{128}
“My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.”
_Romeo and Juliet_.
The next morning opened on Boston with that boon to all small
societies, a new topic of interest and conversation. The attempt on
the prison the preceding night was in every one’s mouth; and as the
community had been much agitated concerning the heresies and trial of
Gorton and his company, they did not hesitate to attribute the
criminal outrage to some of his secret adherents, who, as the sentence
that had passed on the unfortunate man was the next day to take
effect, had made this desperate effort to rescue them. It was not even
surmised by the popular voice that the bold attempt had been made on
account of the Indian woman. The magistrates had very discreetly
refrained from disclosing her connexion with state affairs, as every
alarm about the rising of the Indians threw the colony, especially the
women and children, into a state of the greatest agitation. The
imprisonment of Magawisca was therefore looked upon as a transient,
prudential, and domiciliary arrangement, to prevent the possibility of
any concert between her and the recovered captive, Faith Leslie, who
was known to be pining for her Indian friends.
{129}
That the governor’s secret conclusions were very different from those
of the people, was indicated by a private order which he sent to
Barnaby Tuttle, to remove the Indian maiden from the upper apartment
to the dungeon beneath the prison, but by no means to inflict any
other severity on her, or to stint her of any kindness consistent with
her safe keeping. Gorton’s company were on the same day removed from
the prison, and, as is well known to the readers of the chronicles of
the times, distributed separately to the towns surrounding Boston,
where, notwithstanding they were jealously guarded and watched, they
proved dangerous leaven, and were soon afterward transported to
England.
Whatever secret suspicions the governor entertained in relation to
Everell Fletcher, his kind feelings, and the delicate relation in
which he stood to that young man, as the son of his dearest friend and
the betrothed husband of his niece, induced him to keep them within
his own bosom, without even intimating them to his partners in
authority, who, he well knew, whatever infirmities they, frail men,
might have of their own, were seldom guilty of winking at those of
others.
But to return to our heroine, whom we left convalescing; the energies
of a youthful and unimpaired constitution, and the unwearied care of
her gentle nurse, restored her, in the space of two days, to such a
degree of strength that she was able to join the family in the parlour
at their evening meal, to which we cannot give the convenient
designation of {130} “tea,” as Asia had not yet supplied us with this
best of all her aromatic luxuries.
Hope entered the parlour leaning on Esther’s arm. All rose to welcome
her, and to offer their congratulations, more or less formal, on her
preservation and recovery. Everell advanced with the rest, and essayed
to speak, but his voice failed him. Hope, with natural frankness, gave
him her hand, and all the blood in her heart seemed to gush into her
pale cheeks, but neither did she speak. In the general movement, their
reciprocal emotion passed unobserved excepting by Esther; she noted
it. After the meal was finished, and the governor had returned thanks,
in which he inserted a clause expressive of the general gratitude “for
the mercies that had been vouchsafed to the maiden near and dear to
many present, in that she had been led safely through perils by water,
by land, and by sickness,” Madam Winthrop kindly insisted that Hope
should occupy her easy chair; but Hope declined the honour, and,
seating herself on the window-seat, motioned to her sister to come and
sit by her. The poor girl obeyed, but without any apparent interest,
and without even seeming conscious of the endearing tenderness with
which Hope stroked back her hair and kissed her cheek. “What shall we
do with this poor home-sick child?” she asked, appealing to her
guardian.
“In truth, I know not,” he replied. “All day and all night, they tell
me, she goes from window to window, like an imprisoned bird fluttering
against {131} the bars of its cage; and so wistfully she looks abroad,
as if her heart went forth with the glance of her eye.”
“I have done my best,” said Mrs. Grafton, now joining in the
conversation, “to please her, but it’s all working for nothing, and no
thanks. In the first place, I gave her all her old playthings that you
saved so carefully, Hope, and shed so many tears over, and at first
they did seem to pleasure her. She looked them over and over, and I
could see by the changes of her countenance, as she took up one and
another, that some glimmering of past times came over her; but, as ill
luck would have it, there was among the rest, in a little basket, a
string of bird’s eggs, which Oneco had given her at Bethel. I
remembered it well, and so did she; for, as soon as she saw it, she
dropped everything else, and burst into tears.”
