University of Virginia Library

2. PART II.
YOUTH.

1. CHAPTER I.

This Part commences with an omission of five or six years,
the particulars of which, one familiar with life at the Pond will
not find it difficult to supply. Margaret has pursued the tenor
of her way, even or uneven, as the case may be; assisting her
mother, entertaining her father, the companion of Chilion, and
the pupil of the Master. If variety in unity be the right condition
of things, then her life has been truthful and sound.
She has made considerable progress in her studies, pursued for
the most part in a line suggested by the peculiarities of her
instructor. It is Spring; Hash is about beginning his annual
labor of making maple sugar, and burning coal; Margaret has
promised him her aid, after which it is understood she is to
enjoy her own leisure. She carries to the Maples the alderspouts,
which Chilion makes, rights the troughs that have been
lying overturned under the trees, and in due time kindles a fire
beneath the large iron kettle that hangs from a pole supported
between two rocks. Wreathing the trailing arbutus in her
hair, and making a baldric of the ground-laurel, with a wooden
yoke stretched across her shoulders, she carries two pails full
of sap from the trees to the boiler. With a stick having a bit
of pork on the end, she graduates the walloping syrup when
it is likely to overflow, while her brother brings more sap from
the remote and less accessible part of the Camp. The neighbors,
boys and girls, come in at the “sugaring off;” the “wax”
is freely distributed to be cooled on lumps of snow, or the axe-head;
some string it about in long, flexile, fantastic lines,

some get their mouths burnt, all are merry. Her mother
“stirs it off,” and a due quantity of the “quick” and “alive”
crystal sweet is the result, a moiety of which is destined to
Smiths at No. 4, in consideration for the use of the lot, and
another portion to Deacon Penrose's for other well-known
objects.

The Coal-pit, lying farther up the road, on the Via Salutaris,
next demanded attention. She helped clear off the rubbish,
and remove the sod to make a foundation for the kiln, and
prevent the spread of the fire. She lent a hand also in stacking
the wood, covering the pile with turf, and constructing a
lodge of green boughs, where her brother would stay during
the night; one whole night she herself watched with him.
Then she raked up the chips about the house, and with a twig
broom swept the dirt from the new-springing grass; she hoed
out the gutter where the water ran from the cistern, and
washed and aired her own little chamber. The cackling of
the hens drew her in search of their eggs in the manger and
over the hay-mow in the barn; she fed the brooders and
watched the chickens when they broke from their shells. So
four or five weeks pass away, and her own play-spell comes, if,
indeed, her whole life were not a play-spell. She would replenish
her flower-bed, and goes into the woods to gather rare
wild plants. She has books of natural history with which the
Master kept her supplied. The forests in their first leafing and
infloresence, present an incipient autumnal appearance, in
the variety of colors and marked divisions of the trees, but the
whole effect is thinned, diluted and softened. The distant
hills have a yellowish grey merging into a dim silver look,
and might be taken for high fields of grass in a bright dewy
morning. The atmosphere she finds deliciously balmy and
exhilaratingly pure. Innumerable birds have also come out to
enjoy the hour; they sing in the woods, roundelay among trees
and shrubbery about the house; their notes echo across the
Pond, and salute the skies from the top of Indian's Head.
She turned over logs and stones, and let loose to the light and
air tribes of caterpillars, ear-wigs, sow-bugs, beetles and lizzards,
that had harbored there all winter. The ants open
their own habitations by demolishing the roof, which they
convert into a redoubt; and she watched them coming up from
their dark troglodital abodes bringing the fine grit in their teeth,
and stepped with a kind caution among these groups of dumb,
moneyless, industrious Associationists. Toads, piebald, chunk-shaped,
shrugged and wallowed up from their torpid beds, and

winked their big eyes at her. The birds are going on with
their grand opera, and she and the sun, who is just raising his
eye-glass above the trees, are the sole unoccupied spectators.
Hash is busy scolding and goading his oxen; her mother hastens
to bring in yarn she has had out over night, and storms
at the birds, who are to her no more than pilferers. Her father
perhaps has some interest in the scene; he sits in the front
door with a pipe in his mouth, the smoke rolls over his ruddy
pate and muffles his blear eyes, but he contrives to laugh lustily,
and his flabby proportions shake like a bowl of jelly. She
caught at the moment, a harry-long-legs, which she holds by
one of its shanks, while she very soberly inspects the book
before her, to find out more about it than it is disposed to tell
of itself. Her other brother, Chilion, used to love to go into
the woods with her, and while he was hunting, he pointed out
the different birds, gathered rare flowers, and discovered green
knolls and charming frescoes where she could sit. But he is
lame now, and cannot walk far, having never recovered from
the injury he received some years before, searching for her in
the wind-fall. Besides he never said much, and what value he
put upon things that interested her, she could never precisely
understand. He is engaged withal thwacking his axe-head on a
long white ash stick, the successive layers of which being
loosened, he tears off to make baskets with, which has become
almost his sole employment. So she enjoys the world quite alone,
and not the less for that, since she has always done so. The
place flows with birds, and they flow with song; robins, wrens,
yellow-polls, chirping and song-sparrows, bobolinks, thrushes,
cat-birds, cow-buntings, orioles, goldfinches, grassfinches, indigo
birds, purple linnets, swallows, martins, humming-birds;
loons and bitterns on the water; and deep in the forest olive-backs,
veeries, oven-birds, and many kinds of warblers and
creepers; to say nothing of a huge turkey gobbling in the
road, a rooster crowing on the fence, and ducks quacking in
the ditches. A varied note breaks upon her, which if she is
able to distinguish, she can do better perhaps than some of
our readers, who will hardly thank us for giving names to what
after all is very perceptible to the practised ear; twittering,
chirping, warbling, squeaking, screaming, shrieking, cawing,
cackling, humming, cooing, chattering, piping, whistling,
mewing, hissing, trilling, yelping. Chilion is passionately attatched
to music in his own way, is master even of some of its
technicalities, and Margaret in this matter is his pupil; and it
requires no great effort for her to discern a general hallelujah
in this bird-concert; affetuoso and mæstuoso, con dolce and
con furia are agreeably intermingled; nor are there wanting
those besides herself to encore the strain. She is no Priapus
to drive the birds away, but as if she were a bramble-net,
their notes are caught in her ears; even if their feet are not
seized by her fingers as they winnow the air, wheel, dive and
dally about her. They frisk in the trees, pursue one another
across the lots, start fugues in a double sense, compete with
their rivals, clamor for their mates, sing amatory and convivial
ditties, and describe more ridottos than the Italians. Could
we suppose sounds to be represented by ribbons of different
colors, and the fair spirit of music to sit in the air some hundred
feet from the ground, having in her hand a knot of
lutestrings of a hundred hues, blue, pink, white, gold, silver,
and every intermediate and combined shade and lustre, and let
them play out in the sun and wind, their twisting, streaming,
snapping, giddying, glancing, forking, would be a fair symbol
of the voices of the birds in the ear of Margaret, on this warm
sunny Spring morning. Howbeit, the profusion of Nature
offers other things to her attention besides the birds; or
rather we should say the good mother of all gives these beautiful
voices wherewith to purify the sensibilities of her children,
and animate them in their several pursuits. Thus enlivened
and impelled, Margaret entered other departments of
observation. Shod with stout shoes, armed with a constitution
inured to all forces and mixtures of the elements, supported by
a resolution that neither snakes, bears, or a man could easily
abash, she penetrated a wet sedgy spot near the margin of the
Pond, where she found clusters of tall osmunds, straight as an
arrow, with white downy stems, and black seed-leaves, curling
gracefully at the top in the form of a Corinthian capital, and
shining pearl-like in the sun with their dew-spangled chaffy
crowns; the little polypods with green, feathery, carrot-shaped
fronds, penetrating the solid dry heaps of their decayed ancestry;
horse-tails with storied ruffs of supple spines; farther
down the road were the fleecy buds of the mouse-ear, bringing
beautiful cloud-life from the dank leaden earth; the young
mulleins, velvety, white, tender, fit to ornament the gardens of
Queen Mab; buttercup-sprouts with dense green leaves, waxen
and glistening; in the edge of the woods she gathered the
straw-colored, pendulous flowers of the chaste bell-wort; the
liver-leaves, with cups full of snow-capped threads; mosses,
with slender scarlet-tipped stems, some with brown cups like
acorns, others with crimson flowers; there were also innumerable
germs of golden rod, blue vervain, and other flowers,
which at a later season shall fill the hedges and enliven the
roads. In the woods a solitary white birch, bedizened with
long, yellow, black-spotted flowers, pulsating in the wind, and
having a scarlet tanager sitting in its thin sunny boughs, attracted
her eye by its own gentle beauty; in the shaded grass
were hundreds of snow-drops, like a bevy of girls in white
bonnets trooping through a meadow; quantities of the slender,
pink flowering-wintergreen grew among the white dog-weed;
and the twin-flower interlaced the partridge berry. Within
the forest was a broad opening, where she loved to walk, and
which at this time disclosed in high perfection the beautiful
verdure of Spring. Here were white oaks with minute white
flowers, red oaks with bright red flowers, red maples with still
redder flowers, rock maples with salmon-colored leaves, as
it were birds fluttering on one foot, or little pirouetting
sylphs; a growth of white birches spread itself before a sombre
grove of pines, like a pea-green veil. The path was strown
with old claret boxberries, grey mosses, brown leaves,
freaked with fresh green shoots; and what with the flowers of
the trees illumined by the sun on either side, one could imagine
her walking an antique hall with tesselated floor and
particolored gay hangings. This opening descended to the
shore of the Pond, where, under another clump of white
birches, she sat down. The shadows of the trees refreshingly
invested her, the waves struck musically upon the rocks, and
in the clear air, her own thoughts sped like a breath away; the
vivacity of the birds was qualified by the advance of the day,
and while she had been delighted at first with what she saw,
all things now subsided into harmony with what she felt.
She hummed herself in low song, which as it had not rhyme,
and perhaps not reason, we will not transcribe. Some new
tide of sensation bore her off, and she went up the Via Salutaris
to the brook Kedron. This she threaded as far as the
Tree-bridge; golden blossoms of the adder and willow over-hung
the dark stream; she passed thickets of wild cherries
in full snowy bloom; yellow adder's tongue diversified green
cowslips, pink columbines festooned the grey rocks, red
newts were sunning themselves on the pebbles of the brook;
she saw a veery building its nest in a branch so low its young
could be cradled in the music of the stream; green, lank frogs
sprang from her feet into the swift eddies, and thrust up their
heads on the other side, like their cousins the toads, to look
at her; clear water oozed from the slushy bog of the banks.
Crossing from the Via Dolorosa, through the grove of walnuts
and birches, and the Maples, she came to rocks that abutted
the south-east boundary line of the elevated plain on which
lay the basin of the Pond; a point overlooking the bed of
Mill Brook, the Brandon road, ranges of hills beyond, and the
Village at the left. Descending this, on the slope below, were
pines, spruces and cedars; hereabouts also she discovered the
dog-wood, high cranberry and tulip-tree, in showy bloom;
and the prettily flowering mitrewort, saxifrage, and Solomon's
seal.

But there appeared what for the moment quite diverted her
from these things She heard a sound issuing from the
shady side of a young pine, like that of a woman, singing
or murmuring to itself. Stealing her way to the tree, through
the boughs, she beheld a young lady of nearly her own age,
reclined on the dry pine leaves, whiling herself in rending to
shreds the bright crimson flowers of the red-bud or Judas
tree, and uttering plaintive broken sounds. She was delicately
fair, the outline of her face was finely shaped, long locks of
golden hair trailed upon her neck; her hand was snowy white,
and fingers transparently thin. She wore a white red-sprigged
poplin, a small blue bonnet lay at her side, and a brocaded
camlet-hair shawl falling from her shoulders discovered a bust
of exquisite proportions. Her complexion was white, almost
too white for nature or health, and her whole aspect betokened
the subsidence and withdrawal of proper youthful vigorous
expressiveness. Margaret was spell-bound, and looked in astonished
silence. The young lady laughed as she scattered
the flowers, and there was a marvellous beauty in her smile,
melancholy though it seemed to be, and even to Margaret's
eye, who was not an adept in such matters, it rayed out like
the shimmer of a cardinal bird in a dark forest. Margaret
thought of the Pale Lady of her dreams, and that she had
suddenly dropped from the skies at her feet. She saw the
young lady press her thin fingers to her eyes as if she wept,
then she smiled again, and that smile penetrated Margaret's
heart, and she advanced from her ambuscade, but spider-like,
as if she were about to catch some fragile vision of her fancy.
The young lady sprang up at the noise, seized her bonnet, and
ran. Margaret pursued, and what with her ready familiarity
with the woods and fleetness of foot, gained upon the other,
who turned abruptly, and said, “Why do you chase me?”

“Why do you run?” responded Margaret. “I would not
hurt you; let me hear your voice—let me take your hand,”

she continued. Her tone was kind, her manner innocent,
and the young lady seemed won by it, and disposed to parley.

She rejoined, “I sought this spot to be away from the faces
of all.”

“How strange!” ejaculated Margaret. “Where is your
home? Are you from the village?” she asked.

“I have no home,” replied the young lady, “but you are
Molly Hart, whom they have told me about.”

“Yes,” answered Margaret, “I am Molly Hart; but say
who are you, and what is your name?”

“Those are questions I cannot answer,” replied the other.

“You look very unhappy,” said Margaret.

“Were you ever unhappy?” asked the stranger.

“No,” said Margaret, “not much so; I have always been
happy, I think.”

“You seem to be fond of flowers,” said the young lady.

“Are not you?” asked Margaret.

“I used to be,” she replied. “I was going to say,” she
added, “I will help carry your basket for you, and look for
flowers with you; only you must not ask me any questions.”

“Then I shall want to,” said Margaret.

“But you must not,” said the young lady.

“Very well,” said Margaret, “you will be another flower
and bird to me, and equally unknown with all the rest; nor
will you give me less pleasure for that you are unknown, since
everything else is.

“Then I shall like you very much,” said the young lady,
“if you can consent to my being unknown; and perhaps in
that way we can contrive to amuse one another.”

They ascended the bluff, and returned through the woods
together.

“Have you found the snap-dragon, that recoils when it is
touched?” asked the young lady.

“That does not come out in the Spring,” said Margaret.
“But here are some berries of the witch-hazle that blossomed
last Fall.”

“And under our feet are withered dead leaves,” rejoined
the young lady.

“But they shone in vigorous starry brilliancy, after the
frosts pinched them,” said Margaret.

“Here is the morning glory,” said the young lady as they
entered the Mowing, “that lasts but an hour.”

The young lady, as we have said, evinced great waste of
strength, her voice was reduced in a corresponding degree,

though it was sweet and clear as her face was beautiful; and
there was something in her tone and manner of allusion that
signified a secret unexpressed state of being which Margaret
could not fail to remark, however far she might be removed
from its proper comprehension; and her replies took the turn
of one in whose breast, intuitively, will float veiled images,
and be reflected therefrom indistinct recognizances of latent
deep realities in the breast of another.

“Look at this blue-flag,” she said; “our neighbor, a wise
simpler, declares it will cure a host of diseases.”

“The star-grass there,” replied the young lady, “hides
itself in the rank verdure, and only asks to be.

“The strawberry is very modest, too,” rejoined Margaret,
“but its delicious fruit is for you and me, and everybody.”

“Shall I never see you again?” enquired Margaret emphatically.
“Will you go away as suddenly as you came? Will
you not speak to me? Have the naturalists given no description
of such a one as you? You say you have no home—do
you live under the trees? Where did you get that shawl and
bonnet? No name! No genus, no species? Come into the
house and let Chilion play to you.”

“You have seen the pond-lily, “replied the young lady,
“that closes its cup at night, and sinks into the water.”

“But it springs up the next morning blooming as ever,” said
Margaret. “Besides, if only one had appeared in my life-time,
I should be tempted to plunge in after it, come what
might. You are very `anagogical,' as my Master says, strange
and mysterious I mean, like a good many other things. You
remind me of a pale beautiful lady I have seen in my dreams,
only her hair is black”

“The blood-root,” replied the imperturbable young lady,
“when it is broken loses its red juice.”

“In truth!” exclaimed Margaret. “Yet it is a very pretty
flower. I have a whole one just flowering in my bed near
the house. Do go with me and see it. You love flowers,
and I do too, and perhaps they will talk you more to me.”

“No,” replied the young lady, “I cannot go now. I am at
the Widow Wright's; but do not follow me. You are very
happy, you say, and you have no need of me; you are quite
busy too, and I would not call you away.”

“Do give me a name,” urged Margaret, “some point that
I can seize hold upon you by, be it ever so small. I am sure
I shall dream about you.”

“Since you like flowers,” answered the young lady, “you
may call me Rose, but one without color, a white one.”

So they separated, and Margaret went to her house. From
her collection she transferred to her flower-beds a spring-beauty,
a rhodora, a winter-green, to grow by the side of
sweet briar, cardinal flowers, blood-roots, columbines, and
others. Chilion brought out a neatly made box in which he
wished her to set a venus shoe or ladies slipper.

It was not singular that Margaret should desire again to see
the strange young lady, who was called Rose, nor was she at
loss for opportunities to do so. She pursued her sedulously,
and even prevailed with her to come to her father's. The
spirit of Pluck seemed to rally Rose, and Chilion's music penetrated
and charmed her soul, albeit it failed to reveal the
secret of her thoughts. It was of different kind from any she
had heard before; it operated as a simple melodious incantation,
and did not, as music sometimes does, arouse feelings
only to tantalize and distress them. Chilion played in a wild
untutored way, catching his ideas from his own simple thoughts,
and from what of nature was comprised above and below the
horizon of the Pond, and this pleased her. Margaret sensitively
alive to whatever pertained to the due understanding of
Rose, sometimes gave her brother a hint at which he played;
but there was developed so plain an uneasiness within the
concealed being of the young lady, that both were fain to forbear.
Rose came frequently to Pluck's; she loved to be with
Margaret and Chilion; even the sullen disposition of Hash she
evinced a facility for softening by her playful repartees and
beautiful smiles. She gained the favor of Brown Moll by assisting
Margaret, who rising in domestic as well as natural
science, had become equal to carding and spinning. Bull too
was not insensible to her attractions, but with an enlargement
of heart, not always found in the superior races, while he fell
off no whit in his original attachments, he recognized her as
a new Lady-love, obeyed her voice, followed her steps, wagged
his tail at her smiles, and leaped forwards to meet her as readily
as he did Margaret, and that too in his old age. Nothing
could have been more diverting to the whole party, and to
Pluck especially, though in himself the line of the ridiculous
was complete, than to see Brown Moll weaving, Margaret
spinning, Rose carding, and Pluck, reduced to Margaret's
childhood estate, occupying her little stool, quilling; which
was often done. But Rose's strength was not adequate to such
tasks long continued, and perhaps from the entertainment it
afforded was her chief power derived. She and Margaret
walked in the woods, sailed on the Pond, and sometimes read

and studied together. Now also the peculiarities of Rose appeared.
She would absent herself from Pluck's and Margaret
whole days; she would stay at the Widow's, between whom
and herself some relationship was claimed, and work silently
with Obed in his herb-beds, despite the most urgent solicitations
of Margaret; she resorted alone to the thickest parts of
the forest; and sometimes she would break away from Margaret
when they were on the Pond together, take the canoe and
wander alone over the deep dark waters, or spend hours by
herself on a solitary island. No questionings, no attentions,
no generosity could succeed in discovering the secret that
seemed evidently to labor in her breast, or a part of which
she may have been. The Widow, and Obed, who took his
cue from his mother, would answer nothing for her; save that
the latter called her his cousin. At times she was cheerful,
talkative, vivacious, even to exuberance; in the same moment
she would relapse into a thoughtful and preoccupied state;
not unfrequently she wept even, but would not tell Margaret
why. Margaret soon learned to acquiesce in these diversities
of the stranger, at whatever expense of baffled solicitude on
her own part. She was delighted with the gushes of Rose's
sprightliness, she was overawed by her hidden pain, as by some
great mystery of nature, which, nevertheless, she sometimes
essayed critically to explore, sometimes humanely to compose;
but the subject only reminded her of her ignorance, though,
meanwhile, it haunted her with new and indefinable sensations
of tenderness and reflective philanthropy.

In the latter part of May, the Master came to the Pond, his
thin grey face agreeably illumined by the pleasing intelligence
he bore, this, to wit, that he had negotiated the Village School
for Margaret,—it having recently, that is for three or four years
past, been in charge of a female during the Summer. However
Margaret might have regarded this proposal, there was one
consideration that prevailed with her to accept it. This arose
from the pecuniary embarrassments of the family. Pluck's
whole estate was under mortgage to Mr. Smith of No. 4, the
original proprietor, and retained indeed from year to year with
a diminishing prospect of redemption. That gentleman in fact
threatened an ejectment, and if relief were not soon afforded,
dismemberment and homelessness might at any moment become
their lot. Pursuant to orders, the next day, Margaret
paid a visit to Master Elliman's to take such instructions as
he felt bound to communicate relative to her new duties. He
gave her to understand that there existed an opposition in the

minds of some of the people to her having the School, but that
he had secured the appointment through Parson Welles, whom
he persuaded to his views. He next advised her as to the
books used in the School. He said the children would read
daily in the Psalter, recite every Saturday morning from the
Primer, and for the matter of the Spelling-book, the only remaining
channel of elementary instruction, he intimated there
was a question. He made known that he learnt from Fenning's
Universal, which was afterwards supplanted by the New England;
that many of the people were clamorous for a change,
which had been effected in most of the towns; that one wanted
Perry's Only Sure Guide, another Dilworth, a third Webster's
First Part; and that he and Deacon Hadlock, who
agreed in little else, had hitherto been united in resisting scholastic
innovations; but the time was come when he supposed
a concession must be made to the wishes of the public.

“Compare,” said he, “the First Part, and the deific Universal.
Look at the pictures even. Young Noah, who propounds
to us his visage in the frontispiece of his book, has
doffed, you see, the wig, and is frizzed, much to the alarm of
your good friend Tony, who declares the introduction of said
book will ruin him. Those super-auricular capillary appendages,
hardened with pomatum, to what shall we liken them, or
with what similitude shall we set them forth? They are like
the caves of a Chinese temple; or in the vernacular of your
brother Nimrod, they are like a sheep's tail; yea, verily. — But
by a paradox, id est, by digressing and returning, we will keep
in the straight track. The Deacon, the Parson and the Master,
a megalosplanchnotical triad, have recommended Hale's
Spelling Book. Enoch was a pupil of mine, and though grown
sanctiloquent of late, he always knew how to say the right
thing, as his book abundantly declares. Webster, moreover,
advertises us that & is no letter — the goal of every breathless,
whip-fearing, abcdarian's valorous strife, the high-sounding
Amperzand, no letter! Mehercule! You apocopate that from
the alphabet, and Deacon Haddock will apocopate you from
the School; yea, verily. It really signifies and per se, that for
your private edification, Mistress Margaret. Moreover Perry
makes twenty-six vowel sounds, Hale only sixteen; Webster
enumerates nine vowels, Hale five; Hale preponderates in
merit by reduction in number. Too many words, Margaret,
too many words among men. The fewer vocals the better,
as you will certainly know, when you have the children to instruct.
In spelling, let the consonant be suffixed to the last

vowel thus, g-i v-e-n, not, g-i-v e-n, given, as they do now-a-days.
It is revolutionary and monstrous. Hand me my pipe,
I shall get angry. — And, memor sis, mea discipula, vox populi,
vox dei. You have asked me who God is; you will probably
arrive at that understanding as soon as you desire. Here,”
he continued, presenting a heavy ebony ruler, “is what serves
to keep up the flammula vitalis in the simulacra hominum.
You will find it a good Anamnetic in the School, and useful
in cases of the Iliac Passion, that the young androids are subject
to. Let not the words of Martial be fulfilled in you,

The best Master I wot of is the Swabian who gave his scholars
911,000 canings, with standing on peas, and wearing the fool's
cap in proportion. With my most pious endeavors, I could
never exceed more than ten castigations per diem, one at each
turn of the glass; and that in thirty years that I have borne the
Solomonic function, amounts only to about sixty thousand;
Jove forgive me! Here also is a clepsydra, yclept an hour-glass,
for you; and this is the Fool's Cap, which it is hardly
needful to put on in a world like this, but the Committee
will be pleased to see it worn. Lupus pilum mutat, non mentem.”

“Your friend Fenning,” interrupted Margaret, “I see, writes
thus in his preface. `I must take the freedom to say, that I
am sensible a Rod, a Cane, or Ferula, are of little signification;
for I have experienced in regard to Learning itself, Infants
may be cheated into it, and the more grown-up youth
won by good nature.”'

“I don't wonder,” replied the Master, “that Deacon Hadlock
is confounded at the times, when the scholar presumes to
arraign his tutor! My friend Fenning, peace to his shades, had
a weak side, nor could all the Divine Widow's embrocations
cure him; I mean he was tainted with heresy; he denied the
plenary inspiration of the Bible; not your father's, for of that
there can be no doubt; but that wherein King Solomon appears—and
this reminds you of the Parson's snuff, which is
truly after a godly sort, kept in godly pockets, and is efficacious
in the illuminating of the understanding of the saints—but of
these things I do not discourse. It is somewhere said, `Spare
the rod and spoil the child;' this truth carefully concealed in
the holy mysteries, my Friend Fenning most unbecomingly
dared to question.—But you are not through with your anagogics
yet. You never saw a Mumming, or Punch and Judy? No—
well —”

While they were speaking, Deacon Ramsdill halted into the
room, with one of those smiles, which, if it ever preceded him
as a shadow, still was the promise of something kind and good-natured
thereafter. “I heer'd what the gal was about,” said
he, “and I thought I would try, and give her a lift. I am
abroad a good deal, and my woman is getting old and rather
lonesome-like; and we made up our minds if Miss Margery
would come and stay with us, she should have her board and
welcome. Hester Penrose that kept the School last summer, got
her lodgings free, at the Deacon's, and we thought we could
do as much for you. Don't know how you will like us, but
we have found that swine that run at large in the woods make
the sweetest pork, and we are willing to give you a try.—
What on arth are you going to do with that piece of board?”

“If I understand the Master,” replied Margaret, “he intends
for me to fence in the scholars with it.”

“There now,” responded the Deacon. “I tell you children
have nater, and you can't help it, no more than you can being
a cripple when your hamstrings are cut. When they first
come to school they are just like sheep, you put them into a
new pasture, and they run all over it up and down, shy
round the fence, try to break out, and they won't touch a sprig
of grass, though they are hungry as bears. You send the
youngsters of an arrant, and they climb all the rocks, throw
stones at the horse-sheds, chase the geese, and stop and talk
with all the boys and gals in the way, and more than as likely
as not forget what they have gone upon. We old folk must
keep patience, and remember we did just so once. It's sheer
nater and there's no stoppin on't, no more than a rooster's crowing
a Sabber-day.—Blotches are apt to come out in hot weather,
and you may find the scholars a little tarbulent, particularly
about dog-days; but nater must have its course. Don't keep
them too tight. When the tea-kettle biles too hard, my woman
has to take off the cover. 'Twon't do to press it down, it's
agin nater, you see.—But, Molly, or Mistress Margaret, as we
shall have to call you, for want of a nail the shoe is lost, as
Poor Richard says; you must mind little things, and see that
matters don't come to loose ends before you know it. Pull up
the weeds, and then throw down some brush for the cucumbers
to fasten to; it's nateral, and they don't get snarled among
themselves. But you understand how to work a garden; well,
it's all nater alike. Ha, ha!”

This language, the Master, who perhaps on the principle

that extremes meet, or, what is more likely, that the simple,
hearty pleasantry of the Deacon was always boon company to
his own laughing humor, ever maintained friendly relations
with the latter gentleman—this language, we say, the Master
suffered to pass without animadversion or rejoinder.

Margaret, thus turned adrift to her own reflections by the
pointed opposition of her friends, thanked them both for their
magnanimous interest in her behalf, took the books and other
pædagogical ensigns, and returned to the Pond. Early the
succeeding Monday, she reported herself at the School-house,
took her seat behind the big desk, and opened with her scholars,
who filed in after her, each one making his bow or her curtesy
as they entered the door; and all with clean bright faces and
barefeet. The boys took their places one side of the room,
and the girls the other. They reckoned about twenty, and
were all under twelve years of age, comprising the buds of the
village population. Among them was little Job Luce, who
recompensed for deformity of body in vivacity of mind, and
combining withal certain singularities of sentiment, could not
fail to recommend himself to the favorable attention of his Mistress,
however he stood reputed with the world at large. She
classed her scholars, heard their a's, ab's, acorns, and abandonments,
gave them their outs, rapped with the ferule on the window
to call them in—the only application she made of the instrument
in question—turned her glass every half hour, enjoyed
the intermission at noon, and at night, if like most teachers,
was as glad as her scholars, to be dismissed. Her dinner this
first day, which she brought from home, she ate at the School-house;
a practice which she not unfrequently adopted, since
Deacon Ramsdill's where she had her quarters was some distance
from the Green,—and in this she was joined by many of
her scholars; and she spent the hour cultivating their acquaintance,
remarking their manifold novel and diverse evolutions,
moral and physical, and contributing to their pastime—she
never commanded the intimacy of children before. The Deacon's
became in fact no more than her nominal abode, since
there were others in the village who regarded her with kindness.
Isabel Weeks, whom she had occasionally encountered,
and who even visited her at the Pond, was her staunch friend.
Of Isabel we might say many things, and on Margaret's account,
some amplification perhaps were demanded; but agreeably to
the well used maxim, that times of peace furnish few topics for
the historian, we follow all precedents, and forbear. Isabel
was emphatically a time of peace, she had no contentions, intrigues,

or revolutions. She was so quiet and unobtrusive, she
would be set down for an ordinary character. She was just as
common-place and unnoticed as the sun is. She had no veiled
secret like Rose, to tantalize expectation, and stimulate curiosity;
she was transparent as the air, and like that element,
was full of refreshment and health, sweet odors and pleasant
sounds. She had always been indulgent of Margaret, and of
the people at the Pond, from her childhood; and perhaps, if
we ascribe to her a portion of that self-love of which so few
are deprived, she found she lost nothing in continuing this
friendship, which indeed had cost her something with her
neighbors. In addition her sister Helen, older by one year,
was one not altogether unlike herself, and Mistress Weeks felt no
other concern about Margaret's coming to her house than that
it forced her to a fresh task of arithmetical action, so that she
frequently passed the night there. The Widow Luce, grateful
for her attention to the unfortunate Job, was also disposed
to receive Margaret cordially. She sometimes staid at the
Widow Small's, where the Master kept her late in the evening
employed in a manner that gave him the greatest possible
gratification, playing back gammon. One day in this first
week, at the close of the School, following her scholars from
the house, who broke forth in noise, freedom and joy, the boys
betaking themselves to their several diversions, snapping-the-whip,
skinning-the-cat, racing round the Meeting-house, or
what not, she found herself engaged with a group of girls,
saying,

“It's the Ma'am's, it's the Ma'am's!” shouted the girls, “she
must stand;” and stand she did, blinded her eyes, counted
a hundred, went in search of the hiders, anticipated their return,
and, in fine, went through a regular game of “Touch
Goal,” with the ardor and precision of her pupils.

Saturday forenoon, she omitted the customary lesson in the
Primer, and on her return home, deliberately reported her
conduct to the Master, and let fall some intimations about not
understanding the Book. “Understand the Primer!” retorted
he with considerable vehemence. “What most people dread,

I am fain to confess I love, lunacy, to be out of one's head.
Didn't you know that you must be out of your head when you
undertook the School. Are not all teachers, preachers, speakers,
out of their head? What do they know or pretend to
know of what they froth and jabber about! Ugh! Eidepol! Is
it not all a puppet-show, are we not all wheel-grinders? Are
not Patriots cap wearers and Priests mummers? Wag your
mouth and blink your eyes like most genuine pasteboard when
you come out into the world among folk.—Not teach the Primer,
hey? That is the finest part of the whole. You would banish
Harlequin from the play, like some other good moral people!
Go to, go to, you little prude! Lie out in the Moon this and
to-morrow night, and you will be ready to begin your work
again Monday, like any good saint.”

With these condolences and ministrations, she continued
her way to the Pond, where she proposed to spend the Sabbath.
Rose came to see her, to whom she recounted the passages of
the week, new and reflective, painful and pleasing. Pluck
nearly split with laughter at what she related of the Master and
the Primer, whereby also Rose was similarly affected, yet not
so naturally as the old man, but like one startled from a dream,
or in whom an imprisoned phantasmal voice breaks out wild
and derisory.

“The bell tolls; who is dead?” asked Brown Moll, as they
were sitting in the door-way about sunset Sabbath evening,
and the measured melancholy note fell upon their ears, the old
and familiar signal to the town that some spirit had just left
the body. “Hold your yop, Gaffer, while I count.” So by
keeping pace with the number of strokes she learned the age
of the deceased. “Forty one, who is it?”

“It must be Mrs. Morgridge,” said Margaret. “I heard
that she was sick, but did not think she was going to die.
Poor little Arthur!”

This exclamation over one who was a pupil of hers, was supported
by no contributions of her friends, and the subject, like
those to whom it owed its rise, died away. The family never
said much about death, whether they feared it and did not wish
their peace disturbed, or were indifferent to it and felt moved
to no words, or were prepared for it and needed no admonitions,
nothing in their manner would leave us the means of determining.

Monday she resumed her duties; Tuesday afternoon, she
was advised by the Master that it was expected the school
would be suspended on account of the funeral. She went to

the Judge's, who lived on the North Street, a short distance
from the Green, with her friend Isabel. There was a large
collection of people, many from the remote skirts of the town.
After prayer by Parson Welles, the coffin was taken into the
front yard, and laid on the bier, under the trees. Sunlight and
shadows, fit emblems of the hour, flickered over the scene, not
more breathless, hushed and solemn, than were the voice, step
and heart of the multitude there assembled. The voluminous
velvet pall thrown back, exposed a mahogany coffin, thickly
studded with silver buttons, ornamented with some gilt armorial
tracery, and having the name and age of the deceased on a
silver tablet. The citizens approached one by one to take a
last look of the remains, then sunk away into the silently revolving
crowd. The mourners presently appeared, and the
people parted in a ring on either side. These also indulged a
tearful, momentary, final vision; the lid was closed, and the
pall folded to its place. On the coffin were then laid six pairs
of white kid gloves, one for each of the pall bearers, and a
black silk scarf, designed for the Clergyman. The bier, carried
on the shoulders of four young men, was followed by the
relatives, when came the citizens at large, two and two abreast,
forming a long train. The bell began its slow, far-echoing, heavy
toll, and continued to sound till the procession reached the
grave-yard. This spot, chosen and consecrated by the original
colonists, and used for its present purpose more than a century,
lay on the South Street, or rather at the junction of the
road to the Mill and that leading to No. 4, and constituted the
crown of the ridge that divided Mill Brook and Kedron. It
was in fact conspicuous both for its elevation and its sterility.
A sandy soil nourished the yellow orchard grass that waved
ghostlike from the mounds, and filled all the intervals and the
paths. No verdure, neither flower, shrub, or tree, contributed
to the agreeableness of the grounds, nor was the bleak desolation
disturbed by many marks of art. There were two marble
shafts, a table of red sand-stone, several very old headstones of
similar material, and others of a later date made of slate. But
here lay the fathers of the people, and here too they soon must
lie, and it was a place of earnest solemnity to all. Coming to
the grave, the men took off their hats; the four bier men lowered
the coffin by leathern straps, then each in turn threw
in a shovelful of earth; next Philip Davis the Sexton, taking
the shovel into his own hands, standing at the foot of the grave,
said in form as follows, “I will see the rest done in decency
and order.” Parson Welles, as the last obsequial act, in the
name of the beneaved family, thanked the people for their
kindness and attention to the dead and the living, and the
procession returned to the house of the Judge. Some lingered
behind to revisit the graves of their friends; Margaret and
Isabel also stayed. It was, as we have intimated, a spot without
beauty or bloom; like many others in New England; but
in New England affections are green remembrances and enduring
monuments; tears that mausoleums cannot always command,
were freely shed on this dry orchard-grass, and the
purest purposes of life were kindled over these unadorned
graves. The drunken Tapleys from No. 4, moved in a body
to a corner of the lot where four years before was laid their
youngest child, a little daughter, marked by a simple swell of
dry sod scarce a span long, and there at least they were sober.
Margaret alone had no friends there. Isabel took her to the
grave of one of her early companions, Jesselyne Ramsdill,
only child of the Deacon's, an amiable and beautiful girl who
was cut off by that scourge of our climate, consumption, in
her fifteenth year, wasting away, like a calm river, serene
and clear to the last. As objects of curiosity, were the old
monuments, made as we have said of red sand stone, now
grey with moss, bearing death's heads and cherub cheeks
rudely carved, and quaint epitaphs, and the whole both sinking
into the earth and fading under the effects of time. Alas,
who shall preserve the relics of these Old Covenanters!

Again in the same week was she summoned to the suspension
of her School, to which, from day to day, were her attachments
increasing. The occasion was this; being one evening
with the Master, he showed her a piece of brown parchment
inscribed with the following words, which he desired her to
translate;

“Universis Quorum interest.

“Attestamur Bartholomew Elliman in Actis Societatis dictæ
Masoniæ ex ordine fuisse inscriptum, &c.,” the substance of
which being, that he was a worthy member of the Masonic
Lodge of the Rising States. He condescended also to explain
the seal of his watch, a huge cornelian cased in gold, dangling
from a long gold chain, which had attracted the attention
of her earliest years. He said it was “Azure on a chevron
between two castles argent, a pair of compasses somewhat
extended of the first, &c.; and in fine he told her, that as the
Masonic Fraternity were about to perform the ceremony of
consecrating a Hall to their purposes in the village, it would
be quite impossible for the School to keep, and perhaps altogether

pleasant for her to witness the scene. On the appointed
day, in company with Isabel, she repaired to the
Green. The procession, numbering nearly two hundred of
the order, out of the whole county, formed from the Crown
and Bowl. It exhibited what has been called a “splendid
parade” in the “gorgeous attire” of the men with their
freshly powdered hair, white gloves, aprons and stockings; the
six standards of crimson and gold, blue and silver, flaunting
in the sunbeams; the pictured gradations of office, and the
showy paraphernalia of the mystic institution. She saw
Captain Eliashib Tuck, Grand Tyler, with a drawn sword,
leading the march; then came her friend the Master among
the Worshipful Deacons, with staves; in place were the
Secretaries, Dr. Spoor being of the number; a band of Music
playing Hail Columbia; a corps of Singers; Brothers bearing
a gold pitcher of corn, and silver pitchers containing wine
and oil; four Tylers supporting the Lodge which was garnished
with white satin, and, so the Master gave her to understand,
was the identical Ark of the Covenant, constructed by
Bezaleel, and presented to Moses; the Right Worshipful
Grand Master, Esq. Weeks, who bore the Bible, Square and
Compasses on a crimson velvet cushion; the Chaplain, the
Rev. Mr. Lovers, of Brandon, in his robes. The uninitiated
were invited to fall into the rear, among whom were
Margaret and Isabel. The Hall, which was the object of this
convocation, covered the second floor of a building recently
put up for town occasions on the east side of the Green.
The door was decorated with emblematical figures, the floor
had a mosaic coloring, heavy curtains of crimson and gold
shaded the windows, on the walls were blazoned sundry
hieroglyphics, the Sun and Moon, a Cock, Coffin, Eye and
Star; in their places were to be seen the implements of the
Order, the plummet, mallet, trowel and an armillary sphere,
and in the centre stood two marble pillars, understood to be
Jachin and Boaz. The procession entered and marched
three times round the room; at the first turn, the Grand
Master, facing the East, said; “In the name of Jehovah I
dedicate this Hall to Free Masonry;” then he pronounced it
sacred to Virtue, and lastly to Universal Benevolence. A
prayer and anthem succeeded, when an Oration was pronounced
by the Chaplain. “Free Masonry,” said the Reverend
gentleman, “is the most perfect and sublime institution
ever devised for conferring happiness on the individual, and
augmenting the general welfare of society. Its fundamental
principles,” he continued, “are Universal Philanthropy and
Brotherly Love; its pillars are Faith, Hope and Charity; its
embellishments Order and Beauty; its instruments Truth and
Rectitude; its end Virtue and Happiness; Religion is its
Sister, its Creator is God. Its constitution is coeval with
that of the world, from the Divine Architecture of the Universe
are derived its Symbols, and He who said, Let there be
Light, proclaimed the solemn Dedication of our Order. Free
Masonry,” said he, “confounds distinctions, and is insensible
to rank; owning a common affiliation of the race, it distributes
its beneficence to all, and honors the meanest with its
fellowship. It treats none with contempt, and pardons the
imperfections of the weak. The distant Chinese, the rude
Arab, and the accomplished European will embrace an
American, and all sit together at the same table of fraternal
confidence and affection. Unconstrained by local prejudice,
unswerved by the rivalries of party, spurning alike the claims
of sect and the limitations of country, we know no preference
but virtue, no sanctity but truth, in whatever clime, or amid
whatever fluctuations of outward life they may appear. Our
Association relieves misery and shuns revenge. The tears
of Widowhood it wipes away, the pangs of Orphanage it
soothes, and by its hands are the stores of Destitution replenished.
It curbs the fury of War, and multiplies the blessings
of Peace. The sign of a brother even in an enemy's camp,
subdues our animosities and sheathes the sword. Nay, it
appeals to the most barbarous heart, and the rude Corsair of
Algiers receives to his bosom the hopeless victim of slavery,
and shelters a Brother Craftsman from the vindictive cruelties
of his tribe. The Arts behold in our Order a munificent
Patron, and knowledge receives from us a constant support;
in Good Manners we would be patterns, and Piety shall own
us its handworkers.”—“We have been accused,” such were
the closing words of his discourse, “of conspiring against the
liberties of mankind, it is slanderously reported that we are
leagued with the foes of law and order to demolish the entire
fabric of society. Were Napoleon a Mason, as he is a
Warrior, where he has drenched the earth in blood he would
have strewed it with flowers, for wasted cities would have
arisen Temples to Virtue, for Ministers of Wrath driving before
them the horror-stricken nations, we should behold Angels
of Mercy keeping watch over their happy homes, our Melodies
would drown the notes of the Clarion, and the race instead of
closing with the ferocity of ensanguined battle, would this day
meet in the embrace of Universal Brotherhood!”

The speaker took his seat amid great applause; when an
Anthem was sung as follows:

A collation was now enjoyed, consisting of fruits, cakes,
and since, on a previous day, at a funeral, spirituous liquors
were freely dispensed, we are only just to the times and to
this festal company, in adding, that wine and brandy formed a
conspicuous part of their entertainment. Three additional
grand marches around the Hall finished the scene; strangers
retired, and the Brotherhood were left to their private affairs.

Shortly after, with Deacon Ramsdill and his wife, and a
large number of villagers, Margaret was invited to an evening
party at Esq. Beach's. This gentleman lived on Grove Street,
in a house of the new style, very large and high, having a
curb roof with dormar windows, eleven windows on either
end, and the lower tier surmounted with carved work. The
parlor was, for the times, elegantly furnished, in a mahogany
side-board garishly bedecked with decanters of brandy and
wine, silver cups and tankard, a knife-case, and having underneath
a case-of-bottles brass-trimmed; a bright Kidderminster
carpet; light Windsor chairs; a Pembroke table, now degenerated
into a common dining-table; and, what caught the eye
of our novitiate, more than all, superb hangings. These represented
the South Sea Islands as conceived by the original
discoverers. The sides of the room opened away in charming
tropical scenery, landscapes and figures; the people, their
costume, habits, sports, houses were brought into panoramic
view, as were also apparent their innocence and simplicity, their
native and rural enjoyments and peace, now, alas, to be seen
no more by those who shall again visit them! These occupied
Margaret so long that she well nigh trespassed upon the
courtesies of the hour, and Deacon Ramsdill was obliged to
recall her to her fellow-guests. There were dancing, card-playing,
much spirit-drinking, and more warm political talking,
very warm indeed, so fervid and life-imbued, in fact, as to
engross all things within itself; and Margaret became a
devout listener to what for the instant appeared topics the
most lofty and interests the most momentous; nor could she
be diverted until the Master had thrice trod upon her toes,
and engaged her in a game of backgammon.

The School, in her own estimation, was going on prosperously
and satisfactorily. Her scholars were ductile and inquisitive,
many-phased and many-minded, and their proficiency
in the Spelling Book was only equalled by their attachment
to herself. A single instance of discipline sprang from
a rude attack made by one of the larger boys, Consider
Gisborne, on one whose helplessness appealed strongly to the
teacher's sensibilities, Job Luce. She called Consider from
his own bench, and ordered him to sit an hour with the girls
on the opposite side of the house. In enjoyment and fidelity
three weeks were nearly spent.

Yet the original coolness with which the people at large
received her as teacher was fast ripening into positive dissent.
Some boldly proclaimed her unfitness for the station, others
clamored for the restitution of the old teacher, Hester Penrose.
Deacon Ramsdill was the first to break to her the no
less surprising than depressing intelligence, and Master Elliman
confirmed the suspicion that she would be obliged to quit
the School. Parson Welles was considerate enough to suggest
the propriety of an investigation in form prior to any action,
which, however, she would have done well to avoid by a voluntary
relinquishment of her post; but she was over-persuaded
by her friend Isabel, one of those who always hope for
the best, and consented to abide an issue. The study of the
Parson was the appointed scene of trial, and that room which
in her girlhood she had surveyed with strong delighted curiosity,
was now shaded to her mind beyond the stains of
tabacco-smoke and time on the walls. The great mysterious
books were there which she had importuned the Master to
give her access to, but he put her off on one pretence or
another, and now they seemed about to be forever hidden
from her view. Above all was the reverend presence itself,
the grave person of the Minister, a conflicting union to her
eye, of extremest sacredness and extremest profanity, a sort
of corporeal embodiment of all unreality with which the
lessons of Master Elliman were calculated to fill her mind;
and when she saw him soberly lay aside his pipe and as soberly
put on his glasses—that single act affected her with a twinge
of fright, which was not lessened at all by contact with
Isabel, who sat next her, shaking with awe and alarm. In
addition, rumor of what was afloat having drawn a number of
people to the place, their faces, some frowning, some sneering,
some laughing, increased the complexity of her sensations.
The nominal charges were reduced to two heads;

first, omitting to use the Primer; and second, harsh and
unreasonable treatment of Consider Gisborne. To this was
appended a supplement that had its full weight, this to wit,
that she did not attend Meeting on the Sabbath, and that she
played with her scholars; and the whole was ridden by the
insinuation that she had shown partiality to the crumple-back,
Job. On these several and various matters she could make
no defence, and she attempted no reply. Her friends, who
would under other circumstances have gladly appeared in her
behalf, felt constrained to abandon the case, and could do no
more than secretly condole with her disappointment.

“Touching the unfortunate youth,” said the Parson, “he
suffereth from that sin which we do all inherit from the Fall.
The compassion which you have exhibited toward him would
be counted a token of gracious affections in the regenerate
mind. But continuing unregenerate, the danger is great that
you will reckon it meritorious, and thus by adding to your
good works, increase the probabilities of your condemnation,
for truly the Bible saith, The sacrifice of the wicked is an
abomination to the Lord. But,” he continued, addressing her
with a direct interrogation, “will the Mistress wholly deny to
impart the godly instruction contained in the Primer?”

“I cannot use it,” replied Margaret, with a tolerably firm
accent, yet faltering in every muscle.

“Therein are to be found,” resumed the Parson, “the
great truths of evangelical faith and practice.”

“I know nothing what it means,” she added, “and I could
never consent to teach it.”

“Truly,” exclaimed he, “their eyes are blinded that they
cannot see. What says Master Elliman on the matter?”

“Yea, verily,” replied the Master, “as the Lord hardened
the spirit of Sihon, King of Heshbon, and made his heart
obstinate, that he might deliver him into the hand of Israel,
so is it exemplified in what we now behold.”

“She's a dropt stitch,” said one woman, who had been busy
during the proceedings footing a stocking. “She has cast her
band if she is a spinner's daughter,” was the simultaneous comment
of another woman. “She ought to have put in a straining
brace before she run her roof so high,” observed Mr.
Gisborne the Joiner. “She had better learn of her Daddy
how to mend her own ways against she comes down to patch
up our 'n next time,” said Mr. Cutts, the Shoemaker. “How
hardly have we escaped from the hands of the Philistines!”
ejaculated Deacon Hadlock. “We have a small account

against you at the Store, some pins and ferret I believe,” said
Deacon Penrose, “hope you will call and settle before you
leave.”

“You have lost your title, and we must call you Molly
again,” said Deacon Ramsdill, as they left the house; “but
you stuck to your pint, and mabby it's as well. I see 'twas
nater, and you couldn't give it up. The Lord knows what'll
come of it, but if you follow nater, he'll take care of you.
There is more in things than we old folk have thought of, and
if you young heads can find it out, for one I shall be glad.
You have eat your crib and broke your halter, but there is a
good deal of feed out of the stable. Fences last the longest
when the logs are peeled; you are pretty well stripped, but I
guess you won't give out any quicker. The children have
nater, and you and they would get along smart enough together;
the old people are chock full of their notions and
politicals, and I don't know as you could do better than to let
them alone. I was afraid, at the start, how the matter would
turn. About Consider, he is not a nateral bad boy, only it
went agin the grain to be put among the gals; and he took
on dreadfully, and his people thought he had been most
killed. But it was because you did it, Molly, yes because you
did it; if anybody else had done so, he would not have said a
word; but he liked the new Ma'am, I've heard him say so,
and when you punished him, it broke him right down; that's
nater agin, clear nater. Hester might have thrashed the skin
off his body, and he wouldn't have cried boo. Then you
know, some people's geese are always swans, so we thought
when our little Jessie was alive; yes, yes. God knows how
hard it is to help setting a good deal by one's children. — But,
Molly, you mustn't judge the people too harsh; they are just
like gooseberries, with a tough skin, and sharp pricks, and yet
there is something sweet inside. Remember too, he who can
wait hath what he desires.”

Tony, the negro barber and fiddler, who had been hovering
about the Parsonage during the trial with considerable apparent
concern, and still hung on the steps of the party as they
walked up the street, at length made bold to speak, and asked
Margaret if she would not go to his shop and have her hair
dressed; a request which she answered in the negative.

“Your brother Chilion has done great favors to this gentleman
in the musical profession,” continued the negro, “and if
the Mistress would let him try the tongs to her head, it would
make great commendations. It an't Tory now, and there isn't
nobody else in the world that I would see suffer if I could

help it, and the Mistress was a most handsomest dancer, and
Chilion tuned my fiddle.” Still Margaret declined.

“You had better go,” said Deacon Ramsdill, “it does a
man as much good to do a favor as to get one. Tony has a
feeling heart, and he mabby would serve you when nobody
else would, and will take it hard if you deny him. Isabel will
go with you, and he would like to show you his shop.”

