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Silent Struggles

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Title: Silent Struggles

Author: Ann S. Stephens


        
Release date: May 3, 2011 [eBook #36027]

Language: English

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SILENT STRUGGLES.

by

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

Author of "The Wife's Secret," "The Rejected Wife," "Mary Derwent,"
"Fashion and Famine," "The Heiress," "The Old Homestead," etc., etc.


    A woman's heart, though delicate, is strong,
      Like virgin-gold it takes the furnace heat.
    Giving to history and immortal song
      A glow of heroism pure and sweet.

    Great men have sought the battle in their pride,
      Hewing a path to glory as they fell;
    But women, braver still, have grandly died
      In silent struggles--fame may never tell.







Philadelphia:
T. B. Peterson & Brothers,
306 Chestnut Street.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
Mrs. Ann S. Stephens,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
in and for the Southern District of New York.




     DEDICATION.


     TO MRS. GEORGE H. PENFIELD, OF HARTFORD, CONN.

     DEAR LADY:--

     One of the sweetest privileges connected with the authorship of
     a book is, that it can be made the landmark of such love and
     kindly feeling as have united us from the day that we first met
     till now. Believe me, it shall not prove my fault if this
     dedication fails to link the future with the past, in one
     perfect and life-long friendship.

     ANN S. STEPHENS.

     NEW YORK, APRIL 8, 1865.




CONTENTS.


   CHAPTER I.       THE SHIP IN A STORM

   CHAPTER II.      THE OLD STONE HOUSE

   CHAPTER III.     THE MINISTER

   CHAPTER IV.      EARLY IN THE MORNING

   CHAPTER V.       SIR WILLIAM AND HIS WIFE

   CHAPTER VI.      A GUIDE TO THE FARM-HOUSE

   CHAPTER VII.     THE UNEXPECTED VISITOR

   CHAPTER VIII.    THE MINISTER AND HIS PUPIL

   CHAPTER IX.      THE FORCED SACRAMENT

   CHAPTER X.       HUNTED DOWN

   CHAPTER XI.      DOOMED TO SLAVERY

   CHAPTER XII.     ELIZABETH AND HER COUSIN

   CHAPTER XIII.    THE BROTHER AND SISTER

   CHAPTER XIV.     ANNA HUTCHINSON'S CURSE

   CHAPTER XV.      GIVEN UP TO REVENGE

   CHAPTER XVI.     THE ACCEPTED INVITATION

   CHAPTER XVII.    THE LOVER'S QUARREL

   CHAPTER XVIII.   GATHERING ROSES AND THORNS

   CHAPTER XIX.     CONVERSATION ON THE PORCH

   CHAPTER XX.      WILD JEALOUSY

   CHAPTER XXI.     PASSIONATE DENUNCIATIONS

   CHAPTER XXII.    THE DEATH FIRE

   CHAPTER XXIII.   TITUBA'S STORY CONTINUED

   CHAPTER XXIV.    AMONG THE SHADOWS

   CHAPTER XXV.     THE MORNING RIDE

   CHAPTER XXVI.    BACK TO THE HOMESTEAD

   CHAPTER XXVII.   THE CHIEF AND THE LADY

   CHAPTER XXVIII.  WORKING OF THE EVIL SPELL

   CHAPTER XXIX.    ASKING FOR SHELTER

   CHAPTER XXX.     STRANGE SHADOWS

   CHAPTER XXXI.    NOON IN THE WOODS

   CHAPTER XXXII.   THE BEACON FIRE

   CHAPTER XXXIII.  ALL OR NOTHING

   CHAPTER XXXIV.   TOWARD THE SHORE

   CHAPTER XXXV.    UNACCOUNTABLE SYMPATHIES

   CHAPTER XXXVI.   SOUL TORTURES

   CHAPTER XXXVII.  DENUNCIATIONS AND REPROACHES

   CHAPTER XXXVIII. SHELTERED IN THE WOODS

   CHAPTER XXXIX.   TAKEN CAPTIVE

   CHAPTER XL.      THE ACCUSERS OF BARBARA

   CHAPTER XLI.     BARBARA IN HER DUNGEON

   CHAPTER XLII.    OLD FRIENDS IN COUNCIL

   CHAPTER XLIII.   THE MINISTER'S EVIDENCE

   CHAPTER XLIV.    PROGRESS OF THE TRIAL

   CHAPTER XLV.     CONCLUDING TESTIMONY

   CHAPTER XLVI.    THE STRANGE ADVOCATE

   CHAPTER XLVII.   THE WIFE'S APPEAL

   CHAPTER XLVIII.  THE FOREIGN PACKAGE

   CHAPTER XLIX.    STRANGE TIDINGS

   CHAPTER L.       BARBARA STAFFORD'S STORY

   CHAPTER LI.      A MOTHER

   CHAPTER LII.     THE LAST WISH

   CHAPTER LIII.    THE PRISON WEDDING

   CHAPTER LIV.     THE ICE COVE

   CHAPTER LV.      CLOSING SCENES

   CHAPTER LVI.     OVER THE WATER




SILENT STRUGGLES.




CHAPTER I.

THE SHIP IN A STORM.


A storm had been lowering all day over the harbor of Boston, heaping the
horizon with vast leaden embankments of heavy vapor, and shrouding the
hills with dense floating fog that clung around them in waves and masses
like draperies sweeping around some old monastic ruin. As the night
approached, a sharp wind came up from the east, accompanied by a
drifting rain that cut through the fog like a storm of silver shot. The
force of the tempest swept this away only to reveal the harbor in wild
turmoil, its waters heaving shoreward filled with muttering thunders
from the far off ocean, and each hill reverberating hoarsely to their
impetuous charge against its foundations.

It was a terrible hour for any unfortunate wayfarer who dared to be
abroad. The streets of the town were almost empty, and the wharves
utterly deserted save by a half dozen poor fishermen, who struggled to
keep their boats from being dashed to pieces against the timbers to
which they were chained. But the turbid waves leaped around and over
them, tearing the cables from their hold and beating the little crafts
to atoms or hurling them away like nutshells in the stormy riot.

As the day wore on, even these poor fishermen retreated in-doors,
leaving their little property to the tempest, and both earth and ocean
were given up to the storm. But on the heights which look seaward stood
two men thrown together even in that tempest into a strange and what
seemed an almost unnatural companionship; for in age, character, and
appearance each was a direct contrast to the other.

The storm beat heavily on them both, and though one from his age, and
the other from an education which had been almost effeminate, seemed
unlikely to brave a tempest like that without an important motive, it
would have been impossible for either of these men to have told what
brought them on the heights that boisterous day.

The old man had reached the hill first, and stood with his face to the
storm, looking out upon the turbulent waste of ocean with an anxious,
almost wild gaze, as if he were expecting some object long desired and
watched for to rise out of that leaden distance, and reward his steady
encounter of the elements.

The young man came up the ascent with a quick, struggling step, for the
storm was in his face, and he was compelled to fight it inch by inch. He
had shaded his eyes from the pelting rain, and cast an earnest gaze into
the distance, as if he, too, expected something, when the old man's
cloak was seized by the wind, and borne out with a rush and flutter like
the wing of a great bird, which made the youth conscious of another
presence. He looked around suddenly, and stepped forward, lifting the
hat from his head, with grave respect.

"Another man here, so far from town, and in all the tempest? I thought
that no one but a harum-scarum youngster like myself would venture forth
in a storm like this!"

"And I," answered the person thus addressed, sweeping back the iron gray
locks, that fell wet and scattered over his forehead, with a hand like
withered parchment, "I, too, believed that nothing but an old wanderer,
impelled by the spirit which he can never resist, would dare the wind on
these heights. Look, young man, for the rain blinds me: discern you
nothing in the distance yonder?"

The young man again sheltered his eyes with one hand, looking earnestly
forth towards the ocean.

"Nothing," he said at last. "I have searched that pile of clouds before,
and find only deeper blackness now."

"Searched it before! Did you expect something, then?" questioned the old
man, turning a pair of bright, gray eyes upon his companion. "Did you
expect something?"

As he spoke those eyes grew wild, and the penetrating glance, which he
bent upon the youth from under his heavy brows, struck to the young
heart, which was open to a new impression every moment.

"Nay, I do not know. It can be nothing but that unaccountable
restlessness which never leaves me in peace when a storm is howling over
the ocean. I could not stay in-doors--indeed, I never can on such
days--and, without knowing why, came up here to look this whirlwind in
the face, which, in return, is almost lifting me from my feet!"

The old man did not heed him, but stooped forward, looking towards the
ocean, while the rain beat against his face, dripping down in great
drops over his gray eye-brows, and deluging the hand with which he
strove to clear the blinding moisture away.

"It is coming! the clouds lift--the darkness is cleft--the bosom of the
deep heaves with life! Young man, look again! See you not the faint
outlines of a ship, spars, hull, and sails, reefed close--there--there,
riding in the bosom of the storm?"

He broke off with this exclamation, and drew his tall figure upright,
pointing towards the sea with a gesture of almost solemn exultation.

"Is that a ship, I say, or a bleak skeleton of the thing I have been
waiting for?"

"Upon my life--upon my soul, ten thousand pardons--but I think it really
is a ship, or some evil spirit has pencilled the skeleton of his devil's
craft in the clouds."

"Ha!" ejaculated the old man with a start, "see, see!"

The strange being might well cry out with astonishment. As he looked the
great embankment of clouds was torn asunder, and a burst of fire kindled
up its edges till it hung like streamers and tatters of flame around a
vessel of considerable size, which was, for the instant, lifted out of
the cloud into full view. The young man, whose sight was clear, could
even detect persons grouped upon the deck.

"It is a signal gun. She wants a pilot, or is in distress," he said,
eagerly. "Ha! she blazes out once more--they are casting her anchor.
Heavens, how she plunges! There--there, the cloud swallows her again!"

The old man had fallen upon his knees, allowing his long, gray cloak to
sweep away with the wind. He locked both hands over his face, and seemed
to be offering up either thanksgiving or entreaties to heaven; for his
voice, sharp and piercing, penetrated the storm too impetuously for the
words to be distinguished.

The young man stood a moment, reluctant to disturb him. That thin form
was completely exposed to the storm, and he could not refrain from an
attempt to rescue the old man's cloak from the wind, and gather it about
him. Besides, the grass was completely saturated on which he knelt, and
to remain upon it longer might bring a death chill.

"Sir, forgive me, but this is a dangerous place for prayer. The earth is
deluged where you kneel."

The old man struggled to his feet, and looked down upon the crushed
grass with humiliation and wonder.

"Kneel! did I in truth kneel?" he said, anxiously, like one who excuses
himself from a grave crime; "and here, in the open day? I beseech you,
remember, my young friend, that it was the surprise of yon ship and the
tempest which cast me into that unseemly position. When a servant of God
prays, it should be standing upright, face to face with the Being after
whose image he was made."

"You were, indeed greatly overcome," answered the youth, arranging the
folds of the old man's cloak. "The ship yonder must contain some dear
friend, that its appearance should move you so deeply."

"Some dear friend! Samuel Parris has no friends to expect from the
mother-land now. It is many years since he and all that is left of his
kin took root in the New World."

"And yet you were looking for the ship so anxiously?"

"Aye, young man. I was looking for something which was to come up from
the east through yon gate of clouds; but whether it was a weather-worn
vessel or an archangel sent on some special mission, was not told me."

"And you come hither expecting nothing?"

"Expecting every thing, for Jehovah is everywhere," answered the old
man, solemnly.

The youth was greatly impressed, his eye brightened.

"I only wish it were in my power to have expectations grounded on so
much faith," he said. "Now I come forth like a storm-bird, because a
strife of wind and water fills me with some grand expectation never
realized, but which seems always on the verge of fulfilment. You may
perchance smile, but it seems to me as if I had been months and years
watching for that very craft yonder, as if my own fate were anchored
with it in the storm. Nay, more, the guns, as they boomed over these
waves, seemed challenging me to meet some new destiny, and grapple with
it to the end, as I will--as I will!"

The young man stretched his arm towards the shadowy vessel, and his
slight, almost boyish form swelled with excitement, while the dark brown
eyes, usually bright and playful as a child's, darkened and grew larger
with the sudden excitement that had come upon him.

The minister grasped his outstretched arm, and fixed a steady gaze on
his face.

"And you also have been on the watch. Like me, you have come blindfold
through the storm, searching into the future for that ghostly ship,
where it spreads its shrouds of dull mist, and rocks upon the moaning
sea. Has the spirit of prophecy touched your young life also, that you
say these things with a shortened breath and white cheek, like one
terrified or inspired?"

"I know not," said the young man; "but, like you, I have expected that
visit long. In storm and darkness as it comes now have I seen it."

"How--where?" cried the old man, breathlessly.

"In my dreams or reveries, I know not which, it has floated often,
shrouded as it is now, impalpable, a phantom of spars and fog."

"And you have seen this?"

"No, not with my eyes; it comes across my life like a ghost whose
presence fills you with awe, but answers to no sense."

"Like a ghost which you would fain flee from and cannot. Is it thus the
spirit deals with you also?"

"Nay, I would not flee, it arouses my courage. Even now my heart leaps
toward yon vessel as if some precious thing lay in its hold which no one
but myself may dare to claim."

"This is strange--marvellously strange," said the minister, forgetting
himself in the enthusiasm of the young man.

"What is strange?"

"That we two should meet here for the first time in our lives, haunted
by the same dreams, waiting together for the same revelation. Heaven
forbid that this should prove a device of the evil one urging us on to
perdition. I trust that you have not come forth without fasting and
prayer, my young brother, for of a verity there is great need of both in
these latter days."

The youth smiled, for solemn thoughts made but brief impressions on him,
and the idea of quenching any one of his bright fancies by fasting or
prayer amused him exceedingly, notwithstanding the earnestness of the
old man's words.

The minister did not notice this gleam of levity, which would have
shocked him to the soul, for his eyes were fascinated by the strange
vessel, and he could not force them to look steadily on any other
object.

While the two men stood together the wind had shifted, carrying off the
rain. Through the gray mists left behind came a crimson glow from the
sun, which was that moment sinking behind the heights and shooting its
golden lances after the storm as it rolled slowly back upon the bosom of
the ocean.

"It is gone," said the old man, mournfully, as the heavy clouds settled
back upon the vessel; "the vapors have swallowed it up as usual. Let us
descend the hill, brother."

"Not yet--not yet!" cried the youth. "See! the storm is breaking away,
the sunset has drawn it seaward. Look, look how beautifully the vessel
pencils itself against that break of blue in the sky."

The old man turned again, and clasping his hands, murmured, "It is
neither phantom nor mist, but a ship of sturdy English oak, with masts
and spars standing. Hush!--young man, see you nothing upon the deck?"

"Yes, surely, a group of persons standing together."

"No, not that, nearer the bow!"

"It is the form of a woman alone, with her arms folded and her face
turned this way."

"Aye, the form of a woman with an outer garment of crimson, beneath
which her arms are crossed as she looks westward, is it not?"

"Truly you have described the woman, for, though I cannot see her
features, they are certainly turned this way."

"My sight is dim and will not serve me; tell me, stands the lady there
yet?"

"Yes, yes--clearer and clearer the sunset gathers over the vessel,
turning the angry waves to gold; the clouds are fringed with light, and
grow luminous around her. Sir, I entreat you tell me--who is this
woman?"

"Alas, I do not know."

"But the vessel, what is her name, from what port does she come?"

"How should I answer questions like these--I who never saw either the
vessel or the woman till now, save as shadows drifting through the
night. If yonder ship be, as it seems, of tough oak, and the woman a
living soul, then is the revelation complete and I may seek rest, sure
that the end will come."

The minister turned away as he spoke, and gathering the cloak around him
prepared to descend toward the town, but the young man lingered.

"Stay, stay!" he cried; "the people on board that craft are mad! No boat
could live in these waves, and yet they lower one to the water, and men
jump in, flinging themselves over the side of the vessel. Come back,
old man, she is preparing to descend. Her mantle gleams redly against
the black side of the ship; she gathers it around her like the wings
of a tropical bird, and settles down in the boat, which plunges and
rocks like a wild animal tugging at its chains. They loosen the
cable--a wave seizes upon the boat--it quivers upon the topmost
crest--plunges--and--oh! heavens! A man poises himself on the bulwarks
and leaps into the boiling ocean--the boat rocks heavily--turns to save
him--they grasp at his garments and attempt to pull him in--now the boat
is hurled onward and the poor man is lost--no! they fling a cable from
the vessel--he snatches it and they draw him up the sides again. But the
boat--another wave seizes it! Old man, old man, gather up your strength
and follow me. It is for this we have been brought together."

The youth ran forward as he spoke, taking the nearest path to the shore.
The minister followed after with a degree of energy that belied his
years. Now and then they caught a glimpse of the boat, struggling feebly
with the waves, and this gave them courage.

It was no slight distance that lay between the crest of that hill and
the broken shore at its foot; but space seemed nothing to the impetuous
young man. He rushed down the steep, calling out cheerfully for his
companion to be careful of the inequalities over which he bounded like a
deer, and at length stood panting on a curve of the beach, with his head
uncovered and his wild, bright eyes roving over the harbor in search of
the boat.

It was struggling up the harbor, beaten to and fro by the wind, which
seemed to come from every point at once, and tossed fearfully by the
waves that were wrangling together and leaping after it like ravenous
wolves.

It was evident that the sailors had lost all control of the little
craft, which fairly leaped in the water with a desperate strain, as if
mad to escape from its howling enemies. Suddenly the wind took it on the
crest of a wave, whirled it sheer about, and drove it on with fury
towards the point where Parris and his young companion stood.

A chain of sunken rocks girded the shore in that place, breaking up the
waves into innumerable whirlpools, and sending sheets of foam back upon
the storm. It scarcely seemed a minute when the boat made a plunge into
the midst of this terrible danger, and for an instant lay still, with
the angry foam boiling around it, and the white faces of its occupants
in full view. One man held the stump of a broken oar in his grasp, and
with its splintered end beat against the waves, as if this frantic
exertion would do them good. Another had lost his oar, and sat with his
arms folded, calmly surveying the land, with his wild eyes sternly
measuring the danger before him. Two other men toiled on with the
strength of giants, but the oars were no better than rushes in their
hands, and all their strength scarcely more than the flutter of dead
tree boughs against a wind like that.

All this the two men upon the shore took in at a glance. Then the
female, who had fallen forward upon her knees in the stern, absorbed
their whole attention. The face was turned that way, white and
contracted. Her hands were clasped and flung out with imploring anguish.
Her eyes gleamed, her frame quivered and rocked to and fro. The winds
had torn the bonnet from her head, and the waters dashing over the boat
saturated her crimson mantle till it hung heavily around her, and turned
purple under the scattered coils of her hair.

The boat gave a lurch: she started up, her white lips parted as if
uttering desperate cries; but if any escaped her they were swallowed by
the storm. Still their terrible eloquence broke forth in one wild
gesture, as she flung her locked hands upwards, and sunk down again,
shuddering and cowering into the bottom of the boat.

"She cannot live! she is lost!" cried the young man upon the beach,
frantic almost as the woman in her peril. "Is there no rope, no help,
nothing?"

"There is a God above," answered Parris, who stood with his gleaming
eyes fixed upon the boat.

The youth dashed out his arms against the wind, maddened by these heavy
words. Then, with a sudden cry, he darted forward and seized upon the
old man's cloak.

"Give it me--give it me!" he cried, rending it from the minister's
shoulders. "God expects his creatures to work when he sends danger--knot
these strips together if you would not see all those souls perish before
our eyes. Work, old man! Save that woman, and I, too, will kneel down
anywhere and give thanks to God honestly as you. Tie them firmly, and
tighten the knots with hand and foot--see--as I do."

While he spoke, the youth tore the old man's cloak into long strips,
using his delicate hands and white teeth simultaneously in the work; to
these he added his own short cloak, rent into fragments with equal
impetuosity.

The old man obeyed him, and began to knot the fragments together, while
the youth pressed his foot upon each knot, drew it firmly, and proceeded
to the next. A cable of some length was thus produced, which he tied
around his waist, while he flung the other end to the minister, who,
fired with sudden energy, followed the directions given him in stern
silence.

"Now come with me into the surf and hold firm, or you will have another
poor wretch to pray over," cried the young man. "Now, while that wave
goes out--ah! she strikes!--she falls apart!--there! there!--that red
heap in the foam!"

The youth plunged headlong into the waves. The old man stood waist deep,
with the end of the cable grasped firmly and wrapped around his right
arm. The winds dashed in his face and swept around his feet, striving to
uproot them, but he stood firm; the waters might as well have beat
against a pillar of iron. He felt the cable tighten with a jerk; for an
instant he saw the youth upon the crest of a wave, then all was roar and
darkness. A wave had rolled in and out again, straining at the cable
till it almost broke the old man's arm. Another rush of water. The cable
slackened, it was broken, or--wild hope--the waters which came roaring
in might bring the youth in their bosom.

