Silent Struggles Part 14

"Take her, take her! and G.o.d have mercy on us all!" cried Elizabeth, tottering forward and giving up the child. Then she went feebly up the stairs and entered her chamber again.

The princely Indian boy, true to the reticent instincts of his father's race, became silent as marble when he saw that his little sister would not be harmed. Even the cry of joy that rose to his lips when the child was given up he bravely suppressed. He would not, by one action, let his persecutors know how dear the little wanderer was to him. Had he spoken a word, or challenged attention by a gesture, the minister's wife would have learned that her sister's son was in peril, and might perhaps have saved him also. But he was too brave for complaint, and she went on, ignorant of his danger to the hour of her death.

The tide rose, the winds blew favorably, that old ship unfurled its canvas and sent out signals that its human crew was waited for. Down to the beach those brave young savages were forced, into the boats and away forever more.

Before night-fall that craft was far off on her horrible errand, plunging along that vast desert of waters, with oh! what terrible agony shut down under her closed hatches.

There in her hold, dark as the bottomless pit, with every breath of the stifled air foul with the scent of bilge water, lay those children of the great forest; which, broad, and green, and n.o.ble as it was, had hardly afforded scope for their heroic energies a month before. Down in impenetrable blackness, beneath the roaring waters that beat against that creaking hull, like wild animals, riotous with hunger, they had been cast in heaps, with less mercy than would have been yielded to mad dogs or trapped tigers. Not one glimpse of the glorious old woods from which they had been torn--not even a fragment of the blue sky was given to those bloodshot eyes; but, lashed onward by the waves, stifled, hungry, and broken-hearted, they were swept into slavery.

When Samuel Parris reached home that night, he found in place of the gentle wife whom he had left singing at her work, the dead woman of the forest, lying in her gorgeous habiliments, and the little child, whose stillness was more appalling than that of the corpse, crouching at her feet.

Shocked at the sight, but thinking first of his wife, the minister, after a vain attempt to question the child, followed the sound of broken voices that came faintly to his ear, and entered his own chamber. A moment after he went hurriedly from the house, returned with another person, and stood all night long holding his breath by the chamber door.

At last he came away, moving like a ghost through the dim morning, and entered the little sitting-room where his angel had been seated so tranquilly when he went out, not yet twenty-four hours agone. The little girl, who had stayed by her mother all night, arose, and stood looking him in the eyes with a steady gaze that might have made any man shrink, for it was unearthly in its earnestness.

While that weird glance was upon him, a low cry rang through the house, a cry that made every drop in the old man's veins leap, and every nerve tremble.

"Thank G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d, my G.o.d, how _can_ I thank thee enough!" and the old man wept tenderly.

As if mocking the ecstasy of his tears, the little girl smiled in his face--but oh, such a wintry smile--and went back to her mother. The old man shuddered.

After a time, he went up to the chamber of his wife. She lay upon the bed with the babe he was to look upon for the first time, not folded to her bosom, but lying apart, while she gazed wistfully at its little features, with a weary look full of dull anguish, that never would change to the lovelight which should brighten a mother's face.

The minister, with tears in his eyes, leaned over her, and would have pressed his lips upon her forehead, but she shrunk down in the bed with a low moan, as a wounded fawn shudders at the touch of its captor, and when he sought to comfort her, and speak out the exquisite joy that filled his whole being, she looked up with those piteous eyes, and muttered:

"She was my sister--my sister!"

These were all the words she ever uttered. The shock of his sudden presence had exhausted the last remnants of her strength. She only breathed fainter and fainter, till her child, like the little one below, was motherless.

The two sisters were buried side by side, the same tree overshadowed them, and in the course of time the flowers that blossomed on one grave crept over the other. Many tears were shed over the minister's wife as they lowered her into the earth, but not one--not one--over the grand-hearted forest-woman. For her Samuel Parris could not weep. He looked upon her very coffin with terror. The Nemesis of his life was there, and would haunt him forever and ever. He stood by the open grave, bowed down with something more awful than grief. In the happiness of his married life he had grown vigorous and upright; but now his shoulders stooped, and his limbs shook like the branches of a dead tree. Poor old man! who can wonder that Samuel Parris never held up his head again!

As for the child, Abigail Williams, she came of a race to whom revenge stands in the place of religion--a race even to whose women and children tears are a reproach. At her mother's grave she did not forget the proud lessons of the kingly savage who taught even his women to suffer bravely.

They had taken off her Indian dress, it is true, but what power could quench the fire in that young heart! She did not comprehend the meaning of those black garments, only that she was alone, utterly alone, among all those people, who had been cruel enough to let her mother die.

