Crane Pond Read Online Free PDF

announcing that they would take place on Thursdays, Lecture Day, when Boston’s midweek sermon is given (thus implying that the citizens should abandon God and resort to dancing instead).
    â€˜I’ve walked here from my house,’ Madam Winthrop explains, finally lowering her leg. The distance must be upwards of a mile. ‘Now the snow is melting, the roads are miry beyond belief. They have spoiled and damnified my gown. I have come concerning the pirates.’
    â€˜Surely you could have sent a servant?’
    â€˜I wanted to speak to you in person. My husband is at Governor Bradstreet’s again to plead for them. All the judges are to assemble there.’
    â€˜But they are to die this afternoon.’ When Sewall woke this morning and remembered it was execution day he felt relief that matters were finally being resolved, that the tension created by Mr. Winthrop was coming to an end. Now here is Madam Winthrop stirring things up again. And the smaller the interval of time remaining, the denser and more turbulent the agitation within it might be.
    â€˜That’s why I’ve been hurrying.’
    â€˜Madam,’ he says as firmly as possible, ‘this is a strictly judicial matter.’
    â€˜Some of these so-called pirates are Salem people,’ she replies. ‘You know Salem well yourself. You know it’s a small community. Your brother is a prominent citizen after all. We take care of each other in Salem.’ She has not lived in Salem since her marriage but still thinks of herself as a member of the community, which rather proves her point.
    Sewall registers the reference to his brother Stephen. Perhaps she’s making a subtle threat? She’s a woman of influence, after all. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he says, then immediately wishes he hadn’t. It sounds as if he’s giving way. Sure enough her face lights up triumphantly. He tries to correct himself. ‘I will do what I think is best.’
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    The other judges are already assembled at Governor Bradstreet’s when Sewall arrives. The old man is sitting in a large wooden chair which emphasises how shrivelled and little he has become. It suddenly strikes Sewall that the New World is not so new after all. But he is alert still, and his years have given him a kind of sweetness, like a dried-up prune or raisin.
    Mr. Winthrop is holding forth: the confusion of allegiances, the turbid politics of the time, the implicit muddle of the sea itself, the possibility of misunderstanding or mistake, the regard the men are held in in Salem. Everyone waits for the governor to comment. ‘Perhaps this is not a matter for a blanket decision,’ he says finally. ‘Perhaps we need to consider each man separately.’
    â€˜But they were a
crew
,’ Mr. Winthrop says.
    â€˜And a crew is composed of individuals, each with his own . . . ’ The governor tails off. With age he’s sometimes lost for words. He presses the tips of the fingers of his right hand together then opens them out again to indicate the particular quiddity each man possesses.
    â€˜In that case,’ Sewall offers cautiously, ‘perhaps we should begin with the ringleaders. Pound, I believe, is the senior man here—’
    â€˜I think,’ says Major Saltonstall, ‘we should start at the other end, with the common sailors.’
    â€˜Why so?’ asks Mr. Winthrop.
    â€˜Because they have to obey orders.’
    Nathaniel Saltonstall, known in some quarters as ‘carrot head’ on account of his red hair, knows about orders, being a military man as well as a justice. He is in Boston for the pirate trials but lives in the frontier town of Haverhill under continual threat from hostile Indians, and is responsible for the defence of his fellow townspeople. But he also knows how to
dis
obey orders. When Governor Andros was foisted on the colony by King James, Saltonstall refused to serve on the