 | CHAPTER II. Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
“For the temper of the brain in quick apprehensions and
acute judgments, to say no more, the most High and Sovereign
God hath not made the Indian inferior to the European.”
—Roger Williams.
The magnitude of the enterprise in which the
first settlers of New-England were engaged, the
terrific obstacles they encountered, and the hard-ships
they endured, gave to their characters a seriousness
and solemnity, heightened, it may be, by
the severity of their religious faith.
Where all were serious the melancholy of an
individual was not conspicuous; and Mr. Fletcher's
sadness would probably have passed unnoticed,
but for the reserve of his manners, which piqued
the pride of his equals, and provoked the curiosity
of his inferiors.
The first probably thought that the apostolic
principle of community of goods at least extended
to opinions and feelings; and the second always
fancy when a man shuts the door of his
lips that there must be some secret worth knowing
within.
Like many other men of an ardent temperament
and disinterested love of his species, Mr.
Fletcher was disappointed at the slow operation of
in the abstract, were to be applied to various and
discordant subjects. Such men, inexperienced in
the business of life, are like children, who, setting
out on a journey, are impatient after the few first
paces to be at the end of it. They cannot endure
the rebuffs and delays that retard them in
their course. These are the men of genius—the
men of feeling—the men that the world calls visionaries;
and it is because they are visionaries—
because they have a beau-ideal in their own minds,
to which they can see but a faint resemblance in
the actual state of things, that they become impatient
of detail, and cannot brook the slow progress
to perfection. They are too rapid in their
anticipations. The character of man, and the institutions
of society, are yet very far from their
possible and destined perfection. Still, how far
is the present age in advance of that which drove
reformers to a dreary wilderness!—of that which
hanged quakers!—of that which condemned to
death, as witches, innocent, unoffending old women!
But it is unnecessary to heighten the glory
or our risen day by comparing it with the preceding
twilight.
To return to Mr. Fletcher. He was mortified
at seeing power, which had been earned at so
dear a rate, and which he had fondly hoped was
to be applied to the advancement of man's happiness,
sometimes perverted to purposes of oppression
and personal aggrandizement. He was
to be founded on the basis of established
truth, was disturbed by the out-break of heresies;
and his heart sickened when he saw those, who
had sacrificed whatever man holds dearest to religious
freedom, imposing those shackles on others
from which they had just released themselves at
such a price. Partly influenced by these disgusts,
and partly by that love of contemplation and retirement
that belongs to a character of his cast,
especially when depressed by some early disappointment,
he refused the offices of honour and
trust that were, from time to time, offered to him;
and finally, in 1636, when Pynchon, Holioke, and
Chapin, formed their settlement at Springfield, on
Connecticut river, he determined to retire from
the growing community of Boston to this frontier
settlement.
Mrs. Fletcher received his decision as all wives
of that age of undisputed masculine supremacy (or
most of those of our less passive age) would do,
with meek submission. The inconveniencies
and dangers of that outpost were not unknown
to her, nor did she underrate them; but Abraham
would as soon have remonstrated against the
command that bade him go forth from his father's
house into the land of the Chaldees, as she would
have failed in passive obedience to the resolve of
her husband.
The removal was effected early in the summer
of 1636. Springfield assumed, at once, under the
the aspect of a village. The first settlers
followed the course of the Indians, and planted
themselves on the borders of rivers—the natural
gardens of the earth, where the soil is mellowed
and enriched by the annual overflowing of the
streams, and prepared by the unassisted processes
of nature to yield to the indolent Indian his scanty
supply of maize and other esculents. The wigwams
which constituted the village, or, to use the graphic
aboriginal designation, the `smoke' of the natives
gave place to the clumsy, but more convenient
dwellings of the pilgrims.
Where there are now contiguous rows of shops,
filled with the merchandise of the east, the manufactures
of Europe, the rival fabrics of our own
country, and the fruits of the tropics; where now
stands the stately hall of justice—the academy—
the bank—churches, orthodox and heretic, and
all the symbols of a rich and populous community—were,
at the early period of our history,
a few log-houses, planted around a fort, defended
by a slight embankment and palisade.
