University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

We trust we have not exhausted the patience
of our readers, and that they will vouchsafe to go
forth with us once more, on the eventful evening
on which we have fallen, to watch the safe conduct
of the released prisoner.

The fugitives had not proceeded many yards
from the jail, when Everell joined them. This
was the first occasion on which Magawisca and
Everell had had an opportunity freely to interchange
their feelings. Everell's tongue faltered
when he would have expressed what he had felt
for her: his manly, generous nature, disdained
vulgar professions, and he feared that his ineffectual
efforts in her behalf had left him without any
other testimony of the constancy of his friendship,
and the warmth of his gratitude.

Magawisca comprehended his feelings, and anticipated
their expression. She related the scene
with Sir Philip, in the prison; and dwelt long on
her knowledge of the attempt Everell then made

to rescue her. “That bad man,” she said, “made
me, for the first time, lament for my lost limb.
He darkened the clouds that were gathering
over my soul; and, for a little while, Everell, I did
deem thee like most of thy race, on whom kindness
falls like drops of rain on the lake, dimpling its surface
for a moment, but leaving no mark there—
but when I found thou wert true,” she continued in
a swelling, exulting voice—“when I heard thee in
my prison, and saw thee on my trial, I again rejoiced
that I had sacrificed my precious limb for
thee; that I had worn away the days and nights
in the solitudes of the forest musing on the memory
of thee, and counting the moons till the
Great Spirit shall bid us to those regions where
there will be no more gulfs between us, and I may
hail thee as my brother.”

“And why not now, Magawisca, regard me as
your brother? True, neither time nor distance
can sever the bonds by which our souls are united,
but why not enjoy this friendship while youth, and
as long as life lasts? Nay, hear me, Magawisca
—the present difference of the English with the
Indians, is but a vapour that has, even now, nearly
passed away. Go, for a short time, where you
may be concealed from those who are not yet
prepared to do you justice, and then—I will answer
for it—every heart and every voice will unite
to recall you; you shall be welcomed with the
honour due to you from all, and always cherished
with the devotion due from us.”

“Oh! do not hesitate, Magawisca,” cried
Hope, who had, till now, been only a listener to
the conversation in which she took a deep interest.
“Promise us that you will return and dwell
with us—as you would say, Magawisca, we will
walk in the same path, the same joys shall shine
on us, and, if need be that sorrows come over us,
why, we will all sit under their shadow together.”

“It cannot be—it cannot be,” replied Magawisca,
the persuasions of those she loved, not, for a
moment, overcoming her deep invincible sense of
the wrongs her injured race had sustained. “My
people have been spoiled—we cannot take as a
gift that which is our own—the law of vengeance
is written on our hearts—you say you have a written
rule of forgiveness—it may be better—if ye
would be guided by it—it is not for us—the Indian
and the white man can no more mingle, and become
one, than day and night.”

Everell and Hope would have interrupted her
with further entreaties and arguments: “Touch
no more on that,” she said, “we must part—and
for ever.” Her voice faltered for the first time,
and, turning from her own fate to what appeared to
her the bright destiny of her companions, “my
spirit will joy in the thought,” she said, “that you
are dwelling in love and happiness together. Nelema
told me your souls were mated—she said
your affections mingled like streams from the

same fountain. Oh! may the chains by which
He, who sent you from the spirit land, bound you
together, grow brighter and stronger till you return
thither again.”

She paused—neither of her companions spoke
—neither could speak—and, naturally, misinterpreting
their silence, “have I passed your bound
of modesty,” she said, “in speaking to the maiden
as if she were a wife?”

“Oh, no, Magawisca,” said Everell, feeling a
strange and undefinable pleasure in an illusion,
which, though he could not for an instant participate,
he would not for the world have dissipated—“oh,
no, do not check one expression, one
word, they are your last to us.” `And may not
the last words of a friend, be, like the sayings of
a death-bed, prophetic?' he would have added,
but his lips refused to utter what he felt was the
treachery of his heart.

To Hope it seemed that too much had already
been spoken. She could be prudent when any
thing but ner own safety depended on her discretion.
Before Magawisca could reply to Everell,
she gave a turn to the conversation: “Ere we
part, Magawisca,” she said, “cannot you give me
some charm, by which I may win my sister's affections?
she is wasting away with grief and
pining.”

