{83}
“There have been sweet singing voices
In your walks that now are still;
There are seats left void in your earthly homes,
Which none again may fill.”
Mrs. Hemans.
Magawisca rose from her sleepless pillow to join the family at
prayers, her mind distracted with opposing fears, which her face, the
mirror of her soul, too truly reflected.
Mrs. Fletcher observed her narrowly; and, confirmed in her forebodings
by the girl’s apprehensive countenance, and still farther by Digby’s
report of her behaviour during the night, she resolved to despatch him
to Mr. Pynchon for his advice and assistance touching her removal to
the fort, or the appointment of a guard for Bethel. Her servant (who
prudently kept his alarm to himself, knowing, as he said, that a
woman’s fears were always ahead of danger) applauded her decision, and
was on the point of proceeding to act upon it, when a messenger
arrived with the joyful tidings that Mr. Fletcher was within a few
hours’ ride of Bethel; and the intelligence, no less joyful to Dame
Grafton, that with his luggage, already arrived at the village, was a
small box of millinery which she had ordered from London.
{84}
Mrs. Fletcher, feeling, as good wives do, a sense of safety from the
proximity of her husband, bade Digby defer any new arrangement till he
had the benefit of his master’s counsel. The whole house was thrown
into the commotion so common in a retired family when an arrival is
about to interrupt the equable current of life. Whatever unexpressed
and superior happiness some others might have felt, no individual made
such bustling demonstrations as Mrs. Grafton. It was difficult to say
which excited her most, the anticipation of seeing her niece, Hope
Leslie, or of inspecting the box of millinery.
Immediately after dinner, two of the men-servants were despatched to
the village to transport their master’s luggage. They had hardly gone,
when Mrs. Grafton recollected that her box contained a present for
Madam Holioke, which it would be a thousand pities to have brought to
Bethel, and lie there perhaps a week before it would be sent to her,
and “she would like of all things, if Mrs. Fletcher saw no objection,
to have the pony saddled and ride to the village herself, where the
present could be made forthwith.”
Mrs. Fletcher was too happy to throw a shadow across any one’s path,
and wearied too, perhaps, with Mrs. Grafton’s fidgeting (for the good
dame had all day been wondering whether her confidential agent had
matched her orange satin; how she had trimmed her cap, &c., &c., &c.),
she ordered a horse to be saddled and brought to the door. The animal
proved a little restiff; and Mrs. Grafton, not excelling {85} in
horsemanship, became alarmed, and begged that Digby might be allowed
to attend her.
Digby’s cleverness was felt by all the household, and his talents were
always in requisition for the miscellaneous wants of the family; but
Digby, like good servants in every age, was aware of his importance,
and was not more willing than a domestic of the present day to be
worked like a machine. He muttered something of “old women making
fools of themselves with new top-knots;” and saying aloud that
“Mistress Grafton knew it was his master’s order that all the
men-servants should not be away from the place at the same time,” he
was turning off, when Mrs. Fletcher, who was standing at the door
observing him, requested him, with more authority than was usual in
her manner, to comply with Mrs. Grafton’s request.
“I would not wish,” said Digby, still hesitating, “to disoblige Mrs.
Grafton--if it were a matter of life and death,” he added, lowering
his voice; “but to get more furbelows for the old lady, when, with
what she has already, she makes such a fool of herself, that our young
witlings, Master Everell and Oneco, garnish out our old Yorkshire hen
with peacock’s feathers and dandelions, and then call her ‘Dame
Grafton in a flurry--’”
“Hush, Digby!” said Mrs. Fletcher; “it ill befits you to laugh at such
fooleries in the boys: they shall be corrected; and do you learn to
treat your master’s friend with respect.”
“Come, come, Digby!” screamed Mrs. Grafton.
{86}
“Shall I go and break my master’s orders?” asked Digby, still bent on
having his own way.
“For this once you shall, Digby,” answered Mrs. Fletcher; “and if you
need any apology to your master, I shall not fail to make it.”
“But if anything should happen to you, Mistress Fletcher--”
“Nothing will happen, my good Digby. Is not your master at hand? and
an hour or two will be the extent of your absence. So get thee along,
without more ado.”
Digby could not resist any farther the authority of his gentle
mistress, and he walked by the side of Mrs. Grafton’s pony with slow,
unwilling steps.
All was joy in Mrs. Fletcher’s dwelling. “My dear mother,” said
Everell, “it is now quite time to look out for father and Hope Leslie.
I have turned the hour-glass three times since dinner, and counted all
the sands, I think. Let us all go on the front portico, where we can
catch the first glimpse of them as they come past the elm-trees. Here,
Oneco,” he continued, as he saw assent in his mother’s smile, “help me
out with mother’s rocking-chair: rather rough rocking,” he added, as
he adjusted the rockers lengthwise with the logs that served for the
flooring; “but mother won’t mind trifles just now. Ah! blessed baby
brother,” he continued, taking in his arms the beautiful infant, “you
shall come too, even though you cheat me out of my birthright, and get
the first kiss from father.” Thus saying, he placed the laughing
infant in his go-cart beside his mother. He then {87} aided his little
sisters in their arrangement of the playthings they had brought forth
to welcome and astonish Hope; and, finally, he made an elevated
position for Faith Leslie, where she might, he said, as she ought,
catch the very first glimpse of her sister.
