But Master Parris would not listen to reason on this subject, and was not inclined to look kindly upon the men who steadfastly opposed him.
The inhabitants of Salem village were a goodly as well as godly people, but owing to these church differences about their ministers, as well as other disputes and lawsuits relative to the bounds of their respective properties, there was no little amount of ill feeling among them.

Small causes in a village are just as effective as larger ones in a nation, in producing discord and strife; and the Puritans as a people were distinguished by all that determination to insist upon their rights, and that scorn of compromising difficulties, which men of earnest and honest but narrow natures have manifested in all ages of the world.

Selfishness and uncharitableness are never so dangerous as when they assume the character of a conscientious devotion to the just and the true.
But all this time the young man has been walking almost due north from the meeting house in Salem village.
The road was not what would be called a good one in these days, for it was not much more than a bridle-path; the riding being generally at that time on horseback.

But it was not the rather broken and uneven condition of the path which caused the frown on the young pedestrian's face, or the irritability shown by the sharp slashes of the maple switch in his hand upon the aspiring weeds along the roadside.
"If ever mortal man was so bothered," he muttered at last, coming to a stop.

"Of course she is the best match, the other is below me, and has a spice of Satan in her; but then she makes the blood stir in a man.