A nervous laughter moved about the room.

Stoughton added, “Oh, I know the wait and see attitude is practiced most deftly by everyone in office, gentlemen, from our present Governor down. Do you wish to know what Governor Phipps has to say on your witch problem here in Salem?”

“Indeed . . . indeed we do,” said Higginson. “Here, here and about time he made some stand.”

“He says he’d rather fight Indians and invaders than shadows and spirits, that he wanted his shot and dagger to pierce something when he rode into battle.”

“He is a gallant man on a horse.” It was Nicholas Noyes’ summation of Sir William Phipps.

“The man has ended the Indian problem,” said Hale thoughtfully. “Leastways in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”

“He’s gone to Maine to help see to the scourge there,” said Sewell.

Stoughton countered with a raised glass. “And perhaps to run from the scourge here.”

The others laughed.

“Meanwhile the jails in Salem are bulging with the indicted here,” replied Nehemia Higginson, drawing a stare from Addington. Higginson’s mind raced with many concerns. Members of the Superior Court, also called the General Court were trained in both the ministry and the law, as law was based on biblical strictures meant as common belief, custom, and rule. That men might cooperate and combine and grow in community and harmony. New England for the Puritans on these shores was the great purging, the starting over of God’s Eden, his New Jerusalem, a Utopia to be cherished and defended against any attack, perceived or otherwise. At the same time, despite the hold on the colonies by the King of England, most in Massachusetts and perhaps all the colonies found swearing an oath to any earthly king or governor—the king’s man—part and parcel of the old and perverted world across the sea. The contemptible, wicked, shameful, and sinful Old England of the Episcopal Faith. To such men, swearing an Oath to King William was to bend to the will of a tyrant and his petty tyrants sent to the colonies to collect taxes and to chain men for not genuflecting. Tyrants and tax collectors in black cloaks, men like Andros who made people sign in his book.

The Puritans had rejected both the Church of England and the Vatican; they’d run from England, braving all manner of danger to escape a tainted world, to escape the blood and poison of a toxic universe where kings bent the rule of law and the rule of God to their perverse and often greedy and self-serving ends. Some said the taint of England had come with them to the New World; that such things as witches and wizards had also come over right along with the wharf rats and other vermin.

Such men, and the sons of such men as Nehemia Higginson, stood in this room now, come together to fight this new threat to Utopia. “You men of Boston,” said Higginson, “know that we men of Salem agree with your politics. England has failed God, but we will not fail Him.”

This profound remark silenced the others. Higginson got to his feet with great effort, telling his underling, Noyes, to fetch his wrap and coat. He said to the others as he waited, “I can see you are men of learning, knowledge, theology, law—a nd that you are influential. All to the good. All to help us in Salem to heal. I pray you use your offices wisely, knowing you are men with a just cause—to end this damable witch hunt before it goes any further.”

No one responded, and the old minister, looking as thin and gaunt as a buzzard, allowed Noyes to help him on with cape and hat. Noyes helped him out the door as well, but the elder minister stopped at the entry and said pointedly to Stoughton, “Don’t forget what we talked about, Sir William.”

Stoughton cleared his throat and replied, “I will remember, Reverend sir. And thank you for taking such effort to be here.”

With Higginson and Noyes gone, Saltonstalll took center stage. “I think it time we magistrates conferred now in private, gentlemen.”

From the look Stoughton and Addington shared, it was time for the other ministers to follow old Higginson’s example right out the door, to leave them with the magistrates of the lower court to talk statutes and laws and precedent in a situation without precedent on these shores, and so to allow them to talk about the legal aspects of what was going on here.

Once every clergyman had bid adieu, Sir William Stoughton took charge, saying, “At last, gentlemen, we might speak frankly and to the point. We are here to eradicate demons.”

# # # # #

Stoughton firmly took Hathorne by the arm and led him to sit with him before the hearth. “Jonathan . . . may I call you Jonathan?”

“By all means, Sir William.”

Sewell and Addington hung back, glancing at one another.

Corwin kept his distance.

“It appears to me, Jonathan,” continued Stoughton, imbibing between phrases, “appears this next election will be decided along the loyalty issue.”

“A major concern among the mob, I’d say,” replied Hathorne.

