University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Although the Shaker Leaders mainly depend, for retaining
their subjects, upon the impressions of aversion and hatred of
the world, which they so sedulously implaint in the bosom of their
youth, aided by the extreme ignorance, in which they are kept
for that purpose, and by which, they are generally rendered as
helpless and passive as could be wished, yet force whatever may be
said to the contrary, is, or at least, was formerly, not unfrequently
resorted to for the purpose of restraining those detected in attempting
to escape. Seth, therefore, with a view of avoiding
collissions growing out of any attempt that might be made, in
case he had been suspected and watched, to prevent his going
away, deemed it best to depart in a direction, and in a manner,
which the Shakers would be the least likely to suspect him of taking.
In pursuance of this plan, he had determined to take the
boat and cross over to some point, which would place him beyond
the Family possessions, within the boundaries of which the
pursuit of their fugitives was usually confined. Congratulating
himself on the result of his interview with Martha, which, besides
filling his bosom with the blissful consciousness that his
love was reciprocated, and inspiring his mind with the joyful
hope, that the prize of his affections would soon be his, had
passed over, as he had supposed, undetected, he pursued his way
with a light and rapid step along the path leading to the water.
He had not gone many rods, however, before, to his utter surprise,
his old persecutor, the sleepless Higgins, stepped out from
behind a covert, and, with a look of malicious triumph, confronted
him in his path. Deeply vexed, but neither daunted, nor
turned from his purpose, the young man paused, and threw back a
look of indignation and scorn on his detested opponent; for perceiving
the Elder to be alone, and conscious of his own bodily
powers, he disdained either to cower or flee, but with an air of
cool defiance, stood waiting his movements.

“Ah! thou vile young heretic!” at length exclaimed the Elder
tauntingly; “I have caught thee at last, then, in thine iniquities,
eh? what was thee saying to the maiden?”

“What thee will not be likely to be much the wiser for,” indignantly
replied Seth, who felt confident that, whatever the Elder's
luck had been as a spy, he could not, from the distance of
his position, have gained much in the character of an eaves-dropper.

“Ha! dost thou defy thy appointed rulers, young man? Confess
thy sins unto me, lest I make an example of both thee and
her in punishment of thy heinous offences,”

“Hypocrite, I know thee, and for myself I defy thee! but I
bid thee beware how thee shall further persecute that innocent
girl; for as sure as thee injures a hair of her head, I will hunt
thee while I live, and haunt thee when I am dead!”

Accustomed to witness only tokens of the most abject submission
in the deluded people, over whom he had so long tyranized,
and totally unprepared for such bold language from the youth,
whose spirit he had greatly underrated, the astonished Elder stood
a moment fairly choking with rage, unable, from the violence of
his passions, to utter a single word.

“Get-get-get thee back to the buildings!” at lengh he sputtered
in exploding rage. “Get thee back, thou audacious—thou
—thou God-forsaken reprobate! Get thee back, I say, instantly!”

“Man, I shall not obey thee!” said Seth, in a cool determined
tone. “I no longer acknowledge thy authority; and, from
this hour, I am no longer one of thy blinded and deluded people.
I go hence,” he added, turning out of the path and attempting to
pass the other.

“I will detain thee—I will seize thee—I will curse thee, and,
verily, I will smite thee!” again exclaimed the fuming Elder,
springing at the other and making a desperate grasp at his collar.

The young man, however, was not taken unprepared for the
onset; and the next instant the wrathful Quaker was sprawling
upon the earth. Bounding forward for the pond, with the object
of getting out upon the water before his discomfited antagonist
could recover himself and reach the shore in pursuit. Seth

quickly gained the landing, hastily unfastened the skiff and leaped
aboard; but before he could succeed in clearing the boat from
the shore, and as he was stepping backwards, with handled oar,
to take his seat in the stern, the infuriated Elder came puffing in
hot haste down the bank and dashed into the water up to his
knees after the receding boat, which even at that moment had
just passed out of his reach. But espying the end of a tie-rope,
which, in the hurry of unfastening, had not been taken up, and
which was now draggling through the water within reach, he instantly
seized it and gave it a sudden and furious jerk. Unconscious
of the oversight he had committed, and, therefore, wholly
unprepared for this movement, the young man lost his balance
in the violence of the shock, was precipitated backwards over
the end of the skiff, and instantly disappeared beneath the surface.
With a desperate effort the Elder first drew the skiff up
high and dry on the shore, then hurriedly catching up an oar and
springing back to the water's edge, he held the formidable implement
uplifted and drawn back, as if in readiness for a fatal blow,
the instant his victim's head should re-appear on the surface. In
a few seconds the youth came up, just out of the reach of the
weapon; when, perceiving the threatening attitude of his antagonist,
apparently determined on his destruction should he attempt
to come ashore, he seemingly became panic-struck and confused;
and after glaring wildly around him an instant, sunk again with
a gurgling sound, beneath the surface, to rise no more to view.

With a look of still unmitigated malice and ferocity, and, with
the same menacing attitude, the ruthless Elder stood waiting for
a second appearance of his victim for a full moment, when he
began to exhibit tokens of surprise and lowered his weapon a
little, still keeping, however, his eyes keenly fixed on the spot.
After waiting in vain nearly another moment for the drowning
man to rise, the Elder became thoroughly alarmed, and, throwing
down his oar, hurriedly retreated a few yards on to the bank.
Here he turned and threw another anxious and troubled look
upon and around the fatal spot. A few faint bubbles, successively
rising to the surface, alone answered his enquiring gaze;
and, reading in them conclusive evidence of the horrid truth, he
gave a convulsive start, and fled in terror towards the buildings,

as fast as his quaking limbs could carry him, mumbling and chattering
to himself as he went—

“Now, who would have thought!—If the youth could have
swam—and am I to blame that he never learned to swim?—of a
surety I am not. And then did he not lift his hand against a
gifted Elder of God's Church? and, moreover, have I not saved
the Family boat, which he was about to purloin? Verily, I have
done a good thing!—though, I think, I will not name the matter
to the people—no, lest it lead to the temptation of evil speaking
against rulers, and, peradventure, get to the worlds magistrates.
And, then, again, there is the youth's property, which he was so
forward and perverse about relinquishing to the church,—Nay,
I will not let the affair be known to any, but go to work right
cunningly and secure it all for God's heritage, Yea, verily, I have
done a good thing.”

Thus strangely reasoning, and thus desperately grasping at
salvos for his troubled and guilty feelings, the terror-stricken Elder
reached home, and, without uttering a sylable of what had
happened to any one, immediately betook himself to his solitary
lodgings, not there, however, to find peace and repose, but to
turn and writhe under the scorpion stings of conscience—that
unescapable hell of the guilty, which retributive Heaven has
planted in the bosom of Man for the certain punishment of his
crimes.