But we return from this digression to our pilot-boat, which now had nearly reached its landing-place. A throng had gathered on the “town-dock” in expectation of friends, or news from friends. In vain did the young stranger’s eye explore the crowd for some familiar face; he was obliged to check the greetings that rose to his lips, and repress the throbbings of his heart. “Time,” he said, “has wrought strange changes. I fancied that even the stones in Boston would know me; but now I see not one welcoming look, unless it be in those barbary and rose bushes, that appear just as they did the last time I scrambled over Windmill Hill.” They now landed at the foot of this hill, and the young gentleman told his companion that he should go to his old home at Governor Winthrop’s, where he was sure of finding friends to welcome him. “And if you will accompany me thither,” he said, “I am certain our kind governor will render you all the courtesies which, as a stranger, you may require.”
This opportune offer was of course accepted; and the gentlemen proceeded like old acquaintances, arm in arm together, after a short consultation between the master and page, the amount of which seemed to be that the boy should attend him, and await without Governor Winthrop’s door farther orders.
They had not gone far, when, as they turned a corner, two young ladies issued from the door of a house a little in advance, and walked on without observing them. The young gentleman quickened his steps. “It must be she!” he exclaimed, in a most animated tone. “There is but one person in the world that has such tresses!” and his eye rested on the bright golden ringlets that peeped from beneath a chip gipsy hat worn by one of the ladies.
“That is not a rational conclusion of yours,” said his companion. “Women have cunning devices by which to change the order of Nature in the colouring of the hair. I have seen many a court dame arrayed in the purchased locks of her serving-maid; besides, you know it is the vain fashion of the day to make much use of coloured powders, fluids, and unguents.”
“That may all be; but do you not see this nymph’s locks are, as Rosalind says, of the colour God chooses?”
“It were better, my friend, if you explained your meaning without a profane quotation from a play, a practice to which our godless cavaliers are much addicted; but pardon my reproof: age has privileges.”
“I do not know,” replied the young gentleman, “what degree of seniority may confer this privilege; if some half dozen years, I submit to your right; and the more readily, as I am just now too happy to quarrel about anything; but excuse me, I must quicken my pace to overtake this girl, who trips it along as if she had Mercury’s wings on those pretty feet.”
“Ah, that’s a foot to leave its print in the memory,” said the elder gentleman, in an animated and natural tone, that, eagerly as his companion was pressing on, did not escape his observation.
They had now approached the parties they were pursuing near enough to hear their voices and catch a few words of their conversation. “You say it’s edifying, and all that,” said the shortest of the two young ladies, in reply to what seemed, from the tone in which it was concluded, to have been an expostulation; “and I dare say, dear Esther, you are quite right, for you are as wise as Solomon, and always in the right; but for my part, I confess, I had infinitely rather be at home drying marigolds, and matching embroidery silks for aunt Grafton.”
“Hope Leslie! by Heaven!” exclaimed the young man, springing forward. The young lady turned at the sound of her name, uttered a scream of joy, and, under the impulse of strong affection and sudden delight, threw her arms around the stranger’s neck, and was folded in the embrace of Everell Fletcher.
The next instant, the consciousness that the street was an awkward place for such a demonstration of happiness, or, perhaps, the thought that the elegant young man before her was no longer the playfellow of her childhood, suffused her neck and face with the deepest crimson; and a sort of exculpatory exclamation of “I was so surprised!” burst from her lips, and extorted a smile even from Everell’s new acquaintance, whose gravity had all the fixedness of premeditation.
For a moment Everell’s eyes were riveted to Hope Leslie’s face, which he seemed to compare with the image in his memory. “Yes,” he said, as if thinking aloud, “the same face that I saw, for the first time, peeping through my curtains, the day Digby brought me home to Bethel: how is Digby? my dear father? Mrs. Grafton? the Winthrops? everybody?”
“All, all well; but I must defer particulars till I have introduced you to my friend, Miss Downing.”
“Miss Downing! is it possible!” exclaimed Everell; and a recognition followed which showed that, though he had not before observed the lady, who had turned aside, and was sheltered under the thick folds of a veil, the parties were not unknown to each other. Miss Leslie now drew her friend’s arm within hers, and, as she did so, she perceived she trembled excessively; but, too considerate to remark an agitation which it was obvious the lady did not mean to betray, she did not appear to notice it, and proceeded to give Everell such particulars of his friends as he must be most impatient to hear. She told him that his father was in Boston, and that, in compliance with his son’s wishes, he had determined to fix his residence there. Everell was rejoiced at this decision, for gloomy recollections were, in his mind, always associated with Bethel, and he was never happy when he thought of the dangers to which Miss Leslie was exposed there.
“My last letters from America,” he said, “informed me that you had, as yet, no tidings from your sister or my friend Magawisca.”
“Nor have we now; still I cling to my belief that my poor sister will some day be restored to me: Nelema’s promise is prophecy to me.”
They had by this time reached Governor Winthrop’s. Miss Downing withdrew her arm from her friend, with the intention of retiring to her own apartment; but her steps faltered, and she sunk down in the first chair she could reach, hoping to escape all observation in the bustle of joy occasioned by the unexpected arrival of Everell; and she did so, excepting that her aunt called the colour to her cheek by saying, “My dear Esther, you have sadly fatigued yourself; you are as pale as death!” and Hope Leslie, noticing that Everell cast stolen glances of anxious inquiry at her friend, made, with the usual activity of a romantic imagination, a thousand conjectures as to the nature of their acquaintance. But there was nothing said or done to assist her speculations; and while the governor was looking over a letter of introduction, presented to him by Everell’s chance acquaintance, who had announced himself by the name of Sir Philip Gardiner, the young ladies withdrew to their own apartment.
“A pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure.”
Il Penseroso.
When the two ladies were alone, there were a few moments of embarrassed and uninterrupted silence, a rare occurrence between two confidential young friends. Hope Leslie was the first to speak. “Come, my dear Esther,” she said, “it is in vain for you to think of hiding your heart from me; if you do not fairly conduct me through its mazes, I shall make use of the clew you have dropped, and find my own way through the labyrinth.”
“Hope Leslie! what clew do you mean? You should not trifle thus.”
“Well, then, I will be as serious as you please, and most solemnly demand why thou hast never hinted to the friend of thy bosom that thou hadst seen in thine own country this youth, Everell Fletcher, of whom I have, at divers times and sundry places, most freely spoken to thee?”
“I never told you I had not seen him.”
“Oh no! but methinks, for a godly, gracious maiden as thou art, Esther—approved by our elders, the pattern of our deacons’ wives—your actions, as well as your language, should be the Gospel ‘yea, yea, and nay, nay;’ this ‘paltering with a double sense,’ as the poet has it, would better become a profane damsel like myself.”
“If I have lacked sincerity, I merit your reproach; but I meant to have told you. Mr. Fletcher’s arrival now was unexpected—”
“And you were indisposed? your nerves deranged? your circulations disordered? I thought so when I saw that burning blush, that looked, even through the folds of your veil, as if it would set it on fire; but, now your surprise is over, why look so like the tragic muse? Raise up your eyes and look at me, dear Esther, and do not let those long eyelashes droop over your pale cheek like a weeping willow over monumental marble.”
