Samuel Willard of Boston.  If so, the fact would shed much light upon our story.  There is but one piece of evidence among the papers relating to his trial that deserves particular notice.  It shows the horrid character of the charges made by the girls against prisoners at the bar, from their nature incapable of being refuted and which the prisoners knew to be false, but the Court, jury, and crowd implicitly believed.  It also illustrates the completeness of the machinery got up by the “accusing girls” to give effect to their evidence.  In addition to the evil gossip that could be scoured from all the country round, and to spectres of witches and ghosts of the dead, they brought into the scene angels and divine beings, and testified to what they were told by them.  “The shining man,” or the white man, was meant, in the following deposition, to be a spirit of this description:—­

“THE TESTIMONY OF SUSANNA SHELDON, aged eighteen years or thereabouts.—­Testifieth and saith, that, the day of the date hereof (9th of May, 1692), I saw at Nathaniel Ingersoll’s house the apparitions of these four persons,—­William Shaw’s first wife, the Widow Cook, Goodman Jones and his child; and among these came the apparition of John Willard, to whom these four said, ‘You have murdered us.’  These four having said thus to Willard, they turned as red as blood.  And, turning about to look at me, they turned as pale as death.  These four desired me to tell Mr. Hathorne.  Willard, hearing them, pulled out a knife, saying, if I did, he would cut my throat.”

The deponent goes on to say, that these several apparitions came before her on another occasion, and the same language and actions took place, and adds:—­

“There did appear to me a shining man, who said I should go and tell what I had heard and seen to Mr. Hathorne.  This Willard, being there present, told me, if I did, he would cut my throat.  At this time and place, this shining man told me, that if I did go to tell this to Mr. Hathorne, that I should be well, going and coming, but I should be afflicted there.  Then said I to the shining man, ’Hunt Willard away, and I would believe what he said, that he might not choke me.’  With that the shining man held up his hand, and Willard vanished away.  About two hours after, the same appeared to me again, and the said Willard with them; and I asked them where their wounds were, and they said there would come an angel from heaven, and would show them.  And forthwith the angel came.  I asked what the man’s name was that appeared to me last, and the angel told his name was Southwick.  And the angel lifted up his winding-sheet, and out of his left side he pulled a pitchfork tine, and put it in again, and likewise he opened all the winding-sheets, and showed all their wounds.  And the white man told me to tell Mr. Hathorne of it, and I told him to hunt Willard away, and I would; and he held up his hand, and he vanished away.”

In the same deposition, this girl testifies that “she saw this Willard suckle the apparitions of two black pigs on his breasts;” that Willard told her he had been a witch twenty years; that she saw Willard and other wizards kneel in prayer “to the black man with a long-crowned hat, and then they vanished away.”