From Kingdom to Colony
There was an irresistible charm about the girl's wilfulness that
blended perfectly with the sacred innocence of her childish nature.
She was impetuous, laughter-loving, and somewhat spoiled; but she was
possessed of a high spirit, strong courage, and a pure, tender heart.
Her father's idol and chief companion she had always been since, in his
sixtieth-odd year, she was laid in his strong arms,--vigorous as those
of a man half his own age. And he was looking into her baby face, so
like his own, when he heard that she was all he had left of his
faithful wife.
He had lost many children; and such sorrow, softening still more a
never hard heart, had made him dotingly fond of those left to him,--his
twenty-seven-year-old son John and the wilful Dot.
The girl's education had been beyond that of most maids in those times,
as had also that of her only friend, Mary Broughton; and for much the
same reason. Both girls had been carefully trained by their fathers;
and Aunt Penine, at Nicholson Broughton's request, had taught Mary
housewifery in all its branches, at the same time she was undertaking
the like portion of her niece's education.
But this was an art in which Mary far exceeded Dot; and Aunt Penine
lectured her niece unceasingly, while seeming to find nothing but
praise for Mary's efforts.
It was pretty sure to be something of this sort: "Dorothy, Dorothy!
Ye'll ne'er be a good butter-maker; ye beat it so, the grain will be
broke. Why cannot ye take it this way?" and Aunt Penine would show
her. "See how fine Mary does it! Ye have too hot a hand."
Dot would give her head a toss, and remind her aunt that it was not she
herself who had the fashioning of her small hand, nor the regulating of
its temperature. And then Aunt Penine would be very sure to go to her
brother-in-law with complainings of his daughter's disrespectful
tongue, and it would end in Dot being persuaded by her father to beg
Aunt Penine's pardon, which she would do in a meek tone, but with a
suspicious sparkle in her eyes. And after that she was very likely to
be found at the stables, saddling her own mare, Brown Bess, for a wild
gallop off over the country.
Aunt Penine was one who never seemed to remember that she had ever been
young herself; and this made her all the more unbending in her
disapproval of Dorothy's flow of spirits, and of the indulgence shown
her by her father.
She was now coming across the grass from the dairy,--a tall, lithe
figure, from which all the roundness of youth (had she ever possessed
anything so weak) had given way to the spareness of middle age. Her
hair, still plentiful, was of a dull, lustreless black; her complexion
sallow, with paler cheeks, somewhat fallen in; and she had a pair of
small gray eyes that seemed like twinkling lights set either side a
very long, sharp nose.
Her gown was now pinned up around her like that of a fishwife; a white
cap surmounted her severe head, and her brown arms were bare above the
elbows, where she had rolled her sleeves. She well knew that her
brother-in-law in no wise approved of her going about in such a
fashion; but this was only an added reason for her doing so.
There was a silken rustling of doves' wings, as the flock scattered
from in front of her on the grass, where, obedient to Dorothy's call,
they had come like a cloud from the dove-cote perched high on a pole
near by.
"Joseph," she cried, sending her shrill voice ahead of her as she
walked along, "do you know that the last two new Devonshires have
either strayed or been stolen?"
"So Trent told me." He spoke very calmly, letting several seconds
intervene between question and answer, puffing his pipe meanwhile,
while the fingers of one hand rested amongst the curly, fragrant locks
lying against his knee.
"Told you! Then why, under the canopy, did n't ye tell _me_?" she
demanded, as she now stood on the stone flagging in front of the
veranda, her arms akimbo, while she peered at him with her little
twinkling eyes.
He looked at her gravely, and as if thinking, but made no reply.
Her eyes fell, and she seemed embarrassed, for she said in a lower
tone, and by way of explanation: "Because, you see, Joseph, I cannot
look after the pans o' milk properly, if I know not how many cows there
be to draw from. There was less milk by twenty pans, this e'en; and I
was suspecting the new maid we've taken from over Oakum Bay way of
making off with it for her own folk, when Pashar came in and said he
was to go with Trent, to hunt for the missing Devonshires. And that
was the first I'd heard of any strayed cattle."
"And even had they not been missing, Penine, you had no right to think
such evil o' the stranger," Joseph Devereux said reprovingly. "'T is a
queer fashion, it seems to me, for a Christian woman to be so ready as
you ever seem to be for thinking harsh things o' folk you may happen
not to know well. Strangers are no more like to do evil than friends,
say I."
He now handed his pipe to Dot, who rapped the ashes out on the ground
and returned it to him. He thanked the girl with the same courtesy he
would have shown an utter stranger, while Aunt Penine, looking very
much subdued, turned about and went back to the dairy.
Joseph Devereux was still a handsome man, with a dark, intellectual
face, framed in a halo of silvery hair, worn long, as was the fashion,
and confined by a black ribbon. About his throat was wrapped snowy
linen lawn, fine as a cobweb, and woven on his own hand-looms by the
women of his house, as was also that of the much ruffled shirt showing
from the front of a buff waistcoat, gold-buttoned.
The same color was repeated in his top-boots, that came up to meet the
breeches of dark cloth, fastened at the knee with steel buckles.
His tall figure was but slightly bowed; and there was a mixture of
haughtiness and softness in his manner, very far removed from
provincial brusqueness, and belonging rather to the days and
surrounding of his ancestors than to the time in which he lived.
