NOON IN THE WOODS.
Old Wahpee had procured a forest-bred horse for Barbara Stafford and
another for his own use. Restless from a strong desire to leave the
country, she had besought him to act as her guide to the stone
farm-house. Their object was unknown to the family, for the Indian was
sadly afraid that Samuel Parris would know of his share in the business,
and for this reason Barbara promised to keep her journey a secret.
Tituba alone of all the household was taken into their confidence, and
she undertook to divert attention from Barbara's movements.
This was no very difficult matter, for the cousins were occupied with
each other, and Samuel Parris in his self-absorption would hardly have
missed his guest had she remained absent a week. So one day Barbara went
as usual into the margin of the forest, mounted the white horse that
Wahpee held by the bridle, and following a trail which the Indian
informed her led by a short cut to Boston, entered fearlessly on her
adventure. The vast solitude of the wilderness harmonized with the
solemn depression of her own thoughts. Its profound silence filled her
with a sentiment of sublime resignation. Sometimes, as she rode along, a
whispered prayer brightened her face, and you would have thought that
she was travelling through those deep forest shades directly into that
happier world where the weary are at rest. So far as conversation went,
she was completely alone. Wahpee never talked, and if she asked him a
question it was answered in some brief monosyllable. So deep was the
forest and so remote the way, that wild deer leaped across her path, and
stopped to gaze on her more than once with almost human curiosity.
No matter how deep or persistent unhappiness may be, there is something
in nature that will charm it half away, if the heart it troubles is
capable of real poetic sentiment. The unselfish and pure-minded cannot
look upon all the munificence of God lavished everywhere in objects of
beauty and usefulness--for the glorious Artist of the universe has
created no one thing that has not a peculiar gift of beauty to recommend
it--without an outburst of thankfulness. If the supreme object for which
the heart yearns so hungrily is withheld, nature holds forth a thousand
lures of beauty which are sure to draw the soul out of itself and thus
nearer to its God.
Barbara Stafford was very unhappy. Since landing in America, her life
had been one struggle. She was a woman of gentle nature, not the less
pliant and sweet because her will was firm and her powers of endurance
wonderful. She was now absolutely without earthly hope. If she turned to
the past, it was full of pain. The future lay before her a desert. She
could not endure, even in thought, to travel over the waste which lay
between her coming sea-voyage and the grave. But though unhappy,
disappointed, and dejected, she was neither bitter nor cynical. The
grandeur and breadth of character which had led her silently into making
almost impossible sacrifices would be sufficient to carry her to the end
without faltering. Her history and her object, whatever they were,
remained a secret in her own bosom. That she suffered, no one who looked
upon the lines about her mouth and the shadows in those eyes could
doubt. Yet a casual observer would have guessed nothing of this, and
even a friend might have sometimes mistaken her kindness and urbanity
for the expression of a serene life.
Let her history be what it might, the woman was sufficient unto herself.
She knew how "to suffer and grow strong," without hope and without
counsel. That day, as she rode through the woods, so rich in leafiness,
so lavish in beauty, her soul expanded itself thankfully to the sweet
influences that opened upon her. She was no longer young, but, perhaps,
more capable of enjoyment when alone with God's works for that very
reason. So for the hour she put aside the one great sorrow that haunted
her life, and rode cheerfully through the woods, enjoying each ferny
knoll or grassy hollow, with a brook whispering along the bottom, as if
she had nothing but sunshine in her heart.
It must have been somewhat after noon when Wahpee came upon a little
opening in the trees, where some Indian hunter had cleared away the
undergrowth and cut down a few trees in order to build a lodge, which
was now a heap of mossy logs. It was a lovely spot, lifted a little from
the level of the woods and crested with half a dozen stately old trees,
through which the sunshine came shimmering down upon the forest turf,
luring ten thousand lovely blossoms up through its greenness. Half in
the sunshine, half in the shadow of overhanging pines and hemlocks, a
lovely brook went singing on its way through bending ferns and the wild
vines whose roots drank life from its crystal waves; while around this
bright spot the dark barriers of the forest crowded up on three sides,
rendering its green slopes more sunny from their sombre contrast.
Barbara drew up her horse as she felt the sunshine bursting so warmly
over her path, and uttered an exclamation, half astonishment, half
delight: "Why, Wahpee! You have led the way to a paradise," she said,
gazing around. "One almost forgets to be mortal in a place like this,
but my horse reminds us that he at least is hungry."
