"But ye! ye are changed since ye met me last:
There is something bright from your features past;
There is that come over your heart and eye,
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die.
Ye smile; but your smile has a dimness yet:
Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?"
THE VOICE OF SPRING.
Before the events mentioned in the last chapter occurred, the winter had
passed away, and the reluctant footsteps of our northern spring began to
appear. The purple Hepatica opened her soft eye in the woods, and the
delicate Sanguinaria spread her snowy bosom to catch the pale sunbeam.
Already the maple-trees had hung out their beautiful crimson blossoms,
and the thrilling note of the song-sparrow echoed through the forest.
Then came the chilling wind from the east, its wings loaded with frost;
and the timid spring hid her tender blossoms, and wrapped herself in a
watery veil.
The weather and the spring were unnoticed by Dinah, when she sought,
soon after sunrise, the pillow of her mistress. The night had brought
no rest to her throbbing temples and anxious heart: she was surprised,
therefore, to find Edith still sleeping. She had sat up late, arranging
her father's and her own papers, and providing, by a distribution of her
little property, for the old age of her two faithful servants. They were
no longer slaves; Mr. Grafton had given them freedom at his death. She
left the little Phoebe under their guardianship. She had also written a
letter to Seymore, to ask him to come and aid her by his counsel in this
extremity. It was nearly dawn when she sought her pillow; and sleep,
which has been called the friend of sorrow--"but it is the happy who
have called it so"--had only for a few moments left her with untroubled
dreams. Her sleep was not heavy; for the gentle footstep of Dinah awoke
her. When she saw her humble friend's troubled expression, she tried to
smile; and, stroking her dark cheek as she bent over her, she said, "We
must look bright to-day, my poor Dinah, or they will think we are
afraid."
They prepared for the arrival of the officers; and, when breakfast was
ready, the little Phoebe was not to be found. Although Dinah looked
very grave, this occasioned no anxiety in Edith, when she recollected
the vagrant habits of the child.
After breakfast, which was indeed not tasted, the same persons who had
visited her the night before came to conduct Edith to the meeting-house,
the place of examination. The house was nearly full; and among that
crowd there was scarcely one to whom Edith had not been a friend and a
benefactor, as far as her humble means would allow. As she entered,
there was one by whose sick bed she had watched; another whose infant
had died in her arms; and children stood looking on with stupid wonder
to whom she had given flowers, and primers, and, more than all, her own
gentle smile. But now every eye was averted, or turned on her with
suspicion and terror,--so hardening is the power of fanaticism.
I believe I have said that my heroine was not beautiful; but the inward
harmony must have given a spiritual beauty to features animated with
intellect, and softened by tenderness of heart; and a self-relying
innocence and purity imparted something more of grace to her person than
the most finished art could have given.
Edith became very pale as she entered; and Dinah, who had followed her
closely, begged permission to stand near and support her. This was
denied, and she was placed between two men, who each held an arm, and in
front of those who were to examine her.
The afflicted--that is, the accuser--was now called in. Edith looked
eagerly around, and, with grief and astonishment, saw her little Phoebe,
the child of her care, when almost close to her, utter a piercing cry,
and fall down in violent convulsions. She started forward to assist and
raise her, but the men drew her rudely back. And this was her accuser!
At the same time with Edith, a poor old woman, nearly eighty years of
age, was brought in. Her accuser was her own grandchild,--a girl about
the same age as Phoebe. Together they had concerted this diabolical
plot, and had rehearsed and practised beforehand their contortions and
convulsions, excited, no doubt, by the notoriety of wicked children they
had heard of.
The poor old creature was bent and haggard. She would have wept, but,
alas! the fountain of her tears was dried up; and she looked at her
grandchild with a sort of stupid incredulity and wonder. Her inability
to weep was regarded as an infallible proof of her guilt. As she stood
beside Edith, she shook with age and terror; and Edith, touched with
pity, though she trembled herself, and was deadly pale, tried to give
her a smile of hope and encouragement. The poor old wretch did not need
it: she not only confessed to every thing of which she was accused, but
added such circumstances of time and place, and of the various forms the
devil had taken in her person, that Edith almost sickened with disgust.
