Delusion, or The Witch of New England Part 2

CHAPTER IV.

"Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!

When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death: Wind of the sunny south, O, still delay!"

BRYANT.

It was the close of one of those mild days at the end of October, that we call the Indian summer, corresponding to the St. Martin summer of the eastern continent, although the latter is wanting in some of the essential elements of beauty that belong to ours.

The sun was setting in veiled and softened light, while a transparent mist, like a silver gauze, was drawn over woods and hills and meadows.

The gorgeous robe of autumn gave to the landscape an air of festivity and triumph, while the veil of mist, and the death-like silence, seemed as if happy nature had been arrested in a moment of joy, and turned into a mourner. The intense stillness pressed on the heart. No chirp of bird or hum of insect broke the deep silence. From time to time a leaf, "yellow and sere," loosened, as it were, by invisible fingers from the stem, lingered a second on its way, and fell noiselessly to the earth.

In the deep distant wood, the sound of the ripe nuts as they fell, and, at long intervals, the shrill cry of the squirrel, came to the ear, and interrupted the revery of the solitary wanderer.

The scene I would describe was bounded on one side by high rocks and the vast ocean, but sloping towards the land into soft and undulating beauty. A n.o.ble river was on one side, and on the promontory thus formed, were left some of the largest trees of the forest that covered the whole country when our fathers first arrived. Although so near the ocean, the scene had a character of tranquil sylvan beauty strangely contrasted with the ocean when agitated by storms.

One of the largest villages of the time was on the opposite bank of the river; but, as there was no bridge, the place I would describe was almost as solitary as if man had never invaded it. The trees upon it were the largest growth of elm and oak, and seemed left to shelter a single dwelling, a house of moderate size, but which had much the appearance of neatness and comfort.

A few rods from the house, and still nearer the headland, stood the plain New England meeting-house of that period,--square, barn-like, unpainted, solitary, but for the silent tenants of its grave-yard. A gra.s.s-grown path connected the church with the dwelling-house, and the overshadowing trees gave to the spot an air of protection and seclusion unknown to modern New England churches.

At one of the windows of this modest dwelling, that looked towards the setting sun, which now bathed the whole scene in yellow light, was a young woman who might have seen seventeen summers. She was slightly but well formed, and, had it not been for her fresh and radiant health, she would have possessed that pensive, poetic expression that painters love.

She was not indeed beautiful, but hers was one of those countenances in which we think we recall a thousand histories,--histories of the inward life of the soul,--not the struggles of the pa.s.sions; for the dove seemed visibly to rest in the deep blue liquid eye, brooding on its own secret fancies.

By the fire sat a gentleman whose countenance and gray hair showed that he was approaching the verge of threescore years and ten, and his black dress indicated his profession. His slippers and pipe presented a picture of repose from the labors and cares of the day; and, although it had been warm, a fire of logs burned in the large old-fashioned chimney.

The furniture of the room, though plain, and humble, had been kept with so much care and neatness that it was seen at once that a feminine taste had presided there, and had cherished as sacred the relics of another age.

The occupants of the room were father and daughter. A portrait over the fireplace, carefully guarded by a curtain, indicated that he was a widower, and that his child was motherless.

They had both been silent for a long time. The young lady continued to watch with apparent interest some object from the window, and the old man to enjoy his pipe; but at last the night closed in, and the autumn mist, rising from the river, veiled the brilliancy of the stars.

The daughter drew near the table, and seated herself by her father: her countenance was pensive, and a low sigh escaped her.

Her father laid his hand tenderly on her head: "My poor child," he said, "I fear your life is too solitary; your young heart yearns for companions of your own age. True, we have few visitors suited to your age."

Edith looked up with a smile on her lips, but there was a tear in her eye, called there by her father's tender manner.

"And where," continued he, "is our young friend the student? It is long since he came to get another book. I fear he is timid and sensitive, and does not like that you should see his poor labor-swollen hands; but _that_ he should be proud of,--far more proud than if they were soft, like yours."

Edith blushed slightly. "Father," she said, "I want no companion but you. Let me bring your slippers. Ah! I see Dinah has brought them while I have been gazing idly at the river. It shall not happen again. What book shall be our evening reading? Shall I take up Cicero again, or will you laugh at the Knight of the rueful Countenance."

How soon is ingenuous nature veiled or denied by woman. Edith thus tried to efface the impression of her sigh and blush, by a.s.suming a gayety of manner which was foreign to her usual demeanor, and which did not deceive her father.

