Silence, and other stories

At dusk Silence went down the Deerfield street to Ensign John Sheldon’s house. She wore her red blanket over her head, pinned closely under her chin, and her white profile showed whiter between the scarlet folds. She had been spinning all day, and shreds of wool still clung to her indigo petticoat; now and then one floated off on the north wind. It was bitter cold, and the snow was four feet deep. Silence’s breath went before her in a cloud; the snow creaked under her feet. All over the village the crust was so firm that men could walk upon it. The houses were half sunken in sharp, rigid drifts of snow; their roofs were laden with it; icicles hung from the eaves. All the elms were white with snow frozen to them so strongly that it was not shaken off when they were lashed by the fierce wind.

There was an odor of boiling meal in the air; the housewives were preparing supper. Silence had eaten hers; she and her aunt, Widow Eunice Bishop, supped early. She had not far to go to Ensign Sheldon’s. She was nearly there when she heard quick footsteps on the creaking snow behind her. Her heart beat quickly, but she did not look around. “Silence,” said a voice. Then she paused, and waited, with her eyes cast down and her mouth grave, until David Walcott reached her. “What do you out this cold night, sweetheart?” he said.

“I am going down to Goodwife Sheldon’s,” replied Silence. Then suddenly she cried out, wildly: “Oh, David, what is that on your cloak? What is it?”

David looked curiously at his cloak. “I see naught on my cloak save old weather stains,” said he. “What mean you, Silence?”

Silence quieted down suddenly. “It is gone now,” said she, in a subdued voice.

“What did you see, Silence?”

Silence turned towards him; her face quivered convulsively. “I saw a blotch of blood,” she cried. “I have been seeing them everywhere all day. I have seen them on the snow as I came along.”

David Walcott looked down at her in a bewildered way. He carried his musket over his shoulder, and was shrugged up in his cloak; his heavy, flaxen mustache was stiff and white with frost. He had just been relieved from his post as sentry, and it was no child’s play to patrol Deerfield village on a day like that, nor had it been for many previous days. The weather had been so severe that even the French and Indians, lurking like hungry wolves in the neighborhood, had hesitated to descend upon the town, and had stayed in camp.

“What mean you, Silence?” he said.

“What I say,” returned Silence, in a strained voice. “I have seen blotches of blood everywhere all day. The enemy will be upon us.”

David laughed loudly, and Silence caught his arm. “Don’t laugh so loud,” she whispered. Then David laughed again. “You be all overwrought, sweetheart,” said he. “I have kept guard all the afternoon by the northern palisades, and I have seen not so much as a red fox on the meadow. I tell thee the French and Indians have gone back to Canada. There is no more need of fear.”

“I have started all day and all last night at the sound of warwhoops,” said Silence.

“Thy head is nigh turned with these troublous times, poor lass. We must cross the road now to Ensign Sheldon’s house. Come quickly, or you will perish in this cold.”

“Nay, my head is not turned,” said Silence, as they hurried on over the crust; “the enemy be hiding in the forests beyond the meadows. David, they be not gone.”

“And I tell thee they be gone, sweetheart. Think you not we should have seen their camp smoke had they been there? And we have had trusty scouts out. Come in, and my aunt, Hannah Sheldon, shall talk thee out of this folly.”

The front windows of John Sheldon’s house were all flickering red from the hearth fire. David flung open the door, and they entered. There was such a goodly blaze from the great logs in the wide fireplace that even the shadows in the remote corners of the large keeping-room were dusky red, and the faces of all the people in the room had a clear red glow upon them.

Goodwife Hannah Sheldon stood before the fire, stirring some porridge in a great pot that hung on the crane; some fair-haired children sat around a basket shelling corn, a slight young girl in a snuff-yellow gown was spinning, and an old woman in a quilted hood crouched in a corner of the fireplace, holding out her lean hands to the heat.

Goodwife Sheldon turned around when the door opened. “Good-day, Mistress Silence Hoit,” she called out, and her voice was sweet, but deep like a man’s. “Draw near to the fire, for in truth you must be near perishing with the cold.”

“There’ll be fire enough ere morning, I trow, to warm the whole township,” said the old woman in the corner. Her small black eyes gleamed sharply out of the gloom of her great hood; her yellow face was all drawn and puckered towards the centre of her shrewdly leering mouth.

