 | CHAPTER III. Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
Or ween, by Warning, to avoid his Fate?”
Fairy Queen.
On the following morning Mr. Fletcher set out
for Boston, and escaping all perils by flood and
field, he arrived there at the expiration of nine
days, having accomplished the journey, now the
affair of a single day, with unusual expedition.
His wards were accompanied by two individuals
who were now, with them, to become permanent
members of his family. Mrs. Grafton, the sister
of their father, and one Master Cradock, a scholar
“skilled in the tongues,” who attended them
as their tutor. Mrs. Grafton was a widow, far on
the shady side of fifty; though, as that was a subject
to which she never alluded, she probably regarded
age with the feelings ascribed to her sex,
that being the last quality for which womankind
would wish to be honoured, as is said by one
whose satire is so good-humoured that even its
truth may be endured. She was, unhappily
for herself as her lot was cast, a zealous adherent
to the church of England. Good people,
who take upon themselves the supervisorship of
their neighbours' consciences, abounded in that
exhortations and remonstrances. To these
she uniformly replied, `that a faith and mode of
religion that had saved so many was good enough
to save her'—`that she had received her belief,
just as it was, from her father, and that he, not
she, was responsible for it.' Offensive such opinions
must needs be in a community of professed
reformers, but the good lady did not make them
more so by the obtrusiveness of over-wrought zeal.
To confess the truth, her mind was far more intent
on the forms of head-pieces, than modes of
faith; and she was far more ambitious of being
the leader of fashion, than the leader of a sect.
She would have contended more earnestly for a
favourite recipe, than a favourite dogma; and
though she undoubtedly believed “a saint in
crape” to be “twice a saint in lawn,” and fearlessly
maintained that “no man could suitably administer
the offices of religion without `gown,
surplice, and wig,' ” yet she chiefly directed her
hostilities against the puritanical attire of the ladies
of the colony, who, she insisted, `did most
unnaturally belie their nature as women, and
their birth and bringing-up as gentlewomen, by
their ill-fashioned, ill-sorted, and unbecoming apparel.'
To this heresy she was fast gaining proselytes;
for, if we may believe the “simple cobbler
of Agawam,” there were, even in those early
and pure day, “nugiperous gentle dames who
inquired what dress the Queen is in this week.”
of the most vigilant and zealous sentinels proposed
that the preachers should make it the subject
of public and personal reproof, it was whispered
that the scandal was not limited to idle
maidens, but that certain of the deacons' wives
were in it, and it was deemed more prudent to
adopt gentle and private measures to eradicate
the evil; an evil so deeply felt as to be bewailed
by the merciless `cobbler,' above quoted, in the
following affecting terms: “Methinks it would
break the hearts of Englishmen to see so many
goodly English women imprisoned in French
cages, peeping out of their hood-holes for some
men of mercy to help them with a little wit, and
nobody relieves them. We have about five or six
of them in our colony. If I see any of them accidentally,
I cannot cleanse my phansie of them for
a month after.”
It would seem marvellous that a woman like
Mrs. Grafton, apparently engrossed with the world,
living on the foam and froth of life, should become
a voluntary exile to the colonies; but, to do
her justice, she was kind-hearted and affectionate—
susceptible of strong and controlling attachment,
and the infant children of a brother on whom she
had doated, outweighed her love of frivolous pleasures
and personal indulgence.
She certainly believed that the resolution of her
sister to go to the wilderness, had no parallel in
the history of human folly and madness; but the
she made her own destiny conformable,
not without some restiveness, but without serious
repining. It was an unexpected shock to
her to be compelled to leave Boston for a condition
of life not only more rude and inconvenient,
but really dangerous. Necessity, however, is
more potent than philosophy, and Mrs. Grafton,
like most people, submitted with patience to an
inevitable evil.
As `good Master Cradock' was a man rather
acted upon than acting, we shall leave him to be
discovered by our readers as the light of others
falls on him.
