We find among the papers relating to these transactions many other instances of this kind of testimony; sounds heard and sights seen by persons going home at night through woods, after having spent the evening under the bewildering influences of talk about witches, Satan, ghosts, and spectres; sometimes, as in this case, stimulated by other causes of excitement.

Perhaps some persons may be curious to know the route by which Westgate made out to reach his home, while pursued by the horrors of that midnight experience.  He seems to have frequented Samuel Beadle’s bar-room.  That old Narragansett soldier owned a lot on the west side of St. Peter’s Street, occupying the southern corner of what is now Church Street, which was opened ten years afterwards, that is, in 1702, by the name of Epps’s Lane.  On that lot his tavern stood.  He also owned one-third of an acre at the present corner of Brown and St. Peter’s Streets, on which he had a stable and barn; so that his grounds were on both sides of St. Peter’s Street,—­one parcel on the west, nearly opposite the present front of the church; the other on the east side of St. Peter’s Street, opposite the south side of the church.  From this locality Westgate started.  He probably did not go down Brown Street, for that was then a dark, unfrequented lane, but thought it safest to get into Essex Street.  He made his way along that street, passing the Common, the southern side of which, at that time, with the exception of some house-lots on and contiguous to the site of the Franklin Building, bordered on Essex Street.  The casualty of his fall; the catastrophe to his hip, stocking, and shoe; and the witchery practised upon his knife and its sheath,—­occurred “over against John Robinson’s house,” which was on the eastern corner of Pleasant and Essex Streets.  Christopher Babbage’s house, from which he thought the “great noise” came, was next beyond Robinson’s.  He crawled along the fences and the sides of the houses until he reached the passage-way on the western side of Thomas Beadle’s house, and through that managed to get to his own house, which was directly south of said Beadle’s lot, between it and the harbor.

There is one item in reference to Alice Parker, which indicates that the zeal of the prosecutors in her case, as in that of Mr. Burroughs, and perhaps others, was aggravated by a suspicion that she was heretical on some points of the prevalent creed of the day.  Parris says that “Mr. Noyes, at the time of her examination, affirmed to her face, that, he being with her at a time of sickness, discoursing with her about witchcraft, whether she were not guilty, she answered, ’if she was as free from other sins as from witchcraft, she would not ask of the Lord mercy.’” The manner of expression in this passage shows that it was thought that there was something very shocking in her answer.  Mr. Noyes “affirmed to her face.”  No doubt it was thought that she denied the doctrine of original and transmitted, or imputed sin.