The mansions of the proprietors were rather
more spacious and artificial than those of their
more humble associates, and were built on the
well-known model of the modest dwelling illustrated
by the birth of Milton—a form still abounding
in the eastern parts of Massachusetts, and
presenting to the eye of a New-Englander the
cousin.
The first clearing was limited to the plain. The
beautiful hill that is now the residence of the gentry
(for there yet lives such a class in the heart of
our democratic community) and is embellished
with stately edifices and expensive pleasure-grounds,
was then the border of a dense forest,
and so richly fringed with the original growth of
trees, that scarce a sun-beam had penetrated to the
parent earth.
Mr. Fletcher was at first welcomed as an important
acquisition to the infant establishment;
but he soon proved that he purposed to take no
part in its concerns, and, in spite of the remonstrances
of the proprietors, he fixed his residence
a mile from the village, deeming exposure to the
incursions of the savages very slight, and the surveillance
of an inquiring neighbourhood a certain
evil. His domain extended from a gentle eminence,
that commanded an extensive view of the bountiful
Connecticut to the shore, where the river indented
the meadow by one of those sweeping
graceful curves by which it seems to delight to
beautify the land it nourishes.
The border of the river was fringed with all the
water-loving trees; but the broad meadows were
quite cleared, excepting that a few elms and sycamores
had been spared by the Indians, and consecrated,
by tradition, as the scene of revels or
councils. The house of our pilgrim was a low-roofed
for a patriarchal family; where children,
dependants, and servants were all to be
sheltered under one roof-tree. On one side,
as we have described, lay an open and extensive
plain; within view was the curling smoke from
the little cluster of houses about the fort—the habitation
of civilized man; but all else was a
savage howling wilderness.
Never was a name more befitting the condition
of a people, than `Pilgrim' that of our forefathers.
It should be redeemed from the puritanical and
ludicrous associations which have degraded it, in
most men's minds, and be hallowed by the sacrifices
made by these voluntary exiles. They were pilgrims,
for they had resigned, for ever, what the
good hold most dear—their homes. Home can
never be transferred; never repeated in the experience
of an individual. The place consecrated
by parental love, by the innocence and sports of
childhood, by the first acquaintance with nature;
by the linking of the heart to the visible creation,
is the only home. There there is a living and
breathing spirit infused into nature: every familiar
object has a history—the trees have tongues,
and the very air is vocal. There the vesture of
decay doth not close in and control the noble
functions of the soul. It sees and hears and enjoys
without the ministry of gross material substance.
Mr. Fletcher had resided a few months in
Springfield when he one day entered with an
open letter in his hand, that apartment of his humble
dwelling styled, by courtesy, the parlour. His
wife was sitting there with her eldest son, a stripling
of fourteen, busily assisting him in twisting a
cord for his cross-bow. She perceived that her
husband looked disturbed; but he said nothing,
and her habitual deference prevented her inquiring
into the cause of his discomposure.
After taking two or three turns about the room,
he said to his son, “Everell, my boy—go to the
door, and await there the arrival of an Indian
girl; she is, as you may see, yonder by the riverside,
and will be here shortly. I would not that
Jennet should, at the very first, shock the child
with her discourteous ways.”
“Child! coming here!” exclaimed the boy,
dropping his bow and gazing through the window
—“Who is she?—that tall girl, father—she is no
more a child than I am!”
His mother smiled at an exclamation that betrayed
a common juvenile jealousy of the honour
of dawning manhood, and bade the boy obey his
father's directions. When Everell had left the
apartment, Mr. Fletcher said, “I have just received
letters from Boston—from Governor Winthrop”—he
paused.
“Our friends are all well, I hope,” said Mrs.
Fletcher.
“Yes, Martha, our friends are all well—but
these letters contain something of more importance
than aught that concerns the health of the
perishing body.”
