Part 10
When the merciless priest beheld her, he determined to inflict on her such discipline as he thought would banish her children from her memory, and cure her for ever of her passion for escaping. He ordered her to be stretched upon that granite rock where she had landed from the canoe, on the summit of which she had stood, as if exulting in her flight,--THE ROCK OF THE MOTHER, as it has ever since been denominated--and there flogged till she could scarcely move or speak. She was then bound more securely, placed in the canoe, and carried to Javita, the seat of a mission far up the river.
It was near sunset when they arrived at this village, and the inhabitants were preparing to go to rest. Guahiba was deposited for the night in a large barn-like building, which served as a place of worship, a public magazine, and, occasionally, as a barrack. Father Gomez ordered two or three Indians of Javita to keep guard over her alternately, relieving each other through the night; and then went to repose himself after the fatigues of his voyage. As the wretched captive neither resisted nor complained, Father Gomez flattered himself that she was now reduced to submission. Little could he fathom the bosom of this fond mother! He mistook for stupor, or resignation, the calmness of a fixed resolve. In absence, in bonds, and in torture, her heart throbbed with but one feeling; one thought alone possessed her whole soul:--her children--her children--and still her children!
Among the Indians appointed to watch her was a youth, about eighteen or nineteen years of age, who, perceiving that her arms were miserably bruised by the stripes she had received, and that she suffered the most acute agony from the savage tightness with which the cords were drawn, let fall an exclamation of pity in the language of her tribe. Quick she seized the moment of feeling, and addressed him as one of her people.
"Guahibo," she said, in a whispered tone, "thou speakest my language, and doubtless thou art my brother! Wilt thou see me perish without pity, O son of my people? Ah, cut these bonds which enter into my flesh! I faint with pain! I die!"
The young man heard, and, as if terrified, removed a few paces from her and kept silence. Afterwards, when his companions were out of sight, and he was left alone to watch, he approached, and said, "Guahiba!--our fathers were the same, and I may not see thee die; but if I cut these bonds, white man will flog me:--wilt thou be content if I loosen them, and give thee ease?" And as he spoke, he stooped and loosened the thongs on her wrists and arms; she smiled upon him languidly, and appeared satisfied.
Night was now coming on. Guahiba dropped her head on her bosom, and closed her eyes, as if exhausted by weariness. The young Indian, believing that she slept, after some hesitation laid himself down on his mat. His companions were already slumbering in the porch of the building, and all was still.
Then Guahiba raised her head. It was night--dark night--without moon or star. There was no sound, except the breathing of the sleepers around her, and the humming of the mosquitoes. She listened for some time with her whole soul; but all was silence. She then gnawed the loosened thongs asunder with her teeth. Her hands once free, she released her feet; and when the morning came she had disappeared. Search was made for her in every direction, but in vain; and Father Gomez, baffled and wrathful, returned to his village.
The distance between Javita and San Fernando, where Guahiba had left her infants, is twenty-five leagues in a straight line. A fearful wilderness of gigantic forest trees, and intermingling underwood, separated these two missions;--a savage and awful solitude, which, probably, since the beginning of the world, had never been trodden by human foot. All communication was carried on by the river; and there lived not a man, whether Indian or European, bold enough to have attempted the route along the shore. It was the commencement of the rainy season. The sky, obscured by clouds, seldom revealed the sun by day; and neither moon nor gleam of twinkling star by night. The rivers had overflowed, and the lowlands were inundated. There was no visible object to direct the traveller; no shelter, no defence, no aid, no guide. Was it Providence--was it the strong instinct of maternal love, which led this courageous woman through the depths of the pathless woods--where rivulets, swollen to torrents by the rains, intercepted her at every step; where the thorny lianas, twining from tree to tree, opposed an almost impenetrable barrier; where the mosquitoes hung in clouds upon her path; where the jaguar and the alligator lurked to devour her; where the rattle-snake and the water-serpent lay coiled up in the damp grass, ready to spring at her; where she had no food to support her exhausted frame, but a few berries, and the large black ants which build their nests on the trees? How directed--how sustained--cannot be told: the poor woman herself could not tell. All that can be known with any certainty is, that the fourth rising sun beheld her at San Fernando; a wild, and wasted, and fearful object; her feet swelled and bleeding--her hands torn--her body covered with wounds, and emaciated with famine and fatigue;--but once more near her children!
