CHAPTER XXXVII.
The First Rattle of the Rattlesnake.
One day about this time Master Raymond was sitting in the porch of the Red Lion, thinking over a sight he had just seen;--a man had passed by wearing on the back of his drab coat a capital I two inches long, cut out of black cloth, and sewed upon it.

On inquiry he found the man had married his deceased wife's sister; and both he and the woman had been first whipped, and then condemned to wear this letter for the rest of their lives, according to the law of the colony.[3] [Footnote 3: See Drake's History of Boston] Master Raymond was puzzling over the matter not being able to make out that any real offence had been committed, when who should walk up to the porch but Master Joseph Putnam.

After a hearty hand-shaking between the two, they retired to Master Raymond's apartments.
"Well, how are things getting along at Salem ?" "Oh, about as usual!" "Any more accusations ?" "Plenty of them, people are beginning to find out that the best way to protect themselves is to sham being 'afflicted,' and accuse somebody else." "I saw that a good while ago." "And when a girl or a woman is accused, her relatives and her friends gather around her, and implore her to confess, to save her life.

For they have found that not one person who has been accused of being a witch, and has admitted the fact, has been convicted.
"And yet it would seem that a confession of witchcraft ought to be a better proof of it, than the mere assertion of possible enemies," responded Master Raymond.
"Of course--if there was any show of reason or fairness in the prosecutions, from first to last; but as it is all sheer malice and wickedness, on the part of the accusers, from the beginning to the end, it would be vain to expect any reasonableness or fairness from them." "We must admit, however, that there is some delusion in it.

It would be too uncharitable to believe otherwise," said Master Raymond thoughtfully.
"There may have been at the very first--on the part of the children," replied Master Putnam.