“O most blessed lady! sacred martyr, and sister of mercy! who, entering into the heavenly palace, didst fill the holy angels with joy, and men with hope, I obey thee,” he said; and then, taking from his bosom a small ivory box, in which, on opening it, there appeared to be a shred of linen cloth, he added, “but first, most gracious lady, vouchsafe to bless this holy relic, taken from the linen in which thy body was enfolded, when, after it had lain a thousand years in the grave, it was raised therefrom fresh and beautiful, as it now appeareth to me.”
Our saint could not forbear a smile at this startling fact in her history; but she prudently took the box, and, unclasping a bracelet from her arm, which was fastened by a small diamond cross, she added it to the relic, whose value, though less obvious, could not be exceeded in Antonio’s estimation. “I give thee this,” she said, “Antonio, for thy spiritual and temporal necessities; and, shouldst thou ever be in extreme need, I permit thee to give it into the hand of some cunning artificer, who will extract the diamonds for thee without marring the form of the blessed cross.” Antonio received the box as if it contained the freedom of Paradise; and, replacing it in his bosom, he crossed himself again and again, repeating his invocations till his saint, apprehensive that, in his ecstasy, he would lose all remembrance of the high office for which she had selected him, gently reminded him that it was the duty of the faithful to pass promptly from devotion to obedience; on this hint he rose, took up the oars, and exercised his strength and skill with such exemplary fidelity, that in less than two hours his boat touched the pier which Hope designated as the point where she would disembark.
Before she parted from her votary, she said, “I give thee my blessings and my thanks, Antonio; and I enjoin thee to say naught to thy wicked comrades of my visitation to thee; they would but jeer thee, and wound thy spirit by making thy lady their profane jest. Reserve the tale, Antonio, for the ears of the faithful, who marvel not at miracles.”
Antonio bowed in token of obedience, and, as long as Hope saw him, he remained in an attitude of profound homage.
Our heroine’s elastic spirit, ever ready to rise when pressure was removed, had enabled her to sustain her extempore character with some animation; but, as soon as she had parted from Antonio, and was no longer stimulated to exertion by the fear that his illusion might be prematurely dissipated, she felt that her strength had been overtaxed by the strange accidents and various perils of the evening. Her garments were wet and heavy, and at every step she feared another would be impossible. Her head became giddy, and faintness and weariness, to her new and strange sensations, seemed to drag her to the earth. She looked and listened in vain for some being to call to her assistance: the streets were empty and silent; and, unable to proceed, she sunk down on the steps of a warehouse, shut her eyes, and laid down her head to still its throbbings.
She had not remained thus many minutes, when she was startled by a voice saying, “Ha! lady, dost thou too wander alone? Is thy cheek pale—thy head sick—thy heart fluttering? Yet thou art not guilty nor forsaken!”
Hope looked up, and perceived she was addressed by Sir Philip Gardiner’s page. She had repeatedly seen him since their first meeting; but, occupied as she had been with objects of intense interest to her, she thought not of their first singular interview, excepting when it was recalled by the supposed boy’s keen, and, as she fancied, angry glances. They seemed involuntary; for when his eye met hers, he withdrew it, and his cheek was dyed with blushes. There was now a thrilling melancholy in his tone; his eye was dim and sunken; and his apparel, usually elaborate, and somewhat fantastical, had a neglected air. His vest was open; his lace ruff, which was ordinarily arranged with a care that betrayed his consciousness how much it graced his fair, delicate throat, had now been forgotten, and the feathers of his little Spanish hat dangled over his face.
Hope Leslie was in no condition to note these particulars; but she was struck with his haggard and wretched appearance, and was alarmed when she saw him lay his hand on the hilt of a dagger that gleamed from beneath the folds of his vest.
“Do not shrink, lady,” he said; “the pure should not fear death, and I am sure the guilty need not dread it: there is nothing worse for them than they may feel walking on the fair earth, with the lights of Heaven shining on them. I had this dagger of my master, and I think,” he added, with a convulsive sob, “he would not be sorry if I used it to rid him of his troublesome page.”
“Why do you not leave your master, if he is of this fiendish disposition towards you?” asked Hope: “leave him, and return to your friends.”
“Friends! friends!” he exclaimed; “the rich—the good—the happy—those born in honour have friends. I have not a friend in the wide world.”
“Poor soul!” said Hope, losing every other thought in compassion for the poor boy; and some notion of his real character and relation to Sir Philip darting into her mind, “Then leave this wretched man, and trust thyself to Heaven.”
“I am forsaken of Heaven, lady.”
“That cannot be. God never forsakes his creatures: the miserable, the guilty, from whom every face is turned away, may still go to him, and find forgiveness and peace. His compassions never fail.”
“Yes; but the guilty must forsake their sinful thoughts, and I cannot. My heart is steeped in this guilty love. If my master but looks kindly on me, or speaks one gentle word to me, I again cling to my chains and fetters.”
“Oh, this is indeed foolish and sinful; how can you love him whom you confess to be so unworthy?”
“We must love something,” replied the boy, in a faint voice, his head sinking on his bosom. “My master did love me, and nobody else ever loved me. I never knew a mother’s smile, lady, nor felt her tears. I never heard a father’s voice; and do you think it so very strange that I should cling to him who was the first, the only one that ever loved me?” He paused for a moment, and looked eagerly on Hope, as if for some word of encouragement; but she made no reply, and he burst into a passionate flood of tears, and wrung his hands, saying, “Oh, yes, it is—I know it is foolish and sinful, and I try to be penitent. I say my paternosters,” he added, taking a rosary from his bosom, “and my ave-marias, but I get no heart’s ease; and by times my head is wild, and I have horrid thoughts. I have hated you, lady—you, who look so like an angel of pity on me; and this very day, when I saw Sir Philip hand you into the boat, and saw you sail away with him over the bright water so gay and laughing, I could have plunged this dagger into your bosom; and I made a solemn vow that you should not live to take the place of honour beside my master, while I was cast away a worthless being.”
“These are indeed useless vows and idle thoughts,” said Hope. “I cannot longer listen to you now, for I am very sick and weary; but do not grieve thus; come to me to-morrow, and tell me all your sorrows, and be guided by me.”
“Oh, not to-morrow!” exclaimed the boy, grasping her gown as she rose to depart; “not to-morrow; I hate the light of day; I cannot go to that great house; I have no longer courage to meet the looks of the happy, and answer their idle questions: stay now, lady, for the love of Heaven! my story is short.”
Hope had no longer the power of deliberation; she did not even hear the last entreaty. At the first movement she made, the sensation of giddiness returned, every object seemed to swim before her, and she sunk, fainting, into Roslin’s arms. The page had now an opportunity to gratify his vindictive passions, if he had any; but his mad jealousy was a transient excitement of disordered passion, and soon gave way to the spontaneous emotions of a gentle and tender nature. He carefully sustained his burden, and while he pressed his lips to Hope’s cold brow, with an undefinable sensation of joy that he might thus approach angelic purity, he listened eagerly to the sound of footsteps, and, as they came nearer, he recognised the two Fletchers, with a company of gentlemen, guards, and sailors, whom, with the governor’s assistance, they had hastily collected to go in pursuit of our heroine.
