Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/158

 *less an inward prayer, the poor woman said, sadly, "Well, as to this thing, I am as innocent as the child unborn. But surely," she added, "what sin hath God found out in me, unrepented of, that he should lay such a heavy affliction upon me in my old age?"

The pious and loving old woman, the mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother of a large and affectionate family, made no attempt to escape or evade her enemies, as she might possibly even then have done; but fully conscious of her own integrity, and with a heart full of love and good-will to others, she felt sure her friends, her towns-people, and her fellow-worshipers would justify and defend her.

But her inexorable fate was hurrying along; and on the 23d of March a warrant was duly issued against her on the complaint of Edward and Jonathan Putnam; and on the next morning, at eight o'clock, she was arrested—torn, sick and feeble as she was, from the clinging arms of her weeping daughters and indignant husband and sons, and brought up for examination by the marshal, George Herrick.