 | CHAPTER II. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
“I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are;—
But I have
That honorable grief lodged here, which burns
Worse than tears drown.”
Winter's Tale.
If the pen of a compiler, like that we wield, possessed
the mechanical power of the stage, it would
be easy to shift the scenes of this legend as rapidly
and effectively as is required for its right understanding,
and for the proper maintenance of its
interest. That which cannot be done with the magical
aid of machinery, must be attempted by less
ambitious, and we fear by far less efficacious means.
At the same early hour of the day, and at no
great distance from the spot where Dudley announced
his good fortune to his brother Ring, another
morning meeting had place, between persons of the
same blood and connexions. From the instant when
the pale light, that precedes the day, was first seen
in the heavens, the windows and doors of the considerable
dwelling, on the opposite side of the valley,
had been unbarred. Ere the glow of the sun had
gilded the sky over the outline of the eastern woods,
this example of industry and providence was followed
by the inmates of every house in the village, or
on the surrounding hills; and, by the time the golden
globe itself was visible above the trees, there was
not a human being in all that settlement, of proper
age and health, who was not actively afoot.
It is unnecessary to say that the dwelling particularly
named was the present habitation of the household
of Mark Heathcote. Though age had sapped
the foundations of his strength, and had nearly dried
the channels of his existence, the venerable religionist
still lived. While his physical perfection had
been gradually giving way before the ordinary
decay of nature, the moral man was but little altered.
It is even probable that his visions of futurity
were less dimmed by the mists of carnal interests
than when last seen, and that the spirit had gained
some portion of that energy which had certainly
been abstracted from the more corporeal parts of
his existence. At the hour already named, the
Puritan was seated in the piazza, which stretched
along the whole front of a dwelling, that, however
it might be deficient in architectural proportions,
was not wanting in the more substantial comforts
of a spacious and commodious frontier residence.
In order to obtain a faithful portrait of a man so
intimately connected with our tale, the reader will
fancy him one who had numbered four-score and
mental striving had wrought many and meaning
furrows, a form that trembled while it yet exhibited
the ruins of powerful limb and flexible muscle, and
a countenance in which ascetic reflections had engraved
a severity, that was but faintly relieved
by the gleamings of a natural kindness, which no
acquired habits, nor any traces of metaphysical
thought, could ever entirely erase. Across this picture
of venerable and self-mortifying age, the first
rays of the sun were now softly cast, lighting a
dimmed eye and furrowed face with a look of
brightness and peace. Perhaps the blandness of the
expression belonged as much to the season and hour,
as to the habitual character of the man. This benignancy
of feature, unusual rather in its strength
than in its existence, might have been heightened
by the fact that his spirit had just wrought in prayer,
as was usual, in the circle of his children and
dependants, ere they left those retired parts of the
building where they had found rest and security
during the night. Of the former, none known and
cherished in the domestic circle had been absent;
and the ample provision that was making for the
morning meal, sufficiently showed that the number
of the latter had in no degree diminished since the
reader was familiar with the domestic economy of
his household.
Time had produced no very striking alteration
in the appearance of Content. It is true that the
brown hue of his features had deepened, and that
his frame was beginning to lose some of its elasticity
and ease of action, in the more measured movements
of middle age. But the governed temperament of
the individual had always kept the animal in more
than usual subjection. Even his earlier days had
rather exhibited the promise than the performance
of the ordinary youthful qualities. Mental gravity
effect. In reference to his exterior, and using the
language of the painter, it would now be said, that,
without having wrought any change in form and
proportions, the colors had been mellowed by time.
If a few hairs of gray were sprinkled, here and
there, around his brow, it was as moss gathers on
the stones of the edifice, rather furnishing evidence
of its increased adhesion and approved stability,
than denoting any symptoms of decay.
Not so with his gentle and devoted partner.
