 | Twice-told tales |  |
THE GENTLE BOY.
THE GENTLE BOY.
In the course of the year 1656, several of the people
called Quakers, led, as they professed, by the inward
movement of the spirit, made their appearance in New
England. Their reputation, as holders of mystic and
pernicious principles, having spread before them, the
Puritans early endeavored to banish, and to prevent the
further intrusion of the rising sect. But the measures
by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy,
though more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely
unsuccessful. The Quakers, esteeming persecution as
a divine call to the post of danger, laid claim to a holy
courage, unknown to the Puritans themselves, who
had shunned the cross, by providing for the peaceable
exercise of their religion in a distant wilderness.
Though it was the singular fact, that every nation of
the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who
practised peace towards all men, the place of greatest
most eligible, was the province of Massachusetts
Bay.
The fines, imprisonments, and stripes, liberally distributed
by our pious forefathers; the popular antipathy,
so strong that it endured nearly a hundred years after
actual persecution had ceased, were attractions as
powerful for the Quakers, as peace, honor, and reward,
would have been for the worldly-minded. Every European
vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager to
testify against the oppression which they hoped to
share; and, when ship-masters were restrained by
heavy fines from affording them passage, they made
long and circuitous journeys through the Indian country,
and appeared in the province as if conveyed by a
supernatural power. Their enthusiasm, heightened
almost to madness by the treatment which they received,
produced actions contrary to the rules of
decency, as well as of rational religion, and presented
a singular contrast to the calm and staid deportment
of their sectarian successors of the present day. The
command of the spirit, inaudible except to the soul,
and not to be controverted on grounds of human wisdom,
was made a plea for most indecorous exhibitions,
which, abstractedly considered, well deserved the
moderate chastisement of the rod. These extravagances,
and the persecution which was at once their
cause and consequence, continued to increase, till, in
the year 1659, the government of Massachusetts Bay
crown of martyrdom.
An indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all
who consented to this act, but a large share of the
awful responsibility must rest upon the person then at
the head of the government. He was a man of narrow
mind and imperfect education, and his uncompromising
bigotry was made hot and mischievous by violent and
hasty passions; he exerted his influence indecorously
and unjustifiably to compass the death of the enthusiasts;
and his whole conduct, in respect to them, was
marked by brutal cruelty. The Quakers, whose revengeful
feelings, were not less deep because they were
inactive, remembered this man and his associates, in
after times. The historian of the sect affirms that, by
the wrath of Heaven, a blight fell upon the land in the
vicinity of the `bloody town' of Boston, so that no
wheat would grow there; and he takes his stand, as it
were, among the graves of the ancient persecutors, and
triumphantly recounts the judgments that overtook
them, in old age or at the parting hour. He tells us
that they died suddenly, and violently, and in madness;
but nothing can exceed the bitter mockery with which
he records the loathsome disease, and `death by rottenness,'
of the fierce and cruel governor.
* * * * *
On the evening of the autumn day, that had witnessed
the martyrdom of two men of the Quaker
persuasion, a Puritan settler was returning from the
he resided. The air was cool, the sky clear, and the
lingering twilight was made brighter by the rays of a
young moon, which had now nearly reached the verge
of the horizon. The traveller, a man of middle age,
wrapped in a grey frieze cloak, quickened his pace
when he had reached the outskirts of the town, for a
gloomy extent of nearly four miles lay between him
and his home. The low, straw-thatched houses were
scattered at considerable intervals along the road, and
the country having been settled but about thirty years,
the tracts of original forest still bore no small proportion
to the cultivated ground. The autumn wind
wandered among the branches, whirling away the
leaves from all except the pine-trees, and moaning as
if it lamented the desolation of which it was the instrument.
The road had penetrated the mass of woods
that lay nearest to the town, and was just emerging
into an open space, when the traveller's ears were
saluted by a sound more mournful than even that of
the wind. It was like the wailing of some one in
distress, and it seemed to proceed from beneath a tall
and lonely fir-tree, in the centre of a cleared, but
unenclosed and uncultivated field. The Puritan could
not but remember that this was the very spot, which
had been made accursed a few hours before, by the
execution of the Quakers, whose bodies had been
thrown together into one hasty grave, beneath the tree
on which they suffered. He struggled, however, against
compelled himself to pause and listen.
`The voice is most likely mortal, nor have I cause
to tremble if it be otherwise,' thought he, straining his
eyes through the dim moonlight. `Methinks it is like
the wailing of a child; some infant, it may be, which
has strayed from its mother, and chanced upon this
place of death. For the ease of mine own conscience,
I must search this matter out.'
He therefore left the path, and walked somewhat
fearfully across the field. Though now so desolate, its
soil was pressed down and trampled by the thousand
footsteps of those who had witnessed the spectacle of
that day, all of whom had now retired, leaving the
dead to their loneliness. The traveller at length
reached the fir-tree, which from the middle upward
was covered with living branches, although a scaffold
had been erected beneath, and other preparations
made for the work of death. Under this unhappy tree,
which in after times was believed to drop poison with
its dew, sat the one solitary mourner for innocent
blood. It was a slender and light-clad little boy, who
leaned his face upon a hillock of fresh-turned and
half-frozen earth, and wailed bitterly, yet in a suppressed
tone, as if his grief might receive the punishment
of crime. The Puritan, whose approach had
been unperceived, laid his hand upon the child's
shoulder, and addressed him compassionately.
`You have chosen a dreary lodging, my poor boy,
your eyes, and tell me where your mother dwells. I
promise you, if the journey be not too far, I will leave
you in her arms to-night.'
The boy had hushed his wailing at once, and turned
his face upward to the stranger. It was a pale, bright-eyed
countenance, certainly not more than six years
old, but sorrow, fear, and want, had destroyed much
of its infantile expression. The Puritan, seeing the
boy's frightened gaze, and feeling that he trembled
under his hand, endeavored to reassure him.
`Nay, if I intended to do you harm, little lad, the
readiest way were to leave you here. What! you do
not fear to sit beneath the gallows on a new-made
grave, and yet you tremble at a friend's touch. Take
heart, child, and tell me what is your name, and
where is your home?'
`Friend,' replied the little boy, in a sweet, though
faltering voice, `they call me Ilbrahim, and my home
is here.'
The pale, spiritual face, the eyes that seemed to
mingle with the moonlight, the sweet, airy voice, and
the outlandish name, almost made the Puritan believe,
that the boy was in truth a being which had sprung
up out of the grave on which he sat. But perceiving
that the apparition stood the test of a short mental
prayer, and remembering that the arm which he had
touched was life-like, he adopted a more rational supposition.
`The poor child is stricken in his intellect,'
place like this.' He then spoke soothingly, intending
to humor the boy's fantasy.
Your home will scarce be comfortable, Ilbrahim,
this cold autumn night, and I fear you are ill provided
with food. I am hastening to a warm supper and
bed, and if you will go with me, you shall share
them!'
`I thank thee, friend, but though I be hungry and
shivering with cold, thou wilt not give me food nor
lodging,' replied the boy, in the quiet tone which
despair had taught him, even so young. `My father
was of the people whom all men hate. They have
laid him under this heap of earth, and here is my
home.'