For several hours she hovered round the hut in which she had left them, gazing on it from a distance with longing eyes and a sick heart, without daring to advance: at length she perceived that all the inhabitants had quitted their cottages to attend vespers; then she stole from the thicket, and approached, with faint and timid steps, the spot which contained her hearths treasures. She entered, and found her infants left alone, and playing together on a mat: they screamed at her appearance, so changed was she by suffering; but when she called them by name, they knew her tender voice, and stretched out their little arms towards her. In that moment, the mother forgot all she had endured--all her anguish, all her fears, every thing on earth but the objects which blessed her eyes. She sat down between her children--she took them on her knees--she clasped them in an agony of fondness to her bosom--she covered them with kisses--she shed torrents of tears on their little heads, as she hugged them to her. Suddenly she remembered where she was, and why she was there: new terrors seized her; she rose up hastily, and, with her babies in her arms, she staggered out of the cabin--fainting, stumbling, and almost blind with loss of blood and inanition. She tried to reach the woods, but too feeble to sustain her burthen, which yet she would not relinquish, her limbs trembled, and sank beneath her. At this moment an Indian, who was watching the public oven, perceived her. He gave the alarm by ringing a bell, and the people rushed forth, gathering round Guahiba with fright and astonishment. They gazed upon her as if upon an apparition, till her sobs, and imploring looks, and trembling and wounded limbs, convinced them that she yet lived, though apparently nigh to death. They looked upon her in silence, and then at each other; their savage bosoms were touched with commiseration for her sad plight, and with admiration, and even awe, at this unexampled heroism of maternal love.
While they hesitated, and none seemed willing to seize her, or to take her children from her, Father Gomez, who had just landed on his return from Javita, approached in haste, and commanded them to be separated. Guahiba clasped her children closer to her breast, and the Indians shrunk back.
"What!" thundered the monk: "will ye suffer this woman to steal two precious souls from heaven?--two members from our community? See ye not, that while she is suffered to approach them, there is no salvation for either mother or children?--part them, and instantly!"
The Indians, accustomed to his ascendancy, and terrified at his voice, tore the children of Guahiba once more from her feeble arms: she uttered nor word nor cry, but sunk in a swoon upon the earth.
While in this state, Father Gomez, with a cruel mercy, ordered her wounds to be carefully dressed: her arms and legs were swathed with cotton bandages; she was then placed in a canoe, and conveyed to a mission, far, far off, on the river Esmeralda, beyond the Upper Orinoco. She continued in a state of exhaustion and torpor during the voyage; but after being taken out of the boat and carried inland, restoratives brought her back to life, and to a sense of her situation. When she perceived, as reason and consciousness returned, that she was in a strange place, unknowing how she was brought there--among a tribe who spoke a language different from any she had ever heard before, and from whom, therefore, according to Indian prejudices, she could hope nor aid nor pity;--when she recollected that she was far from her beloved children;--when she saw no means of discovering the bearing or the distance of their abode--no clue to guide her back to it:--_then_, and only then, did the mother's heart yield to utter despair; and thenceforward refusing to speak or to move, and obstinately rejecting all nourishment, thus she died.
The boatman, on the river Atabapo, suspends his oar with a sigh as he passes the ROCK OF THE MOTHER. He points it out to the traveller, and weeps as he relates the tale of her sufferings and her fate. Ages hence, when these solitary regions have become the seats of civilization, of power, and intelligence; when the pathless wilds, which poor Guahiba traversed in her anguish, are replaced by populous cities, and smiling gardens, and pastures, and waving harvests,--still that dark rock shall stand, frowning o'er the stream; tradition and history shall preserve its name and fame; and when even the pyramids, those vast, vain monuments to human pride, have passed away, it shall endure, to carry down to the end of the world the memory of the Indian Mother.
MUCH COIN, MUCH CARE.
A DRAMATIC PROVERB.
WRITTEN FOR HYACINTHE, EMILY, CAROLINE, AND EDWARD.
CHARACTERS.
DICK, the Cobbler, a very honest man, and very merry withal, much given to singing.
MARGERY, his wife, simple and affectionate, and one of the best women in the world.
LADY AMARANTHE, a fine lady, full of airs and affectation, but not without good feeling.
MADEMOISELLE JUSTINE, her French maid, very like other French maids.
The SCENE lies partly in the Garret of the Cobbler, and partly in LADY AMARANTHE's Drawing-room.
MUCH COIN, MUCH CARE.
SCENE I.
_A Garret meanly furnished; several pairs of old shoes, a coat, hat, bonnet, and shawl hanging against the Wall. DICK is seated on a low stool in front. He works, and sings._
As she lay on that day In the Bay of Biscay O!