That softness and sweetness of air which had first
touched the heart of Content was still to be seen,
though it existed amid the traces of a constant
and a corroding grief. The freshness of youth had
departed, and in its place was visible the more lasting,
and, in her case, the more affecting beauty of
expression. The eye of Ruth had lost none of its
gentleness, and her smile still continued kind and
attractive; but the former was often painfully vacant,
seeming to look inward upon those secret and withering
sources of sorrow that were deeply and almost
mysteriously seated in her heart; while the latter
resembled the cold brightness of that planet, which
illumines objects by repelling the borrowed lustre
from its own bosom. The matronly form, the feminine
beaming of the countenance, and the melodious
voice, yet remained; but the first had been shaken
till it stood on the very verge of a premature decay,
the second had a mingling of anxious care in its
most sympathetic movements, and the last was
seldom without that fearful thrill which so deeply
affects the senses, by conveying to the understanding
a meaning so foreign from the words. And yet an
uninterested and ordinary observer might not have
seen, in the faded comeliness and blighted maturity
of the matron, more than the every-day signs that
betray the turn in the tide of human existence.
had been traced by a hand too delicate to leave the
lines visible to every vulgar eye. Like the master-touches
of art, her grief, as it was beyond the sympathies,
so it lay beyond the ken of those whom
excellence may fail to excite, or in whom absence
can deaden affections. Still her feelings were true
to all who had any claims on her love. The predominance
of wasting grief over the more genial
springs of her enjoyments, only went to prove how
much greater is the influence of the generous than
the selfish qualities of our nature, in a heart that
is truly endowed with tenderness. It is scarce necessary
to say, that this gentle and constant woman
sorrowed for her child.
Had Ruth Heathcote known that the girl ceased
to live, it would not have been difficult for one of
her faith to have deposited her regrets by the side
of hopes that were so justifiable, in the grave of the
innocent. But the living death to which her offspring
might be condemned, was rarely absent from
her thoughts. She listened to the maxims of resignation,
which were heard flowing from lips she loved,
with the fondness of a woman and the meekness of
a Christian; and then, even while the holy lessons
were still sounding in her attentive organs, the
workings of an unconquerable nature led her insidiously
back to the sorrow of a mother.
The imagination of this devoted and feminine
being had never possessed an undue control over her
reason. Her visions of happiness with the man
whom her judgment not less than her inclination
approved, had been such as experience and religion
might justify. But she was now fated to learn there
is a fearful poetry in sorrow, which can sketch with
a grace and an imaginative power that no feebler
efforts of a heated fancy may ever equal. She
heard the sweet breathing of her slumbering infant
came to her ears amid the howlings of the gale;
while the eager question and fond reply were mixed
up with the most ordinary intercourse of her own
household. To her the laugh of childish happiness,
that often came on the still air of evening from the
hamlet, sounded like the voice of mourning; and
scarce an infantile sport met her eye, that did not
bring with it a pang of anguish. Twice, since the
events of the inroad, had she been a mother; and,
as if an eternal blight were doomed to destroy her
hopes, the little creatures to whom she had given
birth, slept, side by side, near the base of the ruined
block. Thither she often went, but it was rather to
be the victim of those cruel images of her fancy,
than as a mourner. Her visions of the dead were
calm and even consolatory, but if ever her thoughts
mounted to the abodes of eternal peace, and her
feeble fancy essayed to embody the forms of the
blessed, her mental eye sought her who was not,
rather than those who were believed to be secure
in their felicity. Wasting and delusory as were
these glimpses of the mind, there were others far
more harrowing, because they presented themselves
with more of the coarse and certain features of
the world. It was the common and perhaps it was
the better, opinion of the inhabitants of the valley,
that death had early sealed the fate of those who
had fallen into the hands of the savages on the
occasion of the inroad. Such a result was in conformity
with the known practices and ruthless passions
of the conquerors, who seldom spared life,
unless to render revenge more cruelly refined, or
to bring consolation to some bereaved mother of the
tribe, by offering a substitute for the dead in the
person of a captive. There was relief, to picture
the face of the laughing cherub in the clouds, or to
listen to its light footstep in the empty halls of the
suffering was confined to her own bosom. But when
stern reality usurped the place of fancy, and she
saw her living daughter shivering in the wintry
blasts or sinking beneath the fierce heats of the
climate, cheerless in the desolation of female servitude,
and suffering meekly the lot of physical weakness
beneath a savage master, she endured that anguish
which was gradually exhausting the springs
of life.
