New Castle, historic and picturesque . fishedamong those chips with as much fun and excitement as if theywere a pond full of pout and pickerel. But this is the way itseemed to John Langdon in his old age; and I read it as theepitome of the pious history of half of New Englands sons : It is not afiectation ; my mind of itself turns to nothing but theworld I am hastening to, and the days of my childhood; it maybe the iml)ccility of age, but seventy years I have almost forgot-ten ; the tall youth that left home with fifty dollars in his pocket,the ocean on which he made his fortune, the Senate-ro
New Castle, historic and picturesque . fishedamong those chips with as much fun and excitement as if theywere a pond full of pout and pickerel. But this is the way itseemed to John Langdon in his old age; and I read it as theepitome of the pious history of half of New Englands sons : It is not afiectation ; my mind of itself turns to nothing but theworld I am hastening to, and the days of my childhood; it maybe the iml)ccility of age, but seventy years I have almost forgot-ten ; the tall youth that left home with fifty dollars in his pocket,the ocean on which he made his fortune, the Senate-rooms, thecounting-rooms and the ball-rooms, where he passed so much ofhis life, are to me the history of a stranger; I hear my mothersvoice as I am playing at the door in the chips, of the house Iwas born in; when by myself, I turn to the days of my child-hood. The earliest case of witchcraft recorded in New Hampshirewas in I60G, about thirty-four years before the appearance ofthe stone-throwing devil; and it happened somewhere in the. •Old HISTOBIC AXD PICTUBESQUE 83 vicinity of this creek, or at its junction Avith Little Harbor; itwas, at any rate, witliin the territory of New Castle, so that bothends of the town could boast of their witches. I have alreadyalluded to this case on page forty-six, as that of Susanna Trim-mings. She was the complainant in the case; the Avitch wasGoody Walford. It came to trial; ])ut the witch Avas only boundOAer to respond at the next term of court, by which time thematter was suffered to disappear. Subsequent!}, Good} AValfordturned the tables upon her prosecutors, and, much to the credit ofthis community, gained her cause against one of them in dam-ages of live pounds — she had laid them at one thousand. Thetestimony in the first case, Avhen Mrs. Susanna Trimmings Avasthe accuser, is amusing. Susanna had a husband, Oliver, and one3oung child; their home Avas next by the freshet. This, nodoubt, Avould enable a skilful anti
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