Mr. Fletcher again hesitated, and his wife, perplexed
by his embarrassment, inquired, “Has
poor deluded Mrs. Hutchinson again presumed
to disturb the peace of God's people?”
“Martha, you aim wide of the mark. My present
emotions are not those of a mourner for Zion.
A ship has arrived from England, and in it
came”—
“My brother Stretton!” exclaimed Mrs.
Fletcher.
“No—no, Martha. It will be long ere Stretton
quits his paradise to join a suffering people in
the wilderness.”
He paused for a moment, and when he again
spoke, the softened tone of his voice evinced that
he was touched by the expression of disappointment,
slightly tinged by displeasure that shaded
his wife's gentle countenance. “Forgive me, my
dear wife,” he said. “i should not have spoken
aught that implied censure of your brother;
for I know he hath ever been most precious in
your eyes—albeit, not the less so, that he is yet
without the fold—That which I have to tell you
—and it were best that it were quickly told—is,
that my cousin Alice was a passenger in this newly
arrived ship.—Martha, your blushes wrong you.
The mean jealousies that degrade some women
heart.”
“If I deserve your praise, it is because the
Lord has been pleased to purify my heart and
make it his sanctuary. But, if I have not the
jealousies, I have the feelings of a woman, and I
cannot forget that you was once affianced to your
cousin Alice—and”—
“And that I once told you, Martha, frankly,
that the affection I gave to her, could not be transferred
to another. That love grew with my growth
—strengthened with my strength. Of its beginning,
I had no more consciousness than of the
commencement of my existence. It was sunshine
and flowers in all the paths of my childhood. It
inspired every hope—modified every project—
such was the love I bore to Alice—love immortal
as the soul!—
“You know how cruelly we were severed at
Southampton—how she was torn from the strand
by the king's guards—within my view, almost
within my grasp. How Sir William tempted me
with the offer of pardon—my cousin's hand—
and,—poor temptation indeed after that!—honours,
fortune. You know that even Alice, my
precious beautiful Alice, knelt to me. That smitten
of God and man, and for the moment, bereft
of the right use of reason, she would have persuaded
me to yield my integrity. You know that
her cruel father reproached me with virtually
breaking my plighted troth, That many of my
know, Martha, that there was a principle in my
bosom that triumphed over all these temptations.
And think you not that principle has preserved
me faithful in my friendship to you? Think you
not that your obedience—;your careful conformity
to my wishes; your steady love, which
hath kept far more than even measure with
my deserts, is undervalued—can be lightly estimated?”
“Oh, I know,” said the humble wife, “that
your goodness to me does far surpass my merit;
but bethink you, it is the nature of a woman to
crave the first place.”
“It is the right of a wife, Martha; and there is
none now to contest it with you. This is but the
second time I have spoken to you on a subject
that has been much in our thoughts: that has
made me wayward, and would have made my sojourning
on earth miserable, but that you have
been my support and comforter. These letters
contain tidings that have opened a long sealed
fountain. My uncle, Sir William, died last January.
Leslie perished in a foreign service. Alice,
thus released from all bonds, and sole mistress
of her fortunes, determined to cast her lot in
the heritage of God's people. She embarked
with her two girls—her only children—a tempestuous
voyage proved too much for a constitution
already broken by repeated shocks. She was
fully aware of her approaching death, and died
to God I could have seen her once more—but,”
he added, raising his eyes devoutly, “not my will
but thine be done! The sister of Leslie, a Mistress
Grafton, attended Alice, and with her she
left a will committing her children to my guardianship.
It will be necessary for me to go to Boston
to assume this trust. I shall leave home tomorrow,
after making suitable provision for your
safety and comfort in my absence. These children
will bring additional labour to your household;
and in good time hath our thoughtful friend
Governor Winthrop procured for us two Indian
servants. The girl has arrived. The boy is retained
about the little Leslies; the youngest of
whom, it seems, is a petted child; and is particularly
pleased by his activity in ministering to her
amusement.”