The Puritan, who had laid hold of little Ilbrahim's
hand, relinquished it as if he were touching a loathsome
reptile. But he possessed a compassionate heart,
which not even religious prejudice could harden into
stone.
`God forbid that I should leave this child to perish,
though he comes of the accursed sect,' said he to
himself. `Do we not all spring from an evil root?
Are we not all in darkness till the light doth shine
upon us? He shall not perish, neither in body, nor,
if prayer and instruction may avail for him, in soul.'
He then spoke aloud and kindly to Ilbrahim, who had
again hid his face in the cold earth of the grave.
`Was every door in the land shut against you, my
spot?'
`They drove me forth from the prison when they
took my father thence,' said the boy, `and I stood afar
off, watching the crowd of people, and when they were
gone, I came hither, and found only this grave. I
knew that my father was sleeping here, and I said, this
shall be my home.'
`No, child, no; not while I have a roof over my
head, or a morsel to share with you!' exclaimed the
Puritan, whose sympathies were now fully excited.
`Rise up and come with me, and fear not any harm.'
The boy wept afresh, and clung to the heap of earth,
as if the cold heart beneath it were warmer to him
than any in a living breast. The traveller, however,
continued to entreat him tenderly, and seeming to
acquire some degree of confidence, he at length arose.
But his slender limbs tottered with weakness, his little
head grew dizzy, and he leaned against the tree of
death for support.
`My poor boy, are you so feeble?' said the Puritan.
`When did you taste food last?'
`I ate of bread and water with my father in the
prison,' replied Ilbrahim, `but they brought him none
neither yesterday nor to day, saying that he had eaten
enough to bear him to his journey's end. Trouble not
thyself for my hunger, kind friend, for I have lacked
food many times ere now.'
The traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped
shame and anger against the gratuitous cruelty of the
instruments in this persecution. In the awakened
warmth of his feelings, he resolved that, at whatever
risk, he would not forsake the poor little defenceless
being whom Heaven had confided to his care. With
this determination, he left the accursed field, and
resumed the homeward path from which the wailing of
the boy had called him. The light and motionless
burthen scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon
beheld the fire-rays from the windows of the cottage
which he, a native of a distant clime, had built in the
western wilderness. It was surrounded by a considerable
extent of cultivated ground, and the dwelling
was situated in the nook of a wood-covered hill,
whither it seemed to have crept for protection.
`Look up, child,' said the Puritan to Ilbrahim, whose
faint head had sunk upon his shoulder; `there is our
home.'
At the word `home,' a thrill passed through the
child's frame, but he continued silent. A few moments
brought them to the cottage-door, at which the owner
knocked; for at that early period, when savages were
wandering everywhere among the settlers, bolt and
bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling.
The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a
coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who,
after ascertaining that his master was the applicant,
undid the door, and held a flaring pine-knot torch to
red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little
crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their
father's return. As the Puritan entered, he thrust
aside his cloak, and displayed Ilbrahim's face to the
female.
`Dorothy, here is a little outcast whom Providence
hath put into our hands,' observed he. `Be kind to
him, even as if he were of those dear ones who have
departed from us.'
`What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this,
Tobias?' she inquired. `Is he one whom the wilderness
folk have ravished from some christian mother?'
`No, Dorothy, this poor child is no captive from
the wilderness,' he replied. `The heathen savage
would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel, and
to drink of his birchen cup; but christian men, alas!
had cast him out to die.'
Then he told her how he had found him beneath the
gallows, upon his father's grave; and how his heart
had prompted him, like the speaking of an inward
voice, to take the little outcast home, and be kind unto
him. He acknowledged his resolution to feed and
clothe him, as if he were his own child, and to afford
him the instruction which should counteract the pernicious
errors hitherto instilled into his infant mind.
Dorothy was gifted with even a quicker tenderness
than her husband, and she approved of all his doings
and intentions.
`Have you a mother, dear child?' she inquired.
The tears burst forth from his full heart, as he
attempted to reply; but Dorothy at length understood
that he had a mother, who, like the rest of her sect,
was a persecuted wanderer. She had been taken from
the prison a short time before, carried into the uninhabited
wilderness, and left to perish there by hunger
or wild beasts. This was no uncommon method of
disposing of the Quakers, and they were accustomed
to boast, that the inhabitants of the desert were more
hospitable to them than civilized man.
`Fear not, little boy, you shall not need a mother,
and a kind one,' said Dorothy, when she had gathered
this information. `Dry your tears, Ilbrahim, and be
my child, as I will be your mother.'
The good woman prepared the little bed, from which
her own children had successively been borne to
another resting place. Before Ilbrahim would consent
to occupy it, he knelt down, and as Dorothy listened
to his simple and affecting prayer, she marvelled how
the parents that had taught it to him could have been
judged worthy of death. When the boy had fallen
asleep, she bent over his pale and spiritual countenance,
pressed a kiss upon his white brow, drew the bedclothes
up about his neck, and went away with a
pensive gladness in her heart.
Tobias Pearson was not among the earliest emigrants
from the old country. He had remained in England
during the first years of the civil war, in which he
Cromwell. But when the ambitious designs of his
leader began to develop themselves, he quitted the
army of the parliament, and sought a refuge from the
strife, which was no longer holy, among the people of
his persuasion in the colony of Massachusetts. A
more worldly consideration had perhaps an influence
in drawing him thither; for New England offered
advantages to men of unprosperous fortunes, as well as
to dissatisfied religionists, and Pearson had hitherto
found it difficult to provide for a wife and increasing
family. To this supposed impurity of motive, the
more bigoted Puritans were inclined to impute the
removal by death of all the children, for whose earthly
good the father had been over-thoughtful. They had
left their native country blooming like roses, and like
roses they had perished in a foreign soil. Those expounders
of the ways of Providence, who had thus
judged their brother, and attributed his domestic sorrows
to his sin, were not more charitable when they
saw him and Dorothy endeavoring to fill up the void
in their hearts, by the adoption of an infant of the
accursed sect. Nor did they fail to communicate
their disapprobation to Tobias; but the latter, in reply,
merely pointed at the little quiet, lovely boy, whose
appearance and deportment were indeed as powerful
arguments as could possibly have been adduced in his
own favor. Even his beauty, however, and his winning
manners, sometimes produced an effect ultimately
of their iron hearts had been softened and again grew
hard, affirmed that no merely natural cause could have
so worked upon them.
Their antipathy to the poor infant was also increased
by the ill success of divers theological discussions,
in which it was attempted to convince him of the
errors of his sect. Ilbrahim, it is true, was not a
skilful controversialist; but the feeling of his religion
was strong as instinct in him, and he could neither be
enticed nor driven from the faith which his father had
died for. The odium of this stubbornness was shared
in a great measure by the child's protectors, insomuch
that Tobias and Dorothy very shortly began to experience
a most bitter species of persecution, in the
cold regards of many a friend whom they had valued.
