The simple man started as if he had received a blow, and Hope said, “You did not mean to call Sir Philip a transgressor?”
“Oh, certainly not, in particular, certainly not; Sir Philip’s professions are great, and, I doubt not, practice correspondent; but all of us add daily transgression to transgression, which, I doubt not, Sir Philip will allow.”
“Yes,” said Hope, archly, “it is far easier, as is said in one of your good books, Master Cradock, ‘to subscribe to a sentence of universal condemnation than to confess individual sins.’ ”
“What blessed times we have fallen on,” retorted Sir Philip, “when youthful beauties, instead of listening to the idle songs of Troubadours, or the fantastic flatteries of vagrant knights, or announcing with their ruby lips the rewards of chivalry, are exploring the mines of divinity with learned theologians like Master Cradock, and bringing forth such diamond sentences as the pithy saying Miss Leslie has quoted.”
“Heaven preserve us! Sir Philip,” exclaimed Mrs. Grafton, “Hope Leslie study theology! you are as mad as a March hare; all her theology she has learned out of the Bible and Common Prayer-book, which should always go together, in spite of what the governor says. It is peculiar that a man of his commodity of sense should bamboozle himself with that story he told at breakfast. Oh, you was not there, Sir Philip: well, he says that in his son’s library there are a thousand books, and among them a Bible and Prayer-book bound together—one jewel in the dunghill—but that is not what he says; it seems that this unlucky Prayer-book is gnawed to mince-meat by the mice, and not another book in the library touched.[1] I longed to commend the instinct of the little beasts, that knew what good food was; but everybody listened with such a solemn air, and even you, Hope Leslie, who are never afraid to smile, even you did not move your lips.”
“I did not hear it,” said Hope.
“Did not hear it! that is peculiar; why, it was just when Robin was coming in with the rolls—just as I had taken my second cup—just as Everell gave Esther Downing that bunch of rosebuds: did you take notice of that?”
“Yes,” replied Hope, and a deep blush suffused her cheek. She had noticed the offering with pain, not because her friend was preferred, but because it led her mind back to the time when she was the object of all Everell’s little favours, and impressed her with a sense of his altered conduct.
The telltale blush did not escape the watchful eye of Sir Philip; and, determined to ascertain if the “bolt of Cupid” had fallen on this “little Western flower,” he said, “I perceive that Miss Leslie is aware that rosebuds, in the vocabulary of lovers, are made to signify a declaration of the tender passion.”
Secret springs of the heart are sometimes suddenly touched, and feelings disclosed that have been hidden even from our own self-observation. Hope had been moved by Miss Downing’s story, and taking a generous interest in her happiness, she had, with that ardent feeling with which she pursued every object that interested her, resolved to promote it in the only mode by which it could be attained. But now, at the first intimation that her romantic wishes were to be fulfilled, strange to tell, and still stranger to her to feel, there was a sudden rising in her heart of disappointment, a sense of loss, and, we shrink from recording it, but the truth must be told, tears, honest tears, gushed from her eyes. Oh, pardon her, all ye youthful devotees to secret self-immolation! all ye youthful Minervas, who hide with an impenetrable shield of wisdom and dignity, the natural workings of your hearts! Make all due allowance for a heroine of the seventeenth century, who had the misfortune to live before there was a system of education extant, who had not learned, like some young ladies of our enlightened days, to prattle of metaphysics, to quote Reid, and Stewart, and Brown, and to know (full as well as they, perhaps) the springs of human action, the mysteries of mind, still profound mysteries to the unlearned.
Hope Leslie was shocked, not that she had betrayed her feelings to her companions, but at her own discovery of their existence; not that they had appeared, but that they were. The change had been so gradual, from her childish fondness for Everell, to a more mature sentiment, as to be imperceptible even to herself. She made no essay to explain her emotion. Mrs. Grafton, though not remarkably sagacious, was aware of its obvious interpretation, and of the pressing necessity of offering some ingenious reading. “What a miserable nervous way you have fallen into, Hope,” she said, “since you was caught out in that storm; she must have taken an inward cold, Sir Philip.”
“The symptoms,” replied the knight, significantly, “would rather, I should think, indicate an internal heat.”
“Heat or cold, Hope,” continued Mrs. Grafton, “I am determined you shall go through a regular course of medicine; valerian tea in the morning, and lenitive drops at night. You have not eaten enough for the last week to keep a humming-bird alive. Hope has no kind of faith in medicine, Sir Philip, but I can tell her it is absolutely necessary, in the spring of the year, to sweeten the blood.”
Sir Philip looked at Hope’s glowing face, and said “he thought such blood as mantled in Miss Leslie’s cheek needed no medical art to sweeten it.”
Hope, alike insensible to the good-natured efforts of her aunt and the flatteries of Sir Philip, was mentally resolving to act most heroically, to expel every selfish feeling from her heart, and to live for the happiness of others.
The experienced smile sorrowfully at the generous impulses and fearless resolves of the young, who know not how costly is the sacrifice of self-indulgence, how difficult the ascent to the heights of disinterestedness; but let not the youthful aspirant be discouraged; the wing is strengthened by use, and the bird that drops in its first flutterings about the parent-nest, may yet soar to the sky.
Our heroine had rallied her spirits by the time she joined her companions in the boat that was awaiting them at the wharf; and in the effort to veil her feelings, she appeared to Everell extravagantly gay; and he, being unusually pensive, and seeing no cause for her apparent excitement, attributed it to Sir Philip’s devotion: a cause that certainly had no tendency to render the effect agreeable to him.
When they disembarked, they proceeded immediately to the single habitation on the island, Digby’s neat residence. The faithful fellow welcomed Everell with transports of joy. He had a thousand questions to ask and recollections to recall; and while Everell lingered to listen, and Hope and Esther, from a very natural sympathy, to witness the overflowings of the good fellow’s affectionate heart, their companions left them to stroll about the island.
As soon as his audience was thus reduced, “It seems but a day,” he said, “since you, Mr. Everell, and Miss Leslie were but children.”
“And happy children, Digby, were we not?” said Everell, with a suppressed sigh, and venturing a side glance at Hope; but her face was averted, and he could not see whether Digby had awakened any recollections in her bosom responding to his own.
“Happy! that were you,” replied Digby, “and the lovingest,” he continued, little thinking that every word he uttered was as a talisman to his auditors, “the lovingest that ever I saw. Young folks, for the most part, are like an April day—clouds and sunshine: there are my young ones, though they look so happy now they have your English presents, Mr. Everell, yet they must now and then fall to their little battles—show out the natural man, as the ministers say; but with you and Miss Hope it was always sunshine: it was not strange, either, seeing you were all in all to one another after that terrible sweep-off at Bethel. It is odd what vagaries come and go in a body’s mind; time was when I viewed you as good as mated with Magawisca; forgive me for speaking so, Mr. Everell, seeing she was but a tawny Indian, after all.”
“Forgive you, Digby! you do me honour by implying that I rightly estimated that noble creature; and before she had done the heroic deed to which I owe my life—yes, Digby, I might have loved her—might have forgotten that Nature had put barriers between us.”
“I don’t know but you might, Mr. Everell, but I don’t believe you would; things would naturally have taken another course after Miss Hope came among us; and many a time I thought it was well it was as it was, for I believe it would have broken Magawisca’s heart to have been put in that kind of eclipse by Miss Leslie’s coming between you and her. Now all is as it should be; as your mother—blessed be her memory—would have wished, and your father, and all the world.”
