"Elizabeth--yes! it is Elizabeth--Elizabeth Pa-r-ris! The moss chokes up the name, but it is here. Poor girl--poor young wife!" murmured a low, sweet voice from out of the shadows. "And this grave, so close, with the vines creeping over both. Who can this be? Elizabeth Parris was an orphan, a beautiful charity child of the church--who can be lying so close?"
The woman knelt down, as she uttered these disjointed words, and touched the foliage on the two graves lightly with her hands.
"Here it was they buried the old man"s heart. I almost feel the blossoms springing out of it!" murmured the voice. "Oh, if there were only a place for another here--surely this spot would be quiet and roomy enough for us all!"
The strange woman took a ribbon slowly from her waist, as she spoke, and held it in the starlight.
"I have but to tighten this about my throat, and lie down--a pang or two--a struggle, and when the light drives these shadows back into the woods, some one would find me here--in charity they would dig through the turf a little, and lay me down by sweet Elizabeth Parris. Who would know of it? Who, on the broad earth, would care? It would only be a poor, lone woman, dropping into death before her time--a wanderer, worn out with travel through a weary, weary world, who asked only to lie down and be still."
The tender sadness of these words--the despondency in that face, touched Abby Williams to the heart. She was about to rise, but t.i.tuba held her back.
The woman"s hand dropped, trailing the ribbon on the gra.s.s. She seemed to fall into thought. Her eyes were uplifted towards the stars, and with solemn mournfulness she spoke again:
"A little while, and this soul would be yonder, standing before those bright gates, and asking for that love in heaven which earth has denied; asking this of G.o.d, who has not summoned me, but who will look first on the crimson mark around my neck. No, no; even death is not mine to take--I must wander on and on, till G.o.d is merciful and calls me!"
With a slow, weary movement of the hands, she tied the ribbon around her waist again, and, sitting down on the grave of Elizabeth Parris, folded her arms, with a gesture of unutterable despondency, as if she were waiting for the death she dared not take.
That moment there was a movement in the forest. Abby and the Indian woman looked that way, but it was only a young fawn, which came leaping through the brushwood, and basked a moment in the starlight before she returned to the thicket, from which some stronger animal had frightened her.
When Abby looked toward the grave again, nothing was there. The cool, green leaves twinkled in the starlight, as if no human thing had touched them. She arose and searched the gra.s.s. Not a footprint could be found, and the open s.p.a.ce, which lay between them and the meeting-house, was vacant. She looked at the Indian woman in vague alarm.
"Who was this woman? and where has she gone?"
t.i.tuba shook her head. She was a firm believer in ghosts and witchcraft.
The apparition had filled her with terrible awe. Once before, in her life, she had seen the same face gleaming before her in the starlight of a summer"s evening; and after that came sore trouble on the household.
"Was it my mother searching for rest? Will she wander forever and ever, unless I avenge her?"
"Come into the house, child, it is near morning: the chief will not be here to-night."
"Tell me," cried Abigail, solemnly, "for I must know: was it my mother?"
"I did not see her face. Something came across my eyes and blinded them; but she was tall and stately like your mother."
"She need not come again, I will not falter," said Abigail, with sorrowful earnestness.
They went together into the house, full of vague dread. t.i.tuba followed the young girl up-stairs, and forcing her to lie down, coiled herself up at the foot of the bed, and lay with her bright, black eyes wide open, till the morning broke. Then she arose softly, and going down to the kitchen, began to prepare breakfast. Wahpee had not yet returned from the woods, and there was no one to provide for but the young girl up-stairs; but the old woman mixed her corn bread, stamped the pats of golden b.u.t.ter, and set her rye coffee down to boil in its conical tin pot, with as much bustle of preparation as if the whole family were to partake of the meal she was preparing.
When all was ready, when the round, cherry-wood table was turned down from its place in a corner of the sitting-room, and drawn up to the window, through which the sweet summer air came rippling among the wild roses and bitter-sweet vines, t.i.tuba went up to the room where Abby was sleeping. It was a singular face upon which the old woman gazed. The ma.s.ses of raven hair, the long, inky lashes, and the mouth, so beautifully red, possessed a rare loveliness, which the agitation of other features could not altogether destroy. But the forehead was contracted with a frown, the lips writhed with a troubled expression, and her billowy hair rippled to and fro on the pillow from the constant change of position, sought for in her restless sleep.
