Rachel Dyer

by John Neal

Good.

The youthful savage dropped his bow, threw off his quiver, and plucking the ornamented hatchet from his war-belt, after a tremendous though brief struggle, offered the weapon of death to Burroughs, thereby acknowledging that in some way or other he had injured the pale man. Big Bear breathed fiercely and felt for his knife, but Burroughs went up to the bold youth and gave him his hand after the fashion of the whites, and called him brother.

It shall be so, said the Big Bear. And from that day the youth was indeed a brother to Burroughs, who being satisfied that Pawteeda, if she married one of her own people, would be happier than with a white man, left her and the savages and the Big Bear and the woods forever, and got back among the white people again, at a period of universal dismay, just in time to see a poor melancholy creature, whom his dear wife had loved years and years before, on trial for witchcraft. He could hardly believe his own ears. Nor could he persuade himself that the preachers and elders, and grave authorities of the land were serious, till he saw the wretched old woman put to death before their faces.

CHAPTER XIV.

From that hour he was another man. His heart was alive with a new hope. The dark desolate chambers thereof were lighted up with a new joy. And what if there was no love, nor beauty, nor music sounding in them all the day through, such as there had been a few brief years before, in the spring-tide of his youthful courage; they were no longer what they had been at another period, neither very dark, nor altogether uninhabited, nor perplexed with apparitions that were enough to drive him distracted—the apparition of a child—the apparition of a dead hope—for with him, after the death of a second wife, hope itself was no more. He was now a messenger of the Most High, with every faculty and every power of his mind at work to baffle and expose the treachery of those, who pretending to be afflicted by witchcraft, were wasting the heritage of the white man as with fire and sword. He strove to entrap them; he set spies about their path. He prayed in the public highway, and preached in the market place, for they would not suffer him to appear in the House of the Lord. He besought his Maker, the Searcher of Hearts, day after day, when the people were about him, to stay the destroyer, to make plain the way of the judges, to speak in the dead of the night with a voice of thunder to the doers of iniquity; to comfort and support the souls of the accused however guilty they might appear, and (if consistant with his Almighty pleasure) to repeat as with the noise of a multitude of trumpets in the sky, the terrible words, Thou shalt not bear false witness.

But the death of Martha Cory discouraged him. His heart was heavy with a dreadful fear when he saw her die, and before anybody knew that he was among the multitude, he started up in the midst of them, and broke forth into loud prayer—a prayer which had well nigh exposed him to the law for blasphemy; and having made himself heard in spite of the rebuke of the preachers and magistrates, who stood in his way at the foot of the gallows, he uttered a prophecy and shook off the dust from his feet in testimony against the rulers of the land, the churches and the people, and departed for the habitation of Mr. Paris, where the frightful malady first broke out resolved in his own soul whatever should come of it—life or death—to Bridget Pope, or to Abigail Paris—or to the preacher himself, his old associate in grief, straightway to look into every part of the fearful mystery, to search into it as with fire, and to bring every accuser with whom there should be found guile, whether high or low, or young or old, a flower of hope, or a blossom of pride, before the ministers of the law,—every accuser in whom he should be able to see a sign of bad faith or a look of trepidation at his inquiry—though it were the aged servant of the Lord himself; and every visited and afflicted one, whether male or female, in whose language or behaviour he might see anything to justify his fear.

It was pitch dark when he arrived at the log-hut of Matthew Paris, and his heart died within him, as he walked up to the door and set his foot upon the broad step, which rocked beneath his agitated and powerful tread; for the windows were all shut and secured with new and heavy wooden bars—and what appeared very surprising at such an early hour, there was neither light nor life, neither sound nor motion, so far as he could percieve in the whole house. He knocked however, and as he did so, the shadow of something—or the shape of something just visible in the deep darkness through which he was beginning to see his way, moved athwart his path and over the step, as if it had pursued him up to the very door. He was a brave man—but he caught his breath and stepped back, and felt happy when a light flashed over the wet smooth turf, and a voice like that of Mr. Paris bid him walk in, for he was expected and waited for, and had nothing to fear.

Nothing to fear, brother Paris.... He stopped short and stood awhile in the door-way as if debating with himself whether to go forward or back.

Why—how pale and tired you are—said Mr. Paris, lifting up the candle and holding it so that he could see the face of Burroughs, while his own was in deep shadow. You appear to have a—the Lord have pity on us and help us, dear brother! what can be the matter with you?—why do you hold back in that way?—why do you stand as if you haven’t the power to move? why do you look at me as if you no longer know me?—

True—true, said Burroughs—very true—talking to himself in a low voice and without appearing to observe that another was near. No, no ... it is too late now ... there’s no going back now, if I would ... but of a truth, it is very wonderful, very ... very ... that I should not have recollected my rash vow ... a vow like that of Jeptha ... very ... very ... till I had passed over that rocky threshold which five years ago this very night, I took an oath never to pass again. What if the day that I spoke of be near?... What if I should be taken at my word! Our Father who art in....