Digby seemed to have arranged everything in his own mind according to what he deemed natural and proper; and, too self-complacent at the moment to receive any check to his garrulity from the silence of his guests, he proceeded. “The tree follows the bent of the twig; what think you, Miss Esther, is not there a wedding a brewing?” Miss Downing was silent: Digby looked round, and saw confusion in every face, and, feeling that he had ventured on forbidden ground, he tried to stammer out an apology. “I declare, now,” he said, “it’s odd—it’s a sign I grow old; but I quite entirely forgot how queer young people feel about such things. I should not have blundered on so, but my wife put it into my head; she is equal to Nebuchadnezzar for dreaming dreams; and three times last night she waked me to tell me about her dreaming of a funeral, and that, she said, was a sure forerunner of a wedding; and it was natural I should go on thinking whose wedding was coming, was it not, Miss Esther?”
Everell turned away to caress a chubby boy. Miss Downing fidgeted with her bonnet-strings, threw back her shawl, and disclosed the memorable knot of rosebuds. If they had a meaning, they seemed also to have a voice, and they roused Hope Leslie’s resolution. Some pride might have aided her, but it was maidenly pride, and her feelings were as near to pure generosity as our infirm nature can approach.
“Digby,” she said, “it was quite natural for you both to think and speak of Mr. Everell’s wedding; we are to have it, and that right soon, I hope; you have only mistaken the bride; and as neither of the parties will speak to set you right,” and she glanced her eyes from Esther to Everell, “why, I must.”
Esther became as pale as marble. Hope flew to her side, took her hand, placed it in Everell’s, threw her arm around Esther, kissed her cheek, and darted out of the house. Digby half articulated an expression of disappointment and surprise, and, impelled by an instinct that told him this was not a scene for witnesses, he too disappeared.
Never were two young people left in a more perplexing predicament. To Everell it was a moment of indescribable confusion and embarrassment. To Esther, of overwhelming recollections, of apprehension, and hope, and, above all, shame.
She would gladly have buried herself in the depths of the earth. Everell understood her feelings. There was no time for deliberation; and with emotions that would have made self-immolation at the moment easy, and impelled, as it seemed to him, by an irresistible destiny, he said something about the happiness of retaining the hand he held.
Miss Downing, confused by her own feelings, misinterpreted his. She was, at the moment, incapable of estimating the disparity between his few, broken, disjointed, half-uttered words, and the natural, free, full expressions of an ardent and happy lover. She only spoke a few words, to refer him to her aunt Winthrop; but her hand, passive in his, her burning cheeks and throbbing heart, told him what no third person could tell, and what her tongue could not utter.
Thus had Hope Leslie, by rashly following her first generous impulses, by giving to “unproportioned thought its act,” effected that which the avowed tenderness of Miss Downing, the united instances of Mr. Fletcher and Governor Winthrop, and the whole colony and world beside, could never have achieved. Unconscious of the mistake by which she had put the happiness of all parties concerned in jeopardy, she was exulting in her victory over herself, and endeavouring to regain in solitude the tranquillity which she was surprised to find had utterly forsaken her; and to convince herself that the disorder of her spirits, which, in spite of all her efforts, filled her eyes with tears, was owing to the agitating expectation of seeing her long-lost sister.
The eastern extremity of the island, being sheltered by the high ground on the west, was most favourable for horticultural experiments, and had therefore been planted with fruit-trees and grapevines; here Hope had retired, and was flattering herself she was secure from interruption and observation, when she was startled by a footstep, and perceived Sir Philip Gardiner approaching. “I am fortunate at last,” he said; “I have just been vainly seeking you, where I most unluckily broke in upon the lovers at a moment of supreme happiness, if I may judge from the faces of both parties; but what are you doing with that vine, Miss Leslie?” he continued, for Hope had stooped over a grapevine, which she seemed anxiously arranging.
“I am merely looking at it,” she said; “it seems drooping.”
“Yes, and droop and die it must. I am amazed that the wise people of your colony should hope to rear the vine in this cold and steril land: a fit climate it is not for any delicate plant.”
The knight’s emphasis and look gave a particular significance to his words; but Miss Leslie, determined to take them only in their literal sense, coldly replied, “that it was not the part of wisdom to relinquish the attempt to cultivate so valuable a production till a fair experiment had been made.”
“Very true, Miss Leslie. The governor himself could not have spoken it more sagely. Pardon me for smiling; I was thinking what an admirable illustration of your remark your friend Miss Downing afforded you. Who would have hoped to rear such a hot-bed plant as love amid her frosts and ice? Nay, look not so reproachfully. I admit there are analogies in nature; in my rambles in the Alpine country, I have seen herbage and flowers fringing the very borders of perpetual snows.”
“Your analogy does not suit the case, Sir Philip,” replied Miss Leslie, coldly; “but I marvel not at your ignorance of my friend; the waters gushed from the rock only at the prophet’s touch—” Hope hesitated; she felt that her rejoinder was too personal, and she added, in a tone of calmer defence, “surely she who has shown herself capable of the fervour of devotion and the tenderness of friendship, may be susceptible of an inferior passion.”
“Most certainly; and your philosophy, fair reasoner, agrees with experience and poetry. An old French lay well sets forth the harmony between the passions; thus it runs, I think;” and he trilled the following stanzas:
“ ‘Et pour vérité vous record
Dieu et amour sont d’un accord,
Dieu aime sens et honorance,
Amour ne l’a pas en viltance;
Dieu hait orgueil et fausseté,
Et Amour aime loyauté;
Dieu aime honneur et courtoisie
Et bonne Amour ne hait-il mie;
Dieu écoute belle prière,
Amour ne la met pas arrière.’ ”
Sir Philip dropped on his knee, and, seizing Hope’s hand, repeated,
“ ‘Dieu écoute belle prière,
Amour ne le met pas en arrière.’ ”
At this moment, when Hope stood stock still from surprise, confusion, and displeasure, Everell crossed the walk. The colour mounted to his cheeks and temples, he quickened his footsteps, and almost instantly disappeared. This apparition, instead of augmenting Miss Leslie’s embarrassment, restored all her powers. “Reserve your gallantries, Sir Philip,” she said, quietly withdrawing her hand, “and your profane verses for some subject to whom they are better suited; if you have aught of the spirit of a gentleman in you, you must feel that I have neither invited the one nor provoked the other.”
Sir Philip rose, mortified and disconcerted, and suffered Miss Leslie to walk slowly away from him without uttering a word to urge or defend his suit. He would have been better pleased if he had excited more emotion of any sort; he thought he had never seen her, on any occasion, so calm and indifferent. He was piqued, as a man of gallantry, to be thus contemptuously repelled; and he was vexed with himself that, by a false step, he had retarded, perhaps endangered, the final success of his projects. He had been too suddenly elated by the removal of his rival; he deemed his path quite clear; and, with due allowance for natural presumption and self-love, it was not perhaps strange that an accomplished man of the world should, in Sir Philip’s circumstances, have counted sanguinely on success.
