Chapter 3

  The Reverend Parris

  In the official records, there is no mention of the stranger. The Reverend Parris made sure all references were expunged. He considered the stranger to be nothing more than a Devil's trick, an effort by the demons who worshiped the Evil-One to throw others off the witches' trail. Even Tituba's encounter did not dissuade him of his opinion. “I saw no one in the garden,” he insisted when Tituba tried to explain her actions. So all we have are rumors the stranger sought out those on the Accused List, including Rebecca Nurse, Tituba, Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and numerous others. But after the stranger's abortive attempt to seduce Tituba, we have no further accounts of his nighttime visits so it would appear he had had to abandon his master's plans of forging an alliance with the witch's coven.

  Meanwhile, the Reverend Parris dramatically increased his efforts to fuel the witchcraft frenzy. More were accused; more were arrested; more were put on trial and later executed by hanging. His true reasons for doing so were at first, not apparent. But as time went on, a very real power struggle was revealed. The Reverend's dour personality and his somewhat dictatorial enforcement of pedantic rules had created many enemies. And then there was the needless delay of appointing his deacons, his constant disputes over compensation – such as his yearly allotment of firewood and the usage of the Parsonage fields for his own enrichment – which further alienated him from the community.

  His appointment had been controversial from the start. He found himself caught in the existing dispute between the wealthy merchants represented by the Porter family – associated with the Andrew, Nurse, Hathorne, Swinnerton, and Hutchinson families – who did not support him, and the poorer agrarian families represented by the Putnam family – connected to the Flint, Holton, Wilkins, Ingersoll, and Walcott families – who did support him.

  Reeling from the his recent failures in the West Indies as a businessman and plantation owner, and the profound disappoint and rebuke from his father, the Reverend had hoped his appointment as pastor of Salem Village, the New Jerusalem, would provide him with a new start, his redemption, his ascendancy into wealth and prosperity, his confirmation as a member of “The Elect”. But when this too seemed in jeopardy, he conspired with Dr. Griggs to concoct a sinister story known later as the “Afflicted Children.” Once started, the hysteria assumed a life of its own. It dovetailed nicely with many preexisting conflicts, prejudices, superstitions, and personal grudges already in progress. Any talk of the stranger was seen as a dangerous obstacle to his plans and the Reverend used every power at his disposal as pastor, to quash any mention of him, both orally and in print. And, of course, when he learned one of his long time enemies, Rebecca Nurse, who had publicly opposed him, was also involved with the mysterious stranger, the irony and the opportunity to rid himself of both simultaneously, with a single stroke, was deemed by him, divine intervention.

  Yet unbeknownst to the Reverend, the stranger was still very much active. What had started at Endicott's farm soon spread to other farms across the village. Perfectly healthy cattle gave birth to two-headed calves, black hogs flitted into view, yellow birds perched in trees, and black cats slinked about undaunted...Things never seen before in the village. No place seemed safe from these sinister premonitions, for even at Holy Mass, during the Reverend Parris's sermon, parishioners reported imps leaping across the beamed ceiling.

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  But perhaps most striking of all, was the testimony of the usually reticent Sexton who told a group of parishioners, one day, not sure whether he would be believed or mocked that, “While inspecting some graves in the cemetery near Crane's Brook, there, at one grave in particular, a new grave freshly dug but yesterday, a cloud of dust and dirt rose into the air from the open trench. Figuring perhaps a wild dog was digging for bones, I approached trepidatiously and saw, to my great astonishment, not a feral beast, but a man bent like an Indian's drawn bow, rummaging in the hallowed soil, trying to force open the casket with a spade. So great was my bewilderment, I could at first neither speak nor move.”

  “The little demon ignored my threats to summon the sheriff and laughed heartily as he continued defiling the corpse in the most unspeakable ways. Eventually, he dislodged the skull from the body, using his spade, and like a vile serpent, hissed with odious joy as he relished his coveted prize...Needless to say, the foul creature escaped me, being quite nimble as such beasts often are when infused with unholy power, and he stole off into the depths of the forest, cradling the skull against his chest as a mother does a child.”

  When word got round, the Reverend Parris organized a gathering at the Meeting House and even before everyone had had a chance to sit down, he railed against the witch's coven now entrenched in the village. His sermon was fiery. He showed an energy and vigor seldom seen, and afterwards seemed quite exhausted. But the moment he had concluded, a voice from an unknown parishioner mentioned the stranger, which sent him once again into a rage, and even though the outburst was soon revealed to be that of Ezekiel Sewall, the Reverend vehemently denounced the sexton as the source of such poisonous lies.

  “The sexton,” the Reverend charged, “is a rabble-rouser and a slave to drink,” and he added scornfully, “is too old and feeble to carry out his ecclesiastical duties,” alluding to the many times he had tried to dismiss him, but was blocked by the congregation who thought the sexton a devoted and pious man.

  “Concern yourselves only with the true issue at hand,” the Reverend rebuked, turning his ire toward the entire congregation. “Not village canard or idle gossip from the sexton, but witches...witches! Witches! Witches!” he shouted from the pulpit, his complexion turning barn-red.

  To the Reverend's horror, the sexton happened to be in attendance, and upon hearing his good name slandered, he stood up and confronted his accuser.

  “I am an honorable man,” he protested. “Every word of my testimony is true, so help me God!”

  A row broke out. Angry words were exchanged between factions. Loyalties were sharply divided. The deacons, Nathaniel Ingersoll and Edward Putnum, whose appointments the Reverend had spitefully delayed were especially vocal.

  Not long after, in an attempt to solidify his tenuous position, the Reverend Parris submitted the list of The Accused to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, making the accusations official, and he used the power of the court to force the sheriffs to bend to his will, repeatedly warning them not to investigate any case linked to the stranger.

  From then on, the stranger's foul deeds continued unimpeded. (Children went missing, elders were suddenly snatched out of their beds and animals continued to be attacked. Yet the bulletins printed and distributed by the Reverend Parris said nothing of these horrors. Only the arrests, trials, and later executions of witches were mentioned.