{15}
“For the temper of the brain in quick apprehensions and acute
judgments, to say no more, the most High and Sovereign God hath not
made the Indian inferior to the European.”--Roger Williams.
The magnitude of the enterprise in which the first settlers of
New-England were engaged, the terrific obstacles they encountered, and
the hardships they endured, gave to their characters a seriousness and
solemnity, heightened, it may be, by the severity of their religious
faith.
Where all were serious, the melancholy of an individual was not
conspicuous; and Mr. Fletcher’s sadness would probably have passed
unnoticed but for the reserve of his manners, which piqued the pride
of his equals, and provoked the curiosity of his inferiors.
The first probably thought that the apostolic principle of community
of goods at least extended to opinions and feelings; and the second
always fancy, when a man shuts the door of his lips, that there must
be some secret worth knowing within.
Like many other men of an ardent temperament and disinterested love of
his species, Mr. Fletcher was disappointed at the slow operation of
principles which, however efficient and excellent in the abstract,
were to be applied to various and discordant subjects. Such men,
inexperienced in the business of life, are {16} like children, who,
setting out on a journey, are impatient after the few first paces to
be at the end of it. They cannot endure the rebuffs and delays that
retard them in their course. These are the men of genius--the men of
feeling--the men that the world calls visionaries; and it is because
they are visionaries--because they have a beau-ideal in their own
minds, to which they can see but a faint resemblance in the actual
state of things, that they become impatient of detail, and cannot
brook the slow progress to perfection. They are too rapid in their
anticipations. The character of man and the institutions of society
are yet very far from their possible and destined perfection. Still,
how far is the present age in advance of that which drove reformers to
a dreary wilderness! which hanged Quakers! which condemned to death,
as witches, innocent, unoffending old women! But it is unnecessary to
heighten the glory of day by comparing it with the preceding twilight.
To return to Mr. Fletcher. He was mortified at seeing power, which had
been earned at so dear a rate, and which he had fondly hoped was to be
applied to the advancement of man’s happiness, sometimes perverted to
purposes of oppression and personal aggrandizement. He was shocked
when a religious republic, which he fancied to be founded on the basis
of established truth, was disturbed by the outbreak of heresies; and
his heart sickened when he saw those who had sacrificed whatever man
holds dearest to religious freedom, imposing those shackles {17} on
others from which they had just released themselves at such a price.
Partly influenced by these disgusts, and partly by that love of
contemplation and retirement that belongs to a character of his cast,
especially when depressed by some early disappointment, he refused the
offices of honour and trust that were from time to time offered to
him; and finally, in 1636, when Pynchon, Holioke, and Chapin formed
their settlement at Springfield, on Connecticut River, he determined
to retire from the growing community of Boston to this frontier
settlement.
Mrs. Fletcher received his decision as all wives of that age of
undisputed masculine supremacy (or most of those of our less passive
age) would do, with meek submission. The inconveniences and dangers of
that outpost were not unknown to her, nor did she underrate them; but
Abraham would as soon have remonstrated against the command that bade
him go forth from his father’s house into the land of the Chaldees, as
she would have failed in passive obedience to the resolve of her
husband.
The removal was effected early in the summer of 1636. Springfield
assumed at once, under the auspices of its wealthy and enterprising
proprietors, the aspect of a village. The first settlers followed the
course of the Indians, and planted themselves on the borders of
rivers--the natural gardens of the earth, where the soil is mellowed
and enriched by the annual overflowing of the streams, and prepared by
the unassisted processes of nature to yield to the indolent Indian his
scanty supply of maize and other esculents. {18} The wigwams which
constituted the village, or, to use the graphic aboriginal
description, the “smoke” of the natives, gave place to the clumsy, but
more convenient dwellings of the Pilgrims.
Where there are now contiguous rows of shops, filled with the
merchandise of the East, the manufactures of Europe, the rival fabrics
of our own country, and the fruits of the tropics; where now stand the
stately hall of justice, the academy, the bank, churches orthodox and
heretic, and all the symbols of a rich and populous community, were,
at the early period of our history, a few log houses, planted around a
fort defended by a slight embankment and palisade.
