none the thing from the lake by eleanor m. ingram author of "from the car behind", "the unafraid", etc. copyright, , by j. b. lippincott company printed by j. b. lippincott company at the washington square press philadelphia, u. s. a. chapter i "as well give up the bible at once, as our belief in apparitions."--wesley. the house cried out to me for help. in the after-knowledge i now possess of what was to happen there, that impression is not more clearly definite than it was at my first sight of the place. let me at once set down that this is not the story of a haunted house. it is, or was, a beleaguered house; strangely besieged as was prague in the old legend, when a midnight army of spectres unfurled pale banners and encamped around the city walls. of course, i did not know all this, the day that my real-estate agent brought his little car to a stop before the dilapidated farm. i believed the house only appealed to be lived in; for deliverance from the destroying work of neglect and time. a spring rain was whispering down from a gray sky, dripping from broken gutters and eaves with a patter like timid footsteps hurrying by, yet even in the storm the house did not look dreary. "there, mr. locke, is a bargain," the agent called back to me, where i sat in my car. "finest bit in connecticut for a city man's summer home! woodland, farm land, lake and a house that only needs a few repairs to be up-to-date. look at that double row of maples, sir. shade all summer! fine old orchard, too; with a trifle of attention." i nodded, surveying the house with an eagerness of interest that surprised myself. a box-like, fairly large structure of commonplace new england ugliness, it coaxed my liking as had no other place i had ever seen; it wooed me like a determined woman. and as one would long to clothe beautifully a beloved woman, i looked at the house and foresaw what an architect could do for it; how creamy stucco; broad white porches and a gay scarlet roof would transform it. "come inside," my agent urged, hope in his voice as he observed my face; "let me show you the interior. i brought the keys along. of course, the rooms may seem a bit musty. no one has lived in it for--some time. it's the old michell property; been in the family for a couple of hundred years. last michell is dead, now, and it's being sold for the benefit of some religious institute the old gentleman left it to. trifle wet to walk over the land today! but i've a plan and measurements in my portfolio." i said that we would go in. if he had but known the fact, the place was already sold to me; before i left my car, before i entered the house, before i had seen the hundred-odd acres that make up the estate. there was a narrow, flagged path to the veranda, where the planking moved and creaked under our weight while my companion unlocked the front door. rather astonishingly, the air of the long-closed place was neither musty nor damp, when we stepped in. instead, there was a faint, resinous odor, very pleasant and clean; perhaps from the cedar of which the woodwork largely consisted. the house was partially furnished. not, of course, with much that i would care to retain, but a few good antiques stood out among their commonplace associates. a large bedroom on the north side, which i appointed as my own at first sight, held an old rosewood set including a four-posted, pineapple-carved bed. i threw open the shutters in this room and looked out. i received the first jar to my satisfaction. on this side of the place, the grounds ran down a slight slope for perhaps half a block to the five-acre hollow of shallow water and lush growth which the agent called a lake. from it flowed a considerable creek, winding behind the house and away on its journey to the sound. for that under-water marsh i felt a shock of violent dislike. "you don't care for the lake?" my companion deprecated, at my elbow. "fine trout in that stream, though! i'd like you to see it in the sunshine." "i should care more for it if it was a lake, not a swamp," i answered. "oh, but that is only because the old dam is down," he exclaimed eagerly. "that lets all the water out, you see. why, if the dam were put back, you'd have as pretty a lake for a canoe as there is in the state! its natural depth is four or five feet all over, and about eight or ten where the stream flows through to the dam. even yet, a few wild duck stop there spring and fall, and when i was a boy i've seen heron. put back the dam, mr. locke, and i'll guarantee you'll never say swamp again!" "we will try it," i said. "now let us find a lawyer and see how quickly i can be put in possession." we drove back to the little town from which we had that morning started out, and where my agent lived; my sleek car following his small one with somewhat the effect of a long-limbed panther striding behind an agitated mouse. it appeared that the sale was simply consummated. i do not mean that all the formalities were completed in a day. but by nightfall i could feel myself the owner of the place. perhaps it was the giddiness of being a land-owner for the first time, or perhaps it was the abject wretchedness of the only hotel in town that inspired the whim which seized me during my solitary dinner. i had spent one night here, and did not welcome the prospect of a second. a return to new york was not practicable, because i had arranged to meet several contractors and an architect at the farm, next morning, to discuss the alterations i wanted made. why not drive out to my new house this evening and sleep tonight in the rosewood-furnished bedroom? the idea gained favor as i contemplated it. i could go over the house tonight and sketch more clearly what i wanted done, while i would be on the ground when my men arrived next morning. there was an allure of camping out about it, too. in the end i went, of course. it was dark when i stabled my roadster in the barn that was part of my new possessions; where the car seemed to glitter disdain of the hay-littered, ragged shelter. equipped with a flashlight, suitcase and bundle, i followed a faint path that wound its way to the house through wet blackberry vines whose thorns had outlived the winter. my steps broke the blank silence that brooded over the place. at this season there was no insect life; nor any other stirring thing within hearing or sight. but just as i stepped upon the veranda, i heard a vague sound from the lake that lay a few hundred feet to the north. there was no wind, yet the water had seemed to move with a sound like the smacking of soft, glutinous lips. or as if some soft body drew itself from a bed of clinging mud. i wondered idly if the tide could run this far back from long island sound. the house reiterated the impression of welcoming me. i shut and locked the old door behind me, and went up to the room i had chosen as my own. there i unshuttered and opened the windows, lighted one of the candles i had brought and set it on a little bookcase filled with dingy volumes, and threw my blankets on the bed. i had moved in! my pleasant sense of proprietorship continued to grow. before i thought of sleep, i had been through the house several times from cellar to attic and accumulated a list of things to be done. back in my room, an hour passed in revising the list, by candle-light. near ten o'clock, i rolled myself in a dressing-gown and my blankets, spread an automobile robe over the four-posted bed, and fell asleep. chapter ii "beware of her fair hair, for she excels all women in the magic of her locks." --shelley (_trans._). it trailed suavely through my fingers, slipping across my palm like a belt of silk. it glided with the noiseless haste of a thing in flight. quite naturally, even in the dazed moment of awakening i closed my hand upon it. it was soft in my grasp, yet resilient; solid, yet supple. if i may speak irrationally, it felt as if it must be fragrant. it was a strange visitor to my experience, yet i recognized its identity unerringly as a blind man gaining sight might identify a flower or a bird. in brief, it was--it only could be an opulent braid of hair. when i grasped it, it ceased to move. in the dense darkness of my bedroom, i lay still and considered. i was alone, or rather, should have been alone in the old house i had bought the day before. the agent assured me that it had been unoccupied for years. who, then, was my guest? a passer-by seeking refuge in a supposedly deserted house would hardly have moved about with such silent caution. a tramp of this genus would be a rarity indeed. i had nothing with me of value to attract a thief. the usual limited masculine jewelry--a watch, a pair of cuff-links, a modest pin--surely were not sufficiently tempting to snare so dainty a bird of prey as one wearing such plumage as i held. i have not a small fist, yet that braid was a generous handful. how did it come to trail across my bed, in any case? and why was its owner locked in silence and immobility? surely startled innocence would have cried out, questioned my grasp or struggled against it! my captive did neither. i began to paint a picture against the darkness; the picture of a crouching woman, fear-paralyzed; not daring to stir, to sob or pant or shiver lest she betray herself. or, perhaps, a woman who was not hushed by panic, but by deliberation. a woman who slowly levelled a weapon, assuring her aim in the blank darkness by such guides as my breathing and the taut direction of her imprisoned tresses. an ugly woman could not have such hair as this. or, could she? i had a doubtful recollection of various long-haired demonstrators glimpsed in drugshop windows, who were not beautiful. yes, but they would never have found themselves in such a situation as this one! only resolve or recklessness could bring a woman to such a pass; and with spirit and this hair no woman could be ugly. how quiet she was! i suddenly reflected that she must be thinking the same thing of me, since neither of us had moved during a considerable space of time. possibly she fancied me only half-aroused, and hoped that i would relapse into sleep without realizing upon what my drowsy grasp had closed. no doubt it would have been the course of chivalry for me to pretend to do so, but it was not the course of curiosity. the deadlock could not last indefinitely. apparently, though, it must be i who should break it. as quietly as possible, i brought my left hand forward to grope along that silken line which certainly must guide me to the intruder herself. my hand slipped along the smooth surface to the full reach of my arm; and encountered nothing. check, for the first attempt! the candle and matches i had bought in the village were also beyond my reach, unless i released my captive and rolled across the bed toward the little bookcase where i had placed them beside the flashlight. if i should speak, what would she do? and--a new thought!--was she alone in the house? there came a gentle draw at the braid, instantly ceasing as i automatically tightened my hold. the pretense that i slept was ended. i spoke, as soothingly and kindly as i could manage. "if you will let me strike a light, we can explain to each other. or, if you will agree not to escape----?" in spite of my efforts, my voice boomed startlingly through the dark, still room. no reply followed, but the braid quivered and suddenly relaxed from its tension. she must have come closer to me. delighted by so much success attained and intrigued by the novelty of the adventure, i moved slightly, stretching my free arm in the direction of the flashlight. "i am not a difficult person," i essayed encouragement. "nor too dull, i hope, to understand a mistake or a necessity. nor am i affiliated with the police! permit me----" i halted abruptly. a cool edge of metal had been laid across the wrist of my groping hand. as the hand came to rest, palm uppermost, i could feel, or imagined i could feel my pulse beating steadily against the menacing pressure of the blade. the warning was eloquent and sufficient; i moved no further toward my flashlight. of course, if i had lifted my right hand from its guard of the braid, i could easily have pinioned the arm which poised the knife before i suffered much harm. but i might have lost my captive in the attempt; an event for which i was not ready, yet. "check," i admitted. "although, it is rather near a stalemate for us both, isn't it?" the knife pressed closer, suggestively. "no," i dissented with the mute argument. "i think not. i do not believe you could do it; not in cold blood, anyway!" "you do not know," insisted the closer pressing blade, as if with a tongue. "no, i do not know," i translated aloud. "but i am confident enough to chance it. what reason have you for desperate action? i would not harm you. have i not a right to curiosity? this is my house, you know. or perhaps you did not know that?" a sigh stirred the silence, blending with the ceaseless whisper of the rain that had recommenced through the night. the braid did not move in my right hand, nor did the blade touching my left. "speak!" i begged, with an abrupt urgency that surprised myself. "you are the invader. why? what would you have from me? if i am to let you go, at least speak to me, first! this is--uncanny." "there is magic in the third time of asking," came a breathed, just audible whisper. "yet, be warned; call not to you that which you may neither hold nor forbid." "but i do call--if that will make you speak to me," i returned, my pulses tingling triumph. "although, as to not holding you----" "you fancy you hold me? it is not you who are master of this moment, but i who am its mistress." her voice had gained in strength; a soft voice, yet not weak, used with a delicate deliberation that gave her speech the effect of being a caprice of her own rather than a result of my compulsion. yet, i thought, she must be crouched or kneeling beside me, on the floor, held like the lady of the beautiful tresses. "still, i doubt if you have the disposition to use your advantage," i began. "you mean, the cruelty," she corrected me. "i am from new york," i smiled. "let me say, the nerve. if you pressed that knife, i might bleed to death, you know." "would you hear a story of a woman of my house, and her anger, before you doubt too far?" "tell me," i consented; and smiled in the darkness at the transparent plan to distract my attention from that imprisoned braid. she was silent for so long that i fancied the plan abandoned, perhaps for lack of a tale to tell. then her voice leaped suddenly out of the blackness that closed us in, speaking always in muted tones, but with a strange, impassioned urgency and force that startled like a cry. the words hurried upon one another like breaking surf. "see! see! the fire leaps in the chimney; it breathes sparks like a dreadful beast--it is hungry; its red tongues lick for that which they may not yet have. already its breath is hot upon the wax image on the hearth. but the image is round of limb and sound. yes, though it is but toy-large, it is perfect and firm! see how it stands in the red shine: the image of a man, cunningly made to show his stalwartness and strength and bravery of velvet and lace! the image of a great man, surely; one high in place and power. one above fear and beyond the reach of hate! "the woman sits in her low chair, behind the image. the fire-shine is bright in her eyes and in her hair. on either side her hair flows down to the floor; her eyes look on the image and are dreadfully glad. ha, was not beauty the lure, and shall it not be the vengeance? "the nine lamps have been lighted! the feathers have been laid in a circle! the spell has been spoken; the spell of hai, son of set, first man to slay man by the dark art! "the man is at the door of the woman's house. yes, he who came in pride to woo, and proved traitor to the love won--he is at her door in weakness and pain. "as the wax wastes, the man wastes! as the mannikin is gone, the man dies! "on her doorstep, he begs for life. he is coward and broken. he suffers and is consumed. he calls to her the love-names they both know. and the woman laughs, and the door is barred. "the door is barred, but what shall bar out the enemy who creeps to the nine lamps? "see, the fire shines through the wax! the image is grown thin and wan. three days, three nights, it has shrunk before the flames. three days, three nights, the woman has watched. as the fire is not weary, she is not weary. as the fire is beautiful, she is beautiful. "the man is borne to her door again. he lifts up his hands and cries to her. but now he begs for death. now he knows anguish stronger than fear. and the woman laughs, and the door is barred. "the fire shines on a lump of wax. the man is dead. from her chair the woman has arisen and stands, triumphant. "_but what crouches behind her, unseen? the lamps are cast down! the pentagram is crossed! the horror takes its own._" the impassioned speech broke off with the effect of a snapped bar of thin metal. in the silence, the steady whisper of rain came to my ears again, continuing patiently. i became aware of a rich yet delicate fragrance in the air i breathed. it was not any perfume i could identify, either as a composition or as a flower scent. if i may hope to be understood it sparkled upon the senses. it produced a thirst for itself, so that the nostrils expanded for it with an eagerness for the new pleasure. i found myself breathing deeply, almost greedily, before answering my prisoner's story. "'sister helen,'" i quoted, as lightly as i could. "and do you think rossetti had no truth to base his poem upon?" her quiet voice flowed out of the darkness, seeming scarcely the same speech as the swift, irregular utterance of a moment before. "do you think that all the traditions and learning of the younger world meant--nothing?" "are you asking me to believe in witchcraft and sorcery?" "i ask nothing." "not even to believe that you will press the knife if i refuse to free you?" "not even that; now!" compunction smote me. her voice sounded more faint, as if from fatigue or discouragement. it seemed to me that the blade against my wrist had relaxed its menace of pressure and just rested in position. i seemed to read my lady's weariness in the slackened vigilance. perhaps she was really frightened, now that her brave attempt to lull me into incaution had failed. "listen, please," i spoke earnestly. "i am going to set you free. i apologize for keeping you captive so long! but you will admit the provocation to my curiosity? you will forgive me?" a sigh drifted across the darkness. "i ask no questions," i urged. "but will you not trust me to make a light and give what help i can? you are welcome to use the house as you please. or, if you are lost or stormbound, my car is in the old barn and i will drive you anywhere that you say. let us not spoil our adventure by suspicion. in good faith----" i opened my hand, releasing the lovely rope by which i had detained my prisoner. then, with a quickening pulse, i waited. would she stay? would she spring up and escape? would she thank me, or would she reply with some eccentricity unpredictable as her whim to tell me that tale? she did none of these things. the braid of hair, freed entirely, continued to lie supinely across my open palm. the coolness of the blade still lightly touched my wrist. she might be debating her course of action, i reflected. well, i was in no haste to conclude the episode! when the silence had lasted many moments, however, i began to grow restive. anxiety tinged my speculations. suppose she had fainted? or did she doubt my intentions, and was her quietness that of one on guard? i stirred tentatively. two things happened simultaneously with my movement. the braid glided away from me, while the knife slipped from its position and tinkled upon the floor. i started up, perception of the truth seizing my slow wits, and reached for my flashlight. there was no one in the room except myself. down my blanket was slipping a severed braid of hair, perhaps a foot in length, jaggedly cut across at the end farthest from my hand. leaning over, i saw on the floor beside the bed a paper-knife of my own; a sharp, serviceable tool that formed part of my writing kit. before going to bed, i had taken it from my suitcase to trim a candle-wick, and had left it upon the bookstand. now i understood why her voice had sounded more distant than seemed reasonable while i held her beside me. no doubt she had hacked off the detaining braid almost as soon as i grasped it. the knife she had pressed against my wrist to keep me where i lay while she made ready for flight; or amused herself with me. flight? say rather that she had leisurely withdrawn! perhaps she had not even heard my magnanimous speech offering her the freedom that she already possessed. if she had stayed to hear me, probably she had laughed. perhaps she was still in the house. i rose and lighted a candle, under the impulsion of that idea, reserving my flashlight for the search. but there was no one in any of the dusty, sparsely furnished rooms and halls through which i hunted. the ancient locks on doors and windows were fastened as i had left them, although my lady certainly had entered and left at her pleasure. puzzled and amused, i finally returned to my bedchamber. there was some difference in that room. i was conscious of the fact as soon as i entered and closed the door behind me. the candle still burned where i had left it, flickering slightly in some current of air. there was no change that the eye could find, no sound except the rain, yet i felt an extreme reluctance to go on even a step from where i stood. what i wanted to do was to tear open the door behind me, to rush out into the hall and slam the door shut between this room and myself. why? i looked around me, sending the beam of the flashlight playing over the quiet place. nothing, of course! i walked over to the bookcase, took up the braid i had left there, and sat down in an old armchair to study my trophy. on principle and by habit i had no intention of being mastered by nerves. it was humiliating to discover that i could be made nervous by the mere fact of being in an unoccupied farmhouse after midnight. the braid was magnificent. it was as broad as my palm, yet compressed so tightly that it was thick and solid to the touch. if released over someone's shoulders, it would have been a sumptuous cloak, indeed! in what madness of panic had the girl sacrificed this beauty? how she must hate me, now the panic was past! the color, too, was unique, in my experience; a gold as vivid as auburn. or was it tinged with auburn? as i leaned forward to catch the candle-light, a drift of that fragrance worn by my visitor floated from her braid. at once i knew what had changed in the room. the air that had been so pure when the house was opened, now was heavy with an odor of damp and mould that had seeped into the atmosphere as moisture will seep through cellar walls. one would have said that the door of some hideous vault had been opened into my bedchamber. this stench struggled, as it were, with the volatile perfume that clung about the braid; so that my senses were thrust back and forth between disgust and delight in the strangest wavering of sensation. i made the strongest effort to put away the effect this wavering had upon me. i forced myself to sit still and think of normal things; of the men whom i was to see next morning, of the plans i meant to discuss with them. useless! the stench was making me ill. a wave of giddiness swept over me, and passed. my heart was beating slowly and heavily. something in my head pulsed in unison. i felt a frightful depression, that suddenly burst into an attack of fear gripping me like hysteria. i wanted to shriek aloud like a woman, to cover my eyes and run blindly. but at the same time my muscles failed me. will and strength were arrested like frozen water. as i sat there, facing the door of the room, i became aware of something at the window behind my back. something that pressed against the open window and stared at me with a hideous covetousness beside which the greed of a beast for its prey is a natural, innocent appetite. i felt that thing's hungry malignance like a soft, dreadful mouth sucking toward me, yet held away from me by some force vaguely based on my own resistance. and i understood how a man may die of horror. yet, presently, i turned around. weak and sick, with dragging effort i turned in my chair and faced the black, uncurtained window where i felt it to be. nothing was there, to sight or hearing. i sat still, and combated that which i knew _was_ there. in the profound stillness, i heard the wind stir the naked branches of the trees, the flowing water through the fragments of the one-time dam, the sputtering of my candle which needed trimming. sweat ran down my face and body, drenching me with cold. it crouched against the empty window, staring at me. after a time, the presence seemed not so close. at last, i seemed to know it was gone. in the gush of that enormous relief my remaining strength was swept away like a swimmer in a torrent and i collapsed half-fainting in my chair. when i was able, i rose and walked through the house again. again the rooms showed nothing to my flashlight except dull furniture, walls peeling here and there from long neglect, pictures of no merit and dreary subject. i had expected nothing, and i found nothing. it was on my way upstairs to my bedroom that a sentence from the invisible lady's story came back to my mind. "what crouches behind her, unseen? the horror takes its own----" the bedroom door opened quietly under my hand. the rain had ceased and a freshening breeze came from the west, filling the room with sweet country air. the candle had burned down. while i stood there, the flame flickered out. after a brief indecision, i made my way to the bed, rolled myself in the blankets, and laid down between the four pineapple-topped posts. this time i kept the flashlight at my hand. but almost at once i slept, and slept heavily far into a bright, windy march morning. chapter iii "wide is the seat of the man gentle of speech." --instruction of ke' gemni. on the second day after my return to new york, my aunt caroline knox called me up on the telephone. there are reasons why i always feel myself at a disadvantage with aunt caroline. the first of these brings me to a trifling matter that i should have set down before, but which i have made a habit of ignoring so far as possible in both thought and speech. as was lord byron, i am slightly lame. i admit that is the only quality in common; still, i like the romantic association. now, my limp is very slight, and i never have found it interfered much with things i cared to do. in fact, i am otherwise somewhat above the average in strength and vigor. but from my boyhood aunt caroline always made a point of alluding to the physical fact as often as possible. she considered that course a healthful discipline. "my nephew," she was accustomed to introduce me. "lame since he was seven. roger, do not scowl! yes; run over trying to save a pet dog. a mongrel of no value whatever!" which would have left some doubt as to whether she referred to poor tatters or to me, had it not been for her exceeding pride in our family tree. the second reason for my disadvantage before her, was her utter contempt for my profession as a composer of popular music. today her voice came thinly to me across the long-distance wire. "your cousin phillida has failed in her examinations again," she announced to me, with a species of tragic repose. "in view of her father's intellect and my--er--my family's, her mental status is inexplicable. although, of course, there is your own case!" "why, she is the most educated girl i know," i protested hastily. "i presume you mean best educated, roger. pray do not quite lose your command of language." i meant exactly what i had said. phillida has studied since she was three years old, exhaustively and exhaustedly. a vision of her plain, pale little face rose before me when i spoke. it is a burden to be the only child of a professor, particularly for a meek girl. "she has studied insufficiently," aunt caroline pursued. "she is nineteen, and her position at vassar is deplorable." "her health----" i murmured. "would not have hampered her had she given proper attention to athletics! however, i did not call up to hear you defend phillida in a matter of which you are necessarily ignorant. her father and i are somewhat better judges, i should suppose, than a young man who is not a student in any true sense of the word and ignores knowledge as a purpose in life. not that i wish to wound or depreciate you, roger. there is, i may say, a steadiness of moral character beneath your frivolity of mind and pursuit. if my poor brother had trained you more wisely; if you had been _my_ son----" "thank you, aunt," i acknowledged the benevolent intention, with an inward quailing at the clank of fetters suggested. "was there something i can do for you?" "will you meet phillida at the grand central and bring her home? i cannot have her cross new york alone and take a second train out here. her father has a lecture this afternoon and i have a club meeting at the house." "with pleasure, aunt! what time does her train get in?" "half after four. thank you, roger. and, she looks on you as an elder brother. i believe an attitude of cool disapproval on your part might impress upon her how she has disappointed the family." "leave it to me, aunt. may i take her to tea, between trains, and get out to your place on the six o'clock express?" "if you think best. you might advise her seriously over the tea." "a dash of lemon, as it were," i reflected. "certainly, aunt, i could." "very well. i am really obliged!" "the pleasure is mine, aunt." but that it was going to be phillida's, i had already decided. she would need the support of tea and french pastry before facing her home. as for treating her with cool disapproval, i would sooner have spent a year at vassar myself. it was my intention to meet her with a box of chocolates instead of advice. phil was not allowed candy, her complexion being under cultivation. on the occasions when we were out together it had been my custom to provide a box of sweets, upon which she browsed luxuriously, bestowing the remnants upon some street child before reaching her home. from the telephone i turned back to that frivolous pursuit of which my aunt had spoken with such tactfully veiled contempt. she was not softened by the respectable fortune i had made from several successful musical comedies and a number of efforts which my publishers advertise as "high-class parlor pieces for the home." in fact, she felt it to be a grievance that my lightness should be better paid than the professor's learning. in which she was no doubt right! ever since my return from my newly purchased farm in connecticut, however, i had not been working for money or popular approval, but for my own pleasure. there was a work upon which i spent only special hours of delicious leisure and infinite labor. it held all that was forbidden to popular compositions; depth and sorrow and dissonances dearer than harmony. i called it a symphony polynesian, and i had spent years in study of barbaric music, instruments and kindred things that this love-child of mine might be more richly clothed by a tone or a fancy. aunt caroline had interrupted, this morning, at a very point of achievement toward which i had been working through the usual alternations of enjoyment and exasperation, elevation and dejection that attend most workmen. pausing only to set my alarm-clock, i hurried into recording what i had found, in the tangible form of paper and ink. i always set the alarm-clock when i have an engagement, warned by dire experiences. aunt caroline had summoned me about eleven in the morning. when the strident voice of the clock again aroused me, i had just time to dress and reach the grand central by half-past four. i recognized that i was hungry, that the vicinity was snowed over with sheets of paper, that the piano keys had acquired another inkstain, and my pipe had charred another black spot on the desk top. well, it had been a good day; and phillida's tea would have to be my belated luncheon or early dinner. even so, it was necessary to make haste. it was in that haste of making ready that i uncovered the braid of glittering hair which i had brought from connecticut. i use no exaggeration when i say it glittered. it did; each hair was lustrous with a peculiar, shining vitality, and crinkled slightly along its full length. with a renewed self-reproach at sight of its humbled exile and captivity, i took up the trophy of my one adventure. while i am without much experience, such a quantity seemed unusual. also, i had not known such a mass of hair could be so soft and supple in the hand. my mother and little sister died before i can remember; and while i have many good friends, i have none intimate enough to educate me in such matters. perhaps a consciousness of that trifling physical disadvantage of mine has made me prefer a good deal of solitude in my hours at home. the faint, tenacious yet volatile perfume drifted to my nostrils, as i held the braid. who could the woman be who brought that costly fragrance into a deserted farmhouse? for so exquisite and unique a fragrance could only be the work of a master perfumer. there was youth in that vigorous hair, coquetry in the individual perfume, panic in her useless sacrifice of the braid i held; yet strangest self-possession in the telling of that fanciful tale of sorcery to me. on that tale, told dramatically in the dark, i had next morning blamed the weird waking nightmare that i had suffered after her visit. the horror of the night could not endure the strong sun and wind of the march morning that followed. like _scrooge_, i analyzed my ghost as a bit of undigested beef or a blot of mustard. certainly the thing had been actual enough while it lasted, but my reason had thrust it away. that was over, i reflected, as i laid the braid back in the drawer. but surely the lady was not vanished like the nightmare? surely i should find her in some neighbor's daughter, when my house was finished and i went there for the summer? she could not hide from me, with that bright web about her head whose twin web i held. it had grown so late that i had to take a taxicab to the terminal, just halting at a shop long enough to buy a box of the chocolates my cousin preferred. but when i reached the great station and found my way through the swirl of travelers to the track where phil's train should come in, i was told the express had been delayed. "probably half an hour late," the gateman informed me. "maybe more! of course, though, she may pull in any time." which meant no tea for phillida; instead, a rush across town to the pennsylvania station to catch the train for her home. as i could not leave my post lest she arrive in my absence, it also meant nothing to eat for me until we reached aunt caroline's hospitality; which was cool and restrained rather than festive. i foresaw the heavy atmosphere that would brood over all like a cold fog, this evening of phil's disgraceful return from the scholastic arena. ascertaining from the gateman that the erring train was certain not to pull in during the next ten minutes, i sought a telephone booth. "aunt caroline, phil's train is going to be very late, possibly an hour late," i misinformed my kinswoman, when her voice answered me. "i have had nothing to eat since breakfast, and she will be hungry long before we reach your house. may i not take her to dinner here in town?" "please do not call your cousin 'phil'," she rebuked me, and paused to deliberate. "you had no luncheon, you say?" "none." "why not? were you ill?" "no; just busy. i forgot lunch. i am beginning to feel it, now. still, if you wish us to come straight home, do not consider me!" i knew of old how submission mollified aunt caroline. she relented, now. "well----! you are very good, roger, to save your uncle a trip into the city to meet her. i must not impose upon you. but, a quiet hotel!" "certainly, aunt." "phillida does not deserve pampering enjoyment. i am consenting for your sake." "thank you, aunt. i wonder, then, if you would mind if we stopped to see a show that i especially want to look over, for business reasons? we could come out on the theatre express; as we have done before, you remember?" "yes, but----" "thank you. i'll take good care of her. good-bye." the receiver was still talking when i hung up. there is no other form of conversation so incomparably convenient. the train arrived within the half-hour. with the inrush of travelers, i sighted phillida's sober young figure moving along the cement platform. she walked with dejection. her gray suit represented a compromise between fashion and her mother's opinion of decorum, thus attaining a length and fulness not enough for grace yet too much for jauntiness. her solemn gray hat was set too squarely upon the pale-brown hair, brushed back from her forehead. her nice, young-girl's eyes looked out through a pair of shell-rimmed spectacles. she was too thin and too pale to content me. when she saw me coming toward her, her face brightened and colored quite warmly. she waved her bag with actual abandon and her lagging step quickened to a run. "cousin roger!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "oh, how good of you to come!" she gripped my hands in a candid fervor of relief and pleasure. "i am so glad it is you," she insisted. "i was sorry the train could not be later; i wished, almost, it would never get in--and all the time it was you who were waiting for me!" "it was, and now you are about to share an orgy," i told her. "i have your mother's permission to take you to dinner, miss knox." "here? in town? just us?" "yes. and afterward we will take in any show you fancy. how does that strike you?" she gazed up at me, absorbing the idea and my seriousness. to my dismay, she grew pale again. "i--i really believe it will keep me from just dying." i pretended to think that a joke. but i recognized that my little cousin was on the sloping way toward a nervous breakdown. "no baggage?" i observed. "good! i hope you did not eat too much luncheon. this will be an early dinner." she waited to take off the spectacles and put them in her little bag. "i do not need them except to study, but i didn't dare meet mother without them," she explained. "no; i could not eat lunch, or breakfast either, cousin roger. nor much dinner last night! oh, if you knew how i dread--the grind! i should rather run away." "so we will; for this evening." "yes. where--where were you going to take me?" we had crossed the great white hall to street level, and a taxicab was rolling up to halt before us. surprised by the anxiety in the eyes she lifted to mine, i named the staid, quietly fastidious hotel where i usually took her when we were permitted an excursion together. "unless you have a choice?" i finished. "i have." she breathed resolution. "i want to go to a restaurant with a cabaret, instead of going to the theatre. may i? please, may i? will you take me where i say, this one time?" her earnestness amazed me. i knew what her mother would say. i also knew, or thought i knew that phillida needed the mental relaxation which comes from having one's own way. in her mood, no one else's way, however, wise or agreeable, will do it all. "all right," i yielded. "if you will promise me, faith of a gentlewoman, to tell aunt caroline that i took you there and you did not know where you were going. my shoulders are broader than yours and have borne the buffeting of thirty-two years instead of nineteen. had you chosen the place, or shall i?" to my second surprise, she answered with the name of an uptown place where i never had been, and where i would have decidedly preferred not to take her. "they have a skating ballet," she urged, as i hesitated. "i know it is wonderful! please, please----?" i gave the direction to the chauffeur and followed my cousin into the cab. it seemed a proper moment to present the chocolates from my overcoat pocket. when she proved too languid to unwrap the box, i was seriously uneasy. "you cannot possibly know how dreadful it is to be the only child of two intellectual people who expect one to be a credit," she excused her lack of appetite, nervously twitching the gilt cord about the package. "and to be stupid and a disappointment! yes, as long as i can remember, i have been a disappointment. if only there had been another to divide all those expectations. if only you had been my brother!" "heaven forbid!" i exclaimed hastily. "that is----" "don't bother about explaining," she smiled wanly, "i understand. but you are distinguished, and you look it. i never will be, and i am ugly. mother expects me to be an astronomer like father and work with him, or to go in for club life and serious writing as she does. i never can do either." "neither could i, phil." "you are clever, successful. everybody knows your name. when we are out, and people or an orchestra play your music, mother always says: 'a trifle of my nephew's, roger locke. very original, is it not? of course, i do not understand music, but i hear that his last light opera----' and then she leans back and just _eats up_ all the nice things said about your work. she would never let you know it, but she does. and that is the sort of thing she wants from me. i--i want to make cookies, and i love fancywork." the taxicab drew up with a jerk before the gaudy entrance to silver aisles. i imagine phillida had the vaguest ideas of what such places were like. when we were settled at a table in a general blaze of pink lights, beside a fountain that ran colored water, i regarded her humorously. but she seemed quite contented with her surroundings, looking about her with an air i can best describe as grave excitement. at this hour, the room was not half filled, and the jazz orchestra had withdrawn to prepare for a hard night's work. after i had ordered our dinner, i glanced up to see her fingers busied loosening the severe lines of her brushed back hair. "everyone here looks so nice," she said wistfully. "i wish my hair did shine and cuddle around my face like those women's does. do--do i look queer, cousin? you are looking at me so----?" "i was thinking what pretty eyes you have." her pale face flushed. "really?" "most truthfully. as for the hair, isn't that a matter of bottled polish and hairdressers? but you remind me of a question for you. isn't a braid of hair this wide," i laid off the dimensions on the table, "this long, and thick, a good deal for a woman to own?" "show me again." i obeyed, while she leaned forward to observe. "not one girl in a hundred has so much," she pronounced judgment. "who is she? probably it isn't all her own, anyhow!" "it is not now, but it was," i said remorsefully. "how could you tell? did you measure it?"--with sarcasm. "do you remember the maxim we used to write in copybooks? 'measure a thousand times, and cut once?' one has to be cautious!" "i cut it first, and then measured." "what? tell me." at last she was interested and amused. there was no reason why i should not tell her of my midnight adventure. we never repeated one another's little confidences. she listened, with many comments and exclamations, to the story of the unseen lady, the legend of the fair witch, the dagger that was a paper-knife by day and the severed tresses. she did not hear of the singular nightmare or hallucination that had been my second visitor. my reason had accounted for the experience and dismissed it. some other part of myself avoided the memory with that deep, unreasoning sense of horror sometimes left by a morbid dream. the dinner crowd had flowed in while we ate and talked. a burst of applause aroused me to this fact and the commencement of the first show of the evening. the orchestra had taken their places. "they will hardly begin with their best act," i remarked, surprised by phillida's convulsive start and rapt intentness upon the stretch of ice that formed the exhibition floor. "your ballet on skates probably will come later." "i did not come to see the ballet," she answered, her voice low. "no? what, then?" "a--man i know?" once when i was a little fellow, i raced headlong into the low-swinging branch of a tree, the bough striking me across the forehead so that i was bowled over backward amid a shower of apples. i felt a twin sensation, now. "here, phillida?" "yes." "someone from your home town or your college town?" i essayed a casual tone. "neither. he belongs here, and they call him flying vere. he--look! look, cousin!" i turned, and saw that the first performer was upon the ice floor. he came down the center like a silver-shod mercury. in the silence, for the orchestra did not accompany his entrance, the faint musical ringing of his skates ran softly with him. my first unwilling recognition of his good looks and athletic grace was followed by an equally reluctant admission of his skill. reluctant, because my anger and bewilderment were hot against the man. my little cousin, my pathetic, unworldly phillida--and this cabaret entertainer! at the mere joining of their names my senses revolted. what could they have in common? how had she seen him? having seen him, it was easy to understand how he had fascinated her inexperience. only, what was his object? he had seen us, where we sat. i saw his dark eyes fix upon her and flash some message. her plain little face irradiated, her fingers unconsciously twisting and wringing her napkin, she leaned forward to watch and answer glance for glance. i would rather not put into words my thoughts. yet, i watched his performance. in spite of myself, he held me with his swift, certain skill, his vitality and youth. he was gone, with the swooping suddenness of his appearance. the jazz music clattered out. phillida turned back to me and began to speak with a hushed rapture that baffled and infuriated me. "you understand, cousin roger? now that you have seen him, you do understand? no! let me talk, please. let me tell you, if i can. it began last summer, at the school where i was cramming for college work. oh, how tired i was of study! how tired of it i am, and always shall be! i think that side of me never will get rested. then, in the woods, i met him. he was stopping at a hotel not far away. i--we----" i waited for her to go on. instead, she abruptly spread wide her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "after all, i cannot tell you. not even you, cousin! he--he liked me. he treated me just as a really, truly girl who would have partners at dances and wear fluffy frocks and curl her hair. he thought i was pretty!" the naïve wonder and triumph of her cry, the challenge in her brown eyes, to my belief, were moving things. i registered some ugly mental comments on the rearing of phil and the kind of humility that is _not_ good for the soul. "why not?" i demanded. "of course!" she shook her head. "no. thank you, but--no! not pretty, except to him. only to him, because he loves me." i do not know what impatience i exclaimed. she checked me, leaning across the table to grasp my hand in both hers. "hush! oh, hush, dear cousin roger! for it is quite too late. we were married six months ago; last autumn." when i could, i asked: "married legally, beyond mistake? were you not under eighteen years old?" "i was eighteen years and a half. there is no mistake at all. we walked over to the city hall in the nearest town, and took out our license, and were married." "very well. i will take you home to your father and mother, now; then see this man, myself. if there is indeed no flaw in the marriage and it cannot be annulled, a divorce must be arranged. any money i have or expect to have would be a small price to set you free from the miserable business. but the first thing is to get you home. we will start now." she detained my hand when i would have signalled our waiter. her eyes, shining and solemn as a small child's, met mine. "no, cousin, please! i am not going home any more. at least, not alone. i asked you to bring me here where he is, because i am going to stay with my husband." "never," i stated firmly. "yes." "not if i have to send for your father and take you home by force." "you cannot. i am of age." "phillida, i am responsible for you to your parents tonight. let me take you home, explain things to them, and then decide your course." "but that is what i most do not want to do!" she naïvely exclaimed. "you will not?" "i'm sorry. no." "then i must see the man." "not--hurt----?" i recalled the man we had just seen on the skating floor, with a qualm of quite unreasonable bitterness. that anxiety of phillida's had a flavor of irony for me. "hardly," i returned. "there are fortunately other means of persuasion than physical force." "oh! but you cannot persuade him to give me up." i was silent. at which, being a woman, she grew troubled. "how could you?" she urged. "you have had no opportunity of judging what influence money has on some people, phil." she laughed out in relief. "is that all? try, cousin." "you trust him so much?" "in everything, forever!" "then if i succeed in buying him off, promise me that you will come home with me." "if he takes money to leave me?" "yes." "i should die. but i will promise if you want me to, because i know it never will happen. just as i might promise to do anything, when i knew that i never would have to carry it out." "very well," i accepted the best i could get. "i will go find him." "there is no need. he is coming here to our table as soon as he is free." "i will not have you seen with him in this place." "but i am going to stay here with him," she said. her eyes, the meek eyes of phillida, defied me. my faint authority was a sham. what could be done, i recognized, must be done through the man. we sat in silence, after that. presently, her gaze fixed aslant on me as if to dare my interference, she drew up a thin gold chain that hung about her neck and ended beneath her blouse. from it she unfastened a wedding ring and gravely put the thing on her third finger, the school-girl romanticism of the gesture blended with an air of little-girl naughtiness. she looked more fit for a nursery than for this business. i could tell from the change in her expression when the man was approaching. i rose, meaning to meet him and turn him aside from our table. but phillida halted me with one deftly planted question. "you would not leave me alone in this place, cousin?" certainly i would not leave her alone at a table here; not even alone in appearance while i had my interview with the man close at hand. yet it seemed impossible to speak before her. she calmly answered my perplexity. "you must talk to him here, of course. i--want to listen to you both. indeed, i shall not interfere at all, or be angry or hurt! i know how good you mean to be, dear; only, you do not understand." i sat down again, perforce. when the man's shadow presently fell across our table, it did not soothe me to see phil thrust her hand in his, her small face enraptured, her fingers locking about his with a caress plain as a kiss. she said proudly, if tremulously: "cousin roger, this is my husband. mr. locke, ethan dear." he said nothing. his hesitating movement to offer his hand i chose to ignore. i admit that my spirit rose against him to the point of loathing as he stood there, tall, correct in attire--the focus of admiring glances from other diners--in every way the antithesis of my poor phillida. "sit down," i bade curtly, when he did not speak. "miss knox insists that we have our interview here. i should have preferred otherwise, but her presence must not prevent what has to be said." "it won't prevent anything i want to say, mr. locke," he answered. he spoke with a drawl. not the drawl of affectation, nor the drawl of south or west so cherished by the romantic, but the slow, deliberate speech of new england's upper coasts. it had the oddest effect, that honest, homely accent on the lips of a performer in this place. phil drew him down to the third chair at the table. after which, she folded her hands on the edge of the cloth as if to signify to me how she kept her promise of neutrality, and looked fixedly at her glass of water instead of at either of us. plainly, all action was supposed to proceed from me. "my cousin has just told me of her marriage," i opened, as dryly concise as i could manage explanation. "it is of course impossible that she should adopt your way of living, as she seems to have in mind. you may not understand, yet, that it also is impossible for you to adopt hers. no doubt you have supposed her to be the daughter of wealthy people, or at least people of whom money could be obtained. you were wrong. professor knox has nothing but his modest salary. her parents are of the scholarly, not of the moneyed class. she has no kin who could or would support her husband or pay largely to be rid of him. of all her people, i happen to be the best off, financially. it happens also that i am not sentimental, nor alarmed at the idea of newspaper exploitation for either of us. it is necessary that all this be plainly set forth before we go further. "now, for your side: you have involved miss knox to the extent of marriage. to free her from this trap into which her inexperience has walked is worth a reasonable price. i will pay it. i shall take her home to her father and mother tonight, and consult my lawyer tomorrow. he will conduct negotiations with you. the day miss knox is divorced from you without useless scandal or trouble-making, i will pay to you the sum agreed upon with my lawyer. if you prefer to make yourself objectionable, you will get nothing, now or later." he took it all without a flicker of the eyelids, not interrupting or displaying any affectation of being insulted. i acknowledge, now, that it was an outrageous speech to make to a man of whom i knew nothing. but it was so intended; summing up what i considered an outrageous situation brought about by his playing upon a young girl's ignorance of such fellows as himself. phillida's usually pale cheeks were burning. several times she would have broken in upon me with protests, if vere had not silenced her by the merest glances of warning. a proof of his influence over her which had not inclined me toward gentleness with him! when i finished there was a pause before he turned his dark eyes to mine, and held them there. "honest enough!" he drawled, with that incongruous coast-of-maine tang to his leisureliness. "i'll match you there, mr. locke. i don't care whether you make fifty thousand a year with your music writing, or whether you grind a street-piano with a tin-cup on top. it's nothing to me. i guess we can do without your lawyer, too. because, you see, i married mrs. vere because i wanted her; and i figure on supporting her. if her folks are too cultivated to stand me, i'm sorry. but they won't have to see me. so that's settled!" he was honest. his glance drove that fact home to me with a fist-like impact. there was nothing i was so poorly prepared to meet. phillida's hands went out to him in an impulsive movement. he covered them both with one of his for a moment before gently putting them in her lap with a gesture of reminder toward the revellers all about us. the delicacy of that thought for her was another disclosure of character, unconsciously made. worthy or unworthy, he did love phil. i am not too dully obstinate to recognize a mistake of my own. whatever my bitterness against the man, i had to accord him some respect. i sat for a while striving to align my forces to attack this new front. "i don't blame you for thinking what you said, mr. locke," his voice presently spoke across my perplexity. "i can see the way things came to you; finding me here, and all! i'm glad to have had this chance to talk it out with one of my wife's relations. i'd like them to know she'll be taken care of. outside of that, i guess there is nothing we have to say to each other." "i suppose i owe you both an apology," i said stiffly. "oh, that's all right--for both of us! i can see how much store you set by her." "but what are you going to do with her, man?" i burst forth. "do you expect to keep her here; sitting at a table in this place and watching you do your turn, making your fellow performers her friends, seeing and learning----?" i checked my outpouring of disgust. "or do you propose to shut her up in some third-class boarding house day and night while you hang around here? good heavens, vere, do you realize what either life would be for an nineteen-year-old girl brought up as she has been?" he colored. "as for bringing up," he retorted, "i guess she couldn't be a lot more miserable than her folks worried her into being. but--you're right about the rest. that's why i was going to leave her with her folks yet a while, until i had a place for her. i mean, while i saved up enough to get the place." "but i wrote to him when i failed in my exams, cousin roger," phillida broke in. "i told him that i would not go home. i could not bear it. i was coming to him, and he would just have to keep me with him or i should _die_. indeed, i do not care about places. i think it will be lovely fun to sit here and watch him, or go behind the scenes with him and make friends with the other people. i--i am surprised that you are so narrow, cousin roger, when all your own best friends are theatrical people and artists and you think so highly of them." i answered nothing to that. the distance between the stage and this class of cabaret show was not to be traversed in a few seven-league words. i looked at vere, who returned my look squarely and soberly. "you needn't worry about her being here, mr. locke," he said. "i know better than that! but she has to come to me; it's her right, don't you think? i'll promise you to take her to a better place as soon as i can manage." "what kind of a place?" "i'm saving to get a place in the country," he answered diffidently. "i'm a countryman, and phillida thinks she'd like it." "you?" i exclaimed, unable to smother my derision and unbelief. my glance summed up his fastidious apparel and grooming, the gloss on his curling dark hair and the dubious diamond on his little finger. he reddened through his clear, dark skin, but his eyes were not those of a man taken in a lie. "did you take notice of what i do here?" he asked me, with the first touch of humility i had seen in him. "i couldn't dance or sing or do parlor tricks. i wasn't bred to parlors or indoors. but i learned to skate pretty fancy from a boy up. my folks' farm was on one side of a lake and the schoolhouse on the other. about november that lake used to freeze solid. my brother and i used to skate five miles to school, and back again, before we were six years old. we lived on skates about half the year, i guess. well--you don't care about the rest; how the farm was just about big enough to support my elder brother and his family, and i came to new york. nor how i found new york pretty well filled up with folks who knew considerably more than i did. it was the manager of this place who advertised for expert skaters, who dressed me up like this, and paid me the first living wages i'd had in the city. all the same, i was bred a farmer, and i mean to get back to it. always have! you're a man, mr. locke, and i'd hate you to think i was a shimmy dancer on ice and nothing else, or i wouldn't mention it. my father would have taken the buggy-whip to me, i guess, if he'd lived to see me in this rig. soon as i've enough put by, i'll shed this perfumed suit and the cheap jewelry and take my wife where she can have a chance to forget i ever wore them." "but i _like_ them," put in phillida ardently. "please do not fuss so, ethan; because i really do." "do you?" i turned upon her. "are you sure, then, that it is not all this cabaret glamour you really are in love with? would you care for him as an ordinary, hard-working fellow in a pair of overalls and a flannel shirt? no applause, no lights, no stage?" she laughed up at me. "you have forgotten that i met ethan while he was on a vacation from his work here, and roughing it. when i married him, i had hardly seen him in anything except his navy flannel shirt, scrubby trousers, and funny blunt-toed shoes." "you served in the war?" i asked him. he nodded. "yes. on a submarine chaser. got pneumonia from exposure and was invalided home just before the armistice." "and you came back here?" "i came here," he corrected me. "i enlisted from maine. i was discharged in new york. that was when i couldn't find anything i could do, until this skating trick came along." i sat thinking for a time; as long thoughts as i could command. the obvious course was to send for phillida's father. yet what could that vague and learned gentleman do that i could not? i visioned the professor standing in this riotous, gaudy restaurant, swinging his eye-glasses by their silk ribbon and peering at vere in helpless distaste and consternation. it was practically certain that phil would refuse to go home with him. what if she did go home? i could picture the scene there, when the truth came out. the mortification of her people, the gossip in the little town, her outcast position among the girls and boys with whom she had grown up--what a martyrdom for a sensitive spirit! of course, the only possible thing considered by aunt caroline would be a prompt divorce. if phillida refused to consent to a divorce, how could she live at home as the wife of a man her parents had pronounced unfit to receive? if she yielded and gave up vere, would she be much better off? an embarrassment to her family, the heroine of a stolen marriage and reno freedom, what chance of happiness would she have in her conventional circle? especially as she neither was a beauty nor the dashing type of girl who might make capital of such a reputation. probably she would bury herself in nunlike seclusion, stay in her room when callers came, and wear a veil when she went out to walk. meanwhile, she would break her heart for vere. could matters be any worse if she tried life with him, even if the experiment eventually proved a failure and ended in a divorce instead of beginning there? might not her parents be spared much they most dreaded, if their friends could be told simply that phillida had made a love match and was with her husband? finally, phillida was a human creature with the right to manage her own life. had any of us the right to lay hands upon her existence and mould it to our fancy? i looked up from my revery to find the eyes of both of them fixed on me as if i held their doom balanced upon my palm. perhaps, in a sense, i did. "phil, will you come home to your father and mother, and consider all this a bit more before you decide?" i asked her. i thought i knew the answer to this, and i did. "no, cousin roger," she refused firmly. "please forgive me. i know how kind you mean to be, but--no! i shall stay with ethan. if ever you love anyone, you will understand." i accepted the decision. there was no reason why i should think of the woman who had spoken to me across the darkness in a voice of melody and power, or why i should seem to feel again the exquisite, live softness of her braid within my hand. but it was so. "very well," i said. "vere, it is to you, then, as phillida's husband, that i must address any plans. i do not pretend to like the course she has taken. i do not know what action her parents may take, although i believe they will listen to my advice. putting all that aside, she refuses to come with me and you agree that she cannot stay here. "i have just bought a farm in connecticut, intending to use it as a summer home. there are some alterations and repairs being made, but little is to be changed inside the house and it is in perfectly livable shape. here is my offer. take phillida there, and i will make you manager of the place. i will pay all reasonable expenses of putting the land into proper condition and getting such stock and equipment as you judge best; all expenses and up-keep of the house and whatever salary usually is drawn by such managers of small estates. i shall be there, on and off, but you and phillida must take charge of everything. i am neither a farmer nor a housekeeper, and do not wish to be either. i bought the place only because new york is too hot to work in during three months of the year, and i hate summer resorts. keep my room ready, and you will find i disturb you little. of course, hire what servants are necessary. "now, if you make the place self-supporting inside of five years, i will deed the whole thing to you two. to put it better, if you succeed in making the farm pay a living for yourselves, i will make it over to you and withdraw. if you fail--well, i suppose you will be no worse off than you are now!" they were stricken speechless. perhaps my attitude had not pointed to such a conclusion of our interview. phillida told me long afterward that she expected me to bid them good-evening and abandon them forever, as my mildest course; with alternative possibilities such as summoning a policeman and having vere haled to prison. seeing their condition, i rose. "i will stroll about and leave you a chance to talk it over," i declared; although there are few ordeals i dislike more than displaying my limp about such public rooms. vere stopped me, rising as i rose. "no need of that, for us," he answered, facing me across the little table. "about giving us your farm, mr. locke, that's for the future! just now, the manager's job is plenty big enough to thank you for. i wish i could say it better. if you'll stay here with phillida for ten minutes, until i can get back, i'll be obliged." "where are you going?" "to resign here, and get my outfit into a suitcase." he had taken up my challenge like a man, at least. there were none of the hesitations and excuses to stay in town that i had half expected. it pleased me that he decided for phil as well as himself. some of my ideas about marriage are antiquated, i admit. i nodded to him, and sat down again. it is unnecessary to record the childish things phillida tried to say to me, while he was gone. "i am so happy," was her apology for threatened tears. "i never knew anyone--except ethan--could be so kind. and--and, will you tell father and mother?" "yes." i winced, though, at that prospect. "give me that little bag you carry on your wrist." she obeyed, wide-eyed. "you do tote a powder-puff. i did not know whether aunt caroline permitted it. rub it on your nose," i advised, passing the bit of fluff to her. while she complied, almost like a normally frivolous girl, i used the moment to transfer a few banknotes to the bag, so some need might not find her penniless. vere came back in not much more than the promised ten minutes. he had changed to gray street clothes and carried a suitcase. i noted that the diamond had disappeared from his finger and his curly head looked as if it had been held under a water-faucet and vigorously toweled to lessen the brilliantine gloss. "if you'll tell us where your farm is, mr. locke, we'll start," he volunteered. phillida looked up at him with eyes of adoring trust. "i had the porter at the terminal check my suitcase to be called for. we shall have to get it, dear." in spite of myself, i smiled at their amazing promptitude. there was both reassurance and pathos in its unconscious youth. all this eagerness pressing forward--where? they did not know, nor i. certainly we did not dream how strange a goal awaited one of us three, or on what weird, desolate path that traveler's foot was already set. "you had better go to a good hotel for tonight," i modified their plan. "tomorrow is time enough to go out to the farm, by daylight. phil has had enough excitement for one day. i will write full directions for the trip, vere, on the back of this timetable of the railroad you must take." they were enchanted with this suggestion. indeed, they were in a state of mind to have assented if i advised them to sit out on a park bench until morning. yet, when i had put them and their scanty luggage into a taxicab, i suffered a bad pang of misgiving. what responsibility was i assuming in letting my little-girl cousin go like this? what did i know of this man, or where he would take her? i think phillida divined something of my trouble, for she leaned out the door to me and held up her face like a child's to be kissed. "i am so _happy_," she whispered. i turned to vere; who had a long envelope in readiness to put in my hand. "i guess you might like to have these for a while, mr. locke," he said, with one of his slow, straightforward glances. with which farewells i had to be content, and watch their taxi swing out into the bright-dark flow of traffic where it was lost from my sight. after which, i entered another taxicab by my unromantic self and was driven to that railroad station where i would find a train bound to the college town that was the home of aunt caroline and her husband. one always thought of phil's parents in that order, although the professor was a moderately distinguished scientist and his spouse merely masterful in her own limited circle. the envelope vere had given me contained their marriage certificate, his release from the navy, and his membership card in the american legion. chapter iv "fair speech is more rare than the emerald found by slave maidens on the pebbles."--ptah-hotep. at ten o'clock, next morning, i was summoned from my sleep by the bell of the telephone beside my bed. it was not a pleasant sleep, although i had not returned to my apartment until dawn. nightmare doubts galloped ruthless hoofs over any repose. phillida's voice came over the wire to me like the morning song of a bird. "good-morning, cousin roger. we are going to take the train in a few moments. but i could not leave new york without telling you how happy i am. are you--did i wake you up? i was afraid that i might, but ethan said you would like me to call, even so." "my dear, it was the kindest thought you ever had," i told her fervently. "was it?" she hesitated. "then--were they pretty dreadful to you at home?" "quite!" "do you suppose they will _do_ anything dreadful about us?" "no. nothing." it did not seem necessary to tell her that aunt caroline did not know where the runaways had gone, and was thereby debarred from hasty action. phillida's father had privately agreed with me in this. "i am so very happy, cousin roger!" "i am glad, phil." "and you will come to the farm soon?" "soon," i promised. so the nightmares of immediate anxiety for her galloped themselves away, routed for that time. like my gold-fish when their bowl has been unduly shaken, i sank down again into the quieted waters of my little world and absorption in my own affairs. there have been hours when i wondered if i was of more importance than they, as a matter of cosmic fact. a month passed before i kept my promise to go to the farm in connecticut. as a first reason, i wanted to leave my young couple alone for a period of adjustment. also, i was curious to see how they would handle the business left to them. i held telephone conversations with phillida, and with various contractors now and then. i sent out the furnishings for my own room. everything else i purposely left to the experimenters. there was a second reason, more obscure. i wanted to keep for a while the little mystery of the lady who had come to the farmhouse room in the dark of the night. she was pure romance, a rare incident in a prosaic age. my table had been bare of such delicately spiced morsels, and i relished the savor of this one upon my palate. i was not quite ready to find her in the matter-of-fact daughter of some neighbor, who had sought shelter from the storm in that supposedly empty house and probably mistaken me for a tramp. perhaps i was equally reluctant to go back and prove that the adventure was ended, that she had been a bird of passage who had gone on with no thought of return. with all these delays, and the fact that my work really kept me busy in town, april was verging toward may when i finally saw the last of my luggage put into the car and started on my fifty-mile drive to the house by the lake. i did not take this first visit very seriously, or intend it to be over long. to be a constraint upon the household i had established, or assume a right there, was far from the course i planned. it was not certain vere and i would be comfortable housemates. but to stay away altogether would have hurt phillida as much as to stay too long, i considered. probably a week would be about enough for this time. so lightly, so ignorantly, i stepped from the first great division of my life into the second; not hearing the closing of the gate through which there was no turning back. chapter v "the very room, coz she was in, seemed warm from floor to ceilin'." --the courtin'. i arrived at noon, when a bright sun set the country air afloat with motes like dust of gold. the place seemed drenched in golden light. even the young grass had gold in its green, and the lake glittered hot with yellow sparkles. the house was transformed. the cream-colored stucco that hid its homely walls, deep, arched porches that took the place of the old shallow affairs, scarlet spanish tiles where bleached shingles had been--all united in giving it the gayest, most modern air imaginable. a gravel drive curved in beneath the new porte-cochère, inviting the wheels of my car to explore. grass had been put in order, flower-beds laid out. the new dam was up, and the miniature lake no longer suggested a swamp. if the place had appealed to me in its dreary neglect, now it held out its arms to me and laughed an invitation. as i stepped from my car, i heard running feet and a girl sped around the veranda to meet me. she cast herself into my arms before i fairly realized this was phillida. a phillida as new to my eyes as the house! after the first greetings i held her off to analyze the change. she was tanned and actually rosy. the corners of her once sad little mouth turned up instead of down and developed--i looked twice--yes, developed a dimple. the dull hair i always had seen brushed plainly back, now was parted on one side and fluffed itself across her forehead and about her cheeks with an astonishing effectiveness. she was attired in a china-blue linen frock with a scarlet sash knotted in front quite daringly, for phillida. "why, phil, how pretty we are!" i admired. she looked up at me like a praised little girl, and smoothed the sash. i noticed she wore above her wedding ring that "diamond" which once had adorned vere's finger so distastefully to me. it shone bravely in the sunlight with quite a display of fire. tracing my gaze, she held out her hand for me to see. "yes, it was his, cousin roger. of course, we have not very much money yet, and i do not care about all the engagement rings that ever were thought of. but, i was afraid people up here might notice that i had none and think slightingly of ethan. so i asked him, and we went to a jeweler, who made it smaller to fit me. it is not a false stone, you know. it is a white topaz, and i love it better than the biggest diamond." "then you are still happy?" "forever and ever, world without end," she answered solemnly. we went in. sun and sweet wind had worked white magic in the long-closed house. quaint furniture, no longer dust-grimed but lustrous with cleanliness and polish, had quite a different air. fresh upholstery in cheerful tints, fresh paper on the walls, good rugs, order and daintiness everywhere changed the interior out of my recognition. already the atmosphere of home and cheer was established. "come see your rooms," phillida invited, enraptured by my admiration. "they are so pretty!" she ran up the stairs, around the passage, and ushered me into the room of graceful adventure and grotesque nightmare. i stopped on the threshold. i had ordered the partition removed between the two chambers on this side, giving me one large room. this, with the little bathroom attached, occupied the entire large frontage of the house. this long, spacious room; floors covered by my chinese rugs, walls echoing the rugs' smoke-blue, my piano in a bright corner, my special easychairs and writing-table in their due places, welcomed me with such familiar comfort that i could not identify the neglected chamber where i had slept one night in the old bed with the four pineapple-topped posts. the windows were opened, and white curtains with their over-draperies of blue silk were swinging in and out on a fresh breeze where the horror of my dream had seemed to press itself against the black panes. decidedly, i must have had a bad attack of indigestion that night! "see how nice?" phillida was urging appreciation at my side. "we swung those lovely old hangings from the arch, so they can be drawn across the bedroom end of your room, if you like. although i do not know why you _should_ like, everything is so pretty! your long venetian mirror came safely, and all your darling lamps. and--and i hope you like it so well, cousin roger, that you will stay here always!" when she left me alone, i walked to the different windows, contemplating the stretches of lawn dotted with budding apple trees and the lake that lay beyond shining in the sun. was phillida's charming wish to become a fact, i wondered? could this rest and calm hold me content here, where i had meant merely to pause and pass on? i looked at the yellow country road meandering past the lake into unseen distance. should i ever see my lady of the beautiful tresses come that way, or travel that road to where she lived? if i did meet her, would she forgive me the loss of her braid? there would be a test for the sweetness of her disposition! when a chiming dinner-gong summoned me downstairs, i found vere awaiting me beside phillida. we shook hands, and he made some brief, pleasant speech about their having expected me sooner. if pale, timid phil had become a surprising butterfly, vere had taken the reverse progress toward the sober grub. i like him better in outing clothes, although he showed even more the unusual good looks which so unreasonably prejudiced me against him. if he felt any strain in our meeting, his slow, tranquil trick of speech and manner covered it. i hope i did as well! it was then i discovered that his wife's pet name for him fitted like a glove. she called him "drawls." the luncheon was good; cooked and served by a middle-aged swedish woman named cristina. afterward, i was conducted into the kitchen by the lady of the house, to view the new fittings and improvements. most odd and pretty it was to see phillida in that rôle of housewife, and to watch her pride in vere and deference to him. let me record that i never saw the daughter of aunt caroline fail in this settled course toward her husband. whether it was born of revulsion from her mother's hectoring domestic methods, or of consciousness that outsiders might rate vere below his wife in station and education, so her respect for him must forbid their slight, i do not know. but i never saw her oppose him or speak rudely to him before other people. i suppose they may have had the usual conjugal differings, neither of them being angelic. if so, no outsider ever glimpsed the fact. we spoke of nothing serious on that first day. they both showed me the various improvements finished or progressing, indoors or out. we dined as agreeably as we had lunched. quite early, afterward, i excused myself, and left together the two who were still on their honeymoon. at the door of my room, i pushed a wall-switch that lighted simultaneously three lamps. in this i had repeated the arrangement used by me for years in my city apartment. i have a demand for light somewhere in my make-up, and no reason for not indulging it. there flashed out of the dusk a large lamp upon my writing-table, a tall floor-lamp beside the piano, and a reading-lamp on a stand beside my bed at the far end of the room. all three were shaded in a smoke-blue and rose-color effect that long since had caught my fancy for night work; the shades inset with imitation semi-precious stones, rough-cut things of sapphire, tourmaline-pink and baroque pearl. i lay emphasis upon this, to make clear how normal, serene and even familiar in effect was the room into which i came. yet, as i closed the door behind me and stood in that softly brilliant radiance, a shudder shook me from head to foot with the violence of an electric shock. a sense of suffocation caught at my throat like an unseen hand. both sensations were gone in the time of a drawn breath, leaving only astonishment in their wake. presently i went on with the purpose that had brought me upstairs; lifting a portfolio to the table and beginning to unpack the work which i had been doing in new york. as i laid out the first sheets of music, there drifted to my ears that vague sound from the lake i had heard on my first night visit here, while i stood on the tumble-down porch. the sound that was like the smack of glutinous lips, or some creature drawing itself out of thick, viscid slime. as before, i wondered what movement of the shallow waters could produce that result. not the tide, now, for the new dam was up and the lake cut off from long island sound. the pouring of the waterfall flowed on as a reminder of that fact. the sound was not repeated. the dusk outside the windows offered nothing unusual to be seen. i finished my unpacking and sat down at my writing-table. i am not accustomed to heed time. there never has been anyone to care what hours i kept, and i work best at night. midnight was long past when i thought of rest. i declare that i thought of nothing more; not even recalling the vague unease felt on entering the room. a day spent in the fresh air, followed by an evening of hard work and journeyings between the piano and table, had left me utterly weary. when i lay down, it was to sleep at once. chapter vi "i have made a story that hath not been heard; a great feat of arms that hath not been seen!" --amenemhe'et. i woke slowly. it seemed that i struggled to wakefulness as a spent swimmer struggles toward shore. up, up through deep poles of sleep i dragged myself, driven by some dimly sensed necessity. peril had stolen upon me in my unconsciousness, a stalking beast. i knew that with nightmare certainty. it was as if my soul stood affrighted beside my brain, wailing upon its ally to arouse and stand with it against the menace. and my brain answered, but with infinite difficulty; like a drugged warrior who hears the clang of battle and forces numbed limbs to stir, arise and grasp the sword. i was awake. suddenly; the swimmer reaching the surface! how shall i describe fear incarnate? the horror was at the open window opposite the foot of my bed, staring in upon me with slavering covetousness of the prey it watched. i lay there, and felt it seek for me across the darkness with tentacles of evil that groped for some part of me upon which it might lay hold. the room was still. between the draperies, the window showed nothing to the eye except a dark square faintly tinged with the night luminance of the sky. there was nothing to see; nothing to hear. but gradually i became aware of a hideous odor of mould and mildew, of must and damp decay that loaded the air with disgust. i lay there, and opposed the approach of the thing with all the will of resistance in me. the sweat poured from my whole body, so that i lay as in water and the drenched linen of my sleeping-suit clung coldly to me. it could not pass the defense of my will. i felt the malevolent fury of its striving. like the antennæ of some monstrous insect brushing about my body, i felt its evil desires wavering about my mental self, examining, searching where it might seize. it had not yet found the weakness it sought. if it did----? the sickening, vault-like air i must breathe fought for it. so did the darkness. all this time, or the time that seemed so long, i had no more command of my body than a cataleptic patient. every ounce of force in me had rushed to support the two warriors of the battle: the brain and will that opposed the clutching menace. but now, as i grew more and more fully awake, out of very loathing and danger i drew determination. slowly, painfully, i began to free my right arm and hand from this paralysis. as i advanced in resolution, the thing seemed to recoil. inch by inch, i moved my hand across the bed toward my reading-lamp on the stand beside me. in proportion as i moved, the dreadful tentacles drew back and away. a last effort, and the chain was in my fingers. i jerked spasmodically. rosy light from the lamp flashed over the room. all the quiet comfort of the place sprang into view as if to reassure me; the piano open as i had left it, the table strewn with my evening's work, each bit of furniture, each drapery or trinket undisturbed. the thing was gone. in the hush i heard my panting breath and the tick of my watch on the stand. it was two o'clock in the morning. as i mechanically read the hour, a cock somewhere shrilled its second call before dawn. the horror had been true to the legendary time of apparitions. weak and chilled, i presently made an attempt to rise. but at the movement, a wave of sickness swept through me. the room seemed to rock and swing. i had just time to recognize the grip of faintness before i fell back on the pillow. * * * * * vivifying sweetness was in my nostrils, which expanded avidly for this new air. perfume that was a tonic, a subtle elixir; that sparkled upon the senses, sank suavely and healingly through me, so that i seemed to draw refreshment with each breath. reluctantly, i aroused more and more in response to this unusual stimulant; which somehow gave delicious rest yet drew me from it into life. i could have sworn someone had touched me. with some exclamation on my lips, i started up; to find myself in darkness. the lamps i had left lighted burned no longer. this time there was no terror in my awakening. no thing of nightmare pressed against my window-space. the fragrance persisted; the ghastly smell of mould and corruption was gone. but i wanted light for all that! reaching for the lamp beside me on its stand, i found the little chain. i felt the chain draw in my fingers and heard the click that should have meant light; but no answering brightness sprang up. instead, across the dark came a voice; a voice low-pitched, soft without weakness, keen with exultation: "victory! victory! you have no need of light--who conquered in darkness! the enemy has fled. it has covered the unspeakable eyes from the eyes of a man. by the will of a man its will has been forbidden. it has dragged itself back to the barrier and cowers there for this time. oh, soldier on the dreadful frontier, be proud, putting off your armor tonight! be proud, and rest." those practical people who are never unnerved by the intangible, may gauge if they can the weirdness of this address following my first experience, and then smile their contempt of me. for i confess to a moment of uncanny chill. the voice was that of the woman who had trailed her braid of hair into my grasp, the night i first slept here. but, how did she know of the thing's visit to me? i had not spoken nor uttered a cry throughout its visitation. how could she have knowledge of that silent struggle between it and me, or of my escape so narrowly won. how, unless she too----? i groped for a glass of water left on my stand. i drank, and felt my dry throat relax. "who are you?" i asked. a sigh trembled toward me. "i am one who stands on the threshold of your beautiful world, as a traveler stands outside a lighted palace, gazing where she may not enter, and feeling the winter about her." "do not suppose me quite a superstitious fool," i said bruskly. "you are a woman. the woman who left a very real braid of hair in my hands, not long ago, to save herself from capture!" "yes. yet, i am neither more nor less real than the one which came for you a while since." "then my nightmare was real? a thing of flesh and blood, or clever mechanism? you know it. perhaps you produced it?" the rush of my angry suspicion dashed in useless heat against her cool melancholy. "real? what is real?" she challenged me. "turn to the sciences that you should understand better than i, and ask. stretch out your arm. for a million years men have vowed you touch empty air. they saw and felt it empty. but now a child knows air swarms with life. in that thin nothingness, crowd and move the distributors of death, disease, health, vigor--existence itself. the water you have just tasted is pure and clear in the glass? pure? each drop is an ocean of inhabitants clean and unclean. i speak commonplaces. but is there no knowledge not yet commonplace? oh man, with all the unfathomed universe about us, _dare_ you pronounce what is real?" "what is natural," i began. she interrupted me. "doubtless what is not natural cannot and does not exist. have you, then, measured nature? he was a great thinker, one of deep knowledge, who compared man to a child wandering on the shore of a vast ocean and picking up a pebble here and there." "of what would you convince me? and, why?" "of what? danger! why? would you watch a man enter a jungle where some hideous beast crouched in ambush, while you neither warned nor armed him? i am here to turn you back. i am the native of that country who runs to cry warning to a stranger; to put into his hand the weapon of understanding." so solemn, so urgent a sincerity was in her voice, that again chill touched me. the clammy dampness of my garments hung on my limbs as a reminder of the thing, real or unreal, that twice had made its presence felt beyond denial. wild as her words might be, their incredible suggestion was matched by my experience. i sought with my eyes for her, before answering. the room was dark, yet the darker bulk of furniture loomed out enough to be distinguishable. no figure was visible, even traced by the direction of her voice. i was certain that any movement to seek her would mean her flight. "do you mean that you want me to go away from this place?" i questioned. the sigh came again, just audibly. "yes. why should you die?" was i wrong in fancying the sigh regretful? did i not hear a wistful reluctance in her tone? excitement ran along my veins like burning oil on flowing water. the woman hidden in the dark, the association of her voice with the strange, exquisite fragrance i breathed, the thought of beauty in her born of that lovely braid of hair i had seized--all blended in a spell of human magic. i have said i was a man much alone, and a lame man who craved adventure. "just now," i said, "you spoke of some victory. you called me--soldier." "is it not victory to have driven back the dark one? is he not a soldier who, aroused in the night to meet dreadful assault, sets his face to the enemy and battles front to front? before the eyes men and women have died or lost reason, or fled across half the world, broken by fear. what are the wars of man with man, compared with a man's battle against the unknown? i honor you! i salute you! but--soldier alone on the forbidden frontier, go! join your fellows in the world alloted to you; live, nor seek to tread where mankind is not sent." "how can there be wrong in facing a situation that i did not cause?" "there is no wrong. there is danger." "what danger?" i persisted. "can you ask me?" she retorted with a hint of impatience. "you who have felt its grope toward your inner spirit?" i shuddered, remembering the brush of those antennæ, exploring, examining! but i persisted, beyond my every-day nature. her speech was for me like that liquor distilled from honey that inflamed the norsemen to war fury. "you say i came off victor," i reminded her. "yes. but can you conquer again, and again, and again? will you not feel strength fail, health break, madness creep close? will you not be worn down by the thing that knows no weariness and fall its prey at last?" "it will come--often?" "until one conquers, it will come." i forced away a qualm of panic. "how can you know?" i demanded. "ask me not. i do know." "but, look here!" i argued. "if as you say, this creature was not meant to meet mankind, how can it come after me this way?" she seemed to pause, finally answering with reluctance: "because, two centuries ago one of the race of man here broke through the awful barrier that rears a wall between human kind and those dark forms of life to which it belongs. for know that a human will to evil can force a breach in that barrier, which those on the other side never could pass without such aid." i neither understood nor believed. at least, i told myself that i did not believe her wild, legendary explanation of the nightmare thing that visited me. i did not want to believe. neither did i wish to offend her by saying so! "you will go," she presently mistook my silence for surrender. "you are wise as well as brave. good go with you! good walk beside you in that happy world where you live!" "wait!" i cried sharply. her voice had seemed to recede from me, a retreating whisper at the last word. "no! i will not go. i must--i will know more of you. you are no phantom. who are you? where--when can i see you in daylight?" "never." "why not?" "i came to hold a light before the dreadful path. the warning is given." "but you will come again?" "never." "what? the thing will come, and not you?" "what have i to do with it, who am more helpless before it than you? go; and give thanks that you may." "listen," i commanded, as firmly as i could. "i am not going away from this house without better reason. all this is too sudden and too new to me. if you have more knowledge than i, you have no right to desert me half-convinced of what i should do." "i can stay no longer." "why can you not come again?" "you plan to trap me," she reproached. "no. word of honor! you shall come and go as you please; i will not make a movement toward you." "not try--to see me, even?" she hesitated. "not even that, if you forbid." there was a long pause. "perhaps----" drifted to me, a faint distant word on the wind that had begun to stir the tree-branches and flutter through my room. she was gone. there sounded a click whose meaning did not at once strike me, intent as i was upon the girl. twice i spoke to her, receiving no reply, before judging that i might rise without breaking my promise. then i recognized the click of a moment before, as that of the electric switch beside my door. no doubt she had turned off my lights at her entrance and now restored them. i pulled the chain of my reading-lamp, and this time light flashed over the room. i had known no one would be there, and no one was. yet i was disappointed. as i drew on my dressing-gown i heard a clock downstairs strike four. not a breath or a step stirred in the house. the damp freshness of coming dawn crept in my windows, bringing scents of tansy and bitter-sweet from the fields to strive against the unknown fragrance in my room. the melancholy depression of the hour weighed upon me. beneath the gentle strife of sweet odors, my nostrils seemed to detect a lurking foulness of mould and decay. i sat down at my desk, to wait beside the lamp for the coming of sunrise. chapter vii "for it is well known that peris and such delicate beings live upon sweet odours as food; but all evil spirits abominate perfumes."--oriental mythology. the breakfast bell, or rather phillida's chinese chimes, merrily summoned me to the dining-room; a homely spell to exercise the phantoms of the night. my little cousin, rosy beyond belief, trim in white middy blouse and blue skirt, was already in her place behind the coffeepot. vere sat opposite her at the round table. they were holding hands across the rolls and bacon and eggs, their glances interlocked in a shining content that made my solitariness rather drab and dull to my own contemplation. at my clumsy step the picture dissolved, of course. vere rose while phillida welcomed me to my chair and went into a young housewife's pretty solicitude about my fruit and hot eggs. the sun glinted across the table. the very servant had a smiling air of enjoying the occasion. i never had a more pleasant breakfast. a big brindle cat purred on the window-sill beside phillida; no dainty persian or angora, but a battered veteran whose nicked ears and scarred tail proved him a battling cat of ring experience. "i planned to have a wee white kitten," phil explained, while putting a saucer of milk before the feline tough. "one that would wear a ribbon, you know. you remember, cousin roger, how mother always forbade pets because she believed animals carry germs? i meant to have a puss, if ever i had a home of my own. this one just walked into the kitchen on the first day we came here. ethan said it was a lucky sign when a cat came to a new home. he gave it the meat out of his sandwiches that we had brought for lunch, and it stayed. so i decided to keep it instead of a kitten. it really is more cat!" what footing was here for dreary terrors? in a mirror across the room i glimpsed my own countenance looking quite as usual. no over-night white hairs appeared; no upstanding look such as the legend gave to sir sintram after he met the little master. after the meal, vere asked me to walk over to the lake with him. we strolled through the old orchard toward the dam. this was my side of the house. in passing, i looked up at the window against which the thing had seemed to press itself with sickening lust for me. phillida was framed in the open square, and shook a dustcloth at us by way of greeting and evidence of her busyness. the wide, shallow lake lay almost without movement, except at the head of the dam. there the water poured over with foam and tumult, an amber-brown cataract some twenty-odd feet across, to rush on below in a winding stream that grew calmer as it flowed. "we must put our lake in order, vere," i observed, as we stood on a knoll at the head of the dam. "all this growth of rank vegetation ought to be pulled up, the banks graded and turfed perhaps, the bottom cleaned up. water-lilies would look better than cat-tails." to my surprise, he did not assent. instead, he set his foot on a boulder and rested his arm upon his knee; looking into the clear water. "mr. locke, i just about hate saying what i have to," he told me in his sober, leisurely fashion. "i expect you won't like it; not at all. well--best said before you get deeper in. i can't see my way to make farming this place pay." i was bitterly disappointed. even at the worst estimate of vere, i had imagined he would stick the thing out a little longer than this. poor phillida's time of happiness should have lasted more than these few weeks. but the call of new york, of the "lounge lizard's" ease and unhealthy excitement had won already, it seemed. i said nothing at all. the blow was too sore. "there are too few acres of arable land, and they're used up," vere was continuing. "i've seen plenty of impoverished, run-out farms in new england. you could pour money into the soil out of a gold pitcher these five years to come, before it began to pay you back. and then your money might better have been put anywhere in bank, for profit! i saw that, the first week here. since then i've been looking around for something better to do." "and have found it, of course," i said bitingly. "or else you would be drawing your salary as manager and saying nothing to me of all this! well, where does poor phil go, and when?" he turned his dark-curled head and regarded me with calm surprise. "i didn't exactly know that my wife was going anywhere, mr. locke." "what? you do not mean to leave the farm?" "not unless you're tired of our bargain. i've been calculating how to make it pay. that won't be by planting corn and potatoes and taking a wagon-load into town! if you think i'm wrong, call in any practical man who knows this sort of business. we've got to think closer to win here. that's why i'd like to set the lake to work instead of just prettying it up." "the lake, vere? there isn't enough water-power over the dam to do any more than run a toy, is there?" he motioned me nearer to where he stood gazing down. "notice what kind of water this is, mr. locke? brown like forest water, sort of green-lighted because the bottom is like turf; neither mud nor sand, but a kind of under-water moss? you see? it's pure and clean, with a little fishy smell about it. matter of fact, it is forest water! comes from way off yonder, the stream does, before it spreads out into our lake, here. i borrowed a boat and followed back two miles before it got too shallow for me. boys have caught trout here three times since i've been watching." "well?" "my father was fish-warden in our district. i learned the business. if you're willing, i can start some trout-raising that ought to pay well. you know, the state is glad to help game preserving, free." he proceeded to give me a brief lecture on the subject, in his quiet, unpretentious manner; producing notes and diagrams from his pockets. he had written to various authorities and exhibited their replies. he knew exactly what the state would do, what he himself must do, and what investment of money would be required. i listened to him in admiration and astonishment. from fish raising, he went on to discuss each acre of the farm; its best use in view of its situation, condition, and our needs. we could afford so much labor, it appeared, and no more. we must have certain apparatus; methodically listed with prices. if we used a certain sheltered south field for a peach orchard, the trees planted should be such an age and have giant-powder blast deep beds for them in order that they might soon bear fruit. when at last he ended his deceptive speech that sounded so lazy while implying so much energy, and turned his black eyes from the papers on his knee to my face, i had been routed long since. "vere," i said abruptly, "did you know that i thought you were going to desert the farm, when you began to speak?" he nodded. "yes, i guess so. you don't exactly like me; haven't had any occasion to! you don't judge me a fit match for your cousin. well, neither would anyone else, yet!" he began to gather his papers together, his attention divided with them while he finished his answer: "there will be plenty of time before that 'yet' runs out. mighty pleasant time, thanks to you, mr. locke! phillida and i expect to enjoy building things up as much as we'll enjoy it after they're all built. meantime, i prize what you're doing all the more because i know how you feel. now, if you'd be interested to look over these plans or submit them to someone you've confidence in, for inspection, i'll just turn them over to you." he had so accurately measured me that i was disconcerted. it was quite true that he was compelling my respect, while my first dislike of him still obstinately lurked in the background of my mind. i felt ungenerous, but i would not lie to him. "i am a queer fellow, vere," i said. "leave that to time, as you say! as for the plans, they are far beyond my scope. a city man, it has been my way to 'phone for an expert when anything was to be done, or to buy what i fancied and pay the bills. in this case, you are the expert. the plans seem brilliant to me. certainly they are moderate in cost. keep them, and carry them out as soon as that may be done. you are master here, not i." we walked back together through the sun and freshness of the early spring morning. as we neared the house phillida's voice hailed us. she was at my window again, leaning out with her hair wind-ruffled about her face. "cousin roger," she summoned me, "i have found out what makes your room as sweet as a garden of spices. see what it is to be a composer completely surrounded by royalties, able to buy the most gorgeous scents to lay on one's pillow! and all enclosed in antique gold!" she held up some small object that shone in the sunlight. "throw it down," i begged, startled into excitement. she complied, laughing. vere sprang forward, but i made a quicker step and caught the thing. it was one of those filigree balls of gold wrought into openwork, about the size of a walnut, that fine ladies used to wear swung from a chain or ribbon and call a pomander. the toy held a chosen perfume or essence supposed to be reviving in case miladi felt a swoon or megrim about to overwhelm her; as ladies did in past centuries and do no longer. whose gentle pity had brought this pomander to my pillow, to help me from that faintness which had followed my struggle with the thing? whose was the exquisite, individual fragrance contained in the ball i held? i had a vision of a figure, surely light and soft of movement, haloed with such matchless hair as the braid i had captured, stealing step by timid step across my room; within my reach while i lay inert. perhaps her face had bent near mine in her doubt of my life or death; hidden eyes had studied me in the scanty starlight. oh, for ethan vere's good looks and athlete's grace, to lure my lady from her masquerade! "where did you buy it, cousin roger? 'fess up!" phillida's merry voice coaxed me. "it was given to me," i slowly answered. "i cannot offer it to you, phil. but i will buy any other pretty thing you fancy, instead, next time i go to town." she made a gesture of disclaim. "i did not mean _that_! only, do tell me what the perfume is?" "i was going to ask if you knew." "no. something very expensive and imported, i suppose. perhaps whoever gave it to you had it made for herself alone, as some wealthy women do. it is the most clinging, yet delicately refreshing scent i ever met." "tuberose," suggested vere. "drawls, no. how can you? like an old-fashioned funeral!" she cried. "tuberose didn't always go to funerals," he corrected her teasingly, as she made a face at him. "i remember them growing in my aunt bathsheba's garden. creamy looking posies, kind of kin to a gardenia, seems to me! thick-petalled, like white plush, and holding their sweet smell everlastingly. but mr. locke's perfumery isn't just that, either. there was something else grew in that garden--i can't call to mind what i mean. basil, maybe?" "the basil plant, that feeds on dead men's brains," quoted phil with a mock shiver. "you _are_ happy in your ideals, drawls!" he laughed. "well, that garden smelled pretty fine when the dew was just warming up in the sun, mornings--and so does this little gilt ball! i'll guess mr. locke's lady never got it from france. smells like old new england." there was no reason why a vague chill should creep over me, or the sunshine seem to darken as if a thin veil drifted between me and the surrounding brightness. let me say again that no place could have been more unlike the traditional haunted house. there hung about it no sense of morbidity or depression. yet, what was i to think? i was not sick or mad; and the thing had come to me twice. i turned from the married lovers and made my way to the veranda, where i might be alone to consider the pomander whose perfume was like a diaphanous presence walking beside me. seated there, in one of the deep willow-chairs phillida had cushioned in peacock chintz and marked especially mine by laying my favorite magazines on its arm, i studied my new trophy of the night. there was a satisfaction in its material solidity. it was real enough, resting in my palm. yes; but it was not ordinary among its quaint kind! as i picked out the design of the gold-work, that fact was borne in upon my mind. here was no pattern of scroll or blossom or cupids and hearts. the small sphere was belted with the signs of the zodiac, beautiful in minute perfection. all the rest of the globe was covered with lace-fine work repeating one group of characters over and over. i was not learned enough to tell what the characters were, but the whole plainly belonged to those strange, outcast academies of astrology, alchemy--magic, in short. it contained what appeared to be a pinkish ball; originally a scented paste rolled round and dried, i judged by peering through the interstices of the gold. had the old-world trinket been left to bewilder me? why, and by whom? what interest had my lady of the dark in elaborately deceiving me? why muffle her identity in mystery? why the indefinable quaintness of language, the choice of words that made her speech so different from even the college-bred phillida's? she urged me to leave the house. if she, or anyone associated with her wanted the place left vacant for some reason, why did not the thing and the warning come to others of our household group? vere, phillida, the swedish woman, cristina--all had lived here for weeks without any experiences like mine. i had not been told to leave my room, but the house. the danger, then, was only for me? well, was i to run away, hands over my eyes, at the first alarm? the gray cat came purring about me and presently leaped upon my knee. on impulse, i offered the pomander to its nostrils. the unwinking yellow eyes shut, the beast's powerful claws closed and unclosed with convulsive pleasure, it breathed with that thirsty eagerness for the scent so familiar to my own senses. "better than catnip, bagheera?" i questioned. "you wouldn't bolt from it, either, would you?" phillida's battered pet relaxed luxuriously, by way of answer, sniffed toward the hand i withdrew, and composed itself to sleep. i put the pomander in my waistcoat pocket. i could not deny as mere nightmare the thing which had visited me. better confront that fact! it was real. only, real in what sense? what human agency could produce an effect so frightful, an illusion so hideous that i could scarcely bear to recall it here in full daylight, without the use of a sight or sound to confuse the brain? had the girl told the truth in her wild explanation? a truth hinted at by alchemists, pythagoreans, rosicrucians, pale students of sorcery and magnificent charlatans, these many centuries? were there other races between earth and heaven; strange tribes of the middle spaces whose destinies were fixed and complete as our own, but between whose lives and ours were fixed barriers not to be crossed? had i met one of these beings, inimical to man as a cobra, intelligent as man, hunting its victim by methods unknown to us? was i a cheated fool, or a pioneer on the borders of a new country? could i meet that thing tonight, and tomorrow night? could i bear the agony of its presence, the stench of death and corruption that was its atmosphere? at the mere memory my forehead grew wet. the postman's buggy had stopped at our mailbox. phillida ran down to meet the event of the morning. her laughing chatter came back to me while she waited, fists thrust in middy pockets, for the old man to sort our letters from his bags. it did not appear so hard to make a woman happy, i mused. a man might attempt it with hope, if he could but persuade her to try him. my lady had promised to come again. perhaps, with patience----? phillida came across the lawn with an armful of gaudy-covered catalogues and a handful of letters. "catalogues for ethan; letters for you," she called in advance of her arrival. "what an important person you are, cousin roger! it always gives me a quivery thrill to realize _who_ you are as well as how nice you are. now, isn't that a jumbled speech to tumble out of me?" i took her tanned little hand along with the letters; letters that were so many voices summoning me back to pleasant, busy manhattan. "it is a fine speech for a humble person to answer, phil! but does that sort of thing matter to you women? what do you love vere for, at bottom? because he is strong and supple and has curly hair? no?" as she shook her head. "because he has worn the uniform, then; proved his courage in war at sea? because he had the glamour about him of real adventure and cabaret glitter? or because he took you away from a life you hated? or, perhaps, because he is kind and loves you? no! for none of these reasons? why, then, love ethan vere?" she stopped vigorously shaking her head in repeated denial, and smiled at me triumphantly. "because he _is_ ethan vere," she promptly responded. "oh, cousin roger, you clever people are so stupid! it would not make any difference at all if drawls were ugly, or never had been a sailor, or could not skate or do things, or had not been able to make me happy. it is something very much bigger than all that!" "and all the divorce courts, phil? the breach of promise suits, and the couples who make each other miserable?" "but they never had anything," she said. "perhaps they will have it, some day. don't you know, cousin roger, that the most important things in the world are those most people never know about?" i was not sure whether i knew that, or not. after last night, i was not sure of many things. still, if such gifts were given as she believed, if it was merely a question of being ethan vere--or roger locke----? but i had never seriously considered leaving the adventure. chapter viii "the heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. it is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it."--hugo de anima. that evening vere and i settled the business details of the developments he had planned. also while we three were quietly together, i launched a discussion that had been gathering in my mind all day while i watched phillida. "you are doing as efficient work as vere," i told her. "in fact, you are a most moderate pair! i gave you an open bank account, phil; and you have furnished the house for so little that i am amazed. and it is all so gay, so freshly pretty! being an ignorant man, the details are beyond me. but--one servant? aren't you working yourself too hard? i had expected you to need several. of course, we are not counting vere's outdoor force." she turned in her low chair beside the lamp and glanced toward the window behind her, before replying. i noticed the action, because a moment before vere had turned precisely the same way. "it is good of you to think of those things, cousin roger," she declared. "but, i want to be a real wife to drawls. i do, indeed! and i have it all to learn because i was not brought up for that. look at this dish-towel i am hemming. cristina would laugh at the stitches if she dared, yet they are better than when i began. some day i shall sew fine things. so it is with all my housekeeping. i think we should begin as we mean to go on, so i have furnished the house for--us. perhaps if it had been for you alone, i should have chosen satin-wood and tapestry instead of willow and cretonne. the same way about cristina. if ethan and i are to save and earn this lovely place, as you offered, we cannot afford more than one maid. you understand what i am trying to explain, don't you?" "yes," i assented. "surely! what were you looking for, just now, behind you?" "i? oh, nothing! i just fancied someone had passed by the window and stared in. i can't imagine what made me fancy that. unless the cat----" she hesitated. "bagheera is asleep under mr. locke's chair," vere observed casually. "truly, cousin roger, i love the way we are living," she resumed. "it is very miserable of me, i daresay, not to be more intellectual after all father and mother labored with me. but it is so! i want to live this way all my life; to be busy, and plan things with ethan, and make them come true together." under cover of the table she put her hand into vere's, and silence held us a little while. i watched bagheera the cat, who sat beside my chair staring with unblinking yellow eyes toward the window across the room. did i imagine a slight uneasiness in those eyes, a wary readiness in gathered limbs and muscles bulking under the old cat's scant fur? now the tail twitched with a lashing movement. presently bagheera looked away and relaxed. a moment more, and he curled down, composing himself to sleep. "you like the place, phil?" i questioned. "you do not find it lonely here, or in any way depressing?" the candor of her surprise told me that no dweller between the worlds had visited her. "cousin roger? this darling house? why?" i passed that question safely, and after a few minutes bade them good-night. they had a fashion of gazing at one another that made it a matter of necessary kindness to leave them alone together. as i made my solitary way upstairs, i will not deny a growing excitement, or that dread fought with my resolution. who would keep tryst with me tonight? the horror or the lady? both; as each time before? if so, which one would come first, and what might be my measure of success or failure? if some trick were being played upon me, i meant to pluck it out of the mystery. the quietly pleasant room received me without a hint of the unusual. i lighted the lamps and sat down to my work. the house was still by ten o'clock, all lights out except mine. at midnight i lay down in the dark, the pomander under my pillow. whether i put the gold ball there from sentiment, or from some absurd fancy about its perfume and mystic carving being somehow a talisman against evil, or because i feared the trinket might be taken from me during the night, i should be troubled to answer. i did place it there, and lay lapped in its sweet odor while the moments dragged past; heavy, slow-footed moments of strain and dreadful expectation scarcely relieved by a hope uneasy as fear. the cock crowed for the first hour; and for the second. i slept, at last. when i awoke, level sun-rays were striking across the world. nothing had happened. chapter ix "these macedonians are a rude and clownish people that call a spade a spade."--plutarch. next morning, i took my car and began a systematic investigation of the neighborhood. there proved to be few houses within reasonable distance where such a woman as my lady could be lodged. however, i made my cautious inquiries even where the quest seemed useless, resolved to leave no chance untried. no better plan occurred to me than exhibition of the pomander with a vague story of wishing to return it to a young lady with red-gold hair. but nowhere did a native show recognition of the top or the description. on my way home i overtook a familiar, travel-stained buggy that inspired me with a fresh disrespect for my own abilities. why had i not put my question to our rural mail deliverer in the beginning? surely here was a man who knew everyone and went everywhere! the old white horse rolled placid eyes toward the car that drew up beside it, then returned to cropping the young grass by the roadside. the postman looked up from the leather sack open before him, and nodded to me. "morning, mr. locke," he greeted. "now let me get the right stuff into this here box, an' i'll sort your family's right out for you. there's a sample package of food sworn to make hens lay or kill 'em, for cliff brown here, that's gone to the bottom of the bag. i don't know but cliff's poultry'd thank me to leave it be! up it's got to come, though!" "will it make them lay?" i asked, watching the ruddy old face peering into the sack. "i guess it might, if cliff told 'em they'd have to lay or eat it, judgin' from the smell that sample's put in my bag." "not as sweet as this?" i suggested, and leaned across to lay the pomander in his gnarled hand. the familiar expression of acute, almost greedy pleasure flowed into his face. his nostrils expanded with eager intake of the perfume that seemed an elixir of delight. he said nothing, absorbed in sensation. "do you know of a lady who wears that scent?" i asked. "a lady with bright fair hair, colored like copper-bronze?" "not i!" he denied briefly. "no one at all like that--with hair warmer in shade than ordinary gold color, and a lot of it?" "no. not around here, nor anywhere i've been! what do you call this perfumery, mr. locke?" "i have no idea," i answered, sharply disappointed. "no one knows except the young lady i am trying to find. are you sure you cannot help me at all? there is no newcomer in the neighborhood, no visitor at any house who might be the one i am looking for?" he shook his head, giving back the pomander with marked reluctance. "no one who might be able to tell more than yourself?" i persisted. a gleam of humor lit his eyes. he dropped a cardboard cylinder into mr. clifford brown's mailbox and began to sort out my letters. "far as that goes, i guess mis' hill don't miss much of what goes on around here. when she hears a good bit of tattle, she has her husband hitch up, and she goes drivin' all day. ain't a house she knows that don't get to hear the whole yarn! you know mis' royal hill? mis' vere gets butter and cheese from her. might ask her!" i thanked him and drove on. mrs. hill, garrulous wife of the farmer who owned the place next to ours, was on her porch when i came to a halt before the house. she granted me more interest than the other natives upon whom i had called that morning; inviting me into her parlor to "set," when she had identified me. but she knew nothing of the object of my quest. "i guessed you must be the new owner up to the michell place," she observed, her beady, faded brown eyes busy with my appearance, picking up details in avid, darting little glances suggestive of a bird pecking crumbs. "cliff brown said a lame feller had bought it. i don't see as that little limp cripples you much, the way you can rampus 'round in that fast automobile of yours! now, i'm perfectly sound, and i wouldn't be paid to drive the thing. you'd ought to get the other fellow to run it for you; the handsome one. i guess you like to do it, though? writer, ain't you? books or newspapers?" i rallied my scattered faculties to answer the machine-gun attack. "music?" she echoed, her narrow, sun-dried face wrinkling into new lines of inquisitiveness. "they said you had a piano in your bedroom, but i thought they were just foolin' me! seems i never heard of havin' a piano upstairs. most folks like to show 'em off in the parlor. must be kind of funny, takin' your company upstairs to play for 'em. but then it's kind of a funny thing for a man to take to, anyhow! i got a niece ten years old next august who can play piano so good there don't seem anythin' left to learn her, so----! but there ain't no use of you drivin' 'round here lookin' for a fair-headed girl, mr. locke. the slav folk down in the shanties by the post road are about the only light-complected ones in this neighborhood. somehow, we run mostly to plain brown. senator allen has two girls, but they're only home from a boardin' school for vacation. how do you like your place?" "very much," i assured her. "only, i do not know a great deal about it, yet. its history, i mean. are there any interesting stories about the house? you know, we city people like a nice legend or ghost story to tell our friends when they come to visit us." she chuckled, swinging in her plush-covered rocking-chair, arms folded on her meagre breast. "guess you'll have to make one up! i never heard of none. the michell family always owned it--and they were so stiff respectable an' upright everyone was scared of 'em! most of the men were clergymen in their time. the last, reverend cotton mather michell, went abroad to foreign parts for missionary work with the heathen, twenty-odd years ago; an' died there. he never married, so the family's run out. the michells were awful hard on women; called 'em vessels of wrath an' beguilers of adam. preached it right out of the pulpit--so i guess no girl in these parts could have been hired to wed with him, if he'd wanted. his mother died when he was born, so he'd had no softenin' influence. after news came of his death, the house was shut up 'till you bought it. my, how you've changed it, already! i'd admire to go through it." when i had invited her to call on phillida and inspect our domicile, and paid due thanks for information received, she followed me out to the car. "all this land 'round here is old and full of indian relics," she remarked. "over to the sound where the swamps used to be, there was lots of fightin' with savages. an' they say a witch was stoned to death where the catholic convent stands now, on the road up above your place. so i guess you can figure out a story to tell your company, if you like." "a convent?" i repeated, my attention caught by a new possibility. "do they, perhaps, have visitors there, ladies in retreat for a time, as convents often do abroad?" mrs. hill laughed, shaking her tightly-combed head. "no hope of your girl there," she chuckled. "they're the strictest sisterhood in america, folks say. poor clares, i think they're called. no one, not even their relations, ever see their faces after they join. they're not allowed to talk to each other, even. just stay in their cells, an' pray, even in the middle of the night, an' shave their heads an' live on a few vegetables an' dry bread." i laughed with her. certainly no convent would harbor my lady of marvelous tresses and magical perfume, of wild fancies and heretical theories. that thought of mine was indeed far afield. but where, then, was i next to seek? i made a detour and used some strategy to gain a view of the senator's daughters. they proved to be brunettes who wore their locks cropped after the fashion of certain greenwich villagers. my disappointment was not great; my lady was not suggestive of a boarding-school miss. but i had hoped to find somewhere a trace of the copper-bronze head whose royalty of hair i had shorn as the traitors shore king childeric's gothic locks. i drove home with a sense of blankness upon me. suppose she never came again? suppose the episode was ended? not even freedom from the thing could compensate for the baffled adventure. think of the lame feller with an adventure! chapter x "plato expresses four kinds of mania--firstly, the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to love."--preface to zanoni. for myself, i have always found that excitement stimulates imagination. there are others, i know, who can do no creative work except when all within and without is lulled and calm. perhaps i have too much calm as an ordinary thing! that evening, when i went to my room, lighted my lamps and closed my door, i stood alone for awhile breathing the mingled sweetness of the country air and the pomander ball. in that interval, there came to me, complete and whole as a gift thrust into my hand, the melody which an enthusiastic publisher since assured me has reached every ear in america. as to that extravagant statement, i can only measure by the preposterous amount of money the melody has brought me. perhaps there is a magic about it. for myself, i cannot hear it--ground on a street-organ, given on the stage, played on a phonograph record or delicately rendered by an orchestra--without feeling again the exaltation and enchantment of that night. i flung myself down at my writing-table, tossing my former work right and left to make room for this. if it should escape before i could set it down! if the least of those airy cadences should be lost! at three o'clock in the morning i came back to realization of time and place. the composition was finished; it stood up before me like a flower raised over-night. eight hours had passed since i sat down to the work, after dinner. i was tired. as i began to draw into a pile the sheets of paper i had covered with notes, weariness gripped me like a hand. eight hours? if i had shoveled in a ditch twice that long i could have felt no more exhausted. yielding to drained fatigue of mind and body, i dropped my head upon the arms i folded upon the table. my hot, strained eyes closed with relief, my stiff fingers relaxed. rest and content flowed over me; my work was done, and good. rest passed into sleep, no doubt. the sleep could not have been long, for not many hours remained before dawn. when i started awake and lifted my head, i found the room in darkness. a perfume was in the air, and the sense of a presence scarcely more tangible than the perfume. even in the first dazed moment, i knew my lady had come again. "do not rise!" her murmuring voice cautioned me. "unless you wish me to go?" "no!" "i am here because i promised to come. it was not wise of you to ask that of me." "then i prefer folly to wisdom," i answered, steadying myself to full wakefulness. "or, rather, i am not sure that you can decide for me which is which!" "why? after all, why? just--curiosity?" "you, who speak so learnedly of magic and sorcery," i retorted, smiling under cover of the darkness, "have you never heard of the white magic conjured by a tress of hair, a perfume ball, and a voice sweeter than the perfume? an image of wax does not melt before a witch's fire so easily as a man before these things." "my hair pleased you?" she questioned naïvely. "or so easily as a woman melts before admiration!" i supplemented. "i am delighted to prove you human, mystic lady. please me? could anyone fail to be pleased with that most magnificent braid? but how can either you or i forgive the cruelty that took it from its owner? why did you cut it off?" "so little of it! and i did not know you, then." "little? that braid?" "it reached below my knee, now it is but little less," she answered with indifference. "we all have such hair." i gasped. my imagination painted the picture of all that shining richness enwrapping a slim young body. it was fantastic beyond belief to sit there at my desk, beneath my fingers the tools of sober, workaday life, and stare into the dark room that held the reality of my vision. she was there, but i could not rise and find her. she was opposite my eyes, but my promise forbade me to touch the lamp and see her. "who are 'we'?" i slowly followed her last sentence. a sigh answered me. on the silence, a memory floated to me of the story she had told while i held her prisoner that first night: "_the woman sits in her low chair. the fire-shine is bright in her eyes and in her hair. on either side, her hair flows down to the floor._" yes, by legend young witches had such hair; sylphs, undines and all of the airy race of lilith. i thrust absurdities away from me and offered a quotation to fill the pause: "'i met a lady in the meads' 'full beautiful; a faery's child.' 'her hair was long, her foot was light,' 'and her eyes were wild.'" she did not laugh, or put away the suggestion. when i had decided that she did not mean to reply, and was seeking my mind for new speech to detain her with me, she finally spoke what seemed another quotation: "'a spirit--one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom josephus and michael psellus of constantinople may be consulted. they are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.' have you read the writings of the learned jew or of the platonist, you who are so very bold?" "neither," i meekly admitted. "but neither ancient gentleman could convince me that you are unhuman." her answer was just audible: "not i--but, it!" now i was silenced, for dreadful and uncanny was that whisper in the dark to a man who had met here in this room what i had met. "tell me more of this thing without a name," i urged, mastering my reluctance to evoke even the idea of what the blood curdled to recall. "why does it hate me?" "what can i tell you? even in your world, does not evil hate good as naturally as good recoils from evil? but this one has another cause also!" she hesitated. "and you yourself? how have you challenged and mocked it this very night? here, where it glooms, you have dared bring the high joy of the artist who creates? oh, brave, brave!--he who could await alone the visit of the unspeakable, in the chamber into which the loathsome eyes have looked, and write the music of hope and beauty!" i started, with a hot rush of surprise and pleasure. she had heard my work. she approved it. more than that, not to her was i the lame fellow who ought to get a better man to drive his car! "nor should you, who have two worlds of your own," she added in a lower tone, "doubt the existence of many both dark and bright. go, then, out of this haunted place where a human madness broke through the barrier. be satisfied with the victories you have had. let the visits of the dark one fade into mere nightmare; and know i am no more a living woman than franchina descartes." "who was she?" "have you not read that early in the seventeenth century there appeared in paris the philosopher descartes, accompanied by the figure of a beautiful woman? she moved, spoke, and seemed life itself; but descartes declared she was an automaton, a masterpiece of mechanism he himself had made. yet many refused to believe his story, declaring he had by sorcery compelled a spirit to serve him in this form. he called her franchina, his daughter." "and the truth?" "i have told you all the record tells. she was soon lost. descartes took her with him upon a journey by sea; when, a storm arising, the superstitious captain of the vessel threw the magic beauty into the mediterranean." "thank you. but, are you fairy or automaton?" "do not laugh," she exclaimed with sudden passion. "you know i would say that i have no part in the world of men and women. not through me shall the ancient dread seize a new life. a little time, now, then the doors will close upon me as the sea closed over franchina. i will not take with me the memory of a wrong done to you. i shall never come to this house after tonight. if you would give me a happiness, promise me you will leave, too." i had known we should come to this point. after a moment, i spoke as quietly as i could: "tell me your name." she had not expected that question. i think she might have withheld the answer, given time to reflect. but as it was, she replied docilely as a bidden child: "desire michell." the name fell quaintly on both hearing and fancy, with a rustle of early new england tradition. desire! i repeated it inwardly with satisfaction before i answered her. "thank you. now, i, roger locke, do promise you, desire michell, that i will not leave this house until these matters are plainer to my understanding, whether you go or stay. but if you go and come no more, then i surely shall stay until i find a way to trace you or until the thing kills me." "no!" "yes." there was a pause. then, to my utter dismay, i heard her sobbing through the dark. "why do you tempt me?" she reproached. "is it not hard enough, my duty? for me it is such pleasure to be here--to leave for a while the loneliness and chill of my narrow place! but you, so rich in all things, free and happy--how should it matter to you if a voice in the dark speaks or is silent? let me go." wonder and exulting sense of power filled me. "i can keep you, then?" i asked. "i am--so weak." "desire michell, i am as alone as you can be, in my real life. i have gone apart from much that occupies men and women; gaining and losing in different ways. one of the gains is freedom to dispose of myself without grief or loss to anyone, except the perfunctory regret of friends. will you believe there is no risk that i would not take for a few hours with you? even with your voice in the dark? come to me as you can, let us take what time we may, and the chances be mine." "but that is folly! you do not know. to protect you i must go." "i refuse the protection. stay! if there is sorrow in knowing you, i accept it. i understand nothing. i only beg you not to turn me back to the commonplace emptiness of life before i found you. indeed, i will not be sent away." "if i yield, you will reproach me some day." "never." "it could only be like this--that we should speak a few times before the gates close upon me." "what gates?" "i cannot tell you." "very well," i took what the moment would grant me. "that is a bargain. yet, what safety lies in secrecy between us? if we are to help each other, as i hope, would not plain openness be best? you will tell me no more about yourself? very well. tell me something more about the enemy in the dark whom i am to meet. you have hinted that it has a special motive for fixing hate upon me beyond mere malignance toward mankind. what is that motive?" "ask me not," she faintly refused me. "i do ask you. my ignorance of everything concerned is a heavy drawback in this combat. arm me with a little understanding. what moves it against me?" the pause following was filled with a sense of difficulty and recoil, her struggle against some terrible reluctance. so painful was that effort, somehow clearly communicated to me, that i was about to devour my curiosity and withdraw the question when her whisper just reached my hearing: "jealousy!" "jealousy? of what? for whom?" "for--me." the monstrous implication sank slowly into my understanding; then brought me erect, gripping the edge of the table lest i forget restraint and move toward her. "by what right?" i cried. "by what claim? desire michell, what has the horror to do with you?" the vehemence and heat of my cry struck a shock through the hushed room distinct as the shattering of crystal. there was no answer, no movement; no rebuke of my movement. i was alone. with that confession she had fled. my cry had been louder than i knew. presently i heard a door open. steps sounded along the hall from the rooms on the opposite side of the house. someone knocked hesitatingly. "are you all right, mr. locke?" vere's voice came through the panels. i crossed to the door and opened it. he stood at the threshold, an electric torch in his hand. "we thought you called," he apologized. "i thought maybe you were sick, or wanted something; and no light showed around your door." i found the wall switch and turned on the lamps. as on the last occasion, she had switched the lights off there, beyond my reach unless i broke my promise not to move about the room while she remained my guest. "come in," i invited him. "much obliged to you and phillida for looking me up! i had been working late and dropped asleep in my chair, with a nightmare as the result." it was pleasant to have his normal presence, prosaic in bathrobe and pajamas, in my cheerfully lighted room. his dark eyes glanced toward the music-scrawled papers scattered about, then returned to meet my eyes smilingly. "we heard some of that work," he admitted. "phil and i--well, i guess we were guilty of sitting on the stairs to hear you play it over. i never listened to a tune that took hold of me, kind of, like that one. we'd certainly prize hearing all of it together, sometime, if you didn't mind." the warmth of achievement flowed again in me. i crossed to the piano to assemble the finished sheets, answering him with one of those expressions of thanks artists use to cloak modestly their sleek inward vanity. i was really grateful for this first criticism that soothed me back to the reality of my own world. across the top of the uppermost sheet of music, in small, square script quaint as the pomander, was written a quotation strange to me: "we walk upon the shadows of hills across a level thrown, and pant like climbers." i did not know that i had read the words aloud until vere answered them. "so we do! i guess there is more panting over shadows and less real mountain-climbing done by us humans than most folks would believe. most roads turn off to easy ways before we reach the hills we make such a fuss about. who wrote that, mr. locke?" "i don't know," i replied vaguely, intent upon desire michell's meaning in leaving this to me. he nodded, and turned leisurely to go. "kind of seems to me as if he must have felt like you did when you wrote that piece tonight," he observed diffidently. "as if trouble did not amount to much, taken right. i'll get back to phil, now. she might be anxious." could that be what desire had meant me to understand? was there indeed some quality of courage----? that is why my most successful composition from the standpoint of money and popularity went to the publisher under the title, "shadows of hills." of course no one connected the allusion. the general interpretation was best expressed by the cover design of the first printing: a sketch of a mountain-shaded lake on which floated a canoe containing two young persons. i was well pleased to have it so. but--in what land unknown to man towered the vast mountains in whose shadow i panted and strove? or was my foot indeed upon the mountain itself? i did not know. i do not know, now. chapter xi "if the dreamer finds himself in an unknown place, ignorant of the country and the people, let him be aware that such place is to be understood of the other world."--oneirocritica achmetis. in the morning i drove down to new york. there were affairs demanding attention. also, i was pressed by an eagerness to get my over-night work into the hands of the publisher. to be exact, i wanted to put the manuscript out of reach of the thing at the house. without reason, i had awakened with that instinct strong within me. the atmosphere of the city was tonic. merely driving through the friendly, crowded streets was an exhilaration. the practical employment of the day broomed away fantastic cobwebs. in the evening i turned toward connecticut with a feeling of leaving home behind me. but i would not stay away from the house for a night, risking that desire michell might come and find me missing. she might believe i had been seized by cowardice and deserted. she might never return. i will not deny that i had lied to her. there was no intention in me of accepting her fleeting visits as the utmost she could give. i meant to snatch her out of darkness and mystery, to set her in the wholesome sunlight where phillida flitted happily. if i could prevent, those gates of which she vaguely spoke never should close between us. but it was plain that i must tread warily. once frightened away, how could she be found? her home, her history, even her face, were unknown to me. tracing her by a perfume and a tress of hair had been tried, and failed. of her connection with the dark thing i refused to think too deeply. her connection with me must come first. it was not until i passed the cottage of mrs. hill, glimmering whitely in the starlight, where the road made an angle toward the farm, that i recalled our talk in her "best room." "_the michell family always owned it. the reverend cotton mather michell went to foreign parts for missionary work twenty years ago and died there----_" my lady of the night was desire michell. a clue? "_he never married, so the family's run out._" it was damp here in the hollow where the road dipped down. a chill ran coldly over me. arrived at the garage which had taken the place of our tumble-down barn, i put the car away as quietly as possible. ten o'clock had struck as i passed through the last village, and our household was asleep. moving without unnecessary noise, i crossed to the house. bagheera, the cat, padded across the porch to meet me and rubbed himself around my legs while i stooped to put the latch-key in the lock. as the key slid in place, i heard the waterfall over the dam abruptly change the sound of its flow, swelling and accelerating as when a gust of wind hurries a greater volume of water over the brink. but there was no wind. immediately followed that sound from the lake which i can liken to nothing better than the smack of huge lips unclosing, or the suck of a thick body drawing itself from a bed of mud. the cat thrust himself violently between my feet and pressed against the house-door uttering a whimpering mew of urgency. startled, i looked in the direction of the lake. at this distance it showed as a mere expanse of darkness, only the reflection of a star here and there revealing the surface as water. what else could be shown, i rebuked my nerves by querying of them; and turned the key. bagheera rushed into the hall when the door opened wide enough to admit his body. i followed more sedately and closed the door behind us both. now i was not acquainted with bagheera's night privileges. did phillida allow him in the house, or not? after an instant's consideration, i bent and picked him up from his repose on the hall rug. he should spend the night shut in with me, out of mischief yet comfortable. purring in the curve of my arm, he was carried upstairs without objection on his part. until we reached my room! on its threshold i felt his body stiffen; his yellow eyes snapped open alertly. cat antipathy to a strange place, i reflected, amused, as i switched on the lights. "all right, bagheera," i spoke soothingly, and put him upon the rug. he bounded erect, fur bristling, tail lashing from side to side after the fashion of a miniature panther. when i stooped to stroke him, he eluded my hand. in a gliding run, body crouched, ears flattened, he sped toward the doorway, was through it and gone. well, i decided, he could not be pursued all through the house. it would be easier to explain him to phillida next morning. i was tired; pleasantly tired. the day had been filled with the enthusiasm and congratulations of my associates, with conferences and plans for launching the new music via theatres and advertising. it ought to "go big," they assured me. in my optimism of mood, i wondered if i had not already driven off the dark thing, since the girl had come to me the night past without it appearing before or afterward. perhaps, woman-timid, she exaggerated the danger and it had retreated after the second failure to overpower me. i fell asleep with a tranquil conviction that nothing would disturb my rest this night. * * * * * stillness enveloped me, absolute, desolate. silence contained me. yet the thought of another scorched against my understanding in a burning communication of intelligence. "man," it commanded, "i am here. fear!" and i knew that which was my body did fear to the point of death, but that which was myself stood up in revolt. "crouch," it bade. "crouch, pygmy, and beg. fear! the blood crawls in the veins, the heart checks, the nerves shrink and wither--man, your life wanes thin and faint. down--shall your race affront mine?" my heart did stagger and beat slow. life crept a sluggish current. but there was another force that stiffened to resistance, and gathered itself to compact strength within me. "no," my thought refused the dark intelligence. "i am not yours. command your own, not me." "weakling, you have touched that which is mine. into my path you have dared step. back--for in my breath you die!" the air my lungs drew in was foul and poisonous. with more and more difficulty my heart labored. confused memories came to me of men found dead in their beds in haunted rooms. would morning find me so? better that way than to yield to the thing! better---- i struggled erect; or fancied so. now i saw myself as one who stood with folded arms fronting a breach in a colossal wall. huge, immeasurably huge that cliff reared itself beyond the sight and ranged away on either side into unknown distances, dully glistening like gray ice, unbroken save in this place. the gray strand on which i stood was a narrow strip following the foot of the wall. behind me lay a vast, unmoving ocean banked over with an all-concealing mist. not a ripple stirred along that weird beach, or a ray changed the fixed gray twilight. and i was afraid, for my danger was not of the common dangers of mankind, but that which freezes the blood of man when he draws near the supernatural; the ancient fear. i stood there, while sweat poured painfully from me, and fronted my enemy who pressed me hard. the thing was at the breach, couched in the great cleft that split the barrier, darkness within darkness. unseen, i felt the glare of its hate beat upon me. from it emanated deathly cold, like the nearness of an iceberg in the night, with an odor of damp and mold. "puny earth-dweller, lost here," its menace breathed, "what keeps you from destruction? for you the circle has not been traced nor the pentagram fixed, for you no law has been thrust down. trespass is death. die, then." only my will held it from me, and i felt that will reel in sickened bewilderment. i had no strength to answer, only the steadfast instinct to oppose. the thing did not pass. there in the breach it ravened for me, thrust itself toward me, pressed against the thin veil of separation between us. i saw nothing, yet knew where it raised itself, gigantic in formlessness more dreadful than any shape. its whispered threats broke against me like an evil surf. "man, the prey is mine. would you challenge me? the woman is mine by the pact of centuries. save yourself. escape." the woman? startled wonder filled me. was i then fighting for desire michell? out of the air i was answered as if her voice had spoken; certainty came to grip me as if with her small hands. she had no help but in me. if i fell, she fell. if i stood firm----? exultant resolve flared strong and high within me. my will to protect leaped forward. the thing shrank. it dwindled back through the gap in the barrier. but as it fled, a last venomous message drifted to me: "again! and again! tire but once, pygmy----!" * * * * * i was sitting up in bed in my lighted room, my fingers clutching the chain of the lamp beside me. was some dark bulk just fading from beyond my window? or was i still dreaming? i was trembling with cold, drenched as with water so that my relaxing hand made a wet mark on the table beneath the lamp. this much might have been caused by nightmare. but what sane man had nightmares like these? when i was able, i rose, changed to dry garments and wrapped myself in a heavy bathrobe. there was an electric coffee service in my room kept for occasions when i worked late into the night. i made strong black coffee now and drank it as near boiling as practicable. presently the blood again moved warmly in my veins. then i knew that the chill in the room was not a delusion of my chilled body. i was warm, yet the air around me remained moist and cold, unlike a summer night. it seemed air strangely thickened and soiled, as pure water may be muddied by the passage of some unclean body. in this atmosphere persisted a fetid smell of mold and decay, warring with the homely scent of coffee and the fragrance of the pomander beneath my pillow. i was more shaken, more exhausted by this encounter with the unknown than by either of my former experiences. a fact which drove home the grim farewell of my enemy! _tire but once, pygmy----!_ desire herself had foretold that the dark thing would wear me down. well, perhaps! but not without fighting for its victory. at least i would be no supine victim. already i had forced my way--where? where was that barrier before which i had stood? awe sank coldly through me at memory of that colossal land where i was pygmy indeed, an insolent human intruder upon the unhuman. what other shapes of dread stalked and watched beyond that titanic wall? by what swollen conceit could i hope to win against them? i would not consider escape by flight, even if the end had been certain destruction. but my head sank to my hands beneath the weight of a profound depression and discouragement. it was the hour before dawn, traditionally the worst for man. the hour superstition sets apart for its own, when the life flame burns lowest. at a distance a dog had treed some little wood creature, and bayed monotonously. there was a weakness at the core of my strength. i waged this combat for the sake of desire michell. _but what was she to whom the thing laid claim by the pact of centuries?_ darkness began to tinge with light. pale gray filtered into the dusk with grudging slowness. as day approached i saw that a fog enfolded the house in vapor, stealing into the room in coils and swirls like thin smoke. the lamps looked sickly and dim. i forced away my languor, rose and walked to the nearest window. something was moving up the slope from the lake; a dim shape about which the fog clung in steamy billows. my shaken nerves thrilled unpleasantly. what stirred at this empty hour? what should loom so tall? a moment later the figure was near enough to be distinguished as ethan vere, bearing several long fishing-rods over his shoulder. "vere!" i hailed him, with mingled relief and utter disgust with myself. "anything going on so early?" he looked up at me--i never saw vere startled--and came on to stop beneath the window. taking off his cap, he ran his fingers through his black curls, pushing their wetness from his forehead. i noticed how the mists painted him with a spectral pallor. "good morning, mr. locke," he greeted me. "just as i've been thinking, there are some big snapping-turtles about the lake and creek. i guessed there'd be some war between them and me before that water was safe for use! one of the fellows dragged a duck under, drowned it and started feeding right before my eyes, just now." "we will have to get a canoe." he nodded placid assent. "that'll look pretty on the lake. phillida will like it. but i guess i'll keep a homely old flat-bottomed punt out of sight around some corner for work. the other craft goes over too prompt for jobs like mine, and don't hold enough. i'm going to fetch my rifle, now. i'd admire to blow that duck-eater's ugly head off." "i will get into some clothes and be right with you," i invited myself to the hunt. "i'd like to have you," he replied with his quaint politeness. there were times when i could visualize vere's new england mother as if i had known her. the human interlude had been enough to dispel the black humors of the night. when i was ready to go out, i opened the drawer that held the copper-bronze braid and took it into my hand. how vital with youth its crisp resilience felt in my clasp, i thought; young, too, were its luxuriance and shining color. nonsense, indeed, to fancy ghostliness here or the passing of musty centuries over the head that had worn this tress! a flood of reassurance rose high in me. whatever the thing might be, i would trust the girl desire michell. yes, and for her i would stand fast at that barrier until victory declared for the enemy or for me. until it passed me, it should not reach her. i went downstairs to join vere. the brightening mist was cool and fresh. there was neither horror nor defeat in the promise of the morning. chapter xii "in vain i called on rest to come and stay. we were but seated at the festival of many covers, when one cried: 'away!'" --rose garden of sa'adi. now i entered a time of experiences differing at every point, yet interwoven closely, so that my days might compare to a rope whose strands are of violently contrasted colors. the rope would be inharmonious, startling to the eye, but strong to bind and hold. as i was bound and held! all day i lived in the wholesome household atmosphere evoked by vere and phillida. it is impossible to describe the sunny charm they created about the commonplace. our gay, simple breakfasts where phillida presided in crisp middy blouse or flowered smock; where the gray cat sat on the arm of vere's chair, speculative yellow eye observant of his master's carving, while the swedish cristina served us her good food with the spice of an occasional comment on farm or neighborhood events--how perfect a beginning for the day! how stale beside our breeze-swept table was any board at which i had ever sat! i do declare that i have never seen a more winning face than the bright one of my little cousin whom her world had pronounced "plain." vere and i basked in her sunbeams gratefully. afterward, we each had our work. of the three, vere was the most industrious; slow, steady and unsparing of himself to a degree that accomplished surprising results. phillida flitted over the place indoors and out, managing the house, following vere about, driving to village or town with me on purchasing trips for our supplies. i did rather more of my own work than usual, that summer, and consequently had more of the commercial side to employ me. a healthy, normal life? yes--until the hours between midnight and dawn. i never knew when i laid down at night whether i should sleep until sun and morning overlay the countryside; whether the whispering call of desire michell would summon me to an hour more exquisite than reality, less satisfying than a dream, or whether i should leap into consciousness of the loathsome eyes fixed coldly malignant upon me while my enemy's inhuman hate groped toward me across the darkness its presence fouled. for my two guests kept their promises. if i speak briefly of the coming of the thing during this time, i do so because the mind shrinks from past pain. it came again, and again. it craftily used the torture of irregularity in its coming. for days there might be a respite, then it would haunt me nights in succession until my physical endurance was almost spent. i have stood before the breach in that barrier, fighting that nightmare duel, until the place of colossal desolation, last frontier the human race might hope to keep, became as well known to me as a landscape on earth. yet the effect of the thing's assaults upon me never lessened. on the contrary, the horror gained in strength. a dreadful familiarity grew between it and me. communication flowed more readily between us with use. i will not set down, perhaps i dare not set down the intolerable wickedness of its alternate menaces and offered bribes. contact with its intelligence poisoned. there were nights when it was dumb, when all its monstrous power concentrated and bore upon me, its will to destroy locked with my will. my victory was that i lived. * * * * * in the shadow, desire michell and i drew closer to one another. how can i tell of a love that grew without sight? so much of the love of romance and history is a matter of flower-petal complexions, heart-consuming eyes, satin lips, and all the form and color that make beauty. how can i make clear a love that grew strong and passionately demanding, knew delicate coquetries of advance and evasion, intimacy of minds like the meeting of eyes in understanding--all in the dark? the blind might comprehend. but the blind have a physical communication we had not; touch has enchantments of its own. every night, near midnight, i switched off the lights and waited in the chair at my writing-table, where i was accustomed to work. if she had not come by two o'clock, i learned to know she would not visit me that night. i might sleep in that certainty. a strange tryst i kept there in the dark; listening to the flow of the waterfall from the lake, loud in that dead hour's stillness, or hearing the soft, incessant sounds of insect life awake in trees and fields. if she came--a drift of perfume, a movement slight as a curtain stirred by the wind, then an hour with such a companion as the ancient magician might have drawn out of the air to his nine mystic lamps. strange, fantastic tales she told me, spun of fancies luminous and frail as threads of glass. she could not speak without betraying her deep learning in sciences rejected and forgotten by the modern world. alchemy, astrology, geomancy furnished her speech with allusions blank to my ignorance; which she most gently and politely enlightened when i confessed. i learned that the green lion of paracelsus was not a beast, but a recipe for making gold; that salamandar's feather was better known today as asbestos; and that the emerald table was by no means an article of furniture. i give these examples merely by way of illustration. on the other side of the shield held between us, i soon discovered that she knew no more of modern city life than a well-taught child who has never left home. she listened eagerly to accounts of theatres and restaurants. the history of phillida and ethan vere seemed to her more moving and wonderful than any story she could tell me. i was amazed and humbled to find that she rated my ability to make music as a lofty art among the occult sciences. of the evil thing that haunted me, we came to say little. to press her with questions meant to end her visit, i found by experience. when i spoke of that strand between the barrier and the gray mist-hidden sea, her passion of distress closed all intercourse with the plea that i go away at once, while escape was possible, while life remained mine. so for the most part i curbed my tongue and my consuming curiosity; not from consideration, but of necessity. one night i asked her how the dark thing spoke to me, by what medium of communication. "spirits of all orders can speak to man in every language, so long as they are face to face," she answered, with a faint surprise at my lack of knowledge. "'_when they turn to man, they come into use of his language and no longer remember their own, but as soon as they turn from man they resume their own language, and forget his._' "but they themselves are unaware of this fact, for they utter thought to thought by direct intelligence. so if angel or demon turns his back to you, roger, you may not make him hear you though you call with great force." "how do you know that, desire?" "but by simple reading! do not ennemoser and many writers record it?" "have you spoken to such beings, desire?" the question was rash, but it escaped me before i could check the impulse. to my relief, she answered without resentment: "no." "no? the thing--the enemy that comes to me has never spoken to you?" "no." i was silent in amazement and incredulity. the dark creature claimed her, she declared herself helpless to escape from that dominion into normal life, and yet it never had spoken to her? it spoke to me, a stranger most ignorant, and not to the seeress who was familiar with its existence and the lore which linked humanity to its fearful kind? "you do not believe me," her voice came quietly across my thoughts. "i believe you, of course," i stammered. "i was only--astonished. you have described it, and the barrier, so often; from the first night----! i supposed you had seen all i have, and more." "all you have seen? now tell me with what eyes you have seen the barrier and the far frontier? the eyes of the body, or that vision by which man sees in a dream and which is to the sight as the speech of spirits is to the hearing?" "i suppose--with the inner sight." "then understand me when i say that i have seen with the eyes of another, by a sight not mine and yet my own." "you mean," i floundered in vague doubts and jealousy of her human associations of which i knew nothing. "you mean--hypnotism?" she laughed with half-sad raillery. "how shall i answer you, roger? once upon a time, the jewel called beryl was thought unrivaled as a mirror into which a magician might look to see reflected events taking place at a distance, or reflections of the future. but by and by magicians grew wiser. they found any crystal would serve as well as a beryl. later still, they found a little water poured in a basin or held in the hollow of the hand showed as true a fantasm. so one wrote: '_there is neither crystallomancy nor hydromancy, but the magick is in the seer himself._'" "well, desire?" "well, roger--if to see with the sight of another is hypnotism, then every man who writes a book or tells a good tale is a hypnotist; every historian who makes us see the past is a necromancer." "you read of the thing----?" "no," she replied, after a long pause. "i knew it through sympathy with one who died as i would not have you to die, my friend roger, of whom i shall think long in that place to which i go presently. question me no more. when the time comes for you to throw a certain braid of hair and a pomander into the fire----" "i will never do that!" "no? well, you might keep the pomander, which is pure gold engraved with ancient signs and the name of the shining dawn, dahana, in sanskrit characters. also the perfume it contains is precious, being blent with the herb vervain which is powerful against evil spirits." "it is not the pomander that i should keep, nor the pomander that holds the powerful spell." "you--value the braid so much?" "i value only one other beauty as highly." "yes, roger?" "yes, desire. and that beauty is she who wore the braid." now the darkness in the room was dense. yet i thought i sensed a movement toward me as airy as the flutter of a bird's wing. the fragrance in the atmosphere eddied as if stirred by her passing. but when i spoke to her again, after a moment's waiting, she had gone. i am sure no housekeeper was ever more nice in her ideas of neatness than my little cousin phillida, and no maid more exact in carrying out orders than cristina. nevertheless, automobiles pass on the quietest roads, and my windows are always wide open. there is the fireplace, too, with possibilities of soot. anyhow, there was a light gray dust overlaying the writing-table on the following morning. and in the dust was a print as if a small hand had rested there, a yard from my chair. a slim hand it must have been. i judged the palm had been daintily cupped, the fingers slender, smooth and long in proportion to the absurd size of the whole affair. my hand covered it without brushing an outline. i could not put this souvenir away with the braid and the pomander. but i could put its evidence with their witness of desire michell's reality. chapter xiii "for may not the divell send to their fantasie, their senses being dulled and as it were asleep, such hills and glistering courts whereunto he pleaseth to delude them?"--king james' "demonology." now i have to record how i walked into the oldest snare in the world. perhaps it was the sense of her near presence brought home to me by her hand-print on the table so close to where my hand rested; perhaps it was her speech of presently leaving me to return no more. or perhaps both these joined in urging on my determination to learn more of desire michell before some unknown bar fell between us. i only know that i passed into a mood of trapped exasperation at my helplessness and lack of knowledge. it seemed imperative that i should act to save us both, act soon and surely; yet inaction was bound upon me by my ignorance. who was she? where did she live? what bond held her subject to the thing from the barrier? what gates were to close between us? why could she not put her hand in mine, any night, and let me take her away from this haunted place? why, at least, not come to me in the light, and let me see her face to face? i was a man groping in a labyrinth while outside something precious to him is being stolen. for the first time i found myself unable to work, unable to share our household life with phillida and vere, or to find relaxation in driving about the countryside. anger against desire herself stirred at the bottom of my mind; desire, who hampered me by the word of honor in which she had netted me so securely. it was then that my enemy from the unknown places began to whisper of the book. i encountered that enemy in a new mood. we did not meet at the breach in the mighty wall, confronted in death conflict between its will and mine. instead, night after night it crept to my window as at our first meeting. i started awake to find its awful presence blackening the starlight where it crouched opposite me, its intelligence breathing against mine. as always, my human organism shrank from its unhuman neighborhood. chill and repugnance shook my body, while that part of me which was not body battled against nightmare paralysis of horror. but now it did not menace or strive against me. it displayed a dreadful suavity i might liken to the coiling and uncoiling of those great snakes who are reported to mesmerize their prey by looping movements and figures melting from change to change in the hunger dance of kaa. there was a book that held all i longed to know, it whispered to me. a book telling of the woman! she did not wish me to read, for fear i should grow overwise and make her mine. the book was here, in my house. i might arise and find--if i would be guided by it----! i thrust the whispers away. how could i trust my enemy? if such a book existed, which seemed improbable, there was a taint of disloyalty to desire in the thought of reading without her knowledge. the thing was not turned away. how could i do harm by learning what she was, unless she had evil to conceal? did i fear to know the truth? as for the book's existence, i had only to accept guidance from it----? i persisted in refusal. but the idea of the book followed me through my days like a wizard's familiar dogging me. where could such a volume be hidden, in what secret nook in wall or floor? how came a book to be written about the girl i supposed young, unknown and set apart from the world? was i letting slip an opportunity by my fastidious notions of delicacy? indecision and curiosity tormented me beyond rest. phillida and vere began to consider me with puzzled eyes. cristina developed a habit of cooking individual dishes of especial succulence and triumphantly setting them before me as a "surprise"; a kindness which of course obliged me to eat whether i was hungry or not. i suspect my little cousin abetted her in this transparent ruse. i pleaded the heat as an excuse for all. we were in late august now. cicadas sang their dry chant in the fields, where the sun glared down upon vere's crops and painted him the fine bronze of an indian. our lake scarcely stirred under the hot, still air. it was after a day of such heat, succeeded by a night hardly more cool, that the lights in my room quietly went out. i was sitting at my table, some letters which required answers spread before me while i brooded, pen between my fingers, upon the mystery which had become my life. for the moment i attributed the sudden failure of light to some accident at the powerhouse. not for long! the hateful cold that crept like freezing vapor into the room, the foul air of damp and corruption pouring into the scented country atmosphere, the frantic revolt of body and nerves--before i turned my eyes to the window i knew the monster from the frontier crouched there. "weakling!" it taunted me. "puny from of old, how should you prevail? by your fear, the woman stays mine. miserable earth-crawler, in whose hand the weapon was laid and who shrinking let it fall unused, the end comes." "the book?" i gasped, against my better judgment. "the book was the weapon." "no, or you would not have offered it to me." "coward, believe so. hug the belief while you may. the offer is past." past? a madness of bafflement and frustrated curiosity gripped and shook me. "i take the offer," i cried in passion and defiance. "if there is such a book, show it to me!" the thing was gone. light quietly filled the lamps--or was it that i had opened my eyes? i gripped the arms of my chair, waiting. for what? i did not know. only, all the horror i ever had felt in the presence of the thing was slight compared to the fear that presently began to flow upon me as an icy current. there in the pleasantly lighted room, alone, i sank through depths of dread, down into an abyss of despair, down---- a long sigh of rising wind passed through the house like a sucked breath of triumph. windows and doors drew in and out against their frames with a rattling crash, then hung still with unnatural abruptness. absolute stillness succeeded. i felt a very slight shock, as if the ground at my feet was struck. i fled from the terror for the first time. yes, coward at last, deserter from that unseen frontier's defense, i found myself in the hall outside my room, leaning sick and faint against the wall. behind me the door shut violently, yet i felt no current of air to move it. from the other side of the house there sounded the click of latch, then a patter of soft-shod feet. phillida came hurrying down the hall toward me. she was wrapped in some silky pink-flowered garment. her short hair stood out around her head like a little girl's well-brushed crop. she presented as endearingly natural a figure, i thought, as any man could seek or imagine. the wisdom of ethan vere who had garnered his love here! "cousin?" she exclaimed. "the hall light is so dim! you almost frightened me when i glimpsed you standing there. did the wind wake you, too? i think we are going to have a thunder storm, it is so hot and gusty. i heard poor bagheera mewing and scratching at the door, so i was just going down to let him in before the rain comes." "yes," i achieved. then, finding my voice secure: "i will let in the cat. where is vere?" "he did not wake up, so i tiptoed out. why?" "i do not like to have you going about the house alone at this hour." her eyes widened and she laughed outright. "why, cousin roger! what a funny idea to have about our very own house! i have one of the electric flashlights you bought for us all; see?" what could i tell her of my vision of her womanly softness and timidity brought to bay by the thing of horror, down in those empty lower rooms? how did i know it stalked no prey but me? its clutch was upon desire michell. these were its hours, between midnight and dawn. "tramps," i explained evasively. "give me the light." but she pattered down the stairs beside me, kimono lifted well above her pink-flowered slippers, one hand on the balustrade. the light glinted in the white topaz that guarded her wedding ring, a richer jewel than any diamond in the sight of one who knew the tender thought with which she had set it there. no! the horror was not for her, clothed in her wholesome goodness as in armor of proof. surely for such as she the barrier stood unbreached and strong. when i opened the front door, bagheera darted in like a hunted cat. a drift of mist entered with him. looking out, i saw the night was heavy with a low-hanging fog that scarcely rose to the tree tops; a ground-mist that eddied in smoke-like waves of gray where our light fell upon it. such mists were common here, yet i shivered and shut it out with relief. while i refastened the lock, bagheera purred around my ankles, pressing caressingly against me as if thanking me after the manner of cats. i remembered this was not the first time he had shown this anxiety and gratitude for shelter. "bagheera does love you," phillida commented, stooping to pat him. "isn't it funny, though, that he never will go into your room? he is always petting around you downstairs. when cristina or i are doing up your quarters, he will follow us right up to the door-sill, but we can't coax him inside. perhaps he doesn't like that perfume you always have about." a qualm ran through me, recalling the night i had taken the cat there by force and its frantic escape. but i snapped the key fast and straightened myself with sharp self-contempt. had i fallen so low as to heed the caprices of a pet cat? was it not enough that i had fled from my enemy after accepting the knowledge it had striven so long to force upon me? for i had that knowledge. when i had halted in the passage outside my room, in the moment before phillida had joined me, there had been squarely set before my mental sight the place to seek the book. "phillida, there was a bookcase in this house when it was bought," i said. "i believe it stood in my room before the place was altered. a small stand; i remember putting my candle on its top the first night i slept here. have you seen it?" some tone in my question seemed to touch her expression with surprise as she lifted her eyes to mine; or perhaps it was the hour i chose for the inquiry. "oh, yes," she answered readily. "i supposed you had noticed it long ago; i mean, where it stands. the quaintest bit, a genuine antique! and holding the stuffiest collection of old books, too! i believe they may be valuable, out-of-print, early editions. if," her voice faltered wistfully, "if father ever forgives me for being happy with ethan, and comes to visit us, he would love every musty old volume. do you think mother and he ever will, cousin roger?" "i am sure they will, phil. feuds and tragic parents are out of date. they must adjust themselves gradually when they realize vere is--himself. before you go upstairs to him, will you tell me where to find that bookcase?" "now? why, of course!" she led me across the hall to her sewing room. i cannot say that she sewed there very much, but she had chosen that title in preference to boudoir or study as more becoming a housewife. she had assembled here a spinning-wheel from the attic, some samplers, a hepplewhite sewing-table and chairs discovered about the house. her canaries' cage hung above a great punch-bowl of flowered ware in which she kept gold-fish. a pipe of vere's balanced beside the bowl showed that his masculine presence was not excluded. in a corner stood the bookcase. phillida pulled the chain of a lamp bright under a shade of peacock chintz, and watched me stoop to look at the faded bindings. "thank you, phil," i said. "it may take some time to find the book i want. you had better hurry back to bed before vere comes hunting for a missing wife." "are you going to stay and hunt for the book tonight, then?" "unless you are afraid i shall disturb your canaries?" she did not laugh. drawing nearer, she stroked my sleeve with a caressing doubt and remonstrance. "but you have not been to bed at all, and soon it will be morning! do you have to write your lovely music at night, cousin roger? you have been growing thin and tired, this summer. are you quite well? you are so good that you should be happy, but--are you?" "good, phil?" i wondered, touched. "why, how did your lazy, tune-spinning, frivolous cousin get that reputation in this branch of the family?" "you are so kind," she said simply. "ethan says so. you know, cousin roger, that i was over-educated in my childhood; my brain choked with little, little stupid knowledge that hardly matters at all. we went to church sundays because that was the correct thing to do. but i was almost a heathen when ethan married me. he doesn't trouble about church. he doesn't trouble about the past, or life after death, or punishment for sin. he believes if one tries to be kind and straight, the big kindness and straightness takes care of everything. so i have learned to feel that way, too. it is a--a calm sort of feeling all the time, if you know what i mean. and that is the way you are good, although perhaps you never thought of it." "thank you, phillida," i acknowledged; and walked with her to the foot of the stairs. when her pink-clad figure had vanished behind her bedroom door, i went back to the sewing room and drew up a chair before the case of books. phillida had not unreasonably stigmatized them as stuffy. they were a sober collection. burton's "anatomy of melancholy," an ancient copy of the apocrypha, and a three-volume life of martin luther loaded the first shelf. i looked at the second shelf and found it filled with the bound sermons of a divine of whom i had never heard. the lowest shelf held strange companions for the sedate volumes above. erudite works on theosophy, magic, the interpretation of dreams and demonology huddled together here. not all of them were readable by my humble store of learning. there was a latin copy of artemidorus, mesmer's "shepherd," mathew paris, some volumes in greek, and some i judged to be arabian and hebrew. at the end of the row stood a thin, dingy book whose title had passed out of legibility. i took it out and opened the covers. fronting the first page was a faded woodcut, the portrait of a woman. beneath in old long-s type, dim on the yellowed paper, was printed the legend: "_desire michell, ye foule witch._" closing the book, i forced reason to come forward. i was resolved that panic should not drive me again nor my defense fall from within its walls. master of my enemy i might never be; master of my own inner kingdom i must and should be. but i was glad to be here instead of upstairs while i read; glad of the interlude in phillida's company, and of the presence of the three sleepy canaries who blinked down at the disturbing lamp. the date stamped into the back of the book in roman numerals was of a year in the seventeen hundreds. what connection could its desire michell have with the girl i knew? perhaps she had adopted the name to mystify me. or at most, she might be of the family of that unfortunate woman branded witch by a bigoted generation. reopening the book, i studied the dim, stiff portrait. the face was young, delicate of line, with long eyes set wide apart; eyes that even in this wretched picture kept a curious drowsy watchfulness. the inevitable white puritan cap was worn, but curls clustered about the brow and two massive braids descended over either shoulder. the perfumed bronze-colored braid up in my drawer----? the volume was entitled "some manifestations of satan in witchcraft in ye colonies," by abimelech fetherstone. disregarding the satanic manifestations set forth in the other four chronicles, i turned to "ye foule witch, desire michell." as i began to read, another breath of wind sighed through the house, sucking windows and doors in and out with the shock of sound, instantly ended, that is produced by a distant explosion. i thought a flash of lightning whipped across my eyes. but when i glanced toward the windows i saw only the smoke-like fog banked in drifts against the panes. chapter xiv "beauty is a witch--" --much ado about nothing. i will tear the core out of many yellow pages of diffuse writing spiced with smug moral reflections. desire michell had been no traditional old hag, hideous and malevolent; no pallid, raving epileptic to accuse herself in shrieking tales of black men, and sabbats, and harm done to neighbors' cattle or crops. her father was a clergyman who brought his goods and his motherless daughter from england to the colonies, and settled in "ye pequot marsh country." there he found a congregation, and they lived much respected. their culture appeared to be far beyond that of their few, hard-working neighbors. young mistress michell was reputed learned in the use of simples, among other arts, and to have been "of a beauty exceeding the custom among godly women, to so great degree that sorcery should have been suspected of her." however, sorcery was not suspected; not even when her fame spread among near-dwelling indian tribes who gave her a name signifying _water on which the sun is shining_. admiration was her portion, then, with all the suitors the vicinity held. but from fastidiousness or ambition she refused every proposal made to her father for her. she walked aloof and alone, until another sort of wooer came to the gate of the minister's house. this man's full name was not given, apparently through the writer's cautious respect for place and influence. he was vaguely described as goodly in appearance, of high family, but not abundantly supplied with riches. however he chanced to come to the obscure settlement was not stated. he did come, saw desire michell, and fell as abjectly prostrate before her as any youth who never had left the village. he pressed his courtship hard and eagerly. at first he was welcome at the minister's house. but a day came when master michell forbade him to cross that door and rumor whispered, scandalized, that sir austin's suit had not been honorable to the maid. sir austin sulked a week at the village inn. then he broke under the torment of not seeing desire michell. their betrothal was made public, and he rode away to prepare his home for their marriage in the spring. travel was slow in the winter, news trickled slowly across snowbound distances. with spring came no bridegroom; instead word arrived of his affair with an heiress recently come to new york from england. she was rich in gold and grants of land from the crown. her husband would be a man of weight and influence, it seemed. sir austin had married her. desire michell shut herself in her father's house. the clergyman did not live many months after the humiliation. alone, the girl lived. "student," wrote abimelech fetherstone, "of black and bitter arts. or as some say, having, like bombastus de hohenheim, a devil's bird enchained to do her will." in his distant home, sir austin sickened. he burned with fever, anguish consumed him. physicians were called to the bedside of the rich man. they could not diagnose his ailment or help him. he screamed for water. when it was brought, his throat locked and he could not swallow. he raved of desire michell, beseeching her mercy. in his times of sanity, he begged and commanded his wife and servants to send for the girl. in her pardon he saw his sole hope of life. finally, he was obeyed. messengers were sent to the village. they were not even admitted to the house they sought, or to sight of mistress michell. "your master came himself to woo; let him come himself to plead." that was the answer they received to carry back to the sick man. sir austin heard, and submitted with trembling hope. writhing in the anguish wasting him by day and night, he made the journey by coach and litter to desire michell's house. at her door-sill he implored entrance and pity. the door did not open. it never opened for him. for three days in succession he was borne to her threshold, calling on her in his pain and fear. his servants and physician clustered about staring at the house which stood locked and blank of response. at night fire-shine was seen from an upper room; some declared they heard wild, melodious laughter. on the third day sir austin died. a stern-faced deputation of men went to the house of the late clergymen. they found the door unlatched and open to their entrance. in the upper room they found mistress michell seated before her hearth where a dying fire fell to embers, her hair "flowing down in grate bewty." "what have i to do with sir austin, or he with me?" she calmly asked the men who gaped upon her. "how should i have harmed him, who came not near him, as ye know? bury him, and leave me in peace." if she had been aged and ugly, she might have been hung. gossip ran rife through the countryside. but indignation was strong against the man who had jilted the local beauty, there existed no proof of harm done, and the matter slept for a time. new matters came. a horror grew up around the house. the girl was seen flitting across the fields at dawn, a monstrous shadow following. her voice was heard from the room where she locked herself alone, raised in unknown speech. strange lights moved in her windows in the deep night. the old woman who had served in the house for years was stricken with a palsy and was taken away mumbling unintelligible things that iced the blood of superstitious hearers. there was a young man of the neighborhood whose love for mistress michell had been long and constant. one morning he was found dead on her doorstep, his face fixed in drawn terror. under his hand four words were scrawled in the snow: "_sara daughter of ruel----_" there were those who could finish that quotation. next sabbath the new minister took as his text: "ye shall not suffer a witch to live." and he spoke of sara the daughter of ruel, who was wed to ten bridegrooms, each of whom was dead on the wedding eve; for she was beloved by an evil spirit that suffered none to come to her. authority moved at last against desire michell. but when the officers came to arrest her, she was found dead in her favorite seat before the hearth. "fair and upright in her place, scented with a perfume she herself distilled of her learning in such matters; which was said to contain a rare herb of jerusalem called lady's rose, resembling spikenard, with vervain and cedar and secret simples; in which she steeped her hair so that wherever she abode were sweet odours. so did she escape justice, but shall not escape hell's damnation and heaven's casting out." i closed the book and laid it down. reading those dim, closely printed pages had taken time. i was astonished to find the window spaces gray with dawn, when i glanced that way. the night was past. neither from desire nor from the thing without a name which had sent me to this book could i find out what i was expected to glean from the narration. my enemy had made no conditions on directing me to the book. it had asked no price, uttered no menace. why, then, had i so solemn a certainty that a crisis in our affair had been reached. i had come to an end; a corner had been turned. i had opened a door that could not be closed. how did i know this? why? why was the fog against the windows this morning so like the fog that shrouded the unearthly sea opposite the barrier? by and by cristina came downstairs and busied herself in the kitchen. bagheera, who had slept beside my chair all night, rose and padded out to the region of breakfast and saucers of milk. next, the voices of phillida and vere drifted from above. to have phillida find me there in her sewing-room, finishing an all-night vigil, involved too many explanations. i did an unwise thing. from the lowest shelf of the bookcase i gathered such books as were readable by my knowledge, and carried the armful up to my room. after a hot bath and breakfast i would look over these companions of the new england witch book. chapter xv "not a drop of her blood was human, but she was made like a soft sweet woman." --lilith. the fog stayed all day. the mist was so dense that it gave the effect of a solid mass enclosing the house. no wind stirred it, no cheering beam of sun pierced it. through it sounds reached the ear distorted and magnified. all day i sat in my room reading. there are books which should not be preserved. i, who am a lover of books, who detest any form of censorship, i do seriously set down my belief that there exist chronicles which would be better destroyed. with this few people will agree. my answer to them is simple: they have not read the books i mean. not all the volumes from the old bookcase were of that character, of course. nearly all of them were well known to classical students, at least by name. obscure, fantastic, cast aside by the world they were, but harmless to a fairly steady head. but there were two that clung to the mind like pitch. i have no intention of giving their titles. ugly and sullen, early night closed in when i was in a mood akin to it. dinner with phillida and vere was an ordeal hurried through. we were out of touch. i felt remote from them; fenced apart by a heavy sense of guilt and defilement left by those hateful books, most incongruously blended with contempt for my companions' childish light-heartedness. as soon as possible, i left them. alone in my room, in my chair behind the writing-table again, i pushed aside the pile of books and sank into sombre thought. what should i say to desire michell if she came tonight? who was she, who was claimed by the unspeakable and who did not deny its claim? was i confronted with two beings from places unknown to normal humanity? if she was the woman that she had seemed to be throughout our intercourse, how could the dark enemy control her? even i, a common man with full measure of mankind's common faults and weaknesses, could hold its clutch from me by right of the law that protects each in his place. was she one of those who have stepped from the permitted places? "_sara the daughter of ruel--who was beloved by an evil spirit who suffered none to come to her_." "_there was a young gentlewoman of excellent beauty, daughter of a nobleman of mar, who loved a foule monstrous thing verie horrible to behold, and for it refused rich marriages.... until the gospel of st. john being said suddenlie the wicked spirit flue his waies with sore noise_." i put out my hand and thrust the pile of books aside from my direct sight. but i could not so easily thrust from my mind the thoughts these books had implanted. i could not forget that desire michell herself had alleged jealousy as the thing's reason for attacking me. what if we came to an explanation tonight and ended this long delirium? was it not time? had not my weeks of endurance earned me this right? resolution mounted in me, defiant and strong. the evening had passed to an hour when i might look for the girl to come. i switched off the lights, and sat down to keep our nightly tryst. in the darkness of the haunted room, the thoughts i would have held at bay rushed upon me as clamorous besiegers. desire! desire of the world! desire of mine and of the unhuman thing, did we grasp at eve or lilith? at the fire on the hearth or the cold phosphorescence of swamp and marsh? a drift of fragrance was afloat on the air. a delicate stir of movement passed by me. i raised my head from my hands, expectant. "i am here," her familiar voice told me. "desire, you had to come, tonight." some quality in my voice carried to her a message beyond the words. but she did not break into exclamation or question as another woman might. she was mute, as one who stands still to find the path before taking a step. "you are angry," she said at last. "something here has gone badly for you; i knew that before i entered this room." "how can you say that?" i challenged. "if you are like other men and women, how can you know what happens when you are absent? how do you know what passes between the thing from the frontier and me?" "i do not know unless you tell me, roger. if i feel from afar when you are in sorrow, why, so do many people feel with another in sympathy." "you feel more than ordinary sympathy can," i retorted. "then, perhaps it is not an ordinary sympathy i have for you, roger." her very gentleness struck wrong on my perverted mood. was she trying to turn me from my purpose with her soft speech? she had never granted me anything so near an admission of love until now. "it is not an ordinary trial that i have borne for these meagre meetings where i do not see your face or touch your hand," i answered. "but that must end. put your hand in mine, desire, and come with me. let us go out of this room where shadows make our thoughts sickly. you shall stay with my cousin. or if you choose, we will go straight to new york or boston. i am asking you to be my wife. let us have done with phantoms and spectres. i love you." "no," she whispered. "you do not love me tonight. tonight you distrust me. why?" "is it distrusting you to ask you to marry me?" "not this way would you have asked that of me when i last came! but i will answer you more honestly than you do me. to go with you would be the greatest happiness the world could give. to think of it dazzles the heart. but it is not for me. have you forgotten, roger, that my life is not mine? that i am a prisoner who has crept out for a little while? the gates soon close, now, upon me." "what gates?" i demanded. "sacrifice and expiation." "expiation of what?" i exclaimed, exasperated. "desire, i have read the book of desire michell, downstairs." i heard her gasp and shrink in the darkness. silence bound us both. in the hush, it seemed to me that the house suddenly trembled as it had done the night before, a slight shock as from some distant explosion. in my intentness upon the woman opposite me the tremor passed unheeded. she must answer me now, surely! now---- she spoke with a breathless difficulty, spacing her words apart: "how did you--find--the book?" "it told me--the thing from out there," i admitted, sullenly defiant of her opinion. she cried out sharply. "you? you took its gift? you did that fatal madness--and you are here? oh, you are lost, and the guilt mine! yet i warned you that danger flowed from knowing me. you accepted the risk and the sorrow--yet you have thrown down all for a bribe of knowledge. do you not know what it means to take a gift from the dark ones of the borderland? to brave the loathesome eyes so long--and fall this way at last! yet--there may be a hope--since you still live. but go. not tomorrow, not at dawn, but go now. by all that man can dread for soul or body, go now." "not without you." "me? oh, how can i make you understand! i shall never come here again. take with you my gratitude for our hours together, my prayers for all the years to come. there is no blame to you because you could not trust a woman on whom falls the shadow of the awful watcher that stalks behind me. i make no reproach--if only you will go. do not linger. i do most solemnly warn you not to stay alone in this room one moment after i have gone." "desire!" i exclaimed. "wait. forgive me. i trust you. i did not mean what you believe. do not leave me this way. desire----" i can say honestly that my next action was without intention. on my table lay, as usual, a small electric torch. every member of our household was provided with one for use in emergencies likely to occur in a country house, the time of candles being past. now, rising in agitation and repentance, my hand pressed by chance upon the flashlight's button. a beam of light poured across the darkness. what did i see, starting out of the black gloom? a spirit or a woman? were those a woman's draperies or part of the night fog that showed mere swirl upon swirl of pale gray twisting in the path of light? i glimpsed a face colorless as pearl, the shine of eyes dark and almond shaped, then a drifting mass of gray smoke, all intermingled with glittering gold flashes, seemed to close between us. the whole apparition sank down out of vision, as aghast, i lifted my hand and the torch went out. shaken out of all ability to speak, i stood in my place. did i hear a movement, or only a stirring of the orchard trees beyond the windows? "desire?" i ventured, my voice hoarse to my ears. no answer. i felt myself alone. i would not at once turn on the lamps. my haste might seem an attempt to break faith with her a second time. i sat down again, folding my arms upon the table and resting my forehead upon them. well, i had seen her at last--but how? a wan loveliness seemingly painted upon the canvas of the dark by a brush dipped in moonlight. a white moth caught fluttering in the ray of the torch. seen at the instant of her leaving me forever; insulted by my suspicions, my love hurled coarsely at her like a command, my promise of security for her visits apparently broken. how dared i even hope for her return? now i knew why my enemy had guided me to those books, that i might read, fill my mind with the poison of vile thoughts, and destroy the comradeship that bound me to desire michell. how should i find her? how free us both? the clock in the hall downstairs struck a single bell. with dull surprise i realized that considerable time had passed while i sat there. still i did not move, weighed down by a profound discouragement. suddenly, as a wave will run up a beach in advance of the incoming tide, impelled by some deep stir in the ocean's secret places, an icy surge rushed about my feet. deathly cold from that current struck through my whole body. my heart shuddered and staggered in its beating from pure shock. "_go! not tomorrow, not at dawn, but now!_" the wave seeped back, receded away from me down its invisible beach. desire's warning hammered at my mind, striving to burst some barred door to reach the consciousness within that had loitered too long. this was the new peril. this was what i had fled from, unknowing the source of my panic, the night before. this was death. a second surge struck me with the heavy shock of a veritable wave from some bitter ocean. this time the tide rose to my knees; boiling and hissing in its rush. blood and nerves seemed to freeze. i felt my heart stop, then reel on like a broken thing. flecks of crimson spattered like foam against my eyelids. the wave broke. the mass poured down the beach, tugging at me in its retreat. with the last strength ebbing away from me with that receding current, i dragged the chain of the lamp beside me. the comfort of light springing up in the room! the relief of seeing normal, pleasant surroundings! truly light is an elixir of courage to man. that cold had paralyzed me. i had no force to rise. nor did i altogether wish to rise and go. i had lost desire tonight. was i to lose my self-respect also? was i to run a beaten man from this peril, after standing against my enemy so long? should i not rather stand on this my ground where i was not the "lame feller"? down by the lake, the snarling cry of a terrified cat broke the night stillness. it was bagheera's voice. the cry was followed by sounds indicating a small animal's frantic flight through the thickets of goldenrod and willow that edged the banks of the stream below the dam. the series of progressive crashes passed back of the house and continued on, dying away down the creek. as i braced my startled nerves after this outbreak of noise, the light was withdrawn from every lamp in the room. at the same moment, the electric torch rolled off my table and fell to the floor. i heard its progress across the muffling softness of the rug, across the polished wood beyond, and final stoppage at some point out of my reach. as vapor rises from some unseen source and forms in vague growing mass within the curdled air, so blackening dark the hideous bulk reared itself in the night and stared in upon me. as so many times, i felt the eyes i could not see; the pressure of a colossal hate loomed over me, poised to crush, yet withheld by a force greater than either of us. the venom of its malevolence flowed into the atmosphere about me, fouling the breath i drew. my lungs labored. "pygmy," its intelligence thrust against mine. "frail and presumptuous will that has dared oppose mine, you are conquered. this is the hour foretold to you, the hour of your weakness and my strength. weakling, feel the death surf break upon you. fall down before me. cower--plead!" now indeed i felt a sickness of self-doubt, for the wash of the invisible sea never had come to me until tonight. and there was desire's saying that i had destroyed myself by accepting the thing's gift of knowledge of the book. but i summoned my forces. "never," my thought refused it. "have we not met front to front these many nights? and who has drawn back, breaker of the law? you return, but i live. the duel is not lost." "it is lost, man, and to me. have you not taken my gift that you might spy meanly on the secret of your beloved? have you not opened your mind to the evil thoughts that creep upon the citadel of strength within and tear down its power? of your own deed, you are mine. my breath drinks your breath. your life falls down as a lamp that is thrown from its pedestal. your spirit rises from its seat and looks toward those spaces where it shall take flight tonight. man, you die." again the surge and shock of that frigid sea rushed upon me. i felt the swirl and hiss of the broken wave higher about me before it sank away down whatever dreadful strand it owned. my life ebbed with it, draining low. my enemy spoke the truth. one more such wave---- my imagination sprang ahead of the event. in fancy, i saw bright dawn filling this room of mine, shining on the figure of a man who had been myself. his head rested on his folded arms so that his face was hidden. on the table beside him a vase was overturned; a spray of heliotrope lay near and water had trickled over scattered sheets of music, staining the paper. by and by vere would come to summon that unanswering figure to the gay little breakfast-table. phillida would leave her place behind the burnished copper percolator she prized so highly and come running up the stairs. in her gentleness she would grieve, no doubt. i was sorry for that. but it was a contentment and pleasure for me to recall that i had settled my financial affairs so that my little cousin would never lack money or know any care that i could spare her. strange, how she had been rated below more beautiful or more clever women until the waif ethan vere had set her dearness in full sun for us to wonder at! "pygmy, will you think of another pygmy now?" raged the thing. "yourself! think of yourself! crouch! think of death, corruption, the vileness of the grave. think how you are of the grave. think how you are alone with me. think how you are abandoned to me." but with that tenderness for phillida a warmth had flowed through me like strength. "not so," my defiance answered it. "for where i am, i stand by my own will. with where i shall stand, you have nothing to do. back, then, for with the death of my body your power ends. back--or else face me, thing of darkness, while we stand in one place." at this mad challenge of mine silence closed down like a shutting trap. consciousness sank away from me with a sense of swooning quietness. * * * * * i stood before the barrier on the ghostly frontier; erect, arms folded, fronting the breach in that inconceivably mighty wall. above, away out of vision on either hand stretched the gray glimmering cliffs. this i had seen before. but behind me lay that which i had not seen. the mists i believed to be eternal had lifted. naked, a vast gray sea stretched parallel with the barrier; like it, without end or even a horizon to bound its enormous desolation. between these two immensities on the narrow strand at the foot of the wall, i stood, pygmy indeed. in the breach, as of old, the thing whose home was there reared itself against me. "man," it spat, "would you see me? would you see the eyes once seen by the witch-woman, who fell blasted out of human ken? creature of clay, crumbling now in the sea of mortality, do you brave my immemorial age?" it reared up, up, a towering formlessness. it stooped, a lowering menace. "man, whenever man has summoned evil since the youngest days of the world have i not answered? have i not brought my presence to the magician's lamp? have i not shadowed the alchemist at his crucible? when the woman called upon me with ancient knowledge, did i not come. i am the guardian of the barrier. whoever would pass this way must pass me. have you the power? die, then, and begone." with a long heaving sound of waters in movement, the gray sea stirred from its stillness. as if drawn to some center out of sight, the tide began to recede down that strange beach. then realization came to me that here was the ocean which, invisible, had surged icy death upon me a while past. the ocean now gathered for the final wave that should overwhelm the defeated. "braggart!" my thought answered the taunt. "if the witch-woman was yours, the girl desire is mine. this i know: as little as man has to do with you, so little have you to do with the human and the good. living or dead, our path is not yours. i did not summon you. i do dare look upon you, if you have visible form." now in the hush a sound that i had faintly heard as a continuing thing seemed to draw nearer. a sound of light, swift footsteps hurrying, hurrying; the steps of one in pitiful eagerness and haste. but i heeded this slightly. my gaze was upon that which took place within the cleft in the great wall. for there the cold darkness was writhing and turning, visible, yet obscure; as the rapids of a glassy, twisting river might look by night. and as one might glimpse beneath the smooth boil and heave of such a river the dim shape of crocodile or water-monster, so in that moving dark there seemed to lie something from which the mind shrank, appalled. now gigantic tentacles rolled about a central mass, groping out in unsatisfied greed. now an ape-like shape seemed to stalk there, rearing up its monstrous stature until all that breach was choked with it. it fell down into vagueness, where huge coils upraised and sank their loops. but through all change steadily fixed upon me i felt the eyes of the unseen. i stood my ground. with what pain and draining cost to my poor endurance there is no need to say. each instant i anticipated the surge of that returning sea whose flood should smother out the human spark upon its shore. this i had brought upon myself. yes, and would again to help desire michell! if i had sheltered her for one hour----! the thing halted, stooped. "man, cast off the woman," it snarled at me. "fool, evil goes with her. for her you suffer. thrust her from your breast." i looked down. wavering against my breast, just above my heart glimmered a spot of light. the little hurrying steps had ceased. i thought, if the bright head of desire michell were rested there against me, how i would strive to shield her from sight of the thing yonder. in the sweep of that will to protect, i drew my coat about the spot of hovering brightness. i felt her press warm against me. i heard the roar of the death-wave far out in that sea. before me---- oh horror of the frontier, what broke through the dread breach. what formed there, more inhuman from its likeness to humanity? what hand reached for me--for--us---- chapter xvi "i have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was."--midsummer night's dream. "mr. locke! mr. locke!" i opened heavy eyes to meet the eyes of ethan vere, who bent over me. phillida was there, too, pale of face. but what was that just vanishing into the darkness beyond my window-sill? what malignant glare seared disappointment and grim promise across my consciousness? had i brought with me or did i hear now a whispered: "_pygmy, again!_" "cousin, cousin, are you very ill?" phillida was half sobbing. "won't you drink the brandy, please? oh, ethan, how cold he is to touch!" "hush, dear," vere bade, in his slow steadfast way. "mr. locke, can you swallow some of this?" i became aware that his arm supported me upright in my chair while he held a glass to my lips. mechanically i drank some of the cordial. vere put down the glass and said a curious thing. he asked me: "shall i get you out of this room?" why should he ask that, since the spectre was for me alone? or if he had not seen it, how did he know this room was an unsafe area? my stupefied brain puzzled over these questions while i managed a sign of refusal. any effort was impossible to me. the cold of the unearthly sea still numbed my body. my heart labored, staggering at each beat. vere's support and nearness were welcome to me. his tact let me rest in the mute inaction necessary to recovery, while my body, astonished that it still lived, hesitatingly resumed the task of life. somehow he reassured and directed phillida. presently she was busied with the coffee apparatus in the corner of the room. it was too much weariness even to turn my eyes aside from the expanse of the table before me. the vase was upset, i noted, as i had seemed to see it. the spray of purple heliotrope phillida had put there the day before lay among the wet sheets of music. the book of hermas lay open at the page i had last turned, the rosy lamplight upon the text. "_behold, i saw a great beast that he might devour a city--whose name is hegrin. thou hast escaped--because thou didst not fear for so terrible a beast. if, therefore, ye shall have prepared yourselves, yet may escape----_" what did they mean, the old, old words men have rejected? what had hermas glimpsed in his visions? how many men are written down liars because they traveled in strange lands indeed, and explorers, strove to report what they had seen? who before me had stood at the barrier and set foot on the frontier between the worlds? the fog still dense outside was whitening with daybreak. a few hours while the sun ran its course once more for me, then night again, bringing completion of the menace. i recognized that this delay could not affect the end. perhaps it would have been easier if all had finished for me tonight, easier if vere and phillida had not found me in time to bring me back. how had they found out my condition? wonder stirred under my lethargy. had i called or cried out? it did not seem that i could have done so. certainly i had not tried! i was not quite so poor an adventurer as that. phillida was back with a cup of steaming black coffee, tiptoeing in her anxiety and questioning vere with her eyes. he took the cup, stooping to receive my glance of assent to the new medicine. the brandy had stimulated, but sickened me. the coffee revived me so much that i was able to take the second cup without vere's help. when i had walked up and down the room a few times, leaning on his arm, life had taken me back, if only for a little while. the two nurses were so good in their care of me that our first words were of my gratitude to them. then my curiosity found voice. "how did you happen to come in at this hour?" i asked. "how did you know i was--ill?" "i cannot imagine what made ethan wake up," said phillida, with a puzzled look toward her husband. "he woke me by rushing out of the room and letting the door slam behind him. of course i knew something must be wrong to make drawls hurry like that. usually he does such a tremendous lot in a day while looking positively lazy. so i came rushing after and found him in here, trying to waken you. i--i thought at first that you were not living, cousin roger. it was horrible! you were all white and cold----" she shivered. vere poured another cup of coffee. he said nothing on the subject, merely observing that the stimulant would hardly hurt me and some might be good for phil. i asked her to bring cups for them both. "i am not sure i really care about the coffee, but i'll make some more," she nodded, dimpling. "i love to drink from your wee porcelain cups with their gold holders. you do have pretty things, you bachelors from town." when she was across the room, i asked quietly: "what was it, vere? what sent you to me?" he answered in as subdued a tone, looking at the tinted shade of the lamp instead of at my face. "the young lady woke me, mr. locke. she came to the bedside, whispering that you were dying--would be dead if i didn't get to help you in time. she was gone before phillida roused up so she doesn't know anything about it." my heart, so nearly stopped forever and so lethargic still, leaped in a strong beat. desire, then, had come back to save me. for all my doubt and seemingly broken faith, she had brought her slight power to help me in my hour of danger. for my sake she had broken through her mysterious seclusion to call vere and send him to my rescue. neither he nor i being unsophisticated, i understood what vere believed, and why he looked at the lamp rather than at me. but even that matter had to yield precedence to my first eagerness. "you saw her?" i demanded. "you call her young. you saw her face, then?" "i could forget it if i had," he said dryly. "as it happened, i didn't. she was wrapped in a lot of floating thin stuff; gray, i guess? the room was pretty dark, and i was jumping out of sleep. i don't know why she seemed young unless it was the easy, light way she moved. by the time i got what she was saying and sat up, she was gone." "gone?" "she went out the door like a puff of smoke. i just saw a gray figure in the doorway, where the hall lamp made it brighter than in the room. when i came into the hall there wasn't a sign of anybody about. nor afterward, either!" i considered briefly. "i suppose i know what you are thinking, vere. it is natural, but wrong. the lady----" "mr. locke," he checked me, "i'm not--thinking. i guess you're as good a judge as i am about what goes on in this house. after the way you've treated us from the first, i'd be pretty dull not to know you're as choice of phillida as i am; and she is all that matters." "who is?" demanded phillida, returning. "me? i haven't the least idea what you are talking about, drawls, but i think cousin roger matters a great deal more than i do, just now. perhaps now he is able to tell us about this attack, and if he should have a doctor. i have noticed for weeks how thin and grave he has been growing to be. if only he _would_ drink buttermilk!" i looked into the candid, affectionate face she turned to me. from her, i looked to her husband, whose new england steadiness had been tempered by a sailor's service in the war and broadened by the test of his experience in a city cabaret. a new thought cleaved through my perplexities like an arrow shot from a far-off place. "how much do you both trust me?" i slowly asked. "i do not mean trust my character or my good intentions, but how much confidence have you in my sanity and commonsense? would you believe a thing because i told it to you? or would you say: 'this is outside usual experience. he is deceiving us, or mad'?" they regarded one another, smiling with an exquisite intimacy of understanding. "don't you see yourself one little, little bit, cousin?" she wondered at me. "anything you say, goes all the way with us," vere corroborated. "wait," i bade. "drink your coffee while i think." "please drink yours, cousin roger, all fresh and hot." i emptied the cup she urged upon me, then leaned my forehead in my hands and tried to review the situation. they obeyed like well-bred children, settling down on a cushioned seat together and taking their coffee as prettily as a pair of parakeets. they seemed almost children to me, although there was little difference in years between vere and myself. but then, i stood on the brink where years stopped. with the next night, my triumphant enemy could be put off no longer. that i could not doubt. i cannot say that i was unafraid, yet fear weighed less upon me than a heavy sense of solemnity and realization of the few hours left during which i could affect the affairs of life. what remained to be done? on one of my visits to new york, i had called on my lawyer and made my will. there were a few pensioners for whom provision should continue after my death. the aged music master under whom i developed such abilities as i had, who was crippled now by rheumatism and otherwise dependent on a hard-faced son-in-law; the three small daughters of a dead friend, an actor, whose care and education at a famous school of classic dancing i had promised him to finance--a few such obligations had been provided for, and the rest was for phillida. but now, what of desire michell? she had seemed so apart from common existence that i never had thought of her possible needs any more than of the needs of a bird that darted in and out of my windows. until tonight, when i had seen her and she had proved herself all woman by her appeal to ethan vere. it was not a spirit or a seeress or "ye foule witch, desire michell" who had fled to him for help in rescuing me. it was simply a terrified girl. what was to become of this girl? under what circumstances did she dwell? had she a home, or did she need one? could i care for this matter while i was here? day was so far advanced that a clamor of birds came in to us along with a freshening air. the strangely persistent fog had not lifted, but the lamps already looked wan and faded in the new light. i switched them out before speaking to the pair who watched me. "i have a story to tell you both," i said. "the beginning of it phillida has already heard. perhaps----have you told vere about the woman who visited this room, the first night i spent in the house? who cut her hair and left the braid in my hand to escape from me?" "yes," she nodded, wide-eyed. "will you go to my chiffonier, there in the alcove, and bring a package wrapped in white silk from the top drawer?" she did as she was asked and laid the square of folded silk before me. i put back the covering, showing that sumptuous braid. the rich fragrance of the gold pomander wrapped with it filled the air like a vivifying elixir. phillida gathered up the braid with a cry of envious rapture. "oh! the gorgeous thing! how do some lucky girls have hair like that? if it was unbound, my two hands could not hold it all. what a pity to have cut it! look, ethan, how it crinkles and glitters." she held it out to him, extended across her palms. vere refrained from touching the braid, surveying it where it lay. being a mere bachelor, i had no idea of phillida's emotions, until vere's usual gravity broke in a mischievous, heart-warming smile into the brown eyes uplifted to him. "beautiful," he agreed politely. no more. but as i saw the wistful envy pass quite away from my little cousin's plain face and leave her content, i advanced in respect for him. in the beginning, it was even harder to speak than i had anticipated. when phillida laid the braid back in its wrapping, i left it uncovered before me and looked at its reassuring reality rather than at my listeners. how, i wondered, could anyone be expected to credit the story i had to tell? how should i find words to embody it? only at first! whether there clung about me some atmosphere of that land between the worlds where i so recently had stood; or the room indeed kept, as i fancied, the melancholy chill of the unseen tide that had washed through it, i met no scepticism from the two who heard my tale of wild experience. they did not interrupt me. phillida crept close to her husband, putting her hand in his, but she did not exclaim or question. silence held us all for a while after i had finished. i had a discouraged sense of inadequacy. after all, they had received but a meagre outline. the color and body of the events escaped speech. how could they feel what i had felt? how could they conceive the charm of desire michell, the white magic of her voice in the dark, the force of her personality that could impress her image "sight unseen" beyond all time to erase? how convey to a listener that, understanding her so little, i yet knew her so well? "i have told you all this because i need your help," i said presently. "will you give it to me?" "go away!" phillida burst forth. she beat her palms together in her earnestness. "cousin roger, take your car and go away--far off! go where--nothing--can reach you. you must not spend another single night here. ethan will go with you. i will, too, if you want us. you must not be left alone until you are quite safe; perhaps in new york?" "and, desire michell?" "she is in no danger, i suppose. she is not my cousin, anyhow. and even she told you to go away." "you believe my story, then? you do not think me suffering from delusions?" "ethan saw the girl, too. if he had not come here in time to save you, i believe you would have died in that terrible stupor. besides, i have seen for weeks that something was changing you." "what does vere say?" i questioned, studying the absorbed gravity of his expression. i wondered what i myself would have said if anyone had brought me such a story. he passed his arm around phillida and drew her to him with a quieting, protective movement. his regard met mine with more significance than he chose to voice. "i'm satisfied to take the thing as you tell it, mr. locke," he answered. "phil is right, it seems to me, about you not staying here. i don't think the young lady ought to stay, either." "she refuses to leave, vere. what can i offer her that i have not offered? how can i find her? you have heard how i searched the countryside for a hint of such a girl's presence. no one has ever seen her; or else someone lies very cleverly." in the pause, phillida hesitatingly ventured an idea: "perhaps she is not--real. if the monster is a ghost thing, may not she be one, too? if we are to believe in such things at all----? she almost seems to intend that you shall believe her the ghost of the witch girl in that old book." i shook my head with the helpless feeling of trying to explain some abstruse knowledge to a child. i had spoken of the colossal spaces, the solemn immensities of the place where i had set my human foot. i had tried to paint the desolate bleakness of that borderland where the unnamed thing and i met, each beyond his own law-decreed boundary, and locked in combat bitter and strong. phillida had listened; and talked of ghosts the bugbears of grave-yard superstition. did vere comprehend me better? did he visualize the struggle, weirdly akin to legends of knight and dragon, as prize of which waited desire michell; forlornly helpless as white andromeda chained to her black cliff? could the maine countryman, the cabaret entertainer, seize the truths glimpsed by rosicrucians and mystics of lost cults, when the highly bred college girl failed? it seemed so. at least his dark eyes met mine with intelligence; hers held only bewilderment and fear. "they are not ghosts," i said only. "but how can you be sure?" she persisted. beneath the braid and the pomander lay the sheet of paper on which desire had written weeks before; the first page of that composition now pouring gold into my hands. this i passed to phillida. "do ghosts write?" i queried. she read the lines aloud. "'we walk upon the shadows of hills, across a level thrown, and pant like climbers.'" "they do write, people say, with ouija boards and mediums," she murmured. i looked at vere with despair of sustaining this argument. he stood up as if my appeal had been spoken, drawing her with him. "now that it's a decent hour, don't you think cristina might give us some breakfast?" he suggested. "i guess bacon and eggs would be sort of restoring. if you feel up to taking my arm as far as the porch, mr. locke, the fresh air might be good medicine, too." i have speculated sometimes upon how civilized man would get through days not spaced by his recurrent meals into three divisions. those meals are hyphens between his mind and his body, as it were. what sense of humor can view too intensely a creature who must feed himself three times a day? are we not pleasantly urged out of our heroics and into the normal by breakfast, luncheon and dinner? deny it as we will, when we do not heed them we are out of touch with nature. we went downstairs. after breakfast was over, vere and i walked across the orchard to a seat placed near the lake. there i sat down, while he remained standing in his favorite attitude: one foot on a low boulder, his arm resting on his knee as he gazed into the shallow, amber-tinted water. fog still overlay the countryside, but without bringing coolness. the damp heat was stifling, almost tropical as the sun mounted higher in the hidden sky. i watched my companion, waiting for him to speak. he appeared intent upon the darting movements of a group of tiny fish, but i knew his thoughts were afar. "mr. locke, i didn't want to speak before phillida, because it would not do any good for her to hear what i have to say," he finally began. "it is properly the answer to what you asked upstairs, about our believing you had not imagined that story. did anything slip out over the window-sill when you were waking up?" startled, for i had not spoken of this, i met his gaze. "yes. did you see----" "nothing, exactly. something, though! like--well, like something pouring itself along; a big, thick mass. something sort of smooth and glistening; like black, oily molasses slipping over. only alive, somehow; drawing coils of itself out of the dark into the dark. i can't put it very plain." "what did you think?" "the air in the room was bad and close, hard to breathe. i guessed maybe i was a little dizzy, jumping out of bed the way i did and finding you like dead, almost." he paused, and returned his contemplation to the fish darting in the lake. "that is what i thought," he concluded. "what i felt--well, it was the kind of scare i didn't use to know you could feel outside of bad dreams; the kind you wake up from all shaking, with your face and hands dripping sweat. that isn't all, either!" this time the pause was so long that i thought he did not mean to continue. "my excuse for speaking of such matters before phillida is that i may need a woman friend for desire michell," i reverted to the implied rebuke i acknowledged his right to give. "i wanted her help, and yours. more than ever, since you have shared my experience so far, i want your advice." "i'll be proud to give it, in a minute. first, it's only fair to say i've felt enough wrong around here to be able to understand a lot that once i might have laughed at. nothing compared to you! but--i've been working about the lake sometimes after dark or before daylight was strong, when a kind of horror would come over me--well, i'd feel i had to get away and into the house or go crazy. that morning when you called from your window to ask where i'd been so early, and i told you looking for turtles--that was one time. i had gone out looking for turtles, but that horror drove me in. when you hailed me, i had it so bad that i could just about make out not to run for the house like a scared cat, yelling all the way. turning back to the lake with you was a poser. but i did; and the feeling was all gone as quick as it came. we had a nice morning's shooting. once in a while i've felt it sort of driving me indoors when i stepped off the porch or over to the barn at night. that's a funny thing: the fear was always outside, not in the house. i thought of that while you were telling us how the thing at the window kept trying to get in at you. we haven't got a haunted house, but a haunted place!" "why have you not spoken of this before?" i asked, deeply stirred. he made a gesture, too american to be called a shrug. he said nothing, watching a large bubble rise through the pure, brown-green water, float an instant on the surface, then vanish with the abrupt completeness of a miniature explosion. i watched also, with an always fresh interest in the pretty phenomenon. then i repeated my question, rather impatiently as i considered what a relief his companionship in experience would have afforded all these weeks. "why not, vere?" "mr. locke, i don't like to keep saying that you never exactly got used to me as your cousin's husband," he reluctantly replied. "but i can see it's a kind of surprise to you right along that i don't break down or break out in some fashion. of course i haven't known that you were meeting queer times, too! if you hadn't been through any of this, what would you have thought if i'd come to you with stories of the place being haunted by something nobody could see? you would have judged i was a liar, trying to fix up an excuse for getting away from the work here and shoving off. i don't want to go away. i don't intend to go. i can't see any need of it for phil and me. but--and this is the advice you spoke of! i think you ought to leave and leave now. it's little better than suicide to stay." "and abandon desire michell?" he turned his dark observant eyes toward me. "if i said yes, you wouldn't do it. phil and i will take care of the young lady, if she will let us. couldn't a note be left for her, telling her to come to us?" i shook my head. "she would not come. now, less than ever----" i broke off, shot with sharp self-reproach at the memory of how i had driven her from me last night. "you won't be any help to her if you're dead," he bluntly retorted. at that i rose and walked a few paces to knock out my post-breakfast pipe against an apple-tree. i was not so sure that he was right, self-evident as his statement appeared. ideas moved confusedly in my mind, convictions somehow impressed when that golden-bronze spot of light so gently came to rest above my heart when i last stood at the barrier; the light so like the bright imagined head of desire. to fly from my place now, herded like a cowardly sheep by the thing of the frontier, would that not be to thrust her away to save myself? no! not myself, my life! i had the answer now. i walked back to vere and took my seat again. "both of us, or neither," i told him. "if you can help me make it both by any ingenuity, i shall be mighty glad. it's a pleasant world! but we will not talk any more of my running for new york like a kicked pup. the question is, will you and phillida take care of the lady who calls herself desire michell, if tomorrow morning finds her free, but alone and friendless?" "as long as we live, mr. locke," he answered. "but i guess there isn't any disgrace in your going to new york, running or not, if you take her with you. and that is what ought to have been done long ago." "vere?" he nodded. "you've got me! just pick the lady up, carry her out of that room, and have a show-down. put her in your car and take her to town." "i gave her my word not----" "people can't stand bowing to each other when the ship's afire. if she is worth dying for, she doesn't want you to die for her." the simplicity of it! and, leaping the breach of faith, the temptation! what harm could i do desire by this plan of vere's? what good might i not do her? was it mere slavishness of mind on my part not to overrule her timid will? she must pardon me when she realized my desperate case. a dying man might be excused for some roughness of haste, surely. whether flight could save us i did not know. i did know absolutely that my enemy had crossed the barrier last night, and i was prey merely withheld from it by the chance respite of a few daylight hours. suppose our escape succeeded? a whole troup of pictures flitted across the screen of my fancy. desire beside me in the city, my wife. desire in those delightful shops that make fifth avenue gay as a garden of tulips, where i might buy for her frocks and hats, shoes of conspicuous frivolity and those long white gloves that seem to caress a woman's arm--everything fair and fine. restaurants i had described for her, where she might dine in silken ease and perhaps hear played the music she had named---- i aroused myself and looked at vere. "you'll do it?" he translated my expression. "i will, if she gives me the opportunity." "do you judge she will?" "i hope so. since she went so far as to show herself to you in order to send help to me when i was in danger, i believe she will come to my room tonight if i wait there----" he looked at me silently. the consternation and protest in his face were speech enough. "if i wait there alone," i finished somewhat hurriedly. "if she comes in time, we will try the plan. have the car ready. you and phillida will be prepared, of course. we will waste no time in getting away as far as possible." "and if that thing comes before she does, mr. locke?" "is there any other way?" "i guess you haven't considered that you're inviting me to stand by while you get yourself killed," he said stiffly. "i'm not an educated man. i never heard the names you mentioned this morning of people who used to study out things like this. i never heard of any worlds except earth and heaven and hell. but then i couldn't explain how an electric car runs. i know the car does run; and i know you nearly died last night. if you go back and stay alone in that room, we both know what you are going to meet." i turned away from him because i sickened at the prospect he evoked. the memory of that death-tide was too near and rolled too coldly across the future. if the trial had been hard when mercifully unanticipated, what would it be to meet my enemy now that i knew myself conquered? would it not deliberately forestall desire's coming, tonight? "mightn't you help the lady more if you went away now, and came back?" he urged. the deserter's argument, time without end! was i to fall as low as that? phillida's voice called to vere from the veranda, summoning him to some need of farm or household. "in a moment, pretty," he called assent. but he did not move. i guessed that he hoped much from my silence and would not disturb me lest my decision be hindered or changed. by and by i stood up. "vere, in your varied experiences in peace and war, did you ever chance to meet a coward?" "once," he answered briefly. "and, did you like the sight?" "no." "then," i said, "let us not invite one another to that display. shall we go in to phillida?" chapter xvii "they say-- what say they? let thame say!" --old scottish inscription. after luncheon, i drove over to the village with phillida, who had some housewifely orders to give at the shops. on second thoughts, vere and i had agreed to tell her nothing about the venture we planned for tonight. we had satisfied her by the assurance that i meant to start for new york before the dangerous hours after midnight. reassured, she regained her usual spirits with the buoyancy of her few years and healthy nerves. i gathered her secret belief was that no "ghost" would dare face ethan. which may have been quite true! on our way home, we stopped at the shop of mrs. hill to add to our supply of eggs, phillida's hens having unaccountably failed to supply their quota. i went in, leaving my companion in the car. no one else was in the shop. an impulse prompted me to put a question to the little woman whose life had been spent in this neighborhood. "mrs. hill, did you ever hear of anyone named desire michell?" i asked. she stopped counting eggs and blinked up at me. her sallow, wrinkled face lightened with curiosity and an absurd primness. "now, mr. locke! i'd like to know where a young city feller like you got that old story from?" "i have not got it. i want you to tell it to me. she was a witch?" "she was a hussy," said mrs. hill severely. "i was a little girl when she ran away from her father's respectable house, fifty-odd years ago. the disgrace killed him, being a clergyman. an' the gossip that came back, later, an' pictures of her in such dresses! dear! dear! the wicked certainly have opportunities." "fifty years ago!" i echoed, dazed by this intrusion of a third desire michell. "ah! nearly seventy she'd be if she was alive today; which she ain't. why, she changed her name to one fancier that you might have heard talk of? she was----" the name she gave me i shall not set down. it is enough to say it was that of a super-woman whose beauty, genius and absolute lack of conscience set europe ablaze for a while. a torch of womanhood, quenched at the highest-burning hour of her career by a sudden and violent death. "there was an older house once, on your place," she added pensively. "did you know that? it stood in the hollow where your lake is now. two--three hundred years old, folks say it was. one night it burned down in a big thunderstorm. the michells then living had your house built over by the orchard, then, an' had a dam built across so as to cover up the old site with water. all the michells lived there till the last one went missionary abroad an' died in foreign parts. i mean the hussy's brother. he took up his father's work, feelin' a strong call. he was only a young boy when his sister went off, but he felt it dreadful. he was a hard man on the sinner. preached hell and damnation all his days, he did. lean over the pulpit, he would, his eyes flamin' fire an' his tongue shrivellin' folks in their pews, i can tell you!" "he left children?" i asked. "no, sir! rev'rund never married. he felt women a snare. land, not much snarin' with what farm women get to wear around here! i've kind of thought of one of those blue foulard silks with white spots into it since before i married hill, but never came any nearer than pricin' it an' bringin' home a sample. he was death on sweet odors an' soft raiment. only sweet odors i ever get are the ten-cent bottles hill makes the pedlar throw in when we trade. i do fancy _jockey club_ for special times, an' i've got a reasonable hope of salvation, too. i notice your cousin, mrs. vere, has scent on her handkerchief week days as well as when she's goin' somewhere, so i guess you don't hold with the rev'rund michell in new york?" i laughed with her as i took up the bag of eggs. "did the runaway sister leave any children?" i queried. "not a michell alive anywhere," she asserted positively. "dead, all dead! the rev'rund was buried at his mission in some outlandish place. an' if those heathen women dress like i've seen in the movin' picture palace in the village, i don't know how he makes out to rest with them flauntin' past his grave!" i went thoughtfully out to the car. indeed, i drove home in such abstraction that phillida reproved me. "'the cat has stolen your tongue,'" she teased. "or did mrs. hill vamp you and make roast meat of your heart with her eyes?" "phil, do you put scent on your handkerchief week days as well as sundays?" i shook off thought to inquire. "no; i keep sachet in my handkerchief box. why?" "next time you are in town, will you buy a blue silk foulard dress with white spots in it and the largest bottle of jockey club extract on sale, and give them to mrs. hill for a christmas present? i'll give you a blank check." "cousin roger? why?" so i told her why. but i did not tell her the story of the second desire michell; nor of the original house that stood in the hollow now filled by our lake. why had a peculiar horror crept through me when mrs. hill told me what ruins that water covered? why had i remembered the inexplicable, repugnant sound that on several occasions had preceded the coming of the monster; a sound like the smack of huge lips, or some body withdrawn from thick slime? was entrance into human air open to the alien thing only through the ruins of the house where it had first been called by the sorceress of long ago? we were walking across from the garage, after putting away the car, when a recollection flashed upon me. the metropolitan museum, in new york, held a portrait by a famous french artist of that incendiary beauty whose name it now appeared cloaked the identity of desire michell, daughter and sister of new england clergymen. i had seen the portrait. and piled in an intricate magnificence of curls, puffs and coils about the haughty little head of the lady, was her gold-bronze hair; the color of the braid upstairs in my chiffonier drawer. i went up to my room and opened the work of master abimelech fetherstone. yes, there was likeness between the poor, coarse woodcut and the french portrait. the long, dark eyes with their expression of blended drowsiness and watchfulness were too individual to have escaped either record. moreover, both pictures resembled that face of ivory and dusk i had glimpsed in the ray of the electric torch, all clouded and surrounded by swirls of gray vapor shot with gold. who and what was the girl desire michell whom i had come to love through a more profound darkness than that of the sight? it seemed wisest to keep busy for the rest of the afternoon. i sorted my music. there was the score of a musical comedy so nearly completed that it could be sent to those who waited for it. vere would attend to that, if tonight made it necessary. i reflected with disappointment that the first rehearsals would begin in a couple of weeks, and i had looked forward to this production with especial interest. there was the symphony, still unfinished, that i had hoped might be more enduring than popular music. if i was to be less enduring than either, we must go glimmering on our ways. if i snatched desire out of her path into mine, she and i would see all those things together. i finished at last, and set my room in order. there was a fire laid ready for lighting in my hearth, a mere artistic flourish in such weather. i kindled it, and put in the flames three of the volumes from the ancient bookcase. the others were oddities in occult science. those three were vile and poisonous. no doubt other copies exist, but at least i refused to be guilty of leaving these to wreak their mischief in phillida's household. they burned quietly enough, and meekly fell to ashes under my poker. our round dinner-table was cheerful as usual, with yellow-shaded candles flanking a bowl of yellow and scarlet nasturtiums. but i found its mistress suffering from a nervous headache. "it is only the fog," she answered our sympathy. "it came on with the evening, somehow. never mind me. cristina has made a cream-of-lettuce bisque, and she will never forgive us if we do not eat every bit. yes, ethan; of course i'll take mine. i only wish every bush and tree would not drip, drip like a horrid kind of clock ticking; and the foghorns over at the lighthouses _moo_ regularly every half minute. and i never heard the waterfall over the dam so loud!" "we've had a wet summer," vere observed, soothingly tranquil as ever. "the lake and creek are full. there is more water going over to make a noise." "please do not be so frightfully sensible, drawls. you know i mean a different loudness. it sort of rises up and swims all over one, then dies away." "even a fountain will seem to do that if a wind shifts the spray," i suggested. "yes, cousin roger. but there is no wind tonight." a discomfort stirred me at the simple reminder. i fancied vere was similarly affected. if something moved under the water----? we changed the conversation to a pergola planned for building next spring, that was to be overrun by grapevines and honeysuckle. "the grapes shall hang through like an italian picture," phillida anticipated, headache forgotten in her enthusiasm. she shook her hair about her pink cheeks, leaning over to outline a pergola with four spoons. "here in the middle we must have a birdbath. or no! the birds might peck the grapes. we could have one of those big silver-colored looking-balls on a pedestal to reflect wee views of the garden and lake and sky, with people moving no bigger than dolls. imagine a reflection of ethan like a lilliputian _so_ high!" so i was able to leave her eagerly hunting catalogues of garden ornaments in her sewing-room, when the time came for me to keep my rendezvous with death or the lady. in spite of my warning gesture, vere followed me into the hall. his dark face was distressed and anxious. "let me go with you," he urged. "no, thanks. stay with phil, and keep her too busy to suspect where i am." "if i'm doing wrong to let you go," he began. "you cannot stop me. it is still too early for danger, i think. if you like, you can stroll out on the lawn from time to time and look up at my windows. as long as the lamps are lighted in the room, i am all right. nothing is happening." "your lamps were all three lighted when i found you last night," he said. the darkness had been only for my eyes, then? certainly i had seemed to see light withdrawn from the lamps. i mastered a tremor of the nerves, and covered it by stroking bagheera, who sat on a hall chair making an after-dinner toilet with tongue and paw. "well, take care of phil," i repeated, evading argument. he detained me. "the young lady might not come if there were two people, mr. locke. i can see that! but i'll go instead. i guess i'd be safer than you, with the--the----you know what i mean! it would be the first time for me. and if i sat waiting in the dark, the lady couldn't tell you were not there. of course i'd bring her right to you." no one could appreciate the courage of that offer so well as we who had both felt the intolerable horror of the nearness of the thing whose nature was beyond our nature to endure. "she would come to no one except me," i refused. "but, thank you. and vere, if what you have said about my feeling toward phillida's husband was true once, it is true no longer." his clasp was still warm on my hand when i went into my room and switched on the lights. soft and colorful, the haunted room sprang into view. the writing-table and piano gleamed bare without their usual burdens of scattered papers and music, removed that afternoon. for lack of familiar occupation, when i sat down in my favorite place, i took up the gold pomander and fell to studying the intricate designs worked in the metal. "_containing a rare herb of jerusalem called lady's rose, resembling spikenard, with vervain, and cedar, and secret simples----_" "_vervain, which is powerful against evil spirits----_" the strange fragrance, heady as the bouquet of rich wine, never cloying, exquisite, might well have seemed magical to the dry puritans, i mused. it should stay by me tonight, like a promise of her coming. after i had sat there a while, i turned out the lights. chapter xviii "an excellent way to get a fayrie--and when you have her, bind her!"--ancient alchemist's recipe. in the darkness time crept along like a crippled thing, slow-moving, hideous. outside fell the monotonous drip, drip from trees and bushes, likened by phillida to a horrid clock. the fog was a sounding-board for furtive noises that grew up like fungi in the moist atmosphere. the thought of phillida and vere down in the pleasant living room tempted me almost beyond resistance. i wanted to spring up, to rush out of the room; to fling myself into my car and drive full speed until strength failed and gasoline gave out. was that the lake which stirred in the windless night? the lake, under which lay the fire-blackened ruins of the house where the first desire michell flung open an awful door that her vengeance might stride through! was it too late for my desire to come, and time for the coming of that other? the step of vere sounded on the gravel path where he walked beneath the window. he was making a trip of inspection, and would find no light shining from the room. i was about to rise and call down a word of reassurance to him, when a current of spiced air passed by me. i sat arrested in hope and expectancy. "here, after my warning, after last night?" her soft voice panted across the dark. "will you die, then? cruel to me, and wicked to come here again! oh, must i wish you were a coward!" every vestige of her calmness gone, she was sobbing as she spoke. i could imagine she was wringing the little hands that once had left a betraying print upon my table's surface. "i was cruel to you last night, desire; yet afterward you saved my life by sending ethan vere to wake me. would you have had me leave without meeting you again, neither thanking you nor asking your forgiveness?" i thought she came nearer. "for so little, you would brave the dread one in its time of triumph? o steadfast soldier, who faces the breach even in the hour of death, in all that you have done you have remembered me. why speak of anger or forgiveness? have i not injured you?" "never. i love you." "is not that an injury? even though i hid my ill-omened face from you, reared as i was to sad knowledge of the wrath upon me, the wrong has been done. weak as water in the test, i kept the letter of my promise and broke the intent. yet go; keep life at least." "desire, i do not understand you," i answered. "no matter for that, now! i am content to share whatever you bring. not roughly or in challenge as i asked you last night, but earnestly and with humility i ask you to come away with me now. if trouble comes to my wife and me, i do not doubt we can bear it. let us not be frightened from the attempt. come." "i, to take happiness like that?" she marveled in desolate amazement. "no. at least i will go to my own place, if tardily. roger, be kind to me. give me a last gift. let me know that somewhere you are living. out of my sight, out of my knowledge, but living in the same world with me. each moment you stay here is a risk." in that warning she had reason. i rose. it was time to act, but action must be certain. if my groping movements missed her in the dark there might be no second chance. "desire, if all is as you say and we are not to meet again as we have done, you shall let me touch you before i go," i said firmly. "no!" "yes. why, would you have me live all the years to come in doubt whether you were a woman or a dream? perhaps you might seem at last a phantom of my own sick brain to which faithfulness would be folly? here across the table i stretch my arm. lay your palm in my palm. i may die tonight." whether she wished it also, or whether my resolve drew obedience, i do not know. but a vague figure moved through the dark toward me. a hand settled in mine with the brushing touch of an alighting bird. i closed my hand hotly upon that one. i sprang a step aside from the table between us, found her, and drew her to me. what did i hold in my arms? softness, fragrance, draperies beneath which beat life and warmth. as i stooped to reassure her, her breath curled against my cheek. so with that guide i turned my head, and set my lips on the lips i had never seen. did something uprear itself out there in the black fog? a cold air rushed across the summer heat of the fog; air foul as if issued from the opened door of a vault. as once before, a tremor quivered through the house. the hanging chains of the lamps swung with a faint tinkling sound. i snatched desire michell off her feet and sprang for the door. somehow i found and opened it at the first essay. we were out into the hall. with one hand i dragged the door shut behind us, then carried her on to the head of the stairs. there i set her down, but stood before her as a bar against any attempt at escape. a lamp shed a subdued light above us. i looked at my captive. never again after that kiss could she deny her womanhood or pose as a phantom. so far my victory was complete. the lady might be angry, but it must be woman's anger. i knew she had not suspected my intention until i lifted her in my arms. she had struggled then, after her defenses had fallen. she was quiet now, as though the light had quelled her resistance. she stood drooped and trembling; not the old-time witch, not the dazzling adventuress, only a small fragile girl wound and wrapped in some gray stuff that even covered the brightness of her hair. her face was held down and showed no more color than a water-lily. "i thought," she whispered, just audibly. "i thought you--would say, good-bye!" "i know," i stammered. "but i could not. that way was impossible for us." she did not contradict me. she was so very small, i saw, that her head would reach no higher than where the bright spot had rested above my heart when i had last stood at the barrier. one hand gripped the veils beneath her chin, and seemed the clenched fist of a child. the crash of my door had startled the household. i had heard phillida cry out, and vere's running steps upon the gravel path. now he came springing up the stairs. at the head of the flight he stopped, staring at us. "desire," i spoke as naturally as i could manage, "this is mr. vere. vere, my fiancée, miss michell. shall we go down to phillida?" and desire michell did not deny my claim. i am not very sure of how we found ourselves downstairs. nor do i remember in what words we made the two girls known to one another. presently we were all in the living room, and phillida had possession of desire michell while vere and i looked on stupidly at the proceedings. phil had placed her in a chair beside a tall floor-lamp and gently drew off the draperies that hooded her. with little murmurs of compassion, she unbound and shook free her guest's hair. "my dear, you are all damp! this awful fog! you must have been out a long time? you shall drink some tea before we start. drawls, will you light the alcohol lamp on the tea-table? the kettle is filled." now i could understand how desire had appeared amid a drift of fireshot smoke in the beam of my electric torch, the night before. her hair was a garment of flame-bright silk flowing around her, curling and eddying in rich abundance. over this she had worn the gray veils to smother all that color and sheen into neutral sameness with night and shadows. no wonder her face had seemed wraith-like when her startled shrinking away from the light had set all that drapery billowing about her. she was the voice that had been my intimate comrade through weeks of strange adventure. she was the woman of the faded, yellow book, and the painted beauty at the metropolitan. she was all the desires of whom i had ever dreamed; and she was none of them, for she was herself. her long dark eyes, suddenly lifted to me, were individual by that ancestral blending of drowsiness with watchfulness; yet were akin to the eyes of youth in all times by their innocence. her mouth, too, was the soft mouth of a young girl kept apart from sordid life. but her forehead, the noble breadth between the black tracery of her eyebrows, expressed the student whose weird, lofty knowledge had so often abashed my ignorance. only my ignorance? now as she looked at me across the room, all self-confidence trickled away from me. what distinguished me from a thousand men she might meet on any city street? what had i ever said worth note in the hours we had spent together? now she saw me in the light, plainly commonplace; and remembering myself lame, i stood amazed at the audacity with which i had laid claim to her. she was rising from the chair, gently putting aside phillida's detaining hands. she had not spoken one word since her faltered speech to me, upstairs. neither vere nor phillida had heard her voice. she had given her hand to each of them and submitted to phil's care with a docility i failed to recognize in my companion of the dark. her decisive movement now was more like the desire michell i knew. only, what was she about to do? repudiate my violence and me--perhaps go back to her hiding-place? she came straight to where i stood, not daring even to advance toward her. we might have been alone in the room. i rather think we were, to her preoccupation. "you must go away," she said. "if there is any hope, it is in that. nothing else matters, now; nothing! if you wish, take me with you. it would be wiser to leave me. but nothing really matters except that you should not stay here. i will obey you in everything if you will only go. take your car and drive--drive fast--anywhere!" it is impossible to convey the desperate urgency and fervor of her low voice. phillida uttered an exclamation of fear. vere wheeled about and left the room. the front door closed behind him. the gravel crunched under his tread on the path to the garage, and the rate at which the light he carried moved through the fog showed that he was running. he obviously accepted the warning exactly as it was given. after the briefest indecision, phillida hurried out into the hall. for my part, i did nothing worth recording. i had made discovery of two places where i was not the "lame feller." and if the first place was the dreary frontier, the second country was that rich land of promise in desire michell's eyes. what we said in our brief moment of solitude is not part of this account. phillida was back promptly, her arms full of garments. with little murmurs of explanation by way of accompaniment, she proceeded to invest desire in a motor coat and a dark-blue velvet hat rather like an artist's tam-o'shanter. i noticed then that the girl wore a plain frock of gray stuff, long of sleeve and skirt, fastened at the base of her throat with severe intent to cover from sight all loveliness of tint and contour. nothing farther from the fashion of the day or the figure of my cousin could be imagined. "you must wear the coat because it is always cool motoring at night," phillida was murmuring. "and of course you will want it at a hotel; until you can do some shopping. i will just tie back your gorgeous, scrumptious hair with this ribbon, now. i know i haven't enough hairpins to put it up without wasting an awful lot of time, but we will buy them in the morning. we are going to take the very best care of you every minute, so you must not worry." "you are so kind to me," desire began tremulously. "no one was ever so kind! it does not matter about me, or what people think of me, if he will only go from here quickly." "right away," phillida soothed. "my husband has gone for the car. i hear him coming now!" in fact, vere was coming up the veranda steps. his hand was on the knob of the outer door, fumbling with it in a manner not usual to him, then the knob yielded and he was inside. "but how slow you are, drawls," his wife called, with an accent of wonder. vere crossed the threshold of the room, his gaze seeking mine. he was pale, and drops of fog moisture pearled his dark face like sweat. "i am sorry, mr. locke," he addressed me, ignoring the others. "perhaps you felt that shake-up, a quarter-hour ago? like a kind of earthquake, or the kick from a big explosion a long ways off? it didn't seem very strong to me. it was too strong for that old tree by the garage, though! must have been decayed clear through inside. willows are like that, tricky when they get old." "ethan, what _are_ you talking about?" cried phillida, aghast. he continued to look at me. "i guess it must have fallen just about when you slammed your door upstairs. seems i do remember a sort of second crash following the noise you made. i was too keen on finding out what was happening up there to pay much heed." "well, vere?" "tree smashed down through the roof of the garage," he reluctantly gave his report. "everything under the hood of the automobile is wrecked. there is no motor left, and no radiator. just junk, mixed up with broken wood and leaves and pieces of the stucco and tiles of the garage." so there was to be no going tonight from the house beside the lake. a frustrated group, we stood amid our preparations; the two girls wearing cloaks and hats for the drive that would never be taken. had we ever really expected to go? already the project was fading into the realm of fantastic ideas, futile as the pretended journeys of children who are kept in their nursery. desire lifted her hands and took off the blue velvet cap with a resignation more expressive than words. only my practical little cousin charged valiantly at all obstacles. "we aren't ever going to give up?" she cried protest. "cousin roger? ethan? _you_ cannot mean to give up. why--'phone to the nearest garage to send us another car. if we pay them enough they will drive anywhere. or if they cannot take us to new york, they will take us to the railroad station where we can get a train for some place. can't we, drawls?" "we could," vere admitted. "i'd admire to try it, anyhow. but the telephone wire came across the place right past the garage, you know----" "the tree tore the wire down, too?" "i'm afraid it snapped right in two, phil." "we--we might walk," she essayed. but even her brave voice trailed into silence as she glanced toward the black, dripping night beyond the windows. "or if we found a horse and wagon," she murmured a final suggestion. vere shook his head. "come!" i assumed charge with a cheerfulness not quite sincere. "none of us are ready for such desperate efforts to leave our cozy quarters here. especially as i fancy vere's 'earthquake' was the tremor of an approaching thunderstorm. i felt it, myself. let us light all the lamps and draw the curtains to shut out the fog which has got on everyone's nerves by its long continuance. we are overwrought beyond reason. suppose we sit here together, strong in numbers, for the few hours until daylight? i think that should be safeguard enough. tomorrow we will do all we had planned for tonight. come in, vere, and close the door." he obeyed me at once. desire michell passively suffered me to unfasten and take off the coat she wore, too heavy for such a night. she had uttered no word since vere announced the destruction of the car. she did not speak now, when i put her in the low chair beneath the lamp. i had a greed of light for her, as a protection and because darkness had held her so long. "it seems as if we should do something!" phillida yielded unwillingly. vere's eyes met mine as he turned from drawing the last curtain. we were both thinking of the force that had driven the frail old willow tree through tile and cement of the new building to flatten the metal of motor and car into uselessness. the mere weight of the tree would not have carried it through the roof. to "do something" by way of physical escape from that---- the ribbon had glided from desire's hair, almost as if the vital, resilient mass resentfully freed itself from restraint by the bit of satin. now she put up her hands with a slow movement and drew two broad strands of the glittering tresses across her shoulders, veiling her face. "wait," she answered phillida, most unexpectedly. "i must be sure--quite sure! i must think. if you will--wait." chapter xix "oh, little booke--how darst thou put thyself in press for drede?"