 | The Shaker lovers, and other tales |  |
THE SHAKER LOVERS.
1. CHAPTER I.
I was once, upon a warm summer afternoon, journeying on
horseback in that wild and picturesque tract of country, in New
Hampshire, which borders on the upper portion of the mountain-born
Merrimac, when a dark thunder cloud, that had been gathering,
unperceived by me, in the distance, rose up suddenly from
behind the screening hills, apprising me at once, by its threatening
aspect, and the rapidity with which it was rolling towards
me, that a thorough drenching was only to be avoided by an immediate
flight to some place of shelter.
Applying the spur, therefore, I put my horse to his best speed,
and fortunately, succeeded in reaching a substantial looking farm
house by the road side, just as the big, bright drops of rain, as
if shaken down by the crashing peal of thunder, that heralded
their descent, came merrily dancing to the smoking earth.
While standing in the open shed, that I had been so lucky as
to gain, listening to the roar of the elements, and marking that
almost terrific sublimity, with which a thunder-storm in the
mountains becomes invested, the owner of the establishment, a
fine, hale looking man of about forty, came out, and very courteously
invited me into the house, adding at the same time, that he
thought, from the unpromising appearance of the clouds, I might
as well make up my mind, at once, to remain with him through
the night.
As it was then late in the afternoon, and the rain still continued
to pour down, with little prospect of abating in time for me
to resume my journey before dark, I soon concluded to accept
the proffered hospitality; when I was immediately ushered into
family, as “a stranger who had been induced to put up
with their poor fare for the night.”
I had already been struck with the appearance of thrift and
good management in every thing about this establishment without,
and my admiration was now equally awakened by the neatness
and rustic taste of all within, and the peculiar quiet and order,
with which the family concerns seemed to be conducted
under the superintendence of my hostess, who was one of the
most comely and engaging matrons I remember ever to have
seen. I very soon discovered my host to be a man of much native
shrewdness and of fixed and well-formed opinions on almost
all subjects that presented themselves; and these qualities, united
with a spice of sly humor and a good tact for description, failed
not to impart a high degree of piquancy and interest to his conversation.
After the excellent supper, with which we were soon
favored, was over, the household affairs regulated, and the smaller
children disposed of for the night, the amiable mistress of the
house took her knitting-work and joined us in the sitting-room,
adding a still further interest to the converse by her quiet presence,
and the well-timed and pertinent remarks which she occasionally
threw in, on the different subjects that were introduced.
The conversation at length turned on the Shakers, an establishment
of whom I had visited that very morning. Perceiving that
my host appeared to dissent from some general remark I had
made in praise of that singular society, I turned to him and
said:—
“You believe them to be an industrious, quiet and very honest
people, surely,—do you not, sir?”
“Industrious and quiet enough, doubtless, and just as honest
as other people, and not a whit more so,” he replied.
“Why, I had supposed them,” I rejoined, “not only peculiarly
honest and sincere, but in a great degree devoid of all those
passions and vices that most move and agitate the rest of society.”
“All that, in the exterior they generally present, I grant you;
but are you willing to take that as a criterion of their true character?”
he asked.
“By no means,” said I.
“Well, sir, could you lift the curtain, and see all that this sober
and wonderfully honest exterior is sometimes made to conceal,
you might, perhaps, be a little less inclined to exempt them
from the common feelings and frailties of other people. I have
half a mind to tell you a story of an affair, which oecurred some
twenty years ago at the very establishment you visited, and
which would show—”
“Now don't, husband!” interrupted my hostess, with a deprecating
look.
“Only by way of argument, wife,” briskly replied the man,
casting an arch look at the other—“I want to show him, that
love and intrigue may sometimes be found under a broad brim,
as well as a narrow one.”
“Oh! pray let us have it; go on—go on, by all means,” I eagerly
interposed, delighted at the novel idea of a love story
from such an unpromising source as that of the Shaking Quakers.
With another roguish glance at his slightly disturbed, though
now acquiescent companion, my host, after a brief pause, began:
It was a delightful evening in the month of October, and the
setting sun was throwing his parting beams over the yellow forests
of the surrounding uplands, whose burnished foliage threw
back the mingling streams of reflected light, and spread a red,
quivering glow over the slumbering waters of the Mascomy and
the beautiful meadows that lie stretched along its shores. Nearly
the whole of the Shaker Family, numbering at that time something
less than a hundred, were in the field, a short distance from
the pond, engaged in gathering the rare fruit of their extensive
orchards—the women, with their hand-baskets, picking the
choicer kinds for market, or for winter preservation, and the men
gathering and conveying to the teams, stationed at different
points of the field for the purpose, that part of the fruit which
was destined for the ordinary uses of the society. The almost exact
uniformity in the fashion and color of their dresses, produced a
singular sameness in the appearance of them all; but this was
more particularly the case with the females, whose neat, prim
dresses of never-varying slate color, white linen kerchiefs and
snowy caps, surmounted by their low, plain bonnets, from which
peeped their thin, pale visages, all seemingly marked with the
an ordinary spectator, as they were moving about the field
as silent and gestureless as a band of automatons, to look upon
them with sensations much resembling those we experience in
beholding a flock of wild folws, where an inspection of one is
an inspection of the whole. A closer observer, however, in examining
the faces and figures of each, would have discovered,
that here, as well as elsewhere, nature had not forgotten to be
partial in the distribution of her favors; and that here, as well
as elsewhere, were those on whom the gift of personal beauty
had not been so altogether charily bestowed: and among the
latter class there was particularly one, whose rounded, symmetrical
person, fair and blooming face, and intelligent and
sweetly expressive countenance, all strikingly contrasted with the
drooping forms, plain features, and passive, unmeaning looks of
most of her unattractive companions.
Just as the last rays of the sinking sun were fading from the
lofty summit of the distant Kearsarge, the word was passed for
the people to leave work and return to their houses. As the
company were promiscuously, though in their usual quiet and
unsocial manner, retiring from the field, one of the men, a dark
eyed, compactly built young fellow of about twenty one, bearing
a large basket of apples upon his shoulder, contrived to cross the
path of the young Quakeress just described. While doing this,
and when directly before her, at a few yards distance, he made
a seemingly accidental misstep, which suddenly brought his basket
to the ground, and sent its contents rolling over the grass
around, till they met the feet of the approaching maiden, who instantly
paused, and smiled at the little mishap, which had thus
oddly interrupted her in her course. The young man immediately
threw himself upon his knees among the scattered fruit, as
if intent only on gathering it up; but while his hands were busily
employed for that purpose, his eyes turned with a quick, eager
look upon the face of the girl.
“At the Elm tree, Martha,” he said, in a low, hurried tone;
“meet me at the Elm tree, at the lower end of the orchard, immediately
after worship.”
“It is dangerous—dangerous, Seth!” replied the maiden,
slightly coloring, and casting an uneasy glance around her.