The common people manifested their opinions more
openly. Pearson was a man of some consideration,
being a Representative to the General Court, and an
approved Lieutenant in the train-bands, yet within a
week after his adoption of Ilbrahim, he had been both
hissed and hooted. Once, also, when walking through
a solitary piece of woods, he heard a loud voice from
some invisible speaker; and it cried, `What shall be
done to the backslider? Lo! the scourge is knotted
for him, even the whip of nine cords, and every cord
three knots!' These insults irritated Pearson's temper
for the moment; they entered also into his heart, and
became imperceptible but powerful workers towards
whispered.
* * * * *
On the second Sabbath after Ilbrahim became a
member of their family, Pearson and his wife deemed
it proper that he should appear with them at public
worship. They had anticipated some opposition to
this measure from the boy, but he prepared himself in
silence, and at the appointed hour was clad in the new
mourning suit which Dorothy had wrought for him.
As the parish was then, and during many subsequent
years, unprovided with a bell, the signal for the commencement
of religious exercises was the beat of a
drum. At the first sound of that martial call to the
place of holy and quiet thoughts, Tobias and Dorothy
set forth, each holding a hand of little Ilbrahim, like
two parents linked together by the infant of their love.
On their path through the leafless woods, they were
overtaken by many persons of their acquaintance, all
of whom avoided them, and passed by on the other
side; but a severer trial awaited their constancy when
they had descended the hill and drew near the pine-built
and undecorated house of prayer. Around the
door, from which the drummer still sent forth his
thundering summons, was drawn up a formidable
phalanx, including several of the oldest members of
the congregation, many of the middle-aged, and nearly
all the younger males. Pearson found it difficult to
sustain their united and disapproving gaze, but Dorothy,
merely drew the boy closer to her, and faltered not
in her approach. As they entered the door, they
overheard the muttered sentiments of the assemblage,
and when the reviling voices of the little children
smote Ilbrahim's ear, he wept.
The interior aspect of the meetinghouse was rude.
The low ceiling, the unplastered walls, the naked
wood-work, and the undraperied pulpit, offered nothing
to excite the devotion, which, without such external
aids, often remains latent in the heart. The floor of
the building was occupied by rows of long, cushionless
benches, supplying the place of pews, and the broadaisle
formed a sexual division, impassable except by
children beneath a certain age.
Pearson and Dorothy separated at the door of the
meetinghouse, and Ilbrahim, being within the years of
infancy, was retained under the care of the latter.
The wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their
rusty cloaks as he passed by; even the mild-featured
maidens seemed to dread contamination; and many a
stern old man arose, and turned his repulsive and
unheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the
sanctuary were polluted by his presence. He was a
sweet infant of the skies, that had strayed away from
his home, and all the inhabitants of this miserable
world closed up their impure hearts against him, drew
back their earth-soiled garments from his touch, and
said, `We are holier than thou.'
Ilbrahim, seated by the side of his adopted mother,
and retaining fast hold of her hand, assumed a grave
and decorous demeanor, such as might befit a person
of matured taste and understanding, who should find
himself in a temple dedicated to some worship which
he did not recognise, but felt himself bound to respect.
The exercises had not yet commenced, however, when
the boy's attention was arrested by an event, apparently
of trifling interest. A woman, having her face
muffled in a hood, and a cloak drawn completely about
her form, advanced slowly up the broad-aisle and took
place upon the foremost bench. Ilbrahim's faint color
varied, his nerves fluttered, he was unable to turn his
eyes from the muffled female.
When the preliminary prayer and hymn were over,
the minister arose, and having turned the hour-glass
which stood by the great bible, commenced his discourse.
He was now well stricken in years, a man of
pale, thin countenance, and his grey hairs were closely
covered by a black velvet scull-cap. In his younger
days he had practically learned the meaning of persecution,
from Archbishop Laud, and he was not now
disposed to forget the lesson against which he had
murmured then. Introducing the often discussed subject
of the Quakers, he gave a history of that sect, and
a description of their tenets, in which error predominated,
and prejudice distorted the aspect of what was
true. He adverted to the recent measures in the
province, and cautioned his hearers of weaker parts
God-fearing magistrates had at length been compelled
to exercise. He spoke of the danger of pity, in some
cases a commendable and christian virtue, but inapplicable
to this pernicious sect. He observed that such
was their devilish obstinacy in error, that even the
little children, the sucking babes, were hardened and
desperate heretics. He affirmed that no man, without
Heaven's especial warrant, should attempt their conversion,
lest while he lent his hand to draw them from
the slough, he should himself be precipitated into its
lowest depths.
The sands of the second hour were principally in
the lower half of the glass, when the sermon concluded.
An approving murmur followed, and the
clergyman, having given out a hymn, took his seat
with much self-congratulation, and endeavored to read
the effect of his eloquence in the visages of the people.
But while voices from all parts of the house were
tuning themselves to sing, a scene occurred, which,
though not very unusual at that period in the province,
happened to be without precedent in this parish.
The muffled female, who had hitherto sat motionless
in the front rank of the audience, now arose, and with
slow, stately, and unwavering step, ascended the pulpit
stairs. The quaverings of incipient harmony were
hushed, and the divine sat in speechless and almost
terrified astonishment, while she undid the door, and
stood up in the sacred desk from which his maledictions
herself of the cloak and hood, and appeared in a most
singular array. A shapeless robe of sackcloth was
girded about her waist with a knotted cord; her
raven hair fell down upon her shoulders, and its
blackness was defiled by pale streaks of ashes, which
she had strewn upon her head. Her eyebrows, dark
and strongly defined, added to the deathly whiteness
of a countenance which, emaciated with want, and
wild with enthusiasm and strange sorrows, retained no
trace of earlier beauty. This figure stood gazing
earnestly on the audience, and there was no sound,
nor any movement, except a faint shuddering which
every man observed in his neighbor, but was scarcely
conscious of in himself. At length, when her fit of
inspiration came, she spoke, for the first few moments,
in a low voice, and not invariably distinct utterance.
Her discourse gave evidence of an imagination hopelessly
entangled with her reason; it was a vague and
incomprehensible rhapsody, which, however, seemed
to spread its own atmosphere round the hearer's soul,
and to move his feelings by some influence unconnected
with the words. As she proceeded, beautiful
but shadowy images would sometimes be seen, like
bright things moving in a turbid river; or a strong
and singularly shaped idea leapt forth, and seized at
once on the understanding or the heart. But the
course of her unearthly eloquence soon led her to the
persecutions of her sect, and from thence the step was
a woman of mighty passions, and hatred and revenge
now wrapped themselves in the garb of piety; the
character of her speech was changed, her images
became distinct though wild, and her denunciations
had an almost hellish bitterness.
`The Governor and his mighty men,' she said,
`have gathered together, taking counsel among themselves
and saying, “What shall we do unto this
people—even unto the people that have come into this
land to put our iniquity to the blush?” And lo! the
devil entereth into the council-chamber, like a lame
man of low stature and gravely appareled, with a dark
and twisted countenance, and a bright, downcast eye.