The old man turned and fled up the shore, shouting a thanksgiving as he
felt the cable tighten in his hold. Like a monster that bears a child on
its bosom, the wave rushed up, and surged back again, leaving two human
beings struggling in its spent foam. A mass of dull crimson broke up
through the white froth, and tresses of long hair floated on the foam
wreaths.

The old man rushed back, seized upon these two lifeless creatures, and
dragged them to dry land. His iron energies were all aroused now; other
human beings were yet in the waves. He left the strange female and the
youth, helpless as they were, and went back in search of other lives.

It took time, for the poor boatmen were struggling hard for life, and
the storm fought them inch by inch, sweeping one man into eternity, and
washing over the others every moment.

While feelings of humanity transformed this dreamer into an activity
that would have astonished any one that knew him, the two persons he had
already saved lay senseless on the bank of ferns where he had cast them
down. It was not yet dark, and a black shadow from the hills rolled over
them, making their white faces ghastly as death. The woman was the first
to move; she struggled a little, clasping and unclasping her hands with
quick spasms of pain. Then the violet tinge grew to a faint flush on her
eyelids, and they quivered open, allowing two large gray eyes yet filled
with dull affright to look upward with vague wonder upon the sky.

Directly other senses awoke from their lethargy. The boom of the ocean
struck a shudder through all her frame; she began to tremble beneath the
cold sweep of the winds, and felt vaguely about with her hand for
something to fold about her.

Instead of the garment she sought, her hand fell across the pale face of
the young man, and struck a fresh chill to her heart. She began to
remember where she was, and what had happened. Her first thought was
that one of the dead seamen had been cast to her side, but, for a time,
she had no strength to rise up and look at the cold horror.




CHAPTER II.

THE OLD STONE HOUSE.


It must have been a death-chill, indeed, that could long restrain the
warm heart of Barbara Stafford. Her first real impulse was to arise, and
see if the poor man at her side was indeed dead.

The effort was a painful one, but, to her, will was strength. She lifted
her two hands, parted the wet locks from her face, struggled up to a
rest on one elbow, till her eyes fell on the pale, beautiful face of the
young man. Slowly her lips parted, and her large, wild eyes filled with
holy wonder. She was like a spirit just landed on the shores of
eternity, doubting if her companion were in truth an angel.

She held the dripping hair back from her cheek with one hand, for the
sight of that young face had arrested it there, and slowly over her
singular features dawned a pale, soft light, that illuminated her
countenance without leaving a tint of color there.

After a little, Barbara Stafford drew a deep, tremulous breath, that was
long in coming, for the holy depths of her heart could not be broken up
at once. She arose to a sitting posture, and lifted the head of the
young man to her lap.

That moment Samuel Parris came up followed by the three sailors his
courage had rescued.

"Ah, me!" said the old man, clasping his hands sorrowfully over the
body. "The youth has gone to his last account; there is no life here."

The woman looked quickly around; a spasm of pain contracted her features
when she saw the ocean, the dripping sailors, and that singular old man,
stricken with sorrow, and moaning over the cold form in her arms. She
was still of earth; this conviction left her gazing wistfully in the old
man's face; she was trying to comprehend the connection of his words. At
last, understanding them, she dropped her eyes sorrowfully downward
again.

"He is gone of a verity," said Parris, dropping the hand of the youth
from his fingers, which had been tremulously searching for the beat of a
pulse. "He has gone, and those that have seen him shall see him no
more."

Again Barbara Stafford lifted a gaze full of mournful intensity upon the
old man's face.

"Dead," she echoed, in a voice that thrilled even that rough atmosphere
with pathetic sweetness. "Dead! what, does he belong to that shore and I
to this? Oh, would to God I had died also!"

Her head bent slowly downward as she spoke. With her two hands she began
smoothing the wet hair back from that pale forehead. Then, as if
overcome with unaccountable tenderness, she bent down her mouth and
kissed it slowly, lingeringly, as the first sigh of returning life had
left her bosom.

Up to that moment the young man had lain frozen lifeless, without a beat
of the pulse or a flutter of the breath. As that woman's lips touched
his forehead, a shudder ran visibly through what seemed marble a moment
before, and a low cry broke from his lips. Life had come back to him
with a pang either of pain or pleasure; no one could tell which.

"Behold," said Samuel Parris with enthusiasm, "truly our Lord has worked
a miracle in behalf of this youth; for of a verity there was no life in
him when his hand rested in mine a moment since."

Barbara Stafford had withdrawn her lips from his forehead; but, as his
quivering eyelids opened, the look of strange tenderness with which she
bent over him penetrated to every fibre of his heart. The same holy
expression that had crept over her features a little time before, came
to his also, bringing warmth and color, almost a smile with it.

"At last!" he murmured, like one just aroused from a dream, "at last you
have come."

The words were uttered in a low murmur, but Barbara Stafford gathered
them into her heart unshared by the men about her; they heard a faint
moan, which spoke of returning life, nothing more.

By this time the whole group began to feel the cold insupportably. The
old man, without cloak or coat, shook in all his limbs, while the
sailors could hardly stand, so fierce had been their struggle with the
waves.

"Tell me," said Samuel Parris, addressing one of the sailors, "to whom
were you conveying this lady?--for such I take her to be."

"We do not know," answered the man; "she gave us a guinea a-piece to set
her upon one of the wharves yonder before sunset; that is all we can
tell you of the matter."

"Lady," said Parris, addressing Barbara directly, "we must find speedy
shelter or this new-born life will go out again."

The lady lifted her face; it was cramped and so cold that a violet tinge
shadowed the mouth and lay underneath the eyes.

"Yes, he is very cold," she said, gathering her wet mantle over the
youth; "have you nothing else?"

"Arouse yourself, lady," said the old man after a moment's perplexed
thought; "to remain here would be death to us all. It is impossible for
you or this youth to reach the town to-night. Around this curve of the
hill is a farm-house, where you can have rest. It is but a brief walk."

"Let us go before this ice touches his heart!" she said, earnestly. "I
can walk; carry him among you. Which way lies the house?"

Her teeth chattered as she spoke; but even this chill gave way to her
resolution.

Two of the sailors lifted the young man between them, and moved slowly
forward, following the lady, who leaned on the minister's arm. After the
first few steps the youth planted his feet more firmly on the earth,
and, though staggering from exhaustion, insisted on supporting the lady,
walking on one side while she kept the arm of the minister on the other.

At last a farm-house of stone, low-roofed and sheltered in a hollow of
the hills, presented itself. Samuel Parris knocked upon the door with
his knuckles two or three times, when a voice bade him "come in." He
pulled a thong which lifted a wooden latch inside, and entered a low
room in which a woman sat alone spinning on one of those small
flax-wheels with which our mothers in the olden time used to fill up the
leisure hours obtained from the general housework.

She was a spare, not to say gaunt woman, a little on the sunny side of
mid age; not exactly austere of countenance, but with a certain gravity
which was in that epoch considered an outward sign of experimental
religion.

The woman arose in evident surprise when her strange guests entered.
Pushing back the spinning-wheel with her foot, she stood bolt upright,
waiting to know what had brought them under her roof. Mr. Parris stepped
forward, and told his story in a few terse words, during which the good
wife was unbanding her wheel and removing the checked apron which had
protected her dress while at work.

"Walk in and make yourself to home, ma'am," said the housewife, opening
the door of an inner room and revealing a fire-place filled with pine
branches which looked drearily cold that heavy day. "The hired man is
out, but if one of these sailor men will bring in some wood from the
yard, I'll get some pitch pine knots and have a fire in no time."
Without more ceremony, the woman went to work, and in less than half an
hour Barbara Stafford was in a warm bed, with a bowl of herb tea smoking
on a little round table by her pillow, while her young preserver lay in
a smaller room equally well provided for.

For Samuel Parris and the sailors the good wife insisted on providing a
comfortable supper; and gave up her own bed to the minister, while she
found room for the unfortunate seamen in a loft of the house. In order
to accomplish this, she was sadly put about for blue and white yarn
coverlets with which to restore them to warmth, but stripped every bed
in the house, and, when that resource was exhausted, brought out all her
linsey-woolsey skirts and aprons as a substitute.

Early in the morning Norman Lovel was aroused from a deep slumber by the
hand of Samuel Parris laid gently on his shoulder. The youth started up,
shook back his hair which the dampness had left crisp and curling over
his forehead, and cast an astonished look around, which ended in a long,
half-angry gaze at his visitor.

"Oh!" he said, sweeping a hand once or twice across his eyes, then
turning his face toward the old man, with a smile.

"This is no dream, I suppose--though you are here with the roar of
waters too--a minute since I was fighting them like a tiger; but this is
a feather bed, and you stand upon a good oak floor. Is it not so?"

"Yes, thanks to the Holy of holies, we are safe!"

"But that ship--the boat--the lady--tell me what is real and what was
dreaming."

"We have had a strange meeting, my young friend, and have struggled
together in behalf of human life, peradventure with success."

The youth again swept a hand over his face. "Yes, yes. I remember a ship
in the distance--a boat full of people rocking in the foam--a madman
jumping overboard--I--you in the waves. Tell me, old man, was this
real?"

"Truly it was."

"And the lady--this house--the woman at her spinning-wheel, who brought
herb tea to my bed. That lady--me, good friend, for I remember all--how
fares the lady?"

"She is safe--thanks to a merciful Providence--and sleeping profoundly
in the next room, at least such was the report of Goody Brown, in the
kitchen yonder, ten minutes ago. She must not be disturbed. I had not
broken in upon your sleep, either, but the sun is up, and perchance
there is some one in town who may be grieved at your absence. You must
have friends, and I would cheerfully bear them tidings of your safety."

"Friends!" cried the youth, starting up. "Indeed, there is one who will
have wept her eyes out by this time. I pray you, sir, hand me such
garments as the storm has left. We must start together for the town."

"Willingly," answered the minister, bringing the desired garments in
from the kitchen fire. "But put on your garments in haste, for the
morning wears; meanwhile I will speak a word with our host."

Half an hour after, the minister and his young friend quitted the
farm-house, leaving the woman they had saved in the deep slumber of
exhaustion.




CHAPTER III.

THE MINISTER.


Norman Lovel and the old minister walked on toward the town in company.
The earth was still wet and heavy after the storm, and a sullen moan
came up from the depths of the far-off ocean, which filled the bright
morning as with a wail of sorrow.

But the old man was strong, and the youth full of that elasticity which
springs more from the soul than the body. If either of them felt any
evil effect from the storm, the vigorous speed at which they walked bore
no evidence of it.

For some time they moved on in silence. The minister seemed lost in a
reverie; the youth was thinking, with strange interest, on the lady he
had left behind.

They came down upon the shore where the accident of the previous night
had happened. A fragment of the boat lay where it had ploughed in upon
the sand, burying itself so firmly that the waves had failed to draw it
back again, and so had lost their plaything.

The two men paused a moment, looking at the broken timbers. The youth
shuddered.

"To think," he said, looking wistfully at his companion,--"to think that
these treacherous bits of wood alone kept her from the deep, and
I--you--it seems all like a dream."

"It seems like the great mercy it was," said the minister, lifting his
eyes to heaven; "for of a verity we were but as two rushes in the midst
of the waves, frail like the timbers at our feet, and as easily broken.
Believe me, young man, God has protected this poor lady with his
especial providence."

"Indeed I believe it," replied the youth, lifting his cap, for a
momentary feeling of devotion came over him; "I most devoutly believe
it; as a token, see how the beautiful morning smiles upon the waters.
The harbor seems scattered with rose leaves. The very sands at our feet
are turning to gold."

"Truly, God smiles upon us," said the minister, looking abroad with an
enthusiasm deep as that which flashed in the eyes of the youth, and far
more concentrated. "But we linger here unadvisedly; the glory of a
morning like this rests not in one place. Let us move on; the chimneys
over yonder are beginning to vomit forth smoke, soon the town will be
astir."

The youth did not hear him, but darted down to the edge of the water,
where a strip of ribbon tinted a spent foam wreath with its blue. He
seized upon the ribbon, shook it, scattering the foam like snow-flakes
with the motion, and came back to where the minister stood.

"It must be hers," he said, revealing a locket of chased gold, with a
broad lock of hair white as snow, knotted with pearls upon the back. "It
must be hers."

Parris reached forth his hand, as if to take the trinket, but the youth
gathered the ribbon hastily in his palm, and clasped his fingers over
it.

"We have no right to examine it, knowing, as we do, the owner," he said,
hastily. "The spring is closed. It is evidently some portrait."

"But the water may have penetrated to the painting and will destroy it."

"True, true!" The youth, still reluctant to give up the locket, touched
the spring, and with difficulty opened it.

The water had indeed penetrated the clasp, but a crystal underneath
protected the portrait, which was that of a middle-aged man, evidently
of the highest rank, for his dress was of the most costly material, and
enriched with several jewelled orders which were easily distinguished as
belonging to the English court.

"It is a strange face," said Parris, bending his head to examine the
portrait, "hard as iron and full of worldly pride. Young man, I have
seen this face before; but where--when?"

"How can I tell?" answered the youth, who was gazing wistfully at the
face.

"Yes," he said, after a moment; "it is hard as iron, but a grand
countenance, nevertheless. That man would have died for an idea."

"Died for an idea!" repeated the minister; "how many have done that, yet
the idea a false one? But where have I seen that face?"

The youth covered the portrait with its gold again, and the two walked
on more rapidly for the time they had lost. All at once young Lovel
stopped as if some important idea had flashed upon him.

"Sir," he said, eagerly, "did I not hear your name yesterday, or have I
dreamed it over night--Samuel Parris--was it in truth from your own lips
I heard the name?"

"Even so, young man."

"Samuel Parris, minister of the gospel in Salem?"

"Even to that honored post the Lord and his people have appointed me."

"One question more--only one--then forgive me if I am too bold. There is
a young lady at our house--that is, at the house of Governor Phipps--her
name is Parris also, and her father is minister of a congregation in
Salem--tell me if this fair maiden is your child."

"My child!" cried the old man, lifting up his face to heaven with a look
of exultant thanksgiving; "yes, Elizabeth is my child, the first-born of
that beautiful one who is a leader among God's angels. Ask me if the
heart which lies in my bosom--the brain that thinks--the blood that
beats in these veins are mine, and I will answer, Yea. But not so
closely do these things encompass me as does my love for Elizabeth, the
babe that my young wife left in my embrace as a blessing and a comfort,
before she was enrolled among the just made perfect."

The young man drew a quick breath; the enthusiasm and energy of the
minister's speech, so uncalled for by the simple question he had put,
startled him not a little. Besides this, other anxieties sprang up in
his mind, and knowing the man with whom he had been cast so strangely by
his true name, he was struck dumb with the rush of emotions which this
knowledge aroused.

"Her father," he said inly; "her father--and is this our first meeting?"

"My child, my child!" cried the old man, forgetting his companion, while
his eager eyes were turned towards the town. "Have I not fasted,
watched, prayed, nay, sent her forth from beneath my roof that this
great love may not be as a snare, and stand between me and my
God--between me and the angel that has gone before! Now, when I have
been two whole days within sight of the roof that covers her, holding
down my heart, and fasting with a soul-fast--the very mention of her
name, even by a stranger, sends the breath in quick gushes to my lips,
and I tremble like a little child."

The old man stood still upon the shore, and the youth paused with him,
gazing up into his face with a look of strange sympathy.

"I am grieved, I am very sorry!" he said, scarcely knowing that he had
spoken at all.

"God forgive you, young man, but you have unsealed this heart to its
depths. The weakness is still here; instead of singing, 'Hosannah to the
Lord,' it cries out, 'My child, my child!' Pray as I will--fast as I
will--her name always comes first, and thus I droop before the Lord full
of terror and self-reproach, an unfaithful servant, still keeping back a
portion of my master's treasures."

"Forgive me!" pleaded the youth, struck with sudden remorse for the
sorrows he had evidently excited.

"Forgive _you_," answered the old Christian, for such he undoubtedly
was. "What have you done that I should claim the power to forgive? It is
my own heart, which, strive as I may, will cling to its idol."

"But I have given you pain."

The old man bent his eyes on that ingenuous face, and before he lifted
them again they were full of tears; those cold watery tears that come up
like melted ice from the heart.

"Ah!" exclaimed the youth, "now I see a resemblance, vague, hardened,
but still I should know that Elizabeth Parris was your daughter."

The minister's face brightened like a lamp suddenly illuminated. He
reached forth his hand, grasped that of the young man, and his features
quivered all over with the gush of feeling that swelled within him.

"Is she--is the dear child indeed so like her father? And you know
her--you have seen her, perhaps; tell me is she well--does she grieve at
the thoughts of home--does she pine for a sight of her father?"

He waited for no answer, but heaped question upon question with
breathless eagerness.

The youth looked at him with amazement. The intense affection which
transfigured those stern features exhibited itself so unexpectedly, that
for the moment he was speechless.

The old man noticed this with a deprecating movement.

"She was the daughter of my old age!" he said, with ineffable humility,
while his shoulders drooped, and his face bent towards his breast, "she
looks so like her young mother."

"She is beautiful as an angel!" exclaimed Lovel with enthusiasm.

"She is like her mother!" murmured the minister, clasping his hands and
looking wistfully out into the distance. "Ah, so like her mother!"

"No wonder you loved her mother, then!" said the youth, drawing close to
the old man with prompt sympathy.

"Loved her--oh, God forgive me--how I did love her, young man! The very
daisies upon her grave are like the stars of heaven to me, and she has
been dead since Elizabeth was a babe."

"Oh, no wonder you look so old and care-worn; it must be like burying
one's own soul, to see the mother of one's child die."

The old man did not answer, but his hands interlocked more firmly. The
feelings swelling in his bosom were too painful for utterance. How far
the intense affection, which death could not diminish, had approached
insanity, it would be impossible to say; but all unconsciously, the
young man had made the minister quiver in every nerve by the genuine
sympathy he had given.

They walked on together, and entered the streets of Boston in company.
When they reached the heart of the town, the old man stopped
reluctantly, reaching forth his hand with a piteous smile.

"Farewell, young man," he said, "we may never meet again, but--"

"Nay, nay," cried the youth, blushing scarlet, "not meet again--God
forbid that you speak sooth in this. Indeed, indeed--"

But the minister wrung his hand, turned suddenly down a cross street,
and disappeared before the sentence was finished.

Young Lovel looked after him for a moment, made a step to follow the
course he had taken, then returning slowly, walked on.




CHAPTER IV.

EARLY IN THE MORNING.


The town of Boston had little of its present compactness in those days.
True, there existed streets and lanes, and wharves which served as
barriers to the harbor, but green turf lay richly where slabs of granite
form the sidewalk now, the streets wound in and out as they had been
trodden broader and broader from the forest paths, and around the houses
were yards and pleasant gardens, with carpets of green turf in which the
wild flowers still lingered. The dwellings were mostly of wood; low,
broad, and heavy, with cumbrous adornments; coats of arms surmounted the
doors, cut out with the broad-axe and chisel, and heavy wooden cornices
loomed over the front, betraying a surplus of timber and a lamentable
scarcity of architectural art. Among these more imposing buildings,
houses of hewn logs, and even ruder cabins were scattered, but the
trees, the grass, and many a clinging vine, gave to the infant city a
picturesque beauty which can never belong to the brick, granite, and
mortar which have taken so many imposing forms since. But even then
Boston had its fashionable street, and its aristocratic neighborhood.

To this portion of the town young Lovel bent his steps, and soon came
out upon the green lanes of North Boston, which was in fact a wide area,
where the palaces of the New World loomed proudly among the grand old
forest trees, which softened their stateliness with touches of natural
beauty.

The most imposing of these mansions, conspicuous for its three stories,
and a certain attempt at architectural beauty, was the residence of Sir
William Phipps, Captain-General and Governor-in-chief of New England.
Those who knew the sheep-tender of Kennebec, the younger brother of
twenty-six children, who even in his boyhood turned haughtily from the
occupation of his father when proposed to him, and predicted of himself
_that he was born to greater matters_, might have wondered as they stood
before that stately dwelling, and saw in its vastness and its ornaments
a fulfilment of the sheep-boy's prophecy. In all New England there was
not a dwelling like that, or a man so powerful as its owner. Yet Sir
William Phipps, titled, wealthy, and almost a sovereign, had not yet
passed his prime of life; while he was comparatively a young man, all
this great fortune had been wrought out by his own stern energies.

The youth stood for a moment in front of the mansion, gazing wistfully
at one of the second story windows. It was very early in the morning;
too early for any one in the gubernatorial mansion to be stirring, but
he was disappointed to find the curtains drawn and the shutters
partially closed. Evidently, the youth had expected some one to be
watching for him, rendered miserable by his strange absence over night.