“Now I do beseech thee, Martha,” he persisted imploringly;
“I have matters of great moment to impart to thee; and it may
be the last time—yea, it will be, if thee refuse me now. Will
thee not come, then?”
“Perhaps,”—answered the girl, after a hesitating pause, in
which she threw a look of enquiry and concern upon the youth,
but seemed to suppress the question which rose to her lips—“perhaps—that
is, if I can get away from the buildings without being
noticed. But thee need not have spilled thy apples for so poor a
purpose, Seth,” she added with a faint smile.
So saying, she turned hastily away, and with quickened steps
pursued her course after her retreating companions; while the
other now proceeded in earnest to pick up his scattered apples.
This being completed, he was about to rise, when looking around
him, he encountered the gaze of a man peering at him from under
the low-hanging branches of a neighboring apple tree. A
glance sufficed to apprise the young man of the character and object
of the interloper; for, in the thick, dumpy figure, little hooked
nose, whitish, gloating eyes and ill-omened countenance of the
man, he at once recognized one of the Leaders of the Society,
and the one above all others whose notice, at this juncture, he
would have been most anxious to avoid.
“Well, make the most of it, thou vile seeker of accusations,”
indignantly muttered the young man between his teeth, as, with
a look of defiance, he shouldered his basket and proceeded homeward,
followed, at a short distance, by the object of his aversion,
who did not seem inclined to make any immediate use of such
discoveries as he might have made with his eyes, for the distance
precluded the possibility of his hearing a word that had been uttered.
But before proceeding any further with our story, it may now
be as well, perhaps, to speak a little more particularly of the different
characters we have introduced, and advert to such circumstances
of previous occurrence as may be necessary for a full understanding
of the situation in which they relatively stood towards
each other, at the time chosen for their introduction.
2. CHAPTER II.
Seth Gilmore had been an orphan almost from his childhood.
At the death of his last remaining parent, he was taken home by
an uncle, an old bachelor of considerable property, to which it
was supposed the boy would eventually succeed. But in the
course of a year or two, another, and a much older nephew, was
taken home; and he, being of a selfish, intriguing disposition,
soon contrived entirely to supplant the former in the affections of
the changeable uncle, who, not long after, was induced to give
the unoffending little Seth to the Shakers of the establishment of
which we are speaking. Here continuing to remain, he became,
as he grew up, noted among the Family for his faithfulness, activity
and capacity for business, and, before he had arrived at the
age of twenty, he was acknowledged by all to be one of the most
skillful and efficient hands on the farm. So far, nothing important
had occurred to him to vary the dull monotony of the Shaker
life. But although Seth began to think for himself, and become
desirous of acquiring information—a very great error he
was taught to believe by the Leaders, who hold, that “ignorance
is the mother of devotion,” and that the youth and all the common
members of the Family, should yield implicitly to those who
are gifted to think for them and instruct them in all that is necessary
to be known. The young man, however, wilfully persisted
in his notions; and, by the promptings of this heretical spirit, he
sought the acquaintance of two or three young men of the world,
(as all without the pale of the Society are termed,) who occasionally
visited the establishment for transaction of business, or
from motives of curiosity. Being eager of enquiry and quick to
comprehend, he soon gained information from these, which
showed him the falsity of many of the strange ideas and impressions
he had there imbibed respecting society at large, and otherwise
been wholly debarred; for it is the settled policy of the Leaders
of this people, in order to make faithful and contented subjects,
not only to instill into the minds of their youth the greatest possible
abhorrence of the world, which is constantly represented as
dishonest, licentious and every way corrupt, but to guard with
untiring vigilance every avenue of information that might have a
tendency to undermine or diminish the prejudices and opinions
thus inculcated. Seth's mind, however, was of a cast which,
when once called into action, was not easily to be thus trammelled;
and the doubts, which his own reason at first suggested,
being constantly strengthened by the facts gathered in his intercourse
with these young men, and the books that he borrowed of
them, and secretly read, in spite of his masters, spiritual and temporal,
he at length became a confirmed disbeliever in the creed
to which he had been brought up, and began seriously to meditate
on the expediency of sundering the ties which bound him to
the Society. But before his views had become very definitely
settled on these subjects, or any plans of future action matured,
the Shaker Leaders themselves made a movement which was intended
to anticipate or remedy any evils of the character just
named that might be growing; for these wary men, who watch the
intellectual progress of their youth as anxiously as ever did a pedagogue
that of his pupils, though with far different motives, began
to perceive about this time, that our hero's mind was becoming
rather dangerously expanded; and, although not apprised of
the means or extent of his information, yet judging from what
they had noticed, that he could not long be retained without
more than ordinary inducements, they held a secret consultation,
and finally came to the sage conclusion, that Seth's merits were
such as entitled him to promotion. Accordingly they proposed,
unexpectedly to him, to make him an assistant deacon, or one of
the overseers of business, naming some future day, not far distant,
for him to enter on the duties of his office and be admitted
to a seat with them in the council, which met from time to time
to deliberate on the temporal concerns of the Family. This gave
a new direction to his thoughts, and for awhile quieted his growing
of the world, he soon claimed the privilege of going abroad on
missions of trade—a privilege which he knew was sometimes accorded
to those exercising the office that had been offered him,
provided they were considered sufficiently tried and trustworthy.
But in this fond wish of his heart he was unexpectedly doomed
to disappointment, for which he was indebted, as he soon discovered,
to the influence of one man, the person we have already
introduced as playing the spy upon the young couple in the orchard.
This man, who went by the appellation of Elder Higgins,
had for some time manifested towards Seth an unusual
degree of coldness and distrust, which the latter till now had but
little heeded. But this last act caused his ill-will to be heartily
reciprocated on the part of the young man; and circumstances
soon occurred which made the breach irreparable. These circumstances
were found to have reference to a third person—the
young, innocent and lovely Martha, towards whom the elder, about
this time, began to pursue a course of conduct as strange as it
was questionable.
Martha had been brought to this establishment when eight or
ten years of age by her parents, both of whom, at the same time,
joined the Family, turning into the common fund the whole of
the little property they possessed. All the acknowledged relations
between parent or child, from that moment entirely ceasing,
the little girl was left wholly to the guidance and instruction of
the Elders and Eldresses, to whom the care of the youth is entrusted;
and, through her docility and her meek and confiding
disposition, she had readily imbibed the doctrines, and, for the
greater part of her girl-hood, implicitly trusted in the creed that
was taught her, exhibiting in her exemplary conduct a bright pattern
of all that was esteemed good and lovely among the Family.
But as she verged upon womanhood, and began to give herself to
reflection; her naturally clear and discriminating mind, moved,
perhaps, by the associations of her childhood that still hung about
her, or the observations she had made upon the conduct of some
of the Leaders, forced upon her questions and doubts which greatly
perplexed her to answer or solve. These, it is true, at first,
rejected as the temptations of Satan; but they as often returned
to disturb the quiet of her pure and gentle bosom; and,
although, in spite of her strivings to the contrary, she became,
though far less decidedly than the young man we have described,
a disbeliever, at least, in many of the dogmas of that creed, which
she had been taught to look upon as infallible.