“Poor child!” said Mr. Fletcher; “these early affections are deeply
rooted.” Everell, who stood by his father, turned and walked to the
other extremity of the apartment, and Hope involuntarily passed her
hand hastily over her brow; as she did so, she looked up and saw
Esther’s eye fixed on her. Rallying her spirits, “I am weak yet,
Esther,” she said, “and this sudden change from our still room
confuses me.” Mrs. Grafton did not mark this little interlude, and,
replying to Mr. Fletcher’s last observation, “Poor child! do you call
her? I call it sheer foolishness. Her early affections, indeed! you
seem to forget she had other and earlier than for that Indian boy; but
{132} this seems to be the one weed that has choked all the rest.
Hope, my dear, you have no idea what a _non compos mentis_ she has got
to be. I showed her all my earrings, and gave her her choice of all
but the diamonds that are promised for your wedding gift, dearie, you
know, and, do you think, she scarcely looked at them? while she won’t
let me touch those horrid blue glass things she wears, that look so
like the tawnies, it makes me all of a nerve to see them. And then,
just look for yourself: though I have dressed her up in that beautiful
Lyons silk of yours, with the Dresden tucker, she will--this warm
weather, too--keep on her Indian mantle in that blankety fashion.”
“Well, my dear aunt, why not indulge her for the present? I suppose
she has the feeling of the natives, who seem to have an almost
superstitious attachment to that Oriental costume.”
“Oriental fiddlestick! you talk like a simpleton, Hope. I suppose you
would let her wear that string of all-coloured shells round her neck,
would you not,” she asked, drawing aside Faith’s mantle, and showing
the savage ornament, “instead of that beautiful rainbow necklace of
mine, which I have offered to her in place of it?”
“If you ask me seriously, aunt, I certainly would, if she prefers it.”
“Now that is peculiar of you, Hope. Why, Miss Esther Downing, mine is
a string of stones that go by sevens: yellow, topaz--orange,
onyx--red, ruby--and so on, and so on. Master Cradock wrote the {133}
definitions of them all out of a Latin book for me once; and yet,
though it is such a peculiar beauty, that silly child will not give up
those horrid shells for it. Now,” she continued, turning to Faith, and
putting her hand on the necklace, “now, that’s a good girl, let me
take it off.”
Faith understood her action, though not her words, and she laid her
own hand on the necklace, and looked as if obstinately determined it
should not be removed.
Hope perceived there was something attached to the necklace, and on a
closer inspection, which her position enabled her to make, she saw it
was a crucifix; and dreading lest her sister should be exposed to a
new source of persecution, she interposed: “Let her have her own way
at present, I pray you, aunt; she may have some reason for preferring
those shells that we do not know; and if she has not, I see no great
harm in her preferring bright shells to bright stones; at any rate,
for the present, we had best leave her to herself, and say nothing at
all to her about her dress or ornaments.”
“Well--very well; take your own way, Miss Hope Leslie.”
Hope smiled: “Nay, aunt,” she said, “I cannot be _Miss_ Hope Leslie
till I get quite well again.”
“Oh, dearie, I meant nothing, you know,” said the good lady, whose
displeasure never held out against one of her niece’s smiles. “If Miss
Esther Downing,” she added, lowering her voice, “had told me to say
nothing of dress and ornaments, I should {134} not have been
surprised; but it is an unheard-of simpleness for you, Hope. Dress and
ornaments! they are the most likely things in the world to take the
mind off from trouble. Till I came to this new English colony, where
everything seems, as it were, topsy-turvy, I never saw that woman
whose mind could not be diverted by dress and ornaments.”
“You strangely dishonour your memory, Mistress Grafton, or Hope’s
noble mother,” said the elder Fletcher; “methinks I have often heard
you say that Alice Fletcher had no taste for these vanities.”
“No, you never heard me say that, Mr. Fletcher. Vanities! no, never,
the longest day I had to live; for I never called them vanities--no; I
did say Alice always went as plain as a pike-staff after you left
England; and a great pity it was, I always thought; for, when Queen
Henrietta came from France, we had such a world of beautiful new
fashions, it would have cured Alice of moping if she would have given
her mind to it. There was my Lady Penyvére, how different it was with
her after her losses: let’s see--her husband, and her son Edward, heir
to the estate, and her daughter-in-law--that was not so much, but
we’ll count her--and Ulrica, her own daughter, all died in one week;
and, for an aggravation, her coachman, horses, coach, and all, went
off London Bridge, and all were drowned--killed--smashed to death; and
yet, in less than a week, my lady gave orders for every suit of
mourning; and that is the great use of wearing mourning, as she said:
it takes the mind off from trouble.”