“Ask your own heart, Hope Leslie, if any
charm could win your affections from Everell
Fletcher?”

She paused for a reply. The gulf from which
Hope had retreated, seemed to be widening before
her, but, summoning all her courage, she answered
with a tolerably firm voice, “yes—yes,
Magawisca, if virtue, if duty to others required it,
I trust in heaven I could command and direct my
affections.”

We hope Everell may be forgiven, for the joy
that gushed through his heart when Hope expressed
a confidence in her own strength, which
at least implied a consciousness that she needed
it. Nature will rejoice in reciprocated love, under
whatever adversities it comes.

Magawisca replied to Hope's apparent meaning:
“Both virtue and duty,” she said, “bind
your sister to Oneco. She hath been married
according to our simple modes, and persuaded by
a Romish father, as she came from Christian
blood, to observe the rites of their law. When
she flies from you, as she will, mourn not over
her, Hope Leslie—the wild flower would perish
in your gardens—the forest is like a native home
to her—and she will sing as gaily again as the
bird that hath found its mate.”

They now approached the place where Digby,
with a trusty friend, was awaiting them. A light
canoe had been provided, and Digby had his instructions
from Everell to convey Magawisca to
any place she might herself select. The good fellow
had entered into the confederacy with hearty
good will, giving, as a reason for his obedience to

the impulse of his heart, `that the poor Indian
girl could not commit sins enough against the
English to weigh down her good deed to Mr.
Everell.'

Everell now inquired of Magawisca whither he
should direct the boat: “To Moscutusett,” she
said; “I shall there get tidings, at least, of my
father.”

“And must we now part, Magawisca? must
we live without you?”

“Oh! no, no” cried Hope, joining her entreaties,
“your noble mind must not be wasted
in those hideous solitudes.”

“Solitudes!” echoed Magawisca, in a voice in
which some pride mingled with her parting sadness.
“Hope Leslie, there is no solitude to me;
the Great Spirit, and his ministers, are every
where present and visible to the eye of the soul
that loves him; nature is but his interpreter; her
forms are but bodies for his spirit. I hear him in
the rushing winds—in the summer breeze—in the
gushing fountains—in the softly running streams.
I see him in the bursting life of spring—in the ripening
maize—in the falling leaf. Those beautiful
lights,” and she pointed upward, “that shine
alike on your stately domes and our forest homes,
speak to me of his love to all,—think you I go to
a solitude, Hope Leslie?”

“No, Magawisca; there is no solitude, nor privation,
nor sorrow, to a soul that thus feels the
presence of God,” replied Hope. She paused—

it was not a time for calm reflection or protracted
solicitation; but the thought that a mind so
disposed to religious impressions and affections,
might enjoy the brighter light of Christian revelation—a
revelation so much higher, nobler, and
fuller, than that which proceeds from the voice of
nature—made Hope feel a more intense desire
than ever to retain Magawisca; but this was a
motive Magawisca could not now appreciate, and
she could not, therefore, urge: “I cannot ask
you,” she said, “I do not ask you, for your sake,
but for ours, to return to us.”

“Oh! yes, Magawisca,” urged Everell, “come
back to us and teach us to be happy, as you are,
without human help or agency.”

“Ah!” she replied, with a faint smile, “ye need
not the lesson, ye will each be to the other a full
stream of happiness. May it be fed from the
fountain of love, and grow broader and deeper
through all the passage of life.”

The picture Magawisca presented, was, in the
minds of the lovers, too painfully contrasted with
the real state of their affairs. Both felt their emotions
were beyond their control; both silently appealed
to heaven to aid them in repressing feelings
that might not be expressed.

Hope naturally sought relief in action: she took
a morocco case from her pocket, and drew from
it a rich gold chain, with a clasp containing hair,
and set round with precious stones: “Magawisca,”
she said, with as much steadiness of voice as

she could assume, “take this token with you, it
will serve as a memorial of us both, for I have
put in the clasp a lock of Everell's hair, taken
from his head when he was a boy, at Bethel—it
will remind you of your happiest days there.”