And he standeth up among the rulers; yea, he goeth
to and fro, whispering to each; and every man lends
his ear, for his word is “slay, slay!” But I say unto
ye, Woe to them that slay! Woe to them that shed
the blood of saints! Woe to them that have slain the
husband, and cast forth the child, the tender infant,
to wander homeless, and hungry, and cold, till he die;
and have saved the mother alive, in the cruelty of their
tender mercies! Woe to them in their life-time,
cursed are they in the delight and pleasure of their
hearts! Woe to them in their death-hour, whether it
come swiftly with blood and violence, or after long
and lingering pain! Woe, in the dark house, in the
rottenness of the grave, when the children's children
shall revile the ashes of the fathers! Woe, woe, woe,
slain in this bloody land, and the father, the mother,
and the child, shall await them in a day that they
cannot escape! Seed of the faith, seed of the faith,
ye whose hearts are moving with a power that ye know
not, arise, wash your hands of this innocent blood!
Lift your voices, chosen ones, cry aloud, and call
down a woe and a judgment with me!'
Having thus given vent to the flood of malignity
which she mistook for inspiration, the speaker was
silent. Her voice was succeeded by the hysteric
shrieks of several women, but the feelings of the audience
generally had not been drawn onward in the
current with her own. They remained stupefied,
stranded as it were, in the midst of a torrent, which
deafened them by its roaring, but might not move
them by its violence. The clergyman, who could not
hitherto have ejected the usurper of his pulpit otherwise
than by bodily force, now addressed her in the
tone of just indignation and legitimate authority.
`Get you down, woman, from the holy place which
you profane,' he said. `Is it to the Lord's house that
you come to pour forth the foulness of your heart, and
the inspiration of the devil? Get you down, and
remember that the sentence of death is on you; yea,
and shall be executed, were it but for this day's work?'
`I go, friend, I go, for the voice hath had its utterance,'
replied she, in a depressed and even mild tone.
`I have done my mission unto thee and to thy people.
ye shall be permitted.'
The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps
to totter as she descended the pulpit stairs. The
people, in the meanwhile, were stirring to and fro on
the floor of the house, whispering among themselves,
and glancing towards the intruder. Many of them
now recognised her as the woman who had assaulted
the Governor with frightful language, as he passed by
the window of her prison; they knew, also, that she
was adjudged to suffer death, and had been preserved
only by an involuntary banishment into the wilderness.
The new outrage, by which she had provoked her fate,
seemed to render further lenity impossible; and a
gentleman in military dress, with a stout man of inferior
rank, drew towards the door of the meeting-house,
and awaited her approach. Scarcely did her
feet press the floor, however, when an unexpected
scene occurred. In that moment of her peril, when
every eye frowned with death, a little timid boy
pressed forth, and threw his arms round his mother.
`I am here, mother, it is I, and I will go with thee
to prison,' he exclaimed.
She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost frightened
expression, for she knew that the boy had been
cast out to perish, and she had not hoped to see his
face again. She feared, perhaps, that it was but one
of the happy visions, with which her excited fancy
had often deceived her, in the solitude of the desert,
her own, and heard his little eloquence of childish
love, she began to know that she was yet a mother.
`Blessed art thou, my son,' she sobbed. `My heart
was withered; yea, dead with thee and with thy
father; and now it leaps as in the first moment when
I pressed thee to my bosom.'
She knelt down, and embraced him again and again,
while the joy that could find no words, expressed itself
in broken accents, like the bubbles gushing up to
vanish at the surface of a deep fountain. The sorrows
of past years, and the darker peril that was nigh, cast
not a shadow on the brightness of that fleeting moment.
Soon, however, the spectators saw a change upon her
face, as the consciousness of her sad estate returned,
and grief supplied the fount of tears which joy had
opened. By the words she uttered, it would seem
that the indulgence of natural love had given her mind
a momentary sense of its errors, and made her know
how far she had strayed from duty, in following the
dictates of a wild fanaticism.
`In a doleful hour art thou returned to me, poor
boy,' she said, `for thy mother's path has gone darkening
onward, till now the end is death. Son, son,
I have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were
tottering, and I have fed thee with the food that I was
fainting for; yet I have ill performed a mother's part
by thee in life, and now I leave thee no inheritance
but woe and shame. Thou wilt go seeking through
their sweet affections turned to bitterness for my sake.
My child, my child, how many a pang awaits thy
gentle spirit, and I the cause of all!'
She hid her face on Ilbrahim's head, and her long,
raven hair, discolored with the ashes of her mourning,
fell down about him like a veil. A low and interrupted
moan was the voice of her heart's anguish, and it did
not fail to move the sympathies of many who mistook
their involuntary virtue for a sin. Sobs were audible
in the female section of the house, and every man who
was a father, drew his hand across his eyes. Tobias
Pearson was agitated and uneasy, but a certain feeling
like the consciousness of guilt oppressed him, so that
he could not go forth and offer himself as the protector
of the child. Dorothy, however, had watched
her husband's eye. Her mind was free from the
influence that had begun to work on his, and she
drew near the Quaker woman, and addressed her in
the hearing of all the congregation.
`Stranger, trust this boy to me, and I will be his
mother,' she said, taking Ilbrahim's hand. `Providence
has signally marked out my husband to protect
him, and he has fed at our table and lodged under our
roof, now many days, till our hearts have grown very
strongly unto him. Leave the tender child with us,
and be at ease concerning his welfare.'
The Quaker rose from the ground, but drew the
boy closer to her, while she gazed earnestly in Dorothy's
neat, matronly attire, harmonized together, and were
like a verse of fireside poetry. Her very aspect proved
that she was blameless, so far as mortal could be so,
in respect to God and man; while the enthusiast, in
her robe of sackcloth and girdle of knotted cord, had
as evidently violated the duties of the present life and
the future, by fixing her attention wholly on the latter.
The two females, as they held each a hand of Ilbrahim,
formed a practical allegory; it was rational piety and
unbridled fanaticism, contending for the empire of a
young heart.
`Thou art not of our people,' said the Quaker,
mournfully.
`No, we are not of your people,' replied Dorothy,
with mildness, `but we are Christians, looking upward
to the same Heaven with you. Doubt not that your
boy shall meet you there, if there be a blessing on our
tender and prayerful guidance of him. Thither, I
trust, my own children have gone before me, for I
also have been a mother; I am no longer so,' she
added, in a faltering tone, `and your son will have
all my care.'
`But will ye lead him in the path which his parents
have trodden? demanded the Quaker. `Can ye teach
him the enlightened faith which his father has died
for, and for which I, even I, am soon to become an
unworthy martyr? The boy has been baptized in
blood; will ye keep the mark fresh and ruddy upon
his forehead?'
`I will not deceive you,' answered Dorothy. `If
your child become our child, we must breed him up
in the instruction which Heaven has imparted to us;
we must pray for him the prayers of our own faith; we
must do towards him according to the dictates of our
own consciences, and not of your's. Were we to act
otherwise, we should abuse your trust, even in complying
with your wishes.'
The mother looked down upon her boy with a
troubled countenance, and then turned her eyes upward
to heaven. She seemed to pray internally, and
the contention of her soul was evident.
`Friend,' she said at length to Dorothy, `I doubt
not that my son shall receive all earthly tenderness at
thy hands. Nay, I will believe that even thy imperfect
lights may guide him to a better world; for surely
thou art on the path thither. But thou hast spoken
of a husband. Doth he stand here among this multitude
of people? Let him come forth, for I must know
to whom I commit this most precious trust.'
