“Martha, you aim wide of the mark. My present emotions are not those of a mourner for Zion. A ship has arrived from England, and in it came” –
“My brother Stretton!” exclaimed Mrs Fletcher.
“No – no, Martha. It will be long ere Stretton quits his paradise to join a suffering people in the wilderness.”
He paused for a moment, and when he again spoke, the softened tone of his voice evinced that he was touched by the expression of disappointment, slightly tinged by displeasure that shaded his wife’s gentle countenance. “Forgive me, my dear wife,” he said. “I should not have spoken aught that implied censure of your brother; for I know he hath ever been most precious in your eyes – albeit, not the less so, that he is yet without the fold – That which I have to tell you – and it were best that it were quickly told – is, that my cousin Alice was a passenger in this newly arrived ship. Martha, your blushes wrong you. The mean jealousies that degrade some women have, I am sure, never been harboured in your heart.”
“If I deserve your praise, it is because the Lord has been pleased to purify my heart and make it his sanctuary. But, if I have not the jealousies, I have the feelings of a woman, and I cannot forget that you were once affianced to your cousin Alice – and” –
“And that I once told you, Martha, frankly, that the affection I gave to her, could not be transferred to another. That love grew with my growth – strengthened with my strength. Of its beginning, I had no more consciousness than of the commencement of my existence. It was sunshine and flowers in all the paths of my childhood. It inspired every hope – modified every project – such was the love I bore to Alice – love immortal as the soul! –
“You know how cruelly we were severed at Southampton – how she was torn from the strand by the king’s guards – within my view, almost within my grasp. How Sir William tempted me with the offer of pardon – my cousin’s hand – and, – poor temptation indeed after that! – honours, fortune. You know that even Alice, my precious beautiful Alice, knelt to me. That smitten of God and man, and for the moment, bereft of the right use of reason, she would have persuaded me to yield my integrity. You know that her cruel father reproached me with virtually breaking my plighted troth, that many of my friends urged my present conformity; and you know, Martha, that there was a principle in my bosom that triumphed over all these temptations. And think you not that principle has preserved me faithful in my friendship to you? Think you not that your obedience – your careful conformity to my wishes; your steady love, which hath kept far more than even measure with my deserts, is undervalued – can be lightly estimated?”
“Oh, I know,” said the humble wife, “that your goodness to me does far surpass my merit; but bethink you, it is the nature of a woman to crave the first place.”
“It is the right of a wife, Martha; and there is none now to contest it with you. This is but the second time I have spoken to you on a subject that has been much in our thoughts: that has made me wayward, and would have made my sojourning on earth miserable, but that you have been my support and comforter. These letters contain tidings that have opened a long sealed fountain. My uncle, Sir William, died last January. Leslie perished in a foreign service. Alice, thus released from all bonds, and sole mistress of her fortunes, determined to cast her lot in the heritage of God’s people. She embarked with her two girls – her only children – a tempestuous voyage proved too much for a constitution already broken by repeated shocks. She was fully aware of her approaching death, and died as befits a child of faith, in sweet peace. Would to God I could have seen her once more – but,” he added, raising his eyes devoutly, “not my will but thine be done! The sister of Leslie, a Mistress Grafton, attended Alice, and with her she left a will committing her children to my guardianship. It will be necessary for me to go to Boston to assume this trust. I shall leave home tomorrow, after making suitable provision for your safety and comfort in my absence. These children will bring additional labour to your household; and in good time hath our thoughtful friend Governor Winthrop procured for us two Indian servants. The girl has arrived. The boy is retained about the little Leslies; the youngest of whom, it seems, is a petted child; and is particularly pleased by his activity in ministering to her amusement.”
“I am glad if any use can be made of an Indian servant,” said Mrs Fletcher, who, oppressed with conflicting emotions, expressed the lightest of them – a concern at a sudden increase of domestic cares where there were no facilities to lighten them.
“How any use! You surely do not doubt, Martha, that these Indians possess the same faculties that we do. The girl, just arrived, our friend writes me, hath rare gifts of mind – such as few of God’s creatures are endowed with. She is just fifteen; she understands and speaks English perfectly well, having been taught it by an English captive, who for a long time dwelt with her tribe. On that account she was much noticed by the English who traded with the Pequods; and young as she was, she acted as their interpreter.
“She is the daughter of one of their chiefs, and when this wolfish tribe were killed, or dislodged from their dens, she, her brother, and their mother, were brought with a few other captives to Boston. They were given for a spoil to the soldiers. Some, by a Christian use of money, were redeemed; and others, I blush to say it, for ‘it is God’s gift that every man should enjoy the good of his own labour,’ were sent into slavery in the West Indies. Monoca, the mother of these children, was noted for the singular dignity and modesty of her demeanor. Many notable instances of her kindness to the white traders are recorded; and when she was taken to Boston, our worthy governor, ever mindful of his duties, assured her that her good deeds were held in remembrance, and that he would testify the gratitude of his people in any way she should direct. ‘I have nothing to ask,’ she said, ‘but that I and my children may receive no personal dishonour.’
“The governor redeemed her children, and assured her they should be cared for. For herself, misery and sorrow had so wrought on her, that she was fast sinking into the grave. Many Christian men and women laboured for her conversion but she would not even consent that the holy word should be interpreted to her; insisting, in the pride of her soul, that all the children of the Great Spirit were equal objects of His favour; and that He had not deemed the book he had withheld, needful to them.”
“And did she,” inquired Mrs Fletcher, “thus perish in her sins?”
“She died,” replied her husband, “immoveably fixed in those sentiments. But, Martha, we should not suit God’s mercy to the narrow frame of our thoughts. This poor savage’s life, as far as it has come to our knowledge, was marked with innocence and good deeds; and I would gladly believe that we may hope for her, on that broad foundation laid by the Apostle Peter – ‘In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him.’”
“That text,” answered Mrs Fletcher, her heart easily kindling with the flame of charity, “is a light behind many a dark scripture, like the sun shining all around the edges of a cloud that would fain hide its beams.”
“Such thoughts, my dear wife, naturally spring from thy kind heart, and are sweet morsels for private meditation; but it were well to keep them in thine own bosom lest, taking breath, they should lighten the fears of unstable souls. But here comes the girl, Magawisca, clothed in her Indian garb, which the governor has permitted her to retain, not caring, as he wisely says, to interfere with their innocent peculiarities; and she, in particular, having shewn a loathing of the English dress.”
Everell Fletcher now threw wide open the parlour door, inviting the Indian girl, by a motion of his hand and a kind smile, to follow. She did so, and remained standing beside him, with her eyes rivetted to the floor, while every other eye was turned towards her. She and her conductor were no unfit representatives of the people from whom they sprung. Everell Fletcher was a fair ruddy boy of fourteen; his smooth brow and bright curling hair, bore the stamp of the morning of life; hope and confidence and gladness beamed in the falcon glance of his keen blue eye; and love and frolic played about his lips. The active hardy habits of life, in a new country, had already knit his frame, and given