Hobomok/Chapter III
I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you;
Nor can imagination form a shape,
Beside yourself, to like of.
Tempest
Notwithstanding her increase of avocations, and the many wearisome nights she had spent in tending the sick who had come among them, there was no one more heartily rejoiced at the new order of things than Sally Oldham, whom I find mentioned in the manuscript as "a promp and jolly damsell, much given to lightnesse of speeche, but withal virtuous." The merry maiden, amid all the labours and privations necessarily attendant upon their lonely situation at Plymouth, had found means to put on the airs of rustic coquetry with considerable success; and therefore she had felt no little regret when her father's passionate and unjustifiable conduct toward the ruling elders, had subjected him to the shameful punishment referred to in the first chapter, and driven his family from their comparatively comfortable home. Her only consolation during this period was in recounting to Mary the numerous acts of gallantry she had received from her Plymouth lovers. The young man whom she had seen upon the beach, on the morning of the 28th, had a kinder remembrance than all his competitors; and when she heard that he had walked from Plymouth, with Hobomok for his guide, in the true spirit of female vanity, she judged that nothing but her own pretty face was the object of his journey. Still it seemed she had some fears about his diffidence, for when she had taken her milking-pail and quietly seated herself beside the miserable pile of logs and boughs, which she dignified with the name of a cow-house, she muttered to herself, "I wish Collier was a little easier to take a hint." Her cogitations were interrupted by a well known voice, which had become associated in Sally's mind with nought but "the crackling of thorns." "What brought you hither, Mr. Graves?" inquired the maiden.
"I thought," replied he, as he stood scratching his head with one hand, and holding out the other in token of amity, "I thought, may be, you'd repent your rashness this morning, inasmuch as husbands don't grow on every tree in these deserts."
Notwithstanding this cogent argument, well backed with humble gestures, the offered peace was rejected; and his clammy hand remained awkwardly upraised in the air, like the quivering claw of a dying lobster.
"I tell you sir," rejoined the angry damsel, "that I am weary of your unsavory discourse; and if husbands like you, grew by hundreds on the lowest boughs of the trees, they might stay there till doomsday before I'd stop to pluck 'em therefrom."
"But you'll let me take the milk across for you," continued the persevering suitor, as she stept upon a narrow board that was laid across a deep ditch. Sally, in the wickedness of her heart, held out the pail to him; but just as he was in the act of taking it, she managed by a gentle motion, to place him ancle-deep in the mud below; then turning round for an instant, with a loud and provoking laugh, she soon disappeared.
As Mr. Graves rose, and struck off the mud from his clothes, he murmured, "It is plain she is given over to a reprobate mind;" and it was noticed he never afterwards darkened Mr. Oldham's dwelling.
To Sally the day seemed to pass tardily away, for she had predicted, that the evening would bring a visit from Mr. Collier; and accordingly the manuscript states, that "the curtains of nighte were but halfe shut, when he seated himselfe beside Mr. Oldham, who was turning down many a dropp of the bottell, and burning tobacco with all the ease he could, discoursing between whiles of the dolorous beginning of the settlement, when their cups of beer ran as small as water in a sandie landie, and they were forced to lengthene out their own foode with acorns; and anon talking of the greate progress they would make with their fellowe labourers, now the summer sun had changed the earth's white-furred gowne into a green mantell."
"I must say," observed the young man, "that it is a bosom-breaking thing to me, when I think the gulf atween us and old England is too wide to leap over with a lope-staff. I am the last who would put my hand to the plough, and then look back; but I must say, could I have cast up, in the beginning, what this wilderness work would have cost us, I should have been staggered much, and very hardly have set sail."
"Why, to my thinking, Mr. Collier," replied Oldham, "England is no place now-a-days for christian folks to live within. They talk about their reformed church, but I tell you their bishops, their deans, and their deacons, are all whelps from the Roman litter; and tame 'em as you can, the nature of the beast will shew itself. It is a sad pity that king Charles (I mean no disrespect to his majesty) should suffer those black coats from the ninneversities to get upon his royal back---I trow they'll ride him to destruction. But, as I was saying, England is full of malignant enemies to the true faith; and after all, a body can as pithily practise the two great precepts of the gospel in this, as well as in any other place; which precepts I take to be mortification and sanctification."
"Nobody can doubt there is room enough to practise the first, father," interrupted Sally, who had all along been quietly knitting in the corner, and who had begun to be weary of such sober discourse.