Mr. Fletcher received the children—the relicts
and gifts of a woman whom he had loved as few
men can love, with an intense interest. The
youngest, Mary, was a pretty petted child, wayward
and bashful. She repelled Mr. Fletcher's
caresses, and ran away from him to shelter herself
in her aunt's arms—but Alice, the eldest,
seemed instinctively to return the love that beamed
in the first glance that Mr. Fletcher cast on
her—in that brief eager glance he saw the living
and beautiful image of her mother. So much was
he impressed with the resemblance, that he said,
in a letter to his wife, that it reminded him of the
heathen doctrine of metemsychosis—and he could
almost believe the spirit of the mother was transferred
to the bosom of the child. The arrangement
Mr. Fletcher made, for the transportation of
to the preference inspired by this resemblance.
He dispatched the little Mary with her aunt and
the brother of Magawisca, the Indian boy Oneco,
and such attendants as were necessary for
their safe conduct—and he retained Alice and the
tutor to be the companions of his journey. Before
the children were separated, they were baptised
by the Reverend Mr. Cotton, and in commemoration
of the christian graces of their mother,
their names were changed to the puritanical
appellations of Hope and Faith.
Mr. Fletcher was detained, at first by business,
and afterwards by ill-health, much longer than he
had expected, and the fall, winter, and earliest
months of spring wore away before he was able
to set his face homeward. In the mean time, his
little community at Bethel proceeded more harmoniously
than could have been hoped from the discordant
materials of which it was composed.
This was owing, in great part, to the wise and
gentle Mrs. Fletcher, the sun of her little system
—all were obedient to the silent influence that
controlled, without being perceived. But a letter
which she wrote to Mr. Fletcher, just before his
return, containing some important domestic details,
may be deemed worth the perusal of our
readers.
“Springfield, 1636.
“To my good and honoured husband!
“Thy kind letter was duly received fourteen
days after date, and was most welcome to me,
containing, as it does, a portion of that stream of
kindness that is ever flowing out from thy bountiful
nature towards me. Sweet and refreshing
was it, as these gentle days of spring after our
sullen winter. Winter! ever disconsolate in these
parts, but made tenfold more dreary by the absence
of that precious light by which I have ever
been cheered and guided.
“I thank thee heartily, my dear life, that thou
dost so warmly commend my poor endeavours to
do well in thy absence. I have truly tried to be
faithful to my little nestlings, and to cheer them
with notes of gladness when I have drooped inwardly
for the voice of my mate. Yet my anxious
thoughts have been more with thee than with myself;
nor have I been unmindful of any of thy
perplexities by sickness and otherwise, but in all
thy troubles I have been troubled, and have ever
prayed, that whatever might betide me, thou
mightest return, in safety, to thy desiring family.
“I have had many difficulties to contend with in
thy absence, of which I have forborne to inform
thee, deeming it the duty of a wife never to disquiet
her husband with her household cares; but
now that, with the Lord's permission, thou art so
soon to be with us, I would fain render unto thee
art not an hard master, and wilt consider the will
and not the weakness of thy loving wife.
“This Dame Grafton is strangely out of place
here—fitter for a parlour bird, than a flight into
the wilderness; and but that she cometh commended
to us as a widow, a name that is a draft
from the Lord upon every Christian heart, we
might find it hard to brook her light and wordly
ways. She raileth, and yet I think not with an
evil mind, but rather ignorantly, at our most precious
faith, and hath even ventured to read aloud
from her book of Common Prayer—an offence
that she hath been prevented from repeating by
the somewhat profane jest of our son Everell;
whose love of mischief, proceeding from the gay
temper of youth, I trust you will overlook. It
was a few nights ago, when a storm was raging,
that the poor lady's fears were greatly excited.
