ELIZABETH AND HER COUSIN.
From the cradle up, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams had been as
sisters--nay, more, for while the same blood flowed in their veins and
the same household words had been breathed into their ears, there
existed that strong bond of contrast which is sure to give some degree
of excitement to the quietest life. Abigail was the elder by about three
years. She had come to a rapid growth, and her beauty possessed all the
roundness and depth of tint which belongs to a full-statured woman. Her
mind was like her person, and both were remarkable. Apt, bright, full of
intelligence, yet gentle, and troubled with a shy bashfulness at times,
which sprang from pride rather than timidity, she was a wonder to
everybody that saw her. She was so unlike other children, her manner of
doing things was so firm and gentle, that few even of the gravest
church-members ever thought of rebuking her as they did other offenders,
or of petting her in the same way.
She was greatly given to study, but sometimes would sit with her book in
one hand, or her slate in her lap, gazing wistfully into the distance
through the window of the log school-house, as if her life like her
thoughts lay afar off, and having escaped her lesson, could not be
brought back again.
The school-house commanded a broad, beautiful approach to the sea, and
behind it was a dense forest of hemlocks, oaks, and beech, which kept
the earth forever in shadow, and covered the old sodden logs and decayed
stumps with thick fleeces of moss that gleamed out like velvet and gold
when a sunbeam chanced to strike downward and touch the earth. Vast as
the ocean itself stretched the shadows of that forest, and Abigail's
face took a deeper and more earnest expression when she looked that way,
deeper and more earnest even than when she gazed upon the far-off waters
and saw the distant sky bend down and cover their retreat with silvery
mists. You would have thought the child was searching for something that
was very, very long in coming, as she fell into these long musing fits.
Sometimes she would remain motionless, leaning both elbows on her little
pine-desk, and dropping her chin between her hands, for half an hour
together without turning her eyes from the shadows that darkened the
forest, and seeming to hold her breath lest it should frighten some one
back that she had been waiting and hoping for. She seemed to be
conscious herself that there was someone weird and strange about these
fits of concentrated thought, for at every sound of your voice, at every
step that drew near, she would catch her breath, start and look up, as
if she expected something dreadful to happen.
Speak softly to Abigail Williams at such times, or look at her with a
glance of love, and her quiet eyes would fill and her childish heart
would heave, it was impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to
her when her head was at the little window and her thoughts far away, no
one knew where, the poor thing would grow pale, and turn upon you with
such a sorrowful look, then go away and do as she was bidden with a
gravity that touched you to the heart. Sometimes it would require a
whole day after a rebuke like this to restore the dye of her sweet lips
or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have
appeared. But with all this, the quickness of her intellect, and the
alacrity with which she took to study, was remarkable as her
thoughtfulness.
But Elizabeth Parris was in every respect a very different child. If you
chided her even to the lifting of a finger, ten to one, she laughed in
your face, and made you laugh with her, in spite of yourself. Scold her,
and you got an answer back that made you love the creature for her very
sauciness. She would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the
motion of your head, or the curve of your mouth, while you were
expecting to terrify her. Everybody was tired of her in half an hour,
and yet everybody was glad to see her again, for, with all her mischief,
she crossed your threshold like a sunbeam.
She was a careless little romp, too. Loved above all things to run
barefoot, and was forever losing her shoes in the long grass.
She had a hundred different ways of combing her bright hair; and, in the
winter time, if there was an ice-pond or a snow-drift within a mile of
the village, she was sure to be sliding on the one or wading knee-deep
in the other. Still Elizabeth grew very fond of her book, and had fits
of hard study that kept her ahead of her class in spite of her wild
ways.
Out of school, the two girls were always together; they required no
other playmates. Mornings, evenings, and Saturdays, especially, they
were always creeping about under the great beech trees, with their story
books, which Abby would pore over, and Elizabeth would listen to, with
fun on her lips or water in her eyes as the case might be--though she
was always ready for a tumble in the wet grass, a plunge in the surf, or
a slide from the very top of the hay mow, at a moment's warning.
Sometimes they would spend a whole day hunting for early apples in the
thick grass, picking hazel-nuts, or feeding the fish in the clear sea.
Then they would ramble about in the great solemn woods together, holding
their breath, and ready to say their prayers with very awe, not of the
wild beasts whose track they were on, but from the vast shadows that
fell over them from the trees that were spread out, over the sky, and
the expanse of shrubbery, that seemed to cover the whole earth.
