University of Virginia Library

THE MOTHER'S REVENGE.

Woman's attributes are generally considered of a
milder and purer character than those of man. The
virtues of meek affection, of fervent piety, of winning
sympathy and of that “charity which forgiveth often,”
are more peculiarly her own. Her sphere of action
is generally limited to the endearments of home—the
quiet communion with her friends, and the angelic
exercise of the kindly charities of existence. Yet,
there have been astonishing manifestations of female
fortitude and power in the ruder and sterner trials of
humanity; manifestations of a courage rising almost
to sublimity; the revelation of all those dark and
terrible passions, which madden and distract the heart
of manhood.

The perils which surrounded the earliest settlers of
New-England were of the most terrible character.
None but such a people as were our forefathers could
have successfully sustained them. In the dangers and
the hardihood of that perilous period, woman herself
shared largely. It was not unfrequently her task to
garrison the dwelling of her absent husband, and hold

at bay the fierce savages in their hunt for blood.
Many have left behind them a record of their sufferings
and trials in the great wilderness, when in the
bondage of the heathen, which are full of wonderful
and romantic incidents, related however without ostentation,
plainly and simply, as if the authors felt
assured that they had only performed the task which
Providence had set before them, and for which they
could ask no tribute of admiration.

In 1698 the Indians made an attack upon the English
settlement at Haverhill—now a beautiful village
on the left bank of the Merrimack. They surrounded
the house of one Duston, which was a little removed
from the main body of the settlement. The wife of
Duston was at that time in bed with an infant child in
her arms. Seven young children were around her.
On the first alarm Duston bade his children fly towards
the Garrison-house, and then turned to save his
wife and infant. By this time the savages were pressing
close upon them. The heroic woman saw the
utter impossibility of her escape—and she bade her
husband fly to succor his children, and leave her to
her fate. It was a moment of terrible trial for the
husband—he hesitated between his affection and his
duty—but the entreaties of his wife fixed his determination.

He turned away, and followed his children. A part
of the Indians pursued him, but he held them at a distance
by the frequent discharge of his rifle. The
children fled towards the garrison, where their friends
waited, with breathless anxiety, to receive them.
More than once, during their flight, the savages gained
upon them; but a shot from the rifle of Duston, followed,
as it was, by the fall of one of their number,
effectually checked their progress. The garrison was
reached, and Duston and his children, exhausted with
fatigue and terror, were literally dragged into its enclosure
by their anxious neighbors.

Mrs. Duston, her servant girl and her infant were
made prisoners by the Indians, and were compelled
to proceed before them in their retreat towards their
lurking-place. The charge of her infant necessarily
impeded her progress; and the savages could ill
brook delay when they knew the avenger of blood was
following closely behind them. Finding that the
wretched mother was unable to keep pace with her
captors, the leader of the band approached her, and
wrested the infant from her arms. The savage held
it before him for a moment, contemplating, with a
smile of grim fierceness the terrors of its mother, and
then dashed it from him with all his powerful strength.
Its head smote heavily on the trunk of an adjacent

tree, and the dried leaves around were sprinkled with
brains and blood.

“Go on!” said the Indian.

The wretched mother cast one look upon her dead
infant, and another to Heaven, as she obeyed her savage
conductor. She has often said, that at this moment,
all was darkness and horror—that her very
heart seemed to cease beating, and to lie cold and
dead in her bosom, and that her limbs moved only as
involuntary machinery. But when she gazed around
her and saw the unfeeling savages, grinning at her
and mocking her, and pointing to the mangled body
of her infant with fiendish exultation, a new and terrible
feeling came over her. It was the thirst of revenge;
and from that moment her purpose was fixed.
There was a thought of death at her heart—an insatiate
longing for blood. An instantaneous change
had been wrought in her very nature; the angel had
become a demon,—and she followed her captors, with
a stern determination to embrace the earliest opportunity
for a bloody retribution.

The Indians followed the course of the Merrimack,
until they had reached their canoes, a distance of seventy
or eighty miles. They paddled to a small island,
a little above the upper falls of the river. Here
they kindled a fire; and fatigued by their long

marches and sleepless nights, stretched themselves
around it, without dreaming of the escape of their
captives.

Their sleep was deep—deeper than any which the
white man knows,—a sleep from which they were
never to awaken. The two captives lay silent, until
the hour of midnight; but the bereaved mother did
not close her eyes. There was a gnawing of revenge
at her heart, which precluded slumber. There was a
spirit within her which defied the weakness of the
body.

She rose up and walked around the sleepers, in
order to test the soundness of their slumber. They
stirred not limb or muscle. Placing a hatchet in the
hands of her fellow captive, and bidding her stand
ready to assist her, she grasped another in her own
hands, and smote its ragged edge deeply into the
skull of the nearest sleeper. A slight shudder and a
feeble groan followed. The savage was dead. She
passed on to the next. Blow followed blow, until ten
out of twelve, the whole number of the savages, were
stiffening in blood. One escaped with a dreadful
wound. The last—a small boy—still slept amidst
the scene of carnage. Mrs. Duston lifted her dripping
hatchet above his head, but hesitated to strike
the blow.

“It is a poor boy,” she said, mentally, “a poor
child, and perhaps he has a mother!” The thought
of her own children rushed upon her mind, and she
spared him. She was in the act of leaving the bloody
spot, when, suddenly reflecting that the people of her
settlement would not credit her story, unsupported by
any proof save her own assertion, she returned and
deliberately scalped her ten victims. With this fearful
evidence of her prowess, she loosed one of the
Indian canoes, and floated down the river to the falls,
from which place she travelled through the wilderness
to the residence of her husband.

Such is the simple and unvarnished story of a New-England
woman. The curious historian, who may
hereafter search among the dim records of our “twilight
time”—who may gather from the uncertain responses
of tradition, the wonderful history of the past
—will find much, of a similar character, to call forth
by turns, admiration and horror. And the time is
coming, when all these traditions shall be treasured
up as a sacred legacy—when the tale of the Indian inroad
and the perils of the hunter—of the sublime
courage and the dark superstitions of our ancestors,
will be listened to with an interest unknown to the
present generation,—and those who are to fill our
places will pause hereafter by the Indian's burial-place,

and on the scite of the old battle-field, or the
thrown-down garrison, with a feeling of awe and reverence,
as if communing, face to face, with the spirits
of that stern race, which has passed away forever.