USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > More chronicles of a pioneer school, from 1792 to 1833, being added history on the Litchfield Female Academy kept by Miss Sarah Pierce and her nephew, John Pierce Brace > Part 32
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But the loss of his darling vocabulary that had been the work of a life time, and which he intended as his legacy to the Apostle of the Indians that might succeed him - that was a loss indeed. He was growing old, advancing very near to the verge of the allotted period of human life. His labors and deprivations - his watchings and fast- ings - had been too much for his frame, and he daily felt his strength waning and his perseverance wavering.
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To collect these philological treasures had been the darling task of his intellect. He felt he had other and higher duties and he never swerved from their constant performance. He could not reproach himself for any neglect of these. But when duty and labor were per- formed, there came this amusement - to collect the various words of the Abenakis, by questions of the oldest members of the tribe - to arrange and classify them, to affix the French meaning distinctly to them. The time flew by him on swallows' pinions, noiseless and rapid, when he was thus employed.
But, now, all the results of this labor had been snatched from him, and he felt ready to exclaim, in the words of Micah, "Ye have taken away my Gods, and what have I left?"
He now felt that his attachment to that pursuit had been idolatrous, and he lamented before the shrine of Our Lady of the Wilderness his past delinquencies. Deep was the sorrow, and severe the voluntarily imposed penance and fast, until his spirit bowed in submission, and the sad quietness of resignation returned as an inmate to his heart.
The real tendency of Sebastian Rasles's mind was to literary and philological pursuits. A state of conventional leisure to have followed these fascinating occupations was what his inner soul and spirit would have relished. Education had reared him a Jesuit; enthusiasm had made him an Apostle; circumstances and a love of country had formed a political intriguer; and duty had impelled him to seek the civiliza- tion of his savage friends. But inclination and taste and the bent of a literary disposition had drawn him to his philological researches into the various New England languages.
That hope for future fame had been blotted out of the old man's mind by, as he supposed, the absolute destruction of his works, and, with this hope expired the zeal, the enthusiasm, the energy, the per- severance of Sebastian Rasles. He never was himself again. His courage, hitherto indomitable, was gone. The future seemed as dark as the grave before him. He lost all hope of the supremacy of the French authority - the continuance of his beloved tribe - the success in the wilds of Maine of his revered faith. Death alone remained to close the gloomy night of despair that shut down upon his soul.
The return of the warriors of his tribe from their various expeditions only added to his despondency. The most discordant councils existed. Treachery was openly alluded to by some. That the camp of the Abenakis should be entered in broad day light, and there be not a solitary fighting man to protect it from plunder, could result, said some, from nothing but treachery.
Mutual distrust grew up, although treachery could not be proved, and when the Quebec party returned, the dissensions were increased.
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The French had not been as bountiful as usual in their gifts to their red allies, owing probably to some complaints made by the English Government.
Rasles himself received letters from his personal friends, exhorting him once more to repair to Quebec and leave his converts to their fate. He was getting old, his friends said, and needed rest and safety. "No," said Rasles, "God has entrusted to me this flock, and I shall follow their fortunes."
Grace, upon her return from the forest wandered in silence around her plundered home, but, seeing the indignation of the savages and the grief of her protector, was silent. The only remark she made was when the sorrowful Priest gave her his blessing at night.
"Oh, Father Rasles, only think, the naughty English soldiers have carried off my old sun-bonnet that I used to wear a great while ago!"
CHAPTER XXIII
It is high time we returned to our friends at Roaring Brook. We have deserted them too long.
Months and years have passed over them. The sweet smelling white clover had grown up and bloomed in yearly succession on little Jeduthun's grave, in the quiet nook of the grave yard where he rested. The infant that was in the arms of her mother at the opening of this tale had grown up to take his place in his parents' hearts.
Thomas Welles had altered little. A few more streaks of silver were seen among the black hair that was smoothed over his forehead, and a sober, sad expression, at the loss of his two children, governed his features. No one had actually given up Grace as lost. Hope still represented her as suffering an Indian captivity, not uncommon then. Floating reports of a flaxen haired fairy in the Indian wigwams high up the Kennebec had been received at Boston and repeated at Hart- ford and served to keep up the warmth of hope in the heart. Grace was not mourned as Jeduthun was.
