Hope Leslie. Catharine Maria Sedgwick
“It is but a shadow vanished – a bubble broke, a dreame finish’t – Eternitie will pay for all.”
Roger Williams
Scarcely had the invaders disappeared, and the sound of their footsteps died away, when Digby and Hutton came in view of the dwelling. “Ah!” said Hutton, reining in his horse, “I thought all this fluster was for nothing – the blast a boy’s prank. A pretty piece of work we’ve made of it; you’ll have Mistress Grafton about your ears for tossing away her Lon’on gimcracks. All is as quiet here as a Saturday night; nothing to be seen but the smoke from the kitchen chimney, and that’s a pleasant sight to me, for I went off without my dinner, and methinks it will now taste as savoury as Jacob’s pottage.”
Digby lent no attention to his companion’s chattering, but pressed on; his fears were allayed, but not removed. As he approached the house, he felt that the silence which pervaded it, boded no good; but the horrors of the reality far surpassed the worst suggestions of his vague apprehensions. “Oh, my mistress! my mistress!” he screamed, when the havoc of death burst upon his sight. “My good mistress – and her girls! – and the baby too! Oh, God – have mercy on my master!” and he bent over the bodies and wrung his hands: “not one – not one spared!”
“Yes, one,” spoke a trembling whining voice, which proved to be Jennet’s, who had just emerged from her hiding-place covered with soot; “by the blessing of a kind Providence, I have been preserved for some wise end, but,” she continued, panting, “the fright has taken my breath away, besides being squeezed as flat as a pancake in the bedroom chimney.”
“Stop – for Heaven’s sake, stop, Jennet, and tell me, if you can, if Mr Everell was here.”
Jennet did not know; she remembered having seen the family in general assembled, just before she heard the yell of the savages.
“How long,” Digby inquired, “have they been gone? how long since you heard the last sound?”
“That’s more than mortal man, or woman either, in my case, could tell, Mr Digby. Do you think, when a body seems to feel a scalping knife in their heads, they can reckon time? No; hours are minutes, and minutes hours, in such a case.”
“Oh fool! fool!” cried Digby, and turning disgusted away, his eye fell on his musket. “Thank the Lord!” he exclaimed, “Mr Everell has poured one shot into the fiends; he alone knew where the gun was, bless the boy – bless him; he has a strong arm, and a stout soul – bless him. They have taken him off – we’ll after him, Hutton. Jennet, bring my hunting pouch. Look to your firelock, Hutton. Magawisca! – Oneco! Faith Leslie, all gone!” he continued, his first amazement dissipating, and thought after thought flashing the truth on his mind. “I remember last night – Oh, Mr Everell, how the girl deceived you – she knew it all.”
“Ah, Magawisca! so I thought,” said Jennet. “She knows every thing evil that happens in earth, sea, or air; she and that mother witch, Nelema. I always told Mrs Fletcher she was warming a viper in her bosom, poor dear lady; but I suppose it was for wise ends she was left to her blindness.”
“Are you ready, Hutton?” asked Digby, impatiently.
“Ready! – yes, I am ready, but what is the use, Digby? what are we two against a host? and, besides, you know not how long they have been gone.”
“Not very long,” said Digby, shuddering and pointing to blood that was trickling, drop by drop, from the edge of the flooring to the step. How long the faithful fellow might have urged, we know not, for cowardice hath ever ready and abundant arguments, and Hutton was not a man to be persuaded into danger; but the arrival of Mr Pynchon and his men, put an end to the debate.
Mr Pynchon was the faithful, paternal guardian of his little colony. He saw in this scene of violent death, not only the present overwhelming misery of the family at Bethel, but the fearful fate to which all were exposed who had perilled their lives in the wilderness; but he could give but brief space to bitter reflections, and the lamentings of nature. Instant care and service were necessary for the dead and the living. The bodies of the mother and children were removed to one of the apartments, and decently disposed, and then, after a fervent prayer, a duty never omitted in any emergency by the pilgrims, whose faith in the minute superintendence of Providence was practical, he directed the necessary arrangements for the pursuit of the enemy.
Little could be gathered from Jennet. She was mainly occupied with her own remarkable preservation, not doubting that Providence had specially interposed to save the only life utterly insignificant in any eyes but her own. She recollected to have heard Magawisca exclaim, ‘My father!’ at the first onset of the savages. The necessary conclusion was, that the party had been led by the Pequod chief. It was obviously probable that he would return, with his children and captives, to the Mohawks, where, it was well known, he had found refuge; of course the pursuers were to take a westerly direction. Jennet was of opinion that the party was not numerous; and encumbered as they must be with their prisoners, the one a child whom it would be necessary, in a rapid flight to carry, Mr Pynchon had sanguine expectations that they might be overtaken.
The fugitives, obliged to avoid the cleared meadows, had, as Mr Pynchon believed, taken an indirect path through the forest to the Connecticut; which, in pursuance of their probable route, they would, of course cross, as soon as they could, with safety. He selected five of his men, whom he deemed fittest for the expedition, and recommending it to them to be guided by the counsel of Digby, whose impatient zeal was apparent, he directed them to take a direct course to the river. He was to return to the village, and despatch a boat to them, with which they were to ply up the river, in the hope of intercepting the passage of the Indians.
The men departed, led by Digby, to whose agitated spirit every moment’s delay had appeared unnecessary and fatal; and Mr Pynchon was mounting his horse, when he saw Mr Fletcher, who had avoided the circuitous road through the village, emerge from the forest, and come in full view of his dwelling. Mr Pynchon called to Jennet, “yonder is your master – he must not come hither while this precious blood is on the threshold – I shall take him to my house, and assistance shall be sent to you. In the mean time, watch those bodies faithfully.”
“Oh! I can’t stay here alone,” whimpered Jennet, running after Mr Pynchon – “I would not stay for all the promised land.”
“Back, woman,” cried Mr Pynchon, in a voice of thunder; and Jennet retreated, the danger of advancing appearing, for the moment, the greater of the two.
Mr Fletcher was attended by two Indians, who followed him, bearing on a litter, his favourite, Hope Leslie. When they came within sight of Bethel, they shouted the chorus of a native song. Hope inquired its meaning. They told her, and raising herself, and tossing back the bright curls that shaded her eyes, she clapped her hands, and accompanied them with the English words, – ‘The home! – the home! – the chieftain’s home!’ – “And my home too, is it not?” she said.
Mr Fletcher was touched with the joy with which this bright little creature, who had left a palace in England, hailed his rustic dwelling in the wilderness. He turned on her a smile of delight – he could not speak; the sight of his home had opened the floodgates of his heart. “Oh now,” she continued, with growing animation, “I shall see my sister. But why does not she come to meet us? – Where is your Everell? and the girls? There is no one looking out for us.”
The stillness of the place, and the absence of all living objects, struck Mr Fletcher with fearful apprehensions, heightened by the sight of his friend, who was coming, at full gallop, towards him. To an accurate observer, the effects of joy and sorrow, on the human figure, are easily discriminated – misery depresses, contracts, and paralyses the body, as it does the spirit.
“Remain here for a few moments,” said Mr Fletcher to his attendants, and he put spurs to his horse, and galloped forward.
“Put down the litter,” said Hope Leslie to her bearers. “I cannot stand stock-still, here, in sight of the house where my sister is.” The Indians knew their duty, and determined to abide by the letter of their employer’s