These thoughts troubled the minister greatly, and he left the meeting-house saddened by the waywardness of his own heart, which would be constantly following its kind impulses, in spite of the strict rules laid down by his creed.
CHAPTER X.
HUNTED DOWN.
Samuel Parris had gone up from Salem to Boston impelled only by an unconquerable wish to breathe the same air with his only child; but when Governor Phipps found that he was in the same place with himself, wandering about the streets, and crucifying his heart, because of his great love for the daughter of his old age, he went in search of him; and, after much persuasion and reasoning, induced a more wholesome frame of mind, and, for a little time, the minister was able to receive the glad welcome of his child without self-reproach.
The healthy good sense of his friend had a wonderful effect on the old man, who had become morbid from constant loneliness and much sorrow. The tone of his fine mind grew stronger under a roof where the affections had full scope, and where a fresh, breezy atmosphere always prevailed. At times, the good old man was seen almost to smile, this little sojourn from home gave such zest to his life.
He had provided for his pulpit in Salem before leaving home, and therefore, without undue persuasion, consented to remain and take a share in the baptism of his friend, a thing which the governor, and his whole family, had much at heart.
But all this time his own home was left in loneliness, or what was almost the same thing, under the charge of a young girl, the niece of his wife, who had been adopted in her infancy, and brought up side by side with his own child.
This girl was a little older than Elizabeth Parris, and had shared the same love, the same bed, and the same table with her from childhood up. She was an orphan and the child of an orphan.
It was said in whispers, by the old gossips of the place, that her mother came from some remote Indian settlement, where she and her little sister—afterwards the wife of Samuel Parris—had been left like wild animals, to live or die, probably by some unfortunate or unnatural parent. But these two helpless creatures had escaped the wilderness and sought shelter among the inhabitants of Salem. The elder girl gave no account of herself save that she had escaped great danger, and fled from the woods where her mother had perished. The little one only clung to her sister with fond love in her deep blue eyes, and a timid struggle if any one attempted to draw her from that singular protection. She was quite too young for any knowledge of her own history.