Explore "When a Witch is Young" by Philip Verrill Mighels on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WHEN the Andros government came to an end, Edward Randolph had languished in jail for a brief time only. The Puritans were chiefly angered at his master, whom they had finally put aboard a ship and sent away from the country. Thus the more mischievous spirit, and author of many of their wrongs, escaped to work his malignant will upon them for years.
Randolph was so crafty, so insidious, and willing to remain so in the background, that until it was quite too late to redeem their position, the Puritans failed even to suspect him of the monstrous iniquities he induced them to commit upon one another. The witchcraft persecutions, which he fastened upon them, had not originated in his brain, fertile as that organ was for the growth of things diabolical. He got his cue from England, where thousands of persons perished, at the stake and otherwise, convicted on fantastic testimony of practising arts that were black and mysterious.