“I am glad if any use can be made of an Indian
servant,” said Mrs. Fletcher, who, oppressed
with conflicting emotions, expressed the lightest
of them—a concern at a sudden increase of domestic
cares where there were no facilities to
lighten them.
“How any use! You surely do not doubt,
Martha, that these Indians possess the same faculties
that we do. The girl, just arrived, our
friend writes me, hath rare gifts of mind—such
as few of God's creatures are endowed with.
She is just fifteen; she understands and speaks
English perfectly well, having been taught it by
with her tribe. On that account she was much
noticed by the English who traded with the Pequods;
and young as she was, she acted as their
interpreter.
“She is the daughter of one of their chiefs,
and when this wolfish tribe were killed, or dislodged
from their dens, she, her brother, and their
mother, were brought with a few other captives
to Boston. They were given for a spoil to the
soldiers. Some, by a christian use of money,
were redeemed; and others, I blush to say it, for
`it is God's gift that every man should enjoy the
good of his own labour,' were sent into slavery in
the West Indies. Monoca, the mother of these
children, was noted for the singular dignity and
modesty of her demeanor. Many notable instances
of her kindness to the white traders are
recorded; and when she was taken to Boston, our
worthy governor, ever mindful of his duties, assured
her that her good deeds were held in remembrance,
and that he would testify the gratitude of
his people in any way she should direct. `I have
nothing to ask,' she said, `but that I and my children
may receive no personal dishonour.'
“The governor redeemed her children, and assured
her they should be cared for. For herself,
misery and sorrow had so wrought on her, that
she was fast sinking into the grave. Many christian
men and women laboured for her conversion
but she would not even consent that the holy
the pride of her soul, that all the children of the
Great Spirit were equal objects of His favour;
and that He had not deemed the book he had
withheld, needful to them.”
“And did she,” inquired Mrs. Fletcher, “thus
perish in her sins?”
“She died,” replied her husband, “immoveably
fixed in those sentiments. But, Martha, we
should not suit God's mercy to the narrow frame
of our thoughts. This poor savage's life, as far
as it has come to our knowledge, was marked
with innocence and good deeds; and I would
gladly believe that we may hope for her, on that
broad foundation laid by the Apostle Peter—`In
every nation, he that feareth God and worketh
righteousness, is accepted of Him.' ”
“That text,” answered Mrs. Fletcher, her heart
easily kindling with the flame of charity, “is a
light behind many a dark scripture, like the
sun shining all around the edges of a cloud that
would fain hide its beams.”
“Such thoughts, my dear wife, naturally spring
from thy kind heart, and are sweet morsels for
private meditation; but it were well to keep them
in thine own bosom lest, taking breath, they should
lighten the fears of unstable souls. But here
comes the girl, Magawisca, clothed in her Indian
garb, which the governor has permitted her to
retain, not caring, as he wisely says, to interfere
with their innocent peculiarities; and she, in particular,
dress.”
Everell Fletcher now threw wide open the parlour
door, inviting the Indian girl, by a motion of
his hand and a kind smile, to follow. She did so,
and remained standing beside him, with her eyes
rivetted to the floor, while every other eye was
turned towards her. She and her conductor were
no unfit representatives of the people from whom
they sprung. Everell Fletcher was a fair ruddy boy
of fourteen; his smooth brow and bright curling
hair, bore the stamp of the morning of life; hope
and confidence and gladness beamed in the falcon
glance of his keen blue eye; and love and
frolic played about his lips. The active hardy
habits of life, in a new country, had already knit
his frame, and given him the muscle of manhood;
while his quick elastic step truly expressed the
untamed spirit of childhood—the only spirit without
fear and without reproach. His dress was of
blue cloth, closely fitting his person; the sleeves
reached midway between the elbow and wrist,
and the naked, and as it would seem to a modern
eye, awkward space, was garnished with deep-pointed
lace ruffles of a coarse texture; a ruff,
or collar of the same material, was worn about
the neck.
