 | CHAPTER II. The Morgesons |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
At this time I was ten years old. We lived in a New
England village, Surrey, which was situated on an inlet of a
large bay that opened into the Atlantic. From the observatory
of our house we could see how the inlet was pinched by
the long claws of the land, which nearly enclosed it. Outside,
some ten miles across and opposite the village, a range
of islands cut off the view of the main waters of the bay. For
miles on the outer side of the curving prongs of land stretched
a rugged, desolate coast, indented with coves and creeks, lined
with beds of granite half sunken in the sea, and edged with
beaches overgrown with pale sedge, or covered with beds of
sea-weed. Nothing alive, except the gulls, abode on these
solitary shores. No light-house stood on any point, to shake
its long warning light across the mariners' wake. Now and
then a drowned man floated in amongst the sedge, or a small
craft went to pieces on the rocks. When an easterly wind
prevailed the coast resounded with the bellowing sea, which
brought us tidings from those inaccessible spots We heard
its roar as it leaped over the rocks on Gloster Point, and its
long unbroken wail when it rolled in on Whitefoot Beach. In
mild weather, too, when our harbor was quiet, we still heard
its whimper. Behind the village, the ground rose towards
the north. The horizon was bounded by woods of oak and
pine, intersected by crooked roads, which led to the towns and
villages near us. The inland scenery was tame; no hill or
dale broke its dull uniformity Corn fields, and meadows of
red grass, walled with gray stone, lay between the village and
the border of the woods. Seaward it was enchanting—beautiful
under the sun and moon, and clouds.
Our family had lived in Surrey for years. Probably some
Puritan of the name of Morgeson had moved from an earlier
settlement, and appropriating few acres in what was now
and daughters married to the sons and daughters of similar
settlers. So our name was in perpetuation. But none of our
race ever made a mark in his own circle, or attained a place
among the great ones of his day. The family recipes for curing
herbs and hams, and making cordials, were in better preservation
than the memory of their makers. It is certain that
they were not a progressive or changeable family. No tradition
of any individuality remains concerning them. There
was a confusion in the minds of the survivors of the various
generations, about the degree of their relationship to those who
were buried, and whose names and ages simply were cut in
the stones which headed their graves. The meum and tuum of
blood were inextricably mixed; so they contented themselves
with giving their children the old Christian names which were
carved on the head-stones, and which, in time, added a still
more profound darkness to the anti-heraldic memory of the
Morgesons They had no knowledge of that treasure which so
many of our New England families are boastful of—the Ancestor
who came over in the Mayflower, or by himself, with a
grant of land from Parliament. It was not known whether two
or three brothers sailed together from the Old World and settled
in the New. They had no portrait, nor curious chair, nor
rusty weapon; no old Bible, nor drinking cup, nor remnant
of brocade.
Morgeson—Born—Lived—Died—were all their archives.
But there is a dignity in mere perpetuity, a strength in the
narrowest affinities. This dignity and strength were theirs.
They are still vital in our rural population. Occasionally
something fine is their result; an aboriginal re-appears, and
proves the plastic powers of nature.
My great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, the old man whose
head I saw bound in a red handkerchief, was the first noticeable
man of the name. He was a scale of enthusiasms,
ranging from the melancholy to the sarcastic. When I have
heard him talked of, it has seemed to me that he was born under
the influence of the sea, and that the rest of the tribe
inherited the character of the landscape. Comprehension of
life, and comprehension of self, came too late for him to make
either of value. The spirit of progress, however, which prompted
his schemes, benefited others. The most that could be said of
him was, that he had the rudiments of a Founder.
My father, whose name was Locke Morgeson also, married
early. My mother was five years his elder; her maiden name
of Barmouth, a town near Surrey, but one of greater importance
in size and wealth. He was the best of the two Barmouth
tailors, though his ideas respecting the cut of garments were the
most antiquated, and was a rigidly pious man, of great influence
in the church, whose belfry stood over against his ancient
dwelling. He was descended from Sir Edward Warren,
a gentleman of Devon, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
The name of his more immediate ancestor, Richard Warren,
was in “New England's Memorial.” How father first met
mother I know not. She was singularly beautiful—beautiful
even to the day of her death; but she was poor, and without
connection, for Philip Warren was the last of his name.
What the Warrens might have been, was nothing to the Morgesons;
they themselves had no past, and only realized the
present. They never thought of inquiring into that matter, so
they opposed, with great promptness, father's wish to marry
Mary Warren. All, except old Locke Morgeson, his grandfather,
who rode over to Barmouth to see her one day, and
when he came back told father to take her; and offered
him half his house to live in, promising to push him along in
the world. His offer quelled the rioters, silencing in particular
the opposition of John Morgeson, father's father. Their
dislike to mother, however, was made stronger by old Locke's
favor.
In a month from this time, Locke Morgeson, Jr., took Mary
Warren from her father's house, as his wife. Grandfather
Warren prayed a long unintelligible prayer over them, helped
them into the large, yellow-bottomed chaise which belonged to
Grandfather Locke, and the young couple drove to their new
home, the old mansion Grandfather Locke went away in the
same yellow-bottomed chaise a week after, and returned in a
few days with a tall lady of fifty by his side—“Marm Tamor,”
a twig of the Morgeson tree, being his third cousin, whom he
had married. This marriage was grandfather Locke's last
mistake. He was then near eighty. He lived long enough to
fulfil his promises to father, though alertly watched by Marm
Tamor, who had designs of her own, and an affectionate family
impatiently waiting her return home. In a year from the time
of mother's marriage I was born, and four years after, my sister
Veronica. Grandfather Locke named us both, and charged
father not to consult the Morgeson tomb stones for names, in
case he should have more children.
| CHAPTER II. The Morgesons | |