“Now you hush your croaking, Goody Crane,” cried Hannah Sheldon. “Draw the stool near to the fire for Silence, David. I cannot stop stirring, or the porridge will burn. How fares your aunt this cold weather, Silence?”

“Well, except for her rheumatism,” replied Silence. She sat down on the stool that David placed for her, and slipped her blanket back from her head. Her beautiful face, full of a grave and delicate stateliness, drooped towards the fire, her smooth fair hair was folded in clear curves like the leaves of a lily around her ears, and she wore a high, transparent, tortoise-shell comb like a coronet in the knot at the back of her head.

David Walcott had pulled off his cap and cloak, and stood looking down at her. “Silence is all overwrought by this talk of Indians,” he remarked, presently, and a blush came over his weather-beaten blond face at the tenderness in his own tone.

“The Indians have gone back to Canada,” said Goodwife Sheldon, in a magisterial voice. She stirred the porridge faster; it was steaming fiercely.

“So I tell her,” said David.

Silence looked up in Hannah Sheldon’s sober, masterly face. “Goodwife, may I have a word in private with you?” she asked, in a half-whisper.

“As soon as I take the porridge off,” replied Goodwife Sheldon.

“God grant it be not the last time she takes the porridge off!” said the old woman.

Hannah Sheldon laughed. “Here be Goody Crane in a sorry mind to-night,” said she. “Wait till she have a sup of this good porridge, and I trow she’ll pack off the Indians to Canada in a half-hour!”

Hannah began dipping out the porridge. When she had placed generous dishes of it on the table and bidden everybody draw up, she motioned to Silence. “Now, Mistress Silence,” said she, “come into the bedroom if you would have a word with me.”

Silence followed her into the little north room opening out of the keeping-room, where Ensign John Sheldon and his wife Hannah had slept for many years. It was icy cold, and the thick fur of frost on the little window-panes sent out sparkles in the candle-light. The two women stood beside the great chintz draped and canopied bed, Hannah holding the flaring candle. “Now, what is it?” said she.

“Oh, Goodwife Sheldon!” said Silence. Her face remained quite still, but it was as if one could see her soul fluttering beneath it.

“You be all overwrought, as David saith,” cried Goodwife Sheldon, and her voice had a motherly harshness in it. Silence had no mother, and her lover, David Walcott, had none. Hannah was his aunt, and loved him like her son, so she felt towards Silence as towards her son’s betrothed.

“In truth I know not what it is,” said Silence, in a kind of reserved terror, “but there has been all day a great heaviness of spirit upon me, and last night I dreamed. All day I have fancied I saw blood here and there. Sometimes, when I have looked out of the window, the whole snow hath suddenly glared with red. Goodwife Sheldon, think you the Indians and the French have in truth gone back to Canada?”

Goodwife Sheldon hesitated a moment, then she spoke up cheerily. “In truth have they!” cried she. “John said but this noon that naught of them had been seen for some time.”

“So David said,” returned Silence; “but this heaviness will not be driven away. You know how Parson Williams hath spoken in warning in the pulpit and elsewhere, and besought us to be vigilant. He holdeth that the savages be not gone.”

Hannah Sheldon smiled. “Parson Williams is a godly man, but prone ever to look upon the dark side,” said she.

“If the Indians should come to-night--” said Silence.

“I tell ye they will not come, child. I shall lay me down in that bed a-trusting in the Lord, and having no fear against the time I shall arise from it.”

“If the Indians should come-- Goodwife Sheldon, be not angered; hear me. If they should come, I pray you keep David here to defend you in this house, and let him not out to seek me. You know well that our house is musket-proof as well as this, and it has long been agreed that they who live nearest, whose houses have not thick walls, shall come to ours and help us make defence. I pray you let not David out of the house to seek me, should there be a surprise to-night. I pray you give me your promise for this, Goodwife Sheldon.”

Hannah Sheldon laughed. “In truth will I give thee the promise, if it makes thee easier, child,” said she. “At the very first war-screech will I tie David in the chimney-corner with my apron-string, unless you lend me yours. But there will be no war-screech to-night, nor to-morrow night, nor the night after that. The Lord will preserve His people that trust in Him. To-day have I set a web of linen in the loom, and I have candles ready to dip to-morrow, and the day after that I have a quilting. I look not for Indians. If they come I will set them to work. Fear not for David, sweetheart. In truth you should have a bolder heart, an’ you look to be a soldier’s wife some day.”