HUNTED DOWN.
Samuel Parris had gone up from Salem to Boston impelled only by an
unconquerable wish to breathe the same air with his only child; but when
Governor Phipps found that he was in the same place with himself,
wandering about the streets, and crucifying his heart, because of his
great love for the daughter of his old age, he went in search of him;
and, after much persuasion and reasoning, induced a more wholesome frame
of mind, and, for a little time, the minister was able to receive the
glad welcome of his child without self-reproach.
The healthy good sense of his friend had a wonderful effect on the old
man, who had become morbid from constant loneliness and much sorrow. The
tone of his fine mind grew stronger under a roof where the affections
had full scope, and where a fresh, breezy atmosphere always prevailed.
At times, the good old man was seen almost to smile, this little sojourn
from home gave such zest to his life.
He had provided for his pulpit in Salem before leaving home, and
therefore, without undue persuasion, consented to remain and take a
share in the baptism of his friend, a thing which the governor, and his
whole family, had much at heart.
But all this time his own home was left in loneliness, or what was
almost the same thing, under the charge of a young girl, the niece of
his wife, who had been adopted in her infancy, and brought up side by
side with his own child.
This girl was a little older than Elizabeth Parris, and had shared the
same love, the same bed, and the same table with her from childhood up.
She was an orphan and the child of an orphan.
It was said in whispers, by the old gossips of the place, that her
mother came from some remote Indian settlement, where she and her little
sister--afterwards the wife of Samuel Parris--had been left like wild
animals, to live or die, probably by some unfortunate or unnatural
parent. But these two helpless creatures had escaped the wilderness and
sought shelter among the inhabitants of Salem. The elder girl gave no
account of herself save that she had escaped great danger, and fled from
the woods where her mother had perished. The little one only clung to
her sister with fond love in her deep blue eyes, and a timid struggle if
any one attempted to draw her from that singular protection. She was
quite too young for any knowledge of her own history.
For a time this brave girl and her sister were received and kindly
treated by the inhabitants, but after a year or two it came out that,
even in the wilderness, she had imbibed, no one could tell how, those
Quaker heresies so obnoxious to the prevailing religionists. Becoming
more and more bold in declaring them, she had been driven forth into the
wilderness again, cruelly scourged by the law, and hunted down by her
fellow-men like a she-wolf caught at her prey.
The younger child, to whom all religious creeds remained a blessed
mystery, was forcibly torn from the arms of her sister, whose very touch
was considered contagious by the regenerated, and adopted into the
church. She was too young at the time of her sister's martyrdom, for
such in spirit it was, to resist either this cruelty or kindness, and
the very people who had hunted her sister out of civilized life were the
most eager for her welfare, and strove most diligently to render her
happy and comfortable. Indeed, she was in reality the ewe lamb of the
church, and, being of a peaceful, gentle nature, soon learned to look
upon the troubles of her first childhood as a dream, and think of the
brave sister, who had been ready to perish for her, as one of the
characters that she loved to read about in the Bible.
Thus she surrounded the past with a sort of religious mystery, which
threw a shade of sadness over her whole life, but never, till the very
last, embittered it as a knowledge of the whole truth would have done.
This young girl became to the church a lamb of atonement for her
sister's heresy. She grew up beautiful as an angel, both in soul and
body; became the wife of Samuel Parris, the mother of his child, and
then, in truth, an angel.
But a thing happened on the very day before her death, which no human
being ever understood save the young wife, whose death-blow came with
the knowledge it brought.
She was sitting alone, this young wife, in the spare room of her log
house, singing a quiet, sweet psalm-tune to herself, as she sewed on a
little garment which was to clothe her first-born child. The minister
had gone forth to hold a prayer-meeting, and she was thus pleasantly
whiling the time of his absence away, thinking of him with a gentle
satisfaction that more passionate love might not have known, between the
pauses of her work and the breaks in her sweet music.
It was in the spring; the little window of her room was curtained with
wild honeysuckles and sweetbriar brought down from the woods, and rooted
by the house. The sash was up, and the wind, as it sighed through the
leaves, gave a melodious accompaniment to her voice. But all at once,
there was a quick rustling of the branches, as if they were torn apart
by force, and, looking up suddenly, the young wife saw a thin brown hand
clutching the thorny foliage, and a ghastly face, fired by two burning
eyes, looking in upon her.
Mrs. Parris started up in great terror, for in her whole nature she was
timid, and would have fled to the kitchen; but while she stood trembling
and doubtful, the face disappeared, the outer door flew open, and a
woman leading a child by the hand came hastily into the room.
Mrs. Parris gazed at the intruder with renewed affright. Though clad as
a savage, with moccasins on her feet, leggins of crimson cloth, and a
dress of deer skin, gorgeous with embroidery in beads, porcupine quills,
and stained grasses, she had nothing of the Indian in her countenance or
complexion. The hair that fell down from a broken coronet of feathers,
which had once been gorgeous, was of a rich golden tint, and curled in
heavy masses, though the woman had reached mid-age in fact, and was much
older in appearance.
The eyes which she fixed on the young wife, though wild with the fires
of death, had once been blue as a summer sky.
She could not speak--this strange wild woman--but gazed at the innocent
wife standing there in her sweet motherly hopes, till great tears fell
down her cheeks, and sobs rose and swelled in her throat, almost choking
her.
"Who are you--what can I do for you?" said Mrs. Parris, gathering up all
her courage to speak. "The minister is away; I am all alone; if more of
your tribe are here, and wish me harm, I am helpless enough."