--chaucer. we sat quietly waiting. i had drawn a chair near desire. phillida and vere were together, chairs touching, her right hand curled into his left. bagheera the cat had slipped into the room before the door was closed, and lay pressed against his mistress's stout little boot. our small garrison was assembled, surely for as strange a defense as ever sober moderns undertook. for my part, it was wonder enough to study that captive who was at once so strange yet so intimately well known to me. the tiffany clock on the mantel shelf chimed midnight. soon after, we began to experience the first break in the heavy monotony of heat and fog that had overlaid the place for three days. the temperature began to fall. the fog did not lift. the flowered cretonne curtains hung straight from their rods unstirred by any movement of air. but the atmosphere in the room steadily grew colder. i saw phillida shiver in the chill dampness and pull closer the collar of her thin blouse. when desire finally spoke, we three started as if her low tones had been the clang of a hammer. "i have tried to judge what is best," she said, not raising her face from its shadowing veil of hair. "i am not very wise. but it seems better that there should be no ignorance between us. if i had been either wise or good, i should never have come down from the convent to draw another into danger and horror without purpose or hope of any good ending." "the convent?" i echoed, memory turning to the bleak building far up the hillside. "you came from there?" "there is a path through the woods. i am very strong and vigorous. but i had to wait until all there were asleep before i could come. sometimes i could not come at all. for this house, i had my father's old key. it was only for this little time while i am being taught. soon i will put on a nun's dress and cut my hair, and--and never--never leave there any more." stupefied, i thought of the black loneliness of the wooded hillside behind us. no wonder the fog was wet upon her hair! her slight feet had traversed that path night after night, had brought her to the door her key fitted, had come through the dark house to the door of the room upstairs. when she left me, she had toiled that desolate way back. for what? humility bent me, and bewilderment. "but why?" phillida gasped. "why? cousin roger hunted everywhere to find you. he would have gone anywhere you told him to see you. didn't you know that?" "i never meant him to see me." "why not?" "i am desire michell, fourth of that name; all women who brought misfortune upon those who cared for them," she answered, her voice lower still. "how shall i make you understand? i was brought up to know the wrath and doom upon me, yet i myself can scarcely understand. my father knew all, yet he fell in weakness." "your father?" i questioned, recalling mrs. hill's positive genealogy of the michells in which there was no place for this daughter of the line. "he was the last of his family. when he was very young the conviction came to him that his duty was never to marry, so our race might cease to exist. he lived here and preached against evil. he studied the ancient learning that he might be fitted to wrestle with sin. but in the end horror of what was here gained upon him so that he closed the house and went abroad to work as a missionary. there was a girl; the daughter of the clergyman who was leaving the mission. my father--fell in love. he forgot all his convictions and married her. he knew it was a sin, but it was stronger than he was. she only lived one year. when i was born, she died. he prayed that i would die, too. but--i----" her voice died into silence. i ventured to lean nearer and take her hand into mine. "desire," i said, "why should you be a sufferer for the actions of a woman who died over two centuries ago? what is the long dead desire michell to you?" a strange and solemn hush followed my question. the words seemed to take a significance and importance beyond their simple meaning. the hand i held trembled in my clasp. she answered at last, just audibly: "you know. you said that you had read her book." "but the book tells so little, desire. just such a chronicle of superstition as may be found in a hundred old records." she shook her head slightly. "not that! bring me the book." the book was upstairs in the room from which i had carried her half an hour before in something very like a panic flight. before i could release her hand and rise, before i comprehended his intention, vere was out of the living room and upon the stairs. it was too late to overtake him. the man who had been a professional skater covered the stairs in a few easy, swinging strides. we heard his light tread on the floor overhead, heard him stop beside the table where the book lay. then, he was returning. my door closed. his step sounded on the stairs again; in a moment he was back among us, and quietly offering the volume to our guest. his dark eyes met mine reassuringly, deprecating the thoughts i am sure my face expressed. "lights burning and all serene up there," he announced. desire touched the book with a curious repugnance. "i was looking for this, the first night i came here," she murmured. "that is why i came to america after my father died. i had promised him to destroy this record. when i heard that the house was sold to a gentleman from new york, i came down from the convent on the hill to find the bookcase holding the old history. i did not know anyone was here, that night, until you touched my hair." i remembered the bookcase near the bed, where i stood my candle and matches. unaware, i had prevented her finding the thing she sought, and so forced her to return. afterward, the house had been full of workmen making alterations and improvements, until later still phillida had transferred the bookcase and its contents to her sewing room. if i had not taken the whim to sleep in the old house on the night of my purchase, or if i had chosen another room, the existence of desire michell might never have been known to me. would the creature from the barrier have appeared to me, if i had not known her? she was drawing something from behind the portrait of the first desire michell; a thin, small book that had lain concealed between the cover of the larger volume and the page bearing the woodcut, where a sort of pocket was formed that had escaped our notice. laid upon the table, the little book rolled away from the girl's fingers and lay curled upon itself in the lamplight. the limp morocco cover was spotted with mildew and half-revealed pages of close, fine writing blotched in places with rusty stains. it gave out an odor of mould and age in an atmosphere made sweet by desire's presence. phillida, who had been silent even when vere left her to go upstairs, shrank away from the book on the table. she darted a glance over her shoulder at the curtained windows behind her. "drawls, i cannot help what everybody thinks of me," she said plaintively. "i am cold. the fire is ready laid in the grate. will you put a match to it, please?" no one smiled at the request. her husband uttered some soothing phrase of compliance. we all looked on while the flame caught and began to creep up among the apple-logs. bagheera rose and changed his position to one before the hearth. when vere stood erect, desire leaned toward him. "will you read, aloud, sir?" she asked of him, and made a gesture toward the morocco book. she surprised us all by that choice. i was unreasoning enough to feel slighted, although the task was one for which i felt a strong dislike. i fancied vere liked the idea no better, from his expression. however, he offered no demur, but sat down at the table and began to flatten the warped pages that perversely sprang back and clung about his fingers. desire slowly turned her lovely eyes to me, eyes that looked by gift of nature as if their long corners had been brushed with kohl. she said nothing, yet somehow conveyed her meaning and intent. i understood that she did not wish to hear me read those pages; that it was painful to her that they should be read at all. vere was ready. he glanced around our circle, then began with the simple directness that gave him a dignity peculiarly his own. "'mistress desire michell, her booke, beginning at the nineteenth year of her age,'" he read, in his leisurely voice. the living desire michell and i were regarding one another. i smiled at the quaint wording, but she shuddered, and put her hands across her eyes. yet there was nothing in those first pages except a girl's chronicle of village life. this book evidently carried on a diary kept from early childhood; a diary written out of loneliness. apparently the bare colonial life pressed heavily upon the writer; who, having no companions of the intellect, turned to this record of her own mind as a prisoner might talk to his reflection in a mirror rather than go mad from sheer silence. discontent and restlessness beat through the lines like fluttering wings. she wrote of her own beauty with a cool appraisal oddly removed from vanity, almost with resentment of a possession she could not use. "like a man who finds treasure in a desert isle, i am rich in coin that i may not spend," she wrote. "i stand before my mirror and take a tress of my hair in either hand; i spread wide my arms full reach, yet i cannot touch the end of those tresses. nor can my two hands clasp the bulk of them. there have been other women who had such hair, who were of body straight and white, and had the eyes--but i cannot read that they stayed poor and obscure." there followed some quotations from the classics of which i was able to give but vague translations when vere passed the book to me, both because my knowledge was scanty and because of their daring unconventionality. there were allusions, too, to ladies of later history who had found fairness a broad staircase for ambition to mount. of the writer's learning, there could be no question; a learning amazing in one so young and so situated. the source of this became apparent. her father was consumed with the passion of scholarship, and the girl's hungry mind fed in the pastures where he led the way. here crept into view an anomaly of character. the austere puritan divine, whose life was open and blank, bare and cold as a winter field, cherished a secret dissipation of the mind. he labored upon a book on the errors of magic. so laboring, he became snared by the thing he denounced. he believed in the hidden lore while he condemned it. deeper and deeper into forbidden knowledge his eagerness for research led him. unsanctioned by any church were the books dr. michell starved his body to buy from jews or other furtive dealers in unusual wares. the titles in his library comprehended the names of more charlatans than bishops. he could define the distinctions between necromancy, sorcery, and magic. the marvelous calculations of the pythagoreans engaged him, and the lost mysteries of the cabiri. from such studies he would arise on the sabbath to preach sermons that held his dull flock agape. bitter draughts of salvation he poured for their spiritual drinking. he scarcely saw how any man might escape hell-fire, all being so vile. against witchcraft and tampering with satan's agents he was eloquent. he rode sixty miles in midwinter to see a quaker whipped and a woman hung who had been convicted as a witch. of all this, his daughter wrote with an elfin mockery. her brilliant eye of youth saw through the inconsistency of the beliefs he strove to reconcile. she learned his lore, read his books, and discarded his doctrine. "i study with him, but i think alone," she set down her independence. without his knowledge, she proceeded to actual experiment with rude crucible and alembic in her own chamber. she essayed some age-old recipes of blended herbs and ingredients within her reach, handled at certain hours of the night and phases of the moon. all were innocent enough, it seemed. she cured a beloved old dog of rheumatism and partial blindness. she discovered an exquisite perfume which she named rose of jerusalem. but the experiments were not fortunate, she made obscure complaint. the dog, cured, lived only a few weeks. the perfume, in which she revelled with a fierce, long-denied appetite, steeping her rich hair in it and her severely dull garments, awoke many whispers in a community where sweet odors were unknown and disapproved. she alluded, with a mingling of freezing scorn and triumph, to the young men who followed after her--"seeking a wife who would be at their hearth as fatal a guest as that fair woman sent by an enemy to alexander the great, whose honey breath was deadly poison to who so kissed there." into this situation rode the fine gentleman from the colonial world of fashion who was to fix the fate of desire michell and his own. from this point on, the diary was a record of the same story as the "history of ye foule witch, desire michell." the love affair that followed sir austin's visit to the clergyman's house leaped hot and instant as flame from oil and fire brought together. the girl was parched with thirst for life, yet despised all around her. the man was dazzled by a beauty and mentality foreign as a bird of paradise found nested in connecticut snow. a mad, wild passion linked them that was more than half a duel. for sir austin was already betrothed. honor might not have chained him for long, but his need of his betrothed's fortune proved more enduring. he was a man bred to wealth, who did not possess it. he offered desire michell his left hand. he was turned out of her father's house with a red weal struck across his face like a brand. of course he returned. the arrow was firmly fixed. he asked her to marry him, and was refused with savage contempt. he would not take the refusal. her heart and ambition were hidden traitors to his cause. in the end she surrendered and the marriage day was set. sir austin rode away to set his house in order, while desire turned from alchemy to make her wedding garments. the entries during this interval were sweetly gentle and feminine. her rose of jerusalem fragrance was all her own, and was kept so, but she made less-rare essences and sold them through a pedlar in order to buy fine linen and brocade for a trousseau not designed to be worn in a puritan village. she was happy and at rest in expectation. on her wedding day the destroying news fell. sir austin hid a weak spirit within a strong and handsome body. away from desire's glamour, back in new york, he had not broken his engagement to the heiress. instead, he had married her on the day arranged before he met the clergyman's daughter. there was never again a connected record in the diary. pages were torn out in places, entries were broken off, half-made. but the story vere's slow, steady voice conveyed to us was the one we knew; the one my desire had told to me the first night i slept in this house. the half-mad girl turned to her father's deadly books. sir austin died as his waxen image dissolved before the fire, where the girl sat watching with merciless hate. he died, raving and frothing, on her door-sill. she never saw him after the day he rode away to prepare for their marriage. she set open her window that she might hear his progress to that hard death, but never deigned to turn her glance upon him. the clergyman was dead, now; of shame, or perhaps of terror at the child he had reared. the girl was alone. the diary grew wilder, with gaps of weeks where there were no entries. more frequently, pages were missing and paragraphs obliterated by the reddish blotches like rust or blood. there were accounts of weird, half-told experiments ranging through the three degrees of magic set forth by talmud and cabala. she wrote of legions of kingdoms between earth and heaven, and the twelve unearthly worlds of plato. she alluded to a barrier between men and other orders of beings, beyond which dwelt those whom the magicians of old glimpsed after long toil and incantation. "those of whom vertabied, the armenian, says: '_their orders differ from one another in situation and degree of glory, just as there are different ranks among men, though they are all of one nature._' they cannot cross nor overthrow this wall, nor can man alone; but if they and man join together----one there beyond whispers to me of power, splendor, victory----" days later, there was entered a passage of mad triumph and terror. the barrier was broken through. out of the breach issued the one whom she had invited to her silver lamps; colossal, formless, whose approach froze blood and spirit. eyes of unspeakable meaning glared across the dark, whispers unbearable to humanity beat upon her intelligence and named her comrade. now as vere read this, i felt again that quiver of the house or air he had likened to an earth shock and held responsible for the fall of the willow tree that had destroyed our hope of escape by automobile. i looked at my companions and saw no evidence of anyone having noticed what i had seemed to feel. vere indeed was pale; while phillida, who sat beside him, was highly flushed with excitement and wonder as she listened. desire had not stirred in her chair, except to bend her head so her face was shaded by the loosened richness of her hair. seeing them so undisturbed, i kept silence. a storm might be approaching, but i made no pretense to myself of believing that shock either thunder or earthquake. the tone of the diary altered rapidly. at first, the unknown from beyond the wall appalled the woman only by its unhuman strangeness, the repugnance of flesh and blood for its loathly neighborhood. fear emanated from its presence, seen yet unseen, a blackness moving in the black of night when it visited her. yet she had courage to endure those awful colloquies. she listened. she strove by the spell and incantation to subdue this to her service, as the demon orthone served the lord of corasse, as paracelsus was served by his familiar, or gyges by the spirit of his ring. alas for the sorceress, misguided by legend and fantasy! she had evoked no phantom, but a fact actual as nature always is even if nature is not humanly understood. the thing was real. the awe of the magician became the stricken panic of the woman. she had unloosed what she could not bind. she had called a servant, and gained a master. gone forever were the dreams of power and splendor and triumph. now she learned that only pure magic can discharge the spirits it has summoned, nor could a murderess attain that lofty art. we were given a glimpse of a frantic girl crouched in the useless pentagram traced on the floor for her protection, covering her beauty with the cloak of her hair against the eyes that burned upon her between the overturned silver lamps. a deepening horror gathered about the house of mistress desire michell. the old dame who had been the girl's nurse and caretaker fled the place and fell into mumbling dotage in a night. no child would come near the garden, though fruit and nuts rotted away where they dropped from overripeness. no neighbor crossed the doorstep where sir austin had died. she lived in utter solitude by day. by night she waged hideous battle against her visitor; using woman's cunning, essaying every expedient and art her books suggested to her desperate need. with each conflict, her strength and resource waned, while that which she held at bay knew no weariness. time was not, for it, nor change of purpose. "i faint, i fail!" she wrote. "the sea of dread breaks about my feet. it is midnight. the pentagram fades from the floor--the nine lamps die--the breath of the one at the casement is upon me----" vere stopped. "a handful of pages have been torn out here," he stated. "the next entry that i can read is in the middle of a stained page, and must be considerably later on." phillida made an odd little noise like a whimper, clutching at his sleeve. the third shock for which i had been waiting shuddered through the house, this time distinctly enough for all to feel. a gust of wind went through the wet trees outside like a gasp. "ethan, what was that?" she stammered. "oh, i'm afraid! cousin roger----?" i had no voice to answer her. in my ears was the rush and surge of that sea whose waters had gripped me in the past night. i felt the icy death-tide hiss around me in its first returning wave, rise to my knee's height, then sink away down its unearthly beach. what i had dimly known all day, underlying vere's sturdy cheerfulness and our plans and efforts, was the truth. through those intervening hours of daylight i had remained my enemy's prisoner, bound on that shore we both knew well, until it pleased or had power to return and finish with me. no doubt it was governed by laws, as we are. as before, the cold struck a paralysis across my senses. vere's reassurance sounded faint and distant. "the thunder is getting closer," he said. "that was a storm wind, all right! would you rather go upstairs and lie down, and not hear any more of this stuff tonight?" "no! oh, no! i could not bear to be alone," she refused. "just, just go on, dear. of course it is the coming storm that makes the room so cold." he put his left arm around her as she nestled against him. his right hand held the diary flattened on the table under the light. "the next entry is just one line in the middle of a page where everything else is blotted out," vere repeated. "it reads: 'the child is a week old today.'" the wave crashed foaming in tumult up the strand, flowing higher, drenching me in cold sharp as fire. the tide rose faster tonight. the silence that held the others dumb before the significance of that last sentence covered my silence from notice. desire's face was quite hidden; lamplight and firelight wavered and gleamed across her bent head. i wanted to arise and go to her, to take her hands and tell her to have patience and courage. but when this wave ebbed, my strength drained away with the receding water. moreover, the darkness curdled and moved beyond the window opposite me. the curtains hung between were no bar to my vision, as the light and presence of my companions were no bar to the thing that kept rendezvous with me. since last night, we were nearer to one another. a breath of chill foulness crept across the pungent odor of the burning apple-log in the fireplace. a whisper spoke to my intelligence. "man conquered by me, fall down before me. beg my forbearance. beg life of me--and take the gift!" "no," my thought answered its. "you die, man." "all men die." "not as they die who are mine." "i am not yours. you kill me, as a wild beast might. but i am not yours; not dying nor dead am i yours." "would you not live, pygmy?" "not as your pensioner." the logs on the hearth crackled and sank down with a soft rustle, burned through to a core of glowing red. phillida spoke with a hushed urgency, drawing still closer to her husband, so that her forehead rested against his shoulder. "go on, ethan. finish and let us be done." vere bent his head above the book on the table to obey her. across the dark i suddenly saw the eyes glare in upon him. "on the next page, the writing begins again," he said. "it says: "'i am offered the kingdoms of earth. but i crave that kingdom of myself which i cast away. the child is sent to england. the circle is drawn. the names are traced and the lamps filled. tonight i make the last essay. there remains untried one mighty spell. this mystery----'" a clap of thunder right over the house overwhelmed the reader's voice. phillida screamed as a violent wind volleyed through the place with a crashing of doors and shutters, upstairs and down. the diary was ripped from beneath vere's hand and hurled straight to the center of that nest of fire formed by the settling of the logs. a long tongue of flame leaped high in the chimney as the spread leaves of the book caught and flared, fanned by wind and draft. vere sprang up, but phillida's clinging arms delayed him. when he reached the fire-tongs there was nothing to rescue except a charring mass half-way toward ashes. he turned toward me, perhaps at last surprised by my immobility. "i am sorry, mr. locke," he apologized. desire had started up with the others when the sudden uproar of the storm burst upon them. now she cried out, breaking vere's excuse of the loss. her small face blanched, she ran a few steps toward me. "it has come! he will die--he is dying. look, look!" chapter xx "behold! where are their abodes? their places are not, even as though they had not been." --tomb of king entef. desire michell was beside me, and i could not rise or answer her. she bent over me, so that the rose of jerusalem fragrance inundated me and drove back the sickening air that was the breath of our enemy. "let me go," she sobbed, her head beside my head. "if you can hear me, listen and leave me as it wills. you know now that i belong to it by heritage? you know why we can never be together as you planned? try to feel horror of me. put me away from you. no evil can come to me unless i seek evil. but it will not suffer you to take me. live, dear roger, and let me go." "yield to me, man, what you may not keep," the whisper of the thing followed after her voice. "would you take the witch-child to your hearth? cast her off; and taste my pardon." "can you hear, roger? roger, let me go." with an effort terrible to make as death to meet, i broke from the paralysis that chained me. as from the drag of a whirlpool, i tore myself from the tide-clutch, from the will of the thing, from the numb weakness upon me. for a moment i thrust back the hand at my throat. i stood up and drew desire up with me in my arms, both of us reeling with my unsteadiness. "i do not give you up," i said, my speech hoarse and difficult. "i claim you, now, and after. and my claim is good, because i pay." desire exclaimed something. what, i do not know. her voice was lost in the triumphant conviction that i was right. she was free, and the freedom was my gift to her. i was not vanquished, but victor. the life i paid was not a penalty, but a price. her face was uplifted to mine as she clung to me; then my weight glided through her arms and i fell back in my chair. i was alone amid blackness and desolation that poured past me like the wind above the world. * * * * * for the last time, i opened my eyes on the gray shore at the foot of the barrier. i, pygmy indeed, stood again before the colossal wall whose palisades reared up beyond vision and stretched away beyond vision on either side. i was alone here. no whisper of taunt or menace, no presence of horror troubled me. opposite me, the breach that split the cliff showed as a shadowed cañon, empty except of dread. far out behind me the sea that was like no sea of earth gathered itself beneath its eternal mists as a tidal wave draws and gathers. with folded arms i stood there, waiting for the returning surge of mighty waters to overwhelm me in their flood. i waited in awe and solemn expectancy, beyond fear or hope. but now i became aware of a new doubleness of experience. here on the frontier, i was between the worlds, yet i also saw the room in the house left behind. i saw myself as an unconscious body reclined in a chair beside the hearth. desire michell knelt on the floor beside me, her hands grasping my arms, her gaze fixed on my face, her hair spilling its shining lengths across my knees. phillida was huddled in a chair, crying hysterically. vere apparently had been trying to force some stimulant upon the man who was myself, yet was not myself, for while i watched he reluctantly rose from bending above the figure and set a glass upon the table. i echoed his sigh. life was good. the sea behind me began to rush in from immeasurable distances. the roar of the waters' thunderous approach blended with the heat and flash of storm all about the house into which i looked. "he dies," desire spoke, her voice level and calm. "has it not been so with all who loved the daughters of my race these two centuries past? yet never did one of those die as he dies--not for passion, but for protection of the woman--not as a madman or one ignorant, but facing that which was not meant for man to face, his eyes beating back the intolerable eyes. oh, glory and grief of mine to have seen this!" phillida cowered lower in her chair, burying her face in the cushions. but vere abruptly stood erect, his fine dark face lifted and set. just so some ancestors of his might have risen in a bleak new england meeting-house when moved powerfully to wrestle with evil in prayer. but it is doubtful if any maine deacon ever addressed his deity as vere appealed to his. "almighty, we're in places we don't understand," he spoke simply as to a friend within the room, his earnest, drawling speech entirely natural. "but you know them as you do us. if things have got to go this way, why, we'll make out the best we can. but if they don't, and we're just blundering into trouble, please save roger locke and this poor girl. because we know you can. amen." now at this strange and beautiful prayer--or so it seemed to me--a ray of blinding light cleaved up from where vere stood, like a shot arrow speeding straight through house and night into inconceivable space. then the room vanished from my sight as the great wave burst out of the mist upon me. i went down in a smother of ghastly snarling floods cold as space is cold. something fled past me up the strand, shrieking inhuman passion; the eyes of my enemy glared briefly across my vision. one last view i glimpsed of that dread barrier, amid the tumult and welter of my passing. the breach was closed! unbroken, majestic, the enormous wall stood up inviolate. chapter xxi "fancy, like the finger of a clock, runs the great circuit, and is still at home." --cowper. the uproar of rushing waters was still in my ears. but i was in my chair before the hearth in the living room of the farmhouse, and the noise was the din of a tempest outside. opposite me, phillida and desire were clinging together, watching me with such looks of gladness and anxiety that i felt myself abashed before them. bagheera, the cat, sat on the table beside the lamp, yellow eyes blinking at each flash and rattle of lightning and thunder, while he sleeked his recently wetted fur. wondering where that wet had come from, i discovered presently that the fire was out, and the hearth drenched with soot-stained water. i looked toward the windows, from which the curtains had been drawn aside. rain poured glistening down the panes, but the clean storm was empty of horror. "drink some of this, mr. locke," urged vere, whose arm was about me. "sit quiet, and i guess you'll be all right in a few moments." i took the advice. strength was flowing into me, as inexplicably as it had flowed away from me a while past. how can i describe the certainty of life that possessed me? the assurance was established, singularly enough, for all of us. none of my companions asked, and i myself never doubted whether the danger might return. the experience was complete, and closed. moreover, already the thing that had been our enemy, the horror that had been its atmosphere, the mystery that haunted desire--all were fading into the past. the phantoms were exorcised, and the house purified of fear. but there was something different from ordinary storm in this tempest. the tumult of rain and wind linked another, deeper roar with theirs. the house quivered with a steady trembling like a bridge over which a train is passing. pulling myself together i turned to vere. "what is happening outdoors?" i asked. "the cloudburst was too much for the dam," he answered regretfully. "it went off with a noise like a big gun, a while back. i expect the lake is flooding the whole place and messing up everything from our cellar to the chickenhouse. daylight is due pretty soon, now, and the storm is dying down. we'll be able to add up the damage, after a bit." "the water came down the chimney and drowned bagheera," phillida bravely tried to summon nonchalance. "isn't it lucky you and desire could not get started in the car, after all? fancy being out in that!" desire michell steadied her soft lips and gave her quota to the shelter of commonplace speech we raised between ourselves and emotions too recently felt. "it was like the tropical storms in papua, where i lived until this year," she said. "once, one blew down the mission house." vere's weather prediction proved quite right. in an hour the storm had exhausted itself, or passed away to other places. sunrise came with a veritable glory of crimson and gold, blazing through air washed limpidly pure by the rain. the east held a troop of small clouds red as flamingoes flying against a shining sky; last traces of our tempest. we stood on the porch together to survey an unfamiliar scene in the rosy light. water overlay lawns and paths, so the house stood in a wide, shallow lake whose ripples lapped around the white cement steps and the pillars of the porte-cochère. phillida's pekin ducks floated and fed on this new waterway as contentedly as upon their accustomed pastures. small objects sailed on the flood here and there; bagheera's milk-pan from the rear veranda bobbed amidst a fleet of apples shaken down in the orchard, while some wooden garden tools nudged a silk canoe-cushion. in contrast to all this aquatic prospect, where the real lake had been there now lay some acres of ugly, oozing marsh; its expanse dotted with the bodies of dead water-creatures and such of vere's young trout as had not been swept away by the outpouring flood. the dam was a mere pile of débris through which trickled a stream bearing no resemblance to the sparkling waterfall of yesterday. already the sun's rays were drawing a rank, unwholesome vapor from the long-submerged surface. we contemplated the ruin for a while, without words. "poor drawls!" phillida sighed at length. "all your work just rubbed out!" "never mind, vere," i exclaimed impulsively. "we will put it all back in the same shape as it was." but even as i spoke, i felt an odd shock of uneasiness and recoil from my own proposition. i did not want the lake to be there again; or to hear the unaccountable sounds to which it gave birth and the varying fall of the cataract over the dam. did the others share my repugnance? i seemed to divine that they did. even the impetuous phil did not break out in welcome of my offer. desire, who had smoothed her sober gray dress in some feminine fashion and stood like marguerite or melisande with a great braid over either shoulder, moved as if to speak, then changed her intention. a faint distress troubled her expression. as usual, vere himself quietly lifted us out of unrest. "i'm not sure that couldn't be bettered, mr. locke," he demurred. "that is if you liked, of course! that marsh could be cleaned up and drained into pretty rich land, i guess. and down there beyond the barn, on the other side where the creek naturally widens out into a kind of basin, i should think might be the spot for a smaller, cleaner lake." "doesn't it seem to you, ethan," i said, "that we have progressed rather past the _mr. locke_ stage?" a little later, when desire and i were alone on the porch, we walked to the end nearest the vanished lake. or rather, i led her to a swinging couch there, and sat down beside her. "point out the path down the hill by which you used to come," i asked of her. she shook her head. there are no words to paint how she looked in the clear morning, except that she seemed its sister. "it is only the end of a path that matters," she said. "look instead at the marsh. do you see nothing there stranger than a path through the woods even when trodden by a wilful woman?" following her lifted finger, i saw a series of long mounds out there in the muddy floor not far from the dam. not high, two or three feet at most, the mounds formed an irregular square of considerable area. "the old house!" i exclaimed. "it was set on fire by the second desire michell one night deep in winter. her father built this house of yours and put in the dam that covered the ruins with water. i think he hoped to wash away the horror upon the place." "i know so little of your history." "you can imagine it." she turned her head from me. "the first child came back from england when it was a man grown, and claimed the house and name of the first desire. he settled and married here. for two generations only sons were born to the michells. i do not know if the dark one came to them. i believe it did, but they were hard, austere men who beat off evil. then, a daughter was born. she looked like the first desire and she was--not good. she was a scandal to the family. she listened to it----! the tradition is that she set fire to the house after a terrible quarrel with her people, but herself perished by some miscalculation. there were no more girls born for another while after that. not until my father's time. he had a sister who resembled the two desires of the past. my grandfather brought her up in harshness and austerity, holding always before her the wickedness to which she was born. yet it was no use. she fled from his house with a man no one knew, and died in paris after a life of great splendor and heartlessness. everyone who loved the desires suffered. that is why i--covered myself from--you." i took her hand, so small a thing to hold and feel flutter in mine. "but what of me, desire? the darkness covered no beauty in me, but a defect. you never saw me until last night and now in the morning. now that you know, can you bear with a man who--limps? you, so perfect?" she turned toward me. her kohl-dark eyes, vivid as a summer noon, opened to my anxious scrutiny. "but i have seen you often," she said, the heat of confession bright on cheek and lip. "i never meant you to know, but now----! after the first time you spoke to me so kindly and gayly--i was so very sorrowfully alone--and the convent was so dull! my father's field-glasses were in my trunk." "desire?" "i fear i have no vocation for a nun. i--there is a huge rock half-way down the hill with a clear view of this place. i have spent hours there, watching these lawns and verandas, and the things you all did. it all seemed so amusing and, and happy. you see, where i lived there were almost no white people except my father and a priest at the catholic mission. so i learned to know phillida and mr. vere and----" "then, all this time, desire----" "the glasses brought you very close," she whispered. "i knew you by night and by day." chapter xxii "life hath its term, the assembly is dispersed, and we have not described thee from the first." --gulistan. i have come to the end of this narrative and with the end, i come to what people of practical mind may call its explanation. of the four of us who were joined in living through the events of that summer, my wife and i and ethan vere agree in one belief, while phillida holds the opinion of her father, the professor. i think bagheera, the cat, might be added to our side also, if his testimony was available. the press reports of the cloudburst and flood brought the professor up to connecticut to verify with his own eyes his daughter's safety. aunt caroline did not come with him, but i may here set down that she did come later. they found their son-in-law by no means what their forebodings menaced, so reconciled themselves at last to the marriage; to phillida's abiding joy. but first the little professor arrived alone, three days after the storm. characteristically, he had sent no warning of his coming, so no one met him at the railway station. he arrived in one of those curious products of a country livery stable known as a rig, driven by a local reprobate whom no prohibition could sober. i shall never forget the incredulous rapture with which phillida welcomed him, nor the pride with which she presented vere. the damages to the place were already being repaired, although weeks of work would be needed to restore a condition of order and make the changes we planned. the automobile had been disentangled from the wreckage of garage and willow tree and towed away to receive expert attention. we were awaiting the arrival of the new car i had ordered for the honeymoon tour desire and i were soon to take. phillida had declared two weeks shopping a necessary preliminary to the wedding of a bride who was to live in new york "and meet everybody." nor would i have shortened the pretty orgy into which the two girls entered, transforming my sorceress into a lady of the hour; happiness seeming to me rather to be savored than gulped. needless to say, there was no more talk of the convent whose iron gates were to have closed between the last desire michell and the world. she had been directed there by the priest whose island mission was near her father's. in her solitude and ignorance of life, the sisterhood seemed to offer a refuge in which to keep her promise to her father. but she had to learn the principles of the church she was about to adopt, and during that period of delay i had come to the old house. on the second day of his visit, we told all the story to the professor. we could not have told aunt caroline, but we told him. "it is perfectly simple," he pronounced at the end. "interesting, even unique in points, but simple of explanation." "and what may be the explanation?" i inquired with scepticism. "marsh gas," he replied triumphantly. "have none of you young people ever considered the singular emanations from swamps and marshes where rotting vegetation underlies shallow water? phillida, i am astonished that you did not enlighten your companions on this point. you, at least, have been carefully educated, not in the light froth of modern music and art, but in the rudiments of science. i do not intend to wound your feelings, roger!" "i am not wounded, sir," i retorted. "just incredulous!" "ah?" said the professor, with the bland superiority of his tribe. "well, well! yet even you know something of the evils attending people who live in low, swampy areas; malaria, ague, fevers. in the tropics, these take the form of virulent maladies that sweep a man from earth in a few hours. your lake _was_ haunted, so was the house that once stood in its basin, as some vague instinct strove to warn the generations of michells as well as you. haunted by emanations of some powerful form of marsh gas given forth more plentifully at night, which lowered the heart action and impeded the breathing of one drawing the poison into his lungs through hours of sleep, producing--nightmare. science has by no means analyzed all the possibilities of such phenomena." "nightmare!" i cried. "do you mean to account by nightmare for the wide and repeated experiences that twice brought me to the verge of death? and desire? what of her knowledge of that same nightmare? what of the legend of her family so exactly coinciding with all i felt? and why did not phillida and ethan suffer the nightmare with me?" he held up a lean hand. "gently, gently, roger! consider that of all the household you alone slept in the side of the house toward the lake. i know that you always have your windows open day and night--a habit that used to cause great annoyance to your aunt caroline when you were a boy. thus you were exposed to the full effect of the water gases. that you did not feel the effects every night i attribute to differences in the wind, that from some directions would blow the fumes away from the house, thus relieving you. i gather from your account that the phenomena were most pronounced in close, foggy weather, when the poisonous air was atmospherically held down to the earth. you have spoken of miasmic mists that hung below the level of the tree-tops. when mr. vere experienced a similar unease and depression, he was on the shore of the lake at dawn after precisely such a close, foggy night as i have described as most dangerous. the symptoms confirm this theory. you say you awakened on each occasion with a sense of suffocation. your heart labored, your limbs were cold and mind unnaturally depressed, owing to slow circulation of the blood. you were a man asphyxiated. after each attack you were more sensitive to the next, as a malaria patient grows worse if he remains in the swamp districts. it is remarkable that you did not guess the truth from the smell of decaying vegetation and stagnant damp which you admit accompanied the seizures! however, you did not; and in your condition the last three days of continuous fog brought on two attacks that nearly proved fatal. now as to the character of your hallucinations, and their agreement with the young lady's ideas. that is a trifle more involved discussion, yet simple, simple!" he put the tips of his fingers together and surveyed us with the benign condescension of one instructing a class of small children. "the first night that you passed in your newly purchased house, roger, you accidentally encountered miss michell; or she did you!" he smiled humorously. "while your feelings were excited by the unusual episode, the strange surroundings and the dark, she related to you a wild legend of witchcraft and monsters. later, when you suffered your first attack of marsh-gas poisoning, your consequent hallucination took form from the story you had just heard. later conversations with your mysterious lady fixed the idea into an obsession. recurrent dreams are a common phenomenon even in healthy persons. in this case, no doubt the exact repetition of the physical sensations of miasmic poisoning tended to reproduce in your mind the same sequence of ideas or semi-delirious imaginings. these were of course varied or distorted somewhat on each occasion, influenced by what you had been hearing or reading in advance of them. this mental condition became more and more confirmed as you steeped yourself more deeply in legendary lore and also--pardon me--in the morbid fancies of the young lady; whose ghostly visits in the dark and whose increasing interest for you put a further bias upon your thoughts." "what were the noises i heard from the lake, and the shocks we all felt?" i demanded. he nodded amiably toward vere. "mr. vere has mentioned the large bubbles which formed and burst on the surface of the lake. that is a common manifestation of ordinary marsh gas. possibly the singular and unknown emanation that took place at night came to the surface in the form of a bubble or bubbles huge enough to produce in bursting the smacking sound of which you speak. but i am inclined to another theory, after a walk i took about your place this morning. when you put up your cement dam instead of the old log affair that held back only a part of the stream, you made a greater depth and bulk of water in the swamp basin than it has contained these many years, if ever. as a result, i believe the sloping mud basin began to slip toward the dam. oh, very gradually! probably not stirring for weeks at a time. just a yielding here, a parting there, until the cloudburst precipitated the disaster. you had, my dear roger, a miniature landslide, which would account for sounds of shifting mud and water in your lake, and for the shocks or trembling of your house when the earth movements occurred." the rest of us regarded one another. i think vere might have spoken, if he had not been unwilling to mar phillida's contentment by any appearance of dispute with her father. "it is very cleverly worked out, sir," i conceded. "but how do you explain that desire knew what i experienced with the thing from the barrier, if my experiences were merely delirious dreams?" "i have not yet understood that she did know," said the professor dryly. "she put the suggestions into your head; innocently, of course. when you afterward compared notes and found they agreed, you cried 'miraculous'! how is that, miss michell? did you actually know what roger experienced in these excursions before he told you of them?" desire gazed at him with her meditative eyes, so darkly lovely, yet never quite to lose their individual difference from any other lovely eyes i have ever seen. the eyes, i thought then and still think, of one who has seen more, or at least seen into farther spaces, than most of treadmill-trotting humanity. she wore one of the new frocks for which phillida and she had already made a flying trip to town; a most sophisticated frock from fifth avenue, with frivolous french shoes to correspond. her hair of a lorelei was demurely coiled and wound about her little head. yet some indescribable atmosphere closed her delicately around, an impalpable wall between her and the commonplace. even the desiccated, material professor was aware of this influence and took off his spectacles uneasily, wiped them and put them on again to contemplate her. "i am not sure," she answered him with careful candor. "i believe that i could always tell when the dark one had been with him. i could feel that, here," she touched her breast. "i knew what its visits were like, because i was brought up to know by my father and was told the history of the three desire michells. my father had studied deeply and taught me--i shall not tell anyone all he taught me! i do not want to think of those things. some of them i have told to roger. some of them are quite harmless and pleasant, like the secret formula for making the rose of jerusalem perfume; which has virtues not common, as roger can say who has felt it revive him from faintness. but there are places into which we should not thrust ourselves. it is like--like suicide. one's mind must be perverted before certain things can be done. and that is the true sin--to debase one's soul. all men discover and learn of science and the universe by honest duty and effort is good, is lofty and leads up. nothing is forbidden to us. but if we turn aside to the low door which only opens to crime and evil purpose, we step outside. i am unskilful; i do not express myself well." "very well, young lady," the professor condescended. "unfortunately, your theories are wild mysticism. the veritable fiend that has plagued the house of michell is the mischievous habit of rearing each generation from childhood to a belief in doom and witchcraft. a child will believe anything it is told. why not, when all things are still equally wonderful to it? let me point out that your theory also contradicts itself, since roger certainly did not enter upon any path of crime, yet he met your unearthly monster." "because he chose to link his fate with mine, who am linked by heredity with the dweller at the frontier," she said earnestly. "he was in the position of one who enters the lair of a wild beast to bring out a victim who is trapped there. it may cost that rescuer his life. roger nearly paid his life. but he mastered it and took me away from it, because he was not afraid and not seeking his own good. i never imagined anyone so brave and strong and unselfish as roger. i suppose it is because he thinks of others instead of himself, which gives the strongest kind of strength." "the thing nearly had me, though," i hastily intervened to spare my own modesty. "and it did have me worse than afraid!" "i seem to be arguing against an impenetrable obstinacy," snapped the professor. "do you, roger, who were educated under my own eye, in my house, have the effrontery to tell me that you believe miss michell is descended from the union of an evil spirit and a human being; as the eastern legends claim for saladin the great?" "your own theory, sir, being----?" i evaded. "there is no theory about the matter," he declared. "excuse me, miss michell! the child was undoubtedly sir austin's son. which accounts for the madness of the first desire michell." we were all silent for a while. whatever thoughts each held remained unvoiced. "come, phillida, you take my sane point of view, i hope?" the professor finally challenged his daughter, with a glance of scorn and compassion at the rest of our group. "you observe that i have explained every point raised, miss michell's testimony being of the vaguest?" "yes, papa," phillida agreed hesitatingly. "i do believe you have solved the whole problem. only, if cousin roger was suffering from marsh-gas poisoning last night when he seemed to be dying, i do not quite see why ethan's prayer should have cured him." the professor was momentarily posed. he looked disconcerted, took off his glasses and put them on again, and at length muttered something about storm-wind dissipating the miasma in the air and events being mere coincidence. * * * * * the house was never again visited by the dark presence. phantom or fancy, the horror was gone as if it never had brooded about the place. desire locke is a fatal companion only to my heart. but whether all this is so because the lake is drained and the shetland pony of a young vere browses over the green pasture that was once a miasmic swamp; or whether it is so for more subtle, wilder reasons, no one can say. i, recalling that colossal barrier i visioned as closed and a certain cleaving arrow of light, must at least call the coincidence amazing. as i have said, my wife and i, ethan vere and bagheera the cat have an understanding between us. count the cost. an address to the people of connecticut, on sundry political subjects, and particularly on the proposition for a new constitution. by jonathan steadfast "however combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning ambitions and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp to themselves, the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." washington's farewell address. an address to the people of connecticut. "for which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost?" an interesting question is here asked by the direction of infinite wisdom. this question contains the following useful and important instruction: that no man or body of men should attempt the accomplishment of any great object without duly estimating the evils and benefits probably resulting from it. such a rule of life and adopted and adhered to would have prevented many schemes and projects which have cost much, and which have been productive of nothing but the disgrace to their authors and misery to the human race--it would induce men to obey the dictates of experience rather than the dreams of enthusiasm, and would drive from the world a species of wisdom which is indeed folly. an attempt is now making in this state to change the vital principles of our government, to remove from office all our present rulers, and to introduce a new order of things. to these innovations the people are invited, allured and exhorted.--to effect these objects no pains are spared--no exertions are omitted. an important question here arises, viz. would the accomplishment of the object be worth the cost?--an individual who neither holds an office nor seeks one--who can have nothing in view but the maintenance of that order of things which shall most effectually promote public and private happiness, and who has the same interest in the welfare of society as the great body of his fellow citizens, requests the dispassionate attention of the reader, while he considers this important subject. he will use no weapon but truth and truth will be regarded by all except those who love darkness rather than light. to exhibit a correct view of the subject, it will be proper, first, to enquire into the present condition of connecticut, and secondly, to examine the various plans or projects proposed for our adoption, and estimate the probably cost attending them. we can then in the third place form a just opinion of the propriety of the proposed changes. the condition of connecticut first claims our attention. that our climate, soil and situation are such as to insure as much health, riches and prosperity as any people can rationally wish, seems not to be doubted. our natural advantages do not indeed promise such an accumulation of wealth as might satisfy that avarice which like the horse leach is constantly crying give--give--they are such however as will in ordinary cases, ensure to industry an ample reward and this should satisfy a virtuous mind. the diffusion of knowledge is greater than in any other part of the globe of equal dimensions. such are the excellent provisions of our laws, and the virtuous habits of our citizens, that schools of instruction in all useful knowledge are to be found in every place where they are needed. there is no village in this state which will not attest to this fact. in various places also flourishing academies are supported, in which the higher branches of science are taught, and our college is at once our ornament and our pride. religious instruction is also brought almost to every man's door, so that none can justly complain that they are denied the means of growing wiser and better. by the liberality of the benevolent private libraries are every where found which, with the other sources of information, evince the superiority of our condition to that of any other people, in the means of gaining valuable knowledge. to those, who with the writer, believe that ignorance is the parent of vice, and that the civilized is preferable to the savage state, our situation, in the above particulars, demands the gratitude of every heart. our constitution and government are perfectly free, and our laws are mild, equitable and just. to the truth of this position there is the most ample and unequivocal proof. . those who seek to revolutionize the state declare this to be the nature of our government with few exceptions.--such testimony cannot be doubted--it is the testimony of a man against himself. ask your neighbour to point you to the evils under which he labours--ask him to name the man who is oppressed except by his vices or his follies, and if he be honest, he will tell you that there is no such man--if he be dishonest, his silence will be proof in point. . strangers who reside here a sufficient time to learn our laws, universally concur in their declarations on this subject. they will ask, with surprize, why the people of connecticut should complain? they see every man indulged in worshiping god as he pleases, and they see many indulged in neglecting his worship entirely--they see men every where enjoying the liberty of doing what is right--and such liberty they rightly decide is the perfection of freedom. . the experience of a century and a half, affords irresistible proof on this subject. during this long period convulsions have shaken many parts of the earth, and there has been a mighty waste of human happiness. empires and kingdoms have been prostrated, and the sword hath been devouring without cessation. this state too hath been threatened-- clouds have gathered and portended a dreadful desolation, but we have been defended, protected and saved. no essential changes in our government have ever taken place--formed by men who knew the important difference between liberty and licentiousness, it has been our shield-- our strong tower--our secure fortress.--to the calls of our country we have ever been obedient--no state hath more cheerfully met danger--no state hath more readily or effectually resisted foreign aggression. washington while living was a witness to this fact, and tho' dead he yet speaketh. while plots, insurrections and rebellions have distressed many states and nations, connecticut hath enjoyed an internal peace and tranquility, which forcibly demonstrates the wisdom and equity of her government.--such a government, administered by men of virtue and talents, has produced the most benign effects, and our prosperity is calculated to excite the warmest expressions of gratitude rather than the murmurs of disaffection. . our treasury exhibits the truth of these remarks. it is clear from the statement in the appendix, to which every reader will advert with pleasure, that the people of connecticut annually receive thirty seven thousand four hundred and fifty-five dollars and seventy six cents more from the treasury than they pay into it by taxes and duties.--at the close of the late war such had been our exertions, we were encumbered with a debt of nearly two millions of dollars. now that debt is paid and we have nearly that sum in advance. where is the state which can justly boast of greater prosperity? notwithstanding this enviable situation a clamour is excited, the people are agitated, and discord, with its train of evils, is prevailing. some of our citizens, in the height of political prosperity, are seeking to destroy an order of things which has prevailed an hundred and fifty years, and throw themselves into the arms of projectors and reformers. is there nothing unaccountable in such conduct? is there nothing calculated to excite indignation? my fellow citizens, shall any considerable portion of the people of connecticut subject themselves to the reproach which rested on an ancient people? "the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but my people do not know, israel doth not consider." secondly. let us examine some of the plans and projects proposed for our adoption and estimate the probably cost attending them.– here we must speak with less certainty--what the present condition of connecticut is we know--respecting its future destiny we can only judge by arguing from cause to effect. why a man who regards the happiness of his fellow men, should attempt a change here, is too wonderful for an ordinary capacity. no prudent farmer ever pulled up a hill of corn, which was flourishing, to see if there was not a worm at the root. one of these projects is the repeal of all laws for the support of religious institutions. the language of those who favor the measure is, that religion will take care of itself--that no external aid is necessary--that all legislative interference is impious. many, and it is believed by far the greater part, of those who make these declarations, intend to throw down all the barriers which christianity has erected against vice. they are obstinately determined to banish from the public mind all affection and veneration for the clergy, and respect for the institutions of religion, and to reduce connecticut to that condition which knows no distinction between "him who serveth god and him who serveth him not." they wish to see a republic without religion; and should they be gratified, the consequence would speedily be, a miserable race of men without virtue, walling in vice and ripening for a dreadful destruction. if infinite truth is to be credited, "god will pour out his indignation on the heathen who know him not." these reformers, under the specious pretext of exercising unbounded liberality in matters of religion, become intolerant to all who differ from them, charging the professors of christianity with breathing out a spirit of persecution, they become the most furious persecutors, and while they affect to possess great moderation and candor towards all denominations of christians, they clearly evince that they would grant indulgence or protection to none. on the other hand a great majority of the people and the legislature, insist that every man in the community who is able, should contribute, in some way, towards the support of the institutions of religion. no wish is entertained to legislate in matters of faith, or to establish one sect in preference to another. our laws permit every man to worship god when, where, and in the manner most agreeable to his principles or to his inclination, and not the least restraint is imposed; all ideas of dictating to the conscience are discarded, and every man "sits under his own vine and fig tree." our laws only enforce the great principle abovementioned that the members of the community should contribute towards the support of these institutions, as means to promote the prosperity of the people in the same manner as they provide for the public accommodation, peace and happiness, by the maintenance of the roads and bridges, the organization of the militia, and the support of schools of instruction. should objections be urged by any individuals that they cannot conscientiously contribute to the promotion of these objects, their objections would be disregarded. there is a class of men, very respectable for the sobriety of their habits, and their peaceful deportment, who always refuse to be taxed for military defence. no one doubts that in their opposition, they are conscientious, and yet few doubt the propriety of enforcing such taxes. the principle now advocated is interwoven with all our laws and habits --it has existed from the first settlement of the state--it has produced much good--it ought not therefore to be abandoned without the utmost deliberation. the clamor against this principle, is the clamor of those who wish to see the state revolutionized--it is the clamor of those turbulent spirits which delight in confusion and which pull down and destroy with a dexterity which they never shew in building up. let the sober citizens of connecticut look at the authors of this clamor--let them view such men as abraham bishop, and eye the path which they have trodden from their youth, and then ask their own hearts, if they are not under some apprehension, lest if they should enlist under such leaders and fight their cause, they may be found contending against the best interests of society, and "fighting against god." another project zealously supported is that of districting the state for the choice of assistants, and representatives in congress. the only argument which is urged for the adoption of this measure with any plausibility, is that in the district elections the candidate would be better known. to this argument it may be replied, the state of connecticut is so limited in its extent, information of all kinds is so generally diffused, and there is such a flood of newspapers that the characters of all the candidates for office may be thoroughly known by all who will bestow any attention to the subject. this state is scarcely more extensive than a single county in many other states, and the intercourse of the inhabitants of the various parts with each other is such that no evil can exist in our present mode of elections--but there are serious and weighty objections against district elections. . such elections open wide the door for intrigue.--as this door, already too widely extended, the most alarming mischiefs enter-- mischiefs which sap the foundations of an elective government by corrupting the minds of the freemen and this converting an election ground into a theatre on which is displayed the most vile and demoralizing practices. let the reader satisfy himself as to the truth of this observation by examining the history of an election in the southern states, where this mode alone is adopted. let him learn that they candidates for office and his host of dependents and tools, are employed for weeks before and on the days of election, in the most infamous intrigues, and that falsehood and bribery are so much in fashion, and are so universally resorted to, that success invariably attends the most impudent and the most profligate, while the man of modesty and virtue, though possessing the fairest claims to promotion, is abashed, confounded and overwhelmed. ndly. the candidate when elected becomes the creature of the district and not the ruler of a state--he is and must be devoted to the interest of that portion of the community which has elected him, and their views and schemes must be patronized though they oppose the welfare of the whole. rdly. such elections do not secure the best talents. if talents and worth are of consideration, surely they should be at the command of the public. it is of no moment where a man dwells, but it is of immense importance that he be a wise man rather than a fool--a man of integrity rather than a knave. thly. experience, the only save and unerring guide, is altogether in favor of elections at large rather than by districts. the representation of this state in congress has ever been of the most respectable character--it is not too much to say that no state in the union can justly claim a superiority to connecticut in this respect. the fame may be affirmed, with truth, of the upper house of the legislature of this state. has there not been a constant succession of able and wise men in that branch of the administration of connecticut? for more than a century we have preserved an unexampled prosperity.--shall we hazard our interests on the speculations of zealous partizans who are constantly bewildering themselves and their followers in new schemes? another project is that of universal suffrage. the streets resound with the clamour that men are deprived of the invaluable privilege of choosing their rulers, and the people are invited to extend this privilege to all who pay taxes and do military duty. it is now discovered that connecticut, in this particular, is not free.--the great argument urged in support of universal suffrage is that taxation and representation should go hand in hand--it is said that this maxim was deemed just during the revolutionary war, and that americans adhered to it as a fundamental principle.--this principle the writer readily recognizes as a sound and indisputable position in every free government. but what is the meaning of the maxim? does it intend that every person who is taxed, can of right claim the privilege of giving his suffrage? if so persons convicted of offences, or who are infamous for their vices may vote--for such persons are not outlawed.--on this principle, women of full age and unmarried, are also to be admitted.-- minors also whose property is taxed, should be permitted to exercise this franchise, at least by guardian or proxy. what then is the true meaning of the maxim, that representation and taxation are inseparable? here all writers agree--it means that no community should be taxed by the legislature unless that community is, or might have been represented in such legislature.--hence several towns in this state till lately, were not represented in the general assembly, and of course not taxed.-- barkhempsted, colebrook, and winchester, it is believed, were of this description. this state and the other states understood this maxim precisely as now explained, in their opposition to great-britain.--we complained that the colonies should not be taxed because they were not represented in parliament. in this view of the subject the maxim is wise and just. again, is not every town in connecticut now represented in the legislature, and of course each individual equally with every other? in the representative of hartford, for example, a representative of the freemen of hartford, or of the town of hartford? the truth is, every man, woman and child are represented. but it is said that many persons are excluded from giving their suffrages who have life, liberty and reputation to protect. on a close attention to this fact it will be found that the number of those worthy members of society who do not possess the legal qualification, is small, and if men are to have an influence in elections according to the amount of their taxes, why should not the man who pays fifty dollars, be entitled to more than one vote? no one pleads for such a privilege, but there are many who insist that the man without a cent of property shall have the same direction in the choice of those who are charged with the interests of the community, as he who is worth thousands of dollars. a friend to the rights of man seems to feel no alarm at the idea that one who exhausts his earnings in the grog-shop, should have an influence in elections in proportion to strength of his lungs, or his activity in intrigue, but he is greatly agitated from an apprehension that men who have property to protect, will not promote the well being of society. a juror who is to decide on the controversies of his neighbours--an appraiser of land--a distributor of a deceased persons estate, must be freeholders by a standing law which is the subject of no ensure, and yet it is said that in the important transaction of choosing men to enact laws, and to appoint those who are to decide on, and execute those laws, no qualifications are necessary. again, it is insisted by those who oppose universal suffrage, and the reader is desired to notice the remark with attention, that no community can be safe unless the power of elections resides principally with the great body of the landholders. such an influence had this principle on those wise men who formed our laws, that a mere trifle in real property gives the right of suffrage, while a man may be excluded who is the proprietor of personal property to a large amount. landholders have an enduring interest in the welfare of the community. they are lords of their own soil, and of course, to a certain degree, independent--they therefore will resist tyranny--they will equally oppose anarchy because they are aware that in any storm which may arise they must abide its fury. the merchant, with his thousands, can seek a shelter--to the mere bird of passage, who has no "abiding country and who seeks none to come," it is of little moment whether stability or confusion predominate, but to the former who is enchained to the state, peace and order is of inestimable value. what, my fellow citizens, is the attempt now making? what is the language of those who advocate universal suffrage? it is nothing less than an effort to rest from the farmers of connecticut that controul over the elections which is their only fortress of safety. let men who wish to protect their invaluable rights ponder on these things, and let them at the same time, remember that no nation in which universal suffrage hath been allowed, hath remained free and happy. another project urged, with great vehemence, is, to displace all our present rulers--by those, is meant our legislators in the general and state government--our judges and magistrates of every grade. that such is a darling object with those who seek to revolutionize connecticut, there is no doubt. is such a measure wise? who are these rulers? a candid observer must reply, they are men in whose hands power has been wisely placed by the people, and who have never abused that power, men of unquestionable talents and of spotless fame. among them are your trumbulls, your ellsworths, your hillhouses, your griswolds, your goodriches and your cavenports, men tried and approved. among them there is one who was side by side with your beloved washington during the revolutionary war, who has repeatedly been elected your first magistrate, and, against whom, the tongue of slander never moved but in the hard service of a harder master. there is another, who, for more than twenty years has been employed in the first offices in the gift of his country, and whose probity and talents are second to those of none of his contemporaries. among these are many who must enjoy the affection and veneration of their countrymen while superior worth is regarded. against these men the cry is raised--not the cry of the oppressed, for god knows no man in connecticut is oppressed, but the cry of those who pant for office, and who can rise only on the ruins of others. your judges also to whom is committed the administration of justice, are marked out as the victims of party spirit. is not a wise and faithful execution of the laws the chief object of every good government? without this who is safe for a moment? without this, liberty can exist only in name--the name indeed may be blasphemously uttered, but the substance is gone with the liberty of all who have relied on professions. let the people of connecticut look at their tribunals of justice. are they not filled with men of incorruptible integrity? where has innocence received a more ample protection? is not the transgressor punished, and are not the wrongs of the injured redressed? are not our mild laws executed in mercy, and is not justice awarded with impartiality to individuals? can you look at the seat of justice and say "iniquity is there?" dare any man say that the judges of our high courts are not upright, intelligent and learned? who then can justly complain? yet the stripling of yesterday--the bold projector--the unprincipled ad ambitious, with a host of deceived followers, with matchless effrontery, arraign the conduct of these magistrates and loudly demand that they be driven from their offices, and from public confidence. another favorite scheme is to elevate to all the offices of importance men who have never enjoyed the public confidence. the language of these revolutionists is, respecting the men in power in connecticut, "we will not have these men to rule over us"--we will fill their places with men of our choice--the creatures of our hands, and who will be subservient to our views. but, my countrymen, before you join in this project, pause and enquire, who are these men who thus assert their claim to rule over you? who are these men who place themselves in the corners of the streets and cry "oh, that we were made judges in the land?" it is no part of the writer's design to hunt vice from its guilty retreat, to expose before an insulted people, the horrid features which distinguish certain individuals who challenge popular applause, or to attach private character, but justice demands that men who boldly claim to be the rulers of the free and happy state of connecticut, should be known. the men who are to stand in the places of our trumbulls and our ellsworths should not shrink from public investigation. to those who respect the authority of god it is a matter of no small moment that those who rule over men should be just, ruling in the fear of god nor will men, accustomed to revere this solemn declaration, lend their aid to elevate men of vicious and corrupt lives, without some dismay. it is not enough to tell us that men will be selected of more virtue and talents than those now in power--such a pretence is vain--no man in his senses will regard it--no man makes such a pretence but for wicked purpose. if we are directed to turn our eyes to those who for years past have been held up in the unsuccessful nominations, and are told that these are to be substituted for the men who now guide our councils, what are we to expect? an appeal may be made to every man not bewildered in this new and destructive madness--he may be asked who among these men stand-forth with fair claims to public confidence? where among them, can be found the polished scholar--the able civilian, the enlightened judge? do we see in a single individual an assemblage of talents united with virtue sufficient to qualify him for the seat of justice? if there are such men they have hitherto hid their talents i the earth. it will not here be forgotten that the attempt is, to reject men long known and respected, and to fill their places with those who are without a witness in their favor. a still more mischievous and alarming project is, that of making a new constitution for connecticut. this project originates entirely in a spirit of jacobinism--it is a new theme on which to descant to effect a revolution in connecticut. the object is, by false assertions, to induce a belief that no constitution exists and that tyranny prevails. this party always address the passions and never the understanding.--review their measures for a few years, and you will distinctly perceive their motives and aims. to create disaffection and hatred towards those who formerly administered the general government, it was boldly asserted that the treasury had been plundered. even the illustrious saviour of his country was accused of embezzling public money, and his followers could not expect a less happy fate. men of the most unsuspected integrity, were openly attacked by anonymous publications, or dispoiled of their good name by secret insinuations. these calumnies were kept in circulation by their authors till impudence itself was abashed, and the object in view obtained--not a tittle of proof was ever adduced, and investigation always shewed that the charges were not only false, but entirely groundless. for the same unworthy purpose it was asserted in every circle of opposition that salaries were too high, and the incomes of office enormous. every tavern resounded with this grievance. at length the principal authors of this clamor got into place, and the clamor was hushed. yes, men who urged the people of connecticut almost to rebellion on this account, stept into the places and, without a blush, took more from the people than their predecessors. look at mr. babcock's paper in and , and see its columns filled with railing against high salaries--look at it since abraham bishop takes dollars a year, and alexander wolcott more than four, and find, if you can, a complaint on this subject. such meanness, such baseness, such hypocrisy in office seekers, exhibit in strong colors the depravity of human nature and teach us what dependence may justly be placed on pretensions and professions. to inflame the passions and to create animosity, various subjects have been successively seized upon, and pressed into the service of the revolutionists--every quarrel however trivial is noticed--every seed of discord however small is nourished to disseminate murmurs and to further the great object.-various classes of the community are told, with apparent anxiety for their welfare, that they are oppressed, and that a new order of things must arise, or that they will be enslaved. new subjects are started as old ones cease to operate, and thus all that ingenuity and art, industry and perseverance, can devise or effect is accomplished. thus, that numerous and respectably body of christians called episcopalians have been told, and repeatedly told, that the more numerous denomination were seeking to deprive them of their just and equal rights, and to subject them to the tyranny of an overbearing majority--these tales were reiterated till their authors found them useless from their folly and falsehood. at another time the baptists are addressed by a set of men who denied the reality of any religion and the most earnest yearnings for their welfare. they tyranny of the legislature was painted in horrid colors, and they were exhorted to lend their aid to vindicate the cause of the oppressed. those who conscientiously believe that no taxes ought to be paid for the support of religion, and those who wish that religion might no more infest the residence of men, were addressed with considerations adapted to their respective cases. at one time men destitute of property are seduced by the alluring doctrine of universal suffrage--then the farmer is told that taxes are too high on land, and, with the same breath, the mechanic is sagely informed, that the poll tax should be repealed, and the burden fall back on the land holder. festivals under the pretence of honoring the election of mr. jefferson and mr. burr, and of extolling the wisdom of the purchase of louisiana, but with a real design to blazen the fame of those who assume the character of friends of the people that they may the more readily destroy the most free and equitable government in the world, are continually holden, and the discontented, the factious, the ambitious and the corrupt, are collected and flattered with declamations in the various shapes of prayers, sermons and orations. thus a people enjoying the height of political prosperity are cajoled into a belief that men without virtue, without the restraints of the gospel, without a particle of real regard for their fellow men, are their best friends, and are anxiously laboring to promote their good. let such remember, that when the ethiopian shall change his skin, when the leopard shall change his spots, and when bitter fountains shall send forth sweet water, then will those who flatter the people with their tongues, and deceive them with their lips seek their happiness. such are some of the measures resorted to by those who have sworn in their wrath that connecticut shall be revolutionized. finding all these ineffectual, and that the good sence and virtue of connecticut has hitherto opposed an inseparable barrier to all their plans, they now exclaim connecticut has no constitution. such a gross absurdity could never have been promulgated till the mind was in some degree prepared, by being accustomed to misrepresentation. this was well known to mr. bishop, who has for years been in the habit of disregarding moral obligation. in the year this orator pronounced several inflammatory invectives against the constitution of the united states, to which he was a bitter enemy till he obtained an office under it worth three thousand dollars a year. at that time his language was, the constitution of connecticut is the best in the world--it has grown up with the people, and is fitted to their condition.--now this consistent man who is endeavoring to gull the people that he may successfully tyrannize over them, avows that they are without a constitution. my fellow citizens, examine this head of clamor with candor, read the solemn declaration of washington in the title page, attend to the following remarks, and then tell me if you do not perceive in this project, with the manner in which it is supported and attempted to be accomplished, enough of the revolutionary spirit of france, to excite the indignation of every real friend to the peace and happiness of connecticut. . if there be no constitution in connecticut then your huntingtons, your trumbulls, your shermans, your wolcotts and your davenports, with many other worthies, who were your defence in war, and your ornament in peace, and who are now sleeping with their fathers, were wicked usurpers --they ruled their fellow citizens without authority--they were tyrants. let judd and bishop approach the sepulchures of these venerable men--let them lift the covering from these venerable ashes and in the face of heaven pronounce them tyrants!! could you see them approach their dust with such language on their tongues, you would see them retreat with horrible confusion from these relicks of departed worth. . the present rulers are acting also without authority, and their laws are void--then you are already in the midst of anarchy and wild misrule --then has no man a title to an inch of land, and you are ready for an equal of division of property--all protection of life and liberty is at an end, and the will of a mob is now to prevail. . if indeed there is no constitution, then the oath which has been administered in your freemen's meetings for twenty years, by which each man has sworn "to be true and faithful to the constitution" of the state, is worse than impious profanation of the name of god--then your judges, magistrates and jurors have stripped men of their property, condemned some to newgate and others to the post, the pillory and the gallows without a warrant, and are therefore murderers.--o thou god of order in this our condition!!! but, . we have a constitution--a free and happy constitution. it was to our fathers like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land--it has enabled them to transmit to us a fair and glorious inheritance--if we suffer revolutionists to rob us of this birth right "then we are bastards and not sons." it is a fact as well authenticated as the settlement of the state, that a constitution was formed by the people of the then colony of connecticut, before the charter of king charles. this charter was a guarantee of that constitution. trumbull's history of connecticut gives us this constitution and its origin. on our separation from great- britain, the people, thro' their representatives, made the following declaration on this subject: "an act containing an abstract and declaration of the rights and privileges of the people of this state, and securing the same. the people of this state, being by the providence of god, free and independent, have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent state; and having from their ancestors derived a free and excellent constitution of government whereby the legislature depends on the free and annual election of the people, they have the best security for the preservation of their civil and religious rights and liberties. and forasmuch as the free fruition of such liberties and privileges as humanity, civility and christianity call for, as is due to every man in his place and proportion, without impeachment and infringement, hath ever been, and wilt be the tranquility and stability of churches and commonwealths; and the denial thereof, the disturbance, if not the ruin of both. par. i. be it enacted and declared by the governor, and council and house of representatives, in general court assembled: that the ancient form of civil government, contained in the charter from charles the second, king of england, and adopted by the people of this state, shall be and remain the civil constitution of this state under the sole authority of the people thereof, independent of any king or prince whatever. and that this republic is, and shall forever be and remain, a free, sovereign and independent sate, by the name of the state of connecticut. . and be it further enacted and declared, that no man's land shall be taken away: no man's honor or good name shall be stained: no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished: no man shall be deprived of his wife or children; no man's goods or estate shall be taken away from him nor any ways indamaged under the color of law, or countenance of authority; unless clearly warranted by the laws of this state. . that all the free inhabitants of this or any other of the united states of america, and foreigners in amity with this state, shall enjoy the same justice and law within this state, which is general for the state in all cases proper for the cognizance of the civil authority and court of judicature within the same, and that without partiality or delay. . and that no man's person shall be restrained, or imprisoned, by any authority whatsoever, before the law hat sentenced him thereunto, if he can and will give sufficient security, bail, or mainprize for his appearance and good behaviour in the mean time, unless it be for capital crimes, contempt in open court, or in such cases wherein some express law doth allow of, or order the same." these proceedings have been regarded as the ark of our political safety by the great and the good of all parties, who have gone before us. never till this year have we heard, or even suspected that our state was governed by lawless mobs. now, as a means to effect a revolution, for the first time, have a few designing men endeavored to excite alarm-- they have indeed excited alarm--sober men of their own party are alarmed--honest men, who are not misguided, see the whole extent of this project and they will frown it into contempt. . mr. edwards, as chairman of a body of men whom he calls a state committee, on the th of july, without consulting even his brethren of the committee, ordered delegates to meet at new-haven on the th wednesday of august. in those towns where enough could not be assembled to elect a member, the person written to, was authorized to attend and take a seat. in some towns the proposition was rejected even by republicans. the delegates thus chosen, with all who united with their opinions, and chose to attend, met at the time and place appointed--shut their doors against every eye and ear--sat one day, formed an address, ordered ten thousand copies printed and dissolved. this address we have seen. it deserves some notice: the first thing that attracts our attention is, that william judd, esq. of farmington, is appointed chairman. this was an admirable provision --such a meeting should certainly have such a head. a man with the habit of devoting his feeble talents to intrigue, and who is noticeable only for an ostentatious parade, would preside in such an assembly with peculiar grace. his acquaintance could not but approve of this exhibition of the power of inflammable air and be pleased with its effects [on] an exhausted receiver. the meeting thus organized proceeded to stile this convention as follows: "at a meeting of delegates from ninety-seven towns of the state of connecticut, convened at new-haven on the th of august, ." delegates--delegates do they stile themselves? the people would be obliged to this convention to disclose their authority. who commissioned these gentlemen for this important labor of providing them with a constitution? the truth is not a man in that convention was chosen by a majority of the people of [their] town--in many instances with less than a quarter part, and in general with less than a tenth----yet they call themselves delegates. thus [the] convention with major judd in the chair, precede their address [with] a grosly deceptive declaration---a declaration notoriously false and [impu]dent. they then declare it as their unanimous opinion, "that the people of this state are at present without a constitution of civil government." this was to have been expected. mr. edwards ordered them to meet for that purpose, and shall they not obey their master? bishop and wolcott have repeatedly directed them to make this declaration, and major judd knows it to be true. can any man doubt either the truth of this remark or the sincerity with which it is uttered? is it not clear that this whole proceeding originates in a pure unmixed affection for the people and a sacred regard to truth? my fellow citizens, look at the whole course of the lives of judd, (i place him first on the list because he was chairman) of bishop and of wolcott, and say if they have not ever been under the influence of the most disinterested virtue and the most exalted patriotism? look also at these delegates from ninety- seven towns, and say if they can have any other object in view but the dignity, happiness and glory of their country? individuals can only vouch for individuals. the writer can vouch for about thirty with major judd at their head. if any reader shall think that the subject is treated with too much levity, he should reflect that we are now animadverting on this convention in their appointment of chairman, their stiling themselves delegates from ninety-seven towns, and their declaration that we have no constitution. on these subjects it is scarcely possible to be serious. the address proceeds to declare how many of the confederated states have made for themselves constitutions. we ask, which of them is more prosperous than connecticut? in which of them are the great interests of society better secured? in new-york a convention was called about three years since to amend their constitution. in pennsylvania they have had two constitutions and they are now on the eve of a civil war. duane the great moving spring of all jacobin societies, a vile outcast from europe, reigns with uncontroled sway in every measure, and every man of virtue is denounced. in georgia they have had two constitutions, and in vermont two, and who dare pronounce their political situation equal to that of connecticut. the people of france have had six constitutions within fifteen years, and where are those constitutions? in the grave of anarchy and despotism with millions of deluded inhabitants who have been sacrificed by the robespieres and the bishops of that suffering nation. to that suffering nation turn your eyes and reflect that the mighty mass of woe under which they have groaned, was produced by an ambition, fierce, cruel and destructive as hell, and that an ambition alike terrible reigns every where. read this address attentively, and you will be struck with the idea that no grievance is mentioned----not a single evil is pointed out---indeed the convention declare that they must be "excused a detail of the numerous wrongs which have arrived to us under this government"----these are their words---they are excused indeed---yes, they are excused from not polluting their address with falsehoods in this particular---full well they knew that no such wrongs existed----full well they anticipated that a certain detection would follow any such attempt at imposition. the leaders in this convention knew full well that there is intelligence enough in connecticut to meet them on any complaint, and to shew that it is groundless. they, therefore, prudently decline to be explicit, and yielding to us that the government is now well administered, they shew a great anxiety for the safety of the "next generation." what an astonishing display of philanthropy!! bishop and wolcott are not at ease in their hearts while there is a prospect that even the generations which succeed us, will experience a woe!! after many remarks directed to the passions, without proposing in specific terms a single provision of their newly projected constitution, without laying their finger upon a single grievance, without urging a single argument tending to shew that a constitution does not exist, the address unmakes itself---it unmasks the convention---it unmasks these patriotic delegates, and discovers the true cause of this jacobinic meeting. towards the close of it, speaking of the people, it says, "by their votes will be known their decision. if a constitution appears desirable, they will vote for men who are in favor of it." here the convention speak which all may understand---but lest they had not made themselves sufficiently intelligible, they add, "we ask men of all parties to attend punctually at proxies and to continue a contest of votes till the great question whether this state shall have a constitution be settled finally and forever." now, the plain english of these sentences is this "we who are here assembled in convention wish the people of connecticut to vote for such men, in future, for office, as are in favor of a new constitution---we have already declared that we are in favor of such a constitution---pray therefore vote for us and continue" the context "till we succeed and then"---yes---my fellow- citizens, and then, what will they do? why laugh at your folly---take all the offices and leave you to take care of yourselves. if such would not be their conduct then the sun will no more rise in the east. gentlemen of the convention pray cease your pretensions to promotion till the people discover your merit. if you are honest, great and wise you will certainly be noticed and promoted--if you are pygmy politicians, the mushroom growth of an hour, dressed only with the little brief authority of self created delegates to a self created convention to aggrandise yourselves, then probably you will live with little further notice, and it will only be said hereafter of you that you belonged to an assembly convened at new-haven on the th of august , which sprang up in a day, chose major judd chairman; and like "jonah's gourd withered in a day." in this convention the question was much discussed whether the address should be made to the people or to the constituted authority of our state, the legislature. some honest republicans insisted that it was proper to apply to the legislature, but this was opposed by the young lawyers and the leaders of the party universally--full well they knew that such a measure would not answer their purpose--mobs never talk of any authority except that of the sovereign people--to the sovereign people they go, and to the sovereign people they appeal till a sovereign people are cruelly insulted, cajoled and enslaved. marat, robespierre and bonaparte told the sovereign people that they were all in all till they had robbed them of their dearest interests, and enchained them in despotism, and they now mock them with such declarations as these,* "the perfectability of human nature, the worst disease of man"-"the caprice of elections must be destroyed"-"the people cannot govern themselves" having examined some of the plans or projects proposed for our adoption, we will now estimate the probably cost attending them. it is to be recollected that the proposition is to change the vital principles of our government--to displace our present rulers and to fill their places with men who never enjoyed the public confidence. to determine whether these objects are worth accomplishing, it is necessary to count the cost. . one part of this cost will be an increase of the violence of parties. men who regard their property, their liberty and their lives, will not yield them a willing sacrifice to the demands of the ambitious and unprincipled--men who faced danger and braved death during a seven years war--men whose veins are warm with the blood of their venerable ancestors who planted this happy state, and defended it amidst innumerable hardships and calamities--men who deem their birthright sacred--their own freedom valuable, and their children dear as their own blood, will not calmly, nor cowardly suffer those who have no claims but their impudence, to storm their fortress and to capture them. they will defend it in all lawful ways.-bishop and wolcott, and a thousand other mercenary hirelings may attempt to subdue or terrify them--a proud and haughty leader who under the guise of patriotism, is attempting to undermine the happiness of the best regulated and freest state in the union, with a thousand sycophants, conspiring to bring us under the yoke of virginia, may exhaust their ingenuity and malice, still connecticut will remain unshaken. she will never crouch like isachar to chains and fetters while any portion of the noble spirit of her ancestors who transmitted this fair inheritance at a mighty expense, remains to impel them to noble exertions.--it is ardently to be wished that the passions of those who seek to overturn the venerable institutions of connecticut, my subside, and that a spirit of reconciliation and moderation may succeed to that madness which threatens our peace.--if however the controversy is to be continued and a mob insist on the right to rule, freemen will protect their lives and their liberties.--and is not the peace and tranquility of the state of importance? we have been told with more truth than sincerity that "life itself is a dreary thing" without "harmony in social intercourse." happy would it have been if the author of that just and pertinent remark had not contributed more than any other man in the united states to embitter parties, and to render life indeed a "dreary thing." . another item in the expense of accomplishing these projects, is a corruption of morals. to revolutionize connecticut it will be necessary to circulate, without any intermission, many gross falsehoods respecting the men in power, the judges, legislators and magistrates, and the acts and proceedings of the general assembly. we have seen the columns of the mercury and the republican farmer filled with vile libels.--we have seen abraham bishop followed by hundreds enter a temple devoted to the service of god, and we have heard him there utter the most malignant slanders on the clergy, the legislature and the courts of law.--we have seen him publicly denounce one class and another of his fellow citizens as hypocrites, old tories and traitors.--we have seen him receiving for this, the applause of a wretched collection of disappointed, ambitious and corrupt men. this has been borne and the author despised, and indignantly hissed from the society of the respectable and virtuous--but the end is not gained--new themes of reviling--new subjects of abuse must be sought, and the party who wish to effect a revolution, are pledged to uphold and protect the agents however wicked. what then may now be expected? that dreadful declaration "truth is fallen in their streets" will soon be but an inconsiderable part of our miserable character. it need not be added that such a condition evinces great corruption of morals. . another part of this expense will be the elevation of men to office who are unworthy of public confidence. what can a nation or state expect from such men? what could now be expected from these men but that they become immediately the creatures of a party--the tools of a faction? is it worthy of no consideration that judges who are to be the arbiters of controversies--who are to adjudicate on the lives of their fellow citizens, and to whom is committed the dearest and highest interests of society, should be men of virtue--of wisdom and of unsullied reputation? can a court be a shield against the proud oppressor when a daring leader can crush them with his nod? be not deceived my fellow citizens--no nation hath yet made such an experiment without feeling its bitter and dreadful effects. see the revolutionary tribunals of france--see in them a melancholy picture of corrupt courts and unprincipled judges--the cruelty of that nation hath appeared no where more infernal than through their forms of law and in their sanctuaries of justice--a corrupt judgment seat is the greatest curse with which a people can be punished. in the mean time all subordinate tribunals will partake of the same character.--thus instead of a government of laws, there will be the tyranny of a desperate faction.--let no one reply that there is no danger of such evils in connecticut. we now see a few leaders controul a party of several thousands--we have seen six hundred meet and applaud the purchase of louisiana when not one in five of them could form any opinion on the merits of the bargain--we have seen a few leaders direct the offering of incense to burr while the great body of their followers cursed him--we see a party suffering the pride of virginia to controul the government of the union and to oppress new-england with a heavy impost because she would not submit to internal taxes--we see a few leaders direct a convention of about two hundred to issue an address to the people of connecticut, which address contains on the face of it many palpable falsehoods.--and cannot these same leaders controul a court? . another part of the cost of these projects, is the loss of all our institutions of religion.--it is not here intended that these institutions will be at once abolished--such a measure would alarm some honest men of the party--a gradual but sure destruction is the evil to be feared. the constitution of the united states was first attacked by an unconstitutional repeal of a law, and now the independence of the supreme court is to be destroyed, by impeachments of the judges. so will it fare with your institutions. the principle openly advocated is that none shall be obliged to contribute for the support of religious institutions. this once established destroys the vitals of the system, and the residue of its existence will be misery and wretchedness. shall a party avowing this sentiment and seeking by every artifice to give it effect, receive the support of a people who have derived such substantial benefits from these institutions? shall we look in vain thro' the ranks of that party for one to lift up his voice against this daring and dangerous innovation? are there not many who either do not believe this to be the object of their leaders, or if such shall be their object, who are determined to resist them? yes, there are many who act with them, who still intend to progress to no such excesses. let such view the conduct of similar parties--let such not be deceived--this is indeed their object--they do not avow it to you, they know you would reject it, but they have made a vow that the influence of the clergy shall be destroyed--this can be done in no other way. nor can you resist them--they regard you now because they wish your assistance to confer on them power, but will they regard you when your exertions can neither aid nor defeat their designs?--surely not--such has been the conduct of all factions.--it will be theirs should they prevail--the world has not furnished one solitary exception, nor can you expect one in this case. they seek their own good, and not the good of others, if inspiration is to be credited. in return for these losses what good is to acrue to the people? will you hazard these evils without a fair and reasonable expectation of some solid benefits? is it then unreasonable to enquire what good is to be obtained? do the characters of these men elevate your hopes? you know many of them in private life--do they there abound in good works? shall they be heard and regarded when they demand of you to displace your faithful and approved rulers, and commit to them your all? modest men will wait your notice and rise at your request. shall the impudent, banish them from your affections and usurp their places in your hearts? let it again be asked what good will result to connecticut by a new constitution, by the prevalence of revolutionary principles? france, switzerland, the netherlands, italy and holland, have seen revolution after revolution, one new constitution after another, and liberty has a thousand times been immovably established. altars have been demolished --temples polluted, kings, queens, nobles and priests murdered in the cause of liberty--millions have perished--religion banished, and the worship of god prohibited--projectors have exhausted their ingenuity --the treasures of wealth have been wasted and the peace of the world sacrificed! what is the result? an accumulation of misery which baffles all description. not an individual is more happy or more virtuous. not a nation more prosperous--not a tittle added to human felicity. ye reformers, look at france--behold the crimes which have risen up to demand the vengeance of god--see the woes which you have brought on the race of man, and tremble lest your works should follow you? if this picture is too glaring, look at our sister states in which revolutions have been effected, and shew us the benefit. a noisy or seditious individual has obtained a lucrative office--an ambitious leader is in the char of state satiating his pride, or like abraham bishop gratifying his passion for ignoble pelf, upon his thousands.--he drives his carriage by his industrious neighbor who has toiled for him at an election, cracks his whip, and laughs at the folly of his dupe, and will laugh till he may need his services again, and then he will again cringe and bow and flatter and gull. but is the mechanic, the farmer, the merchant profited? is society enriched, or the public good promoted? in this view of the subject we will briefly ask, in the third place, is it proper to make the proposed changes--to adopt these projects? if no benefits will result--if much evil will probably ensue--the course of duty and interest is plain. aware, however, that it may be said many of the dangers are imaginary, and are founded upon the supposition that we shall act with as little discretion and prudence as the people of other countries, it is important to observe that revolutions are the same, in nature in every nation. those who speak of a new constitution, and of thorough reforms, should recollect that the promoters of these schemes in france, constantly amused the people with the idea that a new order of things--new rights--new principles, were to arise. who does not recollect to have read of the perfectability human nature--of the enlightened age of regenerated france? she boldly proclaimed herself the example of the world, and all nations were invited to see her glory, and enjoy her blessed liberty and her glorious equality. but mark the issue --not twelve years have elapsed before she has returned to an inglorious despotism--she has exchanged her capets for a foreign usurper, with an incalculable loss, and here her history ends. such is the constant termination of such revolutions, and shall we claim to be an exception? how do we judge as to the propriety of any course of life except by observation, experience or history? we see industry and integrity rewarded with competence or wealth--we see intemperance and sloth followed with disease, loss of reputation and poverty. these are sure grounds on which to predict respecting our neighbors, and by which to regulate our own conduct. on similar principles a wise people regard the conduct of other nations, and are solemnly admonished by their example. let not then the projector persuade us to adopt his theories with proofs of their danger thus glaring before our eyes. look at the conduct of our revolutionists for four years past, and see if you do not discover the genuine principles of the jacobins of france--recollect also that they had first a convention--then an executive directory--then a consul for years--then a consul for life, and then an usurper with an hereditary descent in his family. at each successive revolution the people were courted--were flattered--were promised transcendent felicity. the people swore eternal hatred to monarchy, and eternal fidelity to constitutions, till, heaven, weary of their perjuries, sent them a despot in his wrath. my fellow citizens human nature is the same here as in france--then before you give ear to the songs of enchantment count the cost--before you sell your birthright for a mess of pottage count the cost. before you consent to yield up the institutions of your wise and pious ancestors, count the cost--before you admit universal suffrage count the cost--before you submit to the mischievous doctrine of district elections, count the cost.--before you reject from office the men whom your hearts approve, count the cost, the great cost of weak and wicked rulers.--before you consent to be governed by men whose impudence, and vice constitute many of their claims to promotion, count the cost. this evil you can prevent by attending with punctuality on our elections. the freemen of connecticut are mighty when they arise in their strength. no freeman can justify absence except from necessity.--that people who will not faithfully attend upon the choice of their rulers, cannot expect to retain their freedom.--trust not to a majority--say not that things will go well without me--such language is unbecoming freemen--despair not of a majority--if you will not "go with the multitude to do evil," go against them to do good. before you neglect an election count the cost --if the loss of your vote should prove the loss of an election of a single man, then will you not have counted the cost. my fellow citizens--we have a government which has protected us a century and an half--we have enjoyed unexampled prosperity.--we may transmit a glorious inheritance to posterity.--the writer has children dear to him as his own blood--these children are to him a sacred deposit--he can, with confidence, commit their political interests to such a government as connecticut has enjoyed.--he is persuaded that if they feel the iron hand of despotism, it will not be from such a government, and such rulers as we now possess--before he yields his own, and their dear, and inestimable rights to the wild projects of the reformers of this age, he is firmly resolved to sit down and count the cost, and he entreats his fellow citizens to adopt similar resolutions. appendix. a view of the fiscal concerns of connecticut. capital funds of the civil list. dols. cts. funded per cent. stock, (real capital) - , deferred --do. - do. - do. - - , funded per cent. do. - - - , bank stock - - - - - , __________ , __________ school funds. bonds collaterally secured - - , , new lands received in payment of school bonds, price at which received, , funded per cent. stock, (real capital) , deferred --do. - do. -do. - - - , funded per cent. do. - - - - , ___________ , , ___________ annual expense of government. viz. salaries of executive officers, - - , debentures and contingent expenses of the legislature for two sessions, - , debenture of the supreme court of errors, judicial expenses, - - - - , expense of newgate prison, - - - , charges of paupers and vagrants, - - , allowance of dollars on the of the list being a draw-back from the state tax, , contingent expenses, comprising all other charges of government, - - - , ____________ , ____________ means for defraying the annual expense of the civil list. viz. annual interest on the above-mentioned stock appertaining to the civil list funds, , duties on civil processes, - - , annual tax of mills on the dollar, neat amount, - , _____________ , _____________ n.b. one eighth part of all the state taxes and one tenth part of all rateable polls are abated for the relief of the indigent. the yearly interest of the whole school funds would be - , deduct the interest on that part which lies in lands, and also on those bonds whereon interest has not yet commenced, amounts to , n.b. several bonds draw interest in present year, which were not on interest last year. and the whole present annual interest will be , add to this the allowance of dolls. on the of the list, - - , total annual amount payable for schools, , drawable from the state treasury annually, by the people in their capacity of school societies, - , payable by the people into the state treasury annually in taxes (including duties on civil processes) only the sum of - , balance drawn out beyond what is paid by taxes and duties, - - - - , from the foregoing view of their financial arrangements, it appears that the people of connecticut not only enjoy the blessings of civil government free from expense, but even receive from the public treasury yearly, in sum of , dollars and cents more than they contribute to in taxes, &c. who can behold this uparalleled situation of finances, taking into view at the same time our embarrassed circumstances at the close of the late war, when we were not only destitute of any funds except direct taxes, but incumbered with a debt of two millions of dollars, and not admire and appreciate the faithfulness and ability of those who have so sucessfully managed the public affairs of this state. keeping up with lizzie by irving bacheller illustrated by w.h.d.koerner harper & brothers publishers new york and london copyright, , , by harper & brothers printed in the united states of america published march, c-n to the loving and beloved "mr. onedear" i dedicate this little book contents chap. i. in which the leading tradesmen of pointview become a board of assessors ii. in which lizzie returns to her home, having met a queen and acquired an accent and a fiance iii. in which lizzie descends prom a great height iv. in which the ham war has its beginning v. in which lizzie exerts an influence on the affairs of the rich and great vi. in which the pursuit of lizzie becomes highly serious vii. in which the honorable socrates potter catches up with lizzie illustrations a duel with automobiles with his mind on the subject of extravagance "seven dollars a barrel" "i wanted ye to tell mr. potter about yer travels," says sam lizzie dropped into a chair and began to cry bill an' i got together often an' talked of the old happy days we set out for a tramp over the big farm "i'm a candidate for new honors" three days later i drove to the villa the boy exerted his charms upon my lady warburton. she led us into the bedroom their eyes were wide with wonder keeping up with lizzie keeping up with lizzie in which the leading tradesmen of pointview become a board of assessors the honorable socrates potter was the only "scientific man" in the village of pointview, connecticut. in every point of manhood he was far ahead of his neighbors. in a way he had outstripped himself, for, while his ideas were highly modern, he clung to the dress and manners that prevailed in his youth. he wore broadcloth every day, and a choker, and chewed tobacco, and never permitted his work to interfere with the even tenor of his conversation. he loved the old times and fashions, and had a drawling tongue and often spoke in the dialect of his fathers, loving the sound of it. his satirical mood was sure to be flavored with clipped words and changed tenses. the stranger often took him for a "hayseed," but on further acquaintance opened his mouth in astonishment, for soc. potter, as many called him, was a man of insight and learning and of a quality of wit herein revealed. he used to call himself "an attorney and peacemaker," but he was more than that. he was the attorney and friend of all his clients, and the philosopher of his community. if one man threatened another with the law in that neighborhood, he was apt to do it in these terms, "we'll see what soc. potter has to say about that." "all right! we'll see," the other would answer, and both parties would be sure to show up at the lawyer's office. then, probably, socrates would try his famous lock-and-key expedient. he would sit them down together, lock the door, and say, "now, boys, i don't believe in getting twelve men for a job that two can do better," and generally he would make them agree. he had an office over the store of samuel henshaw, and made a specialty of deeds, titles, epigrams, and witticisms. he was a bachelor who called now and then at the home of miss betsey smead, a wealthy spinster of pointview, but nothing had ever come of it. he sat with his feet on his desk and his mind on the subject of extravagance. when he was doing business he sat like other men, but when his thought assumed a degree of elevation his feet rose with it. he began his story by explaining that it was all true but the names. [illustration: with his mind on the subject of extravagance.] "this is the balloon age," said he, with a merry twinkle in his gray eyes. "the inventor has led us into the skies. the odor of gasoline is in the path of the eagle. our thoughts are between earth and heaven; our prices have followed our aspirations in the upward flight. now here is sam henshaw. sam? why, he's a merchant prince o' pointview--grocery business--had a girl--name o' lizzie--smart and as purty as a wax doll. dan pettigrew, the noblest flower o' the young manhood o' pointview, fell in love with her. no wonder. we were all fond o' lizzie. they were a han'some couple, an' together about half the time. "well, sam began to aspire, an' nothing would do for lizzie but the smythe school at hardcastle at seven hundred dollars a year. so they rigged her up splendid, an' away she went. prom that day she set the pace for this community. dan had to keep up with lizzie, and so his father, bill pettigrew, sent him to harvard. other girls started in the race, an' the first we knew there was a big field in this maiden handicap. "well, sam had been aspirin' for about three months, when he began to perspire. the extras up at hardcastle had exceeded his expectations. he was goin' a hot pace to keep up with lizzie, an' it looked as if his morals was meltin' away. "i was in the northern part o' the county one day, an' saw some wonderful, big, red, tasty apples. "'what ye doin' with yer apples?' says i to the grower. "'i've sent the most of 'em to samuel henshaw, o' pointview, an' he's sold 'em on commission,' says he. "'what do ye get for 'em ?' i asked. "'two dollars an' ten cents a barrel,' says he. "the next time i went into sam's store there were the same red apples that came out o' that orchard in the northern part o' the county. "'how much are these apples?' i says. "'seven dollars a barrel,' says sam. [illustration: seven dollars a barrel.] "'how is it that you get seven dollars a barrel an' only return two dollars an' ten cents to the grower?' i says. "sam stuttered an' changed color. i'd been his lawyer for years, an' i always talked plain to sam. "'wal, the fact is,' says he, with a laugh an' a wink, 'i sold these apples to my clerk.' "'sam, ye're wastin' yer talents,' i says. 'go into the railroad business.' "sam was kind o' shamefaced. "'it costs so much to live i have to make a decent profit somewhere,' says he. 'if you had a daughter to educate, you'd know the reason.' "i bought a bill o' goods, an' noticed that ham an' butter were up two cents a pound, an' flour four cents a sack, an' other things in proportion. i didn't say a word, but i see that sam proposed to tax the community for the education o' that lizzie girl. folks began to complain, but the tax on each wasn't heavy, an' a good many people owed sam an' wasn't in shape to quit him. then sam had the best store in the village, an' everybody was kind o' proud of it. so we stood this assessment o' sam's, an' by a general tax paid for the education o' lizzie. she made friends, an' sailed around in automobiles, an' spent a part o' the christmas holidays with the daughter o' mr. beverly gottrich on fifth avenue, an' young beverly gottrich brought her home in his big red runabout. oh, that was a great day in pointview!--that red-runabout day of our history when the pitcher was broken at the fountain and they that looked out of the windows trembled. "dan pettigrew was home from harvard for the holidays, an' he an' lizzie met at a church party. they held their heads very high, an' seemed to despise each other an' everybody else. word went around that it was all off between 'em. it seems that they had riz--not risen, but riz--far above each other. "now it often happens that when the young ascend the tower o' their aspirations an' look down upon the earth its average inhabitant seems no larger to them than a red ant. sometimes there's nobody in sight--that is, no real body--nothin' but clouds an' rainbows an' kings an' queens an' their families. now lizzie an' dan were both up in their towers an' lookin' down, an' that was probably the reason they didn't see each other. "right away a war began between the rival houses o' henshaw an' pettigrew. the first we knew sam was buildin' a new house with a tower on it--by jingo!--an' hardwood finish inside an' half an acre in the dooryard. the tower was for lizzie. it signalized her rise in the community. it put her one flight above anybody in pointview. "as the house rose, up went sam's prices again. i went over to the store an' bought a week's provisions, an' when i got the bill i see that he'd taxed me twenty-nine cents for his improvements. "i met one o' my friends, an' i says to him, 'wal,' i says, 'sam is goin' to make us pay for his new house an' lot. sam's ham an' flour have jumped again. as an assessor sam is likely to make his mark.' "'wal, what do ye expect?' says he. 'lizzie is in high society, an' he's got to keep up with her. lizzie must have a home proper to one o' her station. don't be hard on sam.' "'i ain't,' i says. 'but sam's house ought to be proper to his station instead o' hers.' "i had just sat down in my office when bill pettigrew came in--sam's great rival in the grocery an' aspiration business. he'd bought a new automobile, an' wanted me to draw a mortgage on his house an' lot for two thousand dollars. "'you'd better go slow,' i says. 'it looks like bad business to mortgage your home for an automobile.' "'it's for the benefit o' my customers,' says he. "'something purty for 'em to look at?' i asked. "'it will quicken deliveries,' says he. "'you can't afford it,' i says. "'yes, i can,' says he. 'i've put up prices twenty per cent., an' it ain't agoin' to bother me to pay for it.' "'oh, then your customers are goin' to pay for it!' i says, 'an' you're only a guarantor.' "'i wouldn't put it that way,' says he. 'it costs more to live these days. everything is goin' up.' "'includin' taxes,' i says to bill, an' went to work an' drew his mortgage for him, an' he got his automobile. "i'd intended to take my trade to his store, but when i saw that he planned to tax the community for his luxuries i changed my mind and went over to eph hill's. he kept the only other decent grocery store in the village. his prices were just about on a level with the others. "'how do you explain it that prices have gone up so?' i asked. "'why, they say it's due to an overproduction o' gold,' says he. "'looks to me like an overproduction of argument,' i says. 'the old earth keeps shellin' out more gold ev'ry year, an' the more she takes out o' her pockets the more i have to take out o' mine.' "wal, o' course i had to keep in line, so i put up the prices o' my work a little to be in fashion. everybody kicked good an' plenty, an' nobody worse'n sam an' bill an' ephraim, but i told 'em how i'd read that there was so much gold in the world it kind o' set me hankerin'. "ye know i had ten acres o' worn-out land in the edge o' the village, an' while others bought automobiles an' such luxuries i invested in fertilizers an' hired a young man out of an agricultural school an' went to farmin'. within a year i was raisin' all the meat an' milk an' vegetables that i needed, an' sellin' as much ag'in to my neighbors. "well, pointview under lizzie was like rome under theodora. the immorals o' the people throve an' grew. as prices went up decency went down, an' wisdom rose in value like meat an' flour. seemed so everybody that had a dollar in the bank an' some that didn't bought automobiles. they kept me busy drawin' contracts an' deeds an' mortgages an' searchin' titles, an' o' course i prospered. more than half the population converted property into cash an' cash into folly--automobiles, piano-players, foreign tours, vocal music, modern languages, an' the aspirations of other people. they were puffin' it on each other. every man had a deep scheme for makin' the other fellow pay for his fun. reminds me o' that verse from zechariah, 'i will show them no mercy, saith the lord, but i will deliver every man into the hand of his neighbor.' now the baron business has generally been lucrative, but here in pointview there was too much competition. we were all barons. everybody was taxin' everybody else for his luxuries, an' nobody could save a cent--nobody but me an' eph hill. he didn't buy any automobiles or build a new house or send his girl to the seminary. he kept both feet on the ground, but he put up his prices along with the rest. by-an'-by eph had a mortgage on about half the houses in the village. that showed what was the matter with the other men. "the merchants all got liver-comlaint. there were twenty men that i used to see walkin' home to their dinner every day or down to the postoffice every evenin'. but they didn't walk any more. they scud along in their automobiles at twenty miles an hour, with the whole family around 'em. they looked as if they thought that now at last they were keepin' up with lizzie. their homes were empty most o' the time. the reading-lamp was never lighted. there was no season o' social converse. every merchant but eph hill grew fat an' round, an' complained of indigestion an' sick-headache. sam looked like a moored balloon. seemed so their morals grew fat an' flabby an' shif'less an' in need of exercise. their morals travelled too, but they travelled from mouth to mouth, as ye might say, an' very fast. more'n half of 'em give up church an' went off on the country roads every sunday. all along the pike from pointview to jerusalem corners ye could see where they'd laid humbly on their backs in the dust, prayin' to a new god an' tryin' to soften his heart with oil or open the gates o' mercy with a monkey-wrench. "bill came into my shop one day an' looked as if he hadn't a friend in the world. he wanted to borrow some money. "'money!' i says. 'what makes ye think i've got money?' "'because ye ain't got any automobile,' he says, laughin'. "'no,' i says. 'you bought one, an' that was all i could afford,' "it never touched him. he went on as dry as a duck in a shower. 'you're one o' the few sensible men in this village. you live within yer means, an' you ought to have money if ye ain't.' "'i've got a little, but i don't see why you should have it,' i says. 'you want me to do all the savin' for both of us.' "'it costs so much to live i can't save a cent,' he says. 'you know i've got a boy in college, an' it costs fearful. i told my boy the other day how i worked my way through school an' lived on a dollar a week in a little room an' did my own washin'. he says to me, "well, governor, you forget that i have a social position to maintain."' "'he's right,' i says. 'you can't expect him to belong to the varsity crew an' the dickey an' the hasty-puddin' club an' dress an' behave like the son of an ordinary grocer in pointview, connecticut. ye can't live on nuts an' raisins an' be decent in such a position. looks to me as if it would require the combined incomes o' the grocer an' his lawyer to maintain it. his position is likely to be hard on your disposition. he's tryin' to keep up with lizzie--that's what's the matter,' "for a moment bill looked like a lost dog. i told him how grant an' thomas stood on a hilltop one day an' saw their men bein' mowed down like grass, an' by-an'-by thomas says to grant, 'wal, general, we'll have to move back a little; it's too hot for the boys here.' "'i'm afraid your boy's position is kind of uncomf'table,' i says. "'i'll win out,' he says. 'my boy will marry an' settle down in a year or so, then he'll begin to help me.' "'but you may be killed off before then,' i says. "'if my friends 'll stand by me i'll pull through,' says he. "'but your friends have their own families to stand by,' i says. "'look here, mr. potter,' says he. 'you've no such expense as i have. you're able to help me, an' you ought to. i've got a note comin' due tomorrow an' no money to pay it with.' "'renew it an' then retrench,' i says. 'cut down your expenses an' your prices.' "'can't,' says he. 'it costs too much to live. what 'll i do ?' "'you ought to die,' i says, very mad. "'i can't,' says he. "'why not?' "'it costs so much to die,' he says. 'why, it takes a thousan' dollars to give a man a decent funeral these days.' "'wal,' i says, 'a man that can't afford either to live or die excites my sympathy an' my caution. you've taxed the community for yer luxuries, an' now ye want to tax me for yer notes. it's unjust discrimination. it gives me a kind of a lonesome feelin'. you tell your boy dan to come an' see me. he needs advice more than you need money, an' i've got a full line of it.' "bill went away richer by a check for a few hundred dollars. oh, i always know when i'm losin' money! i'm not like other citizens o' pointview. "dan came to see me the next saturday night. he was a big, blue-eyed, handsome, good-natured boy, an' dressed like the son of a millionaire. i brought him here to the office, an' he sat down beside me. "'dan,' i says, 'what are your plans for the future?' "'i mean to be a lawyer,' says he. "'quit it,' i says. "'why?' says he. "'there are too many lawyers. we don't need any more. they're devourin' our substance.' "'what do you suggest?' "'be a real man. we're on the verge of a social revolution. boys have been leaving the farms an' going into the cities to be grand folks. the result is we have too many grand folks an' too few real folks. the tide has turned. get aboard.' "'i don't understand you.' "'america needs wheat an' corn an' potatoes more than it needs arguments an' theories.' "'would you have me be a farmer?' he asked, in surprise. "'a farmer!' i says. 'it's a new business--an exact science these days. think o' the high prices an' the cheap land with its productiveness more than doubled by modern methods. the country is longing for big, brainy men to work its idle land. soon we shall not produce enough for our own needs.' "'but i'm too well educated to be a farmer,' says he. "'pardon me,' i says. 'the land 'll soak up all the education you've got an' yell for more. its great need is education. we've been sending the smart boys to the city an' keeping the fools on the farm. we've put everything on the farm but brains. that's what's the matter with the farm.' "'but farming isn't dignified,' says dan. "'pardon me ag'in,' says i. 'it's more dignified to search for the secrets o' god in the soil than to grope for the secrets o' satan in a lawsuit. any fool can learn blackstone an' kent an' greenleaf, but the book o' law that's writ in the soil is only for keen eyes.' "'i want a business that fits a gentleman,' says dan. "'an' the future farmer can be as much of a gentleman as god 'll let him,' says i. 'he'll have as many servants as his talents can employ. his income will exceed the earnings o' forty lawyers taken as they average. his position will be like that o' the rich planter before the war.' "'well, how shall i go about it?' he says, half convinced. "'first stop tryin' to keep up with lizzie,' says i. 'the way to beat lizzie is to go toward the other end o' the road. ye see, you've dragged yer father into the race, an' he's about winded. turn around an' let lizzie try to keep up with you. second, change yer base. go to a school of agriculture an' learn the business just as you'd go to a school o' law or medicine. begin modest. live within yer means. if you do right i'll buy you all the land ye want an' start ye goin'.' "when he left i knew that i'd won my case. in a week or so he sent me a letter saying that he'd decided to take my advice. "he came to see me often after that. the first we knew he was goin' with marie benson. marie had a reputation for good sense, but right away she began to take after lizzie, an' struck a tolerably good pace. went to new york to study music an' perfect herself in french. "i declare it seemed as if about every girl in the village was tryin' to be a kind of a princess with a full-jewelled brain. girls who didn't know an adjective from an adverb an' would have been stuck by a simple sum in algebra could converse in french an' sing in italian. not one in ten was willin', if she knew how, to sweep a floor or cook a square meal. their souls were above it. their feet were in pointview an' their heads in dreamland. they talked o' the doin's o' the four hundred an' the successes o' lizzie. they trilled an' warbled; they pounded the family piano; they golfed an' motored an' whisted; they engaged in the titivation of toy dogs an' the cultivation o' general debility; they ate caramels an' chocolates enough to fill up a well; they complained; they dreamed o' sunbursts an' tiaras while their papas worried about notes an' bills; they lay on downy beds of ease with the last best seller, an' followed the fortunes of the bold youth until he found his treasure at last in the unhidden chest of the heroine; they created what we are pleased to call the servant problem, which is really the drone problem, caused by the added number who toil not, but have to be toiled for; they grew in fat an' folly. some were both ox-eyed an' peroxide. homeliness was to them the only misfortune, fat the only burden, and pimples the great enemy of woman. "now the organs of the human body are just as shiftless as the one that owns 'em. the systems o' these fair ladies couldn't do their own work. the physician an' the surgeon were added to the list o' their servants, an' became as necessary as the cook an' the chambermaid. but they were keeping up with lizzie. poor things! they weren't so much to blame. they thought their fathers were rich, an' their fathers enjoyed an' clung to that reputation. they hid their poverty an' flaunted the flag of opulence. "it costs money, big money an' more, to produce a generation of invalids. the fathers o' pointview had paid for it with sweat an' toil an' broken health an' borrowed money an' the usual tax added to the price o' their goods or their labor. then one night the cashier o' the first national bank blew out his brains. we found that he had stolen eighteen thousand dollars in the effort to keep up. that was a lesson to the lizzie-chasers! why, sir, we found that each of his older girls had diamond rings an' could sing in three languages, an' a boy was in college. poor man! he didn't steal for his own pleasure. everything went at auction--house, grounds, rings, automobile. another man was caught sellin' under weight with fixed scales, an' went to prison. henry brown failed, an' we found that he had borrowed five hundred dollars from john bass, an' at the same time john bass had borrowed six hundred from tom rogers, an' rogers had borrowed seven hundred an' fifty from sam henshaw, an' henshaw had borrowed the same amount from percival smith, an' smith had got it from me. the chain broke, the note structure fell like a house o' cards, an' i was the only loser--think o' that. there were five capitalists an' only one man with real money. ii in which lizzie returns to her home, having met a queen and acquired an accent and a fiance "sam henshaw's girl had graduated an' gone abroad with her mother. one sunday 'bout a year later, sam flew up to the door o' my house in his automobile. he lit on the sidewalk an' struggled up the steps with two hundred an' forty-seven pounds o' meat on him. he walked like a man carryin' a barrel o' pork. he acted as if he was glad to see me an' the big arm-chair on the piaz'. "'what's the news?' i asked. "'lizzie an' her mother got back this mornin',' he gasped. 'they've been six months in europe. lizzie is in love with it. she's hobnobbed with kings an' queens. she talks art beautiful. i wish you'd come over an' hear her hold a conversation. it's wonderful. she's goin' to be a great addition to this community. she's got me faded an' on the run. i ran down to the store for a few minutes this mornin', an' when i got back she says to me: "'"father, you always smell o' ham an' mustard. have you been in that disgusting store? go an' take a bahth at once." that's what she called it--a "bahth." talks just like the english people--she's been among 'em so long. get into my car an' i'll take ye over an' fetch ye back.' "sam regarded his humiliation with pride an' joy. at last lizzie had convinced him that her education had paid. my curiosity was excited. i got in an' we flew over to his house. sam yelled up the stairway kind o' joyful as we come in, an' his wife answered at the top o' the stairs an' says: "'mr. henshaw, i wish you wouldn't shout in this house like a boy calling the cows.' "i guess she didn't know i was there. sam ran up-stairs an' back, an' then we turned into that splendid parlor o' his an' set down. purty soon liz an' her mother swung in an' smiled very pleasant an' shook hands an' asked how was my family, etc., an' went right on talkin'. i saw they didn't ask for the purpose of gettin' information. liz was dressed to kill an' purty as a picture--cheeks red as a rooster's comb an' waist like a hornet's. the cover was off her showcase, an' there was a diamond sunburst in the middle of it, an' the jewels were surrounded by charms to which i am not wholly insensible even now. "'i wanted ye to tell mr. potter about yer travels,' says sam. [illustration: "i wanted ye to tell mr. potter about yer travels." says sam.] "lizzie smiled an' looked out o' the window a minute an' fetched a sigh an' struck out, lookin' like deacon bristow the day he give ten dollars to the church. she told about the cities an' the folks an' the weather in that queer, english way she had o' talking'> "'tell how ye hobnobbed with the queen o' italy,' sam says. "'oh, father! hobnobbed!' says she. 'anybody would think that she and i had manicured each other's hands. she only spoke a few words of italian and looked very gracious an' beautiful an' complimented my color.' "then she lay back in her chair, kind o' weary, an' sam asked me how was business--just to fill in the gap, i guess. liz woke up an' showed how far she'd got ahead in the race. "'business!' says she, with animation. 'that's why i haven't any patience with american men. they never sit down for ten minutes without talking business. their souls are steeped in commercialism. don't you see how absurd it is, father? there are plenty of lovely things to talk about.' "sam looked guilty, an' i felt sorry for him. it had cost heavy to educate his girl up to a p'int where she could give him so much advice an' information. the result was natural. she was irritated by the large cubic capacity--the length, breadth, and thickness of his ignorance and unrefinement; he was dazed by the length, breadth, an' thickness of her learning an' her charm. he didn't say a word. he bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed casket of erudition. "'you like europe,' i says. "'i love it,' says she, 'it's the only place to live. there one finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and so many cultivated people.' "lizzie was a handsome girl, an' had more sense than any o' the others that tried to keep up with her. after all, she was sam's fault, an' sam was a sin conceived an' committed by his wife, as ye might say. she had made him what he was. "'have you seen dan pettigrew lately?' lizzie asked. "'yes.' i says. 'dan is goin' to be a farmer.' "'a farmer!" says she, an' covered her face with her handkerchief an' shook with merriment. "'yes,' i says. 'dan has come down out o' the air. he's abandoned folly. he wants to do something to help along.' "'yes, of course,' says lizzie, in a lofty manner. 'dan is really an excellent boy--isn't he?' "'yes, an' he's livin' within his means--that's the first mile-stone in the road to success,' i says. 'i'm goin' to buy him a thousand acres o' land, an' one o' these days he'll own it an' as much more. you wait. he'll have a hundred men in his employ, an' flocks an' herds an' a market of his own in new york. he'll control prices in this county, an' they're goin' down. he'll be a force in the state.' "they were all sitting up. the faces o' the lady henshaw an' her daughter turned red. "'i'm very glad to hear it, i'm sure,' said her ladyship. "'i wasn't so sure o' that as she was, an' there, for me, was the milk in the cocoanut. i was joyful. "'why, it's perfectly lovely!' says lizzie, as she fetched her pretty hands together in her lap. "'yes, you want to cultivate dan,' i says. 'he's a man to be reckoned with.' "'oh, indeed!' says her ladyship. "'yes, indeed!' i says, 'an' the girls are all after him.' "i just guessed that. i knew it was unscrupulous, but livin' here in this atmosphere does affect the morals even of a lawyer. lizzie grew red in the face. "'he could marry one o' the four hundred if he wanted to,' i says. 'the other evening he was seen in the big red tourin'-car o' the van alstynes. what do you think o' that?' "now that was true, but the chauffeur had been a college friend o' dan's, an' i didn't mention that. "lizzie had a dreamy smile in her face. "'why, it's wonderful!' says she. 'i didn't know he'd improved so.' "'i hear that his mother is doing her own work,' says the lady henshaw, with a forced smile. "'yes, think of it,' i says. 'the woman is earning her daily bread--actually helpin' her husband. did you ever hear o' such a thing! i'll have to scratch 'em off my list. it's too uncommon. it ain't respectable.' "her ladyship began to suspect me an' retreated with her chin in the air. she'd had enough. "i thought that would do an' drew out o' the game. lizzie looked confident. she seemed to have something up her sleeve besides that lovely arm o' hers. "i went home, an' two days later sam looked me up again. then the secret came out o' the bag. he'd heard that i had some money in the savings-banks over at bridgeport payin' me only three and a half per cent., an' he wanted to borrow it an' pay me six per cent. his generosity surprised me. it was not like sam. "'what's the matter with you?' i asked. 'is it possible that your profits have all gone into gasoline an' rubber an' silk an' education an' hardwood finish an' human fat?' "'well, it costs so much to live,' he says, 'an' the wholesalers have kept liftin' the prices on me. now there's the meat trust--their prices are up thirty-five per cent.' "'of course,' i says, 'the directors have to have their luxuries. you taxed us for yer new house an' yer automobile an' yer daughter's education, an' they're taxin' you for their steam-yachts an' private cars an' racin' stables. you can't expect to do all the taxin'. the wholesalers learnt about the profits that you an' others like ye was makin', an' they concluded that they needed a part of 'em. of course they had to have their luxuries, an' they're taxin' you--they couldn't afford to have 'em if they didn't. don't complain.' "'i'll come out all right,' he says. 'i'm goin' to raise my whole schedule fifteen per cent.' "'the people won't stand it--they can't,' says i. 'you'll be drownin' the miller. they'll leave you.' "'it won't do 'em any good,' says he. 'bill an' eph will make their prices agree with mine.' "'folks will go back to the land, as i have,' says i. "'they don't know enough,' says sam. 'farmin' is a lost art here in the east. you take my word for it--they'll pay our prices--they'll have to--an' the rich folks, they don't worry about prices. i pay a commission to every steward an' butler in this neighborhood.' "'i won't help you,' says i. 'it's wicked. you ought to have saved your money.' "'in a year from now i'll have money to burn,' he says. 'for one thing, my daughter's education is finished, an' that has cost heavy.' "'how much would it cost to unlearn it?' i asked. 'that's goin' to cost more than it did to get it, i'm 'fraid. in my opinion the first thing to do with her is to uneducate her.' "that was like a red-hot iron to sam. it kind o' het him up. "'why, sir, you don't appreciate her,' says he. 'that girl is far above us all here in pointview. she's a queen.' "'well, sam,' i says, 'if there's anything you don't need just now it's a queen. if i were you i wouldn't graft that kind o' fruit on the grocery-tree. hams an' coronets don't flourish on the same bush. they have a different kind of a bouquet. they don't harmonize. then, sam, what do you want of a girl that's far above ye? is it any comfort to you to be despised in your own home?' "'mr. potter, i haven't educated her for my own home or for this community, but for higher things,' says sam. "'you hairy old ass! the first you know,' i says, 'they'll have your skin off an' layin' on the front piaz' for a door-mat.' "sam started for the open air. i hated to be ha'sh with him, but he needed some education himself, an' it took a beetle an' wedge to open his mind for it. he lifted his chin so high that the fat swelled out on the back of his neck an' unbuttoned his collar. then he turned an' said: 'my daughter is too good for this town, an' i don't intend that she shall stay here. she has been asked to marry a man o' fortune in the old country.' "'so i surmised, an' i suppose you find that the price o' husbands has gone up,' i says. "sam didn't answer me. "'they want you to settle some money on the girl--don't they?' i asked. "'my wife says it's the custom in the old country,' says sam. "'suppose he ain't worth the price?' "'they say he's a splendid fellow,' says sam. "'you let me investigate him,' i says, 'an' if he's really worth the price i'll help ye to pay it.' "sam said that was fair, an' thanked me for the offer, an' gave me the young man's address. he was a russian by the name of alexander rolanoff, an' sam insisted that he belonged to a very old family of large means an' noble blood, an' said that the young man would be in pointview that summer. i wrote to the mayor of the city in which he was said to live, but got no answer. "alexander came. he was a costly an' beautiful young man, about thirty years old, with red cheeks an' curly hair an' polished finger-nails, an' wrote poetry. sometimes ye meet a man that excites yer worst suspicions. your right hand no sooner lets go o' his than it slides down into your pocket to see if anything has happened; or maybe you take the arm o' yer wife or yer daughter an' walk away. aleck leaned a little in both directions. but, sir, sam didn't care to know my opinion of him. never said another word to me on the subject, but came again to ask about the money. "'look here, sam,' i says. 'you tell lizzie that i want to have a talk with her at four o'clock in this office? if she really wants to buy this man, i'll see what can be done about it.' "'all right, you talk with her,' says he, an' went out. "in a few minutes dan showed up. "'have you seen lizzie?' says i. "'not to speak to her,' says dan. 'looks fine, doesn't she?' "'beautiful!'i says. 'how is marie benson?' "'oh, the second time i went to see her she was trying to keep up with lizzie,' says he. 'she's changed her gait. was going to new york after a lot o' new frills. i suppose she thought that i wanted a grand lady. that's the trouble with all the girls here. a man might as well marry the real thing as an imitation. i wish lizzie would get down off her high horse.' "'she's goin' to swap him for one with still longer legs,' i says. 'lizzie is engaged to a gentleman o' fortune in the old country.' "dan's face began to stretch out long as if it was made of injy-rubber. "'it's too bad,' says he. 'lizzie is a good-hearted girl, if she is spoilt.' "'fine girl!' i says. 'an', dan, i was in hopes that she would discover her own folly before it was too late. but she saw that others had begun to push her in the race an' that she had to let out another link or fall behind.' "'well, i wish her happiness,' says dan, with a sigh. "'go an' tell her so,' i says. 'show her that you have some care as to whether she lives or dies.' "i could see that his feelin's had been honed 'til they were sharp as a razor. "'i've seen that fellow,' he says, 'an' he'll never marry lizzie if i can prevent it. i hate the looks of him. i shall improve the first opportunity i have to insult him.' "'that might be impossible,' i suggested. "'but i'll make the effort,' says dan. "as an insulter i wouldn't wonder if dan had large capacity when properly stirred up. "'better let him alone. i have lines out that will bring information. be patient.' "dan rose and said he would see me soon, an' left with a rather stern look in his face. iii in which lizzie descends from a great height "lizzie was on hand at the hour appointed. we sat down here all by ourselves. "'lizzie,' i says, 'why in the world did you go to europe for a husband? it's a slight to pointview--a discouragement of home industry.' "'there was nobody here that seemed to want me,' she says, blushin' very sweet. "she had dropped her princess manner an' seemed to be ready for straight talk. "'if that's so, lizzie, it's your fault,' i says. "'i don't understand you,' says she. "'why, my dear child, it's this way,' i says. 'your mother an' father have meant well, but they've been foolish. they've educated you for a millionairess, an' all that's lackin' is the millions. you overawed the boys here in pointview. they thought that you felt above 'em, whether you did or not; an' the boys on fifth avenue were glad to play with you, but they didn't care to marry you. i say it kindly, lizzie, an' i'm a friend o' yer father's, an' you can afford to let me say what i mean. those young fellows wanted the millions as well as the millionairess. one of our boys fell in love with ye an' tried to keep up, but your pace was too hot for him. his father got in trouble, an' the boy had to drop out. every well-born girl in the village entered the race with ye. an era of extravagance set in that threatened the solvency, the honor, o' this sober old community. their fathers had to borrow money to keep agoin'. they worked overtime, they importuned their creditors, they wallowed in low finance while their daughters revelled in the higher walks o' life an' sang in different languages. even your father--i tell you in confidence, for i suppose he wouldn't have the courage to do it--is in financial difficulties. now, lizzie, i want to be kind to you, for i believe you're a good girl at heart, but you ought to know that all this is what your accomplishments have accomplished.' "she rose an' walked across the room, with trembling lips. she had seized her parachute an' jumped from her balloon and was slowly approachin' the earth. i kept her comin', 'these clothes an' jewels that you wear, lizzie--these silks an' laces, these sunbursts an' solitaires--don't seem to harmonize with your father's desire to borrow money. pardon me, but i can't make 'em look honest. they are not paid for--or if they are they are paid for with other men's money. they seem to accuse you. they'd accuse me if i didn't speak out plain to ye.' "all of a sudden lizzie dropped into a chair an' began to cry. she had lit safely on the ground. [illustration: lizzie dropped into a chair an' began to cry.] "it made me feel like a murderer, but it had to be. poor girl! i wanted to pick her up like a baby an' kiss her. it wasn't that i loved lizzie less but rome more. she wasn't to blame. every spoilt woman stands for a fool-man. most o' them need--not a master--but a frank counsellor. i locked the door. she grew calm an' leaned on my table, her face covered with her hands. my clock shouted the seconds in the silence. not a word was said for two or three minutes. "'i have been brutal,' i says, by-an'-by. 'forgive me.' "'mr. potter,' she says, 'you've done me a great kindness. i'll never forget it. what shall i do?' "'well, for one thing,' says i, 'go back to your old simplicity an' live within your means.' "'i'll do it,' she says; 'but--i--i supposed my father was rich. oh, i wish we could have had this talk before!' "'did you know that dan pettigrew was in love with you?' i put it straight from the shoulder. 'he wouldn't dare tell ye, but you ought to know it. you are regarded as a kind of a queen here, an' it's customary for queens to be approached by ambassadors.' "her face lighted up. "'in love with me?' she whispered. 'why, mr. potter, i never dreamed of such a thing. are you sure? how do you know? i thought he felt above me.' "'an' he thought you felt above him,' i says. "'how absurd! how unfortunate!' she whispered. 'i couldn't marry him now if he asked me. this thing has gone too far. i wouldn't treat any man that way.' "'you are engaged to alexander, are you?' i says. "'well, there is a sort of understanding, and i think we are to be married if--if--' "she paused, and tears came to her eyes again. "'you are thinking o' the money,' says i. "'i am thinking o' the money,' says she. 'it has been promised to him. he will expect it.' "'do you think he is an honest man? will he treat you well?' "'i suppose so.' "'then let me talk with him. perhaps he would take you without anything to boot.' "'please don't propose that,' says she. 'i think he's getting the worst of it now. mr. potter, would you lend me the money? i ask it because i don't want the family to be disgraced or mr. rolanoff to be badly treated. he is to invest the money in my name in a very promising venture. he says he can double it within three months.' "it would have been easy for me to laugh, but i didn't. lizzie's attitude in the whole matter pleased me. i saw that her heart was sound. i promised to have a talk with her father and see her again. i looked into his affairs carefully and put him on a new financial basis with a loan of fifteen thousand dollars. "one day he came around to my office with alexander an' wanted me to draw up a contract between him an' the young man. it was a rather crude proposition, an' i laughed, an' aleck sat with a bored smile on his face. "'oh, if he's good enough for your daughter,' i said, 'his word ought to be good enough for you.' "'that's all right,' says sam, 'but business is business. i want it down in black an' white that the income from this money is to be paid to my daughter, and that neither o' them shall make any further demand on me.' "well, i drew that fool contract, an', after it was signed, sam delivered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to the young man, who was to become his son-in-law the following month with the assistance of a caterer and a florist and a string-band, all from new haven. "within half an hour dan pettigrew came roarin' up in front o' my office in the big red automobile of his father's. in a minute he came in to see me. he out with his business soon as he lit in a chair. "'i've learned that this man rolanoff is a scoundrel,' says he. "'a scoundrel!' says i. "'of purest ray serene,' says he. "i put a few questions, but he'd nothing in the way o' proof to otter--it was only the statement of a newspaper. "'is that all you know against him?' i asked. "'he won't fight,' says dan. 'i've tried him--i've begged him to fight.' "'well, i've got better evidence than you have,' i says. 'it came a few minutes before you did.' "i showed him a cablegram from a london barrister that said: "'inquiry complete. the man is a pure adventurer, character _nil_.' "'we must act immediately,' says dan. "'i have telephoned all over the village for sam,' i says. 'they say he's out in his car with aleck an' lizzie. i asked them to send him here as soon as he returns.' "'they're down on the post road i met 'em on my way here,' says dan. 'we can overtake that car easy.' "well, the wedding-day was approaching an' aleck had the money, an' the thought occurred to me that he might give 'em the slip somewhere on the road an' get away with it. i left word in the store that if sam got back before i saw him he was to wait with aleck in my office until i returned, an' off we started like a baseball on its way from the box to the catcher. "an officer on his motor-cycle overhauled us on the post road. he knew me. "'it's a case o' sickness,' i says, 'an' we're after sam henshaw.' "'he's gone down the road an' hasn't come back yet,' says the officer. "i passed him a ten-dollar bill. "'keep within sight of us,' i says. 'we may need you any minute.' "he nodded and smiled, an' away we went. "'i'm wonderin' how we're agoin' to get the money,' i says, havin' told dan about it. "'i'll take it away from him,' says dan. "'that wouldn't do,' says i. "'why not?' "'why not!' says i. 'you wouldn't want to be arrested for highway robbery. then, too, we must think o' lizzie. poor girl! it's agoin' to be hard on her, anyhow. i'll try a bluff. it's probable that he's worked this game before. if so, we can rob him without violence an' let him go.' "dan grew joyful as we sped along. "'lizzie is mine,' he says. 'she wouldn't marry him now.' "he told me how fond they had been of each other until they got accomplishments an' began to put up the price o' themselves. he said that in their own estimation they had riz in value like beef an' ham, an' he confessed how foolish he had been. we were excited an' movin' fast. "'something'll happen soon,' he says. "an' it did, within ten minutes from date. we could see a blue car half a mile ahead. "'i'll go by that ol' freight-car o' the henshaws',' says dan. 'they'll take after me, for sam is vain of his car. we can halt them in that narrow cut on the hill beyond the byron river.' "we had rounded the turn at chesterville, when we saw the henshaw car just ahead of us, with aleck at the wheel an' lizzie beside him an' sam on the back seat. i saw the peril in the situation. "the long rivalry between the houses of henshaw an' pettigrew, reinforced by that of the young men, was nearing its climax. "'see me go by that old soap-box o' the henshaws',' says dan, as he pulled out to pass 'em. "then dan an' aleck began a duel with automobiles. each had a forty-horse-power engine in his hands, with which he was resolved to humble the other. dan knew that he was goin' to bring down the price o' alecks an' henshaws. first we got ahead; then they scraped by us, crumpling our fender on the nigh side. lizzie an' i lost our hats in the scrimmage. we gathered speed an' ripped off a section o' their bulwarks, an' roared along neck an' neck with 'em. the broken fenders rattled like drums in a battle. a hen flew up an' hit me in the face, an' came nigh unhorsin' me. i hung on. it seemed as if fate was tryin' to halt us, but our horse-power was too high. a dog went under us. it began to rain a little. we were a length ahead at the turn by the byron river. we swung for the bridge an' skidded an' struck a telephone pole, an' i went right on over the stone fence an' the clay bank an' lit on my head in the water. dan pettigrew lit beside me. then came lizzie an' sam--they fairly rained into the river. i looked up to see if aleck was comin', but he wasn't. sam, bein' so heavy, had stopped quicker an' hit in shallow water near the shore, but, as luck would have it, the bottom was soft an' he had come down feet foremost, an' a broken leg an' some bad bruises were all he could boast of. lizzie was in hysterics, but seemed to be unhurt. dan an' i got 'em out on the shore, an' left 'em cryin' side by side, an' scrambled up the bank to find aleck. he had aimed too low an' hit the wall, an' was stunned, an' apparently, for the time, dead as a herrin' on the farther side of it. i removed the ten one-thousand-dollar bills from his person to prevent complications an' tenderly laid him down. then he came to very sudden. "'stop!' he murmured. 'you're robbin' me.' "'well, you begun it,' i says. 'don't judge me hastily. i'm a philanthropist. i'm goin' to leave you yer liberty an' a hundred dollars. you take it an' get. if you ever return to connecticut i'll arrest you at sight.' "i gave him the money an' called the officer, who had just come up. a traveller in a large tourin'-car had halted near us. "'put him into that car an' take him to chesterville,' i said. "he limped to the car an' left without a word. "i returned to my friends an' gently broke the news. "sam blubbered 'education done it,' says he, as he mournfully shook his head. "'yes,' i says. 'education is responsible for a damned lot of ignorance.' "'an' some foolishness,' says sam, as he scraped the mud out of his hair. 'think of our goin' like that. we ought to have known better.' "'we knew better,' i says, 'but we had to keep up with lizzie.' "sam turned toward lizzie an' moaned in a broken voice, 'i wish it had killed me.' "'why so?' i asked. "'it costs so much to live,' sam sobbed, in a half-hysterical way. 'i've got an expensive family on my hands.' "'you needn't be afraid o' havin' lizzie on your hands,' says dan, who held the girl in his arms. "'what do you mean?^ sam inquired. "'she's on my hands an' she's goin' to stay there,' says the young man. 'i'm in love with lizzie myself. i've always been in love with lizzie.' "'your confession is ill-timed,' says lizzie, as she pulled away an' tried to smooth her hair. she began to cry again, an' added, between sobs: 'my heart is about broken, and i must go home and get help for my poor father.' "'i'll attend to that,' says dan; 'but i warn you that i'm goin' to offer a pettigrew for a henshaw even. if i had a million dollars i'd give it all to boot.' "sam turned toward me, his face red as a beet. "'the money!' he shouted. 'get it, quick!' "'here it is!' i said, as i put the roll o' bills in his hand. "'did you take it off him?' "'i took it off him.' "'poor aleck!' he says, mournfully, as he counted the money. 'it's kind o' hard on him.' "soon we halted a passin' automobile an' got sam up the bank an' over the wall. it was like movin' a piano with somebody playin' on it, but we managed to seat him on the front floor o' the car, which took us all home. "so the affair ended without disgrace to any one, if not without violence, and no one knows of the cablegram save the few persons directly concerned. but the price of alecks took a big slump in pointview. no han'some foreign gent could marry any one in this village, unless it was a chambermaid in a hotel. "that was the end of the first heat of the race with lizzie in pointview. aleck had folded up his bluff an' silently sneaked away. i heard no more of him save from a lady with blond, curly hair an' a face done in water-colors, who called at my office one day to ask about him, an' who proved to my satisfaction that she was his wife, an' who remarked with real, patrician accent when i told her the truth about him: 'ah, g'wan, yer kiddin' me.' "i began to explore the mind of lizzie, an' she acted as my guide in the matter. for her troubles the girl was about equally indebted to her parents an' the smythe school. now the smythe school had been founded by the reverend hopkins smythe, an englishman who for years had been pastor of the first congregational church--a soothin' man an' a favorite of the rich new-yorkers. people who hadn't slept for weeks found repose in the first congregational church an' sanitarium of pointview. they slept an' snored while the reverend hopkins wept an' roared. his rhetoric was better than bromide or sulphonal. in grateful recollection of their slumbers, they set him up in business. "now i'm agoin' to talk as mean as i feel. sometimes i get tired o' bein' a gentleman an' knock off for a season o' rest an' refreshment. here goes! the school has some good girls in it, but most of 'em are indolent candy-eaters. their life is one long, sweet dream broken by nightmares of indigestion. their study is mainly a bluff; their books a merry jest; their teachers a butt of ridicule. they're the veriest little pagans. their religion is, in fact, a kind of smythology. its high priest is the reverend hopkins. its jupiter is self. its lesser gods are princes, dukes, earls, counts, an' barons. its angels are actors an' tenors. its baptism is flattery. poverty an' work are its twin hells. matrimony is its heaven, an' a slippery place it is. they revel in the best sellers an' the worst smellers. they gossip of intrigue an' scandal. they get their lessons if they have time. they cheat in their examinations. if the teacher objects she is promptly an' generally insulted. she has to submit or go--for the girls stand together. it's a sort of school-girls' union. they'd quit in a body if their fun were seriously interrupted, an' mr. smythe couldn't afford that, you know. he wouldn't admit it, but they've got him buffaloed. "lizzie no sooner got through than she set out with her mother to find the prince. she struck aleck in italy." socrates leaned back and laughed. "now, if you please, i'll climb back on my pedestal," he said. "thank god! lizzie began to rise above her education. she went to work in her father's store, an' the whole gang o' lizzie-chasers had to change their gait again. she organized our prosperous young ladies' club--a model of its kind--the purpose of which is the promotion of simple livin' an' a taste for useful work. they have fairs in the churches, an' i distribute a hundred dollars in cash prizes--five dollars each for the best exhibits o' pumpkin-pie, chicken-pie, bread, rolls, coffee, roast turkey, plain an' fancy sewin', an' so on. one by one the girls are takin' hold with us an' lettin' go o' the grand life. they've begun to take hold o' the broom an' the dish-cloth, an' the boys seem to be takin' hold o' them with more vigor an' determination. the boys are concluding that it's cheaper to buy a piano-player than to marry one, that canned prima-donnas are better than the home-grown article, that women are more to be desired than playthings. iv in which the ham war has its beginning "one day in the old time a couple of industrious yankees were hard at work in a field," socrates continued. "suddenly one said to the other: "'i wish i was worth ten thousand dollars.' "an' the other asked: "'what would ye do with it?' "the wisher rested on his shovel an' gave his friend a look of utter contempt. "'what would i do with it?' he said. 'why, you cussed fool, i'd set down--an' without blamin' myself.' "by-and-by the yankee got to settin' down without blamin' himself, an' also without the ten thousand. here in pointview we're learnin' how to stand up again, an' lizzie is responsible. you shall hear how it happened. "first i must tell you that dan had been makin' little progress in the wooin' o' lizzie. now she was inclined to go slow. lizzie was fond o' dan. she put on her best clothes when he came to see her of a sunday. she sang to him, she walked him about the place with her arm in his, but she tenderly refused to agree to marry him. when he grew sentimental she took him out among the cucumbers in the garden. she permitted no sudden rise in his temperature. "'i will not marry,' she said, 'until i have done what i can to repay my father for all that he has tried to do for me. i must be uneducated and re-educated. it may take a long time. meanwhile you may meet some one you like better. i'm not going to pledge you to wait for me. of course i shall be awfully proud and pleased if you do wait, but, dan, i want you to be free. let's both be free until we're ready.' "it was bully. dan pleaded with the eloquence of an old-fashioned lawyer. lizzie stood firm behind this high fence, an' she was right. with dan in debt an' babies comin', what could she have done for her father? suddenly it seemed as if all the young men had begun to take an interest in lizzie, an', to tell the truth, she was about the neatest, sweetest little myrmidon of commerce that ever wore a white apron. the light of true womanhood had begun to shine in her face. she kept the store in apple-pie order, an' everybody was well treated. the business grew. sam bought a small farm outside the village with crops in, an' moved there for the summer. soon he began to let down his prices. the combine was broken. it was the thing we had been waitin' for. people flocked to his store. the others came down, but too late. sam held his gain, an' lizzie was the power behind the fat. dan finished his course in agriculture an' i bought him a farm, an' he went to work there, but he spent half his time in the store of his father tryin' to keep up with lizzie. suddenly dan started a ham war. he cut the price of hams five cents a pound. ham was one of our great staples, an' excitement ran high. lizzie cut below him two cents a pound. dan cut the price again. lizzie made no effort to meet this competition. the price had gone below the wholesale rate by quite a margin. people thronged to dan's emporium. women stood on the battle-field, their necks blanched with powder, their cheeks bearin' the red badge o' courage, an' every man you met had a ham in his hand. the pettigrew wagon hurried hither an' thither loaded with hams. even the best friends of sam an' lizzie were seen in dan's store buyin' hams. they laid in a stock for all winter. suddenly dan quit an' restored his price to the old figure. lizzie continued to sell at the same price, an' was just as cheerful as ever. she had won the fight, an' ye wouldn't think that anything unusual had happened; but wait an' see. "every day boys an' girls were droppin' out o' the clouds an' goin' to work tryin' to keep up with lizzie. the hammocks swung limp in the breeze. the candy stores were almost deserted, an' those that sat by the fountains were few. we were learnin' how to stand up. "one day dan came into my office all out o' gear. he looked sore an' discouraged. i didn't wonder. "'what's the matter now?' i says. "'i don't believe lizzie cares for me.' "'how's that?' i says. "'last sunday she was out riding with tom bryson, an' every sunday afternoon i find half-a-dozen young fellows up there.' "'well, ye know, lizzie is attractive, an' she ain't our'n yit--not just yit,' i says. 'if young men come to see her she's got to be polite to 'em. you wouldn't expect her to take a broom an' shoo 'em off?' "'but i don't have anything to do with other girls.' "'an' you're jealous as a hornet,' i says. 'lizzie wants you to meet other girls. when lizzie marries it will be for life. she'll want to know that you love her an' only her. you keep right on tryin' to catch up with lizzie, an' don't be worried.' "he stopped strappin' the razor of his discontent, but left me with unhappy looks. that very week i saw him ridin' about with marie benson in his father's motor-car. "soon a beautiful thing happened. i have told you of the melancholy end of the cashier of one of our local banks. well, in time his wife followed him to the cemetery. she was a distant relative of sam's wife, an' a friend of lizzie. we found easy employment for the older children, an' lizzie induced her parents to adopt two that were just out of their mother's arms--a girl of one an' a boy of three years. i suggested to lizzie that it seemed to me a serious undertaking, but she felt that she ought to be awfully good by way of atonement for the folly of her past life. it was near the end of the year, an' i happen to know that when christmas came a little sack containing five hundred dollars in gold was delivered at sam henshaw's door for lizzie from a source unknown to her. that paid for the nurse, an' eased the situation." v in which lizzie exerts an influence on the affairs of the rich and great a year after socrates potter had told of the descent of lizzie, and the successful beginning of her new life, i called again at his office. "how is pointview?" i asked. "did ye ever learn how it happened to be called pointview?" he inquired. "no." "well, it began with a little tavern with a tap-room called the pointview house, a great many years ago. travellers used to stop an' look around for the point, an', of course, they couldn't see it, for there's none here; at least, no point of land. they'd go in an' order drinks an' say: "'landlord, where's the point?' "an' the landlord would say: 'well, boys, if you ain't in a hurry you'll probably see it purty soon.' "all at once it would appear to 'em, an' it was apt to be an' amusin' bit o' scenery. "we've always been quick to see a point here, an' anxious to show it to other people." he leaned back and laughed as one foot sought the top of his desk. "our balloons rise from every walk o' life an' come down out o' ballast," he went on. "many of 'em touch ground in the great financial aviation park that surrounds wall street. in our stages of recovery the power of lizzie has been widely felt." up went his other foot. i saw that the historical mood was upon him. "talk about tryin' to cross the atlantic in an air-ship--why, that's conservative," he continued. "right here in the eastern part o' connecticut lives a man who set out for the vicinity of the moon with a large company--a joint-stock company--in his life-boat. first he made the journey with the hot-air-ship of his mind, an' came back with millions in the hold of his imagination. then he thought he'd experiment with a corporation of his friends--his surplus friends. they got in on the ground floor, an' got out in the sky. most of 'em were thrown over for ballast. the wellman of this enterprise escaped with his life an' a little wreckage. he was mr. thomas robinson barrow, an' he came to consult me about his affairs. they were in bad shape. "'sell your big house an' your motor-cars,' i urged. "'that would have been easy,' he answered, 'but lizzie has spoilt the market for luxuries. you remember how she got high notions up at the smythe school, an' began a life of extravagance, an' how we all tried to keep up with her, an' how the rococo architecture broke out like pimples on the face of connecticut?' "i smiled an' nodded. "'well, it was you, i hear, that helped her back to earth and started her in the simpleton life. since then she has been going just as fast, but in the opposite direction, and we're still tryin' to keep up with her. now i found a man who was going to buy my property, but suddenly his wife decided that they would get along with a more modest outfit. she's trying to keep up with lizzie. folks are getting wise.' "'why don't you?' "'can't.' "'why not?' "'because i'm a born fool. we're fettered; we're prisoners of luxury.' "only a night or two before i had seen his wife at a reception with a rope of pearls in her riggin' an' a search-light o' diamonds on her forward deck an' a tiara-boom-de-ay at her masthead an' the flags of opulence flyin' fore an' aft. "'if i were you,' i said, 'i'd sell everything--even the jewels.' "'my poor wife!' he exclaimed. 'i haven't the heart to tell her all. she don't know how hard up we are!' "'i wouldn't neglect her education if i were you,' i said. 'there's a kindness, you know, that's most unkind. some day i shall write an article on the use an' abuse of tiaras--poor things! it isn't fair to overwork the family tiara. i suggest that you get a good-sized trunk an' lock it up with the other jewels for a vacation. if necessary your house could be visited by a burglar--that is, if you wanted to save the feelin's of your wife.' "he turned with a puzzled look at me. "'is it possible that you haven't heard of that trick?' i asked--'a man of your talents!' "he shook his head. "'why, these days, if a man wishes to divorce the family jewels an' is afraid of his wife, the house is always entered by a burglar. my dear sir, the burglar is an ever-present help in time of trouble. it's a pity that we have no gentleman's home journal in which poor but deservin' husbands could find encouragement an' inspiration.' "he looked at me an' laughed. "'suppose you engage a trusty and reliable burglar?' he proposed. "'there's only one in the world.' i said. "'who is it?' "'thomas robinson barrow. of course, i'm not sayin' that if i needed a burglar he's just the man i should choose, but for this job he's the only reliable burglar. try him.' "he seemed to be highly amused. "'but it might be difficult to fool the police,' he said, in a minute. "'well, it isn't absolutely necessary, you know,' i suggested. 'the chief of police is a friend of mine.' "'good! i'm engaged for this job, and will sell the jewels and turn the money over to you.' "'i do not advise that--not just that,' i said. 'we'll retire them from active life. a tiara in the safe is worth two in the titian bush. we'll use them for collateral an' go to doin' business. when we've paid the debts in full we'll redeem the goods an' return them to your overjoyed wife. we'll launch our tiara on the marcel waves.' "tom was delighted with this plan--not the best, perhaps--but, anyhow, it would save his wife from reproach, an' i don't know what would have happened if she had continued to dazzle an' enrage his creditors with the pearls an' the tiara. "'it will not be so easy to sell the house,' tom went on. 'that's our worst millstone. it was built for large hospitality, and we have a good many friends, and they come every week and jump on to the millstone.' "'if one has to have a millstone he should choose it with discretion,' i said. 'it doesn't pay to get one that is too inviting. you'll have to swim around with yours for a while, and watch your chance to slip it on to some other fellow's neck. you don't want your son to be a millstonaire. some day a man of millions may find it a comfortable fit, an' relieve you. they're buyin' places all about here.' "tom left an' began work on our programme. the burglary was well executed an' advertised. it achieved a fair amount of publicity--not too much, you know, but enough. the place was photographed by the reporters with the placard 'for sale' showin' plainly on the front lawn. the advertisin' was worth almost as much as the diamonds. tom said that his wife had lost weight since the sad event. "'of course,' i said. 'you can't take ten pounds of jewelry from a woman without reducin' her weight. she must have had a pint o' diamonds.' "'pictures an' glowin' accounts of the villa were printed in all the papers, an' soon a millionaire wrote that it was just the place he was lookin' for. i closed the deal with him. it was bill warburton, who used to go to school with me up there on the hills. he had long been dreamin' of a home in pointview. "they used to say that bill was a fool, but he proved an alibi. went west years ago an' made a fortune, an' thought it would be nice to come back an' finish his life where it began, near the greatest american city. i drew the papers, an' bill an' i got together often an' talked of the old happy days, now glimmering in the far past--some thirty-five years away, [illustration: bill an' i got together often an' talked of the old happy days.] "well, they enlarged the house--that was already big enough for a hotel--an' built stables an' kennels an' pheasant yards an' houses for ducks an' geese an' peacocks. they stocked up with fourteen horses, twelve hounds, nine collies, four setters, nineteen servants, innumerable fowls, an' four motor-cars, an' started in pursuit o' happiness. "you see, they had no children, an' all these beasts an' birds were intended to supply the deficiency in human life, an' assist in the campaign. well, somehow, it didn't succeed, an' one day bill came into my office with a worried look. he confided to me the well-known fact that his wife was nervous and unhappy. "'the doctors don't do her any good, an' i thought i'd try a lawyer,' said he. "'do you want to sue fate for damages or indict her for malicious persecution?' i asked. "'neither,' he said, 'but you know the laws of nature as well as the laws of men. i appeal to you to tell me what law my wife has broken, and how she can make amends.' "'you surprise me,' i said. 'you an' the madame can have everything you want, an' still you're unhappy.' "'what can we have that you can't? you can eat as much, an' sleep better, an' wear as many clothes, an' see an' hear as well as we can.' "'ah, but in the matter of quality i'm way behind the flag, bill. you can wear cloth o' gold, an russian sables, an' have champagne an' terrapin every meal, an' fiddlers to play while ye eat it, an' a brass band to march around the place with ye, an' splendid horses to ride, an' dogs to roar on ahead an' attract the attention of the populace. you can have a lot of bankrupt noblemen to rub an' manicure an' adulate an' chiropodize ye, an' people who'd have to laugh at your wit or look for another job, an' authors to read from their own works--' "bill interrupted with a gentle protest: 'soc, how comforting you are!' "'well, if all that is losin' its charm, what's the matter with travel?' "'don't talk to me about travel,' said bill. 'we've worn ruts in the earth now. our feet have touched every land.' "'how many meals do you eat a day?' "'three.' "'try six,' i suggested. "he laughed, an' i thought i was makin' progress, so i kept on. "'how many motor-cars have ye ?' "'four.' "'get eight,' i advised, as bill put on the loud pedal. 'you've got nineteen servants, i believe, try thirty-eight. you have--twenty-one dogs--get forty-two. you can afford it.' "'come, be serious,' said bill. 'don't poke fun at me.' "'ah! but your wife must be able to prove that she has more dogs an' horses an' servants an' motor-cars, an' that she eats more meals in a day than any other woman in connecticut. then, maybe, she'll be happy. you know it's a woman's ambition to excel.' "'we have too many fool things now,' said bill, mournfully. 'she's had enough of them--god knows!' "something in bill's manner made me sit up and stare at him. "'of course, you don't mean that she wants another husband!' i exclaimed. "'i'm not so sure of that,' said bill, sadly. 'sometimes i'm almost inclined to think she does.' "'well, that's one direction in which i should advise strict economy,' said i. 'you can multiply the dogs an' the horses, an' the servants an' the motor-cars, but in the matter o' wives an' husbands we ought to stick to the simple life. don't let her go to competing with those fifth avenue ladies.' "'i don't know what's the matter,' bill went on. 'she's had everything that her heart could wish. but, of course, she has had only one husband, and most of her friends have had two or three. they've outmarried her. it may be that, secretly, she's just a little annoyed about that. many of her old friends are consumed with envy; their bones are rotten with it. they smile upon her; they accept her hospitality; they declare their love, and they long for her downfall. now, my wife has a certain pride and joy in all this, but, naturally, it breeds a sense of loneliness--the bitter loneliness that one may find only in a crowd. she turns more and more to me, and, between ourselves, she seems to have made up her mind that i don't love her, and i can't convince her that i do.' "'well, bill, i should guess that you have always been fond of your wife--and--true to her.' "'and you are right,' said bill. 'i've loved with all my heart and with a conscience. it's my only pride, for, of course, i might have been gay. in society i enjoy a reputation for firmness. it is no idle boast.' "'well, bill, you can't do anything more for her in the matter of food, raiment, beasts, or birds, an' as to jewelry she carries a pretty heavy stock. i often feel the need of smoked glasses when i look at her. you'll have to make up your mind as to whether she needs more or less. i'll study the situation myself. it may be that i can suggest something by-and-by--just as a matter of friendship.' "'your common sense may discern what is needed,' said bill. 'i wish you'd come at least once a week to dinner. my wife would be delighted, to have you, soc. you are one of the few men who interest her.' "she was a pretty woman, distinguished for a look of weariness and a mortal fear of fat. she had done nothing so hard an' so long, that, to her, nothing was all there was in the world--save fat. she was so busy about it that she couldn't sit still an' rest. she wandered from one chair to another, smokin' a cigarette, an' now and then glancin' at her image in a mirror an' slyly feelin' her ribs to see if she had gained flesh that day. she liked me because i was unlike any other man she had met. i poked fun at her folly an' all the grandeur of the place. i amused her as much as she amused me, perhaps. anyhow, we got to be good friends, an' the next sunday we all drove out in a motor-car to see lizzie. mrs. bill wanted to meet her. lizzie had become famous. she was walkin' up an' down the lawn with the infant in a perambulator, an' the small boy toddling along behind her. we left mrs. bill with lizzie an' the kids, an' set out for a tramp over the big farm. when we returned we found the ladies talkin' earnestly in the house. [illustration: we set out for a tramp over the big farm.] "before we left i called lizzie aside for a minute. "'how do you get along with these babies?' i asked. "'they're the life of our home. my father and mother think they couldn't live without them.' "'an' they're good practice for you,' i suggested. 'it's time you were plannin' for yourself, lizzie.' "'i've no prospects,' said she. "'how is that?' "'why, there's only one boy that i care for, an' he has had enough of me.' "'you don't mean dan?' "'yes,' she whispered with trembling lips, an' turned away. "'what's the matter?' "she pulled herself together an' answered in half a moment: 'oh, i don't know! he doesn't come often. he goes around with other girls.' "'well,' i said, 'it's the same ol' story. he's only tryin' to keep up with lizzie. you've done some goin' around yourself.' "'i know, but i couldn't help it.' "'he knows, an' he couldn't help it,' i says. 'the boys have flocked around you, an' the girls have flocked around dan. they were afraid he'd get lonesome. if i were you i'd put a mortgage on him an' foreclose it as soon as possible.' "'it's too late,' says she. 'i hear he's mortgaged.' "'you'd better search the records,' i says, 'an' if it ain't so, stop bein' careless. you've put yer father on his feet. now look out for yerself.' "'i think he's angry on account of the ham war,' says she. "'why do you think that?' "she told me the facts, an' i laughed 'til the tears came to my eyes. "'nonsense,' i says, 'dan will like that. you wait 'til i tell him, an' he'll be up here with his throttle wide open.' "'do you suppose he'd spend christmas with us?' she asked, with a very sober look. 'you know, his mother an' father have gone south, an' he'll be all alone.' "'ask him at once--call him on the 'phone,' i advised, an' bade her good-bye. "the happiness o' lizzie an' the charm o' those kids had suggested an idea. i made up my mind that i'd try to put mr. an' mrs. bill on the job o' keepin' up with lizzie. "'that's a wonderful woman,' said mrs. bill, as we drove away. 'i envy her--she's so strong and well and happy. she loves those babies, and is in the saddle every afternoon, helping with the work o' the farm.' "'why don't you get into the saddle and be as well and strong as she is?' bill asked. "'because i've no object--it's only a way of doing nothing,' said mrs. bill. 'i'm weary of riding for exercise. there never was a human being who could keep it up long. it's like you and your dumb-bells. to my knowledge you haven't set a foot in your gymnasium for a month. as a matter of fact, you're as tired of play as i am, every bit. why don't you go into wall street an' get poor?' "'tired of play!' bill exclaimed. 'why, grace, night before last you were playing bridge until three o'clock in the morning.' "'well, it's a way of doing nothing skilfully and on the competitive plan,' said she. 'it gives me a chance to measure my capacity. when i get through i am so weary that often i can go to sleep without thinking. it seems to me that brains are a great nuisance to one who has no need of them. of course, by-and-by, they'll atrophy and disappear like the tails of our ancestors. meanwhile, i suppose they are bound to get sore. mine is such a fierce, ill-bred, impudent sort of a brain, and it's as busy as a bat in a belfry. i often wish that i had one of those soft, flexible, paralytic, cocker-spaniel brains, like that of our friend mrs. seavey. she is so happy with it--so unterrified. she is equally at home in bed or on horseback, reading the last best seller or pouring tea and compliments. now just hear how this brain of mine is going on about that poor, inoffensive creature! but that's the way it treats me. it's a perfect heathen of a brain.' "bill an' i looked at each other an' laughed. her talk convinced me of one thing--that her trouble was not the lack of a brain. "'you're always making fun of me,' she said. 'why don't you give me something to do?' "'suppose you wash the dishes?' said bill. "'would it please you?' "'anything that pleases you pleases me.' "'i saw that she, too, was goin' to try to keep up with lizzie, an' i decided that i'd help her. when we arrived at the villa we made our way to its front door through a pack of collie dogs out for an airing. "'by-the-way,' i said, when we sat down to luncheon at bill's house, 'congratulate me. i'm a candidate for new honors.' [illustration: i'm a candidate for new honors.] "'those of a husband? i've been hoping for that--you stubborn old bachelor.' said mrs. bill, expectantly. "'no,' i answered, 'i'm to be a father.' "bill put down his fork an' turned an' stared at me. mrs. bill leaned back in her chair with a red look of surprise. "'the gladdest, happiest papa in connecticut,' i added. "mrs. bill covered her face with her napkin an' began to shake. "'s-soc., have you fallen?' bill stammered. "'no, i've riz,' i said. 'don't blame me, ol' man, i had to do it. i've adopted some orphans. i'm goin' to have an orphanage on the hill; but it will take a year to finish it. i'm goin' to have five children. they're beauties, an' i know that i'm goin' to love them. i propose to take them out of the atmosphere of indigence an' wholesale charity. they'll have a normal, pleasant home, an' a hired mother an' me to look after them--the personal touch, you know. i expect to have a lot of fun with them.' "'but what a responsibility!' said mrs. bill. "'i know, but i feel the need of it. of course it's different with you--very different--you have all these dogs an' horses to be responsible for an' to give you amusement. i couldn't afford that. then, too, i'm a little odd, i guess. i can get more fun out of one happy, human soul than out of all the dogs an' horses in creation.' "'but children! why, they're so subject to sickness and accident and death,' said mrs. bill. "'an' they're subject, also, to health an' life an' safety,' i answered. "'yes, but you know--they'll be getting into all kinds of trouble. they'll worry you.' "'true; but as for worry, i don't mind that much,' i said. 'my best days were those that were full of worry. now, that i've won a competence an' my worries are gone, so is half my happiness. you can't have sunshine without shadows. there was one of my neighbors who was troubled with "boils." he had to have 'em cured right away, an' a doctor gave him some medicine that healed 'em up, but he was worse off than ever. the boils began to do business inside of him, an' he rushed back to the doctor. "'what's the matter now?" said the medical man. "'"outside i'm sound as a dollar," said my neighbor, "but it seems as if all hell had moved into me." "'now, cares are like boils: it don't do to get rid of 'em too quick. they're often a great relief to the inside of a man, an' it's better to have 'em on the surface than way down in your marrow.' "bill an' his wife looked into each other's eyes for half a minute, but neither spoke. "'i'm goin' to ask a favor of you,' i said. 'i see that there's nobody livin' in the old farm-house out back of the garden. i wish you'd let me put my little family into it until i can build a home for 'em.' "'oh, my!' mrs. bill exclaimed. 'those children would be running all over the lawns and the garden. they'd destroy my roses.' "'true; but, after all, they're more beautiful than the roses,' i urged. 'they're more graceful in form, more charming in color. then, too, roses cannot laugh or weep or play. roses cannot look up at you out of eyes full of the light of heaven an' brighter than your jewels. roses may delight, but they cannot love you or know that you love them. dear woman, my roses will wander over the lawns. their colors will be flickering about you, and the music of their voices will surround the villa some days; but, god knows, they'll look better, far better than the dogs or the bronze lions, or the roses. i shall dress them well.' "'i think he's right,' said bill. "'he's most disturbing and persuasive anyway--the revolutionist!' said mrs. bill. 'if it's really a favor to you, mr. potter, i shall agree to it. but you must have a trusty woman. i really cannot assume any responsibility.' "'i thanked her and promised to assume all responsibility, and mrs. warburton was to get the old house ready at once. "three days later i drove to the villa with my matron and the babies. rather quick work, wasn't it? i hadn't let any grass grow under my plan. when we lit at the front door every youngster broke out in a loud hurrah of merriment. the three-year-old boy--beautiful beyond all words--got aboard one of the crouched lions and began to shout. a little girl made a grab at the morning-glories on a doric column, while her sister had mounted a swinging seat an' tumbled to the floor. the other two were chattering like parrots. honestly, i was scared. i was afraid that mrs. bill would come down and jump into hysterics. i snaked the boy off the lion's back and rapped on him for order. the matron got busy with the others. in a jiffy it seemed as if they had all begun to wail an' roar. i trembled when a maid opened the door an' i saw mrs. bill comin' down the staircase. i wouldn't have been surprised to have seen the bronze lion get up an' run. [illustration: three days later i drove to the villa.] "'the saints defend us!' exclaimed mrs. bill, in the midst of the uproar. "'they're not at their best,' i shouted, 'but here they are.' "'yes, i knew they were there,' said mrs. bill. 'this is the music of which you were speaking the other day. take them right around to the old house, if you please. i'm sorry, but i must ask you to excuse me this morning.' "i succeeded in quellin' the tumult, and introduced the matron, who received a nod an' a look that made a dent in her, an' away we went around the great house, a melancholy, shuffling troop, now silent as the grave. it looked dark for my little battalion with which i had been hoping to conquer this world within the villa gates. they were of the great army of the friendless. "i asked mrs. hammond, the matron, to see that they did as little damage as possible, and left them surrounded by every comfort. "they had a telephone and unlimited credit at the stores, an' mrs. hammond was a motherly soul of much experience with children, an' i knew that i could trust her. "i was to dine with the warburtons later in the week, an' before i entered the big house that evening i went around to the lodge. the children were all well an' asleep in their beds, an' the matron apparently happy an' contented. she said that mrs. bill had met them in the grounds that day, an' she told how the little three-year-old boy had exerted his charms upon my lady warburton, who had spent half an hour leading him through the gardens. [illustration: the boy had exerted his charms upon my lady warburton.] "how beautiful he was lying asleep in his bed that evening!--his face like the old dreams of eros, with silken, yellow, curly locks on his brow, an' long dark lashes, soft as the silk of the growing corn, an' a red mouth, so wonderfully curved, so appealing in its silence. beneath it were teeth like carved ivory. those baby lips seemed to speak to me and to say: 'o man that was born of a woman, and like me was helpless, give me your love or look not upon me!' "but i could not help looking, an" as i looked he smiled in what dreams--of things past or to come--i wish it were in me to tell you. something touched me--like a strong hand. i went out under the trees in the darkness an' stood still an' wondered what had happened to me. great scott!--me! socrates potter, lawyer, statesman, horse-trader! "'with that little captain i could take a city,' i whispered, an' i got up an' brushed myself off, as it were, an' walked around to the front door of the great house. "therein i was to witness an amusing comedy. the butler wore a new sort of grin as he took my wraps at the door. there were guests, mostly from new york an' greenwich. we had taken our seats at the table when, to my surprise, mrs. bill, in a grand costume, with a tiara on her head, an' a collar of diamonds on her neck, began to serve the caviar. "'ladies and gentlemen,' said she, 'this is to convince mr. socrates potter that i can do useful work. i'm dieting, anyhow, and i can't eat.' "'my friend, i observe that you are serving us, and we are proud, but you do not appear to be serving a purpose,' i said. "'now, don't spoil it all with your relentless logic,' she began. 'you see, i am going to take a hand in this keeping-up-with-lizzie business. one of our ladies had to give up a dinner-party the other day, because her butlers had left suddenly.' "'"why didn't you and a maid serve the dinner yourselves?" i said. "'"impossible!" was her proud answer. "'"it would have been a fine lark. i would have done it," i said. "'"i'd like to see you," she laughed. "'"you shall," i answered, and here i am.' "now, there were certain smiles which led me to suspect that it was a blow aimed at one of the ladies who sat at the table with us, but of that i am not sure. "'i'm also getting my hand in,' our hostess went on. 'bill and i are going to try the simple life. tomorrow we move into the log-cabin, where we shall do our own work, and send the servants off for a week's holiday. i'm going to do the cooking--i've been learning how--and i shall make the beds, and bill is to chop the wood, and help wash the dishes, and we shall sleep out-of-doors. it will, i hope, be a lesson to some of these proud people around us who are living beyond their means. that's good, isn't it?' "'excellent!' i exclaimed, as the others laughed. "'incidentally, it will help me to reduce,' she added. "'an' it promises to reduce bill,' i said. 'it will kill bill, i fear, but it will pay. you might change your plan a little--just a little--an' save poor bill. think of eating biscuit an' flapjacks from the hand of a social leader! between the millstones of duty and indigestion he will be sadly ground, but with the axe he may, if he will, defend his constitution.' "'well, what's a constitution between husband and wife?' she asked. "'nothin'.' i says. 'bear in mind i wouldn't discourage you. with the aid of the axe his ancestors were able to withstand the assaults of pork an' beans an' pie. if he uses it freely, he is safe.' "'you see, i shall have him in a position where he must work or die,' said mrs. bill. "'he'll die,' said a guest. "'i call it a worthy enterprise whatever the expense,' i said. 'it will set a fashion here an' a very good one. in this community there are so many dear ladies who are prisoners of gravitation. they rely almost exclusively on hired hands an' feet, an' are losin' the use o' their own. what confusion will spread among them when they learn that mrs. william henry warburton, the richest woman in fairfield county, and the daughter of a bishop, has been doin' her own work! what consternation! what dismay! what female profanity! what a revision of habits an' resolutions! why, there's been nothin' like it since the descent of lizzie.' "'i think it's terrible,' said a fat lady from louisville, distinguished for her appetite, an' often surreptitiously referred to as 'the mammoth cave of kentucky.' 'the idea of trying to make it fashionable to endure drudgery! i think we women have all we can do now.' "'to be respectable,' said mrs. bill; 'but let's try to do something else.' "'why don't you form a ladies' protective union,' bill suggested, 'an' choose the tiara for a symbol, an' strike for no hours a day an' all your husbands can earn?' "'and the employment of skilled idlers only,' mrs. bill put in. 'they must all know how to do nothing in the modern way--by discussing the rights of women and the novel of lust, and the divorces past and prospective, by playing at bridge and benevolence. how absurd it all is! i'm not going to be an overgrown child any longer.' "i saw that mrs. bill was makin' progress, an' with her assistance i began to hope for better things in that neighborhood. "you've got to reach the women somehow, you see, before you can improve the social conditions of a community. i love them, but many are overgrown children, as mrs. bill had put it, an' doin' nothing with singular skill an' determination an' often with appalling energy. "our pretty hostess had been helping a butler, as this talk went on, an' presently one of the other ladies joined her, an' never was any company so picturesquely an' amusingly served. "'i've quite fallen in love with that three-year-old boy,' said mrs. bill, as we rose from the table. 'i had a good romp with him to-day.' "'i wish you'd go over to the old farm-house with me; i want to show you something,' i said. "in a moment we were in wraps an' making our way across the lawn. "'i was glad to get a rap at that mrs. barrow,' she whispered, as we walked along. 'she's just got back her jewels that were stolen, and has begun to go out again. she's the vainest, proudest fool of a woman, and her husband is always borrowing money. did you know it?' "'some--that is, fairly well,' i said, with bitterness. "'so does bill, and she goes about with the airs of a grand lady and the silliest notions. really, it was for her benefit that i helped the butler.' "'if it weren't for bill i'd call you an angel,' i said. 'you have it in your power to redeem the skilled idlers of this community.' "we reached the little house so unlike the big, baronial thing we had left. it was a home. mrs. hammond sat by the reading-lamp in its cozy sitting-room before an open fire. she led us into the bedroom with the lamp in her hand. there lay the boy as i had left him, still smiling with a lovelier, softer red in his cheeks than that of roses. [illustration: she led us into the bedroom.] "'see the color and the dimples,' i said. "she looked from one to another, an' suddenly the strong appeal of their faces fell upon her. she raised the boy from his bed, an' he put his arms around her neck an' began to talk in a tender baby treble. "did you ever hear the voice of a child just out of dreamland, when it expresses, not complaint, but love an' contentment? well, sir, it is the sweetest, the most compelling note in all nature, i believe. it is like a muted violin--voice of god or voice of man--which is it? i dare not say, but i do know that the song of the hermit-thrush is but sounding brass compared with that. "i felt its power, an' i said to myself: 'i will waste my life no longer. i will marry.' "she, too, had felt it. the little captain had almost overcome her. she laid him down, an' we turned away. "we walked through the garden paths, an' neither spoke, but in the stillness i could hear trumpets of victory. we entered the great hall an' sat with the others by its fireside, but took little part in the talk. when i made my adieus she shook my hand warmly and said i was very good to them. "save for its good example, the log-cabin experiment was not a success. they slept with all the doors and windows open, an' one night a skunk came in an' got under the bed. mrs. bill discovered that they had company, an' bill got up an' lit the lantern, an' followed the clew to its source. he threatened an' argued an' appealed to the skunk's better nature with a doughnut, but the little beast sat unmoved in his corner. the place seemed to suit him. "bill got mad an' flung the axe at him. it was a fatal move--fatal to the skunk an' the cabin an' the experiment, an' a blow to the sweetness an' sociological condition of connecticut. "they returned to the big house, an' by-an'-by told me of their adventure. "'don't be discouraged,' i said. 'you will find skunks in every walk of life, but when you do, always throw down your cards an' quit the game. they can deal from the bottom of the pack. you haven't a ghost of a show with 'em.' "being driven out of the cabin, mrs. bill gave most of her leisure to the farm-house, where i had spent an hour or more every day. "suddenly i saw that a wonderful thing had happened to me. i was in love with those kids, an' they with me. the whole enterprise had been a bluff conceived in the interest of the warburtons. i hadn't really intended to build a house, but suddenly i got busy with all the mechanics i could hire in pointview, and the house began to grow like a mushroom. "another wonderful thing happened. mrs. warburton fell in love with the kids, and they with her. she romped with them on the lawn; she took them out to ride every day; she put them to bed every night; she insisted upon buying their clothes; she bought them a pony an' a little omnibus; she built them a playhouse for their comfort. the whole villa began to revolve around the children. they called her mama an' they called me papa, a sufficiently singular situation. vi in which the pursuit of lizzie becomes highly serious dan had been out of town, an' immediately on his return he came to my office. "'how's business?' i asked. "'well, the ham war was a little hard on us, but we're picking up,' says he. 'they're still selling hams way below a decent price over at henshaw's. i don't see how they can do it.' "'i do,' i says. "'please explain," says dan. "'don't you know that lizzie was buyin' most o' those hams that you sold way below the wholesale price, an' that she's now makin' a good profit on 'em?' i says. "'great scott!' dan exclaimed, as he sank in a chair. "'the fact is, dan, the only way to keep up with that girl is to marry her,' says i. 'get busy. if you don't somebody else will. put a mortgage on her an' foreclose it as soon as possible. as a floatin' asset lizzie is dangerous.' "dan picked up his hat an' started for the door. "'tell her she must do business or you'll cut the price of pettigrews,' i suggested. "'good idea!' he answered, as he went away. "meanwhile mr. an' mrs. bill warburton were hot on the trail of lizzie. "bill came to me one day an' said: 'those babies have solved the problem; my wife is happy and in excellent health. she sleeps an' eats as well as ever, an' her face has a new look--you have observed it?' "'certainly, bill, an' you're goin' to hear some rather chesty an' superior talk. i saw what was the matter long ago--she was motor-sick, an' tiara-sick, an' dog-sick, an' horse-sick. she was sick of idleness an' rich food an' adulation. she has discovered that there are only three real luxuries--work, children, motherhood--that to shirk responsibility is to forfeit happiness. i have been a little disappointed in you, bill. your father was a minister; he had the love of men in his soul. you seem to have taken to dogs an' horses with an affection almost brotherly. i don't blame you so much. when men get rich they naturally achieve a passion for the things that money will buy. they think they've got to improve the breed o' dogs an' horses, an' they're apt to forget the breed o' men. you've been pursuin' happiness with dogs, horses, an' motor-cars. you never can catch her in that way--never. don't you remember, bill, that in the old days we didn't pursue happiness? why, happiness pursued us an' generally caught us. some days she didn't succeed until we were all tired out, an' then she led us away into the wonderful land o' dreams, an' it was like heaven. you never get happiness by pursuin' _her_--that's one dead sure thing. happiness is never captured. she comes unbidden or not at all. she travels only in one path, an' you haven't found it. bill, we've strayed a little. let's try to locate the trail o' happiness. i believe we're gettin' near it. "'last year a colt of yours won a classic event of the turf. how much finer it would be if you had some boys in training for the sublime contests of life, an' it wouldn't cost half so much. you know, there are plenty of homeless boys who need your help. wouldn't it pay better to develop a henry m. stanley--once a homeless orphan--than a salvator or an ormonde or a rayon d'or?' "'pound away,' said bill. 'nail an' rivet me to the cross. i haven't a word to say, except this: what in the devil do ye want me to do?' "'well, ye might help to redeem new england,' i said. 'the yankee blood is runnin' out, an' it's a pity. to-day the yankees are almost a childless race. do ye know the reason?' "he shook his head. "'it costs so much to live,' i says. 'we can't afford children. to begin with, the boys an' girls don't marry so young. they can't stand the expense. they're all keepin' up with lizzie, but on the wrong road. the girls are worse than the boys. they go out o' the private school an' beat the bush for a husband. at first they hope to drive out a duke or an earl; by-an'-by they're willin' to take a common millionaire; at last they conclude that if they can't get a stag they'll take a rabbit. then we learn that they're engaged to a young man, an' are goin' to marry as soon as he can afford it. he wears himself out in the struggle, an' is apt to be a nervous wreck before the day arrives. they are nearin' or past thirty when he decides that with economy an' _no children_ they can afford to maintain a home. the bells ring, the lovely strains from "lohengrin" fill the grand, new house o' god, an' overflow into the quiet streets o' the village, an' we hear in them what wagner never thought of--_the joyful death-march of a race_. think of it, bill, this old earth is growin' too costly for the use o' man. we prefer autos an' diamonds an' knick-knacks! life has become a kind of a circus where only the favored can pay the price of admission, an' here in america, where about all the great men we have had were bred in cabins, an' everything worth a fish-hook came out o' poverty! you have it in your power to hasten the end o' this wickedness,' i said. 'for one thing, you can make the middleman let go of our throats in this community. near here are hundreds of acres o' land goin' to waste. buy it an' make it produce--wool, meat, flax, grains, an' vegetables. start a market an' a small factory here, an' satisfy yourself as to what is a just price for the necessaries of life. if the tradesmen are overchargin' us, they'll have to reduce prices. put your brain an' money into it; make it a business. at least, you'll demonstrate what it ought to cost to live here in new england. if it's so much that the average yankee can't afford it by honest work--if we must all be lawyers or bankers or brokers or graspin' middle-men in order to live--let's start a big asylum for the upright, an' give 'em a chance to die comfortably. but it isn't so. i can raise potatoes right here for thirty cents a bushel, as good as those you pay forty cents a peck for at sam henshaw's. you'll set an example of inestimable value in this republic of ours. dan has begun the good work, an' demonstrated that it will pay.' "'it's a good idea--i'm with you,' he said. 'if we can get the boys an' girls to marry while the bloom is on the rye, it's worth while, an' i wouldn't wonder if indirectly we'd increase the crop of yankees an' the yield of happiness to the acre.' "'bill, you're a good fellow,' i said. 'you only need to be reminded of your duty--you're like many another man.' "'and i'll think you the best fellow in the world if you'll let us keep those kids. we enjoy them. we've been having a lot of fun lately.' "'i can't do that,' i said, 'but i'll keep 'em here until we can get some more. there are thousands of them as beautiful, as friendless, as promising as these were.' "'i wish you could let us have these,' he urged. 'we wouldn't adopt them, probably, but we'd do our best for them--our very best.' "'i can't,' i answered. "'why?' "'because they've got hold of my old heart--that's why. i hadn't looked for that, bill, but the little cusses have conquered _me_.' "'great god!' he exclaimed. 'i hadn't thought of that. and my wife told me this morning that she loves that three-year-old boy as dearly as she loves me. they've all won her heart. what shall i do?' "'let me think it over,' i said, an' shook his hand an' left, an' i knew that i was likely to indulge in the makin' of history right away. "i went home an' sat down an' wrote the best brief of my career--an appeal to the supreme court o' this planet--a woman's heart. it was a letter to one whose name i honored although i had not written it in years. "next mornin' i plunged into a lawsuit an' was workin' night an' day, until the jury came in with a verdict an' court adjourned for the christmas holidays. "an' that day a decision was handed down in my appeal to the court of last resort. it was a cablegram from an italian city, an' a verdict in my favor. i am to get in that case the best fee on record--a wife and the love of a dear and beautiful woman. we went to school together, and i am ashamed that i didn't ask her to marry me years ago. so much for me had lizzie an' the kids accomplished. "i was to dine with the warburtons christmas eve, and be santa claus for the children. i bought a set o' whiskers an' put on my big fur coat and two sets o' bells on the mare, an' drove to the villa, with a full pack in the buggy an' a fuller heart in my breast. "bill an' mrs. bill an' i went over to the farm-house together with our arms full. the children were in a room up-stairs with mrs. hammond waiting for santa claus. below we helped the two maids, who were trimming the christmas tree--and a wonderful tree it was when we were done with it--why, sir, you'd have thought a rainbow was falling into a thicket on the edge of a lake. my friend, it was the tree of all fruits. "we filled the little stockings hanging on the mantel. then they helped me to put on my beard an' the greatcoat an' cap an' the pack over all, an' mrs. bill an' i went out-of-doors. we stood still an' listened for a moment. two baby voices were calling out of an upper window: 'santa claus, please come, santa claus!' then we heard the window close an' the chatter above stairs, but we stood still. mrs. bill seemed to be laughing, but i observed that her handkerchief had the centre of the stage in this little comedy. "in half a minute i stole down the road an' picked up the bells that lay beside it, an' came prancin' to the door with a great jingle, an' in i went an' took my stand by the christmas tree. we could hear the hurry of small feet, an' eager, half-hushed voices in the hall overhead. then down the stairway came my slender battalion in the last scene of the siege. their eyes were wide with wonder, their feet slow with fear. the little captain of three years ran straight to mrs. bill an' lay hold of her gown, an' partly hid himself in its folds, an' stood peekin' out at me. it was a masterful bit of strategy. i wonder how he could have done it so well. she raised him in her arms an' held him close. a great music-box in a corner began to play: "'o tannenbaum! o tannenbaum! wie grun sind deine blaetter!' [illustration: their eyes were wide with wonder.] "then with laughter an' merry jests we emptied the pack, an' gathered from the tree whose fruit has fed the starving human heart for more than a thousand years, an' how it filled those friends o' mine! "well, it was the night of my life, an' when i turned to go, its climax fell upon me. mrs. bill kneeled at my feet, an' said with tears in her eyes, an' her lips an' voice trembling: "'o santa claus! you have given me many things, but i beg for more--five more.' "the city had fallen. its queen was on her knees. the victorious army was swarming into the open gate of her arms. the hosts of doubt an' fear were fleeing. "i refuse to tell you all that happened in the next minute or two. a witness has some rights when testifyin' against his own manhood. "i helped the woman to her feet, an' said: "'they are yours. i shall be happy enough, and, anyhow, i do not think i shall need them now.' "an' so i left them as happy as human beings have any right to be. at last they had caught up with lizzie, an' i, too, was in a fair way to overtake her. "an' how fared dan in his pursuit of that remarkable maiden? why, that very night lizzie an' dan had been shakin' the tree o' love, an' i guess the fruit on it was fairly ripe an' meller. next day they came up to my house together. "dan couldn't hold his happiness, an' slopped over as soon as he was inside the door. "'mr. potter,' says he, with more than christmas merriment, 'we're going to be married next month.' "before i could say a word he had gathered lizzie up in his arms an' kissed her, an' she kissed back as prompt as if it had been a slap in a game o' tag. "'you silly man,' she says, 'you could have had me long ago.' "'if i'd only 'a' known it,' he says. "'oh, the ignorance o' some men!' she says, lookin' into his eyes. "'it exceeds the penetration o' some women,' i says. "they came together ag'in quite spiteful. i separated 'em. "'quit,' i says. 'stop pickin' on each other. it provokes you an' me too. you're like a pair o' kids turned loose in a candy store. behave yerselves an' listen to reason.' "lizzie turned upon me as if she thought it was none o' my business. then she smiled an' hid her face on the manly breast o' dan. "'now lizzie,' i says, 'get yer mind in workin' order as soon as ye can. dan, you go over an' stand by the window. i want you to keep at least ten paces apart, an' please don't fire 'til ye get the signal. i'm goin' to give a prize for the simplest weddin' that ever took place in pointview,' i says. 'it will be five hundred dollars in gold for the bride. don't miss it.' "'the marriage will occur at noon,' says lizzie. 'there'll be nothing but simple morning frocks. the girls can wear calico if they wish. no jewels, no laces, no elaborate breakfast." "'an' no presents, but mine, that cost over five dollars each,' i says. "an' that's the way it was--like old times. no hard work wasted in gettin' ready, no vanity fair, no heart-burnin', no bitter envy, no cussin' about the expense. there was nothing but love an' happiness an' goodwill at that wedding. it was just as god would have a wedding, i fancy, if he were the master o' ceremonies, as he ought to be. "they are now settled on a thousand acres o' land here in new england. dan has eight gangs o' human oxen from italy at work for him getting in his fertilizers. he rides a horse all day an' is as cordy as a roman gladiator. do you know what it means? ten thousand like him are going into the same work, the greed o' the middleman will be checked, an' one o' these days the old earth 'll be lopsided with the fruitfulness of america." vii in which the honorable socrates potter catches up with lizzie early in june i was invited to the wedding of miss betsey smead and the honorable socrates potter. miss betsey had inherited a large estate, and lived handsomely in the smead homestead, built by her grandfather. she was a woman of taste and refinement, but, in deference to socrates, no doubt, the invitations had been printed in the office of the local newspaper. there could have been no better example of honest simplicity. the good news sent me in quest of my friend the lawyer. i found him in miss betsey's library. he was in high spirits and surrounded by treasures of art. "yes, i'm in luck," he began. "miss betsey is a dear soul. we're bound to be happy in spite of all this polished brass an' plate an' mahogany. there's nothin' here that i can put my feet on, except the rugs or the slippery floor or the fender. everything has the appearance o' bein' more valuable than i am. if it was mine i'd take an axe an' bring things down to my level. i'm kind o' scairt for fear i'll sp'ile suthin' er other. sometimes i feel as if i'd like to crawl under the grand pyano an' git out o' danger. now look at old gran'pa smead in his gold frame on the wall. he's got me buffaloed. watches every move i make. betsey laughs an' tells me i can sp'ile anything i want to, but gran'pa is ever remindin' me o' the ancient law o' the smeads an' the persians." "mr. potter, i owe so much to you," i said. "i want to make you a present--something that you and your wife will value. i've thought about it for weeks. can you--" he interrupted me with a smile and these gently spoken words: "friends who wish to express their good-will in gifts are requested to consider the large an' elegant stock o' goods in the local ninety-nine-cent store. everything from socks to sunbursts may be found there. necklaces an' tiaras are not prohibited if guaranteed to be real ninety-nine-centers. these days nobody has cheap things. that makes them rare an' desirable. all diamonds should weigh at least half a pound. smaller stones are too common. everybody has them, you know. why, the wife of the butcher's clerk is payin' fifty cents a week on a solitaire. gold, silver, an' automobiles will be politely but firmly refused--too common, far too common! nothin' is desired likely to increase envy or bank loans or other forms of contemporaneous crime in pointview. we would especially avoid increasin' the risk an' toil of overworked an' industrious burglars. they have enough to do as it is--poor fellows--they hardly get a night's rest. miss betsey's home has already given 'em a lot o' trouble." his humor had relieved its pressure in the deep, good-natured chuckle of the yankee, as he strode up an' down the floor with both hands in his trousers pockets. "look at that ol' duffer," he went on, as he pointed at the stern features of grandpa smead. "wouldn't ye think he'd smile now an' then. maybe he'll cheer up after i've lived here awhile." he moved a couple of chairs to give him more room, an' went on: "now, there's bill warburton. i supposed he was a friend o' mine, but we had a fight in school, years ago, an' i guess he's never got over it. anyhow, i caught him tryin' to slip an automobile on me--just caught him in time. there he was tryin' to rob me o' the use o' my legs an' about fifteen hundred a year for expenses an' build me up into a fat man with indigestion an' liver-complaint. i served an injunction on him. "another man has tried to make me the lifelong slave of a silver service. he'd gone down to fifth avenue an' ordered it, an' i suppose it would 'a' cost thousands. tried to sneak it on me. can ye think o' anything meaner? it would 'a' cost me a pretty penny for insurance an' storage the rest o' my life, an' then think of our--ahem--our poor children! why, it would be as bad as a mortgage debt. every time i left home i would have worried about that silver service; every time the dog barked at night i would have trembled in my bed for the safety o' the silver service; every time we had company i would have been afraid that somebody was goin' to scratch the silver service; an' when i saw a stranger in town, i would have said to myself: 'ah, ha! it may be that he has heard of our silver service an' has come to steal it.' i would have begun to regard my servants an' many other people with dread an' suspicion. why, once i knew a man who had a silver service, an' they carried it up three nights to the attic every night for fifty years. they figured that they'd walked eleven hundred miles up an' down stairs with the silver service in their hands. the thought that they couldn't take it with 'em hastened an' embittered their last days. then the heirs learned that it wasn't genuine after all. "of course, i put another injunction upon that man. 'if we've ever done anything to you, forgive us,' i said, 'but please do not cripple us with gold or silver.'" he stopped and put his hand upon my shoulder and continued: "my young friend, if you would make us a gift, i wish it might be something that will give us pleasure an' not trouble, something that money cannot buy an' thieves cannot steal--your love an' good wishes to be ours as long as you live an' we live--at least. we shall need no token o' that but your word an' conduct." i assured him of all he asked for with a full heart. "should i come dressed?" was my query. "dressed, yes, but not dressed up," he answered. "neither white neckties nor rubber boots will be required." "how are mr. and mrs. bill?" "happier than ever," said he. "incidentally they've learned that life isn't all a joke, for one of those little brownies led them to the gate of the great mystery an' they've begun to look through it an' are' wiser folks. two other women are building orphan lodges on their grounds, an' there's no tellin' where the good work will end." we were interrupted by the entrance of miss betsey smead. she was a comely, bustling, cheerful little woman of about forty-five, with a playful spirit like that of socrates himself. "this is my _financee_," said socrates. "she has waited for me twenty-five years." "and he kept me waiting--the wretch!--just because my grandfather left me his money," said miss betsey. "i shall never forgive that man," said socrates, as he shook his fist at the portrait. "an' she was his only grandchild, too." "and think how comfortable he might have been here, and how i've worried about him." miss betsey went on: "here, soc., put your feet on this piano seat. now you look at home." "when i achieve the reformation of betsey i shall have a kitchen table to put my feet on!" said soc., as i left them. then i decided that i would send him a kitchen table. the end adventures of venture, a native of africa, but resident above sixty years in the united states of america, related by himself*** e-text produced by martin schub a narrative of the life and adventures of venture, a native of africa, but resident above sixty years in the united states of america. related by himself. venture smith new london, preface the following account of the life of venture, is a relation of simple facts, in which nothing is in substance to what he relates himself. many other interesting and curious passages of his life might have been inserted, but on account of the bulk to which they must necessarily have swelled this narrative, they were omitted. if any should suspect the truth of what is here related, they are referred to people now living who are acquainted with most of the facts mentioned in this narrative. the reader is here presented with an account, not of a renowned politician or warrior, but of an untutored african slave, brought into this christian country at eight years of age, wholly destitute of all education but what he received in common with other domesticated animals, enjoying no advantages that could lead him to suppose himself superior to the beasts, his fellow servants. and if he shall enjoy no other advantage from perusing this narrative, he may experience those sensations of shame and indignation, that will prove him to be not wholly destitute of every noble and generous feeling. the subject of the following pages, had he received only a common education, might have been a man of high respectability and usefulness; and had his education been suited to his genius, he might have been an ornament and an honor to human nature. it may perhaps, not be unpleasing to see the efforts of a great mind wholly uncultivated, enfeebled and depressed by slavery, and struggling under every disadvantage. the reader may here see a franklin and a washington, in a state of nature, or rather, in a state of slavery. destitute as he is of all education, he still exhibits striking traces of native ingenuity and good sense. this narrative exhibits a pattern of honesty, prudence, and industry, to people of his own colour; and perhaps some white people would not find themselves degraded by imitating such an example. the following account is published in compliance with the earnest desire of the subject of it, and likewise a number of respectable persons who are acquainted with him. chapter i. _containing an account of his life, from his birth to the time of his leaving his native country._ i was born at dukandarra, in guinea, about the year . my father's name was saungm furro, prince of the tribe of dukandarra. my father had three wives. polygamy was not uncommon in that country, especially among the rich, as every man was allowed to keep as many wives as he could maintain. by his first wife he had three children. the eldest of them was myself, named by my father broteer. the other two were named cundazo and soozaduka. my father had two children by his second wife, and one by his third. i descended from a very large, tall and stout race of beings, much larger than the generality of people in other parts of the globe, being commonly considerably above six feet in height, and in every way well proportioned. the first thing worthy of notice which i remember was, a contention between my father and mother, on account of my father's marrying his third wife without the consent of his first and eldest, which was contrary to the custom generally observed among my countrymen. in consequence of this rupture, my mother left her husband and country, and travelled away with her three children to the eastward. i was then five years old. she took not the least sustenance along with her, to support either herself or children. i was able to travel along by her side; the other two of her offspring she carried one on her back, and the other being a sucking child, in her arms. when we became hungry, my mother used to set us down on the ground, and gather some of the fruits which grew spontaneously in that climate. these served us for food on the way. at night we all lay down together in the most secure place we could find, and reposed ourselves until morning. though there were many noxious animals there; yet so kind was our almighty protector, that none of them were ever permitted to hurt or molest us. thus we went on our journey until the second day after our departure from dukandarra, when we came to the entrance of a great desert. during our travel in that we were often affrighted with the doleful howlings and yellings of wolves, lions, and other animals. after five days travel we came to the end of this desert, and immediately entered into a beautiful and extensive interval country. here my mother was pleased to stop and seek a refuge for me. she left me at the house of a very rich farmer. i was then, i should judge, not less than one hundred forty miles from my native place, separated from all my relations and acquaintance. at this place my mother took her farewell of me, and set out for her own country. my new guardian, as i shall call the man with whom i was left, put me into the business of tending sheep, immediately after i was left with him. the flock which i kept with the assistance of a boy, consisted of about forty. we drove them every morning between two and three miles to pasture, into the wide and delightful plains. when night drew on, we drove them home and secured them in the cote. in this round i continued during my stay there. one incident that befel me when i was driving my flock from pasture, was so dreadful to me at that age, and is to this time fresh in my memory, that i cannot help noticing it in this place. two large dogs sallied out of a certain house and set upon me. one of them took me by the arm, and the other by the thigh, and before their master could come and relieve me, they lacerated my flesh to such a degree, that the scars are very visible to the present day. my master was immediately sent for. he came and carried me home, as i was unable to go myself on account of my wounds. nothing remarkable happened afterwards until my father sent for me to return home. before i dismiss this country, i must just inform my reader what i remember concerning this place. a large river runs through this country in a westerly course. the land for a great way on each side is flat and level, hedged in by a considerable rise of the country at a great distance from it. it scarce ever rains there, yet the land is fertile; great dews fall in the night which refresh the soil. about the latter end of june or first of july, the river begins to rise, and gradually increases until it has inundated the country for a great distance, to a height of seven or eight feet. this brings on a slime which enriches the land surprisingly. when the river has subsided, the natives begin to sow and plant, and the vegetation is exceedingly rapid. near this rich river my guardian's land lay. he possessed, i cannot tell exactly how much, yet this i am certain of respecting it, that he owned an immense tract. he possessed likewise a great many cattle and goats. during my stay with him i was kindly used, and with as much tenderness, for what i saw, as his only son, although i was an entire stranger to him, remote from friends and relations. the principal occupation of the inhabitants there, were the cultivation of the soil and the care of their flocks. they were a people pretty similar in every respect to that of mine, except in their persons, which were not so tall and stout. they appeared to be very kind and friendly. i will now return to my departure from that place. my father sent a man and horse after me. after settling with my guardian for keeping me, he took me away and went for home. it was then about one year since my mother brought me here. nothing remarkable occured to us on our journey until we arrived safe home. i found then that the difference between my parents had been made up previous to their sending for me. on my return, i was received both by my father and mother with great joy and affection, and was once more restored to my paternal dwelling in peace and happiness. i was then about six years old. not more than six weeks had passed after my return, before a message was brought by an inhabitant of the place where i lived the preceding year to my father, that that place had been invaded by a numerous army, from a nation not far distant, furnished with musical instruments, and all kinds of arms then in use; that they were instigated by some white nation who equipped and sent them to subdue and possess the country, that his nation had made no preparation for war, having been for a long time in profound peace that they could not defend themselves against such a formidable train of invaders, and must therefore necessarily evacuate their lands to the fierce enemy, and fly to the protection of some chief; and that if he would permit them they should come under his rule and protection when they had to retreat from their own possessions. he was a kind and merciful prince, and therefore consented to these proposals. he had scarcely returned to his nation with the message, before the whole of his people were obliged to retreat from their country, and come to my fathers dominions. he gave them every privilege and all the protection his government could afford. but they had not been there longer than four days before news came to them that the invaders had laid waste their country, and were coming speedily to destroy them in my father's territories. this affrighted them, and therefore they immediately pushed off to the southward, into the unknown countries there, and were never more heard of. two days after their retreat, the report turned out to be but too true. a detachment of the enemy came to my father and informed him, that the whole army was encamped not far out of his dominions, and would invade the territory and deprive his people of their liberties and rights, if he did not comply with the following terms. these were to pay them a large sum of money, three hundred fat cattle, and a great number of goats, sheep, asses, &c. my father told the messenger that he would comply rather than that his subjects should be deprived of their rights and privileges, which he was not then in circumstances to defend from so sudden an invasion. upon turning out those articles, the enemy pledged their faith and honor that they would not attack him. on these he relied and therefore thought it unnecessary to be on his guard against the enemy. but their pledges of faith and honor proved no better than those of other unprincipled hostile nations; for a few days after a certain relation of the king came and informed him, that the enemy who sent terms of accommodation to him, and received tribute to their satisfaction, yet meditated an attack on his subjects by surprise, and that probably they would commence their attack in less than one day, and concluded with advising him, as he was not prepared for war, to order a speedy retreat of his family and subjects. he complied with this advice. the same night which was fixed upon to retreat, my father and his family set off about break of day. the king and his two younger wives went in one company, and my mother and her children in another. we left our dwellings in succession, and my father's company went on first. we directed our course for a large shrub plain, some distance off, where we intended to conceal ourselves from the approaching enemy, until we could refresh and rest ourselves a little. but we presently found that our retreat was not secure. for having struck up a little fire for purposes of cooking victuals, the enemy who happened to be encamped a little distance off, had sent out a scouting party which discovered us by the smoke of the fire, just as we were extinguishing it and about to eat. as soon as we had finished eating, my father discovered the party, and immediately began to discharge arrows at them. this was what i first saw, and it alarmed both me and the women, who being unable to make any resistance, immediately betook ourselves to the tall thick reeds not far off, and left the old king to fight alone. for some time, i beheld him from the reeds defending himself with great courage and firmness, till at last he was obliged to surrender himself into their hands. then they came to us in the reeds, and the very first salute i had from them was a violent blow on the head with the fore part of a gun, and at the same time a grasp round the neck. i then had a rope put about my neck, as had all the women in the thicket with me, and were immediately led to my father, who was likewise pinioned and haltered for leading. in this condition we were all led to the camp. the women and myself being pretty submissive, had tolerable treatment from the enemy, while my father was closely interrogated respecting his money which they knew he must have. but as he gave them no account of it, he was instantly cut and pounded on his body with great inhumanity, that he might be induced by the torture he suffered to make the discovery. all this availed not the least to make him give up his money, but he despised all the tortures which they inflicted, until the continued exercise and increase of torment, obliged him to sink and expire. he thus died without informing his enemies of the place where his money lay. i saw him while he was thus tortured to death. the shocking scene is to this day fresh in my mind, and i have often been overcome while thinking on it. he was a man of remarkable stature. i should judge as much as six feet and six or seven inches high, two feet across his shoulders, and every way well proportioned. he as a man of remarkable strength and resolution, affable, kind and gentle, ruling with equity and moderation. the army of the enemy was large, i should suppose consisting of about six thousand men. their leader was called baukurre. after destroying the old prince, they decamped and immediately marched towards the sea, lying to the west, taking with them myself and the women prisoners. in the march a scouting party was detached from the main army. to the leader of this party i was made waiter, having to carry his gun, &c. as we were a scouting we came across a herd of fat cattle, consisting of about thirty in number. these we set upon, and immediately wrested from their keepers, and afterwards converted them into food for the army. the enemy had remarkable success in destroying the country wherever they went. for as far as they had penetrated, they laid the habitations waste and captured the people. the distance they had now brought me was about four hundred miles. all the march i had very hard tasks imposed on me, which i must perform on pain of punishment. i was obliged to carry on my head a large flat stone used for grinding our corn, weighing as i should suppose, as much as pounds; besides victuals, mat and cooking utensils. though i was pretty large and stout of my age, yet these burthens were very grievous to me, being only about six years and a half old. we were then come to a place called malagafco. when we entered the place we could not see the least appearance of either houses or inhabitants, but upon stricter search found, that instead of houses above ground they had dens in the sides of hillocks, contiguous to ponds and streams of water. in these we perceived they had all hid themselves, as i suppose they usually did upon such occasions. in order to compel them to surrender, the enemy contrived to smoke them out with faggots. these they put to the entrance of the caves and set them on fire. while they were engaged in this business, to their great surprise some of them were desperately wounded with arrows which fell from above on them. this mystery they soon found out. they perceived that the enemy discharged these arrows through holes on the top of the dens directly in to the air. their weight brought them back, point downwards on their enemies heads, whilst they were smoking the inhabitants out. the points of the arrows were poisoned, but their enemy had an antidote for it, which they instantly applied to the wounded part. the smoke at last obliged the people to give themselves up. they came out of their caves, first spatting the palms of their hands together, then and immediately after extended their arms, crossed at their wrists, ready to be bound and pinioned. i should judge that the dens above mentioned were extended about eight feet horizontally into the earth, five feet in height and as many wide. they were arched over head and lined with earth, which was of the clay kind, and made the surface of their walls firm and smooth. the invaders then pinioned the prisoners of all ages and sexes indiscriminately, took their flocks and all their effects, and moved on their way towards the sea. on the march the prisoners were treated with clemency, on account of their being submissive and humble. having come to the next tribe, the enemy laid siege and immediately took men, women, children, flocks, and all their valuable effects. they then went on to the next district which was contiguous with the sea, called in africa, anamaboo. the enemies provisions were then almost spent, as well as their strength. the inhabitants knowing what kind of conduct they had pursued, and what were their present intentions, improved the favorable opportunity, attacked them, and took enemy, prisoners, flocks and all their effects. i was then taken a second time. all of us were then put into the castle, and kept for market. on a certain time i and other prisoners were put on board a canoe, under our master, and rowed away to a vessel belonging to rhode island, commanded by capt. collingwood, and the mate thomas mumford. while we were going to the vessel, our master told us all to appear to the best possible advantage for sale. i was bought on board by one robertson mumford, steward of said vessel, for four gallons of rum, and a piece of calico, and called venture, on account of his having purchased me with his own private venture. thus i came by my name. all the slaves that were bought for that vessel's cargo, were two hundred and sixty. chapter ii. _containing an account of his life, from the time of his leaving africa, to that of his becoming free._ after all the business was ended on the coast of africa, the ship sailed from thence to barbadoes. after an ordinary passage, except great mortality from small pox, which broke out on board, we arrived at the island of barbadoes: but when we reached it, there were found out of the two hundred and sixty that sailed from africa, not more than two hundred alive. these were all sold, except for myself and three more, to the planters there. the vessel then sailed for rhode island, and arrived there after a comfortable passage. here my master sent me to live with one of his sisters, until he could carry me to fisher's island, the place of his residence. i had then competed my eighth year. after staying with his sister some time i was taken to my master's place to live. when we arrived at narragansett, my master went ashore in order to return a part of the way by land, and gave me the charge of the keys of his trunks on board the vessel, and charged me not to deliver them up to any body, not even to his father without his orders. to his directions i promised faithfully to conform. when i arrived with my master's articles at his house, my master's father asked me for his son's keys, as he wanted to see what his trunks contained. i told him that my master intrusted me with the care of them until he should return, and that i had given him my word to be faithful to the trust, and could not therefore give him or any other person the keys without my master's directions. he insisted that i should deliver him the keys, threatening to punish me if i did not. but i let him know that he should not have them say what he would. he then laid aside trying to get them. but notwithstanding he appeared to give up trying to obtain them from me, yet i mistrusted that he would take some time when i was off my guard, either in the day time or at night to get them, therefore i slung them around my neck, and in the day concealed them in my bosom, and at night i always lay with them under me, that no person might take them from me without being apprized of it. thus i kept the keys from every body until my master came home. when he returned he asked where venture was. as i was then within hearing, i came, said, here sir, at your service. he asked me for his keys, and i immediately took them off my neck and reached them out to him. he took them, stroked my hair, and commended me, saying in presence of his father that his young venture was so faithful that he would never have been able to have taken the keys from him but by violence; that he should not fear to trust him with his whole fortune, for that he had been in his native place so habituated to keeping his word, that he would sacrifice even his life to maintain it. the first of the time of living at my master's own place, i was pretty much employed in the house at carding wool and other household business. in this situation i continued for some years, after which my master put me to work out of doors. after many proofs of my faithfulness and honesty, my master began to put great confidence in me. my behavior to him had as yet been submissive and obedient. i then began to have hard tasks imposed on me. some of these were to pound four bushels of ears of corn every night in a barrel for the poultry, or be rigorously punished. at other seasons of the year i had to card wool until a very late hour. these tasks i had to perform when i was about nine years old. some time after i had another difficulty and oppression which was greater than any i had ever experienced since i came into this country. this was to serve two masters. james mumford, my master's son, when his father had gone from home in the morning, and given me a stint to perform that day, would order me to do _this_ and _that_ business different from what my master directed me. one day in particular, the authority which my master's son had set up, had like to have produce melancholy effects. for my master having set me off my business to perform that day and then left me to perform it, his son came up to me in the course of the day, big with authority, and and commanded me very arrogantly to quit my present business and go directly about what he should order me. i replied to him that my master had given me so much to perform that day, and that i must therefore faithfully complete it in that time. he then broke out in a great rage, snatched a pitchfork and went to lay me over the head therewith; but i as soon got another and defended myself with it, or otherwise he might have murdered me in his outrage. he immediately called some people who were hearing at work for him, and ordered them to take his hair rope and and come and bind me with it. they all tried to bind me but in vain, tho' there were three assistants in number. my upstart master than desisted, put his pocket handkerchief before his eyes and went home with a design to tell his mother of the struggle with young venture. he told her that their young venture had become so stubborn that he could not controul him, and asked her what he should do with him. in the mean time i recovered my temper, voluntarily caused myself to be bound by the same men who tried in vain before, and carried before my young master, that he might do what he pleased with me. he took me to a gallows made for the purpose of hanging cattle on, and suspended me on it. afterwards he ordered one of his hands to go to the peach orchard and cut him three dozens of whips to punish me with. these were brought to him, and that was all that was done with them, as i was released and went to work after hanging on the gallows about an hour. after i lived with my master thirteen years, being then about twenty two years old, i married meg, a slave of his who was about my age. my master owned a certain irishman, named heddy, who about that time formed a plan of secretly leaving his master. after he had long had this plan in meditation he suggested it to me. at first i cast a deaf ear on it, and rebuked heddy for harboring in his mind such a rash undertaking. but after he had persuaded and much enchanted me with the prospect of gaining my freedom with such a method, i at length agreed to accompany him. heddy next inveigled two of his fellow servants to accompany us. the place to which we designed to go was the mississippi. our next business was to lay in a sufficient store of provisions for our voyage. we privately collected out of our master's store, six great old cheeses, two firkins of butter, and one whole batch of new bread. when we had gathered all our own clothes and some more, we took them all about midnight, and went to the water side. we stole our master's boat, embarked, then directed our course for the mississippi river. we mutually confederated not to betray or desert one another on pain of death. we first steered our course for montauk point, the east end of long-island. after our arrival there we landed, and heddy and i made an incursion into the island after fresh water, while our two comrades were left at a little distance from the boat, employed at cooking. when heddy and i had sought some time for water, he returned to our companions, and i continued on looking for my object. when heddy had performed his business with our companions, who were engaged in cooking, he went directly to the boat, stole all the clothes in it, and then travelled away for east-hampton, as i was informed. i returned to my fellows not long after. they informed me that our clothes were stolen, but could not determine who was the thief, yet they suspected heddy as he was missing. after reproving my two comrades for not taking care of our things which were in the boat, i advertised heddy and sent two men in search of him. they pursued and overtook him at southampton and returned him to the boat. i then thought it might afford some chance for my freedom, or at least a palliation for my running away, to return heddy immediately to his master, and inform him that i was induced to go away by heddy's address. accordingly i set off with him and the rest of my companions for our master's, and arrived there without any difficulty. i informed my master that heddy was the ringleader of our revolt, and that he had used us ill. he immediately put heddy into custody, and myself and companions were well received and went to work as usual. not a long time passed after that, before heddy was sent by my master to new-london gaol. at the close of that year i was sold to a thomas stanton, and had to be separated from my wife and one daughter, who was about one month old. he resided at stonington-point. to this place i brought with me from my last master's, two johannes, three old spanish dollars, and two thousand of coppers, besides five pounds of my wife's money. this money i got by cleaning gentlemen's shoes and drawing boots, by catching musk-rats and minks, raising potatoes and carrots, &c. and by fishing in the night, and at odd spells. all this money amounting to near twenty-one pounds york currency, my master's brother, robert stanton, hired of me, for which he gave me his note. about one year and a half after that time, my master purchased my wife and and her child, for severn hundred pounds old tenor. one time my master sent me two miles after a barrel of molasses, and ordered me to carry it on my shoulders. i made out to carry it all the way to my master's house. when i lived with captain george mumford, only to try my strength, i took up on my knees a tierce of salt containing seven bushels, and carried it two or three rods. of this fact there are several eye witnesses now living. towards the close of the time that i resided with this master, i had a falling out with my mistress. this happened one time when my master was gone to long-island a gunning. at first the quarrel began between my wife and her mistress. i was then at work in the barn, and hearing a racket in the house, induced me to run there and see what had broken out. when i entered the house, i found my mistress in a violent passion with my wife, for what she informed me was a mere trifle; such a small affair that i forbear to put my mistress to the shame of having it known. i earnestly requested my wife to beg pardon of her mistress for the sake of peace even if she had given no just occasion for offence. but whilst i was thus saying my mistress turned the blows which she was repeating on my wife to me. she took down her horse-whip, and while she was glutting her fury with it, i reached out my great black hand, raised it up and received the blows of the whip on it which were designed for my head. then i immediately committed the whip to the devouring fire. when my master returned from the island, his wife told him of the affair, but for the present he seemed to take no notice of it, and mentioned not a word of it to me. some days after his return, in the morning as i was putting on a log in the fire-place, not suspecting harm from any one, i received a most violent stroke on the crown of my head with a club two feet long and and as large around as a chair- post. this blow very badly wounded my head, and the scar of it remains to this day. the first blow made me have my wits about me as you may suppose, for as soon as he went to renew it, i snatched the club out of his hands and dragged him out of the door. he then sent for his brother to come and assist him, but i presently left my master, took the club he wounded me with, carried it to a neighboring justice of the peace, and complained of my master. he finally advised me to return to my master, and live contented with him until he abused me again, and then complain. i consented to do accordingly. but before i set out for my master's, up he come and his brother robert after me. the justice improved this convenient opportunity to caution my master. he asked him for what he treated his slave thus hastily and unjustly, and told him what would be the consequence if he continued the same treatment towards me. after the justice had ended his discourse with my master, he and his brother set out with me for home, one before and the other behind me. when they had come to a bye place, they both dismounted their respective horses, and fell to beating me with great violence. i became enraged at this and immediately turned them both under me, laid one of them across the other, and stamped both with my feet what i would. this occasioned my master's brother to advise him to put me off. a short time after this i was taken by a constable and two men. they carried me to a black-smith's shop and had me hand-cuffed. when i returned home my mistress enquired much of her waiters, whether venture was hand-cuffed. when she was informed that i was, she appeared to be very contented and was much transported with the news. in the midst of all this content and joy, i presented myself before my mistress, shewed her my hand-cuffs, and gave her thanks for my gold rings. for this my master commanded a negro of his to fetch him a large ox chain. this my master locked on my legs with two padlocks. i continued to wear the chain peaceably for two or three days, when my master asked me with contemptuous hard names whether i had not better be freed from my chains and go to work. i answered him, no. well then, said he, i will send you to the west-indies or banish you, for i am resolved not to keep you. i answered him i crossed the waters to come here, and i am willing to cross them to return. for a day or two after this not any one said much to me, until one hempsted miner, of stonington, asked me if i would live with him. i answered him that i would. he then requested me to make myself discontented and to appear as unreconciled to my master as i could before that he bargained with him for me; and that in return he would give me a good chance to gain my freedom when i came to live with him. i did as he requested me. not long after hempsted miner purchased me of my master for fifty-six pounds lawful. he took the chain and padlocks off me immediately after. it may here be remembered, that i related a few pages back, that i hired out a sum of money to mr. robert stanton, and took his note for it. in the fray between my master stanton and myself, he broke open my chest containing his brother's note to me, and destroyed it. immediately after my present master bought me, he determined to sell me at hartford. as soon as i became apprized of it, i bethought myself that i would secure a certain sum of money which lay by me, safer than to hire it out to stanton. accordingly i buried it in the earth, a little distance from thomas stanton's, in the road over which he passed daily. a short time after my master carried me to hartford, and first proposed to sell me to one william hooker of that place. hooker asked whether i would go to the german flats with him. i answered, no. he said i should, if not by fair means i should by foul. if you will go by no other measures, i will tie you down in my sleigh. i replied to him, that if he carried me in that manner, no person would purchase me, for it would be thought that he had a murderer for sale. after this he tried no more, and said he would not have me as a gift. my master next offered me to daniel edwards, esq. of hartford, for sale. but not purchasing me, my master pawned me to him for ten pounds, and returned to stonington. after some trial of my honesty, mr. edwards placed considerable trust and confidence in me. he put me to serve as his cup-bearer and waiter. when there was company at his house, he would send me into his cellar and other parts of his house to fetch wine and other articles occasionally for them. when i had been with him for some time, he asked me why my master wished to part with such an honest negro, and why he did not keep me himself. i replied that i could not give him the reason, unless it was to convert me into cash, and speculate with me as with other commodities. i hope he can never justly say it was on account of my ill conduct that he did no keep me himself. mr edwards told me that he should be very willing to keep me himself, and that he would never let me go from him to live, if it was not unreasonable and inconvenient for me to be parted from my wife and children; therefore he would furnish me with a horse to return to stonington, if i had a mind for it. as miner did not appear to redeem me i went, at called at my old master stanton's first to see my wife, who was then owned by him. as my old master appeared much ruffled at my being there, i left my wife before i had spent considerable time with her, and went to colonel o. smith's. miner had not as yet wholly settled with stanton for me, and had before my return from hartford given col. smith a bill of sale for me. these men once met to determine which of them should hold me, and upon my expressing a desire to be owned by col. smith, and upon my master's settling the remainder of the money which was due stanton for me, it was agreed that i should live with col. smith. this was the third time of my being sold, and i was then thirty-one years old. as i never had an opportunity of redeeming myself whilst i was owned by miner, though he promised to give me a chance, i was then very ambitious of obtaining it. i asked my master one time if he would consent to have me purchase my freedom. he replied that he would. i was then very happy, knowing that i was at that time able to pay part of the purchase money, by means of the money which i some time since buried. this i took out of the earth and tendered to my master, having previously engaged a free negro man to take take his security for it, as i was the property of my master, and therefore could not safely take his obligation myself. what was wanted in redeeming myself, my master agreed to wait on me for, until i could procure it for him. i still continued to work for col. smith. ther was continually some interest accruing on my master's note to my friend the free negro man above named, which i received, and with some besides which i got by fishing, i laid out in land adjoining my old master stanton's. by cultivating this land with the greatest diligence and economy, at times when my master did not require my labor, in two years i laid up ten pounds. this my friend tendered to my master for myself, and received his note for it. being encouraged by the success which i had met in redeeming myself, i again solicited my master for a further chance of completing it. the chance for which i solicited him was that of going out to work the ensuing winter. he agreed to this on condition that i would give him one quarter of my earnings. on these terms i worked the following winter, and earned four pounds sixteen shillings, one quarter of which went to my master for the privilege, and the rest was paid him on my own account. this added to the other payments made up forty four pounds, eight shillings, which i had paid on my own account. i was then about thirty five years old. the next summer i again desired he would give me a chance of going out to work. but he refused and answered that he must have my labor this summer, as he did not have it the past winter. i replied that i considered it as hard that i could not have a chance to work out when the season became advantageous, and that i must only be permitted to hire myself out in the poorest season of the year. he asked me after this what i would give for the privilege per month. i replied that i would leave it wholly with his own generosity to determine what i should return him a month. well then, said he, if so two pounds a month. i answered him that if that was the least he would take i would be contented. accordingly, i hired myself out at fisher's island, and earned twenty pounds; thirteen pounds six shillings of which my master drew for the privilege, and the remainder i paid him for my freedom. this made fifty-one pounds two shillings which i paid him. in october following i went and wrought six months at long island. in that six months' time i cut and corded four hundred cords of wood, besides threshing out seventy-five bushels of grain, and received of my wages down only twenty pounds, which left remaining a larger sum. whilst i was out that time, i took upon my wages only one pair of shoes. at night i lay upon the hearth, with one coverlet over and another under me. i returned to my master and gave him what i received on my six months labor. this left only thirteen pounds eighteen shillings to make up the full sum for my redemption. my master liberated me, saying i might pay what was behind if i could ever make it convenient, otherwise it would be well. the amount of the money which i had paid my master towards redeeming my time, was seventy-one pounds two shillings. the reason of my master for asking such an unreasonable price, was he said, to secure himself in case i should ever come to want. being thirty-six years old, i left col. smith once for all. i had already been sold three different times, made considerable money with seemingly nothing to derive it from, been cheated out of a large sum of money, lost much by misfortunes, and paid an enormous sum for my freedom. chapter iii. _containing an account of his life, from the time of his purchasing his freedom to the present day._ my wife and children were yet in bondage to mr. thomas stanton. about this time i lost a chest, containing besides clothing, about thirty- eight pounds in paper money. it was burnt by accident. a short time after i sold all my possessions at stonington, consisting of a pretty piece of land and one dwelling house thereon, and went to reside at long-island. for the first four years of my residence there, i spent my time in working for various people on that and at the neighboring islands. i the space of six months i cut and corded upwards of four hundred cords of wood. many other singular and wonderful labors i performed in cutting wood there, which would not be inferior to those just recited, but for brevity sake i must omit them. in the aforementioned four years what wood i cut at long-island amounted to several thousand cords, and the money which i earned thereby amounted to two hundred and seven pounds ten shillings. this money i laid up carefully by me. perhaps some may enquire what maintained me all the time i was laying up money. i would inform them that i bought nothing which i did not absolutely want. all fine clothes i despised in comparison with my interest, and never kept but just what clothes were comfortable for common days, and perhaps i would have a garment or two which i did not have on at all times, but as for superfluous finery i never thought it to be compared with a decent homespun dress, a good supply of money and prudence. expensive gatherings of my mates i commonly shunned, and all kinds of luxuries i was perfectly a stranger to; and during the time i was employed in cutting the aforementioned quantity of wood, i never was at the expense of six-pence worth of spirits. being after this labor forty years of age, i worked at various places, and in particular on ram-island, which i purchased solomon and cuff, two sons of mine, for two hundred dollars each. it will here be remembered how much money i earned by cutting wood in four years. besides this i had considerable money, amounting in all to near three hundred pounds. after this i purchased a negro man, for no other reason than to oblige him, and gave him sixty pounds. but in a short time after he run away from me, and i thereby lost all that i gave for him, except twenty pounds which he paid me previous to his absconding. the rest of my money i laid out in land, in addition to a farm which i owned before, and a dwelling house thereon. forty four years had then completed their revolution since my entrance in to this existence of servitude and misfortune. solomon my eldest son, being then in his seventeenth year, and all my hope and dependence for help, i hired him out to one charles church, of rhode island, for one year, on consideration of his giving him twelve pounds and an opportunity of acquiring some learning. in the course of the year, church fitted out a vessel for a whaling voyage, and being in want of hands to man her, he induced my son to go, with the promise of giving him, on his return, a pair of silver buckles, besides his wages. as soon as i heard of his going to sea, i immediately set out to go and prevent it if possible. but on my arrival at church's, to my great grief, i could only see the vessel my son was on almost out of sight going to sea. my son died of the scurvy on this voyage, and church has never yet paid me the least of his wages. in my son, besides the loss of his life, i lost equal to seventy-five pounds. my other son being but a youth, still lived with me. about this time i chartered a sloop of about thirty tons burthen, and hired men to assist me in navigating her. i employed her mostly in the wood trade to rhode-island, and made clear of all expenses above one hundred dollars with her in better than one year. i had then become something forehanded, and being in my forty-fourth year, i purchased my wife meg, and thereby prevented having another child to buy, as she was then pregnant. i gave forty pounds for her. during my residence at long-island, i raised one year with another, ten cart loads of water-melons, and lost a great many every year besides by the thievishness of the sailors. what i made by the water- melons i sold there, amounted to nearly five hundred dollars. various other methods i in order to enable me to redeem my family. in the night-time i fished with set-nets and pots for eels and lobsters, and shortly after went a whaling voyage in the service of col. smith. after being seven months, the vessel returned, laden with four hundred barrels of oil. about this time, i became possessed of another dwelling-house, and my temporal affairs were in a pretty prosperous condition. this and my industry was what alone saved me from being expelled that part of the island in which i resided, as an act was passed by the select-men of the place, that all negroes residing there should be expelled. next after my wife, i purchased a negro man for four hundred dollars. but he having an inclination to return to his old master, i therefore let him go. shortly after i purchased another negro man for twenty- five pounds, who i parted with shortly after. being about forty-six years old, i bought my oldest child hannah, of ray mumford, for forty-four pounds, and she still resided with him. i had already redeemed from slavery, myself, my wife and three children, besides three negro men. about the forty-seventh year of my life, i disposed all my property at long-island, and came from thence into east-haddam. i hired myself out at first to timothy chapman, for five weeks, the earnings of which time i put carefully by me. after this i wrought for abel bingham about six weeks. i then put my money together and purchased of said bingham ten acres of land, lying at haddam neck, where i now reside. on this land i labored with great diligence for two years, and shortly after purchased six acres more of land contiguous to my other. one year from that time i purchased seventy acres more of the same man, and paid for it mostly with the produce of my other land. soon after i bought this lot of land, i set up a comfortable dwelling house on my farm, and built it from the produce thereof. shortly after i had much trouble and expense with my daughter hannah, whose name has before been mentioned in this account. she was married soon after i redeemed her, to one isaac, a free negro, and shortly after her marriage fell sick of a mortal disease; her husband a dissolute and abandoned wretch, paid but little attention to her in her illness. i therefore thought it best to bring her to my house and nurse her there. i procured her all the aid mortals could afford, but notwithstanding this she fell a prey to her disease, after a lingering and painful endurance of it. the physician's bills for attending her during her illness amounted to forty pounds. having reached my fifty-fourth year, i hired two negro men, one named william jacklin, and the other mingo. mingo lived with me one year, and having received his wages, run in debt to me eight dollars, for which he gave me his note. i procured a warrant, took him, and requested him to go to justice throop's of his own accord, but he refusing, i took him on my shoulders, and carried him there, distant about two miles. the justice asking me if i had my prisoner's note with me, and replying that i had not, he told me that i must return with him and get it. accordingly i carried mingo back on my shoulders, but before we arrived at my dwelling, he complained of being hurt, and asked me if this was not a hard way of treating our fellow creatures. i answered him that it would be hard thus to treat our honest fellow creatures. he then told me that if i would let him off my shoulders, he had a pair of silver shoe-buckles, one shirt and a pocket handkerchief, which he would turn out to me. i agreed, and let him return home with me on foot; but the very following night, he slipped from me, stole my horse and has never paid me even his note. the other negro man, jacklin, being a comb-maker by trade, he requested me to set him up, and promised to reward me well with his labor. accordingly i bought him a set of tools for making combs, and procured him stock. he worked at my house about one year, and then run away from me with all his combs, and owed me for all his board. since my residence at haddam neck, i have owned of boats, canoes and sail vessels, not less than twenty. these i mostly employed in the fishing and trafficking business, and in these occupations i have been cheated out of considerable money by people whom i traded with taking advantage of my ignorance of numbers. about twelve years ago, i hired a whale-boat and four black men, and proceeded to long-island after a load of round clams. having arrived there, i first purchased of james webb, son of orange webb, six hundred and sixty clams, and afterwards, with the help of my men, finished loading my boat. the same evening, however, this webb stole my boat, and went in her to connecticut river, and sold her cargo for his own benefit. i thereupon pursued him, and at length, after an additional expence of nine crowns, recovered the boat; but for the proceeds of her cargo i never could obtain any compensation. four years after, i met with another loss, far superior to this in value, and i think by no less wicked means. being going to new-london with a grand-child, i took passage on an indian's boat, and went there with him. on our return, the indian took on board two hogsheads of molasses, one of which belonged to capt. elisha hart, of saybrook, to be delivered to his wharf. when we arrived there, and while i was gone, at the request of the indian, to inform captain hart of his arrival, and receive the freight for him, one hogshead of the molasses had been lost overboard by the people in attempting to land it on the wharf. although i was absent at the time, and had no concern whatever in the business, and was known to a number of respectable witnesses, i was nevertheless persecuted by this conscientious gentleman, (the indian not being able to pay for it) and obliged to pay upwards of ten pounds lawful money, with all the costs of court. i applied to several gentlemen for counsel in this affair, and they advised me, as my adversary was rich, and threatened to carry the matter from court to court till it would cost me more than the first damages would be, to pay the sum and submit to the injury; which i accordingly did, and he has often since insultingly taunted me with my unmerited misfortune. such a proceeding as this, committed on a defenseless stranger, almost worn out in the hard service of the world, without any foundation in reason or justice, whatever it may be called in a christian land, would in my native country be branded a crime equal to highway robbery. but captain hart was a _white gentleman_, and i a _poor african,_ and therefore it was _all right, and good enough for the black dog._ i am now sixty nine years old. though once straight and tall, measuring without shoes six feet one inch and an half, and every way well proportioned, i am now bowed down with age and hardship. my strength which was once equal if not superior to any man whom i have ever seen, is now enfeebled so that life is a burden, and it is with fatigue that i can walk a couple of miles, stooping over my staff. other griefs are still behind; on account of which some aged people, at least, will pity me. my eye-sight has gradually failed, till i am almost blind, and whenever i go abroad one of my grand-children must direct my way; besides for many years i have been much pained and troubled with an ulcer on one of my legs. but amidst all my griefs and pains, i have many consolations; meg, the wife of my youth, whom i married for love, and bought with my money, is still alive. my freedom is a privilege which nothing else can equal. notwithstanding all the losses i have suffered by fire, by the injustice of knaves, by the cruelty and oppression of false-hearted friends, and the perfidy of my own countrymen whom i have assisted and redeemed from bondage, i am no possessed of more than two hundred acres of land, and three habitable dwelling houses. i gives me joy to think that i _have_ and that i _deserve_ so good a character, especially for _truth_ and _integrity._ while i am now looking to the grave as my home, my joy for this world would be full--if my children, cuff for whom i paid two hundred dollars when a boy, and solomon who was born soon after i purchased his mother--if cuff and solomon--o! that they had walked the way of their father. but a father's lips are closed in silence and grief! vanity of vanities, all is vanity! f i n i s. certificate. stonington, november , . these certify that venture, a free negro man, aged about years, and was, as we have ever understood, a native of africa, and formerly a slave to mr. james mumford, of fisher's-island, in the state of new- york, who sold him to mr. robert stanton, d, of stonington, in the state of connecticut, and said stanton sold said venture to col. oliver smith, of the aforesaid place. that said venture hath sustained the character of a faithful servant, and that of a temperate, honest and industrious man, and being ever intent on obtaining his freedom, he was indulged by his masters after the ordinary labour on the days of his servitude, to improve the nights in fishing and other employments of his own emolument, in which time he procured so much money as to purchase his freedom from his late master col. smith; after which he took upon himself the name of venture smith, and has since his freedom purchased a negro woman, called meg, to whom he was previously married, and also his children who were slaves, and said venture has since removed himself and family to the town of east-haddam, in this state, where he has purchased lands on which he hath built a house, and there taken up his abode. nathan minor, esq. elijah palmer, esq. capt. amos palmer, acors sheffield, edward smith. proofreading team. [illustration: a grand jury presentment for witchcraft reproduced from the original in the connecticut historical society, hartford may it please yr honble court, we the grand inquest now setting for the county of fairefeild, being made sensable, not only by common fame (but by testamonies duly billed to us) that the widow mary staple, mary harvey ye wife of josiah harvey & hannah harvey the daughter of the saide josiah, all of fairefeild, remain under the susspition of useing witchecraft, which is abomanable both in ye sight of god & man and ought to be witnessed against. we doe therefore (in complyance to our duty, the discharge of our oathes and that trust reposed in us) presente the above mentioned pssons to the honble court of assistants now setting in fairefeild, that they may be taken in to custody & proceeded against according to their demerits. fairefeild, fby, in behalfe of the grnd jury joseph bastard, foreman] the witchcraft delusion in colonial connecticut - by john m. taylor author of "maximilian and carlotta, a story of imperialism," and "roger ludlow, the colonial lawmaker" "connecticut can well afford to let her records go to the world." _blue laws: true and false_ (p. ). j. hammond trumbull. foreword the true story of witchcraft in old connecticut has never been told. it has been hidden in the ancient records and in manuscripts in private collections, and those most conversant with the facts have not made them known, for one reason or another. it is herein written from authoritative sources, and should prove of interest and value as a present-day interpretation of that strange delusion, which for a half century darkened the lives of the forefathers and foremothers of the colonial days. j.m.t. hartford, connecticut. two indictments for witchcraft "john carrington thou art indited by the name of john carrington of wethersfield--carpenter--, that not hauing the feare of god before thine eyes thou hast interteined ffamilliarity with sattan the great enemye of god and mankinde and by his helpe hast done workes aboue the course of nature for wch both according to the lawe of god and the established lawe of this commonwealth thou deseruest to dye." record particular court, : , - . "hugh crotia, thou standest here presented by the name of hugh crotia of stratford in the colony of connecticut in new england; for that not haueing the fear of god before thine eyes, through the instigation of the devill, thou hast forsaken thy god & covenanted with the devill, and by his help hast in a preternaturall way afflicted the bodys of sundry of his majesties good subjects, for which according to the law of god, and the law of this colony, thou deseruest to dye." record court of assistants, : , . a warrant for the execution of a witch[a] and the sheriff's return thereon to george corwin gentlm high sheriff of the county of essex greeting whereas bridgett bishop als olliver the wife of edward bishop of salem in the county of essex sawyer at a special court of oyer and terminer ---- (held at?)