During these years, Grandmother Welles had laid her head down on the pillow of the grave. The lamp of her life was extinguished at once with no warning to her friends. She was sitting as usual one evening by the kitchen fire, speaking words of holy comfort to Martha, when she complained of sudden sickness of the stomach. She arose to walk across the room and fell in a fit on the floor, from which she never recovered nor gave the least intimation of any consciousness of things without, until she ceased to breathe.
There was solemnity at her death - there was grief in Thomas Welles's house - but there was no unholy repining. She was a "shock of corn fully ripe," gathered of God. Her life had been one of useful-
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ness; of devotion to the religious welfare of her son's family; of a con- sistent and constant reliance on the merits of Christ. Why should not the tears of grief be dried up, when gazing at the bright example of her Christian experience and the brighter track of glory before her?
This was the feeling of her son in his family exercises in the night of her funeral and the whole aim of his prayer appeared to be that he and his family might be prepared to follow her.
Upon Martha's expressing a wish that her grandmother could have died of some disorder in which her mind could have been clear, so that she might have expressed her own faith in Christ and exhorted all her friends, her father replied:
"I feel differently, Martha. I do not know that I would have a circumstance altered. Her death-bed faith would not have been stronger or more expressive than that of her life - her death-bed instructions more useful than those that have fallen from her lips every day and every hour. We think too much of death-bed scenes. The life - the life - is rather to be looked at. Mother's character -the confidence we may feel of her acceptance with God-are to be estimated by life-long experience, not her death-bed remarks. The mind at death may be clouded - those clouds have not rested on the Christian character of the life-time. If the sun goes down in clouds it cannot abstract in the least from the effects which that sun's rays have produced on the welfare of the world during the hours of its shining. No, Martha, it is the life that we must look at in our estimate of Christian duty and its rewards, and not the death."
The loss of the two children and especially that of Grace had been keenly felt by old Mrs. Welles. She had tried to reconcile her mind to this sad and strange dispensation, but the conquest of resignation over the natural feelings of the heart had weakened her body in the conflict.
Grace had entwined herself closely around her grandmother's heart. She possessed that enquiring, investigating, docile mind that is so fascinating to old persons. It was so beautiful to follow a moral thought through her pure mind, and perceive the process by which it fixed itself as a principle there, that it constituted one of her grand- mother's most interesting employments to watch the workings of her intellect and heart. Where seed springs up so soon, it is delightful to sow it. The violent absorption of this favorite employment was a blow from which the aged grandmother never recovered.
Let us not forget our simple, humble, uncomplaining friend, Martha Welles. She was appearing older. The rose had left her cheek; its dimples were never seen. Her eye was dim and her step heavy. But faith in God and love to man were still active in her heart - more active from the very freezing up of her external enjoyments.
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James Hinsdale had never visited her or seen her, except in the exciting scenes of Grace's abduction. She had heard of him. He had been roaming around in search of adventure; had joined in some of the Massachusetts expeditions against the Indians, but never had stayed away long from Eastbury. He would return often to his farm - see that it was well taken care of - visit old Uncle Hale to hear from him the news from Martha, and especially whether other young men sought her love since he had deserted her, and would then be off again upon his restless, uneasy expeditions. To pursue another woman he had not desire. Impetuous and self willed as he was no other image than that of Martha Welles could fill his heart.
His friends lamented much the infatuation under which he labored, and blamed Martha some for the decision which had confirmed in Hinsdale's mind the love of roving. But the judicious approved of that decision and felt that Martha's prudence had been properly exercised in shunning a connection with a young man of such impulses.
None of them knew the sacrifice which Martha had made, and that the sense of duty to her father's family alone had originated her deter- mination. But for this cause, prudent as she was considered, she would have willingly followed James Hinsdale through the world, wherever he roved, satisfied if she was only near him.
Had Hinsdale but looked at the altered situation of Thomas Welles's family, he would have seen that Martha had no longer the excuse of duty to them in the same strength as before, to hinder her from fol- lowing the dictates of her affections. The family was no further increased. Her mother grew stronger. Prudence had become a large and strong lass. The grandmother and the two little children required no more care or labor and the youngest was a quiet child, solitary and rather solemn in her habits.
