 | CHAPTER VIII. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
No goblins lead their nightly crew;
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew.
Collins
It is rare indeed that the philosophy of a dignified
Indian is so far disturbed, as to destroy the appearance
of equanimity. When Content and the
family of the Heathcotes appeared on the hill, they
found the chiefs still pacing the orchard, with the
outward composure of men unmoved, and with the
gravity that was suited to their rank. Annawon,
who had acted as their conductor, caused the captives
to be placed in a row, choosing the foot of the
ruin for their position, and then he patiently awaited
the moment when his superiors might be pleased
to renew the examination. In this habitual silence,
there was nothing of the abject air of Asiatic deference.
It proceeded from the habit of self-command,
which taught the Indian to repress all natural
emotions. A very similar effect was produced
by the religious abasement of those whom fortune
had now thrown into their power. It would have
been a curious study, for one interested in the manners
of the human species, to note the difference
between the calm, physical, and perfect self-possession
of the wild tenants of the forest, and the ascetic,
spiritually sustained, and yet meek submission
to Providence, that was exhibited by most of the
prisoners. We say of most, for there was an exception.
The brow of young Mark still retained its
frown, and the angry character of his eye was only
and pallid features of his mother. There was ample
time for these several and peculiar qualities to
be thus silently exhibited, many minutes passing
before either of the Sachems seemed inclined to recommence
the conference. At length Philip, or
Metacom, as we shall indifferently call him, drew
near and spoke.
“This earth is a good earth,” he said; “it is of
many colors, to please the eyes of him who made
it. In one part it is dark, and as the worm taketh
the color of the leaf on which he crawls, there the
hunters are black; in another part it is white, and
that is the part where pale-men were born, and
where they should die; or they may miss the road
which leads to their happy hunting-grounds. Many
just warriors, who have been killed on distant war-paths,
still wander in the woods, because the trail
is hid, and their sight dim. It is not good to trust
so much to the cunning of—”
“Wretched and blind worshipper of Apollyon!”
interrupted the Puritan, “we are not of the idolatrous
and foolish-minded! It hath been accorded to
us to know the Lord; to his chosen worshippers, all
regions are alike. The spirit can mount, equally,
through snows and whirlwinds; the tempest and
the calm; from the lands of the sun, and the lands
of frosts; from the depths of the ocean, from fire,
from the forest—”
He was interrupted, in his turn. At the word fire,
the finger of Metacom fell meaningly on his shoulder;
and when he had ceased, for until then no Indian
would have spoken, the other gravely asked—
“And when a man of a pale skin hath gone up
in the fire, can he again walk upon earth? Is the
river between this clearing and the pleasant fields
of a Yengeese so narrow, that the just men can step
across it when they please?”
“This is the conceit of one wallowing in the
slough of heathenish abominations! Child of ignorance!
know that the barriers which separate heaven
from earth are impassable; for what purified being
could endure the wickedness of the flesh?”
“This is a lie of the false Pale-faces,” said the
wily Philip; “it is told that the Indian might not
learn their cunning, and become stronger than a
Yengeese. My father, and those with him, were
once burnt in this lodge, and now he standeth here,
ready to take the tomahawk!”
“To be angered at this blasphemy, would ill denote
the pity that I feel,” said Mark, more excited
at the charge of necromancy, than he was willing
to own; “and yet to suffer so fatal an error to
spread among these deluded victims of Satan, would
be neglect of duty. Thou hast heard some legend
of thy wild people, man of the Wampanoags, which
may heap double perdition on thy soul, lest thou
shouldst happily be rescued from the fangs of the
deceiver. It is true, that I and mine were in exceeding
jeopardy in this tower, and that to the eyes
of men without we seemed melted with the heat
of the flames; but the Lord put it into our spirits to
seek refuge whither fire could not come. The well
was made the instrument of our safety, for the fulfilment
of his own inscrutable designs.”
Notwithstanding the long practised and exceeding
subtlety of the listeners, they heard this simple
explanation of that which they had deemed a miracle,
with a wonder that could not readily be concealed.
