Then she swooned quite away, and we had a deal to do to bring her to life again. By this time, the house was full of people, and among the rest came John's old mother and his sisters, and we all did weep and laugh at the same time. As soon as we got a little quieted, John told us that he had indeed been grievously stunned by the blow of a tomahawk, and been left for dead by his comrades, but that after a time he did come to his senses, and was able to walk; but, falling into the hands of the Indians, he was carried off to the French Canadas, where, by reason of his great sufferings on the way, he fell sick, and lay for a long time at the point of death. That when he did get about again, the savage who lodged him, and who had taken him as a son, in the place of his own, slain by the Mohawks, would not let him go home, although he did confess that the war was at an end. His Indian father, he said, who was feeble and old, died not long ago, and he had made his way home by the way of Crown Point and Albany. Supper being ready, we all sat down, and the minister, who had been sent for, offered thanks for the marvellous preserving and restoring of the friend who was lost and now was found, as also for the blessings of peace, by reason of which every man could now sit under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to molest or make him afraid, and for the abundance of the harvest, and the treasures of the seas, and the spoil of the woods, so that our land might take up the song of the Psalmist: "The Lord doth build up Jerusalem; he gathereth the outcasts of Israel; he healeth the broken in heart. Praise thy God, O Zion I For he strengtheneth the bars of thy gates, he maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of wheat." Oh! a sweet supper we had, albeit little was eaten, for we were filled fall of joy, and needed not other food. When the company had gone, my dear cousin and her betrothed went a little apart, and talked of all that had happened unto them during their long separation. I left them sitting lovingly together in the light of the moon, and a measure of their unspeakable happiness did go with me to my pillow.
This morning, Thankful came to my bedside to pour out her heart to me. The poor girl is like a new creature. The shade of her heavy sorrow, which did formerly rest upon her countenance, hath passed off like a morning cloud, and her eye hath the light of a deep and quiet joy.
"I now know," said she, "what David meant when he said, 'We are like them that dream; our mouth is filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing; the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad!'"
October 18.
A cloudy wet day. Goody Nowell brought me this morning a little parcel of papers, which she found in the corner of a closet. They are much stained and smoked, and the mice have eaten them sadly, so that I can make little of them. They seem to be letters, and some fragments of what did take place in the life of a young woman of quality from the North of England. I find frequent mention made of Cousin Christopher, who is also spoken of as a soldier in the wars with the Turks, and as a Knight of Jerusalem. Poorly as I can make out the meaning of these fragments, I have read enough to make my heart sad, for I gather from them that the young woman was in early life betrothed to her cousin, and that afterwards, owing, as I judge, to the authority of her parents, she did part with him, he going abroad, and entering into the wars, in the belief that she was to wed another. But it seemed that the heart of the young woman did so plead for her cousin, that she could not be brought to marry as her family willed her to do; and, after a lapse of years, she, by chance hearing that Sir Christopher had gone to the New England, where he was acting as an agent of his kinsman, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in respect to the Maine Province, did privately leave her home, and take passage in a Boston bound ship. How she did make herself known to Sir Christopher, I find no mention made; but, he now being a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and vowed to forego marriage, as is the rule of that Order, and being, moreover, as was thought, a priest or Jesuit, her great love and constancy could meet with but a sorrowful return on his part. It does appear, however, that he journeyed to Montreal, to take counsel of some of the great Papist priests there, touching the obtaining of a dispensation from the Head of the Church, so that he might marry the young woman; but, getting no encouragement therein, he went to Boston to find a passage for her to England again. He was there complained of as a Papist; and the coming over of his cousin being moreover known, a great and cruel scandal did arise from it, and he was looked upon as a man of evil life, though I find nothing to warrant such a notion, but much to the contrary thereof. What became of him and the young woman, his cousin, in the end, I do not learn.
One small parcel did affect me even unto tears. It was a paper containing some dry, withered leaves of roses, with these words written on it "To Anna, from her loving cousin, Christopher Gardiner, being the first rose that hath blossomed this season in the College garden. St. Omer's, June, 1630." I could but think how many tears had been shed over this little token, and how often, through long, weary years, it did call to mind the sweet joy of early love, of that fairest blossom of the spring of life of which it was an emblem, alike in its beauty and its speedy withering.
There be moreover among the papers sundry verses, which do seem to have been made by Sir Christopher; they are in the Latin tongue, and inscribed to his cousin, bearing date many years before the twain were in this country, and when he was yet a scholar at the Jesuits' College of St. Omer's, in France. I find nothing of a later time, save the verses which I herewith copy, over which there are, in a woman's handwriting, these words:
"VERSES
"Writ by Sir Christopher when a prisoner among the Turks in Moldavia, and expecting death at their hands.
1.
"Ere down the blue Carpathian hills
The sun shall fall again,
Farewell this life and all its ills,
Farewell to cell and chain