CHAPTER XIV

“Basta cosi t’intendo Gia ti spiegasti a pieno; E mi diresti meno Se mi dicessi piu.”

—-- Metastasio

WE TRUST we have not exhausted the patience of our readers, and that they will vouchsafe to go forth with us once more, on the eventful evening on which we have fallen, to watch the safe conduct of the released prisoner.

The fugitives had not proceeded many yards from the jail, when Everell joined them. This was the first occasion on which Magawisca and Everell had had an opportunity freely to interchange their feelings. Ever- ell’s tongue faltered when he would have expressed what he had felt for her: his manly, generous nature, disdained vulgar professions, and he feared that his ineffectual efforts in her behalf had left him without any other testimony of the constancy of his friendship, and the warmth of his gratitude.

Magawisca comprehended his feelings, and anticipated their expres- sion. She related the scene with Sir Philip, in the prison; and dwelt long on her knowledge of the attempt Everell then made to rescue her. “That bad man,” she said, “made me, for the first time, lament for my lost limb. Ele darkened the clouds that were gathering over my soul; and, for a little while, Everell, 1 did deem thee like most of thy race, on whom kindness falls like drops of rain on the lake, dimpling its surface for a moment, but leaving no mark there — but when 1 found thou wert true,” she continued in a swelling, exulting voice — “when I heard thee in my prison, and saw thee on my trial, I again rejoiced that I had sacrificed my precious limb for

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thee; that 1 had worn away the days and nights in the solitudes of the forest musing on the memory of thee, and counting the moons till the Great Spirit shall bid us to those regions where there will be no more gulfs between us, and 1 may hail thee as my brother.”

“And why not now, Magawisca, regard me as your brother? True, neither time nor distance can sever the bonds by which our souls are united, but why not enjoy this friendship while youth, and as long as life lasts? Nay, hear me, Magawisca — the present difference of the English with the Indians, is but a vapour that has, even now, nearly passed away. Go, for a short time, where you may be concealed from those who are not yet prepared to do you justice, and then — I will answer for it — even,' heart and every voice will unite to recall you; you shall be welcomed with the honour due to you from all, and always cherished with the devotion due from us.”

“Oh! do not hesitate, Magawisca,” cried Hope, who had, till now', been only a listener to the conversation in which she took a deep interest. “Promise us that you will return and dwell with us — as you w'ould sav, Magawisca, we will walk in the same path, the same joys shall shine on us, and, if need be that sorrows come over us, why, we will all sit under their shadow together.”

“It cannot be — it cannot be,” replied Magawisca, the persuasions of those she loved, not, for a moment, overcoming her deep invincible sense of the wrongs her injured race had sustained. “My people have been spoiled — we cannot take as a gift that which is our own — the law of vengeance is written on our hearts — you say you have a written rule of forgiveness — it may be better — if ye w ould be guided by it — it is not for us — the Indian and the white man can no more mingle, and become one, than day and night.”

Everell and Hope w ould have interrupted her with further entreaties and arguments: “Touch no more on that,” she said, “we must part — and for ever.” Her voice faltered for the first time, and, turning from her own fate to what appeared to her the bright destiny of her companions, “mv spirit will joy in the thought,” she said, “that you are dwelling in love and happiness together. Nelema told me your souls were mated — she said your affections mingled like streams from the same fountain. Oh! may the

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chains by which He, who sent you from the spirit land, bound you together, grow brighter and stronger till you return thither again.”

She paused — neither of her companions spoke — neither could speak — and, naturally, misinterpreting their silence, “have I passed your bound of modesty,” she said, “in speaking to the maiden as if she were a wife?”

“Oh, no, Magawisca,” said Everell, feeling a strange and undefinable pleasure in an illusion, which, though he could not for an instant partici- pate, he would not for the world have dissipated — “oh, no, do not check one expression, one word, they are your last to us.” ‘And may not the last words of a friend, be, like the sayings of a death-bed, prophetic?’ he would have added, but his lips refused to utter what he felt was the treachery of his heart.

