found that whoever provoked her resentment was very likely to come off second best from the encounter; yet Bridget was a member of Mr. Hale's Church in Beverly, and retained her standing in full fellowship there. It must have been thought, by the pastor and members of that church, that no charge seriously affecting her moral or Christian character was justly imputable to her. The traveller of to-day, in passing over Crane-river Bridge, approaching the present village of "The Plains," near the eastern end of the Townsend Bishop or Nurse farm, will notice a roadway by the side of the bridge descending through the brook and going up to rejoin the main road on the other side. Such turnouts are frequent by the side of bridges over small streams. They are refreshing and useful, cooling the feet and cleansing the fetlocks of horses, and washing the wheels of carriages. One afternoon, Edward Bishop, with his wife behind him on a pillion, was riding home from Salem. Two women, mounted in[i.195] the same way, joined them; and they chatted together pleasantly as their horses ambled along. When they came to the bridge, Bishop, probably merely for the fun of the thing, dashed down into the brook, instead of going over the bridge, to the great consternation and against the vehement remonstrances of his wife, who berated him soundly for his reckless disregard of her safety. They got through without accident; and the four jogged on together until the Bishops turned up to their house, and the other two kept on to their home in Beverly. But all the way from the bridge, until they parted company, Bishop was finding great fault with his wife, saying that he should not have been sorry if any mishap had occurred. She did not say much after her first fright and resentment were over; but he kept on talking very freely about her, and using some pretty hard language. This affair, which perhaps is not without a parallel in the occasional experiences of married life, was, with other things of an equally trivial and irrelevant character, brought to bear fatally against her at her trial on the charge of witchcraft, between seven and eight years afterward.