From that double grave the young savage went back to old t.i.tuba, the Indian woman, never in her whole life to know one hour of careless childhood.

Thus it was that Abigail Williams became the adopted child of Samuel Parris, and this was the girl who, far advanced towards womanhood now, was left in charge of the minister's house when he made his eventful visit to Boston.

CHAPTER XII.

ELIZABETH AND HER COUSIN.

From the cradle up, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams had been as sisters--nay, more, for while the same blood flowed in their veins and the same household words had been breathed into their ears, there existed that strong bond of contrast which is sure to give some degree of excitement to the quietest life. Abigail was the elder by about three years. She had come to a rapid growth, and her beauty possessed all the roundness and depth of tint which belongs to a full-statured woman. Her mind was like her person, and both were remarkable. Apt, bright, full of intelligence, yet gentle, and troubled with a shy bashfulness at times, which sprang from pride rather than timidity, she was a wonder to everybody that saw her. She was so unlike other children, her manner of doing things was so firm and gentle, that few even of the gravest church-members ever thought of rebuking her as they did other offenders, or of petting her in the same way.

She was greatly given to study, but sometimes would sit with her book in one hand, or her slate in her lap, gazing wistfully into the distance through the window of the log school-house, as if her life like her thoughts lay afar off, and having escaped her lesson, could not be brought back again.

The school-house commanded a broad, beautiful approach to the sea, and behind it was a dense forest of hemlocks, oaks, and beech, which kept the earth forever in shadow, and covered the old sodden logs and decayed stumps with thick fleeces of moss that gleamed out like velvet and gold when a sunbeam chanced to strike downward and touch the earth. Vast as the ocean itself stretched the shadows of that forest, and Abigail's face took a deeper and more earnest expression when she looked that way, deeper and more earnest even than when she gazed upon the far-off waters and saw the distant sky bend down and cover their retreat with silvery mists. You would have thought the child was searching for something that was very, very long in coming, as she fell into these long musing fits.

Sometimes she would remain motionless, leaning both elbows on her little pine-desk, and dropping her chin between her hands, for half an hour together without turning her eyes from the shadows that darkened the forest, and seeming to hold her breath lest it should frighten some one back that she had been waiting and hoping for. She seemed to be conscious herself that there was someone weird and strange about these fits of concentrated thought, for at every sound of your voice, at every step that drew near, she would catch her breath, start and look up, as if she expected something dreadful to happen.

Speak softly to Abigail Williams at such times, or look at her with a glance of love, and her quiet eyes would fill and her childish heart would heave, it was impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to her when her head was at the little window and her thoughts far away, no one knew where, the poor thing would grow pale, and turn upon you with such a sorrowful look, then go away and do as she was bidden with a gravity that touched you to the heart. Sometimes it would require a whole day after a rebuke like this to restore the dye of her sweet lips or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have appeared. But with all this, the quickness of her intellect, and the alacrity with which she took to study, was remarkable as her thoughtfulness.

But Elizabeth Parris was in every respect a very different child. If you chided her even to the lifting of a finger, ten to one, she laughed in your face, and made you laugh with her, in spite of yourself. Scold her, and you got an answer back that made you love the creature for her very sauciness. She would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the motion of your head, or the curve of your mouth, while you were expecting to terrify her. Everybody was tired of her in half an hour, and yet everybody was glad to see her again, for, with all her mischief, she crossed your threshold like a sunbeam.

She was a careless little romp, too. Loved above all things to run barefoot, and was forever losing her shoes in the long gra.s.s.

She had a hundred different ways of combing her bright hair; and, in the winter time, if there was an ice-pond or a snow-drift within a mile of the village, she was sure to be sliding on the one or wading knee-deep in the other. Still Elizabeth grew very fond of her book, and had fits of hard study that kept her ahead of her cla.s.s in spite of her wild ways.

Out of school, the two girls were always together; they required no other playmates. Mornings, evenings, and Sat.u.r.days, especially, they were always creeping about under the great beech trees, with their story books, which Abby would pore over, and Elizabeth would listen to, with fun on her lips or water in her eyes as the case might be--though she was always ready for a tumble in the wet gra.s.s, a plunge in the surf, or a slide from the very top of the hay mow, at a moment's warning.

Sometimes they would spend a whole day hunting for early apples in the thick gra.s.s, picking hazel-nuts, or feeding the fish in the clear sea.

Then they would ramble about in the great solemn woods together, holding their breath, and ready to say their prayers with very awe, not of the wild beasts whose track they were on, but from the vast shadows that fell over them from the trees that were spread out, over the sky, and the expanse of shrubbery, that seemed to cover the whole earth.

