The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

This rapid chapter of the expulsion of the 'Huguenots,' or 'Protestants,' or 'Refugees,' from their native land, with their settlement in England and Holland, seem necessary for a better understanding of our subject. Thence, they emigrated to America, and it is our object to collect something concerning their origin and descendants among us. The Huguenots of America is a volume which still remains fully and correctly to be written. This is a period when increased attention and study are directed to historical subjects, and we gladly will contribute what mite we may possess to the important object.

THE BLACK WITCH

'A witch,' according to my nurse's account, 'must be a haggard old woman, living in a little rotten cottage under a hill by a wood-side, and must be frequently spinning by the door; she must have a black cat, two or three broom-sticks, and must be herself of so dry a nature, that if you fling her into a river she will not sink: so hard then is her fate, that, if she is to undergo the trial, if she does not drown she must be burnt, as many have been within the memory of man.'

ROUND ABOUT OUR COAL FIRE

In a bustling New England village there lived, not many years ago, a poor, infirm, deformed little old woman, who was known to the middle-aged people living there and thereabout as 'Aunt Hannah.' The younger members of the little community had added another and very odious title to the 'Aunt'—they called her 'Aunt Hannah, the Black Witch.' Not that she was of negro blood. Her pale, pinched and patient face was white as the face of a corpse; so, also, was her thin hair, combed smoothly down under the plain cap she always wore. Very white indeed she was, as to face, and hair, and cap, but otherwise she was all and always black, especially so as regarded an ugly pair of gloves, which were never removed from her hands, so far as the youngsters were aware, and which added to the fearfully mysterious aspect of those members. Exactly what they covered, the children never knew, but they saw that one hideous glove enclosed something like a gigantic, withered bird's claw, while within the other there musts have been a repulsive and horrid knob, without proper form, and lacking any remotest attempt at thumb and fingers.

These shapeless members, forever covered from the world, wrought fearful images in the minds of the children, and their youthful imaginations conjured up all sorts of uses to which such strange members might be applied. Upon one point they were agreed. There was no doubt in any little head among them that Aunt Hannah had at some time sold herself to Satan, and that he had placed this deformity upon her as a mark of ownership. Then she had a humped back, poor woman, the result of the cruel weight of many weary years; and she leaned upon an old-fashioned staff with a curved and crutch-like handle; and her bleared eyes were bent forever on the ground; and her thin lips twitched convulsively, and she muttered to herself as she crawled about the village streets; and it was said by those who knew, that she was nearly a hundred years of age. So the youngsters called her the 'Black Witch,' and sometimes hooted after her in the streets, or hobbled on before her with bowed heads and ridiculous affectation of infirmity. Thanks to her evil name, none of them ever ventured to actually assault the poor old creature, and their taunts she bore with patient meekness, going ever quietly upon her accustomed, peaceful way.

The older villagers regarded her with a pity that was half pity and half disgust. Those fearful hands they never could forget, nor the bowed figure, nor the strange working of the lips. Therefore, they held her in a sort of dreading, but still her lonely life, and her patient, uncomplaining spirit, moved their hearts. Then a vague tradition—nothing more, for neither kith nor kin had ancient Hannah—a vague tradition said that she had once been very beautiful; that when she was in her fresh and lovely youth, some strange misfortune had fallen upon her, and that she had worn since then—most innocently—the mark of a direful tragedy. One lady, old, nearly, as Aunt Hannah, but upon whom there had never fallen any blight of poverty or wrong, loved the poor creature well, and she only, of all the inhabitants of the village, frequently entered the cottage where the 'Black Witch' dwelt. This lady, it was said, had known her when both were young, and carried forever locked in her heart the story of that saddened youth. None called good Mrs. Marjoram a witch. Her face was clear, her smile bright, her eyes sparkling, and she bore her years with an upright and cheerful carriage.