"You talk like a prating ideot, as you are," replied her father, furiously. "What with your own hankering after French gew-gaws, and the grand stories of your Moabitish companion, you have your head clean turned from sound sense and sober godliness."
"You know, Goodman," rejoined his wife, "that howsomever gracious and obedient our children may be, there have been no small hardships during our sojourning here, both for their young hearts and limbs too. Besides, Sally is included in the covenant with her parents, and to my mind, no member of Christ's body should be wrested from his church by harsh words."
"You utter the sayings of a foolish woman," answered her angry spouse. "I'm far from being clear whether the covenant we entered into is binding. Them ruling elders there at Plymouth, brought an abundance of pragmatical zeal, and rigid separation from the Netherlands. They've clapped a vizor on their own traditions, and placed them cheek-by-jowl with revealed truth; and many an honest man will be puzzled to distinguish 'em therefrom. And still more am I in the dark whether this stray imp, laughing with every idle fellow she meets, (the better for her that she meets few of them)"---Just at that moment, recollecting the discomfiture of Mr. Graves, his natural propensity to fun overcame his resentment, and he placed both his hands upon his sides, and burst into a broad laugh. The look of surprise which his wife and Mr. Collier glanced towards him, and the drollery which was peeping out of the corners of Sally's mouth, recalled him to decorum; and looking towards his daughter with an expression that seemed to say, "You'd no right to understand me," he passed his hand over his face and resumed, "I say, I am much in the dark whether she be implied in the covenant with us. It is not every child of a righteous man who is among the elect; nor is the offspring of the wicked always fore-ordained to damnation. If there be a good child in Jeroboam's family, he is specified; and if there be a cursed Ham among the children of Noah, he hath his brand."
"Well," Goodman Oldham, interrupted his guest, "it is not for us to tell who is among the elect, and who not, forasmuch as we cannot enter into the counsels of the Most High. And surely when the hearts of stout men grow faint in this enterprise, we need not marvel that women, and young women too, should betimes think of their hardships, and complain thereof. Jacob was regardful of the weakness of the women and little ones of his land."
"I'm sure I never murmured when worst came to worst," said Sally, as she glanced an eye of moist gratitude on her kind advocate.
"I tell you," said Mr. Oldham, without noticing her interruption, "you don't know as much about these weaker vessels as I do; and mayhap you feel concerning them as I used to in by-gone times. But I tell you they are the source of every evil that ever came into the world. I don't refer in special manner to that great tree of sin planted by Eve; but I say they are the individual cause of every branch and bud from that day downwards. I charge you enter not into their path, for destruction layeth wait therein."
"You are one of the last men who should say so," answered his companion, as he looked towards his care-worn and uncomplaining wife.
"She is as good as any of her kind, to be sure," said the rigid old man, as he took his tobacco from his mouth, and drank a hearty draught of cider from the stone mug; then replacing his tobacco, and drawing his sleeve across his mouth, he passed the beverage to Mr. Collier, as he said, "It is a long time since I have tasted the like of this. It's as good as was ever tipped over the tongue of king Charles, God help him, and Satan leave off helping the queen and his bishops. I'd fain stay and argue with you a bit, Mr. Collier, inasmuch as I've been told you are falling into some Antinomian notions; but I must go up to Governor Endicott's awhile, to see how the cattle are to be divided atween us; and I must stop to see a few of the poor sick souls about us. So if you want, you can draw more upon the cider, and may be my good woman will give you a bit of bread and cheese. We have plenty of provisions since the ships were sent hither, the Lord be thanked." So saying, the old man took down his hat from the wooden peg on which it always hung, and closed the door after him.
"Mr. Oldham is a strange talking man," observed his wife; "but he barks worse than he bites."
"I know his ways," answered Mr. Collier. "It is a pity he strikes fire so quick; but it proveth there is good metal in him. And now, Sally, I have a present for you," continued he, as he placed a letter in her hand, which she received with blushing curiosity, and read as follows:
"Deere Maidene,
"This comes to reminde you of one you sometime knew at Plimouth. One to whome the remembrance of your comely face and gratious behaviour, hath proved a very sweete savour. Many times I have thought to write to you, and straightnesse of time only hath prevented. There is much to doe at this seasone, and wee have reason to rejoyce, though with fier and trembling, that we have wherewithal to worke.