“Oh, Hope Leslie! if it were not sinful, I could wish that monumental marble might press the clods on my cold bosom.”
Hope was startled at the unaffected solemnity and deep distress of her friend: every pulsation of her heart was audible, and her lips, which before were as pale as death, became absolutely blue. She threw her arms around her, and kissed her tenderly. “Dear, dear Esther,” she said, “forgive me for offending thee. I never will ask thee anything again—never, so long as I live. You may look glad or sorry, blush or faint—do anything you please, and I never will ask you for a reason.”
“You are very kind, very generous, Hope; but have you not already guessed the secret I have striven to hide? You hesitate: answer me truly.”
“Why, then, if I must answer truly, perhaps I have,” replied Hope, looking, in spite of herself, as archly as the mischievous little god, when he sees one of his own arrows trembling in the heart; “ ‘set a thief to catch a thief,’ dear Esther, is an old maxim; and, though I have never felt this nervous malady, yet, you know, I am skilled in the books that describe the symptoms, thanks to aunt Grafton’s plentiful stock of romances and plays.”
“Oh, most unprofitable skill! But I have no right to reproach thee, since what hath been but the sport of thy imagination is my experience—degrading experience. Whatever it may cost me, you shall know all, Hope Leslie. You have justly reproached me with insincerity: I will at least lighten my conscience of the burden of that sin.”
Hope’s curiosity was on tiptoe; and, notwithstanding her generous resolution not voluntarily to penetrate her friend’s mystery, she was delighted with the dawn of a disclosure which, she believed, would amount to a simple confession of a tender sentiment. She sincerely pitied Miss Downing’s sufferings; but it is, perhaps, impossible for a third person to sympathize fully with feelings of this nature. “Now, Esther,” she said, sportively, “fancy me to be the priest, and yourself the penitent. Confess freely, daughter; our holy Church, through me, her most unworthy servant, doth offer thee full absolution.”
“Stop, stop, Hope Leslie! do not trifle with holy words and most unholy rites; but listen seriously, and compassionate a weakness that can never be forgotten.”
Miss Downing then proceeded to relate some of the following particulars; but, as her narrative was confused by her emotions, and as it is necessary our readers should, for the sake of its illustration, be possessed of some circumstances which were omitted by her, we here give it, more distinctly, in our own language.
Esther was the daughter of Emanuel Downing, the husband of Governor Winthrop’s sister, so often mentioned by that gentleman in his journal as the faithful and useful friend of the Pilgrims, whom he finally joined in New-England.
Esther Downing was of a reserved, tender, and timid cast of character, and, being bred in the strictest school of the Puritans, their doctrines and principles easily commingled with the natural qualities of her mind. She could not have disputed the nice points of faith, sanctification, and justification, with certain celebrated contemporary female theologians, but no one excelled her in the practical part of her religion. In the language of the times, justification was witnessed both by word and work.
That young ladies were then indulged in a moderate degree of personal embellishment, we learn from one of the severest Pilgrim satirists, who avers that he was “no cynic to the due bravery of the true gentry,” and allows that “a good text always deserves a fair margent.” Miss Downing was certainly a pure and beautiful “text,” but her attire never varied from the severest Gospel simplicity. It is possible that she was fortified in this self-denying virtue by that lively little spirit that ever hovers about a woman’s toilet, whispering in her ear that all the arts of the tyring-woman could not improve the becomingness of her Madonna style. She wore her hair, which was of a sober brown hue, parted on her forehead, and confined behind in a braid that was so adjusted, it may be accidentally, as to perfectly define the graceful contour of her head. Her complexion was rather pale, but so exquisitely fair and transparent that it showed the faintest tinge of colour, and set off to the greatest advantage features which, if not striking, had the admitted beauty of perfect symmetry. She was at least half a head taller than our heroine or the Venus de Medicis; but, as neither of these were standards with the Pilgrims, no one who ventured to speak of the personal graces of Esther Downing ever impeached their perfection. Spiritual graces were then in far higher estimation than external charms; and Miss Downing, who would have been a reigning belle in our degenerate times, was always characterized by a religious epithet; she was the “godly” or the “gracious maiden.” She attained the age of nineteen without one truant wish straying beyond the narrow bound of domestic duty and religious exercises; but the course of youth and beauty “never doth run smooth,” and the perils that commonly beset it now assailed the tender Esther.
Everell Fletcher came to her father’s to pass two months. He had then, for some years, resided in the family of his uncle Stretton, a moderate churchman, who, though he had not seen fit to eradicate the religious and political principles that had been planted in the mind of the boy, had so tempered them that, to confess the truth, the man fell far below the standard of Puritanism. At first Esther was rather shocked by the unsubdued gayety, the unconstrained freedom, and the air of a man of society that distinguished Everell from the few demure, solemn young men of her acquaintance; but there is an irresistible charm in ease, simplicity, and frankness, when chastened by the refinements of education, and there is a natural affinity in youth, even when there is no resemblance in the character; and Esther Downing, who at first remained in Everell’s presence but just as long as the duties of hospitality required, soon found herself lingering in the parlour, and strolling in the walks that were his favourite resort. It seemed as if the sun had risen on her after a polar winter, and cheerfulness and her pleasant train sprung up in a mind that had been chilled and paralyzed by the absence of whatever cherishes the gay temper of youth; but it was, after all, but the stinted growth of a polar summer.
She felt a change stealing over her; new thoughts were in her heart,
“And love and happiness their theme.”
She did not investigate the cause of this change, but suffered the current of her feelings to flow unchecked, till she was roused to reflection by her serving-maid, who said to her mistress one evening, when she came in from a long moonlight walk with Everell, “Our worthy minister has been here to-day, and he asked me what kept you from the lecture-room so oft of late. I minded him it rained last night. He said that in months past no tempest detained you from the place of worship. I made no answer to that; besides that, it was not for me to gainsay the minister. He stood as if meditating a minute, and then he took up your psalm-book, and as he did so, a paper dropped with some verses written on it, and he said, with almost a smile, ‘Ah, Judy, then your young lady tries her hand, sometimes, at versifying the words of the royal psalmist?’ ”
“Did he look at the lines, Judy?” asked Esther, blushing deeply with the consciousness that they were but a profane sentimental effusion.
“Yes, my lady; but he looked solemnized, and said nothing more about them; but, turning to me, and speaking as if he would ask a question, he said, ‘Judy, it was your mistress’ wont to keep the wheel of prayer in perpetual motion. I doubt not her private duty is still faithfully done?’ I answered to him that your honoured parents had been absent the last week, and you had had company to entertain, and were not quite as long at closet-exercise as usual.”
“Judy, you were very ready with your excuses for me,” said her mistress, after a moment’s thoughtfulness.
“It must be a dumb dog indeed,” replied the girl, “that cannot bark for such a kind mistress as thou art.”
