To have separated John Bonyton from Hope Vines would by no means have
satisfied the malignant passions at work in the bosom of Acashee, who
now aimed at the destruction of her rival, whom she would subject to a
bodily torture commensurate with the jealous pangs which gnawed at her
own vitals.
At the earliest dawn she made her way to the settlement, and sought
out the principal leaders in the church, and, by startling revelations
coupled with subtle suggestions of impending danger to the colony,
through the instrumentality of evil spirits, who were to use Hope
Vines as a medium, she so wrought upon their superstitious fears as to
induce them to send to Boston and procure commissioners to examine into
the case.
It was agreed that all should be kept a profound secret, till the
commissioners should arrive, when Hope should be brought up for
examination, and subjected to certain ordeals believed sufficient to
test the certainty of her complicity with evil and dangerous spirits of
the lower world.
Thus, while Hope, careless of the future, and easily pleased in the
present, lived as the lilies do in their white loveliness, without care
for the morrow, two sources of deadly peril were unconsciously hanging
over her.
John Bonyton, also, despising the petty malice of his family, and
superior to the superstitious belief of the colonists, treated their
hints and inuendoes with contempt, or in fiery anger declared he would
bring the whole race of savages from the St. Croix to the Saco to
punish an injury to a thread of hair upon the head of Hope Vines.
Sir Richard Vines, with a clear, calm eye, saw that danger was at hand,
and secretly made preparations to abandon a colony which he had planted
with so many hopes, and seen to advance in wealth and importance.
The days of which we write were not days of feasting and merry-making,
but of long, gloomy asceticism, in which men plunged into abstruse
theological disquisitions with a zest and earnestness which we, in our
days of easy tolerance, can hardly conceive. In England, the fires
of Smithfield were not long quenched, and had been succeeded by the
persecution of poor, helpless, infirm creatures, whom the ignorance
or malignity of their neighbors accused of witchcraft. The arbitrary
measures of Charles the First had roused into fearful action the whole
middling classes of England, a class disposed to moodiness, and it
may be envy of the more prosperous and volatile class then in the
ascendant. All these subjects of interest abroad found a reflex in the
New World, where the grandeur of the old primeval woods, the silence
and solitude surrounding the scattered colonists, augmented the natural
gloom of asperity and religious fervor.
The family of Sir Richard Vines, more cheerful and more allied to
the Cavalier than Roundhead interests of England, found themselves
looked upon with distrust upon more grounds than one, by their more
religiously exacting compatriots, whose sympathies were, without any
disguise, on the side of Cromwell and the parliament.
The people of the colony met almost daily for prayer and exhortation,
which became a grim sort of relaxation and amusement to them. Young
and old affected religious fervor, till it became the habit of the
mind, to the exclusion of the more social and genial aspects of human
intercourse.
The ship was now ready for sailing which was to convey John Bonyton to
a distant shore, and inaugurate with him a broader sphere of life and
action. He had, with the natural enthusiasm of youth and courage, dwelt
upon the change before him, till already he had grasped the pinnacle of
renown and achieved wealth and manly distinction. His bearing assumed
a nobleness accordant with his new-born aspirations, and few had ever
beheld a handsomer youth.
Sir Richard Vines looked upon him with almost paternal pride, and then
his eye would rest mournfully upon little Hope, whose future was so
shadowy, dim, and unearthly in its promise.
The day before the ship was to take her departure for England, Sir
Richard had determined to give a festival in honor of John Bonyton, to
which he had been invited, and all of every rank and condition made
welcome.
Accordingly the house was thrown open to all comers. Indians were there
from the far north and east, who looked upon John Bonyton as the ideal
of a young brave, and came to bid him a sorrowful farewell.
The rustic games of old England were revived upon the lawn. There were
feats of wrestling and of the race, leaping and lifting--in all of
which John Bonyton showed himself expert beyond his fellows. Even the
older, austere exiles from fatherland looked on at first in tolerance
and finally in sympathy, as thoughts of their own youth and prowess
returned, and more than one of the elders joined in the amusements of
the day.
At length there approached from the woods a group of Indians, bravely
equipped in belt and feathery robe, and led on by music peculiar to
themselves, but not unlike that of the castinet. The group divided
right and left, and a phantom of beauty bounded forward into the center
of the lawn.
