The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete (part 6 of 9)

The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Complete (part 6 of 9)

Now, while she was speaking, we did all hear a great thumping on the ceiling, and presently a piece of a board flew across the room against the chair on which Mr. Richardson was sitting; whereat the two old people set up a dismal groaning, and the boy cried out, "That's the witch!" Goodman Morse begged of Mr. Richardson to fall to praying, which he presently did; and, when he had done, he asked Mr. Russ to follow him, who sat silent and musing a little while, and then prayed that the worker of the disturbance, whether diabolical or human, might be discovered and brought to light. After which there was no noise while we staid. Mr. Russ talked awhile with the boy, who did stoutly deny what Caleb Powell charged upon him, and showed a bruise which he got from a stick thrown at him in the cow-house. When we went away, Mr. Richardson asked Mr. Russ what he thought of it. Mr. Russ said, the matter had indeed a strange look, but that it might be, nevertheless, the work of the boy, who was a cunning young rogue, and capable beyond his years. Mr. Richardson said he hoped his brother was not about to countenance the scoffers and Sadducees, who had all along tried to throw doubt upon the matter. For himself, he did look upon it as the work of invisible demons, and an awful proof of the existence of such, and of the deplorable condition of all who fall into their bands; moreover, he did believe that God would overrule this malice of the Devil for good, and make it a means of awakening sinners and lukewarm church-members to a sense of their danger.

Last night, brother Leonard, who is studying with the learned Mr. Ward, the minister at Haverbill, came down, in the company of the worshipful Major Saltonstall, who hath business with Esquire Dummer and other magistrates of this place. Mr. Saltonstall's lady, who is the daughter of Mr. Ward, sent by her husband and my brother a very kind and pressing invitation to Rebecca and myself to make a visit to her; and Mr. Saltonstall did also urge the matter strongly. So we have agreed to go with them the day after to-morrow. Now, to say the truth, I am not sorry to leave Newbury at this time, for there is so much talk of the bewitched house, and such dismal stories told of the power of invisible demons, added to what I did myself hear and see yesterday, that I can scarce sleep for the trouble and disquiet this matter causeth. Dr. Russ, who left this morning, said, in his opinion, the less that was said and done about the witchcraft the better for the honor of the Church and the peace of the neighborhood; for it might, after all, turn out to be nothing more than an "old wife's fable;" but if it were indeed the work of Satan, it could, he did believe, do no harm to sincere and godly people, who lived sober and prayerful lives, and kept themselves busy in doing good. The doers of the Word seldom fell into the snare of the Devil's enchantments. He might be compared to a wild beast, who dareth not to meddle with the traveller who goeth straightway on his errand, but lieth in wait for such as loiter and fall asleep by the wayside. He feared, he said, that some in our day were trying to get a great character to themselves, as the old monks did, by their skill in discerning witcherafts, and their pretended conflicts with the Devil in his bodily shape; and thus, while they were seeking to drive the enemy out of their neighbors' houses, they were letting him into their own hearts, in the guise of deceit and spiritual pride. Repentance and works meet for it were the best exorcism; and the savor of a good life driveth off Evil Spirits, even as that of the fish of Tobit, at Ecbatana, drove the Devil from the chamber of the bride into the uttermost parts of Egypt. "For mine own part," continued the worthy man, "I believe the Lord and Master, whom I seek to serve, is over all the powers of Satan; therefore do I not heed them, being afraid only of mine own accusing conscience and the displeasure of God."

We are all loath to lose the good Doctor's company. An Israelite indeed! My aunt, who once tarried for a little time with him for the benefit of his skill in physic, on account of sickness, tells me that he is as a father to the people about him, advising them in all their temporal concerns, and bringing to a timely and wise settlement all their disputes, so that there is nowhere a more prosperous and loving society. Although accounted a learned man, he doth not perplex his hearers, as the manner of some is, with dark and difficult questions, and points of doctrine, but insisteth mainly on holiness of life and conversation. It is said that on one occasion, a famous schoolman and disputer from abroad, coming to talk with him on the matter of the damnation of infants, did meet him with a cradle on his shoulder, which he was carrying to a young mother in his neighborhood, and when the man told him his errand,--the good Doctor bade him wait until he got back, "for," said he, "I hold it to be vastly more important to take care of the bodies of the little infants which God in his love sends among us, than to seek to pry into the mysteries of His will concerning their souls." He hath no salary or tithe, save the use of a house and farm, choosing rather to labor with his own hands than to burden his neighbors; yet, such is their love and good-will, that in the busy seasons of the hay and corn harvest, they all join together and help him in his fields, counting it a special privilege to do so.

November 19.

Leonard and Mr. Richardson, talking upon the matter of the ministry, disagreed not a little. Mr. Richardson says my brother hath got into his head many unscriptural notions, and that he will never be of service in the Church until he casts them off. He saith, moreover, that he shall write to Mr. Ward concerning the errors of the young man. His words troubling me, I straightway discoursed my brother as to the points of difference between them; but he, smiling, said it was a long story, but that some time he would tell me the substance of the disagreement, bidding me have no fear in his behalf, as what had displeasured Mr. Richardson had arisen only from tenderness of conscience.

HAVERHILL, November 22.

Left Newbury day before yesterday. The day cold, but sunshiny, and not unpleasant. Mr. Saltonstall's business calling him that way, we crossed over the ferry to Salisbury, and after a ride of about an hour, got to the Falls of the Powow River, where a great stream of water rushes violently down the rocks, into a dark wooded valley, and from thence runs into the Merrimac, about a mile to the southeast. A wild sight it was, the water swollen by the rains of the season, foaming and dashing among the rocks and the trees, which latter were wellnigh stripped of their leaves. Leaving this place, we went on towards Haverhill. Just before we entered that town, we overtook an Indian, with a fresh wolf's skin hanging over his shoulder. As soon as he saw us, he tried to hide himself in the bushes; but Mr. Saltonstall, riding up to him, asked him if he did expect Haverhill folks to pay him forty shillings for killing that Amesbury wolf? "How you know Amesbury wolf?" asked the Indian. "Oh," said Mr. Saltonstall, "you can't cheat us again, Simon. You must be honest, and tell no more lies, or we will have you whipped for your tricks." The Indian thereupon looked sullen enough, but at length he begged Mr. Saltonstall not to tell where the wolf was killed, as the Amesbury folks did now refuse to pay for any killed in their town; and, as he was a poor Indian, and his squaw much sick, and could do no work, he did need the money. Mr. Saltonstall told him he would send his wife some cornmeal and bacon, when he got home, if he would come for them, which he promised to do.

When we had ridden off, and left him, Mr. Saltonstall told us that this Simon was a bad Indian, who, when in drink, was apt to be saucy and quarrelsome; but that his wife was quite a decent body for a savage, having long maintained herself and children and her lazy, cross husband, by hard labor in the cornfields and at the fisheries.

Haverhill lieth very pleasantly on the river-side; the land about hilly and broken, but of good quality. Mr. Saltonstall liveth in a stately house for these parts, not far from that of his father-in-law, the learned Mr. Ward. Madam, his wife, is a fair, pleasing young woman, not unused to society, their house being frequented by many of the first people hereabout, as well as by strangers of distinction from other parts of the country. We had hardly got well through our dinner (which was abundant and savory, being greatly relished by our hunger), when two gentlemen came riding up to the door; and on their coming in, we found them to be the young Doctor Clark, of Boston, a son of the old Newbury physician, and a Doctor Benjamin Thompson, of Roxbury, who I hear is not a little famous for his ingenious poetry and witty pieces on many subjects. He was, moreover, an admirer of my cousin Rebecca; and on learning of her betrothal to Sir Thomas did write a most despairing verse to her, comparing himself to all manner of lonesome things, so that when Rebecca showed it to me, I told her I did fear the poor young gentleman would put an end to himself, by reason of his great sorrow and disquiet; whereat she laughed merrily, bidding me not fear, for she knew the writer too well to be troubled thereat, for he loved nobody so well as himself, and that under no provocation would he need the Apostle's advice to the jailer, "Do thyself no harm." All which I found to be true,--he being a gay, witty man, full of a fine conceit of himself, which is not so much to be marvelled at, as he hath been greatly flattered and sought after.

The excellent Mr. Ward spent the evening with us; a pleasant, social old man, much beloved by his people. He told us a great deal about the early settlement of the town, and of the grievous hardships which many did undergo the first season, from cold, and hunger, and sickness. He thought, however, that, with all their ease and worldly prosperity, the present generation were less happy and contented than their fathers; for there was now a great striving to outdo each other in luxury and gay apparel; the Lord's day was not so well kept as formerly; and the drinking of spirits and frequenting of ordinaries and places of public resort vastly increased. Mr. Saltonstall said the war did not a little demoralize the people, and that since the soldiers cause back, there had been much trouble in Church and State. The General Court, two years ago, had made severe laws against the provoking evils of the times: profaneness, Sabbath-breaking, drinking, and revelling to excess, loose and sinful conduct on the part of the young and unmarried, pride in dress, attending Quakers' meetings, and neglect of attendance upon divine worship; but these laws had never been well enforced; and he feared too many of the magistrates were in the condition of the Dutch Justice in the New York Province, who, when a woman was brought before him charged with robbing a henroost, did request his brother on the bench to pass sentence upon her; for, said he, if I send her to the whipping post, the wench will cry out against me as her accomplice.

Doctor Clark said his friend Doctor Thompson had written a long piece on this untoward state of our affairs, which he hoped soon to see in print, inasmuch as it did hold the looking-glass to the face of this generation, and shame it by a comparison with that of the generation which has passed. Mr. Ward said he was glad to hear of it, and hoped his ingenious friend had brought the manuscript with him; whereupon, the young gentleman said he did take it along with him, in the hope to benefit it by Mr. Ward's judgment and learning, and with the leave of the company he would read the Prologue thereof. To which we all agreeing, he read what follows, which I copy from his book:--

"The times wherein old PUMPKIN was a saint, When men fared hardly, yet without complaint, On vilest cates; the dainty Indian maize Was eat with clam-shells out of wooden trays, Under thatched roofs, without the cry of rent, And the best sauce to every dish, content,-- These golden times (too fortunate to hold) Were quickly sinned away for love of gold. 'T was then among the bushes, not the street, If one in place did an inferior meet, 'Good morrow, brother! Is there aught you want? Take freely of me what I have, you ha'n't.' Plain Tom and Dick would pass as current now, As ever since 'Your servant, sir,' and bow. Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes, Which now would render men like upright apes, Was comelier wear, our wise old fathers thought, Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought. 'T was in those days an honest grace would hold Till an hot pudding grew at heart a-cold, And men had better stomachs for religion, Than now for capon, turkey-cock, or pigeon; When honest sisters met to pray, not prate, About their own and not their neighbors' state, During Plain Dealing's reign, that worthy stud Of the ancient planter-race before the Flood.

"These times were good: merchants cared not a rush For other fare than jonakin and mush. And though men fared and lodged very hard, Yet innocence was better than a guard. 'T was long before spiders and worms had drawn Their dingy webs, or hid with cheating lawn New England's beauties, which still seemed to me Illustrious in their own simplicity. 'T was ere the neighboring Virgin Land had broke The hogsheads of her worse than hellish smoke; 'T was ere the Islands sent their presents in, Which but to use was counted next to sin; 'T was ere a barge had made so rich a freight As chocolate, dust-gold, and bits of eight; Ere wines from France and Muscovado too, Without the which the drink will scarcely do. From Western Isles, ere fruits and delicacies Did rot maids' teeth and spoil their handsome faces, Or ere these times did chance the noise of war Was from our tines and hearts removed far, Then had the churches rest: as yet, the coals Were covered up in most contentious souls; Freeness in judgment, union in affection, Dear love, sound truth, they were our grand protection. Then were the times in which our Councils sat, These grave prognostics of our future state; If these be longer lived, our hopes increase, These wars will usher in a longer peace; But if New England's love die in its youth, The grave will open next for blessed truth.

"This theme is out of date; the peaceful hours When castles needed not, but pleasant bowers, Not ink, but blood and tears now serve the turn To draw the figure of New England's urn. New England's hour of passion is at hand, No power except Divine can it withstand. Scarce hath her glass of fifty years run out, Than her old prosperous steeds turn heads about; Tracking themselves back to their poor beginnings, To fear and fare upon the fruits of sinnings. So that this mirror of the Christian world Lies burnt to heaps in part, her streamers furled. Grief sighs, joys flee, and dismal fears surprise, Not dastard spirits only, but the wise.

"Thus have the fairest hopes deceived the eye Of the big-swoln expectants standing by So the proud ship, after a little turn, Sinks in the ocean's arms to find its urn: Thus hath the heir to many thousands born Been in an instant from the mother torn; Even thus thy infant cheek begins to pale, And thy supporters through great losses fail. This is the Prologue to thy future woe-- The Epilogue no mortal yet can know."

Mr. Ward was much pleased with the verses, saying that they would do honor to any writer.

Rebecca thought the lines concerning the long grace at meat happy, and said she was minded of the wife of the good Mr. Ames, who prided herself on her skill in housewifery and cookery; and on one occasion, seeing a nice pair of roasted fowls growing cold under her husband's long grace, was fain to jog his elbow, telling him that if he did not stop soon, she feared they would have small occasion for thankfulness for their spoiled dinner. Mr. Ward said he was once travelling in company with Mr. Phillips of Rowley, and Mr. Parker of Newbury, and stopping all night at a poor house near the sea-shore, the woman thereof brought into the room for their supper a great wooden tray, full of something nicely covered up by a clean linen cloth. It proved to be a dish of boiled clams, in their shells; and as Mr. Phillips was remarkable in his thanks for aptly citing passages of Scripture with regard to whatsoever food was upon the table before him, Mr. Parker and himself did greatly wonder what he could say of this dish; but he, nothing put to it, offered thanks that now, as formerly, the Lord's people were enabled to partake of the abundance of the seas, and treasures hid in the sands. "Whereat," said Mr. Ward, "we did find it so hard to keep grave countenances, that our good hostess was not a little disturbed, thinking we were mocking her poor fare; and we were fain to tell her the cause of our mirth, which was indeed ill-timed."

Doctor Clark spake of Mr. Ward's father, the renowned minister at Ipswich, whose book of "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam," was much admired. Mr. Ward said that some of the witty turns therein did give much offence at the time of its printing, but that his father could never spoil his joke for the sake of friends, albeit he had no malice towards any one, and was always ready to do a good, even to his enemies. He once even greatly angered his old and true friend, Mr. Cotton of Boston. "It fell out in this wise," said Mr. Ward. "When the arch-heretic and fanatic Gorton and his crew were in prison in Boston, my father and Mr. Cotton went to the jail window to see them; and after some little discourse with them, he told Gorton that if he had done or said anything which he could with a clear conscience renounce, he would do well to recant the same, and the Court, he doubted not, would be merciful; adding, that it would be no disparagement for him to do so, as the best of men were liable to err: as, for instance, his brother Cotton here generally did preach that one year which he publicly repented of before his congregation the next year."

Mr. Saltonstall told another story of old Mr. Ward, which made us all merry. There was a noted Antinomian, of Boston, who used to go much about the country disputing with all who would listen to him, who, coming to Ipswich one night, with another of his sort with him, would fain have tarried with Mr. Ward; but he told them that he had scarce hay and grain enough in his barn for the use of his own cattle, and that they would do well to take their horses to the ordinary, where they would be better cared for. But the fellow, not wishing to be so put off, bade him consider what the Scripture said touching the keeping of strangers, as some had thereby entertained angels unawares. "True, my friend," said Mr. Ward, "but we don't read that the angels came a-horseback!"

The evening passed away in a very pleasant and agreeable manner. We had rare nuts, and apples, and pears, of Mr. Saltonstall's raising, wonderfully sweet and luscious. Our young gentlemen, moreover, seemed to think the wine and ale of good quality; for, long after we had gone to our beds, we could hear them talking and laughing in the great hall below, notwithstanding that Mr. Ward, when he took leave, bade Doctor Thompson take heed to his own hint concerning the:

"Wines from France and Muscovado too;"

to which the young wit replied, that there was Scripture warrant for his drinking, inasmuch as the command was, to give wine to those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more; and, for his part, he had been little better than miserable ever since he heard of Rebecca's betrothal. A light, careless man, but of good parts, and as brave a talker as I have heard since I have been in the Colony.

November 24.

Mr. Ward's negro girl Dinah came for me yesterday, saying that her master did desire to see me. So, marvelling greatly what he wanted, I went with her, and was shown into the study. Mr. Ward said he had sent for me to have some discourse in regard to my brother Leonard, who he did greatly fear was likely to make shipwreck of the faith; and that Mr. Richardson had written him concerning the young man, telling him that he did visit the Quakers when at Newbury, and even went over to their conventicle at Hampton, on the Lord's day, in the company of the Brewster family, noted Quakers and ranters. He had the last evening had some words with the lad, but with small satisfaction. Being sorely troubled by this account, I begged him to send for Leonard, which he did, and, when he did come into the room, Mr. Ward told him that he might see by the plight of his sister (for I was in tears) what a great grief he was like to bring upon his family and friends, by running out into heresies. Leonard said he was sorry to give trouble to any one, least of all to his beloved sister; that he did indeed go to the Quakers' meeting, on one occasion, to judge for himself concerning this people, who are everywhere spoken against; and that he must say he did hear or see nothing in their worship contrary to the Gospel. There was, indeed, but little said, but the words were savory and Scriptural. "But they deny the Scriptures," cried Mr. Ward, "and set above them what they call the Light, which I take to be nothing better than their own imaginations." "I do not so understand them," said Leonard; "I think they do diligently study the Scripture, and seek to conform their lives to its teachings; and for the Light of which they speak, it is borne-- witness to not only in the Bible, but by the early fathers and devout men of all ages. I do not go to excuse the Quakers in all that they have done, nor to defend all their doctrines and practices, many of which I see no warrant in Scripture for, but believe to be pernicious and contrary to good order; yet I must need look upon them as a sober, earnest-seeking people, who do verily think themselves persecuted for righteousness' sake." Hereupon Mr. Ward struck his cane smartly on the floor, and, looking severely at my brother, bade him beware how he did justify these canting and false pretenders. "They are," he said, "either sad knaves, or silly enthusiasts,--they pretend to Divine Revelation, and set up as prophets; like the Rosicrucians and Gnostics, they profess to a knowledge of things beyond what plain Scripture reveals. The best that can be said of them is, that they are befooled by their own fancies, and the victims of distempered brains and ill habits of body. Then their ranting against the Gospel order of the Church, and against the ministers of Christ, calling us all manner of hirelings, wolves, and hypocrites; belching out their blasphemies against the ordinances and the wholesome laws of the land for the support of a sound ministry and faith, do altogether justify the sharp treatment they have met with; so that, if they have not all lost their ears, they may thank our clemency rather than their own worthiness to wear them. I do not judge of them ignorantly, for I have dipped into their books, where, what is not downright blasphemy and heresy, is mystical and cabalistic. They affect a cloudy and canting style, as if to keep themselves from being confuted by keeping themselves from being understood. Their divinity is a riddle, a piece of black art; the Scripture they turn into allegory and parabolical conceits, and thus obscure and debauch the truth. Argue with them, and they fall to divining; reason with them, and they straightway prophesy. Then their silent meetings, so called, in the which they do pretend to justify themselves by quoting Revelation, 'There was silence in heaven;' whereas they might find other authorities,--as, for instance in Psalm 115, where hell is expressed by silence, and in the Gospel, where we read of a dumb devil. As to persecuting these people, we have been quite too charitable to them, especially of late, and they are getting bolder in consequence; as, for example, the behavior of that shameless young wench in Newbury, who disturbed Brother Richardson's church with her antics not long ago. She should have been tied to the cart-tail and whipped all the way to Rhode Island."

"Do you speak of Margaret Brewster?" asked Leonard, his face all a-crimson, and his lip quivering. "Let me tell you, Mr. Ward, that you greatly wrong one of Christ's little ones." And he called me to testify to her goodness and charity, and the blamelessness of her life.

"Don't talk to me of the blameless life of such an one," said Mr. Ward, in aloud, angry tone; "it is the Devil's varnish for heresy. The Manichees, and the Pelagians, and Socinians, all did profess great strictness and sanctity of life; and there never was heretic yet, from they whom the Apostle makes mention of, who fasted from meats, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, down to the Quakers, Dippers, and New Lights of this generation who have not, like their fathers of old, put on the shape of Angels of Light, and lived severe and over-strict lives. I grant that the Quakers are honest in their dealings, making great show of sobriety and self-denial, and abhor the practice of scandalous vices, being temperate, chaste, and grave in their behavior, and thereby they win upon unstable souls, and make plausible their damnable heresies. I warn you, young man, to take heed of them, lest you be ensnared and drawn into their way."

My brother was about to reply, but, seeing Mr. Ward so moved and vexed, I begged of him to say no more; and, company coming in, the matter was dropped, to my great joy. I went back much troubled and disquieted for my brother's sake.