She could not understand how an old person, on the very verge of the
grave, could wish to lengthen out her few years by such base and wicked
lies.
The young cannot believe that the old are unwilling to die. But it is an
acknowledged truth, that the longer we have worn our earthly vesture,
the dearer becomes the thin and faded remnant. The young resign their
hold of life with hardly a regret, while the old cling with the utmost
tenacity to the wavering and nearly-parted thread.
Edith turned away from the partner of her suspected guilt, and asked to
have the child brought near her. She held out her hand, and looked
mildly in her face. The moment the child touched Edith's hand, she was
still: this was a part of the plot: but the moment her hand was
withdrawn, she fell down again in violent convulsions, and cried out
that pins were thrust into her. In the midst of this acting, she caught
Dinah's stern, reproachful eye fixed upon her, and she instantly became
still. But this did not aid poor Edith's cause; for they cried out that
the child was struck dumb by the accused.
The old woman also, feeling perhaps that Edith's integrity was a
reproach to her own weakness, cried out that she was pierced with pins,
and pinched by Edith, although with invisible fingers, as she stood near
her; and, turning back her sleeve from her bony and wrinkled arm, she
showed a discolored spot, which she declared had not been there when she
left her home. It had not, indeed; but every one knows how quickly a
bruise is visible in the stagnant blood of age, and the mark had been
left by the hand of the person who held her arm.
Edith, wearied and disgusted, desired to be taken back to her prison,
there to await her trial before the judges of the Province. Every thing
had occurred that was most unfavorable to her, and she felt but too well
that she must bear the suspicion of a crime of which she was as
unconscious as the unborn infant. Her heart yearned towards the poor
infatuated child, and she earnestly begged that she might be permitted
to talk with her alone. This was granted, and she was guarded to her
prison.
There was no proper prison in our village, and Edith was guarded in one
of the rooms of the deacon's house who had been so active in her
accusation.
During the night that passed after her examination, Edith had time to
arrange her thoughts. Before she knew who her accusers were, she had
been moving in the dark; and now, when she thought of the whole insane
proceeding, she could scarcely believe they would be guilty of the
monstrous crime of condemning her on the testimony of that child alone.
When the deacon visited her in the morning, she said, with much warmth,
"Have the days of Queen Mary come back? Am I to be suspected, condemned,
imprisoned, on the testimony of that poor child,--the child that I took
to my home when no one else among you would offer her a shelter?"
The deacon answered, "that the testimony was so much more convincing, as
the child had lived in the house with her."
"And is her word to be taken against the testimony of my whole life? You
know how I have lived among you from my infancy."
"Yes; but God may choose the fairest of his works as instruments of his
sovereign will."
"Have you forgotten my father?" said Edith,--"how he lived among you? He
was ever your friend--always near you in every trouble. And myself"--she
stopped; for she would not remind them of her deeds of kindness,--of the
daily beauty of her life in their humble circle; nor would she recall
her orphanhood, her unprotected state; but she looked down, and her eyes
filled with tears. "God," she said, at length, "is the protection of the
orphan; and he will avenge this great sin, and you will answer for it at
his bar."
The deacon looked sternly decided and unmoved, but he began to urge her
to confess,--to do as others had done, and save her life by
acknowledging the crime.
Indignation kindled in Edith's eye; but she checked it, and said, "I
cannot, I durst not, belie my own soul, and commit so great a sin. God,
who is the searcher of my heart and your heart, as we shall both answer
at the judgment day, is witness that I know nothing of witchcraft,--of
no temptation of the evil one. I have felt, indeed--as who has not?--the
temptations that arise from our own passions; but I know no other, and
can confess no other."
She then desired that Phoebe might be brought to her, and Dinah
permitted to attend her in her prison. They consented that Edith should
see the child in the presence of one witness; and the mild old man who
was with the deacon said he would bring her himself.