How often does an accident, a casual word even, serve as a key to unlock feelings of which the possessor has been unconscious. The conscientious girl was suddenly awakened from what appeared to her a sinful dream. Had she perceived, on investigation, a reciprocal sentiment in Everell Fletcher, she would probably have permitted her feelings to flow in their natural channel; but, not mingling with his, they were like a stream that, being dammed up, flows back, and spreads desolation where it should have produced life and beauty.
The severest religionists of the times did not require the extinction of the tenderest human affections. On the contrary, there was, perhaps, never a period when they were more frequently and perfectly illustrated. How many delicate women, whom the winds of heaven had never visited roughly, subscribed with their lives to that beautiful declaration of affection from a tender and devoted wife: “Whithersoever your fatall destinie,” she said to her husband, “shall dryve you, eyther by the furious waves of the great ocean, or by the manifolde and horrible dangers of the lande, I will surely beare you company. There can be no peryll chaunce to me so terrible, nor any kynde of deathe so cruelle, that shall not be much easier for me to abyde than to live so farre separate from you.”
But, though human affections were permitted, they were to be in manifest subservience to religious devotion: their encroachments were watched with a vigilance resembling the jealousy with which the Israelites defended from every profane footstep the Holy Circle around the ark of the living God. It was this jealousy that now alarmed the fearful, superstitious girl; and, after some days of the most unsparing self-condemnation, imbittered by an indefinite feeling of disappointment, she fell into a dangerous illness, and in the paroxysms of her fever she prayed fervently that her Creator would resume the spirit which had been too weak to maintain its fidelity. It seemed as if her prayer was soon to be granted; she felt herself, and was pronounced by her physician, to be on the verge of the grave. She then was inspired with a strong desire, proceeding, as she believed, from a divine intimation, but which might possibly have sprung from natural feeling, to open her heart to Everell. This disclosure, followed by her dying admonition, would, she hoped, rescue him from the vanities of youth. She accordingly requested her mother to conduct him to her bedside, and to leave them alone for a few moments; and when her request was complied with, she made to the astonished youth, in the simplicity and sincerity of her heart, a confession that, in other circumstances, the rack would not have extorted.
At first Fletcher fancied her reason was touched. He soothed her, and attempted to withdraw to call her attendants. She interpreted his thoughts, assured him he was mistaken, and begged that he would not waste one moment of her ebbing life. He then knelt at her bedside, took her burning hand in his, and bathed it with tears of deep commiseration and tender regret. He promised to lay up her exhortations in his heart, and cherish them as the law of his life; but he did not intimate that he had ever felt a sentiment responding to hers. There was that in the solemnity of the death-bed, in her purity and truth, that would have rebuked the slightest insincerity, however benevolent the feeling that dictated it.
This strange interview lasted but a few moments. Miss Downing, in the energy of her feeling, raised herself on her elbow; the effort exhausted her, and she sunk back in a stupor which appeared to be the immediate precursor of death. Her friends flocked round her, and Fletcher retired to his own room, filled with sorrowful concern at the involuntary influence he had exercised on this sensitive being, who seemed to him far better fitted for heaven than for earth.
But Miss Downing was not destined yet to be translated to a more congenial sphere. Her unburdened heart reposed after its long struggles; the original cause of her disease was lightened, if not removed; and the elasticity of a youthful constitution rose victorious over her malady. She never mentioned Everell Fletcher; but she heard, incidentally, that he had remained at her father’s till she was pronounced out of danger, and had then gone to his uncle Stretton’s in Suffolk.
The following autumn, her father, in compliance with a request of Madam Winthrop, and in the hope that a voyage would benefit her health, which was still delicate, sent her to Boston. There she met Hope Leslie—a bright, gay spirit—an allegro to her penseroso. They were unlike in everything that distinguished each; and it was therefore more probable, judging from experience, that they would become mutually attached. Whatever the theory of the affections may be, the fact was that they soon became inseparable and confidential friends. Hope sometimes ventured to rally Esther on her over-scrupulousness, and Miss Downing often rebuked the laughing girl’s gayety; but, however variant their dispositions, they melted into each other like light into shade, each enhancing the beauty and effect of the other.
Hope often spoke of Everell, for he was associated with all the most interesting recollections of her childhood, and probably with her visions of the future; for what girl of seventeen has not a lord for her air-built castles?
Miss Downing listened calmly to her description of the hero of her imagination, but never, by word or sign, gave token that she knew aught of him other than was told her; and the secret might have died with her, had not her emotion at Everell’s unexpected appearance half revealed the state of her heart to her quick-sighted friend. This revelation she finished by a full confession, interrupted by tears of bitter mortification.
“Oh!” she concluded, “had I but known how to watch and rule my own spirit, I should have been saved these pangs of remorse and shame.”
“My dear Esther,” said Hope, brushing away the tears of sympathy that suffused her eyes, “I assure you I am not crying because I consider it a crying case; you people that dwell in the clouds have always a mist before you; now I can see that your path is plain, and sure the end thereof; just give yourself up to my guidance, who, though not half so good and wise as you are, am far more sure-footed. I do not doubt in the least Everell feels all he ought to feel. I defy anybody to know you and not love you, Esther. And do you not see that, if he had made any declaration at the time, it might have seemed as if he were moved by pity or gratitude? He knew you were coming to New-England, and that he was to follow you; and now he has anticipated his return by some weeks, and why nobody knows, and it must be because you are here: don’t you think so? You will not speak, but I know by your smile what you think as well as if you did.”
Arguments appear very sound that are fortified by our wishes, and Miss Downing’s face was assuming a more cheerful expression, when Jennet (our old friend Jennet) came into the room to give the young ladies notice to prepare for dinner, and to inform them that Sir Philip Gardiner was to dine with them; “and a godly appearing man he is,” said Jennet, “as ever I laid my eyes on; and it is a wonder to me that our Mr. Everell should have fallen into such profitable company; for, I am sorry to see it and loath to say it, he looks as gay as when he used to play his mad pranks at Bethel; when it was next to an impossibility to keep you and him, Miss Hope, from talking and laughing even on a Sabbath day. I think,” she continued, glancing her eye at Miss Downing, “sober companions do neither of you any good; and it is so strange Mr. Everell should come home with his hair looking like one of those heathen pictures of your aunt’s.”
“Oh! hush, Jennet! It would be a sin to crop those dark locks of Mr. Everell.”
“A sin indeed, Miss Leslie! That is the way you always turn things wrong side out; a sin to have his hair cut like his father’s—or the honourable governor’s—or this Sir Philip Gardiner’s—or any other Christian man’s.”
“Well, Jennet, I wish it would come into your wise head that Christian tongues were not made for railing. As to my being serious to-day, that is entirely out of the question; therefore you may spare yourself hint and exhortation, and go to my aunt, and ask her for my blue bodice and necklace. But no—” she said, stopping Jennet, for she recollected that she had directed the blue bodice because it matched her blue fillet, Everell’s gift, and a secret voice told her she had best, under existing circumstances, lay that favourite badge aside. “No, Jennet, bring me my pink bodice and my ruby locket.” Jennet obeyed, but not without muttering, as she left the room, a remonstrance against the vanities of dress.
