Story Excerpts

The sound of the front door opening interrupted Charles’s and Martin’s idle conversation. As they sat listening to the visitor cross the outer office, Charles glanced at Martin. On days when they were feeling lighthearted they would try to predict whether the caller was a client of Charles’s, or Martin’s wife come from across the street to tell him a patient had turned up. But Martin didn’t notice Charles’s glance, he just gazed peacefully at the far wall, fingering the cup of apple cider he held balanced on one thigh. Charles thought the footsteps didn’t sound like Betty’s, so the visitor must be looking for him—in need of a lawyer, not a doctor.

He was only half right—the visitor was looking for him but not because he was a lawyer. The figure who stepped into the doorway of his private office was his sixteen-year-old son, Joshua.

“Hello, Father,” Joshua said. “Hello, Dr. Bell.”

After Charles and Martin returned Joshua’s greeting, Charles asked, “What brings you here?”

“Master Ives sent me. He thought you’d want to know . . . He was at Town Hall today. Governor Phips has sent word to Salem commanding them to stop their witch trials.”

Charles took a moment to absorb that. “When?”

“This morning.”

“Good.”

Joshua regarded him with an inquisitive half-smile. “Did you really ask him to do it?”

“Yes.”

Joshua’s expression changed from curious to impressed.

Charles said, “Thank you for letting me know. Don’t let me keep you from your work.”

Joshua nodded, bade them both goodbye, and left.

A few moments after they heard the front door close, Martin asked, “Who is he apprenticed to?”

“Henry Ives, the woodworker.”

“Is Ives a strict master?”

“No stricter than most, I think.”

“What made me wonder is, you sent him away so quickly.”

Charles didn’t reply.

Martin added, “I didn’t know you spoke to the governor.”

“Those trials have been going on for well over a year. Scores of arrests have been made, at least a dozen people executed. Not just people—I heard a couple of dogs were killed at one point. They were supposed to be under the Devil’s influence. It had to stop.”

“Of course. I’m just surprised you took a personal interest in it. Do you know someone in Salem?”

“No.”

Martin continued to regard him quietly.

Charles said finally, “I . . . once had experience with a witch trial.”

“I’d love to hear that story.”

Charles said nothing, he just lifted the jug of cider off his desk and topped up his own cup.

“I can’t believe you haven’t told it before,” Martin said, “as long as we’ve been friends, as many lazy afternoons as this we’ve whiled away together.”

“I’ve never told it to anyone.”

“Really?”

Grimly, Charles said, “Perhaps I should tell a priest. It’s in the way of a confession.”

“I won’t tell a soul. I promise.”

If there had been the slightest mockery in Martin’s tone, Charles would have refused. But Martin seemed perfectly sincere. Of course he did. He was an honest man and they were good friends.

Charles said, “I think I’d like to tell it. It’s been in my mind a lot this last year.”

Martin waited.

“Well,” Charles said. “It was thirty years ago . . .”

 

“Thirty-four, to be exact: 1658. I’d just received my degree from Harvard College. I went back home for a visit, my first in two years—I’d gotten into the habit of staying in Cambridge between semesters. I worked there as a clerk for a lawyer, to gain experience with the law but also to help pay for my schooling. My father needed the help. He had a small farm in Connecticut, where I was raised and where he still lived, alone for most of the year. The farm was enough to support him but he never had a lot of money to spare. Years later I would learn there was one semester when he paid my tuition with produce.

I made the trip with a young man named Luke Burbidge. He was a member of my graduating class and a fast friend. He was also a charmer and a rogue. He’d chosen to come home with me just for the adventure. We could have easily met in Boston in a few weeks’ time, since that was where we’d both decided to settle, me because it was the only place I might reasonably expect to make my living as a lawyer, Luke because city life appealed to him. Not that a town of two thousand souls could properly be called a city, but it was the nearest thing to London this side of the Atlantic. Luke had come from London eight or ten years before. He remembered the city fondly and perceived in Boston traces of its bustle and cosmopolitan spirit. He dreamed of founding a theater here. It was a wild dream, to be sure, even wilder then than now. Theater was even more strictly prohibited then, in accordance with Puritan beliefs. But Luke adored the stage. What’s more, he was a truly magnificent actor. I’d seen him perform in a few illicit productions in Cambridge, two in the home of a wealthy, arts-loving Anglican, another in an empty warehouse some of us students snuck into. His portrayal of Hamlet was nothing less than mesmerizing.

Well, he wanted adventure and he got plenty on this trip, if you allow that adventure is only risk taken and hardship endured.