But every thing was still, even to the great elm-tree that swept its
branches over one end of the house, and the rose bushes that clustered
along the terraces. The youth did not like to claim admittance till some
of the servants were astir, so walked up and down the green lane, always
advancing toward the house, till you would have fancied him studying its
architecture; but his eyes always wandered to one window, and that had
nothing but a stone coping and an arched top to command his admiration.
Still the gubernatorial mansion was well worth examining, if it were
only to see how rudely the arts crept first into the New World from the
mother land. Massive stone pilasters separated the windows to the second
story; two long rows of windows ran between that and the roof, all set
in stone, and slightly arched. The central window, with elaborate blinds
and lateral sashes, carried up the outline of that ponderous wooden
portico to the still more ponderous cornices on the roof. This elaborate
attempt at architecture made the governor's house the show place of all
New England. The very children of Boston held their breath with awe of
its grandeur, and were half afraid to pluck dandelions in the green lane
after it was built.

But young Lovel had seen the mansion too often for any feeling of this
kind. The window still remained shrouded in its muslin curtains, though
the birds in the elm branches had burst forth into gushes of music that
might have charmed an angel from the brightest nook in paradise, and the
rising sun came smiling over the terraces, turning each dew-drop,
trembling on its blade of grass, into a diamond, rendering every thing
so beautiful that slumber seemed an absolute sin.

"They take it coolly enough," muttered the youth impatiently, turning
his steps to the broad gravel walk which crossed the terraces and
reached the long, sloping steps that led to the portico. "I might crunch
this white gravel under my feet forever, and she'd sleep on. No matter,
I may as well take it easily as they do; I might be in the bottom of the
harbor for any thing they know, or care either."

As he muttered these words, Lovel crossed the terrace, and stood between
the fluted pillars of the porticoes which rose proudly over him, crowned
with Corinthian leaves, and garlanded with rudely carved flowers, that
ran up over the massy cornices, supplying the deficiency of family
armorial bearings. But in his waywardness he had lost sight of the
window, and so walked back upon the terrace again, pretending, even to
himself, that he wished to gather a handful of blush roses while the
leaves were wet with that diamond light. But his heart beat unsteadily,
and he looked upward every moment as he broke the blossoms impetuously
from their bushes. This impatience at the stillness broke at last upon
the gentle flowers. He dashed them to the turf, shaking all the dew from
their hearts. Then he rushed back to the portico, raised the ponderous
knocker, and prepared to swing it against the great brass head which
seemed to smile defiance beneath the blows ready to be rained upon it.
But his hand was arrested by a sound within the house, and, softly
relinquishing the knocker, he threw himself upon one of the long seats
that ran down each side of the portico, eagerly watching the door.

There was a sound of bolts cautiously drawn, as if a person within were
careful of making a noise. Then a leaf of the great oaken door opened,
and with its glittering knocker wheeled inward; while the head and
shoulders of a young girl appeared bending over the other half, with a
wistful, eager look that filled the young man with repentance at a
single glance.

"Elizabeth!"

She heard and saw him--struggled eagerly with the lower bolts, flung the
last leaf of the door open, and sprang toward him. Then recollecting
herself, she retreated a step, and covering her face with both hands,
burst into a passion of tears that shook her slender form from head to
foot.

Then the young man's heart smote him afresh, for he saw by the withered
roses in her hair, the fine yellow lace that shaded her arms, and her
dress of flowered silk, that the poor girl had not been in bed that
night. She had been waiting, watching, praying no doubt for him.

"Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth! will you not look on me? Are you not glad
that I am safe?"

She could not speak, but trembled all over like the leaves of a vine
when the wind shakes it.

"Elizabeth!"

She took down her hands and turned her eyes on his face--those large
deer-like eyes full of tenderness and shame.

"Elizabeth! is this for me--I am safe, and very, very happy, for this
terror, these blushes. You would not look this way if you cared nothing
about a poor fellow!"

She began to tremble again, and shrunk back with a red glow burning over
her neck, and up to her temples beneath the dusky shadows of her hair.

"Elizabeth, darling, speak to me," said the youth, trembling himself
beneath the sweet joy of the moment, and approaching her with his face
all a-glow.

"Don't, don't! I am sick with shame. I did not know--I did not
hope--they told us you had gone down to the water, out in a fishing-boat
in the midst of the storm last night, that--that--"

"And you believed it--you grieved a little?"

"I feared every thing!"

"No--not altogether, for you see I am alive. But you have suffered; your
eyes are heavy, your cheek white again. Oh, tell me, was it trouble, was
it anxiety on my account? Do not fear to say yes--I will not presume--I
will not half believe it--only let me have the happiness of thinking so,
for one little moment."

She lifted her face, and the dusky shame which blushes usually carry to
the eyes, died out, leaving them soft and clear as a mountain spring.

"Was it for you, Norman, for you that I have wept, and prayed, and
suffered? Ah me, what agonies of fear! Why ask? you know it," here the
little graceful coquetries of her sex would break in, for she began to
get ashamed again--"for are you not a fellow-creature out of the church,
unregenerated and worshipping----"

"You, and every thing you worship," cried the youth, seizing her hand,
which he devoured with his eyes, but dared not touch with his lips.
"Never mind whether I am fit to be drowned or not; give me something
worth living for; tell me that one day when I am wiser and you a little
older, not much, because a good deal can be done in that way after the
ceremony; but tell me that you will be my wife."

His face was all a flush of crimson now, but hers grew pale as death;
the last word--that holy, beautiful word--made her shiver from heart to
limb. He had been too impetuous; Elizabeth Parris had never dared to
think of the mystery he brought so broadly before her. Her pure maidenly
thoughts had hovered round it timidly, as a shadow haunts a white lily,
but she was content with the perfume, without daring to touch the
flower.

"Your wife, your wife!" she murmured, and the words fell from her lips
with silvery slowness, like drops from a fountain. "Your wife, and I not
yet fifteen!"

"But you will think of it. I am a sad fellow to frighten you so; a sad,
wicked fellow, but you will forgive it, Elizabeth; you know, out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

He saw her sweet lips quivering into a smile, and forgave himself at
once.

"There now, you see I can quote Scripture a little, so forgive me this
once. I love you till my heart aches with the joy of it. Think of
this--promise me that you will."

Promise to think of it! alas, poor child, when would she think of any
thing else!




CHAPTER V.

SIR WILLIAM AND HIS WIFE.


Probably Elizabeth Parris would not have sat down in the portico, but
the night's watching had made her faint. When Norman Lovel darted off to
gather up the roses he had plucked, and so rudely scattered, she sank
down, watching him dreamily as he cast them away a second time, and
gathered fresh ones, unmindful, poor child, that this might be a type of
his character, and those poor flowers of her own fate.

He came back, bringing a rich harvest of blush roses--he never gave any
other to Elizabeth--with both hands wet with the dew which rained out of
their hearts.

"Come," he said, heaping them on the seat by her side, "let us gather up
a bouquet for the breakfast-table. Lady Phipps loves flowers fresh from
the thicket."

Elizabeth Parris started up with a look of sudden dismay.

"Lady Phipps! and I have known that you are safe all this time without
telling her--how selfish, how cruel! It was almost morning before she
went to her room. I am sure she has not slept."

As she spoke, Elizabeth pushed open the door, and in an instant Norman
saw her gliding up the broad staircase which led to the second story. He
followed her into the vestibule, and began pacing up and down, turning
his eyes now on the floor, tessellated with lozenges of black oak and
red cedar, now upon the staircase, hoping to see the young girl descend
again.

But, instead of this, an imperious knock sounded from the door which he
had but partially closed; at the same instant it was pushed open, and a
gentleman strode through with a dull, weary step, and walked heavily
up-stairs.

Norman was in the lower end of the vestibule, and the surprise of this
sudden entrance kept him motionless. Recovering himself, he came
forward, but only in time to catch another glimpse of the governor as he
entered his wife's chamber.

Elizabeth had found Lady Phipps asleep, and, not daring to wake her,
stole off to her own room; but the heavy step of Sir William possessed
more power than her fairy tread, and the moment it sounded on the floor
Lady Phipps started up and inquired wildly if the young secretary was
found.

The governor shook his head. Saddened by his gesture Lady Phipps fell
back upon her pillow, and, turning her face to the wall, fell into a
leaden silence.

A knock, and a sweet, pleading voice asking entrance.

"It is Elizabeth Parris. Poor child, she has spent a terrible night,"
said Lady Phipps. "Have you no comfort to give her?"

"None!" said the stern man, with a quiver of the voice. "He was seen
going to the shore with another person, directly after a boat was
engulfed in the breakers--nothing could have lived."

"And who was that other one?" cried the lady, struck by the hesitation
in her husband's voice.

Sir William arose, and came close to the bed, afraid to speak aloud with
that young creature at the door.

"It was Samuel Parris."

The lady uttered a low cry, and buried her face in the pillow. Her noble
heart was shaken as if it had been her own father who was lost.

Again that knock at the door, and now a low, almost harsh voice, bade
the girl come in.

Sir William was hardening himself into composure, that he might tell the
young girl of her bereavement, with the firmness that became his
manhood.

Elizabeth entered timidly, as she always did, but her face beamed with
happiness.

Lady Phipps looked up shocked to the heart.

"Elizabeth!" The lady sat up in her bed and held forth her arms tenderly
as if the girl had been her own child.

"He is here--he is safe--he--"

The young girl fell down upon her knees by the bed, pressing soft kisses
on the lady's hand.

Sir William Phipps arose and went out. It was seldom that his face
betrayed any of the deep feelings of his nature, but as he went forth,
that firm mouth quivered, and he turned from one object to another,
searching eagerly for something.

"Sir William."

The governor gave an imperceptible start, controlled himself, and
reaching forth his hand--the large, firm hand, which had known much toil
in its day--buried that of the young man in its grasp.

"I hope that Lady Phipps was not alarmed by my absence," said Norman, a
little chilled by this composure.

"I cannot quite say that with truth, young man," replied the governor;
"but you will explain all at breakfast. From the state of your garments
I should judge that you had at least been in the water."

"Yes; but you see I came out safe--and that brave old minister, also,
Samuel Parris. I wish you could have seen him, Sir William: he was a
perfect Neptune."

"Nay," answered the governor, with a smile that transfigured his face
from its usual grave expression into something that made the heart leap
towards him, "that is a heathenish name for one of God's ministers; but
if your danger, whatever it prove, was shared by Samuel Parris, it must
have been in a good cause. I am glad, boy, that your night has been
spent with this devout man."

With these words Sir William passed on, and entered his closet,
apparently casting all thought of the youth from his mind. But no sooner
was he alone and the door closed, than he fell upon his knees by the
great oaken chair, which had belonged to his old father on the Kennebec.
There, with bent head, he poured forth the thanksgiving that filled his
soul, so earnestly that his frame shook, and his clasped hands unwove
themselves, covering his face, while the tears that sprang to his eyes
stole softly down the palms.

It was only when alone with his God that the strong man became like a
little child--alone, with the bolts drawn, and his face bowed over the
oaken seat where his father had prayed with the mother and her score of
children by his side.

Governor Phipps joined his family at breakfast, sedate, calm, and with
that dignity of manner which may well accompany a sense of high power.
Lady Phipps could not so well conceal the traces of an anxious and
sleepless night. Her eyes were heavy, her cheeks pale, and the usual
exquisite arrangement of her morning toilet was a good deal disturbed.
The robe of dark chintz was looped back, a little unevenly, from the
full dimity underskirt, and the crimson ribbon that bound the snowy
little cap to her head was knotted in a bow, slightly verging towards
the left temple, instead of lying flat upon the glossy black hair over
the forehead as it should have done.

Besides these little indications of unrest, the lady would draw a deep
breath, now and then, like one who had just recovered from a fright, and
she glanced towards the young secretary from time to time, with a look
of devout thankfulness.

Dear lady, her life had been so full of happiness, so rich in
prosperity, that the danger of one she loved as if he had been her own
son clung around her yet. She grew paler as he told over his strange
adventure on the shore, and seemed greatly interested in the old man who
had been his companion.

He did not mention the name of this person, and passed over the
conversation on the beach entirely, dwelling only on that which marked
their encounter on the heights, when the storm was raging. Some
intuition told him that the young girl, whose eyes dwelt so wistfully on
his, would be pained to know that her father had been for two days
within sight of the roof that covered her without attempting to enter
beneath it.

Governor Phipps seemed unusually interested in the events he described,
and though the youth talked on gayly, a superstitious feeling crept over
the party as he gave a vivid picture of the spectral appearance of the
ship. But when he came to speak of Barbara Stafford, his speech
faltered, a husky feeling clove to his tongue, and it was only by
questions that they gained a knowledge of the strange woman.

"I will ride over to the farm-house to-morrow," said Lady Phipps, with
prompt hospitality; "if she is a gentlewoman, as you say, Norman, we can
be of service. She must have letters of introduction that will warrant
us in asking her here."

Governor Phipps looked suddenly up as his wife spoke and his countenance
changed. It was so unusual to see him in the least disturbed that his
lady remarked it with some anxiety.

"Are you ill, Sir William?"

"I do not know. A strange feeling seized upon me for the moment; a
faintness--a sort of shock--it is nothing."

Lady Phipps looked around for some cause.

"It may be this plateau of flowers, they are unusually fragrant this
morning," she said, looking around for a servant to carry away the
roses, which Norman had gathered, from the table.

"Let me--let me!" cried Elizabeth Parris, seizing upon the flowers, and
carrying them off to her room. She would not have had a leaf touched by
one of the servants for the universe.

Norman followed her with his eyes, smiled with quiet satisfaction, when
he saw her stoop fondly and inhale the breath of the roses as she went
up-stairs, then, leaning towards Lady Phipps, he said, in a low voice,

"The old man was her father!"

"What! Samuel Parris? and pass by this house?" exclaimed the lady in
astonishment. "This is a strange thing, Sir William."

"It is strange--very strange," answered the governor, rising. "I will
seek our old friend and reason with him."

"And I," said his wife, "will seek out the stranger. Goody Brown is a
kind woman, but the poor lady may not obtain all she needs in the
farm-house. Did you hear her name, Lovel?"

"No," answered the youth, with unaccountable hesitation; "but you will
find it embroidered on this handkerchief, which I picked up on the beach
in coming along. The cambric is wet and drenched with sand, but you can
perhaps make it out."

Lady Phipps took the handkerchief and examined the embroidery.
"A coronet," she muttered: "this looks well. But the
name--B--Barbara--Barbara Stafford. Stafford--that is a good old English
name. Sir William, I will surely go and see her."




CHAPTER VI.

A GUIDE TO THE FARM-HOUSE.


The next day after her spectral shrouds were first seen in the harbor,
the good ship came up to her wharf. Among the first passengers that
landed was a dark, foreign-looking man, apparently somewhat under thirty
years of age. He stood upon the wharf with a small leathern bag in his
hand, as if uncertain where to go; but his eyes, black as midnight and
splendid as diamonds, turned excitedly from object to object, as if he
took a vivid interest in every thing that surrounded him. At last they
fell on one of the sailors who had helped Barbara Stafford down the side
of the ship that stormy afternoon. With an eager step he approached the
man.

"Have you heard? did the boatmen bring her safe through the storm?" he
questioned. "The lady--the lady I am speaking of. Did she suffer?--is
she safe and well?"

The man laughed. "She is safe enough in Goody Brown's farm-house," he
said, "and well, too, if the souse she got in the water didn't give her
a cold. But it was an awful tough piece of work, I tell you. If it
hadn't been for that old man, who didn't seem to have so much in him,
for he was thin as a shad, they would all have gone to Davie's locker,
sure as a gun. You never in your born days saw such a tussel as they had
with the breakers the boatmen say."

"Then she is safe and well; for that God be thanked," said the stranger,
turning away. "What more have I to ask or do?"

He spoke sadly, and his fine eyes filled with mist. Then he turned, and
giving the man a piece of money, asked him to show the way to Goody
Brown's farm-house.

After dropping the crown piece into his pocket, the man turned up the
wharf, and walked on side by side with the stranger.

"Seems to me you're a stranger in these parts; never was to Boston
afore, I reckon?" he said, dropping into an old habit of asking questions
with unconscious impertinence.

"You are mistaken. I have been here before," answered the stranger, and
a wild fire lighted up his face. "Years ago I left that wharf a--a--but
I have come back. The world shall know that I have come back."

The sailor looked at him with open astonishment.

"Why what on earth are you so mad about I should like to know?" he said.
"I hain't done nothing to set you off in a tantrum, have I now?"

The stranger smiled.

"You have done nothing," he said, in a voice so gentle that the man
stared again, bewildered by the sudden change. "I was talking to myself
rather than you."

"That's a queer idea, but I've hearn people do sich things afore; it was
in foreign parts, though. We talk like folks in Boston now I tell you,
straight out and up to the mark. But forriners will be forriners,
there's no helping it. Now what is it you want up to Goody Brown's, if I
may be so bold? Is the lady up there any relation of yourn?"

Again the stranger smiled.

"My friend, you are rather bold."

"Ain't I," answered the man with great self-complacency. "That's the way
we Bosting folks come to know more than other people. Ain't afeared to
ask questions. Every man comes right up to his duty on that pint without
flinching. But you hain't told me yet if the lady is a relation or not?"

"No, she is not related to me."

"Only come over in the same ship? I reckoned so, seeing as she was a
cabin passenger and you al'es kept so snug in the steerage. Never saw
you on deck in my life till long after dark. Don't think she ever sot
eyes on you the hull vi'age?"

"No, she never did."

"Now that's something like; can answer a fair question when you want to,
can't you? But what do you go and see her now for? Couldn't you a got
acquainted on ship board if you had wanted ter?"

"Who told you that I did wish to see her?" answered the stranger, a
little impatiently. "Not I, that is certain."

"Then it ain't her you're going to see?" answered the man, in an injured
tone, as if his time had been cruelly trifled with. "Well, maybe it's
Goody Brown you're related to, arter all. Don't look like it, though,
but stranger things than that has happened. She has a sight of cousins
in the old country."

The stranger grew impatient. He turned upon the man almost fiercely, his
eyes flashing fire, his teeth gleaming through the lips lifted from them
in a haughty curve.

"Be quiet, man, you offend me."

"Wheu!" ejaculated the sailor, picking up a bit of shingle from the
ground, and searching for a jackknife which jingled against the silver
crown in his pocket, "getting riley, now, ain't you?"

The fellow's imperturbability was so comical that no resentment could
withstand it. The stranger's face cleared up, and he watched his
companion with disdainful curiosity, who began whittling his shingle as
he walked along.

"Goody Brown isn't your nigh relation, then," he persisted, whittling on
with infinite composure; "cousin to your par or mar, mebby?"

"Goody Brown is nothing to me, understand that!" cried the stranger, at
last harrassed into submission; "but I am weary of salt food, and want a
draught of fresh milk. This is the nearest farm-house, you tell me; so I
ask you to lead me there."

"And you don't want to see the lady?"

"No!"

"And she ain't nothing particular to you?"

"Nothing in any way."

"Well, now, I never did! Why couldn't you say so, to once?" cried the
man, in a tone of plaintive reproach. "What is the use of taking so many
bites of a cherry I want ter know?"

"Is that the farm-house?" inquired the stranger, pointing to the low
stone dwelling sheltered in noble trees that overlooked the harbor.

"Yes, that's Goody Brown's, I reckon."

The stranger stopped short.

"You may return now. I can make my way alone."

The sailor seemed a little disappointed, but he kept on whittling, and
only answered:

"Wal, jest as you're a mind ter; but I kinder reckon you'll miss it in
the long run."

"Miss it, how?"

"Oh, I don't mean nothing particular, only the streets of Boston are
rather sarpentine for strangers, and I kinder feel as if I hadn't more
'en half arned my money yet."

The stranger fell into thought a moment and then answered cheerfully:

"You are right, my good fellow, I shall want a guide. Stay here and take
charge of my bag till I come back; then we will return to the town
together."

The sailor sat down on a rock, and placing the leathern bag at his feet
kept on whittling with an energy that would have seemed spiteful but for
his unmoved features. The traveller left him and walked forward toward
the farm-house. Goody Brown was in her hand-loom weaving a piece of
linen from the yarn she had spun a year before. Her rather trim feet,
cased in calf-skin shoes and yarn stockings, even as her daily toil
could make them, were rising and falling on the treadles with monotonous
jerks. She leaned over from her seat in front of the huge loom, throwing
her shuttle through the web with such earnest industry that every ten
minutes the sharp click of the turning cloth-beam proclaimed her
progress. Directly the headles--or harness, as she called it--would
groan and struggle from the renewed tread of her feet, while the flight
of the shuttle, the bang of the laith, and the thud of the treadles made
such household music as the women of New England gloried in. She was
busy fitting a quill into her shuttle when a strange form darkened the
open door. But her heart was in her work, and she drew the thread
through the eye of her shuttle with a quick breath and a motion of the
tongue before she looked directly that way. Then she saw a remarkably
handsome young man standing upon the threshold, holding his cap in one
hand as if she had been an empress on her throne.

