Kitabı oku: «The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Old Quebec», sayfa 18
CHAPTER XXXVI
SETTLEMENT
It has now been shown how the golden lilies prospered in the north, and how the red lion, who should in time tear those gay lilies down, was laughed at and despised. The paths of ambition, of treachery, of vengeance, have brought direct to the same terminus, where that "fell sergeant death" stood forth to cry "Halt" to soldier and to priest. The name of La Salle has ever been held in honour, but chiefly to memorise Robert the explorer, not the ambitious priest his uncle. The name of Iden is still revered by Kentish folk; but that respect is won, not by Sir Thomas, who – if the tradition in his family be true – married an Indian wife and flung away his life to avenge his son, but to Sir Alexander, who slew the rebel Cade in a Sussex orchard. The name of Onawa is held in memory by none, though for many generations the wood wherein she died of the poisoned draught administered by her sister was shunned by the Iroquois, because there sounded amid the pines at night the howling of a werewolf.
The old chronicles mention two Englishmen who escaped from the French, and Jesse Woodfield and Jeremiah Hough are the names recorded. When the Acadians swept down the defile to secure Upcliff and his men, the Puritan was ignored, and the yeoman, who had made so startling an appearance, was left for dead. So soon as they had gone Hough made for his companion, and discovered that he was indeed material and alive, though sorely wounded. Presently Woodfield revived, and when he was able to stand the Puritan led him away up the white hills to find a place of shelter. The hut in the pine-wood being too far away, they proceeded by slow stages towards the home of the knight, knowing nothing of what had occurred, and scarce guessing it when they gained the bush-filled hollow, which was stirred to its depths by the wailing of a death-song.
"A fitting welcome for broken-hearted men," said the Puritan. "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept. The children of Edom have smitten us full sore. Happy shall he be that rewardeth them as they have served us. Take courage, old lad. We are even now at home."
"Home without friends," broke from the pale lips of the man within his arms.
"Where the graves of comrades are, there is the brave man's home. In England we are gone out of mind, and broken like a potter's vessel. Here amid the snows old Simon and old George lie sleeping well."
The song stopped when they entered the hut and stood between the living and the dead. Immediately Woodfield sank down in unconsciousness, and after one glance upon the sad scene and a few bitter words, Hough knelt at his comrade's side and searched for his wounds.
"Let a woman perform a woman's work," said the pale watcher, rising from her husband's side. "For him" – she inclined her head to the silent figure – "the light is gone. He sees no longer the sparkling air. His eyes shall not burn again. The great God knows how well he lived and how he died."
Seeing the question on the Puritan's lips, she went on:
"The hand that smote our son smote him. I saw the man go, and death with him like a cloud above his head. Give me the water that stands yonder that I may wash these wounds."
"Who brought him hither?" the Puritan asked.
"These arms carried him. While he lived he would have me bear no burden. The wood for the fire he took from me, saying, 'This is no woman's work. A woman shall smile for her husband, prepare him food, and keep a home for his return.' These arms carried my son to his grave. My husband was not there, or surely he would have said, 'This is no work for you.' These arms carried my husband from the place where he fell. His eyes looked up to mine, as though again he would say, 'This is no work for you.' Once more they shall carry him. Afterwards I will wait for the coming of the south wind, which carries the souls of the dead."
She applied her skill in healing to the restoration of the white man. She cleansed his wounds and cooled his fever, leaving him at length sleeping with a wan smile of triumph on his face. By then Hough also was asleep, his face terrible in its mutilation and sternness.
When he revived, Woodfield told his comrade how he had been captured by the Algonquins and how they had sought to put him to death.
"I awoke from unconsciousness," he said, "to find myself within a cave, attended by the maid who had loosed my body from the tree. An old man watched the entry and brought me food. These two had saved my life, the maid because she loved my white skin, the man because he was Christian and had lost a son who would have been of my age had he lived. I remained in that cave many days, gaining vigour, and on a certain evening, when left alone, ran out into the shadows and hid myself in the forest, covering my tracks as best I could.