Such was Martha Hilson; and it was nothing strange that two
such young persons of the different sexes as she and Seth, in the
daily habit of seeing each other, and possessing characters as congenial,
as they were, in many respects, distinguished from those
around them, should attract each other's particular notice. Nor
is it much less to be wondered at, perhaps, that such notice should
be followed by the springing up of mutual sympathies in their bosoms;
though, that these sympathies should be defined and acknowledged
by their true name, and made known by reciprocal
avowals, was, indeed, at such a place, a rare occurrence. But
Love is a cunning deviser of occasions; and, as difficult as it
might be in this case, he, at length, found a way by which the
young couple in question eventually discovered the nature of those
feelings that were silently drawing their hearts towards each other.
For a long time, however, no word or communication ever
passed between them, save that which was conveyed in the language
of the eyes. But, after awhile, the silence was broken, as
they casually met in the yard, by a simple enquiry for some third
person, and by as brief an answer. This was followed, after another
interval, of perhaps a month, when they again accidentally
met, by the interchange of a few words, on some common topic;
and, at length, on a similar chance occasion, succeeded a proposal,
on his part, to loan her a book, which, after some hesitation,
she accepted, with the promise to persue and return it, at a time
and place which he proposed for the purpose. An excuse for
meeting being thus found, occasional interviews followed, though
at none of them was a word breathed by either expressive of those
feelings, of which each felt a trembling consciousness as the true
secret of their being thus brought together. These interviews,
moreover, were of the briefest kind, and indulged in but very
their creed, that “the corruption of man is the attachment of
the sexes,” and, consequently, that all intercourse which might
lead to such attachment, should be strictly forbidden, they knew
how closely they were watched, and how surely penance of some
kind or other would follow a detection of their meetings, however
innocent the object. And such had been the extreme caution
with which this intercourse had been managed, that they felt sure
it could not have been discovered; and they supposed it remained
wholly unsuspected. In this supposition, however, they
soon found they had over confidently counted. Something in
their demeanor, some unguarded look, when they publicly met,
or some brief absence of both at the same time, had attracted the
notice of the prying Higgins; and, his jealously being thus aroused,
he commenced a system of secret espionage upon the young
couple, which would have conferred credit on a minion of the inquisition;
the result of which was, that he became convinced of
the existence of a forbidden attachment growing up between
them, and strongly suspected them, though wholly unable to ascertain
it for a fact, of holding clandistine interviews.
This personage, whose manner was as hateful as his countenance
was repulsive, and whose whole character was a strange
compound of the fanatic, the Jesuit and the voluptuary, was an
Elder in the church, in which through his pretensions to “leading
gifts,” or direct revelations from above, and his intriguing
and ambitious disposition, he had gained an influence even greater,
perhaps, than the “Elder Brother” himself, as the chief ruler
of each Shaker Family is denominated. And his ambition being
not satisfied with his spiritual dominion, he aspired to, and
by similar means obtained, an equal ascendancy in the management
of the business and temporal concerns of the establishment.
Exacting the most rigid obedience from all, requiring the most
implicit faith in all the ultra doctrines of his creed, and ever untiring
in searching out delinquencies in others, while he shielded
his own under the very convenient dogma handed down by Mother
Ann Lee for the special benefit of the peculiarly gifted like
himself, that “to the pure all things are pure,” he had become
then, if they had no others, it will be readily seen how much our
two young friends had to fear from the sanctimonious Elder; but
they had additional reasons:—He had, for some time, shown
himself remarkably sensitive in every thing that related to Martha;
and no sooner were his suspicions fairly awakened respecting
the attachment between her and Seth, than she was summoned
to meet him at the confessional alone, and in one of the
most secluded rooms in the buildings. This was several times
repeated, to the great horror of the distressed maiden, while it
awakened the most painful apprehensions in the mind of Seth,
who had become apprised of the circumstance, and but to well
conjectured the secret motives of the Elder in summoning her,
instead of him, to meet him in private; though what passed on
these occasions he had no other means of judging, than by the
mingled expression of grief and outraged feeling, which very visibly
marked the tear-stained cheeks of the poor girl on her return
from the scene of her trials.
With Seth a different course was taken; and, though no rebuke
was openly administered, or even one word was anywhere
said to him respecting the offence of which he, in common with
Martha, was suspected to be guilty, yet he soon found, that he
was not, for that reason, any the less marked for punishment.
He soon discovered, that the Elder was secretly attempting to
undermine his character with the Family; while a system of petty
annoyances was made to meet him in every thing he did, till his
life become one of constant vexation and misery; and, being no
longer tempted by the proposed office without the coveted privilege
of going abroad, he again began to meditate about leaving
the Society. But checked in this wish by a want of confidence
in his ability to succeed in the world, of which he was so little
informed, and above all by his love for Martha, and his fears for
her safety, marked, as he believed her to be, as the victim of the
licentious Elder, he here also, became the prey of conflicting emotion.
The treatment of his malicious prosecutor, however, at
length drove him to a final decision; and, having formed a new
plan in regard to his fair friend, whom he had been so reluctant
to leave, he waited only for an opportunity of seeing her alone,
for a long while debarred,) before carrying his resolve into execution.
With these remarks, we will now return to the events
which form the action of our story.
3. CHAPTER III.
On returning to their buildings, after the labors of the field
were over, the Family, as usual, soon repaired to the rooms allotted
to their daily repasts. For this purpose their tables were
always spread in separate buildings, one for the ordinary male
members, and for the females, and one for the Leaders; the two
former of which are furnished with plain, substantial food, while
the latter is loaded with the best that the land is capable of affording,
and not unfrequently with foreign luxuries; For these
dignitaries, if they do not always go on the principle of indulgence
involved in the reported saying of the “Elect Lady,”
whose authority we have before quoted, that “Spirituous liquor
is one of God's good creatures,” have at least no hesitation in
acting generally on the assumption, that the Gift of good living
peculiarly their own.
Immediately after supper, the whole Family assembled for worship
in the house especially consecrated to that purpose. But so
well known is their meaningless mode of worship—their long
drawn, nasal chant of Hottentot gibberish, set to the “inspired”
tune of perhaps Nancy Dawson, or the Roving Sailor; (for
their tunes as well as the words they contend are inspired) their
formal, unvarying, Kangaroo-like dance, performed with uplifted
hands and various contortions of features, or the occasional exhibition,
by some freshly inspired Elder or Eldress, of a new gift
for clapping the hands, for shaking, jerking, jumping, stamping
and groaning—so well known are all these, that we will pass
over them for matters more immediately connected with our story;
and for this purpose we will now repair to the trystic tree of
the persecuted lovers, who had generally, as now fixed upon, for
their interview, the hour immediately succeeding worship, which
was allowed the different members of the Family for attending
to their individual concerns, and which, therefore, afforded opportunity
Leaders.
