DENUNCIATION AND REPROACHES.
Barbara Stafford was both disturbed and offended by the abrupt challenge
of the minister. There was something wild, even rude in his manner, that
aroused all the force of her really proud nature.
"Leave me, Norman!" she said, gently. "It was wrong to abandon the young
lady on the first hour of your arrival; one does not readily forgive
such slights. Go back to the house, and make atonement."
Norman obeyed, lifting his hat with haughty reverence as he passed the
minister. The old man turned, and followed him half way to the house.
Then he paused--stood a moment lost in thought, and slowly retraced his
steps.
Barbara would not appear to wait his coming. She had wandered forth, as
was her frequent habit, in search of rare flowers that excited her
botanical fancy, from their beauty; or roots that possessed some
medicinal property, useful in the minister's household. Without
appearing to heed the old man, she left the foot of the oak, and was
walking along the curving lines formed where the forest turf crumbled
away into a surface of white sand. Now and then she paused to gather a
leaf, or some wood blossom, which she put in a little Indian basket,
which hung upon her arm.
As the minister came up with her, she was kneeling on the turf and
eagerly unearthing a bulbous root, from which two or three rich leaves
sprang, shading a cone of red berries that shot up from their midst like
a flame.
She looked over her shoulder, as the minister approached, and half rose,
with the little stiletto, with which she had been digging, in her hand.
"Wait a moment," she said, falling to her work again. "This is a rare
specimen. I have almost uprooted the bulb. Old Tituba will find it
wonderfully useful in making up her drinks."
The minister grew pale, as he stood leaning on his staff gazing at the
root. Barbara spoke again, rather cheerfully, for exercise and a bright
sea-breeze had excited her a little.
"It has a common name, I think, among the people here. Wake
robbin--isn't that correct?"
"Wake robbin--wild turnip, a deadly poison," answered the old man,
hoarsely.
"Ah, that is as you take it. Well dried, and ground to powder, it is
sometimes a wholesome medicine. I will teach Tituba how to use it."
"Tituba--my woman servant, Tituba--and is she of this diabolical
confederacy?" muttered the old man, while a sensation of horror crept
over him. "Am I beset with fiends?"
Barbara arose from the earth, held up the cone of scarlet berries in the
sun, while the bulb was clasped in her hand, with the green leaves
falling over it.
"How can poisonous things be so beautiful?" she said, with a sigh. "Who
would believe that one of these glowing drops could take a human life?"
"You know it to be deadly, then?" questioned the old man.
His voice was so hoarse that Barbara looked him earnestly in the face.
"Yes," she answered, thoughtfully, "I know all its good and all its evil
qualities. Like many other things in life it can both cure and kill."
As she spoke, Barbara cut away the leaves and the red cone with her
poignard, dropping the root into her basket. Then she put away the
stiletto somewhere in the folds of her dress, and dashed off the soil
that clung to her white hands.
"You would speak with me, I think?" she said, a little anxiously.
"She knows that already," thought the old man, feeding his suspicions
with every word Barbara Stafford uttered: but he only said:
"Lady, what have you in common with the young man who sat with you a few
minutes ago, under the oak yonder?"
Barbara smiled. These words were a relief to her. She had expected
something more important by his strange manner.
"Oh, Mr. Lovel--he joined me on the shore where I went in search of a
shrub I wanted for old Tituba who has a bad cough. I hope his wish to
join me has not encroached on pleasanter duties."
"And he too?" muttered the old man--"he too?"
Barbara listened keenly, but the words escaped her. Her silence,
however, was impressive.
"Let us go forward to the oak yonder," he said, pointing the way with
his staff.
Barbara turned, without a word, and walked slowly toward the oak.
They sat down together, the old man and the strange woman--she with a
calm look of preparation; he stern and pale, but hesitating how to
begin. Her dignity and the grave attention with which she waited took
away all his self-possession.
"You would speak with me," Barbara said, at length: "you look agitated.
Surely nothing has gone amiss since I left the house!"
The old man's face changed, and his voice trembled as he spoke.
"Lady, I helped to save you from the deep. I surrendered to you the
sacred wine after it had touched the lips of the man who stands highest
in our land. I have given you shelter in my dwelling, and placed you at
the same table with my daughter and my niece; yet so far as your worldly
life is concerned, I know you not, neither your outgoing nor your
incoming. What could I answer to the Lord, were he to say to me, 'Samuel
Parris, who is the woman with whom you have broken bread, and shared the
same roof?' I could but reply, 'Lord, I know not--for good or for evil
she was cast upon my care, like a drift of sea-weed from the great
deep--without a history--without a friend!'"
"And in so much your answer would prove correct. Be satisfied, kind old
man, that you have done a Christian duty, for which the poor woman you
saved will not prove ungrateful."
The minister shook his head, muttering to himself,
"The arch enemy is most potent when he speaks in a sweet voice, and
takes on himself the meekness of an angel."
Barbara only heard a word or two of this low speech, but she saw that
the old man was troubled, and a mournful smile came to her lips.
"You are weary of me, I have become a burden in your house; do not fear
to say this."
"Not a burden, lady, but a mystery--not an unwelcome guest, but one
around whom tears and discord centre, like storm clouds over the sky.