Delight at the excellence of the artifice
was evidently the first and common emotion of them
both; nor would they yield implicit faith, until assured,
beyond a doubt, that what they heard was
true. The little iron door, which had permitted
access to the well, for the ordinary domestic purposes
of the family, was still there; and it was only
he appeared satisfied of the practicability of the
deed. Then a look of triumph gleamed in the
swarthy visage of Philip, while the features of his
associate expressed equally his satisfaction and his
regret. They walked apart, musing on what they
had just seen and heard; and when they spoke, it
was again in the language of their people.
“My son hath a tongue that cannot lie,” observed
Metacom, in a soothing, flattering accent. “What
he hath seen, he tells; and what he tells, is true.
Conanchet is not a boy, but a chief whose wisdom
is gray, while his limbs are young. Now, why shall
not his people take the scalps of these Yengeese, that
they may never go any more into holes in the earth,
like cunning foxes?”
“The Sachem hath a very bloody mind,” returned
the young chief, quicker than was common for
men of his station. “Let the arms of the warriors
rest, till they meet the armed hands of the Yengeese,
or they will be too tired to strike heavily.
My young men have taken scalps, since the sun
came over the trees, and they are satisfied—Why
does Metacom look so hard? What does my father
see?”
“A dark spot in the middle of a white plain. The
grass is not green; it is red as blood. It is too dark
for the blood of a Pale-face. It is the rich blood of
a great warrior. The rains cannot wash it out; it
grows darker every sun. The snows do not whiten
it; it hath been there many winters. The birds
scream as they fly over it; the wolf howls; the
lizards creep another way.”
“Thine eyes are getting old; fire hath blackened
the place, and what thou seest is coal.”
“The fire was kindled in a well; it did not burn
bright. What I see, is blood.”
“Wampanoag,” rejoined Conanchet, fiercely, “I
The grave of my father is covered with
scalps taken by the hand of his son—Why does
Metacom look again? What does the chief see?”
“An Indian town burning in the midst of the
snow; the young men struck from behind; the girls
screaming; the children broiling on coals, and the
old men dying like dogs! It is the village of the
cowardly Pequots—No, I see better; the Yengeese
are in the country of the Great Narragansett, and
the brave Sachem is there, fighting! I shut my eyes,
for smoke blinds them!”
Conanchet heard this allusion to the recent and
deplorable fate of the principal establishment of his
tribe, in sullen silence; for the desire of revenge,
which had been so fearfully awakened, seemed
now to be slumbering, if it were not entirely quelled
by the agency of some mysterious and potent feeling.
He rolled his eyes gloomily, from the apparently
abstracted countenance of his artful companion,
to those of the captives, whose fate only
awaited his judgment, since the band which had
that morning broken in upon the Wish-Ton-Wish
was, with but few exceptions, composed of the surviving
warriors of his own powerful nation. But,
while his look was displeased, faculties that were
schooled so highly, could not easily be mistaken, in
what passed, even in the most cursory manner, before
his sight.
“What sees my father, next?” he asked, with
an interest he could not control, detecting another
change in the features of Metacom.
“One who is neither white nor red. A young
woman, that boundeth like a skipping fawn; who
hath lived in a wigwam, doing nothing; who speaks
with two tongues; who holds her hands before the
eyes of a great warrior, till he is blind as the owl
in the sun—I see her—”
Metacom paused, for at that moment a being that
singularly resembled this description appeared before
him, offering the reality of the imaginary picture
he was drawing with so much irony and art.
The movement of the timid hare is scarce more
hurried, or more undecided, than that of the creature
who now suddenly presented herself to the
warriors. It was apparent, by the hesitating and
half-retreating step that succeeded the light bound
with which she came in view, that she dreaded to
advance, while she knew not how far it might be
proper to retire. For the first moment, she stood in
a suspended and doubting posture, such as one might
suppose a creature of mist would assume ere it vanished,
and then meeting the eye of Conanchet, the
uplifted foot retouched the earth, and her whole
form sunk into the modest and shrinking attitude of
an Indian girl, who stood in the presence of a Sachem
of her tribe. As this female is to enact no mean
part in that which follows, the reader may be thankful
for a more minute description of her person.
