Dulcibel: A Tale of Old Salem

  CHAPTER I.

  Dulcibel Burton.

  In the afternoon of a sunny Autumn day, nearly two hundred years ago, ayoung man was walking along one of the newly opened roads which led intoSalem village, or what is now called Danvers Centre, in the thenProvince of Massachusetts Bay.

  The town of Salem, that which is now the widely known city of that name,lay between four and five miles to the southeast, on a tongue of landformed by two inlets of the sea, called now as then North and SouthRivers. Next to Plymouth it is the oldest town in New England, havingbeen first settled in 1626. Not till three years after were Boston andCharlestown commenced by the arrival of eleven ships from England. It isa significant fact, as showing the hardships to which the early settlerswere exposed, that of the fifteen hundred persons composing this Bostonexpedition, two hundred died during the first winter. Salem has also thehonor of establishing the first New England church organization, in1629, with the Reverend Francis Higginson as its pastor.

  Salem village was an adjunct of Salem, the town taking in the adjacentlands for the purpose of tillage to a distance of six miles from themeeting-house. But in the progress of settlement, Salem village alsobecame entitled to a church of its own; and it had one regularlyestablished at the date of our story, with the Reverend Samuel Parris aspresiding elder or minister.

  There had been many bickerings and disputes before a minister could befound acceptable to all in Salem village. And the present minister wasby no means a universal favorite. The principal point of contention onhis part was the parsonage and its adjacent two acres of ground. MasterParris claimed that the church had voted him a free gift of these; whilehis opponents not only denied that it had been done, but that itlawfully could be done. This latter view was undoubtedly correct; forthe parsonage land was a gift to the church, for the perpetual use ofits pastor, whosoever he might be. But Master Parris would not listen toreason on this subject, and was not inclined to look kindly upon the menwho steadfastly opposed him.

  The inhabitants of Salem village were a goodly as well as godly people,but owing to these church differences about their ministers, as well asother disputes and lawsuits relative to the bounds of their respectiveproperties, there was no little amount of ill feeling among them. Smallcauses in a village are just as effective as larger ones in a nation, inproducing discord and strife; and the Puritans as a people weredistinguished by all that determination to insist upon their rights, andthat scorn of compromising difficulties, which men of earnest and honestbut narrow natures have manifested in all ages of the world. Selfishnessand uncharitableness are never so dangerous as when they assume thecharacter of a conscientious devotion to the just and the true.

  But all this time the young man has been walking almost due north fromthe meeting house in Salem village.

  The road was not what would be called a good one in these days, for itwas not much more than a bridle-path; the riding being generally at thattime on horseback. But it was not the rather broken and uneven conditionof the path which caused the frown on the young pedestrian's face, orthe irritability shown by the sharp slashes of the maple switch in hishand upon the aspiring weeds along the roadside.

  "If ever mortal man was so bothered," he muttered at last, coming to astop. "Of course she is the best match, the other is below me, and has aspice of Satan in her; but then she makes the blood stir in a man. Ha!"

  This exclamation came as he lifted his eyes from the ground, and gazedup the road before him. There, about half a mile distant, was a youngwoman riding toward him. Then she stopped her horse under a tree, andevidently was trying to break off a switch, while her horse prancedaround in a most excited fashion. The horse at last starts in a rapidgallop. The young man sees that in trying to get the switch, she hasallowed the bridle to get loose and over the horse's head, and can nolonger control the fiery animal. Down the road towards him she comes ina sharp gallop, striving to stop the animal with her voice, evidentlynot the least frightened, but holding on to the pommel of the saddlewith one hand while she makes desperate grasps at the hanging rein withthe other.

  The young Puritan smiled, he took in the situation with a glance, andfelt no fear for her but rather amusement. He was on the top of a steephill, and he knew he could easily stop the horse as it came up; even ifshe did not succeed in regaining her bridle, owing to the better chancesthe hill gave her.

  "She is plucky, anyhow, if she is rather a tame wench," said he, as thegirl grasped the bridle rein at last, when about half way up the hill,and became again mistress of the blooded creature beneath her.

  "Is that the way you generally ride, Dulcibel?" asked the young mansmiling.

  "It all comes from starting without my riding whip," replied the girl."Oh, do stop!" she continued to the horse who now on the level again,began sidling and curveting.

  "Give me that switch of yours, Jethro. Now, you shall see a miracle."

  No sooner was the switch in her hand, than the aspect and behavior ofthe animal changed as if by magic. You might have thought the littlemare had been raised in the enclosure of a Quaker meeting-house, sosober and docile did she seem.

  "It is always so," said the girl laughing. "The little witch knows atonce whether I have a whip with me or not, and acts accordingly. No, Iwill not forgive you," and she gave the horse two or three sharp cuts,which it took like a martyr. "Oh, I wish you would misbehave a littlenow; I should like to punish you severely."