The little, one-storied house where Aunt Hannah dwelt was situated in a hollow just out of the village, in the shadow of a grove of tangled hemlocks and pines. It consisted of two rooms only, with an unfinished attic overhead; and before her door the poor old soul might be seen any pleasant day, sitting meekly in the sun. She could neither knit nor sew as other old women do, but she sat there waiting patiently for the time when her kind Father should call her home, to lose forever the blackness that clung to her in this weary world.

She did not live here entirely alone, for, true to the universal reputation of witches, she kept, not one cat only, but several; all black cats, too. It was the only fancy she indulged in, the only luxury she allowed herself, and it was sad that this harmless freak should cost her so many taunts. Sometimes the boys tried to kill her cats, aided in the murderous attempt by the village dogs, but no dog ever came back scatheless from those sharp and spiteful claws. Hence the boys were certain as to the witchcraft, and 'knew' that these savage animals were true imps of Satan.

This weak and defenceless creature, living thus apart from human companionship, was supported on a small annuity, paid her quarterly by a very honest company, that would have been ruined with many such venerable clients. On pleasant days she crept about the town to do her meagre marketing, or crawled to the paupers' pew in the old brick meeting-house. During the warm summer weather her scant life was somewhat cheered, and a faint attempt at joyousness sometimes winked in her old eyes, but with the winter's cold came the cruel cramps and rheumatism, the sleepless nights and painful days. Then Mrs. Marjoram frequently drove to her door, carrying medicines and nourishing food,—over and above all, bringing cheerful words and a warm and hearty smile.

One winter Mrs. Marjoram was taken ill, and, being so very old, her life was despaired of. During this sickness there came a great fall of snow, piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to another that Aunt Hannah must be buried alive!

Buried alive? The men, suddenly summoned from their business or their leisure, hardly thought that possible in the deep hollow, filled nearly to the level with heavily packed and frozen snow.

Men walked out on the firm crust till they were directly over the spot where, full twenty feet below, stood Aunt Hannah's little house. And they shook their heads mournfully at the sickening thought of what must lie below them.

It was a good day's work for twenty men to open a gradually descending way to the lonely house,—a good day's work; so that when they reached the door—finding it locked inside—they sent back to the village for lanterns and candles before bursting it in.

The sight that startled and horrified them after they had forced the door, they never liked to speak of. The sounds from the furious, spitting and snarling cats they never forgot.

Her disfigured and mutilated remains were decently interred, and when the spring-time carried away the snow, they leveled the house with the ground. But, though they buried her out of their sight and pulled down the rotten cottage she had inhabited for so many weary years, the fearful memory of her evil name and dreadful end remained, and nearly all the village came to regard her as, in very truth, a witch.

Only Mrs. Marjoram took from the cottage with pious love an ancient and much-thumbed book, on whose fly-leaf was written 'Jason Fletcher, His Bible.' Then, having no longer any reason to conceal the early history of the deceased, she related to the village gossips—as a warning against trusting too fully to evil appearances—the following

STORY OF POOR HANNAH LEE

A long time ago—before the middle of the last century, in fact—there dwelt in one of the most flourishing towns in Western Massachusetts a family of Puritan extraction named Fletcher. Straitest among the strict, John Cotton Fletcher and his wife Mehitabel held all lightness of conduct or gamesomeness of speech as sin most devoutly to be prayed and striven against, and not only 'kept' the ten commandments with pious zeal, but, for the better serving of the Lord, invented an eleventh, which read 'Laugh not at all.' Holy days they knew, in number during the year fifty-four, namely, the fifty-two 'Sabbaths' and the governor's Fast and Thanksgiving days; holidays they held in utter abhorrence, deeming Christmas, especially, an invention of the devil. On 'work-days' they worked; on 'Sabbath-days' they attended the preaching of the word; otherwise, on the Lord's day, doing nothing save to eat and drink what was absolutely necessary to keep them from faintness. They lived to praise the Lord, and they must eat to live. But no cooking or other labor was done on that day, and if the old horse was saddled to carry them to meeting it was because that was a work of necessity. On Fast and Thanksgiving days—because they were peculiarly of Puritan origin—there was an especial effort at godliness, and woe, then, to any profaning youngster who dared to shout or play within sound or sight of Deacon Fletcher's premises. Every Saturday night, at sunset, all tools for men and playthings for children were put away, to be disturbed no more till sunset on Sunday. All papers, books, knitting-work, sewing, were disposed of 'out of the way.' It was necessary to milk the cows, feed the pigs, and saddle the horse, but that was all the work that was allowed. As to any jest on any holy day, that was, beyond all other things, most abhorrent to their ideas of Christian duty. Life with them was a continued strife against sin, cheered only by the hope of casting off all earthly trammels at last, to enter upon one long, never-ending Sabbath. And their Sabbath of idleness was more dreary than their 'week-day' of work.

