Hobomok/Chapter V

The light within enthusiasts, who let fly Against our pen-and-ink divinity; Who boldly do pretend, (but who'll believe it?) If Genesis were lost they could retrieve it.


 * Nicholas Noyles

During their solitary stay at Naumkeak, wasted as the young colony had been with sickness, famine, and fearful apprehension, the buoyant spirits and kind heart of Sally Oldham, had proved an almost solitary source of enjoyment to Mary Conant. True, there were few points of congeniality either in native character, or habitual tendency of mind. The nobler principles of the soul may long remain latent amid the depressing atmosphere of circumstance and situation; but the rich-toned instrument needs but a skillful hand to produce the finest combinations of harmony, and even to the rude touch of the winds, it will occasionally yield its sweet response of wayward melody. Indeed it seemed as if the chilling storms, which had lowered over the young life of Mary Conant, had not only served to call forth the fervid hues of feeling in their full perfection, but had likewise strengthened her native elegance of mind. The intellectual, like the natural sun, sheds its own bright and beautiful lustre on the surrounding gloom, till every object on which it shines seems glowing into life; and amid all the dreariness of poverty, and the weight of affliction (the heavier, that it was borne far from the knowledge and sympathy of the world), Mary found much to excite her native fervor of imagination. The stars were there, in their silent, sparkling beauty, and the fair-browed moon smiled on the hushed, still loveliness of nature. The monarch of day paused ere he gathered around him his brilliant drapery of clouds, and gazed on these wild dominions with as much pride as upon fairer and warmer climes. But all associations of this nature formed a "sanctum sanctorum" in the recesses of Mary's heart, and Sally Oldham was one of the last to penetrate it. She thought nothing of the stars but of their luckly or unlucky influences, viewed the moon as a well-favored planet, that had much to do with the weather, and saw nothing in the setting sun but a hint to do her out-door work. But whether the understanding finds reciprocation or not, the heart must have sympathy; and amid the depression of spirits, naturally induced by the declining health of her mother, and the disheartening influence of the stern, dark circle in which she moved, Mary found a welcome relief in unlocking all her hopes, fears, and disappointments to her untutored friend. Her usual placid state of feeling had been restored by the ample confession she had made concerning an action, which she more than half feared would call down the vengeance of Heaven upon her; and when Hobomok entered the room, after the excursion mentioned in the last chapter, she was quietly seated amid the circle, which had assembled at her father's house. It was indeed a scene of varied character. The mother and daughter, as we have already observed, possessed that indefinable outline of elegance, which is seldom entirely effaced from those of high birth and delicate education. In immediate contrast were the stern, hard features of Mr. Conant, and the singular countenance of Mr. Oldham, which reminded one of gleams of light through a grated window, for the deep furrows of passion, and the shadows of worldly disappointment, were in vain cast over its natural drollery of expression. Then there was the fine, bold expression of Governor Endicott, and the dolorous visage of Mr. Graves, which seemed constantly to say, "the earth is a tomb and man a fleeting vapour;' and lastly the manly beauty of Hobomok, as he sat before the fire, the flickering and uncertain light of a few decaying embers falling full upon his face. This Indian was indeed cast in nature's noblest mould. He was one of the finest specimens of elastic, vigorous elegance of proportion, to be found among his tribe. His long residence with the white inhabitants of Plymouth had changed his natural fierceness of manner into haughty, dignified reserve; and even that seemed softened as his dark, expressive eye rested on Conant's daughter.

"We have heard somewhat of an alliance between the Pequods and Narragansets," said Governor Endicott, as Hobomok seated himself. "What says Sagamore John concerning this matter?"

"He said it was a cloud gone by," was the laconic answer.

"And do you think the Pequods will ever prevail on them to join against us, Hobomok?"

"The quivers of the Pequod is full of arrows," replied the Indian; "his belt is the skin of a snake, and he suffers no grass to grow upon his war-path. He needs not the sinew of the Narraganset to draw the arrow to the head."

"When you were among the Narragansets what was their speech thereupon?" inquired the chief magistrate.

"Miantonimo called king Charles his good English father," answered Hobomok. "He wore not the belt of the Pequod, and his sachems smoked not the pipe of Sassacus. But that was a few sleeps ago. A man may tell the changes of the moon, but it is not so with the word of a Narraganset."