“Thank, thank you, Everell,” said the little girl, as she mounted her
pinnacle; “if you knew Hope, you would want to see her first too:
everybody loves Hope. We shall always have pleasant times when Hope
gets here.”
It was one of the most beautiful afternoons at the close of the month
of May. The lagging spring had at last come forth in all her power;
her “work of gladness” was finished, and forests, fields, and meadows
were bright with renovated life. The full Connecticut swept
triumphantly on, as if still exulting in its release from the fetters
of winter. Every gushing rill had the spring-note of joy. The meadows
were for the first time enriched with patches of English grain, which
the new settlers had sown scantily by way of experiment, prudently
occupying the greatest portion of their rich mould with the native
Indian corn. This product of our soil is beautiful in all its
progress, from the moment when, as now, it studded the meadow with
hillocks, shooting its bright-pointed spear from its mother earth, to
its maturity, when the long golden ear bursts from the rustling leaf.
The grounds about Mrs. Fletcher’s house had been prepared with the
neatness of English taste, and a rich bed of clover, that overspread
the lawn immediately {88} before the portico, already rewarded the
industry of the cultivators. Over this delicate carpet, the domestic
fowls, the first civilized inhabitants of the country of their tribe,
were now treading, picking their food here and there like dainty
little epicures.
The scene had also its minstrels; the birds, those ministers and
worshippers of nature, were on the wing, filling the air with melody;
while, like diligent little housewives, they ransacked forest and
field for materials for their housekeeping.
A mother encircled by healthful sporting children is always a
beautiful spectacle: a spectacle that appeals to nature in every human
breast. Mrs. Fletcher, in obedience to matrimonial duty, or, it may
be, from some lingering of female vanity, had on this occasion dressed
herself with extraordinary care. What woman does not wish to look
handsome--in the eyes of her husband?
“Mother,” said Everell, putting aside the exquisitely fine lace that
shaded her cheek, “I do not believe you looked more beautiful than you
do to-day when, as I have heard, they called you ‘the rose of the
wilderness:’ our little Mary’s cheek is as round and as bright as a
peach, but it is not so handsome as yours, mother. Your heart has sent
this colour here,” he continued, kissing her tenderly; “it seems to
have come forth to tell us that our father is near.”
“It would shame me, Everell,” replied his mother, embracing him with a
feeling that the proudest drawing-room belle might have envied, “to
take such flattery from any lips but thine.”
{89}
“Oh, do not call it flattery, mother: look, Magawisca--for Heaven’s
sake, cheer up--look, would you know mother’s eye? Just turn it,
mother, one minute from that road--and her pale cheek too, with this
rich colour.”
“Alas! alas!” replied Magawisca, glancing her eye at Mrs. Fletcher,
and then, as if heart-struck, withdrawing them, “how soon the flush of
the setting sun fades away.”
“Oh, Magawisca,” said Everell, impatiently, “why are you so dismal?
Your voice is too sweet for a bird of ill omen. I shall begin to
think, as Jennet says--though Jennet is no text-book for me--I shall
begin to think old Nelema has really bewitched you.”
“You call me a bird of ill omen,” replied Magawisca, half proud, half
sorrowful, “and you call the owl a bird of ill omen, but we hold him
sacred; he is our sentinel, and when danger is near he cries awake!
awake!”
“Magawisca, you are positively unkind: Jeremiah’s lamentations on a
holyday would not be more out of time than your croaking is now: the
very skies, earth, and air seem to partake our joy at my father’s
return, and you only make a discord. Do you think, if your father was
near, I would not share your joy?”
Tears fell fast from Magawisca’s eye, but she made no reply; and Mrs.
Fletcher, observing and compassionating her emotion, and thinking it
probably arose from comparing her orphan state to that of the merry
{90} children about her, called her and said, “Magawisca, you are
neither a stranger nor a servant, will you not share our joy? Do you
not love us?”
“Love you!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands; “love you! I would give
my life for you.”
“We do not ask your life, my good girl,” replied Mrs. Fletcher, kindly
smiling on her, “but a light heart and a cheerful look. A sad
countenance doth not become this joyful hour. Go and help Oneco; he is
quite out of breath blowing those soap-bubbles for the children.”
Oneco smiled and shook his head, and continued to send off one after
another of the prismatic globes; and as they rose and floated on the
air, and brightened with the many-coloured ray, the little girls
clapped their hands, and the baby stretched his to grasp the brilliant
vapour.
“Oh!” said Magawisca, impetuously covering her eyes, “I do not like to
see anything so beautiful pass so quickly away.”
Scarcely had she uttered these words, when suddenly, as if the earth
had opened on them, three Indian warriors darted from the forest, and
pealed on the air their horrible yells.