[b] salem this second day of this instant month of june for the countyes of essex middlesex and suffolk before william stoughton esqe. and his associates justices of the said court was indicted and arraigned upon five several indictments for useing practising & exercising on the ----[b] last past and divers others days ----[b] witchcraft in and upon the bodyes of abigail williams ann puttnam jr mercy lewis mary walcott and elizabeth hubbard of salem village single women; whereby their bodyes were hurt afflicted pined consumed wasted & tormented contrary to the forme of the statute in that case made and provided to which indictmts the said bridgett bishop pleaded not guilty and for tryall thereof put herselfe upon god and her country ----[b] she was found guilty of the ffelonyes and witchcrafts whereof she stood indicted and sentence of death accordingly passed agt her as the law directs execution whereof yet remaines to be done these are therefore in the name of their majties william & mary now king & queen over england & to will and command you that upon fryday next being the fourth day of this instant month of june between the hours of eight and twelve in the aforenoon of the same day you safely conduct the sd bridgett bishop als olliver from their majties goale in salem aforesd to the place of execution and there cause her to be hanged by the neck until she be dead and of your doings herein make returne to the clerk of the sd court and precept and hereof you are not to faile at your peril and this shall be sufficient warrant given under my hand & seal at boston the eighth of june in the ffourth year of the reigne of our sovereigne lords william & mary now king & queen over england annoque dm wm. stoughton [footnote a: original in office of clerk of the courts at salem, massachusetts. said to be the only one extant in american archives.] [footnote b: some of the words in the warrant are illegible.] june according to the within written precept i have taken the bodye of the within named bridgett bishop out of their majties goale in salem & safely conueighd her to the place provided for her execution & caused ye sd bridgett to be hanged by the neck till shee was dead all which was according to the time within required & so i make returne by me george corwin sheriff contents chapter i perkins' definition--burr's "servants of satan"--the monkish idea--the ancientness of witchcraft--its universality--its regulation--what it was--its oldest record--the babylonian stele--its discovery--king hammurabi's code, b.c.--its character and importance--hebraic resemblances--its witchcraft law--the test of guilt--the water test. chapter ii opinions of blackstone and lecky--witchcraft nomenclature--its earlier and later phases--common superstitions--monna sidonia's invocation-- leland's sea song--witchcraft's diverse literature--its untold history-- the modern satanic idea--exploitation by the inquisitors--the chief authorities--the witch belief--its recognition in drama and romance--the weird sisters--other characters. chapter iii fundamentals--the scriptural citations--old and new testament--josephus--ancient and modern witchcraft--the distinction--the arch enemy satan--action of the church--the later definition--the new england indictments--satan's recognition--persecutions in italy, germany and france--slow spread to england--statute of henry viii--cranmer's injunction--jewell's sermon--statute james i--his demonologie--executions in eastern england--witch finder hopkins--howell's statement--john lowes--witchcraft in scotland--commissions--instruments of torture--forbes' definition--colonial beliefs chapter iv fiske's view--the forefathers' belief--massachusetts, connecticut and new haven laws--sporadic cases--the salem tragedy--statements of hawthorne, fiske, lowell, latimer--the victims--upham's picture--the trial court--sewall's confession--cotton mather--calef and upham--poole--mather's rules--ministerial counsel--longfellow's opinion--mather's responsibility--his own evidence--conspectus chapter v the epidemic in connecticut--palfrey--trumbulls--winthrop's journal--treatment of witchcraft--silence and evasion--the true story--how told--witnesses--testimony--all classes affected--the courts--judges and jurors--the best evidence--the record--grounds for examination of a witch--jones' summary--witch marks--what they were--how discovered--dalton's country justice--the searchers--searchers' report in disborough and clawson cases chapter vi hamersley's and morgan's comment--john allyn's letter--the accusation--its origin--its victims--many witnesses--record evidence--the witnesses themselves--memorials of their delusion--notable depositions--selected testimonies, and cases--katherine harrison--the court--the judge--the indictment--grand jury's oath--credulity of the court--testimony--its unique character--bracy--dickinson--montague-- graves--francis--johnson--hale--smith--verdict and sentence--court's appeal to the ministers--their answer--a remarkable document--katherine's petition--"a complaint of severall grieuances"--katherine's reprieve-- dismissal from imprisonment--removal chapter vii mercy disborough--cases at fairfield, --the special court--the indictment--testimonies--jesop--barlow--dunning--halliberch--benit-- grey--godfree--search for witch marks--ordeal by water--cateran branch's accusation--jury disagree--later verdict of guilty--the governor's sentence--reference to general court--afterthought--john hale's conclusion--courts call on the ministers--their answer--general advice--reasons for reprieve--notable papers--eliot and woodbridge--willis--pitkin--stanly--the pardon chapter viii hawthorne--latimer--additional cases--curious and vulgar testimony--all illustrative of opinion--make it understandable--elizabeth seager--witnesses--what they swore to--garretts--sterne--hart--willard-- pratt--migat--"staggerings" of the jury--contradictions--verdict-- elizabeth godman--governor goodyear's dilemma--strange doings--ball's information--imprisonment--discharge--nathaniel and rebecca greensmith-- character, accusation--rebecca's confession--conviction--double execution at hartford chapter ix elizabeth clawson--the indictment--witnesses--"kateran" branch--garney-- kecham--abigail and nathaniel cross--bates--sargent wescot and abigail-- finch--bishop--holly--penoir--slawson--kateran's antics--acquittal. hugh crotia--the court--grand jury--indictment--testimony--confession-- acquittal--gaol delivery--elizabeth garlick--a sick woman's fancies--"a black thing at the bed's featte"--burning herbs--the sick child--the ox' broken leg--the dead ram and sow--the tale burning chapter x goodwife knapp--her character--a notable case--imprisonment--harsh treatment--the inquisitors--their urgency--knapp's appeal--the postmortem desecration--prominent people involved--davenport and ludlow--staplies vs. ludlow--the court--confidential gossip--cause of the suit--testimony-- davenport--sherwood--tomson--gould--ward--pell--brewster--lockwood--hull-- brundish--whitlock--barlow--lyon--mistress staplies--her doings aforetime-- tashs' night ride--"a light woman"--her character--reparation suit--her later indictment--power of the delusion--pertinent inquiry chapter xi present opinions--j. hammond trumbull--annie eliot trumbull--review--authenticity--record evidence--controversialists--actual cases--suspicions--accusations--acquittals--flights--executions--first complete roll--changes in belief--contrast--edwards--carter--"the rogerenes"--conclusion--hathorne--mather the witchcraft delusion in colonial connecticut chapter i "first, because witchcraft is a rife and common sinne in these our daies, and very many are intangled with it, beeing either practitioners thereof in their owne persons, or at the least, yielding to seeke for helpe and counsell of such as practise it." _a discovrse of the damned art of witchcraft_, perkins, . "and just as god has his human servants, his church on earth, so also the devil has his--men and women sworn to his service and true to his bidding. to win such followers he can appear to men in any form he pleases, can deceive them, enter into compact with them, initiate them into his worship, make them his allies for the ruin of their fellows. now it is these human allies and servants of satan, thus postulated into existence by the brain of a monkish logician, whom history knows as witches." _the literature of witchcraft_, burr. witchcraft in its generic sense is as old as human history. it has written its name in the oldest of human records. in all ages and among all peoples it has taken firm hold on the fears, convictions and consciences of men. anchored in credulity and superstition, in the dread and love of mystery, in the hard and fast theologic doctrines and teachings of diabolism, and under the ban of the law from its beginning, it has borne a baleful fruitage in the lives of the learned and the unlearned, the wise and the simple. king and prophet, prelate and priest, jurist and lawmaker, prince and peasant, scholars and men of affairs have felt and dreaded its subtle power, and sought relief in code and commandment, bull and anathema, decree and statute--entailing even the penalty of death--and all in vain until in the march of the races to a higher civilization, the centuries enthroned faith in the place of fear, wisdom in the place of ignorance, and sanity in the seat of delusion. in its earlier historic conception witchcraft and its demonstrations centered in the claim of power to produce certain effects, "things beyond the course of nature," from supernatural causes, and under this general term all its occult manifestations were classified with magic and sorcery, until the time came when the devil was identified and acknowledged both in church and state as the originator and sponsor of the mystery, sin and crime--the sole father of the satanic compacts with men and women, and the law both canonical and civil took cognizance of his malevolent activities. in the acropolis mound at susa in ancient elam, in the winter of - , there was brought to light by the french expedition in charge of the eminent savant, m. de morgan, one of the most remarkable memorials of early civilization ever recovered from the buried cities of the orient. it is a monolith--a stele of black diorite--bearing in bas-relief a likeness of hammurabi (the amrephel of the old testament; genesis xiv, ), and the sixth king of the first babylonian dynasty, who reigned about b.c.; and there is also carved upon it, in archaic script in black letter cuneiform--used long after the cursive writing was invented--the longest babylonian record discovered to this day,--the oldest body of laws in existence and the basis of historical jurisprudence. it is a remarkable code, quickly made available through translation and transliteration by the assyrian scholars, and justly named, from its royal compiler, hammurabi's code. he was an imperialist in purpose and action, and in the last of his reign of fifty-five years he annexed or assimilated the suzerainty of elam, or southern persia, with assyria to the north, and also syria and palestine, to the mediterranean sea. this record in stone originally contained nineteen columns of inscriptions of four thousand three hundred and fourteen lines, arranged in two hundred and eighty sections, covering about two hundred separate decisions or edicts. there is substantial evidence that many of the laws were of greater antiquity than the code itself, which is a thousand years older than the mosaic code, and there are many striking resemblances and parallels between its provisions, and the law of the covenant, and the deuteronomy laws of the hebrews. the code was based on personal responsibility. it protects the sanctity of an oath before god, provides among many other things for written evidence in legal matters, and is wonderfully comprehensive and rich in rules for the conduct of commercial, civic, financial, social, economic, and domestic affairs. these sections are notably illustrative: "if a man, in a case (pending judgment), utters threats against the witnesses (or), does not establish the testimony that he has given, if that case be a case involving life, that man shall be put to death. "if a judge pronounces a judgment, renders a decision, delivers a verdict duly signed and sealed and afterwards alters his judgment, they shall call that judge to account for the alteration of the judgment which he had pronounced, and he shall pay twelvefold the penalty which was in the said judgment, and, in the assembly, they shall expel him from his seat of judgment, and he shall not return, and with the judges in a case he shall not take his seat. "if a man practices brigandage and is captured, that man shall be put to death. "if a woman hates her husband, and says: 'thou shalt not have me,' they shall inquire into her antecedents for her defects; and if she has been a careful mistress and is without reproach and her husband has been going about and greatly belittling her, that woman has no blame. she shall receive her presents and shall go to her father's house. "if she has not been a careful mistress, has gadded about, has neglected her house and has belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water. "if a physician operates on a man for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and causes the man's death, or opens an abscess (in the eye) of a man with a bronze lancet and destroys the man's eye, they shall cut off his fingers. "if a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm and the house, which he has built, collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death." it is, however, with only one of king hammurabi's wise laws that this inquiry has to do, and it is this: "if a man has placed an enchantment upon a man, and has not justified himself, he upon whom the enchantment is placed to the holy river (euphrates) shall go; into the holy river he shall plunge. if the holy river holds (drowns) him he who enchanted him shall take his house. if on the contrary, the man is safe and thus is innocent, the wizard loses his life, and his house." or, as another translation has it: "if a man ban a man and cast a spell on him--if he cannot justify it he who has banned shall be killed." "if a man has cast a spell on a man and has not justified it, he on whom the spell has been thrown shall go to the river god, and plunge into the river. if the river god takes him he who has banned him shall be saved. if the river god show him to be innocent, and he be saved, he who banned him shall be killed, and he who plunged into the river shall take the house of him who banned him." there can be no more convincing evidence of the presence and power of the great witchcraft superstition among the primitive races than this earliest law; and it is to be especially noted that it prescribes one of the very tests of guilt--the proof by water--which was used in another form centuries later, on the continent, in england and new england, at wurzburg and bonn, at rouen, in suffolk, essex and devon, and at salem and hartford and fairfield, when "the devil starteth himself up in the pulpit, like a meikle black man, and calling the row (roll) everyone answered, here!" chapter ii "to deny the possibility, nay actual evidence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once to flatly contradict the revealed word of god in various passages both of the old and new testaments." _blackstone's commentaries_ (vol. , ch. , p. ). "it was simply the natural result of puritanical teaching acting on the mind, predisposing men to see satanic influence in life, and consequently eliciting the phenomena of witchcraft." lecky's _rationalism in europe_ (vol. i, p. ). witchcraft's reign in many lands and among many peoples is also attested in its remarkable nomenclature. consider its range in ancient, medieval and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: magic, sorcery, soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with satan, consorting with evil spirits, and familiarity with the devil, of later times; all at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy with its countless victims of fanaticism and error, malevolence and terror, of persecution and ruthless sacrifices. it is still most potent in its evil, grotesque, and barbaric forms, in fetichism, voodooism, bundooism, obeahism, and kahunaism, in the devil and animal ghost worship of the black races, completely exemplified in the arts of the fetich wizard on the congo; in the "uchawi" of the wasequhha mentioned by stanley; in the marriage customs of the soudan devil worshipers; in the practices of the obeah men and women in the caribbees--notably their power in matters of love and business, religion and war--in jamaica; in the incantations of the kahuna in hawaii; and in the devices of the voodoo or conjure doctor in the southern states; in the fiendish rites and ceremonies of the red men,--the hoch-e-ayum of the plains indians, the medicine dances of the cheyennes and arapahoes, the fire dance of the navajos, the snake dance of the moquis, the sun dance of the sioux, in the myths and tales of the cherokees; and it rings in many tribal chants and songs of the east and west. it lives as well, and thrives luxuriantly, ripe for the full vintage, in the minds of many people to whom this or that trivial incident or accident of life is an omen of good or evil fortune with a mysterious parentage. its roots strike deep in that strange element in human nature which dreads whatsoever is weird and uncanny in common experiences, and sees strange portents and dire chimeras in all that is unexplainable to the senses. it is made most virile in the desire for knowledge of the invisible and intangible, that must ever elude the keenest inquiry, a phase of thought always to be reckoned with when imagination runs riot, and potent in its effect, though evanescent as a vision the brain sometimes retains of a dream, and as senseless in the cold light of reason as monna sidonia's invocation at the witches' sabbath: (_romance of leonardo da vinci_, p. , merejkowski.) "emen hetan, emen hetan, palu, baalberi, astaroth help us agora, agora, patrisa, come and help us." "garr-r: garr-r, up: don't knock your head: we fly: we fly:" and who may count himself altogether free from the subtle power of the old mystery with its fantastic imageries, when the spirit of unrest is abroad? who is not moved by it in the awesome stillness of night on the plains, or in the silence of the mountains or of the somber forest aisles; in wild winter nights when old tales are told; in fireside visions as tender memories come and go? and who, when listening to the echoes of the chambers of the restless sea when deep calleth unto deep, does not hear amid them some weird and haunting refrain like leland's sea song? "i saw three witches as the wind blew cold in a red light to the lee; bold they were and overbold as they sailed over the sea; calling for one two three; calling for one two three; and i think i can hear it a ringing in my ear, a-calling for the one, two, three." above all, in its literature does witchcraft exhibit the conclusive proof of its age, its hydra-headed forms, and its influence in the intellectual and spiritual development of the races of men. what of this literature? count in it all the works that treat of the subject in its many phases, and its correlatives, and it is limitless, a literature of all times and all lands. christian and pagan gave it place in their religions, dogmas, and articles of faith and discipline, and in their codes of law; and for four hundred years, from the appeal of pope john xxii, in , to extirpate the devil-worshipers, to the repeal of the statute of james i in , the delusion gave point and force to treatises, sermons, romances, and folk-lore, and invited, nay, compelled, recognition at the hands of the scientist and legist, the historian, the poet and the dramatist, the theologian and philosopher. but the monographic literature of witchcraft, as it is here considered, is limited, in the opinion of a scholar versed in its lore, to fifteen hundred titles. there is a mass of unpublished materials in libraries and archives at home and abroad, and of information as to witchcraft and the witch trials, accessible in court records, depositions, and current accounts in public and private collections, all awaiting the coming of some master hand to transform them into an exhaustive history of the most grievous of human superstitions. to this day, there has been no thorough investigation or complete analysis of the history of the witch persecutions. the true story has been distorted by partisanship and ignorance, and left to exploitation by the romancer, the empiric, and the sciolist. "of the origin and nature of the delusion we know perhaps enough; but of the causes and paths of its spread, of the extent of its ravages, of its exact bearing upon the intellectual and religious freedom of its times, of the soul-stirring details of the costly struggle by which it was overborne we are lamentably ill informed." (_the literature of witchcraft_, p. , burr.) it must serve in this brief narrative to merely note, within the centuries which marked the climax of the mania, some of the most authoritative and influential works in giving strength to its evil purpose and the modes of accusation, trial, and punishment. modern scholarship holds that witchcraft, with the devil as the arch enemy of mankind for its cornerstone, was first exploited by the dominicans of the inquisition. they blazed the tortuous way for the scholastic theology which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries gave new recognition to satan and his satellites as the sworn enemies of god and his church, and the holy inquisition with its massive enginery, open and secret, turned its attention to the exposure and extirpation of the heretics and sinners who were enlisted in the devil's service. take for adequate illustration these standard authorities in the early periods of the widespread and virulent epidemic: those of the inquisitor general, eymeric, in , entitled _tractatus contra dæmonum_; the formicarius or ant hill of the german dominican nider, ; the _de calcatione dæmonum_, ; the _flagellum hæreticorum fascinariorum_ of the french inquisitor jaquier in ; and the _fortalitium fidei_ of the spanish franciscan alonso de spina, in ; the famous and infamous manual of arguments and rules of procedure for the detection and punishment of witches, compiled by the german inquisitors krämer and sprenger (institor) in , buttressed on the bull of pope innocent viii; (this was the celebrated _witch hammer_, bearing on its title page the significant legend, "_not to believe in witchcraft is the greatest of heresies_"); the canon episcopi; the bulls of popes john xxii, , innocent viii, , alexander vi, , leo x, , and adrian vi, ; the decretals of the canon law; the exorcisms of the roman and greek churches, all hinged on scriptural precedents; the roman law, the twelve tables, and the justinian code, the last three imposing upon the crimes of conjuring, exorcising, magical arts, offering sacrifices to the injury of one's neighbors, sorcery, and witchcraft, the penalties of death by torture, fire, or crucifixion. add to these classics some of the later authorities: the _dæmonologie_ of the royal inquisitor james i of england and scotland, ; mores' _antidote to atheism_; fuller's _holy and profane state_; granvil's _sadducismus triumphatus_, ; _tryal of witches at the assizes for the county of suffolk before sir matthew hale, march, _ (london, ); baxter's _certainty of the world of spirits_, ; cotton mather's _a discourse on witchcraft_, , his _late memorable providences relating to witchcrafts and possessions_, , and his _wonders of the invisible world_, ; and enough references have been made to this literature of delusion, to the precedents that seared the consciences of courts and juries in their sentences of men, women, and children to death by the rack, the wheel, the stake, and the gallows. where in history are the horrors of the curse more graphically told than in the words of canon linden, an eye witness of the demonic deeds at trier (treves) in ? "and so, from court to court throughout the towns and villages of all the diocese, scurried special accusers, inquisitors, notaries, jurors, judges, constables, dragging to trial and torture human beings of both sexes and burning them in great numbers. scarcely any of those who were accused escaped punishment. nor were there spared even the leading men in the city of trier. for the judge, with two burgomasters, several councilors and associate judges, canons of sundry collegiate churches, parish-priests, rural deans, were swept away in this ruin. so far, at length, did the madness of the furious populace and of the courts go in this thirst for blood and booty that there was scarcely anybody who was not smirched by some suspicion of this crime. "meanwhile notaries, copyists, and innkeepers grew rich. the executioner rode a blooded horse, like a noble of the court, and went clad in gold and silver; his wife vied with noble dames in the richness of her array. the children of those convicted and punished were sent into exile; their goods were confiscated; plowman and vintner failed." (_the witch persecutions_, pp. - , burr.) fanaticism did not rule and ruin without hindrance and remonstrance. men of great learning and exalted position struck mighty blows at the root of the evil. they could not turn the tide but they stemmed it, and their attacks upon the whole theory of satanic power and the methods of persecution were potent in the reaction to humanity and a reign of reason. always to be remembered among these men of power are johann wier, friedrich spee, and notably reginald scot, who in his _discovery of witchcraft_, in , undertook to prove that "the contracts and compacts of witches with devils and all infernal spirits and familiars, are but erroneous novelties and erroneous conceptions." "after all it is setting a high value on our conjectures to roast a man alive on account of them." (montaigne.) who may measure in romance and the drama the presence, the cogent and undeniable power of those same abiding elements of mysticism and mystery, which underlie all human experience, and repeated in myriad forms find their classic expression in the queries of the "weird sisters," "_those elemental avengers without sex or kin_"? "when shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain? when the hurly burly's done, when the battle's lost and won." are not the mummeries of the witches about the cauldron in macbeth, and talbot's threat pour la pucelle, "blood will i draw on thee, thou art a witch," uttered so long ago, echoed in the wailing cry of la meffraye in the forests of machecoul, in the maledictions of grio, and of the saga of the burning fields? their vitality is also clearly shown in their constant use and exemplification by the romance and novel writers who appeal with certainty and success to the popular taste in the tales of spectral terrors. witness: farjeon's _the turn of the screw_; bierce's _the damned thing_; bulwer's _a strange story_; cranford's _witch of prague_; howells' _the shadow of a dream_; winthrop's _cecil dreeme_; grusot's _night side of nature_; crockett's black douglas; and _the red axe_, francis' _lychgate hall_; caine's _the shadow of a crime_; and countless other stories, traditions, tales, and legends, written and unwritten, that invite and receive a gracious hospitality on every hand. chapter iii "a belief in witchcraft had always existed; it was entertained by coke, bacon, hale and even blackstone. it was a misdemeanor at english common law and made a felony without benefit of clergy by henry viii, c. , and eliz., c. , and the more severe statute of i jas. , ch. ." _connecticut--origin of her courts and laws_ (n.e. states, vol i, p. - ), hamersley. "selden took up a somewhat peculiar and characteristic position. he maintained that the law condemning women to death for witchcraft was perfectly just, but that it was quite unnecessary to ascertain whether witchcraft was a possibility. a woman might not be able to destroy the life of her neighbor by her incantations; but if she intended to do so, it was right that she should be hung." _rationalism in europe_ (vol. , p. ) lecky. the fundamental authority for legislation, for the decrees of courts and councils as to witchcraft, from the days of the witch of endor to those of mercy disborough of fairfield, and giles corey of salem farms, was the code of the hebrews and its recognition in the gospel dispensations. thereon rest most of the historic precedents, legislative, ecclesiastical, and judicial. "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." exodus xxii, . what law embalmed in ancientry and honored as of divine origin has been more fruitful of sacrifice and suffering? through the scriptures, gathering potency as it goes, runs the same grim decree, with widening definitions. "and the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and after wizards ... i will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people." deuteronomy xviii, - . "there shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." deuteronomy xviii, - . "saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land." samuel i, . "now saul the king of the hebrews, had cast out of the country the fortune tellers, and the necromancers, and all such as exercised the like arts, excepting the prophets.... yet did he bid his servants to inquire out for him some woman that was a necromancer, and called up the souls of the dead, that so he might know whether his affairs would succeed to his mind; for this sort of necromantic women that bring up the souls of the dead, do by them foretell future events." josephus, book , ch. . "for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." samuel i, - . "and i will cut off witchcraft out of the land." micah v. . "many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them." acts xix, . "but there was a certain man called simon which beforetime in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of samaria." acts viii, . "if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."[c] john xv, . [footnote c: in the opinion of the eminent italian jurist bartolo, witches were burned alive in early times on this authority.] these citations make clear the scriptural recognition of witchcraft as a heinous sin and crime. it is, however, necessary to draw a broad line of demarcation between the ancient forms and manifestations which have been brought into view for an illustrative purpose, and that delusion or mania which centered in the theologic belief and teaching that satan was the arch enemy of mankind, and clothed with such power over the souls of men as to make compacts with them, and to hold supremacy over them in the warfare between good and evil. the church from its earliest history looked upon witchcraft as a deadly sin, and disbelief in it as a heresy, and set its machinery in motion for its extirpation. its authority was the word of god and the civil law, and it claimed jurisdiction through the ecclesiastical courts, the secular courts, however, acting as the executive of their decrees and sentences. such was the cardinal principle which governed in the merciless attempts to suppress the epidemic in spreading from the continent to england and scotland, and at last to the puritan colonies in america, where the last chapter of its history was written. there can be no better, no more comprehensive modern definition of the crime once a heresy, or of the popular conception of it, than the one set forth in the new england indictments, to wit: "interteining familiarity with satan the enemy of mankind, and by his help doing works above the course of nature." in few words henry charles lea, in his _history of the inquisition in the middle ages_, analyzes the development of the satanic doctrine from a superstition into its acceptance as a dogma of christian belief. "as satan's principal object in his warfare with god was to seduce human souls from their divine allegiance, he was ever ready with whatever temptation seemed most likely to effect his purpose. some were to be won by physical indulgence; others by conferring on them powers enabling them apparently to forecast the future, to discover hidden things, to gratify enmity, and to acquire wealth, whether through forbidden arts or by the services of a familiar demon subject to their orders. as the neophyte in receiving baptism renounced the devil, his pomps and his angels, it was necessary for the christian who desired the aid of satan to renounce god. moreover, as satan when he tempted christ offered him the kingdoms of the earth in return for adoration--'if thou therefore wilt worship me all shall be thine' (luke iv, )--there naturally arose the idea that to obtain this aid it was necessary to render allegiance to the prince of hell. thence came the idea, so fruitful in the development of sorcery, of compacts with satan by which sorcerers became his slaves, binding themselves to do all the evil they could to follow their example. thus the sorcerer or witch was an enemy of all the human race as well as of god, the most efficient agent of hell in its sempiternal conflict with heaven. his destruction, by any method, was therefore the plainest duty of man. "this was the perfected theory of sorcery and witchcraft by which the gentle superstitions inherited and adopted from all sides were fitted into the christian dispensation and formed part of its accepted creed." (_history of inquisition in the middle ages_, , , lea.) once the widespread superstition became adapted to the forms of religious faith and discipline, and "the prince of the power of the air" was clothed with new energies, the devil was taken broader account of by christianity itself; the sorcery of the ancients was embodied in the christian conception of witchcraft; and the church undertook to deal with it as a heresy; the door was opened wide to the sweep of the epidemic in some of the continental lands. in bamburg and wurzburg, geneva and como, toulouse and lorraine, and in many other places in italy, germany, and france, thousands were sacrificed in the names of religion, justice, and law, with bigotry for their advocate, ignorance for their judge, and fanaticism for their executioner. the storm of demonism raged through three centuries, and was stayed only by the mighty barriers of protest, of inquiry, of remonstrance, and the forces that crystallize and mold public opinion, which guides the destinies of men in their march to a higher civilization. the flames burning so long and so fiercely on the continent at first spread slowly in england and scotland. sorcery in some of its guises had obtained therein ever since the conquest, and victims had been burned under the king's writ after sentence in the ecclesiastical courts; but witchcraft as a compact with satan was not made a felony until , by a statute of henry viii. cranmer, in his _articles of visitation_ in , enjoined the clergy to inquire as to any craft invented by the devil; and bishop jewell, preaching before the queen in , said: "it may please your grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within these last few years are marvelously increased within your grace's realm, your grace's subjects pine away even unto the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft." the act of was amended in queen elizabeth's reign, in , but at the accession of james i--himself a fanatic and bigot in religious matters, and the author of the famous _dæmonologie_--a new law was enacted with exact definition of the crime, which remained in force more than a hundred years. its chief provision was this: "if any person or persons use, practice or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil and wicked spirit to or for any intent or purpose, or take up any dead man, woman, or child out of his, her or their grave, or any other place where the dead body resteth or the skin, bone, or any part of any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or shall use, practise, or exercise any witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined or lamed in his or her body or any part thereof: every such offender is a felon without benefit of clergy." under this law, and the methods of its administration, witchcraft so called increased; persecutions multiplied, especially under the commonwealth, and notably in the eastern counties of england, whence so many of all estates, all sorts and conditions of men, had fled over seas to set up the standard of independence in the puritan colonies. many executions occurred in lancashire, in suffolk, essex, and huntingdonshire, where the infamous scoundrel "witch-finder-general" matthew hopkins, under the sanction of the courts, was "pricking," "waking," "watching," and "testing" persons suspected or accused of witchcraft, with fiendish ingenuity of indignity and torture. says james howell in his _familiar letters_, in : "we have multitudes of witches among us; for in essex and suffolk there were above two hundred indicted within these two years, and above the half of them executed." "within the compass of two years ( - ), near upon three hundred witches were arraigned, and the major part of them executed in essex and suffolk only. scotland swarms with them more and more, and persons of good quality are executed daily." scotland set its seal on witchcraft as a crime by an act of its parliament so early as , amended in . the ministers were the inquisitors and persecutors. they heard the confessions, and inflicted the tortures, and their cruelties were commensurate with the hard and fast theology that froze the blood of mercy in their veins. the trials were often held by special commissions issued by the privy council, on the petition of a presbytery or general assembly. it was here that those terrible instruments of torture, the caschielawis, the lang irnis, the boot and the pilliewinkis, were used to wring confessions from the wretched victims. it is all a strange and gruesome story of horrors told in detail in the state trial records, and elsewhere, from the execution of janet douglas--lady glammis--to that of the poor old woman at dornoch who warmed herself at the fire set for her burning. so firmly seated in the scotch mind was the belief in witchcraft as a sin and crime, that when the laws against it were repealed in , scotchmen in the highest stations of church and state remonstrated against the repeal as contrary to the law of god; and william forbes, in his "institutes of the law of scotland," calls witchcraft "that black art whereby strange and wonderful things are wrought by a power derived from the devil." this glance at what transpired on the continent and in england and scotland is of value, in the light it throws on the beliefs and convictions of both pilgrim and puritan--englishmen all--in their new domain, their implicit reliance on established precedents, their credulity in witchcraft matters, and their absolute trust in scriptural and secular authority for their judicial procedure, and the execution of the grim sentences of the courts, until the revolting work of the accuser and the searcher, and the delusion of the ministers and magistrates aflame with mistaken zeal vanished in the sober afterthought, the reaction of the public mind and conscience, which at last crushed the machinations of the devil and his votaries in high places. chapter iv "hence among all the superstitions that have 'stood over' from primeval ages, the belief in witchcraft has been the most deeply rooted and the most tenacious of life. in all times and places until quite lately, among the most advanced communities, the reality of witchcraft has been accepted without question, and scarcely any human belief is supported by so vast a quantity of recorded testimony." "considering the fact that the exodus of puritans to new england occurred during the reign of charles i, while the persecutions for witchcraft were increasing toward a maximum in the mother country, it is rather strange that so few cases occurred in the new world." _new france and new england_ (pp. - ), fiske. the forefathers believed in witchcraft--entering into compacts with the devil--and in all its diabolical subtleties. they had cogent reasons for their belief in example and experience. they set it down in their codes as a capital offense. they found, as has been shown abundant authority in the bible and in the english precedents. they anchored their criminal codes as they did their theology in the wide and deep haven of the old testament decrees and prophecies and maledictions, and doubted not that "the scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties which they are to perform to god and men." massachusetts, connecticut, and new haven, early in their history enacted these capital laws: in massachusetts ( ): "witchcraft which is fellowship by covenant with a familiar spirit to be punished with death." "consulters with witches not to be tolerated, but either to be cut off by death or banishment or other suitable punishment." (_abstract new england laws_, .) in connecticut ( ): "if any man or woman be a witch--that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit--they shall be put to death." exodus xxii, ; leviticus xx, ; deuteronomy xviii, , . (_colonial records of connecticut_, vol. i, p. ). in new haven ( ): "if any person be a witch, he or she shall be put to death according to" exodus xxii, ; leviticus xx, ; deuteronomy xviii, , . (_new haven colonial records_, vol. ii, p. , cod. ). these laws were authoritative until the epidemic had ceased. witches were tried, condemned, and executed with no question as to due legal power, in the minds of juries, counsel, and courts, until the hour of reaction came, hastened by doubts and criticisms of the sources and character of evidence, and the magistrates and clergy halted in their prosecutions and denunciations of an alleged crime born of delusion, and nurtured by a theology run rampant. "they had not been taught to question the wisdom or the humanity of english criminal law." (_blue laws--true and false_, p. , trumbull.) here and there in new england, following the great immigration from old england, from - , during the commonwealth, and to the restoration, several cases of witchcraft occurred, but the mania did not set its seal on the minds of men, and inspire them to run amuck in their frenzy, until the days of the swift onset in massachusetts and connecticut in , when the zenith of satan's reign was reached in the puritan colonies. a few words about the tragedy at salem are relevant and essential. they are written because it was the last outbreak of epidemic demonopathy among the civilized peoples; it has been exploited by writers abroad, who have left the dreadful record of the treatment of the delusion in their own countries in the background; it was accompanied in some degree by like manifestations and methods of suppression in sister colonies; it was fanned into flames by men in high station who reveled in its merciless extirpation as a religious duty, and eased their consciences afterwards by contrition, confession and remorse, for their valiant service in the army of the theological devil; and especially for the contrasts it presents to the more cautious and saner methods of procedure that obtained in the governments of connecticut and new haven at the apogee of the delusion. what say the historians and scholars, some of whose ancestors witnessed or participated in the tragedies, and whose acquaintance with the facts defies all challenge? "it is on the whole the most gruesome episode in american history, and it sheds back a lurid light upon the long tale of witchcraft in the past." (_fiske's new france and new england_, .) "the sainted minister in the church; the woman of the scarlet letter in the market place! what imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both." (_scarlet letter_, hawthorne.) "we are made partners in parish and village feuds. we share in the chimney corner gossip, and learn for the first time how many mean and merely human motives, whether consciously or unconsciously, gave impulse and intensity to the passions of the actors in that memorable tragedy which dealt the death blow in this country to the belief in satanic compacts." (_among my books--witchcraft_, p. , lowell.) "the tragedy was at an end. it lasted about six months, from the first accusations in march until the last executions in september.... it was an epidemic of mad superstitious fear, bitterly to be regretted, and a stain upon the high civilization of the bay colony." (_historic towns of new england, salem_, p. , latimer.) what was done at salem, when the tempest of unreason broke loose? who were the chief actors in it? this was done. from the first accusation in march, , to the last execution in september, , nineteen persons were hanged and one man was pressed to death[d] (_no witch was ever burned in new england_), hundreds of innocent men and women were imprisoned, or fled into exile or hiding places, their homes were broken up, their estates were ruined, and their families and friends were left in sorrow, anxiety, and desolation; and all this terrorism was wrought at the instance of the chief men in the communities, the magistrates, and the ministers. [footnote d: fifty-five persons suffered torture, and twenty were executed before the delusion ended. _ency. americana_ (vol. , "witchcraft").] upham in his _salem witchcraft_ (vol. ii. pp. - ) thus pictures the situation. "the prisons in salem, ipswich, boston, and cambridge, were crowded. all the securities of society were dissolved. every man's life was at the mercy of every man. fear sat on every countenance, terror and distress were in all hearts, silence pervaded the streets; all who could, quit the country; business was at a stand; a conviction sunk into the minds of men, that a dark and infernal confederacy had got foot-hold in the land, threatening to overthrow and extirpate religion and morality, and establish the kingdom of the prince of darkness in a country which had been dedicated, by the prayers and tears and sufferings of its pious fathers, to the church of christ and the service and worship of the true god. the feeling, dismal and horrible indeed, became general, that the providence of god was removed from them; that satan was let loose, and he and his confederates had free and unrestrained power to go to and fro, torturing and destroying whomever he willed." the trials were held by a special court, consisting of william stoughton, peter sergeant, nath. saltonstall, wait winthrop, bartho' gedney, john richards, saml. sewall, john hathorne, tho. newton, and jonathan corwin,--not one of them a lawyer. whatever his associates may have thought of their ways of doing god's service, after the tragedy was over, sewall, one of the most zealous of the justices, made a public confession of his errors before the congregation of the old south church, january , . were the agonizing groans of poor old giles corey, pressed to death under planks weighted with stones, or the prayers of the saintly burroughs ringing in his ears? "the conduct of judge sewall claims our particular admiration. he observed annually in private a day of humiliation and prayer, during the remainder of his life, to keep fresh in his mind a sense of repentance and sorrow for the part he bore in the trials. on the day of the general fast, he arose in the place where he was accustomed to worship, the old south, in boston, and in the presence of the great assembly, handed up to the pulpit a written confession, acknowledging the error into which he had been led, praying for the forgiveness of god and his people, and concluding with a request, to all the congregation to unite with him in devout supplication, that it might not bring down the displeasure of the most high upon his country, his family, or himself. he remained standing during the public reading of the paper. this was an act of true manliness and dignity of soul." (_upham's salem witchcraft_, vol. ii, p. ). grim, stern, narrow as he was, this man in his self-judgment commands the respect of all true men. the ministers stood with the magistrates in their delusion and intemperate zeal. two hundred and sixteen years after the last witch was hung in massachusetts a clearer light falls on one of the striking personalities of the time--cotton mather--who to a recent date has been credited with the chief responsibility for the salem prosecutions. did he deserve it? robert calef, in his _more wonders of the invisible world_, bancroft in his _history of the united states_, and charles w. upham in his _salem witchcraft_, are the chief writers who have placed mather in the foreground of those dreadful scenes, as the leading minister of the time, an active personal participant in the trials and executions, and a zealot in the maintenance of the ministerial dignity and domination. on the other hand, the learned scholar, the late william frederick poole, first in the _north american review_, in , and again in his paper _witchcraft in boston_, in , in the _memorial history of boston_, calls calef an immature youth, and says that his obvious intent, and that of the several unknown contributors who aided him, was to malign the boston ministers and to make a sensation. and the late john fiske, in his _new france and new england_ (p. ), holds that: "mather's rules (of evidence) would not have allowed a verdict of guilty simply upon the drivelling testimony of the afflicted persons, and if this wholesome caution had been observed, not a witch would ever have been hung in salem." what were those rules of evidence and of procedure attributed to mather? through the special court appointed to hold the witch trials, and early in its sittings, the opinions of twelve ministers of boston and vicinity were asked as to witchcraft. cotton mather wrote and his associates signed an answer june , , entitled, _the return of several ministers consulted by his excellency and the honorable council upon the present witchcrafts in salem village_. this was the opinion of the ministers, and it is most important to note what is said in it of spectral evidence,[e] as it was upon such evidence that many convictions were had: " . the afflicted state of our poor neighbors that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities. " . we cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success which the merciful god has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country; humbly praying that the discovery of these mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. " . we judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the devil's authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and satan get an advantage over us; for we should not be ignorant of his devices. " . as in complaints upon witchcraft there may be matters of inquiry which do not amount unto matters of presumption, and there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be matters of conviction, so it is necessary that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness toward those that may be complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation. " . when the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise, company and openness as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and that there may be nothing used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted by the people of god, but that the directions given by such judicious writers as perkins and barnard may be observed. " . presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused persons being represented by a spectre unto the afflicted, inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing that a demon may by god's permission appear even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the devil's legerdemains. " . we know not whether some remarkable affronts given the devils, by our disbelieving these testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusation of so many persons whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid to their charge. " . nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government, the speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the directions given in the laws of god and the wholesome statutes of the english nation for the detection of witchcrafts." [footnote e: an illustration: the child ann putnam, in her testimony against the rev. mr. burroughs, said that one evening the apparition of a minister came to her and asked her to write her name in the devil's book. then came the forms of two women in winding sheets, and looked angrily upon the minister and scolded him until he was fain to vanish away. then the women told ann that they were the ghosts of mr. burroughs' first and second wives whom he had murdered.] did longfellow, after a critical study of the original evidence and records, truly interpret mather's views, in his dialogue with hathorne? mather: "remember this, that as a sparrow falls not to the ground without the will of god, so not a devil can come down from the air without his leave. we must inquire." hathorne: "dear sir, we have inquired; sifted the matter thoroughly through and through, and then resifted it." mather: "if god permits these evil spirits from the unseen regions to visit us with surprising informations, we must inquire what cause there is for this, but not receive the testimony borne by spectres as conclusive proof of guilt in the accused." hathorne: "upon such evidence we do not rest our case. the ways are many in which the guilty do betray themselves." mather: "be careful, carry the knife with such exactness that on one side no innocent blood be shed by too excessive zeal, and on the other no shelter given to any work of darkness." _new england tragedies_ ( , ), longfellow. whatever mather's caution to the court may have been, or his leadership in learning, or his ambition and his clerical zeal, there is thus far no evidence, in all his personal participation in the tragedies, that he lifted his hand to stay the storm of terrorism once begun, or cried halt to the magistrates in their relentless work. on the contrary, after six victims had been executed, august , , in _a discourse on the wonders of the invisible world_, mather wrote this in deliberate, cool afterthought: "they--the judges--have used as judges have heretofore done, the spectral evidences, to introduce their farther inquiries into the lives of the persons accused; and they have thereupon, by the wonderful providence of god, been so strengthened with other evidences that some of the witch-gang have been fairly executed." and a year later, in the light of all his personal experience and investigation, mather solemnly declared: "if in the midst of the many dissatisfactions among us, the publication of these trials may promote such a pious thankfulness unto god for justice being so far executed among us, i shall rejoice that god is glorified." wherever the responsibility at salem may have rested, the truth is that in the general fear and panic there was potent in the minds, both of the clergy and the laity, the spirit of fanaticism and malevolence in some instances, such as misled the pastor of the first church to point to the corpses of giles corey's devoted and saintly wife and others swinging to and fro, and say "what a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there." this conspectus of witchcraft, old and new, of its development from the sorcery and magic of the ancients into the mediæval theological dogma of the power of satan, of its gradual ripening into an epidemic demonopathy, of its slow growth in the american colonies, of its volcanic outburst in the close of the seventeenth century, is relevant and appropriate to this account of the delusion in connecticut, its rise and suppression, its firm hold on the minds and consciences of the colonial leaders for threescore years after the settlement of the towns, a chapter in connecticut history written in the presence of the actual facts now made known and available, and with a purpose of historic accuracy. chapter v "it was not to be expected of the colonists of new england that they should be the first to see through a delusion which befooled the whole civilized world, and the gravest and most knowing persons in it. the colonists in connecticut and new haven, as well as in massachusetts, like all other christian people at that time--at least with extremely rare individual exceptions--believed in the reality of a hideous crime called witchcraft." palfrey's _new england_ (vol. iv, pp. - ). "the truth is that it [witchcraft] pervaded the whole christian church. the law makers and the ministers of new england were under its influences as--and no more than--were the law makers and ministers of old england." _blue laws--true and false_ (p. ), trumbull. "one ---- of windsor arraigned and executed at hartford for a witch." winthrop's _journal_ ( : , savage ed., ). here beginneth the first chapter of the story of the delusion in connecticut. it is an entry made by john winthrop, governor of the massachusetts bay colony, in his famous journal, without specific date, but probably in the spring of . it is of little consequence save as much has been made of it by some writers as fixing the relative date of the earliest execution for witchcraft in new england, and locating it in one of the three original connecticut towns. what matters it at this day whether mary johnson as tradition runs, or alse youngs as truth has it, was put to death for witchcraft in windsor, connecticut, in , or martha jones of charlestown, massachusetts, was hung for the same crime at boston in , as also set down in winthrop's journal? "it may possibly be thought a great neglect, or matter of partiality, that no account is given of witchcraft in connecticut. the only reason is, that after the most careful researches, no indictment of any person for that crime, nor any process relative to that affair can be found." (_history of connecticut_, , preface, benjamin trumbull, d.d.) "a few words should be said regarding the author's mention of the subject of witchcraft in connecticut.... it is, i believe, strictly true, as he says 'that no indictment of any person for that crime nor any process relative to that affair can be found.' "it must be confessed, however, that a careful study of the official colonial records of connecticut and new haven leaves no doubt that goodwife bassett was convicted and hung at stratford for witchcraft in , and goodwife knapp at fairfield in . it is also recorded in winthrop's _journal_ that 'one ---- of windsor was arraigned and executed at hartford for a witch' in march, - , which if it actually occurred, forms the first instance of an execution for witchcraft in new england. the quotation here given is the only known authority for the statement, and opens the question whether something probably recorded as hearsay in a journal, may be taken as authoritative evidence of an occurrence.... the fact however remains, that the official records are as our author says, silent regarding the actual proceedings, and it is only by inference that it may be found from these records that the executions took place." (introduction to reprint of _trumbull's history of connecticut_, , jonathan trumbull.) the searcher for inerrant information about witchcraft in connecticut may easily be led into a maze of contradictions, and the statement last above quoted is an apt illustration, with record evidence to the contrary on every hand. tradition, hearsay, rumor, misstatements, errors, all colored by ignorance or half knowledge, or a local jealousy or pride, have been woven into a woof of precedent and acceptance, and called history. as has been already stated, the general writers from trumbull to johnston have nothing of value to say on the subject; the open official records and the latest history--_connecticut as a colony and a state_--cover only certain cases, and nowhere from the beginning to this day has the story of witchcraft been fully told. connecticut can lose nothing in name or fame or honor, if, more than two centuries after the last witch was executed within her borders, the facts as to her share in the strange superstition be certified from the current records of the events. how may this story best be told? clearly, so far as may be, in the very words of the actors in those tragic scenes, in the words of the minister and magistrate, the justice and the juryman, the accuser and the accused, and the searcher. into this court of inquiry come all these personalities to witness the sorrowful march of the victims to the scaffold or to exile, or to acquittal and deliverance with the after life of suspicion and social ostracism. the spectres of terror did not sit alone at the firesides of the poor and lowly: they stalked in high places, and were known of men and women of the first rank in education and the social virtues, and of greatest influence in church and state. of this fact there is complete demonstration in a glance at the dignitaries who presided at one of the earliest witchcraft trials--men of notable ancestry, of learning, of achievements, leaders in colonial affairs, whose memories are honored to this day. these were the magistrates at a session entitled "a particular courte in hartford upon the tryall of john carrington and his wife th feb., " (see _rec. p.c._, : ): edw. hopkins esqr., gournor john haynes esqr. deputy, mr. wells, mr. woolcott, mr. webster, mr. cullick, mr. clarke. this court had jurisdiction over misdemeanors, and was "aided by a jury," as a close student of colonial history, the late sherman w. adams, quaintly says in one of his historical papers. these were the jurymen: mr. phelps john white john more mr. tailecoat will leawis edw. griswold mr. hollister sam. smith steph. harte daniel milton john pratt theo. judd before this tribunal--representative of the others doing like service later--made up of the foremost citizens, and of men in the ordinary walks of life, endowed with hard common sense and presumably inspired with a spirit of justice and fair play, came john carrington and his wife joan of wethersfield, against whom the jury brought in a verdict of guilty. it must be clearly borne in mind that all these men, in this as in all the other witchcraft trials in connecticut, illustrious or commonplace--as are many of their descendants whose names are written on the rolls of the patriotic societies in these days of ancestral discovery and exploitation--were absolute believers in the powers of satan and his machinations through witchcraft and the evidence then adduced to prove them, and trained to such credulity by their education and experience, by their theological doctrines, and by the law of the land in old england, but still clothed upon with that righteousness which as it proved in the end made them skeptical as to certain alleged evidences of guilt, and swift to respond to the calls of reason and of mercy when the appeals were made to their calm judgment and second thought as to the sins of their fellowmen. in no way can the truth be so clearly set forth, the real character of the evidence be so justly appreciated upon which the convictions were had, as from the depositions and the oral testimony of the witnesses themselves. they are lasting memorials to the credulity and superstition, and the religious insanity which clouded the senses of the wisest men for a time, and to the malevolence and satanic ingenuity of the people who, possessed of the devil accused their friends and neighbors of a crime punishable by death. nor is this dark chapter in colonial history without its flashes of humor and ridiculousness, as one follows the absurd and unbridled testimonies which have been chosen as completely illustrative of the whole series in the years of the witchcraft nightmare. they are in part cited here, for the sake of authenticity and exactness, as written out in the various court records and depositions, published and unpublished, in the ancient style of spelling, and are worthy the closest study for many reasons. it will, however, clear the way to a better understanding of the unique testimonies of the witch witnesses, if there be first presented the authoritative reasons for the examination of a witch, coupled with a summary of the lawful tests of innocence or guilt. they are in the handwriting of william jones, a deputy governor of connecticut and a member of the court at some of the trials. grounds for examination of a witch " . notorious defamacon by ye common report of the people a ground of suspicion. " . second ground for strict examinacon is if a fellow witch gave testimony on his examinacon or death yt such a pson is a witch, but this is not sufficient for conviccon or condemnacon. " . if after cursing, there follow death or at least mischiefe to ye party. " . if after quarrelling or threatening a prsent mischiefe doth follow for ptye's devilishly disposed after cursing doe use threatnings, & yt alsoe is a grt prsumcon agt y. " . if ye pty suspected be ye son or daughter, the serv't or familiar friend, neer neighbors or old companion of a knowne or convicted witch this alsoe is a prsumcon, for witchcraft is an art yt may be larned & covayd from man to man & oft it falleth out yt a witch dying leaveth som of ye aforesd heires of her witchcraft. " . if ye pty suspected have ye devills mark for t'is thought wn ye devill maketh his covent with y he alwayess leaves his mark behind him to know y for his owne yt is, if noe evident reason in can be given for such mark. " . lastly if ye pty examined be unconstant & contrary to himselfe in his answers. "thus much for examinacon wch usually is by q. & some tymes by torture upon strong & grt presumcon. "for conviccon it must be grounded on just and sufficient proofes. the proofes for conviccon of sorts, , some be less sufficient, some more sufficient. "less sufficient used in formr ages by red hot iron and scalding water. ye pty to put in his hand in one or take up ye othr, if not hurt ye pty cleered, if hurt convicted for a witch, but this was utterly condemned. in som countryes anothr proofe justified by some of ye learned by casting ye pty bound into water, if she sanck counted inocent, if she sunk not yn guilty, but all those tryalls the author counts supstitious and unwarrantable and worse. although casting into ye water is by some justified for ye witch having made a ct wth ye devill she hath renounced her baptm & hence ye antipathy between her & water, but this he makes nothing off. anothr insufficient testimoy of a witch is ye testimony of a wizard, who prtends to show ye face of ye witch to ye party afflicted in a glass, but this he counts diabolicall & dangerous, ye devill may reprsent a pson inocent. nay if after curses & threats mischiefe follow or if a sick pson like to dy take it on his death such a one has bewitched him, there are strong grounds of suspicon for strict examinacon but not sufficient for conviccon. "but ye truer proofes sufficient for conviccon are ye voluntary confession of ye pty suspected adjudged sufficient proofe by both divines & lawyers. or the testimony of witnesses of good and honest report avouching things in theire knowledge before ye magistrat wither yt ye party accused hath made a league wth ye devill or d or hath ben some knowne practices of witchcraft. argumts to prove either must be as if they can pve ye pty hath invocated ye devill for his help this pt of yt ye devill binds withes to. "or if ye pty hath entertained a familiar spt in any forme mouse cat or othr visible creature. "or if they affirm upon oath ye pty hath done any accon or work wch inferreth a ct wth ye devill, as to shew ye face of a man in a glass, or used inchantmts or such feates, divineing of things to come, raising tempests, or causing ye forme of a dead man to appeare or ye like it sufficiently pves a witch. "but altho those are difficult things to prove yet yr are wayes to come to ye knowledg of y, for tis usuall wth satan to pmise anything till ye league be ratified, & then he nothing ye discovery of y, for wtever witches intend the devill intends nothing but theire utter confusion, therefore in ye just judgmt of god it soe oft falls out yt some witches shall by confession discour ys, or by true testimonies be convicted. "and ye reasons why ye devill would discover y is his malice towards all men his insatiable desire to have ye witches not sure enough of y till yn. "and ye authors warne jurors, &c not to condemne suspected psons on bare prsumtions wthout good & sufficient proofes. "but if convicted of yt horrid crime to be put to death, for god hath said thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." the accuser and the prosecutor were aided in their work in a peculiar way. it was the theory and belief that every witch was marked--very privately marked--by the devil, and the marks could only be discovered by a personal examination. and thus there came into the service of the courts a servant known as a "searcher," usually a woman, as most of the unfortunates who were accused were women. the location and identification of the witch marks involved revolting details, some of the reports being unprintable. it is, however, indispensable to a right understanding of the delusion and the popular opinions which made it possible, that these incidents, abhorrent and nauseating as they are, be given within proper limitations to meet inquiry--not curiosity--and because they may be noted in various records. a standard authority in legal procedure in england, recognized in witchcraft prosecutions in the new england colonies, was _dalton's country justice_, first published in in england, and in its last edition in . in its chapter on witchcraft are these directions as to the witch marks: "these witches have ordinarily a familiar, or spirit which appeareth to them, sometimes in one shape and sometimes in another; as in the shape of a man, woman, boy, dog, cat, foal, hare, rat, toad, etc. and to these their spirits, they give names, and they meet together to christen them (as they speak).... and besides their sucking the devil leaveth other marks upon their body, sometimes like a blue or red spot, like a flea-biting, sometimes the flesh sunk in and hollow. and these devil's marks be insensible, and being pricked will not bleed, and be often in their secretest parts, and therefore require diligent and careful search. these first two are main points to discover and convict those witches." these methods were adopted in the proceedings against witches in connecticut, and it will suffice to cite one of the reports of a committee--sarah burr, abigail burr, abigail howard, sarah wakeman, and hannah wilson,--"apointed (by the court) to make sarch upon ye bodis of marcy disbrough and goodwif clauson," at fairfield, in september and october , sworn to before jonathan bell, commissioner, and john allyn, secretary. "wee sarah bur and abigall bur and abigail howard and sarah wakman all of fayrfeild with hanna wilson being by order of authority apointed to make sarch upon ye bodis of marcy disbrough and goodwif clauson to see what they could find on ye bodies of ether & both of them; and wee retor as followeth and doe testify as to goodwif clauson forementioned wee found on her secret parts just within ye lips of ye same growing within sid sumewhat as broad and reach without ye lips of ye same about on inch and half long lik in shape to a dogs eare which wee apprehend to be vnvsuall to women. "and as to marcy wee find on marcy foresayd on her secret parts growing within ye lep of ye same a los pees of skin and when puld it is near an inch long somewhat in form of ye fingar of a glove flatted "that lose skin wee judge more than common to women." "octob. the above sworn by the above-named as attests "john allyn secry" chapter vi "remembering all this, it is not surprising that witches were tried, convicted and put to death in new england; and the manner in which the waning superstition was dealt with by connecticut lawyers and ministers is the more significant of that robust common sense, rejection of superstition, political and religious, and fearless acceptance of the ethical mandates of the great law-giver, which influenced the growth of their jurisprudence and stamped it with an unmistakable individuality." _connecticut; origin of her courts and laws_ (n.e. states, : - ), hamersley. "they made witch-hunting a branch of their social police, and desire for social solidarity. that this was wrong and mischievous is granted; but it is ordinary human conduct now as then. it was a most illogical, capricious, and dangerous form of enforcing punishment, abating nuisances, and shutting out disagreeable truths; fertile in injustice, oppression, the shedding of innocent blood, and the extinguishing of light. no one can justify it, or plead beneficial results from it which could not have been secured with far less evil in other ways. but it was natural that, believing the crime to exist, they should use the belief to strike down offenders or annoyances out of reach of any other _legal_ means. they did not invent the crime for the purpose, nor did they invent the death penalty for this crime." _connecticut as a colony_ ( : ), morgan. "as to what you mention, concerning that poor creature in your town that is afflicted and mentioned my name to yourself and son, i return you hearty thanks for your intimation about it, and for your charity therein mentioned; and i have great cause to bless god, who, of his mercy hitherto, hath not left me to fall into such an horrid evil." extract of a letter from sec. allyn to increase mather, hartford, mar. , - . an accusation of witchcraft was a serious matter, one of life or death, and often it was safer to become an accuser than one of the accused. made in terror, malice, mischief, revenge, or religious dementia, or of some other ingredients in the devil's brew, it passed through the stages of suspicion, espionage, watchings, and searchings, to the formal complaints and indictments which followed the testimony of the witnesses, in their madness and delusion hot-foot to tell the story of their undoing, their grotesque imaginings, their spectral visions, their sufferings at the hands of satan and his tools, and all aimed at people, their neighbors and acquaintances, often wholly innocent, but having marked personal peculiarities, or of irregular lives by the puritan standard, or unpopular in their communities, who were made the victim of one base passion or another and brought to trial for a capital offense against person and property. taking into account the actual number of accusations, trials, and convictions or acquittals, the number of witnesses called and depositions given was very great. and the later generations owe their opportunity to judge aright in the matter, to the foresight of the men of chief note in the communities who saw the vital necessity of record evidence, and so early as , in the general court of connecticut, it was ordered that "whatever testimonies are improved in any court of justice in this corporation in any action or case to be tried, shall be presented in writing, and so kept by the secretary or clerk of the said court on file." this preliminary analysis brings the searcher for the truth face to face with the very witnesses who have left behind them, in the attested records, the ludicrous or solemn, the pitiable or laughable memorials of their own folly, delusion, or deviltry, which marked them then and now as satan's chosen servitors. among the many witnesses and their statements on oath now made available, the chief difficulty is one of selection and elimination; and there will be presented here with the context some of the chief depositions[f] and statements in the most notable witchcraft trials in some of the connecticut towns, that are typical of all of them, and show upon what travesties of evidence the juries found their verdicts and the courts imposed their sentences. [footnote f: the selected testimonies herein given are from the connecticut and new haven colonial records; from the original depositions in some of the witchcraft cases, in manuscript, a part of the _wyllys papers_, so called, now in the connecticut state library; and from the notes and papers on witchcraft of the late charles j. hoadley, ll.d., compiler of the colonial and state records, and for nearly a half century the state librarian.] katherine (kateran) harrison at a court of assistants held at hartford may , , presided over by maj. john mason--the conqueror of the pequots--then deputy governor, katherine harrison, after an examination by the court on a charge of suspicion of witchcraft, was committed to the common jail, to be kept in durance until she came to trial and deliverance by the law. at an adjourned session of the court at hartford, may , , presided over by john winthrop, governor, with william leete, deputy governor, major mason and others as assistants, an indictment was found against the prisoner in these words: "kateran harrison thou standest here indicted by ye name of kateran harrison (of wethersfield) as being guilty of witchcraft for that thou not haueing the fear of god before thine eyes hast had familiaritie with sathan the grand enemie of god and mankind and by his help hast acted things beyond and beside the ordinary course of nature and hast thereby hurt the bodyes of divers of the subjects of or souraigne lord the king of which by the law of god and of this corporation thou oughtest to dye." katherine plead not guilty and "refered herself to a tryall by the jury present," to whom this solemn oath was administered: "you doe sware by the great and dreadful name of the everliuing god that you will well and truely try just verdict give and true deliverance make between or souraigne lord the king and such prisoner or prisoners at the barr as shall be given you in charge according to the evidence given in court and the lawes so help you god in or lord jesus." a partial trial was had at the may session of the court, but the jury could not agree upon a verdict, and adjournment was had until the october session, when a verdict was to be given in, and the prisoner was remanded to remain in prison in the meantime. it seems incredible that men like winthrop and mason, treat and leete, and others of the foremost rank in those days, could have served as judges in such trials, and in all earnestness and sincerity listened to and given credence to the drivel, the travesties of common sense, the mockeries of truth, which fell from the lips of the witnesses in their testimonies. some of the absurd charges against katherine harrison invite particular attention and need no comment. they speak for themselves. thomas bracy (probably tracy)--_misfit jacket and breeches--vision of the red calf's head--murderous counsel--"afflictinge"_ "thomas bracy aged about years testifieth as follows that formerly james wakeley would haue borrowed a saddle of the saide thomas bracy, which thomas bracy denyed to lend to him, he threatened thomas and saide, it had bene better he had lent it to him. allsoe thomas bracy beinge at worke the same day making a jacket & a paire of breeches, he labored to his best understanding to set on the sleeues aright on the jacket and seauen tymes he placed the sleues wronge, setting the elbow on the wronge side and was faine to rip them of and new set them on againe, and allsoe the breeches goeing to cut out the breeches, haueing two peices of cloth of different collors, he was soe bemoydered in the matter, that he cut the breeches one of one collor the other off another collor, in such a manner he was bemoydered in his understandinge or actinge yet neuertheless the same daie and tyme he was well in his understandinge and health in other matters and soe was forced to leaue workinge that daie. "the said thomas beinge at sargant hugh wells his house ouer against john harrison's house, in weathersfield, he saw a cart cominge towards john harrisons house loaden wth hay, on the top of the hay he saw perfectly a red calfes head, the eares standing peart up, and keeping his sight on the cart tell the cart came to the barne, the calfe vanised, and harrison stoode on the carte wch appared not to thomas before, nor could thomas find or see any calfe theire at all though he sought to see the calfe. "after this thomas bracy giuing out some words, that he suspected katherin gooddy harrison of witchcraft, katherin harrison mett thomas bracy and threatned thomas telling him that shee would be euen with him. after that thomas bracy aforesaide, being well in his sences & health and perfectly awake, his brothers in bed with him, thomas aforesaid saw the saide james wakely and the saide katherin harrison stand by his bed side, consultinge to kill him the said thomas, james wakely said he would cut his throate, but katherin counselled to strangle him, presently the said katherin seised on thomas striuinge to strangle him, and pulled or pinched him so as if his flesh had been pulled from his bones, theirefore thomas groaned. at length his father marten heard and spake, then thomas left groninge and lay quiet a little, and then katherin fell againe to afflictinge and pinching, thomas againe groninge mr. marten heard and arose and came to thomas whoe could not speake till mr. marten laid his hands on thomas, then james and katherin aforesaid went to the beds feete, his father marten and his mother stayed watchinge by thomas all that night after, and the next day mr. marten and his wife saw the mark of the saide afflictinge and pinchinge." "dated th of august one thousand six hundred sixtie and eight. "hadley. taken upon oath before us. "henry clarke. "samuell smith." joseph dickinson--_voice calling hoccanum! hoccanum! hoccanum!--a far cry--cows running "taile on end"_ "the deposition of joseph dickenson of northampton, aged about years, testifieth that he and philip smith of hadley went down early in the morninge to the greate dry swampe, and theire we heard a voice call hoccanum, hoccanum, come hoccanum, and coming further into the swampe wee see that it was katherin harrison that caled as before. we saw katherin goe from thence homewards. the said philip parted from joseph, and a small tyme after joseph met philip againe, and then the said philip affirmed that he had seene katherin's cows neare a mile from the place where katherin called them. the saide joseph went homewards, and goeing homeward met samuell bellden ridinge into or downe the meadow. samuel belden asked joseph wheather he had seene the saide katherin harrison & the saide samuel told joseph aforesaide that he saw her neare the meadow gate, going homeward, and allso more told him that he saw katherin harrison her cows runninge with greate violence, taile on end, homewards, and said he thought the cattell would be at home soe soon as katherin aforesaid if they could get out at the meadow gate, and further this deponent saieth not" northampton, , , , taken upon oth before us, william clarke david wilton. exhibited in court oct. , . attests john allyn, secry. richard mountague--_over the great river to nabuck--the mystery of the swarming bees_ "richard mountague, aged years, testifieth as followeth, that meeting with goodwife harrison in weathersfield the saide katherin harrison saide that a swarm of her beese flew away over her neighbour boreman's lott and into the great meadow, and thence over the greate river to nabuck side, but the said katherin saide that shee had fetched them againe; this seemed very strange to the saide richard, because this was acted in a little tyme and he did believe the said katherin neither went nor used any lawful meanes to fetch the said beese as aforesaid." dated the of august, . hadley, taken upon oath before us, henry clarke, samuel smith. exhibited in court, october : , as attests john allyn secretry. john graves--_bucolic reflections--the trespass on his neighbor's "rowing"--the cartrope adventure--the runaway oxen_ "john graves aged about years testifieth that formerly going to reap in the meadow at wethersfield, his land he was to work on lay near to john harrison's land. it came into the thoughts of the said john graves that the said john harrison and katherine his wife being rumored to be suspicious of witchcraft, therefore he would graze his cattle on the rowing of the land of goodman harrison, thinking that if the said harrisons were witches then something would disturb the quiet feeding of the cattle. he thereupon adventured and tied his oxen to his cart rope, one to one end and the other to the other end, making the oxen surely fast as he could, tieing or fast knots at each end, and tying his yoke to the cartrope about the middle of the rope between the oxen; and himself went about or pole distant, to see if the cattle would quietly feed as in other places. the cattle stood staring and fed not, and looking stedfastly on them he saw the cartrope of its own accord untie and fall to the ground; thereupon he went and tied the rope more fast and more knots in it and stood apart as before to see the issue. in a little time the oxen as affrighted fell to running, and ran with such violence that he judgeth that the force and speed of their running made the yoke so tied fly above six foot high to his best discerning. the cattle were used ordinarily before to be so tied and fed--in other places, & presently after being so tied on other men's ground they fed--peaceably as at other times." dated august, . hadley; taken upon oath before us henry clarke, samuel smith. exhibited in court oct. th, , attests john allyn, sec. joane francis--_the sick child--the spectre_ joane francis her testimony. "about years ago, about the beginning of november, in the night just before my child was struck ill, goodwife harrison or her shape appeared, and i said, the lord bless me and my child, here is goody harrison. and the child lying on the outside i took it and laid it between me and my husband. the child continued strangely ill about three weeks, wanting a day, and then died, had fits. we felt a thing run along the sides or side like a whetstone. robert francis saith he remembers his wife said that night the child was taken ill, the lord bless me and my child, here is goody harrison." jacob johnson's wife--_the box on the head--diet, drink, and plasters--epistaxis_ "the relation of the wife of jacob johnson. she saith that her former husband was employed by goodman harrison to go to windsor with a canoe for meal, and he told me as he lay in his bed at windsor in the night he had a great box on the head, and after when he came home he was ill, and goodwife harrison did help him with diet drink and plasters, but after a while we sent to capt. atwood to help my husband in his distress, but the same day that he came at night i came in at the door, & to the best of my apprehension i saw the likeness of goodwife harrison with her face towards my husband, and i turned about to lock the door & she vanist away. then my husband's nose fell a bleeding in an extraordinary manner, & so continued (if it were meddled with) to his dying day. sworn in court oct. , , attests john allyn, secy." mary hale--noises and blows--the canine apparition--the voice in the night--the devil a liar "that about the latter end of november, being the th day, , the said mary hale lying in her bed, a good fire giving such light that one might see all over that room where the said mary then was, the said mary heard a noise, & presently something fell on her legs with such violence that she feared it would have broken her legs, and then it came upon her stomach and oppressed her so as if it would have pressed the breath out of her body. then appeared an ugly shaped thing like a dog, having a head such that i clearly and distinctly knew to be the head of katherine harrison, who was lately imprisoned upon suspicion of witchcraft. mary saw it walk to & fro in the chamber and went to her father's bedside then came back and disappeared. that day seven night next after, lying in her bed something came upon her in like manner as is formerly related, first on her legs & feet & then on her stomach, crushing & oppressing her very sore. she put forth her hand to feel (because there was no light in the room so as clearly to discern). mary aforesaid felt a face, which she judged to be a woman's face, presently then she had a great blow on her fingers which pained her days after, which she complained of to her father & mother, & made her fingers black and blue. during the former passages mary called to her father & mother but could not wake them till it was gone. after this, the day of december in the night, (the night being very windy) something came again and spoke thus to her, saying to mary aforesaid, you said that i would not come again, but are you not afraid of me. mary said, no. the voice replied i will make you afraid before i have done with you; and then presently mary was crushed & oppressed very much. then mary called often to her father and mother, they lying very near. then the voice said, though you do call they shall not hear till i am gone. then the voice said, you said that i preserved my cart to carry me to the gallows, but i will make it a dear cart to you (which said words mary remembered she had only spoke in private to her sister a little before & to no other.) mary replied she feared her not, because god had kept her & would keep her still. the voice said she had a commission to kill her. mary asked, who gave you the commission? the voice replied god gave me the commission. mary replied, the devil is a liar from the beginning for god will not give commission to murder, therefore it must be from the devil. then mary was again pressed very much. then the voice said, you will make known these things abroad when i am gone, but if you will promise me to keep these aforesaid matters secret i will come no more to afflict you. mary replied i will tell it abroad. whereas the said mary mentions divers times in this former writing that she heard a voice, this said mary affirmeth that she did & doth know that it was the voice of katherine harrison aforesaid; and mary aforesaid affirmeth that the substance of the whole relation is truth." sworn in court may , . attest john allyn, sec'y. elizabeth smith--_neighborly criticism--fortune telling--spinning yarn_ "elizabeth the wife of simon smith of thirty mile island testified that catherine was noted by her and the rest of the family to be a great or notorious liar, a sabbath breaker, and one that told fortunes, and told the said elizabeth her fortune, that her husband's name should be simon; & also told the said elizabeth some other matters that did come to pass; and also would oft speak and boast of her great familiarity with mr. lilley, one that told fortunes and foretold many matters that in furture times were to be accomplished. and also the said katherine did often spin so great a quantity of fine linen yarn as the said elizabeth did never know nor hear of any other woman that could spin so much. and further, the said elizabeth said that capt. cullick observing the evil conversation in word and deed of the said katherine turned her out of his service, one reason was because the said katherine told fortunes." taken upon oath sept. , before john allyn, assistant. on such evidence, october , , the jury being called to give in their verdict upon the indictment of katherine harrison, returned that they find the prisoner guilty of the indictment. but meanwhile important things in the history of the case had come to pass. serious doubts arose in the minds of the magistrates as to accepting the verdict, and in their dilemma they took counsel not only of the law but of the gospel, and presented a series of questions to certain ministers--the same expedient adopted by the court at salem twenty-three years later. the answer of the ministers is in the handwriting of rev. gershom bulkeley of wethersfield, the author of the unique treatise _will and doom_. it was a remarkable paper as to preternatural apparitions, the character of evidence for conviction, and its cautions as to its acceptance. it was this: "the answer of some ministers to the questions pr-pounded to them by the honored magistrates, octobr , . to ye st quest whether a plurality of witnesses be necessary, legally to evidence one and ye same individual fact? wee answer." "that if the proofe of the fact do depend wholly upon testimony, there is then a necessity of a plurality of witnesses, to testify to one & ye same individual fact; & without such a plurality, there can be no legall evidence of it. jno , . the testimony of two men is true; that is legally true, or the truth of order. & this cht alledges to vindicate ye sufficiency of the testimony given to prove that individual facte, that he himselfe was ye messias or light of the world. mat. , , ." "to the nd quest. whether the preternatural apparitions of a person legally proved, be a demonstration of familiarity with ye devill? wee anser, that it is not the pleasure of ye most high, to suffer the wicked one to make an undistinguishable representation of any innocent person in a way of doing mischiefe, before a plurality of witnesses. the reason is because, this would utterly evacuate all human testimony; no man could testify, that he saw this pson do this or that thing, for it might be said, that it was ye devill in his shape." "to the d & th quests together: whether a vitious pson foretelling some future event, or revealing of a secret, be a demonstration of familiarity with the devill? wee say thus much." "that those things, whither past, present or to come, which are indeed secret, that is, cannot be knowne by human skill in arts, or strength of reason arguing from ye corse of nature, nor are made knowne by divine revelation either mediate or immediate, nor by information from man, must needes be knowne (if at all) by information from ye devill: & hence the comunication of such things, in way of divination (the pson prtending the certaine knowledge of them) seemes to us, to argue familiarity with ye devill, in as much as such a pson doth thereby declare his receiving the devills testimony, & yeeld up himselfe as ye devills instrument to comunicate the same to others." and meanwhile katherine herself had not been idle even in durance. with a dignity becoming such a communication, and in a desperate hope that justice and mercy might be meted out to her, she addressed a petition to the court setting forth with unconscious pathos some of the wrongs and sufferings she had endured in person and estate; and one may well understand why under such great provocation she told michael griswold that he would hang her though he damned a thousand souls, and as for his own soul it was damned long ago. vigorous and emphatic words, for which perhaps katherine was punished enough, as she was adjudged to pay michael in two actions for slander, £ and costs in one and £ and costs in the other. this was katherine's appeal: filed: wid. harrisons greuances presented to the court th of octobr . "a complaint of severall greiuances of the widow harrisons which she desires the honored court to take cognizance of and as far as maybe to give her reliefe in." "may it please this honored court, to have patience with mee a little: having none to complain to but the fathers of the commonweale; and yet meetting with many injurys, which necessitate mee to look out for some releeife. i am told to present you with these few lines, as a relation of the wrongs that i suffer, humbly crauing your serious consideration of my state a widdow; of my wrongs, (wch i conceive are great) and that as far as the rules of justice and equitie will allow, i may have right and a due recompence." "that that i would present to you in the first place is we had a yoke of oxen one of wch spoyled at our stile before our doore, with blows upon the backe and side, so bruised that he was altogether unserviceable; about a fortnight or three weeks after the former, we had a cow spoyled, her back broke and two of her ribs, nextly i had a heifer in my barne yard, my ear mark of wch was cutt out and other ear marks set on; nextly i had a sow that had young pigs ear marked (in the stie) after the same manner; nextly i had a cow at the side of my yard, her jaw bone broke and one of her hoofs and a hole bored in her side, nextly i had a three yeare old heifer in the meadow stuck with knife or some weapon and wounded to death; nextly i had a cow in the street wounded in the bag as she stood before my door, in the street, nextly i had a sow went out into the woods, came home with ears luged and one of her hind legs cutt offe, lastly my corne in mile meadow much damnified with horses, they being staked upon it; it was wheat; all wch injurys, as they do sauor of enemy so i hope they will be looked upon by this honored court according to their natuer and judged according to there demerit, that so your poor suppliant may find some redrese; who is bold to subscribe." "your servant and supplyant, "katherine harrison. "postscript. i had my horse wounded in the night, as he was in my pasture no creature save thre calves with him: more i had one two yeare old steer the back of it broke, in the barne yard, more i had a matter of poles of hops cutt and spoyled; all wch things have hapened since my husband death, wch was last august was two yeare. there is wittnes to the oxen jonathan & josiah gillert; to the cows being spoyled, enoch buck, josiah gilbert; to the cow that had her jaw bone broke, dan, rose, john, bronson: to the heifer, one of widdow stodder sons, and willia taylor; to the corne john beckly; to the wound of the horse anthony wright, goodman higby; to the hops cutting, goodwife standish and mary wright; wch things being added, and left to your serious consideration, i make bold again to subscribe. "yours, "katherine harrison." at a special court of assistants held may , , to which the general assembly had referred the matter with power, the court having considered the verdict of the jury could not concur with them so as to sentence her to death, but dismissed her from her imprisonment, she paying her just fees; willing her to mind the fulfilment of removing from wethersfield, "which is that will tend most to her own safety & the contentment of the people who are her neighbors." in the same year, having paid the expenses of her trials and imprisonment, she removed to westchester, new york. being under suspicion of witchcraft, her presence was unwelcome to the inhabitants there and complaint was made to governor lovelace. she gave security for her civil carriage and good behavior, and at the general court of assizes held in new york in october, , in the case of katherine harrison, widow, who was bound to the good behavior upon complaint of some of the inhabitants of westchester, it was ordered, "that in regard there is nothing appears against her deserving the continuance of that obligation she is to be released from it, & hath liberty to remain in the town of westchester where she now resides, or anywhere else in the government during her pleasure." chapter vii "although our fathers cannot be charged with having regarded the devil in his respectful and deferential light, it must be acknowledged, that they gave him a conspicuous and distinguished--we might almost say a dignified--agency in the affairs of life and the government of the world: they were prone to confess, if not to revere, his presence, in all scenes and at all times. he occupied a wide space, not merely in their theology and philosophy, but in their daily and familiar thoughts." upham's _salem witchcraft_. "there are in every community those who for one cause or another unfortunately incur the dislike and suspicion of the neighbors, and when belief in witchcraft prevailed such persons were easily believed to have familiarity with the evil one." _a case of witchcraft in hartford_ (connecticut magazine, november, ), hoadley. witchcraft in the connecticut towns reached its climax in --the fateful year at salem, massachusetts--and the chief center of its activity was in the border settlements at fairfield. there, several women early in the year were accused of the crime, and among them mercy disborough. the testimonies against her were unique, and yet so typical that they are given in part as the second illustration. mercy (disbro) disborough a special court, presided over by robert treat, governor, was held at fairfield by order of the general court, to try the witch cases, and september , , a true bill was exhibited against mercy disborough, wife of thomas disborough of compo in fairfield, in these words: "mercy disborough is complayned of & accused as guilty of witchcraft for that on the t of aprill & in the th year of their maties reigne & at sundry other times she hath by the instigation & help of the diuill in a preternaturall way afflicted & don harme to the bodyes & estates of sundry of their maties subjects or to some of them contrary to the law of god, the peace of our soueraigne lord & lady the king & queen their crowne & dignity." "billa vera." others were indicted and tried, at this session of the court and its adjournments, notably elizabeth clawson. many depositions were taken in fairfield and elsewhere, some of the defendants were discharged and others convicted, but mercy disborough's case was the most noted one in the tests applied, and in the conclusions to which it led. the whole case with its singular incidents is worthy of careful study. some of the testimony is given here. edward jesop--_the roast pig--"the place of scripture"--the bewitched "cannoe"--the old cart horse--optical illusions_ "edward jesop aged about years testifieth that being at the: disburrows house at compoh sometime in ye beginning of last winter in ye evening he asked me to tarry & sup with him, & their i saw a pigg roasting that looked verry well, but when it came to ye table (where we had a very good lite) it seemed to me to have no skin upon it & looked very strangly, but when ye sd disburrow began to cut it ye skin (to my apprehension) came againe upon it, & it seemed to be as it was when upon ye spit, at which strange alteration of ye pig i was much concerned however fearing to displease his wife by refusing to eat, i did eat some of ye pig, & at ye same time isaac sherwood being there & disburrows wife & hee discoursing concerning a certain place of scripture, & i being of ye same mind that sherwood was concerning yt place of scripture & sherwood telling her where ye place was she brought a bible (that was of very large print) to me to read ye particular scripture, but tho i had a good light & looked ernestly upon ye book i could not see one letter but looking upon it againe when in her hand after she had turned over a few leaves i could see to read it above a yard of. ye same night going home & coming to compoh it seemed to be high water whereupon i went to a cannoe that was about ten rods of (which lay upon such a bank as ordinarily i could have shoved it into ye creek with ease) & though i lifted with all my might & lifted one end very high from ye ground i could by no means push it into ye creek & then ye water seemed to be so loe yt i might ride over, whereupon i went againe to ye water side but then it appeared as at first very high & then going to ye cannoe againe & finding that i could not get it into ye creek i thought to ride round where i had often been & knew ye way as well as before my own dore & had my old cart hors yet i could not keep him in ye road do what i could but he often turned aside into ye bushes and then went backwards so that tho i keep upon my hors & did my best indeauour to get home i was ye greatest part of ye night wandering before i got home altho i was not much more than two miles." "fairfield septembr th . "sworn in court septr . attests john allyn, secry." john barlow--_mesmeric influence--light and darkness--the falling out_ "john barlow eaged years or thairabout saieth and sd testifieth that soumtime this last year that as i was in bedd in the hous that mead jesuop then liuied in that marsey desbory came to me and layed hold on my fett and pinshed them (and) looked wishley in my feass and i strouff to rise and cold not and too speek and cold not. all the time that she was with me it was light as day as it semed to me--but when shee uanicht it was darck and i arose and hade a paine in my feet and leags some time after an our or too it remained. sometime before this aforesd marcey and i had a falling out and shee sayed that if shee had but strength shee would teer me in peses." "sworn in court septr , . attests john allyn." benjamin duning--_"cast into ye watter"--vindication of innocence--mercy not to be hanged alone_ "a speciall cort held in fairfield this d of june . "marcy disbrow ye wife of thomas disbrow of fairfield was sometimes lately accused by catren branch servant to daniell wescoat off tormenting her whereupon sd mercy being sent for to stanford and ther examined upon suspecion of witchcraft before athaurity and fro thnce conueyed to ye county jaile and sd mercy ernestly desireing to be tryed by being cast into ye watter yesterday wch was done this day being examind what speciall reason she had to be so desiring of such a triall her answer was yt it was to vindicate her innocency allso she sd mercy being asked if she did not say since she was duckt yt if she was hanged shee would not be hanged alone her answer was yt she did say to benje duning do you think yt i would be such a fooll as to be hanged allone. sd benj. duning aged aboue sixteen years testifies yt he heard sd mercy say yesterday that if she was hanged she would not be hanged allone wch was sd upon her being urged to bring out others that wear suspected for wiches." "sept sworn in court by benj. duning attest john allyn secy "joseph stirg aged about declares that he wth benj. duning being at prison discoursing with the prisoner now at the bar he heard her say if she were hanged she would not be hanged alone. he tould her she implicitly owned herself a witch." "sworn in court sept. , atests john allyn, secry." thomas halliberch--_a poor creature "damd"--torment--a lost soul--divination_ "thomas halliberch ye jayle keeper aged testifieth and saith yt this morning ye date aboue samull smith junr. came to his house and sad somthing to his wife somthing concerning mercy and his wifes answer was oh poor creature upon yt mercy mad answer & sd poor creature indeed & sd shee had been tormented all night. sd halliberch answered her yt it was ye devill her answer was she did beleue it was and allso yt she sed to it in ye name of ye father son and holy gost also sd halliberch saith yt sd mercy sd that her soul was damd for yesterdays worke. mercy owned before this court yt she did say to sd halliberch that it was reuealled to her yt shee wisht she had not damd her soule for yesterdays work and also sad before this cort she belieued that there was a deuination in all her trouble." "owned by the prisoner in court sept. , . attest john allyn, secy" thomas benit, elizabeth benit--"_a birds taile"--a family difference--"ye scripture words"--the lost "calues and lams_" "thos. benit aged aboute yrs testifieth yt mercy disbrow tould him yt shee would make him as bare as a birds taile, which he saith was about two or three yrs sine wch was before he lost any of his creatures." "elizabeth benit aged about yrs testifieth yt mercy disbrow did say that it should be prest heeped and running ouer to her sd elizabth; wch was somtime last winter after som difference yt was aboute a sow of benje. rumseyes." "mercy disbrow owns yt she did say those words to sd elizabeth & yt she did tell her yt it was ye scripture words & named ye place of scripture which was about a day after." "the abousd thos. benit saith yt after ye sd mercy had expressed herself as above, he lost a couple of two yr old calues in a creek running by halls islande, which catle he followed by ye track & founde them one against a coue of ice & ye other about high water marke, & yt they went into ye creek som distance from ye road where ye other catle went not, & also yt he lost lams wthin about a fortnights time after ye sd two catle died som of sd lams about a week old & som a fortnight & in good liueing case & allso saith yt som time after ye sd lams died he lost two calues yt he fectht up ouer night & seemed to be well & wear dead before ye next morning one of them about a fortnight old ye one a sucker & ye other not." henry grey--_the roaring calfe--the mired cow--the heifer and cart whip--hard words--"creeses in ye cetle"_ "the said henry saith yt aboute a year agou or somthing more yt he had a calfe very strangly taken and acted things yt are very unwonted, it roared very strangly for ye space of near six or seven howers & allso scowered extraordinarily all which after an unwonted maner; & also saith he had a lame after a very strange maner it being well and ded in about an houre and when it was skined it lookt as if it had been bruised or pinched on ye shoulders and allso saith yt about two or three months agou he and thos disbrow & sd disbroughs wife was makeing a bargaine about a cetle yt sd henry was to haue & had of sd disbrough so in time they not agreeing sd henry carried ye cetle to them againe & then sd dibroughs wife was very angry and many hard words pased & yt som time since about two months he lost a cow which was mired in a swampe and was hanged by one leg in mire op to ye gambrill and her nose in the water and sd cow was in good case & saith he had as he judged about pound of tallow out of sd cow & allso yt he had a thre yr old heifer came home about three weeks since & seemed to ale somthing she lay downe & would haue cast herself but he pruented her & he cut a piece of her eare & still shee seemed to be allmost dead & then he sent for his cart whip & gave ye cow a stroak wth it & she arose suddenly and ran from him & he followed her & struck her sundry times and yt wthin about one hour he judges she was well & chewed her cud allso sd henry saith yt ye ketle he had of sd disbrow loockt like a new ketle the hamer stroakes and creeses was plaine to be seen in ye cetle, from ye time he had it untill a short time before he carried it home & then in about a quarter of an hour, the cetle changed its looks & seemed to be an old cetle yt had been used about years and yt sundry nailes appeared which he could not see before and allso saith yt somtime lately he being at his brother jacob grays house & mercy disbrough being there she begane to descorse about ye kitle yt because he would not haue ye cetle shee had said that it should cost him two cows which he tould her he could prove she had sed & her answer was aye: & then was silent, & he went home & when he com home he heard thomas benit say he had a cow strangly taken yt day & he sent for his cart whip & whipye cow & shee was soon well againe & as near as he could com at it was about ye same time yt he tould mercy he could prove what shee sad about ye two cows and allso saith yt as soon as he came home ye same time his wife tould him yt while thos benit had ye cart whip one of sd henrys calues was taken strangly & yt she sent for ye whip & before ye whip came ye calf was well." john grummon--_a sick child--its unbewitching--benit's threats--mercy's tenderness_ "john grummon senr saith yt about six year agou he being at compo with his wife & child & ye child being very well as to ye outward vew and it being suddenly taken very ill & so remained a little while upon wch he being much troubled went out & heard young thomas benit threaten mercy disbrow & bad her unbewitch his uncles child whereupon she came ouer to ye child & ye child was well. "thomas benit junr aged years testifieth yt at ye same time of ye above sd childs illness he came into ye house wher it was & he spoke to sd john gruman to go & scould at mercy & tould him if he sd gruman would not he would wherupon he sd benit went out and called to mercy & bad her come and unbewitch his unkle grumans child or else he would beat her hart out then sd mercy imediatly came ouer and stroaked ye child & sd god forbad she should hurt ye child and imediately after ye child was well." ann godfree--_the frisky oxen--neighborly interest--the "beer out of ye barrill"--mixed theology--the onbewitched sow_ "ann godfree aged years testifieth yt she came to thos disbrows house ye next morning after it was sd yt henry grey whipt his cow and sd disbrows wife lay on ye bed & stretcht out her arme & sd to her oh! ann i am allmost kild; & further saith yt about a year & eleven months agou she went to sd disbrows house wth young thos benits wife & told mercy disbrow yt henry greys wife sed she had bewitcht his her husbands oxen & made y jump ouer ye fence & made ye beer jump out of ye barrill & mercy answered yt there was a woman came to her & reuiled her & asked what shee was doing she told her she was praying to her god, then she asked her who was her god allso tould her yt her god was ye deuill; & mercy said she bad ye woman go home & pray to her god & she went home but shee knew not whether she did pray or not; but she sed god had met wth her for she had died a hard death for reuileing on her & yt when ye sd thos benits wife & she came away sd benits wife tould her yt woman yt was spoaken of was her sister and allso sed yt shee had heard those words which mercy had related to her pas between mercy and her sister. upon yt sd an saith she would haue gon back & haue talked againe to mercy & thomas benit senr bad her she should not for she would do her som mischief and yt night following shee sd ann saith she could not sleep & shee heard a noyse about ye house & allso heard a noyse like as tho a beast wear knoct with an axe & in ye morning their was a heifer of theirs lay ded near ye door. allso sd an saith yt last summer she had a sow very sick and sd mercy cam bye & she called to her & bad her on-bewitch her sow & tould her yt folks talked of ducking her but if she would not onbewitch her sow she should need no ducking & soon after yt her sow was well and eat her meat." that both what is on this side & the other is sworne in court. "sept , . attests, john allyn secy" "it has been heretofore noted that during her trial--from the records of which the foregoing testimony has been taken--the prisoner mercy disborough was subjected to a search for witch marks by a committee of women, faithfully sworn narrowly and truly to inspect and search. this indignity was repeated, and the women agreed "that there is found on her boddy as before they found, and nothing else." but the accused in order to her further detection was subjected to another test of english parentage, recommended by the authorities and embodied in the criminal codes. it was the notorious water test, or ordeal by water. september , , this test was made, chiefly on the testimony of a young girl subject to epileptic fits and hysterics, who was carried into the meetinghouse where the examination was being held. thus runs the record: _daniel westcott's "gerle"--scenes in the meeting house--"ye girl"--mercy's voice--usual paroxisme_ "the afflicted person being carried into ye meeting house & mercy disbrow being under examination by ye honable court & whilst she was speaking ye girl came to her sences, & sd she heard mercy disbrow saying withall where is she, endeavoring to raise herself, with her masters help got almost up, in ye open view of present, & mercy disbrow looking about on her, she immediately fel down into a fit again. a d time she came to herself whilst in ye meeting house, & askd whers mercy, i hear her voice, & with that turned about her head (she lying with her face from her) & lookd on her, then laying herself down in like posture as before sd tis she, ime sure tis she, & presently fell into a like paroxisme or fit as she usually is troubled with." mercy disborough, and another woman on trial at the same time (elizabeth clauson), were put to the test together, and two eyewitnesses of the sorry exhibition of cruelty and delusion made oath that they saw mercy and elizabeth bound hand and foot and put into the water, and that they swam upon the water like a cork, and when one labored to press them into the water they buoyed up like cork.[g] [footnote g: depositions of abram adams and jonathan squire, september , .] at the close of the trial the jury disagreed and the prisoner was committed "to the common goale there to be kept in safe custody till a return may be made to the general court for further direction what shall be don in this matter;" and the gentlemen of the jury were also to be ready, when further called by direction of the general court, to perfect their verdict. the general court ordered the special court to meet again "to put an issue to those former matters." october , , this entry appears of record: "the jury being called to make a return of their indictment that had been committed to them concerning mercy disborough, they return that they find the prisoner guilty according to the indictment of familiarity with satan. the jury being sent forth upon a second consideration of their verdict returned that they saw no reason to alter their verdict, but to find her guilty as before. the court approved of their verdict and the governor passed sentence of death upon her." the hesitation of the jury to agree upon a verdict, the reference to the general court for more specific authority to act, all point to serious question of the evidence, the motives of witnesses, the value of the traditional and lawful tests of the guilt of the accused. in the search for facts which the old records certify to at this late day, one is deeply impressed by the wisdom and potency of the sober afterthought and conclusions of some of the clergy, lawyers, and men of affairs, who sat as judges and jurors in the witch trials, which led them to weigh and analyze the evidence, spectral and otherwise, and so call a halt in the prosecutions and convictions. what some of the massachusetts men did and said in the contemporaneous outbreak at salem has been shown, but nowhere is the reaction there more clearly illustrated than in the statement of reverend john hale--great-grandsire of nathan hale, the revolutionary hero--the long time pastor at beverly farms, who from personal experience became convinced of the grave errors at the salem trials, and in his _modest inquiry_ in said: "such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the afflicted, and the power of former precedents, that we walked in the clouds and could not see our way.... observing the events of that sad catastrophe,--anno ,--i was brought to a more strict scanning of the principles i had imbibed, and by scanning to question, and by questioning at length to reject many of them." _nathan hale_ (p. ), johnston. but no utterance takes higher rank, or deserves more consideration in its appeal to sanity, justice, and humanity, than the declaration of certain ministers and laymen of connecticut, in giving their advice and "reasons" for a cessation of the prosecutions for witchcraft in the colonial courts, and for reprieving mercy disborough under sentence of death. this is the remarkable document: "filed: the ministers aduice about the witches in fayrfield, . "as to ye evidences left to our consideration respecting ye two women suspected of witchcraft at fairfield we offer " . that we cannot but give our concurrance with ye generallity of divines that ye endeavour of conviction of witchcraft by swimming is unlawful and sinfull & therefore it cannot afford any evidence. " . that ye unusuall excresencies found upon their bodies ought not to be allowed as evidence against them without ye approbation of some able physitians. " . respecting ye evidence of ye afflicted maid we find some things testifyed carrying a suspition of her counterfeiting; others that plainly intimate her trouble from ye mother which improved by craft may produce ye most of those strange & unusuall effects affirmed of her; & of those things that by some may be thought to be diabolical or effects of witchcraft. we apprehend her applying of them to these persons merely from ye appearance of their spectres to her to be very uncertain and failable from ye easy deception of her senses & subtile devices of ye devill, wherefore cannot think her a sufficient witnesse; yet we think that her affliction being something strange it well deserves a farther inquiry. " . as to ye other strange accidents as ye dying of cattle &c., we apprehend ye applying of them to these women as matters of witchcraft to be upon very slender & uncertain grounds. "hartford joseph eliot "octobr timothy woodbridge." "the rest of ye ministers gave their approbation to ye sum of what is ... above written tho this could not be drawen up before their departure." (above in handwriting of rev. timothy woodbridge.) "filed: reasons of repreuing mercy desbrough. "to the honrd gen: assembly of connecticut colony sitting in hartford. reasons of repreuing mercy disbrough from being put to death until this court had cognizance of her case. "first, because wee that repreued her had power by the law so to do. secondly, because we had and haue sattisfying reasons that the sentence of death passed against her ought not to be executed which reasons we give to this court to be judge of " st. the jury that brought her in guilty (which uerdict was the ground of her condemnation) was not the same jury who were first charged with this prisoners deliuerance and who had it in charg many weeks. mr. knowles was on the jury first sworn to try this woman and he was at or about york when the court sate the second time and when the uerdict was given, the jury was altered and another man sworn. "it is so inuiolable a practice in law that the indiudual jurors and jury that is charged with the deliuerance of a prisoner in a capital case and on whom the prisoner puts himself or herself to be tryed must try it and they only that al the presidents in old england and new confirm it and not euer heard of til this time to be inouated. and yet not only president but the nature of the thing inforces it for to these juors the law gaue this power vested it in them they had it in right of law and it is incompatible and impossible that it should be uested in these and in others too for then two juries may haue the same power in the same case one man altered the jury is altered. "tis the birthright of the kings' subjects so and no otherwise to be tryed and they must not be despoyled of it. "due form of law is that alone wherein the ualidity of verdicts and judgments in such cases stands and if a real and apparent murtherer be condemned and executed out of due form of law it is inditable against them that do it for in such case the law is superseded by arbitrary doings. "what the court accepts and the prisoner accepts differing from the law is nothing what the law admitts is al in the case. "if one jury may be changed two, ten, the whole may be so, and solemn oathe made uain. "wee durst not but dissent from and declare against such alterations by our repreueing therefore the said prisoner when ye were informed of this business about her jury, and we pray this honored court to take heed what they do in it now it is roled to their doore and that at least they be well sattisfied from able lawyers that such a chang is in law alowable ere this prisoner be executed least they bring themselues into inextricable troubles and the whole country. blood is a great thing and we cannot but open our mouths for the dumb in the cause of one appointed to die by such a uerdict. " dly. we had a good accompt of the euidences giuen against her that none of them amounted to what mr. perkins, mr. bernard and mr. mather with others state as sufficiently conuictiue of witchcraft, namely st confession (this there was none of) dly two good wittnesses proueing som act or acts done by the person which could not be but by help of the deuill, this is the summe of what they center in as thair books show as for the common things of spectral euidence il euents after quarels or threates, teates, water tryalls and the like with suspitious words they are al discarded and som of them abominated by the most judicious as to be conuictiue of witchcraft and the miserable toyl they are in the bay for adhereing to these last mentioned litigious things is warning enof, those that will make witchcraft of such things will make hanging work apace and we are informed of no other but such as these brought against this woman. "these in brief are our reasons for repreueing this prisoner. may th, . samuell willis. wm pitkin nath stanly. "the court may please to consider also how farr these proceedings do put a difficulty on any further tryal of this woman." all honor to joseph elliot, timothy woodbridge and their ministerial associates; to samuel willis, pitkin and nath. stanly, level-headed men of affairs, all friends of the court called upon for advice and counsel--who gave it in full scriptural measure.[h] [footnote h: mercy disborough was pardoned, as the records show that she was living in .] chapter viii "old matthew maule was executed for the crime of witchcraft. he was one of the martyrs to that terrible delusion, which should teach us, among its other morals, that the influential classes, and those who take upon themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob." "clergymen, judges, statesmen--the wisest, calmest, holiest persons of their day--stood in the inner circle round about the gallows, loudest to applaud the work of blood, latest to confess themselves miserably deceived." "this old reprobate was one of the sufferers when cotton mather, and his brother ministers, and the learned judges, and other wise men, and sir william phipps, the sagacious governor, made such laudable efforts to weaken the great enemy of souls by sending a multitude of his adherents up the rocky pathway of gallows hill." _the house of the seven gables_ ( : ), hawthorne. "then, too, the belief in witchcraft was general. striking coincidences, personal eccentricities, unusual events and mysterious diseases seemed to find an easy explanation in an unholy compact with the devil. a witticism attributed to judge sewall, one of the judges in these trials, may help us to understand the common panic: 'we know who's who but not which is witch.' that was the difficulty. at a time when every one believed in witchcraft it was easy to suspect one's neighbor. it was a characteristic superstition of the century and should be classed with the barbarous punishments and religious intolerance of the age." _n.e. hist. towns_.--latimer's--_salem_ ( ). multiplication of these witchcraft testimonies, quaint and curious, vulgar and commonplace, evil and pathetic, voices all of a strange superstition, understandable only as through them alone can one gain a clear perspective of the spirit of the time and place, would prove wearisome. they may well remain in the ancient records until they find publicity in detail in some accurate and complete history of the beginnings of the commonwealth--including this strange chapter in its unique history. it will, however, serve a present necessary purpose, and lead to a more exact conception of the reign of unreason, if glimpses be taken here and there of a few of the statements made on oath in some of the other cases. elizabeth seager daniell gabbett and margaret garrett--_the mess of parsnips--hains' "hodg podg"--satan's interference_ "the testimony of daniell garrett senior and the testimony of margarett garrett. goodwife gaarrett saith that goodwife seager said there was a day kept at mr. willis in reference to an coale; and she further said she was in great trouble euen in agony of spirit, the ground as follows that she sent her owne daughtr eliza seager to goodwife hosmer to carry her a mess a parsnips. goodwife hosmer was not home. she was at mr. willis at the fast. goodm hosmer and his son was at home. goodm hosmer bid the child carry the parsnips home againe he would not receiue them and if her mother desired a reason, bid her send her father and he would tell him the reason. goodwife seager upon the return of the parsnips was much troubled and sent for her husband and sent him up to goodm hosmer to know the reason why he would not reciue the parsnips, and he told goodman seager it was because an coale at the fast at mr. willis cryed out against his wife as being a witch and he would not receiue the parsnips least he should be brought in hereaftr as a testimony against his wife. then goodwif seager sd that mr. hains had writt a great deal of hodg podg that an coale had sd that she was under suspicion for a witch, and then she went to prayer, and did adventure to bid satan go and tell them she was no witch. this deponent after she had a little paused said, who did you say, then goodw seger sd againe she had sent satan to tell them she was no witch. this deponent asked her why she made use of satan to tell them, why she did not besech god to tell them she was no witch. she answered because satan knew she was no witch. goodman garrett testifies that before him and his wife, goodwife seager said that she sent satan to tell them she was no witch." robert sterne, stephen hart, josiah willard and daniel pratt--_four women--two black creatures--a kettle and a dance--"that place in the acts about the sons"_ "robert sterne testifieth as followeth. "i saw this woman goodwife seager in ye woods wth three more women and with them i saw two black creaures like two indians but taller. i saw likewise a kettle there over a fire. i saw the women dance round these black creatures and whiles i looked upon them one of the women g: greensmith said looke who is yonder and then they ran away up the hill. i stood still and ye black things came towards mee and then i turned to come away. he further saith i knew the psons by their habits or clothes haueing observed such clothes on them not long before." "wee underwritten do testifie, that goodwife seager said, (upon the relateing of goodwife garrett testimony, in reference to seager sending satan,) that the reason why she sent satan, was because he knew she was no witch, we say seager said dame you can remember part of what i said, but you do not speak of the whole you say nothing of what i brought to prove that satan knew that i was no witch. i brought that place in the acts, about the sons that spake to the euill spirits in the name of jesus whom paul preacheth i have forgot there names. "stephen hart "josiah wlllard "daniel pratt." mrs. migat--_a warm greeting, "how doe yow"--"god was naught"--"hell need not be feared, for she should not burn in ye fire"--the ghost "stracke"_ "mrs. migat sayth she went out to give her calues meat, about fiue weekes since, & goodwif segr came to her and shaked her by ye arme, & sd she how doe yow, how doe yow, mrs. migatt. " d mrs. migatt alsoe saith: a second time goodwife segr came her towerds ye little riuer, a litle below ye house wch she now dweleth in, and told her, that god was naught, god was naught, it was uery good to be a witch and desired her to be one, she should not ned fare going to hell, for she should not burne in ye fire mrs. migat said to her at this time that she did not loue her; she was very naught, and goodwif segr shaked her by ye hands and bid her farwell, and desired her, not to tell any body what shee had said unto her. " d time. mrs. migat affirmeth yt goodwife segr came to her at ye hedge corner belonging to their house lot, and their spake to her but what she could not tell, wch caused mrs. migatt (as she sayth) to (turn) away wth great feare. "mrs. migat sayth a little before ye floud this spring, goodwife segr came into thaire house, on a mone shining night, and took her by ye hand and stracke her on ye face as she was in beed wth her husband, whome she could wake, and then goodwife segr went away, and mrs. migat went to ye dore but darst not looke out after her. "these pticulers mrs. migat charged goodwife segr wth being face to face, at mr. migats now dwelling house." "john talcott." _staggerings of the jury--"shuffing"--"grinding teeth"--seager's denials--contradictions--acquittal_ "janur "the causes why half the jury ore more did in their vote cast gooddy seger (and the rest of the jury were deeply suspitious, and were at a great loss and staggeringe whereby they were sometimes likely to com up in their judgments to the rest, whereby she was allmost gone and cast as the foreman expressed to her at giuing in of the verdict) are these "first it did apeare by legall euidence that she had intimat familliarity with such as had been wiches, viz goody sanford and goody ayrs. ly this she did in open court stoutly denie saing the witnesses were preiudiced persons, and that she had now more intimacy then they themselves, and when the witneses questioned with her about frequent being there she said she went to lerne to knitt; this also she stoutly denied, and said of the witneses they belie me, then when mr. john allen sd did she not teach you to knitt, she answered sturdily and sayd, i do not know that i am bound to tell you & at another time being pressed to answ she sayd, nay i will hould what i have if i must die, yet after this she confessed that she had so much intimacy with one of ym as that they did change woorke one with another. ly she having sd that she did hate goody aiers it did appear that she bore her great yea more than ordinarily good will as apeared by releeuing her in her truble, and was couert way, and was trubled that is was discouered; likewise when goody aiers said in court, this will take away my liffe, goody seger shuffed her with her hand & sd hould your tongue wt grinding teeth mr. john allen being one wittnes hearto when he had spoken, she sd they seek my innocent blood; the magistrats replied, who she sd euery body. ly being spoken to about triall by swiming, she sagd the diuill that caused me to com heare can keep me up. "about the buisnes of fliing the most part thought it was not legally proued. "lastly the woman and robert stern being boath upon oath their wittnes was judged legall testimony ore evidence only som in the jury because sternes first words upon his oath were, i saw these women and as i take it goody seger was there though after that he sayd, i saw her there, i knew her well i know god will require her blood at my hands if i should testifie falsly. allso bec he sd he saw her kittle, there being at so great a distance, they doubted that these things did not only weaken & blemish his testimony, but also in a great measure disable it for standing to take away liffe." "walt. fyler." elizabeth seager was acquitted. elizabeth godman of all the women who set the communities ablaze with their witcheries, none in fertility of invention and performance surpassed elizabeth godman of new haven--a member of the household of stephen goodyear, the deputy governor. reverend john davenport said, in a sermon of the time, "that a froward discontented frame of spirit was a subject fitt for ye devill," and elizabeth was accused by goodwife larremore and others of being in "such a frame of spirit," and of practicing the black arts. she promptly haled her accusers before a court of magistrates, august , , with governor theophilus eaton and deputy governor stephen goodyear present; and when asked what she charged them with, she desired that "a wrighting might be read--wch was taken in way of examination before ye magistrate," in may, . the "wrighting" did not prove helpful to elizabeth's case. the statements of witnesses and of the accused are in some respects unique, and of a decided personal quality. _"hobbamocke"--the "swonding fitt"--lying--evil communications--the indian's statement--"ye boyes sickness"--"verey strang fitts"--"figgs"-- "pease porridge"--"a sweate"--mrs. goodyeare's opinion--absorption-- contradictions--goodwife thorp's chickens--"water and wormes"_ "mris. godman was told she hath warned to the court diuers psons, vizd: mr. goodyeare, mris. goodyeare, mr. hooke, mris. hooke, mris. atwater, hanah & elizabeth lamberton, goodwife larremore, goodwife thorpe, &c., and was asked what she had to charge them wth, she said they had given out speeches that made folkes thinke she was a witch, and first she charged mris. atwater to be ye cause of all, and to cleere things desired a wrighting might be read wch was taken in way of examination before ye magistrate, (and in here after entred,) wherein sundrie things concerning mris. atwater is specifyed wch we now more fully spoken to, and she further said that mris. atwater had said that she thought she was a witch and that hobbamocke was her husband, but could proue nothing, though she was told that she was beforehand warned to prepare her witnesses ready, wch she hath not done, if she haue any. after sundrie of the passages in ye wrighting were read, she was asked if these things did not giue just ground of suspition to all that heard them that she was a witch. she confessed they did, but said if she spake such things as is in mr. hookes relation she was not herselfe.... beside what is in the papr, mris. godman was remembred of a passage spoken of at the gouernors aboute mr. goodyeare's falling into a swonding fitt after hee had spoken something one night in the exposition of a chapter, wch she (being present) liked not but said it was against her, and as soone as mr. goodyeare had done duties she flung out of the roome in a discontented way and cast a fierce looke vpon mr. goodyeare as she went out, and imediately mr. goodyeare (though well before) fell into a swond, and beside her notorious lying in this buisnes, for being asked how she came to know this, she said she was present, yet mr. goodyeare, mris. goodyeare, hanah and elizabeth lamberton all affirme she was not in ye roome but gone vp into the chamber." the "wrighting" "the examination of elizabeth godman, may th, . "elizabeth godman made complainte of mr. goodyeare, mris. goodyeare, mr. hooke, mris. hooke, mris. bishop, mris. atwater, hanah & elizabeth lamberton, and mary miles, mris. atwaters maide, that they haue suspected her for a witch; she was now asked what she had against mr. hooke and mris. hooke; she said she heard they had something against her aboute their soone. mr. hooke said hee was not wthout feares, and hee had reasons for it; first he said it wrought suspition in his minde because shee was shut out at mr. atwaters vpon suspition, and hee was troubled in his sleepe aboute witches when his boye, was sicke, wch was in a verey strang manner, and hee looked vpon her as a mallitious one, and prepared to that mischiefe, and she would be often speaking aboute witches and rather justifye them then condemne them; she said why doe they provoake them, why doe they not let them come into the church. another time she was speaking of witches wthout any occasion giuen her, and said if they accused her for a witch she would haue them to the gouernor, she would trounce them. another time she was saying she had some thoughts, what if the devill should come to sucke her, and she resolued he should not sucke her.... time, mr. hookes indian, said in church meeting time she would goe out and come in againe and tell them what was done at meeting. time asking her who told, she answered plainly she would not tell, then time said did not ye devill tell you.... time said she heard her one time talking to herselfe, and she said to her, who talke you too, she said, to you; time said you talke to ye devill, but she made nothing of it. mr. hooke further said, that he hath heard that they that are adicted that way would hardly be kept away from ye houses where they doe mischiefe, and so it was wth her when his boy was sicke, she would not be kept away from him, nor gott away when she was there, and one time mris. hooke bid her goe away, and thrust her from ye boye, but she turned againe and said she would looke on him. mris. goodyeare said that one time she questioned wth elizabeth godmand aboute ye boyes sickness, and said what thinke you of him, is he not strangly handled, she replyed, what, doe you thinke hee is bewitched; mris. goodyeare said nay i will keepe my thoughts to myselfe, but in time god will discouer ... "mr. hooke further said, that when mr. bishop was married, mris. godman came to his house much troubled, so as he thought it might be from some affection to him, and he asked her, she said yes; now it is suspitious that so soone as they were contracted mris. byshop fell into verey strang fitts wch hath continewed at times euer since, and much suspition there is that she hath bine the cause of the loss of mris. byshops chilldren, for she could tell when mris. bishop was to be brought to bedd, and hath giuen out that she kills her chilldren wth longing, because she longs for every thing she sees, wch mris. bishop denies.... another thing suspitious is, that she could tell mris. atwater had figgs in her pocket when she saw none of them; to that she answered she smelt them, and could smell figgs if she came in the roome, nere them that had them; yet at this time mris. atwater had figgs in her pocket and came neere her, yet she smelt them not; also mris. atwater said that mris. godman could tell that they one time had pease porridge, when they could none of them tell how she came to know, and beeing asked she saith she see ym on the table, and another time she saith she was there in ye morning when the maide set them on. further mris. atwater saith, that that night the figgs was spoken of they had strangers to supper, and mris. godman was at their house, she cutt a sopp and put in pann; betty brewster called the maide to tell her & said she was aboute her workes of darkness, and was suspitious of mris. godman, and spake to her of it, and that night betty brewster was in a most misserable case, heareing a most dreadfull noise wch put her in great feare and trembling, wch put her into such a sweate as she was all on a water when mary miles came to goe to bed, who had fallen into a sleepe by the fire wch vsed not to doe, and in ye morning she looked as one yt had bine allmost dead.... "mris. godman accused mr. goodyeare for calling her downe when mris. bishop was in a sore fitt, to looke vpon her, and said he doubted all was not well wth her, and that hee feared she was a witch, but mr. goodyeare denyed that; vpon this mris. godman was exceeding angrie and would haue the servants called to witnes, and bid george the scochman goe aske his master who bewitched her for she was not well, and vpon this presently hanah lamberton (being in ye roome) fell into a verey sore fitt in a verey strang maner.... "another time mris. goodyeare said to her, mris. elzebeth what thinke you of my daughters case; she replyed what, doe you thinke i haue bewitched her; mris. goodyeare said if you be the ptie looke to it, for they intend to haue such as is suspected before the magistrate. "mris. godman charged hanah lamberton that she said she lay for somewhat to sucke her, when she came in hott one day and put of some cloathes and lay vpon the bed in her chamber. hanah said she and her sister elizabeth went vp into the garet aboue her roome, and looked downe & said, looke how she lies, she lyes as if som bodey was sucking her, & vpon that she arose and said, yes, yes, so there is; after said hanah, she hath something there, for so there seemed as if something was vnder the cloathes; elizabeth said what haue you there, she said nothing but the cloathes, and both hanah & eliza. say that mris. godman threatened hanah, and said let her looke to it for god will bring it vpon her owne head, and about two dayes after, hanahs fitts began, and one night especially had a dreadfull fitt, and was pinched, and heard a hedious noise, and was in a strang manner sweating and burning, and some time cold and full of paine yt she shriked out. "elizabeth lamberton saith that one time ye chilldren came downe & said mris. godman was talking to herselfe and they were afraide, then she went vp softly and heard her talke, what, will you fetch me some beare, will you goe, will you goe, and ye like, and one morning aboute breake of day henry boutele said he heard her talke to herselfe, as if some body had laine wth her.... "mris. goodyeare said when mr. atwaters kinswoman was married mris. bishop was there, and the roome being hott she was something fainte, vpon that mris. godman said she would haue many of these fainting fitts after she was married, but she saith she remembers it not.... "goodwife thorp complained that mris. godman came to her house and asked to buy some chickens, she said she had none to sell, mris. godman said will you giue them all, so she went away, and she thought then that if this woman was naught as folkes suspect, may be she will smite my chickens, and quickly after one chicken dyed, and she remembred she had heard if they were bewitched they would consume wthin, and she opened it and it was consumed in ye gisard to water & wormes, and divers others of them droped, and now they are missing and it is likely dead, and she neuer saw either hen or chicken that was so consumed wthin wth wormes. mris. godman said goodwife tichenor had a whole brood so, and mris. hooke had some so, but for mris. hookes it was contradicted presently. this goodwife thorp thought good to declare that it may be considered wth other things." the court decided that elizabeth's carriage and confession rendered her "suspitious" of witchcraft, and admonished her that "if further proofe come these passages will not be forgotten." the further proof came forth promptly, since in august, , elizabeth was again called before the court for witchcraft, and the witnesses certified to "the doing of strange things." _the governor's quandary--elizabeth's "spirituall armour"--"the jumbling at the chamber dore"--the lost grapes--the tethered calfe--"hott beare"_ "at a court held at newhaven the th of august . "elizabeth godman was again called before the court, and told that she lies under suspition for witchcraft, as she knowes, the grounds of which were examined in a former court, and by herselfe confessed to be just grounds of suspition, wch passages were now read, and to these some more are since added, wch are now to be declared. "mr. goodyeare said that the last winter, upon occasion of gods afflicting hand upon the plantation by sickness, the private meeting whereof he is had appointed to set a day apart to seeke god: elizabeth godman desired she might be there; he told her she was under suspition, and it would be offensive; she said she had great need of it, for she was exercised wth many temptations, and saw strange appearitions, and lights aboute her bed, and strange sights wch affrighted her; some of his family said if she was affraide they would worke wth her in the day and lye with her in the night, but she refused and was angry and said she would haue none to be wth her for she had her spirituall armour aboute her. she was asked the reason of this; she answered, she said so to mr. goodyeare, but it was her fancy troubled her, and she would haue none lye wth her because her bed was weake; she was told that might haue been mended; then she said she was not willing to haue any of them wth her, for if any thing had fallen ill wth them they would haue said that she had bine the cause." mr. goodyeare further declared that aboute three weekes agoe he had a verey great disturbance in his family in the night (eliza: godman hauing bine the day before much discontented because mr. goodyeare warned her to provide another place to live in) his daughter sellevant, hanah goodyeare, and desire lamberton lying together in the chamber under eliza: godman; after they were in bed they heard her walke up and downe and talk aloude; but could not tell what she said; then they heard her go downe the staires and come up againe; they fell asleep, but were after awakened wth a great jumbling at the chamber dore, and something came into the chamber wch jumbled at the other end of the roome and aboute the trunke and amonge the shooes and at the beds head; it came nearer the bed and hanah was affraid and called father, but he heard not, wch made her more affraide; then cloathes were pulled of their bed by something, two or three times; they held and something pulled, wch frighted them so that hanah goodyeare called her father so loude as was thought might be heard to the meetinghouse, but the noise was heard to mr. samuell eatons by them that watched wth her; so after a while mr. goodyeare came and found them in a great fright; they lighted a candell and he went to eliza: godmans chamber and asked her why she disturbed the family; she said no, she was scared also and thought the house had bine on fire, yet the next day she said in the family that she knew nothing till mr. goodyeare came up, wch she said is true she heard the noise but knew not the cause till mr. goodyeare came; and being asked why she went downe staires after she was gon up to bed, she said to light a candell to looke for two grapes she had lost in the flore and feared the mice would play wth them in the night and disturbe ye family, wch reason in the courts apprehension renders her more suspitious. allen ball informed the court. another time she came into his yard; his wife asked what she came for; she said to see her calfe; now they had a sucking calfe, wch they tyed in the lott to a great post that lay on ye ground, and the calfe ran away wth that post as if it had bine a fether and ran amonge indian corne and pulled up two hills and stood still; after he tyed the calfe to a long heauy raile, as much as he could well lift, and one time she came into ye yard and looked on ye calfe and it set a running and drew the raile after it till it came to a fence and gaue a great cry in a lowing way and stood still; and in ye winter the calfe dyed, doe what he could, yet eate its meale well enough. some other passages were spoken of aboute mris. yale, that one time there being some words betwixt them, wth wch eliza: godman was unsatisfyed, the night following mris. yales things were throwne aboute the house in a strange manner; and one time being at goodman thorpes, aboute weauing some cloth, in wch something discontented her, and that night they had a great noise in the house, wch much affrighted them, but they know not what it was. these things being declared the court told elizabeth godman that they haue considered them, wth her former miscarriages, and see cause to order that she be comitted to prison, ther to abide the courts pleasure, but because the matter is of weight, and the crime whereof she is suspected capitall, therefore she is to answer it at the court of magistrates in october next." in october, , elizabeth "was again called before the court and told that upon grounds formerly declared wch stand upon record, she by her owne confession remains under suspition for witchcraft, and one more is now added, and that is, that one time this last summer, comeing to mr. hookes to beg some beare, was at first denyed, but after, she was offered some by his daughter which stood ready drawne, wch she had, yet went away in a muttering discontented manner, and after this, that night, though the beare was good and fresh, yet the next morning was hott, soure and ill tasted, yea so hott as the barrell was warme wthout side, and when they opened the bung it steemed forth; they brewed againe and it was so also, and so continewed foure or fiue times, one after another. "she brought diuers psons to the court that they might say something to cleere her, and much time was spent in hearing ym, but to little purpose, the grounds of suspition remaining full as strong as before and she found full of lying, wherfore the court declared vnto her that though the euidenc is not sufficient as yet to take away her life, yet the suspitions are cleere and many, wch she cannot by all the meanes she hath vsed, free herselfe from, therfore she must forbeare from goeing from house to house to give offenc, and cary it orderly in the family where she is, wch if she doe not, she will cause the court to comitt her to prison againe, & that she doe now presently vpon her freedom giue securitie for her good behauiour; and she did now before the court ingage fifty pound of her estate that is in mr. goodyeers hand, for her good behauior, wch is further to be cleered next court, when mr. goodyeare is at home." "she was suffered to dwell in the family of thomas johnson, where she continued till her death, october th, ." (_new haven town records_, vol. ii, pp. , .) nathaniel and rebecca greensmith nathaniel greensmith lived in hartford, south of the little river, in - , on a lot of about twenty acres, with a house and barn. he also had other holdings "neer podunk," and "on ye highway leading to farmington." he was thrifty by divergent and economical methods, since he is credited in the records of the time with stealing a bushel and a half of wheat, of stealing a hoe, and of lying to the court, and of battery. in one way or another he accumulated quite a property for those days, since the inventory of it filed in the hartford probate office, january , , after his execution, carried an appraisal of £ . l s. _d_.--including " bibles," "a sword," "a resthead," and a "drachm cup"--all indicating that nathaniel judiciously mingled his theology and patriotism, his recreation and refreshment, with his everyday practical affairs and opportunities. but he made one adventure that was most unprofitable. in an evil hour he took to wife rebecca, relict of abraham elson, and also relict of jarvis mudge, and of whom so good a man as the rev. john whiting, minister of the first church in hartford--afterward first pastor of the second church--said that she was "a lewd, ignorant and considerably aged woman." this triple combination of personal qualities soon elicited the criticism and animosity of the community, and nathaniel and rebecca fell under the most fatal of all suspicions of that day, that of being possessed by the evil one. gossip and rumor about these unpopular neighbors culminated in a formal complaint, and december , , at a court held at hartford, both the greensmiths were separately indicted in the same formal charge. "nathaniel greensmith thou art here indicted by the name of nathaniel greensmith for not having the fear of god before thine eyes, thou hast entertained familiarity with satan, the grand enemy of god and mankind--and by his help hast acted things in a preternatural way beyond human abilities in a natural course for which according to the law of god and the established law of this commonwealth thou deservest to die." while rebecca was in prison under suspicion, she was interviewed by two ministers, revs. haynes and whiting, as to the charges of ann cole--a next door neighbor--which were written down by them, all of which, and more, she confessed to be true before the court. (note. increase mather regarded this confession as convictive a proof of real witchcraft as most single cases he had known.) the ministers' account--_promise to satan--a merry christmas meeting--stone's lecture--haynes' plea--the dear devil--the corvine guest--sexual delusions_ "she forthwith and freely confessed those things to be true, that she (and other persons named in the discourse) had familiarity with the devil. being asked whether she had made an express covenant with him, she answered she had not, only as she promised to go with him when he called (which she had accordingly done several times). but that the devil told her that at christmas they would have a merry meeting, and then the covenant should be drawn and subscribed. thereupon the fore-mentioned mr. stone (being then in court) with much weight and earnestness laid forth the exceeding heinousness and hazard of that dreadful sin; and therewith solemnly took notice (upon the occasion given) of the devil's loving christmas. "a person at the same time present being desired the next day more particularly to enquire of her about her guilt, it was accordingly done, to whom she acknowledged that though when mr. haynes began to read she could have torn him in pieces, and was so much resolved as might be to deny her guilt (as she had done before) yet after he had read awhile, she was as if her flesh had been pulled from her bones, (such was her expression,) and so could not deny any longer. she also declared that the devil first appeared to her in the form of a deer or fawn, skipping about her, wherewith she was not much affrighted but by degrees he contrived talk with her; and that their meetings were frequently at such a place, (near her own house;) that some of the company came in one shape and some in another, and one in particular in the shape of a crow came flying to them. amongst other things she owned that the devil had frequent use of her body." had rebecca been content with purging her own conscience, she alone would have met the fate she had invoked, and probably deserved; but out of "love to her husband's soul" she made an accusation against him, which of itself secured his conviction of the same offense, with the same dire penalty. the accusation--_nathaniel's plea--"travaile and labour"--"a red creature"--- prenuptial doubts--the weighty logs--wifely tenderness and anxiety--under the greenwood tree--a cat call--terpsichore and bacchus_ "rebecca greenswith testifieth in court janry . . " . that my husband on friday night last when i came to prison told me that now thou hast confest against thyself let me alone and say nothing of me and i wilbe good unto thy children. "i doe now testifie that formerly when my husband hathe told me of his great travaile and labour i wondered at it how he did it this he did before i was married and when i was married i asked him how he did it and he answered me he had help yt i knew not of. " . about three years agoe as i think it; my husband and i were in ye wood several miles from home and were looking for a sow yt we lost and i saw a creature a red creature following my husband and when i came to him i asked him what it was that was with him and he told me it was a fox. " . another time when he and i drove or hogs into ye woods beyond ye pound yt was to keep yong cattle severall miles of i went before ye hogs to call them and looking back i saw two creatures like dogs one a little blacker then ye other, they came after my husband pretty close to him and one did seem to me to touch him i asked him wt they were he told me he thought foxes i was stil afraid when i saw anything because i heard soe much of him before i married him. " . i have seen logs that my husband hath brought home in his cart that i wondered at it that he could get them into ye cart being a man of little body and weake to my apprhension and ye logs were such that i thought two men such as he could not have done it. "i speak all this out of love to my husbands soule and it is much against my will that i am now necessitate to speake agaynst my husband, i desire that ye lord would open his heart to owne and speak ye trueth. "i also testify that i being in ye wood at a meeting there was wth me goody seager goodwife sanford & goodwife ayres; and at another time there was a meeting under a tree in ye green by or house & there was there james walkely, peter grants wife goodwife aires & henry palmers wife of wethersfield, & goody seager, & there we danced, & had a bottle of sack: it was in ye night & something like a catt cald me out to ye meeting & i was in mr. varlets orcherd wth mrs. judeth varlett & shee tould me that shee was much troubled wth ye marshall jonath: gilbert & cried, & she sayd if it lay in her power she would doe him a mischief, or what hurt shee could." the greensmiths were convicted and sentenced to suffer death. in january, , they were hung on "gallows hill," on the bluff a little north of where trinity college now stands--"a logical location" one most learned in the traditions and history of hartford calls it--as it afforded an excellent view of the execution to a large crowd on the meadows to the west, a hanging being then a popular spectacle and entertainment. chapter ix "they shall no more be considered guilty than this woman, whom i now pronounce to be innocent, and command that she be set at liberty." lord chief justice mansfield. elizabeth (clauson) clawson the indictment "elizabeth clawson wife of stephen clawson of standford in the country of fayrefeild in the colony of connecticutt thou art here indicted by the name of elizabeth clawson that not haueing the fear of god before thine eyes thou hast had familiarity with satan the grand enemie of god & man & that by his instigation & help thou hast in a pretematurall way afflicted & done harm to the bodyes & estates of sundry of his maties subjects or to some of them contrary to the peace of or soueraigne lord the king & queen their crowne & dignity & that on the t of aprill in the th yeare of theire maties reigne & at sundry other times for which by the law of god & the law of the colony thou deseruest to dye." the testimonies joseph garney--_the maid in fits--joseph's subterfuge--""the black catt"--"the white dogg"--witches three_ "joseph garney saith yt being at danil wescots uppon occation sine he went to hartford while he was gone from home nathanill wiat being with me his maid being at work in the yard in her right mind soon after fell into a fit. i took her up and caried her in & laid her upon the bed it was intimated by sum that she desembled. nathanel wiat said with leaue he would make triall of that leaue was granted and as soon as she was laid upon ye bed then wiat asked me for a sharp knife wch i presently took into my hand then she imediately came to herself and then went out of ye room into ye other room & so out into ye hen house then i hard her presently shreek out i ran presently to her and asked her what is ye matter, she was in such pain she could not hue & presently fell into a fit stiff. we carried her in and laid her upon ye bed and then i got my kniffe ready and fitting under pretence of doing sum great matter then presently she came to herselfe & said to me joseph what are you about to doe i said i would cutt her & seemed to threten great matters, then she laid her down upon the bed & said she would confess to us how it was with her and then said i am possessed with ye deuill and he apeared to me in ye hen house in ye shape of a black catt & was ernist with her to be a witch & if she would not he would tear her in pieces, then she again shreekt out now saith shee i see him & lookt wistly & said there he is just at this time to my apearance there seemed to dart in at ye west window a sudden light across ye room wch did startle and amase me at yt present, then she tould me yt she see ye deuill in ye shape of a white dogg, she tould me that ye deuill apeared in ye shape of these three women namly goody clawson, goody miller, & ye woman at compo. [disborough] i asked her how she knew yt it was ye deuill that appeared in ye shape of these three women she answered he tould me so. i asked her if she knew that these three women were witches or no she said she could not tell they might be honest women for ought she knew or they might be witches." sarah kecham--_cateron's seizures--riding and singing--english and french--the naked sword_ the testimony of sarah kecham. "she saith yt being at danel wescots house thomas asten being there cateron branch being there in a fit as they said i asked then how she was they sayth she hath had noe fits she had bine a riding then i asked her to ride and then she got to riding. i asked her if her hors had any name & she called out & said jack; i then asked her to sing & then she sunge; i asked her yt if she had sung wt inglish she could then sing french and then she sung that wch they called french. thomas astin said he knew that she was bewitched i tould him i did not beleue it, for i said i did not beleue there was any witch in the town, he said he knew she was for said he i haue hard say that if a person were bewitched take a naked sword and hould ouer them & they will laugh themselues to death & with yt he took a sword and held ouer her and she laughed extremely. then i spoke sumthing whereby i gaue them to understand that she did so becase she knew of ye sword, whereupon danil made a sine to thomas austen to hould ye sword again yt she might not know of it, wch he did & then she did not laugh at all nor chang her countenance. further in discourse i hard daniel wescot say yt when he pleased he could take her out of her fits. john bates junr being present at ye same time witnesseth to all ye aboue written. "ye testers are redy to giue oath to ye aboue written testimony when called therunto. "staford ye th septembr ." abigail cross and nathaniel cross--_the "garles desembling"--daniel wescot's wager--the trick that nobody else could do_ (kateran branch, the accuser of the fairfield women, was a young servant in daniel wescot's household.) "the testimony of abigail cross as followith that upon sum discourse with danil wescot about his garles desembling sd daniel sd that he would venture both his cows against a calfe yt she should doe a trick tomorrow morning that no body else could doe. sd abigail sd to morrow morning, can you make her do it when you will; & he said yess when i will i can make her do it. "nathaneel cross being present at ye same time testifieth ye same with his wife. "the above testers say they are redy to giue oath to ye aboue written testimony when called to it." sarah bates--_an effective remedy for fits--burnt feathers--blood letting--the result_ "the testimony of mrs. sarah bates she saith yt when first ye garl was taken with strang fits she was sent for to danil wescots house & she found ye garle lieing upon ye bed. she then did apprehend yt the garls illness might be from sum naturall cause; she therefore aduised them to burn feathers under her nose & other menes yt had dun good in fainting fits and then she seemed to be better with it; and so she left her that night in hops to here she wold be better ye next morning; but in ye morning danil wescot came for her againe and when she came she found ye garl in bed seemingly senceless & spechless; her eyes half shet but her pulse seemed to beat after ye ordinary maner her mistres desired she might be let blud on ye foot in hops it might do her good. then i said i thought it could not be dun in ye capassity she was in but she desired a triall to be made and when euerything was redy & we were agoing to let her blud ye garl cried; the reson was asked her why she cried; her answer was she would not be bluded; we asked her why; she said again because it would hurt her it was said ye hurt would be but small like a prick of a pin then she put her foot ouer ye bed and was redy to help about it; this cariag of her seemed to me strang who before seemed to ly like a dead creature; after she was bluded and had laid a short time she clapt her hand upon ye couerlid & cried out; and on of ye garls yt stood by said mother she cried out; and her mistres was so afected with it yt she cried and said she is bewitched. upon this ye garl turned her head from ye folk as if she wold hide it in ye pillar & laughed." the above written sarah bates appeared before me in stamford this th septembr & made oath to the above written testimony. before me jonat, bell comissr." daniel wescot--_exchanging yarn--"a quarrill"--the child's nightmare_ "the testimony of daniel wescote saith that some years since my wife & goodwife clauson agreed to change their spinning, & instead of half a pound goodwife clawson sent three quarters of a pound i haueing waide it, carried it to her house & cnvinced her of it yt it was so, & thence forward she till now took occation upon any frivolous matter to be angry & pick a quarrill with booth myself & wife, & some short time after this earning ye flex, my eldest daughter johannah was taken suddenly in ye night shrecking& crying out, there is a thing will catch me, uppon which i got up & lit a candle, & tould her there was nothing, she answerd, yees there was, there tis, pointing with her finger sometimes to one place & sometimes to another, & then sd tis run under the pillow. i askd her wr it was, she sd a sow, & in a like manner continued disturbd a nights abought ye space of three weeks, insomuch yt we ware forcd to carry her abroad sometimes into my yard or lot, but for ye most part to my next neighbours house, to undress her & get her to sleep, & continually wn she was disturbd shed cry out theres my thing come for me, whereuppon some neighbours advisd to a removal of her, & having removd her to fairfeild it left her, & since yt hath not been disturbd in like manner." "the aboue testimony of daniell wesocott now read to the wife of sayd daniell shee testifys to the whole verbatum & hath now giuen oath to the same before us in standford, septembr th . "jonatn selleck comissr "jonothan bell commissionr. "sworn in court septr "as attests john allyn secry." abigail wescot--_throwing stones--railing--twitting of "fine cloths"_ "abigal wescot further saith that as she was going along the street goody clauson came out to her and they had some words together and goody clauson took up stone and threw at her; and at another time as she went along the street before said clausons dore goody clauson caled to me and asked me what i did in my chamber last sabbath day night, and i doe affirme that i was not their that night; and at another time as i was in her sone stephens house being neer her one house shee followed me in and contended with me becase i did not com into her house caling of me proud slut what ear you proud on your fine cloths and you look to be mistres but you never shal by me and seuerall other prouoking speeches at that time and at another time as i was by her house she contended and quareled with me; and we had many words together and shee twited me of my fine cloths and of my mufe and also contended with me several other times. "taken upon oath before us standford septemr th "jonatn selleck comissionr "jonothan bell comissr." abraham finch--_the strange light--"two pry eies"--cause of the "pricking"_ "abraham finch jun aged about years. "the deponant saith that hee being a waching at with ye french girle at daniell wescoat house in the night i being laid on the bed the girle fell into a fite and fell crose my feet and then i looking up i sawe a light abut the bignes of my too hands glance along the sommer of the house to the harth ward, and afterwards i sawe it noe mor; and when dauid selleck brought a light into the room a littell space after the french garle cam to hirselfe againe. wee ascked hir whie shee skreemed out when shee fell into her fit. shee answered goodie clawson cam in with two firy eies. "furdermore the deponant saith that dauid selleck was that same night with him and being laid downe on the bed me nie the garle and i laye by the bed sid on the chest and dauid selleck starte up suddenly and i asked wt was ye matter with him and hee answered shee pricked mee and the french garle answered noe shee did not it was goodie crump and then shee put her hand ouer the bed sid and said give mee that thing that you pricked mr. selleck with and i cached hold of her hand and found a pin in it and i took it away from her. the deponant saith that when the garl put her hand ouer the bed it was open and he looked very well in her hand and cold see nothing and before shee puled in her hand again shee had goten yt pin yt hee took from her. "this aboue written testor is redy when called to giue oath to the aboue written testimony." ebenezer bishop--_kateran calls for somersaults--fits and spots_ "ebenezer bishop aged about years saith on night being at danill wescots house catern branch being in on of her fits i sate doen by ye bed side next to her she then calling ernestly upon goody clason goody clason seueral times now goody clason turn heels ouer head after this she had a violent fit and calling again said now they are agoing to kill me & crieing out very loud that they pincht her on ye neck and calling out yt they pincht her again i setting by her i took ye light and look upon her neck & i see a spot look red seeming to me as big as a pece of eight afterwards it turned blue & blacker then any other part of her skin and after ye second time of her calling i took ye light & looked again and she pointed with her hand lower upon her shoulder and i se another place upon her shoulder look red & blue as i saw upon the other place before and then after yt she had another fit. "stamford th august this aboue written testor is redy when called to giue oath to ye aboue written testimony. "hannah knapp testifieth the same to the above written and further adeth that shee saw scraches upon her; and is redy to give oth to it if called to it. "both the above sworn in court septr . attests john allyn, secry." samuel holly--_singular physiological transformations_ "the testimony of samuel holly senour aged aboute fifty years saith that hee being at ye house of danell wescot in ye euning i did see his maid cattern branch in her fit that shee did swell in her brests (as shee lay on her bed) and they rise as lik bladers and suddenly pased in to her bely, and in a short time returned to her brest and in a short time her breasts fell and a great ratling in her throat as if shee would haue been choked; all this i judge beyond nature. "danil wescot testifieth to ye same aboue written and further addith yt when she was in those fits ratling in her throat she would put out her tong to a great extent i consieue beyond nature & i put her tong into her mouth again & then i looked in her mouth & could se no tong but as if it were a lump of flesh down her throat and this ofen times. "the testors, as concerned are ready to giue oath to the above written testimony if called thereunto. "staford april "sworn in court septr . "attests john allyn, seer." "the testimony of daniell westcot aged about forty nine years saith that som time this spring since his maid catton branch had fits and with many other strange actions in her, i see her as shee lay on the bed at her length in her fit, and at once sprang up to the chamber flore withouts the helpe of her hands or feete; thats neere six feet and i judge it beyond nator for any person so to doe. "sworn in court sept . "attests john allyn secry." _inquiry and search--visions of the young accuser--the talking cat--the spread table--the strange woman--"silk hood and blew apron"--" firebrands in her forehead"--"a turn at heels ouer head"_ "stamford may ye th, . "uppon ye information & sorrowfull complainte of sergeant daniel wescot in regard of his maide servant katherine branch whome he suspects to be afflicted of witchcraft, under wch sore affliction she hath now labourd upwards of five weeks, & in that lamentable state yeat remains. in order to inquiry & search into (the) matter were then psent major nathan golde, capt. john burr, capt. jonothan selleck, lieutenant jonothan bell. "the manner of her being taken & handled. "being in ye feilds gathering of herbs, she was seizd with a pinching & pricking at her breast; she being come home fell a crying, was askd ye reason, gave no answer but wept & immediately fell down on ye flooer wth her hands claspt, & with like actions continued wth some respite at times ye space of two days, then sd she saw a cat, was asked what ye cat sd she answerd ye cat askd her to [go] with her, with a promise of fine things & yt if she should goe where there ware fine folks; & still was followed wth like fits, seeming to be much tormented, being askd again what she saw sd cats, & yt they toulde her they woulde kill her, & wth this menaceing disquieted her severall dayes; after yt she saw in ye roome where she lay a table spread wth variety of meats, & they askd her to eat & at ye table she saw tenn eating, this she positively affirmd when in her right minde, after this was exceeding much tormentted, her master askd her what was ye matter, because she as she sd in her fit run to sundry places to abscoude herselfe, she toulde him twas because she saw a cat coming to her wth a rat, to fling in her face, after yt she sd they toulde her they woulde kill her because she tould of it. these sort of actions continued about days, & then was extremely afflicted with fits in ye night, to ye number of about ty crying out a witch, a witch, her master runing to her askd her what was ye matter she sd she felt a hand. ye next week she saw as she sd a woman stand in ye house having on a silk hood & a blew apron, after that in ye evening being well composd going out of dooers run in again & caught her master abought ye middle, he askd her ye reason, she sd yt she meet an olde woman at ye dooer, with firebrands in her forehead, he askd her what kinde of clooths she had on, answered she had two homespun coats, one tuct up rounde her ye other down. the next day she namd a person calling her goody clauson, & sd there she is sitting on a reel, & again sd she saw her sit on ye pommel of a chair, saying ime sure you are a witch, elce you coulde not sit so & sd she saw this person before namd at times for a week together. one time she sd she saw her and describd her whole attire, her [master]? went immediately & saw ye woman namd exactly atird as she was describd of ye person afflicted. again she sd in her fits goody clauson lets haue a turn at heels ouer head, withall saying shall you goe first, or shall i. weel sd she if i do first you shall after, & wth yt she turnd ouer two or three times heels ouer head, & so lay down, saying come if you will not ile beat your head & ye wall together & haueing ended these words she goot up looking aboute ye house, & sd look shes gone, & so fell into a fit." lidia penoir--_"a lying gairl"_ "the testimony of lidia penoir. shee saith that shee heard her ant abigal wescot say that her seruant gairl catern branch was such a lying gairl that not any boddy could belieue one word what shee said and saith that shee heard her ant abigail wescot say that shee did not belieue that mearcy nor goody miller nor hannah nor any of these women whome shee had apeacht was any more witches then shee was and that her husband would belieue catern before he would belieue mr. bishop or leiftenat bell or herself. "the testor is ready to giue oath to sd testimony. standford, augt th ." elezer slawson--"_a woman for pease"--a good word_ "the testimony of elezer slawson aged year. "he saith yt he liued neare neighbour, to goodwife clawson many years & did allways observe her to be a woman for pease and to counsell for pease & when she hath had prouacations from her neighbours would answer & say we must liue in pease for we are naibours & would neuer to my obseruation giue threatning words nor did i look at her as one giuen to malice; & further saith not "eleazar slason. "clement buxstum. "the above written subscribers declared the aboue written & signed it with their own hands before me "jonothan bell comissionr." in closing the citations of testimony in the clawson case, other performances of catherine branch, the maid servant of daniel and abigail wescot, are given to emphasize the absurdities which found credence in the community and brought several women to the bar of justice, to answer to the charge of a capital offense. _an epileptic fit--muscular contortions--"talkeing to the appearances"--"hell fyre to all eternity"--a creature "with a great head & wings & noe boddy & all black"--songs and tunes--secular and scriptural recitations--" the lock of hayer"_ "june th . "sergt daniell wescott brought his mayd katheren branch to my house to be examined, which was dune as is within mentioned, & the sd katheren branch being dismised was gott about or rodd from my house, my indian girl runeing back sayinge sd kate was falen downe & looked black in the face soe my sonn john selleck & cousen dauid selleck went out & fecht her in, shee being in a stife fitt--& comeing out of that fitt fell a schrickeing, crying out you kill me, goody clawson you kill me, two or three times shee spoke it & her head was bent downe backwards allmost to her back; & sometimes her arme would be twisted round the sd kate cryeing out you break my arme & with many such fitts following, that two men could hardly prevent by all their strenth the breaking of her neck & arme, as was thought by all the standers by; & in this maner sd kate continued all the night, & neuer came to her sences but had som litell respitt betweene those terible fitts & then sd kate would be talkeing to the appearances & would answer them & ask questions of them to manny to be here inserted or remembered. they askt her to be as they were & then shee should be well & we herd sd kate saye i will not yeald to you for you are wiches & yor portion is hell fyre to all eternity & many such like expressions shee had; telling them that mr. bishop had often tould her that shee must not yield to them, & that that daye norwalk minister tould her the same therefore she sayd i hope god will keep me from yielding to you; sd kate sayd goody clawson why doe you torment me soe; i neuer did you any harme neather in word nor acction; sayeing why are you all come now to afflict me. katherine tould their names, saying goody clawson, mercy disbrow, goody miller, & a woman & a gail, five of you. then she sd kate spoke to the gail whom she caled sarah, & sayd is sarah staples your right name; i am aferd you tell me a lye; tell me your rite name; & soe uged it much; & then stoped & sayd, tell; yeas i must tell my master & capt. selleck if they aske me but ile tell noe body els. soe at last sd kate sayd, hanah haruy once or twice out is that your name why then did you tell me a lye before; well then sayd kate what is the womans name that comes with you; & soe stoped & then sayd tell yeas i must tell my master & capt. selleok if he askes me, but ile tell noeboddy els, & sayd you will not tell me then i will ask goody crumpe;& she sd gody crump what is the woemans name yt comes with hanah haruy; & so urged severall times, a then sd marry mary what, & then mary haruy; well sayd kate is mary haruy ye mother of hanah haruy; & then sayd now i know it seeming to reioyce, & saying hanah why did you not tell me before, sayeing their was more catts come at first & i shall know all your names; & kate sayd what creature is that with a great head & wings & noe boddy & all black, sayeing hanah is that your father; i believe it is for you are a wich; & sd kate sayd hanah what is yor fathers name; & have you noe grandfather & grandmother; how come you to be a witch & then stoped, & sd again a grandmother what is her name & then stoped, & sd goody staples what is her maiden name & then again fell into terrible fits which much affrighted the standers by, which were many pesons to behould & here what was sd & dune by kate. shee fell into a fitt singeing songes & then tunes as kate sd giges for them to daunce by each takeing their turns; then sd kate rehersed a great many verses, which are in some primers, & allsoe ye dialoge between christ ye yoong man & the dieull, the lords prayer, all the comand-ments & catechism, the creede & severall such good things, & then sayd, hanah i will say noe more; let me here you, & sayd why doe i say these things; you doe not loue them & a great deale more she sayd which i cannot well remember but what is aboue & on ye other syde was herd and seene by myselfe & others as i've attest to it. "jonahn selleck commissioner." "to add one thing more to my relation as is within of what i saw & herd, is that som persons atempted to cutt of a lock of the sd kates hayer, when shee was in her fitts but could not doe it, for allthough she knew not what was sayd & dune by them, & let them come neuer soe priuately behynd her to doe it yeat shee would at once turne about and preuent it; at last dauid waterbery tooks her in his armes to hould her by force; that a lock of hayer might be cutt; but though at other times a weake & light gail yeat shee was then soe stronge & soe extreame heauy that he could not deale with her, not her hayer could not be cutt; & kate cryeing out biterly, as if shee had bin beaten all ye time. when sd kate come to herself, was askt if she was wileing her hayer should be cutt; shee answered yeas--we might cutt all of it we would." elizabeth clawson was found not guilty. hugh (crosia, crosher) crohsaw a court of assistants holden at hartford, may th, . present. robert treat, esq. governor william joanes, esq. dept. govr. samuel willis, esq. \ william pitkin, esq. | col. john allyn | } assistants nath. stanly, esq. | caleb stanly, esq. | moses mansfield, esq. / gent. of the jury are: joseph bull, nathaneal loomis, joseph wadsworth, nathanael bowman, jonathan ashley, stephen chester, daniel heyden, samuell newell, abraham phelps, joseph north, john stoughton, thomas ward. and the names of the grand jury are: bartholomew barnard, joseph mygatt, william williams, john marsh, john pantry, joseph langton, william gibbons, stephen kelsey, cornelious gillett, samuel collins, james steele, jonathan loomis. * * * * * the indictment "hugh crotia, thou standest here presented by the name of hugh crotia of stratford in the colony of connecticutt, in new england; for that not haveing the fear of god before thine eyes, through the instigation of the devill, thou hast forsaken thy god, & covenanted with the devill, and by his help hast in a preternaturall way afflicted the bodys of sundry of his majestie's good subjects, for which according to the law of god, and the law of this colony, thou deservest to dye." _the arrest--satan the accessory--an alibi--the confession--a contract to serve the devil_ "fayrfield this novembor acording as is informed that hugh crosia is complained of by a gerll at stratford for aflicting her and hee being met on ye road going westward from fayrfeild hee being met by joseph stirg and danill bets of norwak and being brought back by them to athority in fayrfeild and on thare report to sd authority of sum confesion sd croshaw mad of such things as rendar him undar suspecion of familiarity with satan sd crosha being asked whethar he sayd he sent ye deuell to hold downe eben booths gerll ye gerll above intended hee answared hee did say so but hee was not thar himself hee answereth he lyed when he sayd he sent ye deuell as above. "sd hugh beeing asked whethar hee did not say hee had made a contract with ye deuell five years senc with his heart and signed to ye deuells book and then seald it with his bloud which contract was to serve ye deuell and the deuell to serve him he saith he did say so and sayd he ded so and wret his name and sealed ye contract with his bloud and that he had ever since been practising eivel against every man: hee also sayd ye deuell opned ye dore of eben booths hous made it fly open and ye gate fly open being asked how he could tell he sayd he deuell apeered to him like a boye and told him hee ded make them fly open and then ye boye went out of his sight. "this examination taken and confessed before authority in fairefeild before us testis the date above "jon. bur, assist "nathan gold, asist." "the grand jury upon consideration of this case re-turnd, ignoramus.... "this court do grant to the said hugh crotia a gaol delivery, he paying the master of the gaol his just fees and dues upon his release and also all the charge laid out on him at fairfield, & in bringing him to prison. elizabeth garlick in , when easthampton, long island, was within the jurisdiction of new york, becoming a few months later a part of connecticut, two persons came over from gardiner's island and settled in the colony, joshua garlick and elizabeth his wife--whilom servants of the famous engineer and colonist lion gardiner. stories of elizabeth's practice of witchcraft and other black arts followed her, and despite her attendance at church she fell under suspicion, and was arrested, and held by the magistrates for trial after hearing various witnesses. credulity offers no better illustrations than those which fell from the lips of some of the witnesses in this case. _tuning a psalm--a black thing--a double tongued woman--a doleful noise--burning the herbs--the sick child--gardiner's ox--the dead ram--burning "the sow's tale"_ goodwife howell, during her illness which hastened elizabeth's arrest, "tuned a psalm and screked out several times together very grievously," and cried "a witch! a witch! now are you come to torter me because i spoke two or three words against you," and also said, she saw a black thing at the beds featte, that garlick was double-tongued, pinched her with pins, and stood by the bed ready to tear her in pieces. and william russell, in a fit of insomnia or indigestion, before daybreak, "heard a very doleful noyse on ye backside of ye fire, like ye noyse of a great stone thrown down among a heap of stones." goody birdsall "declared y't she was in the house of goody simons when goody bishop came into the house with ye dockweed and between goody davis and goody simons they burned the herbs. farther, she said y't formerly dressing flax at goody davis's house, goody davis saith y't she had dressed her children in clean linen at the island, and goody garlick came in and said, 'how pretty the child doth look,' and so soon as she had spoken goody garlick said, 'the child is not well, for it groaneth,' and goody davis said her heart did rise, and goody davis said, when she took the child from goody garlick, she said she saw death in the face of it, & her child sickened presently upon it, and lay five daies and nights and never opened the eyes nor dried till it died. also she saith as she dothe remember goody davis told her upon some difference between mr. gardiner or some of his family, goodman garlick gave out some threateningse speeches, & suddenly after mr. gardiner had an ox legge broke upon ram island. moreover goody davis said that goody garlick was a naughtie woman." goody edwards testified: "y't as goody garlick owned, she sent to her daughter for a little best milk and she had some and presently after, her daughters milk went away as she thought and as she remembers the child sickened about y't time." goody hand deposed that "she had heard goody davis say that she hoped goody garlick would not come to eastharapton, because, she said, goody garlick was naughty, and there had many sad things befallen y'm at the island, as about ye child, and ye ox, as goody birdsall have declared, as also the negro child she said was taken away, as i understood by her words, in a strange manner, and also of a ram y't was dead, and this fell out quickly one after another, and also of a sow y't was fat and lustie and died. she said they did burn some of the sow's tale and presently goody garlick did come in." the settlers held a town meeting, and wisely questioning whether they had legal authority to hold a trial in a capital case, they appointed a committee to go "unto keniticut to carry up goodwife garlick yt she may be delivered up unto the authoritie there for the trial of the cause of witchcraft which she is suspected for." the general court of connecticut took jurisdiction of the case, a trial of goody garlick was held, resulting in her acquittal, and she was sent back to easthampton, to what end is not told in the records of the day. chapter x "this case is one of the most painful in the entire connecticut list, for she impresses one as the best woman; how the just and high minded old lady had excited hate or suspicion, we cannot know." _connecticut as a colony_ ( : ), morgan. "mr. dauenport gaue in as followeth--that mr. ludlow sitting with him and his wife alone, and discoursing of the passages concerning knapps wife, the witch and her execution, said that she came downe from the ladder (as he understood it), and desired to speak with him alone, and told him who was the witch spoken of." _new haven colonial record_ ( : ). "shortly after this, a poor simple minded woman living in fairfield, by the name of knap, was suspected of witchcraft. she was tried, condemned and sentenced to be hanged." schenck's _history of fairfield_ ( : ). "goodwife knap" this was one of the most notable of the witchcraft cases. it stands among the early instances of the infliction of the death penalty in connecticut; the victim was presumably a woman of good repute, and not a common scold, an outcast, or a harridan; it is singularly illustrative of witchcraft's activities and their grasp on the lives of the best men and women, of the beliefs that ruled the community, and of the crude and revolting practices resorted to in the punishments of the condemned, and especially since in its later developments it involved in controversy and litigation two of the great characters in colonial history, rev. john davenport, one of the founders of new haven, and roger ludlow, deputy governor of massachusetts and connecticut.[i] goodwife knapp of fairfield was "suspicioned." that was enough to set the villagers agog with talk and gossip and scandal about the unfortunate woman, which poisoned the wells of sober thought and charitable purpose, and swiftly ripened into a formal accusation and indictment. [footnote i: connecticut, through its commission of sculpture, in recognition of his services to the colony, is to erect a memorial statue to ludlow to occupy the western niche on the northern facade of the capitol building at hartford.] pending her trial the prisoner was committed to the house of correction or common jail for the safe keeping of "refractory persons" and criminals. what terrors of mind and spirit must have waited on this "simple minded" woman, in the cold, gloomy, and comfortless prison, probably built of rough logs, with a single barred window and massive iron studded door, a ghost haunted torture chamber, in charge of some harsh wardsmen. knapp was duly and truly tried, and sentenced to death by hanging, the usual mode of execution. _no witch was ever burned in new england._ from the day sentence was pronounced until the hanging took place, out in try's field beyond the indian field, in view of the villagers, whose curiosity or thirst for horrors or whose duty led them there, this prisoner of delusion was made the object of rudest treatment, espionage, and of inhuman attempts to wring from her lips a confession of her own guilt or an accusation against some other person as a witch. the very day of her condemnation, a self-constituted committee of women, with one man on it,--mistress thomas sherwood, goodwife odell, mistress pell, and her two daughters, goody lockwood, and goodwife purdy,--visited the prison, and pressed her to name any other witch in town, and so receive such consolation from the minister as would be for her soul's welfare. mistress pell seems to have been the chief spokeswoman, and each member of the committee served in some degree as an inquisitor, or exhorter, not to repentance, but to disclosures. baited and badgered, warned and threatened, the hapless prisoner protested she was innocent, denied the charges made against her, told one of the committee to "take heed the devile have not you," and also said, "i must not render evil for evil.... i have sins enough allready, and i will not add this [accusing another] to my condemnation." and at last in agony of soul she made that pathetic appeal to one of her relentless tormentors, "neuer, neuer poore creature was tempted as i am tempted, pray, pray for me." but even after death on the scaffold, the witch-hunters of the day did not refrain from their ghoulish work, but desecrated the remains of goodwife knapp at the grave side in their search for witch marks. all the facts during the imprisonment, execution and burial are set forth in some of the testimonies herewith given, in a chapter of related history (the evidence at the trial not being disclosed in any present record), and all of them marked by a total unconsciousness of their sinister and revolting character. no case in the history of the delusion in new england is more replete in incidents and apt illustrations, due to their fortunate preservation in the records of a lawsuit involving some of the prominent characters in that drama of religious insanity. at a magistrate's court held at new haven the th of may, . present. theophilus eaton esqr, gouernor. mr. stephen goodyeare, dept, gouernor. francis newman \ mr. william fowler } magistrats mr. william leete / a suit was heard entitled-- thomas staplies of fairfield, plant'. mr rogger ludlow late of fairfield, defendt. it was brought by an aggrieved husband to recover damages for defamation of the character of his wife. it centered in one of the dramatic incidents at knapp's execution. in the last extremity, and in the presence of immediate death, the prisoner came down from the ladder, and asking to speak with ludlow alone, told him that goodwife staplies was a witch. some time afterward ludlow, at new haven, told the rev. john davenport and his wife the story, in confidence, and under the promise of secrecy, but it spread abroad with inevitable accretions, and when it reached fairfield thomas staplies went to law, to vindicate his wife's character in pounds, shillings, and pence. these are some of the statements and remarkable testimonies: _attorney banke's declaration--ensigne bryan's answer--davenport's view of an oath, hebrews vi, --his account and conscientious scruples--mistress davenport's forgetfulness--"a tract of lying"--"indian gods"--luce pell and hester ward's visit to the prison--the "search" of knapp--"witches teates"--feminine resemblances--matronly opinions--post-mortem evidence-- contradictions--knapp's ordeal--"fished wthall in private"--her denials-- talk on the road to the "gallowes"_ "john bankes, atturny for thomas staplies, declared, that mr. ludlow had defamed thomas staplies wife, in reporting to mr. dauenport and mris. dauenport that she had laid herselfe vnder a new suspition of being a witch, that she had caused knapps wife to be new searched after she was hanged, and when she saw the teates, said if they were the markes of a witch, then she was one, or she had such markes; secondly, mr. ludlow said knapps wife told him that goodwife staplies was a witch; thirdly, that mr. ludlow hath slandered goodwife staplies in saying that she made a trade of lying, or went on in a tract of lying, &c. "ensigne bryan, atturny for mr. ludlow, desired the charge might bee proued, wch accordingly the plant' did, and first an attestation vnder master dauenports hand, conteyning the testimony of master and mistris dauenport, was presented and read; but the defendant desired what was testified and accepted for proofe might be vpon oath, vpon wch mr. dauenport gaue in as followeth, that he hoped the former attestation hee wrott and sent to the court, being compared wth mr. ludlowes letter, and mr. dauenports answer, would haue satisfyed concerning the truth of the pticulars wthout his oath, but seeing mr. ludlowes atturny will not be so satisfyed, and therefore the court requires his oath, and yt he lookes at an oath, in a case of necessitie, for confirmation of truth, to end strife among men, as an ordinance of god, according to heb: , , hee therevpon declares as followeth, "that mr. ludlow, sitting wth him & his wife alone, and discoursing of the passages concerning knapps wife the witch, and her execution, said that she came downe from the ladder, (as he vnderstood it,) and desired to speake wth him alone, and told him who was the witch spoken of; and so fair as he remembers, he or his wife asked him who it was; he said she named goodwife stapleies; mr. dauenport replyed that hee beleeued it was vtterly vntrue and spoken out of malice, or to that purpose; mr. ludlow answered that he hoped better of her, but said she was a foolish woman, and then told them a further storey, how she tumbled the corpes of the witch vp & downe after her death, before sundrie women, and spake to this effect, if these be the markes of a witch i am one, or i haue such markes. mr. dauenport vtterly disliked the speech, not haueing heard anything from others in that pticular, either for her or against her, and supposing mr. ludlow spake it vpon such intelligenc as satisfyed him; and whereas mr. ludlow saith he required and they promised secrecy, he doth not remember that either he required or they pmised it, and he doth rather beleeue the contrary, both because he told them that some did ouerheare what the witch said to him, and either had or would spread it abroad, and because he is carefull not to make vnlawfull promises, and when he hath made a lawfull promise he is, through the help of christ, carefull to keepe it. "mris. dauenport saith, that mr. ludlow being at their house, and speakeing aboute the execution of knapps wife, (he being free in his speech,) was telling seuerall passages of her, and to the best of her remembrance said that knapps wife came downe from the ladder to speake wth him, and told him that goodwife staplyes was a witch, and that mr. daueport replyed something on behalfe of goodwife staplies, but the words she remembers not; and something mr. ludlow spake, as some did or might ouer-heare what she said to him, or words to that effect, and that she tumbled the dead body of knapps wife vp & downe and spake words to this purpose, that if these be the markes of a witch she was one, or had such markes; and concerning any promise of secrecy she remembers not." "mr. dauenport and mris. dauenport affirmed ypon oath, that the testimonies before written, as they properly belong to each, is the truth, according to their best knowledg & memory. "mr. dauenport desired that in takeing his oath to be thus vnderstood, that as he takes his oath to giue satisfaction to the court and mr. ludlowes atturny, in the matters attested betwixt m' ludlow & thomas staplies, so he lymits his oath onely to that pt and not to ye preface or conclusion, they being no pt of the attestation and so his oath not required in them. "to the latter pt of the declaration, the plant' pduced ye proofe following, "goodwif sherwood of fairfeild affirmeth vpon oath, that vpon some debate betwixt mr. ludlow and goodwife staplies, she heard m' ludlow charge goodwif staplies wth a tract of lying, and that in discourse she had heard him so charge her seuerall times. "john tompson of fairfeild testifyeth vpon oath, that in discourse he hath heard mr. ludlow express himselfe more then once that goodwife staplies went on in a tract of lying, and when goodwife staplyes hath desired mr. ludlow to convince her of telling one lye, he said she need not say so, for she went on in a tract of lying. "goodwife gould of fairefeild testifyeth vpon oath, that in a debate in ye church wth mr. ludlow, goodwife staplyes desired him to show her wherein she had told one lye, but mr. ludlow said she need not mention ptculars, for she had gon on in a tract of lying. "ensigne bryan was told, he sees how the plantife hath proued his charge, to wch he might now answer; wherevpon he presented seuerall testimonies in wrighting vpon oath, taken before mr. wells and mr. ludlow. "may the thirteenth, . "hester ward, wife of andrew ward, being sworne deposeth, that aboute a day after that goodwife knapp was condemned for a witch, she goeing to ye prison house where the said knapp was kept, she, ye said knapp, voluntarily, wthout any occasion giuen her, said that goodwife staplyes told her, the said knapp, that an indian brought vnto her, the said staplyes, two litle things brighter then the light of the day, and told the said goodwife staplyes they were indian gods, as the indian called ym; and the indian wthall told her, the said staplyes, if she would keepe them, she would be so big rich, all one god, and that the said staplyes told the said knapp, she gaue them again to the said indian, but she could not tell whether she did so or no. "luce pell, the wife of thomas pell, being sworne deposeth as followeth, that aboute a day after goodwife knapp was condemned for a witch, mris. jones earnestly intreated her to goe to ye said knapp, who had sent for her, and then this deponent called the said hester ward, and they went together; then the said knapp voluntarily, of her owne accord, spake as the said hester ward hath testifyed, word by word; and the said mris. pell further saith, that she being one of ye women that was required by the court to search the said knapp before she was condemned, & then mris. jones presed her, the said knapp, to confess whether ther were any other that were witches, because goodwife goodwife basset, when she was condemned, said there was another witch in fairefeild that held her head full high, and then the said goodwife knapp stepped a litle aside, and told her, this deponent, goodwife basset ment not her; she asked her whom she ment, and she named goodwife staplyes, and then vttered the same speeches as formerly conerning ye indian gods, and that goodwife staplyes her sister martha told the said goodwife knapp, that her sister staplyes stood by her, by the fire in there house, and she called to her, sister, sister, and she would not answer, but she, the said martha, strucke at her and then she went away, and ye next day she asked her sister, and she said she was not there; and mris. ward doth also testify wth mris. pell, that the said knapp said the same to her; and the said mris. pell saith, that aboute two dayes after the search afforesaid, she went to ye said knapp in prison house, and the said knapp said to her, i told you a thing the other day, and goodman staplies had bine wth her and threatened her, that she had told some thing of his wife that would bring his wiues name in question, and this deponent she told no body of it but her husband, & she was much moued at it. "elizabeth brewster being sworne, deposeth and saith, that after goodwife knap was executed, as soone as she was cut downe, she, the said knapp, being caried to the graue side, goodwife staplyes wth some other women went to search the said knapp, concerning findeing out teats, and goodwife staplyes handled her verey much, and called to goodwife lockwood, and said, these were no witches teates, but such as she herselfe had, and other women might haue the same, wringing her hands and takeing ye lords name in her mouth, and said, will you say these were witches teates, they were not, and called vpon goodwife lockwood to come & see them; then this deponent desired goodwife odell to come & see, for she had bine vpon her oath when she found the teates, and she, this depont, desired the said odill to come and clere it to goodwife staplies; goodwife odill would not come; then the said staplies still called vpon goodwife lockwood to come, will you say these are witches teates, i, sayes the said staplies, haue such myselfe, and so haue you if you search yorselfe; goodwife lockwood replyed, if i had such, she would be hanged; would you, sayes staplies, yes, saith lockwood, and deserve it; and the said staplies handeled the said teates very much, and pulled them wth her fingers, and then goodwife odill came neere, and she, the said staplies, still questioning, the said odill told her no honest woman had such, and then all the women rebuking her and said they were witches teates, and the said staplies yeilded it. "mary brewster being sworn & deposed, saith as followeth, that she was present after the execution of ye said knapp, and she being brought to the graue side, she saw goodwife staplyes pull the teates that were found aboute goodwife knapp, and was verey earnest to know whether those were witches teates wch were found aboute her, the said knapp, wn the women searched her, and the said staplyes pulled them as though she would haue pulled them of, and prsently she, ths depont, went away, as hauing no desire to looke vpon them. "susan lockwood, wife of robert lockwood, being sworne & examined saith as foll, that she was at the execution of goodwife knapp that was hanged for a witch, and after the said knapp was cut downe and brought to the graue, goodwife staplyes, wth other women, looked after the teates that the women spake of appointed by the magistrats, and the said goodwife staplies was handling of her where the teates were, and the said staplies stood vp and called three or foure times and bid me come looke of them, & asked her whether she would say they were teates, and she made this answer, no matter whether there were teates or no, she had teates and confessed she was a witch, that was sufficient; if these be teates, here are no more teates then i myselfe haue, or any other women, or you either if you would search yor body; this depont saith she said, i know not what you haue, but for herselfe, if any finde any such things aboute me, i deserved to be hanged as she was, and yet afterward she, the said staplyes, stooped downe againe and handled her, ye said knapp, verey much, about ye place where the teates were, and seuerall of ye women cryed her downe, and said they were teates, and then she, the said staplyes, yeilded, & said verey like they might be teates. "thomas sheruington & christopher combstocke & goodwife baldwine were all together at the prison house where goodwife knapp was, and ye said goodwife baldwin asked her whether she, the said knapp, knew of any other, and she said there were some, or one, that had receiued indian gods that were very bright; the said baldwin asked her how she could tell, if she were not a witch herselfe, and she said the party told her so, and her husband was witnes to it; and to this they were all sworne & doe depose. "rebecka hull, wife of cornelius hull, being sworne & examined, deposeth & saith as followeth, that when goodwife knapp was goeing to execution, mr. ludlow, and her father mr. jones, pressing the said knapp to confess that she was a witch, vpon wch goodwife staplies said, why should she, the said knapp, confess that wch she was not, and after she, the said goodwife staplyes, had said so, on that stood by, why should she say so, she the said staplyes replyed, she made no doubt if she the said knapp were one, she would confess it. "deborah lockwood, of the age of or thereaboute, sworne & examined, saith as followeth, that she being present when goodwife knapp was goeing to execution, betweene tryes & the mill, she heard goodwife staplyes say to goodwife gould, she was pswaded goodwife knapp was no witch; goodwife gould said, sister staplyes, she is a witch, & hath confessed had had familiarity wth the deuill. staplies replyed, i was wth her yesterday, or last night, and she said no such thing as she heard. "aprill th, . "bethia brundish, of the age of sixteene or thereaboutes, maketh oath, as they were goeing to execution of goodwife knapp, who was condemned for a witch by the court & jury at fairfeild, there being present herselfe & deborah lockwood and sarah cable, she heard goodwife staplyes say, that she thought the said goodwife knapp was no witch, and goodwife gould presently reproued her for it." "witnes "andrew warde, "jurat' die & anno prdicto, "coram me, ro ludlowe. "the plant' replyed that he had seuerall other witnesses wch he thought would cleere the matters in question, if the court please to heare them, wch being granted, he first presented a testimony of goodwife whitlocke of fairfeild, vpon oath taken before mr. fowler at millford, the th of may, , wherein she saith, that concerning goodwife staplyes speeches at the execution of goodwife knapp, she being present & next to goody staplyes when they were goeing to put the dead corpes of goodwife knapp into the graue, seuerall women were looking for the markes of a witch vpon the dead body, and seuerall of the women said they could finde none, & this depont said, nor i; and she heard goodwife staplyes say, nor i; then came one that had searched the said witch, & shewed them the markes that were vpon her, and said what are these; and then this depont heard goodwife staplyes say she never saw such in all her life, and that she was pswaded that no honest woman had such things as those were; and the dead corps being then prsently put into the graue, goodwife staplyes & myselfe came imediately away together vnto the towne, from the place of execution. "goodwife barlow of fairfeild before the court did now testify vpon oath, that when knapps wife was hanged and ready to be buried, she desired to see the markes of a witch and spake to one of her neighbours to goe wth her, and they looked but found them not; then goodwife staplyes came to them, and one or two more, goodwife stapyleyes kneeled downe by them, and they all looked but found ym not, & said they saw nothing but what is comon to other women, but after they found them they all wondered, and goodwife staplyes in pticular, and said they neuer saw such things in their life before, so they went away. "the wife of john tompson of fairefeild testifyeth vpon oath, that goodwife whitlock, goodwife staplyes and herselfe, were at the graue and desired to see ye markes of the witch that was hanged, they looked but found them not at first, then the midwife came & shewed them, goodwife staplyes said she neuer saw such, and she beleeved no honest woman had such. "goodwife sherwood of fairefeild testifyeth vpon oath, that that day knapps wife was condemned for a witch, she was there to see her, all being gone forth but goodwife odill and her selfe, then their came in mris. pell and her two daughters, elizabeth & mary, goody lockwood and goodwife purdy; mris. pell told knapps wife she was sent to speake to her, to haue her confess that for wch she was condemned, and if she knew any other to be a witch to discover them, and told her, before she was condemned she might thinke it would be a meanes to take away her life, but now she must dye, and therefore she should discouer all, for though she and her family by the providence of god had brought in nothing against her, yet ther was many witnesses came in against her, and she was cast by the jury & godly magistrats hauing found her guilty, and that the last evidence cast the cause. so the next day she went in againe to see the witch wth other neighbours, there was mr. jones, mris. pell & her two daughters, mris. ward and goodwife lockwood, where she heard mris. pell desire knapps wife to lay open herselfe, and make way for the minister to doe her good; her daughter elizabeth bid her doe as the witch at the other towne did, that is, discouer all she knew to be witches. goodwife knapp said she must not say anything wch is not true, she must not wrong any body, and what had bine said to her in private, before she went out of the world, when she was vpon the ladder, she would reveale to mr. ludlow or ye minister. elizabeth bruster said, if you keepe it a litle longer till you come to the ladder, the diuill will haue you quick, if you reveale it not till then. good: knapp replyed, take heed the devile haue not you, for she could not tell how soone she might be her companyon, and added, the truth is you would haue me say that goodwife staplyes is a witch, but i haue sinns enough to answer for allready, and i hope i shall not add to my condemnation; i know nothing by goodwife staplyes, and i hope she is an honest woman. then goodwife lockwood said, goodwife knapp what ayle you; goodman lyon, i pray speake, did you heare vs name goodwif staplyes name since we came here; lyon wished her to haue a care what she said and not breed difference betwixt neighbours after she was gone; knapp replyed, goodman lyon hold yor tongue, you know not what i know, i haue ground for what i say, i haue bine fished wthall in private more then you are aware of; i apprehend goodwife staples hath done me some wrong in her testimony, but i must not render euill for euill. then this depont spake to goody knapp, wishing her to speake wth the jury, for she apprehended goodwife staplyes witnessed nothing contrary to other witnesses, and she supposed they would informe her that the last evidence did not cast ye cause; she replyed that she had bine told so wthin this halfe houre, & desired mr. jones and herselfe to stay and the rest to depart, that she might speake wth vs in private, and desired me to declare to mr. jones what they said against goodwife staplyes the day before, but she told her she heard not goodwife staplyes named, but she knew nothing of that nature; she desired her to declare her minde fully to m' jones, so she went away. "further this depont saith, that comeing into the house where the witch was kept, she found onely the wardsman and goodwife baldwine, there goodwife baldwin whispered her in the eare and said to her that goodwife knapp told her that a woman in ye towne was a witch and would be hanged wthin a twelue moneth, and would confess herselfe a witch and cleere her that she was none, and that she asked her how she knew she was a witch, and she told her she had reeived indian gods of an indian, wch are shining things, wch shine lighter then the day. then this depont asked goodwife knapp if she had said so, and she denyed it; goodwife baldwin affirmed she did, but knapps wife againe denyed it and said she knowes no woman in the towne that is a witch, nor any woman that hath received indian gods, but she said there was an indian at a womans house and offerred her a coople of shining things, but she woman neuer told her she tooke them, but was afraide and ran away, and she knowes not that the woman euer tooke them. goodwife desired this depont to goe out and speake wth the wardsmen; thomas shervington, who was one of them, said hee remembred not that knapps wife said a woman in the towne was a witch and would be hanged, but spake something of shining things, but kester, mr. pells man, being by said, but i remember; and as they were goeing to the graue, goodwife staplyes said, it was long before she could beleeve this poore woman was a witch, or that their were any witches, till the word of god convinced her, wch saith, thou shalt not suffer a witch to liue. "thomas lyon of fairfeild testifyeth vpon oath, taken before mr. fowler, the th may, , that he being set by authority to watch wth knapps wife, there came in mris. pell, mrs. ward, goodwife lockwood, and mris. pells two daughters; the fell into some discourse, that goodwife knapp should say to them in private wch goodwife knapp would not owne, but did seeme to be much troubled at them and said, the truth is you would haue me to say that goodwife staplyes is a witch; i haue sinnes enough allready, i will not add this to my condemnation, i know no such thing by her, i hope she is an honest woman; then goodwife lockwood caled to mee and asked whether they had named goodwife staplyes, so i spake to goodwife knapp to haue a care what she said, that she did not make differrence amongst her neighbours when she was gon, and i told her that i hoped they were her frends and desired her soules good, and not to accuse any out of envy, or to that effect; knapps wife said, goodman lyon hold yor tongue, you know not so much as i doe, you know not what hath bine said to me in private; and after they was gon, of her owne accord, betweene she & i, goody knapp said she knew nothing against goodwife staplyes of being a witch. "goodwife gould of fairfeild testifyeth vpon oath, that goodwife sherwood & herselfe came in to see the witch, there was one before had bine speaking aboute some suspicious words of one in the towne, this depont wished her if she knew anything vpon good ground she would declare it, if not, that she would take heede that the deuill pswaded her not to sow malicious seed to doe hurt when she was dead, yet wished her to speake the truth if she knew anything by any pson; she said she knew nothing but vpon suspicion by the rumours she heares; this depont told her she was now to dye, and therefore she should deale truly; she burst forth ito weeping and desired me to pray for her, and said i knew not how she was tempted; neuer, neuer poore creature was tempted as i am tempted, pray, pray for me. further this depont saith, as they were goeing to ye graue, mr. buckly, goodwife sherwood, goodwife staplye and myselfe, goodwife staplyes was next me, she said it was a good while before she could beleeue this woman was a witch, and that she could not beleue a good while that there were any witches, till she went to ye word of god, and then she was convinced, and as she remembers, goodwife stapleyes went along wth her all the way till they came at ye gallowes. further this deponent saith, that mr. jones some time since that knapps wife was condemned, did tell her, and that wth a very cherefull countenance & blessing god for it, that knapps wife had cleered one in ye towne, & said you know who i meane sister staplyes, blessed be god for it." staplies' wife was a character. she was "a light woman" from the night of her memorable ride with tom tash, to jemeaco, long island, to the suspicion of herself as a witch, and the "repairing" of her name by thomas' lawsuit, and her own indictment for familiarity with satan some years later. that she had many of the traditional witch qualities, and was something of a gymnast and hypnotist, is written in the vivid recollections of tash's experience with her. this was his account of it on oath thirty years after: "john tash aged about sixty four or thareabouts saith he being at master laueridges at newtown on long island aboutt thirty year since goodman owen and goody owin desired me to goe with thomas stapels wiffe of fairfield to jemeaco on long island to the hous of george woolsy and as we war going along we cam to a durty slow and thar the hors blundred in the slow and i mistrusted that she the said goody stapels was off the hors and i was troubiled in my mind very much soe as i cam back i thought i would tak better noatis how it was and when i cam to the slow abovesaid i put on the hors prity sharp and then i put my hand behind me and felt for her and she was not upon the hors and as soon as we war out of the slow she was on the hors behind me boath going and coming and when i cam home i told thes words to master leveredg that she was a light woman as i judged and i am redy to give oath to this when leagaly caled tharunto as witnes my hand. his "john+tash mark "grenwich july , . "john tash hath given oath to his testimony abovesaid "before me john renels comessener." and mistress staplies had other qualities, always potent in small communities to invite criticism and dislike. she was a shrewd and shrewish woman, impatient of some of the puritan social standards and of the laws of everyday life. she openly condemned certain common moralities, was reckless in criticism of her neighbors, and quarreled with ludlow about some church matters. it is evident from the testimonies that staplies was on both sides as to the guilt of goodwife knapp, and when rumor and suspicion began to point to herself as a mischief-maker and busybody in witchcraft matters, to divert attention from his wife and set a backfire to the sweep of public opinion, thomas sued ludlow, and despite his strong and clear defense as shown on the record evidence, the court in his absence awarded damages against him for defamation and for charging staplies' wife with going on "in a tract of lying," "in reparation of his wife's name" as the judgment reads. mistress staplies did not grow in grace, or in the graces of her neighbors, since some years later she was indicted for witchcraft, tried, and acquitted with others, at fairfield, in .[j] [footnote j: see _historical note_, p. .] chapter xi "the planters of new england were englishmen, not exempt from english prejudices in favor of english institutions, laws and usages ... they had not been taught to question the wisdom or the humanity of english criminal law. they were as unconscious of its barbarism, as were the parliaments which had enacted or the courts which dispensed it." _blue laws, true and false_ (p. ), j. hammond trumbull. "it would seem a marvellous panic, this that shook the rugged reasoners in its iron grasp, and led to such insanity as this displayed toward alse young, did we not know that it was but the result of a normal inhuman law confirmed by a belief in the divine, the direct legacy of england, the unquestionable utterance of church and state." _one blank of windsor_, annie eliot trumbull. this brief review of witchcraft in some of its historical aspects, of its spread to the new england colonies, of its rise and suppression in the connecticut towns, with the citations from the original records which admit no challenge of the facts, may be aptly closed by what is believed to be a complete list of the connecticut witchcraft cases, authenticated by conclusive evidence of time, place, incident, and circumstance. some minor questions may be put, or kept in controversy, as one writer or another, who regards history as a matter of opinion, not of fact, and relying on tradition or hearsay evidence or on superficial investigation, gives a place to guesswork instead of truth, to historical conceits instead of historical verities. a record of the men and women who came under suspicion or accusation of witchcraft in connecticut, and what befell them. herein are written the names of all persons in anywise involved in the witchcraft delusion in connecticut, with the consequences to them in indictments, trials, convictions, executions, or in banishment, exile, warnings, reprieves, or acquittals, so far as made known in any tradition, document, public or private record, to this time. mary johnson. windsor, . there is no documentary or other evidence to show that mary johnson was executed for witchcraft in windsor in . the charge rests on an entry in governor winthrop's _journal_, "one ---- of windsor arraigned and executed at hartford for a witch." winthrop's _history of new england_ (savage, : ). no importance would have attached to this statement, which bears no date and does not give the name or sex of the condemned, had not dr. savage in his annotations of the _journal_ ( : ) asserted that it was "the first instance of the delusion in new england," and without warrant added, "perhaps there was sense enough early in the colony to destroy the record." in all discussions of this matter, it has been assumed or conceded (in the absence of any positive proof), by such eminent critics and scholars as drake, fiske, poole, hoadley, stiles, and others, that winthrop's note was based on rumor or hearsay, or that it related to the later conviction and execution of a woman of the same name, next noted, and the errors as to person, time, and place might easily have been made. mary johnson. wethersfield, . this mary johnson left a definite record. it is written in broad lines in the dry-as-dust chronicles of the time. cotton mather embalmed the tragedy in his _magnalia_. "there was one mary johnson tryd at hartford in this countrey, upon an indictment of 'familiarity with the devil,' and was found guilty thereof, chiefly upon her own confession." "and she dyd in a frame extreamly to the satisfaction of them that were spectators of it." _magnalia christi americana_ ( : ). at a session of the particular court held in hartford, august , , mary johnson for thievery was sentenced to be presently whipped, and to be brought forth a month hence at wethersfield, and there whipped. the whipping post, even in those days, did not prove a means to repentance and reformation, since at a session of the same court, december , , the jury found a bill of indictment against mary johnson, that by her own confession she was guilty of familiarity with the devil. that she was condemned and executed seems certain (it being assumed that mary and elizabeth johnson were one and the same person, both christian names appearing in the record), since at a session of the general court, may , , the prison-keeper's charges for her imprisonment were allowed and ordered paid "out of her estate." a pathetic incident attaches to this case. a child to this poor woman was "borne in the prison," who was bound out until he became twenty-one years of age, to nathaniel rescew, to whom £ were paid according to the mother's promise to him, he having engaged himself "to meinteine and well educate her sonne." _colonial records of connecticut_ (i, : : - - - ). the first execution for witchcraft in new england _a secret long kept made known--winthrop's journal entry probably correct--tradition and surmise make place for historical certainty--the evidence of an eyewitness--a notable service._ alse young. windsor, . "may . alse young was hanged." matthew grant's _diary_. "the first entry (the executions of carrington and his wife being next mentioned) supplies the name of the 'one (blank) of windsor arraigned and executed at hartford for a witch'--the first known execution for witchcraft in new england. i have found no mention elsewhere of this alse young." j. hammond trumbull's _observation on grant's entry_. "who then was the 'witch' with whose execution connecticut stepped into the dark shadow of persecution? she has been called mary johnson, but no mary johnson has been identified as this earliest victim. whose is that pathetic figure shrinking in the twilight of that early record? we could think of her with no less kindly compassion could we give a name to the unhappy victim of the misread word of god, who was led forth to a death stripped of dignity as of consolation: who to an ignorance and credulity, brought from an old world and not yet sifted out by the enlightenment and experience of a new, yielded up her perhaps miserable but unforfeited life. here is the note which in all probability establishes the identity of the one of windsor arraigned and executed as a witch--'may , alse young was hanged.'" _"one blank" of windsor_ (courant literary section, , , ), annie eliot trumbull. matthew grant came over with the dorchester men from the bay colony in , and settled in windsor, connecticut, where he lived until his death there in . he was a land surveyor, and the town clerk, a close observer of men and their public and private affairs, and kept a careful record of current events in a "crabbed, eccentric but by no means entirely illegible hand" during the long years of his sojourn in the "lord's waste." it has been surmised for several years--but without confirmation--and credited by the highest authorities in connecticut colonial history, and known only to one of them, that grant's manuscript diary contained the significant historical note as to the fate of alse young. it waited two centuries and more for its true interpreter, as did wolcott's cipher notes of hooker's famous sermon, and there it is, "not made on the decorous pages which memorize the saints," brookes, hooker, warham, reyner, hanford, and huit, "but scrawled on the inside of the cover, where it might be the sinner might escape detection." in the publication of grant's note miss trumbull has rendered a great service in the settlement of a disputed question, in the correction of errors, in fixing the priority of the outbreak between massachusetts and connecticut; and in the new light shining through this revelation stands alse, glorified with the qualities of youth, of gentleness, of innocence; and the story of her going to the unholy sacrifice on that fateful may morning more than two and a half centuries ago is told with exquisite tenderness and pathos. confirmation of the truth of grant's entry is given by the scholarly historian of windsor, dr. stiles, who says in his history of that ancient town: "we know that a john youngs, [?] bought land in windsor of william hubbard in --which he sold in --and thereafter disappears from record. he may have been the husband or father of 'achsah'[?] the witch; if so, it would be most natural that he and his family should leave windsor." stiles' _history of windsor_ (pp. - ). john and joan carrington. wethersfield, . they were indicted at a court held february , , governor john haynes and edward hopkins being present, with other magistrates; and they were found guilty on march , . both were executed. _records particular court_ ( : ). [dr. hoadley's note in this case: "mr. trumbull (dr. j. hammond trumbull) told me he had a record of execution in these cases. i suppose he referred to the diary of matthew grant."] the entry of the execution appears in grant's _diary_, after the note as to alse young. _one blank of windsor_, trumbull. lydia gilbert. windsor, . october , , henry stiles of windsor was killed by the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of thomas allyn, also of windsor. an inquest was held, and thomas was indicted in the following december. he plead guilty, and at the trial the jury found the fact to be "homicide by misadventure." thomas was fined £ for his "sinful neglect and careless carriage," and put under a bond of £ , for good behavior for a year. _records particular court_ ( : - ). but witchcraft was abroad, and its tools and emissaries more than two years afterwards fastened suspicion of this death by clear accident, on lydia gilbert, it being charged that "thou hast of late years, or still dost give entertainment to sathan ... and by his helpe hast killed the body of henry styles, besides other witchcrafts." she was indicted and tried in september or november, , and "ye party above mentioned is found guilty of witchcraft by ye jury." her fate is not written in any known record, but the late honorable s.o. griswold, a recognized authority on early colonial history in windsor, says that as the result of a close examination of the record, "i think the reasonable probability is that she was hanged." _records particular court_ ( : ); stile's _history of windsor_ (pp. , - ). goody bassett. stratford, . executed. "the gouernor, mr. cullick, and mr. clarke are desired to goe downe to stratford to keepe courte uppon the tryall of goody bassett for her life"--may, . "because goodwife bassett when she was condemned" (probably on her own confession, as in the greensmith case). _colonial records of connecticut_ ( : ); _new haven colonial records_ ( : - ). goodwife knapp. fairfield, . executed. "after goodwife knapp was executed, as soon as she was cut downe." _new haven colonial records_ ( : ). full account in previous chapter. elizabeth godman. new haven, . acquitted. elizabeth was released from prison september , , with a reprimand and warning by the court. _new haven town records_ ( : , ); _new haven colonial records_ ( : , ). account in previous chapter. nicholas bayley and wife. new haven, . acquitted. nicholas and his wife, after several appearances in court on account of a suspicion of witchcraft, and for various other offenses--among them, lying and filthy speeches by the wife--were advised to remove from the colony. they took the advice. william meaker. new haven, . accused acquitted. thomas mullener was always in trouble. he was a chronic litigant. his many contentions are noted at length in the court records. among other things he made up his mind that his pigs were bewitched, so "he did cut of the tayle and eare of one and threw into the fire," "said it was a meanes used in england by some people to finde out witches," and in the light of this porcine sacrifice he charged his neighbor william meaker with the bewitching. meaker promptly brought an action of defamation, but mullener became involved in other controversies and "miscarriages," to the degree that he was advised to remove out of the place, and put under bonds for good behavior; and meaker, probably feeling himself vindicated, dropped his suit. _new haven colonial records_ ( : ). elizabeth garlick. easthampton, . acquitted. _records particular court_ ( : ); _colonial records of connecticut_ ( : ); stiles' _history of windsor_ (p. ). account in previous chapter. nicholas and margaret jennings. saybrook, . jury disagreed. the major part of the jury found nicholas guilty, but the rest only strongly suspected him, and as to margaret, some found her guilty, and the others suspected her to be guilty. it is probable that the jennings were under inquiry when, at a session of the general court at hartford, june , , it was recorded that "mr. willis is requested to goe downe to sea brook, to assist ye maior in examininge the suspitions about witchery, and to act therin as may be requisite." _records particular court_ ( : - ); _colonial records of connecticut_ ( : ). - was a notable year in the history of witchcraft in connecticut. it marked the last execution for the crime within the commonwealth, and thirty years before the outbreak at salem. nathaniel greensmith and rebecca his wife. hartford, . both executed. account in previous chapter. _records particular court_ ( : ); _memorial history hartford county_ ( : ); _connecticut magazine_ (november , pp. - ). mary sanford. hartford, . convicted june , . executed. _records particular court_ ( : - ); hoadley's _record witchcraft trials_. andrew sanford. hartford, . no indictment. _records particular court_ ( : - ); hoadley's _record witchcraft trials_. judith varlett (varleth). hartford, . arrested; released. it will be recalled that rebecca greensmith in her confession, among other things, said that mrs. judith varlett told her that she (varlett) "was much troubled wth ye marshall jonath: gilbert & cried, & she sayd if it lay in her power she would doe him a mischief, or what hurt shee could." judith must have indulged in other indiscretions of association or of speech, since she soon fell under suspicion of witchcraft, and was put under arrest and imprisoned. but she had a powerful friend at court (who, despite his many contentions and intrigues, commanded the attention of the connecticut authorities), in the person of her brother-in-law peter stuyvesant, then bearing the title and office of "captain general and commander-in-chief of amsterdam in new netherland, now called new york, and the dutch west india islands." it was doubtless due to his intercession in a letter of october , , that she was released. the letter: "to the honorable deputy governour & court of "magistracy att harafort. (oct. ) "honoured and worthy srs.-- "by this occasion of me brother in lawe (beinge necessitated to make a second voyage for ayde his distressed sister judith varleth jmprisoned as we are jmformed, uppon pretend accusation of wicherye we realy beleeve and out her wel known education life conversation & profession of faith, wee dear assure that shee is jnnocent of such a horrible crimen, & wherefor j doubt not hee will now, as formerly finde jour dhonnours favour and ayde for the jnnocent). _ye ld stephesons letter_ (c.b. : doc. ). mary barnes. farmington, . convicted january . probably executed. _records particular court_ ( : ). william ayres and goody ayres his wife. hartford, . arrested. fled from the colony. elizabeth seager. hartford, . convicted; discharged. goody seager probably deserved all that came to her in trials and punishment. she was one of the typical characters in the early communities upon whom distrust and dislike and suspicion inevitably fell. exercising witch powers was one of her more reputable qualities. she was indicted for blasphemy, adultery, and witchcraft at various times, was convicted of adultery, and found guilty of witchcraft in june, . she owed her escape from hanging to a finding of the court of assistants that the jury's verdict did not legally answer to the indictment, and she was set "free from further suffering or imprisonment." _records county court_ ( : : ); _colonial records of connecticut_ ( : ); _rhode island colonial records_ ( : ). james walkley. hartford, . arrested. fled to rhode island. katherine harrison. wethersfield, . convicted; discharged. see account in previous chapter. _records court of, assistants_ (i, - ); _colonial records of connecticut_ ( : , ); _doc. history new york_ ( th ed., : ). nicholas desborough. hartford, . suspicioned. desborough was a landowner in hartford, having received a grant of fifty acres for his services in the pequot war. he owes his enrollment in the hall of fame to cotton mather, who was so self-satisfied with his efforts in "relating the wonders of the invisible world in preternatural occurrences" that in his pedantic exuberance he put in a learned sub-title: "miranda cano, sed sunt credenda" (the themes i sing are marvelous, yet true). fourteen examples were chosen for the "thaumatographia pneumatica," as "remarkable histories" of molestations from evil spirits, and mather said of them, "that no reasonable man in this whole country ever did question them." desborough stands in place as the "fourth example." no case more clearly illustrates the credulity that neutralized common sense in strong men. it was a case of abstraction, or theft, or mistaken thrift. a "chest of cloaths" was missing. the owner, instead of going to law, found his remedy "in things beyond the course of nature," and he and his friends with "nimble hands" pelted desborough's house, and himself when abroad, with stones, turves, and corncobs, and finally some of his property was burned by a fire "in an unknown way kindled." is it not enough to note that mather closes this wondrous tale of the spiritual molestations with the very human explanation that "upon the restoring of the cloaths, the trouble ceased"? elizabeth clawson. fairfield, . acquitted. account in previous chapter. mary and hannah harvey. fairfield, . jury found no bill. goody miller. fairfield, . acquitted. mary staplies. fairfield, . jury found no bill. account in previous chapter. mercy disborough. fairfield, . convicted; reprieved. account in previous chapter. hugh crotia. stratford, . jury found no bill. account in previous chapter. _c. & d._ (vol. i, ). winifred benham senior and junior. wallingford, . acquitted. they were mother and daughter (twelve or thirteen years old), tried at hartford and acquitted in august, ; indicted on new complaints in october, , but the jury returned on the bill, "ignoramus." _records court of assistants_ ( : , ). sarah spencer. colchester, . accused. damages s. even a certificate of the minister as to her religion and virtue, could not free sarah from a reputation as a witch. and when elizabeth (and how many connecticut witches bore that name) ackley accused her of "riding and pinching," and james ackley, her husband, made threats, sarah sued them for a fortune in those days, £ damages, and got judgment for £ , with costs. the ackleys appealed, and at the trial the jury awarded sarah damages of ls., and also stated that they found the ackleys not insane--a clear demonstration that the mental condition of witchcraft accusers was taken account of in the later and saner times. norton. bristol, . suspicioned. no record. "on the mountain," probably fall mountain in bristol, the antics of a young woman named norton, who accused her aunt of putting a bridle on her and driving her through the air to witch meetings in albany, caused a commotion among the virtuous people. deacon dutton's ox was torn apart by an invisible agent, and unseen hands brought new ailments to the residents there, pinched them and stuck red hot pins into them. elder wildman set out to exorcise the evil spirit, but became so terrorized that he called for help, and one of his posse of assistants was scared into convulsions. this case may be counted among the last, perhaps the last traditions of the strange delusion which aforetime filled the hills and valleys of quohnectacut with its baleful light. _memorial history hartford county_ ( : ). roll of names alse young mary johnson john carrington - joan carrington - goody bassett goodwife knapp lydia gilbert elizabeth godman nicholas bayly goodwife bayly william meaker elizabeth garlick nicholas jennings margaret jennings nathaniel greensmith rebecca greensmith mary sanford andrew sanford goody ayres katherine palmer judith varlett james walkley mary barnes - elizabeth seager katherine harrison nicholas disborough mary staplies mercy disborough elizabeth clawson mary harvey hannah harvey goody miller hugh crotia winifred benham, senr. winifred benham, junr. sarah spencer ---- norton what of those men and women to whom justice in their time was meted out, in this age of reason, of religious enlightenment, liberty, and catholicity, when witchcraft has lost its mystery and power, when intelligence reigns, and the devil works his will in other devious ways and in a more attractive guise? they were the victims of delusion, not of dishonor, of a perverted theology fed by moral aberrations, of a fanaticism which never stopped to reason, and halted at no sacrifice to do god's service; and they were all done to death, or harried into exile, disgrace, or social ostracism, through a mistaken sense of religious duty: but they stand innocent of deep offense and only guilty in the eye of the law written in the word of god, as interpreted and enforced by the forefathers who wrought their condemnation, and whose religion made witchcraft a heinous sin, and whose law made it a heinous crime. is the contrast in human experience, between the servitude to credulity and superstition in - and the deliverance from it of this day, any wider than between the ironclad theology of that and of later times, and the challenge to it, and its diabolical logic, of yesterday, which marks a new era in denominational creeds, in religious beliefs, and their expression? jonathan edwards, in his famous sermon at enfield in , on "sinners in the hands of an angry god," was inspired to say to the impenitent: "the god that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath toward you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are , times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.... instead of one how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell! and it would be a wonder if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time--before this year is out. and it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here in some seats of this meeting-house, in health and quiet, and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning." one hundred and sixty-three years later, rev. dr. samuel t. carter, a godly minister of the same faith, "a heretic who is no heretic," stood before the presbytery of nassau, was invited to remain in the presbyterian communion, and yet said this of the doctrine of edwards, as written in the _westminster confession_: "in god's name and christ's name it is not true. there is no such god as the god of the confession. there is no such world as the world of the confession. there is no such eternity as the eternity of the confession.... this world so full of flowers and sunshine and the laughter of children is not a cursed lost world, and the 'endless torment' of the confession is not god's, nor christ's, nor the bible's idea of future punishment." what should constitute the true faith of a christian, and set him apart from his fellowmen in duties and observances, was one of the crucial questions in the everyday life of the early new england colonists, and the hanging and discipline of witches was one of its necessary incidents. it was the same spirit of intolerance and of religious animosity that was written in the treatment of the quakers and baptists at boston; in the experience of roger williams and anne hutchinson; and of "the rogerenes" in connecticut, for "profanation of the sabbath," told in a chapter of forgotten history. in the sunlight of the later revelation, is not the present judgment of the men and women of those far off times, "when the wheel of prayer was in perpetual motion," when fear and superstition and the wrath of an angry god ruled the strongest minds, truly interpreted in the solemn afterthoughts which the poet ascribes to the magistrate and minister at the grave of giles corey? hathorne "this is the potter's field. behold the fate of those who deal in witchcrafts, and when questioned, refuse to plead their guilt or innocence, and stubbornly drag death upon themselves. mather "those who lie buried in the potter's field will rise again as surely as ourselves that sleep in honored graves with epitaphs; and this poor man whom we have made a victim, hereafter will be counted as a martyr." _the new england tragedies._ historical note roger ludlow the connecticut historians to a very recent date, in ignorance of the facts, and despite his notable services of twenty-four years to the colonies, left ludlow to die in obscurity in virginia or elsewhere, and some of the traditions, based on no record or other evidence, have been recently repeated. it is therefore proper to state here in few words who ludlow was, what he did both in massachusetts and connecticut, and after his "return into england" in . ludlow came of an ancient english family, which gave to history in his own time and generation such illustrious kinsmen as sir henry ludlow, a member of the long parliament and one of the puritan leaders, and sir edmund ludlow, member of parliament, lieutenant-general under cromwell, member of the court at king charles' trial, and whom macaulay named "the most illustrious saviour of a mighty race of men, the judges of a king, the founders of a republic." in may, , ludlow came to massachusetts, as one of the assistants under the charter of "the governor and company of massachusetts bay in new england." his services in the bay colony from - ranged from the duties of a magistrate in the great charter court to those of the high office of deputy governor. the quality of that service is written in a bare statement of his various offices--surveyor, negotiator of the pequot treaty, colonel ex officio, auditor of governor winthrop's accounts, superintendent of fortifications, military commissioner, member of the general court, deputy governor when thomas dudley was governor; and he was always one of the foremost men in civil, political, and social affairs, to the day of his departure to "the valley of the long river,"--a day of good fortune for connecticut. when massachusetts established church membership as the condition of suffrage,--and radical differences of opinion on other matters arose,--it marked the culmination of a set purpose of some of her ablest men to remove from her jurisdiction, among whom hooker, ludlow, and haynes were the most notable. the general court created a commission to govern connecticut for a year, and made ludlow its chief. he came to the new land of promise with the dorchester men, and settled in windsor in - . what he did in the nineteen years of his residence at windsor and fairfield is epitomized in a brief summary of the duties and honors to which he was called by his fellowmen: chief of the massachusetts commission and the first governor, de facto; organizer and chief magistrate of the first court; writer of the earliest laws; president of the court which declared war against the pequots; framer of the fundamental orders--the constitution of --which embodied the great principles of government by the people propounded and elucidated by the illustrious thomas hooker, in his letter to governor winthrop, and in his famous sermon; compiler, at the request of the general court, of the _body of lawes_, the _code of _; commissioner on important state matters; commissioner for the united colonies; founder and defender of fairfield; patriot, jurist, statesman. ludlow left connecticut in , not to die in obscurity as the earlier writers imagined, but to serve abroad for several years in positions of honor and distinction. cromwell invited him to return, as he did many of the leading puritans in new england, and appointed him a commissioner for the administration of justice in dublin; also to serve with the chief justice of the upper bench and other distinguished lawyers, to determine all the claims to the forfeited irish lands, and at last as a master in chancery. ten years ludlow served in these important stations; and at his death, probably in , he was buried in st. michael's churchyard in dublin, with his wife--a sister of governor john endicott--and other members of his family.