He rose as he said this, and stood for some moments at the aperture which admitted the light, gazing intently on the surrounding woods; but if there was any thing like anxiety in his mind, it was cautiously concealed from the view of others.

"Well," said Mr. Conant, interrupting the silence, "even if Massasoit joins himself unto them, we are strong in numbers and doubly strong in the Lord of Hosts."

"The sachem of Mount Haup is true as the course of the sun," rejoined the Indian, somewhat indignant that his friendship should be doubted. "If an arrow comes among us, it comes from Corbitant's quiver. But though the rattlesnake's death be on its feather, the wise man must aim it, and the Good Spirit must wing it to the mark. When you pray to the Englishman's God, he sends your corn drink, and you say he make the waters in two tribes, for the white man to pass through. Is he not bigger than the Pequods and the Mohegans, the Narragansets and the Tarateens?"

Without waiting for an answer, he took up the cap which lay on the floor beside him, and left the house.

"It is a shame on us that an Indian must teach us who is `our shield and our buckler," observed Mr. Conant. "To my mind there is more danger of Satan's killing us with the rat's-bane of toleration, than the Lord's taking us off with the Indian arrows. It behoveth the watchmen of Israel to be on their guard, for false prophets and false Christs are abroad in the land. `One saith he is in the desert, and another saith he is in the secret chambers;' and much reason have the elect to laud the God of Israel, that his right hand upholdeth them in slippery places."

"I am much in the dark whether you can clearly prove, from Scripture, that the elect are always upheld in slippery places," said Mr. Oldham. "What do you make of the falling off of Judas Iscariot?"

"What do I make of it, man? Why that he never was among the elect. Christ saith, "none of them have I lost but the son of perdition, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled."

"Why, Paul himself seems not to have been clear upon the subject," continued Mr. Oldham; "for he says, `lest when I have preached unto others, I should myself prove a cast-away.' And know you not that God's chosen people staid so long in Egypt that they forgot the name of Jehovah? And what with the brick bondage of spiritual Egypt on the one hand, and the flesh-pots on the other, I think there is much danger that the elect may so lose the sound of his voice, that they will not know it, when it calls them from the four winds of heaven."

"I have found by experience," said Governor Endicott, "that the more doubts we let in at the floodgate, the faster gripe Satan hath upon our souls. St. Augustine hath it, `Nullum malum pejus libertate errandi; ' and I believe he is in the right."

"I don't know any thing about your outlandish tongue," replied Mr. Oldham; "and, I mean no disrespect to your Honor, but I think it savors of Babylon to be calling on the name of this saint and that saint. I marvel when christians have turned the pope out of doors, they don't send his rags out of the window. To my thinking, the devil will send him back again after his duds, forasmuch as they are suffered to remain in the church."

"Augustine was a holy man," rejoined Governor Endicott; "though in many things, the Lord suffered him to remain in darkness. He it was, who left a burning coal upon the altar, wherewithal Calvin and Luther lighted up the great fire of the Reformation; a fire which burneth yet, and which will burn, until Babylon be consumed, with her robes and her mitres, her cross and her staff, her bishops and her prelates, her masses and her mummeries. Yea, let the disciples of the hell-born Loyola strive against it as they will. But as for St. Augustine, my friend, you'll acknowledge the spirit of the matter to be good, though it is clothed in outlandish dress, when I tell you that it meaneth, `there is no evil worse than the liberty of wandering."'

"There is much truth in that, no doubt," replied Mr. Graves; "but I maintain it is contrary to the declarations of Scripture, unless you can prove that it appertains to the unpardonable sin."

"St. Augustine probably wrote it without any especial reference to that passage," said the Governor. "And I maintain that it's popish blasphemy to write any thing without an especial reference to the declarations of Scripture," replied his antagonist, who seemed to stand on the battle ground of controversy, calling out, like Goliah, `Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me that I may fight him.' "And as for you, Mr. Oldham, if you have such doubts as you've been speaking of, it is because you have sinned yourself into them; and I marvel if it be not by the leaven of idle words, and levity of speech."

"God gave us laughter as well as reason, to my apprehension," rejoined Mr. Oldham, "Solomon saith, `there is a time for all things;' and the commentary that I put upon the text is, that there is a time to smoke a pipe and crack a joke, as well as to preach and pray."