The Barber, whose function was no unimportant one to the
villagers, had set off his apartments in a manner for which
such quarters have been famed from time immemorial. The
window shutters that concealed his treasures during the night,
published them in the day, serving for advertising boards,
standing along the front of his shop, whereon appeared a list of
articles he sold, and of services he performed. Within doors
on shelves were displayed sundry of the exquisites of the day.
“King Henry's Water,” “Pink and Rose Hair Powder,”
“Face Powder instead of Paint,” “Hemmett's Essence of Pearl
for the Teeth,” “Paris made Pomatum,” “Infallible Antidote
for Consumption,” “Elixir Magnum Vitæ,” etc. etc. On the
walls were large bills, pertaining to the aforesaid articles, flaming
in color and rhetoric, and closing with a peculiar observation,
which, since it is somewhat old, and serves to distinguish
the times, and some virtuoso might like to have access
to it, we have taken the pains to copy, this to wit; “☞ Beware
of Counterfeits.”

Margaret was seated in the tonsorial chair, and throwing off
her bonnet, delivered herself into the hands of the professor.
“What a head!” exclaimed the negro, “what a figure, Miss
Belle, she would make in the great world if she was only well
powdered! I have had Madam Hadlock four hours together
under my hands, when she was fixing for a ball, where I also
had the pleasure to attend her four hours more. After she
joined the Church, I lost that honor. The Sacrament, Miss
Belle, makes bad work with gentlemen of my profession. I
am as the Master says A. B. Android Barberosus, S. T. D.
Societatis Tonsorum Dux, a great man you see, and Parsons,
Judges and Masters, as Master Elliman says, bow down to
me —”

“You hurt me,” said Margaret.

“Yes, indeed,” replied the negro, “'tis a most fashionable
pain, Runy Shooks will sit it out by the hour.—You won't
need a cushion, but a little powder, patent lily, violet, gives
such an etiquette—”

“No, none,” said Margaret.

“I can't use the tongs, you are all in curls now. What shall
we do, Miss Belle? A roller, toupee — that's all Paris.”

“What!” said Isabel, “I thought you didn't belong to the
French party, Tony.”

“Oh no, I'm all Jacobin, all Federal, all Lumination, only
I an't no dum Tory. The Lady's father was a Tory, wasn't
he? Well, they won't hurt me now. They were good heads,
all of them; I use to get five pounds a year out of Col. Welch's.
Let me comb it up over the top, and bring these back locks in
front?” “No, no,” said Margaret. “You shall be welcome
to one of my silver spangled ribbons to tie it with.” “Let it
be as it is.” “Ha! ha! who ever heard of a lady's hair being
as it is? That isn't the fashion at all. A lady wouldn't live
out half her days. We use to set it up a foot high; but that
was before the War. The War was very ruinatious to our
profession, and I have heard the York gentlemen say taste had
very much descended since.—I an't no Tory, I'm Federal,
Jacobin, Lumination, only if they won't put down the Barbers
so that they can't keep the fashion perfect. I have heard ladies
say they couldn't go to meetin' on the Lord's day or improve
a bit on the sermon because they were not in fashion. We
are a means of grace, as Master Elliman says. So I must
bring this curl here, and this one here, and let them be as
they was. Well, this gentleman declares upon his honor,
Mistress looks as beauteous as the great Queen Ann on the
wall. She will not disprove a little Hungary Water?” “No.”
“Thank the Lady Margaret, thank her. No pins, no spangles,
no tye-top, no beads, — Miss Belle so too — well upon my
soul!”

“Simplicity becomes us best, you know, Tony,” said Isabel.
“Ma always said those were most adorned who were adorned
the least. So you will not feel bad, I know you won't.”

“This gentleman D. D. Devil of a Doctor, — for you must
know we use to perform surgery, phlebotomy, and blood-letting,
till the other professors came in, and they have well nigh
propelled us,—this gentleman, A. B., S. T. D., D. D. see the
toilette every day going down, and expect the great Napoleon
will eat the Barbers all up; but he declares Mistress the most
grandiloquent head in all the country — hope no offence, Miss
Belle.”

“None at all,” replied Isabel; “you know we always said
Margery was beautiful, and she is good too, and good folks
will bear to have anything said to them, and not take it as flattery,
but only truth, Ma says.”

The Barber held a looking-glass to Margaret, and she saw
her hair not essentially affected by the professional endeavor,
still as before parted on the top, and hanging in thick frizettes,
which the operator had done his best to smooth, gloss and
arrange. “Tell Master Chilion,” said he, as the young ladies
were going, “one of my fiddle-strings is broke, and the board
out of order, and he is the only gentleman this side of the Bay
can fix it, as it ought to be done.—Do the Mistress take a box
of the Patent Tooth Wash.”

Margaret finished out the week with Isabel, and Saturday
afternoon, left for Mr. Wharfield's, where she was invited
to make a visit, and two of whose children had been under
her tuition. The Quaker lived on the Brandon road half-way
between the Village and No. 4. Turning from the South Street
between Parson Welles and the Burying Ground, she crossed
Mill Brook, and rapidly commenced the ascent into a more
elevated region. On the right, below her, hidden among trees
and shrubbery, flowed the Brook; farther to the north-west
rose the beautiful green-wooded summit of the Pond, with her
favorite Indian's Head towering above all; on her left, by
alternate gentle acclivities and precipitous bluffs, sloped the
long hills away to the skies. A high flat brought her to the
house of her friends who were farmers, and as we say well off
in the world. Where she intended to stop a single night, her
abode was protracted nearly a week. The habits of the family
were simple, their manners quiet, and tastes peculiar. Their
enjoyment seemed to consist in listening to her, they strove to
make her happy by receiving what she had to say, they watched
her with the interest approaching to awe of those who
beheld in one, what they described as the “inner workings of
the spirit,” and from whom they looked for some surprising
evolutions. Thus by appliances the most delicate they contrived
to detain her. Their children were thrown continually
in her way that they might catch the inspiration with which
she seemed to be endowed. She pursued her studies of nature
in the woods, she climbed the loftiest eminences behind the
house,—books, if any were to be had, she for the moment
lost all relish for.—In these strolls the children were often her
companions, and they told their mother she dug up roots, examined
flowers, and lay on the grass and looked into the clouds;
that she sometimes explained to them the simple operations of
nature. Troubled at last as her friends imagined with a
desire to go home, they would no longer detain her, and
gratefully dismissed her on her way. If she were depressed

at all by the events of the School, the treatment of the Quakers
was certainly fitted to reassure her; and with whatever melancholy
she may have first thought of returning home as it were
disgraced from the Village, this was qualified or displaced by
the second thought that it was her home, that there were her
best friends and purest pleasures—and she trod on with a firm
step and considerable buoyancy of feeling.

She traversed No. 4, known in her vocabulary as Avernus,
and not inappropriately named. In addition to every aspect of
blight and waste that could conveniently be combined in a
human dwelling place, the geese, those very agreeable articles
in their proper use, but the greatest enemies of road-side
beauty, like the locusts of Egypt, had discriminated and
polled the green grasses, and more delicate flowers, and left
only may-weed, smart-grass and indian-tobacco, shooting up
like living monuments of desolation; an offence for which
they had long since been banished the Pond. Hogs lay
under the cherry-trees by the stone-wall fences, crabbedly
grunting like bull-frogs, muddling the earth and wallowing in
the mire. Leaning well-sweeps creaked in the scant gardens.
She encountered a file of children, with hair thoroughly
whitened and face as thoroughly blackened by the sun, kicking
before them the dry dust of the road, in clouds. Sheep
with fettered legs wandered from side to side of the way restless
and forlorn. An overturned wood-sled, lying outside of
a barn-yard fence, and protecting within its bars a collection
of white-flowering catnip, was a solitary point of beauty. A flock
of yellow butterflies, flying before her and lighting on the road,
then flying and lighting again as she advanced, at last whisking
off and forming themselves into a saucy waltz over a black pool
of water, where they were finally dispersed by the incursion of
a pair of blue-spotted dragon-flies, afforded her some diversion.
A pink in a pewter mug standing on the window-sill of one of
the low ragged houses, Mr. Tapley's, she would fain turn aside
to see; a little girl, Dorothy Tapley by name, appeared awkwardly
enough with her fingers in her mouth, and said it was
hers. Margaret laying hands upon it, asked if she would let
her have it. The girl immediately removed her fingers from
her mouth to her eyes and began to cry. Margaret enquired
what was the matter. Dorothy gave her to understand that
when her little sister Malvina was sick, and Miss Amy with
the Parson came to see her, she wanted a pink which Miss
Amy had pinned on her breast, and that having got possession
of it she would not part with it, but kept it by her, and when

she died held the wilted fragments close in her hand; whereupon
she, Dorothy, went to the Parsonage and begged of Miss
Amy a root of the same pink which was now growing in the
pewter mug; that she had taken much care of it, and would
on no account let it go. This conversation through the window,
Margaret standing without and the girl within, reached
the ears of Mistress Tapley, who was at work in the back
shed cutting up cheese-curd; and brought her into the room.
She, a very greasy looking woman, with chopping knife in
one hand, and a pinch of snuff in the other, confirmed all the
child had said. Margaret told them she was glad they valued
the flower so, and said she would not think of taking it, and
asked for a draught of water. This produced a fresh demonstration
on the part of these people, the mother averring with
undisguised emotion that they had used their last drinking
utensil for the pink, and that they drank all their rum now
from the bottle; that the gourd was broke, but she should
be welcome to drink as the rest did from the bucket. “You
help her, Dorothy; she won't git away your posy; she han't
forgot how much we done for her when she was lost in the
woods.” They went through the house into the back shed.
That back shed! cheese-room, dye-room, sink-room, airy,
piazza, hen-roost, cupboard, wardrobe, scullery, with its soap-barrel,
pot of soap-grease, a range of shelves filled with rusty
nails, bits of iron hoops, broken trays, hammer, wedges,
chizel; tar-pot, swill-pail, bench, churn, basket of apples,
kittens, chickens, pup, row of earthern milk-pans drying
about it—take it for all in all, we shall never look upon its
like again! At one end was the well, its long sweep piercing
the skies, its bucket swinging to and fro in the wind. Dorothy
ran and caught the bucket, brought it to Margaret, who
grasping the pole was about to draw it down hand over hand.
She paused to look at what was below her. The mouth of
the well was shaded and narrowed by green mosses and slender
ferns; which also covered the stones quite to the bottom, and
bore on every leaf and point a drop of water from the waste
of the bucket. Below the calm surface of the water appeared
a reversed shaft having its sides begemmed with the moss-borne
drops, which with a singular effect of darkened brilliancy
shone like diamonds in a cave. Through a small green subterranean
orifice she could look into nethermost, luminous, boundless
space; a mysterious ethereal abyss, an unknown realm of
purity and peace below the earth, the faintly-revealed inferior
heavens; and too she beheld her own fair but shadowy face,
in the midst of all, looking up to her. Anon a falling drop of
water would ruffle the scene, and then it eddied away into
clearness and repose. Such was the rare vision that detained
her, and made her pause with her hands still grasping the pole.
“What are you doing?” said Dorothy. “I am thinking of
your pink,” replied Margaret. “I thought I could see Malvina
in the well sometimes,” added the girl, “but there is nothing
there only some fishes Biah put in last summer.” “At any
rate there is good water there, and we will see if we can get
some,” said Margaret. The bucket was drawn up, and inclined
dripping on the curb, where Dorothy steadied it, while
Margaret drank. Margaret sat on the long bench to rest herself,
and told Dorothy Chilion would make a box for her pink.
Dorothy gave her the better half of a rotten geniton apple,
the best she had, and Mistress Tapley with unwashen hands
hurried into the garden, that is to say a small unenclosed spot
where they raised a few vines, and got a watermelon, and with
the same versatile and economical member, broke it in pieces,
which she divided between Margaret and her daughter. Going
on her way, she passed pastures, and extensive forest-skirted
uplands crimsoned over with the flowering sorrel; and large
fields, planted as it would seem to mulleins like nursery trees
with silvery leaves, rising into tall gold-tipped pinnacles.
She saw bull-thistles, like a phalanx of old Roman soldiers of
whom she had read, suddenly fallen into disorderly mutual combat,
piercing one another with sharp malignant spines. The air
of the place tainted as it might appear from the vapors of the
Still, whose fires waited not for mid-summer heats, was yet
sensibly relieved by the sweet-scented vernal grass mingling
with the odors of the new-mown hay, from the meadows or
lots on the margin of the Brook; she saw also women with
blue and brown skirts, naked arms, and straw hats, raking and
turning hay among alders and willows, that yet flourished in
their best mow-lands; ox-carts with rickety racks loaded with
hay, surmounted by stout men and driven by profane boys,
reeled and tilted over rocks and stones which no enterprise of
the people had sufficed to remove. From loads of brakes, a
lazy substitute for grass, that went by, regaling her with a rich
spicy fragrance, she was saluted by the slang and ugly mirth
of the owners. Men and boys were seen going to the Tavern
for their eleven o'clock, and in the sun before the house lay
Mr. Tapley, boosily sleeping, with his bare head pillowed on
a scythe-snath.

She was not sorry to turn into the Delectable Way, a name

by which she had enlivened the road from Avernus to the
Pond; and perhaps on the whole it never seemed to her more
pleasant. She had often traversed it with the rum-bottle, with
baskets of chesnuts, bags of yarn, she had been carried over
it by her brothers, once she was borne up it in the proud arms
of an exulting populace. It was steep, narrow, rough, winding.
It had contributed to the elasticity of her muscles and
vigor of her heart. Now it glowed with wild-flowers, which
the lavish fertility of nature pours into every open space. It
was a warm day, and the sunbeams were strongly reflected
from the grey pebbles and glassy grit of the road, but a breeze
from the valley and another in her soul, gave her endurance
and self-possession. She was going home, and this, however
such a home might seem to many of her readers, was, we have
reason to believe, to her a solid consideration; she had been
disappointed in the School, sadly, grievously; her heart was
wrung in a manner that only a School-mistress can know; it
cannot be told. She nevertheless consoled herself with calling to
mind how much her scholars loved her, how kind some of the
villagers had been to her, and she might have decided the matter
at once by reflecting how utterly impossible it was, all
things taken together, to have stood well with the people at
large; she was encompassed by those subtle and exquisite
ministries of nature that can be enjoyed at every period of life,
and are capable of making themselves felt even by the most
desponding, and which go to mitigate the sense of calamity,
and give transport to our most temperate enjoyments. There
was besides an unnamed, undeveloped feeling in her own
breast, welling and provoking, partly inquisitiveness, partly
wonder, partly logic, partly thoughtfulness, partly she knew
not what, that heightened the interest of all things. This
feeling, we have cause to believe, was allied in character to
what it approximated in moral place, that, to wit, which was
sported between her and the Master as “Anagogicalness,”
whereby seems to have been intended any or all kinds of profundity
of uncertainty; seems, we say, for the compiler of this
Memoir professes to know no more of the matter than any of
its readers. On a side of the road was the cow-path winding
among sweet-fern and whortle-berry bushes, where she a little
girl used to walk, and even hide under their shade. The
great red daddocks lay in the green pastures where they had
lain year after year, crumbling away, and sending forth innumerable
forms of vegetable life. On a large rock grew a thistle,
the flower of which a yellow-breeched bee and a tortoise-shelled
butterfly were quietly together feeding upon. Farther
off, in the edge of a dark green forest twinkled the small sunflower,
like a star. She walked on with a bank of beautiful
flowers on either side, golden-rods, blue-vervain, mulleins,
flea-bane, thoroughwort, high-mallows and others, which she
saw come up in the Spring, watched from month to month,
and would yet behold giving food to the little birds on the top
of the snow in mid-winter, and which had become a part of
her yearly life. A thin stream of water emerging from a long
line of fox-colored cotton thistle, sweet-flag, bullrushes and
high blackberries, ran across the road at her feet. The sky
was blue above her, relieved and variegated by mares-tail
clouds, from which some would augur a rain, and over her
left shoulder paled the mid-day moon. Her path in some
places was carpeted with the tassels of the late flowering chesnut.
A pig in a yoke started out from the bushes, scampered
before her as for dear life, its ears shaking like poplar leaves,
and dashed out of sight into the bushes again. The birds had
finished their spring melodies, and gave themselves up to the
quiet enjoyment of the season they so delightfully introduced,
and were no otherwise observable than in an occasional rustle
among the trees. She made a nose-gay for Chilion of yellow
loose-strife, purple spearmint, pale blue monkey flower, small
white buds of cow-wheat; and a smaller one for Rose, a stem
of mountain laurel leaves, red cedar with blueberries, and a
bunch of the white hard-hack, a cream-like flower, innerly
blushing. While thus employed, there appeared before her
a gentleman descending the hill, who seemed to have just
issued from the trees, and whom she fancied she had seen retreating
within doors at the Tavern, as she came by, and who,
if it were so, must have hastened across through the woods
while she loitered in the road. The face of this gentleman
was strikingly marked by a suit of enormous black whiskers
that flowed together and united under his chin. His age
might have been four-and-twenty; his eye was black and
piercing, but softened by an affectionate expression; his look
was animated, and a courteous smile played upon his lip. His
dress was more elegant than that of the young men of Livingston,
a scarlet coat delicately embroidered with buff facings,
a richly tambored waistcoat, lace ruffles, white silk breeches
and stockings, and a round brimmed hat. He addressed her
with deference and urbanity, and asked if he might have the
pleasure of accompanying her up the hill. “I am rambling
about the country,” said he, “and pursue whatever is novel
and interesting, and hope my presence, Madam, will not disoblige
you? This is an exceedingly bleak place, and I should
think you would sometimes lack for variety.” “It is a very
beautiful spot to me,” she replied, “and—” “Ah yes, indeed,”
said he, “I did not mean that it was not beautiful, only there
are so few people here,—yet perhaps you are one who has the
singular felicity of being contented almost anywhere.—A boquet!
There is a rare profusion of flowers here. The atmosphere
is so fresh and vivifying. Most charming day this.”
So they talked of the weather, the season, the place, till they
reached the summit of the road. Before they came in sight
of the house, the gentleman suddenly stopping, said, “Might
I venture to hope, Madam, if in my rural strolls I should
chance again to encounter you, it would not be disagreeable?”
“What is your name, sir?” said she. “I am—Anonymous,
Mr. Anonymous;—does not that savor more of the romantic,
of which I see you are passionately fond?” “All wind-fall
comers here seem to be without names,” said she; “but there
is really so little in a name, that I do not care much about it.”
“Are there other strangers besides myself here?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “we have one who would be anonymous
at first, but she allows herself to be called Rose now, though
she is so frail she can hardly support any name.” “Rose,
Rose,” rejoined he with a repetition, “that is a very pretty
name indeed.” Politely bidding her good morning, he went
down the hill.

Margaret hastened home to recount her misfortunes, intelligence
of which must have preceded her, and enjoy the commiseration
of her friends. Bull with Dick on his back, whom Chilion,
seeing her come, had seated there, ran out to meet her,—
the only member of the family who did not know what had befallen
her, and whose expression of unmingled delight gave her
a momentary deep pain in the way of contrast, and yet in the
end tended to reassure her and bring her back to her former
state. After dinner she went to the Widow Wright's to see
Rose, whom, unfortunately, she found plunged in the deepest
melancholy, and the more distressing for that it could render
no reason for itself. Margaret strove by every effort that instinct
or ingenuity could suggest to compose her friend, but in
vain. She remained awhile, but found her own tenderness
fully reciprocated, that Rose was pained because she was
pained, that she increased what she endeavored to dispel, and
thus without the possibility of gaining intelligence or affording
relief, she could do more than embrace her friend and go

home. For a solitary moment she might have seen a look of
returning equanimity in the face of Rose; this was when she
spoke of her own defeatures and repulsions respecting the
School, but it soon vanished.

Shortly afterwards, as she was occupied one morning with a
book in the shade of the woods near the Delectable Way, she
was aroused by the arrival of Mr. Anonymous. “Have you
read Cynthia?” said he, after concluding the compliments of
the hour. “I saw it at the village, the other day, she replied.”
“It is a charming novel,” said he. “I do not know as I am
capable of understanding it,” she rejoined. “I mean it is a
delightful thing to toss off a dull hour with. Are you never
afflicted with any such?” “Not often.” “Are no dangers
to be apprehended in a place like this?” “I never have any
fears.” “I see you know how to diversify your time. As you
would walk, Madam, let me assist you. Allow me to remove
that bit of brush from your path.” “I thank you, Sir, I never
mind the trees.” “I am tempted to help you over that rock.”
“These rocks are no more formidable than our kitchen door-sill.”
“How rich these woods are in flowers!” “Indeed
they are.” “The most beautiful are not the most esteemed.”
“I fear they are not.” “With great justice the Poet writes,

“That is well said. I find new ones every Spring, and
there are many yet hidden in the dark store-house of the earth.”
So talked they awhile, when he again took an abrupt but civil
departure, acting it would appear on the principle that short
visits make long friends.

Margaret was obedient to her parents and faithful to the
house, so that she was allowed many indulgences, the chief of
which consisted in leisure for her own pursuits. She rose
early, did her work with spirit, and her enjoyments were
marred by few complaints of her mother, and little domineering
of Hash. A peculiarity of fog-scenery as observed from the
Head, a phenomenon in its perfect characteristics occurring
only two or three times a year, took her to that point. The
fogs arising from the River lay wholly below her; like a
flocculent ocean they filled the interval between the Pond and
the Mountain beyond. Above was a clear atmosphere and a
bright sun. As if an entire firmament of purest white clouds
had fallen into the valley, they were piled one upon another.
Like sea-waves they were moved by the winds, dilating
and quivering they flowed the high grounds of the Pond,

swept around the base of the Head, and penetrated the region
beyond. They were an organic lustre, sublimated wool,
spiritualized alabaster; they glowed like snow-flames. It was
in fact to summer what snow is to winter, a robe of whiteness
thrown over the face of the earth. It was not often she could
look down upon the fogs with the pure dry air about her. She
had been in them, sailing on the Pond, or traversing the woods,
when they seemed to fall from the sky, and drizzled rain-like
over the earth; now she was over them, and could command
all their beautiful varieties and forms. Higher and higher
they rose till only the top of the Butternut, and the peak of the
tall forest was visible above them. She fancied that the visions
of her dreams were composed of fogs, and she thought she saw
fair shapes of Ideal Beauty as it were precipitated in them,
chemically, and becoming animated, like the Beautiful Lady.
A new Venus, of whom she had read, was indeed sprung from
this foam; and she looked when she should swim for the
Butternut, as for a green island, and she would run down and
embrace her; at the same moment, a great black crow flew up
from the depths of the white waves, a true make-shift for
Vulcan. But a more substantial apparition opposed itself to
her view. At the west edge of the platform, or level on which
she stood, arose an enormous pair of black whiskers, speedily
followed by the well dressed young gentleman to whom they
belonged, Mr. Anonymous, who, for some reason unexplained,
perhaps because it savored more of the romantic of which
he was an admirer, had chosen a very unusual and almost inaccessible
route to the summit of the Head, immediately
apologized for his intrusion, and hoped he had not disturbed
the tenor of the young lady's reveries. “I cannot be disturbed
by one who enjoys the scene,” replied Margaret. “The fog is
really uncivil,” added Mr. Anonymous, “it has quite drenched
me. If it would clear away I think there would be afforded a
very charming prospect. I wonder I had not sought it out
before. Yet the view which the place itself affords, Madam,
is unimpaired, and would richly repay clambering up a much
rougher way.” “I fear you must have fatigued yourself,”
said she, “you missed the path which is on the other side.”
“It matters little how I came, since I am well here, and in
the presence of so fair an object.” “You will join with me
in the contemplation of what is about us. Perhaps, Sir, you
can aid me in resolving the exceeding mystery of all these
things.” “I should be most felicitated to join you in anything.”
“That beauty and our beauty, how are they related?”
“I see your beauty, and I scarcely think of that.” “But
there is a connexion, I feel it. The beauty that is in me either
gives, or is given. Or there is some cause that creates both,
and unites them like musical chords.” “Your beauty, most
enchanting lady, since you lead me to speak of it, consists in
symmetry and color, those eyebrows, your forehead, your lips,
that dark curling hair; it brings me near to you. Nay, pardon
my presumption.” “Do look at that pile swimming through
the mass, like a great white hog!” “Nay, Loveliest! I can
look only at you.” “Then I will go away; there is enough
besides to look at.” “Beauteous being! do not leave me.
Do not shun the person of one who adores you.” “Adores
me! I hardly know what to make of that.” “I kneel at your
feet, sweet Madam, allow me to take your hand.” “My hand!
more mystery still. What is there in my hand?” “May I
be so presumptuous as to believe that with your hand you
would also bestow your heart?” “I have no heart.” “Have
I vainly cherished the hope that my person had made some
impression upon you?” “What, your fine clothes?” “Oh,
you will not trifle with me. Your manner has been such as
to inspire the hope that my feelings toward you were reciprocated.”
“I would not trifle with you. I thought you better
dressed than the young men hereabouts. But do see how the
Mountain shines in its coat of fog!” “Be not so severe; do
not retreat from me; render some condescension to my poor
plaints.” “I know not what you desire.” “Yourself, Madam,
is the supremest object of my wishes. Allow me to press your
fingers to my lips.” “I cannot stay here, Sir, I shall leap off
into the Pond.” “O, fairest of creatures, be not so cruel.
Blame me not if I reveal I love you, never before unfortunate
if you prove pitiless, never before happy if you prove kind.”
“See, the mists are fast rising, we shall be thoroughly wet, if
we stay much longer.” “Dissipate, Madam, the distressing
apprehensions your words create. My purposes are legitimate,
I offer you marriage, I offer you a fortune. Our banns shall
be published in the neighboring Church the next Sabbath.”
“I must own, Sir, you do sadly disturb me now. Your presence
is becoming an intrusion.” “You will slip from the
rock, you will fall into those hideous waters.” “Beautiful
waters, and I could almost wish to drop through the snow-drifting
mist into them.” “I will not approach you nearer; I
will abide at a distance, till you say the dear, dear word that
shall make me happy.” “Do not be afraid of me. I would
make the birds and toads happy, and everything about me.”
“I protest my designs are honorable as my sentiments are
invincible. Consider what I shall bestow upon you.” At this
crisis, our old friend Obed appeared, brustling his stalwart
knobby frame through the bushes, and being somewhat short
of sight, a defect that was aggravated by the dense fog-flood
that now surged over the place, he wholly mistook the nature
of the scene; saw Margaret, as he thought, driven to the verge
of the precipice by the violence of the man, whose fervid exclamations
he had confounded with demonstrations of a more
fatal character, rushed upon him from behind, and perfectly
trussed him in his long arms. In the struggle that ensued,
both fell and rolled down the hill, performing a kind of horizontal
waltz, through briars, over rocks, quite to the bottom.
Margaret screamed to Obed to quit his hold, ran after them,
but in vain; they finished the descent before she could overtake
them. The face of Mr. Anonymous was not a little bruised
and his dress soiled; Obed defended by so good a buckler
escaped nearly unhurt. Pluck and his wife ran out at the
alarm, Margaret proffered the unfortunate gentleman every
assistance in her power; but as if disposed to withdraw from
observation, he made a very rapid retreat, forgetting even his
customary civilities in the hurry of departure, and was seen no
more at the Pond.

2. CHAPTER II.

We would come nearer to Margaret; we have kept too far
from her. What she denied to Mr. Anonymous, she will grant
to her readers, who, as a parent, have watched about her from
her babyhood,—a more intimate approximation. And if what
Isabel said be true, that she could bear the truth, she can certainly
bear to be looked at, a distinction not mortifying to most
young ladies. She denied that she had a heart; has she any?
If she has none, unlike most young ladies, in another respect
also she differs from many of her sex and age, she can make
good butter, which she did this very morning, churning it in

the cool dawn, working it out, salting it, and depositing it in a
cellar which, if it possessed no other merit, boasted this at
least, that it was cold and free of flies. It has been intimated,
and may come up again for affirmation, that Margaret was
brought up on bread and cider and bean-porridge. This, however,
must not be taken too literally. The facts in the case
are these, sometimes the family kept a cow, and sometimes
they did not. But, to our purpose. This morning, after
churning and breakfast, she went out to a favorite spot, a little
below the house, on the Delectable Way, lying in the shade of
the eastern forest. If Bull followed, it was rather from habit
than necessity, since she was wont to go where she listed, unattended,
relying chiefly upon a pair of pretty strong arms, and
whatever defence against danger is to be found in not fearing
it. It is here, precisely in this morning retreat that we—by
we is meant her readers—propose to look at her. The place
she has chosen, characterized chiefly by forest association and
aspect, opens to the south, where are visible the Avernian hills,
and to the zenith, where is the everlasting sky. What of
sound she perceives, comes from the solitary crowing of a cock
in some distant hidden farm-yard, and the barking of a fox in
the deep lonely woods. She has also near her what might pass
for a music-box, in a bed of yellow brakes, inhabited by innumerable
crickets and grasshoppers, that keep up a perpetual
tuneful murmur, alternating like waves of the sea, or the wind
in a pine-tree. She holds in her hand a book, or rather her
arm lying on the ground the book lies there too, closed on her
fore-finger. The book, we shall see, is an old one, so very old
that its leathern back has changed into a polished mahogany
hue; it is in Latin, and the title anglicised reads, “The Marrow
of Theology, by William Ames,” a Dutchman. Not far
off down the hill, in a pasture of large white rocks and tall
star-flowering elecampane, are very contentedly feeding two
red cows. Whether she saw these or not, she looked at them,
and now her eye is directed upwards. What we see in the
sky is a group of clouds, massive and dense, with white tops,
dark cavernous sides, and broad bases deepening into a blueish
leaden color, and having their summits disposed as it were
about a common centre, thus forming a circular opening,
through which appear the boundless aerial fields of fairest
ultramarine. These peaks are like chalk-cliffs girding the
ocean, on which one would stand to look off into the sky-sea.
If we examine her eyes, those organs by which she communicates
with the exterior world, and through which whatever
belongs to the inner sanctuary of her mind more readily manifests
itself, we shall discover that they have changed since her
Childhood. Then, those eyes perceived with briskness and
disposed of their objects with ease. The external world made
a rapid transition through them, enlivened and graced her
spirit, and then returned; and since material substances are
by this process transmuted into moral emotions, and the nerves
of the face are sympathetic throughout, a beautiful flower for
example, borne in on the optic nerve, would come out an
irradiation of joy generously spread over the whole countenance.
Now, a world has been created in her eyes; outward
objects no longer pass immediately through, but are caught
and detained, as it would seem, for inquisition. Some are
seen to sink with a sullen plunge into the dark waters of her
soul; some she seizes upon and throws out among the waste
things of the earth; others again get in by stealth, creep round
upon her nerves, come out and sit under the edge of her face,
and play their old pranks of beauty and joy; anon some fair
large object, that she suffers to pass, floods her spirit and
drowns out everything else; a full proportion of these objects,
it would appear, are assigned to the region of the Anagogical.
We cannot say that she is “sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought,” yet her expression is subdued if it be not positively
sober, there is a mixed look of fervid aspiration and annoying
uncertainty about her. The clouds have shifted their places
and forms, the cows are quietly feeding, and she betakes herself
to her reading. She is interrupted by the echoing click
of iron horse-steps on the stones of the Delectable Way; the
cows look up, and so does she. Strangers in Livingston frequently
visited the Pond to survey the scene from Indian's
Head; they went up and down taking little notice of the inhabitants,
and with extreme consideration avoided laying upon
them the slightest burden of civility or attention; and Margaret,
accustomed to these transient manners, would have
suffered the present to pass as an ordinary instance, save that,
with a stranger man on horseback, she saw little Job Luce—
little he was though older than when she first knew him—on
the pommel of the saddle in the arms of the rider; and when
they were over against her in the road, Job caused the man to
stop. “That's it,” said Job, “that's the Pond.” “I don't
see any water,” replied the man, “nothing but a rock and a
woman.” “That's Margery,” reiterated the boy, “and that
is where she sits, and I find her there 'most always.” “Is she
the Pond?” asked his respondent. “She had always rather
be in the woods than in the house,” continued Job, “she pricks
flowers into her bonnet instead of ribbons, and likes to hear
the birds sing Sundays better than Zenas Joy, the new
chorister.”

Meanwhile, Job lowered from the horse stood holding by
the snaffle, and insisting that the gentleman should dismount
likewise. His manifest anxiety brought Margaret also to the
spot. “That is Margery, do stop and see her—here, Margery,
is a billet from Isabel.”

“I overtook this little fellow on the way,” said the young
man, for such it proved to be, “and as he seemed but a sorry
traveller, I thought my horse could better do that office for
him.”

“Do stop and see Margaret, and I guess she will go with
you up the Head, you have been so good to me,” said Job,
with renewed earnestness.

“Won't you stop, Sir?” said Margaret. The young man
thus importuned left his horse among the trees, and walked
with Job and Margaret to the spot occupied by the latter.

“Since you have been so fairly introduced,” said he, addressing
Margaret, “I ought to make myself known, Charles
Evelyn—Judge Morgridge is my uncle—perhaps you are acquainted
with his daughter Susan?”

“I am not,” replied Margaret, “but I have heard my friend
Isabel Weeks speak of her. This is Job Luce, Mr. Evelyn,
one among the very few friends of whom I can boast in the
village.”

“He seems very much attached to you,” rejoined Mr.
Evelyn, “to walk so far, with his feebleness, to see you. He
said there was some one at the Pond who knew almost every
thing and loved him very much.”

“I do love Job, poor boy, he has but few to love him, and
his love for me produces a cyanosis, as Mr. Elliman, my old
Master, says, whereby we do not see things clearly, and so he
thinks very highly of me, as I know I do of him.”

“She knows Whippoorwill,” said Job, “and that is more
than the Parson does, if she don't go to Meeting.”

“I know nothing,” replied Margaret.

“Have you no home, no father or mother?” asked Mr.
Evelyn. “Do you live in these woods?”

“There is our house behind the trees yonder,” said Margaret;
“there are my father and mother; there is my brother
Chilion; I have books, a squirrel, a dog, flowers, a boat; the
trees, the water, the birds all are mine, only I do not understand
all.”

“The Master,” interposed Job, “said she understood Latin
as well as Hancock Welles who has gone to College.”

“Yes indeed,” rejoined Margaret, smiling, “I can say as
he did once, when pursuing me in the woods he was over-taken
by a bear, `Veni, vidi, victa sum.' I am lost in my
gains; every acquisition I make conquers me.”

“The vici,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “is a rare attainment. It
is easier to know than to be masters of our knowledge;—I
see from your book you are exploring an abstruse subject
through what some would regard an abstruse medium. Theology
is not always rendered plainer for being put in plain
English. Do you find it cleared up in Latin?”

“My Teacher,” answered Margaret, “says Latin is the
tongue of the learned; and so, most curiously, to convict me
for a fool as it would seem, he commends me to my studies
in it. I asked him some questions, and he gave me this book,
but not so much in the way of a reply, I ween, as a repulse.
I can construe the sentences, distinguish the supine in u;
but, the ideas—gramercy! I had as lief encounter a troop of
bull-beggars, or undertake to explain the secrets of the nostrummonger
that lives above us. I am caught by my own
fish, as brother Nimrod says, and dragged into an element
where I pant and flounder as any strange creature would in
ours.”

“Mammy says,” exclaimed Job, “it is because Margery is
proud, has a natural heart, and won't bend her will down, and
so she lost the School. But she isn't proud to me; she used to
lead me home all the way from school. Hester Penrose, the
other Ma'am, never would touch me or speak to me out of
school; and when we were there, she only spoke hard to me,
and whipped me, because I caught the grasshoppers that flew
in, and stopped to hear whippoorwill—I could hear it in the
windows. She wouldn't give me a ticket either, for all I got
my lessons well—Arthur Morgridge said I got them better
than he, and he had a ticket.”

“Your mother, Job,” said Margaret, “and Deacon Ramsdill
don't agree; he applauds me for having a nateral heart, as
he calls it, and says he hopes my will never'll be broke; he
says a man with a broken will is no better than a slunk calf.
But, of what we were speaking, Mr. Evelyn, are you familiar
with these ideas, these things, these what-nots? Or are you,
like all the rest, only a dainty, white handkerchief sort of a
traveller among the hills?”

“I have dabbled a little in a good many matters,” replied

the young gentleman, “and if there be any points that trouble
you, more than as likely as not it will be found our troubles
are not dissimilar, only it sometimes results that difficulties of
this sort once fairly stated are dispelled; the attempt to give
them form annihilates them—they pass away in the breath that
pronounces them.”

“A fine prospect, indeed!” responded Margaret. “I shall
be able to discharge the Universe at a whiff! But soberly,
here is the source of all my perplexity, a quid and a quis.
The book, as you see, discusses without satisfying the case.
It is `Quid sit Deus,' or `Quis sit Deus,' what is God, or,
who is God. He, that is the Master, says I did not put the
question right, at first, and, nulla vestigia retrorsum, I have
been going wrong ever since. We have quis'd and quid'd
it together, till my brain whirls and my mind aches. Who is
God? I will ask. `Do you intend,' he replies, `entity or
form? If the former, then you should say, What is God; if
the latter, then your language is correct. Language has its
rules as well as that whereto it applies. Informal language
on formal subjects is altogether contrary to Logic.' Good
Heavens! say I, I don't know which I mean. `Then do not
talk until you know what you are talking about; let us finish
this game of backgammon.' To complete my distress he has
given me this book! There is one pretty thing in it, the
little boy with a girlish face in the frontispiece. He is holding
up a big book before the door of some temple. Would
the book would remove, then we could enter the mysterious
place. Alack-a-day! `Where there's a secret there must be
something wrong,' good Deacon Ramsdill says, and I believe
it.”

“Look here,” said Mr. Evelyn, “Father Ames touches
fairly on these topics. `Quid sit Deus, nemo potest perfecte
definire,' what God is we cannot perfectly define; but `Quis
sit explicant,' who he is his attributes sufficiently make
known.”

“Read another page,” said Margaret, `I Tim. vi. 16,
Lucem habitans inaccessam, &c.' What is referred to there
seems very mystified indeed. The only Tim that I am acquainted
with is our neighbor's horse.”

“Don't speak so—you astonish me. That,” said Mr.
Evelyn, “is language addressed by the Apostle Paul to a
young man whose name was Timothy. `God dwelleth in the
light which no man can approach unto.”'

“I did not intend any harm,” replied Margaret. “I had

no idea there was any feeling in the matter. The Master and
the Parson are always bringing in some name, Aristotle,
Moses, Scotus, Paul or somebody, whom they make responsible
for what they say, and commit themselves to nothing, laughing
and smoking in the mean time. They are both as `amfractuous'
as he says I am, and as `anagogical' as our little
friend Job.”

“I don't know what that means,” said the boy, “but I do
know Whippoorwill, and that I shall die of it. But Margery
don't believe the Parson, and she won't read the Bible.”

“My troth!” exclaimed the young man. “There are
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in my
philosophy, and more in Livingston than I had imagined.
Did you never read the Bible?”

“No,” replied Margaret. “The Master has endeavored
that I should never see one, and the first book he put into my
hand when I asked him about God was Tooke's Pantheon.
There was a great book marked Holy Bible on the outside at
Deacon Ramsdill's; there were some singular pictures in it,
and some singular reading, but not of a nature to tempt me
to look far into it. Only I remember laughing outright when
I came to something just like what Pa calls his Bible, and the
good Deacon took the book away. Pa's Bible is some leaves
of a book hanging by a string on the chimney, and consists of
names beginning with Adam and ending with Duke Magdiel,
and he always uses it he says when he christens his children.
It is suspended, also, you must know, directly over his rumbottle,
and he says he reads his Bible when he drinks his rum.
That is our Bible.”

“Mammy gave you a Testament once,” said Job.

“The Master took it away,” replied Margaret. “He said
I was not old enough to understand it, or something of that
sort.”

“She doesn't go to Meeting either,” added Job.

“Do you not indeed?” asked the young man.

“It is not quite true that I never go,” said Margaret.
“I have been to a Camp Meeting and Parson Welles's
Meeting.”

“Only once,” said Job.

“I could hardly wish to go a second time. Everything was
turned topsy-turvy; flowers became an abomination; for walking
the streets one was liable to be knocked down; people had
on gay dresses and sepulchral faces; no one smiled; the very
air of the Green grew thick and suffocating; sin lurked in

every spot, and I couldn't do anything but it was a sin; the
most beautiful and pleasant parts of my life became a sudden
wickedness; the day was cursed, and I was cursed, and all
things were cursed. I was glad to get out of it, and escape
to the Pond once more, and breathe in brightness and love
from our own skies. No, we never go here; Pa was put in
the stocks for hunting his cow one Sabbath, and he swears we
shall not go. I frighten you, Sir, and you will have me put in
Jail right off?”

“If I am frightened,” said the young man, “I can hear all
you have to say, and would much prefer you should not interrupt
yourself.”

“I was young then, and these are old impressions which
have grown perhaps somewhat sour by keeping, and I might
not feel just so now. At the Camp Meeting—have you ever
been to one? Well, I need not recount that. The Preacher
I never could forgive, only he was so kind to me when I was
lost in the woods. That was the pink of what the Master
calls Puppetry, a hornet's nest of Harlequins, Saints bacchantizing.
When I told the Master of some of my accidents on
these holy occasions, for in one instance I liked to have been
sent to Jail, and in another, to have been crushed to death,
`Ne sutor ultra crepidam,' said he, `you are a shoemaker's
daughter; mind your own business, and stay at home next
time;' so I did. Nimrod once took me to an Ordination at
Dunwich, where the Leech, who contrives to be everywhere,
accompanied us. It was more like training-day than anything
else. The town was full of people and soaking in rum. At
the Church I was wedged in an impassible drift, but managed
somehow to crawl out like a stream of water through their
legs and feet. The Widow found means to introduce herself
and me with her to the dining-hall. Such things were enacted
there as would not disgrace the bar-room at No. 4. Pa when
he is drunk has far better manners than those sanctiloquent
Wigs exhibited. It was altogether the richest specimen of
`deific temulency,' you ever beheld. The side-boards were
emptied half a dozen times, tobacco-smoke choked the air,
and to finish the play one grey old Punch with inimitable
gravity said grace at the close. The exercises of the day
were rounded off by a Ball in the evening, and that was the
best of the whole, save that the ministers were not there to
give the occasion the zest of their jokes and laughter—I supposed
at the time they were in a state of aquacœlestification,
and could not dance. But Oh! Oh! Oh! Job, dear Job, I

love you, Job! Why do I, a poorer wretch, speak of these
poor things!”

This exclamation was followed by tears that fell drenchingly
and hot on the face of the boy whom she clasped in her
arms. Job turned up his mild blue eye to her and said,
“Margaret, Whippoorwill sings, and Job don't cry; I swing
over the brook when the boys teaze me, and the bubbles take
away the pain; I hear a pewee in the woods, Margaret, that
sings when the whippoorwill is gone. I love you too, Margaret,
and Job's love is good, the little Mabel says. If there
were no innocent hearts, there would be no white roses, Isabel
says.”

Margaret began, saying, “come Job, sing too,” and they
both sung,

“Now, Job,” she said, “we will go and get comfrey root
for Chilion's drink, and burdock leaves for drafts to draw
out all pains. We shall detain the gentleman.”

“The detention is rather on my part,” said Mr. Evelyn.
“Yet I am truly unwilling to have you go.”

“I shall only offend you if I stay,” said she.

“I have learned,” he replied, “never to be offended with
any human being.”

“Then you are the strangest of all human beings, though
I agree with you, and find myself small place for offence
Androides furentes create a sensation of the ridiculous more
than anything else.”

“You seem,” continued he, “to be sincere, however mistaken;
and I am not a little interested in what you say.”

“Are you sincere?” she asked. “Are you not simulacrizing?
Yet, I wrong you, Sir, I wrong myself. It confesses
itself within me, that you are in earnest.”

“That is Whippoorwill,” said Job.

“It is the voice of nature,” said the young man.

“I am not,” added Margaret, “so brook-like as I used to

be, when neither rock nor night, inundation or ultimate disemboguement
disturbed my little joyous babble. The beauties
and sweetnesses, the freedom and health that surround me
do not so perfectly satisfy me. I have not much of the `acquiescentia
cordis' of which Father Ames speaks. My
squirrel, Dick, has been rolling about his cage these many
years, and is contented with it as ever. I, forsooth, must
explore the cupboard whence my food comes, dig into the
well-head whence my water flows, anatomatize the hand that
caresses me. There seems to be something above the people
in the village, something over their heads, what they talk to,
and seem to be visited by occasionally, particularly Sundays,
making them solemn and stiff like a cold wind. Is it God?
What is God? Who is God? Heigh ho hum — let me not ask
that question. Is it Jupiter or Ammon? Is it a star? Or is
it something in the state of the weather? Going to Meeting
Sundays, the Master calls a septenary ague universal in these
countries. Yet the matter is deep and penetrating as it is
anagogical.”

“Why do you not speak with the people,” said Mr. Evelyn,
“and discover the nature of their emotions and thoughts?”

“My sooth! I had rather lie here on the grass and read the
Medulla, dig roots, card and spin, clean dye-tubs, pick geese,
draw chickens, or even go for rum—anything, anything. Vox
populi vox Dei, he says, but it must have a very strange voice.
The hygeian gibberish of the Leech is not half so bad; nor
that stupendous word, honorificability, he used to make me
spell, half so unintelligible. It all runs of sins and sinners,
the fall and recovery, justification and election, trinity and
depravity, hell and damnation—they have an idiosyncrasy of
phrases, just as the Free-Masons have, and Tony the Barber
and Joyce Dooly the Fortune-teller have; then there are experiences
and exercises, ah's and oh's, sighs and laments, as
if we were about to be burned up—and indeed they say we
are, at least our family; and Pa laughs so about it all, and the
Master while he seems to join in with it, only turns it to
ridicule. Isabel says she is growing tired of it, though she is
not apt to complain of anything, and has already been admonished
against keeping company with the wicked Indian, as
they call me. She says that those they call sinners are some
of the best people in the world, that theological distinctions
do not conform to anything that exists in nature. The Master
says that piety is the art of concealing one's original character,
and that church-members are those who have attained

the greatest proficiency in that art. But let me hear what
you would say. I have `polylogized' quite long enough. Are
you a student for the `sacred ministry,' a class of young
men in whose behalf the Dutchman says he has prepared his
Marrow?”

“No, I am not. But the subjects to which you refer
possess a value that engages all professions and all minds. I
have a Bible in my pocket, or a part of one.”

“What! Are you bibbleous too?”

“Bibliopalous, you mean.”

“No, bibbleous. When one comes to our house with a
flask of Old Holland, or a bottle of rum, we say he is bibbleous,
and has a bible in his pocket. Pardon me. I am unbridled
as the winds. You seem to be drawing upon me, and
I give way here within, till every, the most transient, feeling
escapes.”

“I know what it is to become the sport of impulses, and
will not condemn you for that.”

“Speak, Sir, and I will listen quietly. I can trim myself to
patience when it is necessary.”

“You have heard of the Saviour of the world, Jesus
Christ?”

“Yes, till I am sick of the name. It sounds mawkish in
my ears.”

“You do shock me now,” said Mr. Evelyn with some feeling.
“You cause me grief and astonishment.”

“I pray you have mercy upon me, Sir! What have I
done? Your look frightens me.”

“That you should speak so of him who to my soul is most
precious.”

“I am sorry to have distressed you.”

“You have distressed one who is dearer to me than my own
life.”

“Speak that name again.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What, my own Beautiful One? Christ—yes—that is his
name. I had almost forgotten it. I have thought only of
him. The name is associated with whatever is distasteful in
the world. It is Christ, Jesus Christ. Is he not beautiful?”

“He is described as fairer than the sons of men.”

“And you, Sir, know him and love him, and your innermost
sense is alive to him? You are the first one who ever
showed a deep natural sensibility to that One. I have distressed
you and him through you, and myself in him! There-in

lies my closest garnered being.” Saying this Margaret
turned her face away.

“It is Whippoorwill,” said Job to Mr. Evelyn. “Don't
speak now.”

That gentleman waiting awhile in silence, was obliged, by
direct enforcement, to renew the conversation.

“Tell me,” said he, “what is the meaning of this? Here
is a greater mystery to me than all this strange world can
offer to you. By what secret affinities are you bound to him
who is my Life? How have you come to know him in this
heart-felt manner? Like Nathaniel has he seen you under
the fig-trees?”

“No,” said Margaret, turning herself, and speaking with
composure, “it was under those trees yonder in what we call
Diana's Walk.”

“What, that you literally saw him?”

“No, it was a dream. He, the Beautiful One, called
Christ, filled one of the dreams of my childhood. He spoke
to me, he took my hand, he kissed me, he blest me.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It was some years ago. Its remembrance fades, then
brightens again. Sometimes it bubbles up within me like a
spring, sometimes it spreads away into a deep calm surface
like the Pond. It haunts me like a cloud white and soft. In
my sensibilities it lies and stirs me up to weeping. Forgive
me a thousand times that I should have been so wanton!
When you spoke of him in such a way, I was suddenly
flooded with emotion such as I cannot describe. Isabel and
Job know of it, but they do not precisely answer to my feelings.
Indeed at the moment you came up I was endeavoring
to form out of the clouds some likeness to what I had seen,
the One himself, the Cross, the Dove; I gazed into the
heights of the blue sky for some Apparition. I beguile the
uncertainties of my thought by the creations of my fancy.
But That comes not, and the clouds veil over those infinite
distances. He said if I loved, I should know. I do love,
how little I know.”

“But do, if it pleases you, give me the particulars of your
dream.”

She repeated what is already in the possession of the
reader, and recounted some things of her several dreams.
“But,” said she, as the conversation went on, “I thought this
was for myself alone. It has been kept in my own life. Is
he, Christ, great, is he general? You, Sir, seem to know and

to feel him, though you say you have had no dreams about
him. He has been a strange beautiful flower in my garden,
and so he exists in yours. What do these things mean?”

“Your question raises,” said he, “a long train of reflection.
Let us be seated, and we will go over the matter with
that care which it deserves.”

“No, indeed,” replied Margaret, “I would not trouble you
to that extent now. Job promised for me to go upon the Head
with you, and it is time to start—I must be at home and help
about the dinner.”

“Where is the cake for Egeria?” said Job.

“I guess she will have to be content with the grasshopper-music,
or she may lie down in the shade as the cows do,” answered
Margaret. “I did not tell you, Sir,” she added, “that
this spot is consecrated to the Nymph whom the old Roman
was wont to visit, and when we go away we sometimes leave a
cake or piece of bread both as an oblation and for her dinner,
and, will you believe it, Sir, when I return, it is all gone.”

They proceeded towards the eminence called the Head.
Seeing Chilion moving leisurely in the direction of the water,
Job importuned to go and sail with him, and Margaret with
Mr. Evelyn went up the hill.

“How very beautiful this is!” said the young gentleman,
“here, there, and everywhere.”

“Look down into this water,” said Margaret, standing on the
rock that overhung the Pond, “if your brain is steady enough.
This the Master calls Exclamation Point.—I have wished
to drop into that splendid cloud-flowing abyss, and perhaps I
shall be missing one of these days, and you will know where
to find me. You are sober—well, look off into the mountains
yonder. That is Umkiddin. You will not blame a passion I
cherish for climbing that sunny height, and laying hand and
heart in the downy Blue.”

“No I could not.—But see that point of rock around which
the water bends, with a great tree overshadowing the distance.
So I admire a river, not so much in its expanse and full-tide,
as in the turns and angles, where it loses itself within green
shores and sinks away under the shade of cliff and forest.”

