Among the Indian maidens was a bold, handsome girl, a little older than Hope, who was her constant and favored companion, and having more intelligence and tact than usually falls to the primitive maidens of the forest, Acashee, or the Spider, (literally net-weaver, or snare-builder,) had contrived to divest herself of the usual toils and drudgeries of her sex in a savage condition.
Acashee was the daughter of Samoset, of the Kennebec tribe—the Indian who went to and remained three years in England, where he shared the royal favor of Elizabeth, whose accomplished courtiers vied with each other in lavishing attentions upon a man who presented a new and generous type of the race, undebauched by the vices of civilization.
Shakespeare without doubt received many a poetic hint from the noble savage, and most certainly owed to him the story of the Tempest, and the fable of the Pucks, or as the Indians called them Puck-wud-jees—being literally wood-fairies.
The courage and address of Acashee had rendered her the friend and companion of her father, and his attendant upon many a long and perilous march. Among savage tribes intelligence of a strange or interesting character is conveyed byfleet runners, who go from tribe to tribe after the manner of the Highland clans so graphically described by Walter Scott in the “speed, Malise, speed†of his spirited poem. Accordingly, Samoset was one of the first to reach the sea-shore, and look with wonder upon the ship which had come like a rare bird, or superior agent, from the spirit-land. He it was who, fifteen years afterward, hailed the Pilgrims at Plymouth with the words: “Welcome, Englishmen.â€
Samoset had been of great service to the colony upon the Saco river, and Sir Richard Vines and family had not failed to treat his daughter Acashee with much consideration. Little Hope more especially singled her out as her favorite friend and companion. She liked her for her beauty, her courage, her strength and activity, combined with an easy gayety rare in the children of the wood, and almost unknown among the anxious and over-taxed pilgrims to the new world.
The artful savage maiden, acute and penetrating, had not failed to perceive the peculiar characteristics of Hope, and had not failed to turn them to account in her own way. She played her game in a manner worthy of her name, of Net-weaver, in the best sense, Spider in its worst. She hinted to the melancholy and superstitious Pilgrim settlers, doubts of her state as a true human being, for the Indians believed in the incarnation of certain malignant beings, no less than the ascetic whites.
To the Indians of the many tribes with whom she and her father were in constant intercourse, she enlarged upon Hope’s gifts as a wonderful medicine-woman, and it was she who had more than once induced them to make attempts to abduct her for purposes of divination.
While our poor Hope was thus constantly under the eye of her wily and malignant companion, she was a source, also, of much solicitude on the part of the parents, who began to feel painfully that evil and cruel thoughts were rife in the minds of their neighbors regarding her, which might end in some tragedy even more distressing than the fate of Sir Walter Raleigh, with whom Hope was so fond of associating herself.
Mistress Vines was a cheerful, active, dignified woman, or she would have been sore distressed as the conviction grewupon her that all was not quite right with little Hope. In high courtly or civilized society her peculiarities would not have been observed—the pressure of the same serving to keep its members in equal balance; but in an experience admitting of greater latitude, it became evident that she, the product of a civilized, but bred amidst a primitive, race, had inherited the graces of the one, and absorbed the wild freedom of the other.
Having once obtained the key to the formation of her mind, all its manifestations were complete and harmonious. The study of a book was irksome to her, but that which she learned from the utterance of the human tongue never escaped her memory.
There was a preternatural directness in all the elements of her mind—a wild, vivid adherence to truth under every aspect, which rendered any modification of it, under any circumstances, impossible to her; hence it was followed without the power to anticipate results. It might have been genius—for nothing was impossible to her; and yet, according to ordinary calculations, little was attainable. She would say, “I know it is thus and thus,†but the why it was so it was impossible for her to define.
“Did it ever occur to you, my husband,†asked Mistress Vines, “that there is something in the look of poor little Hope strangely like our brother Raleigh?â€
“Often, often, sweetheart; nor is it strange. Do not be distressed about Hope; she is as God has given her to us, and in his good time he will clear away those shadows which obscure the brightness of the spirit he has made. Take heart, good dame.â€
“She is good and beautiful in spite of all,†rejoined the wife, eying her daughter tenderly. “Shall we ever send her to England?â€
“Thy heart yearns for the mother-land, sweetheart?â€
“Nay, my dear, good husband, I am more than content. I live not for England, but for thee and our little ones.â€
And she leaned both hands clasped upon his shoulder, in a most tender, wifely way.