He remained pulling a rose to pieces, as a sort of accompaniment to his vexed thoughts, when Mrs. Grafton made an untimely appearance before him. “Ah ha!” she said, picking up a bracelet Hope had unconsciously dropped, “I see who has been here—I thought so; but, Sir Philip, you look downcast.” Sir Philip, accustomed as he was to masquerade, had not been able to veil his feelings even from the good dame, whose perceptions were neither quick nor keen; but what was defective in them she made up in abundant good-nature. “Now, Sir Philip,” she said, “there is nothing but the wind so changeful as a woman’s mind; that’s what everybody says, and there is both good and bad in it: for if the wind is dead ahead, we may look for it to turn.”
Sir Philip bowed his assent to the truism, and secretly prayed that the good lady might be just in her application of it. Mrs. Grafton continued: “Now, what have you been doing with that rose, Sir Philip? one would think it had done you an ill turn, by your picking it to pieces; I hope you did not follow Everell’s fashion; such a way of expressing one’s ideas should be left to boys.” Sir Philip most heartily wished that he had left his sentiments to be conveyed by so prudent and delicate an interpreter; but, determined to give no aid to Mrs. Grafton’s conjectures, he threw away the rose-stem, and, plucking another, presented it to her, saying that “he hoped she would not extend her proscription of the language of flowers so far as to prevent their expressing his regard for her.”
The good lady courtesied, and said “how much Sir Philip’s ways did remind her of her dear deceased husband.”
The knight constrained himself to say “that he was highly flattered by being thus honourably associated in her thoughts.”
“And you may well be, Sir Philip,” she replied, in the honesty of her heart, “for my poor dear Mr. Grafton was called the most elegant man of his time: and the best of husbands he proved; for, as Shakspeare says, ‘He never let the winds of heaven visit me.’ ” She paused to wipe away a genuine tear, and then continued: “It was not for such a man to be disheartened because a woman seemed a little offish at first. Nil desperandum was his motto; and he, poor dear man, had so many rivals! Here, you know, the case is quite different. If anybody were to fall in love with anybody—I am only making a supposition, Sir Philip—there is nobody here but these stiff-starched Puritans—a thousand pardons, Sir Philip; I forgot you was one of them. Indeed, you seem so little like them that I am always forgetting it.”
Sir Philip dared not trust Mrs. Grafton’s discretion so far as to cast off his disguises before her, but he ventured to say that “some of his brethren were over-zealous.”
“Ay, ay, quite too zealous, aren’t they? a kind of mint, anise, and cummin Christians.”
Sir Philip smiled: “He hoped not to err in that particular; he must confess a leaning of the heart towards his old habits and feelings.”
“Quite natural; and I trust you will finally lean so far as to fall into them again, all in good time; but, as I was saying, skittishness isn’t a bad sign in a young woman. It was a long, long time before I gave poor dear Mr. Grafton the first token of favour; and what do you surmise that was, Sir Philip? Now just guess; it was a trick of fancy really worth knowing.”
Sir Philip was wearied beyond measure with the old lady’s garrulity; but he said, with all the complaisance he could assume, “That he could not guess; the ingenuity of a lady’s favour baffled conjecture.”
“I thought you would not guess; well, I’ll tell you. There’s a little history to it, but, luckily, we’ve plenty of time on hand. Well, to begin at the beginning, you must know I had a fan—a French fan I think it was; there were two Cupids painted on it, and exactly in the middle, between them, a figure of Hope—I don’t mean Hope Leslie,” she continued, for she saw the knight’s eye suddenly glancing towards the head of the walk, past which Miss Leslie was just walking, in earnest conversation with Everell Fletcher.
Sir Philip felt the urgent necessity, at this juncture of affairs, of preventing, if possible, a confidential communication between Miss Leslie and Fletcher; and his face expressed unequivocally that he was no longer listening to Mrs. Grafton.
“Do you hear, Sir Philip?” she continued; “I don’t mean Hope Leslie.”
“So I understand, madam,” replied the knight, keeping his face towards her, but receding rapidly in the direction Miss Leslie had passed, till, almost beyond the sound of her voice, he laid his hand on his heart, bowed, and disappeared.
“Well, that is peculiar of Sir Philip,” muttered the good lady; then, suddenly turning to Cradock, who appeared making his way through some snarled bushes, “What is the matter now, Master Cradock?” she asked. Cradock replied by informing her that the tide served for their return to town, and that the governor had made it his particular request that there might be no delay.
Mrs. Grafton’s spirit was always refractory to orders from headquarters; but she was too discreet or too timid for any overt act of disobedience, and she gave her arm to Cradock, and hastened to the appointed rendezvous.
When Sir Philip had emerged from the walk, he perceived the parties he pursued at no great distance from him, and was observed by Hope, who immediately, and manifestly to avoid him, motioned to Everell to take a path which diverged from that which led to the boat, to which they were now all summoned by a loud call from the boatmen.
We must leave the knight to digest his vexation, and follow our heroine, whose face could now claim nothing of the apathy that had mortified Sir Philip.
“You are, then, fixed in your determination to remain on the island to-night?” demanded Fletcher.
“Unalterably.”
“And is Digby also to have the honour of Sir Philip’s company?”
“Everell!” exclaimed Hope, in a tone that indicated surprise and wounded feeling.
“Pardon me, Miss Leslie.”
“Miss Leslie again! Everell, you are unkind; you but this moment promised you would speak to me as you were wont to do.”
“I would, Hope: my heart has but one language for you, but I dare not trust my lips. I may—I must now speak to you as a brother; and, before we part, let me address a caution to you which that sacred, and, thank God, permitted love, dictates. My own destiny is fixed—fixed by your act, Hope; Heaven forgive me for saying so. It is done. For myself, I can endure anything, but I could not live to see you the prey of a hollow-hearted adventurer.” The truth flashed on Hope: she was beloved—she loved again—and she had rashly dashed away the happiness within her grasp. Her head became dizzy; she stopped, and, gathering her veil over her face, leaned against a tree for support. Everell grievously misunderstood her agitation.
“Hope,” he said, with a faltering voice, “I have been slow to believe that you could thus throw away your heart. I tried to shut my eyes against that strange Saturday night’s walk—that mysterious, unexplained assignation with a stranger; knowing, as I did, that his addresses had received the governor’s full approbation—my father’s, my poor father’s reluctant assent, I still trusted that your pure heart would have revolted from his flatteries. I believe he is a heartless hypocrite. I would have told you so, but I was too proud to have my warning attributed, even for a moment, to the meanness of a jealous rival. I have been accused of seeking you from—” interested motives he would have added, but it seemed as if the words blistered his tongue; and he concluded, “It matters not now; now I may speak freely, without distrusting myself or being distrusted by others. Hope, you have cast away my earthly happiness; trifle not with your own.”
Hope perceived that events, conspiring with her own thoughtless conduct, had riveted Everell’s mistake; but it was now irremediable. There was no middle path between a passive submission to her fate and a full and now useless explanation. She was aware that plighted friendship and troth were staked on the resolution of the moment; and when Everell added, “Oh! I have been convinced against my will—against my hopes: what visions of possible felicity have you dispersed; what dreams—”
“Dreams—dreams all,” she exclaimed, interrupting him; and, throwing back her veil, she discovered her face drenched with tears. “Hark! they call you: let the past be forgotten; and for the future—the future, Everell—all possible felicity does await you if you are true to yourself—true to—” her voice faltered, but she articulated “Esther;” and, turning away, she escaped from his sight as she would have rushed from the brink of a precipice.
