In the Devil's Snare by Mary Beth Norton Read Free Book Online

hog, a “great black dogge,” a red cat, and a black cat, all emissaries of the devil, had urged her to hurt the children. Finally, when they threatened to do worse to her, she had given in and attacked first Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, then Ann Putnam Jr. and Betty Hubbard. “I am very sorry for itt,” though, she added, detailing her attempts to resist the pressures the devil and the witches had brought to bear on her to win her cooperation.
    The four victims were, Samuel Parris later attested, “grievously distressed” at the outset of Tituba’s examination but “immediately all quiet” during her confession. At the end of the examination, they again complained of tortures, assenting when Tituba identified Sarah Good as a guilty party. The day’s session ended in disorder as Betty Hubbard experienced “an extreame fit” and Tituba was herself “very much afflicted,” charging Good and Osborne with attacking her for confessing. Tituba claimed that the specters “blinded hir,” also rendering her unable to speak freely.
    Neither of the transcribers recorded the immediate reactions of the multitude in the meetinghouse to Tituba’s revelations. But that her words deeply affected at least some of the hearers became evident that evening. 41 About an hour after nightfall, “a strange noyse not useually heard” frightened the Villagers William Allen and John Hughes. The two men saw “a strange and unuseall beast lyeing on the Grownd,” which disappeared as they came closer, metamorphosing into “2 or 3 weemen” who flew swiftly away, “which weemen wee took to bee Sarah Good Sarah Osburne and Tittabe.” Sarah Good’s specter was seen as well at Dr. Griggs’s house. There Betty Hubbard was watched over by Samuel Sibley (Mary Sibley’s husband), among others. When Betty said that she saw Sarah Good’s apparition on the table, “with all hear naked brast and bar footed bar lagded,” Sibley was sufficiently convinced by her vision that, he later reported, “I Struck with my Staf wher She Said Sary good Stud.” Betty then informed him that “you have heet har right acors the back you have a most killd hear.”
    That night, Sarah Good was jailed at the house of the constable, Joseph Herrick. In the morning, watchers (who quickly heard about the spectral appearance at Dr. Griggs’s) told Herrick that she “was gon for some time from them both bare foot and bare legde,” and Herrick’s wife observed that Sarah’s arm was “Blooddy from a little below the Elbow to the wrist,” whereas the previous night her arms had been unmarked. So the reported blow on the back turned into a perceived one on the arm; and Villagers had convincing proof of Good’s spectral rambling.
    The magistrates had not completed interrogating the accused women. On March 2 and 3, they again questioned Tituba and Sarah Osborne, and on March 5, Tituba and Sarah Good. Of these six additional examinations (all of which seem to have taken place in jail), only one record survives, that of Tituba on March 2. Still, the others probably did not yield any significant revelations. 42 The second examination of Tituba certainly did, however, for Hathorne questioned the slave woman closely about her dealings with the devil. She indicated that she had enlisted in the devil’s legion by signing his book with a mark “with red Bloud,” and that the devil had showed her Good’s and Osborne’s marks in the same book. She also declared that Good had admitted signing the book, although Osborne would not confess. Further, the book contained nine signatures in all, “Some in Boston & some herein this Towne.” She divulged the stunning news that the witches had held a meeting at Parris’s own house, but “my master did nott See us, for they would not lett my Master See.” Even though this testimony was not offered in public, its contents undoubtedly spread throughout the Village, as knowledgeable gossipers shared the additional