“ `Loses itself'!” replied Margaret, repeating the word with
some emphasis. “There you have it again. Lost, gone, vanishing,
unreachable, inappropriable, anagogical!—I used to sit
here in my merry childhood and think all was mine, the earth
and the sky. I ate my bread and cider and fed the ants and
flies. Through me innumerable things went forth; the loons

whooped me in the water, in my breath the midges sported,
the Sun went down at my bidding, and my jocund heart kindled
the twilight. It now flies away like a bird, and I cannot get
near enough to put any salt on its tail. Then I owned so much
my losses were of no account, and though I could not reach
the bottom of the Pond, I saw the heavens in it, and myself
sailing above them. In the darkest night, with our red tartarean
links, Chilion and I have rowed across the Pond, and sniggled
for eels, and so we conquered the secrets of those depths.
I have cried too in my day, I have an unkind brother and a
profligate father, and what with the wretchedness of those I
love and their wickedness, my own heart has been duly tortured
and these swollen veins have been bled with weeping; but
I seem also to have lost the power of tears. Those, like the
days of good Queen Bess, are gone, and how shall they be recovered!”

“Have you no faith?” asked Mr. Evelyn.

“ `Faith'! That sanctiloquent word! That is what the
Widow Luce dins me with.”

“Faith; trust, confidence, repose, seeing the invisible, relying
upon the spiritual, having an inner impersonal inhabitancy.
In that alone I am happy and sustained. Would you
were thus happy.”

“I wish I were—But faint heart never won fair lady. I do
not quite give over—I am happy, none more. In the same moment
that I am worried I am at rest. How is this? What
many-colored streams flow through us, blood-red, and woolly-white!
Are we divided off like sheep, has each feeling its
fold? Through our skies sail two sets of clouds, one to the
North, one to the South? Even now while I speak all I feel, there
is more in me than I can ever speak of. What Harmony circumscribes
the whole? In what are Pain and Pleasure One?—
I will not ask you, I am happy. Greater simpleton than I am
if I were not. Much I have lost, much remains, more comes.
My dreams have a place within me; and all the books I have
read. My home is every year more beautiful, the trees more
suggestive, the birds more musical, the bees more knowing.
Roots grow in new ways every Summer, and snow falls in new
forms every Winter. There is more in churning than most
people think of. Time is regenerative, and new births occur
every hour. The gritty Earth, alumen and silex spring up in
dream-like beauty. I have also many and improving visitations,
and much select company. I told you of Egeria; then
there is Diana's Walk in the woods, and close upon the edge of

the water you see some graceful white birches, those are the
Nine Muses. Brother Chilion is our Apollo. In the house we
have St. Crispin for the shoemaker, and St. Catharine for the
spinner; Bull is our Cerberus. Brother Hash the Master calls
Priapus; the Leech we call Dea Salus, and the road to her
house has received from the Master the name of Via Salutaris.
The cross-path to the Village he calls Via Dolorosa, on account
of a dangerous pass in the brook; and that, (the brook) from the
same cause he says, because he got into trouble going over it,
he calls Kedron, though I do not understand anything about that
name. Religion he says is an anagogical parenthesis, because
it must be spoken in a lower tone of voice. No. 4 I called
Avernus, and the road to it Descensus Averni, but, coming up,
he would have it that it was The Delectable Way. The Head
is called Mons Bacchi, but our cistern I call Temperance. The
Hours dance round me in snow flakes, Naiads and Dryads
inhabit our woods and water; in one of my haunts I can
show you the Three Graces. That Island with a large elm in
the centre is Feronia's, where I often go. Narcissus grows in
my garden, Daphnis in the woods. The Head I told you the
Master called Bacchus' Hill, and sometimes our whole region
goes by that name, and the Pond he says he has no doubt is
the reappearance of the river Helicon into which some fabled
Orpheus was changed, and whose waters were a long time
hidden under ground; so we sometimes call our place the Lake
of Orpheus. To which Divinity we are on the whole consecrated,
I hardly know; but for my part, I prefer the musical,
to the tippling God. Then the fair Lady of my dreams sometimes
still comes to me with her pale beautiful face. I have
also one at the Widow's, but whether she be a phantom or a
reality I know not, a girl like myself, also pale, sad and beautiful,
whose smile is an enchantment, even if I know not her hidden
self.—Am I not happy?”

“It may be so,” answered he, “but in a manner different
from the world.”

“Another word that I do not understand! What mean you
by the world?”

“People about you, men and women in general.”

“If you mean the villagers, the No. 4's, Breaknecks and
Snakehills, I know I differ some from them. They drink rum,
which I do not; they are unkind one with another, which for
the life of me I never could be. Their Anagogics indeed I
wholly fail to comprehend, their Sabbaths, Meetings, Catechizing,
Freemasonry, Trainings, Politics, Courts, Jails and all
that.”

“Your Religion is so different from theirs.”

“Bless me, I have no religion; and Bull defend me from
theirs! Albeit, as Deacon Ramsdill says, we must eat a peck
of dirt before we die, and perhaps I must make mine out
in some of their religion!—I have offended you; it is just as I
told you I should do, if you talked with me.”

“I repeat, that you cannot offend me, only you must allow
what you say to make me somewhat thoughtful. You said you
wanted to clamber up the blue mountain yonder, and are ready
even to leave your pretty Pantheon for that acquisition. That
is Religion even if you had not thought it.”

“No, never would I leave my `pretty Pantheon,' as you call
it. But I should like to thrust my fingers between those two
blues, that of the hill and of the sky. There Christ has come
to me; in celestial skyey softness has that vision appeared.
No one like the Beautiful One has ever visited my dreams, my
thoughts, my aspirations; and I have nothing about me I dare
call Christ. There is sometimes a cloud that stretches from
Umkiddin to the Moon when it rises, like a turkey's tail-feather—whence
comes it? to what serene eternal bird does it
belong? is it part of the wing of Christ under whose shadow I
may lie? is it the trail of the beautiful Goddess, Venus?—I
know not.—No, I cannot leave my Pantheon, and I long for
what I have not; and that is religion, you say. Your definition
differs somewhat from my Tutor's, and by it, I am quite religious!
ha, ha. Prithee, tell me Sir, who are you? Are not
you `the world'?”

“A sorry part of it, I fear; yet removed enough from it
neither to drink rum nor disturb the peace of others. I do keep
the Sabbath, and go to Church; I do not say the Catechism,
or belong to any train-band. Most people, I confess, are degraded
by their piety; I do believe there is a worship that purifies
and ennobles.”

“You confound and delight me both. I know not what to
say. The horn is blowing for dinner, and I am glad something
befalls to put an end to the perplexity.—Won't you stay
and have your dinner with us? I will introduce you to my
home, family, dog, squirrel and spinning-wheel.”

“I am engaged at the Village—May I have the pleasure of
seeing you again, Miss Hart?”

“Miss Hart!”

“That is your name, I believe.”

“Yes—only I was never called it before, it sounds strange.
If I do not give you more pain than pleasure, you are welcome

to see me, when I am to be seen. I have a good deal to do.
Can you break flax?”

“I fear I should bungle at it.”

“Then I fear Ma would not like you. If you could help me
get cotton grass or thistle down, I should be glad to see you.
I would not pain a toad, I hope I shall not you.—Where is the
Bible you spoke of, if it does not make me laugh to ask you.”

“You shall have it if you will promise me not to laugh
when you read it.”

“I never made a promise in my life; only I will try.”

“It is not the whole Bible, it is the New Testament, so
called. I hope it will please you.”

“I don't know. `A clouted shoe hath oft-times craft in it,'
Deacon Ramsdill says, and there may be some good in the
Bible.”

“We have had fine luck,” said Job, coming from the boat
as they descended the hill. “Six white perch, four eel-pouts,
six shiners and a pickerel.”

“You shall carry some to your mother,” replied Margaret,
“and mind you give Whippoorwill a taste.—There is my Apollo,
not so fair perchance as his namesake, but he is as good. He
is lame you see withal, and in that resembles his great prototype;
and this stone of my heart becomes melodious when he
plays.—Mr. Evelyn, Chilion.”

“How do you do, Sir.”

“Quite well, at your service, Sir,” replied Chilion.

“What springal is that, has kept you from helping me?”
said Brown Moll, coming to the window with a tray full of hot
potatoes, which she was pealing, as Mr. Evelyn and Job turned
down the road.

“A fox after the goslin, hey?” said Hash, who with his
father arrived at the same moment. “I saw you on the
Head.”

“I guess he has lain out over night,” said Pluck. “He
looks soft and glossy as your Mammy's flax of a frosty morning.—Now
don't take pet, Molly dear.”

“She swells like a soaked pea,” added the old woman.
“What's the matter, husy? I should think he had been rubbing
your face with elm leaves.”

“Never mind, Molly,” interposed her father. “Better to
play at small game than stand out. You are the spider of the
woods. Spin a strong web; you are sure to catch something.”

“She looks as if she had been spun, colored and hung out
to dry,” said her mother.

“Gall darn it!” exclaimed Hash. “I smell potatoes. Give
us some dinner.”

“Speaking of spinning,” said Pluck, when the others were
gone in, “you know how to use the wheel-pin—keep the thread
taught and easy in your fingers, mind the spindle, then buzz
away like Duke Jehu;—only if he is a dum spot of a Lawyer
or a Priest, weave him into a breeches-piece, and I'll wear
him, I be blown if I don't; and when he is past mending, I'll
hang him up for a scare-crow, blast him!”

After dinner, Margaret took her boat and went to the Island
called Feronia's, remarkable for its great elm. She threw herself
on a bed of mosses under the shade of the tree. “Patience,
Silence, Feronia, Venus, O Mother God! help thy child!”
she said, or ejaculated with herself. “I, Icarus, with waxen
wings, am melted by the light into which I fly! I, Eurydice,
am in Hell; my Orpheus bore me out a little ways, left me,
and I am caught back again! How cold I grow! Let me lie
in the sun. Dear clouds, sweet clouds! let me shine and be
dissolved with you! Oh Christ—Relent thou iron soul of the
skies, and speak to me!—My little boat, where is the glad,
bird-child you used to carry? Still the same, the oar, the
seat; the water the same, rocks, woods; waves sing their eternal
lullaby, box-berries keep their unchanging red, shadows
embrace me as if my heart were free.—How I twattled, skurried!
`Miss Hart'! Miss Pan, Miss Bacchus, rather. Now
I grow hot again. Who, what am I? Quis, Quid! God and
I alike anagogical. Who or what is he? Let me get it right
this time. Who is Mr. Evelyn? His What is what? What
is his Who? The What! Lucem inaccessam, light inapproachable.
Rose too the same.—How kind his words, how
gentle his voice, how mild his looks, how benign and forbearing
in all things! And yet sanctiloquent, and yet so different
from others! What is `the World'? Is he it? Is he like
me? Why am I not it? I will see how this matter looks in
the water, let me quench my hot limbs.” Drifting along in
her boat, she bent over the water, “Molly dear,” said she, “is
that you? Your face is red and feverish. Go to the Widow's
and get some balm tea.—Can't you keep cool down there?
The sun shines there as well as here! Your hair wants combing,
your dress is disordered, Neptune's sea-dogs would be
ashamed of you.” She left her boat and clothes on the shore,
and immersed herself in the grateful water. She returned
to the island; she said, “I will lie down under the tree;
sleep is better than knowledge, a bed kinder than God, the

shadows more beautiful than Truth! or, Mr. Evelyn, is rest
given us wherein we find ourselves and all things? Pardon
me, Sir.” She slept a long time, and awoke, refreshed and
regulated, resolute but subdued; with an even hand and
quiet temperature she rowed homewards, and went about such
duties as domestic necessity or customary requisition imposed.

In the evening she went to see Rose, and while she had
made no mention of Mr. Anonymous, she found she had much
to say of Mr. Evelyn. Rose embraced her with a silent summer-like
tranquillity, and kissed her lips fervently, which was
nearly all the response she made. She shone out if at all like
the Moon through dark clouds, that are only the darker for
the brightness behind them. “Death,” said, she, diverging
into a train of thought seemingly suggested by what Margaret
related, “Death will soon end all. In the grave we shall lie
and the beauty and strength of existence shall perish with us.
I only ask, Margaret, that I may be buried side by side with
you. The worm shall devour the fairest visions and the most
dismal forebodings, alike; decay shall feed sweetly upon your
ruddiness and vigor, your nobleness and benignity. A princely
offering are we to Annihilation. I murmur not, I dread not,
with the serenity of angelic love I submit to the all-o'ersweeping
Fate. In your arms to lie, with you to die, I smile as I
sink into the eternal rest. Yet, live on Margaret, while you
may, fill your golden cup, it will never be too late to drink it,
even if death seizes you in the act.”

3. CHAPTER III.
CHRISTIANITY.

Another day Mr. Evelyn came to the Pond. Margaret
watched his approach with composure, and returned his greeting
without confusion. “You have been on the Head,” said
she, “and I must take you to other places to-day. First the
Maples.”

“This is a fine mineralogical region,” said he as they entered
the spot. “I wish I had a hammer.”

“I will go for one,” said she.

“O no, Miss Hart, I will get it if you will tell me where it is.”

“You are not in health you told me, and you do not look
very strong. I must go by all means. I will be back in a
trice. You will have quite as much walking as you can master
before the day is through.”

“You may go, but I fear I shall be more tired wondering
than in going.”

“See this,” said he, exposing a hollow stone filled with
superb crystals, which he found and broke during her absence,
“I thank you, I thank you,” she replied. The Master has
given me an inkling of geology, but I never imagined such
beauty was hidden here.”

“With definite forms and brilliant texture these gems are
created in the centre of this rough rusty stone.”

“Incomparable mystery! New Anagogics! I begin to be in
love with what I understand not.”

“Humanity is like that.”

“What is Humanity?”

“It is only another name for the World that you asked me
about.”

“I am perplexed by the duplicity of words. He is humane
who helps the needy.”

“That is one form of Humanity. I use the term as expressing
all men collectively viewed in their better light. Much
depends upon this light, phase, or aspect, what subjectively to
us is by the Germans called stand-point. The Indian's Head,
in one position resembles a human face, in another quite as
much a fish's tail. Man, like this stone, is geodic — such
stones you know are called geodes—”

“Have you the skill to discover them?”

“It is more difficult to break than find them. Yet if I
could crack any man as I do this stone, I should lay open
beautiful crystals.”

“Any man?”

“Yes, all men.”

“O passing wonderful! I would run a thousand miles for
the hammer! I have been straining after the stars, how much
there is in the stones! Most Divine Earth, henceforth I will
worship thee!—Geodic Androids! What will the Master say?”

“I see traces of other beautiful minerals in these large
rocks. Let me rap here, and lo! I show you a beryl, there
is agate, yonder is a growth of garnets.”

“Let me cease to be astonished and only learn to love.”

“An important lesson, and one not too well learned.”

“Under this tree I will erect a Temple to the God of
Rocks.—Was there any such? Certes, I remember none.”

“The God of Rocks is God.”

“You sport enigmas again. Let us to Diana's Walk.”

They perambulated the forest touching upon various spots
of interest to Margaret. She had given name and population
to many a solitary place, and for many years, it appeared, had
been deepening her worship and extending her supremacy, such
as it was, over the region. Tired at last, they sat down under
the trees.

“You will not relish such a walk and so many Gods, I
fear,” said she.

“I could pursue the woods forever,” was his reply.” The
trees give me more than my acquaintances.”

“They are my home. I was born in them, have been
sheltered under them, and educated by them, and do sometimes
believe myself of them. The Master rightly says I have
a fibrous disposition. I used to think I came of an acorn,
and many a one have I opened to find a baby brother or sister.
Am I not an automative vegetable, a witch-hazle in moccasins?
The Master says I am of the order Bipeds, and species
Simulacrens; distinguished by thirty-two teeth, and
having the superior extremities terminated by a hand which is
susceptible of a greater variety of motions than that of any
other animal, and is remarkably prehensile; that it inhabits
all parts of the earth; is omnivorous; and disputes for territory,
uniting together for the express purpose of destroying its
own kind; that I am of the variety Caucasiana, differing
from the Americana in this, that my feet are a little broader
just above the toes, and from the Simia in the configuration of
the thumb. For my own part, I incline to the Sylvian analogy,
only my clothes are not half so durable as this bark, nor
my hair so becoming as the leaves, and I must undress myself
at night and take to my bed, while the trees sleep standing
and unhooded. Then what a pother we make about eating,
while the tree lives on its own breathing, and, with more ease
than a duck, muddles for nourishment with its roots.”

“You will not overlook the mind, the spirit; the inner voluntary
life, the diversifier of action, the possibility of achievement,
the subordinator of matter, the master of Time, the
annotator of the Universe, the thinking, willing, loving, the
joy and sorrow, the aspiration and submission, the retrospection
and prospection, the smiling, the weeping, the speech,
the silence, sight, smell and taste, the right and wrong, art,

poetry, music, the self-consciousness of infinite affinities,
heroism, and self-renunciation—all, all demonstrate the separateness
and superiority of man.”

“I know what you say is true, and when I hear it said, I
shall feel it to be true. Speak on”

“The tree has no sense of happiness, like you and me, nor
possesses it any capability of wretchedness. It exists for our
pleasure. He, the soul of all, the supreme Intelligence, the
Uncreated Creator, the invisible Seer, has caused it to grow
for our use. Even now I feel Him, called in our tongue God,
in the Greek Theos, in the Hebrew Jehovah, in the Indian
Manitou, by some distinguished in some way, by others in
another. His life inflames my life, his spirit inspires my spirit.
All that is now about us is his, and he in it; the beauty of the
forest is the tincture of his beneficence, the breeze is the respiration
of his mercy, the box-berries and mosses are his, the
rocks and roots, the dancing shadows, the green breaks into
the blue sky are his creation, the fair whole of color, perfume
and form, the indescribable sweet sensation that wells in our
breasts, are his gift and his presence in the gift, they are the
figures woven into the tapestry that girths the Universe, the
fragrance that fills the vinaigrette of Creation. Through all
and in all pierces his spirit, that blows through us like the
wind.”

“But what becomes of my pretty Pantheon, Apollo and
Bacchus, Diana and Egeria, before this all-deluging One?”

“That belongs to what is termed Mythology, a mixture of
imagination, religion and philosophy. Apollo, for instance,
as Tooke will tell you, denotes the sun; and of the arts ascribed
to him, prophesying, healing, shooting, music, we discover
a lively prototype in that luminary. It dispels darkness,
brings secret things to light, shoots its rays, imparts health
and preservation to all things; and being placed in the middle
of the planets makes with them a kind of harmony or music.
In Hindoo Mythology is Brahma, an uncouth image, coarsely
done in stone, which Christians affect to despise, having the
form of an infant with its toe in its mouth, floating on a flower
over a watery abyss. It represents this, that in some of the
renovations which the world is supposed to have undergone,
the wisdom and designs of God will appear as in their infant
state; Brahma, that is God the Creator, floating on a leaf,
shows the instability of things at that period; the toe sucked
in the mouth implies that Infinite wisdom subsists of itself;
and the position of the body, drawn into the form of a ring by

this union of the extremities, is an emblem of the endless
circle of eternity. It is a mere hint at the highest ideas, and
by its very rudeness effectually anticipates the error of diverting
attention from the substance to the shadow, and if worship
be performed before it, it is none otherwise than worship
done in our Churches, which are styled, pre-eminently, houses
of God, sanctuaries or sacred places. The Northern nations,
inheriting the germs of spirituality from the East, superadded
Beauty, and elaborated the Symbol in the fairest forms of
Art. Their Statues also were an embodied Allegory, they
were an Encyclopedia of truth. Now-a-days, we have lost
the ancient idea, and so split up our systems of knowledge,
that a statue is no more than a handsomely wrought stone;
and sometimes we vituperate the attention paid to it, as Idolatry.
It furnished to the eye what a written treatise does to
the understanding; or in brief the chisel did the work of the
pen. To the Greeks, a statue was at once a Church and a
Book, it was Beauty and Inspiration, Truth and Illustration,
Philosophy and Religion. The human form is more expressive
than any other, and genius seized upon that as the most
fitting instrument for conveying ideality, and ennobled man
while it symbolized his frame.”

“So Apollo is a creation of God?”

“The original on which that is founded is a creation of
God; or I should say, Apollo, representing certain facts in
the creation of God, or certain attributes of God, his culture
was observed by different nations under different names, till at
last some artist, fusing as it were the popular idea in his own,
wrought the whole in marble, and so gave us the Belvidere.”

“What are we? What am I?”

“In the words of the biblical Job, whom I fear you know
less about than you do about the Widow Luce's Job, `There
is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty hath
given them understanding.' God himself breathes into us
the breath of spiritual life. This divine afflatus animates the
embryon existence. The spirit assumes a material frame-work
which it must quit at last. Our souls coming from God return
to him. We are ever-living as the Divinity himself. The
bosom of the Infinite while it nourishes us here is our ultimate
home. God creates us in his own image, and we like him
go on to create. He weaves, and we are his warp and filling.”

“Who winds the spools?”

“You are more at home in the detail, Miss Hart, than I
am, and I leave you to answer that question yourself.—But,

we, the woof, are also weavers. God weaves and we weave;
`He dwells in us and we in him,' St. John says. `He clothes
the grass of the field,' Christ says. `He works in us,' St.
Paul says.”

“Did God work in the artist that made the Apollo?”

“Yes; all beautiful works of man are an inspiration of
the Almighty. We read in the Old Testament that `God put
wisdom and understanding into men's hearts to know how to
work all manner of work,' for a fabric the Jews were building.
It is the energy of that action wherewith he endows
man.”

“Then I may keep my Apollo, and all my Divinities.”

“I would not deprive you of anything that shall make you
beautiful and strong, happy and chaste, devout and simple,
that shall give companionship to your solitude, ministry to
your susceptibilities, exercise to your imagination.”

“You are taking the pegs out of the bars, but I will not
run wild — I am impatient to know about Christ; what will
you say of him? I have read some in the New Testament
you gave me. It is the strangest book I ever saw. It transported
me with an unspeakable delight; and then I was over-whelmed
by a painful complexity of sensations. I came to
where he died, and I laid down the book and wept with a
suffocating anguish. Then there were those sanctiloquent
words!”

“That which I gave you is a version made two hundred
years since, when our language was imperfect, scholarship deficient,
biblical knowledge limited, and the popular belief
replete with errors; and moreover done by men of a particular
sect under the dictation of a King. Of course the translation
suffers somewhat; but the general truth of the Gospels
can no more be hindered by this circumstance, than the effect
of day by an accumulation of clouds. But of the subject
itself, Christ, what can I say? It is almost too great for our
comprehension, as it certainly rises above all petty disputes.
How can I describe what I know not? How can I embrace a
nature that so exceeds my own? How can I tell of a love I
never felt, or recount attainments I never reached? Can I give
out what I have not, and I sometimes fear I am not completely
possessed of Christ. Can I, the Imperfect, appreciate the Perfect
one; can I, the sinful, reveal the sinless soul? I have not
Christ's spirit, his truth, his joy, so integrally and plenarily,
that I can set him forth in due proportion and entireness. His
experience and character, his spiritual strength and moral

greatness are so transcendent, I truly hesitate at the task you
impose upon me. That we may portray the Poet or the Artist,
or any high excellence, we must square with it; who, alas! is
equal to Christ!”

“Yet,” said Margaret, “all that is lies secretly coiled within
our own breasts! All Beauty, I am persuaded, is within
us; whatever comes to me I feel to have had a pre-existence.
I sometimes indeed doubt whether I give or receive. A flower
takes color from the sun and gives off color. Air makes the
fire burn, and the fire makes the air blow; and the colder the
weather the brisker the fire. A watermelon seed can say,
`In me are ten watermelons, rind, pulp and seeds, so many
yards of vine, so many pounds of leaves.' In myself seems
sometimes to reside an infant Universe. My soul is certainly
pistillate, and the pollen of all things is borne to me. The
spider builds his house from his own bowels. I have sometimes
seen a wood-spider let off a thread which the winds drew
out for him and raised above the trees, and when it was sufficiently
high and strong, he would climb up it, and sail off in
the clear atmosphere. I think if you only begin, it will all
come to you. As you drain off it will flow in. The sinful
may give out the sinless. I long to hear what you have to
say.”

“What you observe is too true, and I thank you for making
me recollect myself. Even the Almighty creates us, and then
suffers himself to be revealed in us. We, motes, carry an immensity
of susceptible, responsive existence. But for this we
should never love or know Christ. In his boyhood, we are
told, Christ waxed strong in spirit, was filled with wisdom,
and the grace of God was upon him. His earliest developments
must have been of a peculiarly beautiful and striking
kind. When he was twelve years old, being in company of
some learned people, his questions and replies were of such a
nature as to excite astonishment in all present, at the extent of
his understanding. We have no authentic account of him from
this until his thirtieth year; excepting that he resided with his
father and pursued the family avocation, that of a carpenter.”

“What, do you know nothing about him when he was as
old as I am, or as you are, when he was fifteen, or twenty, or
twenty-five? In the dream I remember he said I must be like
him, I must grow up with him. Had he no youth? Had he
no inward sorrowful feelings as I have had?”

“There is one of the books of the New Testament of a
peculiar character, and it contains some intimations respecting

Christ, not found in the others. I will read a passage. `In
the days of his flesh he offered up or poured forth prayers and
supplications, with strong crying and tears, to him that was
able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared,'
or as it stands in the original for his piety. This, as I believe,
points to a period of his life not recorded in the other
histories, and should be assigned to that which you have mentioned,
his youth.”

“I have no doubt of it,” said Margaret. “It describes
exactly what I have been through. Did he suffer all we do?”

“Yes, his life and sufferings were archetypal of those of all
his followers. `He suffered for us,' says St. Peter, `leaving us
an example that we should follow in his steps.' `Rejoice,' he
says, `inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings.”'

“How near this brings Christ to me! It seems as if I had
him now in my heart. He too suffered! How much there
is in that word! and in this earnest, soul-deep way! I understand
his sad tender look. Apollo killed Hyacinth by accident,
and was very sorry. But there was no deep capable soul in
Apollo, was there? I shall not think so much of him,—I interrupt
you, Sir, go on.

“He suffered all that any being can suffer; he was alone,
unbefriended, unsympathized with, unaided; books gave him
no satisfaction, teachers afforded him no light. The current,
swift and broad, of popular error and prejudice, he had to
stem and turn, single-handed. He grew in knowledge, we
read; the problems of Man, God and the Universe were given
him to resolve. But he was heard for his piety, for his goodness.
He became perfect through suffering. Supernatural,
divine assistance was afforded him, and he conquered at last.
At the age of thirty, when he entered what is called his public
ministry, which is the chief subject of history, he encountered
a severe temptation, such as all are liable to, and was enabled
to vanquish it; he was tempted as we are. He was ever
without sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, he was holy,
harmless, undefiled. At times he was made indignant at the
conduct of men, he was grieved at the hardness of their
hearts, he groaned in sympathy with human distress, he wept
over the follies of the race; he was persecuted by the great,
and despised by his own kindred; his nearest friends deserted
him, and one of his chosen disciples betrayed him; the greato
ness of his views met only with bigotry, and the generosity of
his heart was repelled by meanness; he carried the heavy wood
on which he was crucified, and when brought as a malefactor

to the place of execution, he was scourged and spit upon;
once prostrated by the weight of his anguish, and from very
heat of internal agony, he entreated that the bitter cup might
be removed; and to add to all, in the extreme stage of dissolving
life, for a moment his spiritual vision seemed to be dimmed,
and he cried out, `O my God! why hast thou forsaken me?'
Such is a brief notice of his sufferings. Let me turn to other
points—”

“Oh, Mr. Evelyn!” exclaimed Margaret, “how can you
go on so! How cold you are! I cannot hear any more;”
and from the posture she had maintained with her eyes fixed
on the ground, she fell with her face into her hands, and followed
the act with an audible profusion of tears.

“Do forgive me, Miss Hart,” said Mr. Evelyn. “I have
been so long familiar with this most affecting history, that I
know it does not move me as it should.”

“I only know,” said Margaret, looking up with a forgiving
smile gleaming through her tears, “that I feel it all through
me, my heart swells like a gourd, and I ache in a strange
way. My memory and my sensations seem to be alike agitated.”

“That must be sympathy!” replied Mr. Evelyn.

“What is that sympathy?” asked Margaret. “I never
heard, methinks, the word before.”

“It is of Greek origin, and means feeling or suffering with
another. It denotes mutual sensation, fellow-feeling; it implies
also compassion, commiseration. It is defined a conformity
in feeling, suffering or passion with another; also a participation
in the condition or state of another; and also, if you
are not tired of superenumeration, the quality or susceptibility
of being affected by the affection of another, with feelings correspondent
in kind.”

“Sympathy, sympathy!” said Margaret. “That is it.
You understand me now!”

“Yes, you sympathize with Christ. I can but deplore my
own insensibility.”

“I will remember that word; I like to get a good word; it
is like a tin cover put over a dish of potatoes, it keeps them so
nice and warm. While you were speaking, I felt myself drawn
out by some strange affinities to what you said, and when you
came to the extreme sufferings of Christ, my sensations were
something such as I had when you spoke about him the other
day, and when I read that part of the Book, only so many
things being brought together, I felt more. All the sadness I
ever felt was revived, and burst within me anew.”

“I was going to tell you,” continued Mr. Evelyn, “that in
addition to, and despite all, Christ was very happy, and that
in manner and matter beyond what most men can conceive of,
which is another secret in his character. On the last day of
his life, with the horrors of crucifixion impending, he said to
his sorrowing friends, `Peace I leave with you, my peace I
give unto you.' He desired, he says, that `his joy might remain
with them;' he prays that `his joy may be fulfilled in
themselves!' This I think will please you.”

“I believe I understand something of that too,” said Margaret.

“There are still other points,” pursued Mr. Evelyn. “I
must speak of the object of Christ's coming into the world, or
what is known as the plan of Redemption by him. Man had
fallen, if you know what that means.”

“I remember something the Primer says, and what Pa says
when he is so intoxicated he can't stand. `In Adam's fall,
we sinned all.”'

“I do not refer to that. Eve, of whom you will read in the
Old Testament, ate an apple from an interdicted tree, which is
commonly known as the Fall of Man. There is no authority
for such a belief. Men fall, each man for himself, when they
sin, that is, do wrong. At the time Christ appeared, St. Paul
tells us, unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
lasciviousness, envyings, backbitings, murders, wrath,
strife, seditions prevailed; men were inventors of evil things,
disobedient to parents, without natural affection, without understanding,
unholy, and so forth—”

“I shall laugh now,” said Margaret, “to hear all that sanctiloquence.
I must have hit upon some of those words which
nearly disgusted me with the book. I have heard Deacon
Hadlock called a very holy man, and Pa laughed, and the Master
blew his nose.”

“Those are words,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “in common and
proper use when the translation was made to which I referred.
Having disappeared from the popular tongue, and being retained
only in ecclesiastical terminology, it is not surprising
they sound strange to you. Rendered in modern English,
holiness and righteousness, mean goodness, virtue, rectitude,
or any high moral and religious excellence. As respects the
other vices mentioned, we have now-a-days, as you well know,
war, intemperance, slavery, unkindness; and then what go by
the name of bigotry, intolerance, irreligion, pious frauds, persecution,
simony, villany, burglary, violence, peculation, treason,

perjury, kidnapping, piracy, scandal, ingratitude, intrigue,
bribery, meanness, social inequality, governmental misrule,
spirit of caste, oppression of labor, superciliousness, are abundant.
These and similar things are what the Gospel denominates
the works of the flesh, and renders unto tribulation and
anguish, as evil doing. These are that whereby men break
the Divine Law, and separate themselves from God. But the
primary idea in this matter, the fundamental law of sin, the
very essence of the Fall, consists in this, that men ceased to
love. Love is the fulfilling of the law, it is the first and great
command; it unites man with God and with himself. In the
subsidency and departure of love, the moral system is revolutionized
and completely disordered. The instinct of self-preservation
is tortured into selfishness, the desire of excellence
is inflamed into ambition, the sense of right becomes
the author of innumerable wrong. The whole head is sick,
the whole heart faint. Nature commences a burdensome contention
with abuse, misdirection, absurdity, folly. It is ever
Nature versus the Unnatural. The institutions and organizations
of men, founded upon the new basis, partake of the general
corruption, and only foster evils it is their design to prevent.
Love casts out fear; in the absence of love, fear supercedes;
hence aggression and violence, superstition and the doctrine
of devils.”

“I never feared,” said Margaret; “was that because I
loved?”

“Fortitude,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “springs as much from
superiority to our enmities, as from superiority to our enemies.
And this reminds me, that the first voluntary wrong act any
man ever did was done through the absence of love. But here
arises a new element. We were never created to do or to suffer
voluntary wrong, and there is generated in consequence of
such acts, the sense of injury. Hence come all retaliations.
A most mournful fact in this matter is that dissonance and dis-disorder
are themselves sympathetic and reciprocal. Aversion
reproduces aversion, and selfishness is answered by selfishness.”

“I have felt that towards Solomon Smith sometimes,” said
Margaret. “I know he dislikes me, and I have been moved
to dislike him, and I suppose I should if I did not feel what a
ridiculous piece of business it is for one most anagogical puppet
to be mad with another. And since you would also convince
me he is geodic, what can I do, but abide, like the ants,
whose hills through trodden upon are patiently renewed every
morning.”

“When man ceases to love, he is not only estranged from
God, but the image of God within him is lost, the heavenly
purity of his character is sullied, and the divine harmonies of
his nature are discomposed.—But what is worst of all, we are
educated to regard every man with suspicion and enmity. We
are taught in our earliest years that men are by nature totally
depraved, and since total depravity covers every form of sin and
vice, we are in effect instructed to believe every man a villain,
a thief, a murderer, at heart; as mean, selfish, and malicious,
in his secret conscious purpose. This is the cardinal doctrine
of what passes under the name of Christianity. It is annually
enforced by hundreds of thousands of discourses from Bishops
and Clergy in every part of Christendom. This consummates
the Fall! Every youth under the operation of that sympathetic
and reciprocal law, to which I adverted, enters life in
the spirit of hostility. To receive injury he expects, to do
an injury on the injurious, he thinks no harm. The evil which
he is made to believe all others saturated with is reflected in
his own bosom, and so, in spite of himself, he becomes depraved.
There is something denominated love in the religious
circles; I should call it Ecclesiastical love, because it is a figment
of the Church, to distinguish it from Christian love, which
has its origin in Christ, or Evangelical love founded on the
Gospels. After making you believe all men totally depraved,
our teachers endeavor to create in the breasts of the elect so
termed, a pity for this depravity, and to inspire them with a
desire to remove it, and this they call love, which is no love at
all, since an important element in love is that it thinketh no
evil, judges not. In what I have now said, you see not only
the Fall of man generally, but also that second greater catastrophe,
the Fall of the Church.”

“Here I must beg of you some more explanations; what do
you mean by the Church?”

“I mean that great body of men, in all countries, of all denominations
and sects, who profess Christianity, in their associate
capacity, with their clergy, or leaders, and creeds, or articles
of establishment.”

“Have the Church-members in the Village and those who
groaned so at the Camp Meeting fallen?”

“Yes, all. The effect of a corrupt Christianity, or as I
should say of a fallen religion, is to perpetuate and augment itself;
and now, with very few exceptions, all share in the common
calamity. In the progress of decline, it became a matter
of course, that the Church should change its standards of faith,

or as we say in politics, adopt a new constitution. The
Gospels or Evangelicons, by which are intended the personal
biographies of Jesus, a book of Acts, and certain documents
known as Epistles, are indeed accredited by all. But there
arose certain things which have practically superseded the
Gospels. These are known as Articles of the Council of Trent,
of the Church of England, of the Episcopal Church, of the
Methodist Church; or as Creeds in our various Churches.
And now a man may believe the Gospels, and aim to conform
to Christ, but he is not reckoned a Christian by the Catholics
unless he assent to their Articles, or by the Protestants unless
he subscribe their several Creeds. And they have carried this
matter so far, as to condemn a man to everlasting perdition if
he depart from these Gospel-substitutes. You may examine
them and canvass their qualities, you will find no more Christianity
in any one of them, than apple-juice in that stone.—But
we must bear in mind that the world had fallen, before the
Church fell; and it was to repair the effects of this first Fall,
that Christ appeared on the Earth; let us return to him. He
came to renew love, and reinstate men in a pure and happy
condition.”

“But how could men love if they were as you describe
them?”

“Man never wholly loses his capacity for loving. The
natural susceptibility to goodness and truth can never be extinguished.
Our powers are perverted, not destroyed. In
fact, there have been holy, loving people in the world, true
Christians, in all times, all countries, all Churches, among all
religions, and all nations. Such have sometimes been kings,
and occupied thrones, they have been outcasts from society,
and buried in dungeons. Among princes and peasants, the
affluent and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, aristocrats
and plebeians, have appeared from time to time sincere and earnest
lovers of God and man. Some sympathy with Christ exists
in all minds, either latent or active.—

Christ came on his high embassage with credentials of an
authoritative and remarkable character. He was the brightness
of the glory of God, and the express image of his person. Indeed,
He and the Father were one. He received, he tells us,
all power from God. He was baptized of the Holy Spirit.
He was proclaimed the beloved and well-pleasing Son of God.
He had gone through the experience of life, he had studied the
human mind in its every phase, he understood the condition of
men, and was prepared for the exigences of his lot. The

thirty years of his life had not been spent in idleness. The
effect of his address was electrical. Cities poured forth their
population to him, and the country was deserted of its inhabitants
gone in pursuit of him. The multitudes that thronged
him were so great no house could contain them, and he was
obliged to resort to the open air and spoke sometimes from a
hill-side, sometimes from a boat moored by the shore. But,
as I have intimated, his course was not without trial and obstacle.
His success it was in part that contributed to his unhappiness,
and precipitated his death. The common people
heard him gladly; and this aroused the jealousies of the higher
orders, who became his unrelenting antagonists. With covert
insinuation and open assault they pursued him, and by their
intrigues at last brought him to the cross. —

Let me speak of what he did, of the spirit of his action and
the secret of his effect. Fresh and glowing he came from the
bosom of Heaven. His heart yearned for man as for a brother.
His sympathies were ardent, profuse and forth-putting. His
hopes were high and bright. He spared himself neither privations,
self-denials, inconveniences, disrepute or toil. He gave
himself for our ransom, his whole self, body and mind, his
thought, his sagacity, his activity, his health, his time, his
knowledge, his popularity, his example, in fact all he had or
was, even to life itself; he consented that by his stripes we
should be healed, by his death we should live, and shed his
blood to wash away our sins. He was gentle and tender, the
bruised reed he would not break, or the smoking flax quench.
Wherever arose one feeblest aspiration to God he was prepared
to foment and cherish it. He made an open door of his compassionate
feelings, and invited to himself all who labored and
were heavy laden with sin and evil. He did not join in the
common execrations of men, or approve their punitive severities;
he saw something excellent in the vilest, he would
win by love the most ruffianish, and the profligate he bade `Go,
and sin no more.' When he was reviled he reviled not again,
and when he suffered, he threatened not. If he received an
injury he did not retaliate, but committed himself, Peter says,
`to him that judgeth righteously,' that is, to God.

And here we see the high moral perfection of Christ; he
had so disciplined his spirit, he was so preoccupied with love,
he was so magnanimously considerate, that enmity and aversion,
which in most breasts give rise to corresponding qualities,
in his excited only kindness and favor. Here also discovers
itself his sublime Heroism, that he stood unshaken before all

moral assaults, and faced undaunted every moral danger. Yet
he was one of the strongest sensibilities; he wept like a child
in pure sympathy with the distresses of his friends. He `took
upon himself our infirmities,' and if sensitiveness be an infirmity,
he possessed it equally with the rest of us. The insane,
those who were chained, imprisoned and under keepers, and
who in their paroxysms were ungovernable and dangerous, he
approached freely, became very familiar with in love, and
expelled the delusion that possessed them. The miraculous
power with which he was endowed he employed in ways most
instructive and beneficial. He gave sight to the blind, hearing
to the deaf, strength to the weak, and health to the sick. He
did not consult what was expedient, but pursued what was
right, and broke the popular Sabbath, an exceedingly bold act,
and one that nearly cost him his life. Yet he was not harsh
and sweeping in his movement; he was sparing of those feelings
which are deep because they belong to our childhood, of
convictions that are honest because they are all we possess,
and of forms of public life to which a long antiquity imparts
an air of reverence; and he would not see the Temple of the
Jews mercenarily profaned. The spirit of the Goth and Vandal
was most remote from Jesus. God he called his Heavenly
Father, and sought to create a near and filial relation with the
Divinity. Man he called his brother, and in all he would
find fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters. Little children, what
is unparalleled in all religions, he took in his arms and blessed.
National, local, and geographical antipathies he sought
to correct, and strove to unite all men on a common footing of
brotherhood; and the Samaritans, who were regarded by his
own people the Jews as the offscouring of all things, he demonstrated
both by precept and example to be deserving a common
friendship and love.”

“That is what Mr. Lovers said about the Freemasons,”
interposed Margaret, “and Isabel and I were so smitten we
determined to join them right off, and went to the Master, but
he said they did not admit women.”

“Freemasonry,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “is a partial good. It
recognizes every man as a brother who is a Mason, but Christ
recognized every one as a brother who was a man. Woman
shared equally in his sympathies, and was embraced by his love.
The motto of Masonry, Faith, Hope and Charity, is a fragment
borrowed from the Gospels. Freemasonry in some of our States
excludes the black; Jew and Gentile, Barbarian and Scythian,
male and female, bond and free, are one in Christ.—He was

invidiously styled the Friend of Sinners, because he maintained
a kindly intercourse with those whom the world despised;
he dined with Pharisees, the chief men of the nation, that
he might understand their position, and be better able to meet
their wants. Certain leaders of the people were the only
ones whom he seems ever to have addressed with severity, and
that not from any hostility, but because they appeared to him
wholly dissolute and abandoned; yet his language, in the
original, savors more of a lament than a proscription. I cannot
tell you all he did. In the expressive words of one of his disciples
`he went about doing good.”'

“I thank you for what you have told me,” said Margaret.
“Christ certainly seems to me the most wonderful being of
whom I have ever heard. I have read about Plato, Anaxagoras,
Socrates, Epaminondas, Diogenes, Seneca, Cicero, Cato,
Numa, Confucius, Budha, Manco Capac, and others, who interested
me a great deal, but nothing seemed like this.”

“I have not told you half,” replied Mr. Evelyn. “I have
only spoken of what he did. How can I describe the greatest,
most excelling part of him, what he was! — It is a small thing
to say that he was affable, generous, honorable, brave, warm-hearted,
truthful, discreet, wise, talented, disinterested, self-denying,
patient, exemplary, temperate, consistent, charitable,
industrious, frugal, hospitable, compassionate, and such like.
He was meek and lowly in heart, and that with more incentives
to arrogance and pride than ever fell to the lot of one individual;
he was forbearing when a precept of his religion
demanded an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; his affection
was universal, while the sentiment and practice of his people
condemned intercourse with other nations; he was self-relying
in a community ruled by tradition and resting on prescription;
he was pacific where war was sanctioned and encouraged; he
was free in a world of bondage, he was spiritual in a world of
forms, he was great in a world of littleness, he was a God in a
world of men. His intrinsic nobility rose above meanness and
subterfuge, and if he ever withheld all he thought, it was because
he would not cast his pearls before swine. He was
frank without bluntness, courteous without guile, familiar without
vulgarity, liberal without licentiousness. He combined
tenderness of feeling with rigor of principle, harmlessness with
wisdom, simplicity with greatness, faith with works. He fellowshipped
man without countenancing sin, he mingled in all
classes of society without losing his singleness of character.
In him were harmonized the opposite extremes of trust and independence,

forethought and impulse, plain common sense
and the highest spirituality, theory and practice, intuition and
reflection, cheerfulness and piety, toil and refinement, candor
and enthusiasm; he was lord of lords and king of kings, and
the companion of peasants and confidant of the obscure. He
was eloquent and persuasive, yet his voice was not heard in the
streets, he had no boisterous tones, no demagogical manner;
he discoursed of the highest truths, yet his language was so
simple, the people were astonished at the gracious words that
proceeded out of his mouth; God-possessed as he was, all-engrossing
as was the object he had in view, and preoccupied as
we must suppose his attention to have been, he was ever alive
and fresh to the beauty and suggestiveness of nature, and the
falling rain, a flying sparrow, the bursting wheat, the luxuriant
mustard, the blooming vine, the evening twilight, the clouds of
heaven, wells of water in the deserts of the East, oxen and
sheep, a hen brooding over her chickens, all things about him
left their impression in his heart, and became the illustrators
of his doctrine. Considering the fervid Oriental imagination,
the perspicuous chasteness and emphatic directness of his
style, adapted to all climates and people, is not a little remarkable.
Made in all things like his brethren, he was still one
whom the offer of empire did not flatter, or a houseless night
dishearten. His miraculous power he used unostentatiously
and sparingly; and with no other intent than the good of man
and the glory of God. You have asked if he was not Beautiful;
he was superlatively so. In the translation it reads the
Good Shepherd; but here and elsewhere in the original Gospels
a term is employed by which the Greeks denoted the
highest description of Beauty, and if the public mind were
not debased, we should understand what is meant when it is
said, he is the Beautiful Shepherd. Yet it is not mere beauty
of color or features, but something from within that expresses
itself in the face.”

“I remember,” said Margaret, “that look; his eyes were
fair, his hair and countenance; but there was something behind,
deeper, like music in the night, like the shining of a fish in
the water, like a nasturtion flowering under its green leaves.”

“Something like that; it glowed in his look and illuminated
his manner. The hidden source of his Beauty was Love;
and once, as his Love increased, as he became more and more
perfect through his sufferings, when his spirit had completely
passed through the veil of his flesh, this inward Beauty shone
out in a most wonderful way; and in connection with the

splendor of God which answered to it at the moment, constitutes
a striking scene known as the Transfiguration, which
you will read. That same look melted one wicked man to
tears, and felled to the ground some brutal soldiers.”

“Do explain to me one thing; in one of my dreams were
three girls, whom I knew to be Faith, Hope and Charity, because
I had seen pictures of them. They created a fourth
whom I called Beauty, because it could be nothing else but
that. Yet you say Beauty comes from Love.”

“That Charity,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “is none other than
Love. It is an evangelical term, and there again our translators
committed a blunder when they rendered it Charity, who
is none other than an alms-giver. But Love, as Christ would
have it, is something entirely different, greater than Faith or
Hope, the greatest of all things, and from it comes true
Beauty. As David desired to behold the Beauty of the Lord,
so that of Christ was not without its effect in the rapid spread
of his doctrine; he was altogether lovely. The grace of your
Venus, the symmetry of your Apollo, the colors of flowers,
the brilliancy of gems, pass with me as nothing compared
with the Moral Beauty of Christ. Apollo is a perfect material
form; Christ a perfect moral soul. What Apollo is in the
galleries of Art, Christ is in the galleries of Spirit. The
Apollo comprises all the bodily excellences of men, Christ all
their moral excellences. There is some worth, some virtue
in every human being; in Christ these all united and made a
harmonious whole. The Apollo, as I told you, represented
the higher operations of Nature; Christ represented the
higher operations of God; or as I might say, the Apollo represented
the natural attributes of God, Christ his moral attributes.
By as much as the statue of Apollo differs from the
image of Brahma, by so much does Christ differ from Plato.”

“I have thought sometimes,” said Margaret, “of Regulus
going back to the Carthaginians,—wasn't that an unexampled
act? of Codrus and Eubule sacrificing themselves for their country,
of Epaminondas's magnanimity, Arrius's integrity, Evephenus's
truthfulness; and Oh! how I have wished to get away
from Christians, sit down on a stump in the groves of the Academy
and hear Plato preach, or squat with Diogenes in his tub and
listen to his railings. When the Master laughs about people,
and I ask him who is good, he says, `The Seven Wise Men
of Greece.' I am sure there was some virtue in those days—
yet—I know not what to say.”

“If you intend a comparison,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “it

were easy to prove, if you put me upon that, that Christ differs
from those to whom you have referred, toto cœlo, by the greatest
possible distance. True, they possessed many virtues, but
what you would glean from a whole antiquity seems to me aggregated
in Christ. There may be some analogy between
Christ and them, but no similitude. How this matter stands
you will see when I have said all I shall say about him. Besides,
regarding Regulus for instance, there seems to be no
basis of comparison, they do not stand upon any common footing.
Among fallen men there exist certain notions of rectitude,
which go by the name of honor. It is a familiar saying,
there is honor among thieves. The Romans and Carthaginians
were fallen men, they made war upon each other, they
were mutual pillagers, incendiaries, liars, assassins. Yet they
retained this sentiment of honor. Regulus indeed, true to
his word, went back, even when he knew it would cost him his
life, a noble act; yet he was put to death by those whom he
had just before been trying to kill, and possibly by the friends
of those whom his own sword had pierced. Then, in retaliation,
the Carthaginians in Rome were by the public authority
barbarously tortured.”

“I see, I see,” rejoined Margaret. “I did not think of comparison.
Only those noble deeds detached from everything
else, have lain in my mind, as things very beautiful. And
while you were speaking they rose up vividly.”

“Christ's was no dependent, distorted, or relative excellence,”
continued Mr. Evelyn; “he was not conspicuous because
he stood a head taller than his countrymen. He was
excellent from the sole of his foot upwards. He was absolutely
and rudimentally great, and would have appeared so
equally alone, or with a million. He was un-fallen; he did
not stand upon a platform of depravity, and exhibit how much
excellence was compatible therewith. He stood upon a platform
of pure goodness, and shows how beautiful it is. Regulus
aided in carrying on the wicked purposes of the world,
Christ contemplated regenerating the whole world. Epaminondas
was made great by the vices of his countrymen, Christ
from his own inherent Life. Plato maintained that fire is a
pyramid tied to the earth by numbers; Christ is guilty of no
philosophical absurdity, and what is not a little noticeable is
this, that while he pursued the track of high, transcendent
truth, he does not exhibit the slightest tinge of those metaphysical
speculations that prevailed in his time. Plato travelled
into Egypt in pursuit of knowledge, Christ into the region of

himself. Plato borrows from the Brahmins. What absence
of that anagogical, all-prevalent, all-winsome Brahminism in
Christ! Socrates, the wise, beneficent and pious, lifted a
bloody arm against his fellow men. Thales thanked God he
was born a man, not a woman; a Greek, not a Barbarian.
Solon ordered robbery to be punished with death. Anaxagoras,
when he was old and poor, wrapped himself in his cloak,
and resolved to die of hunger. These were all stars in the
night time, worthy of admiration, and pleasant to go to sleep
under. Christ seems to me a Morning Sun.”

“Keep to Christ, I can afford to forget all others, a while
at least.”