Jennet was one of those persons, abounding in every class of life, whose virtues are most conspicuous in “damning sins they are not inclined to.” We ought, perhaps, to apologize for obtruding so humble and disagreeable a personage upon our readers. But the truth is, she figured too much on the family record of the Fletchers to be suppressed by their faithful historian. Those personages ycleped bores in the copious vocabulary of modern times, seem to be a necessary ingredient in life, and, like pinching shoes and smoky rooms, constitute a portion of its trials. Jennet had first found favour with Mrs. Fletcher from her religious exterior. To employ none but godly servants was a rule of the Pilgrims; and there were certain set phrases and modes of dress which produced no slight impression upon the minds of the credulous. To do Jennet justice, she had many temporal virtues; and though her religion was of the ritual order, and, therefore, particularly disagreeable to her spiritual mistress, yet her household faculties were invaluable, for then, as now, in the interior of New-England, a faithful servant was like the genius of a fairy tale—no family could hope for more than one.
Long possession legalized Jennet’s rights and increased her tyrannical humours, which were naturally most freely exercised on those members of the family who had grown from youth to maturity under her eye. In nothing was the sweetness of Hope Leslie’s temper more conspicuous than in the perfect good-nature with which she bore the teasing impertinences of this menial, who, like a cross cur, was ready to bark at every passer by.
Youth and beauty abridge the labours of the toilet, and our young friends, though on this occasion unusually solicitous about the impression they were to make, were not long in attiring themselves; and when Mrs. Grafton presented herself to attend them to dinner, they were awaiting her. “Upon my word,” she said, “young ladies, you have done honour to the occasion; it is not every day we have two gentlemen fresh from Old England to dine with us; I am glad you have shown yourselves sensible of the importance of the becomings. It is every woman’s duty, upon all occasions, to look as well as she can.”
“And a duty so faithfully performed, my dear aunt,” said Hope, “that I fancy, like other duties, it becomes easy from habit.”
“Easy!” replied Mrs. Grafton, with perfect naïveté; “second nature, my dear, second nature. I was taught, from a child, to determine, the first thing in the morning, what I should wear that day; and now it is as natural to me as to open my eyes when I wake.”
“I should think, madam,” said Esther, “that other and higher thoughts were more fitting a rational creature, preserved through the night-watches.”
Hope was exquisitely susceptible to her aunt’s frailties, but she would fain have sheltered them from the observation of others. “Now, my gentle Esther,” she whispered to Miss Downing, “lecturing is not your vocation, and this is not lecture-day. On jubilee-days slaves were set free, you know, and why should not follies be?”
Miss Downing could not have failed to have made some sage reply to her friend’s casuistry, but the ringing of a bell announced the dinner, and the young ladies, arm in arm, followed Mrs. Grafton to the dining-room. Just as they entered, Hope whispered, “Remember, Esther, the festal day is sacred, and may not be violated by a sad countenance.” This was a well-timed caution; it called a slight tinge to Miss Downing’s cheeks, and relieved her too expressive paleness.
Everell Fletcher met them at the door. The light of his happiness seemed to gild every object. He complimented Mrs. Grafton on her appearance; told her she had not in the least changed since he saw her—an implied compliment, always, after a woman has passed a certain age. He congratulated Miss Downing upon the very apparent effect of the climate on her health; and then, breaking through the embarrassment that slightly constrained him in addressing her, he turned to Hope Leslie, and they talked of the past, the present, and the future with spontaneous animation, their feelings according and harmonizing as naturally as the music of the stars when they sang together.
“Our New-England shall tell and boast of her Winthrop, a lawgiver as patient as Lycurgus, but not admitting any of his criminal disorders; as devout as Numa, but not liable to any of his heathenish madnesses; a governor in whom the excellences of Christianity made a most improving addition unto the virtues, wherein, even without those, he would have made a parallel for the great men of Greece or of Rome, which the pen of a Plutarch has eternized.”—Cotton Mather.
The governor’s house stood in the main street (Washington-street), on the ground now occupied by “South Row.” There was a little court in front of it; on one side a fine garden; on the other a beautiful lawn, or, as it was called, “green,” extending to the corner on which the “Old South” (Church) now stands, and an ample yard and offices in the rear.
The mighty master of fiction has but to wave his wand to present the past to his readers with all the vividness and distinctness of the present; but we, who follow him at an immeasurable distance—we, who have no magician’s enchantments, wherewith we can imitate the miracles wrought by the rod of the prophet—we must betake ourselves to the compass and the rule, and set forth our description as minutely and exactly as if we were making out an inventory for a salesman. In obedience to this necessity, we offer the following detailed description of the internal economy of a Pilgrim mansion, not on any apocryphal authority, but quoted from an authentic record of the times.
“In the principal houses was a great hall, ornamented with pictures; a great lantern; velvet cushions in the window-seat to look into the garden: on either side a great parlour, a little parlour or study, furnished with great looking-glasses, Turkey carpets, window-curtains and valance, picture and a map, a brass clock, red leather-back chairs, a great pair of brass andirons: the chambers well furnished with feather beds, warming-pans, and every other elegance and comfort: the pantry well filled with substantial fare and dainties, Madeira wine, prunes, marmalade, silver tankards and wine-cups not uncommon.”
If any are incredulous as to the correctness of the above extract, we assure them that its truth is confirmed by the spaciousness of the Pilgrim habitations still standing in Boston, and occupied by their descendants. These Pilgrims were not needy adventurers nor ruined exiles. Mr. Winthrop himself had an estate in England worth seven hundred pounds per annum. Some of his associates came from lordly halls, and many of them brought wealth, as well as virtue, to the colony.
The rigour of the climate, and the embarrassments incident to their condition, often reduced the Pilgrims, in their earliest period, to the wants of extreme poverty; but their sufferings had the dignity and merit of being voluntary, and are now, as the tattered garments of the saints are to the faithful, sacred in the eyes of their posterity.
Our humble history has little to do with the public life of Governor Winthrop, which is so well known to have been illustrated by the rare virtue of disinterested patriotism, and by such even and paternal goodness, that a contemporary witty satirist could not find it in his heart to give him a harsher name than “Sir John Temperwell.” His figure (if we may trust to the fidelity of his painter) was tall and spare; his eye dark blue, and mild in its expression: he had the upraised brow, which is said to be indicative of a religious disposition; his hair and his beard, which he wore long, were black. On the whole, we must confess, the external man presents the solemn and forbidding aspect of the times in which he flourished; though we know him to have been a model of private virtue, gracious and gentle in his manners, and exact in the observance of all gentlemanly courtesy.