The mansions of the proprietors were rather more spacious and
artificial than those of their more humble associates, and were built
on the well-known model of the modest dwelling illustrated by the
birth of Milton: a form still abounding in the eastern parts of
Massachusetts, and presenting to the eye of a New-Englander the
familiar aspect of an awkward friendly country cousin.
The first clearing was limited to the plain. The beautiful hill that
is now the residence of the gentry (for there yet lives such a class
in the heart of our democratic community), and is embellished with
stately edifices and expensive pleasure-grounds, was then the border
of a dense forest, and so richly fringed with the original growth of
trees that scarce a sunbeam had penetrated to the parent earth.
Mr. Fletcher was at first welcomed as an important {19} acquisition to
the infant establishment; but he soon proved that he purposed to take
no part in its concerns, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the
proprietors, he fixed his residence a mile from the village, deeming
exposure to the incursions of the savages very slight, and the
surveillance of an inquiring neighbourhood a certain evil. His domain
extended from a gentle eminence, that commanded an extensive view of
the bountiful Connecticut, to the shore, where the river indented the
meadow by one of those sweeping graceful curves by which it seems to
delight to beautify the land it nourishes.
The border of the river was fringed with all the water-loving trees;
but the broad meadows were quite cleared, excepting that a few elms
and sycamores had been spared by the Indians, and consecrated by
tradition as the scene of revels or councils. The house of our pilgrim
was a low-roofed modest structure, containing ample accommodation for
a patriarchal family; where children, dependants, and servants were
all to be sheltered under one roof-tree. On one side, as we have
described, lay an open and extensive plain; within view was the
curling smoke from the little cluster of houses about the fort--the
habitation of civilized man; but all else was a savage howling
wilderness.
Never was a name more befitting the condition of a people than
“Pilgrim” that of our forefathers. It should be redeemed from the
puritanical and ludicrous associations which have degraded it in most
men’s minds, and be hallowed by the sacrifices made {20} by these
voluntary exiles. They were pilgrims, for they had resigned forever
what the good hold most dear--their homes. Home can never be
transferred; never repeated in the experience of an individual. The
place consecrated by parental love, by the innocence and sports of
childhood, by the first acquaintance with nature, by the linking of
the heart to the visible creation, is the only home. There, there is a
living and breathing spirit infused into nature: every familiar object
has a history; the trees have tongues, and the very air is vocal.
There the vesture of decay doth not close in and control the noble
functions of the soul. It sees, and hears, and enjoys without the
ministry of gross material substance.
Mr. Fletcher had resided a few months in Springfield, when he one day
entered, with an open letter in his hand, that apartment of his humble
dwelling styled, by courtesy, the parlour. His wife was sitting there
with her eldest son, a stripling of fourteen, busily assisting him in
twisting a cord for his crossbow. She perceived that her husband
looked disturbed; but he said nothing, and her habitual deference
prevented her inquiring into the cause of his discomposure.
After taking two or three turns about the room, he said to his son,
“Everell, my boy, go to the door, and await there the arrival of an
Indian girl; she is, as you may see, yonder by the river side, and
will be here shortly. I would not that Jennet should, at the very
first, shock the child with her discourteous ways.”
{21}
“Child! coming here!” exclaimed the boy, dropping his bow and gazing
through the window. “Who is she? that tall girl, father: she is no
more a child than I am!”
His mother smiled at an exclamation that betrayed a common juvenile
jealousy of the honour of dawning manhood, and bade the boy obey his
father’s directions. When Everell had left the apartment, Mr. Fletcher
said, “I have just received letters from Boston--from Governor
Winthrop--” He paused.
“Our friends are all well, I hope,” said Mrs. Fletcher.
“Yes, Martha, our friends are all well; but these letters contain
something of more importance than aught that concerns the health of
the perishing body.”