“Oh!” thought Everell, as his eye and heart followed her with the fervid feeling of love, “oh! that one who seems all angel should have so much of woman’s weakness!” While he lingered for a moment to subdue his emotion, and fit him to appear before Esther and less interested observers, Sir Philip joined him, apparently returning from the boat. “Your friends stay for you, sir,” he said, and passed on.
“Then he does remain with her,” concluded Everell; and the conviction was forced more strongly than ever on his mind, that Hope had lent a favourable ear to Sir Philip’s suit. “The illusion must be transient,” he thought; “vanity cannot have a lasting triumph over the noble sentiments of her pure heart.” This was the language of his affection; but we must confess that the ardour of his confidence was abated by Miss Leslie’s apparently wide departure from delicate reserve, in permitting (as he believed she had) her professed admirer to remain on the island with her.
He now hastened to the boat, in the hope that he should hear some explanation of this extraordinary arrangement; but no such consolation awaited him. On the contrary, he found it a subject of speculation to the whole party. Faithful Cradock expressed simple amazement. Mrs. Grafton was divided between her pleasure in the probable success of her secret wishes, and her consciousness of the obvious impropriety of her niece’s conduct; and her flurried and half-articulated efforts at explanation only served, like a feeble light, to make the darkness visible; and Esther’s downcast and tearful eye intimated her concern and mortification for her friend.
“The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—oh, and is all forgot?”
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
On quitting Everell, our heroine, quite unconscious that she was the subject of painful suspicion or affectionate anxiety, sought a sequestered spot, where she might indulge and tranquillize her feelings.
It has been said that the love of a brother and sister is the only platonic affection. This truth (if it be a truth) is the conviction of an experience far beyond our heroine’s. She had seen in Esther the pangs of repressed and unrequited love, and, mistaking them for the characteristic emotions of that sentiment, it was no wonder that she perceived no affinity to it in the joyous affection that had animated her own soul. “After a little while,” she said, “I shall feel as I did when we lived together in Bethel; if all that I love are happy, I must be happy too.” If the cold and selfish laugh to scorn what they think the reasoning of ignorance and inexperience, it is because they have never felt that to meditate the happiness of others is to enter upon the ministry and the joy of celestial spirits. Not one envious or repining thought intruded into the heaven of Hope Leslie’s mind. Not one malignant spirit passed the bounds of that paradise, that was filled with pure and tender affections, with projects of goodness, and all their cheerful train.
Hope was longer absorbed in her revery than perhaps was quite consistent with her philosophy; and when she was roused from it by Digby’s voice, she blushed from the consciousness that her thoughts had been too long withdrawn from the purpose of her visit to the island. Digby came to say that his wife’s supper-table was awaiting Miss Leslie. Hope embraced the opportunity, as they walked together towards his dwelling, to make her arrangements for the evening. “Digby,” she said, “I have something to confide to you, but you must ask me no questions.”
“That’s crossing human nature,” replied the good fellow; “but I think I can swim against the current for you, Miss Hope.”
“Thank you, Digby. Then, in the first place, you must know, I expect some friends to meet me here this evening; all that I ask of you is to permit me to remain out unmolested as long as I may choose. You may tell your wife that I like to stroll in the garden by moonlight, or to sit and listen to the waves breaking on the shore—as you know I do, Digby.”
“Yes, Miss Hope, I know your heart always linked into such things; but it will be heathen Greek to my wife—so you must make out a better reason for her.”
“Then tell her that I like to have my own way.”
“Ah, that will I,” replied Digby, chuckling; “that is what every woman can understand. I always said, Miss Hope, it was a pure mercy you chose the right way, for you always had yours.”
“Perhaps you think, Digby, I have been too headstrong in my own way.”
“Oh, no! my sweet mistress, no; why, this having our own way is what everybody likes; it’s the privilege we came to this wilderness world for; and though the gentles up in town there, with the governor at their head, hold a pretty tight rein, yet I can tell them that there are many who think what blunt Master Blackstone said, ‘That he came not away from the Lord’s-bishops to put himself under the Lord’s-brethren.’ No, no, Miss Hope, I watch the motions of the straws—I know which way the wind blows. Thought and will are set free. It was but the other day, so to speak—in the days of good Queen Bess, as they called her—when, if her majesty did but raise her hand, the Parliament folk were all down on their knees to her; and now, thank God, the poorest and the lowest of us only kneel to Him who made us. Times are changed—there is a new spirit in the world—chains are broken—fetters are knocked off—and the liberty set forth in the blessed Word is now felt to be every man’s birthright. But shame on my prating, that wags so fast when I might hear your nightingale voice.”
Hope’s mind was preoccupied, and she found it difficult to listen to Digby’s speculations with interest, or to respond with animation; but she was too benignant to lose herself in sullen abstraction; and, when they arrived at the cottage, she roused her faculties to amuse the children, and to listen to the mother’s stories of their promising smartness. She commended the good wife’s milk and cakes, and sat for half an hour after the table was removed, talking of the past, and brightening the future prospects of her good friends with predictions of their children’s prosperity and respectability: predictions which, Digby afterward said, the dear young lady’s bounty brought to pass.
Suddenly she sprang from her chair: “Digby,” she exclaimed, “I think the east is lighting up with the rising moon—is it not?”
“If it is not, it soon will,” replied Digby, understanding and favouring her purpose.
“Then,” said Hope, “I will take a walk round the island; and do not you, Betsy, sit up for me.” Betsy, of course, remonstrated. The night air was unwholesome; and, though the sky overhead was clear, yet she had heard distant thunder; the beach-birds had been in flocks on shore all the day; and the breakers on the east side of the island made a boding sound. These and other signs were urged as arguments against the unseasonable walk. Of course they were unheeded by our heroine, who, declaring that, with shelter so near, she was in no danger, muffled herself in her cloak and sallied forth. She bent her steps around the cliff which rises at the western extremity of the island, leaving at its base a few yards of flat, rocky shore, around which the waters of the bay sweep, deeply indenting it, and forming a natural cove or harbour for small boats. As Hope passed around a ledge of rocks, she fancied she saw a shadow cast by a figure that seemed flying before her. “They are here already,” she thought, and hastened forward, expecting to catch a glimpse of them as soon as she should turn the angle of the rock; but no figure appeared; and though Hope imagined she heard stones rattling, as if displaced by hurried steps, she was soon convinced the sound was accidental. Alive only to one expectation, she seated herself, without any apprehension, to await in this solitude the coming of her sister.
The moon rose unclouded, and sent her broad stream of light across the beautiful bay, kindling in her beams the islands that gemmed it, and disclosing, with a dim, indefinite light, the distant town, rising over this fair domain of sea and land: hills, heights, jutting points, and islands then unknown to fame, but now consecrated in domestic annals, and illustrious in the patriot’s story.
Whatever charms the scene might have presented to our heroine’s eye at another moment, she was now only conscious of one emotion of feverish impatience. She gazed and listened till her senses ached; and at last, when anticipation had nearly yielded to despair, her ear caught the dash of oars, and at the next moment a canoe glanced around the headland into the cove: she darted to the brink of the water—she gazed intently on the little bark; her whole soul was in that look. Her sister was there. At this first assurance that she really beheld this loved, lost sister, Hope uttered a scream of joy; but when, at a second glance, she saw her in her savage attire, fondly leaning on Oneco’s shoulder, her heart died within her; a sickening feeling came over her—an unthought of revolting of nature; and, instead of obeying the first impulse, and springing forward to clasp her in her arms, she retreated to the cliff, leaned her head against it, averted her eyes, and pressed her hands on her heart, as if she would have bound down her rebel feelings.