{135}
Hope felt, and her quick eye saw, that her aunt was running on sadly
at her own expense; and, to produce an effect similar to the painter,
when, by his happy art, he shifts his lights, throwing defects into
shadow, and bringing out beauties, she said, “You are very little like
your friend Lady Penyvére, dear aunt; for I am certain, if, as you
feared, I had lost my life the other day, all the mourning in the
king’s realm would not have turned your thoughts from trouble.”
“No, that’s true--that’s very true, dearie,” replied the good lady,
snuffling, and wiping away the tears that had gathered at the bare
thought of the evil that had threatened her. “No, Hope; touch you,
touch my life; but then,” she added, lowering her voice for Hope’s ear
only, “I can’t bear to have you give in to this outcry against dress;
we have preaching and prophesying enough, the Lord knows, without your
taking it up.”
Lights were now ordered, and, after the bustle made by the ladies
drawing around the table and arranging their work was over, Governor
Winthrop said, “If your strength is equal to the task, Miss Leslie, we
would gladly hear the particulars of your marvellous escape, of which
Esther has been able to give us but a slight sketch--though enough to
make us all admire at the wonderful Providence that brought you safely
through.”
The elder Fletcher, really apprehensive for Hope’s health, and still
more apprehensive that she might, in her fearless frankness, discredit
herself with the {136} governor by disclosing all the particulars of
her late experience, which he had already heard from her lips, and
permitted to pass uncensured, interposed, and hoped to avert the evil
by begging that the relation might be deferred. But Hope insisted that
she felt perfectly well, and began by saying, “She doubted not her
kind friends had made every allowance for the trouble she had
occasioned them. She was conscious that much evil had proceeded from
the rash promise of secrecy she had given.” She forbore to name
Magawisca on her sister’s account, who was still sitting by her; the
governor, by a significant nod, expressed that he comprehended her;
and she went on to say “That she trusted she had been forgiven for
that, and for all the petulant and childish conduct of the week that
followed it. I scarcely recollect anything of those days, that then
seemed to me interminable,” she said, “but that I tried to mask my
troubled spirit with a laughing face, and, in spite of all my efforts,
I was rather cross than gay. I believe, Madam Winthrop, I called forth
your censure, and I pray you to forgive me for not taking it patiently
and thankfully, as I ought.”
Madam Winthrop, all astonishment at Hope’s exemplary humility and
deference--graces she had not appeared to abound in--assured her, with
unassumed kindness, that she had her cordial forgiveness; though,
indeed, she was pleased to say, “Hope’s explanation left her little to
forgive.”
“And you, sir,” said Hope, turning to the governor, “you, I trust,
will pardon me for selecting your garden for a secret rendezvous.”
{137}
“Indeed, Hope Leslie, I could pardon a much heavier transgression in
one so young as thee, and one who seems to have so hopeful a sense of
error,” replied the governor; while the good-will beaming in his
benevolent face showed how much more accordant kindness was with his
nature than the austere reproof which he so often believed the letter
of his duty required from him.
“Then you all--all forgive me, do you not?” Hope asked; and, glancing
her eye around the room, it involuntarily rested for a moment on
Everell. All but Everell, who did not speak, were warm in their
assurances that they had nothing to forgive; and the elder Fletcher
tenderly pressed her hand, secretly rejoicing that her graceful
humility enabled her to start with her story from vantage ground.
“I did not see you, I believe, Esther,” continued Hope, “after we
parted at Digby’s cottage?”
“Speak a trifle louder, if you please, Miss Leslie,” said the
governor. Hope was herself conscious that her voice had faltered at
the recollection of the definitive scene in Digby’s cottage, and,
making a new effort, she said, in a firmer and more cheerful tone,
“You, Esther, were happily occupied. I was persecuted by Sir Philip
Gardiner, whose ungentlemanly interference in my concerns will, I
trust, relieve me from his society in future.”
“Pardon me, Miss Leslie,” said the governor, interrupting Hope; “our
friend Sir Philip hath deserved your thanks rather than your censure.