Though the father was not altogether exempt
from similar sorrow, it beset him less ceaselessly.
He knew how to struggle with the workings of his
mind, as best became a man. Though strongly impressed
with the belief that the captives had early
been put beyond the reach of suffering, he had
neglected no duty, which tenderness to his sorrowing
partner, parental love, or Christian duty, could
require at his hands.
The Indians had retired on the crust of the snow,
and with the thaw every foot-print, or sign, by
which such wary foes might be traced, had vanished.
It remained matter of doubt to what tribe, or
even to what nation, the marauders belonged. The
peace of the colony had not yet been openly
broken, and the inroad had been rather a violent
and fierce symptom of the evils that were contemplated,
than the actual commencement of the ruthless
hostilities which had since ravaged the frontier.
But while policy had kept the colonists quiet, private
affection omitted no rational means of effecting
the restoration of the sufferers, in the event of
their having been spared.
Scouts had passed among the conspiring and but
half-peaceable tribes, nearest to the settlement,
and rewards and menaces had both been liberally
used, in order to ascertain the character of the
savages who had laid waste the valley, as well as
Every expedient to detect the truth had failed.
The Narragansetts affirmed that their constant
enemies the Mohicans, acting with their customary
treachery, had plundered their English friends;
while the Mohicans vehemently threw back the
imputation on the Narragansetts. At other times,
some Indians affected to make dark allusions to the
hostile feelings of fierce warriors, who, under the
name of the Five Nations, were known to reside
within the limits of the Dutch colony of New-Netherlands,
and to dwell upon the jealousy of the Pale-faces
who spoke a language different from that of
the Yengeese. In short, inquiry had produced no
result; and Content, when he did permit his fancy
to represent his daughter as still living, was forced
to admit to himself the probability that she might
be buried far in the ocean of wilderness which then
covered most of the surface of this continent.
Once, indeed, a rumor of an exciting nature had
reached the family. An itinerant trader, bound
from the wilds of the interior to a mart on the seashore,
had entered the valley. He brought with
him a report, that a child, answering in some respects
to the appearance which might now be supposed
to belong to her who was lost, was living
among the savages, on the banks of the smaller
lakes of the adjoining colony. The distance to this
spot was great; the path led through a thousand
dangers, and the result was far from certain. Yet
it quickened hopes which had long been dormant.
Ruth never urged any request that might involve
serious hazard to her husband, and for many
months the latter had even ceased to speak on the
subject. Still, nature was working powerfully within
him. His eyes, at all times reflecting and calm,
grew more thoughtful; deeper lines of care gathered
possession of a countenance which was usually so
placid.
It was at this precise period, that Eben Dudley
chose to urge the suit, he had always pressed after
his own desultory fashion, on the decision of Faith.
One of those well-ordered accidents, which, from
time to time, had brought the girl and the young
borderer in private conversation, enabled him to
effect his design, with sufficient clearness. Faith
heard him without betraying any of her ordinary
waywardness, and answered with as little prevarication
as the subject seemed to demand.
“This is well, Eben Dudley,” she said, “and it is
no more than an honest girl hath a right to hear,
from one who hath taken as many means as thou
to get into her favor. But he who would have his
life tormented by me, hath a solemn duty to do, ere
I listen to his wishes.”
