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All that day there had been a long, low, purple bank of clouds
brooding along the south-western quarter of the horizon. In
spite of the genial temperature of the atmosphere, and indeed in
consequence of it, Maudsley, who had lived long enough in the
climate to understand its character, knew that a storm, and
probably a heavy snow-storm, was impending.

He had, however, taken leave of his hospitable and eccentric
entertainer soon after the interview with Cakebread, which took
place early in the forenoon, and, assisted by a favoring breeze,
he had made a rapid passage to Naumkeak in Blaxton's little
skiff, which Cakebread was to restore, upon the succeeding day,
to its owner.

It was not his purpose to make his presence known, either to
the Ludlows or to any other of the colonists, and he had already
placed his effects on board the vessel which was to sail for England
early the following day.

Late in the afternoon he wandered about the woods in the
neighborhood of the little settlement, carefully avoiding the
vicinity of the Ludlows' residence, and concealing himself from
the observation of any casual wayfarer from the village.

The scene was bare and desolate. The short-lived glory of
an Indian summer's morning had long since given place to the
chill, leaden atmosphere of a winter's afternoon. The rising
north-easterly wind sighed mournfully through the leafless forest.
The withered leaves, eddying and whirling with every sudden
gust, swept around him with a ghost-like sound. The dried

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branches crackled beneath his foot. The waving branches of
the pine trees sent forth a dirge-like sound, in which he seemed
to hear the requiem of all his earthly hopes. The boding cry of
a sable company of ravens, which were winging their way across
the tree-tops, jarred upon his ear like a funereal wail. A few
flakes of snow were already flitting through the gloomy atmosphere,
which was pregnant with the coming tempest. All around
him looked barren, desolate, and in gloomy unison with his own
broken existence and withered hopes.

As if in mockery, it seemed that the example and the enthusiasm
of Esther had begun to work their natural effect upon his
impressionable temperament, just at the very moment when she
seemed lost to him forever. Bitterly did he reproach himself
now, for the wanton reproaches which he had so profusely
dealt upon her faith, or, as he had then termed it, her fanaticism.
Every idle word which he had uttered in his
scornful moods, recurred to his fancy now with vivid distinctness.
Each word seemed a scorpion whip, and memory an
avenging fury; and yet it was all too late. Whence, he
thought, except from some juggling fiend, could come these
holy promptings, at a moment when every thing swam around
him, and when his faith in every thing pure and holy was
destroyed by the discovery of Esther's feebleness and falsehood.
It was all a mockery. He beat down the rising feelings of
religious faith, as he would have trampled upon a tempting
demon.

Thoughts like these were whirling through his brain, as he
moved now slowly, now rapidly, through the melancholy woods.
At last, as he approached the verge of the irregular clearing, at
the extremity of which the infant village was situated, he heard
a dull sound, as of an iron instrument striking the frozen turf.
He stepped forward in the direction whence the sound proceeded,
and found a solitary individual digging a rude grave.
He gazed upon the scene with a gloomy kind of satisfaction.

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The snow was already falling thick and fast, the shades of
evening were prematurely approaching, all nature seemed
arrayed in gloom.

The grave-digger was a thin, feeble figure, and as he ever
and anon laid aside his rusty pickaxe, and struck his arms
to and fro across his breast, to arouse the warmth in his
shivering frame, he looked almost like a shadowy creation of
the fancy. As he resumed his labor again, there seemed
something in his countenance familiar to Maudsley, who presently
recollected the features of Faint-not Mellowes, the Suffolkshire
weaver and pilgrim from New Plymouth, whom, as
has appeared in the earlier pages of this history, he had once
rescued from the ruffianly hands of the Merry-Mount crew.

His gloomy task required no little labor, for his arms were
weak and the earth was rigidly frost-bound. It seemed that the
inhospitable wilderness, which had greeted those early pilgrims
with so cold a welcome, and inflicted upon them so many
fearful sufferings, would almost deny to their dead a resting-place
in its bosom. It was a melancholy scene, in which, at
that moment, Maudsley and the grave-digger were the only
actors. They stood at the edge of a clearing of some twenty
acres, at the opposite extremity of which were huddled together
the few miserable mud-walled and coarsely thatched hovels,
which, with the “fair house” of the governor, constituted the
village of Naumkeak. A thin wreath of smoke rose above the
forest a little beyond the farthest house, indicating to Maudsley
the hidden residence of her who was all the world to him, and
who yet was lost to him forever.

