Silent Struggles Part 9

"Anxious! You never saw such a night! None of us thought of rest. The governor, whose self-control is the admiration of everybody, wandered about the town all night long, while I and poor little Elizabeth Parris--the pretty young creature I hinted at, you know--really fretted ourselves almost into hysterics. Let me a.s.sure you, upon my honor, I almost knew how people feel when they are unhappy."

"Almost!" murmured Barbara Stafford, lifting her eyes with a gleam of mournful astonishment. But Lady Phipps was full of her subject, and went on.

"So, after we had welcomed Norman back again, and petted him into believing himself of the greatest possible consequence, I came off here to beg that you will leave this lonesome old place, and honor Sir William's roof, while it shall suit your convenience."

"But I am a stranger--even a nameless one."

"I beg your pardon--not altogether. Sir William has, as you know, lived a good deal in England, and the Staffords, of Lincolnshire, are among his most powerful friends."

"The Staffords, of Lincolnshire?"

"Oh, I forget, you have no idea how we found out the name. It was on the handkerchief you lost in the sand. 'Barbara Stafford,' a fine old name that my husband loves well."

A faint smile stole over the strange lady's face, but she only bent her head in acknowledgment of Lady Phipps's kindness.

"Your name alone is sufficient introduction, but Sir William is curious to know to what branch of the family it belongs--the earl?"

"I am in no way connected with the Earl of Stafford," said Barbara, quickly; "in fact, have no claim upon the hospitality of your--of Sir William Phipps. My object in coming to America is perhaps already accomplished. With many thanks for this kindness, I must, for the present at least, decline your invitation."

Lady Phipps looked a little disappointed. She was so accustomed to having her own way, and seeing her very caprices regarded as a law, that this refusal of the stranger to become her guest brought the color to her brow.

"The governor will be greatly disappointed," she said, displacing her elbow from the pillow with a movement of graceful impatience. "I really shan't know what to say. Norman, too, will be quite beside himself. They will think me a miserable amba.s.sadress--in fact, if any thing makes me ill-natured and awkward, it is a refusal."

Barbara almost smiled. Notwithstanding her summertime of life, there was something very attracting in Lady Phipps's sparkling manner, which, beneath the frank playfulness of a child, betrayed all the dignity of a proud woman.

"It is not a refusal," said Barbara, gently; "perhaps only a delay; but just now I am too--too weary for society, and need time for rest."

"Then we shall yet have the pleasure?" exclaimed Lady Phipps, brightening, and holding out her hand; but she became grave in an instant, for the palm that met hers was cold as snow.

"You are, indeed, quite unfit for exertion," she said.

Barbara drew the cold hand from Lady Phipps's clasp, and, standing up, looked at her with a strained gaze as she left the room. The moment she was quite alone, wrapped up in the stillness of an empty house, the pale woman walked forward to the bed, fell upon it without a breath or a sob, and lay motionless with her face to the pillow.

That night, after all the family were asleep, except Goody Brown, she was surprised by the rustle of a silk dress at her elbow, just as she was raking up the kitchen fire for the night. She turned quickly, and saw her guest, who stood shivering on the hearth as if it had been the depth of winter.

"Goodness me!" exclaimed the housewife, planting her iron shovel with a plunge into the ashes; "I thought you'd gone to bed long ago. Any thing the matter?"

"Nothing--nothing!" answered the lady, sinking into one of the straight-backed chairs that stood near the hearth; "I heard you stirring, and so came out. Sit down a little while; I would like to ask a few questions about this new country--about Boston and its people."

Goody Brown seated herself on the dye-tub, which occupied a corner of the chimney, and smoothing down her checked ap.r.o.n prepared to listen.

She was no great talker at any time, and though the questions asked by her guest were low-toned, and uttered at long intervals, she heard them patiently and answered each in its place, without betraying any of that curiosity said to be characteristic of the New England matron of later days.

During the whole conversation, Barbara sat back in her chair, quite still, gazing upon the half-smothered embers with a dull, heavy look.

The tallow candle, with its long tow wick, that occupied a little round stand in a corner, left her face in the shadow, and the good woman remained quite unconscious how pale it was till her guest arose to say good-night; then she remembered how husky her voice had been, and how she seemed to shiver with cold.

"Do let me rake open the embers and give you a bowl of yarb tea, and put another coverlet on the bed," she urged, in her stiff, motherly way; "the teeth e'en a'most chatter in your head; you'll sartinly be took down agin."

"No, no! I shall be quieter now that I know--that I know all about the country, thank you."

And with a soft, gliding step, noiseless as when she entered, Barbara went into her room again.

"That's strange," muttered Goody Brown, as she sat before the buried fire with a foot planted on each andiron, meditating on the conversation she had just held. "Now can she be any relative to the governor or his wife, or the Salem minister, I wonder? She's mighty curious about them.

Well, thank goodness, I'd as lief tell her all I know about 'em as not.

There ain't no witchcraft in the truth."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MINISTER AND HIS PUPIL.

Governor Phipps and Samuel Parris had been neighbors for many years.

They had known each other when Parris was first settled over the church in Salem--a man in his prime--and the governor was the apprentice of a ship-builder near by. More than this; when Phipps was an apprentice and a dreamer, as all men of great capacities are at some period of their lives, thirsting for knowledge and restive as a wild animal, because all its sources were closed to him, Samuel Parris received the lad every night beneath his roof, and spent hours and hours in teaching him those rudiments of learning which are the key to all knowledge.

