Had Rebecca been content with purging her own conscience, she alone would have met the fate she had invoked, and probably deserved; but out of "love to her husband's soul" she made an accusation against him, which of itself secured his conviction of the same offense, with the same dire penalty.
THE ACCUSATION--_Nathaniel's plea--"Travaile and labour"--"A red creature"--- Prenuptial doubts--The weighty logs--Wifely tenderness and anxiety--Under the greenwood tree--A cat call--Terpsichore and Bacchus_
"Rebecca Greenswith testifieth in Court Janry 8. 62.
"1. That my husband on Friday night last when I came to prison told me that now thou hast confest against thyself let me alone and say nothing of me and I wilbe good unto thy children.
"I doe now testifie that formerly when my husband hathe told me of his great travaile and labour I wondered at it how he did it this he did before I was married and when I was married I asked him how he did it and he answered me he had help yt I knew not of.
"3. About three years agoe as I think it; my husband and I were in ye wood several miles from home and were looking for a sow yt we lost and I saw a creature a red creature following my husband and when I came to him I asked him what it was that was with him and he told me it was a fox.
"4. Another time when he and I drove or hogs into ye woods beyond ye pound yt was to keep yong cattle severall miles of I went before ye hogs to call them and looking back I saw two creatures like dogs one a little blacker then ye other, they came after my husband pretty close to him and one did seem to me to touch him I asked him wt they were he told me he thought foxes I was stil afraid when I saw anything because I heard soe much of him before I married him.
"5. I have seen logs that my husband hath brought home in his cart that I wondered at it that he could get them into ye cart being a man of little body and weake to my apprhension and ye logs were such that I thought two men such as he could not have done it.
"I speak all this out of love to my husbands soule and it is much against my will that I am now necessitate to speake agaynst my husband, I desire that ye Lord would open his heart to owne and speak ye trueth.