# Metipom's Hostage/Chapter 1

METIPOM'S HOSTAGE

### CHAPTER I THE RED OMEN

David Lindall stirred uneasily in his sleep, sighed, muttered, and presently became partly awake. Thereupon he was conscious that all was not as it had been when slumber had overtaken him, for, beyond his closed lids, the attic, which should have been as dark at this hour as the inside of any pocket, was illuminated. He opened his eyes. The rafters a few feet above his head were visible in a strange radiance. He raised himself on an elbow, blinking and curious. The light did not come from the room below, nor was it the yellow glow of a pine-knot. No sound came to him save the loud breathing of his father and Obid, the servant, the former near at hand, the latter at the other end of the attic: no sound, that is, save the soft sighing of the night breeze in the pines and hemlocks at the eastern edge of the clearing. That was ​ever-present and so accustomed that David had to listen hard to hear it. But this strange red glow was new and disturbing, and now, wide awake, the boy sought the explanation of it and found it once his gaze had moved to the north window.
Above the tops of the distant trees beyond the plantation, the sky was like the mouth of a furnace, and against the unearthly glow the topmost branches of the taller trees stood sharply, like forms cut from black paper.
“Father!” called the boy.
Nathan Lindall was awake on the instant.
“You called, David?” he asked.
“Yes, father. The forest is afire!”
“Nay, ’tis not the forest,” answered Nathan Lindall when he had looked from the window. “The woods are too damp at this season, and I have never heard of the Indians firing them save in the fall. ’Tis some one’s house, lad, and I fear—” He did not finish, but turned instead to Obid Dawkin who had joined them. “What say you, Obid?” he questioned.
“I say as you, master,” replied Obid in his thin, rusty voice. “And ’tis the work of the heathens, I doubt not. But whose house ​It may be I do not know, for it seems too much east to be any in Sudbury, and—”
“And how far, think you?”
“Maybe four miles, sir, or maybe but two. ’Tis hard to say.”
“Three, then, Obid: and that brings us to Master William Vernham’s, for none other lies in that direction and so near. Whether it be set afire by the Indians we shall know in time. But don your clothing, for there may be work for us, although I misdoubt that we arrive in time.”
“And may I go with you, father?” asked David eagerly.
“Nay, lad, for we must travel fast and ’twill be hard going. Do you bolt well the door when we are gone and then go back to bed. ’Tis nigh on three already and ’twill soon be dawn. Art ready, Obid?”
“Nay, for Sathan has hidden my breeches, Master Lindall,” grumbled the man, “and without breeches I will not venture forth.”
“Do you find them quickly or a clout upon your thick skull may aid you,” responded Nathan Lindall grimly.
“I have them, master,” piped Obid hurriedlv.
“Look, sir, the fire is dying out,” said ​David. “The sky is far less red, I think.”
“Maybe ’tis but a wild-goose chase we go on,” replied his father, “and yet ’tis best to go. David, do you slip down and set out the muskets and see that there be ammunition to hand. Doubtless in time this jabbering knave will be clothed.”
“I be ready now, master! And as for jabbering—”
“Cease, cease, and get you down!”
A .minute or two later David watched their forms melt into the darkness beyond the barn. Then, closing the door, he shot home the heavy iron bolt and dropped the stout oak bar as well. In the wide chimney-place a few live embers glowed amidst the gray ashes and he coaxed them to life with the bellows and dropped splinters of resinous pine upon them until a cheery fire was crackling there. Then, rubbing out the lighted knot against the stones of the hearth, he drew a bench to the blaze and warmed himself, for the night, although May was a week old, was chill.
The room, which took up the whole lower floor of the house, was nearly square, perhaps six paces one way by seven the other. The ceiling was low, so low that Nathan ​Lindall’s head but scantily escaped the rough-hewn beams. The furnishings would to-day be rude and scanty, but in the year 1675 they were considered proper and sufficient. In fact Nathan Lindall’s dwelling was rather better furnished than most of its kind. The table and the two benches flanking it had been fashioned in Boston by the best cabinet-maker in the Colony. The four chairs were comfortable and sightly, the chest of drawers was finely carved and had come over from England, and the few articles that were of home manufacture were well and strongly made. Six windows, guarded by heavy shutters, gave light to the room, and one end was almost entirely taken up by the wide chimney-place. At the other end a steep flight of steps led to the room above, no more than an attic under the high sloping roof.
David had lived in the house seven years, and he was now sixteen, a tall, well-made boy with pleasing countenance and ways which, for having dwelt so long on the edge of the wilderness, were older than his age warranted. His father had taken up his grant of one hundred acres in 1668, removing from the Plymouth Colony after the death of his ​wife. David’s recollection of his mother was undimmed in spite of the more than eight years that had passed, but, as he had been but a small lad at the time of her death, his memory of her, unlike his father’s, held little pain. The grant, part woodland and part meadow, lay sixteen miles from Boston and north of Natick. It was a pleasant tract, with much fine timber and a stream which, rising in a spring-fed pond not far from the house, meandered southward and ultimately entered the Charles River. The river lay a long mile to the east and was the highway on which they traveled, whether to Boston or Dedham.
Nathan Lindall had brought some forty acres of his land under cultivation, and for the wheat, corn, and potatoes that he raised found a ready market in Boston.
The household consisted of Nathan Lindall, David, and Obid Dawkin. Obid had come to the Colony many years before as a “bond servant,” had served his term and then hired to Master Lindall. In England he had been a school-teacher, although of small attainments, and now to his duties of helping till and sow and harvest was added that of instructing David. Considering the lack of books, he had done none so badly, and David ​possessed more of an education than was common in those days for a boy of his position. It may be said of Obid that he was a better farmer than teacher and a better cook than either!
It was a lonely life that David led. although he was never lonesome. There was work and study always, and play at times. His play was hunting and fishing and fashioning things with the few rude tools at hand. Of hunting there was plenty, for at that time and for many years later eastern Massachusetts abounded in animals and birds valuable for food as well as many others sought for pelt or plumage. Red deer were plentiful, and beyond the Sudbury Marshes only the winter before some of the Natick Indians had slain a moose of gigantic size. Wolves caused much trouble to those who kept cattle or sheep, and in Dedham a bounty of ten shillings had lately been offered for such as were killed within the town. Foxes, both red and gray, raccoons, porcupines, woodchucks, and rabbits were numerous, while the ponds and streams supplied beavers, muskrats, and otters. Bears there were, as well, and sometimes panthers; and many lynxes and martens. Turkeys, grouse, and pigeons were ​common, the latter flying in flocks of many hundreds. Geese, swans, ducks, and cranes and many smaller birds frequented streams and marshes, and there were trout in the brooks and bass, pickerel, and perch in the ponds. At certain seasons the alewives ascended the streams in thousands and were literally scooped from the water to be used as fertilizer.
There was, therefore, no dearth of flesh for food nor skins for clothing so long as one could shoot a gun, set a trap, or drop a hook. Of traps David had many, and the south end of the house was never without several skins in process of curing. Larger game had fallen to his prowess, for he had twice shot a bear and once a panther: the skins of these lay on the floor in evidence. He was a good shot, but there was scant virtue in that at a time when the use of the musket, both for hunting and for defense against the Indians, was universal amongst the settlers. Rather, he prided himself on his skill in the making of traps and snowshoes and such things as were needed about the house. He had clever hands for such work. He could draw, too, not very skillfully, but so well that Obid could distinguish at the first glance which was the pig ​and which the ox! And at such times his teacher would grumblingly regret that his talent did not run more to the art of writing. But, since Obid’s own signature looked more like a rat’s nest than an autograph, the complaint came none too well.
Sitting before the fire to-night, David followed in thought the journey of his father and Obid and wished himself with them. Nathan Lindall had spoken truly when he had predicted hard going, for the ice, which still lay in the swamps because of an unseasonable spell of frost the week gone, was too thin to bear one and the trail to Master Vernham’s must keep to the high ground and the longer distance. The three miles, David reflected, would become four ere the men reached their destination, and in the darkness the ill-defined trail through the woods would be hard to follow. It was far easier to sit here at home, toasting his knees, but no boy of sixteen will choose ease before adventure, and the possibility of the fire having been set by the Indians suggested real adventure.
A year and more ago such a possibility would have been little considered, for the tribes had been long at peace with the ​colonists, but to-day matters were changed. It had been suspected for some time that Pometacom, or King Philip, as he was called, sachem of the Wampanoags, was secretly unfriendly toward the English. Indeed, nearly four years since he had been summoned to Taunton and persuaded to sign articles of submission, which he did with apparent good grace, but with secret dissatisfaction. Real uneasiness on the part of the English was not bred, however, until the year before our story. Then Sassamon, a Massachusett Indian who had become a convert of John Eliot’s at the village of Praying Indians at Natick, brought word to Plymouth of intended treachery by Philip. Sassamon had been with Philip at Mount Hope acting as his interpreter. Philip had learned of Sassamon’s treachery and had caused his death. Three Indians suspected of killing Sassamon were apprehended, tried, convicted, and, in June of the following year, executed. Of the three one was a counselor of Philip’s, and the latter, although avoiding any acts of hostility pending the court’s decision, was bitterly resentful and began to prepare for war. During the winter various annoyances had been visited upon the settlers by roaming ​Indians. In some cases the savages were known to be Wampanoags; in other cases the friendly Indians of the villages and settlements were suspected, perhaps often unjustly. Even John Eliot’s disciples at Natick did not escape suspicion. Rumors of threatening signs were everywhere heard. Exaggerated stories of Indian depredations traveled about the sparsely settled districts. From the south came the tale of disaffection amongst the Narragansetts, and from the north like rumors regarding the Abenakis. There was a feeling of alarm everywhere amongst the English, and even in Boston there were timorous souls who feared an attack on that town. As yet, however, nothing untoward had occurred in the Massachusetts-Bay Colony, and the only Indians that David knew were harmless and frequently rather sorry-looking specimens who led a precarious existence by trading furs with the English or who dwelt in the village at Natick. Most of them were Nipmucks, although other neighboring tribes were represented as well. Save that they not infrequently stole from his traps—sometimes taking trap as well as catch—David knew nothing to the discredit of the Indians. Often they came to the house, ​more often he ran across them on the river or in the forest. Always they were friendly. One or two he counted as friends; Monapikot, a Pegan youth of near his own age who dwelt at Natick, and Mattatanopet, or Joe Tanopet as he was known, who came and went as it pleased him, bartering skins for food and tobacco, and who claimed to be the son of a Wamesit chief; a claim very generally discredited. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that David added a good seasoning of salt to the tales of Indian unfriendliness, nor that to-night he was little inclined to lay the burning of William Vernham’s house at the door of the savages.
And yet, since where there is much smoke there must be some fire, he realized that Obid’s surmise might hold more than prejudice. Obid was firmly of the belief that the Indian was little if any better than the beast of the forest and had no sympathy with the Reverend John Eliot’s earnest endeavors to convert them to Christianity, arguing that an Indian had no soul and that none, not even John Eliot, could save what didn’t exist! Nathan Lindall held opposite views both of the Indian and of John Eliot’s efforts, and many a long and warm argument took place ​about the fire of a winter evening, while David, longing to champion his father’s contentions, maintained the silence becoming one of his years.
The fire dwindled and David presently became aware of the chill, and, yawning, climbed the stair and sought his bed with many shivers at the touch of the cold clothing. A fox barked in the distance, but save for that all was silent. Northward the red glow had faded from the sky and the blacker darkness that precedes the first sign of dawn wrapped the world.