The age of the stranger was under twenty. In
form she rose above the usual stature of an Indian
maid, though the proportions of her person were as
light and buoyant as at all comported with the fullness
that properly belonged to her years. The limbs,
seen below the folds of a short kirtle of bright scarlet
cloth, were just and tapering, even to the nicest
proportions of classic beauty; and never did foot of
higher instep, and softer roundness, grace a feathered
moccason. Though the person, from the neck to
the knees, was hid by a tightly-fitting vest of calico
and the short kirtle named, enough of the shape
was visible to betray outlines that had never been
injured, either by the mistaken devices of art or by
the baneful effects of toil. The skin was only visible
at the hands, face, and neck. Its lustre having
been a little dimmed by exposure, a rich, rosy tint
that had once been fair even to brilliancy. The eye
was full, sweet, and of a blue that emulated the sky
of evening; the brows, soft and arched; the nose,
straight, delicate, and slightly Grecian; the forehead,
fuller than that which properly belonged to a
girl of the Narragansetts, but regular, delicate, and
polished; and the hair, instead of dropping in long
straight tresses of jet black, broke out of the restraints
of a band of beaded wampum, in ringlets
of golden yellow.
The peculiarities that distinguished this female
from the others of her tribe, were not confined alone
to the indelible marks of nature. Her step was more
clastic; her gait more erect and graceful; her foot
less inwardly inclined, and her whole movements
freer and more decided than those of a race doomed
from infancy to subjection and labor. Though ornamented
by some of the prized inventions of the
hated race to which she evidently owed her birth,
she had the wild and timid look of those with whom
she had grown into womanhood. Her beauty would
have been remarkable in any region of the earth,
while the play of muscle, the ingenuous beaming of
the eye, and the freedom of limb and action, were
such as seldom pass beyond the years of childhood,
among people who, in attempting to improve, so
often mar the works of nature.
Although the color of the eye was so very different
from that which generally belongs to one of Indian
origin, the manner of its quick and searching
glance, and of the half-alarmed and yet understanding
look with which this extraordinary creature
made herself mistress of the more general character
of the assemblage before which she had been
summoned, was like the half-instinctive knowledge
of one accustomed to the constant and keenest exercise
of her faculties. Pointing with a finger towards
a low, sweet voice was heard asking, in the
language of the Indians—
“Why has Conanchet sent for his woman from
the woods?”
The young Sachem made no reply; an ordinary
spectator could not have detected about him even a
consciousness of the speaker's presence. On the contrary,
he maintained the lofty reserve of a chief
engaged in affairs of moment. However deeply his
thoughts might have been troubled, it was not easy
to trace any evidence of the state of his mind in
the calmness of features that appeared habitually
immovable. For a single treacherous instant, only,
was a glance of kindness shot towards the timid and
attentive girl, and then throwing the still bloody
tomahawk into the hollow of one arm, while the
hand of the other firmly grasped its handle, he remained
unchanged in feature, as he was rigid in
limb. Not so, with Philip. When the intruder first
appeared, a dark and lowering gleam of discontent
gathered at his brow. It quickly changed to a look
of sarcastic and biting scorn.
“Does my brother again wish to know what I
see?” he demanded, when sufficient time had passed,
after the unanswered question of the female, to
show that his companion was not disposed to answer.
“What does the Sachem of the Wampanoags
now behold?” returned Conanchet, proudly; unwilling
to show that any circumstance had occurred
to interrupt the subject of their conference.
“A sight that his eyes will not believe. He sees
a great tribe on the war-path. There are many
braves, and a chief whose fathers came from the
clouds. Their hands are in the air; they strike heavy
blows; the arrow is swift, and the bullet is not seen
to enter, but it kills. Blood runs from the wounds,
that is of the color of water. Now he does not see,
are very glad. The chiefs in the happy hunting-grounds
are coming, with joy, to meet Indians
that are killed; for they know the scalp-whoop of
their children.”
The expressive countenance of the young Sachem
involuntarily responded to this description of the
scene through which he had just passed; and it was
impossible for one so tutored, to prevent the blood
from rushing faster to a heart that ever beat strongly
with the wishes of a warrior.
“What sees my father, next?” he asked, triumph
insensibly stealing into the tones of his voice.
“A Messenger—and then he hears—the moccasons
of squaws!”
“Enough;—Metacom, the women of the Narragansetts
have no lodges. Their villages are in coals,
and they follow the young men for food.”