The Indian stranger was tall for her years,
which did not exceed fifteen. Her form was
slender, flexible, and graceful; and there was a
freedom and loftiness in her movement which,
of high birth. Her face, although marked
by the peculiarities of her race, was beautiful
even to an European eye. Her features were regular,
and her teeth white as pearls; but there must
be something beyond symmetry of feature to fix
the attention, and it was an expression of dignity,
thoughtfulness, and deep dejection that made the
eye linger on Magawisca's face, as if it were perusing
there the legible record of her birth and
wrongs. Her hair, contrary to the fashion of the
Massachusetts Indians, was parted on her forehead,
braided, and confined to her head by a band
of small feathers, jet black, and interwoven, and
attached at equal distances by rings of polished
bone. She wore a waistcoat of deer-skin, fastened
at the throat by a richly wrought collar.
Her arms, a model for sculpture, were bare. A
mantle of purple cloth hung gracefully from her
shoulders, and was confined at the waist by a
broad band, ornamented with rude hieroglyphics.
The mantle and her strait short petticoat or kilt
of the same rare and costly material, had been
obtained, probably, from the English traders.
Stockings were an unknown luxury; but leggins,
similar to those worn by the ladies of Queen Elizabeth's
court, were no bad substitute. The moccasin,
neatly fitted to a delicate foot and ankle,
and tastefully ornamented with bead-work, completed
the apparel of this daughter of a chieftain,
which altogether, had an air of wild and fantastic
and peculiar beauty of the young savage.
Mr. Fletcher surveyed her for a moment with a
mingled feeling of compassion and curiosity, and
then turning away and leaning his head on the
mantelpiece, his thoughts reverted to the subject
that had affected him far more deeply than he
had ventured to confess, even to the wife of his
bosom.
Mrs. Fletcher's first feeling was rather that of a
housewife than a tender woman. `My husband,'
she thought, `might as well have brought a wild
doe from the forest to plough his fields, as to give
me this Indian girl for household labour; but the
wisest men have no sense in these matters.' This
natural domestic reflection was soon succeeded
by a sentiment of compassion, which scarcely
needed to be stimulated by Everell's whisper of
“do, mother, speak to her.”
“Magawisca,” she said in a friendly tone, “you
are welcome among us, girl.” Magawisca bowed
her head. Mrs. Fletcher continued: “you
should receive it as a signal mercy, child, that you
have been taken from the midst of a savage people,
and set in a christian family.” Mrs. Fletcher
paused for her auditor's assent, but the proposition
was either unintelligible or unacceptable to
Magawisca.
“Mistress Fletcher means,” said a middle-aged
serving woman who had just entered the room,
“that you should be mightily thankful, Tawney,
“Hush, Jennet!” said Everell Fletcher, touching
the speaker with the point of an arrow which
he held in his hand.
Magawisca's eyes had turned on Jennet, flashing
like a sun-beam through an opening cloud.
Everell's interposition touched a tender chord,
and when she again cast them down, a tear trembled
on their lids.
“You will have no hard service to do,” said
Mrs. Fletcher, resuming her address. “I cannot
explain all to you now; but you will soon perceive
that our civilized life is far easier—far better
and happier than your wild wandering ways,
which are indeed, as you will presently see, but little
superior to those of the wolves and foxes.”
Magawisca suppressed a reply that her heart
sent to her quivering lips; and Everell said,
“hunted, as the Indians are, to their own dens, I
am sure, mother, they need the fierceness of the
wolf, and the cunning of the fox.”
“True—true, my son,” replied Mrs. Fletcher,
who really meant no unkindness in expressing
what she deemed a self-evident truth; and then
turning again to Magawisca, she said, in a gentle
tone, “you have had a long and fatiguing journey—was
it not, girl?”
“My foot,” replied Magawisca, “is used to the
wild-wood path. The deer tires not of his way
air.”