She turned her face upon the male auditors, and
after a momentary delay, Tobias Pearson came forth
from among them. The Quaker saw the dress which
marked his military rank, and shook her head; but
then she noted the hesitating air, the eyes that struggled
with her own, and were vanquished; the color
that went and came, and could find no resting place.
As she gazed, an unmirthful smile spread over her
features, like sunshine that grows melancholy in some
she spake.
`I hear it, I hear it. The voice speaketh within
me and saith, “Leave thy child, Catharine, for his
place is here, and go hence, for I have other work for
thee. Break the bonds of natural affection, martyr
thy love, and know that in all these things eternal
wisdom hath its ends.” I go, friends, I go. Take ye
my boy, my precious jewel. I go hence, trusting that
all shall be well, and that even for his infant hands
there is a labor in the vineyard.'
She knelt down and whispered to Ilbrahim, who at
first struggled and clung to his mother, with sobs and
tears, but remained passive when she had kissed his
cheek and arisen from the ground. Having held her
hands over his head in mental prayer, she was ready
to depart.
`Farewell, friends, in mine extremity,' she said to
Pearson and his wife; `the good deed ye have done
me is a treasure laid up in heaven, to be returned
a thousandfold hereafter. And farewell ye, mine
enemies, to whom it is not permitted to harm so much
as a hair of my head, nor to stay my footsteps even for
a moment. The day is coming, when ye shall call
upon me to witness for ye to this one sin uncommitted,
and I will rise up and answer.'
She turned her steps towards the door, and the men,
who had stationed themselves to guard it, withdrew,
and suffered her to pass. A general sentiment of pity
by her love, and her affliction, she went forth, and all
the people gazed after her till she had journeyed up the
hill, and was lost behind its brow. She went, the
apostle of her own unquiet heart, to renew the wanderings
of past years. For her voice had been already
heard in many lands of Christendom; and she had
pined in the cells of a Catholic Inquisition, before she
felt the lash, and lay in the dungeons of the Puritans.
Her mission had extended also to the followers of the
Prophet, and from them she had received the courtesy
and kindness, which all the contending sects of our
purer religion united to deny her. Her husband and
herself had resided many months in Turkey, where
even the Sultan's countenance was gracious to them;
in that pagan land, too, was Ilbrahim's birthplace, and
his oriental name was a mark of gratitude for the good
deeds of an unbeliever.
* * * * *
When Pearson and his wife had thus acquired all
the rights over Ilbrahim that could be delegated, their
affection for him became, like the memory of their
native land, or their mild sorrow for the dead, a piece
of the immovable furniture of their hearts. The boy,
also, after a week or two of mental disquiet, began to
gratify his protectors, by many inadvertent proofs that
he considered them as parents, and their house as
home. Before the winter snows were melted, the
persecuted infant, the little wanderer from a remote
cottage, and inseparable from the warmth and
security of its hearth. Under the influence of kind
treatment, and in the consciousness that he was loved,
Ilbrahim's demeanor lost a premature manliness, which
had resulted from his earlier situation; he became
more childlike, and his natural character displayed
itself with freedom. It was in many respects a beautiful
one, yet the disordered imaginations of both his
father and mother had perhaps propagated a certain
unhealthiness in the mind of the boy. In his general
state, Ilbrahim would derive enjoyment from the most
trifling events, and from every object about him; he
seemed to discover rich treasures of happiness, by a
faculty analogous to that of the witchhazel, which
points to hidden gold where all is barren to the eye.
His airy gaiety, coming to him from a thousand sources,
communicated itself to the family, and Ilbrahim was
like a domesticated sunbeam, brightening moody countenances,
and chasing away the gloom from the dark
corners of the cottage.
On the other hand, as the susceptibility of pleasure
is also that of pain, the exuberant cheerfulness of the
boy's prevailing temper sometimes yielded to moments
of deep depression. His sorrows could not always be
followed up to their original source, but most frequently
they appeared to flow, though Ilbrahim was young
to be sad for such a cause, from wounded love. The
flightiness of his mirth rendered him often guilty of
and on these occasions he did not invariably escape
rebuke. But the slightest word of real bitterness,
which he was infallible in distinguishing from pretended
anger, seemed to sink into his heart and poison all
his enjoyments, till he became sensible that he was
entirely forgiven. Of the malice, which generally
accompanies a superfluity of sensitiveness, Ilbrahim,
was altogether destitute; when trodden upon, he would
not turn; when wounded, he could but die. His mind
was wanting in the stamina for self-support; it was a
plant that would twine beautifully round something
stronger than itself, but if repulsed, or torn away, it
had no choice but to wither on the ground. Dorothy's
acuteness taught her that severity would crush the
spirit of the child, and she nurtured him with the
gentle care of one who handles a butterfly. Her husband
manifested an equal affection, although it grew
daily less productive of familiar caresses.
The feelings of the neighboring people, in regard to
the Quaker infant and his protectors, had not undergone
a favorable change, in spite of the momentary
triumph which the desolate mother had obtained over
their sympathies. The scorn and bitterness, of which
he was the object, were very grievous to Ilbrahim,
especially when any circumstance made him sensible
that the children, his equals in age, partook of the
enmity of their parents. His tender and social nature
had already overflowed in attachments to everything
love, which he yearned to bestow upon the little
ones who were taught to hate him. As the warm days
of spring came on, Ilbrahim was accustomed to remain
for hours, silent and inactive, within hearing of the
children's voices at their play; yet, with his usual
delicacy of feeling, he avoided their notice, and would
flee and hide himself from the smallest individual
among them. Chance, however, at length seemed to
open a medium of communication between his heart
and theirs; it was by means of a boy about two years
older than Ilbrahim, who was injured by a fall from a
tree in the vicinity of Pearson's habitation. As the
sufferer's own home was at some distance, Dorothy
willingly received him under her roof, and became his
tender and careful nurse.
Ilbrahim was the unconscious possessor of much
skill in physiognomy, and it would have deterred him,
in other circumstances, from attempting to make a
friend of this boy. The countenance of the latter
immediately impressed a beholder disagreeably, but it
required some examination to discover that the cause
was a very slight distortion of the mouth, and the
irregular, broken line, and near approach of the eyebrows.
Analogous, perhaps, to these trifling deformities,
was an almost imperceptible twist of every
joint, and the uneven prominence of the breast; forming
a body, regular in its general outline, but faulty in
almost all its details. The disposition of the boy was
stigmatized him as obtuse in intellect; although, at a
later period of life, he evinced ambition and very
peculiar talents. But whatever might be his personal
or moral irregularities, Ilbrahim's heart seized upon,
and clung to him, from the moment that he was
brought wounded into the cottage; the child of persecution
seemed to compare his own fate with that of
the sufferer, and to feel that even different modes of
misfortune had created a sort of relationship between
them. Food, rest, and the fresh air, for which he
languished, were neglected; he nestled continually by
the bed-side of the little stranger, and, with a fond
jealousy, endeavored to be the medium of all the cares
that were bestowed upon him. As the boy became
convalescent, Ilbrahim contrived games suitable to his
situation, or amused him by a faculty which he had
perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric birth-place.
