To have separated John Bonyton from Hope Vines would by no means have satisfied the malignant passions at work in the bosom of Acashee, who now aimed at the destruction of her rival, whom she would subject to a bodily torture commensurate with the jealous pangs which gnawed at her own vitals.
At the earliest dawn she made her way to the settlement, and sought out the principal leaders in the church, and, by startling revelations coupled with subtle suggestions of impending danger to the colony, through the instrumentality ofevil spirits, who were to use Hope Vines as a medium, she so wrought upon their superstitious fears as to induce them to send to Boston and procure commissioners to examine into the case.
It was agreed that all should be kept a profound secret, till the commissioners should arrive, when Hope should be brought up for examination, and subjected to certain ordeals believed sufficient to test the certainty of her complicity with evil and dangerous spirits of the lower world.
Thus, while Hope, careless of the future, and easily pleased in the present, lived as the lilies do in their white loveliness, without care for the morrow, two sources of deadly peril were unconsciously hanging over her.
John Bonyton, also, despising the petty malice of his family, and superior to the superstitious belief of the colonists, treated their hints and inuendoes with contempt, or in fiery anger declared he would bring the whole race of savages from the St. Croix to the Saco to punish an injury to a thread of hair upon the head of Hope Vines.
Sir Richard Vines, with a clear, calm eye, saw that danger was at hand, and secretly made preparations to abandon a colony which he had planted with so many hopes, and seen to advance in wealth and importance.
The days of which we write were not days of feasting and merry-making, but of long, gloomy asceticism, in which men plunged into abstruse theological disquisitions with a zest and earnestness which we, in our days of easy tolerance, can hardly conceive. In England, the fires of Smithfield were not long quenched, and had been succeeded by the persecution of poor, helpless, infirm creatures, whom the ignorance or malignity of their neighbors accused of witchcraft. The arbitrary measures of Charles the First had roused into fearful action the whole middling classes of England, a class disposed to moodiness, and it may be envy of the more prosperous and volatile class then in the ascendant. All these subjects of interest abroad found a reflex in the New World, where the grandeur of the old primeval woods, the silence and solitude surrounding the scattered colonists, augmented the natural gloom of asperity and religious fervor.
The family of Sir Richard Vines, more cheerful and moreallied to the Cavalier than Roundhead interests of England, found themselves looked upon with distrust upon more grounds than one, by their more religiously exacting compatriots, whose sympathies were, without any disguise, on the side of Cromwell and the parliament.
The people of the colony met almost daily for prayer and exhortation, which became a grim sort of relaxation and amusement to them. Young and old affected religious fervor, till it became the habit of the mind, to the exclusion of the more social and genial aspects of human intercourse.
The ship was now ready for sailing which was to convey John Bonyton to a distant shore, and inaugurate with him a broader sphere of life and action. He had, with the natural enthusiasm of youth and courage, dwelt upon the change before him, till already he had grasped the pinnacle of renown and achieved wealth and manly distinction. His bearing assumed a nobleness accordant with his new-born aspirations, and few had ever beheld a handsomer youth.
Sir Richard Vines looked upon him with almost paternal pride, and then his eye would rest mournfully upon little Hope, whose future was so shadowy, dim, and unearthly in its promise.
The day before the ship was to take her departure for England, Sir Richard had determined to give a festival in honor of John Bonyton, to which he had been invited, and all of every rank and condition made welcome.
Accordingly the house was thrown open to all comers. Indians were there from the far north and east, who looked upon John Bonyton as the ideal of a young brave, and came to bid him a sorrowful farewell.
The rustic games of old England were revived upon the lawn. There were feats of wrestling and of the race, leaping and lifting—in all of which John Bonyton showed himself expert beyond his fellows. Even the older, austere exiles from fatherland looked on at first in tolerance and finally in sympathy, as thoughts of their own youth and prowess returned, and more than one of the elders joined in the amusements of the day.
At length there approached from the woods a group of Indians, bravely equipped in belt and feathery robe, and led onby music peculiar to themselves, but not unlike that of the castinet. The group divided right and left, and a phantom of beauty bounded forward into the center of the lawn.