"The maid pursued and besought me in her own manner to return. Many times I escaped from her. Often she brought me food, or I must have perished of hunger during my long wanderings through the forest. I would hear her calling after me in the still night. I would from some hill-top see her following my track, and when she found me she would hold me by the feet and strive to move my heart. But resisting the wiles of Satan, who would have me to forget my own country and my father's house, I ran from her again."
"We thought you dead these many months."
"It was the will of God that I should seek for you in vain," went on Woodfield. "Once I lay in a swamp to hide myself from a band of French explorers. Once I was attacked by six men. One I killed, and the remainder fled, frightened by lightning which struck down a tree between us. Another time I concealed myself in a hemlock while the soldiers made their camp beneath its branches. So I fought my way on towards the east with an Englishman's longing for the sea, and when winter drew on I made me a shelter in the pine woods on the westward side of Acadie, and there mourned for you and for Simon Penfold as for comrades who had fallen in the battle."
"How came you so suddenly to our aid?"
"In the darkness of the falling snow I ventured to approach the settlement. Nay more, I entered at the open gate, careless of my life, and followed the soldiers out, my heart rejoicing when I learnt from their shouts that countrymen of mine were near at hand. I climbed among the cliffs, and, looking down, beheld old Simon fighting in the defile. I was descending to give him help when he fell."
"The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away," said the Puritan solemnly.
While the words were on his lips the wattle door was shaken and a soft voice called. Another moment a white figure entered with a rush of smoky air, and Madeleine stood before them, wrapped in a sail which she had assumed to render her progress across the snow invisible. She threw away the covering and laughed triumphantly.
"Say not that the ship is taken?" cried Hough. Then he muttered: "A man may tell nothing from the maid's manner. Sorrow or joy – 'tis the same to her. She laughs through it all."
"The ship is safe," said Madeleine. "We were attacked by the man-of-war, but when we drew clear of the ice we soon left her lumbering astern, until she gave up the chase and sailed for shore. We have not lost a man."
"Then what do you here?"
"Think you that Silas Upcliff would desert friends?" cried Madeleine indignantly. "So soon as he knew himself to be safe, he changed his course and beat up the coast eastward until darkness fell. Then he dropped down, and now has sent a boat to bring you off. I have come for you, and must take no refusal, else I am sure they shall hang me upon my return. I would bear the message myself. The master at first crossed me, but, being a wise man, he gave way to a woman's whim. Come! The boat waits, and liberty lies beyond."
She moved across the earth floor and grasped the Puritan's arm.
"What maid is this?" asked Woodfield, as he gazed at the vision of beauty; and when Hough had told him the good soldier's heart swelled, and he raised his stiff body that he might take her hand, while she smiled at him through a mist of pity.
"I want you, wounded man," she said. "There are none sick aboard, and I must have one to care for, or my hands will hang idle all the day. I have thrown in my lot with your people, because mine own have driven me forth. You shall call me sister if you will, and you shall be brother to me, because he who is to be my husband is your true comrade, and 'tis friendship that makes brotherhood rather than blood. Rise, brother, and lean on me."
"Girl," said Hough, with his stern smile, "this spell you cast over us is more potent than witchcraft."
"We come," cried Woodfield, drawing himself upright. "Say, comrade, let us flee to Virginia, and settle among our own, that we may hear the blessed English tongue again."
"We go," answered Hough gloomily. "Here is no English colony, but we seek one in the south."
"Go," said Mary Iden, now again Tuschota, daughter of Shuswap, to the three. "Take what you desire for your journey, and go forth. Here are furs, and here strong medicines. Take all. The great God guard you upon the seas and upon the land whither you go to dwell."
So the two Englishmen and the French girl went forth under the winter sky, where a shy moon peeped through laced clouds like a fair maid looking between the curtains of her bed. A dull glow of firelight showed when they looked back into the hollow; and once, when they paused for breath, their ears became filled with the wild sound of singing for the dead.