It was that of reciting imaginary adventures,
on the spur of the moment, and apparently in inexhaustible
succession. His tales were of course monstrous,
disjointed, and without aim; but they were
curious on account of a vein of human tenderness,
which ran through them all, and was like a sweet,
familiar face, encountered in the midst of wild and
unearthly scenery. The auditor paid much attention
to these romances, and sometimes interrupted them by
brief remarks upon the incidents, displaying shrewdness
above his years, mingled with a moral obliquity
rectitude. Nothing, however, could arrest the
progress of the latter's affection, and there were many
proofs that it met with a response from the dark and
stubborn nature on which it was lavished. The boy's
parents at length removed him, to complete his cure
under their own roof.
Ilbrahim did not visit his new friend after his departure;
but he made anxious and continual inquiries
respecting him, and informed himself of the day
when he was to reappear among his playmates. On
a pleasant summer afternoon, the children of the
neighborhood had assembled in the little forest-crowned
amphitheatre behind the meetinghouse, and the recovering
invalid was there, leaning on a staff. The
glee of a score of untainted bosoms was heard in light
and airy voices, which danced among the trees like
sunshine become audible; the grown men of this
weary world, as they journeyed by the spot, marvelled
why life, beginning in such brightness, should proceed
in gloom; and their hearts, or their imaginations,
answered them and said, that the bliss of childhood
gushes from its innocence. But it happened that an
unexpected addition was made to the heavenly little
band. It was Ilbrahim, who came towards the children,
with a look of sweet confidence on his fair and
spiritual face, as if, having manifested his love to one
of them, he had no longer to fear a repulse from their
society. A hush came over their mirth, the moment
other while he drew nigh; but, all at once, the devil
of their fathers entered into the unbreeched fanatics,
and, sending up a fierce, shrill cry, they rushed upon
the poor Quaker child. In an instant, he was the
centre of a brood of baby-fiends, who lifted sticks
against him, pelted him with stones, and displayed an
instinct of destruction, far more loathsome than the
blood-thirstiness of manhood.
The invalid, in the meanwhile, stood apart from the
tumult, crying out with a loud voice, `Fear not, Ilbrahim,
come hither and take my hand;' and his unhappy
friend endeavored to obey him. After watching the
victim's struggling approach, with a calm smile and
unabashed eye, the foul-hearted little villain lifted his
staff, and struck Ilbrahim on the mouth, so forcibly
that the blood issued in a stream. The poor child's
arms had been raised to guard his head from the storm
of blows; but now he dropped them at once. His
persecutors beat him down, trampled upon him, dragged
him by his long, fair locks, and Ilbrahim was on
the point of becoming as veritable a martyr as ever
entered bleeding into heaven. The uproar, however,
attracted the notice of a few neighbors, who put themselves
to the trouble of rescuing the little heretic, and
of conveying him to Pearson's door.
Ilbrahim's bodily harm was severe, but long and
careful nursing accomplished his recovery; the injury
done to his sensitive spirit was more serious, though
character, and to be discovered only by those who had
previously known him. His gait was thenceforth slow,
even, and unvaried by the sudden bursts of sprightlier
motion, which had once corresponded to his overflowing
gladness; his countenance was heavier, and its
former play of expression, the dance of sunshine reflected
from moving water, was destroyed by the cloud
over his existence; his notice was attracted in a far
less degree by passing events, and he appeared to find
greater difficulty in comprehending what was new to
him, than at a happier period. A stranger, founding
his judgment upon these circumstances, would have
said that the dulness of the child's intellect widely
contradicted the promise of his features; but the secret
was in the direction of Ilbrahim's thoughts, which
were brooding within him when they should naturally
have been wandering abroad. An attempt of Dorothy
to revive his former sportiveness was the single occasion,
on which his quiet demeanor yielded to a violent
display of grief; he burst into passionate weeping, and
ran and hid himself, for his heart had become so
miserably sore, that even the hand of kindness tortured
it like fire. Sometimes, at night and probably in
his dreams, he was heard to cry, `Mother! Mother!'
as if her place, which a stranger had supplied while
Ilbrahim was happy, admitted of no substitute in his
extreme affliction. Perhaps, among the many life-weary
wretches then upon the earth, there was not one
broken-hearted infant, so soon the victim of his own
heavenly nature.
While this melancholy change had taken place in
Ilbrahim, one of an earlier origin and of different
character had come to its perfection in his adopted
father. The incident with which this tale commences
found Pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet
mentally disquieted, and longing for a more fervid
faith then he possessed. The first effect of his kindness
to Ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling, an
incipient love for the child's whole sect; but joined
to this, and resulting perhaps from self-suspicion, was
a proud and ostentatious contempt of their tenets
and practical extravagances. In the course of much
thought, however, for the subject struggled irresistibly
into his mind, the foolishness of the doctrine began to
be less evident, and the points which had particularly
offended his reason assumed another aspect, or vanished
entirely away. The work within him appeared to
go on even while he slept, and that which had been a
doubt, when he laid down to rest, would often hold
the place of a truth, confirmed by some forgotten
demonstration, when he recalled his thoughts in the
morning. But while he was thus becoming assimilated
to the enthusiasts, his contempt, in nowise decreasing
towards them, grew very fierce against himself;
he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance
wore a sneer, and that every word addressed to him
of Ilbrahim's misfortune; and the emotions consequent
upon that event completed the change, of which the
child had been the original instrument.
In the mean time neither the fierceness of the persecutors,
nor the infatuation of their victims, had decreased.
The dungeons were never empty; the streets
of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the
life of a woman, whose mild and christian spirit no
cruelty could embitter, had been sacrificed; and more
innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands, that were
so often raised in prayer. Early after the Restoration,
the English Quakers represented to Charles II. that a
`vein of blood was open in his dominions;' but though
the displeasure of the voluptuous king was roused, his
interference was not prompt. And now the tale must
stride forward over many months, leaving Pearson to
encounter ignominy and misfortune; his wife to a
firm endurance of a thousand sorrows; poor Ilbrahim
to pine and droop like a cankered rose-bud; his mother
to wander on a mistaken errand, neglectful of the
holiest trust which can be committed to a woman.
* * * * *
A winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened
over Pearson's habitation, and there were no cheerful
faces to drive the gloom from his broad hearth. The
fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing heat and a ruddy
light, and large logs, dripping with half-melted snow,
lay ready to be cast upon the embers. But the apartment
much of the homely wealth which had once adorned
it; for the exaction of repeated fines, and his own
neglect of temporal affairs, had greatly impoverished
the owner. And with the furniture of peace, the implements
of war had likewise disappeared; the sword
was broken, the helm and cuirass were cast away for
ever; the soldier had done with battles, and might not
lift so much as his naked hand to guard his head. But
the Holy Book remained, and the table on which it
rested was drawn before the fire, while two of the
persecuted sect sought comfort from its pages.
He who listened, while the other read, was the
master of the house, now emaciated in form, and altered
as to the expression and healthiness of his countenance;
for his mind had dwelt too long among visionary
thoughts, and his body had been worn by imprisonment
and stripes: The hale and weather-beaten old
man, who sat beside him, had sustained less injury
from a far longer course of the same mode of life.