"Madam."

"Did you mean me?" said Dame Brown, laying down her shuttles, and
tightening the strings of her linsey-woolsey apron. "Did you mean me,
sir?"

"Yes, if you are the mistress of this house."

"For want of a better," answered the dame, drawing herself up primly.

"I--I am a stranger. Have just come over in the ship which landed
to-day."

"What, another!" said Goody Brown, coming slowly out of her loom. "I had
the hull house full last night."

"I do not wish to incommode you, my good lady, only to inquire about
those who set out so rashly in the boat before we came up to the wharf.
They were all brought here, I am told."

"Well, yes, I had a houseful of 'em overnight, but this morning they
were well enough to go away."

"What, all?"

"All but the lady; she's completely tuckered out, and won't get out of
her bed to-day, I reckon."

"But she is not seriously hurt?" cried the man, almost gasping for
breath.

"No, I guess not; only kinder worn out. The yarb tea has done her a
sight of good."

The stranger looked at her eagerly as she spoke. A dozen questions
seemed trembling on his lips; but he restrained them, only saying, in a
voice that would tremble in spite of his efforts,

"Then you are certain that she is out of danger?"

"Sartin, of course. She'll be chirk as a bird to-morrow."

The stranger sat down in the chair which the dame offered while she was
speaking. A bowl of warm bread and milk stood on the kitchen hearth,
close by the fire. Goody Brown took it up.

"I've got to take this in, for she's getting hungry, but I won't be gone
more'n a minute."

With this half apology, the good woman opened a side door and went into
Barbara Stafford's room. The man looked after her with eyes full of
impatient yearning. He rose from his chair and stole softly toward the
door, listening; but no sound answered his expectations, and he had
scarcely returned to his seat when Goody Brown came back with the bowl
of bread and milk in her hand. She sat it down in the hearth, and
turning to her visitor, said, in a half whisper,

"She's sound asleep."

"Madam," said the traveller, "will you give me a cup of milk? I have
been so long at sea--"

"Well, now, I shouldn't wonder!" cried the dame, interrupting him. "I'll
go right down to the spring-house and get it."

She took a pitcher from the table and went out. The moment her shadow
left the threshold stone the young man started up and softly opened the
door of Barbara Stafford's room. He paused a moment, with the latch in
his hand, hesitating and breathless, for the lady lay before him in a
profound sleep. The face was turned toward him; one hand rested under
her cheek, the other fell upon the blue and white counterpane. Her thick
golden hair rolled in coils and waves over the pillow.

The young man's eyes grew misty, the breath broke almost in a sob on his
lips. He crept softly toward the bed, fell upon his knees, and gazed
upon the lady with passionate sorrow that might have disturbed an angel
in its first heavenly rest. But she did not move. The deep slumber of
exhaustion held her faculties locked. A coil of hair, loosened by its
own weight, rolled downward and swept across her arm. Still she did not
move. He gathered the tresses gently between his hands, laid them
against his cheek, and pressed wild kisses upon them. Then he heard a
sound. It was Goody Brown's footsteps coming up from the spring-house.
With rash desperation he took that white hand in his, covered it with
kisses soft as the fall of thistledown, dropped it and glided from the
room.

Goody Brown found her guest sitting in his old place near the fire,
looking grieved and sad, but with a warm flush on his cheeks. He took
the milk that she offered; drank a little, it seemed with difficulty,
and, laying a piece of money on the table, turned to go.

"If you'd jest as lieves wait a minit," said the housewife, blushing
like a girl. "I hain't had a chance to ask a single question. They all
went off so sudden; but my old man was aboard the vessel."

"What, your husband?"

"Jes so, Jason Brown; mebby you know something about him?"

The stranger gave a glance at the person he had left whittling in the
far distance and smiled uneasily.

"Yes, I know him," he said. "He came safely ashore with the ship."

"Then she's got to the wharf?" questioned the woman.

"Yes."

"Then he'll be along by-and-by," said the wife, ashamed of taking so
much interest in the subject. "Much obleeged to you for telling me."

Thus dismissed the stranger left the house and went back to the place
where he had left Jason Brown.

"Wal," said that composed personage, "I hope you got a drink of milk
worth having."

"Yes; but why did you not tell me that the woman was your wife?"
answered the stranger.

"Cause you didn't ask me. But how is the old woman?"

"She seems well and was very kind."

"Wimmen are kind by natur," said the sailor, shutting his jackknife with
a jerk, the only sign of impatience yet visible. "But I reckon I'll jest
step in and see how she gets along, if you don't want me tu go about
Boston streets with you right away."

"No, no. I shall not remain in Boston, and can find plenty of guides
where I am going."

"Don't want me to carry this ere bag for you, nor nothin'?" asked the
man a little anxiously, as he gave up the traveller's bag.

"No, no; I prefer to carry it myself. But you are master of that house?"

"Yes, generally; when my wife ain't to home."

"In that case I have some boxes on board the ship, and should like to
place them under your care for a few weeks, could they be moved to your
house."

"Jes so," answered Brown.

"Then take charge of them. I will leave an order on board the ship."

"Jes so."

"And pay you well for the trouble now in advance."

"Jes so," answered Brown, holding out his hand for the money. "Now, if
you've no objections, I'll go up to the house, for I'm afeared the old
woman will be kinder expecting me."

The stranger took his leathern bag from the ground and walked one way,
while Jason Brown went to the farm-house; not rapidly, for he, too, was
ashamed of being in a hurry to see his wife; but with a step that would
grow quick and impatient spite of his philosophy.

"Jason, is that you?" cried Goody Brown, getting out of her loom and
meeting her husband half way to the door. "How have you been?"

"Tough and hearty; but where's the children? I don't see no cradle nor
trundle bed."

The wife did not speak, but began twisting the strings of her apron over
her finger. Jason looked at her earnestly. He saw a single tear drop to
her bosom and sink into the cotton kerchief folded over it.

"Jason, they're both gone. The trundle bed is took down and the cradle
is up in the garret."

"Gone, Prudence, gone! Where?"

"Dead, Jason. They both died of fever in one week."

Another tear came rolling down that still face and fell upon a great
horny hand which was held out to take that of the woman. Those two
hard-working hands shook in each other's clasp a moment, then Jason
Brown drew his gently away and left the house. He wandered down to the
shore, seated himself upon the turf of a broken bank, and took from his
pocket the jackknife and piece of wood that he had stowed away there. He
opened his knife with dismal slowness and gave a whistle which at once
resolved itself into a low wail inexpressibly sad. Then the knife and
the wood dropped from his hands, and he sat still, looking at them
helplessly, while great tears rolled down his cheeks.




CHAPTER VII.

THE UNEXPECTED VISITOR.


For two whole days Barbara Stafford did not leave her bed. She was
exhausted by a long sea-voyage, and saddened by many an anxious day and
night, which had made her passage a wretched one. So she lay still and
tried to rest, that she might gather strength to meet the destiny that
lay before her, whatever that destiny might be.

Meantime the ship was being unloaded. Trunks and packages, marked by the
stranger's name, somewhat ostentatiously it would seem, were conveyed
from its cabin to the farm-house. With this luggage came half a dozen
great boxes, clamped with iron and securely fastened, which astonished
Jason Brown by their heaviness.

These boxes, according to his promise given the dark-browed stranger,
whom he had guided to his own house, Jason Brown stowed away in his
barn, covering them carefully with hay; for there was a mystery in their
weight which made him anxious, and he concealed them conscientiously,
marvelling what they contained and who their owner could be.

At last the strange lady grew restive in the close confinement of that
little room. She arose on the third morning and prepared to dress
herself. She was seized with a desire to go out into the new world, to
learn what it had of good or evil in store for her. Still she dreaded to
look forth and see that great monster ocean which had hurled her to and
fro upon the fearful heave of its waves that terrible night. She had
been here received on that shore with a tempest that had almost
swallowed her up in its angry whirlpools. No wonder that she was filled
with vague dread, and hesitated to look out of the window, which,
curtained with morning-glory vines, framed in a splendid view of the
ocean.

For a time she stood trembling on the floor, half from weakness, half
from an uncontrollable dread of leaving the quiet pillow on which
supreme fatigue had made her slumber sweet. She glanced at the open
sash, through which the sunshine of a lovely summer morning trembled.
She saw the purple bells of the morning-glory vines swaying to and fro
in the soft wind that came sighing up from the water, while drops of dew
fell in glittering rain from the heart-shaped leaves. Alone and beyond
all this came the gushing song of birds, as it were hailing her with
sweet welcomes.

Every thing out of doors seemed so bright that Barbara Stafford grew
strong and almost cheerful. She was now eager to go forth and breathe
the fresh air.

Out of the baggage brought from the vessel she drew forth a dark
brocaded silk, adorned at the neck and sleeves with delicate lace. In
this she proceeded to dress herself, quite unconscious that its richness
was out of keeping with either the scene or her present habitation. It
was the costume of a highly bred gentlewoman of her own country, and
from mere habit she put it on.

The exertion brought a beautiful color to her cheeks. She leaned from
the window and looked out fearlessly on the great ocean which had so
lately threatened her life. It lay before her now like a vast field of
azure, turning the sunshine into opals. Spite of herself she turned from
its treacherous loveliness with a shudder.

Blessed or cursed--I know not which to call it--with that exquisite
delicacy of sense which makes the most brilliant mind at times almost a
slave of the material, she detected among all the perfumes of
neighboring woods the faint fragrance of a sweetbriar that had tangled
itself with the morning-glories, and blossomed with them. She recognized
the perfume. Her quick mind seized upon this as an omen.

Strangely arrayed, it must be confessed, for that simple old homestead,
Barbara Stafford went through the kitchen, which was, for the moment,
empty, and wandered around an angle of the house where the morning
sunshine lay warmly upon an old stone bench half buried in the grass.

Here she sat down, for the exertion of dressing had wearied her. The air
was sweet and balmy, just brightened with a breeze from the distant sea,
and a pretty little opening of cultivated fields, separated from her by
a rail fence, lay dreamily at her left.

Barbara longed to go forth into the shade of those mammoth trees, which
filled the distance with their green leafiness, and under their shelter
look out upon the New World; but a gentle lassitude lay upon her, and,
while she desired exertion, her limbs remained passive--they had not yet
shaken off the numbing effects of the storm.

She sat dreamily looking forth with the sunshine playing among the waves
of her golden hair, and revealing every line and shadow, on a singularly
delicate face, which had carried the complexion of infancy almost into
middle age. The rich scarf, which she had flung over her in coming
forth, fell softly downward, and swept the grass with its gorgeous
folds. She was conscious of nothing but a sensation of pleasure at
seeing the beautiful earth again after a dreary, dreary voyage across
the ocean.

As she sat there, the noise of hoofs on the broken road, leading from
town, had no power to arrest more than a passing thought. This was
followed by a slight rustle of silks, and directly a lady, dressed
somewhat after her own fashion, came through an opening in the fence,
and walked gracefully forward to where Barbara Stafford was sitting.

"I beg ten thousand pardons, madam, but Goody Brown is nowhere to be
seen, and I am compelled to introduce myself," she said, with a charming
little laugh. "I know at a glance that you are the lady I am in search
of; and I--really it is awkward--but I am Lady Phipps."

Barbara Stafford gave a sudden start. Her large, gray eyes grew wild and
black; slowly and steadily her features shrunk together; and making a
faint movement with one hand, as if to catch at something, she struggled
to arise, but fell senseless at her visitor's feet.

When Barbara Stafford arose from the stone bench against which she had
fallen, there was pallor on her cheek, and bewilderment in her eyes,
deeper and more painful to behold than is usual after a mere
fainting-fit. Lady Phipps observed the pallor increase, and that she
shrunk back with a shudder from the arm which was striving to support
her.

"My dear madam, you are not well; you suffer," said the kind matron,
coloring slightly as she felt the thrill of repulsion. "Let me help you
into the house."

"No," answered Barbara, sweeping one hand across her forehead three or
four times, while her eyes were fastened on Lady Phipps with a troubled,
wistful look, as if she had not really seen her features before. "I
think--"

She paused, turned her eyes away from the face she had been searching,
and a spasm of pain swept over her forehead, drawing the brows together
with an unmistakable sign of acute sensibility. She looked up again,
striving to smile.

"Ah, now I remember. Yes, I am sometimes subject to these turns--it is
very girlish and weak, no doubt, but the long sea-voyage, the storm--do
not mind me, lady, I am well now; quite well and strong. Forgive me,
but"--again she broke off, pressed one hand hard against her side, and
said, with a quick catch of the breath, "Lady Phipps--did you say that
Lady Phipps had done me this honor?"

"Yes; I was about to give my name, when you were seized with this
terrible fainting-fit. The governor is so much occupied just now that he
could not come himself, though he was deeply interested in your
condition. I assure you I really could hardly keep from embracing that
dear young Lovel for his bravery in rescuing you from the foundered
boat."

"Young Lovel!" repeated Barbara, quickly; "young Lovel! Is that his
name?"

"Of course you could not be expected to know any thing about names; but
you will remember the young man who nearly lost his own life in dragging
you from the water?"

"Remember him! oh, yes."

"And the dear old minister, brother Parris, with his mild, quiet
ways--to think that he should have been in Boston for the first time in
years, just to help save you; it seems quite like a miracle, or a bit of
the witchcraft that is so fashionable just now."

"Parris--Parris!" repeated Barbara, with a laboring breath.

"That," said Lady Phipps, "was the name of the tall gentleman; an old
friend of Sir William's; indeed, the very man whose benediction made me
his wife."

The hand which Barbara had again lifted to her forehead dropped slowly
down; her lips looked cold and blue, but she stood up firmly, and
excepting one wild glance over her shoulder, as if impelled to flee,
kept her ground, though for an instant she seemed turning into a statue.
After a little, she looked up with one of those gentle smiles, with
which the most refined anguish seeks to clothe itself before the world,
and said:

"You are very kind, my lady, and I am not ungrateful. But since I came
to this land every thing seems like a dream. Indeed, my voyage itself is
more like a vision than reality; in a little time I can better express
myself. Will you be seated here, in the morning sunshine?--it is very
pleasant, or seemed pleasant a little while ago--or would you prefer to
sit in-doors? My good friends here have given me a tolerably pretty
room, and will make Lady--Lady Phipps very welcome."

She spoke the lady's title with the same quick gasp that had marked her
utterance before, and again the shudder ran through her form.

"Yes, yes; let us go in-doors; then you can lie down quietly, or sit in
an easy-chair, while I do my little errand more ceremoniously, for to
speak the truth you look very pale yet. Take my arm; indeed you can
hardly walk."

Barbara only bowed; she could not force herself to touch the lady's arm,
but, with a will that was like strength, walked into the house. Lady
Phipps followed her, lifting the skirt of her dress daintily from the
grass, and smiling with a sort of puzzled air, as if she did not quite
understand the scene she was acting in.

Barbara entered her own room, which was the best apartment in the house,
and according to the usages of the time, furnished with a high bed,
covered with a blue and white yarn coverlet, and pillows like little
snow-drifts. A bureau of cherry-tree wood, with two or three stiff
wooden chairs, an oaken arm-chair with a broad, splint bottom, stood by
the window, with its curtain of sweetbrier and morning-glory vines.
This, Barbara offered to her visitor. But Lady Phipps, with that genial
grace which made every action of hers like a sunbeam, wheeled the chair
around, and motioned that Barbara should occupy it. Then she seated
herself on the bed, burying one elbow in the snow of the pillow, and
drooping her round cheek into the palm of her hand.

"Now," she said, with a charming smile, "that we are both comfortable,
let me give my invitation in proper form. First, young Lovel, who is my
husband's secretary, you know, or are now informed, has set the whole
gubernatorial mansion wild about you. He will have it--but no matter
about his young fancies--he of course is very anxious that you should
not suffer inconvenience, or remain a stranger in the New World, where
Englishmen and Englishwomen should meet as brothers and sisters. He
could not come himself."

"I trust--I hope--that the young gentleman has suffered no injury?" said
Barbara, half starting from the chair; while for the first time Lady
Phipps saw the color rush to her face. "I should be grieved."

"No harm in the world," said Lady Phipps, laughingly interrupting her;
"but to tell you the truth, he was so pleasantly employed, that I had no
heart to bring him away."

Barbara looked up with a questioning glance; a grave smile stole over
her lips, and she said very quietly--

"Indeed! You must all have been very anxious about him."

"Anxious! You never saw such a night! None of us thought of rest. The
governor, whose self-control is the admiration of everybody, wandered
about the town all night long, while I and poor little Elizabeth
Parris--the pretty young creature I hinted at, you know--really fretted
ourselves almost into hysterics. Let me assure you, upon my honor, I
almost knew how people feel when they are unhappy."

"Almost!" murmured Barbara Stafford, lifting her eyes with a gleam of
mournful astonishment. But Lady Phipps was full of her subject, and went
on.

"So, after we had welcomed Norman back again, and petted him into
believing himself of the greatest possible consequence, I came off here
to beg that you will leave this lonesome old place, and honor Sir
William's roof, while it shall suit your convenience."

"But I am a stranger--even a nameless one."

"I beg your pardon--not altogether. Sir William has, as you know, lived
a good deal in England, and the Staffords, of Lincolnshire, are among
his most powerful friends."

"The Staffords, of Lincolnshire?"

"Oh, I forget, you have no idea how we found out the name. It was on the
handkerchief you lost in the sand. 'Barbara Stafford,' a fine old name
that my husband loves well."

A faint smile stole over the strange lady's face, but she only bent her
head in acknowledgment of Lady Phipps's kindness.

"Your name alone is sufficient introduction, but Sir William is curious
to know to what branch of the family it belongs--the earl?"

"I am in no way connected with the Earl of Stafford," said Barbara,
quickly; "in fact, have no claim upon the hospitality of your--of Sir
William Phipps. My object in coming to America is perhaps already
accomplished. With many thanks for this kindness, I must, for the
present at least, decline your invitation."

Lady Phipps looked a little disappointed. She was so accustomed to
having her own way, and seeing her very caprices regarded as a law, that
this refusal of the stranger to become her guest brought the color to
her brow.

"The governor will be greatly disappointed," she said, displacing her
elbow from the pillow with a movement of graceful impatience. "I really
shan't know what to say. Norman, too, will be quite beside himself. They
will think me a miserable ambassadress--in fact, if any thing makes me
ill-natured and awkward, it is a refusal."

Barbara almost smiled. Notwithstanding her summertime of life, there was
something very attracting in Lady Phipps's sparkling manner, which,
beneath the frank playfulness of a child, betrayed all the dignity of a
proud woman.

"It is not a refusal," said Barbara, gently; "perhaps only a delay; but
just now I am too--too weary for society, and need time for rest."

"Then we shall yet have the pleasure?" exclaimed Lady Phipps,
brightening, and holding out her hand; but she became grave in an
instant, for the palm that met hers was cold as snow.

"You are, indeed, quite unfit for exertion," she said.

Barbara drew the cold hand from Lady Phipps's clasp, and, standing up,
looked at her with a strained gaze as she left the room. The moment she
was quite alone, wrapped up in the stillness of an empty house, the pale
woman walked forward to the bed, fell upon it without a breath or a sob,
and lay motionless with her face to the pillow.

That night, after all the family were asleep, except Goody Brown, she
was surprised by the rustle of a silk dress at her elbow, just as she
was raking up the kitchen fire for the night. She turned quickly, and
saw her guest, who stood shivering on the hearth as if it had been the
depth of winter.

"Goodness me!" exclaimed the housewife, planting her iron shovel with a
plunge into the ashes; "I thought you'd gone to bed long ago. Any thing
the matter?"

"Nothing--nothing!" answered the lady, sinking into one of the
straight-backed chairs that stood near the hearth; "I heard you
stirring, and so came out. Sit down a little while; I would like to ask
a few questions about this new country--about Boston and its people."

Goody Brown seated herself on the dye-tub, which occupied a corner of
the chimney, and smoothing down her checked apron prepared to listen.
She was no great talker at any time, and though the questions asked by
her guest were low-toned, and uttered at long intervals, she heard them
patiently and answered each in its place, without betraying any of that
curiosity said to be characteristic of the New England matron of later
days.

During the whole conversation, Barbara sat back in her chair, quite
still, gazing upon the half-smothered embers with a dull, heavy look.
The tallow candle, with its long tow wick, that occupied a little round
stand in a corner, left her face in the shadow, and the good woman
remained quite unconscious how pale it was till her guest arose to say
good-night; then she remembered how husky her voice had been, and how
she seemed to shiver with cold.