[k] [footnote k: _roger ludlow--the colonial lawmaker_--taylor.] bibliographical note some of the authorities and records in witchcraft literature consulted in the writing of this essay are here cited for reference and information: connecticut archives: _wyllys papers, original witchcraft depositions_; records: _general court, particular court, court of assistants, county court, colonial boundaries, crimes and misdemeanors, connecticut colonial, new haven colonial, hartford probate, new haven town; magnolia christi americana_ (mather); matthew grant's _diary_ (trumbull's _observations_) _courant literary section_, - - ; hoadley's _witchcraft trials and notes_ (manuscript); winthrop's _history of new england_; stiles' _history of windsor; blue laws, true and false_ (trumbull); perkins' _discourse; the literature of witchcraft_ (burr); _hammurabi's code; cent. mag._, june, ; blackstone's _commentaries; a tale of the witches_ (stone); lecky's _rationalism in europe; the witch persecutions_ (burr); encyc. articles ("witchcraft"): _britannica, americana, international, chambers', johnson's; connecticut: origin of her courts and laws_ (hamersley); barber's _connecticut historical collections_; schenck's _fairfield; connecticut as a colony and state_ (morgan et al.); _the house of the seven gables_ (hawthorne); latimer's _salem_; johnston's _nathan hale; connecticut history_ (trumbull); upham's _salem witchcraft; conn. mag_., nov., ; dalton's _justice; mem. hist, of boston; mem. hist, of hartford county_; palfrey's _new england; historic towns of new england_ (latimer); _giles corey of the salem farms_ (longfellow); _new france and new england_ (fiske); scott's _demonology and witchcraft_; lowell's "witchcraft" (_among my books_); whitmore's _colonial laws_; drake's _witchcraft delusion in new england_; fowler's _salem witchcraft_; hutchinson's _hist, of massachusetts bay_; larned's _hist, of ready reference_ (mass.); howe's _puritan republic_; goodwin's _pilgrim republic_; merejkowski's _romance of leonardo da vinci_; bulwer's _last days of pompeii_; weyman's _the long night_; crockett's _the black douglas_; lea's _hist, of the inquisition; scarlet letter_ (hawthorne); _a case of witchcraft in connecticut_ (hoadley); _witches in connecticut_ (bliss); _historical discourses_ (bacon); _history of wethersfield_ (stiles); _history of long island_ (thompson), _witchcraft in boston_ (poole); _literature of witchcraft in new england_ (winsor); _witchcraft and second sight in the scottish highlands_ (campbell); _witch-hunter in the bookshops_ (burr); _epidemic delusions_ (carpenter); _history of new england_ (neal); _history of colonization of u.s._ (bancroft); _salem witchcraft_ (fowler); bouvier's _law dic.; witchcraft in connecticut_ (livermore); _witchcraft in salem village_, (nevins); _history of stratford and bridgeport_ (orcutt); _bench and bar_ (adams); conway's _demonology and devil-lore; domestic and social life in colonial times_ (warner); _nat. mag._ nov. , . index a allyn, john , - , - , , , , , allyn, thomas ashley, jonathan austen, thomas ayres, goody , ayres, william b baldwin, goodwife , ball, allen bankes, john barlow, goodwife barlow, john barnard, bartholomew barnes, mary , bassett, goody , , bates, sarah bayley, goodwife , bayley, nicholas , belden, samuel bell, jonathan , - , , benham, winifred, jr. and sr. , benit, elizabeth , benit, thomas , benit, thomas, jr. birdsall, goody bishop, bridgett ix bishop, ebenezer bishop, edward ix bowman, nathanael bracy, thomas branch, catherine , - , - brewster, elizabeth brewster, mary brundish, bethia bryan, ensign , bulkeley, rev. gershom bull, joseph burr, abigail burr, john , burr, sarah buxstum, clement c carrington, joan , , , carrington, john vii, , , , carter, dr. samuel t. chester, stephen clarke, mr. , clarke, henry , , clarke, william clawson, elizabeth , , - , , clawson, stephen cole, ann collins, samuel comstock, christopher corey, giles , corwin, george ix corwin, jonathan cross, abigail cross, nathanael crotia, hugh viii, - , , cullick, mr. , , d davenport, rev. john , , - davis, goody desborough, nicholas , dickinson, joseph disborough, mercy , , - , , disborough, thomas , duning, benjamin e eaton, theophilus , edwards, goody edwards, jonathan eliot, joseph , f finch, abraham fowler, william , francis, joane fyler, walt. g gardiner, lion garlick, elizabeth - , , garlick, joshua garney, joseph garrett, daniel garrett, margaret gedney, bartholomew gibbons, william gilbert, lydia , gillett, cornelius godfree, ann godman, elizabeth - , , gold, nathan , goodyear, stephen - , , gould, goodwife grant, matthew - graves, john greensmith, nathaniel - , , greensmith, rebecca - , , grey, henry , , griswold, edward griswold, michael grummon, john h hale, mary halliberch, thomas hand, goody harrison, katherine - , , hart, stephen , harvey, hannah , , harvey, mary , hathorne, john haynes, john , , , heyden, daniel hollister, mr. holly, samuel hooker, thomas hopkins, edward , hopkins, matthew howard, abigail howell, goodwife hubbard, elizabeth ix hull, rebecca hull, cornelius j jennings, margaret , jennings, nicholas , jesop, edward joanes, william johnson, jacob johnson, mary , , , jones, martha jones, william judd, theo. k kecham, sarah kelsey, stephen knapp, goodwife , - , , l lamberton, desire lamberton, elizabeth , lamberton, hannah , langton, joseph leawis, will. leete, william , lewis, mercy ix lockwood, deborah lockwood, robert lockwood, susan , , , , loomis, jonathan loomis, nathanael ludlow, roger , - , - lyon, thomas , m mansfield, moses marsh, john mason, john mather, cotton - , meaker, william , migat, mrs. miller, goody , milton, daniel more, john montague, richard mullener, thomas mygatt, joseph n newell, samuel newton, thomas north, joseph norton , o odell, goodwife , , p palmer, katherine pantry, john pell, luce , , , penoir, lydia phelps, abraham phelps, mr. pitkin, william , pratt, daniel pratt, john purdy, goodwife , putnam, ann ix, r renels, john richards, john russel, william s saltonstall, nathl. sanford, andrew , sanford, mary , seager, elizabeth - , , selleck, david , selleck, jonathan , , , sergeant, peter sewall, samuel shervington, thomas , sherwood, isaac sherwood, mistress thomas , , , slawson, elezer smith, elizabeth smith, philip smith, samuel , , , , spencer, sarah , stanly, caleb stanly, nath. , staplies, mary - , , staplies, thomas , steele, james sterne, robert , stiles, henry stirg, joseph stoughton, john stoughton, william , ix t tailecote, mr. tash, john , tompson, j. , treat, robert , , trumbull, j. hammond v v varlett, judith , w wadsworth, joseph wakely, james wakeman, sarah walcott, mary ix walkley, james , ward, andrew ward, hester , ward, thomas webster, mr. wells, mr. , wells, hugh wescot, abigail , wescot, daniel - white, john whiting, rev. john , whitlock, goodwife wiat, nath. willard, josiah williams, abigail ix williams, william willis, samuel , wilson, hannah wilton, david winthrop, john , , winthrop, wait woodbridge, rev. timothy , woolcott, mr. y young, alse , - , once upon a time in connecticut by caroline clifford newton this book is dedicated to the school children of the state by the connecticut society of the colonial dames of america acknowledgments the colonial dames of connecticut, under whose auspices this book is published, desire to express their indebtedness to professor charles m. andrews, of yale university, who generously offered to supervise the work on its historical side. they also gratefully acknowledge help from many friends in the preparation of the volume. thanks are due to mrs. charles g. morris for criticism of the manuscript and to mr. george dudley seymour for advice in the selection of the illustrations. courtesies have been extended by the officials of the new haven free public library, of the connecticut historical society, and of the library of yale university. introduction it is a pleasure to write a few words of introduction to this collection of stories dealing with the early history of connecticut, a state that can justly point with pride to a past rich in features of life and government that have been influential in the making of the nation. yet the history of the colony was not dramatic, for its people lived quiet lives, little disturbed by quarrels among themselves or by serious difficulties with the world outside. the land was never thickly settled; few foreigners came into the colony; the towns were scattered rural communities largely independent of each other; the inhabitants, belonging to much the same class, were neither very rich nor very poor, their activities were mainly agricultural, and their habits of thought and ways of living were everywhere uniform throughout the colonial period. the colony was in a measure isolated, not only from england and english control, but also from the large colonial centers such as boston and new york, through which it communicated with the older civilization. connections with other colonies were neither frequent nor important. roads were poor, ferries dangerous, bridges few, and transportation even from town to town was difficult and slow. the importance of connecticut lay in the men that it nurtured and the forms of government that it established and preserved. few institutions from the old world had root in its soil. in their town meetings the people looked after local affairs; and matters of larger import they managed by means of the general assembly to which the towns sent representatives. they made, their own laws, which they administered in their own courts. their rules of justice, though sometimes peculiar, were the same for all. they did what they could to educate their children, to uphold good morals, to help the poor, and to increase the prosperity of the colony. though they could not entirely prevent england from interfering in their affairs, they succeeded in reducing her interference to a minimum and were well content to be let alone. yet when called upon to furnish men in time of war, they did so generously and, in the main, promptly. they became a vigorous, strong, determined community, and though unprogressive in agriculture, they were enterprising in trade and commerce, and in the opening up of new opportunities prepared the way for the later career of a progressive, highly organized manufacturing state. to the larger colonial world they furnished men and ideas that, during the period of revolution and constitution-making, played prominent parts in shaping the future of the united states of america. if this little volume gives to the children of connecticut a truer appreciation of the early history of the state in which they live, its purpose will have been achieved. a knowledge of connecticut's history, its men and the work they have accomplished, should arouse the devotion and loyalty of every connecticut boy and girl to the state and its welfare; and that it shall do so is the hope of those by whom this work has been projected and under whose auspices it has been published. charles m. andrews. contents i. the house of hope and the charter oak ii. two indian warriors iii. a harbor for ships iv. three judges v. the fort on the river vi. the frogs of windham vii. old wolf putnam viii. the bullet-makers of litchfield ix. newgate prison x. the dark day xi. a french camp in connecticut xii. nathan hale illustrations i. wadsworth hiding the charter ii. miantonomo's monument iii. medal commemorating the founding of new haven iv. the judges' cave on west rock v. the site of saybrook fort vi. the wyoming massacre vii. general putnam viii. king george the third ix. the ruins of newgate prison x. an old connecticut inn, xi. the marquis of lafayette xii. nathan hale once upon a time in connecticut the house of hope and the charter oak a great oak tree fell in the city of hartford on august , . the night had been wild and stormy; in the early morning a violent wind twisted and broke the hollow trunk about six feet above the ground, and the old oak that had stood for centuries was overthrown. all day long people came to look at it as it lay on the ground. its wood was carefully preserved and souvenirs were made from it: chairs, tables, boxes, picture-frames, wooden nutmegs, etc. one section of the trunk is to-day in the possession of the connecticut historical society. tradition says that this tree was standing, tall and vigorous, when the first english settlers reached hartford and began to clear the land; that the indians came to them then, as they were felling trees, and begged them to spare that one because it told them when to plant their corn. "when its leaves are the size of a mouse's ears," they said, "then is the time to put the seed in the ground." at sunset, on the day when it fell, the bells of hartford tolled and flags draped in mourning were displayed on the gnarled and broken trunk, for this tree was the charter oak, and its story is bound up with the story of the connecticut colony. about the year , five little ships set sail from holland on voyages for discovery and trade in the new world. they were the little fox, the nightingale, the tiger, and two called the fortune. the tiger was under the command of a bold sailor named adriaen block and he brought her across the ocean to new netherland, which is now new york. there was then a small dutch village of a few houses on manhattan island. while she was anchored off the island, the tiger took fire and burned. but block was not discouraged. he set to work at once and built another boat--one of the first built in america. she was feet, inches long by feet, inches wide, and he called her the restless. in the summer of he sailed her up the east river and out into long island sound where no white man had ever been before. he named both the bast river and the sound "hellegat," after a river in holland, and a narrow passage in the east river is still known as "hell-gate." block sailed along the low wooded shores of connecticut, past the mouth of the housatonic, which he named the "river of the red mountain," and reported it to be "about a bowshot wide," and by and by he came to a much larger stream emptying into the sound. this was the connecticut, and block turned and sailed up the river as far as the point where hartford now stands. he noticed that the tide did not flow far into this river and that the water near its mouth was fresh, so he called it the "fresh river." when the dutch in manhattan heard of this new country which he had discovered, they began a fur trade with the indians who lived there. in june, , they bought from the indians a strip of land on the river, one dutch mile in length by one third of a mile in width, and they paid for it with "one piece of duffel [that is, heavy cloth] twenty-seven ells long, six axes, six kettles, eighteen knives, one sword-blade, one pair of shears, some toys and a musket." on this land, which is now in the city of hartford, the first block-house in connecticut was built and was called the "house of hope." although two small cannon were mounted upon it the dutch said the place should be a peaceful trading-post only and free to all indians who came in peace. very soon after this little dutch fort of the house of hope was finished, lieutenant william holmes, from the plymouth colony, sailed up the river, and he and his men carried with them on their boat a frame house all ready to put together. the dutch challenged the plymouth boat as it passed their fort, but holmes paid no attention. he had been told by the governor of plymouth to go up the river and he went, and at the mouth of the farmington, where windsor is to-day, he set up the first frame house in connecticut and surrounded it with a palisade for protection. other englishmen from massachusetts bay, hearing of these new fertile lands and of friendly indians and a profitable fur trade, came overland, making their way through the wilderness. by and by their numbers were so great that the dutch were crowded out and driven away and connecticut was settled by the english. one of the most interesting parties of settlers who came from massachusetts to hartford was "mr. hooker's company." thomas hooker, the minister in cambridge, led one hundred members of his church overland to new homes in connecticut in june, . these people had come from england a few years before, hoping to find religious and political freedom in america, and, after a short stay in the massachusetts bay colony, they decided to remove to connecticut. their journey was made in warm weather, under sunny skies, with birds singing in the green woods. they traveled slowly, for there were women and little children with them, old people too, and some who were sick. mrs. hooker was carried all the way in a litter. they followed a path toward the west which by that time had probably become a well-marked trail. part of it, no doubt, led through deep forests. sometimes they passed indian villages. sometimes they forded streams. they drove with them a herd of one hundred and sixty cattle, letting them graze by the way. they had wagons and tents, and at night they camped, made fires, and milked the cows. there were berries to be picked along the edges of the meadows and clear springs to drink from, and the two weeks' journey must have been one long picnic to the children. when "hooker's company" arrived on the banks of the connecticut river, three little english settlements had already been made there. they were soon named hartford, windsor, and we(a)thersfield. these three settlements were the beginning of the connecticut colony. at first the people were under the government of massachusetts because massachusetts thought they were still within her borders. but before long it became necessary for them to organize a government of their own. they had brought no patent, or charter, with them from england, and so, finding themselves alone in the wilderness, separated by many long miles of forests from massachusetts bay, they determined to arrange their own affairs without reference to any outside authority. they set up a government on may , , and the next year, under the leadership of such men as thomas hooker, john haynes, who had once been governor of massachusetts bay, and roger ludlow, who had had some legal training, this government, made up of deputies from each of the three little settlements, drafted eleven "fundamental orders." these "fundamental orders" were not a written constitution, but a series of laws very much like those of the colonies of plymouth and massachusetts bay. there is a tradition that they were read to the people and adopted by them in the hartford meetihg-house on january , . connecticut continued under this form of government, which she had decided upon for herself, for more than twenty years--until after the civil war in england was over. then, when royalty was restored and charles the second became king, in , the people feared that they might lose something of the independence they had learned to love and value, and they sent their governor, john winthrop, to england to get from the king a charter to confirm their "privileges and liberties." winthrop was a man who had had a university education in england and the advantages of travel on the continent of europe. he had a good presence and courteous manners. best of all, he had powerful friends at court. there is a story that in an audience with the king he returned to him a ring which the king's father, charles the first, had given to winthrop's grandfather, and that the king was so pleased with this that he was willing to sign the charter winthrop asked for. whether this is true or not, the king did sign one of the most liberal charters granted to any colony in america. it gave the connecticut people power to elect their own governor and to make their own laws. this is the famous charter which is said to have been hidden later in the charter oak tree. two copies were made of it, and one of these governor winthrop sent home, september, , in an odd-shaped, leather-covered box. this box, which is lined with sheets from an old history of king charles the first and has a compartment at one side that once held the royal seal of green wax attached to the charter, can be seen to-day in the rooms of the connecticut historical society. when the people understood what a good charter they had received they were greatly pleased. the record of the general assembly for october , , says, "the patent or charter was this day publickly read to the freemen [that is, the voters] and declared to belong to them and to their successors"; and october was appointed a "thanksgiving day particularly for the great success god hath given to the endeavors of our honored governor in obtaining our charter of his majesty our sovereign." samuel wyllys, in front of whose home stood the oak tree which was afterward to become known as the "charter oak," was appointed one of the first keepers of the charter. for about a quarter of a century the government of connecticut was carried on under the charter. then king charles the second died, and his brother, the duke of york, became king. the advisers of the new king, james the second, wished to unite all the little scattered new england colonies under one strong government which should be able to resist not only indian attacks, but also attacks from the french on the north. so in , james sent over sir edmund andros, who had once been governor of new york, with a commission as governor of the dominion of new england. it was the duty of andros to take over the separate governments of the different colonies and to demand the surrender of their charters. but the people of new england did not like the new policy. each colony wished to preserve its independence; each wished to be left entirely free to manage its own affairs, yet each expected help from england against its enemies. england, on the other hand, felt that the isolation of these small colonies, their jealousy of one another and their frequent quarrels, were a source of weakness, and that a single strong government was necessary to preserve order, to encourage trade, and to secure defense. the plan of union, however, as has been said, was greatly disliked by the colonies, and connecticut sent a petition to the king praying that she might keep her privileges and her charter, and meanwhile she put off submission to the new governor as long as possible. at last, however, sir edmund andros wrote from boston to governor treat of connecticut that he would be "at hartford about the end of the next week." this was on october , . he left boston on the th. a record written at that time says, "his excellency with sundry of the council, justices and other gentlemen, four blue coats, two trumpeters, or red coats, with small guns and short lances in the tops of them, set forth in order to go to connecticut to assume the government of that place." he reached hartford on the st, having crossed the connecticut river by the ferry at wethersfield. "the troop of horse of that county conducted him honorably from the ferry through wethersfield up to hartford, where the train-bands of divers towns united to pay their respects at his coming" and to escort him to the tavern. governor andros had come from norwich since morning, a forty-mile ride over rough roads and across streams without bridges or ferries, and it was late when he arrived. the fall days were short and probably candles were already lighted in the court chamber where the assembly was in session. the connecticut magistrates knew something of sir edmund andros. twelve years before, while he was governor of new york, he had appeared at saybrook and demanded the surrender of the fort and town by order of the duke of york who claimed part of connecticut under his patent. the claim was not made good, for captain bull, who commanded at saybrook, raised the king's colors over the fort and forbade the reading of the duke's patent, and andros, not wishing to use force and pleased with this bold action although it was against himself, sailed away. now, however, the duke of york had become king of england with a new policy for the colonies, and andros was obeying the king's orders. he was a soldier who had served with distinction in the army and had held responsible positions. he was also a man used to courts as well as to camps, for as a boy he had been a page in the king's household and later was attached to the king's service. he must have presented a contrast in appearance and manner to the connecticut magistrates who so anxiously awaited his coming. when he entered the room he took the governor's seat and ordered the king's commission to be read, which appointed him governor of all new england. he then declared the old government to be dissolved and asked that the charter under which it had been carried on should be given up to him. the assembly was obliged to recognize his authority and to accept the new government; but a story of that famous meeting has been handed down in connecticut from one generation to another telling how the people contrived to keep their charter, the document they loved because it guaranteed their freedom. "the assembly sat late that night," says the story, "and the debate was long." when sir edmund andros asked for the charter it was brought in and laid on the table. then robert treat, who had been governor of connecticut, rose and began a speech. he told of the great expense and hardship the people had endured in planting the colony, of the blood and treasure they had expended in defending it against "savages and foreigners," and said it was "like giving up life now, to surrender the patent and privileges so dearly bought and so long enjoyed." suddenly, while he was speaking, all the candles went out. there was a moment of confusion; then some one brought a tinder-box and flint and the candles were relighted. the room was unchanged; the same number of people were there; but the table where the charter had lain was empty, for in that moment of darkness the charter had disappeared. no one knew who had taken it. no one could find it. no one saw the candles blown out. was it done on purpose, or did a door or a window fly open and a gust of the night wind put them out? it chanced that the night was allhallowe'en, when the old tales say that the witches and fairies and imps are abroad and busy. were any of them busy that night with connecticut's charter? "two men in the room, john talcott and nathaniel stanley, took the charter when the lights were out." so said governor roger wolcott long afterward. he was a boy nine years old at the time and had often heard the story. but these two men never left the room; they were members of the assembly; they could not carry off the charter. however, major talcott had a son-in-law, joseph wadsworth, and he was waiting outside,--so says another story. wadsworth was young and daring. the charter was passed out to him and he hid it under his cloak and made his way swiftly through the crowd that had gathered around the tavern and through the dim, deserted streets beyond, to where an old oak tree grew in front of the wyllys house. this tree had a hollow in its trunk and wadsworth slipped the charter into this safe hiding-place and left it there. houses might be searched, but no one would think of looking for a missing paper in the hidden heart of a hollow oak. and because the old tree proved a good guardian and gave shelter in a time of trouble to connecticut's charter it was known and honored later as the charter oak. [illustration: wadsworth hiding the charter from a bas-relief on the state capitol, hartford, conn.] we are not told what was said or done in the court chamber after the charter disappeared. the stories of that night are full of mystery and contradiction. perhaps, after all, no very serious search was made for it. perhaps its loss brought about a compromise between the two parties. for governor andros had already gained his object; he had taken over the government of connecticut, and the people had saved their pride because they had not surrendered their charter. the charter lay hidden for two years; not all that time in the oak tree, of course, but in some other safe place. one tradition says it was kept for a while in guilford in the house of andrew leete. at the end of two years there was a revolution in england, and william and mary came to the english throne. then the charter was taken out of its hiding-place--wherever that was--and government was at once resumed under the same old patent which had disappeared so mysteriously on that famous allhallowe'en night. in the memorial hall of the state library at hartford, under a glass shield, in a fireproof compartment built into the end wall of the room, there hangs to-day one of the two original copies of the connecticut charter. it is in a good state of preservation, its lettering is clear and distinct, and so is the portrait engraved upon it of king charles the second who gave it to governor john winthrop. a part of its present frame is made from the wood of the charter oak. the other copy, that is, what remains of it, can be seen in the box which is owned by the historical society. when, after the revolutionary war, the colony of connecticut became the state of connecticut, the charter of the colony was adopted without alteration as the state constitution. no change was made in it until . the old oak tree, known to indian legend and better known in connecticut's story, lived, honored and protected, until its fall in the great storm of august , . references . trumbull, benjamin. _history of connecticut_. maltby goldsmith & co. new haven, . . trumbull, j. hammond (editor). _memorial history of hartford county_. e. l. osgood. boston, . . andrews, charles m. "the river towns of connecticut," in _johns hopkins university studies_, vn, - , september, . baltimore, . . love, wm. de loss. _the colonial history of hartford_. hartford, . . love, wm. de loss. "hartford, the keeper of connecticut's charter," in _hartford in history_, willis j. twitchell (editor). hartford, . . bates, albert c. article on "charter oak" in _encyclopoedia americana_. . hoadly, charles j. _the hiding of the charter_. case, lockwood & brainard. hartford, . two indian warriors the two indian chiefs of whom we hear most in the early history of connecticut were uncas, sachem of the mohegans, and miantonomo, sachem of the narragansetts. a great indian battle called the "battle of the plain" took place once, near norwich, between these rival tribes led by these two rival chieftains. the mohegans were a part of the pequot tribe, and the pequots, or "gray foxes," were the fiercest, most cruel, and warlike of all the indians who roamed through the forests of connecticut before the english came. the white settlers soon had trouble with them, and when the pequot war, which was a war between the settlers and the indians, began, in , uncas came with some of his mohegan warriors and offered to guide the english troops through the woods to the pequot fort. now uncas was himself a pequot by birth and belonged to the royal family, and it seems strange that he should not take part with his own people. but not long before this he had rebelled against the chief sachem, sassacus, and had tried to make himself independent. "he grew proud and treacherous to the pequot sachem," says the old chronicle, "and the pequot sachem was very angry and sent up some soldiers and drove him out of his country." afterward, when "he humbled himself to the pequot sachem, he received permission to live in his own country again." but he was restless and dissatisfied. he was said to be of great size and very strong; he was brave too, and had a good deal of influence among the indians. the settlers needed his help, yet they were half afraid to trust him, knowing that he would be "faithful to them as the jackal is faithful to the lion, not because it loves the lion, but because it gains something by remaining in his company." before he would accept him as a guide, lieutenant lion gardiner, commander of the fort at saybrook, said to him, "you say you will help captain mason, but i will first see it; therefore send twenty men to bass river, for there went six indians there in a canoe, fetch them, dead or alive; and you shall go with mason or else you shall not." uncas went off with his men and found these indians. he killed four of them and brought back another as a prisoner, and the colonists, feeling more certain of his fidelity, took him with them on their expedition. miantonomo, the narragansett sachem, did not go himself, but he sent one hundred of his warriors, for he, too, hated the pequots, who had lately overrun the country and made themselves a terror to their neighbors. the narragansetts lived near them, just over the rhode island border. they were a larger tribe than the pequots and more peaceful and civilized, and their chief, miantonomo, was friendly to the english settlers and had been generous in his dealings with them. he and his uncle canonicus, who was at this time an old man over eighty, governed the narragansetts together and were on the best of terms with each other. "the old sachem will not be offended at what the young sachem doth," says the english record, "and the young sachem will not do what he conceives will displease his uncle." the pequot war was soon over, for the bows and arrows of the indians had no chance against the guns of the english. most of the pequot warriors were killed, their fort and wigwams were burned, and many of their women and children perished in the flames. it is a pitiful story, because the settlers felt it necessary for their own safety to put an end to the pequot tribe. the few poor pequots who escaped this terrible destruction were scattered among other tribes. the narragansetts took some, but more went to the mohegans because they were related to them. in this way the tribe of the mohegans grew larger and stronger and uncas became an important chief. he showed great skill in building up his tribe and he remained faithful to the english all through his life, while they, on their side, protected him as a reward for his services. as his power increased, however, his jealous and quarrelsome disposition showed itself more plainly, and the indians complained that "the english had made him high" and that he robbed and oppressed them. when the colonists demanded that he should give up to them any fugitive pequots who had murdered white settlers, uncas put off complying on one pretext or another, because he did not wish to weaken his tribe, which was still much smaller than that of the narragansetts. the year after the war he went to boston with thirty-seven of his warriors carrying a present of wampum for the governor. but the governor would not accept the present until uncas had given satisfaction about the pequots he was hiding. uncas seemed "much dejected" by this reception, and at first he denied that he had any pequots, but after two days he admitted the fact and promised to do whatever the council demanded. half an hour later he came to the governor and made the following speech. laying his hand on his breast, he said:-- "this heart is not mine, but yours; i have no men, they are all yours; command me any difficult thing, i will do it; i will not believe any indian's word against the english. if any man shall kill an englishman i will put him to death were he never so dear to me." the governor in response "gave him a fair red coat, and defrayed his and his men's diet, and gave them corn to relieve them homeward, and a letter of protection to all men, and he departed very joyful." uncas had now become a dangerous rival of miantonomo, and the jealousy between them soon grew so great that it threatened to break out in open war. in they were both called to hartford by the connecticut authorities to settle the differences between them. miantonomo obeyed this summons at once and set out with a great company, "a guard of upwards of one hundred and fifty men and many sachems and his wife and children," and traveled through the forests that lay between the villages of the narragansetts in rhode island and the english settlements in the connecticut valley. on the way he heard that the mohegans had planned to attack him, that they had laid an ambush for him, and had threatened to "boil him in a kettle." some indians of a friendly tribe met him and told him that a band of mohegans had fallen upon them and robbed them two days before, and had destroyed twenty-three fields of their corn. miantonomo had already come about halfway, and, after holding a council with his chiefs, he decided to push on. "no man shall turn back," he said; "we will all rather die." he reached hartford in safety, but uncas was not there. uncas had sent word by a messenger that he was lame and could not come. the governor of connecticut "observed that it was a lame excuse and sent for him to come without delay." so uncas decided that it was safer for him, on the whole, to get well quickly and to go to hartford. in the council that followed, each chieftain stated his grievances and made complaint against the other, and the english tried to reconcile them. at last a treaty of peace was signed, and then miantonomo stepped forward and held out his hand to uncas and invited him to a feast. but uncas would not eat with him, and the two chiefs parted no better friends than before. not long after this, miantonomo was accused of trying to unite all the indian tribes against the english settlers. it was said that he had made a speech to the long island indians in these words:-- "brothers, we must be one as the english are, or we shall soon all be destroyed. you know our fathers had plenty of deer and skins, and our plains were full of deer and of turkeys, and our coves and rivers were full of fish. but, brothers, since these english have seized upon our country, they cut down the grass with scythes, and the trees with axes. their cows and horses eat up the grass, and their hogs spoil our beds of clams; and finally we shall starve to death. therefore, i beseech you to act like men. all the sachems both to the east and west have joined with us and we are resolved to fall upon them." the english were much alarmed on hearing this. it was quite true that the indians had sold their lands without realizing that the settlers would use them for anything else than for hunting grounds and for fishing places, as they themselves had done. they could not know that the forests would be cleared, that farms would spread over the countryside, and towns grow up along the river courses, and they themselves be driven farther and farther back into the wilderness. but miantonomo denied that he had planned a united attack on the settlements. he told the messengers who were sent to him from boston that all such reports came from uncas, and he agreed to go to boston and appear before the court of massachusetts. he said, too, that he would like to meet his accusers face to face and prove their treachery. miantonomo was a tall, fine-looking chief with serious and stately manners, and he made a favorable impression in boston on the magistrates who were not very well disposed toward him. "when he came in, the court was assembled and he was set down at the lower end of the table over against the governor." a pequot interpreter was given him. now, in his own country he had refused to make use of a pequot as interpreter because he was not on good terms with that tribe and could not trust them, but here, "surrounded by armed men," he could not help himself. he protested, however, saying gravely, "when your people come to me, they are permitted to use their own fashions and i expect the same liberty when i come to you." the sessions of the court lasted for two days, and every one was astonished at the wisdom and dignity of the great sachem of the narragansetts. he answered all the questions put to him deliberately, and would not speak at all unless some of his councilors were present as witnesses. at meal-times, when a separate table was set for him, he was not pleased and refused to eat until some food was brought to him from the governor's table. in the end he convinced the council of his innocence and he returned in peace to his own country. meanwhile, uncas, who was both feared and hated for his sudden rise to power, had several narrow escapes from death. one of the captured pequots in his own tribe shot an arrow at him and wounded him in the arm. uncas complained to the english that miantonomo had engaged this pequot to kill him, and miantonomo retorted that uncas had cut his own arm with a flint to make it appear that he had been wounded, and no one knew where the truth lay. soon after this an attempt was made to poison him. then, at last, one day as he was paddling down the connecticut river in a canoe, some indians who were friends of the narragansetts sent a shower of arrows at him from the bank. he at once made a raid into their country, killed seven or eight of their warriors, burned their wigwams and carried off the booty. this brought matters to a climax, for their chief, sequassen, was related to miantonomo and miantonomo took up his quarrel. the trouble, which had so long been smouldering between the mohegans and the narragansetts, broke out in earnest. miantonomo collected all the narragansett warriors and led them swiftly and secretly through the forests toward the land of the mohegans, which lay along the banks of the pequot, or thames, river. he hoped in this way to fall upon uncas while he was unprepared. but uncas was on his guard. his watchmen on the hills caught sight of the narragansetts as they came out of the woods by the fords of the shetucket river,--above the present city of norwich. uncas had a fort five miles below on the pequot river, which was his headquarters, and the old story says:-- "being warned by his spies of the approach of the narragansetts toward his seat, uncas called his warriors together, stout, hard men, light of foot and skilled in the use of bow and arrow, and upon a conference he told them that it would not do to let the narragansetts come to their town, but that they must go and meet them. accordingly they marched about three miles, and on a large plain the armies met, and both halted within bowshot. a parley was sounded, and uncas proposed a conference with the narragansett sachem, who agreed. and being met, uncas saith to his enemy words to this effect:-- "'you have a number of brave men and so have i. it is a pity that such brave men should be killed for a quarrel between you and me. only come like a man, as you pretend to be, and we will fight it out. if you kill me, my men shall be yours, but if i kill you, your men shall be mine.' "upon which the narragansett sachem replied, "'my men came to fight and they shall fight.'" now, uncas knew well that his army, being much smaller, had no chance against the army of the narragansetts in a fair fight, and before he met the narragansett sachem he had planned a stratagem with his own men. as soon as miantonomo had spoken uncas threw himself face down on the ground and his men drew their bows and shot their arrows over his head and rushed "like lions" upon their astonished enemies. the narragansetts broke in terror and confusion. they did not stop to fight, but turned and fled panic-stricken, through woods and swamps and over rocks and hills, by the way they had come, back to the river fords. the mohegans pursued them, killing a number of them and wounding more. they drove them headlong, like sheep, before them, and the pursuit lasted for five or six miles. some of the narragansetts lost their way and came upon the yantic river near its falls and were driven over the steep rocks on the banks and drowned in the water. others were taken prisoners. "long afterwards, some old mohegans were heard to boast of having found a poor narragansett struggling and panting in a thicket that bordered the river, and so frantic with fear and excitement as to suppose himself in the water and actually attempting to swim among the bushes." miantonomo was strong and a swift runner, but that day he wore for protection a coat of mail which an englishman had given him and the heavy garment impeded his flight. the mohegans recognized him by it and followed him eagerly. he kept his distance until he had nearly reached the river, but there, "the foremost of uncas's men got ahead of him." they threw themselves against him and prevented his escape. they did not kill him or try to take him prisoner, but they ran beside him until uncas came up, when they dropped back and gave their chieftain the "opportunity to take him." "at a place since called 'sachem's plain,' uncas took him by the shoulder and miantonomo sat down, knowing uncas. uncas then gave a whoop and his men returned to him." but miantonomo sat silent. at last uncas spoke to him and said, "if you had taken me i would have besought you for my life." now it was against the indian's code of honor to ask for mercy. an indian brave must never complain, no matter how hard his fate. if he were put to torture, if he were even burned at the stake, he must let no sound of pain escape him. he might boast of his own exploits and tell how many of his enemies he had killed, but he must never admit defeat. courage and endurance were the great indian virtues. therefore miantonomo made no reply to the taunts of uncas and his men; he kept silence, as befitted a great sachem and a brave warrior, "choosing rather to die than to make supplication for his life." uncas had the right, according to indian custom, to put his prisoner to death at once, but he had agreed to consult the english in all important matters, so he carried him to hartford. this was late in the summer of . in september the commissioners of the united colonies met in boston and the case of miantonomo came before them. the commissioners were afraid to take the responsibility of setting the narragansett sachem free, because they had promised to protect uncas and they felt that uncas would not be safe while miantonomo lived, yet they had no reason to put him to death. at last, after long deliberation, they decided that he should be given back to uncas and that uncas, if he chose, might put him to death; but he must do it in his own land, not in the english settlements, and there must be no torture. [illustration: miantonomo's monument courtesy of the cranston co., norwich, conn.] so uncas came to hartford "with some considerable number of his best and trustiest men," and having received his prisoner, he set out with him on the fatal journey. the english sent two of their own men with him to see that the sentence was duly executed. they went through the forests until they had passed the english boundaries and had come upon land that belonged to the mohegans, and, therein the wilderness, the brother of uncas, who walked behind miantonomo, lifted his hatchet and silently drove it through the captive chieftain's head. on sachem's plain a great heap of stones soon marked the spot where miantonomo had been overtaken, for each mohegan warrior who passed the place cast a stone on the pile with a shout of triumph, and each narragansett added to it with cries of sorrow and lamentation for the loss of a noble leader. in after years the stones disappeared, and a monument was erected on the spot in , in honor of the narragansett sachem. it is a large, square block of granite with the name and the date carved upon it, "miantonomo, ." it can be seen to-day in greeneville, two miles from norwich. uncas lived on for many years and was a very old man before he died; "old and wicked and wilful," one account describes him. he quarreled with his neighbors and gave much trouble to his friends, the english. the narragansetts attacked him after the death of miantonomo, to avenge the death of their chief, and they drove him into one of his forts on the pequot river. the colonists had helped him to build this fort on a point of land running out into the water, and it was too strong for the indians to take it by assault. they took possession of the mohegan's canoes, however, and they sat down patiently before the fort, on the land side, to starve out uncas and his warriors. but the story says that one night uncas sent out a swift runner, who got safely past his enemies and carried the news to the english. thomas leffingwell, one of the settlers at saybrook, "an enterprizing, bold man, loaded a canoe with beef, corn, and peas, and under cover of night paddled from saybrook" around into the mouth of the thames, or pequot, river and succeeded in getting the provisions into the fort without the knowledge of the narragansetts. the next morning there was great rejoicing among the mohegans and they lifted a large piece of beef on a pole to show the besiegers that they had plenty to eat. the narragansetts, finding that the english had once more come to the rescue of uncas, gave up the siege in despair and melted away into the forest. there is an old legend which says that each night while he was waiting for relief, uncas himself secretly left the fort and crept along through the shadows on the river-bank until he came to a ledge of rocks from which he could look down the stream; that he sat there stern and motionless until morning watching and hoping for help from the strange, new owners of the lands which had belonged to his fathers. these rocks afterward went by the name of "uncas's chair." uncas was buried in the royal burying-ground of the mohegans near the falls of the yantic river. his monument is there now in the heart of the city of norwich. references . deforest, john w. _history of the indians of connecticut_. j. w. hammersley. hartford, . . drake, samuel g. _book of the indians_. boston, . . caulkins, frances m. _history of norwich_. hartford, . . sylvester, herbert milton. _indian wars of new england_. w. b. clarke co. boston, . . winthrop, john. _history of new england_. edited by james savage. boston, . a harbor for ships "it hath a fair river, fit for harboring of ships, and abounds with rich and goodly meadows." this description of new haven, or quinnipiac, as the indians called it, was brought back to boston in the summer of , after the pequot war, by some of the english soldiers who had pursued the flying pequots into that part of connecticut and had noticed the good harbor of new haven as they passed. the report sounded so pleasant and so satisfactory in the ears of a company of london merchants, who, with their families and their fortunes, had recently come to new england and were looking about for a suitable spot in which to settle, that they decided to visit this place and judge of it for themselves. these people, about two hundred and fifty in number, had arrived in boston in june of that same year, after a voyage of two months. of course in the small ships of those days there must have been many discomforts, even in a pleasant season, and no doubt some of the people were seasick. an old record of that time says, "we fetched out the children and others that lay groaning in the cabins, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to the mainmast, made them stand some on one side and some on the other and sway it up and down till they were warm. by this means they soon grew well and merry. ... when the ship heaved and set more than usual a few were sick, but of these such as came upon deck and bestirred themselves were presently well again, therefore our captain set our children and young men to some harmless exercises, in which the seamen were very active and did our people much good, though they would sometimes play the wags with them." when at last the hector dropped anchor in boston harbor, and "there came a smell off the shore like the smell of a garden," her passengers must have been glad that the long voyage was over. the two leaders of the company were theophilus eaton, a successful shipping merchant of london, a man of affairs and of great personal dignity and kindliness, and his friend, reverend john davenport, a london clergyman, who, like many other puritan ministers of those days, had been obliged to leave england on account of his religious opinions. these two men had been schoolboys together in the town of coventry, they had been associated later in london, they came together to america, and they remained friends to the end of their lives. as many of their party were merchants, and not farmers like a large number of the settlers on the connecticut river at hartford, it was important to select a place for their colony which would be convenient for trade and where there was a good harbor for the commerce they hoped to establish. for this reason the report of quinnipiac interested them, and in september several members of the company went to quinnipiac and liked it so well that seven men were left there through the winter to prepare for the coming of the rest in the spring. in april the whole number removed there from boston. the people of massachusetts bay were sorry to have them go. they would have been glad to have this rich and influential company join their colony, but these new settlers wished to found a colony of their own in which they could carry out their own ideas of what a model state should be, both in civil and religious matters. they took ship, therefore, from boston for quinnipiac, carrying all their goods and provisions with them. the expedition was well fitted out and all its details had been carefully planned before they left england. friends already in the colonies had written offering suggestions: "bring good store of clothes and bedding with you; bring paper and linseed oil for your windows, with cotton yarn for your lamps." as they sailed into quinnipiac harbor they saw for the first time the two great cliffs, the east and west rocks, called by the dutch "the red hills," which still stand like guardians, one on each side of the present city of new haven. on the level plain between them, which is watered by several small streams, they determined to build their town and to place it at the head of the beautiful harbor. they made large and generous plans for it. they laid it out in regular squares and set aside a great open space in the center for a market-place. this is the new haven green, which exists to-day just as john brockett, the surveyor, laid it out in . it is still the largest public square in the heart of any city in the united states. in the middle of the green they built the first "meeting-house." it was fifty feet square, made of rough timbers, with a small tower on top where the drummer stood on sundays to "drum" the people to church; for at first there were no bells. each person had a seat carefully assigned to him, or her, in the meeting-house. sometimes the boys sat with the soldiers near the door. we read later in the records that at one time the children in the galleries were so restless during the long sermons, that "tithing-men" were appointed "to take a stick or wand and smite such as are of uncomely behavior in the meeting and acquaint their parents." on week-days the children went to school in a schoolhouse which was built on the green. the town of new haven was soon noted for its large and fine houses, eaton's having nineteen fireplaces according to tradition, and davenport's, thirteen. but at first any kind of shelter was used for protection. the people met under an oak tree for service on the first sunday after landing and reverend john davenport preached a sermon to them on the "temptation of the wilderness," so it is said. during the first winter some of them slept in cellars dug out in the banks of one of the creeks and covered with earth. a boy named michael wigglesworth, who came to new haven with his parents in october, , when he was nine years old, lived in one of these cellars. when he grew up he wrote his autobiography and in it he says, "i remember that one great rain brake in upon us and drenched me so in my bed, being asleep, that i fell sick upon it, but the lord in mercy spared my life and restored my health." when the settlers at quinnipiac, or new haven, as it was soon called, had been there a little more than a year, they met in robert newman's barn "to consult about settling civil government" and also about establishing a church. up to this time they had lived under what was known as the "plantation covenant," which was a simple agreement among themselves that they would all "be ordered by those rules which the scripture holds forth." at this meeting on june , l , they decided that they would continue to accept the bible as a code of laws, and that only church members should hold office or have the right to vote for magistrates. they did this under the direction of john davenport, who in one of his writings had described this colony as "a new plantation whose design is religion." this agreement, made in robert newman's barn, was known as the "fundamental agreement." twelve men were appointed on that day who chose seven from among themselves to found a church. these seven men were called the "seven pillars." on august , the "seven pillars" met and established a church, and on the th of october they met again and set up the civil government. [illustration: medal commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of new haven.] like the connecticut colony, the new haven colony in setting up its government made no reference to any authority beyond itself; the people elected their own magistrates and made their own laws. but the new haven colony was unlike connecticut in one important respect. in new haven no man could vote or hold a place in the government unless he was a church member. this led later to much discontent among some of the people, and was one reason, among others, for the failure of new haven as a separate colony and for its beng absorbed, twenty-five years afterward,--in ,--into the larger and more liberal connecticut colony. meanwhile, even before the government was organized, the merchants and shippers of the company had bought or built boats and had begun to trade along the coasts to the north and to the south. during the first winter while some of the people, like the family of michael wigglesworth, were still living in cellars dug in the river-banks, master george lamberton was sailing in his sloop, the cock, on a trading voyage to virginia. other new haven ships soon established commercial relations with boston and new amsterdam, with delaware, where beaver skins could be obtained in abundance, with virginia, whose great staple was tobacco, and with other plantations still farther away, such as barbados in the west indies, where sugar was the most important article of exchange. now and then we hear of a new haven ship in strange and foreign parts of the world. there was one which set out in december, , for the canary islands, laden with clapboards, and fell in with pirates near the island of palma, one of the canaries. a turkish pirate ship of three hundred tons with two hundred men on board and twenty-six guns, attacked this small new haven ship of one hundred and eighty tons, which had only seven guns fit for use and twenty men armed with rusty muskets. the fight lasted for three hours, and captain carman, the master of the new haven ship, and his men succeeded in killing a good many turks in spite of being taken at a disadvantage. but at last the pirates put their ship alongside and sent one hundred men on board the new haven ship, when, however, they found that their captain was shot and the rudder of their ship broken, the pirates hauled, down their flag and drew off so quickly that they left fifty of their men behind. "then the master [captain carman] and some of his men came up and fought those fifty hand to hand and slew so many of them that the rest leaped overboard. the master had many wounds on his head and body and divers of his men were wounded, yet but one slain. so with much difficulty he got to the island [of palma], where he was very courteously entertained, and supplied with whatever he needed." but new haven ships did not always come off as well as in this encounter with the pirates, and their voyages were not always successful. some members of the new haven colony bought land in delaware and attempted to establish a trading-post in order to take advantage of the profitable trade in beaver skins. but the dutch and swedes, who had settled there, objected to the coming of the english, and once, in , they seized captain lamberton, who had come in his ship the cock, accused him of inciting the indians against them, and threw him into prison. as the charges against him could not be proved he was soon released, but the hostility of the dutch and swedes continued until the new haven merchants were driven away from that coast and out of the rich fur-trade of delaware. this was a great blow to the colony. other losses, too, were met with, and at last the people became greatly discouraged as they saw their hopes of founding a successful commercial colony slowly, but surely, disappearing. the voyage of the "great shippe" which took place about this time is the most tragic adventure in the story of new haven's early shipping days. it began in this way. in , as a last resource, the merchants of new haven decided to fit out a ship with what was left of their "tradeable estate," and send her to london. up to this time they had sent goods to england by way of boston or of the west indies; there might be more profit, they thought, in a direct trade, cutting out the cost of reshipment. so they bought a ship. we do not know her name, she is always spoken of as the "great shippe," although she was only one hundred tons; perhaps the title was given her because the colonists were staking so much on this venture. if it succeeded, their prosperity might be assured; if it failed, they must give up the sea and commerce as a dependence and turn their energies to agriculture. the "great shippe" was a new boat, said to have been built in rhode island, and she was loaded principally with wheat and peas shipped in bulk, with west indies hides, beaver skins, and what silver plate could be spared for exchange in london. her cargo altogether was worth about twenty-five thousand dollars, which was a large sum in those days, especially in a new and struggling colony. the master of the ship was the same captain lamberton we have heard of before. he was a brave and bold skipper, but it is said that he was not altogether pleased with the ship when he first saw her; that he did not like her lines and thought her not quite seaworthy. other people, too, besides captain lamberton, complained that she was not only badly built, but badly loaded, with the light goods of the cargo below and the heavy above, and some old seamen predicted that the grain would shift in rough weather and make trouble. these were mostly rumors, however, and few paid attention to them at the time; but long afterward, when people talked over the strange fate of the "great shippe," captain lamberton's words, "this ship will be our grave," were recalled and believed to have been a prophecy. that winter of was a bitterly cold one in connecticut, and new haven harbor was frozen over. when the "great shippe" was ready to sail, it was necessary to cut a way out for her with handsaws through the thick ice for nearly three miles. a good many people from the town walked out on the harbor ice beside the ship to see her begin her voyage, and to bid good-bye to a number of their friends who were going home to england on business of one kind or another. seventy people had taken passage in the "great shippe," and among them were some who were very prominent in the colony, as, for instance, captain nathaniel turner, who, having had experience in the war with the pequot indians, had been given "the command and ordering of all martial affairs" in the plantation, and thomas gregson, one of the magistrates, who was charged by the colony to obtain a charter for them, if possible, from the english parliament, then in control in england. reverend john davenport, the minister, stood in the crowd of people on the ice that winter day and offered a prayer to god for the protection of the travelers. "lord," he said, "if it be thy will to bury these our friends in the bottom of the sea, they are thine, save them." this does not sound like a very cheerful send-off, but we must remember that a long voyage was a serious undertaking in those days and that people sometimes made their wills even before sailing from new haven for boston. when the "great shippe" had really gone, when the people had seen the last of captain lamberton standing on her deck giving orders, and had watched her white sails dwindle and disappear, they walked back over the ice to their homes on the shore remembering sadly that it would be a long time before they could expect to have any news from her. it might be two or three months before she reached london and as many more before word of her arrival could come back to them. so they waited patiently through the hard new england winter and the early spring, but by summer time they were eagerly looking for tidings of her. ships came from england as usual to the colonies, but no one of them brought news of the safe arrival in london of the "great shippe" from new haven. then the people began to question the skippers of other boats, boats from the west indies and from the plantations on the southern coasts, and to ask if anything had been heard of her in that direction. for they remembered that there had been an unusually violent storm soon after the ship had sailed, and they began to fear that she might have been blown out of her course and possibly wrecked on some such coast or island. public prayers were offered for her safety and for the safety of her passengers. meanwhile, the summer passed and the cold weather came again, and still there was no word from the fated ship. few vessels put into new england harbors during the winter, and, as the chance of news grew less and less, the anxiety of the people gradually changed to despair. they recalled the sacrifices they had made to fit out that ship, the precious cargo she carried, all the things that could not be replaced (such as the sermons and other writings of mr. davenport which he had sent to england for publication); and in the loss of the ship on which they had set all their hopes they saw the final blow to the prosperity of new haven. no one now had the courage or the money for another venture of that kind. slowly and reluctantly the people turned to agriculture instead of trade, and the days of new haven as a commercial colony were numbered. but far worse to them than any material loss was the loss of the dear friends and relatives who had sailed with the "great shippe" for england. no compensation could come to those who had loved them. in november, , the passengers on the ship were finally given up as lost and counted among the dead and their estates settled. yet many to whom they were dear could not rest satisfied. they remembered all the perils of the sea, the dangers of shipwreck on some barren coast, of possible capture by pirates, such as those who had attacked captain carman off the canary islands not many years before, and they came to feel at last that they would be thankful to learn that the ship had foundered at sea and that their friends had gone down with her to a natural death in the waters. two years and a half after the sailing of the "great; shippe" (so the story stands in a strange old book called the _magnolia christi_, by the reverend cotton mather), a wonderful vision came to the people of new haven. on that june afternoon in the year , a great thunderstorm came up from the northwest. the sky grew black and threatening, there was vivid lightning, and a cold wind swept over the harbor. before the rain had ceased and calm had come again, it was nearly sunset. then, against the clear evening light, a strange ship sailed into new haven harbor. around the point she came with her sails full set and her colors flying. "there's a brave ship," cried the children, and they left their play to stand and gaze at her. men and women gathered on the water-front and the same startled hope thrilled every heart: "it may be the 'great shippe' come home again!" for there was the old familiar outline, there were her three masts, her tackling, and her sails. and yet there was something new and mysterious, something awe-inspiring about her, and the watchers held their breath as they realized that she was sailing toward them straight against the wind that blew strong off the north shore. for a full half-hour they stood and gazed, until they could distinguish the different parts of her rigging, until they could see, standing high on her poop, the figure of a man with "one hand akimbo under his left side and in his right hand a sword stretched out toward the sea." then, all at once, a mist rose out of the sea behind her and covered her like smoke, and through the mist and smoke men saw dimly her shrouds give way, and her masts break and fall, as though a hurricane had struck her, and slowly she careened and plunged beneath the surface of the water. the people turned to their pastor. "what does it mean?" they asked. "it was the form of master lamberton. why is this vision sent us?" and he replied that doubtless god had sent it in answer to their prayers, to show them the fate of their friends and to set their hearts at rest, for "this was the mould of their ship, and thus her tragic end." references . levermore, charles h. _republic of new haven_. johns hopkins university studies. baltimore, . . atwater, edward e. _history of the colony of new haven_. printed at new haven, . . blake, henry t. _chronicles of new haven green_. printed at new haven, . . winthrop, john. _history of new england_. edited by james savage. boston, . . mather, reverend cotton. _magnalia christi americana_, i, . london, . three judges in the year , when the city of new haven was a small village not much more than twenty years old, a family of boys named sperry lived out on a farm some two or three miles west of that settlement. there was only one house then besides theirs outside the town in that direction and the woods all about were thick and wild. that summer something mysterious was going on near the sperry farm. every morning richard sperry himself, or one of his boys, carried food, in dishes covered with a cloth, into the woods on the steep side of west rock about a mile from the house, and left it there on a stump. every evening he, or one of his sons, went for the empty bowls and brought them home. the boys were curious to know who had eaten the food, for they never met any one coming or going, and never saw any one up on the rock. in reply their father told them that there were men at work in the forest near by; yet they never heard voices nor the sound of an axe, and it was only long afterward that they learned the real reason for what they had done. if one of the boys had waited long enough some morning, lying still and hidden in the bushes, he might have seen a man come slowly and cautiously through the woods toward him, a dignified, grave-looking person with something foreign in his dress, something soldierly in his bearing, as if he were accustomed to commanding others; he might have watched this stranger--so different from the people he knew--take up the dishes of food and disappear again into the dark forest. and he would have wondered why a man like that, who was evidently not a hunter and not a new settler, should be hiding in the woods around new haven. twelve years before, in england, this same man had taken part in a very different scene. there was a great trial held in the stately old hall of westminster and the prisoner at the bar was the king of england himself, and among the fifty-nine judges who condemned him to death was the man who was now hunted for his own life and was in hiding near the sperry farm that summer, three thousand miles away from all he loved in england. there were nearly one hundred men who had some part, large or small, in the trial and death of king charles the first, and all of them were in great danger eleven years later when the royalists returned to power and his son, charles the second, became king. a few who had very little to do with the king's sentence were pardoned; others were seized at once, tried, condemned, and executed in the barbarous way the english law then allowed, and still others tried to escape by leaving england. some got safely to the continent and wandered about from one foreign city to another, trying to pass unnoticed in the crowd, and always in danger of being discovered and arrested by the messengers the english government sent after them. three of them came to new england and spent some time in connecticut. this is their story. early in may, , a ship named the prudent mary lay at gravesend near london, getting ready to sail under her master, captain pierce, for the colonies in the new world. two of the regicides, general edward whalley and general william goffe, had taken passage in her, but they dared not sail under their own names and they came aboard as edward richardson and william stephenson. while the ship was waiting in gravesend the new king was proclaimed. that was on saturday, may . the next day general goffe wrote in his diary,--"may . wee kept sabbath abord." on monday they sailed and were happy to get away from england before an order could be given for their arrest. the ships of those days were very small and the little prudent mary took ten weeks to make her way across the ocean, but at last goffe wrote in his journal: "july . we came to anchor between boston and charlestown; between and in the morning; all in good health through the good hand of god upon us." when the judges landed they were among friends, for most of the people in new england were of their political party. they took their own names again, called on the governor of massachusetts bay colony and went about freely. goffe's diary says: "aug. . went to boston lecture and heard mr. norton. went afterwards to his house where we were lovingly entertained with many ministers and found great respects from them." and on the th: "we visited elder frost, who received us with great kindness and love." this diary and his letters show that goffe was sincere and religious, but his life tells us that he was brave and energetic too. he had made his own way, and both he and whalley, who was his father-in-law, had been important men in england; they were major-generals who had fought in great battles and had taken part in great events in history. there is an old story about their skill in fencing. "at boston," so the story runs, "there appeared a gallant person, some say a fencing-master, who, on a stage erected for the purpose, walked for several days challenging and defying any to play with him at swords. at length one of the judges disguised in a rustic dress, holding in one hand a cheese wrapped in a napkin for a shield, with a broomstick, whose mop he had besmeared with dirty puddle water as he passed along, mounted the stage. the fencing-master railed at him for his impudence, asked what business he had there, and bade him begone. the judge stood his ground, upon which the gladiator made a pass at him with his sword to drive him off. an encounter ensued. the judge received the sword into the cheese and held it till he drew the mop of the broom over the other's mouth, and gave the gentleman a pair of whiskers. the gentleman made another pass, and plunging his sword a second time, it was caught and held in the cheese till the broom was drawn over his eyes. at a third lunge, the sword was caught again, till the mop of the broom was rubbed gently all over his face. upon this, the gentleman let fall, or laid aside, his small sword and took up the broadsword and came at him with that, upon which the judge said, 'stop, sir! hitherto, you see, i have only played with you and have not attempted to hurt you, but if you come at me now with the broadsword, know that i will certainly take your life.' the firmness and determination with which he spoke struck the gentleman, who, desisting, exclaimed, 'who can you be? you are either goffe, whalley, or the devil, for there was no other man in england that could beat me.'" for seven months the two judges lived in cambridge at the house of major daniel gookin, a member of the governor's council and a fellow passenger of theirs in the prudent mary. they went to church on sundays, and no doubt on "training-days" they watched the train-bands practice, for they were famous fighters themselves. but meantime the news of their being in the colonies was carried to england by a royalist named captain breedon, and the governor debated with his council what to do about it. he wanted to protect them, but he feared the king's displeasure might bring trouble on the colony. before he decided, the two judges, or "the two colonels" as they were called, finding they were not safe in boston, left for new haven. this was their first journey in the new wilderness; it was winter time, and probably there was snow on the ground and hanging heavy on the trees-more snow than they had ever seen in england. most of the road between boston and new haven was a trail through forests where a guide was necessary. they stopped at hartford, were kindly received there, and reached new haven early in march. for three weeks they were guests of the minister, reverend john davenport. he was their friend and is said to have preached a sermon from the text, "hide the outcasts; betray not him that wandereth," to prepare people for their coming. whalley's sister had once lived in new haven and they had other friends there too. but it was very dangerous for these friends to try to protect them, and when word came that a reward had been offered in england for their arrest, the hunted judges left new haven as they had left boston before, pretending, this time, to go to new york. however, they only went as far as milford and turned back secretly in the night to new haven where the minister received them again and hid them, in his own house and in the houses of other friends, until may, when a still greater danger threatened them. the royal order for their arrest at last reached boston and the governor there was obliged to forward it. he gave it to two young royalists, thomas kellond and thomas kirk, and on saturday, may , they arrived with it in guilford at the house of william leete, the governor of the new haven colony. governor leete took the paper and began to read it aloud, hoping some one in the room would overhear it and send word to warn the judges. kirk and kellond interrupted him and said the paper was too important to read in public. then they asked for horses and a search-warrant to carry with them to new haven. it took a long time to get the horses; there was one delay after another, and the governor said he could not give them the warrant without consulting the other magistrates, but he would write a letter. it took a long time also to write the letter, and when both horses and letter were ready it was too late to start that night. the next day was sunday and nobody was allowed to travel on sunday in the new haven colony. so the messengers waited impatiently for monday, and meantime they heard rumors that the judges had been seen in new haven, and that mr. davenport must be protecting them still, because he had lately put ten pounds' worth of fresh provisions in his house; all of which made them still more impatient. on monday, at last, they got to new haven, and some hours later governor leete followed them--very slowly--and called the magistrates together. it took the magistrates so long to decide what to do that kellond and kirk asked bluntly whether they meant to honor and obey the king or not. the governor answered, "we honor his majesty, but we have tender consciences." at last a search was ordered to be made for the regicides, but kirk and kellond were convinced by this time that it would be useless, and they left in disgust for new york. they were right, it was useless; for an indian runner had come quickly from guilford on saturday, and goffe and whalley had disappeared. several stories are told of their narrow escapes at this time. one says they were on the neck bridge over mill river on state street when they heard the horses of their pursuers behind them and had only time to slip under the bridge and lie there hidden while the men rode over their heads. another tells how a woman hid them in her house, in a closet whose door looked like a part of the wall with kitchen pots and pans hung on it. when they left the settlement they took refuge in the wild forest, and most of that summer they lived in a cave in a pile of boulders on the top of west rock. the cave is there still, and is called "judges' cave" to-day. richard sperry carried food to them or sent it by one of his boys, and sometimes on very stormy nights they crept secretly down to his house and stayed with him. once, in june, they went back to new haven and offered to give themselves up to save their friends, if necessary, and arranged that governor leete should always know where to find them. most people thought they had left the colony altogther then, but they were back in their cave on the rock, or in some other hiding-place in the deep woods. rewards were still offered for them and they dared not venture out. they called west rock "providence hill," because god had provided for them there. and now these two men, who had led such stirring, active lives in england, lived in a great loneliness and silence, with no friends near them, no sounds but the distant crash of a falling tree, or the wind sighing in the forest branches. there were prowling indians and prowling wild beasts. once, so the story says, a panther crept up stealthily to the cave at night as they lay in bed and put his head in at the opening, his eyes burning in the darkness like two fires. in august, when the search for them was pretty much over, they went to milford. they stayed there very secretly for three years, until, in , there was danger of another search being made. then they went back to their cave on the rock; but it was no longer a safe place for them, because "some indians in their hunting discovered the cave with the bed," and their friends made a different plan for their concealment. the exiles set out on another long journey. they traveled only at night, stopping and hiding in the daytime. the trail they followed led them up the valley of the connecticut river, beyond hartford and far into the north, until they came to what is now the town of hadley in massachusetts. this was then one of the farthest settlements in the wilderness and very remote and lonely. reverend john russell, the minister there, gave them shelter and took care of them. there was a cellar under part of his house, and, by taking up some loose boards in the floor above it, they could drop down quickly into it if visitors came unexpectedly. in spite of the danger to himself, mr. russell kept them safe in hadley for twelve or fifteen years. a few friends wrote to them and sent them money, but no one else in the world outside knew what had become of them or whether or not they were still alive. there is a famous story about one of the regicides in hadley. once, it says, in king philip's war the indians attacked the place. they burst out of the woods and rushed upon the settlement on a sunday morning while every one was at church. terror-stricken and thrown into wild confusion by the sight of the yelling savages the people of hadley were helpless, when, all at once, an unknown man, with whitening hair and strange garments, appeared in the midst of them and took command. he rallied them and led them out against the indians and drove them back into the forest. "as suddenly as he had come, the deliverer of hadley disappeared." no one ever saw him again, and the people said god must have sent an angel to help them. long afterward they learned that it was general goffe. [illustration: the judges' cave on west rock] there is not much more to tell about the judges after this. whalley was an an old man now, and goffe wrote to his wife, who was whalley's daughter, "your old friend" (he dared not say her father, and he signed himself walter goldsmith instead of william goffe) "is yet living, but continues in a very weak condition and seems not to take much notice of anything that is done or said, but patiently bears all things and never complains of anything. the common and very frequent question is to know how he doth and his answer for the most part is, 'very well, i praise god,' which he utters with a very low and weak voice." after whalley died, goffe left hadley and went to hartford. we do not know much about him there. we know that he was still an exile with a price on his head, and still hiding. in one of his letters he says to a friend, "dear sir, you know my trials are considerable, but i beseech you not to interpret any expression in my letters as if i complained of god's dealing with me." his family in england had moved and he did not know their address or how to reach them, and in april, , he wrote to the same friend, "i am greatly longing to hear from my poor desolate relations, and whether my last summer's letters got safe to them." what answer he received, whether he ever heard from them again, we cannot tell, for his story ends with that last letter. the third regicide judge who came to connecticut; was colonel john dixwell. he spent some time with whalley and goffe at hadley and afterward lived seventeen years in new haven. no search was ever made for him because he was supposed to have died in europe, and he was known to almost every one in the colony as mr. james davids. it was only when he was on his death-bed that he allowed his real name to be told. his house stood on the corner of grove and college streets; he married in new haven and had several children. he was a great friend of reverend james pierpont, the minister, and the story goes that they had beaten a path walking across their lots to talk over the fence and that madame pierpont used to ask her husband who that old man was who was so fond of living "an obscure and unnoticed life" and why he liked so much to talk with him, and he replied that "if she knew the worth and value of that old man she would not wonder at it." once, so it is said, sir edmund andros came from boston to new haven and noticed on sunday in church a dignified old gentleman with an erect and military air very different from the rest of the people, and asked who he was. he was told that it was mr. davids, a new haven merchant. "oh, no," said andros, "i have seen men and can judge them by their looks. he is no merchant; he has been a soldier and has figured somewhere in a more public station than this." some one warned dixwell and he stayed away from church that afternoon. when he died he was buried in the old burying-ground behind center church on the new haven green. in , one of his descendants put up the monument to him which stands there to-day. the monument to goffe and whalley is the "judges' cave" on the top of west rock, and three streets in new haven are also named for the three regicide judges who came to connecticut. references . hutchinson, thomas. _history of massachusetts_, salem and boston, . . the mather papers, in _massachusetts historical collections_, th series, vol. . . dexter, f.b. memoranda respecting edward whalley and william goffe, in _papers_ of the new haven colony historical society, vol. . . stiles, ezra. _a history of three of the judges of king charles first_. hartford, reprinted in _library of american history_, samuel l. knapp, editor. new york, . . goffe's diary, in _proceedings_ of the massachusetts historical society, - . . judd, sylvester. _history of hadley_. introduction to edition of . h.r. huntting & co. springfield, . the fort on the river a boy named lion gardiner was born in england in , toward the end of the reign of queen elizabeth. he was strong, active, and energetic, and as he grew up he was trained to be an engineer. like a good many other ambitious young englishmen of his day, he took service in the low countries,--that is, in what is now holland and belgium,--where the people were fighting against spain for their independence. he was employed as "an engineer and master of works of fortification in the legers [camps] of the prince of orange." while he was in holland he received an offer from a group of english "lords and gentlemen" of the puritan party, who were interested in colonization in america, to go to new england and construct works of fortification there. "i was to serve them," he says, "in the drawing, ordering, and making of a city, towns, or forts of defence," and "i was appointed to attend such orders as mr. john winthrop, esq., should appoint, and that we should choose a place both for the convenience of a good harbour and also for capableness and fitness for fortification." lion gardiner signed an agreement with them for four years at one hundred pounds, or five hundred dollars, a year and expenses paid to america for himself and his family. he was married before he left holland and he and his wife sailed for london, july , , in a small north sea bark named the batcheler. a month later they left london in the same little ship bound for boston. the batcheler was very small; there were only twelve men and two women on board, and these two women were gardiner's wife, mary wilemson, and her maid, eliza coles. the voyage was rough and stormy and lasted nearly three months and a half. when they arrived in boston on november , the snow was knee-deep, and the winter set in so cold and forbidding that there was some delay in carrying out the plans for the new colony. as lieutenant gardiner was an "expert engineer," the people of boston were glad to take advantage of his stay with them to employ him in finishing some fortifications for them on fort hill. in the spring he sailed once more on the little batcheler for the mouth of the connecticut river, where it had been decided to build the new fort and plant the new colony. this place was selected partly because of its good harbor, and partly because a fort here would command the entrance to this "long, fresh, rich river." the "lords and gentlemen" who planned this undertaking included lord saye and sele, lord brooke, john pym, and other well-known men in the puritan party. they were opposed to the government in england both in politics and religion, and at one time, when matters went strongly against their party, some of them expected to come to america. it is said that oliver cromwell, afterward lord protector of england, and john hampden, his cousin, were among this number. it is at least true that lieutenant gardiner was ordered to construct "within the fort" houses suitable for "men of quality" and to erect "some convenient buildings for the receipt of gentlemen." the place was named saybrook for lord saye and sele and for lord brooke. it was not a colony of merchants like the new haven colony, nor of farmers like the connecticut colony; it was a military post, and it was planned as a refuge in the new world for influential men in public life in england who might be forced to leave their own country. john winthrop, jr., who was to be the governor of the settlement, had sent a ship in november with carpenters and other workmen to take possession of the place and to begin building, but when lieutenant gardiner arrived at the mouth of the connecticut in march, he found that not much had been done--only a few trees cut down and a few huts put up. he set to work at once and built a fort "of a kind of timber called 'a read oack,'" and across the neck of land behind the fort he built a "palisade of whole trees set in the ground." the fort was on a point of land running out into the river just above its mouth. there were salt marshes around it, and on three sides it was protected by water. dutch sailors had first discovered this place and called it "kievet's hook" from the cry of the birds (pee-wees) whom they heard there. the dutch themselves intended to establish a trading-post here, but they were driven away by the arrival of the english. the "lords and gentlemen" in england had promised to send lieutenant gardiner "three hundred able men" that spring, to help him; "two hundred to attend fortification, fifty to till the ground, and fifty to build houses," but they did not come and he was greatly disappointed. george fenwick, acting as agent of the company, however, arrived to see how matters were progressing at saybrook. fenwick was the only one of the puritan "gentlemen" who ever came to new england; for conditions were rapidly changing in english politics, and their party was soon engaged in a struggle with the government that kept all its prominent leaders at home. but although lion gardiner was left without enough workmen and with few supplies, he made the most of his resources, and his little fort, built under such difficulties, soon became an important place because of the protection it gave to the planters against the indians. [illustration: the site of saybrook fort] he was scarcely established at saybrook before trouble broke out with the pequots, a large and powerful tribe of indians. there were wrongs and misunderstandings on both sides, and at last the pequots murdered captain stone, a virginia trader, in his boat on the connecticut river, and most of the party with him. not long after this john oldham, a massachusetts trader, was killed on block island. these and other outrages led the massachusetts colony to demand satisfaction of the pequots and the surrender of the murderers. lieutenant gardiner, in his exposed position, felt that a war just then would be a mistake, and he sent a protest to the magistrates of massachusetts to "entreat them to rest awhile, till we get more strength here about," he said, "and provide for it; for i have but twenty-four in all, men, women, and boys and girls, and not food for them for two months unless we save our cornfield, which could not be if it came to war for it is two miles from our house. i know, if you make war with these pequots, myself with these few you will leave at the stake to be roasted or for hunger to be starved; for indian corn is now twelve shillings per bushel and we have but three acres planted. war is like a three-footed stool; want one foot and down comes all, and these three feet are men, victuals, and munition; therefore, seeing in peace we are like to be famished, what will be done in war? wherefore i think it will be best only to fight against captain hunger." but the massachusetts people did not take his advice. instead, they sent out an expedition under captain endecott, to punish the pequots. this expedition burnt the indian wigwams and cornfields on block island, and also in the pequot country near the mouth of the pequot, or thames, river; and captain endecott and his soldiers came to saybrook port and made that place their headquarters, "to my great grief," said gardiner, "for you come hither to raise these wasps about my ears and then you will take wing and flee away." his prophecy came true, for the expedition returned to boston without having accomplished anything except to enrage the indians still further and to make the position of the little garrison at the fort more difficult than ever. even before this they had found it dangerous to trade with the indians. about the time that gardiner sent his protest to massachusetts, a saybrook man, thomas hurlburt, had a narrow escape from death in the pequot country, where he had gone with a trading party, and he was only saved by the kindness and compassion of an indian woman. he stepped into the sachem's wigwam to inquire about some stolen horses. while he was there, the indians having for some reason left him alone for a moment, the sachem's wife, wincumbone, came back and made signs to him secretly that the men were planning to kill him. "he drew his sword," ran to his companions, and barely got aboard the boat in time. "this caused me," says lieutenant gardiner, "to keep watch and ward, for i saw that they plotted our destruction." from this time on the fort was almost besieged by indians who lay in ambush around it, watching and waiting for a chance to attack any of the garrison who might venture out. one day two men were "beating samp at the garden pales," not far from the fort, when the sentinels called to them to run in quickly because a number of pequots were creeping up to catch them. "i, hearing it," says gardiner, "went up to the redoubt and put two cross-bar shot into the two guns that lay above, and levelled them at the trees in the middle of the limbs and boughs. the indians began a long shout, and then the two great guns went off and divers of them were hurt." these "two great guns" were two pieces, of three inches each, by which the fort was defended. "after this," writes gardiner, "i immediately took men and went to our cornfield to gather our corn, appointing others to come with the shallop [the boat] and fetch it, and i left five lusty men in the strong house i had built for the defense of the corn. now, these men, not regarding the charge i had given them, three of them went a mile from the house, a-fowling; and having loaded themselves with fowl, they returned. the pequots let them pass first, till they had loaded themselves, but at their return they arose out of their ambush and shot all three; one of them escaped through the corn, shot through the leg, the other two they tormented." an equally cruel fate befell a trader named tilly, who was taken alive by the indians and tortured. tilly came from massachusetts bay and was going up the river to hartford. when he landed at saybrook, as all travelers were obliged to do, he saw a paper nailed up over the fort gate with orders that no boat going up the river should stop anywhere between saybrook and wethersfield. these orders were put up by lieutenant gardiner because a boat with three men well armed in it had lately been captured by the river indians. tilly, however, refused to obey, and quarreled with gardiner. "i wish you, and also charge you," said gardiner to him in reply, "to observe that which you have read at the gate; 'tis my duty to god and my masters which is the ground of this, had you but eyes to see it; but you will not till you feel it." tilly went up the river safely, obeying orders; but coming down, when he was about three miles above saybrook, he went ashore with only one man and carelessly fired off his gun. the indians, hearing it, came up, captured him, and carried him away. gardiner called the spot where this happened "tilly's folly." it was a winter of great responsibility and danger for lieutenant lion gardiner, and all his courage and good sense were needed to carry him safely through it. once he was himself wounded by indian arrows and nearly lost his life. on the d of february, he "went out with ten men and three dogs, half a mile from the house, to burn the weeds, leaves, and reeds upon the neck of land" behind the fort, when, suddenly, four indians "started up out of the fiery reeds," and the sentinels he had set to watch called to him that a great many more were coming from "the other side of the marsh." the indians attacked his party, killed three or four men, and tried to get between the rest and the fort and cut off their return. "they kept us in a half-moon," says gardiner, "we retreating and exchanging many a shot... defending ourselves with our naked swords, or else they had taken us all alive.... i was shot with many arrows, but my buff coat preserved me, only one hurt me." the english soldiers of those days wore back and breast pieces of steel over their buff coats. a few days later, the indians, believing gardiner dead, came again and surrounded the fort, and, as the old record says, "made many proud challenges and dared the english out to fight," but gardiner ordered the "two great guns" set off once more, and the indians disappeared. finding the fort at saybrook so well defended, the pequots fell upon the settlement at wethersfield, killed a number of men working in the fields, and carried off two young girls. flushed with this success, they paddled down the river in their canoes and when they passed the saybrook fort they set up poles, like masts, in the canoes and, by way of bravado, hung upon them the clothes of the englishmen whom they had murdered. the men in the fort fired on the canoes, but the distance was too great. one shot just grazed the bow of the boat in which were the two young english girls. the indians passed safely and carried their captives with them to the pequot country. the connecticut men now determined to put a stop to the depredations of the pequots. it was a serious undertaking, for there were only about two hundred and fifty englishmen in all connecticut at this time, and there were several hundred pequot warriors. help was asked from the colonies in massachusetts, and, meanwhile, about ninety men were collected from the three settlements of hartford, wethersfield, and windsor and sent down to saybrook under the command of captain john mason. a number of friendly indians also went with them, and chief among these was uncas, sachem of the mohegans. while this expedition was at saybrook, taking counsel with lieutenant lion gardiner and making ready, a dutch boat put in at the fort on its way to trade in the pequot country. the officers at the fort were unwilling to let the boat proceed, for there were articles on board for trade with the indians that might be useful to the latter in war time, such as kettles, out of which the indians could make arrowheads. the dutch, however, promised that if they were allowed to go on they would do all in their power to obtain the release of the two captive english girls. so they were given permission and they sailed for the pequot river. there the master of the boat went ashore and offered to trade with the indians. "what do you want in return for your goods?" asked the pequot sachem. "the two english maids," answered the dutchman. but the sachem would not consent. after a time, however, the dutch captain succeeded in enticing several of the principal indians on board his boat, and, having secured them there as hostages, he called to the others on shore that if they wanted their men returned they must bring the two young girls. "if not," said he, "we set sail and will turn all your indians overboard in the main ocean so soon as ever we come out." the pequots refused to believe him until the boat was actually under way and sailing down the river; then at last they yielded, gave up the two english girls, and received the seven indians in return. these two poor little girls reached saybrook in a sad condition, worn out and frightened. the dutch sailors had kindly given them their own linen jackets because the girls had lost most of their clothes, and lieutenant gardiner paid ten pounds out of his own purse for their redemption. the indians seem, on the whole, to have treated them well. they were saved from death at first by the pity and intercession of wincumbone, the same chieftain's wife who once before had saved thomas hurlburt. she took care of them, the girls said, and they told how "the indians carried them from place to place and showed them their forts and curious wigwams and houses, and encouraged them to be merry." but they could not be very merry, and the elder, who was sixteen, said that she slipped "behind the rocks and under the trees" as often as she could to pray god to send them help. the dutch governor was so much interested in their story that he sent for the girls to come to new amsterdam (later new york), that he might see them and hear them tell of their adventures. at last, after all these journeyings, they were sent back safely to their homes in wethersfield. soon after this, captain mason and his company set out from saybrook on their expedition against the pequots. after burning the indian fort at mystic, in which many women and children lost their lives, and killing several hundred pequot warriors, they returned victorious. they reached the bank of the connecticut opposite saybrook at sunset, too late to cross the river that night, but they were welcomed by a salute from the guns of the fort; "being nobly entertained by lieutenant gardiner with many great guns," as captain mason expressed it. the destruction of the pequots relieved saybrook fort from danger and secured the safety of the colonists in connecticut; there was never again any serious trouble with the indians. but the story is a cruel one, and we can only forgive it when we remember that the settlers felt that their own lives, and the lives of their wives and little children, were in constant danger from the attacks of the savages. when the four years of his contract were ended, in the summer of , lieutenant lion gardiner left saybrook fort, which he had defended so bravely, and went to live on an island he had bought from the indians. this island, still known as "gardiner's island," is at the end of long island and must have been very remote in those days, and far from any white neighbors. but gardiner was on the best of terms with the long island indians, and between him and their sachem, waiandance, there was a true and generous friendship, founded on mutual respect and trust, which lasted throughout their lives. when waiandance died, in , gardiner wrote, "my friend and brother is gone, who will now do the like?" it is a noble record of friendship between a white man and an indian. about the time that lieutenant gardiner left the fort, george fenwick, who had come to saybrook once before, in , came again and brought his wife, lady fenwick. she was alice apsley, the widow of sir john boteler, and was called "lady" by courtesy. they lived in saybrook for a number of years. an old letter of that time says that "master fenwick and the lady boteler [his wife] and master higginson, their chaplain, were living in a fair house, and well fortified." in , fenwick, as agent, sold saybrook to the connecticut colony. the next year lady fenwick died and was buried within the fort. her tomb can be seen to-day in the old cemetery on saybrook point, to which it was removed in l . although when the pequot war was over saybrook was no longer exposed to constant attacks from the indians, yet, for a woman brought up as lady fenwick had been, in ease and comfort, life there must have been full of hardship. but she made no complaint. all that we know of her is good and charming. she loved flowers and fruits and had her gardens and her pet rabbits. she brought with her some red devon cattle which she gave to mr. whitfield in guilford. she has left behind her a memory of gentleness and kindness that still cling to the story of the rough, little pioneer fort, set in the midst of the salt marshes and surrounded by savage neighbors:-- "and ever this wave-washed shore shall be linked with her tomb and fame, and blend with the wind and the billowy roar the music of her name." one more fact deserves to be remembered in connection with saybrook. yale college was organized there in as the "collegiate school" of the connecticut colony, and was not removed to new haven until sixteen years later. its site in saybrook is marked now by a granite boulder with a tablet and inscription. about half a mile west of this monument are two old millstones which are said to have been in use in the gristmill belonging to the first little fort at saybrook, the "fort on the river," which was built and defended by the "brave lieutenant lion gardiner." [illustration: signature and seal of lion gardiner] references . winthrop, john., _history of new england_. edited by james savage. boston, . . gardiner, curtiss c. "papers and biography of lion gardiner," in _lion gardiner and his descendants_. a. whipple. st. louis, . . orr, charles. _history of the pequot war_. (accounts of mason, underhill, vincent and gardiner.) the helman-taylor co. cleveland, . . newton, arthur percival. _the colonizing activities of the english puritans_. yale university press. new haven, . . _saybrook quadrimillenial_, november , . hartford, . the frogs of windham once, in the days of indian attacks on the small english settlements in connecticut, a family of children had a narrow escape from capture by the savages. a party of indians on the warpath passed near their home while their father and elder brothers were away working in the fields with the neighbors. it was the custom in those dangerous times for men to work together in companies, going from one man's fields and meadows to another's, and for greater safety they carried their firearms with them. they stacked the guns on the edge of the field with a sentinel to watch them and keep a lookout for possible indians. sometimes it was a boy who did this sentry duty, standing on a stump like a sentry in a box. there was no one left at home that day but a girl fourteen years old and her four younger brothers. the mother had died not long before and the little sister was caring for the family. all unconscious that any indians were near, she went down to the spring for water. as she lifted the full pail she caught sight of a dark, painted face peering at her from a thicket on the edge of the clearing. she dropped the pail at once and ran as fast as she could to the house, calling to the boys to run in too and help her close the heavy door. doors were protected then by a thick wooden bar across them on the inside. the children hurried in and, working together, they got the bar in position before the indians reached the house. but the two halves of the door yielded a little, just enough to let the edge of a tomahawk through, which hacked away at the wooden bar while the children stood watching, paralyzed with fear. fortunately their own cries as they ran toward the house had reached the men in the fields, who dropped their scythes, seized their guns, and drove off the indians. but the bar was half cut through before help reached the terrified children. stories like this one, and others with less happy endings, are common, not only in the written history of connecticut, but in the unwritten traditions of connecticut families. whenever there was trouble with the indians the settlers were exposed to these dangers. in the long wars between france and england for the possession of america, the indians were often allies of the french, and then the english settlements suffered greatly from their attacks. in , not long before the beginning of the last "french-and-indian war" ( - ), there were several reasons why the people of windham, in the northeastern part of connecticut, were especially afraid of a surprise and attack by the indians. their town was on the border of the colony and less protected than some other places, and they also feared that they had lately given offense to the indians by planning a new town on what was known as the "wyoming territory" (in the present state of pennsylvania). these lands were still held by the indians, but connecticut claimed them under her patent, and although the windham people intended to pay the indians fairly for them they were not sure that the indians would not resent being forced to sell and be hostile to them in consequence. news soon reached them that war had begun in the: ohio country beyond the susquehannah, and that an expedition against the french had gone there from virginia under the command of a young officer named george washington. they heard this name then for the first time and with indifference, of course, not knowing that it belonged to a man who would become very famous later, and be honored as no other man in america has ever been honored; but they understood at once that war-time was no time in which to plant a new town. the company which had been formed for the purchase of the susquehannah lands, and which included such well-known men as colonel eliphalet dyer and jedediah elderkin, therefore put off the undertaking until peace should come again. [illustration: the wyoming massacre] meanwhile, people in windham grew anxious about their own safety. if the indians were in truth offended, would not the french now encourage them to take their revenge? that dread of the cruel savages, which was continually in the minds of all connecticut settlers in those early days, increased in "windham as rumors reached there, from time to time, of uprisings among the indians. on the spring and summer evenings of that year breathless tales were told about indian attacks: old tales which, like the one at the beginning of this story, had been handed down from earlier days in connecticut, and new tales of fresh atrocities on the borders of the northern settlements in maine and new hampshire. the children listened as long as they were allowed and then went to bed trembling, seeing fierce painted faces and threatening feather headdresses in every dark shadow. older people asked each other what would happen when the men were called out to serve in the army and the women and children were left helpless at home. "while the town was in this tense state of anxiety, those of its inhabitants who lived near windham green were awakened out of their sleep, one warm june night, by strange and unaccountable noises." there began to be a rumble, rumble, rumble in the air, and it grew louder and louder and seemed to be like drums beating. a negro servant, coming home late, heard it first. the night was still and black, and clouds hung low over the hot hillsides. he thought it might be thunder, but there was no lightning and no storm coming. he stopped and listened, and the sounds grew stranger and wilder. perhaps it was witches, or devils; perhaps the judgement day was at hand! terror seized him and he ran home breathless and awoke his master. by this time others, too, were awake; windows flew open and heads were pushed out, and everybody asked, "what is it? what is it?" some hurried out half-dressed, and frightened women and crying children gathered on the green; they could not see one anothers' white faces in the darkness. the beating of drums drew nearer and nearer. "it is the french and indians coming," cried the men; but no one could tell from which direction the enemy was advancing; the dreadful noise seemed to come from all sides at once, even from overhead in the sky. by and by they thought they could distinguish words in the uproar. deep bass voices thundered, "we'll have colonel dyer; we'll have colonel dyer," and shrill high ones answered, "elderkin, too; elderkin, too." as these were the names of the two lawyers in windham who had been most prominently connected with the wyoming plan,--the "susquehannah purchase" as it was called,--every one was sure that a band of indians bent on revenge was approaching, and hearts beat fast in fear. all night long the noises lasted, sometimes coming nearer, sometimes dying away in the distance, and all night long the people of windham waited in dread and awful expectation. at last, toward daybreak, the dark clouds slowly lifted and with the first light in the east the sounds ceased. in the gray, early morning men looked at each other and then crept silently back, each to his own home. when the sun rose, clear and bright, and no french and no indians had appeared, windham regained its courage, and before the morning was over an explanation had been found of the strange noises of the night. the frogs in the millpond had had a great battle, or some terrible catastrophe had overtaken them. dead and dying frogs lay on the ground all about the pond, and their gurgles and croaks and clamor had made all the trouble and excitement. the story was soon told all over connecticut, and everybody laughed, and ballads and songs were written about it, to the great mortification of the people of windham. yet the danger that explained the terror of that night was a real one in the history of many a connecticut town, and therefore the frogs of windham have their legitimate place in connecticut's story. references . larned, ellen. _history of windham county_. worcester, . . barber, j. w. _connecticut historical collections_. j. w. barber. new haven, . . todd, charles burr. _in olde connecticut_. the grafton press. new york, . . sylvester, herbert milton. _indian wars of new england_. w. b. clarke co. boston, . old wolf putnam one day, long ago, some boys were out bird-nesting. they saw a nest they wanted high up in a tree and far out on a limb, in a hard position to reach, one of the boldest of them climbed the tree to try to get it, but a branch broke with him and he fell. a lower projecting limb caught his clothes, and he hung there head down, arms and legs dangling helplessly. he could not climb back and he could not drop down, because he could not get free. the other boys below looked up, terrified, for the limb was high above ground; they could not reach him, and they did not know what to do. one of them carried a gun, and israel,--that was the name of the boy who had climbed the tree,--catching sight of the gun as he swung in the air, cried out, "shoot! shoot the branch off near the trunk!" the boy with the gun was afraid and hesitated. israel's position grew more and more uncomfortable and dangerous. "shoot, i tell you!" he cried again. "shoot! i'll take the risk." the boy lifted the gun with shaking hands, took aim, and fired. the branch cracked off and down came israel with it, head first; but as he fell he managed to grasp another bough with his hands, hold by it, and swing safely to the ground. the next day he went back alone, climbed that tree again, and brought home the nest. this is a story told of israel putnam, afterward major-general in the american army in the revolutionary war, and it shows the qualities of courage and perseverance, invention and quick decision, which made him useful to his country when he grew to be a man. he was born in salem, massachusetts, january , , and most of his boyhood was spent there. it is said that the first time he went to boston as a little awkward country lad, some city boys made fun of him. israel stood this as long as he could, then he suddenly challenged a bigger boy than himself, fought him, and beat him, to the great amusement of a crowd of spectators. after that the boys let him alone. he was strong and vigorous and loved all kinds of outdoor sports. before he was grown he could do a man's full day's work in the fields and was very proud of it. when he was twenty-two years old he moved with his wife and baby son to pomfret, connecticut, bought a farm there, and cast in his lot with the people of this state, so that he is a son of connecticut by adoption. he worked hard in his new home, and in a few years he was in a fair way to be rich and prosperous. it was at this time that the incident happened that gave him his nickname of "wolf putnam." just across the narrow valley from his farm there was a steep hillside, and among its rocks a wolf had her den. she was old and wary, and did a lot of damage in the neighborhood by killing sheep and lambs. traps were set to catch her and the farmers often tried to shoot her, but she always got away safely. in the winter of , she destroyed many of israel putnam's fine flock and he was greatly exasperated and made a plan with five other men to hunt her regularly, by twos in turn, until she was found and killed. she had once been nearly caught in a trap, and had only got out by leaving the claws of one foot behind her, so that her trail was easy to distinguish on the snow, one foot being shorter than the other, and making a different mark. one night they followed her all night long, and in the morning traced her back to her den in the hillside and made sure of its exact location. then all day long they worked hard, trying to get her out. they burned straw and brimstone in the entrance of the cave, hoping to smoke her out; they sent in the dogs, but these came back wounded and bleeding and refused to go again. putnam's own fine bloodhound refused to go in, and then he decided to try it himself and shoot the wolf inside the cave, since there was no way of making her come out. he took off his coat, tied a rope around his waist, and with a torch and a gun, crawled in on his hands and knees as well as he could. far back in the deep darkness the blazing eyes of the wolf showed him her lair. she growled and made ready to spring at him, but he fired and fortunately killed her with the first shot, and the men outside dragged him and the wolf out together. israel putnam was a young man then and almost a stranger in the place, but his courage and resourcefulness that day made him known to the people and gave him a reputation among them. in some ways he had been at a disadvantage in pomfret, for the people there, even in those early times, cared much about education. soon after the place was settled, a library association was formed to provide reading matter for the families living near. ten young men from pomfret graduated at yale college in the class of . now, israel putnam's early education had been neglected. he did not love study, he loved outdoor life, and there was no schoolhouse near his home in salem. he never learned to spell correctly. some of his letters, which have been preserved, are almost impossible to read now, the spelling is so very curious. later in his life, when he became a general in the army and was brought in contact with washington and other educated and trained men, he was mortified and much ashamed of his own lack in this respect. he tried then to dictate his letters as often as possible so that people should not laugh at his ignorance. it made him careful to give his children a better education than his own. in , when he was thirty-seven years old, israel putnam entered the provincial army for service in the french-and-indian war, and rose to the rank of colonel before the war was over in . he went with the connecticut troops on several expeditions against the french forts at crown point and ticonderoga, on lake champlain and lake george. he had plenty of exciting adventures in this war, and long afterward, in his old age, he liked to tell them over to his friends and neighbors at home. some of the stories have come down to us. once word came to the english camp at fort edward that a wagon train bringing supplies had been plundered by a party of french and indians, and major robert rogers, with his new england rangers and a detachment of provincial troops,--some of whom were under putnam's command,--was sent out to intercept the enemy on their retreat. these rangers, or scouts, had been drilled by their famous leader until they almost equaled the indians in their own mode of fighting, and they were of great use in the war. this time they were too late and the plunderers escaped, but as other parties were said to be hovering near, rogers spent some days searching for them. he saw no signs of them and at last turned back toward the fort. one morning, contrary to his usual practice, he allowed some of his men to fire at a mark for a wager. this was a dangerous thing to do because they could never be sure that there were no enemies lurking near. it happened this time that a large body of french and indians were not far off, and, hearing the firing, they came up quickly and silently through the thick forest and hid themselves in ambush, indian fashion, near a clearing in the woods where the tall trees had been cut down and a thicket of small underbrush had grown up. the english were obliged to pass this clearing on their way home and the only path across it was a narrow one used by the indians, who always went through the woods in single file, one behind another, each stepping in the footprints of the man ahead of him. the english were in three companies, the first commanded by putnam, the last by rogers himself. putnam and his men had got safely across the clearing and were just entering the forest again, when suddenly, the enemy sprang out of their ambush and rushed upon them. putnam rallied his men and made the best stand he could and the other companies hurried to his assistance. but in the sharp skirmish that followed, as putnam aimed his gun at a large, powerful indian chief, it missed fire. the indian sprang upon him, dragged him back into the forest, and tied him securely to a tree. as the fight went on, bullets from both parties began to fly past him and to hit the tree, so that for a time he was in as great danger from his friends as from his enemies. when, at last, the french and indians were repulsed, the latter marched putnam away with them as their prisoner back to their camp. his arms were tied tightly behind him, his shoes were taken away so that his feet were bruised and bleeding, and he was loaded with so many packs that he could scarcely move. when he could stand it no longer he begged the savages to kill him at once. the indian who had captured him came up just then and gave him a pair of moccasins, and made the others loosen his arms and lighten his load. but when they reached the camping-place a worse ordeal was before him. his clothes were taken off, he was tied again to a tree, dry brushwood was piled in a circle around the tree, fire was set to this, and, as the flames rose up and the heat grew greater, he felt sure that his last hour had come. however, word had reached one of the french officers that the indians were torturing their prisoner, and he rushed in, scattered the burning brush, and unbound the prisoner. the indians who had captured israel putnam may not have intended to kill him, but it was their custom to torture prisoners taken in war, and both the french and the english officers often had great difficulty in controlling their savage allies. putnam was carried to canada and treated kindly by the french, and a few months later he was exchanged and sent home with some other prisoners. once before he had had a narrow escape from the indians and only his quick decision and courage saved him. he was on a river-bank when they crept up belind him. calling to the five men with him, he rushed for the boat and pushed off downstream toward some dangerous rapids. the indians fired and missed him, and the boat shot down the rapids. it came out safe below them,--the first boat that had ever done so,--and the indians thought it must be under the protection of their own great spirit. two years after his unwilling visit to canada as a prisoner, israel putnam went there again, this time with the army under the command of general amherst. the french-and-indian war was ending in victory for the english; quebec had fallen, but a few other posts still held out, and this expedition was against montreal. on the way there a french ship on lake ontario opposed the progress of the english, and a story is told of putnam's original way of overcoming this difficulty. "give me some wedges, a beetle [that is, a large wooden hammer], and a few men of my own choice, and i'll take her," he said to general amherst. he meant to row under the stern of the ship and wedge her rudder so that she would be helpless. whether the plan was carried out, we do not know, but in the morning she had blown ashore and surrendered. montreal, too, surrendered to the english, and in an indian mission near there putnam discovered the indian who had taken him prisoner two years before. the chief was delighted to see him and entertained him in his own stone house. when he returned to connecticut at the end of the war, he found himself a hero and a favorite with everybody. so many people came to see him that at last he turned his house into an inn, and hung out a sign on a tree in front of it. that sign is now in the rooms of the connecticut historical society at hartford. the next ten years, until the revolution, he spent in peace on his farm. just before that war began he drove a flock of sheep all the way to boston for the people there who were in distress. "the old hero, putnam," says a letter written from boston in august, , "arrived in town on monday bringing with him sheep from the little parish of brooklyn. he cannot get away, he is so much caressed both by officers and citizens." the next spring he was ploughing in the field when a messenger rode by bringing the news of the battle of lexington. putnam left the plough in the furrow in the care of his young son daniel, and without stopping to change his working clothes, set off at once on horseback for boston, making a record ride for a heavy man fifty-seven years old. his popularity in connecticut made men ready to enlist under him. the battle of bunker hill was fought at boston in june, and he took part in it. "the brave old man," says washington irving, "rode about in the heat of the action, with a hanger belted across his brawny shoulders over a waistcoat without sleeves, inspiriting his men by his presence, and fighting gallantly at the outposts to cover their retreat." when washington arrived at cambridge to take command of the american army, israel putnam received from him his appointment by the continental congress as major-general. he held this rank through the rest of his life and fought in many campaigns of the revolution. he was with the army in new york, and at the battle of long island; he was sent by washington to philadelphia to protect that city when it was threatened by the british, and later, he was put in charge of the defenses of the hudson river. one of his last exploits in the revolutionary war was his famous ride down the stone steps at horseneck, near greenwich. the british, under general tryon, invaded connecticut in , and threatened greenwich, and general putnam, who was in command there, after placing his men in the best position for defense, hurried off alone, on horseback, for stamford, to bring up reinforcements. some british dragoons, catching sight of him down the road, started in pursuit. they were better mounted than he and gained on him steadily. putnam, looking back, saw the distance between them grow less and less. in a moment more they would overtake him; what should he do? he was on the top of the hill near the episcopal church, there was a curve in the road ahead, and a precipice at the side, with some rough stone steps up which people sometimes climbed on foot on sundays, to the church, from the lower road at the bottom of the hill. putnam struck spurs into his horse and dashed around the curve at full speed. the instant he was out of sight he wheeled and put his horse over the precipice down the steep rocks. the dragoons came galloping around the corner and, not seeing him, stopped short in astonishment. before they discovered him again, he was halfway down to the lower road. they sent a bullet after him which went through his beaver hat and he turned, waved his hand in a gay good-bye, and rode on to stamford. it is said that general tryon afterward sent him a suit of clothes to make up for the loss of his hat. that same year he had a stroke of paralysis which disabled him so that he could never again take part in the war. he lived at home in retirement until his death on may , . perhaps no brave deed in his life was quite as brave as the cheerful and resolute way he met this hard blow near its end. he did not die as he would have liked, in the roar and thunder of battle; he was laid aside and the war went on without him. but after the first bitter disappointment, he regained his courage and good spirits, and no one heard him complain. people gathered about him and his last days were honored in his own home. when the war ended in , washington wrote him a letter which he counted as one of his greatest treasures. any number of stories are told of "old put," as the soldiers called him, of his adventures, and his odd humor. it is said that once "a british officer challenged him to fight [a duel]; and putnam, having the choice of weapons, chose that they should sit together over a keg of powder to which a slow match was applied. the officer sat till the match drew near the hole, when he ran for his life, putnam calling after him that it was only a keg of onions with a few grains of powder sprinkled upon it." we have several descriptions of his personal appearance. he "was of medium height, of a strong, athletic figure, and in the time of the revolutionary war weighed about two hundred pounds. his hair was dark, his eyes light blue, and his broad, good-humored face was marked with deep scars received in his encounters with french and indians," "putnam, scored with ancient scars, the living record of his country's wars," as a poet of those days expressed it. [illustration: general putnam--a drawing from life by john trumbull] there were greater generals in the revolution than israel putnam, men who, partly because they were better educated, were better fitted than he to plan and carry out large operations. but he excelled as a pioneer, as a bold leader, and a brave, independent fighter. as a well-known historian says, "he was brave and generous, rough and ready, thought not of himself in time of danger, but was ready to serve in any way the good of the cause. his name has long been a favorite one with young and old; one of the talismanic names of the revolution, the very mention of which is like the sound of a trumpet." references . humphreys, colonel david. _essay on the life of the hon. major-general israel putnam_. boston, . . livingston, william garrand. _israel putnam. pioneer, ranger, and major-general_. g. p. putnam's sons. new york and london, . . tarbox, increase n. _life of israel putnam_ ("old put"). lockwood, brooks & co. boston, . . fiske, john. "israel putnam," in appleton's _encyclopaedia of american biography_. boston, . the bullet-makers of litchfield in the museum of the new york historical society there is a large flat stone with an inscription cut into one side of it, and in the other, three deep holes for three legs of a horse. lying on a table near it are several large pieces of heavy metal with the old gilding almost worn off. one piece looks like the tail of a horse and another like a part of his saddle. these fragments of metal and the stone slab are nearly all that is left of a statue of king george the third on horseback that stood on bowling green, at the lower end of broadway in new york city, before the revolutionary war. one evening early in the war a mob gathered on bowling green. led by the sons of liberty and helped by some of the soldiers, the crowd tore down the king's statue and broke it into bits. bonfires were blazing in the streets and by the light of these ropes were thrown over the king and his charger and both were pulled down and dragged through the streets. an entry in washington's orderly book at this time, forbidding his soldiers to take part in anything like a riot, shows that he did not fully approve of this proceeding. but the people were very much excited. it was the night of the th of july, , and news of the declaration of independence by the continental congress in philadelphia had just reached new york that afternoon. at evening rollcall the declaration was read at the head of each brigade of the army and "was received with loud huzzas." independence was declared in philadelphia on the th of july, and that day has been kept ever since as the birthday of the united states, but news traveled so slowly before the telegraph was invented that it was not known in new york until monday, the th. then bells rang, and as night drew on people lighted bonfires to show their joy, and not content with this, they hurried away to bowling green and pulled down the statue of the king and cut off his head. they acted at once on the statement of the famous declaration which they had just heard read to them, that "a prince whose character is marked by every act that may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." once off his pedestal, however, the king suddenly became valuable and precious to them, for he, as well as his horse, was made mostly of lead and he could be melted down and run into bullets. lead was dear and scarce, and bullets were needed in the army. the king's troops now "will probably have _melted majesty_ fired at them," some one wrote in a letter to general gates. so the pieces of the statue were carefully saved and most of it was sent away secretly by ox-cart, so it is said, up into the connecticut hills to the home of general wolcott in litchfield, for safe keeping. the general was returning there himself about this time from philadelphia, and perhaps he took charge of its transportation. we shall hear of it again in litchfield, for this story, which begins in new york, ends in connecticut. the story should really begin in london, for the statue was made there. the colonists sent an order for it after the repeal of the stamp act in . this act had excited great resentment in the colonies because it was an attempt to tax the people without their consent. when it was at last repealed, they were overjoyed, and new york determined to express its renewed loyalty to the king by erecting a statue of him. the laws of the colony state that it was set up "as a monument of the deep sense with which the inhabitants of this colony are impressed of the blessing they enjoy under his [king george's] illustrious reign, as well as their great affection for his royal person." the statue was of lead, dark, heavy, and dull like the character of the king it represented, but it was richly gilded outside and looked, at first, like pure gold. some of the pieces in the museum still show the gilding. it must have been a brilliant ornament in the little city when, on august , , it was placed on bowling green, facing the fort gate. but it did not stand there very long in peace, for the stormy days of the revolution were approaching. england continued to impose taxes and the colonies to resist them, until the discontent of the people broke out in many ways. more than one attempt was made to injure king george's statue before it was finally torn down on the night of july , . [illustration: king george the third courtesy of mr. charles m. lefferts and the new york historical society a drawing by mr lefferts from descriptions and measurements of fragments of the statue] if we want to know what the british thought of this last insult to their king, we shall find out by reading the journal of captain john montresor, an officer in the british army. "hearing," he writes, "that the rebels [that is, the americans] had cut the king's head off the equestrian statue in the centre of the ellipps [near the fort] at new york, which represented george the rd in the figure of marcus aurelius, and that they had cut the nose off, clipt the laurels that were wreathed round his head and drove a musket bullet part of the way thro' his head and otherwise disfigured it, and that it was carried to moore's tavern adjoining fort washington, on new york island, in order to be fixt on a spike on the truck of that flag-staff as soon as it could be got ready, i immediately sent to cox, who kept the tavern at king's bridge, to steal it from thence and to bury it, which was effected, and was dug up on our arrival and i rewarded the men, and sent the head by the lady gage to lord townshend, in order to convince them at home of the infamous disposition of the ungrateful people of this distressed country." and there, in london, a year later, governor hutchinson, of massachusetts, saw it at lord townshend's house in portman square. lady townshend, he said, went to a sofa and uncovered a large gilt head which her husband had received the night before from new york, and which, although "the nose was wounded and defaced," he at once recognized by its striking likeness to the king. we do not know what became of it after this, or whether it is still in existence. there were one or two other pieces of this monument which also had eventful histories. the slab, on which the horse had stood with one foot in the air, was used as a gravestone for major john smith, of the forty-second, or royal highland, regiment, who died in , and later it served for a time as a stepping-stone in front of a well-known house in new jersey. nearly one hundred years after the declaration of independence the tail of king george's horse was dug up on a farm in wilton, connecticut, and a piece of his saddle was found there at about the same time. the tradition in wilton is that the ox-cart carrying the broken statue passed through wilton on its way to litchfield, and that the saddle and the tail were thrown away there. just why, no one knows; perhaps the load was too heavy; possibly--some people think--because it was found that they were not of pure lead and could not be used to make bullets. most of the statue, however, seems to have reached litchfield safely. on the beautiful broad south street of that village, high in the connecticut hills, the house of general wolcott, afterwards governor wolcott, of connecticut, still stands under its old trees much as it stood in the summer of . when the pieces of the leaden statue reached litchfield, they were buried temporarily in the "wolcott orchard under an apple tree of the pound variety" that stood near the southeast corner of the house. and then, sometime later, there came a day when king george, who had once sat so securely on his solid steed, close to his fort in his good city of new york, was taken out of this last hiding-place and, together with his leaden horse, was melted down and run into bullets to be fired at his own soldiers. bullet-moulds of the time of the revolution can be seen now in historical museums. some of them are shaped like a large pair of shears. the work of running the bullets that day in litchfield was done by women and girls, for the men were away at the war. the only man who took part in it, besides the general himself, was frederick, his ten-year-old son, and he, many years later, told how he remembered the event, how a shed was built in the orchard, how his father chopped up the fragments of the statue with a wood-axe, how gay the girls were, his two sisters a little older than himself and their friends, and what fun they all had over the whole affair. a ladle, said to have been used in pouring the lead into the moulds, is still kept in the historical museum at litchfield, and among governor wolcott's papers is a memorandum labeled, "number of cartridges made." _cartridges_ mrs. marvin, , ruth marvin, , laura, , mary ann, , frederick, mrs. beach, , made by sundry persons, , gave litchfield militia on alarm, let the regiment of colonel wigglesworth have, ------ , mary ann and laura were frederick's sisters, twelve and fourteen years old. some of the bullets made, and which were given to the "litchfield militia on alarm," were probably used the next year to repulse a british invasion of connecticut, so that it was said then that "his majesty's statue was returned to his majesty's troops with the compliments of the men of connecticut." references . _proceedings_ of the new york historical society. october, . . _proceedings_ of the massachusetts historical society. d series, vol. . . montresor, captain john. "journals." _collections_ of the new york historical society for the year . printed by the society. . kilbourne, payne kenyon. _sketches and chronicles of the town of litchfield, conn_. case, lockwood & co. hartford, . . _wokott memorial_. newgate prison "attend all ye villains that live in the state, consider the walls that encircle newgate." newgate is the name of a famous prison in london. it is called "newgate" because it was first built, centuries ago, over a new gate in the wall of the city. later, when these rooms over the gate became too crowded, a larger prison was built near by and called by the same name. there was once a newgate prison in connecticut. it was named for the old english one, but, instead of being up over a gate, it was down underground in a copper-mine. there was no entrance to it except by a shaft thirty feet deep, and the colonists chose this place for its security, yet the history of newgate in connecticut is full of tales of the daring and successful escapes of its prisoners. copper hill, where the prison was, is in what used to be the town of simsbury, but is now east granby. the copper-mines there were opened early in , and were worked for about sixty years. the copper is said to have been of good quality. in - , coins were made from it--some say by dr. samuel higley who owned a mine near his home. these coins were never a legal tender, but were used as "token money," because small change was scarce in the colonies. they are valuable to-day because they are very rare. granby coppers have on one side a deer standing, and below him a hand, a star, and iii, and around him the legend, "value me as you please." on the other side are three sledgehammers with the royal crown on each hammer, and around them either the word "connecticut," or the legend, "i am a good copper," with the date . a third kind has one broadaxe and the legend, "i cut my way through." there is a specimen of each of the three kinds of granby coppers in the connecticut state library at hartford. the mines were quite successful at first, but, as the colonists were not allowed to smelt and refine the ore in america, they were obliged to send it all the way to england, and this was very expensive. sometimes, too, the ships carrying copper did not reach england at all. one was wrecked in the english channel and another was seized by the french during a war with england. so in , a few years before our revolutionary war, the mines were given up and the largest of them was changed into a prison. at first there were no buildings at all. there was nothing but a hole in the ground, closed by an iron trapdoor that opened into the shaft, where a wooden ladder was fixed to the rock at one side. at the bottom of the ladder there was a flight of rough stone steps leading farther down into the mine. all was dark and still except for the dripping of water along the galleries that led away into the heart of the hill. one cavern was blasted out to make more room and was fitted with wooden cells and bunks for the prisoners to sleep in, and at night a guard was set to watch the entrance up above and prevent any one from climbing the ladder and getting out. when everything was ready, the committee in charge of the work reported that it would be "next to impossible for any one to escape from this prison." the first prisoner sent there was a man named john henson, who was committed on december , . he spent eighteen days alone in the mine; then, on the night of january , , he disappeared. no one could imagine how he got out. but there was another shaft leading up from the mine, a very deep one, where the copper ore had been drawn out. it had no ladder in it and its opening had not been closed, because it did not seem possible for a prisoner to escape that way. yet a woman drew john henson up eighty feet through the shaft in a bucket used for hoisting copper. after that, this shaft, too, was carefully closed and a strong wooden guardhouse was built over the entrance to the other one. [illustration: the ruins of newgate prison] more prisoners were soon committed to newgate. "burglars, horse-thieves, and counterfeiters," according to the law, were sent there and they were set to work mining copper, but instead of doing this, they dug their way out with the mining tools; so workshops were built aboveground where they made nails, boots and shoes, wagons, and other things. they slept in the mine as before, but at daylight they were called and came up the ladder in squads of three at a time under a guard, climbing as well as they could with fetters on their legs. they took their meals in the workshops and were chained to the forges and workbenches until late in the afternoon, when they went down again into the mine for the night. when the revolutionary war began, in , political prisoners were sent to newgate in connecticut, just as such prisoners had often been sent to old newgate in england. these men in america were the tories, or loyalists, who sympathized with the british and were often found giving them information and help. to protect themselves the americans arrested them. some of the first were sent by washington from the camp at cambridgik where the american army was besieging boston. here is a part of his letter to the committee of safety at simsbury; its date shows that it was written several months before the declaration of independence by the continental congress in philadelphia:-- cambridge, december th, . gentlemen: the prisoners which will be delivered to you with this, having been tried by a court martial, were sentenced to simsbury in connecticut. you will therefore have them secured so that they cannot possibly make their escape. i am, etc. george washington. but the tories were just as anxious as any other prisoners to escape if they could. three times the wooden guardhouse over the entrance was set on fire and burned down. once, when there were a great many tories in newgate, they made a concerted plan and carried it out successfully. the wife of one of them had permission, to visit him, and came to the prison one night about ten o'clock. only two guards were on duty then at the mouth of the shaft. when the trapdoor was lifted for her, the prisoners were all ready and waiting on the ladder. they rushed out, overpowered the two men, took away their muskets, and got possession of the guardroom. the rest of the watch, who had been asleep, hurried in, and there was a desperate fight; one man was killed and several were wounded. at last the prisoners succeeded in putting all the guards down into the mine and closing the trapdoor upon them. then they escaped themselves, and few of them were ever retaken. a story is told of a tory prisoner who, about the year , made his escape in a remarkable and unexpected way. there was an old drain in the mine which had once carried off water, but when the mine became a prison it was stopped up with stone and mortar, except for a small opening where the water still ran off between iron bars. the outlet of this drain was far down on the hillside beyond the sight of the guards. the prisoner, henry wooster, who worked in the nail-shop, contrived to hide some bits of iron nail rods in his clothes and carry them back with him into the mine. he learned, with their help, to take off his fetters at night. then, with the same bits of iron, he worked at the bars of the drain until, little by little, he loosened some of them and took them out so that he could crawl through into the drain. but the drain was too narrow in some places to let him pass and he was obliged to loosen and remove some of its stones. this was a long and hard task, but he was not easily discouraged. each night he took off his clothed and his fetters, crawled into the drain, and worked until morning. then he replaced the iron bars, dressed, put on his fetters, and was ready when the guards came down to go up to the shops with the rest of the prisoners. by and by he got nearly to the end of the drain. then one night, while he was down there, a stone, which he had accidentally loosened, fell behind him and blocked his way back. he could not turn to reach the stone with his hands, for the drain was too narrow, he could not stir it with his feet, and he dared not cry out for help; time passed, and it was almost morning; he would be called and missed, and he shuddered to think of the consequences. at last, as he was about to give up in despair, he felt the stone move just a little. bracing himself against the sides of the drain, he pushed it vigorously with his feet. slowly, inch by inch, it rolled back until it fell into a slight depression so that he could pass over it. bleeding and exhausted, he got to his bunk and into his clothes and fetters again just as the guards came down the ladder. a few nights later he finished his work and, with several other prisoners, escaped through the drain. some of the tories in newgate were well-known and educated men. one was a clergyman named simeon baxter. he preached a sermon, one sunday, to his companions in the mine, in which he advised them, if they could, to assassinate washington and the whole continental congress. this sermon was printed afterward in london and proves how bitter the feeling was in those days between the americans and the tories. after the revolution, newgate was the state prison of the state of connecticut until . new workshops and other buildings were added from time to time as they were needed. the wooden guardhouse was replaced by one of brick, and a strong stone room over the mouth of the shaft went by the nickname of the "stone jug." there was a chapel and a hospital, but the hospital was seldom used because there was very little sickness. the pure air and even temperature in the mine, where it was never too hot in summer nor too cold in winter, kept the prisoners well in spite of darkness and confinement, and men who were sent there in a bad state of health often recovered. at one time there was a strong wooden fence, with iron spikes on its top, around the enclosure, but in it was replaced by a stone wall twelve feet high, with watch-towers at the corners and a moat below it. some of the prisoners helped to build this wall, and when it was finished they were allowed to take part in a celebration. one of them, an irishman, gave this toast at the feast: "may the great wall be like the wall of jericho and tumble down at the sound of a ram's horn." but the wall is still standing on copper hill after more than one hundred years and, although the prison is empty and the mines deserted to-day, a great many people visit the place every year because of its interesting history. guides take the visitors down the steep ladder in the shaft and lead them through the underground galleries where copper was mined, and show them the caverns where the prisoners once slept in old newgate prison. references . trumbull, j. h. (editor). _memorial history of hartford county._ e. l. osgood, boston, . . "newgate of connecticut." _magazine of american history_, vol. , april, . see also vol. . . phelps, richard h. _newgate of connecticut_. american publishing co. hartford, . the dark day "'t was on a may-day of the far old year seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell over the bloom and sweet life of the spring, over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, a horror of great darkness, like the night." whittier. "yellow friday," or "the dark day," in new england, was the l th of may, . for nearly a week before this day the air had been full of smoke and haze, and the sun at noontime and the full moon at night had looked like great red balls in the misty sky. thursday night the sun went down red and threatening. friday morning it rose as usual, but, as the weather was overcast, it only peered now and then through the broken gray clouds. there were mutterings of thunder and a few drops of rain fell, big and heavy with black soot. then the shower stopped and a stillness like that before a great storm settled over the land. the day, instead of growing lighter, grew darker and darker. yet no storm came. strange colors edged the low-hanging clouds, red and brown and a brassy yellow, while the fields and woods below were a deep, unnatural green. the white roads and houses and the white church steeples turned yellow. even the clean silver in the houses looked like brass. these colors foreboded an eclipse of the sun; yet there was no eclipse. by noon it was as dark as early night, and the birds sang their evening songs and disappeared. some of the smaller ones, frightened and fluttering, flew into the houses or dashed themselves against the window panes. chickens went to roost, the cows came home from pasture, and the frogs croaked in the ponds. men planting corn in the fields stopped work because they could not see the corn as it dropped. women at home lighted candles to find their way about the house. no one could see the time of day by the clocks, and white paper looked like black velvet. many people were terrified and wondered what was coming. some expected a great tornado; others said a comet was due and feared it portended some great calamity, perhaps a disaster to the armies in the field who were fighting england in the war of the revolution. still others, more ignorant and superstitious, were sure that the end of the world had come, that the last trumpet would soon sound and the dead be raised. one woman sent a messenger in haste to her pastor to ask what this dreadful darkness meant, but he only replied that he was "as much in the dark" as she. several gentlemen, who happened to be at the house of reverend manasseh cutler, the minister in ipswich, massachusetts, have left us a record of their observations that day. mr. cutler wrote in his journal:-- "this morning mr. lathrop of boston called upon me. soon after he came in i observed a remarkable cloud coming up and it appeared dark. the cloud was unusually brassy with little or no rain. mr. sewell and colonel wigglesworth came in. the darkness increased and by eleven o'clock it was so dark as to make it necessary to light candles ... at half-past eleven in a room with three large windows, southeast and south, could not read a word in large print close to windows .... about twelve it lighted up a little, then grew more dark.... at one o'clock very dark.... the windows being still open, a candle cast a shade so well defined on the wall that profiles were taken with as much ease as they could have been in the night. ... we dined about two, the windows all open and two candles burning on the table. in the time of the greatest darkness some of the dunghill fowls went to roost, cocks crowed in answer to one another, woodcocks, which are night birds, whistled as they do only in the dark, frogs peeped, in short there was the appearance of midnight at noonday.... at four o'clock it grew more light.... between three and four we were out and perceived a strong sooty smell. some of the company were confident a chimney in the neighborhood must be burning; others conjectured the smell was more like that of burnt leaves." these gentlemen went over to the tavern near by and found the people there greatly excited and tried to reassure them. they proved to them from the black ashes of leaves, which had settled like a scum on the rainwater standing in tubs, that the darkness was not supernatural, but probably came from the burning of forests far away. dr. ezra stiles, who was then president of yale college in new haven, gave the same explanation. he says:-- "the woods about ticonderoga [in new york] and eastward over to new hampshire and westward into new york and the jerseys were all on fire for a week before this darkness and the smoke in the wilderness almost to suffocation. no rain since last fall, the woods excessively dry.... such a profusion of settlers pushing back into the wilderness were everywhere clearing land and burning brush. this set the forests afire far beyond intention, so as to burn houses and fences.... the woods burned extensively for a week before the nineteenth of may and the wind all the while northerly." a quaint old ballad, said to have been written about that time, gives a description of this dark day:-- [illustration: from harper's weekly, copyright . copyright harper and brothers an old connecticutt inn, ] "the whip-poor-will sung notes most shrill, doves to their cots retreated, and all the fowls, excepting owls, upon their roosts were seated. "the herds and flocks stood still as stocks, or to their folds were hieing, men young and old, dared not to scold at wives and children crying. "the day of doom, most thought was come, throughout new england's borders, the people scared, felt unprepared to obey the dreadful orders." in connecticut the legislature was in session at hartford. it was like night in the streets of this city and candles were burning in the windows of all the houses. men grew anxious and uneasy. as the darkness became deeper, the house of representatives adjourned, finding it impossible to transact any business. soon after, a similar motion for adjournment was made in the senate, or council, as it was then called. by this time faces could scarcely be distinguished across the room and a dread had fallen on the assembly; "men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which were coming." then up rose honorable abraham davenport, a judge of fairfield county and councilor from stamford, a stern and upright man, strict in the discharge of his duty. "i am against adjournment," he said. "the day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. if it is not, there is no cause for adjournment; if it is, i choose to be found doing my duty. i wish, therefore, that candles may be brought." his strong words held the assembly. its members rallied from their fears and, following his example, turned steadily to the transaction of the necessary business of the hour. "and there he stands in memory to this day, erect, self-poised, a rugged face half seen against a background of unnatural dark, a witness to the ages as they pass that simple duty hath no place for fear." whittier. references . barber, j. w. _connecticut historical collections_, j. w. barber. new haven, . . _"the dark day." new england magazine_, may, . . dexter, f. b. (editor). _the literary diary of ezra stiles_. charles scribner's sons. new york, . . cutler, w. p. and j. p. _life, journals, and correspondence of rev. manasseh cutler_. cincinnati, . a french camp in connecticut on the green of the old town of lebanon a mound is shown to-day on the spot where a large brick oven stood in the winter of --an oven in which bread was baked for the soldiers of the american revolutionary army. these soldiers, who might have been seen almost any day that winter in their gay uniforms, crossing and recrossing the green, or gathered in groups about the oven, were, strangely enough, not american soldiers, but french hussars belonging to the duke de lauzun's famous "legion of horse." france, being herself at war with england, had recently sent an army to america to help the colonies in their struggle against a common enemy, and the french commander-in-chief, the count de rochambeau, wrote from newport, rhode island, to governor trumbull, of connecticut, asking if the governor could provide winter quarters in lebanon for a part of his forces--for the duke de lauzun and some of his legion of horse. governor trumbull's home was in lebanon. his house was near the village green, and close beside it stood his store, which, by this time, had become famous under the name of the "war office," because in this store the governor and the council of safety used to meet and talk over the important business of the war, and what connecticut could do, as her share, to help the american army. there is a story that washington used to say when he needed more supplies, "let us see what brother jonathan can do for us," and that this nickname, which is now used for the united states, belonged originally to jonathan trumbull. it is true that washington often turned to him for help. he had approved the application of the count de rochambeau to governor trumbull for winter quarters for the french troops. but long before the arrival of these soldiers there had been busy times in lebanon. provisions of all kinds were brought from all over the state to the governor's store to be packed and sent off to the troops in the field. the governor was usually to be found there himself, weighing and measuring, packing boxes and barrels, dealing out powder and lead, starting off trains of loaded wagons and often large herds of cattle to be driven all the way to the army at the front. messengers came and went, flying on horseback along the country roads, and sometimes they sat on the counter in the store, swinging their spurred boots, waiting for the governor to give them their orders. a piece of that counter, with the marks of their spurs in the soft wood, can be seen now in the rooms of the connecticut historical society in hartford. although there were dark days during the war when the state's treasury was exhausted and the people discouraged and the demands of the army hard to meet, yet "governor trumbull never quailed in his store on lebanon hill." somehow or other the supplies were found and little connecticut became known as the "provision state." washington spoke of her governor as "the first of patriots." this is one of governor trumbull's proclamations to the men of connecticut:-- "be roused and alarmed to stand forth in our glorious cause. join yourselves to one of the companies now ordered to new york, or form yourselves into distinct companies and choose captains forthwith;... march on; play the man for god and for the cities of our god, and may the god of the armies of israel be your leader." lebanon was then on one of the main roads through new england, and many distinguished men stopped there at different times to see the governor. washington came, and lafayette, the young french nobleman whom washington loved almost as a son, and who is, perhaps, "nearer to the hearts of the americans than any man not of their own people." lafayette holds this place in their affections because, before the french government decided to send help to the colonies, he "came from france of his own accord and brought with him the sympathy of the french people," among whom also new ideas of liberty were stirring. "from the moment i first heard of america," he said, "i began to love her; from the moment i understood that she was struggling for her liberties, i burned to shed my best blood in her cause." lafayette's countrymen, who spent the winter of in lebanon, were the gallant soldiers of france. their leader, the duke de lauzun, was a gay french nobleman, very handsome, very fond of good living, brilliant and witty as well as brave; nobody like him or his men had ever been seen before in lebanon. the people of that quiet little town opened their eyes in surprise when the dashing french hussars, in their tall black caps and their brilliantly braided jackets, came galloping in over the muddy country roads. governor trumbull had made provision for them. barracks were built for some on a farm which he owned just outside the town, and others camped on the village green. with their arrival life in lebanon changed. at daybreak the french bugles blew the reveille. there were parades and reviews, there were balls and parties. washington held a review of lauzun's legion when he passed through the place one day in march. the corps was finely equipped. its horses were good, its men brave and handsome, and their uniforms vivid and trim. the hussars wore sky-blue jackets braided with white, yellow breeches, high boots, and tall caps with a white plume at the side. they made a great impression on the country people, who had seen their own men, dressed in homespun clothes, mount their rough farmhorses and ride away, just as they were, to the war. the duke himself was friendly and pleasant and popular with his new neighbors. he lived in a house lent him by david trumbull, the governor's son. [illustration: the marquis of lafayette this statue was presented to france by the school children of the united states] once, early in the winter, two distinguished visitors from the french army came to see him, the marquis de chastellux, who wrote a book of "travels in north america," and the baron de montesquieu; and he gave a dinner for them to which he invited governor trumbull. in the marquis's book we can read a description of it and of governor trumbull as he appeared to these french gentlemen from the old world. "on returning from the chase," says de chastellux (he had been out hunting squirrels), "i dined at the duke de lauzun's with governor trumbull. this good methodical governor is seventy years old. his whole life is consecrated to business, which he passionately loves, whether it is important or not. he has all the simplicity and pedantry of a great magistrate of a small republic, and invariably says he will consider, that he must refer to his council. he wears the antique dress of the first settlers in this colony." then the marquis goes on to tell how the small old man, in his single-breasted, drab-colored coat, tight knee-breeches, and muslin wrist-ruffles, walked up to the table where twenty hussar officers were waiting and with "formal stiffness pronounced in a loud voice a long prayer in the form, of a benedicite." the french officers must have been surprised; they were not used to simple country manners and to grace before meat on all occasions, but they were too polite and too well trained to laugh. "twenty amens issued at once from the midst of forty moustaches," says the marquis, and in spite of the fun he makes of the old puritan governor's stiff manners, we feel in reading the story that he fully appreciates his sterling good qualities. some of these pleasure-loving french gentlemen met a strange and sad fate, years later, in the terrible days of the french revolution. the duke de lauzun was beheaded in paris in , his long and adventurous life "ended with a little spurt of blood under the knife of the guillotine"; and lafayette spent five years in an austrian prison. there is another story of old lebanon which is connected with the visit of the french soldiers. the french commander-in-chief, the count de rochambeau, had given to madam faith trumbull, the governor's wife, a beautiful scarlet cloak, and one sabbath day she appeared in the governor's pew in the lebanon meeting-house wearing the french general's handsome gift. now, in those hard times contributions for the army were often collected after service on sundays, and the people not only gave money, but whatever else they could spare, indian corn, flax, wood, shoes and stockings, hats and coats. quietly the governor's wife rose in her seat and, taking the scarlet cloak from her shoulders, carried it down to the front and laid it with the other gifts. later, it was cut into narrow bands and used to make red stripes on the soldiers' uniforms. all that is left of those stirring times in lebanon to-day is the little "war office,"--restored and kept as a memorial of the revolution,--and the mound on the green where the brick oven stood in which bread was baked for the french soldiers who fought for american independence. references . stuart, i. w. _life of jonathan trumbull./i> crocker & firewater. boston, . . _the lebanon war office./i> published by the connecticut society of the sons of the revolution. hartford, . . lodge, henry cabot. "address at the unveiling of the statue of the count de rochambeau," in _a fighting frigate and other essays./i> d. appleton & co. new york, . . chastellux, marquis de. _travels in north america._ london. nathan hale "to drum-beat and heart-beat a soldier marches by; there is color in his cheek, there is courage in his eye, yet to drum-beat and heart-beat in a moment he must die." the story of nathan hale is the story of a short life and a brave death. connecticut has written his name on her roll of honor--the name of a man who was executed as a spy in the war of the revolution. he was born in coventry, tolland county, on the th of june, . his father, deacon richard hale, who, as well as his mother, elizabeth strong, was descended from the earliest settlers of massachusetts, had moved to coventry, connecticut, and had bought a large farm there. the children were brought up strictly, as they were in all new england families in those days, and no doubt there was plenty of hard work for them on the farm, but, as there were ten or twelve of them, we may be sure there was plenty of play, too. it is said that nathan was not a strong child at first, but grew vigorous with outdoor life; that "he was fond of running, leaping, wrestling, firing at a mark, throwing, lifting, playing ball," and used to tell the girls of coventry he could do anything but spin. stories told of him say that when he was older he could "put a hand on a fence as high as his head and clear it easily at a bound"; and that the marks of "a leap which he made upon the green in new haven were long preserved and pointed out." one of his comrades in the army wrote of him, "his bodily agility was remarkable. i have seen him follow a football and kick it over the tops of the trees in the bowery at new york (an exercise which he was fond of)." but he was fond of study, as well as of play, and he must have done well at the coventry school, for his parents determined to send him to college. he was fitted for yale by the minister in coventry, as there were then no preparatory schools such as we have now. when he was fourteen he entered yale college at new haven with his brother enoch, who was a year and a half older than he. they were known in college as hale primus and hale secundus. at yale nathan studied well and took a good stand. he became, too, one of the most popular men in his class. he made many friends, and their letters to him show us how much they loved and admired him. at one time he was president, or "chancellor" as it was called, of the linonia debating society; at another he was its secretary, or "scribe," and the minutes which he kept then can be seen now, in his own handwriting, in the yale library. he was nearly six feet tall, broad-shouldered, wit blue eyes and brown hair, a pleasant voice, and a manner that was both attractive and dignified. a gentleman in new haven who knew him well said of him, "that man is a diamond of the first water and calculated to excel in any station he assumes." after he graduated in , he taught school for a few months in east haddam. the country schools were very simple in those days. there were few books; a psalter and a spelling-book were the most important ones used. there were no blackboards, and the teacher set "copies" on paper, and read out the "sums" in arithmetic, and often the whole school studied aloud. one of nathan hale's pupils in east haddam, who lived to be an old lady, said of him as a teacher, "everybody loved him, he was so sprightly, intelligent, and kind and withal so handsome." he was soon offered a better position in new london as the master of a new school in which he was expected to teach latin as well as english. he wrote in one of his letters from new london:-- "i am happily situated here. i love my employment and find many friends among strangers. i have a school of thirty-two boys, half latin, the rest english. in addition to this i have kept, during the summer, a morning school, between the hours of five and seven, of about twenty young ladies." the schoolhouses in east haddam and new london where nathan hale taught have been restored and are kept now as memorials of him. while he was teaching in new london the war with england broke out. there was great excitement when the news came of the battle of lexington (april , ), and a public meeting was held at which he is reported to have said, "let us march immediately and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." he could not march immediately himself, for he was teaching school, but when summer came he entered the army as a lieutenant, and was soon made a captain. in september he went with some of the connecticut troops to join washington's army which was besieging boston. the american flag was not adopted until the next year, and as the colors appointed for his regiment, the seventh connecticut, were blue, they marched away from new london under a blue banner. his camp-basket, a powder-horn made by him, and his army diary are still in existence, and can be seen in the rooms of the connecticut historical society in hartford. here are some of the entries in his diary that fall and winter:-- "friday th (sept.)--marched for cambridge. arrived o'clock, and encamped on the foot of winter hill. "sat. th--considerable firing upon roxbury side in the forenoon. "october th, monday--morning clear and pleasant but cold. exercised men o'clock, one hour. "sabbath, d--mounted picket guard. had charge of the advance picket. "monday th (november)--it is of the utmost importance that an officer should be anxious to know his duty, but of greater that he should carefully perform what he does know. "tuesday, th--left picket o'clock.... rain pretty hard most of the day. studied the best method of forming a regiment for a review, manner of arranging the companies, also of marching round the reviewing officer. "a man ought never to lose a moment's time. if he put off a thing from one minute to the next his reluctance is but increased. "wednesday, th--cleaned my gun, played some football and some checkers. " d, friday--some shot from the enemy. "feb. , , wednesday--last night a party of regulars made an attempt upon dorchester.... the guard house was set on fire but extinguished." during this time many of the soldiers became discouraged with the hard work and poor food and pay, and we learn from his diary that captain hale offered to give the men in his company his own pay if they would stay on for a month longer. the diary and all his letters are full of courage and hopefulness. in march, the british army, which had been shut up so long in boston unable to get away by land, took ship and sailed for halifax. washington believed the next point of attack would be new york and he moved his army there to protect the city. so hale's regiment marched back to new london and embarked in transports for new york. the last six months of his short life were passed in and near new york. the spring was spent in fortifying the city, and in june captain hale wrote to his brother enoch, "the army is every day improving in discipline and it is hoped will soon be strong enough to meet the enemy at any kind of play. my company, which was small at first, is increased to eighty, and a sergeant is recruiting, who i hope has got the other ten which completes the company." when the declaration of independence was proclaimed, the soldiers received the news with great enthusiasm, and felt that they had at last an independent country of their own to fight for and, if need be, to die for. the british army arrived and encamped on staten island. it was a finely equipped force of twenty-five thousand men with a fleet of ships to support it, and was in every respect better and stronger than the half-trained militia that made up most of the american army. the battle of long island, late in the summer, ended in a defeat for the americans, and washington's skillful retreat at night across the east river from long island to new york was all that prevented a greater disaster. many of the men in captain hale's company had been recruited along the connecticut shores, and there is no doubt that these sailors under his command were very useful that night in getting the troops safely back to new york. after this the condition of things became very serious, for the british had got possession of brooklyn heights, which commanded the city over east river, and they might cross at any time and attack it. washington ordered companies of rangers, or scouts, to be formed to keep a sharp watch on the enemy's movements, and captain hale accepted an appointment in this body of picked men. it was commanded by colonel knowlton, who was also a connecticut man and had been a ranger himself in the old french-and-indian war. he was a brave officer, and when he lay dying in the battle of harlem heights he said, "i do not value my life if we do but get the day." captain hale must have been glad to serve under such a leader. meanwhile, washington had moved the greater part of his army outside new york to avoid being shut up in the city as the british had been in boston, and was anxiously expecting an attack. but none came, and his suspense grew greater and greater as time passed and he got no information as to what would happen. "everything depends on obtaining intelligence of the enemy's motions," he wrote to his officers, "i was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge," and he begged them to send some one into the enemy's camp in disguise to find out what their plans were, and when and where they would attack. it was not easy to get any one to go, for it meant being a spy. spies are necessary in all wars because the commanding general must have information about the enemy's movements. but soldiers hate a spy, who comes into their camp as a friend when he is really an enemy, and honorable men do not like to do this. it is usually done by men who care most of all for the money it brings. the service, too, is so dangerous that the general may not command it, he may only accept it when it is volunteered. if a spy is caught within the enemy's lines no mercy is shown him; his trial is swift and his death certain; in those days the penalty was hanging. this time a man of intelligence was needed and colonel knowlton explained the matter to some of his officers. one of them is said to have replied: "i am willing to be shot, but not to be hung." but there was another who looked at it differently, and this was captain nathan hale. it seemed to him that if his country called it was his duty to go, at the sacrifice, if necessary, of both his honor and his life. and the more he thought of it the more sure he was that it is the motive with which a deed is done that makes it good or evil, and that a service which his country demanded could not be dishonorable. he asked advice from his friends, especially from captain william hull, of his old regiment, who had also been one of his fellow students at college. captain hull urged him strongly not to do it. he reminded him how men feel about a spy and told him, too, that it was doubtful if, with his frank, open character, he could ever succeed in deceiving people and pretending to be what he was not. he begged him for the sake of his family and his friends to give it up because it might end for him in a disgraceful death. captain hale replied, "i am fully sensible of the consequences of discovery and capture in such a situation. but for a year i have been in the army and have not rendered any material service while receiving a compensation for which i make no return. yet i am not influenced by the hope of promotion or reward. i wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. but," he added, taking his friend's hand affectionately, "i will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands." he decided to go, and left the american camp the second week in september. he was to cross to long island and approach the british position from the rear, and he was to go as a schoolmaster looking for employment, which was the best disguise he could assume as he had once been a schoolmaster and might easily pass for one again. just what his orders and instructions were we do not know, as the service was a secret one. his faithful sergeant, stephen hempstead, of new london, went with him part of the way. on account of british ships cruising in the east elver and in the sound, they were obliged to go as far as norwalk, connecticut, before it was safe to cross. hempstead tells us that at norwalk captain hale changed his uniform for a plain suit of citizen's brown clothes, with a round, broad-brimmed hat, took off his silver shoe-buckles, and left all his papers behind except his college diploma, which he thought might be useful. then he said good-bye to hempstead, telling him to wait for him there, and an armed sloop commanded by captain pond--probably charles pond, of milford, a fellow officer in hale's regiment--carried him over to huntington on long island. hempstead waited, but captain hale never returned. the next news his friends received was the news of his capture and execution as a spy in the british camp. we shall probably never know just what happened after he left huntington, what adventures he met with or what narrow escapes he had. about the time that he crossed the sound, sir william howe, the british general, moved over to new york and took possession of the city, and washington's suspense ended. perhaps captain hale did not learn of this until it was too late to return, or, perhaps, knowing it, he chose to go on and finish the work he had begun and take back information of the new position of the enemy. we know that he passed safely all through the british camps, both on long island and in new york, that he did his work thoroughly and well, made plans and drawings of the new fortifications in the city, and was only arrested on the last night, when the work was done and he was ready to return. just where he was when he was captured we do not know. from the new line of intrenchments made by the british across the city he could have looked northward over to the american camp on harlem heights, scarcely a mile away, and could almost have seen the tents of his own company of rangers. perhaps he made a quick dash for freedom across this short mile and was seized then. or, perhaps, in the excitement of a great fire which raged all through the lower part of new york city on that day, he may have got safely back to long island and have been arrested as he tried to pass the sentries on the outposts. an old tradition says that he had gone as far as huntington and was taken there. we cannot tell. but just as the difficult task was over, the sudden disappointment came. the papers and drawings found on him told the story only too plainly, and he was carried before sir william howe. when he was questioned he at once gave his name, his rank in the american army, and his reasons for coming inside the british lines. no trial was necessary, and general howe immediately signed the warrant for his execution on the next morning, sunday, september , at eleven o'clock. he was handed over to the provost marshal, william cunningham, a coarse and brutal man who has left a shocking record of cruelty to his prisoners. hale asked if he might have a minister with him, but cunningham refused. then he asked for a bible, but that, too, was forbidden. how he spent the night we cannot tell; part of it, no doubt, in prayer, for that was the habit of his life. he could not want to die. he was young and strong, just twenty-one, hardly more than a boy, and life was all before him. he had friends who loved him; he was engaged to be married; he had every prospect of success and happiness. but he had deliberately counted the cost before he undertook the dangerous service, and the training of all his life, at home, at college, and in the army, had taught him not only to do and to dare, but, what is better still, to accept defeat bravely. the next morning, while the last fatal preparations were being made, an aide-de-camp of general howe's, a brave officer of engineers who was stationed near the place, asked that the prisoner be allowed to wait in his tent. "captain hale entered," he says; "he was calm and bore himself with gentle dignity in the consciousness of rectitude and high intentions. he asked for writing materials, which i furnished him; he wrote two letters, one to his mother, and one to a brother officer." these letters cunningham destroyed, saying that "the rebels should never know they had a man who could die with so much firmness." there were few people present at his death. when he reached the foot of the tree where the sentence was to be executed, he was asked if he had anything to say, any confession to make. he told again who he was and why he came, and added quietly, "i only regret that i have but one life to lose for my country." then the noose was adjusted, and the cruel end came quickly. these last words of nathan hale have been repeated again and again since that time. they have been cut in bronze and in marble, they have been taught in our schools. they are noble words, because they are simple and brave and unselfish. he could have had no idea that they would ever be heard beyond the little group of people about him when he died, but it so happened that general howe had occasion to send a letter to washington late that evening about an exchange of prisoners, and the bearer of the letter was captain montresor, the officer in whose tent nathan hale had spent the last hour of his life. inside the american tines montresor met captain hull, hale's intimate friend, the man who had warned hale so earnestly of the fate that might be his. to him montresor told the tragic story of that morning and repeated the words that have since become famous. [illustration: _courtesy of mr. george d. seymour_ nathan hale this statue stands in front of old connecticut hall, yale university. nathan hale's room was in this building] years afterward a monument was put up in coventry to the memory of captain nathan hale. there are several statues of him in different places; there is a fountain with his name upon it in norwalk where he crossed the sound, and another at huntington, long island; there is an old fort named for him on the shore of new haven harbor; but the memorial which comes closest to our hearts is the little stone in the old coventry graveyard, set there in memory of him by his own family. this is the inscription cut into it:-- "durable stone preserve the monumental record. nathan hale, esq., a capt. in the army of the united states, who was born june th, , and received the first honors of yale college, sept., , resigned his life a sacrifice to his country's liberty at new york, sept. d, . etatis d." capture and death of nathan hale _by an unknown poet of _ the breezes went steadily thro' the tall pines, a-saying "oh, hu-sh!" a-saying "oh, hu-sh!" as stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, for hale in the bush; for hale in the bush. "keep still!" said the thrush as she nestled her young, in a nest by the road; in a nest by the road; "for the tyrants are near, and with them appear, what bodes us no good; what bodes us no good." the brave captain heard it, and thought of his home, in a cot by the brook; in a cot by the brook. with mother and sister and memories dear, he so gayly forsook; he so gayly forsook. cooling shades of the night were coming apace, the tattoo had beat; the tattoo had beat. the noble one sprang from his dark hiding-place, to make his retreat; to make his retreat. he warily trod on the dry rustling leaves, as he pass'd thro' the wood; as he pass'd thro' the wood; and silently gain'd his rude launch on the shore, as she play'd with the flood; as she play'd with the flood. the guard of the camp, on that dark, dreary night, had a murderous will; had a murderous will. they took him and bore him afar from the shore, to a hut on the hill; to a hut on the hill. no mother was there, nor a friend who could cheer, in that little stone cell; in that little stone cell. but he trusted in love, from his father above, in his heart all was well; in his heart all was well. an ominous owl with his solemn bass voice, sat moaning hard by; sat moaning hard by. "the tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice, for he must soon die; for he must soon die." the brave fellow told them, no thing he restrain'd, the cruel gen'ral; the cruel gen'ral; his errand from camp, of the ends to be gain'd, and said that was all; and said that was all. they took him and bound him and bore him away, down the hill's grassy side; down the hill's grassy side. 'twas there the base hirelings in royal array, his cause did deride; his cause did deride. five minutes were given, short moments, no more, for him to repent; for him to repent; he pray'd for his mother, he ask'd not another; to heaven he went; to heaven he went. the faith of a martyr, the tragedy shew'd, as he trod the last stage; as he trod the last stage. and britons will shudder at gallant hale's blood, as his words do presage; as his words do presage. "thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe, go frighten the slave; go frighten the slave; tell tyrants, to you, their allegiance they owe. no fears for the brave; no fears for the brave." references . johnston, henry phelps. _nathan hale, --biography and memorials._ yale university press. new haven, . . stuart, i. w. _life of captain nathan hale, the martyr spy of the american revolution,_ f. a. brown. hartford, . . hull, general william. _military and civil life._ d. appleton & co. new york, . . hale, enoch. _diary._ (in appendix to an address delivered at groton, connecticut, september , , by e. e. hale.) . hempstead, stephen. "recollections." _missouri republican, january , _. . bostwick, elisha. pension papers, in _hartford courant,_ december , . the development of religious liberty in connecticut by m. louise greene, phd. preface the following monograph is the outgrowth of three earlier and shorter essays. the first, "church and state in connecticut to ," was presented to yale university as a doctor's thesis. the second, a briefer and more popularly written article, won the straus prize offered in through brown university by the hon. oscar s. straus. the third, a paper containing additional matter, was so far approved by the american historical association as to receive honorable mention in the justin winsor prize competition of . with such encouragement, it seemed as if the history of the development of religious liberty in connecticut might serve a larger purpose than that of satisfying personal interest alone. in connecticut such development was not marked, as so often elsewhere, by wild disorder, outrageous oppression, tyranny of classes, civil war, or by any great retrograde movement. connecticut was more modern in her progress towards such liberty, and her contribution to advancing civilization was a pattern of stability, of reasonableness in government, and of a slow broadening out of the conception of liberty, as she gradually softened down her restrictions upon religious and personal freedom. and yet, connecticut is recalled as a part of that new england where those not congregationalists, the unorthodox or radical thinkers, found early and late an uncomfortable atmosphere and restricted liberties. by a study of her past, i have hoped to contribute to a fairer judgment of the men and measures of colonial times, and to a correct estimate of those essentials in religion and morals which endure from age to age, and which alone, it would seem, must constitute the basis of that "ultimate union of christendom" toward which so many confidently look. the past should teach the present, and one generation, from dwelling upon the transient beliefs and opinions of a preceding, may better judge what are the non-essentials of its own. connecticut's individual experiment in the union of church and state is separable neither from the new england setting of her earliest days nor from the early years of that congregationalism which the colony approved and established. hence, the opening chapters of her story must treat of events both in old england and in new. and because religious liberty was finally won by a coalition of men like-minded in their attitude towards rights of conscience and in their desire for certain necessary changes and reforms in government, the final chapters must deal with social and political conditions more than with those purely religious. it may be pertinent to remark that the passing of a hundred years since the divorce of church and state and the reforms of a century ago have brought to the commonwealth some of the same deplorable political conditions that the men of the past, the first constitutional reform party, swept away by the peaceful revolution of . for encouragement, assistance, and suggestions, i am especially indebted to professor george b. adams and professor williston walker of yale university, to professor charles m. andrews of bryn mawr, to dr. william g. andrews, rector of christ church, guilford, conn., and to professor lucy m. salmon of vassar college. of numerous libraries, my largest debt is to that of yale university. m. louise greene. new haven, october , . contents chapter i. the evolution of early congregationalism preparation of the english nation for the two earliest forms of congregationalism, brownism and barrowism.--rise of separatism and puritanism.--non-conformists during queen mary's reign.--revival of the reformation movement under queen elizabeth.--development of presbyterianism.--three cambridge men, robert browne, henry greenwood, and henry barrowe.--brownism and barrowism.--the puritans under elizabeth, her early tolerance and later change of policy.--arrest of the puritan movement by the clash between episcopal and presbyterian forms of polity and the pretensions of the latter.--james the first and his policy of conformity.--exile of the gainsborough and scrooby separatists.--separatist writings.--general approachment of puritans and separatists in their ideas of church polity.--the scrooby exiles in america.--sympathy of the separatists of plymouth colony with both the english established church and with english puritans. ii. the transplanting of congregationalism english puritans decide to colonize in america.--friendly relations between the settlements of salem and plymouth.--salem decides upon the character of her church organization.--arrival of higginson and skelton with recruits.--formation of the salem church and election of officers.--governor bradford and delegates from plymouth present.--the beginning of congregational polity among the puritans and the break with english episcopacy.--formation and organization of the new england churches. iii. church and state in new england church and state in the four new england colonies.--early theological dissensions and disturbances.--colonial legislation in behalf of religion.--development of state authority at the cost of the independence of the church.--desire of massachusetts for a platform of church discipline.--practical working of the theory of church and state in connecticut. iv. the cambridge platform and the half-way covenant necessity of a church platform to resist innovations, to answer english criticism, and to meet changing conditions of colonial life.--summary of the cambridge platform.--of the history of congregationalism to the year .--attempt to discipline the hartford, conn., church according to the platform.--spread of its schism.--petition to the connecticut general court for some method of relief.--the ministerial convention or "synod" of .--its half-way covenant.--attitude of the connecticut churches towards the measure.--pitkin's petition to the general court of connecticut for broader church privileges.--the court's favorable reply.--renewed outbreak of schism in the hartford and other churches.--failure in the calling of a synod of new england churches.--the connecticut court establishes the congregational church.--connecticut's first toleration act.--settlement of the hartford dispute.--the new order and its important modifications of ecclesiastical polity. v. a period of transition drift from religious to secular, and from intercolonial to individual interests.--reforming synod of .--religious life in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.--the "proposals of " in massachusetts.--introduction in connecticut of the saybrook system of consociated church government. vi. the saybrook platform the confession of faith.--heads of agreement.--fifteen articles.--attitude of the churches towards the platform.--formation of consociations.--the "proviso" in the act of establishment.--neglect to read the proviso to the norwich church.--contention arising.--the norwich church as an example of the difficulty of collecting church rates. vii. the saybrook platform and the toleration act toleration in the "proviso" of the act establishing the saybrook platform.--reasons for passing the toleration act of .--baptist dissenters.--rogerine-baptists, rogerine-quakers or rogerines, and their persecution.--attitude toward the society of friends or quakers.--toward the church of england men or episcopalians.--political events parallel in time with the dissenters' attempts to secure exemption from the support of the connecticut establishment.--general ineffectiveness of the toleration act. viii. the first victory for dissent general dissatisfaction with the toleration act.--episcopalians resent petty persecution.--their desire for an american episcopate.--conversion of cutler, rector of yale college, and others.--bishop gibson's correspondence with governor talcott. --petition of the fairfield churchmen.--law of exempting churchmen.--persecution growing out of neglect to enforce the law.--futile efforts of the rogerines to obtain exemption.--charges against the colony of connecticut.--the winthrop case.--quakers attempt to secure exemption from ecclesiastical rates.--exemption granted to quakers and baptists.--relative position of the dissenting and established churches in connecticut. ix. "the great awakening" minor revivals in connecticut before .--low tone of moral and religious life.--jonathan edwards's sermons at northampton.--revival of religious interest and its spread among the people.--the rev. george whitefield.--the great awakening.--its immediate results. x. the great schism the separatist churches.--old lights and new.--opposition to the revival movement.--severe colony laws of - --illustrations of oppression of reformed churches, as the north church of new haven, the separatist church of canterbury, and that of enfield.--persecution of individuals, as of rev. samuel finlay, james davenport, john owen, and benjamin pomeroy.--persecution of moravian missionaries,--the colony law of , "concerning who shall vote in society meeting."--change in public opinion.--summary of the influence of the great awakening and of the great schism. xi. the abrogation of the saybrook platform revision of the laws of .--attitude of the colonial authorities toward baptists and separatists.--influence on colonial legislation of the english committee of dissenters.--formation of the church of yale college.--separatist and baptist writers in favor of toleration.--frothingham's "articles of faith and practice."--solomon paine's "letter."--john bolles's "to worship god in spirit and in truth."--israel holly's "a word in zion's behalf."--frothingham's "key to unlock the door."--joseph brown's "letter to infant baptizers."--the importance of the colonial newspaper.--influence of english non-conformity upon the religious thought of new england.--the edwardean school.--hopkinsinianism and the new divinity.--the clergy and the people.--controversy over the renewed proposal for an american episcopate.--movement for consolidation among all religious bodies.--influences promoting nationalism and, indirectly, religious toleration.--connecticut at the threshold of the revolution.--connecticut clergymen as advocates of civil liberty.--greater toleration in religion granted by the laws of .--development of the idea of democracy in church and state.--exemption of separatists by the revision of the laws in .--virtual abrogation of the saybrook platform.--status of dissenters. xii. connecticut at the close of the revolution expansion of towns.--revival of commerce and industries.--schools and literature.--newspapers.--rise of the anti-federal party.--baptist, methodist, and separatist dissatisfaction.--growth of a broader conception of toleration within the consociated churches. xiii. certificate laws and westekn land bills opposition to the establishment from dissenters, anti-federalists, and the dissatisfied within the federal ranks.--certificate law of to allay dissatisfaction.--its opposite effect.--a second certificate law to replace the former.--antagonism created by legislation in favor of yale college.--storm of protest against the western land bills of - .--congregational missions in western territory.--baptist opposition to legislative measures.--the revised western land bill as a basis for connecticut's public school fund.--result of the opposition roused by the certificate laws and western land bills. xiv. the development of political parties in connecticut government according to the charter of .--party tilt over town representation.--anti-federal grievances against the council or senate, the judiciary, and other defective parts of the machinery of government.--constitutional questions.--rise of the democratic-republican party.--influence of the french revolution.--the federal members of the establishment or "standing order," the champions of religious and political stability.--president dwight, the leader of the standing order.--leaders of the democratic-republicans.--political campaigns of - .--sympathy for the defeated republicans.--politics at the close of the war of . xv. disestablishment waning of the power of the federal party in connecticut.--opposition to the republican administration during the war of .--participation in the hartford convention.--economic benefits of the war.--attitude of the new england clergy toward the war.--the toleration party of .--act for the support of literature and religion.--opposition.--toleration and reform ticket of .--new certificate law.--constitution and reform ticket of .--its victory.--the constitutional convention.--new constitution of .--separation of church and state. appendix notes bibliography the development of religious liberty in connecticut chapter i the evolution of early congregationalism the stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.--psalm cxviii, . the colonists of plymouth, massachusetts, connecticut, and new haven were grounded in the system which became known as congregational, and later as congregationalism. at the outset they differed not at all in creed, and only in some respects in polity, from the great puritan body in england, out of which they largely came.[a] for more than forty years before their migration to new england there had been in old england two clearly developed forms of congregationalism, brownism and barrowism. the term congregationalism, with its allied forms congregational and congregationalist, would not then have been employed. they did not come into general use until the latter half of the seventeenth century, and were at first limited in usage to defining or referring to the modified church system of new england. the term "independent" was preferred to designate the somewhat similar polity among the nonconformist churches in old england.[b] brownism and barrowism are both included in dr. dexter's comprehensive definition of congregationalism, using the term "to designate that system of thought, faith, and practice, which starting with the dictum that the conditions of church life are revealed in the bible, and are thence to be evolved by reverent common-sense, assisted but never controlled by all other sources of knowledge; interprets that book as teaching the reality and independent competency of the local church, and the duty of fraternity and co-working between such churches; from these two truths symmetrically developing its entire system of principles, privileges, and obligations." [ ] the "independent competency of the local church" is directly opposed to any system of episcopal government within the church, and is diametrically opposed to any control by king, prince, or civil government. yet this was one of the pivotal dogmas of browne and of the later separatists; this, a fundamental doctrine which barrowe strove to incorporate into a new church system, but into one having sufficient control over its local units to make it acceptable to a people who were accustomed to the autonomy and stability of a church both episcopal and national in character. in order to appreciate the changes in church polity and in the religious temper of the people for which browne and barrowe labored, one must survey the field in which they worked and note such preparation as it had received before their advent. it is to be recalled that henry viii substituted for submission to the pope submission to himself as head of a church essentially romish in ritual, teaching, and authority over his subjects. the religious reformation, as such, came later and by slow evolution through the gradual awakening of the moral and spiritual perceptions of the masses. it came very slowly notwithstanding the fact that the first definite and systematic opposition to the abuses and assumptions of the clergy had arisen long before henry's reign. as early as , the itinerant preachers, sent out by wyckliff, were complained of by the clergy and magistrates as teachers of insubordinate and dangerous doctrines. thenceforward, outcroppings of dissatisfaction with the clergy appear from time to time both in english life and literature. this dissatisfaction was silenced by various acts of parliament which were passed to enforce conformity and to punish heresy. their character and intent were the same whether the head of the church wore the papal tiara or the english crown. two hundred years after wyckliff, in , laws were still fulminated against "divers false and perverse people of certain new sects," for protestant england would support but one form of religion as the moral prop of the state. she regarded all innovations as questionable, or wholly evil, and their authors as dangerous men. chief among the latter was robert browne. but before browne's advent and in the days of henry the eighth, there had been a large, respectable, and steadily increasing party whose desire was to remain within the english church, but to purify it from superstitious rites and practices, such as penances, pilgrimages, forced oblations, and votive offerings. they wished also to free the ritual from many customs inherited from the days of rome's supremacy. it was in this party that the leaven of protestantism had been working. luther and henry, be it remembered, had died within a year of each other. under the feeble rule of edward the sixth, the english reform movement gained rapidly, and, in , upon the refusal of bishop hooper to be consecrated in the usual romish vestments, it began to crystallize in two forms, separatism and puritanism.[c] in spite of much opposition, the teachings of luther, calvin, and other continental reformers took root in england, and interested men of widely different classes. they stirred to new activity the scattered and persecuted groups, that, from time to time, had met in secret in london and elsewhere to read the scriptures and to worship with their elected leaders in some simpler form of service than that prescribed by law. under mary's persecution, these separatists increased, and with other protestants swelled the roll of martyrs. in her severity, the queen also drove into exile many able and learned men, who sought shelter in geneva, zurich, basle, and frankfort, where they were hospitably entertained. upon their return, there was a marked increase in the calvinistic tone both of preaching and teaching in the english church and in the university lecture rooms, especially those of cambridge. among the most influential teachers was thomas cartwright,[d] in - , lady margaret professor of divinity at cambridge. while having no sympathy with the nonconformist or separatist of his day, cartwright accepted the polity and creed of calvin in its severer form. he became junior-dean of st. john's, major-fellow of trinity, and a member of the governing-board. in he went to ireland to escape the heated controversy of the period which centred in the "vestiarian" movement. he was recalled in to his former professorship, and in september, , was forced out of it because, when controversy changed from vestments to polity, he took extreme views of church discipline and repudiated episcopal government.[e] while cartwright was very pronounced in his views, his desire at first was that the changes in church polity should be brought about by the united action of the crown and parliament. such had been the method of introducing changes under the three sovereigns, henry, mary, and elizabeth. with this brief summary of the reform movements among the masses and in the universities covering the years until cartwright, through the influence of the ritualistic church party, was expelled from cambridge, and robert browne, as a student there, came under the strong puritan influence of the university, we pass to a consideration of brownism. robert browne was graduated from cambridge in , the year after cartwright's expulsion. the next three years he taught in london and "wholly bent himself to search and find out the matters of the church: as to how it was guided and ordered, and what abuses there were in the ecclesiastical government then used." [ ] when the plague broke out in london, browne went to cambridge. there, he refused to accept the bishop's license to preach, though urged to do so, because he had come to consider it as contrary to the authority of the scriptures. nevertheless, he continued preaching until he was silenced by the prelate. browne then went to norwich, preaching there and at bury st. edmunds, both of which had been gathering-places for the separatists. at norwich, he organized a church. writing of browne's labors there in and , dr. dexter says: "here, following the track which he had been long elaborating, he thoroughly discovered and restated the original congregational way in all its simplicity and symmetry. and here, by his prompting and under his guidance, was formed the first church in modern days of which i have any knowledge, which was intelligently and one might say philosophically congregational in its platform and processes; he becoming its pastor." [ ] persecution followed browne to norwich, and in order to escape it he, in , migrated with his church to middelburg, in zealand. there, for two years, he devoted himself to authorship, wherein he set forth his teachings. his books and pamphlets, which had been proscribed in england, were printed in middelburg and secretly distributed by his friends and followers at home. but browne's temperament was not of the kind to hold and mould men together, while his doctrine of equality in church government was too strong food for people who, for generations, had been subservient to a system that demanded only their obedience. his church soon disintegrated. with but a remnant of his following, he returned in by way of scotland into england, finding everywhere the strong hand of the government stretched out in persecution. three years later, after having been imprisoned in noisome cells some thirty times within six years, utterly broken in health, if not weakened also in mind, and never feeling safe from arrest while in his own land, browne finally sought pardon for his offensive teachings and, obtaining it, reentered the english communion. though he was given a small parish, he was looked upon as a renegade, and died in poverty about , at an extreme old age. he died while the pilgrim separatists were still a struggling colony at plymouth, repudiating the name of brownists; before the colonial churches had embodied in their system most of the fundamentals of his; and long before the value of his teachings as to democracy, whether in the church or by extension in the state, had dawned upon mankind. the connecting link between brownism and barrowism, whose similarities and dissimilarities we shall consider together, or rather the connecting link between robert browne and henry barrowe, was another cambridge student, john greenwood. he was graduated in , the year that browne removed to middelburg. greenwood had become so enamored with separatist doctrines, that within five years of his graduation he was deprived of his benefice, in , and sent to prison. while there, he was visited by his friend, henry barrowe, a young london lawyer, who, through the chance words of a london preacher, had been converted from a wild, gay life to one devout and godly. during a visit to greenwood, barrowe was arrested and sent to lambeth palace for examination. upon refusing to take the oath required by the bishop, barrowe was remanded to prison to await further examination. later, he damaged himself and his cause by an unnecessarily bitter denunciation of his enemies and by a too dogmatic assertion of his own principles. accordingly, he was sent back to prison, where, together with greenwood, he awaited trial until march, . then, upon the distorted testimony of their writings, both men were sentenced as seditious fellows, worthy of death. though twice reprieved at the seemingly last hour, they were hanged together on april , . both greenwood and barrowe frequently asserted that they never had anything to do with browne. [ ] yet it is probable that it was browne's influence which turned greenwood's puritanical convictions to separatist principles. barrowe had been graduated from clare hall, cambridge, in - ; browne, from corpus christi in . the two men, so different in character, probably did not meet in university days, and certainly not later in london, where one went to a life of pleasure and the other to teaching and to the study of the scriptures. greenwood, however, had entered cambridge in - , and left it in . thus he was in college during the two years that browne was preaching in and near cambridge. it is safe to assume that the young scholar, soon to become a licensed preacher, and overflowing with the puritan zeal of his college, might be drawn either through curiosity or admiration to hear the erratic and almost fanatic preacher. later, when browne's writings were being secretly distributed in england, both barrowe and greenwood had come in contact with the london congregations to whom browne had preached. the fact that many men in england were thinking along the same lines as the separatists; that browne had recanted just as barrowe and greenwood were thrust into prison; and that they both disapproved in some measure of browne's teachings, might account for a denial of discipleship. browne's influence might even have been unrecognized by the men themselves. be that as it may, during their long imprisonment, both barrowe and greenwood, in their teachings, in their public conferences, and in their writings strove to outline a system of church government and discipline, which was very similar to and yet essentially different from browne's. thus it happened that in the last decade of the sixteenth century two forms of congregationalism had developed, brownism and barrowism. neither browne nor barrowe felt any need, as did their later followers, to demonstrate their doctrinal soundness, because in all matters of creed they "were in full doctrinal sympathy with the predominantly calvinistic views of the english established church from which they had come out." "browne, first of all english writers, set forth the anabaptist doctrine that the civil ruler had no control over the spiritual affairs of the church and that state and church were separate realms." [ ] in the beginning, browne's foremost wish was not to establish a new church system or polity, but to encourage the spiritual life of the believer. to this end he desired separation from the english church, which, like all other state churches, included all baptized persons, not excommunicate, whether faithful or not to their baptismal or confirmation vows to lead godly lives. [ ] moreover, as browne did not believe that the magistrates should have power to coerce men's consciences, teaching, as he did, that the mingling of church offices and civil offices was anti-christian,[ ] he was unwilling to wait for a reformation to be brought about by the changing laws of the state.[ ] he further advocated such equality of power [ ] among the members of the church that in its government a democracy resulted, and this theory, pushed to a logical conclusion, implied that a democratic form of civil government was also the best.[f] browne roughly draughted a government for the church with pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, and widows. he insisted, however, that these officers did not stand between christ and the ordinary believer, "though they haue the grace and office of teaching and guiding.... because eurie one of the church is made kinge, and priest and a prophet, under christ, to vpholde and further the kingdom of god." browne and barrowe both made the bible their guide in all matters of church life. from its text they deduced the definition of a true church as, "a company of faithful people gathered by the word unto christ and submitting themselves in all things;" of a christian, as one who had made a "willing covenant with god, and thereby did live a godly and christian life."[ ] this covenanting together of christians constituted a church. from their interpretation of the new testament, browne and barrowe held that this covenanting included repentance for sin, a profession of faith, and a promise of obedience. moreover, to their minds, primitive christianity had insisted upon a public, personal narration of each covenanter's regenerative experience. from sacred writ they derived their church organization also.[ll] their pastors were for exhorting or "edifying by all comfortable words and promises in the scriptures, to work in our hearts the estimate of our duties with love and zeal thereunto." their teachers were for teaching or "delivering the grounds of religion and meaning of the scriptures and confirming the same." both officers were to administer baptism and the lord's supper, or "the seals of the covenant." the elders included both pastors and teachers and also "ruling elders," all of whom were for "oversight, counsel, and redressing things amiss," but the ruling elders were to give special attention to the public order and government of the church. according to both browne and barrowe, these officers were to be the mouthpiece of the church in the admission, censure, dismissal, or readmission of members. they were to prepare matters to be brought before the church for action. they were also to adjust matters, when possible, so as to avoid overburdening the church or its pastor and teacher with trivial business. in matters spiritual, they were to unite with the pastor and teacher in keeping watch over the lives of the people, that they be of good character and godly reputation. browne taught that the church had power which it shared with its officers as fellow-christians, but which lifted it above them and their office. it lay with the church to elect them. it lay with the church to censure them. barrowe also maintained that the church was "above its institutions, above its officers," [ ] and that every officer was responsible to the church and liable to its censure as well as indebted to it for his election and office. but he further maintained that the members of the church should render meek and submissive, faithful and loving obedience to their chosen elders. barrowe thus taught that guidance in religious matters should be left in the hands of those to whom by election it had been delegated. the elders were to be men of discernment, able to judge "between cause and cause, plea and plea," to redress evil, and to see that both the people and their officers[g] did their full duty in accordance with the laws of god and the ordinances of the church. barrowe had seen the confusion and disintegration of browne's church, and he planned by thus introducing the calvinistic theory of eldership to avoid the pitfalls into which the brownists had plunged while practicing their new-found principle of religious equality. barrowe hoped by his system to secure the independence of the local churches and also to avoid the repellent attitude of a nation that was as yet unprepared to welcome any trend towards democracy.[h] having devised this system of compromise, barrowe made a futile attempt to interest cartwright, but the latter regarded the reformer as too heretical. yet cartwright himself, tired of waiting for the better day when his desired reforms should be brought about through the operation of parliamentary laws, was attempting in warwickshire and northamptonshire to test his system of presbyterianism. to the list of church officers already enumerated, both reformers added deacons and widows. the deacons were to attend to the church finances and all temporal cares, and, in their visiting of the sick and afflicted, they were to be aided by the widows. the latter office, however, soon fell into disuse, for it was difficult to find women of satisfactory character, attainments, and physical ability, since, in order to avoid scandal or censoriousness, those filling the office had to be of advanced years.[i] with respect to the relation of the churches among themselves, browne and barrowe each insisted upon the integral independence and self-governing powers of the local units. both approved of the "sisterly advice" of neighboring churches in matters of mutual interest. both held that in matters of great weight, synods, or councils of all the churches should be summoned; that the delegates to such bodies should advise and bring the wisdom of their united experience to questions affecting the welfare of all the churches, and also, when in consultation upon serious cases, that any one church should lay before them. browne insisted that delegates to synods should be both ministerial and lay, while barrowe leaned to the conviction that they should be chosen only from among the church officers. both reformers limited the power of synods, maintaining that they should be consultative and advisory only. [ ] their decisions were not to be binding upon the churches as were those of the presbyterian synods,[j] whose authority both reformers regarded as a violation of gospel rule. the church system, outlined by these two men, became, in time, the organization of the churches of plymouth, massachusetts, connecticut, and new haven. the character of their polity fluctuated, as we shall see, leaning sometimes more to barrowism and sometimes, or in some respects, emphasizing the greater democracy which browne taught. in england, and because of the pressure of circumstances among english exiles and colonists, barrowe's teachings at first gained the stronger hold and kept it for many years. moreover, as barrowe's almost immediate followers embraced them, there was no objection to the customary union of church and state. and furthermore, if only the state would uphold this peculiar polity, it might even insist upon the payment of contributions, which both browne and barrowe had distinctly stated were to be voluntary and were to be the only support of their churches. though barrowism was more welcomed, eventually--yet not until long after the colonial period--brownism triumphed, and it predominates in the congregationalism of to-day. the immediate spread of barrowism was due to the poor separatists of london. doubtless among them were many who in the preceding years had listened to browne and had begun to look up to him as their luther. while barrowe and greenwood were in prison, many of these separatists had gone to hear them preach and had studied their writings. during the autumn of , there had been some relaxation in the severity exercised toward the prisoners, and greenwood was allowed occasionally to be out of jail under bail. he associated himself with these separatists, who, according to dr. dexter, had organized a church about five years before, and who at once elected greenwood to the office of teacher. dr. john brown, writing later than dr. dexter, claims this london church as the parent of english congregationalism. to make good the claim, he traces the history of the church by means of references in bradford's history, fox's "book of martyrs," and in recently discovered state papers to its existence as a separate church under elizabeth, when, as early as , its pastor, richard fitz, had died in prison. dr. brown believes he can still farther trace its origin to queen mary's reign, when a mr. rough, its pastor, suffered martyrdom, and one cuthbert sympson was deacon. [l ] after the death of greenwood and barrowe, this london congregation was sore pressed. their pastor, francis johnson, having been thrown into prison, they began to make their way secretly to amsterdam. there johnson joined them in , soon after his release. to this london-amsterdam church were gathered separatist exiles from all parts of england, for converts were increasing,[k] especially in the rural districts of the north, notwithstanding the fact that persecution followed hard upon conversion. the policy of elizabeth during the earlier years of her reign was one of forbearance towards inoffensive catholics and of toleration towards all protestants. caring nothing for religion as such, her aim was to secure peace and to increase the stability of her realm. this she did by crushing malcontent catholics, by balancing the factions of protestantism, and by holding in check the extremists, whether high-churchmen or the ultra-puritan followers of cartwright. she had forced on the contending factions a sort of armed truce and silenced the violent antagonism of pulpit against pulpit by licensing preachers. the acts of supremacy and of uniformity placed all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as well as all legislative power, in the hands of the state. they outlined a system of church doctrine and discipline from which no variation was legally permitted. notwithstanding the enforced outward conformity, the bible was left open to the masses to study, and private discussion and polemic writing were unrestrained. the main principles of the reformation were accepted, even while elizabeth resisted the sweeping reforms which the strong calvinistic faction of the puritan party would have made in the ceremonial of the english church. this she did notwithstanding the fact that about the time thomas cartwright, through the influence of the ritualists under whitgift, had been driven from cambridge, parliament had refused to bind the clergy to the three articles on supremacy, on the form of church government, and on the power of the church to ordain rites and ceremonies. parliament had even suggested a reform of the liturgy by omitting from it those ceremonies most obnoxious to the puritan party.[l] that representative assembly had but reflected the desire of all moderate statesmen, as well as of the puritans. but, in the twelve years between cartwright's dismissal from cambridge and browne's preaching there without a license, a great change took place, altering the sentiment of the nation. all but extremists drew back when cartwright pushed his presbyterian notions to the point of asserting that the only power which the state rightfully held over religion was to see that the decrees of the churches were executed and their contemners punished, or when this reformer still further asserted that the power and authority of the church was derived from the gospel and consequently was above queen or parliament. cartwright claimed for his church an infallibility and control of its members far above the claims of rome, and, tired of waiting for a purification of existing conditions by legislative acts, he had, as has been said, boldly organized, in accordance with his system, the clergy of warwickshire and northamptonshire. the local churches were treated as self-governing units, but were controlled by a series of authoritative classes and synods. having done this, cartwright called for the establishment of presbyterianism as the national church and for the vigorous suppression of episcopacy, separatism, and all variations from his standard. as he thus struck at the national church, at the queen's supremacy, and, seemingly to many englishmen, at the very roots of civil government and security, there was a sudden halt in the reform movement. the impetus which would have probably brought about all the changes that the great body of puritans desired was arrested. richard hooker's "ecclesiastical polity" swept the ground from under thomas cartwright's "admonition to parliament." hooker's broad and philosophic reasoning showed that no one system of church-government was immutable; that all were temporary; and that not upon any man's interpretation of scripture, or upon that of any group of men alone, could the divine ordering of the world, of the church or of the state, be based. such order depended upon moral relations, upon social and political institutions, and changed with times and nations. the death of mary queen of scots crushed the catholic party, and the defeat of the armada left elizabeth free to turn her attention to the phases of the protestant movement in her own realm. while browne was preaching in norwich, the queen raised whitgift to the see of canterbury. he was the bitter opponent of all nonconformity, and immediately the persecution both of separatists and of puritans became severe. elizabeth, sure at last of her throne and of her position as head of the protestant cause in europe, gave her minister a free hand. she demanded rigid conformity, but wisely forbore to revive many of the customs which the puritans had succeeded in rendering obsolete. notwithstanding such modifications, the english liturgy had been so slightly altered that, "pius the fifth did see so little variation in it from the latin service that had been formerly used in that kingdom that he would have ratified it by his authority, if the queen would have so received it."[m] elizabeth now forbade all preaching, teaching, and catechising in private houses, and refused to recognize lay or presbyterian ordination. ministers who could no longer accept episcopal ordination, or subscribe to the thirty-nine articles, or approve the book of common prayer and conform to its liturgy were silenced and deprived of their salaries. in default of witnesses, charges against them were proved by their own testimony under oath, whereby they were made to incriminate themselves. the censorship of the press was made stringent, printing was restricted to london and to the two universities, and all printers had to be licensed. furthermore, all publications, even pamphlets, had to receive the approval of the primate or of the bishop of london. in addition, the queen established the ecclesiastical commission of forty-four members, which became a permanent court where all authority virtually centred in the hands of the archbishops. english law had not as yet defined the powers and limitations of the protestant clergy. consequently, this commission assumed almost unlimited powers and cared little for its own precedents. its very existence undid a large part of the work of the reformation, and the successive archbishops of canterbury, parker, whitgift, bancroft, abbott, and laud, claimed greater and more despotic authority than any papal primate since the days of augustine. the commission passed upon all opinions or acts which it held to be contrary to the acts of supremacy and uniformity. it altered or amended the statutes of schools and colleges; it claimed the right of deprivation of clergy and held them at its mercy; it passed from decisions upon heresy, schism, or nonconformity to judgment and sentence upon incest and similar crimes. it could fine and imprison at will, and employ any measures for securing information or calling witnesses. the result was that all nonconformists and all puritans drew closer together under trial. another result was that the bible was studied more earnestly in private, and that there was a public eager to read the religious books and pamphlets published abroad and cautiously circulated in england. though the presbyterians were confined to the nonconformist clergy and to a comparatively small number among them, they were rising in importance, and were accorded sympathetic recognition as a section of the puritan party. this party, as a whole, continued to increase its membership. the separatists also increased, for, as of old, the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church. the hope that times would mend when james ascended the throne was soon abandoned. as he had been trained in scotch presbyterianism, the presbyterians believed that he would grant them some favor, while the puritans looked for some conciliatory measures. eight hundred puritan ministers, a tenth of all the clergy, signed the "millenary petition," asking that the practices which they most abhorred, such as the sign of the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, the giving of the ring at marriage, and the kneeling during the communion service, should be done away with. the petition was not presbyterian, but was strictly puritan in tone. it asked for no change in the government or organization of the church. it did ask for a reform in the ecclesiastical courts, and it demanded provision for the training of godly ministers. james replied to the petition by promising a conference of prelates and of puritan ministers to consider their demands; but at the conference it was found that he had summpned it only to air the theological knowledge upon which he so greatly prided himself. his answer to the petition was that he would have "one doctrine, one religion, in substance and in ceremony," and of the remonstrants he added, "i will make them conform or i will harry them out of the land." the harrying began. the recently organized separatist church at gainsborough-on-trent endured persecution for four years, and then emigrated with its pastor, john smyth, m.a., of christ's college, cambridge. it found refuge in amsterdam by the side of the london-amsterdam church and its pastor, francis johnson, who had been smyth's tutor in college days. the next year, after more of the king's harrying, the future colonists of plymouth, the separatist church of scrooby, an offshoot of the gainsborough church, attempted to flee over seas to holland. the magistrates would not give them leave to go, and to emigrate without permission had been counted a crime since the reign of richard ii. their first attempt to leave the country was defeated and their leaders imprisoned. during their second attempt, after a large number of their men had reached the ship with many of their household goods, and while their wives and children were waiting to embark, those on the beach were surprised and arrested, and their goods confiscated. public opinion forbade sending helpless women and children to prison for no other offense than agreeing with and wishing to join their husbands and fathers. consequently the magistrates let their prisoners go, but made no provision for them. helpless and destitute, they were taken in and cared for by the people of the countryside, and sheltered until their men returned. the latter had suffered shipwreck, because the dutch captain had attempted to sail away when he saw the approach of the english officers. when the church had once more raised sufficient funds for the emigration, the magistrates gave them a contemptuous permission to depart, "glad to be rid of them at any price." so, in , they also joined the english exiles in amsterdam. the rank injustice and cruelty of their treatment, together with their patience and forbearance under their sufferings, drew people's attention to the character and worth of the pious "pilgrims" and separatists whom james was constantly driving forth from england. meanwhile, both in england and on the continent, the separatists held fast to the principles of their leaders, of which the cardinal ones were a church wherein membership was not by birthright, but by "conversion;" over which magistrates or government should have no control; in which each congregation constituted an independent unit, coequal with all others; and with which the state should have nothing more to do than to see that members respected the decrees of the church and were obedient to its discipline. on the continent, the separatists elaborated these fundamentals and developed detailed and systematic expression of them. such were the "true description out of the word of god of the visible church" of the london-amsterdam church, put forth in , and in which barrowe himself outlined his system; the "true confession," issued by the same church about ten years later; "the points of difference," some fourteen in number, in which the london-amsterdam church set forth wherein it differed from the english church; and the "seven articles," signed by john robinson and william brewster. this last document the exiled scrooby church sent from leyden to the english council of state in , with the hope of convincing king james that if allowed to go to america under the virginia patent, and to worship there in their own fashion, they would be desirable colonists and law-abiding subjects. the "true confession"[n] sets forth the nature, powers, order, and officers of the church. it limits the sacraments to the members, and baptism to their children. it insists upon the wisdom of churches seeking advice from one another, and of their use of certificates of membership so as to guard against the admission of strangers coming from other churches, and possibly of unworthy character. in the definition of eldership, the "true confession" passes out of the haze in which barrowe's "true description" left the conflicting powers of the eldership, and of the church. it plainly asserts that the elders have the power of guidance and also of control, should members attempt to censure them or to interfere in matters beyond their knowledge. this platform also insists that magistrates should uphold the church which it defines, because it is the one true church, and that they should oppose all others as anti-christian. [ ] in the "points of difference," stress is again laid upon the covenant-nature of the church, upon its voluntary support, upon the right of election of officers, and upon the abolishment of "popish canons, courts, classes, customs or any human inventions," including the popish liturgy, the book of common prayer, and "all monuments of idolatry in garments or in other things, and all temples, chapels, etc." many of the puritans desired these same changes. many favored a polity giving the local churches some degree of choice in the election of their officers. if the "points of difference" aimed to lay bare the errors of episcopacy and of presbyterianism as well as to demonstrate the superior merits of the new aspirant for the status of a national church, the "seven articles" [ ] aimed to minimize differences in church usage by omitting mention of them when possible and by emphasizing agreement. the evident advance along the line of a more authoritative eldership had developed out of the experience of the first two english churches in amsterdam. john robinson and his followers had held more closely to robert browne's standard of congregationalism, for robinson maintained that the government of the church should be vested in its membership rather than in its eldership alone. in order to maintain this principle in greater purity, robinson withdrew his fold from their first resting-place in amsterdam to leyden. richard clyfton, who had been pastor of the church in scrooby, remained in amsterdam, partly because he felt too old to migrate again, and partly because he leaned to francis johnson's more aristocratic theories of church government. these divergent views caused trouble in the amsterdam churches, and robinson wished to be far enough away to be out of the vortex of doctrinal eddies. for eleven years his people lived a peaceful and exemplary church life in leyden, and it was chiefly their longing to rear their children in an english home and under english influences that made them anxious to emigrate to america. as the years passed, robinson sympathized more with the barrowistic standards of other churches and came also to regard more leniently the english established church as one having true religion under corrupt forms and ceremonies, and accordingly one with which he could hold a limited fellowship. this was a step in the approachment of separatist and puritan, and robinson was a most influential writer. of necessity, his work was largely controversial, but he wrote from the standpoint of defense, and rarely departed from a broad and kindly spirit. in the "seven articles" robinson admits the royal supremacy in so far as to countenance a passive obedience. his teaching had the greatest influence in shaping the religious life of the first and second generation of new englanders. the separatists who remained in england devoted themselves to the discussion of particular topics rather than to platforms of faith and discipline. many of the writers were men who, like the pastors of two of the exiled churches, were at first ministers in good standing in the english church; but, later, had allowed their puritan tendencies to outrun the bounds of that party and to become convictions that the bible commanded their separation from the establishment as witnesses to the corruptions it countenanced. poring over the bible story, they had become enamored with the simplicity of the gospel age. from the days of elizabeth, the english nation became more and more a people of one book, and that book the bible. as, deeply dyed with calvinism, they read over and over its sacred pages, they became a serious, sombre, purposeful--and almost fanatic people. the faults and extravagances of the puritan party and of the later commonwealth do not at this time concern us. it is with their purposefulness, their determination to make the church a home of vigorous and visible righteousness, and to preserve their ecclesiastical and civil liberties from the encroachment of stuart pretensions, that we have to do. more and more, as has been said, the puritan was coming to the conviction that the best way to reform the church would be to substitute some restrictive policy for her all-embracing membership, or, at least, to supplement it by such measures of local church discipline as should practically exclude the unregenerate and the immoral. again, the church of england could be arraigned as a politico-ecclesiastical institution, and in the pages of the bible, king james's theory of the divine right of kings and bishops found no support. it was obnoxious alike to separatist and puritan, and james's puritan subjects had the sympathy of more than three fourths of the squires and burgesses in the king's first parliament of , while the separatists counted some twenty thousand converts in his realm. the puritan opposition was a formidable one to provoke. yet "the wisest fool in christendom" jeered at its clergy and scolded its representatives in parliament for daring to warn him, in their reply to his boasted divine right of kings, that your majesty would be misinformed if any man should deliver that the kings of england have any absolute power in themselves either to alter religion, or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than as in temporal causes, by consent of parliament. it was the extravagant claims for himself and his bishops, coupled with his lawless overriding of justice and his profligate use of the national wealth, that undermined the king's throne and prepared the downfall of the house of stuart. notwithstanding the remonstrance of parliament, james's insistence upon his divine right, by very force of reiteration, whether his own or that of the clergy who favored royalty, won a growing recognition from a conservative people. for his king as the political head of the nation, the puritan had all the englishman's half-idolatrous reverence, until james's own acts outraged justice and substituted contempt. the self-restraint for which every separatist, every puritan, strove, was characteristic of the great reform party. they asked only for ecclesiastical betterment, for the reform of the ecclesiastical courts, for provision for a godly ministry, and for the suppression of "popish usages." these requests of the "millenary petition" were, after the guy fawkes plot, urged with all the intensity of a people who, as they looked abroad upon the feeble and warring protestantism of europe, and at home upon the attempt to revive romanism, believed themselves the sole hope and savior of the protestant cause. persecution had created a small measure of tolerance throughout all nonconformist bodies. fear of the revival of catholicism, the renewed attempt to enforce the three articles, the dismissal from their parishes of three hundred puritan ministers, and the hand and glove policy of the king and his bishops, welded together the variants in the puritan party. the desire for personal righteousness, for morality in church and state, which had seized upon the masses in the nation, stood aghast at the profligacy of the king and his courtiers. reason seemed to cry aloud for reform, preferably for a reform that should be free from every trace of the old hypocrisies, but which should be strong within the old episcopal system which had endured for centuries and which still kept its hold upon the vast majority of the people. and to this idea of reform the great puritan party clung, until the exactions of the stuarts, their suppression of both religious and civil rights, forced upon it a civil war and the formation of the commonwealth. as a preliminary training of the men of the puritan armies and of the commonwealth, and for their great contest, all the years of bible study, of controversial writing, of individual suffering, were needed. these brought forth the necessary moral earnestness, the mental acumen, the enduring strength. these qualities, though most noticeable in the leaders, were well-nigh universal traits. every common soldier felt himself the equal of his officer as a soldier of god, a defender of the faith, and a necessary builder of christ's new kingdom upon earth. to this growing sense of democracy, to this sense of personal responsibility and self-sacrifice, the teaching, the writings, and the sufferings of the oppressed separatists, as well as those of the persecuted puritans, had contributed. when, in , james i permitted the pilgrims of leyden to emigrate, they planted in plymouth of new england the first american congregational church and erected there the first american commonwealth. the influence of this separatist church upon new england religious life belongs to another chapter. here it is only necessary to repeat that its members differed not at all in creed, only in polity, from the english established church out of which they had originally come. with the english puritan they were one in faith, while they differed little from him in theories of church government, though much in practice. in america, the plymouth colonists at once set up the same church polity as in leyden, one from which, as has been shown, many of the english puritans would have borrowed the features of a converted or covenant membership and of local self-government, or at least some measure of it. eight years were to elapse before the great puritan exodus began. in those eight years both parties, through the discipline of time, were to be brought still nearer to a common standard of church life. when the vanguard of the puritans reached the massachusetts shore, the plymouth church stood ready to extend the right hand of fellowship. how it did so, and how it impressed itself upon the church life in the three colonies of massachusetts, new haven, and connecticut, is a part of the story of the earliest period of colonial congregationalism. footnotes: [a] "our pious ancestors transported themselves with regard unto church order and discipline, not with respect to the fundamentals in doctrine."--richard mather, _attestation to the ratio disciplina_, p. . "the issue on which the pilgrims and puritans alike left sweet fields and comfortable homes and settled ways of the land of their birth for this raw wilderness, was primarily an issue of politics rather than of the substance of religious life."--g. l. walker, _some aspects of religious life in new england_, p. . [b] "after the th century 'independent' was chiefly used in england, while 'congregational' was decidedly preferred in new england, where the 'consociation' of the churches formed a more important feature of the system." "congregational" first appeared in manuscript in , in print in . "congregationalist" appeared in , and "congregationalism," not until .--j. murray, _a new english dict. on hist. principles._ [c] separatism is commonly said to date from the year . about , the other branch of the reform party was nicknamed "puritan."--g. l. walker, _history of the first church in hartford_, p. . [d] another noted preacher who left an indelible impression upon several early new england ministers was william perkins, who was in discourse "strenuous, searching, and ultra-calvinistic." he was a cambridge man, filling the positions of professor of divinity, master of trinity, and chancellor of the university.--g. l. walker, _some aspects of the religious life in new england_, p. . [e] cartwright in , the year of its publication, translated travers's _ecclesiasticae disciplinae et anglicanae ecclesiae ab illa aberrationis, plena e verbo dei & dilucida explicatio_, and made it the basis of a practical attempt to introduce the presbyterian system into england. more than five hundred of the clergy seconded his attempt, subscribing to the principles that ( ) there can be only one right form of church government, but one church order and one form of church, namely, that described in the scriptures; ( ) that every local church should have a presbytery of elders to direct its affairs; and ( ) that every church should obey the combined opinion of all the churches in fellowship with it. in this declaration lay a blow at the queen's supremacy.--h. m. dexter, _congregationalism as seen in lit_. p. . [f] "browne's polity was essentially, though unintentionally, democratic, and that gives it a closer resemblance in some features to the purely democratic congregationalism of the present century, than to the more aristocratic, one might almost say semi-presbyterianized, congregationalism of barrowe and the founders of new england. his picture of the covenant relation of men in the church, under the immediate sovereignty of god, he extended to the state; and it led him as directly, and probably as unintentionally, to democracy in the one field as in the other. his theory implied that all governors should rule by the will of the governed, and made the basis of the state on its human side essentially a compact."--w. walker, _creeds and platforms_, pp. , . see also h. m. dexter, _congregationalism as seen in lit_., pp. - ; - ; ; r. browne, _book which sheweth, def_., . [g] barrowe wrote, "though there be communion in the church, yet is there no equality." this is in strong contrast to browne's, "every one of the church is made king and priest and prophet under christ to uphold and further the kingdom of god." barrowe continues, "the church of christ is to obey and submit unto her leaders.... the church knoweth how to give reverence unto her leaders." in his _true description_ there is a hazy attempt to define how far the membership of the church may judge its elders. this authority of the elders was defined more clearly and elaborated by barrowe's followers in their _true confession_, published in amsterdam in - .--h. barrowe, _a true description; discovery of false churches_, p. ; _a plain refutation of mr. gifford_, p. (ed. of ). [h] "traces of this (barrowe's) innovation on apostolic congregationalism have been aptly characterized as a presbyterian heart within a congregational body, and are seen long after the denomination grew to be a power in new england."--a. e. dunning, _congregationalists in america_, p. . [i] barrowe says, "over sixty." [j] the first english presbytery was organized in . among its organizers, there was the seeming determination to treat the episcopal system as a mere legal appendage.--f. j. powicke, _henry barrowe_, p. . [k] at the height of its prosperity this church contained about three hundred communicants, with representatives from twenty-nine english counties. among them was one john bolton, who had been a member of mr. fitz's church in . at the beginning of james the first's reign, , separatist converts numbered , souls in england. [l] "the wish for a reform in the liturgy, the dislike of superstitious usages, of the use of the surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the gift of the ring in marriage, the posture of kneeling at the lord's supper, was shared by a large number of the clergy and laity alike. at the opening of elizabeth's reign almost all the higher churchmen but parker were opposed to them, and a motion for their abolition in convocation was lost but by a single vote."--j. r. green, _short history of the english people_, p. . [m] john davenport, in his _answer to the letter of many ministers in old england_, p. . [n] its full title is "a true confession of the faith and humble acknowledgement of the allegeance which wee his majestes subjects falsely called brownists, doo hould towards god and yeild his majestie and all others that are over us in the lord." chapter ii the transplanting of congregationalism those who cross the sea change not their affection but their skies.--horace. the rule of absolutism forced the transplanting of a democratic church. the arrogance of the house of stuart compelled english puritans to seek refuge in america. the exercise of the divine right of kings and of the divine power of bishops provoked the commonwealths of new england and the development there of the congregational church, as later it brought the commonwealth of cromwell, with its tolerance of independent and presbyterian. when the pilgrims left england, the puritans had entered upon their long contest with james over their ecclesiastical and also their constitutional rights. at his accession, the king had seemed inclined to tolerate the catholics. yet only a short time elapsed before many romanists were found upon the proscribed lists. the guy fawkes plot followed. its scope, its narrow margin of failure, coupled with the king's previous leniency towards catholics and his bitter persecution of nonconformists, created a frenzy of fear among protestants. immediately the puritans saw in every objectionable ceremonial of the english church some hidden purpose, some jesuitical contrivance for overthrowing protestantism. and as the ritualistic clergy made their pulpits resound with the doctrines of the divine right of kings, the divine right of bishops, and of passive obedience, and as they thundered at the preachers who opposed or denied these principles, the high-church party came to be associated more and more with the unconstitutional policy of the king. and this was so, notwithstanding the praiseworthy efforts of archbishop abbott to modify the practical working of these royal notions. this archbishop of canterbury was a man of great learning and of gentle spirit. his name stands second among the translators of king james's version, while as head of the ecclesiastical commission his power was great, his influence far reaching. so earnestly did he strive to moderate the king's severity toward nonconformists, to bring about a compromise between the two great church parties, and so simple was the ritual in his palace at lambeth, that many people believed the kindly prelate was more than half a puritan at heart. he even refused to license the publication of a sermon that most unduly exalted the king's prerogative, and he forbade the reading of james's proclamation permitting games and sports on sunday. this proclamation was the famous "book of sports," and many puritan clergymen paid dearly for refusing to read it to their congregations. its issue exasperated and discouraged the reform party, and, from this time, the puritans began to lose hope that any moral or religious betterment would be permitted among the people. in the constitutional imbroglio, james resented the attempt of parliament to curb his extravagance by its method of granting him money on condition that he would make ecclesiastical reforms and grant the redress of other grievances. when the king grew angry and attempted to rule without a parliament, the puritan party broadened its purpose and became the champion also of civil liberty. among his offenses, james refused to restore to their pulpits three hundred puritan ministers whom, in , he silenced for not accepting the three articles, notwithstanding the fact that parliament itself had refused to make them binding upon the clergy. the king also refused to define the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and to respect the limitation of the powers of the high court of commission when they were determined by the judges. and further, james positively refused to admit that with parliament alone rested the power to levy imposts and duties. after wrangling with his first parliament for seven years over these and similar questions, the king ruled for the next three without that representative body. finding it necessary, in , to convene his lords, squires, and burgesses, the king was disappointed to find that the new parliament was no more pliable to his will than its predecessor had been, and he shortly dissolved it. the great leaders of the opposition, such as coke, eliot, pym, selden and hampden, were not all puritans, but these men, and others of their kind, joined with the reform party in demanding that the rights of the people should be respected and the evils of government redressed. james's whole reign was marked by quarrels with a stubborn parliament and by periods of absolute rule that were characterized by forced loans and other unlawful extortions. upon the death of james, in , the nation turned hopefully to the young prince, who thus far had pleased them in many ways. in contrast to the ungainly, rickety, garrulous james, charles was kingly in appearance, bearing, and demeanor. he was reserved in speech and manner. so far, the stubbornness which he had inherited from his father was mistaken for a strong will, and his attitude towards spain, after the failure of the catholic marriage which had been arranged for him, was regarded as indicating his strong protestantism. it took but a short time, however, to reveal his stubbornness, his vanity, pique, extravagance, and insincerity. within four years, he had dissolved parliament three times, had sent sir john eliot to the tower for boldly defending the rights of the people, had dismissed the chief justice from office for refusing to recognize as legal taxes laid without consent of parliament, had thrown john hampden into prison for refusing to pay a forced loan, and, finally, had signed the "petition of rights" [ ] in , only to violate it almost as soon as the contemporary bill for subsidies had been passed. charles, finding he could not coerce parliament, dissolved it, and entered upon his twelve years of absolute rule, marked by imprisonments, by arbitrary fines, forced loans, sales of monopolies, and illegal taxes, which raised the annual revenue from £ , to £ , . [ ] it was during the first years of charles's misrule--to be specific, in --that "some friends being together in lincolnshire fell into discourse about new england and the planting of the gospel there." among them were, probably, thomas dudley (who mentions the discussion in a letter to the countess of lincoln), atherton hough, thomas leverett, and possibly also john cotton and roger williams, for all these men were wont to assemble at tattersall castle, the family seat of lord lincoln. the latter was, in religious matters, a staunch puritan, and in political, a fearless opponent of forced loans and illegal measures. thomas dudley was his steward and confidential adviser, and the others were his personal friends and, in politics, his loyal followers. these men, afterwards prominent in new england, had watched with interest the fortunes of the plymouth colony, and now concluded that since england lay helpless in the grasp of charles the time had come to prepare somewhere in the american wilderness a refuge and home for oppressed englishmen and persecuted puritans. this little group of men began at once to correspond with others in london and also in the west of england who were like-minded with themselves. men of the west, in and about dorchester, had for some four years or more been interested in the new england fisheries between the kennebec and cape ann. on that promontory they had landed some fourteen men, hoping to start a permanent settlement. the plan had failed, the partnership had been dissolved, and a few of the settlers had removed to salem, massachusetts. the rev. john white, the puritan rector of salem, england, saw a great opportunity. he at once interested some wealthy merchants to make salem, in massachusetts, the first post in a colonization scheme of great magnitude, and as leader of an advance party they secured john endicott. from the council for new england the company secured a patent on march , , for the lands between the merrimac and the charles rivers. on june , , thirteen days after charles had signed the "petition of rights" that he was so soon to violate, the advance guard of the colonists set sail for salem, in the new world, arriving there early in the following september. in america, friendly relations were soon established between the settlers of salem and plymouth. on the voyage over, sickness, due to the unwholesome salt in which some of their provisions had been packed, broke out among the salem colonists, and continuing in the settlement, forced endicott to send to plymouth for dr. samuel fuller, deacon in the church there. he was skilled both in medicine and in church-lore, for he had also been one of the two deacons in the church during its leyden days. he worked among the disabled at salem, and, later, among the sick colonists at boston, paving the way for a better understanding and closer friendship with the plymouth settlers. there had been a tendency to look upon these earlier colonists as extremists. their enemies in derision called them "brownists." they did in truth cling most firmly to browne's doctrine that the civil magistrate had no control over the church of christ. in their opinion, the function of the civil power in any union of church and state was limited to upholding the spiritual power by approving the church's discipline, since that had for its object the moral welfare of the people. as endicott and fuller talked together of all that in their hearts they both desired for the church of the future, they realized that they agreed on many points. the plymouth church had been virtually under the sole rule of its elder, william brewster, during the greater part of its life in america, for its aged pastor had died before he could rejoin his flock. such government had tended to modify the early insistence upon the principle that the power of the church was "above that of its officers." this doctrine was associated in men's minds more with robert browne, who had originated it, than with henry barrowe, who had modified it, and it was towards barrowism that the larger body of puritans were drawn. the salem people, in their isolation three thousand miles from the home-land, felt the necessity of some form of church organization. as they had fled from the offensive ceremonial of the english church, they determined to be free from cross and prayer-book, and from anything suggestive of offense. in the great matter of membership and constitution, their new church was to be brought still nearer to the requirements and simplicity of gospel standards. more and more puritans were coming to prefer the church of "covenant membership" to the birthright membership of the english establishment. many were urging a limited independence in the organization, management, and discipline of members of local churches. some among the puritans had adopted the presbyterian polity, while many preferred that form of ordination. such ordination had been accepted as valid for english clergymen during the earlier part of elizabeth's reign. it was still so recognized by all the english clergy for the ministers of the reformed churches on the continent, and with such, english clergymen of all opinions still continued to hold very friendly intercourse. it was not until laud's ascendency that claims for the divine right of episcopacy, to the exclusion of other branches of the christian faith, were strenuously urged. thus it happened that after many conferences, endicott could write to governor bradford in may of , that:-- i acknowledge myself much bound to you for your kind love and care in sending mr. samuel fuller among us, and rejoice much that i am by him satisfied touching your judgment of the outward form of god's worship. it is, as far as i can gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth, and the same which i have ever professed and maintained ever since the lord in mercy revealed himself unto me: being far from the common report that hath been spread of you touching that particular. endicott further expresses the wish that they may all "as christian brethren be united by a heavenly and unfeigned love;" that as servants of one master and of one household they should not be strangers, but be "marked with one and the same mark, and sealed with one and the same seal, and have, for the main, one and the same heart guided by one and the same spirit of truth," and that they should bend their hearts and forces to the furthering of the work for which they had come into the wilderness. thus, salem had decided upon the type of church her people wanted, while she still waited for the ministers who were coming with the larger number of her colonists, and whom she believed competent to guide her religious life. only a few weeks after the sending of endicott's letter to governor bradford, five vessels arrived, bringing several hundred well-equipped colonists. they had been sent out by the governor and company of massachusetts bay. this corporation had bought out the salem company, and was backed by the most influential puritans of wealth and social prominence, by men who had lost all hope of either religious or civil freedom when laud had been raised to the bishopric of london and when charles persisted in his despotic government. by the elevation of laud to the bishopric of london, charles offended the most puritanically inclined diocese in england, and the whole puritan party. in his new office, laud quickly succeeded in severing communication between the reformed churches on the continent and those in england. he strictly prohibited the common people from using the annotated pocket-bibles sent out by the genevan press. he forbade the entrance into office of nonconformists as lecturers or chaplains. he put an end to feofments, so that puritanically inclined men of wealth could no longer control the livings. he excluded suspended ministers from teaching, and also from the practice of medicine, and even forbade their entering business life. he required absolute conformity to his own high-church standards. he insisted upon doing away with all calvinistic innovations tending to simplicity of ritual, and upon reviving many ecclesiastical ceremonies which had fallen into disuse. hence, english puritans saw in america the only hope of the future, and began that exodus which, during the next ten years, or more, annually sent two thousand emigrants to the massachusetts shore to find homes throughout new england. of these, the salem colonists were the first large body of puritans to emigrate. among them were three ministers, endicott's former pastor samuel skelton, francis higginson, and francis bright. when higginson and skelton learned of the friendship with plymouth, and that endicott had adopted the system of church organization established in the older settlement, they accepted it as being in accord with the principles of the reformed churches on the continent, whose pattern they had themselves resolved to follow in organizing the church at salem. not so francis bright. he could not agree with the others, and so withdrew to charlestown in order not to embarrass the young church. higginson and skelton were each, in turn questioned as to their conception of a minister's calling. replying that it was twofold: a call from within to a conviction that a man was chosen of god to be his minister, and thereby endowed with proper gifts, and a call from without by the free choice of a "covenanted church" to be its pastor, they were accepted as satisfactory candidates for the two highest offices in the salem church. later, upon an appointed day of prayer and fasting, july , , the people by written ballot chose francis skelton to be their pastor and thomas higginson their teacher. when they had accepted their election, "first mr. higginson, with three or four of the gravest members of the church, laid their hands upon mr. skelton, using prayer therewith. this being done, there was imposition of hands upon mr. higginson also." upon a still later day of prayer and humiliation, august , elders and deacons were chosen and ordained. upon this day, the two ministers and many among the people gave their assent to the confession and covenant which the pastor and teacher had revised. at the second of these two important meetings, governor bradford and delegates from the plymouth church were present. "coming by sea they were hindered by cross-winds that they could not be there at the beginning of the day; but they came into the assembly afterward, and gave them the right hand of fellowship, wishing all prosperity and all blessedness to such good beginnings." [ ] the salem covenant in its original form was a single sentence: "we covenant with the lord and with one another; and doe bynd ourselves in the presence of god to walk together in all his wayes, according as he is pleased to reveale him' self unto us in his blessed word of truth." [ ] the formation of the church of salem by covenant practice[a] marked the beginning of the congregational polity among the puritan body; their local ordination of their minister, the break with english episcopacy, though, for a considerable while longer, the colonists still spoke of themselves as members of the church of england, for both the colonial and the home authorities were equally anxious to avoid the stigma of separatism. the next large body of colonists to leave england was governor winthrop's company, and, upon their arrival, the boston church quickly followed the example of salem. next, the dorchester church, afterwards the church of windsor, connecticut, emigrated as a body from plymouth, england, where, before embarking, its members seem to have taken some form of membership pledge,--an unusual proceeding, but operating to put this church in line with those already organized in plymouth and massachusetts. the watertown church, whence emigrants were to settle wethersfield, connecticut, also organized with a covenant similar to that of salem and boston. these four oldest congregations set the type for the thirty-five new england churches that were founded previous to , as well as for the later ones that followed the standard thus early set up by plymouth, massachusetts, and connecticut. there was some variation in the form of covenant,[b] and to it a brief confession of faith, or creed, was early added. there was some variation also in the interpretation of the laying on of hands in ordination as to whether it was to be considered, in cases where the candidate had previously been ordained in england, as ordination or as confirmation of that previously received.[c] in regard to officers, the churches at first provided themselves with pastor, ruling elders (one or two, but generally only one), and deacons. there were exceptions among them, as at plymouth, where there was no pastor for ten years, and in which there had never been a teacher, for john robinson had filled both offices. as the first generation of colonists passed away, partly because of lack of fit candidates, partly because of the kinship of the two offices of pastor and teacher, and partly because of the heavy expense in supporting both, the office of teacher was dropped. the ruling eldership also was gradually discontinued; but at first the churches generally had, with the exception of widows, the full complement of officers as appointed by browne and barrowe. the usual order of worship was ( ) prayer. ( ) psalm. ( ) scripture reading, followed by the pastor's preaching to explain and apply it. ( ) prophesying or exhortation, the elders calling for speakers, whether members or guests from other churches. ( ) questions from old or young, women excepted. ( ) occasional administration of the lord's supper or of baptism, rites known as the administration of "the seals of the covenant." ( ) psalm. ( ) collection. ( ) dismissal with blessing. such were the new england churches, the churches of a transplanted creed and race. they were calvinistic in dogma, democratic in organization, and of extreme simplicity in their order of worship. footnotes: [a] this fundamental principle of congregationalism belonged to the separatists and was one of their distinctive tenets. it was never adopted by the english puritans as a body, nor was ordination by a local church. the dorchester church had some form of pledge at the time of its organization. so also, possibly, because influenced by dutch example, did rev. hugh peter's church in rotterdam. but these were exceptions.--w. walker, _hist, of cong._, p. . [b] the evolution of the salem covenant and creed is given in detail in w. walker's _creeds and platforms_, pp. - . the windsor creed of , though not covering the range of christian doctrine, contained in simple phrase the essentials of gospel redemption from sin through repentance and faith in the atoning work of christ and a life of love toward god and our neighbor, through the strength which comes from him.--w. walker, _creeds and platforms_, p. . [c] the evolution of the salem covenant and creed is given in detail in w. walker's _creeds and platforms_, pp. - . the windsor creed of , though not covering the range of christian doctrine, contained in simple phrase the essentials of gospel redemption from sin through repentance and faith in the atoning work of christ and a life of love toward god and our neighbor, through the strength which comes from him.--w. walker, _creeds and platforms_, p. . chapter iii church and state in new england for god and the church! with the great puritan body in england, and with the great mass of the english nation, whatever their religious opinions, the colonists of plymouth, massachusetts, connecticut, and new haven held in common one foremost theory of civil government. pausing for a brief consideration of this fundamental and far-reaching theory, which created so many difficulties in the infant commonwealths, and which confronts us again and again as we follow their later history, we find that the pilgrim separatist of plymouth, the strict puritan of massachusetts, the voter in the theocratic commonwealth of new haven, and the holder of the liberal franchise in connecticut, all clung to the proposition that the state's first duty was the maintenance and support of religion. thereby they meant enforced taxation for the support of its predominant type, conformity to its mode of worship, and in the last analysis supervision or control of the church by the state or by the general court of each colony. as a corollary to this proposition, the duty of the churches was to define the creed, to set forth the church polity, and to determine the bounds of morality within the state. two of the colonies held the corollary to be so important that it almost changed places with the proposition when massachusetts and new haven became rigid theocracies.[a] with respect to taxation in the four colonies the statement should be modified, inasmuch as the support of religion was at first voluntary in all four: in plymouth until , in massachusetts from to , in connecticut before ; yet both new haven and connecticut accepted the suggestion made by the commissioners of the united colonies on september , , "that each man should be required to set down what he would voluntarily give for the support of the gospel, and that any man who refused should be rated according to his possessions and compelled to pay" the sum so levied. since in religious affairs strict conformity was required by the three puritan colonies, and since the liberty accorded to the few early dissenters in plymouth was not such as to modify her prevailing polity or worship, these first few years of voluntary assessment do not nullify the dominant truth of the preceding statement. in the intimate relation of church and state, the people of these four new england colonies regarded the magistrates as "nursing fathers" of the church, [ l] who were to take "special note and care of every church and provide and assign allotments of land for the maintenance of each of them." [ ] the state, accepting the same view of caretaker, carried its supervision still farther and devised a system for the maintenance of the ministry in accordance with sundry laws made to insure the people's support, respect, and obedience. the churches reciprocated. first of all, they provided their members with the approved and accepted essentials of religious life, and they further exercised a rigorous supervision over the moral welfare of the whole community. secondly, they aided the state through the influence of their ministers, who, on all important occasions, were expected to meet with the magistrates to consult and advise upon affairs whether spiritual or temporal. but the framers of governments were not satisfied with these measures that aimed to present a strongly established church, capable of extending a fine moral, ethical, and religious influence over the colonists, and also to enforce upon the wayward, the careless, or the indifferent among them its support and their obedience. if these measures provided for the ordinary welfare of the community and for the usual relations b between the ministers and their people, there were still possibilities of factional strife to guard against, and such warfare in that age might or might not confine itself within the limits of theological controversy or within the lines of church organization. consequently, the better to preserve the churches from schism or corrupting innovations and the commonwealth from discord, the supreme control of the churches was lodged in the general court of each colony. it could, whenever necessary to secure harmony, whether ecclesiastical or civil, legislate with reference to all or any of the churches within its jurisdiction. examples of such legislation occur frequently in the religious history of the colonies, especially of massachusetts and connecticut. such interdependence of the spiritual and temporal power practically amounted to a union of church and state. indeed, in massachusetts and new haven, to be a voter, a man must first be a member of a church of approved standing.[b] in more liberal plymouth and connecticut, the franchise, at first, was made to depend only upon conduct, though it was early found necessary to add a property qualification in order to cut off undesirable voters.[ ] in the connecticut colony, it was expressly enacted that church censure should not debar from civil privilege. when advocating this amount of separation between church and civil power, thomas hooker was not moved by any such religious principle as influenced the separatists of plymouth. on the contrary, it was his political foresight which made him urge upon the colonists a more representative government[c] than would be obtainable from a franchise based upon church-membership where, as in the colonial churches, admission to such membership was conditioned upon exacting tests. the great connecticut leader was far in advance of the statesmen of his time, for they held that the religion of a prince or government must be the religion of the people; that every subject must be by birthright a member of the national church, to leave which was both heretical and disloyal and should be punished by political and civil disabilities. this union of church and state was the theory of the age,--a principle of statecraft throughout all of europe as well as in england. naturally it emigrated to new england to be a foundation of civil government and a fortress for that type of nonconformity which the colonists chose to transplant and make predominant. the type, as we have seen, was congregationalism, and the congregational church became the established church in each of the four colonies. this theory of church and state was the cause at bottom of all the early theological dissensions which disturbed the peace and threatened the colony of massachusetts. moreover, their settlement offers the most striking contrast between the fundamental theory of congregationalism and the theory of a union between church and state. with the power of supervision over the church lodged in the general court, whatever the theory of congregationalism as to the independence of the individual churches, in practice the civil authority disciplined them and their members, and early invaded ecclesiastical territory. in salem, endicott took it upon himself to expel ralph smith for holding extreme separatist principles, and shipped the browns back to england for persisting in the use of the book of common prayer. he considered both parties equally dangerous to the welfare of the community, because, according to the new standard of church-life, both were censurable. endicott held that to tolerate any measure of diversity in religious practices was to cultivate the ferment of civil disorder. considering the bitterness, narrowness, intensity, and also the irritating conviction that every one else was heretical and anti-christian, with which men of that age clung to their religious differences, endicott had some reason for holding this opinion. the boston authorities believed in no less drastic measures to maintain the civil peace and consequent good name of the colony. john davenport of new haven voiced the massachusetts sentiment as well as his own in: "civil government is for the common welfare of all, as well in the church as without; which will then be most certainly effected, when public trust and power of these matters is committed to such men as are most approved according to god; and these are church-members."[ ] consequently, the massachusetts law of [ ] forbade any but church members to become freemen of the colony, and to these only was intrusted any share in its government. a similar law was later formulated for the new haven colony. john cotton echoed the further sentiment of a new england community when, writing of the relations between the churches and the magistrates, he defined the church as "subject to the magistrate in the matters concerning the civil peace, of which there are four sorts:" ( ) with reference to men's goods, lives, liberty, and lands; ( ) with establishment of religion in doctrine, worship, and government according to the word of god, as also the reformation of corruption in any of these; ( ) with certain public spiritual administrations which may help forward the public good, as fasts and synods; ( ) and finally the church must be subject to the magistrates in patient suffering of unjust persecution, since for her to take up the sword in her own defense would only increase the disturbance of the public peace. [ ] as a result of such public sentiment, churches were not to be organized without the approval of the magistrates, nor were any "persons being members of any church ... gathered without the approbation of the magistrates and the greater part of said churches" (churches of the colony) to be admitted to the freedom of the commonwealth. [ ] this law, or its equivalent, with reference to church organization was found upon the statute books of all four colonies. in a pioneer community and a primitive commonwealth, developing slowly in accord with the new democratic principles underlying both its church and secular life, the "maintenance of the peace and welfare of the churches,"[ ] which was intrusted to the care of the general court, was frequently equivalent to maintaining the civil peace and prosperity of the colony. endicott's deportation of the browns and the report of the exclusiveness and exacting tests of membership in the colonial churches had early led the members of the massachusetts bay company, resident in england, to fear that the emigrants had departed from their original intent and purpose. and the colonists began to feel that they were in danger of falling under the displeasure of their king and of their puritan friends at home. consequently, there entered into the settling of all later religious differences in the colony the determination to avoid appeals to the home country, and also to avoid any report of disturbance or dissatisfaction that might be prejudicial to her independence, general policy, or commercial prosperity. the recognition of such danger made many persons satisfied to submit to government by an exclusive class, comprising in massachusetts one tenth of the people and in the new haven colony one ninth. these alone had any voice in making the laws. in submitting to their dictation, the large majority of the people had to submit to a "government that left no incident, circumstance, or experience of the life of an individual, personal, domestic, social, or civil, still less anything that concerned religion, free from the direct or indirect interposition of public authority." [ ] such inquisitorial supervision was due to the close alliance of church and state within the narrow limits of a theocracy. in more liberal plymouth and connecticut, the "watch and ward" over one's fellows, which the early colonial church insisted upon, was extended only over church members, and even over them was less rigorous, less intrusive. something of the development of the great authority of the state over the churches and of its attitude and theirs towards synods may be gleaned from the earliest pages of massachusetts ecclesiastical history. the starting-point of precedent for the elders of the church to be regarded as advisors only and the general court as authoritative seems to have been in a matter of taxation, when, in february, , the general court assessed the church in watertown. the elders advised resistance; the court compelled payment. in the following july, the boston church inquired of the churches of plymouth, salem, dorchester, and watertown, whether a ruling elder could at the same time hold office as a civil magistrate. a correspondence ensued and the answer returned was that he could not. thereupon, mr. nowell resigned his eldership in the boston church. [ ] winthrop mentions eight[d] important occasions between and when the elders, which term included pastors, teachers, and ruling elders, were summoned by the general court of massachusetts to give advice upon temporal affairs. in march of - the court "entreated them (the elders) together with the brethren of every church within the jurisdiction, to consult and advise of one uniforme order of discipline in the churches agreable to scriptures, and then to consider how far the magistrates are bound to interpose for the preservation of that uniformity and peace of the churches." [ ] the desire of the court grew in part out of the influx of new colonists, who did not like the strict church discipline, and in part out of the tangle of church and state during the roger williams controversy. the court had disciplined williams as one, who, having no rights in the corporation, had no ground for complaint at the hostile reception of his teachings. these the authorities regarded as harmful to their government and dangerous to religion. his too warm adherents in the salem church were, however, rightful members of the community, and they had been punished for upholding one whom the general court, advised by the elders of the churches, had seen fit to censure. punished thus, ostensibly, for contempt of the magistrates by the refusal to them of the land they claimed as theirs on marblehead neck, and feeling that the independence of their church life and their rightful choice in the selection of their pastor had really been infringed, the salem church sent letters to the elders of all the other churches of the bay, asking that the magistrates and deputies be admonished for their decision as a "heinous sin." the court came out victorious, by refusing at its next general session to seat the salem deputies "until they should give satisfaction by letter" for holding dangerous opinions and for writing "letters of defamation," and by proceeding to banish roger williams. before the session of the court, the elders of the massachusetts churches, jointly and individually, labored with the salem people and brought the majority to a conviction of their error in supporting roger williams. [e] the platform of church discipline which the court advised in - was not forthcoming, and the matter was allowed to rest.[f] in , with the consent of the general court, a synod of elders and lay delegates from all the new england churches was called to harmonize the discordant factions created by the heated antinomian controversy. during the synod, the magistrates were present all the time as hearers, and even as speakers, but not as members. the dangerous schism was ended more by the court's banishment of wheelwright and mrs. hutchinson, together with their more prominent followers, than by the work of the synod. however, governor winthrop was so delighted with the conferences of the synod that, in his enthusiasm, he suggested that it would be fit "to have the like meeting once a year, or at least the next year, to settle what yet remained to be agreed, or if but to nourish love."[ ] but his suggestion was voted down, for the synod of was considered by some to be "a perilous deflection from the theory of congregationalism."[ ] even the fortnightly meeting of ministers who resided near each other, and which it had become a custom to call for friendly conference, was looked at askance by those[g] who feared in it the germ of some authoritative body that should come to exercise control over the individual churches. when this custom was endorsed and permitted in the "body of liberties," in , the assurance that these meetings "were only by way of brotherly conference and consultation" was felt to be necessary to appease the opposition. when, two and four years later, anabaptist converts and a flood of presbyterian literature called for measures of repression, and the court summoned councils to consult upon a course of action, it was most careful in each case to reassert the doctrine of the complete independence of the individual church. synods, from the purely congregational standpoint, were to be called only upon the initiative of the churches, and were authoritative bodies, composed of both ministerial and lay delegates from such churches, and their duty was to confer and advise upon matters of general interest or upon special problems. in cases where their decisions were unheeded, they could enforce their displeasure at the contumacious church only by cutting it off from fellowship. consequently, though there was some opposition to the court's calling of synods and a resultant general restlessness, there was none when the court confined its supervision and commands to individually schismatic churches or to unruly members. the time had not yet come for the recognition of what this double system of church government--government by its members, supervision by the court --foreboded. the colonists did not see that within it was the embryo of an authoritative body exercising some of the powers of the presbyterian general assembly. the supervising body might be composed of laymen acting in their capacity as members of the general court, but the powers they exercised were none the less akin to the very ones that congregationalism had declared to be heretical and anti-christian. moreover, the tendency was toward an increase of this authoritative power every time it was exercised and each time that the colonists submitted to its dictation. of the two colonies founded after massachusetts, connecticut and new haven, the latter preserved the complete independence of her original church until the admission of the shore towns[h] to her jurisdiction, when she instituted that friendly oversight of the churches which had begun to prevail elsewhere. thereafter her general court kept a rigorous oversight over the purity of her churches and the conduct of their members. the general court of connecticut early compelled a recognition of its authority[i] over the religious life of the people and its right of special legislation.