Morning dawned, and the brigantine was well away, running with a fresh breeze from the colony of France, all hearts aboard as light as the frosty waves which kissed her sides. Through fog and snow she went, like a bird flying to the warmth. Little wonder that the men sang at their tasks; that Upcliff repeated his old stories of the main with a fresh delight, none grudging him a laugh; that Woodfield gathered health at every hour; that Madeleine laughed from morn to night. They were as children released from school, playing on the happy home-going.
So the Dartmouth drew down to Boston quay, after one delay on the unfrequented shore to make repairs, the men clanking at the pumps to keep the leaking barque above the line of danger. The citizens flocked down to meet her, and Hough's approving gaze fell upon Puritan faces among whom he could feel himself indeed at home.
Winthrop himself was called to give the sailors welcome to New England. He stepped aboard, and grasped the master's hand; but not a word could he utter before Madeleine came between them, her beauty all in splendour, her mouth quivering, as she cried:
"Tell me, sir – tell me quickly, where is my Geoffrey?"
She had forgotten that other men bearing her lover's name walked the earth. Winthrop stared in some bewilderment, and the more stern of his following frowned at so much glorious life and impetuous loveliness. The majority repeated the name with ominous shakings of bearded chins.
"'Tis our comrade, young Geoffrey Viner, of whom the maid speaks," said Woodfield in explanation.
"Yea," exclaimed Madeleine. "Let me off the ship."
"Stay," said Winthrop. "The young man is here indeed." He turned to Hough with the demand: "Is he beyond doubt a true Englishman?"
"True!" exclaimed Madeleine, her violet eyes two angry flashes. "You suspect him? Oh, you false man!"
It was the first time that John Winthrop had been accused of falseness; and the novelty of the accusation brought a smile to his face.
"The boy is loyal to the faith, and as true an Englishman as yourself, brother Winthrop," broke in the voice of Hough.
"Let justice prevail where I rule," said the pious governor when he heard this. "I thank God that you have come in time. It has been proved to our satisfaction against this boy that he has conspired with the Dutch for the capture of our town, and as I speak he lies under sentence of death. Thus the wisest judges err, and the humble of us ask Heaven to amend our faults."
Madeleine had paled very slightly while Winthrop spoke. Then she drew her small dignified self upright, and said very confidently: "I knew that we should arrive in time."
"Methinks we shall scarcely find any swifter messenger to bear the good news to the young man – " commenced the quiet voice of Roger Williams, who had joined his friend and governor upon the quay.
The end of the pastor's sentence became drowned in a shout of hearty laughter such as had never been heard before in Boston; for immediately he began to speak Madeleine picked up her skirt, and was already running like Atalanta, breathlessly demanding from those who stood by whether her feet were carrying her in the right way.
"Send a cheer after her, men of Somerset," shouted Silas Upcliff. "For, by my soul, a braver lass ne'er loved an Englishman!"
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE PLOWSHARE
It was summer in the year 1647, and over all the colony of Virginia there was peace. Fortunate were its settlers to be cut apart from their brethren in the isle of strife, where the deceitful king was imprisoned in his palace of Hampton Court, and the London citizens filled their streets with cries of "Parliament" and "Privilege." New England remained untouched by this wave of feeling, of which indeed it knew nothing, and its people went on planting their crops and gathering the increase, happy to be removed from the oppression of a king and the persecution of the Church.
Upon the south side of the Potomac, at no great distance from the sea, stood a two-storey house overhung with wild vines, and approached by a ladder-like flight of steps which rose between two borders of flowers. Behind a plantation stretched in a straight mile, fringed on either side by sweet-smelling bush, where purple butterflies played through the long day and a silver stream laughed on its way to the sea.
The Grove, as this homestead was named, had quickly identified itself among the successful colonial ventures. The day of small things was rapidly nearing its close. Not only were the joint owners of the plantation able to supply the neighbouring village with wheatmeal and cheeses, but their export business to the Old World was growing more profitable each season. The Virginian exporters, Viner and Woodfield, were well-known to import merchants of Bristol, and faded invoices of that firm were to be seen in more than one dusty counting-house a century later, when change and chance demanded a winding-up of the business of certain old-time traders across the seas.
