Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/172

 *ness in question, being herself one of the prisoners, she did not think her evidence ought to be taken against her fellow-prisoners; but that being hard of hearing, and also full of grief and terror, she did not understand the meaning given to her words; and no one informing her how the matter stood, she had no chance to explain. Even after her condemnation, the governor saw cause to grant her a reprieve; but the accusers made such an outcry that he was induced to recall it.

"In a capital case," says the careful historian from whom we have gathered some of these facts, "the court often refuses the verdict of 'guilty,' but rarely sends a jury out to reconsider one of 'not guilty.'"