My womanish apprehensions had a hard struggle
with my duty, so terrific was the hideous howling
of the wolves, mingling with the blasts that swept
through the forest; but I stilled my beating heart
with the thought, that my children leant on me,
and I must not betray my weakness. But Dame
Grafton was beside herself. At one moment she
fancied we should be the prey of the wild beast,
and at the next, that she heard the alarm yell of
the savages. Everell brought her, her prayer-book,
and affecting a well-beseeming gravity, he
begged her to look out the prayer for distressed
North American Indians. The poor lady, distracted
with terror, seized the book, and turned over leaf
after leaf, Everell meanwhile affecting to aid her
search. In vain I shook my head, reprovingly, at
the boy—in vain I assured Mistress Grafton that I
trusted we were in no danger; she was beyond
the influence of reason; nothing allayed her
fears, till chancing to catch a glance of Everell's
eye, she detected the lurking laughter, and rapping
him soundly over the ears with her book, she
left the room greatly enraged. I grieve to add, that
Everell evinced small sorrow for his levity, though
I admonished him thereupon. At the same time
I thought it a fit occasion to commend the sagacity
whereby he had detected the short-comings
of written prayers, and to express my hope, that
unpromising as his beginnings are, he may prove
a son of Jacob that shall wrestle and prevail.
“I have something farther to say of Everell, who
is, in the main, a most devoted son, and as I believe,
an apt scholar; as his master telleth me
that he readeth Latin like his mother tongue, and
is well grounded in the Greek. The boy doth
greatly affect the company of the Pequod girl,
Magawisca. If, in his studies, he meets with any
trait of heroism, (and with such, truly, her mind
doth seem naturally to assimilate) he straightway
calleth for her and rendereth it into English, in
which she hath made such marvellous progress,
that I am sometimes startled with the beautiful
She, in her turn, doth take much delight in describing
to him the customs of her people, and
relating their traditionary tales, which are like
pictures, captivating to a youthful imagination. He
hath taught her to read, and reads to her Spenser's
rhymes, and many other books of the like
kind; of which, I am sorry to say, Dame Grafton
hath brought hither stores. I have not forbidden
him to read them, well knowing that the appetite
of youth is often whetted by denial; and fearing
that the boy might be tempted, secretly, to evade
my authority; and I would rather expose him to
all the mischief of this unprofitable lore, than to
tempt him to a deceit that might corrupt the sweet
fountain of truth—the well-spring of all that is
good and noble.
“I have gone far from my subject. When my
boy comes before my mind's eye, I can see no
other object. But to return. I have not been unmindful
of my duty to the Indian girl, but have
endeavoured to instil into her mind the first principles
of our religion, as contained in Mr. Cotton's
Catechism, and elsewhere. But, alas! to these
her eye is shut and her ear is closed, not only with
that blindness and deafness common to the natural
man, but she entertaineth an aversion, which
has the fixedness of principle, and doth continually
remind me of Hannibal's hatred to Rome,
and is like that inwrought with her filial piety. I
have, in vain, attempted to subdue her to the
part with Jennet; but as hopefully might you yoke
a deer with an ox. It is not that she lacks obedience
to me—so far as it seems she can command
her duty, she is ever complying; but it appeareth
impossible to her to clip the wings of her
soaring thoughts, and keep them down to household
matters.
“I have, sometimes, marvelled at the providence
of God, in bestowing on this child of the forest,
such rare gifts of mind, and other and outward
beauties. Her voice hath a natural deep and
most sweet melody in it, far beyond any stringed
instrument. She hath too, (think not that I, like
Everell, am, as Jennet saith, a charmed bird to
her) she hath, though yet a child in years, that in
her mien that doth bring to mind the lofty Judith,
and the gracious Esther. When I once said this
to Everell, he replied, “Oh, mother! is she not
more like the gentle and tender Ruth?” To him
she may be, and therefore it is, that innocent and
safe as the intercourse of these children now is, it
is for thee to decide whether it be not most wise
to remove the maiden from our dwelling. Two
young plants that have sprung up in close neighbourhood,
may be separated while young; but if
disjoined after their fibres are all intertwined, one,
or perchance both, may perish.