“I see no deer. The hunter will not find venison
in a clearing of the Pale-faces. But the corn is full
of milk; Conanchet is very hungry; he hath sent
for his woman, that he may eat!”
The fingers of that hand, which grasped the
handle of the tomahawk, appeared to bury themselves
in the wood; the glittering axe itself was
slightly raised; but the fierce gleaming of resentment
subsided, as the anger of the young Sachem
vanished, and a dignified calm again settled on his
countenance.
“Go, Wampanoag,” he said, waving a hand
proudly, as if determined to be no longer harassed
by the language of his wily associate. “My young
men will raise the whoop, when they hear my
voice; and they will kill deer for their women.
Sachem, my mind is my own.”
Philip answered to the look which accompanied
these words, with one that threatened vengeance;
but smothering his anger, with his accustomed wisdom,
more of commiseration than of resentment.
“Why has Conanchet sent for a woman from the
woods?” repeated the same soft voice, nearer to
the elbow of the young Sachem, and which spoke
with less of the timidity of the sex, now that the
troubled spirit of the Indians of those regions had
disappeared.
“Narra-mattah, come near;” returned the young
chief, changing the deep and proud tones in which
he had addressed his restless and bold companion
in arms, to those which better suited the gentle
ear for which his words were intended. “Fear not,
daughter of the morning, for those around us are
of a race used to see women at the council-fires.
Now look, with an open eye—is there anything
among these trees that seemeth like an ancient
tradition? Hast ever beheld such a valley, in thy
dreams? Have yonder Pale-faces, whom the tomahawks
of my young men spared, been led before
thee by the Great Spirit, in the dark night?”
The female listened, in deep attention. Her gaze
was wild and uncertain, and yet it was not absolutely
without gleamings of a half-reviving intelligence.
Until that moment, she had been too much
occupied in conjecturing the subject of her visit, to
regard the natural objects by which she was surrounded:
but with her attention thus directly turned
upon them, her organs of sight embraced each
and all, with the discrimination that is so remarkable
in those whose faculties are quickened by danger
and necessity. Passing from side to side, her
swift glances ran over the distant hamlet, with its
little fort; the buildings in the near grounds; the
soft and verdant fields; the fragrant orchard, beneath
whose leafy shades she stood, and the blackened
tower, that rose in its centre, like some gloomy
memorial, placed there to remind the spectator not
that reigned around. Shaking back the ringlets
that had blown about her temples, the wondering
female returned thoughtfully and in silence to her
place.
“'Tis a village of the Yengeese!” she said, after
a long and expressive pause. “A Narragansett
woman does not love to look at the lodges of the
hated race.”
“Listen.—Lies have never entered the ears of
Narra-mattah. My tongue hath spoken like the
tongue of a chief. Thou didst not come of the sumach,
but of the snow. This hand of thine is not
like the hands of the women of my tribe; it is little,
for the Great Spirit did not make it for work;
it is of the color of the sky in the morning, for thy
fathers were born near the place where the sun
rises. Thy blood is like spring-water. All this
thou knowest, for none have spoken false in thy ear.
Speak—dost thou never see the wigwam of thy
father? Does not his voice whisper to thee, in the
language of his people?”
The female stood in the attitude which a sibyl
might be supposed to assume, while listening to the
occult mandates of the myterious oracle, every
faculty entranced and attentive.
“Why does Conanchet ask these questions of his
wife? He knows what she knows; he sees what she
sees; his mind is her mind. If the Great Spirit
made her skin of a different color, he made her
heart the same. Narra-mattah will not listen to
the lying language; she shuts her ears, for there is
deceit in its sounds. She tries to forget it. One
tongue can say all she wishes to speak to Conanchet;
why should she look back in dreams, when a great
chief is her husband?”
The eye of the warrior, as he looked upon the
ingenuous and confiding face of the speaker, was
and in its place was left the winning softness of affection,
which, as it belongs to nature, is seen, at
times, in the expression of an Indian's eye, as strongly
as it is ever known to sweeten the intercourse of a
more polished condition of life.
“Girl,” he said with emphasis, after a moment
of thought, as if he would recall her and himself to
more important duties, “this is a war-path; all on
it are men. Thou wast like the pigeon before its
wing opens, when I brought thee from the nest; still
the winds of many winters had blown upon thee.
