University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Burnside.

Pope was a good poet but a bad philosopher.
He says that “health, peace and competence,”
are all that can be necessary for a reasonable
man's happiness. He is mistaken. There are
many other things necessary. I shall mention
but one—the fulfilment of duty.

For some years before the breaking out of
the American Revolutionary War, the Reverend
Hezekiah Norwood possessed all these in
addition to some other ingredients, not necessary
to mention, that tend to sweeten the cup
of human enjoyment. He resided on the banks
of the Susquehanna, in one of the flourishing
settlements of Wyoming. Those settlements, at

that time, constituted within themselves, a kind
of independent commonwealth, having a governor,
councils, and laws of their own making.
They formed the most western frontier of
white population, being separated from all other
abodes of civilization by an extensive and unopened
forest. Although the nearest neighbours
to the Indians, whose hostility was then
the source of so many calamities to such of our
hardy forefathers as ventured, like them, to
become the pioneers of the woods, their peaceable
and conciliating dispositions, together with
the prudent policy of the public measures
adopted in their intercourse with the neighbouring
tribes, gained them the confidence and
friendship of the savages, and more effectually
secured their safety and tranquillity than could
have been done by armed bands and fortifications.
They were a prudent people, however,
and did not altogether neglect the precaution
of erecting strong-holds; but in doing so, they
had the art not to excite the jealousy of their
fierce and revengeful neighbours.

The virtue, prosperity, and happiness of the
inhabitants of Wyoming, at that period, are
topics on which not only historians have delighted
to dwell, but from which poets have
drawn inspiration as from the only example, in
modern times, of a society flourishing in primeval

innocence, and affording, in their unsophisticated
manners, upright morals, simple
habits, uniform hospitality, and patriarchal polity,
a pleasing image of the golden age! Separated,
as before observed, from the corrupting
influences of artificial society, and, at the
same time, elevated by education, habit, and
feeling, far above the ignorance, coarseness,
and barbarity of savage life, they seemed to
have adopted the virtues of both, without the
vices of either. Such, at least, is the picture
which historians have given us of these interesting
people. As for the poets, their views of
their innocence and happiness may be ascertained
from the following stanza of Campbell's
well known poem of “Gertrude of Wyoming.”

Mr. Norwood was the religious instructer of
a congregation whose members resided in one
of the most pleasant spots in this peaceful region.
The name of Wyoming was that of the whole
settlement, comprehending a considerable extent
of country on both sides of the Susquehanna;

but, as it is one familiar to the public,
we shall, in this work, apply it also to the village
in which Mr. Norwood resided. This village
was situated on the western bank of the great
river, at the junction which it formed with a
small meandering stream, which, as the name
by which it is now known, is not very euphonous,
we shall call Sharon. On either side of
this stream, a gradually ascending ridge of forest-covered
hills arose about a mile apart, and
stretching from the river for about a mile and
a half, began to approach each other, until, at
the distance of nearly two miles, they were
separated only by the gap through which the
stream of Sharon flowed. It was on the northern
bank of this stream, at the western extremity
of the village, that Mr. Norwood's mansion
raised its modest, but tasteful front, embowered
amidst a grove of sycamores and poplars.

In the year 1776, at the time our history
commences, Mr. Norwood had been, for some
time, a widower. He was the father of only
one child, a daughter, named Agnes, now in
her eighteenth year. But such a daughter!—
She was in reality, as she was often called,
the Rose of Sharon. Every eye admired her
beauty; her goodness was the theme of every
tongue. She was refined, intelligent, and affable.
Her father, by both precept and example,

had implanted in her mind a thorough
faith in Christian doctrines, and a strong reverence
for Christian virtues. In her, his earthly
affections were centred; and the most fervent
filial piety rewarded his parental love. As
perfect equality reigned among the inhabitants
of Wyoming, all the maidens of the village
were her companions; but there was one to
whom she was particularly attached, whose
mind, manners and principles harmonised entirely
with her own, and produced a reciprocity
of confidence which united them to each
other in the strictest bonds of friendship. This
friend of Agnes was named Mary Watson.
Her father and mother were both dead. But
their loss was supplied by the kindness of an
only brother, a young man who had been educated
for the medical profession, and practised
as the physician of the district.

This youth was possessed of a strong and
well-informed mind, but of feelings too sensitive
for happiness. In his childhood he had
received an injury in one of his legs, which deformed
it, and produced an incurable lameness.
This deformity preyed more keenly on his
mind than his philosophy should have permitted.
But what are the suggestions of philosophy
to the feelings of an ardent heart? Have
they power to restrain the aspirations of ambition

or the longings of love? If not, how can
they render deformity, which is so great a bar
to these emotions, a satisfactory incumbrance?

