The settlement of York had enjoyed several years of prosperity, the effects of which were perceptible in a considerable degree of neatness and comfort about its dwellings. This appearance of thrift made it a surer mark for destruction. In January, 1692, a band of Abenakis and French burst upon this defenseless village, “offering its inhabitants captivity or death.” A terrible storm had just covered the earth with snow, to a depth which would have proved a barrier to any but these intrepid barbarians. They had walked on snow-shoes, the long distance from the basin of the St. John’s, the difficulties of the way only serving to increase their insatiable thirst for bloodshed. It was a serene winter’s evening, when the Abenaki braves surrounded their council-fire, a few miles from the doomed village, to determine upon their mode of assault. The purity of nature in these snowy solitudes strangely contrasted with the sanguinary deeds plotted there. She witnesses in silence the offences of her children. She beholds the members of the great brotherhood of man rise up and destroy each other, yet thunders no warning to the victim, nor hurls the fire of heaven upon the destroyer.
Stealthily advanced the murderers, while the peaceful inhabitants of York were gathered around their happy firesides. Ah, never more will those family groups meet around the altar of prayer, never again together join the festive dance. That ringing war-whoop which strikes the ear is the death-knell of the unsuspecting villagers. Mother, take a last look at thy darling, ere its baby face is snatched forever from you. Husband, clasp thy wife to thy bosom, for that fond embrace shall be the last. Lover, thou art vainly striving to wrest thy cherished one from the barbarian’s grasp—thy agonizing efforts to save her, make her a prize in those savage eyes; and, unfortunate girl, instead of mingling thy blood with thy kindred, a captivity awaits thee a thousand times more horrible death.
This lot befell Amy Wakefield. She saw her mother fall lifeless from the first blow of the tomahawk. Her father, with the fury of a madman, sprung upon the assassin, and proved the avenger of his wife. Swift as thought, however, he was overborne by the comrades of the dead Indian, and he lay a mangled corse beside his beloved companion; one son and a servant girl shared the same fate. Poor, gentle, timid Amy! there she stood petrified by the awful sight before her, but she made no effort to escape. Vain indeed would have been the attempt; her nonresistance saved her life, and prolonged her sufferings. No scalping-knife was uplifted over her head, but as if her sentence was written on her brow, they proceeded without a moment’s hesitation to bind her hands behind her. Richard Russel rushed into the street at the first alarm, and ye who know a lover’s heart can tell why he flew with the speed of lightning, to seek Amy Wakefield—his betrothed bride. He entered the dwelling where he knew carnage and death were doing their dreadful work; but what was danger to him, with such an object at stake!
“Oh, Richard,” said Amy, opening her lips for the first time since her mother’s dying shriek had sealed them, in a tone which would have melted a heart less sensitive than his. He darted forward, seized the Indian who was binding her, and with a maniac’s gripe wrestled for the mastery. Young Russel, tall and athletic, was considered the most vigorous young man in the colony, but his strength was unequal to that of the sinewy son of the forest. A blow from a war-club felled him senseless to the earth. “Merciful God!” cried poor Amy in the anguish of her soul, as her last earthly hope was quenched within her. She was dragged from the spot where lay all she held dear. As she passed the door, a kindly stupor seized her; neither the screams of the villagers, nor the kindling flames of the cottages, roused her. She looked vacantly around, but heeded not what she saw. She felt no grief—she had no consciousness. The scenes of the past half hour had banished her senses, and bewildered her mind. They seemed like a terrific vision in a dream—hideously vivid, without the power of realizing or escaping from it. Why did not oblivion forever steal over the past, or delirium cheat the soul in future?
The work of death was done. The slain were sepulchred in the ashes of their cottage homes; the captives were divided as spoils among the warriors, and toward morning they started for the northeast. Amy Wakefield and three other prisoners were the especial care of two Abenakis and a Frenchman, Jean Mordaunt. The whole party moved rapidly, lest the neighboring settlements should see the light of the burning village, and pursue them; but this little company were the foremost. The other captives with Amy were men, but she kept pace with them and the Indians.
She hurried along as if she were fleeing from enemies. All that day she traveled on, taking no food, uttering no complaint; and at last, when night came, she sunk down unconcernedly to sleep. It was one of their former stopping places, and the Indians rekindled the fires, which had scarcely expired. The poor captives gathered around them and welcomed the burning heat, though hardly more comfortable than the chilling blasts to which they had been exposed. Oh, the sorrows of that weary journey—cold, hunger and thirst were among the least of them. The Indians returned by the trail in which they came; but the snow was untrodden and deep, and the path lay through forests and across rivers. Some drooped by the way and received beatings for their manifestations of fatigue, whilst many found snowy graves. For many days they traveled on together, but finally separated in little bands for the settlements where they belonged, each carrying with them their captives. This last sad comfort of friends and neighbors traveling together in their misery, was now denied them, and they looked each other a last adieu.
I said Amy slept. It was a blessed sleep, for it carried her back to childhood’s days; now she was gathering violets with her little brothers on the river’s bank; now she saw her brother’s angel face, and heard her father’s “dear little Amy.” Then time flew by, and she felt her lover’s warm kisses; years seemed moments, and moments years—and still she slept on. Would that she might have slept “that sleep from which none ever wake to weep.”
