University of Virginia Library

1. A
NEW-ENGLAND TALE.

1. CHAPTER I.

Mr. Elton was formerly a flourishing trader,
or, in country phrase, a merchant, in the village
of—. In the early part of his life he had
been successful in business; and having a due portion
of that mean pride which is gratified by pecuniary
superiority, he was careful to appear quite
as rich as he was. When he was at the top of
fortune's wheel, some of his prying neighbours
shrewdly suspected, that the show of his wealth
was quite out of proportion to the reality; and
their side glances and prophetic whispers betrayed
their contempt of the offensive airs of the
purse-proud man.

The people in the village of—were simple
in their habits, and economical in their modes
of life; and Mr. Elton's occasional indulgence in
a showy piece of furniture, or an expensive article
of dress for himself or for his wife, attracted notice,
and, we fear, sometimes provoked envy, even

from those who were wiser and much better than
he was. So inconsistent are men—and women
too—that they often envy a display of which they
really despise, and loudly condemn the motive.

Mrs. Elton neither deserved nor shared the dislike
her husband received in full measure. On
the contrary, she had the good-will of her neighbours.
She never seemed elated by prosperity;
and, though she occasionally appeared in
an expensive Leghorn hat, a merino shawl, or a
fine lace, the gentleness and humility of her manners,
and the uniform benevolence of her conduct,
averted the censure that would otherwise
have fallen on her. She had married Mr. Elton
when very young, without much consideration, and
after a short acquaintance. She had to learn, in
the bitter way of experience, that there was no
sympathy between them; their hands were indissolubly
joined, but their hearts were not related;
he was `of the earth, earthy'—she `of the heavens,
heavenly.' She had that passiveness which,
we believe, is exclusively a feminine virtue, (if
virtue it may be called,) and she acquiesced silently
and patiently in her unhappy fate, though
there was a certain abstractedness in her manner,
a secret feeling of indifference and separation from
the world, of which she, perhaps, never investigated,
certainly never exposed the cause.

Mr. Elton's success in business had been rather
owing to accidental circumstances, than to his skill
or prudence; but his vanity appropriated to himself
all the merit of it. He adventured rashly in

one speculation after another, and, failing in them
all, his losses were more rapid than his acquisitions
had been. Few persons have virtue enough to
retrench their expenses, as their income diminishes;
and no virtue, of difficult growth, could
be expected from a character where no good seed
had ever taken root.

The morale, like the physique, needs use and exercise
to give it strength. Mrs. Elton's had never
been thus invigorated. She could not oppose a
strong current. She had not energy to avert an
evil, though she would have borne any that could
have been laid on her, patiently. She knew her
husband's affairs were embarrassed; she saw him
constantly incurring debts, which she knew they
had no means of paying; she perceived he was
gradually sinking into a vice, which, while it lulls
the sense of misery, annihilates the capacity of
escaping from it—and yet she silently, and without
an effort, acquiesced in his faults. They lived
on, as they had lived, keeping an expensive table,
and three or four servants, and dressing as
usual.

This conduct, in Mrs. Elton, was the result of
habitual passiveness; in Mr. Elton, it was prompted
by a vain hope of concealing from his neighbours
a truth, that, in spite of his bustling, ostentatious
ways, they had known for many months.
This is a common delusion. We all know that,
from the habits of our people in a country town,
it is utterly impossible for the most watchful and
skilful manœuvrer, to keep his pecuniary affairs

secret from the keen and quick observation of his
neighbours. The expedients practised for concealment
are much like that of a little child, who shuts
his own eyes, and fancies he has closed those of the
spectators; or, in their effect upon existing circumstances,
may be compared to the customary
action of a frightened woman, who turns her back
in a carriage when the horses are leaping over a
precipice.