  They made a very pretty picture, the little jet-black mare, and themistress with her scarlet paragon bodice, even if the latter wasentirely too pronounced for the taste of the great majority of theinhabitants, young and old, of Salem village.

  "But how do you happen to be here?" said the girl.

  "I called to see you, and found you had gone on a visit to JosephPutnam's. So I thought I would walk up the road and meet you comingback."

  "What a sweet creature Mistress Putnam is, and both so young for man andwife."

  "Yes, Jo married early, but he is big enough and strong enough, don'tyou think so?"

  "He is a worshiped man indeed. Have you met the stranger yet?"

  "That Ellis Raymond? No, but I hear he is something of a popinjay in hisattire, and swelled up with the conceit that he is better than any of uscolonists."

  "I do not think so," and the girl's cheek colored a deeper red. "Heseems to be a very modest young man indeed. I liked him very much."

  "Oh, well, I have not seen him yet. But they say his father was a son ofBelial, and fought under the tyrant at Naseby."

  "But that is all over and his widowed mother is one of us."

  "Hang him, what does it matter!" Then, changing his tone, and looking ather a little suspiciously. "Did Leah Herrick say anything to you againstme the other night at the husking?"

  "I do not allow people to talk to me against my friends," replied sheearnestly.

  "She was talking to you a long time I saw."

  "Yes."

  "It must have been an interesting subject."

  "It was rather an unpleasant one to me."

  "Ah!"

  "She wanted me to join the 'circle' which they have just started at theminister's house. She says that old Tituba has promised to show them howthe Indians of Barbados conjure and powwow, and that it will be greatsport for the winter nights."

  "What did you say to it?"

  "I told her I would have nothing to do with such things; that I had noliking for them, and that I thought it was wrong to tamper with suchmatters."

  "That was all she said to you?" and the young man seemed to breathe morefreely.

  The girl was sharp-witted--what girl is not so in all affairs of theheart?--and it was now her turn. "Leah is very handsome," she said.

  "Yes--everybody says so," he replied coolly, as if it were a fact ofvery little importance to him, and a matter which he had thought verylittle about.

  Dulcibel, was not one to aim all around the remark; she came at once,simply and directly to the point.

  "Did y
ou ever pay her any attentions?"

  "Oh, no, not to speak of. What made you think of such an absurd thing?"

  "'Not to speak of'--what do you mean?"

  "Oh, I kept company with her for awhile--before you came to Salem--whenwe were merely boy and girl."

  "There never was any troth plighted between you?"

  "How foolish you are, Dulcibel! What has started you off on thistrack?"

  "Yourself. Answer me plainly. Was there ever any love compact betweenyou?"

  "Oh, pshaw! what nonsense all this is!"

  "If you do not answer me, I shall ask her this very evening."

  "Of course there was nothing between us--nothing of any account--only aboy and girl affair--calling her my little wife, and that kind ofnonsense."

  "I think that a great deal. Did that continue up to the time I came tothe village?"

  "How seriously you take it all! Remember, I have your promise,Dulcibel."

  "A promise on a promise is no promise--every girl knows that. If you donot answer me fully and truly, Jethro, I shall ask Leah."

  "Yes," said the young man desperately "there was a kind of childishtroth up to that time, but it was, as I said, a mere boy and girlaffair."

  "Boy and girl! You were eighteen, Jethro; and she sixteen nearly as oldas Joseph Putnam and his wife were when they married."

  "I do not care. I will not be bound by it; and Leah knows it."

  "You acted unfairly toward me, Jethro. Leah has the prior right. Irecall my troth. I will not marry you without her consent."

  "You will not!" said the young man passionately--for well he knew thatLeah's consent would never be given.

  "No, I will not!"

  "Then take your troth back in welcome. In truth, I met you here this dayto tell you that. I love Leah Herrick's little finger better than yourwhole body with your Jezebel's bodice, and your fine lady's airs. Youhad better go now and marry that conceited popinjay up at Jo Putnam's,if you can get him."

  With that he pushed off down the hill, and up the road, that he mightnot be forced to accompany her back to the village.

  Dulcibel was not prepared for such a burst of wrath, and such anuncovering of the heart. Which of us has not been struck with wonder,even far more than indignation, at such times? A sudden differenceoccurs, and the man or the woman in whom you have had faith, and whomyou have believed noble and admirable, suddenly appears what he or shereally is, a very common and vulgar nature. It makes us sick at heartthat we could have been so deceived.

  Such was the effect upon Dulcibel. What a chasm she had escaped. Tothink she had really agreed to marry such a spirit as that! Butfortunately it was now all over.

  She not only had lost a lover, but a friend. And one day before, thisalso would have had its unpleasant side to her. But now she felt even asensation of relief. Was it because this very day a new vision hadentered into the charmed circle of her life? If it were so, she did notacknowledge the fact to herself; or even wonder in her own mind, why thesudden breaking of her troth-plight had not left her in a sadder humor.For she put "Little Witch" into a brisk canter, and with a smile uponher face rode into the main street of the village.