Magawisca’s voice aroused her. “Hope Leslie,” she said, “take thy sister’s hand.”
Hope stretched out her hand without lifting her eyes; but when she felt her sister’s touch, the energies of nature awoke; she threw her arms around her, folded her to her bosom, laid her cheek on hers, and wept as if her heart would burst in every sob.
Mary (we use the appellative by which Hope had known her sister) remained passive in her arms. Her eye was moistened, but she seemed rather abashed and confounded than excited; and when Hope released her, she turned towards Oneco with a look of simple wonder. Hope again threw her arm around her sister, and intently explored her face for some trace of those infantine features that were impressed on her memory. “It is—it is my sister!” she exclaimed, and kissed her cheek again and again. “Oh, Mary! do you not remember when we sat together on mother’s knee? Do you not remember when, with her own burning hand, the very day she died, she put those chains on our necks? Do you not remember when they held us up to kiss her cold lips?” Mary looked towards Magawisca for an explanation of her sister’s words. “Look at me, Mary; speak to me,” continued Hope.
“No speak Yengees,” replied Mary, exhausting in this brief sentence all the English she could command.
Hope, in the impetuosity of her feelings, had forgotten that Magawisca had forewarned her not to indulge the expectation that her sister could speak to her; and the melancholy truth, announced by her own lips, seemed to Hope to open a new and impassable gulf between them. She wrung her hands: “Oh, what shall I do? what shall I say?” she exclaimed.
Magawisca now advanced to her, and said, in a compassionate tone, “Let me be thy interpreter, Hope Leslie, and be thou more calm. Dost thou not see thy sister is to thee as the feather borne on the torrent?”
“I will be more calm, Magawisca; but promise me you will interpret truly for me.”
A blush of offended pride overspread Magawisca’s cheek. “We hold truth to be the health of the soul,” she said: “thou mayst speak, maiden, without fear that I will abate one of thy words.”
“Oh, I fear nothing wrong from you, Magawisca; forgive me—forgive me—I know not what I say or do.” She drew her sister to a rock, and they sat down together. Hope knew not how to address one so near to her by nature, so far removed by habit and education. She thought that if Mary’s dress, which was singularly and gaudily decorated, had a less savage aspect, she might look more natural to her; and she signed to her to remove the mantle she wore, made of birds’ feathers, woven together with threads of the wild nettle. Mary threw it aside, and disclosed her person, light and agile as a fawn’s, clothed with skins, neatly fitted to her waist and arms, and ambitiously embellished with embroidery in porcupine’s quills and beads. The removal of the mantle, instead of the effect designed, only served to make more striking the aboriginal peculiarities; and Hope, shuddering and heart-sick, made one more effort to disguise them by taking off her silk cloak and wrapping it close around her sister. Mary seemed instantly to comprehend the language of the action; she shook her head, gently disengaged herself from the cloak, and resumed her mantle. An involuntary exclamation of triumph burst from Oneco’s lips. “Oh, tell her,” said Hope to Magawisca, “that I want once more to see her in the dress of her own people—of her own family—from whose arms she was torn to be dragged into captivity.”
A faint smile curled Magawisca’s lip, but she interpreted faithfully Hope’s communication and Mary’s reply: “ ‘She does not like the English dress,’ she says.”
“Ask her,” said Hope, “if she remembers the day when the wild Indians sprung upon the family at Bethel like wolves upon a fold of lambs? If she remembers when Mrs. Fletcher and her innocent little ones were murdered, and she stolen away?”
“She says ‘she remembers it well, for then it was Oneco saved her life.’ ”
Hope groaned aloud. “Ask her,” she continued, with unabated eagerness, “if she remembers when we played together, and read together, and knelt together at our mother’s feet; when she told us of the God that made us, and the Saviour that redeemed us?”
“She remembers something of all this, but she says ‘it is faint and distant, like the vanishing vapour on the far-off mountain.’ ”
“Oh, tell her, Magawisca, if she will come home and live with me, I will devote my life to her. I will watch over her in sickness and health. I will be mother—sister—friend to her: tell her that our mother, now a saint in heaven, stoops from her happy place to entreat her to return to our God and our father’s God.”
Mary shook her head in a manner indicative of a more determined feeling than she had before manifested, and took from her bosom a crucifix, which she fervently pressed to her lips.
Every motive Hope offered was powerless, every mode of entreaty useless, and she leaned her head despondently on Mary’s shoulder. The contrast between the two faces thus brought together was most striking. Hope’s hat had slipped back, and her rich brown tresses fell about her neck and face; her full eye was intently fixed on Mary, and her cheek glowing with impassioned feeling, she looked like an angel touched with some mortal misery; while Mary’s face, pale and spiritless, was only redeemed from absolute vacancy by an expression of gentleness and modesty. Hope’s hand was lying on her sister’s lap, and a brilliant diamond ring caught Mary’s attention. Hope perceived this, and instantly drew it from her own finger and placed it on Mary’s; “and here is another—and another—and another,” she cried, making the same transfer of all her rings. “Tell her, Magawisca, if she will come home with me, she shall be decked with jewels from head to foot; she shall have feathers from the most beautiful birds that wing the air, and flowers that never fade: tell her that all I possess shall be hers.”
“Shall I tell her so?” asked Magawisca, with a mingled expression of contempt and concern, as if she herself despised the lure, but feared that Mary might be caught by it; for the pleased girl was holding her hand before her, turning it, and gazing with childlike delight on the gems, as they caught and reflected the moonbeams. “Shall I ask your sister to barter truth and love—the jewels of the soul, that grow brighter and brighter in the land of spirits—for these poor perishing trifles? Oh, Hope Leslie, I had better thoughts of thee.”
“I cannot help it, Magawisca; I am driven to try every way to win back my sister: tell her, I entreat you, tell her what I have said.”
Magawisca faithfully repeated all the motives Hope had urged, while Hope herself clasped her sister’s hand, and looked in her face with a mute supplication more earnest than words could express. Mary hesitated, and her eye turned quickly to Oneco, to Magawisca, and then again rested on her sister. Hope felt her hand tremble in hers; Mary, for the first time, bent towards her, and laid her cheek to Hope’s. Hope uttered a scream of delight: “Oh, she does not refuse; she will stay with me,” she exclaimed. Mary understood the exclamation, and suddenly recoiled, and hastily drew the rings from her fingers. “Keep them—keep them,” said Hope, bursting into tears; “if we must be cruelly parted again, they will sometimes speak to you of me.”
At this moment a bright light, as of burning flax, flamed up from the cliff before them, threw a momentary flash over the water, and then disappeared. Oneco rose: “I like not this light,” he said; “we must be gone; we have redeemed our promise;” and he took Hope’s cloak from the ground, and gave it to her as a signal that the moment of separation had arrived.
“Oh, stay one moment longer,” cried Hope. Oneco pointed to the heavens, over which black and threatening clouds were rapidly gathering, and Magawisca said, “Do not ask us to delay; my father has waited long enough.” Hope now, for the first time, observed there was an Indian in the canoe, wrapped in skins, and listlessly awaiting, in a recumbent position, the termination of the scene.
