Silent Struggles. Ann S. Stephens
of Contents
THE MINISTER AND HIS PUPIL.
Governor Phipps and Samuel Parris had been neighbors for many years. They had known each other when Parris was first settled over the church in Salem—a man in his prime—and the governor was the apprentice of a ship-builder near by. More than this; when Phipps was an apprentice and a dreamer, as all men of great capacities are at some period of their lives, thirsting for knowledge and restive as a wild animal, because all its sources were closed to him, Samuel Parris received the lad every night beneath his roof, and spent hours and hours in teaching him those rudiments of learning which are the key to all knowledge.
Parris had been an enthusiast, and a visionary man from his youth up. He was simple, pious, with a vein of rich poetry in his nature which could never be worked out fully in the pulpit, but was concentrated in his affections, and sometimes threatened the very foundations of his understanding.
The predominance of a vivid imagination over faculties of no ordinary stamp kept the minister's mind out of balance, and made his life an unfinished poem. Had all the other faculties of his mind been equal, Samuel Parris must have been a great poet or powerful statesman. Lacking so much and possessing so much, he was always good, affectionate, and most kind. A love of the pure and beautiful possessed him so entirely that it broke forth in veins of exquisite poetry in his sermons, and at times gave to his conversation an eloquence which seemed like absolute inspiration.
Like the minister, Phipps had much rough poetic ore in his composition; but underneath it all was a foundation of hard, practical good sense: he reasoned, while the minister dreamed. The poetry in his nature was enough to give fire and energy to his actions: it broke out through all his great after-schemes like veins of gold in a rock.
But in this man all the faculties came up and mated themselves with this high mental element, forming a most vigorous mind, and a will which nothing could conquer when set upon a right object.
Let no one smile when I speak of imagination as essential to real greatness. It were better to question fairly if absolute greatness ever existed without it. This high element of the mind is as necessary to a superior character as observation. It gives force and coloring to the other faculties. But with Phipps all the soul traits that make up a great character rose to a commanding level, urging the imagination to useful purposes, as machinery turns the beautiful waterfall into a mighty power.
Parris was a hoarder of books, rare manuscripts, and even old newspapers, which, coming from over sea, were not very plentiful in the colonies in those days, and thus were rendered worthy of preservation. It was in this store of ancient literature that the lad Phipps took his first course of reading. In these researches—for the acute lad, in his thirst for information, devoured every scrap of print that came in his way—it chanced that the two fell upon an old paper, which gave an account of some Spanish galley, wrecked years before on the coast of La Plata. Laden with fabulous wealth, in silver, and jewels, and gold, this galley still lay in the depths of the ocean. They had talked the matter over, Parris as he would have dwelt upon a fairy tale, had such things been permitted to his creed; Phipps with reflection and purposes, for the first burning thoughts of great enterprise rose in his mind that night.
After studying the old newspaper diligently in every word and syllable, Phipps left Salem and took up his abode in Boston, then went a voyage to sea, studying navigation with a zeal that equalled his first efforts at reading.
He returned to the colonies in the first strength of his youth, taller in person, and with a dignity of carriage that distinguished him all his days. But his best friends knew little of his purposes now. The knowledge which he had acquired with the habit of concentrated thought had lifted him out of his old life. The very acquirements obtained at so much cost, while they exalted him in the estimation of his old friends, only isolated him from their sympathies. Other feelings besides ambition may have stirred in the young man's heart at this time; if so, but one human being ever became his confidant.
Shortly after his return from sea, William Phipps came one night fifteen miles through the wilderness, which separated Boston from Salem, and asked an interview with his old friend.
They went into a little room, the scene of their first studies, and conversed long and earnestly together. The subject of this conversation no one knew. The Indian woman in the kitchen heard her master's voice more than once, rising from entreaty to expostulation, but she took little heed of the matter, as arguments between the youth and his teacher often arose over some old book or worn-out manuscript, which they chanced to be studying together.
But one thing is certain; the great metaphysical law of life prevailed here. The strong intellect conquered the weaker; and when William Phipps rode away in the darkness, it was with a certainty that his iron will had prevailed over the gentle reasoning, aye, and the conscience, too, of his kind old friend.
No human being but the Indian woman knew a word of this mystery, if mystery there was; but on the very next night she heard the sound of hoofs coming rapidly through the woods, and knew by the sudden pause that more than one person had dismounted before her master's house. But as she left her work to open the door, Mr. Parris, pale and excited, met her in the passage, and ordered her back to the kitchen in a voice that she dared not disobey.
After this she heard the continuous movement of feet in the adjoining room, the low muttering of voices; then her master came hurriedly out, asking for the camphor bottle which she found in a corner cupboard, wondering greatly what he could want of it; but he took the flask from her hand without a word and went into the room again.
In less than half an hour she heard the door close, and the softened tread of horses returning towards the woods along the forest turf. She looked out of the kitchen window. Two persons on horseback, a man and a woman, were riding by. The moonlight lay full upon their faces. That of the man she did not regard, for the loveliness of the young girl, around whom the moonbeams fell in luminous clearness, absorbed all her faculties. That was a face to be remembered forever, as we think of angel forms seen in dreams—a haunting face, never recognized clearly if seen again perhaps, but always disturbing the memory. Old Tituba was a woman to ponder over that face when she thought of the great Hunting Grounds of her people.
After this she heard her master walking all night long in the little room, back and forth, back and forth, till daybreak.
But for the beautiful face Tituba might never have remembered these things again, though any event became important in that quiet dwelling; but on the very next night, just at the hour when she had first heard the sound of hoofs upon the highway, there came from the walnut tree that overshadowed the minister's dwelling, a low wailing shout that rang through the house like the scoff of a demon. Tituba went out, for she had not thought much of the matter and had no reason to be afraid, and searched among the walnut tree boughs for some owl, or other wild bird with a hoarse cry, like that she had heard.
The moon was up, a round harvest moon, with a multitude of bright stars that looked down into the bosom of the walnut tree; scattering the dense shadows everywhere behind the branches. But the Indian woman could discover no living thing—nothing but the soft quiver of leaves and the starlight kissing away their dew.
She went in, satisfied that the noise had come from a passing bird, but the minute the wooden latch fell from her hand closing the door, the cry, hoarser and louder, ran through the house again. Then Tituba began to be afraid. She had heard of witchcraft, and believed in it, like her master, and all the wise men of the colony. From that hour she never heard a hoof upon the turf, though it were only that of a young fawn, or the hoot of an owl in the woods, that she did not remember what she solemnly believed to be the witch-gathering in her master's study, and tremble in her chimney corner till it had passed away.
After this time, William Phipps went forth to work out his ambitious purposes, and Samuel Parris fell back into the quiet of his home, a little troubled at times, and feeling the need of extra fasting and prayer, but the same