Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer Read Free Book Online Page B

The neighbor struck at this monster with a stick, but it was like striking thin air. The monster flew out of the window and vanished, so the neighbor ran outside, and there was Bishop walking toward her orchard next door. Some strange force made it impossible for him to move a single step in her direction, and at last he turned around to shut his door. Just then, the beast flew toward him yet again, sprang back, and then flew over an apple tree, flinging dust with its feet against his stomach and scattering apples as it sped away. The man was so terrified that he couldn’t even speak for three days.

    Apparently only one of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, believed that Bishop was innocent. Chief Justice Stoughton and the rest of the men believed every single detail in this mountain of spectral evidence. So the end had come for Bridget Bishop. She was found guilty and condemned to death.



CHAPTER EIGHT
THE END IS NEAR
    O n the morning of June 10, Bishop was loaded into a cart surrounded by guards and officers on horseback and was driven away from the Salem Town Prison down Prison Lane. The procession then headed toward Salem Village, past crowds of gawking onlookers, and after crossing a bridge, it wound its way to the top of a ledge above a salt marsh. As Bishop continued to proclaim her innocence, guards wrapped her skirt around her feet and tied it tightly at the bottom. Then Essex County’s high sheriff, George Corwin, made her stand halfway up a ladder, where she was blindfolded and a noose was placed round her neck. Corwin kicked the ladder out from under her, and the noose jerked tight! She was hanged by the neck until dead.
    On the very same day, a man named Thomas Brattle sent a letter to a gentleman in London. He made no mention of Bishop’s hanging, but he wrote a few words about the other goings on: “When Witches were Tryed several of them confessed a contract with the Devil by signing his Book, and did express much sorrow for the same, and said the Tempters tormented them till they did it.”
    This was important because by now so many people who were accused of witchcraft had figured out that they would not be hanged if they confessed. Like Reverend Parris’s slave Tituba, all they had to do was to say they were sorry. In the end, 49 people confessed that they were witches.
    The next part of Brattle’s letter revealed some foolish shenanigans going on in court:
    At the time of the Examinations, before hundreds of Witnesses, strange Pranks were played; sometimes the afflicted took Pins out of their own Clothes and thrust them into their flesh. Many of these pins were taken out again by the Judges own hands. Thorns also were thrust into their flesh. The accusers were sometimes struck dumb, deaf, blind, and sometimes lay as if they were dead for a while, and all of these things were foreseen and declared by the afflicted just before it was done.
    There were two Girls, about 12 or 13 years of age, who foresaw all that was done and were therefore called the Visionary Girls; they would say, Now he, or she, or they, are going to bite or pinch the Indian; and all there present in Court saw the visible marks on the Indians arms; they would also cry out, Now look, look, they are going to bind a certain person’s Legs, and all present saw the same person fall with her Legs twisted in an extra-ordinary manner;
    Now say they, we shall all fall, and immediately 7 or 8 of the afflicted fell down, with terrible shrieks and outcries even though the Witch was tied up with a Cord and the afflicted Indian Servant was on his way home, (being about 2 or 3 miles out of town). Many Murders are supposed to be committed in this way, for these Girls, and others of the afflicted, say they can see Coffins and bodies in Shrouds rising up and looking at the accused, crying Vengeance, Vengeance on the Murderers.
    On June 15, five days after the hanging, Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall resigned from the court. He had been totally appalled