In person he was tall and dignified, and, which alone
would have made him hateful to the Puritans, his grey
locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed hat, and
rested on his shoulders. As the old man read the
sacred page, the snow drifted against the windows, or
eddied in at the crevices of the door, while a blast kept
laughing in the chimney, and the blaze leaped fiercely
up to seek it. And sometimes, when the wind struck
the hill at a certain angle, and swept down by the
doleful that can be conceived; it came as if the Past
were speaking, as if the Dead had contributed each a
whisper, as if the Desolation of Ages were breathed in
that one lamenting sound.
The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining
however his hand between the pages which he had
been reading, while he looked steadfastly at Pearson.
The attitude and features of the latter might have
indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his
forehead on his hands, his teeth were firmly closed,
and his frame was tremulous at intervals with a nervous
agitation.
`Friend Tobias,' inquired the old man, compassionately,
`hast thou found no comfort in these many
blessed passages of scripture?'
`Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar
off and indistinct,' replied Pearson without lifting his
eyes. `Yea, and when I have harkened carefully, the
words seemed cold and lifeless, and intended for
another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the
book,' he added, in a tone of sullen bitterness. `I
have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret
my sorrow the more.'
`Nay, feeble brother, be not as one who hath never
known the light,' said the elder Quaker, earnestly, but
with mildness. `Art thou he that wouldst be content
to give all, and endure all, for conscience' sake; desiring
even peculiar trials, that thy faith might be purified,
thou sink beneath an affliction which happens alike to
them that have their portion here below, and to them
that lay up treasure in heaven? Faint not, for thy
burthen is yet light.'
`It is heavy! It is heavier than I can bear!' exclaimed
Pearson, with the impatience of a variable
spirit. `From my youth upward I have been a man
marked out for wrath; and year by year, yea, day
after day, I have endured sorrows such as others know
not in their life-time. And now I speak not of the
love that has been turned to hatred, the honor to
ignominy, the ease and plentifulness of all things to
danger, want, and nakedness. All this I could have
borne, and counted myself blessed. But when my
heart was desolate with many losses, I fixed it upon
the child of a stranger, and he became dearer to me
than all my buried ones; and now he too must die, as
if my love were poison. Verily, I am an accursed
man, and I will lay me down in the dust, and lift up
my head no more.'
`Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to
rebuke thee; for I also have had my hours of darkness,
wherein I have murmured against the cross,'
said the old Quaker. He continued, perhaps in the
hope of distracting his companion's thoughts from his
own sorrows. `Even of late was the light obscured
within me, when the men of blood had banished me
on pain of death, and the constables led me onward
strong and cruel hand was wielding the knotted cords;
they sunk deep into the flesh, and thou mightst have
tracked every reel and totter of my footsteps by the
blood that followed. As we went on'—
`Have I not borne all this; and have I murmured?'
interrupted Pearson, impatiently.
`Nay, friend, but hear me,' continued the other.
`As we journeyed on, night darkened on our path, so
that no man could see the rage of the persecutors, or
the constancy of my endurance, though Heaven forbid
that I should glory therein. The lights began to
glimmer in the cottage windows, and I could discern
the inmates as they gathered, in comfort and security,
every man with his wife and children by their own
evening hearth. At length we came to a tract of
fertile land; in the dim light, the forest was not visible
around it; and behold! there was a straw-thatched
dwelling, which bore the very aspect of my home, far
over the wild ocean, far in our own England. Then
came bitter thoughts upon me; yea, remembrances
that were like death to my soul. The happiness of
my early days was painted to me; the disquiet of my
manhood, the altered faith of my declining years. I
remembered how I had been moved to go forth a
wanderer, when my daughter, the youngest, the dearest
of my flock, lay on her dying bed, and'—
`Couldst thou obey the command at such a moment?'
exclaimed Pearson, shuddering.
`Yea, yea,' replied the old man, hurriedly. `I was
kneeling by her bed-side when the voice spoke loud
within me; but immediately I rose, and took my staff,
and gat me gone. Oh! that it were permitted me to
forget her woeful look, when I thus withdrew my arm,
and left her journeying through the dark valley alone!
for her soul was faint, and she had leaned upon my
prayers. Now in that night of horror I was assailed
by the thought that I had been an erring christian,
and a cruel parent; yea, even my daughter, with her
pale, dying features, seemed to stand by me and
whisper, “Father, you are deceived; go home and
shelter your grey head.” Oh! thou, to whom I have
looked in my farthest wanderings,' continued the
Quaker, raising his agitated eyes to heaven, `inflict
not upon the bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated
agony of my soul, when I believed that all I had
done and suffered for Thee was at the instigation of a
mocking fiend! But I yielded not; I knelt down and
wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more
fiercely into the flesh. My prayer was heard, and I
went on in peace and joy towards the wilderness.'
The old man, though his fanaticism had generally
all the calmness of reason, was deeply moved while
reciting this tale; and his unwonted emotion seemed
to rebuke and keep down that of his companion.
They sat in silence, with their faces to the fire,
imagining, perhaps, in its red embers, new scenes of
persecution yet to be encountered. The snow still
the blaze of the logs had gradually sunk, came down
the spacious chimney and hissed upon the hearth. A
cautious footstep might now and then be heard in a
neighboring apartment, and the sound invariably drew
the eyes of both Quakers to the door which led thither.
When a fierce and riotous gust of wind had led his
thoughts, by a natural association, to homeless travellers
on such a night, Pearson resumed the conversation.
`I have well nigh sunk under my own share of this
trial,' observed he, sighing heavily;' yet I would that
it might be doubled to me, if so the child's mother
could be spared. Her wounds have been deep and
many, but this will be the sorest of all.'
`Fear not for Catharine,' replied the old Quaker;
`for I know that valiant woman, and have seen how
she can bear the cross. A mother's heart, indeed, is
strong in her, and may seem to contend mightily with
her faith; but soon she will stand up and give thanks
that her son has been thus early an accepted sacrifice.
The boy hath done his work, and she will feel that he
is taken hence in kindness both to him and her.
Blessed, blessed are they, that with so little suffering
can enter into peace!'
The fitful rush of the wind was now disturbed by a
portentous sound; it was a quick and heavy knocking
at the outer door. Pearson's wan countenance grew
paler, for many a visit of persecution had taught him
what to dread; the old man, on the other hand, stood
soldier who awaits his enemy.
`The men of blood have come to seek me,' he
observed, with calmness. `They have heard how I
was moved to return from banishment; and now am I
to be led to prison, and thence to death. It is an end
I have long looked for. I will open unto them, lest
they say, “Lo, he feareth!” '
`Nay, I will present myself before them,' said
Pearson, with recovered fortitude. `It may be that
they seek me alone, and know not that thou abidest
with me.'
`Let us go boldly, both one and the other,' rejoined
his companion. `It is not fitting that thou or I
should shrink.'
They therefore proceeded through the entry to the
door, which they opened, bidding the applicant `Come
in, in God's name!' A furious blast of wind drove
the storm into their faces, and extinguished the lamp;
they had barely time to discern a figure, so white from
head to foot with the drifted snow, that it seemed like
Winter's self, come in human shape to seek refuge
from its own desolation.