Yet were they an humble, honest, and upright pair, walking purely before God according to the light they had, and as highly respected and honored in the community, that the fiat of the minister himself—and in those days the minister's word was 'law and gospel' in the smaller New England villages—was hardly more potent than that of Deacon Fletcher.

To this couple was born one son, and one only. Much as they mourned when they saw their neighbors adding almost yearly to their groups of olive branches, the Lord in his wisdom vouchsafed to them only this one child, and they bowed meekly to the providence and tried to be content. Why his father named the boy 'Jason,' no one could rightly tell; perhaps because the fleece of his flocks had been truly fleece of gold to him; at all events, thus was the child named, and in the strict rule of this Christian couple was Jason reared.

It would be sad as well as useless to tell of the dreary winter-Sundays in the cold meeting-house (it was thought a wicked weakness to have a fire in a church then) through which he shivered and froze; of the fearful sitting in the corner after the two-hours sermons and the thirty-minutes prayers were done; of the utter absence of all cheerful themes or thoughts on the holy days which they so straitly remembered to keep; of the visions of sudden death, and the bottomless pit thereafter, which haunted the child through long nights; of the sighing for green fields and the singing of birds, on some summer Sundays, when the sun was warm and the sky was fair; and the clapping of the old-fashioned wooden seats, as the congregation rose to pray or praise, was sweeter music than the blacksmith made who 'led the singing' through his nose. It would be a dreary task to follow the boy through all this youthful misery, and so I will let it pass. Doubtless all these things brought forth their fruits when his day of freedom came. He was a large-framed, full-blooded boy, with more than the usual allowance of animal spirits. But his father was larger framed and tougher, and in his occasional contests with his son victory naturally perched upon his banners, so that the boy's spirit (which rebelled alway against the iron rule of the household), if not broken down, was certainly so far kept under that it rarely showed itself. It was a slumbering volcano, ready, when it reached its strength, to pour out burning lava of passion and evil-doing.

Thus the boy grew up almost to manhood, with very few rays of sunshine cast over his early path to look back upon when he should Teach the middle eminence of life. And the gloom of the present cheerless and austere way caused him to look forward with the more rapture to that time, when, with his twenty-first birth-day, should come the power to do as he pleased with himself: with his hours of labor and of ease, with his Sabbath-days and his work-days.

A little before the time when big majority was to come and set him partially free—for then, according to the good old Puritan custom, he would have his 'freedom-suit,' and probably a few hundred dollars and a horse, and might remain with his father or go elsewhere—there fell across Jason's path a sweet gleam of golden sunshine, such as he had never known before, nor ever dreamed of. When he was in his twenty-first year, his father, the Deacon,—being urged thereto by the failing health of his overtasked wife,—adopted as half daughter, half serving maid, a beautiful and friendless girl, who might otherwise have gone to ruin. Her name was plain Hannah Lee. No name can be imagined too liquid, sweet and voluptuous in its sound to typify her loveliness. It was not strange, therefore, that she had not been long in the house before Jason Fletcher, hitherto deprived of much cheerful female society, felt stealing over him a new and strange excitement of mingled joy and wonder. It is trite and tame to say that for him there came new flowers in all the fields and by all the road-sides, and a hitherto unknown fragrance in the balmy air; rosier colors to the sunset, softer tints to the yellow gray east at dawn, brighter sparkle to the brooks, breezier glories to the mountain-tops; but, doubtless, this was strictly true, as it has been many times before and since to many other men, but scarce ever accompanied by so great and complete a change.