Magawisca took the chain, and held it in her
hand a moment, as if deliberating. “This is
beautiful,” she said, “and would, when I am far
away from thee, speak sweetly to me of thy kindness,
Hope Leslie. But I would rather—if I
could demean myself to be a beggar”—she hesitated,
and then added, “I wrong thy generous
nature in fearing thus to speak; I know thou wilt
freely give me the image when thou hast the living
form.”

Before she had finished, Hope's quick apprehension
had comprehended her meaning. Immediately
after Everell's arrival in England, he
had, at his father's desire, had a small miniature
of himself painted, and sent to Hope. She attached
it to a ribbon, and had always worn it.
Soon after Everell's engagement to Miss Downing,
she took it off to put it aside, but feeling, at
the moment, that this action implied a consciousness
of weakness, she, with a mixed feeling of
pride, and reluctance to part with it, restored it
to her bosom. While she was adjusting Magawisca's
disguise in the prison, the miniature slid
from beneath her dress, and she, at the time, observed
that Magawisca's eye rested intently on it.
She must not now hesitate—Everell must not see

her reluctance, and yet, such are the strange contrarieties
of human feeling, the severest pang she felt
in parting with it, was the fear that Everell would
think it was a willing gift. Hoping to shelter all
her feelings in the haste of the action, she took
the miniature from her own neck, and tied it
around Magawisca's. “You have but reminded
me of my duty,” she said; “nay, keep them both,
Magawisca, do not stint the little kindness I can
show you.”

Digby had at this moment come up to urge no
more delay; and we leave to others to adjust
the proportions of emotion that were indicated
by Hope's faltering voice, and an irrepressible
burst of tears, between her grief at parting, and
other and secret feelings.

All stood as if they were rivetted to the ground,
till Digby again spoke, and suggested the danger
to which Magawisca was exposed by this delay.
All felt the necessity of immediate separation,
and all shrunk from it as from witnessing the last
gasp of life. They moved to the water's edge,
and, once more prompted by Digby, Everell and
Hope, in broken voices, expressed their last wishes
and prayers. Magawisca joined their hands,
and bowing her head on them,—“The Great
Spirit guide ye,” she said, and then turning away,
leaped into the boat, muffled her face in her mantle,
and in a few brief moments disappeared for
ever from their sight.

Everell and Hope remained immoveable, gazing

on the little boat till it faded in the dim distance;
for a few moments, every feeling for
themselves was lost in the grief of parting for
ever from the admirable being, who seemed to
her enthusiastic young friends, one of the noblest
of the works of God—a bright witness to the
beauty, the independence, and the immortality of
virtue. They breathed their silent prayers for
her; and when their thoughts returned to themselves,
though they gave them no expression,
there was a consciousness of perfect unity of feeling,
a joy in the sympathy that was consecrated
by its object, and might be innocently indulged,
that was a delicious spell to their troubled
hearts.

Strong as the temptation was, they both felt
the impropriety of lingering where they were,
and they bent their slow, unwilling footsteps
homeward. Not one word during the long protracted
walk was spoken by either; but no language
could have been so expressive of their mutual
love and mutual resolution, as this silence.
They both afterwards confessed, that though they
had never felt so deeply as at that moment, the
bitterness of their divided destiny, yet neither had
they before known the worth of those principles
of virtue, that can subdue the strongest passions
to their obedience. An experience worth a tenfold
suffering.

As they approached Governor Winthrop's, they
observed that instead of the profound darkness

and silence that usually reigned in that exemplary
mansion at eleven o'clock, the house seemed
to be in great bustle. The doors were open,
and they heard loud voices, and lights were swiftly
passing from room to room. Hope inferred,
that notwithstanding her precautions, the apprehensions
of the family had probably been excited
in regard to her untimely absence, and she passed
the little distance that remained with dutiful
haste. Everell attended her to the gate of the
court, and pressing her hand to his lips, with an
emotion that he felt he might indulge for the last
time, he left her and went, according to a previous
determination, to Barnaby Tuttle's, where,
by a surrender of himself to the jailer's custody,
he expected to relieve poor Cradock from his involuntary
confinement.