The sun was high in the heavens ere they roused them from their slumbers. The labors of the previous day were exhausting even to the Indian’s strong frame. Some of the wretched captives had passed a sleepless night from fear or excessive weariness; and to some their aching limbs forbade rest. But Amy still lay with her head thrown back, her hands clasped; her marble face and motionless lips rendered still more striking by the profusion of black hair lying disheveled about her. The Indian who advanced to awaken her, paused, as if he shrunk from such a personification of purity. He took hold of her shoulder and shook her; but it seemed as if her senses were bound by death’s icy chains. He struck her a rough blow on the side of her head. She opened her eyes, and tried to rise, but her limbs refused her support, and she fell back. She looked up—her consciousness returned. The sight of the Indian’s face brought back the scenes of that dreadful night, and she trembled like an aspen leaf. But another blow for her tardiness, brought a full conception of her situation, and a flood of tears. Her stiff, feeble movements, the tears running in torrents down her cheeks, were a strange counterpart to the day before. They started; she tried to proceed, but her limbs seemed paralyzed, and her heart died within her. She forgot all around, even her own wretchedness; she remembered only that cottage scene, Richard, and her parents—and she prayed for death. Her sobs were heart-rending, still the cruel savages urged her on. Oh, were there no friendly angels abroad in the earth; was mercy fled, and vengeance dead! At length the Indians, enraged at what they considered the girl’s obstinacy, raised a club to strike her, but Mordaunt, who, perhaps, had enough of humanity to be touched by the spectacle before him, leaped forward, averted the blow, and talking with them a few moments in their own rude, wild tongue, seemed to calm their anger. Soon after this there was a division of the company; Amy and some others, who were incapable of keeping up with the main party, were put together and allowed to proceed more slowly; still she went weeping on—that painful way was traced in tears, and the desert solitudes echoed with her sighs. After about three weeks, the Indians discerned their “smokes” in the distance, and saluted them with shoutings and expressions of great joy. Amy’s peculiar grief had awakened some little pity, even in the bosoms of her savage captors. To this, and the influence of Mordaunt, whose notice she had attracted ever since the first morning, when she lay an unconscious sleeper beside their fires, she owed her comparatively easy lot. She was given to Wiloma, the wife of Great Turtle, the last king, who kept her to do her menial drudgery, but treated her with some kindness.
Jean Mordaunt was a Jesuit missionary. He belonged to a class of whom mankind has drawn widely varying pictures. Pious, devoted, self-sacrificing, ambitious, crafty and revengeful, are, doubtless, all true descriptions of this fraternity, who have left no country without its representatives, and whose name is Legion. America, the “land of mountains and eagles,” early drew them hither, and here we see their character in all its phases. They penetrated nearly every recess on the northern part of our continent, and visited almost all of the Indian tribes, teaching them the name of Jesus and the Virgin Mother; some affirming in their enthusiasm, that “the path to heaven was as open through a roof of bark, as through arched ceilings of silver and gold.” “Not a cape was turned, nor a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way,” says the eloquent historian, Bancroft. “The cross and the lily, emblems of France and Christianity,” were carved on the trees, and inscribed on the rocks. Many, like Mesnard, or the gentle Marquette, found quiet resting-places in the wilderness; and the western waters which wash their graves, perpetually sing their dirge. But Gabriel Lallemand, Father Jaques, Jean De Brebeuf, René Goupil, and many others, sealed their labors with their blood. Their memory is precious to the mother church; and what wonder that her sons and daughters revere them as saints. But there were a vast multitude who claimed the same mission of love and mercy with these martyrs of holy zeal, whose lives and characters too plainly betrayed their hypocrisy. There were those whose religion cloaked their ambition, and others in whom intrigue had supplanted all the simplicity of the gospel. Instead of religious teachers, they often became artful politicians. That the French Jesuits participated in, and often instigated the attacks upon the English border settlements, is so well attested, that it cannot be denied. The enmity between the French and English nations was too deeply seated to be forgotten by their colonists, and often led them to rouse the merciless savage against their unguarded neighbors. It is difficult to conceive how a minister of that blessed religion which proclaims “peace and good-will to men,” should have so far forgot its precepts, as to be present at the bloody massacre of York; but Jean Mordaunt was there. Perhaps he did not stain his hands with blood, but he spotted his soul with guilt.
Amy Wakefield gradually recovered her spent energies. Her elastic constitution rebounded from the severe shocks it had received, but her sufferings left an indelible impress on her spirits. Time could not restore the loved ones sleeping in the dust, and smiles bade adieu to her once happy face. Like Egeria of yore, she forever mourned her heart’s lost treasures. Mordaunt dwelt upon that beautiful sorrowing face until it seduced him from his priestly vows; but it was a problem to the wary Frenchman how to approach Amy. Though a submissive slave, she was unapproachable; she answered no signs, nor noticed the broken English addressed to her. She shunned every one, and seemed to scorn sympathy with her foes. Months passed, and still she toiled on in Wiloma’s cabin, but her grief was not assuaged, nor the fountain of her tears dried up. As spring came, she would steal away by herself without the wigwam to admire the opening buds, which filled the air with their perfume, and with delight would listen to the carol of birds, as they hopped merrily from branch to branch, fit emblems of happiness. The cheerfulness and beauty of all around her, contrasted strangely with her own condition, but at times she would forget her sadness, and soothed by the wild music of the waterfall, lose herself in some day-dream of happiness.