"Do let me rake open the embers and give you a bowl of yarb tea, and put
another coverlet on the bed," she urged, in her stiff, motherly way;
"the teeth e'en a'most chatter in your head; you'll sartinly be took
down agin."

"No, no! I shall be quieter now that I know--that I know all about the
country, thank you."

And with a soft, gliding step, noiseless as when she entered, Barbara
went into her room again.

"That's strange," muttered Goody Brown, as she sat before the buried
fire with a foot planted on each andiron, meditating on the conversation
she had just held. "Now can she be any relative to the governor or his
wife, or the Salem minister, I wonder? She's mighty curious about them.
Well, thank goodness, I'd as lief tell her all I know about 'em as not.
There ain't no witchcraft in the truth."




CHAPTER VIII.

THE MINISTER AND HIS PUPIL.


Governor Phipps and Samuel Parris had been neighbors for many years.
They had known each other when Parris was first settled over the church
in Salem--a man in his prime--and the governor was the apprentice of a
ship-builder near by. More than this; when Phipps was an apprentice and
a dreamer, as all men of great capacities are at some period of their
lives, thirsting for knowledge and restive as a wild animal, because all
its sources were closed to him, Samuel Parris received the lad every
night beneath his roof, and spent hours and hours in teaching him those
rudiments of learning which are the key to all knowledge.

Parris had been an enthusiast, and a visionary man from his youth up. He
was simple, pious, with a vein of rich poetry in his nature which could
never be worked out fully in the pulpit, but was concentrated in his
affections, and sometimes threatened the very foundations of his
understanding.

The predominance of a vivid imagination over faculties of no ordinary
stamp kept the minister's mind out of balance, and made his life an
unfinished poem. Had all the other faculties of his mind been equal,
Samuel Parris must have been a great poet or powerful statesman. Lacking
so much and possessing so much, he was always good, affectionate, and
most kind. A love of the pure and beautiful possessed him so entirely
that it broke forth in veins of exquisite poetry in his sermons, and at
times gave to his conversation an eloquence which seemed like absolute
inspiration.

Like the minister, Phipps had much rough poetic ore in his composition;
but underneath it all was a foundation of hard, practical good sense: he
reasoned, while the minister dreamed. The poetry in his nature was
enough to give fire and energy to his actions: it broke out through all
his great after-schemes like veins of gold in a rock.

But in this man all the faculties came up and mated themselves with this
high mental element, forming a most vigorous mind, and a will which
nothing could conquer when set upon a right object.

Let no one smile when I speak of imagination as essential to real
greatness. It were better to question fairly if absolute greatness ever
existed without it. This high element of the mind is as necessary to a
superior character as observation. It gives force and coloring to the
other faculties. But with Phipps all the soul traits that make up a
great character rose to a commanding level, urging the imagination to
useful purposes, as machinery turns the beautiful waterfall into a
mighty power.

Parris was a hoarder of books, rare manuscripts, and even old
newspapers, which, coming from over sea, were not very plentiful in the
colonies in those days, and thus were rendered worthy of preservation.
It was in this store of ancient literature that the lad Phipps took his
first course of reading. In these researches--for the acute lad, in his
thirst for information, devoured every scrap of print that came in his
way--it chanced that the two fell upon an old paper, which gave an
account of some Spanish galley, wrecked years before on the coast of La
Plata. Laden with fabulous wealth, in silver, and jewels, and gold, this
galley still lay in the depths of the ocean. They had talked the matter
over, Parris as he would have dwelt upon a fairy tale, had such things
been permitted to his creed; Phipps with reflection and purposes, for
the first burning thoughts of great enterprise rose in his mind that
night.

After studying the old newspaper diligently in every word and syllable,
Phipps left Salem and took up his abode in Boston, then went a voyage to
sea, studying navigation with a zeal that equalled his first efforts at
reading.

He returned to the colonies in the first strength of his youth, taller
in person, and with a dignity of carriage that distinguished him all his
days. But his best friends knew little of his purposes now. The
knowledge which he had acquired with the habit of concentrated thought
had lifted him out of his old life. The very acquirements obtained at so
much cost, while they exalted him in the estimation of his old friends,
only isolated him from their sympathies. Other feelings besides ambition
may have stirred in the young man's heart at this time; if so, but one
human being ever became his confidant.

Shortly after his return from sea, William Phipps came one night fifteen
miles through the wilderness, which separated Boston from Salem, and
asked an interview with his old friend.

They went into a little room, the scene of their first studies, and
conversed long and earnestly together. The subject of this conversation
no one knew. The Indian woman in the kitchen heard her master's voice
more than once, rising from entreaty to expostulation, but she took
little heed of the matter, as arguments between the youth and his
teacher often arose over some old book or worn-out manuscript, which
they chanced to be studying together.

But one thing is certain; the great metaphysical law of life prevailed
here. The strong intellect conquered the weaker; and when William Phipps
rode away in the darkness, it was with a certainty that his iron will
had prevailed over the gentle reasoning, aye, and the conscience, too,
of his kind old friend.

No human being but the Indian woman knew a word of this mystery, if
mystery there was; but on the very next night she heard the sound of
hoofs coming rapidly through the woods, and knew by the sudden pause
that more than one person had dismounted before her master's house. But
as she left her work to open the door, Mr. Parris, pale and excited, met
her in the passage, and ordered her back to the kitchen in a voice that
she dared not disobey.

After this she heard the continuous movement of feet in the adjoining
room, the low muttering of voices; then her master came hurriedly out,
asking for the camphor bottle which she found in a corner cupboard,
wondering greatly what he could want of it; but he took the flask from
her hand without a word and went into the room again.

In less than half an hour she heard the door close, and the softened
tread of horses returning towards the woods along the forest turf. She
looked out of the kitchen window. Two persons on horseback, a man and a
woman, were riding by. The moonlight lay full upon their faces. That of
the man she did not regard, for the loveliness of the young girl, around
whom the moonbeams fell in luminous clearness, absorbed all her
faculties. That was a face to be remembered forever, as we think of
angel forms seen in dreams--a haunting face, never recognized clearly if
seen again perhaps, but always disturbing the memory. Old Tituba was a
woman to ponder over that face when she thought of the great Hunting
Grounds of her people.

After this she heard her master walking all night long in the little
room, back and forth, back and forth, till daybreak.

But for the beautiful face Tituba might never have remembered these
things again, though any event became important in that quiet dwelling;
but on the very next night, just at the hour when she had first heard
the sound of hoofs upon the highway, there came from the walnut tree
that overshadowed the minister's dwelling, a low wailing shout that rang
through the house like the scoff of a demon. Tituba went out, for she
had not thought much of the matter and had no reason to be afraid, and
searched among the walnut tree boughs for some owl, or other wild bird
with a hoarse cry, like that she had heard.

The moon was up, a round harvest moon, with a multitude of bright stars
that looked down into the bosom of the walnut tree; scattering the dense
shadows everywhere behind the branches. But the Indian woman could
discover no living thing--nothing but the soft quiver of leaves and the
starlight kissing away their dew.

She went in, satisfied that the noise had come from a passing bird, but
the minute the wooden latch fell from her hand closing the door, the
cry, hoarser and louder, ran through the house again. Then Tituba began
to be afraid. She had heard of witchcraft, and believed in it, like her
master, and all the wise men of the colony. From that hour she never
heard a hoof upon the turf, though it were only that of a young fawn, or
the hoot of an owl in the woods, that she did not remember what she
solemnly believed to be the witch-gathering in her master's study, and
tremble in her chimney corner till it had passed away.

After this time, William Phipps went forth to work out his ambitious
purposes, and Samuel Parris fell back into the quiet of his home, a
little troubled at times, and feeling the need of extra fasting and
prayer, but the same thoughtful, studious Christian that he had always
been.

But all at once, when he was on the very verge of old age, when the most
intense affections of common men soften into pleasant habits, this man,
of mature years, awoke from the lethargy of a life-time, and took to his
bosom a fair young girl of his church, an orphan, who had been cast upon
its charity, and, as it were, led by heaven into his household. It was a
sudden act, prompted by the buried romance which had so long slept
within him, sure to find utterance at some period of his life, either
through the intellect or the affections.

For a time he was very happy and forgot every thing, even heaven itself,
in the company of his beautiful young wife, who loved him with that
deep, unselfish love, which partook somewhat of veneration, but more of
child-like gratitude.

But soon the old man grew afraid of himself, afraid of the love which
centred entirely around that young creature, bringing her like an
unbidden angel between his very prayers and the throne of grace. Thus
his life was spent between fits of wild devotion and paroxysms of
remorse, lest he had become an idolater.

Time passed; it was more than twice twelve months before the man of
dreams and the man of action met again.

The one was absorbed by his ambition, the other had become selfish in
his love: save on that one subject he had no sympathy to give.

But as time glided away, leaving the hair on his temples whiter and
whiter, the old man was seized with an unaccountable dread. When his
young wife in all the bloom of her goodness and beauty had made him the
father of a daughter, her living shadow, vague, dark apprehension seized
upon him, and weeks before that young mother sickened and died, the
blackness of a great sorrow overshadowed his soul. He stood by her grave
and saw the fresh earth heaped upon it, and, shaking his venerable white
head, when his friends would have consoled him, went away into the
desolation of his old age, a broken-hearted man, weary of life, and yet
afraid to die.

He believed that the Divine Father had cast him off for bestowing the
love which should have been his on the beautiful creature who was gone,
and that for this sin he must wander on through life a mark of divine
displeasure. So he withdrew himself even from his best friends, for they
only reminded him of his meek, beautiful wife and his own idolatrous
sin.

The very song of the birds, and the sight of the green woods added to
his grief, for she was buried in springtime, when all the trees were in
blossom, and the wild birds had sung sweetly over her grave while they
were filling in the earth upon her coffin.

Samuel Parris retreated into the dreary solitude of his home, and gave
up his life to his daughter, the child of his old age. But for this
child his grief would have been utter despair, for every breath was
drawn in the desolation of a widowed heart. If he went to the fireside,
or the table, or awoke in the dead of night, it was to find the solitude
of the grave about him. His chamber, dark and heavy with the atmosphere
of death, his home, his very heart, which had been occupied with so
blessed and holy a love but a few days before, desolated forever.

About this time William Phipps sailed for England, became captain of a
royal ship, then, following the great idea of his life, sailed for La
Plata, and returned home years after, rich from the gold and silver
fished up from the wreck which he had discovered almost by a
miracle--with a title of honor, no inconsiderable thing at any time even
in America--and more important still, accredited by King William as
Governor of New England.

A few months after his old pupil became governor of the province, Samuel
Parris was summoned from his hearth, now the most desolate spot on earth
to him. His presence was required in Boston.

He set forth with many misgivings, for the letter came from his friend
and pupil, William Phipps.

The house, to which the letter directed him, had been the residence of a
rich merchant, and was now occupied by his young widow; one of the
wealthiest and most beautiful gentlewomen of the province.

Sir William Phipps met his friend at the door of this mansion. The
minister observed, with surprise, that the house was thronged with
company, and that his young friend was dressed richly; like a bridegroom
about to appear at the altar. They sat down together, both pale, and the
minister betraying great anxiety both in his look and manner. Their
conversation was brief and earnest, but they spoke in undertones; and
the lady who sat below, in her bridal garments, wondered, in her
happiness, what the two could find to talk about so long; for that short
interview seemed an age to her.

They came down at last: the bridegroom pale, but composed; the minister
tremulous, like a man about to undertake some painful duty.

The marriage ceremony was performed which made the lady we have seen
William Phipps's wife.

Samuel Parris returned home more thoughtful than ever. Indeed, time had
no balm for this old man, and but for his lovely child he must have
withered away in unceasing sorrow for his wife; in remorse for the sin,
as he deemed it, of loving her too well.

When Sir William Phipps heard of this, his heart was touched with
compassion for the old man, who had unlocked the golden gates of
knowledge to him, and, at the suggestion of his gentle wife, he sent an
urgent request that Elizabeth, the daughter whose education had been the
business and solace of the old man's life, should spend a portion of her
seventeenth year with Lady Phipps, who, childless herself, would become
a second mother to her.

It was like a new death for the old man to part with his child, but he
saw by the wistful pleading of her eyes, that she longed to see
something of the bright world, and surrendered her to the servant whom
Sir William Phipps had sent to escort her to Boston, with a pang almost
as great as that with which he had consigned her mother to the grave.

Through all the blossom season of the year, and into midsummer,
Elizabeth remained with her new friends. She was very happy; and while
his heart yearned for her presence, the old minister forbore to press
her return, or to inform her how dreary her absence had rendered his
home. But at last, urged on by some impulse which left him without the
power of resistance, though he prayed and struggled against it for many
days, the old man took his staff and went all the way on foot from Salem
to Boston, perhaps to see his child, certainly to look upon the roof
that covered her, and to breathe the same air that brought bloom and
beauty to her young face.

But the very joy that filled his being as he came nearer and nearer to
the town, admonished him how completely his love had gone forth, once
more, to a being perishable as the wife he mourned. What if the
displeasure of God for this creature-worship should fall upon the child
also? The old man's soul trembled within him at these thoughts. He dared
not even approach the house where his child lived; yet he wandered with
irresistible fascination on the outskirts of the neighborhood, longing
to ask the passers-by if they had seen her, but never venturing to
unclose his lips.

Thus the old man, striving against the best feelings of his nature as a
sin had roamed forth into the storm of that terrible day, and he now
wandered about in the sunshine afraid of himself, afraid of the very
sight of his own child, yet hovering around the house where she dwelt,
like a wounded bird that cannot forsake the tree where its young are
nested.

As he was thus upon the outskirts of the grounds, Elizabeth looked forth
from the window of her room, and, uttering a cry of thrilling joy, that
had so often made the old man tremble, as he thought, with forbidden
happiness--"My father! Oh, my father!"




CHAPTER IX.

THE FORCED SACRAMENT.


It was the Sabbath--that solemn day in the colonies when the voices of
men were hushed, or only uplifted in prayer--when the very children held
their breath with awe, and the good wife scarcely ventured to smooth the
bed she had slept in, or dress the food for her household, lest the holy
time given to the Lord should be encroached upon.

The very smoke, as it curled up from the chimneys of Boston, seemed to
float off more dreamily than on other days. There was no sound of life
abroad, for men who went forth left the beaten track and walked softly
along the turf on each side of the highway, as if the noise of their own
footsteps was a sacrilege.

But on this particular Sabbath there was, at least within doors, signs
of unusual commotion. The mother in each household brought forth her
best apparel, as if to grace some great occasion; while the good father,
in his Sabbath-day raiment, read an extra chapter in the Bible before
going forth, and drilled his offspring into deeper seriousness. On that
day the most mischievous urchin would have looked upon a single smile as
among the unforgivable sins of which he had heard so much, but could
never understand.

But of all the houses in the town, the gubernatorial mansion was the
most silent; and yet important preparations were going on in its stately
rooms. The servants spoke in whispers as they moved up and down the
broad staircase; and even Norman Lovel, whose gay spirits were not
easily tamed, looked grave as he seated himself by the window to wait.

At last, an open carriage, drawn by four gray horses, swept slowly
around the gravelled path, and drew up on one side of the steps.

Then the front door swung open, both heavy leaves at once, and Governor
Phipps appeared, followed by four attendants, bearing halberts.

It is hardly possible to imagine a more imposing presence than this
extraordinary man presented. His self-made greatness seemed like an
inheritance, so completely did his air and sumptuous habiliments
harmonize with each other. The broad, firm forehead, the deep-set eyes,
proud and steady in their glances, the firm mouth, grave without
severity, the thick hair, so slightly powdered that a few gray threads
were still to be detected in the wavy masses, the upright figure, tall
and robust, all possessed the power of command, had no other signs of
state been lidded to them. But no outward effect was wanting.

The slight gold embroidery on his undervest of snowy satin, gleamed in
faint ripples through the delicate Flanders lace that edged his linen,
and shed its misty richness over the white facings of a purple velvet
coat, which fell back from his chest, and, with broad gold buttons
gleaming down the front, descended within an inch or two of his knees.
The garters, which united his small clothes and white silk stockings,
were buckled up with diamonds, and the crimson straps of his Spanish
leather shoes were fastened in like manner. From the plush hat, turned
up at the sides, which crowned that lofty head, to the yellow lace that
fell over his doeskin gloves, every thing bespoke the man of strength
and refinement.

Sir William Phipps descended the steps of his mansion with a grave,
almost sad, countenance, and, followed by his attendants, walked away,
bending his steps towards North Boston.

As he turned into the open street, a faint hum, like the slow swarming
of innumerable bees, came up from the town; and directly the streets
were alive with neatly dressed people, all tending in the same
direction, with their governor.

Sir William had hardly gone out of sight when the carriage took its
station before the entrance of his dwelling, and Lady Phipps,
accompanied by Elizabeth Parris and Norman Lovel, descended the steps
and entered it.

Lady Phipps had evidently been weeping, for there was a flush around her
eyes; and Elizabeth Parris seemed even more solemnly impressed than her
friend. Young Norman, too, looked serious; and, as if each had been
possessed with an inward prayer, they remained silent, like persons
about to join a funeral train.

They were seated. Two attendants, bearing halberts, mounted behind; and
the equipage swept slowly away, following the governor at a given
distance, till it drew up before the North Boston meeting-house.

A crowd was before the entrance--a silent, reverential crowd--composed
of devout men, who spoke in whispers if they addressed each other; and
scarcely allowed the excitement natural to the occasion to appear even
in their eyes. This crowd parted to the right and left, first that the
minister, with Samuel Parris at his side, might pass through; and again
to make a passage for the governor and his train.

Sir William passed on, without recognizing a friend among many that
gazed upon him from the throng, for such worldly courtesies were not for
the holy Sabbath day in those times.

Before the crowd closed in, Lady Phipps drove slowly up. The party
descended at a respectful distance from the door, to which the ladies
moved with downcast eyes, and disappeared in the meeting-house.

Right and left, through the broad aisles that crossed each other in the
centre of the building, the congregation poured in, till that heavy,
wooden edifice was full.

The two ministers mounted one of the curving staircases leading to the
broad box pulpit, which lifted them to a level with the heavy galleries.
The deacons ranged themselves in a long pew, which ran across the front,
far below. On a narrow platform stood a table of cherry-wood, on which
was a silver trencher of unleaven bread, cut in small fragments; a
tankard and a goblet, over which a snowy napkin had been reverently
cast: and, a little apart from these, stood a large china bowl filled
with pure water.

These preparations, simple as they were, seemed to strike that primitive
congregation with unusual awe. Each member cast a solemn glance at the
table before he seated himself, and the funereal silence that reigned
through the house before the service commenced became almost painful.

That was a long, labored sermon, full of quaint wisdom and ponderous
theology. But the congregation listened to its innumerable divisions
with intense interest, while the governor sat wrapped in thought, much
paler than usual, and with a holy sadness creeping over his face.

The gentle lady by his side raised her eyes now and then to his, with a
look of wistful sympathy.

The sermon was over; the long prayer said; then Samuel Parris arose from
a back seat in the pulpit, and came down the steps; his gray hair
streaming over his temples, his eyes full of strange light, and his hand
pressed hard on the banisters to help his descent.

The old man stood up on the platform in front of the deacons, and turned
his gaze upon the governor's seat.

Sir William Phipps arose, followed by a faint sob from that
crimson-lined pew, and with a firm, slow tread, advanced in front of the
communion-table. Perhaps in his whole life that strong man had never
been more intensely agitated. Danger he had endured without
flinching--sorrow, deep, deep sorrow, he had suffered in profound
silence, seeking neither counsel nor sympathy; but to the very depths of
his soul Sir William was a proud man, and it was with a great struggle
that he stepped down from his high estate, and consented to become as a
little child in the presence of so many people, mentally inferior to
himself, and who could never comprehend the sublime strength which
possessed his soul.

He stood up before the people, and in a firm but very gentle voice
addressed them. He touched briefly on the salient points of a most
eventful life; spoke with great humility of his own shortcomings, and
with solemn and touching dignity laid his heart in genuine faith on the
altar of God.

It was an eloquent address, full of sincerity and earnestness. In his
whole life, perhaps, Sir William Phipps had never appeared so great
before his people, or had so completely taken possession of their
respect.

As he commenced speaking, there glided through the door, which had been
left open for a free circulation of air, a strange lady, dressed more
richly than was common in those days, except in the very highest
classes. She stood for a moment looking around, bewildered to find
herself among so many people; and then, as if arrested and held in
thrall by the deep-toned voice which filled the edifice, she stood
perfectly motionless, pale and still as marble.

The general attention was so completely absorbed by the speaker, that no
one observed this singular entrance, and the lady stood alone among all
that human life unconscious of its presence as if she had been in the
depths of a forest.

Sir William Phipps ceased speaking, and, turning to his old friend, who
stood by the table with tears in his eyes, bent his stately head for the
baptismal rites.

