But I could picture no more.  My heart rebelled.  And as I had now reached the old homestead on the hill I paused a moment, before entering, to rest under the shade of the trees and to enjoy the extensive views of the surrounding country.  This comforted my troubled feelings, and suggested the thought that in the fourteen years that Rebecca Nurse had lived there she must have often come under the shade of the trees, perhaps after hours of hard work and care, to commune alone with her God.  How could I help thinking so when there came up before me her answer to the magistrate’s question, “Have you familiarity with these spirits?”—­“No, I have none but with God alone.”  Surely, to one who knew Him as she did, who in calm strength could declare her innocence when many around her, as innocent as she, were frightened into doubt and denial, the quiet and rest of nature must have been a necessary means of courage and strength.

Then what did not the old house, with its sloping roof, tell me, as it still stood where Townsend Bishop had built it in 1636, upon receiving a grant of three hundred acres?  Yes, this old “Bishop’s mansion,” as the deed calls it, had felt the joys and sorrows of our common human life for almost two hundred and fifty years.  It had known the friends whom Townsend Bishop, as one of the accomplished men of Salem village, had gathered about him in the few years that he had lived there.  It must have heard some of Hugh Peters’ interesting experiences, since, as pastor of the First Church those very years (1636-1641), he was a frequent visitor.  Why couldn’t one think that Roger Williams had often come to compare notes on house-building, since he owned the “old witch house” (still standing on the corner of Essex and North streets) at the same time that Mr. Bishop was building his house?  It certainly was a pleasure to remember that Governor Endicott once owned and lived on this farm.  He bought it in 1648, for one hundred and sixty pounds, of Henry Checkering, to whom Mr. Bishop had sold it seven years before.

I recalled many other things, that summer day, concerning this ancient place.  Shall I not tell them?  While the Governor lived on it he continued his good work for the general opening of the country around about.  Among other things he laid out the road that passes its entrance-gate to-day.

Here his son John brought his youthful Boston bride, and gave to her the place as a “marriage-gift.”  Then, some years later, she, the widow of John, having become the bride of a Mr. James Allen, gave it to him as a “marriage-gift;” and upon her death, in 1673, he became the possessor.  Five years later he sold it to Francis Nurse, the husband of Rebecca, for four hundred pounds.  Mr. Nurse was an early settler of Salem, a “tray-maker,” whose articles were much used.  He was a man of good judgment, and respected by his neighbors.  He was then fifty-eight years of age, and his wife fifty-seven.  They had four sons and four daughters.  The peculiar