No attendant sacrifice of life gave intensification of interest to this Groton case, and it failed to become prominently conspicuous among witchcraft events. Still it is more instructive on some points than almost any other one of them. Here first have we found in colonial history any statement that an intelligence speaking through a borrowed or usurped form disclosed _who_ he was.
Mr. Willard, to whose care this girl was intrusted, and in whose family she had been a resident, was convinced that some other being than the girl herself was giving utterance through her lips, and in harmony with a necessary inference from the general faith of his times, addressed the unknown one under supposition that he was veritably _The Devil_. The being thus accosted promptly said, "I am not _Satan_; I am a pretty black boy."
The girl said she had been accustomed to see her visitant, at times, during three preceding years, and that she saw more devils than any one there ever saw men in the world. Her notions in reference to the proper application of words were obviously just as loose as the prevalent ones in community then, which deemed any spirit visitant whatsoever a devil, or the devil. An observer of such beings as she saw would to-day call them spirits. When she perceived and called out to some personage invisible to her companions, saying, "What cheer, old man?" she plainly indicated that the being thus hailed was apparently neither more nor less than an old man, and he, judged by her address to him, was by no means austere or repulsive; and yet he doubtless was one of those whom she, or whom the reporter of her utterances, was accustomed to call _devils_. There is no indication that she ever saw one specially huge, malformed, malignant personality, or that she ever intended to indicate perception of such a one.
The purposes and moods of Mr. Willard's interlocutor seem to have been playful and kindly, rather than morose and satanic. Temporarily reincarnated spirits are often prone to smile at the long-faced and cringing thoughts which their advent evokes in persons not accustomed to interviews with them. "You are a great rogue--a great rogue," and "you had better love me," can hardly be deemed ill-timed or inappropriate expressions from a lively boy, whatever his hue, who, on being mistaken for the devil, would naturally banter the sedate clergyman whose creed forced him to regard such a visitant as the Prince of Evil. He said truly, and in better spirit than the minister's, it would be better for you to love than to "hate" me.