Silent Struggles Part 35

"One bespoken for the cabin."

"Who, of all the Bosting folks, are going over now?" asked the housewife.

"It ain't a Bosting woman that I ever hearn on," answered Jason, "but the same lady that stayed with you so long arter the storm. She's going straight hum agin, I reckon. Her pa.s.sage was took the very day arter Governor Phipps jined the church. She was uneasy enough about getting off ter once, and wanted the s.h.i.+p to put out jist as she was, jiner or no jiner. But the captain said he couldn't and wouldn't hist a sail till his craft was sound and taut from stem to stern, not if the lady offered him her hull weight in guinea gold. So she had ter put up with it."

"Poor lady, how homesick she must be!" said the housewife, setling a fresh needle in the quill of a knitting sheath of red cloth fastened on the right side of her waist, and twisting the yarn around her fore-finger. "She was a proper purty woman, wasn't she, Jase? See here what she gave me the morning afore she went away."

Goody Brown laid down her work, and, thrusting one hand deep into her pocket, drew forth a steel side thimble, a lump of yellow wax, crossed and recrossed with marks of the thread she had drawn over it, a trunk key, two great copper pennies, and a tiny parcel done up in an old book-leaf. This she carefully unfolded and laid four golden guineas on the stand.

"You can have 'em, Jase," she said in a low, husky voice. "They ain't of no use to me now."

Jason understood her and made a reckless cut at the b.u.t.ter ladle, for his hand became all at once unsteady.

"When I was a scrimpin' and saving to send our own--"

"Wal! wal! it ain't no use to talk about that now," cried out the father, stung into a pa.s.sion of angry grief. "What G.o.d has done is done.

What's the use of pining over it?"

"Why, Jase," answered the wife, rebuking him with her grave, deep eyes, "I didn't mean that--only the gold ain't of no use ter me anyhow since I haven't any children to edicate. It isn't for me to fly into the face of Providence, and I never thought of doing it."

"Buy a yoke of oxen with the money," interposed the hired man. "I've hearn of people loving their oxen a'most like children. It's enough to make a fellur's heart yearn to see how patiently them critturs will bend under one yoke and kinder help one another along. Talk about friends.h.i.+p and brotherly feelin'--wal, if that thing ain't found in a yoke of oxen brought up together from steers, it's of no use to sarch for it. If yer feelings is touched and kinder hankers arter something ter love, buy a yoke of oxen--that's my advice."

Jason Brown was thoughtfully whittling down the edge of his ladle. His wife took up her knitting, which dragged on with slow monotony, for she looped each st.i.tch through a blinding mist of tears; but the hired man snapped his waxed ends as if they had been bow-strings, punched his awl furiously through the unyielding leather, and looked out from his bending eye-brows now and then, in vague astonishment that his advice was so blankly received. All at once he paused with both threads half drawn, and listened.

"What on 'arth is that?"

A sound, as if from the falling of some ponderous object a little distance off, had occasioned this exclamation. Jason Brown and his wife suspended their work in astonishment, and sat gazing at each other.

"I will go see," said Brown, closing his knife with a defiant snap. "It don't seem like the stomp of horses."

"Hush up!" whispered the hired man. "Set down this minute and look behind you!"

Jason had a powerful will of his own and was not to be ordered about by any one, but he turned toward the window which the man was pointing out with his awl and saw it crowded with dusky faces, rendered terrible by great, fiery eyes and stiff, upright plumes, that shot up through the darkness like shafted arrows from a quiver.

"Great G.o.d, help us, for it is the Indians!" exclaimed Brown, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

The woman held her work suspended, as if it had frozen in her hand. The hired servant went on with his st.i.tching, but his sunburned face grew whiter and whiter with each pull of the thread, and the sidelong glances he cast at the window betrayed the keen terror his stolid obstinacy suppressed.

"Shall we pitch in, or keep still?" whispered Brown.

"Keep still," answered the woman.

"Or else G.o.d have mercy upon us," muttered the hired man, "for I dare say there is a hundred to one."

"Wife, where is my father's gun?" demanded Brown, ashamed of standing helplessly on his own hearth.

"Behind the bedroom door, Jason."

"Is it loaded?"

"With buck shot," answered the hired man. "I loaded it for wild game, but blaze away at them varmints, if you want to, and I'll back you up with the fire shovel. The old woman can pitch in with a flat-iron or rolling-pin. They shan't say that we didn't show grit afore they scalped us, anyhow. Darn 'em!"

"Hark! they are gone."

True enough, the crowd of faces vanished from the window like shadows, and a confused tread of feet followed, so mellow and soft that it seemed as if the earth throbbed with a faint pulsation. This sound lasted some minutes, and then died away in the whisperings of the forest that crept along the sh.o.r.e close up to the stone homestead.

When all was still again a footstep stole over the turf and paused before the threshold. This was followed by a low knock and a gentle stir of the latch string. Brown went to the door. The ruddy color had left his cheek, but his hand was firm as it lifted the wooden bar and threw the door wide open. A young man stood in the opening, and the light fell upon his face.

"Wal, now, if this don't beat all. Is it raly you? Come in, come in, and shet the door, for just as true as you live there's live Injuns around to-night."

The young man came in, lifting the cap from his head as he entered. He was a workman employed on the vessel. Then Brown attempted to appear unconcerned, but his face was disturbed and his voice shook.

"Why, you seem to be frightened," said the young man. "What at?"

"Did you meet nothing on the way?" asked Brown.

"Yes, a flock of sea-gulls wheeling out to sea."

"And nothing more--no red Injuns?"

"Red Indians! Indeed, I saw nothing worse than myself," was the cheerful reply.

"And did you pa.s.s close to the window?" asked the hired man.

"Yes, I pa.s.sed the window."

"And did you twist one face into ten, and crown them all with eagles'

quills?"

"No, not exactly that, but I did look in."

"And no one else?" asked Brown.

"Truly, friends, you question me close, but I was alone."

"Husband," said Goody Brown, in a solemn whisper, "it might have been a witch gathering. Who knows?"

Jason Brown turned deadly white, and the hired man thrust the awl through his thumb.

"In that case you had better not speak of it," said the young man, with a shade of gravity. "It is almost as dangerous to be visited by witches as to join in their wicked rioting. I remember, at the last trial, it was set forth in evidence that the woods around here were given up to witchcraft: I for one do not believe it, but yet if you saw the faces?"

"We did! we did!"

"Crowned with eagles' plumes?"

"Yes, like savage Indians."

"But no Indian would dare flount his war plumes in this neighborhood. It is too near Boston for that."