Then the lady came slowly forward, moving like a ghost up the broad
aisle, not as it were by her own volition, but impelled by some
all-absorbing power of which she was herself unconscious. The
congregation, occupied by the ceremony, saw nothing of this till she
came up almost to the pulpit, and turning aside, stood mute and still as
before, with her woeful eyes turning first upon the governor, then on
Samuel Parris.

It did not seem that either of these men saw the intruder, for they
looked each upon the other with glances of solemn affection, such as men
of kindred sympathies alone can understand. But as if that singular
presence would make itself felt in spite of any preoccupation, a shadow
fell upon the face of the governor, and those who looked closely saw the
thin hand of Samuel Parris tremble as he laved up the crystal drops that
were to purify his brother's soul. His voice, too, faltered as he spoke
the few words necessary to the baptismal ceremony, and yet he had not
turned his face or raised his eyes from the bowed head before him.

Then, with the holy water drops still trembling on his forehead, Sir
William lifted his face, and encountered the gaze of that strange woman.
What were those intensely mournful eyes to him, that he should feel
their glance trembling through his soul? Why did that wild sight come
into the calm depths of his eyes? With a great effort he turned away,
and bethought himself of the still more sacred rites which were to
complete his acceptance among the people of God. But the fervor of
devotion had passed; he could no longer concentrate every thought upon
the God whom he had promised to serve. The sacred bread touched his
lips, and the sacramental wine laved them, but, even as he returned the
goblet to the trembling hold of his friend, the fascination of those
eyes drew his soul away. He turned from the communion-table, and went to
the pew where his wife and her young friends were sitting; there, bowing
his face between his hands, he strove to pray, but could only shrink and
shudder as if some terrible calamity were upon him.

There was a brief benediction, and the congregation, held motionless
till the governor and his family passed out, broke up and departed
through the various doors, leaving the meeting-house empty. No, not
quite; for Samuel Parris still lingered behind, and busied himself in
covering the consecrated wine and bread; for he could not endure that
other hands should touch the symbols our Lord has made holy. He was
reverently placing the napkin over them when Barbara Stafford came from
her station in the shadow of the pulpit, and, kneeling at his feet,
besought him that she too might partake of the holy bread and wine.

Parris was an old man, and his eyes were dim with tears, for to his
gentle heart there had been something peculiarly touching in the rites
he had just administered to his friend. Besides, the lady was so changed
by her toilet, that he had no suspicion that she was the person whose
life he had saved a few days before. Thus he stood for a moment lost in
astonishment at the strangeness of the request.

"Sister," he said very kindly--for with thoughts of the Saviour's
suffering so close to his heart, how could he do otherwise?--"this is a
singular request. Know you not that the sacrament of to-day was special
to one purpose? The congregation was not expected to join in it."

"I know that it may seem out of place to ask so much, even of a servant
of God, and in a house given up to his worship. But if there is a holy
virtue in this bread and wine, give it to me that I may be strong; for I
declare to you, old man, there is not a soul on the broad earth that
needs it as mine does now."

How mournfully those eyes implored him, how deep and pathetic were the
pleadings of that sweet voice!

Imperceptibly the old minister began to tremble as he had done a few
minutes before, with his hand in the baptismal water.

She laid one hand on her heart: "Old man, if you are a true servant of
God, listen; I am afraid of myself, for humanity is very frail--here
with that voice still ringing through my brain, with--but no matter, I
am a woman, and weak--alone, and oh how desolate! While the power is
strong upon me, I would breathe a vow which no one but the Holy of
holies shall hear; I would seal that vow with the bread and wine he has
tasted."

"But sister!"

"Do not refuse me: it is a little thing for you, all the future to me.
Give me to taste of the cup while I have strength; for I say unto you,
old man, the spirit that impels me will not suffice to struggle against
a great temptation, without help from heaven."

The face of that woman was eloquent with noble resolves, the pathos of
her voice would have touched a heart of ice.

The old man slowly removed the napkin, and laid his hand upon the wine
cup. Barbara's eyes turned wistfully upon it.

"Remember," said the minister, taking a morsel of the bread between his
fingers--"remember, he that eateth of this bread or drinketh of this cup
unworthily--"

"I know, I know--I do remember," she urged, interrupting him; then
bowing herself and placing the bread between her lips, she continued
solemnly, "before the most Holy, I do not eat or drink unworthily."
Then, with a spirit of self-abnegation in her soul which amounted almost
to martyrdom, Barbara Stafford put her lips to the goblet which another
mouth had just touched, and drank of the sacred wine.

After that covenant with her God, a calm, sweet peace composed her
features, and settled on her whole being. For a moment she seemed to
have no sorrow, but rising from her knees took the minister's hand,
pressed her lips upon it, and went away.

It was not till she had gone, and he found himself in the empty
building, that Samuel Parris fully realized what he had done. By the
rules of his church no person, not an admitted member, had the privilege
of sacrament. How did he know if this woman was spiritually qualified?
By what right had he, standing at the foot of another man's pulpit, to
break bread and wine, perhaps to an unbeliever? Who was this woman who
had exercised an influence so potent upon him, and, as it were, wrested
the holy bread and wine from his hand? Surely the evil one could not
have tempted him in a form like that.

These thoughts troubled the minister greatly, and he left the
meeting-house saddened by the waywardness of his own heart, which would
be constantly following its kind impulses, in spite of the strict rules
laid down by his creed.




CHAPTER X.

HUNTED DOWN.


Samuel Parris had gone up from Salem to Boston impelled only by an
unconquerable wish to breathe the same air with his only child; but when
Governor Phipps found that he was in the same place with himself,
wandering about the streets, and crucifying his heart, because of his
great love for the daughter of his old age, he went in search of him;
and, after much persuasion and reasoning, induced a more wholesome frame
of mind, and, for a little time, the minister was able to receive the
glad welcome of his child without self-reproach.

The healthy good sense of his friend had a wonderful effect on the old
man, who had become morbid from constant loneliness and much sorrow. The
tone of his fine mind grew stronger under a roof where the affections
had full scope, and where a fresh, breezy atmosphere always prevailed.
At times, the good old man was seen almost to smile, this little sojourn
from home gave such zest to his life.

He had provided for his pulpit in Salem before leaving home, and
therefore, without undue persuasion, consented to remain and take a
share in the baptism of his friend, a thing which the governor, and his
whole family, had much at heart.

But all this time his own home was left in loneliness, or what was
almost the same thing, under the charge of a young girl, the niece of
his wife, who had been adopted in her infancy, and brought up side by
side with his own child.

This girl was a little older than Elizabeth Parris, and had shared the
same love, the same bed, and the same table with her from childhood up.
She was an orphan and the child of an orphan.

It was said in whispers, by the old gossips of the place, that her
mother came from some remote Indian settlement, where she and her little
sister--afterwards the wife of Samuel Parris--had been left like wild
animals, to live or die, probably by some unfortunate or unnatural
parent. But these two helpless creatures had escaped the wilderness and
sought shelter among the inhabitants of Salem. The elder girl gave no
account of herself save that she had escaped great danger, and fled from
the woods where her mother had perished. The little one only clung to
her sister with fond love in her deep blue eyes, and a timid struggle if
any one attempted to draw her from that singular protection. She was
quite too young for any knowledge of her own history.

For a time this brave girl and her sister were received and kindly
treated by the inhabitants, but after a year or two it came out that,
even in the wilderness, she had imbibed, no one could tell how, those
Quaker heresies so obnoxious to the prevailing religionists. Becoming
more and more bold in declaring them, she had been driven forth into the
wilderness again, cruelly scourged by the law, and hunted down by her
fellow-men like a she-wolf caught at her prey.

The younger child, to whom all religious creeds remained a blessed
mystery, was forcibly torn from the arms of her sister, whose very touch
was considered contagious by the regenerated, and adopted into the
church. She was too young at the time of her sister's martyrdom, for
such in spirit it was, to resist either this cruelty or kindness, and
the very people who had hunted her sister out of civilized life were the
most eager for her welfare, and strove most diligently to render her
happy and comfortable. Indeed, she was in reality the ewe lamb of the
church, and, being of a peaceful, gentle nature, soon learned to look
upon the troubles of her first childhood as a dream, and think of the
brave sister, who had been ready to perish for her, as one of the
characters that she loved to read about in the Bible.

Thus she surrounded the past with a sort of religious mystery, which
threw a shade of sadness over her whole life, but never, till the very
last, embittered it as a knowledge of the whole truth would have done.

This young girl became to the church a lamb of atonement for her
sister's heresy. She grew up beautiful as an angel, both in soul and
body; became the wife of Samuel Parris, the mother of his child, and
then, in truth, an angel.

But a thing happened on the very day before her death, which no human
being ever understood save the young wife, whose death-blow came with
the knowledge it brought.

She was sitting alone, this young wife, in the spare room of her log
house, singing a quiet, sweet psalm-tune to herself, as she sewed on a
little garment which was to clothe her first-born child. The minister
had gone forth to hold a prayer-meeting, and she was thus pleasantly
whiling the time of his absence away, thinking of him with a gentle
satisfaction that more passionate love might not have known, between the
pauses of her work and the breaks in her sweet music.

It was in the spring; the little window of her room was curtained with
wild honeysuckles and sweetbriar brought down from the woods, and rooted
by the house. The sash was up, and the wind, as it sighed through the
leaves, gave a melodious accompaniment to her voice. But all at once,
there was a quick rustling of the branches, as if they were torn apart
by force, and, looking up suddenly, the young wife saw a thin brown hand
clutching the thorny foliage, and a ghastly face, fired by two burning
eyes, looking in upon her.

Mrs. Parris started up in great terror, for in her whole nature she was
timid, and would have fled to the kitchen; but while she stood trembling
and doubtful, the face disappeared, the outer door flew open, and a
woman leading a child by the hand came hastily into the room.

Mrs. Parris gazed at the intruder with renewed affright. Though clad as
a savage, with moccasins on her feet, leggins of crimson cloth, and a
dress of deer skin, gorgeous with embroidery in beads, porcupine quills,
and stained grasses, she had nothing of the Indian in her countenance or
complexion. The hair that fell down from a broken coronet of feathers,
which had once been gorgeous, was of a rich golden tint, and curled in
heavy masses, though the woman had reached mid-age in fact, and was much
older in appearance.

The eyes which she fixed on the young wife, though wild with the fires
of death, had once been blue as a summer sky.

She could not speak--this strange wild woman--but gazed at the innocent
wife standing there in her sweet motherly hopes, till great tears fell
down her cheeks, and sobs rose and swelled in her throat, almost choking
her.

"Who are you--what can I do for you?" said Mrs. Parris, gathering up all
her courage to speak. "The minister is away; I am all alone; if more of
your tribe are here, and wish me harm, I am helpless enough."

The woman put her hand up, and strove to force back the sobs that held
her speechless, then she drew close to the young wife, and her voice
broke forth in a gush of tender anguish, that thrilled her listener
through and through.

"Rachael!"

That had been the orphan's name, forgotten long ago, for when they
baptized her in the church she was called Elizabeth. But the anguish,
the pathos with which it was uttered, made her pulses swell and her
heart beat.

"_Rachael!_" The sound grew familiar, the voice came to her from the
depths of the past, as a ghost glides out from the darkness that
surrounds it. The knowledge that she had once known a sister came back.

"Rachael, my sister Rachael!"

Her soul gave up its past at the cry. She stretched forth her arms as
she had done a thousand times in her helpless infancy, and fell into the
embrace that gathered her up to the very heart of that dying woman.

"Rachael!"

"Sister!"

Language was mute then, and silence became eloquent; the blood in those
two hearts throbbed with kindred fire, those arms clung together like
vines rooted in the same soil.

At last the woman began to stagger.

"Let me sit down, Rachael." She fell into the easy-chair, gasping for
breath.

"Lay thy head here close--close, sister--sister!"

"You are ill--dying!"

"Not yet--there--there--it is well; thee will try and remember how dear
the little Rachael was to her sister, thee will know how true this heart
is by its beating--its last beat, for I am about to die."

"Yes, I remember, as in a dream; but still I know who you are, spite of
this dress, spite of time."

"And now, sister, dear sister, I have come to ask, for my little one,
the care which thee received at my hands; for as our mother took thee
from her bosom when she came to her death in the wilderness, I charge
thee, sister Rachael, with my only daughter, Abigail Williams, for thus
thee must call my child. She has another name, but that would bring
fierce enemies upon her."

"God so deal with me as I deal with this little one!" was the reply, and
reaching forth her arm, Mrs. Parris drew the child from the feet of her
mother, kissing her softly amid her tears.

"Rachael!"

"Sister!"

"When thee was a little child like her, I suffered them to drive me away
like a sinner and a slave; I suffered them to tear thee from my bosom,
and went into the wilderness alone, never attempting to come back lest
thee too might suffer, and perchance perish of want. It was like tearing
my life away when thee was given up."

"Alas, alas! that I should have known so little of this!"

"It was a merciful forgetfulness; thy pure life has been all the happier
for it, but I was not unmindful; many a week's journey have I taken
through the woods to hear of thy welfare."

"But yourself?"

"I have been even as God wills it. Look up, Rachael: do not weep or
droop thine eyes to the earth: thee has no cause. Even as thee, I have
been the wife of one husband."

"I did not think otherwise; it is for myself that I am troubled. Surely
this heart should have told me that you lived."

"Once more, my sister, it was a merciful forgetfulness; not till I knew
by sure signs that my last moment was at hand, would I claim even this
hour of thy life. Now I have come a long way alone and on foot, to give
up my child, that she may dwell with the people of her mother."

"But her father?"

"He was a brave man--my benefactor and lord. His son, the first-born,
was torn from me as I fled from the white fiends that murdered his
father. They will make him a slave--he a king's son! The chief of his
tribe a slave! a slave!"

The woman reeled on her feet as she stood, and fell into the chair
again, panting for breath. With an effort she spoke on.

"Thee shall be mother to this little one, sister Rachael."

"Even as my husband shall be its father," said Mrs. Parris, laying her
hand upon the child's head.

"That husband--presently--when I have more breath, thee shall tell me
about him, for I know nothing. It is long, very long, since I have been
able to gain tidings from the settlements. Even now I came upon this
house at the last moment, and feeling about to fall to the earth, looked
in, seeking for help, and saw thee."

"Thank God that it was my house. Alas, how haggard and worn you look, my
sister! I read years of suffering in your face, and I so happy, so
unconscious all the time. But no one ever talked of my childhood."

"They would not thus accuse themselves; they who lashed thy sister with
stripes, and drove her into the woods like a dog. How could such men
look into thy pure face, and tell this unholy truth?"

"But my husband; surely he must have heard of this cruelty, for he was
minister here before I was born. Yet when I question him of my
childhood, he always puts the subject aside."

A wild light came into the woman's eye. She sat upright in the chair,
and looked down into the face of her sister.

"A minister, Rachael! what is thy husband's name?"

The name faltered on the young wife's lips, not as usual from reverence,
but fear.

"Parris--his name is Parris."

The woman gathered herself slowly up.

"Samuel Parris?"

"Yes," replied the wife, in a timid whisper.

"An old man now?"

"Yes."

The woman stood upright, struggling to walk, but without the power to
move. Her chest heaved, her throat swelled, she groped about blindly
with her hand, searching for her child.

"Sister, sister, what troubles you?" cried Mrs. Parris, trembling
violently.

"_Rachael, that man was one of my judges!_"

The words came out hoarsely, rattling in her throat. She fell back,
struggled with awful force for a moment, and then a cold, gray corpse
settled down in the chair, terribly in contrast with the savage dress.
The child, who had been growing paler and paler, went softly up to the
chair, and burying its face in the gorgeous vestments that clung about
the corpse, remained motionless and mute as the dead. She neither wept
nor moaned like an ordinary child, but a dull pallor stole over her neck
and her little hands, which proved how terrible that still grief was.
Ah, who shall tell how much of the iron that rusted through her
after-life, entered that human soul during those moments of silent
agony!

Mrs. Parris stood looking at them both, then, struck with a pang of
terrible anguish, she crept out of the room, moaning as she went.




CHAPTER XI.

DOOMED TO SLAVERY.


While Mrs. Parris was in her chamber, faint with pain and driven wild by
the fearful developments just made to her, the dead woman lay in the
great easy-chair, wrapped in her gorgeous forest-dress and with the
bright hair falling in masses down her cheek, concealing the death
shadows that lay upon it.

All was still as midnight in the house. Save for a faint sob that came
once or twice from the chamber above, the pretty cabin might have been
taken for a tomb. Old Tituba had been very busy at the great stone oven,
back of the house, baking bread, and that fearful scene had passed in
the parlor without her knowledge. Though a soul had gone into eternity,
and a heart had been broken, in those few minutes, the poor old savage
was ignorant of it all. With her long iron shovel she was launching
great loaves of rye bread into the depths of an enormous oven, and at
last blocked up its yawning mouth with an earthen milk-pan full of
beans, crested with a crisp mass of pork cut in square blocks across the
rind. She had put the great wooden door up, and was stuffing tufts of
grass about the edges to keep the air out, when a lad rushed wildly by
her, leaping over the ground like a deer, and, turning a corner of the
house, disappeared. The lad was dressed in a deer-skin tunic, trimmed so
richly with wampum that it rattled like a hail storm as he fled. She
caught one glimpse of a mass of glossy hair floating on the wind, and
scarlet leggins hanging in shreds around those flying feet.

"It is an Indian child. It is one of our people," cried Tituba, casting
her heavy iron fire-shovel to the ground. "The white men are on his
track; they swarm like snakes in the forest."

But, quickly as the old woman moved, that wild Indian boy entered the
house before she came up. He halted one moment on the threshold,
hesitating and wild. A glance at the great easy-chair, a cry that rang
through and through the house, a leap that seemed rather that of some
wild animal than a human being, and the boy lay prostrate at the dead
woman's feet, with both hands pulling at her dress, while he cried out,
in a voice that made the very air tremble with its pathos,

"Mother! mother! I am here! I am here! They could not hold me! I tore
their bonds asunder like tow. I shot one through the heart, outran the
others. All night long have I been on your trail. Look at me, mother.
Wake up or the enemy will be upon us again."

A stir in the woman's garments that shook all its wampum fringes,
deceived the boy, or he would have known that she was dead.

"Mother! mother! there is no time for rest. They were crowding in the
outskirts of the woods when I came through. Come with me. I know of a
cave in the rocks where you can be safe with my little sister. Did you
know they will sell us for slaves--these white men that talk of a God
higher than Mineto? Mother! mother! I hear a step. They are on us!
They--" he paused suddenly, his hands, clasped and uplifted, seemed
freezing together. He did not breathe. His wild eyes had caught the
deadly pallor of that face, scattered as it were with ashes beneath the
shadowy hair. He shuddered fearfully as the dead woman's garments
rustled around her. A little form, half concealed by the chair, half
buried in the garments, crept to his feet. A tiny hand, cold as snow,
grasped at his dress.

"Brother!"

The little girl spoke in the Indian tongue, and looked into his face
with those dark, piteous eyes.

"Brother!"

The boy snatched her up, and folding her close in his arms, looked in
terrible woe on the dead face resting against the high back of the
chair.

"Oh, mother! mother! have they killed you as well as my father?" he
cried, drooping toward her. "Will you never speak again? Oh, Mineto!
Mineto! what has your people done, that they are chased to death like
wolves and foxes? What had she done that they could not spare her?"

Tituba stood motionless in the doorway. The wail of grief in that young
voice held her there dumb and sorrowful. She understood the Indian
tongue, and knew that this boy was the dead woman's son. A death-chant
rose to her lips; she began to rock to and fro on the threshold. But a
sound on the edge of the wood frightened the impulse away. She turned
and saw a body of armed men coming around the meeting-house. The danger
was close upon them. Tituba darted into the room, snatched the little
girl from her brother's arms, and cried out in the Indian tongue: "Go!
go! leap through the back window. There is a hollow floor under the
oven: creep in. They will not look for you there." She ran into the
kitchen as she spoke, mounted a ladder, and hid the child in a corner of
the garret, heaping strings of dried apples and bunches of herbs upon
her. The little girl lay in her concealment, passive and mute, holding
her breath. Poor thing, she had become used to scenes of peril like
that.

But the lad, that brave Indian boy, scorned to flee for his own safety
alone. There he stood, close to his dead mother, pale as death, but with
a terrible fire in his eyes. He had not distinctly understood old
Tituba, and only knew that danger was near.

The heavy tramp of feet on the gravel path drew his eyes from that cold
form to the window. It was blocked up with iron faces crowned with tall
sugar-loaf hats, which shut out the very sight of heaven.

