"Well, really," began the deacon, "I do not know. You see, I have been down to Salem and talked with Cotton Mather and others prominent in the church, and they seem to be worthy Christians. I have thought George Burroughs may have been convicted of some other crime. You see, the prison is closely guarded and all we get is hearsay." SUSAN BEAVER The reader will remember that Susan Beaver was talking when the deacon came in, and now stood listening to his subterfuge, and Dimock's stinging insinuations. As I remember Susan, she was short, stout, with black eyes, glistening teeth, and quick movements. She tried to keep silent, but now her cup of wrath was full, and reached the high-water mark, where danger could not restrain the break, and she broke: "Deacon Hobbs, you miserable old liar, I saw the detectives in your house myself. Maybe they're waiting to take my husband to Salem. If so, you can inform them that they can never cross our threshold unless it is over my dead body. You say you do not know much about it. Was not Abigail at Salem, swearing against the minister? Did not you both swear he was in league with the Devil? Now you say he may have been convicted of some other crime. George Burroughs, that worthy Christian minister, defile his name, now he is dead, will you? Oh, you ought not to live another minute," and suiting the action to the word, she sprang across the store to the old cheese box. Now, I knew the cheese knife was long and heavy, and in the hands of a desperate woman. Bang-slam-bang, they went around and around the store, he holding a chair before him and crying, "Help! Murder!" while she struck out wildly without speaking a word. Dimock and Stubbs sprang in to save the deacon's life, but when I peeped through the crack and saw the broad grin on Dimock's face, I concluded their interference was not genuine. The deacon worked around the counter, when she sprang on top and had him in a trap, at which he dropped his chair and ran and plunged through the window headlong. After he had escaped, and Susan had time to think, she sat down and began to cry, but on being assured by Dimock that no one would think the less of her, she left the store. While Paul was helping board up the broken window, I overheard Stubbs ask him: "Do you consider Cotton Mather and his associates murderers?" "Oh, no," was the reply, "not exactly that. It is a phenomenal wave of insanity. Similar waves have spread their gloomy pall over the innocent, long before Joshua put the women and children to death at Jericho. These Salemites are at war with the Devil on the same principle that one nation wars with another; they justify themselves through a spasmodic lunacy, that duty calls them to kill their fellow beings.