Every time that Martha heard of James's visit to Eastbury, her heart fluttered at the possibility of his claiming her once more. But he came not near her, and for all the years that we have forsaken Roaring Brook, she had not seen him. It was this uncertainty that had thinned Martha's once plump cheek and starved its roses, and closed the sweet fount of its smiling dimples, and was gradually sap- ping the foundation of her strong constitution.
CHAPTER XXIV
Early in the spring after the expedition of Westbrooke to the Abenakis village, James Hinsdale was seen riding in great haste down the road from Hartford towards his native place. Only a few weeks before he had gathered all the money he could raise, and had bidden his friends
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a long farewell, perhaps, he said, a last one. He was going to Boston; if there was anything planned for the attack of the Indians, he should join the expedition; if not, he should embark for some of the Southern colonies. He could breathe no longer the same air with one whom he still loved, but who had so foolishly cast him off.
Every one who saw him riding so furiously by, were astonished to see him once more, but he could stop for no questions and hurried on until he reached old Uncle Hale's house, where alighting, he took a package from his saddle bags and demanded to see Uncle Sim. The old man was sent for from his home lot where he was mending fence, much surprised at the eagerness which his young friend manifested.
"Look here," said James, "look here! Uncle Sim. Do you remember this?" and he unrolled from its envelopes a young child's sun bonnet, old and faded and torn. "Do you remember this?"
"Great God! Thy ways are wonderful," said Uncle Hale. "Where did you pick up that old bonnet? It's Tommy Welles's little gal's. I know it for all it's so wilted and tattered. I know'd it as soon as I seed it. 'T was made from an old chintz of Madam Welles's 'arly days, and Patty and Prude and little Grace wore it, one arter another. Say, Jim Hinsdale, where did you find it?"
"I did not find it. It was given me in Boston. I knew it as soon as I saw it. Well do I remember Martha's dimples under it, when she went to school. Lieutenant Westbrooke brought it from up the Kennebec in the Abenaki village of Father Rawle. They invaded the Norridgewock settlement, last winter, but the inhabitants had fled. They plundered the old Jesuit's hut and chapel, and brought off many of his papers. In the same closet where the old man kept his letters, there was hanging up this bonnet, evidently, he said, belonging to some little girl of the New England settlers. He had heard me en- quiring about a lost child and brought it for me. I recognized it in an instant. There were other indications he said, of a little girl's presence in the old Papist Priest's hut. Uncle Sim, Grace Welles is alive and in the Abenaki country and may God do so to me and more also if I do not join the next expedition sent by Massachusetts against that nest of robbers. Sure Martha will not again say no to me, if I bring back Grace to her home."
"Jim Hinsdale," said the old man, striking him on the shoulder with his hand, "you go not alone on this hunt. I'm with you, if it leads to the darned old Scarlet Harlot's Hum itself, sitting on seven hills, as the good book tells us, as if one were n't enough for her cussed old hinder end. But you'll carry that bunnet to neighbor Welles's won't you?"
"Certainly, Uncle Sim, but you must go with me. I cannot meet Martha alone."
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"Wall, Jim Hinsdale, for a man that I've seed choke a wolf, and for one who has fit the Injuns, you are the most scary person I ever kno'd, if you can't brave such a whey-faced gal as Patty Welles has got to be!" Hinsdale colored but did not reply. "Shame to you, Jim! You a man, and afraid of a linsey-woolsey petticoat! Put out your hoss in my hum pasture," said Uncle Sim, "he'll get a little nibble of the 'arly grass, and come in, and eat a bit of pork. The sun has reached that old pine's rotten top and it's noon. I shan't go over to neighbor Welles's until arter dinner."
We cannot say that James Hinsdale did much justice to this dinner - impulse and sentiment and hope are apt to take away the appetite of the young. Not so with the old, Uncle Sim Hale swallowed his pork with as much energy as ever, notwithstanding the exciting scene he expected to witness.
