In Which Some Necessary Information is Given.
Dulcibel Burton was an orphan. Her father becoming a little unsound in
doctrine, and being greatly pleased with the larger liberty of
conscience offered by William Penn to his colonists in Pennsylvania, had
leased his house and lands to a farmer by the name of Buckley, and
departed for Philadelphia. This was some ten years previous to the
opening of our story. After living happily in Philadelphia for about
eight years he died suddenly, and his wife decided to return to her old
home in Salem village, having arranged to board with Goodman Buckley,
whose lease had not yet expired. But in the course of the following
winter she also died, leaving this only child, Dulcibel, now a beautiful
girl of eighteen years. Dulcibel, as was natural, went on living with
the Buckleys, who had no children of their own, and were very
good-hearted and affectionate people.
Dulcibel therefore was an heiress, in a not very large way, besides
having wealthy relatives in England, from some of whom in the course of
years more or less might reasonably be expected. And as our Puritan
ancestors were by no means blind to their worldly interests, believing
that godliness had the promise of this world as well as that which is to
come--the bereaved maiden became quite an object of interest to the
young men of the vicinity.
I have called her beautiful, and not without good reason. With the old
manuscript volume--a family heirloom of some Quaker friends of
mine--from which I have drawn the facts of this narrative, came also an
old miniature, the work of a well-known English artist of that period.
The colors have faded considerably, but the general contour and the
features are well preserved. The face is oval, with a rather higher and
fuller forehead than usual; the hair, which was evidently of a rather
light brown, being parted in the center, and brought down with a little
variation from the strict Madonna fashion. The eyes are large, and blue.
The lips rather full. A snood or fillet of blue ribbon confined her
luxuriant hair. In form she was rather above the usual height of women,
and slender as became her age; though with a perceptible tendency
towards greater fullness with increasing years.
There is rather curiously a great resemblance between this miniature,
and a picture I have in my possession of the first wife of a celebrated
New England poet. He himself being named for one of the Judges who sat
in the Special Court appointed for the trial of the alleged witches, it
would be curious if the beautiful and angelic wife of his youth were
allied by blood to one of those who had the misfortune to come under the
ban of witchcraft.
Being both beautiful and an heiress, Dulcibel naturally attracted the
attention of her near neighbor in the village, Jethro Sands. Jethro was
quite a handsome young man after a certain style, though, as his life
proved, narrow minded, vindictive and avaricious. Still he had a high
reputation as a young man with the elders of the village; for he had
early seen how advantageous it was to have a good standing in the
church, and was very orthodox in his faith, and very regular in his
attendance at all the church services. Besides, he was a staunch
champion of the Reverend Mr. Parris in all his difficulties with the
parish, and in return was invariably spoken of by the minister as one of
the most promising young men in that neighborhood.
Jethro resided with his aunt, the widow Sands. She inherited from her
husband the whole of his property. His deed for the land narrated that
the boundary line ran "from an old dry stump, due south, to the
southwest corner of his hog-pen, then east by southerly to the top of
the hill near a little pond, then north by west to the highway side, and
thence along the highway to the old dry stump again aforesaid." There is
a tradition in the village that by an adroit removal of his hog-pen to
another location, and the uprooting and transplanting of the old dry
stump, at a time when nobody seemed to take a very active interest in
the adjoining land, owing to its title being disputed in successive
lawsuits, Jethro, who inherited at the death of his aunt, became the
possessor of a large tract of land that did not originally belong to
him. But then such stories are apt to crop up after the death of every
man who has acquired the reputation of being crafty and close in his
dealings.
We left Jethro, after his interview with Dulcibel, walking on in order
that he might avoid her further company. After going a short distance he
turned and saw that she was riding rapidly homeward. Then he began to
retrace his steps.
"It was bound to come," he muttered. "I have seen she was getting cold
and thought it was Leah's work, but it seems she was true to her promise
after all. Well, Leah is poor, and not of so good a family, but she is
worth a dozen of such as Dulcibel Burton."
Then after some minutes' silent striding, "I hate her though for it, all
the same. Everybody will know she has thrown me off. But nobody shall
get ahead of Jethro Sands in the long run. I'll make her sorry for it
before she dies, the spoiled brat of a Quaker infidel!"