The woman put her hand up, and strove to force back the sobs that held
her speechless, then she drew close to the young wife, and her voice
broke forth in a gush of tender anguish, that thrilled her listener
through and through.
"Rachael!"
That had been the orphan's name, forgotten long ago, for when they
baptized her in the church she was called Elizabeth. But the anguish,
the pathos with which it was uttered, made her pulses swell and her
heart beat.
"_Rachael!_" The sound grew familiar, the voice came to her from the
depths of the past, as a ghost glides out from the darkness that
surrounds it. The knowledge that she had once known a sister came back.
"Rachael, my sister Rachael!"
Her soul gave up its past at the cry. She stretched forth her arms as
she had done a thousand times in her helpless infancy, and fell into the
embrace that gathered her up to the very heart of that dying woman.
"Rachael!"
"Sister!"
Language was mute then, and silence became eloquent; the blood in those
two hearts throbbed with kindred fire, those arms clung together like
vines rooted in the same soil.
At last the woman began to stagger.
"Let me sit down, Rachael." She fell into the easy-chair, gasping for
breath.
"Lay thy head here close--close, sister--sister!"
"You are ill--dying!"
"Not yet--there--there--it is well; thee will try and remember how dear
the little Rachael was to her sister, thee will know how true this heart
is by its beating--its last beat, for I am about to die."
"Yes, I remember, as in a dream; but still I know who you are, spite of
this dress, spite of time."
"And now, sister, dear sister, I have come to ask, for my little one,
the care which thee received at my hands; for as our mother took thee
from her bosom when she came to her death in the wilderness, I charge
thee, sister Rachael, with my only daughter, Abigail Williams, for thus
thee must call my child. She has another name, but that would bring
fierce enemies upon her."
"God so deal with me as I deal with this little one!" was the reply, and
reaching forth her arm, Mrs. Parris drew the child from the feet of her
mother, kissing her softly amid her tears.
"Rachael!"
"Sister!"
"When thee was a little child like her, I suffered them to drive me away
like a sinner and a slave; I suffered them to tear thee from my bosom,
and went into the wilderness alone, never attempting to come back lest
thee too might suffer, and perchance perish of want. It was like tearing
my life away when thee was given up."
"Alas, alas! that I should have known so little of this!"
"It was a merciful forgetfulness; thy pure life has been all the happier
for it, but I was not unmindful; many a week's journey have I taken
through the woods to hear of thy welfare."
"But yourself?"
"I have been even as God wills it. Look up, Rachael: do not weep or
droop thine eyes to the earth: thee has no cause. Even as thee, I have
been the wife of one husband."
"I did not think otherwise; it is for myself that I am troubled. Surely
this heart should have told me that you lived."
"Once more, my sister, it was a merciful forgetfulness; not till I knew
by sure signs that my last moment was at hand, would I claim even this
hour of thy life. Now I have come a long way alone and on foot, to give
up my child, that she may dwell with the people of her mother."
"But her father?"
"He was a brave man--my benefactor and lord. His son, the first-born,
was torn from me as I fled from the white fiends that murdered his
father. They will make him a slave--he a king's son! The chief of his
tribe a slave! a slave!"
The woman reeled on her feet as she stood, and fell into the chair
again, panting for breath. With an effort she spoke on.
"Thee shall be mother to this little one, sister Rachael."
"Even as my husband shall be its father," said Mrs. Parris, laying her
hand upon the child's head.
"That husband--presently--when I have more breath, thee shall tell me
about him, for I know nothing. It is long, very long, since I have been
able to gain tidings from the settlements. Even now I came upon this
house at the last moment, and feeling about to fall to the earth, looked
in, seeking for help, and saw thee."
"Thank God that it was my house. Alas, how haggard and worn you look, my
sister! I read years of suffering in your face, and I so happy, so
unconscious all the time. But no one ever talked of my childhood."
"They would not thus accuse themselves; they who lashed thy sister with
stripes, and drove her into the woods like a dog. How could such men
look into thy pure face, and tell this unholy truth?"
"But my husband; surely he must have heard of this cruelty, for he was
minister here before I was born. Yet when I question him of my
childhood, he always puts the subject aside."
A wild light came into the woman's eye. She sat upright in the chair,
and looked down into the face of her sister.
"A minister, Rachael! what is thy husband's name?"
The name faltered on the young wife's lips, not as usual from reverence,
but fear.
"Parris--his name is Parris."
The woman gathered herself slowly up.
"Samuel Parris?"
"Yes," replied the wife, in a timid whisper.
"An old man now?"
"Yes."
The woman stood upright, struggling to walk, but without the power to
move. Her chest heaved, her throat swelled, she groped about blindly
with her hand, searching for her child.
"Sister, sister, what troubles you?" cried Mrs. Parris, trembling
violently.
"_Rachael, that man was one of my judges!_"
The words came out hoarsely, rattling in her throat. She fell back,
struggled with awful force for a moment, and then a cold, gray corpse
settled down in the chair, terribly in contrast with the savage dress.
The child, who had been growing paler and paler, went softly up to the
chair, and burying its face in the gorgeous vestments that clung about
the corpse, remained motionless and mute as the dead. She neither wept
nor moaned like an ordinary child, but a dull pallor stole over her neck
and her little hands, which proved how terrible that still grief was.
Ah, who shall tell how much of the iron that rusted through her
after-life, entered that human soul during those moments of silent
agony!
Mrs. Parris stood looking at them both, then, struck with a pang of
terrible anguish, she crept out of the room, moaning as she went.