The schoolmaster went out into the lane, with his three guards, while the children crowded to the door and watched until he turned the corner. III The fear of witches, like the fear of the plague in the Middle Ages, spread over Massachusetts with amazing rapidity in that winter and spring of 1692, and found one of its chief centers at Salem. Men and women of standing and education were arrested, as well as those who had few friends and little learning, and the wildest and most improbable stories about their actions were told and were believed. As day followed day the three "afflicted children," John Rowley, Susan Parsons, and Mercy Booth, told more and more fantastic tales about Mistress Swan and Master Appleton, and Jonathan Leek spread these stories so thoroughly that soon there was not a man, woman, or child in Salem, or in the neighboring country, who had not heard how the accused schoolmaster and Ann Swan had bewitched the three. To hear a story about witchcraft at that time was usually to believe it, and many people had condemned the man and woman in their own minds long before the court took up the case against them. Mat's family, and Joe's family, however, started out with the determination to save Mistress Swan and Thomas Appleton if it could be done. Then these two boys urged their schoolmates, none of whom could believe that the teacher they were so fond of was a witch, to ask their parents to speak kindly of the two accused persons, and so there was soon quite a little party in Salem who protested that the two were innocent. Of course there were many, largely of the more ignorant class, like Jacob Titus, the blacksmith, and people who had listened to Jonathan Leek and fallen under his influence, who felt certain that the schoolmaster and Ann Swan were able to ride about on broomsticks when they had a mind to. Strange to say, some of the ministers of Salem took this view too. Mr. Hamlin went to the jail and talked with both the prisoners, he visited the houses of the three "afflicted children" and watched their strange performances, and he sought out Jonathan Leek, who had suddenly become a very prominent person, and listened to his oily and mysterious speeches. Then he wrote letters to friends in Boston, and after a while he began to find out facts that were scarcely creditable to Mr. Leek's reputation. He had been driven out of Boston because of the falsehoods he had uttered about people there; he was described as a cheat, a swindler, and a man who tried to get money from men and women by threatening to accuse them of various crimes. Mr. Glover helped in this work, and so did the two boys, and in addition the boys looked after the dogs in the schoolmaster's little hospital and reported to Master Appleton how his charges were getting on.