“If thou art truly content, sweet heart,â€â€”and in saying this he separated the words, as if the better to express thedeep sentiment of the love he bore her—“I rejoice, deeply rejoice, for old England is verging upon critical times; and even here, men and women are not quite safe from evil tongues and evil designs!â€
He drew her nearer to his breast as he said this, for there were surmises and rumors which he did not name to his lovely wife.
It was evident to both parents that Hope must be left to her own existence, and suffered to enjoy it in her own way; nor was this by any means a limited or degraded one. Her exquisite organization, her perfect health and vivid vitality, were combined with a degree of hardy activity astonishing in one so delicately made.
As a child, the Indians had treated Hope with a deference and tenderness that implied a doubt whether a creature so fair and diminutive could master the rude encounters of life; but as she grew in years, and they saw her small feet so active, and her tiny wrath so ready to wreak itself, their admiration knew no bounds. They delighted to become her instructors in all wildwood games and primitive exploits, and so apt a pupil did they find her that she seemed to their simple observation a prodigy of cleverness rather than one whose mental organization was a subject of doubt or anxiety.
She was expert at the bow and arrow, could swim like a duck, and come out of the water and shake the drops from her long hair without that shrunken,soused-overlook so common to women who breast the waters. She was fond of the Indian mode of dress, rarely being willing to conform to the usages prevalent at the time. She was fond of all ornaments that left her movements unimpeded, but refused the use of braid, bodkin, or fillet to curb the redundancy of her locks.
None of these things were lost upon the artful Acashee, who, in turn, teased or flattered Hope, as might best subserve the great purpose of her life, which was to separate her from John Bonyton, for whom she had conceived a passion the more profound for the obstacles which promised to defeat its gratification.
Hope was well aware of the arts of the girl; but she liked her bold, fearless ways, and her untiring activity. With senses as keen as those of the young savage, she detected her hanginglike a shadow over her own pathway, and knew that John Bonyton in the chase of the wild deer, and spearing salmon far up the Falls of the Saco, was often confronted by her rival, and was not unwilling to loiter in the presence of the bright, handsome savage.
On the morning of the day when our story opens, when Hope was found quarreling so vehemently with her lover for having saved her from a long sleep under the sea, the two girls, as was their wont, had met upon a point of land a few miles distant from the Pool, designing to follow the beautiful winding of the Saco up to the Falls, and watch the salmon, like golden ingots, “shoot†the cataract.
Standing upon this promontory, Hope’s dreamy eyes wandered over the landscape, drinking in its beauty, as her kinsman Raleigh might have done in one of his poetic moods. Acashee, on the contrary, practiced all the subtle arts of her nature, and all the coquetries of a wildwood beauty, to interest the heart of John Bonyton. Aroused at length from her reverie, Hope saw the flashing eyes of Bonyton resting admiringly, as she thought, upon her companion. With a wild impulse of undefined jealousy and rage, she threw aside her bow and arrows, and cast herself into the sea.
She was rescued, as we have seen, by the athletic youth, greatly to the discomfiture of the impulsive child. Severe and biting reproaches were exchanged subsequently between the two girls, in which the red maiden betrayed a readiness and spirit as unexpected as it was fearful. Hope was not lacking in her vocabulary of spleen, and she turned her head scoffingly, crying:
“You are a long-legged, big, black-bodied spider, and that is what your name means.â€
Acashee darted forward, seizing her by the wrist; she bent down and looked fiercely into her eyes; grinding her teeth, she hissed with the rage and venom of the serpent, into the ears of Hope:
“Iama spider! I weave a strong web. I will snare in it the little fly. Go to, you had a friend; now you have a foe.â€
And dashing the hand from her grasp, she plunged into the forest.
Hope laughed a bitter, contemptuous laugh, and turned slowly homeward, followed by the repentant Bonyton, to have the indignant words of the girl and the protestations of the other overheard by the two fathers.