Parris had been an enthusiast, and a visionary man from his youth up. He was simple, pious, with a vein of rich poetry in his nature which could never be worked out fully in the pulpit, but was concentrated in his affections, and sometimes threatened the very foundations of his understanding.

The predominance of a vivid imagination over faculties of no ordinary stamp kept the minister's mind out of balance, and made his life an unfinished poem. Had all the other faculties of his mind been equal, Samuel Parris must have been a great poet or powerful statesman. Lacking so much and possessing so much, he was always good, affectionate, and most kind. A love of the pure and beautiful possessed him so entirely that it broke forth in veins of exquisite poetry in his sermons, and at times gave to his conversation an eloquence which seemed like absolute inspiration.

Like the minister, Phipps had much rough poetic ore in his composition; but underneath it all was a foundation of hard, practical good sense: he reasoned, while the minister dreamed. The poetry in his nature was enough to give fire and energy to his actions: it broke out through all his great after-schemes like veins of gold in a rock.

But in this man all the faculties came up and mated themselves with this high mental element, forming a most vigorous mind, and a will which nothing could conquer when set upon a right object.

Let no one smile when I speak of imagination as essential to real greatness. It were better to question fairly if absolute greatness ever existed without it. This high element of the mind is as necessary to a superior character as observation. It gives force and coloring to the other faculties. But with Phipps all the soul traits that make up a great character rose to a commanding level, urging the imagination to useful purposes, as machinery turns the beautiful waterfall into a mighty power.

Parris was a h.o.a.rder of books, rare ma.n.u.scripts, and even old newspapers, which, coming from over sea, were not very plentiful in the colonies in those days, and thus were rendered worthy of preservation.

It was in this store of ancient literature that the lad Phipps took his first course of reading. In these researches--for the acute lad, in his thirst for information, devoured every sc.r.a.p of print that came in his way--it chanced that the two fell upon an old paper, which gave an account of some Spanish galley, wrecked years before on the coast of La Plata. Laden with fabulous wealth, in silver, and jewels, and gold, this galley still lay in the depths of the ocean. They had talked the matter over, Parris as he would have dwelt upon a fairy tale, had such things been permitted to his creed; Phipps with reflection and purposes, for the first burning thoughts of great enterprise rose in his mind that night.

After studying the old newspaper diligently in every word and syllable, Phipps left Salem and took up his abode in Boston, then went a voyage to sea, studying navigation with a zeal that equalled his first efforts at reading.

He returned to the colonies in the first strength of his youth, taller in person, and with a dignity of carriage that distinguished him all his days. But his best friends knew little of his purposes now. The knowledge which he had acquired with the habit of concentrated thought had lifted him out of his old life. The very acquirements obtained at so much cost, while they exalted him in the estimation of his old friends, only isolated him from their sympathies. Other feelings besides ambition may have stirred in the young man's heart at this time; if so, but one human being ever became his confidant.

Shortly after his return from sea, William Phipps came one night fifteen miles through the wilderness, which separated Boston from Salem, and asked an interview with his old friend.

They went into a little room, the scene of their first studies, and conversed long and earnestly together. The subject of this conversation no one knew. The Indian woman in the kitchen heard her master's voice more than once, rising from entreaty to expostulation, but she took little heed of the matter, as arguments between the youth and his teacher often arose over some old book or worn-out ma.n.u.script, which they chanced to be studying together.

But one thing is certain; the great metaphysical law of life prevailed here. The strong intellect conquered the weaker; and when William Phipps rode away in the darkness, it was with a certainty that his iron will had prevailed over the gentle reasoning, aye, and the conscience, too, of his kind old friend.

No human being but the Indian woman knew a word of this mystery, if mystery there was; but on the very next night she heard the sound of hoofs coming rapidly through the woods, and knew by the sudden pause that more than one person had dismounted before her master's house. But as she left her work to open the door, Mr. Parris, pale and excited, met her in the pa.s.sage, and ordered her back to the kitchen in a voice that she dared not disobey.

After this she heard the continuous movement of feet in the adjoining room, the low muttering of voices; then her master came hurriedly out, asking for the camphor bottle which she found in a corner cupboard, wondering greatly what he could want of it; but he took the flask from her hand without a word and went into the room again.

In less than half an hour she heard the door close, and the softened tread of horses returning towards the woods along the forest turf. She looked out of the kitchen window. Two persons on horseback, a man and a woman, were riding by. The moonlight lay full upon their faces. That of the man she did not regard, for the loveliness of the young girl, around whom the moonbeams fell in luminous clearness, absorbed all her faculties. That was a face to be remembered forever, as we think of angel forms seen in dreams--a haunting face, never recognized clearly if seen again perhaps, but always disturbing the memory. Old t.i.tuba was a woman to ponder over that face when she thought of the great Hunting Grounds of her people.

After this she heard her master walking all night long in the little room, back and forth, back and forth, till daybreak.

But for the beautiful face t.i.tuba might never have remembered these things again, though any event became important in that quiet dwelling; but on the very next night, just at the hour when she had first heard the sound of hoofs upon the highway, there came from the walnut tree that overshadowed the minister's dwelling, a low wailing shout that rang through the house like the scoff of a demon. t.i.tuba went out, for she had not thought much of the matter and had no reason to be afraid, and searched among the walnut tree boughs for some owl, or other wild bird with a hoa.r.s.e cry, like that she had heard.