This success was due not altogether to the energy of the partners who gave their names to the undertaking. It was commonly reported that the Lady of The Grove was in the main responsible for much of her husband's prosperity. According to rumour, Mistress Woodfield was an excellent housewife, clever at her needle, and with a better knowledge of simples than any woman in the New World, if methinks somewhat over-inclined to play the grand dame and careful against soiling her hands. With Mistress Viner it was otherwise. She was never to be found taking her ease in idleness, or retailing gossip concerning neighbours. Sloth, as once she said when rebuking the governor – for she feared no man – is an epidemic which claims more victims than the plague. Early in the morning she walked her garden, inhaling the sweet air, noting what progress had taken place during the night, ordering and arranging all things; and should her husband long delay joining her, how reproachfully she would call: "Geoffrey! Oh, slug! You are losing an hour of life." At fall of evening she would walk in the plantation beside her fair-haired lad, as she loved to call her lord and master, planning fresh improvements, and never failing to note the beauty of the life which slept around. Seldom did she speak of the past; never did she trouble her mind concerning the future. All would be well she knew. There could be no time so good as the present. "What do we want with past or future?" she would exclaim, when she caught her Geoffrey in retrospective or anticipatory mood. "Cold mirrors in which we see our silent selves like blocks of wood or stone. It is this minute which is our own glorious life." The cruellest, and falsest, thing that any woman could say concerning Madeleine Viner was that the fair mistress of The Grove had been seen wearing a sorrowful face.
The simple inscription, "An American Woman," was carved by her own desire over Mistress Viner's burying-place at the dawn of the eighteenth century;' and at a later date an unauthorised and unknown hand cut upon the shaft of the wooden column which stood upon her resting-place, and was destroyed by fire before Canada was wrested from the French, the not unsuitable motto, "Ride, si sapis."
Over the fireplace of the principal room in The Grove a ring was set in the hard oak woodwork. This ring contained a sigil engraved with the arms of the Iden family, a chevron between three close helmets, and was given a place of honour in the home because through its power Geoffrey obtained a letter of recommendation and a subsequent patent of land from that liberal-minded papist, Lord Baltimore, to whom the ring had been delivered upon the safe arrival of the Dartmouth in the Bay of Chesapeake.
"Better men never bled for England than the men of Kent," said the peer, when he had listened to Geoffrey's story. "Braver men ne'er fled from her shores to save their loyal lives. The owner of this ring was once my honoured friend. His name has for long been most famous for devotion to the crown." The lord sighed and sadly added: "This Charles shall learn to rue the day when he first cast aside the help of his old loyalist families, and by oppression and persecution most intolerable drove them from their homes. But now, with God's help, we purpose to build up upon this continent a new people, greater and more clear-sighted than the old, and the motto of that people shall be, 'Liberty of thought and freedom in religion.' Tell me now, how shall I serve you?"
"I would settle, either in Maryland or in Virginia, and help to build up that new American people of whom you speak," the young man answered.
So Geoffrey Viner obtained favour in the eyes of Lord Baltimore by the power of the ring; and when the patent for the land issued, he and Woodfield forgot their former dreams of power, and, exchanging sword for axe, felled the big trees and cleared away the bush, that they might plough the virgin soil and plant their seed. As for stern Hough, he remained in Boston, to fight Satan, since he might no longer fight the French, and to preach the gloomy doctrine that he loved; and there he lived to a great age, and there suddenly died one winter morning in a bitterly cold church – for the religious feeling of the community would allow no physical comfort to the worshipper – with a Bible between his hands and a strained smile upon his face, as the preacher dilated upon a psalm-singing Heaven reserved for the elect, and a burning fiery furnace for all else. Hough had been a good man, according to the light which he had received, and doubtless the psalm-singing Heaven was his.