The broad, bright Harvest-moon rising majestically over the
eastern hills, was beginning to pour down her floods of quivering
light upon the quiet scene—now striking upon the taller,
then the shorter shrubbery of the field, and seemingly converting
its pendant boughs into glittering tissues of silver—now bursting
in brightness upon the waveless waters of the extended pond,
and now glancing abroad upon the whole of the surrounding landscape,
and lighting it up with her dim and solemn splendors.
The young man, the first to reach the spot, stood pensively
leaning against the trunk of a wide-branching elm, standing but
a short distance from the margin of the water. As the moon-light
gleamed across his face, tokens of deep and struggling emotions
were there visibly depicted; and even a tear might occasionally
be seen to start out and glitter upon his manly cheek.
Presently the white fluttering robe of a female was seen glancing
among the obstructing trees of the orchard, and rapidly gliding
toward the spot. In another moment the light figure rushed into
the opened arms of the young man, their heads were dropped
on each other's shoulders, and, for a brief interval, not a word was
spoken.
“O, Martha, Martha!” at length uttered the young man in
tones of deep and troubled feeling, and again was silent.
“Thee seems much agitated to night, Seth,” said the girl, in a
meek, enquiring tone, after waiting awhile for the other to proceed.
“I am Martha,” he replied; “my heart is indeed tried—sorely,
most sorely tried.”
“And why art thee thus disquieted, Seth?” again tenderly
asked the girl, “and why,” she continued in a tone of gentle expostulation,
“why hast thee urged me to this meeting, when thee
knows, that I am not without my doubts and misgivings about
communing with thee in this manner; and when also thee so
well knows the great risk we both run of being discovered and
punished, and I, particularly, of being brought to shame before
the people, or punished in other fearful ways?”
“I know—I know all, Martha; and should be grieved to be
happened since we met, and I had so much which I desired to
say to thee, that I could not find it in my heart to go away without
seeing thee.”
“Go away, Seth? Surely! Hast thee well considered?”
“Yea, long and deeply. I can no longer endure the vile misusage
I have lately received; and I can no longer endure to be
a slave—a slave to those, who would fetter and degrade both the
body and the mind; and therefore I have fully determined, that
this night I will leave them.”
“But whither would thee go, Seth?—into the wide, wicked
world?”
“If I thought, Martha, that I should find the people of the
world more wicked than some of those I shall leave behind, I
would remain. But of that I have no fears; and it is not that
which now troubles and perplexes me.”
“If we have been taught aright, what should trouble thee
more, Seth?”
“Ay, if aright; but thee already knows my opinions of the
absurdity of much of our creed, and the falsity of half that is
told us. No, it is no scruples of that kind, but my doubts and
fears about the reception I may meet with in the world, of whose
ways I know so little, and in which I must appear so foolish and
awkward. I am ignorant, Martha, ignorant as a child, of all
that I should know.”
“But does not that spring from pride of heart, Seth, which, under
any good creed, thee would be taught, and should strive, to
banish? It appears to me thee should have better reasons.”
“Well, I have other reasons, and they are with me, I confess,
much stronger ones; but I know not that thee would consider
them better. It is”—and the youth paused and hesitated, while
the wondering maiden threw an innocent and enquiring look upon
his sorrowful and agitated countenance—“it is,” he resumed,
at length mastering his emotions, “it is the thought of leaving
thee, Martha, which wrings my heart—of leaving thee among this
people, to be subjected to the wiles and persecutions of that designing—”
“Oh! name him not—name him not, Seth!” quickly interrupted
fears and abhorrance of the man about to be mentioned.
“I should not, Martha, but I have noticed that which has filled
me with alarming conjectures—with fears for thy safety; and I
would that thee tell me what he proposes to thee?”
“I cannot—I cannot; but Oh! if thee knew my troubles,
Seth”—and the poor girl, at the thought thus called up, dropped
her head on the other's shoulder, and wept as if her heart
would break.
“The wretch! the accursed wretch!” exclaimed the young
man bitterly.
“Nay, nay, do not curse, Seth,” sobbed the girl, making an
effort to check her emotions;” that is a gift belonging, I think,
only to the Great One above, who metes out justice to the sinful,
not as man metes it, under the influence of blinding passions, but
according to the proper measure, and He, we must remember, can
protect the innocent as well as punish the guilty; and though
my trials are indeed sore, yet I trus tthat that Good Being will still,
as he has thus far done, preserve me guiltless and unharmed.”
Each being absorbed in the thoughts and feelings which the
conversation had excited, there was a short pause in the discourse,
during which the maiden gently disengaged herself from
the partial embrace of the other, and, wiping her eyes, resumed
her usual tranquility.
“Martha,” at length said the young man, with an air of embarrassment
and a slight tremulous accent.—
“What would thee say, Seth?” asked the maiden innocently,
seeing the other hesitated to go on.
“Martha,” resumed the youth with an effort, “Martha, does
thee love me?”
“Why—why,” replied she, now embarrassed and hesitating
in turn, “why we are commanded to love one another, are we
not?”
“Ay, Martha; but does thee regard me with that feeling which
the world calls love?”
“I hardly know what to tell thee, Seth—I have often greatly
feared that my heart was an erring one. I have tried to bestow my
thee was getting rather more than thy share.”
“Thy words are precious to my heart, Martha. Let us then
cherish that feeling towards each other, and permit it to lead us
to its natural consummation. Thee knows, Martha, that the
love of which I speak, when crowned by marriage, is allowed
and approved by the good and wise of every sect but our
own. Thee knows, also, that it is sanctioned and blessed by
the Good Book, which I lent thee on purpose that thee might
read the whole, instead of only such parts as our Elders would
have us take as our guide, cunningly denying us the free use of
the book, because they fear to have us read and reason the
rest—not because, as they pretend, we should pervert it.”
“Thee bewilderest me, Seth—I will confess, I have, at times,
thought, that there is reason in what thee now says; but I have
nearly as often feared, that it was only the promptings of vain
fancies or sinful inclinations. And it is so different from what
I have always been taught, that it sometimes makes me tremble,
lest I should be left at last, to harbor a belief which may be
wrong in itself and prove ruinous to my soul's interests.”
“It is not wrong,” warmly urged the young man; “it surely
is not wrong, Martha. It is right; thy reason tells thee it is
right, all nature confirms it. The Bible when properly consulted,
answers yea. Come then, Martha, come with me:—Let us go
into the world, where there will be no mean spies to dog and torment
us—no tyrants to prevent our innocent actions, and make
them an excuse for prosecuting their own foul designs—none to
molest or make us afraid—where united as one, never more to
part, we will live and be free to love, and, in that love and freedom,
find our solace, our comfort and lasting felicity. Come—
O, come, come, Martha and fear not—with my own hands I will
support and provide for thee, and in my own heart I will cherish
thee through all the changing scenes of life.”