“Think not that this anxiety springs from the
mistaken fancy of a woman, that love is the natural
channel for all the purposes, and thoughts,
think, I beseech thee, that doating with a foolish
fondness upon my noble boy, I magnify into importance
whatsoever concerneth him. No—my
heart yearneth towards this poor heathen orphan-girl;
and when I see her, in his absence, starting
at every sound, and her restless eye turning an
asking glance at every opening of the door; every
movement betokening a disquieted spirit, and
then the sweet contentment that stealeth over her
face when he appeareth;—oh, my honoured husband!
all my woman's nature feeleth for her—
not for any present evil, but for what may betide.
“Having commended this subject to thy better
wisdom, I will leave caring for it to speak to thee
of others of thy household. Your three little girls
are thriving mightily, and as to the baby, you will
not be ashamed to own him; though you will not
recognise, in the bouncing boy that plays bo-peep
and creeps quite over the room, the little creature
who had scarcely opened his eyes on the world,
when you went away. He is by far the largest
child I ever had, and the most knowing; he has
cut his front upper teeth, and sheweth signs of two
more. He is surprisingly fond of Oneco, and
clappeth his hands with joy whenever he sees
him. Indeed, the boy is a favourite with all the
young ones, and greatly aideth me by continually
pleasuring them. He is far different from his sister—gay
and volatile, giving scarcely one thought
to the past, and not one care to the future. His
and sometimes doth produce a cast of seriousness
over his countenance, but at the next presented
object, it vanisheth as speedily as a shadow before
a sunbeam. He hath commended himself greatly
to the favour of Dame Grafton, by his devotion to
her little favourite: a spoiled child is she, and it
seemeth a pity that the name of Faith was given
to her, since her shrinking timid character doth
not promise, in any manner, to resemble that most
potent of the christian graces. Oneco hath always
some charm to lure her waywardness. He
bringeth home the treasures of the woods to
please her—berries, and wild flowers, and the
beautiful plumage of birds that are brought down
by his unerring aim. Everell hath much advantage
from the wood-craft of Oneco: the two boys
daily enrich our table, which, in truth, hath need
of such helps, with the spoils of the air and water.
“I am grieved to tell thee that some misrule hath
crept in among thy servants in thy absence. Alas,
what are sheep without their shepherd! Digby
is, as ever, faithful—not serving with eye-service;
but Hutton hath consorted much with some evildoers,
who have been violating the law of God
and the law of our land, by meeting together in
merry companies, playing cards, dancing, and the
like. For these offences, they were brought before
Mr. Pynchon, and sentenced to receive, each,
“twenty stripes well laid on.” Hutton furthermore,
having been overtaken with drink, was condemned
one month, a bit of wood on which Toper is legibly
written:—and Darby, who is ever a dawdler,
having gone, last Saturday, with the cart to the
village, dilly-dallied about there, and did not set
out on his return till the sun was quite down, both
to the eye and by the kalender. Accordingly,
early on the following Monday, he was summoned
before Mr. Pynchon, and ordered to receive ten
stripes, but by reason of his youth and my intercession,
which, being by a private letter, doubtless
had some effect, the punishment was remitted;
whereupon he heartily promised amendment and
a better carriage.
“There hath been some alarm here within the
last few days, on account of certain Indians who
have been seen lurking in the woods around us.
They are reported not to have a friendly appearance.
We have been advised to remove, for the
present, to the Fort; but as I feel no apprehension,
I shall not disarrange my family by taking a
step that would savour more of fear than prudence.
I say I feel no apprehension—yet I must
confess it—I have a cowardly womanish spirit,
and fear is set in motion by the very mention of
danger. There are vague forebodings hanging
about me, and I cannot drive them away even by
the thought that your presence, my honoured husband,
will soon relieve me from all agitating apprehensions,
and repair all the faults of my poor
accidents have prolonged thy absence—our
re-union may yet be far distant, and if it should
never chance in this world, oh remember that if
I have fallen far short in duty, the measure of my
love hath been full. I have ever known that mine
was Leah's portion—that I was not the chosen
and the loved one; and this has sometimes made
me fearful—often joyless—but remember, it is
only the perfect love of the husband that casteth
out the fear of the wife.