"You know not what you say, nor whereof you affirm," answered Mr. Conant. "Recreation is no doubt good to oil the wheels as we travel along a rugged road; but a wise man will do as Jonathan, who only tasted a little honey on the end of his rod. As for that text of Solomon, it is a sort of flaming cherubim that turneth every way, and many a man hath it slain."

"I'm thinking at any rate," retorted Oldham, "that a scythe cuts the better, if a man stops to whet it atween whiles."

"That's true enough," replied he from the Isle of Wight, "but what would you say to see a man whetting his scythe the whole day instead of mowing? I tell you, Mr. Oldham, he that gives up, even for an hour; the blessed comforts of the gospel and the inward out-pouring of prayer, for the mere crackling thorns of worldly mirth, does but exchange his pearls for old iron."

"I think," interrupted Governor Endicott, "that there is much appertaining to error implied in the doctrine of inward outpouring. That egg was laid in the Netherlands, and if it be kept warm, I've a suspicion that the viper will hereafter spring out of its shell, and aim at the vitals of the church. It is a wandering meteor of human pride, and doth but serve to lead from the true light of revelation."

"Ah, it is a sad thing," observed Mr. Conant, "that before we have got the church of Christ well balanced, Satan, seeing the dominion of the beast going down in one quarter, straightway sendeth forth his ministers to and fro in the earth, and teacheth them to cry down Antichrist as much as the boldest of us, at the same time that they lead poor souls into more horrid blasphemies than the papist. These gross errors, broached in the dark, are sliding like the plague into the veins of the church; but in none of them the devil so plainly sheweth his horns, as in this doctrine of inward light."

"According to my notions," said Mr. Graves, scripture would be but a dead letter without inward light. I'm thinking a clock would be but a sorry thing, with its clever-figured face, if there was no wheel-work to set it agoing."

"Your comparison hath no savor of similitude," replied the Governor. "I grant there is a concealed life and spirit in the letter of the Bible; but God hath hidden it, and it is not for man to penetrate into the mysteries of godliness. The index of the clock sufficeth to do our daily work by, and is of no further use to him that knows the wheels which move it, than to him who never thought thereupon."

This probably would have paved the way for fresh controversy, had not the entrance of Hobomok interrupted the conversation. His appearance betrayed no marks of agitation, nor was any surprise excited when he stooped and spoke to the Governor, who immediately followed him out of the room. As soon as they were out of hearing, Hobomok told him his suspicions of Corbitant, and added that he was certain there were a number of Indians in ambush in the woods below. The chief magistrate determined at once that a company should be collected silently and speedily. Hobomok was deputed to give orders to several individuals to proceed to his house with as little appearance of alarm as possible; and the Indian set forth upon the expedition; first requesting the Governor not to lose sight of Mr. Conant's house. When Governor Endicott returned to the company he had left, he stated the fears of their Indian friend as gently as possible; but cautiously as they were told, it proved too much for the weak nerves of Mrs. Conant. Since her residence in the wilderness, alarms of this kind had been frequent, and she had borne them with fortitude; but now the body weighed down the firmness of the soul; and her husband was obliged to leave his fainting wife to the care of her daughter, with an assurance that their safety should be cared for. They were indeed well protected; for Hobomok, the moment his errands were hastily delivered, had returned to guard them with the quick eye of love, and the ready arm of hatred.

The company so suddenly collected, pursued a circuitous rout, and came at once upon the unguarded enemy. The band which they discovered consisted of twenty Indians, most of whom were petty sachems of Massasoit, who had been wrought upon by the eloquence of Corbitant, for the purpose of setting fire to Mr. Conant's house, and murdering the inhabitants, if possible.

From his own account, it seemed that Mr. Conant's quotation with regard to the arrows being broken at Salem, had been construed by Corbitant into a defiance of the neighbouring tribes; and that he had taken this step to revenge the insult; however, it is probable that the blow was aimed, through them, at the heart of Hobomok. Ambush and stratagem are the pride of Indian warfare, and now that their designs were so completely traversed, they attempted no resistance. The captives were placed in an enclosed piece of public land, and a guard of thirty men set over them. Mr. Conant returned to his family, and Mary, inured to such occurrences, slept peacefully within their humble dwelling, unconscious that Hobomok watched it the livelong night, with eyes that knew no slumber. Every man saw that his gun was loaded and his pistols within reach; and at midnight nothing was seen in motion but the sentinels, as they passed backward and forward, their arms gleaming in the moon.