When they entered Thomas Welles's house, they found the family just risen from dinner. Prudence was washing the dishes, while Martha had stepped up to the spinning wheel to have it in readiness for her daily labor. She saw James as he entered, and turned to the wool she was preparing on the spindle, to hide her emotions.
"Neighbor Welles," said Uncle Hale, "Jimmy Hinsdale has bin down to Boston, where he saw some of the sogers that had been up the Kennebec, and plundered the nest of that pesky old Jesuit, Father Rawle. Among other truck and trumpery they fetched away" - he turned pale as he approached the point - "Bless your heart, neighbor, I can't make a long sarmon or preachment, no how. Here! Do you know this old dud?" and he thrust little Grace's sun-bonnet into his hand.
"Merciful Providence!" exclaimed the father. "It is our little Grace's. See, mother! see, Martha! you know it! Where is the child? Is she living? Is she well?"
"The soldiers did not see her," James Hinsdale answered, cautiously, "but they saw about the Jesuit's hut, that the owner of this bonnet was there."
"When was this?"
"Last winter. The men found the village deserted, for all had fled. They brought away all they thought of value in Rawles hut, and as Westbrooke had heard me talk of Grace's capture, he seized upon this with the hope that it might have been hers."
"My God, I thank thee!" said Welles, closing his eyes, "I may yet again see her before I die."
"Build no hopes on that, dear husband," said Grace's mother. "She is too far off to be ever restored, I fear. We must think of ransom."
"Talk not of ransom," burst out the spirited young man, "she
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shall be rescued from captivity as sure as the blood remains in my veins, and my limbs hold their strength. I go, at once, to join the new expedition fitting out in Massachusetts, to destroy this Indian hornet's nest, with its Papist protector. I shall return with her, or leave my bones on the Kennebec."
As he uttered this, he turned for the first time and looked Martha full in the face.
She had stood, breathless, amid this conversation, holding on by the spinning wheel, with a face as white as the dead. She did not quail under the gaze of her lover, but looked in his eyes with that love which never dies. As he ceased, she walked up to him, and placing both her hands in his, said, "God bless you, James Hinsdale, and give you success."
No other word was spoken between the lovers; no other was needed to reunite their hearts.
CHAPTER XXV
The two adventurers started with their packs and their good rifles for a tramp through the forest to Boston. They might have gone by water, but they dreaded the loss of time and the tediousness of such a passage to hunters.
They found the expedition all ready to start against the Abenakis under the command of Captain Harman, and joined them at once. A tedious and cramped passage in some coast schooner brought them to the mouth of the Kennebec, where boats were in readiness to carry them up the river. These they left under a guard of forty men, and proceeded very cautiously through the forest to the encampment of the Abenakis.
They had men experienced in all the wiles of savage warfare to com- mand them, and sufferers from the late excursions of the Norridge- wocks, as the English termed the tribe, to animate the troops by the recitals of the wrongs.
From all these, our two Eastbury friends kept themselves rather aloof. They had their own wrongs to impel them to action, and needed not any additional tale of suffering.
"No," said Uncle Hale, "the sight of little Jeduthun a-wallering in his blood is enough for me, without hearing their melancholy stories."
James appeared to have changed his character. He was grave and taciturn, looking forward to the successful termination of this adven- ture as the end of the impulsive part of his life. Hereafter he was to settle down, a quiet tiller of the soil, as his fathers had been before him. Not that he fainted at the deprivation of a life of adventure, or shrank from its dangers. But he felt that he must now guard his life as some-
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thing cherished by another, as necessary to another's happiness. A change had come over the whole spirit of his existence, wrought by the consciousness of being loved. He was no longer the rash adventurer, but the cool, calm man, ready to act, but to act with deliberation with reference to some object before him. Such are the results of the con- sciousness of being beloved.
When the invading force advanced near the encampment, they captured a woman in the forest, who gave them the information they desired respecting the situation of their foes. Their band was then divided into two parts one to make the attack in front, and the other sent round beyond the cornfields in the rear to intercept the retreat of the savages and prevent their escape as in the winter's campaign.
The assault was successful. The Indians were completely surprised and shot as they left their huts, or driven to the river in their attempts at escaping. The chiefs, Bamazeen, Carabeset, and Wissememet were the first to fall in front of the encampment with hardly a shot fired in return.
