Silent Struggles

A storm had been lowering all day over the harbor of Boston, heaping the horizon with vast leaden embankments of heavy vapor, and shrouding the hills with dense floating fog tha...

It must have been a death-chill, indeed, that could long restrain the warm heart of Barbara Stafford. Her first real impulse was to arise, and see if the poor man at her side wa...

Norman Lovel and the old minister walked on toward the town in company. The earth was still wet and heavy after the storm, and a sullen moan came up from the depths of the far-o...

The town of Boston had little of its present compactness in those days. True, there existed streets and lanes, and wharves which served as barriers to the harbor, but green turf...

Probably Elizabeth Parris would not have sat down in the portico, but the night's watching had made her faint. When Norman Lovel darted off to gather up the roses he had plucked...

The next day after her spectral shrouds were first seen in the harbor, the good ship came up to her wharf. Among the first passengers that landed was a dark, foreign-looking man...

For two whole days Barbara Stafford did not leave her bed. She was exhausted by a long sea-voyage, and saddened by many an anxious day and night, which had made her passage a wr...

Governor Phipps and Samuel Parris had been neighbors for many years. They had known each other when Parris was first settled over the church in Salem--a man in his prime--and th...

It was the Sabbath--that solemn day in the colonies when the voices of men were hushed, or only uplifted in prayer--when the very children held their breath with awe, and the go...

Samuel Parris had gone up from Salem to Boston impelled only by an unconquerable wish to breathe the same air with his only child; but when Governor Phipps found that he was in...

While Mrs. Parris was in her chamber, faint with pain and driven wild by the fearful developments just made to her, the dead woman lay in the great easy-chair, wrapped in her go...

From the cradle up, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams had been as sisters--nay, more, for while the same blood flowed in their veins and the same household words had been br...

In the night-time Abigail had never before visited her mother's grave. Indeed, she had seldom been there alone, in her whole life. Now the grave-yard was very dim and shadowy, f...

"No, her children were not all slain. Two escaped--one, a young girl pale as the first cherry blossoms, with hair like the sunshine in August. The other was a babe, four weeks o...

"Anna Hutchinson had charged her daughter, that golden-haired young girl, with the consummation of her curse. But where love is, vengeance sleeps. Her husband's tribe was at pea...

Barbara Stafford became the guest of Governor Phipps. It was a singular arrangement on both sides, for the strange lady had from the first retreated from the idea with evident r...

Lady Phipps met her guest in the hall bright, cheerful, and full of hospitable gladness. Elizabeth Parris followed her, but hung back a little, shy of the strange lady, who move...

Thus it went on day after day. Barbara lost something of her gloom; a new feeling, strange and inexpressibly sweet, brought back freshness to the life that had become almost a b...

As the opening door revealed that unexpected scene, Lady Phipps started forward with a smothered exclamation, half surprise, half horror. Then she as suddenly drew back, leaned...

When she entered the house so abruptly, Elizabeth Parris went to her chamber, and sitting down upon her bed, remained there in the gloom, brooding over the passion and sorrow to...

When Governor Phipps and his wife entered the library they found Samuel Parris standing in the midst of the room, waiting, with suppressed impatience, for the appearance of his...

The house of Samuel Parris, the minister of the church of Salem, stood in a solitary place, a little out of the village, which lay between it and the sea, whose interminable bea...

"She could not help it. They tore the two children apart. One was driven into the forest; the other was carried into the meeting-house, and baptized with a new name, by the very...

Now Abigail Williams sat waiting for her brother, in vague expectation, for Wahpee had given no account of his chief's movements, and Abby could only listen for the sound of his...

An old man and a young girl, followed at a little distance by a staid looking man-servant, in the gubernatorial livery, all mounted on fine horses, moved briskly through the for...

Elizabeth broke loose at last, and darted off, leaving the man-servant far behind. Across the greenwood in front of the meeting-house, over hillocks and between frowning stumps,...

Scarcely had the two cousins left the woods, when, upon the very path they had trod, appeared Barbara Stafford, the woman who had inquired for the minister at his house that mor...

Elizabeth Parris was in her own little chamber, in the gable end of her father's log house; the window looked out toward the sea, and a beautiful glow of sunshine lay upon the p...

