Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/111

 them does not destroy our appetite for breakfast—can perhaps form no adequate idea of the mingled awe and curiosity with which our unsophisticated predecessors looked forward to this great event.

The quiet village was therefore thronged with eager strangers, in addition to its own excited population, when, in the morning of the first of March, 1692, the two leading and most distinguished magistrates of the neighborhood, Justices John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin—who are described as "men of note and influence, whose fathers had been among the first founders of the settlement, and who were assistants, that is, members of the highest legislative and judicial body in the colony, combining the functions of a senate with those of a court of last resort, with most comprehensive jurisdiction"—entered the village. There is no doubt that these distinguished men magnified their office—no doubt it was their purpose and intention so to do; their object undoubtedly was to make the prestige of their authority felt and recognized as a terror to evil-doers; and we may imagine the mighty stir and excitement