Now that's what _I_ call a good song; but my wife, she can't abear them blusteration songs, she says; she likes something tender and genteel, full of fine words. (_Sings in a mincing voice._)
Vake, dearest, vake, and again united Ve'll vander by the sea-he-he-e.
Hang me, if I can understand a word of it! but when my wife sings it out with her pretty little mouth, it does one's heart good to hear her; and I could listen to her for ever: but, for my own part, what I like is a song that comes thundering out with a meaning in it! (_Sings, and flourishes his hammer with enthusiasm, beating time upon the shoe._)
March! march! Eskdale and Tiviotdale, All the blue bonnets are over the border!
MARGERY--(_from within._)
Dick! Dick! what a noise you do keep!
DICK.
A noise, eh? Why, Meg, you didn't use to think it a noise: you used to like to hear me sing!
MARGERY--(_entering._)
And so I did, and so I do. I loves music with all my heart; but the whole parish will hear you if you go for to bawl out so monstrous loud.
DICK.
And let them! who cares?
[_He sings, she laughs._
MARGERY.
Nay, sing away if you like it!
DICK--(_stopping suddenly._)
I won't sing another bit if you don't like it, Meg.
MARGERY.
Oh, I do like! Lord bless us! not like it! it sounds so merry! Why, Dick, love, every body said yesterday that you sung as well as Mr. Thingumee at Sadler's Wells, and says they, "Who is that young man as sings like any nightingale?" and I says (_drawing herself up_), "That's my husband!"
DICK.
Ay! flummery!--But, Meg, I say, how did you like the wedding yesterday?
MARGERY.
Oh, hugeously! such heaps of smart people, as fine as fivepence, I warrant; and such gay gowns and caps! and plenty to eat and drink!--But what I liked best was the walking in the gardens at Bagnigge Wells, and the tea, and the crumpets!
DICK.
And the punch!
MARGERY.
Yes--ha! ha! I could see you thought _that_ good! and then the dancing!
DICK.
Ay, ay; and there wasn't one amongst them that footed it away like my Margery. And folks says to me, "Pray, who is that pretty modest young woman as hops over the ground as light as a feather?" says they; and says I, "Why, that there pretty young woman is my wife, to be sure!"
MARGERY.
Ah, you're at your jokes, Dick!
DICK.
I'll be hanged then!
MARGERY--(_leaning on his shoulder._)
Well, to be sure, we were happy yesterday. It's good to make holiday just now and then, but some how I was very glad to come home to our own little room again. O Dick!--did you mind that Mrs. Pinchtoe, that gave herself such grand airs?--she in the fine lavender silk gown--that turned up her nose at me so, and all because she's a master shoemaker's wife! and you are only--only--a cobbler!--(_sighs_) I wish _you_ were a master shoemaker, Dick.
DICK.
That you might be a master shoemaker's wife, hay! and turn up your nose like Mrs. Pinchtoe?
MARGERY--(_laughing._)
No, no; I have more manners.
DICK.
Would you love me better, Meg, if I were a master shoemaker?
MARGERY.
No, I couldn't love you better if you were a king; and that you know, Dick; and, after all, we're happy now, and who knows what might be if he were to change?
DICK.
Ay, indeed! who knows? you might grow into a fine lady like she over the way, who comes home o'nights just as we're getting up in the morning, with the flams flaring, and blazing like any thing; and that puts me in mind----
MARGERY.
Of what, Dick? tell me!
DICK.
Why, cousin Tom's wedding put it all out of my head last night; but yesterday there comes over to me one of those fine bedizened fellows we see lounging about the door there, with a cocked hat, and things like stay laces dangling at his shoulder.
MARGERY.
What could he want, I wonder!
DICK.
O! he comes over to me as I was just standing at the door below, a thinking of nothing at all, and singing Paddy O'Raffety to myself, and says he to me, "You cobbler fellor," says he, "don't you go for to keep such a bawling every morning, awakening people out of their first sleep," says he, "for if you do, my lord will have you put into the stocks," says he.
MARGERY.
The stocks! O goodness gracious me! and what for, pray?
DICK--(_with a grin._)
Why, for singing, honey! So says I, "Hark 'ee, Mr. Scrape-trencher, there go words to that bargain: what right have you to go for to speak in that there way to me?" says I; and says he, "We'll have you 'dited for a nuisance, fellor," says he.