Mr. Fletcher again hesitated, and his wife, perplexed by his
embarrassment, inquired, “Has poor deluded Mrs. Hutchinson again
presumed to disturb the peace of God’s people?”
“Martha, you aim wide of the mark. My present emotions are not those
of a mourner for Zion. A ship has arrived from England, and in it
came--”
“My brother Stretton!” exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher.
“No, no, Martha. It will be long ere Stretton quits his paradise to
join a suffering people in the wilderness.”
He paused for a moment, and when he again spoke, the softened tone of
his voice evinced that he was touched by the expression of
disappointment, slightly tinged by displeasure, that shaded his wife’s
{22} gentle countenance. “Forgive me, my dear wife,” he said. “I
should not have spoken aught that implied censure of your brother, for
I know he hath ever been most precious in your eyes; albeit, not the
less so that he is yet without the fold. That which I have to tell
you--and it were best that it were quickly told--is, that my cousin
Alice was a passenger in this newly-arrived ship. Martha, your blushes
wrong you. The mean jealousies that degrade some women have, I am
sure, never been harboured in your heart.”
“If I deserve your praise, it is because the Lord has been pleased to
purify my heart and make it his sanctuary. But, if I have not the
jealousies, I have the feelings of a woman, and I cannot forget that
you was once affianced to your cousin Alice; and--”
“And that I once told you, Martha, frankly, that the affection I gave
to her could not be transferred to another. That love grew with my
growth, strengthened with my strength. Of its beginning I had no more
consciousness than of the commencement of my existence. It was
sunshine and flowers in all the paths of my childhood. It inspired
every hope, modified every project; such was the love I bore to
Alice--love immortal as the soul!
“You know how cruelly we were severed at Southampton; how she was torn
from the strand by the king’s guards, within my view, almost within my
grasp. How Sir William tempted me with the offer of pardon, my
cousin’s hand, and--poor temptation indeed after that--honours,
fortune. You know that {23} even Alice, my precious, beautiful Alice,
knelt to me. That, smitten of God and man, and for the moment bereft
of the right use of reason, she would have persuaded me to yield my
integrity. You know that her cruel father reproached me with virtually
breaking my plighted troth. That many of my friends urged my present
conformity; and you know, Martha, that there was a principle in my
bosom that triumphed over all these temptations. And think you not
that principle has preserved me faithful in my friendship to you?
Think you not that your obedience, your careful conformity to my
wishes, your steady love, which hath kept far more than even measure
with my deserts, is undervalued--can be lightly estimated?”
“Oh, I know,” said the humble wife, “that your goodness to me does far
surpass my merit; but, bethink you, it is the nature of a woman to
crave the first place.”
“It is the right of a wife, Martha; and there is none now to contest
it with you. This is but the second time I have spoken to you on a
subject that has been much in our thoughts; that has made me wayward,
and would have made my sojourning on earth miserable, but that you
have been my support and comforter. These letters contain tidings that
have opened a long-sealed fountain. My uncle, Sir William, died last
January. Leslie perished in a foreign service. Alice, thus released
from all bonds, and sole mistress of her fortunes, determined to cast
her lot in the heritage of God’s people. She embarked {24} with her
two girls, her only children; a tempestuous voyage proved too much for
a constitution already broken by repeated shocks. She was fully aware
of her approaching death, and died as befits a child of faith, in
sweet peace. Would to God I could have seen her once more; but,” he
added, raising his eyes devoutly, “not my will, but thine be done! The
sister of Leslie, a Mistress Grafton, attended Alice, and with her she
left a will, committing her children to my guardianship. It will be
necessary for me to go to Boston to assume this trust. I shall leave
home to-morrow, after making suitable provision for your safety and
comfort during my absence. These children will bring additional labour
to your household; and in good time hath our thoughtful friend,
Governor Winthrop, procured for us two Indian servants. The girl has
arrived. The boy is retained about the little Leslies, the youngest of
whom, it seems, is a petted child, and is particularly pleased by his
activity in ministering to her amusement.”
“I am glad if any use can be made of an Indian servant,” said Mrs.