It may seem strange, perhaps incredible, that
Mrs. Elton, possessing the virtues we have attributed
to her, and being a religious woman, should
be accessary to such deception, and (for we will
call “things by their right names”) dishonesty.
But the wonder will cease if we look around upon
the circle of our acquaintance, and observe how
few there are among those whom we believe to be
Christians, who govern their daily conduct by
Christian principles, and regulate their temporal
duties by the strict Christian rule. Truly, narrow
is the way of perfect integrity, and few there are
that walk therein.

There are too many who forget that our religion
is not like that of the ancients, something set
apart from the ordinary concerns of life; the consecrated,
not the “daily bread;” a service for the
temple and the grove, having its separate class of
duties and pleasures; but is “the leaven that
leaveneth the whole lump,” a spirit to be infused
into the common affairs of life. We fear Mrs. Elton
was not quite guiltless of this fault. She believed
all the Bible teaches. She had long been a

member of the church in the town where she lived.
She daily read the scriptures, and daily offered
sincere prayers. Certainly, the waters of the
fountain from whence she drank had a salutary influence,
though they failed to heal all her diseases.
She was kind, gentle, and uncomplaining, and sustained,
with admirable patience, the growing infirmities
and irritating faults of her husband. To
her child, she performed her duties wisely, and
with an anxious zeal; the result, in part, of uncommon
maternal tenderness, and, in part, of a
painful consciousness of the faults of her own character;
and, perhaps, of a secret feeling she had
left much undone that she ought to do.

Mr. Elton, after his pecuniary embarrassments
were beyond the hope of extrication, maintained
by stratagem the appearance of prosperity for
some months, when a violent fever ended his
struggle with the tide of fortune that had set
against him, and consigned him to that place where
there is `no more work nor device.' His wife
was left quite destitute with her child, then an interesting
little girl, a little more than twelve years
old. A more energetic mind than Mrs. Elton's
might have been discouraged at the troubles which
were now set before her in all their extent, and
with tenfold aggravation; and she, irresolute, spiritless,
and despondent, sunk under them. She
had, from nature, a slender constitution; her
health declined, and, after lingering for some
months, she died with resignation, but not without

a heart-rending pang at the thought of leaving
her child, poor, helpless, and friendless.

Little Jane had nursed her mother with fidelity
and tenderness, and performed services for her,
that her years seemed hardly adequate to, with an
efficiency and exactness that surprised all who
were prepared to find her a delicately bred and indulged
child. She seemed to have inherited nothing
from her father but his active mind; from
her mother she had derived a pure and gentle spirit,
but this would have been quite insufficient to
produce the result of such a character as hers,
without the aid of her mother's vigilant, and, for
the most part, judicious training. In the formation
of her child's character, she had been essentially
aided by a faithful domestic, who had lived
with her for many years, and nursed Jane in her
infancy.

We know it is common to rail at our domestics.
Their independence is certainly often inconvenient
to their employers; but, as it is the result of
the prosperous condition of all classes in our happy
country, it is not right nor wise to complain of
it. We believe there are many instances of intelligent
and affectionate service, that are rarely
equalled, where ignorance and servility mark the
lower classes. Mary Hull was endowed with a
mind of uncommon strength, and an affectionate
heart. These were her jewels. She had been
brought up by a pious mother, and early and zealously
embraced the faith of the Methodists. She
had the virtues of her station in an eminent degree:

practical good sense, industrious, efficient
habits, and handy ways. She never presumed formally
to offer her advice to Mrs. Elton; her instincts
seemed to define the line of propriety to
her; but she had a way of suggesting hints, of
which Mrs. Elton learnt the value by experience.
This good woman had been called to a distant
place, to attend her dying mother, just before the
death of Mrs. Elton; and thus Jane was deprived
of an able assistant, and most tender friend, and
left to pass through the dismal scene of death,
without any other than occasional assistance from
her compassionate neighbours.

On the day of Mrs. Elton's interment, a concourse
of people assembled to listen to the funeral
sermon, and to follow to the grave one who
had been the object of the envy of some, and of
the respect and love of many. Three sisters of
Mr. Elton were assembled with families.
Mrs. Elton had come from a distant part of the
country, and had no relatives in—.

Jane's relations wore the decent gravity that
became the occasion; but they were of a hard race,
and neither the wreck their brother had made, nor
the deep grief of the solitary little creature, awakened
their pity. They even seemed to shun
manifesting towards her the kindness of common
sympathy, lest it should be construed into an intention
of taking charge of the orphan.

Jane, lost in the depths of her sufferings, seemed
insensible to all external things. Her countenance
was of a death-like paleness, and her

features immoveable; and when, during the sermon,
an address was made to her personally by
the clergyman, she was utterly unable to rise, one
of her aunts, shocked at the omission of what she
considered an essential decorum, took her by the
arm, and almost lifted her from her seat. She
stood like a statue, her senses seeming to take no
cognizance of any thing. Not a tear escaped, nor
a sigh burst from her breaking heart. The sorrow
of childhood is usually noisy; and this mute
and motionless grief, in a creature so young, and
one that had been so happy, touched every heart.

When the services were over, the clergyman
supported the trembling frame of the poor child to
the place of interment. The coffin was slowly
let down into the house appointed for all. Every
one who has followed a dear friend to the grave,
remembers with shuddering the hollow sound of
the first clods that are thrown on the coffin. As
they fell heavily, poor Jane shrieked, “oh, mother!”
and springing forward, bent over the grave,
which, to her, seemed to contain all the world.
The sexton, used as he was to pursue his trade
amidst the wailings of mourners, saw something peculiar
in the misery of the lone child. He dropped
the spade, and hastily brushing away the tears
that blinded him with the sleeve of his coat, “Why
does not some one,” he said, “take away the
child? This is no place for such a heart-broken
thing.” There was a general bustle in the crowd,
and two young ladies, more considerate, or perhaps
more tender-hearted, than the rest, kindly

passed their arms around her, and led her to her
home.

The clergyman of—was one of those, who
are more zealous for sound doctrine, than benevolent
practice; he had chosen on that occasion for
his text, “The wages of sin is death,” and had
preached a long sermon in the vain endeavour of
elucidating the doctrine of original sin. Clergymen
who lose such opportunities of instructing
their people in the operations of providence, and
the claims of humanity, ought not to wonder if
they grow languid, and selfish, and careless of
their most obvious duties. Had this gentleman
improved this occasion of illustrating the
duty of sympathy, by dwelling on the tenderness
of our blessed Lord, when he wept with
the bereaved sisters at the grave of Lazarus:
had he distilled the essence of those texts, and
diffused their gracious influence into his sermon—
“Bear ye one another's burthens;” “Weep with
those who weep;” “Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of these, ye have done it unto me;”—
had his preaching usually been in conformity to
the teaching of our Saviour, could the scene have
followed, which it is our business to relate?

We fear there are many who think there is merit
in believing certain doctrines; who, mistaking the
true import of that text, “by grace are ye saved,”
quiet themselves with having once in their lives
passed through what they deemed conviction and
conversion, and from thence believe their salvation
is secure. They are like the barren fig-tree;

and unless they are brought to true repentance,
to showing their “faith by their works,” we fear
they will experience its just fate.

The house, furniture, and other property of Mr.
Elton had lain under an attachment for some time
previous to Mrs. Elton's death, but the sale had
been delayed in consideration of her approaching
dissolution. It was now appointed for the next
week; and it therefore became necessary that
some arrangement should be immediately made
for the destitute orphan.

The day after the funeral, Jane was sitting in
her mother's room, which, in her eyes, was consecrated
by her sickness and death; the three
aunts met at Mr. Elton's house; she heard the
ladies approaching through the adjoining apartment,
and hastily taking up her Bible, which she
had been trying to read, she drew her little bench
behind the curtain of her mother's bed. There
is an instinct in childhood, that discerns affection
wherever it exists, and shrinks from the coldness
of calculating selfishness. In all their adversity,
neither Jane, nor her mother, had ever been
cheered by a glimmering of kindness from these
relatives. Mrs. Elton had founded no expectations
on them for her child, but with her usual irresolution
she had shrunk from preparing Jane's mind
for the shocks that awaited her.

The three sisters were led in by a young woman
who had offered to stay with Jane till some arrangement
was made for her. In reply to their
asking where she was, the girl pointed to the bed.

“There,” she said, “taking on despotly.—
A body would think,” added she, “that she had lost
her uncles and aunts as well as her father and mother.
And she might as well,” (she continued,
in a tone low enough not to be heard,) for any
good they will do her.”

The eldest sister began the conference by saying,
“That she trusted it was not expected she
should take Jane upon her hands—that she
was not so well off as either of her sisters—
that to be sure she had no children; but then Mr.
Daggett and herself calculated to do a great deal
for the Foreign Missionary Society; that no longer
ago than that morning, Mr. D. and she had agreed
to pay the expense of one of the young Cherokees
at the School at—; that there was a great
work going on in the world, and as long as they had
the heart given them to help it, they could not feel
it their duty to withdraw any aid for a mere worldly
purpose!”

Mrs. Convers (the second sister) said that she
had not any religion, and she did not mean to pretend
to any; that she had ways enough to spend
her money without sending it to Owyhee or the
Foreign School; that she and her husband had
worked hard, and saved all for their children; and
now they meant they should make as good a figure
as any body's children in the country. It took a
great deal of money, she said, to pay the dancing-master,
and the drawing-master, and the music-master;
it was quite impossible for her sisters to
think how much it took to dress a family of girls

genteelly. It was not now, as it used to be when
they were girls: now-a-days, girls must have merino
shawls, and their winter hats, and summer
hats, and prunella shoes, and silk stockings;—it
was quite impossible to be decent without them.
Besides, she added, as she did not live in the same
place with Jane, it was not natural she should feel
for her. It was her decided opinion, that Jane
had better be put out at once, at some place where
she could do light work till she was a little used to
it; and she would advise too, to her changing her
name, the child was so young she could not care
about a name, and she should be much mortified
to have it known, in the town of—, that her
daughters had a cousin that was a hired girl.

There was something in this harsh counsel which
touched Mrs. Wilson's (the younger sister's) pride,
though it failed to awaken a sentiment of humanity.
She said she desired to be thankful that she had
been kept from any such sinful courses as sending
her children to a dancing-school; nobody could
say she had not done her duty by them; the minister's
family was not kept more strict than hers.

“No,” said Mrs. Convers, “and by all accounts
is not more disorderly.”

“Well, that is not our fault, Mrs. Convers, if
we plant and water, we cannot give the increase.”

Mrs. Wilson should have remembered that God
does give the increase to those that rightly plast,
and faithfully water. But Mrs. W.'s tongue was
familiar with many texts, that had never entered
her understanding, or influenced her heart.

Mrs. Wilson continued—“Sister Convers, I feel
it to be my duty to warn you—you, the daughter
and granddaughter of worthy divines who abhorred
all such sinful practices, that you should own that
you send your children to dancing-school, astonishes
and grieves my spirit. Do you know
that Mr. C—, in reporting the awakening in his
parish, mentions that not one of the girls that attended
dancing-school were among the converts,
whereas two, who had engaged to attend it, but
had received a remarkable warning in a dream,
were among the first and brightest?”

“I would as soon,” she continued, “follow one
of my children to the grave, as to see her in that
broad road to destruction, which leads through a
ball-room.”

“It is easy enough,” replied Mrs. Convers, (adjusting
her smart mourning cap at the glass) “to
run down sins we have no fancy for.”

Mrs. Wilson's ready answer was prevented by
the entrance of Jane's humble friend, who asked,
if the ladies had determined what was to be done
with the little girl.

Mrs. Wilson in her vehemence had quite forgotten
the object of their meeting, but now brought
back to it, and instigated by a feeling of superiority
to Mrs. Convers, and a little nettled by the excuses
of Mrs. Daggett, which she thought were meant as a
boast of superior piety, she said, that as she had no
dancing-masters to pay, and had not “that morning
agreed” to adopt a Cherokee—she could afford
to take Jane for a little while. The child, she said,

must not think of depending upon her for life, for
though she was a widow, and could do what she
was a mind to her with her own, she could not justify
herself in taking the children's meat”—and she
would have added—“ throw it to the dogs,”—but
she was interrupted by a person who, unregarded
by the ladies, had taken her seat among them.

This was a middle aged woman, whose mind
had been unsettled in her youth by misfortunes.
Having no mischievous propensities, she was allowed
to indulge her vagrant inclinations, in wandering
from house to house, and town to town,
her stimulated imagination furnishing continual
amusement to the curious by her sagacious observations,
and unfailing mirth to the young and vulgar,
by the fanciful medley in which she arrayed
her person. There were some who noticed in her
a quickness of feeling that indicated original sensibility,
which, perhaps, had been the cause of her
sufferings. The dogs of a surly master would
sometimes bark at her, because her dress resembled
the obnoxious livery of the beggar—a class
they had been taught to chase with pharisaical antipathy.
But except when her timid nature was
alarmed by the sortie of dogs, which she always
called the devil's servants, crazy Bet found a welcome
wherever she went.

It is common for persons in her unfortunate circumstances
to seek every scene of excitement.
The sober, sedate manners of the New-England
people, and the unvaried tenor of their lives, afford
but few of these. Wherever there was an

awakening, or a camp-meeting, crazy Bet was
sure to be found; she was often seen by moonlight
wandering in the church-yard, plucking the
nettles from the graves, and wreathing the monuments
with ground-pine. She would watch for
whole nights by the side of a grave in her native
village, where twenty years before were deposited
the remains of her lover, who was drowned on the
day before they were to have been married. She
would range the woods, and climb to the very
mountain's-top, to get sweet flowers, to scatter
over the mound of earth that marked his grave.
She would plant rose bushes and lilies there, and
when they bloomed, pluck them up, because she
said their purity and brightness mocked the decay
below.

She has been seen, when the sun came rejoicing
over the eastern mountain's brow, and shot its first
clear brilliant ray on the grave, to clap her hands,
and heard to shout, “I see an angel in the sun,
and he saith `Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection: on such, the second
death hath no power; but they shall be priests of
God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a
thousand years.' ”

Poor Bet was sure to follow in every funeral
procession, and sometimes she would thrust herself
amidst the mourners, and say, “the dead
could not rest in their graves, if they were not
followed there by one true mourner.” She has
been seen to spring forward when the men were
carelessly placing the coffin in the grave with the

head to the east, and exclaim, “are ye heathens,
that ye serve the dead thus? Know ye not the
`Lord cometh in the east.' ” She always lingered
behind after the crowd had dispersed, and busily
moved and removed the sods; and many a time
has she fallen asleep, with her head resting on the
new-made grave, for, she said, there was no sleep
so quiet as `where the wicked did not trouble.'

The quick eye of crazy Bet detected, through
their thin guise, the pride and hypocrisy and selfishness
of the sisters. She interrupted Mrs. Wilson
as she was concluding her most inappropriate quotation,
`Throw it to the dogs;' said she, `It is more
like taking the prey from the wolf.' She then
rose, singing in an under voice,

She approached the bed, and withdrawing the
curtain, exposed the little sufferer to view. She
had lain the open Bible on the pillow, where she
had often rested beside her mother, and laying her
cheek on it had fallen asleep. It was open at the
5th chapter of John, which she had so often read
to her mother, that she had turned instinctively
to it. The page was blistered with her tears.

Careless of the future, which to her seemed to
admit no light, her exhausted nature had found relief
in sleep, at the very moment her aunts were
so unfeelingly deciding her fate. Her pale cheek

still wet with her tears, and the deep sadness of a
face of uncommon sweetness, would have warmed
with compassion any breast that had not been
steeled by selfishness.

“Shame, shame, upon you!” said the maniac;
“has pride turned your hearts to stone, that ye cannot
shelter this poor little ewe-lamb in your fold?
Ah! ye may spread your branches, like the green
bay tree, but the tempest will come, and those
who look for you shall not find you; but this little
frost-bitten bud shall bloom in the paradise of God
for ever and ever.”

Untying a piece of crape which she had wound
around her throat, (for she was never without
some badge of mourning,) she stooped and gently
wiped the tears from Jane's cheek, saying, in
a low tone, “Bottles full of odours, which are
the tears of saints;” then rising, she carefully
closed the curtains, and busied herself for some
minutes in pinning them together. She then softly,
and on tiptoe, returned to her seat; and taking
some ivy from her broken straw bonnet, began
twisting it with the crape. “This,” said she, “is
a weed for Elder Carrol's hat; he lost his wife
yesterday, and I have been to the very top of
Tauconnick to get him a weed, that shall last fresh
as long as his grief. See,” added she, and she
held it up, laughing, “it has begun to wilt already;
it is a true token.”

She then rose from her seat, and with a quick
step, between running and walking, left the room;
but returning as suddenly, she said slowly and emphatically,

“Offend not this little one; for her
angel does stand before my Father. It were better
that a mill-stone were hanged about your
neck.” Then, courtseying to the ground, she
left them.

Bet's solemn and slow manner of pronouncing
this warning, was so different from her usually
hurried utterance, that it struck a momentary chill
to the hearts of the sisters. Mrs. Daggett was
the first to break the silence.

“What does she mean?” said she. “Has Jane
experienced religion?”

“Experienced religion!—no,” replied Mrs.
Wilson. “How should she? She has not been
to a meeting since her mother was first taken
sick; and no longer ago than the day after her
mother's death, when I talked to her of her corrupt
state by nature, and the opposition of her
heart, (for I felt it to be my duty, at this peculiar
season, to open to her the great truths of
religion, and I was faithful to her soul, and did
not scruple to declare the whole counsel,) she
looked at me as if she was in a dumb stupor. I
told her the judgments of an offended God were
made manifest towards her in a remarkable manner;
and then I put it to her conscience, whether if
she was sure her mother had gone where the worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched, she should
be reconciled to the character of God, and be
willing herself to promote his glory, by suffering
that just condemnation. She did not reply one
word, or give the least symptom of a gracious understanding.

But when Mrs. Hervey entered,
just as I was concluding, and passed her arm
around Jane, and said to her, `My child, God does
not willingly grieve nor afflict you,' the child sobbed
out, `Oh no! Mrs. Hervey, so my mother told
me, and I am sure of it.'

“No, no,” she added, after a moment's hesitation;
“this does not look as if Jane had a hope.
But, sister Daggett, I wonder you should mind any
thing crazy Bet says. She is possessed with as
many devils as were sent out of Mary Magdalen.”

“I don't mind her, Mrs. Wilson; but I know
some very good people who say, that many a
thing she has foretold has come to pass; and especially
in seasons of affliction, they say, she is
very busy with the devil.”

“I don't know how that may be,” replied Mrs.
Wilson, “but as I mean to do my duty by this
child, I don't feel myself touched by Bet's crazy
ranting.”

Mrs. Daggett, nettled by her sister's hint, rose
and said, “that, as she was going in the afternoon to
attend a meeting in a distant part of the town,
(for,” said she, “no one can say that distance or
weather ever keeps me from my duties,) she had
no more time to waste.”

Mrs. Convers' husband drove to the door in a
smart gig, and she took leave of her sisters, observing,
she was glad the child was going to be so
well provided for. As she drove away, crazy
Bet, who was standing by the gate, apparently intently
reading the destiny of a young girl, in the
palm of her hand, fixed her eyes for a moment on

Mrs. Convers, and whispered to the girl, “all the
good seed that fell on that ground was choked by
thorns long ago.”

Mrs. Wilson told Jane's attendant, Sally, to inform
her, she might come to her house the next
day, and stay there for the present.