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 hoarder of books, rare manuscripts, 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 scrap 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 manuscript, 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 passage, 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 Tituba 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 Tituba 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. Tituba 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 hoarse cry, like that she had heard.
The moon was up, a round harvest moon, with a multitude of bright stars
that looked down into the bosom of the walnut tree; scattering the dense
shadows everywhere behind the branches. But the Indian woman could
discover no living thing--nothing but the soft quiver of leaves and the
starlight kissing away their dew.
She went in, satisfied that the noise had come from a passing bird, but
the minute the wooden latch fell from her hand closing the door, the
cry, hoarser and louder, ran through the house again. Then Tituba began
to be afraid. She had heard of witchcraft, and believed in it, like her
master, and all the wise men of the colony. From that hour she never
heard a hoof upon the turf, though it were only that of a young fawn, or
the hoot of an owl in the woods, that she did not remember what she
solemnly believed to be the witch-gathering in her master's study, and
tremble in her chimney corner till it had passed away.
After this time, William Phipps went forth to work out his ambitious
purposes, and Samuel Parris fell back into the quiet of his home, a
little troubled at times, and feeling the need of extra fasting and
prayer, but the same thoughtful, studious Christian that he had always
been.
But all at once, when he was on the very verge of old age, when the most
intense affections of common men soften into pleasant habits, this man,
of mature years, awoke from the lethargy of a life-time, and took to his
bosom a fair young girl of his church, an orphan, who had been cast upon
its charity, and, as it were, led by heaven into his household. It was a
sudden act, prompted by the buried romance which had so long slept
within him, sure to find utterance at some period of his life, either
through the intellect or the affections.
For a time he was very happy and forgot every thing, even heaven itself,
in the company of his beautiful young wife, who loved him with that
deep, unselfish love, which partook somewhat of veneration, but more of
child-like gratitude.
But soon the old man grew afraid of himself, afraid of the love which
centred entirely around that young creature, bringing her like an
unbidden angel between his very prayers and the throne of grace. Thus
his life was spent between fits of wild devotion and paroxysms of
remorse, lest he had become an idolater.
Time passed; it was more than twice twelve months before the man of
dreams and the man of action met again.
The one was absorbed by his ambition, the other had become selfish in
his love: save on that one subject he had no sympathy to give.
But as time glided away, leaving the hair on his temples whiter and
whiter, the old man was seized with an unaccountable dread. When his
young wife in all the bloom of her goodness and beauty had made him the
father of a daughter, her living shadow, vague, dark apprehension seized
upon him, and weeks before that young mother sickened and died, the
blackness of a great sorrow overshadowed his soul. He stood by her grave
and saw the fresh earth heaped upon it, and, shaking his venerable white
head, when his friends would have consoled him, went away into the
desolation of his old age, a broken-hearted man, weary of life, and yet
afraid to die.
He believed that the Divine Father had cast him off for bestowing the
love which should have been his on the beautiful creature who was gone,
and that for this sin he must wander on through life a mark of divine
displeasure. So he withdrew himself even from his best friends, for they
only reminded him of his meek, beautiful wife and his own idolatrous
sin.
The very song of the birds, and the sight of the green woods added to
his grief, for she was buried in springtime, when all the trees were in
blossom, and the wild birds had sung sweetly over her grave while they
were filling in the earth upon her coffin.
Samuel Parris retreated into the dreary solitude of his home, and gave
up his life to his daughter, the child of his old age. But for this
child his grief would have been utter despair, for every breath was
drawn in the desolation of a widowed heart. If he went to the fireside,
or the table, or awoke in the dead of night, it was to find the solitude
of the grave about him. His chamber, dark and heavy with the atmosphere
of death, his home, his very heart, which had been occupied with so
blessed and holy a love but a few days before, desolated forever.
About this time William Phipps sailed for England, became captain of a
royal ship, then, following the great idea of his life, sailed for La
Plata, and returned home years after, rich from the gold and silver
fished up from the wreck which he had discovered almost by a
miracle--with a title of honor, no inconsiderable thing at any time even
in America--and more important still, accredited by King William as
Governor of New England.
A few months after his old pupil became governor of the province, Samuel
Parris was summoned from his hearth, now the most desolate spot on earth
to him. His presence was required in Boston.
He set forth with many misgivings, for the letter came from his friend
and pupil, William Phipps.
The house, to which the letter directed him, had been the residence of a
rich merchant, and was now occupied by his young widow; one of the
wealthiest and most beautiful gentlewomen of the province.
Sir William Phipps met his friend at the door of this mansion. The
minister observed, with surprise, that the house was thronged with
company, and that his young friend was dressed richly; like a bridegroom
about to appear at the altar. They sat down together, both pale, and the
minister betraying great anxiety both in his look and manner. Their
conversation was brief and earnest, but they spoke in undertones; and
the lady who sat below, in her bridal garments, wondered, in her
happiness, what the two could find to talk about so long; for that short
interview seemed an age to her.
They came down at last: the bridegroom pale, but composed; the minister
tremulous, like a man about to undertake some painful duty.
The marriage ceremony was performed which made the lady we have seen
William Phipps's wife.
Samuel Parris returned home more thoughtful than ever. Indeed, time had
no balm for this old man, and but for his lovely child he must have
withered away in unceasing sorrow for his wife; in remorse for the sin,
as he deemed it, of loving her too well.
When Sir William Phipps heard of this, his heart was touched with
compassion for the old man, who had unlocked the golden gates of
knowledge to him, and, at the suggestion of his gentle wife, he sent an
urgent request that Elizabeth, the daughter whose education had been the
business and solace of the old man's life, should spend a portion of her
seventeenth year with Lady Phipps, who, childless herself, would become
a second mother to her.
It was like a new death for the old man to part with his child, but he
saw by the wistful pleading of her eyes, that she longed to see
something of the bright world, and surrendered her to the servant whom
Sir William Phipps had sent to escort her to Boston, with a pang almost
as great as that with which he had consigned her mother to the grave.
Through all the blossom season of the year, and into midsummer,
Elizabeth remained with her new friends. She was very happy; and while
his heart yearned for her presence, the old minister forbore to press
her return, or to inform her how dreary her absence had rendered his
home. But at last, urged on by some impulse which left him without the
power of resistance, though he prayed and struggled against it for many
days, the old man took his staff and went all the way on foot from Salem
to Boston, perhaps to see his child, certainly to look upon the roof
that covered her, and to breathe the same air that brought bloom and
beauty to her young face.
But the very joy that filled his being as he came nearer and nearer to
the town, admonished him how completely his love had gone forth, once
more, to a being perishable as the wife he mourned. What if the
displeasure of God for this creature-worship should fall upon the child
also? The old man's soul trembled within him at these thoughts. He dared
not even approach the house where his child lived; yet he wandered with
irresistible fascination on the outskirts of the neighborhood, longing
to ask the passers-by if they had seen her, but never venturing to
unclose his lips.
Thus the old man, striving against the best feelings of his nature as a
sin had roamed forth into the storm of that terrible day, and he now
wandered about in the sunshine afraid of himself, afraid of the very
sight of his own child, yet hovering around the house where she dwelt,
like a wounded bird that cannot forsake the tree where its young are
nested.
As he was thus upon the outskirts of the grounds, Elizabeth looked forth
from the window of her room, and, uttering a cry of thrilling joy, that
had so often made the old man tremble, as he thought, with forbidden
happiness--"My father! Oh, my father!"