There are, as you well know, duties paramount to the {138} courtesies
of a gentleman, which are, for the most part, but a vain show--mere
dress and decoration;” and he vouchsafed a smile as he quoted the
words of Mrs. Grafton: “Sir Philip believed he was consulting your
happiness when he took measures to recover your sister, which your
promise forbade your taking.”
“Sir Philip strangely mistakes me,” replied Hope, “if he thinks
anything could console me for apparently betraying one who trusted me
to sorrowful, fearful imprisonment.”
There was a pause, during which Mrs. Winthrop whispered to Esther,
“Then she knows all about it?”
“Yes; she would not rest till she heard all.”
Hope proceeded. “I believe I am not yet strong enough to speak on this
point.” She then went on to narrate circumstantially all that took
place after she was parted from Magawisca till she came to Antonio.
Cradock, when she began, had laid aside a little Greek book over which
he was conning, and had, at every new period of her relation, given
his chair a hitch towards her, till he sat directly before her, on the
edge of his chair, his knees pressed close together, and his palms
resting upright on them, his head stooped forward so as to be at right
angles with his body, and his parting lips creeping round to his ears
with an expression of complacent wonder. Thus he sat and looked while
Hope described her polite acquiescence in Antonio’s error, and
repeated her first reply to him in Italian. At this the old man threw
his head back, and burst into a peal {139} of laughter that resembled
the neighing of a horse more than any human sound; and, as soon as he
could recover his voice, “Did I not teach her the tongues?” he asked,
with a vehement gesture to the company; “did I not teach her the
tongues?”
“Indeed you did, kind Master Cradock,” said Hope, laying her hand on
his, “and many a weary hour it cost you.”
“Never--never one; thou wert always a marvellous quick-witted damsel.”
He then resumed his seat and his former attitude, and, closing his
eyes, said, in his usual low, deliberate tone, “I bless the Lord that
the flower and beauty of my youth were spent in Padua, a poor blind
worm that I am: I deemed it a loss, but it hath saved her most
precious and sweet life.” And here he burst into a paroxysm of tears
and sobbing almost as violent as his laughter had been: his organs
seemed moved by springs, which, if touched by an emotion, were quite
beyond his control, and only ceased their operation when their
mechanical force was exhausted.
Hope had little more to relate: she prudently suppressed the private
concerns of Sir Philip’s page, and attributed their accidental meeting
to his having come abroad, as in truth he had, in quest of his master.
When she had finished, the governor said, “Thou hast indeed been
brought through many dangers, Hope Leslie; delivered from the hand of
thy strong enemy, and thy feet made like hinds’ feet; and I joy to say
that thy experience of the Lord’s mercies seemeth to have wrought a
becoming {140} sobriety in thee. I would fain pass over that last
passage in thy evening’s adventures without remark, but duty bids me
say thou didst err lamentably in permitting, for a moment, the
idol-worship of that darkened, papistical youth.”
“Worship, sir!” said Hope; “I did not esteem it worship; I thought it
merely an affectionate address to one who--and I hope I erred not in
that--might not have been a great deal better than myself.”
“I think she erred not greatly,” said Mr. Fletcher, who at this moment
felt too tenderly for Hope patiently to hear her rebuked; “the best
Catholic doctors put this interpretation on the invocations to
saints.”
“Granted,” replied the governor; “but did she right to deepen and
strengthen the superstition of the Romish sailor?”
“It does not appear to me,” said Mr. Fletcher, “that it was a
seasonable moment for meddling with his superstitions. We do not read
that Paul rebuked the Melitans, even when they said he was a god.”
This was but negative authority; but, while the governor hesitated how
he should answer it, Mr. Fletcher turned to Esther: “Miss Downing,” he
said, “thou art the pattern maiden of the Commonwealth: in Hope’s
condition, wouldst thou have acted differently? Out of thy mouth she
shall be justified or condemned.”
“Speak, dear Esther,” said Hope; “why do you hesitate? If I were to
choose an external conscience, {141} you should be my rule; though I
think the stern monitor could never be imbodied in so gentle a form.
Now tell us, Esther, what would you have done?”
“What I should have done, if left to my own strength, I know not,”
replied Esther, speaking reluctantly.
“Then, Esther, I will put the question in a form to spare your
humility: I will not ask what you would have done, but what I ought to
have done.”
