Take a candle and go to the Witches' Cave that's the dining room and stand in front of the looking glass that's on a little table in the corner, and eat an apple.
The analogy between the custom and the tales is all the closer because in both of them the power of thus removing the soul from the body and stowing it away in an animal is often a special privilege of wizards and witches. Thus the Yakuts of Siberia believe that every shaman or wizard keeps his soul, or one of his souls, incarnate in an animal which is carefully concealed from all the world.
The wreaths of cloud were gray witches, hurrying on with the ship to work her woe; the low red storm-dawn was streaked with blood; the water which gurgled all night under the lee was alive with hoarse voices; and again and again she started from fitful slumber to clasp the child closer to her, or look up for comfort to the sturdy figure of her husband, as he stood, like a tower of strength, steering and commanding, the long night through.
It admits the reality of gods as it admits the reality of ghosts and fairies and witches. They are subjective, not objective, realities. Atheism takes the god-idea, explains its origin, describes its subsequent development, and in so doing indicates its ultimate fate. In this sense Atheism is, as I have said, no more than the final stage of a long historical process.
The appearance of witches in the guise of birds was no unusual thing, indeed, and a farmer named Blakesley shot one of them in that form. He was hunting in a meadow when a rush of wings was heard and he saw pass overhead a bird with long neck, blue feathers, and feet like scrawny hands. It uttered a cry so weird, so shrill, so like mocking laughter that it made him shudder.
And all goes merry as a witches' frolic until the gray morning dawns. Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.
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