To Hope it seemed that too much had already been spoken. She could be prudent when any thing but her own safety depended on her discretion. Before Magawisca could reply to Everell, she gave a turn to the conversation: “Ere we part, Magawisca,” she said, “cannot you give me some charm, by which I may win my sister’s affections? she is wasting away with grief and pining.”

“Ask your own heart, Hope Leslie, if any charm could win your affections from Everell Fletcher?”

She paused for a reply. The gulf from which Hope had retreated, seemed to be widening before her, but, summoning all her courage, she answered with a tolerably firm voice, “yes — yes, Magawisca, if virtue, if duty to others required it, I trust in heaven I could command and direct my affections.”

We hope Everell may be forgiven, for the joy that gushed through his heart when Hope expressed a confidence in her own strength, which at least implied a consciousness that she needed it. Nature will rejoice in reciprocated love, under whatever adversities it comes.

Magawisca replied to Hope’s apparent meaning: “Both virtue and duty,” she said, “bind your sister to Oneco. She hath been married accord- ing to our simple modes, and persuaded by a Romish father, as she came from Christian blood, to observe the rites of their law. When she flies from you, as she will, mourn not over her, Hope Leslie — the wild flower would

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perish in your gardens — the forest is like a native home to her — and she will sing as gaily again as the bird that hath found its mate.”

They now approached the place where Digby, with a trusty friend, was awaiting them. A light canoe had been provided, and Digby had his instructions from Everell to convey Magawisca to any place she might herself select. The good fellow had entered into the confederacy with hearty good will, giving, as a reason for his obedience to the impulse of his heart, ‘that the poor Indian girl could not commit sins enough against the English to weigh down her good deed to Mr. Everell.”

Everell now inquired of Magawisca whither he should direct the boat: “To Moscutusett,” she said; “I shall there get tidings, at least, of mv father.”

“And must we now part, Magawisca? must we live without you?”

“Oh! no, no” cried Hope, joining her entreaties, “your noble mind must not be wasted in those hideous solitudes.”

“Solitudes!” echoed Magawisca, in a voice in which some pride mingled with her parting sadness. “Hope Leslie, there is no solitude to me; the Great Spirit, and his ministers, are every w here present and visible to the eye of the soul that loves him; nature is but his interpreter; her forms are but bodies for his spirit. 1 hear him in the rushing winds — in the summer breeze — in the gushing fountains — in the softly running streams. I see him in the bursting life of spring — in the ripening maize — in the falling leaf. Those beautiful lights,” and she pointed upward, “that shine alike on your stately domes and our forest homes, speak to me of his love to all, — think you I go to a solitude, Hope Leslie?”

“No, Magawisca; there is no solitude, nor privation, nor sorrow', to a soul that thus feels the presence of God,” replied Hope. She paused — it was not a time for calm reflection or protracted solicitation; but the thought that a mind so disposed to religious impressions and affections, might enjoy the brighter light of Christian revelation — a revelation so much higher, nobler, and fuller, than that which proceeds from the voice of nature^-made Hope feel a more intense desire than ever to retain Magawisca; but this was a motive Magawisca could not now appreciate, and she could not, therefore, urge: “I cannot ask you,” she said, “I do not ask you, for your sake, but for ours, to return to us.”

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“Oh! yes, Magawisca,” urged Everell, “come back to us and teach us to be happy, as you are, without human help or agency.”

“Ah!” she replied, with a faint smile, “ye need not the lesson, ye will each be to the other a full stream of happiness. May it be fed from the fountain of love, and grow broader and deeper through all the passage of life.”

The picture Magawisca presented, was, in the minds of the lovers, too painfully contrasted with the real state of their affairs. Both felt their emotions were beyond their control; both silently appealed to heaven to aid them in repressing feelings that might not be expressed.

Hope naturally sought relief in action: she took a morocco case from her pocket, and drew from it a rich gold chain, with a clasp containing hair, and set round with precious stones: “Magawisca,” she said, with as much steadiness of voice as she could assume, “take this token with you, it will serve as a memorial of us both, for 1 have put in the clasp a lock of Everell’s hair, taken from his head when he was a boy, at Bethel — it will remind you of your happiest days there.”