Lady, in the name of God, I ask, who are you, and for what purpose do
you sojourn among us?"
Barbara Stafford arose, pressed both hands to her eyes for a moment, and
answered--ah, so sadly--
"I am nothing but a lone, lone woman, Samuel Parris, a sorrowful woman
whose way of life lies through the ashes of dead hopes. I am a woman to
whom love is a forbidden blessing. This is your first answer. As for my
object in coming among you, it is not accomplished, but dead. A few
weeks and I shall pass away. The sea, which would not mercifully
overwhelm me, spreads its waters between us and the land where my grave
will be dug. Let me rest in peace, old man, till a ship sails for some
British port: then I will trouble no one longer."
"Then she will trouble no one longer," muttered Parris, writing with his
stick upon the ground. "God teach me how to deal with this beautiful
demon, if such she is: her words disturb my soul with compassion against
its will."
He was tempted to go away and leave the gentle lady in peace, with her
basket of roots, and the fragrant flowers with which she had
interspersed them. The task of questioning her was too much for his kind
nature; while, influenced by the sweetness of her voice, and under the
magnetism of her presence, he felt humbled and gentle as a child. His
daughter was quite forgotten; but, as he stood irresolute, a cry came
out from the distance, and looking toward his house, he saw Elizabeth
coming swiftly toward them, her golden hair all afloat in the sunshine,
her blue eyes bright as diamonds, her lips apart and tremulous with the
cries that came sobbing through them.
"My child! my child!" cried the old man, stretching forth his arms as
the young girl drew near. "Woman, behold your evil work!"
Barbara was bewildered. Her eyes turned from the old man to the girl,
who came up swiftly, her face all flushed with fever, her eyes burning,
and her lips filling the air with broken words.
"Father! father! Come away! There is witchcraft in her eyes: they have
beguiled him and now turn upon you. Come away, or she will lure you upon
the sands, and sing you into the coral caves, which are built by her
sisters, the sea witches."
"Alas! the poor child is ill. This is the delirium of fever!" cried
Barbara, going toward the frantic young creature, who flung herself
back, and with her hand motioned the woman away.
"Avaunt! get you behind me!" she cried, with the voice and air of a
priestess in full inspiration. "Sister of her of Endor, I denounce you.
Demon, whom the waves have hurled forth to our destruction, I denounce
you. Let the old man alone. He shall not taste your roots, or be
poisoned with a touch of your hand. Lo, it is in my veins, it burns in
my eyes, and aches on my forehead--body and soul, your evil power
possesses me; but remember, he is a servant of the Most High. His heart
is full of prayers, his brain armed with holy thoughts. The fiends you
serve shall not prevail against this holy man!"
Barbara was struck with astonishment. She turned deathly white as these
words were hurled against her, but she had great knowledge of diseases
and instantly saw the truth.
"Poor child!" she said, approaching Elizabeth, "this is the delirium of
brain fever. She is very ill!"
Elizabeth flung out her arms, staggered back, and fell to the earth,
moaning with pain.
"Stand back," said the old man, planting himself before the prostrate
form of his child, "your sorcery has done its work; a demon possesses
her. Woman, before the most holy God, I denounce you as a Witch!"
Barbara staggered back, stunned and white, under the minister's solemn
denunciation. The horrible magnitude of his charge paralyzed her.
"What can this mean? Who denounces me?" she cried out at last, rising to
her full majestic height, and casting a look of sorrowful indignation at
her accuser. "I am a stranger, and helpless!"
The old man was bending over his child. Her flushed face was turned
upward to the sun, her eyes wandered to and fro, dazzled and bright with
pain. She had ceased to mutter now, and lay motionless.
Barbara would have helped the old man, but he put her aside, and in a
stern voice bade her depart.
The unhappy woman looked wildly abroad, upon the ocean--the land--it all
seemed a dreary wilderness to her. Why should she remain where men hated
her so? Why did she wish to escape the awful danger threatened by that
old man's words? Fleeing, as much from the minister's evident abhorrence
as from fear of the consequences, the woman turned and walked slowly
toward the woods.
When Samuel Parris arose, lifting his child from the earth, Barbara
Stafford had disappeared. Unheard and unseen she had vanished from his
presence; and this was remembered as another proof against her.
While the scene had been in progress, a boat grated on the sands of the
beach, and two persons stepped out, going different ways: the young man
bent his course toward the forest; the maiden came softly up to the
place where Samuel Parris stood staggering under the weight of his
child.
"What is this, uncle? Has Elizabeth hurt herself that she cannot keep
her feet?" said Abigail Williams, in the cold, still way that had marked
her of late.
"She is possessed--God have mercy upon us! the child is possessed!"
Abigail looked on her cousin's face, and a spasm of pain crept over her
own features.
"She is indeed very ill--something terrible is upon her. Let us go to
the house: the hot sun makes her worse."
The old man gathered Elizabeth closer to his bosom and turned to obey
this suggestion. In moving, his foot struck the little basket which
Barbara had carried, scattering some of the roots and flowers on the
ground.
"Bring that, also!" he said, glancing earthward; "bring that also!"
Abigail took up the basket, replaced the scattered roots, and followed
the minister home.