Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer Page B

confrontation that one of Goodman Grey’s cows drowned and another collapsed.
    Thomas Benit was not in the least surprised when he heard about this sequence of events. “Do you recall,” asked Benit, turning to his wife, “when Mercy Disborough told me she’d make me as bare as a bird’s tail? That was two or three years ago, just before our livestock began to die. Soon afterward I found two calves in the creek, both dead. A fortnight later I lost full thirty lambs, all doing well till then, and not long after that another two calves—they seemed well enough when I last looked in on them at night and yet they were dead the next morning.”

    This drawing of English witch suspect Jennet Dibble captures effectively the stereotype of the witch as a willful, crabby, and unforgiving older woman. (Source: Drawing in india ink from “A Discourse of Witchcraft” by Edward Fairfax, written between 1621and 1623, courtesy of the British Library.)

    Elizabeth Benit nodded, recalling the hardship that losing so many livestock had caused them. Mercy Disborough could not be made to pay for the animals, but now perhaps a different kind of justice would be meted out by the magistrates. “Remember, husband, what daughter Elizabeth told us two summers ago.”
    Goodman Benit remembered well. Their daughter had accompanied Ann Godfrey, perhaps foolishly, to see how Goody Disborough would react on being told that neighbors suspected her of witchcraft. “Henry Grey’s wife thinks you bewitched their oxen,” Goody Godfrey told Disborough, “and that you made four of them jump over the fence. She also says you bewitched their beer, so that it burst out of the barrel.”
    Mercy Disborough was not pleased. She began to vent bitterly about the rumors and allegations that her neighbors were spreading. “A woman came to my house recently,” she complained, “when I was in the midst of devotion. She reviled me and asked what I was doing. ‘Praying to my God,’ I said. Then she asked me who my God was and told me my God was the Devil. I bade her get out and go home to pray to her God. I know not if she did pray or not, but God met with her. She died a hard death for reviling me.”
    After they took leave of Goody Disborough the two young women returned to the Benits’ home, where Elizabeth revealed to Ann Godfrey a crucial fact that neither she nor Goody Disborough had chosen to mention during their exchange.
    “The woman Goody Disborough spoke of was my sister and I heard about the words that Goody Disborough said passed between them. She did indeed die a hard death.”
    “I think that we should go back,” said Ann, “and talk with her again.”
    “Why would you want to do that?” asked Thomas Benit. “You should leave well alone, or Mercy will do you some mischief.”
    That night Goody Godfrey could not sleep. She heard a strange noise in the house and also a commotion outside, as if an animal were being attacked. The next morning she and her husband found one of their heifers lying dead near the door.
    Damaging though these stories were, there was much more besides. Many of Goody Disborough’s neighbors had heard that she could sometimes be persuaded to unbewitch her victims, clear proof of occult powers. In the late 1680s, one of John Grumman’s children had suddenly sickened; neither he nor his wife could tell what was wrong. They suspected foul play. John Grumman’s nephew, Thomas Benit, Jr., told him that he should visit Goodwife Disborough. After all, anyone with any sense could tell that she was a witch.
    Goodman Grumman was well aware that the Benits had quarreled with Goody Disborough. Because he and the Benits were related, she might be taking revenge by harming his child. But he flatly refused to confront her, explaining to his nephew that doing so might make the situation worse. Young Benit decided to take matters into his own hands. He strode over to Mercy Disborough’s house and told her without ceremony to come