ishop; and though he had often
seen the gallows from below, and wondered at the grim taste which had
reared it in such a conspicuous spot, he had never felt the least
desire, but rather a natural aversion, to approach the place where such
an unrighteous deed had been enacted.

But now the carpenters had been again at work and supplanted the old
scaffolding by another and larger one. Now the uprights had been added
too--and on the beam which they supported there was room for at least
ten persons. This seemed to be enough space to Marshall Herrick and
Squire Hathorne; though at the rate the arrests and convictions were
going on, it might be that one-half of the people in the two Salems and
in Ipswich, would be hung in the course of a year or so by the other
half.

But for this special hanging, only eight ropes and nooses were prepared.
The workmen had been employed the preceding afternoon; and now in the
fresh morning light, everything was ready; and eight of those who had
been condemned were to be executed.

The town, and village, and country around turned out, as was natural, in
a mass, to see the terrible sight. And yet the crowd was comparatively a
small one, the colony then being so thinly settled. But this, to Master
Raymond's eyes, gave a new horror to the scene. If there had been a
crowd like that when London brought together its thousands at Tyburn, it
would have seemed less appalling. But here were a few people--not
alienated from each other by ancestral differences in creed or politics,
and who had never seen each other's faces before--but members of the
same little band which had fled together from their old home, holding
the same political views, the same religious faith; who had sat on the
same benches at church, eaten at the same table of the Lord's supper,
near neighbors on their farms, or in the town and village streets; now
hunting each other down like wolves, and hanging each other up in cold
blood! This it was that set apart the Salem persecution from all other
persecutions of those old days against witches and heretics; and which
has given it a painful pre-eminence in horror. It was neighbor hanging
neighbor; and brother and sister persecuting to death with the foulest
lies and juggling tricks their spiritual brothers and sisters. And the
plea of "delusion" will not excuse it, except to those who have not
investigated its studied cruelty and malice. Sheer, unadulterated
wickedness had its full shar