“My father! my father!” burst from the lips of Magawisca and Oneco.
Faith Leslie sprang towards the Indian boy, and clung fast to him, and
the children clustered about their mother; she instinctively caught
her infant, and held it close within her arms, as if their ineffectual
shelter were a rampart.
{91}
Magawisca uttered a cry of agony, and springing forward with her arms
uplifted, as if deprecating his approach, she sunk down at her
father’s feet, and clasping her hands, “Save them! save them!” she
cried, “the mother--the children; oh, they are all good; take
vengeance on your enemies, but spare, spare our friends, our
benefactors; I bleed when they are struck: oh, command them to stop!”
she screamed, looking to the companions of her father, who, unchecked
by her cries, were pressing on to their deadly work.
Mononotto was silent and motionless; his eye glanced wildly from
Magawisca to Oneco. Magawisca replied to the glance of fire, “Yes,
they have sheltered us, they have spread the wing of love over us;
save them! save them! oh, it will be too late,” she cried, springing
from her father, whose silence and fixedness showed that, if his
better nature rebelled against the work of revenge, there was no
relenting of purpose. Magawisca darted before the Indian who was
advancing towards Mrs. Fletcher with an uplifted hatchet. “You shall
hew me to pieces ere you touch her,” she said, and planted herself as
a shield before her benefactress.
The warrior’s obdurate heart, untouched by the sight of the helpless
mother and her little ones, was thrilled by the courage of the heroic
girl; he paused and grimly smiled on her, when his companion, crying
“Hasten, the dogs will be on us!” levelled a deadly blow at Mrs.
Fletcher; but his uplifted arm was penetrated by a musket shot, and
the hatchet fell harmless to the floor.
{92}
“Courage, mother!” cried Everell, reloading the piece; but neither
courage nor celerity could avail: the second Indian sprang upon him,
threw him on the floor, wrested his musket from him, and brandishing
his tomahawk over his head, he would have aimed the fatal stroke, when
a cry from Mononotto arrested his arm.
Everell extricated himself from his grasp, and one hope flashing into
his mind, he seized a bugle-horn which hung beside the door, and
winded it. This was the conventional signal of alarm, and he sent
forth a blast long and loud--a death-cry.
Mrs. Grafton and her attendants were just mounting their horses to
return home. Digby listened for a moment; then exclaiming, “It comes
from our master’s dwelling! Ride for your life, Hutton!” he tossed
away a bandbox that encumbered him, and spurred his horse to its
utmost speed.
The alarm was spread through the village, and in a brief space Mr.
Pynchon, with six armed men, were pressing towards the fatal scene.
In the mean time the tragedy was proceeding at Bethel. Mrs. Fletcher’s
senses had been stunned with terror. She had neither spoken nor moved
after she grasped her infant. Everell’s gallant interposition restored
a momentary consciousness: she screamed to him, “Fly, Everell, my son,
fly; for your father’s sake, fly.”
“Never,” he replied, springing to his mother’s side.
The savages, always rapid in their movements, {93} were now aware that
their safety depended on despatch. “Finish your work, warriors,” cried
Mononotto. Obedient to the command, and infuriated by his bleeding
wound, the Indian, who, on receiving the shot, had staggered back and
leaned against the wall, now sprang forward and tore the infant from
its mother’s breast. She shrieked, and in that shriek passed the agony
of death. She was unconscious that her son, putting forth a strength
beyond nature, for a moment kept the Indian at bay; she neither saw
nor felt the knife struck at her own heart. She felt not the arms of
her defenders, Everell and Magawisca, as they met around her neck. She
fainted and fell to the floor, dragging her impotent protectors with
her.
The savage, in his struggle with Everell, had tossed the infant boy to
the ground; he fell quite unharmed on the turf at Mononotto’s feet.
There, raising his head, and looking up into the chieftain’s face, he
probably perceived a gleam of mercy, for, with the quick instinct of
infancy, that with unerring sagacity directs its appeal, he clasped
the naked leg of the savage with one arm, and stretched the other
towards him with a piteous supplication that no words could have
expressed. Mononotto’s heart melted within him; he stooped to raise
the sweet suppliant, when one of the Mohawks fiercely seized him,
tossed him wildly around his head, and dashed him on the door-stone.
But the silent prayer--perhaps the celestial inspiration--of the
innocent creature was not lost. “We have had blood enough,” {94} cried
Mononotto; “you have well avenged me, brothers.”
Then looking at Oneco, who had remained in one corner of the portico,
clasping Faith Leslie in his arms, he commanded him to follow him with
the child. Everell was torn from the lifeless bodies of his mother and
sisters, and dragged into the forest. Magawisca uttered one cry of
agony and despair as she looked for the last time on the bloody scene,
and then followed her father.
As they passed the boundary of the cleared ground, Mononotto tore from
Oneco his English dress, and casting it from him, “Thus perish,” he
said, “every mark of the captivity of my children. Thou shalt return
to our forests,” he continued, wrapping a skin around him, “with the
badge of thy people.”