Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/161

 "I can say, before my Eternal Father, I am innocent; and God will clear my innocency."

Hathorne was apparently touched for the time by her language and bearing, and said to her:

"Here is never a one in the assembly but desires it; but if you be guilty, pray God discover you."

The prisoner again affirmed her innocence, asserting in answer to the charge of hurting any one, that she had been sick, and not out of doors for some days.

This simple statement seemed to awaken a doubt of her being guilty in the mind of the magistrate, and the popular feeling seemed turning in her favor, when the wife of Thomas Putnam—who had an old grudge against her on account of her opposition to Mr. Bayley, and whose wild, passionate excitement carried her beyond the control of her reason—suddenly cried out with a loud voice:

"Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not bid me tempt God and die? How often have you eat and drank your own damnation?"