Oh deformity! thou art an eternal source of
mortification to the soul that is touched with
any desire for eminence or happiness in this
world—thou art a perpetually tormenting fiend
to thy sensitive victim. Let those who have
never experienced the tortures of thy agonizing
presence, talk of the virtue of enduring thee
with patience, and recommend philosophy as
an antidote to the ever-gnawing griefs which
thou inflictest. They speak of things they
know not, and of sensations they cannot feel.
What worldly blessings can render him happy
who is cursed by thee? In vain shall health
smile, wealth glitter, or friendship sooth, if
thou, the everlasting memento of degradation,
the inseparable companion of internal sorrow,
layest thy vexatious burthen on the crushed
and wearied spirit. Often and often did Edward
Watson exert the energies of a vigorous mind
in resisting the despondency which his malconformation
perpetually forced upon his feelings;
and occasionally he seemed to gain the
victory. But it was only occasionally, and
for short periods. In his childhood he had borne
the scoff of his playmates, and endured the vexation
of being unable to vie with them in the

fleetness or dexterity required for their pastimes.
His college years, indeed, were less
mortifying, as his competitions there did not
require bodily so much as mental exertions.
Yet even there his disfiguration was not without
its annoyances. On any occasion of public
display amidst the assembled youths of his
own age—in parties or processions, he experienced
an humbling sense of inferiority; and in
the hours of relaxing exercise, he felt as if he
were an outcast from their companionship—unfit
to mingle in their feats of strength or their
trials of agility.

These feelings rendered him averse from
mixing unnecessarily with society, or exposing
himself to the view of a numerous population.
After the death of his parents, he, therefore,
persuaded his sister to remove with him
from the populous neighbourhood of their birth,
near Hartford in Connecticut, to the retired
and fertile settlement of Wyoming, among the
colonists of which he had many relations who
had written him pressing invitations to reside
amongst them. He accordingly sold his
little property near Hartford, and, with his
sister, joining a small party of his neighbours,
whose views were directed to the same destination,
proceeded to Wyoming. Here he was
soon engaged in the successful pursuit of his
profession, and might have felt happy amidst

a simple and benevolent people, by whom he
was respected and beloved, but for the influence
of the most pleasing and most irresistible
of passions. He loved; but he loved in silence
and despair; for when he reflected on his deformity,
he imagined that he never could be
blessed with a return of affection, ardent and
faithful as his own. The object of his passion
was faultlessly beautiful in features as well as in
symmetry of person. And could he, blemished
as he was, and “curtailed of nature's fair proportion,”
expect to elicit passion in the breast
of one so lovely—one whom many gallant and
brave and graceful youths, endowed with all
that could recommend them to a lady's eye,
loved with ardour and sued in vain. Could one
who was so perfect in the love-kindling graces
of the outward form as Agnes Norwood—for it
was she for whom he pined—cast her regard on
him who was unseemly even in his own
eyes? “It were vain to expect it,” he despondingly
sighed; “I dare not hazard an attempt
to win her. I now enjoy her friendship,
and her intimacy with my sister affords me
often the high blessing of her society. Shall
I forfeit this, and expose myself to scorn and
mockery, by an imprudent disclosure of my
passion? It would be vanity—it would be
madness, it would be disappointment, humiliation
and—despair. She would reject—she would
avoid—she would despise me.”

Though his heart was thus torn with a secret
and hopeless passion, and preyed upon by
the melancholy reflections which had embittered
his whole life, yet to the public eye
he appeared neither morose nor fretful. His
repinings were confined to his own bosom.
His sister, indeed, had long known the extent
of his early and irremediable sorrows; and suspicions
of the additional unhappiness which he
now endured, had sprung up in her mind; and
her anxious, but silent observations, soon ripened
them into certainty. She loved her brother
with the tenderest affection. She sympathised
in his sufferings, and keenly felt all his woes.
But she never alluded to them. Her good
sense told her that they shrunk from observation,
and were of too delicate a texture to bear
the gentle touch of even a sister's kindness.
Her chief study was to render agreeable to him,
the enjoyments of home, and to sooth him with
those daily comforts which the female manager
of our household concerns alone can supply.
He was not unobservant of these attentions.
He felt grateful for them. They endeared
his sister to him. They made him feel that
the world was not a desolation; that it contained
at least one being who loved him, and was

solicitous for his happiness. He thanked Heaven
for the blessing, and felt that his existence
was not altogether in vain, while it contributed
to the support and satisfaction of one so affectionate
and worthy of his regard. On her
account he pursued his calling with industry,
and assumed a cheerfulness in society little
accordant with the internal state of his feelings.

Mary Watson was not a beauty in the pictorial
sense of the word. But she was far from
being disagreeable to look upon. Benevolence
and good nature ever shone from her countenance.
Her features were sufficiently regular,
but they were marked by some traces of the
small pox; and her complexion, though indicating
health, boasted but little of the delicate
intermixture of the rose and the lily which animated
the blooming countenance of her friend
Agnes Norwood.