Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/119

 Sarah Good had not intended to accuse Goody Osburn. She had only been led by the questions put to her to allow that Osburn might be guilty. The whole amount of what she had intended to say seems clearly this, that if the sufferings of the children, of the reality of which she did not seem to entertain a doubt, were caused by either Osburn or herself, it must be by Osburn, as she was conscious of her own entire innocence of it; and this, which was uttered only in self-defense, was cruelly perverted by the court into a positive accusation against her fellow-prisoner.

But to return to Sarah Osburn. Mr. Hathorne now desired all the children to stand up and look upon the prisoner, and see if they did not know her—which they did; and every one of them said she was one of them that did afflict them.

Three witnesses declared she had said that morning, "She was more like to be bewitched than that she was a witch;" and Mr. Hathorne asked her what made her say so.

She answered him she was frighted one time in her sleep, and either saw, or dreamed