His wife was admirably qualified for the station she occupied. She recognised, and continually taught to matron and maiden, the duty of unqualified obedience from the wife to the husband, her appointed lord and master; a duty that it was left to modern heresy to dispute, and which our pious fathers, or even mothers, were so far from questioning, that the only divine right to govern which they acknowledged was that vested in the husband over the wife. Madam Winthrop’s matrimonial virtue never degenerated into the slavishness of fear or the obsequiousness of servility. If authorized and approved by principle, it was prompted by feeling; and, if we may be allowed a coarse comparison, like a horse easy on the bit, she was guided by the slightest intimation from him who held the rein; indeed, to pursue our humble illustration still farther, it sometimes appeared as if the reins were dropped, and the inferior animal were left to the guidance of her own sagacity.
Without ever overstepping the limits of feminine propriety, Madam Winthrop manifestly enjoyed the dignity of her official station, and felt that if the governor were the greater, she was the lesser light. There was a slight tinge of official importance in her manner of conferring her hospitalities and her counsel; but she seemed rather to intend to heighten the value of the gift than the merit of the giver.
Governor Winthrop possessed the patriarchal blessing of a numerous offspring; but, as they were in no way associated with the personages of our story, we have not thought fit to encumber it with any details concerning them.
We return from our long digression to the party we left in Governor Winthrop’s parlour.
The tables were arranged for dinner. Tables, we say, for a side-table was spread, but in a manner so inferior to the principal board, which was garnished with silver tankards, wine-cups, and rich china, as to indicate that it was destined for inferior guests. This indication was soon verified; for, on a servant being sent to announce dinner to Governor Winthrop, who was understood to be occupied with some of the natives on state business, that gentleman appeared, attended by four Indians: Miantunnomoh, the young and noble chief of the Narragansetts, two of his counsellors, and an interpreter. Hope turned to Everell to remark on the graceful gestures by which they expressed their salutations to the company: “Good Heavens!” she exclaimed, “Everell, what ails you?” for she saw that he was as pale as death.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Everell, wishing to avoid observation, and turning towards the window: he then added, in explanation to Hope, who followed him, “these are the first Indians I have seen since my return, and they brought too vividly to mind my dear mother’s death.”
Governor Winthrop motioned to his Indian guests to take their seats at the side-table, and the rest of the company, including the elder Fletcher and Cradock, surrounded the dinner-table, and serving-men and all reverently folded their arms and bowed their heads while the grace or prefatory prayer was pronouncing.
After all the rest had taken their seats, the Indians remained standing; and although the governor politely signified to the interpreter that their delay wronged the smoking viands, they remained motionless, the chief drawn aside from the rest, his eye cast down, his brow lowering, and his whole aspect expressive of proud displeasure.
The governor rose, and demanded of the interpreter the meaning of their too evident dissatisfaction.
“My chief bids me say,” replied the savage, “that he expects such treatment from the English sagamore as the English receive in the wigwam of the Narragansett chief. He says that when the English stranger visits him, he sits on his mat and eats from his dish.”
“Tell your chief,” replied the governor, who had urgent state reasons for conciliating Miantunnomoh, “that I pray him to overlook the wrong I have done him: he is right; he deserves the place of honour. I have heard of his hospitable deeds, and that he doth give more than even ground to his guests; for our friend, Roger Williams, informed us that he hath known him, with his family, to sleep abroad to make room in his wigwam for English visiters.”
Governor Winthrop added the last circumstance partly as a full confession of his fault, and partly as an apology to his helpmate, who looked a good deal disconcerted by the disarrangement of her dinner. However, she proceeded to give the necessary orders; the table was remodelled, a sufficient addition made, and the haughty chief, his countenance relaxing to an expression of grave satisfaction, took his seat at the governor’s right hand. His associates being properly accommodated at the table, the rest of the company resumed their stations.
Everell cast his eye around on the various viands which covered the hospitable board. “Times have mended,” he said, to Madam Winthrop, “in my absence. I remember once sitting down with my father to a good man’s table, on which was nothing but a sorry dish of clams; but our host made up for the defect of his entertainment by the excess of his gratitude, for, as I remember, he gave thanks that ‘we were permitted to eat of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.’ ”
Hope Leslie understood so well the temper of the company she was in, that she instantly perceived a slight depression of their mercury at what appeared to them a tone of levity in Everell. She interposed her shield. “What may we expect from the future,” she said, “if now it seems strange to us that, ten years ago, the best in the colony were reduced to living upon muscles, acorns, and ground-nuts; and that our bountiful governor, having shared his flour and meat with the poorest in the land, had his last batch of bread in the oven, when the ship with succours arrived? the Lion, or the Blessing of the Bay—which was it, Master Cradock? for it was you who told me the story,” she added, bending towards Cradock, who sat opposite to her.
Cradock, who always felt, at the least notice from Hope, an emotion similar to that of a pious Catholic when he fancies the image of the saint he worships to bend propitiously towards him—Cradock dropped his knife and fork, and erecting his body with one of those sudden jerks characteristic of awkward men, he hit the elbow of a servant, who was just placing a gravy-boat on the table, and brought the gravy down on his little brown wig, whence it found its way, in many a bubbling rill, over his face, neck, and shoulders.
A murmur of sympathy and suppressed laughter ran around the table; and while a servant, at his mistress’s bidding, was applying napkins to Cradock, he seemed only intent upon replying to Miss Leslie. “It was the Lion, Miss Hope; ha, indeed, a wonderful memory! yes, yes, it was the Lion. The Blessing of the Bay was the governor’s own vessel.”
“That name,” said Sir Philip Gardiner, in a low tone to Hope Leslie, next whom he sat, “should, I think, have been reserved, where names are significant, for a more just appropriation.”
He spoke in a tone of confidential gallantry so discordant with his demeanour, that the fair listener lost the matter in the manner; and, turning to him with one of those looks so confounding to a man who means to speak but to one ear in the company, “What did you say, sir?” she asked.
“He said, my dear,” said Mrs. Grafton, who sat at the knight’s left hand, and who would have considered it worse to suppress a compliment than to conceal treason, “he said, my dear, that you should have been named the Blessing of the Bay.”
Sir Philip recoiled a little at this flat version of his compliment; but he had other interests to sustain more important than his knightly courtesy, and he was just contriving something to say which might secure him a safe passage past Scylla and Charybdis, when Madam Winthrop, who was exclusively occupied with the duty of presiding, begged Sir Philip would change his plate, and take a piece of wild turkey, which she could recommend as savoury and tender; or a piece of the venison—the venison, she said, was a present from the son of their good old friend and ally, Chicatabot, and she was sure it was of the best.
The knight declined the proffered delicacies, alleging he had already been tempted to excess by the cod’s head and shoulders—a rarity to a European.
“But,” said Miss Leslie, “you will not dine on fish alone, and on Friday too? why, we shall suspect you of being a Romanist.”
If there was anything in the unwonted blush that deepened the knight’s complexion which might lead an observer to suspect that an aimless dart had touched a vulnerable point, he adroitly averted suspicion, by saying “that he trusted temperance and self-denial were not confined to a corrupt and superstitious Church, and that, for himself, he found much use in voluntary mortifications of appetite.”