“I have been in the lower towns and studied
their manner of life, and I have been upon the
scouts of the colony, to keep the Indians in their
wigwams,” returned her suitor, endeavoring to recount
the feats of manliness that might reasonably
be expected of one inclined to venture on so hazardous
an experiment as matrimony. “The bargain
with the young Captain for the hill-lot, and for a
village homestead, is drawing near a close; and as
the neighbors will not be backward at the stone-bee,
or the raising, I see nothing to—”
“Thou deceivest thyself, observant Dudley,” interrupted
the girl, “if thou believest eye of thine
can see that which is to be sought, ere one and the
same fortune shall be the property of thee and me.
Hast noted, Eben, the manner in which the cheek
of the Madam hath paled, and how her eye is getting
sunken, since the time when the fur trader
tarried with us, the week of the storm?”
“I cannot say that there is much change in the
wearing of the Madam, within the bearing of my
memory,” answered Dudley, who was never remarkable
for minute observations of this nature,
however keen he might prove in subjects more intimately
connected with his daily pursuits. “She is
not young and blooming as thou, Faith, nor is it
often that we see—”
“I tell thee, man, that sorrow preyeth upon her
form, and that she liveth but in the memory of the
lost infant!”
“This is carrying mourning beyond the bounds
of reason. The child is at peace; as is thy brother,
Whittal, beyond all manner of question. That we
have not discovered their bones, is owing to the fire,
which left but little to tell of—”
“Thy head is a charnel-house, dull Dudley, but
this picture of its furniture shall not suffice for me.
The man who is to be my husband must have a feeling
for a mother's sorrows!”
“What is now getting uppermost in thy mind,
Faith! Is it for me to bring back the dead to life,
or to place a child that hath been lost so many years
once more in the arms of its parents?”
“It is.—Nay, open not thine eyes, as if light were
first breaking into the darkness of a clouded brain!
I repeat, it is!”
“I am glad that we have got to these open declarations,
for too much of my life hath been already
wasted in unsettled gallanting, when sound wisdom,
and the example of all around me, have shown
that in order to become the father of a family, and
to be esteemed for a substantial settler, I should
have both cleared and wived some years ago. I
wish to deal justly by all, and having given thee
reason to think that the day might come when we
should live together, as is fitting to people of our
condition, I felt it a duty to ask thee to share my
it is needful to seek elsewhere.”
“This hath ever been thy way, when a good understanding
hath been established between us. Thy
mind is ever getting into some discontent, and then
blame is heaped on one who rarely doth anything
that should in reason offend thee. What madness
maketh thee dream that I ask impossibilities? Surely,
Dudley, thou canst not have noted the manner
in which the nature of the Madam is giving way
before the consuming heat of her grief; thou canst
not look into the sorrow of woman, or thou wouldst
have listened with more kindness to a plan of travelling
the woods for a short season, in order that it
might be known whether she of whom the trader
spoke is the lost one of our family, or the child of
some stranger!”
Though Faith spoke with vexation, she also spoke
with feeling. Her dark eye swam in tears, and the
color of her brown cheek deepened, until her companion
saw new reasons to forget his discontent in
sympathies, which, however obtuse they might be,
were never entirely dormant.
“If a journey of a few hundred miles be all thou
askest, girl, why speak in parables?” he good-naturedly
replied. “The kind word was not wanting
to put me on such a trail. We will be married on
the Sabbath, and, please Heaven, the Wednesday,
or the Saturday at most, shall see me on the path
of the western trader.”
“No delay. Thou must depart with the sun. The
more active thou provest on the journey, the sooner
wilt thou have the power to make me repent a foolish
deed.”
But Faith had been persuaded to relax a little
from this severity. They were married on the Sabbath,
and the following day Content and Dudley
left the valley, in quest of the distant tribe on which
violently engrafted.