In her admiration, Barbara had loosened her bridle, and the beautiful
animal which she rode was cropping the sward with great zest, eagerly
sweeping up grass and blossoms in one fragrant mouthful, as if he feared
that her hand might the next instant curb him up from his sweet repast.
Wahpee got down from his own horse, and cast him loose. Then he lifted
Barbara from her saddle, and saying only, "Come here," led her along the
margin of the brook, where she observed, with some surprise, that the
grasses and ferns had been recently trodden into something like a path.
The brook swept its crystal curves around one side of the clearing,
which took the sun so warmly, then widened into a beautiful pool,
margined with golden willows, growing wildly, under a sumptuous drapery
of vines. Beyond this basin of water Barbara saw a column of blue smoke
curling up from the foot of a great hemlock, and flashes of fire shot in
and out through the quivering green of the undergrowth.
Pleased and expectant, for Barbara began to surmise that she had not
been brought to that lovely place by accident, she followed her guide in
silence, and at last came out on a mound of grand circumference, covered
so thickly with grass that her feet trod a hundred tiny flowers to death
without her seeing them. The willows that margined the miniature lake at
its base, and the hemlocks that crowded up from the forest, hedged in
this pretty eminence, flickering its edges with tangled shadows and
sunshine, but leaving a broad flat rock on the summit bathed in golden
light. Around this rock, clusters of wild trumpet vines, trailing
arbutus, and golden bitter-sweet, wove their beauties together in
luxuriant wildness, creeping in rich traceries over the rock, or falling
in garlands down the grassy sides of the mound. The centre of this rocky
table was bright with sparkling crystals and clean as granite could be
made. Something more than the hand of nature had been at work there. Not
a dead leaf or broken twig could be found littering on the rock or in
the grass.
"Ah, how lovely!" exclaimed the lady, flinging back the hood of her
mantle, and looking around in pleasant astonishment. "Surely, Wahpee,
this is not your work?"
"Would you be offended, lady, if it were mine?" said a voice close by,
and from beneath the bending hemlocks came forth Philip, or Metacomet,
the young man whose fate had been so strangely enwoven with her own.
"Nay, Philip, I am neither offended nor surprised. It was kind to
provide me this lovely spot to rest in, and I am glad to look once more
on the face of a friend."
Barbara sat down on the rock as she spoke, and unfastening the clasp of
her scarlet cloak, allowed it to fall loosely around her. Philip flung
himself on the grass at her feet, kindling up its green with the
gorgeousness of his savage raiment. Seated thus, they could catch gleams
of blue water under the willow branches, and watch the broad lily pods
heaving softly up and down as if stirred with human pulses.
Barbara's face brightened, and her lips parted with smiles. She was
naturally of a cheerful disposition, and such beauty as this gladdened
her whole being.
"It seems like enchantment," she said; "some beautiful witchcraft has
been at work here."
"It has brought a smile to that face, and I am happy," answered the
young man.
"Have you known this spot long?" asked Barbara. "It looks like a corner
in some English park. The clearing must have been made years ago, for,
save that once massive stump, which is now more than half moss, no trace
of the axe is visible."
"It was cleared years ago, lady, for I was born here."
"Here!"
"Yes, my father was out hunting with the chiefs of his tribe. He never
went even to the war-path that his wife did not follow and rest
somewhere near him. That year he built her lodge in this spot. A few of
the old logs lie in the clearing yonder even yet, held together by the
moss that has been years and years creeping over them. When Wahpee told
me that you would ride through the forest, I directed him to bring you
along this trail. But you look tired and must be hungry."
"Yes, a little tired, and not a little hungry," answered Barbara. "In my
anxiety I quite forgot that food might be needed on the way."
"Would to heaven that I could always think for you!" was the humble
reply. "Oh, lady, how lovely these forests would be if you never left
them!"
Barbara looked around, and her eyes filled with tears. "If you were my
son."
The young man made an impatient gesture.
"Or my brother," she added. "Then, Philip, I might find that rest here
which all other places in the world deny me. But my destiny leads me
into the world, where I shall be far more alone than you can be here."
The young man looked searchingly into Barbara's face, and saw how
honestly she spoke.
"I know! I knew from the first how hopeless this fatal love was," he
said, passionately. "Yet spite of every thing it will break forth to
offend you."