"We must go and find out our young friend," pursued her father. "He has much talent, and will surely distinguish himself, and he must not be suffered to languish in poverty and neglect. The first fine day, my daughter, we will ride over and visit him."

Edith looked her grat.i.tude, and the long autumn evening wore pleasantly on.

It was at the time when slavery was common in New England. At the close of the evening, Paul and Dinah, both Africans, entered, and the usual family prayers were offered.

At the close of the prayer, the blacks kneeled down for their master's blessing.

This singular custom, though not common to the times, was sometimes practised; and those Puritans, who would not bend the knee to G.o.d except in their closets, allowed their slaves to kneel for their own blessing.

They went to Edith, who kissed Dinah on both dark cheeks, and gave her hand to Paul, and the family group separated each to his slumbers for the night.

The head of the little group we have thus described was one of the most distinguished of the early New England clergymen. He had been educated in England, and was an excellent cla.s.sical scholar; indeed, his pa.s.sion for the cla.s.sics was his only consolation in the obscure little parish where he was content to dwell.

He had been early left a widower, with this only child, and all the affections of a tender heart had centred in her. The mildness of his disposition had never permitted him to become either a bigot nor a persecutor. He had been all his life a diligent student of the human heart, and the result was tolerance for human inconsistencies, and indulgence for human frailties.

At this time accomplishments were unknown except to those women who were educated in the mother country; but such education as he could give his daughter had been one of his first cares.

He had taught her to read his favorite cla.s.sics, and had left the mysteries of "shaping and hemming," knitting and domestic erudition, to the faithful slave Dinah. Edith had grown up, indeed, without other female influence, relying on her father's instructions, as far as they went, and her own pure instincts, to guide her.

The solitude of her situation had given to her character a pensive thoughtfulness not natural to her age or disposition. Solitude is said to be the nurse of genius, but to ripen it, at least with woman, the sunny atmosphere of love is necessary.

Genius is less of the head than of the heart: not that we belong to the modern school who believe the pa.s.sions are necessary to the developement of genius;--far from it. The purest affections seem to us to have left the most enduring monuments. Among a thousand others, at least with woman, we see in Madam De Sevigne that maternal love developed all the graces of a mind unconscious certainly of its powers, but destined to become immortal.

Our heroine, for such we must try to make her, had grown up free from all artificial forms of society, but yearning for a.s.sociates of her own age and s.e.x. After her father, her affections had found objects only in birds and animals, and the poor cottagers of one of the smallest parishes in the country.

Living, as she did, in the midst of beautiful nature, and with the grandeur of the ocean always before her, it could not fail to impart a spiritual beauty, a religious elevation, to her mind that had nothing to do with the technical distinctions of the day. Edith Grafton was formed for gentleness and love, to suffer patiently, to submit gracefully, to think more of others' than of her own happiness. She was the light and joy of her father's hearth, and the idol of her faithful slaves, and she possessed herself that "peace that goodness bosoms ever."

CHAPTER V.

"The mildest herald by our fate allotted Beckons! and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us, with a gentle hand, Into the land of the departed,--into the silent land.

Ah, when the frame round which in love we cling, Is chilled by death, does mutual service fail?

Is tender pity then of no avail?

Are intercessions of the fervent tongue A waste of hope?"

WORDSWORTH.

The two slaves that completed the evening group had been brought into Mr. Grafton's family at the time of his marriage. Dinah was the most striking in personal appearance. She had been born a princess in her native land; and her erect and n.o.bly-proportioned form had never been crushed by the feeling of abject slavery.

From the moment they entered the family of Mr. Grafton, they were regarded as children, even the lambs of the flock.

They were both at that time young, and soon entered into the more intimate relation of husband and wife; identifying their own dearest interests, and making each other only subordinate to what seemed to them even more sacred,--their devotion to their master and mistress.

Dinah's mind was of a more elevated order than Paul's, her husband. If she had not been a princess in her own country, she belonged to those upon whose souls G.o.d has stamped the patent of n.o.bility.

Naturally proud, she was docile to the instructions of her excellent mistress; and her high and imperious spirit was soon subdued to the gentle influences of domestic love, and to the purifying and elevating spirit of Christianity.

Her mistress taught her to read. The Bible was her favorite book; and she became wise in that best wisdom of the heart, which is found in an intimate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Her character, under the burning sun of Africa, would have been intolerable; but it was tempered to a soft moonlight radiance, by the shading of Christianity.