The ground immediately around him was rough and broken.
Vast, blackened stumps, looking like the tomb-stones of the
forest patriarchs, who had flourished there for centuries, encumbered
the soil, and among them were thickly strewn the
many recent and rudely finished graves, where the stricken

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settlers, day after day, ever since their arrival in that desert,
had come to deposit their dead.

There, in their wild resting-places, hastily and scantily
hidden from the prowling wolf, slept those early victims, those
obscure but unforgotten martyrs. The soil of the wilderness
was already hallowed ground, and if England contained the
ashes of their forefathers, New England already held the green
graves of those who had been nearer and dearer to them.

Maudsley looked on for a few moments in silence, and then
stepping forward, he gently saluted the grave-digger,—

“'T is sorry weather, Goodman Mellowes, for so melancholy
a task as that which occupies you,” said he, “and your strength
seems hardly sufficient to accomplish it.”

Mellowes desisted from his labor, and stared, with marks of
great surprise, at the individual who thus suddenly addressed
him.

“Verily, verily,” said he at last, “thou hast caused me to
drink of the wine of astonishment. Lo! is it not Master Maudsley
who saluteth me?”

“Most truly,” answered Maudsley, “but in what respect is
my appearance so astounding?”

“Verily, I did opine that you had long since returned to the
flesh-pots of Egypt,” answered Faint-not — “and yet do you
now present yourself to me thus suddenly in fleshly garb, but
pale and haggard, and rather resembling a visitant from the land
of spirits than the stalwart youth whom I do remember some
months ago.”

“I have been indisposed of late to be sure,” answered Maudsley,
“but I hardly thought that I wore such a death's head upon
my shoulders, that even the Naumkeak grave-digger would
shrink from my society. But be of good heart, my worthy
friend, I am neither ghost nor goblin, and furthermore, rest
assured that you at least shall not have the task, which seems no

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trifling one, of digging a grave for me in this wilderness, inasmuch
as I purpose to effect my retreat before that last friendly
office shall be necessary.”

“Alas! worthy master,” replied the weaver, “I regret that thy
heart hath not been regenerated, that thou mightest know how
sweet is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in a justified person.
But while I am prating thus, my work languisheth; lo, Iam forgetful.”

So saying, the grave digger again applied himself to his
task.

“My friend,” said Maudsley, after looking compassionately
at the feeble Faint-not's painful efforts, “let me prove to you
that my frame is not so exhausted as you think. Give me your
instrument, and with your permission, I will even assist you in
hollowing out this trench. A grave in this wilderness will be a
quiet resting-place enow, even if an unregenerate hand hath
helped to dig it.”

Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Goodman Mellowes, who
was, however, nearly fatigued and not unwilling to be relieved
of a portion of his labor, Maudsley took the spade and pick-axe,
and steadily set himself to his voluntary task. There was a
nameless instinct which impelled him to the work, besides a
simple and good natured desire to lighten the load of the weary
Mellowes.

“I regret, worthy master,” said the weaver, continuing his
conversation, as he stood upon the outside of the grave and occasionally
directed the labor of his companion — “I regret, in very
sooth, that thy heart is, as thou callest it, still unregenerate. I
do remember me full well, how, and where, and at what very
moment, the Lord was graciously pleased to reveal himself to
me. It was of an October evening, five years now past and
gone, that, at three quarters past nine of the clock, during a
smart shower of rain, even as I was taking a pipe of tobacco in

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the kitchen of my cottage in Great Brixsted, in Suffolk, my
wife and children being then all soundly asleep, the Holy Ghost
was suddenly pleased to descend upon me, whereupon I —”

“I pray thee, Goodman Mellowes,” said Maudsley, purposely
cutting short the worthy but somewhat prosy weaver's history of
his religious experience, to which, at that particular moment, he
felt no inclination to listen,—“I pray thee, hast thou really abandoned
Plymouth and established thyself permanently at Naumkeak?”

