This was the age of superstition. Women were hung for witches in Salem, and witchcraft believed in everywhere. Every untoward event was imputed to supernatural causes. Did the butter or soap delay its coming, the churn and the kettle were bewitched. Did the chimney refuse to draw, witches were blowing down the smoke. Did the loaded cart get stuck in the mud, invisible hands were holding it. Did the cow's milk grow scant, the imps had been sucking her. Did the sick child cry, search was made for the witches' pins. Were its sufferings relieved by death, glances were cast around to discover the malignant eye that doomed it. Tales of events like these, so fascinating and so fearful, sent the adults, as well as children to bed with blood chilled, every sense alert with fear, ready to see a ghost in every slip of moonshine, and trace to malign origin every sound breaking the stillness--the rattle of a shutter, the creak of a door, the moan of the winds or the cries of the birds and beasts of the night. For more than a century later, the belief in witchcraft kept a strong hold on the popular mind and had a marked influence on the character of the people. For two or three evenings previous to Feb. 29, 1704, a new topic of supernatural interest has been added to the usual stock. Ominous sounds have been heard in the night, and, says Rev. Solomon Stoddard, "the people were strangely amazed by a trampling noise round the fort, as if it were beset by Indians." The older men recalled similar omens before the outbreak of Philip's War, when from the clear sky came the sound of trampling horses, the roar of artillery, the rattle of small arms, and the beating of drums to the charge. As these tales of fear, coupled with their own warning, were in everybody's mouth, what wonder if the hearts of the thoughtful sank within them; that they cowered with undefinable dread, as under the shadow of impending disaster; and asked each other with fear and trembling the meaning of this new and dire portent. They had not long to wait the answer. Even then, only just beyond the northern horizon an avalanche was sweeping down to overwhelm the settlement. A horde of Frenchmen turned half Indian, and savages armed with civilized powers of destruction, under Hertel de Rouville, a French officer of the line, were hurrying towards our doomed frontier, over the dreary waste of snow which stretched away for three hundred miles to the St. Lawrence. In the dark shade of some secluded glen, or deep ravine, a day's march nearer our border, each night their camp was pitched and kettles hung. Their fires lighted up the mossy trunks and overhanging branches of the giant hemlock and the towering pine, throwing their summits into a deeper gloom, and building up a wall of pitchy darkness which enclosed the camp on every side.