She was habited in a soft, white dress composed of wool, reaching little below the knee. It was ample in fold and gathered loosely at the waist by a girdle of wampum. The edge of the robe was ornamented with a fringe of purple shells, which tinkled at the slightest movement, and the round, uncovered arms, and the ankles cased in silken hose, were decorated with circlets of the same shells. The top of the moccasin was fringed like the robe. Masses of hair were folded in braids around the small, faultlessly-shaped head, surmounted by a tuft of feathers from the wing of the black eagle.
The fair vision raised her arms in concord with the music, and lifted her resplendent eyes upward as she moved from side to side, now in slow, measured curves, and now in rapid steps across the arena, and anon bending in those genuflexions which indicate the religious dance.
A brief space, and another form, taller and of darker hue, habited in a similar style of dress, but of a rich, crimson color and fringed with shells of a pearly whiteness, and her long, black braids intermingled with white shells, joined the graceful dancer. Then a tall figure, crowned with feathers of the war-eagle, and armed with bow and arrow, a perfect impersonation of the golden-bright Apollo, bounding and leaping, and shouting a low melody, entered.
Poised lightly upon one foot, with eyes intently fixed upward, he drew an arrow to the head, and then, sinking upon one knee, watched the flight of the feathered messenger.
With upraised arms, and eyes lifted to the blue sky, the dancers disappeared, and it needed no one to say that the two girls were Hope Vines and Acashee, and the young Apollo of grace and beauty was John Bonyton. The dance was that of the Hunter’s Moon.
In spite of the festive scene, Sir Richard and his family became conscious that a certain restraint, an aspect of gloom, began to pervade the occasion; the Indian guests were partially grave and preoccupied; the older colonists were moody and silent; only the younger persons assembled seemed to enter with zest into the amusements of the day.
This gloom was rather hightened than diminished by the dance, which we have described, when it was observed that two grave and venerable men, and strangers, were ushered with much form and ceremony into the assembly. These were no other than Richard Mather and John Partridge, men eminent for their learning and piety, and who were known to have expressed strong opinions in regard to the doctrine of witchcraft, which had of late employed the royal pen of James, King of England.
These men disapproved altogether of the festivities before them, and the dance was no less than an “abomination of abominations.” With hands folded into the loose cuffs of their long, black coats, and plain, white band under the thin, gray beard of each, they sat perfectly motionless and without the slightest change of feature, and watched the dance. They never moved their eyes from the figure of Hope, and gradually as they gazed, a slight flush overspread their pale features, and their lips were coldly and firmly compressed.
Scarcely had the steps of Hope turned to depart, when Dr. Mather sprung to his feet, and, in a loud, authoritative voice, cried out:
“Seize that imp of Satan, that Jezebel; that witch, and bring her hither.”
“What mean you?” cried Sir Richard. “How dare you apply such terms to a child of mine?”
“Dare? dare? Sir Richard, we shall see what we dare.” And Dr. Mather turned away.
Meanwhile Hope had joined, with a gay laugh, the group of archers, and drawing her arrow to the head, cut the center of the mark. A shout rung on every side at this careless and triumphant feat, and she was about to cross the lawn, when she was rudely seized by two officers of the law.
Indignant at the hands laid upon her person, Hope struck right and left with her bow and arrows, and for a moment regained her freedom, and sprung toward the house. She glanced fearfully around, and saw only fierce, malignant faces scowling upon her, and heavy stones raised to arrest her flight. Active and courageous, seeing her way homeward obstructed, she turned with lightning speed in the direction of the Pool, into which she was about to plunge, when shewas caught in the arms of an Indian, who bore her rapidly into the forest.
“Put me down, Kinneho—put me down; I will walk. Only save me from those fierce, bad men. Where is John Bonyton? Call him—call him, I say, Kinneho.”
But the Indian made her no reply. He gathered her slight form in his arms as if it had been that of a child, and plunged into the deepest recesses of the forest, above the Saco Falls, where the place of rendezvous had been appointed. In vain Hope tore out masses of her hair, and scattered them along her path. In vain she essayed to call; the chief firmly but not rudely, laid his hand upon her mouth, and enjoined silence.