Everell was the first to perceive her. He sprang towards her, and when he saw her colourless face and lifeless body, he uttered an exclamation of horror. All now gathered about her, listening eagerly to Roslin’s assurance that she had just fainted, complaining of sickness and extreme weariness. He, as our readers well know, could give no farther explanation of the state in which Miss Leslie was found; indeed, her friends scarcely waited for any. Everell wrapped her in his cloak, and, assisted by his father, carried her in his arms to the nearest habitation, whence she was conveyed, as soon as a carriage could be obtained, to Governor Winthrop’s.
“He that questions whether God made the world, the Indian will teach him. I must acknowledge I have received, in my converse with them, many confirmations of those two great points: first, that ‘God is;’ second, ‘that he is a rewarder of all them that diligently serve him.’ ”—Roger Williams.
Our readers’ sagacity has probably enabled them to penetrate the slight mystery in which the circumstances that led to the apprehension of Magawisca have been shrouded. Sir Philip Gardiner, after attending Mrs. Grafton home on the Saturday night, memorable in the history of our heroine, saw her enter the burial-place. Partly moved by his desire to ascertain whether there was any cause for her running away from him that might sooth his vanity, and partly, no doubt, by an irresistible attraction towards her, he followed at a prudent distance till he saw her meeting with Magawisca; he then secreted himself in the thicket of evergreens, where he was near enough to hear and observe all that passed; and where, as may be remembered, he narrowly escaped being exposed by his dog.
Sir Philip had heard the rumour of a conspiracy among the natives; and when he saw Magawisca’s extreme anxiety to secure a clandestine interview with Miss Leslie, the probable reason for her secrecy at once occurred to him. If he conjectured rightly, he was in possession of a secret that might be of value to the state, and, of course, be made the means of advancing him in the favour of the governor. But might he not risk incurring Miss Leslie’s displeasure by this interposition in her affairs, and thus forfeit the object of all his present thoughts and actions? He believed not. He saw that she yielded reluctantly, and because she had no other alternative, to Magawisca’s imposition of secrecy. With her romantic notions, it was most probable that she would hold her promise inviolate; but would she not be bound in everlasting gratitude to him who, by an ingenious manœuvre, should, without in the least involving her honour, secure the recovery of her sister? Thus he flattered himself he should, in any event, obtain some advantage. To Miss Leslie he would appear solely actuated by zeal for her happiness; to the governor, by devotion to the safety and welfare of the Commonwealth.
Accordingly, on the following Monday morning, he solicited a private interview with the magistrates, and deposed before them “that, on returning to his lodgings on Saturday night, he had seen Miss Leslie enter the burying-ground alone; that, believing she had gone to visit some burial-spot consecrated by affection, and knowing the ardent temper of the young lady, he feared she might forget, in the indulgence of her feelings, the lateness of the hour. He had, therefore, with the intention of guarding her from all harm, without intruding on her meditations (which, though manifestly unseasonable, might, he thought, tend to edification), followed her, and secluded himself in the copse of evergreens, where, to his astonishment, he had witnessed her interview with the Indian woman.” The particulars of their conversation he gave at length.
Unfortunately for Magawisca, Sir Philip’s testimony corresponded with the story of a renegado Indian, formerly one of the counsellors and favourites of Miantunnomoh. This savage, stung by some real or fancied wrongs, deserted his tribe, and, vowing revenge, repaired to Boston, and divulged to the governor the secret hostility of his chief to the English, which, he said, had been stimulated to activity by the old Pequod chief and the renowned maiden Magawisca.
He stated, also, that the chiefs of the different tribes, moved by the eloquence and arguments of Mononotto, were forming a powerful combination. Thus far the treacherous savage told the truth; but he proceeded to state plots and underplots, and artfully to exaggerate the number and power of the tribes. The magistrates lent a believing ear to the whole story. They were aware that the Narragansetts, ever since they had witnessed the defeat and extinction of their ancient enemies the Pequods, had felt a secret dread and jealousy of the power and encroachments of the English, and that they only waited for an opportunity to manifest their hostility. Letters had been recently received from the magistrates of Connecticut, expressing their belief that a general rising of the Indians was meditated. All these circumstances combined to give importance to Sir Philip’s and the Indian’s communications. But the governor felt the necessity of proceeding warily.
Miantunnomoh had been the faithful friend and ally of the English. He is described by Winthrop as a “sagacious and subtle man, who showed good understanding in the principles of justice and equity, and ingenuity withal.” Such a man it was obviously the policy of the English not to provoke; and the governor hoped, by getting possession of the Pequod family, to obtain the key to Miantunnomoh’s real designs, and to crush the conspiracy before it was matured.
We have been compelled to this digression, in order to explain the harsh reception and treatment of Magawisca; to account for the zeal with which the governor promoted the party to the garden, and for the signal which guided the boat directly to the Pequod family, and which Sir Philip remained on the island to give. The knight had now got very deep into the councils and favour of the magistrates, who saw in him the selected medium of a special kindness of Providence to them.
He took good care
“That all his circling wiles should end
In feign’d religion, smooth hypocrisy;”
and, by addressing his arts to the predominant tastes and principles of the honest men whom he deluded, he well sustained his accidental advantage.
It would be vain to attempt to describe the various emotions of Governor Winthrop’s family at the return of Hope Leslie. Madam Winthrop, over-excited by the previous events of the evening, had fortunately escaped any farther agitation by retiring to bed, after composing her nerves with a draught of valerian tea. Mrs. Grafton, who had been transported with joy at the unlooked-for recovery of Faith Leslie, was carried to the extreme of despair when she saw the lifeless body of her beloved niece borne to her apartment. Poor old Cradock went, like a certain classic bird, “up stairs and down stairs,” wringing his hands, and sobbing like a whipped boy. The elder Fletcher stood bending in mute agony over the child of his affections, whom he loved with even more than the tenderness of a parent. His tears, like those of old and true Menenius, seemed “salter than a younger man’s, and venomous to his eyes;” and his good friend Governor Winthrop, when he saw his distress, secretly repented that he had acquiesced in a procedure that had brought such misery upon this much-enduring man. Jennet bustled about, appearing to do everything, and doing nothing, and hoping “to goodness’ sake the young lady would come to herself, long enough, at least, to tell what had befallen her:” “she always thought, she did, what her harem-scarem ways would bring her to at last.” Miss Downing, without regarding, or even hearing, these and many other similar mutterings, proceeded with admirable presence of mind to direct and administer all the remedies that were at hand, while Everell, almost distracted, went in quest of medical aid.