“Fastings oft,” said Cradock, who had been playing the part of a valiant trencherman, taking liberally of all of the various feast, “fastings oft are an excellent thing for those who have grace for them; and yours, Sir Philip, if one may judge from the ruddiness of your complexion, are wonderfully prospered.” The knight received the simple compliment with a silent bow.
Cradock turned to Miss Downing, who sat on his right: “Now, Miss Esther, you do wrong yourself; there is that pigeon’s wing, just as I gave it to you!”
Hope Leslie looked up with a deprecating glance, as if she would have said, “Heaven help my tutor! he never moves without treading on somebody’s toes.”
“Is not Miss Downing well?” asked the elder Fletcher, who now, for the first time, noticed that she looked unusually pale and pensive.
“Perfectly well,” said Esther.
“Indifferently well, my dear, you mean,” said Madam Winthrop. “Esther,” she added, “always feeds like a Canary bird; but I never despair of a young lady: they have all the chameleon gift of living upon air.”
“Will Miss Downing mend her appetite with wine,” asked young Fletcher, “and allow me the honour of taking it with her?”
“Everell!” exclaimed Hope, touching his elbow, but not in time to check him.
“My son!” said his father, in a voice of rebuke.
“Mr. Fletcher!” exclaimed Governor Winthrop, in a tone of surprise.
“What have I done now?” asked Everell of Hope Leslie; but Hope was too much diverted with his mistake and honest consternation to reply.
“You have done nothing inexcusable, my young friend,” said the governor; “for you probably did not know that the vain custom of drinking one to another, has been disused at my table for ten years; and that our general court prohibited this ‘employment of the creature out of its natural use’ by their order in the year of our Lord 1639, four years since; so that the custom hath become quite obsolete with us, though it may be still in practice among our laxer brethren of England.”
“With due deference I speak,” said Everell, “to my elders and superiors; but it really appears to me to border on the Quixotism of fighting windmills to make laws against so innocent a custom.”
“No vanity is innocent, Mr. Everell Fletcher,” replied the governor, “as you will yourself, after proper consideration, confess. Tell me, when but now you would have proffered wishes of health to my niece Esther, was it not an empty compliment, and not meant by you for an argument of love, which should always be unfeigned?”
The governor’s proposition appeared to himself to be merely an abstract metaphysical truth; but to the younger part of his audience, at least, it conveyed much more than met the ear.
Miss Downing blushed deeply, and Everell attempted, in vain, to stammer a reply. Hope Leslie perceived the pit, and essayed a safe passage over it. “Esther,” she said, “Everell shall not be our knight at tilt or tournament, if he cannot use the lance your uncle has dropped at his feet. Are there not always, Everell, in your heart, arguments of love unfeigned when you drink to the health of a fair lady?”
Before Everell had time to reply except by a sparkling glance, the governor said, “This is somewhat too light a discussion of a serious topic.”
This rebuke quenched at once the spark of gayety Hope had kindled; and the dinner, never a prolonged meal in this pattern mansion, was finished without any other conversation than that exacted by the ordinary courtesies of the table.
After the repast was ended, the Indian chief took his leave with much fainter expressions of attachment than he had vouchsafed on a former visit, as the governor had afterward occasion to remember.
The party dispersed in various directions, and the governor withdrew, with the elder Fletcher, to his study. When there, Governor Winthrop lighted his pipe, a luxury in which he sparingly indulged; and then, looking over a packet of letters, he selected one and handed it to Mr. Fletcher, saying, “There is an epistle from Brother Downing which your son has brought to me. Read it yourself; you will perceive that he has stated his views on a certain subject, interesting to you and to us all; and stated them directly, without any of the circumlocution and ambiguity which a worldly-minded man would have employed on a like occasion.”
Mr. Downing introduced the important topic of his epistle, which Mr. Fletcher read with the deepest attention, by saying that “Fletcher, junior, returns to the colony a fit instrument, as I trust, to promote its welfare and honour. He is gifted with divers and goodly talents, and graced with sufficient learning.
“I have often been sorely wounded at hearing the censures passed on our brother Fletcher for having sent his son into the bosom of a prelatical family, but I confidently believe the youth returns to his own country with his Puritan principles uncorrupted; although, it is too true, as our stricter brethren often remark, that he has little of the outward man of a ‘Pilgrim indeed.’
“He is, Brother Winthrop, a high-metalled youth, and on this account I feel, as you doubtless will, the urgency of coupling him with a member of the congregation, and one who may, in all likelihood, accomplish for him that precious promise of the apostle, ‘the believing wife shall sanctify the unbelieving husband.’
“I have already taken the first step towards bringing about so desirable an end, by inviting the young man to my house, where he spent two months of the summer. I then favoured his intimate intercourse with my well-beloved daughter Esther, whose outward form I may say, without boasting, is a fit temple for the spirit within.”
Mr. Downing then proceeded to state some circumstances already known to the reader, and particularly dwelt on Everell’s remaining at his house during his daughter’s dangerous illness; touched lightly on their having had an interview, very affecting to both parties, and in regard to the particulars of which, both, with the shyness natural to youth, had been silent; and finally set forth, in strong terms, the concern evinced by Everell while Esther’s recovery was doubtful.
“Notwithstanding,” the letter proceeded to say, “these circumstances are so favourable to my wishes, I have some apprehensions; and therefore, brother, I bespeak your immediate interposition in behalf of the future spiritual prosperity of this youth. He hath been assiduously courted by Miss Leslie’s paternal connexions, and I have reason to believe they have solicited him to marry her and bring her to England. But, without such solicitation, the marriage is a probable one. Miss Leslie is reported here to be wanting in grace—a want that I fear would not impoverish her in young Fletcher’s estimation; and to be a maiden of rare comeliness—a thing precious in the eyes of youth, too apt to set a high price on that which is but dust and ashes. The young lady is of great estate too; but that, I think, will not weigh with the young man, for I discern a lofty spirit in him that would spurn the yoke of Mammon. Nor do I think, with some of our brethren, that ‘gold and grace did never yet agree.’ Yet there are some who would make this alliance a ground of farther scandal against our brother Fletcher. It is whispered that his worldly affairs are not so prosperous as we could wish. Mark me, brother, my confidence in him is unmoved, and I think, and am sure, that he would not permit his son to espouse this maiden, with the dowry of a queen, if thereby he endangered his spiritual welfare. But, brother, you in the New World are as a city set on a hill. Many lie in wait for your halting, and all appearance of evil should be avoided. On this account and many others, Brother Fletcher and all of us should duly prize that medium and safe condition for which Agur prayed.
“One more reason I would suggest, and then commend the business to thy guidance, who art justly termed, by friend and foe, the Moses of God’s people in the wilderness.
“It seemeth to me, the motive of Miss Leslie’s mother, in going with her offspring to the colony, should be duly weighed and respected. Could her purpose, in any other way, be so certainly accomplished as by uniting her daughter speedily with a godly and approved member of the congregation?”