“Regardless of your reasoning . . . ” Stoughton shrugged. “However moral it may or may not’ve been to stand with Andros when Governor, now in today’s climate, we may all of us suffer the fate of those who’ve been tossed from office.”

“I understand and it comes with our duties.”

“Held accountable, even me—even Sewell there.”

“But-but—”

“Unless we find a way to keep the voters’ minds’ well distracted.”

“Distracted, yes. I take your point.”

Hathorne’s black maidservant, Callie, entered, asked if anything additional was needed, and Hathorne scolded her for interrupting, finishing with, “Be off to bed, now!” He then apologized to his guests.

His servant’s interrupting them had given him pause; enough to consider what precisely the Boston judges had in mind. Clearly, it had all to do with its being an election year, and the polls would decide all their fates. He said to Stoughton, loud enough for the others in the room to hear, “It’s true the people have been aroused against Corwin and me on the single issue, but in general, we are well respected here.”

“But the single issue will raise its ugly head anew,” countered Addington. “The pamphleteers in Boston are already calling for heads to roll.”

“A foregone conclusion,” added Sewell.

Stoughton leapt back in. “And for what? Doing your duty as you saw fit under duress! Surviving to fight another day—like now, here in Salem against the most vicious attack on our way of life, and how? Through our children, man!”

“Here, here!” cheered Corwin, downing another ale.

“Indeed!” chorused the other men of Boston.

Stoughton paced before the others, clearly the head of the snake here. “Since Increase Mather’s gone abroad for a new Charter of Laws for New England—as if we had none—the populace in Boston seems bent on the Andros issue as never before!”

“Mather left us holding the proverbial pig in a poke,” commented Sewell, the writer. “Sure, we need that charter in place, but it could have waited until after the elections coming in June.

“Mather is the fastest among us!” Addington toasted Increase Mather, a scowl on his face.

“But in the meantime,” began Stoughton, his chest puffed out, pacing yet, “we could all lose our seats before Mather’s return. All rather calculated, if you ask me.”

“Calculated?” asked Hathorne. “How so?”

Corwin gulped.

Stoughton asked Addington to explain it to the lesser judges. “I grow weary of the parochialism in this room.”

Hathorne and Corwin turned their eyes on the thin, gaunt Mr. Addington. “Don’t you see, gentlemen? He—Mather—jaunts off as an emissary, returns a hero with the laws literally in hand, and we, gentlemen, we are growing potatoes on some plot of land perhaps bordering the Connecticut.”

Corwin raised a quaking palm out as if to say stop. “But . . . but we only stood by our office.”

“Obviously, you men of Boston have talked this over among yourselves,” said Hathorne, coming away from his corner. “Do you intend to contest Increase Mather’s appointment as emissary or to question his integrity or motives?”

“No, no! That would not be politic in the current climate,” replied Sewell. “We’re saying he calculated the timing of his trip to coincide with the elections, knowing his popularity would sustain him from an ocean away, while we . . .we in this room are left to face hostilities here.”

“At a time of election when we have no charter, don’t you see?” asked Addington, grimacing, “which the popular mind will read as anarchy, for which we all pay.”

“We all become targets of unrest and sedition,” Stoughton added.

“Can you predict the future with such accuracy?” Hathorne countered, trying to hold onto some shred of himself in this sea men who in essence formed the greatest minds in the colony. Hathorne had inched to the window and he pointed out it now. “Can you read their minds?”

“I once trusted that man, Mather, and now?” muttered Sewell. “I trust his son, Cotton, far more.”

“Makes my days in office bitter ones now, looking back,” choked Addington.

“To answer your question, Mr. Hathorne,” said Stoughton, going to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, “we in this room have a combined wisdom that dictates our prophesy so that yes, we can and must read minds to survive! Right, gentlemen?”

There was some good-natured laughter over this and Stoughton held the floor, adding, “Look, gentlemen, we all share the same fate, unless we do something to turn the heads of the masses pointing in another direction.” Stoughton took a giant step and stood center of the room among them, speaking firmly now, his voice filling the house. “A contingency of malcontents has grown large over this Andros thing. As result, Mr. Corwin, Mr. Hathorne, it seems we have more in common than you might imagine.”