The savage instincts of a warlike race impelled the boy to resistance.
Tituba had spoken of a back window. He glanced that way, knowing well
that the forest stretched darkly beyond. But there a terrible sight met
him. A dozen or more young warriors, the bravest of those who had
followed King Philip on his last war-path, lay upon the sod, bound hand
and foot with strong withes, shorn of their forest splendor, and with
the eagle feathers, which had been to them a crown of glory, broken in
the tangled hair from which they could not be altogether wrested. There
they lay, those brave, grand savages, like a flock of sheep bound and
ready for the butcher. They had fought valiantly for the land that was
undoubtedly their own, and for that crime were deemed unworthy of
Christian mercy.

The brave boy saw that all avenues of escape were closed to him.
Instinctively, he felt for his bow. It was gone. When first taken a
prisoner, those iron-faced men now glaring at him through the window had
broken it under their feet. But bristling up from behind his mother's
shoulder was a bow and quiver, in which were a half dozen arrows, the
last love-gift of King Philip. Quick as lightning he snatched the bow,
and an arrow flashed through the window.

A howl of pain followed, and a rush at the door, but the lad wheeled
half round, and arrow after arrow leaped from his bow, till the quiver
on that marble woman's back was empty. Then a band of soldiers pressed
in upon him with levelled halberts. Hands that seemed cased in iron
gauntlets seized him by the shoulders, and he was dragged farther over
the threshold stone, struggling against them to the last. There he was
hurled to the earth and bound limb to limb with tough withes. Then two
of the soldiers carried him around a corner of the house and cast him
down as if he had been a dog, among the young warriors, destined to be
sold into slavery.

The lad struggled to a sitting posture, and looked out on the ocean. A
ship, old and weather beaten, lay within the harbor, with her anchor up,
ready for sea. That ship was bound for Bermuda with a cargo of slaves,
all gathered from the glorious forests of New England.

The men destined to fill her hold were chiefs and warriors of as brave a
nation as ever baptized a free soil with blood--men taken in valiant
fight, while contesting for their native woods, and the wigwams which
were to them sacred homes. These unfortunate men were prisoners of war,
helpless, and at the mercy of a victorious foe. The Puritan fathers
being Christians and God-fearing men, would not put their captives to
death: that would have been to sink themselves to a level with savages;
so, after grave deliberation, some fasting, and much prayer, they
resolved to stow away these brave men into the hold of a sea-going
vessel, and let the winds of a benign heaven waft them into perpetual
slavery. The returning ship would bring back heaps of glittering gold in
exchange for this cargo of war prisoners; for the men who fought under
King Philip were powerful and capable of severe toil. They had not
yielded readily to the rifle, but peradventure the lash might prove a
more effective instrument of civilization.

On this ship the son of King Philip looked with burning eyes, while the
bonds with which they had lashed his limbs together cut purple hollows
into his flesh. He knew that the sails which were now unfurling would
bear him far away from the forest where his father had perished, and
where hundreds of his tribe were now sheltering themselves from the
white man's wrath.

There the lad sat, or rather knelt; every nerve in his body
strained--every drop of his savage blood burning--every thought a
denunciation. But no one of those iron-faced men heeded him.

The two soldiers who had cast the boy down amid his father's warriors,
turned toward the sea.

"Lo," said one, extending his hand, "the wind is fresh from the east.
Yonder, half-way to the shore, comes a boat. Take these sinful creatures
to the beach, brethren, while I go in and bring forth the woman and her
pappoose."

The boy uttered a sharp cry, and turned his glance on the man, who
strode toward the house. He went rudely up to the great chair, and laid
his hand on the woman's shoulder, giving it a slight shake. The fringes
on her dress rattled like hail upon crusted snow. The man took his hand
suddenly away, hesitated an instant, and then swept back the hair from
that still face. The certain presence of death touched even his granite
heart. He bent down, and was folding the deer-skin robe more composedly
about the form, when a little creature came gliding through the door,
and stole close up to the chair before he saw that it was the child he
sought. She was a fearless little thing at all times; now, some vague
idea that the man was about to harm her mother made her eyes wildly
luminous, as she lifted them to his face.

"Go away," she said, in broken English, pushing him with all her tiny
strength. "Go!" The fire in those beautiful eyes enkindled the stern
cruelty of the man. He snatched her up in his arms and bore her forth
with a grim smile on his bearded lip.

Then old Tituba saw what had happened and followed him, uttering wild
cries of distress. The man took no heed, but carried his captive around
the house in sight of her brother.

A yell of mingled rage and despair broke from that young heart. The lad
tore and strained at his bonds like a trapped panther--fiery tears
leaped to his eyes, specks of foam flew from his mouth.

"Not her, not her!" he shrieked, in English. "She is only a little baby.
Let them whip me, sell me, kill me. I will work and suffer for both."

The anguish in that young voice reached Mrs. Parris, where she lay with
her face buried in the pillows of her bed. Like a beautiful white nun
she came out of her chamber, down the stairs, and into the midst of
those Puritan soldiers. Terrible suffering had cast its ashes over her;
but there was resolution in her eyes, pain on her forehead.

She went up to the man, who still held the little savage and took her
gently from his arms.

"She is mine. The minister will care for her. Little children are not
our enemies. Christians do not make slaves of them."

There was something in the very gentleness of her words that almost
conquered the man, who muttered a gloomy protest. The little creature
clung to her with thrilling tenacity.

"Leave the child with me. I will answer for its safety to your leader.
I, the wife of Samuel Parris, whom you all know."

There was something in the face of this gentle young matron that
enforced respect even from the men who had so rudely invaded her
dwelling--a depth and intensity of suffering that prevailed more surely
than command.

"Nay, if you will take charge of the little heathen we have nothing to
say. In the minister's house she may find a gate of salvation open."

A spasm of pain swept the fair face of the matron; but her soul was
strong enough for the moment to put this physical anguish aside. She
took the infant in her arms, folded it close to her aching bosom, and
went with it into the house. Old Tituba stood in the door.

"Take her, take her! and God have mercy on us all!" cried Elizabeth,
tottering forward and giving up the child. Then she went feebly up the
stairs and entered her chamber again.

The princely Indian boy, true to the reticent instincts of his father's
race, became silent as marble when he saw that his little sister would
not be harmed. Even the cry of joy that rose to his lips when the child
was given up he bravely suppressed. He would not, by one action, let his
persecutors know how dear the little wanderer was to him. Had he spoken
a word, or challenged attention by a gesture, the minister's wife would
have learned that her sister's son was in peril, and might perhaps have
saved him also. But he was too brave for complaint, and she went on,
ignorant of his danger to the hour of her death.

The tide rose, the winds blew favorably, that old ship unfurled its
canvas and sent out signals that its human crew was waited for. Down to
the beach those brave young savages were forced, into the boats and away
forever more.

Before night-fall that craft was far off on her horrible errand,
plunging along that vast desert of waters, with oh! what terrible agony
shut down under her closed hatches.

There in her hold, dark as the bottomless pit, with every breath of the
stifled air foul with the scent of bilge water, lay those children of
the great forest; which, broad, and green, and noble as it was, had
hardly afforded scope for their heroic energies a month before. Down in
impenetrable blackness, beneath the roaring waters that beat against
that creaking hull, like wild animals, riotous with hunger, they had
been cast in heaps, with less mercy than would have been yielded to mad
dogs or trapped tigers. Not one glimpse of the glorious old woods from
which they had been torn--not even a fragment of the blue sky was given
to those bloodshot eyes; but, lashed onward by the waves, stifled,
hungry, and broken-hearted, they were swept into slavery.

When Samuel Parris reached home that night, he found in place of the
gentle wife whom he had left singing at her work, the dead woman of the
forest, lying in her gorgeous habiliments, and the little child, whose
stillness was more appalling than that of the corpse, crouching at her
feet.

Shocked at the sight, but thinking first of his wife, the minister,
after a vain attempt to question the child, followed the sound of broken
voices that came faintly to his ear, and entered his own chamber. A
moment after he went hurriedly from the house, returned with another
person, and stood all night long holding his breath by the chamber door.
At last he came away, moving like a ghost through the dim morning, and
entered the little sitting-room where his angel had been seated so
tranquilly when he went out, not yet twenty-four hours agone. The little
girl, who had stayed by her mother all night, arose, and stood looking
him in the eyes with a steady gaze that might have made any man shrink,
for it was unearthly in its earnestness.

While that weird glance was upon him, a low cry rang through the house,
a cry that made every drop in the old man's veins leap, and every nerve
tremble.

"Thank God! Oh, my God, my God, how _can_ I thank thee enough!" and the
old man wept tenderly.

As if mocking the ecstasy of his tears, the little girl smiled in his
face--but oh, such a wintry smile--and went back to her mother. The old
man shuddered.

After a time, he went up to the chamber of his wife. She lay upon the
bed with the babe he was to look upon for the first time, not folded to
her bosom, but lying apart, while she gazed wistfully at its little
features, with a weary look full of dull anguish, that never would
change to the lovelight which should brighten a mother's face.

The minister, with tears in his eyes, leaned over her, and would have
pressed his lips upon her forehead, but she shrunk down in the bed with
a low moan, as a wounded fawn shudders at the touch of its captor, and
when he sought to comfort her, and speak out the exquisite joy that
filled his whole being, she looked up with those piteous eyes, and
muttered:

"She was my sister--my sister!"

These were all the words she ever uttered. The shock of his sudden
presence had exhausted the last remnants of her strength. She only
breathed fainter and fainter, till her child, like the little one below,
was motherless.

The two sisters were buried side by side, the same tree overshadowed
them, and in the course of time the flowers that blossomed on one grave
crept over the other. Many tears were shed over the minister's wife as
they lowered her into the earth, but not one--not one--over the
grand-hearted forest-woman. For her Samuel Parris could not weep. He
looked upon her very coffin with terror. The Nemesis of his life was
there, and would haunt him forever and ever. He stood by the open grave,
bowed down with something more awful than grief. In the happiness of his
married life he had grown vigorous and upright; but now his shoulders
stooped, and his limbs shook like the branches of a dead tree. Poor old
man! who can wonder that Samuel Parris never held up his head again!

As for the child, Abigail Williams, she came of a race to whom revenge
stands in the place of religion--a race even to whose women and children
tears are a reproach. At her mother's grave she did not forget the proud
lessons of the kingly savage who taught even his women to suffer
bravely.

They had taken off her Indian dress, it is true, but what power could
quench the fire in that young heart! She did not comprehend the meaning
of those black garments, only that she was alone, utterly alone, among
all those people, who had been cruel enough to let her mother die.

From that double grave the young savage went back to old Tituba, the
Indian woman, never in her whole life to know one hour of careless
childhood.

Thus it was that Abigail Williams became the adopted child of Samuel
Parris, and this was the girl who, far advanced towards womanhood now,
was left in charge of the minister's house when he made his eventful
visit to Boston.




CHAPTER XII.

ELIZABETH AND HER COUSIN.


From the cradle up, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams had been as
sisters--nay, more, for while the same blood flowed in their veins and
the same household words had been breathed into their ears, there
existed that strong bond of contrast which is sure to give some degree
of excitement to the quietest life. Abigail was the elder by about three
years. She had come to a rapid growth, and her beauty possessed all the
roundness and depth of tint which belongs to a full-statured woman. Her
mind was like her person, and both were remarkable. Apt, bright, full of
intelligence, yet gentle, and troubled with a shy bashfulness at times,
which sprang from pride rather than timidity, she was a wonder to
everybody that saw her. She was so unlike other children, her manner of
doing things was so firm and gentle, that few even of the gravest
church-members ever thought of rebuking her as they did other offenders,
or of petting her in the same way.

She was greatly given to study, but sometimes would sit with her book in
one hand, or her slate in her lap, gazing wistfully into the distance
through the window of the log school-house, as if her life like her
thoughts lay afar off, and having escaped her lesson, could not be
brought back again.

The school-house commanded a broad, beautiful approach to the sea, and
behind it was a dense forest of hemlocks, oaks, and beech, which kept
the earth forever in shadow, and covered the old sodden logs and decayed
stumps with thick fleeces of moss that gleamed out like velvet and gold
when a sunbeam chanced to strike downward and touch the earth. Vast as
the ocean itself stretched the shadows of that forest, and Abigail's
face took a deeper and more earnest expression when she looked that way,
deeper and more earnest even than when she gazed upon the far-off waters
and saw the distant sky bend down and cover their retreat with silvery
mists. You would have thought the child was searching for something that
was very, very long in coming, as she fell into these long musing fits.
Sometimes she would remain motionless, leaning both elbows on her little
pine-desk, and dropping her chin between her hands, for half an hour
together without turning her eyes from the shadows that darkened the
forest, and seeming to hold her breath lest it should frighten some one
back that she had been waiting and hoping for. She seemed to be
conscious herself that there was someone weird and strange about these
fits of concentrated thought, for at every sound of your voice, at every
step that drew near, she would catch her breath, start and look up, as
if she expected something dreadful to happen.

Speak softly to Abigail Williams at such times, or look at her with a
glance of love, and her quiet eyes would fill and her childish heart
would heave, it was impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to
her when her head was at the little window and her thoughts far away, no
one knew where, the poor thing would grow pale, and turn upon you with
such a sorrowful look, then go away and do as she was bidden with a
gravity that touched you to the heart. Sometimes it would require a
whole day after a rebuke like this to restore the dye of her sweet lips
or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have
appeared. But with all this, the quickness of her intellect, and the
alacrity with which she took to study, was remarkable as her
thoughtfulness.

But Elizabeth Parris was in every respect a very different child. If you
chided her even to the lifting of a finger, ten to one, she laughed in
your face, and made you laugh with her, in spite of yourself. Scold her,
and you got an answer back that made you love the creature for her very
sauciness. She would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the
motion of your head, or the curve of your mouth, while you were
expecting to terrify her. Everybody was tired of her in half an hour,
and yet everybody was glad to see her again, for, with all her mischief,
she crossed your threshold like a sunbeam.

She was a careless little romp, too. Loved above all things to run
barefoot, and was forever losing her shoes in the long grass.

She had a hundred different ways of combing her bright hair; and, in the
winter time, if there was an ice-pond or a snow-drift within a mile of
the village, she was sure to be sliding on the one or wading knee-deep
in the other. Still Elizabeth grew very fond of her book, and had fits
of hard study that kept her ahead of her class in spite of her wild
ways.

Out of school, the two girls were always together; they required no
other playmates. Mornings, evenings, and Saturdays, especially, they
were always creeping about under the great beech trees, with their story
books, which Abby would pore over, and Elizabeth would listen to, with
fun on her lips or water in her eyes as the case might be--though she
was always ready for a tumble in the wet grass, a plunge in the surf, or
a slide from the very top of the hay mow, at a moment's warning.

Sometimes they would spend a whole day hunting for early apples in the
thick grass, picking hazel-nuts, or feeding the fish in the clear sea.
Then they would ramble about in the great solemn woods together, holding
their breath, and ready to say their prayers with very awe, not of the
wild beasts whose track they were on, but from the vast shadows that
fell over them from the trees that were spread out, over the sky, and
the expanse of shrubbery, that seemed to cover the whole earth.

The sublimity of all these things hushed them into silence, and if they
heard a noise in the forest, a howl or a war-whoop, they would creep in
among the flowers of some solitary thicket, and were safe.

Directly the danger had passed they might be found where the scarlet
barberries glittered among the sharp green leaves, like threaded bunches
of coral; where the glowing purple plums, or clustered bunch berries
rustled among the foliage and rolled about their feet in over ripeness.

Into these wild places they delighted to go, even while they were afraid
to speak above a whisper, and kept close hold of each other's hands
every step of the way, till a sort of fascination crept over them, and
they grew strangely in love with the vast solitude of the woods.

Such was the love, and such the companionship of these two girls. In
school or out, all day and all night, sleeping, waking, talking or
dreaming, they were always together--never apart for a single day, up to
the time of our story.

The two sisters who had been carried together out of the minister's
dwelling, and laid side by side behind that old meeting-house, whose
slender wooden spire could be seen from the school-house window, with
the figure of Death on the top for a weathercock, were scarcely more
inseparable than these children had been, since their hands were linked
in sisterhood by those new-made graves.

And now Abigail Williams was approaching her nineteenth birthday; but
she looked at least five years older than the sweet, blue-eyed
Elizabeth.

She was stately beyond her age, and altogether her beauty was so
remarkable that the people of the town could not choose but turn and
look upon it as she passed by on her way to school or meeting.

But she had left off school now and took to reading every thing she
could lay her hands on, even to the pamphlets and old newspapers hoarded
away in the minister's garret; indeed her attainments were something
wonderful--she was almost as learned as the minister himself.

Such was Abby Williams, at the period when our story commenced. For the
first time in her life, she was separated from Elizabeth Parris; then,
while the loneliness was upon her, she was left in solitude, with no
human creature in the house but the old Indian servant Tituba.

The day after the minister left his home, Abby was sitting in the room
where her aunt Parris had sung at her work that night when the forest
woman found her sewing so quietly. The young girl sat by the open
window, in the very chair where her mother died. She was busy knitting
on one of those long seamed stockings, which were an important portion
of the male dress in those times. Two balls of yarn lay in her lap, gray
and white, with which she striped the stocking, seaming it every three
stitches. She was expert with her needles, and did not look at them, but
sat gazing out into the calm summer day, peacefully as her aunt had
done, but with a touch of sadness in her face; for, as her aunt had
thought of her unborn babe years before, she was thinking of Elizabeth
now.

In those tender thoughts, and in the monotony of her work alone, Abby
Williams resembled her aunt. The tropical bird and the wood pigeon had
as much likeness in every thing else. The young girl was singular and
picturesque. In her person was blended all the beauty of two distinct
races, but in every thing the grace of civilization predominated. The
delicacy and lustre of her mother's beauty were all present, moulding
the features into exquisite grace, lending a soft, purplish blue to
those bright eyes, and scattering gloss and bloom among the folds of
those heavy tresses. The contrast of her eyes with the black brows and
lashes gave a beauty to the face even more attractive than the rich tint
of her complexion or the peachy richness of her cheek. The refinement of
civilization and the lithe grace of the panther were blended in her
person. Her very repose was eloquent of deep tenderness, and of fierce,
slumbering passion. When these antagonisms came in contact, that young
girl's character would break forth in all its powers of good and evil;
at present, she was only an humble maiden at her work, lonely and a
little sad, but at peace with all mankind.

As she worked, Tituba, the Indian woman, came in and out from the
kitchen, making vague pretences, as it seemed, only to look on the young
girl at her work. She did not speak once, for Abby was gazing afar off
into the shadows of the forest as if her fate lay there, and she was
striving to unravel it with her glances.

At last the sun went down, and old Tituba came into the room again,
chanting an Indian death-song inexpressibly mournful and sweet, which
mingled so sorrowfully with the girl's thoughts that she dropped her
knitting and leaned back in the great-chair, sighing heavily.

Tituba kept on with her chant; it was the lament of a child over the
grave of its mother, given in the Indian tongue, every word of which
went to the young girl's heart, like a reproach. The meeting-house,
which stood upon the edge of the forest, lent force to the old woman's
voice, as it died away on her slow retreat to the kitchen. The full moon
threw its pale, ghastly light on the figure of Death which surmounted
its spire, and she knew that its shadow was that moment creeping over
her mother's grave.

Unconscious of the influence that sent her forth, Abby arose, and,
throwing a shawl over her head, went quietly out into the moonlight,
taking a straight line for the meeting-house.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE BROTHER AND SISTER.


In the night-time Abigail had never before visited her mother's grave.
Indeed, she had seldom been there alone, in her whole life. Now the
grave-yard was very dim and shadowy, for it lay on the verge of the
forest, and a few stray moonbeams only pierced through the pine boughs
that drooped over it. She was almost afraid to advance close, for the
periwinkles that crept over the two graves had grown luxuriantly thick,
spreading over them like a torn pall. Even their flowers, so exquisitely
blue in the day-time, seemed black among the darkness of their leaves.
Beyond the two graves--now linked into one by those dusky creepers--the
forest was black as midnight. Here and there a fire-fly shone out in the
depths of the wood; here and there a branch caught the moonlight, that
fringed the edges of its dewy leaves with silver; but this only made the
darkness beyond more complete. She crept towards the graves, holding her
breath, afraid of the solitude and darkness, afraid and yet fascinated.
All at once she stretched forth her hand, and seized hold of a pine
branch which shivered in all its slender leaves, and gave forth those
low, melancholy sighs, which sound so like human grief.

The young girl held on to the branch and, stooping forward with gleaming
eyes and parted lips, peered into the gloom of the forest, looking
straight over her mother's grave.

All at once she drew a sharp breath and let go of the pine bough, that
fell back to its place with a rustle that shook all the neighboring
branches, and covered the grave below with a storm of dew. Then, with
her head turned back and her eyes bright with new terror, she attempted
to flee. A crash--a rush amid the forest boughs, and a voice coming out
of the darkness!