Dost never think of the warmth and of the food of
the lodge in which thou hast past so many seasons?”
“The wigwam of Conanchet is warm; no woman
of the tribe hath as many furs as Narra-mattah.”
“He is a great hunter! when they hear his moccason,
the beavers lie down to be killed! But the
men of the Pale-faces hold the plow. Does not
`the driven snow' think of those who fenced the
wigwam of her father from the cold, or of the manner
in which the Yengeese live?”
His youthful and attentive wife seemed to reflect;
but raising her face, with an expression of content
that could not be counterfeited, she shook her head
in the negative.
“Does she never see a fire kindled among the
lodges, or hear the whoops of warriors as they break
into a settlement?”
“Many fires have been kindled before her eyes.
The ashes of the Narragansett town are not yet
cold.”
“Does not Narra-mattah hear her father speaking
to the God of the Yengeese? Listen—he is asking
favor for his child!”
“The Great Spirit of the Narragansett has ears
for his people.”
“But I hear a softer voice! 'Tis a woman of the
Pale-faces among her children: cannot the daughter
hear?”
Narra-mattah, or `the driven snow,' laid her hand
lightly on the arm of the chief, and she looked
wistfully and long into his face, without an answer.
The gaze seemed to deprecate the anger that
might be awakened by what she was about to reveal.
“Chief of my people,” she said, encouraged by
his still calm and gentle brow, to proceed, “what a
girl of the clearings sees in her dreams, shall not
be hid. It is not the lodges of her race, for the
wigwam of her husband is warmer. It is not the
food and clothes of a cunning people, for who is
richer than the wife of a great chief? It is not her
fathers speaking to their Spirit, for there is none
stronger than Manitou. Narra-mattah has forgotten
all: she does not wish to think of things like
these. She knows how to hate a hungry and craving
race. But she sees one that the wives of the Narragansetts
do not see. She sees a woman with a
white skin; her eye looks softly on her child in her
dreams; it is not an eye, it is a tongue! It says,
what does the wife of Conanchet wish?—is she
cold? here are furs—is she hungry? here is venison
—is she tired? the arms of the pale woman open,
that an Indian girl may sleep. When there is silence
in the lodges, when Conanchet and his young
men lie down, then does this pale woman speak.
Sachem, she does not talk of the battles of her
people, nor of the scalps that her warriors have
taken, nor of the manner in which the Pequots and
Mohicans fear her tribe. She does not tell how a
young Narragansett should obey her husband, nor
how the women must keep food in the lodges for
the hunters that are wearied; her tongue useth
strange words. It names a Mighty and Just Spirit;
one talking from the clouds; it is like the falling of
the water among rocks. Narra-mattah loves to
listen, for the words seem to her like the Wish-Ton-Wish,
when he whistles in the woods.”
Conanchet had fastened a look of deep and affectionate
interest on the wild and sweet countenance
of the being who stood before him. She had spoken
in that attitude of earnest and natural eloquence
that no art can equal; and when she ceased, he
laid a hand, in kind but melancholy fondness, on the
half-inclined and motionless head, as he answered.
“This is the bird of night, singing to its young!
The Great Spirit of thy fathers is angry, that thou
livest in the lodge of a Narragansett. His sight is
too cunning to be cheated. He knows that the
moccason, and the wampum, and the robe of fur,
are liars; he sees the color of the skin beneath.”
“Conanchet, no;” returned the female hurriedly,
and with a decision her timidity did not give reason
to expect. “He seeth farther than the skin, and
knoweth the color of the mind. He hath forgotten
that one of his girls is missing.”
“It is not so. The eagle of my people was taken
into the lodges of the Pale-faces. He was young,
and they taught him to sing with another tongue.
The colors of his feathers were changed, and they
thought to cheat the Manitou. But when the door
was open, he spread his wings and flew back to his
nest. It is not so. What hath been done is good,
and what will be done is better. Come; there is a
straight path before us.”
Thus saying, Conanchet motioned to his wife to
follow towards the group of captives. The foregoing
dialogue had occurred in a place where the two
parties were partially concealed from each other
by the ruin; but as the distance was so trifling, the
Sachem and his companion were soon confronted
without the circle, Conanchet advanced, and taking
the unresisting and half-unconscious Ruth by the
arm, he led her forward. He placed the two females
in attitudes where each might look the other
full in the face. Strong emotion struggled in a
countenance which, in spite of its fierce mask of
war-paint, could not entirely conceal its workings.