November 28, 1678.

Leonard hath left Mr. Ward, and given up the thought of fitting for the ministry. This will be a heavy blow for his friends in England. He tells me that Mr. Ward spake angrily to him after I left, but that, when he come to part with him, the old man wept over him, and prayed that the Lord would enable him to see his error, and preserve him from the consequences thereof. I have discoursed with my brother touching his future course of life, and he tells me he shall start in a day or two to visit the Rhode Island, where he hath an acquaintance, one Mr. Easton, formerly of Newbury. His design is to purchase a small plantation there, and betake himself to fanning, of the which he hath some little knowledge, believing that he can be as happy and do as much good to his fellow-creatures in that employment as in any other.

Here Cousin Rebecca, who was by, looking up with that sweet archness which doth so well become her, queried with him whether he did think to live alone on his plantation like a hermit, or whether he had not his eye upon a certain fair-haired young woman, as suitable to keep him company. Whereat he seemed a little disturbed; but she bade him not think her against his prospect, for she had known for some weeks that he did favor the Young Brewster woman, who, setting aside her enthusiastic notions of religion, was worthy of any man's love; and turning to me, she begged of me to look at the matter as she did, and not set myself against the choice of my brother, which, in all respects save the one she had spoken of, she could approve with all her heart. Leonard goes back with us o-morrow to Newbury, so I shall have a chance of knowing how matters stand with him. The thought of his marrying a Quaker would have been exceedingly grievous to me a few months ago; but this Margaret Brewster hath greatly won upon me by her beauty, gentleness, and her goodness of heart; and, besides, I know that she is much esteemed by the best sort of people in her neighborhood.

Doctor Thompson left this morning, but his friend Doctor Clark goes with us to Newbury. Rebecca found in her work-basket, after he had gone, some verses, which amused us not a little, and which I here copy.

"Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers, And gone the Summer's pomp and show And Autumn in his leafless bowers Is waiting for the Winter's snow.

"I said to Earth, so cold and gray, 'An emblem of myself thou art:' 'Not so,' the earth did seem to say, 'For Spring shall warm my frozen heart.

"'I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams Of warmer sun and softer rain, And wait to hear the sound of streams And songs of merry birds again.

"'But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone, For whom the flowers no longer blow, Who standest, blighted and forlorn, Like Autumn waiting for the snow.

"'No hope is thine of sunnier hours, Thy winter shall no more depart; No Spring revive thy wasted flowers, Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.'"

Doctor Clark, on hearing this read, told Rebecca she need not take its melancholy to heart, for he could assure her that there was no danger of his friend's acting on her account the sad part of the lover in the old song of Barbara Allen. As a medical man, he could safely warrant him to be heart-whole; and the company could bear him witness, that the poet himself seemed very little like the despairing one depicted in his verses.

The Indian Simon calling this forenoon, Rebecca and I went into the kitchen to see him. He looks fierce and cruel, but he thanked Madain Saltonstall for her gifts of food and clothing, and, giving her in return a little basket wrought of curiously stained stuff, he told her that if there were more like her, his heart would not be so bitter.

I ventured to ask him why he felt thus; whereupon he drew himself up, and, sweeping about him with his arms, said: "This all Indian land. The Great Spirit made it for Indians. He made the great river for them, and birch-trees to make their canoes of. All the fish in the ponds, and all the pigeons and deer and squirrels he made for Indians. He made land for white men too; but they left it, and took Indian's land, because it was better. My father was a chief; he had plenty meat and corn in his wigwam. But Simon is a dog. When they fight Eastern Indians, I try to live in peace; but they say, Simon, you rogue, you no go into woods to hunt; you keep at home. So when squaw like to starve, I shoot one of their hogs, and then they whip me. Look!" And he lifted the blanket off from his shoulder, and showed the marks of the whip thereon.

"Well, well, Simon," said Mr. Saltonstall, "you do know that our people then were much frightened by what the Indians had done in other places, and they feared you would join them. But it is all over now, and you have all the woods to yourself to range in; and if you would let alone strong drink, you would do well."

"Who makes strong drink?" asked the Indian, with an ugly look. "Who takes the Indian's beaver-skins and corn for it? Tell me that, Captain."

So saying, he put his pack on his back, and calling a poor, lean dog, that was poking his hungry nose into Madam's pots and kettles, he went off talking to himself.

NEWBURY, December 6.

We got back from Haverhill last night, Doctor Clark accompanying us, he having business in Newbury. When we came up to the door, Effie met us with a shy look, and told her mistress that Mrs. Prudence (uncle's spinster cousin) had got a braw auld wooer in the east room; and surely enough we found our ancient kinswoman and Deacon Dole, a widower of three years' standing, sitting at the supper-table. We did take note that the Deacon had on a stiff new coat; and as for Aunt Prudence (for so she was called in the family), she was clad in her bravest, with a fine cap on her head. They both did seem a little disturbed by our coming, but plates being laid for us, we sat down with them. After supper, Rebecca had a fire kindled in uncle's room, whither we did betake ourselves; and being very merry at the thought of Deacon Dole's visit, it chanced to enter our silly heads that it would do no harm to stop the clock in the entry a while, and let the two old folks make a long evening of it. After a time Rebecca made an errand into the east room, to see how matters went, and coming back, said the twain were sitting on the same settle by the fire, smoking--a pipe of tobacco together. Moreover, our foolish trick did work well, for Aunt Prudence coming at last into the entry to look at the clock, we heard her tell the Deacon that it was only a little past eight, when in truth it was near ten. Not long after there was a loud knocking at the door, and as Effie had gone to bed, Rebecca did open it, when, whom did she see but the Widow Hepsy Barnet, Deacon Dole's housekeeper, and with her the Deacon's son, Moses, and the minister, Mr. Richardson, with a lantern in his hand! "Dear me," says the woman, looking very dismal, "have you seen anything of the Deacon?" By this time we were all at the door, the Deacon and Aunt Prudence among the rest, when Moses, like a great lout as he is, pulled off his woollen cap and tossed it up in the air, crying out, "There, Goody Barnet, did n't I tell ye so! There's father now!" And the widow, holding up both her hands, said she never did in all her born days see the like of this, a man of the Deacon's years and station stealing away without letting folks know where to look for him; and then turning upon poor Mrs. Prudence, she said she had long known that some folks were sly and artful, and she was glad Mr. Richardson was here to see for himself. Whereupon Aunt Prudence, in much amazement, said, it was scarce past eight, as they might see by the clock; but Mr. Richardson, who could scarce keep a grave face, pulling out his watch, said it was past ten, and bade her note that the clock was stopped. He told Deacon Dole, that seeing Goody Barnet so troubled about him, he had offered to go along with her a little way, and that he was glad to find that the fault was in the clock. The Deacon, who had stood like one in a maze, here clapped on his hat, and snatched up his cane and went off, looking as guilty as if he had been caught a-housebreaking, the widow scolding him all the way. Now, as we could scarce refrain from laughing, Mr. Richardson, who tarried a moment, shook his head at Rebecca, telling her he feared by her looks she was a naughty girl, taking pleasure in other folk's trouble. We did both feel ashamed and sorry enough for our mischief, after it was all over; and poor Mistress Prudence is so sorely mortified, that she told Rebecca this morning not to mention Deacon Dole's name to her again, and that Widow Hepsy is welcome to him, since he is so mean-spirited as to let her rule him as she doth.

December 8.

Yesterday I did, at my brother's wish, go with him to Goodman Brewster's house, where I was kindly welcomed by the young woman and her parents. After some little tarry, I found means to speak privily with her touching my brother's regard for her, and to assure her that I did truly and freely consent thereunto; while I did hope, for his sake as well as her own, that she would, as far as might be consistent with her notion of duty, forbear to do or say anything which might bring her into trouble with the magistrates and those in authority. She said that she was very grateful for my kindness towards her, and that what I said was a great relief to her mind; for when she first met my brother, she did fear that his kindness and sympathy would prove a snare to her; and that she had been sorely troubled, moreover, lest by encouraging him she should not only do violence to her own conscience, but also bring trouble and disgrace upon one who was, she did confess, dear unto her, not only as respects outward things, but by reason of what she did discern of an innocent and pure inward life in his conversation and deportment. She had earnestly sought to conform her conduct in this, as in all things, to the mind of her Divine Master; and, as respected my caution touching those in authority, she knew not what the Lord might require of her, and she could only leave all in His hands, being resigned even to deny herself of the sweet solace of human affection, and to take up the cross daily, if He did so will. "Thy visit and kind words," she continued, "have removed a great weight from me. The way seems more open before me. The Lord bless thee for thy kindness."

She said this with so much tenderness of spirit, and withal with such an engaging sweetness of look and voice, that I was greatly moved, and, pressing her in my arms, I kissed her, and bade her look upon me as her dear sister.

The family pressing us, we stayed to supper, and sitting down in silence at the table, I was about to speak to my brother, but he made a sign to check me, and I held my peace, although not then knowing wherefore. So we all sat still for a little space of time, which I afterwards found is the manner of these people at their meat. The supper was plain, but of exceeding good relish: warm rye loaves with butter and honey, and bowls of sweet milk, and roasted apples. Goodwife Brewster, who appeared much above her husband (who is a plain, unlearned man) in her carriage and discourse, talked with us very pleasantly, and Margaret seemed to grow more at ease, the longer we stayed.

On our way back we met Robert Pike, who hath returned from the eastward. He said Rebecca Rawson had just told him how matters stood with Leonard, and that he was greatly rejoiced to hear of his prospect. He had known Margaret Brewster from a child, and there was scarce her equal in these parts for sweetness of temper and loveliness of person and mind; and, were she ten times a Quaker, he was free to say this in her behalf. I am more and more confirmed in the belief that Leonard hath not done unwisely in this matter, and do cheerfully accept of his choice, believing it to be in the ordering of Him who doeth all things well.

BOSTON, December 31.

It wanteth but two hours to the midnight, and the end of the year. The family are all abed, and I can hear nothing save the crackling of the fire now burning low on the hearth, and the ticking of the clock in the corner. The weather being sharp with frost, there is no one stirring in the streets, and the trees and bushes in the yard, being stripped of their leaves, look dismal enough above the white snow with which the ground is covered, so that one would think that all things must needs die with the year. But, from my window, I can see the stars shining with marvellous brightness in the clear sky, and the sight thereof doth assure me that God still watcheth over the work of His hands, and that in due season He will cause the flowers to appear on the earth, and the time of singing-birds to come, and-the voice of the turtle to be heard in the land. And I have been led, while alone here, to think of the many mercies which have been vouchsafed unto me in my travels and sojourn in a strange land, and a sense of the wonderful goodness of God towards me, and they who are dear unto me, both here and elsewhere, hath filled mine heart with thankfulness; and as of old time they did use to set up stones of memorial on the banks of deliverance, so would I at this season set up, as it were, in my poor journal, a like pillar of thanksgiving to the praise and honor of Him who hath so kindly cared for His unworthy handmaid.

January 16, 1679.

Have just got back from Reading, a small town ten or twelve miles out of Boston, whither I went along with mine Uncle and Aunt Rawson, and many others, to attend the ordination of Mr. Brock, in the place of the worthy Mr. Hough, lately deceased. The weather being clear, and the travelling good, a great concourse of people got together. We stopped at the ordinary, which we found wellnigh filled; but uncle, by dint of scolding and coaxing, got a small room for aunt and myself, with a clean bed, which was more than we had reason to hope for. The ministers, of whom there were many and of note (Mr. Mather and Mr. Wilson of Boston, and Mr. Corbet of Ipswich, being among them), were already together at the house of one of the deacons. It was quite a sight the next morning to see the people coming in from the neighboring towns, and to note their odd dresses, which were indeed of all kinds, from silks and velvets to coarsest homespun woollens, dyed with hemlock, or oil-nut bark, and fitting so ill that, if they had all cast their clothes into a heap, and then each snatched up whatsoever coat or gown came to hand, they could not have suited worse. Yet they were all clean and tidy, and the young people especially did look exceeding happy, it being with them a famous holiday. The young men came with their sisters or their sweethearts riding behind them on pillions; and the ordinary and all the houses about were soon noisy enough with merry talking and laughter. The meeting-house was filled long before the services did begin. There was a goodly show of honorable people in the forward seats, and among them that venerable magistrate, Simon Broadstreet, who acteth as Deputy- Governor since the death of Mr. Leverett; the Honorable Thomas Danforth; Mr. William Brown of Salem; and others of note, whose names I do not remember, all with their wives and families, bravely apparelled. The Sermon was preached by Mr. Higginson of Salem, the Charge was given by Mr. Phillips of Rowley, and the Right Hand of Fellowship by Mr. Corbet of Ipswich. When we got back to our inn, we found a great crowd of young roysterers in the yard, who had got Mr. Corbet's negro man, Sam, on the top of a barrel, with a bit of leather, cut in the shape of spectacles, astride of his nose, where he stood swinging his arms, and preaching, after the manner of his master, mimicking his tone and manner very shrewdly, to the great delight and merriment of the young rogues who did set him on. We stood in the door a while to hear him, and, to say the truth, he did wonderfully well, being a fellow of good parts and much humor. But, just as he was describing the Devil, and telling his grinning hearers that he was not like a black but a white man, old Mr. Corbet, who had come up behind him, gave him a smart blow with his cane, whereupon Sam cried,--

"Dare he be now!" at which all fell to laughing.

"You rascal," said Mr. Corbet, "get down with you; I'll teach you to compare me to the Devil."

"Beg pardon, massa!" said Sam, getting down from his pulpit, and rubbing his shoulder. "How you think Sam know you? He see nothing; he only feel de lick."

"You shall feel it again," said his master, striking at him a great blow, which Sam dodged.

"Nay, Brother Corbet," said Mr. Phillips, who was with him, "Sam's mistake was not so strange after all; for if Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light, why not into the likeness of such unworthy ministers as you and I."

This put the old minister in a good humor, and Sam escaped without farther punishment than a grave admonition to behave more reverently for the future. Mr. Phillips, seeing some of his young people in the crowd, did sharply rebuke them for their folly, at which they were not a little abashed.

The inn being greatly crowded, and not a little noisy, we were not unwilling to accept the invitation of the provider of the ordination- dinner, to sit down with the honored guests thereat. I waited, with others of the younger class, until the ministers and elderly people had made an end of their meal. Among those who sat at the second table was a pert, talkative lad, a son of Mr. Increase Mather, who, although but sixteen years of age, graduated at the Harvard College last year, and hath the reputation of good scholarship and lively wit. He told some rare stories concerning Mr. Brock, the minister ordained, and of the marvellous efficacy of his prayers. He mentioned, among other things, that, when Mr. Brock lived on the Isles of Shoals, he persuaded the people there to agree to spend one day in a month, beside the Sabhath, in religious worship. Now, it so chanced that there was on one occasion a long season of stormy, rough weather, unsuitable for fishing; and when the day came which had been set apart, it proved so exceeding fair, that his congregation did desire him to put off the meeting, that they might fish. Mr. Brock tried in vain to reason with them, and show the duty of seeking first the kingdom of God, when all other things should be added thereto, but the major part determined to leave the meeting. Thereupon he cried out after them: "As for you who will neglect God's worship, go, and catch fish if you can." There were thirty men who thus left, and only five remained behind, and to these he said: "I will pray the Lord for you, that you may catch fish till you are weary." And it so fell out, that the thirty toiled all day, and caught only four fishes; while the five who stayed at meeting went out, after the worship was over, and caught five hundred; and ever afterwards the fishermen attended all the meetings of the minister's appointing. At another time, a poor man, who had made himself useful in carrying people to meeting in his boat, lost the same in a storm, and came lamenting his loss to Mr. Brock. "Go home, honest man," said the minister. "I will mention your case to the Lord: you will have your boat again to-morrow." And surely enough, the very next day, a vessel pulling up its anchor near where the boat sank, drew up the poor man's boat, safe and whole, after it.

We went back to Boston after dinner, but it was somewhat of a cold ride, especially after the night set in, a keen northerly wind blowing in great gusts, which did wellnigh benumb us. A little way from Reading, we overtook an old couple in the road; the man had fallen off his horse, and his wife was trying to get him up again to no purpose; so young Mr. Richards, who was with us, helped him up to the saddle again, telling his wife to hold him carefully, as her old man had drank too much flip. Thereupon the good wife set upon him with a vile tongue, telling him that her old man was none other than Deacon Rogers of Wenham, and as good and as pious a saint as there was out of heaven; and it did ill become a young, saucy rake and knave to accuse him of drunkenness, and it would be no more than his deserts if the bears did eat him before he got to Boston. As it was quite clear that the woman herself had had a taste of the mug, we left them and rode on, she fairly scolding us out of hearing. When we got home, we found Cousin Rebecca, whom we did leave ill with a cold, much better in health, sitting up and awaiting us.

January 21, 1679.

Uncle Rawson came home to-day in a great passion, and, calling me to him, he asked me if I too was going to turn Quaker, and fall to prophesying? Whereat I was not a little amazed; and when I asked him what he did mean, he said: "Your brother Leonard hath gone off to them, and I dare say you will follow, if one of the ranters should take it into his head that you would make him a proper wife, or company-keeper, for there's never an honest marriage among them." Then looking sternly at me, he asked me why I did keep this matter from him, and thus allow the foolish young man to get entangled in the snares of Satan. Whereat I was so greatly grieved, that I could answer never a word.

"You may well weep," said my uncle, "for you have done wickedly. As to your brother, he will do well to keep where he is in the plantations; for if he come hither a theeing and thouing of me, I will spare him never a whit; and if I do not chastise him myself, it will be because the constable can do it better at the cart-tail. As the Lord lives, I had rather he had turned Turk!"

I tried to say a word for my brother, but he cut me straightway short, bidding me not to mention his name again in his presence. Poor me! I have none here now to whom I can speak freely, Rebecca having gone to her sister's at Weymouth. My young cousin Grindall is below, with his college friend, Cotton Mather; but I care not to listen to their discourse, and aunt is busied with her servants in the kitchen, so that I must even sit alone with my thoughts, which be indeed but sad company.

The little book which I brought with me from the Maine, it being the gift of young Mr. Jordan, and which I have kept close hidden in my trunk, hath been no small consolation to me this day, for it aboundeth in sweet and goodly thoughts, although he who did write it was a monk. Especially in my low state, have these words been a comfort to me:--

"What thou canst not amend in thyself or others, bear thou with patience until God ordaineth otherwise. When comfort is taken away, do not presently despair. Stand with an even mind resigned to the will of God, whatever shall befall, because after winter cometh the summer; after the dark night the day shineth, and after the storm followeth a great calm. Seek not for consolation which shall rob thee of the grace of penitence; for all that is high is not holy, nor all that is pleasant good; nor every desire pure; nor is what is pleasing to us always pleasant in the sight of God."

January 23.

The weather is bitter cold, and a great snow on the ground. By a letter from Newbury, brought me by Mr. Sewall, who hath just returned from that place, I hear that Goodwife Morse hath been bound for trial as a witch. Mr. Sewall tells me the woman is now in the Boston jail. As to Caleb Powell, he hath been set at liberty, there being no proof of his evil practice. Yet inasmuch as he did give grounds of suspicion by boasting of his skill in astrology and astronomy, the Court declared that he justly deserves to bear his own shame and the costs of his prosecution and lodging in jail.

Mr. Sewall tells me that Deacon Dole has just married his housekeeper, Widow Barnet, and that Moses says he never knew before his father to get the worst in a bargain.

January 30.

Robert Pike called this morning, bringing me a letter from my brother, and one from Margaret Brewster. He hath been to the Providence Plantations and Rhode Island, and reporteth well of the prospects of my brother, who hath a goodly farm, and a house nigh upon finished, the neighbors, being mostly Quakers, assisting him much therein. My brother's letter doth confirm this account of his temporal condition, although a great part of it is taken up with a defence of his new doctrines, for the which he doth ingeniously bring to mind many passages of Scripture. Margaret's letter being short, I here copy it:--

THE PLANTATIONS, 20th of the 1st mo., 1679.

"DEAR FRIEND,--I salute thee with much love from this new country, where the Lord hath spread a table for us in the wilderness. Here is a goodly company of Friends, who do seek to know the mind of Truth, and to live thereby, being held in favor and esteem by the rulers of the land, and so left in peace to worship God according to their consciences. The whole country being covered with snow, and the weather being extreme cold, we can scarce say much of the natural gifts and advantages of our new home; but it lieth on a small river, and there be fertile meadows, and old corn-fields of the Indians, and good springs of water, so that I am told it is a desirable and pleasing place in the warm season. My soul is full of thankfulness, and a sweet inward peace is my portion. Hard things are made easy to me; this desert place, with its lonely woods and wintry snows, is beautiful in mine eyes. For here we be no longer gazing-stocks of the rude multitude, we are no longer haled from our meetings, and railed upon as witches and possessed people. Oh, how often have we been called upon heretofore to repeat the prayer of one formerly: 'Let me not fall into the hands of man.' Sweet, beyond the power of words to express, hath been the change in this respect; and in view of the mercies vouchsafed unto us, what can we do but repeat the language of David, 'Praise is comely yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High! to show forth thy loving- kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.'