John, his son, was a more youthful picture of the father, but with a
freer display of temper,--this due, perhaps, to his fewer years. But
father and son were known alike for kindly and generous deeds, and as
possessing a high ideal of truth and justice.
CHAPTER VI
"Do you suppose, Joseph, that Jack will have had his supper?"
Aunt Lettice asked the question a little anxiously, as she drew about
her shoulders the soft shawl that little 'Bitha's impetuous clasping
had somewhat disarranged.
"Aye; I think the lad is sure to have taken it at the inn." His voice
was very gentle, as it always was when he addressed her.
"There he is!" shouted 'Bitha. And she darted down the steps to wave
frantic arms at two horsemen coming up the wooded way to the house,
while Dot lifted her head from her father's knee, as he now sat more
erect in his chair.
"Have a care, 'Bitha, or we may run you down," called out John
Devereux, laughingly. And at this the little maiden made haste to
speed back to the porch.
It was Hugh Knollys who accompanied him,--a stalwart, broad-chested
young fellow of twenty-five or six, with blunt features and a not
over-handsome face. But for all this he had an irresistible magnetism
for those who knew him; and no one could ever associate evil or untruth
with his frank, keen-glancing gray eyes and clean-cut, smiling lips.
"Good-evening, Hugh, and welcome," said Joseph Devereux, rising to
extend a friendly hand as the young man came up the steps.
Hugh removed his hat and nodded to Dorothy, glancing at her askance as
she arose and with a demure greeting passed him and went to her
brother, who was now giving some orders to old Leet.
"Jack," she whispered imploringly, under cover of the talk going on in
the porch,--"Jack, tell me, please, that you will not speak to father
of Mary and me seeing Moll Pitcher this afternoon."
He looked at her smilingly, and then took her chin in his fingers and
gave her head a gentle shake, in a way he had of doing.
"If I do as you ask, will you promise not to go over to that part of
the town again without telling me first, and then not to go unless I
say you may?"
"Yes, yes," she answered eagerly.
"Well, then, 't is a bargain." With this he put an arm around her, and
they turned toward the house.
"Did Mary go home?" he asked, as they walked slowly along.
"Yes; but she is coming soon to stop with us, as her father is to go to
Boston on business of some sort."
"He is like to go this very night," the young man said.
"This very night!" Dorothy echoed. "Why, then, Mary might have come
home with me, as I wished. But how do you know that, Jack?"
"Never mind now," was his evasive answer. "You will hear all about it
later."
They were now at the porch, and his father, who had been conversing
earnestly with young Knollys, said: "Hugh tells me that ye both had
supper at the inn. So come within, Jack,--come, both o' ye, and let us
talk over certain matters of importance. Hugh will stop with us for
the night; and, Dot, do you go and tell your Aunt Penine, so that his
room may be prepared." And leading the way, the old gentleman went
inside, followed by his son and their guest.
"Grandame," asked 'Bitha, as Dorothy arose and went in quest of Aunt
Penine, "what did Hugh Knollys mean by his talk to Uncle Joseph just
now, of the King's soldiers at Salem?" The child spoke in an awed
voice, drawing closer to the old lady, and looking up at her with
startled eyes.
Aunt Lettice tried to give her delicate features a properly severe cast
as she answered, "Hush, 'Bitha! you should not listen to matters not
meant for your hearing."
"But I've heard it before, grandame," 'Bitha persisted. "Johnnie
Strings said the same thing, this afternoon, to Dot and Mary Broughton.
He said the soldiers were coming all over here, clear to the shore, and
that we best have guns ready to shoot them."
Aunt Lettice's expression had now become really severe, for she still
had the old-time reverence for King and Parliament dwelling in her
heart.
"Johnnie Strings is seditious and rebellious, to speak so of His
Gracious Majesty's army," she said with marked disapproval; "and he
shall sell no more of his wares to me, if he goes about the country
talking in such fashion. But you must have mistaken his meaning,
child."
But 'Bitha shook her small head wilfully, in a way to remind one of her
cousin Dorothy, and took herself off to the charms of the kitchen
regions, where old Tyntie was ever ready to listen to her prattle, and
tell her charming tales when work was out of the way.
And this is how 'Bitha came to know that the bright green spots showing
here and there in the meadows were the rings made by the dancing feet
of the Star-sisters, when they came down in a great ball of light from
their home in the sky, striking the ball about as they danced, and
causing it to give forth most ravishing music.
And Tyntie told her, also, that the flitting will-o'-the-wisp lights
that showed on dark nights over the farthest away marsh-lands were the
wandering souls of Indian warriors, watching to keep little children
from getting lost or frightened; that the cry of the whippoorwill was
the lament of Munomene-Keesis, the Spirit of the Moon, over
dead-and-gone warriors vanquished by the white men; that the wild winds
coming from the sea were Pawatchecanawas, breathing threatenings for
bad men and their ships; and that the frogs hopping about in the cool
dusk were all little Iiche, with a magic jewel in their ugly heads.
All this was imparted as they sat out on the great stumps of hewn-down
trees, while the twilight gathered and the stars came out in the vault
overhead, and the two were at a safe distance from Aunt Penine's