“Is that Mononotto?” she said, shuddering at the thought of the bloody scenes with which he was associated in her mind; but, before her inquiry was answered, the subject of it sprang to his feet, and uttering an exclamation of surprise, stretched his hand towards the town. All at once perceived the object towards which he pointed. A bright strong light streamed upward from the highest point of land, and sent a ruddy glow over the bay. Every eye turned inquiringly to Hope. “It is nothing,” she said to Magawisca, “but the light that is often kindled on Beacon Hill to guide the ships into the harbour. The night is becoming dark, and some vessel is expected in; that is all, believe me.”
Whatever trust her visiters might have reposed in Hope’s good faith, they were evidently alarmed by an appearance which they did not think sufficiently accounted for; and Oneco hearing, or imagining he heard, approaching oars, said, in his own language, to Magawisca, “We have no time to lose; I will not permit my white bird to remain any longer within reach of the net.”
Magawisca assented: “We must go,” she said; “we must no longer hazard our father’s life.” Oneco sprang into the canoe, and called to Mary to follow him.
“Oh, spare her one single moment!” said Hope, imploringly, to Magawisca; and she drew her a few paces from the shore, and knelt down with her, and, in a half articulate prayer, expressed the tenderness and sorrow of her soul, and committed her sister to God. Mary understood her action, and feeling that their separation was forever, nature for a moment asserted her rights; she returned Hope’s embrace, and wept on her bosom.
While the sisters were thus folded in one another’s arms, a loud yell burst from the savages; Magawisca caught Mary by the arms, and Hope, turning, perceived that a boat filled with armed men had passed the projecting point of land, and, borne in by the tide, it instantly touched the beach, and in another instant Magawisca and Mary were prisoners. Hope saw the men were in the uniform of the governor’s guard. One moment before she would have given worlds to have had her sister in her power; but now, the first impulse of her generous spirit was an abhorrence of her seeming treachery to her friends. “Oh! Oneco,” she cried, springing towards the canoe, “I did not—indeed I did not know of it.” She had scarcely uttered the words, which fell from her neither understood nor heeded, when Oneco caught her in his arms, and shouting to Magawisca to tell the English that, as they dealt by Mary, so would he deal by her sister, he gave the canoe the first impulse, and it shot out like an arrow, distancing and defying pursuit.
Oneco’s coup-de-main seemed to petrify all present. They were roused by Sir Philip Gardiner, who, coming round the base of the cliff, appeared among them; and, learning the cause of their amazement, he ordered them, with a burst of passionate exclamation, instantly to man the boat, and proceed with him in pursuit. This one and all refused. “Daylight and calm water,” they said, “would be necessary to give any hope to such a pursuit, and the storm was now gathering so fast as to render it dangerous to venture out at all.”
Sir Philip endeavoured to alarm them with threats of the governor’s displeasure, and to persuade them with offers of high reward; but they understood too well the danger and hopelessness of the attempt to risk it, and they remained inexorable. Sir Philip then went in quest of Digby, and at the distance of a few paces met him. Alarmed by the rapid approach of the storm, he was seeking Miss Leslie; when he learned her fate from Sir Philip’s hurried communication, he uttered a cry of despair. “Oh! I would go after her,” he said, “if I had but a cockle-shell; but it seems as if the foul fiends were at work: my boat was this morning sent to town to be repaired. And yet, what could we do?” He added, shuddering, “The wind is rising to that degree, that I think no boat could live in the bay; and it is getting as dark as Egypt. O God, save my precious young lady! God have mercy on her!” he continued. A sudden burst of thunder heightened his alarm: “Man can do nothing for her. Why, in the name of Heaven,” he added, with a natural desire to appropriate the blame of misfortune, “why must they be forever meddling; why not let the sisters meet and part in peace?”
“Oh, why not?” thought Sir Philip, who would have given his right hand to have retraced the steps that had led to this most unlooked-for and unhappy issue of the affair. They were now joined by the guard with their prisoners. Digby was requested to lead them instantly to a shelter. He did so; and, agitated as he was with fear and despair for Miss Leslie, he did not fail to greet Magawisca as one to whom all honour was due. She heeded him not; she seemed scarcely conscious of the cries of Faith Leslie, who was weeping like a child, and clinging to her. The treachery that had betrayed her rapt her soul in indignation, and nothing roused her but the blasts of wind and flashes of lightning, that seemed to her the death-knell of her father.
The storm continued for the space of an hour, and then died away as suddenly as it had gathered. In another hour the guard had safely landed at the wharf, and were conveying their prisoners to the governor. He and his confidential counsellors, who had been awaiting at his house the return of their emissaries, solaced themselves with the belief that all parties were safely sheltered on the island, and probably would remain there during the night. While they were whispering this conclusion to one another at one extremity of the parlour, Everell sat beside Miss Downing in the recess of a window that overlooked the garden. The huge projecting chimney formed a convenient screen for the lovers. The evening was warm, the window-sash thrown up. The moon had come forth, and shed a mild lustre through the dewy atmosphere; the very light that the young and sentimental, and, above all, young and sentimental lovers, most delight in. But in vain did Everell look abroad for inspiration; in vain did he turn his eyes to Esther’s face, now more beautiful than ever, flushed as it was with the first dawn of happiness; in vain did he try to recall his truant thoughts, to answer words to her timid but bright glances; he would not, he could not say what he did not feel, and the few sentences he uttered fell on his own ear like cold abstractions. While he was in this durance, his father was listening—if a man stretched on a rack can be said to listen—to Madam Winthrop’s whispered and reiterated assurances of her entire approbation of her niece’s choice.
This was the position of all parties, when a bustle was heard in the court, and the guard entered. The foremost advanced to the governor, and communicated a few sentences in a low tone. The governor manifested unusual emotion, turned round suddenly, and exclaimed, “Here, Mr. Fletcher—Everell;” and then motioning to them to keep their places, he said, in an under voice, to those near to him, “We must first dispose of our prisoner: come forward, Magawisca.”
“Magawisca!” echoed Everell, springing at one bound into the hall. But Magawisca shrunk back and averted her face. “Now God be praised!” he exclaimed, as he caught the first glance of a form never to be forgotten; “it is—it is Magawisca!” She did not speak, but drew away, and leaned her head against the wall. “What means this?” he said, now for the first time espying Faith Leslie, and then looking round on the guard; “what means it, sir?” he demanded, turning somewhat imperiously to the governor.
“It means, sir,” replied the governor, coldly, “that this Indian woman is the prisoner of the Commonwealth.”
“It means that I am a prisoner, lured to the net, and betrayed.”
“You a prisoner—here, Magawisca!” Everell exclaimed. “Impossible! Justice, gratitude, humanity forbid it. My father—Governor Winthrop, you will not surely suffer this outrage?”
The elder Fletcher had advanced, and, scarcely less perplexed and agitated than his son, was endeavouring to draw forth Faith Leslie, who had shrunk behind Magawisca. Governor Winthrop seemed not at all pleased with Everell’s interference. “You will do well, young Mr. Fletcher, to bridle your zeal; private feelings must yield to the public good: this young woman is suspected of being an active agent in brewing the conspiracy forming against us among the Indian tribes; and it is somewhat bold in you to oppose the course of justice—to intermeddle with the public welfare—to lift your feeble judgment against the wisdom of Providence, which has led, by peculiar means, to the apprehension of the enemy. Conduct your prisoner to the jail,” he added, turning to the guard, “and bid Barnaby have her in close and safe keeping till farther orders.”