Esther’s strictness was a submission to duty; and it cost her an
effort to say, “I would rather, Hope, thou hadst trusted thyself
wholly to that Providence that had so wonderfully wrought for thee
thus far.”
“I believe you are quite right, Esther,” said Hope, who was disposed
to acquiesce in whatever her friend said, and glad to escape from any
farther discussion, and, moreover, anxious to avert Esther’s
observation from Everell, who, during the conversation, had been
walking the room, his arms folded, to and fro, but had narrowly
watched Esther during this appeal, and, when she announced her
opinion, had turned disappointed away.
Mrs. Grafton now arose with a trifling apparent vexation, and, taking
Faith by the arm, she signified her intention to retire to her own
apartment. While crossing the room, she said, “It is not often I quote
Scripture, as you all know; because, as I have said before, I hold a
text from Scripture or a sample of chints to be a deceptive kind of
specimen; but I must say now, that I think the case of David, in
eating {142} the shew-bread instead of looking for manna, upholds Hope
Leslie in using the means the Lord chose to place in her hands.”
Having the last word is one of the tokens of victory, and the good
lady, content with this, withdrew from the field of discussion.
Governor Winthrop retired to his study. Hope followed him thither, and
begged a few moments’ audience, which was, of course, readily granted.
When the door was closed, and he had seated himself, and placed a
large arm-chair for her, all the tranquillity which she had just
before so well sustained forsook her; she sunk, trembling, on her
knees, and was compelled to rest her forehead on the governor’s knee:
he laid his hand kindly on her head: “What does this mean?” he asked;
“I like it not, and it is not fitting that any one should kneel in my
house but for a holy purpose: rise, Hope Leslie, and explain yourself;
rise, my child,” he added, in a softened tone, for his heart was
touched with her distress; “tyrants are knelt to, and I trust I am
none.”
“No, indeed you are not,” she replied, rising and clasping her hands
in earnest supplication; “and therefore I hope--nay, I believe--you
will grant my petition for our poor Indian friend.”
“Well, be calm; what of her?”
“What of her! Is she not, the generous creature, at this moment in
your condemned dungeon? Is she not to be tried to-morrow, perhaps
sentenced to death? and can I, the cause of bringing her into this
trouble, can I look calmly on?”
{143}
“Well, what would you have, young lady?” asked the governor, in a
quiet manner, that damped our heroine’s hopes, though it did not abate
her ardour.
“I would have your warrant, sir,” she replied, boldly, “for her
release; her free passage to her poor old father, if indeed he lives.”
“You speak unadvisedly, Miss Leslie. I am no king; and I trust the
Lord will never send one in wrath on his chosen people of the New
World, as he did on those of old. No, in truth, I am no king. I have
but one voice in the Commonwealth, and I cannot grant pardons at
pleasure; and, besides, on what do you found your plea?”
“On what!” exclaimed Hope. “On her merits and rights.”
“Methinks, my young friend, you have lost right suddenly that humble
tone that but now, in the parlour, graced you so well. I trusted that
your light afflictions and short sickness had tended to the
edification of your spirit.”
“I spoke then of myself, and humility became me; but surely you will
permit me to speak courageously of the noble Magawisca.”
“There is some touch of reason in thy speech, Hope Leslie,” replied
the governor, his lips almost relaxing to a smile. “Sit down, child,
and tell me of these merits and rights, for I would be possessed of
everything in favour of this unhappy maiden.”
“I have not to tell you, sir,” said Hope, struggling to speak in a
dispassionate tone, “but only to {144} _remind_ you of what you were
once the first to speak of--the many obligations of the English to the
family of Mononotto: a debt that has been but ill paid.”
“That debt, I think, was cancelled by the dreadful massacre at
Bethel.”
“If it be so, there is another debt that never has been, that scarce
can be cancelled.”
“Yes, I know to what you allude: it was a noble action for a heathen
savage; and I marvel not that my friend Fletcher should think it a
title to our mercy, or that young Mr. Everell, looking with a youthful
eye on this business, should deem it a claim on our justice. They have
both spoken much and often to me, and it were well if Everell Fletcher
were content to leave this matter with those who have the right to
determine it.” Hope perceived the governor looked very significantly,
and she apprehended that he might think her intercession was
instigated by Everell.