His father might have expected it, and his mother have reckoned upon it, but no thought of love in connection with their quiet and awkward son ever entered into their minds, and so they put this sweet creature into the youth's way, not reflecting that only one result—on his side, at least—could follow.

They kept no watch upon the pair, and knew not of the many meetings, accidental, apparently, even to themselves, that took place between the innocent youth and girl. It needs no reading of light books to make a successful lover, nor grace, nor elegant carriage; and Nature points the way to the most modest and untrained wooer. So, without a word having been spoken on the subject, nor any caress exchanged, except, perhaps, an occasional momentarily clasped hand, or the necessary and proper contact, when Hannah rode, sometimes, behind Jason on the pillion (one arm around him to keep her in her seat), they became lovers, and none the less so that they had given no verbal or labial utterance to their loves.

And the summer flew by on wings of the fleetest, and Jason's twenty-first birth-day approached.

It fell this year upon a Sunday. The family had 'been to meeting' all the day as usual, no reference being made to the fact that the youth was now 'free.' (His father had said to him, as they milked the cows on Saturday night, 'We will put by your "Freedom Day" till Monday.') But all day Jason had walked, and thought, and eaten, and drunk, not to the glory of the Lord, as his father and mother piously believed they did, but to the glory of himself—no longer a child, but a man!

It lacked a full half hour to sunset, and there was no cooler resting place that warm summer afternoon than beneath the shade of a thick-leaved grape-vine that overspread a stunted pear tree some little distance in the rear of the house. Hannah, with her natural love for pleasant things and places, had induced Jason, some time before, to make a seat for her in this charming spot. It was quite out of sight from the house, and the little bower the vine made could be entered only from one side. In this bower Hannah sat this sunny afternoon, wondering if it would change Jason very much to be a boy no longer, and devoutly praying in the depths of her pure little heart that it would not.

She sat, half sadly, and not very distinctly, dreaming over this problem, when the shade was deepened, and, looking up, she was aware that Jason stood at the entrance to the arbor. Her heart stopped beating for half a moment, and she felt quite faint and sick. Then she said, with a smile, half sad, half jocose, 'You are a man now, Jason, are you not?'

There was room for two on the seat, and she moved a little toward the further end as she spoke.

'I am a man to-day, Hannah,' he said. 'Father wants to keep me boy till to-morrow, because this is the Lord's day, and I suppose it is wicked to be a man on Sunday. To-morrow I shall go away from here, and not come back for a long, long time.' His voice trembled, and sounded very cold and sad.

Hannah put her two elbows on her knees, rested her face in her hands, and uttered a little, low, wailing cry, most painful to hear.

Then Jason seated himself beside her, put his arms about her, and, raising her gently up, kissed her on the cheek. He had never before kissed any woman save his mother.

'When I come back,' he said, 'I will marry you, if you love me, and then we will always live together.'

The little maid dried her eyes, and a look sweet and calm, such as, perhaps, the angels wear, stole over her innocent face.

'Oh, do you love me so? Will you?' she said.

'So help me God, I will,' he said.

Then she put her arms about his neck, and lifting up her innocent face to his, gave him her heart in one long kiss.

(Just then a light foot, passing toward the house from a neighbor's, paused at the arbor door, all unknown to those within, and little Martha Hopkins, the neighbor's daughter and Hannah's special pet, looked in upon them for a moment. Then she sped quickly to Deacon Fletcher's house, and burst, all excitement, into the kitchen.)

'Will you wait for me, Hannah, darling,' said Jason, 'all the time it may take me to get ready for a wife, and never love any other man, nor let any other man love you? Never forget me, for years and years, perhaps, till I come back for you? Will you always remember that we love each other, and that you are to be my wife?'

'I will wait for you, dear, if I wait till I die,' she answered.

He folded her yet more closely to his breast.

While they held each other thus, forgetting all else in the world, his father burst, furious and terrible, into the arbor!