The sublimity of all these things hushed them into silence, and if they heard a noise in the forest, a howl or a war-whoop, they would creep in among the flowers of some solitary thicket, and were safe.

Directly the danger had pa.s.sed they might be found where the scarlet barberries glittered among the sharp green leaves, like threaded bunches of coral; where the glowing purple plums, or cl.u.s.tered bunch berries rustled among the foliage and rolled about their feet in over ripeness.

Into these wild places they delighted to go, even while they were afraid to speak above a whisper, and kept close hold of each other's hands every step of the way, till a sort of fascination crept over them, and they grew strangely in love with the vast solitude of the woods.

Such was the love, and such the companionship of these two girls. In school or out, all day and all night, sleeping, waking, talking or dreaming, they were always together--never apart for a single day, up to the time of our story.

The two sisters who had been carried together out of the minister's dwelling, and laid side by side behind that old meeting-house, whose slender wooden spire could be seen from the school-house window, with the figure of Death on the top for a weatherc.o.c.k, were scarcely more inseparable than these children had been, since their hands were linked in sisterhood by those new-made graves.

And now Abigail Williams was approaching her nineteenth birthday; but she looked at least five years older than the sweet, blue-eyed Elizabeth.

She was stately beyond her age, and altogether her beauty was so remarkable that the people of the town could not choose but turn and look upon it as she pa.s.sed by on her way to school or meeting.

But she had left off school now and took to reading every thing she could lay her hands on, even to the pamphlets and old newspapers h.o.a.rded away in the minister's garret; indeed her attainments were something wonderful--she was almost as learned as the minister himself.

Such was Abby Williams, at the period when our story commenced. For the first time in her life, she was separated from Elizabeth Parris; then, while the loneliness was upon her, she was left in solitude, with no human creature in the house but the old Indian servant t.i.tuba.

The day after the minister left his home, Abby was sitting in the room where her aunt Parris had sung at her work that night when the forest woman found her sewing so quietly. The young girl sat by the open window, in the very chair where her mother died. She was busy knitting on one of those long seamed stockings, which were an important portion of the male dress in those times. Two b.a.l.l.s of yarn lay in her lap, gray and white, with which she striped the stocking, seaming it every three st.i.tches. She was expert with her needles, and did not look at them, but sat gazing out into the calm summer day, peacefully as her aunt had done, but with a touch of sadness in her face; for, as her aunt had thought of her unborn babe years before, she was thinking of Elizabeth now.

In those tender thoughts, and in the monotony of her work alone, Abby Williams resembled her aunt. The tropical bird and the wood pigeon had as much likeness in every thing else. The young girl was singular and picturesque. In her person was blended all the beauty of two distinct races, but in every thing the grace of civilization predominated. The delicacy and l.u.s.tre of her mother's beauty were all present, moulding the features into exquisite grace, lending a soft, purplish blue to those bright eyes, and scattering gloss and bloom among the folds of those heavy tresses. The contrast of her eyes with the black brows and lashes gave a beauty to the face even more attractive than the rich tint of her complexion or the peachy richness of her cheek. The refinement of civilization and the lithe grace of the panther were blended in her person. Her very repose was eloquent of deep tenderness, and of fierce, slumbering pa.s.sion. When these antagonisms came in contact, that young girl's character would break forth in all its powers of good and evil; at present, she was only an humble maiden at her work, lonely and a little sad, but at peace with all mankind.

As she worked, t.i.tuba, the Indian woman, came in and out from the kitchen, making vague pretences, as it seemed, only to look on the young girl at her work. She did not speak once, for Abby was gazing afar off into the shadows of the forest as if her fate lay there, and she was striving to unravel it with her glances.

At last the sun went down, and old t.i.tuba came into the room again, chanting an Indian death-song inexpressibly mournful and sweet, which mingled so sorrowfully with the girl's thoughts that she dropped her knitting and leaned back in the great-chair, sighing heavily.

t.i.tuba kept on with her chant; it was the lament of a child over the grave of its mother, given in the Indian tongue, every word of which went to the young girl's heart, like a reproach. The meeting-house, which stood upon the edge of the forest, lent force to the old woman's voice, as it died away on her slow retreat to the kitchen. The full moon threw its pale, ghastly light on the figure of Death which surmounted its spire, and she knew that its shadow was that moment creeping over her mother's grave.

Unconscious of the influence that sent her forth, Abby arose, and, throwing a shawl over her head, went quietly out into the moonlight, taking a straight line for the meeting-house.