A GOAT' FOR AZAZEL
189
on their pastor and several other ministers to come and help them
rout the invisible hosts that had chosen their humble household as
a battlefield.
The last minister to be invited was Cotton Mather. With his
genius for instant action, Cotton Mather was the first man there.
The prayer-meeting was called for an afternoon. He arrived alone,
early in the morning, held his prayer service by himself, recognized
at a glance all the signs of true demoniacal possession in the chil–
dren, and advised their father to look about for the witch.
At this the children howled
in
dead earnest, and their suffer–
ings were redoubled. By the time the other ministers arrived,
among them Mr. John Hale of Beverly and Mr. Samuel Noyes of
Salem, the children had been struck stone-deaf and could not hear
the prayers. When the reverend gentlemen produced their Bibles,
the devil-possessed were provoked to roll on the floor and kick
at them.
The uproar continued for days, amid daily festivals of prayer
and the fascinated attentions of the neighbors. The sufferings of
the children rivalled those of the children of Sweden, Mather's
favorite witch ground. Pins were discovered sticking lightly
under their skins. They vomited pins and nails and other unnatural
substances. They wore themselves out with acrobatic feats, bend–
ing
backwards until their heads touched their heels, while their
arms and legs appeared to be wrenched from the sockets by
invisible hands.
At nightfall, recovered somewhat, they would eat hearty
IIlppers and settle down for a good sleep. Cotton Mather suggested
.three·day fast, and they weakened noticeably under it. Being fed
again, their torments were renewed with sinister complications.
Martha named the witch. Some time before, she had quar–
relled
with the laundress, a girl of her own age, accusing her of
Ilealing some linens. The girl was the daughter of Bridget Glover,
an Irish woman who supported her family, with the help of her
older children, by washing clothes for the neighbors. She was
considered a little crazy, because she was excitable, and when she
was
excited she spoke Gaelic. But she had a free command of
'fituperation in English and her loose way of talking offended a
pat
many people. She was a Catholic, really worse than a
Quaker, and she had been called a witch more than once.