“I have one request to prefer to thee which I
have lacked courage to make by word of mouth,
and therefore now commend it by letter to thy
kindness. Be gracious unto me, my dear husband,
and deem not that I overstep the modest
bound of a woman's right in meddling with that
which is thy prerogative—the ordering of our
eldest son's education. Everell here hath few except
spiritual privileges. God, who seeth my heart,
knoweth I do not undervalue these—the manna
of the wilderness. Yet to them might be added
worldly helps, to aid the growth of the boy's noble
gifts, a kind Providence having opened a wide
door therefor in the generous offer of my brother
Stretton. True, he hath not attained to our light
whereby manifold errors of church and state are
made visible; yet he hath ever borne himself uprightly,
and to us, most lovingly, and as I remember
there was a good Samaritan, and a faithful
centurion, I think we are permitted to enlarge the
albeit not of our communion.”
“Thou hast already sown the good seed in our
boy's heart, and it hath been (I say it not presumingly)
nurtured with a mother's tears and prayers.
Trust then to the promised blessing, and
fear not to permit him to pass a few years in England,
whence he will return to be a crown of glory
to thee, my husband, and a blessing and honour
to our chosen country. Importunity, I know, is
not beseeming in a wife—it is the instrument of
weakness, whereby, like the mouse in the fable,
she would gnaw away what she cannot break. I
will not, therefore, urge thee farther, but leave the
decision to thy wisdom and thy love. And now,
my dear husband, I kiss and embrace thee, and
may God company with thee, and restore thee, if
it be his good pleasure, to thy ever faithful and
loving and obedient wife,
Martha Fletcher.
“To her honoured husband
these be delivered.”
The above letter may indicate, but it feebly
expresses, the character and state of mind
of the writer. She never magnified her love
by words, but expressed it by that self-devoting,
self-sacrificing conduct to her husband and
children, which characterizes, in all ages and circumstances,
was too generous to communicate all her fears,
(about which a woman is usually least reserved)
to her husband.
Some occurrences of the preceding day had
given her just cause of alarm. At a short distance
from Bethel, (the name that Mr. Fletcher
had given his residence) there lived an old Indian
woman, one of the few survivors of a tribe who
had been faithful allies of the Pequods. After
the destruction of her people, she had strayed up
the banks of the Connecticut, and remained in
Springfield. She was in the habit of supplying
Mrs. Fletcher with wild berries and herbs, and receiving
favours in return, and on that day went
thither, as it appeared, on her customary errand.
—She had made her usual barter, and had
drawn her blanket around her as if to depart, but
still she lingered standing before Mrs. Fletcher
and looking fixedly at her. Mrs. Fletcher did not
at first observe her; her head was bent over her
infant sleeping on her lap, in the attitude of listening
to its soft breathing. As she perused its
innocent face a mother's beautiful visions floated
before her; but, as she raised her eye and met
the piercing glance of the old woman, a dark
cloud came over the clear heaven of her thoughts.
Nelema's brow was contracted, her lips drawn in,
and her little sunken eye gleamed like a diamond
from its dark recess.
“Why do you look at my baby thus?” asked
Mrs. Fletcher.
The old woman replied in her own dialect,
in a hurried inarticulate manner. “What says
she, Magawisca?” asked Mrs. Fletcher of the
Indian girl who stood beside her, and seemed to
listen with unwonted interest.
“She says, madam, the baby is like a flower
just opened to the sun, with no stain upon it—
that he better pass now to the Great Spirit. She
says this world is all a rough place—all sharp
stones, and deep waters, and black clouds.”
“Oh, she is old, Magawisca, and the days have
come to her that have no pleasure in them. Look
there,” she said, “Nelema, at my son Everell;'
the boy was at the moment passing the window,
flushed with exercise and triumphantly displaying
a string of game that he had just brought from
the forest—“Is there not sunshine in my boy's
face! To him every day is bright, and every path
is smooth.”