[j] for example, in , the court demanded of the wethersfield church a list of the grievances which disturbed it. in the next year, when matthew allyn petitioned for an order to the hartford church, commanding the reconsideration of its sentence of excommunication against him, the court "adjudged his plea an accusation upon the church" which he was bound to prove. these incidents from early colonial history in some measure illustrate the practical working of the theory of church and state. the conviction that the state should support one form of religion, and only one, was ever present to the colonial mind. if confirmation of its worth were needed, one had only to glance at the turmoil of the rhode island colony experimenting with religious liberty and a complete separation of church and state. like all pioneers and reformers, she had gathered elements hard to control, and would-be citizens neither peaceable nor reasonable in their interpretation of the new range of freedom. watching rhode island, the congregational men of new england hugged more tightly the conviction that their method was best, and that any variation from it would work havoc. it was this theory and this conviction, ever present in their minds, that underlay all ecclesiastical laws, all special legislation with reference to churches, to their members, or to public fasts and thanksgivings. this deep-rooted conviction created hatred toward and fear of all schismatical doctrines, enmity toward all dissenting sects, and opposition to any tolerance of them. footnotes: [a] "the one prime, all essential, and sufficient qualiiy of a theocracy ... adopted as the form of an earthly government, was that the civil power should be guided in its exercise by religion and religious ordinances."--g. e. ellis, _puritan age in massachusetts,_ p. . [b] "noe man shal be admitted to the freedome of this body politicke, but such as are members of some of the churches within the lymitts of the same."--mass. col. rec. i, , under date of may , . "church members onely shall be free burgesses and they onely shall chuse magistrates and officers among themselves to haue the power of transacting in all publique and ciuill affayres of this plantatio."--new haven col. rec. i, ; also ii, , . the governments of massachusetts and new haven "never absolutely merged church and state." the franchise depended on church-membership, but the voter, exercising his right in directing the affairs of the colony, was speaking, "not as the church but as the civil court of legislation and adjudication."--w. walker, _history of the congregational churches_, p. . yet it was due to this merging and this dependence that on october , , there were only sixteen free burgesses or voters out of one hundred and forty-four planters in the new haven colony.--see n. h. col. rec. i, . "theoretically church and state (in connecticut) were separated: practically they were so interwoven that separation would have meant the severance of soul and body."--c. m. andrews, _three river towns of conn_. p. . [c] to john cotton's "democracy, i do not conceive that ever god did ordain, as a fit government for church or commonwealth," and to gov. winthrop's objections to committing matters to the judgment of the body of the people because "safety lies in the councils of the best part which is always the least, and of the best part, the wiser is always the lesser," hooker replied that "in all matters which concern the common good, a general council, chosen by all, to transact the business which concerns all, i conceive under favor, most suitable to rule and most safe for the relief of the whole."--hutchinson, _hist. of mass._ i, app. iii. [d] ( ) to adjust a difference between governor winthrop and deputy dudley in ; ( ) about building a fort at nantasket, february, ; ( ) in regard to the settlement of the rev. john cotton, september, ; ( ) in consultation concerning roger williams's denial of the patent, january, ; ( ) concerning rights of trade at kennebec, july, ; ( ) in regard to the fort on castle island, august, ; ( ) concerning the rumor in of the coming of a governor-general; and ( ) in the case of mr. nowell.--_winthrop_, i, pp. , , , , - , - . [e] roger williams was the real author of the letters which the salem church was required to disclaim. [f] upon a further suggestion from the general court, john cotton prepared a catechism entitled, _milk for babes_. [g] governor winthrop replied to dr. skelton's objections that "no church or person could have authority over another church."--see h. m. dexter, _ecclesiastical councils of new england_, p. ; _winthrop_, i. p. . [h] guilford, branford, milford, stamford, on the mainland, and southold, on long island. [i] the general court was head of the churches. "it was more than pope, or pope and college of cardinals, for it exercised all authority, civil and ecclesiastical. in matters of discipline, faith, and practice there was no appeal from its decisions. except the right to be protected in their orthodoxy the churches had no privileges which the court did not confer, or could not take away."--bronson's _early gov't. in conn._ p. , in _n. h. hist. soc. papers_, vol. iii. [j] on august , , the court refused, upon complaint of the wethersfield church, to remove mr. russell. in march, , after duly considering the matter, the court allowed mr. stow to sever his connection with the church of middletown. it concerned itself with the strife in the windsor church over an assistant pastor from to . it allowed the settlement of woodbury in because of dissatisfaction with the stratford church. it permitted stratford to divide in . these are but a few instances both of the authority of the general court over individual churches and of that discord which, finding its strongest expression in the troubles of the hartford church, not only rent the churches of connecticut from to , but "insinuated itself into all the affairs of the society, towns, and the whole community." another illustration of the court's oversight of the purity of religion was its investigation in into the "soundness of the minister at rye." for these and hosts of similar examples see index _conn. col. rec._ vols. i, ii, iii, and iv. chapter iv the cambridge platform and the half-way covenant it is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.--sydney smith. in each of the new england colonies under consideration, the settlers organized their church system and established its relation to the state, expecting that the strong arm of the temporal power would insure stability and harmony in both religious and civil life. as we know, they were speedily doomed to disappointment. as we have seen, they failed to estimate the influences of the new land, where freedom from the restraint of an older civilization bred new ideas and estimates of the liberty that should be accorded men. within the first decade massachusetts had great difficulty in impressing religious uniformity upon her rapidly increasing and heterogeneous population. she found coercion difficult, costly, dangerous to her peace, and to her reputation when the oppressed found favorable ears in england to listen to their woes. ecclesiastical differences of less magnitude, contemporary in time and foreshadowing discontent and opposition to the established order of church and state, were settled in more quiet ways. john davenport, after witnessing the antinomian controversy, declined the pressing hospitality of massachusetts, and led his new haven company far enough afield to avoid theological entanglements or disputed points of church polity. unimpeded, they would make their intended experiment in statecraft and build their strictly scriptural republic. still earlier thomas hooker, samuel stone, and john warham led the connecticut colonists into the wilderness because they foresaw contention, strife, and evil days before them if they were to be forced to conform to the strict policy of massachusetts.[a] they preferred, unhindered, to plant and water the young vine of a more democratic commonwealth. and even as massachusetts met with large troubles of her own, so smaller ones beset these other colonies in their endeavor to preserve uniformity of religious faith and practice. until , outside of massachusetts, sectarianism barely lifted its head. religious contumacy was due to varying opinions as to what should be the rule of the churches and the privileges of their members. as the churches held theoretically that each was a complete, independent, and self-governing unit, their practice and teaching concerning their powers and duties began to show considerable variation. such variation was unsatisfactory, and so decidedly so that the leaders of opinion in the four colonies early began to feel the need of some common platform, some authoritative standard of church government, such as was agreed upon later in the cambridge platform of and in the half-way covenant, a still later exposition or modification of certain points in the platform. the need for the platform arose, also, from two other causes: one purely colonial, and the other anglo-colonial. the first was, since everybody had to attend public worship, the presence in the congregations of outsiders as distinct from church members. these outsiders demanded broader terms of admission to holy privileges and comforts. the second cause, anglo-colonial in nature, arose from the inter-communion of colonial and english puritan churches and from the strength of the politico-ecclesiastical parties in england. whatever the outcome there, the consequences to colonial life of the rapidly approaching climax in england, when, as we now know, king was to give way to commonwealth and presbyterianism find itself subordinate to independency, would be tremendous. in the first twenty years of colonial life, great changes had come over new england. many men of honest and christian character--"sober persons who professed themselves desirous of renewing their baptismal covenant, and submit unto church discipline, but who were unable to come up to that experimental account of their own regeneration which would sufficiently embolden their access to the other sacrament" (communion) [ ]--felt that the early church regulations, possible only in small communities where each man knew his fellow, had been outgrown, and that their retention favored the growth of hypocrisy. the exacting oversight of the churches in their "watch and ward" over their members was unwelcome, and would not be submitted to by many strangers who were flocking into the colonies. the "experimental account" of religion demanded, as of old, a public declaration or confession of the manner in which conviction of sinfulness had come to each one; of the desire to put evil aside and to live in accordance with god's commands as expressed in scripture and through the church to which the repentant one promised obedience. this public confession was a fundamental of congregationalism. other religious bodies have copied it; but at the birth of congregationalism, and for centuries afterwards, the bulk of european churches, like the protestant episcopal church to-day, regarded "christian piety more as a habit of life, formed under the training of childhood, and less as a marked spiritual change in experience." [ ] it followed that while many of the newcomers in the colonies were indifferent to religion, by far the larger number were not, and thought that, as they had been members of the english established church, they ought to be admitted into full membership in the churches of england's colonies. they felt, moreover, that the religious training of their children was being neglected because the new england churches ignored the child whose parents would not, or could not, submit to their terms of membership. still more strongly did these people feel neglected and dissatisfied when, as the years went by, more and more of them were emigrants who had been acceptable members of the puritan churches in england. they continued to be refused religious privileges because new england congregationalism doubted the scriptural validity of letters of dismissal from churches where the discipline and church order varied from its own. within the membership of the new england churches themselves, there was great uncertainty concerning several church privileges, as, for instance, how far infant baptism carried with it participation in church sacraments, and whether adults, baptized in infancy, who had failed to unite with the church by signing the covenant, could have their children baptized into the church. considerations of church-membership and baptism, for which the cambridge synod of was summoned, were destined, because of political events in england, to be thrust aside and to wait another eight years for their solution in that conference which framed the half-way covenant as supplementary to the cambridge platform of faith and discipline. what has been termed the anglo-colonial cause for summoning the cambridge synod finds explanation in the frequent questions and demands which english independency put to the new england churches concerning church usage and discipline, and in the intense interest with which new england waited the outcome of the constitutional struggle in england between king and parliament. when the great controversy broke out in england between presbyterians and independents, the fortunes of massachusetts (who felt every wave of the struggle) and of new england were in the balance. presbyterians in england proclaimed the doctrine of church unity, and of coercion if necessary, to procure it; the independents, the doctrine of toleration. puritans, inclining to presbyterianism, were disturbed over reports from the colonies, and letters of inquiry were sent and answers returned explaining that, while the internal polity of the new england churches was not far removed from presbyterianism, they differed widely from the presbyterian standard as to a national church and as to the power of synods over churches, and that they also held to a much larger liberty in the right of each church to appoint its officers and control its own internal affairs. at the opening of the long parliament ( - ), many emigrants had returned to england from the colonies, and, under the leadership of the influential hugh peters, had given such an impetus to english thought that the independent party rose to political importance and made popular the "new england way."[b] the success of the independents brought relief to massachusetts, yet it was tinctured with apprehension lest "toleration" should be imposed upon her. the signing of the "league and covenant" with england in by scotland, the oath of the commons to support it, and the pledge "to bring the churches of god in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church government and catechizing" (including punishment of malignants and opponents of reformation in church and state), carried menace to the colonies and to massachusetts in particular. the supremacy of scotch or english nonconformity meant a severity toward any variation from its presbyterianism as great as laud had exercised.[c] in parliament convened one hundred and fifty members[d] in the westminster assembly to plan the reform of the church of england. their business was to formulate a confession which should dictate to all englishmen what they should believe and how express it, and should also define a church, which, preserving the inherent english idea of its relation to the state, should bear a close likeness to the reformed churches of the continent and yet approach as nearly as possible both to the then church of scotland and to the english church of the time of elizabeth. the work of this assembly, known as the westminster confession, demonstrated to the new england colonists the weakness of their church system and the need among them of religious unity.[e] many among the colonists doubted the advisability of a church platform, considering it permissible as a declaration of faith, but of doubtful value if its articles were to be authoritative as a binding rule of faith and practice without "adding, altering, or omitting." men of this mind waited for controversial writings,[f] to clear up misconception and misrepresentation in england, but they waited in vain. moreover, the puritan board of commissioners for plantations of threatened as close an oversight and as rigid control of colonial affairs from a presbyterian parliament as had been feared from the king. furthermore, a presbyterian cabal in plymouth and massachusetts, - , gathered to it the discontent of large numbers of unfranchised residents within the latter colony, and under threat of an appeal to parliament boldly asked for the ballot and for church privileges. in view of these developments, nearly all the colonial churches, though with some hesitation, united in the synod of cambridge, which was originally called for the year . in the calling of the synod massachusetts took the lead. several years before, in , the four colonies of plymouth, massachusetts, connecticut, and new haven had united in the new england confederacy, or "confederacy of the united colonies," for mutual advantage in resisting the encroachments of the dutch, french, and indians, and for "preserving and propagating the truth and liberties of the gospel." in the confederacy, massachusetts and connecticut soon became the leaders. considering how much more strongly the former felt the pulsations of english political life, and how active were the massachusetts divines as expositors of the "new england way of the churches," the bay colony naturally took the initiative in calling the cambridge synod. but mindful of the opposition to her previous autocratic summons, her general court framed its call as a "desire" that ministerial, together with lay delegates, from all the churches of new england should meet at cambridge. there, representing the churches, and in accordance with the earliest teachings of congregationalism, they were to meet in synod "for sisterly advice and counsel." they were to formulate the practice of the churches in regard to baptism and adult privileges, and to do so "for the confirming of the weak among ourselves and the stopping of the mouths of our adversaries abroad." during the two years of unavoidable delay before the synod met in final session, these topics, which were expected to be foremost in the conference, were constantly in the public mind. through this wide discussion, the long delay brought much good. it brought also misfortune in the death of thomas hooker in , and by it loss of one of the great lights and most liberal minds in the proposed conference. nearly all the colonial churches[g] were represented in the synod. when, during its session, news was received that cromwell was supreme in england, its members turned from the discussion of baptism and church-membership to a consideration of what should be the constitution of the churches. the supremacy of cromwell and of the independents who filled his armies cleared the political background. all danger of enforced presbyterianism was over. the strength of the presbyterian malcontents, who had sought to bring massachusetts and new england into disrepute in england, was broken. since the colonists were free to order their religious life as they pleased, the cambridge synod turned aside from its purposed task to formulate a larger platform of faith and polity. when the cambridge synod adjourned, the orthodoxy of the new england churches could not be impugned. in all matters of faith "for the substance thereof" they accepted the westminster confession of faith, but from its measures of government and discipline they differed.[h] this cambridge platform was more important as recognizing the independence of the churches and the authority of custom among them than as formulating a creed. it governed the new england churches for sixty years, or until massachusetts and connecticut congregationalism came to the parting of the way, whence one was to develop its associated system of church government, and the other its consociated system as set forth in the saybrook platform, formulated at saybrook, connecticut, in . meanwhile, the cambridge platform[i] gave all the new england churches a standard by which to regulate their practice and to resist change.[j] a study of the platform yields the following brief summary of its cardinal points:-- (a) the congregational church is not "national, provincial or classical,"[k] but is a church of a covenanted brotherhood, wherein each member makes public acknowledgment of spiritual regeneration and declares his purpose to submit himself to the ordinances of god and of his church.[l] a slight concession was made to the liberal church party and to the popular demand for broader terms of membership in the provision for those of "the weakest measure of faith," and in the substitution of a written account of their christian experience by those who were ill or timid. this written "experimental account" was to be read to the church by one of the elders. in the words of the platform, "such charity and tenderness is to be used, as the weakest christian if sincere, may not be excluded or discouraged. severity of examination is to be avoided."[m] (b) the officers of the church are elders and deacons, the former including, as of old, pastors, teachers, and ruling elders. that the authority within the church had passed from the unrestrained democracy of the early plymouth separatists to a silent democracy before the command of a speaking aristocracy[n] is witnessed to by the platform's declaration that "power of office" is proper to the elders, while "power of privilege"[o] belongs to the brethren. in other words, the brethren or membership have a "second" and "indirect power," according to which they are privileged to elect their elders. thereafter those officers possess the "direct power," or authority, to govern the church as they see fit.[p] in the matter of admission, dismission, censure, excommunication, or re-admission of members, the brotherhood of the church may express their opinion by vote.[q] in cases of censure and excommunication, the platform specifies that the offender could be made to suffer only through deprivation of his church rights and not through any loss of his civil ones.[r] in the discussion of this point, the more liberal policy of connecticut and plymouth prevailed. (c) in regard to pastors and teachers, the platform affirms that they are such only by the right of election and remain such only so long as they preside over the church by which they were elected.[s] their ordination after election, as well as that of the ruling elders and deacons, is to be by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church electing them. in default of elders, this ordination is to be by the hands of brethren whom because of their exemplary lives the church shall choose to perform the rite.[t] a new provision was also made, one leaning toward presbyterianism, whereby elders of other churches could perform this ceremony, "when there were no elders and the church so desired." (d) church maintenance, amounting to a church tax, was insisted upon not only from church-members but from all, since "all that are taught in the word, are to contribute unto him that teacheth." if necessary, because corrupt men creep into the congregations and church contributions cannot be collected, the magistrate is to see to it that the church does not suffer.[u] (e) the platform defined the intercommunion of the churches[v] upon such broad lines as to admit of sympathetic fellowship even when slight differences existed in local customs. in so important a matter as when an offending elder was to be removed, consultation with other churches was commanded before action should be taken against him. the intercommunion of churches was defined as of various kinds: as for mutual welfare; for sisterly advice and consultation, in cases of public offense, where the offending church was unconscious of fault; for recommendation of members going from one church to another; for need, relief, or succor of unfortunate churches; and "by way of propagation," when over-populous churches were to be divided. (f) concerning synods,[w] the platform asserts that they are "necessary to the well-being of churches for the establishment of truth and peace therein;" that they are to consist of elders, or ministerial delegates, and also of lay delegates, or "messengers;" that their function is to determine controversies over questions of faith, to debate matters of general interest, to guide and to express judgment upon churches, "rent by discord or lying under open scandal." synods could be called by the churches, and also by the magistrates through an order to the churches to send their elders and messengers, but they were not to be permanent bodies. on the contrary, unlike the synods of the presbyterian system, they were to be disbanded when the work of the special session for which they were summoned was finished. moreover, they were not "to exercise church censure in the way of discipline nor any other act of authority or jurisdiction;" yet their judgments were to be received, "so far as consonant to the word of god," since they were judged to be an ordinance of god appointed in his word. (g) the platform's section "of the civil magistrate in matters ecclesiastical"[x] maintains that magistrates cannot compel subjects to become church-members; that they ought not to meddle with the proper work of officers of the churches, but that they ought to see to it that godliness is upheld, and the decrees of the church obeyed. to accomplish these ends, they should exert all the civil authority intrusted to them, and their foremost duty was to put down blasphemy, idolatry, and heresy. in any question as to what constituted the last, the magistrates assisted by the elders were to decide and to determine the measure of the crime. they were to punish the heretic, not as one who errs in an intellectual judgment, but as a moral leper and for whose evil influence the community was responsible to god. the civil magistrates were also to punish all profaners of the sabbath, all contemners of the ministry, all disturbers of public worship, and to proceed "against schismatic or obstinately corrupt churches." these seven points summarize the important work of the cambridge synod and the platform wherein it embodied the church usage and fixed the ecclesiastical customs of new england. concerning its own work, the synod remarked in conclusion that it "hopes that this will be a proof to the churches beyond the seas that the new england churches are free from heresies and from the character of schism," and that "in the doctrinal part of religion they have agreed entirely with the reformed churches of england." [ ] let us in a few sentences review the whole story thus far of colonial congregationalism. with the exception of the churches of plymouth and watertown, the colonists had come to america without any definite religious organization. true, they had in their minds the example of the reformed churches on the continent, and much of theory, and many convictions as to what ought to be the rule of churches. these theories and these convictions soon crystallized out. and the transatlantic crystallization was found to yield results, some of which were very similar to the modifications which time had wrought in england upon the rough and embryonic forms of congregationalism as set forth by robert browne and henry barrowe. the characteristics of congregationalism during its first quarter of a century upon new england soil were: the clearly defined independence or self-government of the local churches; the fellowship of the churches; the development of large and authoritative powers in the eldership; a more exact definition of the functions of synods, a definite limitation of their authority; and, finally, a recognition of the authority of the civil magistrates in religious affairs generally, and of their control in special cases arising within individual churches. in the growing power of the eldership, and in the provision of the platform which permits ordination by the hands of elders of other churches, when a church had no elders and its members so desired, there is a trend toward the polity of the presbyterian system. in the platform's definition of the power of the magistrates over the religious life of the community, there is evident the colonists' conviction that, notwithstanding the vaunted independence of the churches, there ought to be some strong external authority to uphold them and their discipline; some power to fall back upon, greater than the censure of a single church or the combined strength and influence derived from advisory councils and unauthoritative synods. in connecticut, this control by the civil power was to increase side by side with the tendency to rely upon advisory councils. from this twofold development during a period of sixty years, there arose the rigid autonomy of the later saybrook system of church-government, wherein the civil authority surrendered to ecclesiastical courts its supreme control of the churches. turning from the text of the cambridge platform to its application, we find among the earliest churches "rent by discord," schismatically corrupt, and to be disciplined according to its provisions, that of hartford, connecticut. from the earliest years of the connecticut colony there had been within it a large party, constantly increasing, who, because they were unhappy and aggrieved at having themselves and their children shut out of the churches, had advocated admitting all of moral life to the communion table. the influence of thomas hooker kept the discontent within bounds until his death in , the year before the cambridge synod met. thereafter, the conservative and liberal factions in many of the churches came quickly into open conflict. the hartford church in particular became rent by dissension so great that neither the counsel of neighboring churches nor the commands of the general court, legislating in the manner prescribed by the cambridge instrument, could heal the schism. the trouble in the hartford church arose because of a difference between mr. stone, the minister, and elder goodwin, who led the minority in their preference for a candidate to assist their pastor. before the discovery of documents relating to the controversy, it was the custom of earlier historians to refer the dispute to political motives. but this church feud, and the discussion which it created throughout connecticut, was purely religious, and had to do with matters of church privileges and eventually with rights of baptism.[y] the conflict originated through mr. stone's conception of his ministerial authority, which belonged rather to the period of his english training and which was concisely set forth by his oft-quoted definition of the rule of the elders as "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent democracy."[z] mr. stone and elder goodwin, the two chief officers in the hartford church, each commanded an influential following. personal and political affiliations added to the bitterness of party bias in the dispute which raged over the following three questions: (a) what were the rights of the minority in the election of a minister whom they were obliged to support? (b) what was the proper mode of ecclesiastical redress if these rights were ignored? (c) what were those baptismal rights and privileges which the cambridge platform had not definitely settled? the discussion of the first two questions precipitated into the foreground the still unanswered third. the turmoil in the hartford church continued for years and was provocative of disturbances throughout the colony. accordingly, in may, , a petition was presented to the general court by persons unknown, asking for broader baptismal privileges. moved by the appeal, the court appointed a committee, consisting of the governor, lieutenant-governor and two deputies, to consult with the elders of the churches and to draw up a series of questions embodying the grievances which were complained of throughout the colony as well as in the hartford church. the court further commanded that a copy of these questions be sent to the general courts of the other three colonies, that they might consider them and advise connecticut as to some method of putting an end to ecclesiastical disputes. as connecticut was not the only colony having trouble of this sort, massachusetts promptly ordered thirteen of her elders to meet at boston during the following summer, and expressed a desire for the cooperation of the churches of the confederated colonies. plymouth did not respond. new haven rejected the proposed conference. she feared that it would result in too great changes in church discipline and, consequently, in her civil order,--changes which she believed would endanger the peace and purity of her churches;[aa] yet she sent an exposition, written by john davenport, of the questions to be discussed. the connecticut general court, glad of massachusetts' appreciative sympathy, appointed delegates, advising them to first take counsel together concerning the questions to be considered at boston, and ordered them upon their return to report to the court. the two questions which since the summoning of the cambridge synod had been under discussion throughout all new england were the right of non-covenanting parishioners in the choice of a minister, and the rights of children of baptized parents, that had not been admitted to full membership. these were the main topics of discussion in the synod, or, more properly, ministerial convention, of , which assembled in boston, and which decreed the half-way covenant. the assembly decided in regard to baptism that persons, who had been baptized in their infancy, but who, upon arriving at maturity, had not publicly professed their conversion and united in full membership with the church, were not fit to receive the lord's supper:-- yet in case they understood the grounds of religion and are not scandalous, and solemnly own the covenant in their own persons,[ab] wherein they give themselves and their own children unto the lord, and desire baptism for them, we (with due reverence to any godly learned that may dissent) see not sufficient cause to deny baptism unto their children. [ ] church care and oversight were to be extended to such children. but in order to go to communion, or to vote in church affairs, the old personal, public profession that for so many years had been indispensable to "signing the covenant" was retained [ ] and must still be given. this half-way covenant, as it came to be called, enlarged the terms of baptism and of admission to church privileges as they had been set forth in the cambridge platform. the new measure held within itself a contradiction to the foundation principle of congregationalism. a dual membership was introduced by this attempt to harmonize the old testament promise, that god's covenant was with abraham and his seed forever, with the congregational type of church which the new testament was believed to set forth. the former theory must imply some measure of true faith in the children of baptized parents, whether or no they had fulfilled their duty by making public profession and by uniting with the church. this duty was so much a matter of course with the first colonists, and so deeply ingrained was their loyalty to the faith and practice which one generation inherited from another, that it never occurred to them that future descendants of theirs might view differently these obligations of church membership. but a difficulty arose later when the adult obligation implied by baptism in infancy ceased to be met, and when the question had to be settled of how far the parents' measure of faith carried grace with it. did the inheritance of faith, of which baptism was the sign and seal, stop with the children, or with the grandchildren, or where? to push the theory of inherited rights would result eventually in destroying the covenant church, bringing in its stead a national church of mixed membership; to press the original requirements of the covenant upon an unwilling people would lessen the membership of the churches, expose them to hostile attack, and to possible overthrow. the colonists compromised upon this dual membership of the half-way covenant. as its full significance did not become apparent for years, the work of the synod of was generally acceptable to the ministry, but it met with opposition among the older laity. it was welcomed in connecticut, where henry smith of wethersfield as early as , samuel stone of hartford, after , and john warham of windsor, had been earnest advocates of its enlarged terms. as early as in his draft of the cambridge platform, ralph partridge of duxbury in plymouth colony had incorporated similar changes, and even then they had been seconded by richard mather.[ac] they had been omitted from the final draft of that platform because of the opposition of a small but influential group led by the rev. charles chauncey. as early as , it had become evident that public opinion was favorable to such a change, and that some church would soon begin to put in practice a theory which was held by so many leading divines. though the half-way covenant was strenuously opposed by the new haven colony as a whole, peter prudden, its second ablest minister, had, as early as , avowed his earnest support of such a measure. the half-way covenant was presented to the connecticut general court, august, . orders were at once given that copies of it should be distributed to all the churches with a request for a statement of any exceptions that any of them might have to it. none are known to have been returned. this was not due to any great unanimity of sentiment among the churches, for in connecticut, as elsewhere, many of the older church-members were not so liberally inclined as their ministers, and were loth to follow their lead in this new departure. but when controversy broke out again in the hartford church, in , because of the baptism of some children, it was found that in the interval of eleven years those who favored the half-way covenant had increased in numbers in the church,[ad] and were rapidly gaining throughout the colony, especially in its northern half. by the absorption of the new haven colony, its southern boundary in had become the shore of long island sound. though public opinion favored the half-way covenant, the practice of the churches was controlled by their exclusive membership, and, unless a majority thereof approved the new way, there was nothing to compel the church to broaden its baptismal privileges.[ae] this difference between public opinion and church practice, between the congregations and the coterie of church members, was provocative of clashing interests and of factional strife. for several years these factional differences were held in check and made subordinate to the urgent political situation which the restoration of the stuarts had precipitated, and which demanded harmonious action among the colonists. a royal charter had to be obtained, and when obtained, it gave connecticut dominion over the new haven colony. the lower colony had to be reconciled to its loss of independence, in so much as the governing party, with its influential following of conservatives, objected to the consolidation. the liberals, a much larger party numerically, preferred to come under the authority of connecticut and to enjoy her less restrictive church policy and her broader political life. matters were finally adjusted, and delegates from the old new haven colony first took their seats as members of the general court of connecticut at the spring session of . thereafter, in connecticut history, especially its religious history, the strain of liberalism most often follows the old lines of the connecticut colony, while that of conservatism is more often met with as reflecting the opinions of those within the former boundaries of that of new haven. it was in the year following the union of the two colonies that the quarrel in the hartford church broke out afresh. the fall preceding the consolidation of the colonies, an appeal was made to the connecticut general court which helped to swell the dissatisfaction in the hartford church and to bring it to the bursting point. in october, , william pitkin, by birth a member of the english established church[af] and a man much esteemed in the colony, as shown, politically, by his office of attorney,[ ] and socially by his marriage with elder goodwin's daughter, petitioned the general court in behalf of himself and six associates that it-- would take into serious consideration our present state in this respect that wee are thus as sheep scattered haveing no shepheard, and compare it with what wee conceive you can not but know both god and our king would have it different from what it now is. and take some speedy and effectual course of redress herein, and put us in full and free capacity of injoying those forementioned advantages which to us as members of christ's visible church doe of right belong. by establishing some wholesome law in this corporation by vertue whereof wee may both clame and receive of such officers as are, or shall be by law set over us in the church or churches where wee have our abode or residence those forementioned privileges and advantages. further wee humbly request that for the future no law in this corporation may be of any force to make us pay or contribute to the maintenance of any minister or officer in the church that will neglect or refuse to baptize our children, and to take charge of us as of such members of the church as are under his or their charge and care-- _signed_-- admitted freeman oct. th, , hartford, wm. pitkin. admitted freeman may , , windsor, michael humphrey. admitted freeman may , , hartford, john stedman. windsor, james eno. admitted freeman may , , -- robart reeve. windsor, john morse. admitted freeman may , , windsor, jonas westover. [ ] eno and humphrey had been complained of because their insistence upon what they considered their rights had caused disturbance in the windsor church. now, with the other petitioners, they based their appeal in part upon the king's letter to the bay colony of june th, , wherein charles commanded that "all persons of good and honest lives and conversation be admitted to the sacrament of the lord's supper, according to the said book of common prayer, and their children to baptism." this petition of pitkin and his associates was the first notable expression of dissatisfaction with the congregationalism of connecticut. several episcopal writers have quoted it as the first appeal of churchmen in connecticut. in itself, it forbids such construction. the petitioners had come from england and from the church of the commonwealth. they were asking either for toleration in the spirit of the half-way covenant or for some special legislation in their behalf. further, they were demanding religious care and baptism for their children from a clergy who, from the point of view of any strict episcopalian, had no right to officiate; and, again, it was nearly ten years before the first church-of-england men found their way to stratford.[ ] the court made reply to pitkin's petition by sending to all the churches a request that they consider-- whither it be not their duty to entertaine all such persons, who are of honest and godly conuersation, hauing a competency of knowledge in the principles of religion, and shall desire to joyne with them in church fellowship, by an explicitt couenant, and that they haue their children baptized, and that all the children of the church be accepted and acco'td reall members of the church and that the church exercise a due christian care and watch ouer them; and that when they are grown up, being examined by the officer in the presence of the church, it appeares in the judgment of charity, they are duly qualified to participate in the great ordinance of the lord's supper, by their being able to examine and discerne the lord's body, such persons be admitted to full comunion. the court desires y't the seuerall officers of y'e respectiue churches, would be pleased to consider whither it be the duty of the court to order churches to practice according to the premises, if they doe not practice without such an order.[ ] the issue was now fairly before the churches of the colony. the delegates of the people had expressed the opinion of the majority. the court had invited the expression of any dissent that might exist, yet, despite the invitation, it had issued almost an order to the churches to practice the half-way covenant, and with large interpretation, applying it, not only to the baptism of children who had been born of parents baptized in the colonial church, but also to those whose parents had been baptized in the english communion, at least during the commonwealth.[ag] pitkin at once proceeded in behalf of himself and several of his companions to apply for "communion with the church of hartford in all the ordinances of christ." [ ] this the church refused, and wrought its factions up to white heat over the baptism of some child or children of non-communicants. the storm broke. other churches felt its effects. windsor church was rent by faction, stratford was in turmoil over the half-way covenant, and other churches were divided. some means had to be found to put an end to the increasing disorder. accordingly the court in october, , commanded the presence of all the preaching elders and ministers within the colony at a synod to find "some way or means to bring those ecclesiastical matters that are in difference in the severall plantations to an issue." the court felt obliged to change the name of the appointed meeting from "synod" to "assembly" to avoid the jealousy of the churches. they were afraid that the civil power would overstep its authority, and by calling a synod, composed of elders only, establish a precedent for the exclusion of lay delegates from such bodies. before this "assembly" could meet, it was shorn of influence through the politics of the conservative hartford faction, who succeeded in passing a bill at the session of the commissioners of the united colonies, which read:-- that in matters of common concern of faith or order necessitating a synod, it should be a synod composed of messengers from all the colonies. [ ] accordingly, connecticut's next step was to invite massachusetts to join in a synod to debate seventeen questions of which several had been submitted to the synod of , and had remained unanswered. among them were the questions of the right to vote in the choice of minister; of minority rights; and where to appeal in cases of censure believed to be unmerited.[ah] massachusetts courteously replied that the questions would be considered if submitted in writing; but she was at heart so indifferent that negotiations for a colonial synod lapsed, and connecticut was left to adjust the differences in her churches. consequently, in may, , the court,-- for promoting and establishing peace in the churches and plantations because of various apprehensions in matters of discipline respecting membership and baptism,-- appointed a committee of influential men in the colony to search out the rules for discipline and see how far persons of "various apprehensions" could walk together in church fellowship. this committee reported at the october session, and the court, after accepting their decision, formally declared the congregational church established and its older customs approved, asserting that-- whereas the congregationall churches in these partes for the generall of their profession and practice have hitherto been approued, we can doe no less than still approue and countenance the same to be without disturbance until a better light in an orderly way doth appeare; but yet foreasmuch as sundry persons of worth for prudence and piety amongst us are otherwise perswaded (whose welfare and peaceable satisfaction we desire to accommodate) this court doth declare that all such persons being also approued to lawe as orthodox and sound in the fundamentals of christian religion may haue allowance of their perswasion and profession in church wayes or assemblies without disturbance. the liberal church party had won the privileges for which they had contended, but the conservatives were not beaten, for it was upon their conception of church government that the court set its seal of approval. the court had been tolerant, and the churches must be also. upon such terms, the old order was to continue "until a better light should appear." the tolerance toward changing conditions, thus expressed, was further emphasized by the court's command to the churches to accept into full membership certain worthy people who could not bring themselves to agree fully with all the old order had demanded. the second part of the enactment just quoted was, strictly speaking, connecticut's first toleration act; yet it must be realized that now, as later, the degree of toleration admitted no release from the support of an unacceptable ministry or from fines for neglect of its ministrations. tolerance was here extended not to dissenters, but only to varying shades of opinions within a common faith and fold. in the spirit of such legislation, the court advised the hartford church to "walk apart." the advice was accepted, the church divided, and the members who went out reorganized as the second church of hartford. other discordant churches quickly followed this example. the second church of hartford immediately put forth a declaration, asserting that its congregationalism was that of the old original new england type. the force of public opinion was so great, however, that despite its declaration, the second church began at once to accept the half-way covenant. "the only result of their profession was to give a momentary name to the struggle as between congregationalist and presbyterian." [ ] it was no effective opposition to the onward development in connecticut of the new order. when the churches found that neither the old nor the new way was to be insisted upon, the violence of faction ceased. the dual membership was accepted. for a while, its line of cleavage away from the old system, with its local church "as a covenanted brotherhood of souls renewed by the experience of god's grace," was not realized, any more than that the new system was merging the older type of church "into the parish where all persons of good moral character, living within the parochial bounds, were to have, as in england and scotland, the privilege of baptism for their households and of access to the lord's table."[ ] another move in this direction was taken when the splitting off of churches, and the forming of more than one within the original parish bounds, necessitated a further departure from the principles of congregationalism, and when the sequestration of lands for the benefit of clergy became a feature of the new order.[ ] in this formation of new churches, the oldest parish was always the first society.[ai] those formed later did not destroy it or affect its antecedent agreements.[ ] only sixty-six years had passed ( - ) since the publication of the "points of difference" between the separatists, the london-amsterdam exiles, and the church of england, wherein insistence had been laid upon the principles of a covenanted church, of its voluntary support, and of the unrighteousness of churches possessing either lands or revenue. the pendulum had swung from the broad democracy and large liberty of brownism through barrowism, past the cambridge platform (almost the centre of its arc), and on through the half-way covenant to the beginning of a parish system. it had still farther to swing before it reached the end of the arc, marked by the saybrook platform, and before it began its slower return movement, to rest at last in the congregationalism of the past seventy years. footnotes: [a] among the causes assigned for the removal of the connecticut colonists were the discontent at watertown over the high-handed silencing by the boston authorities of pastor phillips and teacher brown for daring to assert that the "churches of rome were true churches;" the early attempt of the authorities to impose a general tax; the continued opposition to ludlow; their desire to oppose the dutch seizure of the fertile valley of the connecticut; their want of space in the bay colony; and the "strong bent of their spirits to remove thither," i.e. to connecticut. [b] the _new england way_ discarded the liturgy; refused to accept the sacrament or join in prayer after such an "anti-christian form;" limited communion to church members approved by new england standards, or coming with credentials from churches similarly approved; limited the ministerial office, outside the pastor's own church, to prayer and conference, denying all authority; and assumed as the right of each church the power of elections, admissions, dismissals, censures, and excommunications. the result, in that day of intense championship of religious polity and custom, was to create disturbance and discord among the english independent churches. the correspondence between the divines of new england and old england was in part to avoid the "breaking up of churches." [c] j. r. green, _short hist. of the english people_, - . the great popular signing of the covenant in scotland was in . [d] the original intention, in , in regard to the composition of the westminster assembly was to have noted divines from abroad. it was proposed to invite rev. john cotton, thomas hooker, and john davenport from new england. rev. thomas hooker thought the subject was not one of sufficient ecclesiastical importance for so long and difficult a journey, while the rev. john davenport could not be spared because of the absence of other church officers from new haven.--h. m. dexter, _congr. as seen_, etc., p. . congregationalists or independents in the sittings of the assembly pleaded for liberty of conscience to all sects, "provided that they did not trouble the public peace." (later, congregationalists differentiated themselves from the independents by adding to the principle of the independence of the local church the principle of the local sisterhood of the churches.) in the assembly, averaging sixty or eighty members, congregationalism was represented by but five influential divines and a few of lesser importance. there were also among the members some thirty laymen. the assembly held eleven hundred and sixty-three sittings, continuing for a period of five years and six months. during these years the civil war was fought; the king executed; the commonwealth established with its modified state-church, presbyterian in character. intolerance was held in check by the power of cromwell and of the army, for the independents had made early and successful efforts to win the soldiery to their standard.--philip schaff, _creeds of christendom_, - . [e] w. walker, _creeds and platforms_, p. , note . [f] the _new england way_ defended its changes from english custom under three heads: ( ) that things, inexpedient but not utterly unlawful in england, became under changed conditions sinful in new england. ( ) things tolerated in england, because unremovable, were shameful in the new land where they were removable. ( ) many things, upon mature deliberation and tried by scripture, were found to be sinful. but: "we profess unfeignedly we separate from the corruptions, which we conceive to be left in your churches, and from such ordinances administered therein as we feare are not of god but of men; and for yourselves, we are so farre from separating as visible christians as that you are under god in our hearts (if the lord would suffer it) to live and die together; and we look at sundrie of you as men of that eminent growth in christianitie, that if there be any visible christians under heaven, amongst you are the men, which for these many years have been written in your forehead ('holiness to the lord'): and this is not to the disparagement of ourselves or our practice, for we believe that the church moves on from age to age, its defects giving way to increasing purity from reformation to reformation."--j. davenport, _the epistle returned, or the answer to the letter of many ministers_. a number of treatises upon church government and usage were printed in the memorable year , several of which had previously circulated in manuscript. in was received the _letter of many ministers in old england, requesting the judgment of their reverend brethren in new england and concerning nine positions_. it was answered by john davenport in . _a reply and answer_ was also a part of this correspondence, which was first published in , as was also richard mather's _church government and church covenant discussed_, the latter being a reply to _two and thirty questions_ sent from england. by these, together with j. cotton's _keyes_ and other writings, and by thomas hooker's great work _survey of the summe of church discipline_ (approved by the synod of ), every aspect of church polity and usage was covered. [g] hingham church preferred the presbyterian way. concord was absent, lacking a fit representative. boston and salem at first refused to attend, questioning the general court's right to summon a synod and fearing lest such a summons should involve the obedience of all the represented churches to the decisions of the conference. the modification of the summons to the "desire" of the court, and the entreaty of their leaders, finally overcame the opposition in these churches. in fact, delegates to the court, representing at least thirty or forty churches, had hesitated to accept the original summons of the court when reported as a bill for calling the synod. although the court "made no question of their lawful power by the word of god to assemble the churches, or their messengers upon occasion of counsell, or anything which may concern the practice of the churches," it decided to modify the phrasing of the order.--h. m. dexter, _congr. as seen_, p. . _magnalia_, ii, . _mass. col. rec._ ii, - , also iii, - . [h] "this synod having perused with much gladness of heart the confession of faith published by the late reverend assembly in england, do judge it to be very holy, orthodox and judicious, in all matters of faith, and do hereby freely and fully consent thereto for the substance thereof. only in those things which have respect to church-government and discipline, we refer ourselves to the platform of church-discipline, agreed upon by this present assembly."--preface to the cambridge platform, quoted in w. walker, _creeds and platforms_, p. . [i] in many parts the wording of the platform is almost identical with passages from the foremost ecclesiastical treatises of the period, and, naturally, since john cotton, richard mather, and ralph partridge were each requested to draft a "scriptural model of church government." the platform conformed most closely to that of richard mather. the draft by ralph partridge of plymouth still exists. obviously, the separatist clergyman did not emphasize so strongly the rule of the eldership which new england church life in general had developed. otherwise his plan did not differ essentially from that of mather. [j] "even now, after a lapse of more than two hundred years the platform (notwithstanding its errors here and there in the application of proof texts, and its one great error in regard to the power of the civil magistrate in matters of religion) is the most authentic exposition of the congregational church as given in the scriptures."--leonard bacon, in _contributions to the ecclesiastical history of connecticut_, ed. of , p. . [k] cambridge platform, chap. ii. [l] _ibid._ chap. ii. [m] cambridge platform, chap. iii. [n] the definition of the rule of the elders, given by the rev. samuel stone of hartford, was "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent democracy." [o] cambridge platform, chaps, iv-x. [p] "we do believe that christ hath ordained that there should be a presbytery or eldership and that in every church, whose work is to teach and rule the church by the word and laws of christ and unto whom so teaching and ruling, all the people ought to be obedient and submit themselves. and therefore a government merely popular or democratieal... is far from the practice of these churches and we believe far from the mind of christ." however, the brethren should not be wholly excluded from its government or its liberty to choose its officers, admit members and censure offenders.--r. mather, _church government and church covenant discussed,_ pp. - . "the gospel alloweth no church authority or rule (properly so called) to the brethren but reserveth that wholly to the elders; and yet preventeth tyrannee, and oligarchy, and exorbitancy of the elders by the large and firm establishment of the liberties of the brethren."--j. cotton, _the keys of the kingdom of heaven,_ p. . "in regard to christ, the head, the government of the church, is sovereign and monarchicall: in regard to the rule of the presbytery, it is stewardly and aristocraticall: in regard to the people's power in elections and censures, it is democraticall."--_the keys,_ p. ; see also _church-government and church covenant,_ pp. - . [q] cambridge platform, chap, x. [r] _ibid._ chap. xiv. [s] cambridge platform, chap. ix. [t] _ibid_. chap. ix. [u] _ibid_. chap. xi. [v] _ibid_. chap. xv. [w] cambridge platform, chap. xvi. [x] cambridge platform, chap. xvii. according to hooker's _survey_ the magistrates had the right to summon synods because they have the right to command the faculties of their subjects to deliberate concerning the good of the state.--_survey_, pt. iv, p. _et seq_. [y] "however the controversy of the connecticut river churches was embittered by political interests, it was essentially nothing else than the fermentation of that leaven of presbyterianism which came over with the later puritan emigration, and which the cambridge platform, with all its explicitness in asserting the rules given by the scriptures, had not effectually purged."--l. bacon, in _contrib. to eccl. hist. of conn_., p. . see also h. m. dexter, _congr. as seen in lit_., pp. - . of the twenty-one contemporaneous documents, by various authors, none mention baptism as in any way an issue in debate. "dr. trumbull probably touches the real root of the affair when he speaks of the controversy as one concerning the 'rights of the brotherhood,' and the conviction, entertained by mr. goodwin, that these rights had been disregarded." the question of baptism ran parallel with the question under debate, incidentally mixed itself with and outlived it to be the cause of a later quarrel that should split the church.--g. l. walker, _first church in hartford_, p. . [z] mr. stone admitted: "( ) i acknowledge yt it is a liberty of ye church to declare their apprehensions by vote about ye fitness of a p'son for office upon his tryall. ( ) "i look at it as a received truth yt an officer may in some cases lawfully hinder ye church from putting forth at this or yt time an act of her liberty. ( ) "i acknowledge ye i hindered ye church fro declaring their apprehensions by vote (upon ye day in question) concerning mr. wigglesworth's fitness for office in ye church of hartford."--_conn. historical society papers_, ii. - . [aa] in the new haven letter, she wrote, "we hear the petitioners, or others closing with them, are very confident they shall obtain great alterations both in civil government and church discipline, and that some of them have procured and hired one as their agent, to maintain in writing (as it is conceived) that parishes in england, consenting to and continuing their meetings to worship god, are true churches, and such persons coming over thither, (without holding forth any work of faith) have all right to church privileges."--_new haven col. records_, iii, . [ab] that is, they assent to the main truths of the gospel and promise obedience to the church they desire to join. [ac] among massachusetts clergymen, thomas allen of charlestown, , thomas shepherd, cambridge, , john norton, ipswich, , held that the baptismal privileges should be widened, and john cotton himself was slowly drifting toward this opinion. the windsor church was the first in connecticut to practice the half-way covenant, january , - , to march , - , when the pastor, having doubts as to its validity, discontinued the practice until , when it was again resumed.--stiles, _ancient windsor_, p. . [ad] stone held his party on the ground that over a matter of internal discipline a synod had no control, and that he could exercise congregational discipline upon any seceders. the immediate result was the removal of the discontented to boston or to hadley; where, however, they could not be admitted to another church until stone had released them from his. this he refused to do. thus, he showed the power of a minister, when backed by a majority, to inflict virtual excommunication. this could be done even though his authority was open to question.--j. a. doyle, _puritan colonies_, ii, p. . [ae] meanwhile the massachusetts synod (purely local) of stood seven to one in favor of the half-way covenant practice, and had reaffirmed the fellowship of the churches according to the synodical terms of the cambridge platform, as against a more authoritative system of consociation, proposed by thomas shepherd of cambridge. [af] it must be remembered that the "church of england meant the aggregate of english christians, whether in the upshot of the movements which were going on ( - ), their polity should turn out to be episcopal or presbyterian, or something different from either."--palfrey, _comprehensive hist. of new england_, i, p. . j. r. green, _short hist. of the eng. people_, p. . in england, pitkin had been a member of the church of the commonwealth, and in all probability was not an episcopalian or church-of-england man in the usual sense. [ag] such an order could only produce further disturbance. stratford and norwalk protested. as a rule the order was most unwelcome in the recently acquired new haven colony. mr. pierson of branford, with some of the conservative church people of guilford and new haven, went to new jersey to escape its consequences. [ah] among the questions, still unanswered, which had been submitted in were: ( ) "whether it doth belong to the body of a town, collectively taken, jointly, to call him to be their minister whom the church shall choose to be their officer." ( ) "whether the church, her invitation and election of an officer, or preaching elder, necessitates the whole congregation to sit down satisfied, as bound to accept him as their minister though invited and settled without the town's consent." (ll) "unto whom shall such persons repair who are grieved by any church process or censure, or whether they must acquiesce in the churches under which they belong."--trumbull, _hist. of conn. i_, - . [ai] in new england congregationalism, the church and the ecclesiastical society were separate and distinct bodies. the church kept the records of births, deaths, marriage, baptism, and membership, and, outside these, confined itself to spiritual matters; the society dealt with all temporal affairs such as the care and control of all church property, the payment of ministers' salaries, and also their calling, settlement, and dismissal. chapter v a period of transition alas for piety, alas for the ancient faith! though massachusetts had been indifferent and had left connecticut to work out, unaided, her religious problem, the two colonies were by no means unfriendly, and in each there was a large conservative party mutually sympathetic in their church interests. the drift of the liberal party in each colony was apart. the homogeneity of the connecticut people put off for a long while the embroilments, civil and religious, to which massachusetts was frequently exposed through her attempts to restrain, restrict, and force into an inflexible mould her population, which was steadily becoming more numerous and cosmopolite. the english government received frequent complaints about the bay colony, and, as a result, connecticut, by contrast of her "dutiful conduct" with that of "unruly massachusetts," gained greater freedom to pursue her own domestic policy with its affairs of church and state. many of its details were unknown, or ignored, by the english government. the period when the four colonies had been united upon all measures of common welfare, whether temporal or spiritual, had passed. there were now three colonies. one of these, much weaker than the others, was destined within comparatively few years to be absorbed by massachusetts as new haven had been by connecticut. meanwhile, massachusetts and connecticut were developing along characteristic lines and had each its individual problems to pursue. while in ecclesiastical affairs the conservative factions in the two colonies had much in common and continued to have for a long time, the reforming synod of - , held in boston, was the last in which all the new england churches had any vital interest, because a period of transition was setting in. this period of transition was marked by an expansion of settlements with its accompanying spirit of land-grabbing, and by a lowering of tone in the community, as material interests superseded the spiritual ones of the earlier generations, and as the indian and colonial wars spread abroad a spirit of license. in the religious life of the colonists, this transition made itself felt not alone in the character of its devotees, but in the ecclesiastical system itself, as it changed from the polity and practice embodied in the cambridge platform to that of a later day, and to the almost presbyterian government expressed in the saybrook platform of . the transition in massachusetts, in both secular and religious development, varied greatly from that in connecticut. hence, from the time of the keforming synod, the history of connecticut is almost entirely the story of its own career, touching only at points the historical development of the other new england colonies. on the religious side, it is the story of the evolution of connecticut's peculiar congregationalism. the reforming synod of - had been called by the massachusetts general court because, in the words of that old historian, thomas prince:-- a little after , there began to appear decay, and this increased to , when it grew very visible and threatening, and was generally complained of and bewailed bitterly by the pious among them (the colonists): and yet more to , when but few of the first generation remained. [ ] the reasons of this falling away from the standards of the first generation were many. in the first place, the colonists had become mere colonials. upon the stuart restoration, the strongest ties which bound them to the pulsing life of the mother country, the religious ones, were severed. the colonists ceased to be the vanguard of a great religious movement, the possible haven of a new political state. though they received many refugees from stuart conformity, the religious ties which bound them to the english nonconformists were weakened, and still more so when both the once powerful wings of the puritan party, presbyterian and independent, were alike in danger of extinction. shortly after the revolution of , when, under the larger tolerance of william and mary, the presbyterians and independents strove to increase their strength by a union based upon the "heads of agreement," english and colonial nonconformity moved for a brief time nearer, and then still farther apart. the "heads of agreement"[a] was a compromise so framed as to admit of acceptance by the presbyterian who recognized that he must, once for all, give up his hope of a national church, and by the independent anxiously seeking some bond of authority to hold together his weak and scattered churches. after this compromise, the religious life of the colonies ceased to be of vital importance to any large section of the english people. after the restoration the colonial agents became preeminently interested in secular affairs, in political privileges, and commercial advantages. the reaction was felt in the colonies by generations who lacked the heroic impulses of their fathers, their constant incentive, and their high standards. moreover, the education of the second and third generation could not be like that of the first. the percentage of university men was less. new harvard could not supply the place of old cambridge. if life was easier, it was more material. against such conditions as these, the reforming synod made little headway.[b] it set forth in thirteen questions the offenses of the day and in the answer to each suggested remedies. to these questions and answers the synod added a confession of faith. this last was a reaffirmation of the westminster confession of faith as amended and approved by parliament, or that found in the savoy declaration.[c] in respect to church government, the reforming synod confirmed the "substance of the platform of discipline agreed upon by the messengers of these churches at cambridge, anno domini, ," [ ] desiring the churches to "continue steadfast in the _order of the gospel_ according to what is therein declared from the word of god." cotton mather in the "magnalia," [ l] writing twenty years later, gives four points of departure from the cambridge polity by the reforming synod. first, occasional officiations of ministers outside their own churches were authorized; secondly, there was a movement to revive the authority and office of ruling elder and other officers; thirdly, "plebeian ordination," or lay ordination, ordination by the hands of the brethren of the church in the absence of superior officers, was no longer allowed;[d] and fourthly, there was a variation from the "personal and public confession" in favor of a private examination by the pastor of candidates for church-membership, though the earlier custom was still regarded as "lawful, expedient and useful." with reference to the office of ruling elder, it had been done away with in many churches, partly because of lack of suitable men to fill the office, partly because of the mistakes of incompetents, and partly because of a growing doubt as to the scriptural sanction for such an office. in many churches the office of teacher had also been abolished, the pastor inheriting all the authority formerly lodged in the eldership, and as he retained his power of veto, it came about that the churches were largely in the power of one man. plymouth and connecticut colonies strongly approved the work of this local massachusetts synod. as a result of the interest excited by its suggestions to increase church discipline, for laws to encourage morality and christian instruction, and for renewed zeal on the part of individuals in godly living, a goodly number of converts were immediately added to the churches throughout all the colonies. of these, the larger number were admitted on the half-way covenant. but times had changed, and the churches could not keep pace. the attempts to enforce religion were fruitless,[e] and only go to show that political interests, that wars,[f] with their accompanying excitement and license, and that engrossing civil affairs had torn men's minds from the old interests in religious controversies and in religious customs. the church itself had deteriorated as the towns in their civil capacity had undertaken the support of the minister and to collect his rates. even earlier began, also, the gradual change by which the election of the minister passed from the small group of church communicants, or full membership, to the larger body of the society, and finally to the town. this change was partly brought about through the increasing acceptance of the half-way covenant with its attendant results. in some localities, "owning the covenant" and presenting one's children for baptism came to be considered not as a necessary fulfilling of inherited duties (because of inherited baptismal privileges) and the consequent recognition of moral obligations, but as meritorious acts, having of themselves power to benefit the participants. further, the rite of baptism, confined at first to children one at least of whose parents had been baptized, was later permitted to any for whom a satisfactory person--any one not flagrantly immoral--could be found to promise that the child should have religious training. still another factor in the lowering of religious life was stoddardeanism, or the teaching of the rev. solomon stoddard of northampton, massachusetts, a most powerful preacher and for many years the most influential minister throughout the connecticut valley. as early as , he began to teach that baptized persons, who had owned the covenant, should be admitted to the lord's supper, so that the rite itself might exercise in them a regenerating grace. in its origin, this teaching was probably intended as a protest against a morbid, introspective, and weakening self-examination on the part of many who doubted their fitness to go to communion. but as a result of the interworking of this teaching and of the practice of the half-way covenant, church membership came in time to include almost any one not openly vicious, and willing to give intellectual, or nominal, assent to church doctrines and also to a few church regulations. with the change, the large body of townsmen became the electors of the minister. cotton mather in the "ratio disciplinæ" [ ] illustrates these changing conditions when he tells us that the communicants felt that the right to elect the minister was invested in them as the real church of christ, and that, in order to avoid strife or the defeat of their candidate by the majority of the town, they would customarily propose a choice between two nominees. carelessness of the churches in admitting members had had its counterpart in the carelessness of the towns in admitting inhabitants. very early, as early as , the connecticut general court had been obliged to call them to order. the march session of - had limited the franchise to all inhabitants of twenty-one years of age or over who were householders (that is, married men), and who had thirty pounds estate, or who had borne office. this was shortly changed to "thirty pounds of proper _personal_ estate," or who had borne office. the ratable estate in the colony averaged sixty pounds per inhabitant at this time. up to march, - , the towns had admitted inhabitants by a majority vote. these admitted inhabitants, armed with a certificate of good character from their town, presented themselves before the general court as candidates for the freeman's franchise, and were admitted or not as the court saw fit. disfranchisement was the penalty for any scandalous behavior on the part of the successful candidate. one reason for the new and restrictive legislation was that from to , from some cause unknown, large numbers of undesirable colonists flocked into the connecticut towns, and thus it happened that, as the church broadened her idea of membership, the state had need to limit its conception of democracy. consequently, it narrowed the franchise by adding to the original requirements a large property qualification, and continued to demand the certificates of good character. moreover, the candidates were further required to present their credentials in october, and they were not to be passed upon until the next session of the court in the following april. this two-fold change in the religious and political life of the colony gave greater flexibility and greater security, for "with church and state practically intertwined, the theory of the one had been too narrow and of the other too broad." [ ] after the change in the franchise, records of the towns show that there was less disorder in admitting inhabitants and more care taken as to their personal character. as the townsmen became the electors of the minister, and when the new latitude in membership had been accepted by the churches, there soon appeared a growing slackness of discipline and also an increase of authority in the hands of the ministers and their subordinate deaconry. this excess of authority in the hands of one man tended to one-man rule and to frequent friction between the minister and his people. as a result councils might be called against councils in the attempt to settle questions or disputes between pastors and people. consequently, among conservatives, there came to be the feeling that there ought to be some authoritative body to supervise the churches,--one to which both pastor and people could appeal disputed points. in massachusetts, the connecticut colonists saw a strenuous attempt to establish such an authority. between and , the massachusetts clergy had revived the early custom of fortnightly meetings of neighboring ministers. the new associations were purely voluntary ones for mutual assistance, for debate upon matters of common interest, or for consultation over special difficulties, whether pertaining to churches or to their individual members, which might be brought before them. these associations grew in favor, and later became a permanent feature of new england congregationalism. because they were received with so much, favor at the time of their revival, the conservative massachusetts clergy attempted in the "proposals of " to increase the ministerial and synodical power within the churches, and to bring about a reformation in manners and morals by giving to these associations very large and authoritative powers. the proposals provided that all ministers should be joined in associations for mutual help and advice; for licensing candidates for the ministry; for providing for pastorless churches; for a general oversight of religion, and for the examination of charges brought against their own members. standing councils, composed of delegates from the associations and also of a proper number of delegates (apparently laymen) to represent the membership of the churches, were to be established. these were to control all church matters throughout the colony that were "proper for the consideration of an ecclesiastical council," and obedience to their judgments was to be enforced under penalty of forfeiture of church-fellowship. the proposals were approved by the majority of the massachusetts clergy; but the liberal party within the churches would not accede to their demands, and the general court would not sanction the proposals in the face of such opposition. consequently, the essential feature of the proposals, the standing councils, was never adopted. but the attempt to establish them invigorated the associations, and the licensing of candidates was arranged for. many people in connecticut approved the tenor of the proposals and desired a similar system. moreover, there never was a time when the general court was so ready to delegate to an ecclesiastical body the control of the churches. the trustees of the young college, yale, the most representative gathering of clergymen in the colony, were anxious to have the court establish some system of ecclesiastical government stronger than that existing among the churches, and to have it send out some approved confession of faith and discipline. consequently, when, in , guerdon saltonstall,[g] the popular ex-minister of new london, was raised to the governor's chair, the time seemed ripe for a move to satisfy the widespread demand. in response to it, the may session of the general court-- from their own observation and the complaints of many others, being made sensible of the defects of the discipline of the churches of this government, arising from want of a more explicit asserting of the rules given for that in the holy scriptures [saw fit] to order and require the ministers of the several churches in the several counties of this government to meet together at their respective countie towns, _with such messengers as the churches to which they belong_ shall see cause to send with them on the last day of june next, there to consider and agree upon those methods and rules for the management of ecclesiastical discipline which shall be judged agreable and conformable to the word of god, and shall at the same meeting appoint two or more of their number to meet together at saybrook... where they shall compare the results of the ministers of the several counties, and out of which and from them to draw a form of ecclesiastical discipline, which by two or more persons delegated by them shall be offered this court ... and be confirmed by them. [ ] the bill was passed by the upper house of the legislature and sent to a conference from the lower, may , . it became a law may . in the interim the words in italics were inserted in order to eliminate any possible loss of liberty to the churches and to protect them from a system of government, planned by ministers only, and enforced by the general court. [ ] no records of the preliminary meeting have come down to us, but the preface of the saybrook platform reports such a meeting and that their delegates met at saybrook, september , . at this second convention, twelve ministers, of whom eight were trustees of yale, and four messengers were present. their work, known as the saybrook platform, declares in its preface that-- we agree that the confession of faith owned & consented unto by the elders and messengers of the chhs assembled at boston in new england, may , being the second session of that synod be recommended to the honbl. the gen. assembly of this colony at the next session for their publick testimony thereto as the faith of the chhs of this colony. we agree also that the heads of agreement assented to by the vnited ministers formerly called presbyterian & congregationall be observed by the chhs throout this colony. the work of the synod, including also a series of authoritative "articles," was laid before the october session of the court and received its approval, the court declaring its "great approbation of such a happy agreement" and ordaining "that all churches within this government that are or shall be thus united in doctrine, worship and discipline, be and for the future shall be owned and acknowledged established by law." [ ] the period of transition was over. connecticut had passed from the individual consecration and democratic organization of the cambridge platform to the comprehensive membership of a parish system and to the authoritative councils, or ecclesiastical courts, provided for by the saybrook articles. a consideration of them as the main points of the platform is next in order. footnotes: [a] the "heads of agreement" was destined to have more influence in america than in england. [b] the order of the massachusetts court was "for the revisall of the discipline agreed upon by the churches, , and what else may appeare necessary for the preventing schism, haeresies, prophaneness, and the establishment of the churches in one faith and order of the gospell." there was no questioning of the court's right to _summon_ this synod, as there had been in - . [c] the savoy declaration of october, , was put forth by the english leaders of the independent, or congregational, churches as a confession of faith, and in its thirty articles contained a declaration of church order. the formulated principles of church order were suggested by the cambridge platform but were neither so clear nor so fully stated as in the new england document. the westminster confession, the savoy declaration, and the later heads of agreement, were destined to have more influence in new england than in england, where the effect was transient. the reforming synod preferred the savoy declaration to the westminster confession because the terms of the former were more strictly congregational, and also because they wished to hold a confession in common with their trans-atlantic brethren. the massachusetts synod changed here and there a word in order to emphasize the church-membership of children as a right derived through the half-way covenant, and also to state explicitly the right of the civil authority to interfere in questions of doctrine. [d] in the lay ordination of the rev. thomas buckingham of saybrook, conn., was strongly opposed by a council of churches, but it was reluctantly yielded to the insistent church.--j. b. felt, _eccl. history_, ii, . [e] "whereas this court [the general court of connecticut] in the calamitous times of ' and ' were moved to make some laws for the suppression of some provoaking evils which were feared to be growing up amongst us: viz.--prophanation of the sabbath; neglect of catechizing children and servants and famaly prayer; young persons shaking off the government of parents or masters; boarders and inmates neglecting the worship of god in famalyes where they reside; tipling & drinkeing; uncleanness; oppression in workmen and traders; which laws have little prevailed. it is therefore ordered by this court that the selectmen constables and grand-jury men in their several plantations shall have a special care in their respective places to promote the due and full attendance of these aforementioned orders of this court." [f] king philip's war, - ; the usurpation of andros; king william's war, - , with its expedition against quebec; queen anne's war, - . [g] governor saltonstall "was more inclined to synods and formularies than any other minister of that day in the new england colonies." his influence over the clergy was almost absolute. "the saybrook platform was stamped with his seal and was for the most part an embodiment of his views."--hollister, _hist. of conn._ vol. ii, p. . chapter vi the saybrook platform a government within a government. the saybrook platform subdivides into a confession of faith, the heads of agreement, and the fifteen articles. the confession of faith is merely a recommendation of the savoy confession as reaffirmed by the synod of boston or the reforming synod of . the heads of agreement are but a repetition of the articles that, under the same title, were passed in london, in , by fourteen delegates from the presbyterian and english congregational churches. both parties to the agreement had hoped thereby to establish more firmly their churches and to give them the strength and dignity of a strongly united body. the heads of agreement were drafted by three men, increase mather, the massachusetts colonial agent to england, matthew mead, a congregationalist, and john hone, a presbyterian, who in his earlier years and by training was a congregationalist. naturally, between the influence of the framers and the necessity for including the two religious bodies, this platform inclined towards congregationalism, but equal necessity led it away from the freedom of the cambridge platform, after which it was patterned. in the heads of agreement, the composition of the church is defined according to congregational standards, as is also the election of its officers. the definition of the powers of the church is not strictly congregational, because initiative action and governing powers are intrusted to the eldership, while, to the brethren, there is given only the privilege of assenting to such measures as the elders may place before them. the membership in the church, as defined, is semi-congregational; i. e., in order to become members, persons must be "grounded in the fundamental doctrines of religion" and lead moral lives, but they are eligible to communion only after the declaration of their desire "to walk together according to gospel rule." concerning this declaration the statement is made that "different degrees of _expliciteness_ shall in no way hinder such churches from owning each other as _instituted churches_." furthermore, no one should be pressed to declare the time and manner of his conversion as proof of his fitness to be received as a communicant. such an account would, however, be welcome. with reference to parochial bounds, introduced into the primitive congregationalism of new england, but always existing in the english presbyterian system, the heads of agreement declare them to be "not of divine right" but-- for common edification that church members should live near one another, nor ought they to forsake their church for another without its consent and recommendation. in respect to the ministry, the heads of agreement affirm that it should be learned and competent and approved; that ordinarily, pastors should be considered as ministers only while they continue in office over the church that elected them to its ministry; that ordinarily, in their choosing and calling, advice should be sought from neighboring churches, and that they should be ordained with the aid of neighboring pastors. in the matter of installation into a new office of an elder, previously ordained, churches are to exercise the right of individual judgment and of preference as to reordination. this same right of preference is to be exercised in deciding whether or not a church should support a ruling elder. the heads of agreement assert that in the intercommunion of churches there is to be no subordination among them, and that there ought to be frequent friendly consultations between their "_officers_." there are to be "occasional meetings of ministers" of several churches to consult and advise upon "weighty and difficult cases," and to whose judgments, "particular churches, their respective _elders_ and _members_, ought to have a reverential regard, and not dissent therefrom, without _apparent_ grounds from the word of god." the heads of agreement command churches to yield obedience and support to the civil authority and to be ready at all times to give the magistrates an account of their affairs. the heads of agreement were the most liberal part of the saybrook platform, and were not considered sufficiently authoritative. accordingly,-- for the better regulation of the administration of chh discipline in relation to all cases ecclesiastical both in particular chhs and in councils to the full determining and executing of the rules in all such cases,[ ]-- were added certain resolutions, known as the "fifteen articles." they are in reality the platform, for all that goes before them is but a reaffirmation of principles already accepted, and the new thing in the document, the advance in ecclesiasticism, is the increased authority permitted and, later, enforced by these fifteen articles. the articles affirm that power and discipline in connection with all cases of scandal that may arise within a church, ought, the brethren consenting, to be lodged with the elder or elders; and that in all difficult cases, the pastor should take advice of the elders of the neighboring churches before proceeding to censure or pass judgment. in order to facilitate both discipline and mutual oversight, the articles provide that elders and pastors are to be joined in associations, meeting at least twice a year, to consult together upon questions of ministerial duty and upon matters of mutual benefit to their churches. from these associations, delegates were to be chosen annually to meet in one general association, holding its session in the spring, at the time of the general elections. the associations were to look after pastorless churches and to recommend candidates for the ministry. up to this time a man's bachelor of arts degree had been considered sufficient guarantee that he would make a capable minister. henceforth, there could no longer be complaint that "there was no uniform method of introducing candidates to the ministry nor sufficient opportunity for churches to confer together in order to their seeing and acting harmoniously." [ ] in order that there should be no more confusion arising from calling councils against councils with their often conflicting judgments, the articles formed consociations, or unions of churches within certain limits, usually those of a county. these consociations were to assist upon all great or important ecclesiastical occasions. they were to preside over all ordinations or installations; they were to decide upon the dismissal of members, and upon all difficulties arising within any church within their district. if necessary, consociations could be joined in council. their decisions were to have the force of a judgment or sentence _only_ when they were "approved by the major part of the elders present and by such a number of the messengers"--one or two from each church--as should constitute a majority vote. a church could call upon its consociation for advice before sentencing an offender, but the offender could not appeal to the consociation without the consent of his church. by these last provisions, authority and power tended still more to concentrate in the hands of the elders. the fifteen articles, though they did not make the judgments of the consociations decisive, urged upon individual churches a reverent regard for them. the attitude of the churches towards these fifteen articles varied, and it was already known in the synod that such would be the case. some churches would find them more palatable than others. many were already converts to the rev. solomon stoddard's insistent teaching that "a national synod is the highest ecclesiastical authority upon earth," [ ] that every man must stand to the judgment of a national synod. even five years before the convening of the synod at saybrook, there had issued from a meeting of the yale trustees,[a] "altogether the most representative ecclesiastical gathering in the colony," a circular letter which urged the connecticut ministers to agree on some unifying confession of creed, and that such be recommended by the general court to the consideration of the people. the immediate answer to the letter, if any, is unknown. trumbull says that-- the proposal was universally acceptable, and the churches and the ministers of the several counties met in a consociated council and gave their assent to the westminster and savoy confessions of faith. [ ] it seems that they also "drew up certain rules of ecclesiastical discipline as preparatory to a general synod which they still had in contemplation,"[ ] but took no further step to obtain the approval of the court. this first definite move toward the saybrook system bore fruit when the fifteen articles were added to the platform. their authoritative tone was to satisfy those within the churches who preferred presbyterian classes and synods, while their interpretation could be modified to please the adherents of a purer congregationalism by reading them in the light of the heads of agreement which preceded them. of their possible purport two great authorities upon congregationalism speak as follows. dr. bacon writes:-- the "articles" by whomsoever penned, were obviously a compromise between the presbyterian interest and the congregational; and like most compromises, they were (i do not say by design) of doubtful interpretation. interpreted by a presbyterian, they might seem to subject the churches completely to the authoritative government of classes or presbyteries under the name of consociations. interpreted by a congregationalist, they might seem to provide for nothing more than a stated council, in which neighboring churches, voluntarily confederate, could consult together, and the proper function of which should be not to speak imperatively, but, when regularly called, to "hold forth light" in cases of difficulty or perplexity.[ ] dr. dexter sums them up in the following words:-- taken by themselves, the fifteen articles were stringent enough to satisfy the most ardent high churchmen among the congregationalists of that day; taken, however, in connection with the london document previously adopted, and by the spirit of which--apparently--they were always to be construed, their stringency became matter of differing judgment, so that what on the whole was their intent has never been settled to this day. [ ] in accordance with the system of government outlined in the platform, the churches of the colony were at once formed into five associations and five consociations, one each in new haven, new london, and fairfield counties, and two in hartford. in later years, new bodies were organized, as the other four connecticut counties were set off from these original ones. the churches of the new haven county consociation, long cleaving to the purest congregationalism, refused to adopt the platform until they had recorded their liberal construction of it. fairfield went to the other extreme, and put on record their acceptance of the consociations as church courts. hartford and new london accepted the platform as a whole, as it came from the synod, leaving to time the decision as to its loose or strict construction. a legislative act was necessary to make the platform the legal constitution of the congregational establishment. such an act immediately followed the presentation of the report by the committee, whom the saybrook convention, in accordance with the court's previous command, sent to the assembly. having examined the platform, the legislature declared its strong approval of such a happy agreement, and in october, , enacted that-- all the churches within this government that are, and shall be thus united in doctrine, worship and discipline, be, and for the future shall be, owned and acknowledged, established by law: provided always that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or prevent any society or church that is or shall be allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or dissent from the united churches hereby established, from exercising worship and discipline in their own way, and according to their conscience. [ ] the purport of this proviso was to safeguard churches which had been approved according to the standards formerly set up by the court, and also to prevent the act of establishment from seeming to contradict a "toleration act for sober dissenters" from the colony church that had been passed at the preceding may session. out of this proviso grew a misunderstanding in the norwich church, which happens also to furnish a typical illustration of the difficulties sometimes encountered in trying to collect a minister's salary. when mr. woodward, pastor of the norwich church, read the act establishing the saybrook platform, he omitted the proviso. the norwich deputies, who had been present at the passage of the act, immediately informed the people of the provision which the court had made for the continuance of those churches of which it had previously approved and which might be reluctant to adopt the stricter terms of the new system, at least until their value had been demonstrated. for this behavior, the deputies were censured by the pastor and by the majority of the church, who sided with him. thereupon, the minority withdrew and for three months worshiped apart. then the breach was healed, though seeds of discord remained. by , six years later, they had germinated and had attained such development that it was very difficult to collect the minister's salary. in norwich, as elsewhere, there had formerly been a custom of collecting the ministerial rates together with those of the county. this custom had arisen because of difficulty in collecting the former, and in [ ] this practice was legalized, provided that in each case the minister made formal application to have his rates thus collected. in the year and the following year the general court was obliged to issue a special order commanding the town of norwich to fulfill its agreement with their minister and to pay his salary in full. the second year, the court added the injunction that the money should be collected by the constables. but at the session following the order, the norwich deputies informed the court that, owing to differences existing among their townsmen, they had not seen fit to urge its commands upon their people. upon learning that mr. woodward's family were actually suffering, the court appointed a date, and ordered the norwich constables to produce at the time set a receipt, signed by mr. woodward, and showing that his salary had been paid in full. if the receipt was not forthcoming at the appointed time, the secretary of the colony was empowered to issue, upon application, a warrant to distrain all or any unpaid portion of the minister's salary from the constables, and, also, any additional costs. this legislation seems to have had due effect, though feeling ran so high that, in the following year, it was decided to divide the church. when the two parishes were formed, mr. woodward retired, and the life of the divided church was continued under new ministers. from the adoption of the saybrook platform, the connecticut churches were for many years preeminently presbyterian in character. the terms congregational and presbyterian were often used interchangeably. as late as , the hartford north association, speaking of the connecticut churches, declared them "to contain the essentials of the church of scotland or presbyterian church in america." the general association in affirmed that "the saybrook platform is the constitution of the presbyterian church in connecticut."[b] whether called by the one name or the other, presbyterianized congregationalism was the firmly established state religion, for under the saybrook system the local independence of the churches was largely sacrificed. the system further exalted the eldership and the pastoral power. it replaced the sympathetic help and advisory assistance of neighboring churches by organized associations and by the authority of councils. in the new system the ecclesiastical machinery which, at first, brought peace and order, soon developed into a barren autonomy and gave rise to rigid formalism in religion, with its consequent baneful results upon the spiritual and moral character of the people. the established church had attained the height of its security and power, with exclusive privileges conferred by the legislature. that body had turned over to the "government within a government" the whole control of the church and of the religious life of the colony, and had endowed it with ecclesiastical councils which rapidly developed into ecclesiastical courts. "there was no formal coercive power; but the public provision for the minister's support, and the withdrawal of it from recalcitrant members formed a coercive power of no mean efficiency." [ ] footnotes: [a] the charter for the college, together with an annual grant of three hundred dollars, was granted in . none but ministers were to be trustees. [b] the hartford north association in gave "information to all whom it may concern that the constitution of the churches in the state of connecticut, founded on the common usage and confession of faith, heads of agreement, articles of discipline adopted at the earliest period of the settlement of the state, is not congregational, but contains the essentials of the church of scotland, or presbyterian church in america, particularly, as it gives a decisive power to ecclesiastical councils and a consociation consisting of ministers and messengers, or lay representatives, from the churches, is possessed of substantially the same authority as a presbytery." the fifteen ministers at this meeting of the hartford north association declared that there were in the state not more than ten or twelve congregational churches, and that the majority were not, and never had been, constituted according to the cambridge platform, though they might, "loosely and vaguely, though improperly," be "termed congregational churches."--see ms. records. also g. l. walker, _first church in hartford_, p. . chapter vii the saybrook platform and the toleration act they keep the word of promise to our ear and break it to our hope.--_macbeth,_ act v, sc. viii. the connecticut general court incorporated in the act establishing the saybrook platform the proviso-- that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or prevent any society or church that is or shall he allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or dissent from the united churches hereby established from exercising worship and discipline in their own way, according to their conscience. here then was the measure of such religious toleration as could be expected. it appears a liberal measure. it was liberal in that day and generation, when men's minds were so firmly possessed by the belief that civil order was closely dependent upon religious uniformity. the exact purport of the proviso, however, can best be gauged by considering it in connection with a legislative act that immediately preceded it, and by studying the conditions which prompted or enforced this earlier legislation, known as the toleration act of .[a] as conditions were at its passage, the proviso applied only to certain congregational churches that, preferring the polity of the cambridge platform, were determined to adhere to it. in earlier years, these churches, with their exacting test of regenerative experience, had constituted the majority. in later years, the half-way covenant practice and stoddardeanism had shifted the relative position of church parties. now, the proviso represented that liberal-minded party within the church who would extend tolerance to the minority who still clung to the outgrown convictions and principles of an earlier age. this tolerance was extended from a two-fold motive: for the reason just assigned, and because the government hoped, by permitting a liberal interpretation of the saybrook articles, to win over these tolerated congregational churches. it trusted that the anticipated benefits, proceeding from the new order of church government, would further convince them of the superior advantages derivable from the presbyterian or more authoritative rendering of the saybrook instrument, and that through such a policy, the ready acceptance of the saybrook platform by all the churches in the colony would be secured. furthermore, it would not do for the colony to make an important law, following the great english precedent of which had granted toleration to dissenters, and then, within six months, frame a constitution for its established church, so rigid that no room could be found in the colony for any fundamental differences in faith or practice. consequently, the proviso was made to include both tolerated congregationalists and any dissenters who might in the future be permitted to organize their own churches, or, in the words of the court, "any society or church that is or shall be allowed by the laws of this government." thus the proviso was practically forced into the october legislation of the general court by the passing of the toleration act at its spring session, notwithstanding the fact that its inclusion was in accord with the sentiment of the liberal party. toleration act and proviso notwithstanding, no rival church was desired at this time in connecticut. no rival creed was recognized. true, there were a few handfuls of dissenters scattered through the colony, but congregationalism, with a strong tincture of presbyterianism, was almost the unanimous choice of the people. it was largely outside pressure that had forced the passage of the toleration act, even if it accounts for itself as a loyal following of the english precedent of . although it had always been understood that the colonies should make no laws repugnant to the organic or to the common law of england, connecticut was determined to protect as much as possible her own approved church, to keep it free from the contamination not only of infidels and heretics, but also from church-of-england dissenters and from all others. accordingly she placed side by side upon her statute book a toleration act with a proviso in favor of her established church, and a church platform with a proviso for "sober dissenters" therefrom. the circumstances which led up to and enforced the passage of the toleration act were many and varied. the motives were complex. considerations religious, political, social, and economic entered into the problem which met the connecticut legislators when they found their colony falling into disfavor with the king. this problem, resolved into its simplest terms, consisted in securing continued exemption from external interference. if connecticut could retain the king's approval, she could prevent the intrigues of her enemies at the english court and could control the situation in the colony, whatever its aspects, secular or religious. and with reference to the latter, she would still be able to exalt her establishment and to keep dissenters, however they might increase in kinds or numbers, in a properly subordinated position. in order to obtain a grasp of the situation within the colony at the time when its government concluded that the passing of the toleration act would be politic, it is necessary to examine the status of the dissenters there. of these there were four classes, the quakers or society of friends, the episcopalians, the baptists, and the rogerines. of these, the quakers and the episcopalians were the first to make the connecticut government forcibly realize that, if she interfered with what they believed to be their rights, there would probably have to be a settlement with the home government. but as the efforts of these sects to interest the english government in their behalf run parallel with and mix themselves up with other complaints against connecticut, it will make the history of the times clearer if the early story of the baptists and rogerines is first told. the baptists early appeared in new england, but it was not until that massachusetts permitted their organization into churches, and not until , only eight years before the saybrook platform, that cotton mather wrote of them, "we are willing to acknowledge for our brethren as many of them as are willing to be acknowledged." in her dislike of them, massachusetts had the full sympathy of connecticut. and it was with great dissatisfaction that the authorities of the latter colony saw these dissenters, early in the eighteenth century, crossing the rhode island boundary to settle within her territory. accordingly, in , the general court of connecticut refused them permission to incorporate in church estate. when in the following year, in spite of the legislature's refusal, they organized a church at groton under valentine wightman,[b] the assembly proceeded to inflict the full penalties of the law. while the baptists had cheerfully paid all secular taxes, they had made themselves liable to fines and imprisonments by their refusal, on the ground of conscience, to pay the ecclesiastical ones, and, as they continued to refuse, fines and imprisonment and even flogging became their portion. governor saltonstall, mild in his personal attitude toward the three other groups of dissenters, thoroughly disapproved of the baptists, seeming to fear their growing influence in new england and their increasing importance in the mother country. he believed in a policy of restriction and oppression toward the mere handful of them that had settled within his jurisdiction. apart from the main body of the baptists, there were in connecticut a number of seventh-day baptists and rogerine baptists or rogerine quakers. there were a very few of them,--not more than a dozen in .[c] setting aside the earliest persecution of the quakers, these rogerines were the first dissenters to fall under the displeasure of the connecticut authorities. they were the first to be systematically fined, whipped, and imprisoned for conducting themselves contrary to the laws for the support and honor of the connecticut establishment. for this reason, though they were weak in numbers and often an exasperating set of fanatics, they deserve a hearing. their persecution began about , while these people were chiefly resident in new london and the seventh-day men were mostly members of the rogers family. later, the rogerines spread to norwich and lebanon and their immediate vicinity. this sect of rogerines arose from the intercourse through trade of two brothers, john and james rogers of new london, with the sabbatarians or seventh-day baptists of rhode island. these brothers were baptized in and , and their parents in the following year. all were received as members of the seventh-day church at newport. this did not trouble the connecticut authorities, who appear not to have interfered with the converts until they committed a flagrant offense and put public dishonor upon the colony church; as in , when elders of the rhode island church arrived in new london to baptize the wife of joseph rogers, another brother of the first two converts. the elders selected for their baptismal ceremony a quiet spot about two miles from the town. this did not suit john rogers, who insisted that the town was the only proper place, and led the little procession into it. mr. hiscox, one of the elders, was seized while preaching and carried before the magistrates, but was soon released. deprived of their leader, the sabbatarians withdrew to another place, and john rogers, arrogating to himself the office of elder, performed the baptismal service. from this time forth he began to draw disciples to himself. when he pushed his personal opinions too far, the newport church attempted to discipline both him and his following, but, this attempt failing, the rogerines became henceforth a distinct sect. the rogerines, though strictly orthodox in the fundamental articles of the christian faith, were opposed by the connecticut magistrates as teachers of doctrines tending to undermine religion, as a persistently rebellious sect, and as notorious breakers of the peace. in faith and practice, these rogerines bore some resemblance to the baptists and also to the quakers. hence, they were often called rogerine-baptists or rogerine-quakers. like the earlier baptists and the quakers, they believed it wrong to take an oath. they differed from the congregationalists chiefly in their form of administering baptism and the lord's supper and in their opposition to any paid ministry. rogers also claimed that there were certain tests of personal regeneration which the congregationalists denied. john bolles, one of the later leaders of the sect, declared the congregational sunday to be "a great idol in this country, and all the religion built on the holiness of the pretended sabbath is hypocrisy and further that it is contrary to scripture, for christians to exercise authority over one another in matters of religion." [ ] rogers, with less dignity and more pugnaciousness, called the authorities "the scarlet beast" and the establishment a "harlot," hurling scriptural texts with rankling, exasperating abusiveness in his determination to prove her customs evil and anti-christian. not content with such railing, the rogerines determined to show no respect to their adversaries' opinions and worship. thus, while maintaining that there should be no _public_ worship, rogers, after his separation from the seventh-day baptists, perversely chose sunday as the day most convenient for the rogerines to hold their meetings. they not only exhorted and testified in the streets, but forced their way into the churches, pestering the ministers to argue disputed points. they offended in another way, for, according to the colony law, they profaned the sabbath by working, claiming that, as all days were holy, all were alike good for work. fines and imprisonment began in . they were continued in the hope, held by the authorities, that they could suppress the rogerines by exactions which should melt away their estates. sometimes these penalties were unjust, as when john rogers could rightly claim that he was sentenced without benefit of jury, and, at another, that the authorities had seized his son's cattle to settle the father's fines. john bolles pleaded against the injustice of forcing men "to pay money for his (the minister's) preaching when they did not hear him and professed it was against their consciences." [ ] but such a plea was many, many years in advance of his time. the rogerines, important, in their own estimate, as called of god, and angered by opposition, seized upon every scriptural passage that bade them exhort and testify, feeling it their duty to do so both in season and out. had they been willing to give up this practice in public, they would probably have been left in comparative peace, for governor saltonstall wrote to rogers offering him protection for his followers if they would consent to give up "testifying" and would hold their services quietly and privately. rogers refused upon the ground that he had a right to use the colony churches for his preaching, since he and his people were obliged to contribute to their maintenance. this was logical, but not acceptable to the connecticut magistrates, who continued to cool the enthusiasm of the rogerines by occasional heavy penalties, and to look upon them as a set of fanatics, doomed to self-extinction. the attitude of the connecticut authorities at this time toward the quakers, or society of friends, was quite different from that assumed toward the baptists and rogerines. a retrospect of their history in the colony shows them to have been the earliest dissenters, and also the ones to whom concessions, though only temporary, were first made. previous to the restoration, the quakers were the only dissenters with whom connecticut had to deal. they appeared in massachusetts in , and in the following year new haven colony found no laws could be too severe for the "cursed sect of the quakers." the general court of connecticut seconded the efforts of both new haven and massachusetts to exclude the obnoxious and determined sect, but it soon decided that its fears had been greatly exaggerated, and that mild laws and town legislation were sufficient. accordingly, town officers were instructed to prevent quakers settling in the colony, to forbid their books and writings, and to break up their meetings. it was forbidden, however, to lay upon them a fine of more than ten pounds or, under any circumstances, the death penalty. while new haven whipped, branded, and transported quakers,[d] connecticut mildly enforced her laws against them, [ ] and how mildly the following incidents will show. in , john rous and john copeland, traveling preachers, reached hartford. they were allowed to hold a discussion in the presence of the governor and magistrates upon "god is a spirit." at its close, they were courteously informed that the laws of the colony forbade their remaining in it, and were requested to continue without further delay their journey into rhode island. this request was heeded, but while on their way, to quote rous, "the lord gave us no small dominion." it would seem as if the wise quaker had taken the benefit of the law which forbade his remaining "more than fifteen days in a town," and, also, of the friendly curiosity of the people along his route. rous further testified in behalf of connecticut that "among all the colonies found we not like moderation as this; most of the magistrates being more noble than those of the others." [ ] a short time after rous's visit, two quakers, who persisted in holding services, were arrested and banished.[e] still later, two women who attempted to conduct services in hartford met with similar treatment, of whom their historian records: "except that some extra apparel which they took with them was sold by the jaoler to pay his fee, no act of persecution befell them at hartford." [ ] as late as , when the congregationalists and the constables of new london, with great violence, broke up a friends' meeting, held by william edmundson, he tells us that "the sober people were offended at them," [ ] and that on the following sunday, at "new hartford" (hartford), after the regular morning service, he was allowed to speak unhindered. the same afternoon, when he attempted to speak in another meeting-house, the officers, urged on by the minister, "haled me," he writes, "out of the worship-house, and hurt my arm so that it bled." when he asked them if they thought that was the right treatment of a man faint from fasting all day, they, with excuses for the conduct of the minister and the magistrates, hurried him to an inn. there the people were allowed to listen to his discourse, and, the next morning, he was bidden to go freely on his way. most of the connecticut quakers were in the border towns. few, if any, organized societies were formed in connecticut until about the time of the revolution. their scattered converts were ministered to by traveling preachers, and, where possible, members would cross the boundaries to attend the quarterly or monthly meetings in neighboring rhode island, or possibly massachusetts, or on long island. these dissenters had quickly perceived the strength of union, and as early as the rhode island yearly meeting had been established, with its system of subordinate quarterly and monthly meetings. soon after, yearly meetings at philadelphia brought reports from the southern and middle colonies. those at flushing, long island, collected news of converts from new york as far east as the connecticut river, while the yearly meeting at newport, rhode island, heard from all members east of that river. the custom of exchanging yearly letters, giving the gist of these three annual meetings, was soon instituted. after the establishment of the london yearly meeting, the frequent exchange of letters with the colonial quakers, begun in , was reinforced by the exchange of english and american preachers. by similar means, the whole society the world over was bound closely together. their common interests were guarded, and every infraction of their liberties known. if in any of the colonies, as in connecticut, they were oppressed for their refusal to pay ecclesiastical taxes and to bear arms, the facts were known in england. secular taxes they cheerfully met, but others were against their conscience. they were excellent citizens, and they were everywhere friendly with the indians. because of this friendship, and because the connecticut colony desired the good offices of the rhode island authorities during the dangerous king philip's war, the general court had decided to show favor to the few quakers who were then within the colony. accordingly, in , a bill was passed temporarily releasing the quakers from fines for absence from public worship, provided "that they did not gather into assemblies within the colony or make any disturbance." how long this law was operative is uncertain, but probably until about . it, is omitted in the revision of the laws of that year, and gough, in his "history of the people called quakers," says that the persecuting spirit died away, but was renewed by connecticut in .[f] we know some of the causes that probably led to its revival, such as the extravagances of the rogerines, the increase of the baptists, and the general feeling that the congregational churches were inherently weak among themselves before this threatening increase of external foes. moreover, in this same year, there began a very definite propaganda in behalf of an american episcopate. the attempt to revive persecution against the quakers was unfortunate. they believed in liberty of conscience as a natural, inalienable right, and its practical exercise they meant to have. their leaders were constant in their loyal addresses and dignified petitions to the throne. the great english toleration act had befriended them, and the act of had, by substituting affirmation for oath, allowed them to take full advantage of the toleration measure. such religious liberty as they enjoyed in england, they meant to possess in england's colonies; and when connecticut, in , again put on the thumb-screws of persecution, these dissenters at once sent a protest across the seas. their great leader, william penn, was again in favor at court and with the queen, who, in privy council, october , , favorably heard their petition and promptly annulled the connecticut law of against "heretics, infidels and quakers," declaring it void and repealed. "the repealing of this act put a final period to the persecuting of quakers in new england." [ ] to be more exact, it put an end to persecution, but not to occasional fines or to legalized taxes which the quakers still considered unjust. but as connecticut had many serious problems on her hands at this time, she thought it prudent to follow the lead of the crown, and repealed the law of , in so far as it applied to the quakers. the year that the quakers scored this victory, the episcopalians lodged with the home government a serious complaint of the intolerance that connecticut showed towards members of the church of england. they complained that-- they have made a law that no christians who are not of their community, shall meet to worship god, or have a minister without lycence from their assembly; which law even extends to the church of england, as well as other professions tolerated in england. [ ] this was not the first time that such a complaint had been carried to england. as early as [g] it had been made, within a year after connecticut had satisfied the commissioners of charles ii, sending them home convinced that the church of england services would be allowed in the colony as soon as there were settlers who desired them."[h] as there were no episcopalians in the colony then, nor for nearly thirty years afterwards, and as connecticut was in high favor with the stuarts, little heed was paid to the complaint at the time, nor until long years afterwards, when it was coupled with graver offenses. back of the personal affront to the sovereign in the persecution or oppression of members of the church of england, there were graver causes of offense such as the crown regarded as mistakes, or even misdemeanors. for many years connecticut had been virtually an independent and sovereign state within her own borders. her charter was a most liberal one. she had sought approval for it from the sovereigns, william and mary, and, while she had been unable to obtain for it the crown's expressed approval, she had secured from the best legal talent a judgment declaring it still valid. she continued to be practically exempt from external interference with her domestic policy for a number of years after the revolution of , yet from that time on there was always at the english court a party, at first largely influenced by sir edmund andros and his following, who were either jealous of connecticut's charter or envious of her prosperity. they were always scheming and ready to prejudice the king against his colony, or to antagonize the board of trade. within her own borders, connecticut was peaceful, prosperous, and contented. for the most part, she was free from the harassing danger of indian war. she readily contributed her share for the common defense of the colonies, and sent her loyal quotas to fight for england's territorial claims. for many years, connecticut was shrewd enough to steer clear of the disastrous inflation of paper currency which overtook her sister colonies. many strangers were attracted by her prosperity, so that, notwithstanding frequent emigrations of her people, she trebled her population about once in twenty years all through the first century of her existence.[i] with this increasing population came, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, members of the church of england, who settled in stratford and in the towns adjacent to new york.[j] they quickly found that their previous impressions were erroneous, and that connecticut would not tolerate their religious services. consequently, a report of the religious condition in connecticut was made in england, in , at about the time the quakers complained of renewed persecution and at a time when the enemies of the colony were extremely active in charging her with misconduct. a report of connecticut's ecclesiastical constitution and of her oppression of dissenters was made to the bishop of london by john talbot, who, with george keith, had traveled through connecticut on his way from new york to boston. these men were missionary priests of the church of england. in new london, governor saltonstall, then the minister of that town, knowing that there were a few church-of-england men in the place, had met the travelers, "civilly entertained them at his house," and "invited them to preach in his church." [ ] the governor might not, the magistrates certainly did not, feel so kindly disposed toward talbot a year or so later, when it was found that, upon his return to new york, he had written home to his superiors in england, earnestly advocating an american episcopate. true, he urged that the american bishop should have ecclesiastical powers only, and that those ecclesiastico-civil in character, such as the probating of wills, granting of marriage licenses, and the presentation of livings, should remain in the hands of the colonial governors. but the connecticut authorities were not forgetful of laud's purpose in to appoint a bishop over new england, and its frustration by the political unrest at home. they recalled that the revival of such a project had floated as a rumor about those royal commissioners of to whom they had given such satisfactory, if evasive, answers. moreover, an order in council of , of which there is external evidence, though the order itself is not recorded, had vested ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the colonies in the bishop of london. [ ] connecticut knew also that four years later, in (the year that episcopacy erected king's chapel, boston, with its royal endowment of £ per year), the first commissary had been dispatched to virginia to superintend the churches there. the crown, as yet, had deemed it unwise to thrust an episcopate upon its dissenting colonies, and, except for a short time before queen anne's death, it was to take no interest in the plans for the american episcopate until some forty years later, when the king thought to discern in it some political advantage. but early in , when complaints were lodged against connecticut, there was a strong party within the english church itself who were most anxious to see the episcopal bond between the mother country and her colonies strengthened. for this purpose, they had sent to america, in , the reverend thomas bray to report upon the conditions and churchly sentiment within the colonies. his report was published under the title, "a memorial representing the state of religion in the continent of north america." it was an appeal for episcopal oversight, and resulted in the formation in england, in , of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. to this organization belonged all the english bishops with all their influential following. the society regularly maintained missionary churches and missionary priests throughout the colonies. candidates for this priesthood were required to submit to a thorough examination as to their fitness. before sailing, they were required to report to the bishop of london as their diocesan and to the archbishop of canterbury as their metropolitan. they were required to send full semi-annual reports of their work and to include in them any other information that promised to be of interest or advantage to the society. john talbot and george keith were two of these missionaries. talbot's appeal for the american episcopate was seconded in by fourteen clergymen from the middle colonies who convened at burlington, n. j., to frame a petition to the english archbishop and bishops. in it they set forth the necessity in america of a bishop to ordain and to supply other ecclesiastical needs. the petitioners added that a bishop was also necessary to counteract "the inconveniences which the church labors under by the influence which seditious men's counsels have upon the public administration and the opposition which they make to the good inclinations of well-affected persons." [ ] in this appeal for a bishop stress was laid upon the cost and dangers of a trip to england for ordination, [ ] and also to the frequent loss of converts from the independent ministry because of the lack of ordination privileges in america. these references, and also that to the "counsel of seditious men," could not be agreeable to large numbers of dissenting colonists. they would not be viewed with favor in connecticut, where, by , episcopalians had become so numerous that a wealthy new yorker, colonel heathcote by name, and a man thoroughly acquainted with his new england neighbor, undertook to look after the church-of-england men as unfortunate brethren of a common faith. he appealed to the english society for the propagating[k] of the gospel in foreign parts to extend its missions into connecticut. he asked that rector muirson be stationed at rye, new york. colonel heathcote's idea was:-- to first plant the church securely in westchester on the border of connecticut; and secondly, from that point to act upon connecticut, which was wholly puritan and withal not a little bigoted and uncharitable. naturally, whatever of tolerance the connecticut people might have shown two traveling preachers would turn to opposition when they saw the deliberate and well-organized attempt of this proselyting church, this old enemy of their forefathers, to invade their colony and undermine their own establishment. consequently, when, in company with mr. muirson, colonel heathcote began itinerating through southwestern connecticut, ministers and magistrates frequently opposed and threatened them. the people occasionally welcomed them. they did not object to hear and to criticise the strangers, and were sometimes willing to have their good neighbors, if they chanced to be church-of-england men, enjoy the ministrations of these passing visitors. in some places, however, the civil officers went so far as to go about among the people, even from house to house, to dissuade them from attending mr. muirson's services,[l] and, at fairfield, the meeting-house was closed lest it should be "defiled by idolatrous worship and superstitious ceremonies." [ ] the episcopalians themselves later acknowledged that, until , they suffered little persecution beyond "that of the tongue." [m] when they were not permitted to organize churches, and were forced to pay taxes for the support of congregationalism, they complained bitterly to their friends in england, and such oppression was listed among the many other misdemeanors, which, at this time, were cited against the former "dutiful colony of connecticut." one of the schemes that connecticut's enemies sought to carry out, both for their own advancement, and as a proposed punishment for an unruly colony, was a consolidation of the new england provinces under a royal governor. this consolidation was approached when governor fletcher of new york was appointed military chief of connecticut. his attempt, in , to enforce his military authority over connecticut troops engaged in protecting the northern frontier, resulted in his failure, and in his angry report to the home authorities of connecticut's insubordination and disloyalty. the colony at great expense sent major fitz-john winthrop to england to answer these charges. he was successful in proving that connecticut had not exceeded her charter rights in her determination to appoint her own military officers; that, in the wars, she had faithfully contributed her share to the common defense; and moreover, that it was essential that she should have the immediate control of her own troops to quell internal disorder, should it arise, or to repel the sudden approach of an enemy upon her exposed borders. major winthrop also succeeded in having the colony's military obligations defined as the furnishing to the common defense of a number of her militia, proportionate to her population and to be under their own officers, and in war time a further draft of a hundred and twenty men to be under the direct control of the governor of new york. notwithstanding the splendid success of winthrop's mission, this same charge of insubordination was repeated in a long and later list of grievances against the colony. the consolidation scheme was revived by the appointment of governor bellomont over new york, new jersey, massachusetts, new hampshire, and as military head of rhode island and connecticut; but the governor never tried to enforce his authority in connecticut. in and , bills aiming at this proposed consolidation were introduced into parliament. that of failed of consideration from "shortness of time and multiplicity of issues." in an attempt was made to secure the appointment of a royal governor over connecticut through an order in council, but that body preferred to leave the matter to parliament,--hence the bill of favoring consolidation which failed of passage in the lords. it failed largely because of the energy and eloquence of sir henry ashurst, the connecticut agent. sir henry also succeeded in getting a copy of the various charges against the colony, which were thought to justify annulling her charter, and in obtaining a grant of time to submit them to the connecticut general court for a reply. the colony found that it was charged with encouraging violations of the navigation laws; with holding in contempt the courts of admiralty; with failing to furnish troops and to place them under officers of the crown; with executing capital punishment without any authority in her charter; with encouraging manufactures, contrary to the known wishes of the crown; with irregular and unjust court proceedings; with treating contumaciously the royal commissioners sent to settle the mohegan land controversy; with injustice to the quakers; with forbidding services of the church of england; and with disallowing appeals to england. these were the more important complaints. in behalf of the colony, sir henry appeared before the privy council, and in able argument showed that many of the charges were without foundation; that some of the colony's acts which were complained of as unlawful were well within her charter privileges; and that the decisions of her courts, far from being illegal, had, in nearly every case, when brought to the attention of the english government, been approved by it. further than this, the connecticut agent obtained a stay in the proceedings of the mohegan case,[n] though it was soon reopened and seriously menaced the colony until the settlement in her favor in . in the famous liveen or hallam case, connecticut opposed an appeal to the crown, because such an appeal would give the privy council the right to interpret the charter and pass upon the colony laws.[o] though sir henry ashurst had succeeded in having many of the charges dropped, the danger had been so great to the colony that he privately advised the government to conciliate the crown by protesting its immediate readiness to fulfill all military obligations, and, as a further proof of loyalty, to repeal at once the old law of against heretics which queen anne had just annulled (october , ) at the request of the quakers. the general court, as we have seen, followed his advice, and repealed the law in so far as it concerned quakers. but this was not enough to satisfy other dissenters in the colony. the rev. john talbot had arrived in england in to plead in person [ ] for an american bishop, and colonel heathcote in wrote [ ] with respect to the episcopalians in connecticut that it would be absolutely necessary to procure an order from the queen freeing the church of england people from the established rates, or they would always be so poor as to be dependent upon the society for propagating the gospel. he further asked the repeal of the law whereby the connecticut magistrates "refuse liberty of conscience to those of the established (english) church." colonel heathcote adds that it would not be much more than had been granted to the quakers, and that it "would be of the greatest service to the church than can at first sight be imagined." so great was the importunity of the connecticut episcopalians, that, in , governor saltonstall wrote to england to disarm their complaints against the colony. it looked as if religious discontent might become a dangerous thing. royal disfavor certainly would be. it might be better to condone the lack of religious uniformity among a few scattered dissenters, differing among themselves, and to endure it,--obnoxious as it was,--than to suffer the loss of the connecticut charter. moreover, this tendency to the spread of nonconformity might be controlled by judicious legislation. furthermore, it would be politic to have upon the colony lawbook some relief for dissenters from its establishment similar to the english statutes relieving nonconformists there from adherence to the church of england. hence the toleration act, and, of necessity, the proviso in the act of the following session of the general court whereby it approved the saybrook platform. the toleration act was of no benefit to rogerine or quaker, who by their principles were forbidden to take the oath of allegiance that it demanded. it was of little practical advantage to baptist or episcopalian, but it was a move in the right direction. according to its terms, dissenters, before the county courts, could qualify for organization into distinct religious bodies by taking the oath of fidelity to the crown, by denying transubstantiation and by declaring their sober dissent from congregationalism. they could have such liberty, provided that it in no way worked to the detriment of the church established in the colony,--that is, the law did not exclude any dissenter "from paying any such (established) minister or town dues as are or shall hereafter be due from him." at best, such toleration would provide a rigorous test of a dissenter's sincerity. he would have nothing of worldly advantage to gain and much to lose as a "come-outer" from the establishment. social prestige would remain almost entirely within the state church. it would be to a man's pecuniary advantage to stay within its fold. without it, he would be doubly taxed; by the state for the support of congregationalism, by his conscience to maintain the church it approved. if he lapsed in duty toward his own, he would easily become a marked man among his few co-religionists. if he failed to attend regularly the church of his choice, the ancient law of the colony would hale him before the judge for neglect of public worship, and fine him for the benefit of a form of religion which he viewed with aversion as unscriptural, if not also anti-christian. in a new and thinly settled country where life was hard and money scarce, this double taxation was of itself almost prohibitive of dissent. and yet this toleration act, notwithstanding its meagre terms, and which, considered in the light of the twentieth century, implies one of the worst forms of tyranny, was a measure of undreamed-of and dangerous liberality if looked at from the point of view of the sixteenth century, or even from that of many princes of the eighteenth. the very summer following the passage of this act saw london crowded with refugees from the religious tyranny of the palatinate, whose elector was determined to force the people, after over a hundred and thirty years of protestantism, back to rome because he was himself a romanist, and imperii religio religio populi. the connecticut law-makers had a good deal of faith in this same principle, though they never had resorted, and did not wish to do so, to extreme penalties to secure religious uniformity. the solidarity of the people and the geographical position of the colony had contributed largely to a uniform church life. far from the usual ports of entry, the early dissenters had for the most part passed her by. but at the beginning of the eighteenth century, watching the signs of the times elsewhere, and aware of the cosmopolitan element creeping into her population, the connecticut authorities were ready to admit that soon it might be necessary to modify somewhat the old dictum that the religion of the government must be the religion of all its people. england had seen fit to make such modification, and her test of roughly twenty years had shown conclusively that religious toleration and civil disorders were not synonymous, as had formerly been believed. the connecticut colony had no particular desire to follow in england's steps. if it had, after-history would have associated it in men's minds less with the puritanical narrowness of new england and more with such tolerance as was shown in pennsylvania, maryland, and rhode island. tolerance, connecticut thought, might work well under a government like that of england, but her leaders were not convinced that it would be altogether wise for their own land. they, therefore, had preferred to postpone as long as they could the possible evil day. now that toleration could no longer be delayed, they had admitted it most guardedly, and at once had proceeded to strengthen their own church foundations by the establishment of the saybrook system of ecclesiastical government. footnotes: [a] "for the ease of such as soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministrie established by the ancient laws of this government, and still continuing, that if any such persons shall at the countie court of the countie they belong to, qualifie themselves according to an act made in the first year of the late king william and queen mary, granting libertie of worshipping god in a way separate from that which is by law established, they shall enjoy the same libertie and privilege in any place in this colonie without let, or hindrance or molestation whatsoever. provided always that nothing herein shall be construed to the prejudice of the rights and privileges of the churches as by law established or to the _excluding any person from paying any such minister or town dues as are or shall hereafter be due from him_." (the italics are mine. m. l. g.) _conn. col. rec_. v, . failure to comply with the law was punished by a heavy fine, and in default thereof, by heavy bail or by imprisonment until the time for trial. [b] later in , mr. wightman and mr. john bulkley, congregationalist minister of colchester, by permission of the authorities, who were troubled by the rumor that the baptists and seventh-day baptists were about to begin proselytizing in earnest in connecticut, entered into a public debate as to the merits of their respective religious beliefs. not much came of it to the congregationalists, who had expected to see mr. wightman's arguments annihilated, while the baptists had a fine opportunity to publish broadcast their views. such a discussion was steadily forbidden browne and barrowe in . a century had developed sufficient toleration to make interesting, as well as permissible, a public discussion of divergent beliefs. [c] the report to the commission of trade and foreign plantations made in gave: " answ. our people in this colony are some strict congregational men, others more large congregational men, and some moderate presbyterians, and take the congregational men of both sorts, they are the greatest part of the people in the colony. "there are or seven-day men, in our colony, and about so many quakers. " answ. ( ) great care is taken for the instruction of ye people in ye x'tian religion, by ministers catechising of them and preaching to them twice every sabbath daye and sometimes on lecture dayes; and so by masters of famalayes instructing and catechising the children and servants being so required by law. in our corporation there are twenty-six towns and twenty-one churches. there is in every town in the colony a settled minister except in two towns newly begun."--this was equivalent to one minister to persons, or to about families.--_conn. col. rec._ iii, . trumbull's _hist. of conn._ i, . [d] humphrey norton in the new haven colony was whipped severely, burnt in the hand with the letter "h" for heretic, and banished for being a quaker. the next year, for testifying against the treatment of norton, william bond, mary dyer, and mary whetherstead were apprehended by the same authorities, and forcibly carried back to rhode island.--h. rogers, _mary dyer_, p. . for the quaker laws of both colonies see note . [e] the notorious william ledra of later massachusetts fame was one of these. [f] this year a law was passed requiring every person to carefully apply himself on the lord's day to the duties of religion. see _new haven hist. soc. papers_, ii, . [g] "articles of misdemeanor vs. connecticut, july, . "they deny to the inhabitants the exercise of the religion of the church of england; arbitrarily fining those who refuse to come to their congregational assemblies." law book of conn, printed . "it is ordered that when the ministry of the word is established according to the gospel, throughout this colony, every person shall duly resort and attend thereunto respectively upon the lord's day, upon public fast days and days of thanksgiving as are generally kept by appointment of authority; and any person ... without necessary cause, withdrawing himself from the public ministry of the word, he shall forfeit for his absence from every such meeting five shillings."--_conn. col. rec_. iii, . [h] they reported that the colony would "not hinder any from enjoying the sacraments and using the common prayer book, provided that they hinder not the maintenance of the public minister."--hutchinson, _hist, of mass._, p. . dr. beardsley suggests that influential citizens may have assured them that the laws would be modified to accommodate episcopalians.--e. e. beardsley, _hist. of the episcopal church_, i, p. . [i] population in , ; , ; - , , - , ; , , - , ; , approximately, , ; , , ; , , ; , , ; , , --f. b. dexter, estimates of the population of the american colonies, in _american antiquarian society proceedings_, d series, vol. . [j] up to , there was only one episcopal clergyman in new england, father jordan, of portsmouth, n. h. there was an episcopal clergyman at the fort in new york, and outside of virginia and maryland only two others in north america. there were a few episcopal families in stratford in . [k] or "propagation,"--as it is most frequently called. [l] mr. muirson's report after his first visit to stratford was that he had had "a very numerous congregation both forenoon and afternoon." he continues, "i baptized about twenty-four persons the same day.... "the independents threatened me and all who were instrumental in bringing me thither, with prison and hard usage. they are very much incensed to see the church (rome's sister, as they ignorantly call her) is likely to gain ground among 'em, and use all stratagem they can invent to defeat my enterprise,"--_church doc. conn._, i, p. . colonel heathcote wrote, "the ministers are very uneasy at our coming amongst them, and abundance of pains were taken to persuade and terrify the people from hearing mr. muirson, but it availed nothing;"--not even the threat to jail the rector for holding services contrary to the colony law which the magistrates had read to him at his lodgings.--_church doc. conn._, i, p. . [m] "we received no persecution than that of the tongue until december, ."--_ibid._, i, p. . [n] the mohegan indians had sold certain lands to the colony in , major john mason acting as agent. these lands had been conveyed to english proprietors. john mason, the major's grandson, representing his own and other interests, pretended that both his grandfather and the indians had been overreached and wronged by the colony in the transaction; that the colony had taken more land than agreed upon from the indians, and had also seized some that belonged by private purchase to the mason heirs. for the sake of peace and the credit of magnanimity, the government offered to the chief, owaneco, who represented the indians, to pay them again for the land, but mason and his party resolved to prevent such a settlement. one of them went to england with a false report of extortion practiced upon the savages, and a commission was sent out to investigate. connecticut was willing to answer the commissioners if they sought facts for a report, but when they assumed the right to decide the question judicially, the colony could only protest against their pretensions. the commissioners adjudged the land in dispute to the indians and the mason party, and charged the colony nearly £ and costs. the colony appealed to the crown and won the case in ; but it was again appealed by mason, and in this fashion dragged along until after the revolution, when the indians were content to accept the reservation allotted by the state to them.--c. w. bowen, _boundary disputes_, pp. - . [o] john liveen of new london in left property to the "ministry of the town." major fitz-john winthrop and his brother-in-law edward palmes were executors. major winthrop was absent with the army on the northern frontier, but made no objection to the probating of the will at a special court in new london in . this probating major palmes, a former friend of andros, declared void, since andros had ruled that all wills should be probated at boston. upon special application of mrs. liveen, in , the county court probated a copy of the will, since palmes held the original. to this probating the latter also objected on the ground that, though the court had been again legalized, the "ministry" referred to must be that recognized by the english law and not the congregational ministry of the town,--the only one then existing. the colonial courts decided against him, and john and nicholas hallam, the widow's sons by a former marriage, virtually accepted the terms of the will and the court's decision by being parties to the sale of a portion of the liveen estate, the ship "liveen." the estate could not be wholly settled; so the town continued to receive a regular dividend until after the widow's death in . then the sons attempted to contest the will. the court of assistants confirmed the proceedings of the lower courts. not satisfied with this decision, nicholas hallam went to england in - , and was allowed to plead his case before the privy council. sir henry ashurst held that the charter gave the right of final decision, but the lords commissioners of trade and plantations thought otherwise, and it looked as if hallam was to win his case, when he was ordered to return to america and, because of technicalities, to retake all the testimony. in , because of his acknowledged signature in the sale of the "liveen," the suit was decided in favor of the colony.--f. m. caulkins, _hist. of new london_, pp. - . chapter viii the first victory for dissent ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy god; for i am the lord your god.--leviticus, xxv, . the dissenters found the terms of the toleration act too narrow; the conditions under which they could enjoy their own church life too onerous. consequently, they almost immediately began to agitate for a larger measure of liberty, and persisted in their demands for almost twenty years before obtaining any decided success. foremost among the dissenters pressing for greater liberty, for exemption from taxes for the benefit of congregational worship, and for the same privileges in the support of their own churches as the members of the connecticut establishment enjoyed, were the episcopalians. the year following the passage of the toleration act witnessed the first persecution of these people beyond that of tongue and pen. fines and imprisonments began in earnest and were continued, more or less frequently, for many years. even as late as , the episcopalians of reading were fined for reading the prayer-book and for working on public fast-days. still later, in , there was occasional oppression, as in the case of the new milford episcopalians. they desired to build a church, but had to wait for the county court to approve the site chosen. the court was averse to the building of the church, and accordingly was a long time in complying with this technicality. meanwhile, the episcopalians could not build, neither would they attend congregational worship, and the magistrates, refusing to recognize the services held in private houses, fined them for absence from public worship. this treatment was abandoned as soon as it became known that the rector had counseled his people to submit, as he intended to send a copy of the court's proceedings to england to be passed upon as to their legality. it was such petty, yet costly, persecution as this that became frequent after , and from which the episcopalians were determined to escape. these church-of-england men were increasing in numbers in the colony, and, at the passage of the toleration act, were quite hopeful that the rev. john talbot's mission to england to secure a bishop for america would prove successful. although he was not successful in obtaining the episcopate, his mission received so much encouragement from those in high places that, upon talbot's return, a home for the prospective bishop was purchased, in , in burlington, new jersey. it was known that queen anne was much interested in the proposed bishopric, and letters were exchanged between the leaders of the movement in england and the prominent independent clergymen in the colonies, in order to sound the state of public opinion. a bill for the american expansion of the church of england, as a branch to be severed from the jurisdiction of the bishop of london and to be planted in the colonies under a bishop with full ecclesiastical powers, was prepared and was ready for presentation in parliament when the queen's death, august , , caused its withdrawal, and felled the hopes of churchmen. george i had too many temporal affairs to occupy his mind to burden himself with the intricate rights, powers, and privileges of a new episcopate, sought by a few colonials scattered through the american wilderness;--too many vexatious secular affairs in the colonies, and too heavy war-clouds darkening his european horizon. the society for the propagation of the gospel, in , made one futile attempt to interest the king, and then gave up any hope of the immediate appointment of an american bishop. in the connecticut colony, the episcopalians had so increased that, in , there was in stratford a church of one hundred baptized persons, thirty-six communicants, and a congregation that frequently numbered between two and three hundred people. they were ministered to by traveling missionaries of the society for the propagation of the gospel. when these stratford people appealed to the society for a settled minister, they complained that "there is not any government in america but has our settled church and minister, but this of connecticut." [ ] still all the society could then do was to send a missionary priest, and to keep alive in england, among the powerful church party there, so keen an interest that it would seize upon the first opportunity to use its great influence and to compel the english government to force the connecticut authorities to comply with the demands of the colonial churchmen for the unrestricted enjoyment of their religion. such an interest was kept up by the regular, full reports which the society required of all its missionaries. and these reports, be it remembered, were expected to contain news of any kind, and of everything that happened in the colony of connecticut, or elsewhere, that could possibly be turned to advantage in influencing the home authorities, in pushing the interests of the english establishment in america, and in strengthening its membership there. although, after the death of queen anne, the king's indifference checked the movement for the american episcopate, its friends did not abandon it, and a persistent effort for its success was soon begun. one of its prime movers was the rev. george pigott, missionary to stratford, connecticut, in . under mr. pigott, the church of england in connecticut made a most encouraging and important gain, when, in , timothy cutler, rector of yale college, and six of his associates proclaimed their dissatisfaction with congregationalism, or, as they termed it, "the presbyterianism" of the connecticut established church. they asserted that "some of us doubt the validity, and the rest are more fully persuaded of the invalidity of the presbyterian ordination in opposition to the episcopal." three of these men remained in "doubt," and continued within the congregational church.[a] four of them, rector timothy cutler, tutor daniel brown, rev. james wetmore of north haven, and rev. samuel johnson of west haven, went to england to receive episcopal ordination.[b] the story of their conversion is to churchmen an illustration of the scriptural command, "cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you after many days." the connecticut authorities had chosen the rev. timothy cutler because of his eloquence, and had sent him to stratford to counteract the early successes of the church-of-england missionary priests, who were at work among the people there. later, in , cutler, because of his abilities, was chosen president, or rector, of yale, as, in the early days, the head of the college was called. the seeds of doubt had entered his mind during his stratford pastorate. he and his associates found many books in the college library that, instead of lessening, increased their doubts. after presiding for three years over the greatest institution of learning in the colony, which had for its object the preparation of men for service in civil office and, even more in those days, for service in religion, rector cutler, together with his associates, announced their change of faith. the colony was taken by storm, and there spread throughout its length and breadth, and throughout new england also, a great fear that episcopacy had made a _coup d'etat_ and was shortly to become the established church of her colonies as well as of england herself. naturally, among the colonial churchmen, it excited the largest hope "of a glorious revolution among the ecclesiastics of the country, because the most distinguished gentlemen among them are resolutely bent to promote her (the church's) welfare and embrace her baptism and discipline, and if the leaders fall in there is no doubt to be made of the people." [ ] these hopes were in a degree confirmed by the conversion of one or two more ministers, and by the yale men that the classes of , , , , and gave to episcopacy. by the impetus of these conversions, within a generation, "the episcopal church under a native born minister had penetrated every town, had effected lodgment in every puritan stronghold, and had drawn into her membership large numbers of that sober-minded, self-contained, tenacious people who constitute the membership of new england to-day."[ ] after the conversions of , the movement for the apostolic episcopate in america became more determined, and never wholly ceased until the consecration of samuel seabury as bishop of connecticut in . a decided change took place in connecticut's policy upon the death of governor saltonstall in , and under his successor in office, former lieutenant-governor joseph talcott. the new governor was a hartford man, more liberal in his ecclesiastical opinions and opposed to severe measures against dissenters. hardly had governor talcott taken office when edmund gibson, bishop of london, wrote him, urging in behalf of the episcopalians a remittance of ecclesiastical taxes. "if i ask anything," wrote the bishop, "inconsistent with the laws of the country, i beg pardon; but if not, i hope my request for favors for the church of england will not appear unreasonable." the bishop accompanied his letter with a paper, a copy of a circular letter to the different colonial governors, in which, among other matters relating to his clergy, he professed his readiness to discipline them if necessary "in order to contribute to the peace and honor of the government." this proposal was due, in part, to the scandalous reputation in new england which the southern settled clergy bore. because of this reputation, the society for the propagation of the gospel had from the first made a special point of the morals of their missionary priests. indeed, these priests, themselves, had warned the society that, if it expected any returns from its missions in new england, it would have to take great pains to send out a superior class of men. governor talcott replied to bishop gibson, under date of december , ,[c] "that there is but one church of england minister in this colony, [d] and the church with him have the same protection as the rest of our churches and are under no constraint to contribute to the support of any other minister." after reflecting upon the number and character of the few persons in another town or two "who claim exemption from rates," governor talcott quotes the colony law for the support of the ministry in every town, and adds that, upon the death of an incumbent, the townspeople "are quickly supplied by persons of our own communion, educated in our public schools of learning; which through divine blessing afforded us, we have sufficiency of those who are both learned and exemplary in their lives." this was a polite way of informing the bishop that connecticut preferred to do without his missionaries. it was one thing for the tolerant governor to grant exemption from congregational taxes in the case of an influential church like that of stratford, and quite another to extend the same toleration to every scattered handful of people who might claim to be members of the church of england, and who might welcome the coming of her missionary priests. the episcopalians, however, were not content to rest their privileges upon their numerical power in each little town, or upon the personal favor of the magistrates. they therefore continued their agitation for exemption from support of congregationalism and from fines for neglecting its public worship. under the lead of the wardens and vestry of fairfield, they obtained favor with the general court in ,[e] when an act was passed, "providing how taxes levied upon members of the church of england for the support of the gospel should be disposed of," and exempting said members from paying any taxes "for the building of meeting houses for the present established churches of this government." the law further declared that if within the parish bounds-- there be a society of y'e church of england, where there is a person in orders, according to y'e canons of y'e church of england, settled and abiding among them and performing divine service so near to any person that hath declared himself of y'e church of england, that he can conveniently and doth attend y'e public worship there, then the collectors, having first indifferently levied y'e tax, as aforesaid, shall deliver y'e taxes collected of such persons declaring themselves, and attending as aforesaid, unto y'e minister of y'e church of england, living near unto such persons; which minister shall have power to receive and recover y'e same, in order to his support in y'e place assigned to him. but if such proportion of any taxes be not sufficient in any society of y'e church of england to support y'e incumbent there, then such society may levy and collect of them who profess and attend as aforesaid, greater taxes, at their own discretion, to y'e support of their ministers. and the parishoners of y'e church of england, attending as aforesaid, are hereby excused from paying any taxes for y'e building meeting houses for y'e present established churches of this government.[ ] after the passing of this law, the magistrates contented themselves with occasional unfair treatment of the weaker churches. they sometimes haggled over the interpretation of the terms "near" and "conveniently" as found in the law. they objected to the appointment of one missionary to several stations or towns. they also did not always enforce upon the presbyterian collectors strict accuracy in making out their lists, and when the episcopalians sought redress for unreturned taxes or unjust fines, they found their lawsuits blocked in the courts. the magistrates, also, showed almost exclusive preference for congregationalists as bondsmen for strangers settling in the towns, while the courts continued to frequently refuse or to delay the approval of sites chosen for the erection of episcopal churches. finally, there was a certain amount of political and social ostracism directed against churchmen. a notable attempt to defraud the episcopalians of a due share of the school money, derived from the sale of public lands and from the emission of public bills, was defeated in by a spirited protest, setting forth the illegality of the proceeding, the probable indignation of the king at such treatment of his good subjects and brethren in the faith, and by pointing to the fact, as recently shown by a test case in massachusetts, that the connecticut establishment itself could not exist without the special consent of the king. [ ] the petition was signed by six hundred and thirty-six male inhabitants of the colony. they asserted in their protest that they had a share in equity derived from the charter; that they bore their share of the expenses of the government; and that the teaching of the church of england made just as good citizens as did that of the presbyterian church. the public lands, from the sale of which the school money was derived, were those along the housatonic river. the money was appropriated according to a law enacted in which distributed it among the older towns as a reward for good schools. but, in , the legislature passed a bill by which a majority vote of the town or parish could divert the money to the support of "the gospel ministry as by law in the colony established." naturally this new law operated against all dissenters, who, equally anxious with the congregationalists to have good schools, were an ignored minority whenever the latter chose to vote the money to the support of their church. as a result of this spirited protest of the episcopalians, the enactment of was repealed two years later "because of misunderstanding." notwithstanding such hardships as the episcopalians suffered in connecticut, their own writers declare that, at this period of colonial history, the churchmen in connecticut had less to complain of than their co-religionists in new york and in the southern colonies. while the episcopalians were agitating for a larger liberty than that granted by the toleration act, the other dissenters, rogerines, quakers, and baptists, were not idle. the efforts of the rogerines were marked more by violence than by success. they had become less fanatic, and persecution had died away during the first ten years following the passage of the toleration act. all might have gone smoothly had they not suddenly stirred governor saltonstall to renewed dislike, the magistrates to fresh alarm, and the people to great contempt and indignation. this they accomplished by a sort of mortuary tribute to their leader, john rogers, who died in . this tribute took the form of renewed zeal, and was marked by a revival of some of their most obnoxious practices. the rogerines determined to break up the observance of the puritan sabbath. immediately, an "act for the better detecting and more effectual punishment of prophaneness and immorality" was passed. it was especially directed against the rogerines. its most striking characteristic was that it changed the policy of the government from the time-honored anglo-saxon theory that every man is innocent until proved guilty, to the doctrine that a man, accused, must be guilty until proved innocent. in so oft-recurring a charge as that of being absent from public worship, it became lawful to exact fines unless the accused could prove before a magistrate that he had been present. but this first act did not dampen sufficiently the renewed zeal of the rogerines, and for two years there was a continuance of sharp legislation to reduce their disorderliness. they were fined five shillings for leaving their houses on sunday unless to attend the orthodox worship, and twenty shillings for gathering in meeting-houses without the consent of the ministers. they were given a month, or less, in the house of correction, and at their own expense for board, for each offense of unruly or noisy behavior on sunday near any meeting-house; for unlawful travel or behavior on that day; and for refusal to pay fines assessed for breaking any of the colony's ecclesiastical laws. these laws [ ] were enforced one sunday in against a company of rogerines who were going quietly on their way through norwich to attend services in lebanon. the outburst of religious fervor spent itself in two or three years. governor talcott did not believe in strong repressive measures, and it was soon conceded that the ignoring of their eccentricities, if kept within reasonable bounds, was the most efficient way to discourage the rogerines. summarizing the influence of this sect, we find that they contributed nothing definite to the slow development of religious toleration in connecticut. if anything, their fanaticism hindered its growth, and they gained little for themselves and nothing for the cause. as the years went on and their little sect were permitted to indulge their peculiar notions, and the props of the state were not weakened nor the purity of religion vitally assailed, the rogerines contributed their mite towards convincing mankind, and the connecticut people in particular, that brethren of different creeds and religious practices might live together in security and harmony without danger to the civil peace. during the seventeen years that governor talcott held office, - , the life of the colony was marked by its notable expansion through the settlement of new towns, [f] and by the dexterity with which its foreign affairs--its relations to england and its boundary disputes with its neighbors--were conducted. the last dragged on for years, calling for several expensive commissions and causing much confusion. the massachusetts line was determined in ; that of rhode island in ; and that of new york in . connecticut, in all these cases, had to be wary lest the attempts to settle these disputed claims should weary, antagonize, or anger the king.[ ] many of the old charges were renewed, and connecticut was no longer regarded as a "dutiful" colony, but rather as one altogether too independent, from whom it might be wise to wrest her charter, subjecting her to a royal governor. as early as , her colonial agent had been advised to procure a peaceable surrender of the charter. to this proposal, governor saltonstall had returned a courteous and dignified refusal. but the danger was always cropping up. governor talcott's english official correspondence is full of details concerning connecticut's increasing anxiety concerning the attitude and the decisions of the home government; over the dangers consequent to her institutions or to her charter. it was repeatedly suggested that that charter should be surrendered, modified in favor of the king's supervision, or annulled. in the governor's letters, one follows the intricacies of the boundary disputes, of the complicated mohegan case, and sounds the dangers to the colony from the disposition and decisions of the crown.[ ] one case in particular demands a passing consideration because of its far-reaching effects, and because it paralleled in time the legislation in the colony which broadened the toleration act. this was the famous case of john winthrop against his brother-in-law, thomas lechmere, to recover real estate left by the elder winthrop to his son and daughter. the suit brought up the whole question of land entail in connecticut, and, with it, the possibility of an economic and social revolution in the colony which would have been the death-blow to its prosperity. winthrop, by appealing the case to england, brought connecticut into still greater disfavor, and risked the loss of the charter, together with many special privileges in religion and politics which the colony enjoyed through a liberal interpretation of that instrument. in the course of the suit, the constitutional relations of crown and colony had to be threshed out. john winthrop's father died in , when, according to connecticut, but not english, law of primogeniture, winthrop received as eldest son a double portion of his father's real estate, and his sister, thomas lechmere's wife, the rest. winthrop's brother-in-law was not a man wholly to be trusted to deal justly with his wife's property; but this, in itself, was a very small factor in the suit. winthrop was at variance with the connecticut authorities, and was dissatisfied with his share both of his father's property and of his uncle's, whose heir he was. no matter how much his own personal interests might endanger the colony, winthrop resolved to have all the property due him as eldest son and heir under english law. he appealed his case to england, taking it directly from the local probate court, and ignoring the court of assistants, where he might have obtained some redress. moreover, to influence the decision in his favor he included in his list of grievances many of the old offenses charged against connecticut. he did this, even while acknowledging that the colonial intestate act, framed in ,[ ] was but the embodiment of custom that had existed from the beginning of the colony. while this case dragged on, it was again intimated to connecticut that the surrender of her charter, or at least the substitution of an explanatory charter, might be an acceptable price for the royal confirmation of her intestate law. finally, winthrop went to england, and was given a private hearing, at which no representative of the colony was present. as a result of this hearing, an order in council was issued february , , annulling the connecticut intestate act as contrary to the laws of england and as exceeding charter rights. moreover, the colonial authorities were ordered to measure off the lands, claimed by winthrop, and to restore them to him. of course, it would take some time to obey the order. meanwhile, if this restitution were made, if the decision were submitted to, it would invalidate so many land titles as to threaten the very existence of connecticut's economic structure. the colony sought the best legal talent obtainable. for seventeen years connecticut continued this expensive lawsuit, urging always her willingness to comply in the case of winthrop, if only the decision be made a special one and not a precedent,--if only an order in council, or an act of parliament, would reinstate the connecticut intestate law. her agents in england were instructed to demonstrate how well the colonial division of property had worked, and that under the english division, where all real estate went to the eldest son, if it were practiced in a new and heavily wooded country, whose chief wealth was agriculture, the rental of lands would yield income barely sufficient to pay taxes and repair fences, and there could be no dowry for the daughters. a still further result would be, that the younger sons would be driven into manufacturing or forced to emigrate. in each case the crown would suffer, either by the loss of a colonial market for its manufactured products, or by an impoverished colony, incapable of making satisfactory returns to the royal treasury. [ ] moreover, in the case of emigration, when connecticut, lacking men to plow her fields, could no longer produce the foodstuffs the surplus of which she sold to the "trading parts of massachusetts and rhode island" to supply the fisheries, the crown would feel still another baneful effect from its attempt to enforce the english law of entail. again, there was another aspect from which to view the annulment of the connecticut intestate law. its annulment would render worthless many past and present land-titles. creditors who had accepted land for debt would suffer. titles to lands, held by towns, as well as individuals, would become subject to litigation; the whole colony would be plunged into lawsuits, and its economic framework would be rent in pieces. the intestate law was in accordance with custom throughout new england. when in a similar statute in massachusetts was sustained by the king in council in the appeal of phillips _vs._ savage, connecticut, notwithstanding the renewed and repeated suggestions to give up her charter, took courage to continue the contest. during these years the question of the constitutional relation of colony and crown was frequently raised, and connecticut was called upon to show that her laws were not contrary to the laws of england. she had to prove that they were not contrary to the common law of england; nor to the statute law, existing at the founding of the colony; nor to those acts of parliament that had been expressly extended to the colony. this was the most commonly held of the three interpretations of "not contrary to the laws of england." the most restricted interpretation was that all colonial laws higher than by-laws, and "which even within that term touched upon matters already provided for by english common or statute law, were illegal" or "contrary." under this interpretation, "the colonies were as towns upon the royal demesne." connecticut herself held to a third construction, maintaining that, as her own charter nowhere stipulated that her administration should accord with the civil, common, or statute law of england, she, at least, among the colonies was free to frame her own laws according to her own needs and desires. holding to this opinion, which had never been corrected by the crown, connecticut maintained that "contrary to the laws of england" was limited in its intent to contrary to those laws expressly designed by parliament to extend to the plantations. moreover, connecticut insisted that the colonies were not to be compared to english towns, because, unlike the towns, they had no representation in parliament. the connecticut intestate act was opposed to the english law according to the first two interpretations, but not according to the third. further, the connecticut authorities felt that if the conditions which had given rise to the law were fully realized in england, the apparent insubordination of the colony would disappear in the light of the real equity of the colonial statute. in governor talcott's letter, dated november , , under "the case of connecticut stated," there is a summary of the reasons why the colony hesitated to appeal directly to parliament for a confirmation of the intestate act. she was afraid of exciting still greater disfavor by seeming to ask privileges in addition to those already conferred upon her in her very liberal charter. she was afraid of courting inquiry in regard to her ecclesiastical laws, her laws relating to the collegiate school, and also sundry civil laws. the colony feared that the result of such an investigation would be that she would thereafter be rated, not as a government or province, but as a corporation with a charter permitting only the enactment of by-laws. moreover, she dreaded to be ranked with "rebellious massachusetts," and thus further expose herself to a probable loss of her charter. after contesting the decision against her for many years, at last in she virtually won her case through a decision given in england in the suit of clarke _vs._ tousey,[ ]--a suit which had been appealed from the colony, and which presented much the same claim as winthrop's. the decision in favor of clarke was equivalent to a recognition of connecticut's intestacy law. it has been pointed out that, important as the winthrop controversy was from the economic standpoint, it was equally important as fore-shadowing the legislation of the english government some thirty years later, and as defining the relation of colony and crown. moreover, in , as in , "economic causes and conditions," writes professor andrews in his discussion of the connecticut intestacy law, "drove the colonists into opposition to england quite as much as did theories of political independence, or of so-called self-evident rights of man." it was during the continuance of this troublesome winthrop suit, while boundary lines were still unsettled, while as yet the mohegan titles remained in dispute, while the most grievous charge of encouraging home manufactures, and many other complaints were brought against connecticut,--it was in the midst of her perplexities and conflicting interests that the dissenters within her borders sought greater religious liberty. they sought it, not only through their own local efforts, but through the strength of their friends in england, who brought all their influence to bear upon the home government. with such help episcopalians had won exemption in , and within two years quakers and baptists were accorded similar freedom. connecticut quakers, though few in numbers, were very determined to have their rights. from , the newport yearly meeting had encouraged the collecting and recording of all cases of "sufferance." in , at the close of queen anne's war ( - ), the newport yearly meeting reported to that of london that "there is much suffering on account of the indians at the eastward, yet not one (of ours) had fallen during the last year, travelling preachers having frequently visited those parts without the least harm.... friends in several places have suffered deeply on account of not paying presbyterian priests, and for the refusing to bear armes, an account of which we doe herewith send." in , the english law had granted them the perpetual privilege of substituting affirmation for oath. the quakers were determined to have the same freedom in the colonies as in england. accordingly, they watched with interest the test case between the quaker constables of duxbury and tiverton,--both, then, under the jurisdiction of massachusetts,--and the authorities of that colony. fines and persecutions were so much alike in connecticut and massachusetts that a dissenter's victory in one colony would go far towards obtaining exemption in the other. the quaker constables had refused to collect the church rate, and for this refusal were thrown into prison. thereupon a petition, with many citations from the colony law books, was sent to england, begging that the prisoners be released and excused from their fines, and that such unjust laws be annulled. the privy council ordered the prisoners released and their fine remitted. this decision was rendered in , and, with the success of the episcopalians three years later, still further encouraged both quakers and baptists to seek relief from ecclesiastical taxes and fines. two years later, in may, , the quakers appealed to the connecticut court for such exemption, and were released from contributing to the support of the established ministry and from paying any tax levied for building its meeting-houses, provided they could show a certificate from some society of their own (either within the colony or without it, if so near its borders that they could regularly attend its services) vouching for their support of its worship and their presence at its regular meetings. [ ] turning to the baptists, the oppressive measures employed to make them violate their conscience ceased on the inauguration of governor talcott in . thereafter, those among them who conformed to the requirements of the toleration act received some measure of freedom. to the neighborly interest of the association of baptist churches of north kingston, rhode island, and to the influence of leading baptists in that colony, including among them its governor (who subjoined a personal note to the association's appeal to the connecticut general court), was due the favor of the court extended in october, , [ ] to the baptists, whereby they were granted exemption upon the same terms as those offered the quakers. thus in barely twenty years from the passage of the toleration act, episcopalian, quaker, and baptist had driven the thin edge of a destroying wedge into the foundations of the connecticut establishment. each dissenting body was pitifully small in absolute strength, and they had no inclination toward united action. quakers and baptists were required to show certificates, a requirement soon to be considered in itself humiliating. the new laws were negative, in that they empowered the assessor to _omit_ to tax those entitled to exemption, but they provided no penalty to be enforced against assessors who failed to make such omission. indeed, in individual cases, the laws might seem to be scarcely more than an admission of the right to exemption. however, it was an admission that a century's progress had brought the knowledge that brethren of different religious opinions could dwell together in peace. it was an exemption by which the government admitted, as well as claimed, the right of choice in religious worship. it was a far cry to the acknowledgment that a man was free to think his own thoughts and follow his own convictions, provided they did not interfere with the rights of other men. the new laws were a concession by a strongly intrenched church to the natural rights of weaker ones, whose title to permanency it greatly doubted. they were a concession by a government whose best members felt it to be the state's moral and religious obligation to support one form of religion and to protect it at the cost, if necessary, of all other forms,--a concession, by such a government, to a very small minority of its subjects, holding the same appreciation of their religious duty as that which had nerved the founders of the colony. it was a concession by the community to a very few among their number, who were divergent in church polity and practice, but who were united in a protestant creed and in the conviction, held then by every respectable citizen, that every man should be made to attend and support some accepted and organized form of christian worship. footnotes: [a] the rev. john hart of east guilford, samuel whittlesey of wallingford, and jared ellis of killingworth. these men were always friendly to the churchmen. [b] the rev. daniel brown died in england. in the next forty years, one tenth of those who crossed the sea for ordination perished from dangers incident to the trip. [c] this year the home influence of the church of england had been brought to bear with sufficient pressure to forbid the calling of a general synod of the new england churches which had been desired, and towards which massachusetts had taken the initial step. see a. l. cross, _anglican episcopate_, pp. - . [d] stratford. [e] this same year, george i granted to bishop gibson a patent confirming the jurisdiction which, as bishop of london, he claimed over the church of england in the colonies. george ii renewed the patent in - . [f] between and more than thirty new towns were organized, making twice as many as in . chapter ix "the great awakening." wake, awake, for night is flying: the watchmen on the heights are crying, awake, jerusalem, arise!--advent hymn. the opposition of episcopalian, quaker, and baptist to the connecticut establishment, if measured by ultimate results, was important and far-reaching. but it was dwarfed almost to insignificance, so feeble was it, so confined its area, when compared to that opposition which, thirty-five years after the saybrook synod and a dozen years after the exemption of the dissenters, sprang up within the bosom of the congregational church itself, as a protest against civil enactments concerning religion. this protest was a direct result of the moral and spiritual renascence that occurred in new england and that became known as the "great awakening." history in all times and countries shows a periodicity of religious activity and depression. it would sometimes seem as if these periodic outbreaks of religious aspirations were but the last device of self-seeking,--were but attempts to find consolation for life's hardships and to secure happiness hereafter. fortunately such selfish motives are transmuted in the search for larger ethical and spiritual conceptions. an enlarged insight into the possibilities of living tends to slough off selfishness and to make more habitual the occasional, and often involuntary, response to christlike deeds and ideals. but so ingrained is our earthly nature that, in communities as in nations, periods alternate with periods, and the pendulum swings from laxity to morality, from apathy to piety, gradually shortening its arc. so in connecticut, numbers of her towns from time to time had been roused to greater interest in religion before the spiritual cyclone of the great revival, or "great awakening," swept through the land in and the two following years. the earlier and local revivals were generally due to some special calamity, as sickness, failure of harvest, ill-fortune in war, or some unusual occurrence in nature, such as an earthquake or comet, with the familiar interpretation that jehovah was angry with the sins of his people. sometimes, however, the zeal of a devoted minister would kindle counter sparks among his people. such a minister was the rev. solomon stoddard, who mentions five notable revivals, or "harvests,"[a] as he calls them, during his sixty years of ministry in the northampton church. a few other new england towns had similar revivals, but they were brief and rare. notwithstanding these occasional local "stirrings of the heart," at the beginning of the second quarter of the eighteenth century a cold, formal piety was frequently the covering of indifferent living and of a smug, complacent christianity, wherein the letter killed and the spirit did not give life. this was true all over new england, and elsewhere. nor was this deadness confined to the colonies alone, for the wesleys were soon to stir the sluggish current of english religious life. in new england, the older clergymen, like the mathers of massachusetts, conservative men, whose memories or traditions were of the golden age of puritanism, had long bemoaned the loss of religious interest, the inability of reforming synods to create permanent improvement, and the helplessness of ecclesiastical councils or of civil enactments to rouse the people from the real "decay of piety in the land," and from their indifference to the immorality that was increasing among them. this indifference grew in connecticut after the saybrook platform had laid a firm hold upon the churches. its discipline created a tendency, on the one hand, to hard and narrow ecclesiasticism, and, on the other, to careless living on the part of those who were satisfied with a mere formal acceptance of the principles of religion and with the bare acknowledgment of the right of the churches to their members' obedience.[b] it is a great mistake [writes jonathan edwards] if any one imagines that all these external performances (owning the covenant, accepting the sacraments, observing the sabbath and attending the ministry), are of the nature of a _profession_ of anything that belongs to _saving grace_, as they are commonly used and understood.... people are taught that they may use them all, and not so much as make any pretence to the least degree of _sanctifying grace_; and this is the established custom. so they are used and so they are understood.... it is not unusual ... for persons, at the same time they come into the church and pretend to own the covenant, freely to declare to their neighbors, that they have no imagination that they have any true faith in christ or love to him.[ ] the general court, relieved from the oversight of the churches, had bent itself to preserving the colony's charter rights from its enemies abroad, and to the material interests involved in a conservative, wise, and energetic home development. the people's thoughts were with the court more than with the clergy, who had fallen from a healthy enthusiasm in their profession into a sort of spiritual deadness and dull acceptance of circumstances. [ ] as a sort of corollary to stoddard's teaching that the lord's supper was itself a means toward attaining salvation, it followed that clergymen, though they felt no special call to their ministry, were nevertheless believed to be worthy of their office. the older theology of new england had tended to morbid introspection. stoddard, in avoiding that danger, had thrown the doors of the church too widely open, and the result was a gradual undermining of its spiritual power. the continued acceptance of the half-way covenant, "laxative rather than astringent in its nature," helped to produce a low estimate of religion. the tenderness that the cambridge platform had encouraged towards "the weakest measure of faith" had broadened into such laxity that, in many cases, ministers were willing to receive accounts of conversions which had been written to order for the applicants for church membership. the church, moreover, had come directly under the control of politics, a condition never conducive to its purity. the law of , "for the better ordering and regulating parishes or societies," had made the minister the choice of the majority of the townsmen who were voters. this reversed the early condition of the town, merged by membership into the church, to a church merged into the town. [ ] there was still another factor, often the last and least willingly recognized in times of religious excitement, namely, the commercial depression throughout the country, resulting from years of a fluctuating currency. this depression contributed largely to the revival movement, and helped to spread the enthusiasm of the great awakening. connecticut's currency had been freer from inflation than that of other new england colonies. but her paper money experiments in the years from to grew more and more demoralizing. up to , connecticut had issued £ , in paper currency. at the time of the great awakening she had still outstanding £ , for which the colony was responsible. of this, all but £ had been covered by special taxation. there still remained, however, about £ , which had been lent to the various counties. taxation was heavy, wages low and prices high, and there was not a man in the colony who did not feel the effect of the rapidly depreciating currency.[ ] this general depression fell upon a generation of new englanders whose minds no longer dwelt preëminently upon religious matters, but who were, on the contrary, preëminently commercial in their interests. such were the general conditions throughout new england and such the low state of religion in connecticut, when, in the northampton church, solomon stoddard's grandson, the great jonathan edwards, in december, , preached the sermons which created the initial wave of a great religious movement. this religious revival spread slowly through generally lax new england, and through the no less lax jerseys, and through the backwoods settlements of pennsylvania, until it finally swept the southern colonies. at the time, , the rev. george whitefield was preaching in carolina, and acceptably so to his superior, alexander garden, the episcopal commissary to that colony. touched by the enthusiasm of the onflowing religious movement, whitefield's zeal and consequent radicalism, as he swayed toward the congregational teaching and practices, soon put him in disfavor with his fellow churchmen. such disfavor only raised the priest still higher in the opinion of the dissenters, and they flocked to hear his eloquent sermons. whitefield soon decided to return to england. there he encountered the great revival movement which was being conducted, principally by the wesleys, and he at once threw himself into the work. meanwhile, he had conceived a plan for a home for orphans in georgia, and, a little later, he determined upon a visit to new england in its behalf. upon his arrival in boston in , the rev. george whitefield was welcomed with open arms. great honor was paid him. crowds flocked to hear him, and he was sped with money and good-will throughout new england as he journeyed, preaching the gospel, and seeking alms for the southern orphanage. his advent coincided in time with the reviving interest in religion, especially in connecticut. interest over the revival of had centred on that colony the eyes of the whole non-liturgical english-speaking world. whitefield's preaching was to this awakening religious enthusiasm as match to tinder. the religious passion, kindled in by edwards, and hardly less by his devoted and spiritually-minded wife, had in connecticut swept over windsor, east windsor, coventry, lebanon, durham, stratford, ripton, new haven, guilford, mansfield, tolland, hebron, bolton, preston, groton, and woodbury. [ ] the period of this first "harvest" was short. the revival had swept onward, and indifference seemed once more to settle down upon the land. but the news of the revival in connecticut had reached england through letters of dr. benjamin coleman of boston. his account of it had created so much interest that jonathan edwards was persuaded to write for english readers his "narrative of the surprising work of god." editions of this book appeared in - in both england and america, and all anglo-saxon non-prelatical circles pored over the account of the recent revival in connecticut. religious enthusiasm revived, and was roused to a high pitch by whitefield's itinerant preaching, as well as by that of jonathan edwards, and by the visit to new england of the rev. gilbert tennant, one of two brothers who had created widespread interest by their revival work in new jersey. a religious furor, almost mania, spread through new england, and the "great awakening" came in earnest. the rev. george whitefield reached newport, rhode island, in september, . crowds flocked to hear him during his brief visit there. in october, he proceeded to boston, where he preached to enthusiastic audiences, including all the high dignitaries of church and state. during his ten days' sojourn in the city, no praise was too fulsome, no honor too great. whitefield next went to northampton, drawn by his desire to visit edwards. after a week of conference with the great divine, whitefield passed on through connecticut, preaching as he went, and devoted the rest of the year to itinerating through the other colonies. already his popularity had been too much for him, and he frequently took it upon himself to upbraid, in no measured terms, the settled ministry for lack of earnestness in their calling and lack of christian character. this visit of whitefield was followed by one from the rev. gilbert tennant, who arrived in boston in december, and spent his time, until the following march, preaching in massachusetts and connecticut. tennant was also outspoken in his denunciations, and both men, while sometimes justified in their criticisms, were frequently hasty and censorious in their judgments of those who differed from them. ministers throughout new england were quick to support or to oppose the revival movement, and a goodly number of them, as itinerants, took up the evangelical work. dr. colman and dr. sewall of boston, jonathan edwards and dr. bellamy of connecticut, were among the most influential divines to support the great awakening,--to call the revival by the name by which it was to go down in history. unfortunately, among the aroused people, there were many who pressed their zeal beyond the reverent bounds set by these leaders. the religious enthusiasm rushed into wild ecstasies during the preaching of the almost fanatic rev. james davenport of southold, and of those itinerant preachers who, ignorant and carried away by emotions beyond their control, attempted to follow his example. during this religious fever there were times when all business was suspended. whole communities gave themselves up to conversion and to passing through the three or more distinct stages of religious experience which jonathan edwards, as well as the more ignorant itinerants, accepted as signs of the lord's compassion. briefly stated, these stages were, first, a heart-rending misery over one's sinfulness; a state of complete submissiveness, expressing itself in those days of intense belief both in heaven and in a most realistic hell, as complete willingness "to be saved or damned,"[c] whichever the lord in his great wisdom saw would fit best into his eternal scheme. finally, there was the blessed state of ecstatic happiness, when it was borne in upon one that he or she was, indeed, one of the few of "god's elect." [ ] the revival meetings were marked by shouting, sobbing, sometimes by fainting, or by bodily contortions. all these, in the fever of excitement, were believed by many persons to be special marks of supernatural power, and, if they followed the words of some ignorant and rash exhorter, they were even more likely to be considered tokens of divine favor,--illustrations of god's choice of the simple and lowly to confound the wisdom of the world. the strong emotional character of the religious meetings of our southern negroes, as well as their frequent sentimental rather than practical or moral expression of religion, has been credited in large measure to the hold over them which this great religious revival of the eighteenth century gained, when its enthusiasm rolled over the southern colonies. be that as it may, any adequate appreciation of the frequent daily occurrences in new england during the great awakening would be best realized by one of this twentieth century were it possible to form a composite picture, having the unbridled emotionalism of our negro camp-meetings superimposed upon the solid respectability and grave reasonableness of the men of that earlier day. as the lines of one and the other constituent of this composite picture blend, the momentary feeling of impatience and disgust vanishes in a wave of compassion as the irresistible earnestness and the pitiless logic of those days press, for recognition, and we realize the awful sufferings of many an ignorant or sensitive soul. it was not until the religious revival had passed its height that the people began to realize the folly and dangers of the hysteria that had accompanied it. it was not until long afterward that many of its characteristics, which had been interpreted as supernatural signs, were known and understood, and correctly diagnosticated as outward evidence of physical and nervous exhaustion. such, outwardly, were the marked features of the great awakening. yet its incentives to noble living were great and lasting. its immediate results were a revolt against conventional religion, a division into ecclesiastical parties, and a great schism within the establishment, which, before the breach was healed, had improved the quality of religion in every meeting-house and chapel in the land and broadened the conception of religious liberty throughout the colony. footnotes: [a] at northampton in , , , , and . [b] as early even as , the hartford north association suggested some reformation in the half-way covenant practice because it noted that persons, lax in life, were being admitted under its terms of church membership. [c] this "to be saved or damned" was, later, a marked characteristic of hokinsianism, or the teaching of the rev. samuel hopkins, - . chapter x the great schism if a house be divided against itself.--mark iii, . from such a revival as that of the great awakening, parties must of necessity arise. upon undisciplined fanaticism, the established church must frown. but when it undertook to discipline large numbers of church members or whole churches, recognizedly within its embracing fold and within their lawful privileges, a great schism resulted, and the schismatics were sufficiently tenacious of their rights to come out victorious in their long contest for toleration. the proviso of the saybrook platform had arranged for the continued existence of churches, congregational rather than presbyterian in their interpretation of that platform; yet, as late as , when but few remained, the question had arisen whether members of such churches, "since they were allowed and under the protection of the laws," ought to qualify according to the toleration act. the court decided in the negative, [ ] arguing that, although they differed from the majority of the churches in preferring the cambridge platform of church discipline, they had been permitted under the colony law of may , , establishing the congregational church, and had been protected by the proviso of . the court in its decision of seems also to have included a very few churches that had revolted from the religious formalism creeping in under the saybrook system, and that had returned to the earlier type of congregationalism. after the great awakening, churches "thus allowed and under the protection of our laws" were found to increase so rapidly that the movement away from the saybrook platform threatened to undermine the ecclesiastical system, and to endanger the establishment. seeing this, the court, or general assembly,[a] began to enforce the old colony law that with it alone belonged the power to approve the incorporating of churches. and shortly after it began to harass these separating churches, and to enact laws to prevent the farther spread of reinvigorated congregationalism unless of the presbyterian type. soon after , the churches that drew away from the saybrook system of government became known as separate churches, and their members as separatists. when these people found that the assembly would no longer approve their organizing as churches, they attempted, as sober dissenters from the worship established in the colony, to take the benefit of the toleration act. the assembly next "resolved that those commonly called presbyterians or congregationalists should not take the benefit of that act." [ ] here was a difficulty indeed. there was no place for the separatist, yet there was need of him, and he felt sure there was. furthermore, there were others who felt the need to the community of his strong religious earnestness, though they might deplore his extravagances. his strong points were his assertion of the need of regeneration, his reassertion of the old doctrines of justification by faith and of a personal sense of conversion, including, as a duty inseparable from church membership, the living of a highly moral life. the weakness of the separatist lay in his assertion, first, that every man had an equal right to exercise any gifts of preaching or prayer of which he believed himself possessed; secondly, of the value of visions and trances as proofs of spirituality; and finally, of every one's freedom to withdraw from the ministry of any pastor who did not come up to his standard of ability or helpfulness. it followed that the separatists insisted upon the right to set up their own churches and to appoint their own ministers, although the latter might have only the doubtful qualification of feeling possessed with the gift of preaching. the separatists organized between thirty and forty churches. some of them endured but a short time, suffering disintegration through poverty. others fell to pieces because of the unrestrained liberty of their members in their exhortations, in their personal interpretation of the scriptures, and in their exercise of the right of private judgment, with the consequent harvest of confusion, censoriousness, and discord that such practices created. in years later, many of the separate churches, tired of the struggle for recognition and weighed down by their double taxation for the support of religion, buried themselves under the baptist name. indeed they "agreed upon all points of doctrine, worship, and discipline, save the mode and subject of baptism." a few separatist churches, a dozen or more, continued the struggle for existence until victory and toleration rewarded them. after the teachings of jonathan edwards had purified the churches and had driven out the half-way covenant, against which the separatists uttered their loudest protests, many of these reformers returned to the established church. in the practice of--their principles, the separatists, both as churches and as individuals, were often headstrong, officious, intermeddling, and censorious. they frequently stirred up ill-feeling and often just indignation. the rash and heedless among them accused the conservative and regular clergy of arminianism, when the latter, influenced by the great awakening, revived the doctrines of original sin, regeneration, and justification by faith, but were careful to add to these calvinistic dogmas admonitions to such practical christianity as was taught by arminian preachers. the separatists feared lest the doctrine of works would cause men to stray too far from the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and they were often very intemperate in their denunciation of such "false teachers." it was a day of freer speech than now, and at least two of the great leaders in the revival had set a very bad example of calling names. mr. whitefield considered mr. tennant a "mighty charitable man," yet here are a few of the latter's descriptive epithets, collected from one of his sermons and published by the synod of philadelphia. dr. chauncey of boston quotes them in an adverse criticism of the revival movement. mr. tennant speaks of the ministers thus:--hirelings, caterpillars, letter-learned pharisees, hypocrites, varlets, seed of the serpent, foolish builders whom the devil drives into the ministry, dead dogs that cannot bark, blind men, dead men, men possessed of the devil, rebels and enemies of god. [ ] naturally, party lines were soon drawn in new england. there were the old calvinists or old lights on the one side, and the separatists and new lights on the other. the new lights were those within the churches who were moved by the revival and who desired to return to a more vital christianity. in many respects they sympathized with the separatists, although disapproving their extravagances. in many churches, hounded by the opposition of the conservatives, the new lights drew off and formed churches of their own. thus while the separatists may be compared to the early english separatists, the new lights would correspond more to the puritan party that desired reform within the establishment. in the eighteenth century movement, in connecticut, the old lights held the political as well as the ecclesiastical control until, in the process of time, the new lights gained an influential vote in the assembly. always, there was a good, sound stratum of calvinism in both the old and the new light parties, and also among the separatists, and the latter were generally included in the new light party, especially if spoken of from the point of view of political affiliations. the idiosyncrasies of the separatists softened down and fell away in time. the calvinism of old and new lights became a rallying ground whereon each, in after years, gathered about the standard of a reinvigorated church life; and then the terms old light and new, with their suggestions of party meaning, whether religious, or political, passed away. the term separatist was retained for a while longer, merely to distinguish the churches that preferred to be known as strict congregationalist rather than as presbyterianized congregationalist, or, for short, presbyterian. from the time of the great awakening, there were nearly forty years of party contest over religious privileges, many of which had been previously accorded but which were speedily denied to the separatists by a party dominant in the churches and paramount in the legislature; by a party which was determined to bring the whole machinery of church and state to crush the rising opposition to its control. accordingly, it was nearly forty years before the separatists received the same measure of toleration as that accorded to episcopalian, quaker, and baptist. it was ten years before the new lights in the assembly could, as a preliminary step to such toleration, force the omission from the revised statutes of all persecuting laws passed by the old light party. the keynote to the long struggle was sounded at a meeting of the general consociation at guilford, november , . this was the first and only general consociation ever called. it was convened at the expense of the colony, to consider her religious condition and the dangers threatening her from the excitement of the great awakening, from unrestrained converts, from rash exhorters, and from itinerant preachers, who took possession of the ministers' pulpits with little deference to their proper occupants. the general consociation decided-- that for a minister to enter another minister's parish, and preach or administer the seals of the covenant, without the consent of, or in opposition to the set tied minister of the parish, is disorderly, notwithstanding if a considerable number of the people in the parish are desirous to hear another minister preach, provided the same be orthodox, and sound in the faith and not notoriously faulty in censuring other persons, or guilty of any scandal, we think it ordinar rily advisable for the minister of the parish to gratify them by giving his consent upon their suitable application to him for it, unless neighboring ministers advise him to the contrary. [ ] this was not necessarily an intolerant attitude, but it was hostile rather than friendly to the revival. it left neighboring ministers, that is, the associations, if one among their number seemed to be too free in lending his pulpit to itinerant preachers, to curb his friendliness. intolerance might come through this limitation, for the local association might be prejudiced. if its advice were disregarded and disorders arose, the consociation of the county could step in to settle difficulties and to condemn progressive men as well as fanatics. in its phrasing, this ecclesiastical legislation left room for the ministrations of reputable itinerants, for among many, some of whom were ignorant and self-called to their vocation, there were others whose abilities were widely recognized. foremost among such men in connecticut were jonathan edwards himself, dr. joseph bellamy of bethlem, trainer of many students in theology, rev. eleazer whelock of lebanon, benjamin pomroy of hebron, and jonathan parsons of lyme. among itinerants coming from other colonies, the most noted, after whitefield and tennant, was dr. samuel finley of new jersey, later president of princeton. naturally men like these, who felt strongly the need of a revival and believed in supporting the "great awakening," despite its excitement and errors, did not countenance the rash proceedings of many of the ignorant preachers, who ran about the colony seeking audiences for themselves. the measures of the general consociation were mild in comparison with the laws passed by the legislature in the following may. governor talcott, tolerant toward all religious dissenters, had recently died, and the conservative jonathan law of milford was in the chair of the chief magistrate. governor law had grown up among the traditions of that narrow ecclesiasticism which had always marked the territory of the old new haven colony. moreover, the measures of the consociation had been futile. one of the chief offenders against them was the rev. james davenport of southold, long island, who not only went preaching through the colony, stirring up by his fanaticism, his visions, and his ecstasies, the common people, and finding fault with the regular clergy as "unconverted men," but who pushed his religious enthusiasm to great extremes by everywhere urging upon excitable young men the duty to become preachers like himself. he had introduced a kind of intoning at public meetings. this tended to create nervous irritability and hysterical outbursts of religious emotionalism, and these, davenport taught his disciples, were the signs of god's approval of them and their devotion to him. the government, watching these tumultuous meetings, concluded that it was time to show its ancient authority and to save the people from "divisions and contentions," the ecclesiastical constitution from destruction, and the ministry from "unqualified persons entering therein." accordingly, in may, , the assembly passed a series of laws, [ ] so severe that even ordained ministers were forbidden to preach outside their own parishes without an express invitation and under the penalty of forfeiting all benefits and all support derived from any laws for the encouragement of religion ever made in the colony. the new enactments also forbade any association to license a candidate to preach outside its own bounds or to settle any disputes beyond its own territory.[ ] these laws also permitted any parish minister to lodge with the society clerk a certificate charging that a man had entered his parish and had preached there without first obtaining permission. furthermore, there was no provision for confirming the truth or proving the falsity of such a statement. in connection with the certificate clause, it was also enacted that no assistant, or justice of the peace, should sign a warrant for collecting a minister's rates until he was sure that nowhere in the colony was there such a certificate lodged against the minister making application for this mode of collecting his ministerial dues. [ ] finally, the laws provided that a bond of £ should be demanded of a stranger, or visiting minister, who had preached without invitation, and that he should be treated as a vagrant, and sent by warrant "from constable to constable, out of the bounds of this colony."[ ] these laws restrained both _ordained ministers_ and _licensed candidates_ from preaching in _other_ men's parishes without _their_ and the _church's_ consent and wholly prohibited the _exhortations of illiterate laymen_. these laws were a high-handed infringement of the rights of conscience, and in a few years fell and buried with them the party that had enacted them. these were the laws which he (davenport) exhorted his hearers to set at defiance; and seldom, it must be acknowledged, has a more plausible occasion been found in new england to preach disregard for the law. the laws were framed to repress itinerants and exhorters through loss of their civil rights. by them, a man's good name was dishonored and he was deprived of all his temporal emoluments. by many, in their own day, the laws were regarded as contrary to scriptural commands, and to the opinion and practice of all reformers and of all puritans. these laws, with others that followed, were not warranted by the ecclesiastical constitution of the colony, and could find no parallel either in england or in her other colonies. trumbull calls them-- a concerted plan of the old lights or arminians both among the clergy and civilians, to suppress as far as possible, all zealous calvinistic preachers, to confine them entirely to their own pulpits; and at the same time to put all the public odium and reproach upon them as wicked, disorderly men, unfit to enjoy the common rights of citizens. [ ] yet for these laws the association of new haven sent a vote of thanks to the assembly when it convened in their city in the following fall. jonathan edwards opposed both the spirit of the general consociation and also the legislation of the assembly. he expressed his attitude toward the great awakening both at the time and later. in he wrote:-- if ministers preached never so good a doctrine, and are never so laborious in their work, yet if at such a day as this they show their people that they are not well affected to this work [of revival], they will be very likely to do their people a great deal more hurt than good. six years later edwards wrote a preface to his "an humble inquiry into the qualifications for full communion in the visible church of god," a treatise severely condemning the half-way covenant, and urging the revival of the early personal account of conversion. in this preface he excuses his hesitation in publishing the work, on the ground that he feared the separatists would seize upon his arguments to encourage them and strengthen them in many of their reprehensible practices. these, edwards reminds his reader, he had severely condemned in his earlier publications, notably in his "treatise on religious affections," , and in his "observations and reflections on mr. brainerd's life." in his preface edwards repeats his disapproval of the separatist "notion of a _pure church_ by means of a _spirit of discerning_; their _censorious outcries_ against the standing ministers and churches in general, their _lay ordinations_, their _lay-preaching_ and _public exhortings_ and administering sacraments; and their self-complacent, presumptuous spirit." edwards believed that enthusiasts, though unlettered, might exhort in private, and even in public religious gatherings might be encouraged to relate in a proper, earnest, and modest manner their religious experiences, and might also entreat others to become converted. he maintained that much of the criticism of an inert ministry was well founded, that much of the enthusiastic work of laymen and of the itinerants deserved to be recognized by the regular clergy, and that they ought to bestir themselves in furthering such enthusiasm among their own people. edwards urged also his belief in the value of good works, not as meriting the reward of future salvation, but as manifesting a heart stirred by a proper appreciation of god's attributes. jonathan edwards held firmly to the foundation principles of the conservative school, while he sympathized with and supported the best elements in the revival movement. this attitude of edwards eventually cost him his pastorate, for he judged it best to resign from the northampton church, in , because of the unpopularity arising from his repeated attacks upon the half-way covenant and the stoddardean view of the lord's supper. nevertheless, it was the influence of jonathan edwards and of his following which gradually brought about a union of the religious parties, after the separatists had given up their eccentricities and the leaven of edwards' teachings had brought a new and invigorated life into the connecticut churches. this preacher, teacher, and evangelist was remarkable for his powerful logic, his deep and tender feeling, his sincere and vivid faith. these characteristics urged on his resistless imagination, when picturing to his people their imminent danger and the awful punishment in store for those who continued at enmity with god. of his work as a theologian, we shall have occasion to speak elsewhere. some illustrations of church life in the troublous years following the great awakening will best set forth the confusion arising, the difficulties between old and new lights, and the hardships of the separatists. among the colony churches, the trials of three may be taken as typical,--the new haven church[ ], the canterbury church,[ ] and the church of enfield.[ ] nor can the story of the first two be told without including in it an account of later acts of the assembly and of the attitude of the college during the years of the great schism. the pastor of the new haven church was mr. noyes, whom many of his parishioners thought too noncommittal, erroneous, or pointless in discussing the themes which the itinerant preachers loved to dwell upon. moreover, mr. noyes had refused to allow the rev. george whitefield to preach from his pulpit while on his memorable pilgrimage through new england. mr. noyes had also forbidden the hot-headed james davenport to occupy it. as a result of their minister's actions, the new haven church was divided in their estimate of their pastor. there were the friendly old lights and the hostile new. neither party wished to carry their trouble before the consociation of new haven county, for that had come at last to be a tribunal "whose decision was at that time considered _judicial_ and _final_." moreover, at the meeting of the general consociation at guilford in november, , it was known that mr. noyes had been a most active worker in favor of suppressing the new light movement. consequently the new lights, though at the time in the minority, sought to find a way out from under the jurisdiction of the saybrook platform and its councils by declaring that the church had never _formally_ been made a consociated church. this was literally true, but the weight of precedent and their own observances were against them. like other churches in the county, which had come slowly to the acceptance of the saybrook councils as ecclesiastical courts, it had finally accepted them in their most authoritative character. such being the case, the new lights hesitated to appeal against their minister before a court presumably favorable to him. after the new lights had declared the church not under the saybrook system, mr. noyes determined to take the vote of his people as to whether they considered themselves a consociated church. but as he was a little fearful of the result of the vote, he secured the victory for his own faction by excluding the new lights from voting. thereupon, the new lights took the benefit of the toleration act as "sober dissenters," and became a separate church. the committee, appointed for the organization of the new church, declared that "they were reestablished as the original church." the benefit of the toleration act accorded to these new light dissenters in new haven, to some in milford,[b] and to several other reinvigorated churches in the southern part of the colony, roused the opposition of the old lights in the assembly, and, as they counted a majority, they repealed the act in the following year, . three or four weeks after the new haven new lights had formed what was afterwards known as the north church, the general assembly met for its fall session in that city, and, as has been said, the new haven association immediately sent a vote of thanks for the stringent laws passed at the may meeting. the court, moved by this indication of the popular feeling, by the importance of the church schism and its influence throughout the colony, by the conservative attitude of yale college, and also by having among its delegates large numbers of old lights, proceeded to enact yet more stringent measures than those of the preceding session. the result was that the north church could hire no preacher until they could find one acceptable to the first church and society, because the pastor elected by the first church was the only lawfully appointed minister, since he owed his election to the majority votes of the first society. furthermore, the court, in , refused a special application of the north church for permission to settle their chosen minister, and it was some five or six years before it ceased this particular kind of persecution and permitted the church to have a regular pastor. the story of this new haven church extends beyond the time-limit of this chapter, but it is better completed here. the stringency of the laws only increased the bitterness of faction. in , feeling ran so high that a father refused to attend his son's funeral merely because they belonged to opposing factions, and an attempt to build a house of worship for this separate church resulted in serious disturbances and in the charge of incendiarism. the new lights preferred imprisonment to the payment of taxes assessed for the benefit of the first church. at last, in , the october session of the general assembly thought it best "for the good of the colony and for the peace and harmony of this and other churches" infected by its example, to advise that the differences within it be healed by a council to be composed of both old and new lights.[ ] the suggestion bore no fruit, and a year later the new lights themselves again asked for a council, even offering to apologize to the first church for their informality in separating from it, and for their part in the heated controversy that followed; but mr. noyes induced his party to refuse to accede to the proposed conference. as the north church had grown strong enough by this time to support a regular pastor, mr. bird accepted its call; yet for six years longer, because the assembly refused to divide the society, the new lights were held to be members of the first society and taxable for its support. but in , the new lights gained the majority both in church and society, a majority of _one_. at once, the new lights were released from taxes to the first church. now the dominant party, they attempted to pay back old scores, and accordingly demanded a division of both church and society property. the claim to the first was unfair, and they eventually abandoned it. the church quarrel finally ceased in , after a duration of eighteen years, and in mr. bird was formally installed with fitting honors. in the early days of the great awakening, the canterbury church became divided into old lights and new, and a separation took place. before the separation, a committee, who were appointed to look up the church records, gave it as their opinion that the church was not and never had been pledged to the saybrook platform. nevertheless, the very men who gave this decision became the leaders of the minority, who determined to support the government in carrying out its oppressive laws of . these laws had been passed while the committee were searching the church records. the majority of the church, incensed at having their liberty curtailed, proceeded to defy the law by listening to lay exhorters and to itinerants just as they had been in the habit of doing ever since the church had felt the quickening influences of the great awakening. this majority declared that it was "regular for this church to admit persons into this church that are in full communion with other churches and come regularly to this." this decision the minority characterized as unlawful according to the recent acts of the assembly. the majority proceeded to argue the right of the majority in the church as above the right of the majority in the society, or parish, to elect the minister and to guide the church. in an attempt to satisfy both parties, candidates were tried, but they could not command a sufficient number of votes from either side to be located permanently. a meeting in of the consociation of windham (to whose jurisdiction the canterbury church belonged), together with a council of new lights, brought temporary peace. a candidate was agreed upon; but in a few months the new lights became dissatisfied with him because of his approval of the saybrook system of church government, his acceptance of the half-way covenant, and other opinions. controversy revived. the majority of the church withdrew, and for a while met in a private house for services, which were conducted by solomon paine or by some other layman. as a result, the windham association passed a vote of censure against the seceders. paine wrote a sharp retort, for which he was arrested, although ostensibly on the charge of unlawfully conducting public worship. he refused to give bonds and was committed to windham jail in september, . such crowds flocked to the prison yard to hear him preach, and excitement ran so high, that the officer who had conducted his trial appeared before the assembly to protest that such legal proceedings did but tend to increase the disorders they were intended to cure. accordingly, paine was released in october. the interest of the whole colony was now centred on the defiant and determined canterbury separate church, and the november meeting of the windham association had the schism under consideration, when yale expelled two canterbury students whose parents were members of that church. in october, , in order to protect the college and the ministry and to deal a blow at the "shepherd's tent," a kind of school or academy which the new lights had set up in new london for qualifying young men as exhorters, teachers, and ministers, the general assembly had decided that no persons should presume to set up any college, seminary of learning, or any public school whatever, without special leave of the legislature.[ ] the court had also enacted that no one should take the benefit of the laws respecting the settlement and support of ministers unless he were a graduate of yale or harvard, or some other approved protestant university. it had also given explicit directions for the supervision of the schools throughout the colony and of their masters' orthodoxy,[ ] and had advised yale to take especial care that her students should not be contaminated by the new lights. the congregationalists had reported the "shepherd's tent" as a noisy, tumultuous resort, because it was occasionally used for meetings, and had added that it was openly taught in that school that there would soon be a change in the government, and that disobedience to the civil laws was not wrong. the assembly, fearing that it might "train up youth in ill practices and principles," sought to put an end to it. as to the advice to the college, yale was only too eager to follow it, and the same year expelled the saintly david brainerd[ ] for criticising the prayers of the college preachers as lacking in fervor. his offense was against a college law of the preceding year which forbade students to call their officers "hypocritical, carnal or unconverted men." the college, as the new light movement increased, came to the further conclusion that-- since the principal design of erecting this college was to train up a succession of learned and orthodox ministers by whose example people might be directed in the ways of religion and good order ... it would be a contradiction to the civil government to support a college to educate students to trample upon their own laws, to break up the churches which they establish and protect, especially since the general assembly in may , thought proper to give the governors of the college some special advice and direction upon that account, which was to the effect that proper care should be taken to prevent the scholars from imbibing those or like errors; and those who would not be orderly and submissive, should not be allowed the privileges of the college. solomon paine made answer to this law. with fine irony, he assured the people that in effect it forbade all students attending yale college to go to any religious meeting even with their parents, should they be separatists or new lights, because-- no scholar upon the lord's day or other day, under pretence of religion, shall go to any public or private meeting, not established or allowed by public authority or approved by the president, under penalty of a fine, confession, admonition or otherwise, according to the state and demerit of the offence, for fear that such preaching would end in "quakerism," open infidelity, and the destruction of all christian religion, and make endless divisions in the christian church till nothing hut the name of it would be left in the world. the two cleveland brothers, john and ebenezer, had spent the fall vacation of [c] with their parents at their home in canterbury, and by request of their elders had frequented the separatist church there. on their return to yale, the boys were admonished. they professed themselves ready to apologize, but not in such words as the authorities thought sufficiently submissive, for the latter considered that the boys had broken the laws "of god, of the colony and of the college."[ ] the boys very ably argued that, under the circumstances, there had been nothing else for them to do but to go to church with their parents when requested to do so, and held to their position. yale expelled them, and there followed a sensation throughout the colony.[ ] the leaders of the new light party in the church of canterbury were the nearest relatives and friends of the cleveland boys, who came to be regarded as martyrs to their religion. their treatment opened the question as to whether the steadily increasing numbers of new lights were to lose for their children the benefit of the college, that they helped to support. must they, in order to send their sons to college, deprive them for four years of a "gospel ministry" and lay them open to consequent grave perils? why should new lights be required to make such a sacrifice, or why, in vacation, should their children be required to submit to the ecclesiastical laws of the college? if episcopalians were permitted to have their sons, students at yale, worship with them during the vacations, why should not the same liberty be granted to equally good citizens who differed even less in theological opinions? because of this college incident the difficulties in the canterbury church attracted still more attention, but the end of the schism was at hand. in the month that witnessed the expulsion of the clevelands, the minority of the original first church voted that they were "the church of canterbury," and that those who had gone forth from among them in the january of the preceding year, , as congregationalists after the cambridge platform, had abrogated that of saybrook. consequently, to the minority lawfully belonged the election of the minister, the meeting house, and the taxes for ministerial support. having thus fortified their position, they by a later vote declared:-- that those in the society who are differently minded from us, and can't conscientiously join in ye settlement of mr. james coggeshall as our minister may have free liberty to enjoy their own opinion, and we are willing they should be released and discharged from paying anything to ye support of mr. coggeshall, or living under his ministry any longer than until they have parish privileges granted them and are settled in church by themselves according to ye order of ye gospel, or are lawfully released. [ ] at the repeal of the toleration act in , a new method had been prescribed for sober dissenters who wished to separate from the state church, and who were not of the recognized sects. the method of relief, thereafter, was for the dissenters, no matter how widely scattered in the colony, to appeal in person to the general assembly and ask for special exemption. moreover, they were promised only that their requests would be listened to, and the assembly was growing steadily more and more averse to granting such petitions. as a result of this policy, the separatist church of canterbury did not have a very good prospect of immediate ability to accept the good-will of the first church, which went even farther than the resolution cited above. the first church offered to assist the separatists in obtaining recognition from the assembly. this offer the separatists refused, preferring to submit to double taxation, and thus to become a standing protest to the injustice of the laws. after the expulsion of the clevelands, yale made one more pronounced effort to discipline its students and to repress the growth of the liberal spirit. she attempted to suppress a reprint of locke's essay upon "toleration" which the senior class had secretly printed at their expense. an attempt to overawe the students and to make them confess on pain of expulsion was met by the spirited resistance of one of the class, who threatened to appeal to the king in council if his diploma were denied him. his diploma was granted; and some years after, when the sentiment in the colony had further changed, the college gave the cleveland brothers their degree. the church in enfield[ ] had an experience somewhat similar to that of canterbury, to which it seems to have looked for spiritual advice and example. the enfield separate church was probably organized between and , though its first known documents are a series of letters to the separate church in canterbury covering the period - . these letters sought advice in adjusting difficulties that were creating great discord in the church, which had already separated from the original church of enfield. in , the enfield separatists, once more in harmony, renewed their covenant, and called mr. nathaniel collins to be their pastor. they struggled for existence until , when they appealed to the general assembly for exemption from the rates still levied upon them for the benefit of the first society. they asked for recognition, separation, and incorporation as the second society and church of enfield. they were refused; but in may of the following year,--a year to be marked by special legislation in behalf of dissenters,--the enfield separatists again memorialized the assembly, and in response were permitted to organize their own church. [ ] this permission, however, was limited to the memorialists, eighty in number; to their children, if within six months after reaching their majority they filed certificates of membership in this separate church; and to strangers, who should enter the new society within one year of their settling in the town. the history of the enfield separatists gives glimpses of the frequent double discord between the new lights and the old and among the new lights themselves. the period of the enfield persecution extended over years when, elsewhere in the colony, separatists had obtained recognition of their claims to toleration, if only through special acts and not by general legislation. if churches suffered from the severe ecclesiastical laws of - , individuals did also. under the law which considered traveling ministers as vagrants, and which the assembly had made still more stringent by the additional penalty "to pay down the cost of transportation," so learned a man as the rev. samuel finley, afterwards president of princeton, was imprisoned and driven from the colony because he insisted upon preaching in connecticut. indeed, it was his persistence in returning to the colony that caused the magistrates to increase the severity of the law.[ ] when the ministers john owen of groton and benjamin pomeroy of hebron, as well as the itinerant james davenport of southold, criticised the laws, all of them were at once arraigned for the offense before the assembly. there was so much excitement over the arrest of pomeroy and davenport that it threatened a riot. all three men were discharged, but davenport was ordered out of the colony for his itinerant preaching and for teaching resistance to the civil laws. pomeroy, his friend, had declared that the laws forbade any faithful minister, or any one faithful in civil authority, to hold office. events bore out his statement, for ministers were hounded, and the new light justices of the peace, and other magistrates, were deprived of office. pomeroy, himself, was discharged only to be complained of for irregular preaching at colchester and in punishment to be,deprived of his salary for seven years.[ ] the rev. nathan stone of stonington was disciplined for his new light sympathies. philemon bobbins of branford was deposed for preaching to the baptists at wallingford. this last procedure was the work of the consociation of new haven county, which thereby began a six years' contest, - , with the branford church. in this church attempted to throw off the yoke of the consociation by renouncing the saybrook platform. during these years of persecution, the opposition to the old light policy was gradually gaining effective power, although the college had expelled brainerd, and mr. cook, one of the yale corporation, had found it expedient to resign because of his too prominent part in the formation of the north church of new haven. the old lights in the legislature of passed the repeal of the toleration act because the new lights had no commanding vote; but they were increasing throughout the colony. fairfield east consociation had licensed brainerd the year that yale expelled him. twelve ministers of new london and windham county had met to approve the revival, notwithstanding the repeal of the toleration act and the known antagonism of the windham association to the separatists. windham consociation and that of fairfield east favored the revival. large numbers of converts were made in these districts, and many also in hartford county. in the new haven district the spirit of antagonism and of persecution was strongest. it was in accordance with the laws of - that mack, shaw, and pyrlæus, moravian missionaries, on a visit in to their mission stations among the indians in connecticut, were seized as papists and hustled from sheriff to sheriff for three days until "the governor of connecticut honorably dismissed them," though their accusers insisted upon their being bound over under a penalty of £ to keep the law. "being not fully acquainted with all the special laws of the country, they perceived a trap laid for them and thought it prudent to retire to shekomeko" (pine plains, dutchess county, n. y.). missionaries sent out from nazareth and bethlehem, pennsylvania, had established this sub-centre for work in new york and connecticut, and in the latter colony, in - , had made indian converts at sharon, salisbury indian pond, near newtown, and at pachgatgoch, two miles southwest of kent. here was their principal station in connecticut. they had made, in all, some twenty converts among the indians, and had reclaimed several of their chief men from drunkenness and idleness. moravian principles forbade these missionaries to take an oath. consequently, the greed of traders, the rivalry of creeds, together with the belief that there was something wrong about men who would not swear allegiance to king george,--notwithstanding their willingness to affirm it, and notwithstanding their denial of the pretender,--gave rise to the conviction that they must be papists[d] in league with the french and their indian allies. accordingly both magistrates and ministers arrested the missionaries, and hurried them before the court at poughkeepsie or at new milford. though the governors of both states recognized the value of the mission work, popular feeling ran so high that new york, in september, , passed a law requiring them to take the oaths prescribed or to leave the country, and also commanding that "vagrant teachers, moravians, and disguised papists should not preach or teach in public or private" without first obtaining a license. in connecticut, as has been said, the laws of - were enforced against them; later, when during the old french war groundless rumors of their intrigues with hostile indians were circulated against them, a vain hunt was made for three thousand stands of arms that were said to be secreted in their missions. the severe persecution in new york had driven these missionaries into pennsylvania and into connecticut, but these rumors of intrigue broke up their work and caused the abandonment of their stations in the latter colony. some of these, such as kent, sharon, and salisbury, were revived in - , at the request of the english settlers as well as of the indian converts.[ ] returning to the main story of the progress of dissent, we find that in the general court of connecticut felt obliged to safeguard the establishment by the passage of a law entitled, "concerning who shall vote in society meetings."[ ] its preamble states that persons exempted from taxes for the support of the established ministry, because of their dissenting from the way of worship and ministry of the presbyterian, congregational, or consociated churches, "ought not to vote in society meetings with respect to the support or to the building and maintaining of meeting houses," yet some persons, exempted as aforesaid, "have adventured to vote and act therein," as there was no express law to the contrary. the new law forbade such voting, and limited the ecclesiastical ballot to members of the establishment who "were persons of full age and in full communion with the church," and to other unexempted persons who held a freehold rated at fifty shillings per year, or personal property to the value of forty pounds. this law was just, in that it excluded all dissenters who had received exemption from presbyterian rates. it included all others having the property qualification, whether they wanted to vote or not. that it was felt to be a necessity is a witness to the increasing recognition of the strength of the dissenting element. in , the consociation of windham sent forth a violent pamphlet describing the separatists as a people in revolt against god and in rebellion against the church and government. but the tide of public opinion was turning, and popular sentiment did not support the writers of this pamphlet. moreover, the secular affairs of the colony were calling minds away from religious contentions as the stress of the old french war was more and more felt. in , venturing upon the improvement in public sentiment, solomon paine sent to the legislature a memorial signed by three hundred and thirty persons and asking for a repeal of such laws as debarred people from enjoying the liberty "granted by god and tolerated by the king."[ ] it was known to these memorialists that a revision of the laws, first undertaken in , was nearing completion, and their desire was that all obnoxious or unfair acts should be repealed. the petition met with a sharp rebuff, and, as a punishment, three members were expelled from the assembly for being separatists. but by such measures the old lights were overreaching themselves. a mark of the turning of public opinion was given this same year, when, upon the request of his old church in hebron, the church vouching for his work and character, the assembly restored to his ministerial rights and privileges the rev. james pomeroy. the unjust laws of - and of the following years were never formally repealed, but were quietly dropped out of the revision of the laws issued in . thenceforth the people began to tolerate variety in religious opinions with better grace, and the dominant authoritative rule of the saybrook platform began to wane, though for twenty years more it strove to assert its power. in , the middletown association advised licensing candidates for the ministry for a term of years. the idea was to prevent errors arising from the personal interpretation of the scriptures and indifference to dogmatic truths of religion from creeping into the churches. about the same time, the consociation of new haven invited their former member, mr. bobbins of branford, to sit with them again at the installation of mr. street of east haven. conciliatory acts and measures such as these originated with both the old and new lights, and did much to lessen the division between them. discussion turned more and more from personal opinions, character, and abilities, to considerations of doctrinal points. the churches found more and more in common, while worldly interests left the masses with only a half-hearted concern in church discussions. to summarize the effect of the great awakening as evidenced by the great schism and its results thus far considered: the strength of the revival movement, as such, was soon spent. the number of its converts throughout new england was estimated by dr. dexter to be as high as forty or fifty thousand, while later writers put it as low as ten or twelve thousand, out of the entire population of three hundred thousand souls. the years - were the years of the great awakening, and after them there were comparatively few conversions during any given time. even in jonathan edwards's own church in northampton there were no converts between and . the influence of the great awakening was not, however, transient, nor was it confined to the congregational churches, whether of the cambridge or the saybrook type. baptist churches felt the impetus, receiving many directly into their membership, and also indirectly, from those separatist churches which found themselves too weak to endure. episcopalians added to their numbers from among religiously inclined persons who sought a calm and stable church home unaffected by church and political strife. the great awakening created the separatist movement and the new light party, revitalized the established churches, invigorated others, and through the persecution and counter-persecution that the great schism produced, taught the connecticut people more and more of religious tolerance, and so brought them nearer to the dawn of religious liberty. such liberty could only come after the downfall of the saybrook, platform, and after a complete severance of church and state. the last could not come for three quarters of a century. meanwhile the leaven of the great revival would be working. on its intellectual side, the great awakening led to the discussion of doctrinal points, an advance from questions of church polity. these themes of pulpit and of religious press led, finally, to a live interest in practical christianity and to a more genial religion than that which had characterized the puritan age. the half-way covenant had been killed. education had received a new impulse, christian missions were reinvigorated, and the monthly concert of prayer for the conversion of the world was instituted. [ ] true, french and indian wars, the spanish entanglement with its west indian expedition, and the consuming political interests of the years - , shortened the period of energetic spiritual life, and ushered in another half century of religious indifference. but during that half century the followers of edwards and bellamy were to develop a less severe and more winning system of theology, and the fellowship of the churches was to suggest the colonial committees of safety as a preliminary to the birth of a nation, founded upon the inherent equality of all men before the law. this conception of political and civil liberty was to develop side by side with a clearer notion of the value of religious freedom. footnotes: [a] this term came with the royal charter of , but only gradually displaced the familiar "general court." [b] the milford church, like that of new haven, suffered for many years from unjust exactions and taxation. [c] commencement then came in september. [d] and this notwithstanding their willingness to include in their affirmation a denial of mariolatry, purgatory, and other vital romish tenets. chapter xi the abrogation of the saybrook platform that house cannot stand.--mark iii, . the times change and we change with them.--proverb. the omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were passing, that public opinion as a whole had grown averse to any great severity toward the separatists as dissenters. but the continuance in the revised statutes of the saybrook platform as the legalized constitution of the "presbyterian, congregational or consociated church," and the almost total absence of any provision for exempting congregational separatists from the taxes levied in its behalf, operated, notwithstanding the many acts of conciliation between these two types of churches, to revive at times the milder forms of persecution. and such injustice would continue until the separatists as a body were legally exempted from ecclesiastical rates, and until the saybrook platform was either formally annulled or, in its turn, quietly dropped from the statute book. but henceforth, the measure of intolerance would be determined more by local sentiment and less by the text of the law, more by the proportion of old lights to new in a given community. and the measure of toleration must eventually take the form of legalized rights rather than of special privileges, and this through a growing appreciation of the value of the separatists as citizens. the abrogation of the saybrook platform might follow upon a reaffiliation of all presbyterians and all congregationalists in a new spirit of mutual tolerance and helpfulness. whatever the events or influences that should bring about this reaffiliation, the new bonds of church life would necessarily lack the stringency of the palmy days of saybrook autocratic rule. consequently when such a time arrived, the platform, at least in its letter, could be dropped from the law-book. the old colonial laws for the support of religion would still suffice to protect and exalt the establishment, and to preserve it as the spiritual arm of the state. it so happened that toleration was granted to the separatists at the beginning of the revolutionary struggle, and that the abrogation of the saybrook platform followed close upon its victorious end. many influences, both religious and secular, had their part in bringing about these progressive steps toward religious freedom, toward full and free liberty of conscience. the revision of the laws completed in had been under consideration since . at the beginning of the great schism, the important task had been placed in the hands of a committee consisting of roger wolcott, thomas fitch, jonathan trumbull, and john bulkley, judge of the superior court. the first three names are at once recognized as connecticut's chief magistrates in - , - , - , respectively. during the eight years that the revision was in the hands of this committee, the church quarrel had passed its crisis; the old lights had slowly yielded their political, as well as their ecclesiastical power; and their controlling influence was rapidly passing from them. the old french war, with its pressing affairs, had so affected the life of the colony as to lessen religious fervor, weaken ecclesiastical animosities, and, at the same time, to develop a broader conception of citizenship. english influence, moreover, had modified the ecclesiastical laws in the revision of . the connecticut authorities, when imbued with the persecuting spirit, did not always stop to distinguish between the legally exempt baptist dissenters and the unexempted separatists. this was due in part to the fact that many of the latter, like the church of which isaac backus was the leader, went over to the baptist denomination. the two sects held similar opinions upon all subjects, except that of baptism. it was much easier to obtain exemption from ecclesiastical taxes by showing baptist certificates than to run the risk of being denied exemption when appeal was made to the assembly, either individually or as a church body, the form of petition demanded of these separatists. the persecuted baptists at once turned to england for assistance, and to the committee of english dissenters, of which dr. avery was chairman. this committee had been appointed to look after the interests of all dissenters, both in england and in her colonies, for the english dissenting bodies were growing in numbers and in political importance. to this committee the connecticut baptists reported such cases of persecution as that of the saybrook separatist church, which in suffered through the arrest of fourteen of its members for "holding a meeting contrary to law on god's holy sabbath day." these fourteen people were arraigned, fined, and driven on foot through deep mud twenty-five miles to new london, where they were thrust into prison for refusing to pay their fines, and left there without fire, food, or beds. there they were kept for several weeks, dependent for the necessaries of life upon the good will of neighboring baptists.[ ] the separatists could report the trials of the separate church of canterbury, of that of enfield, of the first separate church of milford, hindered in the exercise of its legal rights for over twenty years, and they could also recount the persecution of churches and of individuals in wethersfield, windsor, middletown, norwich, and elsewhere. upon receiving such reports, dr. avery had written, "i am very sorry to hear of the persecuting spirit which prevails in connecticut.... if any gentleman that suffers by these coercive laws will apply to me, i will use my influence that justice be done them." the letter was read in the assembly, and is said to have influenced the committee of revision, causing them to omit the persecuting laws of - , in order that they might no longer be quoted against the colony. governor law replied to dr. avery that the disorders and excesses of the dissenters had compelled the very legislation of which they complained. to which dr. avery returned answer that, while disorders were to be regretted, civil penalties were not their proper remedy. this was a sentiment that was gaining adherents in the colony as well as in england. among other instances of persecution among the baptists was that of samuel, brother of isaac backus, who in , with his mother and two members of the baptist society, was imprisoned for thirteen days on account of refusal to pay the ecclesiastical taxes.[ ] another was that of deacon nathaniel drake, jr.,[ ] of windsor, who, in , refused to pay the assessment for the second society's new meeting-house. for six years the magistrates wrestled with the deacon, striving to collect the assessment. but the deacon was obstinate, and rather than pay a tax of which his conscience disapproved, he preferred to be branded in the hand. outside of baptist or separatist, there were other afflicted churches, such as that of wallingford,[ ] where the new lights could complain that, in , the consociation of new haven county had refused to install the candidate of the majority, mr. dana; and had attempted to discipline the twelve ministers who had united in ordaining him; and that as a result the twelve were forced to meet in an association by themselves for fourteen years, or until . the separatists attempted to obtain exemption through petitions to the assembly, trusting that, as each new election sent more and more new lights to that body, each prayer for relief would be more favorably received. one of the most important of these petitions was that of , when more than twenty separatist churches, representing about a thousand members, united in an appeal wherein they complained of the distraining of their goods to meet assessments and taxes for the benefit of the established churches; of imprisonments, with consequent deprivation of comforts for their families; and of the danger to the civil peace threatened by these evils. the assembly refused redress. whereupon the petition was at once reconstructed,[a] and, with authentic records and testimonies, to which governor fitch set the seal of connecticut, was sent, in , [ ] to london. the committee in behalf of dissenters were to see that it was presented to the king in council. the petition charged violation of the colony's charter, excessive favoritism, and legislation in favor of one christian sect to the exclusion of all others and to the oppression, even, of some. the english committee thought that these charges might anger the king and endanger the connecticut charter. accordingly, they again wrote to the connecticut authorities, remonstrating with them because of their treatment of dissenters. at the same time, they sent a letter advising the petitioners to show their loyalty to the best interests of the colony by withdrawing their complaint. these dissenters were further advised to begin at once a suit in the connecticut courts for their rights, and with the intent of carrying their case to england, should the colony fail to do them justice. legal proceedings were immediately begun, but were allowed to lapse, partly because of the press of secular interests, for the colonial wars, the west india expedition, and other affairs of great moment claimed attention, and partly because there were indications that the government would regard the separatists more favorably. in the colony itself a change was taking place through which the college was to go over to the side of the new lights. in , president clap had established the college church in order to remove the students from the party strife that was still distracting the churches. in order to avoid a conflict over the matter, he refused to ask the consent of the assembly, claiming the right of an incorporated college and the precedent of the english universities, since, in , the assembly had formally incorporated "the president and fellows of yale college," vesting in them all the usual powers appertaining to colleges. in the same year, also, the initial step toward establishing a chair of divinity had been taken, and it became the first toward the founding of the separate college church. president clap always maintained that "the great design of founding yale was to educate ministers in our way,"[ ] and the chair of divinity had been established in answer to the suggestion of the court that the college take measures to protect its students from the new light movement. president clap was hurried on in his policy of establishing the college church both by his desire to separate the students from the new light controversy in mr. noyes's church, where they were wont to attend, and by an appeal to him, in , of rector punderson, the priest recently placed in charge of the church-of-england mission in new haven. the rector had two sons in college, and he asked that they and such other collegians as were episcopalians might be permitted to attend the church-of-england services. president clap refused to give the desired permission, except for communion and some special services, and he at once proceeded to organize a church within the college. the trustees and faculty upheld him, but the old lights, then about two-thirds of the deputies to the assembly, opposed his course of action, and succeeded in taking away the annual grant that, at the incorporation of the college, had been given to yale. after this, they regarded president clap as a "political new light," but as the latter party increased in the assembly, and became friendly to yale, the college gradually reinstated itself in the favor of the legislature. if in his petitions the separatist demanded only exemption, only that much toleration, in his controversial writings he ably argued the right of all men to full liberty of conscience. unfortunately, the ignorance and follies of many of the separatists, when battling in advance of their age for religious liberty, militated against the logic of their position. harmony among themselves would have commended and strengthened their cause, and given it a forceful dignity. they blundered, as did their english predecessors of a much earlier date, by laying too much stress upon the individual, upon his interpretations of scripture, and upon his right of criticism. much of their work in behalf of religious liberty took the form of pamphleteering. again, it was their misfortune that the establishment could boast of writers of more ability and of greater training. yet the separatists had some bold thinkers, some able advocates, and, as time wore on, and their numbers were increased and disciplined, the strength and quality of their petitions and published writings improved greatly. sometimes these dissenters were helped by the theories of their opponents, which, when pushed to logical conclusions and practical application, often became strong reasons for granting the very liberty the separatists sought. sometimes an indignant member of the establishment, smarting under its interference, was roused to forceful expression of the broader notions of personal and church liberty that were slowly spreading through the community. a few extracts from typical pamphlets of the time will give an idea of the atmosphere surrounding the disputants. in , a tract was issued from the new london press by one e. h. m. a. entitled, "the present way of the country in maintaining the gospel ministry by a public rate or tax is lawful, equitable, and agreable to the gospel; as the same is argued and proved in way of dialogue between john queristicus and thomas casuisticus, near neighbors in the county." in answer to this, and for the purpose of vindicating the religious practices and opinions of the separatists, ebenezer frothingham, a separatist minister, took the field in as the champion of religious liberty. his book of four hundred and fifty pages had for its title "the articles of faith and practice with the covenant that is confessed by the separate churches of christ in this land. also a discourse." so influential and so characteristic was this work, that rather long extracts from it are permissible, and, with a few arguments from other writers, will serve to reflect the thought and feeling of the day, and will best give the point of view of both dissenter and member of the establishment, of liberal and conservative; for the pamphlet of the period was apt to be religious or political, or more likely both. frothingham, speaking of the injustice done the separatists, writes:-- that religion that hath not authority and power enough within itself to influence its professors to support the same, without bargains, taxes or rates, and the civil power, and prisons, &c. is a false religion. ... now, if the religion generally professed and practiced in this land, be the religion of jesus christ, why do they strain away the goods of the professors of it, and waste their substance to support it? which has frequently been done. and which is worse, why do they take their neighbors (that don't worship with them, but have solemnly covenanted to worship god in another place) by the throat, and cast them into prison? or else for a rate of twenty shillings, three or six pounds, send away ten, twenty, or thirty pounds worth of goods, and set them up at vendue; where they will generally assemble the poor, miserable drunkard, and the awful foul-mouthed swearer, and the bold, covetous, blasphemous scoffer at things sacred and divine, and the scum of society for the most part will be together, to count and make their games about the goods upon sale, and at the owners of them too, and at the holy religion that the owners thereof profess; and at such vendues there are rarely any solid, thinking men to be found there; or if there are any such present, they do not care to act in that oppressive way of supporting the gospel. such men find something is the matter. god's vice-regent in their breasts, tells them it is not equal to make such havock of men's estates, to support a worship they have nothing to do with; yes, the consciences of these persons will trouble them so that they had rather pay twice their part of the rates, and so let the oppressed party go free. upon the difficulty of securing collectors, frothingham remarks: "if it be such a good cause, and no good men in the society, to undertake that good work, surely then such a society is awfully declined, if that is the case." frothingham quotes the suttler of the "dialogue" as saying, "we have good reason to believe, that if this hedge of human laws, and enclosure of order round the church, were wholly broken down, and taken away, there would not be, ('t is probable) one regular visible church left subsisting in this land, fifty years hence, or, at most, not many. "to this, frothingham replied that if by the "visible church, here spoken of," is meant "anti-christ's church, we should be apt to believe it," for "it needs civil power, rates and prisons to support it. but if the gospel church, set up at first without the aid of civil power could continue and spread, why can't it subsist without the civil power now as well as then?" "to this day," this author adds, "the true church of christ is in bondage, by usurping laws that unrighteously intrude upon her ecclesiastical rights and civil enjoyments; .... and wo! wo! to new england! for the god-provoking evil, which is too much indulged by the great and mighty in the land. the cry of oppression is gone up into the ears of the lord god of sabbaoth." frothingham thrusts at the payment or support of the ministry by taxation in his assertion that "there is no instance of paul's entering into any civil contract or bargain, to get his wages or hire, in all his epistles; but we have frequent accounts of his receiving free contributions."