Silent Struggles Part 25

"Nothing, sir; I have not seen her for some time. Mistress Stafford fainted, Elizabeth came in for some water, and did not return."

"How long ago was that?"

"Fifteen minutes, mayhap."

"You see," whispered Lady Phipps; "he has lost all note of time.

William, it frightens me--what can be done?"

"Are you angered with this maiden, Norman?" pursued Sir William.

"Angered--with Bessie?" repeated the young man; "how can you think it?

She knows that I am not."

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips with earnest affection; Lady Phipps gently unlocked the young girl's arm from her neck, placed both hands in Norman's, and left the startled pair standing side by side, in front of the old man, who stood in the midst of the scene lost in astonishment.

A gleam of joy came back to Elizabeth's face, and she stood half terrified, half abashed, like a fawn ready to flee at the slightest sound. She cast one shy glance at her father from under the silken lashes that instantly drooped to her hot cheeks, and then drew away from her lover, ashamed of her own exquisite happiness.

"Let no new trouble come between your hearts," said Sir William, solemnly. Then turning to Samuel Parris, he added with deep feeling--

"My dear old friend, these two persons love each other deeply, truly, I think; as you and I have loved before this. Need I ask you to bless an attachment which has every promise of happiness?"

"But she is a child. My Elizabeth is a babe as yet. It was but yesterday that she sat on my knee learning her alphabet. Why talk of love between any one and a young creature like that? It is sacrilege; cruel, cruel. I have not deserved this at your hands, William Phipps!"

"Nay," answered the governor, deeply moved, but firm in his own idea; "her mother was but one little year older than Elizabeth when she became your wife."

"What! what!" cried the old man, looking upon his child with a sort of terror. "Has the babe advanced so close upon her womanhood? She loves another, and the old man will be left alone. G.o.d help us all, for this is a heavy blow."

"Nay, my friend," urged the governor. "The young man is well worthy of any maiden's love. Be content that I regard him almost as my own son. It is but gaining another child, Samuel Parris; a son who will support the declining years of your life with his strong arm."

Parris cast a long, half-reluctant look at the young man, who met his scrutiny with a frank, honest return, that half drove the look of dismay from that anxious old face.

"Oh, father, are you angry with us?" pleaded Elizabeth, creeping to the minister's side.

"Angry! and with thee, Elizabeth?"

"Nor with him? Oh, father, if you are angry with him it will break my heart!"

"Break _thy_ heart, child! What! another? No, no; I have seen hearts break before now, and it was I that did it--I, a minister of G.o.d's merciful religion. Love the young man, girl; love him heart and soul. I will make no protest--give no sign."

Elizabeth, smiling through the vague terror produced by the old man's emotion, drew back to Lovel's side. Parris looked at them with a strange, bewildered air.

"They are waiting for something," he said, looking wistfully at Sir William. "Is it the old man's blessing? I must not withhold it, you say.

They are young and fair, and love each other dearly. Ah, me! what anguish may lie buried in that word love! Yes, I will bless them. G.o.d helping me, I will bless them. Kneel down, young man--kneel, Elizabeth.

When human hearts are consecrated to each other, it is a sacrament of which marriage is but the seal. Norman Lovel, take her hand--and G.o.d so deal with you as you deal with my child--Elizabeth--" Here the old man's voice filled with tears. He struggled a moment, fell upon his knees before the young couple, bowed his head earthward, and covering his face with both hands cried like a child.

Sir William Phipps went up to the minister, and bent over him, whispering words in his ear which no one else heard. After a little, Parris arose from his knees, laid two trembling hands on those young heads, and spoke to them with such gentle and loving pathos that even Lady Phipps wept. There was silence in the room for some moments after the young people arose to their feet. That solemn benediction had impressed all present too profoundly for the prompt reaction which is possible to lighter feelings. But, after a little, Lady Phipps spoke, smiling through the tears that still lingered pleasantly in her eyes.

"Now, Elizabeth, I fancy you will be able to meet our guest with some placidity," she said, kissing the now pale cheek of the almost bride.

