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Since the move was inevitable, she would be glad to go to Miss Stearne as soon as possible. She helped Aunt Polly pack her trunk and suit case, afterwards gathering into a bundle the things she had forgotten or overlooked, all of which personal belongings Uncle Eben wheeled over to the school.
He seems to have written it in the last of May, but inserted verdicts later in the margin. But Hopkins writes that 29 were condemned at once and Stearne says about 28; quite possibly there were two trials at Chelmsford. There is only one other supposition, i. e., that Hopkins and Stearne confused the number originally accused with the number hanged.
Miss Stearne was a woman fifty years of age, tall and lean, with a deeply lined face and a tendency to nervousness that was increasing with her years. She was a very clever teacher and a very incompetent business woman, so that her small school, of excellent standing and repute, proved difficult to finance. In character Miss Stearne was temperamental enough to have been a genius.
A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches. Stearne, 14. A True Relation of the Araignment of eighteene Witches, 5. Ibid.; Stearne, 25. Hutchinson speaks of repeated sessions. Stearne, 25, says: "by reason of an Allarum at Cambridge, the gaol delivery at Burie St. Edmunds was adjourned for about three weeks."
See below, appendix A, § 4, for a further discussion of this pamphlet. It is strange that so careful a student as Thomas Wright should have been deceived by this pamphlet, especially since he noticed that the confessions were "imitations" of those in Essex. Stearne, 37.
One of these fine old places Miss Stearne rented for her boarding school; another, quite the most imposing residence in the town, had been leased some two years previous to the time of this story by Colonel James Weatherby, whose family consisted of his widowed daughter, Mrs. Burrows, and his grandchild, Mary Louise Burrows.
"For the watching," says Stearne, "it is not to use violence or extremity to force them to confesse, but onely the keeping is, first to see whether any of their spirits, or familiars come to or neere them."
From all viewpoints she considered she was doing the right thing; so, when her preparations were complete, she went to Miss Stearne's room, although it was now after eight o'clock in the evening, and requested an interview. "I am going away," she quietly announced to the principal. "Going away! But where?" asked the astonished teacher. "I cannot tell you that, Miss Stearne." "Do you not know?"
To put it in a nutshell, England was in a state of judicial anarchy. Local authorities were in control. But local authorities had too often been against witches. The coming of Hopkins and Stearne gave them their chance, and there was no one to say stop.
It is not improbable that this distorted tale was based on an actual happening in the war. See Mercurius Civicus, September 21-28, 1643. A Confirmation and Discovery of Witch-craft ... together with the Confessions of many of those executed since May 1645.... By John Stearne ... London, 1648.
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