[ ] (here, he but repeats a part of the baptist protest in the wightman-bulkley debate of .) frothingham states that "the scope and burden of it [his book] were to shew ... both from scripture and reason that the standing ministers and churches in this colony [connecticut] are not practising in the rule of god's word." the book at once commanded the attention desired by its author. it drew upon frothingham the concentrated odium of the rev. moses bartlett, pastor of the portland church, in a fifty-four-paged pamphlet entitled "false and seducing teachers." among such bartlett includes and roundly denounces frothingham and the two paines, solomon and his brother elisha. elisha paine had removed to long island. returning to canterbury for some of his household goods, he was seized by the sheriff for rates overdue, and thrown into windham jail.[ ] after waiting some weeks for his release, he sent the following bold and spicy letter to the canterbury assessors:-- to you gentlemen, practioners of the law from your prisoner in windham gaol, because his conscience will not let him pay a minister that is set up by the laws of connecticut, contrary to his conscience and consent. the roman emperor was called pontifex maximus, because he presided over civil and ecclesiastical affairs; which, is the first beast that persecuted the christians that separated from the established religion, which they call the holy religion of their forefathers; and by their law, fined, whipped, imprisoned and killed such as refused obedience thereto. we all own that the pope or papal throne is the second beast, because he is the head of the ecclesiastical, and also meddles in civil affairs.... he also compels all under him to submit to his worship, decrees and laws, by whips, fines, prisons, fire and fagots. now what your prisoner requests of you is a clear distinction between the ecclesiastical constitution of connecticut, by which i am now held in prison, and the aforesaid two thrones or beasts in the foundation, constitution and support thereof. for if by scripture and reason you can show they do not all stand on the throne mentioned in psalm xciv: , [b] but that the latter is founded on the rock christ jesus, i will confess my fault and soon clear myself of the prison. but if this constitution hath its rise from _that throne_ ... better is it to die for christ, than to live against him. from an old friend to this civil constitution, and long your prisoner. elisha paine. windham jail, dec. , . in , in addition to his memorials and letters, solomon paine had published "a short view of the constitution of the church of christ, and the difference between it and the church established in connecticut." frothingham, when alluding to moses bartlett's denunciation of himself and paine, refers to this book in his remark, "elder paine and myself have labored to prove, and i think it evident, that the religious constitution of this colony is not founded upon the scriptures of truth, but upon men's inventions." in the year , the same in which he established the college church, president clap issued his "history and vindication of the doctrines received and established in the churches of new england," [c] to which thomas darling's "some remarks on president clap's history" was a scathing rejoinder. darling asserted that for the president to uphold the saybrook system of consociated churches was to set up the standards of men, a thing the forefathers never did;[ ] that the picture of the separatists' "new scheme," which the president drew, was a scandalous _spiritual_ libel;[ ] and then, falling into the personal attacks permitted in those days, darling adds that president clap was an overzealous sycophant of the general assembly, a servant of politics rather than of religion, and that it would be better for him to trust to the real virtues of the consociated church to uphold it than to strive for legal props and legislative favors for his "ministry-factory,"[ ] the college. to raise the cry of heresy, darling declared, was the president's political powder, and "the church, the church is in danger!" his rallying cry. he concluded his arraignment with:-- but would a man be tried, judged and excommunicated by such a standard as this? no! not so long as they had one atom of _common_ sense left. these things will never go down in a free state, where people are bred in, and breathe the free air, and are formed upon principles of liberty; they might answer in a popish country, or in _turkey_, where the common people are sank and degraded almost to the state of brutes.... but in a free state they will be eternally ridiculed and abhorred.... 't is too late in the day for these things, these gentlemen should have lived twelve or thirteen hundred years ago. among the champions of religious liberty was the seventh-day baptist, john bolles. he wrote "to worship god in spirit and in truth, is to worship him in true liberty of conscience," and also "concerning the christian sabbath, which that sabbath commanded to israel, after they came out of egypt, was a sign of. also some remarks upon a book written by ebenezer frothingham." these works were published in , and, five years later, called out in defense of the establishment eobert ross's "plain address to the quakers, moravians, separates, separatist-baptists, rogerines, and other enthusiasts on immediate impulses, and revelation, &c," wherein the author considers all those whom he addresses as on a level with frothingham, whom he names and scores for "trampling on all churches and their determinasions, but your own, with the greatest disdain."[ ] in the same year, , the separatist israel holly published a defense of his opinions, quoting freely from dr. watts and from his own earlier work, "a seasonable plea for liberty of conscience, and the eight of private judgment in matters of religion, without any control from human authority." this "a word in zion's behalf" [d] boldly ranges itself with frothingham and bolles, arguing against, and emphatically opposing, the state control of religion. holly also engaged in a printed controversy, publishing in connection with it "the power of the congregational church to ordain its officers and govern itself." in , while the separatists still outnumbered the baptists in connecticut, ebenezer frothingham put forth another powerful and closely argued tract, "a key to unlock the door, that leads in, to take a fair view of the religious constitution established by law in the colony of connecticut," [e] etc. in his preface he states:-- the main thing i have in view thro' the whole of this book is free liberty of conscience... the right of thinking and choosing and acting for one's self in matters of religion, which respects god and conscience ... for my readers may see liberty of conscience, was the main and leading point in view in planting this land and colony. frothingham defines the religious constitution as "certain laws in the colony law book, called ecclesiastical, with the confession of faith, agreed upon by the elders and messengers of the churches, met at saybrook, especially the articles of administration of church discipline." this constitution plan "gives the general assembly (which is, and always should so remain, a civil body to transact in civil and moral things) power to constitute or make a spiritual or ecclesiastical body."[ ] such power, frothingham maintains, is contrary to reason. citing from the colony law book the statute, "concerning who shall vote in town or society meeting" frothingham comments thus:-- this supposes no person to have a right to form themselves into a religious society without their [the assembly's] leave. no,--not king george the third himself would have liberty to worship god according to his conscience. [yet] any atheist, deist, arian, socinian, a prophane drunkard, a sorcerer, a thief, if they have such a freehold (as the law demands), can vote to keep out a minister. [such a] plan challenges the sole right of making religious societies and the government of conscience. yea, i think it assumes the prerogative that belongs to the son of god alone.[ ] the fines for the neglect of the established worship and for assembling for worship approved by conscience [leave] no gap for one breath of gospel liberty. for if we exercise our gifts and graces in the lawful assemblies, we are had up, and carried to prison, for making disturbance on the sabbath. i myself have been confined in hartford prison near five months, for nothing but exhorting and warning the people, after the public worship was done and the assembly dismissed. and while i was there confined, three more persons were sent to prison; one for exhorting, and two for worshipping god in a private house in a separate meeting. and quick after i was released, by the laws being answered by natural relations unbeknown to me, then two brethren more was committed for exhorting and preaching, and several afterward, for attending the same duties and i myself was twice more sent to prison for the ministers rates.[ ] i have no man or men's persons as such, in view in my writings, but would as much as is proper, separate ministers, civil rulers, and churches, from the constitution, and consider this religious constitution as it is compiled or written, as though it was not established in this colony; but presented here from some remote part of christendom, for examination, to see if it was according to the word of god, and the sacred right of conscience.[ ] in scathing terms, frothingham attacks the "anti-christian" character of the establishment and its fear that, by granting liberty of conscience, an open door for church separation would result, and thereby its speedy downfall, because of the multiplication of churches and the loss of taxes enforced for its support. experience had taught the authorities that, even when all the people favored one form of religion, compulsory support had to be resorted to as a spur to individual contributious. moreover, the best governments of which they knew had recourse to a similar system in order to maintain purity of religion and the moral welfare of the state. the authorities could not see, as did the champion of religious liberty, the opportunities of oppression that such a system afforded; nor could they feel with him the harshness of its taxation, nor the injustice of distraining dissenters' goods,--or, as he phrased it, "their lack of faith in god and in god's people to uphold religion." they certainly would not acknowledge frothingham's charge that they seriously feared the loss of political power through the granting of soul liberty, and as a consequence the probable disintegration of the establishment. frothingham argues that to suffer the existence of different sects would really strengthen the authority of the colony; since,-- when persons know that the most high is alone the absolute lord of conscience; that no mortal breathing has any right to hinder them from thinking and acting for themselves, in religious affairs... the law of nature, reason and grace will lay subjects under strong obligations to their rulers, when equal justice is ministered to them of different principles, in the practice of religion. [l ] frothingham confutes the declaration that there was liberty of conscience in the colony, "for the separates have gone to the general assembly with their prayers, from year to year, asking nothing but their just rights, full and free liberty of conscience, and have been, and still are, denied their request." furthermore, the colony law supported criminals in prison and gave the poor man's oath to debtors, but nothing to the man who was in prison for conscience's sake. such a one was dependent upon the charity of his friends for the very necessities of life. such laws and the ecclesiastical constitution which they support become-- a forfeiture of the charter grant because they exercise that oppression and persecution contrary to its first intent, and are the direct cause of contention and disunion, which is repugnant to the principal design of constituting the colony; viz. that it "may be so religiously, peaceably and civilly governed as may win and invite the natives to the christian faith." [l ] this "key to unlock the door" was probably the strongest work put forth from the dissenter's standpoint, and within three years it was followed by a legislative act granting a measure of toleration. but there were other important books of similar character. two among these were robert bragge's "church discipline,"[f] reprinted in , and joseph brown's (baptist) "letter to the infant baptizers of north parish in new london." brown closes his book with a mild and reasonable appeal to every one to try to put himself in the place of the oppressed dissenter.[g] in brown's argument, as in that of the majority of the dissenters, the plea is for toleration in the choice of the form of religion to be supported, and not for liberty to support or neglect religion itself. those who believed in the voluntary support of religion were not seeking exemption as individuals, but as organized societies or churches, whose highest privilege it was to support christ's teachings. considered from this point of view, they were only seeking those privileges which had been granted the episcopalians, the quakers, and baptists in - . looked at from the point of view of the government, however, these separatists varied so slightly from the legalized polity and worship, and yet withal so dangerously, that they did not deserve to be classed as "sober dissenters." to recognize them as such would be to set the seal of approval upon all who chose to question the authority, or the righteousness, of the saybrook system. with the fear of such an undermining of authority, and realizing the increasing tendency of churches throughout the colony to renounce the saybrook platform, the very conservative people felt that to grant toleration to the separatists might prove disastrous both to church and civil order. while the baptists and the separatists were waging the battle for toleration and for religious liberty with the great weapon of their time,--the pamphlet,--the consociated churches were also making valiant use of it, not only in defense of the establishment, but in controversial warfare among themselves, for in the new england of the second half of the eighteenth century, two schools of religious thought were slowly developing. they gained converts more rapidly as the means of communication, of publication, and of exchange of opinion increased. the improvement of roads, the introduction of carriages and coaches, the establishment of printing-presses, and the founding of newspapers, were important agents in developing and moulding public opinion. of these, the printing-press was foremost, for with its pamphlet and its newspaper it gained a hearing not only in the cities, but in the isolated farmhouses of new england, carrying on its weekly visit the gist of the secular and religious news. the newspaper made its first appearance in connecticut in , when the "connecticut gazette" [h] issued from the recently established new haven press. the newspaper arrived later in the distant colony of connecticut than in those on the seaboard that were in closer touch with european thought by reason of their more direct and frequent sailing vessels. among american newspapers, the year saw the birth of the "boston news letter"; the year , of the "boston gazette" and of the "american weekly mercury" of philadelphia. boston added a third paper, the "new england courant," in , while new york issued its first sheet in . benjamin franklin founded the "pennsylvania gazette" in , and, in , began the publication of the "general magazine and historical chronicle for, all the british plantations in america." in , boston sent out the "american magazine and historical chronicle," containing, along with european news, not only lists of new books and excerpts therefrom, but full reprints of the best essays from the english magazines. new york, in , issued the "independent reflector," a magazine of similar character. thus, through papers and magazines, as well as through a limited importation of books, and through personal correspondence, the life of europe, and preeminently of england, was brought home to the colonists. in the religious non-prelatical world of england, the presbyterian churches were undergoing a transformation, and were, by , prevailingly arian. the english congregationalists resisted arianism, but they, also, felt its influence, as well as that of arminianism, and they began to attach less importance to creeds, and to develop a broader tolerance of many shades of religious belief. new england sympathized more with the congregational movement, but, as interest in both was awakened, english thought came to have great influence in the religious development of new england during the next half-century. broadly speaking of these progressive changes, connecticut, and connecticut-trained men in western massachusetts, developed the so-called new divinity, while massachusetts clergy, especially those of her eastern section, favored that liberal theology which, after the revolutionary period, gave rise to the unitarian conflict. the older religious controversies had concerned themselves with church polity, or, popularly speaking, with what men thought concerning their relation to god through his church, in distinction from doctrine, or what men felt should be their attitude towards god and their fellow-men. pushing aside polity and doctrine, the twentieth century emphasizes action, or man's reflection of the life of christ. doctrine came to the front with jonathan edwards. in his opposition to the arminian teaching of the value of a sincere obedience to god's laws and "the efficacy of means of grace," jonathan edwards asserted the calvinistic idea of the sovereignty of god, and maintained that justification was by faith alone; but his idea of justification held within it the duty of personal responsibility in loving and obeying god. edwards, though defining love as general benevolence, a delight in god's holiness, and the essence of all true virtue, did introduce, as factors in personal religion, the will and the emotions. these characteristics of true, personal religion, as his mind, influenced by the great awakening, conceived and elaborated them, he set forth in his "religious affections," published in . in his "qualifications for full communion," , he again dwelt upon the same theme; but his main purpose was to uproot the half-way covenant practice and the stoddardean view of the lord's supper. he attempted to do this by exposing the inefficiency of "means," and at english arminianism in particular edwards leveled his "freedom of the will," [i] published in . his friend and disciple, joseph bellamy, put forth in "true religion delineated," wherein he advances from edwards's limited atonement theory to that of a general one. [j] in , bellamy, in brilliant dialogue, replied to "a winter's evening conversation upon the doctrine of original sin in which the notion of our having sinned in adam and being on that account only liable to eternal damnation, is proved to be unscriptural," a book by rev. samuel webster of salisbury, massachusetts, and of which a reprint had appeared from the new haven press in , the year of its publication. bellamy took sides with the rev. peter clark of danvers, massachusetts, who replied in "a summer morning's conversation." both men summoned as their authority a work of edwards, "original sin defended," which was about to appear from the press, and to which edwards's followers were looking forward as the last work of their master, he having died while its pages were still in press. edwards had destined the book to be a refutation of english arianism of the taylor school, of which webster was a follower. this same year, , bellamy discoursed upon "the wisdom of god in the permission of sin," and gave a series of sermons on "the divinity of jesus christ," a defense of the trinity, which jonathan mayhew of boston had attacked. bellamy may have felt that this defense was due from a connecticut man because the colony, strenuously orthodox, had in the revision of the laws in added the requirement of a belief in the trinity, and caused the denial thereof to be ranked as felony. denial of the trinity, or of the divine inspiration of the scriptures, was punishable, for the first offense, by ineligibility to office, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or military, and, upon a second conviction, by disability to sue, to act as guardian or as administrator. [ ] though there was never a conviction under the statute, the presence of such a law in the colony code indicates the religious temper of her people at a time when radical changes were creeping into man's conception of religion. joseph bellamy's influence, great as it was as writer and preacher, was even greater as a teacher. his home in bethlehem from to was virtually a divinity school, and it is estimated that at least sixty students, trained in his system of theology and in his antagonism to the half-way covenant, [k] spread through new england an influence counter to that of the mayhews, briant, [l] webster, and other disciples of the liberal theology. upon bellamy, as a leader, fell edwards's mantle. while bellamy was the great exponent of jonathan edwards's teachings in connecticut, another friend and famous pupil of the great divine's, samuel hopkins, taught at great barrington, massachusetts, - , and in newport, ehode island, - , urging an extension of his master's principles--especially of that of "benevolence." hopkins, however, attributed a certain value to "means of grace," while teaching that sin and virtue consist in exercise of the will, or in definite acts. [m] consequently, he included in his theology a denial of man's responsibility for adam's sin, which edwards had maintained. hopkins advocated also a willing and disinterested submission to'god's will, the hopkinsian "to be saved or damned," since god, in his wisdom, will do that which is best for his universe. these characteristic doctrines, both of bellamy and hopkins, were modified by the younger generation of students, notably by stephen west, john smalley, jonathan edwards, jr., and--greatest of all--nathaniel emmons, who, together with the first timothy dwight, were to introduce two sub-schools of the new divinity. [n] emmons, following hopkins, developed extreme views of sin, even in little children; held the theories of reprobation and election; and was most intensely calvinistic. dwight developed a more conciliatory and benign system of theology, but his influence, as founder of a school of religious thought, belongs to the post-revolutionary era. emmons held one long pastorate at franklin, massachusetts, - , [o] where, as a trainer of youth for the ministry, his influence was greatest, and his powers at their best. nearly a hundred ministers passed to their pulpits from his tutelage. such were the teachings that fashioned a generation of preachers, of ministers, wielding a tremendous influence over the men and measures of pre-revolutionary and revolutionary days. the clergy were then the close friends of their parishioners; their counselors in all matters, spiritual or worldly; and frequently their arbitrators in disputed rights, for the legal class was still small, and its services costly. the pastor knew intimately every soul in his parish. he was the state's moral guardian. he was the intellectual leader and more, for, in the scarcity of books and newspapers, not alone in his sunday sermon but in those on fast days and thanksgivings, and on all public and semi-public occasions, he talked to his people upon current events. the story is told of a clergyman who in his sunday prayer recounted the life of his parish during the preceding week, making personal mention of its actors; who then passed, still praying, from local history to the welfare of the nation, including a tribute to washington and a description of a battle; and who did not end his hour-long prayer until he had anathematized the enemy, and circled the globe for recent examples of divine wrath and benevolence. such a clergyman is by no means a myth. each pastor made his own contribution, inconspicuous or notable as it might be, to the broadening of thought, and contributed his part to the development among his people of ideas of personal liberty, even as the colonial wars were developing confidence in the ability to defend that liberty should it be endangered. a voluntary theocracy may uphold a faith which teaches that only a very limited number are of the "elect," but, under the ordinary conditions of life, such a belief is discouraging, deadening, and as men threw off this idea of spiritual bondage, they advanced to a larger conception of personal responsibility, dignity, and freedom. such enlargement of ideas necessitated a mutual tolerance of diverse opinions. it also tended to create revolt against infractions of civil liberty or violations of political justice. the colonists were not so badly taxed--as colonial policy went--when they made their stand for "no taxation without representation," when they exhausted their resources in a long war because of acts of parliament that, had they submitted to them, would have offered a precedent for still more repressive measures and for the overthrow of the englishman's right to determine, through the representatives of the people, how the people's money should be spent. if the town-meeting, the sermon, the religious or political pamphlet, and the newspaper did each its part in developing a people, there was also another factor that, starting as part of a discussion of ecclesiastical polity, brought before all men important questions of civil, political, and personal liberty, and of constitutional rights. however unnecessary the severe anguish of jonathan mayhew's spirit, due to his exaggerated fear of the american episcopate, he did but express "the sincere thought of a multitude of his most rational contemporaries." [l ] a review of events will show some reason for the antagonism and horror that filled new england when the project of the episcopate was revived. after the death of queen anne in , the crown took no interest in the project of an american episcopate until thomas sherlock became bishop of london in . the connecticut clergy of the church of england, together with others of new england and the middle colonies, had, however, never ceased their efforts to secure an american bishop; and now, in bishop sherlock, their metropolitan in london, they had one who firmly believed in the necessity of colonial bishops, who deliberately refused to exercise the traditional powers of his office, or to obtain a legal renewal of them (in so far as they applied to the colonies), because he had determined that by such a policy he would force the english government to appoint one--or preferably several--american bishops. he defined his scheme for the episcopate as one in which the bishop was: ( ) to have no coercive power over the laity, only regulative over the clergy; ( ) to have no share in the temporal government; ( ) to be of no expense to the colonists; ( ) and to have no authority, except to ordain the clergy, in any of the colonies where the government was in the hands of dissenters from the church of england. this plan was essentially the same as that advocated later by bishops secker and butler, and by succeeding bishops to the time of the revolution. bishop sherlock obtained the king's permission to submit his plan to the english ministers of state. so great was the dread inspired in america by the rumors of a revival of active measures for a colonial episcopate, that a deputation, sent to england in , appointed a committee of two to wait upon those nearest to the king and to advise them that the appointment would be "highly prejudicial to the interests of several of the colonies." [ ] this committee redoubled its energies in , and it was due to its watchfulness as well as to the clearer foresight of the king's ministers that bishop sherlock's plan was frustrated. the chief advisers of the government objected to it on the ground that it would be repugnant to the dissenting colonies, to the dissenters of all sorts in england, and would also rouse in the home-land party-differences that had slumbered since the overthrow of the pretender in . despite the english opposition to bishop sherlock's scheme, its discussion in england and the journey of the bishop's agent through the several american colonies to sound their sentiment had created so much apprehension that the society for the propagation of the gospel enjoined its missionaries, in , "that they take special care to give no offence to the civil government by intermeddling with affairt, not relating to their calling or function." even bishop seeker of oxford, a strong adherent of bishop sherlock, saw fit, in , to suppress dr. johnson of stratford, connecticut, bidding his enthusiasm wait until a more propitious season, and advising him, and the rest of his clergy, to conciliate the dissenters. bishop sherlock, himself, in , withdrew sufficiently from his first position to assume the ecclesiastical oversight of the colonies, although he would not take out a commission to renew that which had expired by the death of bishop gibson. meanwhile, sherlock's demonstration that the bishop of london had little authority in law, or in fact, over the american colonies created two parties. one [p] held that the colonies were a part of the english nation and consequently were subject to the civil and religious laws existing in the home country, and that the authority of the church of england extending to the colonies had been reinforced by the gibson patent of - . the other party maintained that the colonists were not members of the church of england, nor subject to its rules. they quoted the lord chief justice, who declared to governor dummer, in , that "there was no regular establishment of any national or provincial church in these plantations" (of new england), and that bishop gilman, in his letter of may , , to dr. colman had written, "my opinion has always been that the religious state of new england is founded on an equal liberty to all protestants, none of which can claim the name of a national establishment, or of any kind of superiority over the rest." this party further maintained that no acts of parliament, passed after the founding of the colonies, were binding upon them, unless such acts were specially extended to the colonies. here again was the old contention that had appeared in the earlier controversy over the connecticut intestacy act. an american controversy, parallel in time with the attempt to establish the episcopate, roused the always latent new england hostility to the episcopal church as one contrary to gospel teaching. this controversy of - [q] broke out over the validity of presbyterian ordination versus episcopal. the battle surged about the contingent questions of ( ) whether the church of england extended to the colonies; ( ) whether it was prudent for the long established new england churches to go over to the english communion; and ( ) whether it would be lawful. in debating the last two, incidental matters of expense, of unwise ecclesiastical dependence, and of the consequent decay of practical godliness in the land, were discussed by the rev. noah hobart of stratford, conn., who represented the consociated churches, while episcopacy was defended by rev. james wetmore of rye, n. y., dr. johnson of stratford, conn., rev. john beach of reading, conn., and by the rev. henry caner of boston. this discussion at once suggested to a few far-sighted men that the bishops recently proposed, and which at the end of the seven years' war, in , were again earnestly advocated by bishop seeker (who had become archbishop of canterbury) should not acquire any powers in addition to those suggested by bishop sherlock. the growing fear of such increased authority flamed out again in the mayhew controversy of - , when all the inherited puritan dislike to the church of england as a religious body, and all the terror of such a hierarchy, as a part of the english state, hurled itself into argument, and threw to the front the discussion of the american episcopate as a measure of english policy,--an attempt to transplant the church as an arm of the state; an attempt to "episcopize," to proselyte the colonies, and eventually to overturn the new england ecclesiastical and civil governments.[r] "it was known," wrote john adams fifty years later, "that neither the king nor ministry nor archbishop could appoint bishops in america without act of parliament, and if parliament could tax us, it could establish the church of england with all its creeds, articles, ceremonies, and prohibit all other churches as conventicles and schism-shops." [s] therefore, when england declared her right to tax the colonies, and followed it by sugar act and stamp act, the political situation threw a lurid light about the chandler-chauncy controversy [t] of - as it rehearsed the _pros_ and _cons_ of the proposed episcopate. the new england colonies were greatly excited, and others shared the unrest, for, even where the church of england was strongest, the laity as a body preferred the greater freedom accorded them under commissaries as sub-officers of the bishop of london. the indifference of the american laity as a whole to the project of the episcopate; the impotence of the english bishop to attain it, thwarted as he was by the threefold opposition of the ministry, the colonial agents, and the great body of english dissenters, did not lessen the prevailing suspicion and fear among the colonists, especially among those of new england. they felt no confidence in the profession [u] that authority purely ecclesiastical would alone be accorded to the bishop, or that american churchmen themselves would long be satisfied with a bishopric so shorn of power. and already, on november , , the episcopalians of new york, new jersey, and connecticut had met together in their first annual convention at elizabethtown. [v] the avowed object of their conference was the defense of the liberties of the church of england, and "to diffuse union and harmony, and to keep up a correspondence throughout the united body and with their friends abroad." [ ] it was a time of drawing together, whether of the colonies as political bodies, or of their people as groups of individuals affiliating with similar groups beyond the local boundaries. upon november , , also at elizabethtown, the consociated churches of connecticut had united with the presbyterian synod of new york and philadelphia in their first annual convention, which was composed of presbyterian delegates to the synod and of representatives from the associations in connecticut. while the general object was the promotion of christian friendship between the two religious bodies, the spread of the gospel, and the preservation of the liberties of their respective churches, the conventions of - determined to prosecute measures for preserving these same liberties, threatened "by the attempt made by the friends of episcopacy in the colonies and great britain, for the establishment of diocesan bishops in america." [ ] accordingly this representative body at once entered into correspondence with the committee of dissenters in england. in recalling these movements towards combination, one remembers that, among the dissenters, the quakers had long held to their system of monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings, to their correspondence with the london annual meeting, and to the frequent interchange of traveling preachers. in the years - , the scattered baptists of new england had united in the warren (rhode island) association. it was a council for advice only, yet its approval lent multiple weight to the influence of any baptist preacher. it urged the collection of all authentic reports of oppression or persecution, and a firm, united resistance on the part of the weaker churches. [w] the founding of brown university, rhode island, as a baptist college in , gave the sect prestige by marking their approval of education and of a "learned ministry." to return to the subject of the episcopate, the chandler controversy had been precipitated by dr. johnson of connecticut, who, at the elizabeth convention, urged that the opposition to the american bishops was largely caused by ignorance concerning their proposed powers and office, and that if some one would put the scheme more fully before the people, they might be won over. the task was assigned to thomas bradbury chandler, who published his "an appeal to the public," . dr. charles chauncy of boston replied to chandler, giving the new england view of bishops in "the appeal answered." chandler, as has been said, retorted with his "the appeal defended," and the newspapers took up the controversy. the discussion turned immediately and almost entirely from the ecclesiastical aspect, with its dangers to new england church-life, to the political and constitutional phases of this proposed extension of the church of england. the new york and philadelphia press agitated the subject in - , while all new england echoed mayhew's earlier denunciations of the evils to be anticipated. in the pulpit, by the study fire, and at the tavern-bar, leaders, scholars, people discussed the possible loss of civil and personal liberty. let the bishops once be seated; and would they not introduce ecclesiastical courts, demand uniformity, and impose a general tax for their church which might be perverted to any use that the whim of the king and of his subservient bishops might propose? there is no question that this subject of the episcopate, with its political and constitutional phases, and with the considerations of personal and civil liberty involved, did much to familiarize the people with those principles upon which they made their final break with england, and helped to prepare their minds for the separation from the mother country. in considering the various elements that contributed to the development of the national spirit, to the destruction of that provincialism so marked in the colonies before , and to the creation in each of breadth of thought and clearness of vision, trade and commerce had their part. because of them, came increasing knowledge of the widely different habits of life in the thirteen colonies. it came also from the association of the people of the different sections when as soldiers of their king they were summoned to the various wars. still another impetus was given to the national idea by the fashion of long, elaborate correspondence. especially was this true after the albany convention of , called to discuss franklin's plan of union, had introduced men of like minds, abilities, and purpose, and also the needs of their respective sections, and had interested them in the common welfare of all. moreover, franklin was the highest representative of still another movement that roused the slumbering intelligence of men by opening their minds to impressions from the vast and unexplored world of natural science. he founded, in , the university of pennsylvania and the american philosophical society. the recognition, in , [x] of his work by european scholars was an honor in which every american took pride as marking the entrance of the colonies into the world of scientific investigation. such honorable recognition produced a widespread interest in the stuiy of the physical world and its forces. following this awakening and broadening of the intellectual life, there came, at the very dawn of the revolution, the first out-cropping of genuine american literature in the satires and poems of philip freneau of new york, a graduate of princeton, and in those of john trumbull and joel barlow [y] of yale. new haven became a centre of literary life, and the cultivation of literature took its place beside that of the classics, broadening the preeminently ministerial groove of the yale curriculum. in considering some of the individual acts leading up to connecticut's part in the revolution, we find that the colony had disapproved franklin's plan of union of . she thought it lacking in efficiency and in dispatch in emergencies, and possibly dangerous to the liberties of the colonies. she also believed it liable to plunge the colonies into heavy expense, when many of them were already floundering in debt. yet connecticut had, with massachusetts, willingly borne the brunt of expense and loss necessary to protect the colonies in the wars arising from french and english claims. she, accordingly, greatly rejoiced at the peace of ryswick, , for it gave security to her borders by the cession of canada to england, brought safety to commerce and the fisheries, and promised a new era of prosperity. the attempt of england to recoup herself for the expenses of the war by a rigid enforcement of the navigation laws--an enforcement that paralyzed commerce, and turned the open evasion of honorable merchantmen into the treasonable acts of smugglers--grieved connecticut; the sugar act provoked her, and the proposed stamp act drove her to remonstrance. her magistrates issued the dignified and spirited address, "reasons why the british colonies in america should not be charged with internal taxes by authority of parliament." [z] it was firmly believed in the colony that when the severity of the english acts should be demonstrated, they would at once be removed and some substitute, such as the proposed tax on slaves or on the fur trade, would be adopted. jared ingersoll, the future stamp-officer, carried the address to england. there it received praise as an able and temperate state-paper. ingersoll is credited with having succeeded in slightly modifying the stamp act and in postponing somewhat the date for its going into effect. having done what he could to modify the measure, and not appreciating the growth of opposition to it during his absence, he accepted the office of stamp-distributer, and returned to america, where he was straightway undeceived as to the desirability of his office, but made his way from boston to connecticut, hoping for better things. on reaching new haven, he was remonstrated with for accepting his office and urged to give it up. but learning that governor fitch, after mature deliberation, had resolved to take the oath to support the stamp act, and had done so, though seven of his eleven councilors, summoned for the ceremony, had refused to witness the oath, ingersoll decided to push on to hartford. starting alone and on horseback, he rode unmolested through the woods; but as he journeyed through the villages, group after group of stern-looking men, bearing in their hands sticks peeled bare of bark so as to resemble the staves carried by constables, silently joined him, and, later, soldiers and a troop of horse. thus he was escorted into wethersfield, where, virtually a prisoner, he was made to resign his commission. the cavalcade, ever increasing, proceeded with him to hartford, [aa] where he publicly proclaimed his resignation and signed a paper to that effect. everywhere the towns burned him in effigy. everywhere the spirit of indignation and of opposition spread. the "norwich packet" discussed the favored east indian monopolies and the declaratory and revenue acts of parliament. the "connecticut courant" (founded in hartford in ), the "connecticut gazette," the "connecticut journal and new haven post-boy," [ab] and the "new london gazette" encouraged the spirit of resistance. a norwich minister[ ] preached from the text "touch not mine anointed," referring to the people as the "anointed" and arguing that kings, through acts of parliament which take away, infringe, or violate civil rights, touch the "anointed" people in a way forbidden by god. this norwich minister was not alone among the clergy, for the sermons of the three sects, baptist, separatist, and congregational, "connected with one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government and the principles of christianity." the laity of the episcopal church were, as a body, patriots, and so, also, were many of their clergy; but party spirit, roused by the discussion of the episcopate and of their relation to the king, as head of their church as well as head of the state, tended to toryism. from their pulpits was more frequently heard the doctrine of passive obedience. but in all the opposition to the stamp act, in all the preparations for resistance, in the carrying out of non-importation agreements, in the movement that created small factories and home industries to supply the lack of english imports, and later during the struggle for independence, the connecticut colonists, whether congregationalists, patriotic episcopalians, baptists, or separatists, worked as one. toward the separatists, oppressed dissenters yet loyal patriots, there began to be the feeling that some legislative favor should be shown. accordingly the assembly, having them in mind, in passed the law that-- no person in this colony, professing the christian protestant religion, who soberly and conscientiously dissent from the worship and ministry established or approved by the laws of this colony and attend public worship by themselves, shall incur any of the penalties ... for not attending the worship and ministry so established on the lord's day or on account of their meeting together by themselves on said day for the public worship of god in a way agreeable to their consciences. and in october of the same year, it was further decreed that-- all ministers of the gospel that now are or hereafter shall be settled in this colony, during their continuance in the ministry, shall have all their estates lying in the same society as well as in the same town wherein they dwell exempted out of the lists of polls and rateable estates. [ ] but for the separatists to obtain exemption from ecclesiastical taxes for the benefit of the establishment required seven more years of argument and appeal. during the time, they and the baptists continued to increase in favor. the separatist, isaac holly, preached and printed a sermon upholding the boston tea-party. the baptists were so patriotic as to later win from washington his "i recollect with satisfaction that the religious society of which you are members have been throughout america uniformly and almost unanimously the firm friends of civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our glorious revolution." [ ] in , good-will was shown to the suffield baptists by a favorable answer to their memorial to be relieved from illegal fines. in behalf of these baptists, governor trumbull frequently exerted his influence. he also wrote to those of new roxbury, who were in distress as to whether they had complied with the law, assuring them that the act of had done away with the older requirement of a special application to the general assembly for permission to unite in church estate. [ ] notwithstanding such favor, there was still so much injustice that the baptists of stamford wrote, during the rapid increase of the sect through the local revivals of - , that the emigration from connecticut of baptists was because "the maxims of the land do not well suit the genius of our order, and beside, the country is so fully settled, as population increases, the surplusage must go abroad for settlements." among the baptists, the most vigorous champion for mutual toleration and for liberty of conscience was isaac backus, "the father of american baptists," and their first historian. in _an appeal to the public for religious liberty_, boston, , after calling attention to the lack of state provision in massachusetts as well as in connecticut for ecclesiastical prisoners,[ ] he thus defines the limits of spiritual and temporal power:-- and it appears to us that the true difference and exact limits between ecclesiastical and civil government is this. that the church is armed with _light and truth_, to pull down the strongholds of iniquity and to gain souls to christ and into his church to be governed by his rules therein; and again to exclude such from their communion who will not be so governed; while the state is armed with _the sword to guard the peace and to punish those who violate the same_. where they have been confounded together no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued. he proceeds to argue that every one has an equal right to choose his religion, since each one must answer at god's judgment seat for his own choice and his life's acts. consequently, there is no warrant for the making of religious laws and the laying of ecclesiastical taxes. with this premise, it followed that the baptist exemption act of was defective and unjust, in that it demanded certificates; and from this time there began a steadily increasing opposition to the giving of these papers. backus objected to the certificates upon several grounds, chief of which were:-- ( ) because the very nature of such a practice implies an acknowledgement that the civil power has right to set one religious sect up above another.... it is a tacit allowance that they have the right to make laws about such things which we believe in our own conscience they have not. ( ) the scheme we oppose tends to destroy the purity and life of religion. ( ) the custom which they want us to countenance is very hurtful to civil society.... what a temptation then does it not lay for men to contract guilt when temporal advantages are annexed to one persuasion and disadvantages laid upon another? _i.e._, in plain terms, how does it tend to lying hypocrisy and lying? [ ] in all his writings this man pleads the cause of religious liberty, and, whenever possible, he emphasizes the likeness of the struggle of the dissenters for freedom of conscience to that of the colonists for civil liberty, and argues the injustice of wresting thousands of dollars from the baptists for the support of a religion to them distasteful, while they exert themselves to the utmost to win political freedom for all; "with what heart can we support the struggle?" two remarkable little books of some eighty or ninety pages that were issued from the boston press in require a word of notice because of their hearty welcome. two editions were called for within the year, and more than a thousand copies of the second were bespoken before it went to press. they had originally been put forth, the first in , "the churches quarrel espoused: or a reply in satyre to certain proposals made, etc." (the massachusetts "proposals of "), and the second in , "a vindication of the government of the new england churches, drawn from antiquity; light of nature; holy scripture; the noble nature; and from the dignity divine providence has put upon it." in their author, the rev. john wise, a former pastor of the church in ipswich, massachusetts, had been dead for over forty years. in his day, he had regarded the "proposals" as treasonable to the ancient polity of congregationalism, and had attacked what he considered their assumptions, absurdities, and inherent tyranny. his books were forceful in their own day, serving the churches, persuading those of massachusetts to hold to the more democratic system of the cambridge platform, and largely affecting the character of the later polity of the new england churches. the suffering colonist of , smarting under english misrule, turned to the vigorous, clear, and convincing pages wherein john wise set forth the natural rights of men, the quality of political obligation, the relative merits of government, whether monarchies, aristocracies, or democracies, and the well developed concept that civil government should be founded upon a belief in human equality. in his second attempt to defend the cambridge platform, wise had advanced to the proposition that "democracy is christ's government in church and state." [ ] such expositions as these, and those in isaac backus's "the exact limits between civil and ecclesiastical government," published in , and in his "government and liberty described," of , together with the discussion prevalent at the time, and with the logic of the revolutionary events, opened the mind of the people to a clearer conception of liberty of conscience, though their practical application of the notion was deferred. for many years longer, persons had to be content with a toleration that was of itself a contradiction to religious liberty. yet in may, , such toleration was broadened by the "act for exempting those persons in this state, commonly styled separates from taxes for the support of the established ministry and building and repairing meeting houses," on condition that they should annually lodge with the clerk of the established society, wherein they lived, a certificate, vouching for their attendance upon and support of their own form of worship. said certificate was to be signed by the minister, elder, or deacon of the church which "they ordinarily did attend." [ ] israel holly's "an appeal to the impartial, or the censured memorial made public, that it may speak for itself. to which is added a few brief remarks upon a late act of the general assembly of the state of connecticut, entitled an 'act for exempting those persons in this state commonly styled separates, from taxes for the support of the established ministry &c.'" gave in full an "appeal" of eleven separatist churches to the general assembly in may, . that body would not suffer the petition to be read through, stopping the reader in the midst, while some of its members went so far as to declare that "all, who had signed it, ought to be sent for to make answer to the court for their action." but the majority of the legislature were not so intolerant, so that during the session the act above mentioned was passed. holly, in his book, includes with the "appeal" a severe criticism of the new law, and, in quoting the petition, he gives a full explanation of its text as well as the comments of the assembly upon it and their objections to parts of it. when recounting the long struggle for toleration and in detail the persecutions of the suffield separatists, holly dwells upon the fact that before the recent legislation of the assembly, the spirit of fair dealing had in some communities influenced the members of the establishment in their treatment of the separatists. holly also enlarges upon the inconsistency between demanding freedom in temporal affairs from great britain and refusing it in spiritual ones to fellow-citizens. the "censured memorial" closes [ ] with an expressed determination on the part of the separatists to appeal to tte continental congress if the state continue to refuse to do them justice. holly, remarking upon the act of , expresses great dissatisfaction with it as falling short of the liberty desired, and, particularly, with its retention of the certificate clause. such continued agitation of the rights of individuals and of churches eventually created a broader public opinion, one that, permeating the establishment itself, tended to make its ministers resent any great exercise of authority on the part of those among them who clung to the strong presbyterian construction of the saybrook articles. communications upon the subject of religious liberty were to be found in many of the newspapers. two governors of connecticut wrote pamphlets that tended to weaken the hold of the saybrook platform over the people. governor wolcott in wrote against it, and in governor fitch (anonymously) explained away its authoritative interpretation. the term "presbyterian" came to be applied more frequently to the conservative churches of the establishment, and "congregational" to those wherein the new light ideas prevailed. some years later, while the two terms were still used interchangeably, the term "congregational" rose in favor, and, after the revolution, included even the few separatist churches. as for the latter, they had by concluded that with reference "to our baptist brethren we are free to hold occasional communion with such as are regular churches and ... make the christian profession and acknowledge us to be baptized." [ ] for some years these two religious parties attempted to unite in associations, but finding that they disagreed too much on the question of baptism, they mutually decided to give up the attempt, and separated with the greatest respect and good will toward each other. in , the presbyterians refused to meet the separatists in the attempt to devise some plan of union between them, but did advance to the concession "to admit separatists to ordination with the greatest care." [ ] the presbyterians were beginning to realize that if the saybrook platform was to govern the churches of the establishment, its old judicial interpretation must give way. an example of the revolt to be anticipated, if such interpretation were insisted upon, followed the attempt by the consociation of windham in to discipline isaac foster, a presbyterian minister, for "sundry doctrines looked upon as dangerous and contrary to the gospel;" [ac] and a similar attempt to reprove mr. sage of west simsbury drew forth such stirring retorts from isaac foster and from dan foster, minister of windsor (who defended mr. sage), that church after church promptly renounced the saybrook platform. these churches agreed with isaac foster in his declaration of the absolute independence of each church and that-- no clergyman or number of clergymen or ecclesiastical council of whatever denomination have right to make religious creeds, canons or articles of faith and impose them upon any man or church on earth requiring subscription to them.... a church should be the sole judge of its pastor's teachings so long as he teaches nothing _expressly_ contrary to the bible. ... the consociation has no right to pretend that it is a divinely instituted assembly with the saybrook platform for its charter, imposing a tyranny more intolerable on the people than that from which they are trying to free themselves. [ ] the result of all this agitation for liberty of conscience, emphasized by its counterpart in the political life of the state and nation, was that in the first edition of the "laws and acts of the state of connecticut in america," [ad] appearing in , all reference to the saybrook platform was omitted, and all ecclesiastical laws were grouped under the three heads entitled eights of conscience, regulations of societies, and the observation of the sabbath. [ ] under the sunday laws, together with numerous negative commands, was the positive one that every one, who, for any trivial reason, absented himself from public worship on the lord's day should pay a fine of three shillings, or fifty cents. the society regulations remained much the same, with the added privilege that to all religious bodies recognized by law permission was given to manage their, temporal affairs as freely as did the churches of the establishment. dissenters were even permitted to join themselves to religious societies in adjoining states, [ae] provided the place of worship was not too far distant for the connecticut members to regularly attend services. to these terms of toleration was affixed the sole condition of presenting a certificate of membership signed by an officer of the church of which the dissenter was a member, and that the certificate should be lodged with the clerk of the established society wherein the dissenter dwelt. while legislation still favored the establishment, toleration was extended with more honesty and with better grace. all strangers coming into the state were allowed, a choice of religious denominations, but while undecided were to pay taxes to the society lowest on the list. choice was also given for twelve months to resident minors upon their coming of age, and also to widows. in any question, or doubt, the society to which the father, husband, or head of the household belonged, or had belonged, determined the church home of members of the household unless the certificates of all dissenting members were on file. if persons were undecided when the time of choice had elapsed, and they hadjiot presented certificates, they were counted members of the establishment. thus the saybrook platform, no longer appearing upon the law-book, was quietly relegated to the status of a voluntarily accepted ecclesiastical constitution which the different churches might accept, interpreting it with only such degrees of strictness as they chose. consequently, all congregational and presbyterian churches drew together and remained intimately associated with the government as setting forth the form of religion it approved. as toleration was more freely extended, oppression quickly ceased. the smaller and weaker sects [af] that appeared in connecticut after received no such persecution as their predecessors. among them the sandemanians [ag] appeared about , and from the first created considerable interest. the shakers were permitted to form a settlement at enfield in . the universalists began making converts among the separatist churches of norwich as early as . the year saw the organization of the new london seventh-day baptist church, the first of its kind in connecticut. the abrogation of the saybrook platform was implied, not expressed, by dropping it out of the revised laws of . the force of custom, not the repeal of the act of establishment, annulled it. as in the revision of , certain outgrown statutes were quietly sloughed off. after the abrogation of the saybrook system, the orthodox dissenters felt most keenly the humiliation of giving the required certificates, and the favoritism shown by the government towards presbyterian or congregational churches. this favoritism did not confine itself to ecclesiastical affairs, but showed itself by the government's preference for members of the establishment in all civil, judicial, and military offices. if immediately after the revolution this favoritism was not so marked, it quickly developed out of all proportion to justice among fellow-citizens. footnotes: [a] as a petition "to the king's most excellent majesty in council." [b] "shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by law?" [c] the "history" is brief, and the "vindication" is largely of president clap's own reasons for establishing the college church. see f. b. dexter, "president clap and his writings," in _new haven hist. soc. papers_, vol. v, pp. - . [d] "let no man, orders of man, civil or ecclesiastical rulers, majority, or any whoever pretend they have a right to enjoyn upon me what i shall believe and practice in matters of religion, and i bound to subject to their injunctions, unless they can convince me, that in case there should happen to be a mistake, that they will suffer the consequences, and not i; that they will bear the wrath of god, and suffer damnation, in my room and stead. but if they can't do this, don't let them pretend to a right to determine for me what religion i shall have. for if i must stand or fall for myself, then, pray let me judge, and act and choose (in matters of religion) for myself now. yea, when i view these things in the light of the day of judgment approaching, i am ready to cry out hands off! hands off! let none pretend a right to my subjection in matters of religion, but my judge only; or, if any do require it, god strengthen me to refuse to grant it." _a word in zion's behalf._ quoted by e. h. gillett in _hist. magazine,_ d series, vol. iv, p. . [e] _a key to unlock the door, that leads in, to take a fair view of the religious constitution established by law in the colony of connecticut; with a short observation upon the explanation of the say-brook-plan; and mr. hobart's attempt to establish the same plan,_ by ebenezer frothingham. [f] robert bragge, _church discipline_, london, . the author takes for his text peter ii, , and under ten heads considers the congregational church as the true scriptural church, its rights, privileges, etc. under topic four, "the charter of this house," he says: "the charter of this house exempts all its inhabitants from obeying the whole ceremonial law:... from the doctrines of men in matters of faith,... from man's commands in the worship of god. man can no more prescribe how god shall be worshipped, under the new testament than he could under the old.... he alone who is in the bosom of the father hath declared this. to worship god according to the will and pleasure of men is, in a sense to attempt to dethrone him: for it is not only to place man's will on a level with god's, but above it."--_church discipline_, p. . [g] "now suffer me to say something respecting the unreasonableness of compelling the people of our persuasion to hear or support the minister of another. can a person who has been redeemed, be so ungrateful as to hire a minister to preach up a doctrine which in his heart he believes to be directly contrary to the institutions of his redeemer? how if one of you should happen to be in the company with a number of roman catholicks, who should tell you that if you would not hire a minister to preach transubstantiation and the worshipping of images to your children and to an unlearned people, they would cut off your head; would you do it? can you any better submit to hire a minister to preach up a doctrine which you in your heart believe contrary to the institution of christ? i do not doubt but that many of you, and i do not know but that all of you know what it is to experience redeeming love; and if so, now can you take a person of another persuasion, and put him in gaol for a trifling sum, destroy his estate and ruin his family (as you signify the law will bear you out) and when he is careful to support the religion which he in his conscience looks upon to be right, who honestly tells you it is wronging his conscience to pay your minister, and that he may not do so though he suffer?... is it not shame? are we sharers in redemption, and do we grudge to support religion? no: let us seek for the truth of the gospel. if we can't think alike, let us not be cruel one to another." [h] _connecticut gazette_ (new haven) april -apr. , ; suspended; revived july , -feb. , . the _new london gazette_, founded in , was after known as the _ connecticut gazette _, except from dee. , , to may , , when it was called _the connecticut gazette and universal intelligencer_. maryland published her first newspaper in , khode island and sonth carolina in , virginia in , north carolina in , new hampshire in , while georgia fell into line in . [i] edwards's _nature of true virtue_, written about , was not published until . [j] this book, otherwise essentially edwardean, was second only to edwards's _religious affections_ in popularity and in its success in spreading the influence of this school of theology, and it did much, in connecticut, to break down the opposition to the new divinity. edwards himself approved its manuscript, and in his writings recommended it highly. [k] in - , bellamy wrote a series of tracts and dialogues against this practice. they were very effective in causing its abandonment by those conservative churches that had so long clung to its use. [l] experience mayhew in his _grace defended_, of . lemuel briant's _the absurdity and blasphemy of depreciating moral virtue_, . this was replied to in massachusetts, by rev. john porter of north bridgewater in _the absurdity and blasphemy of substituting the personal righteousness of men_, etc.; also by a sermon of rev. thomas foxcroft, dr. charles chauncy's colleague; and by rev. samuel niles's _vindication of divers important gospel doctrines_. jonathan mayhew, son of experience, wrote his _sermons_ (pronouncedly arian) in , and in two sermons, _striving to enter at the strait gate_. other ministers were affected by these unorthodox views, notably ebenezer gay, daniel shute, and john rogers. this religious development was cut short by the early death of the leaders and by the revolutionary contest. briant died in , jonathan mayhew in , and his father in .--see w. walker, _hist. of the congregational churches in the united states_, chap. viii. [m] hopkins replied in to jonathan mayhew's sermons of . mayhew died before he could answer, but moses hemenway of wells, maine, and also jedediah mills of huntington, conn, (a new light sympathizer), answered hopkins's extreme views in in _an inquiry concerning the state of the unregenerate under the gospel_. this involved hopkins in further argumentation in , and drew into the discussion william hart (old light) of saybrook, and also moses mather of darien, conn, (also old light). this attack upon hopkins resulted in in his greatest work, _an inquiry into the nature of true holiness_. the whole question at stake between the old calvinists and the followers of the new divinity was how to class men, morally upright, who made no pretensions to religious experience. [n] west, in his _essay on moral agency_, defended edwards's _freedom of the will_ against the rev. james dana of new haven in , but his _scripture doctrine of atonement_, published in , was his best-known work. in his doctrinal views, he was greatly influenced by hopkins. both west and smalley trained students for the ministry. the latter was the teacher of nathaniel emmons. smalley was settled in what is now new britain, conn., from - . [o] emmons died there, in , at the age of ninety-five. apart from his influence upon the development of doctrine, he did more than any other man to bring back the early independence of the churches and to create the congregational polity of the present day. [p] to fortify their position, this party cited various acts of parliament and the act of union, , wherein scotland is distinctly released from subjection to the church of england,--an exemption, they maintained, that had never formally been extended to the colonies. [q] on january , , jonathan mayhew preached a forceful sermon upon the danger of being "unmercifully priest-ridden." [r] rev. east apthorpe, s. p. g. missionary at cambridge, mass., had replied to a newspaper criticism upon the policy of the society for propagating the gospel in new england, in his _considerations on the institutions and conduct of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts_. jonathan mayhew published in answer his _observations on the character and conduct of the society_, censuring the society not only for intruding itself into new england, but for being the champion of the proposed episcopate, which he denounced. this was in . for two years the controversy raged. there were four replies to mayhew. two were unimportant, a third presumably from rev. henry caner, and the fourth, _answer to the observations_, an anonymous english production, really by archbishop seeker. mayhew wrote a _defense_, and apthorpe summed up the whole controversy in his _review_.--a. l. cross, _anglican episcopate_, p. _et seq._; footnote , p. . [s] john adams's _works_, x, . [t] dr. charles chauney attacked the s. p. g. as endeavoring to increase their power, not to proselytize among the indians, but to episcopize the colonists. dr. chandler, of elizabethtown, n. j., replied in _an appeal to the public_. chauney retorted with _the appeal answered_, and chandler with _the appeal defended_. the newspapers of - took up the controversy. [u] in , dr. johnson in a letter to governor trumbull assured him that "it is not intended, at present, to send any bishops into the american colonies,... and should it be done at all, you may be assured that it will be done in such manner as in no degree to prejudice, nor if possible even give the least offense to any denomination of protestants."--e. e. beardsley, _hist, of the epis. church in conn._, i, . [v] there were nine clergymen from connecticut, and twenty-five from new york and vicinity. [w] the association had sent petitions in behalf of the baptists to the legislatures of massachusetts and connecticut. both were refused. for its circular letter of , see hovey's _life of backus_, p. ; also p. . [x] this year the royal society awarded him the copley medal for his discovery that lightning was a discharge of electricity. in the medal of the royal society was also awarded to the rev. jared eliot of killingworth, conn., for making iron and steel from black ferruginous sand. [y] john trumbull, b. , d. in michigan, ; joel barlow, b. , d. in poland, ; gen. david humphreys, b. , d. in new haven, . these yale men, together with dr. lemuel hopkins, were the leadjng spirits in the club known as "the hartford wits." dr. dwight was a fellow collegian with them. trumbull and dwight did much to interest the students in literature. the latter was also tutor in rhetoric and professor of belles-lettres and oratory. [z] conn. col. rec. xii, appendix. this was drawn up by the governor and three members of the general assembly, may, . [aa] with grim humor, he turned to one of his escort, saying that he at last realized the description in revelation of "death riding a white horse and hell following behind." [ab] the latter half of the title was omitted about . [ac] foster replied: "one man is not to be called a 'heretick,' purely because he differs from another, as to the articles of faith. for either we should all be 'hereticks' or there would be no 'heresy' among us.... heresy does not consist in opinion or sentiments: it is not an error of head but of will."--foster, _a defense of religious liberty_, p. . [ad] this revision of the laws was in charge of roger sherman and richard law. [ae] quakers and baptists frequently crossed the state line to attend services in rhode island. [af] there was only an occasional romanist; unitarians first took their sectarian name in ; universalists were few in number until the second quarter of the new century. [ag] this sect received its name from robert sandeman, the son-in-law of its founder, the rev. john glass of scotland. sandeman published their doctrines about . in , he left scotland and came to america, where he began making converts near boston, in other parts of new england, and in nova scotia. he died at danbury, connecticut, . the members of the sect are called glassites in scotland, where the rev. john glass labored. he died there in . see w. walker, in _american hist. assoc. annual report_, , vol. i. chapter xii connecticut at the close of the revolution the piping times of peace. during the fifteen years following the ratification of the constitution of the united states by connecticut, january , , no conspicuous events mark her history. these years were for the most part years of quiet growth and of expansion in all directions, and, because of this steady advancement, she was soon known as "the land of steady habits" and of general prosperity. even in the dark days of the revolution, connecticut's energetic people had continued to populate her waste places, and had carved out new towns from old townships,--for the last of the original plats had been marked off in . in - , the state laid out five towns; from to , twenty-one,--twelve of them in one year, . [a] tolland county was divided off in as windham had been in , litchfield in , and middlesex in . these, with, the four original counties of fairfield, new haven, hartford, and new london, made the present eight counties of the state. the cities of hartford, new haven, new london, middletown, and norwich were incorporated in . they were scarcely more than villages of to-day, for new haven approximated , inhabitants, and hartford, as late as , only , . the litchfield of the post-revolutionary days, ranking, as a trade-centre, fourth in the state, was as familiar with indians in her streets as the milwaukee of the late fifties, and "out west" was no farther in miles than the connecticut reserve of , , acres in ohio which, in , the state had reserved, when ceding her western lands to the new nation. thither emigration was turning, since its check on the susquehanna and delaware by the award, in , to pennsylvania of the contested jurisdiction over those lands, and of the little town of westmoreland, which the yankees had built there. [b] after the decision new settlements were discouraged by the bitter feuds between the connecticut and pennsylvanian claimants to the land. the revolution had left connecticut exhausted in men and in means. her largest seaboard towns had suffered severely. with her commerce and coasting trade almost destroyed, she found herself, during the period preceding the adoption of the national constitution and the establishment of the revenue system, a prey to new york's need on the one hand and to massachusetts' sense of impoverishment on the other; and thus, for every article imported through either state, connecticut paid an impost tax. it was estimated that she thus provided one third of the cost of government for each of her neighbors. consequently she attempted to reinstate and to enlarge her early though limited commerce, and was soon sending cargoes, preëminently of the field and pasture, [c] to exchange for west india commodities, while with her larger vessels she developed an east indian trade. as another means to wealth, the state, in , passed laws for the encouragement of the small factories [d] that the necessity of the war had created; but it was not until after the act of , creating the joint-stock companies, that connecticut turned from a purely agricultural community to the great manufacturing state we know to-day. she shared in the national prosperity, which, as early as , proved the wisdom of hamilton's financial policy, and about her citizens wisely bent themselves to the improvement of internal communication. this was the era of the development of the turnpike and of the multiplicity of stage-lines. kegular stages plied between the larger cities. yet up to there was not a post-office or a mail route in litchfield county, and the "monitor" was started as a weekly paper to circulate the news. in litchfield had a fortnightly carrier to new york and a weekly one to hartford, while communication with the second capital [e] of the state was frequent. from , there was a daily stage to hartford, new haven, norwalk, poughkeepsie, and albany. [ ] wagons and carriages began to multiply and to replace saddle-bags and pillions, yet as late as litchfield town had only "one phaeton, one coachee, and forty-six two-wheeled pleasure-wagons." [ ] towns continued to commend and encourage good public schools. every town or parish of seventy families had to keep school eleven months of the year, and those of less population for at least six months. private schools and academies sprang up. [f] harvard and yale, as the best equipped of the new england colleges, competed for its young men, and drew others from the central and southern sections of the nation. neither had either divinity or law school. [g] young men after completing their college course usually went to some famous minister for graduate training. rev. joseph bellamy, john smalley, and jonathan edwards, junior, were the foremost teachers in connecticut, though the first-named had ceased his active work in . [h] the new divinity was very slowly spreading. even as late as , president stiles of yale declared that none of the churches had accepted it. [i] this versatile minister interested himself in languages, literatures, natural science, and in all religions, as well as in the phases of new england theology. he esteemed piety and sound doctrine, whether in old or new divinity men, and welcomed to his communion all of good conscience who belonged to any christian protestant sect. he was liberal-minded and tolerant beyond the average of his colleagues. his tolerance, however, was more for the old calvinistic principles in the new divinity, and not for its advanced features, for which he had little regard. president stiles held very firmly to the belief that his ministerial privileges and authority remained with him after he became president of the college, although he was no longer pastor by the election of a particular church. the first law school in america was established in litchfield in by judge tappan reeve, later chief justice of connecticut. he associated with him in judge james gould. "judge keeve loved law as a science and studied it philosophically." he wished "to reduce it to a system, for he considered it as a practical application of moral and religious principles to business life." his students were drilled in the study of the constitution of the united states and on the current legislation in congress. under judge gould, the common law was expounded methodically and lucidly, as it could be only by one who knew its principles and their underlying reasons from _a_ to _z_. [ ] in , ephraim kirby of litchfield published the first law reports ever issued in the united states. [j] law students from many states were attracted to the town. the roll of the school, kept regularly only after , included over one thousand lawyers, among them one vice-president of the united states, several foreign ministers, five cabinet ministers, [k] two justices of the united states supreme court, ten governors of states, sixteen united states senators, fifty members of congress, forty judges of the higher state courts, and eight chief justices of the state. [ ] among connecticut towns, the two capitals of the state were also literary centres, while norwich, new haven, and new london were fast becoming commercial ports. middletown soon had considerable coasting trade. wethersfield had vessels of her own. even saybrook and milford sent a few vessels to the west and east indies. farmington was a big trading centre, shipping produce abroad and importing in vessels of her own that sailed from wethersfield or new haven. some few towns developed a special industry, like berlin and new britain, that made the connecticut tin-peddler a familiar figure even in the middle and southern states. there were also several towns with large shipyards, where some of the largest ships were built. but back of all such centres of activity, the whole state was solidly agricultural. connecticut's commerce was an import commerce exchanging natural products for foreign ones, such as sugar, coffee, and molasses from the west indies; tea and luxuries from the east; and obtaining, either directly or indirectly, from europe, all the fine manufactured products, whether stuffs for personal use or tools for labor. in measuring the prosperity and intelligence of the connecticut people neither the parish library nor the newspaper must be overlooked. "i am acquainted," wrote noah webster in , "with parishes where almost every householder, has read the works of addison, sherlock, atterbury, watts, young, and other familiar writings: and will conversely handsomely on the subjects of which they treat." [ ] "by means of the general circulation of the public papers," wrote the same author, "the people are informed of all political affairs; and their representatives are often prepared to debate upon propositions made in the legislature." [ ] through the agricultural communities of connecticut, as well as in the towns, the weekly newspapers of the state began to circulate freely as soon as carriers or mail routes were established. even by there was in connecticut a newspaper circulation of over weekly copies, which was equal to that published in the whole territory south of philadelphia. [ ] these papers lacked locals and leaders, leaving the former to current gossip, and for the latter substituting, to some extent, letters and correspondence. the newspapers gave foreign news three months old, the proceedings of congress in from ten to twelve days after their occurrence, and news from the connecticut elections three weeks late. subjects relating to religion and politics were heard _pro_ and _con_ in articles, or rather letters, signed with grandiloquent pseudonyms and frequently marked "papers, please copy" in order to secure for them a larger public. fantastic bits of natural science, or what purported to be such, and stilted admonitions to virtue, as well as poems, eulogies, and obituaries, were admitted to the columns of these colonial papers. in , the "connecticut courant" apologized for its meagre reports of legislative proceedings, especially of those of the upper house, council, or senate, and promised to give full details. this reporting was a new thing, and it was fully five years more before the practice became general among the half dozen papers published in connecticut. [l] space was also given in the papers to the reproduction of selections, even whole chapters, from current and popular writers. among such letters was a series on "the establishment of the worship of the deity essential to national happiness." in one of the letters, the author suggests:-- to secure the advantages ... allow me to propose _a general and equitable tax collected from all the rateable members of a state, for the support of the public teachers of religion, of all denominations, within the state...._ let a moderate poll tax be added to a tax of a specified sum on the pound, and levied on all the subjects of a state and collected with the public tax, and paid out to the public teachers of religion of the several denominations in proportion to the number of polls or families, belonging to each respectively; or according to their estimates. [for] . it would be equitable. . it would be for the good order of the civil state. . all ought to contribute to such a religious education of the people as would conduce to civil order. . it would promote the peace in towns and societies. . it would do away with the legal expenses consequent upon difficulties in collecting rates. . it would "extinguish the ardor of the founders of new delusions and their weak and mercenary abettors." . it would prevent separation except upon the firmest principles; "the powerful motive of saving a penny or two in the pound, would cease to operate, because their tax would continue still the same, go where they will." [ ] it was also suggested that the assembly should fix ministers' salaries at so much per hundred families, and that congregations should be permitted to add to the annual grant by voluntary contributions. these are but examples of the reaching out of the public mind for some equitable method of enforcing the support of public worship,--a principle to which the majority still adhered. the laws of the state of connecticut, under which after the revolution parishes were organized, contained no reference to the episcopal church as such. all societies and congregations were placed on the same footing precisely, _i.e._, they "had power to provide for the support of public worship by the rent or sale of pews or slips in the meeting-house, by the establishment of funds, or in any other way they might deem expedient." with this amount of freedom episcopalians were content, since by the consecration, in , of samuel seabury, bishop of connecticut, their ecclesiastical equipment was complete.[m] further, many of them had been tories, and, satisfied with the clemency shown them at the close of the war by the authorities, they gladly affiliated with them in all federal measures of national importance, and also, for over thirty years, in all local issues. from to there was throughout the united states a general disintegration of political parties. [ ] federalists and nascent anti-federalists were alike seeking some basis for a safe national existence. the constitution once established, political parties differentiated themselves as the party in power and the "out-party" developed their respective interpretations of the constitution and of measures permitted under it. the anti-federalist party in connecticut is sometimes said to have been born in out of opposition both to the commutation act of the continental congress, voting five years' full pay instead of half-pay for life to the revolutionary officers, and to the formation of the cincinnati. both of these measures touched the main spring of party difference. america had caste as well as europe. though of a different type, it existed in every town and county. there were the people of position, attained by family standing, professional prominence, superior intelligence (rarely by wealth alone), and then, as now, by natural leadership. there were the common people of ordinary abilities and meagre possessions, who looked up to this first class. between the two there was an invisible barrier. the customs of the day emphasized it. yet the institutions of the land and its democracy demanded that this barrier, not impassable to men of parts and character who could push up from the masses, should never become insurmountable, as it often did under a monarchy; that it should be steadily leveled by intrusting the governing power more and more to the whole people, rather than to a few leaders; and by educating the masses up to their responsibilities. but many of the leading federalists preferred to concentrate power in the hands of the few, hesitating to trust the judgment of the great body of citizens with the new and novel government. and to the people at large any measure that bore a remote resemblance to monarchical institutions or monarchical aspirations--however far remote from either--was subject to suspicion and antagonism. the cincinnati might be the beginning of a nobility, and half-pay or five years' full pay to the officers ignored the common soldiery who had done most of the fighting, and who had suffered even more severely in their fortunes.[n] when the measures of the first congress pressed hardest upon the impoverished landed proprietors of the south and upon the small farmers in other sections, of the country, they welded the landed aristocracy of the south and the democracy of the north into the anti-federal party. add to their sense of impoverishment, their common hatred of england, and these classes would hold their prejudice longer than the merchants, the lawyers, and the clergy, whose business, studies, and labors would tend to soften the antagonism created by the war. new england, however, was largely federal, and connecticut was one of the strongholds of that party, priding herself upon returning federal electors as long as there was the shadow of the federal name to vote for. moreover, the "presbyterian consociated congregational church" and the federalists were so closely allied that the party of the government and the party of the establishment were familiarly and collectively known as the "standing order." during the early years of statehood, by far the larger number of the dissenters were also good federalists. but they drew away from the party at a later date, when the democratic-republicans began, in their connecticut state politics, to call for a broader suffrage and full religious liberty, while the federal standing order still continued to claim, as within its patronage, legal favors, political office, and the honors of judicial, military, and civil life. after the revolution, the rapidly increasing baptists continued their warfare waged against certificates and in behalf of religious liberty. methodists soon sympathized, for methodist itinerants, entering connecticut in , gained a footing, in spite of much opposition and real oppression through fines and imprisonments, [o] and quickly made many converts. their preachers urged upon penurious and backward members the importance of voluntary support of the gospel in almost the same words as those of the baptist leader: "it is as real _robbery_ to neglect the _ordinances_ of god, as it is to force people to support preachers who will not trust his influence for a temporal living." [ ] baptists, methodists, and many other dissenters were far from satisfied with their status, and the government from time to time was forced to take notice of the dissatisfaction. temporary legislation was enacted to allay the unrest, but, as there was a settled determination to protect the establishment and to keep the political leadership among its friends, the various measures were not successful. for instance, the legislature in - had arranged for the sale of the western lands and for the money expected from their sale to be divided among the various christian bodies, and it had also enacted-- that there shall be reserved to the public five hundred acres of land in each township for the support of the gospel ministry and five hundred acres more for the support of schools in such towns forever; and two hundred and forty acres of good ground in each town to be granted in fee simple to the first gospel minister who shall settle in such town. [ ] nothing is here said of the presbyterians, or of any other sect, yet that denomination was sure to receive the greater benefit under the working of the law. they were a wealthy body, and in the next year, they began, under the general association of connecticut, to renew their earlier efforts for an organized planting of missions. attempts to establish missionary posts were begun as early as , but they had been interrupted by the war, and were not revived until , when two missionaries were sent to vermont. after a little, the missionary spirit languished through lack of support; but interest had been roused again by the promised lands and money from the sales in the western reserve, and by the contributions that, flowing in from to , warranted the dispatch of missionaries into the western field in , and regularly thereafter. [ ] turning to the religious and more strictly theological side of the development of toleration, there was within the establishment itself a gradual modification of opinion concerning membership. it was witnessed to by the contents of a book entitled "christian forbearance to weak consciences a duty of the gospel," by john lewis of stepney parish, wethersfield. it was sent out in for the purpose of "attempting to prove that persons, absenting themselves from the lord's table, through honest scruples of conscience, is not such a breach of covenant but that they partake other privileges." one may recall that twenty years previous, - , dr. bellamy was thundering not only against the half-way covenant, but also against the stoddardean view of the lord's supper as a "means" of grace,--as a sacrament the partaking of which would help unworthy or unconverted men to conversion and to the leading of moral and holy lives. one might, for a moment, anticipate that the wethersfield pastor was harking back to the old idea. but this was not his point of view. "i reprobate," he writes,"the idea of a half-way covenant, or sealing of such a covenant." [ ] lewis contended that all seekers after holiness were to enter the church through the "very same covenant," but that to all of them were to be extended the same and all church privileges, and that they were to accept them "as far as in their conscience they can see their way clear, hoping for further light." if they could accept baptism and church oversight, and could not, because of honest scruples of conscience (lest they were not worthy), approach the lord's table, they were not for that reason to be considered reprobates. as to such charity opening a way for persons of immoral lives to creep into the churches or to put off willfully the partaking of communion, the author's experience of many years had proved the contrary, though he could not deny that the possibility of hypocrisy and backsliding might exist under any form of membership. as a side light upon the growth of toleration during twenty years within the churches of the establishment, two entries in president stiles's diary may be quoted. writing in , to the rev. noah wells of stamford, conn., with reference to the call of the rev. samuel hopkins to a pastorate in newport, r. i., where dr. stiles was then preaching, the latter says: "if i find him (hopkins) of a disposition to live in an honorable friendship, i shall gladly cultivate it. but he must not expect that i recede from my sentiments both in theology and ecclesiastical polity more than he from his, in which i presume he is immovably fixed. we shall certainly differ in some things. i shall endeavor to my utmost to live with him as a brother; as i think (it) dishonorable that in almost every populous place on this continent, where there are two or more presb.[yterian] or cong.[regational] chhs. [churches], they should be at greater variance than prot. [estants] and romanists: witness every city or town from georgia to nova scotia (except portsm'th) [p] where there are more presb. chhs than one. the wound is well nigh healed here, may it not break out again." [ ] writing some two years after the appearance of lewis's book, president stiles, commenting upon the fact that each dissenting sect was so absolutely sure that it alone had the only perfect type of faith and polity, notes the greater tolerance among the congregational churches, for the latter were not as a rule close communion churches, as were those of the dissenting sects. indeed, the intolerance shown towards dissenters was by this time not so much sectarian, not so much a lack of tolerance toward slightly varying fundamentals of faith, form of worship, and organization, as an intolerance based upon the conviction that the body politic must be protected by a state church. there was, of course, a little of the exasperating sense of superiority in belonging to the favored establishment. the old objection to dissent as heresy--as a sin for which the community was responsible--had for the most part given way to opposition to it as introducing a system of voluntary contributions for the support of religion. and there was a very general and well-defined fear that such a support would prove inadequate. if so, deterioration of the state and of its people would follow. for individual worth and character, many among the dissenters were highly respected, and the great body of them were esteemed good citizens. among the churches, some few of the established ones were beginning to have their own services occasionally conducted by dissenting ministers. the first society of canterbury entered a vote to this effect in . as the churches translated more liberally the articles of the saybrook platform, they approached a polity more in common with that of separatist and baptist. by , the teachings of john wise of ipswich, reinforced by those of nathaniel emmons, "the father of modern congregationalism," had permeated all new england. wise, in his efforts to revive the independence of the single churches, had exploded the barrowism which new england usage had introduced into original congregationalism, and the rebound had carried the churches as far beyond the cambridge platform towards original brownism as the presbyterian movement had carried their polity away from the cambridge instrument. the later edwardean school had devoted itself to the discussion of doctrine rather than to polity, and, in the alliance with presbyterianism outside of connecticut, it had affiliated without attaching much weight to differences in church government. their common interest, at first, was to unite against a possible supremacy of the church of england, and against the danger to their own churches and to good government from the increase of dissenters. later, their united efforts were directed to forwarding christian missions in order that the gospel might not be left out of the civilization on the frontier. in this later work, they had competitors as soon as the baptists and methodists became strongly organized bodies. accordingly presbyterians and congregationalists still further sank their differences of discipline in the plan of union of , formed for the furtherance of the mission work. thus it was many years before questions of polity again took front rank in the congregational churches. already their very indifference to it, the long years of the gradual abandonment of the saybrook system, together with the development in civil life of a broader conception of humanity, had tended to bring back the independence of the individual church, while custom had preserved the inroojted principle of church-fellowship. it needed only nathaniel emmons to embody practice and opinion in a system that should break away from the aristocratic congregationalism, the semi-presbyterianized congregationalism of the eighteenth century, and give to the nineteenth a democracy in the church equivalent to that in the state. emmons, however, carried his theory to extremes [q] when opposing ministerial associations; yet with some modifications modern congregationalism is essentially that of his school. church polity, however, did not become a topic of general interest for at least half a century more, nor was it formulated anew until the albany convention of passed "upon the local work and responsibility of a congregational church." from the politico-ecclesiastical point of view, the legislative measures in the history of connecticut, during the fifteen years after the colony became a state, that are of chief importance are the certificate laws and western land bills. in order to properly appreciate their significance this summary of the industrial, social, and religious life of the connecticut people during the years following the revolution was necessary. footnotes: [a] five towns were laid out in ; from to , twenty-one in all; from to , ten; and from to , eleven.--hollister, _hist, of connecticut_, pp. - . [b] of the seven hundred members of the susquehanna land company, formed in , six hundred and thirty-eight were connecticut men. a summer settlement was made on the delaware in and on the susquehanna in . the first permanent settlement was in . at the close of the revolution, renewed attempts to colonize resulted in a reign of lawlessness and bloodshed. [c] horses, cattle, beef, pork, stages, flour, grain. during the european wars, the united states exported foodstuffs in great quantities, to feed both french and english armies, amounting to over , men. [d] president stiles was interested in silk culture and in the manufacture of silk. his commencement gown in was of connecticut make. through the efforts of general humphreys ( - ) attempts were made to introduce the spanish merino sheep and to establish factories for fine broadcloth. iron works were set up in different parts of the state. the earliest cotton factories centred about pomfret. clocks, watches, cut shingle-nails, paper, stone, and earthenware pottery, were among the manufactures started in norwalk between and , while in windham, hosiery, silk and tacks were manufactured. [e] in the general court enacted that the may session of the legislature should be held at new haven, and the october one at hartford. this was a concession to the former sovereignty of the new haven colony. the arrangement continued until . the biennial sessions, introduced by the constitution of , alternated between the two capitols. [f] "mr. dwight is enlarging hia school to comprehend the ladies, ... promising to carry them through a course of belles lettres, geography, philosophy, and astronomy. the spirit for academy making is vigorous."--_stiles diary_, iii, . of the academies, the more famous were lebanon, plainfield, greenfield (under dr. dwight), norwich, windham, waterbury (for both sexes), and stratfield from to . there was also a second school in norwich from to . see _stiles diary_, iii, . [g] harvard divinity school was established ; yale, . previously both universities had each a professor of divinity. [h] "for three years and three months before his [bellamy's] death he was disabled by a paralytic shock, we impaired his intellect as well as debilitated his body. few were equal to him in the desk & he was communicative and instructive in conversation upon religious subjects." the passage closes with the prophecy, "his numerous noisy writings have blazed their day, and one generation more will put them to sleep."--_stiles diary_, march , (on hearing the news of bellamy's death). see vol. iii, pp. - . see trumbull, ii, , for a more favorable opinion. [i] referring to the successor of dr. wales in the yale chair of divinity, pres. stiles wrote, "an old divinity man will be acceptable to all the old divy. _ministers & to all the churches_: a new divt man will be acceptable to all the new divy. ministers and to _none of the churches_, as none of the chhs. in new engl. are new divt."--_stiles diary_, iii, , note (sept. , ). see also under date of nov. , , where churches are said to take new divinity pastors "because they can get no others, but persons in the parish know nothing of the new theology." [j] "law reports of the superior and supreme courts, - , by e. kirby. just published at this office and ready for subscribers and gentlemen disposed to purchase, for which most kinds of country produce will be received."--advertisement in _litchfield monitor_ of apr. , . [k] calhoun, woodbury, mason, clayton, and hubbard. judge reeve retired in ; judge gould in . [l] reporters were admitted to the national house of representatives in and to the senate in . [m] bishop seabnry was consecrated by the scotch non-juring bishops, nov. , . the latter, about four years later, were restored to their position as an integral part of the anglican hierarchy. meanwhile, dr. samuel provoost of new york and dr. william white of pennsylvania, on feb. , , were consecrated by the archbishops of canterbury and york, assisted by the bishops of wells and peterborough, after a special act of parliament permitting the consecration to take place without the usual oaths of allegiance to the king as head of the church. in , bishop seabury became president of the house of bishops thus formed in america. the following year, james madison of virginia was consecrated by the english bishops, thus giving to the united states three bishops after the english succession, so that the validity of the scottish rite should hot be questioned in the consecration of future american bishops. [n] the eighty dollars proposed for privates would not go far toward mending broken fortunes, or care for broken constitutions and crippled bodies. at the middletown convention, sept. , , delegates from hartford, wethersfield, and glastonbury met to denounce the commutation act. at its adjourned meeting on sept. fifty towns, a majority in the state, disapproved the act in an address to the general assembly, and called attention to the society of the cincinnati. at the last meeting, march, , an address to the people of the state was framed which condemned both the commutation act and the cincinnati.-- j. h. trumbull, _notes on the constitution_, p. . noah webster, _history of the parties in the united states_, pp. - . [o] methodism was twenty-eight years old, when, in , robert strawbridge introduced it into new york, and philip embury preached his first sermon in a sail-loft. in , francis asbury, later bishop asbury, was appointed john wesley's "assistant" in america. in , the first annual conference was held. methodism rapidly spread in the middle and southern states. by the year - , the year's increase in members was nine hundred and thirteen; in - , ten hundred and seventy-three. the preachers traveled on foot or on horseback, preaching as they went; living on the smallest allowance; sleeping where night overtook them; and meeting often with grudging hospitality, suspicion, and, sometimes, open violence. methodism "began when episcopacy was at its lowest point, both in efficiency, and in the good-will of the people." it agreed with jonathan edwards on the nature of personal religion, and separated from the church of england in this, the methodist's central principle of "conscious conversion" or "emotional experience." later in new england, wesley's missionaries united in methodist societies many of the converts to the edwardean theology. at the opening of the revolution, the whole body of methodists were within the church of england. of the english missionaries only asbury, dempster, and wharcott remained in america to carry on, with native preachers, the work of proselytizing. it was "the only form of religion that advanced in america during that dark period, and during the war, it more than quadrupled both its ministry and members." at the beginning of the war, it had eighty traveling preachers, beside local preachers and exhorters; a membership of one thousand, and auditors ten thousand. in , there was a year's increase of fourteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight members, and of one hundred and four preachers to rejoice in the consecration of bishop asbury. in the november of that year, bishops coke and asbury, organizing the "american episcopal church," in spite of wesley's anathemas probably led out one hundred thousand souls as the nucleus of the new church. for a while the connecticut authorities refused to recognize "as sober dissenters" any converts other than the stationed preachers and their charges. the persecutions which the methodists suffered were those of slander, the refusal to them of halls, churches, or public buildings; the refusal to permit their ministers, unless located, to perform the marriage ceremony; and petty fines, with occasional unjust imprisonment. [p] portsmouth, n. h. [q] "a pure democracy which places every member of the church upon a level and gives him perfect liberty with order." under such a definition of a church as this, its pastor becomes only a moderator at its meetings, and every church is absolutely independent. it would follow that from its decisions there could be no appeal. emmons was fond of declaring that "association leads to consociation; consociation leads to presbyterianism; presbyterianism leads to episcopacy; episcopacy to roman catholicism, and roman catholicism is an ultimate fact." in spite of his teaching as to democracy, emmons was as intolerant of it in the state as he was earnest for it in the church. chapter xiii certificate laws and western land bills and make the bounds of freedom wider yet.--alfred tennyson. the legal recognition of conscience, the acknowledgment of fundamental dogmas held in common, the gradual approachment of the various religious organizations in polity, their common interest in education and good government, would seem to furnish grounds for such mutual esteem that the government would willingly do away with the objectionable certificates. on the contrary, the old conception of a state church, and of its value to the body politic, was so strongly intrenched in the hearts of the majority of the people that they felt it incumbent upon them to require the certificates as guarantees that those who were without the establishment were fulfilling their religious duties. particularly was this the case when new sects continued to increase and radical opinions to spread among the masses. and as the government saw these apparently destructive ideas permeating the people, it endeavored, rather unwisely, to hem dissent in closer bounds, and to favor still more cougregationalists and presbyterian-congregationalists. the aggressively successful proselytizing by the methodists revived the old dislike of rash exhorters and itinerant preachers, and the old contempt for an ignorant and unlearned ministry. the proselytizing movement had also created a suspicion that it was hypocritical, and that it was masking a deliberate attempt to undermine the establishment. outside this methodist propaganda there were also all sorts of unorthodox ideas that were spreading notions of universalism, arianism, deism, atheism, and freethinking, and making many converts. these proselytes were frequent among the untutored and irresponsible members of society who caught at the doctrines of greater freedom, and sometimes translated them, theoretically at least, into principles of greater personal license; and where they did not do this, the authorities felt sure that they would soon, and if unrestrained by ecclesiastical law, would quickly become lawless, first in religious affairs and then, as a consequence, in moral ones. not only in this radical class, but among the recognized dissenters and among a minority of other, religious folk, there was a tendency to question both the authority and the justice of the government in its restrictive religious laws, its ecclesiastical taxation, and its sabbath-day legislation. particularly was there opposition to the fine for absence from public worship on sunday, unless excused by weighty reasons, and to the assessment upon every one of a tax for the support of some form of recognized public worship, even though the tax-payer had no personal interest or liking for that which he was obliged to support. the feeling that such injustice ought not to continue was strong among some members of the establishment. they found a powerful advocate in judge zephaniah swift of windham, the author of the "system of the laws of the state of connecticut." judge swift was a thorough-going federalist, but so bitter an opponent of the union of church and state that his enemies, and even members of his own party, taunted him with being a freethinker,--a serious charge in those days. nevertheless, judge swift held the loyalty of a county and of one rather tolerant of dissent. "the phenix or windham herald," founded in , though federal in politics, became judge swift's organ; and so acceptable were his opinions, taken all in all, to the community, that from to it returned this arch-enemy of the establishment as its deputy to the house, and then his congressional district honored him with a seat in the national council until . he became chief justice in , and died in , having lived to see the charter constitution set aside and church and state divorced. the small anti-federal party in the state, though making but very few converts at this time, and though of very little importance politically, were the pronounced advocates of a wider suffrage, a larger tolerance, and of radical changes in the method of government. the last they believed necessary before any great improvement in the terms of the franchise or in those of religious toleration could be secured. "an address to the baptists, quakers, rogerines, and all other denominations of christians in connecticut, freed by law from supporting what has been called the 'established religion,'" went the rounds of the newspapers urging continued resistance to the support of any religious system that enforced a tax. the "address" closed with the cheerful prediction that, as their numbers were increasing very rapidly, they might hope yet "to carry the vote against those who have put on haughty airs and affected to treat us as their inferiors." such seething opposition among various classes induced the government to enact some special legislation; but it was unfortunately not of a conciliatory character. in may, , a law was passed varying the old requirement that certificates, after being signed by a church officer, should be lodged with the society clerk, to the demand that they be signed by two civil officers, or, where there was only one, by the justice of the peace of the town in which the dissenter lived. considering that the justices were mostly congregationalists, the enactment amounted to an intrenchment of the standing order at the expense of the dissenters. with these officers lay full power to pass upon the validity of the certificates and upon the honesty of intent on the part of the persons presenting them. the certificates read:-- we have examined the claim of ---- who says he is a dissenter from the established society of ---- and hath joined himself to a church or congregation of the name of ----; and that he ordinarily attends upon the public worship of such church or congregation; and that he contributes his share and proportion toward supporting the public worship and ministry thereof, do upon examination find that the above facts are true. dated justice of the peace. [ ] a veritable doubt, spite, malice, prejudice, or mistaken zeal, might determine the granting of the certificate to the dissenter. the authorities defended this measure upon the ground that it was the _civil_ effect of preaching that gives the _civil_ magistrate jurisdiction. "the law," they said, "has nothing to do with _conscience_ and _principles_." [ ] they further declared that there were persons who were taking undue advantage of the certificate exemptions, and that there were good reasons, to doubt the validity of many of the certificates. this certificate act roused the dissenters throughout the state. "in public society meetings and in speaking universal abroad, sensible that their numbers though scattered were large," they strove to create a sentiment that should send to the next legislature a "body of representatives who would remember their petition and see that equal religious liberty should be established." in regard to the certificates, a writer in the "courant" exclaims:-- it is sometimes said that the giving of a certificate once a year or once in a man's life is but a trifle, and none but the obstinate will refuse it as none but the covetous desire it. true it is but a trifle--ten times as much would be but a trifle if it was right. if it must be done, let them who plead for it do the little trifle; they have no scruples of conscience about it.... the certificate law is as much worse than the tax on tea as religious fetters are worse than civil. [ ] the rev. john leland's "the rights of conscience inalienable; therefore religious opinions not cognizable by law; or the high flying churchman, stript of his legal robe appears a yaho" was a powerful arraignment of the government and defense of the right of all to worship as conscience bade them. leland had recently come from virginia and settled in new london. in the southern state he had been one of the most influential among the baptist ministers and a great power in politics. in virginia he had seen the separation of church and state in , and had witnessed the benefits following that policy. after the publication of his "rights of conscience" the question before the connecticut people became one of establishment or disestablishment, because leland, not content with showing the falsity of the position that civil necessities required an established church, or with a logical demonstration of the inalienable rights of conscience, proceeded to boldly attack the charter of charles ii as being in no rightful sense the constitution of the state of connecticut. he maintained that, "constitution" though it was called, it was not such, because it had been enforced upon the people by a mere vote of the legislature [a] and was a "constitution" never "assented to further than passive obedience and non resistance" by the people at large; a constitution-- contrary to the known sentiments of a far greater part of the states in the union; and inconsistent with the clear light of liberty, which is spreading over the world in meridian splendor, and dissipating those antique glooms of tyrannical darkness which were ever opposed to free, equal, religious liberty among men. leland arraigns a union of church and state that presupposes a need of legislative support for religion, which the example of other states has proved unnecessary; and which the experience of communities, persisting in such union, has shown to be productive of evil, of ignorance, superstition, persecution, lying and hypocrisy, a weakness to the civil state, and a conversion of the bible and of religion to tools of statecraft and political trickery. government has no more to do with religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics.... truth disdains the aid of law for its defence, ... it will stand upon its own merit.... is it just to balance the establishment against the rights guaranteed in the charter, and to enact a law which has no saving clause to prevent taxation of jew, turk, papist, deist, atheist, for the support of a ministry in which they would not share and which violated their conscience? [ ] many federalists of judge swift's type sympathized with leland's bold arraignment of the establishment, if not with his view of the unconstitutionality of the charter government. these men repudiated the new certificate law. the authorities felt that they had gone too far, and in october, , after an existence of only six months, they repealed the certificate law by one hundred and five yeas to fifty-seven nays. the new law that was substituted permitted each dissenter to write his own certificate, release, or "sign-off," as the papers were colloquially called, and required him to file it with the clerk of the established society wherein he dwelt. [ ] this favor was not so great a privilege as it seemed. it bore hard upon the dissenters in two ways. it created "neuters," people who wished to be relieved from the ecclesiastical taxes, but who were too indifferent to the principles and welfare of the churches to which they allied themselves to faithfully support them. for their churches to complain of such persons to the authorities would only give the latter reasons for enforcing the laws for the support of the establishment. then again, the new certificate law did not relieve the dissenters who lived too far from their churches to ordinarily attend them from petty fines and from court wrangles as to the justice of them, for with the judges lay the determination of what the words "far" and "near" and "ordinarily do attend" in the laws meant. [b] the important question of how many absences from church would prevent a man from claiming that he was a regular attendant was thus left in the hands of judges, who were for the most part prejudiced or partial. many amusing and exasperating legal quibbles occurred in the courts between judges, who were determined to sentence for neglect of public worship, and defendants, who were equally positive of their rights. many dissenters attempted later to ridicule the law out of existence by substituting for the formal-- i certify that i differ in sentiment from the worship and ministry in the ecclesiastical society of ---- in the town of ---- constituted bylaw within certain local bounds, and have chosen to join myself to the (insert here the name of society you have joined) in the town of ----. dated at ---- this ---- day of ---- a. d. declarations, undignified in wording and sometimes written in doggerel rhyme. while granting the new certificate law, the assembly were careful to pass a minor ecclesiastical statute enforcing a fine of from six to twelve shillings upon all who should neglect to observe all public fasts and thanksgivings. [ ] this law at times proved unsatisfactory to the episcopalians, for the congregational fasts and feasts were appointed by the authorities, who naturally did not consider the churchman's feeling when called upon to celebrate a feast or thanksgiving during an episcopalian season of fasting, or to observe a public fast, to go in sackcloth, upon an anniversary that should be marked by joy and praise. in , the year following the attempt to remodel the certificate laws, certain legislative measures with reference to yale college fed the discontent among the dissenting sects. for some years there had been an increasing dissatisfaction with the management of the college. it culminated in in the reorganization of the governing board, to which were added eight civilians, including the governor, lieutenant-governor, and the six senior councilors or state senators. at the same time, and in consideration of the admission of laymen to the board, $ , was given to the college. [c] this money was a part of the taxes which had been collected to meet the expenses of the revolutionary war, and which were in the state treasury when the united states government offered to refund the state for such expense. it was granted to the college on condition that she should invest it in the new united states bonds, and that half the profits of the investment should be at the disposal of the state. this arrangement relieved the crippled finances of the college and gratified many of its friends. but there were many who regarded the measure as out-and-out favoritism to a congregational college, and who put no faith in the proposed half-sharing of profits. they maintained that eventually the college would get the whole benefit of the money that had been collected for other purposes, and from many persons who could derive no benefit from such a disposal of it. these prophets were not far wrong, for after yale had paid into the state treasury a little more than $ , she was relieved from further payments by a repeal, in , of the conditional clause of the grant. this favoritism to yale was not the only legislation to anger the dissenters, and especially the baptists. another measure, mooted at the same time as the certificate acts and the special grant to the college, was accepted as a further mark of the government's determination to ignore the rights of dissenters. in - the assembly had granted lands for the support of the gospel ministry, for schools, and to the first minister to settle in each township of the western reserve. this act, as has been shown, was considered to unduly favor the presbyterians. but little had come of this legislation beyond the survey of the land and the opening of a land office there for its sale. five years later, in , even though no part of the tract had been sold, the assembly introduced a new bill appropriating the anticipated proceeds from the sale of the land to the several ecclesiastical societies as a fund with which to pay their ministers so as to enable them to do away with the tax for salaries. but the excitement roused by the first certificate law--of --was so great that it was deemed prudent to continue this western land bill over to the next session of the legislature, and there it was lost. the session of may, , contented itself with only such legislation in regard to the western reserve as that by which it granted the "fire lands," so called, a grant of , acres as indemnity to the citizens of new london, groton, fairfield, norwalk, and danbury, for the destruction of their property in the burning of their towns by british troops. as the lands of the western reserve did not sell well, [d] the assembly, in , appointed a committee to dispose of the tract to the highest bidder if the amount offered should be duly guaranteed with interest; principal and interest payable to the state within four or six years, whether paid in lump sum on demand, or by installments. the sale was widely advertised both within and without the state. it was now calculated that the amount realized from the sale of the lands would be a sum yielding an annual interest of $ , , or an average of $ to a town, beside a bonus to yale of $ . therefore, the assembly, in october, , voted that-- moneys arising from the sale of the territory belonging to the state, lying west of the state of pennsylvania, be, and the same is hereby established a perpetual fund, the interest whereof is granted, and shall be appropriated to the use and benefit of the several ecclesiastical societies, churches, congregations of all _denominations_ in this state, to be by them applied to the support of their respective ministers or preachers of the gospel, and schools of education, under such rules and regulations as shall be adopted by this or some future session of the general assembly. [ ] an earlier bill had been proposed, discussed, and tabled. this act was originally a resolution framed by a large committee whose members represented both the friends and opponents of the proposal for the immediate sale of the lands. when the vote passed, it was by eighty-three yeas to seventy nays in the house and by a large and favorable majority in the council. one fault that the dissenters found with the law was that, under the rules and regulations adopted by the assembly, they believed that the alternative which the law allowed of voting the money to the ministerial fund, or to the school, would work to their disadvantage. where there were few dissenters, the presbyterian vote would carry the money over to the minister's use, and where there were many, the same vote would be sufficient, if thrown, as it probably would be, to direct the money to the school appropriation. it would follow that the dissenters might never have the use of the money for the support of their own worship. the baptists voiced the general opposition among the dissenters,--an opposition so strong that it appealed to some of the conservatives as sufficient reason in itself to condemn the law. "a friend to society" wrote to the "hartford courant" that-- if a religion whose principles are universal love and harmony is to be supported and promoted by a means which will blow up the sparks of faction and party strife into a violent flame, it is a new way of promoting religion. much better would it be for the state of connecticut that their western lands should be sunk by an earthquake and form part of the adjoining lake than that they should be transplanted hither for a bone of contention. apart from sectarian interests, the law met with hostility. there were those who thought that the money ought to be applied at once to the remaining indebtedness of the state, rather than for it to wait for another installment on the revolutionary debt that was still due from the national government. there were more who thought that the money ought to go for the expenses of government, or for direct advantages, such as the repair of bridges and highways. but the expenses of government were light, [e] and, as a rule, the people were willing to keep the highways in repair. there was still another party who contended that the money should go for schools, both because they were needed in larger numbers, and because they ought to be able to pay larger salaries and not ones so small as to tempt only the farmer lad, or the ambitious student, to keep a country school for a few months in winter, or a somewhat similarly equipped woman to teach in summer. and there was yet another party who were convinced that the money should go to the support of the ministry, for they believed that morality could be taught only by religion, and that the people were losing interest in the latter because of the inferiority of the preachers whom the small salaries and insecure support kept in the field. [ ] while this discussion of certificate laws, of grants to yale, and of grants of land and money to the ecclesiastical societies had been constantly before the public, there had also been present a minor grievance due to the assembly's interest in the missionary work that the general association had extended to include parts of vermont, western new york, pennsylvania, and the outlying settlements in ohio. in the western field the missionaries sent by connecticut frequently met those sent out by the presbyterian general assembly. drawn together by their interests in these missions in , the practice was begun of having three delegates from the general association meet with the presbyterian general assembly in their annual convention, and three delegates from the general assembly take their seats in the yearly convocation of the general association of connecticut. so long as the connecticut churches were strongly presbyterian in sentiment, there was no clashing of interests among the workers in the mission field. naturally, connecticut wanted to do her full share of missionary work; and feeling the need of more money for the purpose, the general association, in , appealed to the legislature for permission to take up an annual collection for three years. the association hesitated to take up such a collection in all the churches, dissenting or established, without such permission. the baptists expressed their indignation at the wording of governor huntington's proclamation, "that there be a contribution taken up in every congregation for the support of the presbyterian missions in the western territory." more than that, they refused to contribute, on the ground that if the collection had been "recommended" they would gladly have helped a christian cause, but that it was inexpedient to yield to a demand that all societies should contribute to the support of missions that were entirely under the control of one religious body. furthermore, with reference to the appropriation of money from the western lands, they would join with other dissenters in opposing it, on the ground that, in order to obtain their share of the money, they would have to admit their inferiority through the showing of the compulsory certificates. moreover, even the scant favor secured through these was in danger from the continual favoritism of the legislature, with its treasury open at all times to its congregational college, and with its enactments in favor of the established churches. at the may session of the assembly, , the baptists from all over the state thronged the steps of the capitol at hartford, angered almost to the point of precipitating civil war. there john leland addressed them, urging the necessity of government; the power of constitutional reform; arguing for rights of conscience, citing both european and colonial history to prove their reasonableness and their value to the body politic; and setting forth connecticut's departure from the glorious freedom mapped out by her founders. he declared to that great and angry crowd:-- government is a necessary evil and so a chosen good. its business is to preserve the life, liberty and property of the many units that form the body politic.... when a constitution of government is formed, it should be simple and explicit; the powers that are vested in, and work to be performed by each department should be defined with the utmost perspicuity; and this constitution should be attended to as scrupulously by men in office as the bible should be by all religionists.... let the people first be convinced of the deficiency of the constitution, and remove the defects thereof, and then, those in office can change the administration upon constitutional grounds. * * * * * [the right to worship] god according to the dictates of conscience, without being prohibited, directed or controlled therein by human law, either in _time, place or manner_, cannot be surrendered up to the general government for an equivalent. [ ] had not governor haynes said to roger williams, "the most high god hath provided and cut out this part of the world for a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences?" how had not connecticut fallen? how passed her ancient glory, how ignored her charter's rights? how firm a grip upon her had that incubus of her own raising, the pernicious union of church and state? break that, as elsewhere it had been broken, and then as freemen demand a constitution guaranteeing both civil and religious liberty. the result of the widespread hostility was the attempt at the may session of to repeal the offensive law. the lower house did repeal it, after a lively debate, by a vote of yeas to nays, but the council, or upper house, where the conservatives were intrenched, refused to pass the bill. however, they were induced to pass a resolution suspending the sale of the lands. the debate in the house was published verbatim in the "hartford gazette" of may , , and was copied by the papers throughout the state. in the following october a bill was passed by the council, but continued over by the house and ordered to be printed in all the papers, that the people might have opportunity to consider it before it should come up to be passed upon by their representatives in the may session of . [ ] the terms of the bill were that the principal sum of money received from the sale of the western lands should be apportioned among the several school societies according to the list of polls and rateable estates, and that the interest arising from the money so divided should be appropriated to the support of schools that were kept according to the law, or to the support of the public worship of god and the christian ministry, "as the majority of the legal voters should annually determine." [ ] the proposed law was subjected to public scrutiny of all sorts. it was agitated in town meetings, and the discussions for and against it were noticed in the newspapers, where much space was given to its consideration. ministers made it the subject of their sermons. dr. dwight discoursed upon the subject in his thanksgiving sermon. [ ] when the proposed bill came up before the legislature, it encountered considerable opposition, but after some modifications it became a law. as in school societies the dissenters had an equal vote, and in all town affairs were worth conciliating, there was more justice in the new law than in the old, where the ecclesiastical society was made the unit of division. from to the towns, parishes, and occasionally the ecclesiastical societies had charge of the schools. [ ] but in school districts were authorized and the change to them begun. such districts could, upon the vote of two thirds of all the qualified voters, locate schools, lay taxes to build and repair them, and appoint a collector to gather such rates. the act of may, , appropriating the money from the western lands to the schools, provided also that the school districts should be erected into school societies to whom the money should be distributed, and by whom the interest thereon should be expended; and that it should go "to no other use or purpose whatsoever; except in the case and under the circumstances hereafter mentioned." the circumstances here referred to were in cases where two thirds of the legal voters in a school society meeting, legally warned, voted to use the interest money for the support of the ministry in that society, and appealed to the general assembly for permission to so use the money. upon such an expression of the wish of voters, the general assembly was empowered to answer in the affirmative. the act also repealed that of . the legislature appointed another commission for the sale of the lands. they were sold in the following october for $ , , . by this legislation was laid the foundation of connecticut's school fund. the connecticut land company, which had made the purchase, petitioned the legislature in that connecticut should surrender her jurisdiction over the lands to the united states. the state complied. in the organization of the new school societies was perfected, and the control of the schools passed entirely into their hands until the district system of was adopted. the western land bills had resulted in the establishment of a public school fund and in its just distribution, without reference to sectarianism, among the people. all the agitation attending both the certificate acts and western land bills had demonstrated the intense opposition of the dissenting minority, and that they were beginning to look to the increase of their numbers and the power of the ballot as the only means of changing the vexatious laws under which they were treated as inferiors. to the congregationalists, strong both as the established church and as members of the federal party, which counted many adherents among all the dissenting sects, the possibility that any voting strength could be brought against them, adequate to oppose their party measures, seemed improbable. such a possibility must be very remote. yet within twenty years, they were to see the downfall of the federal party, of the established church, and of connecticut's charter government. footnotes: [a] the vote of the assembly was: "that the ancient form of civil government, containing the charter from charles the second, king of england, and adopted by the people of this state, shall be and remain the civil constitution of the state under the sole authority of the people thereof, independent of any king, or ftince whatever. and that this republic is and shall forever be and remain a free, sovereign, and independent state, by the name of the state of connecticut."--revision of acts and laws, ed. , p. . [b] "courts and juries had usually been composed of what was considered the standing church, and they had frequently practiced such quibbles and finesse with respect to the forms of certificates and the nature of dissenting congregations as to defeat the benevolent intentions of the law."--swift's _system of laws_, pp. , . [c] yale received in all $ , . . in , six alumni replaced the six senior councilors. [d] so far the highest bid for the tract of land had been $ , . [e] the annual expenses were estimated to be approximately $ , . in _advice to connecticut folks_, , occurs the following estimate:-- =================================================================== 						 necessary unneces'y ------------------------------------------------------------------- governor's salary, £ £ lieutenant-governor's, upper house attendance and travel days at £ per day, lower house attendance and travel members at s. a day, days, , , £ , five judges of the superior court at s. a day, suppose days, forty judges of inferior court at s. a day, suppose days, six thousand actions in the year, the legal expenses of each, suppose £ , , , , gratuities to lawyers, suppose £ each, , , , two hundred clergymen at £ each, , , five hundred schools at £ a year, , , support of poor, , , bridges and other town expenses, , , contingencies and articles not enumerated, , , ------------------------------------------------------------------- total, £ , £ , £ , as a glimpse at society, it may be added that the _advice_ itself is an energetic and statistical condemnation of the prevalent use of "rum," estimated at £ , or "ninety-nine hundredths unnecessary expense" in living. "deny it if you can, good folks. now say not a word about taxes, judges, lawyers, courts and women's extravagances. your government, your courts, your lawyers, your clergymen, your schools and your poor, do not all cost you so much as one paltry article which does you little or no good but is as destructive of your lives as fire and brimstone."--noah webster's _collection of essays,_ pp. - . the evil was beginning to be recognized in all its danger. here and there voluntary temperance clubs were beginning to be formed among the better classes, but it was a time when hardly a contract was closed without a stipulation of a certain quantity of rum for each workman. chapter xiv political parties in connecticut at the beginning of the nineteenth century as well dam up the waters of the nile with bullrushes as to fetter the steps of freedom.--l. m. child. leland's attack upon the constitution of connecticut during the excitement over the western land bills called for new tactics on the part of the dissenters. thus far, in all their antagonism to the union of church and state, there had been on their part practically no attack upon the constitution itself. yet even as early as the anti-federalists had proclaimed that the state of connecticut was without a constitution; that the charter government fell with the declaration of independence; and that its adoption by the legislature as a state constitution was an unwarranted excess of authority. the anti-federalists maintained also that many of the charter provisions were either outgrown or unsuited to the needs of the state. but the majority of the dissenters, like the constitutional reform party of recent date, preferred redress for their grievances through legislation rather than through the uprooting of an ancient and cherished constitution. accordingly, it was not until the elections of - that this question of a new constitution could reasonably be made a campaign issue. but from the dissenters began to lean towards affiliation with the democratic-republican [a] party, the successors to the anti-federal; yet it was not until toward the close of the war of that the republican party made large gains in connecticut and the dissenters began to feel sure that the dawn of religious liberty was at hand. but before that time the republicans made three distinct though abortive attempts to secure the electoral power. the anti-federalists early began to probe for weak spots in the constitutional government of connecticut. the fundamental orders had given four deputies to each of the three original towns, and had made the number of deputies from each new town proportionate to its population. the charter had limited the deputies to two from each town. the fundamental orders gave the general court, composed of governor, magistrates or assistants, and deputies, supreme governing power, including, together with that of legislation, the granting of levies, the admission of freemen, the disposal of public lands, and the organization of courts. it had also a general supervision over individuals, magistrates, and courts, with power to revise decisions and to mete out punishments. the charter of did not materially alter the laws and customs of the government as previously established under the fundamental orders, or the "first written constitution." the charter emphasized the executive, and began the segregation of the upper house or council, since by it the "particular court" of the founders became the governor's council, serving upon like occasions, but requiring the presence of at least six magistrates for the transaction of business. the particular court had consisted of the governor or deputy-governor, and three assistants. in emergencies occurring during adjournment of the general court, the particular court was to serve in place of the larger body. after this special court could consist of two or three magistrates who, in the absence of the governor or deputy-governor, chose one of their number to act as moderator. after the formula of the general court "be it ordered, enacted and decreed" was changed to "be it enacted by the governor and council and house of representatives in general court assembled." at the regular session of the general court or general assembly, the councilors first sat as a separate body in . after the declaration of independence this upper house or council became the senate, and for many years was referred to under any one of the three names. the power of the general court--this jumble of legislative, executive, and judicial--worked well so long as the community consisted of a few hundred or a few thousand souls with little diversity of sentiment or industrial interest. it was not until the last quarter of the eighteenth century that the inefficiency of the "first written constitution" began to be felt. then there arose the need of a new constitution to modify the body of laws and customs that had grown up; to destroy much of the erroneous legislation that in effect perverted or nullified their original intent; and to furnish a constitutional basis for the government of a larger and less homogeneous people. here and there a few thoughtful men, irrespective of their church or party, were beginning to apprehend the difficulty of piloting a democratic state under the old royal charter. the more prominent among them belonged to the anti-federal party, and naturally they sought to expose the constitutional difficulties which they believed impeded progress. [b] one of the earliest party tilts grew out of the increase of new towns and the unequal development of some of the older ones. then as now, though on a much smaller scale, the unit of town representation threatened rotten boroughs and a fictitious representation of the will of the majority as represented by the delegates to the lower house. the state in had not recovered from the exhaustion due to the revolutionary war, and the support of the many new deputies, due to the increase of the towns, was a burden which the october legislation of that year attempted to lighten. with the object of cutting down state expenses a bill was introduced into the house to refer to the freemen some proposition for reducing the number of their delegates and for equalizing representation. mr. james davenport of stamford moved to substitute for the bill [c] another in which this reduction should be made by the legislature without submitting the proposed change to the freemen. this was objected to on the ground that a reduction of delegates was a constitutional question, "the assembly having no right to alter the representation without authority given by their constituents." the supporters of the bill contended with mr. davenport that-- _we have no constitution_ but the laws of the state. the _charter is not the constitution_. by the revolution _that_ was abrogated. a law of the state gave a subsequent sanction to that which was before of no force; if that law be valid, any alteration made by a later act will also be valid; if not, we have no constitution, so defined, as to preclude the legislature from exercising _any_ power necessary for the good of the people. the bill was carried over to the may session of , when it was defeated by sixty-two yeas to seventy-five nays, the towns of hartford, east hartford, berlin, stamford and woodbury favoring it. a confidential letter of february, , from dr. gale, the probable author of "brief, decent but free remarks or observations on several laws passed by the honorable legislature of the state of connecticut since the year , by a friend to his country," suggested that in addition to the reduction of representatives, laws should be passed forbidding any citizen to hold, at the same time, more than one place of public trust, either civil or military, and also requiring an increase in the number of councilors, or senators, from the total of twelve to three from each county. [d] dr. gale believed that if these senators should be elected by each county, and not upon a general ticket, the change would be beneficial. [ ] in regard to the senators, the fundamental orders prescribed that nominations for the magistrates should be made by the towns through their deputies to the fall session of the general court, and that the election should take place the following spring at the court of elections. as the life of the colony expanded, modifications of this rule were made; in time, vote by proxy took the place of the freeman's presence at the court of election. after , the assistants to be nominated, twenty in number, were balloted for in the fall town meetings. the sealed lists were sent to the legislature, where they were opened, and the ticket for the spring election was made out from the twenty names receiving the largest vote. the court could no longer as in earlier times add any new names. hence, the custom grew up of listing nominations, not according to popularity, but first according to seniority in office, and then according to the number of votes received. these lists were published in the papers throughout the state. the candidates for election were presented at the april town meetings, where each name was read in order and voted upon. a much later enactment provided twelve ballots, and forbade any one to cast more than twelve, whether for or against a candidate or in blank. if a man held any one of his slips in reserve for a more satisfactory candidate, he had none for the teller, and thus the secrecy of the ballot was almost destroyed. new candidates or those not up for reelection, whose names appeared at the foot of the list, whatever the number of votes received, were sometimes kept waiting years for an election, until those above them had died in office or resigned. [e] for instance, jonathan ingersoll received votes in nomination in , while the senior councilor, william williams, had only ; yet williams's name was preferred, and ingersoll's had to wait over another year, when he was again nominated and elected, and held his seat from to . an election was a wearisome affair, and many men would not stay until the voting upon the list was finished, preferring for various reasons to cast an early ballot. the natural tendency was to support the experienced and known, even if indifferently efficient councilor, rather than to vote for an untried and unfamiliar man whose name would come up later, or even for popular men who could not be proposed until far into the day. as a result the party in power felt assured of their continuance in office. moreover, proxies for the election were returned in april, but the result was not announced until the legislature met in may, nor was there any supervision compelling an honest count. thus it was easy to keep in office federal candidates, and thus the senate, or council, came to reflect public opinion about twenty years behind the popular sentiment. furthermore, the clergy of the establishment would get together and talk matters over before the elections, and the parish minister would endeavor to direct his people's vote according to his opinion of what was best for the commonwealth. this ministerial influence was not shaken until about . there was still another grievance against the council besides that just mentioned. it had come to be almost a privy council for advice and consultation. furthermore it was, until , the supreme court of the state to which lay appeals in all cases, civil or criminal, where errors of law had been committed in the trial courts. its twelve members were mostly, if not all, lawyers, holding a tremendous power of patronage over the members of the lower house, many of whom were also lawyers, eager for preferment; over the courts throughout the state, from which, since , the old non-professional judges had been debarred, and also over the militia, whose officers, from the earliest times, had been appointed by the general court. further, the united action of the two houses was necessary to pass or to repeal a law, and thus much important legislation centred upon a majority of seven in the council. furthermore, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the courts of law also were thought to need reorganizing. the judges were declared partisan, as they naturally would be under the conditions of their appointment. the republicans could not meet the federals upon an equal footing in the state tribunals. they were disparaged in their business relations, "were treated as a degraded party, and this treatment was extended to all the individuals of the party however worthy or respectable; in fact as the saxons were treated by the normans and the irish by the english government." [ ] because of these political conditions, early in statehood, there were three schools of politicians; namely, those who approved a constitutional convention, expressly called to frame a new constitution; those who wished such a convention merely to amend the existing charter-constitution; and those, until , predominately in the majority, who were convinced that whether the state had a constitution or not was a most frivolous and baneful question, mooted only by "visionary theorists," or by those who were desirous of a change, no matter how disastrous it might be to good government. the conservative party held that, since the charter had been drawn according to the tenor of a draft submitted by winthrop and outlining the government according to the fundamental orders, framed in by the "inhabitants and residents of hartford, windsor and wethersfield," the charter was not a grant of privileges but an approval asked and obtained for a government already existing. consequently, such government as had been exercised before and was continued under the charter was essentially a creation of the people. it therefore needed only the declarative act of the legislature to annul those clauses of the charter that bound the colony to the crown and to continue over into statehood the government of the colonial period. further, granting that the separation from great britain annulled the constitution, the subsequent conduct of the people in assenting to, approving of, and acquiescing in such acts of the legislature, had established and rendered those acts valid and binding, and had given them all the force and authority of an express contract. [ ] such discussion of constitutional questions, confined at first to the few, spread among the many after leland's attack upon the charter, and were debated with great earnestness. leland's attack gained him, at the time, comparatively few adherents, but it brought the question of disestablishment fairly before the people, demonstrating to the discontented that there was very little hope for larger liberty, for greater justice, until the power of legislation, granted by the old charter, should be curtailed, and the bond between church and state severed. the growth in connecticut of the democratic-republican party, outside its following among methodists, baptists and a few radical thinkers, was very slow. the episcopalians were held in much higher esteem by the federal members of the establishment, or "standing order," as they were called, than were the other dissenters. yet notwithstanding the wealth and conservatism of the sect, they were looked at askance when it came to giving them political office, for the old dislike to a churchman still lingered in new england. accordingly, they were somewhat dissatisfied at the treatment they received as political allies of the standing order, and, in order to quiet their incipient discontent, the government thought best to occasionally extend some small favor to them. so in , the legislature granted them a charter for a fund for their bishop which they were trying to raise. about the same time, yale first conferred upon an episcopal clergyman the title of doctor of divinity. the transfer of the annual fast day to coincide with good friday was appreciated by the churchmen. the change was first made in , and came about through governor huntington's friendship for bishop seabury, and because of a desire to remove from the public mind a misapprehension, arising from the refusal of the episcopal church in new london to comply with president washington's proclamation for a national thanksgiving. [f] from this change of fast-day became customary. it removed the long-standing complaint that presbyterian days of fasting or rejoicing frequently occurred during episcopal feasts or fasts. at an earlier period, the ignoring of such public proclamations was sometimes made the occasion for imposing fines for the benefit of the establishment. as has been said, the republican gains were greater among the methodists and baptists. this was partly because not a few among these dissenters associated jefferson's party with his efforts towards disestablishment in virginia in . out of connecticut's population of two hundred and fifty thousand, the republicans counted upon recruits from the methodist body, numbering, in , one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight, and from the baptists, approximating four thousand six hundred and sixty members. in - the division of the federalists over national issues strengthened the republicans in connecticut, as they were the successors to the anti-federalists, those "visionary theorists" of . the new democratic-republican party received further additions to their ranks through the opposition in connecticut to the federal and obnoxious "stand-up law" of . this law, which required a man to stand when voting for the nomination of senators, "was made to catch the secret vote of the republicans," [ ] and revealed at once the opposition of every dissenter, debtor, employee, or of any one who had cause to fear injury to himself if he gave an honest vote. it was passed by a compact and reunited body of federalists whose boast was that no division upon national questions could affect their unity and strength in the land of steady habits. the republican-democratic party in the state would have gained recruits more rapidly had it not been for its attitude as a national party toward france. to appreciate the situation in connecticut, one must consider, first of all, the influence of the french revolution. one must realize the intense interest, the mingled exultation and terror with which conservatives who, though they might differ in their religious preferences, were yet the rank and file of the state, watched its varying aspects from its outbreak in on through the years of its earliest experiments in statecraft, of its exaggerated exploitation of "liberty, equality, and fraternity," and of its casting off of all religious bonds and trammels. as the federal party lost its sympathy with the french cause the attitude of the nation changed. the consolidated factions of the anti-federalists, however, increased their ardor for the french republic, and took from the name democratic-republican. they carried their keen sympathy even to expressing their french sentiments by their dress and manners. the change in the national attitude was reflected in connecticut by the whole-hearted antipathy of large numbers of her people to what they considered "radicalism of the most destructive character." english arianism and arminianism, with which the edwardeans had waged war, were nothing compared to the influx of french infidelity and atheism which appeared to be sweeping over the land. books formerly guarded by the clergy were on sale everywhere. they found among the masses many like aaron burr, who, during his period of study with dr. bellamy, had preferred the logic of the printed books upon the shelves to that of the master who placed them there. dr. bellamy proposed to confute the pernicious arguments of these books, bringing them one by one before his select body of students, so that they should be able to guide their future parishioners when the insidious poison of these dangerous authors, these "followers of satan," should force its way among them. all sects attempted to oppose such an influx of irreligion. all but the episcopalians fell back upon revivals as their chief means. in these revivals the methodists and congregationalists were perhaps the most successful in securing converts. the policy of the episcopal church did not favor this phase of religious life. it felt that its whole attitude was a protest against exaggerated liberty, or license, and against all atheistical ideas. during the revivals the baptists, also, added largely to their numbers. the methodists, however, brought to their revival meetings the peculiar strength of fervent proselytes to a new faith; of one rapidly becoming popular, appealing strongly to the emotions, and having a touch of martyrdom still clinging to its profession. among those federalists who were also congregationalists, the french revolution was believed to be the "result of a combination long since formed in europe by infidels and atheists to root out and effectually destroy religion and civil government." holding this opinion; seeing the baptists and methodists increasing in importance, both in the nation and in the state; watching the continual increase of the unorthodox and of the freethinker, and perceiving the growing loss of confidence in the federal party both in the nation and the state, the standing order felt itself face to face with imminent peril. it scented danger to itself and to the existence of the commonwealth. but it sadly lacked a great leader, until the year , when it found one in the recently elected president of yale, the rev. timothy dwight. he was a grandson of jonathan edwards, and was a man of amazing energy, of varied training, and of great personal charm. in his experience dr. dwight counted a college education, a theological training under jonathan edwards, jr., a tutorship at yale, a chaplaincy among the rough soldiers of the war of the revolution, home-life on his father's farm at northampton, where the men in the field vied with each other "to rake or hoe beside timothy" in order to hear him talk. in political life dr. dwight had served an apprenticeship in the general court of massachusetts, where he sat as deputy from northampton. he had had experience as a preacher in several small towns, and as pastor at greenfield hill, a part of fairfield. there he had added to his income by establishing the greenfield academy for both sexes. upon accepting the presidency of yale he became also professor of theology, and in addition he took under his special care the courses in rhetoric and oratory. these last two, together with literature, had, he thought, been entirely too much neglected. [g] his coming was a forecast of the man of the nineteenth century.[ ] dr. stiles had been a fine type of the eighteenth. dr. dwight was a man of less acquirements in languages, but he was a more accurate scholar, of broader intelligence, and with a mind well stocked and ready. he had a pleasing power of expression, was tactful, and could readily adapt himself to men and circumstances. it was he who was to give yale its initial movement from college to university. he himself was to become a celebrated teacher and theologian. he was to be one of the founders of the new england school, whose principles dr. taylor, in , was to make known under the name of the new haven theology. [h] in his own day dr. dwight was equally celebrated as a power both in religion and politics. "pope dwight" his enemies termed him, and they nicknamed his ministerial following his "bishops," while they dubbed the council or senators "his twelve cardinals." outside his college duties, and as a part of his care for its spiritual welfare, president dwight's immediate purpose was to combine all forces that could be used to stem the dangerous currents rushing against the bulwarks of church and state. he had early favored the drawing together of congregational and presbyterian bodies. he had discerned, as early as , a stirring of new life in the religious world, the breaking down of the apathy of half a century that had been indicated by revivals in places far scattered, not only throughout new england but in other states. towns in massachusetts, with east haddam and lyme in connecticut, had been roused as early as the year named. that element of personal experience which had been so marked a feature of the great awakening reappeared, but without that excessive emotionalism [i] which characterized the earlier revival. nor was there any such pronounced leadership as then. there was the same conviction of sinfulness, the peace after its acknowledgment, and the joyous satisfaction in the determination to lead an upright life, seeking god's grace and will. recognition of this spiritual awakening had in some measure entered into the proposed disposal of the money from the western lands, as it had also in the discussion of the joint missionary work of - , and again in - , [ ] when the general association of connecticut was incorporated as the connecticut missionary society, [j] in all of these movements president dwight had taken an active part. upon entering the presidency of yale he at once began a series of sermons, which he delivered sunday mornings, and which were so arranged that in each four years the course was complete. these lectures were his "theology explained and defended," first published in . president dwight, with the leading presbyterian or congregational ministers, together with the methodist and baptist clergy, continued to favor the revival movement. this reached its height in . from beginning to end it lasted nearly a quarter of a century, and was punctuated by the revival years of , , and , that were especially fruitful of conversions in connecticut. that of attracted large numbers of the college students. the success of the revivals was marked by increasing austerities, such as the denunciation of amusements, both public and private, and the revival of dead-letter laws for the more strict observance of sunday. traveling or driving was prohibited without a pass signed by a justice of the peace. travelers were held up over "holy time." attempts were made to prevent the young people from gathering in companies on sunday evenings after the sabbath was legally over. too much hilarity, though innocent, was condemned. such restrictions were extremely distasteful to a large minority in the state, and seemed to many citizens only repeated proofs of how closely the government and the presbyterian-congregational church were banded together. accordingly the republicans began to think it was time to test the strength of such a platform as they could put forth while making a bid for the whole dissenting vote. the election of adams and jefferson [k] in was a spur to both parties, lending hope to the scattered republicans, and prodding the recently over-confident federalists. in march, , the whole nation was roused almost to forgetfulness of party lines by the anger created by the publication of the "x y z papers." a few months later the federal party, through its alien and sedition laws, had lost its renewed hold upon the nation. connecticut denounced the virginia and kentucky resolutions of - , and was to all appearances stanchly federal. but her leaders were looking for another presidential candidate than adams, while the republicans, elate with the anticipated national victory in , were making preparations to catch any and every dissatisfied voter in the state. the scattered republican clubs and committees awoke to new activity. as jefferson kept his party well in hand, and let the national dissatisfaction increase that he might rush to victory at the presidential election of , so the connecticut republicans matured their plans. they did not formally organize their party till , first making sure of their great leader as the nation's executive, and almost of his reëlection. then they began to urge the acceptance of their platform upon the oppressed connecticut dissenters, and to taunt the federal episcopalians with an allegiance that as late as had not been thought of sufficient worth to warrant the small favor of a college charter for their academy at cheshire. the federalists attempted to disarm the episcopal dissatisfaction over the refusal by granting them a license for a lottery to raise $ , for the bishop's fund. the leader of the republicans in connecticut was pierpont edwards, a recently appointed united states district judge. he was brother of jonathan edwards, jr., for years the pastor of the north church at new haven, and in president of union college. this republican leader was the maternal uncle of his opponent in federal state politics, president dwight, and also of the republican vice-president, aaron burr. another nephew of his was theodore dwight, the brother of yale's president, who led the federal civilians, and who was editor of the "hartford courant," the organ of the connecticut federalists. the hartford "american mercury" voiced the sentiments of the republicans. the latter party throughout the state was formally organized in at a meeting in new haven, the home of mr. edwards and of his henchman, abraham bishop, son of that city's mayor. the close personal relationship of the leaders, [l] the scorn of the radicals, the abhorrence of the conservatives for the principles, opinions, and even, in some cases, habits of life of their opponents, entered into the strife and vituperation of the political campaigns from to . personalities were unsparing, passion rose high, and speeches were bitter. this was particularly the case in new haven, where abraham bishop's impudent boldness of attack and denunciation was exaggerated by his father's position. samuel bishop, the father, was a man of seventy-seven, and old in the service of both church and state. he was senior deacon in the north church, or what was at that time known as the church of the united white haven and fair haven societies. he was also a justice of the peace, town clerk, and mayor of the city. the last office was held, according to the charter, during the pleasure of the legislature. samuel bishop was also chief judge of the court of common pleas for new haven county, and sole judge of probate, annual offices which the general assembly had re-conferred upon him in and in . his son was a graduate of yale ( ). he was a lawyer of somewhat indifferent practice, and from to clerk of the county court under his father, while from he had been clerk of the superior court. before settling down to practice at the bar he had lived abroad, and had been caught in the whirl of french thought and democratic ideas. he had returned home bearing words of recommendation to washington's secretary of state from jefferson's european friends. a personal meeting with that party leader had added to bishop's enthusiasm. for some years he had lived in boston, and tried his hand at literature. he had returned to new haven in , and had thrown himself into politics. he purposely exaggerated his opinions. he was careless of his unorthodox expressions even to the verge of blasphemy. though himself a believer in god, he was perhaps what one would probably have termed a little later a unitarian. his enemies exaggerated his exaggerations,--and unitarianism was a crime according to the connecticut statutes. [m] in his speeches and essays abraham bishop struck out boldly, with earnestness, logic, shrewd wit, and irony, and, as has been said, at times with dangerous irreverence,--often with down-right impudence when that would serve his purpose. an illustration of his extreme use of it was in , about the time of the organization of the republican party throughout the state. he had been honored with the phi beta kappa oration, annually delivered on the eve of the yale commencement, then in september. a polished literary effort was expected. he broke tradition, courtesy, and every implied obligation in the choice of his subject. in august he sent to the committee his paper for their acceptance or refusal. it was entitled "the extent and power of political delusions," and was an out and out campaign document. the presidential election was due in november! further, bishop made political capital of the anticipated refusal of his paper, which was not sent him until the eleventh hour. the readers of the morning paper, wherein the committee offered an apology for the change of speakers at the society's meeting to be held that night, were confronted by the announcement that the refused address would be given to all who cared to listen to it in the parlors of the white haven church that same evening, and by the still further notice that copies of it were fresh from the printer's hands and were ready to be distributed to the remotest parts of the state. needless to state, the phi beta kappa audience dwindled away to swell the crowd of fifteen hundred, wherein bishop gleefully counted "eight clergymen and many ladies." the address met with great favor, and the wallingford republicans at their celebration of march , , in honor of the election of jefferson and burr, asked mr. bishop to be their orator. [n] to top bishop's insult,--as it was regarded by every friend of the standing order,--came in the following spring jefferson's displacement of elizur goodrich, president adams's appointee as collector of the port of new haven, and the substitution of samuel bishop. president jefferson considered himself at liberty to make this change; and all the more so because president adams had made the appointment as one of his last official acts, when he must have known it would have been unacceptable to the incoming republican administration. the merchants of new haven immediately united in a petition to president jefferson, in which they declared that samuel bishop was too old to perform the duties of the office, and, moreover, not acquainted with accounts. assuming that his son abraham would assist him, they denounced the latter as "entirely destitute of public confidence, so conspicuous for his enmity to commerce and opposition to order, so odious to his fellow citizens, that we presume his warmest partizans would not have hazarded a recommendation of him." notwithstanding this protest the appointment was continued, the president pointing out the honors bestowed upon the father and the care with which he, jefferson, had investigated the case before acting upon it. reproving the authorities for so long excluding the republicans entirely from office, jefferson expressed his regret at finding upon his accession to the presidency not even a "moderate participation in office in the hands of the majority." he further stated that when such a situation was in some measure relieved he would be only too glad to make the question "is he capable? is he honest? is he faithful to the constitution?" the only tests for obtaining and holding office. samuel bishop died in , and the collector ship was then bestowed upon his son, who held it until his death in . in connecticut the two political parties prepared for conflict. the republicans desired a new constitution and disestablishment. the old constitutional and religious debates were opened and fiercely fought out in pamphlet, press, sermon, and political oration. noah webster replied to the "extent and power of political delusion" by "a rod for the fool's back." john leland published his famous hartford speech as "a blow at the root, a fashionable fast-day sermon," and his "high flying churchman," as contributions in behalf of civil and religious liberty. abraham bishop took up the latter topic in his "wallingford address, proofs of a conspiracy against christianity and the government of the united states," published in , as well as in his "extent and power of political delusion" of . a fair type of mr. bishop's style and treatment is shown in his "connecticut republicanism," a campaign document, wherein he sets forth his opinion of the union of church and state. [o] in his campaign document under the title "connecticut republicanism" bishop declared: christianity has suffered more by the attempts to unite church and state than by all the deistical writings, yet the men who denounce them are pronounced atheists and no proof of their atheism is required but their opposition to federal measures.... church and state cannot be better served than by keeping them distinct and by placing them where they ought to be, above, instead of beneath the control of men who care no more for either of them than they can turn to their personal benefit. the self-styled friends of order have in all nations been the cause of all the convulsions and distresses which have agitated the world.... the clergyman preaches politics, the civilian prates of orthodoxy, and if any man refuse to join their coalition they endeavor to hunt him down to the tune "the church is in danger."... in this visible intolerance had abated in new england; there was no written law in force that none but church-members should be free burgesses: yet the avowed charge of christ's church was in our law-books, some nice points of theology were settled in our statutes and the common law of church and state was in full force.... the trinitarian doctrine is established by laws, and the denial of it is placed in the rank of felony. though we have ceased to transplant from town to town quakers, new lights, and baptists; yet the dissenters from our prevailing denominations are even at this moment praying for a repeal of those laws which abridge the rights of conscience. * * * * * break the league of church and state which first subjugates your consciences, then treating your understanding like galley slaves, robs you of religion and civil freedom.... thirty thousand freemen are against the union of church and state. thirty thousand more men, deprived of voting because they are not rich or learned enough, are ready to join them. [ ] in his "wallingford address," bishop exclaims "the clerical _politician_ is a useless preacher; the _political_ christian is a dangerous statesman." on the title page of this address appeared the epigram, "our statesmen to the constitution; our clergy to the bible." the unfortunately irreverent parallel which bishop drew between the saviour of the world and the leader of the national republican party, or of the democracy or common people, gave to the epigram an evil significance not intended, and to its author a reputation not wholly deserved. david daggett, a prominent new haven federalist and lawyer, [p] tried in "facts are stubborn things" to refute the charge that the people were priest-ridden, the legislature arbitrary and tyrannical, the clergy bigots. in the course of his argument he gives an account of the reception of a baptist petition which, voicing the smouldering discontent that was kept burning by the certificate law, had been presented to the legislature. daggett charged the republicans with instituting the custom of holding their party meetings in hartford and new haven at the time of the meeting of the assembly in those cities, and of making the political gathering a means of directing what topics should be brought up for discussion in the house of representatives, and what discussed in their party organ the "american mercury." daggett accused the republicans of purposely choosing subjects of discussion of an inflammable character, and declared that it was in babcock's paper (so called from its editor) that the baptist petition originated, which, circulated through the state, received some three thousand signatures, "many of whom doubtless sought the public good." [ ] the petition was presented for trial in and a day set for its hearing, upon which mr. pierpont edwards and mr. gideon granger were to advocate it. the gentlemen, according to mr. daggett's account, did not appear, and of course no trial was held. instead, the assembly referred it to a committee of eighteen from the two houses. mr. daggett insisted that "it was thoroughly canvassed, and every gentleman professed himself entirely satisfied that there was no ground of complaint which the legislature could remove, except john t. peters, esq., who declared that nothing short of an entire repeal of the law for the support of religion would accord with his idea." the truth of the matter was that the committee were chiefly federalists. mr. peters was a republican. in their answer to the petition, the committee assumed that it "was an equitable principle, that every member of the society should, in some way, contribute to the support of religious institutions and so the complaint of those who declined to support any such institution was invalid." if there was ground for complaint because of sequestration of property for the benefit of presbyterians only, the committee failed to find any such cause, and if such existed, the proper channel of appeal was through the courts. all other complaints in the petition were considered to be answered by the assumption that the legislature had the right, on the ground of utility, to compel contributions for the support of religion, schools, and courts, whether or not every individual taxpayer had need of them. the next year, , the petition gained a hearing, but that was all. it continued to be presented at every session of the assembly, and was first heard by both houses in . it was finally withdrawn at the session that passed the bill for the new constitution of . as one of the preliminary steps in the education of the people in republican principles and aims, john strong of norwich in founded the "true republican," thus giving a second paper for the dissemination of republican opinions. from the "phenix or windham herald" had been dealing telling blows at the establishment and at the courts of law through a discussion in its columns carried on by judge swift, the inveterate foe of the union of church and state, and a lawyer, frank to avow that partiality existed in the administration of justice. though both the paper and the judge were strongly federal in their politics, they were both materially helping the republican advocates of reform. from the windham press came, also, a republication of "a review of the ecclesiastical establishments of europe," edited by r. huntington, with special reference to the bearing of its arguments upon the conditions existing in connecticut, where illustration could be found of the absurdities and dangers that the book had been originally written to expose. in john leland, representing forty-two baptist clergymen, twenty licensed exhorters, four thousand communicants, and twenty thousand attendants, sent out another plea for disestablishment in his "van tromp lowering his peak with a broadside, containing a plea for the baptists of connecticut." in it he urges that thirteen states have already granted religious liberty, and that many of them have formed newer constitutions since the revolution. such should also be the case in connecticut. moreover, it could readily be accomplished at the small cost of five cents per man. such a small sum would pay the expenses of a convention to formulate a constitution and another to ratify it, while five cents more per person would furnish every citizen with a copy of the proposed document, so that each could decide for himself upon the constitutionality of any measure proposed, and would no longer be obliged to read pamphlet after pamphlet or column after column in the newspaper to determine its validity. [ ] all this was preparatory; and the first purely political note of warning and call to battle for a new constitution was sounded by abraham bishop at hartford, may , , in his "oration in honor of the election of president jefferson and the peaceful acquisition of louisiana." he sums up the situation thus:-- connecticut has no constitution. on the day independence was declared, the old charter of charles ii became null and void. it was derived from royal authority, and went down with royal authority. then, the people ought to have met in convention and framed a constitution. but the general assembly interposed, usurped the rights of the people, and enacted that the government provided for in the charter should he the civil constitution of the state. thus all the abuses inflicted on us when subjects of a crown, were fastened on us anew when we became citizens of a free republic. we still live under the old jumble of legislative, executive and judicial powers, called a charter. we still suffer from the old restrictions on the right to vote; we are still ruled by the whims of seven men. twelve make the council. seven form a majority, and in the hands of these seven are all powers, legislative, executive and judicial. without their leave no law can pass; no law can be repealed. on them more than half of the house of the assembly is dependent for re-appointments as justices, judges, or for promotion in the militia. by their breath are, each year, brought into official life six judges of the superior court, twenty-eight of the probate, forty of county courts, and five hundred and ten justices of the peace, and, as often as they please, all the sheriffs. not only do they make laws, but they plead before justices of their own appointment, and as a court of errors interpret the laws of their own making. is this a constitution? is this an instrument of government for freemen? and who may be freemen? no one who does not have a freehold estate worth seven dollars a year, or a personal estate on the tax list of one hundred and thirty-four dollars.... for these evils there is but one remedy, and this remedy we demand shall be applied. _we demand a constitution that shall separate the legislative, executive and judicial power, extend the freeman's oath to men who labor on highways, who serve in the militia, who pay small taxes, but possess no estates._ [ ] abraham bishop threw down the gauntlet, and in the following july his party issued a circular letter. it emanated from the republican general committee, of which pierpont edwards was chairman. it stated "that many very respectable republicans are of the opinion that it is high time to speak to the citizens of connecticut plainly and explicitly on the subject of forming a constitution; but this ought not to be done without the approbation of the party." a general meeting was proposed to be held in new haven on august , . in response, ninety-seven towns sent republican delegates to assemble at the state house in new haven on that date. major william judd of farmington was chosen chairman. the meeting was held with closed doors, and a series of resolutions was passed in favor of adopting a new constitution. it was declared "the unanimous opinion of this meeting that the people of this state are at present without a constitution of civil government," and "that it is expedient to take measures preparatory to the formation of the constitution and that a committee be appointed to draft an address to the people of this state on that subject." the address reported by this committee was printed in new haven on a small half-sheet with double columns, and ten thousand copies were ordered distributed through the state. the issue was fairly before the people. from the federal side, just before the september elections, came david daggett's "count the cost," in which he ably reviewed the republican manifesto, impugning the motives of the leaders of the republican party, and eloquently urging every friend of the standing order and every freeman to "count the cost" before voting with the republicans for the proposed reform. the fall election of was lost to the republicans, for while they made many gains here and there throughout the state, [q] the immediate slight access to the federal ranks showed that the people generally were not yet ready for a constitutional change. as one result of the defeat at the polls, there arose a wider sympathy for the defeated party. when the legislature met in october, the federal leaders resolved to administer punishment to the defeated republicans. so strong was the popular feeling, and so determined the attitude of the legislature, that it summoned before it all five of the justices of the peace [r] who had attended the new haven convention of august , to show why they did not deserve to be deprived of their commissions. their oath of office ran "to be true and faithful to the governor and company of this state, and the constitution and government thereof." what right, the federals asked, had they to attack a constitution they had sworn to uphold? at the same time, several of the militia, known to be of republican sympathies, were also deposed or superseded. mr. pierpont edwards was allowed to make the defense for the justices. mr. daggett appeared for the state. reviewing the proceedings of the republican meeting, mr. daggett traced the history of the government of the colony and state in order to demonstrate that the charter was peculiarly a constitution of the people, "_made by the people_ and in a sense not applicable to any other people." he declared the new haven "address" an outrage upon decency, and it to be the duty of the assembly to withdraw their commissions from men who questioned the existence of the constitution under which they held them. the day after the hearing, a bill to revoke the commissions was passed unanimously by the governor and council, and by a majority of eleven in the lower house, the vote standing yeas to nays. this attempt to stifle public opinion won a general acknowledgment that the minority were oppressed. the feeling of sympathy thus roused was increased by the death of major judd, who had been taken ill after his arrival in new haven. his partisans asserted that his death was caused by his efforts to save himself and friends, and his consequent obligation to appear at the trial when really too ill to be about. the day after his death, the republicans published and distributed broadcast his "address to the people of the state of connecticut on the subject of the removal of himself and four other justices from office." from this time forward the minority thoroughly realized that it was "not a matter of talking down but of voting down their opponents." their leaders also understood it. bishop entered the lists, not only against his political antagonist david daggett, but against such men as professor silliman, simeon baldwin, noah webster, theodore dwight, and against the clergy, led by president dwight, simon backus, isaac lewis, john evans, and a host of secondary men who turned their pulpits into lecture desks and the public fasts and feasts into electioneering occasions. their general plea was that religion preserved the morals of the people, and consequently their civil prosperity, and hence the need for state support. occasionally one would insist that it was a matter of conscience with the presbyterians which made them enforce ecclesiastical taxes and fines, and that all had been given the dissenters that could be; that the presbyterians had "yielded every privilege they themselves enjoyed and subjected them (the dissenters) to no inconvenience, not absolutely indispensable to the countenance of the practice" (of dissent). david daggett maintained that there was a just and wide-spread alarm lest the republicans should undermine all religion, and therefore it behooved all the friends of stable government to support the standing order. the republicans vigorously contested the elections of , , and . their second general convention, that of august, , at litchfield, was more outspoken in its criticism, and so much bolder in its demands that many conservative people hesitated to follow its programme. the republican gains were so small that after there was a lull in the agitation for constitutional reform for some years. it was well understood that the religious establishment was the greatest clog upon the government. it was also thoroughly understood by many that its destruction meant the destruction of the federal party in connecticut. consequently the federal patronage distributed the several thousand offices within the gift of church and state with a "liberality equalled only by the fidelity with which they were paid for." so firm was the federal control over the state that even in they risked antagonizing the episcopalians by again refusing to charter the cheshire academy as a college with authority to confer degrees in art, divinity, and law. in the face of a strong protest, it was refused again in . the house approved this last petition, but the council rejected it. naturally, the episcopalians felt still more aggrieved when in the charter was once more refused; but still they did not desert the federal party. the latter clung to the spoils of office for their partisans, to the old restrictive franchise, and to the obnoxious stand-up law, nor were they less disdainful of the dissenters and of the republican minority. yet many of their best men had come to feel that there was wrong and injustice done the minority; that there should be a stop put to the open ignoring of democratic lawyers, numbering in their ranks many men of wide learning and of great practical ability; that the spectacle of a federal state-attorney prosecuting republican editors was not edifying, and that the imprisonment of such offenders and their trial before a hostile judiciary opened that branch of the state government to damaging and dangerous suspicion. [ ] in july, , a meeting was called in judge baldwin's office in new haven, with president dwight in the chair, to organize a society for the suppression of vice and the promotion of good morals. at this meeting the political situation was thoroughly discussed, and measures were taken to cope with it. i am persuaded [wrote the rev. lyman beecher to rev. asahel hooker in the following november] that the time has come when it becomes every friend of the state to wake up and exert his whole influence to save it from innovation.... that the effort to supplant governor smith [s] will be made is certain unless at an early stage the noise of rising opposition will be so great as to deter them; and if it is made, a separation is made in the federal party and a coalition with democracy, which will in my opinion be permanent, unless the overthrow by the election should throw them into despair or inspire repentance. if we stand idle we lose our habits and institutions piecemeal, as fast as innovations and ambitions shall dare to urge on the work. my request is that you will see mr. theodore dwight, expressing to him your views on the subject, ... and that you will in your region touch every spring, _lay_ or clerical, which you can touch prudently, that these men do not steal a march upon us, and that the rising opposition may meet them early, before they have gathered strength. every blow struck now will have double the effect it will after the parties are formed and the lines drawn. i hope we shall not act independently, but i hope we shall all act, who fear god or regard men. [ ] writing of the meeting to organize the society for the suppression of vice and the formation of good morals, dr. beecher in his "autobiography" gives a sketch of the politics of the time that had led up to the occasion. one of the prominent actors of the time, he tells us that this meeting, composed of prominent federalists of all classes, was unusual, for-- it was a new thing in that day for the clergy and laymen to meet on the same level and co-operate. it was the first time there had ever been such a consultation in our day. the ministers had always managed things themselves, for in those days the ministers were all politicians. they had always been used to it from the beginning.... on election day they had a festival, and, fact is, when they got together they would talk over who should be governor, and who lieutenant-governor, and who in the upper house, and their councils would prevail. now it was a part of the old steady habits of the state ... that the lieutenant-governor should succeed to the governorship. and it was the breaking up of this custom by the civilians, against the influence of the clergy, that first shook the stability of the standing order and the federal party in the state. lieutenant governor treadwell ( ) was a stiff man, and the time had come when many nlen did not like that sort of thing. he had been active in the enforcement of the sabbath laws, and had brought on himself the odium of the opposing party. hence of the civilians of our party, david daggett and other wire-pullers, worked to have him superseded, and roger griswold, the ablest man in congress, put in his stead. that was rank rebellion against the ministerial candidate. but daggett controlled the whole of fairfleld county bar, and griswold was a favorite with the lawyers, and the democrats helped them because they saw how it would work; so there was no election by the people, and treadwell was acting governor till , when griswold was chosen. the lawyers, in talking about it, said: "we have served the clergy long enough; we must take another man, and they must look out for themselves." throwing treadwell over in broke the charm and divided the party; persons of third-rate ability on our side who wanted to be somebody deserted; all the infidels in the state had long been leading on that side ... minor sects had swollen and complained of certificates. our efforts to reform morals by law were unpopular. [t] finally the episcopalians went over to the democrats. the episcopal split was due to a foolish and arbitrary proceeding on the part of the federals. in the spring of , a petition was presented to the general assembly for the incorporation of the phoanix bank of hartford, offering "in conformity to the precedents in other states, to pay for the privilege of the incorporation herein prayed for, the sum of sixty thousand dollars to be collected (being a premium to be advanced by the stockholders) as fast as the successive instalments of the capital stock shall be paid in; and to be appropriated, if in the opinion of your honors it shall be deemed expedient, in such proportion as shall by your honors be thought proper, to the use of the corporation of yale college, of the medical institution, established in the city of new haven, and to the corporation of the trustees of the fund of the bishop of the episcopal church in this state, or for any purpose whatever, which to your honors may seem best." the capital asked for was $ , , . "the purpose of this offer [u] a was a double one,--creating an interest in favor of the bank charter among episcopalians and retaining their influence on the side of the charter government, as there was no inconsiderable amount of talent among them." the bishop's fund, slowly gathering since , amounted to barely $ . this bonus would give it a good start, and conciliate the episcopalians, still indignant at the refusal of the assembly to incorporate their college. when presented to the assembly, the lower house favored the bank charter; the council, rejecting it, appointed a committee to consider its request. they soon originated an act of incorporation, granting a capital of $ , , , and ordered the bonus to be paid into the treasury. an act of incorporation, rather than a petition, was, they claimed, the way established by custom of granting bank charters. the same session of the legislature originated bills giving $ , to the medical institution of yale college, and one of the same amount to the bishop's fund, "in conformity to the offer of the petitioners for the ph�nix bank, and out of the first moneys received from it as a bonus." the bill for the medical school was passed unanimously by the house; that for the bishop's fund uniformly voted down. [v] the episcopalians, to whom the republicans were quick to offer their sympathy, asserted that by the "grant to yale the legislature had _committed themselves in good faith_ to make the grant to the two other corporations connected with it in the same petition." [w] stripped of formal and courteous wording, the petition, both in letter and in spirit, had offered its conditions to all, if accepted by one; or, if refused at all, the opportunity to divert the money from all three recipients to some other and quite different use which should be approved by the legislature. the further bad faith of both branches of the assembly increased the enmity of the episcopalians. in the spring of , they petitioned for their first installment of $ , . they were told that the treasury was empty, and that war time was no time to attend to such matters. in the fall, in answer to their second petition, they found the lower house still hostile; the majority of the council, including the governor, in their favor, until the discussion came up, when the council, with one exception, sided with the house. the explanation of the change appeared to the episcopalians to be due to the fact that during the session the medical school had petitioned for the balance of the $ , , and seemed likely to receive it at the spring meeting. this was too much for the episcopalians, and thereafter the democrats claimed nine tenths of their vote. the sect was estimated in to contain from one eleventh to one thirteenth of the population. the democratic-republicans had won over discontented radicals, a majority of the dissatisfied dissenters, a few conservatives, and now the indignant episcopalians. their political hopes rose higher, but the war of - interfered, substituting national interests for local ones, yet all the while adding recruits to the republican ranks, so that at its close there was a strong party. there was also a federal faction in process of disintegration. the result was that when the constitutional reform movement again became the issue of the day, though supported by the republicans, the question at issue soon drew to itself a new political combine which under various forms kept the name of the toleration party, and which eventually won the victory for religious freedom and disestablishment. footnotes: [a] this party, called for short "republican," stood for the principles known as "democratic,"--the appellation of the party itself since . this was the school of jefferson. [b] there were men of mark among the anti-federalist leaders, such as william williams of lebanon, a signer of the declaration, gen. james wadsworth of durham, and gen. erastus wolcott of east windsor,--these three were members of the council; dr. benjamin gale of killingworth, joseph hopkins, esq., of waterbury, col. peter bulkley of colchester, col. william worthington of saybrook, and capt. abraham granger of suffield. at the ratification of the constitntution the tote stood to . afterwards for about ten years, in the conduct of state politics, there was little friction, for in local matters the anti-federalists were generally conservatives." [c] two deputies were allowed every town rated at $ , . in oliver ellsworth had prepared a bill limiting towns of £ , or under to one deputy. it passed the senate, but was defeated in the house.--_the constitution of connecticut_, , state series, p. . [d] in his pamphlet dr. gale advises that each town nominate one man, and from the nominations in each county, the general assembly elect two, four or six delegates from each county to meet and frame a new constitution, since "any legislature is too numerous a body, and too unskilled in the science of government to properly perform such a task" (p. ).--j. hammond trumbull, _hist. notes on the constitution of conn._, p. , and wolcott's manuscript in _mass. hist. soc. col._ vol. iv. [e] a similar method of election applied to the representatives in congress. eighteen names were voted on in may for nomination, of which the seven highest were listed for election in september. [f] bishop seabury's church, st. james of new london, had neglected to ohserve president washington's proclamation of a national thanksgiving on february , , which fell in lent. this roused some antagonism, and was made the subject of a sharp and rather censorious newspaper attack upon the episcopalians. at the same time a few federal congregationalists were further stirred by bishop seabury's signature, viz. "samuel, bishop of connecticut and rhode island," to a proclamation that the prelate had issued, urging a contribution in behalf of the algerine captives. this signature was regarded as a "pompous expression of priestly pride." governor huntington was a personal friend of bishop seabury. moreover, at this particular time, the congregation to which the governor belonged in norwich was worshiping in the episcopal church during the rebuilding of their own meeting-house, which had been destroyed by fire. the governor had previously been approached with a suggestion that the fasts and feasts of the congregationalists and episcopalians should be made to coincide, or at least that the annual fast day should not be appointed for any time between easter week and trinity sunday, and that the public thanksgivings, when occasion required them, should, if possible, not be appointed during lent. in , the annual fast day would have fallen upon the thursday in holy week. in order to avoid laying any stress upon the sanctity of certain days of the week, and because governor huntington wished to turn the public mind away from the petty controversy, he appointed the fast day on good friday. in , the annual fast fell in the lenten season. in , in order to avoid having the fast interfere with the regular sessions of the county courts, and at the same time to avoid its falling in easter week, governor trumbull appointed it again on good friday. the arrangement was accepted with satisfaction by the episcopalians and with no objections from the congregationalists, and thereafter it became the custom. (bishop seabury had been elected to the bishopric of rhode island in .)--william deloss love, jr., _fasts and thanksgivings of new england_, pp. - . [g] early in his career he had written a versification of the psalms, in his _conquest of canaan_, and later _triumph of infidelity_. president dwight taught the seniors rhetoric, logic, ethics, and metaphysics, and the graduate students in theology. in he was appointed to the professorship of the latter study. [h] dr. dwight's _theology explained_ was not published until , after his death, and his _travels_ not until - . [i] except among the backwoodsmen of kentucky in - . [j] the society was granted a charter in . in interest in the missions was intensified by the free distribution of seventeen hundred copies of the report of missionary work in england and america. [k] the rev. jedidiah champion of lifcchfield, an ardent federalist, on the sunday following the news of the election of adams and jefferson, prayed fervently for the president-elect, closing with the words, " lord! wilt thou bestow upon the vice-president a double portion of thy grace, _for thou knowest he needs it._" this was mild, for jefferson was considered by the new england clergy to be almost the equal of napoleon, whom one of them named the "scourge of god." [l] pierpont edwards, b. april , , graduated at princeton, , died april , . timothy dwight, b. may , , died january , . aaron burr, b. february , , vice-president - , died september , . theodore dwight, b. december , , educated for the law under pierpont edwards, and practiced it for a time in new york city with his cousin, aaron burr. he broke the partnership because of difference in politics, and went to hartford. he became a member of the governor's council, - ; secretary of the hartford convention, . he established the _connecticut mirror_ in ; founded and conducted the _albany daily advertiser_, - , and the _daily advocate_, new york, - . he died june , . [m] the crimes against religion punishable by law were blasphemy (by whipping, fine, or imprisonment); atheism, polytheism, unitarianism, apostaey (by loss of employment, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or military, for the first offense).--_swift's system of law_, ii, , . [n] _oration delivered in wallingford on the eleventh of march , before the republicans of the state of connecticut at the general thanksgiving for the election of thomas jefferson to the presidency, and of aaron burr to the vice-presidency, of the united states of america ._ see the appendix to the oration for an account of the new haven episode. [o] "connecticutensis," or david daggett, also replied in _three letters to abraham bishop._ theodore dwight's _oration at new haven before the society of the cincinnati, july , ,_ took up the constitutionality of the charter government. [p] later chief justice. [q] windham county was steadily republican after this election. [r] major william judd of farmington, jabez h. tomlinson of stratford, augur judson of huntington, hezekiah goodrich of chatham, and nathaniel manning of windham. [s] federalist. [t] to preserve our institutions and reform public morals, to bring back the keeping of the sabbath was our aim ... we tried to do it by resuscitating and enforcing the law (that was our mistake, but we did not know it then.) and wherever i went i pushed that thing; bear up the laws--execute the laws.... we took hold of it in the association at fairfield, june, , ... recommending among other things a petition to congress." (_autobiography_, i, .) at this meeting originated the famous petition against sunday mail. dr. beeeher urged a domestic missionary society to build up waste places in connecticut. his sermon "reformation of morals practicable and desirable" warned against "profane and profligate men of corrupt minds and to every good work reprobate." [u] judge church. [v] the final speech in favor of the bill was made by nathan smith, a lawyer of new haven. when he had finished his eloquent setting forth of the benefits and dangers attendant upon passing the bill, there was an unusual and solemn silence. dr. gillett says if the bill had been promptly put to vote it would probably have been passed, but the churchlike silence was broken by a shrill voice piping forth, "mr. speaker, mr. speaker, what shall we sing?" the laughter which followed broke the orator's charm and sealed the fate of the bill. [w] see _columbian register_ of june , , for a full account of the bishop's fund and the final award of the bonus. chapter xv disestablishment no distinction shall i make between trojan and tyrian. the federal grip upon connecticut, one of the last strongholds of that party, was weakening. preceding the deflection of the episcopalians in connecticut, there had been throughout new england a strong federal opposition to the national government and its commands during the war of . such conduct had shattered party prestige, and when its opposition culminated in the hartford convention of , it wrote its own death-warrant. the republicans, on the contrary, had dropped local questions of constitutional reform and religious liberty, preferring to bend all their energies to the support of the general government. when as a national party they humbled england and brought the war to a victorious close, the contrast of their loyalty to state and national interests steadily drew the popular favor. in the era of good feeling and prosperity that followed, the great national political parties dissolved somewhat and crystallized anew. in connecticut a similar change took place in local politics. in the years immediately following the war, the democratic-republicans, the majority of the dissenters, and the dissatisfied among the federalists, formed different coalitions that, under the general name of toleration, [a] opposed the standing order. in the agitation for constitutional reform was revived, and after three years resulted in the overthrow of the federalists and the triumph of a peaceful revolution whereby religious liberty was assured. the conduct of the federal party, both within and without connecticut from to , was quite as much the real cause of their downfall in the state as that coalition between clergy and lawyers described by dr. beecher as causing the breakdown of party machinery and its ultimate ruin. glancing somewhat hastily at some of the most far-reaching acts of the federalists, we find first the federal opposition to the embargo that from december , , for over a year paralyzed new england commerce. in february, , john quincy adams, who had recently resigned the massachusetts senatorship because of his unpopular support of the embargo, informed president jefferson that the measure could no longer be enforced. he assured the president that the new england federalist leaders, privily encouraged by england, were preparing to break that section off from the union of the states if the embargo were not speedily repealed. this information, whether accurate or not, so influenced the president and his advisers that the non-intercourse act, applying only to france and england, replaced the embargo, whose repeal took effect from march , . in the following december, madison's administration (in the belief that france had withdrawn her hostile decrees) limited non-intercourse to england alone, after having vainly urged upon her a repeal of her orders in council. with the embargo lifted, new england commerce revived, and connecticut seamen, connecticut farmers, [b] connecticut merchants, together with artisans of all the allied industries that were called upon in the fitting out of ships and cargoes, enjoyed two years of prosperity. the period was given over to money-getting, and the ordinary rules of national or commercial honesty were flung to the winds. napoleon sold licenses to british vessels to supply his famishing soldiers stationed in continental ports, while forged american and british papers were openly sold in london. so enormous were the profits of a successful voyage that the possibility of capture only added zest to the american ventures and contributed not a little to the daring of the privateers in the years of the war. so enriched was the state that by may, , connecticut had so far recovered from her late financial distress that the "state owed no debt and every tax was paid," while her exports were: domestic, $ , ; foreign, $ , , or a total of $ , , . the ninety days' embargo of , the declaration of war (june , ), and the patrolling of long island sound by a british fleet, brought such desolation to connecticut that ships again lay rotting at the wharves, ropewalks and warehouses were deserted, cargoes were without carriers, and seamen were either scattered or idling about, a constant menace to the public peace. national taxes to support a detested war were laid upon the people at a time when their incomes were ceasing, and their homes and property were laid bare to a plundering enemy. "a nation without fleets, without armies, with an impoverished treasury, with a frontier by sea and land extending many hundreds of miles, feebly defended" by fortifications old and neglected, had rushed headlong into war with the strongest nation of the earth without "counting the cost." such was the opinion of the federalists everywhere and, at first, of the large wing of the republican party who preferred peace. the federalists of connecticut, when they saw a small majority sweep the nation into the conflict with great britain, believed the war threatened liberty of speech. they feared military despotism, when the general government demanded the control of the militia; and that the war would prostrate" their civil and religious institutions by increasing taxation and loss of income." [c] they feared "national dismemberment" when the war measures, together with the presence of the british fleet blockading the coast, alternately angered the people almost to rebellion against an apparently indifferent central government, or drove them into plans for self-defense. much of the opposition in new england is in part accounted for by the rebound towards federalism which the declaration of the war caused, and by the belief that the national election of would be a federal victory. though it turned out to be a defeat, it consolidated and so strengthened that party in new england that before the close of all the state executives were federalists and were arrayed against the administration. the republicans kept their hold upon the minority, partly by the diversion of the capital, thrown out of the carrying trade, into privateer ventures, war supplies, and manufactures. at the beginning of the war, governor griswold, of connecticut, backed by both houses of the legislature, joined with governor strong of massachusetts (supported only by the house of representatives) in a refusal to place the militia under regular officers of the united states army. they refused also to allow the quotas called for by general dearborn (under the act of congress of april , ), for the expedition against canada, to leave the state. these executives claimed that the troops were not needed to execute the laws of the united states, to suppress insurrection, or to repel invasion,--the only three constitutional reasons giving the president the right to consider himself "commander in chief of the militia of the several states." [ ] by taking such a stand, the state governors assumed to decide whether a necessity existed that gave the president his constitutional right to call out the militia. mr. henry cabot lodge, in his "memoir of governor strong," exonerates that executive by pleading his intense convictions of duty, his loyal patriotism, and his later efficient aid [d] in defending the eastern coast of the state. mr. lodge reminds his reader that the governor's position was supported by the best lawyers, whom he had been at great pains to consult concerning state and federal rights, which, at that period, had not been so carefully examined and discriminated between as since. the same pleas may be urged for governors griswold [e] and smith. the connecticut legislature immediately passed an act for raising twenty-six hundred men for state defense under state officers. governor griswold's successor, gov. j. cotton smith, when decatur was blockaded in the thames, when the descent upon saybrook was made, at the attack upon stonington, and during those months when the enemy hovered upon the long exposed coast line, kept a large force of militia ready for duty. the state supported these troops, for, in the wrangle over officership, the national government refused the promised supplies. the new england federalists soon found seven great reasons for party action. they were the uncertain success of the war by land; the great commercial distress; [f] the possession by the enemy of a large part of maine; the publication of the terms upon which england would grant peace; [g] the proposed legislation in the fall of , providing for the increase of the united states army by draft or conscription; the proposed modified form of impressment of sailors; and the bill allowing army officers to enlist minors and apprentices over eighteen years of age, with or without consent of parents or guardians. [h] these measures drove the new england federalists, at the call of massachusetts, to the formation of the hartford convention. the connecticut legislature approved the sending of delegates by a vote of to opposed. massachusetts and rhode island answered with like enthusiasm. new hampshire and vermont hesitated, but the counties of cheshire and grafton in the former state and of windham in the latter sent each a delegate to the convention. rhode island sent four delegates and massachusetts twelve, of whom george cabot was elected president of the convention. connecticut furnished the secretary of the convention, and later its historian in theodore dwight of hartford. she also sent seven other delegates, namely: chauncey goodrich, mayor of hartford, and from to governor of the state; john treadwell, ex-governor; james hillhouse, who had served as united states representative and senator; zephaniah swift, united states representative and later chief judge of superior court of connecticut; calvin goddard, united states representative; nathaniel smith, united states representative and later judge of the supreme court; and roger minot sherman, a distinguished lawyer and member of the state legislature. all the delegates to the hartford convention were men of high character, and most of them well-known leaders of the federal party. the convention lasted for three weeks, and, as its sessions were conducted with the greatest secrecy, many prejudicial rumors and surmises arose. the massachusetts summons had bidden the delegates convene for measures of safety "not repugnant to our obligations as members of the union," and the convention acknowledged that it found the greatest difficulty in "devising means of defense against dangers, and of relief from oppressions proceeding from the act of their own government without violating constitutional principles or disappointing the hopes of a suffering and injured people." the secrecy, the known antagonism to the administration, the knowledge of new england's early disbelief in the cohesive power of the union, and the convention's demands and resolutions, combined to give a bad and traitorous reputation to the hartford convention that has never been absolutely cleared away. as early as , over the signature "pelham," there had appeared in the "hartford courant" a series of articles written with great ability and keen foresight as to the difficulties that would arise in making any impartial legislation for a nation composed of parts having such diverse economic systems as those of the north and the south. the articles suggested the development of two nations instead of one. during the war of , various suggestions had been thrown out by different newspapers enlarging upon the resources of new england and hinting at a separate peace with england. there were not a few who, upon learning of the resolutions of the convention, felt that "pelham" was a close adviser of its measures if not one of its delegates. public opinion was so wrought up by the assumed disloyalty of the hartford convention that in it forced the publication of the convention's brief and non-committal "journal." from it little more was learned than that the convention had resolved that the different states should take measures to protect themselves against draft by the national government, that new england should be allowed to defend herself, and for that purpose should have returned to each of her states a reasonable share of the national taxes to meet the expense of their arming. in addition, each new england state should set apart a certain portion of her militia under her governor to give aid in cases of extremity should she be called upon by the governor of another state. at the close of the convention, delegates were appointed to proceed to washington with these resolutions and also with six proposed amendments [i] to the national constitution. these demands and resolves were reinforced by the proposal that should the administration refuse to consider the propositions, another convention should be held in the following summer to consider further action. when the delegates arrived in washington with the resolutions, of which two state legislatures had meantime approved, the news of peace had been declared. in the general jubilation they saw fit to leave their message undelivered. for years the taint of rebellion clung to the hartford convention, and forced its secretary, in , to publish his "history," a defense of its members and their measures. even this did not remove the stigma. the delegates had in their own communities always retained their reputation for high personal character, but politically they were irretrievably ruined by their participation in the hartford gathering. they had dealt their party in their states a mortal blow, and the hartford convention has been well named "the grave of the federal party." however much the members of the convention swathed their sentiments in expressions of allegiance to the union, at least until extreme provocation should force a separation; or however much they declared their conviction that peace, not war, should be the time chosen for such a separation, and that, first of all, distinction should be carefully made between a bad constitution and a bad government, and a good constitution or government badly administered, there was no doubt but that they proposed to push nullification to the point of active resistance within what they considered their legal rights. they had also proposed a set of amendments which they knew stood no chance of meeting with approval from any number of the states. moreover the hartford convention, whatever its intentions, seriously alarmed and embarrassed the administration. because of the consequences of their policy, its members were culpable in the opinion of all who hold that, in the distress of war, to hamper one's own government is to lend assistance to the enemy. [j] the war at first was not popular, but made friends for itself as it progressed. connecticut sailors were among the seamen that england had impressed, and connecticut captains had surrendered ships and rich cargoes at the command of the mistress of the seas. but the naval triumphs of the first year caught the popular fancy, for "not until the guerriere's colors were struck to the constitution had a british frigate been humiliated on the ocean." the victories on land were about equally balanced. the disclosures of english perfidy in attempting through her secret agents [k] to detach new england from the union before war should break out, and during the conflict, by favoritism to massachusetts, helped to increase the supporters of the war policy. further, the war brought out the latent powers of the nation, both for defense and for prosperity. the gradual introduction of machinery since had enlarged the small manufactories of connecticut, and begun the exchange of products between near localities. but before the war of no manufacturing in connecticut had achieved a notable success. [l] there was invention and skill, [m] and often profit, in the home market for the coarser products, but there was a general tendency to prefer imported goods of finer make. the war cut off such supplies, and the need created a paying demand and developed an ability to supply it. the political party that conducted the war to a successful finish developed the policy of protection of infant industries, and the tariff of gave birth to connecticut as a manufacturing state. the repeal of the obnoxious war measures, the speedy reduction of the national expenses, and the promise of prosperity smoothed out lingering resentment. the federal party was virtually extinct outside of its last strongholds in new england and delaware. in the era of good feeling following the war the whole people composed one party, with principles neither those of the original federal party nor those of the original republican party, but a combination of both." [n] in new england during the war of , as in the revolution, the clergy had been the nucleus of the local dominant party, and with its leaders had been bitter opponents of the "unrighteous war." [ ] consequently the congregational clergy shared in the popular disapproval and condemnation that overtook the federalists. in connecticut, for a time, the standing order by its affiliation with the federal party prolonged its control. of the state. but the tide was turning. dr. lyman beecher, dr. dwight's able lieutenant, made vigorous and laudable efforts to uphold the dwights, the aaron and moses, as it were, of the waning political power. the "home missionary society," [o] bible societies, the "domestic missionary society for the building up of waste places," and the many branches of the "society for the suppression of vice and promotion of good morals" [p] did much good among those who welcomed them. where their results were simply those of a morality enforced by law, they caused still greater dissatisfaction with the ruling party. [q] the union of the clergy and lawyers was not as influential as had been anticipated in the early days of . soon after the war the clergy adopted a less vigorous policy, preferring an attitude of defense against calumny and a withdrawal from politics. [r] the elections showed the change in public opinion. at the april election, , the federals reelected governor smith, while the republican candidate, mr. edward boardman, received votes. the following year, notwithstanding governor smith's reëlection, mr. boardman polled votes, and the republicans made a gain of twenty in the house of representatives, while in the fall nominations for assistants, the highest federal vote was and that of the republicans was . [ ] in january, , "a meeting of citizens from various parts of the state" was held in new haven to agree upon a nomination for governor and lieutenant-governor, which would bind together the republicans and such of the federalists as were opposed to the standing order. oliver wolcott and jonathan ingersll were unanimously agreed upon. oliver wolcott had been living out of the state for fourteen years, and for most of that time had not been in politics. his republican supporters had had time to forget him as a staunch federalist, and remembered him only as a man of parts who had held the secretaryship of the treasury under washington and adams, and who had "opposed the hartford convention; like washington was a friend to the _union_, a foe to rebellion; with mild means resisted bigotry, with a glowing heart favored toleration." [ ] as he had approved the policy of the general government since the days of madison, he was pronounced an available candidate. a good congregationalist, he would not offend the federalists, would be acceptable to the republicans, and would stand to the capitalists and farmers as favorable to a protective tariff and to more equitable taxation within the state. the prestige given him by the executive abilities of his father and grandfather in the gubernatorial chair also counted in his favor. the candidate for lieutenant-governor was jonathan ingersoll, a federalist, an eminent new haven lawyer, a prominent episcopalian, senior warden of trinity church, and chairman of the bishop's fund. he had had political training in the council, - , and had been judge of the superior court, - , and again from to . his nomination was the price of the episcopal vote, for "it was deemed expedient by giving the episcopalians a fair opportunity to unite with the republicans, to attempt to affect such change in the government as should afford some prospect of satisfaction to their united demands." [s] the "connecticut herald," indignant at the assembly's conduct in the phoenix bank affair, left the federal party and independently nominated jonathan ingersoll for lieutenant-governor instead of the regular candidate of that party, chauncey goodrich. the "american mercury," the organ of the american toleration party, the union of republicans, dissenters, and dissatisfied, in order "to produce that concord and harmony among parties which have too long, and without any real diversity of interests, been disturbed, and which every honest man must earnestly desire to see restored," nominated for governor, oliver wolcott; for lieutenant-governor, jonathan ingersoll. the federal candidate for the executive was governor john cotton smith, up for reëlection. the tolerationists failed by a few hundred votes to seat their candidate for the executive, with the result that the election of raised to office governor smith and lieutenant-governor ingersoll. governor smith received , votes, mr. wolcott , , while lieutenant-governor ingersoll polled a majority of over his opponent, mr. calvin goddard. [t] it was the first time that a dissenter had held so high an office. the federalists might have seized the opportunity to renew their former friendship with the episcopalians had it not been for their stubbornness and for their old fear of churchmen in political office. at the october town meetings, the returns from ninety-three towns gave a federal vote of and a republican of for representatives, with a federal majority of about thirty in the house. [ ll] the federalists, realizing that the episcopal vote was almost lost to them, that their domestic policy was in disfavor, and that their conduct during the war had damaged them and was leading to their downfall in connecticut even as in the nation, resolved upon a desperate measure to conciliate a larger number of the dissenters. this was the act of october, , for the support of literature and religion. briefly, it divided the balance of the money which the nation owed connecticut for expenses during the war, namely $ , , among the various denominations. to the congregationalists it gave in round numbers, and including the grant to yale, $ , ; to the episcopalians, $ , ; to methodists, $ , ; and to baptists, $ , ; to quakers, sandemanians, etc., nothing. [u] the quakers were assumed to be satisfied with their recent exemptions from military duty upon the payment of a small tax; sandemanians and other insignificant sects to be conciliated by the act of the preceding april, which repealed, after a duration of nearly one hundred and eighty years, the fine of fifty cents for absence from church on sunday. the people were at last free, not only to worship as they chose, but when they chose, or to omit worship. they had yet to obtain equal privileges for all denominations, and exemption from enforced support of religion. the passage of the act for the support of literature and religion raised, as the congregationalists ought to have known it would, a violent protest from every dissenter and from every political come-outer. some of the towns in town-meetings opposed the bill as unnecessary for the support of schools and clergy; as wasteful, when it would be wiser to create a state fund; and as unduly favorable to yale, where the policy was to create an intellectual class and not to advance learning and literature among the commonalty. at andover, february , , episcopalians, baptists, and methodists met together and denounced the act because they disapproved of the union of church and state which it encouraged; because of yale's tendency to bias religion; because they all approved of the voluntary support of religion; and because they all scorned such a political trick as the bill appeared to them, namely, an attempt to win by their acceptance of the money their apparent approval of the enforced support of religion. the baptist societies in different towns met to condemn the measure on the same grounds, and on the additional ones that it was unfair to the quakers, who had no paid preachers; to the universalists, because they were numerically still too small to be of political importance; and indeed to many men, since, as every man had contributed to the expense of the war, every man ought to be rewarded proportionally. the methodists agreed in all these criticisms, and were no more backward in denouncing a measure which forced on them money they did not seek, and for a purpose of which they disapproved. the methodist society of glastonbury were most outspoken, declaring the law-- incompatible with sound policy and inconsistent with any former act of the legislature of the state; the ultimate consequence of which will prove a lasting curse to vital religion, which every candid and reflecting mind may easily foresee; and we view it as a very bold and desperate effort to effectuate a union between church and state.... we are induced to believe that pilate and herod, and the chief priests are still against us,... $ , to the contrary notwithstanding. resolved-- ( ) we don't want such reparation for being characterized as an illiterate set of enthusiasts devoid of character; our clergy a set of worthless ramblers, unworthy the protection of our civil laws. ( ) pity and contempt for the legislature should be expressed for bribery. ( ) we believe the money, if received, would be a lasting curse. ( ) the measure was intended for politics, not religion, and was a species of tyranny. ( ) we should use our best endeavors to have the money used for state expenses. ( ) thanks should be sent to the members of the legislature who had opposed the measure. all methodists were further angered by the affront put upon them by the general assembly, which, in spite of their known determination not to receive the money, appointed methodist trustees, of whom a majority were federalists, to receive their share of the appropriation. the trustees accepted the money, defending their action on the ground that they believed that their claim would become void if they did not draw the money, and it might then be put to a worse use. but the methodist societies did not uphold the trustees, and "regretted the committee imposed on us by the legislature of the state." the chairman of the committee, the rev. augustus bolles, refused to serve, and the societies rejected the money. [v] as a result of the unwelcome legislation, the republicans received the whole vote of the methodists for the "toleration and reform ticket" of , which repeated the nominations of the preceding election. the episcopalians of course favored the reëlection of lieutenant-governor ingersoll. one small provocation by the congregationalists of the first church of new haven--the attempt to place the odium of expulsion upon a member who became an episcopalian--did not tend to allay feeling. the toleration party were sure of the votes of the more feeble dissenters, whose interests they promised to regard, as well as of those of the baptists and of such federalists as disapproved of the high-handed policy of the standing order. the tolerationists were also counting upon a steady increase of recruits from the federal ranks as soon as the appreciation of a recent attack by the legislature upon the judiciary and its danger should become more and more realized. many such recruits, convinced of the necessity of constitutional reform, had gathered at the general meeting of republicans held in new haven in october, , to make up the ticket for the spring election of . the campaign issue was "whether freemen shall be tolerated in the free exercise of their religious and political rights." it was met by the election of governor wolcott with a majority of votes over ex-governor j. cotton smith, and by no opposition to the reëlection of lieutenant-governor ingersoll. [w] at the same election many minor republican officials were seated, and the house went republican by an assured majority of nearly two to one, the senate remaining strongly federal. governor wolcott's inaugural placed before the assembly the following subjects for consideration: ( ) a new system of taxation; for, as the governor pointed out, the capitation tax was equivalent to about one-sixteenth of the laboring man's income. ( ) judges of the superior court should hold their office during good behavior instead of by annual appointment by the legislature. ( ) there should be a complete separation of legislative and judicial powers of government. ( ) rights of conscience and the voluntary support of religion, though if necessary with "laws providing efficient remedies for enforcing the voluntary contracts for their [ministers'] support," should be considered; and ( ) freedom of suffrage. in concluding, the governor urged that "whenever the public mind appears to be considerably agitated on these subjects, prudence requires that the legislature should revise its measures, and by reasonable explanation or modifications of the law, restore public confidence and tranquillity." [x] to consider briefly these various points: taxes upon mills, machinery, and manufactures needed to be light in order to secure their continued existence. the necessities of war-time had created a larger market for their products, but one that could not be continued after the close of the war allowed european products to enter free of duty. nor could the factories exist if burdened with heavy taxes before the new tariff measures of had revived these depressed industries. in agriculture, taxes upon horses, oxen, stock, dairy products, and increased areas of tillage handicapped the farmer. again, the tax upon fire-places, rather than upon houses, weighed heavily upon the poor and the moderately well-to-do, who built small and inexpensive houses with say three fireplaces, while the rich owners of older and more pretentious dwellings were often rated for fewer. [y] money was scarce, rich men rare. so also was great poverty. there was a scanty living for the majority. trades were few, wages low. a farm-hand averaged three shillings a day, paid in provisions. women of all work drudged for two shillings and sixpence per week, while a farm overseer received a salary of seventy dollars a year. the children of people in average circumstances walked barefoot to church, carrying their shoes and stockings, which they put on under the shelter of the big tree nearest to the meeting-house. their fathers made one sunday suit last for years. the wealthy had small incomes, though relatively great. it was whispered that pierpont edwards, the rich and prosperous new haven lawyer, had an income from his law practice of two thousand dollars per year. points ( ) and ( ) in the governor's address were prompted by the widespread interest created by the action of the legislature in october, , when it had set aside the conviction, by a special superior court at middletown, of peter lung for murder, on the ground that the court was irregularly and illegally convened. the chief judge was zephaniah swift of windham, author of the "system of connecticut laws." [z] judge swift appealed to the public [aa] to vindicate his judicial character from the censure implied by the assembly's action. an ardent federalist, who in the early days of statehood could see no need of a better constitution than he then insisted connecticut possessed through the adoption of her ancient charter, he had long opposed the ecclesiastical establishment which that charter upheld. in his defense of the constitution he had maintained that "it ought to be deemed an inviolable maxim that _when proper courts of law are constituted, the legislature are divested of all judicial authority_." [ l ] but when the legislature claimed as constitutional the right to call to account any court, magistrate, or other officer for misdemeanor or mal-administration, [ab] judge swift admitted the lack of "a written constitution." he further argued that the one "made up of usages and customs, had always been understood to contain certain fundamental axioms which were held sacred and inviolable, and which were the basis on which rested the rights of the people." of these self-evident principles one was that the three branches of government--the executive, legislative, and judicial--were coordinate and independent, and that the powers of one should never be exercised by the other. "it ought to be held as a fundamental axiom," the judge declared, "that _the legislature should never encroach on the jurisdiction of the judiciary,_ nor assume the province of interfering in private rights, nor of overhauling the decisions of the courts of law." otherwise, "the legislature would become one great arbitration that would engulf all the courts of law, [ac] and _sovereign discretion_ would be 'the only rule of decision,--a state of things _equally favorable to lawyers and criminals."_ [ ] with respect to the fifth point in the governor's address, the right of suffrage, the republicans and their allies demanded its extension from householders haying real estate rated at $ ( s.), or personal estate of $ (£ ), to "men who pay small taxes, work on highways, or do service in the militia." in the fall of , the reform party had forced the repeal of the obnoxious stand-up law, and it demanded that other restrictive measures should be annulled. so bitter was the federal antagonism in the council that during all the spring session of , the tolerationists loudly complained that every reform measure proposed in the house was lost in the federal senate. the committees to which parts of the governor's speech had been referred for consideration did little. that on taxation made a report in the fall recommending that a careful investigation of conditions and resources should be made, because, as capital sought investment, in banks, manufacturing, and various commercial enterprises unknown to the earlier generations, [ad] the fairness of the old system of taxation was lapsing. the mixed committee, including several tolerationists and having an episcopal chairman, that was to report upon the religious situation, gave no encouragement to dissenters. the spring session allowed one barren act to pass, the "act to secure equal rights, powers, and privileges to christians of all denominations in this state." it enacted that henceforth certificates should be lodged with the _town clerk,_ and permitted a come-outer to return to the society from which he had separated. in the following spring, when an attempt was made to pass a bill to supersede this act, it was maintained that the law of "did not effect the object or answer the desire of the aggrieved party," for it retained the certificate clause and continued to deny to dissenters the measure of religious liberty freely accorded to the established churches. the tolerationists were determined to carry the elections of . in the fall elections of , they again had a majority of nearly two to one in the house, and consequently the struggle was for the control of the senate. at the fall meetings, they placed in nomination their candidates for senators, and all through the winter they agitated in town meetings and in every other way the discussion of their "constitution and reform ticket." party pamphlets were scattered throughout the state. one of these, the most in favor, was "the politics of connecticut: by a federal republican" (george h. richards of new london). at the spring elections of , the constitution and reform ticket carried the day, seating the reflected governor and lieutenant-governor, eight anti-federal senators, and preserving the anti-federal majority in the house. the political revolution was complete, and the preliminary steps towards the construction of a new constitution were at once begun. [ae] the governor's inaugural address specified the main task before the assembly in the following words:-- as a portion of the people have expressed a desire that the form of civil government in this state should be revised, this highly interesting subject will probably engage your [the assembly's] deliberations.... considered merely as an instrument denning the powers and duties of magistrates and rulers, the charter may justly be considered as unprovisional and imperfect. yet it ought to be recollected that what is now its greatest defect was formerly a pre-eminent advantage, it being then highly important to the people to acquire the greatest latitude of authority with an exemption from british influence and control. if i correctly comprehend the wishes which have been expressed by a portion of our fellow citizens, they are now desirous, as the sources of apprehension from external causes are at present happily closed, that the legislative, executive and judicial authorities of their own government may be more precisely denned and limited, and the rights of the people declared and acknowledged. it is your province to dispose of this important subject in such manner as will best promote general satisfaction and tranquillity. the house appointed a select committee of five to report upon the revision of the form of civil government. the council appointed hon. elijah boardman (federalist) and hon. william bristol (tolerationist) to act as joint committee with several gentlemen selected by the house. the joint committee reported that "the present was a period peculiarly auspicious for carrying into effect the wishes of our fellow-citizens,--the general desire for a revision and reformation of the structure of our civil government and the establishment of a constitutional compact" and "that the organization of the different branches of government, the separation of their powers,the tenure of office, the elective franchise, liberty of speech and of the press, freedom of conscience, trial by jury, rights which relate to these deeply interesting subjects, ought not to be suffered to rest on the frail foundation of legislative will." [ ] immediately, the house passed a bill requiring the freemen of the towns to assemble in town meeting on the following fourth of july "to elect by ballot as many delegates as said towns now choose representatives to the general assembly," said delegates to meet in constitutional convention at hartford on the fourth wednesday of the following august (aug. ) for "the formation of a constitution of civil government for the people of this state." the bill further declared that the constitution when "ratified by such majority of the said qualified voters, convened as aforesaid, as shall be directed by said convention, shall be and remain the supreme law of this state." an attempt was made to substitute "one delegate" for "as many delegates" as the towns sent. upon the question in the convention, as to what majority should be required for ratification, there was considerable diversity of opinion. "two-thirds of the whole number of _towns"_ was suggested, but was opposed on the ground that "two-thirds of the whole number of the _towns_ might not contain one-fourth of the people." _"three-fifths_ of the legal voters of the state" was also suggested. in the final decision, the simple "majority of the freemen" was accepted. had this not been the case, the constitution would have failed of ratification, for, as burlington made no returns, the vote stood out of towns for ratification, with , yeas to , nays, giving a majority of but . several causes tended to bring about an eager, an amiable, or tolerant support of the work of the convention. eepublicans and tolerationists hoped for sweeping reforms. the federalists were divided. many there were who believed it dangerous for the state to continue destitute of fundamental laws defining and limiting the powers of the legislature, and to such as these the need of a bill of rights, and of the separation of the powers of the government, was immediate and imperative. the influential faction of the new haven federalists were moved to modify any opposition existing among them by the proposed change to annual sessions of the legislature with alternate sittings in the two capitals. there were still other federalists who accepted the proposed change in government as inevitable, and who wisely forebore to block it, preferring to use all their influence toward saving as much as possible of the old institutions under new forms. and in this resolve they were encouraged by the high character of the men that all parties chose as delegates to the constitutional convention. the convention met august , , at hartford. governor wolcott, one of the delegates from litchfield, was elected president, and mr. james lanman, secretary. mr. pierpont edwards was chosen chairman of a committee of three from each county to draft a constitution. the estimated strength of the parties was one hundred and five republicans to ninety-five federalists, and, of the drafting committee, five members belonged to the political minority. [af] an idea of the character of the men chosen for this important task of framing a new constitution is gained from a glance at some of the names. to begin with, over thirty-nine of the delegates to the convention either were yale alumni or held its honorary degrees, and half of the drafting committee were her graduates. ex-governor treadwell and alexander wolcott led the opposing parties, while their able seconds in command were general nathaniel terry of hartford and pierpont edwards of new haven. the latter still held the office of judge of the united states district court, to which jefferson had appointed him. among the delegates, there were mr. amasa learned, formerly representative in congress, the ex-chief-judges jesse root and stephen mix mitchell, aaron austin, a member of the council for over twenty years until the party elections of unseated him, ex-governor john treadwell, and lemuel sanford,--all of whom had been delegates to the convention of , called to ratify the constitution of the united states. five members of the drafting committee were state senators, namely: messrs. william bristol, sylvester wells, james lanman, dr. john s. peters of hebron, and peter webb of windham. five others, messrs. elisha phelps, gideon tomlinson, james stevens, orange merwin, and daniel burrows were afterwards elected to that office, while gideon tomlinson and john s. peters became in turn governors of the state. james lanman, nathan smith (a member also of the committee), and tomlinson entered the national senate. among the delegates, there were nearly a dozen well-known physicians, most of them to be found among the tolerationists. messrs. webb, christopher manwaring of new london, gideon tomlinson of fairfield, and general joshua king of ridgefield, together with joshua stow of middletown (also on the drafting committee), had been for years the warhorses of the democracy, loyal followers of their leader alexander wolcott, who had been the republican state manager from to . the method of procedure in the convention was to report from time to time a portion of the draft of the constitution, of which each article was considered section by section, discussed, and amended. after each of the several sections had been so considered, the whole article was opened to amendment before the vote upon its acceptance was taken. when all articles had been approved, the constitution was printed as so far accepted, and was again submitted to revision and amendment before receiving the final approval of the convention. while the constitutional convention was in session, the baptists and methodists resolved that no constitution of civil government should receive their approbation and support unless it contained a provision that should secure the full and complete enjoyment of religious liberty. [ l ] and it was known that the episcopalians were ready to second such resolutions. these expressions of opinion were of weight as foreshadowing the kind of reception that many of the towns where the dissenters were in the ascendant would accord any constitution sent to them for ratification. in the convention both the old federal leader and the old democratic chief objected to the incorporation in the constitution of a bill of rights. governor treadwell opposed it on the ground that such _"unalterable"_ regulations were unnecessary where, as in a republic, all power was vested in the people. alexander wolcott objected that such a "bill would circumscribe the powers of the general assembly" and also because of his disapproval of some of its clauses. [ ] when the draft of fourth section was under discussion, namely that "no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect or mode of worship," the kev. asahel morse, a baptist minister, offered the substitute,-- that rights of conscience are inalienable, that all persons have a natural right to worship almighty god according to their own consciences; and no person shall be compelled to attend any place of worship, or contribute to the support of any minister, contrary to his own choice. the substitute was rejected, and after some discussion, the wording of the section was changed by substituting "christian" in place of "religious" and this change retained in the final revision. [ag] the seventh article, "of religion," was the subject of a long and earnest debate. sec. . it being the right and duty of all men to worship the supreme being, the great creator and preserver of the universe, in the mode most consistent with the dictates of their own consciences; no person shall be compelled to join or support, nor by law be classed with or associated to any congregation, church or religious association. and each and every society or denomination of christians in this state, shall have and enjoy the same and equal powers, rights and privileges; and shall have power and authority to support and maintain the ministers or teachers of their respective denominations, and to build and repair houses for public worship, by a tax on the members of the respective societies only, or in any other manner. sec. . if any person shall choose to separate himself from the society or denomination of christians to which he may belong, and shall leave written notice thereof with the clerk of such society he shall thereupon be no longer liable for any future expenses, which may be incurred by said society. the federalists contested its passage at every point, and succeeded in modifying the first draft in important particulars, but could not prevent complete severance of church and state, nor the constitutional guarantee to all denominations of religious liberty and perfect equality before the law. to the first clause as reported--"it being the right and _duty_ of all men to worship the supreme being, the great creator and preserver of the universe, in the mode most consistent with the dictates of their consciences"--governor treadwell objected that "conscience may be perverted, and man may think it his duty to worship his creator by image, or as the greeks and romans did; and though he would _tolerate_ all modes of worship, he would not recognize it in the constitution, as the _duty_ of a person to worship as the heathen do." mr. tomlinson afterwards moved to amend the clause to its present shape, "the duty of all men to worship... and their right to render that worship." governor treadwell objected that the same clause went "to dissolve all ecclesiastical societies in this state. that was probably its intent as messrs. joshua stow and gideon tomlinson had drafted it. the former answered all objections by asserting that "if this section is altered _in any way_, it will curtail the great principles for which we contend." [ah] the first section was finally adopted by a vote of to , while a motion to strike out the second section was rejected by to . on its final revision it read:-- sec. . it being the duty of all men to worship the supreme being, the great creator and preserver of the universe, and their right to render that worship in the mode most consistent with the dictates of their consciences; no person shall, by law, be compelled to join or support, nor be classed with, or associated to, any congregation, church, or religious association. but every person now belonging to such congregation, church, or religious association, shall remain a member thereof, until he shall have separated himself therefrom, in the manner hereinafter provided. and each and every society or denomination of christians, in this state, shall have and enjoy the same and equal powers, rights and privileges; and shall have power and authority to support and maintain the ministers or teachers of their respective denominations, and to build and repair houses for public worship, by a tax on the members of any such society only, to be laid by a major vote of the legal voters assembled at any such society meeting, warned and held according to law, or in any other manner. [ai] during the last revision of the constitution mr. terry had offered the two amendments that continue the old ecclesiastical societies as corporate bodies. [ ] the draft of the whole constitution was read through for the last time as amended and ready for acceptance or rejection, and put to vote on september , . it was passed by yeas to nays. the constitution then went before the people for their consideration [aj] and ratification. for a while its fate seemed doubtful; but by the loyalty of the federal members of the convention and their efforts in their own districts the whole state gave a majority for ratification. the southern counties, with a vote of , , gave a majority for ratification of ; the northern counties, with a vote of , , gave a majority _against_ ratification of . [ ] the toleration party as such had triumphed, and they felt that they had won all they had promised the people, for they had secured "the same and equal powers, rights and privileges to all denominations of christians." they had also cleared the way for a broader suffrage and for the proper election laws to guarantee it. at the last two elections the republicans in the toleration party had carefully separated state and national issues, and had in large measure forborne from criticism of the partisan government, insisting that the people's decision at the polls would give them--the people--rather than any political party, the power to correct existing abuses. the republicans also insisted that the tolerationists, no matter what their previous party affiliation, would with one accord obey the behests of the sovereign people. but when the constitution was an assured fact the republicans felt that the federalist influence had dominated the convention, and the federalists that altogether too much had been accorded to the radical party. nevertheless it was the loyalty of the federal members of the convention that won the small majority for the tolerationists and for the new constitution, even if that loyalty was founded upon the belief, held by many, that the choice of evils lay in voting for the new regime. the constitution of was modeled on the old charter, and retained much that was useful in the earlier instrument. the more important changes were: ( ) the clearer definition and better distribution of the powers of government. ( ) rights of suffrage were established upon personal qualifications, and election laws were guaranteed to be so modified that voting should be convenient and expeditious, and its returns correct. ( ) the courts were reorganized, and the number of judges was reduced nearly one half, while the terms of those in higher courts were made to depend upon an age limit (that of seventy years), efficiency, and good behavior. their removal could be only upon impeachment or upon the request of at least two thirds of the members of each house. judges of the lower courts, justices of the peace, were still to be appointed annually by the legislature, and to it the appointment of the sheriffs was transferred. [ak] ( ) amendments to the constitution were provided for. ( ) annual elections and annual sessions of the legislature, alternating between hartford and new haven, were arranged for, and by this one change alone the state was saved a yearly expense estimated at $ , , a large sum in those days. ( ) the governor [al] was given the veto power, although a simple majority of the legislature could override it. ( ) the salaries of the governor, lieutenant-governor, senators, and representatives were fixed by statute, and were not alterable to affect the incumbent during his term of office. ( ) and finally, _the union of church and state was dissolved_, and all religious bodies were placed upon a basis of voluntary support. among the minor changes, the law that before the constitution of had conferred the right of marrying people upon the located ministers and magistrates only, thereby practically excluding baptist, methodist and universalist clergy, now extended it to these latter. while formerly the only literary institution favored was yale college, trinity college, despite a strong opposition, was soon given its charter, and one was granted later to the methodists for wesleyan college at middletown. moreover, the government appropriated to both institutions a small grant. the teaching of the catechism, previously enforced by law in every school, became optional. soon a normal school, free to all within the state, was opened. the support of religion was left wholly to voluntary contributions. [am] the political influence of the congregational clergy was gone. "the lower magistracy was distributed as equally as possible among the various political and religious interests," and the higher courts were composed of judges of different political opinions. the battle for religious liberty was won, church and state divorced, politics and religion torn asunder. the day of complete religious liberty had daw'ned in connecticut, and in a few years the strongest supporters of the old system would acknowledge the superiority of the new. as the "old order changed, yielding place to new," many were doubtful, many were fearful, and many there were who in after years, as they looked backward, would have expressed themselves in the frank words of one of their noblest leaders: [an] "for several days, i suffered what no tongue can tell _for the best thing that ever happened to the state of connecticut."_ footnotes: [a] party names were "american," "american and toleration," "toleration and reform." [b] three fourths of connecticut's exports were products of agriculture. [c] "all institutions, civil, literary and ecclesiastical, felt the pressure, and seemed as if they must he crushed. our schools, churches and government even, in the universal impoverishment, were failing and the very foundations were shaken, when god interposed and took off the pressure."--lyman beecher, _autobiography_, i, . [d] the massachusetts militia were placed under general dearborn, august , . [e] governor griswold died octoher, , and was succeeded in office by lieutenant-governor john cotton smith. [f] the direct tax laid july - , , by the national government, was apportioned in september, as follows: to massachusetts, $ , . ; to rhode island, $ , . ; and to connecticut, $ , . , divided as follows (which shows the relative wealth of the different sections of the state), litchfield, $ , . ; fairfield, $ , . ; new haven, $ , . ; hartford, $ , . ; new london, $ , . ; middlesex, $ , . ; windham, $ , . ; and tolland, $ , . . duties were levied upon refined sugar, carriages, upon licenses to distilleries, auction sales of merchandise and vessels, upon retailers of wine, spirits, and foreign merchandise; while a stamp tax was placed upon notes and bills of exchange.--see _niles register_, v, ; _schouler_, ii, . the tax in was $ , . .--_niles_, vii, . [g] briefly, an independent indian nation between canada and the united states; no fleets or military posts on the great lakes, and no renunciation of the english rights of search and impressment. [h] the april ( ) session of the connecticut legislature passed an "act to secure the rights of parents, masters and guardians." it declared the proposed legislation in congress contrary to the spirit of the constitution of the united states, and an unauthorized interference with state rights. it commanded all state judges to discharge on habeas corpus all minors enlisted without consent of parents or guardians, and it enacted a fine, not to exceed five hundred dollars, upon any one found guilty of enlisting a minor against the consent of his guardian, and a fine of one hundred dollars for the advertising or publication of enticements to minors to enlist. [i] "amendments: ( ) restrictions npon congress requiring a two thirds vote in making and declaring war, ( ) in laying embargoes, and ( ) in admitting new states. ( ) restriction of the presidential office to one term without reëlection, and with no two successive presidents from the same state. ( ) reduction of representation and taxation by not reckoning the blacks in the slave states. ( ) no foreign born citizen should be eligible to office. [j] "they advocated nullification and threatened dissolution of the union."