"Oh, that little, jealous heart, it beats to another tune now. Sweet one, G.o.d's blessing be with you, and make you happy as I am." With the quick impulse of a warm-hearted woman the lady began to sob again. It was but the dying out of an excitement which best exhausted itself in such April weeping as a heart unknown to sorrow loves to indulge in. But Sir William always linked tears with grief. As he heard the tender sobs rising in her bosom, he reached out his arm and drew her close to him, soothing her with caresses.

While they stood thus, a white face appeared at the window which opened into the garden, and, unregarded, a pair of wild eyes followed each movement of the features so touchingly grouped together.

Wandering like an unquiet-spirit through the garden, Barbara Stafford had fallen suddenly upon the scene. She saw it all: the young people upon their knees; the old man drooping before them; and Sir William Phipps stooping down to caress his wife.

She drew the scarf, which was trailing to the ground, closely around her, and fleeing through the garden walks like one in fear of pursuit, disappeared in the darkness of the street beyond.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DEATH FIRE.

The house of Samuel Parris, the minister of the church of Salem, stood in a solitary place, a little out of the village, which lay between it and the sea, whose interminable beat could be heard throbbing like a pulse along the beach.

When every thing was still, and the hum of insects asleep in the forest, which, boundless as the blue ocean, stretched in an opposite direction, dark and teeming with mysterious shadows, the repose was almost appalling. Then, especially, the sweep of these waves, coming with distinctness to the minister's house, and blending with the s.h.i.+ver of the forest leaves, and the cry of such birds as sing to the darkness, rendered the night-time one of peculiar mournfulness in that out-of-the-way dwelling.

But the young girl who sat in the little family-room, late one quiet evening, had learned to love the dark hours, and so listened to the mighty and interminable throb of those waves with strange sympathy. The dull tick of an old oak clock, whose coffin-like frame was heavy with carvings, seemed answering the eternal anthem with its small noise, like a human voice striving to answer the hymns of universal nature; and the petty sound irritated her nerves, while the everlasting sweep, afar off, made her heart swell and her eye kindle.

As Abigail Williams sat thus restlessly listening, t.i.tuba, the old Indian woman, came into the room, and sat down on the floor at her feet.

The woman did not speak, but lifted her face, wrinkled like a dried plum, to that of the young girl, and waited to be addressed. The large, earnest eyes of Abby Williams looked down upon the Indian.

"It is late, t.i.tuba," she said, "the clock has struck eleven, and no sign of his coming!"

"He will be here--Wahpee would have been home long ago, if any thing had kept the young chief away. Are you sleepy, Abigail?"

"Sleepy! no. I shall never be sleepy again. The knowledge of who I am, and what they are in whose bosom I have slept all my life, keeps rest away from me--I know well how Judas felt when he sold his Lord."

t.i.tuba shook her head. She had no Bible, and could not be made to comprehend what one meant, though she had lived with the minister at Salem since Abigail was an infant. Hers was a wilder and more romantic religion--the Manitou of the Indians was her G.o.d, and she read his word in the leaves of the forest and the rush of the mountain stream. With her, treachery to the whites was faith to the Indian. Had Judas betrayed his enemy, she would have considered him a hero: but to betray his Master--old t.i.tuba could not have understood that!

"You look like her now," whispered the woman, folding her hands over her knees, and rocking back and forth on the floor, as she always did when about to talk of the past.

"My mother--do I look like her?" said Abigail.

"About the eyes, when there is trouble in them; but hers were blue, like a periwinkle in the morning, while yours are darker, and change so."

"And her--that other woman--that grand, sweet-spoken woman, whose spirit will not rest--Anna Hutchinson--my grandmother? Have you seen her, t.i.tuba?"

"Yes, when the warriors brought her into the forest for sacrifice. I was there. I watched the women, while they gathered pitch pine-knots, and scattered turpentine over the wood which the braves heaped on her death fire!"

"Did they torture her?"

"No. The wood was piled high; the Pequod women had brought heaps of pitch pine; the warriors, who held her and her little ones, came forward, ready to throw them on the flames together; they only waited for the chief!"

"And she stood ready for this terrible death?" broke in Abigail. "Was she brave, or was it only in speech that she proved valiant?"

"Brave! The warriors grew proud of their victim, she looked death so grandly in the face. The chief came, and his eye flamed brightly when he saw her. She was worthy of the death fire kindled in his honor."