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.
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.
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, howcanI 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.
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.
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."
"Reststhere—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.