It was evening. Geoffrey and Madeleine walked hand in hand through their plantation, inhaling fragrance from the dewy blooms. Rain had fallen during the afternoon, but when the sun broke out, to bid the settlers good e'en, the country became a fairy-land. A sleepy bird piped on a distant branch. A pale evening star rose in the east where warm vapours were swimming in a silent sea. The peace was perfect in that true Arcadia. Wars were yet to horrify the province, but the shadow was not yet. For the present the sword was buried, and the earth brought forth fruit plenteously.
"If only I might have my wish!" exclaimed Madeleine, breaking a long silence.
Her husband looked at her, pressing her fingers within his, but answered nothing.
"I would have the whole world like this," she went on. "Geoffrey, we would not, if we could, seek to conceive a world more beautiful than ours. Yet how we spoil it by not knowing how to live! Were it my world I would banish all hypocrisy, all disputings over religion, all lust for power, and try to teach my people how to love – how to love, and nothing else."
"Making us perfect before our time," said Geoffrey, watching tenderly the evening lights playing across her hair.
"No, husband. We shall not attain perfection here. But it is from this country that a light shall proceed to spread throughout the world. Are we not already showing others how to live? What people before us have ever dared to permit independence in thought and freedom in religion? We have already stripped the Church of its mysteries. We believe that a man may rise to God without a priest. We are going to grow very great on this side of the seas, and fly very high, and our motto shall always be Peace. Then we shall destroy all weapons of war, and break up armies, and settle down in brotherly love, each man upon his own plot of ground – "
"Envying that of his neighbour," broke in her husband gently.
"Ah, Geoffrey! Scoffer! But mayhap 'tis a foolish dream. Could we but live in love, it might follow that the wolf would be ashamed to hunt the lamb, and would feed upon grass, and thus it might happen that our kine would lack. It is best as God ordains. The panther must remain fierce, the bind-weed choke the flower, the rose grow its thorn, and the berry retain its poison. But would you walk in my garden, husband?"
"And see the devil changed into a monk?" asked Geoffrey, with a smile.
"There is no devil in my garden," cried Madeleine joyously. "The snake has no bite, and the devil is dead of idleness. The angels show themselves among my roses."
"They are here," said Geoffrey simply. "Madeleine, sweet wife, before we met I followed the promptings of the body; but through your eyes I have seen the soul. It is not the soldier who wins life with his sword. He does but strive in a vain shadow, until that happy day – ill for him if it comes not – when there dawns upon his heart the light of love, and his mind is inspired, and his ears hear the stirring of wings, and his eyes are opened."
"What does he see, husband?" she asked caressingly.
"The sweet spirit of the woman who is sent to be his star."
They returned to their home in the sunset, and Madeleine was singing softly as she swung her husband's arm. The young matron ran forward, to be entranced and transfigured by the last sunrays, and kissed her fingers to the departing orb with a blithesome cry:
"Wake us before the morning bell, bright sun, and come not in clouds as you came to-day."
Upon entering the flower garden a resonant voice, alternating with tremendous bursts of glee, destroyed the stillness of the evening. Husband and wife looked at each other in complete understanding, and Madeleine held a finger to her lips, and motioned Geoffrey to advance on tip-toe. They pressed through a bower of roses, beneath a tangle of creepers, through tall rye-grass, and as they advanced the great voice came more strongly to their ears. At length they stood unseen within sight of their house front, and, drawing close together, laughed restrainedly.
Upon the topmost step, in a line with the entrance, sat a man of immense bulk, holding a pretty fair-haired child upon his mighty knee; and this child he was dancing up and down, shouting a quaint accompaniment meantime. Around his head trailed the luxuriant vines, covered with their fluffy white blooms, and the dainty humming-birds went whirring by, chasing in sport the hivebound bees.
Leaning back, and heaving his knee up and down, the big man continued to serenely bellow his nursery refrain:
"Ha! Pieter von Donck! Pieter von Donck! 'Tis as cunning an old rogue as ever wore shoe-leather!"
"Funny man! Do it again," chirruped Geoffrey Viner the younger.