“Truly, I have,” was the reply, “although many months ago,
I did, as thou knowest, purpose to bring my children and wife
even back to New Plymouth.”

“I recollect,” replied Maudsley, still busily pursuing his task,
“but why did you change your mind?”

“Owing, as I would humbly and with reverence believe,”
answered Faint-not, “to a special interposition of Providence,
who deigned, in my poor behalf, to visit me corporeally, wearing
the form of a mortal female, but who seemeth rather to my apprehension,
as one wearing the garments of light.”

“Indeed!” said Maudsley abstractedly, and paying but little
attention to the enigmatical observation of his companion.

“Aye,” continued the other, “although Mistress Esther Ludlow
was habited in fleshly garments —”

“Maudsley started as the name struck his ear, and he was
upon the point of springing from the grave. He checked himself,
however, by a sudden impulse, and before his emotion was
observed by his companion, who gravely continued, —

“Although she was habited in the garments of earth, yet did
never a tabernacle of flesh contain a more precious jewel. She
hath been, as one might say, the guardian angel, under Providence,
of this little settlement.”

“And you say,” continued Maudsley in a husky tone, “that
she was the cause of your change of residence.”

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“Verily yes,” said Mellows, “for besides, that I was never
wholly and blindly given to the tenets of the New Plymouth
church, which, to my poor apprehension, savor more of strict
and absolute separation than —”

“I understand you,” said Maudsley impatiently, “but what
of Esther Ludlow?”

“My wife was dying, my children were sorely ill, and almost
famishing — I was homeless, and we were all nigh unto perish.
But the house wherein I now dwell, and which, though lowly, is
not inferior to any except the mansion of the governor, I owe to
the generosity of that virtuous maiden, who, moreover, did minister
unto my helpmeet when she was sorely stricken. The same
wise and charitable virgin, moreover, did pour out upon our
hearts the oil of Christian sympathy, when the Lord did take
away, one after another, all our blessed babes.”

“Indeed,” said Maudsley, affected by the uncouth but sincerely
grateful language, with which the devout weaver
acknowledged his obligation to Esther, “have you been then so
unfortunate as to be left wholly childless?”

“Truly, the Lord gave them to me, and he hath taken them
away,” answered Faint-not. “I felt poor enough when they
asked me for bread, and I had naught to give unto them but a
stone. But they are dead now, Master Maudsley, and I feel
none the richer.”

Maudsley addressed a few common-place words of consolation
to his companion, steadily, the meanwhile, pursuing his work,
at which he had been so diligent, that the grave was now
nearly finished.

“A little more hollowed at the edges, I pray thee,” said
Goodman Mellowes, indicating to Maudsley, with considerable
pedantry of manner, the mode in which the bottom of the grave
should be finished. “Ah, I have some little skill at the business,
albeit I was, by trade, a weaver, and have also, in the
wilderness, performed the functions of goatsherd.

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“Truly, the shades of evening are approaching,” continued
he, in a brisker tone, “and it is time that she should be brought
hither. Her grave is ready now. Alas! poor Esther Ludlow!”

Maudsley sprang from the grave as if he had heard the
archangel's trumpet. An indefinite, icy feeling, had withheld
him from questioning his companion as to the health and present
condition of Esther. He thought, if she had been ill or suffering,
that the garrulous grave-digger would probably have
enlightened him on the matter, and yet he feared to hazard a
direct question.

At the last words uttered by Mellowes, a sudden light seemed
to flash upon him, and it seemed to him, that he had now,
blindly obeying the instigations of a fiend, actually come
hither, upon the night before his departure from New England,
to dig, with his own hands, the grave of his beloved.

He confronted the grave-digger with a countenance of ashy
paleness.

“Tell me,” he cried, in a voice which was chocked to a
whisper, and which was yet distinctly and fearfully audible, “is
this the grave of Esther Ludlow?”

“God forbid!” exclaimed the weaver, who believed that his
eccentric companion had lost his wits. “This grave is intended
for Dame Endicott, the spouse of the worthy governor. Esther
Ludlow, God be praised, is alive and well.”