“I have not seen Everell Fletcher,” she said, “till this evening,
since we parted at the garden; and you will do both him and me the
justice to believe I have not now spoken at his bidding.”
“I did not think it. I know thou art ever somewhat forward to speak
the dictates of thy heart,” he continued, with a smile; “but now let
me caution you both, especially Everell, not to stir in this matter;
any private interference will but prejudice the Pequod’s cause. They
have ever been a hateful race to the English; and as the old chief and
his daughter are accused, and I fear justly, of kindling {145} the
enmity of the tribes against us, and attempting to stir up a war that
would lay our villages in ruins, it will be difficult to make a
private benefit outweigh such a public crime. At any rate, the
prisoner must be tried for her life; afterward we may consider if it
be possible and suitable to grant her a pardon.” Hope rose to
withdraw: the sanguine hopes that had sustained her were abated; her
limbs trembled, and her lips quivered as she turned to say
“good-night.” The governor took her hand, and said compassionately,
“Be not thus disquieted, my child; cast thy care upon the Lord. He can
bring light out of this darkness.”
“And He alone,” she thought, as she slowly crept to her room. A
favourite from her birth, Hope had been accustomed to the
gratification of her wishes; innocent and moderate they had been; but
uniform indulgence is not a favourable school, and our heroine had now
to learn, from that stern teacher, experience, that events and
circumstances cannot be moulded to individual wishes. She must sit
down and passively await the fate of Magawisca. “She had done all she
could do, and without any effect: had she done all?” While she still
meditated on this last clause of her thoughts, Esther entered the
room. Absorbed in her own revery, Hope did not, at first, particularly
notice her friend, and when she did, she saw that she appeared much
disturbed. Esther, after opening and shutting drawers and cupboards,
and seeking by these little devices to conceal or subdue her
agitation, found all unavailing, {146} and, throwing herself in a
chair, she gave way to hysterical sobbings.
This, in almost any young lady, would have been a common expression of
romantic distress; but in the disciplined, circumspect Esther,
uncontrolled emotion was as alarming, to compare small things to
great, as if a planet were to start from its orbit.
Hope hastened to her, and, folding her arms around her tenderly,
inquired what could thus distress her. Esther disengaged herself from
her friend, and turned her face from her.
“I cannot bear this,” said Hope; “I can bear anything better than
this: are you displeased with me, Esther?”
“Yes, I am displeased with you--with myself--with everybody: I am
miserable.”
“What do you mean, Esther? I have done nothing to offend you; for
pity’s sake tell me what you mean? I have never had a feeling or
thought that should offend you.”
“You have most cruelly, fatally injured me, Hope Leslie.”
“Here is some wretched mistake,” cried Hope; “for Heaven’s sake
explain, Esther: if I had injured you knowingly, I should be of all
creatures most guilty; but I have not. If I have innocently injured
you, speak, my dear friend, I beseech you,” she added, again putting
her arm around Esther; “have not you yourself, a thousand times, said
there should be no disguises with friends--no untold suspicions--no
unexplained mysteries?”
{147}
Again Esther repressed Hope. “I have been unfairly dealt by,” she
said. “I have been treated as a child.”
“How--when--where--by whom?” demanded Hope, impetuously.
“Ask me no questions now, Hope. I will answer none. I will no longer
be played upon.”
“Oh, Esther, you are cruel,” said Hope, bursting into tears. “You are
the one friend that I have loved gratefully, devotedly,
disinterestedly, and I cannot bear this.”
There was a pause of half an hour, during which Esther sat with her
face covered with her handkerchief, and sobbing violently, while Hope
walked up and down the room, her tender heart penetrated to the very
core with sorrow, and her mind perplexed with endless conjectures
about the cause of her friend’s emotions.
She sometimes approached near the truth, but that way she could not
bear to look. At last Esther became quiet, and Hope ventured once more
to approach her, and leaned over her without speaking. Esther rose
from her chair, knelt down, and drew Hope down beside her, and in a
low, but perfectly firm voice, supplicated for grace to resist
engrossing passion and selfish affections. She prayed they might both
be assisted from above, so that their mutual forgiveness and mutual
love might be perfected, and issue in a friendship which should be a
foretaste of Heaven. She then rose and folded her arms around her
friend, saying, “I have given way to my sinful {148} nature, but I
feel already an earnest of returning peace. Do not say anything to me
now, Hope; the future will explain all.”