Every sentence of this letter stung Mr. Fletcher. He repeatedly threw it down, rose from his seat, and after taking two or three turns across the study, screwed his courage to the sticking point, and returned to it again. Governor Winthrop’s attention appeared to be riveted to a paper he was perusing, till he could no longer, from motives of delicacy to his friend, affect to abstract his attention from him. Mr. Fletcher finished the letter, and leaning over the table, covered his face with his hands. His emotion could not be hidden. The veins in his temples and forehead swelled almost to bursting, and his tears fell like rain-drops on the table. Governor Winthrop laid his hand on his friend’s arm, and by a gentle pressure expressed a sympathy that it would have been difficult to imbody in words.
After a few moments’ struggle with his feelings, Mr. Fletcher subdued his emotion, and turning to Governor Winthrop, he said, with dignity, “I have betrayed before you a weakness that I have never expressed but in that gracious Presence where weakness is not degradation. Thus has it ever pleased Him, who knows the infirmity of my heart, to try me. From my youth my path hath been hedged up with earthly affections. Is it that I have myself forged the fetters that bind me to the earth? Is it that I have given to the creature what I owed to the Creator, that one after another of my earthly delights is taken from me? that I am thus stripped bare? Oh! it has been the thought that came unbidden to my nightly meditations and my daily reveries, that I might live to see these children of two saints in heaven united. This sweet child is the image of her blessed mother. She was her precious legacy to me, and she hath been such a spirit of love and contentment in my lone dwelling, that she hath inwrought herself with every fibre of my heart.”
“This was natural,” said Governor Winthrop.
“Ay, my friend, and was it not inevitable? I did think,” he continued, after a momentary pause, “that in their childhood, their affections, as if instinct with their parents’ feelings, mingled in natural union; if their hearts retain this bent, I think it were not right to put a force upon them.”
“Certainly not,” replied his friend; “but the affections of youth are flexible, and may be turned from their natural bent by a skilful hand. It is our known duty to direct them heavenward. In taking care for the spiritual growth of our young people, who are soon to stand in their father’s places, we do, as we are bound, most assuredly build up the interests of our Zion. I should ill deserve the honourable name my brethren have given me if I were not zealous over our youth. In fearing any opposition from the parties in question, I think, my worthy brother, you disquiet yourself in vain. It appeareth from Downing’s letter that there hath been tender passages between your son and his daughter Esther; and even if Hope Leslie hath fed her fancies with thoughts of Everell, yet I think she would be forward to advance her friend’s happiness; for, notwithstanding she doth so differ from her in her gay carriage, their hearts appear to be knit together.”
“You do my beloved child but justice; what is difficult duty to others hath ever seemed impulse in her; and I have sometimes thought that the covenant of works was to her a hinderance to the covenant of grace; and that, perhaps, she would hate sin more for its unlawfulness if she did not hate it so much for its ugliness.”
Governor Winthrop thought his friend went a little too far in magnifying the virtue of his favourite. “Pardon,” he said, “the wounds inflicted by a friend; they are faithful. I have thought the child rests too much on performances; and you must allow, brother, that she hath not—I speak it tenderly—that passiveness that, next to godliness, is a woman’s best virtue.”
“I should scarcely account,” replied Mr. Fletcher, “a property of soulless matter a virtue.” This was spoken in a tone of impatience that indicated truly that the speaker, like an over-fond parent, could better endure any reproach cast on himself than the slightest imputation on his favourite. Governor Winthrop was not a man to shrink from inflicting what he deemed a salutary pain because his patient recoiled from his touch; he therefore proceeded in his admonition.
“Partiality is dangerous, as we see in the notable history of David and Absalom, and elsewhere; and perhaps it was your too great indulgence that imboldened the child to the daring deed of violating the law by the secret release of the condemned.”
“That violation rests upon suspicion, not proof,” said Mr. Fletcher, hastily.
“And why,” replied Governor Winthrop, smiling, “is it permitted to rest on suspicion? from respect to our much-suffering Brother Fletcher, and consideration of the youth of the offender, we have winked at the offence. But we will pass that; I would be the last to lift the veil that hath fallen over it; I only alluded to it to enforce the necessity of a stricter watch over this lawless girl. Would it not be wise and prudent to take my brother’s counsel, and consign her to some one who should add to affection the authority of a husband?”
Governor Winthrop paused for a reply, but receiving none, he proceeded: “One of our most promising youth hath this day discoursed to me of Hope Leslie, and expressed a matrimonial intent towards her.”
“And who is this?” demanded Mr. Fletcher.
“William Hubbard—the youth who hath come with so much credit from our prophets’ school at Cambridge. He is a discreet young man, steeped in learning, and of approved orthodoxy.”
“These be cardinal points with us,” replied Mr. Fletcher, calmly, “but they are not like to commend him to a maiden of Hope Leslie’s temper. She inclineth not to bookish men, and is apt to vent her childish gayety upon the ungainly ways of scholars.”
Thus our heroine, by her peculiar taste, lost at least the golden opportunity of illustrating herself by a union with the future historian of New-England.
After a little consideration the governor resumed the conversation. “It is difficult,” he said, “to suit a maiden who hath more whim than reason: what think you of Sir Philip Gardiner?”
“Sir Philip Gardiner! a new-comer of to-day! and old enough to be the father of Hope Leslie!”
“The fitter guide for her youth. Besides, brother, you magnify his age: he is still on the best side of forty. He is a man of good family, who, after having fought on the side where his birth naturally cast him, hath been plucked, as a brand from the burning, by the preaching and exhortation of the godly Mr. Wilkins; and feeling, as he declares, a pious horror at the thought of imbruing his hands any farther in blood, he hath come to cast his lot among us, instead of joining our friends in England.”
“Hath he credentials to verify all these particulars?”
Governor Winthrop coloured slightly at an interrogatory that implied a deficiency of wariness on his part, and replied, “That he thought the gentleman scarcely needed other than he carried in his language and deportment, but that he had come furnished with a letter of introduction satisfactory in all points.”
“From whom?” inquired Mr. Fletcher.
“From one Jeremy Austin, who expresseth himself as, and Sir Philip says is, a warm friend to us.”
“Is he known to you?”
“No; but I think I have heard him mentioned as a well-willer to our colony.”
This was not perfectly satisfactory to Mr. Fletcher, but he forbore to press the point farther, and turned his attack to that part of the suggestion that appeared most vulnerable. “Methinks,” he said, “you are over-hasty in proposing to match Hope Leslie with this stranger.”
“Nay, I meant not a formal proposition. I noted that Sir Philip was struck with Hope’s outward graces. He is an uncommon personable man, and hath that bearing that finds favour in maidens’ eyes, and the thought came to me that he may have been sent here, in good time, to relieve all our perplexities; and, to confess the truth, brother, if I may use the sporting language of our youth, I am impatient to put jesses on this wild bird of yours while she is on our perch. But, to be serious, and surely the subject doth enforce us to it, I am satisfied that you will not oppose any means that may offer to secure the lambs of our flock in the true fold.”