Fletcher, who, oppressed with conflicting emotions, expressed the
lightest of them--a concern at a sudden increase of domestic cares
where there were no facilities to lighten them.
“How any use! You surely do not doubt, Martha, that these Indians
possess the same faculties that we do? The girl just arrived, our
friend writes me, hath rare gifts of mind, such as few of God’s
creatures are endowed with. She is just fifteen; she understands {25}
and speaks English perfectly well, having been taught it by an English
captive, who for a long time dwelt with her tribe. On that account she
was much noticed by the English who traded with the Pequods, and,
young as she was, she acted as their interpreter.
“She is the daughter of one of their chiefs; and when this wolfish
tribe were killed, or dislodged from their dens, she, her brother, and
their mother, were brought, with a few other captives, to Boston. They
were given for a spoil to the soldiers. Some, by a Christian use of
money, were redeemed; and others, I blush to say it, for ‘it is God’s
gift that every man should enjoy the good of his own labour,’ were
sent into slavery in the West Indies. Monoca, the mother of these
children, was noted for the singular dignity and modesty of her
demeanour. Many notable instances of her kindness to the white traders
are recorded; and when she was taken to Boston, our worthy governor,
ever mindful of his duties, assured her that her good deeds were held
in remembrance, and that he would testify the gratitude of his people
in any way she should direct. ‘I have nothing to ask,’ she said, ‘but
that I and my children may receive no personal dishonour.’
“The governor redeemed her children, and assured her they should be
cared for. For herself, misery and sorrow had so wrought on her that
she was fast sinking into the grave. Many Christian men and women
laboured for her conversion, but she would not even consent that the
Holy Word should {26} be interpreted to her; insisting, in the pride
of her soul, that all the children of the Great Spirit were equal
objects of His favour, and that He had not deemed the book he had
withheld needful to them.”
“And did she,” inquired Mrs. Fletcher, “thus perish in her sins?”
“She died,” replied her husband, “immovably fixed in those sentiments.
But, Martha, we should not suit God’s mercy to the narrow frame of our
thoughts. This poor savage’s life, as far as it has come to our
knowledge, was marked with innocence and good deeds; and I would
gladly believe that we may hope for her, on that broad foundation laid
by the apostle Peter: ‘In every nation, he that feareth God and
worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.’”
“That text,” answered Mrs. Fletcher, her heart easily kindling with
the flame of charity, “is a light behind many a dark scripture, like
the sun shining all around the edges of a cloud that cannot hide all
its beams.”
“Such thoughts, my dear wife, naturally spring from thy kind heart,
and are sweet morsels for private meditation; but it were well to keep
them in thine own bosom, lest, taking breath, they should lighten the
fears of unstable souls. But here comes the girl Magawisca, clothed in
her Indian garb, which the governor has permitted her to retain, not
caring, as he wisely says, to interfere with their innocent
peculiarities; and she, in particular, having shown a loathing of the
English dress.”
{27}
Everell Fletcher now threw wide open the parlour door, inviting the
Indian girl, by a motion of his hand and a kind smile, to follow. She
did so, and remained standing beside him, with her eyes riveted to the
floor, while every other eye was turned towards her. She and her
conductor were no unfit representatives of the people from whom they
sprung. Everell Fletcher was a fair, ruddy boy of fourteen; his smooth
brow and bright curling hair bore the stamp of the morning of life;
hope, and confidence, and gladness beamed in the falcon glance of his
keen blue eye, and love and frolic played about his lips. The active,
hardy habits of life in a new country had already knit his frame and
given him the muscle of manhood, while his quick elastic step truly
expressed the untamed spirit of childhood--the only spirit without
fear and without reproach. His dress was of blue cloth, closely
fitting his person; the sleeves reached midway between the elbow and
wrist, and the naked and, as it would seem to a modern eye, awkward
space, was garnished with deep-pointed lace ruffles of a coarse
texture; a ruff or collar of the same material was worn about the
neck.