Magawisca took the chain, and held it in her hand a moment, as if deliberating. “This is beautiful,” she said, “and would, when I am far away from thee, speak sweetly to me of thy kindness, Hope Leslie. But I would rather — if 1 could demean myself to be a beggar” — she hesitated, and then added, “1 wrong thy generous nature in fearing thus to speak; I know thou wilt freely give me the image when thou hast the living form.”

Before she had finished, Hope’s quick apprehension had compre- hended her meaning. Immediately after Everell’s arrival in England, he had, at his father’s desire, had a small miniature of himself painted, and sent to Hope. She attached it to a ribbon, and had always worn it. Soon after Everell’s engagement to Miss Downing, she took it off to put it aside, but feeling, at the moment, that this action implied a consciousness of weakness, she, with a mixed feeling of pride, and reluctance to part with it, restored it to her bosom. While she was adjusting Magawisca ’s disguise in the prison, the miniature slid from beneath her dress, and she, at the time, observed that Magawisca ’s eye rested intently on it. She must not now hesitate — Everell must not see her reluctance, and yet, such are the strange contrarieties of human feeling, the severest pang she felt in parting

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with it, was the fear that Everell would think it was a willing gift. Hoping to shelter all her feelings in the haste of the action, she took the miniature from her own neck, and tied it around Magawisca’s. “You have but re- minded me of my duty,” she said; “nay, keep them both, Magawisca, do not stint the little kindness I can show you.”

Digby had at this moment come up to urge no more delay; and we leave to others to adjust the proportions of emotion that were indicated by Hope’s faltering voice, and an irrepressible burst of tears, betw een her grief at parting, and other and secret feelings.

All stood as if they were rivetted to the ground, till Digby again spoke, and suggested the danger to which Magawisca was exposed bv this delay. All felt the necessity of immediate separation, and all shrunk from it as from witnessing the last gasp of life. They moved to the w ater’s edge, and, once more prompted by Digby, Everell and Hope, in broken voices, expressed their last wishes and prayers. Magawisca joined their hands, and bowing her head on them, — “The Great Spirit guide ye,” she said, and then turning away, leaped into the boat, muffled her face in her mantle, and in a few brief moments disappeared for ever from their sight.

Everell and Hope remained immoveable, gazing on the little boat till it faded in the dim distance; for a few moments, every feeling for them- selves was lost in the grief of parting for ever from the admirable being, who seemed to her enthusiastic young friends, one of the noblest of the works of God — a bright witness to the beauty, the independence, and the immortality of virtue. They breathed their silent prayers for her; and w hen their thoughts returned to themselves, though they gave them no expres- sion, there was a consciousness of perfect unity of feeling, a joy in the sympathy that was consecrated by its object, and might be innocentlv indulged, that was a delicious spell to their troubled hearts.

Strong as the temptation was, they both felt the impropriety of lingering where they were, and they bent their slow, unwilling footsteps homeward. Not one word during the long protracted w alk was spoken by either; but no language could have been so expressive of their mutual love and mutual resolution, as this silence. They both aftewards confessed, that though they had never felt so deeply as at that moment, the bitterness of their divided destiny, yet neither had they before known the worth of

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those principles of virtue, that can subdue the strongest passions to their obedience. An experience worth a tenfold suffering.

As they approached Governor Winthrop’s, they observed that in- stead of the profound darkness and silence that usually reigned in that exemplary mansion at eleven o’clock, the house seemed to be in great bustle. The doors were open, and they heard loud voices, and lights were swiftly passing from room to room. Hope inferred, that notwithstanding her precautions, the apprehensions of the family had probably been ex- cited in regard to her untimely absence, and she passed the little distance that remained with dutiful haste. Everell attended her to the gate of the court, and pressing her hand to his lips, with an emotion that he felt he might indulge for the last time, he left her and went, according to a previous determination, to Barnaby Tuttle’s, where, by a surrender of himself to the jailer’s custody, he expected to relieve poor Cradock from his involuntary confinement.

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