“I shall oppose nothing that will promote the spiritual prosperity of those dear to me as my own soul. I have no reason to doubt my son’s filial obedience; he hath never been wanting; and, though both he and I have fallen under censure, I see not that I erred in sending him from me, since I but complied with the last request of his sainted mother, and that compliance deprived me of the only child left of my little flock. I speak not vauntingly; but let not those who have remained in Egypt condemn him who has drank of the bitterest waters of the wilderness.” Mr. Fletcher, finding himself again yielding to irrepressible emotions, rose and hastily left his more equal-tempered and less interested friend.
Thus did these good men, not content with their magnanimous conflict with necessary evils, involve themselves in superfluous trials. Whatever gratified the natural desires of the heart was questionable, and almost everything that was difficult and painful assumed the form of duty. As if the benevolent Father of all had stretched over our heads a canopy of clouds instead of the bright firmament, and its glorious host, and ever-changing beauty, and had spread under our feet a wilderness of bitter herbs instead of every tree and plant yielding its good fruit. But we would fix our eyes on the bright halo that encircled the Pilgrim’s head, and not mark the dust that sometimes sullied his garments.
“Then crush, even in their hour of birth,
The infant buds of love,
And tread his glowing fire to earth,
Ere ’tis dark in clouds above.”
Halleck.
The observance of the Sabbath began with the Puritans, as it still does with a great portion of their descendants, on Saturday night. At the going down of the sun on Saturday, all temporal affairs were suspended; and so zealously did our fathers maintain the letter as well as the spirit of the law, that, according to a vulgar tradition in Connecticut, no beer was brewed in the latter part of the week, lest it should presume to work on Sunday.
It must be confessed that the tendency of the age is to laxity; and so rapidly is the wholesome strictness of primitive times abating, that, should some antiquary, fifty years hence, in exploring his garret rubbish, chance to cast his eye on our humble pages, he may be surprised to learn that even now the Sabbath is observed, in the interior of New-England, with an almost Judaical strictness.
On Saturday afternoon an uncommon bustle is apparent. The great class of procrastinators are hurrying to and fro to complete the lagging business of the week. The good mothers, like Burns’s matron, are plying their needles, making “auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;” while the domestics, or help[4] (we prefer the national descriptive term), are wielding with might and main their brooms and mops, to make all tidy for the Sabbath.
As the day declines, the hum of labour dies away, and after the sun is set, perfect stillness reigns in every well-ordered household, and not a footfall is heard in the village street. It cannot be denied, that even the most spiritual, missing the excitement of their ordinary occupations, anticipate their usual bedtime. The obvious inference from this fact is skilfully avoided by certain ingenious reasoners, who allege that the constitution was originally so organized as to require an extra quantity of sleep on every seventh night. We recommend it to the curious to inquire how this peculiarity was adjusted when the first day of the week was changed from Saturday to Sunday.
The Sabbath morning is as peaceful as the first hallowed day. Not a human sound is heard without the dwellings, and, but for the lowing of the herds, the crowing of the cocks, and the gossiping of the birds, animal life would seem to be extinct, till, at the bidding of the church-going bell, the old and young issue from their habitations, and with solemn demeanour bend their measured steps to the meeting-house. The family of the minister—the squire—the doctor—the merchants—the modest gentry of the village, and the mechanic and labourer, all arrayed in their best, all meeting on even ground, and all with that consciousness of independence and equality which breaks down the pride of the rich, and rescues the poor from servility, envy, and discontent. If a morning salutation is reciprocated, it is in a suppressed voice; and if, perchance, Nature, in some reckless urchin, burst forth in laughter, “My dear, you forget it’s Sunday!” is the ever ready reproof.
Though every face wears a solemn aspect, yet we once chanced to see even a deacon’s muscles relaxed by the wit of a neighbour, and heard him allege, in a half deprecating, half laughing voice, “The squire is so droll that a body must laugh, though it be Sabbath-day.”
The farmer’s ample wagon and the little one-horse vehicle bring in all who reside at an inconvenient walking distance; that is to say, in our riding community, half a mile from the church. It is a pleasing sight to those who love to note the happy peculiarities of their own land, to see the farmer’s daughters, blooming, intelligent, and well bred, pouring out of these homely coaches with their nice white gowns, prunello shoes, Leghorn hats, fans, and parasols, and the spruce young men with their plaited ruffles, blue coats, and yellow buttons. The whole community meet as one religious family, to offer their devotions at the common altar. If there is an outlaw from the society—a luckless wight, whose vagrant taste has never been subdued, he may be seen stealing along the margin of some little brook, far away from the condemning observation and troublesome admonitions of his fellows.
Towards the close of the day, or (to borrow a phrase descriptive of his feeling who first used it) “when the Sabbath begins to abate,” the children cluster about the windows. Their eyes wander from their catechisms to the western sky; and though it seems to them as if the sun would never disappear, his broad disk does slowly sink behind the mountain; and while his last ray still lingers on the eastern summit, merry voices break forth, and the ground resounds with bounding footsteps. The village belle arrays herself for her twilight walk; the boys gather on “the green;” the lads and girls throng to the “singing-school;” while some coy maiden lingers at home, awaiting her expected suiter; and all enter upon the pleasures of the evening with as keen a relish as if the day had been a preparatory penance.
We have passed over eight days, which glided away without supplying any events to the historian of our heroine’s life, though even then the thread was spinning that was to form the woof of her destiny.
Intent on verifying the prediction she had made to Esther, that Everell would soon declare himself her lover, she promoted the intercourse of the parties in every way she could without making her motive apparent. While she treated Everell with frank sisterly affection, and was always easy and animated in his society, which she enjoyed above all other pleasures, she sedulously sought to bring Esther’s moral and mental graces forth to the light. In their occasional walks she took good care that Everell should be the companion of her friend, while she permitted Sir Philip Gardiner to attend her. He was a man of the world, practised in all the arts of society; and though he sometimes offended her by the excess of his flattering gallantries, yet he often deeply interested her with his lively descriptions of countries and manners unknown to her.
It was just at twilight on Saturday evening when the elder Mr. Fletcher came into Madam Winthrop’s parlour, found his son sitting there alone, and interrupted a very delightful meditation on the eloquence of Hope Leslie, who had just been with him, descanting on the virtues of her friend Esther. The charms of the fair speaker had, we believe, a far larger share of his thoughts than the subject of her harangue.
“We have a lecture extraordinary to-night,” said Mr. Fletcher; “our rulers, some time since, issued an order, limiting our regular religious meetings to one during the week. Shall you go, my son?”
“Sir! go to the lecture?” replied Everell, as it just waking from a dream; and then added, for then he caught a glimpse of Hope through the door with her hat and mantle, “oh, yes; certainly, sir, I shall go to the lecture.”
He snatched his hat, and would have joined Miss Leslie; but she saw his intention, and turning to him as she passed the threshold of the door, she said, “You need not go with me, Everell; I have to call for aunt Grafton, at Mrs. Cotton’s.”
“May I not call with you?”
“No; I had rather you would not,” she said, decidedly, and hurried away without any explanation of her preference.
“What can have disturbed Hope?” asked Mr. Fletcher, for both he and his son had observed that her cheek was flushed and her eye tearful.