The sublimity of all these things hushed them into silence, and if they
heard a noise in the forest, a howl or a war-whoop, they would creep in
among the flowers of some solitary thicket, and were safe.
Directly the danger had passed they might be found where the scarlet
barberries glittered among the sharp green leaves, like threaded bunches
of coral; where the glowing purple plums, or clustered bunch berries
rustled among the foliage and rolled about their feet in over ripeness.
Into these wild places they delighted to go, even while they were afraid
to speak above a whisper, and kept close hold of each other's hands
every step of the way, till a sort of fascination crept over them, and
they grew strangely in love with the vast solitude of the woods.
Such was the love, and such the companionship of these two girls. In
school or out, all day and all night, sleeping, waking, talking or
dreaming, they were always together--never apart for a single day, up to
the time of our story.
The two sisters who had been carried together out of the minister's
dwelling, and laid side by side behind that old meeting-house, whose
slender wooden spire could be seen from the school-house window, with
the figure of Death on the top for a weathercock, were scarcely more
inseparable than these children had been, since their hands were linked
in sisterhood by those new-made graves.
And now Abigail Williams was approaching her nineteenth birthday; but
she looked at least five years older than the sweet, blue-eyed
Elizabeth.
She was stately beyond her age, and altogether her beauty was so
remarkable that the people of the town could not choose but turn and
look upon it as she passed by on her way to school or meeting.
But she had left off school now and took to reading every thing she
could lay her hands on, even to the pamphlets and old newspapers hoarded
away in the minister's garret; indeed her attainments were something
wonderful--she was almost as learned as the minister himself.
Such was Abby Williams, at the period when our story commenced. For the
first time in her life, she was separated from Elizabeth Parris; then,
while the loneliness was upon her, she was left in solitude, with no
human creature in the house but the old Indian servant Tituba.
The day after the minister left his home, Abby was sitting in the room
where her aunt Parris had sung at her work that night when the forest
woman found her sewing so quietly. The young girl sat by the open
window, in the very chair where her mother died. She was busy knitting
on one of those long seamed stockings, which were an important portion
of the male dress in those times. Two balls of yarn lay in her lap, gray
and white, with which she striped the stocking, seaming it every three
stitches. She was expert with her needles, and did not look at them, but
sat gazing out into the calm summer day, peacefully as her aunt had
done, but with a touch of sadness in her face; for, as her aunt had
thought of her unborn babe years before, she was thinking of Elizabeth
now.
In those tender thoughts, and in the monotony of her work alone, Abby
Williams resembled her aunt. The tropical bird and the wood pigeon had
as much likeness in every thing else. The young girl was singular and
picturesque. In her person was blended all the beauty of two distinct
races, but in every thing the grace of civilization predominated. The
delicacy and lustre of her mother's beauty were all present, moulding
the features into exquisite grace, lending a soft, purplish blue to
those bright eyes, and scattering gloss and bloom among the folds of
those heavy tresses. The contrast of her eyes with the black brows and
lashes gave a beauty to the face even more attractive than the rich tint
of her complexion or the peachy richness of her cheek. The refinement of
civilization and the lithe grace of the panther were blended in her
person. Her very repose was eloquent of deep tenderness, and of fierce,
slumbering passion. When these antagonisms came in contact, that young
girl's character would break forth in all its powers of good and evil;
at present, she was only an humble maiden at her work, lonely and a
little sad, but at peace with all mankind.
As she worked, Tituba, the Indian woman, came in and out from the
kitchen, making vague pretences, as it seemed, only to look on the young
girl at her work. She did not speak once, for Abby was gazing afar off
into the shadows of the forest as if her fate lay there, and she was
striving to unravel it with her glances.
At last the sun went down, and old Tituba came into the room again,
chanting an Indian death-song inexpressibly mournful and sweet, which
mingled so sorrowfully with the girl's thoughts that she dropped her
knitting and leaned back in the great-chair, sighing heavily.
Tituba kept on with her chant; it was the lament of a child over the
grave of its mother, given in the Indian tongue, every word of which
went to the young girl's heart, like a reproach. The meeting-house,
which stood upon the edge of the forest, lent force to the old woman's
voice, as it died away on her slow retreat to the kitchen. The full moon
threw its pale, ghastly light on the figure of Death which surmounted
its spire, and she knew that its shadow was that moment creeping over
her mother's grave.
Unconscious of the influence that sent her forth, Abby arose, and,
throwing a shawl over her head, went quietly out into the moonlight,
taking a straight line for the meeting-house.