A delirious fever succeeded to unconsciousness; and for three days Hope Leslie’s friends hung over her in the fear that every hour would be her last. For three days and nights Esther Downing never quitted her bedside, except to go to the door of the apartment to answer Everell’s inquiries. Her sweet feminine qualities were now called into action: she watched and prayed over her friend; and, though her cheek was pale and her eye dim, she had never appeared half so lovely to Everell as when, in her simple linen dressing-gown, she for an instant left the invalid to announce some favourable symptom. On the fourth morning Hope’s fever abated; her incoherent ravings ceased, and she sunk, for the first time, into a tranquil sleep. Esther sat perfectly still by her bedside, fearing to move, lest the slightest noise should disturb her; she heard Everell walking in the entry, as he had done incessantly, and stopping at every turn to listen at the door. Till now, all her faculties had been in requisition—her mind and body devoted to her friend—she had not thought of herself; and if sometimes the thought of Everell intruded, she blushed at what she deemed the unsubdued selfishness of her heart. “Alas!” she said, “I am far from that temper which leads us to ‘weep with those that weep,’ if I suffer thoughts of my own happy destiny to steal in when my friend is in this extremity.” But these were but transient emotions: her devotion to Hope was too sincere and unremitting to afford occasion of reproach even to her watchful and accusing conscience. But now, as she listened to Everell’s perturbed footsteps, a new train of thoughts passed through her mind. “Everell has scarcely quitted that station. With what eagerness he has hung over my words when I spoke of Hope! What a mortal paleness has overspread his face at every new alarm! It would not, perhaps, have been right, but methinks it would have been natural, that he should have expressed some concern for me: I cannot remember that he has. How often has he said to me, ‘Dear Esther, you will not leave her?’ and, ‘For the love of Heaven, trust her not a moment to the discretion of her aunt;’ ‘Do not confide in Jennet;’ ‘Madam Winthrop has too many cares for so delicate a charge: all depends on you, dear Esther.’ Yes, he said dear Esther; but how many times he has repeated it, as if his life were bound up in hers. If I were in Hope’s condition, would he feel thus? I could suffer death itself for such proofs of tenderness. Sinful worm that I am, thus to dote on any creature.” The serenity of her mind was disturbed: she rose involuntarily; as she rose, her gown caught in her chair, and overthrew it. The chair fell against a little stand by the bedside, covered with vials, cups, and spoons, and all were overthrown, with one of those horrible clatters that are as startling in a sick-room as the explosion of a magazine at midnight.
Everell, alarmed by the unwonted noise, instinctively opened the door: Hope awoke from her profound sleep and drew aside the curtain; she looked bewildered, but it was no longer the wildness of fever: thronging and indistinct recollections oppressed her; but, after an instant, a perfect consciousness of the past and the present returned; she covered her eyes, and sank back on her pillow, murmuring, “Thank God!” and tears of gratitude and joy stole over her cheeks.
Esther lost every other emotion in unmixed joy. She went to the door to Everell, who was still standing there as if he were transfixed. “It is as you see,” she said; “the danger is past; she has slept sweetly for three hours, and was now only disturbed by my carelessness: go to your father with the good news; your face will tell it, even if your lips refuse, as they do now, to move.”
They did now move, and the joy of his heart broke forth in the exclamation, “You are an angel, Esther! My father owes to you the preservation of his dearest treasure; and I—I—my life, Esther, shall prove to you my sense of what I owe you.”
There was an enthusiasm in his manner that for the first time satisfied Esther’s feelings; but, her religious sentiments habitually predominating over every other, “I have been a poor but honoured instrument,” she said; “let us all carry our thanksgivings to that altar where they are due.” Then, after allowing Everell to press her hand to his lips, she closed the door, and returned to Hope’s bedside. Hope again put aside the bed-curtain: “Is not my sister here?” she asked; “she must be here; and yet I can scarcely separate my dreams from the strange accidents of that night.”
“She is here, safe and well, my dear Hope; but, for the present, you must be content not to see her: you have been very ill, and need perfect rest.”
“I feel that I need it, Esther; but I must first know how it has fared with Magawisca; she came on my solemn promise; I trust she has been justly dealt by: she has been received as she deserved, Esther?”
Esther hesitated; but, seeing Hope’s lip quivering with apprehension, and fearing the effects, in her weak state, of any new agitation, she, for the first time in her life, condescended to an equivocation, solacing herself with thinking that she ought to believe that perfectly right which her uncle Winthrop appointed: she said, “Magawisca has had a merited reception: now ask no more questions, Hope, but compose yourself again to sleep.” If Hope had had the will, she had not the power to disobey, for Nature will not be rifled of her dues. But we must leave her to the restoring influence of the kindest of all Nature’s provisions, to visit one from whom care and sorrow banished sleep.
At an advanced hour of the following evening, Sir Philip Gardiner repaired to the town jail, and was admitted by its keeper, Barnaby Tuttle. The knight produced a passport to the cell of Thomas Morton, and, pointing to the governor’s signature and seal, “You know that, friend?” he said.
“As well as my own face; but I am loath to lead a gentleman of your bearing to such an unsavoury place.”
“Scruple not, honest Master Tuttle; duty takes no note of time or place.”
“You shall be served, sir, and with the better will, since you seem to be, as it were, of a God-serving turn; but walk in, your worship, and sit down in my bit of a place, which, though a homely one, and within the four walls of a jail, is, I thank the Lord, like that into which Paul and Silas were thrust, a place where prayers and praises are often heard.”
Barnaby now lighted a candle, and while Sir Philip was awaiting his dilatory preparations, he could not but wonder that a man of his appearance should have been selected for an office that is usually supposed to require a muscular frame, strong nerves, and a hardy spirit. Barnaby Tuttle had none of these; but, on the contrary, was a man of small stature, meager person, and a pale and meek countenance, that bespoke the disposition that lets “I dare not wait upon I would.”
“Have you been long in this service of jailer?” asked Sir Philip.
“Six years, an please your worship, come the 10th day of next October, at eight o’clock of the morning. I had long been a servant in the governor’s own household, and he gave me the office, as he was pleased to say, because he knew me trustworthy, and a merciful man.”
“But mercy, Master Barnaby, is not held to be a special qualification for those of your calling.”
“It is not, sir? Well, I can tell your honour there’s no place it’s more wanted; and here, in our new English colony, we have come, as it were, under a new dispensation. Our prisoners are seldom put in for those crimes that fill the jails in Old England. Since I have been keeper—six years next October, as I told you it is—I have had but few in for stealing, and one for murder; and that was a disputed case, there being no clear testimony; but, as he was proved to have lived an atheist life, he was condemned to die, and at the last confessed many sore offences, which, as Mr. Cotton observed in his sermon, preached the next Lord’s day, were each and all held worthy of death by the laws of Moses. No, sir, our prisoners are chiefly those who are led astray of the devil into divers errors of opinions, or those who commit such sins as are named at length in the Levitical law.”
“Ah,” said Sir Philip, with a well-pitched groan, “the depravity of man will find a channel; stop it at one place, and it will out at another. But come, friend Barnaby, time is going on: I’ll follow you.” The jailer now led the way through a long, narrow passage, with doors on each side which opened into small apartments. “Hark!” said Barnaby, laying his hand on Sir Philip’s arm; “hear you that? It’s Gorton praying: he and his company are all along in these wards; and betimes I hear them calling on the Lord, like Daniel in the lions’ den, for hours together. I hope it’s not a sin to feel for such woful heretics, for I have dropped salt tears for them. Does not your honour think our magistrates may have some way opened up for their pardon?”
“I see not how they can, Master Barnaby, unless these sore revilers should renounce their heresies, or,” he added, with an involuntary sneer, fortunately for him, unobserved by his simple companion, “or their title to the Indian lands.”
They had now arrived at one extremity of the passage, and Barnaby selected a key from his bunch; but, before putting it in the lock, he said, “Morton is in a little room within the Indian woman’s, taken the other day.”
“So I understand; and by your leave, Master Tuttle, I would address a private admonition to this Indian woman, who, as report saith, is an obstinate heathen.”