The Indian stranger was tall for her years, which did not exceed
fifteen. Her form was slender, flexible, and graceful; and there was a
freedom and loftiness in her movement which, though tempered with
modesty, expressed a consciousness of high birth. Her face, although
marked by the peculiarities of her race, was beautiful even to a
European eye. Her features were regular, and her teeth white {28} as
pearls; but there must be something beyond symmetry of feature to fix
the attention, and it was an expression of dignity, thoughtfulness,
and deep dejection that made the eye linger on Magawisca’s face, as if
it were perusing there the legible record of her birth and wrongs. Her
hair, contrary to the fashion of the Massachusetts Indians, was parted
on her forehead, braided, and confined to her head by a band of small
feathers, jet black, and interwoven, and attached at equal distances
by rings of polished bone. She wore a waistcoat of deerskin, fastened
at the throat by a richly-wrought collar. Her arms, a model for
sculpture, were bare. A mantle of purple cloth hung gracefully from
her shoulders, and was confined at the waist by a broad band,
ornamented with rude hieroglyphics. The mantle, and her strait short
petticoat, or kilt, of the same rare and costly material, had been
obtained, probably, from the English traders. Stockings were an
unknown luxury; but leggins, similar to those worn by the ladies of
Queen Elizabeth’s court, were no bad substitute. The moccasin, neatly
fitted to a delicate foot and ankle, and tastefully ornamented with
bead-work, completed the apparel of this daughter of a chieftain,
which altogether had an air of wild and fantastic grace, that
harmonized well with the noble demeanour and peculiar beauty of the
young savage.
Mr. Fletcher surveyed her for a moment with a mingled feeling of
compassion and curiosity, and then turning away and leaning his head
on the mantelpiece, {29} his thoughts reverted to the subject that had
affected him far more deeply than he had ventured to confess, even to
the wife of his bosom.
Mrs. Fletcher’s first feeling was rather that of a housewife than a
tender woman. “My husband,” she thought, “might as well have brought a
wild doe from the forest to plough his fields, as to give me this
Indian girl for household labour; but the wisest men have no sense in
these matters.” This natural domestic reflection was soon succeeded by
a sentiment of compassion, which scarcely needed to be stimulated by
Everell’s whisper of “Do, mother, speak to her.”
“Magawisca,” she said, in a friendly tone, “you are welcome among us,
girl.” Magawisca bowed her head. Mrs. Fletcher continued: “You should
receive it as a signal mercy, child, that you have been taken from the
midst of a savage people, and set in a Christian family.” Mrs.
Fletcher paused for her auditor’s assent; but the proposition was
either unintelligible or unacceptable to Magawisca.
“Mistress Fletcher means,” said a middle-aged serving-woman who had
just entered the room, “that you should be mighty thankful, Tawney,
that you are snatched as a brand from the burning.”
“Hush, Jennet!” said Everell Fletcher, touching the speaker with the
point of an arrow which he held in his hand.
Magawisca’s eyes had turned on Jennet, flashing like a sunbeam through
an opening cloud. Everell’s interposition touched a tender chord, and
when {30} she again cast them down, a tear trembled on their lids.
“You will have no hard service to do,” said Mrs. Fletcher, resuming
her address. “I cannot explain all to you now; but you will soon
perceive that our civilized life is far easier, far better and happier
than your wild wandering ways, which are, indeed, as you will
presently see, but little superior to those of the wolves and foxes.”
Magawisca suppressed a reply that her heart sent to her quivering
lips, and Everell said, “Hunted, as the Indians are, to their own
dens, I am sure, mother, they need the fierceness of the wolf and the
cunning of the fox.”
“True, true, my son,” replied Mrs. Fletcher, who really meant no
unkindness in expressing what she deemed a self-evident truth; and
then, turning again to Magawisca, she said, in a gentle tone, “You
have had a long and fatiguing journey--was it not, girl?”
“My foot,” replied Magawisca, “is used to the wild-wood path. The deer
tires not of his way on the mountain, nor the bird of its flight in
the air.”
