第1章

ON A PLEASANT AFTERNOON of June, it was my good fortune to be thecompanion of two young ladies in a walk. The direction of our coursebeing left to me, I led them neither to Legge's Hill, nor to theCold Spring, nor to the rude shores and old batteries of the Neck, noryet to Paradise; though if the latter place were rightly named, myfair friends would have been at home there. We reached the outskirtsof the town, and turning aside from a street of tanners andcurriers, began to ascend a hill, which at a distance, by its darkslope and the even line of its summit, resembled a green rampart alongthe road. It was less steep than its aspect threatened. The eminenceformed part of an extensive tract of pasture land, and was traversedby cow paths in various directions; but, strange to tell, though thewhole slope and summit were of a peculiarly deep green, scarce a bladeof grass was visible from the base upward. This deceitful verdurewas occasioned by a plentiful crop of "woodwax," which wears thesame dark and glossy green throughout the summer, except at oneshort period, when it puts forth a profusion of yellow blossoms. Atthat season, to a distant spectator, the hill appears absolutelyoverlaid with gold, or covered with a glory of sunshine, evenbeneath a clouded sky. But the curious wanderer on the hill willperceive that all the grass, and everything that should nourish man orbeast, has been destroyed by this vile and ineradicable weed: itstufted roots make the soil their own, and permit nothing else tovegetate among them; so that a physical curse may be said to haveblasted the spot, where guilt and frenzy consummated the mostexecrable scene that our history blushes to record. For this was thefield where superstition won her darkest triumph; the high place whereour fathers set up their shame, to the mournful gaze of generationsfar remote. The dust of martyrs was beneath our feet. We stood onGallows Hill.

For my own part, I have often courted the historic influence of thespot. But it is singular how few come on pilgrimage to this famoushill; how many spend their lives almost at its base, and never onceobey the summons of the shadowy past, as it beckons them to thesummit. Till a year or two since, this portion of our history had beenvery imperfectly written, and, as we are not a people of legend ortradition, it was not every citizen of our ancient town that couldtell, within half a century, so much as the date of the witchcraftdelusion. Recently, indeed, an historian has treated the subject ina manner that will keep his name alive, in the only desirableconnection with the errors of our ancestry, by converting the hillof their disgrace into an honorable monument of his own antiquarianlore, and of that better wisdom, which draws the moral while ittells the tale. But we are a people of the present, and have noheartfelt interest in the olden time. Every fifth of November, incommemoration of they know not what, or rather without an ideabeyond the momentary blaze, the young men scare the town with bonfireson this haunted height, but never dream of paying funeral honors tothose who died so wrongfully, and, without a coffin or a prayer,were buried here.

Though with feminine susceptibility, my companions caught all themelancholy associations of the scene, yet these could butimperfectly overcome the gayety of girlish spirits. Their emotionscame and went with quick vicissitude, and sometimes combined to form apeculiar and delicious excitement, the mirth brightening the gloominto a sunny shower of feeling, and a rainbow in the mind. My own moresombre mood was tinged by theirs. With now a merry word and next a sadone, we trod among the tangled weeds, and almost hoped that our feetwould sink into the hollow of a witch's grave. Such vestiges were tobe found within the memory of man, but have vanished now, and withthem, I believe, all traces of the precise spot of the executions.

On the long and broad ridge of the eminence, there is no verydecided elevation of any one point, nor other prominent marks,except the decayed stumps of two trees, standing near each other,and here and there the rocky substance of the hill, peeping just abovethe woodwax.

There are few such prospects of town and village, woodland andcultivated field, steeples and country seats, as we beheld from thisunhappy spot. No blight had fallen on old Essex; all was prosperityand riches, healthfully distributed. Before us lay our native town,extending from the foot of the hill to the harbor, level as a chessboard embraced by two arms of the sea, and filling the whole peninsulawith a close assemblage of wooden roofs, overtopped by many a spire,and intermixed with frequent heaps of verdure, where trees threw uptheir shade from unseen trunks. Beyond was the bay and its islands,almost the only objects, in a country unmarked by strong naturalfeatures, on which time and human toil had produced no change.

Retaining these portions of the scene, and also the peaceful glory andtender gloom of the declining sun, we threw, in imagination, a veil ofdeep forest over the land, and pictured a few scattered villages,and this old town itself a village, as when the prince of hell boresway there. The idea thus gained of its former aspect, its quaintedifices standing far apart, with peaked roofs and projecting stories,and its single meeting-house pointing up a tall spire in the midst;the vision, in short, of the town in 1692, served to introduce awondrous tale of those old times.

I had brought the manuscript in my pocket. It was one of a serieswritten years ago, when my pen, now sluggish and perhaps feeble,because I have not much to hope or fear, was driven by strongerexternal motives, and a more passionate impulse within, than I amfated to feel again. Three or four of these tales had appeared inthe "Token," after a long time and various adventures, but hadencumbered me with no troublesome notoriety, even in my birthplace.