“I suppose she is, your honour; they that should know say so. But she hath truly a discreet and quiet way with her, that I would was more common among Christian women. But, as you say you wish to speak in private, I must beg your honour’s pardon for turning my bolt on you. I will give you the light, and the key to the inner room; and when you desire my attendance, you have but to pull a cord that hangs by the frame of the door inside, and rings a bell in the passage: one word more, your honour—be on your guard when you go into Morton’s cell. He raves, by times, as if all the fiends possessed him; and then, again, he sings and dances, as if he were at his revels on the Merry Mount; and by times he cries—the poor old man—like a baby, for the twenty-four hours round; so that I cannot but think a place in the London Hospital would be fitter for him than this.”
“Your feelings seem not to suit with the humour of your profession, Master Tuttle.”
“Maybe not, sir; but there is a pleasure in a pitiful feeling, let your outward work be ever so hard, as, doubtless, your worship well knows.”
Sir Philip felt that conscience sent a burning blush to his hardened cheek; and he said, with an impatient tone, “I have my instructions: let me pass in, Master Tuttle.” Barnaby unlocked the door, gave him the candle, and then turned the bolt upon him.
Magawisca was slowly pacing the room to and fro; she stopped, uttered a faint exclamation at the sight of her visiter, then turned away as if disappointed, and resumed her melancholy step. Sir Philip held up his candle to survey the apartment. It was a room of ordinary size, with one small grated window, and containing a flock-bed and a three-legged stool, on which stood a plate of untasted provisions.
“Truly,” said he, advancing into the room, “generous entertainment, this, for a hapless maiden.” Magawisca made no reply, and gave no heed to him, and he proceeded: “A godly and gallant youth, that Everell Fletcher, to suffer one who risked her life, and cast away a precious limb for him, to lie forgotten here. Methinks, if he had a spark of thy noble nature, maiden, he would burn the town, or batter down this prison wall for you.” An irrepressible groan escaped from Magawisca, but she spoke not.
“He leaves you here, alone and helpless, to await death,” continued the knight, thus venting his malignity against Everell, though he saw that every word was a torturing knife to the innocent maiden; “death, the only boon you can expect from these most Christian magistrates; while he, with a light heart and smirking face, is dancing attendance on his lady-love.”
“On whom?” interrupted Magawisca, in a tone of fearful impatience.
“On her who played so faithfully the part of decoy-pigeon to thee.”
“Hope Leslie! My father, then, is taken?” she screamed.
“Nay, nay, not so; thy father and brother both, by some wondrous chance, escaped.”
“Dost thou speak truth?” demanded Magawisca, in a thrilling voice, and looking in Sir Philip’s face as if she would penetrate his soul; “I doubt thee.”
The knight opportunely bethought himself of having heard Magawisca, during her interview with Hope Leslie, allude to the Romish religion: he took a crucifix from his bosom, and pressed it to his lips. “Then, by this holy sign,” he said, “of which, if you know aught, you know that to use it falsely would bring death to my soul, I swear I speak truly.”
Magawisca again turned away; and drawing her mantle, which, in her emotion, had fallen back, close over her shoulders, she continued to pace the apartment without bestowing even a look on Sir Philip, who felt himself in an awkward predicament, and found it difficult to rally his spirits to prosecute the object of his visit. But habitually confident, and, like all bad men, distrusting the existence of incorruptible virtue, he soon shook off his embarrassment, and said, “I doubt, maiden, you would breathe more freely in the wild wood than in this stifling prison, and sleep more quietly on the piled leaves of your forests than on that bed that Christian love has spread for you.” Magawisca neither manifested by word nor sign that she heard him, and he proceeded more explicitly: “Do you sigh for the freedom of Nature? Would you be restored to it?”
“Would I! would the imprisoned bird return to its nestlings?” She now stopped, and looked with eager inquiry on Sir Philip.
“Then listen to me, and you shall learn by what means and on what terms you may escape from this prison, and beyond the reach of your enemies. Here,” he continued, producing from beneath his cloak a rope ladder and a file and wrench, “here are instruments by which you can remove those bars, and by which you may safely descend to the ground.”
“Tell me,” cried Magawisca, a ray of joy lighting her eyes, “tell me how I shall use them.”
Sir Philip explained the mode, enjoined great caution, and then proceeded to say, “By to-morrow night at twelve you can remove the bars; the town will then be still; proceed directly to the point where you last landed, and a boat shall there be in readiness, well manned, to convey you beyond danger.”
“Well—well,” she replied, with breathless eagerness, “now tell me what I am to do; what a poor Indian prisoner can do to requite such a favour as this?”
Sir Philip began a reply, stammered, and paused. He seemed to turn and turn his purpose, and endeavoured to shelter it in some drapery that should hide its ugliness; but this was beyond his art; and, summoning impudence to his aid, he said, “I have a young damsel with me, who for silly love followed me out of England. Now, you forester maiden, who live according to the honesty of Nature, you could not understand me if I were to tell you of the cruel laws of the world, which oblige this poor girl to disguise herself in man’s apparel, and counterfeit the duties of a page, that she may conceal her love. She hath become somewhat troublesome to me: all that I ask as the price of your liberty is, that she may be the companion of your flight.”
“Doth she go willingly?”
“Nay, not willingly; but she is young, and, like a tender twig, you can bend her at will; all I ask is your promise that she return not.”
“But if she resist?”
“Act your pleasure with her; yet I would not that she were harmed. You may give her to your brother in the place of this fair-haired damsel they have stolen from him; or,” he added, for he saw that Magawisca’s brow contracted, “or, if that suits not you nor him, you may take her to your western forests, and give her to a Romish priest, who will guide her to the Hotel Dieu which our good Lady of Bouillon has established in Canada.” Magawisca dropped at his feet the instruments which she had grasped with such delight. “Nay, nay, bethink you, maiden, it is a small boon to return for liberty and life; for, trust me, if you remain here they will not spare your life.”
“And dost thou think,” she replied, “that I would make my heart as black as thine to save my life? Life! Dost thou not know that life can only be abated by those evil deeds forbidden by the Great Master of Life? The writing of the Great Spirit has surely vanished from thy degraded soul, or thou wouldst know that man cannot touch life! Life is naught but the image of the Great Spirit; and he hath most of it who sends it back most true and unbroken, like the perfect image of the clear heavens in the still lake.”
Sir Philip’s eye fell, and his heart quailed before the lofty glance and unsullied spirit of the Indian maiden. Once he looked askance at her, but it was with such a look as Satan eyed the sun in his “high meridian tower.” With a feeling of almost insupportable meanness, he collected, and again concealed beneath his cloak, the ladder and other instruments, which he had been at no small pains to procure, and was turning to summon Barnaby by ringing the bell, when he suddenly recollected that Thomas Morton had been the ostensible motive of his visit, and that it was but a prudent precaution to look in upon him for an instant; and feeling too, perhaps, a slight curiosity to see the companion of his former excesses, he changed his purpose, turned to Morton’s door, unlocked and opened it.