“Ah!” replied the old woman with a heavy
groan, “I had sons too—and grandsons; but
where are they? They trod the earth as lightly
as that boy; but they have fallen like our forest
trees, before the stroke of the English axe. Of
all my race, there is not one, now, in whose veins
my blood runs. Sometimes, when the spirits
of the storm are howling about my wigwam, I
hear the voices of my children crying for vengeance,
and then I could myself deal the death-blow.”
Nelema spoke with vehemence and wild
Magawisca's soft voice, had little tendency to allay
the feeling her manner inspired. Mrs. Fletcher
recoiled from her, and instinctively drew her baby
closer to her breast.
“Nay,” said the old woman, “fear me not, I
have had kindness from thee, thy blankets have
warmed me, I have been fed from thy table, and
drank of thy cup, and what is this arm,” and she
threw back her blanket and stretched out her
naked, shrivelled, trembling arm, “what is this to
do the work of vengeance?”
She paused for an instant, glanced her eye wildly
around the room, and then again fixed it on
Mrs. Fletcher and her infant. “They spared not
our homes,” she said; “there where our old men
spoke, where was heard the song of the maiden,
and the laugh of our children; there now all is
silence, dust, and ashes. I can neither harm thee,
nor help thee. When the stream of vengeance
rolls over the land, the tender shoot must be broken,
and the goodly tree uprooted, that gave its
pleasant shade and fruits to all.”
“It is a shame and a sin,” said Jennet who
entered the room just as Magawisca was conveyveying
Nelema's speech to Mrs. Fletcher; “a crying
shame, for this heathen hag to be pouring forth
here as if she were gifted like the prophets of
old; she that can only see into the future by reading
the devil's book, and if that be the case, as
more than one has mistrusted, it were best, forthwith,
into prison.”
“Peace, Jennet,” said Mrs. Fletcher, alarmed
lest Nelema should hear her, and her feelings,
which were then at an exalted pitch, should be
wrought to frenzy; but her apprehensions were
groundless; the old woman saw nothing but the
visions of her imagination; heard nothing but the
fancied voices of the spiritis of her race. She
continued for a few moments to utter her thoughts
in low inarticulate murmurs, and then, without
again addressing Mrs. Fletcher, or raising her eyes,
she left the house.
A few moments after her departure, Mrs.
Fletcher perceived that she had dropped at her
feet a little roll, which she found on examination,
to be an arrow, and the rattle of a rattle-snake
enveloped in a skin of the same reptile. She knew it
was the custom of the savages to express much
meaning by these symbols, and she turned to demand
an explanation of Magawisca, who was
deeply skilled in all the ways of her people.
Magawisca had disappeared, and Jennet, who
had ever looked on the poor girl with a jealous
and an evil eye, took this occasion to give vent to
her feelings. “It is a pity,” she said, “the child
is out of the way the first time she was like to do
a service; she may be skilled in snake's rattles,
and bloody arrows, for I make no doubt she is as
used to them, as I am to my broom and scrubbing-cloth.”
“Will you call Magawisca to me,” said Mrs.
Fletcher, in a voice that from her would have
been a silencing reproof to a more sensitive ear
than Jennet's; but she, no ways daunted, replied,
“Ah! that will I, madam, if I can find her; but
where to look for her no mere mortal can tell; for
she does not stay longer on a perch than a butterfly,
unless indeed, it be when she is working on
Mr. Everell's moccasins, or filling his ears with
wild fables about those rampaging Indians. Ah,
there she is!” she exclaimed, looking through the
window, “talking with Nelema, just a little way
in the wood—there, I see their heads above those
scrub—oaks—see their wild motions—see Magawisca
starts homeward—now the old woman pulls
her back—now she seems entreating Nelema—the
old hag shakes her head—Magawisca covers her
eyes—what can all this mean? no good, I am
sure. The girl is ever going to Nelema's hut,
and of moonlight nights too, when they say witches
work their will—birds of a feather flock together.