"No, I am not offended," answered the lady. "God forbid that honest
affection should anger me! I am only sorrowful that my destiny is always
to give pain. I do not even reason with you, Philip, knowing well that
human love is not the growth of human will. But you must learn patience,
my friend, and strive, as I must, to be useful, and with God's help
happy, without love."
Philip shook his head, and arose suddenly that she might not see how
near he was to weeping. He advanced a few paces into the forest and came
to another small opening in the trees. There a fire was blazing up
redly, surrounded by a group of Indian women, who were busy turning a
half-dozen birds, fastened by delicate withes of bark to the branches
overhead, and roasting before the fire.
"Come," said the chief, in the Indian tongue, "is all ready?"
A woman was busy peeling strips of birch bark from the trunk of a
sapling close by. She cut the bark into fragments and gave them to the
women about the fire, who laid the roasted birds daintily upon them,
nesting each one in leaves from a golden spice bush which grew near.
Then they took hot corn-cakes from the ashes, and brought from under a
cool thicket two little painted baskets full of blue berries, with the
bloom on them.
This rustic meal the women brought forth to the mound and placed upon
the rock, without a sign of curiosity about the stranger, or a spoken
word. Barbara looked on in wonder. The whole scene really did appear
like enchantment to her. Philip took a case from the pouch by his side,
and extracted from it a knife and fork, mounted with silver. Barbara's
eye brightened: they had been her gift to the young man when he first
went forth on his travels after those dreary years of bondage.
"Eat," he said, carving one of the birds with his hunting-knife, "and
see if wholesome food may not be found in the woods."
"Yes, if you eat also," she answered. "In our hard journey through life
we may at least take this one quiet meal together."
Philip took a piece of the bird, but could not eat; his heart was too
full.
"This is our last meal together on earth, perhaps," he said, in a broken
voice. "If you return to England I may perish here, and never look upon
your face again."
"My friend, there is another world," Barbara answered, "and at the
longest only a few short years divides us from it."
"But what if the Indian's hunting-grounds and the white man's heaven
should be eternally sundered?" answered the young chief mournfully.
"That cannot be," was the gentle reply. "If friendship and love are
immortal, God will not make a torture of his holiest gifts. In the next
world as in this I shall surely be your friend."
"And the friendship of angels must be sweeter than earthly love,"
answered the youth. "That shall content me, lady; something tells me
that it will not be long before I can claim this beautiful promise, up
yonder. The path that I have chosen is full of danger, and its end may
be speedy death."
Barbara looked down upon him with all the light of a noble soul in her
eyes.
"Oh, Philip! may you never learn how sweet the hopes of death can be to
a human soul."
The young man smiled mournfully.
"Perhaps I have already learned that," he said. "But I am wrong,
inhospitable, selfish; my complaints trouble you, and you cannot eat.
Come, come; let me carve another bird, this is cold."
An hour after this Barbara mounted her horse, and accompanied by her old
guide took the forest path again. As the night came on, and the shadows
around her grew blacker and blacker, though the tree tops were aflame
with scarlet and gold, she became conscious of some strange
companionship in the woods. Sometimes it seemed as if the mellow tread
of hoofs stole up from the recesses of the forest. Then she could hear
the bend and sway of branches; and, closer still, whispering sounds
among the leaves, as if every thing around her were full of active life.
What these signs could be was a wonder to her; neither restless birds
nor deer, bounding through the undergrowth in flocks, could produce a
noise at once so subdued and persistent. But no harm came, or appeared
to threaten her. On the contrary, legions of spirits seemed to guard her
path unseen. It was dark before Barbara came out of the thick of the
forest, and made her way to the farm-house. Up to the very margin of the
trees these whispered sounds and almost inaudible footsteps accompanied
her. The moment Barbara's feet crossed that threshold hundreds on
hundreds of human beings swarmed out of the woods, and moved noiselessly
toward Jason Brown's barn.
A crash, as of broken boards, followed by a low, rattling sound, came
from the building. Then, as each man filed by the door, a musket was
placed in his hand, which he carried straight to the woods, following
the warrior who had gone before, as savages tread a war-path. It was the
end of this procession that Jason Brown had seen, coiling like a serpent
along the edge of the forest, after Barbara Stafford came forth into the
moonlight on her white horse and rode away. Of all the arms secreted in
the barn, not a gun was left; even the boxes were carried off in
fragments.