"Thou hast doubtless heard that thy dear brother hath been favored to see the way of truth, according to our persuasion thereof, and hath been received into fellowship with us. I fear this hath been a trial to thee; but, dear heart, leave it in the hands of the Lord, whose work I do indeed count it. Nor needest thou to fear that thy brother's regard for thee will be lessened thereby, for the rather shall it be increased by a measure of that Divine love which, so far from destroying, doth but purify and strengthen the natural affections.

"Think, then, kindly of thy brother, for his love towards thee is very great; and of me, also, unworthy as I am, for his sake. And so, with salutations of love and peace, in which my dear mother joins, I remain thy loving friend, MARGARET BREWSTER.

"The Morse woman, I hear, is in your jail, to be tried for a witch. She is a poor, weak creature, but I know no harm of her, and do believe her to be more silly than wicked in the matter of the troubles in her house. I fear she will suffer much at this cold season in the jail, she being old and weakly, and must needs entreat thee to inquire into her condition. "M. B."

February 10.

Speaking of Goody Morse to-day, Uncle Rawson says she will, he thinks, be adjudged a witch, as there be many witnesses from Newbury to testify against her. Aunt sent the old creature some warm blankets and other necessaries, which she stood much in need of, and Rebecca and I altered one of aunt's old gowns for her to wear, as she hath nothing seemly of her own. Mr. Richardson, her minister, hath visited her twice since she hath been in jail; but he saith she is hardened in her sin, and will confess nothing thereof.

February 14. The famous Mr. John Eliot, having business with my uncle, spent the last night with us, a truly worthy man, who, by reason of his great labors among the heathen Indians, may be called the chiefest of our apostles. He brought with him a young Indian lad, the son of a man of some note among his people, very bright and comely, and handsomely apparelled after the fashion of his tribe. This lad hath a ready wit, readeth and writeth, and hath some understanding of Scripture; indeed, he did repeat the Lord's Prayer in a manner edifying to hear.

The worshipful Major Gookins coming in to sup with us, there was much discourse concerning the affairs of the Province: both the Major and his friend Eliot being great sticklers for the rights and liberties of the people, and exceeding jealous of the rule of the home government, and in this matter my uncle did quite agree with them. In a special manner Major Gookins did complain of the Acts of Trade, as injurious to the interests of the Colony, and which he said ought not to be submitted to, as the laws of England were bounded by the four seas, and did not justly reach America. He read a letter which he had from Mr. Stoughton, one of the agents of the Colony in England, showing how they had been put off from time to time, upon one excuse or another, without being able to get a hearing; and now the Popish Plot did so occupy all minds there, that Plantation matters were sadly neglected; but this much was certain, the laws for the regulating of trade must be consented to by the Massachusetts, if we would escape a total breach. My uncle struck his hand hard on the table at this, and said if all were of his mind they would never heed the breach; adding, that he knew his rights as a free- born Englishman, under Magna Charta, which did declare it the privilege of such to have a voice in the making of laws; whereas the Massachusetts had no voice in Parliament, and laws were thrust upon them by strangers.

"For mine own part," said Major Gookins, "I do hold our brother Eliot's book on the Christian Commonwealth, which the General Court did make haste to condemn on the coming in of the king, to be a sound and seasonable treatise, notwithstanding the author himself hath in some sort disowned it."

"I did truly condemn and deny the false and seditious doctrines charged upon it," said Mr. Eliot, "but for the book itself, rightly taken, and making allowance for some little heat of discourse and certain hasty and ill-considered words therein, I have never seen cause to repent. I quite agree with what my lamented friend and fellow-laborer, Mr. Danforth, said, when he was told that the king was to be proclaimed at Boston: 'Whatever form of government may be deduced from Scripture, that let us yield to for conscience' sake, not forgetting at the same time that the Apostle hath said, if thou mayest be free use it rather.'"

My uncle said this was well spoken of Mr. Danforth, who was a worthy gentleman and a true friend to the liberties of the Colony; and he asked Rebecca to read some ingenious verses writ by him in one of his almanacs, which she had copied not long ago, wherein he compareth New England to a goodly tree or plant. Whereupon, Rebecca read them as followeth:--

"A skilful husbandman he was, who brought This matchless plant from far, and here hath sought A place to set it in; and for its sake The wilderness a pleasant land doth make.

"With pleasant aspect, Phoebus smiles upon The tender buds and blooms that hang thereon; At this tree's root Astrea sits and sings, And waters it, whence upright Justice springs, Which yearly shoots forth laws and liberties That no man's will or wit may tyrannize. Those birds of prey that sometime have oppressed And stained the country with their filthy nest, Justice abhors, and one day hopes to find A way, to make all promise-breakers grind. On this tree's top hangs pleasant Liberty, Not seen in Austria, France, Spain, Italy. True Liberty 's there ripe, where all confess They may do what they will, save wickedness. Peace is another fruit which this tree bears, The chiefest garland that the country wears, Which o'er all house-tops, towns, and fields doth spread, And stuffs the pillow for each weary head. It bloomed in Europe once, but now 't is gone, And glad to find a desert mansion. Forsaken Truth, Time's daughter, groweth here,-- More precious fruit what tree did ever bear,-- Whose pleasant sight aloft hath many fed, And what falls down knocks Error on the head."

After a little time, Rebecca found means to draw the good Mr. Eliot into some account of his labors and journeys among the Indians, and of their manner of life, ceremonies, and traditions, telling him that I was a stranger in these parts, and curious concerning such matters. So he did address himself to me very kindly, answering such questions as I ventured to put to him. And first, touching the Powahs, of whom I had heard much, he said they were manifestly witches, and such as had familiar spirits; but that, since the Gospel has been preached here, their power had in a great measure gone from them. "My old friend, Passaconaway, the Chief of the Merrimac River Indians," said he, "was, before his happy and marvellous conversion, a noted Powah and wizard. I once queried with him touching his sorceries, when he said he had done wickedly, and it was a marvel that the Lord spared his life, and did not strike him dead with his lightnings. And when I did press him to tell me how he did become a Powah, he said he liked not to speak of it, but would nevertheless tell me. His grandmother used to tell him many things concerning the good and bad spirits, and in a special manner of the Abomako, or Chepian, who had the form of a serpent, and who was the cause of sickness and pain, and of all manner of evils. And it so chanced that on one occasion, when hunting in the wilderness, three days' journey from home, he did lose his way, and wandered for a long time without food, and night coming on, he thought he did hear voices of men talking; but, on drawing near to the place whence the noise came, he could see nothing but the trees and rocks; and then he did see a light, as from a wigwam a little way off, but, going towards it, it moved away, and, following it, he was led into a dismal swamp, full of water, and snakes, and briers; and being in so sad a plight, he bethought him of all he had heard of evil demons and of Chepian, who, he doubted not was the cause of his trouble. At last, coming to a little knoll in the swamp, he lay down under a hemlock-tree, and being sorely tired, fell asleep. And he dreamed a dream, which was in this wise:--

"He thought he beheld a great snake crawl up out of the marsh, and stand upon his tail under a tall maple-tree; and he thought the snake spake to him, and bade him be of good cheer, for he would guide him safe out of the swamp, and make of him a great chief and Powah, if he would pray to him and own him as his god. All which he did promise to do; and when he awoke in the morning, he beheld before him the maple-tree under which he had seen the snake in his dream, and, climbing to the top of it, he saw a great distance off the smoke of a wigwam, towards which he went, and found some of his own people cooking a plentiful meal of venison. When he got back to Patucket, he told his dream to his grandmother, who was greatly rejoiced, and went about from wigwam to wigwam, telling the tribe that Chepian had appeared to her grandson. So they had a great feast and dance, and he was thenceforth looked upon as a Powah. Shortly after, a woman of the tribe falling sick, he was sent for to heal her, which he did by praying to Chepian and laying his hands upon her; and at divers other times the Devil helped him in his enchantments and witcheries."

I asked Mr. Eliot whether he did know of any women who were Powahs. He confessed he knew none; which was the more strange, as in Christian countries the Old Serpent did commonly find instruments of his craft among the women.

To my query as to what notion the heathen had of God and a future state, he said that, when he did discourse them concerning the great and true God, who made all things, and of heaven and hell, they would readily consent thereto, saying that so their fathers had taught them; but when he spake to them of the destruction of the world by fire, and the resurrection of the body, they would not hear to it, for they pretend to hold that the spirit of the dead man goes forthwith, after death, to the happy hunting-grounds made for good Indians, or to the cold and dreary swamps and mountains, where the bad Indians do starve and freeze, and suffer all manner of hardships.

There was, Mr. Eliot told us, a famous Powah, who, coming to Punkapog, while he was at that Indian town, gave out among the people there that a little humming-bird did come to him and peck at him when he did aught that was wrong, and sing sweetly to him when he did a good thing, or spake the right words; which coming to Mr. Eliot's ear, he made him confess, in the presence of the congregation, that he did only mean, by the figure of the bird, the sense he had of right and wrong in his own mind. This fellow was, moreover, exceeding cunning, and did often ask questions hard to be answered touching the creation of the Devil, and the fall of man.

I said to him that I thought it must be a great satisfaction to him to be permitted to witness the fruit of his long labors and sufferings in behalf of these people, in the hopeful conversion of so many of them to the light and knowledge of the Gospel; to which he replied that his poor labors had been indeed greatly blest, but it was all of the Lord's doing, and he could truly say he felt, in view of the great wants of these wild people, and their darkness and misery, that he had by no means done all his duty towards them. He said also, that whenever he was in danger of being puffed up with the praise of men, or the vanity of his own heart, the Lord had seen meet to abase and humble him, by the falling back of some of his people to their old heathenish practices. The war, moreover, was a sore evil to the Indian churches, as some few of their number were enticed by Philip to join him in his burnings and slaughterings, and this did cause even the peaceful and innocent to be vehemently suspected and cried out against as deceivers and murderers. Poor, unoffending old men, and pious women, had been shot at and killed by our soldiers, their wigwams burned, their families scattered, and driven to seek shelter with the enemy; yea, many Christian Indians, he did believe, had been sold as slaves to the Barbadoes, which he did account a great sin, and a reproach to our people. Major Gookins said that a better feeling towards the Indians did now prevail among the people; the time having been when, because of his friendliness to them, and his condemnation of their oppressors, he was cried out against and stoned in the streets, to the great hazard of his life.

So, after some further discourse, our guests left us, Mr. Eliot kindly inviting me to visit his Indian congregation near Boston, whereby I could judge for myself of their condition.

February 22, 1679.

The weather suddenly changing from a warm rain and mist to sharp, clear cold, the trees a little way from the house did last evening so shine with a wonderful brightness in the light of the moon, now nigh unto its full, that I was fain to go out upon the hill-top to admire them. And truly it was no mean sight to behold every small twig becrusted with ice, and glittering famously like silver-work or crystal, as the rays of the moon did strike upon them. Moreover, the earth was covered with frozen snow, smooth and hard like to marble, through which the long rushes, the hazels, and mulleins, and the dry blades of the grasses, did stand up bravely, bedight with frost. And, looking upward, there were the dark tops of the evergreen trees, such as hemlocks, pines, and spruces, starred and bespangled, as if wetted with a great rain of molten crystal. After admiring and marvelling at this rare entertainment and show of Nature, I said it did mind me of what the Spaniards and Portuguese relate of the great Incas of Guiana, who had a garden of pleasure in the Isle of Puna, whither they were wont to betake themselves when they would enjoy the air of the sea, in which they had all manner of herbs and flowers, and trees curiously fashioned of gold and silver, and so burnished that their exceeding brightness did dazzle the eyes of the beholders.

"Nay," said the worthy Mr. Mather, who did go with us, "it should rather, methinks, call to mind what the Revelator hath said of the Holy City. I never look upon such a wonderful display of the natural world without remembering the description of the glory of that city which descended out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and her light like unto a stone most precious, even like unto a jasper stone, clear as crystal. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper, and the city was pure gold like unto clear glass. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, every several gate was of one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

"There never was a king's palace lighted up and adorned like this," continued Mr. Mather, as we went homewards. "It seemeth to be Gods design to show how that He can glorify himself in the work of His hands, even at this season of darkness and death, when all things are sealed up, and there be no flowers, nor leaves, nor ruining brooks, to speak of His goodness and sing forth His praises. Truly hath it been said, Great things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend. For He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain and the great rain of His strength. He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know His work. Then the beasts go into their dens, and they remain in their places. Out of the south cometh the whirlwind, and cold out of the north. By the breath of God is the frost given, and the breadth of the waters straitened."

March 10.

I have been now for many days afflicted with a great cold and pleurisy, although, by God's blessing on the means used, I am wellnigh free from pain, and much relieved, also, from a tedious cough. In this sickness I have not missed the company and kind ministering of my dear Cousin Rebecca, which was indeed a great comfort. She tells me to-day that the time hath been fixed upon for her marriage with Sir Thomas, which did not a little rejoice me, as I am to go back to mine own country in their company. I long exceedingly to see once again the dear friends from whom I have been separated by many months of time and a great ocean.

Cousin Torrey, of Weymouth, coming in yesterday, brought with her a very bright and pretty Indian girl, one of Mr. Eliot's flock, of the Natick people. She was apparelled after the English manner, save that she wore leggings, called moccasins, in the stead of shoes, wrought over daintily with the quills of an animal called a porcupine, and hung about with small black and white shells. Her hair, which was exceeding long and black, hung straight down her back, and was parted from her forehead, and held fast by means of a strip of birch back, wrought with quills and feathers, which did encircle her head. She speaks the English well, and can write somewhat, as well as read. Rebecca, for my amusement, did query much with her regarding the praying Indians; and on her desiring to know whether they did in no wise return to their old practices and worships, Wauwoonemeen (for so she was called by her people) told us that they did still hold their Keutikaw, or Dance for the Dead; and that the ministers, although they did not fail to discourage it, had not forbidden it altogether, inasmuch as it was but a civil custom of the people, and not a religious rite. This dance did usually take place at the end of twelve moons after the death of one of their number, and finished the mourning. The guests invited bring presents to the bereaved family, of wampum, beaver-skins, corn, and ground-nuts, and venison. These presents are delivered to a speaker, appointed for the purpose, who takes them, one by one, and hands them over to the mourners, with a speech entreating them to be consoled by these tokens of the love of their neighbors, and to forget their sorrows. After which, they sit down to eat, and are merry together.

Now it had so chanced that at a Keutikaw held the present winter, two men had been taken ill, and had died the next day; and although Mr. Eliot, when he was told of it, laid the blame thereof upon their hard dancing until they were in a great heat, and then running out into the snow and sharp air to cool themselves, it was thought by many that they were foully dealt with and poisoned. So two noted old Powahs from Wauhktukook, on the great river Connecticut, were sent for to discover the murderers. Then these poor heathen got together in a great wigwam, where the old wizards undertook, by their spells and incantations, to consult the invisible powers in the matter. I asked Wauwoonemeen if she knew how they did practise on the occasion; whereupon she said that none but men were allowed to be in the wigwam, but that she could hear the beating of sticks on the ground, and the groans and howlings and dismal mutterings of the Powahs, and that she, with another young woman, venturing to peep through a hole in the back of the wigwam, saw a great many people sitting on the ground, and the two Powahs before the fire, jumping and smiting their breasts, and rolling their eyes very frightfully.

"But what came of it?" asked Rebecca. "Did the Evil Spirit whom they thus called upon testify against himself, by telling who were his instruments in mischief?"

The girl said she had never heard of any discovery of the poisoners, if indeed there were such. She told us, moreover, that many of the best people in the tribe would have no part in the business, counting it sinful; and that the chief actors were much censured by the ministers, and so ashamed of it that they drove the Powahs out of the village, the women and boys chasing them and beating them with sticks and frozen snow, so that they had to take to the woods in a sorry plight.

We gave the girl some small trinkets, and a fair piece of cloth for an apron, whereat she was greatly pleased. We were all charmed with her good parts, sweetness of countenance, and discourse and ready wit, being satisfied thereby that Nature knoweth no difference between Europe and America in blood, birth, and bodies, as we read in Acts 17 that God hath made of one blood all mankind. I was specially minded of a saying of that ingenious but schismatic man, Mr. Roger Williams, in the little book which he put forth in England on the Indian tongue:--

"Boast not, proud English, of thy birth and blood, Thy brother Indian is by birth as good; Of one blood God made him and thee and all, As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal.

"By nature wrath's his portion, thine, no more, Till grace his soul and thine in Christ restore. Make sure thy second birth, else thou shalt see Heaven ope to Indians wild, but shut to thee!"

March 15.

One Master O'Shane, an Irish scholar, of whom my cousins here did learn the Latin tongue, coming in last evening, and finding Rebecca and I alone (uncle and aunt being on a visit to Mr. Atkinson's), was exceeding merry, entertaining us rarely with his stories and songs. Rebecca tells me he is a learned man, as I can well believe, but that he is too fond of strong drink for his good, having thereby lost the favor of many of the first families here, who did formerly employ him. There was one ballad, which he saith is of his own making, concerning the selling of the daughter of a great Irish lord as a slave in this land, which greatly pleased me; and on my asking for a copy of it, he brought it to me this morning, in a fair hand. I copy it in my Journal, as I know that Oliver, who is curious in such things, will like it.

KATHLEEN.

O NORAH, lay your basket down, And rest your weary hand, And come and hear me sing a song Of our old Ireland.

There was a lord of Galaway, A mighty lord was he; And he did wed a second wife, A maid of low degree.

But he was old, and she was young, And so, in evil spite, She baked the black bread for his kin, And fed her own with white.

She whipped the maids and starved the kern, And drove away the poor; "Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said, "I rue my bargain sore!"

This lord he had a daughter fair, Beloved of old and young, And nightly round the shealing-fires Of her the gleeman sung.

"As sweet and good is young Kathleen As Eve before her fall;" So sang the harper at the fair, So harped he in the hall.

"Oh, come to me, my daughter dear! Come sit upon my knee, For looking in your face, Kathleen, Your mother's own I see!"

He smoothed and smoothed her hair away, He kissed her forehead fair; "It is my darling Mary's brow, It is my darling's hair!"

Oh, then spake up the angry dame, "Get up, get up," quoth she, "I'll sell ye over Ireland, I'll sell ye o'er the sea!"

She clipped her glossy hair away, That none her rank might know; She took away her gown of silk, And gave her one of tow,

And sent her down to Limerick town And to a seaman sold This daughter of an Irish lord For ten good pounds in gold.

The lord he smote upon his breast, And tore his beard so gray; But he was old, and she was young, And so she had her way.

Sure that same night the Banshee howled To fright the evil dame, And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen, With funeral torches came.

She watched them glancing through the trees, And glimmering down the hill; They crept before the dead-vault door, And there they all stood still!

"Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!" "Ye murthering witch," quoth he, "So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care If they shine for you or me."

"Oh, whoso brings my daughter back, My gold and land shall have!" Oh, then spake up his handsome page, "No gold nor land I crave!

"But give to me your daughter dear, Give sweet Kathleen to me, Be she on sea or be she on land, I'll bring her back to thee."

"My daughter is a lady born, And you of low degree, But she shall be your bride the day You bring her back to me."

He sailed east, he sailed west, And far and long sailed he, Until he came to Boston town, Across the great salt sea.

"Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen, The flower of Ireland? Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue, And by her snow-white hand!"

Out spake an ancient man, "I know The maiden whom ye mean; I bought her of a Limerick man, And she is called Kathleen.

"No skill hath she in household work, Her hands are soft and white, Yet well by loving looks and ways She doth her cost requite."

So up they walked through Boston town, And met a maiden fair, A little basket on her arm So snowy-white and bare.

"Come hither, child, and say hast thou This young man ever seen?" They wept within each other's arms, The page and young Kathleen.

"Oh give to me this darling child, And take my purse of gold." "Nay, not by me," her master said, "Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.

"We loved her in the place of one The Lord hath early ta'en; But, since her heart's in Ireland, We give her back again!"

Oh, for that same the saints in heaven For his poor soul shall pray, And Mary Mother wash with tears His heresies away.

Sure now they dwell in Ireland; As you go up Claremore Ye'll see their castle looking down The pleasant Galway shore.

And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, And a happy man is he, For he sits beside his own Kathleen, With her darling on his knee.

1849.

March 27, 1679.