MARGERY--(_clasping her hands._)
A nuisance! my Dick a nuisance! O Lord a' mercy!
DICK.
Never fear, girl; I'm a free-born Englishman, and I knows the laws well enough: and says I, "No more a fellor than yourself; I'm an honest man, following an honest calling, and I don't care _that_ for you nor your lord neither; and I'll sing _when_ I please, and I'll sing _what_ I please, and I'll sing as loud as I please; I will, by jingo!" and so he lifts me up his cane, and I says quite cool, "This house is my castle; and if you don't take yourself out of that in a jiffey, why, I'll give your laced jacket such a dusting as it never had before in its life--I will."
MARGERY.
O, Dick! you've a spirit of your own, I warrant. Well, and then?
DICK.
Oh, I promise you he was off in the twinkling of a bed-post, and I've heard no more of him; but I was determined to wake you this morning with a thundering song; just to show 'em I didn't care for 'em--ha! ha! ha!
MARGERY.
Oh, ho! that was the reason, then, that you bawled so in my ear, and frightened me out of my sleep--was it? Oh, well, I forgive you; but bless me! I stand chattering here, and it's twelve o'clock, as I live! I must go to market--(_putting on her shawl and bonnet._) What would you like to have for dinner, Dick, love? a nice rasher of bacon, by way of a relish?
DICK--(_smacking his lips._)
Just the very thing, honey.
MARGERY.
Well, give me the shilling, then.
DICK--(_scratching his head._)
What shilling?
MARGERY.
Why, the shilling you had yesterday.
DICK--(_feeling in his pockets._)
A shilling!
MARGERY.
Yes, a shilling. (_Gaily._) To have meat, one must have money; and folks must eat as well as sing, Dick, love. Come, out with it!
DICK.
But suppose I haven't got it?
MARGERY.
How! what! you don't mean for to say that the last shilling that you put in your pocket, just to make a show, is gone?
DICK--(_with a sigh._)
But I do, though--it's gone.
MARGERY.
What shall we do?
DICK.
I don't know. (_A pause. They look at each other._) Stay, that's lucky. Here's a pair of dancing pumps as belongs to old Mrs. Crusty, the baker's wife at the corner--
MARGERY--(_gaily._)
We can't eat _them_ for dinner, I guess.
DICK.
No, no; but I'm just at the last stitch.
MARGERY.
Yes--
DICK--(_speaking and working in a hurry._)
And so you'll take them home--
MARGERY.
Yes--
DICK.
And tell her I must have seven-pence halfpenny for them. (_Gives them._)
MARGERY--(_examining the shoes._)
But, Dick, isn't that some'at extortionate, as a body may say? seven-pence halfpenny!
DICK.
Why, here's heel-pieces, and a patch upon each toe; one must live, Meg!
MARGERY.
Yes, Dick, love; but so must other folks. Now I think seven-pence would be enough in all conscience--what do you say?
DICK.
Well, settle it as you like; only get a bit of dinner for us, for I'm as hungry as a hunter, I know.
MARGERY.
I'm going. Good bye, Dick!
DICK.
Take care of theeself--and don't spend the change in caps and ribbons, Meg.
MARGERY.
Caps and ribbons out of seven-pence! Lord help the man! ha, ha, ha! (_She goes out._)
DICK--(_calling after her._)
And come back soon, d'ye hear? There she goes--hop, skip, and jump, down the stairs. Somehow, I can't abear to have her out of my sight a minute. Well, if ever there was a man could say he had a good wife, why, that's me myself--tho'f I say it--the cheerfullest, sweetest temperedst, cleanliest, lovingest woman in the whole parish, that never gives one an ill word from year's end to year's end, and deserves at least that a man should work hard for her--it's all I can do--and we must think for to-morrow as well as to-day. (_He works with great energy, and sings at the same time with equal enthusiasm._)
Cannot ye do as I do? Cannot ye do as I do ? Spend your money, and work for more; _That's_ the way that I do! Tol de rol lol.
_Re-enter MARGERY in haste._
MARG.--(_out of breath._)
Oh, Dick, husband! Dick, I say!
DICK.
Hay! what's the matter now?
MARGERY.
Here be one of those fine powdered laced fellows from over the way comed after you again.
DICK--(_rising._)
An impudent jackanapes! I'll give him as good as he brings.
MARGERY.
Oh, no, no! he's monstrous civil now; for he chucked me under the chin, and says he, "My pretty girl!"
DICK.