“It is after all by approximations we know Christ, not by
any comprehension. We must rest content to paddle about
in the inlets of this great ocean. Consider his intellectual
character—`he knew what was in man,' his biographer declares.
He had not books or teachers; he worked at his
father's bench; he had never, as I believe, travelled farther
than from Nazareth to Jerusalem, and his doctrine savors as
little of Jewish hagiography as it does of the lore of the Rabbins;
and well was it asked, `How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned?' He studied his own mysterious nature,
his own manifold necessities, his own disposition; and
by thus first knowing himself, he knew all men. Through
himself he read the race. That love, which is the secret sap
of the soul, by which our being enlarges itself, the faculties
grow apace like the arms of an oak, the knots of thought are
loosened, and a clear shining intellectual vision is attained, he
possessed in unbounded measure. He did God's will, and
therefore knew of the doctrine. He grew in wisdom, and
love added to his insight and fortified his reason. He was
pure in heart, and thus saw God. Christ is perfectly adapted
to man, as a well-adjusted piece of carpentry, as light to the
eye, as air to the lungs, as musical notes to a musical ear. He,
the prototypal Diapason of the race, studying himself, and
man in himself, so strikes a chord that vibrates to every heart.
Christ was a genius, one without compeer or parallel, a spiritual
genius; not of the Homeric, Phydian, or Praxitelean
order, but of his own most singular, most exalted kind. A
sculptor, from the several beauties found in a collection of
human bodies, gives you a beautiful material statue; Christ
gives you a beautiful spirit. A sculptor from his own Ideal
produces a beautiful Form; Christ from his Ideal produces
beautiful Men. A sculptor sometimes succeeds in throwing

passion, action, a soul into marble; Christ threw a soul into
man. Art explains nature to man; Christ explained God to
man. His power was strictly creative, as it was rare and benign.
A spiritual landscape painted he, that no Claude could
equal. Indeed such an impression had his disciples of his
productive energy, that by him they say `the worlds were
made.' A new Heaven and a new Earth created he. Christ
was, if we are willing to apply to him modern terms, both Art
and an Artist. He was in himself the fairest, self-wrought,
divine creation. Then patiently, studiously, lovingly, he went
on to form new creations. In Love lies all Artistic energy;
from the highest love proceeds the highest work. Praxiteles,
in the composition of his Venus, is said to have been inspired
by the presence of a beautiful female. Christ needed no
other inspiration than what his own beautiful heart could furnish.
But I must delay on this till I have said some other things.

“Having all too meagrely spoken of him in himself, I will
speak of him in his relation to God. The Soul of the Universe
entered into his soul, and was cherished there. The
Spirit of God, as a dove, descended and rested upon him. In
him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He is called
the only begotten Son of God. With a nature harmonious in
all things with God, God himself sympathised, and he dwelt
in God, and God in him. The Word became flesh. He
was the Bread of God, he was a Vine of the Father's planting;
he was Emmanuel, God with us. But of what chiefly
interests us, his relation to man, I will tell you. In this
respect we learn much of Christ from his immediate successors,
called Apostles, in whom is seen the Ideal of Christ as it
were projected, and who manifest in effect what he held in
purpose. `As he was, so are we in this world,' they declare.
This expresses the gist of the matter. Whatever he himself
was he designed man to become. God sent him into the world,
through him to restore his own fallen image. He was made
perfect, that through his perfection we might become perfect.
He would restore us by the infusion of himself, by re-uniting
man with his spirit, his holiness, his love. His wish and
prayer were that we together with him might become one with
God. He announced himself the Way, the Truth, the Life.
He did not teach, he was the Resurrection and the Life, and
those who were dead in trespasses and sins heard his voice,
came forth from their graves and lived. `Take up your Cross
and follow me,' were his words; `eat me,' `live on me.' As
he laid down his life for us, so are we directed to lay down

our lives for the brethren. `I travail,' says one, `till Christ
be formed in you.' `Christ in us' is the Mystery of Revelation.
`We die daily;' `we live, yet not we, but Christ lives
in us.' As he forgave, so are we to forgive. The same mind
that was in him is to be in us. As he suffered without the
gate, so are we to go forth, bearing his reproach. We are
crucified together with him. As he died to sin, so do we.
As he was a sacrifice, so are we to offer our bodies living sacrifices.
He suffered, leaving us an example. If we imitate
his Passion, we shall reign with him. The Glory which God
gave him, he says, he gives his disciples. Greater works than
he did he declares they shall do. So perfect was this contemplated
identity that he says, He who receives you receives
me; and it was even declared, that he who sinned against a
brother, sinned against Christ. This inner, received Christ,
Paul declared, worked in him mightily. Through him, thus
received, we escape the pollutions of the world. His blood,
his doctrine, his spirit, his death, his whole self, washes away
our sins. As he is holy, so we become holy. We are partakers
of the divine nature. He is to us a Moral Revelation of
God; as there is a Natural Revelation in the material creation.
He embodies, and sets forth the Moral attributes of God. So
he came into the world, as it were, suffused with the effulgence
of God, raying out with love, benignity, paternal affection.
He addressed himself to human sympathies, I mean to
that power of which we were speaking, of reciprocating the
feelings and passions of another; to that susceptibility of truth
and goodness which exists in all minds. This was the medium
whereby he would communicate himself to man. He relied
upon the spirit of God to second and bless his labors. He
would uncurb the well-spring of love that is found in every
soul, and let its waters flow out over the earth. He begins
with saying, `Repent,' or in the original, Change your minds,
Reflect upon yourselves. In the only discourse of any length
which remains to us, he pronounces the Beatitudes, which I
hope you will soon read. His object is the salvation of man;
he is called the Saviour, because he shall save his people from
their sins. In the revival, development, and extension of love,
he would bring men to holiness; in becoming holy, sin is expelled
and forgiven; in the expulsion of sin, Hell both as an
experience and a destiny ceases, and Heaven is secured. On
the deep, eternal foundations of Nature he would erect the
superstructure of Grace. He came mature in preparation,
flushing with hope, dexterous for attempt. He looked with
loving eyes to behold loving eyes in return, he spake in kindness
to be greeted with kindness, his warm heart would be
met by warm hearts, his lofty purposes would kindle lofty purposes,
his holy life shall stimulate a holy life, his gentle rebuke
shall react in penitence, his pity shall arouse from despair. As
by a conjuror's touch he shall awaken the dead soul of the world.
His Divine Spirit propagating itself, the image of God shall reappear
in the face of man. He, the Heavenly Sculptor, works
on rocky souls, and with his chisel fashions a form of immortal
beauty. Thousands upon thousands heard his voice and lived.
The stately Pharisee, the unknown rustic, and the despised foreigner
became his converts. To his resurrection from sin and
sense, fashion and fortune, multitudes strove to attain; many
vied in his crucifixion; by the new and living way through the
veil, that is, the flesh, the carnal and self-indulgent denied
themselves to enter. A living, sympathetic response to Christ
arose in John and Peter, Martha and Mary, and hosts. A
splendid Ideal had he, which he called the Kingdom of Heaven;
the reproduction of himself among men he spoke of as
his coming again; the reappearance of Virtue and Peace,
Truth and Righteousness, he described as the clouds of Heaven
and Angels of God. Such was his Ideal of Truth, that
while he says he himself judged no one, he expected that
would judge the world, condemn sin, and extirpate it forever;
and those who possessed this truth he speaks of as standing
upon thrones. The ordinary magistracy of man would be
supplanted, and all iniquity flee away before the brightness of
his Advent. Such is the scheme of Redemption, so called;
a scheme or plan, originating with God, executed by Christ,
fostered by the Holy Spirit, energetic through human sympathies
and affections; a method, as we are graphically told, `of
redeeming unto Christ a peculiar people, zealous of good
works,' of instituting a `Church without spot or blemish.'
Let me now explain some of your troublesome `anagogics.'
The Atonement is the union of man with God through Christ
by the reproduction of Christ in us; the Trinity is this tri-fold
union, God, Christ and Man; Faith, a Saving or Evangelical
Faith, or Believing in Christ, is taking Christ to yourself
in this living and warm way, receiving his spirit into your
spirit, his feelings into your feelings, his character into your
character, whereby his whole self becomes grafted upon, and
fused into yourself. Sanctification or Holiness is the subsidence
and departure of sin in proportion as you thus receive
Christ. Justification is God's approval of you; Adoption is
becoming a member of the great Divine family. This is
Christianity! The regeneration of the world went on well
for a while; the spirit and power of Christ reached many nations;
Christism survived a few years after his death, when,
alas! the dog returned to his vomit, and the sow that was
washed to her wallowing in the mire. The Church began its
Fall in the second century; Christians became degraded into
the ways of the world, the forms of Judaism were revived, a
false philosophy was introduced, and sacerdotal and imperial
ambition finished the work. With Constantine in the fourth
century, the union of the Cross and the Sword was complete,
and in the name of Christ, Christian nations have gullied the
earth with the blood they have spilt, and rent the skies with
the yells of mutual massacre.”

“I must ask you one question,” said Margaret. “How
came the first man to fall?”

“That question belongs to a subject of the most subtle nature,
the prime origin of Evil, which I must take some other
time to discuss.”

“I know you are tired, but let me ask you how these wicked
things could be done in the name of Christ?”

“That name has been perpetuated, although so great was
its abuse that in the seventh century a new sect arose who are
now called Mohammedans. The solitary divine virtue immanent
in Christ has ever found a response in the heart of humanity;
and such was the original majestic effect of his name,
that it has served as a convenient basis for delusion, error and
sin, craft, avarice and pride, to raise their fabrics upon. Besides,
the Gospels, handed down from age to age, have been
held in nominal reverence.”

“You mentioned the name of Mary?”

“Yes, there were two Marys, one of whom was so affected
by Christ, that she washed his feet with her tears, and wiped
them with the hairs of her head.”

“You have said the last word; I have no more questions.
Sweet sister Mary! my name too is Mary. Oh Tony, Tony!
Your profession is done in a way you little wotted of. Toupee,
tyetop, pomatum, powder—my hair goes for a towel to wipe
Christ's feet with. My handkerchief cannot hold my tears,
they go to do Mary's service too! I have not understood, Sir,
all you have said, but it is enough, enough; I am filled to distention,
I can bear no more. Apollo, Diana, Orpheus, are
you scared? Have you hid under the bushes? Dear little
Gods and Goddesses all, don't be frightened,—Christ won't

hurt us. They have been beautiful and true to me, he will
love them for that, won't he, Mr. Evelyn? Christ shall preside
over us, I will worship him. It is late, I thank you, I
bless you, Mr. Evelyn, I must go, I would be alone. But the
names must be changed. Bacchus Hill shall be Christ's Hill,
Orpheus' Pond, his Pond. He shall be supreme; Head, Pond
and all, shall henceforth be called Mons Christi.

4. CHAPTER IV.
SUNDRY MATTERS.

Another day found Mr. Evelyn at the Pond, and with
Margaret, on the Head, now called Mons Christi.

“The name which this eminence has commonly borne,”
said Mr. Evelyn, “together with the broad forest about, bring
strongly, I may say, mournfully to recollection, the original
population, the Indians, I mean.”

“What do you know about them?” asked Margaret.

“If we may rely on accounts written when they and the
whites first met as friends, before a mutual hostility exasperated
the judgment of the historian, and disordered the conduct
of the natives, we shall form a pleasing picture of their
character and condition. `These people,' the New England
Indians, say the first discoverers, `are exceeding courteous,
gentle of disposition, and well-conditioned; for shape of body
and lovely favor they excel all the people of America; of
stature much higher than we. They are quick-eyed and
steadfast in their looks, fearless of others' harms, as intending
none themselves; some of the meaner sort given to filching.
Their women are fat and well-favored, and the men are very
dutiful towards them. The wholesomeness and temperature
of the climate doth argue them to be of a perfect constitution
of body, active, strong, healthful and very witty, as sundry
toys of theirs, very cunningly wrought, may easily witness.'
A friendly intercourse was had with them in those days,
`and,' say the whites, `in great love we parted.' They are
universally represented as kind-hearted, hospitable, grateful,

truthful, simple, chaste. Property was never more secure
than with them, bolts and bars they had none on their doors,
and one vice that gangrenes Christian nations, was unknown
amongst them, they never offered indignity to woman; they
were also, in respect of drinks, a very temperate people.
They possessed more virtues and fewer vices than Christians.
But when in the process of time their young men were
pirated into slavery, their population was thinned by the introduction
of new immedicable diseases, intemperance shed its
baneful influence, inflaming their passions and corrupting their
morals, the mercenariness of border intercourse alternately
cajoled and defrauded them, their several sovereignties were
drawn into destructive collision, and their entire strength
became the game of a foreign and unknown intrigue; when
the disposition of the settlers was more clearly ascertained,
the pressure of civilized policy began to tighten about them,
and they grew sensible of the value of what they had in their
simplicity surrendered; and when in the contest that ensued
between the two powers, they were driven to every resort, for
the defence of their rights, the recovery of their empire and
the preservation of existence itself, they assume a new attitude,
as all men do in similar circumstances. They exhibit a
melancholy instance of the reflex, reciprocal action of evil,
agreeably to a law that we before talked about. And yet, if
we would give to their revenge the name of reprisals, call
their subtlety and cunning military manouvres, their hatred
patriotic pride, if we would render their ferocity gallant behavior,
record their cruelties as vigorous measures for disarming
an enemy, and if instead of distinguishing them as
savages, we should write them simply Americans, they would
not appear very unlike other people of the globe.”

“It is not so bad a thing for me to be called an Indian after
all,” said Margaret. “Yesterday I felt that I was a Christian,
I don't know but I had better remain an Indian.”

“I told you there was a difference between Ecclesiastical
Christians and Evangelical Christians.”

“I would call myself a Christoid, a Christman, or anything.
I wanted to tell you how glad I was I persuaded Nimrod, my
brother, not to enlist, when they were about, awhile since,
after soldiers to go against the Indians on the Ohio.”

“Poor Indians! We have driven them from their reserves
in the West, and they may at last be compelled to take refuge
in the forests of the Mississippi, or even to cross its waters for
defence!”

“I know one Indian,” said Margaret, “an old man, who
comes here every year, and has come almost since I can
remember. He lives in the blue yonder, on the sides of
Umkiddin. He looks very old, as if he had seen a hundred
years. Yet he is tall and straight, has fine muscular proportions,
and passes the house with a taught, Junonian step. He
comes and sits up here. He makes his annual return in dry,
yellow Autumn, when the frosts have fallen and the leaves
change and drop. He is silent almost as Jupiter himself, and
I cannot get much out of him. His expression is majestically
sad. He sometimes brings a little girl with him, whom I have
more than once induced to play with me. She says he is her
grandfather. Here he sits in a sort of brown study, and
muses over the water and wood. His hair is tied in a knot
behind, and surmounted with a coronet of white heron's
feathers; he wears a robe of tambored deer-skin. I have seen
him stop and listen to Chilion's music, and once the girl gave
me a pair of beaded moccasins, in return, I suppose, for some
of my bread and cider.”

“He is probably a relic of the departed race, and comes to
look upon the home of his ancestors. He may have lived
hereabouts. A distinguished tribe of Indians formerly occupied
the borders of the River. They always selected the
most fertile and picturesque spots for their residences. And
truly this was a goodly heritage of theirs. The Connecticut,
the Merrimack, the Kennebec, the Penobscot were their noble
rivers. The early voyagers whom I have quoted to you seem
to have found the lost Eden. `This main,' say they, `is the
goodliest continent that we ever saw. The land is replenished
with fair fields, and in them fragrant flowers, also meadows,
and hedged in with stately groves, being furnished with
brooks of sweet water, and large rivers.' Their woods
abounded in beasts of the chase, their rivers in valuable fish.
They raised corn in their meadows, beans, peas, pumpkins and
melons in their gardens. They had plums, cherries and
grapes. The Indian children gathered strawberries in the
Spring, and whortleberries in the Fall. Their maidens found
violets, lilies-of-the-valley, and numerous flowers in the fields
and forests. God they called by various names, Squanto,
Kishton, Manitou, Areouski.”

“What a pity they should not be here still; and I—I would
willingly be not.”

“They were not always at peace among themselves. The
Maquas, an imperious race, did much harm to the others, and

threatened universal supremacy. But they are gone. For
reasons which we cannot well understand the red gives place
to the white man. With their wigwams and canoes, their
Gods and their pawwas, their government and titles, their
language and manners, they have vanished forever. No trace
of them remains, except in the names of a few localities.
The way is cleared for a new population, a new religion, new
society, new life. We wait to see what will be done. New
England is swept and garnished. It is an unencumbered
region.”

“Do I live in New England?”

“Yes, you are a New Englander.”

“Mehercule! I thought I lived anywhere between the sky
and this most anagogical rotundity, and have been entertaining
my later years with soap-bubbling a few Divinities—I
will be serious, Mr. Evelyn, I do know the realities of things.
But how the Gods chase one another over the world, Manitou,
Jupiter, Jehovah! Are not New Englanders like Old Englanders,
and Old Englanders like the Hindoos?”

“Men are all formed of one blood; yet there are specific
differences. But God is one, and if New Englanders were
pure in heart, as Christ says, they would see him, and that
more truly perhaps than any other people. Yet many of them
ascribe acts to their God which would disgrace a heathen
deity. This results from the debased state of the public
mind; or rather I should say from the debased doctrines of a
fallen church which have been transmitted to us. Still in
many respects we have an advantage over all other nations,
which it is worth your while to think of.”

“I am glad to hear anything you say.”

“A good part of the Old World on its passage to the New
was lost overboard. Our ancestors were very considerably
cleansed by the dashing waters of the Atlantic. We have no
monarchical supremacy, no hereditary prerogatives, no patent
nobility, no Kings, and but few Bishops, by especial Divine
interposition. The gift of God is with the virtuous and truthful.
`All men are equal,' is our favorite motto; and it is one
of far-piercing, greatly humanizing, radically reforming force,
though now but little understood. Many things that affect
character and condition in the Old World, adulterate truth,
perpetuate error, degrade society and life, sully the soul, and
retard improvement, we have not. I intend to take a trip
thither soon, and shall see what they are of and for.”

“Are you going away?”

“My health and taste both require a sea-voyage, which I
shall make as soon as Bonaparte and Mr. Pitt settle their
differences a little.—There are no fairies in our meadows, and
no elves to spirit away our children. Our wells are drugged
by no saint, and of St. Winifred we have never heard. Our
rivers harbor no nereids, they run on the Sabbath, and are all
sacred alike, Mill Brook as the Ganges; and there is no
reason why the Pond of Mons Christi should not become as celebrated
as the Lake of Zurich. In the clefts of our rocks abide
the souls of no heroes, no spirits of the departed inhabit our
hills, nor are our mountains the seats of any Gods; Olympus,
Sinai, Othus, Pico-Adam, Umkiddin, Washington, Monadnock,
Holyoke, Ktaadin, it is all one. The Valley of the
Housatonic is beautiful as the Vale of Tempe, or of Cashmere,
and as oracular. We have no resorts for pilgrims, no shrines
for the devout, no summits looking into Paradise. We have no
traditions, legends, fables, and scarcely a history. Our galleries
are no cenotaphic burial grounds of ages past; we have no
Haddon Hall, or Raby Castle Kitchen; no chapels or abbeys,
no broken arches, no castled crags. You find these woods as
inspiring as those of Etruria or Mamre. Robin-Good-Fellow
is unknown, and the Devil haunts our theology not our
houses, and I see in the last edition of the Primer his tail is
entirely abridged. No hideous Ghosts appear at cock-crowing.
Witches have quite vanished, and omens from sneezing
and itching must soon follow. At least in all these things
there is a sensible change in the public mind. If the girls put
wedding-cake under their pillows to dream upon, it is rather
sport than magic. Astrology, Alchemy, Physiognomy and
Necromancy are fast dying out, and Animal Magnetism has
not ventured to cross the sea. January and May are not, as
in the Old World, unlucky months, and Friday is rapidly
losing its evil eye. At marriages the bride is not obliged to
throw her shoe at the company; at births, we have no Ragged
Shirt or Groaning Cheese; if a child die unbaptized, it is not
thought to wander in woods and solitudes; at deaths our common
people do not cover up the looking-glasses. Ecclesiastical
Holidays have a precarious hold on New Englanders;
curses are not denounced upon sinners, Ash Wednesday; we
have no Whitsuntide given to bearbaiting, drunkenness and
profligacy; Trinity Sunday our bachelors do not kiss our
maidens three times in honor of that mystery; bread baked
on Christmas eve turns mouldy as soon as any other; we are
not obliged to use tansy to purge our stomachs of fish eaten

in Lent. In our church-yards bodies are buried on the North
as well as the South side. There is no virtue in the points of
compass that our clergy repeat the Creed looking towards the
East, and none in wood that we bow to the Altar. All these
things our Fathers left behind in England, or they were
brushed away by contact with the thick, spiny forests of
America. Our atmosphere is transparent, unoccupied, empty
from the bottom of our wells to the zenith, and throughout
the entire horizontal plane. It has no superstitious inhabitancy,
no darkening prevalence, no vague magistracy, no
Manichean bisection. As you say, Manitou is gone, and with
due courtesy to your Pantheon, the One God supervenes;
there is no Intermediation but Christ, and for man, the bars
are let down. Our globe stands on no elephant, but swings
clear in open boundless space; it is trammeled by no Northern
Snake, and circumvented by no Oriental Sea of Milk. We
have no Hindoo Caste, and Negro Slavery is virtually extinct
in New England. Education is universally encouraged, and
Freedom of Opinion tolerated.”

“So you think New Englanders are the best people on the
Earth?”

“I think they might become such; or rather I think they
might lead the August Procession of the race to Human Perfectibility;
that here might be revealed the Coming of the
Day of the Lord, wherein the old Heavens of sin and error
should be dissolved, and a New Heavens and New Earth be
established, wherein dwelleth righteousness. I see nothing to
prevent them reassuming the old Hyperionic type, rising head
and shoulders to the clouds, crowding out Jupiter and Mars,
Diana and Venus, being filled, as the Apostle says, with all
the fulness of God, reaching the stature of perfect men in
Christ Jesus, and reimpressing upon the world the lost image
of its Maker. New England! my birth-place, my chosen
pilgrimage, I love it. I love its earth and its sky, and the
souls of its people. They, the Unconquerable, could alone
subdue its ruggedness, and they are alone worthy to enjoy its
amenities. I love the old folks and the children; I love the
enterprise of its youth and honorable toil of its manhood. I
love its snows and its grass, its hickory fires and its cornbread.
The seeds of infinite good, of eternal truth, are
already sown in many minds; these might germinate in
another generation, and in the third bear fruit. High Calculation,
which is only the symbol of a higher Moral Sense, is
even now at work; and they are ripping up the earth for a

Canal from Worcester to Providence; and what shall next be
done, who knows. Only, if love lay at the heart of all things,
thought and action, what might not be! But how stint we
ourselves! Politics, society, life, the church, love, aim, what
are they all!”

“Why don't you lead off yourself in this matter? You
shall be a Hero, the days of Chivalry shall be renewed.”

“I! I have neither health nor spirit. I only perceive, I
only deplore.”

“Really, we must go to the Widow's without delay, and
get some of the Nommernisstortumbug, that will cure you.
Speaking of the Widow, I think of Rose, poor Rose. I
asked her to come with me and see you to-day; she hesitated,
and declined. I told her you would speak better to her than
anybody else. She shook her head mournfully, and said,
`Only you, Margaret, only you!' What can we do for her?”

“I do not know, I am sure, I have turned over the account
you gave me of her. I am persuaded she has some chord
that could be reached, some secret self to be disclosed.”

“Can you send me for no hammer that will break her to
pieces?”

“Christ might reach her, if nothing else.”

“Oh no. She has a perfect horror of that name. She
hates it, worse than I did; I only laughed at it, she seems to
loathe it inwardly. Said I, `Rose, Christ loves you, he suffered
for you, can't you have faith in him?'—`Gracious
Heavens!' she broke out `if you won't kill me, Margaret,
don't speak of that,' and so shut my mouth, and I could say
no more.”

“I think I see how it is; I believe I understand the difficulty,
so far at least as that demonstration is concerned.”

“I can very well understand how a person might not like
the name of Christ, how it might offend one; but that it
should give a shuddering pain is quite beyond my comprehension.”

“Be good and kind to Rose, and she may yet listen to
you.”

“I have borne her deep in my heart, I have felt most
strange motions towards her, I am ready to melt and flow into
her, and much sorrowful feeling she gives me, and I am willing
to have for her.”

“Persevere, and I am confident she will yield. I might say
many things of what I think about her, but perhaps it were of
no use. I am willing to leave her with you, though if it were

in my power I should be glad to see her. When shall I find
you at leisure again?”

“To-morrow I must spin, next day help Chilion on his
baskets; then is Sunday, we do not work that day, I wish you
would come up then.”

“I go to Church.”

“Alackaday! so you do. I quite forgot you belong to the
fallen race!”

“I told you all had some excellences; and if you would
come and hear Parson Welles you might think so too. He is
serious-minded, his prayers are earnest, his sermons have some
good sense, and the place itself is grateful to one's spiritual
feelings. Perhaps in no one more than in him would you see
the struggle that goes on between Nature and the Unnatural.
Nor is it easy to overcome the effect of our education so but
that old erroneous influences seem to minister to one's spiritual
peace, and I find many things in going to Meeting very
pleasant.”

“No, it is not,” replied Margaret laughing, “and I find
much pleasure in staying at home.”

“Monday, I may see you?”

“Yes, after washing. Besides you have left me enough for
a three days' rumination, at least.”

5. CHAPTER V.

Monday came, but not Mr. Evelyn, nor did the whole week
bring him. His absence can be accounted for. He exhibited
symptoms of the Small Pox, a disease the scourge and terror
of the age. He was from a town on the sea-board where the
infection raged. The people of Livingston immediately took
the alarm, town meetings were held, a Pock House was established,
Mr. Evelyn conveyed thither, and a general beating
up for patients was had throughout the town. All who had

been exposed were ordered to the Hospital, and candidates for
the disease universally were taken thither. This number was
made up chiefly of youths of both sexes. Margaret and Obed
were both sent for; Rose escaped by secreting herself in the
woods.

The house selected for the terrible ordeal, was that known
as Col. Welch's, the Tory absentee, now used as a Poor House,
a large building, occupying a commanding site on the west
side of the village, north of Deacon Hadlock's Pasture, and
detached from the highway by a deep front yard, which was
once ornamented with gravel walks and flower-beds, but of
late years had been abandoned to the pleasure of swine. In
the rear the grounds extended a long distance, also intersected
by walks, shaded by a grove of forest trees, and rising to an
eminence where were the ruins of a Summer-house. Above
the ridge of the Hospital, on a long pole, waved a blood-red
flag, an admonition to all of the fearful disease that was there
doing its work. Guards were set about the premises to prevent
all unlicensed ingress or departure.

Margaret, having been brought from home by the authorities
of the town, was shut in a room with several other young
ladies then and there awaiting the process of inoculation by
Dr. Spoor. Among the number she found Isabel Weeks, who,
at the instance of the latter, introduced her to Susan Morgridge.
It being supposed that Margaret and Susan might have received
the disease in the natural way, they two were for a few
days consigned to a room by themselves. Margaret's first
inquiries related to Mr. Evelyn, who the nurse told her was
very sick in the male apartment, but not in apparent danger;
Susan supplied her with other particulars respecting her cousin,
for whom she expressed the highest esteem, and it might have
been a little flattering to Margaret to know how kindly he had
spoken of her in the Judge's family. Susan, sobered by the
recent death of her mother, serious by nature, and of a retiring
disposition, was yet most excellent company for Margaret.
She possessed amiability and good sense, sweetness and
strength, cultivated manners and great delicacy of sentiment,
and she was not one to condemn all that she could not approve.
For the first time in her life, Margaret had a bed-fellow,
if we except Bull. No symptoms of the natural disease
appearing, and the virus with which they were charged begining
to develop itself, the enviable privilege of solitude, which
these two enjoyed, was disturbed, and they were reduced to
the common lot, and became occupants of a chamber where

were four beds, alternatingly from five to eight patients, three
or four nurses, and a stagnant atmosphere—ventilation being
prohibited for fear of taking cold. It boots not to describe
that Middle Passage of the Pock House, or follow from day to
day the progress of a dreadful disorder;—the primary dullness
and lassitude, succeeded by fever and ague, the hot, blinding
eruption, sharp, darting pains, the swollen face, the sore
throat, tiresome sleep, haunted dreams, convulsions, delirium,
blindness; a noisome air, slow haggard midnights, inflamed,
nettlesome noontides; jalap and the lancet; saffron and mary-gold
infusions, rum and brandy, applied to “throw the eruption
from the heart;” the body half roasted with blisters to
keep the disease from “striking in.” Thanks to Lady Mary
Wortley Montague and the Turks for our lives indeed, and
thanks to Dr. Jenner and the cows for our comfort! The
aspect of the town was suddenly transformed, the streets were
comparatively deserted, the people wore their faces lengthened
and distressful, and stealthlike was all intercourse. Prayers
multiplied for the sick, sermons were preached on the vanity
of life. It is a wonder that so many of the number returned
again to their homes, in fact only two died, one a boy, from
the North Part of the town; the other, a friend of Margaret's,
and sister of Isabel's, Helen Weeks. Unshriven, unblest,
she died; at midnight, without prayer, or funeral, or
passing bell, was she buried; by the hands of the sexton,
Deacon Ramsdill, and her own father and mother, was she
laid in the grave, which closed over one as pure in heart and
guileless in life as this world often produces.

She, whose especial province was the health of the people,
the Widow Wright, could not fail to bestir herself on an occasion
like the present. In Rose's sequestration she aided,
Obed's being taken to the Hospital she opposed, and however
hostile to the practice of the Faculty, she still felt it incumbent
upon her to do something. Accordingly, laden with sundry
medicaments, she presented herself one morning at the gate
of the infected grounds. Here presided Captain Eliashib Tuck,
with a staff instead of a firelock—a long black pole barbed
with iron, and formerly used by tythingmen for the admonition
of unruly children on the Sabbath—which he carried with the
precision of a soldier on guard, pacing to and fro, but raised
in a manner somewhat threatening, when he observed the
sedulous lady trying to open the gate.

“Marcy on us, Cappen!” exclaimed the Widow,” ye
wouldn't spile a woman's gear and forsan break her head,

for deuin a dight of good, would ye, bein it was Sabber
day?”

“There are the General Orders,” replied the Captain with
sturdy brevity.

On a post the Leech read as follows:—

“1. No person is allowed to enter or leave the grounds
without permission. 2. If a person cause the spread of the
disease, he or she shall be fined fifty pounds. 3. If any person
be inoculated in any other place than the Hospital, he shall
pay forty pounds. 4. No Paper Money to be carried into the
building under penalty of ten pounds.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” snickered out the woman. “More afeerd
of paper money, than they are of the Doctor's knife. I kalkilate,
Cappen, if they'd a kept paper money out of the War,
there wouldn't have been quite so many broke doun.”

“I was in the War,” rejoined the Captain, “and I was afraid
neither of paper money nor British swords. I consider myself
honored by my losses. I am no grumbler. Where is your
countersign, Ma'am? You can pass with a ticket, not without.”

“Ra'aly, you look as if you Cappen Granded it over all
creation, and the Hospital besides. The Doctor has got um
all penned up here. He daren't let um come out and have
fair play. Won't ye let a woman see her boy?”

“The countersign, Ma'am.”

“They'll kill him with jollup and rhubarb. They'll make a
shadder of him, and won't leave enough teu bury him by.”

“I know,” rejoined the Captain, “neither men nor women,
mothers nor children, judges nor ministers. Have you never
heard, when I stood sentry before General Washington's tent,
then only a raw recruit, and the Old Hero himself rode up in
his carriage, I challenged him. `Who goes there?' said I
`General Washington,' said he, looking from the window.
`I don't know General Washington,' said I. `What is the
countersign?' and he had to give it before he could pass one
inch.”

“You had better a stuck teu the Camp, old feller, and gone
out agin the Injins, and not be here a meddlin' with the
sientifikals, and a killin' poor folk's children.”

The Captain, who stood too much on his dignity to take an
affront, replied that she might go to Mr. Adolphus Hadlock's,
where perhaps her services would be valued. “They are
building a Smoke House there,” said he, “and perhaps Aunt
Dolphy will let you pass without the word. The whole family
is in panics.”

On this cue, the Widow sidled off up the road, and going
partly by cultivated grounds and partly through the forest, a
short distance this side of Mr. Hadlock's house, she met that
gentleman himself, flurrying in the way, with a long pole which
he flourished with a wild menace, evidently prepared to dispute
the passage with her

“Do you come from the infected precincts?” asked he
with earnest precipitancy, and speaking with what clearness
his nostrils stuffed with sundry herbs would allow. “Aristophanes,
Ethelbert! Ho, here, Holdup, knave! Urania Bathsheba,
my little daughter, run back, run for your life!”

“I han't been nigh the smittlish consarn,” said the Leech.
“Cock on a hoop! Don't be so adradd. I wouldn't tech it
sooner a cow'd eat elder blows. I've come up teu help ye.
What have you got in yer nose?”

“Rue and wormwood—don't come near—our lives depend
on it. Do, Sophronisba, my dear wife, do supply Holdup, his
has fallen to the ground. Never mind if he is our servant,
the safety of the whole of our darling family is at stake.”

“I've got the stuff in my pocket,” said the Leech, “the
gennewine sientifikals, what 'll keep off the pest, and cure it
when it comes. I am as sound as a new born baby. Let us
see what you are deuin here.”

“These are direful days, Mistress Wright,” responded Mr.
Hadlock. “Our son Socrates, and Purintha Cappadocia our
daughter dear, are already under treatment at the Hospital;
and as the law allows and our duty enjoins, we are aiming to
prevent the spread of the miasm. We have erected a fumitory
for the more complete cleansing of all that pass this way.—
Cecilia Rebecca, my dear, do go back and continue your
prayers—”

“I can't find it, Papa.”

“That on The Visitation of the Sick.”

“Where, Papa, where is it?”

“Take the first you come to, one is as good as another in
such a case as this; run child.—Don't approach too near the
good lady, Aristophanes, lest your garments should brush.
Keep the rags burning, my dear Ethelbert.”

“Don't be so despit skeered, Mr. Hadlock,” said the Widow.
“Bein I was steeped in their pus and pizens, I tell ye, I can
keep ye clear and wholesome, as ye was born.”

At the edge of the woods, a rude structure had been hastily
thrown up, of staddles interlaced with boughs, and within were
quantities of water, soap, salt and vinegar. Over a heap of charcoal

and cobs, the Widow beheld a woman crouched, in a tattered
and begrimed long-short, with the collar open exposing a
dingy neck and broad shoulders, and blowing lustily at the fire
which she was striving to kindle with her breath.

“How d'y'e?—Sibyl, for sartain,” said the Leech. “Wal
if you an't here, pon my soul!”

“How's the Widder? I am glad you've come,” responded
Sibyl Radney, for it was she, intermitting her labors, and
looking up.

“Get the pile ignited, exclaimed Mr. Hadlock; “we can't
lose any time.”

“Then you must have some fire,” replied Sibyl; “I can't
make a puss out of a sow's ear, nor light cobs with my wind-wipe,
death or no death.”

“Where is the tinder-box. I thought you had struck a fire.
Haste, Holdup, knave, get some fresh coals. Havn't you been
for the brimstone yet, Ethelbert, my son?”

“You told me to keep the rags burning, Papa”

“Never mind what I told you, run to Deacon Penrose's, but
don't, for dear Heaven's sake, go by the road, speed down
across the woods.”

“A tough case, I can tell you, Miss Wright,” said Sibyl,
rising to her feet. “But we mean to stop the plague. We
are going to catch every scrag that comes this way from the
Pest, and soak, smoke, salt and rub them, till there isn't a
hang-nail of the pock left. They won't get off so easy as the
Colonel did. The law gives it and we'll do it. Here comes
Miss Dunlap, and Miss Pottle and Comfort.”

“We are all in a toss in our neighborhood,” said Mistress
Pottle. “I got Comfort to come down with me, and see how
things were doing. Sylvina is there, if she an't dead before
this.”

“We heard there was seventeen dead up to yesterday,” said
Mistress Dunlap, “and four to be buried to-night; we havn't
had a word from our Myra since they took her down.”

“It's cruel skeersom about there, I knows,” said the Widow.
“I jest kum up, and I had a tight rub teu git by. I kalkilate
my son Obed is lying stone dead there now.”

“Lord have mercy!” exclaimed Mistress Pottle. “Comfort,
you go to felling trees across the way.”

“They are killin' um with the lancet, and starvin' um to
death with milk-sops,” said the Widow. “Here's white cohush,
it 'll bring out the whelk in less than no time; brooklime
will break any fever. There's lavender and horse-mint,

and calamus to burn when you go inteu the room. I've got um
here, but they won't let me go nigh um.”

“Halloo!” shouted Comfort Pottle, who was busy cutting
the trees. “There's Soc. coming up the road!”

“Ah Socrates, my dear son!” cried the father, seizing a
pole, and rushing forwards, followed by the others. “How,—
why—what has happened?—My dear Triandaphelda Ada,
don't be alarmed—Don't come near, my dear son—What shall
we do—Are you well?—Holdup, knave, where is your crow-bar?—Don't
cry, Sophronisba, my—He is upon us—my dear
son—we shall all be killed!”—

“I wasn't going to stay any longer,” replied the boy, who
with no other vestment than his shirt, was now rapidly approaching
the party. “It didn't take. I stole off through the
barn and got into the woods. I havn't had any thing but sour
whey and barley water this week. If I could get the smell of
mother's buttery, the Doctor shouldn't know me for one
month.”

“Bide back,” said Comfort, striking forwards with his axe.

“Don't come nigh me,” said Holdup, clenching his crow-bar.

“He 'll get well combed before he gets through this,” said
Sibyl Radney, advancing with a long branch of a tree, which
she shook in her brawny arms.

“Let us all retreat a little,” said Mr. Hadlock, “and form
with our several instruments a line both of offence and defence,
along which, Socrates, do you proceed into the Fumitory. It
is a case, my dear son, in which our parental feelings must
yield for a moment to our severer judgment; but the conflict
will soon be over. When you are in take off your shirt, and
lay it in the tub of water; and so dispose yourself over the
burning heap that the smoke will reach your whole body.”
The boy obedient to the paternal wishes entered the lodge,
where he was presently followed by his parents and some of the
women. Meanwhile, being missed from the Hospital, two or
three servants were despatched for him. Hastening up the
road, and dispersing whatever force was opposed to them, they
broke in without ceremony upon the process the runaway at
the moment was undergoing. Four women, one at each extremity,
held him face downwards over the fumes of coal, sulphur,
lavender and calamus, while the Widow was rubbing his
back with vinegar. Mr. Hadlock stood a suitable distance
from the tub stirring the shirt with a long pole. As the pursuers
entered, this gentleman, uttering a faint scream, bolted

through the sides of the hatch. At the cost of a sharp but
short altercation with the women, the boy was delivered up,
and duly appareled, returned to the Hospital;—whither, as
some of these good mothers are going, let us also betake ourselves.

These ladies from the smoke-house encountered some other
elderly women who, with a slow step and solemn air, came up
the West Street; among whom were Mistresses Whiston, Joy,
Hoag, Ravel and Brent, whose names have already been mentioned.

“Can't any of us be admitted?” enquired Mistress Whiston
of Captain Tuck.

“Not if the Great Queen Catherine herself should apply on
her knees before me,” replied the trusty warden.

“Do you know how our little Joan is doing?” said the lady.

“None I believe are considered dangerous since the death
of Helen Weeks,” rejoined the Captain.

“Poor Miss Weeks!” ejaculated Mistress Whiston.

“Mournful times these!” added Mistress Joy.

“It is most as bad as the Throat Distemper that was round
when I was a gal,” said one of the ladies; “there were more
dead than alive.”

“So it was in the Rising of the Lights,” said another.

“What is that to the Camp Fever, we had in the War!”
echoed the Captain. “There were two thousand sick at one
time, and never a quarter recovered; and we had to march,
sick or well, alive or dead.”

“That tells how our Luke came to his end,” said Mistress
Dunlap.

“And how glorious it was to die for one's country!” said
the Captain.

“That was nothing to the Great Earthquake when I was a
gal, and lived to the Bay,” said Mistress Joy. “The
spindle and vane on Funnel Hall was blown down, chimblys
were cracked, brick and tile choked up the streets. It sounded
as if God Almighty's chariot was trundling over the pavements
in Old Marlboro.”

“That was the same year one of the niggers in Kidder-minster
cut his master and mistresses' throat, as I have heard
Ma'am tell,' said Sibyl Radney.

“No it was four year arter,” said an elderly lady, “it was
the same year our Prudence was born, and that was just four
year arter the Earthquake.—I can remember an old Indian
slave we had at our house, one of the Nipmucks, and what a

time we had of it. Daddy kept him chained nights, but he
broke away, and killed one of the men that was sent arter him;
and he was hung the next week. I remember Dad's saying,
`There goes twenty pounds.' But he wouldn't work, and
wan't worth his hide.”

“The Indians and Negroes never did us much good,” said
Mistress Whiston; “and I am glad there are going to be no
more slaves.”

“I kalkilate as much,” said the Widow, “if you had seen
the niggers burnt alive down teu York, nigh fifty of um, for
bringing in the Papists. My Granther was on the spot and saw
it all, and said it did his heart good teu see the fat fry out of the
sarcy dogs.”

“I remember,” said the Widow Brent, who was a little deaf,
“milking a cow a whole winter for a half a yard of ribbin.”

“I remember,” said Mistress Ravel, “the Great Hog, up in
Dunwich, that hefted nigh twenty score.”

“Morrow to ye, Good Wives. Are you not running some
risk here?” said a voice behind them, that of Deacon Hadlock,
whose approach the ladies, diverted by memories of other
days, and transported to scenes of legendary horror, had not
perceived.

“I don't know but we are a matter exposed,” said Mistress
Whiston.

“I had as lief go right inteu it arm's length,” said the
Leech.

“The danger is that you might carry it away in your
clothes,” answered the Deacon. “I have no business here,
but I saw ye all, and I thought I would just ride up and give
ye a friendly warning.”

While these ladies disperse it is safe for the rest of us to
remain; and by methods which the vigilance of Captain Tuck
cannot counteract we will enter the forbidden spot.

Favored by a constitution, which often in life stood her in
hand, Margaret has been able to carry forward her disease
more rapidly than many others, and is so far recovered as to
have passed from the sick chamber through the “Cleansing
Apartment,” and is now almost sole occupant of the “Clean
Room.” Glad enough is she to exchange mint-tea and jalap
for water-gruel and milk-porridge. She goes out into the
open air. The aspect of things has changed during her confinement.
The verdure of nature shows in gold and crimson
colors. The frosts have fallen, and the flowers are drooping;
Summer is giving place to Autumn. The fresh air of the

heavens and the free tread of the earth were an exhilaration.
But when she saw a morning glory with its
black, blistered leaves, heard the feeble notes of the birds
wailing a farewell to our northern latitudes, and the mournful
underflowing murmurs of the crickets that so betoken
a fading season; and especially when she thought of Helen
Weeks, whose death occurred in the same chamber with
her, but at a time when she could be hardly conscious of what
transpired, she was seized with a deep melancholy, so that,
in her present debilitated state, she well nigh fainted, and
staggering with weakness and a burdensome sense of evil, she
went back to the house. Sorrow for the death of a friend
she never before experienced, nor was she in a condition the
most apt for meeting it. She sank in a chair by the window,
turned her face from all, and her thoughts wandered confusedly,
painfully, darkly, over the trees, the landscape, the sky,
God and the Universe. Susan Morgridge and Isabel Weeks
were yet in the sick-room, the latter at a point of dangerous
reduction, so much so that her convalescence was for some
months delayed. Of Mr. Evelyn she heard he had passed the
hands of the cleansers, but she saw nothing of him. To the
Clean ones, with whom she was now associated, she might
have addressed herself, but they were strangers to her, and the
freedom and spirits which most of them seemed to enjoy, rendered
the weight in her feelings more intolerable, and she was
constrained to keep by herself, and spent a good part of two
days in solitary reverie by the window. On the third day she
had the good fortune to see Mr. Evelyn walking in the garden,
cloaked and muffled, and tears in fresh large drops rose into
her eyes. Presently he sent by one of the attendants a summons
to herself, which she could not but obey. Clearing her
eyes, throwing on shawl and bonnet, she went out. Her face,
ordinarily animated with the colors of health and hope, was
stricken and sorrowful, and bore evident traces of sickness
and disappointment; nor was the appearance of Mr. Evelyn,
altogether dissimilar. He took her hand cordially, and spoke
to her soothingly. “Helen,” said he, “has indeed gone from
us, as all must go at last. But in Christ, we never die. By
the Atonement are we immortal. Where he is there shall we
be. Possessed of him, death has no terror for us, or power
over us. The trees fade to renew themselves.”

“I have felt,” said she, “that I should never wish to see
another summer, and all beautiful human faces seemed hidden
from me forever. But I hope these feelings will not last
always.”

“Beauty and Pureness,” said he, “are everlasting; they
are of God and can never die. They may for a moment be
obscured, but they shall reappear in brighter lustre. Angels
have charge over them that they dash not their foot against a
stone. Let us turn to the pleasant face of God in what is
about us.”

“I wish we were at the Pond, how beautiful it is there in
the Fall! You see the woods that go up there metamorphosed
into great marygolds filled in here and there with a cardinal
flower.”

“They remind one of a flame of fire, still burning, but not
consumed, like the Bush of which the Bible speaks. They
bring to my recollection an army of staff-officers with crimson
coats on roan steeds. Would that all blood were as innocent
as that which yonder straggling trooper of a red-maple is dyed
with! They call up the solemn convocations of our old
fashioned Judges in their scarlet robes.”

“You confound me by such things. I should not like to
look upon trees in that `stand-point;' that savors only of
trainings, rum-drinking and jails. I would rather see in them
the sunsetting, and my dream-clouds.”

“I love the Beautiful wherever I see it, and perhaps sometimes
see it where I should not. But we are not in strength
for any disquisitions of this sort. Let us enjoy without reason.
How long do they keep you here, Miss Hart?”

“I am sure I don't know. I wish I could go home to-day,
but the Committee are very exact, and they may keep me a
month.”

“Dr. Spoor thinks I may be allowed to go day after to-morrow,
and I will intercede with him to let you off. I am
anxious to return home, having already been delayed beyond
my time, as I must sail so soon.”

“I did not know as you had any home. If I had thought
anything about it, I should have imagined you dropped right
out of the sky.”

“I have a home indeed, with a holy mother.”

“I will not laugh, because I cannot laugh. You are so
soon away! I am tired, had we not better return to our
rooms?”

The extensive grounds of Col. Welch were the allotted
limits of the convalescing patients. The next day Margaret
and Mr. Evelyn went out together; they met others like themselves
revelling in their tethered liberties, and enjoying the
sumptuousness of the hour and the place. Conventional distinctions

and proprieties were foregone in this general invalid
exuberance, and no surmises were raised or words uttered
while the feeble Indian strolled arm in arm with the feeble
relative of the Judge. An early frost had smitten the vegetation,
but the sun was warm and the air bland. The grove-thridding
walks they pursued, now looking out upon the
village, the salmon-colored woods on the North of the Green,
and the russet mountains beyond the River, now immersed in
the mellow golden trees. They felt the glow of returning
health and invigorated frames, and were grateful for deliverances
often delayed and sometimes never afforded. Red squirrels
chased one another over the yellow leaves that covered
the ground, and along the branches of the trees, yelping and
chattering, like king-fishers. Fox-colored sparrows, titmice,
nuthatches, snow-birds, and the great golden-winged wood-pecker
vied in their notes, and seemed resolved on merriment
while the season lasted. They reached the knoll on which
the old Summer-house stood; by broken steps they ascended,
and on a broken seat they sat down.

“Have you strength enough to sing to me?” said Mr.
Evelyn.

“I will sing you `To Mary in Heaven,”' said Margaret.

The next morning two horses were brought to the gate,
one assigned to Margaret, while Mr. Evelyn mounted the
other.

“Are you going up with me?” said Margaret.

“I brought you down,” replied Mr. Evelyn, “and it is but
fair I should see you back.”

They went through the South Street, entered the Brandon
road, and ascended the long steep hill Margaret had formerly
climbed on her way to Mr. Wharfield's. The Indian Summer
had just begun, a soft haze pervaded the atmosphere, and
settled like a thin grey cloud on the horizon; there was a
delicious, sweet, sleep-like feeling created by all things about,
both inspiring and tranquillizing. Above, and as it were close
to them, the sky rested on red trees and green grass; Mill
Brook dashed and tinkled below as through a bed of roses.
Margaret's horse proved mettlesome, and she reached the
summit-level before Mr. Evelyn.

“I should have a magnificent scene,” said she, turning her
horse and waiting for him, as he came up, “even if I had to
see it all alone. You yourself are a live man and horse in a
field of embroidery such as Mrs. Beach can't equal, and she is
said to be the most skilful needle-worker in town.”

“Look at your own Mons Christi,” said he. “All the
looms of the Gobelins could not garnish it so! There is a
solitary maple, like a flamingo on its nest of green cedars and
laurels.”

“How hot those yellow witch-hazles look under the tall
trees, if I were cold I would go in there; and yonder the
dark forest is burning with glowworms and tapers, if I were
gloomy I would go in there. I wish, Mr. Evelyn, you were
going to stay a little longer in Livingston. See that hemlock
so covered with grey moss, and there is a row of red trees
peeping out from green hemlocks behind it. It stands out
alone, you see; its kindred have deserted it, and the mosses
are taking pity on its old age. Will you find anything as
beautiful on the sea-coast, or beyond the sea; the Master
says there is nothing like it in Europe.”

“I do not go to the Old World for its scenery, I only wish
to see Man there. There is nothing like New England, and
nothing in New England like its interior districts. The sea-coast
is more level and uniform; here you have the advantage
of mountain, bluff, interval, to set off the view. This Autumnal
tapestry is hung upon windows and arches, and flung
over battlements. With us it is only spread on the floor.
But why do you notice that old tree? You are too young to
be attracted by age and decay.”

“I don't know—I seem sometimes to have lived half a
century, and again as if I was just born. How many years I
have lived the last month. When I was very young I used
to think this frost-change was owing to yellow bugs, humble-bees
and butterflies lighting on the trees; and then it was
orioles and goldfinches; and afterwards it seemed to me twilight
clouds snowing upon the earth—and now—now—There
is a dash for you, Mr. Evelyn, which the Master says implies
a suspension of the sense. There is sister Ruth coming out
to meet us, let us start our fillies.”

“How is sister Margaret?” said Mrs. Wharfield, advancing
into the street.

“This is Mr. Charles Evelyn,” said Margaret.

“Glad to see thee, Friend Charles. Will ye not tarry
awhile? How is the malady?”

“No,” replied Margaret; “we must hasten homewards.
They are getting better at the Hospital. Helen Weeks is
dead.”

“So we learned. She has found the true light now where-to
the world is dark. Farewell, if you cannot rest. Anthony

would rejoice to see thee. He has been much moved towards
thee, Margaret.”

They presently met a drove of cows driven by an old man
and a boy.

“That is Kester Shield, Uncle Ket, the cowherd,” said
Margaret. “She he is afraid of us, he is running into the
woods to escape contagion—his cows also are much moved by
our horses, as the Quaker said.”

“Phin! Boy,” shouted the old man hiding himself among
the brush. “Keep clear of the wind of the horses—there—
there, head off the Parson.”

“Uncle Ket, Uncle Ket, don't be scared,” cried Margaret.
“We havn't any of the disease. We are all free. We have
been smoked clean.”

The old man continued to retreat and to cry to his boy.
“Keep out of the wind. We shall lose Miss Luce—the
Parson 'll have them all crazed.”

We must stop this movement,” said Mr. Evelyn. “I will
help the boy, while you ride along by the edge of the woods,
and see if you can compose the old man.”

“The Parson,” said the cow-herd, whom Margaret reached
and quieted, “is the worst pair of horns I ever druv, and I
have had the business now rising of sixty year, and take it by
and large, fifty head a season, and she is the beater of
all.”

“Have you, indeed,” said Mr. Evelyn, “followed the business
so long.”

“I was chose arter Old Increase Tapley died. I was 'prenticed
to Old Increase, but he got to be so old I had it pretty
much all to myself.”

“How old was he?” enquired Mr. Evelyn.

“He was going hard on to seventy-five, when he died,
though he didn't do much for a spell before.”

“How old are you, Sir.”

“I was seventy-two, eighteenth day, March, last; though I
like to have lost one year by them heathenish Papists. Zuds!
you'll begin to think I am getting old too; I never should
have thought of it. I havn't seen an old man this thirty year,
they used to be thick as blackberries when I was a boy; only
there is Old Miss Radney, Sibyl's mother, she's rising of
ninety. But, as I was saying, I was chose the very next
Town Meeting arter Increase died, I took oath under the
Old King — Phin, boy, the Parson's hunching Miss Luce—and
I have been run ever since; fair or foul, wet or dry, bloom or
blow, hot or cold, mud or dust, I stick it through.”

“The cows must give you some trouble in your advancing
years,” said Mr. Evelyn.

“O, it an't a circumstance to what it used to be, when the
Injins skulked round and stole my cows, and run off with the
horses—in them days we took all kinds—the troops in the
War pressed some of the best of them, and they tried to make
Uncle Ket make it good; and in Burgwine's time when the
Hissians and Highlanders came through, with their check
backs, long pipes and busky caps, they distarbed them so it
took a whole day to bring them to; and latterly when the
wagons began to come, the whole pack would up and off,
capering and snorting, into the woods. I'm glad you keep to
the saddle, and don't interfere with people's business. They
are fencing in the commons now, and putting their cows to
pastur. I had a calculated to leave a handsome run of business
to my Grandson, Phin. My wife is dead and children,
and he and the cows is all there is left. The cows you see
are dwindled down to less than a quarter. Great changes—
Uncle Ket's trade is most done.—You are a young man, and I
could larn you a good many things. Molly I've known ever
since she was dropt; she has brought in the strays, and many
is the poundage she has saved Uncle Ket. She is brisk-eyed,
full-breasted and straight-limbed, as a Devon heifer; she wants
coaxing and patting a little—she don't run with the old cows
enough to larn their ways,—Glad you got through with the
pock so well—it takes a second time, some say—its worse than
horn-ail, hoven or core—There, Molly, let Bughorn go by, we
will manage them.”

“You see,” said Margaret as they rode on, “there are
things besides trees to remind us of age and regrets. But I
had rather talk of the trees. They become individually developed
by the frosts; you can distinguish them better now
than in the summer.”

“I have known the beauties of the forest only in the aggregate;”
said Mr. Evelyn. “It is a fair whole of form, color
and effect that interests me. What is that orange-crowned tree
glowing so in the sun, over among those pines?”

“That is a rock-maple.”

“These straw-colored trees and that dark purple clump?”

“These are oaks, and that is a grove of wild cherries. I know
them in the Spring, I seem to half lose them in the Summer;
in the Fall they announce themselves again. The red-maple is
deep crimson, that tawny colored grove is beeches, there is the
purple woodbine trailing over the rocks. What a pretty picture

is that flock of sheep and lambs feeding among the blood-red
blueberries.”

“Here is a solitary maple, so soft, limpid, silken, as if the
Spirit of Color dwelt in its leaves. These are scenes which
Rosa or Poussin could never have commanded.”

“There is some advantage in knowing the detail.”

“Yes, one could not be a Painter or Poet without it.”

“More than that, ourselves are there in those trees. Distress,
like the frosts, brings out all our feelings, light and dark,
cheerful and sombre. The trees have a sympathy with me.
I am but a mottled forest. These last weeks have unfolded
all my colors. You say you sketch sometimes, you cannot
carry me away in your portfolio, I shall only allow you a leaf.
I must grow green again.—See those dark trees above, the
yellow hobble-bush and brakes below, and on the ground the
green arbutus, mosses and wintergreen. The lowest down
the greenest. Let me lie low, where no frosts can touch me.
Shall you ever think of these things when you are away, Mr.
Evelyn?”

“Yes, and I will think of you the Wintergreen, unscathed
by frost, unaffected by changing seasons.”

“Geodic Christian Androidal Wintergreen Indian Molly
Pluck, mater bovum divumque! what a string of names you
put on me! What shall I call you?”

“Let us look a little farther on and perhaps we shall find
something. — Here we open into a tropical grove of lemons
and oranges, the golden fruit glows on the trees and crackles
under the hoofs of our horses; beyond I see a warm sunny
vale of tulips and carnations; truly this cannot be surpassed.”

“What say you to the pool of water under that arbor of
trees? I can count you crimson gooseberry, flaming maples,
claret sumach, yellow birch and what not.”

“Those are garnets, topazes and sapphires set in a dark
rock of polished steel. Indeed look about you, Miss Hart,
would it not seem as if the trees extracted all the colors of
the earth, cobalt, umber, lapis-lazuli, iodine, litharge, chrome,
copper and gold, and compounding them in the sap, drenched
and dyed every leaf; or as if Great Nature herself, making a
canvass of the forests, had painted them as you say with rainbows
and twilight.”

“Do you, Sir, remember what I say?”

“Most certainly I do.”

“So does Job, and Isabel, and I shall have one in Europe,
and two in Livingston to remember me. I never before felt

there was a pleasure in being remembered, at least such a
thing never was a thought to me. And all New England, that
you admire so much, you will bear in your heart into Old
England; I wonder what they will think of you! — Here we
come to the Delectable Way.”

They rode in silence up the rough ascent. “Will you
wear this, Miss Hart?” said Mr. Evelyn, at length breaking
the monotony, and offering a ring with a small diamond
stud.

“I will,” replied Margaret, “if my Bona Dea allows it.”

“Who is your Bona Dea?”

“I think it must be Christ, it used to be something else.
I will give you some of these leaves you admire so much; and
there are berries in the woods, the scarlet devil's ear, blue
dracira and crimson cranberries.”

“You must not think of it, you are too weak to leave your
horse. A beautiful wish I shall cherish as much as beautiful
fruit.”

“Here in my stirrup,” said Margaret, “I can get you the
leaves, maples, beeches, cherries, hobble-bush and all. These
leaves will keep their color a long time; there you have
pink, beet, carrot and what not. Don't you lose them.”

Reaching the house, Bull and Dick came out to meet Margaret,
her father handed her from the saddle, Chilion undid
the budget that was strapped to the crupper, and her mother
offered Mr. Evelyn a cup of water. Cæsar, the negro servant
of the Judge whose were the horses, had come up across to
take the spare beast.

“God love you, Margaret,” said Mr. Evelyn.

“Christ love you, Mr. Evelyn,” said Margaret.

Mr. Evelyn, with Cæsar rode off through the trees.

“Dat be one nice gal,” said the Negro speaking to relieve
the quiet of the way, “ef she no hab brack, but only Ingin
blood. She steel-trap.”

“What do you mean, Cæsar?”

“She catch Massa heart.”

“What makes you think so? Was your heart ever caught?”

“Yes, once, Phillis Welch grabbed him in her two hands.”

“Has she got it now.”

“She took him off wid de Curnel ober de seas in de War
time.”

“Don't you love her now?”

“Cæsar hab two lubs, Massa Parson say, when him jine
de Church, de wicked nater lub, and de good God lub, and

him kill de wicked nater lub.—Cæsar fraid Massa no tink ob
de Pond wench when him gone.”

“Don't you ever think of Phillis?”

“No; him hab no tink ob Phillis now. De wicked lub
tink get in Cæsar's heart sometimes, and de tears in him eyes.
Massa see Phillis ober de seas, gib Cæsar's lub to Phillis,
but only for de lub ob God's sake. Tell Phillis, Cæsar old,
soon sink in de grabe, meet her in de glory; him hab no wife,
no children for Phillis sake.”

“Can't I think of that young lady, the same as you do of
Phillis?”

“Fear Massa not convarted, hab wicked tink, den no tink,
lub oder faces.”

Margaret, debilitated by her illness, tired by the long ride,
went immediately to her mother's bed. In a short time Rose
appeared, and ministered unto her. The broth of a fresh
chicken was prepared; some peaches Chilion had saved from
her own tree she ate. The next morning she went into the
woods and gathered some of the brilliant leaves, corresponding
to those she gave Mr. Evelyn, and put them carefully
away. She ascended Mons Christi, she looked in the direction
she supposed Mr. Evelyn had gone, she pressed the ring
to her lips, and her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Why do you weep, Margaret?” was an unanticipated
voice.

“Rose! are you here?”

“I followed you up,” said Rose. “You were abstracted.”

“Why do I weep, Rose? I know not why.”

“If you do so, it shall be in my arms. I am stronger
than you to-day, Margaret. Lay your head here and go to
sleep.”

“Nay, Rose, I am very dry, I want some water, let us go
down to the cistern. I shall feel better if I can drink.”

“Not all the waters of the Pond can quench your thirst,
Margaret, methinks—but I will go down with you.”

“Let us go, and then we will have some plums Judge Morgridge
sent up this morning, nice damsons. We will also go
and make our oblations to Egeria, who has been a long time
deserted,”

Did Judge Morgridge, or Mr. Evelyn, send you these
plums?” asked Rose when they had gained their retreat.

“Cæsar said it was the Judge,” replied Margaret coloring.

“I thank you! I thank you! I love you Margaret,” said
Rose, and by a very unexpected gesticulation buried her face,
with apparent strong feeling in Margaret's lap.

“Well done, Rose,” said Margaret, “you are lux inaccessa,
unapproachable, inexplicable. What is the meaning of this?
You are crushing my bonnet, you are staining yourself with the
plums.—I have exhausted myself in vain upon you, and have
failed to discover you at all, and now you flood me with
yourself!”

“Margaret!” said Rose regaining her position, “you are
angry with me! I have offended you! I can expect no more
from you. I will not inflict myself upon you.”

“Hold, Rose!” said Margaret laying her hand upon her
arm. “No one knows what I have felt and suffered for you.
I am not angry with you. In my heart I love you, and never
more than now. Why did you thank me?”

“For that blush when I asked you about the plums,” said
Rose.

“In good sooth,” replied Margaret, “your face is red as a
beet with the plums, now; and I doubt if you would thank me
for thanking you for it. Here is my handkerchief, wipe it off
and we shall be even.”

“Don't laugh at me, Margaret, if you do I can never speak
to you again. I have stains in my soul, Margaret, which cannot
be so easily effaced.”

“Tell me, Rose,” said Margaret, “what is this you speak
of?”

“When I saw the color in your face,” replied Rose, “it
seemed to me as if you possessed feelings which I never supposed
you to have, or you appeared in a light different from
ever before.”

“Surely,” said Margaret, “you need not have waited for
that, to know I have in my keeping a pretty considerable
variety of emotions, as many as there are speckled hens in our
roost.”

“I know,” rejoined Rose, “that you have been most kind
to me, a perfect angel, and the only one I ever expect to see,
but you were always happy you said, and you seemed so healthy
and strong; and a certain description of feeling I concluded
you were never troubled with. And even while Mr. Evelyn
was here you seemed on the whole quiet and undisturbed.
But I did see you weep on the hill, and I did see a tremulous
flush in your face, when I spoke about the plums—”

“And you do suppose I have some feelings of human nature
about me?”

“Yes, of a kind that would fit me; I had despaired to find
any, wholly such, in the world. You must needs have suffered

some in your innermost soul, to feel with me, and that I supposed
you never had.”

“It is sympathy you want,” said Margaret.

“Yes, sympathy,” replied Rose, “that is it.”

“That word,” said Margaret, “Mr. Evelyn taught me. But
I hardly need wait for an instructor to tell me its meaning.”

“I knew you pitied me,” said Rose, “but I feared you did
not sympathise with me.”

“Well, now,” said Margaret, “perhaps after all I do not.
How do I know what to sympathise with?”

“If you will promise to sympathise, without knowing precisely
what with, I will tell you. Margaret!” continued Rose
solemnly, “do not I exhibit symptoms of a decline? Can I
live long? I do not wish to. Let me die. Let me sleep the
eternal sleep. But before I die, you shall know all I have to
tell.”

“I will see that you do not die, Rose, if you will only tell
what you are.”

“A broken-hearted girl, Margaret, that is all. Can you
sympathise with that?”

“I knew, dear Rose, something pierced and wounded you
inwardly, and by intimations of which I can give no account,
I have felt it all. It has been repeated in my own breast,
though I never spoke of it. Come where you need to be, into
my arms, Rose, and speak or be silent, as you best can. That
word broken-hearted is a strange word, I never heard it,
methinks, before. I have heard of puppet-hearts, and wicked
hearts, and hard hearts, but never till now, Rose, of a broken
heart.”

“A broken heart is all I boast of, and a poor thing it is,
and sad its story to me, perhaps to you foolish.”

“I have seen nothing foolish in you, Rose, only some things
that I could not understand, and some that made me very sad.
Do tell me all.”

“I am simply one,” said Rose, “who has pined for human
sympathy, a disease of which I am about to die, coupled with
a few other things. But let me tell you, you once asked my
name. I used to be called Rose Elphiston. I had a father,
a mother and a dear sister. My native town is Windenboro,
about thirty miles hence. My father was a clergyman, venerable
and esteemed. We were a very happy family, none could
be more so, until I ruined their happiness. Oh, Margaret,
you have no sins to cause you to shed tears, as I have—but
hear. I had companions, pretty and lively young girls, with

whom I ought to have been content, but was not. No voice
spake what my heart felt, no eyes saw what mine did, so I
must needs be silent, and look where others did not, and then
I took to making company of brooks and flowers, and my own
thoughts; and such things. I thought I would give the universe
if I could find somebody's else heart beating into my
own, or somebody's else eyes looking through mine. I longed
for a twin existence; to divide and find myself in another.
My father and mother loved me, and my sister was always
kind to me, but she had not the same feelings that I had.
One day there was a donation party at our house. The ladies
of the town brought their wheels and spun quantities of flax,
which they gave to my mother; and the young men made an
ox-sled, which, with a yoke of oxen, they presented to Pa. A
merry time it was, and I enjoyed it with the rest. I could
even be very happy with my old mates. Among the young
men was a stranger in town, a gentleman from New York,
who was called Raxman. He contributed largely towards the
sled. He spoke to me in a manner different from the rest, he
was a great admirer of nature, and seemed in many things to
anticipate my own feelings. My thought, and I do not know
but I must say my affections, turned towards him with the
quickness of the needle to the pole. All at once I fancied that
in him my ideal was complete. But I am only telling you a
common love-story, Margaret.”

“It is all new and strange to me, Rose, do tell me everything.”

“But Raxman was base and unprincipled. I was horror-struck,
stupified at his conduct, I know not what, I must have
fainted and fallen, I only remember being borne into the house
of one of our town's folk; and then walking home. A crowd
of people met me in the way with taunts and hisses. I seemed
to lose my self-control, I became confused and maddened. I
did not answer my own parents coherently. I was summoned
before a magistrate, and condemned to stand in the pillory
with a rope on my neck, and have a significant red letter
sewed to my back. My father most earnestly interceded for
me, and only the latter part of the sentence was executed.
Raxman fled. There were a thousand rumors afloat about
him and me. He had money, good looks and some accomplishments,
and his company had been in considerable quest;
whether it was envy or morality, or what not, the people turned
most violently against him, and I came in for my share of censure.
I was reduced to a state bordering on distraction, I

would make no confession, I repelled and scoffed at the whole
world. I tore the detested badge from my shoulders. I was
caught in the streets by my own playmates, I was carried to
women who had once loved me as a daughter, and by their
own hands was it replaced. My father interposing in my
behalf lost credit with the parish, old difficulties were renewed,
and by this head of opposition he was swept from his influence,
his salary and his pulpit. He died soon of that disease with
which his daughter will soon follow him, a broken heart. My
mother, always of a delicate constitution, enfeebled by the
excitement of the times, was not long behind my father, she
too died. My sister became insane. I alone watched by her
in her fearful ravings; I prayed that I might become insane
too. My old friends all deserted me, my sister at length took
the mood that I was her enemy, and I was obliged to leave
her; she was carried to the Poor-house. On me no door was
opened, to me no friendly face was turned. An example, they
said, must be made of the Parson's daughter, `her will must be
humbled;' `if she escapes, contamination will spread in all
our families.' I could not yield. All the energies of my
being rebelled. In addition, let me tell you, my father was
a believer in the doctrine of Election and Reprobation. What
he preached I found myself compelled to carry out in practice;
I believed myself thoroughly reprobated. In my earliest years
I was very thoughtful, it was said that I often experienced the
strivings of the Holy Spirit, I was under conviction three
months, and at last obtained a hope, and was admitted to the
Church—you do not understand these things, Margaret, your
education has been so different—”

“Only tell them, Rose, and I shall understand them.”

“I was not at ease; the first flush of youthful enthusiasm
was spent, and pious people no longer satisfied me; the singing
of hymns and going to Preparatory Lectures became
irksome. I sought in books and the woods what I did not
find in religion. My father's sermons, my mother's private
admonitions had no effect upon me. I found myself growing
hard as a rock to all serious impressions. Being negligent in
my Christian duties, I became the subject of Church accusation
and reprimand. I felt badly to be disgraced, I have wept
bitter tears when I thought of my mother's tears, but religious
considerations had not a tittle of weight with me. In this
situation I was when I encountered Raxman, on the one hand
yearning for an indefinite good, and most sensitive to all impressions
of beauty; on the other, reduced by a consciousness

of religious dereliction, and wholly indifferent to the state of
my soul. The sequel of that acquaintance I have told you.
Disgraced, discarded, bereaved, I lost all self-equipoise, I
boiled over like an Iceland geyser, I recoiled upon myself with
such violence as seemed to rend me in tatters; with Job I
would have cursed God and died, I was alternately a hurricane
of passion and a Dead Sea of insensibility. I went to an
uncle's of mine, in a distant town, a kind-hearted man, who
sought, as he said, to bring me to repentance, and restore my
Christian peace, by an application of the truths of the Gospel.
I could not listen to him, I could not endure his family
prayers; I hated the God he invoked, I hated that name of
Christ, by which alone he said I could be saved. I knew of
a cousin of my mother, the Widow Wright, who had once
been at our house; I knew her temperament and habits, I
knew how secluded she lived, and thinking that I could at
least die with her, if not live, and that I could render myself
so useful my support would not be a burden, hither I came.
I learned of my sister's death before I left my uncle's. Here
you behold me, as I told you, a broken-hearted girl, a wreck,
a mutilation, a shadow!”

“Rose, poor Rose, dear Rose,” outspoke Margaret,
“come to my heart, lie down in my spirit, return to your
sorrow's home in my soul. A prophetic unconscious sensation
is fulfilled in you! An unknown aching correspondency of
feeling is satisfied! You shall be renewed in my arms, you
shall live in my love.”

“Oh Margaret!” replied Rose, “I am vile, I am sinful.
Your pureness appals me. Yet if I might but die, and be
buried here, it were all I should ask. The prayers of my
innocence I can utter no more, the dreams of my childhood
are fled, the happiness of youth is gone, the inner strength of
virtue I no more feel, on the face of Beauty I wish no more
to look, the bloom of nature is transformed to darkness and
dread, the voices of birds fill me only with remorse. Man and
woman I loathe, God is not. Yes, I have become an atheist,
I believe nothing, and at times I fear nothing.”

“Your sorrowful pathway, Rose, I am sure I have followed,
I have overtaken you to be only your own sad sister. Why
did you not speak of these things before?”

“Only, Margaret, because I wronged you. I felt that I
never could speak of myself to any one. Who could sympathise
with me! Who could bear the burden of my heart! But when
I knew that you too had suffered, when I saw your own heart

innerly moved, I could no more restrain myself.—I am sometimes
light-hearted, or I should say light-headed, blithe and
free, and sometimes dejected beyond recovery or reason—all
this you have seen and wondered at.”

“I have seen it—yes—but Father Democritus I think will
explain it. `The spirits,' he says, `are subtil vapors expressed
from the blood,' and these coursing backwards and forwards
between the brain and the heart produce all sorts of feelings.
Besides, Rose, this melancholy of yours is not of the black
kind, but very white, and I think it may be cured. `Exercise,'
is recommended, `good air, music, gardening, swimming,
hunting, dancing, laughing,' all these we have. `Spoon
meat and pure water,' he says, are excellent; balm and annisseed
tea he says will drive away dumps and cheer the spirits,
and these your aunt the Widow will furnish. You never read
the Anatomy of Melancholy, it is a most wonderful book, and
will cure you immediately.”

“You are good, Margaret, if you do banter me. If I were
any body else but what I am, I should more than half
believe what you say to be true. That I can laugh you know,
that I love Chilion's music you also know. I would dance if
I had an opportunity. I used to think it a sin, but all qualms
of that sort are gone forever.”

“Eat some of the plums, Rose.”

“I will, for Mr. Evelyn's sake.”

“Eat them for my sake, for their own sake. You would
not see Mr. Evelyn!”

“No, I could see nobody but you. I was too, too much
ennuyée, too wicked.”

“Eat the plums, and perhaps I have a story to tell you,
of —”

“Mr. Evelyn?”

“No, but of somebody. I shall not tell you who, Mr.
Anonymous.”

“Really, Margaret, I am anxious to hear. What have you
to say? Where did you see him?”

“Here at the Pond, my story is not so long as yours, and I
will begin with what I know. Scarlet coat, white breeches,
Napoleon hat, sparkling black eyes, large black whiskers
meeting under his chin, like a muskrat.”

“Raxman!”

“Raxman! what do you mean?”

“It was he. A soft, pleasant voice?”

“Yes.”

“Raxman; the very same.”

“I do remember his echoing your name in a strange way,
when I told him such an one was in the neighborhood.”

“I did not think of it at the time, but I can recollect a sort
of suspicion I have had that he was here. Obed told me of
his rencontre on the Head. But what with his fear and his
ardor, his perceptions were not very clear, and all he remembered
was the black whiskers. I have suspected too, that my
aunt knew of him, but she is a very queer woman, and I do
not pretend to sound her. Were you not afraid?”

“No more than I am of the cows, who are ever disposed to
yield the path, when I am ready to demand it; this I have
been trying to teach Isabel, who always runs from them.—
Obed's tempestuousness may have hastened his departure, but
it did not secure my safety. Indeed, he interrupted me sorely,
and I lost my patience. It was Court week you know, and I
supposed it was some lawyer, or other stranger in town; he
came two or three times, his manners, as Mrs. Beach would
say, were excellent. Yet I was perfectly alone even while he
was present, he was no company to my thought, and when at last
he broke in upon my solitude, by kneeling before me and saying
something about adoration, he so far recalled me to myself
and attracted my attention, that I cried out at the intrusion.”

“And so you wonder,” said Rose, “that my name and his
should ever be brought together, that I could have been drawn
towards him. You will blame me, more than you pity me.”

“Why should I blame you?”

“For loving Raxman.”

“Ought I not to honor you for that? What else, as a Christian
could you do, if he were the pitiful wretch you describe?”

“Death and forever, Margaret! Don't you know I am no
Christian, that I abhor and eschew the name; you know I mean
something different from such an affection.”

“What do you mean?”

“An absorbing concentration on some one object, an intense
movement to a single point, a gravitation of your whole
being around a solitary centre.”

“Is that what you mean by love?”

“Yes. You think of nothing else, dream of nothing else,
care for nothing else, as you do for that one object.”

“And all this you felt for Raxman?”

“No, no, no! I wanted to feel it for some one. I wanted
some Infinite to come and take up my soul, and he, a Devil,
disguised as an Angel of Light, appeared and deluded me. I

cannot tell all I felt for him, it was something, it was too much,
but it was not that. His dress or looks did not captivate me.
He did express a sort of sympathy for my tastes, and my solitariness.—He
made no impression on you, and me he affected
deeply!”

“How shall I blame you for that? What you now tell me,
Rose, is new, anagogic, mysterious—”

“Wholly so?—Nay, tell me, Margaret.”

“How urgent you are, Rose!”

“Is there no oneness, no individuality, to all you feel or ever
have felt?”

“I love Chilion, and Isabel, and Job, and Rose.”

“Nothing more?”

“Christ.”

“You torture me. I told you not to mention that name
again. I mean a man.”

“Not a woman?”

“Yes, a woman either, if you will have it so.”

“Mr. Evelyn?”

“Yes, Mr. Evelyn.”

“Mr. Evelyn!”

“You echo the name as if it had no place in your heart, but
only in your speculation.”

“Mr. Evelyn.”

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE HUSKING BEE.

The full Fall of the year had set in. The leaves of the trees,
merging from their bright dappled colors into a dull uniform
brown, had dropped to the earth, and were swept by the winds
in dusty crackling torrents. The crops were harvested; potatoes
garnered in the cellar, apples carried to the cider-mill,
corn stacked for husking. A part of Margaret's work for the
season was gleaning from the bounties of forest and field, and
aided by Rose she gathered several bushels of walnuts and
chesnuts, and many pounds of vegetable down. The family

had formerly depended upon such wild animals as the woods
afforded to meet their extraneous expenses, but Chilion was no
longer able to pursue his calling, even if the supply itself were
not diminished. What a poorly cultivated farm afforded could
no more than keep them in food and clothing. Pluck had done
little as yet towards the final redemption of his estate. Nor
could it fail of observation that Solomon Smith had rendered
himself quite conspicuous of late in urging the suit of his father
with Mr. Hart. It was evident he regarded Margaret, and
through her, the whole house, with a pointed interest, a mixed
feeling of aversion and esteem. Ever since the unfortunate
issue of the gold-hunt, he seemed to look upon her as his evil
genius, and yet one of that sort, who would abundantly compensate
by its person for its mistakes. At least we know that
at the time in which this chapter opens, the affairs of the family
were not a little involved. There were sundry items at Deacon
Penrose's, a large item of Rum, interest money, expenses
accruing at the Hospital, etc., and but a beggarly account of
offsets. Nimrod might have afforded some relief, but his habits
were reckless as his temper was volatile; he tended bar,
groomed, raced, peddled, smuggled, blacksmithed and what
not, but saved little money. The drafts on Mr. Girardeau
were regularly made and conscientiously devoted to Margaret.
What she earned during her few weeks of school-keeping,
Pluck refused utterly to employ on his own necessities, but insisted
she should lay it out for clothes. Mistress Hart, originally
a good weaver, fell off in her care and her business together,
and drank more, and was more irritable than ever.
Through the intercession of Deacon Ramsdill and Master Elliman,
Esq. Beach consented to receive Margaret as private
tutor, for a few weeks, to his children; a duty upon which she
was expecting to enter immediately after the Husking Bee, the
great annual family Festival. Before attending to that, let us
go back in our narrative for a moment. The early infantile
relations of Margaret cannot have been forgotten. What became
of Mr. Girardeau? Had he no knowledge of Margaret
these many years? It may not be out of place to state the following.
The year previous to that of the present chapter, there
came to the Pond an old man wearing a wig, and dressed in
other respects like a clergyman. When he entered the house,
Brown Moll, who seemed to have an intuitive dread of the
cloth, disappeared, and the stranger was left alone with Margaret.
He asked for a cup of water, gave her a close perusal
with his eye, enquired the road to Parson Welles's, mounted his
horse, and rode away. This was Mr. Girardeau. His object
in this transient visit is not disclosed.

At the Bee, which fell on a pleasant evening in the early
part of October, were collected sundry people, male and female,
from the several districts bordering on Mons Christi; there
were also present the Master, Abel Wilcox, Sibyl Radney, and
Rose, who if she had become an inmate, as Margaret promised,
of her heart, was almost equally so of her house and bed.
Nimrod was also at home, and for his honor in part this occasion
was supposed to make. The corn was piled in the centre
of the capacious kitchen, around the heap squatted the huskers.
The room was abundantly as well as spectrally lighted from the
immense fire-place briskly glowing with pitch knots and clumps
of bark, which it became Margaret's duty, as occasion required,
to renew; she was also waiter-general to the company, and sat
on a three-legged stool in the chimney-corner. Opposite her
was Chilion, quietly busy, platting a basket, which he now and
then laid down for his fiddle, as better suited to the hour. The
workmen varied their labors with such pleasantry as was natural
to them and the occasion; and great ardor was displayed in
pursuit of the red ear, for which piece of fortune the discoverer
had the privilege of a kiss with any lady he should nominate.
The much coveted color at last made its appearance in the hands
of Solomon Smith; but Ambrose Gubtail said that Solomon
brought it in his pocket, while Smith himself was equally certain
he found it in the heap. Relying upon this assurance he
announced that Margaret should kiss him; a favor which she
very properly delayed until it should be ascertained how he
came by the ear in question; and thus for the present the matter
dropped. The pile was finished, and the shining golden ears
carried into the loft occupied by Margaret, and stowed under
the eaves. Next came a brief relay of food and drink. This
was followed by a dance, in form and spirit befitting the character
of the company and that of their musician. Even Rose
dismissed her gloom, exchanged smiles with Margaret, when
Master Elliman, in full-blown wig and large ruffle cuffs,
sought her for a partner and bowed her to the floor, with the
precise courtliness and bland mannerism of the Old School.
Next succeeded a scene which promised greater entertainment
than anything before. A long table of rough boards extended
through the room, was laden with the fruits of the season, apples,
pears, peaches, plums; pies of all kinds; pewter platters of
dough-nuts and gingerbread; bottles of porter and wine, jugs
of distilled spirits; and prominently, the silver family tankard

of cider. These were in part the contribution of the Master,
Nimrod, and the neighbors who in this matter were either returning
or anticipating obligations in kind. Pre-eminent above
all in the centre of the table was a grotesque piece, a pyramidal
pile of pumpkins, each one emptied of its core, perforated
with sundry holes, and containing a piece of lighted candle;
and the whole representing a very comical sort of lantern, or a
monstrous beast bestarred with glaring eyes. Pluck sat at the
head of the table having Rose at his side, Master Elliman occupied
the foot; the others were disposed about on blocks of
wood, backs of chairs, the shaving horse, the kit, some on their
feet. Margaret having lighted all the candles in the pumpkins,
and symmetrized the pile, resumed her station by the fire.

“Brethren and Sisters,” began Pluck, who was evidently
somewhat excited by liquor, “this is not the house of God, but
of Gods; and it behoveth us to proceed with due solemnity; St.
Anthony, St. Crispin, and Bacchus are with us, and a host.
We have a text inspired and inspiring from a Bibblecal source;
`Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine
to those that be of heavy hearts.' Pass the goblets, as it is elsewhere
said,

“Most venerable Pater divum hominumque!” exclaimed
the Master, “thou art too presumptuous, thy zeal excelleth
thy piety. The prefatory oblation. Let all service begin
with reverence meet and becoming to our supreme.”

Pluck. “In yonder pumpkin shrine burn the fires of our
Divinity, fed by mutton tallow. Rising all, in meek obeisance
due, pressing the bottom of our soles, worship we his Majesty.
Thy health we drink, thy name we praise, Great King of
Puppetdom! defender by the grace of God of England,
France and America; with the most serene, serene, most
puissant, puissant, high, illustrious, noble, honorable, wise
and prudent Burgomasters, Counsellors, Governors, Committees
and all demigods of thy powerful and mighty realm.
Now, brethren, since the Gods help them that help themselves,
as Poor Richard says, let us verify the promise, by
laying hold. In the words of my Bibblecal son, Maharshalalhashbaz,
`I feel that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.'
Rose, dear, have an apple, a pearmain, here is no curse; it
shall wed your face to your name; pity it is, as the old Indian
said, Eve had not left the apples to make cider with.

S'death! how pale you grow. Take some genuine Bacrag.
That's charming. What a nice example you set to our
Molly.

Abel Wilcox. “The toasts, Sir, the toasts! I have eaten
enough and should like to drink.”

The Master. “Fides et veritas, faith and truth! thou art
no wassailer, Abel, or thou wouldst drink without bawling so
about it. Here are Burgundy, Rhenish, in comfortable
supply.”

Abel. “I don't hold to getting drunk, I believe in drinking
just enough. Besides, what there is left Deacon Penrose has
promised to take back, and perhaps it is all we shall get.
We, we, Sir, did you know the old man was going to make a
partner of me, and I am going to marry Matty Gisborne?”

The Master. “Thou art no man, Abel, but only a boy
niggard, and there is no law authorizing copartnership with
such an one. Thou art the shadow of an homunculus, Abel,
an expletive among puppetic entities.”

“You shall have the Toasts; twelve regular ones, the number
of the Twelve Apostles.

“First—Margaret, here; you wrote these, but I made them,
blow me, if I didn't. You shouldn't spoil a man's thoughts in
the copy.”

Margaret whispers her father, who proceeds:—

“First; Ourselves, and all that pertains to us

“Second; The Constituted Authorities of every man's body
and mind.

“Third; Freedom of speech, thought, touch, sight, smell,
taste, earth and air.

“Fourth; Jemima Wilkinson, Consul Napoleon, Dr. Byles
and St. Tammany.

“Fifth; Success to our arms.

“Sixth; The Memory of the brave Johnny Stout.

“Seventh; The Patriots of the Pond, No. 4, Breakneck
and Snakehill.

“Eighth; Perpetual itching without the benefit of scratching
to all our enemies.

“Ninth; All true and upright Masons, who saw the East
when the light rose, and, by name, the Right Worshipful,

Past Grand Deacon, Bartholomew Elliman, pedagogue; with
a tear for all brother Cowans.

“Tenth; All Pumpkin-headed, mutton-tallow-lighted Gods
and Goddesses, Priests and Lawyers.

“Eleventh; The liquor of Jove.

“Twelfth; The Officers and Soldiers in the Present War.”

Abel Wilcox. “Now that the Regulars are disposed of, I
begin with the volunteers.

“Death to the Excise Laws.”

Joseph Whiston. “The memory of Eli Parsons and Daniel
Shays, with a tear for Bly and Rose.”

Brown Moll. “General Washington, Jonathan Trumbull
and John Hancock.”

Pluck. “King George III.”

Mr. Tapley. “Samuel Adams.”

Tony, the Barber. “The honorable Profession of all gentlemen.”

The Widow Wright. “Death teu quacks and success teu
the gennewine sientifikals.”

The Master. “Mistress Margaret, C. B. Custos Bibbleorum.”

Many voices. “Margaret, Margaret!”

Pluck. “Let this be drank standing.”

The Master. “Nay, good friends, be not too hasty. Feminam
et vinum, Margaret, C. B. and the Bey of Muscat.”

Rose. “Do Margaret drink with us. It is beautiful.
I havn't felt so well this long while. Do join us this time.
You have been dull long enough.”

Pluck. Come, Molly, pretty dear; no black-strap to night;
no switchel, or ginger-pop. Brown Bastard, Aqua Cælestis,
Geneva, Muscadine—have your choice; come crush a glass
with your dear Papa; and all this nice company. You have
skinked quite long enough.”

The Master. “I hold under my thumb and finger the veritable
Lachrymæ Christi, just what you are in search after,
Mistress Margaret.”

Rose. “You will taste a little, Margaret; it is better than
Democritus for driving away the dumps, don't you see how
gay we all are?”

Margaret. “Tears of Christ! Can it be that name is
given to any? Who could have thought of the idea? I could
drink a barrel of those tears.”

The Master. “The unsophisticated, megalopsychal, anagogical
Lachrymæ Christi!”

Rose. “I am glad you tasted. Isn't it delightful. Who
would not drive dull care away?”

Pluck. “The songs, gentlemen and ladies, the songs,
Chilion, Molly, Grace, Deacon Elliman, come. Sibyl, what
are you doing there with my second born, knock off your
heel-taps, and lend us your wind-pipe.”

The Master. “One stanza of the New England Hymn in
memory of our distinguished friend and the prince of Paronomasiacks,
Dr. Byles.”

Pluck. “You've got the fogs broke; come now let us have
a few select pieces. Sweet Sibyl begin. What shall it be—
give us `Lovewell's Fight.' ”

Pluck. “A stiff corker on that. Grace, thou Apostolic
child, give us some of the pathetic. Chilion, you must change
your key, try some Malaga, my son.”

Pluck. “Now it is Beulah Ann's turn; some of the sentimental,
Beulah. Some new cider, Chilion, soft and sweet.”

Pluck. “We want a little mixture of the heroic. Molly,
the Indian's Death Song; you like the Indians, show them off
to the best advantage. Silence all.”

Pluck. “That's beautiful! See how the Pumpkin Gods
grin—Another brimmer—Now scrape away, Chilion. Egad!
what a breeze we are getting into. Hoora! for the Old Bastile,
I goes ahead, keep up who can; —

Ho! neighbors, a hurdy gurdy. See the puppets caper.
There's two priests, in sailors' rig, black-balling one another.
Phew! That's Religion you see next, in Harlequin's dress;
with Faith and Repentance playing Punch and Judy. Six
Pumpkin Gods after a poor nincompoop sinner—Grind away,
my boy—”

Margaret. “Pa is going off, Nimrod; what shall we do?”

Nimrod. “Never mind; he'll come to. He flakes and
scatters like hot iron; get some water, that will cool him.”

Pluck. “Haven't you learned your Manners yet, Miss
Molly. `Speak not at the table; if thy superiors be discoursing,
meddle not with the matter. Smell not of thy meat, turn
it not the other side upward to view it upon thy plate. Talk
not in meeting, but fix thine eye on the minister. Pull off thy
hat to persons of desert, quality, or office.' Hem! you'll never
do for Miss Beach in the world till you learn your rules.
Don't interrupt the sport. Knuckle to, my good fellow. Ha!
ha! King George and old Johnny Trumbull playing foot-ball
with the head of the people. Look sharp, Rose. Land!
what's this? Old Nick himself in a coach and two, with the
Parson's wig and bands; the Archbishop of Canterbury on the

box; St. Peter and Whitfield outriding. Give them the long
oats, Old Sacristy! Jack Pudding baptizing four Indians in
the river Jordan; souse them under, they'll be damned if you
leave a hair dry—”

Margaret. “Don't let him go on so; shall I sprinkle it in
his face?”

Nimrod. “Hand me the gourd; I'll make him sober as a
walrus.”

Pluck. “Don't refuse a penny, my boy,—Glory! Didn't
Coachee throw the silk handsomely, Rose? Don't have such
a show every day. By the Living Jingo! it grows cold and
dark. Don't I shiver? Has it rained over night? You are
all here, ladies and gentlemen, hope none of you are wet.
Molly, pile on the chips. Hand down the pipes; who will
smoke? Give your dear Mamma the tobacco. Here is for a
game of cards, Old Sedge; the Most Worshipful Deacon, my
bibblecal son, Nimrod, and the Divine Widow, come. Grace,
you stand flasher. Cut, my son. It's the Divinity's deal, we
shall have fair play. Clubs trump, knock down and drag out.
You are flush, Nimrod, in your face, if you an't in hand.”

The Widow Wright. “You'll have teu put mugwort in
in yer stampers, Old Crisp, before ye ketch me this time, I
kalkilate; I'm high, low.”

Nimrod. “I'm jack and game.”

Pluck. “You are two and. Round again.”

The Master. “That is not conformable to syntactic rules.
Conjunctiones copulativæ conjungunt verba similia—”

Pluck. “Molly dear, stir the embers, we want some light
on this subject. What are you doing with Sol Smith in the
corner? Is he giving you lessons in the bibblecal Art?”

The Master. “Studium grammaticum omnibus est necessarium.”

Pluck. “Come Molly, unravel this skein of the Master's.”

Solomon Smith to Margaret. “You shan't go, Peggy, till
you answer me. Let the buffle-heads work out their own
game. Say, will you?”

Rose, aside to Chilion. “There, Chilion, it is just as I told
you. The rake-shame, put a caveson on him. I would not
endure it a moment if she were my sister.”

Chilion. “Sol is a bad fellow. He has no music in his
soul, and such I have heard are fit for any villany. He has
not forgotten the wild-goose chase after gold, and now he
wreaks his disappointment on Margaret.”

Pluck. “Quantinupio tentrapiorum quaggleorum, rattle
bang, with a slap dash? It is your play, Sir Deacon.”

The Widow Wright. “I'm up teu snuff, I can tell ye.
The Master 'll have teu kiss the cook this time; he han't
enough left for the cat teu lick.”

The Master. “I am suffarcinated, in a very thlipsis. Such
philogicide, such amaurosis. Where am I? By what rules is
the game played?”

Nimrod. “He holds on to his cards like the whooping
cough; he is as long coming round as the seventeen years
locusts.”

The Widow. “I wonder how he 's on 't for face cards; ha!
ha! He's hauled up with the rheumatiz; give him a dose of
water-treffile and burdock root. So pesky slow, we sha'nt git
through teu night.”

Pluck. “It's my stack this time; you begged before, my
son. Show out, can you, Mistress Divinity? Then you will do
better than most gods do.”

Rose to Chilion. “Can you, a brother, abide such insolence?
I am not so bewildered by drink but I can see his design.
I believe she struck him; Oh, Chilion, you know not
what we have to suffer.”

Pluck. “Beg, will you, my son?”

Nimrod. “Yes, like a cripple at the Cross.”

Pluck. “No, I will give you one—I am ten, four, three—
game. Show your face, my pretty fellow, Jack—I'm out.”

The Master. “I am a—ab—absque—absquatulated—”

Nimrod. “i—fi—ca—tion. He 'll play the rest of his tricks
on the floor with the cockroaches.”

The Widow. “I'll stump ye teu another game.”

Nimrod. “Ho, Abel, Grace, Beulah Ann, will you play?”

Pluck sings, accompanied with a violent thumping of his fists
on the table,

Rose. “Heavens! Lend me your file. I would stop his
wicked presumption!”

Chilion. “I 'll jog him a little with it. Wait a minute till
I have fixed this screw. Let me get my strings in order, and
perhaps we shall see some effect in music. He is more than
half drunk, and I am not sure as Margaret is altogether herself.

Sol is a cunning knave, and I would not care to offend
him, since he might do us much evil.”

Rose. “How slow you are, there, there, see that.”

Chilion. “We are both as drunk as the rest, Rose. I can't
see what I am about here.”

Rose. “Oh, Chilion, do something to save Margaret.”

Chilion. “He isn't fit to live. I will stop him.”

The instrument with which Chilion has been at work is
thrown towards Solomon Smith, the disorderly action of Pluck
overturns the table, and with it the pile of pumpkins; Smith
falls to the floor with the blood spirting from an artery of his
neck.

7. CHAPTER VII.

The next morning dawned dismally and darkly on the Pond
and over the town. Rumor of what had fallen out at the husking
party was rapidly distributed through the region. Early
in the forenoon an inquest was holden on the body of young
Smith, at No. 4, and it was declared that he came to his death
from violence inflicted by one or more members of the family of
Pluck. The uncertainty of the affair, aggravated by the bewildered
state of the witnesses, rendered it expedient to arrest
the entire household. Shortly on the Brandon road, which,
but a few days before Margaret and Mr. Evelyn had traversed
with so much serene hopefulness and in the midst of such inspiring
beauty, appeared the Constable, Captain Tuck, armed
with a warrant, and supported by a large body of people, bearing
sundry instruments of offence, and hastening along with
mingled imprecations and laments. At No. 4 were still greater
confusion and alarm; and there turned up the Delectable Way
a multitude large as once bore Margaret in triumphal procession
over the same ground, who now were in pursuit of her
and her friends with tempers exacerbated by the recital of
atrocious deeds, imaginations inflamed by horrific suggestions,
and a purpose which nothing short of her own life or that of those

dear to her, could qualify or extinguish. From the Via Salutaris
and Via Dolorosa poured in numbers more with swords,
axes and pitchforks, who halting at a distance, and forming a
cordon of defence and affright about the premises, awaited the
arrival of Capt. Tuck. The several parties mutually reinforced,
commenced their approach to the house. Those behind pressing
forward with a zest and courage proportionate to the interval
between them and the scene of danger, the mass became
wedged about the door which was opened without the usual
formality of knocking, or pulling the string. Sibyl Radney,
who stood barring the door with her back, obliged to yield to
the energy with which the entrance was made, was the only
moving person they saw. Pluck and his wife, stupified by an
intoxication that had probably been enhanced after the fatal
event was understood, Sibyl had dragged to their bed. The
wantonness and disorder of the night she endeavored to correct,
and was busily employed gathering up the fragments of food,
broken bottles and decanters that strewed the floor. Over
the decayed and blackened embers of the fire, sat Margaret
and Chilion in rigid silence and haggard immobility; his face
dropped into the palms of his hands, she with her arms closed
about her brother's neck into which her head was sunk. Hash
was discovered, overpowered by his fears and his potations,
under the bed in the garret. Nimrod and Rose, the Widow
foremost in execration of the family and loudest in clamor for
vengeance, declared had fled on horseback together during the
night. The Master was found in a thicket near the water,
whither in his own frenzy and the turbulence of the hour he
had betaken himself, plunged to his knees in mire and shaking
with cold and alarm. Margaret and Chilion, without remonstrance
or delay, prepared to obey the summons of the officer, and
went forward a-foot. The other three were carried in a cart to
the Village, where they were all consigned to the Jail, there
to lie until the returning senses of the inebriated should justify
an examination. The Master was taken to his bed, where, with
fever superadded to his surfeit, he had a prospect of remaining
for some time. The people, a portion of them, staid about the
Jail, in earnest conference on what had transpired; others
went to their old resorts, the Meeting-house steps, the Tavern,
the Barber's Shop, and the Store of Deacon Penrose. In the
Counting Room of the latter collected Parson Welles, Judge
Morgridge, Dr. Spoor, Deacons Hadlock, Ramsdill and Penrose,
Esquires Weeks, Beach and Bowker, the latter a junior
member of the profession, and recent settler in Livingston,
Captain Tuck, Ex-Captain Hoag, Mr. Adolphus Hadlock, Mr.
Whiston a Breakneck, Mr. Pottle a Snakehill, and other
citizens.

“Mysterious is the Providence of God,” outspoke Parson
Welles, the first to break the dubious and oppressive silence.
“Some are appointed to damnation by a just indeed and irreprehensible,
but incomprehensible judgment of God; some he
brings to repentance unto life. Let us not rebel against his
most righteous sovereignty. In what has now eventuated, my
brethren and friends, we behold the Scripture verified, that the
carnal mind is enmity against God. And let all of us, whose
desert is the same, not be high-minded but fear; let us humble
ourselves before the mighty hand of God, who in this administereth
a needed rebuke for our manifold sins.”

“Can any one tell us how this melancholy affair was brought
about?” enquired Judge Morgridge after a pause.

Deacon Penrose. “As I learn from Mr. Wilcox, who was
providentially present and able to make a distinct report, it
was an unprovoked and malicious attack of some members of
that depraved family on the unfortunate young man.”

Esquire Beach. “I think I can inform your Honor more
explicitly, that it is probably a result of anterior and long cherished
animosities on the part of the persons named in the precept
against the family of Mr. Smith, arising from indentures
in the hands of said Smith of grants and convenants, on the
part of said persons, yet unfulfilled and for a considerable period
delayed.”

Deacon Hadlock. “Why do we mince the matter? I can
tell you all it is owing to defect of justice; that we havn't
heavier penalties, tighter execution, more wholesome laws. If
these persons had only been kept under, or been enough broke
by the chastisements they have already had, they never would
have come to this. Truly we can say, we let the wicked go
unpunished. Magistrates are set for the terror of evil doers;
our commissions enjoin us to look arter the good and safety of
the State. For their Sabbath-breaking, their disobedience
to rulers, their unbelief, their blasphemies, their hardness of
heart, their stiff-neckedness and perverse ways, has this come
upon them. They have fallen into a pit which their own hands
have digged. And for our sinful remissness has this judgment
lit upon the town. We ought to have hewed to pieces these
Agags before the Lord. God teareth them in his anger who
hate his church and despise governments. We have been slower
in rendering justice than the Almighty in executing his
fierce wrath; we have spared the rod and spoilt the child.”

Parson Welles. “It behoveth us in truth that we consider
of our wicked declensions and great provocations before
God, whereby he hath reached forth to us this bitter cup of
shame and sorrow. And, brethren, is it not meet that we
appoint a Fast, touching this matter, as has been the practice
of our Fathers in all calamitous visitations?”

Little Girl. “Daddy wants a quart of pupelo.”

Deacon Penrose. “Mr. Wilcox, wait on this child, and
when you have done that, bring in some glasses and a measure
of our best New England.”

Captain Tuck. “We had a heavy frost last night, the air
is raw and piercing this morning, and this is trying business.
I well remember during the War standing sentry by the
General's Markee half the night, in the depth of winter, on
the solid snow, barefoot, with never a drop to cheer or warm
one with.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “It takes two to make a quarrel, and I
count there must have been something hard said or done on
t'other side.”

Esq. Beach. “Our worthy Deacon would do nothing that
should prejudice the case, or compromit the parties concerned;
nor interpose obstacles to the due process of justice
and impartial effect of the laws. His generous feelings we
know always tempt him to act in behalf of those who may be
called to suffer; but he should remember that Law, Law is
the essence of the Deity, the genius of the Bible, the guardian
Angel of humanity; and that Law ever must be and ever
shall be sustained.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “I don't know much about law, but I
know something about nater. A cow won't kick when she is
milked unless she has either core in her dugs or chopped
teats, and is handled roughly; and she always knows who is a
milking of her. Cappen Tuck speaks about the last War.
I recollect when we was in the Provinces down to Arcady,
where the Black Flies come out as thick as birds arter a
thunder-storm, they won't let you feel the sting till arter you
see the blood. I guess there has been a Great Black Fly
about here, and now the blood has come we begin to feel the
sting.”

Parson Welles. “We have convened on a serious intendment,
and Brother Ramsdill would be in the way of Scripture
to avoid foolish jesting which is not convenient, and whereby
the brethren may be offended.”

Judge Morgridge. “Is it understood how many persons

are supposed to be involved in this crime? Is it thought the
younger female member of the family is to be accounted
either principal or accessory? I know not that, in the present
stage of the affair, I ought to make this inquiry; nor, considering
my own position, whether it becomes me to raise any
question at all. I do it, not on my own account, but for the
sake of others.”

Deacon Hadlock. “I know of no vessel of wrath more
fitted for destruction than that gal. She is so hardened in
iniquity that any abominable conduct is to be looked for in
her. We have compassionated her ignorance, but it is of no
avail; we have done all that could be done for her, but she
braces herself agin God, despises divine truth, breaks the holy
Sabbath.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “Sows over-littered eat their own pigs.
Perhaps you have done too much for her, Brother Hadlock.
Mabby she hasn't forgot the bed you spread for her when she
was down here to Meetin' a few year ago, and when she had
the School this Summer past.”

Deacon Penrose. “Will the Parson taste a little of our
New England? We call it a prime article, and think this the
very best we ever manufactured.”

Abel Wilcox. “It has as handsome a bead as I ever saw;
and we think it possesses a flavor very much like the West
India.”

Parson Welles. “Truly, in the words of Scripture, we
may say, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish,
and wine to those that be of heavy hearts. We need something
to make our faces shine these dark times.”

Deacon Penrose. “Gentlemen, help yourselves.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “Down to Arcady, when a rattlesnake
bit one, his comrade sucked out the pizen; if he didn't, the
fellow died. I think we had better try and see if we can't
get some of the pizen out of these poor folk, instead of taking
it into our own bodies. I know it's a cold morning, but sap
runs best arter a sharp frost, and my blood, old as it is, is
enough moved without any urging.”

Deacon Hadlock. “Dark times, indeed, Brother Penrose;
we have contempt in the Church, as well as abuse in the
State. Things are getting worse and worse every day. We
are all at loose ends. Judgment follows judgment. The
Christan religion itself is just tottering to fall. The Universalists
I heared yesterday had appeared a little to the west of
us, at Dunwich Equivalents; their preacher, John Murray, is

drawing away people by hundreds. The Socinians have
broke into the fold at the Bay. But for the elects' sake, who
should be saved! The good man is perished out of the earth,
there is none upright among men. We cannot trust in a
friend or put confidence in a guide. We know not on whom
to rely.”

Judge Morgridge. “It is an old story, Deacon, that the
times are deteriorating; I have heard it ever since I was a
boy. The world has stood some pretty hard shocks, and it
seems to be able to survive a good many more. So the old
Worthy Fuller records, more than a century ago, `I have
known the City of London forty years,' says he, `their shops
did ever sing the same tune that trading was dead; and when
they wanted nothing but thankfulness, this was their complaint.'
Let us be patient, Deacon, and the coming tide will
lift us from the rocks. The hand that has smitten will heal
our wasted and torn condition.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “Time is the stuff that life is made of,
as Poor Richard says. I think if we would spin and weave it
better, we should not have so much raggedness to complain
of; and things wouldn't be falling to pieces so.”

Captain Tuck. “Raggedness and ruin! what do gentlemen
mean? Have we not had a glorious War! Are we not
independent! Isn't this a great country? Was there ever an
era like the present, and will there ever be another such a
one? Isn't America the envy of all worlds, and isn't it honor
enough to have fought her battles even if we had lost our
all? Does she not shine like the meridian sun in his splendor?
Our children will sigh and pine for the golden period
in which we now live.”

Esq. Bowker. “I think, if I may take the liberty to express
my thought, that I partially agree with our friend Captain
Tuck. We discern indisputable signs of improvement.
There is an amelioration in the order of events; there is a
softening of the crude and undigested matter with which the
breast of the ages has been so long gorged; Influence has
a vigorous but better regulated pulse, gladness and love are
on its countenance; History is emerging from its corruptions
and appears in a regenerated form; there is a tendency to
individualization and perfection; if there be a breaking up in
what is about us it is the Preparatory movement towards the
great Unity; the iron and mailed hand of Public Opinion
greets you less violently; the strictures of Organization are
less heavy and embarrassing; Prerogative is disposed to relinquish

some of its self-will and austerity; Literature is
beginning to replenish itself from the infinity of Virtue;
Religion is becoming more humanized; and we can scarcely
hope to enter upon the new century that is now opening to us,
without leaving at the threshold much trumpery and feculence,
and bearing with us abundant elements of a renovated
condition.”

Deacon Hadlock. “Alas the day, that I should come to
this! Alas the day, that my old eyes should see what they
now see! I stand like a man cutting the grave-stones for his
own wife and children. I sarved under the old king, I fought
agin the Spanish, the French and the Indians; I buckled to
among the first for our liberties, I gave a hand through all the
tug of the War, I have helped build up our Constitution and
Laws, and now we are worse off than ever. Woe is me! A
sorer pest than any before has overtaken us.”

Mr. Adolphus Hadlock. “What, Uncle, what, the Small-pox
has not broke out anew? Aristophanes, my son—”

Deacon Hadlock. “No, Adolphus, worse than that; worse
than Throat Distemper, or Putrid Fever, or anything else.
The Jacobins, the Jacobins are in amongst us; all the blood-hounds
of the French kennel are let loose upon us, Free-thinkers,
Illuminatists, Free-Masons, Papists.”

Judge Morgridge. “Don't you remember, Deacon, when
the news of Braddock's Defeat, in the year '55, was brought
here, what an alarm we had? Every man, and woman, and
child, ran out of their houses to learn the news, all was
despair. `The country is betrayed by Government.' `We are
undone, they have sold us to the French.' `They'll make
Catholics of us all,' were cries that filled the streets; and
your father, a greyheaded old man, and our good minister,
then a young man, spoke to the people from the Meeting-house
steps, and told them not to be afraid, but put their trust
in God. We recovered from our reverses, and have passed
safely through a good many difficulties since. The French
indeed have done us much good, and in the War we courted
their alliance and were glad of their aid.”

Deacon Hadlock. “I know what you say, Judge—I never
liked the French, I was always agin that contract. But we
never had such trying times as these; so many intarnal as
well as extarnal foes to our peace and prosperity. Things
never looked nigh so dark.”

Mr. Whiston. “I agree with the Deacon exactly; he has
put the case right on its own legs. For one, I am near about

done for. I havn't hardly a hair left to my hide, or a pewter
fip in my pocket. Taxes, taxes are eating us all up; taxes
upon your whole estate, then on the parts of it, horses, carts,
tools; taxes on all you eat and drink; taxes paid by taxes,
taxes breeding taxes; and when all is gone, then tax the body
and lug it off to Jail.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “Misery makes us acquainted with
strange bed-fellows, Judge.”

Judge Morgridge. “You see, Deacon Hadlock, into what
company you fall; Mr. Whiston is one whom I believe you
committed for being concerned in the late disturbances in
these States.”

Deacon Hadlock. “Just as I say, Judge, we are too
lenient, we didn't put on the screws half hard enough. The
Insargents ought to have been hung, or banished from the
country, or else condemned to imprisonment for life. The State
was not cleansed of the plague that was upon it, and the sore
waxes fouler every hour.”

Mr. Whiston. “'Tis true I harbored the men; 'tis true I
fell in with the movement; and I wish to heaven we could
have a rebellion—I will say it here if I have to swing to-morrow
for it. I wish Shays could have carried the matter
through all the States. I helped throw off one government,
but I little calculated how I was going to be sucked in by
another. Courts, lawyers, sheriff-fees, constable-fees, justice-fees,
imposts, excise, stamp-duties, continental bills, paper
tender, forced sales, have swept off everything. The grubs of
the law have gnawed into us, and we are all powder-post.
How many actions did you try in one term, Judge? Was it
less than a thousand?”

Judge Morgridge. “Well, let that go, Mr. Whiston; it is
past, and we will endeavor to forget it.”

Mr. Whiston. “I shan't let it go, it an't past, and it can't
be forgotten. Can I forget the cries of Bly and Rose, up
there in Lenox? Not so easy. We fought for liberty in the
War, and if a man hasn't liberty to own his own, to use his
own, to be his own, what are our liberties good for? Government
is Lord God Almighty, and skin-flint besides. Where
is my title to my estate? Government has got it. Where is
my income? Government has got it. Where is the disposal
of my person? Government has got it. Where is the control
of my actions? Government has got it. Where are my
boys? Gone to fight the Government battles agin the Indians.
Where are my gals? Spinning out taxes for Government.

What is the Government for? To protect me, you say; yes,
as the wolf did the lamb, by stripping me of all I have. We
help make the Government? No. Didn't we petition to have
the Constitution altered, some of the courts abolished, and the
under officers set aside? And were our petitions granted?
No, they were not admitted; Government spurned us and our
petitions together. Such bungling and frippery never were
seen. I wouldn't give a fiddlestick's end for all the governments
in creation. They take the best of everything, and
leave us only the orts and hog-wash. Times are mopish and
nurly. I don't mean to be scrumptious about it, Judge, but I
do want to be a man, if I am a Breakneck, and havn't so
much eddecation as the rest of you.”

Judge Morgridge. “It is getting warm here; we shall be
called to the trial soon, and we need all calmness of mind.”

Mr. Whiston. “I am ready to stay and argufy the matter
out with anybody. I have no notion of hushing it up so.”

Dr. Spoor. “More parties than one have been implicated.
I think our worthy Deacon named the Free-masons, a Fraternity
to which I deem it an honor to belong.”

Deacon Hadlock. “Yes, I did mention them; they are
rising in France, Germany and England; they are leagued
with the Jacobins on both sides of the water, and threaten the
destruction of all this 'varsal world.”

Dr. Spoor. “They acknowledge the three cardinal doctrines
of Faith, Hope and Charity.”

Deacon Hadlock. “I know it, they are as bad as the Socinians;
under cover of religion they would destroy religion
itself. Hasn't Tom Jefferson threatened he would burn up
all the Bibles in the land, if he comes in President? Isn't he
the jaw-bone of Jacobinism in this country? Havn't there
been town-meetings called agin Jay's Treaty? Hasn't John
Jay himself been burnt in effigy? Yes, in Boston he was
carted through the streets, with a watermelon shell on his
head, carried past Governor Adams's house where they made
him salute the old man, and then took and burnt on the Common.
Houses were broken open, persons assaulted. What is
all this but playing into that whale's hands, Buonaparte, and
he means to swallow us all up?”

Captain Hoag. “These things are jest so. We heard in
our part of the town last week, that he had taken the city of
London, and was burning over all England; that he had made
the Pope God of the whole airth, and that they were both
coming to America, were going to put us all into the Inquisition,
and then set fire to't.”

Deacon Ramsdill. “You eat nothing if you watch the
cook; I think we had better be thankful for what we have,
and God will give us what we want.”

Mr. Pottle. “I believe the Deacon made a fling at the
Universalists?”

Deacon Hadlock. “They are the seed of the old Sarpent;
they are leagued with the Devil himself; they take advantage
of the natural heart to entrap us with their soul-destroying
doctrines; they make a fling at the righteous justice of God.”

Mr. Pottle. “For one I must say, my eyes have been
opened; I an't a going to be hood-winked any longer. I
do not believe God is a wrathful being, I do not believe he
will keep us in red-hot Hell to all Eternity for what we do in
this short life.”

Deacon Hadlock. “Oh! oh! What will come next?
We are undone,—I am the man that has seen affliction.”

Mr. Pottle. “I believe the Atonement is broad enough to
cover the whole race.”

Parson Welles. “God be praised, his decrees shall stand
against all the lying deceit of man!”

Esq. Weeks. “We do indeed seem to be quite in a toss.
I have said nothing hitherto, because I have had so many
other things to think about. There are sometimes domestic
and personal calamities which seem for the moment to out-weigh
all public concerns; and how many in our midst are at
this moment, we must believe, in deepest affliction. But I
cannot well let what has been here expressed pass without at
least offering a word of encouragement and hope. I agree
with Mr. Whiston, that our Government is not all we could
desire. I did not vote, as you well know, for the Constitutions
either of the State or the Nation. But having been
adopted by a majority of the people, I am willing to give them
my cordial support. I have confidence in the people; and
believe that they will right what is wrong, and better what is
bad. I concur in the old maxim, that that government is best
which governs least, and I think the evils we deplore will be
remedied in time.”

Esq. Bowker. “There is a principle of health in Time
itself, agreeably to which we may hope that the diseased body
politic will ultimately recover, the tumid aspect of society
subside, noxious sentiment be thrown off, and the clouded
atmosphere of our public life clear away.”

Esq. Beach. “There are some gentlemen who have all the
urbanity of the Original Tempter himself; who pursue by

indirection what they dare not openly propose, and under the
guise of flattery harbor the deadliest intent. Heavens! has it
come to this! shall driveling be substituted for sound reason,
phrenzy for dispassionate conduct! Oh, Humanity, where is
thy blush! Oh Virtue, where hast thou fled! Was it not
the firmness of President Washington in resisting the overtures
of the French, that saved us from that gulf? Was it
not the explosion of Randolph's connection with Fauchet that
prevented the worst of calamities? Are not French emissaries
scattered through the land, corrupting our citizens, and
disturbing our politics? Have we not seen the Tricolored
Cockade, that emblem of massacre and blood, voting at our
polls? Has not France twice dismissed our envoys with
ignominy? No Festival is so celebrated in this country as
the Birth of the Dauphin; yes, we revere the birth of a
Monarch more than the virtues of Washington! You cannot,
gentlemen, have forgotten the refined patriotism of one of our
Judges, who recently invested the city of Providence with a
regiment of soldiers, and endeavored to arrest the Celebration
of the Anniversary of our Independence, and prevent the
Ratification of the then ninth pillar of the Federal Constitution,
New Hampshire. The Gazettes of that clique are distributed
with a diligence worthy a better cause. Our own
mails, yes, to my shame and sorrow I repeat it, the mails of
this good old Federal town of Livingston are loaded with their
prints; Chronicles, Auroras and Arguses are circulated in our
midst, through which the great Monster of Evil belches forth
his falsehoods, seditions, blasphemies and calumnies upon our
population. This Anglophobism is the most malignant and
incurable of all diseases.”

Esq. Weeks. “Yes, enough of it worse than Gallophobism.
We have no dastardly Refugees voting at our polls—
no. Reams of Russell's Gazettes, Courants, Centinels, Spys,
are not every week brought to our village—no. They are full
of truth, religion, candor, sweetness—yes. We have no
readers of Porcupine's Gazette, a writer who is an avowed
British subject—no. The Editor of the Aurora was not
recently whipped in the streets—no. How many Black Cockades
could I count in this room? But, soberly, Sam Adams's
threadbare coat must give place to John Hancock's lace and
ruffles. Our ladies must have negroes to bear their trains
through the streets as their mothers did. Captain Hoag,
here, would have us kneel to his Spread Eagle and Blue
Ribbon, and we must barter our old-fashioned pewter for

Cincinnati plates, and cups and saucers. We must import
mustard, muffs, tippets and Flanders lace. We must baptize
all things into the mild spirit of Federalism; we have a
Federal Congress, Federal Gazettes, Federal Hotels, Federal
Theatres, Federal Circuses, Federal Streets, Federal Ware-houses,
Federal Flour, Federal Babies; we have long had a
Federal Gospel, no offence to our good Minister, and must
look for a Federal Heaven.”

Esq. Beach. “I shall make no reply to matters like these;
I know we are somewhat diverted from the objects that
brought us here. But one thing I would have impressed on
all minds; there are three political sects in the United States.
The first in number, as well as in sense, without umbrage to
Brother Weeks, are the Federalists, who believe mankind are
in need of the restraints of good government. The second
are the Jacobins, who see in every book of acts and resolves,
gibbets, pillories and jails. But there is a third sect, who are
less despised and yet are more contemptible, the Illuminatists.
These will have it that government is unnecessary. They
want common sense to such a degree, that they do not know
their want of it. They are under-workers to the Jacobinical
purpose of power, plunder and vengeance.”

Abel Wilcox. “'Lexis Robinson is here again with his
notes, Sir.”

Deacon Penrose. “I dare say. He is punctual to a day.
He holds some of the Consolidated Notes and Quarter Master
General's Certificates, and comes every year to dispose of
them. I offered him eight and six pence on the pound; then
as they depreciated four shillings, and at last when they were
good for nothing, in pure compassion, I told him I would give
one and six; but he wouldn't be easy without the full face.
He might have taken advantage of the Funding.”

Mr. Whiston. “That is what we tried to bring about, a
means to pay the old soldiers; but we could not do it. Poor
Lex, his face half gone, his wits nigher done for, his old sores
still a running—well if the country for which he fought can
give him sward enough to cover his bones!”

Deacon Ramsdill. “He that lives upon hope will die fasting,
as Poor Richard says; if this belongs to 'Lexis I guess it
will apply to some other folks. What is the hour, Judge?”

Judge Morgridge. “I think we had better give attention
to the prisoners. The warrant was issued from your office,
Squire Bowker, I believe; shall we not adjourn there?”

Parson Welles. “God send the right.”

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRIAL.

The magistral investigation resulted in the discharge of all
the family but Chilion, who was committed to answer before
the Supreme Court, which would sit the next week. The
testimony of the witnesses was varying and confused, as their
observation had been uncertain and indistinct. What with
the trepidation of the moment, and the clouded condition in
which the catastrophe found the party, it took no small sagacity
and patience in Esq. Bowker, who seemed disposed to conduct
the case with entire candor, to distinguish, resolve, and average
the singular materials that were submitted to his attention.
Chilion himself would make neither confession nor denial.
He was seen with a file in his hand, an instrument without an
haft, and consequently pointed at both ends. Ambrose Gubtail
testified he saw him throw it towards young Smith, and
that immediately thereupon the deceased cried out. Beulah
Ann Orff said she saw Margaret cross the fire-place, and take
the file from her brother's hand; but Obed and Abel Wilcox
both declared they were sitting near, observing her passages
with Solomon, and that she did not move from the chimney
corner. The connection of Pluck with the affair hovered for
a while in doubt; the Widow averring that she did not know
but he might have seized the instrument and sent it on its
fatal errand, as she heard him wrangling at Solomon, and saw
him fling out his arms passionately; but Grace Joy said she
was looking at him, and that he was only beating the table
with his fists. The Widow also said that Rose was at the
moment walking away from Chilion towards the back side of
the room. Brown Moll, it was clearly shown, had followed
the Master in his retreat to the floor. Regarding Hash, Sibyl
Radney testified that he was employed with other missiles
than those of iron, even assailing herself with the importunities
of love; she also testified that Smith was sitting on a tottering
milking-stool, that he fell simultaneously with the overthrow
of the pumpkins and the table, that she afterwards found the
file fixed in one of the pumpkins, and another one apparently
grazed by the same instrument; and that she believed he was
upset from his stool by a pumpkin dropping upon it, and that

if the wound of which he died was occasioned by the file, she
conjectured it was diverted from its course by striking one
pumpkin and fixing itself in another, which in its descent
drove the instrument into his neck. She said in addition that
she thought the wound might have been occasioned by the
edge of a piece of crockery, since the table with its various
contents was precipitated at the same moment with the pumpkins,
and fragments of glass and other things quite covered
the body. To rebut this, Zenas Joy declared Solomon fell
before the pumpkins did. Sibyl replied that the pumpkins,
the table, which was composed of two heavy boards, and its
furniture, precipitated upon the man were sufficient to kill
him. It was, however, the opinion that he came to his end by
the loss of blood from the jugular vein, and it was the unanimous
sentiment of all, that that vein was opened by the direct
course and momentum of the file.

The deceased was buried the next day, and at his funeral
was exhibited every circumstance of solemn array and mournful
impressiveness. The body was carried to the Church,
where Parson Welles preached an appropriate sermon, and
followed to the grave by a long train of people swayed by
alternate and mingled grief and indignation.

On the succeeding day Mr. Smith, the father of the deceased,
came to the Pond claiming the expiration of the conditions on
which Pluck held the estate, and ordered the immediate removal
of the family; who were consequently obliged to look
for new homes. Pluck went off with his kit on his back to
seek employment wherever it should offer. Hash and his
mother were invited to Sibyl Radney's. Of Nimrod and Rose
nothing had been heard. Bull followed Hash. When Margaret
had assisted the rest away, she had time to turn her two
birds and Dick, the squirrel, out of doors, and gather a bundle
of clothes and Chilion's violin, before Mr. Smith proceeded to
nail up the house. She besought her mother and Hash to
take the birds and squirrel, but the hurry, preoccupation and
irritation of the moment were too great to pamper wishes of
that sort. Up the Via Salutaris she saw her father, her
mother, her brother and Sibyl filing along, drearily, all with
heavy packs on their shoulders. Deacon Penrose sent up an
attachment on the oxen and cart which were driven by the
Constable, Capt. Tuck, down the Delectable Way. Her own
course had been resolved upon; she was going to Esq. Beach's
to seek occupation, be near Chilion, and fulfil her engagement
as Governess. She paused a moment, looking up and down

the road, and back to Mons Christi, then striking across the
Mowing, buried herself in the thickets of the Via Dolorosa.
Reaching the Village, she turned into Grove street, and went
directly to the Squire's. Mrs. Beach received her at the door,
and asked her into the parlor. She was barely seated, when
the door opened, and in poured a parcel of children.

“Julia, William,” said Mrs. Beach, “why do you behave so
unmannerly? How often have I told you not to come into
the house with a noise, and those other boys havn't scraped
their feet.”

“I have got a tame squirrel here, Ma,” said William
Beach.

“What are you doing with that dirty thing?” exclaimed
Mrs. Beach.

“It's the Ma'am's,” said Julia Beach, “Arthur said it
was.”

“We found it trying to get in at the door,” said Arthur
Morgridge.

“She isn't your Ma'am now, “said Mrs. Beach.”

“Isn't she going to live here, and teach us?” asked
Julia.

“Not as we know of,” replied the mother. “You take
away the squirrel, and run to your plays.”

Dick meanwhile wrested himself from the hand of the boys,
and leaped into the lap of his mistress.

“Take the creature away,” reiterated Mrs. Beach.

Margaret interceded in behalf of her pet. “I shan't touch
it, if the Ma'am wants to keep it,” said Consider Gisborne.
“Come, let us see if we can't get the kite up.” The children
retreated with as much impetuosity as they entered.

“Did you expect to bring that creature with you?” asked
Mrs. Beach.

“I know not how he came,” replied Margaret, “I left him
at home;” and she might have added, that delaying on her
steps two or three hours in the woods, the squirrel, shut out of
doors, and growing tired of silence and solitude, concluded
to follow her, a trick he had more than once in his life attempted.

“What have you in that green sack?” enquired the lady.

“It is my brother Chilion's fiddle,” replied Margaret; “I
thought it would be some comfort to him in the Jail, and so I
brought it down.”

“Your brother, indeed!” rejoined Mrs. Beach. “A sorry
crew of you. I must inform you that the Squire and myself

have judged it best to dispense with your services. We
thought it would be extremely bad to have one of your family
a member of ours. Since the dreadful things that have happened
at your house, it would be unsafe to our property, and
perhaps to our lives, and certainly detrimental to the morals
of the children, to have anything to do with you. And it
would be wrong not to break a promise made with those who
have proved themselves so unworthy to keep it.”

“What shall I do?” asked Margaret passionately.

“It is of no use for you to practise any dissimulation, Miss
Hart. I quite wonder that you should have had the presumption
to come at all. We were going to send word that we did
not want you. But your anxiety for your brother, it seems, has
brought you down even sooner than was anticipated! If worse
comes to worst, you can go to the Poor-house, perhaps you
can find employment with that class of people to whom you
properly belong. I am not unreasonable,—for the time has
come when we can no longer tamper with low and vile characters.”

The appearance of the lady evidently encouraged no protestation
or parley, and Margaret withdrew. She stood on the
door-steps, with her bundle and squirrel in her arms, disordered
in purpose, palsied in feeling, and almost blind in
vision, from this unforeseen turn of affairs. The children,
who were trying to fly a kite on the grounds in front of the
house, came around her.

“Are you not going to stay?” asked Julia Beach.

“No,” replied Margaret.

“Won't the Ma'am help us fly the kite?” said Consider
Gisborne.

“Yes,” replied Margaret.

“The string is all in a snarl,” said Arthur Morgridge.
Margaret, most mechanically, most mournfully, fell to getting
out the knot, then, having dropped her luggage, ran with the
string, and when the kite was fairly up, offered it to one of the
boys to hold.

“She's crying,” said Julia Beach. “She is crying!” was
the word whispered from one to another. The kite was at
once dropped, and as she resumed her burden, the children
huddled about her.

“What makes you cry?” said Julia.

“Oh! I cannot tell,” said Margaret; “I have no home, no
friends, no place to go to.”

“Never mind the kite,” said Consider. “I'll carry this,”

he added, seizing the sack containing the violin; “I don't care
if she did put me on the girl's side, she is the best School-Ma'am
I ever went to.”

“I will carry this,” said Arthur, taking the clothes-bundle
from her hand.

“I want to have the squirrel,” said Julia.

“Let me take hold with you, Arthur,” said Mabel Weeks.

“Where are you going?” asked Margaret.

“I don't know,” said Consider, “we wanted to help the
School-Ma'am.”

“I am going to take the violin to my brother who is in the
Jail, he loves to play on it. Perhaps you wouldn't like to go
there.”

“Deacon Ramsdill was at our house, and said he didn't
believe he meant to kill Solomon Smith,” said Consider.

“I remember what you said when you kept the school, that
we musn't hate anybody,” said Arthur.

“Ma said people wasn't always wicked that was put in Jail,”
said Mabel.

Preceded by the children bearing their several loads, Margaret
went towards the Green. Approaching the precincts of
the Jail she found her way impeded by large numbers of people,
who were loitering about the spot, of all ages and sexes.
Some sat on the Stocks, one stood on the top of the Whipping
Post, several had climbed into the Pillory. She was greeted
with sundry exclamations of dislike, and the aspect of the
people was not the most inviting. Even threatening words
were bestowed upon her, and some went so far as to jostle her
steps. She stopped while the children gathered closer to her,
and then they all proceeded in a solid body together. The
crowd parted, and she went through a long file of people. “I
can see the Devil in her eye,” said one. “The whole family
ought to be hung,” said another. “Poor Mr. Smith's heart is
most broke,” said Mistress Hatch. “How Damaris takes on!”
said Beulah Ann Orff. “I always knew Chil would come to
a bad end,” said Mistress Hatch, “there were spots on his
back when he was born, and his mother cut his finger nails
before he was a month old.” “There was a looking-glass
broke at our house the week before,” said Mistress Tuck.
“I had a curious itching in my left eye,” said Mistress Tapley,
“and our Dorothy dropped three drops of blood from her
nose.” “There was a great noise of drums and rattling of
arms in the air, just before the Spanish War broke out,” said
old Mr. Ravel. “The Saco River run blood when the last

War begun,” said Capt. Hoag; “I was down in the Province
and saw it.” “He beat his head all to smash with a froe,”
said one boy. “No, it was with an axe,” said another; “Biah
Tapley told Aurelius Orff, and Aurelius told Myra Dunlap,
and Myra told me.” “They are the most dangerous wretches
that ever walked God's earth,” said Mr. Cutts. Coming to the
porch of the Jail house, Margaret took the baggage into her
own hands, dismissed her guard, who ran back to their sports,
and sought of Mr. Shooks admission to Chilion's cell. The
reply of that gentleman was brief and explicit. “Troop!
gump,” said he, “don't hang sogering about here, you sauce-box.
Havn't you smelt enough of these premises? It will be
your turn to be hung next. Pack and be off.” She turned
from the door. A hundred people stood before her, they
closed about her, she encountered the gaze of a hundred pairs
of eyes, dark and frowning; Mr. Shooks, by the application
of his hand to her shoulder helped her from the steps to the
ground, where she seemed almost to lose the power of motion.
“What do you ax for that are beast?” enquired one. “That's
Chil's fiddle she's got there in that bag,” said Zenas Joy.
“That'll help pay for what the dum Injins owe daddy,” said
Seth Penrose. “Come, you may as well give it up.”

“You shan't touch it,” outspoke Judah Weeks. “I'll stand
here, and if anybody wants to put his tricks on her, he'll have
to play rough and tumble with me a while first. She an't to
blame for what her brother did.” While he was speaking,
Sibyl Radney elbowed herself into the midst, and seizing the
bundle under one arm, and Margaret under the other, bore
her off through the crowd who retreated before her. Sundry
boys still saw fit to follow; who again closed about Sibyl when
she stopped with her load. “There is Deacon Ramsdill,”
shouted one. “We'll have some fun out of him if we can't
out of the Injin,” cried another.

“Well, my lads,” said the Deacon, limping in among them
with his insenescible smile, “what have we here? You must
truss up a cow's tail if you don't want to be switched when
you are milking; if there is any mischief here we must attend
to it. Come, Molly, you must go with me. Out of the way
boys, a cat may look upon a king; I guess you will let a
squirrel look at you.—There, Molly,” continued the Deacon,
leading her across the Green into the East Street, “we have
got through the worst of it, and we praise a bridge that carries
us safe, even if it is a poor one.”

“I thank you, Sir, I thank you,” said Margaret; “but, oh,
let me be, let me die, let the boys kill me.”

“Dogs that bark arter a wagon,” replied the Deacon,
“keep out of the way of the whip; I guess the boys wouldn't
hurt you much. The people are a good deal up, and when
the grain is weedy we must reap high, we must do the best
we can. I have seen Judge Morgridge, and he thinks you
will be safest at my house; Squire Beach says he can't employ
you, and I think you had better go home with me. The
Judge says his Susan wants to see you, and it wouldn't be
best for you to go to his house now, because he is Judge.
Freelove will be glad to see you. When you was at our house
before, you was gone so much you didn't hardly give her a
taste.”

“There is nothing left to me,” said Margaret; “I am blank
despair.”

“The finer the curd the better the cheese,” replied the
Deacon. “They are cutting you up considerable smart, but
it may be as well in the end. What you are going through is
nothing to what I saw down to Arcady, when we went to
bring off the French under Col. Winslow. We dragged them
out of their houses, tore children from their mothers, wives
from their husbands, and piled them helter-skelter in the
boats. Then we set fire to everything that would kindle,
burnt up houses, barns, crops, Meeting-houses. They stuck
to their old homes like good fellows. One boy we saw running
off with his old mother on his back into the woods, and
we had to bring him down with a bullet before he would
stop. We took off nigh eighteen thousand of them. When
we weighed anchor, their homes were in ashes, their woods
all a fire, and the black smoke hung over the whole so
funeral-like—they set up such a dismal yell as if the whole
airth was going to a butchery—yours an't a feather to it,
Molly.”

“How could you do such things!” exclaimed Margaret.

“Oh, they was Papists and French, it was political, I believe,
I don't know much about it. Here is our house, and
the fifty acres of land I got for that job. It has lain powerful
hard on my conscience, I have struggled agin it—I don't
know as I should ever have got the better of it, if the Lord
hadn't a come and forgiven me. Freelove, I have found the
gal. She will pine away like a sick sheep if we don't nuss
and cosset her up a little.”

The Deacon's, to which Margaret was not altogether a
stranger, was a small, one-story, brown house, having a garden
on one side, a grass lot on the other, and a corn-field in the

rear. Over the front door trailed a large luxuriant woodbine,
now dyed by the frosts into a dark claret. What with the grant
of land, a small pension continued until the Revolution, the
Deacon, maugre his lameness, had secured a comfortable
livelihood for himself and wife, which was the extent of his
family. The usual garnish of pewter appeared in one corner
of the room into which Margaret was led, in the other stood a
circular snap-table, between the two hung a black-framed
looking glass supported on brass knobs blazoned with miniature
portraits, underneath the glass was a japaned comb-case,
and a cushion bristling with pins and needles, on one wall
ticked a clock without a case, its weights dangling to the floor;
against the opposite wall was a turn-up bed, over the fire-place
were pipes suspended by their throats and iron candle-sticks
hanging by their ears; there was a settle in the room,
an oval-back arm chair which the Deacon occupied, while his
wife, in mob-cap and iron-rimmed bridge spectacles, sat knitting
in a low flag-bottomed chair by the chimney corner, and
Margaret had her place assigned opposite in a large stuffed
easy chair. For dinner Mistress Ramsdill prepared tea for
Margaret, which she poured from a small, bluish, gold-flowered,
swan-shaped china pot into cups of similar character,
and the Deacon roasted her some apples with his own hands,
and both insisted upon her eating something, to which she
seemed in no way inclined.

“Why do you treat me so much more kindly than other
people?” said Margaret, when she resumed her seat in the
easy chair.

“I don't know,” replied the Deacon, “except it's nater.
By the grace of God, I yielded to nater. I fought agin it till
I was past forty; when what Christ says in what they call his
Sarmon on the Mount, and a Colt brought me to. I will tell
you about the Colt. Mr. Stillwater, at the Crown and Bowl,
had one, and he wouldn't budge an inch; and they banged
him, and barnacled him, and starved him, and the more they
did, the more he wouldn't stir, only bob, and fling, and snort.
He was an ear-brisk and high-necked critter, out of Old
Delancy. It kinder seemed to me that something could be
done, and they let me take the Colt; I kept him here in the
mow-lot, made considerable of him, groomed him, stroked
him, and at last I got him so he would round and caracol, and
follow me like a spoon-fed lamb; he was as handy as the
Judge's bayard; just like your squirrel there, he is docile as a
kitten. I had this nater when I was arter the Hurons under

General Webb, and it shook my fire-lock so when I was
pulling the trigger upon a sleeping red-skin, I let him go.
And when we were in the ships coming away from Arcady, it
made me give up my bed to a sick French gal, about as old
as you, Molly, and nigh as well favored; yes, it made me take
her up in my arms, rough, soldier-like as I was, and lay her
down in my hammock, and she thanked me so with her eyes;
she couldn't speak English—”

“What became of her?”

“She had a lover, I believe, in the other vessel, and when
we got to the Bay, it wasn't political to have them put in one
place, he was sent away, and they put her in a Poor-house,
where she fell off in a decline. One of them old French
Priests that I helped tear away from the blazing altar of his
church, used to come round hereabouts peddling wooden
spoons, and I declare, it made the tears come in these eyes to
see him, and nater got the upper hands, so I gave him lodgings
once a whole month. I fought agin nater, I tell you, and a
tough spell I had of it. I read in the Good Book what
Christ said about the Blessed Ones, and it wan't me, and
Freelove said it wan't her. It went through us like a
bagonet. I was struck under conviction here alone one night,
when our little Jessie lay in the crib there by the fire. I
looked into her sweet white face as she was asleep, and knew
Christ would have blessed her, and that she belonged to the
kingdom, and it all came over me how I had slided off from
what I was when I was a boy, that I had been abusing nater
all my life. When Freelove come in I told her, and she said
she felt just so too. I tried to pray, but nater stood right up
before me, and prayed louder than I did, and I couldn't be
heard. The arrows of the Almighty stuck fast in me. We
lay one night on the floor, fighting, sweating, groaning. We
were not quite ready to give in. We tried to brace up on the
notions and politicals, but nater kept knocking them down.
Then the Colt came, then I saw it in Old Brindle, our cow,
then I saw it in the sheep, then I remembered the French Gal
and the Indian; and at last we give in, and it was all as plain
as a pipestem. When I went out in the morning, I saw it in the
hens and chickens, the calves, the bees, in the rocks, and in
all Creation. There is nater in everybody only if it was not
for their notions and politicals. The Papists, the Negroes and
the Indians have it. Like father like child,—I believe we all
have the same nater. I have heard Freelove's grandfather
tell—his father told him, he was cousin of Captain Church,

and sarved in the expedition— how when they went out arter
the Pequods, and had killed the men, and burned the women
and boys and gals in their wigwams, they found one woman
had covered her baby with the mats and skins, and then
spread herself over to keep off the blazing barks and boughs;
and when they raked open the brands there was the roasted
body of the woman, and under her the little innocent all
alive, and it stretched up its baby hands—but the soldiers
clubbed their firelocks—”

“Oh! these are dreadful stories, I cannot bear them now.”

“There is nater agin, Freelove, just as we always told one
another. What is bred in the bone will never be out of the
flesh; it is only kicking agin the pricks, wrastle with it as
hard as you will.”

“I can never think of myself again,” said Margaret; “but
my poor brother and Mr. Smith's family—”

“I stuttered up to No. 4 yesterday arter the funeral, but
they are so grown over with rum there, you can hardly tell
what is nater, and what is not. I read out of the Bible to
Mr. Smith's folk, and tried to pray with them, but they
couldn't bear it. That agin is part rum and part nater. You
know, Freelove, how we felt when our Jessie died, we didn't
want to see any one; all their words couldn't put life into her
cold dead body. I should have gone up to see you at the
Pond, but I can't get round as I used to before I was hamstrung
on the Plains of Abr'am, under General Wolfe. It's dreadful
business, this killing people, it's agin nater; I followed it up
a purpose, and have killed a good many in my day. Christ
have marcy on me! If I had my desarts I should have been
hung long ago. Rum too is dreadful business, Molly; and I
guess it had a good deal to do with that matter up to your
house.”

The Deacon was a great talker, and in modern parlance
might have proved a bore, if his wife had not jogged him, and
said, “the gal had not had any sleep for three nights, and she
guessed she had better try and see if she couldn't get some.”
The bed was lowered, and Margaret laid upon it, where she
was quiet if she did not sleep most of the afternoon. In the
evening, Susan Morgridge came to see her. Susan's manner
was calm, but her heart was warm and her sentiments generous.
She told Margaret that nothing had been heard from
Mr. Evelyn since his departure for Europe, and that Isabel
Weeks was still at the Hospital slowly recovering from a long
fever which had succeeded the Small-pox. But the absorbing

topic was Chilion and the death of young Smith. Susan told
Margaret there were some who would do all that could be
done in the case, but that her father apprehended her brother
could not be saved from the extremest penalty of the law.
Margaret replied that the whole affair was to her own mind
enveloped in mystery, that Chilion would reveal nothing to
her, and that she had hardly equanimity enough to give the
subject any cool reflection. Finally, for this seemed to be a
part of her errand, Miss Morgridge proposed that Margaret
should see Esq. Bowker, who she said was a valued friend of
hers, and that he would be happy to do her any service in his
power in the approaching crisis; and that gratuitously.

The moment the nine o'clock bell dropped its last note,
Deacon Ramsdill spread open a large book on his lap, put
glasses on his nose, while his wife deliberately pulled off her
glasses, drew out her needle from the sheath and laid her
knitting carefully aside. “I have got the Bible here,” said
the Deacon, “and we want to pray—that is, if you can stand
it. When you was here in the Summer, you staid out so
much we couldn't bring it about. I saw you once laughing at
what was in the Book, and I took it away, because I knew
you wasn't prepared for it, and hadn't got hold of the right
end. Freelove and I have talked this matter over; and we
know how it is with you; we know how you feel about these
things up to the Pond. A hen frightened from her nest it is
hard to get back, and you was handled pretty roughly down
here to Meeting once. We musn't give a babe strong meat,
the Book says, and nater says so too; and folks that tend
babies musn't have pins about them. Then agin you can't
wean babies in a day; it takes some time to get them from
milk to meat. Praying, arter all, isn't a hard thing; its
nater. I used to pray when I was a boy, but I left it off in
the Wars, and didn't begin it agin till nater got the upper
hands once more. I have seen the Indians pray up among the
Hurons, and they couldn't say a word of our language. It is
speaking out what is inside here, it is sort o' feeling up. It
comes easier as you go along, just as it is with the cows, the
more they are milked the more they give. I hope, Molly, you
won't feel bad about it. It is time to reap when the grain
becomes shrunk and yellow, and I think you look nigh in the
same case; and it seems time to pray.”

“I shall not feel bad,” replied Margaret; “you are so good
to me, and I love Christ now, and should be glad to hear anything
he says.”

The Deacon proceeded to read from the Gospels, then with
his wife knelt in prayer. Margaret also by some sympathetic
or other impulse also kneeled down, and for the first time in
her life united in a prayer to the Supreme Being; and we cannot
doubt the effect was salutary on her feelings. She slept
that night in the other front room, where was the spare-bed,
with red and blue chintz curtains over square testers, and a
floor neatly bespread with rag-mats. The next morning she
expressed great anxiety about her brother, said she wished
either to see him, or have his violin conveyed to him.

“Things are a good deal stived up,” answered the Deacon.
“People's minds are sour, and I don't know, Molly, what we
can do. It's nater you see, one doesn't like to have a son killed.
Then the politicals are all out of kelter, one doesn't
hardly know his own mind, and all are afraid of what's going
to be done. I suppose they won't allow you to go into the
Jail, they think you and your brother would brew mischief together,
and perhaps he would break out. The building is old
and slimsy, you know. I am going to the Barber's to be dressed,
and I will take the fiddle along with me, and see what can
be done. But don't you stir out of the house, I don't know
what might happen. It is no use reasoning with the people,
any more than with a horse that is running away.”

The Deacon took the instrument under his surcoat, and went
to the Barber's, where the bi-weekly operation of shaving and
powdering was performed. When he was alone with Tony,
he propounded the wish of Margaret; to which the negro replied
that he would do what he could. The same evening,
Tony, with his own and the instrument of Chilion, presented
himself to Mr. Shooks. “You know,” said he, “that at the
last Ball, I couldn't play because my strings were broke, and
the Indian is the very best man this side of York to fix them.
And then this gentleman is learning a new jig, and he wants
the Indian to try it with him.”

“You can't go in,” said Mr. Shooks. “We have got the
rascal chained, and mean to keep him down. And there is no
trusting any body now-a-days. Who knows but all the vagabonds
in the country will rise, and have the government into
their hands the next thing we see?”

“If Mister Shooks would permit this gentleman to bestow
so much honor on him as to go into the Prison, and take the
Indian's fiddle, he would shave Mr. Shooks and powder him
with the most patent new violet, crape and roll Miss Runy in

the most fashionable etiquette, and give her an Anodyne Necklace,
all for nothing, all for the honor of the thing.”

“You may go in once,” replied Mr. Shooks, “but don't
come again, and Tony,” whispered the vigilant warden, “see if
you can't find out if the villain means to break Jail. I would
not lose having him hung for a thousand pounds.”

Tony being admitted, remained a short time with Chilion,
left the violin, and was summoned away.

The next day Esquire Bowker called on Margaret, informed
her of the usages of Courts, and while he tendered his services
on behalf of her brother as Counsellor, he urged the necessity
of a more complete acquaintance with the case than he then possessed;
but Margaret replied that on all points she was as ignorant
as himself. That night, impatient of a profitless delay,
anxious to approach nearer her brother, at a late hour when
the streets were vacant of people, having asked the Deacon's
consent, she sallied out, and crossed the Green to the Jail. Presently
she heard the familiar voice of Chilion's music, proceeding
from a low and remote corner of the building. Climbing
a fence, and reaching a spot as near the cell of her brother as
the defences of the place would permit, she again listened;
then in the intervals she made sounds which she thought might
be heard by her brother; but no token was returned; only
she continued to hear low, sad, anguished notes that pierced
her heart with the most lively distress. Dick, it appeared, had
again followed her; perhaps in the midst of strangers he could
abide her absence with less composure than ever; and soon
she had him in her arms. He too heard the sound from the
prison, the familiar tones of his Master; it required little urging
on the part of Margaret to send him clambering over the
palisade—up the decaying logs of which the building was
framed he must have gone, and into the cell of Chilion; for
soon Margaret heard a changed note, one of recognition and
gladness; and soon also the creature came leaping back on to
her shoulder. Glad would she have been to leave him with her
brother, but it would be unsafe for him to be found there;
glad was she thus to communicate with him at all. A new
thought struck her; she hastened back to the Deacon's, and on
a slip of paper wrote to her brother, then returned to the Jail,
and fastening her billet to the body of Dick, renewed her
former experiment with success; she also sent in a pencil and
paper for her brother. The next night pursuing this device,
she had the satisfaction not only to transmit something to her
brother, but also to receive a word from him. This novel species

of Independent Mail she employed the few nights that remained
before the trial. On one point she could draw nothing
from Chilion, that of his relation to the murder. She kept
within doors most of the day, and only ventured abroad under
cover of midnight; she saw little or nothing of her own family;
and heard nothing of Rose and Nimrod.

The day of the dreaded trial came at last. A true bill had
been found against Chilion, and he stood arraigned on the charge
of murder. Margaret heard the Court-bell ring, and her own
heart vibrated with a more painful emphasis. Leaving her at
the Deacon's, we will go up to the Court-house; the tribunal
was organized with Judge Morgridge at the head of the bench.
Chilion was brought in, his face, never boasting great color or
breadth, still paler and thinner from his confinement, and darkly
shaded by a full head of long black hair. The right of challenge
he showed no inclination to employ, and the empanneling
of the jury proceeded without delay.

To the Indictment, charging, that “not having the fear of
God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation
of the Devil, feloniously, wilfully and of his malice
aforethought, he did assault, strike and stab Solomon Smith,
thereby inflicting a mortal wound,” etc., the prisoner arose and
pleaded Not Guilty; then sat down and threw his head forward
on the front of the Box; a position from which neither the attentions
of his Counsel nor any interest of the trial could arouse
him. The building was thronged with curious and anxious
spectators from Livingston and the towns about. The examination
of the witnesses went on. The substance of the testimony
was similar to that given before the Justice. It bore increasing
proofs of a general belief in the guilt of the prisoner;
first impressions had been corrected by subsequent reflection,
doubts moulded into conviction, and whatever was obscure
rendered distinct and intelligible. Sibyl Radney was the only
one whose evidence tended to exonerate Chilion. Indeed Esq.
Bowker and Deacon Ramsdill, during the week, went to the
Pond, and with Sibyl examined the scene of the fatal event.
But those little circumstances on which the guilt or innocence
of the prisoner seemed to depend, Sibyl herself had partly destroyed
in her haste to restore order in the house; the pumpkins
had been cast out of doors and consumed by the hogs, the
broken crockery was removed, and there remained nothing but
the boards of the table, the milking-stool and the file. Nor
was there much left to Esq. Bowker, but to employ his labor
and skill, his arts and cunning, if such he had, in the invidious

cross-examination. In addition to causes operating in the immediate
circle of the prisoner, the newspapers of the country
came in filled with details of a “Shocking and Brutal Murder
in Livingston,” and in one instance, it was pertinenly
hinted that “the present afforded another opportunity for the
exercise of Executive Clemency.” Obviously there was a
clear conviction of the guilt of the prisoner in the public mind,
and the testimony before the Court went far towards establishing
the soundness of that feeling. Night closed the scenes and
nearly finished the results of the trial. After dark, Margaret,
whose sensations during the day can as well be imagined as
described, sought a breathing place in the open air; she went
into the street, she turned her steps towards the Green; but
the shadows of men moving quickly to and fro, the echo of excited
voices drove her back. As she retreated, she was stopped
by the sound of her own name; Pluck called after her,
evidently moved by other than his ordinary stimulus. “It is
all over with Chilion,” said he, “unless we can get the Judge
to do something; he can set the Jury right in his charge, or
do something; you must go right up and see him.”

Margaret, by a cross-path, sped her way to the Judge's; she
met Susan at the door, to whom she stated her errand. Susan
sought her father in the library. “No,” replied the Judge,
“let me not see the girl. There are points in the case I do
not understand, but the evidence against the prisoner is over-whelming.”
“Oh, father,” replied Susan, “what if she were
me, or her brother our Arthur!” “Speak not, my child, our
duties are imperious, our private feelings are borne away by a
higher subserviency. The public mind is much excited, God
knows where it will end, or how many shall be its victims.”
“But, if my dear dead mother were her mother, or if you were
his father!” “Go away, my child, let me be alone, let the
girl not come near me, let me not hear her voice, let not her
agony reach me, leave me to compose myself for the awful task
before me. Go out, go out, my child.”

Stung by this repulse, terrified at the prospect before her,
Margaret passed a sleepless night, and before day-break she
left the house, and directed her course towards Sibyl Radney's.
She had not gone far when she met many people hastening
down to the closing scenes of the trial. This diverted her into
the woods, and so delayed her that when she reached Sibyl's
they were gone from there, excepting Bull, who ran fondly
towards her, and was caressed with tears. With the dog, she
went down to the Widow Wright's, whose house was likwise

vacated; and she continued on the Via Salutaris to her own
home. Here were only silence and desolation; one of her birds
she found frozen to death on the door-stone. Restless, anxious,
she returned towards the Village by the Via Dolorosa. She
hung on the skirts of the Green with an indeterminate feeling of
curiosity and awe; seating herself on a rock in the Pasture, a
chilling desperation of heart seized her, and with an agitating
sense of the extinguishment of hope her eye became riveted
on the Court-house. Presently she saw persons running towards
that building, which was now an object of public as well
as individual interest. She knew the hour of final decision
had arrived. With a rapid step she descended the West Street,
turned the corner of the Crown and Bowl, and soon became
involved in a crowd of people who were urging their way into
the Court-room. “The Judge is pulling on the Black Cap,”
was the cry reported from within. “Tight squeezing,” said
one, “and your brother will soon be thankful for as much room
to breathe in as this I guess.” “Won't you let me pass?” said
Margaret. “We can't get in ourselves,” was the reply. “The
Injin's dog has bit me, I'm killed, I'm murdered,” was an alarm
raised in the rear. “Drub him, knock him in the head,” was
the response; and while the stress relaxed by numbers breaking
away in pursuit of the dog, who had followed his Mistress,
Margaret pressed herself into the porch; wimble-like, she
pierced the stacks of men and women that filled the hall.
“What, are you here, Margery!” exclaimed Judah Weeks,
with an undertone of surprise. “Do help me if you can,”
was the reply. She sprang upon the back of the prisoner's
Box, seized with her hand the balustrade, and resting her feet
on the casement, was supported in her position by Judah, who
folded himself about her. Her bonnet was torn off, her dress
and hair disordered, her face and eye burned with a preternatural
fire. This movement, done in less time than it can be
told, had not the effect to divert the dense and packed assem-blage,
who were bending forward, form, eye and ear, to catch
the words of the sentence, then dropping from the lips of the
Judge. Her brother who was standing directly before her,
with his head bent down, remained unmoved by what transpired
behind him. The Judge himself seemed the first to be disturbed
by this vision of affection, anguish and despair that
arose like a suddenly evoked Spirit before his eye. He halted,
he trembled, he proceeded with a stammering voice — “you
have violated the laws of the land, you have broken the commands
of the Most High God; you have assailed the person
and taken the life of a fellow being. With malice aforethought,
and wicked passions rife in your breast—” “No! No!” out-shrieked
Margaret. “He never intended to kill him, he never
did a wicked thing, he was always good to us, my dear brother.”—She
leaned forwards, grasped her brother's head and
turned his face up to full view.—“Look at him, there is no
malice in him; his eye is gentle as a lamb's; speak, Chilion,
and let them hear your voice, how sweet it is.—Stop! Judge
Morgridge, stop!”—“Order in Court!” cried the Sheriff.
“Down with that girl!” “It's nater, it's sheer nater; just so
when I was down to Arcady,” exclaimed Deacon Ramsdill,
leaping from his seat with a burst of feeling that carried away
all sense of propriety. The Judge faltered; there was confusion
among the people; but the jam was so great it was impossible
for any one to stir, and those in the vicinity of Margaret
who attempted to put into effect the commands of the
Sheriff were resisted by the stubborn, and almost reckless
firmness of Judah. But Margaret throwing herself forward
with her arms about the neck of her brother, became still.
The popular feeling, only for a moment arrested, again flowed
towards the Judge, who, in the midst of a silence, stark and
deep as the grave, went on to finish his address, and pronounce
the final doom of the prisoner. He came to the closing words—
“be carried to the place of execution, and there be hung by
the neck till you are dead, dead,” when with a sudden convulsive
shriek, Margaret raised herself aloft, extended her arms,
and with a startling intonation cried out, “Oh God, if there
be a God! Jesus Christ! Mother sanctissima! am I on
Earth or in Hell! My poor, murdered brother! Fades the
cloud-girt, star-flowering Universe to my eye! I hear the
screaming of Hope, in wild merganser flight to the regions of
endless cold! Love, on Bacchantal drum, beats the march of
the Ages down to eternal perdition! Alecto, Tisiphone,
Furies! Judges bear your flaming Torches; the Beautiful
One brandishes an axe; Serpents hiss on the Green Cross-Tree;
the Banners of Redemption float over the woe-resounding,
smoke-engulphed realms of Tartarus!—” she relapsed
into incoherent ravings, and fell back in the arms of Judah,
who bore her senseless body out through the gaping and awestricken
crowd.

9. CHAPTER IX.
MARGARET AND CHILION.

Margaret was carried to Deacon Ramsdill's, where she was
bled, and after lingering for three or four days in comparative
exhaustion, she recovered so far as to be able to go abroad.
There was no precedent that forbade a man, under sentence
of death, the sight of his friends, and, what she had so much
at heart, she at length attained, permission to visit her brother.
In the Jail-house, her dress and person were strictly searched
by Miss Arunah Shooks, maiden daughter of the Jailer, who
stripped her of every article by which it was supposed the
death or escape of the prisoner could be compassed She
found her brother hand-cuffed, and locked to the floor by a
chain about his ankles; a precaution some might think unnecessarily
rigid, but one to which her own conduct had contributed;
since a scrap of paper had been discovered on
Chilion, and Mr. Shooks suspecting something out of the way,
suggested the matter to the Sheriff, General Kingsland of
Dunwich, who ordered the additional confinement of the
wrists. The cell was small, dark, cold and infested with many
descriptions of noisomeness. Her brother rose as she entered,
she heard the clanking of chains; she stood for a moment
like one stupified, then rushed forward, and wrapped herself
about him. They sat down together upon the edge of the bed.
“My brother! O my brother! poor Chilion!” and other similar
out-bursts of a deep sisterly affection were all she could
utter. She had many tears to shed, and many sighs to dispose
of, before she could speak with connection or composure.

“It is all over with me,” said Chilion at length.

“I know it, I know it,” said she.

“I knew it must come to this,” said he. “I have been
making up my mind to the worst. If I could only put my arms
around you, Margaret, I would ask no more.”

“Dear, dear Chilion! lean against me. I can hold you.”

“When you was little I carried you in my arms, and how I
have loved to lead you through the woods! If it were not for
you, Margaret, I should not care so much to die. Let me feel
your face.”

“Tony gave me some Nuremburg salve to rub on your sores;
but they took it away because they thought it was poison.
Would that it were, and that you could kill yourself at once.
Your foot is dreadfully swollen.”

“That is the foot I lamed when I was in the woods after
you, Margery; I suffered more that night, when I thought you
was dead, than I have here in the Jail.”

“Poor, dear Chilion; I will sit on the floor and hold your
feet. The chain has worn through your stocking. Let me
put my hand under.”

“That feels easier—but don't you sit there, my pains will
soon be ended. If you smooth my hair a little I should be
glad; I have not been able to lift my hand to my head these
four days, and it is all touzled.”

“You look deadly pale,—or is it the light of the room? and
you have lost almost all of your flesh.”

“I have not been able to stir about any, I used to walk the
length of my chain, till it hurt me so much.”

“I will hold up the chain and see if you cannot walk a
little.”

“No, no, Margery, I am content to sit here by the side of
you. It is but a little while we have together, and I feel as if
I had many things to say to you.”

“To say to me, my dear brother! How little we have
spoken to one another. Why do you tremble so?”

“O Margaret, Margaret! I have loved you, so loved you as
no words can tell. All my heart has been bound up in you;
and all that I care for now is, that I must die and leave
you.”

“Speak, Chilion, tell me all you feel; you have always been
so silent.”

“I know I have, but only because I could not talk, or did
not know what to say. And since I have been in prison things
have labored in my mind, and I have been afraid I should die
without seeing you. When I have been silent I have thought
about you the most, and loved you the most. When you came
a little baby, I loved you; I used to feed you, play with you,
sleep with you; I rocked you to sleep on my shoulder, I loved
your sweet baby breath; I set you on the grass and watched
you while I spooled on the door-stone for Ma; I took you out
in my boat on the Pond, and got Bull for you to play with.
When you grew older I led you into the woods, I made you a
canoe and taught you how to paddle it; I made a sled for you
to coast with in the winter, I let you run about in the summer.

You loved to do these things, and I knew it would make you
strong, healthy and bold. I grew proud of you, you had better
parts than I; and when the Master used to come to our house,
he took a good deal of notice of you, and when he brought
you books, he said you learned so well, better than a great
many did. I told you the names of the birds and the flowers,
and songs of the birds. As you grew up, I followed you in my
mind, and with my eye every day, every hour.”

“Why have you not told me this before, Chilion? I always
knew you loved me, but you never expressed your feelings to
me.”

“It was never my nature to talk much; I did not seem to
have the use of words as others did; and I never knew what
to say. Perhaps I took a kind of pride in seeing you go on;
you went farther than I did, you had more thoughts than I;
that I knew when I heard you talk with the Master, and I was
willing to be silent. You seemed to have a mysterious soul,
anagogical, the Master calls it, and all I could do was to
play to you. I played myself, my feelings, my thoughts to
you.”

“So you did, Chilion, and I knew you felt a good deal.”

“Almost my only comfort in this world has been you and
my fiddle. Our family were once in better circumstances, we
have not always lived at the Pond; but that was before you
were born. Pa did something wrong and lost his ear, and he
never has been himself since. We have followed drinking,
and that has ruined us. Ma has lost her courage, Pa doesn't
care what he does, and Hash is not what he was when he was
a boy.—And we were all in drink that dreadful night.”

“Can you not now, Chilion, tell me something about what
happened then?”

“Solomon behaved bad to you?”

“He only asked me to kiss him.”

“Was that all?”

“He said if I wouldn't he would turn us out of house and
home; but I knew he was drunk, and did not mind him.”

“Did he do nothing more? Rose said his manner was insulting.”

“Perhaps it was; but you know I tasted some, and it went
into my head so, I hardly knew what was done. But do tell
me if you did murder him?”

“If I tell you all I know, will you sacredly promise never to
speak of it till after I am dead.”

“I will promise anything; but your manner frightens me.
What is coming?”

“Rose, Margery, you know, loves you as much as I do.
She is happy only with you; and she feels for you as for her
own sister. That night she told me what Solomon was doing,
and she was very much excited about it. We had both taken
too much, and hardly knew on which end we stood. I was at
work on my violin with a file, and she told me if I did not
throw it she would—”

“Then you did not do it, you will not be hung!”

“Hear me, Margaret, I had murder in my heart, I should
have been glad at the moment to have seen Solomon shot dead.
I know it was a wrong feeling, but I had it. I have not had
right feelings towards him for some time. Rose told me how
he followed you—”

“I was never afraid of him; if he was drunk I knew I could
get out of his way, and if he was sober he would not dare to
touch me.”

“That may be, but Rose is very sensitive about what might
happen, she seems to look upon most men as a kind of devils.”

“Poor Rose—yes.”

“I knew Solomon had a spite against you, because he could
not find the gold; and Rose told me of his saying you should
marry him, or he would turn us out of doors. He has been
rough with me, he cut down some nice ash-trees he knew I
had marked for basket-stuff, and once when I was shut up a
long while he bored a hole in my boat and let her fill with
water. Rose kept urging me, and saying if I didn't do something
she would. I took aim towards him with my file, I
thought I would see how near I could come to him and not hit,
as the Indians do; then I thought I would strike his arm.
The pile of pumpkins you know was very high, and he was
right under them; I saw one jutting out from the rest, Pa was
shaking the table, I thought they would all soon fall, then I
remember thinking I would knock the loose one on to Solomon's
head. Rose shook my shoulder, I threw the file, and I
know no more about it.”

“Then you did not intend to kill him?”

“The law holds people answerable when they are sober for
what they do when they are intoxicated. Besides, the Judge
laid down that if death followed an act done with intention to
injure, it was murder, as much as if there was an intention to
kill. That is all I know about it, and we have no help but to
wait for what is before us.”

“There was so much noise and hurly-burly in the room, I
saw nothing till I heard him scream out and the tables fall.
Pa leaped up and down, and began to fling the chairs about.
I took him by the arm and led him out doors to the Cistern.
When I came back, they had carried Solomon away, and most
of them were gone. What did Rose do?”

“They cried out that I had done it. One and another said
they could swear they saw me do it. I seemed to come to my
senses; I saw how it was. I might have tried to get away,
but I was lame and could not run; if I took Nimrod's horse
I knew I should soon be caught. Besides I knew somebody
must suffer. Rose said it was her act, and she would abide
the consequences; and told me to go. When I refused, she
said she would stay with me. We told her that it was of no
use, that one of us must abide the result; and if she stayed
they might take us both. She fell on her knees and pleaded
to stay, said she did not wish to live, and that perhaps my life
would be saved. I could not listen to her, I told her I wanted
she should be a comfort to you, Margaret, if I should be taken
away. She flatly refused to go. At last, Nimrod got his
horse, and as he sat in the saddle, Sibyl dragged Rose out of
the house, and lifted her up into his arms, and they rode
off.”

“Poor Rose!”

“She grew very dear to me, Margaret; I could almost say,
if it were possible for me to say such a thing, I loved her.
One day she told me something of what she had been through.
She loved to hear me play, and I knew the music made her
happier and better. I would die a hundred deaths, before a
hair of her head should come to harm. I have now told you
all, Margaret, I could say nothing before. Esq. Bowker questioned
me a good deal, but I was afraid I should injure Rose,
and I held my peace.”

“Have I not loved you, Chilion? Have I not been kind to
you? Yet not so much as I ought to have been. I remember
once you asked me to dig you some worms, and I went off
into the woods, and did not do it. Can you forgive me for
that? And now you are going to die, it seems as if I had
not been half so good to Pa and Ma, and Hash and Bull, as I
ought to have been. I thank you for telling me about that;
do, Chilion, tell me some more about yourself.”

“What I think more of than anything is you, my dear
sister. I seem to have had strange hopes about you. I remembered
the dreams you had when you was a girl, you have

seemed to me sometimes destined to good things. There is
something about you I could tell, but if you live, you will
know all, and if you do not,—well, let it go. I have brought
you up to Music, Margaret, I have taught you the notes, and
as much of the Art as I know. The Master always insisted
you should have books, though I did not care much about
them. There is a great deal in Music. I have played myself
to you when I could not speak it.”

“Alas! And where shall I hear any more Music, or
another Chilion!”

“Let that go now.—Those who can be reached by nothing
else are reached by Music; at the Balls and dances, I have
seen this.”

“I thought things went strange sometimes, and I could not
account for it.”

“I could raise a storm, and then still it. It was given me
to perceive this power when I was quite a boy. You remember
the brawl at No. 4, one Thanksgiving, we cured by a
song. I cannot explain it, I only saw it was done.”

“It must be what Deacon Ramsdill calls `nater.”'

“There is nature in it. I have seen the Old Indian stop
against our door a long time when I have been playing.”

“Rose was completely subdued, and at times wholly transformed
by your Music.”

“Yes, and how we could manage Dick; and when they
brought you up out of the woods, I had them all a dancing,
even what the Master calls the saints danced, and the Ministers
looked on and smiled.”

“Is not Music what the Deacon calls praying? He says it
is `feeling up.”'

“Yes, it is that. I have done all my praying with my
fiddle. I had a tune almost ready for the Lord's Prayer, which
I was taught a good many years ago. When you talk with
people their prejudices close their ears against you; when you
play it seems to open their hearts at once. Music goes where
words cannot. And Music makes people so happy, and when
they are happy, they love one another. Music takes away the
bad passions, and people are not envious or quarrelsome while
you play. All this I have seen, and it would always be so, if
it were not for the drinking. If I could have got ready and
played, as I was going to do, I think Solomon would not have
been rude to you, as you say somebody tamed wild beasts and
savages by Music—”

“Orpheus, you mean, who subdued Pluto and rescued
Eurydice with his lyre?”

“Yes, Orpheus. But I threw an iron instead of a musical
point, and here I am! There is something else, it has seemed
to me that Music might be a good thing for the world. I
have sometimes thought if I were not lame, and we were not
so poor, I would travel off and make Music. You, too, Margaret,
can play, you can sing songs, your voice and ear are
most excellent. You know how we are at home, you know
what people think of us; it has seemed to me that we might
make our way up among folks by Music. I have had many,
many thoughts about you and Music, and the world, more
than I can speak of. You yourself have a certain unknown
connection with Music, which I cannot tell. Then I do not
mean mere fiddle-strings, because when you told me about
your Dream of Jesus, he seemed to me like a Harp, it had
the same effect on me that Music does; then in one of your
Dreams you said you heard invisible Music. It is not all in
catgut and rosin. There has been a certain Something in
my mind, which I have not words to explain. It has been
coming upon me for several years. I think it is one thing
that has closed my mouth so. My heart and thought have
gone out to it very often. And now I am cut off in the midst
of my hopes—”

“O sad condition! O most inexplicable existence! I am
sunk lower than our bottomless Pond in doubt and fear. I
can now feel as Rose does what a dreadful thing our life is.
The Fates have left us the solitary comfort of a tear!”

“Let us, my dear sister, bear up under it as well as we
can. You will live if I do not; Apollo's Lyre, as you call it,
I bequeath to you.”

“Pitiful Fiddle! Here it lies broken-hearted like its
Master. When I heard you playing the other night, it
sounded to me for all the world, as if Rose's heart had been
set in musical motion like a wind-harp. It will never, never
play another tune.”

“I hear the bolts opening, they are coming for you. Parson
Welles and Deacon Hadlock were here yesterday, but I could
not say much to them. I wish you would ask Deacon Ramsdill
to come, and the Camp-preacher. He prayed so for you,
when you was lost in the woods, I can never forget him. I
want also to have Dick stay with me, if they will let him. If
you see Ma, I wish you would ask her to bring me a clean
linen shirt, and my best clothes, those I wore to Balls, I had
rather be hung in them.”

“Oh, Chilion! Oh, my brother!”

“Be quiet, Margaret, as you can: Let us hope if our sins
are forgiven we shall meet in a better world.”

Margaret was obliged to leave her brother. She represented
his wishes to Deacon Ramsdill. “The Parson and
Brother Hadlock tell a hard story of Chilion, I know,” replied
that gentleman. “But we should not judge too hash. Down
to Arcady they said the French were savages, that their
crosses bewitched the people; but they were a dreadful harmless
set of folk. And we must take care too, Molly, what we
think. The Parson has a good deal of nater in him, only it
is all grown over with notions and politicals. You give your
cows tarnips and you taste it in the milk; now he has been
feeding on tarnips all his days, and I count your brother don't
like the smack of him. Besides, Chil is what we were saying
the other day, a baby in these matters, and he ought to have
the very sweetest and best of milk, and if you put in a little
molasses it wouldn't hurt him. Brother Hadlock has nater too,
nobody in the world would sooner do you a kindness. But he
runs of an idee that things are about done for, that there is no
use trying any more. But, if we would fetch the butter we
must keep the dasher a going; if you stop, you know it all
runs back. Yellow-bugs have been the pest of our gardens
for two or three year; now I have noticed that in new-burnt
ground they don't appear at all. If we should get burnt over
a little, perhaps we could raise better squashes and cucumbers
than we do now. The Preacher is more nateral, but he
is as wild as a calf dropped in the woods. When you wind a
ball of yarn you make little holes with your thumb and finger,
and as you wind along you cover them up, and when you are
done, the ball has a great many of these holes. So folk get
all wound up with their notions and politicals and harem-scarems,
but they are still chock full of these little holes of
nater. Speaking of holes, I have seen mice make their nests
in rocks, and then the bees came and used these nests for
hives, so that arter all, we got nice honey out of hard rocks
and mischievous mice. I will try to get the squirrel to your
brother. Down to Arcady, the little gals cried as if their
hearts would break because we wouldn't let them bring away
their moppets and baby-houses; I can't forget that.”

During the interval between the Trial and the Execution, a
period of ten days, Margaret was allowed to visit her brother
two or three times. Soon as possible after the sentence, under
the auspices of Deacon Ramsdill, a petition was got up, and
privately circulated, for the pardon of the prisoner; it was

sent to the Governor with about half a dozen signatures, at
the head of which stood the name of Judge Morgridge. This
movement was unknown to Margaret, and on the whole without
consequence, since the answer was in the negative. The
day preceding the Execution she went to have her final interview
with him. The sheriff having taken up his quarters at
the Jail-house, and a guard being kept about the premises at
night, it was deemed safe to knock the chains from the
prisoner, and allow him a more commodious and better-lighted
apartment. He had on the dress he ordered, a pearl-colored
coat, buff-swansdown vest, white worsted breeches and stockings,
all somewhat worn and faded. Margaret brought a new
linen stock the Widow Luce made for him. Tony the Barber
came in to perform his last office on the condemned.

“Don't know but I cut you,” said the negro. “I am getting
old, and my hand is unsteady.”

“You stand a chance to wash off the blood,” replied
Chilion.

“Cold, gusty day,” said Tony, “can't keep the water out
of these eyes. Never shaved a man going to be hung the
next day, since the War, and them was wicked Tories.
Neck as fair as Mistress Margery's. Sheriff Kingsland wanted
to get this gentleman to play the drum to-morrow. Can't degrade
the profession so—God bless Chilion, good bye, my
brother—Forgot my rose-powder—There—threw the towel
out of the window for the soap-paper. I am growing old and
forgetful.”

Margaret and Chilion were left to themselves.

“Let me kiss your neck,” said she. “I would put my
hands about it, an amulet to keep off the ugly rope. Hold
your face to mine, let me feel it, and keep the feeling as long
as I live; look into my eyes that I may have your eyes also.
I want some of your hair too. How shall I get it unless I bite
it off. I had a pair of scizzors in my pocket, but they were
taken from me.”

“There, Tony has forgot his razor too. He laid it on the
bed. You can use that.”

“What a tempting edge!” said Margaret.

“Don't hold it up to me so,” replied Chilion, “I shall be
tempted by it.”

“I had a thousand times rather you should take your own
life than be hung by the Sheriff to-morrow. How easy for
you just to slit a vein. I would catch the blood with my own
lips, you should expire in my arms. See your stocking is

bloody now, where the chains were. If Rose was here she
would call this wicked business, and put a stop to it very
shortly.”

“It is considered wrong to kill one's self,” replied Chilion.
“They hold it right to kill me because I killed another.”

“Right and wrong! right and wrong! I am all confusion,
Chilion. There is no truth or nature in anything. I am
losing all clearness, all sense of consistency.”

“God have mercy on you, Margaret, and on me too.
Throw the razor out of the window. Let us not keep it, or
talk about that.”

“I will, Chilion. I would not trouble you. A brief hour
alone remains to us. Our wretchedness and our communion
shall be alike undisturbed.”

“I wish for your sake, my dear sister, I could live longer.
You are all I care for. You have made our home happy.
But I do not know as I would stay in this town. I would go
elsewhere, and perhaps you will find some to love you. I
should like to go up and see the Pond once before I die.”

“Can I leave it, Chilion, its water, its woods, my little
canoe, our house, my flowers, the dear Gods, Mons Christi,
that we had given to the Beautiful One? Whither in this
wide wicked world shall I go? If I were going to be hung
with you I should be glad. Mr. Evelyn is gone, Isabel is
sick, and perhaps she too will die, the Master is sick, and
Rose—she, after all, is worse off than I. Why do I complain.
And Damaris Smith I know loved her brother, and he too is
dead!”

“Be composed, Margaret. There are things not quite so
bad in my case as in some others. Dr. Spoor says he will not
take my body for dissection, and Deacon Ramsdill says he will
have me buried in the grave-yard. Don't cry, Margaret, don't
cry, if you do I shall cry, and here is little Dick looking up into
your face as if he meant to cry too. I want you to go to Mr.
Smith's and ask their forgiveness for me, and the little willow-basket
I made to hold your sewing work, I want you to give to
Damaris. My boat I want you to sell to pay Deacon Penrose
for some screws and a chisel; and some red-lead I got to
paint your canoe with, and some silk Ma had to mend this
waistcoat. I have eight or ten baskets ready made which he
will take. My Fiddle I wanted you to have, but I think you
had better sell it to pay some of Pa's debts; Tony I guess
will give six or seven dollars for it. You will find, Margaret,
in the bottom of my chest, up garret, five dollars and a

quarter; it is what I got several years ago, for some wolf
skins; I have been saving it to buy you a Guitar; but you
must take it to help pay for my coffin; and I want you to go
up to the Ledge to Mr. Palmer's, and get a plain slab of marble
to put on my grave. He has always remembered you
kindly, and I think he will let you have it for a low price. Mr.
Gisborne was in yesterday to take my measure for the coffin;
he said if he could not get his pay any other way, his wife
would be glad to have you do some weaving for her. This is
a good deal to ask of you, Margaret, but when I am dead and
gone, I don't want people to lay up little things against me.—
Speak, Margaret, don't you feel so bad. Get up from the floor.
I can't raise you, but I can hold you in my arms. There, there,
Margaret.”

“I will do anything, all you wish; but when it is ended, I
only ask to be laid under the same sod with you.”

“You may live for good. God only knows. You may see
Mr. Evelyn again; if you do I want you to give him a lock of
my hair, and tell him as my dying words, that I truly forgave all
men, and wished to be forgiven of all. The lady's slipper that
I made a box for, I want you to give to Susan Morgridge, for
Esq. Bowker's sake; he is going to marry her, and this is all
I can do for his kindness to me. On the slab I want Mr.
Palmer to mark `Chilion,' simply. I should like to have it
said, `Here lies one who tried to love his fellow men'—but
that cannot be.—I hear Pa a-hemming. Let us try and be as
still as we can.”

There entered the cell the prisoner's father and mother,
and his brothers, Hash and Nimrod. Margaret receded to
the foot of the bed, where she sat with her face folded in her
hands. The bloated frame of Pluck surged and trembled, on
his bald crimson pate stood large drops of sweat, in most sober
and earnest grief he embraced Chilion; with a quivering lip,
and a faltering accent, he said, “Farewell, my son, farewell
forever;” and turned away and wept like a child. “My
Chilly!” exclaimed the mother, falling upon her son's neck,
“My youngest boy—would God I could die for thee. My
young hands welcomed you in your fair babyhood, now these
old arms send you away to the gallows. You were beautiful
for a mother's eye to look upon. You have been a comfort to
your mother, weak and sinful as she is. I have sometimes
hoped for better days, but all is over now.” She sunk to the
floor and sobbed hysterically. “Good b—b—b” was all Hash
could utter. “I have not always been patient and kind towards

you,” said Chilion; “can you forgive me, my dear
brother?” “Stuff it out, like a red Indian,” said Nimrod.
“The Hell-hacks would crack to see you flinch. Your lips
are white as a fox's—you are sick, Chilion, you can't stand,
let me lay you on the bed—they'll have to hold you up to hang
you, like a stuck sheep. If you should die betwixt this and
to-morrow, twelve o'clock, how many mourners you would get,
more than you have now—I feel as if the rope was round my
throat—hem—I'm choking—Ecod!—I was going to be married
to Rhody next thanksgiving—Chilion will not be there—
I have been wicked—I am going to try to do better.”—Margaret
broke into louder weeping, and the room was pervaded
with an uncontrollable and shattered wail. In the midst of all
appeared Rose, like a pale and sudden Ghost, she ran forward
to Chilion, she clung frantically about his neck; “He shall
not die, I did it, I did it, I will be hung,” she said in a wild
passionate tone. Nimrod was obliged to interfere; she resolutely
persisted; by force he unfastened her grasp, he carried
her struggling in his arms out of the apartment. Deacon
Ramsdill and the Preacher came in; all knelt while the latter,
in heart-felt earnestness and tender solemnity, commended the
soul of the prisoner to God and the forgiveness of his grace.
Smiles and good humor fled the face of the Deacon, whose
deep and variegated furrows were filled with tears. Other
persons entered to say their farewells, Judge Morgridge and
his daughter, Esquires Beach, Bowker and Weeks, the Widow
Luce and her son Job, the Widow Wright and Obed, Mr. and
Mistress Wharfield, Sibyl Radney, and a few who had known
Chilion; when Margaret was again left alone with her brother.
These final moments of the two, so tenderly attached, so mournfully
separated, we will not intrude upon.

10. CHAPTER X.
THE EXECUTION.

The morning of the Execution, like that of the Resurrection,
brought out “both small and great, a multitude which no man
could number.” They came “from the East and the West,

the North and the South.” Highways were glutted with waggons
and horses, by-ways with foot-people. They came from
distances of eight, twenty, and even forty miles. Booths, carts,
wheel-barrows supplied a profusion of eatables and drinkables.
A man with a hand-organ in cap and bells, hawkers of
ballads, a “Lion from Barbary,” Obed peddling his nostrums,
gaming tables, offered attractions to the crowd, and contributed
to the variety of objects with which the Green brimmed and
overflowed. At an early hour Margaret left the Deacon's;
where, whatever might have been her inclinations, she could
hardly have found accommodations, since the house was filled
with people from the fourth up to the fourteenth shade of connection,
including half a score of infants. Taking what on the
whole seemed to be the most feasible route, whereby to escape
the annoyance of the multitude and horrors of the day, she hid
herself in the deep bed and under the decayed foliage of Mill
Brook. Slowly sauntering up the channel of the stream, she
found herself on the open road, and close by the premises of
Anthony Wharfield. Ruth espying her as she was on the point
of fleeing again into the recess of the water-course, crossed the
road, took her by the arm and endeavored to persuade her into
the house. “Am I too late for the hanging?” said a man
stopping to take breath. “I havn't missed of one these thirty
year, and I wouldn't, any more than Sunday.” “Thee had better
go and see,” was the laconic reply. “Aristophanes, my
son! Holdup, knave, you graze the limbs of my dear daughter,”
was the hurried language of Mr. Adolphus Hadlock. “I
have been to cousin Sukeyanna's to bring down the children.
I am fearful we shall not be there in season.—Socrates, your
sister is slipping from the pillion. Triandaphelda Ada, my
daughter, how could you suffer your brother to do so. I would
not have you fail of this opportunity on any account. It has a
most happy effect on the mind of children. Your mother, dear,
is waiting for us; she says seeing a man hanged is the most
interesting sight she ever beheld.”—“I can't endure this,”
said Margaret. “Well, then, come into the house,” said the
woman. “Anthony will succor thee; he is sorely troubled
for thee.”

Leaving Margaret at the Quaker's, let us follow up this current
of general attraction. The bell tolled, and the prisoner,
supported by Sheriff Kingsland, was conducted to the Meeting-house,
under a guard of soldiers. Parson Welles preached a
discourse, a printed copy of which, with its broad black margin,
and vignette representing the gallows, now lies before us. The

following passage occurs, which illustrates the style of the Parson's
ordinary pulpit exercises.

“Let the improvement be lastly to the wretched man who is
now before us. God says, `Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed.' The just laws of Man and the
holy Law of Jehovah call aloud for the destruction of your
mortal life. Alas, miserable youth, you know by sad, by woeful
experience, the living truth of our text, that the wages of Sin
is Death. As we have shown under our third proposition, by
man's disobedience many were made sinners; and under our
fourth, Mankind are already under sentence of condemnation.
But there is a door of hope. As God demanded a perfect
obedience of the first Adam, the second fulfilled it. Jesus
Christ made a Propitiation. He endured on the cross the vengeance
of a broken law, he was punished by an insulted Divinity.
We can do nothing of ourselves. But take the Lord
Jesus by faith; trust to his merits, repent, Oh, repent. Lay
hold of the hope set before you. This is the last day of mercy
to your poor soul. But if you refuse these offers of grace,
your departed soul must take up its lodgings in sorrow, woe
and misery. You must be cast into the Lake that burneth
with fire and brimstone, where deformed Devils dwell, and the
damned ghosts of Adam's race.”

The religious solemnities being concluded, the procession
for the place of execution was formed. The prisoner with the
coffin was placed in a cart, having on either side the Sheriff
and his Deputy; while lines of bayonets bristled before and
behind. A band of music accompanied them, playing Roslin
Castle, the shrill piping of fifes pathetically blending with the
muffled and measured boom of drums—not Tony's, for he
declined serving on the occasion—and that which had been
Chilion's life now became his death-dirge. The multitude of
the people followed, in numbers rated at the time as high as
twenty thousand. The Gallows was erected on a plain in the
North Part of the Town, about three miles from the Green,
whither had already been removed stores of refreshment and
minor objects of interest. The spectators were kept in a ring
by the soldiers, prayer was offered by the Parson, and the prisoner
asked if he had any thing to say. He replied no. He
requested that the cap might not be drawn over his eyes, nor
his hands tied. “You will seize hold of the rope and hinder
the execution,” replied the Sheriff. “No, I will not,” said
Chilion, “I had rather die free.” “We understand it,” answered
the officer; “you are determined not to die.”

The drop fell, on the part of the spectators a gasp, a sudden
blink of the eye, a suffocating sensation in the throat, a sicker
one in the stomach, responded for a moment to the struggles
of the dying man, and, on both sides, all was over. The body
was decently laid in the coffin, and, under the superintendence
of Deacon Ramsdill, borne to its last resting-place, in the
grave-yard. The crowd dispersed to drink, to game, to riot,
to wrestle, to race horses, see the Lion, hear the hand-organ.

Margaret, unable to contain herself in the house, anxious if
possible to find her own family, plunged again into the woods.
She clambered up the rocks and steeps that threw such a
charm over her ride with Mr. Evelyn, in the direction of the
Pond. Night was coming on, she hastened through the Maples.
A light startled her, the fumes of smoke arrested her
senses. She crossed the Mowing towards her old home. In
the West, and over Mons Christi rolled up dark, cold clouds,
but in the North-east, beyond the forest that immediately
skirted the Pond, the heavens were distinctly illuminated. She
saw smoke rising and occasional sprits of flame. While she
was looking, a swarthy giant form stood before her. It was the
Indian and his grand-daughter. He seized her arm, and silently
and unresistingly led her forwards. He took her by an old and
familiar path up the Head. What had been a streak of light
in the horizon, they now beheld a boiling angry river of flame.
The woods on the North of the Village, an extensive range of old
forest, were on fire. The Indian, without speaking, slowly
raised his arm, and pointed steadily at the scene of the conflagration.
Each moment the effect increased, and the fire driven
by a brisk northerly wind seemed to be making rapid progress
towards the Green. Sheets of sluggish smoke were pierced
and dispersed by the nimble yellow flames which leaped to the
tops of the tallest trees, assaulted the clouds, and threw themselves
upon the solid ranks of the forest as in exterminating
battle. Beyond the fire, and up in the extreme heavens, was a
pitchy overshadowing blackness; the faces of the three shone
in a blood-red glare; behind them gathered clouds and darkness;
below, the water, the house, the Mowing, the road, were
immersed in impenetrable shade. Margaret gazed with a
mixed expression of anguish, surprise and uncertainty. The
Indian stood majestically erect, with one arm folding his mantle,
his countenance glowing with other than the fire of the
woods, his pursed and wrinkled features dilating and filling
with some great internal emotion. The girl looked quietly
and smilingly on. The wind shook the tall white feather in

the old man's head, threw Margaret's bonnet back from her
face, and quivered in the long black locks of the girl.

“Daughter!” said the Indian to Margaret, almost the first
words she ever heard him utter, as the flames seized and
crunched the gnarled top of an old dead tree, “Behold Pakanawket,
grandson of Pometacom, great-grandson of Massassoit,
the last of the Wampanoags! Ninety winters have passed over
him, he has stood the thunder-gust and the storm-shock—see,
the fires consume him!

Daughter, hear! The great Pometacom, called in your
tongue King Philip, who rose to be the liberator of his country,
was hacked in pieces by your people, his head exposed
twenty summers in one of your towns to insults of men, and
the laughter of women. His wife, Wootonekanuske, and his
son, my father, were sold for slaves. My grandmother pounded
corn for the whites, she bore on her breast the brand of her
master: but she whispered into Pakanawket's ear, the purpose
of his grandsire, she charmed him with the spell of the Great
Spirit. My father, escaping from slavery, and my mother,
perished with the Neridgewoks. Swift as a deer, still as the
flight of an owl, I have gone from the Kennebec to the Mississippi;
I have visited our people on the Great Lakes; I have
fought against French, English and Americans. Pakanawket
gave a belt to no tribes of the whites, he sat at no council-fire
but those of his own countrymen. His wife was murdered by
the French, his children scalped by the English. His old arm
grew weak, the strength of his people had perished. The Snowheron
came and built his lonely nest in the green Cedars of
Umkiddin; there he has dwelt with the little Wootonekanuske,
in your tongue Dove's Eye. I have put my ear to the ground,
I hear the tramping of horses and the noise of battle; he whose
eye never sleeps is on the trail of the red-man; Wyandot,
Seneca, Delaware, Shawanese, all have fallen. The white man
throws his arm about the Great Lakes, he gathers into his
bosom the Father of Waters. The red man drags his canoe
across the graves of his Fathers; the feet of his children are
sore with travelling in the long wilderness.

Daughter, listen! I saw your song-brother struggling in
death; pleasant has been his viol to me, pleasant the sound of
his voice. My heart wept for him, memories gushed forth.
Where are the brothers, fathers, sons, friends of Pakanawket?
Massassoit, the generous, the noble, died as the caged Eagle
dies. Jyanough, the fair and gentle, wasted in swamps where
your violence had driven him. Miantunnimoh was cast as a

bear to appease the wolf you had enraged. Mononotto, Nanunteenoo,
Annawon, Tispaquin, Paugus, Pumah, Chocorua, Logan,
Hendrick, Pontiac, Thayendanaga, Sagoyewatha, where
are they? Burnt, beheaded, hung, tortured, enslaved, exiled!

Daughter, listen! I was taught to read by a French Panisee;
I have read your books, I know what you say. The Bashaba
that lived in the East, that great Pirate of the seas, gave away
to his men our country. He made grants of our land and our
waters, our meadows and our fisheries, our woods and our
plains, our fowls and our beasts, our gardens and our houses,
our towns and our villages, our precious stones and our minerals.
You have called us savages, dogs, heathens, devils, monsters;
we welcomed the strange men to our shores; cold and
hungry, we nourished them in our houses. When their children
were lost in the woods we found them, when their poor
people wanted corn we gave it them. They stole our young
men away and sold them for slaves in unknown lands. They
built forts upon our grounds, they offered bounties for our
scalps. When our children were burning, they gave thanks-giving
to their God. They slept in our wigwams and defiled
our maidens. They asked us to their Council Fires, they
blinded us with rum. When we resisted, they declared war
upon us. There is no brother among the Indians, they have
turned our hearts against each other. When we were weak,
they subdued us.

Daughter, look! The fire goes on, the flames are consuming
their Church. The Spirit of Wrath scowls above their village.
I saw your elder brother asleep in the woods, his pipe had
kindled the leaves; these hands heaped together the faggots,
this mouth blew up the flames. Ha! Manitou fights with
Jehovah, Areouski strikes down their Holy Ghost! See, the
steeple burns. Men shall mourn to-night, children shall be
houseless. But where are the Pequods, the Narragansetts, the
Nipmucks, the Massachusetts? Prate they of Quaboag,
Pekomtuck, Cherry Valley and Wyoming? Where are Pakonoket,
Mystic, Mettapoiset, Monaheganic, Wessagusgus,
Knawaholee, Kanadaseega, Kendaia, Kaniandaque, Genessee?
Between sea and sea there is not a field, a hill, or a brook, we
can call our own. Pakanawket utters his voice, no Indian
answers. He looks over the homes of his fathers, he sees only
the faces of his enemies. The leaves have fallen from the
trees, his strength and hope have fallen too. Wootonekanuske
has no brother, no friend, no country, no people, no home.
The eyes of a Dove are red with weeping, she looks towards

the stars. Manitou calls, we go to the Spirit-land. In my
belt is a weight of gold, the bribe that sought for Arnolds
among the Indians. Let it do what it was designed for, finish
the Last of his race. In yonder woods Pometacom had sometime
his home, on these waters he sailed with his little son. I
have come hither to die. Daughter of the Beautiful, take this
Heron's Wreath, wear it for Wootonekanuske's sake; she
never forgets a kindness. Take this land, this hill, these
woods, these waters, they are yours. Sometimes in your love,
your happiness, your power, remember the poor Indian!”

The Chief, taking his grand-daughter in his arms, deliberately
advanced to the edge of the rock, balanced himself over
the abyss, leaped off into the dark waters, and borne down by
the weight of his girdle sank beyond recovery. We are told
of one, who, being broken on a wheel, after the first blow,
laughed in the face of the executioner, his nervous sensibility
becoming so far extinguished that subsequent inflictions created
no suffering. Our moral nature has its analogies in the physical;
and Margaret, already stricken by the events of the day,
heard the fearful resolution of the Indian, and witnessed his
appalling act without discomposure; she looked coolly for a
moment at the fire, she saw the tall spire of the Church totter
and fall, she folded carefully in her hand the feathered ornament
the Indian gave her, and descended the hill. Entering
the Via Salutaris, she was accosted by the voice of Sibyl
Radney, coming on horseback from the opposite direction.
“Is that you, Molly?” said Sibyl. “What in creation are
you about? We have hunted every where for you. Your
folks are up to our house; Rose is there too. Rufus Palmer
has come down, and you are all going to the Ledge. Rufus
and I rode down to the Green after you, we went to Deacon
Ramsdill's, but couldn't find you. Then I went up to the
Quaker's, somebody said they saw you going that way, Ruth
said you came off this way. Get up, we must hurry on.
There is a stump, now spring. Rufus staid helping Tony get
the things out of his shop. The fire took in Judge Morgridge's
woods down back of our house; it went through Aunt Dolphy's
piece, and so down to the Horse Sheds; then the Meeting
House caught, and the brands blew from that to the Crown
and Bowl—the Lord knows where it will stop. They are all
drunk as beasts, and wild as bedlamites, down there.” They
traversed the semi-luminous shadows of the wood, till they
came to the junction of the Via Salutaris with the West road
from the Village. Here Sibyl halted her horse; at this point

the scene of the devastation was frightfully distinct. The fire
was still at its work; before them was a long line of blazing,
crackling forest; down the road, beyond Mr. Adolphus Hadlock's,
the stream of brightness and ruin extended more than
a mile. They beheld the old Church, its huge oaken timbers
resisting to the last extremity, yet presenting a Laocoon-like
spectacle of serpent-flames coiled about it and stinging it to
death. The Tavern was fast sinking beneath the devouring
element, and the roofs of the buildings beyond were shooting
out flames. Multitudes of human forms, in dim red coloring,
they saw on the Green, some violently gesticulating, some
leaping wildly into the air, some running to and fro, some
standing in evident stock-still amazement. Whatever might
be the interest of the scene, it did not detain them long, and
they made the best of their way to the house of Sibyl. Here
Margaret found all her family, her mother the image of frozen
despair, Pluck trying to laugh, Nimrod trying to whistle, Hash
stupidly intoxicated; she and Rose buried themselves in each
other's embrace. Presently Rufus Palmer came up from the
Village. “There were a thousand people there, I should
think,” said he; “but three-quarters were drunk, and the rest
were so scared they didn't know what they were about. The
prisoners in the Jail yelled like Devils in burning hell. The
Jail-house was on fire, and we could not get in that way, and
we stove in the fence, ripped out the bars, and let the poor
dogs out through the windows. We saved Tony by the skin
of his teeth; the flakes lit on his shop, but we made out to
smother them. As I came along a drunken crew got hold of
the Stocks and threw them into the fire, then they tore up the
Whipping-post, pulled down the Pillory, and they followed, and
I left them blazing away among the Jail timbers. It hasn't
rained for six weeks, and the buildings were dry as tinder, and
burnt like a heap of shavings. The Court House and Tavern
were down, and the frame of the Meeting House fell just as I
got up the hill. Heaven save me from such another sight!
Rose ran away from our house yesterday. Father sent me
down, and said I must bring her back, and mother sent word
for Margaret and Nimrod to come right up there.”

“It is beginning to rain,” said Sibyl, “and you can't go
to-night.”

The storm, which had been threatening through the day and
evening, broke at last, it rained violently, and if it interrupted
the plans of this party, it also served to check the farther progress
of the fire. Regarding the origin of the last, it appeared

as the Indian intimated, that Hash, in the course of the afternoon,
saturated with liquor, went with his pipe into the woods.
Relapsing into stupor, his pipe fell from his mouth, and the
fire was set. The Indian, crossing the forest from the scene
of execution, supplied materials for its continuance and spread.
A long Autumnal drought, a blasted vegetation, a thick coat
of new fallen leaves, heaps of dry brush, a strong breeze, bore
forward the result to the final catastrophe. However the
action either of the Indian or of Hash shall be estimated, the
former was beyond the reach of inquisition; and the latter,
Sibyl had the strength to rescue from personal danger, and the
tact to preserve from detection by consigning the secret of the
affair to her own breast, and that of those whom she deemed
trustworthy to receive it.

They fared the night at Sibyl's as they best could, and the
next day Rufus and Rose, Nimrod and Margaret, rode to the
Ledge, a distance, as we have had occasion to observe, of six or
seven miles. At Mr. Palmer's Margaret with her friends was
received with a liberal hospitality and unaffected good will.
The family remembered the service she had done for them in
former years, and Mistress Palmer made a deliberate work of
endeavoring to divert her mind by sitting down, with her box
of snuff open in her left hand, and explaining with her right,
how they had been able to bring the water directly into the
house, and that Mr. Palmer had made a new marble sink, and
Rufus had carved a marble stem, with a sheep's head, from
the mouth of which a living stream perpetually flowed.
Roderick, her oldest son, had married Bethia Weeks, joined
the “Dunwich Genessee Company,” and gone to the West,
where also Alexander was about to follow Rufus, his mother
declared, was a good boy, and said she believed he had great
parts; in proof of which assertion as well as for the entertainment
of Margaret, he was ordered to show the toys he had
made, consisting of sundry vases, images, imitations of flowers
and trees, done in marble. At the same time Margaret could
not avoid associating and contrasting that first prosperous adventure
of her childhood with her present mournful condition.
In addition to any claims on their kindness which the family
of Mr. Palmer might have felt disposed to reimburse, there
existed other grounds for the friendliness of the parties.
Nimrod and Rhody, between whom an attachment and quasitroth-plight
had for a long time subsisted, were expecting to
marry; indeed, their nuptials were assigned to the present
season. In the absence of his other sons, Mr. Palmer proposed

to Nimrod, that if he would forswear his errant habits, and set
himself to steady labor, he should have a share in his farm,
and a home in his house. He himself was a good deal occupied
at the quarry, and Rufus, he said, was always dropping
the plough, and running after the mallet. But in the recent
calamity which had befallen his family, Nimrod said he had
given up all thoughts of marriage for the present, and avowed
a determination to wait at least until Spring; in addition, for
reasons which did not transpire, he declared that it had become
unexpectedly necessary for him to go to the Bay, before that
event, and take Margaret with him.

When Rose had Margaret alone, she recited her history
from the night of the Husking Bee. She said she and Nimrod
wandered in the woods one or two days, that they at last went
to Mr. Palmer's, where she was taken sick, and recovered on
the eve of Chilion's execution, and that only so far as enabled
her to adopt some desperate resolution for his delivery; that
she stole away from the house and made all haste to town,
Borne out from the prison by Nimrod, she was carried to
Sibyl's, where they kept her until the crisis was over.

Margaret divulged Chilion's last wishes, and was solicitous
for their accomplishment. In the prosecution of this object,
events fell out in a manner that she could not have anticipated.
Rufus volunteered to furnish the grave-stone; Mr. Palmer said
he would become surety to Mr. Smith for the liabilities of
Pluck, until Nimrod returned from his jaunt, so that the family
might again be gathered in their home. Nimrod was despatched
on the other errands. The lady's slipper he carried to Miss
Morgridge; Chilion's boat was bought by Sibyl Radney, who
seemed desirous to have it preserved for the use of the family.
What with the baskets and the money in the chest, all debts
were paid without disposing of the violin, which was retained
as a keep-sake. The duty at Mr. Smith's, Margaret found it
more difficult to perform; and what they told her of the state
of that family at length decided her to postpone her task, until
time should have moderated their grief, or give her sufficient
strength of spirit to encounter it.

Preparations for their intended journey were now all that
remained to be done, and these the advancing season, not less
than certain concealed motives of Nimrod, admonished them
to accelerate. Rose could not be detached from Margaret,
and she too must go, at whatever rate. But for this also a
means was provided, the nature of which we will disclose.
The Widow Wright, as perhaps is well known, had long

cherished extensive expectations of her son Obed, and not less
of her business, and, we might reasonably add, of Margaret.
Whether she aspired to riches or fame, let those answer who
can best judge; but of this we are certain, that she desired to
experiment with her commodities in a larger theatre than
Livingston and its neighborhood afforded; and when she
learned the plans of Margaret and the wishes of Rose, she
eagerly sought the privilege of joining with them Obed and
his horse Tim—an arrangement that could not but prove satisfactory
on all sides, since it provided a method of conveyance
for Rose without additional cost. Whether any other design
crept into the lady's mind than to make Obed acquainted with
the world, and the world acquainted with her art, one would
not hesitate to guess, when it is related that she gave her son
explicit and repeated instructions to watch with all diligence
and scrupulousness the movements of Margaret.

To the new object Margaret and Rose addressed themselves
with diligence, and we may imagine without reluctance.
They had no wish to remain on the hands of the Palmers,
however generous or well-affectioned might be the disposition
of that family. They were glad to escape the deep, and as it
would seem ineffaceable gloom that now not only shrouded the
Pond, but penetrated the whole town. In a fresh atmosphere
they could find a breathing place for their stifled hearts, and
among novel scenes they might be diverted from those associations
that were sapping the foundations of existence itself.

11. CHAPTER XI.
MARGARET GOES TO THE BAY.

When all things were ready, one cool but pleasant morning
in the early part of November, they took their final start from
the Widow Wright's, — Obed and Rose on Tim, a thick-set
animal of small stature, who in addition to his load bore a pair
of large panniers, stocked with the Leech's simples and compounds;
Nimrod with Margaret, on a horse of his own, and
one, in the estimation of his master who piqued himself with
being a good judge in such things, of admirable proportions
and other desirable qualities. Margaret passed her old home,

now deserted and dead, with some sensation. She descended
the Delectable Way and the Brandon road with quite a complexity
of emotions, and came to the Burial Ground, where
they all stopped their horses, went and shed a silent tear on
Chilion's grave, and proceeded on their way. Halting, without
dismounting, at the Widow Small's, to inquire after the
Master, that gentleman himself appeared at the door in a loose
gown, with a cap on his head, and wearing a look of evident
sickness and debility. He seemed quite overcome at seeing
Margaret. “Vale, vale, eternumque vale, O mihi me discipula
carior!” was all he could say, and covering his eyes
with his red bandanna handkerchief, withdrew. As they rode
up the street, Job Luce came out to shake hands with them,
and Mistress Weeks with several of her children, who said
Isabel was getting better. Tony also had his adieus to make,
and certain commissions for Nimrod to execute. Most of the
people they met looked sorrowful and anxious. The Green
presented a melancholy aspect, the entire West side was in
ruins; the church lay smouldering in its own ashes; what
had been a beautiful grove, sweeping down the acclivities on
the North, was now a waste, as if a black winter had overtaken
it, half-devoured trees, charred stumps, roots unearthed, lean
and hollow, a soil of sackcloth grey. Some little children
came scudding and shouting across the Green to speak with
Margaret. They entered the East Street, and made their last
call at Deacon Ramsdill's. The old man gave Margaret a
letter, superscribed “Mrs. Pamela Wiswall.” “It's for sister
Pamela,” said he; “I thought it might do you some good.
She is a good-hearted critter as ever lived, if she is my sister.
I don't know where she is now, I havn't been to the Bay
since the War, and things have altered some since then I suppose.
She used to keep lodgings next door to Deacon Smiley's
Auction Room, a little over against the Three Doves. There
are people enough there that know her, — ask for the Widow
Wizzle, and anybody will tell you where she lives. I can't
blame you for wanting to get away. When our Jessie died,
we thought we should have to pull up stakes. Freelove
couldn't bear to make the bed up where she died, and I had
to do it. I guess she didn't go into the room full a month.
I had to put off Jessie's sheep; she had a cosset that used to
follow her. Freelove couldn't bear the sight of it. We are
all down, on the Green. People don't know what to do. But
old sward wants turning under once in a while, and if land
lies fallow a year or so, it don't hurt. The Lord knows what
is best for us. We had preaching in the Town Hall last Lord's
Day, and I guess there wasn't a dry eye there. Good bye,
Molly, God bless you all.”

They continued on the East Street, crossed the River, and
entered the region beyond. The sun which has shone upon
all ages and countries alike, and dispensed its ministrations
of life, hope, and joy to every suffering heart equally on this
many-peopled globe, shone brightly upon them; the atmosphere
was clear, fresh and invigorating; the scream of the
red-hammer, the brown herbage, the denuded forest, harmonized
with their feelings. Margaret had never been beyond
the River before. Looking back she beheld what had formerly
been esteemed a beautiful prospect, the village, its environs,
the rising grounds beyond, and, crowning all, the Indian's
Head; but it suggested at the present moment any other feelings
than those of gratification and delight, and she was not
sorry to find herself rapidly receding from Livingston. Touching
the objects of this sudden excursion Margaret and Rose
were alike ignorant and indifferent; and they went on only
anxious to be a-going. Margaret had been able to procure
suitable clothing; she wore a black beaver hat, and a dress of
cambleteen. In her hair was fastened the Indian's gift, an
aigrette of white heron's feathers. Rose had on her blue silk
bonnet, and a queens-stuff habit of the same color. In Nimrod
appeared the transition from the old style to the new. He
wore a round-rimmed hat, straightbodied coat with large pewter
buttons, and a pair of overalls buttoning from the hip to the
ankle. He was more dressed than usual, and the caparison of
his horse corresponded with the elegance of that animal; circumstances
denoting rather the weakness of Nimrod, than
any pecuniary ability. Obed bore up the olden time, and
showed his respect for the memory of his father and the purse
of his mother, in his tattered cocked-hat, broad-flapped drab
coat, leather breeches and silver buckles. His red hair was
powdered and queued, and on his nose were his brass-bowed
bridge spectacles. The habits of Tim, who resented all approach
of strangers, might have interrupted the sociability of
the company, or even proved hazardous to life or limb, unless
Nimrod had suggested to Obed a method of prevention, which
the latter executed by cutting squares from the sides of his
hat, which he fastened as blinders to the head-stall; a step
Obed had been slow to undertake save that his mother promised
him a new hat on conditions of fidelity and success in
this expedition. This movement served another effect, which

Nimrod probably had not overlooked; this, to wit, of animating
the gloom of Margaret and Rose, whose smiles, having long
been worried by the contrast of the parties, their horses and
accoutrements, were now provoked into open laughter, in
which neither the finesse of Nimrod, nor the habitual dignity
of Obed, allowed those gentlemen to join. Margaret had
sometime in course of her life said she could manage Tim as
well as his master. To put this point to test, and make an
exhibit of his own dexterity, when they stopped to breathe
the horses Nimrod proposed that Margaret should touch the
animal. She called his name familiarly, as she must have
often done before, and he suffered her to lay hands upon him
and stroke him, with the docility of a cat. But whenever
Nimrod approached, the ears of Tim were seen to fall, his
heels rose, and Nimrod retreated. Sometimes the girls walked
long distances. Again Nimrod, who knew the whole region
as well as his own mother's kitchen, led them about by-paths
that afforded the best views of the country and the towns. So
in various ways, with a generous if not the most discreet
attention, he contrived to relieve the monotony of the ride,
and move their spirits, which he said were binding, and the
renovation of which he declared was one purpose of the
journey. It was not difficult to observe that in all this Nimrod
consulted what was due to his own state of mind also, and
the girls were sometimes obliged to recall him from reveries
into which the scenes of the last month might have plunged
one even more light-minded than himself. As regards the
region they traversed, in some of its aspects, if any one is
curious to compare former times with the present, he might
be guided in his inquiries by a passage from the letters of Wilson,
the Ornithologist, who was over the same ground a short
time afterwards. “Every where,” says he, “I found school-houses
ruinous and deserted; the taverns dirty, and filled with
loungers brawling about politics and lawsuits; the people idle
and lazy.” They arrived at Hartford that evening, where
Nimrod declared he had business of an express nature, and
Obed was desirous of finding a market. They left the next
morning, Obed in fine humor, having been able, by Nimrod's
assistance, to turn some of his goods for a new hat. On the
afternoon of the fourth day, having accomplished a journey
which can now be made in almost as many hours, they arrived
in the suburbs of Boston, at a place then and we believe now
known as Old Cambridge. Here, if they had not intended to
stop, their course must have been arrested by a great swell of
people, who crowded about the tavern, and seemed to check
all progress except in a northerly direction, whither multitudes
were hastening.