--j. p. gordy, _political history of the united states_, ii, . [k] the president in march, , sent to congress the documents for which he had paid one john henry $ , . the latter claimed to be an agent sent from canada in to detach new england federalists from their allegiance to the union. congress by resolution proclaimed the validity of the documents. the british minister solemnly denied all knowledge of them on the part of his government. the american people believed in their authenticity, which belief was confirmed during the war by the distinct favor shown for a while to massachusetts, and by the hope, openly entertained by england, of separating new england from new york and the southern states. [l] manufactures in connecticut (abridged from the u. s. marshal's report in the autumn of , cited in _niles' register_, vi, - ) were represented by cotton mills, woolen mills. (by new london county alone had woolen mills and cotton.) these had increased to cotton in , and to woolen. flax cloth, blended or unnamed cloths, and wool cloth,--all these made in families,--amounted to a yearly valuation of $ , , ; hempen cloth, $ , ; stockings, $ , ; silks (sewing and raw), $ , ; hats to the value of $ , ; straw bonnets, $ , ; shell, horn, and ivory in manufactured products, $ , . looms for cotton numbered , ; carding machines, ; fulling mills, , and there were , spindles. in iron, wood, and steel: furnaces, with output of $ , ; forges, $ , ; rolling and slitting mills, trip-hammers, $ , ; naileries, $ , ; brass foundries, type foundry, brass jewelry, and plaited ware, $ , ; metal buttons, , gross, or $ , ; guns, rifles, etc., $ , . among other manufactories and manufactures there were tanneries, $ , ; shoes, boots, etc., $ , ; the tin plate industry, $ , ; distilleries, $ , ; paper mills, $ , ; ropewalks, $ , ; carriages, $ , , and the beginnings of brick-making, glass-works, pottery, marble works, which, with the state's flaxseed mills and seven gunpowder mills, brought the sum total to approximately $ , , . still the great impetus to manufacturing, which completely revolutionized the character of the state, followed the joint-stock act of , with its consequent investment of capital and rush of emigration, resulting in later days in a development of the cities at the expense of the rural districts. [m] gilbert brewster, the arkwright of american cotton machinery, eli whitney, with his cotton gin and rifle improvements, and john fitch, with his experiments with steam, are the most distinguished among a host of men who made yankee ingenuity and yankee skill proverbial. [n] "era of good feeling, - . the best principles of the federalists, the preservation and perpetuity of the federal government, had been quietly accepted by the republicans, and the republican principle of limiting the powers and duties of the federal government had been adopted by the federalists. the republicans deviated so far from their earlier strict construction views as in to charter a national bank for twenty years, and to model it upon hamilton's bank of which they had refused to re-charter in ,"--a. johnson, _american politics_, pp. , . [o] "this was for the support of missions outside the state. the domestic or state home missionary society undertook the buiding up of places within the state that were without suitable religious care. the former finally absorbed the latter when its original purpose was accomplished. then, there was the litchfield county foreign mission society, founded in , the _first _auxiliary of the american board, which began its career in , and was incorporated the same year that its youngest branch was organized."--lyman beecher, _autobiography_, i, , - and . [p] organized in new haven in october, , with dr. dwight as chairman. members of the committee upon organization included nearly all the prominent men of that day, both of the clergy and of the bar. a list is given in lyman beecher, _autobiography_, i, . [q] "we really broke up riding and working on the sabbath, and got the victory. the thing was done, and had it not been for the political revolution that followed, it would have stood to this day.... the efforts we made to execute the laws, and secure a reformation of morals, reached the men of piety, and waked up the energies of the whole state, so far as the members of our churches, and the intelligent and moral portion of our congregation were concerned. these, however, proved to be a minority of the suffrage of the state."--lyman beecher, _autobiography_, i, . "in pomfret the justice of the peace arrested and fined townspeople who persisted in working on sunday, and held travellers over until monday morning."--e. d. lamed, _history of windham_, ii, . [r] "the odium thrown upon the ministry was inconceivable. ... the congregational ministers agreed to hold back and keep silent until the storm blew over. our duty as well as policy was explanation and self-defence, expostulation and conciliation."--_autobiography_, i, . [s] "aristides," march , , and "episcopalian," march , issues of the _american mercury_. "when the episcopal church petitioned the legislature in vain, as she did for a series of years, for a charter to a college, he (the rev. philo shelton of fairfield) with others of his brethren _proposed a union with the political party, then in a minority_, to secure what he regarded a just right. and the first fruit of the union was the charter of trinity (washington) college, hartford. he was one of a small number of clergymen who decided on this measure, and were instrumental in carrying it into effect; and it resulted in a change in the politics of the state which has never yet been reversed."--_sprague's annals of american pulpit_ (episcopal), v, . [t] total vote for governor , . mr. goddard received votes.--j. h. trumbull, _hist. notes_, p. . [u] the law apportioned one third of the money to the congregationalists; one seventh to yale; one seventh to the episcopalians; one eighth to the baptists; one twelfth to the methodists, and the balance to the state treasury.--cited in _connecticut courant_, november , . _acts and laws_, pp. , . [v] the first installment, $ , , was paid into the treasury in june, . the methodists, and later the baptists, accepted their share, but not until political events had removed some of their objections. see the _mirror_, february , . it was not until that the final acceptance of the money took place. j. h. trumbull, _hist. notes_, p. , foot-note, gives the following figures. by november, , $ , had been received and apportioned: congregationalists, $ , . ; trustees of the bishop's fund, $ , . ; baptist trustees, $ , . ; methodist trustees, $ , . ; yale college, $ , . , and a balance still unappropriated of $ , . . [w] legal returns gave wolcott , smith , scattering , ------ ------ "the correction of errors increased the majority to , which the federalists conceded.--j. h. trumbull, _hist. notes_, p. , footnote. [x] governor wolcott's speech, _connecticut courant_, may , ; also _niles' register_, xii, pp. - . [y] "in our climate, three fireplaces are occasionally necessary to the comfortable accommodation of every family."--governor's speech. [z] published . [aa] a vindication of the calling of the special superior court at middletown... for the trial of peter lung... with observations, &c, windham, . [ab] the legislature had also interfered with decisions regarding the symsbury patent. see e. kirby, _law reports,_ p. . [ac] a summary of the connecticut constitution, taken from _niles's register,_ asserts that the general court has sole power to make and repeal laws, grant levies, dispose of lands belonging to the state to particular towns and persons, to erect and style judicatories and officers as they shall see necessary for the good government of the people; also to call to account any court, magistrate, or other officer for misdemeanor and maladministration, or for just cause may fine, displace, or remove, them, or deal otherwise as the nature of the ease shall require; and may deal or act in any other matter that concerns the good of the state except the election of governor, deputy-governor, assistants, treasurer and secretary, which shall be done by the freemen at the yearly court of election, unless there be any vacancy by reason of death or otherwise, after an election, when it may be filled by the general court. this court has power also, for reasons satisfactory to them, to grant suspension, release, and jail delivery upon reprieves in capital and criminal cases. the elections for the assistants and superior officers are annual; for the representatives, semi-annual. the sessions of the general court are semi-annual. the governor and the speaker have the casting vote in the upper and lower house, respectively. the superior court consists of one chief judge and four others, and holds two sessions in each county each year. its jurisdiction holds over all criminal cases extending to life, limb, or banishment; all criminal cases brought from county courts by appeal or writ of error, and in some matters of divorce. the county court consists of one judge and four justices of the quorum, with jurisdiction over all criminal cases not extending to life, limb, or banishment, and with original jurisdiction in all civil actions where the demand exceeds forty shillings. justices of the peace, in the various towns, have charge of civil actions involving less than forty shillings, and criminal jurisdiction in some cases, where the fine does not exceed forty shillings, or the punishment exceed ten stripes or sitting in the stocks. judges and justices are annually appointed by the general court, and commonly reappointed during good behavior, while sheriffs are appointed by the governor and council without time-limit and are subject to removal. recently county courts determined matters of equity involving from five pounds to two hundred pounds, the superior court two hundred pounds to sixteen hundred, and the general assembly all others. probate districts, not coextensive with the counties, exist, with appeal to the superior court. in military matters, the governor is the captain-general of the militia, and the general court appoints the general officers and field officers, and they are commissioned by the governor. captains and subalterns are chosen by the vote of the company and of the householders living within the limits of the company, but must be approved by the general court and commissioned by the governor before they can serve. all military officers hold their commissions during the pleasure of the general assembly and may not resign them without permission, except under penalty of being reduced to the ranks.-- _niles' register,_ , vol. iii, p. , etc. corrected slightly by reference to swift's _system of laws._ [ad] banks and insurance companies began to organize about to . [ae] in , for the first time, a dissenter, mr. croswell, rector of trinity church, new haven, preached the election sermon. [af] messrs. pitkin, todd, g. lamed, pettibone, and wiley. of these, the first had been twenty times state representative, five times speaker of the house, and for thirteen years had been representative in congress. [ag] the first seven sections of the bill of bights according to the final revision are:-- sec. . that all men when they form a social compact, are equal in rights; and that no man, or set of men are entitled to exclusive public emoluments or privileges from the community. sec. . that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and that they have, at all times, an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government, in such a manner as they may think expedient. sec. . the exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination, shall forever be free to all persons in this state; provided, that the right, hereby declared and established, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or to justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state. sec. . no preference shall be given by law to any christian sect or mode of worship. sec. . every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. sec. . no law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of speech or of the press. sec. . in all prosecutions or indictments for libels, the truth may be given in evidence; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court. [ah] mr. trumbull asserts that "writers and historians are in error when attributing to mr. morse of suffield (the baptist minister aforementioned) the drafting of the article on religious liberty. the drafting committee were messrs. tomlinson and stow, and the first clause, as reported, seems to have been taken with slight alteration from governor woleott's speech to the general assembly, may, , namely, 'it is the right and duty of every man publicly and privately to worship and adore the supreme creator and preserver of the universe in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.'" --j. h. trumbull, _notes on the constitution_, pp. , . [ai] the second section remained unchanged. [aj] seven hundred copies were distributed among the towns. [ak] by later amendments, judges of the supreme court of errors and the superior court are nominated by the governor and appointed by the general assembly. judges of probate are now elected by the electors in their respective districts; justices of the peace in the several towns by the electors in said towns; and sheriffs by their counties. [al] by amendment of , the vote for governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary, treasurer, comptroller, and attorney-general was changed from a majority to a plurality vote, the assembly to decide between candidates, if at any time two or more should receive "an equal and the greatest number" of votes. [am] "it cut the churches loose from dependence upon state support--it threw them wholly on their own resources and on god." "the mass is changing," wrote dr. beecher. "we are becoming another people. the old laws answered when all men in a parish were of one faith."--lyman beecher, _autobiography,_ i, pp. , . [an] lyman beecher. appendix notes chapter i. the evolution of early congregationalism. , h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, p. . , robert browne, a true and short declaration, p. l. , h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, p. . , report of conference april , , quoted in f. j. powicke, henry barrowe, p. . , w. walker, creeds and platforms, p. . , ibid., pp. , ; also h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, pp. - . , robert browne, a treatise on reformation without tarrying, pp. , , . , robert browne, a true and short declaration, p. ; book which sheweth, pp. - . , robert browne, book which sheweth, questions - . , ibid., def. - ; henry barrowe, discovery of false churches, p. , and the true description in appendix iv of f. j. powicke's henry barrowe. , robert browne, book which sheweth, def. and . , henry barrowe, discovery of false churches, p. . , henry barrowe, discovery of false churches, pp. , ; robert browne, book which sheweth, def. ; a true and short declaration, p. ; the true confession of faith, article . , h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, pp. , ; also john brown, pilgrim fathers of new england, pp. - . , the true confession, art. . , "the seven articles," of which the following is the text:-- ( ) "to ye confession of fayth published in ye name of ye church of england and to every artikell thereof wee do w'th ye reformed churches wheer wee live & also els where assent wholly.". ( ) "and as wee do acknowlidg ye doctryne of fayth theer tawght so do wee ye fruites and effeckts of ye same docktryne to ye begetting of saving fayth in thousands in ye land (conformistes & reformistes) as ye ar called w'th whom also as w'th our brethren wee do desyer to keepe speirtuall communion in peace and will pracktis in our parts all lawful thinges." ( ) "the king's majesty wee acknowlidg for supreme governor in his dominion in all causes, and over all parsons [persons] and ye none maye decklyne or apeale his authority or judgment in any cause whatsoever, but ye in all thinges obedience is dewe unto him, either active, if ye thing commanded be not against god's woord, or passive yf itt bee, except pardon can bee obtayned." ( ) "wee judge itt lawfull for his majesty to apoynt bishops, civill overseers, or officers in awthoryty onder hime in ye severall provinces, dioses, congregations or parishes, to oversee ye churches, and governe them civilly according to ye lawes of ye land, uutto whom ye ar in all thinges to geve an account and by them to bee ordered according to godlyness." (this is not an acknowledgment of spiritual--superiority or authority, only the recognition that as church officers were also magistrates, the king could appoint them as his civil servants.) ( ) "the authority of ye present bishops in ye land wee do acknowlidg so far forth as ye same is indeed derived from his majesty untto them and as ye proseed in his name, whom wee will also therein honor in all thinges and hime in them." ( ) "wee believe ye no sinod, classes, convocation or assembly of ecclesiastical officers hath any power or awthority att all but ye same by ye majestraet given unto them." (intended to be a denial of presbyterianism.) ( ) "lastly wee desyer to geve untto all superiors dew honour to preserve ye unity of ye spiritt w'th all ye feare god to have peace w'th all men what in us lyeth and wherein wee err to bee instructed by any." (text of points of difference and seven articles in w. walker, creeds and platforms, pp. - .) chapter ii. the transplanting of congregationalism. , the commons prayed, "that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by act of parliament. and that none be called to make answer, or to take such oaths, or to be confined or otherwise molested or disputed concerning the same, or for refusal thereof. and that no freeman may in such manner as is before mentioned be imprisoned or detained."--extract from the petition of right. see j. r. green, short history of the english people, pp , . , e. h. byington, the puritan in england and new england, pp. , . , see gott's letter in bradford's letter-book, mass. hist. soc., iii, , . , g. l. walker, history of the first church in hartford, p. . chapter iii. church and state in new england. , thomas hooker, survey of church discipline, chap. , p. ; also mass. col. rec., iii, ; j. cotton, way of the churches, pp. , . , j. cotton, way of the churches, pp. , ; plymouth col. rec., ii, ; mass. col. rec., i, , iii, ; hartford town voter, in conn. hist. soc. coll., vi, ; conn. col. rec., i, , . , plymouth col. laws, ed. , p. ; conn. col. rec., i, pp. , , , , , . , j. cotton, a discourse about civil government in a new plantation whose design is religion (written many years since), london, , pp. , . (this is a misprint in the title-page, for the author was john davenport.) , mass. col. rec., i, . , j. cotton, keys of the kingdom of heaven, pp. , . , mass. law of ; conn. col. rec., i, . , conn. col. rec., i, . , g. f. ellis, puritan age in massachusetts, p. . , winthrop, i, . , mass. col. rec., i, . , winthrop, i, ; h. m. dexter, ecclesiastical councils of new england, p. . , j. a. doyle, puritan colonies, ii, . chapter iv. the cambridge platform and the half-way covenant. , c. mather, magnalia, ii, . , horace bushnell, in discourse on christian nurture, p. . , cotton mather, magnalia, ii, . , results of half-way covenant convention, prop. . see w. walker, creeds and platforms, p. . , w. walker, creeds and platforms, p. . see question , of results. , conn. col. rec., i, , . , conn. state papers (ecclesiastical), vol. i, doc. . quoted in the church review and ecclesiastical register, x, p. . , beardsley, hist, of the church in connecticut, i, ; perry, hist, of epis. church in the united states, i, , . , conn. col. rec., i, , . , g. l. walker, hist, of first church in hartford, p. . , record of the united colonies, i, . , g. l. walker, hist, of first church in hartford, p. . , l. bacon, coatr. to eccl. hist, of connecticut, p. . , e. stiles, christian union, p. ; j. a. doyle, puritan colonies, ii, ; conn. col. rec., i, ; ii, and . , conn. col. rec., vii, ; viii, . chapter v. a period of transition. , thomas prince, christian history, i, . , preface to work of the reforming synod. , c. mather, magnalia, book v, p. . , c. mather, ratio discipline, p. . , c. m. andrews, three river towns, p. . see also bronson, early government, in new haven hist. soc. papers, iii, ; conn. col. rec., - , , . , conn. col. rec., v, . , l. bacon, contr. to ecel. history, p. . , conn. col. rec., v, . chapter vi. the saybrook platform. , saybrook platform. , l. bacon, thirteen historical discourses, pp. , . , s. stoddard, instituted churches, p. . , trumbull, hist, of connecticut, i, ; t. clap, hist, of yale college, p. . , trumbull, hist, of connecticut, i, . , l. bacon, thirteen historical discourses, p. . , h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, pp. , . , conn. col. rec., v, . , ibid., v, . , a. johnston, connecticut, p. . chapter vii. the saybrook platform and the toleration act. , john bolles, a relation of the opposition some baptist people met at norwich in . , ibid., p. . , quaker laws. the new haven laws against quakers deal thus fiercely:-- "_whereas_ there is a cursed sect of heretics lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called quakers, who take upon them that they are immediately sent of god and infallibly assisted by his spirit, who yet write and speak blasphemous opinions, despise governments and the order of god, in church and commonwealth... we do hereby order and declare "that whosoever shall hereafter bring, or cause to be brought, directly or indirectly, any known quaker or quakers, or other blasphemous heretics, into this jurisdiction, every such person shall forfeit the sum of pounds to the jurisdiction, except it appear that he wanted true knowledge or information of their being such... and it is hereby ordered that what quaker or quakers soever come into this jurisdiction, from foreign parts or places adjacent, if it be about their civil, lawful occasions to be quickly despatched among us, which time of stay shall be limited by the civil authority in each plantation, and that they shall not use any means by words, writings, books, or any other way, to go about to seduce others, nor revile nor reproach, nor any other way make disturbance or offend. they shall upon their first arrival, or coming in, appear to be brought before the authorities of the place and from them have license to put about and issue their lawful occasions, and shall have one or more to attend upon them at their charge until such occasions of theirs be discharged, and they return out of the jurisdiction which if they refuse to do, they shall be denied such free passage and commerce and be caused to return back again, but if this first time they shall offend in any of the ways as before expressed, and contrary to the intent of this law, they shall be committed to prison, severely whipped, kept to work, and none suffered to converse with them during their imprisonment, which shall be no longer than necessity requires, and at their own charge sent out of the jurisdiction." for a second offense, they were to be branded, as well as to be committed to prison. for a fourth offense, they were to have their tongues bored through with hot irons. their books, papers, etc., were to subject their possessors to a fine of pounds, and entertaining or concealing a quaker was to be punished by a fine of s.; while undertaking to defend any of their heretical opinions was doubly fined.--new haven col. kec., ii, , , . in , the connecticut court, in conformity to a suggestion from the commissioners of the united colonies, ordered that "no towne within this jurisdiction shall entertaine any quakers, kanters, adamites, or such notorious heretiques, or suffer them to continue with them above the space of fourteen days,... and shall give notice to the two next towns to send them on their way under penalty of £ per week for any town entertaining any such person, nor shall any master of a ship land such or any." in august, , the above fine was imposed on the individual who entertained the quaker, etc., as well as on the town, and an officer was appointed to examine suspects. a little later, a penalty of s. was imposed for quaker books and mss. found in the possession of any but a teaching elder. twice the court saw fit to leave, notwithstanding all former orders, all such cases to the jurisdiction of the separate towns, to order fines, banishment, or corporal punishment, provided the fines "exceed not ten pounds." the tone is brief and businesslike, dealing with a matter that had already caused great trouble to the other united colonies, and which might become a menace to connecticut. there are almost no recorded cases of sentence being imposed. see conn. col. kec., i, , , , . , j. bowden, history of the society of friends, i, , quoting norton's ensign, p. . , ibid., i, . , ibid., i, . , r. p. hallowell, the pioneer quakers, p. . , r. r. hinman, antiquities of the charter government of connecticut, p. . , e. e. beardsley, history of the episcopal church in connecticut, i, . , a. l. cross, anglican episcopate in the american colonies, pp. et seq. , ibid., p. , note. , c. f. hawkins, missions of the church of england, , . , church documents, conn., i, . , ibid., i, . , ibid., i, . chapter viii. the first victory for dissent. , church documents, conn., i, . , ibid., i, . , s. d. mcconnell, history of the american episcopal church, p. . , conn. col. rec., viii, ; and church documents, conn., i, , . , conn. col. rec., vii, , and viii, , . , rogerine laws. see conn. col. rec., v. , . , c. w. bowen, the boundary disputes of connecticut, especially pp. , , and . , the talcott papers, published in vols. iv and v of the conn. hist. soc. collections. , conn. col. rec., iv, . , talcott papers, i, , , and ii, , , in conn. hist. soc. collections, vols. iv and v. , c. m. andrews, the connecticut intestacy law, in yale review, iii, et seq. , conn. col. rec., vii, . , ibid., vii, . chapter ix. the great awakening. , jonathan edwards' works, iv, - . , ibid., iv, . , lauer, church and state, p. ; also conn. col. rec., vi, . , a. johnston, hist, of conn., pp. , ; also h. bronson, historical account of conn. currency, in new haven hist. soc. papers, i, et seq. , joseph tracy, the great awakening, p. . , edwards' works, iv, - . chapter x. the great schism. , conn. col. rec., vii, . , ibid., viii, . , charles chauncy, seasonable thoughts, p. . , conn. col. rec., viii, , ; also joseph tracy, the great awakening, p. . , conn. col. rec., viii, et seq.; b. trumbull, hist, of connecticut, ii, ; c. chauncy, seasonable thoughts, p. . , conn. col. rec., viii, . , ibid., viii, . , ibid., viii, . , trumbull, hist, of conn., ii, . , s. w. s. button, hist, of the north church in new haven. , e. d. lamed, hist, of windham county, vol. ii, book , chapter . , o. w. means, hist, of the enfleld separate church. , conn. col. rec., october, . , e. d. lamed, hist, of windham county, vol. ii, book , chapter . , conn. col. rec., viii, . , ibid., viii, . , e. d. larned, hist, of windham county, ii, , , , ; l. bacon, thirteen historical discourses, p. . , solomon paine's view, pp. , . , thomas clap, history of yale, p. . , g. p. fisher, church of christ in yale college, app. . , e. d. lamed, history of windham county, i, , . , s. l. blake, the separatists, pp. , . (this book gives the origin and end of every separate church.) also . w. means, history of the enfield separate church. , conn. col. rec., xii, , . , ibid., viii, . , trumbull, history of connecticut, i, , . , w. c. reichel, dedication of monuments erected by the moravian historical societies in new york and connecticut. g. h. loskiel, hist, of missions of the united brethren among the indians of north america. j. heckwelder, missions of the united brethren among the delaware and mohegan indians, pp. et seq. , conn. col. rec., ix, . , i. backus, history of the baptists, ii, . , h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, p. . chapter xi. the abrogation of the saybrook platform. , frederick dennison, notes of the baptists and their principles in norwich, conn., p. . , ibid., p. . , stiles, ancient windsor, p. . , c. h. s. davis, hist, of wallingford, pp. - . , "to the king's most excellent majesty in council." (quoted in frederick dennison, notes of the baptists.) , t. clap, history of yale, pp. - . , quoted by e. h. gillett, civil liberty in connecticut, historical magazine, d series, vol. iv. , e. d. lamed, history of windham county, i, . , thomas darling, some remarks, p. . , ibid., p. . , ibid., pp. , . , robert ross, plain address, p. . , e. frothingham, key to unlock, p. . , ibid., pp. , . , ibid., pp. - . , ibid., p. . , ibid., p. . , ibid., p. . , loomis and calhoun, judicial and civil history of connecticut, p. . , m. c. tyler, literary history of the american revolution, i, . , fulham, mss. cited in a, l. cross, anglican episcopate in the american colonies, p. . see also pp. et seq. and , . , a. l. cross, anglican episcopate, pp. and . perry, american episcopal church, i, . , minutes of the association, i, . , f. m. caulkins, history of norwich, p. . , conn. col. rec., xiii, . , i. backus, history of the baptists, ii, . , e. d. lamed, history of windham county, ii, . , i. backus, an appeal to the public for religious liberty, boston, , p. . , ibid., p. . , ibid., pp. - . , john wise, vindication, edition of , p. . , public records of the state of connecticut, i, . , quoted in e. h. gillett, civil liberty in connecticut, hist. magazine, . , i. backus, history of the baptists, ii, . , minutes of hartford north association. , i. foster, defense of religious liberty, pp. , ; also and . , acts and laws of the state of connecticut, , pp. , , , . chapter xii. connecticut at the close of the revolution. , p. k. kilbourne, history of litchfield, pp. , . , james morris, statistical account of the towns of litchfield county. , judge church, in his litchfield county centennial address. , j. d. champlin, jr., "litchfield hill." , noah webster, collection of essays (ed. of ), p. . , ibid., p. . , ibid., p. . , letter of sept. , , one of the series in answer to the quotations from richard price's "observations on the importance of the american revolution." see american mercury, feb. , . connecticut journal, feb. , and connecticut courant, feb. , . , james schouler, history of the united states, i, . , isaac backus, the liberal support of the gospel minister, p. . , report of superintendent of public schools, , pp. , . , w. walker, the congregationalists, pp. et seq. , john lewis, christian forbearance, p. . , e. stiles, diary, i, . , h. m. dexter, congregationalism as seen in literature, p. . chapter xiii. certificate laws and western land bills. , acts and laws of the state of connecticut (ed. of ), pp. , . , courant, may , . , ibid., may , . , j. leland, high flying churchman, pp. , , , . , acts and laws (ed. of ), p. . , ibid., p. . , cited from report of the superintendent of public schools, , p. . , the american mercury, feb. and apr. , . , j. leland, a blow at the boot, pp. , . , see rep. of supt. of public schools, , pp. - . , ibid., pp. , . , published in courant of march , and , . , see hollister, hist, of connecticut, ii, - ; report of superintendent of public schools, ; swift's system of laws, i, et seq. chapter xiv. the development or political parties in connecticut. , wolcott manuscript, in vol. iv, library of conn. historical society, hartford, conn. , judge church's manuscript, deposited with new haven historical society. , swift, system of the laws of connecticut, i, - . , hollister, hist, of connecticut, ii, - , quoting judge church. , d. g. mitchell, american lands and letters, i, ; f. b. dexter, hist, of yale, p. . , minutes of the general association, report of the session of . , a. bishop, proofs of a conspiracy, p. . , connecticut journal, april , , quotes the petition and reply. , j. leland, van tromp lowering his peak, p, . , a. bishop, oration in honor of the election of jefferson, pp. , , - . , judge church's manuscript. , lyman beecher, autobiography, i, , , , , . , constitution of the united states, article ii, sect, ii, ; art. i, sect, viii, . for the correspondence between general dearborn and gov. j. c. smith, see mies' register, viii, - . , hildreth, history of united states, vi, - ; schouler, hist, of united states, ii, . , niles' register, viii, ; ix, ; also american mercury of april , . , new haven register, and also the american mercury of feb. , . , niles' register, xi, . , swift, system of law, i, . , swift, vindication of the calling of the special superior court, pp. - . , report of the committee. see also j. h. trumbull, historical notes, pp. - . , connecticut courant of aug. , . , j. h. trumbull, historical notes, pp. , . , journal of the convention, pp. , . (the connecticut courant and the american mercury published the debates of the convention in full as they occurred.) , trumbull, historical notes, p. . see also the text, preceding this note, p. . the constitution of , admirable for the conditions of that time, leaves now large room for betterment. the century-old habit of legislative interference was not wholly uprooted in , and soon began to grow apace. the constitution stands to-day with its original eleven articles and with thirty-one amendments, some of which, at least in their working, are directly opposed to the spirit of the framers of the commonwealth. the old cry of excessive legislative power is heard again, for the legislature by a majority of one may override the governor's veto, and, through its powers of confirmation and appointment, it may measurably control the executive department and the judicial. moreover, apart from these defects in the constitution, certain economic changes have resulted in a disproportionate representation in the house of representatives. the joint-stock act of gave birth to great corporations, and with railroads soon developed the formation of large manufacturing plants. as a result, there was a rush, at first, of the native born, and, later, of large numbers of immigrants, who swelled the population, to the cities. this, together with the development of the great grain-producing western states, changed connecticut from an agricultural to a manufacturing state, and from a producer of her own foodstuffs to a consumer of those which she must import from other states. such shifting of the population has produced a condition where a bare majority of one in a house of two hundred and fifty-five members may pass a measure that really represents the sentiment of but one-fifteenth of the voters of the state. there results a system of rotten boroughs and the opportunity for a well-organized lobby and the moneyed control of votes. it is asserted that the first section of the bill of rights, namely, "that no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive public emoluments or privileges from the community," is constantly violated by this misrepresentation, which especially affects the population in the cities, and is felt not only in all state measures, but in all local ones about which the legislature must be consulted. as an illustration of the inequality of representation, the following figures are given. in the constitutional convention of , towns sent _two_ delegates each, and towns sent _one_, from communities out of which had a population of less than , and ranged between and , while only surpassed this last number. in the constitutional convention of , towns, with an aggregate population of , , sent each _two_ delegates, while , with a combined population of , , sent each _one_ delegate. thus it happened that in , new haven, population , , sent _two_ delegates, and the town of union, population , also sent _two_ delegates, while ten other towns, with a population ranging from to each, sent _two_ delegates. the "standing order" of to-day is not a privileged church, but a dominant political party strong in the privilege and powers derived from long tenure of office and intrenched behind constitutional amendments which, in addition to this unequal representation in the house, provide for the election of senators upon town and county lines rather than upon population. the constitutional reform party of to-day propose radical measures to remedy these more glaring defects in the administration of government, and to consider these, called the constitutional convention of . in it, the influence of the small towns on the drafting of the proposed constitution was so great that, when it was presented to the people for ratification, an adverse majority in every county refused to accept it. in fact, only fifteen per cent of the whole people thought it worth while to express any opinion at all. references for the constitutional convention of : clarence deming, town eule in connecticut, political science quarterly, september, ; and m. b. carey, the connecticut constitution. (these will be found useful as summing up much of the newspaper discussion of the period, and also for the data upon which the argument for the desired changes is based.) there is also "the constitutions of connecticut, with notes and statistics regarding town representation in the general assembly, and documents relating to the constitutional convention of ," printed by order of the comptroller, hartford, conn. bibliography a. histories . general a few titles are given of those works found most useful in acquiring a general historic setting for the main topic. bancroft, george. history of the united states. new york, . gardiner, s. r. history of england from accession of james i. london, . ----history of england under the duke of buckingham and charles i. london, . ----history of the commonwealth and protectorate. london and new york, - . green, john richard. short history of the english people. london, . ----history of the english people. new york, . vols., chiefly vol. iii. hildreth, richard. history of the united states to . new york, . vols. mcmaster, john bach. a history of the people of the united states from the revolution to the civil war. new york, - . vols. schouler, james. history of the united states of america under the constitution. washington, philadelphia, and new york, - . vols. tyler, moses coit. a history of american literature, - . new york, . vols. ----the literary history of the american revolution, - . new york and london, . vols. winsor, justin. narrative and critical history of america. cambridge, - . vols. . special adams, henry. documents relating to new england federalism, - . boston, . adams, john. works with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. (ed. by charles francis adams.) boston, - . vols. arber, edward. the story of the pilgrim fathers, - a. d. as told by themselves, their friends and their enemies, edited from the original texts. london, . barlow, joel. political writings. new york, . bradford, william. history of "plimoth" plantation. reprint from original ms. with report of proceedings incident to its return. boston, . brown, john. the pilgrim fathers of new england and their puritan successors. london, . revised american ed. . [a] byington, ezra b. the puritan in england and new england. boston, . campbell, douglas. the puritans in holland, england and america. new york, . vols. cobb, sanford h. rise of religious liberty in america. new york and london, . pages - and - treat of connecticut, while - deal with the american episcopate. doyle, john andrew. the english in america; the puritan colonies. new york, . vols. ellis, george e. the puritan age and rule in the colony of massachusetts bay, - . boston and new york, . felt, joseph barton. the ecclesiastical history of new england, comprising not only religious but moral and other relations. arranged chronologically and with index. boston, - . vols. fish, carl russell. the civil service and the patronage. new york, . pages - , jefferson's removal of mr. goodrich of new haven. fiske, john. the beginnings of new england; or, the puritan theocracy in its relations to civil and religious liberty. boston and new york, . gardiner, s. r. the first two stuarts and the puritan revolution, - . london, . goodwin, john abbott. the pilgrim republic: an historical review of the colony of new plymouth, with sketches of the rise of other new england settlements, the history of congregationalism and the creeds of the period [new england to ]. cambridge, . heckewelder, j. a narrative of the mission of the united brethren among the delaware and mohigan indians from to . philadelphia, . lauer, p. e. church and state in new england. baltimore, . also in johns hopkins university studies, nos. & . lodge, henry cabot. a short history of the english colonies in america. new york, . love, wm. de loss, jr. the fasts and thanksgiving days of new england. boston, . includes a bibliography. loskiel, george h. history of the missions of the united brethren among the indians in north america. london, . mather, cotton. magnalia christi americana; or, the ecclesiastical history of new england from its first planting in the year to the year of our lord . ed. london, ,--hartford, . vols. [a] d ed. with introduction and occasional notes by t. bobbins. hartford, , vols. mourt's relation or journal of a plantation settled at plymouth, in new england and proceedings thereof. london, . d ed. annotated by a. young. boston, . also found in young's chronicle of the pilgrim fathers. boston, . [a] reprint with illustrative cuts, george b. cheever, editor, new york, . reprint ed. by h. m. dexter. boston, . (see vol. viii, st series, mass. hist soc. col., also library of new england history, vol. i.) neal, daniel. history of the puritans, or protestant non-conformists: from the reformation in to the death of queen elizabeth, with an account of their principles: their attempts for a further reformation in the church: their sufferings, and the lives and characters of their considerable divines, etc. london, , vols. revised ed. london, , vols. [a] palfrey, john g. comprehensive history of new england. boston, - . vols. prince, thomas. a chronological history of new england in the form of annals. boston, . edited by drake with memoir of the author. boston, . [a] reprint to mass. hist. soc. col., d series, vol. vii, . new edition, edited by n. hale. boston, . found also in arber's english garner, vol. ii, . reichel, w. c. memorial of the dedication of monuments erected by moravian historical society to mark the sites of ancient missionary stations. philadelphia, . schaff, philip. religious liberty. see american historical society annual report, - . thornton, j. wingate. the pulpit of the american revolution. boston, . weeden, william b. economic and social history of new england. boston, . vols. winthrop, john. history of new england, - , edited by james savage. boston, . vols. wood, john (cheetham, james). history of the administration of john adams. new york, . ----history of the administration of j. adams, with notes. new york, . . statistical baird, robert. religion in america; or an account of the origin, relation to the state and present condition of the evangelic churches in the united states. new york, . bishop, j. leander. a history of american manufactures, - . . vols. this includes a history of the origin and growth of the principal mechanical arts and manufactures: notice of important inventions; results of each decennial census; tariffs; and statistics of manufacturing centres. it has a good index by which the industrial history of each colony and state can be quickly traced. bolles, albert s. the financial history of the united states. new york, - . vols. carroll, henry king. religious forces in the united states, enumerated, classified and described on the basis of the government census of . new york, . dorchester, daniel. christianity in the united states from the first settlement down to the present time. new york and cincinnati, . hayward, john. the religious creeds and statistics of every christian denomination in the united states. boston, . . local connecticut-state, county, town, etc., of which only the more important town and county histories, and reports of anniversary celebrations are given. those omitted are of small interest outside of their respective towns, except to genealogists or to those whose families chance to be mentioned in the sketch of historical development or of commercial growth. the many books of this type contribute general coloring, and some of them a few important bits of information, to the story of the development of the state, but many are not worth enumerating as sources, or as assistants to the general reader or student. allen, francis olcott. the history of enfleld, compiled from all the public records of the town known to exist, covering from the beginning to . lancaster, . vols. carefully compiled and attested by the town clerk. includes also graveyard inscriptions and extracts from hartford, northampton and springfield records. andrews, charles m. the river towns of connecticut, wethersfield, hartford and windsor. baltimore, . (also johns hopkins historical and political science papers, vii, - .) atwater, edward e. (editor). history of the city of new haven. new york, . good for the earlier history, for a few extracts from records; contains descriptions of public men and events, also extracts from old newspapers, etc. ----history of the colony of new haven to its absorption into connecticut. new haven, . a much better book, being the best special history of the new haven colony. baldwin, simeon e. constitutional reform. a discussion of the present inequalities of representatives in the general assembly [of connecticut]. new haven, . ----the early history of the ballot in connecticut. american historical association papers, i, - . new york, . ----the three constitutions of connecticut. in new haven historical society papers, vol. v. barber, john w. connecticut historical collections. new haven, . a book of brief anecdotal town histories, curious legends, notable events, newspaper clippings, together with a goodly number of illustrations. bolles, john rogers. the rogerenes: some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of connecticut. part . a. vindication, by j. r. bolles. part . history of the rogerenes, by anna b. williams. boston, . bowen, clarence w. the boundary disputes of connecticut. boston, . breckenridge, francis a. recollections of a new england town (meriden). meriden, . typical of the life in new england towns, - . bronson, henry, early government of connecticut. (new haven historical society papers, iii, et seq.) bushnell, horace. "work and play," being the first volume of his "literary varieties." new york, . contains an historical estimate of connecticut. caulkins, frances m. history of new london, connecticut. new london, . ----history of norwich, connecticut. norwich, . these two histories are readable, reliable and full of detail, culled from original records, many of which are now deposited with the new london historical society. clap, thomas. annals or history of yale college. new haven, . cothren, william. history of ancient woodbury, connecticut, - . (including washington, southbury, bethlehem, roxbury, and part of oxford and middlebury.) waterbury, , , . vols. vols. i and ii, history, with considerable genealogy. vol. iii, - , births, marriages and deaths. dexter, franklin bowditch. thomas clap and his writings. see new haven historical society papers, vol. v. ----sketch of the history of yale university. new haven, . dwight, theodore. history of connecticut. new york, . ----history of hartford convention. hartford, . of the pages, are devoted to recounting the events which led to the calling of the convention, and, with much political bias, to the history of jefferson's political career from , quoting from official correspondence and his private letters. pages - deal with the convention proper, giving, pp. - , its "secret journal." the appendix, pp. - , has brief biographies of the members. dwight, timothy. travels in new england and new york. new haven, . vols. dodd, stephen. the east haven register in three parts. new haven, . a rare little book of pages compiled by the pastor of the congregational church in east haven. part i contains a history of the town from to ; part ii, names, marriages, and births, - ; part iii, account of the deaths in families, from to . field, david dudley. a history of the towns of haddam and east haddam. middletown, . a book of some forty-eight pages, of which six are devoted to genealogies "taken partly from the records of the towns, and partly from the information of aged people" by the pastor of the church in haddam. though largely ecclesiastical, its author-- a college a. m.--realizes the value of statistics in references to population, necrology, taxes, militia, farming, and other industries, and weaves them into his rambling story. ----statistical account of the county of middlesex. middletown, . fowler, william chauncey. history of durham, - . includes in chapter xii--pp. - --extracts trom town records, ministerial records, proprietor's eecords. gillett, e. h., rev. the development of civil liberty in connecticut. in historical magazine, d series, vol. iv ( ), pp. - , appendices, pp. - . morrisania, n. y., . appendix a. report of the rev. elizur goodrich, d. d., to the convention of delegates from the synod of new york and philadelphia and from the associations of connecticut, held annually from to inclusive (being a statement on the subject of religious liberty in the colony), with notes by e. h. g. pp. - . appendix b. letter of rev. thomas prince of boston to rev. john drew of groton, conn., may , , pp. - . (sympathizing with the new lights.) appendix c. three short paragraphs omitted from the body of the article. appendix d. extracts from the american reprint of graham's "ecclesiastical establishments of europe," pp. , . this article in itself contains israel holly's "memorial," joseph brown's "letter to infant baptisers of north parish in new london" (in part); also copious citations from the pamphlets of bolles, frothingham, bragge, the autobiography of billy hibbard (methodist preacher) and extracts from abraham bishop's pamphlets. hartford town votes, - . (transcribed by chas. j. hoadly.) see connecticut historical society collections, , vol. vi. hollister, gideon h. address in litchfleld, april , , before the historical and antiquarian society, on the occasion of completing its organization. hartford, . hollister, gideon h. the history of connecticut. new haven, . vols. a history of connecticut from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution in . hurd, d. hamilton. history of fairfield county, connecticut, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers. philadelphia, . johnson, william samuel. letters to the governors of connecticut, - . see mass. historical society collections, series , vol. ix, pp. - . johnston, alexander. the genesis of a new england state, connecticut. baltimore, . revised . (also in johns hopkins university studies, vol. i, no. .) ----connecticut; a study of a commonwealth democracy. boston and new york, . revised . jones, frederick r. history of taxation in connecticut. johns hopkins university studies in political science, series , no. . baltimore, . journal of the proceedings of the convention of delegates convened at hartford, august , . hartford, . reprinted by order of the state comptroller, hartford, . kilbourne, p. k. sketches and churches of the town of litchfield. historical, biographical, statistical. hartford, . an excellent account, drawing in part upon woodruff's (george c.) history of litchfield, , and morris' statistical account of litchfield county, , with additional matter. kingsley, f. j. old connecticut. see new haven historical society papers, vol. iii. kingsley, james luce. sketch of yale college. boston, . lambert, edward r. history of the colony of new haven, before and after the union with connecticut. new haven, . larned, ellen d. history of windham county. worcester, . vols. one of the best of the local histories. vol. , book iii. account of canterbury church difficulties and of the clevelands. ----historic gleanings in windham county, connecticut. providence, . levermore, charles h. the republic of new haven. also in johns hopkins university studies, extra vol. i. baltimore, . litchfleld book of days, a collection of the historical, biographical and literary reminiscences of litchfleld, connecticut. edited by george c. boswell. litchfield, . litchfleld county centennial celebration, august - , . hartford, . loomis (dwight) and calhoun (j. gilbert). the judicial and civil history of connecticut. boston, . orcutt, samuel. history of new milford and bridgewater, connecticut, - . hartford, . ----history of old town of derby. springfield, . "prepared with great fidelity and thoroughness, and to take rank with the best town histories," wrote noah porter on feb. , . biography and genealogy, pp. - . ----history of the old town of stratford and the city of bridgeport. new haven, . pts. the proceedings of a convention of delegates from the states of massachusetts, connecticut, rhode island, the counties of cheshire and grafton in the state of new hampshire and the county of windham in the state of vermont convened at hartford in the state of connecticut, december , . hartford, . sanford, elias b. a history of connecticut. hartford, . a school history. selleck, charles m. history of norwalk. norwich, . statistical account of the towns and parishes in the state of connecticut, published by connecticut academy of arts and sciences, vol. i, no. . new haven, . steiner, bernard christian. a history of the plantation of menunkatuck and of the original town of guilford, connecticut (present towns of guilford and madison) written largely from the manuscripts of the hon. ralph dunning smyth. baltimore, . the book draws upon the preceding histories of guilford, namely that of the rev. thomas kuggles, jr., and the later sketch of guilford and madison by daniel dudley field, first written in for the connecticut academy of arts and sciences. it was revised by r. d. smyth in and published in after his death. mr. sterner has added matter derived from a study of the town records and other sources, making a history that covers all points of development. ----governor william leete and the absorption of new haven by the colony of connecticut. american historical association, annual report, , pp. - . ----history of slavery in connecticut. (see johns hopkins historical studies, ii, et seq.) baltimore, . stiles, ezra. a discourse on the christian union. brookfield, . ----the literary diary of ezra stiles, edited under the authority of the corporation of yale university by f. b. dexter, m. a. new york, . vols. stiles, henry reed. ancient windsor. hartford, . vols. swift, zephaniah. system of the laws of the state of connecticut. windham, . trumbull, benjamin. a complete history of connecticut, civil and ecclesiastical, to , continued to . new haven, . vols. reprint with introductory notes and index by jonathan trumbull. new london, . trumbull, j. hammond (editor). hartford county memorial history. hartford, . vols. vol. i, part i, the county of hartford treated topically, as early history, the colonial period, "bench and bar," "medical history," etc. part ii, hartford, town and city. vol. ii, brief histories of the different towns. trumbull, j. hammond. historical notes of the constitutions of connecticut, to ; and progress of the movement which resulted in the convention of , and the adoption of the present constitution. hartford, . reprinted by order of state comptroller, hartford, . ----origin and early progress of indian missions in new england. worcester, . ----defense of stonington (connecticut) against a british squadron. hartford, . ----the true blue laws of connecticut and new haven and the false blue laws invented by the rev. samuel peters. to which are added specimens of the laws of other colonies and some of the blue laws of england. hartford, . ----list of books printed in connecticut, - (edited by his daughter annie e. trumbull). the list contains titles and also a list of printers. hartford, . webster, noah. collection of papers on political, literary and moral subjects. new york, . . local biographies bacon, leonard. sketch of life and public services of james hillhouse. new haven, . blake, b.l. gurdon saltonstall. in new london historical society papers, part , vol. i. dexter, franklin b. biographical sketches of graduates of yale. vols. may, -may, ; new york, . may, -may, ; new york, . may, -may, ; new york, . kilbourne, p. k. biographical history of the county of litchfield. new york, . mitchell, donald g. american lands and letters. vols. first volume, for early newspapers, the hartford wits and literati of the colonial period. sprague, w. b. annals of the american pulpit. new york, - . vols. biographical sketches in chronological order, contributed by writers of sectarian prominence, and with intent to show development of churches and the power of character. vols. i and ii, trinitarian-congregationalists. vols. iii and iv, presbyterian. vol. v, episcopalians (reference for the episcopal republican coalition in in connecticut). vol. vi, baptists. vol. vii, methodists. vol. viii, unitarians. vol. ix, lutherans, dutch reformed, etc. tyler, moses coit. three men of letters (george berkeley, timothy dwight and joel barlow). new york and london, . b. connecticut newspapers _w_. abbreviation for weekly hartford american mercury, _w_. anti-federal. founded july , , with joel barlow, editor, and elisha babcock, publisher. in merged into the independent press. yale university library has a file practically complete to , only numbers missing. connecticut courant. _w_. federal, whig, republican. founded , by thomas green as organ of the loyal sons of liberty; later supported washington and adams; continued as the weekly and now daily hartford courant. said to be the oldest newspaper still published in the united states. connecticut courant and the weekly hartford intelligencer, . connecticut courant and the weekly intelligencer, feb. . the latter part of title dropped march , . in the daily courant was established. this paper bought out the independent press (which in turn had absorbed the american mercury); and the staff of the press, including charles dudley warner, gen. j. k. hawley and stephen a. hubbard, joined william h. goodrich, who was the business manager of the couraut. connecticut mirror, _w_. federal. founded july , , by charles hosmer, publisher. during the war of , it was the organ of the "extreme right" of the federal party. it was continued until about . yale university library contains an almost complete file up to . times. _w_. democratic-republican. founded jan., , with frederick d. bolles, publisher, and m. niles, editor. its slogan was "toleration" and the new constitution. march , , it became the daily times, and still continues. new haven columbian register, _w_. democrat. founded dec. , , joseph barber, publisher, to give "proceedings of congress, latest news from europe and history of new england, particularly of connecticut." daily edition, ; sunday edition, . yale university has a continuous file. the connecticut gazette, _w_. printed by james parker, april, . suspended april , . eevived by benjamin mecom, july , . ended feb. , . connecticut herald, _w_. federal, republican. founded , by corostock, griswold & co., publishers, thomas green woodward, editor. a daily herald, issued nov. , . in its publishers, woodward & carrington, bought the connecticut journal. the daily herald and journal of soon became, by buying out the courier, the morning journal and courier, as now, and its weekly edition, the connecticut herald. yale university has a continuous file. the connecticut journal and new haven post boy. _w_. federal. founded by thomas and samuel green. it was started about four months before the connecticut gazette (new haven). it failed april , , and was sold to woodward & carrington, owners of the daily herald. the title "and new haven post boy" was omitted about . it was known in , for a few months only, as the connecticut journal and weekly advertiser, and in , for a few months only, as the connecticut journal and advertiser. yale's file dates from to . the new haven gazette and the connecticut magazine, _w_. meigs & dana, feb. , - . new london the connecticut post and new haven visitor, _w_. founded oct. , , as the visitor; title changed nov. , . ended its existence about nov. , . the new london gazette, _w_. (connecticut gazette.) founded by timothy green, november, . the earlier connecticut gazette, published at new haven, april, -april , , having ended february, , the new london gazette adopted the new haven paper's name. the firm became timothy green & son, - . samuel green (the son) conducted the paper to , except the year , and from to . known as the connecticut and universal intelligencer, dec. , -may , . yale university flies are from to , except , ' , ' , and ' . outside of connecticut niles' weekly register, _w_. baltimore, - . it was known from to as the weekly register; from to august, , as niles' weekly register, and from to as niles' national register. it devoted itself to the record of public events, essays and documents dealing with political, historical, statistical, economic and biographical matter. c. public records and others touching upon connecticut history new haven colonial records, ed. by c. j. hoadly. vols. - ; - . hartford, - . connecticut, colonial records of, ed. by c. j. hoadly and j. hammond trumbull. vols. - ,. hartford, - . state of connecticut, records of the, ed. by c. j. hoadly. vols. - ; - . hartford, - . united colonies of new england, records of the, in vol. ii. of e. hazard's "historical collections consisting of state papers and other authentic documents, etc." plymouth colony, records of, ed. by n. r. shurtleff and d. pulsifer. vols. boston, - . records of the general association of connecticut, june , , june , ; hartford, . vols. minutes of proceedings of the general association, , on. proceedings of connecticut missionary society, - . report of the superintendent of common schools of connecticut, . this annual report has a detailed account of the western land bill appropriations, pp. - . the constitutions of connecticut, with notes and statistics regarding town representation in the general assembly, and documents relating to the constitutional convention of . printed by order of the state comptroller. hartford, . the code of . in hinman's "antiquities of connecticut." the public statute laws of the state of connecticut. hartford, . acts and laws, - . (supplements to oct., , laid in.) new london, . acts and laws, - . d. historical society publications american historical association annual report. - . connecticut historical society collections. vols. especially vol. i, extract from hooker's sermon. vol. ii, hartford church papers. vol. iii, extract from letter to the rev. thomas prince. vols. v and vi, talcott papers. massachusetts historical society collections, - . vols. volumes containing the mather, sewall, and winthrop papers were especially useful. narragansett club publications. providence, . vols. the correspondence of roger williams and john cotton, vols. i and ii. new haven colony historical society papers. vols. rhode island historical society collections. vols. - . proceedings, vols., - , and publications, , onwards. manuscripts judge church's ms. in new haven historical society library. a sketch prepared for the historian hollister. manuscript records of the newport yearly meeting, deposited in the friends' school, providence, r. i. manuscript minutes of the hartford north association, deposited in yale library. stiles, ezra. itinerary and memoirs, - , deposited in yale college. e. denominational literature . baptist asplund, john. the annual register of the baptist denomination in north america ... to nov. , ; containing an account of the churches and their constitutions, ministers, members, associations, their plan and sentiments, rule and order, proceedings and correspondence. worcester, - . backus, isaac. a history of new england with particular reference to the denomination of christians called baptists. newton, mass., . vols. this edition by d. weston includes isaac backus' prefaces to vol. i, finished ; vol. ii, ; and vol iii, . this contemporary writer is regarded as an authority, as much of his work was founded upon the court, town, and church records and upon the minutes of ecclesiastical councils. he searched diligently the records of plymouth, taunton, boston, essex, providence, newport, hartford and new haven. the book has a chronological record of the connecticut churches. it is very discursive. benedict, david. a general history of the baptist denomination in america and other parts of the world. boston, . this contains a more complete list of the associations and churches than that given by backus. there is a valuable chapter, "baptist communities who differ from the main body of the denomination and who are also distinguished by some peculiarities of their own." burrage, henry s. a history of the baptists in new england. philadelphia, . particularly useful in tracing the progress of the denomination in the different states, and in its contribution to the history of religious liberty. cathcart, william (editor). the baptist encyclopedia: a dictionary of the doctrines ... of the baptist denomination in all lands. philadelphia, . vols. curtis, thomas f. the progress of baptist principles in the last hundred years. boston, . denison, frederic. notes of the baptists and their principles in norwich. norwich, . this contains the famous separatist petition to the king in . guild, reuben a. history of brown university, with illustrated documents. providence, . hovey, alvah. a memoir of the life and times of the reverend isaac backus, a. m. boston, . newman, albert h. a history of the baptist churches in the united states. new york, . . congregationalist a confession of faith, owned and consented to by the elders and messengers of the churches in the colony of connecticut in new england assembled by delegates at saybrook, sept. , . first edition (first book printed in connecticut), new london, . second edition, new london, , with heads of agreement; edition of hartford, . [a] a faithful narrative of the surprising work of god in the conversion of many hundred souls in northampton and the neighboring towns.... in a letter to the rev'd. doctor benjamin colman of boston, written by the rev'd. mr. edwards, minister of northampton, on nov. , . london, . autobiography of lyman beecher, d. d. new york, . vols. especially valuable for the attitude of the congregational clergy during the first constitutional reform movement in connecticut. bacon, leonard. the genesis of the new england churches. new york, . ----thirteen historical discourses, on completion of two hundred years from the beginning of the first church, new haven. new haven, . baldwin, simeon e. ecclesiastical constitution of yale college. in new haven historical society's papers, vol. iii. contributions to the ecclesiastical history of connecticut: prepared under the direction of the general association, to commemorate the completion of one hundred and fifty years since its first annual assembly. new haven, . see under l. bacon, the history of david brainerd. barrowe, henry. answer to mr. gifford. ----a briefe discoverie of the false church. date, . london ed. . ----a true description of the word of god, of the visible church, . briggs, charles augustus. american presbyterianism: its origin and early history. new york, . browne, robert. an answer to master cartwright his letter for joyning with the english churches. london, . ----a true and short declaration. middelburg, . ----a treatise of reformation without tarrying. middelburg, . ----the book which sheweth the life and manners of all true christians, and how unlike they are unto turkes and papists and heathen folk. also the pointes and partes of all divinitie that is of the revealed will and words of god, and declared by their severall definitions and divisions in order as followeth. middelburg, . browne, robert. "a new years guift:" an hitherto lost treatise. (letter of dec. , , to his uncle, m. flower.) edited by champlin burrage. london, . clap, thomas. religious constitution of colleges, with special reference to yale. new london, . cotton, john. civil magistrates power in matters of religion. london, . ----the keyes of the kingdom of heaven and powers thereof according to the word of god. london, . ----questions and answers upon church government. london, . ----way of the churches of christ in new england. london, . ----way of the congregational churches cleared. london, . cotton, john. in title, but a misprint for:-- davenport, john. a discourse about civil government in a new plantation whose design is religion, written many years since. cambridge, . dexter, henry martyn. the congregationalism of the last three hundred years: as seen in its literature with special reference to certain recondite, neglected or disputed passages. new york, . lectures, with bibliography of over titles and index. an historical review of congregationalism from its earliest forms to the last half of the nineteenth century. ----history of congregationalists. hartford, . brief popular history. ----story of the pilgrims. boston and chicago, . dunning, albert e. congregationalists in america. new york, . dutton, s. m. s. history of the north church, new haven, from its formation in may , during the great awakening, to the completion of the century, in may . new haven, . edwards, jonathan. works of, with memoir by s. e. dwight. new york, . vols. fisher, george p. discourses ... church of christ in yale college, november , . new haven, . frequent citations from the diaries of the cleveland brothers. fitch, thomas. explanation of the saybrook platform. the principles of the consociated churches in connecticut; collected from the plan of union. by one that heartily desires the order, peace and purity of these churches. hartford, . hobart, noah. an attempt to illustrate and confirm the ecclesiastical constitution of the consociated churches in the colony of connecticut. new haven, . hooker, richard. of the laws of ecclesiastical polity. london, . hooker, thomas. survey of the summe of church discipline. london, . lechford, thomas. plaine dealing. london, . letter of many ministers in old england requesting the judgment of their brethren in new england concerning nine positions ... .... together with their answer thereunto returned anno (by j. davenport). london, . mather, cotton. magualia christi americana; or, the ecclesiastical history of new england - . london, . hartford, . vols. ----ratio discipline fratrum nov-anglorum; a faithful account of the discipline professed and practised in the churches of new england. boston, . mather, richard. church government and church covenant discussed. london, . prince, thomas. the christian history of the revival and propagation of religion. boston, . purchard, george. history of congregationalism from about a. d. to . new york and boston, - . vols. walker, george leon. history of the first church of hartford. hartford, . ----some aspects of the religious life of new england with special reference to congregationalists. new york, boston and chicago, . walter, williston. the creeds and platforms of congregationalism. new york, . ----a history of the congregational churches in the united states. (american church history series). new york, . white, daniel appleton. new england congregationalism in its origin and purity: illustrated by the foundation and early records of first church in salem. salem, . wolcott, roger. a letter to rev. mr. noah hobart. [the new english congregational churches.... consociated churches.] boston, . . episcopalian beardsley, e. edwards, d. d. history of the episcopal church in connecticut. new york, - . vols. an account of the church in connecticut with strong church bias and inclination to excuse the tory sentiments of the early rectors. second volume gives the episcopal side of the "toleration" conflict of - . much interesting detail. church review and ecclesiastical register. in american quarterly church review, vol. x, p. . new haven and new york, - . collections of the protestant episcopal historical society, the. new york, - . vols. these mss. are found in perry and hawks's documentary history, and include a valuable article on the episcopate before the revolution, by f. l. hawks, also "thoughts upon the present state of the church of england in the colonies," [ ] by an unknown contemporary. cross, arthur lyon. the history of the anglican episcopate and the american colonies. new york and london, . hawkins, e. historical notices of the missions of the church of england in the north american colonies. london, . chiefly drawn from ms. documents of the society for the propagation of the gospel. hawks (frances lister) and perry (william stevens). documentary history of the protestant episcopal church in the united states. containing ... documents concerning the church in connecticut. new york, - . vols. see perry, william stevens. mcconnell, samuel davis. history of the american episcopal church. new york, . a brief general history with a number of pages devoted to the attempts to establish the episcopate in america and to the political hostility that it roused. perry, william stevens (bishop of iowa). [see f. l. hawks.] documentary history of the protestant episcopal church. new york, - . vols. unbiased; arranged under topical heads; has illustrated monographs by different authors; illustrations, including facsimiles; and also critical notes, frequently referring to original sources. it contains many letters from the missions established by the london society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. shaw, w. a. a history of the church of england. vols. . methodist asbury's (francis) journal. new york, . vols. a brief diary of all bishop asbury's american journeys: vols. ii and iii concern new england, with comments on his surroundings, his preaching and the people. bangs, nathan. history of the methodist episcopal church. new york, - . vols. clark, edgar f. the methodist episcopal churches of norwich. norwich, . convenient secondary authority gives, pp. - , a connected account of the early days of connecticut methodism. scudder, moses lewis. american methodism. hartford, . general attitude of new england towards the introduction of methodism. stevens, abel. memorials of the introduction of methodism into the eastern states. boston, . biographical notices of the early preachers, sketches of the earlier societies, and reminiscences of struggles and successes. "some account of every methodist preacher who was regularly appointed to new england during the first five years" of new england methodism, derived from original sources, letters, and from books now out of print. the fullest account of connecticut methodists. it contains frequent citations from jesse lee's diary. appendix a contains valuable statistics; appendix b has a scurrilous pamphlet, "a key to unlock methodism, or academical hubbub," etc., published in norwich, . ----the centenary of american methodism: a sketch of its history, theology, practical system, and success. new york, . ----the history of the religious movement of the eighteenth century, called methodism. new york, - . vols. . quakers, or the society of friends besse, joseph. a collection of the sufferings of the people called quakers, for the testimony of a good conscience, etc., to the year . london, . vols. vol. ii contains a full account of their persecutions, together with copies of the proceedings against them and letters from the sufferers. bowden, james. history of the society of friends in america. new york and london, . vols. a history of the sect throughout new england, containing many short biographies. it is fair and frank in its record of new england persecutions. the author adopts the unique plea that the excesses of the converts were inspired by the holy spirit as a reproof to their persecutors for the kind of persecution and punishment that was meted out to innocent persons. evans, charles. friends in the seventeenth century. philadelphia, . gough, john. history of the people called quakers. dublin, - . vols. hallowell, richard price. the pioneer quakers. boston and new york, . manuscript records of early newport yearly (friends') meetings--at friends' school, providence, r. i. minutes of meetings, reports of cases of oppression, of converts, etc. sewel, william. the history of the rise, increase and progress of the christian people called quakers, intermixed with several remarkable occurrences. written originally in low dutch by w. s. and by himself translated into english. st ed., amsterdam, ; d ed., london, ; d ed., , vols. philadelphia, , etc. new york, . [a] wagstaff, william r. history of the friends (compiled from standard records and authentic sources). new york and london, . a defense of the excesses in quaker eccentricities as religious enthusiasm in persons who were driven by persecution to the verge of madness. a similar view is expressed by r. p. hallowell and by brooks adams in his "emancipation of massachusetts." f. tracts (religious, political or both) of these, several titles that are found at full length either in the text or footnotes are omitted here. many more might have been added, but it is thought best to omit them because of their cumbrous titles, their scant interest to the average reader, and their inaccessibility, being found only in the largest libraries or among rare americana. for similar reasons, works strictly theological in character are also not listed. any sizable library possesses a copy of h. m. dexter's "congregationalism as seen in the literature of the last three hundred years." its bibliography of over titles gives all the religious, ecclesiastical or politico-ecclesiastical tracts, and theological works touching upon congregationalism. yale university library has a large amount of the americana collected by mr. dexter. trumbull's list of books published in connecticut before gives the titles of books and pamphlets of strictly local import the baptist confession of faith; first put forth in ; afterwards enlarged, corrected and published by an assembly of delegates (from the churches in great britain) met in london, july , ; adopted by the association at philadelphia, september , , and now received by churches of the same denomination in most of the american states, to which is added a system of church discipline. portland, . bartlett, moses. false and seducing teachers. new london, . beecher, lyman. sermon. a reformation of morals practicable and indispensible. ... new haven, . andover, . bishop, abraham. connecticut republicanism. an oration on the extent and power of political delusion. delivered in new haven, september, . ----proofs of a conspiracy against christianity and the government of the united states; exhibited in several views of the church and state in new england. hartford, . ----the oration in honor of the election of president jefferson and the peaceful acquisition of louisiana, . bishop, george. new england judged, not by man's, but the spirit of the lord: and the summe sealed up of new england's persecutions. being a brief relation of the sufferings of the people called quakers in these parts. london, . bolles, john. concerning the christian sabbath. . ----to worship god in spirit and in truth is true liberty of conscience. . ----a relation of the opposition which some baptist people met at norwich. . booth, abraham. essay on kingdom of christ. london, . new london, . [a] american edition edited by john sterry of the norwich "true republican," together with notes containing his strictures on the connecticut and english established church. bragge, robert. church discipline. london, . republished, new london, . [a] "a defence of simple congregationalism and disestablishment." browne, joseph. principles of baptism. a letter to infant baptisers in the north parish of new london. new london, . quoted by rev. e. h. gillett, hist. mag. d series, vol. iv, p. . browne, robert. a treatise of reformation without tarrying for magistrates and of the wickednesse of those preachers which will not reforme till the magistrates commande or compell them. middelburg, . only three copies known. reprint at boston and london. chauncy, charles, rev. seasonable thoughts. boston, . treats of the great awakening, of which the author was a determined opponent. clap, thomas. brief history and vindication of the doctrines received and established in the churches of new england. new haven, . daggett, david. argument, before the general assembly of connecticut, oct. , in the case of certain justices of the peace.... new haven, . ----count the cost. an address to the people of connecticut.... by jonathan steadfast. hartford, . ----facts are stubborn things, or nine plain questions to the people of connecticut. by simon holdfast. hartford, . ----steady habits vindicated. hartford, . ----sun-beams may be extracted from cucumbers, but the process is tedious. an oration, pronounced july, .... new haven, . darling, thomas. some remarks on president clap's "history and vindication." new haven, . foster, isaac. defence of religious liberty. worcester, . frothingham, ebenezer. a key to unlock the door, that leads in, to take a fair view of the religious constitution, established by law, in the colony of connecticut ... with a short observation upon the explanation of saybrook plan, etc. and mr. hobart's attempt etc. reviewing r. ross, plain address. boston, . hobart, noah. an attempt to illustrate and confirm the ecclesiastical covenant of the connecticut churches,--occasioned by a late explanation of the saybrook platform. new haven, . holly, israel. a plea in zion's behalf: the censured memorial made public ... to which is added a few brief remarks upon ... an act for exempting ... separatists from taxes, etc. . quoted by rev. e. h. glllett, hist. mag., d series, vol. iv. huntington, r. (editor). review of the ecclesiastical establishments of europe (by william graham). . special reference to the bearing of the book on the connecticut establishment, and particularly upon its parish system. judd, william. address to the people of the state of connecticut, on the removal of himself and four other justices from office.... new haven, . leland, john. a blow at the root. being a fashionable fast-day sermon. new london, . ----the connecticut dissenters' strong box: no. i. containing, the high-flying churchman stript of his legal robe appears a yaho. new london, . ----van tromp lowering his peak with a broadside: containing a plea for the baptists of connecticut. danbury, . ----the rights of conscience inalienable; ... or, the high-flying churchman, stript of his legal robe, appears a yaho. see the connecticut dissenters' strong box. martin-mar-prelate tracts. see h. m. dexter's congregationalism as seen in literature, lecture iii, pp. - . norton, john. the heart of new england rent at the blasphemies of the present generation. or a brief tractate concerning the doctrine of the quakers etc. cambridge, new england, . paine, solomon. a short view of the difference between the church of christ, and the established churches in the colony of connecticut in their foundation and practice with their ends: being a word of warning to several ranks of profession; and likewise comfort to the ministers and members of the church of christ. . richards, george h. the politics of connecticut; by a federal republican. new london, . rogers, john. a midnight cry from the temple of god to the ten virgins. see f. m. caulkins' history of new london, pp. - . ----john rogers, a servant of jesus christ ... giving a description of true shepherds of christ's flocks and also of the anti-christian ministry. th ed. norwich, . ----new london prison. see f. h. gillett, hist. mag., d series, vol. iv. ross, robert. plain address to the quakers, moravians, separatists, separate baptists, rogerines, and other enthusiasts on immediate impulses and revelations, etc. new haven, . stiles, ezra. a discourse on christian union. (appendix containing a list of new england churches. a. d. .) boston, . stoddard, solomon. the doctrine of instituted churches explained and proved from the word of god. . webster, noah. a rod for the fool's back. new haven, . being a reply to abraham bishop. williams, nathan. an inquiry concerning the design and importance of christian baptism and discipline. hartford, . wolcott, roger. the new-english congregational churches are and always have been consociated churches, and their liberties greater and better founded, in their platform of church discipline agreed to at cambridge, , than what is contained at saybrook, , etc. boston, . footnotes: [a] this is the edition referred to in text. thankful rest. a tale. by annie s. swan. author of "aldersyde," "carlowrie" "shadowed" &c. &c. there is no road, though rough and steep, without an end at last, and every rock upon the way by patience can be passed. there are few human hearts too hard for gentleness to win; somewhere a hidden chink appears where love may enter in. contents i. unwelcome news. ii. the parsonage. iii. the arrival. iv. the new home. v. sunday. vi. losing hold of the bridle. vii. the red house. viii. up the peak. ix. a day to be remembered. x. on the lake. xi. hopes fulfilled. xii. weary days. xiii. lucy finds the key. xiv. a great change. xv. the wedding. xvi. five years after. thankful rest. i. unwelcome news. it was the prettiest homestead in all the township, everybody said, and it had the prettiest name. it stood a mile or so beyond pendlepoint on the farther side of the river, from which it was separated by a broad meadow, where in the summer time the sleek kine stood udder-deep in cowslips and clover. it was a long, low, comfortable-looking house, hidden by lovely creeping plants, and sheltered at the back by the old elm trees in the paddock, and at the front by the apple trees in the orchard. perhaps it was because it had such a snug, cosy, restful look about it that it had been queerly christened thankful rest. the land adjoining the homestead was rich and fertile, and brought in every year a crop worth a goodly competence to its possessors. the family at thankful rest consisted of two people--joshua strong and his sister hepzibah. you are to make their acquaintance immediately, but a remark made once by old reuben waters, their next neighbour, may perhaps give you an idea of their characters better than any long description of mine:---- "for crankiness and nearness, and unneighbourly sourness, give me josh strong and his sister hepsy. they can't be equalled, i bet, in all connecticut." you will be able to judge by-and-by of the correctness of reuben's estimate. on a lovely august afternoon miss hepzibah strong was ironing in the kitchen at thankful rest. i wish you could have seen that kitchen; your eyes would have ached with its painful cleanliness. the stone flags were as cool and clean as water and hands could make them; the stove shone like burnished silver; the dresser and the table, at which miss hepzibah was at work, were white as snow; and the array of tins on the wall was perfectly dazzling with brightness. the wide diamond-paned casement stood open to admit what little air happened to be abroad that sultry afternoon. how pleasant it was, to be sure, to look out upon the flower-laden garden; upon the sunny orchard, rich and golden with its precious harvest; upon the silver thread of the river winding through the green meadow beyond; and to see and feel all the loveliness with which god had clothed the world. but miss hepzibah had no eyes for any of the beauties i have mentioned; she was intent upon her work, and hung on the clothes-horse piece after piece of stiff, spotless linen, which, as she could boast, could not be equalled in the township. miss hepzibah herself was not a pretty picture. she was a woman of thirty-five or thereabouts; with a thin, brown, hard-looking face; sharp, twinkling gray eyes; and a long, grim, resolute mouth. she wore a short skirt of dark material, a lilac calico jacket, and a huge white apron. on ordinary occasions her head was adorned by a cap of fearful workmanship and dimensions, but in the heat of her work she had thrown it off, and her scanty brown hair was fastened tightly back in a cue behind. just as the old eight-day clock in the lobby solemnly struck four, there was a loud knock at the back door, and the post-messenger from pendlepoint strode into the kitchen, holding in his hand a black-edged letter. "bad news for ye, miss hepsy, i doubt," he said. "it'll be from your sister in newhaven, i reckon." miss hepzibah took the black-edged letter coolly in her hand, eyed it stolidly for a second, and then laid it on the table. "sit down a minute, ebenezer, an' i'll bring ye a glass of cider," she said. and ebenezer saw her depart to the larder nothing loath. but if he thought miss hepsy meant to open the letter and confide its contents to him he was mistaken, for she pushed it aside and went on with her ironing. so after being briefly rested and refreshed, he went his way, bidding her a surly good-afternoon. still the letter lay untouched upon the table till the last collar was hung on the horse, the irons set on the flags to cool, and the blanket folded in the dresser. then miss hepsy broke the seal, and read without change of expression what ought to have been a sorrowful intimation to her, the news of the death of her younger and only sister, who had married and been left a widow in newhaven. but before miss hepsy had read to the end, her expression _did_ change, and she exclaimed, "wal, if this ain't about the humbugginest fix. hetty's boy and gal got to come here--nowhere else to go. wonder what josh'll say?" miss hepsy sat down, and, crossing her long hands on her lap, remained deep in thought till the old clock struck again, five this time. then she sprang to her feet, whisked the letter into the table drawer, and fetching out baking-board and flour-basin, proceeded to make dough for a supper cake. it was barely ready when her brother came in at six, and he looked slightly surprised to see no signs of the supper on the table. "i've had a letter from newhaven, josh," miss hepsy said abruptly. "hetty's dead; you won't be surprised to hear, i suppose. it's from her minister; and he says you've got to come up right away and see about things, an' fetch back the boy and gal with you. they've got nowhere else to go, he says, an' we're their nearest kinsfolk. i got thinkin' it over, and forgot my work, like a fool." joshua strong's grim face grew grimmer, if possible, as he listened to his sister's words. he reached out his hand for the letter she had taken from the drawer, and slowly spelt it to the end. "there ain't anything for it but grin and bear it, hepsy," he said. "though i don't see what business folks has marryin' an' dyin' an' leavin' their children to poor folks to keep. it'll be a mighty difference to expense havin' other two mouths to feed an' backs to clothe." "an' what i'm to make of two fine gentry children, as hetty's are sure to be, round all the time, i don't know," said miss hepsy, whisking off a griddle cake with unnecessary vigour. "i declare hetty might have had more sense than think we could do with 'em. i'm rare upset about it, i can tell ye." "it doesn't say what she died o'," said joshua meditatively, twirling the letter in his brown fingers. "died o'?" repeated miss hepsy tartly. "why, of pinin' arter that husband o' her'n. what's her fine scholar done for her now, i wonder? left her a lone widder to die off and leave penniless children to other folks to keep. but i'll warrant they'll work for their meat at thankful rest. i'll have no stuck-up idle notions here." "how am i to get to newhaven jes' now, i'd like to know," said joshua, "and all that corn waitin' to be stacked? it's clean beyond me." miss hepsy thought a moment. "i have it. miss goldthwaite was here to-day, an' she said the parson was goin' to newhaven to-morrow to stay a day or two. we'll get him to see to things an' bring the children down. i'll go to pendlepoint whenever i've got my supper, an' ask him. here, ask the grace quick an' let's be hurryin'," she said; and before the few mumbled words had fallen from joshua's lips, miss hepsy was well through with her first cup of tea! at that moment, in a darkened chamber in a quiet city street, two orphan children clung to each other weeping, wondering fearfully to see so white, and cold, and still, the sweet face which had been wont to smile upon them as only a mother can. they wept, but the days were at hand when they would realize more bitterly than now what they had lost, and how utterly they were left alone. ii. the parsonage. in the pleasant front parlour of the parsonage at pendlepoint, the rev. frank goldthwaite and his sister were lingering over their tea-table. he was a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, with an open kindly face, and grave thoughtful eyes, which yet at times could sparkle with merriment as bright as that which so often shone in his sister's blue orbs. a bright, winsome, lovable maiden was carrie goldthwaite, the very joy of her brother's heart, and the apple of every eye in the township. the brother and sister were deeply attached to each other, the fact that they were separated from their father's happy home in new york drawing them the more closely together. they had been talking of mr. goldthwaite's projected visit on the morrow, and he had at last succeeded in repeating faithfully all the commissions his sister wished him to execute, when the swinging of the garden gate, and a firm tread on the gravel, made miss goldthwaite rise and peep behind the curtain. "it's miss hepsy, frank," she said with a very broad smile; "something very important must it be which brings her here. i don't think she has been to the parsonage since the day we came." the next moment miss goldthwaite's "help" ushered in miss hepsy strong, attired in a shawl of brilliant hues and a marvellous bonnet. she dropped a courtesy to the parson, and sat down on the extreme edge of the chair miss goldthwaite offered her, declining, at the same time, her offer of a cup of tea. evidently, miss hepsy was not used to company manners. "i've made bold to come down to-night, sir," she said, fixing her keen eyes on mr. goldthwaite's pleasant face, "knowin' you was goin' to newhaven to-morrow, to ask if you would do josh and me a kindness." "if i can, miss strong," returned the minister courteously, "be sure i shall be very glad to do so." "you've heard tell, i reckon," said miss hepsy, "of our sister hetty as married the schoolmaster in newhaven?" mr. goldthwaite nodded. "well, she's dead," continued miss hepsy with a business-like stolidity inexplicable to carrie goldthwaite's warm heart, "an' she's left two children, which josh an' me'll hev to take, i reckon, seein' their parents is both dead now. we'd a letter to-day from the minister there--mr. penn he calls hisself, i think." "yes, i know him," put in mr. goldthwaite. "he wants josh to come up right away, which he can't possibly do an' the corn not in the barn yet. a day's worth so many dollars jes' now, an' can't be throwed away. now, sir, will ye be so kind as to see to things at hetty's, an' fetch the children with you when ye come back? it'll be a great favour to josh and me." the minister concealed what he thought, and answered courteously that he should do his best. then miss hepsy rose and shook out her green skirts. "the address is fifteenth street, sir, an' hetty's name was hurst. i reckon ye'll find it easy enough. that's all; i'll be goin' now.--no, thanks, miss goldthwaite, i can't sit down; it's 'most milking time, and if keziah's left to do it herself, there's no saying what might happen.--so, good evenin', and thank ye, sir;" and before the brother and sister recovered from their amazement, miss hepsy had whisked out of the room, and the next minute her firm, man-like tread broke upon their ears again. mr. goldthwaite looked at his sister with a comical smile, which was answered by a peal of laughter from her sweet lips. "i can't help it indeed, frank," she said. "i am so sorry for the poor children, bereft of both parents. their mother was a refined, gentle creature, too, i have been told; of a different mould from miss hepsy. the calmness, though, to ask you to do all this simply because joshua is too hard to spare a day's labour! are you doing altogether right, frank, i wonder, in taking it off his hands?" "i could not refuse it, carrie," returned the minister. "like you, i am sorry for the poor little orphans. their life will not be all sunshine, i fear, at thankful rest." miss goldthwaite sighed, and from the open window watched in silence miss hepsy's brilliant figure crossing the river by the bridge a hundred yards beyond the parsonage gate. "i think, frank, that among all your parishioners there is not a more unhappy pair than joshua strong and his sister. i wish they could be made to see how differently god meant them to spend their lives. it saddens me to see their hardness and sourness." "perhaps these little children may do them good, dear," returned the minister gravely. "it would not be the first time god has used the influence of little children to do what no other power on earth could. we will pray it may be so." "yes," returned carrie goldthwaite; and the shade deepened on her sweet face as she added again, "poor little things! it will be a sore change from the tender care of a mother. we must do what we can, frank, to make their home at thankful rest as happy as possible. we had such a happy one ourselves, i feel an intense pity for those who have not. there is judge keane on horseback at the gate. he wants either you or me to go out and speak with him." the minister rose, and both stepped out to the veranda, and down the steps to the garden. the judge had alighted, and fastening his bridle to the gate-post, came up the path to meet them. he was an old man, with white hair and beard; but his fine figure was as erect and stately as it had been a quarter of a century before. he shook hands cordially with the minister, touched carrie goldthwaite's brow with his lips, and then said, in a brisk, cheerful voice,-- "my wife heard you were going to newhaven for a couple of days, and sent me down to say she would expect you, miss," (he nodded to carrie,) "at the red house to-morrow, to stay till he comes back. i may say yes, i suppose?" "yes, and thank you, judge keane," said miss goldthwaite with a little grateful smile. "even with abbie's company, it is very dull when frank is away. won't you come in?" the judge shook his head, and turned to the gate again. "not to-night, my dear. good-night, and good-bye, frank." "have you no commissions, judge?" asked the minister. "i shall have plenty of time at my disposal; my own business is very little." "no, i think not," returned the judge. "but, let me see." miss goldthwaite moved to the gate, and laid her hand caressingly on beauty's glossy neck. "i only envy you one thing, judge keane," she said; "and this is it. what a beauty she is!" the judge laughed, and his eyes lingered on the slim, girlish figure in its dainty muslin garb; and on the sweet, unclouded face, which was a true index to the happy heart within. "beauty shall be yours by-and-by," he laughed; and a swift wave of colour swept across her face, and she hid it in the animal's glossy mane.--"safe journey, frank. come to the red house for your sister when you want her.--steady, beauty." he sprang to the saddle, and held out his hand to carrie. "i'm glad you've said yes, my dear," he whispered, with a mischievous twinkle in his gray eyes, "or a certain young man would have thought nothing of coming to take you by main force. shall i tell him of that sweet blush? or--" but miss goldthwaite had fled, and beauty flew off like an arrow. iii. the arrrival. on friday morning, miss hepsy received a brief note from mr. goldthwaite, stating that he had attended the funeral of mrs. hurst, paid the little she had owed in newhaven, and would be at pendlepoint by the noon cars that day, when he requested miss hepsy to be in waiting at the depot to meet her nephew and niece. now, friday was miss hepsy's cleaning day. although ordinary eyes would have been puzzled to point out what spot in that shining domain required more than the touch of a duster, the house was upturned from ceiling to basement, and received such sweeping and dusting and polishing, such scouring and scrubbing, that it was a marvel miss hepsy was not exhausted at the end of it. she had just turned out the parlour chairs into the lobby, and was busy with broom and dust-pan, sweeping up invisible dust, when ebenezer brought her mr. goldthwaite's letter. so much did it upset her, that he had to depart without his glass of cider, for she took no more notice of him than if he had been one of the pillars at the door. it was eleven o'clock almost; it would take her every moment to dress and be at the depot in time; so she had to set the chairs back into the half-swept room, replace her working garb by the green dress and the plaid shawl, take her blue umbrella and trudge off, leaving the management of the dinner to keziah. her frame of mind as she did so augured ill for the welcome of her sister's children. the cars were half an hour late, and miss hepsy strode up and down the platform in a ferment of wrath and impatience, thinking of the dinner under awkward keziah's supervision; of the sweeping and dusting and baking all to be done in the afternoon; of the bother two strange children were sure to be; of a hundred and one things, which brought her temper up to fever heat by the time the train puffed into the depot. from the window of a first-class compartment two faces looked out eagerly, but failed to recognize in miss hepsy the sister of the dear dead mother they had so lately lost. miss hepsy saw mr, goldthwaite step out first, followed by a tall, handsome-looking boy, well dressed and refined-looking, who in his turn assisted with care and tenderness a slight, delicate-looking girl, who bore such a strong resemblance to her dead mother that her aunt had no difficulty in recognizing her. she stamped forward, nodded to mr. goldthwaite, and held out a hand in turn to each of the children. "i'm tired to death waitin' on these pesky cars," she said, addressing herself to mr. goldthwaite. "i hope they've behaved themselves, sir, an' not bothered ye.--bless me, children, don't stare at me so; i'm your aunt hepzibah. you look as if you had never seen a woman afore." "there is a trunk, miss hepsy," said mr. goldthwaite, unable to help an amused smile playing about his mouth. "you will need to send a cart for it.--they have been very good children indeed, and instead of bothering, have greatly helped to make my journey enjoyable." "i'm glad to hear it, i'm sure," said miss hepsy, looking very much as if she was not glad at all. "well, i guess we'd better be movin'.--what's your name, boy?" she said, turning to the lad with an abruptness which made him start. "my name is tom, aunt," he answered promptly; "this is lucy." "miss hetty might have called one of ye after her own kin.--well, good-day, mr. goldthwaite; i guess josh'll walk down to the parsonage at night an' pay up.--come along." "good-bye, tom, good-bye, lucy, in the meantime," said the minister kindly. "we shall see each other often, i fancy." "oh, sir, i hope so," said lucy, speaking for the first time. "you have been so kind to us when we had nobody else." her dark eyes suddenly overflowed, and she turned away to follow her aunt, while tom, whistling to vent some strong feeling, went on in front. miss hepsy walked as if for a wager, and never opened her mouth once, until they stood upon the threshold of thankful rest. "now, look here; this is yer home," she said; then, fixing grim eyes alternately on their faces, "an' i hope ye'll behave, an' show yer gratitude for it. that's all.--i bet keziah's burned the soup;" with which words miss hepsy burst into the kitchen, ready to extinguish the unfortunate "help" if everything was not up to the mark. the brother and sister lingered a moment on the threshold, feeling new and strange and sad, their welcome had been so disappointing. "lucy," said tom hurst suddenly, "do you believe that woman's mamma's sister? i don't." "of course she is," returned lucy. "and you must not call her 'that woman,' tom; she is our aunt, mamma's sister, you know, and we must behave, she says." tom made a wry face. "i don't feel like behaving any," he said. "but i say, lucy, isn't this a prime place?" lucy's eyes beamed as they looked round the pretty, peaceful homestead, with its laden orchard, wealth of flowers and glorious summer beauty. but she did not answer. "we'd better go in, i suppose, though we weren't asked," said tom. "i wonder if it's near dinner-time; i'm famished." he pushed open the door, and, followed by lucy, entered the wide-bricked kitchen. a sudden change had taken place in aunt hepsy's appearance. in the twinkling of an eye she had donned her working garb again, and was paring potatoes at the table. fortunately, the dinner had progressed satisfactorily during her absence. "come in and sit down," she said, pointing to the settle at the fire. "ye'll be hungry, i reckon; but it'll soon be dinner-time. i don't approve of eating 'tween meals.--i guess you never did any of this kind o' work, lucy?" "no, aunt hepsy," returned lucy timidly. "i've seen hannah do it; that was our girl." "humph; ye won't be long here before ye can pare potatoes as well as hannah. you'll be willin' to learn, i hope?" "i shall do my best, aunt hepsy," returned the girl meekly. "mamma never pared potatoes, aunt hepsy," said tom boldly. "no; i know she didn't, boy," said miss hepsy severely. "your mother was as useless as a bit o' sunday china.--i hope you won't be like her, lucy." "i hope she will, aunt hepsy," spoke up tom again. "mamma was perfectly splendid, everybody said." "you'd better go outside, boy," said miss hepsy wrathfully, "till you learn to speak respectfully to your aunt. i know what your mother was. she was my own sister, i hope." tom caught up his cap and fled, nothing loath; his aunt irritated him, and made him forget himself. "how old are you, child?" said miss hepsy, turning to lucy, after a moment's silence. "i am fourteen past, aunt hepsy; tom is twelve." miss hepsy dropped her paring-knife and stared. "bless me, child, you don't look more'n nine, and that great boy looks years older'n you. what have ye fed on?" lucy smiled faintly. "i have not been very strong this summer, aunt hepsy; and i was so anxious about mamma being so poorly. i couldn't sleep at nights, nor eat anything hardly. i suppose that's what made me thin." miss hepsy sniffed. "have any of ye been to school?" was her next question. "no, aunt hepsy. papa taught us till he died, and then mamma kept up our lessons as well as she could. tom is a good scholar; and, oh, such a beautiful painter!" "painter!" echoed miss hepsy. "what, fence rails and gates?" lucy looked very much shocked. "oh no; he draws landscapes and things, and went to the art school as long as mamma could afford it. then he practised at home. he means to be a great painter some day, like the ones he read about." "humph!" said miss hepsy contemptuously. "i guess his uncle'll find him work in painting the farm an' the gates afresh this fall. it'll save a man. now then, there's them taters on. come upstairs an' i'll show you your room." lucy rose at once, and obediently followed her aunt along the wide flagged passage and up the polished oak steps to a tiny little chamber in the attic fiat. it was poorly furnished, but it was scrupulously clean; and from the window lucy's delighted eyes caught a glimpse of the broad green meadow, the shining water of the river, and beyond, the houses of the town nestling in the shadow of the giant slopes of pendle peak. "your brother's room is on t'other side o' the landing," explained miss hepsy; "an' i'll 'spect you to keep 'em both as clean's a new pin. i'm mighty partickler, mind, an' can't abide untidiness. an' if yer mother's brought ye up to think yersel' a lady, the sooner ye get rid of that notion the better, 'cos yell have to work here; we don't keep no idle hands. get off your hat an' cape now, an' come down as fast's ye like, an' help set the table for dinner." miss hepsy then whisked out of the room, and clattered down the stairs in haste. lucy moved to the window recess, and stood looking upon the peace and beauty without, until her eyes were brimming with tears. then she knelt down by the side of the bed, sobbing pitifully, "mamma, mamma! come back, o dear mamma! we have nobody on earth but you!" iv. the new home. meanwhile tom had gone on an exploring expedition. he investigated every outhouse and shed, frightened the geese and turkeys into fits by rushing through their paddock shouting at the pitch of his voice, caught the superannuated mule by the tail, and made her fly off like a four-year old, made friends with the savage watch-dog on the chain, coaxed the pigeons to fly to him, and finally went off to the fields in search of his uncle. on the road outside the farmyard gate he met a team, driven by a big uncouth-looking man, dressed in coarse trowsers, a red shirt, and a battered straw hat. "you'll be one of the men, i guess," said tom, stopping in front of him. "can you tell me where my uncle joshua is?" the man grinned. "air you hetty's boy, youngster?" "i'm mrs. hurst's son," corrected tom proudly. "who are you?" "if i'm not yer uncle josh, i reckon he ain't be home terday," returned the man.--"hi! up, sally; you and me's not fit company, i guess, for a city gent." "if you _are_ uncle joshua, i beg your pardon i'm sure," said tom with his usual frankness. "won't you shake hands, uncle joshua?" uncle joshua took the thin, delicate hand in his own brown palm, and looked at it curiously. "jes' as hepsy said--hetty's boy's more for ornament than use. well, youngster, now you're here ye'll work for yer bread, i hope. we're poor folks here, an' can't keep idle hands. ye'll hev to learn to mind a team like this." "i wouldn't mind if i'd a better horse, uncle josh," said tom, walking alongside of his uncle, and eying the hungry-looking steed critically. "see his ribs. don't you feed him ever, uncle josh?" the man's face flushed angrily. "shut up, younker!" he said savagely. "don't speak about things ye know nothing about." tom walked on a minute or two in silence, but in no way disconcerted. "this is a very nice place, uncle josh," he said. "mamma often told us about it, but it's prettier than i thought it would be." "the place'll do, i reckon," admitted uncle josh. "but farmin' ain't what it was. it's a hard job gettin' meat an' drink out o'd now-a-days." "mamma told us you were rich," said tom in surprise. "but you can't be, because--because--" "wal?" said uncle josh, with a slow, stupid smile. "because your horses are all thin, and _you_ wear these clothes; and aunt hepsy doesn't dress like a lady. rich people don't live so." "you're a fool, youngster. just your mother over again. you don't know, i suppose, that to save money folks must live cheap, an' not be all outside show. ye'll learn better, maybe, afore ye've been long at thankful rest,--hi, sally! whoa, lass." the thin, wretched-looking horse stood still, thankful to be released from the heavy waggon; and tom watched all his uncle's movements with much interest. he followed him from the yard to the stable, saw him give the five horses a scanty feed of corn and a pail of water. "we'll go and hev a bite o' dinner now," he said; then, "your sister'll be indoors, i guess?" tom nodded, and the two proceeded to the house. lucy was downstairs by this time, awkwardly placing knives, forks, and plates on the table, under miss hepsy's directions. a glad smile crept to her eyes at sight of tom; it seemed ages since he had gone out. she looked timidly at her uncle as he shook hands with her, remarking she was a pale-faced thing, and needed work and exercise to make her spry. then the company sat down, and tom, if lucy did not, did ample justice to miss hepsy's cookery. it was an unsociable, uncomfortable meal. aunt and uncle ate, as they did everything else, as if for a wager, and were finished before lucy had touched her meat and potatoes. "look spry, child," said her aunt, beginning to clear away almost immediately. "you'll ha' to learn to eat to some purpose. time don't last for ever." lucy pushed back her unfinished plateful and rose. "not dainty enough for ye, is it not?" was the next remark. "ye'll eat it by-and-by maybe." "i'm not hungry, aunt hepsy," she said with quivering lips; and tom bit his to keep back angry words surging to them. "may i go out for a little, aunt hepsy?" lucy asked. "when you've wiped them dishes you may," replied aunt hepsy. "i lost two good hours goin' to that plaguy depot for you, so the least ye can do is to help me through.--josh, find summat for the boy to do; 'tain't no use hevin' him 'round idle lookin' for mischief." "come along to the barn then, what's-yer-name," said uncle josh, picking up his hat and sauntering to the door.--"don't be too hard on that little 'un, hepsy; she don't look over strong." "mind yer own business, will ye, josh strong," was miss hepsy's smart rejoinder. "i guess i'm able to mind mine." under miss hepsy's directions, lucy succeeded in washing up the dishes without disaster, and was then requested to come to the far parlour and receive a lesson in sweeping and dusting. then baking came on, and with one thing and another miss hepsy managed to keep the child within doors and on her feet till past four o'clock. she was fainting with fatigue, but would not complain, and miss hepsy was too busy to observe the pallor on her face. "may i sit down for a minute, please?" she said at last, after bringing a huge can of flour from the larder. "i am afraid i am going to faint, aunt hepsy;" and she looked like enough it, as she sank wearily on the settle, and let her white lids droop over her tired eyes. miss hepsy was more than annoyed. "a delicate child above all humbugs," she muttered, as she sprinkled a few drops of spring water on the girl's face, and held her smelling-salts to her nostrils. "ye'd better go out an' get a mouthful of fresh air, i suppose," she said ungraciously when lucy rose at last, with a faint touch of returning colour in her cheeks. and lucy gladly went upstairs for her hat, and crept out into the beautiful sunshine. the garden gate was locked, but she managed to turn the key, and went slowly, in a maze of delight, along the trim paths, past beds of roses, hollyhocks, pansies, and sweet-scented gilly-flowers. the orchard beyond looked tempting indeed, where the sunbeams glistened through the bending boughs of apple, plum, and cherry trees, on the soft carpet of grass beneath. she managed to unfasten the gate there too, and choosing a wide-spreading apple-tree, from which she could see the meadow and the river, flung herself on the grass beneath it. there she fell asleep, and tom found her an hour after. his fine face looked worried and discontented, and he flung himself beside her, saying gloomily,-- "how on earth i am to live here, lucy hurst, i don't know." "what is it, tom?" inquired she, forgetting her own troubles in sympathy for him. "oh, uncle josh, that's all. he hasn't any patience with me, and makes me speak up impertinently to him. and the things they say about mamma are perfectly shameful. i won't bear it now, i won't." his sister's gentle hand touched his lips to stem the passionate words. "you remember, tom," she said softly, "what mamma said to us. we were to endure all such little trials, remembering that it is god who sends them. think how grieved she would be if she could hear us grumbling so soon." "i don't care; i can't help it," said the boy recklessly. "it isn't anything for you to be good, lucy; you are just like mamma--a kind of saint, i think. for me it is just a long battle all day. if a fellow conquered in the end, it would not matter; but as it is--o lucy, lucy! why did mamma die? it was so easy to be happy and good when we had her to love and help us. i wish i were dead too." poor, proud, passionate tom! his sister could only put her gentle arm about his neck and cry too, her heart so sorely re-echoed the painful longing in his voice. so the first day at thankful rest did not promise very brightly for tom and lucy hurst. v. sunday saturday was the busiest day in the week at thankful rest. there was churning to be done, extra cooking for sunday, mending and darning, and the weekly polishing of every bit of brass, and copper, and tin in the establishment. lucy rubbed at them till her arms ached, without bringing them to the required height of brightness, and was at last sent off to pick the few remaining gooseberries for a tart. that was a piece of work much more to her liking, and she lingered so long out in the sunshine that aunt hepsy came at last, and scolded her long and shrilly; which took all the enjoyment away. tom received his lessons from uncle josh outside; and, judging from his face when he came in at dinner-time, he had not found them particularly agreeable. tom hurst was a dainty youth, in fact, and shrank from soiling his fingers with the tasks allotted to him: and seeing that grim uncle josh had not spared him, the forenoon had been one long battle; for, try as he might, tom could not keep a bridle on his tongue. "i guess i'll hev a pesky deal o' trouble with that young 'un, hepsy," his uncle said that night when the children had gone to bed. "he doesn't take to farm work; an' he's that peart i durstn't speak to him. queer thing if we've got to keep the young upstart in idleness." "idleness!" quoth miss hepsy wrathfully. "i'd take a rope's end to him if he didn't keep a civil tongue in his head. the gal's bad enough; though she never speaks back she looks at me that proud-like wi' them great eyes o' her'n, i feel as if i'd like to shake her. there'll never be a day's peace now they've come." "tell ye what, though, hepsy," said josh. "i'm gwine to pay off brahm, an' make tom do his work. he ain't that much younger, an' he looks strong enough! couldn't you do without keziah, and that would square expenses?" "i'll see how the child turns out in a week or so. she's a pinin' thing--doesn't eat enough to keep a mouse alive." "it's a thankless thing, any way ye like to take it, hepsy, hevin' other folks' youngsters round. i don't see why we should be bothered with 'em;" with which remark josh went to bed. lucy awoke next morning, remembering it was sunday, with a feeling of gladness that they might perhaps chance to see their friend mr. goldthwaite at church. the strongs were regular as clock-work in their half-day attendance at the meeting-house. the morn'ng was devoted to feeding cattle, pigs, and poultry, and tidying up the house; and after dinner the premises were left in charge of brahm and keziah, and the master and mistress turned their footsteps towards pendlepoint. the meeting-house was almost close to the parsonage, and was a pretty, primitive structure, with no attempt at display or decoration, and yet so pleasant and homelike inside that lucy felt a sense of rest as her eyes wandered round it. tom nudged her and whispered, "nice little chapel, lucy;" at which miss hepsy held up a warning finger and shook her head. tom blushed and laughed, aunt hepsy looked so intensely comical. then she became very red in the face, and opening her hymn-book, kept her eyes on its pages till mr. goldthwaite came in. his eyes travelled straight to the strongs' pew, and lucy thought she saw a kindly gleam of recognition in his eyes. carrie was at the harmonium. she, too, looked once or twice in their direction; and both children found her face so sweet and pleasant that they could not lift their eyes off it. the chapel was full, and the singing of the hymn was so hearty and so sweet, that lucy felt her eyes dim, she could not tell why. but it seemed to remind her of her mother. mr. goldthwaite preached only half an hour; but his sermon was so beautiful and comforting, and so easily understood, that lucy thought sunday would recompense her for all the troubles of the week. tom's eyes never left mr. goldthwaite's earnest face, and i believe that the memory of his words remained with the boy for weeks after. he had never heard a sermon in his life he had understood and _felt_ like this one. uncle josh snored rather noisily in the corner, and aunt hepsy nodded occasionally over her bible--the minister's message did not even reach their ears. when the service was over and they reached the church porch, they found miss goldthwaite standing there. she had a nod and a smile for every one, but her particular mission was with tom and lucy. she shook hands with the uncle and aunt, and then bent her sweet eyes on the children's faces. "these be hetty's children, miss goldthwaite," said miss hepsy. "lucy and tom." "yes, i know," nodded miss goldthwaite. "i came round to see them. i want them to take tea with me to-day, at my brother's special request." miss hepsy did not look at all delighted. "they'll jes' bother ye, miss goldthwaite," said she; "an' besides, 'taint no use visitin' on sundays--i don't like it." "it's hardly visiting, miss hepsy," said the young lady in the same pleasant voice. "and when they are at pendlepoint you may as well let them. we will bring them safely home. come now, miss hepsy, you know nobody ever refuses me anything." "let them bide, hepsy," said uncle josh, remembering what trouble and expense the minister had spared him, and not wishing to appear so unmindful of it. "i guess they won't come to no harm at the parson's." so miss hepsy was forced to grant a reluctant consent, and miss carrie bore off the happy children in triumph. at the parsonage gate mr. goldthwaite joined them, and gave them both a hearty welcome. even shy lucy was at her ease immediately with miss carrie; for who could resist that bright, caressing manner, and those beaming, loving eyes? she carried lucy off to her own pretty room to take off her hat, and kept her there talking and showing her the beautiful view from the window till mr. goldthwaite had to call to them to come to tea. what a pleasant meal it was, and how the little company enjoyed themselves. then, when it was over, mr. goldthwaite took tom to the garden, and drew him on to talk of himself, of his hopes and ambitions, and sympathized so heartily and cheerfully with him that tom began to think it was worth while coming to thankful rest, if for nothing else than this pleasant hour at the parsonage. meanwhile carrie had opened the piano, and sang low and softly one or two hymns; and when she looked round, wondering why lucy had moved from her side, she saw her on the sofa with her face hidden. she rose, and sitting down beside her, put her arm about her, and whispered gently,-- "my poor child, what is it?" "mamma, miss goldthwaite," sobbed lucy. "she used always to sing to us on sunday evenings just so, and it makes me feel dreadful to think she never will any more." "yes, lucy, i understand," said carrie; and the very sound of her voice soothed the child's troubled heart. "but you know who has promised to comfort the mourning heart if we will but ask him? our god is 'the father of mercies, and the god of all comfort.'" a quick smile broke through lucy's tears. "if it were not for that, miss goldthwaite," she said simply, "i should have died when mamma did." "and just think, dear," went on the sweet voice, "of the glad time coming when we shall all meet, please god, in a happier world than this. we shall not remember these sad hours then, shall we, lucy? i know, my dear, how lonely and sad and strange you feel here now; but god can make us happy anywhere." "yes, miss carrie, i know it," returned the child simply and earnestly; "only i am so troubled sometimes about tom. mamma was often troubled about him too. he is so passionate and quick and proud. oh, i don't know how he is to get on with uncle joshua and aunt hepsy!" "we will hope for the best," said miss carrie cheerfully; "and by-and-by, perhaps, a way may be opened up for him to get his heart's desire.--would you like to see my pets, lucy? i have chickens, and pigeons, and dogs, and kittens, and all sorts of things. frank says the yard is a menagerie." "yes, i would like it very much. there are some pretty chickens and kittens at aunt hepsy's, but she won't let me pet them." in the delight of examining miss goldthwaite's menagerie sadder thoughts flew, and the evening sped on golden wings. the time came at last for the two to bid a regretful good-bye to the parsonage and turn their faces homewards. the minister and his sister accompanied them half across the meadow, and bade them good-night, with many promises of future meetings. tom and lucy walked on in silence till they reached the paddock, and then the lad said abruptly, "it will not be so hard to live here, lucy, if we can see them sometimes. i don't believe there's another minister like mr. goldthwaite in the state; nor another minister's sister either." lucy smiled, her heart re-echoing her brother's words. "i have not felt so happy since mamma died," she said softly. "o tom, is it not true what she used to say--'that god gives us something to be grateful for everywhere'?" "yes," said tom soberly; and the next moment aunt hepsy's tall figure appeared at the kitchen door, and her shrill voice broke the pleasant sabbath calm. "here, come in, you two. air you going to stand there all night? it's 'most nine o'clock--time you were in bed. i guess you won't go visitin' on sunday any more." vi. losing hold of the bridle. it had rained all day, and not all that day only, but the best part of the one before. not a soft, gentle summer rain, but a fierce, wild storm, which beat the poor flowers to the earth, spoiled the fruit, and overflowed the river till half the meadow lay under water. there was plenty of work in the barn for uncle josh and the men, and plenty in the house for aunt hepsy and the girls. the scullery was full of wet clothes waiting on a dry day. that of itself, not to speak of the damage to the orchard, was sufficient to make aunt hepsy a very disagreeable person to live with while the storm lasted. her tongue went from early morning till afternoon, scolding alternately at lucy and keziah. the latter was a stolid being, on whom her mistress's talking made no impression; but it made lucy nervous and awkward, and her work was very badly done indeed. at three o'clock aunt hepsy sent her to wash her face, and gave her a long side of a sheet to hem. so lucy was sitting on the settle, with a very grave and sorrowful-looking face, when tom came in at four. his uncle had no need of him just then, and had sent him to the house to be out of the way. keziah was feeding the calves, and aunt hepsy upstairs dressing, if that word can be appropriately applied to the slight change her toilet underwent in the afternoon. tom sat down at the table in the window, and leaning his arms upon it, looked out gloomily on the desolate garden, over which the chill, wet mist hung like a pall. neither spoke for several minutes. "how do you get on now, lucy?" asked tom at length. "how sober you look. has she been worrying you?" "i daresay i am very stupid," said lucy low and quietly; "but when aunt hepsy talks so loud i don't know what i am doing." miss hepsy entered at that moment, fortunately without having heard lucy's patient speech. "don't lean your wet, dirty arms on the table, boy," said she with a sharp glance at tom. "if you must be in, sit on your chair like a christian." tom immediately sat up like a poker. "what's yer uncle doin'?" was her next question. "he's oiling waggon wheels," answered tom, "and sent me in." miss hepsy took out a very ugly piece of knitting from the dresser-drawer, and sat down opposite lucy. "it's a pity boys ain't learned to sew and knit," she said grimly. "it would save a deal of women's time doin' it for 'em. i think i'll teach you, tom." "no, thank you, aunt hepsy." "you're much too smart with your tongue, young 'un," said miss hepsy severely, and then relapsed into stolid silence. the click of her knitting needles, the ticking of the clock, and the rain beating on the panes, were the only sounds to be heard in the house. tom drew a half-sheet of paper and a pencil from his pocket, laid it on the table, and kept his attention there for a few minutes. lucy ventured to cast her eyes in his direction, and he held up the paper to her. a smile ran all over her face and finally ended in a laugh. aunt hepsy looked round suspiciously to see tom stuffing something into his pocket. "what were you laughing at, lucy?" lucy looked distressed and answered nothing. "what's that you're stuffing into your pocket, tom?" she said, turning her eagle eyes again on tom. "a bit paper, aunt, that's all." "people don't laugh at common bits o' paper, nor go stuffin' em into pockets like that. hand it over." "i'd rather not, aunt hepsy," said the boy. "i rather you would," was her dry retort. "out with it." "it's mine, aunt hepsy, and you wouldn't care to see it." "how many more times am i to say out with it?" she said angrily. "i'll let you feel the weight of my hand if you don't look sharp." "it's mine, aunt hepsy. i won't let you see it," he said doggedly. miss hepsy's face grew very red, and she flung her knitting on the rug and strode up to him. "give me that paper." "well, there 'tis; i hope you like it. i wish i'd made it uglier," cried he angrily, and flung the paper on the table. aunt hepsy smoothed it out very deliberately, and held it up to the light. it was a picture of herself, cleverly done, but highly exaggerated, and the word _scold_ printed beneath it. slowly the red faded from her face and was replaced by a kind of purple hue. she lifted her hand and brought it with full force on tom's cheek. he sprang to his feet quivering with rage, and pain, and humiliation. his fierce temper was up, and lucy trembled for what was to follow. "next time you make a fool o' me, boy," said aunt hepsy with a slow smile, "perhaps ye'll get summat ye'll like even less than that." then the boy's anger found vent in words. "if you weren't a woman i'd knock you down. i hate you, and i wish i'd died before i came to this horrid place. it's worse than being a beggar living with such people. you touch me again, and i'll give it you though you are a woman." aunt hepsy took him by the shoulders and pushed him before her out to the yard. "ye'll be cool, i guess, afore i let ye in again," she said briefly, and then came back to lucy. she was weeping with her face hidden and her work lying on the settle beside her. "nice brother that of your'n," said aunt hepsy. "if he ain't growin' up to be hanged, my name ain't hepsy strong. here, go on with your seam, an' don't be foolin' there." lucy silently obeyed, but aunt hepsy could not control her thoughts, and they went pitifully out into the rain after tom. he stood a minute or two in a dazed way, and then hurried from the yard, through the garden and the orchard to the meadow. in one little moment the victory over temper he had won and kept for weeks was gone; and in the shame and sorrow which followed, only one person could help him, and that was mr. goldthwaite. there had been many quiet talks with him since the first sunday evening, and his lessons had sunk deep into the boy's heart, and he had indeed been earnestly trying to make the best of the life and work which had no interest nor sweetness for him. as he sped through the long, wet grass, heedless of the rain pelting on his uncovered head, he felt more wretched than he had ever done in his life before. he had to wade ankle-deep to the bridge, but fortunately did not encounter a living soul all the way to the parsonage. miss goldthwaite was sewing in the parlour window, and looked up in amazement to see a drenched, bareheaded boy coming up the garden path. "why, tom, it can't be you, is it?" she exclaimed when she opened the door. "what is it? nobody ill at thankful rest, i hope." "no," said tom. "it's only me; i want to see mr. goldthwaite." "he has just gone out, but will not be many minutes," said miss goldthwaite, more amazed than ever. "come in and get dried, and take tea with me; i was just thinking to have it alone." looking at miss goldthwaite in her dainty gray dress and spotless lace collar and blue ribbons, tom began to realize that he had done a foolish thing coming to the parsonage to bother her with his soaking garments. he would have run off, but miss carrie prevented him by pulling him into the lobby and closing the door. then she made him come to the kitchen and remove his boots and jacket. "i have not a coat to fit, so you'll need to sit in a shawl," laughed she; and the sound was so infectious that, miserable though he was, tom laughed too. miss carrie knew perfectly there was a reason for his coming, and that it would come out by-and-by without asking. so it did. they had finished tea, and tom was sitting on a stool at the fire just opposite miss goldthwaite. there had been silence for a little while. "i had a frightful row with aunt hepsy this afternoon, miss goldthwaite." "i am very sorry to hear it," answered she very gravely. "what was it about?" then the whole story came out; and then miss carrie folded up her work, and bent her sweet eyes on the boy's downcast, sorrowful face. "i am not going to lecture you, tom," she said soberly. "but i am sorry my brave soldier should have been such a coward to-day." tom flung up his head a little proudly. "i am not a coward, miss goldthwaite." "yes, tom; you remember how jesus stood all the buffeting and cruelty of his persecutors, when he could so easily have smitten them all to death if he had willed. compare your petty trials with his, and think how weak you have been." tom was silent. "when my temper is up, miss goldthwaite," he said at length, "i don't care for anything or anybody, except to get it out somehow. i was keeping so straight, too; i hadn't once answered back to uncle josh or aunt hepsy for weeks. it's no use trying to be good." "no use? why, tom, if everybody gave up at the first stumble, what would become of the world, do you think? our life, you know, is nothing but falling and rising again, and will be till we reach the land where all these trials are over. keep up a brave heart. begin again, and keep a double watch over self." "i feel as if it would be easy enough to do it when i'm talking to you or mr. goldthwaite, but at home it is different. i shall never be able to get on with them though i live a hundred years. and o miss goldthwaite, you don't know how i want to go on drawing and painting. i feel as if i could die sometimes because i can't." "when the time comes, dear; and it will come sooner, perhaps, than you think," said miss carrie hopefully. "you will prize it all the more because of this sharp discipline. do your duty like a man, and believe me, god will reward you for it one day." "i will try, miss goldthwaite," said tom with a new great earnestness of face and voice. "now," said miss carrie then, with a quick, bright smile, "i'm going to send you home. i don't mean to tell my brother anything about your visit. our talk is to be a secret. he would be so grieved that you have come to grief again through that tongue of yours. and i hope it will be a long time before its master loses hold of the bridle again." she went with him to the kitchen and helped him to dress, and then opened the door for him. "now, tom, you are to go home and tell your aunt you are sorry for what happened this afternoon; because you should not have spoken as you did. and remember, tom, that a soldier's first duty is obedience." and without giving him a chance to demur, she nodded good-bye and ran into the house. it was raining heavily still, but that tom did not mind; he was wondering how to frame his apology to his aunt, and how she would receive it. it was dark when he reached thankful rest, and the kitchen door was barred. he knocked twice, and was answered at last by aunt hepsy, who looked visibly relieved. feeling that if he waited till he was in the light his courage would flee, he said hurriedly,-- "i've been to the parsonage, aunt hepsy, and i want to tell you i'm sorry i drew the picture and spoke to you as i did. if you'll forgive me this time i won't be so rude again." aunt hepsy looked slightly amazed. "dear me, boy, i am thankful to see ye home again; ye've gev lucy a fever almost. see an' don't do it again, that's all." and that was all tom ever heard about the afternoon's explosion. vii. the red house. judge keane's place was a mile out of pendlepoint. it was in the opposite direction from thankful rest, and stood within its own extensive grounds, at the base of the peak. the house was built a little way up the slope, and commanded a magnificent view of the great plain and the river, whose silver thread was visible long after all other objects receded from view. you have made the acquaintance of the judge already; let us accompany mr. goldthwaite and his sister to the red house on a mild october evening, and make friends with the rest of the family. when the minister and his sister were ushered into mrs. keane's drawing-room, its only occupants were that lady and her two daughters, alice and minnie. the former was a tall, stately young lady, like her father, stiff and reserved to strangers, but much liked by her friends, among whom carrie goldthwaite was the chief. minnie keane was a bright-eyed, curly-haired maiden of fifteen, wild as an antelope, and as full of fun and frolic as any one of her pet kittens. their mother was an invalid, seldom able to leave her couch;--not a fretful invalid, you must understand, but a sweet, gentle, unselfish woman, who bore her pain and weakness without a murmur, so that those she loved might be spared pain on her account. mr. goldthwaite often said that mrs. keane's life was the best sermon he had ever come across; and i think he was right. the brother and sister received a warm welcome. miss keane and carrie withdrew to the wide window for a private chat, while mr. goldthwaite remained by mrs. keane's sofa. he was an especial favourite of hers. minnie disappeared, and ere long judge keane and his second son, george, appeared in the drawing-room. it is not necessary for me to describe mr. george keane, except to say that he was his father's right hand, and the greatest comfort of his mother's life; and that is saying a great deal, isn't it? when he came in alice found something to do at her mother's couch, and her seat in the window did not long remain unoccupied. there was quite a hum of conversation in the room, and then when candles were brought in, and the curtains drawn, miss keane said with a smile,-- "we have not had our pilgrimage up the peak this fall. if we don't have it soon it will be too late." "frank and i were talking of it yesterday," said carrie goldthwaite. "the days are so pleasant, why not have it this week or beginning of next?" "well," said judge keane, "settle the day when you are at it; i was beginning to think our annual excursion was to be forgotten this fall." "this is thursday, and to-morrow is my class day at pendlepoint," said miss keane. "saturday won't suit you, mr. goldthwaite?" "monday would be better," admitted frank. "then monday be it," said the judge. "we will start at twelve, and luncheon at the summit at one." "and, o papa, mayn't the big waggon go?" pleaded minnie. "i want to take mopsy and ted and silver tail." "and all the live stock on the place, little one," laughed her father. "what do you say, mr. goldthwaite? minnie thinks the kittens would enjoy the view immensely." "the suggestion about the big waggon is opportune," said mr. george keane. "last year some of the ladies would not have objected to a seat in it before we reached the top." "some of the gentlemen, too," said alice keane with a sly smile. "i propose the big waggon for faint-hearted climbers, and the little one for rugs and provisions." "i am going to make a petition, judge keane," said carrie goldthwaite. "i have two little friends who would enjoy the excursion as much as any of us, and they have not much enjoyment in their lives. i mean those orphan children at thankful rest. will you let them come?" "with all my heart; no need to ask, my dear," said the judge heartily; "and we will do our best to make them enjoy themselves." "thank you, judge keane," said carrie, and her face wore the expression the old man liked particularly to see there. "i see them in church regularly," said miss keane. "the girl is a remarkably pretty child. robert was quite charmed with her face when he was here a fortnight ago. i believe he was thinking what a study she was for a picture instead of listening to you, mr. goldthwaite." "i scarcely think it, miss keane," answered frank smiling. "at least he took me to task severely afterwards about a remark in my sermon which he did not approve." "orphans, did you say, carrie?" asked mrs. keane gently. "was their mother deacon strong's youngest daughter hetty?" "the same, mrs. keane," answered carrie. "and she must have been very different from her brother and sister, for the children have been evidently trained by a refined and cultured mind. lucy is a perfect lady, child though she is." "i feel very much interested," said mrs. keane. "i knew their mother slightly, and liked her much. could you not bring the children to see me some day?" "i shall try, mrs. keane; but it is not an easy task begging a favour from miss hepsy, and she seems determined to keep them at home. i have to take lucy by main force when i want her at the parsonage." "i hope they'll come, anyway," put in minnie, "because i never have anybody to speak to. one grows tired, even of the peak, when there's nobody but grown-up people to go on to. that's why i want mopsy and ted and silver tail. it wouldn't be so lonesome. but they can stay at home if lucy comes." "poor minnie," said her father, laughing with the rest at the child's aggrieved tone. "we must do all we can to persuade them, then, to spare you the necessity of frightening the cats out of their wits." "i'll go up to thankful rest to-morrow and extract permission from miss hepsy," said carrie, "though i am not very hopeful of the result.--come, frank, we must be off; it is nearly eight." "you will let us know on sunday, then, if they can come," said miss keane; and with cordial good-nights the friends parted. early next afternoon miss goldthwaite walked up to thankful rest on her mission to miss hepsy. that lady was making preserves, for which lucy had been kept since early morning paring and coring apples and stoning plums. as miss goldthwaite passed the kitchen window, she caught a glimpse of a slight figure almost lost in a huge apron, and a very white, weary-looking face bent over the basket of fruit. aunt hepsy was grimly stirring a panful of plums over the stove, and did not look particularly overjoyed to see miss goldthwaite; but lucy did. "always busy, miss hepsy," said carrie briskly, not choosing to mind the snappy greeting she received. "i declare i always feel a lazy, good-for-nothing creature when i come to thankful rest.--here, lucy child, sit down and let me do your work while i am here; you look tired." the quiet eyes raised themselves in loving gratitude to the sweet face, and she was not slow to avail herself of the chance of a moment's rest. miss hepsy sniffed, but made no audible demur. "what splendid fruit, miss hepsy!" said the visitor after a moment's silence; "i have seen none like it in pendlepoint this fall." "it's well enough," said miss hepsy, a little mollified. "your folks all well, miss goldthwaite?" "thank you, yes; and papa and mamma are coming from new york next week, if the weather keeps fine. i can hardly sleep or eat for joy, miss hepsy; and frank is almost as bad." "you be like children about your father and mother yet," said miss hepsy brusquely. "i reckon you'd better not marry in pendlepoint, or there'll be an end to your goin' home any more." carrie laughed. "i don't see why it should come to an end then, miss hepsy," she said. "even married people get a holiday sometimes." "i guess they don't see many o' them," replied miss hepsy. "i think you're a fool to marry, anyway, miss goldthwaite, when the parson thinks such a heap of you." carrie laughed again, more amused than ever. "talking of holidays, miss hepsy," she said, "i want you to give this patient little maiden one, and tom too." "not if i know it," answered miss hepsy promptly. "oh yes you will," said miss goldthwaite serenely. "we are to have a picnic up the peak on monday, in judge keane's waggon. i've set my heart on lucy and tom, and half a day is nothing." "it makes 'em idle and restless for days, miss goldthwaite," said aunt hepsy, with grim decision, "an' i ain't a-goin' to have it, so let it a be." miss goldthwaite held her peace a moment, and then went straight up to aunt hepsy, and, to lucy's amazement, laid her two hands on her shoulders and looked into her face with laughing eyes. "do you know you are the most disagreeable woman in the township, miss hepsy, and that there isn't another would be so cross with me as you are? i'll come up and pare apples for two whole days if you'll let me have lucy and tom. look me in the face and refuse me if you dare." miss hepsy actually smiled. "i never saw sech a cretur," she said. "ye'd move the very peak wi' them eyes o' your'n. i'm real sorry for mr. george keane, anyway. well, have yer own way, and go off home. you're only hinderin' my work, and i hain't a minute to lose." "thank you, miss hepsy," said carrie, with a very eloquent glance of her irresistible eyes.--"now, lucy," said she then, turning to the child, "come down to the parsonage on monday morning at eleven, you and tom, and we will go up to the red house together. good-bye, dear; the fresh air up the peak will brighten that white face, i hope. don't forget, now." "forget! o miss carrie," was all she said, but her eyes were very dim as she returned her kiss. lucy had been feeling peculiarly sad and down-hearted, and miss goldthwaite had come and brought with her the sunshine which seemed to follow her everywhere. then carrie bade miss hepsy good-bye, and went away. looking about her as she went through the garden, she espied tom painting waggon wheels in the yard. a few steps took her to the boy's side, and he looked up with a glad smile of surprise. "busy too, tom," she said pleasantly. "i don't think this place should be called thankful rest. nobody seems to take a rest here. how do you like this work?" "don't ask me, miss goldthwaite," said the lad. "you remember you told me to make the best of it; but it isn't easy." "it will grow easy by-and-by," she said, and laid her hand a moment on his arm, and her beautiful eyes grew grave and earnest. "does my soldier find his captain able to help even in dark hours?" "yes, miss goldthwaite." that was all, but it was said so simply and earnestly that carrie's heart grew glad. "we are to have a picnic up the peak on monday in judge keane's waggon," said she after a moment. "your aunt has promised to let you and lucy come. will you like it?" "like it! up the peak! o miss goldthwaite," said the boy, looking away to the towering hill beyond, "i have wished i could go every day since i came. how good you are to lucy and me!" "she will tell you when to be ready. in the meantime i must go," said miss goldthwaite with her pleasant smile. "good-bye, and success to the waggon-painting." viii. up the peak. tom and lucy hurst peered anxiously out of their chamber windows at six o'clock on monday morning to see a clear, calm, beautiful sky, with a faint roseate flush in the east, where, by-and-by, the sun would come up brilliantly. aunt hepsy was as cross as two sticks, and uncle josh morose and taciturn; but even these things failed to damp their spirits, and at a quarter to eleven they set off, a very happy pair, across the meadow to the parsonage. both looked well. lucy's mourning, though simple and inexpensive, was wonderfully becoming; and some fine delicate lace, which had been her mother's, relieved the sombre black dress nicely. miss goldthwaite was very proud of her friends, and told them so when she greeted them. they were just in time, and the four set off, tom in front with miss goldthwaite, and lucy walking with the minister. she was shy and quiet, but somehow nobody could be long afraid of mr. goldthwaite. he possessed his sister's charm of manner, and drew lucy on to talk in spite of herself. at the red house there was a great bustle. the big waggon was at the front door, and the little one at the back, into which the cook was stowing all sorts of eatables. minnie keane, in a state of great excitement, was flying about with a tiny kitten in each arm, the mother following at her heels mewing piteously for her children to be left in safety. minnie dropped the kittens when she saw the party from the parsonage coming round the avenue, and ran to meet them. miss goldthwaite made the introductions, and then she and mr. goldthwaite passed into the house, leaving the children beside the waggon. there was but a moment's shyness, and then the irrepressible minnie's tongue began to go freely. "you look nice, lucy," she said frankly. "i guess we'll have a good time to-day. there always is a good time when papa takes us anywhere." "this is a nice horse," said tom, feeling he must say something. "what's his name?" "oh, that's billy. he's very old, and rather cross. you should see papa's beauty. come to the stable and i'll show you her." she drew lucy's arm within her own and darted off, tom following. minnie was quite at home in the stable, and familiar with every animal in it. beauty pricked up her ears and whinnied at the touch of minnie's caressing fingers. "you ask miss goldthwaite about beauty," she said. "she thinks there isn't another horse like her in the world.--don't you love horses, lucy?" "yes; i love all animals," replied lucy. "i saw some nice little kittens round there." "yes; i've three. we'd better go round now, i think; perhaps they'll want to be going.--i'm glad it's a fine day; aren't you, tom?" "i think i am. i looked out at six this morning to see if it was. it'll be glorious up the peak." as the three came round to the front door again, miss keane appeared on the threshold. she looked very tall and stately and awe-inspiring with her trailing dress and eye-glass. yet her smile as she shook hands with the children was so pleasant that lucy forgot to be afraid of her. "my mother would like to see you, tom and lucy," she said. "will you come upstairs? she is not able to leave the room, you know.--minnie, i wish you would look round for papa. it is just twelve; we should be going." minnie scampered off, and tom and lucy followed miss keane up the broad staircase into the drawing-room, the beauty of which held them spellbound for a few minutes. on a couch near the fire lay a lady, with gray hair and a pale, thin, worn face, which wore such an expression of peace and happiness that lucy felt her heart go out to her at once. mr. and miss goldthwaite and george keane were there also. mrs. keane held out both her hands, and the two came shyly forward--tom blushing a little to be among so many strangers. "i am glad to see you, my dears," she said very heartily.--"kiss me, lucy. i knew your mother, dear. you remind me of her very much." the ready tears sprang to lucy's eyes. kindness always moved her thus, and she took a stool close to the couch, while tom's eyes wandered round the room, lingering hungrily on the exquisite water-colours on the walls. it was long since he had had such an opportunity. at thankful rest the art collection consisted of a few family portraits, ludicrous alike in execution and in colouring. a smile and a glance passed from mr. goldthwaite to his sister as they noted how speedily the boy became absorbed. "these are my brother robert's drawings," said miss keane, touching his arm and beckoning him to come nearer. "you are fond of painting, i think?" "yes, ma'am," answered tom, his face flushing a little. "and these are so beautiful, i could not help looking at them." "if you will come up to the red house some other day, i shall show you all my brother's sketch-books and odd drawings," said miss keane. "i am very fond of the work myself, and might perhaps be able to help you a little, you know, and i think you would make a clever pupil; what do you say?" the eyes behind the glasses beamed so kindly at him that tom forgot that his first impression of her had been unpleasant, and a warm flush of gratitude answered her better than his words. they were few and sad enough. "there is nothing i should like so much in the world, ma'am, and i thank you very much; but i can't come--my uncle and aunt would not let me." "i must see about that," said miss keane promptly; and at that moment judge keane's stately figure appeared in the doorway. "are you going to sit there all day, you young folk?" he called out hastily.--"oh, here you are, little ones;--glad to see you, my lad;" and he gave tom's hand a warm grasp, and touched lucy's white face with his forefinger. "want some roses there, doesn't she, wife?" he said. "there'll be a glorious air up the peak to-day, it will bring them there, if anything will." "i wish you could have come, dear mrs. keane," whispered carrie as she bent a moment over the couch before they passed out; "you used to be the very sunshine of us all." "i think of you, dear, and am happy in my own way at home," she replied with her sweet smile; "take care of yourself and of this pale little maiden.--lucy dear, good-bye. come and see me again." "indeed i will, if i can, ma'am," replied lucy earnestly; and then they all went away. minnie was already in the big waggon waiting impatiently for the start. "you will go inside too, little one, i suppose," said the judge to lucy; and with one swing of his strong arms he placed her beside minnie. "the rest of us will walk a piece, i fancy. as this is supposed to be a climbing expedition, we must make some show, at least, to begin with." there was a general laugh, and tom and lucy thought there could not be so pleasant an old gentleman as judge keane anywhere. miss keane elected tom for her cavalier, and made him feel very important indeed, by treating him as if he were quite a man; and they got into a very interesting talk about the great painters and their work. she was astonished to find what a thorough knowledge the boy had of the subject, and how well he could talk on what interested him most. "robert must see this young artist," was her mental comment. the judge followed behind with mr. goldthwaite; while mr. george keane and miss goldthwaite brought up the rear, walking very slowly, and talking very earnestly. nobody took any notice of them whatever, evidently being of opinion that they were quite capable of amusing each other. the waggon-path, winding gradually up the mountain side, was rough and stony, and even billy's cautious feet stumbled sometimes; and the two girls were jolted so that they laughed till they cried. "i think we'd better get out; don't you, lucy?" cried minnie at last, "else there'll be none of us left to see the top of the peak. i never was so sore in my life. isn't it fun though?" "yes; and the sun is so bright, and everybody so kind, and everything so pleasant, i don't know what to do," said lucy with softening eyes. minnie looked at her curiously. "i say, don't you have any good times at your home, lucy?" she asked soberly. "sometimes--not very often," answered lucy reluctantly. "i don't think your aunt is a very nice woman anyway," said minnie with her usual candour. "she looked at me so one day in church, 'cause i laughed right out at a funny little dog with a stumpy tail running in and right up to mr. goldthwaite. wouldn't you have laughed too?" "i don't know," said lucy; "if it was very funny, i daresay i would." "how pretty you are," said minnie after a while; "my sister alice says so--i guess she knows." lucy blushed, not being accustomed to such plain speaking. "i think miss goldthwaite perfectly elegant," went on the young critic. "she is going to marry my brother george, do you know?" "is she?" asked lucy, much interested. "yes; and papa and mamma are crazed about her. everybody is. isn't she just splendid?" "there is nobody like her," answered lucy. minnie could never know what she had been and was to her. "lovers are stupid, don't you think?" asked minnie again. "they always go away by themselves, and things; you just watch george and carrie to-day. it is a great trial to me." "what is?" asked mr. george keane, pausing at the side of the waggon. minnie laughed outright, so did lucy. "it's a secret," replied she in a very dignified way.--"o miss goldthwaite, are you coming into the waggon?" "yes;--will you make room for me, lucy?" lucy moved further up the cushion, and mr. george keane assisted miss goldthwaite to her place. "o carrie, succumbed already!" cried miss keane. "won't you come in too?" replied carrie. "no, thank you; i mean to climb to the top. somebody must sustain the credit of our sex." "i know it's safe in your hands, alice," said carrie serenely.--"lucy dear, you look happy. do you enjoy it?" the sparkle in lucy's eyes answered her better than any words. the road was becoming rougher and steeper, and billy's progress slower and slower, and the summit of the peak drawing nearer and nearer. miss keane and tom had got ahead of the waggon, and were the first to reach the top. at last billy, with a great pull, brought the waggon to the level ground, and then stood still. they all alighted, and, forming a little circle, stood drinking in the beauty of the scene. wondering how tom would be affected, miss keane turned to speak to him, but he had gone; and looking round, she saw him standing by a huge boulder, but his face was turned away, and understanding why he felt it best to be alone for a few minutes, she did not venture to disturb him. it was a panorama of wonderful beauty. they seemed to stand up among the clouds, the air was so pure and cool and bracing. far beneath, the houses of the town looked like a tiny ant-nest, enveloped in a filmy haze. the great plain stretched around for miles and miles, dotted here and there by many a pretty homestead, and intersected by the winding river, glinting and glistening in the sun as it hurried on and on to join the far-off sea. far across the plain the smoke of distant cities obscured the horizon, but none of the noise or bustle was borne on the breeze to this lonely mountain peak. a great silence fell upon the little company, and some bright eyes grew dim as they looked upon the beauty of the world the great creator had made. "just say a few words of prayer, frank," said the judge at length, in a soft voice; "it will do us all good, i think." mr. goldthwaite took off his hat reverently. "our father, we thank thee for this day. we thank thee for sparing us all to come here again; and for the sunshine, and the beauty, and the gladness of the earth. help us more and more to feel the power and majesty of thy hand, and the great love of thy infinite heart. be with every one of us to-day, blessing us as only thou canst bless, and help us to live to thy glory; for jesus' sake. amen." "amen," repeated judge keane. "now we can begin the day with a better heart than ever." ix. a day to be remembered. it was great fun unpacking the baskets, and tom made himself very useful to the ladies; so much so, that miss goldthwaite felt constrained to whisper one word of praise in his ear, which sent a glow to his heart. surely never was meal so enjoyed as that lunch on the summit of pendle peak; and they lingered so long over it, that judge keane passed a great many jokes on the gigantic appetites, and professed great concern about the small quantity of provisions left for tea. when plates and forks and knives were stowed in the waggon again, the party broke up in twos and threes, and went off exploring. lucy was tired, and said she would remain beside the goods and chattels, whereupon the judge declared he would keep her company. mr. george and miss goldthwaite went off together to search for ferns, they said; while mr. goldthwaite, miss keane, minnie, and tom went to the ravine on the other side of the peak to find some rare specimens of wild flowers miss keane was anxious to secure for her collection. the judge was to whistle at four o'clock, if they had not then returned; and promised to have tea ready, which was considered a great joke. lucy sat on the smooth green turf, leaning against a boulder, feasting her eyes on the beauty, of which she thought her eyes could never tire. the judge lay on the grass with half-closed eyes, looking at the girl's sweet face, wondering why it looked older and sadder and more womanly than it ought. it was a good while before either spoke. "would you mind telling me, judge keane, please," said lucy timidly, "where newhaven lies from here, and how far it is?" the judge raised himself on his elbow, put on his gold eye-glass, and looked along the plain. "there, straight as the crow flies, little one," he said, pointing west. "it is about thirty miles in a direct line from where we sit; by rail about fifty, i think." "it is a long way," she said, and a little sigh followed, as if she wished it nearer. "you lived in newhaven, i think, didn't you?" asked the judge. "yes, sir, till mamma died. it is not a nice place, but i love it dearly." ay, for a quiet grave there held the loved father and mother who had once made for her a happy home. the judge did not speak, he did not know what to say just then, and lucy did not seem to expect an answer. he shut his eyes again, and there was a long silence. thinking he slept, lucy rose, and, gently laying a rug over him, slipped away. he opened his eyes directly and watched her. she only moved a few yards from him, and knelt down with her face to the west. he heard a few faltering words, followed by a sob--"o dear papa and mamma, i wonder if you can see tom and me to-day, and know how happy we are. god bless the dear friends who have made us so, for christ's sake. amen." the judge's lips twitched beneath his mustache, and when lucy rose again, he drew the rug up over his face, not wishing her to see that he had heard that little prayer. but he never forgot it. two hours did not take long to slip away, and then the judge sat up and looked at lucy with a comical smile. "it is ten minutes to four, little one, and there isn't a sign of the wanderers. suppose you and i make tea: do you think we could manage it between us?" "oh yes, sir; i know how to build a fire, and make tea too, and there are sticks in the waggon. may i try?" "of course, and i'll help to the best of my limited ability." lucy went to the waggon and got out sticks and the kettle, while the judge made an amateur stove between four stones. lucy then laid the fire, and in a minute there was quite a cheerful little blaze. water was the next thing, and the judge remembered there used to be a tiny spring a few yards down the slope, which was found without any difficulty; and he brought back the kettle filled, and placed it on the fire. he had so many odd remarks to make about his new occupation, that lucy was kept laughing pretty nearly all the time. it was getting on for five o'clock before four heads appeared at the edge of the slope. mr. goldthwaite, miss keane, minnie, and tom arrived laden with flowers and ferns, and reported themselves exhausted, and thankful to see that tea was ready. george and carrie had not been seen since they departed at two o'clock." "you made tea all by yourself, lucy," said miss keane, laying her kind hand on lucy's sunny head. "clever little maiden, how are we to thank you?" "judge keane helped me, miss alice," replied lucy blushing and smiling. "helped! i should think i did," said the judge tragically: "she sat on the waggon like a queen, and commanded me like a slave. she looks meek and mild enough, but don't trust her." "papa, how much nonsense do you talk in a day?" she said. "i wish the other two would turn up; i'm famished." "are we to wait on them, papa?" inquired minnie piteously. "i guess they don't want any tea: lovers never want anything to eat. mayn't we have it now?" "yes," said miss keane.--"lucy dear, may i trouble you for the teapot.--papa, hand the sugar, and make yourself useful." "what a real nice boy your brother tom is," said minnie keane, dropping down by lucy's side. "we had a splendid time down there, while alice and mr. goldthwaite talked out of books. aren't you very fond of him?" "of tom? of course i am," answered lucy; "you know i have nobody but him, and he has nobody but me." "lucy, your tea is delightful," said mr. goldthwaite from the other side of the table-cloth. "i don't know when i enjoyed anything so well." "hunger is good sauce," said the judge;--"here are the truants." mr. george keane and miss goldthwaite appeared now, apparently very much astonished to find themselves behind time. the judge made room for carrie beside himself, and after looking blankly at her for a few minutes, said solemnly, "i thought i heard you say you wanted ferns; but i must have been mistaken, or possibly they haven't come up in the glen this year.--some tea here, alice.--miss goldthwaite, may i help you to a piece of cake?" the truants joined in the laugh against themselves, and the rest of the meal was passed in a perfect babel of talking. "what shall we do now, papa?" said alice when they had finished. "we won't be going home for a little while." the judge looked at his watch. "twenty minutes past five: we shall start at six. well, i propose that each member of the company composes, within the space of ten minutes, four lines of verse descriptive of the scenery. i have brought pencils and paper; and the best writer shall have my gold pencil-case to him or her self." there was a general exclamation, and each one declared it impossible to perform such a feat. "try," said the judge briefly; and he passed round the pencils and the sheets of paper. then he laid his watch on the cloth, and gave the signal. you would have laughed at the utter stillness then, and at the perplexity on each face. slowly the hands moved round, till the ten minutes were up, and the judge cried halt. "you read then, judge," said mr. goldthwaite; "begin with your own." "well, here i am," said the judge with a very comical smile, and he read slowly and distinctly:-- "it seems to me that if you go enjoyment for to seek, you'll find out all you want and more up here on pendle peak." a shout of laughter greeted this effusion, and the judge pretended to be highly offended. "i object to the 'for' in the second line," said mr. goldthwaite. "do you think i don't know it has no business there?" said the judge. "but i couldn't get it to rhyme, so i was obliged to put in something. it is not bad for an old fellow who never made two lines rhyme before in his life. come then, frank, pass up yours." "to read a page from nature's book, in this deep solitude, uplifts the heart in purer aims, and leads us nearer god." "true, frank," said the judge solemnly. "you have beaten me hollow anyway.--now, carrie." "mine is very poor indeed, judge keane," said carrie, as she passed up her slip. "like yours it is my first attempt." "the beauty of the hills, so calm, so free, so bright, can dim my eyes with tears, and fill me with delight." "very good" was the verdict; and then miss keane reluctantly gave up her paper. "how still it is! no rude discord falls on the ear; we feel all earthly thoughts and aims must vanish here." that also was pronounced "very good," and judge keane feared he should have some difficulty in adjudicating the prize. mr. george keane's was the next. "i never wrote a poem, but since you will not be refused, i do declare i don't know how, and beg to be excused." "you have no chance anyway, george," said his father, laughing with the rest. "it has not the remotest reference to the subject in hand.--well, lucy." "mine last, please," pleaded lucy. so the judge took the paper from minnie's hand and read,-- "papa, you know i can't make verse, and it was very bad of you to make us play at this,-- i tell you i'm real mad." there was another shout at minnie's performance, and then lucy timidly slipped her paper into the judge's hand, and drew back behind minnie. the judge read very slowly this time, and every beautiful word was distinctly heard. "the calm, still brightness on the hills, the beauty on the plain, fill all my heart with strange sweet joy, that is akin to pain. "we stand upon a stepping-stone up to the better land; i seem to see the glory there, and feel my father's hand. "and hovering near me seem to be the loved ones gone before; one day we'll mount god's stepping-stones, and weep earth's tears no more." there was a moment's surprised silence. all eyes were turned to lucy, who shrank further back with a very distressed face. "the prize is yours, lucy," said judge keane at length.--"who would have thought this shy little maiden was the poet of the company?" there were many other remarks made, which seemed to distress lucy so much that they held their peace at length, and the judge remembered tom's contribution had not been called for. "you thought you were to escape, young man," said he, as he received the paper from tom's reluctant hand. "perhaps the last may be best yet, who knows? well, i never--ha! ha!" he held up the paper, and lo, a sketch of the circle of anxious faces, with paper and pencil before them, and every expression true to the life. it was wonderfully well done, and created much amusement as it was handed round the company. "the pencil-case is lucy's," said the judge. "but i think you deserve a special prize, my lad. will you let me keep this? robert must see it." "yes, sir, of course," answered tom. "when i felt a pencil in my hand i had to draw. i always feel so." "true artist; eh, carrie?" whispered the judge, and she nodded assent. she had not yet recovered from the surprise lucy had given her. "the sun is thinking of setting," said the judge then. "we must be preparing to depart." there was a general move, and miss keane and miss goldthwaite proceeded to clear the table. "let us sit here and see the sun set, and have a talk, lucy," said minnie, drawing lucy a little apart. "what a perfectly elegant poem that was you wrote. it's 'most as good as whittier's george reads to mamma sometimes. i guess you'll grow up to be a mrs. whittier." "oh no," said lucy, laughing a little; "miss keane's was just as good, i think, only i wrote more. how funny yours was." "i should think so. mopsy, or ted, or silver tail could do just as well, i believe.--tom, won't you draw me a picture of my very own to keep? i wish you'd come up and do the kittens; won't you? i ask robert every time he comes, but he just teases me." "i'll draw a kitten for you if you like," answered tom readily, "but i can't promise to come up and do it." before very long billy was harnessed again, and after bidding a reluctant good-bye to the peak for another year, the descent was begun. lucy walked part of the way with mr. george keane's arm to help her along, and miss goldthwaite beckoned tom to her side. "i haven't seen much of you to-day, tom," she said pleasantly. "have you had a nice day?" "i shall never forget it, miss goldthwaite," answered tom very gravely. and though after years brought many happy excursions up the peak, never was one so exquisitely enjoyed as this had been. the sun had dropped behind the hill when the tired party reached the red house, and a big moon was coming up serenely in the opal sky. mr. and miss goldthwaite paused at the avenue gate, saying they would not come any further; so the good-nights were said there and the company separated. "good-night, my little poetess," whispered the judge as he lifted lucy from the waggon. "go on writing, my dear; we will hear of you yet." and he kissed her as he set her to the ground, and added softly, "you have done an old man good to-day though you did not know it." it was a very quiet walk home by the river-side to the parsonage, but the thoughts were all pleasant ones. mr. goldthwaite had not spoken much to lucy all day, but he had watched her, how closely she did not know. he held her hand at parting, and looked straight into her beautiful eyes, his own very grave and earnest. "god bless you, lucy; good-night." she wondered a little at the oddness of his manner. "my soldier has shown to advantage to-day," said miss carrie, smiling as she shook hands with tom. "i have been very proud of him." "lucy," said tom, as they turned into the paddock at thankful rest, "do you know what i'm going to do when i'm a man?" "be a great painter," answered lucy promptly. "what else?" "anything else?" inquired she in much surprise. "i'm going to marry miss goldthwaite!" lucy laughed outright. "you can't, tom; she's going to marry mr. george keane, minnie told me." "is she? well, mr. george keane is a very good fellow," said tom in a tone which would have infinitely amused that gentleman had he heard it; "but he isn't half good enough for her.--o lucy, hasn't this been a day?" "yes," answered lucy, and she turned full eyes up to the quiet sky. "i think papa and mamma must see us, and be glad we have been happy." "i feel so too," answered tom with the sudden beautiful earnestness which had often come to him of late.--"kiss me, lucy; there are only you and i." she put her arm about his neck, and kissed him as he wished; then the two went very soberly into the house. x. on the lake. on the first morning of november the summit of the peak was draped in white, and a slight sprinkling of snow sparkled on the plain. frost was hard enough to freeze the duck-pond and the horse-trough. winter had begun. it was very cold; lucy shivered over her dressing every morning in her little attic chamber, and had just to work to get warm, as aunt hepsy permitted no sitting over the stove. tom had to turn out of doors at six every morning, and feed a score of cattle before breakfast, and woe betide him if the work was not done up to uncle josh's mark. uncle josh had a vocabulary of his own, from which he selected many an epithet to bestow on tom! sometimes yet the quick temper would fly up, and there would be a war of words; but the lad's strong striving was beginning to bear its fruit, and he found it daily easier to keep hold of the bridle, as miss goldthwaite termed it. keziah had been dismissed also, and lucy's burden was sometimes more than she could bear. miss hepsy refused to see what others saw--that the girl was overwrought; and her feelings had been blunted so long, that only a very sharp shock would bring them into use again. and the time had not come yet. for more highly favoured young folks than tom and lucy hurst, these frosty days brought innumerable enjoyments in their train--skating and sleighing by daylight and moonlight, evening parties, and all sorts of frolics. there were gay times at the red house, especially when in christmas week mr. robert keane came home, bringing with him two school-boy cousins from philadelphia. miss alice keane called at thankful rest on her pony, one morning, to ask tom and lucy to a christmas-eve gathering. the invitation was curtly declined by miss hepsy, and she was dismissed with such scant courtesy that she departed very indignant indeed. "what a woman that is at thankful rest," she said to miss goldthwaite when she called at the parsonage. "i almost forgot myself, carrie, and nearly gave her a few rude words. i am truly sorry for those poor children." "well you may be," answered carrie with a sigh, knowing better than alice what their life was. only one half-holiday was vouchsafed to them at miss goldthwaite's earnest entreaty, and they took tea at the parsonage, after which the party went up to the red house pond to see the skating there. they were very warmly welcomed--minnie, especially, being quite overjoyed to see lucy again. "do you skate, tom?" asked miss keane, coming up breathless after a long run down the lake. "yes, miss keane. but i have no skates; they were left at home--in newhaven, i mean." "here, minnie, my pet, run to the house and bring out a couple of pairs. you will find them in george's room, i think; and tell robert _i_ want him on the lake." minnie ran off obediently. pretty soon mr. george keane and the two cousins appeared round the bend, and miss keane introduced the latter to tom. they did not take long to become acquainted, and were soon talking quite familiarly. they stood waiting till minnie returned, her brother with her, carrying the skates. he was a tall, slight young man, rather like miss keane; and his face looked a trifle stern at first, as hers did, but that wore off when you got to know him. "this is tom hurst i told you of, robert," said miss keane; and tom shook hands with him reverentially, remembering he was the great painter all america was talking of. "i'm glad to see you," said mr. robert keane frankly. "let us get on our skates, and you and i shall take a run together. i haven't been on the ice this season." tom sat down and quickly put on his skates, and the pair set off, keeping close together. miss keane turned to mr. goldthwaite with a smile. "robert is interested already. i want him to do something for tom, and i think he will." "he will not regret it," answered mr. goldthwaite. "they are all off now but we two, miss keane; come, we must not be behind." "my sister tells me you would like to be a painter, tom," said mr. robert keane, when they had gone a hundred yards in silence. "yes, sir," answered tom, wishing to say a great deal more, but unable to utter more than two words. "what would you say to go back to philadelphia, and let me look after your training?" "o mr. keane!" tom stood still on the ice and lifted incredulous eyes to his companion's face. there was a smile there, but the eyes were sincere enough. "i see you would like it. don't stand; we can talk while we go. well, my boy, there is a great deal of hard work, patient plodding, uninteresting study to be gone through, and as many failures and tumbles as days in the year, before you reach even the first step of the ladder. do you think you could go through it?" "i would go through anything, mr. keane, and toil for twenty years, if need be, only to be allowed to work at it. do you know, it is life to me even to think of it." robert keane glanced curiously at the lad. his face was kindling with emotion, and his eyes shone like stars. "all right, my boy; you're the right stuff, i see. leave it with me; i'll fix it right enough. and you'll go to philadelphia as sure as my name's keane. no need to thank me. let your future success be my reward, if i need any. let us try a race back; you're a splendid skater." they turned, and sped along the ice at lightning speed, and tom came in a dozen yards in front at the farther side. "ahead of me," laughed mr. keane. "is that an omen of the future, tom?" miss goldthwaite noted the boy's flushed, happy face and bright eyes, and concluded mr. robert keane must have wrought the change. she turned to remark upon it to alice, when a hand touched her arm, and tom's voice said eagerly, "will you skate with me, miss goldthwaite? i want to speak to you." she nodded smilingly and gave him her hand. "o miss goldthwaite," said tom in a great burst of happiness, "mr. robert keane says he will take me to philadelphia with him, and help me to be a painter." "i guessed he would," said carrie. "i am very glad of it, tom. do you remember what i said about this joy coming in god's good time?" "i have not forgotten, miss goldthwaite." she stopped on the ice, and laid her slim hand a moment on his shoulder. "my soldier will remember his captain still, i hope, in those happier days, and work for him with double energy because they are happier." the moonlight showed trembling drops in the boy's earnest eyes as he answered reverently--"i will never forget how good he has been to me, miss goldthwaite, when i so little deserved it." "that is right, my boy; i am not afraid of you," she said heartily. "here we are round the bend. how lovely that moonlight shines through these gloomy pines. let us go right to the end before we turn." they set off again along the smooth sheet of ice, and as they neared the farther end of the lake miss goldthwaite turned aside to explore an opening between the trees. a moment more and tom heard a crash, followed by a faint scream. he looked round, to see the edge of miss goldthwaite's fur cloak disappearing through a huge fissure in the ice! he had presence of mind to utter one wild, despairing cry, which re-echoed far off in the lonely pine wood, and then he plunged after her and caught her dress. superhuman strength seemed to come to him in that moment of desperate peril, and he managed to keep, hold of her with one hand, and with the other cling to the broken edge of ice. it seemed hours before the ring of skates and the sound of voices announced help at hand, and his numbed fingers relaxed their hold of the ice just as robert keane and his brother's strong arms bent down to rescue them. he still had hold of miss goldthwaite, and two minutes sufficed to extricate them both. they were unconscious, and carrie's sweet face was so deathly white that a mighty fear took hold of all present. alice keane knelt down and laid her hand to her heart. "thank god," she uttered tremulously, and it was fervently re-echoed by every lip. they were borne to the red house with great speed, and restoratives being applied, both rallied in a very short time. miss goldthwaite's first question was for tom, as his had been for her; and she whispered to them faintly that he had saved her life at the risk of his own. when tom looked round, after a while, it was to find the judge and mr. george keane standing by his bed. "god bless you, my lad," said the old man huskily. "you have saved our pretty flower. all pendlepoint will thank you for this." and mr. george bent over him, his honest gray eyes dim with tears. "i owe my wife's life to you, tom, my boy. as long as i live i shall never forget this." a message was despatched to thankful rest reporting the accident, and saying the children would remain till next day, at least, at the red house. mr. goldthwaite also remained. his words of thanks to tom were few: he was too deeply moved to speak, but tom was quick to understand. next morning miss goldthwaite was able to appear at the breakfast table, looking a little paler than usual, but apparently not much the worse of her ducking. dr. gair forbade tom to get up till noon, so carrie herself took up his breakfast-tray. he looked surprised and greatly relieved to see her, and tried to make light of what he had done. "it is nothing," he said. "i would gladly do fifty times more for you." "we are bound more closely together now," she said. "i owe my life to you." and bending over him she kissed him, and slipped away, leaving him very happy indeed. in the evening he came down to the drawing-room, where he was treated as a hero. everybody made so much of him that he began to feel uncomfortable, and took refuge at last with mr. robert keane, who good-naturedly showed him the sketch-book he had filled in europe, and explained everything to him, as if he found pleasure in it. and he did find pleasure, for tom was an enthusiastic listener. no inquiry had come from thankful rest, which had astonished mrs. keane very much. she thought they would be sure to feel anxious about tom's recovery. she did not know joshua strong and his sister. the following morning dr. gair said tom might go home as soon as he liked; so miss alice drove him and lucy to thankful rest in the course of the forenoon. miss hepsy was plucking chickens for the market, and tossed up her head when her nephew and niece appeared before her. "i wonder you'd come back at all after livin' so long among gentle folk. it'll be a long time, i reckon, afore ye get the chance to jump through the ice after miss goldthwaite or any other miss.--here, lucy, get off yer hat, and lend a hand wi' them chickens.--you'll find plenty wood in the shed, boy, waitin' to be chopped, if yer uncle hain't anything else for ye to do. off ye go." the contrast between the happy circle they had left and their own home was so painful that lucy's tears fell fast as she went to do her aunt's bidding. and tom departed to the wood-shed with a very downcast and rebellious heart. xi. hopes fulfilled. on the afternoon of the following day mr. goldthwaite came to thankful rest, accompanied by mr. robert keane. lucy opened the door to them; and seeing a stranger with the parson, her aunt shouted to her to show them into the sitting-room. it was a chill and gloomy place, though painfully clean and tidy--utterly destitute of comfort. lucy shut the door upon them, and went back to tell her aunt that the stranger was mr. robert keane. "what's their business here, i'd like to know?" she said as she whisked off her white apron and smoothed her hair beneath her cap. lucy knew, but discreetly held her peace. miss hepsy stalked across the passage and into the sitting-room, her looks asking as plainly as any words what they wanted. "this is mr. robert keane, miss strong," said the minister. "he wants to see you and your brother, i think, on a little business." miss hepsy elevated her eyebrows, and shook hands with mr. keane in silence. "josh is in the barn. i s'pose i'd better send for him," she said. and mr. keane answered courteously--"if you please." she opened the door and called to lucy to run to the barn for her uncle. "yes, aunt hepsy," answered lucy, her sweet, clear tones contrasting strongly with her aunt's unpleasant voice. "miss goldthwaite's all right again, eh?" she asked, sitting down near the door. "i am thankful to say my sister is none the worse of her adventure," answered mr. goldthwaite. "but for tom's bravery the consequences might have been more serious." "h'm, i told him it would be a precious long time afore he got on the ice again to be laid up, botherin' strange folks, an' i guess i'll keep my word." "you must not be so hard on him, miss strong," said the minister. "he is a very fine lad, and tries very hard to please you, i know." aunt hepsy remained silent. "what a pretty place you have, miss strong," said mr. keane's pleasant, well-modulated voice. "the peak shows splendidly from this window." "the place aren't no great thing, sir," said miss hepsy.--"here's josh." she opened the door, and uncle josh appeared on the threshold in his working garb, grimy and dust-stained, as he had come from repairing the mill. he pulled his hair to the minister, and bowed awkwardly to mr. keane. "sit down, josh," said miss hepsy, but josh preferred to stand. there was just a moment's constrained silence. "i have called to see you, mr. strong," said robert keane, plunging into the subject without further delay, "about your nephew tom. he is very anxious to become a painter, i find. would you have any objections to me putting him in the way of life to which his desire and talent point him?" "has the ungrateful little brat been carrying his grumbling among you folks?" said miss hepsy wrathfully. "be quiet, hepsy," said joshua strong very imperatively. "i don't quite understand you, sir," he said to mr. keane. "i can't afford to send the boy anywhere to learn anything, if ye mean that. he'll never do no good on a farm, for sartin; but he kin work for his livin' here, an' that's all i kin do for 'im." "i am a painter myself," said mr. keane, guessing they were unaware of the fact, and now wishing to state his intentions as briefly and plainly as possible; "and from what i have seen of your nephew i believe his talent for art to be very great indeed. what i mean is this: give him up to me; i will take him back to philadelphia, and take entire care of his training. it will not cost you a farthing, mr. strong. do you understand?" "we're poor folks, but we don't take charity even for hetty's children," said miss hepsy pointedly. "we've never been offered it afore." mr. keane might have waxed angry at the impertinent remark. he was only inwardly amused. "it is not charity, miss strong," he said good-humouredly. "i expect tom will be able to repay anything he may cost me. i hope you will not stand in the lad's way. he is a born artist, and will never do good in any other sphere.--come, mr. strong, say yes, and let us shake hands over the bargain." it was proof of the rare delicacy of robert keane's nature that he put the matter in the light of a favour to himself. mr. goldthwaite admired and honoured his friend at that moment more than he had ever done before. aunt hepsy preserved a rigid and unbending silence. uncle josh stood twirling his thumbs reflectively. it was to cost him nothing, not a farthing; and he would be rid of the bother the hot-headed youngster was to him. but for his sister he would have granted a ready assent. "wal, hepsy?" he said in an inquiring tone. "you're the master, josh, i reckon. do as ye please. it's all one to me;" and to their amazement she flounced out of the room and banged the door behind her. "i'm much obleeged to you, mr. keane," said josh, finding his tongue in a marvellously short time. "i've no objections. as i said afore, he's an idle, peart young 'un; no good at farm work. i hope yell be able to make a better job o' him than i've done." "i am not afraid," said mr. robert keane. "and i am obliged to you for granting my request. can i see tom?" "i reckon you may," said uncle josh slowly. "wal, i'll be off to that plaguy mill. good-day to you.--my respects to miss goldthwaite, parson." once more uncle josh pulled his forelock, and shambled out of the room. "it doesn't cause them much concern anyway," said mr. keane when the door closed. "they are a bright pair; i should be afraid of that woman myself. how that mite of a girl stands it i don't know." before mr. goldthwaite had time to answer, the door opened, and a very eager, excited-looking boy appeared on the threshold. "well, tom, my boy," said mr. keane, holding out his hand, "the bargain's sealed. you belong to me now." "has uncle josh--has aunt hepsy said i might?" he said breathlessly. "oh, it is too good to be true!" "true enough," said mr. keane, laughing at the lad's manner.--"please assure him of it, mr. goldthwaite." mr. goldthwaite laid his hand on the lad's shoulder, and bent his grave eyes on his beaming face. "i congratulate you," he said heartily. "and i hope that by-and-by all pendlepoint will be proud of the name of tom hurst." tom drew his hand across his eyes. "i can't help it, sir," he said apologetically. "but if you knew how much i've wished for this and dreamed of it.--oh, i feel i can never be grateful enough to you, mr. keane!" "nonsense," said mr. keane. "well, we must be going. show us the way out, will you, tom? your aunt has deserted us. i don't leave for a fortnight yet. i shall see you again in a day or two." aunt hepsy, however, had not altogether forgotten the duties of hospitality, and now reappeared and asked them to stay to tea. her face had cleared a little, and she seemed to regret her previous rudeness. her invitation, however, was courteously declined. "you're here, i see, tom," she said severely. "well, i hope you're properly grateful to mr. keane for doing so much for you. an' i hope ye'll mend yer ways, an' be a better boy than ye've been." "i am very grateful, aunt hepsy," said tom very quietly. "and i will try to be what you say." something in his face and eyes touched even aunt hepsy, and it came upon her very suddenly to wonder if she had not treated him a little unjustly. "he's a biddable cretur, too," she said to mr. keane. "an' p'raps he'll take more kindly to your kind o' life than ours. i don't think much o' them useless ways o' livin' myself, but there's differences." "some day perhaps, miss strong, when tom comes back a great man," laughed mr. keane, as he shook hands with her and tom, "you'll admit you've changed your mind. if you do i'll come along and have a good laugh at you." a smile actually appeared on miss hepsy's face. "he's a real pleasant-spoken gentleman, mr. robert keane," said aunt hepsy, as she shut the door.--"well, tom, i hope ye'll get yer fill o' paintin' now." tom's eyes beamed, but he made no verbal reply. lucy followed him to the door as he passed out to the barn again. "o tom, i am so glad," she whispered joyfully; and tom answered by tossing his cap in the air and trying to bound up after it. "glad? i don't know whether i'm on my head or my heels, lucy," he said. "it's the happiest day of my life." lucy kept the smile upon her face, not wishing to damp his joy, but her heart was very sore. for what did tom's departure mean for her? it meant parting from all she had on earth; it meant a life of utter loneliness and lovelessness, save for the dear outside friends she could see so seldom. it was lucy's nature ever to unselfishly bury her own troubles and try to join in the happiness of others. "a fortnight only," she said to herself as she went back to her work. "what will become of me?" the days sped fleetly for her, but slowly for tom, who was eager to be gone. mr. robert keane paid frequent visits to thankful rest, and all arrangements were satisfactorily made. lucy went about, saying little, and preserving her sweet serenity to the last. she busied herself with tom's small wardrobe, adding a touch here and there to make it complete; and wept bitter tears over her work, as many another sister has done before and since. it was not till the last night that a thought of her came to cloud tom's sky. they were sitting together at the stove in the fading twilight, lucy's face very grave and sad. "i say lucy, though," tom said, "how awfully lonely it will be for you when i'm gone. why, whatever will you _do_?" "think of you, and look for your letters," she said, her lips quivering. "you will not forget me altogether, tom?" a pang of remorse shot through tom's heart. he came to her side and threw one arm round her, remembering how his mother's last charge had been to take care of lucy, and how poorly he had done it after all. lucy had taken care of him instead. "lucy, i'm a perfectly horrid boy," he said in a queer, quick way. "don't you hate me?" "hate you? o tom, i've nobody but you." her sunny head drooped a moment against his arm, and her tears fell without restraint. "i didn't mean to, tom," she said at last, looking up with a faint smile, "but i couldn't help it. i feel dreadful to think of you going away." "when i'm a man, lucy," he said manfully, "what a perfectly stunning little home you and i shall have together. it won't be so long--why, i'm thirteen." "only about ten or twelve years," said lucy, able to laugh now. "i shall be gray-haired long before that time." "you! why, you'll be the same as you are at fifty. you are like mamma; she never grew any older-looking. you must write often, mind, lucy, and tell me all about everything and everybody." lucy promised, and, feeling very sad again, rose to light the lamp in case she should break down. aunt hepsy was wonderfully kind that night--she could be kind sometimes if she liked--and, altogether, the evening passed pleasantly. tom went to bed early, as they were to start by the morning train. lucy followed almost immediately. about half-an-hour afterwards aunt hepsy went upstairs to put a forgotten article into tom's trunk, and was arrested by sounds in lucy's room. the door was a little ajar, and aunt hepsy peered in. lucy was undressed and sitting at the window, her arms on the dressing-table, and her whole frame shaking with sobs. once or twice aunt hepsy heard the word "mamma." the passion of grief and longing in the girl's voice made something come into aunt hepsy's throat, and she slipped noiselessly downstairs. "i don't feel easy in my mind, josh," she said when she re-entered the kitchen. "i'm feared we've been rayther hard on hetty's children. she never did us any harm." "did i say she did, hepsy?" asked uncle josh, serenely puffing away at his pipe. "you was allus the worst at her and at the children. ye put upon that lucy in a perfectly awful way." "shut up," said miss hepsy in a tone which admitted of no further remark, and the subject dropped. there was a great bustle in the morning, and before lucy had time to think about anything tom had kissed her for the last time, and the waggon drove away. he waved his handkerchief to her till they were out of sight; and then she went back to the house sad and pale and cheerless. "i guess you needn't fly round much to-day, lucy," said aunt hepsy with unusual thoughtfulness. "ye don't look very spry, and feel down a bit. never mind, he ain't away for ever." "thank you, aunt hepsy," said lucy gently. "i'd rather work, if you please. it takes up my mind better. let me wash these dishes." aunt hepsy surmised the tears were kept for the loneliness of her own chamber. she was right. only to her mother's god did lucy hurst pour out all her grief, and from him sought the help and comfort none can give so well as he. xii. weary days. the unusual softening of heart and manner visible in aunt hepsy at the time of tom's departure disappeared before the lapse of many days. you see, she had gone on in the old, sour, cross-grained way so long, she felt most at home in it. she did not _feel_ unkindly towards gentle, patient lucy; but her manner was so ungracious, and her words so sharp, you will not wonder that lucy could not read beneath the surface. she was very quiet, very sober, and very listless; striving, too, to do her duties as well as aforetime, but lacking physical strength. tom's letters, frequent and full of hope and happiness, were the chief solace of the girl's lonely life. mr. and miss goldthwaite came sometimes yet to thankful rest; but these were family visits, and lucy had few opportunities of quiet talk with her friends. many invitations had come from the red house, but to each and all aunt hepsy returned a peremptory refusal. "i'm not going to have her learn to fly round for ever at folks' houses. she has plenty to do at home, and she'll do it, you take my word for it. tell judge keane's folks i'm mighty obliged to them, but lucy can't come. let that be an end of it." so she said to miss goldthwaite one day; and she carried the message, slightly modified, to mrs. keane. so the days and weeks slipped away, till winter had to hide his diminished head before the harbingers of spring. in the closing days of march the ice broke up on the river, and all nature seemed to spring to life again. green blades and tiny blossoms began to peep above ground, and the birds sang their songs of gladness on the budding boughs. it was a busy time at thankful rest, both indoors and out. in the first week of april began that awful revolution, miss hepsy strong's spring-cleaning. it was her boast that she could accomplish in one week what other housewives could accomplish only in three. for every half-idle hour lucy had enjoyed during the winter she had to atone now; for aunt hepsy kept her sweeping, and scouring, and dusting, and trotting upstairs and down, till the girl's strength almost failed her. she did not complain, however, and aunt hepsy was too much absorbed to see that her powers were overtaxed. the cleaning was triumphantly concluded on saturday night, and lucy crept away early to bed, but was unable to sleep from fatigue. she came downstairs next morning so wan and white that aunt hepsy feared she was going to turn sick on her hands. but lucy said she was well enough, and would go to church as usual. thinking she looked really ill, miss goldthwaite came round to the porch after the service. "lucy, what is it, child? your face is quite white. do you feel well enough?" lucy smiled a little, and slipping her hand through miss goldthwaite's arm, walked with her down the path. "this has been cleaning week," she said in explanation, "and i have had more to do than usual. i daresay i'll be all right now." but miss goldthwaite did not feel satisfied, and said so to her brother at the tea-table that night. "i'm going up to thankful rest, frank, to tell miss hepsy to be careful of lucy. it is time somebody told her; she grows so thin, and, i notice, eats nothing." mr. goldthwaite's anxiety exceeded his sister's, if that were possible, but he said very little. accordingly, next afternoon miss goldthwaite betook herself to thankful rest. finding the garden gate locked, she went round by the back, and in the yard encountered lucy bending under the weight of two pails of water. she set them down on beholding miss goldthwaite; and carrie noticed that her hand was pressed to her side, and that her breath came very fast. "you are not fit to carry these, lucy," said she very gravely. "is there nobody but you?" "i have been washing some curtains and things to-day, miss goldthwaite, and aunt hepsy thinks the water from the spring in the low meadow better for rinsing them in." "does she?" said miss goldthwaite, and her sweet lips closed together more sternly than lucy had ever seen them do before. lucy passed into the wash-house with her pails, and miss goldthwaite went into the house without knocking. miss hepsy was making buckwheats, and greeted her visitor pleasantly enough. she sat down in the window, turned her eyes on miss hepsy's face, and said bluntly,-- "i'm going to say something which will likely vex you, miss hepsy, but i can't help it. i've been wanting to say it this long time." miss hepsy did not look surprised, or even curious, she only said calmly,-- "it wouldn't be the first time you've vexed me, miss goldthwaite, by a long chalk." "it's about lucy, miss hepsy," continued miss goldthwaite. "can't you see she's hardly fit to do a hand's turn at work? i met her out there carrying a load she was no more fit to carry than that kitten." "ain't she?" inquired miss hepsy quite unmoved. "what else?" "there she is; i see her through the door. look at her, and _see_ if she is well. if she doesn't get rest and that speedily, she'll go into a decline, as sure as i sit here. i had a sister," said carrie with a half sob, "who died of decline, and she looked exactly as lucy does." miss hepsy walked from the dresser to the stove and back again before she spoke. "when did you find out, miss goldthwaite, that hepsy strong could not mind her own affairs and her own folks?" it was said in miss hepsy's most disagreeable manner, which was very disagreeable indeed; but miss goldthwaite did not intend to be disconcerted so soon. "you have a kind heart, i know, miss hepsy, though you show it so seldom. you must know lucy's value by this time, and if you haven't learned to love her, i don't know what you are made of. be gentle with her, miss hepsy; she is very young--and she has no mother." miss hepsy's temper was up, and she heard the gentle pleading unmoved. "ye've meddled a good deal wi' me, miss goldthwaite," she said slowly, "and i've never told ye to mind yer own business before, but i tell ye now. an' though ye are the parson's sister, ye say things i can't stand. ye'd better be goin'; an' ye needn't come to thankful rest again till ye can let me an' my concerns alone." miss goldthwaite rose at once, not angry, only grieved and disappointed. "good-bye, then, miss hepsy. it was only my love for lucy made me speak. i'm sorry i've offended you. she is a dear, good girl. some day, perhaps, you will be sorry you did not listen to my words," she said, and went away. not many words, good or bad, did aunt hepsy speak in the house that night. lucy, busy with her mending, wondered what had passed that afternoon that miss goldthwaite's stay had been so brief. aunt hepsy's eyes rested keenly on lucy's pale, sweet face more than once, and she was forced to admit that it was paler and thinner and more worn-looking than it need be. but she hardened her heart, and refused to obey its more kindly promptings. a few more days went by. lucy grew weaker, and flagged in her work; and aunt hepsy watched her, and _would not_ be the first to take needful steps. on sunday morning lucy did not come downstairs at the usual time, and even the clattering of breakfast dishes failed to bring her. at length aunt hepsy went upstairs. lucy was still in bed. "are you sick, child?" said aunt hepsy in a strange quick voice. lucy answered very feebly,--"i'm afraid i'm goin' to be, aunt hepsy. i tried to get up, but i couldn't; and i haven't slept any all night." "where do you feel ill?" "all over," said the girl wearily. "i've felt so for a long time, but i tried to go about. are you angry because i'm going to be sick, aunt hepsy? it'll be a bother to you; but perhaps i'm going to mamma." "do you want to kill me outright, lucy?" said her aunt; and even in her weakness lucy opened her eyes wide in surprise. "if you speak about goin' to yer ma again," she said, "ye will kill me. ye've got to lie there an' get better as fast as you like. i'll send for dr. gair, an' nurse ye night and day." aunt hepsy could have said a great deal more, but a something in her throat prevented her. she went downstairs immediately, and despatched the boy for dr. gair. during his absence, she endeavoured to induce lucy to take some breakfast, but in vain. "i'm real sick, aunt hepsy," she said. "just let me lie still. i don't want anything but just to be quiet." within the hour dr. gair came to thankful rest, for miss hepsy's message had been urgent. he was an old man, blunt-mannered, but truly tenderhearted, and a great favourite in the township. he had not been once at thankful rest since deacon strong's death, for neither the brother nor sister had ever had a day's illness in their lives. he made his examination of lucy in a few minutes, and miss hepsy watched with a sinking heart how very grave his face was when he turned to her. he had few questions to ask, and these lucy answered as simply as she could. "am i going to be very sick, dr. gair?" said lucy. "yes, my dear; but please god, we may pull you through," said the old man softly. "in the meantime i can't do much; i'll look in again in the afternoon." miss hepsy followed him in silence down the stairs, and he drew on his gloves in the lobby without speaking. "this is a case of gross neglect, miss strong," he said at length. "the girl's delicate frame is thoroughly exhausted by over-fatigue and want of attention." "tell me something i don't know, dr. gair," said she sharply. "and if she recovers, of which i am more than doubtful," he continued sternly, "it is to be hoped you will turn over a new leaf in your treatment of her. i am a plain man, miss strong, not given to gilding a bitter pill. if your niece dies, you may take home the blame to yourself. good morning." "i know all that, my good man, better than you can tell me," said aunt hepsy grimly. "you do your best to bring her round, an' i won't forget it. i've been a wicked woman, dr. gair, an' i s'pose the lord's goin' to punish me now; an' he couldn't have chosen a surer way than by sending sickness to lucy. good morning." aunt hepsy shut the door, and went into the kitchen. there joshua sat anxiously awaiting the doctor's verdict. "there ain't much hope, josh," she said briefly. "ain't there, hepsy? it's a bad job for the little 'un." "an' for more than her, i reckon," returned his sister shortly. "i've lived one and forty years at thankful rest, josh, an' i never felt as i do this day. i'd a mighty deal rather be sick myself than see the child's white face. if she gets round, i'll be a better woman, with the lord's help. how he's borne with me so long's a marvel i can't comprehend. one and forty years, josh strong, and lucy jes' fifteen. she's done a deal more good in one day o' her life than you or me ever did in all ours. the lord forgive us, josh, an' help us to make a better use o' what's left. jes' step down to pendlepoint, will ye, an' ask the parson an' his sister up. i guess lucy'd be pleased to see 'em. one an' forty years, dear, dear; an' lucy jes' fifteen." aunt hepsy went out wiping her eyes, and stole upstairs again to lucy. xiii. lucy finds the key. for several days a great shadow lay on thankful rest while lucy hovered between life and death. everything human care and skill could suggest was done, and the issue was in god's hands. miss goldthwaite had come up to thankful rest on sunday, and had stayed, because lucy seemed to be happier when she was by. callers were innumerable, and a messenger came from the red house every morning asking a bulletin. what aunt hepsy suffered during those days i do not suppose anybody ever guessed. it was her way to hide her feelings always, but she would sit or stand looking at the sick girl with eyes which ought to have brought her back to health. uncle josh was in and out fifty times a day, and things outside were allowed to manage themselves; all interest centred in the little attic chamber and its suffering occupant. she lay in a kind of stupor most part of the day, only moaning at times with the pain dr. gair was powerless to relieve. she grew perceptibly weaker, and they feared to leave her a moment, lest she should slip away while they were gone. so the days went by till sunday came round again. dr. gair came early that morning, and looked, if possible, graver than usual. "if she lives till evening," he said to the anxious watchers, "she will recover, but i cannot give you much hope. administer this medicine every two hours; it is all i can do. i will be back before night." in after years aunt hepsy was wont to say that sunday was the longest day she had ever spent in her life. i think others felt so too. slowly the hours went round. even into the darkened room the spring sunshine would peep, and the twittering of the birds in the orchard broke the oppressive stillness. at four o'clock the doctor came again. save for the almost imperceptible breathing, lucy lay so pale and still that they almost thought her dead. at sunset she moved uneasily, and with a great sigh lifted her heavy lids and looked round the room. a sob burst from aunt hepsy's lips, and carrie goldthwaite's tears fell fast, for dr. gair's face said she was saved. her lips moved, and he bent down to catch the faintly murmured words,-- "have i been sick a long time? i am going to get well now." the doctor nodded and smiled. "god has been very good to you--to us all--my child," he said. "he has heard the prayers of those who love you." carrie came to the bedside then, and bending over her, kissed her once with streaming eyes. aunt hepsy moved to the window and drew up the blind, and the red glow of the setting sun crept into the room, and lay bright and beautiful on lucy's face. "i am glad to see the sun again," said lucy wearily. "i seem to have been sick so long. may i go to sleep now, dr. gair?" "yes; and sleep a week if you like," he said cheerily.--"rest and care now, miss strong, is all she needs to bring her round." aunt hepsy made no reply whatever. she stood still in the window, her face softened into a strange, thankful tenderness, and her heart lifting itself up in gratitude to god, and in many an earnest resolution for the future. she followed dr. gair downstairs, as she had done that day a week before, and as he passed out caught his hand in a grip of iron. "i'm a woman of few words, dr. gair," she said abruptly, "but i won't forget what you've done for me an' mine." "god first, miss strong," said the doctor gravely; and then he added with an odd little smile, "lucy's lines will be in pleasant places now, i fancy?" "if they ain't, i'll know the reason why," said she grimly. "good evening." lucy's sleep that night was calm and refreshing, and when dr. gair came again in the morning he expressed himself pleased with her condition. miss goldthwaite brought up a breakfast tray with a cup of weak tea and a piece of toast, of which lucy was able to eat a little bit. she had fifty questions to ask; but remembering dr. gair's peremptory orders, carrie placed a finger on her lips and shook her head. there would be plenty of time to talk by-and-by, for convalescence would be a tedious business; in the meantime there was absolute need of perfect rest. miss goldthwaite brought her sewing, and sat down in the window seat, humming a scrap of song, the outcome of the gladness of her heart. lucy lay still in a state of dreamy happiness, listening to the twittering of the birds mingling with carrie's song, and watching the gay april sunbeams dancing among her golden curls. by-and-by aunt hepsy came up, and lucy looked at her curiously. she seemed to dimly remember that during the days of the past week a face like aunt hepsy's had bent over her in love and tenderness, and a voice like hers, only infinitely softer and gentler, had spoken broken words of grief and prayer at her bedside. aunt hepsy, just yet, did not meet lucy's wondering eyes, nor speak any words to her at all. she moved softly about the room, putting things to rights deftly and silently; but lucy was sure there was something different about her. immediately after the early dinner, seeing lucy so much better, miss goldthwaite bethought herself of her neglected household at pendlepoint, and said she would go home, promising to come again to-morrow. her eyes were full of tears as she bent over to bid lucy good-bye, and she whispered tenderly,-- "my darling, what a load i shall lift from anxious hearts at pendlepoint to-night. you don't know how dear you are to us all." lucy smiled a little in a happy way; to her heart evidences of love were very precious. she was left alone for nearly a couple of hours, while aunt hepsy washed up dishes and set things right downstairs she fell into a light doze, and when she awoke, it was to find aunt hepsy sitting by her side with her knitting. "have i been sleeping, aunt hepsy?" she said. "you don't know how well i feel. i could almost get up, i think." aunt hepsy laughed a little tremulous laugh. "in about a month or so, i guess, you'll begin to think about getting up," she said; and again something in aunt hepsy's face set lucy wondering _what_ was different about her. there was a short silence, then aunt hepsy laid down her knitting, and took both lucy's thin hands in her firm clasp. "lucy, do you think ye can ever forgive yer old aunt?" she said suddenly and quickly. "i've been a cross, hardhearted old fool, an' the lord's been better to me than i dared to hope for. he's heard my prayers, lucy, an' he knows how hard i mean to try and make up for the past. if ye'll say ye forgive me, and try to care a little for me, ye'll maybe find thankful rest a pleasanter place than ye think it now." "o aunt hepsy, don't say any more," pleaded lucy, her eyes growing dim. "i'm so glad i've been sick, because you've learned to love me a little." so the barrier was broken down, and in the ensuing days these two became very dear to each other; and lucy grew to understand aunt hepsy, and to see how much good there lay beneath her grim exterior. the door of aunt hepsy's heart had long been locked, and like other unused things, had grown rusty on its hinges. but lucy had found the key, and entered triumphantly at last. xiv. a great change. you will be wondering what tom had been about during his sister's illness; but he was still in ignorance of it, his friends thinking it best to wait till the crisis was past. it fell to aunt hepsy's lot to send the news, and her letter was such a curiosity in its way that i cannot do better than set it down just as it was. "thankful rest, _april th, --_. "my dear nephew,--i daresay you'll wonder to hear from me, an' will maybe feel skeered; so, to relieve you, i may as well say at once that lucy's been sick, very sick, but she's getting round nicely now, thank the lord. she is in bed yet, and i'm writing this beside her. she sends her love, and says she'll write to-morrow. i guess i'll let her do it in about a month. i want to ask you to forgive me for being so hard on you when you lived here. i hope you don't bear your old aunt any grudge. lucy, god bless her, won't hear me abuse myself, so it's a relief to do it to you, though you are a boy. i keep that picter you drew of me that i slapped you for, an' i'll look at it when i feel my pesky temper gettin' up. i suppose ye'll be so took up with your paintin' ye couldn't never think of coming back to thankful rest. it wouldn't be good for you, if you're getting on any way with mr. robert keane. but you'll come right away in summer, an' see what a different place lucy has made of thankful rest, an' how precious she is to your uncle an' me. i guess she's one of the lord's messengers, sent to do what all the preachin' in the world couldn't. i reckon i'll finish up. it has took me an hour to write this, i'm so slow with the pen. give my respects to mr. robert keane; and when he comes to thankful rest in summer, maybe he'll get a better welcome than he got before. so no more at present. from your affectionate aunt, "hepsey" that letter reached boston avenue in the evening, when tom was poring over a book of instructions for young artists. he was in his own sanctum, which mr. keane had given him when he came--a tiny apartment next the artist's studio, and commanding from its window the finest view in philadelphia. tom seized the letter from the servant's hand. he had written twice to lucy, and was anxiously wondering at her delay in answering, for lucy had always been a faithful and punctual correspondent. you would have laughed had you seen the varying expressions on tom's face as he read aunt hepsy's epistle;--concern at first to hear lucy was ill; relief to find her recovering; and, last of all, mute, dumfoundered amazement at aunt hepsy. mr. keane opened his studio by-and-by and looked out. "well, tom, news from lucy at last, my boy?" he asked. "no, sir," said tom soberly, yet with an odd twinkle in his eye; and then he held out the open letter, saying simply, "read that, mr. keane." mr. keane smiled too as he read. "lucy has conquered, as i thought she would," he said. "see, tom, what an influence a meek, gentle, loving spirit like lucy's has in the world. you and i with our fiery tempers sink into nothingness beside her." "you, mr. keane!" echoed tom in amazement. "i don't think you have a temper at all." "haven't i?" the artist's smile grew sad. "there was a boy once who was expelled from three schools for impertinence and insubordination, and put his parents to the expense of keeping a tutor for him at home. that tutor, tom, was a man of splendid talents, which his delicate health forbade him to exercise as he desired. his pupil killed him, tom; the worry and anxiety lest he should not come up to the parents' expectation, combined with what he had to bear from the boy himself, broke his health down, and he died. that boy was _me_." tom sat wondering, while mr. keane, walking to and fro, continued slowly--"i went to see him when he was dying, in his poor lodging: he was very poor, you must understand, but nobody durst offer him anything, lest he should feel hurt or insulted. as long as i live, tom, i shall never forget that night. i saw then clearly how wicked i had been, and how what i thought manly independence befitting my station was only the cowardice of a spirit as far beneath his as earth is beneath heaven. that was a lesson i never forgot; and since that night i have tried, with god's help, to use the legacy he left me." "what was it?" asked tom breathlessly. mr. keane lifted lucy's bible from the side-table, and turning over the pages held it out to tom, his finger pointing to the place. "blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." "tom," said mr. keane one morning a few days later, "i believe you are going to pendlepoint tomorrow?" "what?" tom nearly bounded off his chair. the longing to go home to lucy for a day or two had well-nigh overcome him since aunt hepsy's letter came; but he had tried to stifle it, and had applied himself with double energy to his studies. "if you don't wish to go, of course i have no more to say," began mr. keane; but tom interrupted him-- "o sir, you don't mean me to go home for good and all, i hope; have i disappointed you? i have tried so hard, sir." "stop, stop!" cried mr. keane. "wait till i hint at such a thing. you have surpassed my expectations, my boy. i thought you would like to see your sister, but if i am mistaken--" "i do want to go, sir; i would give the world almost to see her--but--" "well?" "the expense, sir," tom ventured to say, encouraged by his kind friend's manner. "it is a long journey, and i have cost you so much already." "nonsense; i am a rich man, tom. but for all that i expect you to pay me back some day. you and i will have a great reckoning by-and-by." there was a moment's silence. "how did you know i wanted to go home, mr. keane?" said tom by-and-by. "i have eyes, my boy," was all mr. keane answered, saying nothing of a note he had received from his sister, which ran thus:-- "red house, _april th_. "dear robert,--send tom to thankful rest for a few days. lucy will get well twice as fast after she sees him.--your affectionate sister, "alice." next morning saw a very happy boy take his place in the train, which would land him at pendlepoint in the evening. it was a long, tiresome journey, especially to an impatient being like tom. but it came to an end, as all things pleasant or unpleasant must, and he found himself at the little old-fashioned depot towards seven o'clock at night. there was no one to meet him, of course, because no one, not even miss keane, expected him so soon. he ran all the way to the parsonage, and knocked at the door, only to find abbie in sole possession. "the parson he be down town, master tom," she said, "and miss carrie she be at thankful rest. i guess she's there most days till night." tom thanked her and ran off again across the bridge and through the meadow, not even pausing to look at the cattle, nor to see that sally was enjoying an unwonted holiday, and a dainty bite at the tender young grass, which the mild weather had brought forward very fast. he paused just a moment outside the orchard fence, and looked at the house, not a little surprised to feel how glad he was to see it again, and how dear it was to him after all. then he pushed open the gate, went up the path and over the garden fence, and saw uncle josh digging the potato patch. "halloo, uncle josh!" he shouted, feeling quite jovial and free towards him; and uncle josh started up and let his spade fall from his hands. "marcy, younker, whar did ye come from?" was all he could utter. but, no longer the surly man that he had been, he held out his hand to him, and looked more than pleased to see him. "i came from philadelphia to see lucy," answered tom soberly. "how is she?" "oh, gettin' along fast; she's in the far parlour these two days, able to sit up till 'most night. i guess she won't be sot up to see ye--oh no, not at all." there was a twinkle in uncle josh's eye, a thing tom had never seen before. surely there _was_ a change at thankful rest. "i'll go in now," said tom; and he went away round to the back door. keziah was making something at the stove, and nearly upset the saucepan in her amazement. tom nodded to her, and went off to the far parlour. the door was ajar and he peeped in. was _that_ the far parlour? no, it could not be. there were white curtains at the window, flowers everywhere. a sparkling fire in the high brass grate; a low, restful rocking-chair at the hearth; and a couch he did not remember to have seen before, but it looked as if it had been made for ease and comfort. and on the couch lay lucy, the fire-light dancing on her face: it was pale and thin, but happy-looking, he could see. she heard a noise at the door, and said, without looking round, "are you dressed already, miss carrie? how fast you have been!" there was no answer; then lucy looked round and gave a great cry. and tom ran in and knelt down beside her, and gathered her shawl and all in his arms, and they held each other very close; and for a long time there was nothing said. "how did you come?" asked lucy at last, her face radiant with joy. "by train. mr. keane sent me. are you glad, lucy?" "glad?" lucy had no words wherewith to express her gladness, but it was evident enough. just then footsteps sounded on the stair, and miss hepsy came into the room followed by miss goldthwaite. she looked scared a moment, but when tom rose and came to her saying--"i came to see lucy, aunt hepsy, and to thank you for being so good to her,"--she just sat down in the rocking-chair and sobbed like a child. here was a state of matters! and tom did not know just then whether to laugh or to cry. but miss carrie diverted him by asking questions about his journey, and by-and-by miss hepsy rose and said she'd get supper. "an' ye'll jist bide, miss goldthwaite, an' we'll all have it here with lucy.--dear, dear, this is a great night. who'd 'a thought to see you, tom, all the way from philadelphia?" "you look pretty comfortable, lucy," said tom jokingly. "i wouldn't mind being sick myself, to be codled up like this." lucy smiled, but her eyes grew dim. "i can't speak about it, tom," she said. "aunt hepsy is too good to me; she reminds me of mamma sometimes.--isn't she kind, miss carrie?" miss carrie nodded, her sweet face full of satisfaction. evidently the new state of affairs was after her own heart. by-and-by the table was set, and they all gathered round it, and tom had a real thankful rest supper. there was not much said; but tom saw how aunt hepsy watched and tended lucy; and how uncle josh, too, had grown gentle even in his roughness; and, above all, he saw how beautiful was lucy's face in its perfect happiness and content. "you don't eat, lucy, my pet," said aunt hepsy anxiously. "i can't, auntie; i am so happy, it's no use;" and lucy covered her face with her hands and fairly sobbed. then tom rose to his feet, and gave vent to a cheer which would have done honour to an englishman. "bless me, boy, ye'll bring the house down," said aunt hepsy, but not looking at all displeased. "can't help it, aunt hepsy; it's surplus steam; must let it off, or i can't answer for the consequences." and he cheered again and again, till keziah ran to see what was the matter. she went back to the kitchen saying to herself, "when i see an' hear that here, i feel like believin', deacon frost, that the world's comin' to an end." not the world exactly, keziah, only the old, hard, miserable days have come to an end for ever, and a new era has begun at thankful rest. xv. the wedding. tom stayed a week at home--_home_ it truly was to both lucy and him now, and he left it with regret. but the work he loved and had chosen called him away, and knowing lucy would be tenderly cared for, he went back to philadelphia, carrying a much lighter heart than when he first entered it three months before. the summer would be a busy one for him; and as the months sped he proved the truth of mr. keane's words, that it was only through much hard, plodding, uninteresting work, that he could ever hope to place his foot on the first step of the ladder. but he had a kind hand and an encouraging word always ready to help him on, and was happy in his apprenticeship. thanks to aunt hepsy's careful nursing, midsummer saw lucy fully restored to health again. she had an easy and happy time of it now. there was no more trotting up and down, no more bending under heavy loads--it was only very light work her hands were permitted to do; and she would laugh and tell aunt hepsy she was making a fine lady of her altogether. "you do what you're bid, an' say nothin', my dear," was always aunt hepsy's answer, with oh, what a difference in look and tone. there was no restriction to her visiting now. she would spend days at the red house, in company with her friend minnie; who, in her turn, would come to thankful rest, and keep the house alive with her gay nonsense. so the summer sped, harvest was ingathered again, and one sunny evening in september, miss goldthwaite came up to thankful rest on special business. rumours were afloat that the parsonage was soon to lose miss carrie, but they had not yet been confirmed. miss hepsy was in the garden, and gave the parson's sister a warm greeting. "is lucy indoors?" carrie asked, after they had chatted a moment. "yes; i heard her singing a minute ago," answered aunt hepsy. "jes' go in and look for her, miss goldthwaite; i'll be in by-and-by." "perhaps i had better talk to you first, miss hepsy, as you have the power to grant or refuse what i want." "i don't often say no to ye, miss carrie," said aunt hepsy with a dry smile. "i know it; but this is a very serious request--in fact, i am afraid to make it." "out with it. i can but say no any way." miss goldthwaite leaned on her parasol, and looked at aunt hepsy, smiling, and blushing slightly too. "perhaps you know i'm going to be married soon, miss hepsy?" "i hear the folks sayin' so; but i paid no heed, guessin' ye'd come an' tell us afore it took place. is't to be immediately?" "at christmas. but i'm going home to new york in three weeks." "to get ready," nodded miss hepsy. "well?" "can't you guess what i want, miss hepsy?" miss hepsy stood a moment in wondering silence, and then said very slowly, "i guess it'll be lucy ye want." "yes; i want her to go home with me, and remain till after my marriage. frank will bring her back when he comes. now it's out. order me off the premises now, miss hepsy; i know you feel like it." "this is september," said aunt hepsy very slowly; "october, november, december, january--perhaps nigh half a year. well, miss goldthwaite, excuse me sayin' it, but the lord'll need to help your husband; he'll not be able to help hisself, that's certain. ye'd move the peak, as i've said afore." "am i to take that as your permission, miss hepsy?" "hev ye spoke to lucy?" "not yet; you had to be asked first. if you had said no, i should not have thought of mentioning it to lucy at all." "if lucy wants to go, i'm willin'; but it'll be a queer house without her." "thank you, miss hepsy," said carrie, and bent forward and kissed her. "i think you will not regret it. it will soon pass, and will do lucy a world of good. she is growing up, you know, and wants to see something." "p'raps you're right," said aunt hepsy. "yes, go in now, miss goldthwaite; i want to think a bit." carrie went in, and kneeling down on the hearth beside lucy, said abruptly, "i am going to be married at christmas, lucy, and want you for my bridesmaid. i am going home to new york in three weeks, and your aunt says i may take you with me. will you come?" lucy's face flushed with pleasure, but she said quickly,-- "you are very kind, carrie. i should like it dearly. but would it be right to leave my uncle and aunt?" "if they say you may, lucy. i have thought it well over before i mentioned it at all; and i'm sure you would enjoy yourself." "i know that. may i have a day or two to think of it, carrie?" "as many as you like, so that you only come, dear. now, i'm going off; i haven't a minute to spare.--by-the-by, alice and minnie will likely be at papa's, too, all december, so that is another inducement. goodbye." she stooped and kissed lucy, and ran out of the house. pretty soon aunt hepsy came in, looking very grave and sad. she took up her knitting, and for a bit neither spoke. "three months is a long time, aunt hepsy," said lucy at last. aunt hepsy never spoke. then lucy rose and came to her, and laid her arm about her neck. "you don't want me to go, auntie, i know you don't." "go away; i didn't say i didn't," said aunt hepsy in her gruffest tones. "auntie, if you will only tell me you would rather i stayed, i won't go." "don't ask questions, child. i guess i'd never live through them three months. as well go away for ever almost." "then i won't go," said lucy stoutly. "i'd dearly like to be at carrie's wedding; but i can't leave you, auntie, for so long." and from that decision no persuasion could induce lucy to depart--she was firm as a rock; but aunt hepsy made a little private arrangement of her own, which was to be kept a profound secret from the bride-elect. judge keane travelled to new york the day before christmas with a young lady under his care; and when the pair were ushered into dr. goldthwaite's drawing-room, the bride-elect saw, peeping out from among the rich furs which aunt hepsy had provided for her darling, a face she loved very dearly, and which could belong to nobody in the world but lucy hurst. they were all together in the long drawing-room, waiting only the coming of the bride, ere the solemn ceremony could be performed. there was a large company, for the goldthwaites had a wide circle of acquaintance. conspicuous among them were the friends we know best--all the keanes (save the invalid mother, who thought and prayed for them at home), and tom and lucy hurst. it had been a surprise to lucy to find him at new york. she had not expected to see him again till the summer-time. she looked very fair and sweet in her delicate white dress, but was utterly unconscious of the admiration she was creating; and of the close observation of a pair of dark earnest eyes, which had been the first gleam of comfort to her when her mother died. by-and-by, old white-haired dr. goldthwaite came in with carrie on his arm, and they took their places silently; and in a very few minutes frank had uttered the irrevocable words, and the wedding was over. then mr. and mrs. george keane received abundant congratulations, and they adjourned to partake of breakfast. in the hall stood a quantity of baggage labelled "mrs. keane," which seemed very formidable, but was not much after all, considering the travellers were going to europe. yes; the young pair were to have a six months' tour before settling down at pendlepoint, and some felt as if carrie were going away for ever. she looked very grave and sad; and when she came down ready to go, broke down utterly bidding her mother good-bye. "now then, this will never do," said judge keane, with that comical smile of his. "george, get your wife into the carriage, or we shall have her rueing she ever promised to follow you." carrie smiled through her tears, and shook her finger at the judge. then, as she turned to go, a light touch fell upon her arm, and a low voice whispered tremulously,-- "may god bless you all your life, mrs. keane." it was lucy, her great eyes shining with unspeakable love and tenderness. "never mrs. keane to you, lucy, my pet," she whispered back. "carrie always, and always. write to me." then she was hurried out to the carriage, forgetting in the excitement of the moment that she possessed no address to give. the door closed upon them, the coachman sprang to the box, and the next moment they were gone. they had embarked together on the sea of life, and the voyage bade fair to be a happy and prosperous one. "i don't like weddings," said judge keane discontentedly. "they are miserable, heart-breaking things at the best." "time was when you did not think so, judge," said the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye.--"eh, little one?" it was lucy whom the doctor addressed, and she answered timidly, "it is very sad to give away those we love, as you have done to-day, sir." "wait till somebody wants to take you away, my lady," laughed the judge. "there'll be an earthquake at thankful rest." "i never heard any one speak as you do, judge keane," said lucy, with a dignity which dumfoundered tom; and she moved away and sat down by mrs. goldthwaite, and began to talk to her about carrie. "what makes you look so sober, tom hurst?" queried minnie keane's voice at his elbow a few minutes later. "shall i tell you, minnie?" "you must," was the calm reply. "it seems to me, then," he said very slowly, "that lucy is growing up, and i don't like it. do you?" "i don't mind. everybody grows up and marries, and goes to europe, and dies after a bit; that's about what life amounts to--not much, is it?" tom laughed, he couldn't help it; but after a bit he answered gravely, "i am afraid to grow up myself, minnie." "why?" "because a man has so much responsibility, so much to do for god: i don't think it will be very easy." "oh, i do!" answered minnie. "just do all you can, with all your might; that's what mamma says, and it's the easiest way." "so it is," said tom. "i shan't forget that, minnie." and neither he did. xvi. five years after. again it was sweet spring-time at thankful rest. the garden was gay with tender leaves and blossoms, and the orchard white with bloom. there the birds made sweet melody as of yore; and, as of yore, the sunny river brawled and whispered and played as it hurried through the meadow to the sea. at five o'clock in the afternoon aunt hepsy was in the kitchen, busy as usual; her hands knew no idleness. two teacups and a plate of cake stood on the table, the remnants of the early tea she and lucy had taken a little while before. presently a light step sounded in the lobby, and lucy came in dressed for walking. five years make a great change; for she had grown from a slight, diminutive girl, to a tall, lithe, graceful young lady, just on the verge of womanhood. "ye look like a picter, by all the world," said aunt hepsy, pausing to admire her; and lucy's answer was a silvery laugh, so full of perfect happiness and content, that a silent bird on the window ledge caught the infection and burst into song. "i'm going to the post-office to see if there's a letter from tom, aunt hepsy," she said; "and then to dovecot, to see mrs. george keane. i'll be back sure before dark." "ye'd better," said aunt hepsy, with something of her ancient grimness. "the house ain't worth livin' in when ye're out." lucy came close to aunt hepsy, and laying her gloved hands on her shoulders, bent tender, beaming eyes on her face. "it makes me so thankful, auntie, to think you miss me, and are glad when i come back. i don't suppose there's a happier girl anywhere than i am." "nor a happier pair than ye make yer uncle an' me," said aunt hepsy softly. "off ye go, ye waste my time like anything; time was when i'd make ye fly round considerable if ye'd ventured." lucy laughed, and went her way, turning aside as she went through the paddock for a pleasant word with uncle josh ploughing in the low meadow. he stopped his team to watch the pretty girlish figure out of sight. crossing the bridge she met ebenezer going with a letter to thankful rest. it was for her, and in tom's handwriting. there was no need for her to go down to the town, and she turned in the direction of the dovecot, which was the name of the pretty home occupied by george keane and his wife. it was midway between the red house and the parsonage, and fifteen minutes' leisurely walking brought her to it. miss goldthwaite had been married four years past, and had one little son, the joy and torment of her life. he was in bed, however, when lucy called, so there was a chance of a moment's quiet talk. "i have had a letter from tom to-night, carrie," she said when the first greetings were over. "his picture has sold for five hundred dollars." "o lucy, i am so glad. such a success for a young artist! how proud robert will be of his pupil." lucy's eyes beamed her pride, though she said very little. "frank is here," said mrs. keane after a moment. "he is out somewhere with george; let us find them, and communicate the good news. what will aunt hepsy say?" they rose and went out into the sweet spring twilight and found mr. goldthwaite and mr. george keane in the garden at the back. there were warm congratulations from both, and an hour slipped away in discussing the artist, his work and prospects, till lucy remembered her promise to aunt hepsy, and said that she must be going. mr. goldthwaite would return too, he said, as it was growing late. his sister fancied lucy's company was an inducement to him to leave so early, but she discreetly held her peace. it was almost dark, though the lamp was not lit at thankful rest, when lucy reached home. "you've kept your time," said aunt hepsy well pleased. "did ye come home alone?" "no, aunt hepsy," answered lucy very low, and the semi-darkness hid her face. "mr. goldthwaite was at dovecot, and walked home with me." "mrs. keane's folks all well?" asked aunt hepsy, suspecting nothing. "yes; and o aunt hepsy, i have a letter from tom: his picture in the exhibition has sold for five hundred dollars." aunt hepsy uplifted her hands in mute amazement. "marcy on us," she exclaimed at last. "what a power o' money for a picter! is't true, lucy?" "yes, quite true; and he has got such praise for it," said lucy joyfully. "aren't you proud of him, aunt hepsy?" "i guess i am," said aunt hepsy. "five hundred dollars! dear, dear! what will josh say to this? does he say anything about coming home soon?" "i'll read you the letter when the lamp's lighted, auntie," said lucy. "well, light it, there's a good child; it's 'most time anyway. i've been idle a good half-hour." but lucy did not seem in any hurry. she hovered about in an odd, restless kind of way, and finally came behind aunt hepsy's chair, and folded her hands on her shoulder. "what is it, child?" said aunt hepsy wonderingly. "summat you have to tell me, i reckon. anything in tom's letter ye haven't told me?" "no, aunt hepsy," and lucy's voice fell very low now. "i want to tell you--i have promised to be mr. goldthwaite's wife." "bless me, lucy, 'tain't true?" cried aunt hepsy, starting up; and seeing in lucy's downcast face confirmation of her words, she sank back to her chair, and for the first and only time in her life aunt hepsy went off into hysterics. in the tender gloaming of an august evening tom and lucy hurst stood together within the porch at thankful rest. they had been at pendlepoint visiting old friends, and, after walking slowly home, lingered here talking of old times, and loath to leave the soft beauty of the summer night. a tall, broad-shouldered, handsome fellow was tom hurst now, towering a head above his sister, who stood very close to him, her head leaning against his shoulder. "do you remember what a pair of miserable little creatures stood just here five years ago, lucy?" he said half laughingly, half earnestly. "yes," said lucy softly. "what a difference between then and now." there was a moment's silence. tom's eyes watched the stars peeping out one by one in the opal sky, his heart full of the happiness of the present and all the hope and promise of the future. presently aunt hepsy, ever watchful for lucy now, called to them to come in, for the dews were falling. "tom, has not god cast our lines in pleasant places, and given us a goodly heritage?" said lucy softly as they turned to obey the summons. "ay," answered tom, his voice softening also. "may he help us to be truly grateful for his goodness all our lives, lucy." the end. material generously made available by the google books library project (http://books.google.com/) note: images of the original pages are available through the the google books library project. see http://books.google.com/books?vid=b_ioaaaaiaaj&id the jonathan papers by elisabeth woodbridge * * * * * by elisabeth woodbridge days out and other papers. more jonathan papers. the jonathan papers. houghton mifflin company boston and new york * * * * * the jonathan papers by elisabeth woodbridge [illustration] boston and new york houghton mifflin company copyright, , by elisabeth woodbridge morris to jonathan and to all perfect comradeship wherever its joyous spirit is found this little book is dedicated contents foreword--on taking one's dessert first ix i. a placid runaway ii. an unprogressive farm iii. a desultory pilgrimage iv. the yellow valley v. larkspurs and hollyhocks vi. the farm sunday vii. the grooming of the farm viii. "escaped from old gardens" ix. the country road x. the lure of the berry xi. in the rain xii. as the bee flies xiii. a dawn experiment xiv. in the wake of the partridge xv. beyond the realm of weather xvi. comfortable books xvii. in the firelight the papers in this volume first appeared in the _outlook_, the _atlantic_, and _scribner's_. the author wishes to express to the editors of these magazines her appreciation of their courtesy in permitting the republication of the papers. foreword on taking one's dessert first when we were children we used to "happen in" to the kitchen just before luncheon to see what the dessert was to be. this was because at the luncheon table we were not allowed to ask, yet it was advantageous to know, for since even our youthful capacity had its limits, we found it necessary to "save room," and the question, of course, was, how much room? discovering some favorite dish being prepared, we used to gaze with watering mouth, and, though knowing its futility, could seldom repress the plea, "mayn't we have our dessert now?" of course we never did, of course we waited, and of course, when that same dessert came to us, properly served, at the proper time, after a properly wholesome luncheon preceding, it found us expectant, perhaps, but not eager; appreciative, but not enthusiastic. it was not to us what it would have been at the golden moment when we begged for it. in hours of unbridled hostility to domestic conditions we used sometimes to plan for a future when we should be grown up, and then would we not change this sorry scheme of things entire! would we not have a larder, with desserts in it, our favorite desserts--and would we not devour these same, boldly, recklessly, immediately before the meal for which they were intended! just wouldn't we! and afterward--just didn't we! most youthful fancies are doomed to fade unrealized, but this one was too fundamentally practical and sane. we are grown up, we have a larder, with now and then toothsome desserts in it, and now and then we grip our conscience till it cowers and is still, we wait till the servants are out, we walk into our pantry--and then-- yes, triumphant we still believe what once militant we maintained--that the only way to eat cake is when it is just out of the oven, that the only way to eat ice cream is to dip it out of the freezer, down under the apple tree, in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon. afterward, when it appears in sober decorum, surrounded by all the appurtenances of civilization, it is a very commonplace affair; out under the apple tree it is ambrosia. why not go further? why not take all our desserts in life when they taste best, instead of at the proper time, when we don't care for them? desserts are, i suppose, meant to be enjoyed. why not have them when most enjoyable? i wonder if there is not a certain perverted conscientiousness that leads us to this enforcement of our pleasures. i am myself conscious that i can scarcely ever approach a pleasure with a mind singly bent on enjoyment. i regard it with something like suspicion, i hedge, i hesitate, i defer. what is the motive force here? is it an inherited asceticism, bidding us beware of pleasure as such? is it pride, which will not permit us to make unseemly haste toward our desires? is it a subtle self-gratification, which seeks to add zest, tone, to our delights by postponing them? is it fear of anticlimax, which makes us save our pleasure for the last thing, that there may be no descent afterward? certainly the last was the motive in the case of the little boy who, dining out, was given a piece of mince and one of custard pie. he liked the mince best, therefore he saved it until the last, and had just conscientiously finished the custard when his beaming hostess said: "oh, you like the custard best! well, dear, you needn't eat the other. delia, bring another plate for henry and i'll give him another piece of the custard pie." pathetic! yet i confess my sympathy with henry has always been qualified by disapproval of his methods, which, it seems to me, brought down upon him an awful but not wholly undeserved penalty. the incident is worth careful attention. for life, i believe, is continually treating us as that benevolent but misguided hostess treated the incomprehensible henry. if we postpone our mince pie, it is often snatched from us and we never get it at all. i knew a youth once who habitually rode a bicycle that was too small for him. he explained that he continued to do this because then, when at some future time he did have one that fitted him, he would be so surpassingly comfortable! soon after, bicycles went out of fashion, and i fear the moment of supreme luxury never came. his mince pie had, as it were, been snatched from him. one of my friends wrote me once: "it seems to me i am always distractingly busy just getting ready to live, but i never really begin." most of us are in the same plight. we are like the thrifty housewife who kept pushing the week's work earlier and earlier, until it backed up into the week before; yet with all her planning she never succeeded in clearing one little spot of leisure for herself. she never got her dessert at all. probably she would not have enjoyed it if she had had it. for the capacity to enjoy desserts in life is something not to be trifled with. children have it, and grown people can keep it if they try, but they don't always try. i knew of a man who worked every minute until he was sixty, getting rich. he did get rich. then he retired; he built him a "stately pleasure palace" and set about taking his pleasure. and lo! he found that he had forgotten how! he tried this and that, indoor and outdoor pleasures, the social and the solitary, the artistic and the semi-scientific--all to no purpose. here were all the desserts that throughout his life he had been steadfastly pushing aside; they were ranged before him to partake of, and when he would partake he could not. and so he left his pleasure palace and went back to "business." we are not all so far gone as this, but few of us have the courage to take our desserts when they are offered, or the free spirit to enjoy them to the uttermost. i get up on a glorious summer morning and gaze out at the new day. with all the strongest and deepest instincts of my nature i long to go out into the green beauty of the world, to fling myself down in some sloping meadow and feel the sunshine envelop me and the warm winds pass over me, to see them tossing the grasses and tugging at the trees and driving the white clouds across the blue, and to feel the great earth revolving under me--for if you lie long enough you can really get the sense of sailing through space. all this i long for--from my window. then i turn back to my unglorified little house--little, however big, compared with the limitless world of beauty outside--and betake myself to my day's routine occupations. i read my mail, i answer letters, i go over accounts, i fly to the telephone and give orders and make engagements. and at length, after hours of such stultifying employment, i elect to call myself "free," and go forth to enjoy my "well-earned" leisure. fool that i am! as if enjoyment were a thing to be taken up and laid down at will, like a walking-stick. as if one could let the golden moment pass and hope to find it again awaiting our convenience. why can we not be like pippa with her one precious day? but if she had been born in new england do you suppose her day would have been what it was? would she have sprung up at daybreak with heart and mind all alight for pleasure? certainly not. she would have spent the golden morning in cleaning the kitchen, and the golden afternoon in clearing up the attic, and would have gone out for a little walk after the supper dishes were washed, only because she thought she "ought" to take a little exercise in the open air. duty and work are all very well, but we have bound ourselves up in them so completely that we have almost lost the art of spontaneous enjoyment. we can feel comfortable or uncomfortable, annoyed or gratified, but we cannot feel simple, buoyant, instinctive enjoyment in anything. we take our very pleasures under the name of duties-- "we ought to take a walk," "we ought not to miss that concert," "we ought to read" a certain book, "we ought" to go and see this friend, or invite that one to see us. those things that should be our spontaneous pleasures we have clothed and masked until they no longer know themselves. a pleasure must present itself under the guise of a duty before we feel that we can wholly give ourselves over to it. ah, let us stop all that! let us take our pleasures without apology. let us give up this fashion of shoving them away into the left-over corners of our lives, covering their gleaming raiment with sad-colored robes, and visiting them with half-averted faces. let us consort with them openly, gayly! the jonathan papers i a placid runaway jonathan and i differ about a great many things; how otherwise are we to avoid the sloughs of bigoted self-satisfaction? but upon one point we agree: we are both convinced that on a beautiful morning in april or may or june there is just one thing that any right-minded person really wants to do. that is to turn a deaf ear to duty and a blind eye to all other pleasures, and--find a trout brook. we are, indeed, able to understand that duty may be too much for him--may be quite indifferent to his deaf ear and shout in the other, or may even seize him by the shoulders and hold him firmly in his place. he may not be able so much as to drop a line in the brown water all through the maddening spring days. but that he should not want to--ache to--this we cannot understand. we do know that it is not a thing to be argued about. it is temperamental, it is in the blood, or it is not. jonathan and i always want to. once it was almost the end of april, and we had been wanting to ever since march had gone out like a lion--for in some parts of new england a jocose legislature has arranged that the trout season shall begin on april fool's day. those who try to catch trout on april first understand the joke. "jonathan," i said over our coffee, "have you noticed the weather to-day?" "um-m-pleasant day," he murmured abstractedly from behind his newspaper. "pleasant! have you felt the sunshine? have you smelt the spring mud? i want to roll in it!" jonathan really looked up over his paper. "do!" he said, benevolently. "jonathan, let's run away!" "can't. there's a man coming at--" "i know. there's always a man coming. tell him to come to-morrow. tell him you are called out of town." "but you have a lot of things to-day too--book clubs and japanese clubs and such things. you said last night--" "i'll tell them _i'm_ called out of town too. i _am_ called--we're both called, you know we are. and we've got to go." "really, my dear, you know i want to, but--" "no use! it's a runaway. get the time-table and see which is the first train to anywhere--to nowhere--who cares where!" jonathan went, protesting. i let him protest. a man should have some privileges. we took the first train. it was a local, of course, and it trundled jerkily along one of the little rivers we knew. when the conductor came to us, jonathan showed him our mileage book. "where to?" he asked mechanically, but stiffened to attention when jonathan said placidly, "i don't know yet. where _are_ we going, my dear?" "i hadn't thought," i said; "let's see the places on the map." "well, conductor," said jonathan, "take off for three stations, and if we don't get off then, you'll find us here when you come around, and then you can take off some more." the conductor looked us both over. we were evidently not a bridal couple, and we didn't look quite like criminals--he gave us up. when we saw a bit of country that looked attractive, we got off. that was something i had always wanted to do. all my life i have had to go to definite places, and my memory is full of tantalizing glimpses of the charming spots i have passed on the road and could never stop to explore. this time we really did it. we left the little railway station, sitting plain and useful beside the track, went up the road past a few farmhouses, over a fence and across a soft ploughed field, and down to the little river, willow-bordered, shallow, golden-brown, with here and there a deep pool under an overhanging hemlock or a shelving, fretted, bush-tangled bank. we sat down in the sun on a willow log and put our rods together. does anything sound prettier than the whir and click of the reel as one pulls out the line for the first time on an april day? we sat and looked at the world for a little, and let the wind, with just the faint chill of the vanishing snows still in it, blow over us, and the sun, that was making anemones and arbutus every minute, warm us through. it was almost too good to begin, this day that we had stolen. i felt like a child with a toothsome cake-- "i'll put it away for a while and have it later." but, after all, it was already begun. we had not stolen it, it had stolen us, and it held us in its power. soon we wandered on, at first hastening for the mere joy of motion and the freshness of things; then, as the wind lessened and the sun shone hot in the hollows, loitering more and more, dropping a line here and there where a deep pool looked suggestive. trout? yes, we caught some. jonathan pulled in a good many; i got enough to seem industrious. i seldom catch as many as jonathan, though he tries to give me all the best holes; because really there are so many other things to attend to. men seem to go fishing chiefly to catch fish. jonathan spends half an hour working his rod and line through a network of bushes, briers, and vines, to drop it in a chosen spot in a pool. he swears gently as he works, but he works on, and usually gets his fish. i don't swear, so i know i could never carry through such an undertaking, and i don't try. i did try once, when i was young and reckless. i headed the tip of my rod, like a lance in rest, for the most open spot i could see. for the fisherman's rule in the woods is not "follow the flag," but "follow your tip," and i tried to follow mine. this necessitated reducing myself occasionally to the dimensions of a filament, but i was elastic, and i persisted. the brambles neatly extracted my hat-pins and dropped them in the tangle about my feet; they pulled off my hat, but i pushed painfully forward. they tore at my hair; they caught an end of my tie and drew out the bow. finally they made a simultaneous and well-planned assault upon my hair, my neck, my left arm, raised to push them back, and my right, extended to hold and guide that quivering, undulating rod. i was helpless, unless i wished to be torn in shreds. at that moment, as i stood poised, hot, baffled, smarting and stinging with bramble scratches, wishing i could swear like a man and have it out, the air was filled with the liquid notes of a wood thrush. i love the wood thrush best of all; but that he should choose this moment! it was the final touch. i whistled the blue-jay note, which means "come," and jonathan came threshing through the brush, having left his rod. "where are you?" he called; "i can't see you." "no, you can't," i responded unamiably. "you probably never will see me again, at least not in any recognizable form. help me out!" the thrush sang again, one tree farther away. "no! first kill that thrush!" i added between set teeth, as a slight motion of mine set the brambles raking again. "why, why, my dear, what's this?" then, as he caught sight of me, "well! you are tied up! wait; i'll get out my knife." he cut here and there, and one after another, with a farewell stab or scratch, the maddening things reluctantly let go their hold. meanwhile jonathan made placid remarks about the proper way to go through brush. "you go too fast, you know. you can't hurry these things, and you can't bully them. i don't see how you manage to get scratched up so. i never do." "jonathan, you are as tactless as the thrush." "don't kill me yet, though. wait till i cut this last fellow. there! now you're free. by george! but you're a wreck!" that was the last time i ever tried to "work through brush," as jonathan calls it. if i can catch trout by any method compatible with sanity, i am ready to do it, but as for allowing myself to be drawn into a situation wherein the note of the wood thrush stirs thoughts of murder in my breast--at that point, i opine, sport ceases. so on that day of our runaway i kept to open waters and preserved a placid mind. the air was full of bird notes--in the big open woods the clear "whick-ya, whick-ya, whick-ya" of the courting yellowhammers, in the meadows bluebirds with their shy, vanishing call that is over almost before you can begin to listen, meadowlarks poignantly sweet, song sparrows with a lift and a lilt and a carol, and in the swamps the red-wings trilling jubilant. noon came, and we camped under the sunny lee of a ridge that was all abloom with hepaticas--clumps of lavender and white and rosy-lilac. we found a good spring, and a fallen log, and some dead hemlock tips to start a fire, and soon we had a merry blaze. then jonathan dressed some of the trout, while i found a black birch tree and cut forked sticks for broilers. any one who has not broiled fresh-caught trout outdoors on birch forks--or spice bush will do almost as well--has yet to learn what life holds for him. chops are good, too, done in that way. we usually carry them along when there is no prospect of fish, or, when we are sure of our country, we take a tin cup and buy eggs at a farmhouse to boil. but the balancing of the can requires a happy combination of stones about the fire that the brief nooning of a day's tramp seldom affords, and baking is still more uncertain. bacon is good, but broiling the little slices--and how they do shrink!--takes too long, while frying entails a pan. curiously enough, a pan, in addition to two fish baskets and a landing-net, does not find favor in jonathan's eyes. after luncheon and a long, lazy rest on our log we went back to the stream and loitered down its bank. pussy-willows, their sleek silver paws bursting into fat, caterpillary things, covered us with yellow pollen powder as we brushed past them. now and then we were arrested by the sharp fragrance of the spice bush, whose little yellow blossoms had escaped our notice. in the damp hollows the ground was carpeted with the rich, mottled green leaves and tawny yellow bells of the adder's-tongue, and the wet mud was sweet with the dainty, short-stemmed white violets. on the dry, barren places were masses of saxifrage, bravely cheerful; on the rocky slopes fragile anemones blew in the wind, and fluffy green clumps of columbine lured us on to a vain search for an early blossom. as the afternoon waned, and the wind freshened crisply, we guessed that it was milking-time, and wandered up to a farmhouse where we persuaded the farmer's wife to give us bread and cheese and warm new milk. we were urged to "set inside," but preferred to take the great white pitcher of milk out to the steps of the little back porch where we could hear the insistent note of the little phoebe that was building under the eaves of the woodshed. our hostess stood in the doorway, watching in amused tolerance as we filled and refilled our goblets. they were wonderful goblets, be it said--the best the house afforded. jonathan's was of fancy green glass, all covered with little knobs; mine was yellow, with a head of washington stamped on one side, and "god bless our country" on the other. finally the good woman broke the silence-- "guess your mothers ain't never weaned ye." which we were not in a position to refute. on our return train we found the same conductor who had taken us out in the morning. as he folded back the green cover of our mileage book he could not forbear remarking, quizzically, "know how far you're goin' to-night?" "jonathan," i said, as we settled to toast and tea before our home fireplace that evening, "i like running away. i don't blame horses." ii an unprogressive farm most of our friends, jonathan's and mine, are occupying their summers in "reclaiming" old farms. we have an old farm, too, but we, i fear, are not reclaiming it, at least not very fast. we have made neither formal gardens nor water gardens nor rose arches; we have not built marble swimming-tanks, nor even cement ones; we have not naturalized forget-me-nots in the brook or narcissus in the meadows; we have not erected tea-houses on choice knolls, and after six years of occupancy there is still not a pergola or a sundial on the place! and yet we are happy. to be happy on a farm like ours one must, i fancy, be either very old or very unprogressive. while we are waiting to grow comfortably old, we are willing to be considered unprogressive. very old and very, very unprogressive is the farm itself. there is nothing on it but old apple trees, old lilac bushes, old rocks, and old associations--and, to be sure, the old red house. but the old rocks, piled on the hillsides, are unfailingly picturesque, whether dark and dripping in the summer rains or silver gray in the summer suns. the lilacs are delightful, too. in june they send wave upon wave of fragrance in through the little windows, penetrating even to the remotest corners of the dim old attic, while all day long about their pale lavender sprays the great yellow and black butterflies hang flutteringly. best of all is the orchard; the old apple trees blossom prodigally for a brief season in may, blossom in rosy-white, in cream-white, in pure white, in green-white, transforming the lane and the hill-slopes into a bower, smothering the old house in beauty, brooding over it, on still moonlight nights, in pale clouds of sweetness. and then comes a wind, with a drenching rain, and tears away all the pretty petals and buries them in the grass below. but there are seldom any apples; all this exuberance of beauty is but a dream of youth, not a promise of fruitage. jonathan, indeed, tells me that if we want the trees to bear we must keep pigs in the orchard to root up the ground and eat the wormy fruit as it falls; but under these conditions i would rather not have the apples. the orchard is old; why not leave it to dream and rest and dream again? the old associations are, i admit, of a somewhat mixed character. there is the romance of the milk-room door, through which, in hoary ages past, the "hired girl," at the ripe age of twelve, eloped with her sixteen-year-old lover; there is the story of the cellar nail, a shuddery one, handed down from a yet more remote antiquity; there are tales of the "ballroom" on the second floor, of the old lightning-riven locust stump, of the origin of the "new wing" of the house--still called "new," though a century old. not a spot, indoors or out, but has its clustering memories. such an enveloping atmosphere of associations, no matter what their quality, in a place where generations have lived and died, is of itself a quieting thing. life, incrusted with tradition, like a ship weighted with barnacles, moves more and more slowly; the past appears more real than the present. to the old this seems natural and right, to others it is often depressing; but jonathan and i like it. our barnacle-clogged ship pleases us--pleases me because i love the slow, drifting motion, pleases jonathan because--i regret to admit it--he thinks he can get all the barnacles off--and then!