“For the love of God, sir,” cried Everell, “do not this injustice. At least suffer her to remain in your own house, on her promise—more secure than the walls of a prison.” Governor Winthrop only replied by signing to the guards to proceed to their duty.
“Stay one moment,” exclaimed Everell; “permit her, I beseech you, to remain here; place her in any one of your apartments, and I will remain before it, a faithful warder, night and day. But do not—do not, I beseech you—sully your honour by committing this noble creature to your jail.”
“Listen to my son, I entreat you,” said the elder Fletcher, unable any longer to restrain his own feelings; “certainly we owe much to this woman.”
“You owe much, undoubtedly,” replied the governor; “but it yet remains to be proved, my friend, that your son’s redeemed life is to be put in the balance against the public weal.”
Esther, who had observed the scene with an intense interest, now overcame her timidity so far as to penetrate the circle that surrounded the governor, and to attempt to enforce Everell’s prayer. “May not Magawisca,” she said, “share our apartment—Hope’s and mine? She will then, in safe custody, await your farther pleasure.”
“Thanks, Esther—thanks,” cried Everell, with an animation that would have rewarded a far more difficult effort: but all efforts were unavailing, but not useless; for Magawisca said to Everell, “You have sent light into my darkened soul—you have truth and gratitude; and for the rest, they are but what I deemed them. Send me,” she continued, proudly turning to the governor, “to your dungeon; all places are alike to me while I am your prisoner; but, for the sake of Everell Fletcher, let me tell you, that she who is dearer to him than his own soul, if, indeed, she has lived out the perils of this night, must answer for my safe keeping.”
“Hope Leslie!” exclaimed Everell; “what has happened? What do you mean, Magawisca?”
“She was the decoy bird,” replied Magawisca, calmly; “and she, too, is caught in the net.”
“Explain, I beseech you!” The governor answered Everell’s appeal by a brief explanation. A bustle ensued: every other feeling was now lost in concern for Hope Leslie; and Magawisca was separated from her weeping and frightened companion, and conducted away without farther opposition; while the two Fletchers, as if life and death hung on every instant, were calling on the governor to aid them in the way and means of pursuit.
“But oh! that hapless virgin, our lost sister,
Where may she wander now, whither betake her?”
Comus.
Hope Leslie, on being forced into the canoe, sunk down, overpowered with terror and despair. She was roused from this state by Oneco’s loud and vehement appeals to his father, who only replied by a low, inarticulate murmur, which seemed rather an involuntary emission of his own feelings than a response to Oneco. She understood nothing but the name of Magawisca, which he often repeated, and always with a burst of vindictive feeling, as if every other emotion were lost in wrath at the treachery that had wrested her from him. As the apparent contriver and active agent in this plot, Hope felt that she must be the object of detestation and the victim of vengeance, and all that she had heard or imagined of Indian cruelties was present to her imagination; and every savage passion seemed to her to be imbodied in the figure of the old chief, when she saw his convulsed frame and features, illuminated by the fearful lightning that flashed athwart him. “It is possible,” she thought, “that Oneco may understand me;” and to him she protested her innocence, and vehemently besought his compassion. Oneco was not of a cruel nature, nor was he disposed to inflict unnecessary suffering on the sister of his wife; but he was determined to retain so valuable a hostage, and his heart was steeled against her by his conviction that she had been a party to the wrong done him; he therefore turned a deaf ear to her entreaties, which her supplicating voice and gestures rendered intelligible, though he had nearly forgotten her language. He made no reply by word or sign, but continued to urge on his little bark with all his might, redoubling his vigorous strokes as the fury of the storm increased.
Hope cast a despairing eye on her receding home, which she could still mark through the murky atmosphere by the lurid flame that blazed on Beacon Hill. Friends were on every side of her, and yet no human help could reach her. She saw the faint light that gleamed from Digby’s cottage window, and, on the other hand, the dim ray that, struggling through the misty atmosphere, proceeded from the watch-tower on Castle Island. Between these lights from opposite islands, she was passing down the channel, and she inferred that Oneco’s design was to escape out of the harbour. But Heaven seemed determined to frustrate his purpose, and to show her how idle were all human hopes and fears, how vain “to cast the fashion of uncertain evils.”
The wind rose, and the darkness deepened at every moment, the occasional flashes of lightning only serving to make it more intense. Oneco tasked his skill to the utmost to guide the canoe; he strained every nerve, till, exhausted by useless efforts, he dropped his oars, and awaited his resistless fate. The sublime powers of nature had no terrors for Mononotto. There was something awe-striking in the fixed, unyielding attitude of the old man, who sat as if he were carved in stone, while the blasts swept by him, and the lightnings played over him. There are few who have not, at some period of their lives, lost their consciousness of individuality—their sense of this shrinking, tremulous, sensitive being, in the dread magnificence, the “holy mystery” of nature.
Hope, even in her present extremity, forgot her fear and danger in the sublimity of the storm. When the wild flashes wrapped the bay in light, and revealed to sight the little bark leaping over the “yesty waves;” the stern figure of the old man, the graceful form of Oneco, and Hope Leslie, her eye upraised with an instinctive exaltation of feeling, she might have been taken for some bright vision from another sphere, sent to conduct her dark companions through the last tempestuous passage of life. But the triumphs of her spirit were transient; mortal danger pressed on life. A thunderbolt burst over their heads. Hope was, for a moment, stunned. The next flash showed the old man struck down senseless. Oneco shrieked, raised the lifeless body in his arms, laid his ear to the still bosom, and chafed the breast and limbs. While he was thus striving to bring back life, the storm abated; the moonbeams struggled through the parting clouds, and the canoe, driven at the mercy of the wind and tide, neared a little island, and drifted on the beach. Oneco leaped out, dragged his father’s lifeless body to the turf, and renewed and redoubled his efforts to restore him; and Hope, moved by an involuntary sympathy with the distress of his child, stooped down and chafed the old man’s palms. Either from despair, or an impulse of awakened hope, Oneco suddenly uttered an exclamation, stretched himself on the body, and locked his arms around it. Hope rose to her feet, and, seeing Mononotto unconscious, and Oneco entirely absorbed in his own painful anxieties and efforts, the thought occurred to her that she might escape from her captors.
She looked at the little bark: her strength, small as it was, might avail to launch it again; and she might trust the same Providence that had just delivered her from peril, to guide her in safety over the still turbulent waters. But a danger just escaped is more fearful than one untried; and she shrunk from adventuring alone on the powerful element. The island might be inhabited. If she could gain a few moments before she was missed by Oneco, it was possible she might find protection and safety. She did not stop to deliberate; but, casting one glance at the brightening heavens, and ejaculating a prayer for aid, and ascertaining by one look at Oneco that he did not observe her, she bounded away. She fancied she heard steps pursuing her; but she pressed on, without once looking back or faltering, till she reached a slight elevation, whence she perceived, at no great distance from her, a light placed on the ground, and, on approaching a little nearer, saw a man lying beside it, and, at a few paces from him, several others stretched on the grass, and, as she thought, sleeping. She now advanced cautiously and timidly till she was near enough to conclude that they were a company of sailors, who had been indulging in a lawless revel. Such, in truth, they were; the crew belonging to the vessel of the notorious Chaddock. The disorders of both master and men had given such offence to the sober citizens of Boston, that they had been prohibited from entering the town; and the men having been, on this occasion, allowed by their captain to indulge in a revel on land, they had betaken themselves to an uninhabited island, where they might give the reins to their excesses without dread of restraint or penalty. As they now appeared to the eye of our heroine, they formed a group from which a painter might have sketched the orgies of Bacchus.