Ho! monstrous civil indeed, with a vengeance!
MARGERY.
And says he, "Do you belong to this here house?" "Yes, sir," says I, making a curtsy, for I couldn't do no less when he spoke so civil; and says he, "Is there an honest cobbler as lives here?" "Yes, sir," says I, "my husband that is." "Then, my dear," says he, "just tell him to step over the way, for my Lady Amaranthe wishes to speak to him immediately."
DICK.
A lady? O Lord!
MARGERY.
Yes, so you must go directly. Here, take off your apron, and let me comb your hair a bit.
DICK.
What the mischief can a lady want with me? I've nothing to do with ladies, as I knows of.
MARGERY.
Why, she won't eat you up, I reckon.
DICK.
And yet I--I--I be afeard, Meg!
MARGERY.
Afeard of a lady! that's a good one!
DICK.
Ay, just--if it were a man, I shouldn't care a fig.
MARGERY.
But we've never done no harm to nobody in our whole lives, so what is there to be afraid of?
DICK.
Nay, that's true.
MARGERY.
Now let me help you on with your best coat. Pooh! what is the man about?--Why, you're putting the back to the front, and the front to the back, like Paddy from Cork, with his coat buttoned behind!
DICK.
My head do turn round, just for all the world like a peg-top.--A lady! what _can_ a lady have to say to me, I wonder?
MARGERY.
May be, she's a customer.
DICK.
No, no, great gentlefolks like she never wears patched toes nor
heel-pieces, I reckon.
MARGERY.
Here's your hat. Now let me see how you can make a bow. (_He bows awkwardly._) Hold up your head--turn out your toes. That will do capital! (_She walks round him with admiration._) How nice you look! there's ne'er a gentleman of them all can come up to my Dick.
DICK--(_hesitating._)
But--a--a--Meg, you'll come with me, won't you, and just see me safe in at the door, eh?
MARGERY.
Yes, to be sure; walk on before, and let me look at you. Hold up your head--there, that's it!
DICK--(_marching._)
Come along. Hang it, who's afraid?
[_They go out._
_Scene changes to a Drawing-room in the House of LADY AMARANTHE._
_Enter _Lady Amaranthe_, leaning upon her maid, MADEMOISELLE JUSTINE._
LADY AMARANTHE.
Avancez un fauteuil, ma chere! arrangez les coussins. (_JUSTINE settles the chair, and places a footstool. LADY AMARANTHE, sinking into the arm-chair with a languid air._) Justine, I shall die, I shall certainly die! I never can survive this!
JUSTINE.
Mon Dieu! madame, ne parlez pas comme ca! c'est m'enfoncer un poignard dans le coeur!
LADY AMARANTHE--(_despairingly._)
No rest--no possibility of sleeping--
JUSTINE.
Et le medecin de madame, qui a ordonne la plus grande tranquillite--qui a meme voulu que je me taisais--moi, par exemple!
LADY AMARANTHE.
After fatiguing myself to death with playing the agreeable to disagreeable people, and talking common-place to common-place acquaintance, I return home, to lay my aching head upon my pillow, and just as my eyes are closing, I start--I wake,--a voice that would rouse the dead out of their graves echoes in my ears! In vain I bury my head in the pillow--in vain draw the curtains close--multiply defences against my window--change from room to room--it haunts me! Ah! I think I hear it still! (_covering her ears_) it will certainly drive me distracted!
[_During this speech, JUSTINE has made sundry exclamations and gestures expressive of horror, sympathy, and commiseration._]
JUSTINE.
Vraiment, c'est affreux.
LADY AMARANTHE.
In any more civilized country it never could have been endured--I should have had him removed at once; but here the vulgar people talk of laws!
JUSTINE.
Ah, oui, madame, mais il faut avouer que c'est ici un pays bien barbare, ou tout le monde parle loi et metaphysique, et ou l'on ne fait point de difference entre les riches et les pauvres.
LADY AMARANTHE.
But what provokes me more than all the rest is this unheard-of insolence! (_rises and walks about the room_,)--a cobbler too--a cobbler who presumes to sing, and to sing when all the rest of the world is asleep! This is the march of intellect with a vengeance!
JUSTINE.
C'est vrai, il ne chante que des marches et de gros chansons a boire--s'il chantait bien doucement quelque joli roman par exemple--(_She sings_)--_dormez, dormez, mes chers amours_!
LADY AMARANTHE.
Justine, did you send the butler over to request civilly that he would not disturb me in the morning?
JUSTINE.