Maudsley staggered backward, almost insensible, and sank
for a moment upon the ground. His frame enfeebled by long
illness, and his mind exhausted by emotion, had both lost much
of their elasticity. He found time to recover himself, however,
as his companion continued, —

“Dame Endicott hath passed away, the virtuous spouse of the
worthy governor of this colony. In my mention of the name of
Mistress Ludlow, I did but compassionate the unavailing exertions
of that pious virgin, to arrest the heavy blow which hath

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fallen upon this worthy family. But stay, they are bringing the
corpse hitherward,” continued he, looking towards the settlement;
“yonder come the mourners, the worthy governor and his
friends, attended by Master Ludlow and his virtuous sister.”

Maudsley recovered his composure at once. He had come
hither, determined to avoid all communication with any of the
settlers, most of all, with the Ludlows. He was unwilling to
meet the melancholy company, which was already slowly
picking its way across the rugged clearing towards the rude
burial-place. He accordingly gave a few hurried directions to
Mellowes, earnestly forbidding him to mention their interview,
or even to hint that he was still in the country. Upon parting,
he presented the weaver with a considerable sum of money
which he had about him, and for which, as he was to leave
upon the next day for England, he had no further occasion.
Instead, however, of leaving the neighborhood, he concealed
himself beneath the foliage of a white-pine tree, which grew in
the immediate vicinity of the grave, and calmly awaited the
arrival of the corpse. Since fate had so willed it, he was even
willing to look once more upon the face of Esther, although
he had not purposed it, and till that moment could not have
believed himself possessed of the necessary courage.

While he was thus establishing himself in a position where he
could see without being seen, the company had reached the spot.
Four men bore the coffin, which had been hastily and rudely
fashioned of rough boards, and gently deposited it in the grave
which Maudsley's hands had dug. But a few other persons
were present, besides the bereaved Endicott, Walter Ludlow,
and his sister.

The snow was falling fast. Ludlow offered up a fervent,
extemporaneous prayer, but the services were necessarily
hurried, for the storm was rapidly increasing. As the last
words of the prayer were spoken, the grave-digger threw the

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first spadeful of hard and frozen clods upon the coffin. The
stern visage of the governor was convulsed by the harsh and
rigid sound, and a single tear ran down his iron cheek. He
commanded himself, however, and stood, an image of simple
and pathetic dignity, erect, uncovered, offering up a silent prayer
for support in that hour, but unbowed by the misfortunes and
the difficulties which were thickening around him.

“It was not my design,” said he, in a calm voice, “that she
should accompany me in our first voyage to this inhospitable
wilderness. I would have urged her to tarry at the house of her
kinsman Cradock, until the rough places had been smoothed for
her feeble footsteps, but she would not be gainsayed.”

As Endicott paused, overcome for an instant by his emotion,
Maudsley at last heard the gentle voice of Esther, which fell
upon his ear like music, although he could not accurately understand
the words of consolation which she addressed to the
mourner, in a low and murmuring tone.

As Esther ceased speaking, the company slowly left the spot,
the governor remaining a little after the rest, and then walking
homewards with unfaltering step.

When they had all departed, Maudsley stole forth, and stood
for a moment by that lonely grave.

He had been so near to Esther, during the whole ceremony,
that her robe had been waved against him by the wind; he had
looked upon her face, he had listened to her voice; and now that
she was gone, and that he stood alone upon that desolate spot,
his heart seemed to be dead within him.

Upon what slender threads hang the destiny of blind and
erring mortals! A few simple words might have been exchanged
between the grave-digger and himself, which would have swept
forever the delusions from his brain, and restored happiness to
his stormy soul. Twenty words which might have been spoken,
instead of the wandering discourse which had really occurred

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between them, and much of the mystery might have been dispelled
forever, which now seemed to envelope his fate. But
the words were not spoken, and a wintry sea soon rolled between
the lovers.

Maudsley had carefully observed the exact place where Esther
had stood, and he now knelt down and passionately kissed the
print which her foot had left upon the snow, with which the
earth was already covered. A wreath of the lowly, trailing
evergreen grew upon that spot of ground. He tore off a little
twig, and placed it carefully in his bosom. He then stood till
the rapidly descending flakes had obliterated every vestige of
Esther's presence, and then he left the place.

p285-391

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