"Abby--Abby!" whispered the old woman, "come, wake up; it is most seven o"clock, and the breakfast all ready."
Abby turned on the pillow, and her forehead gathered into a heavy frown.
"Do not call me, mother. Why will you wander on--on--on forever and ever, so restlessly, as if your child would not keep her oath? Wait a little, while I look on your face. The wave of your white garments troubles me. The starlight is dim. I cannot hold you in my look, or grasp you with my hand--oh--"
She opened her eyes with a groan, and sat up in bed. The gentle shake which t.i.tuba had given her seemed to wrench the garments, she had seized upon in her dreams, rudely from her grasp.
"Breakfast is ready, child."
"Breakfast!"
"Yes, child, breakfast; warm Johnny cake, and a nice little bit of ham.
Don"t think any more about it. If the Great Spirit sends witches, he knows how to keep "em under."
"I will come down," said Abby, wearily, holding one hand to her forehead.
"That"s a good child--and do try and look a little like old times. What if the minister and our Lizzy should come back to-day?--who knows?"
"Heaven forbid!" cried the young girl, in pale affright. "I am not ready yet. How can I tell what the woman wants till she speaks to me? If Anna Hutchinson must be avenged, explain how the evil thing is to be done.
Dear t.i.tuba, tell me truly. You don"t expect the minister home to-day?"
"Why, how can I tell for certain? He ought to have been home weeks ago."
"Am I changed, t.i.tuba? Hold up the looking-gla.s.s, and let me see for myself."
t.i.tuba raised the little looking-gla.s.s, in its carved cherry-wood frame, and held it before the girl"s face.
Abby shook her head mournfully.
"How old I look! What a strange glitter comes and goes in these eyes. It is the Indian blood, I suppose. That, and the things I have been told, t.i.tuba. Don"t it seem a great deal more than three weeks since the minister went away?"
"I don"t know--yes! I shouldn"t wonder if it seems so; but t.i.tuba counts time from the week when Miss Elizabeth went off to visit Lady Phipps in her grand, new house at Boston. Oh, it will be like a bird getting back to its nest when she comes home."
"A bird getting back to its nest--old t.i.tuba? Well, why not? She will sleep quietly, and dream sweetly as ever. It is only I--I. Come, old t.i.tuba, let"s go down to breakfast; at least we have twelve hours of day before us: who knows what another night will bring?"
"Yes, yes--come to breakfast; it"s unhealthy talking on an empty stomach."
As they went through the little entry way below stairs, a soft knock came to the outer door. Abby went forward and sat down at the breakfast-table, while t.i.tuba lifted the wooden latch and opened the door.
A lady stood on the step, wrapped in a scarlet mantle, with the hood drawn over her face. She was pale, and seemed to have walked a great distance, for her light boots of foreign make were torn at the sides, and soiled with moist earth, while the edge of a light gray silk dress, which fell below her mantle, was frayed and spotted, as if it had been dragged over wet gra.s.s.
The woman lifted her eyes to t.i.tuba an instant before she spoke; then, in a voice singularly low and gentle, she inquired if Mr. Parris had reached home yet.
Old t.i.tuba replied, with a little unaccountable hesitation, that the minister had gone to Boston; that he intended to bring Miss Elizabeth home with him; but that there was no saying, for a certainty, when they would come.
"You may expect them within an hour or two," said the stranger, gently, "so I will step in and wait."
She glided softly into the hall while speaking, opened the sitting-room door like one used to the house, and went in.
Abby had seated herself at the table, but she arose as the stranger entered, naturally looking that way. The thrill that pa.s.sed through her frame amounted almost to a shock. Two contending wishes seized upon her.
She longed to dash through the window and flee; yet was impelled toward the stranger by a power she could neither understand nor resist.
With this conflict of the nerves visible on her face, she came forward and laid her hand in that of the stranger. Again the thrill pa.s.sed over her, but as those soft fingers closed upon her hand, this singular agitation went off in a pleasant shiver, and the two females smiled sadly on each other, like persons who had met for the first time after some severe bereavement.
"Your old servant tells me that the minister is not at home yet," said the lady, "so I have ventured to come in and wait. Do not let me disturb you at breakfast though; I will walk toward the meeting-house yonder; it seems a quaint, old building."
She turned as if to go, but Abby could not give up the hand in hers without a feeling of emotion amounting almost to pain.