She uttered her natural feeling in so plaintive a
tone that it touched the heart like a strain of sad
music; and when Jennet again officiously interposed
in the conversation, by saying, that “truly
these savages have their house in the wilderness,
and their way no man knows,” her mistress cut
short her outpouring by directing her to go to the
outer door and learn who it was that Digby was
conducting to the house.
A moment after Digby, Mr. Fletcher's confidential
domestic, entered with the air of one who
has important intelligence to communicate. He
was followed by a tall gaunt Indian, who held in
his hand a deer-skin pouch. “Ha! Digby,” said
Mr. Fletcher, “have you returned? What say
the Commissioners? Can they furnish me a guide
and attendants for my journey?”
“Yes, an' please you, sir, I was in the nick of
time, for they were just despatching a messenger
to the Governor.”
“On what account?”
“Why, it's rather an odd errand,” replied Digby,
scratching his head with an awkward hesitation.
“I would not wish to shock my gentle mistress,
who will never bring her feelings to the
queer fashions of the new world; but Lord's mercy,
sir, you know we think no more of taking off
a scalp here, than we did of shaving our beards at
home.”
“Scalp!” exclaimed Mr. Fletcher. “Explain
yourself, Digby.”
The Indian, as if to assist Digby's communication,
untied his pouch and drew from it a piece
of dried and shrivelled skin, to which hair, matted
together with blood, still adhered. There was an
expression of fierce triumph on the countenance
of the savage as he surveyed the trophy with a
grim smile. A murmur of indignation burst from
all present.
“Why did you bring that wretch here?” demanded
Mr. Fletcher of his servant, in an angry
tone.
“I did but obey Mr. Pynchon, sir. The thing
is an abomination to the soul and eye of a christian,
but it has to be taken to Boston for the reward.”
“What reward, Digby?”
“The reward, sir, that is in reason expected
for the scalp of the Pequod chief.”
As Digby uttered these last words Magawisca
shrieked as if a dagger had pierced her heart.
She darted forward and grasped the arm that upheld
the trophy. “My father!—Mononotto!”
she screamed in a voice of agony.
“Give it to her—by Heaven, you shall give it
to her,” cried Everell, springing on the Indian and
losing all other thought in his instinctive sympathy
for Magawisca.
“Softly, softly, Mr. Everell,” said Digby, “that
Pequods had two chiefs you know.”
Magawisca now released her hold; and as soon
as she could again command her voice, she said,
in her own language to the Indian, “my father—
my father—does he live?”
“He does,” answered the Indian in the same
dialect; “he lives in the wigwam of the chief of
the Mohawks.”
Magawisca was silent for a moment, and knit
her brows as if agitated with an important
deliberation. She then undid a bracelet from
her arm and gave it to the Indian: “I charge
ye,” she said, “as ye hope for game in your hunting-grounds,
for the sun on your wigwam, and the
presence of the Great Spirit in your death-hour—
I charge ye to convey this token to my father.
Tell him his children are servants in the house of
his enemies; but,” she added, after a moment's
pause, “to whom am I trusting?—to the murderer
of Sassacus!—my father's friend!”
“Fear not,” replied the Indian; “your errand
shall be done. Sassacus was a strange tree in our
forests; but he struck his root deep, and lifted
his tall head above our loftiest branches, and cast
his shadow over us; and I cut him down. I may
not return to my people, for they called Sassacus
brother, and they would fain avenge him. But
fear not, maiden, your errand shall be done.”
Mr. Fletcher observed this conference, which
he could not understand, with some anxiety and
to conduct Magawisca to another apartment.
Jennet obeyed, muttering, as she went, “a notable
providence this concerning the Pequod caitiff.
Even like Adonibezek, as he has done to
others the Lord hath requited him.”
Mr. Fletcher then most reluctantly took into his
possession the savage trophy, and dismissed the
Indian, deeply lamenting that motives of mistaken
policy should tempt his brethren to depart
from the plainest principles of their religion.
| CHAPTER II. Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts | |