that it did seem wise to move from Salem Town, and the sooner they could move the better, but otherwise she submitted to the remaining weeks in Salem and to Mark’s frequent preparatory absences in Marblehead with an unquestioning fortitude. Since the day when she had received Arbella’s letter, and finally put all thoughts of going home behind her, she had passed beyond personal fear. Yet the stench of fear hung over the whole colony. Daily disasters battered all the settlements, and no day passed without a death.
In Charlestown it was no better. Governor Winthrop sent word that they were starving, rotted with disease and lacking medicine. He proclaimed a Fast Day throughout the colony with a view to softening the Divine Chastisement. But Providence still scourged them.
Four weeks after Arbella’s death a home-bound ship touched at Salem and brought news from Boston, that Isaac Johnson too had died and had been buried in the lot by his unfinished house.
When Phebe heard this news she went to her bride’s chest, and drawing out Arbella’s letter gazed at it long and earnestly. What else besides this piece of paper was there left now of the Lady Arbella? Phebe raised the letter to her cheek, then wrapped it in her wedding handkerchief and put it back at the bottom of the bride chest. Nor did she ever mention the letter to Mark.
The Honeywoods were fortunate in escaping illness, but as September went by, they did not also escape malice and envy from their fellow townsmen. Their last days in Salem there were murmurs against them and slanting dark looks. They had not tried to join the congregation, they were virtually, by their own admission, no better than Papists. And why, in this case, should the Lord allow them immunity from the general sickness ? Unless indeed it was not the Lord, but some Satanic power in league with them.
Phebe, openly goaded one day at the town spring, by an old crone called Goody Ellis, answered that perhaps the milk from her cow and the abundance of fish caught by Mark filled their bellies and made them better able to withstand sickness. Goody Ellis brushed this aside as nonsense, and made vicious allusions to witchcraft. Phebe was glad enough to be leaving.
There were no women at Marblehead yet, Mark told her, except the squaws in the Indian Village over Derby Fort side. And he worried about this for the time when her pains should come upon her. “But I’ll get you a midwife from Salem, if I must give her all my silver,” he promised and she agreed indifferently.
On the eighth of October the Honeywoods left the wigwam and descending the path to the landing place, set out at last for their new home.
Mark had hired a shallop and boatman from the fishing settlement on Salem Neck, and this also conveyed all their goods, except Betsey. The cow must wait in Salem until Mark could lead her around by land. Six miles of rough Indian trail through the forests.
It was a fair sparkling day of a kind new to them, for autumn in England held no such vibrance. There was freshness of blue and gold on the water, freshness of red and gold on the trees. This buoyancy in the air seemed to bathe one in a tingling expectation, it smelled of salt and sunshine and hope, and Phebe knew a faint return of youthful zest for the first time since Arbella had died.
Scudding before the wind they swished by Derby Fort Point, and Phebe was pleased to see that from this offshore angle it no longer resembled the headland at home. At Marblehead all would be new, and there would be no memories.
They rounded another heavily wooded point where Mark said there lived a fisherman called John Peach. They veered southwest between two small islands and lost the wind. The boatman and Mark took to their oars, and presently, the tide being high, their prow grated far up on the shingle of a little harbor.
Phebe jumped out, careless that she wet her feet or the hem of her blue serge skirt. While the men unloaded the boat she stood on
In Charlestown it was no better. Governor Winthrop sent word that they were starving, rotted with disease and lacking medicine. He proclaimed a Fast Day throughout the colony with a view to softening the Divine Chastisement. But Providence still scourged them.
Four weeks after Arbella’s death a home-bound ship touched at Salem and brought news from Boston, that Isaac Johnson too had died and had been buried in the lot by his unfinished house.
When Phebe heard this news she went to her bride’s chest, and drawing out Arbella’s letter gazed at it long and earnestly. What else besides this piece of paper was there left now of the Lady Arbella? Phebe raised the letter to her cheek, then wrapped it in her wedding handkerchief and put it back at the bottom of the bride chest. Nor did she ever mention the letter to Mark.
The Honeywoods were fortunate in escaping illness, but as September went by, they did not also escape malice and envy from their fellow townsmen. Their last days in Salem there were murmurs against them and slanting dark looks. They had not tried to join the congregation, they were virtually, by their own admission, no better than Papists. And why, in this case, should the Lord allow them immunity from the general sickness ? Unless indeed it was not the Lord, but some Satanic power in league with them.
Phebe, openly goaded one day at the town spring, by an old crone called Goody Ellis, answered that perhaps the milk from her cow and the abundance of fish caught by Mark filled their bellies and made them better able to withstand sickness. Goody Ellis brushed this aside as nonsense, and made vicious allusions to witchcraft. Phebe was glad enough to be leaving.
There were no women at Marblehead yet, Mark told her, except the squaws in the Indian Village over Derby Fort side. And he worried about this for the time when her pains should come upon her. “But I’ll get you a midwife from Salem, if I must give her all my silver,” he promised and she agreed indifferently.
On the eighth of October the Honeywoods left the wigwam and descending the path to the landing place, set out at last for their new home.
Mark had hired a shallop and boatman from the fishing settlement on Salem Neck, and this also conveyed all their goods, except Betsey. The cow must wait in Salem until Mark could lead her around by land. Six miles of rough Indian trail through the forests.
It was a fair sparkling day of a kind new to them, for autumn in England held no such vibrance. There was freshness of blue and gold on the water, freshness of red and gold on the trees. This buoyancy in the air seemed to bathe one in a tingling expectation, it smelled of salt and sunshine and hope, and Phebe knew a faint return of youthful zest for the first time since Arbella had died.
Scudding before the wind they swished by Derby Fort Point, and Phebe was pleased to see that from this offshore angle it no longer resembled the headland at home. At Marblehead all would be new, and there would be no memories.
They rounded another heavily wooded point where Mark said there lived a fisherman called John Peach. They veered southwest between two small islands and lost the wind. The boatman and Mark took to their oars, and presently, the tide being high, their prow grated far up on the shingle of a little harbor.
Phebe jumped out, careless that she wet her feet or the hem of her blue serge skirt. While the men unloaded the boat she stood on
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