Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1877-01-13

living or dead, until Gideon Giles, COM
ing home in the early winter from
weeks journey to Boston, told me, as he
sat in the elbow chair by our hearth,
that he had seen gay young Roger Vane.
You remember him. Mistress
Esther? A well favored youth, but
sometimes light minded and yet saw
him among goodly company, coming out
of the South church after meeting, and
with fair young lady on his arm. He
had no eyes for any of the worshipers
but her, and l got no speech with him,
message for his friends in Salem, and
for you, Mistress Esther.
He looked at me with keen, cruel
glance, and remember how once he had
crossed our path as we loitered in the
woods, Roger and l. If he searched for
any telltale sign in my face, it was in
vain.
So [ knew that Roger Vane was
living and had forgotten me. l could
have borne his death, could not bear
his scOln. The bitterness of hades crept
into my soul, and taught me hatred of
all mankind. / shrank away from the
! sight of human faces, and in gloom and
solitude ate my own heart away, with
| brooding upon its despair. Oh, my vain
beauty oh, cruel dowry that brought
my fall ! Two soft months of early sum
mer, against the long, dreary winters
c0ld-the warmth of kisses in green,
glancing woods, and the ice walls of
Salem jail-the crowd on Witch's hill,
the strangling rope, the darkness of the
death struggle, and the trackless abysses
of eternity-these things my fair face
brought me--me, old Chillingworths
proud daughter !"
/ What cry she gave In the dead
silence of the nightit Glove sharp and
shuddering, and seemed to freeze my
J senses within me-turn me cold and
/ dumb with fear. The ghost girl wrung
her white hands, and flung them high
! above her head, and her shadowy figure
swayed and waved in the arch between
the curtains, as the woe almost two CEN
turies old shook her with the strength
of yesterday.
81 had no fear Of God or man, y
murmured ON the voice again; "and my
mouth was full of bitter words, and de-
fed both in my heart and on my lips. In
L
I away, rs if ten years had sped since
Roger and picked the earlier flowers to-
! gether; and yet the May flowers bloomed
only once since then. | wandered out
to find them, one April day, in the old
place where he and had walked: and,
Us / swept away the heaped brown
leaves, cried aloud to the merciless
powers above me-to God or Satan, to
whom L would have sold my soul that
/ hour, only to have Roger back again be-
| side me. And there was one in the
/ wood that day who heard me.
"The land was all astir with cries of
witchcraft, and Parson Mather was at his
bloody work, in the name Of God. On
| the long low hill beyond Salem village
stood the gibbets, where old Mistress
Nurse had suffered, and Goodwife Corey,
and the old and frail, and the strong,
young limbs had swung against the sky
/ for pitiless mobs to gibe at. There were
cruel tongues i'll Salem that whispered
against me, and brought me before the
! iudges-me, Esther Chillingworth, nine
| teen years old in that wretched April
whom Roger Vane had loved There
were those who swore to bitter threats
that / made, and to strange mutterings
and wailings heard when | was alone,
and prayers and cries that had another
name in them than Gods; and it was
said that stole out in the forest to meet
my foul master, and worthy Goodman
Giles had heard me call him to my side,
as he strayed through the trees near me.
And child whom had pushed from my
way, as [ walked down Salem street, had
fallen i'll, and cried, in its strange fits,
that Esther Chillingworth tormented
him; and my old fathers honor and his
gray hairs could not save me, nor my
youth and my poor, fading beauty. They
dragged me from his house and cast me
into Salem jail; they locked the heavy
door, and drew the creaking bolts fast,
and left me crouched under the grated
window to stare up, in my blind anguish,
at the glimpse OF tender sky, that had no
had forgotten me.
"Then came the crowded courtroom,
day after day; the solemn, unfinching
face of the gray, old Judge; the hot,
sitting air, and the sunshine through the
glaring row of windows, and the ieering,
cruel women and merciless men; the
writhing children, who, in their lying
fits, played like devils babies with my
life, and flung it away; the screams and
curses lifted up against me; the slow,
cold voices of the wise old men who were
giving me to death for an old wife's tale:
and then the dark walls of the iail-the
damp, the icy chill, the silence, and the
death in life. SO, day after day, L came
and went, and asked no mercy at their
hands.
"There was one face in the crowd
that had pitying look for me, though it
was only a young lad's-young Martin
Browns, whom | had counted child
only year ago, but who had grown of
late to look with mans eyes at me.
saw the hot rage and bitter tears on his
face as he stood with the crowd in the
courtroom, and listened and could not
speak to me; and one night-a wild,
rainy night--he stole under the window
of the jail, where l was pressing against
the grated bars, and whispered my
name.
Esther Esther do you hear me 2
he said softly. Esther will you answer
me?'
"And I spoke, and the poor lad pour
ed out passion of grief, and pity, and
anger, with tho muttering of the wind
and rain,