“Ho, Nim,” cried a burly fellow from the crowd in a tarpaulin
and blue jacket, who evidently recognized an old
acquaintance. “What are you so loaded for? Break bulk,
box-haul, and make sail in company. We are going to have a
pull-all-together up here.”

“How fares ye, Hart?” said another. “You liked to be
late at the feast. Always expect to see you when anything is
going on. Didn't see you at Plimbury Roads. Turn the
ladies in, warm your nose with Porter's flip-dog, and follow on.
Great stakes. Old Highflyer himself, out of Antelope; grandam,
Earl of Godolphin's Arabian.”

“Well,” said Nimrod, “if you have got anything here
equal to Tartar, out of the Scarboro Colt, nephew to the late
Hyder Ali, and first cousin to Tippoo Saib, I should like to
see him, that's all.”

“My old fellow,” said one addressing Obed, “don't you
wan't to see the fun? Four horses, one greased pole to climb,
two sheared pigs to catch, and a silver punch-bowl the prize.
It will do your old heart good to see it.”

Nimrod, subject to a vacillation of spirit and passion for
novelty, that had both chequered and vitiated his life, might,
without surprise to the girls, have been tempted by the inducements
now spread before him, and gone off with the
crowd, if he had not anticipated anything of the sort, or even
had these very scenes in his eye when he started from home.
However this might be, he kept his own counsels, told the
girls he should soon be back, threw his purse to Margaret, intimating
there were pickpockets among the people, had them
shown to the parlor of the Inn, and rode off. Obed also,
whose ardor was inspired by the prospect of trade, soon followed.

Margaret and Rose, left to themselves, occupied the hour
examining the contents of the room, looking from the windows.
Finally they went into the street, walked through the
College grounds, saw the buildings and the students. The day
was nearly spent, people returned from the races, the tavern
rang with their noise and revels. Nimrod and Obed came
not. They grew alarmed; they overheard reports from the
race, intimations of brawls and constables. Pushing their inquiries,
they learned that two strangers had fallen in a drunken
dispute, done some mischief, and been carried to prison. They

waited awhile, till there could be no doubt the delinquents
were Nimrod and Obed. Ascertaining the direction and distance
of the city, they took their bundles and started forward.
Night was coming on, but of that they were not afraid. They
had a three miles' walk before them, but the habits of Margaret
and spirit of Rose were equal to it. They came to the
bridge. The long tiers of lights stretched across their vision,
like a protecting or an embattled array of stars, according as
their moods should work. The dim outline of the State
House they mistook for a mountain. They came suddenly
upon a fence that arrested their progress. This was the draw-bridge,
which some one in the same predicament with themselves
said would presently be lowered. For this result they
must abide in patience. They passed over; a voice hailed
them, “Toll, Ma'ams, toll.” They avowed their ignorance,
and asked how much it was. “Tuppence, tuppence a head.”
While Rose was satisfying this voice, which like death seizes
upon all, Margaret asked, “Where are we now?” “At
Pest House Pint,” replied the man; not very pleasant intelligence
to our travellers. Some other inquiries were made, and
Margaret asked, “Where does the Widow Wizzle live?” “I
don't know, but you can find out up the way,” rejoined the man.
They pursued their course along Cambridge Street, through
what was little better than a morass, and furnished with an
occasional lamp, that shone like fire-flies in a swamp. “Can
you tell us where the Widow Wizzle lives?” said they, applying
to an old man whom they next encountered. “Go by
Lynde's Paster, down Queen's, turn Marlbro, then follow your
nose till you come to it,” he answered, and disappeared down
a cellar. They might reasonably be expected to be bewildered.
They had anticipated finding the house of the lady in question
without difficulty. It was late, and not many persons abroad,
and these passed them with such speed they found no opportunity
to interpose their inquiries. Their hearts almost sunk.
At last they stopped by a lamp-post, planted themselves against
it, as if to make a regular attack upon the next one that appeared.
Nor did they wait long before a young man came by.
“Can you tell us, Sir, where the Widow Wizzle lives?” said
they, the light dropping full in their faces, and revealing
countenances flushed with earnestness. “I am going partly
in that direction,” replied the man, “and if you will follow
me I think I can set you on the right track.” They went on
with him some distance, by one or two turns, and through two
or three lanes, when, stopping at a dark corner, their guide,
saying that business drew him in another quarter, pointed out
the course they should pursue. They were overtaken by
another man, who, overhearing the point of inquiry, said he
was going by the house and would conduct them directly to
the spot. This one they followed till they were opposite a
large house, retired somewhat from the street, having the entrance
to the yard by an iron gate. “This,” said the man,
“is Mrs. Wiswall's,” and opening the gate to the ladies, departed.
They crossed the deep front yard, mounted a flight
of stone steps, knocked at the door, and were received by an
elderly, kind-looking woman, who put all their troubles at rest
by announcing herself the woman in question. She took
them into a pleasantly lighted parlor, where they found opportunity
to warm themselves by a coal fire. The letter which
Margaret brought was produced. “Yes,” said the lady, “from
my good brother Simeon. When did you leave Livingston?
He says Freelove complains of pain in her back, a trouble
incident to advancing years. Miss Margaret, lost your brother,
I am sorry for you. Miss Rose, hope you are well. Make
yourselves at home while you stay here; and I hope you will
afford us a good long visit. Havn't seen any of Simeon's
folks this great while.”

A cup of tea was soon ready for our travellers, they were in
rooms furnished with some degree of elegance, they found the
lady pleasant and talkative, and in many respects reminding
Margaret of the worthy Deacon. Two young ladies came in,
one of whom their hostess introduced as her daughter Bertha,
and the other, whom she called Avice, she said was a boarder.
They were shown to a pleasant chamber, where they had a
good night's sleep. The next morning, after interesting Mrs.
Wiswall in the fate of Nimrod and Obed, and gaining assurances
that their friends should be looked after, having ruminated
awhile on the succession of events that had fallen so
thickly and portentously upon them, they were at liberty to
observe what was about them. The parlor offered to their
eye an aspect of splendor and elaborate embellishment, as it
might to some of our readers that of antiquity and an obsolete
taste. The wainscotted walls bore the fading vestiges of that
passion for royalty and blood possessed by some of our ancestors,
and the tarnished gilt of the lion's head was in good
keeping with his broken tail. There were fluted pilasters
sustaining, on burnished capitals, a heavy frieze, in which deer
were seen sporting among flowers. The ceiling was divided
by whisks of flowers, with a margin of honey-suckles. From

a rosette in the centre depended an Argand lamp. On either
side of the chimney stood marble columns, once the trunk of
busts, now surmounted by vases of living flowers. Above the
manteltree, was a painting of Dog and Dead Game, which
seemed to occupy a place once devoted to a larger piece.
Faded French curtains festooned the windows. There were
Dutch chairs in the room, with tall backs and black leather
cushions; the lounge where they sat had a covering done in
red and blue tent-stich; there was a dark oval mahogany
table, with raised and chased rim, loaded with books. In a
back parlor, entered by a broad arch, they saw a tesselated
floor, and through the windows appeared an extensive garden,
with rows of shrubbery and flowers, a decaying barn, an old
Turkish Summer-house, vines trained on high walls. In the
front yard were green cedars and firs interspersed with mountain
ashes laden with their familiar red berries. “Where are the
Three Doves?” said Margaret. “That is gone long ago,”
replied Mrs. Wiswall. “New houses occupy its place. Boston
is becoming a great city, nothing old remains long. We
have now more than twenty thousand inhabitants. Bertha,
Avice, show Margaret and Rose your books. They both call
me mother, and you shall too, that is, if you are the good girls
Simeon says you are.” “There are the Adventures of Neoptolemus,
The Fatal Connexion and Lord Ainsworth,” said
Bertha. “You have read The Girl of Spirit?” “No,”
replied Margaret. “The Fair Maid of the Inn?” “No.”
“I think she would like the Marriage of Belfegar,” said
Avice, “and The Curious Impertinent.” “The Loves of
Osmund and Duraxa are perfectly bewitching,” rejoined
Bertha. There were books enough at all events to serve them
either in the way of selection or perusal for a long time.

For several days Mrs. Wiswall said she could gather no
intelligence of their friends, and they resigned themselves as
well as they could to their lot. They spent most of the time
alone together, and in good part in their own chamber, a
pleasant front room, which their hostess kindly provided with
a fire. They read, they talked, they saw much that was new in
the streets. Two or three gentlemen boarding there appeared
at the dinner-table, but they chose their own society before any
they saw about them, and in this preference they suffered no
molestation. From their windows they saw ladies in black
beaver, purple tiffany, pink satin, melon-shaped and cupelo-crowned
hats; short cloaks of all materials and colors, with
hoods squabbing behind, known as cardinals; muffs and tippets

of every species of fur; pink satin, yellow brocade shoes,
supported on clogs and pattens; gentlemen in coats of all
colors, and Suwarrow boots, some in scarlet over-coats; and
altogether Boston seemed to them a gay, happy place.

“You must do something to amuse your sisters,” said Mrs.
Wiswall to her daughters. “Avice, Bertha, you can show
them what there is in the city, the Museum, the Circus, or
something of the kind.”

They were taken to the Museum at the head of the Mall,
near the Alms-house, over a Cabinet-shop, in the centre of
Park Street Church. They saw Young Ladies in Wax, the
Guillotine and Assassination of Marat, alligators, &c., and
were regaled with the Musical Clocks. Their next excursion
was to the Circus in West Boston; the singular docility of
the horses, the extraordinary feats of the men, the grotesque
wit and manners of the clown, afforded them occasion for
wonder and a smile. Margaret wrote to Deacon Ramsdill she
was more happy than she could have foreseen, and applauded
the benevolent conduct of his sister.

“I guess you must take the girls to the Theatre to-night,”
said Mrs. Wiswall. “I don't know of what party you are.
We have a Federal House and an Anti-Federal.” “We are
of no party at all,” said Rose. “It is all one to us.” “It is
just so with me,” said the lady. “How does Brother Simeon
stand now?” “He thinks there is some good on both sides,”
replied Margaret. “He does not approve the excesses of
either.” “That's Sim, all over,” responded Mrs. Wiswall.
“But at the Federal they have—what is it, girls?” “Pizarro,”
replied Bertha. “At the Haymarket they have The Castle of
Almunecar.” “Yes,” added the lady, “the dungeons, and
strange noises and sights.” “I would rather see Pizarro,”
said Margaret. “I prefer the Black Castle,” said Rose.
“That is it,” said Mr. Wiswall. “Both be suited, one go to
one, the other to the other.” “We cannot be separated, Mrs.
Wiswall,” replied Margaret. “I want to go where Rose
does.”

To the Haymarket they went, near the South end of the
Mall, and were shown to a box not very remote from the
stage. The piece that had been the subject of discussion,
sombre in its scenes, terrific in its imagery, the storm at sea,
the wreck, grim towers, dark chambers, apparitions, hollow
voices, Rose declared suited her exactly. “It is myself,” she
said to Margaret. “But I suppose you see a smooth haven,
and the light of true life coming of it all.” “It has all been

in me,” replied Margaret, “only if it is not of me, I shall be
glad.” But surprise combined with other reflections when
they beheld their hostess's daughter, Bertha, moving amid the
fearful scenes of the play. And in the pantomime that composed
the after-piece, they again saw her as Joana and Avice
as Columbine, along with Harlequin and Punch, and they
thought they detected the features of one of the gentlemen
boarders figuring under the cap of Scaramouch. But the
delight mingled with a variety of sensations this piece afforded
Margaret, was such that she forgot everything else while she
saw represented the parts, characters, buffooneries, dresses and
forms, that constituted a lively part of her father's drunken
vagaries, and had disclosed to her eye the origin of a certain
description of allusion and sentiment that predominated in
Master Elliman, and which she never before understood.

They spoke to Mrs. Wiswall of seeing her daughter on the
stage. “I suppose you think it very bad,” she replied. “O
no,” said Rose, “I only wished I was there, that I could have
been in the darkness with her.” “My good brother the
Deacon would probably be opposed to it.” “I never heard
him speak of it,” replied Margaret, “nor did any one ever
say anything to me on the subject.” “Bertha,” continued
the lady, “took a passion for the stage, and I humored her in
it. There is little that she can do, poor child; and she seems
pleased with this. Some of our gentlemen are interested
there, and they help her what they can. Avice plays with
them sometimes.” “How I wish I could join them,” said
Rose. “Should you like to?” asked the lady. “Yes, better
than anything else.” “Bertha, here, Miss Elphiston says she
should like to have a part in your playing. I am sure I would
not oppose the young lady's feelings.” “We want some one
for Lady-in-waiting to Lady Teazle, in the School for Scandal;
it is to be brought on next week;” replied Bertha. “I
don't care what it is,” said Rose; “though I should prefer
the Black Castle.” “That is to be repeated in a fortnight,
and perhaps they will give you a place in it;” rejoined
Bertha.

Sunday came, Margaret and Rose were listening to the
chime of bells, and watching the passers-by. “I am a good
deal troubled with the gout,” said Mrs. Wiswall,” and don't
get out to Meeting very often. The girls were so late at the
rehearsal they are not up yet. I suppose you keep up the
good old way in the country, and are always at Church; and
would miss it if you did not go?”

“I never went to Meeting but once in my life,” said Margaret.

“Indeed!” rejoined the lady. “Can it be possible? Does
Simeon allow of such a thing?”

“I believe he is satisfied it would not do me much good.”

“Yes, I know,” answered Mrs. Wiswall. “It is not all
one could wish. I have no doubt my brother feels the evil as
much as I do. Perhaps Rose would like to go.”

“No,” said Rose, “I have been to Church, and I think for
the last time.”

“Is there not,” asked Margaret, “a Church in the city
called King's Chapel? I think I have heard of it. Mr.
Evelyn, Rose, said something to me about it. That is the
name, I believe. I have been feeling this morning as if I
should like to go there once.”

“One must be a little cautious where one goes to Church,
now-a-days,” said Mrs. Wiswall. “Would not brother Simeon
prefer that you go—say to the Old South?”

“I am persuaded he would wish me to go wherever I desired,”
replied Margaret.

“Yes, indeed,” said the lady. “It is in Tremont Street,
corner of School.”

“If you would be willing to let the servant show me there,
I should like to go,” said Margaret.

“Certainly,” answered Mrs. Wiswall; “anything you wish
while you stay here.”

Margaret was soon ready, and conducted to the Church in
question. She was awed as she entered by what presented
itself to her eye as the magnificence of the place; its massive
columns, its lofty vault, its symbols, its monuments, its silence,
its richness, were so different from anything she had seen;
she seemed to have dropped into one of the palaces of her
dreams. The mysterious peals of the organ united to subdue
her completely. The people were set, when she arrived; she
walked up the centre aisle, an elderly gentleman opened his
pew to her. Hardly was she seated when she knelt instinctively,
and wept profoundly; and not without difficulty was
she able to efface the traces, or prevent the renewal of her
emotion. The prayer excited sentiments she had never before
felt, and raised the decaying energies of her aspirations.
The music tranquilized her like oil, and penetrated her with
a solemn strange transport. The Minister, the Rev. Dr.
Freeman, then in the prime of life, had that day among a
multitude of hearers whom extraneous interests are wont to

distract, or long familiarity harden, one that devoured his
words, and was melted by his address; while with manner
becoming his subject, he discoursed from the words of the
Prophet, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” If he had
known how much good in that single instance he was able to
effect, it might have recompensed him for any amount of
laborious endeavor, and sufficed for successive seasons of
fruitlessness. Margaret lingered on the closing steps of the
service, and by the singularity of her demeanor even drew the
attention of the occupants of the pew. These consisted of
the elderly gentleman, a lady who might be his wife, two
young ladies, and a young gentleman, their daughters and
son. The face of the last recalled to Margaret the street-lamp,
and floated in with her first impressions of relief the
night she entered the city. “You are welcome to a seat with
us,” said the elderly gentleman. “I thank you,” replied
Margaret, and mingled with the retiring congregation. The
afternoon she spent with Rose in their own room.

The next week she aided Rose in the part assigned her for
the stage. During the same time, at an Assembly in Concert
Hall, to which the Theatrical Corps were invited, Margaret
and Rose became parties. Here they found what seemed to
them a brilliant and imposing collection, of lights, hangings,
persons, dresses, figures, music. They declined action, and
were content with the spectacle—ladies sweeping by in silver-gauze
tunics, showily pinked, crape and silk velvet dresses
glittering with gold spangles, depending skirts twinkling and
rattling with silver and gold, short sleeves sporting voluminous
ruffles, waists riding the shoulders; hair frounced and puffed
and garnished with flowers; gentlemen in fancy colored coats,
with powdered hair, white stockings, with long garters streaming
like a ship's pennon, shed a shower of perfume, as they
passed.

On the night of the representation, Margaret was permitted
to accompany Rose behind the boards, where she
helped dress the Lady-in-waiting, and fortified her friend
for the delicate and novel adventure to which she was committed.
The piece was received with applause, and Margaret
and Rose, out of the small part they enacted, contrived
to eke considerable amount of self-gratulation. The
play was repeated, and Rose bore herself so well she had the
promise of being advanced to Maria, which Bertha took, who
was going off in Lady Teazle. The succeeding Sabbath,
Margaret repaired again to King's Chapel, thus exhibiting

the somewhat anomalous sight of a virtual stage-player, and a
devout church-goer; but she was witless of any contradiction.
Admitted to the secrets of the Theatre, as we gather
from her conversations with Rose, her first impressions gradually
dulled. Not to speak of other things, she remarked,
that her ideas became sadly disarranged by observing the superficiality
of that on which so much consequence depended.
Pasteboard, paint, hollowness, heartlessness, she said, were inadequate
for such an effect. “I looked into the pit,” said she,
“there were tears, and smiles, and fervid passion, while here
Avice was fretting because her shoes pinched, Bertha in the
farce was down-sick with a cold, and one gentleman died in
the tragedy, and was brought off drunk. The Theatre seems
to me almost as bad as the Church; it is all Puppetry alike.”

“I know it, Margaret,” replied Rose, “but what shall we
do? I suppose you will call me a Puppet too; if not acting
one's self constitutes a person such, then I am a Puppet. And
that is just what I want, to get away from myself. Yet when
the Black Castle comes on I will show you real acting.”

“Dear Rose, how sorry we are for ourselves, are we not?
But how can I consent to such methods of arousing people's
attention, and moving their affections?”

At whatever judgment she might have been destined to arrive
on these subjects, she was not long in finding new topics
of speculation. Returning that night at a late hour from the
Theatre, with Rose and their company, she stopped a moment
to look at the effect of a bright moon on the high tide waters
that filled the bay west of the Common, a conjunction it had
not fallen to her lot before to witness, and one that insensibly
detained her while the rest were a long distance ahead. “Let
fly your sheets, there! the bite is after you!” was a loud blunt
cry that startled her ears. “What! what!” she exclaimed.
“Run, run,” shouted the voice. She stood under the shadow
of a tree, and before she could collect herself, or comprehend
the cause of this sudden alarm, a hand was upon her; but no
sooner did she feel it, than it left her; and turning she beheld
a man struggling in the grasp of another man. “Climb the
rattlings, mount the horse there,” cried the last man, “while I
make the cull easy, you are in danger, Margaret, that's Obed's
horse, up with you.” She beheld the veritable Tim, standing
close by, she called his name, she sprang upon his back; and
directly after her mounted the man whose voice she had heard.
No sooner were they seated, than the other man rushed forward,
seized the stirrup, the crupper, or whatever he could lay

hands upon; the horse flung out, and galloped away. When
Margaret recovered herself in this sudden flurry, she recognized
in the man with whom she was riding, the sailor who
accosted Nimrod the day they reached Cambridge. He said
his name was Ben Bolter; and in a dialect mongrel and strange,
he gave Margaret to understand, as well as he could, that he
was an old friend of her brother's; that Nimrod and Obed
after a short confinement were released from prison; that
Nimrod having searched the city in vain for her, went back to
Livingston to see Deacon Ramsdill about her; while Obed remained,
both to find his friends, and sell his wares; that he
himself was also on the lookout for her; that enjoying a furlough,
he had engaged the use of Tim, who he declared was
the worst craft he ever sailed in; and finally, being at the Theatre
that night, he thought he discovered her behind the curtains;
and following the matter up, he came upon her just as
one, whom he characterized as an old enemy of his, and whom
Nimrod did not like, seemed to take advantage of her being
alone to do her an injury.

Hastening forward to Mrs. Wiswall's, Margaret found Rose
standing alone at the gate. “How you have frightened me!”
exclaimed the latter, “I thought you were with Bertha. They
were telling me of a new play—I went back after you, you
must have taken another street, I thought you were lost.”

“Have you been anchored here?” said the sailor. “What
place is this?”

“Mrs. Wiswall's,” answered Margaret.

“I guess Nimrod cast the name overboard, before he got
here, or something,” replied the sailor. “But I don't like her
build. What flag does she sail under? What's her crew?”

“Oh, Margaret!” outspoke Rose, “I have suspected something
wrong. I don't like Mrs. Wiswall's face. Some old remembered
villany sleeps in it. She is not the Deacon's sister.”

“It has seemed to me sometimes, as if all was not right,”
said Margaret.

“I wouldn't stay here,” said the sailor.

“What shall we do?” cried Rose; “whither now shall we
flee. I will never step my foot into this house again.”

“I know where a certain family lives, not far from the Common,”
said Margaret; “I am willing to go and throw myself
upon them for to-night.”

“Ben Bolter,” said Rose, “take us to sea with you. Carry
us out of the world.”

They went, however, as Margaret proposed; they came to a

house lying, like Mrs. Wiswall's, off from the road; it was a
late hour, there were no lights to be seen; but the resolution
of Rose and the confidence of Margaret led them straightway
through the yard, and up the steps. The sailor did the knocking
in a manner easy enough to himself, but such as might have
wrought violence on the peace of others. They had not long
to wait, when the door was opened by one whose face was now
familiar to Margaret, and which Rose might perchance remember
having seen, the young man whose father gave Margaret
a seat in Church, and to whose house she now fled for
refuge. They stated their errand and their distress, in which
was contained their apology.

“Come in,” said the young man. “I will speak to my sister;
the knocking I think has saved me the trouble of calling
her from her bed. I was already up.”

They were taken into the parlor, and the young man soon
returned with his sister whom he introduced as Anna Jones;
she made him known as her brother Frank. Preliminaries
were speedily settled, and our wanderers shown to their bed.
They met in the morning with a kind reception from Mr. and
Mrs. Jones, and another daughter, Winifred. These five composed
the family, between whom and Margaret an interest had
already been reciprocated from their casual rencontre at
Church, and which did not fail to extend to Rose. The ring
on Margaret's finger seemed also to find old acquaintances,
and served to recall the name of Mr. Evelyn, who the Joneses
said, was an intimate friend of theirs, and they expressed pleasure
in seeing one of whom he had spoken in terms of commendation.
Our wanderers here entered upon quiet but shadowy
days, the family using every method to domesticate them;
Nimrod was gone, and Obed was a peddler about the town;
they must in patience possess their souls. Mr. Jones had been
a prosperous India merchant; his house contained many things
to interest them; Paintings — Christ bearing the Cross by
Raphael divided Margaret's attention with a Magdalen at Devotion
by the same hand; a Lady taking the Veil, and Murillo's
Prodigal Son engaged Rose; there were Tenier's Rent-Day
Feast, Landscapes by Claude, Abraham receiving the
Angels by Il Mudo, and others; they were introduced to
rooms furnished with superb mirrors, satin-wood tables, French
chairs, tamboured lounges, marble busts, etc.; the Library
rich in its architecture, more in its books; they ate from gold
and silver plate; they slept under sumptuous satin curtains;
their tooth-brush case was inlaid with gold and silver; they

reveled in a Conservatory of rare and beautiful flowers. What
especially delighted them was a piano played with skill and
effect by Anna, while with a strong but latent peculiarity of
feeling, Margaret listened to a guitar, the instrument of Winifred.
Frank Jones they learned was a student of Theology,
in which science he supplied them with his views. They were
also introduced to a mother of Mr. Jones, a very old woman,
who entertained them with tales of ancient time. So two or
three days wore pleasantly away. One morning, Rose cried
out that Obed was coming! “There he is with his saddle
bags and new hat mounting the steps.” Margaret sprang for
the door. “Hold,” said Rose, “let us get under the curtains,
and see what he is after, if he knows we are here.” They concealed
themselves and Obed entered.

“Don't want teu buy some of my things, I kalkelate, deu ye?”

“Be seated, Sir,” said Anna, “and let me see what you
have.”

“Han't seen nothin' of Molly, have ye?”

“Molly, Molly! I have not heard of such a person.”

“I'm feered she's kilt, or pizened, run over, lost, or
drounded.”

“Who is she, your daughter, Sir?”

“No, she's Molly, Pluck's Molly, one of the Injins, what
lives under the Head, next the Pond, and neighbor of Marm's.
Nim and I brung her teu the Bay, and Rose; I run arter a
shoat at the races, and caught him; I couldn't hold him, he
was so greasy, and they wouldn't let me have the cup; they
wouldn't let Nim have his beat, and we knocked um down,
and they knocked us down, and put us into Jail; and when we
went back, the gals was gone. This is an orful place. One
woman said she would call the pleese, and have me took right
up, cause I went inteu her house, and threw a broom at me,
cause I wanted teu sell her something. They've kilt Molly,
and drounded her under the bridge.”

“I am sorry for you. You should not have left her.”

“Marm telled me teu look arter her; she was always good
teu me, and helped me dig roots, and kept Bull off.”

“Then you want her to work for you. Can't you find
somebody else for that?”

“I dun know; she's a right smart consarn, Marm says.
When she was at home, I could always find her, if she warn't
gone inteu the woods. If I know'd where she was, I could
find her now.”

“What would you give if I would help you find her?”

“I dun know, I've axed all the folk, and they never seen
her; and there she lives close by our house, and the Master
knows her, and she can read eeny most as well as Parson
Welles, and she is the only man in the world can go up teu
Tim, only me and Marm. If you would find her, I'd stay and
sleep with ye, and let you have some flag that is good teu chaw,
and some salve what'll cure the itch. Don't you want teu buy
some of the sientifikals, some of Marm's Nommernisstortumbug?
I've sold more than nine hundred boxes, since we
found it out. It'll cure yer croup, chopped hands, ager,
coughs, burns, sores, cuts, scalt-head, measle, small-pox, worms,
piles, sore-throat, tetters, felons, jaunders, toothache, dropsy,
headache, backache, tongue-tye.”

“What a wonder!”

“That an't half; Marm told me all; rumatis, hypo, gluts,
blue-skin, plague in the vitals, lock-jaw, St. Vitus dance,
palsy, wind-gall in yer horses, loss of cud in the cows, drive
rot out of yer sheep, keep the wind out of yer babies, kill
bed-bugs;—here is the paper what the Master wrote about it.
`Sudorific, anamnetic, detergent, scorbutic, tonic, febrifugous,
vermifugous, stimulant, sedative, aromatic, antiseptic, narcotic,
refrigerant, antispasmodic, demulcent, expectorant, stypitic,
cathartic, emetic,'—that is what he says, and he knows every
thing.”

“ `Garrulousness,' he has down.”

“Yes it cures that; that is the larnin'—sore-tongue—swab
out your mouth with quince core jell, I've got some in my bags,
and take a spoonful of the Nommernis when you go teu
bed.”

“ `Acrasial Philogamy?' Brother Frank, what is that?”

“That,” replied Frank, “is an incurable malady to which
young persons are subject.”

“Yes, the Master said 'twas takin', and Marm said it was
an orful complaint, she knew. Take pennyrial, pound up sweet
cicely root, and bile with henbane and half an ounce of the
Nommernis till it's done, and it'll break the fever.”

“What is this, `Cacoethes Feminarum'?”

“That's humors. Elder-blows'll drive um out.”

“ `Diæta et oratio est optima medicina—diet and prayer
he says are the best medicines—what does that mean?”

“Them is the sientifikals; one of the ministers took teu
boxes of the Nommernis when he read that, he liked it so
well.—What is that noise? Ye han't got anything shet up
here?”

“Nothing that will hurt you.”

“I don't like yer housen; they are full of bull-beggars and
catamounts. Marm'll scold at me like nutcakes, if I can't
find Molly. She's kilt, they've drounded her under the bridge.”

“What are you going to do with her?”

“Don't know, Marm han't said. They are all broke up
down there since the murder. Marm said if Molly come teu
our house she might have the best bed. But she don't want
Pluck nor Hash; they are an orful set. I can't stay, I can
hear um snickerin' at me as they did up teu tother house, and
Marm wouldn't like it.”

Rose and Margaret burst from their retreat with a loud
laugh, and gave Obed a hearty greeting; which he, bemazed
and extacized, returned as handsomely as he knew how. Obed
confirmed the account given by the sailor, and said Nimrod
promised to return as soon as he could see Deacon Ramsdill,
and that he was looking for him every day. To the great joy
of all, the next morning Obed with Ben Bolter appeared, conducting
Nimrod and Deacon Ramsdill to the house.

“This beats old Suwarrow,” said Nimrod. “You have kept
as shy as young partridges.”

“A pretty tough spell you have had of it, gals,” said the
Deacon. “But you know, Molly, you always find the chesnuts
arter a biting frost and hard wind. Some good may come
of it,—the Lord knows. A little butting agin the bag cures
the core.—I havn't no particular business here, but Freelove
thought I had better come down, and see what was to pay.—
We are all broke up at home, about the Meetin'-house and the
Parson and everything. Some want a new Minister, they won't
help about putting up the house. We have had several Town
Meetings, but there is a good deal of disorder, and some hard
feeling. I count, it's best for every one to paddle his canoe his
own way, and when he hasn't a canoe, then let him go a-foot.
There an't no two spears of grass alike, and you can't make all
people think alike, only I count they might live in peace together
in the same field. But Brother Hadlock wouldn't listen
to me, and when you can't do nobody any good, then you had
better let them alone. It's no use talking agin the grain. When
hens are shedding their feathers they don't lay eggs; and one
can't look for much among our folk now—so I thought I had as
goods come away.—But the hotter the fire the whiter the oven;
if our fire will be of any service the Lord knows.—I have been
arter sheep through brush and ditches, before now, gals, and I

commonly found them in better feed than their own close,
ha, ha!”

“They have found a good birth,” said Ben Bolter, looking
about the room. “But I should like to fall upon them Algerines.”

“There has been some singular mistake or mischief at
work,” said Mr. Jones. “There must have been an error in
the name, or something of that sort, I think.”

“The old fox, weazle, or what not, I am determined to dig
it out,” said Nimrod.

“I have been to Pamela's,” said the Deacon, “and she says
she hasn't seen anything of you; and she wants you to go right
round there.”

“We will all go together,” said Mr. Jones.

Accordingly they went to “the Widow Wizzle's,” the sister
of the Deacon, whom they found a different person in some
respects from their old acquaintance her namesake. Nimrod
and Ben Bolter exhibited strong desire to visit the late hostess
of the young ladies, and Nimrod said they must go with him;
their repugnance to such a measure was overborne by the
Joneses, who supported Nimrod, and offered to be of the company.
In force, now numbering seven persons, they proceeded
to the house of their late residence, were ushered into the
parlor, where they found Mrs. Wiswall evidently much agitated,
and a very aged man sitting leaning on his staff from which he
hardly raised his face. Whatever might have been their method
of address, or the purport of this visit, they were met by the apparition
of a human being, in large black whiskers, deathly pale,
leaning on the arm of Bertha, and emerging from the back parlor.
“Raxman!” involuntarily shuddered Rose, and fires that
had long consumed her heart flashed into her face, and retired;
and she hung convulsed on the arm of the younger Jones.

“Nope him on the costard,” said Ben Bolter.

“Keep still,” said Nimrod, “and let us see what the fellow
has to say.”

He, to whom all eyes were now turned, as if he had come
in on some such errand, thus spoke,

“I am,” said he, “a sick and dying man. Your violence,
Ben Bolter, comes too late; the blow from the horse has done
the work. Miss Elphiston, Miss — — — Margaret, can you
forgive me. I have wished to see you to ask this last earthly
favor. It was I who led you to this house, it was through my
instigation you were detained here, it was my wishes that regulated
all behavior towards you; nor would my mother, whom
you see before you, or my sister, have consented to such a

transaction as this must appear in your eyes except through
me. If my motives were selfish, they were not so disgraceful
to you, Miss Hart, as to me. I cannot unfold it all now; that
shall be done at other hands. I am weak, I am dying. I have
only strength to ask, ladies, will you forgive me. Miss Elphis
ton, to you I make no apology, I ask no charity, my conduct
admits of no qualification. I only crave your forgiveness; a
sheer wretch, I entreat it; at your feet I implore you to forgive
me. Your beauty, ladies, ensnared me, an uncontrolled ambition
has led me on, your virtues and your sufferings have
brought me to repentance, and not, I trust, the fear of death
alone.”

There was breathless silence, then a discordant tremor pervaded
the room;—the old man shook audibly on his cane, the
group in the centre worked with a varied phrenzy. Margaret
was the first to break this singular perplexity. “I forgive
you,” said she, “I forgive all your wrong to me, whatever
may have been its intention.”

“Never, never,” said Rose, “can I forgive you.”

“It is late shutting the door when the mare is stolen,” said
Deacon Ramsdill; “but when she comes back of her own
accord, you had better let her in. Besides, Rose, the Good
Book says, `Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.' ”

“I have foresworn the Bible,” answered Rose. “He and
it have alike damned me.”

“Don't speak so, Rose,” said Frank. “He seems to be
sincerely penitent. It would be a relief to his last moments
to have your forgiveness.”

“I cannot, I cannot!” she rejoined.

“O that Miss Elphinston would forgive my brother,” said
Bertha, weeping.

“You see, Mr. Jones,” said Mrs. Wiswall, addressing the
senior of the name, “the wretched mother of two wretched
children. But where is pity for her to be sought or received!
In that son and daughter you behold the tokens of all my sins,
and all my sufferings. Have you, Sir, been ignorant of my
course? My vanity was allured and my confidence betrayed
by a British Officer. One, in whose house we now are,
instructed me in the arts, and unbridled me for a career of
deception. When he left the country, and could make no
farther reparation for his injuries, he gave me the title to his
estate. I followed the American camp; I was cajoled by
your own officers. I became a runner between the two armies,
when the British held New York. And when it is his turn to

speak that sits there,” she said pointing to the old man, “he
will tell you more. I returned after the War to this house,
and here I am; my unhappy children pleading in vain for that
mercy which another's infamy might justly implore, and which
their guilty, miserable mother, the cause of all their calamities,
can never bestow. Who, Miss Elphiston, ever asked my pardon?
Who ever knelt for my forgiveness? What dying man
has flung me the poor boon of his remorse? By whose penitence
has my own conscious load of sin been lightened? My
relentings, were they ever so great, had been lavished on the
winds; my commiserations had been squandered on scoffs
and jeers; my love, which even the guilty sometimes feel, and
it is a relief to the abandoned to exercise, has been answered
by the frowns of the honored and the repulse of the prosperous.
Here I am, freshly awakened to a sense of my enormities, and
denied the privilege of seeing one gleam of peace fall upon the
heads of my poor children. My own guilt seems to augment,
and they are plunged into still deeper distress. Miss Margaret,
my conduct towards you must appear equivocal, suspicious,
and fraught with duplicity. But the crime belongs
rather to the means than the intent, and I have been too long
familiar with the ways of the world, to haggle at the manner
when the end is desirable. I had reason to believe that my
son's purposes were honorable, however his action must forever
degrade him in your eyes. In what a world do we live!
By what steadfastly increasing evil are our steps pursued!
Our life is but the ministration of woe and ruin by man to
man! He who rules all things for the best, permits some to
fall where others rise. Your beauty, which princes might
covet, shall bear you aloft, like the star of Evening, diffusing
glory all about you, and cheering your own existence. Mine
sinks beyond recovery, the darkness of disgrace adding new
deformity to the waste of years; and the lost innocence of
my childhood returns to shed vengeance on my enfeebled
age!”

“Ho!” hemmed Ben Bolter; “I must overhaul my coppers,
and get my head on another tack.”

“I do forgive you,” said Rose, “and may Heaven forgive
me too.”

While these scenes were transpiring among the principal
parties in the room, one might have detected Nimrod in earnest
whisper with the old man aside; “Not now, sir, not now;
this is enough for once; wait till we get away, we will go to
Mr. Jones's.”

The company returned to the house whence they started.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jones taking Margaret by herself, said he
would open on a subject of some interest to her. He doubted
not, he added, that her good sense would receive what he was
commissioned to declare without confusion, and the fortitude
she had displayed in adverse circumstances would not forsake
her under more agreeable events. What was coming, she
might well ask, that required such a preface. Have you a
grandfather, he asked; she replied she knew of none, that she
supposed the parents of both her father and mother were dead.
“I have the pleasure, then,” continued Mr. Jones, “to inform
you that your grandfather is living, and the old man we saw
at Mrs. Wiswall's is he.” He then proceeded to put her in
possession of what the reader already knows, that she was the
adopted child of Pluck and Brown Moll, that her own father
and mother died in her infancy, that she had been disowned
by her grandfather, who, nevertheless, had contributed supplies
to her comfort, and in a word that she must prepare to receive
him the following day.

The next morning, Nimrod and Ben Bolter, accompanied
by the old man, Mr. Girardeau, came to Mr. Jones's. The way
having been prepared, little remained but for Margaret to embrace
her grandfather. The old man laid his hand on her
head, looked in her face, and with a voice broken by age, and
husky with emotion, said, “Jane, Jane, my own Jane, my
Jane's own?” Summoning Rose, he held them face to face,
and said, “This is your cousin, Margaret, the grandchild of
my wife's sister; and Nimrod,” continued he, “is not your
adopted brother only, his mother is the daughter of my only
sister. Others have asked your forgiveness, but who needs it
more than I? I turned you off in helpless infancy, I have
greatly sinned against you and others too, more than I can tell.
But Nimrod and Ben Bolter will inform you of what I cannot.
Let me be forgiven, and you shall know my wrong doings
afterwards.”

“Sit down, Sir,” said Nimrod, “and I will tell all I know
about the matter,” and he proceeded to relate his first connection
with Margaret, and his taking her to the Pond.

“Yes,” added Ben Bolter, “it is all true. Nim and I were
messmates. I was there when he brought you off; I helped
stow you away; I dandled you when he was asleep; I lowered
you down when he left the sloop; you was a good looking
cock-boat, but make a spread eagle of me, if you havn't grown
into as handsome a merchantman as ever carried a bone in her

mouth. But, blow me, if Obed's horse, hadn't bunged the
cull's puddings, I don't know where you would have brought
up.”

“God's hand is in it!” said Deacon Ramsdill, who came
in during these disclosures. “You know we read that when
the lost one came home they danced and made merry. And
you recollect, Molly, when they brought you up out of the
woods, the Preacher prayed before the dance begun. I feel as
if I should like to pray before we get on to the rejoicings.”
Whereupon they all joined with the Deacon, who, in simple,
heart-felt manner, made thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Leaving these persons to recapitulate details, exchange congratulations,
and make such demonstration of joy as was
natural to the hour, we must go with our readers to places and
times somewhat remote, and bring up a brief account illustrative
of events that have now been recorded.

12. CHAPTER XII.
THE HISTORY OF MR. GIRARDEAU.

During the period of our Colonial existence, the American
Planters were in the practice, not of importing black slaves
from the coast of Guinea alone, but also white servants from
various parts of Europe. Among the proprietors of the Simsbury
Copper Mines were several Frenchmen, the wealthy,
enterprising, exiled Huguenots. It became an object with
these gentlemen to combine in their establishment those who
could speak their own tongue. About the year 1740, there
arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, a cargo of servants, and of the
number were some from Jersey, an Island belonging to the
English Crown, but inhabited in good part by a French population.
A purchase was made including a portion of this last
description of persons. In the lot, were Jean Waugh, and
Marie his sister. Jean was a young man of some ambition.
He was ready to exchange poverty and oppression in the Old
World, for temporary vassalage in the New, with the prospect
of ultimate enfranchisement and possessions. He threw himself,

with his sister, into the hands of an American shipmaster,
consented to be advertised with coals and salt in the public
prints, to be knocked off at public vendue, and for the consideration
of twelve pounds paid the importer became the subject
of indentures binding him to the Simsbury Company for six
years, the term affixed by law to those of his age. Jean was
master of the French and English languages; he could read
and write, he was spirited and active. He wheeled ore with
blacks, he labored with the pick-axe, he drilled rocks. By
the regulations of the peculiar institution to which he was subservient,
he could not marry, none could trade or truck with
him, he could not leave the premises, he was ineligible to
office. In the result it appears, he became tired of his condition,
one indeed not congenial with the spirit of the present
age, and the vestiges of which can only be traced in an
obscure antiquity To relieve himself, be ran away, a criminal
offence, for which he was publicly whipped. Returning a
blow upon the executioner he became liable to two years'
additional service. He again contrived to abscond. He connected
himself with a gang of counterfeiters, and the Bills of
Credit issued by the Provinces in periods of alarm became
encumbered and perplexed. He fled the region, and a few
years afterwards reappeared in New York, associated with
brokers, smugglers, and that class of men who contrive to
reap advantage from public distress or private credulity.
Here he took the name of Girardeau, and, as such, has already
been introduced to our readers.

It so happened that a little boy, who dwelt in the neighborhood
of the Mines, and often played about the grounds, was a
witness of Jean's punishment, and from a habit peculiar to
his nature, took sides with the delinquent; and ultimately
gave him essential support in his attempts to escape. This
lad was Didymus Hart, familiarly known in this Memoir as
Pluck. Marie, the sister of Mr. Girardeau, seduced by an
Overseer at the Mines, died in giving birth to twin daughters,
one of whom Didymus subsequently married, and the other
became the Mrs. Wiswall mentioned in the foregoing chapter.
To digress a moment on the history of Pluck—after Mr.
Girardeau was in circumstances to recompense his benefactor,
as well as show his attachment to the child of his sister, he
made liberal grants to Mr. Hart; and even aided him in becoming
established in some mercantile pursuit. But Pluck,
abandoning himself to his cups, dissipated at once his good
name and his estate; and for some misdemeanor losing one of

his ears, he became still more reckless and thriftless, and
finally succeeded in completely estranging the affection of
Mr. Girardeau, as he had already forfeited the respect of his
fellow citizens. He removed to Livingston, where he supported
his family awhile by tending bar for Mr. Smith at No.
4, and at last took up his residence at the Pond.

Mr. Girardeau married a sister of the grandmother of Rose.
The acquisition of wealth became the engrossing passion
of this man. This object he clutched with a miserly and
inextinguishable activity; and with that singleness of aim and
sagacity of calculation which rendered elusion impossible.
In this pursuit, he sacrificed every generous sentiment of his
nature, inflicted unhappiness on his family, sent his wife to a
premature grave, would have wrecked the virtues as he finally
contributed to the death of his child. When imposts were
high he contrived to smuggle his commodities; when premium
was exorbitant, he had money to lend. If trade was interrupted
in one quarter, he opened channels for it in another.
As fortune is said to aid the bold, when the ports were closed
what should happen but his own well-laden ships were already
in the offing. During the first alarms of the War, when multitudes
deserted the city, he became chapman of their estates;
confiscated property he bid in for a trifle. He trafficked in
public securities, and realized much, where many lost their
all. Mr. Girardeau was master of the German, either by an
original acquisition, or from intercourse with that portion of
our immigrant population; thus supplied with three important
dialects, he held a position superior to most of his contemporaries.
This language he also taught his daughter, who, it will
be recollected, was able to discourse with Brückmann, the
young Waldecker, in his own tongue. During the War, for
purposes humane or military, large quantities of gold and
silver were transported backwards and forwards between the
adjacent country and the city. Much of this passed through
the hands of Mr. Girardeau, who did not fail to take due
brokerage. He was a Patriot and a Tory, as was most convenient;
and if he accommodated his coat to the hue of the
parties with whom he dealt, its facing retained but one color,
that of their common gold. In these negotiations he also
employed the services of his other twin niece, Mrs. Wiswall
and her little boy, called Raxman, whom at the close of the
War, it has been related Nimrod found on the premises of Mr.
Girardeau. The acquaintance of this woman on both sides
of the line, the protection afforded by her sex, the harmlessness

of the lad, were circumstances of which he did not fail
to avail himself. Introduced to the secrets of the contending
powers, he made adventures with a safe foresight of the issue.
The agent of factions and intrigues, he never violated his
trust except when driven to what is termed the first law of
nature, to which he had timely recourse. The public good he
satisfied himself he carried, where others have borne important
sections of the country, in his breeches pocket. At the close
of the War he purchased city-lands, which in the progress of
time doubled and quadrupled on his hands. In Politics he
became what is known as a trimmer, and his sails were set to
catch the breeze from whatever quarter it blew. In the game
of public life, leaving to others offices and honors, place and
power, he managed to sweep the banks into his own drawers.
When war threatened with France, he obtained foreign exchange
at a discount, and after the disturbance sold it at an
advance. He speculated in continental bills; he profited by
the wars of Europe. Such was Mr. Girardeau. At the expiration
of the century, the Jersey servant had arisen to a
fortune, estimated at the time, as high as two millions of
dollars.

But old age had already overtaken him, and death was not
far off. Palsy, without a figure, loosened his hold of his gains,
and he could not be indifferent to the destination of an estate
amassed with so much painstaking. From the depths of the
ocean come up bubbles that sparkle on its surface. In Mr.
Girardeau appeared some symptoms of an imperishable humanity.
His daughter he had persecuted even unto death.
He began to refreshen his memory with some thoughts of the
grandchild. He discovered the place of her abode, and, in an
assumed costume, appeared at the Pond. He certified himself
of her existence and identity and departed. Why did he not
then make himself known? Nimrod, whose parentage was
disguised, when he first became the servant of Mr. Girardeau,
exceedingly provoked and irritated him. Pluck, having once
pitied, he could never forgive. To Brown Moll, his niece, he
attributed a share of her husband's misfortunes. But we cannot
explain what we do not understand, the labyrinths of the
human mind, nor can we relate all the operations of that of
Mr. Girardeau. It suffices to know that he did relent, at least
so far as his grandchild was concerned, and embraced Margaret
in his munificent intentions. Raxman had continued in
his grand-uncle's employ in the capacity of a clerk, an office he
fulfilled with the fidelity of a child and the industry of a slave.

But this young gentleman's conduct with Rose, having reached
the ears of Mr. Girardeau, gave him great provocation. At
length, however, the apparent reformation of Raxman induced
him to offer him a liberal endowment if he would marry
Margaret. To effect this object Raxman made a journey to
the Pond, where his success has been related. Here also he
found an unexpected obstacle to his wishes in the presence of
Rose. It needs also to be told that he applied to the Widow
Wright, and sought, by means which he found most acceptable
with that lady, to gain her to his purpose; which had now
become two-fold, that of securing Margaret, and withdrawing
Rose. But the Widow, who had her dreams about Margaret,
when she found she was likely to lose her to herself, immediately
changed her tactics, and endeavored to detain Margaret,
and insisted that he should marry Rose. Raxman left
the Pond, and returned to New York, where he found
Nimrod, to whose assistance, in these embarrassing circumstances,
he appealed. But Nimrod had no friendship for
Raxman, and a very strong one for Margaret. Now at this
time, Mr. Girardeau himself began to exhibit signs of penitence,
he avowed a most benevolent interest in his grandchild;
and assured Nimrod that everything should be done for the
good and felicity of Margaret, if he would render aid to
Raxman. Accordingly he was hired to take her away from
the Pond, a measure which he undertook in the manner described.
He was to meet Raxman at Hartford; great was the
disappointment of the young man to find Rose of the company.
He suggested the continuation of the journey to Boston.
He hastened on before and acquainted his mother with
his designs. He was in Cambridge when the party arrived
there; he had intelligence conveyed to the girls of the imprisonment
of Nimrod and Obed; he hovered on their steps
as they entered the city; he knew of the letter to the sister of
the Deacon; he came up with them as they parted with Frank
Jones; and muffled in a cloak, disguising his voice, he conducted
them to his mother's; who in truth was sometimes
called Wiswall. He remained about the house, but was not
seen in it. The attachment of Margaret and Rose was a difficulty
not easily surmounted; various methods were taken to
detach them, but all failed. At length the accidental withdrawal
occurred as they returned from the Theatre. Raxman
endeavored to improve the occasion; but a new balk to his
projects offered itself in the person of Ben Bolter. The result
is known. Tim, whom the Sailor sported on all occasions,
dealt the young man a mortal blow. It might appear
that Ben Bolter himself had some secret antipathy to Raxman;
but of this we have no farther knowledge than his own
words imply. Mr. Girardeau, learning what had befallen his
relative, immediately came to Boston.

Such is the narrative to which the preceding chapter has
given rise; and now that whatever relates to these accidental
personages has been told, and the thread of the story is
evolved; let us return to the principal subject of this Tale.

A new sphere of interest was open to Margaret, and one in
which, notwithstanding her need of quiet and repose, she set
herself to making immediate exploration; we refer to the circumstances
of her own birth, and the history of her father and
mother, Gottfried Brückmann and Jane Girardeau. Sedulous
and minute were her inquiries on these points; and she found
her grandfather as well as Nimrod disposed to communicate
whatever they knew. Frank Jones, then in correspondence
with Mr. Evelyn, wrote his friend, who was expecting to visit
Germany, to make inquiries concerning Brückmann and Margaret
Bruneau, in Pyrmont and Rubillaud. Mr. Girardeau
had religiously preserved the relics of his daughter and her
husband, and said he had in his possession the flute, books
and sundry papers, which they left. The bulk of his estate
he made over to Margaret, reserving annuities for his niece,
Mrs. Wiswall and Bertha, in amount sufficient to rescue them
entirely from their present mode of life; Rose also received a
gratuity equal to a moderate fortune. They were summoned
ere long to fulfil the last duties of humanity upon Raxman.
It was decided that Margaret and Rose should spend the
winter in Boston. Deacon Ramsdill, Nimrod and Obed returned
to Livingston; the latter handsomely laden with gifts,
and the profits of his enterprise, Nimrod furnished with the
means of redeeming the estate at the Pond, and also of executing
his proposed marriage. The father of Margaret being
a German, and having left books and manuscripts in that
tongue, in which also her mother was skilled, she must also
attempt its acquisition; an exercise in which she was assisted
by Frank Jones. She devoted some time every day to music,
that of the piano and guitar. There were not wanting benevolent
persons in the city, who, apprised of her good fortune,
endeavored that she should turn it to the best account. New
bonnets, new ribbons, the latest style of dresses, were topics
on which she was duly enlightened. To balls, theatres, routs,
card-parties, her company was incessantly solicited; but this

proved an attention it was not in her power to answer. A
concession on the part of Rose afforded her unmingled pleasure;
she agreed to go with Margaret to Church; and having
gone half a day they went a whole day; and from going occasionally
they went constantly. Spring came at last; and
Margaret and Rose, with Frank Jones in company, started on
horseback for Livingston. The sadness with which they
approached the town, did not abate when they entered the
still desolate Green. They returned the greetings of their
old friends, and hastened to the Pond. The whole family
came out to welcome them, Bull, Dick and all. Chilion was
not there! Here the compiler takes leave of Margaret, submitting
to such as would pursue the sequel of her life, the
Part which follows.