"Where's Rawle? Where's the cursed Jesuit? Where's the cause of all our losses?" was the cry of the Kennebec and Penobscot settlers that had joined the expedition. "Kill him, wherever you can find him!"
Father Sebastian, at the commencement of the attack, was un- suspiciously engaged in his chapel with little Grace at his feet, in painting some new representations of the Virgin and the Saints to or- nament his little temple and replace what the English soldiers had de- stroyed in the winter.
At the first noise of the tumult, he rushed to the door, and the character of the scene, with all its fearful consequences, burst at once upon his mind.
"Jesu Maria, receive my spirit," he exclaimed, "the end of my pil- grimage has come."
But even in this moment of extreme peril, he could not forget his beloved Grace.
"Grace, my child, hide yourself in the chapel. The English soldiers are upon us. They will not injure you."
Springing out, he saw his people falling under the unerring aim of the Yankees, as they rushed from their huts and crossed the area in front of the chapel, to seek the shelter of the woods.
" Who calls Rawle?" said he in a loud voice in English. "Here I am. Oh spare these my children in the Lord!"
These were his last words. A score of bullets penetrated his body and he fell without a groan.
Grace had followed him close, notwithstanding his order to her, and had clung to his long, black robe as her only protection in this world.
When the exasperated soldiers came up to finish with the butts of
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their muskets the work which they had commenced they found Grace stretched on the old man's breast covered with his streaming blood and wild with excitement.
"Hold back your brutal hand," said Uncle Hale, pushing a settler one side who had elevated the breech of his rifle to strike Rasles on the head, "would you abuse a dead man, you 'tarnal critter? He's gone to his account and God will judge him aright."
The little girl raised her head, bathed in her protector's blood and gazed around wildly at the well known English tones and words.
"Grace, Grace Welles," shouted the old hunter, "don't you know me? Don't you know old Uncle Sim Hale, who has trotted you so often on his knee, while you played with his grey hairs?"
The memory of the past began to dawn, though in clouds, over Grace's soul. The floating, misty ideas of infancy that had been in her recollection but as the shadows of dreams, began to assume form and a shape in her mind.
She answered in English: "Oh, Uncle Sim, have you come to take me home? I have had a long dream. Have you found Jeduthun?"
The old man took hold of her arm gently, and endeavored to move her from the body.
"No, no," she said, in the mixed jargon of French, English, and Indian, she ordinarily used. "I won't leave dear Father Rasles. He is all bloody. The naughty English soldiers have shot him. Let me stay with him!" and she stooped and kissed his pale cheek.
Some gentle force was needed to separate her from the corpse, and this Uncle Hale had to do alone, for the other soldiers had hurried on to complete the carnage and burn the huts. He washed Grace in the fountain from Father Sebastian's blood, and was holding her in his arms when the soldiers came out of the chapel with the large gilded crucifix in their hands, and broke it on the stones without.
Grace exclaimed wildly, "Stop, stop, you wicked men, you are break- ing the cross on which our Saviour died!"
It was perhaps well for her that the infuriated soldiers did not under- stand her polyglot speech or she might have shared the fate of the crucifix.
Uncle Hale saw the necessity of carrying her away from the sight of the plundered and burning chapel - her home for so long a period - and walked down the slope towards the bank of the river.
"Where's Jim Hinsdale, I wonder," said he muttering out loud. "Hallo Cap'en Harman. I've found Welles's little gal that I tell'd you about but I can't find Hinsdale."
"He lies the other side of the brook yonder, under the trees. He was wounded by a ball on our first onslaught on the huts. He'll need you."
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"Jim Hinsdale wounded! He will need me sure-ly," and the old man hastened, still carrying the child and his rifle.
Captain Harman rather blamed his men for shooting Rasles. He wished to take him to Boston as a prisoner, and he hardly considered him as a combatant.
"But he is dead," said he, "and will trouble New England no more. Let us give him a decent burial, my men."
A grave was soon dug near the fountain which the old man had brought from its forest spring, and his remains were deposited within it to await the resurrection day.
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