"Forasmuch as it is harde to saye unto a damsell, wilt thou bee my wife? I have chosene the rather to place it upon pure white paper, the embleme of your hearte. Which if you will pleese soe to answer, you will much oblige your dutyfull servante. For as Jacob loved Rachelle, and toyled many yeers for her, so loveth
Your trew freynde,
James Hopkins. "
Mrs. Oldham, with a slight tincture of the modern policy of mothers, had gone out to "neighbour Conant's," when Sally first began to read the foregoing; and luckily she was not there to witness the vexed and disappointed looks of her daughter.
"I suppose I know the writer," said Mr. Collier, smiling as she laid down the paper, "What answer shall I carry thereto?"
"It is from that screech-owl of a Hopkins, who used to be forever bawling Old Hundred in my ears," replied the maiden; "and you may say to him that I have much more kindness for his sheep than for him."
"Peradventure you are in sport," said her astonishished visitor. "You'll find few men in this wilderness of more respectability than my good friend Hopkins."
"Well, if he can find a Rachel, assuredly I have no objection to his toiling for her; but if I should be very near her, I should verily whisper in her ear to give him twice a fourteen years' tug."
"So you are really going to break poor James' heart?" inquired her friend, after a moment's pause.
"If so be there is such a thing as a heart in his big carcase of clay," rejoined the maiden, "I'm willing it should be shattered a bit."
"Poor fellow, what will he think of all this?" inquired the young man, thoughtfully.
"There's divers things he might think," answered the damsel, who began to be out of patience with his stupid modesty. "He might think, if he wanted a wife again, that she was worth the trouble of coming after; or peradventure he can send to king James' plantation and buy one, for a hundred pounds of tobacco. Think you that Isaac would have had good speed with the daughter of Bethuel, with all his jewels of silver and gold, if he had sent by so clever a messenger as yourself, John?"
If one might judge from the expression of the young man's face, he did at length begin to have a faint perception of the truth. An awkward silence followed, till Sally, struck with the ludicrous situation of them both, burst into her usual laugh. "I tell you what, Mr. Collier," said she, "to my thinking, you are the stupidest fellow I ever looked upon; and when you set out upon other men's business, I advise you to do it faithfully, but nevertheless to keep an eye upon your own."
The young man rested one hand upon his knee, turned his bright blue eyes and sun-burnt face towards her, and seemed lost in utter bewilderment.
"But,---hem---but what can I do?" said he.
"I know what you can do; but what you will do, is of your own choosing. I have heretofore told you what to say to Hopkins; and I now tell you, John Collier, if you had sent by him, instead of he by you, and my father had said to me, `wilt thou go unto this man?' I should verily have said, `I will go.' "
"And I," rejoined the Plymouth messenger, smiling as he rose and laid his hand upon her shoulder, "I would assuredly have come out to meet thee, and bring thee into my tent. But what perplexes me most is, how I am to account for this to my friend Hopkins and the church."
"You may tell James," replied she, "that you was blind, till I would put eyes into your head; and as for the church, it is enough for them to square and clip our consciences without putting a wedge atwixt folk's hearts."
"It is not well to give away to lightness of speech in speaking of the dignities of the church," observed her lover, "though I know well you mean no harm."
What farther passed between the young people, before the return of the family, is not specified in the manuscript; but an asterisk points to the bottom of the page, where it saith that "the matteer was made knowne to her parents, wherewithall they were welle pleased; more especially as they founde he was nott given to the dreadfull herese of the Antinomians."
Mr. and Mrs. Oldham returned shortly, at least it seemed so to those they had left behind. The old man replaced his hat upon its accustomed peg, drew to the fire his large oaken chair, the pride and ornament of his house, and, after a few discontented remarks about the intended division of the cattle, he took down the big Bible from the shelf, which had been nailed up on purpose for its reception, and read in a loud monotonous tone the 9th chapter of Romans. The prayer which followed was in somewhat too harsh and austere a tone for the voice christian entreaty, but in that rude place it was impressive in its solemn simplicity. The family devotions were concluded with the favourite tune of the great Reformer, in which the clear, rich, native melody of the daughter, contrasted finely with the deep, heavy bass of the father. Soon after, Sally and her mother closed the door which separated their humble little apartment from the outer room, leaving Mr. Oldham and his visitor to discourse about the Antinomians, Anabaptists, and sundry other sects, which even at that early period began to trouble the Seceding Church.