Spent the afternoon and evening yesterday at Mr. Mather's, with uncle and aunt, Rebecca and Sir Thomas, and Mr. Torrey of Weymouth, and his wife; Mr. Thacher, the minister of the South Meeting, and Major Simon Willard of Concord, being present also. There was much discourse of certain Antinomians, whose loose and scandalous teachings in respect to works were strongly condemned, although Mr. Thacher thought there might be danger, on the other hand, of falling into the error of the Socinians, who lay such stress upon works, that they do not scruple to undervalue and make light of faith. Mr. Torrey told of some of the Antinomians, who, being guilty of scandalous sins, did nevertheless justify themselves, and plead that they were no longer under the law. Sir Thomas drew Rebecca and I into a corner of the room, saying he was a-weary of so much disputation, and began relating somewhat which befell him in a late visit to the New Haven people. Among other things, he told us that while he was there, a maid of nineteen years was put upon trial for her life, by complaint of her parents of disobedience of their commands, and reviling them; that at first the mother of the girl did seem to testify strongly against her; but when she had spoken a few words, the accused crying out with a bitter lamentation, that she should be destroyed in her youth by the words of her own mother, the woman did so soften her testimony that the Court, being in doubt upon the matter, had a consultation with the ministers present, as to whether the accused girl had made herself justly liable to the punishment prescribed for stubborn and rebellious children in Deut. xxi. 20, 21. It was thought that this law did apply specially unto a rebellious son, according to the words of the text, and that a daughter could not be put to death under it; to which the Court did assent, and the girl, after being admonished, was set free. Thereupon, Sir Thomas told us, she ran sobbing into the arms of her mother, who did rejoice over her as one raised from the dead, and did moreover mightily blame herself for putting her in so great peril, by complaining of her disobedience to the magistrates.

Major Willard, a pleasant, talkative man, being asked by Mr. Thacher some questions pertaining to his journey into the New Hampshire, in the year '52, with the learned and pious Mr. Edward Johnson, in obedience to an order of the General Court, for the finding the northernmost part of the river Merrimac, gave us a little history of the same, some parts of which I deemed noteworthy. The company, consisting of the two commissioners, and two surveyors, and some Indians, as guides and hunters, started from Concord about the middle of July, and followed the river on which Concord lies, until they came to the great Falls of the Merrimac, at Patucket, where they were kindly entertained at the wigwam of a chief Indian who dwelt there. They then went on to the Falls of the Amoskeag, a famous place of resort for the Indians, and encamped at the foot of a mountain, under the shade of some great trees, where they spent the next day, it being the Sabhath. Mr. Johnson read a portion of the Word, and a psalm was sung, the Indians sitting on the ground a little way off, in a very reverential manner. They then went to Annahookline, where were some Indian cornfields, and thence over a wild, hilly country, to the head of the Merrimac, at a place called by the Indians Aquedahcan, where they took an observation of the latitude, and set their names upon a great rock, with that of the worshipful Governor, John Endicott. Here was the great Lake Winnipiseogee, as large over as an English county, with many islands upon it, very green with trees and vines, and abounding with squirrels and birds. They spent two days at the lake's outlet, one of them the Sabhath, a wonderfully still, quiet day of the midsummer. "It is strange," said the Major, "but so it is, that although a quarter of a century hath passed over me since that day, it is still very fresh and sweet in my memory. Many times, in my musings, I seem to be once more sitting under the beechen trees of Aquedahcan, with my three English friends, and I do verily seem to see the Indians squatted on the lake shore, round a fire, cooking their dishes, and the smoke thereof curling about among the trees over their heads; and beyond them is the great lake and the islands thereof, some big and others exceeding small, and the mountains that do rise on the other side, and whose woody tops show in the still water as in a glass. And, withal, I do seem to have a sense of the smell of flowers, which did abound there, and of the strawberries with which the old Indian cornfield near unto us was red, they being then ripe and luscious to the taste. It seems, also, as if I could hear the bark of my dog, and the chatter of squirrels, and the songs of the birds, in the thick woods behind us; and, moreover, the voice of my friend Johnson, as he did call to mind these words of the 104th Psalm: 'Bless the Lord, O my soul! who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain; who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds his chariot; and walketh upon the wings of the wind!' Ah me! I shall never truly hear that voice more, unless, through God's mercy, I be permitted to join the saints of light in praise and thanksgiving beside stiller waters and among greener pastures than are those of Aquedahcan."

"He was a shining light, indeed," said Mr. Mather, "and, in view of his loss and that of other worthies in Church and State, we may well say, as of old, Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth!"

Major Willard said that the works of Mr. Johnson did praise him, especially that monument of his piety and learning, "The History of New England; or, Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour," wherein he did show himself in verse and in prose a workman not to be ashamed. There was a piece which Mr. Johnson writ upon birchen bark at the head of the Merrimac, during the journey of which he had spoken, which had never been printed, but which did more deserve that honor than much of the rhymes with which the land now aboundeth. Mr. Mather said he had the piece of bark then in his possession, on which Mr. Johnson did write; and, on our desiring to see it, he brought it to us, and, as we could not well make out the writing thereon, he read it as followeth:--

This lonesome lake, like to a sea, among the mountains lies, And like a glass doth show their shapes, and eke the clouds and skies. God lays His chambers' beams therein, that all His power may know, And holdeth in His fist the winds, that else would mar the show.

The Lord hath blest this wilderness with meadows, streams, and springs, And like a garden planted it with green and growing things; And filled the woods with wholesome meats, and eke with fowls the air, And sown the land with flowers and herbs, and fruits of savor rare.

But here the nations know him not, and come and go the days, Without a morning prayer to Him, or evening song of praise; The heathen fish upon the lake, or hunt the woods for meat, And like the brutes do give no thanks for wherewithal to eat.

They dance in shame and nakedness, with horrid yells to hear, And like to dogs they make a noise, or screeching owls anear. Each tribe, like Micah, doth its priest or cunning Powah keep; Yea, wizards who, like them of old, do mutter and do peep.

A cursed and an evil race, whom Satan doth mislead, And rob them of Christ's hope, whereby he makes them poor indeed; They hold the waters and the hills, and clouds, and stars to be Their gods; for, lacking faith, they do believe but what they see.

Yet God on them His sun and rain doth evermore bestow, And ripens all their harvest-fields and pleasant fruits also. For them He makes the deer and moose, for them the fishes swim, And all the fowls in woods and air are goodly gifts from Him.

Yea, more; for them, as for ourselves, hath Christ a ransom paid, And on Himself, their sins and ours, a common burden laid. By nature vessels of God's wrath, 't is He alone can give To English or to Indians wild the grace whereby we live.

Oh, let us pray that in these wilds the Gospel may be preached, And these poor Gentiles of the woods may by its truth be reached; That ransomed ones the tidings glad may sound with joy abroad, And lonesome Aquedahcan hear the praises of the Lord!

March 18.

My cough still troubling me, an ancient woman, coming in yesterday, did so set forth the worth and virtue of a syrup of her making, that Aunt Rawson sent Effie over to the woman's house for a bottle of it. The woman sat with us a pretty while, being a lively talking body, although now wellnigh fourscore years of age. She could tell many things of the old people of Boston, for, having been in youth the wife of a man of some note and substance, and being herself a notable housewife and of good natural parts, she was well looked upon by the better sort of people. After she became a widow, she was for a little time in the family of Governor Endicott, at Naumkeag, whom she describeth as a just and goodly man, but exceeding exact in the ordering of his household, and of fiery temper withal. When displeasured, he would pull hard at the long tuft of hair which he wore upon his chin; and on one occasion, while sitting in the court, he plucked off his velvet cap, and cast it in the face of one of the assistants, who did profess conscientious scruples against the putting to death of the Quakers.

"I have heard say his hand was heavy upon these people," I said.

"And well it might be," said the old woman, for more pestilent and provoking strollers and ranters you shall never find than these same Quakers. They were such a sore trouble to the Governor, that I do believe his days were shortened by reason of them. For neither the jail, nor whipping, nor cropping of ears, did suffice to rid him of them. At last, when a law was made by the General Court, banishing them on pain of death, the Governor, coming home from Boston, said that he now hoped to have peace in the Colony, and that this sharpness would keep the land free from these troublers. I remember it well, how the next day he did invite the ministers and chief men, and in what a pleasant frame he was. In the morning I had mended his best velvet breeches for him, and he praised my work not a little, and gave me six shillings over and above my wages; and, says he to me: 'Goody Lake,' says he, 'you are a worthy woman, and do feel concerned for the good of Zion, and the orderly carrying of matters in Church and State, and hence I know you will be glad to hear that, after much ado, and in spite of the strivings of evil-disposed people, the General Court have agreed upon a law for driving the Quakers out of the jurisdiction, on pain of death; so that, if any come after this, their blood be upon their own heads. It is what I have wrestled with the Lord for this many a month, and I do count it a great deliverance and special favor; yea, I may truly say, with David: "Thou hast given me my heart's desire, and hast not withholden the prayer of my lips. Thy hand shall find out all thine enemies; thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger; the Lord shall wallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them." You will find these words, Goody Lake,' says he, 'in the 21st Psalm, where what is said of the King will serve for such as be in authority at this time.' For you must know, young woman, that the Governor was mighty in Scripture, more especially in his prayers, when you could think that he had it all at his tongue's end.

"There was a famous dinner at the Governor's that day, and many guests, and the Governor had ordered from his cellar some wine, which was a gift from a Portuguese captain, and of rare quality, as I know of mine own tasting, when word was sent to the Governor that a man wished to see him, whom he bid wait awhile. After dinner was over, he went into the hall, and who should be there but Wharton, the Quaker, who, without pulling off his hat, or other salutation, cried out: 'John Endicott, hearken to the word of the Lord, in whose fear and dread I am come. Thou and thy evil counsellors, the priests, have framed iniquity by law, but it shall not avail you. Thus saith the Lord, Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate!' Now, when the Governor did hear this, he fell, as must needs be, into a rage, and, seeing me by the door, he bade me call the servants from the kitchen, which I did, and they running up, he bade them lay hands on the fellow, and take him away; and then, in a great passion, he called for his horse, saying he would not rest until he had seen forty stripes save one laid upon that cursed Quaker, and that he should go to the gallows yet for his sauciness. So they had him to jail, and the next morning he was soundly whipped, and ordered to depart the jurisdiction."

I, being curious to know more concerning the Quakers, asked her if she did ever talk with any of them who were dealt with by the authorities, and what they said for themselves.

"Oh, they never lacked words," said she, "but cried out for liberty of conscience, and against persecution, and prophesied all manner of evil upon such as did put in force the law. Some time about the year '56, there did come two women of them to Boston, and brought with them certain of their blasphemous books, which the constables burnt in the street, as I well remember by this token, that, going near the fire, and seeing one of the books not yet burnt, I stooped to pick it up, when one of the constables gave me a smart rap with his staff, and snatched it away. The women being sent to the jail, the Deputy-Governor, Mr. Bellingham, and the Council, thinking they might be witches, were for having them searched; and Madam Bellingham naming me and another woman to her husband, he sent for us, and bade us go to the jail and search them, to see if there was any witch-mark on their bodies. So we went, and told them our errand, at which they marvelled not a little, and one of them, a young, well-favored woman, did entreat that they might not be put to such shame, for the jailer stood all the time in the yard, looking in at the door; but we told them such was the order, and so, without more ado, stripped them of their clothes, but found nothing save a mole on the left breast of he younger, into which Goodwife Page thrust her needle, at which the woman did give a cry as of pain, and the blood flowed; whereas, if it had been witch's mark, she would not have felt the prick, for would it have caused blood. So, finding nothing that did look like witchcraft, we left them; and on being brought before the Court, Deputy-Governor Bellingham asked us what we had to say concerning the women. Whereupon Goodwife Page, being the oldest of us, told him that we did find no appearance of witches upon their bodies, save the mole on the younger woman's breast (which was but natural), but that otherwise she was fair as Absalom, who had no blemish from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Thereupon the Deputy-Governor dismissed us, saying that it might be that the Devil did not want them for witches, because they could better serve him as Quakers: whereat all the Court fell to laughing."

"And what did become of the women?" I asked.

"They kept them in jail awhile," said Nurse Lake, "and then sent them back to England. But the others that followed fared harder,--some getting whipped at the cart-tail, and others losing their ears. The hangman's wife showed me once the ears of three of them, which her husband cut off in the jail that very morning."

"This is dreadful!" said I, for I thought of my dear brother and sweet Margaret Brewster, and tears filled mine eyes.

"Nay; but they were sturdy knaves and vagabonds," answered Nurse Lake, "although one of them was the son of a great officer in the Barbadoes, and accounted a gentleman before he did run out into his evil practices. But cropping of ears did not stop these headstrong people, and they still coming, some were put to death. There were three of them to be hanged at one time. I do remember it well, for it was a clear, warm day about the last of October, and it was a brave sight to behold. There was Marshal Michelson and Captain Oliver, with two hundred soldiers afoot, besides many on horse of our chief people, and among them the minister, Mr. Wilson, looking like a saint as he was, with a pleasant and joyful countenance, and a great multitude of people, men, women, and children, not only of Boston, but from he towns round about. I got early on to the ground, and when they were going to the gallows I kept as near to the condemned ones as I could. There were two young, well- favored men, and a woman with gray hairs. As they walked hand in band, the woman in the middle, the Marshal, who was riding beside them, and who was a merry drolling man, asked her if she was n't ashamed to walk hand in hand between two young men; whereupon, looking upon him solemnly, she said she was not ashamed, for this was to her an hour of great joy, and that no eye could see, no ear hear, no tongue speak, and no heart understand, the sweet incomes and refreshings of the Lord's spirit, which she did then feel. This she spake aloud, so that all about could hear, whereat Captain Oliver bid the drums to beat and drown her voice. Now, when they did come to the gallows ladder, on each side of which the officers and chief people stood, the two men kept on their hats, as is the ill manner of their sort, which so provoked Mr. Wilson, the minister, that he cried out to them: 'What! shall such Jacks as you come before authority with your hats on?' To which one of them said: 'Mind you, it is for not putting off our hats that we are put to death.' The two men then went up the ladder, and tried to speak; but I could not catch a word, being outside of the soldiers, and much fretted and worried by the crowd. They were presently turned off, and then the woman went up the ladder, and they tied her coats down to her feet, and put the halter on her neck, and, lacking a handkerchief to tie over her face, the minister lent the hangman his. Just then your Uncle Rawson comes a-riding up to the gallows, waving his hand, and crying out, 'Stop! she is reprieved!' So they took her down, although she said she was ready to die as her brethren did, unless they would undo their bloody laws. I heard Captain Oliver tell her it was for her son's sake that she was spared. So they took her to jail, and after a time sent her back to her husband in Rhode Island, which was a favor she did in no wise deserve; but good Governor Endicott, much as he did abhor these people, sought not their lives, and spared no pains to get them peaceably out the country; but they were a stubborn crew, and must needs run their necks into the halter, as did this same woman; for, coming back again, under pretence of pleading for the repeal of the laws against Quakers, she was not long after put to death. The excellent Mr. Wilson made a brave ballad on the hanging, which I have heard the boys in the street sing many a time."

A great number, both men and women, were--"whipped and put in the stocks," continued the woman, "and I once beheld two of them, one a young and the other an aged woman, in a cold day in winter, tied to the tail of a cart, going through Salem Street, stripped to their waists as naked as they were born, and their backs all covered with red whip- marks; but there was a more pitiful case of one Hored Gardner, a young married woman, with a little child and her nurse, who, coming to Weymouth, was laid hold of and sent to Boston, where both were whipped, and, as I was often at the jail to see the keeper's wife, it so chanced that I was there at the time. The woman, who was young and delicate, when they were stripping her, held her little child in her arms; and when the jailer plucked it from her bosom, she looked round anxiously, and, seeing me, said, 'Good woman, I know thou 't have pity on the babe,' and asked me to hold it, which I did. She was then whipped with a threefold whip, with knots in the ends, which did tear sadly into her flesh; and, after it was over, she kneeled down, with her back all bleeding, and prayed for them she called her persecutors. I must say I did greatly pity her, and I spoke to the jailer's wife, and we washed the poor creature's back, and put on it some famous ointment, so that she soon got healed."

Aunt Rawson now coming in, the matter was dropped; but, on my speaking to her of it after Nurse Lake had left, she said it was a sore trial to many, even those in authority, and who were charged with the putting in force of the laws against these people. She furthermore said, that Uncle Rawson and Mr. Broadstreet were much cried out against by the Quakers and their abettors on both sides of the water, but they did but their duty in the matter, and for herself she had always mourned over the coming of these people, and was glad when the Court did set any of them free. When the woman was hanged, my aunt spent the whole day with Madam Broadstreet, who was so wrought upon that she was fain to take to her bed, refusing to be comforted, and counting it the heaviest day of her life.

"Looking out of her chamber window," said Aunt Rawson, "I saw the people who had been to the hanging coming back from the training-field; and when Anne Broadstreet did hear the sound of their feet in the road, she groaned, and said that it did seem as if every foot fell upon her heart. Presently Mr. Broadstreet came home, bringing with him the minister, Mr. John Norton. They sat down in the chamber, and for some little time there was scarce a word spoken. At length Madam Broadstreet, turning to her husband and laying her hand on his arm, as was her loving manner, asked him if it was indeed all over. 'The woman is dead,' said he; 'but I marvel, Anne, to see you so troubled about her. Her blood is upon her own head, for we did by no means seek her life. She hath trodden under foot our laws, and misused our great forbearance, so that we could do no otherwise than we have done. So under the Devil's delusion was she, that she wanted no minister or elder to pray with her at the gallows, but seemed to think herself sure of heaven, heeding in no wise the warnings of Mr. Norton, and other godly people.'

"'Did she rail at, or cry out against any?' asked his wife. 'Nay, not to my hearing,' he said, 'but she carried herself as one who had done no harm, and who verily believed that she had obeyed the Lord's will.'

"'This is very dreadful,' said she, 'and I pray that the death of that poor misled creature may not rest heavy upon us.'

"Hereupon Mr. Norton lifted up his head, which had been bowed down upon his hand; and I shall never forget how his pale and sharp features did seem paler than their wont, and his solemn voice seemed deeper and sadder. 'Madam!' he said, 'it may well befit your gentleness and sweetness of heart to grieve over the sufferings even of the froward and ungodly, when they be cut off from the congregation of the Lord, as His holy and just law enjoineth, for verily I also could weep for the condemned one, as a woman and a mother; and, since her coming, I have wrestled with the Lord, in prayer and fasting, that I might be His instrument in snatching her as a brand from the burning. But, as a watchman on the walls of Zion, when I did see her casting poison into the wells of life, and enticing unstable souls into the snares and pitfalls of Satan, what should I do but sound an alarm against her? And the magistrate, such as your worthy husband, who is also appointed of God, and set for the defence of the truth, and the safety of the Church and the State, what can he do but faithfully to execute the law of God, which is a terror to evil doers? The natural pity which we feel must give place unto the duty we do severally owe to God and His Church, and the government of His appointment. It is a small matter to be judged of man's judgment, for, though certain people have not scrupled to call me cruel and hard of heart, yet the Lord knows I have wept in secret places over these misguided men and women.

"'But might not life be spared?' asked Madam Broadstreet. 'Death is a great thing.'

"'It is appointed unto all to die,' said Mr. Norton, 'and after death cometh the judgment. The death of these poor bodies is a bitter thing, but the death of the soul is far more dreadful; and it is better that these people should suffer than that hundreds of precious souls should be lost through their evil communication. The care of the dear souls of my flock lieth heavily upon me, as many sleepless nights and days of fasting do bear witness. I have not taken counsel of flesh and blood in this grave matter, nor yielded unto the natural weakness of my heart. And while some were for sparing these workers of iniquity, even as Saul spared Agag, I have been strengthened, as it were, to hew them in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. O madam, your honored husband can tell you what travail of spirit, what sore trials, these disturbers have cost us; and as you do know in his case, so believe also in mine, that what we have done hath been urged, not by hardness and cruelty of heart, but rather by our love and tenderness towards the Lord's heritage in this land. Through care and sorrow I have grown old before my time; few and evil have been the days of my pilgrimage, and the end seems not far off; and though I have many sins and shortcomings to answer for, I do humbly trust that the blood of the souls of the flock committed to me will not then be found upon my garments.'

"Ah, me! I shall never forget these words of that godly man," continued my aunt, "for, as he said, his end was not far off. He died very suddenly, and the Quakers did not scruple to say that it was God's judgment upon him for his severe dealing with their people. They even go so far as to say that the land about Boston is cursed because of the hangings and whippings, inasmuch as wheat will not now grow here, as it did formerly, and, indeed, many, not of their way, do believe the same thing."

April 24.

A vessel from London has just come to port, bringing Rebecca's dresses for the wedding, which will take place about the middle of June, as I hear. Uncle Rawson has brought me a long letter from Aunt Grindall, with one also from Oliver, pleasant and lively, like himself. No special news from abroad that I hear of. My heart longs for Old England more and more.

It is supposed that the freeholders have chosen Mr. Broadstreet for their Governor. The vote, uncle says, is exceeding small, very few people troubling themselves about it.

May 2.

Mr. John Easton, a man of some note in the Providence Plantations, having occasion to visit Boston yesterday, brought me a message from my brother, to the effect that he was now married and settled, and did greatly desire me to make the journey to his house in the company of his friend, John Easton, and his wife's sister. I feared to break the matter to my uncle, but Rebecca hath done so for me, and he hath, to my great joy, consented thereto; for, indeed, he refuseth nothing to her. My aunt fears for me, that I shall suffer from the cold, as the weather is by no means settled, although the season is forward, as compared with the last; but I shall take good care as to clothing; and John Easton saith we shall be but two nights on the way.

THE PLANTATIONS, May 10, 1679.

We left Boston on the 4th, at about sunrise, and rode on at a brisk trot, until we came to the banks of the river, along which we went near a mile before we found a suitable ford, and even there the water was so deep that we only did escape a wetting by drawing our feet up to the saddle-trees. About noon, we stopped at a farmer's house, in the hope of getting a dinner; but the room was dirty as an Indian wigwam, with two children in it, sick with the measles, and the woman herself in a poor way, and we were glad to leave as soon as possible, and get into the fresh air again. Aunt had provided me with some cakes, and Mr. Easton, who is an old traveller, had with him a roasted fowl and a good loaf of Indian bread; so, coming to a spring of excellent water, we got off our horses, and, spreading our napkins on the grass and dry leaves, had a comfortable dinner. John's sister is a widow, a lively, merry woman, and proved rare company for me. Afterwards we rode until the sun was nigh setting, when we came to a little hut on the shore of a broad lake at a place called Massapog. It had been dwelt in by a white family formerly, but it was now empty, and much decayed in the roof, and as we did ride up to it we saw a wild animal of some sort leap out of one of its windows, and run into the pines. Here Mr. Easton said we must make shift to tarry through the night, as it was many miles to the house of a white man. So, getting off our horses, we went into the hut, which had but one room, with loose boards for a floor; and as we sat there in the twilight, it looked dismal enough; but presently Mr. Easton, coming in with a great load of dried boughs, struck a light in the stone fireplace, and we soon had a roaring fire. His sister broke off some hemlock boughs near the door, and made a broom of them, with which she swept up the floor, so that when we sat down on blocks by the hearth, eating our poor supper, we thought ourselves quite comfortable and tidy. It was a wonderful clear night, the moon rising, as we judged, about eight of the clock, over the tops of the hills on the easterly side of the lake, and shining brightly on the water in a long line of light, as if a silver bridge had been laid across it. Looking out into the forest, we could see the beams of the moon, falling here and there through the thick tops of the pines and hemlocks, and showing their tall trunks, like so many pillars in a church or temple. There was a westerly wind blowing, not steadily, but in long gusts, which, sounding from a great distance through the pine leaves, did make a solemn and not unpleasing music, to which I listened at the door until the cold drove me in for shelter. Our horses having been fed with corn, which Mr. Easton took with him, were tied at the back of the building, under the cover of a thick growth of hemlocks, which served to break off the night wind. The widow and I had a comfortable bed in the corner of the room, which we made of small hemlock sprigs, having our cloaks to cover us, and our saddlebags for pillows. My companions were soon asleep, but the exceeding strangeness of my situation did keep me a long time awake. For, as I lay there looking upward, I could see the stars shining down a great hole in the roof, and the moonlight streaming through the seams of the logs, and mingling with the red glow of the coals on the hearth. I could hear the horses stamping, just outside, and the sound of the water on the lake shore, the cry of wild animals in the depth of the woods, and, over all, the long and very wonderful murmur of the pines in the wind. At last, being sore weary, I fell asleep, and waked not until I felt the warm sun shining in my face, and heard the voice of Mr. Easton bidding me rise, as the horses were ready.

After riding about two hours we came upon an Indian camp, in the midst of a thick wood of maples. Here were six spacious wigwams; but the men were away, except two very old and infirm ones. There were five or six women, and perhaps twice as many children, who all came out to see us. They brought us some dried meat, as hard nigh upon as chips of wood, and which, although hungry, I could feel no stomach for; but I bought of one of the squaws two great cakes of sugar, made from the sap of the maples which abound there, very pure and sweet, and which served me instead of their unsavory meat and cakes of pounded corn, of which Mr. Easton and his sister did not scruple to partake. Leaving them, we had a long and hard ride to a place called Winnicinnit, where, to my great joy, we found a comfortable house and Christian people, with whom we tarried. The next day we got to the Plantations; and about noon, from the top of a hill, Mr. Easton pointed out the settlement where my brother dwelt,-- a fair, pleasant valley, through which ran a small river, with the houses of the planters on either side. Shortly after, we came to a new frame house, with a great oak-tree left standing on each side of the gate, and a broad meadow before it, stretching down to the water. Here Mr. Easton stopped; and now, who should come hastening down to us but my new sister, Margaret, in her plain but comely dress, kindly welcoming me; and soon my brother came up from the meadow, where he was busy with his men. It was indeed a joyful meeting.

The next day being the Sabhath, I went with my brother and his wife to the meeting, which was held in a large house of one of their Quaker neighbors. About a score of grave, decent people did meet there, sitting still and quiet for a pretty while, when one of their number, a venerable man, spake a few words, mostly Scripture; then a young woman, who, I did afterwards learn, had been hardly treated by the Plymouth people, did offer a few words of encouragement and exhortation from this portion of the 34th Psalm: "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." When the meeting was over, some of the ancient women came and spake kindly to me, inviting me to their houses. In the evening certain of these people came to my brother's, and were kind and loving towards me. There was, nevertheless, a gravity and a certain staidness of deportment which I could but ill conform unto, and I was not sorry when they took leave. My Uncle Rawson need not fear my joining with them; for, although I do judge them to be a worthy and pious people, I like not their manner of worship, and their great gravity and soberness do little accord with my natural temper and spirits.

May 16.

This place is in what is called the Narragansett country, and about twenty miles from Mr. Williams's town of Providence, a place of no small note. Mr. Williams, who is now an aged man, more than fourscore, was the founder of the Province, and is held in great esteem by the people, who be of all sects and persuasions, as the Government doth not molest any in worshipping according to conscience; and hence you will see in the same neighborhood Anabaptists, Quakers, New Lights, Brownists, Antinomians, and Socinians,--nay, I am told there be Papists also. Mr. Williams is a Baptist, and holdeth mainly with Calvin and Beza, as respects the decrees, and hath been a bitter reviler of the Quakers, although he hath ofttimes sheltered them from the rigor of the Massachusetts Bay magistrates, who he saith have no warrant to deal in matters of conscience and religion, as they have done.

Yesterday came the Governor of the Rhode Island, Nicholas Easton, the father of John, with his youngest daughter Mary, as fair and as ladylike a person as I have seen for many a day. Both her father and herself do meet with the "Friends," as they call themselves, at their great house on the Island, and the Governor sometimes speaks therein, having, as one of the elders here saith of him, "a pretty gift in the ministry." Mary, who is about the age of my brother's wife, would fain persuade us to go back with them on the morrow to the Island, but Leonard's business will not allow it, and I would by no means lose his company while I tarry in these parts, as I am so soon to depart for home, where a great ocean will separate us, it may be for many years. Margaret, who hath been to the Island, saith that the Governor's house is open to all new-comers, who are there entertained with rare courtesy, he being a man of substance, having a great plantation, with orchards and gardens, and a stately house on an hill over-looking the sea on either hand, where, six years ago, when the famous George Fox was on the Island, he did entertain and lodge no less than fourscore persons, beside his own family and servants.

Governor Easton, who is a pleasant talker, told a story of a magistrate who had been a great persecutor of his people. On one occasion, after he had cast a worthy Friend into jail, he dreamed a dream in this wise: He thought he was in a fair, delightsome place, where were sweet springs of water and green meadows, and rare fruit-trees and vines with ripe clusters thereon, and in the midst thereof flowed a river whose waters were clearer than crystal. Moreover, he did behold a great multitude walking on the river's bank, or sitting lovingly in the shade of the trees which grew thereby. Now, while he stood marvelling at all this, he beheld in his dream the man he had cast into prison sitting with his hat on, side by side with a minister then dead, whom the magistrate had held in great esteem while living; whereat, feeling his anger stirred within him, he went straight and bade the man take off his hat in the presence of his betters. Howbeit the twain did give no heed to his words, but did continue to talk lovingly together as before; whereupon he waxed exceeding wroth, and would have laid hands upon the man. But, hearing a voice calling upon him to forbear, he did look about him, and behold one, with a shining countenance, and clad in raiment so white that it did dazzle his eyes to look upon it, stood before him. And the shape said, "Dost thou well to be angry?" Then said the magistrate, "Yonder is a Quaker with his hat on talking to a godly minister." "Nay," quoth the shape, "thou seest but after the manner of the world and with the eyes of flesh. Look yonder, and tell me what thou seest." So he looked again, and lo! two men in shining raiment, like him who talked with him, sat under the tree. "Tell me," said the shape, "if thou canst, which of the twain is the Quaker and which is the Priest?" And when he could not, but stood in amazement confessing he did see neither of them, the shape said, "Thou sayest well, for here be neither Priest nor Quaker, Jew nor Gentile, but all are one in the Lord." Then he awoke, and pondered long upon his dream, and when it was morning he went straightway to the jail, and ordered the man to be set free, and hath ever since carried himself lovingly towards the Quakers.

My brother's lines have indeed fallen unto him in a pleasant, place. His house is on a warm slope of a hill, looking to the southeast, with a great wood of oaks and walnuts behind it, and before it many acres of open land, where formerly the Indians did plant their corn, much of which is now ploughed and seeded. From the top of the hill one can see the waters of the great Bay; at the foot of it runs a small river noisily over the rocks, making a continual murmur. Going thither this morning, I found a great rock hanging over the water, on which I sat down, listening to the noise of the stream and the merriment of the birds in the trees, and admiring the green banks, which were besprinkled with white and yellow flowers. I call to mind that sweet fancy of the lamented Anne Broadstreet, the wife of the new Governor of Massachusetts, in a little piece which she nameth "Contemplations," being written on the banks of a stream, like unto the one whereby I was then sitting, in which the writer first describeth the beauties of the wood, and the flowing water, with the bright fishes therein, and then the songs of birds in the boughs over her head, in this sweet and pleasing verse, which I have often heard repeated by Cousin Rebecca:--

"While musing thus, with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, A sweet-tongued songster perched above my head, And chanted forth her most melodious strain; Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judged my hearing better than my sight, And wished me wings with her a while to take my flight.

"O merry bird! said I, that fears no snares, That neither toils nor hoards up in the barn, Feels no sad thoughts, nor cruciating cares, To gain more good, or shun what might thee harm. Thy clothes ne'er wear, thy meat is everywhere, Thy bed a bough, thy drink the water clear, Reminds not what is past, nor what's to come dost fear.

"The dawning morn with songs thou dost prevent, Sets hundred notes unto thy feathered crew, So each one tunes his pretty instrument, And, warbling out the old, begins the new. And thus they pass their youth in summer season, Then follow thee unto a better region, Where winter's never felt by that sweet airy legion."

Now, while I did ponder these lines, hearing a step in the leaves, I looked up, and behold there was an old Indian close beside me; and, being much affrighted, I gave a loud cry, and ran towards the house. The old man laughed at this, and, calling after me, said he would not harm me; and Leonard, hearing my cries, now coming up, bade me never fear the Indian, for he was a harmless creature, who was well known to him. So he kindly saluted the old man, asking me to shake hands with him, which I did, when he struck across the field to a little cleared spot on the side of the hill. My brother bidding me note his actions, I saw him stoop down on his knees, with his head to the ground, for some space of time, and then, getting up, he stretched out his hands towards the southwest, as if imploring some one whom I could not see. This he repeated for nigh upon half an hour, when he came back to the house, where he got some beer and bread to eat, and a great loaf to carry away. He said but little until he rose to depart, when he told my brother that he had been to see the graves of his father and his mother, and that he was glad to find them as he did leave them the last year; for he knew that the spirits of the dead would be sore grieved, if the white man's hoe touched their bones.

My brother promised him that the burial-place of his people should not be disturbed, and that he would find it as now, when he did again visit it.

"Me never come again," said the old Indian. "No. Umpachee is very old. He has no squaw; he has no young men who call him father. Umpachee is like that tree;" and he pointed, as he spoke, to a birch, which stood apart in the field, from which the bark had fallen, and which did show no leaf nor bud.

My brother hereupon spake to him of the great Father of both white and red men, and of his love towards them, and of the measure of light which he had given unto all men, whereby they might know good from evil, and by living in obedience to which they might be happy in this life and in that to come; exhorting him to put his trust in God, who was able to comfort and sustain him in his old age, and not to follow after lying Powahs, who did deceive and mislead him.

"My young brother's talk is good," said the old man. "The Great Father sees that his skin is white, and that mine is red. He sees my young brother when he sits in his praying-house, and me when me offer him corn and deer's flesh in the woods, and he says good. Umpachee's people have all gone to one place. If Umpachee go to a praying-house, the Great Father will send him to the white man's place, and his father and his mother and his sons will never see him in their hunting-ground. No. Umpachee is an old beaver that sits in his own house, and swims in his own pond. He will stay where he is, until his Father calls him."

Saying this, the old savage went on his way. As he passed out of the valley, and got to the top of the hill on the other side, we, looking after him, beheld him standing still a moment, as if bidding farewell to the graves of his people.

May 24.

My brother goes with me to-morrow on my way to Boston. I am not a little loath to leave my dear sister Margaret, who hath greatly won upon me by her gentleness and loving deportment, and who doth at all times, even when at work in ordering her household affairs, and amidst the cares and perplexities of her new life, show forth that sweetness of temper and that simplicity wherewith I was charmed when I first saw her. She hath naturally an ingenious mind, and, since her acquaintance with my brother, hath dipped into such of his studies and readings as she had leisure and freedom to engage in, so that her conversation is in no wise beneath her station. Nor doth she, like some of her people, especially the more simple and unlearned, affect a painful and melancholy look and a canting tone of discourse, but lacketh not for cheerfulness and a certain natural ease and grace of demeanor; and the warmth and goodness of her heart doth at times break the usual quiet of her countenance, like to sunshine and wind on a still water, and she hath the sweetest smile I ever saw. I have often thought, since I have been with her, that if Uncle Rawson could see and hear her as I do for a single day, he would confess that my brother might have done worse than to take a Quaker to wife.

BOSTON, May 28, 1679.

Through God's mercy, I got here safe and well, saving great weariness, and grief at parting with my brother and his wife. The first day we went as far as a place they call Rehoboth, where we tarried over night, finding but small comfort therein; for the house was so filled, that Leonard and a friend who came with us were fain to lie all night in the barn, on the mow before their horses; and, for mine own part, I had to choose between lying in the large room, where the man of the house and his wife and two sons, grown men, did lodge, or to climb into the dark loft, where was barely space for a bed,--which last I did make choice of, although the woman thought it strange, and marvelled not a little at my unwillingness to sleep in the same room with her husband and boys, as she called them. In the evening, hearing loud voices in a house near by, we inquired what it meant, and were told that some people from Providence were holding a meeting there, the owner of the house being accounted a Quaker. Whereupon, I went thither with Leonard, and found nigh upon a score of people gathered, and a man with loose hair and beard speaking to them. My brother whispered to me that he was no Friend, but a noted ranter, a noisy, unsettled man. He screamed exceeding loud, and stamped with his feet, and foamed at the mouth, like one possessed with an evil spirit, crying against all order in State or Church, and declaring that the Lord had a controversy with Priests and Magistrates, the prophets who prophesy falsely, and the priests who bear rule by their means, and the people who love to have it so. He spake of the Quakers as a tender and hopeful people in their beginning, and while the arm of the wicked was heavy upon them; but now he said that they, even as the rest, were settled down into a dead order, and heaping up worldly goods, and speaking evil of the Lord's messengers. They were a part of Babylon, and would perish with their idols; they should drink of the wine of God's wrath; the day of their visitation was at hand. After going on thus for a while, up gets a tall, wild-looking woman, as pale as a ghost, and trembling from head to foot, who, stretching out her long arms towards the man who had spoken, bade the people take notice that this was the angel spoken of in Revelation, flying through the midst of heaven, and crying, Woe! woe! to the inhabitants of the earth! with more of the like wicked rant, whereat I was not a little discomposed, and, beckoning my brother, left them to foam out their shame to themselves.

The next morning, we got upon our horses at an early hour, and after a hard and long ride reached Mr. Torrey's at Weymouth, about an hour after dark. Here we found Cousin Torrey in bed with her second child, a boy, whereat her husband is not a little rejoiced. My brother here took his leave of me, going back to the Plantations. My heart is truly sad and heavy with the great grief of parting.

May 30.

Went to the South meeting to-day, to hear the sermon preached before the worshipful Governor, Mr. Broadstreet, and his Majesty's Council, it being the election day. It was a long sermon, from Esther x. 3. Had much to say concerning the duty of Magistrates to support the Gospel and its ministers, and to put an end to schism and heresy. Very pointed, also, against time-serving Magistrates.

June 1.

Mr. Michael Wigglesworth, the Malden minister, at uncle's house last night. Mr. Wigglesworth told aunt that he had preached a sermon against the wearing of long hair and other like vanities, which he hoped, with God's blessing, might do good. It was from Isaiah iii. 16, and so on to the end of the chapter. Now, while he was speaking of the sermon, I whispered Rebecca that I would like to ask him a question, which he overhearing, turned to me, and bade me never heed, but speak out. So I told him that I was but a child in years and knowledge, and he a wise and learned man; but if he would not deem it forward in me, I would fain know whether the Scripture did anywhere lay down the particular fashion of wearing the hair.

Mr. Wigglesworth said that there were certain general rules laid down, from which we might make a right application to particular cases. The wearing of long hair by men is expressly forbidden in 1 Corinthians xi. 14, 15; and there is a special word for women, also, in 1 Tim. ii. 9.

Hereupon Aunt Rawson told me she thought I was well answered; but I (foolish one that I was), being unwilling to give up the matter so, ventured further to say that there were the Nazarites, spoken of in Numbers vi. 5, upon whose heads, by the appointment of God, no razor was to come.

"Nay," said Mr. Wigglesworth, "that was by a special appointment only, and proveth the general rule and practice."

Uncle Rawson said that long hair might, he judged, be lawfully worn, where the bodily health did require it, to guard the necks of weakly people from the cold.

"Where there seems plainly a call of nature for it," said Mr. Wigglesworth, "as a matter of bodily comfort, and for the warmth of the head and neck, it is nowise unlawful. But for healthy, sturdy young people to make this excuse for their sinful vanity doth but add to their condemnation. If a man go any whit beyond God's appointment and the comfort of nature, I know not where he will stop, until he grows to be the veriest ruffian in the world. It is a wanton and shameful thing for a man to liken himself to a woman, by suffering his hair to grow, and curling and parting it in a seam, as is the manner of too many. It betokeneth pride and vanity, and causeth no small offence to godly, sober people.

"The time hath been," continued Mr. Wigglesworth, "when God's people were ashamed of such vanities, both in the home country and in these parts; but since the Bishops and the Papists have had their way, and such as feared God are put down from authority, to give place to scorners and wantons, there hath been a sad change."

He furthermore spake of the gay apparel of the young women of Boston, and their lack of plainness and modesty in the manner of wearing and ordering their hair; and said he could in no wise agree with some of his brethren in the ministry that this was a light matter, inasmuch as it did most plainly appear from Scripture that the pride and haughtiness of the daughters of Zion did provoke the judgments of the Lord, not only upon them, but upon the men also. Now, the special sin of women is pride and haughtiness, and that because they be generally more ignorant, being the weaker vessel; and this sin venteth itself in their gesture, their hair and apparel. Now, God abhors all pride, especially pride in base things; and hence the conduct of the daughters of Zion does greatly provoke his wrath, first against themselves, secondly their fathers and husbands, and thirdly against the land they do inhabit.

Rebecca here roguishly pinched my arm, saying apart that, after all, we weaker vessels did seem to be of great consequence, and nobody could tell but that our head-dresses would yet prove the ruin of the country.

June 4

Robert Pike, coming into the harbor with his sloop, from the Pemaquid country, looked in upon us yesterday. Said that since coming to the town he had seen a Newbury man, who told him that old Mr. Wheelwright, of Salisbury, the famous Boston minister in the time of Sir Harry Vane and Madam Hutchinson, was now lying sick, and nigh unto his end. Also, that Goodman Morse was so crippled by a fall in his barn, that he cannot get to Boston to the trial of his wife, which is a sore affliction to him. The trial of the witch is now going on, and uncle saith it looks much against her, especially the testimony of the Widow Goodwin about her child, and of John Gladding about seeing one half of the body of Goody Morse flying about in the sun, as if she had been cut in twain, or as if the Devil did hide the lower part of her. Robert Pike said such testimony ought not to hang a cat, the widow being little more than a fool; and as for the fellow Gladding, he was no doubt in his cups, for he had often seen him in such a plight that he could not have told Goody Morse from the Queen of Sheba.

June 8.

The Morse woman having been found guilty by the Court of Assistants, she was brought out to the North Meeting, to hear the Thursday Lecture, yesterday, before having her sentence. The house was filled with people, they being curious to see the witch. The Marshal and the constables brought her in, and set her in, front of the pulpit; the old creature looking round her wildly, as if wanting her wits, and then covering her face with her dark wrinkled hands; a dismal sight! The minister took his text in Romans xiii. 3, 4, especially the last clause of the 4th verse, relating to rulers: For he beareth not the sword in vain, &c. He dwelt upon the power of the ruler as a Minister of God, and as a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil; and showeth that the punishment of witches and such as covenant with the Devil is one of the duties expressly enjoined upon rulers by the Word of God, inasmuch as a witch was not to be suffered to live.

He then did solemnly address himself to the condemned woman, quoting 1 Tim. v. 20: "Them that sin, rebuke before all, that others also may fear." The woman was greatly moved, for no doubt the sharp words of the preacher did prick her guilty conscience, and the terrors of hell did take hold of her, so that she was carried out, looking scarcely alive. They took her, when the lecture was over, to the Court, where the Governor did pronounce sentence of death upon her. But uncle tells me there be many who are stirring to get her respited for a time, at least, and he doth himself incline to favor it, especially as Rebecca hath labored much with him to that end, as also hath Major Pike and Major Saltonstall with the Governor, who himself sent for uncle last night, and they had a long talk together, and looked over the testimony against the woman, and neither did feel altogether satisfied with it. Mr. Norton adviseth for the hanging; but Mr. Willard, who has seen much of the woman, and hath prayed with her in the jail, thinks she may be innocent in the matter of witchcraft, inasmuch as her conversation was such as might become a godly person in affliction, and the reading of the Scripture did seem greatly to comfort her.

June 9.

Uncle Rawson being at the jail to-day, a messenger, who had been sent to the daughter of Goody Morse, who is the wife of one Hate Evil Nutter, on the Cocheco, to tell her that her mother did greatly desire to see her once more before she was hanged, coming in, told the condemned woman that her daughter bade him say to her, that inasmuch as she had sold herself to the Devil, she did owe her no further love or service, and that she could not complain of this, for as she had made her bed, so she must lie. Whereat the old creature set up a miserable cry, saying that to have her own flesh and blood turn against her was more bitter than death itself. And she begged Mr. Willard to pray for her, that her trust in the Lord might not be shaken by this new affliction.

June 10.

The condemned woman hath been reprieved by the Governor and the Magistrates until the sitting of the Court in October. Many people, both men and women, coming in from the towns about to see the hanging, be sore disappointed, and do vehemently condemn the conduct of the Governor therein. For mine own part, I do truly rejoice that mercy hath been shown to the poor creature; for even if she is guilty, it affordeth her a season for repentance; and if she be innocent, it saveth the land from a great sin. The sorrowful look of the old creature at the Lecture hath troubled me ever since, so forlorn and forsaken did she seem. Major Pike (Robert's father), coming in this morning, says, next to the sparing of Goody Morse's life, it did please him to see the bloodthirsty rabble so cheated out of their diversion; for example, there was Goody Matson, who had ridden bare-backed, for lack of a saddle, all the way from Newbury, on Deacon Dole's hard-trotting horse, and was so galled and lame of it that she could scarce walk. The Major said he met her at the head of King Street yesterday, with half a score more of her sort, scolding and railing about the reprieve of the witch, and prophesying dreadful judgments upon all concerned in it. He said he bade her shut her mouth and go home, where she belonged; telling her that if he heard any more of her railing, the Magistrates should have notice of it, and she would find that laying by the heels in the stocks was worse than riding Deacon Dole's horse.

June 14.

Yesterday the wedding took place. It was an exceeding brave one; most of the old and honored families being at it, so that the great house wherein my uncle lives was much crowded. Among them were Governor Broadstreet and many of the honorable Magistrates, with Mr. Saltonstall and his worthy lady; Mr. Richardson, the Newbury minister, joining the twain in marriage, in a very solemn and feeling manner. Sir Thomas was richly apparelled, as became one of his rank, and Rebecca in her white silk looked comely as an angel. She wore the lace collar I wrought for her last winter, for my sake, although I fear me she had prettier ones of her own working. The day was wet and dark, with an easterly wind blowing in great gusts from the bay, exceeding cold for the season.

Rebecca, or Lady Hale, as she is now called, had invited Robert Pike to her wedding, but he sent her an excuse for not coming, to the effect that urgent business did call him into the eastern country as far as Monhegan and Pemaquid. His letter, which was full of good wishes for her happiness and prosperity, I noted saddened Rebecca a good deal; and she was, moreover, somewhat disturbed by certain things that did happen yesterday: the great mirror in the hall being badly broken, and the family arms hanging over the fire-place thrown down, so that it was burned by the coals kindled on the hearth, on account of the dampness; which were looked upon as ill signs by most people. Grindall, a thoughtless youth, told his sister of the burning of the arms, and that nothing was left save the head of the raven in the crest, at which she grew very pale, and said it was strange, indeed, and, turning to me, asked me if I did put faith in what was said of signs and prognostics. So, seeing her troubled, I laughed at the matter, although I secretly did look upon it as an ill omen, especially as I could never greatly admire Sir Thomas. My brother's wife, who seemed fully persuaded that he is an unworthy person, sent by me a message to Rebecca, to that effect; but I had not courage to speak of it, as matters had gone so far, and uncle and aunt did seem so fully bent upon making a great lady of their daughter.

The vessel in which we are to take our passage is near upon ready for the sea. The bark is a London one, called "The Three Brothers," and is commanded by an old acquaintance of Uncle Rawson. I am happy with the thought of going home, yet, as the time of departure draws nigh, I do confess some regrets at leaving this country, where I have been so kindly cared for and entertained, and where I have seen so many new and strange things. The great solemn woods, as wild and natural as they were thousands of years ago, the fierce suns of the summer season and the great snows of the winter, and the wild beasts, and the heathen Indians,--these be things the memory whereof will over abide with me. To-day the weather is again clear and warm, the sky wonderfully bright; the green leaves flutter in the wind, and the birds are singing sweetly. The waters of the bay, which be yet troubled by the storm of last night, are breaking in white foam on the rocks of the main land, and on the small islands covered with trees and vines; and many boats and sloops going out with the west wind, to their fishing, do show their white sails in the offing. How I wish I had skill to paint the picture of all this for my English friends! My heart is pained, as I look upon it, with the thought that after a few days I shall never see it more.

June 18.

To-morrow we embark for home. Wrote a long letter to my dear brother and sister, and one to my cousins at York. Mr. Richardson hath just left us, having come all the way from Newbury to the wedding. The excellent Governor Broadstreet hath this morning sent to Lady Hale a handsome copy of his first wife's book, entitled "Several Poems by a Gentlewoman of New England," with these words on the blank page thereof, from Proverbs xxxi. 30, "A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised," written in the Governor's own hand. All the great folks hereabout have not failed to visit my cousin since her marriage; but I do think she is better pleased with some visits she hath had from poor widows and others who have been in times past relieved and comforted by her charities and kindness, the gratitude of these people affecting her unto tears. Truly it may be said of her, as of Job: "When the ear heard her then it blessed her, and when the eye saw her it gave witness to her: because she delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon her; and she caused the widow's heart to sing for joy."

(Here the diary ends somewhat abruptly. It appears as if some of the last pages have been lost. Appended to the manuscript I find a note, in another handwriting, signed "R. G.," dated at Malton Rectory, 1747. One Rawson Grindall, M. A., was curate of Malton at this date, and the initials are undoubtedly his. The sad sequel to the history of the fair Rebecca Rawson is confirmed by papers now on file in the State-House at Boston, in which she is spoken of as "one of the most beautiful, polite, and accomplished young ladies in Boston."--Editor.)

"These papers of my honored and pious grandmother, Margaret Smith, who, soon after her return from New England, married her cousin, Oliver Grindall, Esq., of Hilton Grange, Crowell, in Oxfordshire (both of whom have within the last ten years departed this life, greatly lamented by all who knew them), having cone into my possession, I have thought it not amiss to add to them a narrative of what happened to her friend and cousin, as I have had the story often from her own lips.

"It appears that the brave gallant calling himself Sir Thomas Hale, for all his fair seething and handsome address, was but a knave and impostor, deceiving with abominable villany Rebecca Rawson and most of her friends (although my grandmother was never satisfied with him, as is seen in her journal). When they got, to London, being anxious, on account of sea-sickness and great weariness, to leave the vessel as soon as possible, they went ashore to the house of a kinsman to lodge, leaving their trunks and clothing on board. Early on the next morning, he that called himself Sir Thomas left his wife, taking with him the keys of her trunks, telling her he would send them up from the vessel in season for her to dress for dinner. The trunks came, as he said, but after waiting impatiently for the keys until near the dinner-hour, and her husband not returning, she had them broken open, and, to her grief and astonishment, found nothing therein but shavings and other combustible matter. Her kinsman forthwith ordered his carriage, and went with her to the inn where they first stopped on landing from the vessel, where she inquired for Sir Thomas Hale. The landlord told her there was such a gentleman, but he had not seen him for some days. 'But he was at your house last night,' said the astonished young woman. 'He is my husband, and I was with him.' The landlord then said that one Thomas Rumsey was at his house, with a young lady, the night before, but she was not his lawful wife, for he had one already in Kent. At this astounding news, the unhappy woman swooned outright, and, being taken back to her kinsman's, she lay grievously ill for many days, during which time, by letters from Kent, it was ascertained that this Rumsey was a graceless young spendthrift, who had left his wife and his two children three years before, and gone to parts unknown.

"My grandmother, who affectionately watched over her, and comforted her in her great affliction, has often told me that, on coming to herself, her poor cousin said it was a righteous judgment upon her, for her pride and vanity, which had led her to discard worthy men for one of great show and pretensions, who had no solid merit to boast of. She had sinned against God, and brought disgrace upon her family, in choosing him. She begged that his name might never be mentioned again in her hearing, and that she might only be known as a poor relative of her English kinsfolk, and find a home among them until she could seek out some employment for her maintenance, as she could not think of going back to Boston, to become the laughing-stock of the thoughtless and the reproach of her father's family.

"After the marriage of my grandmother, Rebecca was induced to live with her for some years. My great-aunt, Martha Grindall, an ancient spinster, now living, remembers her well at that time, describing her as a young woman of a sweet and gentle disposition, and much beloved by all the members of the family. Her father, hearing of her misfortunes, wrote to her, kindly inviting her to return to New England, and live with him, and she at last resolved to do so. My great-uncle, Robert, having an office under the government at Port Royal, in the island of Jamaica, she went out with him, intending to sail from thence to Boston. From that place she wrote to my grandmother a letter, which I have also in my possession, informing her of her safe arrival, and of her having seen an old friend, Captain Robert Pike, whose business concerns had called him to the island, who had been very kind and considerate in his attention to her, offering to take her home in his vessel, which was to sail in a few days. She mentions, in a postscript to her letter, that she found Captain Pike to be much improved in his appearance and manners,--a true natural gentleman; and she does not forget to notice the fact that he was still single. She had, she said, felt unwilling to accept his offer of a passage home, holding herself unworthy of such civilities at his hands; but he had so pressed the matter that she had, not without some misgivings, consented to it.

"But it was not according to the inscrutable wisdom of Providence that she should ever be restored to her father's house. Among the victims of the great earthquake which destroyed Port Royal a few days after the date of her letter, was this unfortunate lady. It was a heavy blow to my grandmother, who entertained for her cousin the tenderest affection, and, indeed, she seems to have been every way worthy of it,--lovely in person, amiable in deportment, and of a generous and noble nature. She was, especially after her great trouble, of a somewhat pensive and serious habit of mind, contrasting with the playfulness and innocent light-heartedness of her early life, as depicted in the diary of my grandmother, yet she was ever ready to forget herself in ministering to the happiness and pleasures of others. She was not, as I learn, a member of the church, having some scruples in respect to the rituals, as was natural from her education in New England, among Puritanic schismatics; but she lived a devout life, and her quiet and unostentatious piety exemplified the truth of the language of one of the greatest of our divines, the Bishop of Down and Connor 'Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the issue of a quiet mind, the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness.' Optimus animus est pulcherrimus Dei cultus.

"R. G."

TALES AND SKETCHES

MY SUMMER WITH DR. SINGLETARY.

A FRAGMENT.

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I. DR. SINGLETARY IS DEAD!

Well, what of it? All who live die sooner or later; and pray who was Dr. Singletary, that his case should claim particular attention?

Why, in the first place, Dr. Singletary, as a man born to our common inheritance of joy and sorrow, earthly instincts and heavenward aspirations,--our brother in sin and suffering, wisdom and folly, love, and pride, and vanity,--has a claim upon the universal sympathy. Besides, whatever the living man may have been, death has now invested him with its great solemnity. He is with the immortals. For him the dark curtain has been lifted. The weaknesses, the follies, and the repulsive mental and personal idiosyncrasies which may have kept him without the sphere of our respect and sympathy have now fallen off, and he stands radiant with the transfiguration of eternity, God's child, our recognized and acknowledged brother.

Dr. Singletary is dead. He was an old man, and seldom, of latter years, ventured beyond the precincts of his neighborhood. He was a single man, and his departure has broken no circle of family affection. He was little known to the public, and is now little missed. The village newspaper simply appended to its announcement of his decease the customary post mortem compliment, "Greatly respected by all who knew him;" and in the annual catalogue of his alma mater an asterisk has been added to his name, over which perchance some gray-haired survivor of his class may breathe a sigh, as he calls up, the image of the fresh-faced, bright-eyed boy, who, aspiring, hopeful, vigorous, started with him on the journey of life,--a sigh rather for himself than for its unconscious awakener.

But, a few years have passed since he left us; yet already wellnigh all the outward manifestations, landmarks, and memorials of the living man have passed away or been removed. His house, with its broad, mossy roof sloping down on one side almost to the rose-bushes and lilacs, and with its comfortable little porch in front, where he used to sit of a pleasant summer afternoon, has passed into new hands, and has been sadly disfigured by a glaring coat of white paint; and in the place of the good Doctor's name, hardly legible on the corner-board, may now be seen, in staring letters of black and gold, "VALENTINE ORSON STUBBS, M. D., Indian doctor and dealer in roots and herbs." The good Doctor's old horse, as well known as its owner to every man, woman, and child in the village, has fallen into the new comer's hands, who (being prepared to make the most of him, from the fact that he commenced the practice of the healing art in the stable, rising from thence to the parlor) has rubbed him into comparative sleekness, cleaned his mane and tail of the accumulated burrs of many autumns, and made quite a gay nag of him. The wagon, too, in which at least two generations of boys and girls have ridden in noisy hilarity whenever they encountered it on their way to school, has been so smartly painted and varnished, that if its former owner could look down from the hill-slope where he lies, he would scarcely know his once familiar vehicle as it whirls glittering along the main road to the village. For the rest, all things go on as usual; the miller grinds, the blacksmith strikes and blows, the cobbler and tailor stitch and mend, old men sit in the autumn sun, old gossips stir tea and scandal, revival meetings alternate with apple-bees and bushings,--toil, pleasure, family jars, petty neighborhood quarrels, courtship, and marriage,--all which make up the daily life of a country village continue as before. The little chasm which his death has made in the hearts of the people where he lived and labored seems nearly closed up. There is only one more grave in the burying-ground,--that is all.

Let nobody infer from what I have said that the good man died unlamented; for, indeed, it was a sad day with his neighbors when the news, long expected, ran at last from house to house and from workshop to workshop, "Dr. Singletary is dead!"

He had not any enemy left among them; in one way or another he had been the friend and benefactor of all. Some owed to his skill their recovery from sickness; others remembered how he had watched with anxious solicitude by the bedside of their dying relatives, soothing them, when all human aid was vain, with the sweet consolations of that Christian hope which alone pierces the great shadow of the grave and shows the safe stepping-stones above the dark waters. The old missed a cheerful companion and friend, who had taught them much without wounding their pride by an offensive display of his superiority, and who, while making a jest of his own trials and infirmities, could still listen with real sympathy to the querulous and importunate complaints of others. For one day, at least, even the sunny faces of childhood were marked with unwonted thoughtfulness; the shadow of the common bereavement fell over the play-ground and nursery. The little girl remembered, with tears, how her broken-limbed doll had taxed the surgical ingenuity of her genial old friend; and the boy showed sorrowfully to his playmates the top which the good Doctor had given him. If there were few, among the many who stood beside his grave, capable of rightly measuring and appreciating the high intellectual and spiritual nature which formed the background of his simple social life, all could feel that no common loss had been sustained, and that the kindly and generous spirit which had passed away from them had not lived to himself alone.

As you follow the windings of one of the loveliest rivers of New England, a few miles above the sea-mart, at its mouth, you can see on a hill, whose grassy slope is checkered with the graceful foliage of the locust, and whose top stands relieved against a still higher elevation, dark with oaks and walnuts, the white stones of the burying-place. It is a quiet spot, but without gloom, as befits "God's Acre." Below is the village, with its sloops and fishing-boats at the wharves, and its crescent of white houses mirrored in the water. Eastward is the misty line of the great sea. Blue peaks of distant mountains roughen the horizon of the north. Westward, the broad, clear river winds away into a maze of jutting bluffs and picturesque wooded headlands. The tall, white stone on the westerly slope of the hill bears the name of "Nicholas Singletary, M. D.," and marks the spot which he selected many years before his death. When I visited it last spring, the air about it was fragrant with the bloom of sweet-brier and blackberry and the balsamic aroma of the sweet-fern; birds were singing in the birch-trees by the wall; and two little, brown-locked, merry-faced girls were making wreaths of the dandelions and grasses which grew upon the old man's grave. The sun was setting behind the western river-bluffs, flooding the valley with soft light, glorifying every object and fusing all into harmony and beauty. I saw and felt nothing to depress or sadden me. I could have joined in the laugh of the children. The light whistle of a young teamster, driving merrily homeward, did not jar upon my ear; for from the transfigured landscape, and from the singing birds, and from sportive childhood, and from blossoming sweetbrier, and from the grassy mound before me, I heard the whisper of one word only, and that word was PEACE.

CHAPTER. II. SOME ACCOUNT OF PEEWAWKIN ON THE TOCKETUCK.

WELL and truly said the wise man of old, "Much study is a weariness to the flesh." Hard and close application through the winter had left me ill prepared to resist the baleful influences of a New England spring. I shrank alike from the storms of March, the capricious changes of April, and the sudden alternations of May, from the blandest of southwest breezes to the terrible and icy eastern blasts which sweep our seaboard like the fabled sanser, or wind of death. The buoyancy and vigor, the freshness and beauty of life seemed leaving me. The flesh and the spirit were no longer harmonious. I was tormented by a nightmare feeling of the necessity of exertion, coupled with a sense of utter inability. A thousand plans for my own benefit, or the welfare of those dear to me, or of my fellow-men at large, passed before me; but I had no strength to lay hold of the good angels and detain them until they left their blessing. The trumpet sounded in my ears for the tournament of life; but I could not bear the weight of my armor. In the midst of duties and responsibilities which I clearly comprehended, I found myself yielding to the absorbing egotism of sickness. I could work only when the sharp rowels of necessity were in my sides.

It needed not the ominous warnings of my acquaintance to convince me that some decisive change was necessary. But what was to be done? A voyage to Europe was suggested by my friends; but unhappily I reckoned among them no one who was ready, like the honest laird of Dumbiedikes, to inquire, purse in hand, "Will siller do it?" In casting about for some other expedient, I remembered the pleasant old-fashioned village of Peewawkin, on the Tocketuck River. A few weeks of leisure, country air, and exercise, I thought might be of essential service to me. So I turned my key upon my cares and studies, and my back to the city, and one fine evening of early June the mail coach rumbled over Tocketuck Bridge, and left me at the house of Dr. Singletary, where I had been fortunate enough to secure bed and board.

The little village of Peewawkin at this period was a well-preserved specimen of the old, quiet, cozy hamlets of New England. No huge factory threw its evil shadow over it; no smoking demon of an engine dragged its long train through the streets; no steamboat puffed at its wharves, or ploughed up the river, like the enchanted ship of the Ancient Mariner,--

"Against the wind, against the tide, Steadied with upright keel."

The march of mind had not overtaken it. It had neither printing-press nor lyceum. As the fathers had done before them, so did its inhabitants at the time of my visit. There was little or no competition in their business; there were no rich men, and none that seemed over-anxious to become so. Two or three small vessels were annually launched from the carpenters' yards on the river. It had a blacksmith's shop, with its clang of iron and roar of bellows; a pottery, garnished with its coarse earthen-ware; a store, where molasses, sugar, and spices were sold on one side, and calicoes, tape, and ribbons on the other. Three or four small schooners annually left the wharves for the St. George's and Labrador fisheries. Just back of the village, a bright, noisy stream, gushing out, like a merry laugh, from the walnut and oak woods which stretched back far to the north through a narrow break in the hills, turned the great wheel of a grist-mill, and went frolicking away, like a wicked Undine, under the very windows of the brown, lilac-shaded house of Deacon Warner, the miller, as if to tempt the good man's handsome daughters to take lessons in dancing. At one end of the little crescent-shaped village, at the corner of the main road and the green lane to Deacon Warner's mill, stood the school-house,--a small, ill- used, Spanish-brown building, its patched windows bearing unmistakable evidence of the mischievous character of its inmates. At the other end, farther up the river, on a rocky knoll open to all the winds, stood the meeting-house,--old, two story, and full of windows,--its gilded weathercock glistening in the sun. The bell in its belfry had been brought from France by Skipper Evans in the latter part of the last century. Solemnly baptized and consecrated to some holy saint, it had called to prayer the veiled sisters of a convent, and tolled heavily in the masses for the dead. At first some of the church felt misgivings as to the propriety of hanging a Popish bell in a Puritan steeple-house; but their objections were overruled by the minister, who wisely maintained that if Moses could use the borrowed jewels and ornaments of the Egyptians to adorn and beautify the ark of the Lord, it could not be amiss to make a Catholic bell do service in an Orthodox belfry. The space between the school and the meeting-house was occupied by some fifteen or twenty dwellings, many-colored and diverse in age and appearance. Each one had its green yard in front, its rose-bushes and lilacs. Great elms, planted a century ago, stretched and interlocked their heavy arms across the street. The mill-stream, which found its way into the Tocketuek, near the centre of the village, was spanned by a rickety wooden bridge, rendered picturesque by a venerable and gnarled white-oak which hung over it, with its great roots half bared by the water and twisted among the mossy stones of the crumbling abutment.

The house of Dr. Singletary was situated somewhat apart from the main street, just on the slope of Blueberry Will,--a great, green swell of land, stretching far down from the north, and terminating in a steep bluff at the river side. It overlooked the village and the river a long way up and down. It was a brown-looking, antiquated mansion, built by the Doctor's grandfather in the earlier days of the settlement. The rooms were large and low, with great beams, scaly with whitewash, running across them, scarcely above the reach of a tall man's head. Great-throated fireplaces, filled with pine-boughs and flower-pots, gave promise of winter fires, roaring and crackling in boisterous hilarity, as if laughing to scorn the folly and discomfort of our modern stoves. In the porch at the frontdoor were two seats, where the Doctor was accustomed to sit in fine weather with his pipe and his book, or with such friends as might call to spend a half hour with him. The lawn in front had scarcely any other ornament than its green grass, cropped short by the Doctor's horse. A stone wall separated it from the lane, half overrun with wild hop, or clematis, and two noble rock-maples arched over with their dense foliage the little red gate. Dark belts of woodland, smooth hill pasture, green, broad meadows, and fields of corn and rye, the homesteads of the villagers, were seen on one hand; while on the other was the bright, clear river, with here and there a white sail, relieved against bold, wooded banks, jutting rocks, or tiny islands, dark with dwarf evergreens. It was a quiet, rural picture, a happy and peaceful contrast to all I had looked upon for weary, miserable months. It soothed the nervous excitement of pain and suffering. I forgot myself in the pleasing interest which it awakened. Nature's healing ministrations came to me through all my senses. I felt the medicinal virtues of her sights, and sounds, and aromal breezes. From the green turf of her hills and the mossy carpets of her woodlands my languid steps derived new vigor and elasticity. I felt, day by day, the transfusion of her strong life.

The Doctor's domestic establishment consisted of Widow Matson, his housekeeper, and an idle slip of a boy, who, when he was not paddling across the river, or hunting in the swamps, or playing ball on the "Meetin'-'us-Hill," used to run of errands, milk the cow, and saddle the horse. Widow Matson was a notable shrill-tongued woman, from whom two long suffering husbands had obtained what might, under the circumstances, be well called a comfortable release. She was neat and tidy almost to a fault, thrifty and industrious, and, barring her scolding propensity, was a pattern housekeeper. For the Doctor she entertained so high a regard that nothing could exceed her indignation when any one save herself presumed to find fault with him. Her bark was worse than her bite; she had a warm, woman's heart, capable of soft relentings; and this the roguish errand-boy so well understood that he bore the daily infliction of her tongue with a good-natured unconcern which would have been greatly to his credit had it not resulted from his confident expectation that an extra slice of cake or segment of pie would erelong tickle his palate in atonement for the tingling of his ears.

It must be confessed that the Doctor had certain little peculiarities and ways of his own which might have ruffled the down of a smoother temper than that of the Widow Matson. He was careless and absent- minded. In spite of her labors and complaints, he scattered his superfluous clothing, books, and papers over his rooms in "much-admired disorder." He gave the freedom of his house to the boys and girls of his neighborhood, who, presuming upon his good nature, laughed at her remonstrances and threats as they chased each other up and down the nicely-polished stairway. Worse than all, he was proof against the vituperations and reproaches with which she indirectly assailed him from the recesses of her kitchen. He smoked his pipe and dozed over his newspaper as complacently as ever, while his sins of omission and commission were arrayed against him.

Peewawkin had always the reputation of a healthy town: and if it had been otherwise, Dr. Singletary was the last man in the world to transmute the aches and ails of its inhabitants into gold for his own pocket. So, at the age of sixty, he was little better off, in point of worldly substance, than when he came into possession of the small homestead of his father. He cultivated with his own hands his corn- field and potato-patch, and trimmed his apple and pear trees, as well satisfied with his patrimony as Horace was with his rustic Sabine villa. In addition to the care of his homestead and his professional duties, he had long been one of the overseers of the poor and a member of the school committee in his town; and he was a sort of standing reference in all disputes about wages, boundaries, and cattle trespasses in his neighborhood. He had, nevertheless, a good deal of leisure for reading, errands of charity, and social visits. He loved to talk with his friends, Elder Staples, the minister, Deacon Warner, and Skipper Evans. He was an expert angler, and knew all the haunts of pickerel and trout for many miles around. His favorite place of resort was the hill back of his house, which afforded a view of the long valley of the Tocketuck and the great sea. Here he would sit, enjoying the calm beauty of the landscape, pointing out to me localities interesting from their historical or traditional associations, or connected in some way with humorous or pathetic passages of his own life experience. Some of these autobiographical fragments affected me deeply. In narrating them he invested familiar and commonplace facts with something of the fascination of romance. "Human life," he would say, "is the same everywhere. If we could but get at the truth, we should find that all the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare have been reproduced in this little village. God has made all of one blood; what is true of one man is in some sort true of another; manifestations may differ, but the essential elements and spring of action are the same. On the surface, everything about us just now looks prosaic and mechanical; you see only a sort of bark-mill grinding over of the same dull, monotonous grist of daily trifles. But underneath all this there is an earnest life, rich and beautiful with love and hope, or dark with hatred, and sorrow, and remorse. That fisherman by the riverside, or that woman at the stream below, with her wash-tub,--who knows what lights and shadows checker their memories, or what present thoughts of theirs, born of heaven or hell, the future shall ripen into deeds of good or evil? Ah, what have I not seen and heard? My profession has been to me, in some sort, like the vial genie of the Salamanca student; it has unroofed these houses, and opened deep, dark chambers to the hearts of their tenants, which no eye save that of God had ever looked upon. Where I least expected them, I have encountered shapes of evil; while, on the other hand, I have found beautiful, heroic love and self-denial in those who had seemed to me frivolous and selfish."

So would Dr. Singletary discourse as we strolled over Blueberry Hill, or drove along the narrow willow-shaded road which follows the windings of the river. He had read and thought much in his retired, solitary life, and was evidently well satisfied to find in me a gratified listener. He talked well and fluently, with little regard to logical sequence, and with something of the dogmatism natural to one whose opinions had seldom been subjected to scrutiny. He seemed equally at home in the most abstruse questions of theology and metaphysics, and in the more practical matters of mackerel-fishing, corn-growing, and cattle-raising. It was manifest that to his book lore he had added that patient and close observation of the processes of Nature which often places the unlettered ploughman and mechanic on a higher level of available intelligence than that occupied by professors and school men. To him nothing which had its root in the eternal verities of Nature was "common or unclean." The blacksmith, subjecting to his will the swart genii of the mines of coal and iron; the potter, with his "power over the clay;" the skipper, who had tossed in his frail fishing-smack among the icebergs of Labrador; the farmer, who had won from Nature the occult secrets of her woods and fields; and even the vagabond hunter and angler, familiar with the habits of animals and the migration of birds and fishes,--had been his instructors; and he was not ashamed to acknowledge that they had taught him more than college or library.

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III. THE DOCTOR'S MATCH-MAKING

"GOOD-MORNING, Mrs. Barnet," cried the Doctor, as we drew near a neat farm-house during one of our morning drives.

A tall, healthful young woman, in the bloom of matronly beauty, was feeding chickens at the door. She uttered an exclamation of delight and hurried towards us. Perceiving a stranger in the wagon she paused, with a look of embarrassment.

"My friend, who is spending a few weeks with me," explained the Doctor.

She greeted me civilly and pressed the Doctor's hand warmly.

"Oh, it is so long since you have called on us that we have been talking of going up to the village to see you, as soon as Robert can get away from his cornfield. You don't know how little Lucy has grown. You must stop and see her."

"She's coming to see me herself," replied the Doctor, beckoning to a sweet blue-eyed child in the door-way.

The delighted mother caught up her darling and held her before the Doctor.

"Does n't she look like Robert?" she inquired. "His very eyes and forehead! Bless me! here he is now."

A stout, hale young farmer, in a coarse checked frock and broad straw hat, came up from the adjoining field.

"Well, Robert," said the Doctor, "how do matters now stand with you? Well, I hope."

"All right, Doctor. We've paid off the last cent of the mortgage, and the farm is all free and clear. Julia and I have worked hard; but we're none the worse for it."

"You look well and happy, I am sure," said the Doctor. "I don't think you are sorry you took the advice of the old Doctor, after all."

The young wife's head drooped until her lips touched those of her child.

"Sorry!" exclaimed her husband. "Not we! If there's anybody happier than we are within ten miles of us. I don't know them. Doctor, I'll tell you what I said to Julia the night I brought home that mortgage. 'Well,' said I, 'that debt's paid; but there's one debt we can never pay as long as we live.' 'I know it,' says she; 'but Dr. Singletary wants no better reward for his kindness than to see us live happily together, and do for others what he has done for us.'"

"Pshaw!" said the Doctor, catching up his reins and whip. "You owe me nothing. But I must not forget my errand. Poor old Widow Osborne needs a watcher to-night; and she insists upon having Julia Barnet, and nobody else. What shall I tell her?"

"I'll go, certainly. I can leave Lucy now as well as not."

"Good-by, neighbors."

"Good-by, Doctor."

As we drove off I saw the Doctor draw his hand hastily across his eyes, and he said nothing for some minutes.

"Public opinion," said he at length, as if pursuing his meditations aloud,--"public opinion is, in nine cases out of ten, public folly and impertinence. We are slaves to one another. We dare not take counsel of our consciences and affections, but must needs suffer popular prejudice and custom to decide for us, and at their bidding are sacrificed love and friendship and all the best hopes of our lives. We do not ask, What is right and best for us? but, What will folks say of it? We have no individuality, no self-poised strength, no sense of freedom. We are conscious always of the gaze of the many-eyed tyrant. We propitiate him with precious offerings; we burn incense perpetually to Moloch, and pass through his fire the sacred first-born of our hearts. How few dare to seek their own happiness by the lights which God has given them, or have strength to defy the false pride and the prejudice of the world and stand fast in the liberty of Christians! Can anything be more pitiable than the sight of so many, who should be the choosers and creators under God of their own spheres of utility and happiness, self-degraded into mere slaves of propriety and custom, their true natures undeveloped, their hearts cramped and shut up, each afraid of his neighbor and his neighbor of him, living a life of unreality, deceiving and being deceived, and forever walking in a vain show? Here, now, we have just left a married couple who are happy because they have taken counsel of their honest affections rather than of the opinions of the multitude, and have dared to be true to themselves in defiance of impertinent gossip."

"You speak of the young farmer Barnet and his wife, I suppose?" said I.

"Yes. I will give their case as an illustration. Julia Atkins was the daughter of Ensign Atkins, who lived on the mill-road, just above Deacon Warner's. When she was ten years old her mother died; and in a few months afterwards her father married Polly Wiggin, the tailoress, a shrewd, selfish, managing woman. Julia, poor girl! had a sorry time of it; for the Ensign, although a kind and affectionate man naturally, was too weak and yielding to interpose between her and his strong-minded, sharp-tongued wife. She had one friend, however, who was always ready to sympathize with her. Robert Barnet was the son of her next-door neighbor, about two years older than herself; they had grown up together as school companions and playmates; and often in my drives I used to meet them coming home hand in hand from school, or from the woods with berries and nuts, talking and laughing as if there were no scolding step-mothers in the world.

"It so fell out that when Julia was in her sixteenth year there came a famous writing-master to Peewawkin. He was a showy, dashing fellow, with a fashionable dress, a wicked eye, and a tongue like the old serpent's when he tempted our great-grandmother. Julia was one of his scholars, and perhaps the prettiest of them all. The rascal singled her out from the first; and, the better to accomplish his purpose, he left the tavern and took lodgings at the Ensign's. He soon saw how matters stood in the family, and governed himself accordingly, taking special pains to conciliate the ruling authority. The Ensign's wife hated young Barnet, and wished to get rid of her step-daughter. The writing-master, therefore, had a fair field. He flattered the poor young girl by his attentions and praised her beauty. Her moral training had not fitted her to withstand this seductive influence; no mother's love, with its quick, instinctive sense of danger threatening its object, interposed between her and the tempter. Her old friend and playmate--he who could alone have saved her--had been rudely repulsed from the house by her step-mother; and, indignant and disgusted, he had retired from all competition with his formidable rival. Thus abandoned to her own undisciplined imagination, with the inexperience of a child and the passions of a woman, she was deceived by false promises, bewildered, fascinated, and beguiled into sin.

"It is the same old story of woman's confidence and man's duplicity. The rascally writing-master, under pretence of visiting a neighboring town, left his lodgings and never returned. The last I heard of him, he was the tenant of a western penitentiary. Poor Julia, driven in disgrace from her father's house, found a refuge in the humble dwelling of an old woman of no very creditable character. There I was called to visit her; and, although not unused to scenes of suffering and sorrow, I had never before witnessed such an utter abandonment to grief, shame, and remorse. Alas! what sorrow was like unto her sorrow? The birth hour of her infant was also that of its death.

"The agony of her spirit seemed greater than she could bear. Her eyes were opened, and she looked upon herself with loathing and horror. She would admit of no hope, no consolation; she would listen to no palliation or excuse of her guilt. I could only direct her to that Source of pardon and peace to which the broken and contrite heart never appeals in vain.

"In the mean time Robert Barnet shipped on board a Labrador vessel. The night before he left he called on me, and put in my hand a sum of money, small indeed, but all he could then command.

"'You will see her often,' he said. 'Do not let her suffer; for she is more to be pitied than blamed.'

"I answered him that I would do all in my power for her; and added, that I thought far better of her, contrite and penitent as she was, than of some who were busy in holding her up to shame and censure.

"'God bless you for these words!' he said, grasping my hand. 'I shall think of them often. They will be a comfort to me.'

"As for Julia, God was more merciful to her than man. She rose from her sick-bed thoughtful and humbled, but with hopes that transcended the world of her suffering and shame. She no longer murmured against her sorrowful allotment, but accepted it with quiet and almost cheerful resignation as the fitting penalty of God's broken laws and the needed discipline of her spirit. She could say with the Psalmist, 'The judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves. Thou art just, O Lord, and thy judgment is right.' Through my exertions she obtained employment in a respectable family, to whom she endeared herself by her faithfulness, cheerful obedience, and unaffected piety.

"Her trials had made her heart tender with sympathy for all in affliction. She seemed inevitably drawn towards the sick and suffering. In their presence the burden of her own sorrow seemed to fall off. She was the most cheerful and sunny-faced nurse I ever knew; and I always felt sure that my own efforts would be well seconded when I found her by the bedside of a patient. Beautiful it was to see this poor young girl, whom the world still looked upon with scorn and unkindness, cheering the desponding, and imparting, as it were, her own strong, healthful life to the weak and faint; supporting upon her bosom, through weary nights, the heads of those who, in health, would have deemed her touch pollution; or to hear her singing for the ear of the dying some sweet hymn of pious hope or resignation, or calling to mind the consolations of the gospel and the great love of Christ."

"I trust," said I, "that the feelings of the community were softened towards her."

"You know what human nature is," returned the Doctor, "and with what hearty satisfaction we abhor and censure sin and folly in others. It is a luxury which we cannot easily forego, although our own experience tells us that the consequences of vice and error are evil and bitter enough without the aggravation of ridicule and reproach from without. So you need not be surprised to learn that, in poor Julia's case, the charity of sinners like herself did not keep pace with the mercy and forgiveness of Him who is infinite in purity. Nevertheless, I will do our people the justice to say that her blameless and self-sacrificing life was not without its proper effect upon them."

"What became of Robert Barnet?" I inquired.

"He came back after an absence of several months, and called on me before he had even seen his father and mother. He did not mention Julia; but I saw that his errand with me concerned her. I spoke of her excellent deportment and her useful life, dwelt upon the extenuating circumstances of her error and of her sincere and hearty repentance.

"'Doctor,' said he, at length, with a hesitating and embarrassed manner, 'what should you think if I should tell you that, after all that has passed, I have half made up my mind to ask her to become my wife?'

"'I should think better of it if you had wholly made up your mind,' said I; 'and if you were my own son, I wouldn't ask for you a better wife than Julia Atkins. Don't hesitate, Robert, on account of what some ill- natured people may say. Consult your own heart first of all.'

"'I don't care for the talk of all the busybodies in town,' said he; 'but I wish father and mother could feel as you do about her.'

"'Leave that to me,' said I. 'They are kindhearted and reasonable, and I dare say will be disposed to make the best of the matter when they find you are decided in your purpose.'

"I did not see him again; but a few days after I learned from his parents that he had gone on another voyage. It was now autumn, and the most sickly season I had ever known in Peewawkin. Ensign Atkins and his wife both fell sick; and Julia embraced with alacrity this providential opportunity to return to her father's house and fulfil the duties of a daughter. Under her careful nursing the Ensign soon got upon his feet; but his wife, whose constitution was weaker, sunk under the fever. She died better than she had lived,--penitent and loving, asking forgiveness of Julia for her neglect and unkindness, and invoking blessings on her head. Julia had now, for the first time since the death of her mother, a comfortable home and a father's love and protection. Her sweetness of temper, patient endurance, and forgetfulness of herself in her labors for others, gradually overcame the scruples and hard feelings of her neighbors. They began to question whether, after all, it was meritorious in them to treat one like her as a sinner beyond forgiveness. Elder Staples and Deacon Warner were her fast friends. The Deacon's daughters--the tall, blue-eyed, brown-locked girls you noticed in meeting the other day--set the example among the young people of treating her as their equal and companion. The dear good girls! They reminded me of the maidens of Naxos cheering and comforting the unhappy Ariadne.

"One mid-winter evening I took Julia with me to a poor sick patient of mine, who was suffering for lack of attendance. The house where she lived was in a lonely and desolate place, some two or three miles below us, on a sandy level, just elevated above the great salt marshes, stretching far away to the sea. The night set in dark and stormy; a fierce northeasterly wind swept over the level waste, driving thick snow-clouds before it, shaking the doors and windows of the old house, and roaring in its vast chimney. The woman was dying when we arrived, and her drunken husband was sitting in stupid unconcern in the corner of the fireplace. A little after midnight she breathed her last.

"In the mean time the storm had grown more violent; there was a blinding snow-fall in the air; and we could feel the jar of the great waves as they broke upon the beach.

"'It is a terrible night for sailors on the coast,' I said, breaking our long silence with the dead. 'God grant them sea-room!'

"Julia shuddered as I spoke, and by the dim-flashing firelight I saw she was weeping. Her thoughts, I knew, were with her old friend and playmate on the wild waters.

"'Julia,' said I, 'do you know that Robert Barnet loves you with all the strength of an honest and true heart?'

"She trembled, and her voice faltered as she confessed that when Robert was at home he had asked her to become his wife.

"'And, like a fool, you refused him, I suppose?--the brave, generous fellow!'

"'O Doctor!' she exclaimed. 'How can you talk so? It is just because Robert is so good, and noble, and generous, that I dared not take him at his word. You yourself, Doctor, would have despised me if I had taken advantage of his pity or his kind remembrance of the old days when we were children together. I have already brought too much disgrace upon those dear to me.'

"I was endeavoring to convince her, in reply, that she was doing injustice to herself and wronging her best friend, whose happiness depended in a great measure upon her, when, borne on the strong blast, we both heard a faint cry as of a human being in distress. I threw up the window which opened seaward, and we leaned out into the wild night, listening breathlessly for a repetition of the sound.

"Once more, and once only, we heard it,--a low, smothered, despairing cry.

"'Some one is lost, and perishing in the snow,' said Julia. 'The sound conies in the direction of the beach plum-bushes on the side of the marsh. Let us go at once.'

"She snatched up her hood and shawl, and was already at the door. I found and lighted a lantern and soon overtook her. The snow was already deep and badly drifted, and it was with extreme difficulty that we could force our way against the storm. We stopped often to take breath and listen; but the roaring of the wind and waves was alone audible. At last we reached a slightly elevated spot, overgrown with dwarf plum- trees, whose branches were dimly visible above the snow.

"'Here, bring the lantern here!' cried Julia, who had strayed a few yards from me. I hastened to her, and found her lifting up the body of a man who was apparently insensible. The rays of the lantern fell full upon his face, and we both, at the same instant, recognized Robert Barnet. Julia did not shriek nor faint; but, kneeling in the snow, and still supporting the body, she turned towards me a look of earnest and fearful inquiry.

"'Courage!' said I. 'He still lives. He is only overcome with fatigue and cold.'

"With much difficulty-partly carrying and partly dragging him through the snow--we succeeded in getting him to the house, where, in a short time, he so far recovered as to be able to speak. Julia, who had been my prompt and efficient assistant in his restoration, retired into the shadow of the room as soon as he began to rouse himself and look about him. He asked where he was and who was with me, saying that his head was so confused that he thought he saw Julia Atkins by the bedside. 'You were not mistaken,' said I; 'Julia is here, and you owe your life to her.' He started up and gazed round the room. I beckoned Julia to the bedside; and I shall never forget the grateful earnestness with which he grasped her hand and called upon God to bless her. Some folks think me a tough-hearted old fellow, and so I am; but that scene was more than I could bear without shedding tears.

"Robert told us that his vessel had been thrown upon the beach a mile or two below, and that he feared all the crew had perished save himself. Assured of his safety, I went out once more, in the faint hope of hearing the voice of some survivor of the disaster; but I listened only to the heavy thunder of the surf rolling along the horizon of the east. The storm had in a great measure ceased; the gray light of dawn was just visible; and I was gratified to see two of the nearest neighbors approaching the house. On being informed of the wreck they immediately started for the beach, where several dead bodies, half buried in snow, confirmed the fears of the solitary survivor.

"The result of all this you can easily conjecture. Robert Barnet abandoned the sea, and, with the aid of some of his friends, purchased the farm where he now lives, and the anniversary of his shipwreck found him the husband of Julia. I can assure you I have had every reason to congratulate myself on my share in the match-making. Nobody ventured to find fault with it except two or three sour old busybodies, who, as Elder Staples well says, 'would have cursed her whom Christ had forgiven, and spurned the weeping Magdalen from the feet of her Lord.'"

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IV. BY THE SPRING

IT was one of the very brightest and breeziest of summer mornings that the Doctor and myself walked homeward from the town poor-house, where he had always one or more patients, and where his coming was always welcomed by the poor, diseased, and age-stricken inmates. Dark, miserable faces of lonely and unreverenced age, written over with the grim records of sorrow and sin, seemed to brighten at his approach as with an inward light, as if the good man's presence had power to call the better natures of the poor unfortunates into temporary ascendency. Weary, fretful women--happy mothers in happy homes, perchance, half a century before--felt their hearts warm and expand under the influence of his kind salutations and the ever-patient good-nature with which he listened to their reiterated complaints of real or imaginary suffering. However it might be with others, he never forgot the man or the woman in the pauper. There was nothing like condescension or consciousness in his charitable ministrations; for he was one of the few men I have ever known in whom the milk of human kindness was never soured by contempt for humanity in whatever form it presented itself. Thus it was that his faithful performance of the duties of his profession, however repulsive and disagreeable, had the effect of Murillo's picture of St. Elizabeth of Hungary binding up the ulcered limbs of the beggars. The moral beauty transcended the loathsomeness of physical evil and deformity.

Our nearest route home lay across the pastures and over Blueberry Hill, just at the foot of which we encountered Elder Staples and Skipper Evans, who had been driving their cows to pasture, and were now leisurely strolling back to the village. We toiled together up the hill in the hot sunshine, and, just on its eastern declivity, were glad to find a white-oak tree, leaning heavily over a little ravine, from the bottom of which a clear spring of water bubbled up and fed a small rivulet, whose track of darker green might be traced far down the hill to the meadow at its foot.

A broad shelf of rock by the side of the spring, cushioned with mosses, afforded us a comfortable resting-place. Elder Staples, in his faded black coat and white neck-cloth, leaned his quiet, contemplative head on his silver-mounted cane: right opposite him sat the Doctor, with his sturdy, rotund figure, and broad, seamed face, surmounted by a coarse stubble of iron-gray hair, the sharp and almost severe expression of his keen gray eyes, flashing under their dark penthouse, happily relieved by the softer lines of his mouth, indicative of his really genial and generous nature. A small, sinewy figure, half doubled up, with his chin resting on his rough palms, Skipper Evans sat on a lower projection of the rock just beneath him, in an attentive attitude, as at the feet of Gatnaliel. Dark and dry as one of his own dunfish on a Labrador flake, or a seal-skin in an Esquimaux hut, he seemed entirely exempt from one of the great trinity of temptations; and, granting him a safe deliverance from the world and the devil, he had very little to fear from the flesh.

We were now in the Doctor's favorite place of resort, green, cool, quiet, and sightly withal. The keen light revealed every object in the long valley below us; the fresh west wind fluttered the oakleaves above; and the low voice of the water, coaxing or scolding its way over bare roots or mossy stones, was just audible.

"Doctor," said I, "this spring, with the oak hanging over it, is, I suppose, your Fountain of Bandusia. You remember what Horace says of his spring, which yielded such cool refreshment when the dog-star had set the day on fire. What a fine picture he gives us of this charming feature of his little farm!"

The Doctor's eye kindled. "I'm glad to see you like Horace; not merely as a clever satirist and writer of amatory odes, but as a true lover of Nature. How pleasant are his simple and beautiful descriptions of his yellow, flowing Tiber, the herds and herdsmen, the harvesters, the grape vintage, the varied aspects of his Sabine retreat in the fierce summer heats, or when the snowy forehead of Soracte purpled in winter sunsets! Scattered through his odes and the occasional poems which he addresses to his city friends, you find these graceful and inimitable touches of rural beauty, each a picture in itself."

"It is long since I have looked at my old school-day companions, the classics," said Elder Staples; "but I remember Horace only as a light, witty, careless epicurean, famous for his lyrics in praise of Falernian wine and questionable women."

"Somewhat too much of that, doubtless," said the Doctor; "but to me Horace is serious and profoundly suggestive, nevertheless. Had I laid him aside on quitting college, as you did, I should perhaps have only remembered such of his epicurean lyrics as recommended themselves to the warns fancy of boyhood. Ah, Elder Staples, there was a time when the Lyces and Glyceras of the poet were no fiction to us. They played blindman's buff with us in the farmer's kitchen, sang with us in the meeting-house, and romped and laughed with us at huskings and quilting- parties. Grandmothers and sober spinsters as they now are, the change in us is perhaps greater than in them."

"Too true," replied the Elder, the smile which had just played over his pale face fading into something sadder than its habitual melancholy. "The living companions of our youth, whom we daily meet, are more strange to us than the dead in yonder graveyard. They alone remain unchanged!"

"Speaking of Horace," continued the Doctor, in a voice slightly husky with feeling, "he gives us glowing descriptions of his winter circles of friends, where mirth and wine, music and beauty, charm away the hours, and of summer-day recreations beneath the vine-wedded elms of the Tiber or on the breezy slopes of Soracte; yet I seldom read them without a feeling of sadness. A low wail of inappeasable sorrow, an undertone of dirges, mingles with his gay melodies. His immediate horizon is bright with sunshine; but beyond is a land of darkness, the light whereof is darkness. It is walled about by the everlasting night. The skeleton sits at his table; a shadow of the inevitable terror rests upon all his pleasant pictures. He was without God in the world; he had no clear abiding hope of a life beyond that which was hastening to a close. Eat and drink, he tells us; enjoy present health and competence; alleviate present evils, or forget them, in social intercourse, in wine, music, and sensual indulgence; for to-morrow we must die. Death was in his view no mere change of condition and relation; it was the black end of all. It is evident that he placed no reliance on the mythology of his time, and that he regarded the fables of the Elysian Fields and their dim and wandering ghosts simply in the light of convenient poetic fictions for illustration and imagery. Nothing can, in my view, be sadder than his attempts at consolation for the loss of friends. Witness his Ode to Virgil on the death of Quintilius. He tells his illustrious friend simply that his calamity is without hope, irretrievable and eternal; that it is idle to implore the gods to restore the dead; and that, although his lyre may be more sweet than that of Orpheus, he cannot reanimate the shadow of his friend nor persuade 'the ghost-compelling god' to unbar the gates of death. He urges patience as the sole resource. He alludes not unfrequently to his own death in the same despairing tone. In the Ode to Torquatus,--one of the most beautiful and touching of all he has written,--he sets before his friend, in melancholy contrast, the return of the seasons, and of the moon renewed in brightness, with the end of man, who sinks into the endless dark, leaving nothing save ashes and shadows. He then, in the true spirit of his philosophy, urges Torquatus to give his present hour and wealth to pleasures and delights, as he had no assurance of to-morrow."

"In something of the same strain," said I, "Moschus moralizes on the death of Bion:--

Our trees and plants revive; the rose In annual youth of beauty glows; But when the pride of Nature dies, Man, who alone is great and wise, No more he rises into light, The wakeless sleeper of eternal night.'"

"It reminds me," said Elder Staples, "of the sad burden of Ecclesiastes, the mournfulest book of Scripture; because, while the preacher dwells with earnestness upon the vanity and uncertainty of the things of time and sense, he has no apparent hope of immortality to relieve the dark picture. Like Horace, he sees nothing better than to eat his bread with joy and drink his wine with a merry heart. It seems to me the wise man might have gone farther in his enumeration of the folly and emptiness of life, and pronounced his own prescription for the evil vanity also. What is it but plucking flowers on the banks of the stream which hurries us over the cataract, or feasting on the thin crust of a volcano upon delicate meats prepared over the fires which are soon to ingulf us? Oh, what a glorious contrast to this is the gospel of Him who brought to light life and immortality! The transition from the Koheleth to the Epistles of Paul is like passing from a cavern, where the artificial light falls indeed upon gems and crystals, but is everywhere circumscribed and overshadowed by unknown and unexplored darkness, into the warm light and free atmosphere of day."

"Yet," I asked, "are there not times when we all wish for some clearer evidence of immortal life than has been afforded us; when we even turn away unsatisfied from the pages of the holy book, with all the mysterious problems of life pressing about us and clamoring for solution, till, perplexed and darkened, we look up to the still heavens, as if we sought thence an answer, visible or audible, to their questionings? We want something beyond the bare announcement of the momentous fact of a future life; we long for a miracle to confirm our weak faith and silence forever the doubts which torment us."

"And what would a miracle avail us at such times of darkness and strong temptation?" said the Elder. "Have we not been told that they whom Moses and the prophets have failed to convince would not believe although one rose from the dead? That God has revealed no more to us is to my mind sufficient evidence that He has revealed enough."

"May it not be," queried the Doctor, "that Infinite Wisdom sees that a clearer and fuller revelation of the future life would render us less willing or able to perform our appropriate duties in the present condition? Enchanted by a clear view of the heavenly hills, and of our loved ones beckoning us from the pearl gates of the city of God, could we patiently work out our life-task here, or make the necessary exertions to provide for the wants of these bodies whose encumbrance alone can prevent us from rising to a higher plane of existence?"

"I reckon," said the Skipper, who had been an attentive, although at times evidently a puzzled, listener, "that it would be with us pretty much as it was with a crew of French sailors that I once shipped at the Isle of France for the port of Marseilles. I never had better hands until we hove in sight of their native country, which they had n't seen for years. The first look of the land set 'em all crazy; they danced, laughed, shouted, put on their best clothes; and I had to get new hands to help me bring the vessel to her moorings."

"Your story is quite to the point, Skipper," said the Doctor. "If things had been ordered differently, we should all, I fear, be disposed to quit work and fall into absurdities, like your French sailors, and so fail of bringing the world fairly into port."

"God's ways are best," said the Elder; "and I don't see as we can do better than to submit with reverence to the very small part of them which He has made known to us, and to trust Him like loving and dutiful children for the rest."

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V. THE HILLSIDE

THE pause which naturally followed the observation of the Elder was broken abruptly by the Skipper.

"Hillo!" he cried, pointing with the glazed hat with which he had been fanning himself. "Here away in the northeast. Going down the coast for better fishing, I guess."

"An eagle, as I live!" exclaimed the Doctor, following with his cane the direction of the Skipper's hat. "Just see how royally he wheels upward and onward, his sail-broad wings stretched motionless, save an occasional flap to keep up his impetus! Look! the circle in which he moves grows narrower; he is a gray cloud in the sky, a point, a mere speck or dust-mote. And now he is clean swallowed up in the distance. The wise man of old did well to confess his ignorance of 'the way of an eagle in the air.'"

"The eagle," said Elder Staples, "seems to have been a favorite illustration of the sacred penman. 'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount upward as on the wings of an eagle.'"

"What think you of this passage?" said the Doctor. "'As when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found; but the light air, beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted by the violent noise and motion thereof, is passed through, and therein afterward no sign of her path can be found.'

"I don't remember the passage," said the Elder.

"I dare say not," quoth the Doctor. "You clergymen take it for granted that no good thing can come home from the Nazareth of the Apocrypha. But where will you find anything more beautiful and cheering than these verses in connection with that which I just cited?--'The hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away by the wind; like the thin foam which is driven by the storm; like the smoke which is scattered here and there by the whirlwind; it passeth away like the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day. But the righteous live forevermore; their reward also is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom and a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand; for with his right hand shall He cover them, and with his arm shall He protect them.'"

"That, if I mistake not, is from the Wisdom of Solomon," said the Elder. "It is a striking passage; and there are many such in the uncanonical books."

"Canonical or not," answered the Doctor, "it is God's truth, and stands in no need of the endorsement of a set of well-meaning but purblind bigots and pedants, who presumed to set metes and bounds to Divine inspiration, and decide by vote what is God's truth and what is the Devil's falsehood. But, speaking of eagles, I never see one of these spiteful old sea-robbers without fancying that he may be the soul of a mad Viking of the middle centuries. Depend upon it, that Italian philosopher was not far out of the way in his ingenious speculations upon the affinities and sympathies existing between certain men and certain animals, and in fancying that he saw feline or canine traits and similitudes in the countenances of his acquaintance."

"Swedenborg tells us," said I, "that lost human souls in the spiritual world, as seen by the angels, frequently wear the outward shapes of the lower animals,--for instance, the gross and sensual look like swine, and the cruel and obscene like foul birds of prey, such as hawks and vultures,--and that they are entirely unconscious of the metamorphosis, imagining themselves marvellous proper men,' and are quite well satisfied with their company and condition."

"Swedenborg," said the Elder, "was an insane man, or worse."

"Perhaps so," said the Doctor; "but there is a great deal of 'method in his madness,' and plain common sense too. There is one grand and beautiful idea underlying all his revelations or speculations about the future life. It is this: that each spirit chooses its own society, and naturally finds its fitting place and sphere of action,--following in the new life, as in the present, the leading of its prevailing loves and desires,--and that hence none are arbitrarily compelled to be good or evil, happy or miserable. A great law of attraction and gravitation governs the spiritual as well as the material universe; but, in obeying it, the spirit retains in the new life whatever freedom of will it possessed in its first stage of being. But I see the Elder shakes his head, as much as to say, I am 'wise above what is written,' or, at any rate, meddling with matters beyond my comprehension. Our young friend here," he continued, turning to me, "has the appearance of a listener; but I suspect he is busy with his own reveries, or enjoying the fresh sights and sounds of this fine morning. I doubt whether our discourse has edified him."

"Pardon me," said I; "I was, indeed, listening to another and older oracle."

"Well, tell us what you hear," said the Doctor.

"A faint, low murmur, rising and falling on the wind. Now it comes rolling in upon me, wave after wave of sweet, solemn music. There was a grand organ swell; and now it dies away as into the infinite distance; but I still hear it,--whether with ear or spirit I know not,--the very ghost of sound."

"Ah, yes," said the Doctor; "I understand it is the voice of the pines yonder,--a sort of morning song of praise to the Giver of life and Maker of beauty. My ear is dull now, and I cannot hear it; but I know it is sounding on as it did when I first climbed up here in the bright June mornings of boyhood, and it will sound on just the same when the deafness of the grave shall settle upon my failing senses. Did it never occur to you that this deafness and blindness to accustomed beauty and harmony is one of the saddest thoughts connected with the great change which awaits us? Have you not felt at times that our ordinary conceptions of heaven itself, derived from the vague hints and Oriental imagery of the Scriptures, are sadly inadequate to our human wants and hopes? How gladly would we forego the golden streets and gates of pearl, the thrones, temples, and harps, for the sunset lights of our native valleys; the woodpaths, whose moss carpets are woven with violets and wild flowers; the songs of birds, the low of cattle, the hum of bees in the apple-blossom,--the sweet, familiar voices of human life and nature! In the place of strange splendors and unknown music, should we not welcome rather whatever reminded us of the common sights and sounds of our old home?"

"You touch a sad chord, Doctor," said I. "Would that we could feel assured of the eternity of all we love!"

"And have I not an assurance of it at this very moment?" returned the Doctor. "My outward ear fails me; yet I seem to hear as formerly the sound of the wind in the pines. I close my eyes; and the picture of my home is still before me. I see the green hill slope and meadows; the white shaft of the village steeple springing up from the midst of maples and elms; the river all afire with sunshine; the broad, dark belt of woodland; and, away beyond, all the blue level of the ocean. And now, by a single effort of will, I can call before me a winter picture of the same scene. It is morning as now; but how different! All night has the white meteor fallen, in broad flake or minutest crystal, the sport and plaything of winds that have wrought it into a thousand shapes of wild beauty. Hill and valley, tree and fence, woodshed and well-sweep, barn and pigsty, fishing-smacks frozen tip at the wharf, ribbed monsters of dismantled hulks scattered along the river-side,--all lie transfigured in the white glory and sunshine. The eye, wherever it turns, aches with the cold brilliance, unrelieved save where. The blue smoke of morning fires curls lazily up from the Parian roofs, or where the main channel of the river, as yet unfrozen, shows its long winding line of dark water glistening like a snake in the sun. Thus you perceive that the spirit sees and hears without the aid of bodily organs; and why may it not be so hereafter? Grant but memory to us, and we can lose nothing by death. The scenes now passing before us will live in eternal reproduction, created anew at will. We assuredly shall not love heaven the less that it is separated by no impassable gulf from this fair and goodly earth, and that the pleasant pictures of time linger like sunset clouds along the horizon of eternity. When I was younger, I used to be greatly troubled by the insecure tenure by which my senses held the beauty and harmony of the outward world. When I looked at the moonlight on the water, or the cloud-shadows on the hills, or the sunset sky, with the tall, black tree-boles and waving foliage relieved against it, or when I heard a mellow gush of music from the brown-breasted fife-bird in the summer woods, or the merry quaver of the bobolink in the corn land, the thought of an eternal loss of these familiar sights and sounds would sometimes thrill through me with a sharp and bitter pain. I have reason to thank God that this fear no longer troubles me. Nothing that is really valuable and necessary for us can ever be lost. The present will live hereafter; memory will bridge over the gulf between the two worlds; for only on the condition of their intimate union can we preserve our identity and personal consciousness. Blot out the memory of this world, and what would heaven or hell be to us? Nothing whatever. Death would be simple annihilation of our actual selves, and the substitution therefor of a new creation, in which we should have no more interest than in an inhabitant of Jupiter or the fixed stars."

The Elder, who had listened silently thus far, not without an occasional and apparently involuntary manifestation of dissent, here interposed.

"Pardon me, my dear friend," said he; "but I must needs say that I look upon speculations of this kind, however ingenious or plausible, as unprofitable, and well-nigh presumptuous. For myself, I only know that I am a weak, sinful man, accountable to and cared for by a just and merciful God. What He has in reserve for me hereafter I know not, nor have I any warrant to pry into His secrets. I do not know what it is to pass from one life to another; but I humbly hope that, when I am sinking in the dark waters, I may hear His voice of compassion and encouragement, 'It is I; be not afraid.'"

"Amen," said the Skipper, solemnly.

"I dare say the Parson is right, in the main," said the Doctor. "Poor creatures at the best, it is safer for us to trust, like children, in the goodness of our Heavenly Father than to speculate too curiously in respect to the things of a future life; and, notwithstanding all I have said, I quite agree with good old Bishop Hall: 'It is enough for me to rest in the hope that I shall one day see them; in the mean time, let me be learnedly ignorant and incuriously devout, silently blessing the power and wisdom of my infinite Creator, who knows how to honor himself by all those unrevealed and glorious subordinations.'"

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