The old man seemed to have shrunk away as if frightened, and was gathered up almost into a ball in one corner of his miserable little squalid den. A few remnants of his garments hung like shreds about him. Every particle of his hair had dropped out; his grizzly beard was matted together; his eyes gleamed like sparks of fire in utter darkness. Sir Philip was transfixed. “Is this,” he thought, “Morton! the gentleman—the gallant cavalier—the man of pleasure? Good God! the girl hath truly spoken of life!” While he stood thus, the old man sprang on him like a cat, pulled him within the door, and then, with the action of madness, swift as thought, he seized the key, locked the door on the inside, and threw the key through the bars of the window without the prison. The candle had fallen and was extinguished, and Sir Philip found himself immured, with his scarcely human companion, in total darkness, without any means of rescue excepting through Magawisca. His first impulse was to entreat her to ring the bell; but he delayed for a moment, lest he should heighten the old man’s paroxysm of madness.
In this interval of silence Magawisca fancied she heard a sound against her window, and, on going to it, perceived, though the night was extremely dark, a ladder resting against the bars; she listened, and heard a footstep ascending; then there was a wrestling in Morton’s room, and screams, “He’ll kill me—ring the bell.” Again all was still, and she heard from the ground below, “Come down, Mr. Everell, for the love of Heaven come down.” The words were uttered in a tone hardly above a whisper.
“Hush, Digby, I will not come down!”
“Then you are lost; those cries will certainly alarm the guard.”
“Hush! the cries have ceased.” Everell mounted quite to the window, quick as if he had risen on wings.
“He is true!” thought Magawisca; and it seemed to her that her heart would burst with joy, but she could not speak. He applied an instrument to one of the iron bars, and wrenched it off. Repeated and louder cries of “Murder! help! ring the bell!” now proceeded from Gardiner, and the old maniac seemed determined to outroar him. Again the noise ceased, and again Digby spoke in a more agitated voice than before. “Oh, they are stirring in the yard; come away, Mr. Everell.”
“I will not—I had rather die; stand fast, Digby; one bar more, and she is free;” and again he applied the instrument.
“Are you mad?” exclaimed Digby, in a more raised and eager voice; “I tell you the lights are coming; if you do not escape now, nothing can ever be done for her.”
This last argument had the intended effect. Everell felt that all hope of extricating Magawisca depended on his now eluding discovery; and with an exclamation of bitter disappointment, he relinquished the enterprise for the present, and descending a few rounds of the ladder, leaped to the ground, and, with Digby, disappeared before the guard reached the spot of operations. Magawisca saw two of the men go off in pursuit, while the other remained picking up the implements that Everell had dropped, and muttering something of old Barnaby sleeping as if he slept his last sleep.
Relieved from the sad conviction of Everell’s desertion and ingratitude, Magawisca seemed for a moment to float on happiness, and, in her exultation, to forget the rocks and quicksands that encompassed her. Another outcry from Sir Philip recalled her thoughts, and, obeying the first impulse of humanity, she rang the bell violently. Barnaby soon appeared with a lamp and keys, and learning the durance of Sir Philip, he hastened to his relief. A key was found to unlock the door, and, on opening it, the knight’s terror and distress were fully explained. Morton had thrown him on his back, and pinned him to the floor by planting his knee on Sir Philip’s breast, and had interrupted his cries, and almost suffocated him, by stuffing his cloak into his mouth. At the sight of his keeper the maniac sprang off, and, with a sort of inarticulate chattering and laughing, resumed his old station in the corner, apparently quite unconscious that he had moved from it.
Sir Philip darted out, and shut the door as if he were closing a tiger’s cage; and then, in wrath that overswelled all limits, he turned upon poor Barnaby, and shaking him till his old bones seemed to rattle in their thin casement, he poured out on him curses deep and loud for leading him into that “devil’s den.” Magawisca interposed; but, instead of calming his wrath, she only drew it on herself. He swore he would be revenged on her, “d—d Indian that she was, to stand by and not lift her hand when she knew he was dying by torture.” Magawisca did not vouchsafe any other reply to this attack than a look of calm disdain; and Barnaby, now recovering from the fright and amazement into which Sir Philip’s violence had thrown him, held up his lamp, and reconnoitring the knight’s face and person, “It is the same,” he said, resolving his honest doubts, “the same I let in: circumstances alter cases, and men too, I think: why, I took him for as godly a seeming man as ever I laid my eyes on—a yea and nay Pilgrim; but such profane swearing exceedeth Chaddock’s men, or Chaddock either, or the master they serve.”
“Prate not, you canting villain: why did not you come when you heard my cries? or where was you that you heard them not?”
“Just taking a little nap in my rocking-chair; and I said to myself as I sat myself down, ‘Now, Barnaby, if you should happen to fall out of your meditation into sleep, remember to wake at the ringing of the bell;’ and, accordingly, at the very first touch of it I was on my feet and coming hitherward.”
Sir Philip’s panic and wrath had now so far subsided that he perceived there was an alarming discordance between his extempore conduct and his elaborate pretensions; and, reassuming his mask with an awkward suddenness, he said, “Well, well, friend Barnaby, we will both forgive and forget. I will say nothing of your sleeping soundly at your post, when you have such dangerous prisoners in ward that the governor has thought it necessary to give you a guard; and you, good Barnaby, will say nothing of my having for a moment lost the command of my reason; though, being so sorely bestead, and having but a poor human nature, I think I should not be hardly judged by merciful men.”
“As to forgiving and forgetting, your worship,” replied the good-natured fellow, “that I can do as easily as another man, but not from any dread of your tale-bearing; for I think the governor hath sent the guard here partly in consideration of my age and feebleness; and I fear not undue blame. Therefore, not for my own by-ends will I keep close, but that I hold it not neighbourly to speak to another’s hurt; and I well know it is but the topmost saints that are always in the exercise of grace. But I marvel, your worship, that ye spoke those evil words so glibly: it seemed like one casting away stilts, and going on his own feet again.”
“All the fault of an ungodly youth, worthy Master Tuttle,” replied Sir Philip, rolling up his eyes sanctimoniously; “and he who ensnared my soul, thy miserable prisoner there, is now reaping the Lord’s judgments therefor.”
“I think it is not profitable,” said the simple man, as he led the way out of the prison, “to cast up judgments at any one; we are all—as your worship has just suddenly and wofully experienced—we are all liable to falls in this slippery world; and I have always thought it a more prudent and Christian part to lend a helping hand to a fallen brother, than to stand by and laugh at him, or flout him.”
Sir Philip hurried away; every virtuous sentiment fell on his ear like a rebuke. Even in an involuntary comparison of himself with the simple jailer, he felt that genuine goodness, dimmed and sullied though it may be by ignorance and fanaticism, like a good dull guinea, rings true at every trial; while hypocrisy, though it show a face fair and bright, yet, like a new false coin, betrays at every scratch the base metal.