He seized them with a strong and cruel rasp, and tore them pitilessly asunder.

'Go into the house, boy,' he cried, 'and leave this'—

'Stop!' shouted Jason, springing to his feet, his face as white as death and his eyes flashing—'Stop! Do not call her any name but a good name! I would not bear it if you were twenty times my father!'

The old man stood transfixed.

'She is as good as you or as my mother, and will go to heaven as well as you when she dies,' he continued passionately; 'as well as any of us; as well as the minister! What did you come here for? Haven't you driven my life almost to death ever since I can remember; and isn't that enough, but you must come here and kill my darling, my dear, my love?'

He knelt where she lay on the ground.

'Hear the boy,' cried the father, in a rage equally terrible and far less noble. 'Hear the boy go on about the baggage!'

The boy still knelt, unheeding anything save the senseless form beside him.

'Wasn't it enough that you should wanton with a young woman in this style, but you must do it on the holy Sabbath day?' the old man continued. 'Mother,' he cried, jerking the words over his shoulder at his wife, who stood behind him, 'do you bring such profligates as this into the world, to disgrace a pious man's fame and bring his house to sorrow? Let him go forth—my oldest and youngest born, and eat husks with the swine; he shall have no portion, and there shall be no fatted calf killed when he returns!'

Still the youth knelt, and now his head had fallen upon the prostrate body, and he was covering her cold hand with kisses.

'Look here, young man,' the father cried, 'leave go that girl's hand and come into the house; as true as there's a God in Israel I'll teach you what a stout rawhide is made of!'

Just at this juncture neighbor Hopkins and his wife, warned by quick-flying little Martha that something terrible was going on at Deacon Fletcher's, appeared, hurrying towards the spot.

Peter Hopkins was considered a somewhat ungodly but a very just man, and while the Deacon most highly disapproved of his spiritual state, and doubted that he and 'vital piety' were strangers, he still respected Peter's rugged honesty and directness of purpose, and ranked him foremost among the 'world's people.' He was a man of powerful frame and strong impulses, and when his feelings were aroused he stood in awe of no man, high or low. When he forced his way into the arbor, therefore, the Deacon paused in his invective and made no remonstrance.

Peter Hopkins at once put the worst construction on the scene before him. He saw in the son of Deacon Fletcher only a seducer, in poor Hannah Lee only a victim, and his blood rose to boiling heat. Without pausing to ask any question, grasping at one guess, as he supposed, the whole sad history, he seized Jason by the collar, and, lifting him up, dashed him violently down again, the boy's head striking a corner of the bench as he fell.

Then he took the girl tenderly up and faced about upon the father, actually foaming with wrath.

'This comes of psalm singing,' he cried. 'Clear the way there!' and he bore the still unconscious maiden toward his own house.

Then a sudden and strange revulsion came over Deacon Fletcher. For the first time, perhaps, in twenty-one years, the father's heart triumphed over the Deacon's prejudices. As he saw his son—his only son—lying pale and bleeding on the ground, all recollection of his offense, all thought of sinfulness or godliness in connection with his conduct, vanished, and he only considered whether this pride of his, this strong and beautiful son, were to die there, or to live and bless him. He stooped, sobbing, over the boy, reconciled, at last, to humanity, and conscious of a strong human love.

Not more tenderly was poor Hannah Lee borne to the house of Peter Hopkins than the father carried the son he had only just received into his own dwelling. There were no thoughts of husks now, but only a sorrowful joy that one so long dead to him was at length alive, that a new heart, full of human instincts, had found birth within his bosom. But mingled with this joy was the fear that he had only, at length, possessed his son to lose him.

While Jason Fletcher lay tossing, week after week, through the fever that followed the scene of violence in the arbor, poor Hannah went sadly but patiently about the light duties that farmer Hopkins and his wife allowed her to perform.

Thoroughly convinced, through his wife's communications with Hannah, of the innocence of the pair, Peter Hopkins had gone to Deacon Fletcher and remonstrated with him on his outrageous conduct.