“Oh! tempt me not—tempt me not, Seth!”
“Do not call it temptation, dearest one.—Sooner would I suffer
all that wicked men could inflict, than lead thee astray, I
mean it—I think it for thy good, as much as for my own happiness.—No,
it is not temptation; it is but the pleadings of wisdom
fly with me from the persecutions, the miseries and the dangers
that here so thickly beset thee, to safety and happiness.”
“Nay, nay, Seth,” replied the maiden calmly and firmly, after
appearing to struggle a moment with her conflicting feelings—
“thy proposal is a bold and a startling one; it is also, to me, a
new and an unexpected one. I have not considered, and may
not now accept it; and, moreover, I may not now longer remain
with thee. I must return to the buildings.”
“And am I never to see thee more?” asked the other sadly.
“Why, if thee will indeed leave us,” she replied, lingering
and hesitating—“unless, perhaps—unless thee could return, at
some appointed time, and place”—
“Will thee, then,” eagerly enquired the young man, “will
thee meet me here, four weeks from this night?”
“If permitted, I will, Seth.”
“And be prepared to go with me?”
“Again I may not promise; but I will weigh thy proposal
with kindly intent; now fare-thee-well, Seth.”
“Fare-thee-well, beloved Martha—if thee can stay no longer,
fare-thee-well, with many, many blessings; but remember, Oh!
remember!”
Fondly and anxiously gazed the young man after the maiden,
till her retreating form was lost to his view among the intervening
shrubbery, when he appeared to rouse himself from his tender
reverie to the purpose now remaining to be accomplished; and,
with a firm step and resolute air, he bent his course towards the
shore of the pond, where he knew a boat belonging to the Shakers
was moored.
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
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,
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.
5. CHAPTER V.
Meanwhile the lovely and conscientious Martha, wholly unapprised
of what had befallen her lover, retired to her peaceful
pillow, and endeavored to reflect calmly on the new and interesting
subject, which her recent interview with him had opened
to her mind. But finding herself unable to do this, from the
thousand crowding thoughts and sensations, which combined to
swell the half fearful, half delicious tumult of her gentle bosom,
she discretely deferred the task for a cooler moment, and having
piously commended herself to the protection of her Maker, yielded
her senses to those quiet and peaceful sfumbers, that constitute
not the least among the rewards of virtue and innocence.
On awakening the next morning, her thoughts immediately recurred
to the subject that occupied her last waking moments;
and, as she now figured in her mind her lover, far on his way from
the place, rejoicing in his freedom from the oppression he had
at length escaped, she again and again recalled the tender professions
he had made, and ran over the arguments he had advanced
in urging her to leave her present situation and go forth with
him into the world as his companion for weal or for woe. And
the more she thought of the proposed step, at first so startling,
the less fearful did it appear.—The more she weighed his reasons
with these she found herself able to bring up in refutation,
lighter and lighter grew the objections, which had caused her to
hesitate, even in giving him a definite promise of acceeding to
his request when they should again meet; and as her scruples
yielded, and, one after another gave way, the unchecked pleadings
of her own heart came in, and soon decisively turned the
already inclining balance, leaving her mind now free to wander
unhesitatingly over the new and bright field of destiny which
had thus been presented to her view.
After indulging in her pleasing reveries as long as inclination
prompted, the maiden arose, performed the duties of her simple
toilet, and was on the point of descending from her chamber to
join in performing the domestic concerns of the morning, when
her attention was arrested by an unusual commotion among the
people below, which she soon ascertained, from some words that
reached her ear through the partially opened door, to be caused
by the discovered absence of Seth, for whom search had already
been made, but in vain. The consciousness that within her own
bosom she harbored the secret of the missing one's absence, which
she might not reveal, made her, for the first time in her life, feel
like a guilty one; and, daring not to go down, lest her appearance
should betray the agitation she felt, she paused at the head
of the stairs, and stood some time endeavoring to compose her
feelings and gain a command of her countenance, which should
save her from showing any excitement that might not be natural
to the occasion. But while doing this, the poor girl was little
dreaming of the thousand times more difficult task in reserve for
her—that of controlling her feelings under the heart-crushing blow
which she was destined the next moment to receive. For the appalling
announcement was next heard passing from mouth to mouth
among the Family, that Seth was drowned in the pond, the evidence
of which, in addition to his unaccountable absence, was found in
the circumstance, that his hat had been discovered floating near
the shore, while, at a little distance, one of his shoes had been
espied sunk on the bottom, which had been fished up and identified.
It can be much better imagined than described what were the
feelings of Martha on hearing these mournful tidings. No word,
or sound, however, escaped her lips on the occasion. She turned
deadly pale, indeed, and, for a moment, leaned her head for
support against the door casing; and this was succeeded by a
quick heaving of her bosom, while with clasped hands and closed
eyes, her trembling lips moved rapidly, as if earnestly engaged in
silent devotion. But the next monent, as she opened her eyes,
and with a firm step descended from her room, a spectator
would have detected nothing more in her placid, though pale and
sad countenance, than he might have seen in the faces of the
Most of that day was spent by the Shaker men in dragging the
pond in search of the body, from which operation Elder Higgins
kept studiously aloof; though the nervous restlessness he constantly
exhibited through the day, and the many anxious and enquiring
glances he frequently cast towards those thus engaged,
plainly told the painful interest he felt in what was going on.
The search proved a vain one. This, however, did not lead any
one to doubt, that the young man's fate was any different from
the one first supposed, as the body, it was conjectured, had floated
off and sunk in some of the deepest parts of the pond. But
although all were unanimous in the opinion, that Seth had met
his death by drowning, yet, with regard to the manner in which
the casualty could have happened, there were many and various
minds: some supposing that he must have waded in to secure
something which he saw floating near the shore;—others, that he
had risen in his sleep and gone in, while yet others considered
either of these suppositions to be highly improbable, since some
of the young men now made known the fact, that Seth was an
expert swimmer. These and many other conjectures equally erroneous
were formed respecting the myterious event, till, wearied
with the fruitless discussion, it was given up as a case entirely
hopeless of elucidation, and it was therefore permitted to rest.
Seth had been a peculiar favorite with the Family generally,
and his loss, for many days, cast a deep gloom over the minds of
the little community, who were thus unexpectedly called to
mourn his premature decease. The impression, however, like all
others of the kind, wore gradually away from the minds of
all except the bereaved Martha and the conscience-smitten Elder,
from whose bosoms the memory of the lost one, for reasons peculiar
to each, was not, as may well be supposed, so easily to be
erased.
Although the circumstances, in which Martha was placed, forbade
any manifestation of her peculiar griefs, and wholly precluded
her from communicating them to others, and receiving in
sorrow to receive, yet none the less heavy for that fell this
blow of affliction, and none the less keenly was felt the anguish
which now in secret wrung her guileless and faithful bosom.