Perhaps no culprit ever turned his back on a jail with a more thorough conviction that he deserved there to be incarcerated than did Sir Philip. Detection in guilt is said marvellously to enlighten men’s consciences: there may be a kindred virtue in disappointment in guilty projects. The knight had become impatient of his tedious masquerade. He was at first diverted with a new, and, as it seemed to him, a fantastical state of society, and amused at the success with which he played his assumed character. He soon became passionately enamoured of Hope Leslie, and pursued her with a determined, unwavering resolution, that, vacillating as he had always been, astonished himself. In the eagerness of the chase, he underrated the obstacles that opposed him, and, above all, the insuperable obstacle, the manifest indifference of the young lady, which his vanity (must we add, his experience) led him to believe was affectation, whim, or accident; any or all of these might be successfully opposed and overcome. He had tried to probe her feelings in relation to Everell, and, though he was puzzled by the result, and knew not what it meant, he trusted it did not mean love. But if it did, what girl of Hope Leslie’s spirit, he asked himself, would remain attached to a drivelling fellow, who, from complaisance to the wishes of prosing old men, had preferred to her such a statue of formality and Puritanism as Esther Downing? and, Everell removed, Sir Philip feared no other competitor; for he counted for nothing those gentlemen who might aspire to Miss Leslie’s hand, but whose strict obedience to the canons of Puritanism left them, as he thought, few of the qualities that were likely to interest a romantic imagination. For himself, determined not to jeopard his success by wearing his sanctimonious mask to Hope, he played the magician with two faces, and to her he was the gay and gallant chevalier; his formality, his preciseness, and every badge and insignia of the Puritan school were dropped, and he talked of love and poetry like any carpet-knight of those days, or drawing-room lover of our own. But this was a dangerous game to play, and must not be protracted. Some untoward accident might awaken the guardians of the colony from their credulous confidence, and to this danger his wayward page continually exposed him.
As our readers are already acquainted with the real character of this unhappy victim of Sir Philip’s profligacy, it only remains to give the few untold circumstances of her brief history. She was the natural child of an English nobleman. Her mother was a distinguished French actress, who, dying soon after her birth, committed the child to some charitable sisters of the order of St. Joseph. Her father, on his death-bed, seized by the pangs of remorse, exacted a promise from his sister, the Lady Lunford, that she would receive the orphan under her protection. The lady performed the promise à la lettre, and no more. She withdrew the unfortunate Rosa from her safe asylum, but she kept from her, and from all the world, the secret of their relationship, and made the dependance and desolateness of the poor orphan a broad foundation for her own tyranny. Lady Lunford was a woman of the world—a waning, Rosa, a ripening beauty. Her house was the resort of men of fashion. Sir Philip paid his devotions there, ostensibly to the noble mistress, but really to the young creature whose melting eyes, naïveté, and strong and irrepressible feelings enchanted him. Probably Lady Lunford found the presence of the young beauty inconvenient. She certainly never threw any obstacle in Sir Philip’s way; indeed, he afterward cruelly boasted to Rosa that her patroness had persuaded him to receive her; but this was long after: for many months he treated her with the fondest devotion; and she, poor credulous child, was first awakened from dreams of love and happiness by pangs of jealousy.
From her own confessions, Sir Philip learned how far she had divulged her sorrows to Hope Leslie, and from that moment he meditated some mode of secretly and suddenly ridding himself of her, and finally determined on the project which, as we have seen, was wofully defeated; and he was compelled to retreat from Magawisca’s prison with the tormenting apprehension that he might himself fall into the pit he had digged.
Let those who have yet to learn in what happiness consists, and its actual independence of external circumstances, turn from the gifted and accomplished man of the world to the Indian prisoner; from the baffled tempter to the victorious tempted. Magawisca could scarcely have been made happier if Everell had achieved her freedom, than she was by the certain knowledge of his interposition for her. The sting of his supposed ingratitude had been her sharpest sorrow. Her affection for Everell Fletcher had the tenderness, the confidence, the sensitiveness of woman’s love; but it had nothing of the selfishness, the expectation, or the earthliness of that passion. She had done and suffered much for him, and she felt that his worth must be the sole requital for her sufferings. She felt, too, that she had received much from him. He had opened the book of knowledge to her; had given subjects to her contemplative mind beyond the mere perceptions of her senses; had in some measure dissipated the clouds of ignorance that hung over the forest child, and given her glimpses of the past and the distant; but, above all, he had gratified her strong national pride by admitting the natural equality of all the children of the Great Spirit, and by allowing that it was the knowledge of the Englishman—an accidental superiority—that forced from the uninstructed Indian the exclamation, “Manittoo! Manittoo!” he is a God.
“My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.”
Romeo and Juliet.
The next morning opened on Boston with that boon to all small societies, a new topic of interest and conversation. The attempt on the prison the preceding night was in every one’s mouth; and as the community had been much agitated concerning the heresies and trial of Gorton and his company, they did not hesitate to attribute the criminal outrage to some of his secret adherents, who, as the sentence that had passed on the unfortunate man was the next day to take effect, had made this desperate effort to rescue them. It was not even surmised by the popular voice that the bold attempt had been made on account of the Indian woman. The magistrates had very discreetly refrained from disclosing her connexion with state affairs, as every alarm about the rising of the Indians threw the colony, especially the women and children, into a state of the greatest agitation. The imprisonment of Magawisca was therefore looked upon as a transient, prudential, and domiciliary arrangement, to prevent the possibility of any concert between her and the recovered captive, Faith Leslie, who was known to be pining for her Indian friends.
That the governor’s secret conclusions were very different from those of the people, was indicated by a private order which he sent to Barnaby Tuttle, to remove the Indian maiden from the upper apartment to the dungeon beneath the prison, but by no means to inflict any other severity on her, or to stint her of any kindness consistent with her safe keeping. Gorton’s company were on the same day removed from the prison, and, as is well known to the readers of the chronicles of the times, distributed separately to the towns surrounding Boston, where, notwithstanding they were jealously guarded and watched, they proved dangerous leaven, and were soon afterward transported to England.
Whatever secret suspicions the governor entertained in relation to Everell Fletcher, his kind feelings, and the delicate relation in which he stood to that young man, as the son of his dearest friend and the betrothed husband of his niece, induced him to keep them within his own bosom, without even intimating them to his partners in authority, who, he well knew, whatever infirmities they, frail men, might have of their own, were seldom guilty of winking at those of others.
But to return to our heroine, whom we left convalescing; the energies of a youthful and unimpaired constitution, and the unwearied care of her gentle nurse, restored her, in the space of two days, to such a degree of strength that she was able to join the family in the parlour at their evening meal, to which we cannot give the convenient designation of “tea,” as Asia had not yet supplied us with this best of all her aromatic luxuries.
Hope entered the parlour leaning on Esther’s arm. All rose to welcome her, and to offer their congratulations, more or less formal, on her preservation and recovery. Everell advanced with the rest, and essayed to speak, but his voice failed him. Hope, with natural frankness, gave him her hand, and all the blood in her heart seemed to gush into her pale cheeks, but neither did she speak. In the general movement, their reciprocal emotion passed unobserved excepting by Esther; she noted it. After the meal was finished, and the governor had returned thanks, in which he inserted a clause expressive of the general gratitude “for the mercies that had been vouchsafed to the maiden near and dear to many present, in that she had been led safely through perils by water, by land, and by sickness,” Madam Winthrop kindly insisted that Hope should occupy her easy chair; but Hope declined the honour, and, seating herself on the window-seat, motioned to her sister to come and sit by her. The poor girl obeyed, but without any apparent interest, and without even seeming conscious of the endearing tenderness with which Hope stroked back her hair and kissed her cheek. “What shall we do with this poor home-sick child?” she asked, appealing to her guardian.
“In truth, I know not,” he replied. “All day and all night, they tell me, she goes from window to window, like an imprisoned bird fluttering against the bars of its cage; and so wistfully she looks abroad, as if her heart went forth with the glance of her eye.”