“See,” he said in English, looking earnestly from
one to the other. “The Good Spirit is not ashamed
of his work. What he hath done, he hath done;
Narragansett nor Yengeese can alter it. This is the
white bird that came from the sea,” he added,
touching the shoulder of Ruth lightly with a finger,
“and this the young, that she warmed under her
wing.”
Then, folding his arms on his naked breast, he
appeared to summon his energy, lest, in the scene
that he knew must follow, his manhood might be
betrayed into some act unworthy of his name.
The captives were necessarily ignorant of the
meaning of the scene which they had just witnessed.
So many strange and savage-looking forms were
constantly passing and repassing before their eyes,
that the arrival of one, more or less, was not likely
to be noted. Until she heard Conanchet speak in
her native tongue, Ruth had lent no attention to the
interview between him and his wife. But the figurative
language and no less remarkable action of the
Narragansett, had the effect to arouse her suddenly,
and in the most exciting manner, from her melancholy.
No child of tender age ever unexpectedly came
before the eyes of Ruth Heathcote, without painfully
recalling the image of the cherub she had lost. The
playful voice of infancy never surprised her ear,
without the sound conveying a pang to the heart;
nor could allusion, ever so remote, be made to
incidents of her own life, without quickening the
never-dying pulses of maternal love. No wonder,
then, that when she found herself in the situation
and under the circumstances described, nature grew
strong within her, and that her mind caught glimpses,
however dim and indistinct they might be, of a truth
that the reader has already anticipated. Still, a
certain and intelligible clue was wanting. Fancy
had ever painted her child in the innocence and
infancy in which it had been torn from her arms;
and here, while there was so much to correspond
with reasonable expectation, there was little to
answer to the long and fondly-cherished picture.
The delusion, if so holy and natural a feeling may
thus be termed, had been too deeply seated to be
dispossessed at a glance. Gazing long, earnestly,
and with features that varied with every changing
feeling, she held the stranger at the length of her
two arms, alike unwilling to release her hold, or to
admit her closer to a heart which might rightfully
be the property of another.
“Who art thou?” demanded the mother, in a voice
that was tremulous with the emotions of that sacred
character. “Speak, mysterious and lovely being—
who art thou?”
Narra-mattah had turned a terrified and imploring
look at the immovable and calm form of the chief,
as if she sought protection from him at whose hands
she had been accustomed to receive it. But a different
sensation took possession of her mind, when she
heard sounds which had too often soothed the ear
of infancy, ever to be forgotten. Struggling ceased,
and her pliant form assumed the attitude of intense
and entranced attention. Her head was bent aside,
as if the ear were eager to drink in a repetition of
the tones, while her bewildered and delighted eye
still sought the countenance of her husband.
“Vision of the woods!—wilt thou not answer?”
continued Ruth. “If there is reverence for the
Holy One of Israel in thine heart, answer, that I
may know thee!”
“Hist! Conanchet!” murmured the wife, over
whose features the glow of pleased and wild surprise
continued to deepen. “Come near, Sachem;
the Spirit that talketh to Narra-mattah in her
dreams, is nigh.”
“Woman of the Yengeese!” said the husband,
advancing with dignity to the spot, “let the clouds
blow from thy sight. Wife of a Narragansett! see
clearly. The Manitou of your race speaks strong.
He telleth a mother to know her child!”
Ruth could hesitate no longer; neither sound nor
exclamation escaped her, but as she strained the
yielding frame of her recovered daughter to her
heart, it appeared as if she strove to incorporate
the two bodies into one. A cry of pleasure and
astonishment drew all around her. Then came the
evidence of the power of nature when strongly
awakened. Age and youth alike acknowledged its
potency, and recent alarms were overlooked in the
pure joy of such a moment. The spirit of even
the lofty-minded Conanchet was shaken. Raising
the hand, at whose wrist still hung the bloody tomahawk,
he veiled his face, and, turning aside, that
none might see the weakness of so great a warrior,
he wept.
| CHAPTER VIII. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish | |