University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

A few weeks before the death of Mrs. Elton, a Mr. Lloyd, a
Quaker, who was travelling with his wife and infant child,
for the benefit of Mrs. Lloyd's health, had stopped at the inn
in —. Mrs. Lloyd was rapidly declining with consumption.
On this day she had, as is not unfrequent in the fluctuation
of this disease, felt unusually well. Her cough was
lulled by the motion of the carriage, and she had requested
her husband to permit her to ride further than his prudence
would have dictated.

The heat and unusual exertion proved too much for her.
In the evening she was seized with a hemorrhage, which reduced
her so much as to render it unsafe to move her. She
faded away quietly, and fell into the arms of death as gently
as a leaf falleth from its stem, resigning her spirit in faith to
Him who gave it.

An extraordinary attachment subsisted between Mr. and
Mrs. Lloyd, which had its foundation in the similarity of

their characters, education, views, and pursuits; and had been
nourished by the circumstances that had drawn and kept
them together.

Three years after their marriage, Mrs. Lloyd gave birth
to a girl. This event filled up the measure of their joy. A
few weeks after its birth, as Mr. Lloyd took the infant from
its mother's bosom, and pressed it fondly to his own, he said,
“Rebecca, the promise is to us and our children; the Lord
grant that we may train His gift in His nurture and admonition.”

“Thou mayest, dear Robert; God grant it,” Rebecca
mournfully replied; “but the way is closed up to me. Do not
shudder thus, but prepare thy mind for the `will of the Lord.'
I could have wished to have lived, for thy sake and my little
one; but I will not rebel, for I know all is right.”

Mr. Lloyd hoped his wife was needlessly alarmed; but
he found from her physician, that immediately after the birth
of the child, some alarming symptoms had appeared, which
indicated a hectic. Mrs. Lloyd had begged they might be
concealed from her husband, from the generous purpose of
saving him, as long as possible, useless anxiety. The disease,
however, had taken certain hold, and that morning, after a
conversation with her physician, during which her courage
had surprised him, she resolved to begin the difficult task of
fortifying her husband for the approaching calamity.

Spring came on, and its sweet influences penetrated to
the sick room of Rebecca. Her health seemed amended, and
her spirits refreshed; and when Mr. Lloyd proposed that
they should travel, she cheerfully consented. But she cautioned
her husband not to be flattered by an apparent amendment,
for, said she, “though my wayward disease may be
coaxed into a little clemency, it will not spare me.”

As she prophesied, her sufferings were mitigated; but it
was but too manifest that no permanent amendment was to
be expected. The disease made very slow progress; one
would have thought it shrunk from marring so young and so
fair a work. Her spirit, too, enjoyed the freedom and beauty
of the country. As they passed up the fertile shores of the
Connecticut, Rebecca's benevolent heart glowed with gratitude
to the Father of all, at the spectacle of so many of her
fellow-creatures enjoying the rich treasures of Providence;
cast into a state of society the happiest for their moral improvement,
where they had neither the miseries of poverty,
nor the temptations of riches. She would raise her eyes to
the clear heaven, would look on the “misty mountain's top,”
and then on the rich meadows through which they were passing,
and which were now teeming with the summer's fulness,
and would say, “Dear Robert, is there any heart so cold,
that it does not melt in this vision of the power and the
bounty of the Lord of heaven and earth? Do not sorrow for
me, when I am going to a more perfect communion with Him,
for I shall see him as he is.”

From the Connecticut they passed by the romantic road
that leads through the plains of West Springfield, Westfield,
&c. There is no part of our country, abundant as it is in the
charms of nature, more lavishly adorned with romantic
scenery. The carriage slowly traced its way on the side of
a mountain, from which the imprisoned road had with difficulty
been won; a noisy stream dashed impetuously along at
their left, and as they ascended the mountain, they still heard
it before them, leaping from rock to rock, now almost losing
itself in the deep pathway it had made, and then rushing with
increased violence over its stony bed.

“This young stream,” said Mr. Lloyd, “reminds one of

the turbulence of headstrong childhood: I can hardly believe
it to be the same we admired, so leisurely winding its peaceful
way into the bosom of the Connecticut.”

“Thou likest the sobriety of maturity,” replied Rebecca;
“but I confess that there is something delightful to my imagination
in the elastic bound of this infant stream; it reminds
me of the joy of untamed spirits, and undiminished strength.”

The travellers' attention was withdrawn from the wild
scene before them to the appearance of the heavens, by their
coachman, who observed that “never in his days had he seen
clouds make so fast; it was not,” he said, “five minutes since
the first speck rose above the hill before them, and now there
was not enough blue sky for a man to swear by:—but,” added
he, looking with a lengthening visage to what he thought
an interminable hill before them, “the lightning will be
saved the trouble of coming down to us, for if my poor beasts
ever get us to the top, we may reach up and take it.”

Having reached the top of the next acclivity, they perceived
by the roadside, a log hut; over the door was a
slab, with a rude and mysterious painting (which had been
meant for a foaming can and a plate of gingerbread), explained
underneath by “cake and beer for sale.” This did not
look very inviting, but it promised a better shelter from the
rain, for the invalid, than the carriage could afford. Mr.
Lloyd opened the door, and lifted his wife over a rivulet,
which actually ran between the sill of the house and the floor-planks
that had not originally been long enough for the dimensions
of the apartment.

The mistress of the mansion, a fat middle-aged woman,
who sat with a baby in her arms at a round table, at which
there were four other children eating from a pewter dish
placed in the middle, rose, and having ejected the eldest boy

from a chair by a very unceremonious slap, offered it to Mrs.
Lloyd, and resumed her seat, quietly finishing her meal.
Her husband, a ruddy, good-natured, hardy-looking mountaineer,
had had the misfortune, by some accident in his childhood,
to lose the use of both his legs, which were now ingeniously
folded into the same chair on which he sat. He turned
to the coachman, who, having secured his horses, had just
entered, and smiling at his consternation, said, “Why, friend,
you look scare't, pretty pokerish weather, to be sure, but
then we don't mind it up here;” then turning to the child
next him, who, in gazing at the strangers, had dropped half
the food she was conveying to her mouth, he said,—“Desdemony,
don't scatter the 'tatoes so.”—“But last week,” he
continued, resuming his address to the coachman, “there was
the most tedious spell of weather I have sen the week before
last thanksgiving, when my wife and I went down into the
lower part of Becket, to hear Deacon Hollister's funeral sarmont—Don't
you remember, Tempy, that musical fellow that
was there?—`I don't see,' says he, `the use of the minister
preaching up so much about hell-fire,' says he, `it is a very
good doctrine,' says he, `to preach down on Connecticut
River, but,' says he, `I should not think it would frighten any
body in such a cold place as Becket.”'

A bright flash, that seemed to fire the heavens, succeeded
by a tremendous clap of thunder, which made the hovel tremble,
terrified all the group, except the fearless speaker.

“A pretty smart flash to be sure; but, as I was saying,
it is nothing to that storm we had last week.—Valorus, pull
that hat out of the window, so the gentleman can see.—
There, sir,” said he, “just look at that big maple tree, that
was blown down, if it had come one yard nearer my house,
it would have crushed it to atoms. Ah, this is a nice place

as you will find any where,” he continued (for he saw Mr.
Lloyd was listening attentively to him), “to bring up boys;
it makes them hardy and spirited, to live here with the wind
roaring about them, and the thunder rattling right over their
heads: why they don't mind it any more than my woman's
spinning-wheel, which, to be sure, makes a dumb noise sometimes.”

Our travellers were not a little amused with the humour
of this man, who had a natural philosophy that a stoic might
have envied. “Friend,” said Mr. Lloyd, “you have a singular
fancy about names; what may be the name of that chubby
little girl who is playing with my wife's fan?”

“Yes, sir, I am a little notional about names; that girl,
sir, I call Octavy, and that lazy little dog that stands by her,
is Rodolphus.”

“And this baby,” said Mr. Lloyd, kindly giving the astonished
little fellow his watch chain to play with, “this must
be Vespasian or Agricola.”

“No, sir, no; I met with a disappointment about that
boy's name—what you may call a slip between the cup and
the lip—when he was born, the women asked me what I
meant to call him? I told them I did not mean to be in
any hurry; for you must know, sir, the way I get my names,
I buy a book of one of them pedlers that are going over the
mountain with tin-ware and brooms, and books and pamphlets,
and one notion and another; that is, I don't buy out and
out, but we make a swap; they take some of my wooden
dishes, and let me have the vally in books; for you must
know I am a great reader, and mean all my children shall
have larning too, though it is pretty tough scratching for it.
Well, sir, as I was saying about this boy, I found a name
just to hit my fancy, for I can pretty generally suit myself;

the name was Sophronius; but just about that time, as the
deuce would have it, my wife's father died, and the gin'ral
had been a very gin'rous man to us, and so to compliment the
old gentleman, I concluded to call him Solomon Wheeler.”

Mr. Lloyd smiled, and throwing a dollar into the baby's
lap, said, “There is something, my little fellow, to make up
for your loss.” The sight and the gift of a silver dollar produced
a considerable sensation among the mountaineers.
The children gathered round the baby to examine the splendid
favour. The mother said, “The child was not old enough
to make its manners to the gentleman, but he was as much
beholden to him as if he could.” The father only seemed
insensible, and contented himself with remarking, with his
usual happy nonchalance, that he “guessed it was easier getting
money down country, than it was up on the hills.”

“Very true, my friend,” replied Mr. Lloyd, “and I should
like to know how you support your family here. You do not
appear to have any farm.”

“No, Sir,” replied the man, laughing, “it would puzzle
me, with my legs, to take care of a farm; but then I always
say, that as long as a man has his wits he has something to
work with. This is a pretty cold sappy soil up here, but we
make out to raise all our sauce,[1] and enough besides to fat a
couple of pigs on; then, Sir, as you see, my woman and I
keep a stock of cake and beer, and tansy bitters—a nice
trade for a cold stomach; there is considerable travel on the
road, and people get considerable dry by the time they get
up here, and we find it a good business; and then I turn
wooden bowls and dishes, and go out peddling once or twice
a-year; and there is not an old woman, or a young one either,

for the matter of that, but I can coax them to buy a dish or
two; I take my pay in provisions or clothing; all the cash
I get is by the beer and cake: and now Sir, though I say it,
that may be should not say it, there is not a more independent
man in the town of Becket than I am, though there is
them that's more forehanded; but I pay my minister's tax
and my school-tax as reg'lar as any of them.”

Mr. Lloyd admired the ingenuity and contentment of
this man, his enjoyment of the privilege, the “glorious privilege,”
of every New-England man, of “being independent.”
But his pleasure was somewhat abated by an appearance of
a want of neatness and order, which would have contributed
so much to the comfort of the family, and which, being a
Quaker, he deemed essential to it.

He looked at the little stream of water we have mentioned,
and which the rain had already swollen so much that
it seemed to threaten an inundation of the house; and
observing that neither the complexion of the floor nor of the
children seemed to have been benefited by its proximity,
he remarked to the man that he “should think a person of
his ingenuity would have contrived some mode of turning
the stream.”

“Why, yes, Sir,” said the man, “I suppose I might, for
I have got a book that treats upon hydrostatics and them
things; but I'm calculating to build in the fall, and so I
think we may as well musquash along till then.”

“To build! Do explain to me how that is to be done?”

“Why, Sir,” said he, taking a box from the shelf behind
him, which had a hole in the centre of the top, through
which the money was passed in, but afforded no facility for
withdrawing it, “my woman and I agreed to save all the
cash we could get for two years, and I should not be afraid

to venture there is thirty dollars there, Sir. The neighbors
in these parts are very kind to a poor man; one will draw
the timber, and another will saw the boards, and they will
all come to raising, and bring their own spirits into the bargain.
Oh, Sir, it must be a poor shack that can't make a
turn to get a house over his head.”

Mr. Lloyd took ten dollars from his pocket-book, and
slipping it into the gap, said, “There is a small sum, my
friend, and I wish it may be so expended as to give to thy
new dwelling such conveniences as will enable thy wife to
keep it neat. It will help on the trade, too; for depend
upon it, there is nothing makes a house look so inviting to a
traveller as cleanliness and order.”

Our mountaineer's indifference was vanquished by so
valuable a donation. “You are the most gin'rous man, Sir,”
said he, “that ever journeyed this way; and if I don't
remember your advice, you may say there is no such thing
as gratitude upon earth.”

By this time the rain had subsided, the clouds were rolling
over, the merry notes of the birds sallying from their
shelters, welcomed the returning rays of the sun, and the
deep, unclouded azure in the west promised a delightful
afternoon.

The travellers took a kind leave of the grateful cottagers,
and as they drove away—“Tempy,” said the husband, “if
the days of miracles weren't quite entirely gone by, I should
think we had `entertained angels unawares.”'

“I think you might better say,” replied the good woman,
“that the angels have entertained us; any how, that sick
lady will be an angel before long; she looks as good and as
beautiful as one now.”

It was on the evening of this day, that Mr. and Mrs.

Lloyd arrived at the inn in the village of —, which, as
we have before stated, was the scene where her excellent and
innocent life closed. She expressed a desire that she might
not be removed; she wished not to have the peace of her
mind interrupted by any unnecessary agitation. Whenever
she felt herself a little better, she would pass a part of the
day in riding. Never did any one in the full flush of health
enjoy more than she, from communion with her Heavenly
Father, through the visible creation. She read with understanding
the revelations of his goodness, in the varied expressions
of nature's beautiful face.

“Do you know,” said she to her husband, “that I prefer
the narrow vales of the Housatonic to the broader lands of
the Connecticut? It certainly matters little where our dust
is laid, if it be consecrated by Him who is the `resurrection
and the life;' but I derive a pleasure which I could not have
conceived of, from the expectation of having my body repose
in this still valley, under the shadow of that beautiful hill.”

“I, too, prefer this scenery,” said Mr. Lloyd, seeking to
turn the conversation, for he could not yet but contemplate
with dread, what his courageous wife spoke of with a tone of
cheerfulness. “I prefer it, because it has a more domestic
aspect. There is, too, a more perfect and intimate union of
the sublime and beautiful. These mountains that surround
us, and are so near to us on every side, seem to me like natural
barriers, by which the Father has secured for His children
the gardens He has planted for them by the river's
side.”

“Yes,” said Rebecca, “and methinks they inclose a sanctuary,
a temple, from which the brightness of His presence
is never withdrawn. Look,” said she, as the carriage passed
over a hill that rose above the valley, and was a crown of

beauty to it; “look, how gracefully and modestly that beautiful
stream winds along under the broad shadows of those
trees and clustering vines, as if it sought to hide the beauty
that sparkles so brightly whenever a beam of light touches
it. Oh! my Rebecca,” said she, turning fondly to her child,
“I could wish thy path led along these still waters, far from
the stormy waves of the rude world—far from its `vanities
and vexation of spirit.”'

“If that is thy wish, my love,” said her husband, looking
earnestly at her, “it shall be a law to me.”

Mrs. Lloyd's tranquillity had been swept away for a moment,
by the rush of thought that was produced by casting
her mind forward to the destiny of her child; but it was
only for a moment. Hers was the trust of a mind long and
thoroughly disciplined by Christian principles. Her face
resumed its wonted repose, as she said, “Dear Robert, I
have no wish but to leave all to thy discretion, under the
guidance of the Lord.”

It cannot be deemed strange that Mr. Lloyd should have
felt a particular interest in scenes for which his wife had
expressed such a partiality. He looked upon them with
much the same feeling that the sight of a person awakens
who has been loved by a departed friend. They seemed to
have a sympathy for him; and he lingered at — without
forming any plan for the future, till he was roused from his
inactivity by hearing the sale of Mr. Elton's property spoken
of. He had passed the place with Rebecca, and they had
together admired its secluded and picturesque situation.
The house stood at a little distance from the road, more
than half hid by two patriarchal elms. Behind the house,
the grounds descended gradually to the Housatonic, whose
nourishing dews kept them arrayed in beautiful verdure.

On the opposite side of the river, and from its very margin,
rose a precipitous mountain, with its rich garniture of beach,
maple, and linden; tree surmounting tree, and the images of
all sent back by the clear mirror below.

Mr. Lloyd had no family ties to Philadelphia. He preferred
a country life; not supinely to dream away existence,
but he hoped there to cultivate and employ a “talent for
doing good;” that talent which a noble adventurer declared
he most valued, and which, though there is a field for its exercise
wherever any members of the human family are, he
compassed sea and land to find new worlds in which to expend
it.

Mr. Lloyd purchased the place and furniture, precisely
as it had been left on the morning of the sale by Jane and
her friend Mary.