[Footnote A:  The double negative, as often used, merely intensified the negation.  See “Measure for Measure,” act i. scene 1.]

At a meeting of the afflicted children and others, some one declared that Bridget Bishop was present “in her shape” or apparition, and, pointing to a particular spot, said, “There, there she is!” Young Jonathan Walcot, exasperated by his sister’s sufferings, struck at the spot with his sword; whereupon Mary cried out, “You have hit her, you have torn her coat, and I heard it tear.”  This story had been brought to Hathorne’s ears; and abruptly, as if to take her off her guard, he said, “Is not your coat cut?” She answered, “No.”  They then examined the coat, and found what they regarded as having been “cut or torn two ways.”  It was probably the fashion in which the garment was made; for she was in the habit of dressing more artistically than the women of the Village.  At any rate, it did not appear like a direct cut of a sword; but Jonathan got over the difficulty by saying that “the sword that he struck at Goody Bishop was not naked, but was within the scabbard.”  This explained the whole matter, so that Cheever says, in his report, that “the rent may very probably be the very same that Mary Walcot did tell that she had in her coat, by Jonathan’s striking at her appearance”!  Parris says, with more caution, more indeed than was usual with him, “Upon some search in the Court, a rent, that seems to answer what was alleged, was found.”

Hathorne, having heard the scandals they had circulated against her, proceeded:  “They say you bewitched your first husband to death.”—­“If it please Your Worship, I know nothing of it.”—­“What do you say of these murders you are charged with?”—­“I hope I am not guilty of murder.”  As she said this, she turned up her eyes, probably to give solemnity to her declaration.  At the opening of the examination, she looked round upon the people, and called them to witness her innocence.  She had found out by this time, that no justice could be expected from them; and feeling, with Rebecca Nurse on a recent similar occasion, “I have got nobody to look to but God,” she turned her eyes heavenward.  Instantly, the eyeballs of all the girls were rolled up in their sockets, and fixed.  The effect was awful, and still more increased as they went, after a moment or two, into dreadful torments.  Hathorne could no longer contain himself, but broke out, “Do you not see how they are tormented?  You are acting witchcraft before us!  What do you say to this?  Why have you not a heart to confess the truth?” She calmly replied, “I am innocent.  I know nothing of it.  I am no witch.  I know not what a witch is.”  The “afflicted children” charged her with having tried to persuade them to sign the Devil’s book.  As she had never before seen one of them, she was indignant at this barefaced falsehood, and, as Cheever says, “shook her head” in her resentment; which, as he further says, put them all into great torments.  Parris represents