She uttered her natural feeling in so plaintive a tone that it touched
the heart like a strain of sad music; and when Jennet again
officiously interposed in the conversation, by saying that “Truly
these savages have their house in the wilderness, and their way no man
knows,” her mistress cut short her outpouring by directing her to go
to the outer door, and learn who it was that Digby was conducting to
the house.
{31}
A moment after, Digby, Mr. Fletcher’s confidential domestic, entered
with the air of one who has important intelligence to communicate. He
was followed by a tall, gaunt Indian, who held in his hand a deerskin
pouch. “Ha! Digby,” said Mr. Fletcher, “have you returned? What say
the Commissioners? Can they furnish me a guide and attendants for my
journey?”
“Yes, an please you, sir. I was in the nick of time, for they were
just despatching a messenger to the governor.”
“On what account?”
“Why, it’s rather an odd errand,” replied Digby, scratching his head
with an awkward hesitation. “I would not wish to shock my gentle
mistress, who will never bring her feelings to the queer fashions of
the New World; but Lord’s mercy, sir, you know we think no more of
taking off a scalp here than we did of shaving our beards at home.”
“Scalp!” exclaimed Mr. Fletcher. “Explain yourself, Digby.”
The Indian, as if to assist Digby’s communication, untied his pouch,
and drew from it a piece of dried and shrivelled skin, to which hair,
matted together with blood, still adhered. There was an expression of
fierce triumph on the countenance of the savage as he surveyed the
trophy with a grim smile. A murmur of indignation burst from all
present.
“Why did you bring that wretch here?” demanded Mr. Fletcher of his
servant, in an angry tone.
“I did but obey Mr. Pynchon, sir. The thing is {32} an abomination to
the soul and eye of a Christian, but it has to be taken to Boston for
the reward.”
“What reward, Digby?”
“The reward, sir, that is in reason expected for the scalp of the
Pequod chief.”
As Digby uttered these last words, Magawisca shrieked as if a dagger
had pierced her heart. She darted forward and grasped the arm that
upheld the trophy. “My father! Mononotto!” she screamed, in a voice of
agony.
“Give it to her--by Heaven, you shall give it to her,” cried Everell,
springing on the Indian, and losing all other thought in his
instinctive sympathy for Magawisca.
“Softly, softly, Mr. Everell,” said Digby; “that is the scalp of
Sassacus, not Mononotto. The Pequods had two chiefs, you know.”
Magawisca now released her hold; and, as soon as she could again
command her voice, she said, in her own native language, to the
Indian, “My father--my father--does he live?”
“He does,” answered the Indian, in the same dialect; “he lives in the
wigwam of the chief of the Mohawks.”
Magawisca was silent for a moment, and knit her brows as if agitated
with an important deliberation. She then undid a bracelet from her arm
and gave it to the Indian. “I charge ye,” she said, “as ye hope for
game in your hunting-grounds, for the sun on your wigwam, and the
presence of the Great Spirit in your death-hour--I charge ye to convey
this token {33} to my father. Tell him his children are servants in
the house of his enemies; but,” she added, after a moment’s pause, “to
whom am I trusting? to the murderer of Sassacus, my father’s friend!”
“Fear not,” replied the Indian; “your errand shall be done. Sassacus
was a strange tree in our forests; but he struck his root deep, and
lifted his tall head above our loftiest branches, and cast his shadow
over us, and I cut him down. I may not return to my people, for they
called Sassacus brother, and they would fain avenge him. But fear not,
maiden, your errand shall be done.”
Mr. Fletcher observed this conference, which he could not understand,
with some anxiety and displeasure, and he broke it off by directing
Jennet to conduct Magawisca to another apartment.
Jennet obeyed, muttering as she went, “A notable providence, this,
concerning the Pequod caitiff. Even like Adonibezek, as he has done to
others the Lord hath requited him.”
Mr. Fletcher then most reluctantly took into his possession the savage
trophy, and dismissed the Indian, deeply lamenting that motives of
mistaken policy should tempt his brethren to depart from the plainest
principles of their religion.