There was an authority in her manner that Hope could not, and did not
wish to resist. “If you speak to me so, Esther,” she said, “I would
obey you, even though it were possible obedience should be more
difficult. Now we will go to bed, and forget all this wearisome
evening; but first kiss me, and tell me you love me as well as ever.”
“I do,” she replied; but her voice faltered; and, governed by the
strictest law of truth, she changed her form of expression: “I mean
that I shall again love you as well--I trust, better than ever; be
content with this for the present, Hope, and try me no farther.”
Once, while they were undressing, Esther said, but without any emotion
in her voice--her face was averted from Hope--“Everell has been
proposing to me to assist him in a clandestine attempt to get
Magawisca out of prison.”
“To get her out!” exclaimed Hope, with the greatest animation:
“to-night?”
“To-night or to-morrow night.”
“And is there any hope of effecting it?”
“I thought it not right for me to undertake it,” Esther replied, in
the same tone, quite calm, but so deliberate that Hope detected the
effort with which she spoke, and dared not venture another question.
They both went to bed, but not to sleep; mutual and secret anxieties
kept them for a long time restless, {149} and a strange feeling of
embarrassment, as distant as the width of their bed would allow; but,
finally, Hope, as if she could no longer bear this estrangement,
nestled close to Esther, folded her arms around her, and fell asleep
on her bosom.
Madam Winthrop had very considerately, in the course of the evening,
left Everell and her niece alone together; and he had availed himself
of this first opportunity of private communication to inform her that,
after being frustrated in all his efforts for Magawisca’s rescue, he
had at length devised a plan which only wanted her co-operation to
ensure it success. Her agency would certainly, he believed, not be
detected; and, at any rate, could not involve her in any disagreeable
consequences.
“Any consequences to herself,” Esther said, “she would not fear.”
Everell assured her that he was certain she would not; but he was
anxious she should see he would not expose her to any, even to attain
an object for which he would risk or sacrifice his own life. He then
went on eagerly to detail his plan of operations, till Esther summoned
courage to interrupt him. Perhaps there is not on earth a more
difficult duty than for a woman to place herself in a disagreeable
light before the man she truly loves. Esther’s affections were deep,
fixed, and unpretending, capable of any effort or any sacrifice that
was not proscribed by religious loyalty; but no earthly consideration
could have tempted her to waver from the strictest letter of her
religious duty, as that duty was interpreted by her conscience. It
cost her severe {150} struggles; but, after several intimations which
Everell did not understand, she constrained herself to say, “That she
thought they had not Scripture warrant for interfering between the
prisoner and the magistrates.”
“Scripture warrant!” exclaimed Everell, with surprise and vexation he
could not conceal. “And are you to do no act of mercy, or compassion,
or justice, for which you cannot quote a text from Scripture?”
“Scripture hath abundant texts to authorize all mercy, compassion, and
justice, but we are not always the allowed judges of their
application; and in the case before us we have an express rule, to
which, if we submit, we cannot err; for thou well knowest, Everell, we
are commanded, in the first epistle of Peter, second chapter, to
‘Submit ourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake:
whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them
that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the
praise of them that do well.’”
“But surely, Esther, there must be warrant, as you call it, for
sometimes resisting legitimate authority, or all our friends in
England would not be at open war with their king. With such a
precedent, I should think the sternest conscience would permit you to
obey the generous impulses of nature, rather than to render this
slavish obedience to the letter of the law.”
“Oh, Everell! do not seek to blind my judgment. Our friends at home
are men who do all things in {151} the fear of the Lord, and are,
therefore, doubtless guided by the light of Scripture and the inward
testimony. But they cannot be a rule for us in any measure; and for
me, Everell, it would be to sin presumptuously, to do aught in any way
to countervail the authority of those chosen servants of the Lord
whose magistracy we are privileged to live under.”
Everell tried all argument and persuasion to subdue her scruples, but
in vain; she had some text or some unquestioned rule of duty to oppose
to every reason and entreaty.