Her lifted foot fell like lead upon the grass, a cry broke from her
lips, and, still maintaining the first attitude of flight, she seemed
frozen into stone.

"Mahaska!"

Out from the dim forest stole that name. When she had heard it the young
girl could not think, nor why it fell with such sweet mournfulness on
her ear. But she knew that the name had been hers; in some previous
existence perhaps, for she never remembered hearing it before with
mortal ears. It thrilled through and through her.

"Mahaska!"

"Who speaks?"

"Mahaska!"

As the name was uttered a third time, a figure came out from the
blackness, rustling through the foliage as it passed, and stood in the
moonlight.

Abigail was no longer afraid, but, dropping into her old position, stood
with one hand leaning on the gray stone at the head of her mother's
grave.

It was a savage, and yet a white man, who stood before her--a savage, in
all the pomp of his war garments, with hostile weapons at his girdle,
and a rifle in his right hand. The crest of feathers, with which his
hair was knotted, fluttered in the night wind proudly as if it had
surmounted a helmet. The warm crimson, that lined his robe of dressed
deer-skin, and the many colored wampum that bordered and fringed it,
glowed richly in the moonlight. It was a noble figure, and the young
girl's face kindled as she measured him with her eyes.

"Whom do you seek, with a tomahawk at your girdle, and a scalping-knife
within reach of your hand? I am alone, and there is only an old woman at
the house--no help within reach of my voice--but you see I stand
still--I am not afraid."

"No--not afraid," answered the savage, with a proud motion of the hand.
"Even the women of your race should be brave. Mahaska, step forth, that
the moon may look upon your face."

Fearlessly, as if she had obeyed that voice all her life, Abigail
stepped out of the pine shadow, and stood face to face with the savage.

"Your hand does not shake--you look into my face--your lip keeps its
red--the blood starts to your cheek like sunset upon the snow
mountains--you are not afraid of the Indian?"

"No, not afraid."

"The grasp of my hand does not make you tremble?"

"No, it sends the fire back to my heart."

"What brought you to the forest--to this grave?"

"I do not know--stay, the old woman Tituba was muttering a death-chant.
It must have been that."

"A death-chant in the Indian tongue--a chant of the Wampanoags?"

"A chant in the Indian tongue--but I cannot tell of what tribe."

"And you understand it?"

"Yes!"

"How--who taught you the meaning of our death-chants?"

Abigail was astonished. She had never thought of this before. How,
indeed, had she learned the meaning of these words? Not from the
minister, nor at school; nor, so far as she could remember, from the old
Indian woman. How then had that strange language become so familiar to
her ear and her tongue? This thought, so suddenly aroused, bewildered
her. She had no answer to give.

The young savage grasped her hand in his, and she felt that his limbs
quivered; slowly, very slowly, he drew her to the grave, and, pointing
downward, said--

"It was of her you learned the tongue of the Wampanoags!"

"My mother," said Abigail, mournfully, "my poor mother, who lies here so
still--how could she teach me a savage language? She, the sister of my
uncle's wife?"

"How did she know--how could she teach you the language of our tribe?
Ask how deep the wrongs must be which made her forswear her own tongue
as if it had been a curse?"

"Hold, hold!" cried Abigail, shaking off his clasp and gazing wildly
into his face. "Your speech is like my own--English is native to you,
rather than the savage tongue--your cheek is without paint--your
forehead too white--your air proud like an Indian, but gentle withal.
Who are you? Why is it that you lay wait for me in this holy place,
talking of my mother as if you knew her?"

"Knew her, Mahaska? The Great Spirit knows how well! Knew her?"

"My mother--you--"

The young man fell on his knees, and, leaning his head upon the grave
stone, remained silent a while, subduing the emotion that seemed to
sweep away his strength. At last he looked up; the fire had left his
eyes; deep, solemn resolution filled its place.

Abigail could not speak. Bewilderment and awe kept her dumb. For a
moment the young Indian gazed upon her, then his voice broke forth in a
gush of tenderness.

"Mahaska!"

"Why do you call me by that name?" cried the young girl.

"Because your mother--your beautiful, unhappy mother--whispered it
faintly as a dying wind in the pine branches, when her lord and your
father bent thankfully over her couch of fern leaves, in the deep
forest, to look upon his last-born child. Because his brave kiss pressed
your forehead in baptism, as that name left her pale lips. Because the
word has a terrible significance."

"What significance?" asked Abigail, beginning to tremble beneath those
burning glances.

"Mahaska, the Avenger."

"The avenger! Alas! alas! it is a fearful name; but what signifies that?
The consecrated waters of baptism have washed it away."

The young Indian sprang to his feet.

"Washed it away? Washed the name of our fathers from your forehead? I
tell you, girl, it is burning there in the red blood of a kingly
sire--in the flames which devoured the old men and little children of
our tribe--rusted in by the iron that held a king's son in bondage under
the hot sky of the tropics. Look, maiden, look where the ocean heaves
and rolls beneath the moon: there is not enough water in all that to
wash the name from your brow. Look upward, where the Great Spirit hath
kindled his camp-fires in the sky: you will not find flame enough to
burn it out. Look yonder, where the thick forest covers the earth--roll
all its shadows together, and through their blackness all the world
would read that name!"

Abigail covered her affrighted face with both hands. Her brain was
confused--the heart quaked in her bosom--all the traditions of her life
were uprooted in a moment. Who was she? Who was the man, garbed like a
savage, but who spoke the English tongue as if it were his own? Was the
grave at her feet really that of her mother? What did the young savage
mean by that haughty air--those proud words?

The Indian came closer to her, withdrew the hands from her face very
gently, and held them with a tender clasp.

"Mahaska!"

Abigail looked at him steadily, till the tears rose to her wild eyes;
then, as his hand grasped hers faster and tighter, she made an effort to
wrench herself away.

His hands dropped, his face bent downward.

"Mahaska!"

"I listen."

"Surely as the Great Spirit looks down upon us through his stars, the
woman who sleeps beneath these dark leaves commands you to listen when I
speak, and believe what I shall say!"

"But you are an enemy--a savage from the woods; what could you know of
my mother?"

"Every thing; it is she who charges you to believe this."

"But if she had a knowledge of you or your people, why did my uncle
never mention it?"

"Why did he never mention it?" rejoined the Indian--and now the
tenderness left his eyes, and the words came hissing through his shut
teeth--"because he was the enemy of your race. Father and mother alike,
suffered at his hands."

"What, my uncle, my good, pious uncle, the father of Elizabeth! I do not
believe it!" cried Abigail indignantly, "he was never the enemy of any
human being."

"Silence!" whispered the savage, "your words trouble the ashes in that
grave!"

That instant a gust of wind came sobbing through the pine leaves, and
the dusky creepers on the two graves shivered audibly.

Abigail drew close to the savage, and laid her hand on his arm. They
bent their heads, and listened till the wind swept by.

"Is it my mother's voice?" whispered the young girl.

"Have you never heard it before, sobbing and wailing among the trees, or
whispering softly when the leaves talk to the night?"

"Yes! oh, yes!"

"Have you never felt it in the night, or here at mid-day in the
forest--felt it all around you, till the heart quaked in your bosom, and
your limbs refused to move?"

"Ah, me! this also--this also!"

"And yet you ask, is it the voice of my mother?"

"Alas, how should I know? I who never, till this moment, dreamed that
she who rests there had wrongs to complain of."

"_Rests_ there--_rests_! why, girl, it is because she cannot rest that
the wind brings her sobs to your ear--cannot rest while her
youngest-born finds shelter with the most cruel of her enemies."

"The most cruel of her enemies!"

"He who sat in judgment upon a weak, helpless woman, when she came out
from the wilderness with her baby sister strapped to her back,
beseeching shelter among the people of her mother's race--the very
people who had driven that mother forth to die among her enemies,
because she was of a different faith, and believed in a God more
merciful than the one they worshipped--this man was Samuel Parris."

"And the woman, who was she?" cried Abigail, wringing her hands; for so
many painful thoughts rushing together almost drove her mad.

"That woman was Anna Hutchinson, the martyr, who was driven from
settlement to settlement, with her children--like a mad dog fleeing with
her young. Here chained to a cart, and lashed till her white shoulders
ran blood, while the strange man's God was piously called on to sanctify
the deed--there driven onward with taunts and jeers, starved, beaten,
trampled upon everywhere. At last she fled with her husband and her
young children into the wilderness, trusting rather to enemies
embittered against her race by wrongs deeper than hers, than to the men
who hunted her down like a beast of prey."

"But they killed her--they killed her--the Indians whom she would have
trusted--her and her little ones," cried Abigail, interrupting him. "I
have heard the story again and again. Her children were all
murdered--she left nothing but a dread curse, a curse that makes the old
men whom it was levelled against tremble even yet."

"A curse, yes, the terrible curse of a human being tortured to death--a
curse that wails through the woods and stalks around your houses forever
unappeased, unfulfilled, but which grows deeper and louder every year."

Abigail shuddered.

"But the judges, who sentenced this unhappy woman, were wise and
God-fearing men. Among them was old Mr. Parris, the father of Samuel
Parris, my uncle; the old man died blessing God, and at peace with all
his creatures."

"He persecuted Anna Hutchinson unto death. She was a beautiful, brave
woman, whose courage and truth won the hearts of liberal men to her
cause. This was her fault; her smiles, her prayers, her powerful
reasoning, overwhelmed their sermons, and shook the foundation of their
strength. She had disciples--followers--believers--was a woman of great
mind; her thoughts were like maple blossoms in spring, bright and
pleasant, giving out sunshine; but those of her persecutors always crept
along in shadows. This woman was driven upon the knife that stabbed her,
by her own brethren. The curse which she uttered in her desperation
calls louder and louder upon her children."

"But her children were all slain; she left no human soul to mourn or
avenge her--I have heard the story too often; it is written on my memory
as with fire; why bring it up here--what has that to do with me, or
her?"

Abigail pointed to the grave with her trembling finger--for now she was
shivering from head to foot. The story of Anna Hutchinson always
affected her thus; from her infancy she had never heard the name without
a cold chill.




CHAPTER XIV.

ANNA HUTCHINSON'S CURSE.


The savage lifted Abigail from the earth where she had fallen, and went
on with kindling excitement.

"No, her children were not all slain. Two escaped--one, a young girl
pale as the first cherry blossoms, with hair like the sunshine in
August. The other was a babe, four weeks old, which this brave woman
took from her bosom just before the tomahawk cleft her brain. These
children were carried into the forest, passed from tribe to tribe, till
the eldest grew to womanhood. But she remembered her mother, and the
horrible scene of her murder, while she knew nothing of the persecutions
that drove that mother among the Indians, when the chiefs were on the
war-path. So she never took kindly to the tribe, but always pined for a
sight of her own people. At last she fled, carrying the child with her,
and came here to the village of Salem."

"Here, here--great heavens, can this be!"

"But they would not let the child of Anna Hutchinson rest; she also
dared to think for herself. She was also arraigned before the magnates
of the church. Like Anna Hutchinson, her fair shoulders were reddened
with stripes. The little child, whom she loved better than her own life,
was torn from her arms. Like a wounded deer, they sent her into the
wilderness, alone, alone--bleeding at every step, uttering moans with
every breath."

"Oh, this is terrible!" cried Abigail, pressing both hands to her heart.

The Indian took no heed of her anguish, but went on:

"All day and all night long she wandered through the tangled
undergrowth, feeding upon the honeysuckle, apples, and wild plums, that
grew in her path, calling in despair on the name of her little sister,
and praying to her God that she might be so happy as to die. For days
and nights she toiled on with only one object--to get farther and
farther from the people of her race. As a wounded deer pants for
spring-water, she longed for the wigwams and the savage love from which
she had fled less than a year before.

"But she was in the deep wilderness now, with no track to guide her
way--no hope, nothing but her despair. She could not even cry aloud to
the Great Spirit, for his face was hidden. Pale and hungry, with the
shoes dropping from her feet, her poor hands torn with the thorns that
sought her out as human hate had done, this poor girl wandered on and
on, growing fainter and paler each moment. At last she sank down,
breathless and exhausted, with great tears rolling slowly from beneath
her closed lashes, and the blue of hunger settling around her mouth."

Here Abigail's sobs broke in upon the narrative. The Indian waved his
hand with a gesture that silenced this outbreak, and went on:

"The place where she fell was a deep ravine; mountains towered on either
side, and rocks, covered with thick mosses, choked it up.

"Upon a shelf of these rocks, where the buck-horn moss crackled and
broke beneath her, she lay panting for life. Hemlock and pine branches
stooped together and shut out the sun--not a glimpse of the blue sky,
not a gleam of the golden light that deluged the tree-tops, came to that
dark ravine.

"There the young girl laid herself down to die--hopeless, speechless,
alone! A wolf, half-way up the ravine, gave out a howl. She did not move
or open her eyes. It might have torn at her garments and found no
resistance. A glittering snake lay coiled on the flat of a rock close
by, with its tail erect and its crest in the air, but, more merciful
than the men who had driven her forth, it shook the rattles of ten years
in gentle warning, uncoiled itself lazily, and, gliding over the moss
within half a yard of her feet, crept into its hole. She saw the serpent
through her half-shut eyes, without a wish to stir. Why not death in
that shape as well as another?

"Then the thoughts died in her brain, and the breath sank to a quiver on
her blue lips. A stillness like the grave crept over her. She did not
hear it, but a footstep sounded on the side of the ravine. A leap from
rock to rock--and an Indian in his war garments stood twenty feet above
the young girl, looking down upon her. He turned aside, seized a sapling
which bent to his weight like a bow, and swung himself downward upon the
rock.

"She did not stir. The lashes lay motionless on her cold cheeks. There
was no breath on those lips. The young Indian gathered the pale creature
in his arms, and strove to warm her against his own brave heart. But it
was of no avail. Then he thought of the flask of fire-water in his
bosom, and forced a few drops through those pale lips--a shiver and a
deep sigh--the lashes unclose, and the deathly eyes look into his.

"The chief laid her softly down, took a corn-cake from the pouch at his
side, and fed her with the crumbs, as if she had been a bird. After the
first morsel she grew eager and craving, but the chief was no common
savage. He knew that enough would be death, and kept the food in his own
grasp, pacifying her with gentle words.

"The daughter of Anna Hutchinson understood his language; her great
mournful eyes had opened upon him like those of a wounded doe; now they
brightened with gratitude, and tears came stealing up, one by one, till
they overflowed.

"That day the maiden rested in the ravine, for the spot seemed like
heaven to her then. The chief gathered green moss fleeces from the other
rocks and heaped a couch, softer than velvet, upon which she slept
sweetly, beneath the shelter of his blanket. All night long the chief
sat guarding her slumbers. To him she was a gift from the Great Spirit,
who had wrought the sunlight in her golden hair.

"When the morning broke, he took his rifle and shot a bird for her
breakfast; for the danger was over, and she might fare sumptuously now.
Striking sparks from his flint, he built a fire in the ravine, and
roasted the game, serving it up daintily on the last corn-cake left in
his pouch. Then he found a spring gushing from under a rock, and brought
her a draught of sparkling water, in a cup formed of leaves which he
made with a single twist of the hand. The maiden smiled upon him in her
sweet thankfulness, and, though a brave chief, he forgot the war-path
which his tribe was pursuing without a leader. It was a pleasant
exchange for the maiden, from the cart wheel and the white man's lash."

"Oh, it was paradise!" murmured Abigail, with tears in her eyes.

"Yes, it was paradise. But a true brave turns resolutely from the wigwam
to the council. The young chief could not remain forever in the ravine,
for he was the head of a great nation, and the warriors waited for him
on the war-path. The next moon, Philip, the young king of the
Pomperoags, had given the maiden a name that he loved well--which
signified wounded bird, and, with this name, he led her to the royal
lodge, with her embroidered robes sweeping the earth, and crowned like a
princess."

"And he loved her always, this savage king?" said Abigail, smiling
through her tears.

"Yes, he loved her, and her only, all the days of his life. It was a
regal marriage, royally fulfilled. For a time Anna Hutchinson's curse
slept."

"Oh, me! I grow cold again--that curse!" cried Abigail.




CHAPTER XV.

GIVEN UP TO REVENGE.


"Anna Hutchinson had charged her daughter, that golden-haired young
girl, with the consummation of her curse. But where love is, vengeance
sleeps. Her husband's tribe was at peace with the whites, and the
'wounded bird' had a child in her lodge; so she put the wrongs of her
mother on one side, and lived contentedly in her forest kingdom. Why
should she urge her husband's warriors to the red path while they could
plant corn and hunt venison unmolested? She did not yet fully understand
the persecutions which had driven her mother to death. The tribe that
massacred her family had been long ago chastised and driven from their
hunting-grounds by the valor of her husband--was not this enough?

"No, no; the wail of that curse still troubled the air around her lodge,
and its spirit worked slowly but surely in the white settlements. Years
wore on; another little child laughed and clapped its hands in the
doorway of King Philip; and now, when the kingly husband and wife were
in their prime, the whites, who had grown powerful, began to cast
rapacious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Pomperoags. It was the old
story of the wolf and the lamb--causes of offence were soon found. The
colonies arose and armed themselves. King Philip of Mount Hope was a
formidable enemy. It took brave men to cope with him. He was a statesman
as well as a warrior, wise as a serpent and brave as steel. The most
powerful tribes flocked to his alliance, some won to his aid by the
eloquence of his wife, others by sympathy and common danger. You have
read in your school books how the war against King Philip was conducted.
You have heard old men and women call him a fiend, and speak of him as
the companion of fiends."

"Yes, yes, the old women tell us stories of his cruelty."

"And of his wrongs, of his courage, his wonderful magnanimity, his noble
statesmanship--do they tell you nothing of this?"

"No; only of his cruelties."

"And your heart, how does that receive the lie? calmly, or bursting with
indignation?"

"My heart aches within me when I hear these legends--aches and burns as
if a wound at its core were rudely touched."

"Ah! and there is a wound, a cruel wound, deep in your life. It shall
spread and burn through your whole being. Listen: These Englishmen voted
themselves munitions of war, raised regiments, linked colony to colony,
and made each settlement the rivet of a chain which swept the coast.
Their bravest men took the field--the whole country was astir. These
very preparations were a tribute to the heroism they were intended to
crush--all this force was brought against the kingly savage. He met it
bravely where courage was most likely to prevail; cautiously where
prudence promised to husband human life. He seized upon their own
tactics, and turned them in his favor; marched, countermarched, and
manoeuvred as no general of Europe has ever done. This queen went side
by side with him upon the war-path. She was his council, the companion
of his danger. There was not a warrior in the tribe who would have
refused to lay down his life for her. But why tell you this history? You
know how the strong man was betrayed by a traitor, murdered in cold
blood, hacked limb from limb. Oh, Great Spirit, hear me, and kindle in
her breast the rage that consumes mine! Listen, girl: His wife and son
were taken prisoners; the wife of King Philip was dragged out of the
forest with her son at her side and the last-born in her arms!

"Again the magnates of the church sat in judgment upon her. A ship lay
on the coast, a battered old vessel bound for Bermuda. This brave woman
could not be trusted in the country--the ship would bear her and her
children into slavery. The wife and children of a king were taken from
the broad forest, with its fresh winds and sumptuous leafiness, and
condemned to herd with negroes and slaves under a tropic sun. That
night, no one could ever tell how, the wife of Philip escaped from her
captors, and fled with her youngest child, a little girl scarcely yet
three years old. That child inherited its mother's beauty, its father's
lofty pride, and the solemn obligations of Anna Hutchinson's curse."

Again Abigail felt the cold chills creeping over her.

"Ah me!" she muttered, "that terrible inheritance--better that the child
had died."

"Better that the child had died than avenge such wrongs--a grandmother's
butchery, a father's murder, stripes and slavery for the mother, chains,
hard labor, brutal blows for the young boy--better that she had died!
Wretched girl, unsay these words!"

The anger in his face was terrible, his hand sprung upwards as if to
smite her. She shrunk away into the shadow of the pine, thinking thus to
escape his fiery glances.

"Step into the light again, that your face may unsay the cowardly words
of your tongue!"

"I dare not--you terrify me. Why tell this horrible story here? I am
young, helpless, afraid sometimes, and talk like this takes away my
strength. I cannot think of this dying woman's curse without dread. The
judgment of God must follow it, and the helpless child, with whom its
power was left--but perhaps she died."

"And if she had, was not the son left, the Bermuda slave, with King
Philip's blood burning beneath the lash, to remind him of the legacy of
hate left against her people by his martyred ancestress?"

"It was an evil inheritance from a woman who wrought much trouble in the
church, though the atonement was enough to wring one's heart. This Anna
Hutchinson, who died under the tomahawk, was a heretic--a free thinker,
who would not forgive her enemies as Christ did, but died hurling curses
back upon the people who perhaps only sought to win her once more to the
true

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