“I have done my best,” said Mrs. Grafton, now joining in the conversation, “to please her, but it’s all working for nothing, and no thanks. In the first place, I gave her all her old playthings that you saved so carefully, Hope, and shed so many tears over, and at first they did seem to pleasure her. She looked them over and over, and I could see by the changes of her countenance, as she took up one and another, that some glimmering of past times came over her; but, as ill luck would have it, there was among the rest, in a little basket, a string of bird’s eggs, which Oneco had given her at Bethel. I remembered it well, and so did she; for, as soon as she saw it, she dropped everything else, and burst into tears.”
“Poor child!” said Mr. Fletcher; “these early affections are deeply rooted.” Everell, who stood by his father, turned and walked to the other extremity of the apartment, and Hope involuntarily passed her hand hastily over her brow; as she did so, she looked up and saw Esther’s eye fixed on her. Rallying her spirits, “I am weak yet, Esther,” she said, “and this sudden change from our still room confuses me.” Mrs. Grafton did not mark this little interlude, and, replying to Mr. Fletcher’s last observation, “Poor child! do you call her? I call it sheer foolishness. Her early affections, indeed! you seem to forget she had other and earlier than for that Indian boy; but this seems to be the one weed that has choked all the rest. Hope, my dear, you have no idea what a non compos mentis she has got to be. I showed her all my earrings, and gave her her choice of all but the diamonds that are promised for your wedding gift, dearie, you know, and, do you think, she scarcely looked at them? while she won’t let me touch those horrid blue glass things she wears, that look so like the tawnies, it makes me all of a nerve to see them. And then, just look for yourself: though I have dressed her up in that beautiful Lyons silk of yours, with the Dresden tucker, she will—this warm weather, too—keep on her Indian mantle in that blankety fashion.”
“Well, my dear aunt, why not indulge her for the present? I suppose she has the feeling of the natives, who seem to have an almost superstitious attachment to that Oriental costume.”
“Oriental fiddlestick! you talk like a simpleton, Hope. I suppose you would let her wear that string of all-coloured shells round her neck, would you not,” she asked, drawing aside Faith’s mantle, and showing the savage ornament, “instead of that beautiful rainbow necklace of mine, which I have offered to her in place of it?”
“If you ask me seriously, aunt, I certainly would, if she prefers it.”
“Now that is peculiar of you, Hope. Why, Miss Esther Downing, mine is a string of stones that go by sevens: yellow, topaz—orange, onyx—red, ruby—and so on, and so on. Master Cradock wrote the definitions of them all out of a Latin book for me once; and yet, though it is such a peculiar beauty, that silly child will not give up those horrid shells for it. Now,” she continued, turning to Faith, and putting her hand on the necklace, “now, that’s a good girl, let me take it off.”
Faith understood her action, though not her words, and she laid her own hand on the necklace, and looked as if obstinately determined it should not be removed.
Hope perceived there was something attached to the necklace, and on a closer inspection, which her position enabled her to make, she saw it was a crucifix; and dreading lest her sister should be exposed to a new source of persecution, she interposed: “Let her have her own way at present, I pray you, aunt; she may have some reason for preferring those shells that we do not know; and if she has not, I see no great harm in her preferring bright shells to bright stones; at any rate, for the present, we had best leave her to herself, and say nothing at all to her about her dress or ornaments.”
“Well—very well; take your own way, Miss Hope Leslie.”
Hope smiled: “Nay, aunt,” she said, “I cannot be Miss Hope Leslie till I get quite well again.”
“Oh, dearie, I meant nothing, you know,” said the good lady, whose displeasure never held out against one of her niece’s smiles. “If Miss Esther Downing,” she added, lowering her voice, “had told me to say nothing of dress and ornaments, I should not have been surprised; but it is an unheard-of simpleness for you, Hope. Dress and ornaments! they are the most likely things in the world to take the mind off from trouble. Till I came to this new English colony, where everything seems, as it were, topsy-turvy, I never saw that woman whose mind could not be diverted by dress and ornaments.”
“You strangely dishonour your memory, Mistress Grafton, or Hope’s noble mother,” said the elder Fletcher; “methinks I have often heard you say that Alice Fletcher had no taste for these vanities.”
“No, you never heard me say that, Mr. Fletcher. Vanities! no, never, the longest day I had to live; for I never called them vanities—no; I did say Alice always went as plain as a pike-staff after you left England; and a great pity it was, I always thought; for, when Queen Henrietta came from France, we had such a world of beautiful new fashions, it would have cured Alice of moping if she would have given her mind to it. There was my Lady Penyvére, how different it was with her after her losses: let’s see—her husband, and her son Edward, heir to the estate, and her daughter-in-law—that was not so much, but we’ll count her—and Ulrica, her own daughter, all died in one week; and, for an aggravation, her coachman, horses, coach, and all, went off London Bridge, and all were drowned—killed—smashed to death; and yet, in less than a week, my lady gave orders for every suit of mourning; and that is the great use of wearing mourning, as she said: it takes the mind off from trouble.”
Hope felt, and her quick eye saw, that her aunt was running on sadly at her own expense; and, to produce an effect similar to the painter, when, by his happy art, he shifts his lights, throwing defects into shadow, and bringing out beauties, she said, “You are very little like your friend Lady Penyvére, dear aunt; for I am certain, if, as you feared, I had lost my life the other day, all the mourning in the king’s realm would not have turned your thoughts from trouble.”
“No, that’s true—that’s very true, dearie,” replied the good lady, snuffling, and wiping away the tears that had gathered at the bare thought of the evil that had threatened her. “No, Hope; touch you, touch my life; but then,” she added, lowering her voice for Hope’s ear only, “I can’t bear to have you give in to this outcry against dress; we have preaching and prophesying enough, the Lord knows, without your taking it up.”
Lights were now ordered, and, after the bustle made by the ladies drawing around the table and arranging their work was over, Governor Winthrop said, “If your strength is equal to the task, Miss Leslie, we would gladly hear the particulars of your marvellous escape, of which Esther has been able to give us but a slight sketch—though enough to make us all admire at the wonderful Providence that brought you safely through.”
The elder Fletcher, really apprehensive for Hope’s health, and still more apprehensive that she might, in her fearless frankness, discredit herself with the governor by disclosing all the particulars of her late experience, which he had already heard from her lips, and permitted to pass uncensured, interposed, and hoped to avert the evil by begging that the relation might be deferred. But Hope insisted that she felt perfectly well, and began by saying, “She doubted not her kind friends had made every allowance for the trouble she had occasioned them. She was conscious that much evil had proceeded from the rash promise of secrecy she had given.” She forbore to name Magawisca on her sister’s account, who was still sitting by her; the governor, by a significant nod, expressed that he comprehended her; and she went on to say “That she trusted she had been forgiven for that, and for all the petulant and childish conduct of the week that followed it. I scarcely recollect anything of those days, that then seemed to me interminable,” she said, “but that I tried to mask my troubled spirit with a laughing face, and, in spite of all my efforts, I was rather cross than gay. I believe, Madam Winthrop, I called forth your censure, and I pray you to forgive me for not taking it patiently and thankfully, as I ought.”
Madam Winthrop, all astonishment at Hope’s exemplary humility and deference—graces she had not appeared to abound in—assured her, with unassumed kindness, that she had her cordial forgiveness; though, indeed, she was pleased to say, “Hope’s explanation left her little to forgive.”