Young love was beginning to shed his sweet and happifying influences
over her pure and gentle heart, and his twin angel, Hope,
had just showed his snowy pinion to her unaccustomed vision,
pointing her to a land of earthly felicity, which never before, even
in her brightest dreams, had been pictured to her mind. But
all these grateful feelings had been suddenly chilled and frozen in
the current that was so blissfully wafting her away to the promised
haven of happiness—all these bright visions had vanished,
leaving her future not only blank and cheerless, but dark with
portents of persecution and wo, from which there was little hope
of escaping. These circumstances combined to render the poor
girl's loss no ordinary bereavement; and most persons of her
natural sensibilities would probably have sunk under the weight
of the affliction. But Martha was a Christian; and she meekly
bowed beneath the chastening rod, and turned for consolation to
that life-spring on high, which is never long a sealed fountain to
the true and devoted followers of Him, who once himself knew
earthly sorrows.
But while Martha was thus comforted and sustained, no such
consolation remained for the despicable wretch who had been the
cause of her troubles; and the more he tried to still his startled
conscience, the more did its accusing spirit rise up, to disquiet
him, not only for the hand he had in the young man's death, but
for the part he had previously acted towards him in his general
misusage, and more particularly in an affair to which only a slight
allusion has been made. About a month previous to the time of
which we are speaking, a stranger, from the neighborhood of
Seth's early residence, bearing for him a letter, which he expressed
a desire to deliver in person; but the young man being at
work in the woods some distance from home, and the stranger
being anxious to resume his journey, the letter was at length entrusted
to Higgins, on his promise of delivering it to Seth as
soon as he returned. Having repeated his injunctions, the messenger
departed, not however till the inquisitive Elder had fished
clue to the contents of the letter. And no sooner was the strangers
back fairly turned, than Higgins retired to a private apartment
and broke open the letter, which proved to be from a neighbor
of Seth's uncle, whom we have before mentioned, and which
announced the successive deaths, within a few days of each other,
of that uncle and the nephew living with him, by which
event, it was stated, as no will had been made by either, Seth
had become the legal heir to all the estate thus left, consisting
of a good farm and considerable personal property. The writer
closed by advising the young man to leave his present situation,
come home and take possession of his property. After reading
the letter carefully over several times, the perfidious Elder committed
it to the flames, and spent the remainder of the day in
devising and settling his plans, and in drawing up for Seth's signature,
an acquittance to the Family of all the property of which
he had, or might become the inheritor. And the next day, after
having smoothed the way for the attempt, as he supposed, by an
unusual display of affability and parent-like kindness, he cautiously
broached the subject to the young man, tried to induce
him to sign the paper falsely affirming it to be one of their regulations
to require such an act of the young members of their
Society, whether they had any property or not, when they arrived
at legal age, at which Seth, as it happened, had, a few days
before, attained. The latter, however, secretly meditating upon
leaving the Family soon, had no notion of cutting himself off
from any right of property which might some day accrue to him,
though now he certainly had no such expectation; and he therefore
firmly refused to comply with the Elder's request. After
renewing the attempt several times, and resorting to every art
and falsehood which he thought likely to aid him in his purpose,
Higgins was compelled to relinquish his fraudulent design, with
no other result than that of exciting the suspicions of Seth, that
there might have indeed something occurred at his uncle's in his
favor, and of hastening his determinaiion to leave and go and see
for himself.
It was no wonder, then, when all these injuries, closed as the
dark catalogue was by the death of the victim, rose in review before
him. He had not, it is true, really intended quite to destroy the
young man's life, but he could not disguise from himself that his
acts, malicious and wicked in themselves, had as much produced
the fatal result as if his own hand had dealt the death-blow, and
that, too, under feelings but little less holy than he need to have
possessed to have rendered the deed the foulest in the list of human
crimes. In vain did he try to shut out these disquieting
thoughts from his mind; in vain did he try, by quibbling and
sophistry to still the voice of conscience; and he soon became
the prey of the most horrible fancies. He remembered the accidental
threat made by Seth among the last things he uttered: “I
will haunt you when I am dead,” and the feaful words “I will
haunt you when I am dead. I will haunt you when I am dead,”
rang constantly in his ears; and so strong were his guilty fears,
and so nervous and excitable had he become, that to him the menace
was often literally fulfilled in the dread shapings of his distempered
imagination. By day he appeared abstracted or restless-now
heedless and lost to every thing around him, and now wildly
starting at the rustling of every leaf; and by night roaring out
in his sleep and disturbing his wondering people by his strange
and almost unearthly outcries.
Such was the punishment of the miserable Elder; but whether
this was not rather the result of his fears than any sincere repentance
tending to make him a better man, we will not attempt
to decide. One thing, however, is certain; it operated greatly
to the relief of the before persecuted Martha; for, from that
eventful night, on which she parted with her lover, she saw, for
several weeks, no indications of any renewal of her trials. Much,
indeed, did she wonder to what cause she owed this happy exemption;
though she believed it, without being able to tell why,
to have some connection with the fate of Seth, concerning which
a horrid suspicion occasionally flitted across her mind. She tried,
however, to banish such suspicions from her thoughts, and
charitably strove to believe, that her persecutor had been brought
to condemn his own conduct towards her, and had, in consequence,
laid aside his designs against her peace. But she at
length began to perceive that her hopes were to be disappointed
towards her, which told her that she was still the marked victim
of his unhallowed designs. And from day to day she once more
lived in the constant dread of being again summoned to the scene
of her former trials. Nor was such summons long delayed.
One day, as the Family were retiring from their noon meals, the
Elder approached the terrified girl and notified her to meet him
alone, after worship, the coming evening, in the room which he
had formerly desecrated by his infamous conduct. But the hapless
maiden was not reserved for so wretched a fate as that which
seemed to hang so menacingly over her. An unexpected incident
intervened between her and that dreaded hour, which was
destined to form the most important era in her life, while it
brought defeat and confusion upon her enemy.