It is needless to dwell on the dangers and privations
of such an expedition. The Hudson, the Delaware,
and the Susquehannah, rivers that were then
better known in tales than to the inhabitants of
New-England, were all crossed; and after a painful
and hazardous journey, the adventurers reached
the first of that collection of small interior lakes,
whose banks are now so beautifully decorated with
villages and farms. Here, in the bosom of savage
tribes, and exposed to every danger of field and
flood, supported only by his hopes, and by the presence
of a stout companion that hardships or danger
could not easily subdue, the father diligently sought
his child.
At length a people were found, who held a captive
that answered the description of the trader.
We shall not dwell on the feelings with which Content
approached the village that contained this little
descendant of a white race. He had not concealed
his errand; and the sacred character, in
which he came, found pity and respect even among
those barbarous tenants of the wilderness. A deputation
of the chiefs received him in the skirts of
their clearing. He was conducted to a wigwam,
where a council-fire was lighted, and an interpreter
opened the subject, by placing the amount of the
ransom offered, and the professions of peace with
which the strangers came, in the fairest light before
his auditors. It is not usual for the American savage
to loosen his hold easily, on one naturalized in
his tribe. But the meek air and noble confidence
of Content touched the latent qualities of those
generous though fierce children of the woods. The
girl was sent for, that she might stand in the presence
of the elders of the nation.
No language can paint the sensation with which
the savages. The years and sex were in accordance
with his wishes; but, in place of the golden hair
and azure eyes of the cherub he had lost, there appeared
a girl in whose jet-black tresses and equally
dark organs of sight, he might better trace a descendant
of the French of the Canadas, than one
sprung from his own Saxon lineage. The father
was not quick of mind in the ordinary occupations
of life, but nature was now big within him. There
needed no second glance, to say how cruelly his
hopes had been deceived. A smothered groan struggled
from his chest, and then his self-command returned
with the imposing grandeur of Christian resignation.
He arose, and, thanking the chiefs for
their indulgence, he made no secret of the mistake
by which he had been led so far on a fruitless errand.
While speaking, the signs and gestures of
Dudley gave him reason to believe, that his companion
had something of importance to communicate.
In a private interview, the latter suggested the expediency
of concealing the truth, and of rescuing
the child they had in fact discovered from the hands
of her barbarous masters. It was now too late to
practise a deception that might have availed for this
object, had the stern principles of Content permitted
the artifice. But, transferring some portion of the
interest which he felt for the fortunes of his own
offspring, to that of the unknown parent, who, like
himself, most probably mourned the uncertain fate
of the girl before him, he tendered the ransom intended
for Ruth, in behalf of the captive. It was
rejected. Disappointed in both their objects, the
adventurers were obliged to quit the village, with
weary feet and still heavier hearts.
If any who read these pages have ever felt the
agony of suspense in a matter involving the best of
human affections, they will know how to appreciate
her husband was absent on this holy errand. At
times, hope brightened around her heart, until the
glow of pleasure was again mantling on her cheek
and playing in her eye. The first week of the adventure
was one almost of happiness. The hazards
of the journey were nearly forgotten in its anticipated
results, and, though occasional apprehensions
quickened the pulses of one whose system answered
so fearfully to the movements of the spirit, there
was a predominance of hope in all her anticipations.
She again passed among her maidens with a mien
in which joy was struggling with the meekness of
subdued habits, and her smiles once more began to
beam with renovated happiness. To his dying day,
old Mark Heathcote never forgot the sudden sensation
that was created by the soft laugh that on some
unexpected occasion came to his ear from the lips
of his son's wife. Though years had elapsed between
the moment when that unwonted sound was
heard, and the time at which the action of the tale
now stands, he had never heard it repeated. To
heighten the feelings which were now uppermost in
the mind of Ruth, when within a day's march of
the village to which he was going, Content had found
means to send the tidings of his prospects of success.
It was over all these renewed wishes that disappointment
was to throw its chill, and it was affections
thus riveted that were to be again blighted by the
cruelest of all withering influences,—that of hope
defeated.