To an ardent young man, there is something unlovely, if not revolting,
in the sterner virtues, and particularly when they oppose those
objects which he may feel to be authorized by the most generous
emotions of his heart. Everell did not mean to be unjust to
Esther--his words were measured and loyal--but he felt a deep
conviction that there was a painful discord between them; that there
was, to use the modern German term, no elective affinity. In the
course of their conversation, he said, “You would not, you could not,
thus resist my wishes if you knew Magawisca.”
“Everell,” she replied, “those who love you need not know this maiden
to feel that they would save her life at the expense of their own, if
they might do it;” and then, blushing at what she feared might seem an
empty boast, she added, “but I do know Magawisca; I have visited her
in her prison every day since she has been there.”
{152}
“God bless you for that, Esther; but why did you not tell me?”
“Because my uncle only permitted me access to her on condition that I
kept it a secret from you.”
“Methinks that prohibition was as useless as cruel.”
“No, Everell; my uncle doubtless anticipated such applications as you
have made to-night, and he was right to guard me from temptation.”
“He might securely have trusted you to resist it,” thought Everell.
But he tried to suppress the unkind feeling, and asked Esther “if she
had any motive in visiting Magawisca thus often, beyond the
gratification of her compassionate disposition.”
“Yes,” replied Esther; “I heard my uncle say, that if Magawisca could
be induced to renounce her heathenish principles, and promise, instead
of following her father to the forest, to remain here and join the
catechized Indians, he thought the magistrates might see it to be
their duty to overlook her past misdemeanours, and grant her Christian
privileges.” Esther paused for a moment, but Everell made no comment,
and she proceeded, in a tone of the deepest humility: “I knew I was a
poor instrument, but I hoped a blessing on the prayer of faith and the
labour of love. I set before her her temporal and her eternal
interest--life and death. I prayed with her--I exhorted her; but oh!
Everell, she is obdurate; she neither fears death, nor will believe
that eternal misery awaits her after death!”
To Esther’s astonishment, Everell, though he {153} looked troubled,
neither expressed surprise nor disappointment at the result of her
labours, but immediately set before her the obvious inference from it.
“You see, yourself,” he said, “by your own experience, there is but
one way of aiding Magawisca.”
“It is unkind of you, Everell,” she replied, with a trembling voice,
“to press me farther; that way, you know, my path is hedged up;” and,
without saying anything more, she abruptly left the room; but she had
scarcely passed the threshold of the door, when her gentle heart
reproached her with harshness, and she turned to soften her final
refusal. Everell did not hear her returning footsteps; he stood with
his back to the door, and Esther heard him make this involuntary
apostrophe: “Oh, Hope Leslie! how thy unfettered soul would have
answered such an appeal! why has fate cruelly severed us?”
Esther escaped hastily, and without his observation; and the scene
already described in the apartment of the young ladies ensued.
Everell Fletcher must not be reproached with being a disloyal knight.
The artifices of Sir Philip Gardiner; the false light in which our
heroine had been placed by her embarrassments with Magawisca; the
innocent manœuvring of Madam Winthrop; and, finally, the generous
rashness of Hope Leslie, had led him, step by step, to involve himself
in an engagement with Miss Downing; that engagement had just been made
known to her protectors, and ratified by them, when the denouément of
the mysterious {154} rendezvous at the garden explained his fatal
mistake. When he recurred to all that had passed since his first
meeting with Hope Leslie, and particularly to their last interview at
the garden, when he had imputed her uncontrollable emotion to her
sensibility in relation to Sir Philip, he had reason to believe he was
beloved by the only being he had ever loved. But in what cruel
circumstance did this discovery find him! His troth plighted to one
whose pure and tender heart he had long possessed. There was but one
honourable course for him to pursue, and on that he firmly resolved:
to avoid the presence of Hope Leslie; to break the chain of affection
wrought in youth and riveted in manhood, and whose links seemed to him
to encompass and sustain his very life; in fine, to forget the past:
but, alas! who can convert to Lethe the sweetest draughts of memory?
Hope’s dangerous illness had suspended all his purposes; he could not
disguise his interest; and, indeed, its manifestations excited neither
surprise nor remark, for it seemed sufficiently accounted for by their
long and intimate association. While Hope’s life was in peril, even
Magawisca was forgotten; but the moment Hope’s convalescence restored
the use of his faculties, they were all devoted to obtaining
Magawisca’s release, and he had left no means untried, either of open
intercession or clandestine effort; but all, as yet, was without
effect.