6. CHAPTER VI.
It was a mild and pleasant afternoon in November, just four
weeks after the melancholy event before described,—Martha
was sitting in one of the common working-rooms of the women,
at work with several of the sisterhood, some of whom, like herself,
were engaged in sewing, some at the loom and some at the
distaff. As she sat plying her needle, an air of deep pensiveness,
sweetly tempered, however, by resignation, was resting on
her lovely brow. She had been viewing with dismayed feelings,
and gloomy apprehensions the dismal prospect before her; but having
schooled those feelings into submission to whatever fate Providence
might allott her, she had turned to the images of the
past, and her mind was now wandering among the dearest memories
of her existence. She recalled the almost forgotten circumstance,
that the ensuing night was the one proposed by her
departed lover for his return to meet her, and a thousand mournful
fancies took possession of her mind. She imagined how,
had her lover lived, her heart would now be fluttering at the
thought of the approaching meeting; and then her excited imagination
took wing, and she wondered if it was not true, as she
had sometimes heard, that the dead were permitted to keep the
appointments made by them while living, and come in spirit to
the place to meet and commune with their friends; and, if so,
whether, should she repair to the trysting tree, at the appointed
hour, Seth would not be there to meet her. Faith and love answered
yea; and, conscious of nothing which should cause her
to fear such a meeting, at which perhaps, heavenly counsel might
be imparted to guide and direct her in her threatened difficulties,
she half-resolved to brave the summons of the Elder to meet
him at the same hour, and go to keep her appointment with the
reveries, her attention was arrested by the sound of a strange
voice in the yard below, belonging to some one who had just arrived,
and was now engaged in conversation with several of the
Shaker men. Thinking there was something peculiar in the
careless, rattling manner of the new comer's discourse, she arose
and went to the window, when it was with a mixture of wonder
and surprise that she beheld the singular and vagabond appearance
of the man who had attracted her attention. His dress
was not only tattered and patched, but ill-fitting and whimsical,
consisting of small clothes altogether too big, with a coat as
much too little; and these were surmounted by an old staw hat
entirely rimless before, and not much better behind. He was
evidently quite a young man, and, but for a certain kind of foolish,
staring cast of countenance, would have been accounted very
good looking. He seemed quite at home among his new acquaintances,
and was not at all bashful about making enquiries,
many of which were so very simple and childish as to provoke a
smile upon the sober visages, even of the Elders themselves.
After asking a thousand foolish questions and rattling away awhile
disconnectedly and witlessly enough to have made a good prototype
for John Bunyan's Talkative, he carelessly observed, that,
as for himself he was now entirely out of work and out of any home;
and he really wished he could find some good place to live where
he could get enough to eat, for he sat a great deal by victuals.
Instantly taking the hint from this observation of the vagabond,
and believing him to be about simple enough to make them
a good subject, the Shaker leaders were not slow to propose to
him to join the Family, and at once to take up his residence at
their establishment. To this the fellow replied, that he `had
often hearn say, that the Shakers were a mighty good sort of
people, and he had sometimes been almost a good mind to go and
live with them, but as he had never seen them before, he should
like to go round and look at things a little before he told them
for sartin about staying; and if they would give him something
that afternoon, he would tell them at night, what he would do.'
The man was accordingly soon furnished with an excellent
meal, at which he appeared highly delighted. After this, free
permission having been granted him for the purpose, he commenced
his rambles over the farm, through the barns, yards and outhouses,
inspecting the crops, stock, and every thing connected
with the establishment, with childish curiosity and the greatest
apparant interest, often leaving the objects of his examination
and running to the Shakers to ask some question, and then racing
back, in high glee, to his employment. When he appeared
to have satisfied himself with viewing every thing out of doors,
he went to the Elders and told them, “he now wanted to see
the women works. He did'nt, to be sure, think women of much
use generally, but, as they had to get the victuals and make the
clothes, he should like mighty well to go in awhile and see how
they carried on?”
Although this was contrary to their general custom, yet the
Leaders, conceiving they had the making of a good proselyte at
stake, and evidently viewing the fellow as a weak minded, harmless
creature, soon concluded to humor him in this freak as they
had done in every thing else; and therefore, they told him to behave
well, but go where he pleased.
Quickly availing himself of the permission, he began the rounds
of the different female lodges, making, however, but a brief stay
in any one till he came to the room where Martha was at work
with the small party of her companions.—Here he leisurely walked
round viewing, with an air of wondering simplicity, the work of
these demure artisans, making his silly comments, and, as usual,
asking a variety of irrevalent questions, and, among the rest, the
names of all the different females in the apartment.
Although the conduct and conversation of the stranger went
clearly to show him to be a very great simpleton, yet there
was a certain something about him which soon led the discerning
Martha to doubt whether he was quite what he pretended, or
rather what all the rest of the Family obviously considered him.
And that doubt was greatly strengthened, in a short time, as
looking up, she caught him fixing a keen, steady, intelligent look
expression, which had thus far seemed to characterize his features.
And it was with a sort of undefinable interest, that, the
next moment, she saw him approaching her, as he now did, with
the remark, that `he wanted to see what this woman was making
too?' Accordingly he took up part of the work lying in her
lap, when, as he was flourishing it about, under pretence of examining
it, he slily dropped a small, closely sealed billet into her
open hand. As soon as he saw her fingers close over the paper,
he threw down the work over her hand containing the billet,
and, with the eagerly whispered injunction, “Read and give
me token,” whipped off to look at something else, which seemed
suddenly to have caught his attention.
Feigning some errand out, Martha soon rose and disappeared
on her way to her private chamber. In a few moments the
stranger returned to finish his inspection of Martha's work, during
which, though as busy and talkative as ever he might have
been seen to throw many a keen and anxious glance towards the
door through which the fair absentee was expected to return.
At length she made her appearance. A close observer would
have at once noticed, that, during her absence, she had been agitated
by powerful emotions, and had wept profusely; and yet,
through the subsiding shower, the first smile, that had lit up,
her face for a month, was stealing over her lovely features, while
anything but displeasure marked the general expression of her
glowing countenance.
On entering the room, she went immediately to an Eldress,
and, with the air of one slightly annoyed, asked if she had not
better hint to the man the propriety of his now retiring; and
having received permission to do so, she approached him,
and, with a look which he seemed readily to understand, observed,—
“Thy visit friend, has been very acceptable, and thy communications
shall be heeded; but we think, that now, perhaps, thee
would find more to divert thee among the men in the field.”
With some careless remarks, in good keeping with the character
he had been acting, the man immediately left the apartment
and proceeded to the field, where the men were at work,
at their work, and rambling over the premises, he spent the remainder
of the afternoon, apparantly highly delighted with his
situation.
7. CHAPTER VII.
When the Family assembled for supper, however, the fellow
was unaccountably missing; but the Shakers, having seen so
much of his erratic movements, and supposing him still to be
somewhere about the farm or buildings, did not seem to pay
much attention to the circumstance, or think it worth their while
to institute any search for him; and their evening meal, through
all the different departments of the Family, passed off with customary
quietness.
After finishing their repast, as usual the whole Family, just as
the stars were beginning to twinkle in the clear blue of the November's
sky, took their way to the house of worship, which was
an unenclosed building opening to the road, a branch of which
turned up and ran directly by the doors. The ceremonies of
worship, also, were attended with no unusual occurrence, and,
being concluded the assembly broke up to return to their respective
lodges. But on opening the doors and coming out on the
steps, the foremost of the company, to their surprise, beheld a
horse and chaise drawn up within a few yards of the door allotted
to the use of the females, the door for the males being some
thirty feet towards the other end of the house. By the side of
the horse a man, young and neatly dressed, as far as his appearance
could be judged of by star-light, stood holding the reins and
whip, with his face turned towards the door, and in the seeming
attitude of waiting. The women came hesitating down the steps,
and there coming to a stand, began timidly and silently to stretch
forward their heads and peer at the mysterious stranger. The
men, also, coming out and seeing the unexpected visitant and his
equipage stationed across the path of the women, began, with
low-whispered enquiries of one another, to gather towards the
spot. In this stage of the affair, Elder Higgins, who had purposed
to remain in the house till all had retired, that he might
moment to meet the victim of his designs, became impatient at
the tardy movement of the people, and came bustling through the
throng, with a light in his hand, to ascertain the cause of the delay;
when the stranger turned suddenly round and confronted
him. The instant the light struck upon the face of the latter, the
recoiling Elder uttered a convulsive shriek, and, with wildly glaring
eyes and chattering teeth, sunk down upon the ground in
horror and affright at the apparition which he believed he had
beheld. A commotion was now observed among the huddling
and startled females, and, the next moment a light figure rapidly
made her way to the front of the crowd.
“It is!” she exclaimed in low, eager accents, after a momentary
pause, “it is—oh! it is he!” she repeated, and, springing
forward, threw herself into the arms of the stranger, who, lightly
swinging her into the seat of his vehicle, turned again towards
the crowd.
“Viper!” he exclaimed, advancing with brandished fist close
to the appalled and nearly prostrate Elder; “viper, thou art baffled!”
With this he turned quickly about, leaped nimbly into his seat
by the side of the fair companion he had just placed there, applied
the whip to his horse, and dashed forward for the main
road, leaving the whole assembled Family of Shakers standing
aghast and bewildered with astonishment and perplexity at what
had so suddenly and inexplicably passed before them.
As dreadfully frightened as the guilt-smitten Elder had been,
yet he was the first to comprehend the mystery and rally for the
rescue.
“The fiend!” he fiercely cried, leaping up and pointing with
frantic gestures after the departing carriage, “Oh, the fiend!—
the apostate—the reprobate, the Godless reprobate is carrying
off Martha! Pursue him! stop him! catch him! save her from
the villain! Run! run for your lives, or they will escape us!”
Roused by the commands and the eager and furious manner
of their leader, the men, followed by the women, rushed promiscuously
had they passed the line of the buildings in this disorderly rout,
and gained the main road where it became enclosed by fences,
when a rope suddenly sprang from the dust across the path
against the legs or uplifted feet of the foremost rank of the pursuers;
and the next instant a platoon of Shakers were rolling
and sprawling on the ground, while those in the rear, unable to
check their speed in time to save themselves, came, rank after
rank, successively tumbling and floundering down at the backs
of their fallen companions, till nearly the whole bevy were prostrate
and scrambling on all fours in the road.
At this juncture the wild, rattling laugh of the missing vagabond
was heard behind the stone fence over against one end of
the mischief-making spring rope; and, the next instant a gaily
dressed young man leaped lightly over the fence into the road,
and made a brief pause a few paces ahead of the fallen and confused
forces of the pursuing enemy.
“May be, friends,” he said in a half jovial, half commisserating
tone, as he glanced at the disorderly plight of his recent entertainers,
“may be you don't know me with my Sunday clothes
on?—Well, well, good people, perhaps it is indeed rather a provoking
case for you; but here is about twenty yards of good
new rope, which I will leave you, by way of amends for your
hospitality this afternoon, and your tumble this evening. It is
the best I can do for you now, I believe; though if you should
ever cage another such rare bird, as the one just flown yonder,
and should be in want of more rope—but I can't stay to chat
now—so good bye, thee and thou, good bye to ye!”
So saying, and leaving the discomfitted Shakers to gather themselves
up in the best way they could, he bounded forwards, a few
rods, leaped upon a horse, which stood tied in a nook in the
fence, and galloped off after the receding carriage, now rattling
away in the distance.
“And what then? I asked, perceiving that the narrator had
of his story—“what then—what next happened?”
“Why, nothing very unnatural, I believe,” replied my host,
with a humorous smile, “unless you make out to the contrary
from the fact, that an old Justice of the Peace, living some eight
or ten miles from the scene of action, was called up that night
to do a little business in the marrying line.”
“And the bride on the occasion?”—I asked, somewhat puzzled
to comprehend the development, “the bride was your heroine,
Martha, of course; but the bridegroom?—Not Seth, surely,
for he was drowned you know.”
“Perhaps, friend,” answered my host, with waggish gravity,
“perhaps he was not drowned as much as some, after all; but,
rising to the surface, after his unlucky plunge, and seeing the
wicked attitude of the Elder, suddenly changed his plan, and, so
sinking under again, with some little show of drowning, and with
a kick or two to make the bubbles rise, came up silently under a
neighboring clump of bushes—crept away with the loss of his
shoe and broad-brim—went to a young farmer of his acquaintance—exchanged
his wet Quaker gear for a decent suit of
clothes, and set off for the residence of his late uncle, where
he arrived the next day, and, to his agreeable surprise, found
himself in possession of one of the best little farms on the Merrimac,
and where, in due time, he, in conjunction with a new
made young friend there, concocted the plan which you have seen
executed.”
“A romantic coming out, upon my soul!” I exclaimed in delight;
“Well, then, you knew the parties?—are they still alive?”
“Ay.”
“Do they reside in this vicinity?”
“Ay again.”
“Why, I would go almost any distance to see them.”
“You would have no very serious journey to perform for that
purpose, Sir,” he replied significantly.
“Why?—How?” I asked, still in doubt respecting the full
development.
“Why, verily, my friend,” said my host, casting an arch look
at my perplexed countenance, and speaking in the Quaker dialect,
“verily thee art not so shrewd a guesser as I had supposed
thee, else thee had smelt the rat long ago.”
“Stupid!” I cried, “stupid indeed! But I see it all now—
the hero, Seth, is here before me, and the heroine, the good
Martha”—
“Run away,” he interrupted, laughingly, “run away, as you
might have noticed, perhaps, at the beginning of the description,
by which she was introduced, as we went on with the story; but
the hero, being more modestly described, made out to stand the
racket without running.”
“One more question only,” said I;—“the young friend who, in
the character of a vagabond, took your letter to Martha, and so
finely managed the affair”—
“Was also from this neighborhood,” he replied—“you noticed,
perhaps, as you came along, a mile or two back, a two story white
house, with an office in the yard?”
“I did—thinking it a very neat establishment,” I answered.
“Well, Sir, he rejoined, “that is the—though, perhaps,
Esquire Wentworth would not thank me for telling of his pranks
when he first started life as a lawyer. It was the making of the
man, however;—people seeing how cleverly he had managed a
love case, concluded he would be no slouch at a law case, if he
had one.—He rose rapidly after that. But enough of this. Seth
and Martha, my children!” he continued, calling to his eldest boy
and girl, still up and reading in the kitchen;—“one of you take
a mug and the other a candle, and go down and draw us a mug
of the best cider in the cellar.—This Shaker story has made my
throat as dry as a tin trumpet.”
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