She was habited in a soft, white dress composed of wool, reaching
little below the knee. It was ample in fold and gathered loosely at the
waist by a girdle of wampum. The edge of the robe was ornamented with a
fringe of purple shells, which tinkled at the slightest movement, and
the round, uncovered arms, and the ankles cased in silken hose, were
decorated with circlets of the same shells. The top of the moccasin was
fringed like the robe. Masses of hair were folded in braids around the
small, faultlessly-shaped head, surmounted by a tuft of feathers from
the wing of the black eagle.
The fair vision raised her arms in concord with the music, and lifted
her resplendent eyes upward as she moved from side to side, now in
slow, measured curves, and now in rapid steps across the arena, and
anon bending in those genuflexions which indicate the religious dance.
A brief space, and another form, taller and of darker hue, habited in a
similar style of dress, but of a rich, crimson color and fringed with
shells of a pearly whiteness, and her long, black braids intermingled
with white shells, joined the graceful dancer. Then a tall figure,
crowned with feathers of the war-eagle, and armed with bow and arrow,
a perfect impersonation of the golden-bright Apollo, bounding and
leaping, and shouting a low melody, entered.
Poised lightly upon one foot, with eyes intently fixed upward, he drew
an arrow to the head, and then, sinking upon one knee, watched the
flight of the feathered messenger.
With upraised arms, and eyes lifted to the blue sky, the dancers
disappeared, and it needed no one to say that the two girls were Hope
Vines and Acashee, and the young Apollo of grace and beauty was John
Bonyton. The dance was that of the Hunter’s Moon.
In spite of the festive scene, Sir Richard and his family became
conscious that a certain restraint, an aspect of gloom, began to
pervade the occasion; the Indian guests were partially grave and
preoccupied; the older colonists were moody and silent; only the
younger persons assembled seemed to enter with zest into the amusements
of the day.
This gloom was rather hightened than diminished by the dance, which
we have described, when it was observed that two grave and venerable
men, and strangers, were ushered with much form and ceremony into the
assembly. These were no other than Richard Mather and John Partridge,
men eminent for their learning and piety, and who were known to have
expressed strong opinions in regard to the doctrine of witchcraft,
which had of late employed the royal pen of James, King of England.
These men disapproved altogether of the festivities before them, and
the dance was no less than an “abomination of abominations.” With hands
folded into the loose cuffs of their long, black coats, and plain,
white band under the thin, gray beard of each, they sat perfectly
motionless and without the slightest change of feature, and watched
the dance. They never moved their eyes from the figure of Hope, and
gradually as they gazed, a slight flush overspread their pale features,
and their lips were coldly and firmly compressed.
Scarcely had the steps of Hope turned to depart, when Dr. Mather sprung
to his feet, and, in a loud, authoritative voice, cried out:
“Seize that imp of Satan, that Jezebel; that witch, and bring her
hither.”
“What mean you?” cried Sir Richard. “How dare you apply such terms to a
child of mine?”
“Dare? dare? Sir Richard, we shall see what we dare.” And Dr. Mather
turned away.
Meanwhile Hope had joined, with a gay laugh, the group of archers, and
drawing her arrow to the head, cut the center of the mark. A shout rung
on every side at this careless and triumphant feat, and she was about
to cross the lawn, when she was rudely seized by two officers of the
law.
Indignant at the hands laid upon her person, Hope struck right and left
with her bow and arrows, and for a moment regained her freedom, and
sprung toward the house. She glanced fearfully around, and saw only
fierce, malignant faces scowling upon her, and heavy stones raised
to arrest her flight. Active and courageous, seeing her way homeward
obstructed, she turned with lightning speed in the direction of the
Pool, into which she was about to plunge, when she was caught in the
arms of an Indian, who bore her rapidly into the forest.
“Put me down, Kinneho--put me down; I will walk. Only save me from
those fierce, bad men. Where is John Bonyton? Call him--call him, I
say, Kinneho.”
But the Indian made her no reply. He gathered her slight form in his
arms as if it had been that of a child, and plunged into the deepest
recesses of the forest, above the Saco Falls, where the place of
rendezvous had been appointed. In vain Hope tore out masses of her
hair, and scattered them along her path. In vain she essayed to call;
the chief firmly but not rudely, laid his hand upon her mouth, and
enjoined silence.