As Abigail Williams sat upon a wooden box, with both hands locked over her knees, holding herself, body and soul, as it were, in a vice, the chamber door opened, and Elizabeth c...

One evening, after Barbara Stafford had found shelter beneath the roof of Samuel Parris, Jason Brown and his wife sat upon the lonely hearth, just after the tow-wicked candle wa...

Old Wahpee had procured a forest-bred horse for Barbara Stafford and another for his own use. Restless from a strong desire to leave the country, she had besought him to act as...

Barbara rode on her way, altogether unconscious that the woods around her swarmed with armed men, who had been for hours following her at a distance. But all at once another hoo...

The third week after Samuel Parris's return from Boston, Norman Lovel arrived at his house. When we first met this young man he had the face of an angel and the impulsive manner...

This word made the idea, that had haunted her so long, painfully tangible. The young girl began to shudder at the thoughts that crowded upon her. All the feelings, connected wit...

Barbara Stafford sat upon the roots of an old oak, that held the edges of forest turf together, just where they verged into the white sands of the beach. The woods had been thin...

When Elizabeth Parris was left standing on the door-step, and saw every one drift toward the shore, a sensation fell upon her, so strange and even terrible, that she thought her...

Barbara Stafford was both disturbed and offended by the abrupt challenge of the minister. There was something wild, even rude in his manner, that aroused all the force of her re...

Barbara Stafford found herself in the deep shadows of the wilderness, walking slowly and steadily on till their gloom lay around her--heavy and dark, like the terror that settle...

Samuel Parris bore his daughter home and laid her on her own white bed, where she writhed like a wounded fawn in the snow. Her face was rosy with flushes, that came and went lik...

When the constable and his followers came into the town of Salem, with Barbara Stafford in their midst, a wild commotion seized upon the inhabitants. Every door and window was c...

The trees were leafless, and snow lay thick on the ground, when Barbara Stafford was brought from the prison where she had been kept in close captivity, and presented for trial...

When Sir William returned home, he found Samuel Parris, his old patron and early preceptor, waiting for him. The good man had taken his staff and walked all the way from Salem,...

The trial was one which filled the community with a certain sense of awe. It was no old woman, brought up in their midst, whose very ignorance could be urged in judgment against...

The old minister sat down, shading his face with both hands; then, in his place stood Elizabeth, pale, thin, wild. The shadow of her former beauty seemed hanging around her like...

The prosecuting attorney had been vigilant in the management of his case. No one event of Barbara Stafford's life, since she landed in Boston, had escaped him. Jason Brown and h...

The evidence for the prosecution was here exhausted, and Barbara had nothing to offer in her defence. A judge, more compassionate than his brethren, asked the prisoner if she ha...

Governor Phipps was a changed man during the progress of Barbara Stafford's trial. His character, usually so sternly calm, seemed all broken up. He was restless--almost irritabl...

After Sir William's departure a package was brought to his house bearing a foreign postmark, and sealed with unusual formality. It was for Barbara Stafford, directed to the care...

When the footsteps of her visitors died away in the ante-room, she became conscious of the package which Norman Lovel had given her, and going up to a window sunk deep in the wa...

Barbara Stafford covered her face with both hands, for a moment pressing her temples hard, as if she hoped thus to still the crowd of thoughts under which her brain struggled.

"Time wore on, and I became a mother. With the first gleam of maternal hopes, such as thrilled my whole being with new-born happiness, I was hastened into the country; and, in a...

"I awoke in sight of the spot where we had first met, in hearing of the waves that had borne us, twenty-two years before, a happy pair, across the ocean. All the dear, old memor...

That was a gloomy, almost terrible wedding. There those young people stood waiting for the ceremony, pale as death, their trembling hands linked together, shivering with nervous...

In the progress of generations, much that was wild and beautiful about the city of Boston has been entirely obliterated. Lovely eminences and picturesque ravines have been level...

Samuel Parris kept his word faithfully; for added to his own promise was the sacramental oath taken by Barbara Stafford, which he dared not force her to break. But the secret co...

In the loveliest county of Old England stood one of those fine baronial castles that have outlived the ravages of many a rebellion. It had not only defied all ordinary causes of...