It was near the hour of the setting of the sun,
when Content and Dudley reached the deserted
clearing, on their return to the valley. Their path
led through this opening on the mountain-side, and
there was one point, among the bushes, from which
the buildings, that had already arisen from the ashes
of the burning, might be distinctly seen. Until now,
to any effort that duty might require, in the progress
of this mournful service. But here he paused,
and communicated a wish to his companion that he
would go ahead and break the nature of the deception
that had led them so far on a fruitless mission.
Perhaps Content was himself ignorant of all he
wished, or to what unskilful hands he had confided
a commission of more than ordinary delicacy. He
merely felt his own inability, and, with a weakness
that may find some apology in his feelings, he saw
his companion depart, without instructions, or indeed
without any other guide than Nature.
Though Faith had betrayed no marked uneasiness
during the absence of the travellers, her quick
eye was the first to discover the form of her husband,
as he came with a tired step across the fields,
in the direction of the dwellings. Long ere Dudley
reached the house, every one of its inmates had assembled
in the piazza. This was no meeting of turbulent
delight, or of clamorous greetings. The adventurer
drew near amid a silence so oppressive,
that it utterly disconcerted a studied project, by
which he had hoped to announce his tidings in a
manner suited to the occasion. His hand was on
the gate of the little court, and still none spoke; his
foot was on the low step, and yet no voice bade him
welcome. The looks of the little group were rather
fixed on the features of Ruth, than on the person of
him who approached. Her face was pallid as death,
her eye contracted, but filled with the mental effort
that sustained her; and her lip scarce trembled, as,
in obedience to a feeling still stronger than the one
which had so long oppressed her, she exclaimed—
“Eben Dudley, where hast thou left my husband?”
“The young Captain was a-foot weary, and he
tarried in the second growth on the hill; but so
him soon, at the opening by the dead beech; and it
is there that I recommend the Madam—”
“It was thoughtful in Heathcote, and like his
usual kindness, to devise this well-meant caution!”
said Ruth, across whose countenance a smile so radiant
passed, that it imparted the expression which
is believed to characterize the peculiar benignancy
of angels. “Still it was unnecessary; for he should
have known that we place our strength on the Rock
of Ages. Tell me, in what manner hath my precious
one borne the exceeding weariness of thy
tangled route?”
The wandering glance of the messenger had gone
from face to face, until it became fastened on the
countenance of his own wife, in a settled, unmeaning
gaze.
“Nay, Faith hath demeaned well, both as my
assistant and as thy partner, and thou mayst see
that her comeliness is in no degree changed—And
did the babe falter in this weary passage, or did
she retard thy movements by her fretfulness? But
I know thy nature, man; she hath been borne over
many long miles of mountain-side and treacherous
swamp, in thine own vigorous arms. Thou answerest
not, Dudley!” exclaimed Ruth, taking the alarm,
and laying a hand firmly on the shoulder of him
she questioned, as, forcing his half-averted face to
meet her eye, she seemed to read his soul.
The muscles of the sun-burnt and strong features
of the borderer worked involuntarily, his broad
chest swelled to its utmost expansion, big burning
drops rolled out upon his brown cheeks, and then,
taking the arm of Ruth in one of his own powerful
hands, he compelled her to release her hold, with a
firm but respectful exercise of his strength; and,
thrusting the form of his own wife, without ceremony,
entered the dwelling, with the tread of a giant.
The head of Ruth dropped upon her bosom, the
paleness again came over her cheeks, and it was
then that the inward look of the eye might first be
seen, which afterwards became so constant and so
painful an expression in her countenance. From that
hour, to the time in which the family of the Wish-Ton-Wish
is again brought immediately before the
reader, no further rumors were ever heard, to lessen
or to increase the wasting regrets of her bosom.
| CHAPTER II. The wept of Wish-ton-Wish | |