“And you, sir,” said Hope, turning to the governor, “you, I trust, will pardon me for selecting your garden for a secret rendezvous.”
“Indeed, Hope Leslie, I could pardon a much heavier transgression in one so young as thee, and one who seems to have so hopeful a sense of error,” replied the governor; while the good-will beaming in his benevolent face showed how much more accordant kindness was with his nature than the austere reproof which he so often believed the letter of his duty required from him.
“Then you all—all forgive me, do you not?” Hope asked; and, glancing her eye around the room, it involuntarily rested for a moment on Everell. All but Everell, who did not speak, were warm in their assurances that they had nothing to forgive; and the elder Fletcher tenderly pressed her hand, secretly rejoicing that her graceful humility enabled her to start with her story from vantage ground.
“I did not see you, I believe, Esther,” continued Hope, “after we parted at Digby’s cottage?”
“Speak a trifle louder, if you please, Miss Leslie,” said the governor. Hope was herself conscious that her voice had faltered at the recollection of the definitive scene in Digby’s cottage, and, making a new effort, she said, in a firmer and more cheerful tone, “You, Esther, were happily occupied. I was persecuted by Sir Philip Gardiner, whose ungentlemanly interference in my concerns will, I trust, relieve me from his society in future.”
“Pardon me, Miss Leslie,” said the governor, interrupting Hope; “our friend Sir Philip hath deserved your thanks rather than your censure. There are, as you well know, duties paramount to the courtesies of a gentleman, which are, for the most part, but a vain show—mere dress and decoration;” and he vouchsafed a smile as he quoted the words of Mrs. Grafton: “Sir Philip believed he was consulting your happiness when he took measures to recover your sister, which your promise forbade your taking.”
“Sir Philip strangely mistakes me,” replied Hope, “if he thinks anything could console me for apparently betraying one who trusted me to sorrowful, fearful imprisonment.”
There was a pause, during which Mrs. Winthrop whispered to Esther, “Then she knows all about it?”
“Yes; she would not rest till she heard all.”
Hope proceeded. “I believe I am not yet strong enough to speak on this point.” She then went on to narrate circumstantially all that took place after she was parted from Magawisca till she came to Antonio. Cradock, when she began, had laid aside a little Greek book over which he was conning, and had, at every new period of her relation, given his chair a hitch towards her, till he sat directly before her, on the edge of his chair, his knees pressed close together, and his palms resting upright on them, his head stooped forward so as to be at right angles with his body, and his parting lips creeping round to his ears with an expression of complacent wonder. Thus he sat and looked while Hope described her polite acquiescence in Antonio’s error, and repeated her first reply to him in Italian. At this the old man threw his head back, and burst into a peal of laughter that resembled the neighing of a horse more than any human sound; and, as soon as he could recover his voice, “Did I not teach her the tongues?” he asked, with a vehement gesture to the company; “did I not teach her the tongues?”
“Indeed you did, kind Master Cradock,” said Hope, laying her hand on his, “and many a weary hour it cost you.”
“Never—never one; thou wert always a marvellous quick-witted damsel.” He then resumed his seat and his former attitude, and, closing his eyes, said, in his usual low, deliberate tone, “I bless the Lord that the flower and beauty of my youth were spent in Padua, a poor blind worm that I am: I deemed it a loss, but it hath saved her most precious and sweet life.” And here he burst into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing almost as violent as his laughter had been: his organs seemed moved by springs, which, if touched by an emotion, were quite beyond his control, and only ceased their operation when their mechanical force was exhausted.
Hope had little more to relate: she prudently suppressed the private concerns of Sir Philip’s page, and attributed their accidental meeting to his having come abroad, as in truth he had, in quest of his master. When she had finished, the governor said, “Thou hast indeed been brought through many dangers, Hope Leslie; delivered from the hand of thy strong enemy, and thy feet made like hinds’ feet; and I joy to say that thy experience of the Lord’s mercies seemeth to have wrought a becoming sobriety in thee. I would fain pass over that last passage in thy evening’s adventures without remark, but duty bids me say thou didst err lamentably in permitting, for a moment, the idol-worship of that darkened, papistical youth.”
“Worship, sir!” said Hope; “I did not esteem it worship; I thought it merely an affectionate address to one who—and I hope I erred not in that—might not have been a great deal better than myself.”
“I think she erred not greatly,” said Mr. Fletcher, who at this moment felt too tenderly for Hope patiently to hear her rebuked; “the best Catholic doctors put this interpretation on the invocations to saints.”
“Granted,” replied the governor; “but did she right to deepen and strengthen the superstition of the Romish sailor?”
“It does not appear to me,” said Mr. Fletcher, “that it was a seasonable moment for meddling with his superstitions. We do not read that Paul rebuked the Melitans, even when they said he was a god.” This was but negative authority; but, while the governor hesitated how he should answer it, Mr. Fletcher turned to Esther: “Miss Downing,” he said, “thou art the pattern maiden of the Commonwealth: in Hope’s condition, wouldst thou have acted differently? Out of thy mouth she shall be justified or condemned.”
“Speak, dear Esther,” said Hope; “why do you hesitate? If I were to choose an external conscience, you should be my rule; though I think the stern monitor could never be imbodied in so gentle a form. Now tell us, Esther, what would you have done?”
“What I should have done, if left to my own strength, I know not,” replied Esther, speaking reluctantly.
“Then, Esther, I will put the question in a form to spare your humility: I will not ask what you would have done, but what I ought to have done.”
Esther’s strictness was a submission to duty; and it cost her an effort to say, “I would rather, Hope, thou hadst trusted thyself wholly to that Providence that had so wonderfully wrought for thee thus far.”
“I believe you are quite right, Esther,” said Hope, who was disposed to acquiesce in whatever her friend said, and glad to escape from any farther discussion, and, moreover, anxious to avert Esther’s observation from Everell, who, during the conversation, had been walking the room, his arms folded, to and fro, but had narrowly watched Esther during this appeal, and, when she announced her opinion, had turned disappointed away.
Mrs. Grafton now arose with a trifling apparent vexation, and, taking Faith by the arm, she signified her intention to retire to her own apartment. While crossing the room, she said, “It is not often I quote Scripture, as you all know; because, as I have said before, I hold a text from Scripture or a sample of chints to be a deceptive kind of specimen; but I must say now, that I think the case of David, in eating the shew-bread instead of looking for manna, upholds Hope Leslie in using the means the Lord chose to place in her hands.”
Having the last word is one of the tokens of victory, and the good lady, content with this, withdrew from the field of discussion. Governor Winthrop retired to his study. Hope followed him thither, and begged a few moments’ audience, which was, of course, readily granted. When the door was closed, and he had seated himself, and placed a large arm-chair for her, all the tranquillity which she had just before so well sustained forsook her; she sunk, trembling, on her knees, and was compelled to rest her forehead on the governor’s knee: he laid his hand kindly on her head: “What does this mean?” he asked; “I like it not, and it is not fitting that any one should kneel in my house but for a holy purpose: rise, Hope Leslie, and explain yourself; rise, my child,” he added, in a softened tone, for his heart was touched with her distress; “tyrants are knelt to, and I trust I am none.”