Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/112

 their arrival was calculated to produce in the primitive little community as they rode into the village with great pomp and ceremony, adorned with all the imposing regalia of their high office, and followed by the long train of. their subordinates and satellites—aids, marshals, and constables—in full force.

Dismounting, they at once proceeded, with such slow haste as the nature of the case called for—with grave severity of countenance, and ominous dignity of step and action, availing themselves of all the awe-inspiring forms of the law, then even more cumbersome in its ceremonial observances than now—to the meeting-house, which was already crowded to its utmost capacity by a dense and excited multitude, who were filled at once with mingled horror of the accused, pity for the accusers, awe of the judges, and curiosity to behold the strange and intensely interesting proceedings of the court.

Here arrangements had already been made to render the meeting-house suitable for the great occasion to which it was now to be put; a raised platform or staging had been erected, on which to place the prisoners in