Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/67

 observers," the girls were roused by ambition to new manifestations of the extraordinary power they were influenced by, and outdid all they had done before.

At last, as no change for the better occurred, Dr. Grigg, the village physician, was sent for. He was the uncle by marriage of one of the girls, and possibly not quite an impartial judge in the matter, and after an examination—or we might better say an exhibition on the part of the girls—he declared his medical skill at fault, and pronounced his grave and deliberate opinion that the children were bewitched.

This was not an uncommon conclusion in those days; for a superstitious belief in demonology was a commonly received thing, and any symptoms not common, or not referable to commonly understood natural causes, were usually attributed to the influence of "an evil eye." Finding (possibly to their own surprise) that their magical pretensions were thus gravely indorsed and upheld by medical science, "the afflicted children," as they were now termed, grew more bold and proceeded to greater lengths—oft