`Enter, friend, and do thy errand, be it what it
may,' said Pearson. `It must needs be pressing, since
thou comest on such a bitter night.'
`Peace be with this household,' said the stranger,
when they stood on the floor of the inner apartment.
Pearson started, the elder Quaker stirred the slumbering
lofty blaze; it was a female voice that had spoken; it
was a female form that shone out, cold and wintry, in
that comfortable light.
`Catharine, blessed woman,' exclaimed the old man,
`art thou come to this darkened land again! art thou
come to bear a valiant testimony as in former years?
The scourge hath not prevailed against thee, and from
the dungeon hast thou come forth triumphant; but
strengthen, strengthen now thy heart, Catharine, for
Heaven will prove thee yet this once, ere thou go to
thy reward.'
`Rejoice, friends!' she replied. `Thou who hast
long been of our people, and thou whom a little child
hath led to us, rejoice! Lo! I come, the messenger
of glad tidings, for the day of persecution is overpast.
The heart of the king, even Charles, hath been moved
in gentleness towards us, and he hath sent forth his
letters to stay the hands of the men of blood. A
ship's company of our friends hath arrived at yonder
town, and I also sailed joyfully among them.'
As Catharine spoke, her eyes were roaming about
the room, in search of him for whose sake security
was dear to her. Pearson made a silent appeal to the
old man, nor did the latter shrink from the painful
task assigned him.
`Sister,' he began, in a softened yet perfectly calm
tone, `thou tellest us of His love, manifested in temporal
good; and now must we speak to thee of that
self-same love, displayed in chastenings. Hitherto,
and difficult path, and leading an infant by the
hand; fain wouldst thou have looked heavenward
continually, but still the cares of that little child have
drawn thine eyes, and thy affections, to the earth.
Sister! go on rejoicing, for his tottering footsteps shall
impede thine own no more.'
But the unhappy mother was not thus to be consoled;
she shook like a leaf, she turned white as the very
snow that hung drifted into her hair. The firm old
man extended his hand and held her up, keeping his eye
upon her's, as if to repress any outbreak of passion.
`I am a woman, I am but a woman; will He try me
above my strength?' said Catharine, very quickly, and
almost in a whisper. `I have been wounded sore; I
have suffered much; many things in the body, many
in the mind; crucified in myself, and in them that
were dearest to me. Surely,' added she, with a long
shudder, `He hath spared me in this one thing.' She
broke forth with sudden and irrepressible violence.
`Tell me, man of cold heart, what has God done to
me? Hath He cast me down never to rise again?
Hath He crushed my very heart in his hand? And
thou, to whom I committed my child, how hast thou
fulfilled thy trust? Give me back the boy, well,
sound, alive, alive; or earth and heaven shall avenge
me!'
The agonized shriek of Catharine was answered by
the faint, the very faint voice of a child.
On this day it had become evident to Pearson, to his
aged guest, and to Dorothy, that Ilbrahim's brief and
troubled pilgrimage drew near its close. The two
former would willingly have remained by him, to make
use of the prayers and pious discourses which they
deemed appropriate to the time, and which, if they be
impotent as to the departing traveller's reception in
the world whither he goes, may at least sustain him in
bidding adieu to earth. But though Ilbrahim uttered
no complaint, he was disturbed by the faces that
looked upon him; so that Dorothy's entreaties, and
their own conviction that the child's feet might tread
heaven's pavement and not soil it, had induced the two
Quakers to remove. Ilbrahim then closed his eyes
and grew calm, and, except for now and then, a kind
and low word to his nurse, might have been thought to
slumber. As night-fall came on, however, and the
storm began to rise, something seemed to trouble the
repose of the boy's mind, and to render his sense of
hearing active and acute. If a passing wind lingered
to shake the casement, he strove to turn his head
towards it; if the door jarred to and fro upon its
hinges, he looked long and anxiously thitherward; if
the heavy voice of the old man, as he read the
scriptures, rose but a little higher, the child almost
held his dying breath to listen; if a snow-drift swept
by the cottage, with a sound like the trailing of a
garment, Ilbrahim seemed to watch that some visitant
should enter.
But, after a little time, he relinquished whatever
secret hope had agitated him, and, with one low, complaining
whisper, turned his cheek upon the pillow.
He then addressed Dorothy with his usual sweetness,
and besought her to draw near him; she did so, and
Ilbrahim took her hand in both of his, grasping it with
a gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he retained
it. At intervals, and without disturbing the
repose of his countenance, a very faint trembling passed
over him from head to foot, as if a mild but somewhat
cool wind had breathed upon him, and made him
shiver. As the boy thus led her by the hand, in his
quiet progress over the borders of eternity, Dorothy
almost imagined that she could discern the near,
though dim delightfulness, of the home he was about
to reach; she would not have enticed the little wanderer
back, though she bemoaned herself that she
must leave him and return. But just when Ilbrahim's
feet were pressing on the soil of Paradise, he heard a
voice behind him, and it recalled him a few, few paces
of the weary path which he had travelled. As Dorothy
looked upon his features, she perceived that
their placid expression was again disturbed; her own
thoughts had been so wrapt in him, that all sounds of
the storm, and of human speech, were lost to her; but
when Catharine's shriek pierced through the room, the
boy strove to raise himself.
`Friend, she is come! Open unto her!' cried he.
In a moment, his mother was kneeling by the bed-side;
there, with no violence of joy, but contentedly as if he
were hushing himself to sleep. He looked into her
face, and reading its agony, said, with feeble earnestness;
`Mourn not, dearest mother. I am happy now.'
And with these words, the gentle boy was dead.
* * * * *
The king's mandate to stay the New England persecutors
was effectual in preventing further martyrdoms;
but the colonial authorities, trusting in the remoteness
of their situation, and perhaps in the supposed instability
of the royal government, shortly renewed their
severities in all other respects. Catharine's fanaticism
had become wilder by the sundering of all human ties;
and wherever a scourge was lifted, there was she to
receive the blow; and whenever a dungeon was unbarred,
thither she came, to cast herself upon the floor.
But in process of time, a more christian spirit—a spirit
of forbearance, though not of cordiality or approbation,
began to pervade the land in regard to the persecuted
sect. And then, when the rigid old Pilgrims eyed her
rather in pity than in wrath; when the matrons fed
her with the fragments of their children's food, and
offered her a lodging on a hard and lowly bed; when
no little crowd of school-boys left their sports to cast
stones after the roving enthusiast; then did Catharine
return to Pearson's dwelling, and made that her home.
As if Ilbrahim's sweetness yet lingered round his
to teach his parent a true religion, her fierce and
vindictive nature was softened by the same griefs
which had once irritated it. When the course of years
had made the features of the unobtrusive mourner
familiar in the settlement, she became a subject of not
deep, but general interest; a being on whom the
otherwise superfluous sympathies of all might be
bestowed. Every one spoke of her with that degree
of pity which it is pleasant to experience; every one
was ready to do her the little kindnesses, which are not
costly, yet manifest good will; and when at last she
died, a long train of her once bitter persecutors followed
her, with decent sadness and tears that were not
painful, to her place by Ilbrahim's green and sunken
grave.
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