Fragments of a coarse feast were strewn about them, and the ground was covered with wrecks of jugs, bottles, and mugs. Some of them had thrown off their coats and neckcloths in the heat of the day, and had lain with their throats and bosoms bared to the storm, of which they had been unconscious. Others, probably less inebriated, had been disturbed by the vivid flashes of lightning, and had turned their faces to the earth. While Hope shuddered at the sight of these brutalized wretches, and thought any fate would be better than
“To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers,”
one of them awoke and looked up at her. He had but imperfectly recovered his senses, and he perceived her but faintly and indistinctly, as one sees an object through mist. Hope stood near him, but she stood perfectly still; for she knew, from his imbecile smile and half-articulated words, that she had nothing to fear. He laid his hand on the border of her cloak, and muttered, “St. George’s colours—Dutch flag—no, d—n me, Hanse, I say—St. George’s—St. George’s—nail them to the masthead—I say, Hanse, St. George’s—St. George’s—” and then his words died away on his tongue, and he laughed in his throat as one laughs in his sleep.
While Hope hesitated for an instant whether again to expose herself to the thraldom from which she had with such joy escaped, one of the other men, either aroused by his companion’s voice, or having outslept the fumes of the liquor, started up, and, on perceiving her, rubbed his eyes, and stared as if he doubted whether she were a vision or a reality. Hope’s first impulse was to fly; but, though confused and alarmed, she was aware that escape would be impossible if he chose to pursue, and that her only alternative was to solicit his compassion.
“Friend,” she said, in a fearful, tremulous voice, “I come to beg your aid.”
“By the Lord Harry, she speaks!” exclaimed the fellow, interrupting her; “she is a woman: wake, boys, wake!”
The men were now roused from their slumbers: some rose to their feet, and all stared stupidly, not one, save him first awakened, having the perfect command of his senses. “If ye have the soul of a man,” said Hope, imploringly, “protect me—convey me to Boston. Any reward that you will ask or take shall be given to you.”
“There’s no reward could pay for you, honey,” replied the fellow, advancing towards her.
“In the name of God, hear me!” she cried; but the man continued to approach, with a horrid leer on his face. “Then save me, Heaven!” she screamed, and rushed towards the water. The wretch was daunted; he paused but for an instant, then calling on his comrades to join him, they all, hooting and shouting, pursued her.
Hope now felt that death was her only deliverance; if she could but reach the waves that she saw heaving and breaking on the shore—if she could but bury herself beneath them! But, though she flew as if she were borne on the wings of the wind, her pursuers gained on her. The foremost was so near that she expected at every breath his hand would grasp her, when his foot stumbled, and he fell headlong, and as he fell he snatched her cloak. By a desperate effort she extricated herself from his hold, and again darted forward. She heard him vociferate curses, and understood he was unable to rise. She cast one fearful glance behind her: she had gained on the horrid crew. “Oh! I may escape them,” she thought; and she pressed on with as much eagerness to cast away life as ever was felt to save it. As she drew near the water’s edge, she perceived a boat attached to an upright post that had been driven into the earth at the extremity of a narrow stone pier. A thought like inspiration flashed into her mind; she ran to the end of the pier, leaped into the boat, uncoiled the rope that attached it to the post, and, seizing an oar, pushed it off. There was a strong tide; and the boat, as if instinct with life, and obedient to her necessities, floated rapidly from the shore. Her pursuers had now reached the water’s edge, and, finding themselves foiled, some vented their spite in jeers and hoarse laughs, and others in loud and bitter curses. Hope felt that Heaven had interposed for her; and, sinking on her knees, she clasped her hands, and breathed forth her soul in fervent thanksgivings. While she was thus absorbed, a man who had been lying in the bottom of the boat unobserved by her, and covered by various outer garments, which he had so disposed as to shelter himself from the storm, lifted up his head, and looked at her with mute amazement. He was an Italian, and belonged to the same ship’s company with the revellers on the shore; but, not inclining to their excesses, and thinking, on the approach of the storm, that some judgment was about to overtake them, he had returned to the boat, and sheltered himself there as well as he was able. When the tempest abated he had fallen asleep, his imagination probably in an excited state; and, on awaking, and seeing Hope in an attitude of devotion, he very naturally mistook her for a celestial visitant. In truth, she scarcely looked like a being of this earth: her hat and gloves were gone; her hair fell in graceful disorder about her neck and shoulders, and her white dress and blue silk mantle had a saintlike simplicity. The agitating chances of the evening had scarcely left the hue of life on her cheek, and her deep sense of the presence and favour of Heaven heightened her natural beauty with a touch of religious inspiration.
“Hail, blessed Virgin Mary!” cried the Catholic Italian, bending low before her, and crossing himself; “Queen of Heaven! Gate of Paradise! and Lady of the World! O most clement, most pious, and most sweet Virgin Mary! bless thy sinful servant.” He spoke in his native tongue, of which Hope fortunately knew enough to comprehend him, and to frame a phrase in return. The earnestness of his countenance was a sure pledge of his sincerity, and Hope was half inclined to turn his superstition to her advantage; but his devotion approached so near to worship that she dared not; and she said, with the intention of dissipating his illusion, “I am not, my friend, what you imagine me to be.”
“Thou art not—thou art not—holy Queen of Virgins and of all heavenly citizens: then, most gracious lady, which of all the martyrs and saints of our holy Church art thou? Santa Catharina of Siena, the blessed bride of a holy marriage?” Hope shook her head. “Santa Helena, then, in whose church I was first signed with holy water? Nay, thou art not? then art thou Santa Bibiana? or Santa Rosa? Thy beauteous hair is like that sacred lock over the altar of Santa Croce.”
“I am not any of these,” said Hope, with a smile, which the Catholic’s pious zeal extorted from her.
“Thou smilest!” he cried, exultingly; “thou art, then, my own peculiar saint, the blessed Lady Petronilla. O holy martyr! spotless mirror of purity!” and again he knelt at her feet and crossed himself. “My life! my sweetness! and my hope! to thee do I cry, a poor banished son of Eve: what wouldst thou have thy dedicated servant, Antonio Batista, to do, that thou hast, O glorious lady! followed him from our own sweet Italy to this land of heathen savages and heretic English?”
This invocation was long enough to allow our heroine time to make up her mind as to the course she should pursue with her votary. She had recoiled from the impiety of appropriating his address to the Holy Mother; but, Protestant as she was, she unhesitatingly identified herself with a Catholic saint. “Good Antonio,” she said, “I am well pleased to find thee faithful, as thou hast proved thyself by withdrawing from thy vile comrades. To take part in their excesses would but endanger thine eternal welfare: bear this in mind. Now, honest Antonio, I will put honour on thee; thou shalt do me good service. Take those oars, and ply them well till we reach yon town, where I have an errand that must be done.”