Well, I know one thing, that if Master Everell
was mine, I would sooner, in faith, cast him into
the lion's den, or the fiery furnace, than leave him
to this crafty offspring of a race that are the children
and heirs of the evil one.”
“Jennet,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “thy tongue far
outruns thy discretion. Restrain thy foolish
thoughts, and bid Magawisca come to me.”
Jennet sullenly obeyed, and soon after Magawisca
entered. Mrs. Fletcher was struck with
conscious of possessing a secret, and fearful
that the eye, the herald of the soul, will speak unbidden.
Her air was troubled and anxious, and
instead of her usual light and lofty step, she moved
timidly and dejectedly.
“Come to me, Magawisca,” said Mrs. Fletcher,
“and deal truly by me, as I have ever dealt by
thee.”
She obeyed, and as she stood by Mrs. Fletcher
the poor girl's tears dropped on her benefactor's
lap. “Thou hast been more than true,” she said,
“thou hast been kind to me as the mother-bird
that shelters the wanderer in her nest.”
“Then, Magawisca, if it concerneth me to
know it, thou wilt explain the meaning of this roll
which Nelema dropped at my feet.”
The girl started and became very pale—to an
observing eye, the changes of the olive skin are
as apparent as those of a fairer complexion. She
took the roll from Mrs. Fletcher and shut her eyes
fast. Her bosom heaved convulsively; but after
a short struggle with conflicting feelings, she said,
deliberately, in a low voice—“That which I
may speak without bringing down on me the
curse of my father's race, I will speak. This,”
she added, unfolding the snake's skin, “this betokeneth
the unseen and silent approach of an enemy.
This, you know,” and she held up the rattle,
“is the warning voice that speaketh of danger
near. And this,” she concluded, taking the arrow
death.”
“And why, Magawisca, are these fearful tokens
given to me? Dost thou know, girl, aught
of a threatening enemy—of an ambushed foe?”
“I have said all that I may say,” she replied.
Mrs. Fletcher questioned further, but could obtain
no satisfaction. Magawisca's lips were sealed;
and it was certain that if her resolution did not
yield to the entreaties of her own heart, it would
resist every other influence.
Mrs. Fletcher summoned Everell, and bade him
urge Magawisca to disclose whatever Nelema had
communicated. He did so, but sportively, for, he
said, “the old woman was cracked, and Magawisca's
head was turned. If there were indeed
danger,” he continued, “and Magawisca was apprised
of it, think you, mother, she would permit
us to remain in ignorance?” He turned an
appealing glance to Magawisca, but her face was
averted. Without suspecting this was intentional,
he continued, “you ought to do penance,
Magawisca, for the alarm you have given mother.
You and I will act as her patrole to-night.”
Magawisca assented, and appeared relieved by
the proposition, though her gloom was not lightened
by Everell's gaiety. Mrs. Fletcher did not,
of course, acquiesce in this arrangement, but she
deemed it prudent to communicate her apprehensions
to her trusty Digby. After a short consultation,
it was agreed that Digby should remain on
men-servants should have their muskets in order,
and be ready at a moment's warning. Such precautions
were not infrequent, and caused no unusual
excitement in the household. Mrs. Fletcher
had it, as she expressed herself, `borne in upon
her mind, after the evening exercise, to make some
remarks upon the uncertainty of life.' She then
dismissed the family to their several apartments,
and herself retired to indite the epistle given
above.
Everell observed Magawisca closely through the
evening, and he was convinced, from the abstraction
of her manner and from the efforts she made,
(which were now apparent to him) to maintain a
calm demeanor, that there was more ground for
his mother's apprehensions than he, at first, supposed.
He determined to be the companion of
Digby's watch, and standing high in that good
fellow's confidence, he made a private arrangement
with him, which he easily effected without
his mother's knowledge, for his youthful zeal did
not render him regardless of the impropriety of
heightening her fears.
| CHAPTER III. Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts | |