Hope had retired to the study with Master Cradock, where she delighted her tutor with her seemingly profound attention to his criticisms on her Italian author. “You see, Miss Hope Leslie,” he said, intent on illustrating a difficult passage, “the point here lies in this, that Orlando hesitates whether to go to the rescue of Beatrice.”
“Ah, stop there, Master Cradock; you speak an admonition to me. You have yourself told me, the Romans believed that words spoken by those ignorant of their affairs, but applicable to them, were good or bad omens.”
“True, true; you do honour your tutor beyond his deserts, in treasuring these little classical notices, that it hath been my rare privilege to plant in your mind. But how were my words an admonition to you, Miss Hope Leslie?”
“By reminding me of a duty to a friend who sadly needs my help—and thine too, my good tutor.”
“My help! your friend! It shall be as freely granted as Jonathan’s was to David, or Orpheus’s to Eurydice.”
“The task to be done,” said Hope, while she could not forbear laughing at Cradock’s comparing himself to the master of music, “is not very unlike that of Orpheus. But we have no time to lose: put on your cloak, Master Cradock, while I tell Robin what to say if we are inquired for.”
“My cloak! you forget we are in the summer solstice; and the evening is somewhat over sultry, so that even now, with my common habiliments, I am in a drip.”
“So much the more need to guard against the evening air,” said Hope, who had her own secret and urgent reasons for insisting on the cloak; “put on the cloak, Master Cradock, and move quick and softly, for I would pass out without notice from the family.”
A Moslem would as soon have thought of resisting fate, as Cradock of opposing a wish of his young mistress, which only involved his own comfort; so he cloaked himself, while Hope flew to the kitchen, gave her orders, and threw on her hat, which she had taken care to have at hand. They then passed through the hall and beyond the court without attracting observation.
Cradock was so absorbed in the extraordinary happiness of being selected as the confidential aid and companion of his favourite, that he would have followed her to the world’s end, without question, if she had not herself turned the direction of his thoughts.
“It is like yourself,” she said, “my good tutor, to obey the call of humanity, without inquiring in whose behalf it comes; and I think you will not be the less prompt to follow the dictates of your own heart and my wishes, when I tell you that I am leading you to poor Magawisca’s prison.”
“Ah! the Indian woman, concerning whom I have heard much colloquy. I would, in truth, be fain to see her, and speak to her such comfortable words and counsels as may, with a blessing, touch the heathen’s heart. You have doubtless, Miss Hope, provided yourself with a passport from the governor,” he added, for almost the first time in his life looking at the business part of a transaction.
“Master Cradock, I did not esteem that essential.”
“Oh! but it is; and if you will abide here one moment, I will hasten back and procure it,” he said, in his simplicity never suspecting that Miss Leslie’s omission was anything other than an oversight.
“Nay, nay, Master Cradock,” she said, laying her hand on his arm, “it is too late now: my heart is set on this visit to the unhappy prisoner; and if you were to go back, Madam Winthrop, or my aunt, or somebody else, might deem the hour unseasonable. Leave it all to me: I will manage with Barnaby Tuttle; and when we return, be assured I will take all the blame, if there is any, on myself.”
“No, that you shall not; it shall fall on my gray head, where there should be wisdom, and not on your youth, which lacketh discretion—and lacketh naught else,” he murmured to himself; and, without any farther hesitation, he acquiesced in proceeding onward.
They arrived without hinderance at the jail, and knocked a long time for admittance at that part of the tenement occupied by our friend Barnaby, without his appearing. Hope became impatient; and, bidding Cradock follow her, she passed through the passage, and opened the door of Barnaby’s apartment.
He was engaged in what he still called “his family exercise;” though, by the death of his wife and the marriage of his only child, he was the sole remnant of that corporation. On seeing our heroine, he gave her a familiar nod of recognition, and, by an equally intelligible sign, he demonstrated his desire that she should seat herself, and join in his devotions, which he was just closing, by singing a psalm, versified by himself; for honest Barnaby, after his own humble fashion, was a disciple of the tuneful Nine. Hope assented; and, with the best grace she could command, accompanied him through twelve stanzas of long and very uncommon metre, which he obligingly gave out line by line. When this, on Hope’s part, extempore worship was finished, “Welcome here, and many thanks, Miss Leslie,” said Barnaby; “it’s a good sign to find a prepared heart and a ready voice. Service to you, Master Cradock; you are not gifted in psalmody, I see.”
“Not in the outward manifestation; but the inward feeling is, I trust, vouchsafed to me. My heart hath taken part in the fag end of your feast.”
“A pretty similitude, truly, Master Cradock, and a token for good is it when the appetite is always sharp-set for such a feast. But come, Miss Leslie,” raking open the embers, “draw up your chair, and warm your dear little feet. She looks pale yet after her sickness—ha, Master Cradock? You should not have come forth in the evening air—not but what I am right glad to see you; the sight of you always brings to mind your kindness to the dead and the living. You have not been here, I think, since the night of Ruthy’s wedding: that puts me in mind that I got a letter from Ruthy to-day. I’ll read it to you,” he continued, taking off his spectacles and giving them a preparatory wipe; “Ruthy is quite handy with her pen—takes after the Tuttles in that: you know, Miss Leslie, my great-grandfather wrote a book.”
“Yes,” said Hope, interrupting him, and rising, “and I trust his great-grandson will live to write another.”
“Sit down, Miss Leslie; it may be those of as humble a degree as Barnaby Tuttle have written books; and writing runs in families, like the king’s evil”—and Barnaby laughed at his own witty illustration—“but sit down, Miss Leslie; I must read Ruthy’s letter to you.”
“Not now, good Barnaby; let me take it home with me; it is getting late, and I have a favour to ask of you.”
“A favour to ask of me! ask anything, my pretty mistress, that’s in the power of Barnaby Tuttle to grant. Ah! Mr. Cradock, there’s nobody knows what I owe her—what she did for my wife when she laid on her deathbed—and all for nothing but our thanks and prayers.”
“Oh, you forget that your wife had once been a servant to my dear mother.”
“Yes, yes, but only in the common way, and there’s few that would have thought of it again. It’s not my way to speak with flattering lips, but truly, Miss Hope Leslie, you seem to be one of those that do not to others that it may be done to you again.”
“Oh, my good friend Barnaby, you speak this praise in the wrong time, for I have even now come, as I told you, to beg a favour on the score of old friendship.”
“It shall be done! it shall be done!” said Barnaby, snapping his fingers, his most energetic gesture; “be it what it may, it shall be done.”
“Oh, it is not so very much, but only, Barnaby, I wish it quickly done, that we may return. I want you to conduct Master Cradock and myself to your Indian prisoner, and leave us in her cell for a short time.”
“Is that all? Certainly—certainly;” and, anxious to make up for the smallness of the service by the avidity of his compliance, Barnaby prepared his lamp with unwonted activity. “Now we are ready,” he said, “just show me your permit, and we’ll go without delay.”
Hope had flattered herself that her old friend, in his eagerness to serve her, would dispense with the ceremony of a passport from the governor. Agitated by this new and alarming obstacle, she commanded her voice with difficulty to reply in her usual tone. “How could I think it necessary to bring a permit to you, who know me so well, Barnaby?”
“Not necessary! that was an odd thought for such an all-witted damsel as thou art, Miss Hope Leslie. Not necessary, indeed! Why, I could not let in the king, if he were to come from his throne; the king! truly, he is but as his subjects now; but if the first Parliament man were to come here, I could not let him in without a permit from the governor.”
Hope walked up and down the room, biting her lips with vexation and disappointment. Every moment’s delay hazarded the final success of her project. Poor Cradock now interposed with one of his awkward movements, which, though made with the best will in the world, was sure to overturn the burden he essayed to bear. “Be comforted, Miss Hope Leslie,” he said; “I am not so nimble as I was in years past, but it is scarce fifteen minutes’ walk to the governor’s, and I will hasten thither and get the needful paper.”
“Ay, ay, so do,” said Barnaby; “that will set all right.”
“No,” cried Hope; “no, Master Cradock, you shall not go. If Barnaby cannot render me this little kindness, there is an end of it. I will give it up. I shall never ask another favour of you, Barnaby;” and she sat down, anxious and disappointed, and burst into tears. Honest Barnaby could not stand this. To see one so much his superior—one who had been an angel of mercy to his habitation—one who had a right to command him in all permitted service, thrown into such deep distress by his refusal of a favour, which, after all, there could be no harm in granting, he could not endure.
“Well, well,” he said, after hesitating and jingling his keys for a moment, “dry up your tears, my young lady; a ‘wayward child,’ they say, ‘will have its way;’ and they say, too, ‘men’s hearts melt in women’s tears,’ and I believe it; come, come along, you shall have your way.”
Hope now passed to the extreme of joy and gratitude. “Bless you—bless you, Barnaby,” she said, “I was sure you would not be cross to me.”
“Lord help us, child, no—there’s no denying you; but I do wish you was as thoughtful as Miss Esther Downing; she never came without a permit—a good thing is consideration; you have made me to do that which I trust not to do again—step aside from known duties; but we’re erring creatures.”
Hope had the grace to pause one instant, and to meditate a retreat before she had involved others in sinning against their consciences; but she had the end to be attained so much at heart, and the faults to be committed by her agents were of so light a dye, that the scale of her inclinations soon preponderated, and she proceeded. When they came to the door of the dungeon, “Hark to her,” said Barnaby; “is not that a voice for psalmody?” Magawisca was singing in her own language, in the most thrilling and plaintive tones. Hope thought there could not be darkness or imprisonment to such a spirit. “It is, in truth, Barnaby,” she replied, “a voice fit to sing the praises of God.” Barnaby now turned the bolts and opened the door, and as the feeble ray of his lamp fell athwart the dungeon’s gloom, Hope perceived Magawisca sitting on her flock bed, with a blanket wrapped around her. On hearing their voices she had ceased her singing, but she gave no other sign of her consciousness of the presence of her visiters.
Miss Leslie took the lamp from Barnaby. “How much time will you allow us?” she asked.
“Ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes! oh, more than that, I pray you, good Barnaby.”
“Not one second more,” replied Barnaby, resolute not to concede another inch of ground. “There may be question of this matter—you must consider, my dear young lady.”
“I will—always in future, I will, Barnaby; now you may leave me.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Barnaby, giving a knowing nod. “You mind the Scripture rule about the right and the left hand—some creature comfort to be given to the prisoner. I marvel that ye bring Master Cradock with you; but, in truth, he hath no more eye nor ear than the wall.”
“Marvel not at anything, Barnaby, but leave me, and let my ten minutes be as long as the last ten minutes before dinner.”
Hope, quick as she was in invention and action, felt that she had a very brief space to effect her purposed arrangements; and while she hesitated as to the best mode of beginning, Cradock, who nothing doubted he had been brought hither as a ghostly teacher, asked whether “he should commence with prayer or exhortation.”
“Neither—neither, Master Cradock; do just as I bid you; you will not hesitate to help a fellow-creature out of deep, unmerited distress?” This was uttered in a tone of half inquiry and half assertion, that, enforced by Hope’s earnest, imploring manner, quickened Cradock’s slow apprehension. She perceived the light was dawning on his mind, and she turned from him to Magawisca: “Magawisca,” she said, stooping over her, “rouse yourself—trust me—I have come to release you.” She made no reply nor movement. “Oh! there is not a moment to lose. Magawisca, listen to me—speak to me.”
“Thou didst once deceive and betray me, Hope Leslie,” she replied, without raising her head.
Hope concisely explained the secret machinations of Sir Philip, by which she had been made the unconscious and innocent means of betraying her. “Then, Hope Leslie,” she exclaimed, rising from her abject seat and throwing off her blanket, “thy soul is unstained, and Everell Fletcher’s truth will not be linked to falsehood.”
Hope would have explained that her destiny and Everell’s were not to be interwoven, but she had neither time nor heart for it. “You are too generous, Magawisca,” she said, in a tremulous tone, “to think of any one but yourself, now—we have not a breath to lose—take this riband,” and she untied her sash; “bind your hair tight with it, so that you can draw Master Cradock’s wig over your head; you must exchange dresses with him.”
“Nay, Hope Leslie, I cannot leave another in my net.”
“You must not hesitate, Magawisca—you will be freed—he runs no risk, will suffer no harm—Everell awaits you—speed, I pray you.” She turned to Cradock: “Now, my good tutor,” she said, in her most persuasive tones, “lend me your aid, quickly. Magawisca must have the loan of your wig, hat, boots, and cloak; and you must sit down there on her bed, and let me wrap you in her blanket.”
Cradock retreated to the wall, planted himself against it, shut his eyes, and covered his ears with his hands, that temptation might, at every entrance, be quite shut out. “Oh! I scruple—I scruple,” he articulated, in a voice of the deepest distress.
“Scruple not, dear Master Cradock,” replied Hope, pulling down one of his hands, and holding it between both hers; “no harm can—no harm shall befall you.”
“Think not, sweet Miss Hope, it’s for the perishing body I am thoughtful; for thy sake I would bare my neck to the slayer; to thy least wish I would give the remnant of my days; but I scruple if it be lawful for a Christian man to lend this aid to an idolator.”
“Oh! is that all? We have no time to answer such scruples now, but to-morrow, Master Cradock, I will show you that you greatly err;” and, as she said this, she proceeded, without any farther ceremony, to divest the old man of his wig, which she carefully adjusted on Magawisca’s head. Both parties were passive in her hands, Magawisca not seeming to relish, much better than Cradock, the false character she was assuming. Such was Cradock’s habitual deference to his young mistress, that it was morally impossible for him to make any physical resistance to her movements; but neither his conscience nor his apprehensions for her would permit him to be silent when he felt a conviction that she was doing, and he was suffering, an act that was a plain transgression of a holy law.
“Stay thy hand,” he said, in a beseeching voice, “and let not thy feet move so swiftly to destruction.”
“Just raise your foot while I draw off this boot, Master Cradock.”
He mechanically obeyed, but at the same time continued his admonition: “Was not Jehoshaphat reproved of Micaiah the prophet for going down to the help of Ahab?”
“Now the other foot, Master Cradock; there, that will do. Draw them on, Magawisca, right over your moccasins; quick, I beseech you.”
“Was not the good King Josiah reproved in the matter of Pharaoh Necho?”
“Oh, Magawisca! how shall I ever make your slender shoulders and straight back look anything like Master Cradock’s broad, round shoulders? One glance of Barnaby’s dim old eyes will detect you. Ah! this will do; I will bind the pillow on with the sheet.” While she was uttering the device, she accomplished it. She then threw Magawisca’s mantle over her expanded shoulders, and Cradock’s cloak over all; and, finally, the wig was surmounted by the old man’s steeple-crowned hat. “Now,” she said, almost screaming with joy at the transformation so suddenly effected, “now, Magawisca, all depends on yourself; if you will but contrive to screen your face, and shuffle a little in your gait, all will go well.”
The hope of liberty—of deliverance from her galling imprisonment—of escape beyond the power and dominion of her enemies, had now taken full possession of Magawisca; and the thought that she should owe her release to Everell and to Hope, who, in her imagination, was identified with him, filled her with emotions of joy resembling those a saint may feel when she sees in vision the ministering angels sent to set her free from her earthly prison: “I will do all thou shalt command me, Hope Leslie; thou art indeed a spirit of light, and love, and beauty.”
“True, true, true,” cried Cradock, losing, in the instincts of his affection, the opposition he had so valorously maintained, and his feelings flowing back into their accustomed channel; “thou woman in man’s attire, it is given to thee to utter truth, even as of old lying oracles were wont to speak words of prophecy.”
Hope had not, as may be imagined, stood still to listen to this long sentence, uttered in her tutor’s deliberate, broken manner, but in the mean while she had, with an almost supernatural celerity of movement, arranged everything to present the same aspect as when Barnaby first opened the door of the dungeon. She drew Cradock to the bed, seated him there, and wrapped the blanket about him as it had enveloped Magawisca. “Oh! I hear Barnaby!” she exclaimed; “dear Master Cradock, sit a little straighter; there, that will do; turn a little more sideways—you will not look so broad; there, that’s better.”
“Miss Hope Leslie, ye have perverted the simple-minded.”
“Say not another word, Master Cradock; pray do not breathe so like a trumpet—ah, I see it is my fault.” She readjusted the blanket, which she had drawn so close over the unresisting creature’s face as almost to suffocate him. “Now, Magawisca, sit down on this stool—your back to the door, close to Master Cradock, as if you were talking with him.” All was now arranged to her mind, and she spent the remaining half instant in whispering consolations to Cradock: “Do not let your heart fail you, my good, kind tutor; in one hour you shall be relieved.” Cradock would have again explained that he was regardless of any personal risk, but she interrupted him: “Nay, you need not speak; I know that is not your present care, but do not be troubled; we are commanded to do good to all; the rain falleth on the just and the unjust; and if we are to help our enemy’s ox out of the pit, much more our enemy. This best of all thy kind services shall be requited. I will be a child to thy old age—hush! there’s Barnaby!”
She moved a few steps from the parties, and when the jailer opened the door, she appeared to be awaiting him. “Just in season, good Master Tuttle; my tutor has nothing more to say, and I am as impatient to go as you are to have me gone.”
“It is only for your own sake that I am impatient, Miss Hope; let us make all haste out.” He took up the lamp which he had left in the cell, trimmed it, and raised the wick, that it might better serve to guide them through the dark passage.
Hope was alarmed by the sudden increase of light: “Lend me your lamp, Barnaby,” she said, “to look for my glove; where can I have dropped it? It must be somewhere about here. I shall find it in a minute, Master Cradock; you had best go on while I am looking.”
Magawisca obeyed the hint, while Hope, in her pretended search, so skilfully managed the light that not a ray of it touched Magawisca’s face. She had passed Barnaby: Hope thought the worst danger escaped. “Ah, here it is,” she said; and, by way of precaution, she added, in the most careless tone she could assume, “I will carry the lamp for you, Barnaby.”
“No, no, thank you, Miss Leslie, I always like to carry the light myself; and, besides, I must take a good look at you both before I lock the door. It is a rule I always observe in such cases, lest I should be left to ‘brood the eggs the fox has sucked.’ It is a prudent rule, I assure you, always to be sure you take out the same you let in. Here, Master Cradock, turn round, if you please, to the light, just for form’s sake.”
Magawisca had advanced several steps into the passage, and Hope’s first impulse was to scream to her to run; but a second and happier thought prevailed; and taking her shawl, which was hanging negligently over her arm, she contrived, in throwing it over her head, to sweep it across Barnaby’s lamp in such a way as to extinguish the light beyond the possibility of recovery, as Barnaby proved by vainly trying to blow it again into a flame.
“Do not put yourself to any farther trouble about it, Barnaby; it was all my fault; but it matters not—you know the way; just give me your arm, and Master Cradock can take hold of my shawl, and we shall grope through this passage without any difficulty.”
Barnaby arranged himself as she suggested, and then, hoping her sudden action had broken the chain of his thoughts, and determined he should not have time to resume it, she said, “When you write to Ruth, Barnaby, be sure you commend me kindly to her; and tell her that I have done the baby-linen I promised her, and that I hope little Barnaby will prove as good a man as his grandfather.”
“Oh, thank ye, Miss Hope: I trust, by the blessing of the Lord, much better; but they do say,” added the old man, with a natural ancestral complacency, “they do say he favours me; he’s got the true Tuttle chin, the little dog!”
“You cannot tell yet whether he is gifted in psalmody, Barnaby?”
“La, Miss Hope, you must mean to joke. Why, little Barnaby is not five weeks old till next Wednesday morning, half past three o’clock. But I’m as sure he will take to psalmody as if I knew; there never was a Tuttle that did not.”
Our heroine thus happily succeeded in beguiling the way to the top of the staircase, where a passage diverged to the outer door, and there, with many thanks and assurances of future gratitude, she bade Barnaby good-night; and, anticipating any observation he might make of Cradock’s silence, she said, “My tutor seems to have fallen into one of his reveries; but never mind; another time he will remember to greet and thank you.”
Barnaby was turning away from the door, when he recollected that the sudden extinction of the candle had prevented his intended professional inspection. “Miss Hope Leslie,” he cried, “be so good as to stay one moment, while I get a light; the night is so murky that I cannot see, even here, the lineaments of Master Cradock’s complexion.”
“Pshaw, Barnaby, for mercy’s sake do not detain us now for such an idle ceremony; you see the lineaments of that form, I think; we must have been witches, indeed, to have transformed Magawisca’s slender person into that enormous bulk; but one sense is as good as another. Speak, Master Cradock,” she added, relying on Magawisca’s discretion. “Oh, he is in one of his silent fits, and a stroke of lightning would scarcely bring a sound from him: so good-night, Barnaby,” she concluded, gently putting him back and shutting the door.
“It is marvellous,” thought Barnaby, as he reluctantly acquiesced in relinquishing the letter of his duty, “how this young creature spins me round, at her will, like a top. I think she keeps the key to all hearts.”
With this natural reflection he retired to rest, without taking the trouble to return to the dungeon, which he would have done if he had really felt one apprehension of the fraud that had been there perpetrated.
At the instant the prison door was closed, Magawisca divested herself of her hideous disguise, and proceeded on with Hope to the place where Everell was awaiting them with the necessary means to transport her beyond the danger of pursuit. But, while our heroine is hastening onward with a bounding step and an exulting heart, a cruel conspiracy is maturing against her.
CHAPTER XI.
“Sisters! weave the web of death:
Sisters! cease; the work is done.”
The Fatal Sisters.
The conversation overheard by the faithless Jennet, and communicated with all its particulars to Sir Philip Gardiner, was, as must have been already conjectured by our readers, the contrivance for Magawisca’s liberation. It appeared by her statement that Hope and Magawisca, unattended, would, at a late hour of the evening, pass through a part of the town unfrequented after dark; that, at a fixed time, Everell would be in waiting for them at a certain landing-place. Before they reached there, Sir Philip knew there were many points where they might be intercepted, without the possibility of Everell’s coming to their rescue.
Sir Philip was entangled in the meshes of his own weaving; extrication was possible—nay, he believed probable; but there was a fearful chance against him. He had now to baffle well-founded suspicions; to disprove facts; to double his guard over his assumed and tiresome character; and, after all, human art could not secure him from accidents, which would bring in their train immediate disgrace and defeat. His passion for Miss Leslie had been stimulated by the obstacles which opposed it. His hopes were certainly abated by her indifference; but self-love, and its minister vanity, are inexhaustible in their resources; and Sir Philip trusted for better success in future to his own powers and to feminine weakness; for he, like other profligates, believed that there was no woman, however pure and lofty her seeming, but she was commanded
“By such poor passion as the maid that milks,
And does the meanest chares;”
yet this process of winning the prize was slow, and the result, alas! uncertain.
Jennet’s information suggested a master-stroke by which he could at once achieve his object—a single stroke by which he could carry the citadel he had so long and painfully besieged. If an evil spirit had been abroad on a corrupting mission, he could not have selected a subject more eager to grasp temptation than Sir Philip, nor a fitter agent than Jennet, nor have contrived a more infernal plot against an “innocent and aidless lady” than that which we must now disclose.
Chaddock (whose crew had occasioned such danger and alarm to Miss Leslie) was still riding in the bay with his vessel. Sir Philip had formerly some acquaintance with this man. He knew him to be a desperate fellow; that he had once been in confederacy with the bucaniers of Tortuga—the self-styled “Brothers of the Coast;” and he believed that he might be persuaded to enter upon any new and lawless enterprise.
Accordingly, from Governor Winthrop’s he repaired to Chaddock’s vessel, and presented such motives to him, and offered such rewards, as induced the wretch to enter heartily into his designs. Fortunately for their purposes, the vessel was ready for sea, and they decided to commence their voyage that very night. All Miss Leslie’s paternal connexions were on the royal side; her fortune was still in their hands, and subject to their control. “If the lady’s reluctance to accept his hand was not subdued before the end of the voyage” (a chance scarcely worth consideration), Sir Philip said, “she must then submit to stern necessity, which even a woman’s will could not oppose.” After their arrival in England, he meant to abandon himself to the disposal of Fortune; but he promised Chaddock that he, with certain other cavaliers, whom he asserted had already meditated such an enterprise, would, with the remnant of their fortunes, embark with him, and enrol themselves among the adventurers of Tortuga.
It may be remembered by our readers, that early in our history, some glimmerings of a plot of this nature appear, from a letter of Sir Philip’s, even then to have dawned on his mind; but other purposes had intervened and put it off till now, when it was ripened by sudden and fit opportunity.
The detail of operations being all settled by these worthy confederates, Sir Philip, at nightfall, went once more to the town, secretly withdrew his baggage from his lodgings, and bidding Rosa, who, in sorrow and despair, mechanically obeyed, to follow, he returned to the vessel, humming, as he took his last look at the scene where he had played so unworthy a part,
“Kind Boston, adieu! part we must, though ’tis pity,
But I’m made for mankind—all the world is my city.”
Sir Philip, in his arrangements with Chaddock, excused himself from being one of the party who were to effect the abduction of Miss Leslie. Perhaps the external habits of a gentleman, and, it may be, some little remnant of human kindness (for we would not believe that man can become quite a fiend), rendered him reluctant to take a personal part in the cruel outrage he had planned and prepared. Chaddock himself commanded the enterprise, and was to be accompanied by four of the most daring of his crew.
The night was moonless, and not quite clear. “It is becoming dark—extremely dark, captain,” Sir Philip said, in giving his last instructions; “but it is impossible you should make a mistake. Miss Leslie’s companion, as I told you, may be disguised—she may wear a man’s or woman’s apparel—but you have an infallible guide in her height; she is at least half a head taller than Miss Leslie. It may be well, when you get to the wharf, to divide your party, agreeing on the signal of a whistle. But I rely on your skill and discretion.”
“You may rely on it,” replied the hardy desperado. “He who has boarded Spanish galleons, stormed castles, pillaged cities, violated churches, and broken open monasteries, may be intrusted with the capture of a single defenceless girl.”
Sir Philip recoiled from trusting his prey in the clutches of this tiger, but there was no alternative. “Have a care, Chaddock,” he said, “that she is treated with all due and possible gentleness.”
“Ay, ay, Sir Philip—kill, but not hurt!” A smile of derision accompanied his words.
“You have pledged me the honour of a gentleman,” said Sir Philip, in an alarmed tone.
“Ay! the only bond of free souls. Remember, Sir Philip,” he added, for he perceived the suspicion the knight would fain have hidden in his inmost soul, “remember our motto: ‘Trusted, we are true; suspected, we betray.’ I have pledged my honour; better than parchment and seal—if you confide in it.”
“Oh, I do—entirely—implicitly; I have not the shadow of a doubt, my dear fellow.”
Chaddock turned away, laughing contemptuously at the ineffectual hypocrisy of Sir Philip, and ordered the men who were to be left in charge of the vessel to have everything in readiness to sail at the moment of his return. “And whither bound, captain?” demanded one of his sailors.
“To hell!” was his ominous reply. This answer, seemingly accidental, was long remembered and repeated, as a proof that the unhappy wretch was constrained, thus involuntarily, to pronounce his approaching doom.
Once more, before he left the vessel, Sir Philip addressed him: “Be in no haste to return,” he said; “the lady was not to leave Governor Winthrop’s before half past eight; she may meet with unforeseen detentions; you will reach the dock a few minutes before nine. Take your stations as I have directed, and Fortune cannot thwart us if you are patient; wait till ten—eleven—twelve—or one, if need be. Again, I entreat there may be no unnecessary haste; I shall have no apprehensions; I repose on your fidelity.”
“D—n him!” muttered Chaddock, as he turned away, “he reposes on my fidelity—while he has my vessel in pledge!”
Sir Philip remained standing by the side of the vessel, listening to the quick strokes of the oars, till the sounds died away in the distance; then he spoke aloud and exultingly: “Shine out, my good star, and guide this prize to me!”
“Oh! rather,” exclaimed Rosa, who stood unobserved beside him, “rather, merciful Heaven, let thy lightnings blast her or thy waves swallow her. Oh God!” she continued, sinking on her knees and clasping her hands, “shield the innocent; save her from the hand of the destroyer!”
Sir Philip recoiled; it seemed to him there was something prophetic in the piercing tones of the unhappy girl, and for a moment he felt as if her prayer must penetrate to Heaven; but soon collecting courage, “Hush that mockery, Rosa!” he said; “your words are scorpions to me.”
Rosa remained for a few moments on her knees, but without again giving voice to her feelings; then rising, and sobbing as she spoke, “I thought,” she said, “no prayer of mine would ever go upward again. I have tried to pray, and the words fell back like stones upon my heart; but now I pray for the innocent, and they part from me winged for Heaven.” She folded her arms, looked upward, and continued to speak, as if it were the involuntary utterance of her thoughts: “How wildly the stars shoot their beams through the parting clouds! I have sometimes thought that good spirits come down on those bright rays to do their messages of love. They may even now be on their way to guard a pure and helpless sister: God speed them!”
Sir Philip’s superstitious fears were awakened: “What do you mean, Rosa?” he exclaimed; “what! are you talking of stars? I see nothing but this cursed hazy atmosphere, that hangs like a pall over the water. Stars, indeed! are you mad, Rosa?”
Rosa replied, with a touching simplicity, as if the inquiry were made in good faith, “Yes, by times I think I am mad. Thoughts rush so fast, so wildly through my poor head—and then, again, all is vacancy. Yes,” she continued, as if meditating her case, “I think my brain is touched; but this—this, Sir Philip, is not madness. Do you know that all the good have their ministering spirits? Why, I remember reading in the ‘Legends of the Saints,’ which our good abbess gave me, of a chain, invisible to mortal senses, that encompassed all the faithful, from the bright spirits that wait around the throne of Heaven to the lowliest that walk upon the earth. It is of such exquisite temper that naught but sin can harm it; but, if that but touch it, it falls apart like rust-eaten metal.”
“Away with these fantastic legends, inventions of hypocritical priests and tiresome old women. You must curb these foolish vagaries of your imagination, Rosa. I have present and urgent work for you; do but this good service for me, and I will love you again, and make you as happy as you were in your brightest days.”
“You make me happy, Sir Philip! Alas! alas! there is no happiness without innocence; if that be once lost, like the guilty Egyptian’s pearl you told me of, melted in the bowl of pleasure, happiness cannot be restored.”
“As you please, girl; if you will not be happy, you may play the penitent Magdalen the rest of your life. You shall select your own convent, and tell your beads, and say your prayers, and be as demure and solemn as any seeming saint of them all. I will give you a penance to begin with; nay, I am serious: hear me. In spite of your prayers, and visions, and silly fancies, Miss Leslie must soon be here; the snare is too well prepared to be escaped. After this one violence, to which she and cruel fate have driven me, I will be a true knight, as humble and worshipful as any hero of chivalry.”
“But she does not now love you, and do you not fear she will hate you for this outrage?”
“Ay; but there is a potent alchymy at work for us in the hearts of you women, that turns hate to love. You shall yet hear her say, like the lady of Sir Gawaine, ‘Oh! how it is befallen me, that now I love him whom I before most hated of all men living.’ But you must aid me, Rosa; this proud queen must have her maid of honour.”
“And I must be the poor slave to do her bidding!” said Rosa, impatiently interrupting him, and all other feelings giving way to the rising of womanly pride.
“Nay, not so, Rosa,” replied Sir Philip; and he added, in a voice which he hoped might sooth her petulance, “render to her all maidenly service; for a little while do the tasks of the bond-woman, and you shall yet have her wages; nay, start not—you remember the good patriarch’s affections manifestly leaned to the side of Hagar.”
“Yes, yes; and I remember, too, what her fate was—the fate of all who follow in her footsteps—to be cast out to wander forth in a desert, where there is not one sign of God’s love left to them.” She burst into tears, and added, “I would give my poor life, and a thousand more, if I had them, to save Hope Leslie, but I will never do her menial service.”
Sir Philip continued to offer arguments and entreaties, but nothing that he said had the least effect on Rosa; he could not extort a promise from her, nor perceive the slightest indication of conformity to his wishes. But trusting that when the time came she would of necessity submit to his authority, he relinquished his solicitations, and, quitting her side, paced the deck with hurried, impatient footsteps.
There is no solitude to the good or bad. Nature has her ministers that correspond with the world within the breast of man. The words “my kingdom is within you,” are worth all the metaphysical discoveries ever made by unassisted human wisdom. If all is right in that “kingdom,” beautiful forms and harmonious voices surround us, discoursing music; but if the mind is filled with guilty passions, recollections of sin, and purposes of evil, the ministering angels of Nature are converted into demons, whose “monstrous rout are heard to howl like stable wolves.” Man cannot live in tranquil disobedience to the law of virtue, inscribed on his soul by the finger of God. “Our torments” cannot “become our elements.” To Sir Philip’s disordered imagination, the heavy mist seemed like an infolding shroud; there was a voice of sullen menace in the dashing of the waves against the vessel; the hooting of the night-bird was ominous; and Rosa’s low sobs, and the horrid oaths of the misruled crew, rung in his ears like evil prophecies.
Time wore away heavily enough till ten, the earliest moment he had calculated on the return of the boat, but after that it appeared to stand stock still. He ordered the signal lights attached to the mast to be doubled; he strained his eyes in the vain attempt to descry an approaching object, and then cursed the fog that hemmed in his sight. Suddenly a fresh breeze came off the shore, the fog dispersed, and he could discern the few lights that still glimmered from the habitations of the town, but no boat was seen or heard. “What folly,” he repeated to himself a hundred times, “to be thus impatient; they certainly have not failed in their object, or relinquished it, for in that case they would have been here; it is scarcely time to expect them yet;” but the suggestions of reason could not calm the perturbations of impatience. For another hour he continued to stride the deck, approaching the light at every turn to look at his watch. The sailors now began to fret at the delay: “Everything was ready,” they said; “good luck had sent them a fair breeze, and the tide had just turned in their favour.” And in Sir Philip’s favour too, it appeared; for at this moment the longed-for boat was both heard and seen rapidly nearing the vessel. He gazed towards it as if it contained for him a sentence of life or death; and life it was, for he soon perceived a female form wrapped in Chaddock’s watch-cloak.
The boat came to the side of the vessel. “Has the scoundrel dared to put his arm around Hope Leslie?” thought the knight, as he saw the captain’s arm encircling the unfortunate girl; but a second reflection told him that this, which seemed even to him profanity, was but a necessary precaution. “He dared not trust her; she would have leaped into the waves rather than have come to me—ungracious girl!”
“What hath kept you?” called out one of the sailors.
“The devil and Antonio,” replied the captain. “We left him with the boat, and, while we were grappling the prize, he ran away. I had to be chains and fetters to the prisoner: we had not hands to man our oars, so we waited for the fellow; but he came not, and has, doubtless, ere this, given the alarm. Weigh your anchor and spread your sails, boys; starting with this wind and tide, we’ll give them a devil of a chase, and bootless at last.”
While this was saying, the unhappy victim was lifted up the side of the vessel, and received in Sir Philip’s arms. She threw back the hood that had been drawn over her head, and attempted to speak, but was prevented by her kerchief, which the ruffians had bound over her face to prevent the emission of any sound. Sir Philip was shocked at the violence and indignity she had suffered. “Did I not order you, Chaddock,” he said, “to treat the lady with all possible respect?”
“D—n your orders!” replied the captain; “was I to let her scream like forty sea-mews, and raise the town upon us?”
“A thousand—thousand pardons!” whispered Sir Philip, in a low, imploring voice; and then aloud to Chaddock, “But after you left the town, captain, you surely should have paid more respect to my earnest and repeated injunctions.”
“D—n your injunctions! John Chaddock is yet master of his vessel, and boat too. I tell you, when the fishing-smacks hailed us, that, even with that close-reefed sail, she made a noise like a creaking mast in a gale.”
“Oh! forgive—forgive,” whispered Sir Philip, “this horrible, necessary outrage. Lean on me; I will conduct you away from these wretches; a room is prepared for you; Rosa shall attend you; you are queen here; you command us all. Forgive—forgive, and fear nothing. I will not remove your screen till you are beyond the lawless gaze of these fellows. Here, Roslin!” he called, for he still kept up the farce of Rosa’s disguise in the presence of the ship’s company, “here, Roslin! take the lamp, and follow me!”
Rosa obeyed, her bosom heaving with struggling emotions, and her hand trembling so that she could scarcely hold the lamp. “Bear the light up, and more steadily, Roslin. Nay, my beloved, adored mistress, do not falter; hasten forward; in one minute more we shall be below, in your own domain, where you may admit or exclude me at pleasure. Do not struggle thus; you have driven me to this violence; you must forgive the madness you have caused. I am your slave for life.”
They had just passed down the steps that served as a companion-way, when Sir Philip observed, on his right hand, an uncovered barrel of gunpowder. It had been left in this exposed situation by a careless fellow, intrusted with the preparation of the fire-arms for the expedition to the town. “Have a care,” cried Sir Philip to Rosa; “stay where you are: do not approach that gunpowder with the light.” He heard a footstep above. “Here, friend,” he called, “lend us a hand; come down and cover this powder. We cannot discreetly move an inch.” The footsteps ceased, but there was no reply to the call. “I cannot leave Miss Leslie,” continued Sir Philip; “she leans on me as if she were fainting. Set down your lamp, Rosa, and come yourself and cover the barrel.”
Rosa did not set down the lamp, but moved forward one or two steps with it in her hand, and then paused. She seemed revolving some dreadful purpose in her mind. Her eyes glanced wildly from Sir Philip to his helpless victim; then she groaned aloud, and pressed her hand upon her head as if it were bursting.
Sir Philip did not observe her; he was intent upon his companion. “She is certainly fainting,” he said; “it is the close air and this cursed handkerchief!” He attempted to remove it, but the knot by which it was tied baffled his skill, and he again shouted to Rosa, “Why do you not obey me? Miss Leslie is suffocating: set down the lamp, I say, and call assistance. Damnation!” he screamed, “what means the girl?” as Rosa made one desperate leap forward, and shrieking, “It cannot be worse for any of us!” threw the lamp into the barrel.
The explosion was instantaneous: the hapless girl—her guilty destroyer—his victim—the crew—the vessel, rent to fragments, were hurled into the air, and soon ingulfed in the waves.
CHAPTER XII.
“And how soon to the bower she loved, they say,
Return’d the maid that was borne away
From Maquon, the fond and the brave.”
Bryant.
After Miss Leslie’s escape from Oneco on the island, he remained for some time unconscious of her departure, and entirely absorbed in his efforts to quicken the energy of reviving life in his father; and when he discovered that his prisoner had left him, he still deemed her as certainly within his power on the sea-girt island as if she had been enclosed by the walls of a prison. He felt that his father’s life depended on his obtaining an asylum as soon as possible, and he determined to abandon his plan of going to Narragansett, and instead, to cross the bay to Moscutusett, the residence of the son and successor of Chicetabot, an avowed ally of the English, but really, in common with most of the powerful chiefs, their secret enemy.
If, availing himself of the sheltering twilight of the morning, he could convey his father safely to the wigwam of his friend, Oneco believed he might securely remain there for the present. In the mean time, he should himself be at liberty to contrive and attempt the recovery of his wife. The instrumentality of Hope Leslie might be important to effect this object, and she also might remain in safe custody with the Indian chief.
Thus having digested his plans, before the morning dawned, and by the sufficient light of the moon, he went in quest of his prisoner, but was destined, as our readers know, to be disappointed.
He encountered Chaddock’s crew much in the situation in which they were first discovered by Miss Leslie; for, after having been baffled in their pursuit of her, they returned and recomposed themselves to await the light of day, when they might give a signal to some boat to take them off the island.
Oneco, apprehending that, in the prosecution of his search over the island, he might meet with some straggler from this gang, very prudently disguised himself in certain of the cast-off garments belonging to the men, which would enable him to escape, at least, immediate detection. This disguise, though useless then, proved afterward of important service to him.
Compelled by the approach of day to abandon his search, he returned to his canoe, placed his father in it, and rowed him to Sachem’s Head, where he was kindly received and cherished, though with the utmost secrecy, for the Indians had long ere this been taught, by painful experience, to guard against the most dispiriting of all dangers—a danger to which the weak, in the neighbourhood of a powerful and comparatively rich foe, are always exposed—the treachery of their own people.
The chief of Moscutusett obtained, from day to day, intelligence of whatever transpired in Boston; and in this way Mononotto was apprized of the imprisonment and probable fate of Magawisca. This was the last drop in his cup of bitterness; worse, far worse, than to have borne on his body the severest tortures ever devised by human cruelty. Magawisca had obtained an ascendancy over her father’s mind by her extraordinary gifts and superior knowledge. He loved her as his child; he venerated her as an inspired being. He might have endured to have had her cut off by the chances of war; but to have her arraigned before the tribunal of his enemies, as amenable to their laws; to have her die by the hands of the executioner, as one of their own felon subjects, pierced his national pride as well as his affection, and he resigned himself to overwhelming grief. Oneco sorrowed for himself and sorrowed for the old man’s tears, but he felt nothing very deeply but the loss of his “white bird.”
All his ingenuity was employed to devise the means of her escape. After having painted his face, hands, and legs, so as effectually to conceal his tawny hue, he appeared a foreign sailor in Madam Winthrop’s parlour. All succeeded better than his most sanguine expectations. He contrived to give every necessary hint to Faith Leslie; and so happily veiled his language by his indistinct and rapid utterance, that Governor Winthrop, familiar as he was with the sound of the Indian dialects, did not suspect him. The family retired immediately after their evening devotions: he laid himself down on the bed that had been hospitably spread for him, and soon feigned himself asleep. He watched the servants make their last preparations for bed: the lights were extinguished and the fire raked up, though enough still glimmered through the ashes to afford him a competent light when he should need it. The menials withdrew: their footsteps had hardly ceased to vibrate on the ear, when his wife, impatient of any farther delay, stole from her aunt’s side, threw on her dress, and with the light, bounding tread of a fawn, passed down the stairs, through the hall, and into the kitchen. Oneco started up, and in a transport of joy would have locked her in his arms, when Jennet appeared. She, like some other disagreeable people, seemed to be gifted with ubiquity, and always to be present where happiness was to be interrupted or mischief to be done.
She stood for an instant, her hands uplifted in silent amazement, hesitating whether to alarm the family with her outcries, or more quietly to give them notice of the character of their guest. Oneco put a sudden end to her deliberations. He first darted to the door and closed it; then drew a knife from his bosom, and, pointing it at Jennet’s heart, he told her, in very bad English, but plainly interpreted by his action, that if she moved or uttered a sound, his knife should taste her life-blood.
Jennet saw determination in his aspect, and she stood as still as if she were paralyzed or transfixed, while Oneco proceeded to tell her that, to make all sure, she should go with him to his canoe. He bade her calm her fears, for then he would release her, provided that, in the mean time, she made no effort, by voice or movement, to release herself.
There was no alternative, but she did beg to be allowed to go to her room to get her bonnet and cloak. Oneco smiled deridingly at the weak artifice by which she hoped to elude him; but, deigning no other reply to it, he caught a cloak which hung over a chair, threw it over her, and, without any farther delay, compelled her to follow him.
Oneco took good care to avoid the danger, slight though it was, of encountering any passengers, by directing his way through an unfrequented part of the town. Impatience to be beyond the bounds of danger, and the joy of escape and reunion, seemed to lend wings to Jennet’s companions, while she followed breathless and panting, enraged at her compelled attendance, and almost bursting with spite, to which she could not give its natural vent by its customary outlet the tongue, the safety-valve of many a vexed spirit.
They had arrived very near to the cove where Oneco had moored his canoe. He good-naturedly pointed towards it, and told Jennet that there she should be released. But the hope of release by a mode much more satisfactory to her feelings, inasmuch as it would involve her companions in danger, had dawned on Jennet. She had just perceived some men (how many she could not tell, for the night was then dark), who were, unobserved by Oneco, stealing towards them. She withdrew a few inches, as far as she dared from his side, lest he should execute sudden vengeance with the weapon which he still held in his hand. Her conjectures were now converted to certainty, and she already mentally exulted in the retaliation she should inflict on her companions; but, alas!
“Esser vicino al lido
Molti fra naufragar;”
or, to express the same truth by our vernacular adage, “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.” The men did approach, even to her side; and without listening to her protestations of who she was and who her companions were—without even hearing them, they seized on her, and, suffering the other parties to escape without any annoyance, bound her hood and handkerchief over her head and face, and, as our readers have already anticipated, conveyed her to that awful destiny which she had herself indirectly prepared.
It may excite some surprise that Chaddock, forewarned, as he had been, that the lady whom he was to intercept would have no male attendant, should not have hesitated when he saw Oneco. But that may be explained by Oneco wearing the dress of the ship’s crew, and the natural conclusion, on Chaddock’s part, that Antonio, whom he had left in the boat, had come on shore, and probably just joined these females. Chaddock’s only care was to select the shortest of the two women, and, obscure as the night was, their relative height was apparent.
CHAPTER XIII.
“Basta cosi t’intendo
Già ti spiegasti a pieno:
E mi diresti meno
Se mi dicessi più.”
Metastasio.
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 will 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 farther entreaties and arguments: “Touch no more on that,” she said; “we must part, and forever.” 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 anything but her 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 gayly 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 everywhere 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 riband, 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 riveted 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 shrank 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 forever from their sight.
Everell and Hope remained immovable, 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 forever from this 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, 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 afterward 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.