-- for, whereas my unprogressiveness is absolute and unqualified, jonathan's is, i have discovered, tainted by a sneaking optimism, an ineradicable desire and hope of improvement, which, though it does not blossom rankly in pergolas and tea-houses, is none the less there, a lurking menace. it inspired his suggestion regarding pigs in the orchard, it showed itself even more clearly in the matter of the hens. i have always liked hens. i doubt if mine are very profitable,--the farm is not, in general, a source of profit, and we cherish no delusions about it,--but i do not keep them for pecuniary gain. if they chance to lay eggs, so much the better; if they furnish forth my table with succulent broilers, with nutritious roasters, with ambrosial chicken-pasties, i am not unappreciative; but i realize that all these things might be had from my neighbors' barnyards. what i primarily value my own hens for is their companionship. talk about the companionship of dogs and cats! cats walk about my home, sleek and superior; they make me feel that i am there on sufferance. one cannot even laugh at them, their manner is so perfect. dogs, on the other hand, develop an unreasoning and tyrannous devotion to their masters, which is not really good for either, though it may be morbidly gratifying to sentimental natures. but hens! no decorous superiority here, no mush of devotion. no; for varied folly, for rich and highly developed perversities, combining all that is choicest of masculine and feminine foible--for this and much more, commend me to the hen. ever since we came to the farm, my sister the hen has entertained me with her vagaries. jaques's delight at his encounter with touchstone is pale compared with mine in their society. nothing cheers me more than to sit on a big rock in the barnyard and watch the hens walking about. their very gait pleases me--the way they bob their heads, the "genteel" way they have of picking up their feet, for all the world as though they cared where they stepped; the absent and superior manner in which they "scratch for worms," their gaze fixed on the sky, then cock their heads downwards with an indifferent air, absently pick up a chip, drop it, and walk on! did any one ever see a hen really find a worm? i never did. there are no worms in our barnyard, anyhow; jonathan must have dug them all up for bait when he was a boy. i have even tried throwing some real worms to them, and they always respond by a few nervous cackles, and walk past the brown wrigglers with a detached manner, and the robins get them later. and yet they continue to go through all these forms, and we continue to call it "scratching for worms." jonathan has nothing to do with my hens except to give advice. one of his hobbies is the establishing of a breed of hens marked by intelligence, which he maintains might be done by careful selection of the mothers. accordingly, whenever he goes to the roost to pick out a victim for the sacrificial hatchet, he first gently pulls the tail of each candidate in turn, and by the dim light of the lantern carefully observes the nature of their reaction, choosing for destruction the one whose deportment seems to him most foolish. in this way, by weeding out the extremely silly, he hopes in time to raise the general intellectual standard of the barnyard. but he urges that much more might be done if my heart were in it. very likely, but my heart is not. intelligence is all very well, but the barnyard, i am convinced, is no place for it. give me my pretty, silly hens, with all their aimless, silly ways. i will seek intelligence, when i want it, elsewhere. in another direction, too, jonathan's optimistic temperament has found little encouragement. this is in regard to the chimney swallows. when we first came, these little creatures were one of my severest trials. they were not a trial to jonathan. he loved to watch them at dusk, circling and eddying about the great chimney. so, indeed, did i; and if they had but contented themselves with circling and eddying there, i should have had no quarrel with them. i did not even object to their evolutions inside the chimney. at first i took the muffled shudder of wings for distant thunder, and when great masses of soot came tumbling down into the fireplace, i jumped; but i soon grew accustomed to all this. i was even willing to clean the soot out of my neat fireplace daily, while jonathan comforted me by suggesting that the birds took the place of chimney-sweeps, and that soot was good for rose bushes. yes, if the little things had been willing to stick to their chimney, i should have been tolerant, if not cordial. but when they invaded my domain, i felt that i had a grievance. and invade it they did. at dawn i was rudely awakened by a rush from the fireplace, a mad scuttering about the dusky room, a desperate exit by the little open window, where the raised shade revealed the pale light of morning. at night, if i went with my candle into a dark room, i was met by a whirling thing, dashing itself against me, against the light, against the walls, in a moth-like ecstasy of self-destruction. in the mornings, as i went about the house pulling up the shades and drawing back the curtains, out from their white folds rushed dark, winged shapes, whirring past my ears, fluttering blindly about the room, sinking exhausted in inaccessible corners. they were as foolish as june bugs, fifty times bigger, and harder to catch. moreover, when caught, they were not pretty; their eyes were in the top of their heads, like a snake's, their expression was low and cunning. they were almost as bad as bats! worst of all, the young birds had an untidy habit of tumbling out of the nests down into the fireplaces, whether there was a fire or not. now, i have no conscientious objection to roasting birds, but i prefer to choose my birds, and to kill them first. one morning i had gathered and carried out of doors eight foolish, frightened, huddling things, and one dead young one from the sitting-room embers, and i returned to find jonathan kneeling on the guest-room hearth, one arm thrust far up the chimney. "what are you doing, jonathan?" the next moment there was the familiar rush of wings, which finally subsided behind the fresh pillows of the bed. jonathan sprang up. "wait! i'll get it!" he carefully drew away the pillow, his hand was almost on the poor little quivering wretch, when it made another rush, hurled itself against the mirror, upset a vase full of columbines, and finally sank behind the wood-box. at last it was caught, and jonathan, going over to the hearth, resumed his former position. "jonathan! put him out of doors!" i exclaimed. "sh-h-h," he responded, "i'm going to teach him to go back the way he came. there he goes! see?" he rose, triumphant, and began to brush the soot out of his collar and hair. i was sorry to dash such enthusiasm, but i felt my resolution hardening within me. "jonathan," i said, "we did not come to the farm to train chimney swallows. besides, i don't wish them trained, i wish them _kept out_. i don't regard them as suitable for household pets. if you will sink to a pet bird, get a canary." "but you wouldn't have an old house without chimney swallows!" he remonstrated in tones of real pain. "i would indeed." it ended in a compromise. at the top of the chimney jonathan put a netting over half the flues; the others he left open at the top, but set in nettings in the corresponding flues just above each fireplace. and so in half the chimney the swallows still build, but the young ones now drop on the nettings instead of in the embers, and lie there cheeping shrilly until somehow their parents or friends convey them up again where they belong. and i no longer spend my mornings collecting apronfuls of frightened and battered little creatures. at dusk the swallows still eddy and circle about the chimney, but jonathan has lost the opportunity for training them. once more the optimist is balked. but in these matters i am firm: i do not want the hens made intelligent, or the orchard improved, or the swallows trained. there is, i am sure, matter enough in other parts of the farm upon which one may wreak one's optimism. i hold me to my tidy hearths, my comfortable hens, my old lilacs, and my dreaming apple trees. iii a desultory pilgrimage many of our friends seem to be taking automobile trips during the summer months--very rapid trips, since, as they explain, "it strains the machine to go too slowly, you know." jonathan and i wanted to take a trip too, and we looked about us on the old farm for a conveyance. the closest scrutiny failed to discover an automobile, but there were other vehicles--there was the old sleigh in the back of the woodshed, where the hens loved to steal nests, and the old surrey, shabby but willing, and the business wagon, still shabbier but no less willing; there were the two lumber wagons, one rather more lumbering than the other; and there were also various farming vehicles whose names and uses i have never fathomed, with knives and long raking arrangements, very uncomfortable to step over when hunting in the dark corners of the barns for hens' nests or new kittens. moreover, there was kit, the old bay mare, also shabby but willing. that is, willing "within reason," although it must be admitted that kit's ideas of what was reasonable were distinctly conservative. the chief practical difference between kit and an automobile, considered as a motive power, was that it did not strain kit in the least to go slowly. this we considered an advantage, slow-going being what we particularly wished, and we decided that kit would do. for our conveyance we chose the business wagon--a plain box body, with a seat across and room behind for a trunk; but in addition jonathan put in a shallow box under the seat, nailed to cleats on the bottom of the wagon so that it would not shift and rain would run under it. in this we put the things we needed by the roadside--the camping-kit, drinking-cups, bait-boxes, camera, and so on. then we stowed our trout rods and baskets, and one morning in june we started. our plan was to drive and fish through the day, cook our own noon meal, and put up at night wherever we could be taken in, avoiding cities and villages as far as possible. beyond that we had no plan. indeed, this was the best of it all, that we did not have to get anywhere in particular at any particular time. we did not decide on one day where we would go the next; we did not even decide in the morning where we would go in the afternoon. if we found a brook where the trout bit, and there was no inhospitable "poster" warning us away, we said, "let's stay! who cares whether we get on or not?" and we tied kit to a tree, took out our rods and baskets, and followed the brook. if noon found us still fishing, we came back to the wagon, fed kit, got out our camping-outfit, and cooked our fish for luncheon. it did not take long. i collected kindling and firewood while jonathan was laying a few big stones for a fireplace shaped like a squared letter "c," open towards the wind and big enough to hold our frying-pan. then we started the fire, and while it was settling into shape jonathan dressed the fish and cut a long stick to fit into the hollow handle of the frying-pan, and i had time to slice bits of pork and set out the rest of the luncheon--bread and butter, milk if we happened to have passed a dairy farm, a pineapple or oranges if we happened to have met a peddler, strawberries if we had chanced upon one of the sandy spots where the wild ones grow so thickly. then the pan was set over, the pork was laid in, and soon the little fish were curling up their tails in the fragrant smoke. if they were big and needed long cooking, i had time to toast bread or biscuit in the embers underneath for an added luxury, and when all was ready we sat down in supreme contentment. and we never forgot to give kit a lump of sugar, or some clover tops, that she might share in the picnic. but every now and then she would turn and regard us with eyes that expressed many things, but chiefly wonder at the queerness of folks who could prefer not to go back to their own stable to eat. when luncheon was over, the dishes washed in the brook, and the wagon repacked, we ambled on, leaving our little fireplace, with its blackened stones and its heart of gray ashes. no one who has never tried such an aimless life can realize its charm and its restfulness. most of us spend our days catching trains, and running to the telephone, and meeting engagements. even our pleasures are seldom emancipated from these requirements; they are dependent on boats and trolley cars and trains, they are measured out in hours and minutes, and we snatch them running, as the israelites did their water. but this trip of ours was bounded only by the circle of the week, and conditioned only by the limitations of kit. no one could telephone to us, even at night, because no one knew where we were to be. as for trains, we never once saw one. now and then we heard one whistle, so far away that it merely emphasized its own remoteness, and a few times we were compelled to cross over or under a track--a very little track, and single at that; beyond this our connection with the symbol of hurry did not go. the limitations of kit were indeed definite and insurmountable. while her speed on a level was most moderate, uphill it was actually glacial, and going downhill it was little better. for kit had come from the level west, and being, as we have said, conservative, she could never reach any real understanding of hills. she was willing and conscientious, but prudent, and although she went downhill when she was requested to, she did it very much as an old lady might go down a precipice--she let herself down, half sitting, with occasional gentle groans, rocking from side to side like a boat in a chop sea. now all new england is practically either uphill or downhill, and, if we had been in any haste, these characteristics of kit might have annoyed us; but inasmuch as we did not care where we went or when we got there, what difference did it make? in fact, it was rather a relief to be thus firmly bound to sobriety. in one respect we could not be absolutely irresponsible, however. we found it advisable to seek out our night's lodging while it was yet light enough for the farmer's wife to look us over and see that we were respectable. our first night out we failed to realize this, and we paid for it by being forced to put up at a commonplace village inn, instead of a farmhouse. after that we managed to begin our search for a hostess about milking-time, and we had little further trouble. indeed, one of the pleasures of the week was the hospitality we received; and our opinion of the new england farmer, his wife and his children, grew higher as the days passed. courteous hospitality, or, if hospitality had to be withheld, courteous regret, was the rule. twice, when one house could not take us in, they telephoned--for the telephone is everywhere now--about the neighborhood among friends until they found a lodging for us. and pleasant lodgings they always proved. one exception there was. we drew up one afternoon by a well-kept little house with a good english name on the post-box, and, as usual, i held the reins while jonathan went up to the side door to make inquiries. after he had started up the path i saw, from my vantage-point, the lady of the farm returning from her "garden patch," and my heart went out in pity to jonathan. if i could have called him back i would have done so, merely on the testimony of the lady's gait and figure. i had never fully realized how expressive these could be. her hips, her shoulders, the set of her head, the way she planted her feet on the uneven flagging-stones of the path, each heavy line and each sodden motion, bespoke inhospitality, intolerance, impenetrable disapproval of everything unfamiliar. i watched jonathan turn back from the door at the sound of her steps, and in the short colloquy that followed, though i could hear nothing, i could see those hips and shoulders settling themselves yet more decisively, while jonathan's attitude grew more studiously courteous. but when he had lifted his hat again and turned from that monument of immobile unpleasantness i saw his face relax into lines, partly of amusement, partly of chagrin; and as he took his seat beside me and drove on, he murmured snatches of quotation--"no; couldn't possibly," "no; don't know anybody that could," "no; never did such a thing," "no; the people in the next house've just had a funeral; sure _they_ couldn't"; and finally he broke into a chuckle as he quoted, "well, there _is_ some folks about two mile down might mebbe take ye; they does sometimes harbor peddlers 'n' such like." jonathan was hardly willing to try again so near by; he regarded the whole neighborhood as tainted. yet it was little more than two miles beyond, on that same afternoon, that we found lodgings with the most delightful, the most hospitable friends of all--for friends they became, taking us into their circle as if we belonged to it by right of birth, coddling us as one ought never to expect to be coddled save by one's own mother or grandmother. ostensibly, our drive was a trout-fishing trip, and part of the fun certainly was the fishing. not that we caught so many. if we had seriously wished to make a score, we might better have stayed at home and fished in our own haunts, where we knew every pool and just how and when to fish it. but it was interesting to explore new brooks, and as we never failed to get enough trout for at least one meal a day, what more could we wish? and such brooks! new england is surely the land of beautiful brooks. they are all lovely--the meadow brooks, gliding silently beneath the deep-tufted grasses, where the trout live in shadow even at noonday, and their speckled flanks are dark like the pools they lie in; the pasture brooks, whose clear water is always golden from the yellow sand and pebbles and leaves it ripples over, and the trout are silvery and pale-spotted; the brooks of the deep woods, where the foam of rapids and the spray of noisy little waterfalls alternate with the stillness of rock-bound, hemlock-shadowed pools. all the brooks we followed, whether with good luck or with bad, i remember with delight. no, all except one. but i do not blame the brook. it happened in this way: one monday morning, after an abstemious sunday, the zeal of jonathan brought us forth at dawn--in fact, a little before dawn. i had consented, because, although my zeal compared to jonathan's is as a flapping hen compared to a soaring eagle, yet i reflected that i should enjoy the sunrise and the early bird-songs. we emerged, therefore, in the dusk of young morning, and i had my first reward in a lovely view of meadows half-veiled in silvery mist, where the brook wound, and upland pastures of pale gray-green against ridges of shadowy woods. but i was not prepared for the sensation produced by the actual plunge into those same meadows. i say plunge advisedly. i shiver yet as i recall the icy chill of that dew-drenched grass. it was worse than wading a brook, because there was no reaction. jonathan, however, did not seem depressed by it, so i followed his eager steps without remark. we reached the brook, we put our rods together, and baited. "crawl, now," admonished jonathan; "they're shy fellows in those open pools." we crawled, dropped in, and waited. my teeth were chattering, my lips felt blue, but i would not be beaten by a little wet grass. after a few casts, jonathan murmured, "that's funny," and moved cautiously on to the next pool. then he tried swift water, then little rapids. i proceeded in chilly meekness, glad of a chance at a little exercise now and then when we had to climb around rocks or over a stone wall. occasionally i straightened up and gazed out over the meadows--those clammy meadows--and up toward the high woods, brightening into the deep greens of daylight. the east was all rose and primrose, but i found myself unable to think of the sun as an æsthetic feature; i longed for its good, honest heat. a stove, or a hot soapstone, would have done as well. after a quarter of a mile of this i ventured a remark--"jonathan, you have often told me of the delights of dawn fishing." jonathan was extricating his line from an alder bush, and did not answer. i could not resist adding, "i _think_ you said that the trout--bit--at dawn." continued silence warned me that i had said enough, and i tactfully changed the subject: "what i am sorry for is the birds' nests up in those fields. how do the eggs ever hatch--in ice water! and how do the strawberries ever ripen, in cold storage every night--ugh! let's go back and get some hot coffee and go to bed!" and that is my one experience with dawn fishing. but jonathan, reacting from the experience with the temper of the true enthusiast, still maintains that trout do bite at dawn. perhaps they do. but for me, no more early-dewy meadows, except to look at. those hours of dawn fishing were the hardest work i did during the week. a lazy week, in truth, and an irresponsible one. every one who can should snatch such a week and see what it does for him. in some ways it was better than camping, because camping, unless you have guides, is undoubtedly hard work, especially if you keep moving--work that one would never grudge, yet hard work nevertheless. the omitting of the night camp cut out practically all the work and made it more comfortable for the horse, while our noon camps made us independent all day, and gave us that sense of being at home outdoors that one never gets if one has to run to cover for every meal. and, curiously enough, the spots that seem homelike to me, as i linger in memory among the scenes of that week, are not the places where we spent the nights, pleasant though they were, but rather the spots where we built our little fireplaces. each was for an hour our hearth-fire,--our own,--and i do not forget them,--some beside the open road, one on a ridge where the sun slants across as it goes down among purpling hills; one in the deep woods, by a little trout brook, where the sound of running water never ceases; one in an open grove by the river we love best, where a tiny brook with brown pools full of the shadowy trout empties its cold waters into the big, warm current. perhaps no one else may notice them, but they are there, waiting for us, if haply we may pass that way again. and if we do, we shall surely pause and give them greeting. iv the yellow valley we were on our way to the yellow valley. we had been pushing against the wind, through the red march mud of a ploughed field. mud is a very good thing in its place, and if its place is not a ploughed field in march, i know of no better. but it does not encourage lightness of foot. at an especially big and burly gust of wind i stopped, turned my back for respite, and dropped into the lee of jonathan. wind is a good thing, too, in its place, but one does not care to drown in it. "jonathan," i gasped, "this isn't spring; it's winter of the most furious description. let's reform the calendar and put up signs to warn the flowers. but i want my spring! i want it now!" "well," said jonathan, "there it is. look!" and he pointed across the brush of the near fence line, where a meadow stretched away, brown with the stubble and matted tangle of last year's grass. halfway up the springy slope, in a little fold of the hillside, was a shimmer of green--vivid, wonderful. i forgot the wind. "oh-h! think of being a cow now and eating that! eating spring itself!" "if you were a cow," said jonathan, with the usual masculine command of applicable information, "they wouldn't let you eat it." "they wouldn't! why not? does it make them sick?" "no; crazy." "crazy!" "just that. crazy for grass. they won't touch hay any more, and there isn't enough grass for them--and there you are!" "did you make that up as you went along, jonathan?" "ask any farmer." but i think i will not ask a farmer. he might say it was not true, and i like to think it is. i am sorry the cows cannot have their grass, but glad they have the good taste to refuse hay. i should, if i were a cow. not being one, i do not need an actual patch of green nibble to set me crazy. the smell of the earth after a thaw, a breath of soft air, a wave of delicious sweetness, in april, in march, in february,--when it comes in january i harden my heart and try not to notice,--this is enough to spoil me for the dry fodder of winter. hay may be good and wholesome, but i have had my taste of spring grass, and it is enough. that or nothing. no more hay for me! what that strange sweetness of the early spring is i have never fully discovered. the fragrance of flowers is in it,--hepaticas, white violets, arbutus,--yet it is none of these. it comes before any of the flowers are even astir, when the arbutus buds are still tight little green points, when the hepaticas have scarcely pushed open their winter sheaths, while their soft little gray-furred heads are still tucked down snugly, like a bird's head under its wing. before even the snowdrops at our feet and the maples overhead have thought of blossoming, a soft breath may blow across our path filled with this wondrous fragrance. it is like a dream of may. one might believe the fairies were passing by. for years i was completely baffled by it. but one march, in the farm orchard, i found out part of the secret. i was planting my sweet peas, when the well-remembered and bewildering fragrance blew across me. i sprang up and ran up the wind, and there, in the midst of the old orchard, i came upon an old apple tree just cut down by the thrift of jonathan's farmer, who has no silly weakness for old apple trees. the fresh-cut wood was moist with sap, and as i bent over it--ah, there it was! here were my hepaticas, my arbutus, here in the old apple tree! such a surprise! i sat down beside it to think it over. i was sorry it was cut down, but glad it had told me its secret before it was made into logs and piled in the woodshed. blazing in the fireplace it would tell me many things, but it might perhaps not have told me that. and so i knew part of the secret. but only part. for the same fragrance has blown to me often where there were no orchards and no newly felled apple trees, and i have never, except this once, been able to trace it. if it is the flowing sap in all trees, why are not the spring woods full of it? but they are not full of it; it comes only now and then, with tantalizing capriciousness. do sound trees exhale it, certain kinds, when the sap starts, or must they have been cut or bruised, if not by the axe, perhaps by the winter winds and the ice storms? i do not know. i only know that when that breath of sweetness comes, it is the very breath of spring itself; it is the call of spring out of winter--spring grass. when the call of the spring grass comes, there is always one spot that draws me with a special insistence, and every year we have much the same talk about it. "jonathan," i say, "let's go to the yellow valley." "why," says jonathan, "there will be more new birds up on the ridge." "i don't care about new birds. the old ones do very well for me." "and you might find the first hepaticas under indian rock." "i know. we'll go there next." "and if we went farther up the river, we might see some black duck." "very likely; but i don't feel as if i particularly had to see black duck to-day." "what do you have to see?" "nothing special. just plain spring." that is the charm of the yellow valley. it offers no spectacular inducements, no bargain-counter attractions in the shape of new arrivals among the birds or flowers. one returns from it with no trophies of any kind, nothing to put down in one's notebook, if one keeps a notebook,--from which industry may i be forever preserved! but it is a place to go to and be quiet, which is good for us all, especially in the springtime, when there is so much going on in the world, and especially lately, since "nature study" has driven people into being so unceasingly busy when they are outdoors. opera-glasses and bird books have their place, no doubt, in the advance of mankind, but they often seem to me nothing but more machinery coming in between us and the real things. perhaps it was once true that when people went out to view "nature," they did not see enough. now, i fancy, they see too much; they cannot see the spring for the birds. their motto is that of rikki-tikki, the mongoose, "run and find out"--an excellent motto for a mongoose,--but for people on a spring ramble! the unquenchable ardor of the bird lover, so called, fills me with dismay. one enthusiast, writing in a school journal, describes the difficulties of following up the birds: "often eyes all around one's head, with opera-glasses focused at each pair, would not suffice to keep the restless birds in view." if this is the ideal of the bird lover, it is not mine. i wonder she did not wish for extra pairs of legs to match each set of eyes and opera-glasses, and a divisible body, so that she might scamper off in sections after all these marvels. for myself, one pair of eyes gives me, i find, all the satisfaction and delight i know what to do with, and i cannot help feeling that, if i had more, i should have less. the same writer speaks of the "maddening" warbler notes. why maddening? because, forsooth, there are thirty warblers, and one cannot learn all their names. what a pity to be maddened by a little warbler! and about a matter of names, too. after all, the bird, the song, is the thing. and it seems a pity to carry the chasing of bird notes quite so far. they are meant, i feel sure, to be hearkened to in quietness of spirit, to be tasted delicately, as one would a wine. the life of the opera-glassed bird hunter, compared to mine, seems to me like the experience of a tea-taster compared to that of one who sits in cozy and irresponsible enjoyment of the cup her friend hands her. and so there always comes a time in the spring when i must go to my yellow valley. a car ride, a walk on through plain little suburbs, a scramble across fields to a seldom-used railway track, a swing out along the ties, then off across more fields, over a little ridge, and--there! oh, the soft glory of color! we are at the west end of a miniature valley, full of afternoon sunlight slanting across a level blur of yellows and browns. on one side low brown hills enfold it, on the other runs a swift little river, whose steep farther bank is overhung with hemlocks and laurel in brightening spring green. it is a very tiny valley,--one could almost throw a stone across it,--and the whole bottom is filled with waving grass, waist-high, of a wonderful pale straw color; last year's grass, which the winter snows never seem to mat down, thick-set with the tall brown stalks of last year's goldenrod and mullein and primrose. the trees and bushes are dwarf oaks, with their old leafage still clinging in tawny masses, and willows, with their bunches of slim, yellow shoots. even the little river is yellow-brown, from the sand and pebbles and leaves of its bed, and the sun, as it slants down the length of the valley, wraps it in a warm, yellow haze. i call the valley mine, for no one else seems to know it. the long grass is never cut, but left to wave its glory of yellow all through the fall and winter and spring. there is a little footpath running through it, but i never see any one on it. i often wonder who makes all the footpaths i know, where no one ever seems to pass. is it rabbits, or ghosts? whoever they may be, in this case they do not trouble me, and the valley is as much mine as though i had cut it out of a mediæval romance. it is always very quiet here. at least it seems so, though full of sound, as the world always is. but its sounds are its own; perhaps that is the secret; the rustle of the oak leaves as the wind fumbles among them; the swish-swish of the long dry grasses, which can be heard only if one sits down in their midst, very still; the light, purling sounds of the river; the soft gush of water about some bending branch as its tip catches and drags in the shifting current. the winds lose a little of their fierceness as they drop into the valley, and they seem to have left behind them all the sounds of the outer world which they usually bear. if now and then they waft hitherward the long call of a locomotive, they soften it till it is only a dreamy reminder. it is strange that in a spot so specially full of the tokens of last year's life,--the dry grasses, the old oak leaves not yet pushed off by the new buds,--where the only green is of the hemlocks and laurels that have weathered the winter,--it is strange that in such a spot one should feel the immanence of spring. perhaps it is the bluebird that does it. for it is the bluebird's valley as well as mine. there are other birds there, but not many, and it is the bluebird which best voices the spirit of the place. most birds in the spring imply an audience. the song sparrow, with the lift and the lilt of his song, sings to the universe; the red-wing calls to all the sunny world to be gleeful with him; the long-drawn sweetness of the meadowlark floats over broad meadows and wide horizons; the bobolink, in the tumbling eagerness of his jubilation, is for every one to hear. but the bluebird sings to himself. his gentle notes, not heard but overheard, are for those who listen softly. and in the yellow valley he is at home. i am at home, too, and i find there something that i find nowhere else so well. its charm is in the simpleness of its appeal:-- "only the mightier movement sounds and passes, only winds and rivers--" i bring back from it a memory of sunshine and grass, bird notes and running water, the broad realities of nature. nay, more than a memory--a mood that holds--a certain poise of spirit that comes from a sense of the largeness and sweetness and sufficiency of the whole live, growing world. spring grass--the rare fragrance of the spring air--is the call. the yellow valley holds the answer. v larkspurs and hollyhocks "jonathan, let's not have a garden." "what'll we live on if we don't?" "oh, of course, i don't mean that kind of a garden,--peas and potatoes and things,-- i mean flowers. let's not have a flower garden." "that seems easy enough to manage," he ruminated; "the hard thing would be to have one." "i know. and what's the use? there are always flowers enough, all around us, from may till october. let's just enjoy them." "i always have." i looked at him to detect a possible sarcasm in the words, but his face was innocent. "well, of course, so have i. but what i mean is--people when they have a country place seem to spend such a lot of energy doing things for themselves that nature is doing for them just over the fence. there was christabel vincent last summer, grubbing over yellow lilies, or something, and i went over into the meadow and got a lovely armful of lilies and brought them in, and no grubbing at all." "perhaps grubbing was what she was after," said jonathan. "well, anyway, she talked as if it was lilies." "i don't know that that matters," he said. jonathan is sometimes so acute about my friends that it is almost annoying. * * * * * this conversation was one of many that occurred the winter before we took up the farm. we went up in april that year, and we planted our corn and our potatoes and all the rest, but no flowers. that part we left to nature, and she responded most generously. from earliest spring until october--nay, november--we were never without flowers: brave little white saxifrage and hepaticas, first of all, then bloodroot and arbutus, adder's-tongue and columbine, shad-blow and dogwood, and all the beloved throng of them, at our feet and overhead. in may the pink azalea and the buttercups, in june the laurel and the daisies and--almost best of all--the dear clover. in summer the deep woods gave us orchids, and the open meadows lilies and black-eyed susans. in september the river-banks and the brooks glowed for us with cardinal-flower and the blue lobelia, and then, until the frosts settled into winter, there were the fringed gentians and the asters and the goldenrod. and still the half has not been told. if i tried to name all that gay company, my tale would be longer than homer's catalogue of the ships. in early july a friend brought me in a big bunch of sweet peas. i buried my face in their sweetness; then, as i held them off, i sighed. "oh, dear!" i said. "what's 'oh, dear'?" said jonathan, as he took off his ankle-clips. he had just come up from the station on his bicycle. "nothing. only why do people have magenta sweet peas with red ones and pink ones--that special pink? it's just the color of pink tooth-powder." "you might throw away the ones you don't like." "no, i can't do that. but why does anybody grow them? if i had sweet peas, i'd have white ones, and pale lavender ones, and those lovely salmon-pink ones, and maybe some pale yellow ones--" "sweet peas have to be planted in march," said jonathan, as he trundled his wheel off toward the barn. "of course," i called after him, "i'm not _going_ to plant any. i was only saying _if_." perhaps the sweet peas began it, but i really think the whole thing began with the phlox. one afternoon in august i walked down the road through the woods to meet jonathan. as he came up to me and dismounted i held out to him a spray of white phlox. "where do you suppose i found it?" i asked. "down by the old talcott place," he hazarded. "no. there is some there, but this was growing under our crab-apple trees, right beside the house." "well, now, it must have been some of aunt deborah's. i remember hearing uncle ben say she used to have her garden there; that must have been before he started the crab orchard. why, that phlox can't be less than forty years old, anyway." "dear me!" i took back the delicate spray; "it doesn't look it." "no. don't you wish you could look like that when you're forty?" he philosophized; and added, "is there much of it?" "five or six roots, but there won't be many blossoms, it's so shady." "we might move it and give it a chance." "let's! we'll dig it up this fall, and put it over on the south side of the house, in that sunny open place." when october came, we took aunt deborah's phlox and transplanted it to where it could get the sunshine it had been starving for all those years. i sat on a stump and watched jonathan digging the holes. "you don't suppose henry will cut them down for weeds when they come up, do you?" i said. "seems probable," said jonathan. "you might stick in a few bulbs that'll come up early and mark the spot." "oh, yes. and we could put a line of sweet alyssum along each side, to last along after the bulbs are over." "you can do that in the spring if you want to. i'll bring up some bulbs to-morrow." * * * * * the winter passed and the spring came--sweet, tormenting. "jonathan," i said at luncheon one day, "i got the sweet alyssum seed this morning. "sweet alyssum?" he looked blank. "what do you want sweet alyssum for? it's a foolish flower. i thought you weren't going to have a garden, anyway." "i'm not; but don't you remember about the phlox? we said we'd put in some sweet alyssum to mark it--so it wouldn't get cut down." "the bulbs will do that, and when they're gone it will be high enough to show." "well, i have the seed, and i might as well use it. it won't do any harm." "no. i don't believe sweet alyssum ever hurt anybody," said jonathan. that evening when he came in i met him in the hall. i had the florist's catalogue in my hand. "jonathan, it says english daisies are good for borders." "borders! what do you want of borders?" "why, up on the farm--the phlox, you know." "oh, the phlox. i thought you had sweet alyssum for a border." he took off his coat and i drew him into the study. "why, yes, but that was such a little package. i don't believe there would be enough. and i thought i could try the english daisies, too, and if one didn't do well perhaps the other would. and look what it says-- no, never mind the newspaper yet--there isn't any news--just look at this about pansies." "pansies! you don't want _them_ for a border!" "why, no, not exactly. but, you see, the phlox won't blossom till late august, and it says that if you plant this kind of pansies very early, they blossom in june, and then if you cover them they live over and blossom again the next may. and pansies are so lovely! look at that picture! don't you love those french-blue ones?" "i like pansies. i don't know about the nationalities," said jonathan. "of course, if you want to bother with them, go ahead." he picked up his paper. "oh, it won't be any bother. they take care of themselves. please, your pencil-- i'm going to mark the colors i want." we went up soon after to look at the farm. we found it very much as we had left it, except that there hung about it that indescribable something we call spring. we tramped about on the spongy ground, and sniffed the sweet air, and looked at the apple buds, and kicked up the soft, matted maple leaves to see the grass starting underneath. "oh, jonathan! our bulbs!" i exclaimed. we hurried over to them and lifted up the thick blanket of leaves and hay we had left over them. "look! a crocus!" i said. "and here's a snowdrop! let's take off these leaves and give them a chance." "dear me!" i sighed; "isn't it wonderful? to think those hard little bullets we put in last fall should do all this! and here's the phlox just starting--look--" "oh, you can't kill phlox," said jonathan imperturbably. "all the better. i hate not giving people credit for things just because they come natural." "that is a curious sentence," said jonathan. "never mind. you know what i mean. you've understood a great many more curious ones than that. listen, jonathan. why couldn't i put in my seeds now? i brought them along." "why--yes--it's pretty early for anything but peas, but you can try, of course. what are they? sweet alyssum and pansy?" "yes--and i did get a few sweet peas too," i hesitated. "i thought henry hadn't much to do yet, and perhaps he could make a trench--you know it needs a trench." "yes, i know," said jonathan. i think he smiled. "let's see your seeds." "they're at the house. come over to the south porch, where it's warm, and we'll plan about them." i opened the bundle and laid out the little packets with their gay pictures indicating what the seeds within might be expected to do. "sweet alyssum and pansies," i said, "and here are the sweet peas." jonathan took them--"'dorothy eckford, lady grisel hamilton, gladys unwin, early dawn, white spencer,' by george! you mean to keep henry busy! here's ten ounces of peas!" "they were so much cheaper by the ounce," i murmured. "and--hold up! did you know they gave you some asters? these aren't sweet peas." "no--i know--but i thought--you see, sweet peas are over by august, and asters go on all through october--don't you remember what lovely ones christabel had?" "hm! but isn't the world full of asters, anyway, in september and october, without your planting any more?" he grinned a little. "i thought that was your idea--you said christabel grubbed so." "why, yes; but asters aren't any trouble. you just put them in--" "and weed them." "yes--and weed them; but i wouldn't mind that." "but here's some larkspur!" "yes, but i didn't buy that," i explained, hurriedly. "christabel sent me that. she thought i might like some from her garden--she has such lovely larkspurs, don't you remember? and i just brought them along." "yes. so i see. is that all you've just brought along?" "yes--except the cosmos. the florist advised that, and i thought there might be a place for it over by the fence. and of course we needn't use it if we don't want to. i can give it to mrs. stone." "but here's some nasturtiums!" "oh--i forgot about them--but i didn't buy them either. they came from the department of agriculture or something. there were some carrots and parsnips, and things like that, too, all in a big brown envelope. i knew you had all the other things you wanted, so i just brought these. but of course i don't have to plant _them_, either." "but you don't like nasturtiums. you've always said they made you think of railway stations and soldiers' homes--" "well, i did use to feel that way,--anchors and crosses and rock-work on big shaved lawns,--and, besides, nasturtiums always seemed to be the sort of flowers that people picked with short stems, and tied up in a wad, and stuck in a blue-glass goblet, and set on a table with a red cover on it. i did have horrible associations with nasturtiums." "then why in thunder do you plant them?" "i only thought--if there was a drought this summer--you know they don't mind drought; millie sutphen told me that. and she had a way of cutting them with long stems, so they trailed, and they were really lovely. and then--there the package _was_--i thought it wouldn't do any harm to take it." "oh, you don't have to apologize," said jonathan. "i didn't understand your plan, that was all. i'll go and see henry about the trench." i sat on the sunny porch and the march wind swept by the house on each side of me. i gloated over my seed packets. would they come up? of course other people's seeds came up, but would mine? it was very exciting. i pinched open a corner of the lady grisel hamiltons and poured some of the pretty, smooth, fawn-colored balls into my hand. then i opened the cosmos--what funny long thin ones! how long should i have to wait till they began to come up? i read the directions--"plant when all danger from frost is past." oh, dear! that meant may--another whole month! well, i would get in my sweet peas and risk my pansies and alyssum, anyhow. and i jumped off the porch and went back to the phlox to plan out my campaign. * * * * * by early may we were settled on the farm once more. my pansies and alyssum were up--at least i believed they were up, but i spent many minutes of each day kneeling by them and studying the physiognomy of their cotyledons. i led jonathan out to them one sunday morning, and he regarded them with indulgence if not with enthusiasm. as he stooped to throw out a bunch of pebbles in one of the new beds i stopped him. "oh, don't! those are my mizpah stones." "your what!" "why, just some little stones to mark a place. some of the nasturtiums are there. i didn't know whether they were going to do anything--they looked so like chips--and then, being sent free that way--but they are. "how do you know? they aren't up." "no, but they will be soon. i--why, i just thought i'd see what they were doing." "so you dug them up?" he probed. "not them--just _it_--just one. that's why i marked the place. i didn't want to keep disturbing different ones. now what _are_ you laughing at? wouldn't you have wanted to know? and you wouldn't want to dig up different ones all the time! i don't know much about gardening, but--" "i'm not laughing," said jonathan. "of course i should have wanted to know. and it is certainly better not to dig up different ones. there! have i put your mizpah back right?" * * * * * a few days later jonathan wheeled into the yard and over near where i was kneeling by the phlox. "i saw a lady-slipper bud almost out to-day," he said. "did you? look at my sweet alyssum. it's grown an inch since yesterday," i said. "don't you think i could plant my cosmos and asters now?" "thunder!" said jonathan; "don't you care more about the pink lady-slipper than about your blooming little sweet alyssum?" "why, yes, of course. i _love_ lady-slippers. you know i do," i protested; "only--you see--i can't explain exactly--but--it seems to make a difference when you plant a thing yourself. and, oh, jonathan! won't you _please_ come here and tell me if these are young pansies or only plantain? i'm so afraid of pulling up the wrong thing. i do wish somebody would make a book with pictures of all the cotyledons of all the different plants. it's so confusing. millie had an awful time telling marigold from ragweed last summer. she had to break off a tip of each leaf and taste it. why do you just stand there looking like that? please come and help." but jonathan did not move. he stood, leaning on his wheel, regarding me with open amusement, and possibly a shade of disapproval. "lord!" he finally remarked; "you've got it!" "got what?" i said, though i knew. "the garden germ." * * * * * yes. there was no denying it. i had it. i have it still, and there is very little chance of my shaking it off. it is a disease that grows with what it feeds on. now and then, indeed, i make a feeble fight against its inroads: i will not have another flower-bed, i will not have any more annuals, i will have only things that live on from year to year and take care of themselves. but-- "alas, alas, repentance oft before i swore--but was i sober when i swore? and then--and then--came spring--" and the florist's catalogues! and is any one who has once given way to them proof against the seductions of those catalogues? those asters! those larkspurs! those foxgloves and poppies and canterbury bells! all that ravishing company, mine at the price of a few cents and a little grubbing. mine! there is the secret of it. out in the great and wonderful world beyond my garden, nature works her miracles constantly. she lays her riches at my feet; they are mine for the gathering. but to work these miracles myself,--to have my own little hoard that looks to me for tending, for very life,--that is a joy by itself. my little garden bed gives me something that all the luxuriance of woods and fields can never give--not better, not so good, perhaps, but different. once having known the thrill of watching the first tiny shoot from a seed that i have planted myself, once having followed it to leaf and flower and seed again, i can never give it up. my garden is not very big nor very beautiful. perhaps the stretch of rocks and grass and weeds beside the house--an expanse which not even the wildest flight of the imagination could call a lawn--perhaps this might be more pleasing if the garden were not there, but it is there, and there it will stay. it means much grubbing. just putting in seeds and then weeding is, i find, no mere affair of rhetoric. moreover, i am introduced through my garden to an entirely new set of troubles: beetles and cutworms and moles and hens and a host of marauding creatures above ground and below, whose number and energy amaze me. and each summer seems to add to their variety and resourcefulness. clearly, the pleasures of a garden are not commensurate with its pains. and yet-- but there is one kind of joy which it gives me at which even the scoffer--to wit, jonathan--does not scoff. it began with aunt deborah's phlox. then came christabel's larkspur. the next summer mrs. stone sent me over some of her hardy little fall asters--"artemishy," she called them. and anne stafford sent on some hollyhock seeds culled from emerson's garden. and great-aunt sarah was dividing her peony roots, and said i might take one. and cousin patty asked me if i wouldn't like some of her mother's old-fashioned pinks. and so it goes. and so it will go, i hope, to the end of the long day. each year my garden has in it more of my friends, and as i look at it i can adopt poor ophelia's pretty speech in a new meaning, and say, "larkspur--that's for remembrance; hollyhocks--that's for thoughts." remembrance of all those dear other gardens which i have come to know, and in whose beauties i am coming to have a share; thoughts of all those dear other gardeners upon whom, as upon me, the miracle of the seed has laid a spell from which they can never escape. vi the farm sunday i have never been able to discover why it is that things always happen sunday morning. we mean to get to church. we speak of it almost every sunday, unless there is a steady downpour that puts it quite out of the question. but, somehow, between nine and ten o'clock on a sunday morning seems to be the farm's busiest time. if there are new broods of chickens, they appear then; if there is a young calf coming, it is his birthday; if the gray cat--an uninvited resident of the barn--must go forth on marauding expeditions, he chooses this day for his evil work, and the air is rent with shrieks of robins, or of cat-birds, or of phoebes, and there is a wrecked nest, and scattered young ones, half-fledged, that have to be gathered into a basket and hung up in the tree again by our united efforts. and always there is the same conversation: "well, what about church?" "church! it's half-past ten now." "we can't do it. too bad!" "now, if it hadn't been for that cat!"--or that hen--or that calf! there are many sunday morning stories that might be told, but one must be told. it was a hot, still sunday in july. the hens sought the shade early, and stood about with their beaks half open and a distant look in their eyes, as if they saw you but chose to look just beyond you. it always irritates me to see the hens do that. it makes me feel hotter. such a day it was. but things on the farm seemed propitious, and we said at breakfast that we would go. "i've just got to take that two-year-old devon down to the lower pasture," said jonathan, "and then i'll harness. we ought to start early, because it's too hot to drive kit fast." "do you think you'd better take the cow down this morning?" i said, doubtfully. "couldn't you wait until we come back?" "no; that upper pasture is getting burned out, and she ought to get into some good grass this morning. i meant to take her down last night." "well, do hurry." i still felt dubious. "oh, it's only five minutes' walk down the road," said jonathan easily. "i'm all ready for church, except for these shoes. i'll have the carriage at the door before you're dressed." i said no more, but went upstairs, while jonathan started for the barnyard. a few minutes later i heard from that direction the sounds of exhortation such as are usually employed towards "critters." they seemed to be coming nearer. i glanced out of a front window, and saw jonathan and his cow coming up the road past the house. "where are you taking her?" i called. "i thought you meant to go the other way." "so i did," he shouted, in some irritation. "but she swung up to the right as she went out of the gate, and i couldn't head her off in time. oh, there's bill russell. head her round, will you, bill? there, now we're all right." "i'll be back in ten minutes," he called up at my window as he repassed. i watched them go back up the road. at the big farm gate the cow made a break for the barnyard again, but the two men managed to turn her. just beyond, at the fork in the road, i saw bill turn down towards the cider-mill, while jonathan kept on with his convoy over the hill. i glanced at the clock. it was not yet nine. there was plenty of time, of course. at half-past nine i went downstairs again, and wandered out toward the big gate. it seemed to me time for jonathan to be back. in the sunday hush i thought i heard sounds of distant "hi-ing." they grew louder; yes, surely, there was the cow, just appearing over the hill and trotting briskly along the road towards home. and there was jonathan, also trotting briskly. he looked red and warm. i stepped out into the road to keep the cow from going past, but there was no need. she swung cheerfully in at the big gate, and fell to cropping the long grass just inside the fence. jonathan slowed down beside me, and, pulling out his handkerchief, began flapping the dust off his trousers while he explained:-- "you see, i got her down there all right, but i had to let down the bars, and while i was doing that she went along the road a bit, and when she saw me coming she just kicked up her heels and galloped." "how did you stop her?" i asked. "i didn't. the maxwells were coming along with their team, and they headed her back for me. then they went on. only by that time, you see, she was a bit excited, and when we came along back to those bars she shot right past them, and never stopped till she got here." i looked at her grazing quietly inside the fence. "she doesn't look as though she had done so much,"--and then, as i glanced at jonathan, i could not forbear saying,--"but you do." "i suppose i do." he gave his trousers a last flick, and, putting up his handkerchief, shifted his stick to his right hand. "well, put her back in the inner yard," i said, "and this afternoon i'll help you." "put her back!" said jonathan. "not much! you don't think i'd let a cow beat me that way!" "but jonathan, it's half-past nine!" "what of it? i'll just work her slowly--she's quiet now, you see, and the bars are open. there won't be any trouble." "oh, i wish you wouldn't," i said. but, seeing he was firm, "well, if you _will_ go, i'll harness." jonathan looked at me ruefully. "that's too bad--you're all dressed." he wavered, but i would take no concessions based on feminine equipment. "oh, that doesn't matter. i'll get my big apron. first you start her out, and i'll keep her from going towards the house or down to the mill." jonathan sidled cautiously through the gate and around the grazing cow. then, with a gentle and ingratiating "hi there, bossie!" he managed to turn her, still grazing, towards the road. while the grass held out she drifted along easily enough, but when she reached the dirt of the roadway she raised her head, flicked her tail, and gave a little hop with her hind quarters that seemed to me indicative of an unquiet spirit. but i stood firm and jonathan was gently urgent, and we managed to start her on the right road once more. she was not, however, going as slowly as jonathan had planned, and it was with some misgivings that i donned my apron and went in to harness kit. i led her around to the carriage-house and put her into the buggy, and still he had not returned. i got out the lap robe, shook it, and folded it neatly on the back of the seat. no jonathan! there was nothing more for me to do, so i took off my apron and climbed into the carriage to wait. the carriage-house was as cool a place as one could have found. both its big sliding doors were pushed back, one opening out toward the front gate, the other, opposite, opening into the inner barnyard. i sat and looked out over the rolling, sunny country and felt the breeze, warm, but fresh and sweet, and listened to the barn swallows in the barnyard behind me, and wondered, as i have wondered a thousand times, why in new england the outbuildings always have so much better views than the house. ten o'clock! where _was_ jonathan? the morehouses drove past, then the elkinses; they went to the baptist. ten minutes past! there went the o'neils--they belonged to our church--and the scrantons, and billy howard and his sister, driving fast as usual; they were always late. quarter-past ten! well, we might as well give up church. i thought of unharnessing, but i was very comfortable where i was, and kit seemed contented as she stood looking out of the door. hark! what was that? it sounded like the beat of hoofs in the lane--the cattle wouldn't come up at this hour! i stood up to see past the inner barnyard and off down the lane. "what on earth!" i said to myself. for--yes--surely--that was the two-year-old devon coming leisurely up the lane towards the yard. in a few moments jonathan's head appeared, then his shoulders, then his entire dusty, discouraged self. yes, somehow or other, they must have made the round trip. as this dawned upon me, i smiled, then i laughed, then i sat down and laughed again till i was weak and tearful. it was cruel, and by the time jonathan had reached the carriage-house and sunk down on its threshold i had recovered enough to be sorry for him. but i was unfortunate in my first remark. "why, jonathan," i gasped, "what _have_ you been doing with that cow?" jonathan mopped his forehead. "having iced tea under the trees. couldn't you see that to look at me?" he replied, almost savagely. "you poor thing! i'll make you some when we go in. but do tell me, how did you _ever_ get around here again from the back of the farm that way?" "easy enough," said jonathan. "i drove her along to the pasture in great shape, only we were going a little fast. she tried to dodge the bars, but i turned her in through them all right. but some idiot had left the bars down at the other end of the pasture--between that and the back lots, you know--and that blamed cow went for that opening, just as straight--" i began to shake again. "oh, that brought you out by the huckleberry knoll, and the ledges! why, she could go anywhere!" "she could, and she did," said jonathan grimly. he leaned back against the doorpost, immersed in bitter reminiscence. "she--certainly--did. i chased her up the ledges and through the sumachs and down through the birches and across the swamp. oh, we did the farm, the whole blamed farm. what time is it?" "half-past ten," i said gently; and added, "what are you going to do with her now?" his jaw set in a fashion i knew. "i'm going to put her in that lower pasture." i saw it was useless to protest. church was a vanished dream, but i began to fear that sunday dinner was also doomed. "do you want me to help?" i asked. "oh, no," said jonathan. "i'll put her in the barn till i can get a rope, and then i'll lead her." however, i did help get her into the barn. then while he went for his rope i unharnessed. when he came back, he had changed into a flannel shirt and working trousers. he entered the barn and in a few moments emerged, pulling hard on the rope. nothing happened. "go around the other way," he called, "and take a stick, and poke that cow till she starts." i went in at the back door, slid between the stanchions into the cow stall, and gingerly poked at the animal's hind quarters and said, "hi!" until at last, with a hunching of hips and tossing of head, she bounded out into the sunny barnyard. "she'll be all right now," said jonathan. i watched them doubtfully, but they got through the bars and as far as the road without incident. at the road she suddenly balked. she twisted her horns and set her front legs. i hurried down from my post of observation in the carriage-house door, and said "hi!" again. "that's no good," panted jonathan; "get your stick again. now, when i pull, you hit her behind, and she'll come. i guess she hasn't been taught to lead yet." "if she has, she has apparently forgotten," i replied. "now, then, you pull!" the creature moved on grudgingly, with curious and unlovely sidewise lunges and much brandishing of horns, where the rope was tied. "hit her again, now!" said jonathan. "oh, _hit_ her! hit her harder! she doesn't feel that. _hit_ her! there! now, she's coming." truly, she did come. but i am ashamed to think how i used that stick. as we progressed up the road, over the hill, and down to the lower pasture, there kept repeating themselves over and over in my head the lines:-- "the sergeant pushed and the corporal pulled, and the three they wagged along." but i did not quote these to jonathan until afterwards. there was something else, too, that i did not quote until afterwards. this was the remark of a sailor uncle of mine: "a man never tackled a job yet that he didn't have to have a woman to hold on to the slack." * * * * * so much for sunday business. but it should not for a moment be supposed that sunday is full of these incidents. it is only for a little while in the morning. after the church hour, about eleven o'clock or earlier, the farm settles down. the "critters" are all attended to, the chicks are stowed, the cat has disappeared, the hens have finished all their important business and are lying on their sides in their favorite dirt-holes enjoying their dust-baths, so still, yet so disheveled that i used to think they were dead, and poke them to see--with what cacklings and flutterings resulting may be imagined. i have often wished for the hen's ability to express indignation. yes, the farm is at peace, and as we sit under the big maples it seems to be reproaching us--"see how quiet everything is! and you couldn't even manage church!" other people seem to manage it very comfortably and quite regularly. on sunday morning our quiet little road, unfrequented even by the ubiquitous automobile, is gay with church-goers. "gay" may seem the wrong word, but it is quite the right one. in the city church-going is rather a sober affair. people either walk or take cars. they wear a certain sort of clothes, known as "church clothes," which represent a sort of hedging compromise between their morning and their afternoon wear. they approach the church in decorous silence; as they emerge they exchange subdued greetings, walk a block or two in little companies, then scatter to their homes and their sunday dinners. but in the country everybody but the village people drives, and the roads are full of teams,--buggies, surreys, phaetons,--the carriages newly washed, the horses freshly groomed, the occupants scrupulously dressed in the prettiest things they own--their "sunday-go-to-meeting" ones, which means something quite different from "church clothes." as one nears the village there is some friendly rivalry between horses, there is the pleasure of "catching up" with neighbors' teams, or of being caught up with, and at the church door there is the business of alighting and hitching the horses, and then, if it is early, waiting about outside for the "last bell" before going in. even in the church itself there is more freedom and variety than in our city tabernacles. in these there are always the same memorial windows to look at,--except perhaps once in ten years when somebody dies and a new one goes in,--but in the country stained glass is more rare. in many it has not even gained place at all, and the panes of clear glass let in a glory of blueness and whiteness and greenness to rejoice the heart of the worshiper. in others, more ambitious, alas! there is ground glass with tinted borders; but this is not very disturbing, especially when the sashes are set open aslant, and the ivy and virginia creeper cluster just outside, in bright greens and dark, or cast their shifting shadows on the glass, a dainty tracery of gray on silver. and at the altar there are flowers--not florist flowers, contracted for by the year, but neighborhood flowers. there are mrs. cummings's peonies--she always has such beauties; and mrs. hiram brown's roses--nobody else has any of just that shade of yellow; and mary lord's foxgloves and larkspur--what a wonder of yellow and white and blue! each in its season, the flowers are full of personal significance. the choir, too, is made up of our friends. there is hiram brown, and jennie sewall, and young mrs. harris, back for three weeks to visit her mother, and little sally winter, a shy new recruit, very pink over her promotion. the singing is perhaps not as finished as that of a paid quartette, but it is full of life and sweetness, and it makes a direct human appeal that the other often misses. after the service people go out slowly, waiting for this friend and that, and in the vestibule and on the steps and in the church-yard they gather in groups. the men saunter off to the sheds to get the horses, and the women chat while they wait. then the teams come up, as many as the roadway will hold, and there is the bustle of departure, the taking of seats, the harsh grinding of wheels against the wagon body as the driver "cramps" to turn round, then good-byes, and one after another the teams start off, out into the open country for another week of quiet, busy farm life. yes, church is distinctively a social affair, and very delightful, and when our cows and hens and calves and other "critters" do not prevent, we are glad to have our part in it all. when they do, we yet feel that we have a share in it simply through seeing "the folks" go by. it is a distinct pleasure to see our neighbors trundling along towards the village. and then, if luck has been against us and we cannot join them, it is a pleasure to lie in the grass and listen to the quiet. after the last church-goers have passed, the road is deserted for two hours, until they begin to return. the neighboring farms are quiet, the "folks" are away, or, if some of the men are at home, they are sitting on their doorsteps smoking. if there is no wind, or if it is in the right quarter, we can hear the church bells, faintly now, and now very clear; there is the first church bell, and the baptist; there is st. john's, on a higher note, and trinity, a little lower. after a time even the bells cease, and there is no sound but the wind in the big maples and the bees as they drone among the flower heads. sunday, at least sunday on a connecticut farm, has a distinct quality of its own. i can hardly say what it means to me--no one, i suppose, could say all that it means. to call it a day of rest does not individualize it enough. it has to be described not so much in terms of rest as of balance and height. i think of the week as a long, sweeping curve, like the curve of a swift, deep wave at sea, and sunday is the crest, the moment of poise, before one is drawn down into the next great concave, then up again, to pause and look off, and it is sunday once more. the weather does not matter. if it rains, you get one kind of pause and outlook--the intimate, indoor kind. if the sun shines, you get another kind--wide and bright. and what you do does not matter so long as it is different from the week, and so long as it expresses and develops that peculiar sunday quality of balance and height. i can imagine nothing drearier than seven days all alike, and seven more, and seven more! sundays are the big beads on the chain. they need not be all of the same color, but there must be the big beads to satisfy the eye and the finger-tip. and a new england sunday always is different. whatever changes may have come or may be coming elsewhere, in new england sunday has its own atmosphere. over the fields and woods and rocks there is a sense of poise between reminiscence and expectancy. the stir of the morning church-going brightens but does not mar this. it adds the human note--rather not a note, but a quiet chord of many tones. and after it comes a hush. the early afternoon of a new england sunday is the most absolutely quiet thing imaginable. it is the precise middle of the wave crest, the moment when motion ceases. from that point time begins to stir again. life resumes. there is a certain amount of desultory intercourse between farm and farm. if people are engaged, or mean to be, they drive out together; if they are married, they go home to "his folks" or "her folks." friends walk together, farmers saunter along the road or back on the farms to "take a look" at things. consciously or not, and usually not, there is a kind of synthesis taking place, a gathering together of the scattered threads of many interests, a vague sense of the wholeness of life. at five o'clock the cows turn towards home, and graze their leisurely way along the barnyard lanes. and with the cows come duties,-- chore-time,--then the simple, cold supper, then the short, quiet evening, and off we swing into the night that sweeps us away from the crest down into the long, blind hollow of the week. vii the grooming of the farm there is a story about an artist who espied a picturesque old man and wished to paint him. at the time appointed the model arrived--new-shaven, new-washed, freshly attired, with all the delicious and incommunicable flavor of the years irretrievably lost! doubtless there are many such stories; doubtless the thing has happened many, many times. and i am sorrier for the artist now than i used to be, because it is happening to me. only it is not an old man--it is the farm, the blessed old farm, unkempt, unshorn, out at the elbows. in spite of itself, in spite of me, in spite of everybody, the farm is being groomed. it is nobody's fault, of course. like most hopelessly disastrous things, it has all been done with the best possible intentions, perhaps it has even been necessary, but it is none the less deplorable. it began, i think, with the sheds. they had in ages past been added one after another by a method of almost unconscious accretion, as the chambered nautilus makes his shell. they looked as if they had been, not exactly built, but rather laid together in the desultory, provisional fashion of the farmer, and held by an occasional nail, or the natural adhesion of the boards themselves. they leaned confidingly against the great barn and settled comfortably among the bare faces of rock in the barnyard, as if they had always been there, as, indeed, they had been there longer than any one now living can remember. neither they nor the barn had ever been painted, and they had all weathered to a silver-gray--not the gray of any paint or stain ever made, but the gray that comes only to certain kinds of wood when it has lived out in the rain and the sunshine for fifty, seventy, a hundred years. it is to an old building what white hair is to an old lady. and as not all white hair is beautiful, so not all gray buildings are beautiful. but these were beautiful. when it rained, they grew dark and every knot-hole showed. when the sun came out and baked them dry, they paled to silver, and the smooth, rain-worn grooves and hollows of the boards glistened like a rifle barrel. the sheds were, i am afraid, not very useful. one, they said, had been built to hold ploughs, another for turkeys, another for ducks. one, the only one that was hen-tight, we used for the incarceration of confirmed "setters," and it thus gained the title of "durance vile." the rest were nameless, the abode of cobwebs and rats and old grain-bags and stolen nests and surprise broods of chickens, who dropped through cracks between loose boards and had to be extracted by jonathan with much difficulty. perhaps it was this that set him against them. at all events, he decided that they must go. i protested faintly, trying to think of some really sensible argument. "but durance vile," i said. "we need that. where shall we put the setters?" "no, we don't. that isn't the way to treat setters, anyway. they should be cooped and fed on meat." "i suppose you read that in one of those agricultural experiment station pamphlets," i said. many things that i consider disasters on the farm can be traced to one or another of these little pamphlets, and when a new one arrives i regard it with resignation but without cordiality. the sheds went, and i missed them. possibly the hens missed them too. they wandered thoughtfully about the barnyard, stepping rather higher than usual, cocking their heads and regarding me with their red-rimmed eyes as if they were cluckfully conjuring up old associations. did they remember durance vile? perhaps, but probably not. for all their philosophic airs and their attitudinizing, i know nobody who thinks less than a hen, or, at all events, their thinking is contemplative rather than practical. jonathan also surveyed the raw spot. but jonathan's mind is practical rather than contemplative. "just the place for a carriage-house," he remarked. and the carriage-house was perpetrated. perhaps a hundred years from now it will have been assimilated, but at present it stands out absolutely undigested in all its uncompromising newness of line and color. its ridgepole, its roof edges, its corners, look as if they had been drawn with a ruler, where those of the old barn were sketched freehand. the barn and the sheds had settled into the landscape, the carriage-house cut into it. even jonathan saw it. "we'll paint it the old-fashioned red to make it more in keeping," he said apologetically. but old-fashioned red is apparently not to be had in new-fashioned cans. and the farm remained implacable: it refused to digest the carriage-house. i felt rather proud of the farm for being so firm. the next blow was a heavy one. in the middle of the cowyard there was a wonderful gray rock, shoulder high, with a flat top and three sides abrupt, the other sloping. i used to sit on this rock and feed the hens and watch the "critters" come into the yard at milking-time. i like "critters," but when there are more than two or three in the yard, including some irresponsible calves, i like to have some vantage-point from which to view them--and be viewed. our cattle are always gentle, but some of them are, to use a colloquial word that seems to me richly descriptive, so "nose-y." of course a rock like this did not belong in a well-planned barnyard. nowhere, except in new england, or perhaps in switzerland, would one occur. but in our part of new england they occur so thickly that they are hard to dodge, even in building a house. i remember an entry in an old ledger discovered in the attic: "to blasten rocks in my sollor--£ ." without doubt the rock was in the way. jonathan used to speak about it in ungentle terms every time he drove in and turned around. but this gave me no anxiety, because i felt sure that it had survived much stronger language than his. i did not think about dynamite. probably when the psalmist wrote about the eternal hills he did not think about dynamite either. and dynamite did the deed. it broke my pretty rock into little pieces as one might break up a chunk of maple sugar with a pair of scissors. it made a beautiful barnyard, but i missed my refuge, my stronghold. but this was only the beginning. back of the barns lay the farm itself--scores of acres, chiefly rocks and huckleberry bushes, with thistles and mullein and sumac. there were dry, warm slopes, where the birches grew; not the queenly paper birch of the north, but the girlish little gray birch with its veil of twinkling leaves and its glimmer of slender stems. there were rugged ledges, deep-shadowed with oak and chestnut; there were hot, open hillsides thick-set with cat-brier and blackberry canes, where one could never go without setting a brown rabbit scampering. it was a delectable farm, but not, in the ordinary sense, highly productive, and its appeal was rather to the contemplative than to the practical mind. jonathan was from the first infected with the desire of making the farm more productive--in the ordinary sense; and one day, when i wandered up to a distant corner, oh, dismay! there was a slope of twinkling birches--no longer twinkling--prone! cut, dragged, and piled up in masses of white stems and limp green leafage and tangled red-brown twigs! it was a sorry sight. i walked about it much, perhaps, as my white hens had walked about the barnyard, and to as little purpose. for the contemplative mind is no match for the practical. i knew this, yet i could not forbear saying, later:-- "jonathan, i was up near the long meadow to-day." "were you?" "o jonathan! those birches!" "what about them?" "all cut!" "oh, yes. we need that piece for pasturage." "oh, dear! we might as well not have a farm if we cut down all the birches." "we might as well not have a farm if we don't cut them down. they'll run us out in no time." "they don't look as if they would run anybody out--the dears!" "why, i didn't know you felt that way about them. we'll let that other patch stand, if you like." "_if_ i like!" i saved the birches, but other things kept happening. i went out one day and found one of our prettiest fence lines reduced to bare bones, all its bushes and vines--clematis, elderberry, wild cherry, sweet-fern, bitter-sweet--all cut, hacked, torn away. it looked like a collie dog in the summer when his long yellow fur has been sheared off. and, another day, it was a company of red lilies escaped along a bank above the roadside. there were weeds mixed in, to be sure, and some bushes, a delightful tangle--and all snipped, shaved to the skin! when i spoke about it, jonathan said: "i'm sorry. i suppose hiram was just making the place shipshape." "shipshape! this farm shipshape! you could no more make this farm shipshape than you could make a woodchuck look as though he had been groomed. the farm isn't a ship." "i hope it isn't a woodchuck, either," said jonathan. during the haying season there was always a lull. the hand of the destroyer was stayed. rather, every one was so busy cutting the hay that there was no time to cut anything else. one day in early august i took a pail and sauntered up the lane in the peaceful mood of the berry-picker--a state of mind as satisfactory as any i know. one is conscious of being useful--for what more useful than the accumulating of berries for pies? one has suitable ideals--the ideal of a happy home, since in attaining a happy home berry pies are demonstrably helpful. and one is also having a beautiful time. on my way i turned down the side lane to see how the blackberries were coming on. there lay my blackberry canes--lay, not stood--their long stems thick-set with fruit just turning from light red to dark. i do not love blackberries as i do birches; it was rather the practical than the contemplative part of me that protested that time, but it was with a lagging step that i went on, over the hill, to the berry patches. there another shock awaited me. where i expected to see green clumps of low huckleberries there were great blotches of black earth and gray ashy stems, and in the midst a heap of brush still sending up idle streamers and puffs of blue smoke. desolation of desolations! that they should do this thing to a harmless berry patch! they were not all burned. only the heart of the patch had been taken, and after the first shock i explored the edges to see what was left, but with no courage for picking. i came home with an empty pail and a mind severe. "jonathan," i said that night, "i thought you liked pies?" "i do," he said expectantly. "well, what do you like in them?" "berries, preferably." "oh, i thought perhaps you preferred cinders or dried briers." jonathan looked up inquiringly, then a light broke. "oh, you mean those blackberry bushes. didn't i tell you about that? that was a mistake." "so i thought," i said, unappeased. "i mean, i didn't mean them to be cut. it was that fool hobo i gave work to last week. i told him to cut the brush in the lane. idiot! i thought he knew a blackberry bush!" "with the fruit on it, too," i added, relenting toward jonathan a little. then i stiffened again. "how about the huckleberry patch? was that a mistake, too?" jonathan looked guilty, but held himself as a man should. "why, no," he said; "that is, hiram thought we needed more ground to plough up next year, and that's as good a piece as there is--no big rocks or trees, you know. and we must have crops, you know." "bless the rocks!" i burst out. "i wish there were more of them! if it weren't for the rocks the farm would be _all_ crops!" jonathan laughed, then we both laughed. "you talk as though that would be a misfortune," he said. "it would be simply unendurable," i replied. "jonathan," i added, "i am afraid you have not a proper subordination of values. i have heard of one farmer--just one--who had." "what is it?--and who was he?" said jonathan, submissively. i think he was relieved that the huckleberry question was not being followed up. "i believe he was your great-uncle by marriage. they say that there was a certain field that was full of butterfly-weed--you know, gorgeous orange stuff--" "i know," said he. "what about it?" "well, there was a meadow that was full of it, just in its glory when the grass was ready to cut. jonathan, what would you have done?" "go on," said jonathan. "well, he always mowed that field himself, and when he came to a clump of butterfly-weed, he always _mowed around_ it." "very pretty," said jonathan, in an impersonal way. "and that," i added, "is what i call having a proper subordination of values." "i see," said he. "and now," i went on, with almost too ostentatious sweetness, "if you will tell me where to find a huckleberry patch that is not already reduced to cinders, i will go out to-morrow and get some for pies." jonathan knew, and so did i, that there were still plenty of berry bushes left. nevertheless, he was moved. "now, see here," he began seriously, "i don't want to spoil the farm for you. only i don't know which things you like. if you'll just tell me the places you don't want touched, i'll speak to hiram about them." "really?" i exclaimed. "why, i'll tell you now, right away. there's the lane--you know, that mustn't be touched; and the ledges--but you couldn't do anything to those, of course, anyway." "no, even the hobo wouldn't tackle them," said jonathan grimly. "and the birches, the ones that are left. you promised me those, you know. and the swamp, of course, and the cedar knoll where the high-bush blueberries grow, and then--oh, yes--that lovely hillside beyond the long meadow where the sumac is, and the dogwood, and everything. and, of course, the rest of the huckleberries--" "the rest of the huckleberries!" said he. "that means all the farm. there isn't a spot as big as your hat where you can't show me some sort of a huckleberry bush." "so much the better," i said contentedly. "oh, come now," he protested. "be reasonable. even your wonderful farmer that you tell about did a little mowing. he mowed around the butterfly-weed, but he mowed. you're making the farm into solid butterfly-weed, and there'll be no mowing at all." "why, jonathan, i've left you the long meadow, and the corner meadow, and the hill orchard, and then there's the ten-acre lot for corn and potatoes--only i wish you wouldn't plant potatoes." "what's the matter with potatoes?" "oh, i don't know. first, they are too neat and green, and then they are all covered with potato-bug powder, and then they wither up and lie all around, and then they are dug, and the field is a sight! now, rye and corn! they're lovely from beginning to end." jonathan ruminated. "i seem to see myself expressing these ideas to hiram," he remarked dryly. "i suppose it all comes down to the simple question, what is the farm for?" i said. "i am afraid that is what hiram would think," said jonathan. "never mind about hiram," i said severely. "now really, away down deep, haven't you yourself a sneaking desire for--oh, for crops, and for having things look shipshape, as you call it? now, haven't you?" "i wonder," said jonathan, as though we were talking about a third person. "i don't wonder; i know. the trouble with men," i went on, "is that when they want to make a thing look well, all they can think of is cutting and chopping. look at a man when he goes to a party, or to have his picture taken! he always dashes to the barber's first--that is, unless there's a woman around to interfere. do you remember jack mason when he was married? face and neck the color of raw beef from sunburn, and hair cropped so close it made his head look like a drab egg!" "i didn't notice," said jonathan. "no, i suppose not. you would have done the same thing--you're all alike. look at horses! when men want to make a horse look stylish, why, chop off his tail, of course! and they are only beginning to learn better. when a man builds a house, what does he do? cuts down every tree, every bush and twig, and makes it 'shipshape,' as you call it. and then the women have to come along and plant everything all over again." "but things need cutting now and then," said jonathan. "you wouldn't like it, you know, if a man never went to the barber's. he'd look like a woodchuck." "there are worse-looking things than woodchucks. still, of course, there's a medium. possibly the woodchuck carries neglect to excess." the discussion rested there. i do not know whether jonathan expressed any of these ideas to hiram, but the grooming process appeared to be temporarily suspended. then one day my turn came. it was dusk, and i was sitting on an old log at the back of the orchard, looking out over the little swamp, all a-twinkle with fireflies. jonathan had been up the lane, prowling about, as he often does at nightfall, "to take a look at the farm." i heard his step in the lane, and he jumped over the bars at the far end of the orchard. there was a pause, then a vehement exclamation--too vehement to print. jonathan's remarks do not usually need editing, and i listened to these in the dusk in some degree of wonder, if not of positive enjoyment. finally i called out, "what's the matter?" "oh! you there?" he strode over. "matter! come and see what that fool hobo did." "you called him something besides that a moment ago," i remarked. "i hope so. whatever i called him, he's it. come over." he led me to the orchard edge, and there in the half light i saw a line of stubs and a pile of brush. "not your quince bushes!" i gasped. "just that," he said, grimly, and then burst into further unprintable phrases descriptive of the city-bred loafer. "if i ever give work to a hobo again, i'll be--" "sh-h-h," i said; and i could not forbear adding, "now you know how i have felt about those huckleberry bushes and birches and things, only i hadn't the language to express it." "you have language enough," said jonathan. undoubtedly jonathan was depressed. i had been depressed for some time on account of the grooming of my berry patches and fence lines, but now i found myself growing suddenly cheerful. i do not habitually batten on the sorrow of others, but this was a special case. for how could i be blind to the fact that chance had thrust a weapon into my hand? i knew that hereafter, at critical moments, i need only murmur "quince bushes" and discussion would die out. it made me feel very gentle towards jonathan, to be thus armed against him. gentle, but also cheerful. "jonathan," i said, "it's no use standing here. come back to the log where i was sitting." he came, with heavy tread. we sat down, and looked out over the twinkling swamp. the hay had just been cut, and the air was richly fragrant. the hush of night encompassed us, yet the darkness was full of life. crickets chirruped steadily in the orchard behind us. from a distant meadow the purring whistle of the whip-poor-will sounded in continuous cadence, like a monotonous and gentle lullaby. the woods beyond the open swamp, a shadowy blur against the sky, were still, except for a sleepy note now and then from some bird half-awakened. once a wood thrush sang his daytime song all through, and murmured part of it a second time, then sank into silence. "jonathan," i said at last, "the farm is rather a good place to be." "not bad." "let's not groom it too much. let's not make it too shipshape. after all, you know, it isn't really a ship." "nor yet a woodchuck, i hope," said jonathan. and i was content not to press the matter. viii "escaped from old gardens" in the days when i deemed it necessary to hunt down in my well-thumbed gray every flower of wood and field, and fit it to its latin name, i used often to meet this phrase. at first, being young, i resented it. i scorned gardens: their carefully planned and duly tended splendors were not for me. the orchid in the deep woods or by the edge of the lonely swamp, the rare and long-sought heather in the open moorland, these it was that roused my ardor. and to find that some newly discovered flower was not a wild flower at all, but merely a garden flower "escaped"! the very word carried a hint of reprobation. but as the years went on, the phrase gathered to itself meanings vague and subtle. i found myself welcoming it and regarding with a warmer interest the flower so described. from what old garden had it come? what associations and memories did it bring out of the past? had the paths where it grew been obliterated by the encroachments of a ruthless civilization, or had the tide of human life drawn away from it and left it to be engulfed by the forest from which it had once been wrested, with nothing left to mark it but a gnarled old lilac tree? i have chanced upon such spots in the heart of the wood, where the lilac and the apple tree and the old stoned cellar wall are all that are left to testify to the human life that once centred there. or had the garden from which its seed was blown only fallen into a quiet decay, deserted but not destroyed, left to bloom unchecked and untended, and fling its seeds to the summer winds that its flowers might "escape" whither they would? lately, i chanced upon such a garden. i was walking along a quiet roadside, almost dusky beneath the shade of close-set giant maples, when an unexpected fragrance breathed upon me. i lingered, wondering. it came again, in a warm wave of the august breeze. i looked up at the tangled bank beside me--surely, there was a spray of box peeping out through the tall weeds! there was a bush of it--another! ah! it was a hedge, a box hedge! here were the great stone steps leading up to the gate, and here the old, square capped fence-posts, once trim and white, now sunken and silver-gray. the rest of the fence was lying among the grasses and goldenrod, but the box still lived, dead at the top, its leafless branches matted into a hoary gray tangle, but springing up from below in crisp green sprays, lustrous and fragrant as ever, and richly suggestive of the past that produced it. for the box implies not merely human life, but human life on a certain scale: leisurely, decorous, well-considered. it implies faith in an established order and an assured future. a beautiful box hedge is not planned for immediate enjoyment; it is built up inch by inch through the years, a legacy to one's heirs. beside the gate-posts stood what must once have been two pillars of box. as i passed between them my feet felt beneath the matted weeds of many seasons the broad stones of the old flagged walk that led up through the garden to the house. following it, i found, not the house, but the wide stone blocks of the old doorsteps, and beyond these, a ruin--gray ashes and blackened brick, two great heaps of stone where the chimneys had been, with the stone slabs that lined the fireplaces fallen together. at one end was the deep stone cellar filled now with young beeches as tall as the house once was. just outside stood two cherry trees close to the old house wall--so close that they had burned with it and now stood, black and bare and gaunt, in silent comradeship. at the other end i almost stumbled into the old well, dark and still, with a glimmer of sky at the bottom. but i did not like the ruin, nor the black well lurking in the weeds and ashes. the garden was better, and i went back to it and followed the stone path as it turned past the end of the house and led, under another broad hedge of box now choked by lusty young maples, to the old rose-garden. beyond were giant lilacs, and groups of waxberry bushes covered with the pretty white balls that children love to string; there was the old-fashioned "burning-bush," already preparing its queer, angled berries for autumn splendors. and among these, still holding their own in the tangle, clumps of the tall, rose-lilac phloxes that the old people seem specially to have loved, swayed in the light breeze and filled the place with their heavy, languorous fragrance. truly, it is a lovely spot, my old garden, lovelier, perhaps, than when it was in its golden prime, when its hedges were faultlessly trimmed and its walks were edged with neat flower borders, when their smooth flagging-stones showed never a weed, and even the little heaps of earth piled up, grain by grain, by the industrious ants, were swept away each morning by the industrious broom. then human life centred here; now it is very far away. all the sounds of the outside world come faintly to this place and take on its quality of quiet,--the lowing of cows in the pastures, the shouts of men in the fields, the deep, vibrant note of the railroad train which goes singing across distances where its rattle and roar fail to penetrate. it is very still here. even the birds are quieter, and the crickets and the katydids less boisterous. the red squirrels move warily through the tree-tops with almost a chastened air, the black-and-gold butterflies flutter indolently about the heads of the phlox, a hummingbird, flashing green, hovers about some belated blossom-heads of the scarlet bee-balm, and then, as if to point the stillness, alights on an apple twig, looking, when at rest, so very small! only the cicada, as he rustles clumsily about with his paper wings against the flaking bark and yellowing leaves of an old apple tree, seems unmindful of the spell of silence that holds the place. and the garden is mine now--mine because i have found it, and every one else, as i like to believe, has forgotten it. next it is a grove of big old trees. would they not have been cut down years ago if any one had remembered them? and on the other side is a meadow whose thick grass, waist-high, ought to have been mowed last june and gathered into some dusky, fragrant barn. but it is forgotten, like the garden, and will go leisurely to seed out there in the sun; the autumn winds will sweep it and the winter snow will mat down its dried tangle. forgotten--and as i lie in the long grass, drowsy with the scent of the hedge and the phlox, i seem only a memory myself. if i stay too long i shall forget to go away, and no one will remember to find me. in truth, i feel not unwilling that it should be so. could there be a better place? "escaped from old gardens"! ah, foolish, foolish flowers! if i had the happiness to be born in an old garden, i would not escape. i would stay there, and dream there, forever! ix the country road on a june day, years ago, i was walking along our country road. at the top of a steep little hill i paused to rest and let my eyes luxuriate in the billowing greens and tender blues of the valley below. while i stood there my neighbor came slowly up from the garden, her apron over her head, a basket of green peas on her arm. "what a view you have up here on your hill!" i said. she drew back her apron and turned to look off. "yes," she said indulgently; "ye-e-s." then her face brightened and she turned to me with real animation: "but it's better in winter when the leaves is off, 'n' you c'n see the passin' on the lower road." fresh from the city as i was, with all its prejudices and intolerance upon me, i was partly amused, partly irritated, by her answer. so all this glory of greenness, all this wonder of the june woodland, was merely tolerated, while the baffled observer waited for the leaves to be "off"! and all for the sake of seeing--what? a few lumber wagons, forsooth, loaded with ties for the railway, a few cows driven along morning and evening, a few children trudging to and from school, the postman's buggy on its daily rounds, twice a week the meat cart, once a week the grocery wagon, once a month the "tea-man," and now and then a neighbor's team on its way to the feed-store or the blacksmith's shop down at "the corners." for this, then,--not for the beauty of the winter landscape, but for this poor procession of wayfarers, my neighbors waited with impatience. if i could, i would have snatched up their view bodily and carried it off with me, back to my own farm for my own particular delectation. it should never again have shoved itself in their way. but since that time i have lived longer in the country. if i have not made it my home for all twelve months, i have dwelt in it from early april to mid-december, and now, when i think of my neighbor's remark, it is with growing comprehension. i realize that i, in my patronizing one-sidedness, was quite wrong. city folk go to the country, as they say, to "get away"--justifiable enough, perhaps, or perhaps not. they seek spots remote from the centres; they choose deserted districts, untraveled roads; they criticize their ancestors unmercifully for their custom of building houses close to the road and keeping the front dooryard clear of shrubbery. but they who built those homes which are our summer refuge did not want to get away; they wanted to get together. the country was not their respite, it was their life, and the road was to them the emblem of race solidarity--nay, more than the emblem, it was the means to it. this is still the case with the country people, and as i live among them i am coming to a realization of the meaning of the road. in the city one can never get just this. there are streets, of course, but by their very multiplicity and complexity they lose their individual impressiveness and are merged in that great whole, the city. one recoils from them and takes refuge in the sense of one's own home. but in the country there is just the road. recoil from it? one's heart goes out to it. the road is a part of home, the part that reaches out to our friends and draws them to us or brings us to them. it is our outdoor clubhouse, it is the avenue of the expected and the unexpected, it is the home road. in a sense it does no more for us, and in some ways much less, than our city streets do. along these, too, our tradesmen's carts come to our doors, along these our friends must fare as they arrive or depart; we seek the streets at our outgoings and our incomings. but they are, after all, strictly a means. we use them, but when we enter our homes we forget them, or try to. our individual share in the street is not large. so much goes on and goes by that has only the most general bearing on our interests that we cease to give it our attention at all. it is not good form to watch the street, because it is not worth while. when children's voices fly in at our windows, we assume that they are other people's children, and they usually are. when we hear teams, we expect them to go by, and they usually do. when we hear a cab door slam, we take it for granted that it is before some other house, and usually it is. and if, having nothing better to do, we perchance walk to the window and glance out between the curtains, we are repaid by seeing nothing interesting and by feeling a little shamefaced besides. not so in the country. what happens along the road is usually our intimate concern. most of those who go by on it are our own acquaintances and neighbors, and are interesting as _such_. the rest are strangers, and interesting as such. for it is the rarity of the stranger that gives him his piquancy. and so in the country it is both good form and worth while to watch the road--to "keep an eye out," as they say. when jonathan and i first came to the farm, we were incased in a hard incrustation of city ways. when teams passed, we did not look up; when a wagon rattled, we did not know whose it was, and we said we did not care. when one of our neighbors remarked, casually, "heard bill smith's team go by at half-past eleven last night. wonder if the's anythin' wrong down his way," we stared at one another in amazement, and wondered, "now, how in the world did he know it was bill smith's team?" we smiled over the story of a postmistress who had the ill luck to be selling stamps when a carriage passed. she hastily shoved them out, and ran to the side window--too late! "sakes!" she sighed; "that's the second i've missed to-day!" we smiled, but i know now that if i had been in that postmistress's place i should have felt exactly as she did. when we began to realize the change in ourselves, we were at first rather sheepish and apologetic about it. we fell into the way of sitting where we could naturally glance out of the windows, but we did this casually, as if by chance, and said nothing about it. when august came, and dusk fell early and lamps were lighted at supper-time, i drew down the shades. but one night jonathan said, carelessly, "why do you pull them all the way down?" "why not?" i asked, with perhaps just a suspicion. "oh," he said, "it always seems so cheerful from the road to look in at a lighted window." i left them up, but i noticed that jonathan kept a careful eye on the shadowy road outside. was he trying to cheer it by pleasant looks, i wondered, or was he just trying to see all that went by? jonathan's seat is not so good as mine for observation. a big deutzia bush looms between his window and the road, while at my window only the tips of a waxberry bush obscure the view, and there is a door beside me. therefore jonathan was distinctly at a disadvantage. he offered to change seats, suggesting that there was a draft where i was, and that the light was bad for my eyes, but i found that i did not mind either of these things. one day a team passed while jonathan was carving. he looked up too late, hesitated, then said, rather consciously: "who was that? did you see?" "_i_ don't know," i said, with a far-away, impersonal air, as though the matter had no interest for me. but i hadn't the heart to keep up the pose, and i added: "perhaps you'll know. it was a white horse, and a business wagon with red wheels, and the man wore a soft felt hat, and there was a dog on the seat beside him." before i had finished, jonathan was grinning delightedly. "suppose we shake these city ways," he said. he deliberately got up, raised the shades, pushed back a curtain, and moved a jug of goldenrod. "there! can you see better now?" he asked. and i said cheerfully, "yes, quite a good deal better. and after this, jonathan, when you hear a team coming, why don't you stop carving till it goes by?" "i will," said jonathan. it was our final capitulation, and since then we have been much more comfortable. we run to the window whenever we feel inclined, and we leave our shades up at dusk without apology or circumlocution. we are coming to know our neighbors' teams by their sound, and we are proud of it. why, indeed, should we be ashamed of this human interest? why should we be elated that we can recognize a bluebird by his flight, and ashamed of knowing our neighbor's old bay by his gait? why should we boast of our power to recognize the least murmur of the deceptive grosbeak, and not take pride in being able to "spot" bill smith's team by the peculiar rattle of its board bottom as it crosses the bridge by the mill? is he not of more value than many grosbeaks? but how can we love our neighbor if we do not pay some attention to him--him and his horse and his cart and all that is his? and how shall we pay attention to him if we neglect the opportunities of the road, since for the rest he is busy and we are busy, and we belong each to our own farm? i stopped at a friendly door one day to ask, "have phil and jimmy gone by? i wanted to see them." "no, i haven't seen them." the bright-faced little lady stood in the doorway glancing over my shoulder out toward the sunny road. "have you seem them to-day, nellie?" she called into the dusky sitting-room. "no," she turned back to me, "we haven't seen them. and," she added, with gay directness, "nobody could get by the house _without_ our seeing them; i'm sure of that!" her remark pleased me immensely. i like this frank interest in the road very much. when i am at home, i have it myself, and i have stopped being ashamed of it. when i am on the road, i like to know that i am an object of interest to the dwellers in the houses i pass. i look up at the windows, whose tiny panes reflect the brightness of outdoors and tell me nothing of the life within, and i like to think that some one behind them knows that i am going by. often there is some sign of recognition--a motion of the hand through a parted curtain, or rarely a smiling face; now and then some one looks out from a doorway to send a greeting, or glances up from the garden or the well; but even without these tokens i still have the sense of being noticed, and i find it pleasant and companionable. in the city, when i go to see a friend, i approach a house that gives no sign. i mount to a noncommittal vestibule and push an impersonal button, and after the other necessary preliminaries i find my friends. in the country as i drive up to the house i notice curtains stirring, i hear voices, and before i have had time to get out and find the hitch-rope every person in the house is either at the gate or standing in the doorway. our visit is begun before we have left the road, the hospitable, social road. such ways would probably not do for the city. so much the worse for the city. the country ways are best. everything that happens along the road has the social touch. in the city, orders are given by telephone, and when the delivery wagon comes, it sweeps up with a rush, the boy seizes a basket and jumps out, runs to the back door, shouts the name of the owner, slams down his goods, and dashes back to the wagon, with a crisp "git-up!" to the well-trained horse, who starts forward while his driver is still mounting to his seat. not so in the country. the wagon draws peacefully out to the side of the road, and the horse falls to nibbling grass if he is unchecked, or to browsing on my rosebushes if he is not. if it is the grocer's wagon, the boy comes around to the back porch and we discuss what supplies will probably be needed by the time of his next visit. incidentally, we talk about weather and crops and woodchucks and trout, or bass or partridges, according to the season. if it is the meat cart or the fish wagon, i seize a platter and go out, the back flap of the cart is lifted up, i step under its shade and peer in, considering what is offered me and deciding what i will have plucked out for me to carry back to the house. besides the routine visitors, there are others--peddlers with wonderful collections of things to sell (whole clothing shops or furniture stores some of them bring with them), peddlers with books, peddlers with silver, peddlers with jewelry. in the course of a few months one is offered everything from shoe-strings to stoves. there are men who want to buy, too,--buyers of old iron, of old rags, of old rubber. "anny-ting, anny-ting vat you vill sell me, madame, i vill buy it," said one, with outspread hands. cattle go by, great droves of them, being driven along the road and sold from farm to farm until all are gone. i love the day that brings them. a dust haze down the road, the mooing of cows and the baaing of calves, the shouts of the drovers, the sound of many hoofs, and the cattle are here. the farmer and the "hired man" leave their work and saunter out to the road to "look 'em over," the children come running out to watch the pretty creatures, sleek or tousled, soft-eyed or wild-eyed, yearlings with bits of horns, stocky two-year-olds, and wabbly-legged youngsters hardly able to keep pace with the rest, all of them glad enough of the chance to pause in the shade and nibble at the rich, cool grass. one or two of the "critters" are approved of, perhaps, and bought, and the rest move on, the sunny dust haze rises and clears, the shouts of the drovers grow faint, and the road is still again. men go by looking for work; they will clean your well for you, they will file your horses' teeth for you, they will mend your umbrellas and repair your clocks and sharpen your scissors. in the city, when we hear the scissors-grinder ding-ding-dinging along the street, we wonder in an impersonal way how he makes a living; but in the country we espy him from afar and are out at the gate to meet him, with all the scissors and knives in the house. there are tramps, too, of course. not the kind one finds near cities, or in crowded summer watering-places. our road does not lead to rome, at least not very directly, and the tramp who chooses it is sure to be a mild and unenterprising creature, a desultory tramp who does not really know his business. some of the same ones come back year after year, and, in defiance of modern sociological science, we offer them the hospitality of the back porch with sandwiches and coffee, while we exchange the commonplaces of the season. it is the custom of the road. and so the procession of the road moves on. if we wait long enough--and it is not so long either--everything goes by: gay wedding parties, christening parties, slow funerals, the road bears them all; and to those who live beside it nothing is alien, nothing indifferent. throughout the week the daytime is for business--remembering always that on the country road business is never merely business, but always sociability too; the early evening is for pleasure; the night is for rest, for that stillness that cities never know, broken only when human necessity most sharply importunes, in the crises of birth, of death. on sundays all the world drives to church, or sits on its doorstep and watches the rest. and sunday and week days alike, every one's interest goes out to the road. i venture to say that when we think of our city homes we think of their interiors, but when we think of our farmhouse homes we think of the road as well. they are like little islands in a river,--one remembers them together. for the road is a river--a river of life. most of our words about roads imply motion. a road comes, we say, and it goes, it sweeps, it curves, it climbs, it descends, it rises and drops, it bends and turns. and, in fact, it means movement, it is always bringing life and taking it again, or if for a time it does neither, it is always inviting, always promising. we have all felt it. as we are whirled along in a railway train even, the thing that stirs our imagination is the roads, the paths. i can still remember glimpses of these that i had years ago--a footpath over a rounded hilltop through long yellow grass, a rough logging-road beside a foaming mountain river, a brushy wood road leading through bars into deep shade, a country road at dusk, curving past a low farmhouse with lights in the windows. i could never follow these roads, but i remember them still, and still they allure me. our road, as it flows placidly past our farm, suggests nothing very exciting or spectacular. it is a pretty bit of road, rounding a rocky corner of the farm and leading past the old house under cool depths of maple shade, out again into a broad space of sunlight, dropping over a little hill, around a curve, and out of sight. i know it well, of course, every rock and flower of it, but its final appeal to me is not through its beauty, it is not even through my sense of ownership in it; it is simply that it is a road--a road that leads out of everywhere into everywhere else, a road that goes on. about a road that ends there is no glamour. it may be pretty or useful, but as a road it is a failure. for the road is the symbol of endless possibility. from the faintest footpath across a meadow, where as a child one has always felt that some elf or gnome _may_ appear, or along which, if one were to wander with sufficient negligence, one _might_ be led into the realm of "faerie" to the broad turnpike which fares through open country, plunges through the surging cities, and escapes to broad lands beyond--any path, any road, makes this appeal. and so long as one has faith that what may be is more than what is, so long as one has the buoyant patience to await it or the will to go forth and seek it, so long as one has the imagination and the heart of the wayfarer, the charm of the road will be potent. x the lure of the berry men have sung the praises of fishing and hunting, they have extolled the joys of boating and riding, they have dwelt at length upon the pleasures of automobiling. but there is one--sport, shall i call it?--which no one seems to have thought worth mentioning: the gentle sport of berrying. perhaps calling it a sport is an unfortunate beginning; it gives us too much to live up to. no, it is not a sport, though i can't think why, since it is quite as active as drop-line fishing. perhaps the trouble is with the game--the fish are more active than the berries, and their excesses cover the deficiencies of the stolid figure in the boat. what, then, shall we call it? not an occupation; it is too desultory for that; nor an amusement, because of a certain tradition of usefulness that hangs about it. probably it belongs in that small but select group of things that people do ostensibly because they are useful but really because they are fun. at any rate, it does not matter how we class it,--it is just berrying. but not strawberrying. strawberries are so far down, and so few! they cannot be picked with comfort by any one over six years old. nor blackberrying! blackberries are good when gathered in, but in the gathering process there is nothing restful or soothing. they always grow in hot places, and the briers make you cross; they pull your hair and "sprout" your clothes and scratch your wrists. and the berries stain your fingers dark blue, and, moreover, they are frequented by those unpleasant little triangular, greenish-brown creatures known as squash bugs, which i do not believe even the ancient mariner could have been called upon to love. no, i do not mean blackberrying. what then? what indeed but huckleberrying! how can i adequately sing the praises of the gentle, the neat, the comfortable huckleberry! no briers, no squash bugs, no back-breaking stoop or arm-rending stretch to reach them. just a big, bushy, green clump, full of glossy black or softly blue berries, and you can sit right down on the tussocks among them, put your pail underneath a bush, and begin. at first, the handfuls drop in with a high-keyed "plinking" sound; then, when the "bottom is covered," this changes to a soft patter altogether satisfactory; and as you sit stripping the crisp branches and letting the neat little balls roll through your fingers, your spirit grows calm within you, you feel the breeze, you look up now and then over stretches of hill, or pasture, or sky, and you settle into a state of complete acquiescence in things as they are. for there is always a breeze, and always a view, at least where my huckleberries grow. if any one should ask me where to find a good situation for a house, i should answer, with a comprehensive wave of my arm, "oh, choose any huckleberry patch." only 'twere pity to demolish so excellent a thing as a huckleberry patch, merely to erect so doubtful a thing as a house. i know one such--a royal one even among huckleberry patches. to get to it you go up an old road,--up, and up, and up,--you pass big fields, newmown and wide open to the sky, you get broader and broader outlooks over green woodland and blue rolling hills, with a bit of azure river in the midst. you come out on great flats of rock, thinly edged with light turf, and there before you are the "berry lots," as the natives call them,--rolling, windy uplands, with nothing bigger than cedars and wild cherry trees to break their sweep. the berry bushes crowd together in thick-set patches, waist-high, interspersed with big "high-bush" shrubs in clumps or alone, low, hoary juniper, and great, dark masses of richly glossy, richly fragrant bay. the pointed cedars stand about like sentinels, stiff enough save where their sensitive tops lean delicately away from the wind. in the scant herbage between is goldenrod, the earliest and the latest alike at home here, and red lilies and asters, and down close to the ground, if you care to stoop for them, trailing vines of dewberries with their fruit, the sweetest of all the blackberries. truly it is a goodly prospect, and one to fill the heart with satisfaction that the world is as it is. the pleasure of huckleberrying is partly in the season--the late summer-time, from mid-july to september. the poignant joys of early spring are passed, and the exuberance of early summer, while the keen stimulus of fall has not yet come. things are at poise. the haying is over, the meadows, shorn of their rich grass, lie tawny-green under the sky, and the world seems bigger than before. it is not a time for dreams nor a time for exploits; it is a time for--for--well, for berrying! but you must choose your days carefully, as you do your fishing and hunting days. the berries "bite best" with a brisk west wind, though a south one is not to be despised, and a north one gives a pleasant suggestion of fall while the sun has still all the fervor of summer. choose a sky that has clouds in it, too, for you will feel their movement even when you do not look up. then take your pail and set out. do not be in a hurry and do not promise to be back at any definite time. either go alone or with just the right companion. i do not know any circumstances wherein the choice of a companion needs more care than in berrying. it may make or mar the whole adventure. for you must have a person not too energetic, or a standard of speed will be established that will spoil everything; nor too conscientious--it is maddening to be told that you have not picked the bushes clean enough; nor too diligent, so that one feels guilty if one looks at the view or acknowledges the breeze; nor too restless, so that one is being constantly haled to fresh woods and pastures new. a slightly garrulous person is not bad, with a desultory, semi-philosophic bent, and a gift for being contented with easy physical occupation. in fact, i find that i am, by exclusion and inclusion, narrowing my description to fit a certain type of small boy. and indeed i believe that here the ideal companion is to be found,--if indeed he is not, as i more than suspect he is, the ideal companion for every form of recreation in life. yes, the boy is the thing. some of my choicest hours in the berry lots have been spent with a boy as companion, some boy who loves to be in the wind and sun without knowing that he loves it, who philosophizes without knowing that he does so, who picks berries with sufficient diligence sometimes, and with a delightful irresponsibility at other times; who likes to move on, now and then, but is happy to kick turf around the edges of the clump if you are inclined to stay. who takes pride in filling his pail, but is not so desperately single-minded that he is unmoved by the seductions of goldenrod in bloom, of juniper and bayberries, of dry goldenrod stalks (for kite sticks), of deserted birds' nests, and all the other delights that fall in his way. for berrying does not consist chiefly in getting berries, any more than fishing consists chiefly in getting fish, or hunting in getting birds. the essence of berrying is the state of mind that accompanies it. it is a semi-contemplative recreation, providing physical quiet with just enough motion to prevent restlessness--being, in this respect, like "whittling." i said semi-contemplative, because, while it seems to induce meditation, the beauty of it is that you don't really meditate at all, you only think you are doing so, or are going to. that is what makes it so recuperative in its effects. it just delicately shaves the line between stimulating you to thought and boring you because it does not stimulate. thus it brings about in you a perfect state of poise most restful in itself and in a complete harmony with the midsummer season. yes, fishing is good, and hunting is good, and all the sports are good in their turn--even sitting in a rocking-chair on a boarding-house piazza has, perhaps, its charms and its benefits for some;--but when the sun is hot and the wind is cool, when the hay is in and the yellowing fields lie broad, when the woods have gathered their birds and their secrets to their very hearts, when the sky is deeply, warmly blue, and the clouds pile soft or float thin and light, then give me a pail and let me wander up, up, to the great open berry lots. i will let the sun shine on me and the wind blow me, and i will love the whole big world, and i will think not a single thought, and at sundown i will come home with a full pail and a contentedly empty mind. xi in the rain it was raining. it had begun to rain the afternoon before; it had rained all night, with the drizzling, sozzling kind of rain that indicated persistence. it had rained all the morning; it was obviously going to rain all day. the hollow beside the stone hitching-post, where the grocer's horse and the butcher's horse and the fishman's horse had stamped, all through the drought, was now a pool of brown water, with the raindrops making gooseflesh on it. there was another pond under the front gate, and another under the hammock; and the middle of the road, in the horse rut, was a narrow brown brook. the tiger lilies in the old stump were bending with their load of wetness, the phlox in the garden was weighed down till its white masses nearly touched earth. indoors, when the wind lulled and the rain fell straighter, we could hear the drops tick-tick-ticking on the bark of the birch logs in the fireplace. this flue of the chimney is almost vertical, with a slant to the southward, and i have always liked the way it lets in samples of the weather--a patch of yellow sunshine on clear days, a blur of soft white light on gray ones, and on stormy ones flicks of rain to make the fire sputter, or, as on this particular day, to dampen our kindling if it has been laid ready to light. the belated postman's buggy, with presumably a postman inside it somewhere behind the sheathing of black rubber, drove up, our mail-box grated open and shut, and the streaming horse sloshed on. jonathan turned up his collar and dashed out to the box, and dashed in again, bringing with him a great gust of rainy sweetness and the smell of wet woolen. "jonathan," i said, "let's take a walk." he was unfolding the damp newspaper carefully so as not to tear it. "what's that? walk?" "that's what i said." he had his paper open by this time, and was glancing at the headlines. when a man is glancing at headlines, it is just as well to let him glance. i gave him fifteen minutes. then i reopened the matter. "jonathan, i said walk." "what's that?" his tone was vague. it was what i call his newspaper tone. it suggests extreme remoteness, but tolerance, even benevolence, if he is let alone. he drifted slowly over to the window and made a pretense of looking out, but his eyes were still running down the columns. "my dear," he remarked, still in the same tone, "had you noticed that it is beginning to rain?" "i noticed that yesterday afternoon, about three o'clock," i said. "oh, all right. i thought perhaps you hadn't." "well?" i waited. "well--" he hung fire while he finished the tail of the editorial. then he threw down the paper. "don't you think it's rather poor weather for walking?" this was what i had been waiting for, and i responded glibly, "some one has said there is no such thing as bad weather, there are only good clothes." "do you mean mine?" he grinned down at his farm regimentals. "well, then--" "why, of course, if you really mean it," he said, and added, as he looked out reflectively at the puddling road, "you'll get your hair wet." "hope so! now, jonathan, aren't you silly, really? anybody would think we'd never been for a walk in the rain before in our lives. perhaps you'd rather stay indoors and be a tabby-cat and keep dry." "who got the mail?" "you did. but you wanted the paper--and you ran." the fact was, as i very well knew, jonathan really wanted to go, but he didn't want to start. when people really enjoy doing a thing, and mean to do it, and yet won't get going, something has to be done to get them going. that was why i spoke of tabby-cats. jonathan assumed an alert society tone. "i should enjoy a walk very much, thank you," he said; "the weather seems to me perfect. but," he added abruptly, "wear woolen; that white thing won't do." "of course!" i went off and made myself fit--woolen for warmth, though the day was not cold, a short khaki skirt, an old felt hat, and old shoes. out we went into the drenched world. whish! a gust of rain in my eyes half blinded me, and i ran under the big maples. i heard jonathan chuckle. "i can't help it," i gasped; "i'll be wet enough in a few minutes, and then i shan't care." from the maples i made for the lee of the barn eaves, disturbing the hens who were sulking there. they stepped ostentatiously out into the rainy barnyard with an air of pointedly _not_ noticing me, but of knowing all the time whose fault it was. they weren't liking the weather, anyhow, the hens weren't, and showed it plainly in the wet, streaky droop of their feathers and the exasperated look in their red eyes. "those hens look as if they thought i could do something about it if i only would," i said to jonathan as we passed them. "yes, they aren't a cordial crowd. here, we'll show them how to take weather!" we were passing under an apple tree; jonathan seized a drooping bough, and a sheet of water shook itself out on our shoulders. i gasped and ducked, and a hen who stood too near scuttered off with low duckings of indignation. "now you're really wet, you can enjoy yourself," said jonathan; and there was something in it, though i was loath to admit it at the moment. a moment before i had felt rather appalled at the sight of the rain-swept lane; now i hastened on recklessly. "i think," said jonathan, "it's the back of my neck that counts. after that's wet i don't care what happens." "yes," i agreed, "that's a stronghold. but i think with me it's my shoulders." it did not really matter which it was; neck and shoulders both were wet,--back, arms, everything. we tramped down across the hollow, over the brook, whose flood was backing up into the swamp on each side. i paused to look off across the huckleberry hillside beyond. "how the rain changes everything!" i said. all the colors had freshened and darkened, and the blur of the rain softened the picture and "brought it together," as the painters say. "well," said jonathan, "woods or open?" "which is the wettest?" "woods." "then woods." and we plunged in under the big chestnuts, through a mass of witch-hazel and birch. jonathan was quite right. woods were the wettest. one can hardly fancy anything quite so wet. solid water, like a river, is not comparable, because it is all in one lump; you know where it is, and you can get out of it when you want to. but here in the woods the water was everywhere, ready to hurl itself upon us, from above, from beside us, from below. every step, every motion, drew upon us drenching showers of great drops that had been hanging heavily in the leaves ready to break away at a touch. little streamlets of water ran from the drooping edges of my hat and from my chin, water dashed in my eyes and i blinked it out. jonathan, pausing to hold back a dripping spray of blackberry, heavy with fruit, remarked, "aren't you getting a little damp?" "i wonder if i am!" i answered joyously, and plunged on into the next thicket. there is as much exhilaration in being out in a big rain and getting really rained through, as there is in being out in surf. it has nothing in common with the sensations that arise when, umbrellaed and mackintoshed and rubber-overshoed, we pick our way gingerly along the street, wondering how much we can keep dry, hoping everything is "up" all round, wishing the wind wouldn't keep changing and blowing the umbrella so, and fancying how we shall look when we "get there." but when you don't care--when you want to get wet, and do--there is a physical glow that is delightful, a sense of being washed through and through, of losing one's identity almost, and being washed away into the great swirl of nature where one doesn't count much, but is glad to be taken in as a part. i fancy this is true with any of the elements--earth, air, water. the tale of antæus was no mere legend; there is real strength for us in close contact with the earth. there is a purifying and uplifting potency in the winds, a potency in the waters--ocean and river and great rain. our civilization has dealt with all these so successfully that we are apt to think of them as docile servants, or perhaps as petty annoyances, and we lose the sense of their power unless we deliberately go out to meet them in their own domain and let them have their way with us. then, indeed, they sweep us out of ourselves for a season, and that is good. we came out from the thickets on a high, brushy field, sheeted in fine rain that dimmed even the near wood edges. blackberries grew thick, and we made our way carefully among the briers, following the narrow and devious cow-paths. suddenly we both stopped. just ahead of us, under a blackberry bush, was a huge snapping-turtle. he was standing on his hind legs, with his fore legs resting on a branch loaded with fruit, his narrow dark head stretched far up and out, while he quietly ate berry after berry. he was a handsome fellow, with his big black shell all brilliant in the wetness of the rain. as he worked we could see his under side, and notice how it shaded to yellow along the sutures. it was a scene of contentment, and the berries, dripping with fresh raindrops, looked luscious indeed as he feasted. we stood and watched him for a while, and i got an entirely new idea of turtles. turtles usually have too much reserve, too much self-consciousness, too little _abandon_, and i had never seen one so "come out of himself," literally and figuratively, as this fellow did. it made me want to follow up the acquaintance, this happy chance of finding him, so to speak, in his cups; but i repressed the desire, feeling that he might not share it, and we carefully backed away and went around by another path so as not to disturb the reveler. he never knew how much pleasure he had given as well as received. into the woods again-- "look out!" said jonathan. "don't step on the lizards!" he stooped and picked up one, which struck an attitude among his dripping fingers--sleek back a little arched, legs in odd, uncouth positions, tail set stiffly in a queer curve. they are brilliant little creatures, with their clear orange-red coats, scarlet-spotted, like a trout. "pretty little chap, isn't he?" said jonathan. "stylish," i said, "but foolish. they never do anything that i can see, except attitudinize. "but they do a great deal of that," said jonathan, as he set him gently down. "come on," i said; "i can't stand here being sentimental over your pets. it's raining. "oh, if you'd like to _go_--" said jonathan, and set a pace. i followed hard, and we raced down through the empty woods, sliding over the great wet rocks, rolling over black fallen tree trunks, our feet sinking noiselessly in the soft leaf mould of the forest floor. out again, and through the edge of a cornfield where the broad, wavy ribbon leaves squeaked as we thrust them aside, as only corn leaves can squeak. if we had not been wet already, this would have finished us. there is nothing any wetter than a wet cornfield. on over the open pastures, with a grassy swamp at the bottom. we tramped carelessly through it, not even looking for tussocks, and the water sucked merrily in and out of our shoes. into brush once more--thick hazel and scrub oak; then down a slope, and we were in the hemlock ravine--a wonderful bit of tall woods, dark-shadowed, solemn, hardly changed by the rain, only perhaps a thought darker and stiller, with deeper blue depths of hazy distance between the straight black trunks. at the bottom a brook with dark pools lying beneath mossy rock ledges, or swirling under great hemlock roots, little waterfalls, and shallow rapids over smooth-worn rock faces. it is a wonderful place, a place for a german fairy tale. the woods were empty--in a sense, yes. except for the lizards, the animals run to cover during the rain; woodchucks, rabbits, squirrels, are tucked away somewhere out of sight and sound. bird notes are hushed; the birds, lurking close-reefed under the lee of the big branches or the heavy foliage, or at the heart of the cedar trees, make no sign as we pass. empty, yet not lonely. when the sun is out and the sky is high and bright, one feels that the world is a large place, belonging to many creatures. but when the sky shuts down and the world is close-wrapped in rain and drifting mist, it seems to grow smaller and more intimate. instead of feeling the multitudinousness of the life of woods and fields, one feels its unity. we are brought together in the bonds of the rain--we and all the hidden creatures--we seem all in one room together. thus swept into the unity of a dominating mood, the woods sometimes gain a voice of their own. i heard it first on a stormy night when i was walking along the wood road to meet jonathan. it was a night of wind and rain and blackness--blackness so dense that it seemed a real thing, pressing against my eyes, so complete that at the fork in the roads i had to feel with my hand for the wheel ruts in order to choose the right one. as i grew accustomed to the swish of the rain in my face and the hoarse breath of the wind about my ears i became aware of another sound--a background of tone. i thought at first it was a child calling, but no, it was not that; it was not a call, but a song; and not that either--it was more like many voices, high but not shrill, and very far away, softly intoning. it was neither sad nor joyous; it suggested dreamy, reiterant thoughts; it was not music, but the memory of music. if one listened too keenly, it was gone, like a faint star which can be glimpsed only if one looks a little away from it. as i had listened that night i began to wonder if it was all my own fancy, and when i met jonathan i made him stop. "wait a minute," i begged him, "and listen." "i hear it. come on," he had said. supper was in his thoughts. "what do you hear?" "just what you do." "what's that?" i had persisted, as we fumbled our way along. "voices--i don't know what you'd call it--the woods. it often sounds like that in a big rain." jonathan's matter-of-factness had rather pleased me. "i thought it might be my imagination. i'm glad it wasn't," i said. "perhaps it's both our imaginations," he suggested. "no. we both do lots of imagining, but it never overlaps. when it does, it shows it's so." perhaps i was not very clear, but he seemed to understand. since then i have heard it now and again, this singing of the rain-swept woods. not often, for it is a capricious thing, or perhaps i ought rather to say i do not understand the manner of its uprising. rain alone will not bring it to pass, wind alone will not, and sometimes even when they are importuned by wind and rain together the woods are silent. perhaps, too, it is not every stretch of woods that can sing, or at all seasons. in winter they can whistle, and sigh, and creak, but i am sure that when i have heard these singing voices the trees have always had their full leafage. but however it comes about, i am glad of the times that i have heard it. and whenever i read tales of the wild huntsman and all his kind, there come into my mind as an interpreting background memories of wonderful black nights and storm-ridden woods swept by overtones of distant and elusive sound. we did not hear the woods sing that day. perhaps there was not wind enough, or perhaps the woods on the "home piece" are not big enough, for it chances that i have never heard the sound there. as we came up the lane at dusk we saw the glimmer of the house lights. "doesn't that look good?" i said to jonathan. "and won't it be good when we are all dry and in front of the fire and you have your pipe and i'm making toast?" i am perfectly sure that jonathan agreed with me, but what he said was, "i thought you came out for pleasure." "well, can't i come home for pleasure too?" i asked. xii as the bee flies jonathan had taken me to see the "bee tree" down in the "old john lane lot." judging from the name, the spot must have been a clearing at one time, but now it is one of the oldest pieces of woodland in the locality. the bee tree, a huge chestnut, cut down thirty years ago for its store of honey, is sinking back into the forest floor, but we could still see its hollow heart and charred sides where the fire had been made to smoke out the bees. "jonathan," i said, "i'd like to find some wild honey. it sounds so good." "no better than tame honey," said jonathan. "it sounds better. i'm sure it would be different scooped out of a tree like this than done up neatly in pound squares." "tastes just the same," persisted jonathan prosaically. "well, anyway, i want to find a bee tree. let's go bee-hunting!" "what's the use? you don't know a honeybee from a bumblebee." "well, you do, of course," i answered, tactfully. jonathan, mollified, became gracious. "i never went bee-hunting, but i've heard the old fellows tell how it's done. but it takes all day." "so much the better," i said. and that night i looked through our books to find out what i could about bees. over the fireplace in what was once the "best parlor" is a long, low cupboard with glass doors. here bibles, albums, and a few other books have always been stored, and from this i pulled down a fat, gilt-lettered volume called "the household friend." this book has something to say about almost everything, and, sure enough, it had an article on bees. but the household friend had obviously never gone bee-hunting, and the only real information i got was that bees had four wings and six legs. "so has a fly," said jonathan, when i came to him with this nugget of wisdom. the neighbors gave suggestions. "you want to go when the yeller-top's in bloom," said one. "yellow-top?" i questioned, stupidly enough. "yes. yeller-top--'t's in bloom now," with a comprehensive wave of the hand. "oh, you mean goldenrod!" "well, i guess you call it that. yeller-top we call it. you find one o' them old back fields where the yeller-top's come in, 'n' you'll see bees 'nough." another friend told us that when we had caught our bee we must drop honey on her back. this would send her to the hive to get her friends to groom her off, and they would all return with her to see where the honey came from. this sounded improbable, but we were in no position to criticize our information. as to the main points of procedure all our advisers agreed. we were to put honey in an open box, catch a bee in it, and when she had loaded up with honey, let her go, watch her flight and locate the direction of her home. when she returned with friends for more honey, we were to shut them in, carry the box on in the line of flight, and let them go again. we were to keep this up until we reached the bee tree. it sounded simple. we got our box--two boxes, to be sure of our resources--baited them with chunks of comb, and took along little window panes for covers. then we packed up luncheon and set out for an abandoned pasture in our woods where we remembered the "yeller-top" grew thick. our new england fall mornings are cool, and as we walked up the shady wood road jonathan predicted that it would be no use to hunt bees. "they'll be so stiff they can't crawl. look at that lizard, now!" he stooped and touched a little red newt lying among the pebbles of the roadway. the little fellow seemed dead, but when jonathan held him in the hollow of his hand for a few moments he gradually thawed out, began to wriggle, and finally dropped through between his fingers and scampered under a stone. "see?" said jonathan. "we'll have to thaw out every bee just that way." but i had confidence that the sun would take the place of jonathan's hand, and refused to give up my hunt. from the main log-road we turned off into a path, once a well-trodden way to the old ox pastures, but now almost overgrown, and pushed on through brier and sweet-fern and huckleberry and young birch, down across a little brook, and up again to the "old sharon lot," a long field framed in big woods and grown up to sumac and brambles and goldenrod. it was warmer here, in the steady sunshine, sheltered from the crisp wind by the tree walls around us, and we began to look about hopefully for bees. at first jonathan's gloomy prognostications seemed justified--there was not a bee in sight. a few wasps were stirring, trailing their long legs as they flew. then one or two "yellow jackets" appeared, and some black-and-white hornets. but as the field grew warmer it grew populous, bumblebees hummed, and finally some little soft brown bees arrived--surely the ones we wanted. cautiously jonathan approached one, held his box under the goldenrod clump, brought the glass down slowly from above--and the bee was ours. she was a gentle little thing, and did not seem to resent her treatment at all, but dropped down on to the honeycomb and fell to work. jonathan had providently cut a three-forked stick, and he now stuck this into the ground and set the box on the forks so that it was about on a level with the goldenrod tops. then he carefully drew off the glass, and we sat down to watch. "shouldn't you think she must have had enough?" i said, after a while--"oh! there she comes now!" our bee appeared on the edge of the box, staggering heavily. she rubbed her legs, rubbed her wings, shook herself, girded up her loins, as it were, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, and finally rose, turning on herself in a close spiral which widened into larger and larger circles above the box, and at length, after two or three wide sweeps where we nearly lost track of her, she darted off in a "bee-line" for a tall chestnut tree on a knoll to the westward. "will she come back?" we wondered. five minutes--ten--fifteen--it seemed an hour. "she must have been a drone," said jonathan. "or maybe she wasn't a honeybee at all," i suggested, gloomily. "she might be just another kind of hornet--no, look! there she is!" i could hardly have been more thrilled if my fairy godmother had appeared on the goldenrod stalk and waved her wand at me. to think that the bee really did play the game! i knelt and peered in over the side of the box. yes, there she was, all six feet in the honey, pumping away with might and main through her little red tongue, or proboscis, or whatever it was. we sank back among the weeds and waited for her to go. as she rose, in the same spirals, and disappeared westward, jonathan said, "if she doesn't bring another one back with her this time, we'll try dropping honey on her back. you wait here and be a landmark for the bee while i try to catch another one in the other box." i settled down comfortably under the yellow-top, and instantly i realized what a pleasant thing it is to be a landmark. for one thing, when you sit down in a field you get a very different point of view from that when you stand. goldenrod is different looked at from beneath, with sky beyond it; sky is different seen through waving masses of yellow. moreover, when you sit still outdoors, the life of things comes to you; when you are moving yourself, it evades you. down among the weeds where i sat, the sun was hot, but the breeze was cool, and it brought to me, now the scent of wild grapes from an old stone wall, now the spicy fragrance of little yellow apples on a gnarled old tree in the fence corner, now the sharp tang of the goldenrod itself. the air was full of the hum of bees, and soon i began to distinguish their different tones--the deep, rich drone of the bumblebees, the higher singsong of the honeybees, the snarl of the yellow-jacket, the jerky, nasal twang of the black-and-white hornet. they began to come close around me; two bumblebees hung on a frond of goldenrod so close to my face that i could see the pollen dust on their fur. crickets and grasshoppers chirped and trilled beside me. all the little creatures seemed to have accepted me--all but one black-and-white hornet, who left his proper pursuits, whatever they may have been, to investigate me. he buzzed all around me in an insistent, ill-bred way that was annoying. he examined my neck and hair with unnecessary thoroughness, flew away, returned to begin all over again, flew away and returned once more; but at last even he gave up the matter and went off about his business. butterflies came fluttering past me:--big, rust-colored ones pointed in black; pale russet and silver ones; dancing little yellow ones; big black ones with blue-green spots, rather shabby and languid, as at the end of a gay season. darning-needles darted back and forth, with their javelin-like flight, or mounted high by sudden steps, or lighted near me, with that absolute rigidity that is the positive negation of movement. a flying grasshopper creeping along through the tangle at my feet rose and hung flutteringly over one spot, for no apparent reason, and then, for no better reason, dropped suddenly and was still. a big cicada with green head and rustling wings worked his way clumsily among a pile of last year's goldenrod stalks, freed himself, and whirred away with the harsh, strident buzz that dominates every other sound while it lasts, and when it ceases makes the world seem wonderfully quiet. our bee had gone and come twice before jonathan returned. "hasn't she brought anybody yet? well, here goes!" he took a slender stem of goldenrod, smeared it with honey, and gently lodged a drop on the bee's back, just where she could not by any possible antics get it off for herself. when the little thing flew she fairly reeled under her burden, tumbled down on to a leaf, recovered herself, and at last flew off on her old line. "now, let's go and cook luncheon," said jonathan, "and leave her to work it out." "but how can i move? i'm a landmark." "oh, leave your handkerchief. anything white will do." so i tied my handkerchief to a goldenrod stalk, and we went back to the brook. we made a fire on a flat stone, under which we could hear the brook running, broiled our chops on long, forked sticks, broiled some "beef-steak" mushrooms that we had found on a chestnut stump, and ended with water from the spring under the giant birch tree. blue jays came noisily to investigate us; a yellow-hammer floated softly down to the branch overhead, gave a little purring cluck of surprise, and flew off again, with a flare of tawny-yellow wings. in the warmth of the indian summer noon the shade of the woods was pleasant, and i let jonathan go back to the bees while i lay on a dry slope above the brook and watched the slim, tall chestnuts swaying in the wind. it is almost like being at sea to lie in the woods and look up at the trees. their waving tops seem infinitely far away, but the sky beyond seems very near, and one can almost feel the earth go round. as i lay there i heard a snapping of twigs and rustling of leaves. it was the wrong direction for jonathan, and i turned gently, expecting nothing smaller than a deer--for deer are growing plentiful now in old new england--and met the shameless face of a jerky little red squirrel! he clung to a chestnut trunk and examined me, twitching all over the while, then whisked himself upside down and looked at me from that standpoint, mounted to a branch, clung to the under side and looked again, pretended fright and vanished behind the limb, only to peer over it the next moment to see what i looked like from there--all the time clucking and burring like an alarm clock under a pillow. the rude thing had broken the spell of quiet, and i got up, remembering the bees, and wandered back to the sunny field, now palpitating with waves of heat. jonathan was nowhere to be seen, but as i approached the box i discovered him beside it flat on his back among the weeds. "sh-h-h," he warned, "don't frighten them. there were a lot of them when i got here and i've been watching their line. they all go straight for that chestnut." "what are you lying down for?" i asked. "i had to. i nearly twisted my neck off following their circles. i'm no owl." i sat down near by and we watched a few more go, while others began to arrive. "that dab of honey did the work," said jonathan. "we might as well begin to follow up their line now." waiting till there were a dozen or more in the box, he gently slid on the glass cover, laid a paper over it to darken it, and we set out. ten minutes' walking brought us past the big chestnut and out to a little clearing. jonathan set the box down on a big rock where it would show up well, laid a handkerchief beside it, drew off the glass, and crouched. a bunch of excited bees burst out and away, without noticing their change of place. "they'll never find their way back there," said jonathan regretfully; "they'll go straight back to the sharon lot." but there were others in the box, still feeding, who had not been disturbed by the move, and these he touched with honey drops. they staggered off, one by one, orienting themselves properly as they rose, and taking the same old line off to the westward. this was disappointing. we had hoped to see them turn back, showing that we had passed their home tree. however, there was nothing to do but sit and wait for them. in six minutes they began to come back, in twos and threes--evidently the honey drops on their shoulders had told the hive a sufficiently alluring story. again we waited until the box was well filled with them, then closed it and went on westward. two more moves brought us to a half-cleared ridge from which we could see out across country. to the westward, and sadly near, was the end of the big woods and the beginning of pastures and farmland. jonathan scrutinized the farms dotting the slopes. "see that bunch of red barns with a white house?" he said "that's bill morehead's. he keeps bees. bet we've got bees from his hive and they'll lead us plumb into his back yard." it did begin to seem probable, and we took up our box in some depression of spirits. two more stops, the bees still perversely flying westward, and we emerged in pastures. "here's our last stop," said jonathan. "if they don't go back into that edge we've just left, they're morehead's. there isn't another bit of woods big enough to hold a bee tree for seven miles to the west of us." there was no rock to set the box on, so we lay down on the turf; jonathan set the box on his chest, and partly slid the cover. he had by this time learned the trick of making the bees, even the excited ones, come out singly. we watched each one as she escaped, circle above us, circle, circle against the clear blue of the afternoon sky, then dart off--alas!--westward. as the last one flew we sat up, disconsolately, and gazed across the pasture. "tame bees!" muttered jonathan, in a tone of grief and disgust. "tame bees, down there in my old woodlots. it's trespass!" "you might claim some of morehead's honey," i suggested, "since you've been feeding his bees. but, then," i reflected, "it wouldn't be wild honey, and what i wanted was wild honey." we rose dejectedly, and jonathan picked up the box. "aren't you going to leave it for the bees?" i asked. "they'll be so disappointed when they come back." "they aren't the only ones to be disappointed," he remarked grimly. "here, we'll have mushrooms for supper, anyway." and he stooped to collect a big puff-ball. we walked home, our spirits gradually rising. after all, it is hard to stay depressed under a blue fall sky, with a crisp wind blowing in your face and the sense of completeness that comes of a long day out of doors. and as we climbed the last long hill to the home farm we could not help feeling cheerful. "bee-hunting is fun," i said, "even if they are tame bees." "it's the best excuse for being a loafer that i've found yet," said jonathan; "i wonder the tramps don't all go into the business." "and some day," i pursued hopefully, "we'll go again and find really wild bees and really wild honey." "it would taste just the same, you know," jeered jonathan. and i was so content with life that i let him have the last word. xiii a dawn experiment i have tried dawn fishing, and found it wanting. i have tried dawn hunting in the woods, after "partridges," and found it not all that jonathan, in his buoyant enthusiasm, appears to think it. and so, when he grew eloquent regarding the delights of dawn hunting on the marshes, i was not easily fired. i even referred, though very considerately, to some of our previous experiences in affairs of this nature, and confessed a certain reluctance to experiment further along these lines. "well, you have had a run of hard luck," he admitted tolerantly, "but you'll find the plover-shooting different. i know you won't be sorry." i do not mean to be narrow or prejudiced, and so i consented, though rather hesitatingly, to try one more dawn adventure. we packed up our guns, ammunition, extra wraps, rubber boots, and alarm clock. these five things are essential--nay, six are necessary to real content, and the sixth is a bottle of tar and sweet oil. but of that more anon. thus equipped, we went down to a tiny cottage on the shore. we reached the village at dusk, stopped at "the store" to buy bread and butter and fruit, then went on to the little white house that we knew would always be ready to receive us. it has served us as a hunting-lodge many times before, and has always treated us well. there is something very pleasant about going back to a well-known place of this sort. it offers the joy of home and the joy of camping, the charm of strangeness and the charm of familiarity. we light the candles and look about. ah, yes! there are the magazines we left last winter when we came down for the duck-shooting, there is the bottle of ink we got to fill our pens one stormy day last spring in the trout season, when the downpour quenched the zeal even of jonathan. in the pantry are the jars of sugar and salt and cereals and tea and coffee and bacon; in the kitchen are the oil stoves ready to light; in the dining-room are the ashes of our last fire. contentedly i set about making tea and arranging the supper-table, while jonathan took a basket and pitcher and went off to a neighbor for eggs and milk. we made a fire on the hearth, toasted bread over the embers, and supped frugally but very cozily. afterwards came the setting of the alarm clock--a matter of critical importance. "what hour shall it be?" inquired jonathan, his finger on the regulator. "whenever you think best," i answered cheerfully. now, as we both understood, i had no real intention of being literally guided by what jonathan thought best,--that would have been too rash,--but it opened negotiations pleasantly to say so. jonathan, trying to be obliging against his better judgment, suggested, "well--six o'clock?" but i refused any such tremendous concession, knowing that i should have to bear the ignominy of it if the adventure proved unfortunate. "no, of course not. six is much too late. anybody can get up at six." "well, then," he brightened; "say five?" "five," i meditated. "no, it's quite light at five. we ought to be out there at daylight, you said." jonathan visibly expanded. he realized that i was behaving very well. i thought so myself, and it made us both very amiable. "yes," he admitted, "we ought to be, of course. and it will take three quarters of an hour to drive out there. add fifteen minutes to that for breakfast, and fifteen minutes to dress--would a quarter to four be too outrageous?" "oh, make it half-past three," i rejoined recklessly, in a burst of self-sacrifice. at least i would not spoke our wheels by slothfulness. the clock was set accordingly, and i went to sleep enveloped in virtue as in a garment, the sound of the sea in my ears. * * * * * _br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!_ what _has_ happened? oh, the alarm clock! it can't be more than twelve o'clock. i hear the spit of a match, then "half-past three," from jonathan. "no!" i protest. "yes," he persists, and though his voice is still veiled in sleep, i detect in it a firmness to which i foresee i shall yield. my virtue of last night has faded completely, but his zeal is fast colors. i am ready to back out, but, dimly remembering my spartan attitude of the night before, i don't dare. thus are we enslaved by our virtues. i submit, with only one word of comment--"and we call this pleasure!" to which jonathan wisely makes no response. we groped our way downstairs, lighted another candle, and sleepily devoured some sandwiches and milk--a necessary but cheerless process, with all the coziness of the night before conspicuously left out. we heard the carriage being brought up outside, we snatched up our wraps,--sweaters, shawls, coats,--jonathan picked up the valise with the hunting equipment, we blew out the candles, and went out into the chilly darkness. as our eyes became accustomed to the change, we perceived that the sky was not quite black, but gray, and that the stars were fewer than in the real night. we got in, tucked ourselves up snugly, and started off down the road stretching faintly before us. the horse's steps sounded very loud, and echoed curiously against the silent houses as we passed. as we went on, the sky grew paler, here and there in the houses a candle gleamed, in the barnyards a lantern flashed--the farmer was astir. yes, dawn was really coming. after a few miles we turned off the main highway to take the rut road through the great marsh. the smell of the salt flats was about us, and the sound of the sea was growing more clear again. a big bird whirred off from the marsh close beside us. "meadowlark," murmured jonathan. another little one, with silent, low flight, then more. "sandpipers," he commented; "we don't want them." the patient horse plodded along, now in damp marsh soil, now in dry, deep sand, to the hitching-place by an old barn on the cliff. as we pulled up, jonathan took a little bottle out of his pocket and handed it to me. "better put it on now," he said. "what is it?" i asked. "tar and sweet oil--for the mosquitoes." i smelled of it with suspicion. it was a dark, gummy liquid. "i think i prefer the mosquitoes." "you do!" said jonathan. "you'll think again pretty soon. here, let me have it." he had tied the horse and blanketed him, and now proceeded to smear himself with the stuff--face, neck, hands. "you needn't look at me that way!" he remarked genially; "you'll be doing it yourself soon. just wait." we took our guns and cartridges, and plunged down from the cliff to the marsh. as we did so there rose about me a brown cloud, which in a moment i realized was composed of mosquitoes--a crazy, savage, bloodthirsty mob. they beset me on all sides,--they were in my hair, my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, neck. i brushed frantically at them, but a drowning man might as well try to brush back the water as it closes in. "where's the bottle?" i gasped. "what bottle?" said jonathan, innocently. jonathan is human. "the tar and sweet oil. quick!" "oh! i thought you preferred the mosquitoes." yes, jonathan _is_ human. "never mind what you _thought_!" and i snatched greedily at the blessed little bottle. i poured the horrid stuff on my face, my neck, my hands, i out-jonathaned jonathan; then i took a deep breath of relief as the mosquito mob withdrew to a respectful distance. jonathan reached for the bottle. "oh, i can just as well carry it," i said, and tucked it into one of my hunting-coat pockets. jonathan chuckled gently, but i did not care. nothing should part me from that little bottle of ill-smelling stuff. we started on again, out across the marsh. enough light had come to show us the gray-green level, full of mists and little glimmers of water, and dotted with low haycocks, their dull, tawny yellow showing softly in the faint dawn light. "hark!" said jonathan. we paused. through the fog came a faint, whistling call, in descending half-tones, indescribable, coming out of nowhere, sounding now close beside us, now very far away. "yellowlegs," said jonathan. "we aren't a bit too soon." we pushed out into the midst of the marsh, now sinking knee-deep in the spongy bed, now walking easily on a stretch of firm turf, now stepping carefully over a boundary ditch of unknown depth--out to the haycocks, where we sank down, each beside one, to wait for the birds to move. i do not know how long we waited. the haycock was warm, the night wind had fallen, the gray sky was turning white, with primrose tones in the east; the morning star paled and disappeared; the marsh mists partly lifted, and revealed far inland the soft, dark masses of encircling woods. and every little while came the whistling call, plaintive, yet curiously hurried, coming from nowhere. i lay back against the hay, and, contrary to orders, i let my gun slip down beside me. the fact was, i had half forgotten that anything definite was expected of me, and when suddenly i heard a warning "look out!" from jonathan's mow, i was in no way prepared. there was a rush of wings; the air was full of the whistling notes of the birds as they flew; they passed over us, circling, rising, sinking, sweeping far up the marsh, then, as jonathan whistled their call, circling back again out of the mist at incredible speed. probably it would have made no difference if i had been prepared. a new kind of game always leaves me dazed, and now i watched them, spellbound, until i heard jonathan shoot. then i made a great effort, pulled at my trigger, and rolled backwards from my haycock into the spongy swamp, inches deep with water just there. jonathan called across softly, "shot both barrels, didn't you?" i rose slowly, wishing there were some way of wringing out my entire back. "of course not!" i gasped indignantly. "think not?" very benevolently from the other cock. "'twouldn't have kicked like that if you hadn't. look at your gun and see." i reseated myself damply upon the haycock. "i tell you i _didn't_. why should i shoot both at once, i'd like to know! i--never--" here i stopped, for as i broke open my gun i saw two dented cartridges, and as i pulled them out white smoke rolled from both barrels. there seemed nothing further to be said, at least by a woman, so i said nothing. jonathan also, though human, said nothing. it is crises like these that test character. i turned my cool back to the east, that the rising sun, if it ever really got thoroughly risen, might warm it, and grimly reloaded. jonathan continued his call to the birds, and when they returned again i behaved better. by seven o'clock the birds had scattered, and we left our places to go back to the horse. on the way we encountered two hunters wandering rather disconsolately over the marsh. they stopped us to ask what luck, and we tried not to look too self-satisfied, but probably they read our success in our arrogant faces, streaked with tar and sweet oil as they were. possibly the bulge of our hunting-coat pockets helped to tell the story. "how long have you been out here?" they asked enviously. "two hours or so," said jonathan. "how'd you get out so early?" "we got up early," said jonathan, with admirable simplicity. the strangers looked at him twice to see if he meant to jeer, but he appeared impenetrably innocent, and they finally laughed, a little ruefully, and went on out into the marsh we were just leaving. why does it make one feel so immeasurably superior to get up a few hours before other people? we drove home along the sunny road, where the bakers' carts and meat wagons were already astir. could it be the same road that a few hours before had been so cold and gray and still? were these bare white houses the same that had nestled so cozily into the dark of the roadside? we reached our own plain little white house and went in. in the dining-room our candles and the remains of our midnight breakfast on the table seemed like relics of some previous state of existence. sleepily i set things in order for a real breakfast, a hot breakfast, a breakfast that should be cozy. drowsily we ate, but contentedly. everything since the night before seemed like a dream. it still seems so. but of all the dream the most vivid part--more vivid even than the alarm clock, more real than my tumble into wetness--is the vision that remains with me of mist-swept marsh, all gray and green and yellow, with tawny haycocks and glimmerings of water and whirrings of wings and whistling bird notes and the salt smell of the sea. yes, jonathan was right. dawn hunting on the marshes is different, quite different. xiv in the wake of the partridge "the kangaroo ran very fast, i ran faster. the kangaroo was very fat, i ate him. kangaroo! kangaroo!" this, the hunting-song of the australian bushman, is the best one i know. without disguise or adornment, it embodies the primitive hunting instinct that is in every one of us, whether we hunt people or animals or things or ideas. jonathan and i do not habitually hunt kangaroos, and our hunting, or at any rate my share in it, is not as uniformly successful as the bushman's seems to have been. for our own uses we should have to amend the song something as follows:-- "the partridge-bird flew very fast, i missed him. the partridge-bird was very fat, i ate--chicken. partridge-bird! partridge-bird!" but we do not measure the success of our hunting by the size of our bag. the chase, the day out of doors, two or three birds at the most out of the dozen we flush, this is all that we ask. but then, we have a chicken-yard to fall back upon, which the bushman had not. we sit before a blazing open fire, eating a hunter's breakfast--which means, nearly everything in the pantry. coffee and toast are all very well for ordinary purposes, but they are poor things to carry you through a day's hunting, especially our kind of hunting. for a day's hunt with us is not an elaborate and well-planned affair. it does not mean a pre-arranged course over "preserved" territory, with a rendezvous at noon where the luncheon wagon comes, bringing out vast quantities of food, and taking home the morning's bag of game. it means a day's hunt that follows whither the birds lead, in a section of new england that is considered "hunted out," over ground sometimes familiar, sometimes wholly new, with no luncheon but a few crackers or a sandwich that has been stowed away in one of jonathan's game pockets all the morning, and perhaps an apple or two, picked up in passing, from some old orchard now submerged in the woods--a hunt ending only when it is too dark to shoot, with perhaps a long tramp home again after that. no, coffee and toast would never do! as we turn out of the sheltered barnyard through the bars and up the farm lane, the keen wind flings at us, and our numb fingers recoil from the metal of our guns and take a careful grip on the wood. at once we fall to discussing the vital question-- where will the birds be to-day? for the partridges, as the new englander calls our ruffed grouse, are very fastidious about where they spend their days. sometimes they are all in the swamps, sometimes they are among the white birches of the hillsides, sometimes in the big woods, sometimes on the half-wooded rock ledges, sometimes among the scrub growth of lately cut timberland, and sometimes, in very cold weather, on the dry knolls where the cedars huddle--the warm little brooding cedars that give the birds shelter as a hen does her chicks. when i first began to hunt with jonathan, he knew so much more than i in these matters that i always accepted his judgment. if he said, "to-day they will be in the swamps," i responded, "to the swamps let us go." but after a time i came to have opinions of my own, and then the era of discussion set in. "to-day," begins jonathan judicially, "the wind is north, and the birds will be on the south slopes close to the swamp bottoms to keep warm." "now, jonathan, you know i don't a bit believe in going by the wind. the partridges don't mind wind, their feathers shed it. what they care about is the sun, and to-day the sun is hot,--at least," with a shiver, "it would be if we had feathers on instead of canvas. _i_ believe we shall find them in the big woods." i usually advocate the big woods, because i like them best for a tramp. jonathan, too well content at the prospect of a day's hunt to mind contradiction, says genially, "all right; i'll go wherever you say." which always reduces me to terms at once. above all things, i dislike to make myself answerable for the success or failure of the day. i prefer irresponsible criticism beforehand--and afterwards. so i say hastily, "oh, no, no! of course you know a great deal more than i do. we'll go wherever you think best." "well, perhaps it _is_ too warm for the swamps to-day. now, they might be in the birches." "oh, dear! _don't_ let's go to the birches! the birds can't be there. they never are." "i thought we were going to go where i thought best." "yes--but only not to the birches. it's all a private myth of yours about their being there." "is it a private myth of mine that you shot those two woodcock in the birches of the upper farm last year? and how about that big gray partridge--" "well--of course--that was later in the season. i suppose the birds do eat birch buds when everything else gives out." and so i criticize, having agreed not to. but it's good for jonathan; it makes him careful. "well, shall it be the swamp?" "no; if you really _think_ they're in the birches, we'll go there. besides, the swamp seems a little--chilly--to begin with. wait till i've seen a bird. then i shan't mind so." "then you do admit it's a cool morning?" "to paddle in a swamp, yes. the birds don't have to paddle." we try the birches, and the pretty things whip our faces with their slender twigs in their own inimitable fashion, peculiarly trying to my temper. i can never go through birches long without growing captious. "jonathan," i call, as i catch a glimpse of his hunting-coat through an opening, "i thought the birds were in the birches this morning. they don't seem really abundant." jonathan, unruffled, suggests that i go along on the edge of the woods while he beats out the middle with the dog, which magnanimous offer shames me into silent if not cheerful acquiescence. suddenly-- _whr-r-r_--something bursts away in the brush ahead of us. "mark!" we both call, and, "did you get his line?" my critical spirit is stilled, and i am suddenly fired with the instinct to follow, follow! it is indeed a primitive instinct, this of the chase. no matter how tired one is, the impulse of pursuit is there. at the close of a long day's hunt, after fifteen miles or so of hard tramping,--equal to twice that of easy walking,--when my feet are heavy and my head dull, i have never seen a partridge fly without feeling ready, eager, to follow anywhere. after we move the first bird, it is follow my leader! and a wild leader he is. flushed in the birches, he makes straight for the swamp. the swamp it is, then, and down we go after him, and in we go--ugh! how shivery the first plunge is--straight to the puddly heart of it, carefully keeping our direction. we go fast at first, then, when we have nearly covered the distance a partridge usually flies, we begin to slow down, holding back the too eager dog, listening for the snap of a twig or the sound of wings, gripping our guns tighter at every blue jay or robin that flicks across our path. no bird yet; we must have passed him; perhaps we went too far to the left. but no--_whr-r-r_! _where_ is he? there! out of the top of a tall swamp maple, off he goes, sailing over the swamp to the ridge beyond. no wonder the dog was at sea. well--we know his line, we are off again after him in spite of the swamp between, with its mud and its rotten tree trunks and its grapevines and its cat briers. up on the ridge at last, we hunt close, find him, get a shot, probably miss, and away we go again. some hunters, used to a country where game is plenty, will not follow a bird if they miss him on the first rise. they prefer to keep on their predetermined course and find another. but for me there is little pleasure in that kind of sport. what i enjoy most is not shooting, but hunting. the chase is the thing--the chase after a particular bird once flushed, the setting of my wits against his in the endeavor to follow up his flight. we have now and then flushed the same bird nine or ten times before we got him--and we have not always got him then. for many and deep are the crafty ways of the old partridge, and we have not yet learned them all. that is why i like partridge-hunting better than quail or woodcock, though in these you get far more and better shooting. quail start in a bunch, scatter, fly, and drop where you can flush them again, one at a time; woodcock fly in a zigzag, drop where they happen to, and sit still till you almost step on them. but the partridge thinks as he flies--thinks to good advantage. he seems to know what we expect him to do, and then he does something else. how many times have we gone past him when he sat quietly between us, and then heard him fly off stealthily down our back track! how often, in a last desperate search for a vanished bird, have i jumped on every felled cedar top in a field--except the one he was under! how often have i broken open my gun to climb a stone wall,--for we are cautious folk, jonathan and i,--and, as i stood in perilous balance, seen a great bird burst out from under my very feet! how often--but i am not going to be tempted into telling hunting-stories. for some reason or other, hunting-stories chiefly interest the narrator. i have watched sportsmen telling tales in the evenings, and noted how every man but the speaker grows restive as he watches for a chance to get in his own favorite yarn. and it is not the partridges alone with whom we grow acquainted. we have glimpses, too, of the other outdoor creatures. the life of the woods slips away from us as we pass, but only just out of sight, and not always that. the blue jays scream in the tree-tops, officiously proclaiming us to the woods; the chickadees, who _must_ see all that goes on, hop close beside us in the bushes; the gray squirrel dodges behind a tree trunk with just the corner of an eye peering at us around it. the chipmunk darts into the stone wall, and doubtless looks at us from its safe depths; the rabbit gallops off from the brier tangle or the brush heap, or sits up, round-eyed, thinking, little silly, that we don't see him. once i saw a beautiful red fox who leaped into the open for a moment, stood poised, and leaped on into the brush; and once, as i sat resting, a woodchuck, big and uncombed, hustled busily past me, so close i could have touched him. he did not see me, and seemed so preoccupied with some pressing business that i should hardly have been surprised to see him pull a watch out of his pocket, like alice's rabbit, and mutter, "i shall be late." i had not known that the wood creatures ever felt hurried except when pursued. another time i was working up the slope on the sunny edge of a run, and, as i drew myself up over the edge of a big rock, i found myself face to face--nose to nose--with a calm, mild-eyed, cottontail rabbit. he did not remain calm; in fact, we were both startled, but he recovered first, and hopped softly over the side of the rock, and went galloping away through the brushy bottom, while i, still kneeling, watched him disappear just as jonathan came up. "what's the joke?" "nothing, only i just met a rabbit. he sat here, right here, and he was so rabbit-y! he looked at me just like an easter card." "why didn't you shoot him?" "i never thought of it. i wish you had seen how his nose twiddled! and, anyhow, i wouldn't shoot anything sitting up that way, like a tame kitten." "then why didn't you shoot when he ran?" "shoot a rabbit running! running in scallops! i couldn't." the fact is, i shouldn't shoot a rabbit anyway, unless driven by hunger. i am not humane, but merely sentimental about them because they are soft and pretty. once, indeed, when i found all my beautiful heads of lettuce neatly nibbled off down to the central stalks, i almost hardened my heart against them, but the next time i met one of the little fellows i forgave him all. i believe that one of the very best things about our way of following a partridge is the sense of intimacy with the countryside which it creates--an intimacy which nothing else has ever given us. in most outdoor faring one sticks to the roads and paths, in fishing one keeps to the water-courses, in cross-country tramping one unconsciously goes around obstacles. nothing but the headlong and undeviating pursuit of a bird along a path of his choosing would ever have given me that acquaintance with ledge and swamp and laurel copse that i now possess. i know our swamp as a hippopotamus might, or--to stick to plain yankee creatures--a mud turtle. it is a very swampy swamp, with spring holes and channels and great shallow pools where the leaves from the tall swamp maples--scarlet and rose and ashes of roses--sift slowly down and float until they sink into the leaf mould beneath. i have favorite paths through it as the squirrels have in the tree-tops; i know where the mud is too deep to venture, where the sprawling, moss-covered roots of the maples offer grateful support; i know the brushy edges where the blossoming witch-hazel fills the air with its quaint fragrance; i know the sunny, open places where the tufted ferns, shoulder high, and tawny gold after the early frosts, give insecure but welcome footing; i know--too well indeed--the thickets of black alder that close in about me and tug at my gun and drive me to fury. yes, we know that swamp, and other swamps only less well. we know the rock ledges, the big dry woods of oak and chestnut and maple and beech. we know the ravines where the great hemlocks keep the air always dim and still, and one goes silent-footed over the needle floor. we grow familiar, too, with all the little things about the country. we discover new haunts of the fringed gentian, the wonderful, the capricious, with its unbelievable blue that one sees nowhere else save under the black lashes of some irish eyes. we find the shy spring orchids, gone to seed now, but we remember and seek them out again next may. we surprise the spring flowers in their rare fall blossoming--violets white and blue in the warm, moist bottom-lands, sand violets on the dry knolls, daisies, hepaticas, buttercups, and anemones-- i have seen all these in a single day in raw november. we learn where the biggest chestnuts grow--great silky brown fellows almost twice the size of jonathan's thumb. we discover old landmarks in the deep woods, surveyors' posts, a heap of stones carefully piled on a big rock. we find old clearings, overgrown now, but our feet still feel underneath the weeds the furrows left by the plow. now and then we come upon a spot where once there must have been a home. there is no house, no timbers even, but the stone cellar is not wholly obliterated, and the gnarled lilac-bush and the apple tree stubbornly cling to a worn-out life amidst the forest of young white oaks and chestnuts that has closed in about them. once we came upon a little group of gravestones, only three or four, sunken in the ground and so overgrown and weather-worn that we could read nothing. there was no sign of a human habitation, but i suppose they must have been placed there in the old days when the family burial-ground was in one corner of the farm itself. we learn to know where the springs of pure water are, welling up out of the deep ground in a tiny pool under some big rock or between the roots of a great yellow birch tree. and when the sun shines hot at noon, and a lost trail and a vanished bird leave us to the sudden realization that we are tired and thirsty, we know where is the nearest water. we know, too, the knack of drinking so as not to swallow the little gnats that skim its surface--you must blow them back ever so gently, and drink before they close in again. how good it tastes as we lie at full length on the matted brown leaves! how good the crackers taste, too, and the crisp apples, as we sit by the spring and rest, and talk over the morning's hunt and plan the afternoon's--subject to the caprices of the birds. but i suppose the very best about hunting can never be told at all. that is true of any really good thing, and there is nothing better than a long day after the birds. it is always good to be out of doors. and there are seasons when one is glad to wander slowly over the fields and byways; there are times when it seems best of all to be still--in the heart of the woods, on the wide hill pastures, in the deep grass of the meadows. but not in the fall! is it a breath of the migrating instinct that makes us want to be off and away, to go, and go, and go? yes, fall is the time for the hunt--gay, boisterous fall, rioting in wind and color to keep up its spirits against the stealthy approach of winter. and whether we shoot well or ill, whether our game pockets are heavy or light, no matter what the weather we find or the country we cross, it is all good hunting, very good. and at night we come in to a blazing fire, feeling tired, oh, so tired! and hungry, oh, so hungry! and with soul and body shriven clean by wind and sun. xv beyond the realm of weather our friends say to us now and then, "but why must you do these things with a gun? why can't you do the same things and leave the gun at home?" why, indeed? when i put this question to jonathan, he smokes on placidly. but of one thing i am sure: if it had not been for the guns and the ducks, i should never have known what the marshes were like in winter fog--what they were like under a winter sky with a wind straight from the north pole sweeping over their bare stretches. it was early afternoon. through the study window i looked out upon a raw, foggy world, melting snow underfoot and overhead. it was the kind of day about which even the most deliberately cheerful can find little to say except that this sort of thing can't last forever, you know. however, if i had had a true instinct for "nature," i should, i suppose, have seen at a glance that it was just the day to go and lie in a marsh. but this did not occur to me. instead, i thought of open fires, and popcorn, and hot peanuts, and novels, and fudge, and other such things, which are supposed to be valuable as palliatives on days like these. the telephone rang. "oh, it's you, jonathan!... what? no, not really! you wouldn't!... well, if the ducks like it, they may have it all. i'm not a duck.... why, of course, if you really want me to, i'll go, only.... all right, i'll get out the things.... three o'clock train? you'll have to hurry!" i hung up the receiver and sat a moment, dazed, looking out at the reek of weather. then i shook myself and darted upstairs to the hunting-closet. in half an hour the bag was packed and jonathan was at the door. in an hour we were on the train, and at twilight we were tramping out into a fog-swept marsh. grayness was all around us; underfoot was mud, glimmering patches of soft snow, and the bristly stubble of the close-cut marsh grass. "what fools we are!" i murmured. "why?" said jonathan contentedly. "oh, if you can't see--" i said. and then, suddenly, as we walked, my whole attitude changed. the weather, as weather, seemed something that belonged in a city--very far away, and no concern of mine. this wasn't weather, here where we walked; it was a gray and boundless world of mystery. we raised our heads high and breathed long, deep breaths as the fog drifted against our faces. we were aware of dim masses of huddling bushes, blurred outlines of sheds and fences. then only the level marsh stretched out before us and around us. "can we find our way out again?" i murmured, though without real anxiety. "probably," said jonathan. "isn't it great! you feel as if you had a soul out here! by the way, what was it you said about fools?" "i forget," i said. we went on and on, i don't know just where or how long, until we came to the creek, where the tide sets in and out. i should have walked into it if jonathan hadn't held me back. as we followed it, there rose a hoarse, raucous "_ngwak! ngwak! ngwak!_" and a great rush of wings. jonathan dropped on one knee, gun up, but we saw nothing. "we'll settle down here," he said. "there'll be more coming in soon. wait a minute--hold my gun." he disappeared in the fog, and came back with an armful of hay, taken from the heart of a haystack of whose existence he seemed, by some sixth or seventh sense, to be aware. "there! that'll keep you off the real marsh. now settle down, and don't move, and listen with all your ears, and be ready. i'll go off a little way." i sank down on the hay, and watched him melt into the grayness. i was alone in the dim marsh. there was no wind, no sound but the far-off whistle and rush of a train. i lay there and thought of nothing. i let myself be absorbed into the twilight. i did not even feel that i had a soul. i was nothing but a point of consciousness in the midst of a gray infinity. suddenly i was aware of a sound--a rapid pulsing of soft, high tone--too soft for a whistle, too high for a song,--pervasive, elusive; it was overhead, it was beside me, behind me, where? ah--it was wings! the winnowing of wings! i half rose, grasping my gun, with a sense of responsibility to jonathan. but my vision was caught in the grayness as in a web. the sound grew clearer, then fainter, then it passed away. the twilight gathered, and the fog partly dissolved. a fine rain began to fall, and in the intense silence i could hear the faint pricking of the drops on the stiff marsh stubble. i had thought the patter of rain on a roof was the stillest sound i knew, but this was stiller. again came the winnowing of wings--again and again; and sometimes i was able to see the dark shapes passing overhead and vanishing almost before they appeared. now and then i heard the muffled, flat sound of jonathan's gun--he was evidently living up to his opportunities better than i was. occasionally, in a spasm of activity, i shot too. until night closed in about us that sound of wings filled the air, and i knelt, listening and watching. it is strange how one can be physically alert while yet one's soul is withdrawn, quiet and receptive. out of this state, as out of a trance, i was roused by the sense of jonathan's dim bulk, seeming "larger than mortal," as he emerged from the night. "cold?" he said. "i don't know--no, of course i'm not." i found it hard to lay hold on clear ideas again. "i heard you shoot. get any?" "i think i hurried them a little." we started back. at least i suppose it was back, because after a while we came to the road we had left. i was conscious only of bewildering patches of snow that lay like half-veiled moonlight on the dark stretches of the marsh. at last a clump of cedars made themselves felt rather than seen. "there's the fence corner! we're all right," said jonathan. a snow-filled horse rut gave faint guidance, the twigs of the hedgerow lightly felt of our faces as we passed. we found the main road, and it led us through the quiet, fog-bound village, whose house lights made tiny blurs on the mist, to the hot, bright little station. then came the close, flaringly lighted car, and people--commuters--getting on and off, talking about the "weather," and filling the car with the smell of wet newspapers and umbrellas. we had returned to the land of "weather." yet it did not really touch us. it seemed a dream. the reality was the marsh, with its fog and its pricking raindrops and its sentinel cedars, its silence and its wings. in the days that followed, the fog passed, and there were long, warm rains. the marsh called us, but we could not go. then the sky cleared, the wind rose, the mercury began to drop. jonathan looked across the luncheon table and said, "what about ducks?" "can you get off?" i asked joyously. "i can't, but i will," he replied. and this time-- did i think i knew the marsh? did i suppose, having seen it at dawn in the fall days when the sun still rises early, having seen it in winter twilight, fog-beset, that i knew it? do i suppose i know it now? at least i know it better, having seen it under a clearing sky, when the cold wind sweeps it clean, and the air, crystalline, seems like a lens through which one looks and sees a revelation of new things. as we struck into the marsh, just at sundown, my first thought was a rushing prayer for words, for colors, for something to catch and hold the beauty of it. but there are no words, no colors. no one who has not seen it can know what a new england shore marsh can be in winter under a golden sky. winter does some things for us that summer cannot do. summer gives us everything all at once--color, fragrance, line, sound--in an overwhelming exuberance of riches. and it is good. but winter-- ah, winter is an artist, winter has reserves; he selects, he emphasizes, he interprets. winter says, "i will give you nothing to-day but brown and white, but i will glorify these until you shall wonder that there can be any beauty except thus." and again winter says: "did you think the world was brown and white? lo, it is blue and rose and silver--nothing else!" and we look, and it is so. on that other evening, in the fog, the world had been all gray--black-gray and pale gray and silver gray. on this evening winter said: "gray? not at all. you shall have brown and gold. behold and marvel!" i marveled. there was a sweep of golden marsh, under a gold sky, and at its borders low lines of trees etched in rich brown masses, and my sentinel cedars standing singly or by twos and threes--cedars in their winter tones of olive brown, dull almost to harshness, holding themselves stiffly against the great wind, yielding only at their delicate tips when the gusts came, recovering again in the lulls, to point dauntlessly skyward. the narrow boundary ditches, already glassing over in the sudden cold, stretched away in rigid lines, flashing back the light of the sky in shivers of gold. the haystacks reiterated the color notes--gold on their sunset side, deep brown on their shadowed one. there is a moment sometimes, just at sundown, when the quality of light changes. it does not fall upon the world from without, it radiates from within. things seem self-luminous. yet, for all their brightness, we see them less clearly, one's vision is dazzled, enmeshed. it is the time when that wondrous old word "faerie" finds its meaning. it is a magic moment. it laid its spell upon us. jonathan emerged first, bracing himself. "it will shut down soon. we haven't a minute to spare. we ought to be on the creek now." it was hard to believe that such brightness could ever shut down. but it did. by the time we reached the creek the gold had vanished, except for a narrow line in the western sky. the world lay in clear, brown twilight, and the wind swept over it. jonathan got more hay, and this time i saw the haystack from which he plucked it. i threw myself on it, collar up, cap down, lying as low as possible. "bad night for ducks, of course," growled jonathan. "if only the thaw had held twelve hours more! however--" he swung off to some chosen spot of his own. i lay there and the wind surged over me. there was nothing to stop it, nothing to make it noisy. it sang a little around the flap of my coat, it swished a little in the short marsh grass, but chiefly it rushed by above me, in invisible, soundless might. it seemed as if it must come between me and the stars, but it did not, and i watched them appear, at first one by one, then in companies and cohorts, until the sky was powdered with them. now and then a dark line of ducks streamed over me, high up, in direct, steady flight, but the sound of their wings was swallowed up by the wind. i did not even try to shoot; i was trying to find myself in an elemental world that seemed bigger and more powerful than i had ever conceived it. gradually i realized that i was cold. the wind seemed suddenly to have become aware of me. it roared down upon me, it shook me, worried me, let me go, and pounced upon me again in the sport of power. i said to myself, "i cannot resist, i will give myself up to it absolutely," i stopped feeling cold. i was no more than a ship's timber lying on the shore--with just a centre, a point of consciousness somewhere inside, to be aware of the difference between the elements and the something i knew was myself. but at last i moved. it was fatal. a wave of cold started, pricking somewhere in my head, and undulated sinuously through me, down to my feet. more waves followed; they careered through me. i considered them with interest. then they settled into aches at all the extremities. all at once it ceased to be interesting, and became a personal grievance--against the wind? the ducks? no-- jonathan! of course it was jonathan's fault. why didn't he come? i gazed into the twilight where he had disappeared. i couldn't go and hunt for him, because i should certainly get lost or fall into a ditch. ah! what was that? the long red flash of a gun!--another!--then the double report! well, of course, if he were shooting, i would suspend judgment a reasonable time. but it seemed quite an unreasonable time before i felt the impact of his tread on the springy marsh floor. i rose stiffly, feeling cross. "did you think i was never coming?" "i can't think. my brains are stiff." "i was delayed. i dropped one in the ditch. he was only wounded. i couldn't leave him." "then you got some?" "feel!" i felt his game pockets. "one, two--oh, three! i didn't hear you shoot except twice. well"--i was stamping and flinging my arms around myself in the endeavor to thaw out--"i think they're very well off: they're bound for a warm oven." "cold? thunder! i ought to have left you the bottle. here!" i took it and gulped, protesting: "detestable stuff! wait, i'll take some more." "this from you! you _must_ be cold! come on! run! look out for the little ditches! jump where i do." we started stiffly enough, in the teeth of the big, dark wind, till the motion, and the bottle, began to take effect. a haymow loomed. we flung ourselves, panting, against it, and, sinking back into its yielding bulk, drew long breaths. "did we think it was cold?" i murmured; "or windy?" we were on the leeward side of it, and it gave generous shelter. the wind sighed gently over the top of the mow, breathed past its sides, never touching us, and we gazed up at the stars. "the sky is fairly gray with them," i said. "perhaps," said jonathan lazily, "it's that bottle, making you see ten stars grow where one grew before." "perhaps," i suggested, choosing to ignore this speech, "it's the wind, blowing the stars around and raising star-dust." we lay in our protecting mow, and the warmth of our bodies drew out of it faint odors of salt hay. we did not talk. there are times when one seems to exist in poise, with eternity on all sides. one's thoughts do not move, they float. "well?" said jonathan at last. i could hear the hay rustle as he straightened up. "don't interrupt," i answered. but my spirit had come down to earth, and after the first jolt i realized that, as usual, jonathan was right. we plunged out again into the buffeting wind and the starlit darkness, and i followed blindly as jonathan led across the marshes, around pools, over ditches, until we began to see the friendly twinkle of house lights on the edge of the village. on through the lanes to the highroad, stumbling now and then on its stiffened ruts and ridges. as houses thickened the gale grew noisy, singing in telephone wires, whistling around barn corners, slamming blinds and doors, and rushing in the tree-tops. "o for that haymow!" i gasped. "the open fire will be better." jonathan flung back comfort across the wind. ten minutes later we had made harbor in the little house by the shore. the candles were lighted, the fire set ablaze, and as we sat before it cooking chops and toast i said, "no, jonathan, the open fire isn't any better than the haymow." "but different?" he suggested. "yes, quite different." "and good in its own poor way." he turned his chop. chops and toast and a blazing fire give forth odors of distracting pleasantness under such circumstances. "i think," i said, "that each gives point to the other." "aren't you glad i took you for ducks?" he asked. i mused, watching my toast. "i suppose," i said, "no one in his senses would leave a comfortable city house to go and lie out in a marsh at night, in a forty-mile gale, with the mercury at ten, unless he had some other motive than the thing itself--ducks, or conspiracy, or something. and yet it is the thing itself that is the real reward." "isn't that true of almost everything?" said jonathan. xvi comfortable books jonathan methodically tucked his bookmark into "the virginians," and, closing the fat green volume, began to knock the ashes out of his pipe against the bricked sides of the fireplace. "'the virginians' is a very comfortable sort of book," he remarked. "is it?" i said. "i wonder why." he ruminated. "well, chiefly, i suppose, because it's so good and long. you get to know all the people, you get used to their ways, and when they turn up again, after a lot of chapters, you don't have to find out who they are--you just feel comfortably acquainted." i sighed. i had just finished a magazine story--condensed, vivid, crushing a whole life-tragedy into seven pages and a half. in that space i had been made acquainted with sixteen different characters, seven principal ones and the rest subordinate, but all clearly drawn. i had found it interesting, stimulating; as a _tour de force_ it was noteworthy even among the crowd of short-stories--all condensed, all vivid, all interesting--that had appeared that month. but--comfortable? no. and i felt envious of jonathan. he had been reading "the virginians" all winter. his bookmark was at page , and there were pages in all, so he had a great deal of comfort left. perhaps comfort is not quite all that one should expect from one's reading. certainly it is the last thing one gets from the perusal of our current literature, and any one who reads nothing else is missing something which, whether he realizes it or not, he ought for his soul's sake to have--something which jonathan roughly indicated when he called it "comfort." the ordinary reader devours short-stories by the dozen, by the score--short short-stories, long short-stories, even short-stories laboriously expanded to a volume, but still short-stories. he glances, less frequently, at verses, chiefly quatrains, at columns of jokes, at popularized bits of history and science, at bits of anecdotal biography, and nowhere in all this medley does he come in contact with what is large and leisurely. current literature is like a garden i once saw. its proud owner led me through a maze of smooth-trodden paths, and pointed out a vast number of horticultural achievements. there were sixty-seven varieties of dahlias, there were more than a hundred kinds of roses, there were untold wonders which at last my weary brain refused to record. finally i escaped, exhausted, and sought refuge on a hillside i knew, from which i could look across the billowing green of a great rye-field, and there, given up to the beauty of its manifold simplicity, i invited my soul. it is even so with our reading. when i go into one of our public reading-rooms, and survey the serried ranks of magazines and the long shelves full of "recent fiction, not to be taken out for more than five days,"--nay, even when i look at the library tables of some of my friends,--my brain grows sick and i long for my rye-field. happily, there always is a rye-field at hand to be had for the seeking. jonathan finds refuge from business and the newspapers in his pipe and "the virginians." i have no pipe, but i sit under the curling rings of jonathan's, and i, too, have my comfortable books, my literary rye-fields. last summer it was malory's "morte d'arthur," whose book i found indeed a comfortable one--most comfortable. i read much besides, many short stories of surpassing cleverness and some of real excellence, but as i look back upon my summer's literary experience, all else gives place to the long pageant of malory's story, gorgeous or tender or gay, seen like a fair vision against the dim background of an old new england apple orchard. surely, though the literature of our library tables may sometimes weary me, it shall never enslave me. but they must be read, these "comfortable" books, in the proper fashion, not hastily, nor cursorily, nor with any desire to "get on" in them. they must lie at our hand to be taken up in moments of leisure, the slowly shifting bookmark--there should always be a bookmark--recording our half-reluctant progress. (i remember with what dismay i found myself arrived at the fourth and last volume of malory,) thus read, thus slowly woven among the intricacies and distractions of our life, these precious books will link its quiet moments together and lend to it a certain quality of largeness, of deliberation, of continuity. for it is surely a mistake to assume, as people so often do, that in a life full of distractions one should read only such things as can be finished at a single sitting and that a short one. it is a great misfortune to read only books that "must be returned within five days." for my part, i should like to see in our public libraries, to offset the shelves of such books, other shelves, labeled "books that may and should be kept out six months." i would have there thackeray and george eliot and wordsworth and spenser, malory and homer and cervantes and shakespeare and montaigne--oh, they should be shelves to rejoice the soul of the harassed reader! no, if one can read but little, let him by all means read something big. i know a woman occupied with the demands of a peculiarly exigent social position. finding her one day reading "the tempest," i remarked on her enterprise. "not a bit!" she protested, "i am not reading it to be enterprising, i am reading it to get rested. i find shakespeare so peaceful, compared with the magazines." i have another friend who is taking entire charge of her children, besides doing a good deal of her own housework and gardening. i discovered her one day sitting under a tree, reading matthew arnold's poems, while the children played near by, i ventured to comment on what seemed to me the incongruity of her choice of a book. "but don't you see," she replied, quickly. "that is just why! i am so busy from minute to minute doing lots of little practical, temporary things, that i simply have to keep in touch with something different--something large and quiet. if i didn't, i should die!" i suppose in the old days, in a less "literary" age, all such busy folk found this necessary rest and refreshment in a single book--the bible. doubtless many still do so, but not so many; and this, quite irrespective of religious considerations, seems to me a great pity. the literary quality of the scriptures has, to be sure, been partly vitiated by the lamentable habit of reading them in isolated "texts," instead of as magnificent wholes; yet, even so, i feel sure that this constant intercourse with the book did for our predecessors in far larger measure what some of these other books of which i have been speaking do for us--it furnished that contact with greatness which we all crave. it may be accident, though i hardly think so, that to find such books we must turn to the past. doubtless others will arise in the future--possibly some are even now being brought to birth, though this i find hard to believe. for ours is the age of the short-story--a wonderful product, perhaps the finest flower of fiction, and one which has not yet achieved all its victories or realized all its possibilities. all the fiction of the future will show the influence of this highly specialized form. in sheer craftsmanship, novel-writing has progressed far; in technique, in dexterous manipulation of their material, the novices of to-day are ahead of the masters of yesterday. this often happens in an art, and it is especially true just now in the art of fiction. yes, there are great things preparing for us in the future, there are excellent things being done momently about us. but while we wait for the great ones, the excellent ones sometimes create in us a sense of surfeit. we cannot hurry the future, and if meanwhile we crave repose, leisure, quiet, steadiness, the sense of magnitude, we must go to the past. there, and not in the yearly output of our own publishers, we shall find our "comfortable" books. xvii in the firelight jonathan had improvidently lighted his pipe before he noticed that the fire needed his attention. this was a mistake, because, at least in jonathan's case, neither a fire nor a pipe responds heartily to a divided mind. as i watched him absently knocking the charred logs together, i longed to snatch the tongs from his indifferent hands and "change the sorry scheme of things entire." big wads of smoke rolled nonchalantly out of the corners of the fireplace and filled the low ceiling with bluish mist, yet i held my peace, and i did not snatch the tongs. i know of no circumstances wherein advice is less welcome than when offered by a woman to a man on his knees before the fire. when my friends make fudge or rare-bits, they invite criticism, they court suggestion, but when one of them takes the tongs in his hand, have a care what you say to him! in our household a certain convention of courtesy--fireplace etiquette--has tacitly established itself, in accordance with which the person who wields the tongs, assuming full responsibility for results, is free from criticism or suggestion. disregard of such etiquette may not have precipitated divorce, but i have known it to produce distinctly strained relations. and so, while jonathan tinkered in a half-hearted way at the fire, i ruled my tongue. at last, little vanishing blue flickers began to run along the log edges, growing steadier and yellower until they settled into something like a blaze. jonathan straightened up, but there was a trace of the apologetic in his tone as he said, "that'll do, won't it?" "why, yes," i replied cautiously, "it's a fire." "well, what's the matter with it?" he asked tolerantly. "since you press me, i should say that it lacks--style." jonathan leaned back, puffing comfortably--"now, what in thunder do you mean by style?" but i was not to be enticed into an empty discussion of terms. "well, then, say frowsy. call it a frowsy fire. you know what frowsy means, i suppose. of course, though, i don't mean to criticize, only you asked me." and i added, with perhaps unnecessary blandness, "i'm _warm_ enough." jonathan smoked a few moments more, possibly by way of establishing his independence, then slowly rose, remarking, "oh, well, if you _want_ a stylish fire--" "i didn't say stylish, i said style--" but he was gone. he must have journeyed out to the woodshed,--however, there was a moon,--for he returned bearing a huge backlog. he had been magnanimous, indeed, for it was the sort that above all others delights my heart--a forked apple log with a big hollow heart. in a moment, i was on my knees clearing a place for it, and he swung it into position on the bed of embers, tucked in some white birch in front, and soon the flames were licking about the flaking gray apple bark and shooting up through the hollow fork in a fashion to charm the most fastidious. people whose open fires are machine-fed--who arrange for their wood as they do for their groceries, by telephone--know little of the real joys of a fire. it is laid by a servant,--unintelligently laid,--and upon such masses of newspaper and split kindling that it has no choice but to burn. the match is struck, the newspapers flare up, and soon there is a big, meaningless blaze. handfuls of wood--just wood, any kind of wood--are thrown on from time to time, and perhaps a log or two--any log, taken at random from the wood-box. truly, this is merest savagery, untrained, undiscriminating; it is the bushman's meal compared to the frenchman's dinner. not thus are real hearth fires laid. not thus are they enjoyed. you should plan a fire as you do a dinner party, and your wood, like your people, should be selected and arranged with due regard to age, temperament, and individual eccentricity. a fire thus skillfully planned, with some good talkers among the logs, may be as well worth listening to as the conversation about your table--perhaps better. to get the full flavor of a fire you must know your wood-- i had almost said, you must remember where the tree stood before it was cut--white birch in the dry, worn-out slopes, black birches from the edges of the pasture lots, chestnut from the ledges, maple from the swamps, apple from the old orchard, oak cut in sorrow when the fullness of time has come, and burned with the honor due to royalty. but though this may be a refinement of fancy, it is no fancy that one kind of wood differs from another in glory. there is the white birch, gay, light-hearted, volatile, putting all its pretty self into a few flaring moments--a butterfly existence. there is black birch, reluctant but steady; there is chestnut, vivacious, full of sudden enthusiasms; the apple, cheerful and willing; the maple and oak, sober and stanch, good for the long pull. every locality has its own sorts of wood, as its own sorts of people. mine is a new england wood basket, and as i look at it i recognize all my old friends. of them all i love the apple best, yet each is in its own way good. for a quick blaze, throw on the white birch; for a long evening of reading, when one does not want distraction, pile on the oak and maple. they will burn quietly, unobtrusively, importuning you neither for care nor appreciation. but for a fire to sit before with friends, bring in the apple wood. lay the great backlog, the more gnarled the better, and if there is a hole through which the flames may shoot up, that is best of all--such logs we hoard for special occasions. then with careful touch arrange the wood in front, your bundles of twigs, your pretty white birch sticks and your dry chestnut to start the fun, then the big apple forelog, the forestick and the backstick, not too much crowding or too much space. ah, there is a seemly fire! there is a fire for friends! for the renewal of old friendships, as for the perfecting of new ones, there is nothing like a fire. i met a friend after years of separation. we came together in a modern house, just modern enough to be full of steam pipes and registers and gas-logs, but not so modern as to have readopted open fireplaces. the room had no centre--there was no hearth to draw around, there was no reason for sitting in one place rather than another. we could not draw around the steam pipes or the register. the gas-log was not turned on, it would have been too hot, and anyhow--a gas-log! we sat and talked for hours in an aimless, unsatisfactory sort of way. i felt as if we were, figuratively speaking, sitting on the edges of our chairs. it was better than nothing, but it was not a real meeting. the next year we were together again, but this time it was before our own blazing apple log. we did not talk so much as we had done before, but we were silent a great deal more, which was better. for in really intimate communion, silence is the last, best gift, but it cannot be forced, it cannot be snatched at. you may try it, but you grow restless, you begin to consider your expression, you wonder how long it will last, you fancy it may seem to mean too much, and at last you are hurried over into talk again. but before a fire all things are possible, even silence. chance acquaintances and intimate friends fall alike under its spell, talk is absolutely spontaneous, it flows rapidly or slowly, or dies away altogether. what need for talk when the fire is saying it all--now flaring up in a blaze to interpret our rarest enthusiasms, now popping and snapping with wit or fury, now burning with the even heat of steady, rational life, now settling into a contemplative glow of meditation. in the circle of the hearth everything is good, but reminiscences are best of all. i sometimes think all life is valuable merely as an opportunity to accumulate reminiscences, and i am sure that the precious horde can be seen to best advantage by firelight. then is the time for the miser to spread out his treasure and admire it. i remember once jonathan and i were on a bicycle trip. my chain had broken and we had trudged eight long, hot, dusty miles to the river that had to be crossed that night. it was dark when we reached it, and it had begun to rain, a warm, dreary drizzle. as we stumbled over the railway track and felt our way past the little station toward the still smaller ferry-house, a voice from the darkness drawled, "guess ye won't git the ferry to-night--last boat went half an hour ago." it was the final blow. we leaned forlornly on our wheels and looked out upon the dark water, whose rain-quenched mirror dully reflected the lights of the opposite town. finally i said, "well, jonathan, anyhow, we're making reminiscences." this remark was, i own, not highly practical, but i intended it to be comforting, and if it failed--as it clearly did--to cheer jonathan, that was not because it lacked wisdom, but because men are so often devoid of imagination save as an adornment of their easy moments. finally the same impersonal voice out of the dark uttered another sentence: "might row ye 'cross if ye've _got_ to go to-night." "how much?" said jonathan. "guess it's wuth a dollar. mean night to be out there." we had, between us, forty-seven cents and three street-car tickets, good in the opposite town. all this we meekly offered him, and in the pause that followed i added desperately, "and we can each take an oar and help." "wall-- i'll take ye." it seemed to me that the voice suggested an accompanying grin, but i had no proof. and so we got across. we never saw the face of our boatman, but on the other side we felt for his hand and emptied our pockets into it--nickels and dimes and pennies, and the three car tickets; but as we were turning to grope our way up the dock the voice said, "here--ye'll need two of them tickets to git home with. i do' want 'um." now already it must be evident to any one that my remark to jonathan, though perhaps ill-timed, embodied a profound and cheering truth. the more uncomfortable you are, the more desperate your situation, the better the reminiscences you are storing up to be enjoyed before the fire. yes, there is nothing like firelight for reminiscences. by the clear light of morning--say ten o'clock--i might be forced to admit that life has had its humdrum and unpleasant aspects, but in the evening, with the candles lighted and the fire glowing and flickering, i will allow no such thing. the firelight somehow lights up all the lovely bits, and about the unlovely ones it throws a thick mantle of shadow, like the shadows in the corners of the room behind us. nor does the firelight magic end here. not only does it play about the fair hours of our past, making them fairer, it also vaguely multiplies them, so that for one real occurrence we see many. it is like standing between opposing mirrors: looking into either, one sees a receding series of reflections, unending as banquo's royal line. thus, once last winter jonathan and i spent a long evening reading aloud a tale of the "earthly paradise." once last summer we sat alone before the embers and quietly talked. once and only once. yet firelit memory is already laying her touch upon those hours. already, though my diary tells me they stood alone, i am persuaded that they were many. i look back over a retrospect of many long winter evenings, in whose cozy light i see again the ringed smoke of jonathan's pipe and hear again the lingering verse of the idle singer's tales; a retrospect of many long summer twilights, wherein the warmth of the settling embers mingles with the sharp coolness of a summer night, and pleasant talk gives place to pleasant silence. the apple logs have burned through and rolled apart, the great backlog has settled deeper and deeper into the ashes. the fire whispers and murmurs, it whistles soft, low notes, it chuckles and sighs, finally it sinks into reverie, stirring now and then to whisper "sh-h-h-h" lest we break the spell. only the old clock in the hall refuses to yield, and soberly persists in its "tick-tock," "tick-tock." jonathan's pipe is smoked out, but he does not fill it, and we sit there, looking deep into the rosy glow, and dreaming, dreaming-- [illustration: cover art] [frontispiece: _leaning over the edge of the porch she dropped the bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds_. (_page_ )] barbara ladd by charles g. d. roberts author of the kindred of the wild, the heart of the ancient wood, a sister to evangeline, poems, etc. illustrated by frank verbeck new york grosset & dunlap publishers copyright, , by l. c. page & company (incorporated). all rights reserved. published october, eighth impression, april, . list of illustrations "leaning over the edge of the porch she dropped the bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds" (_see page _) . . . _frontispiece_ "'what a nice-looking boy you are!' she said" "'o mehitable--demoralised--by barbara!' vowed doctor john" "he sank off again, falling back into barbara's supporting arms" barbara ladd chapter i. she knew very well that she should have started earlier; but if there was one thing that could daunt her wayward and daring little spirit, it was the dark. now, as she stood, wide-eyed and breathless with suspense, beside her open window, the face of the dark began to change. a gray pallor came over it, and on a sudden she was aware of a black horizon line, ghostly, lonely beyond words, far to the eastward over the yet invisible tree-tops. with this pallor came a chill which barbara felt on her little, trembling hands, on her eyes, and in her heart: as if the night, in going, had laid aside its benignity and touched the world in farewell with a cold hand of warning and menace. then, here and there a leaf stood out, palely distinct, upon the thick frondage of the apple-tree whose nearest branches crowded the roof of the porch below her window. there was a faint chirping from the heart of the syringa thicket; and barbara's ears were so attentive that she caught the drowsy, awakening flutter of small wings down below in the dewy gloom. with the sound came a cool and delicate pungency from the wet currant bushes, puffed upward to her as if the garden world beneath the leaves had drawn a long breath in getting ready to awake. this tonic scent, which nostrils less keen than barbara's would scarcely have discerned, came to the child as a signal for action. peculiarly sensitive to the message and influence of odours, she felt this sudden fragrance in her nerves as a summons, a promise, and a challenge, all in one. noiselessly she pushed the two diamond-paned leaves of her window open to their widest. how the grayness was spreading! a pang of apprehension seized her, lest she had delayed too long. she turned impulsively, and stepped into the darkness of her room. in a moment her slim little figure reappeared at the window, this time heavily encumbered. in one hand was a round, soft bundle, in the other a square wicker basket with a white cloth tied over the top. the white cloth glimmered conspicuously, but the light was not yet strong enough to reveal the colour of the bundle. setting both the burdens out upon the roof of the porch, she turned, glanced in at the window, and said, softly: "good-bye, little room! i haven't been happy with you. but i hope you won't be lonely when i'm gone!" leaning over the edge of the porch, she dropped the bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds. the basket, on the other hand, she took up with care. thrusting her left arm through the handle, she swung herself nimbly into the apple-tree, and thence to the ground; while the basket tipped and slewed as if it were alive. "be still, my babies!" she whispered; and then, picking up the bundle from the crushed marigolds, and never turning her head to look up at the stately old house which she was leaving, she fled down the walk between the currant and gooseberry bushes, the thyme, the sage, and summer savoury beds,--through a narrow wicket gate half-hidden in larkspur and honeysuckle,--along the foot-path through the rank and dripping burdocks back of the barn, where she felt a little qualm of homesickness at the sound of her dear horses breathing deeply and contentedly in the stalls,--and thence, letting down one of the bars and crawling through with her burdens, out into the graying, hillocky open of the cow-pasture. by this time a cool and luminous wave of pink, changing to pale saffron at its northeastern edges, had crept up over the far-off hilltops. faint tinges of colour, of a strange and unusual transparency, began to reveal themselves all over the expanse of pasture. as the miracle of dawn thus overtook her, a sense of unreality came upon barbara's soul. she felt as if this were not she, this little girl so adventurously running away--but rather some impossible child in a story-book, who had so engaged her sympathies for the moment that she could not be sure which was make-believe and which herself. with a chill of lonesome dread she slipped a hand under the cloth and into the basket. the touch of warm, live, cuddling fur reassured her, and brought her back to her own identity. but stranger and stranger grew the mystical transparency, only made the more startling by a fleece of vapour here and there curling up from between the hillocks. stumps, weed-tops, patches of juniper, tufts of blueberry bush, wisps of coarse grass left uncropped, seemed to detach themselves, lift, and float in the solvent clarity of that new-born air, that new-born light. surely, this was not her old, familiar world! barbara stood still, her great eyes dilating, her lips parted in a kind of ecstasy, as sense and spirit alike drank in the marvel of the dawn. it seemed to her as if she discovered, in that moment, that the world was made anew with every morning,--and with the discovery she became aware, dimly but securely, that she was herself a part of the imperishable, ever-renewing life. she was brought back to more instant considerations by the sudden appearance of a red-and-white cow, which got up with a great, windy, grunting breath, and came toward her out of a misty hollow. with all the cows of the herd barbara was in high favour, but just now the sight alarmed her. "gracious!" she exclaimed to herself, "abby will be out to milk in another minute!"--and she broke into a run at the best speed that her burdens would permit, making for the maple woods which lay to the north of the pasture. the cow looked and mooed after her wistfully, wondering at her flight, and aching for the relief of the milker's hand. but barbara paid no heed to her, nor to the others of the herd, who now came into view from corners of the pasture as the enchanted light grew and spread. she darted on, vanishing in the hollows, flitting over the hillocks, fleetly threading the crooked and slender path,--a wisp-like, dark little figure. her bundle, now seen to be tied up in a silk shawl of flamelike scarlet, and the snow-white covering of her basket, flickered across the mystical transparency of the landscape like bubbles of intense light blown far in advance of the morning. not till she came to the other side of the pasture and plunged into the obscurity of the woods did barbara check her speed. here the dawn was but beginning to penetrate, thrusting thin shafts of pink-amber light here and there through the leafage, and touching the eastward sides of trunk and branch with elusive glories. breathing quickly, barbara set down the bundle and the precious basket; but she snatched them up again as she caught a sound of panting and running behind her. on the instant, however, the alarm faded from her face. "down, keep!" she commanded, sharply, as the gaunt gray form of a mastiff leaped upon her, almost carrying her off her feet. fawning, and giving little yelps of joy, the huge animal crouched before her, pounding the sward with ecstatic tail, and implored to lick her hands. she threw both arms about the dog's head, murmuring to him, poignantly impetuous, her voice tearful with self-reproach: "was his best friend going away, without ever saying good-bye to him? well, she was bad, she was very, very bad!" and she wiped away several large, surreptitious tears upon the furry folds of his neck. then she sprang up and renewed her journey resolutely; while the mastiff, bounding in front of her, showed his plain conviction that some fine, audacious adventure was afoot, and that it would be his great luck to have a part in it. for more than a mile barbara followed the wood-path, the fresh, wet gloom lightening about her as she went. where the maples thinned away, and the slenderer ash and birch took their place, she got glimpses of a pale sky overhead, dappled with streamers of a fiery violet. here and there a dripping leaf had caught the colours from above and flashed elusive jewels upon her vision. here and there the dewy thickets of witch-hazel and viburnum crowded so close about the path that her skirts and shoulders were drenched with their scented largess. here and there in her path rose suddenly a cluster of night-born toadstools--squat, yellow, and fat-fleshed, or tall, shadowy-hooded, and whitely venomous--over which she stepped with wary aversion. and once, eager as was her haste, she stopped to pick a great, lucent, yellow orchid, which seemed to beam like a sacred lamp in its dark green shrine beneath the alders. at length the path dipped sharply between rocks overgrown with poison ivy. then the trees thinned away before her, and the day grew at once full of light; and the mirror-surface of a little lake, shining with palest crocus-tint and violet and silvery rose, obscured with patches of dissolving mist, flashed upon her eyes. she ran down to the very edge, where the water seemed to breathe among its fringing pebbles, and there set down the bundle and the basket; while the dog, yelping joyously, bounded and splashed in the shallows. when, however, barbara stepped up the bank to a thicket of indian willow, and proceeded, by dint of carefully calculated lifting and pulling, to drag forth from its hiding-place a ruddy canoe of birch-bark, the dog's spirits and his flaunting tail fell together. if barbara's venture was to be in the canoe, he knew he should have no part in it; and his big, doggish heart was dejected. with his tongue hanging from his jaws, he sat up on his brindled haunches and looked on, while slowly and laboriously barbara worked the frail craft down to the water. when it was afloat, and the resined prow pulled up into a tuft of weeds to keep it from drifting away, barbara fetched two paddles from the same hiding-place. in the bow of the canoe she stowed her bundle and her basket. in the stern she arranged a pile of ferns as a cushion for her knees. once more she flung her arms around keep's massive neck, kissed his silky ears, wept violently for the smallest fraction of a minute; and then, stepping into the canoe with the light precision of one skilled with the birch-bark, she pushed off, and with quick, vigorous strokes headed straight across the lake. the dog ran uneasily up and down the water's edge, whining and fretting after her. when she was a little way out he made a sudden resolution, plunged into the water, and swam eagerly after the fugitive. but barbara heard the splash, and understood. she realised that he would surely upset the canoe in trying to get into it, and this was the time when she must seem hard, however her heart was melting. she looked back over her shoulder. "go home, keep! go home!" she commanded. the dog turned obediently and made for shore. and barbara, her lips set and the big tears rolling down her cheeks, continued her journey out across the lake. chapter ii. it was now clear day. the ample spaces of blue between the thin clouds overhead grew pure, as if new bathed. the sun was not yet visible over the woods, but sent level shafts of radiance through the sparser leafage. barbara's face was westward, and her prow, as the nervous cunning of her paddle urged it forward, threw off the water on either side in long, polished, fluted furrows, dazzlingly bright at the top of the curve and steel-dark in the depression. child as she was, and of a fairy slightness, barbara's wrists were strong and she was master of her paddle. her tears presently dried themselves as she noted with exultation, by the growing depth and abruptness of these furrows from her prow, that she was making a speed that did credit to her canoe-craft. in a few minutes her parting pangs were all forgotten, and she was absorbed in racing, as it were, against herself. she knelt low, working her shoulders freely like a squaw, and bent every energy to making the passage of the open before a wind out of the morning should awake to hinder her progress. a low, green point, deep-plumed with sedge, thrust out from the nearing shore to meet her. at its tip, motionless, and eloquent of ancient mystery, poised the dream-like shape of a blue heron. nearer and nearer slipped the canoe, till barbara could discern the round, unwinking jewel of the great bird's eye, watching her inscrutably. then, with leisurely spread of spacious wings, it rose and flapped away, to renew its not wholly disinterested contemplations in a further reed-bed. behind the point of sedges barbara swept the canoe on a fine curve, and into the channel of a little river, the quiet outlet of the lake. alders, osiers, and thick-starred draperies of clematis came down over either bank. the stream was not twenty paces wide, and its deep current was so gentle that the long weeds on the bottom were hardly under compulsion to show which way it flowed. the ancient wood at this place gave back several hundred yards from the lake, save for scattered outposts and thickets. rounding the first curve of the stream,--which, indeed, seemed all curves in its reluctance to forsake the parent water,--the canoe ran into a flock of gray-and-white geese dabbling along the weedy margin. the birds were not alarmed, but they lifted their heads and clamoured a sonorous warning; and straightway from behind the screen of leafage came a quacking of ducks, a cackling of hens, and the excited barking of a puppy. then a cock crowed shrilly. the stream rounded to a wider stretch, and its western bank, flooded with sunshine, showed a grassy clearing of perhaps two acres in extent, at the back of which, close against the primeval trees, huddled a low, gray cabin, with wide eaves and a red door. a hop-vine covered one end of the cabin and sprawled over the roof. along the base ran a "banking" about two feet high, of rough boards with the bark on, supported by stakes and filled in with earth--a protection to the cellar against winter frosts. leaned up to the sun, along the banking, stood wooden tubs and an iron pot; and on a bench beside the door another tub. in front of the door was a space of chips, littered with axe, buck-saw, feed-troughs, parts of a broken hand-sled, a large wicker basket with the bottom gone, and indeterminate waifs and strays of human use. from this space of débris a foot-path ran down through short grass to the waterside, where a clumsy punt was hauled up. the place was alive with ducks and chickens; and as barbara came in view a stately turkey-cock swelled, strutted, and gobbled defiance to her intrusion. sitting on the door-step in the sun was a sturdy old woman in greenish homespun petticoat and bodice, with a dull red kerchief crossed upon her shoulders and a cap of greenish-yellow linen on her head,--the soft dye of the "yaller-weed" juice. she was busy cutting coloured rags into strips for mat-hooking. at her side sat a small yellow puppy, with head cocked and one ear alertly lifted, curious but doubtful as to the visitor. barbara turned her birchen prow to the landing-place, and ran it gently ashore in the soft mud beside the punt. at the same moment mrs. deborah blue--known to barbara and to all the village of second westings as 'old debby'--dropped her knitting on the stoop, snatched up a stout stick that leaned against the door-post, and hobbled with a heavy briskness down the path to meet the visitor. the yellow pup frisked interestedly at her heels. barbara had indeed run her prow ashore, but that was for the sake of stability merely. she was in haste, and had no idea of stopping now to indulge her inclination for a gossip with old debby. she rested in silence, one brown hand on the gunwale of the punt, her full, young, wilful lips very scarlet, her gray-green eyes asparkle with mystery and excitement, as the old woman hobbled down to greet her. "ain't ye comin' in to set awhile, an' eat a cooky, miss barby?" inquired mrs. blue, wondering at the child's inscrutable look. the old dame's face was red and harsh and strongly lined. her chin was square and thrust forward aggressively, with a gray-bristled wart at one side of its obtrusive vigour. a lean and iron-gray wisp of hair, escaped from under her hat, straggled down upon her red neck. but her shrewd, hard, pale-blue, dauntless old eyes beamed upon the child with unfeigned welcome. she spoke a little wheezingly, being out of breath from haste; and barbara was the only soul in all the township of second westings for whom old debby would condescend to hasten. "no, debby dear, i can't stop one minute. i'm not coming ashore. i'm running away from aunt hitty, and i'm going down the river to uncle bob. i just stopped to say good-bye to you, you old dear, and to ask you to take this letter for me to aunt hitty. i didn't dare to leave it in my room, for fear she'd find it and know where i'd gone, and send after me before i'd got a good start. i don't like aunt hitty, you know, debby, but she's been good to me in her way, and i don't want her to be worrying!" she held out a folded paper for the old dame to take; but she held it tentatively, as if she did not want to surrender it at once. knowing barbara as no one else in the township of second westings knew her, old debby betrayed neither surprise nor disapproval. she nodded several times, as if running away were the most reasonable, and indeed the most ordinary, thing in the world for a little girl of fourteen years to do when she found aunts and environments uncongenial. old debby's smile, at this moment, had just the right degree of sympathy. had ever so little of amusement glimmered through its weather-beaten creases, she knew that the sensitive and wilful girl before her would have been off in a second with her venture all unexplained. "i'd take it fer ye, my sweeting, ef i'd got to crawl on my knees all the way 'round the lake," the old dame answered promptly; but at the same time, scheming to prolong the interview, and knowing that if once barbara started off again there would be no such thing as luring her back, she kept both hands clasped on top of her stick and made no move to accept the missive. "ain't ye goin' to read it to me?" she went on, coaxingly. "i'd give a sight to hear what ye're sayin' to yer aunt hitty." now this was just what barbara wanted, in spite of her haste. she wanted to hear how her letter would sound. she wanted to try it on old debby, in whom she felt sure of a eulogistic critic. without a word she untied the yellow ribbon, opened the packet, and began to read, with a weighty impressiveness in her childish voice: "my dear aunt hitty:--this is to say farewell for ever, for i have run away. i do not think it would be good for me to live with you any longer, so i am going to uncle bob. he loves me, and does not think i am bad. and i think he needs me, too, because i understand him. i know i have often been bad, and have made you unhappy very often, aunt hitty. but i don't think you ever understand me--and i don't understand you--and so we cannot be happy together. but don't be worried about me, for i will be all right. and i thank you for all the trouble you have taken about me. i don't want any of my old clothes except what i have brought with me, so please give them to mercy chapman, because she is poor and just about my size, and always kind to animals, and i like her. i have taken your nice basket you got from the squaw last saturday, to carry my kittens in; but i know you won't mind, because you offered to give it to me when i did not know i was going to need it. i have taken the canoe, too, but i want to pay for it, of course, aunt hitty. please keep enough to get a new one, and paddles, out of the money you are taking care of for me, and send the rest right away to uncle bob, because i'll need some new frocks when i get to the city, and i don't know whether uncle bob has any money or not. good-bye, aunt hitty, and i am so sorry that we could not understand each other. "your niece, "barbara ladd." she looked up, proud, but a little anxious, and eager for commendation. old debby rose to the circumstances. "law, how you kin write, miss barby," she said, with a nod and chuckle. "the parson nor doctor jim couldn't 'a' done no better. i reckon aunt hitty'll understand ye now, a sight better'n she's given to understand folks as don't jest think as she do. give me the letter!" barbara's face flashed radiantly. with a sudden impulse she sprang up, skipped ashore, thrust the letter into the old woman's hand, and cried in a high key: "oh, i'm so hungry, debby! i can't stop a minute, but do give me some breakfast, there's a dear. i was too excited to eat before i left. and do give my kittens a drop of milk. i've got nothing but cold meat for them to eat on the journey, poor babies!" without waiting for a reply, she skipped back to the canoe, grabbed up the covered basket, and flew up the path to the cottage; while the old woman limped after her with astonishing speed, chuckling and wheezing out a disjointed invitation. she followed barbara into the cabin, shutting the door to keep out the puppy, who whined in an injured voice upon the stoop. then, thinking of the kittens first,--and thereby showing her deep knowledge of the kittens' mistress,--she set down a bowl of milk in the middle of the floor; and barbara, uncovering the basket, lovingly lifted out three plump, moon-faced little cats, a yellow-and-white, a black-and-white, and a gray-and-white. while the three, with happy tails erect, lapped at the milk, barbara made haste to devour thick slices of brown bread and butter, spread to a luscious depth with moist, sweet-scented maple sugar. she had no time to talk. she sat on the edge of the big four-post bed, swinging her slim legs, and kicking her heels against the dingy, gay patchwork quilt whose ample folds hung to the floor. the hidden space under the bed was a place of piquant mystery to barbara, containing, as it did, boxes on boxes of many-coloured rags, out of which, earlier in the season, old debby would bring forth precious goose-eggs, duck-eggs, turkey-eggs, and the specially prized eggs of certain pet and prolific hens, gathered against the time of setting. while barbara broke her fast, old debby refrained from questions, having shrewdly grasped the whole situation. she knew that mr. robert glenowen, barbara's uncle, had lately come north on an errand which nobody seemed to understand, and had taken a house at stratford. of a nomadic spirit in her younger days, debby had moved much here and there throughout her native connecticut, and over the bordering counties of new york and massachusetts; and she had not only a rough idea of the distance from second westings to stratford, but a very vivid realisation of the perils of the journey which barbara, in her innocence, had so confidently undertaken. till she saw that the appetites of barbara and the kittens were nearing satisfaction, she talked with a sort of casual enthusiasm of her luck with the chickens, the goslings, the young turkeys, and depicted the prowess of an old speckled hen which had engaged and defeated a marauding hawk. then, when at last barbara sprang up, bundled the satiated kittens into the basket, and turned to her for a fond and final good-bye, the crafty old dame broke into passionate farewells. she kissed the child, and even wept over her, till barbara's self-centred exaltation was very near collapse. "_you_ love me, don't you, debby dear?" she exclaimed, with a wistfulness in her voice, searching the old woman's face with her great, eager, strangely alien eyes. barbara was one of those who colour the moods of others by their own, and who are therefore apt to be at fault in their interpretation of another's motives. this gave her, even in childhood, a strangeness, an aloneness of personality, which she, as well as those who loved her, could seldom break down. it was with a kind of heart-break that she now and again, for an instant, became dimly aware of this alien fibre in her temperament. it made her both misunderstanding and misunderstood. "i can trust you, can't i?" she went on, leaning childishly for a moment upon the old woman's comfortable breast. "trust old debby, my sweeting!" cried the old dame, in tones which carried conviction. "ye hain't got no lovinger nor faithfuller friend alive than me. don't ye never forgit that, miss barby." for answer barbara clutched her fiercely around the neck, sobbed and clung to her for a moment, cried extravagantly, "yes, you are the best friend i've got in all the world!" then gathered up her basket of kittens and fled wildly down the path to the canoe. impetuously she pushed off, the world a golden blur before her eyes; and without once looking back, she disappeared around the next winding of the stream. old debby stood for some minutes gazing after this meteor-like--and very barbara-like--exit. there was amusement now, unhindered, on her hard old face, but a kind of fierce devotion withal. when the stern of the canoe had vanished behind the leafage, she muttered to herself: "well! well! well! was ever sech a child! when ye set yer finger onto her, she ain't there! i reckon that mincing-mouthed aunt kitty's hed her bad times, too. but the sooner i git 'round to see doctor jim the better it's goin' to be fer the little wild witch. land's sakes alive! but 'twon't be 'debby dear' to me agin fer awhile. how them eyes'll blaze! i'll not go nigh her till she's hed time to git over it an' to know who's really her friends. no, pippin, ye can't come with me! go 'way!" turning into the long lean-to of a shed which stretched behind the cabin, she brought out two stumpy oars. these under her left arm, her stalwart stick in her right hand, she limped with massive alertness down to the waterside, shoved off the punt, climbed into it with a nicety of balance remarkable in one of her weight, clicked the oars into the rowlocks, and pulled up-stream toward the lake whence barbara had come. chapter iii. the child who set forth so fearlessly, on so audacious and ill-regulated a venture, that midsummer morning of the year ,--in a time when audacity on the part of small girls was apt to meet the discouragement of a peculiarly strenuous discipline,--was an accident in her period, an irreconcilable alien to her environment. in her intense individuality, and in the confident freedom with which she claimed the right to express that individuality, she belonged to an earlier or a later day, but not to a new england of the eighteenth century. two years before, at the age of twelve, an age when other children's personalities were colourless to the eyes of their elders, she had been projected into the tranquil routine of the little world of second westings. it was an established, crystallised, unchanging life there in the back country of connecticut, where hours, seasons, actions, habits, revolved in so orderly a fashion as to have worn themselves grooves out of which they could hardly even look, still less achieve to deviate. into this rigid placidity the dark child came like a grain of ferment; and presently, no one could tell just how, the mass began to work. barbara was everywhere discussed. she was rather unanimously disapproved of. and, nevertheless, as it were in the teeth of all probability, she won to herself here and there a friend. at the time of barbara's transplanting from the cordial soil of maryland to the austere uplands of connecticut, her father, the reverend winthrop hopkins ladd, clergyman of the established church, had been dead over two years, and the child's hurt, as such things will, had outwardly healed; though the hidden wounds would agonise in her heart at unexpected times, set vibrating to some poignant touch of scent or sound or colour. the child had adored her father with a tempestuous and jealous devotion, which, however, had not prevented her waywardness from diversifying his repose with many a wakeful night. her mother, who had died when barbara was scarce out of arms, had been a bewildering birth from the kiss of north wales on the warm south of spanish passion. the son of an old welsh family, adventuring to the new world to capture himself a fortune, had captured himself also a wife to beggar envy. where or how he got the fortune, no man knew and few presumed to wonder; but where and how he got the wife was matter of noonday knowledge. he saw her at church in new orleans. there were looks that burn and live. through that emotional spring glenowen sniffed the incense of more masses than he had thought to attend in a lifetime. once there was a stolen word behind a pillar, eyes warily averted. twice notes passed from hand to hand. then a girl, the daughter of one of the haughtiest houses of colonial spain, was audaciously carried off by night from a convent school in the safe heart of the city. when next seen of the world, she was glenowen's wife, most radiantly and graciously dispensing an accepted hospitality in baltimore. the result that in particular pertains to this history was a small, flame-like, imperious girl, one mistress mercedes glenowen, who, from the night of ceremony when she first made her bow to the governor and joyously turned her disastrous eyes upon the society of baltimore, for the space of some three years dispersed vain heartache throughout the colony. into the remotest plantations went the name of her and the fame of her--and too often, also, the sickness of a hopeless desire of her. there were duels, too, discreetly laid to other cause; and old friendships changed to hate; and wild oaths made perjury. but the heart of mistress mercedes went free. a quiet young clergyman, a kinsman to the governor, came to baltimore from boston, on his way to a country parish on the pawtuxet, to which he had just been appointed. dining at government house, he met mistress mercedes, but his eyes, being at that moment immersed in dreams, looked not upon but through and beyond her. mercedes could not rest an instant until those far-wandering, northern eyes were ensnared, imprisoned, and denied a range beyond the boundaries of her heart. but the capture was not a quick one, and in the interest of it she had the accident to become herself entangled, to such a degree that she had no longer any use for freedom. and so it came about, to the wrathful amaze of her retinue, but the unspeakable content of the reverend winthrop ladd, that the dark rose of maryland was on a sudden removed from baltimore to bloom on a churchly plantation by the pale waters of the pawtuxet. mr. ladd, though a dreamer so far as consisted with outdoor life and sanity of brain and muscle, was a strong man, one of those who have the force to rule when they must, and the gentleness to yield when they may. in the passionate completeness of her love, mercedes sloughed the caprices that would have pained and puzzled him, forgot the very echoes of the acclamations of her court, and lived in the sanctuary of her husband's devotion. for nearly three years the strangely assorted lovers dwelt in their dream, while the world passed by them like a pageant viewed through a glory of coloured glass. then a sudden sickness tore them apart; and when the dazed man came slowly back to the realisation that he had been left to live, all his love, with all the illusion of it, centred itself fixedly upon the little one, barbara, whom mercedes had left to him. as barbara grew more and more like her mother, her ascendency over her father grew more and more complete. tenderly but firmly he ruled his parish and his plantation. but he gradually forgot to rule barbara. too nearly did she represent to him all that he had lost in his worshipped mercedes; and he could not bring himself to see anything but freshness of character and vigour of personality in the child's very faults. hence he evolved, to suit her particular case, a theory very much out of harmony with his time, to the effect that a child--or rather, perhaps, such a child as this of mercedes--should not be governed or disciplined, but guided merely, and fostered in the finding of her own untrammelled individuality. this plan worked, for the time, to barbara's unqualified approval, but she was destined to pay for it, in later years, a heavy price in tears, and misunderstandings, and repentance. with the growth of her intense and confident personality there grew no balancing strength of self-control. unacquainted with discipline, she was without the safeguard of self-discipline. before she was eight years old she held sway over every one on the plantation but herself,--and her rule, though pretty and bewitching, was not invariably gentle. as for her father, though ostensively her comrade and mentor, he was by this time in reality her slave. he rode with her; he read with her; he taught her,--but such studies only as ensnared her wayward inclination, and with such regularity only as fell in with her variable mood. the hour for a lesson on the spinet would go by unheeded, if barbara chanced to be interested in the more absorbing occupation of climbing a tree; and the time for reciting latin syntax was lightly forgotten if berries were a-ripening in the pasture. under such auspices, however, barbara did assuredly grow straight-limbed and active, slight and small indeed, by heritage from her mother, but strong and of marvellous endurance, with the clear blood red under her dark skin, her great gray-green eyes luminous with health. her father devoted to her every hour of the day that he could spare from the claims of his parish. in a sunny and sandy cove near the house he taught her to swim. rowing and canoeing on the pawtuxet were mysteries of outdoor craft into which he initiated her as soon as her little hands could pull an oar or swing a paddle. a certain strain of wildness in her temperament attuned her to a peculiar sympathy with the canoe, and won her a swift mastery of its furtive spirit. in the woods, and in the seclusion of remote creeks and backwaters, her waywardness would vanish till she became silent and elusive as the wild things whose confidence she was for ever striving to gain. her advances being suspiciously repelled by the squirrels, the 'coons, and the chipmunks, her passion was fain to expend itself upon the domestic animals of the plantation. the horses, cattle, dogs, and cats, all loved her, and she understood them as she never understood the nearest and best-beloved of her own kind. with the animals her patience was untiring, her gentleness unfailing, while her thoughtless selfishness melted into a devotion for which no sacrifice seemed too great. the negroes of the plantation, who seemed to barbara akin to the animals, came next to these in her regard, and indeed were treated with an indulgence which made them almost literally lay their black necks in the dust for her little feet to step on. but with people of her own class she was apt to be hasty and ungracious. _their_ feelings were of small account in her eyes--certainly not to be weighed for a moment against those of a colt or a kitten. there was one sweet-eyed and lumbering half-grown puppy which barbara's father--not for an instant, indeed, believing anything of the sort--used to declare was more precious to her than himself. but her old black "mammy" 'lize used to vow there was more truth than he guessed in "marse ladd's foolin'." however, when a fever snatched the gentle priest away from the scene of his love and kindly ministrations, the child's true self emerged through its crust of whim and extravagance. stricken beyond a child's usual capacity to feel or realise such a blow, she was herself seized with a serious illness, after which she fell into a dejection which lasted for the better part of a year. in her desolation she turned to her animals rather than to her human companions, and found the more of healing in their wordless sympathy. at last, youth and health asserted themselves, and once more barbara rode, paddled, swam, tyrannised, and ran wild over the plantation, while relatives from maine to maryland wrangled over her future. there was one young uncle, her mother's only brother, whom barbara decided to adopt as her sole guardian. but other guardians came to another decision. uncle bob glenowen was an uncle after barbara's own heart, but a little more disciplined and reasonable than herself. the two would have got on delightfully together--together careering over the country on high-mettled horses, together swimming and canoeing at the most irregular hours, together lauding and loving their four-foot kindred and laughing to scorn the general stupidity of mankind. but uncle glenowen had little of gold or gear, and his local habitation was mutable. he loved barbara too well not to recognise that she should grow up under the guidance of steadier hands than his. it was finally settled--barbara's fiery indignation being quite disregarded--that she should go to her father's younger sister, mistress mehitable ladd, in second westings. mistress ladd was a self-possessed, fair-faced, aristocratic little lady, with large blue eyes and a very firm, small mouth. she was conscientious to a point that was wont to bring her kindness, at times, into painful conflict with her sense of duty. the puritan fibre ran in unimpaired vitality through the texture of her being, with the result that whenever her heart was so rash as to join issue with her conscience, then prompt and disastrous overthrow was the least her heart could expect for such presumption. in the matter of barbara's future, however, distress mehitable felt that duty and inclination ran together. she had loved her brother winthrop with unselfish and admiring devotion, and had grieved in secret for years over his defection from the austere fold of the congregationalists to what she regarded as the perilously carnal form and ceremony of the church of england. her hampered spirit, her uncompleted womanhood, yearned toward barbara, and she shuddered at the idea of winthrop's child growing up untaught, unmothered, uncontrolled. she made up her mind that barbara should come to second westings, become a daughter to her, and be reared in the purity of unsullied congregationalism. with a sigh of concordant relief it was recognised by the other relatives that mehitable was right. they washed their hands of the child, and forgot her, and were thankful--all but uncle bob. and so barbara went to second westings. chapter iv. little enough, indeed, would second westings ever have seen of the heartsore and rebellious child, but for this uncle bob. searching his own spirit, he understood hers; and maintaining a discreet silence as to the chief points of his discovery, he set himself the duty of accompanying barbara on the long, complicated journey to connecticut. not content with delivering his charge into the hands of mistress mehitable,--whom he liked despite her uneasy half-disapproval of himself,--he stayed long summer weeks at second westings, thus bridging over for barbara the terrible chasm between the old life and the new, and by his tactful conciliation on every side making the new life look a little less hatefully alien to her. he took her riding all over the township; he took her canoeing on the lake, and down the outlet to its junction with the river; and so not only won her a freedom of movement hitherto unheard-of among the maidens of second westings, but also showed her that the solace of wild woods and sweet waters was to be found no less in connecticut than in her longed-for maryland. moreover, uncle bob had "a presence." second westings scrutinised him severely, all ready to condemn the stranger folk to whom winthrop ladd had turned in his marrying. but second westings felt constrained to acknowledge at once that winthrop ladd had married within his class. to high and low alike--and the line between high and low was sharply drawn at second westings--it was obvious that the sister of mr. robert glenowen must have been gently born. those who would not let themselves be warmed by uncle bob's bright heartsomeness were unable to withhold acknowledgment of his good breeding. mistress mehitable, though antagonised by vague gossip as to his "wildness," nevertheless recognised with serious relief that no common blood had been suffered to obscure the clear blue stream whose purity the ladds held precious. "light, i fear--if not, in other surroundings, ungodly; but beyond all cavil a gentleman!" pronounced the reverend jonathan sawyer, flicking snuff from his sleeve with white, scholarly fingers. he was not so innocent as to attach too much importance to uncle bob's devout attitude through those interminable services which made a weekly nightmare of the connecticut sabbath; but he had found a reserved satisfaction in the young man's company over a seemly glass and a pipe of bright virginia. he had a feeling that the visitor's charm was more or less subversive of discipline, and that it would be, on the whole, for the spiritual welfare of second westings if the visit should be brief; but meanwhile he took what he could of uncle bob's society. class against creed, and a fair field, and it's long odds on class. but in the minds of doctor john and doctor jim pigeon--physicians, brothers, comrades, fierce professional rivals, justices of the peace, and divinely self-appointed guardians of the sanctity of caste for all the neighbourhood--there were no misgivings. their instincts accepted bob glenowen at first glance. their great, rugged faces and mighty shoulders towering over him,--and uncle bob himself was nowise scant of stature,--they looked at him and then into each other's eyes; and agreed, as they did on most subjects outside the theory and practice of medicine. "you are right welcome to second westings, mr. glenowen!" exclaimed doctor jim, in a big, impetuous voice, grasping his hand heartily. "and we trust that you may be slow to leave us, mr. glenowen!" added doctor john, in a voice which any competent jury, blindfolded, would have pronounced identical. recognising the true fibre and the fineness of these two big, gentle autocrats, uncle bob made a special point of commending barbara to their hearts--in which commending he so well sped, and indeed was so well seconded by barbara herself, who loved them from the moment when her eyes first fell upon them, that they presently constituted themselves special guardians to the little maid, and indulgent mitigators of mistress mehitable's conscience. the manner in which they fulfilled the sometimes conflicting duties of these offices will appear pretty persistently in the sequel. it was to uncle bob, also, that barbara owed the somewhat disreputable friendship of old debby. the very first day that he and barbara went canoeing on the lake, they explored the outlet, discovered old debby's cabin, paid an uninvited call, and captivated the old dame's crusty heart. glenowen knew human nature. he had the knack of going straight to the quintessential core of it, and pinning his faith to that in spite of all unpromising externals. he decided at once that debby would be a good diversion for barbara after he was gone; and when, later in the day, he learned that the old woman was universally but vaguely reprobated by the prim folk of second westings, he was more than ever assured that she would be a comfort to barbara through many a dark hour of strangerhood and virtuous misunderstanding. but uncle bob's visit had to end. he went away with misgivings, leaving barbara to pit her careless candour, her thoughtless self-absorption, her scorn of all opinions that differed from her own, her caprices, her passionate enthusiasms, her fierce intolerance of criticism or control, against the granitic conventions of an old new england village. the half guilty, half amused support of doctor john and doctor jim gave importance to her revolt, and so lightened the rod of aunt kitty's discipline as to save barbara from the more ignominious of the penalties which her impetuous wilfulness would otherwise have incurred. the complete, though forbidden, sympathy of old debby, affording the one safe outlet to her tumultuous resentments and passionate despairs, saved the child from brain-sickness; and once, indeed, on a particularly black day of humiliation, from suicide. barbara had shaken the very foundations of law, order, and religion, by riding at a wild gallop, one sunday afternoon, down the wide main street of second westings just as the good folk were coming out of meeting. her rebellious waves of dark hair streamed out behind her little head. her white teeth flashed wickedly between her parted scarlet lips, her big eyes flamed with the intoxication of liberty and protest--to these good folk it seemed an unholy light. barbara ought to have been at meeting, but had been left at home, reluctantly, by aunt hitty, because she had seemed too sick to get out of bed. in very truth she had been sick beyond all feigning. then one of those violent reactions of recovery which sometimes cause the nervous temperament to be miserably misunderstood had seized her at an inauspicious moment. as the tide of young vitality surged back to brain and vein and nerve, she had felt that she must let herself loose in wild action, or die. all unrealising the enormity of the offence, she had flung down her mad defiance to the sanctified and iron-bound repose of the new england sabbath. such a sacrilege could not be overlooked or condoned. the congregation was appalled. long upper lips were drawn down ominously, as austere eyes followed the vision of the fleeing child on the great black horse. could it be that she was possessed of a devil? pitying eyes were turned upon aunt hitty; and triumphant eyes of gratified grudge, moreover, for aunt hitty was proud, and had virtuous ill-wishers in the village. but mistress mehitable ladd was equal to the occasion. with a level stare of her blue eyes, a cold tranquillity upon her small, fine mouth, she froze comment and forestalled suggestion. the feeling went abroad, in a subtle way, that the case would be dealt with and the piety of second westings vindicated in the eyes of heaven. doctor john and doctor jim looked grave, and said not a word. this was a time when mistress mehitable, they well knew, would brook no interference. of course there could be no question of such correction as would have fallen to the lot of any ordinary offender. there could be no such thing as putting a _ladd_ in the stocks. the regular machinery of village law rested quiescent. equally of course, mistress mehitable would do nothing in anger. she was humiliated before the whole village, in a manner that could never be forgotten or wiped out. but her first feeling and her last feeling were alike of sorrow only. she would do her duty because winthrop's child must be saved. but she had no proud consciousness of virtue in doing it. first, she attempted to explain to barbara the depth, quality, and significance of her sin, its possible influence upon the ethics of second westings if allowed to go unpunished, the special variety of inherited evil which it revealed in her nature, and her stupendous need of having this evil eradicated by devotedly merciless correction. after the first few words of this exhortation, barbara heard no more. she was at all times fiercely impatient of criticism, and now, being determined not to fly into a fury and further complicate her predicament, she shut her eyes, inwardly closed her ears, and concentrated her imagination on memories of the longed-for plantation by the pawtuxet. this concentration gave her vivid little face an air of quietude, subjection, and voiceless sorrow, which aunt hitty was glad to construe as repentance. but it earned no mitigation of punishment. for one whole week barbara was a prisoner in her room, eating her heart out in hatred of the stupidity and injustice of life. then came around, at last, another sabbath. barbara was taken to church. there her proud soul was affronted by a public rebuke from the pastor, who exhorted her from the pulpit, contented the congregation by a rehearsal of her punishment, and held her up as an example to the other children of the village. barbara listened with shut eyes and white lips, her heart bursting with rage. she ached to kill him, to kill her aunt, to annihilate second westings--saving only the animals, old debby, mercy chapman, doctor john and doctor jim. but when the good divine went on to say that her discipline would be concluded with a wholesome chastisement on the morrow, in the privacy of the house to which her sinful conduct had brought grief,--then, indeed, her heart stood still. she felt a great calmness come over her. she made up her mind to escape by her window that very evening and drown herself in the lake. if life contained such horrors she would have done with it. she did not go that night, however, because she feared the dark. it was gray dawn when she climbed from her window. blind, resolved, swift-footed, she fled through the woods. old debby, resting in her punt by the lake's edge, not far from the ladd landing-place, was pulling some sweet-rooted water-plants of a virtue known only to herself, when she was startled by a heavy splash and a little gasping cry which came from the other side of a steep point some four or five rods distant. her vigorous old arms drove the punt through the water in mad haste--for there was something in the cry that wrenched at her heart. rounding the point, she stood close in to the foot of a rock which jutted out into five or six feet of water. peering down over the side of the punt, she saw lying on the bottom a slim, small body. a groan burst from her lips, for barbara's face was half visible; and the old woman understood at once. she had heard the village gossip, and she had feared a tragedy. she knew that barbara could swim,--but there was her long scarf of red silk twisted about the little arms lest resolution should falter in the face of the last great demand. for a second old debby was at fault. she could not swim. then her brain worked. reaching down with one of the oars, she twisted the blade tightly into the skirt of the child's gown, pulled her up, and snatched her into the boat. experienced and ready in emergency, the old woman thrust ashore, laid the moveless little figure down upon a mossy hillock, and in a very few minutes succeeded in bringing it back to conscious life. she asked no questions, while barbara clung to her, sobbing spasmodically at long intervals. she murmured pet names to her, caressed and soothed her, told her she was safe and no one should abuse her, and finally, lifting her into the punt and laying her gently on an armful of sweet bracken in the stern, rowed over the lake to her cabin. throughout the journey barbara lay with closed eyes, while the young life, slowly but obstinately reasserting itself, brought back the colour to cheeks and lips. only once did she speak. lifting her lids, she gazed fixedly at the hard-lined old face that bent over the swaying oars. "oh, why did you do it, debby dear?" she asked, weakly. "if you knew how i hate to live!" "tut! tut! honey!" answered the old woman, with a cheerful positiveness that made her despair suddenly seem to barbara unreasonable and unreal. "ye don't want to die yet awhile. an' whatever ye want, ye cain't die yet awhile, fer i've seen it in yer blessed little hands that ye've got a long life afore ye. moresoever, i read it that life's got a heap of happiness in store fer ye. so you be brave, miss barby, an' think how uncle bob would 'a' broke his poor heart if ye'd got yer own way an' drownded yerself." "yes," murmured barbara, drowsily, sinking away into peace after her long pain, "uncle bob would have been sorry!" then, after a pause, she added softly under her breath: "i'll run away and go to uncle bob some day!" old debby heard the words, but made no comment. she stored them in her memory, and afterward kept crafty watch whenever she saw, by barbara's mood, that a crisis was on at aunt kitty's. for the time, however, she felt no great anxiety, it being very plain to her that this present crisis was past, and that barbara was no longer strung up to the pitch of violent action or any course that would require initiative. nerve and will alike relaxed, the child was submissive through exhaustion. at the cabin debby first made her eat some breakfast, and then got her interested in a brood of chickens just one day out of the shell. the mother hen ruffled her feathers, scolded in shrill protest, and pecked angrily, but barbara reached under the brooding wings and drew out a bead-eyed, golden-yellow, downy ball. her face lightened tenderly as she felt the tiny bill and fragile baby claws snuggling against her enclosing palms. "she's all right now!" said old debby to herself, nodding her head in satisfaction. aloud she said,--as she got a clean white sunbonnet out of the chest, adjusted it on her sparse locks, and tied its strings beneath her grim chin,--"i'm goin' to leave ye a bit, honey, to mind the chickens fer me an' look after the place while i go in to second westings to hev a bit o' talk with doctor jim. promise me not to quit the place while i'm gone?" "i'll take good care of everything till you get back, debby," answered barbara, abstractedly, without turning her head. she had relinquished the downy chicken, and was busy conciliating the ruffled hen with crumbs. chapter v. it was without misgiving that old debby left the child to the healing of the solitude and the sun, the little wholesome responsibility, the unexacting companionship of the cat and the fowls. (this was before the day of the yellow pup, which did not come upon the scene until the following summer.) she had already learned that barbara's promise was a thing to depend upon; and she felt that barbara's heart would now be medicined more sweetly by silence than by words. the problem to whose solution the dauntless old woman had set herself was that of getting barbara back to her aunt's house on terms that should ward off any further discipline. with this end in view she turned, as a matter of course, to doctor jim pigeon. debby's position in second westings was theoretically that of an outlaw. she had a mysterious past. she was obstinately refractory about going to meeting. without actually defying the authorities, she would quietly and unobtrusively go her own way in regard to many matters which second westings accounted momentous. moreover, she was lamentably lacking in that subservience to her betters which the aristocracy of second westings held becoming. and she had knowledge that savoured of witchcraft. she would certainly have felt the heavy hand of correction more than once, and probably have been driven to seek a more humane environment, but for the staunch befriending of doctor jim. something in the old woman's fearless independence appealed to both the big, loud-voiced, soft-hearted brothers--but to doctor jim in particular. he in particular came to perceive her clear common sense, to appreciate the loyal and humane heart that lurked within her acrid personality. he openly showed his favour, and stood between her and persecution, till second westings taught itself to regard her offences as privileged. so, though an outlaw, she became a useful and tolerated one. she served surpassingly to point a moral in family admonitions. she was much in favour as a bogy to frighten crying children into silence. and furthermore, when deadly sickness chanced to fall upon a household, and skilled help was lacking, and self-righteous prejudice melted away in the crucible of anguish, then old debby was wont to appear unsummoned and work marvels by the magic of her nursing. doctor jim had been known to declare defiantly that debby blue's nursing had saved patients whom all his medicines could not cure,--whereto doctor john had retorted, with brotherly sarcasm, "in spite of your medicines, jim--in spite of them! debby is the shield and buckler of your medical reputation." so it was of course that the old woman turned to doctor jim in her difficulty. she knew that both brothers loved barbara, and that both, individually and collectively, had more influence with mistress mehitable ladd than any other living mortal could boast. she would talk to doctor jim. doctor jim would talk to doctor john. doctor john and doctor jim would together talk to mistress mehitable. and barbara would be taken back without penalty of further exhortation or discipline. if not--well, old debby's mind was made up as to what she would do in such a distressing contingency. she would herself run away with barbara that same night, in cunning disguise and by devious ways, and travel to find uncle bob. but there was to be no need of such audacious adventuring. when doctor jim heard what barbara had done, he was sorely wrought up. he glared fiercely and wonderingly; his shaggy eyebrows knitted and knotted as he listened; he dashed his hands through his hair till the well dressed locks were sadly disarranged. when debby ceased speaking he sprang up with an inarticulate roar, knocking over two chairs and one of the andirons. "they have gone too far with the child," he cried out at last, mastering his ebullient emotions. "she is too high-strung for our rude handling. i swear she shall not be persecuted any longer--not if i have to take her away myself. no--not a word, not a word, debby! not another word! i'll just step across the yard and speak to doctor john. be good enough to wait here till i return." without hat or stick he ramped tempestuously across to his brother's office, in the opposite wing of the big, white-porticoed, red-doored house which they occupied together. he left old debby well content with the first step in her undertaking. she had but a little to wait ere he returned, noisy, hurried, and decisive. "now, my good debby," he shouted, "i'm ready to accompany you. i will fetch barbara myself. doctor john is going over to lay our views before mistress ladd, and i'll warrant that wise and gentle lady will see the matter clearly, just as we do. yes, yes, my good debby, we have all been forgetting that the little wild rose of maryland cannot be at once inured to the rigours of our new england air. eh, what?" when doctor jim and the old woman reached the cabin they found barbara sound asleep, curled up in the sun beside the stoop, one arm around the gray-and-white cat, which lay, fast asleep also, against her breast. there was a darkness about her eyes, a hurt droop at the corners of her full red mouth, but the colour came wholesomely under the transparent tan of her cheeks. the picture stirred a great ache in doctor jim's childless heart, and with a tender growl he strode forward to snatch her up from her hard couch. "s't! don't ye frighten the poor baby!" said old debby. whereupon doctor jim went softly, mincing his big steps, and knelt down, and gathered the little figure in his arms. waking slowly, barbara slipped her arms around his neck, thrust her face under his chin, drew a long sigh of satisfaction; and so, the revolt and cruel indignation for the time all quenched in her wild spirit, she was carried down to the punt. everything seemed settled without explanation or argument or promise. the trouble was all shifted to doctor jim's broad shoulders. "good-bye, debby dear!" she murmured to the old woman, reaching down a caressing hand; "i'll come to see you in a few days, as soon as aunt hitty will let me!" during the journey homeward barbara threw off her languor, and became animated as the punt surged ahead under doctor jim's huge strokes. the conversation grew brisk, touching briefly such diverse topics as the new bay mare which the doctor had just purchased from squire hopgood of westings centre, and the latest point of exasperation between the merchants of boston and the officers of the king's customs at that unruly port. this latter subject was one on which doctor jim and barbara had already learned to disagree with a kind of affectionate ferocity. the child was a rebel in every fibre, while doctor jim had a vigorous tory prejudice which kept his power of polemic well occupied in second westings. the two were presently so absorbed in controversy that the rocky point of the morning's attempted tragedy was passed without the tribute of a shudder or even a recognition. at last, with a mighty, half wrathful surge upon the oars, doctor jim beached the punt at the landing-place. as the distracted wave of his violence seethed hissing up the gravel and set the neighbour sedges a-swinging, he leaned forward and fixed the eager girl with a glare from under the penthouse of his eyebrows. open-mouthed and intent, barbara waited for his pronouncement. "child!" said he, waving a large, but white and fine forefinger for emphasis, "don't you let that amiable and disreputable old vagabond, debby blue, or that pestilent rebel, doctor john pigeon, stuff your little head with notions. it's _your_ place to stand by the _crown_, right or wrong. remember your blood. you know right well which side your father would have stood upon! eh, what?" the disputatious confidence died out of barbara's face. for a moment her head drooped, for she knew in her heart how thoroughly that worshipped father would have identified himself with the king's party as soon as occasion arose. then she looked up, and a mocking light danced in her gray eyes, while her mouth drew itself into lines of solemnity. "i promise," she exclaimed, leaning forward and laying a thin little gipsy hand on doctor jim's knee, as if registering a vow, "that i won't harm your dear king george!" "baggage!" shouted doctor jim, snatching her from her seat and stalking up the beach with her. arriving at the ladd place from the rear, by way of the pasture and the barnyard, they found doctor john awaiting them. he was leaning over the little wicket gate at the back of the garden, eating a handful of plump gooseberries. with affected sternness he eyed their approach, not uttering a word till barbara violently pushed the gate open and rushed at him. then, straightening himself to his full height,--he had a half-head to the good of even the towering doctor jim,--he extended his hand to her, and said, civilly: "do have a gooseberry!" at this barbara shrieked with laughter. doctor john always seemed to her the very funniest thing in the world, and his humour, in season and out of season, quite irresistible. at the same time she pounded him impatiently with her fists, and tried to pull him down to her. "i don't want a gooseberry," she cried. "i want you to kiss me. i haven't seen you for more than a week, and you go and act just as if i had seen you every day!" doctor john stooped, but held her at arm's length, and gazed at her with preternatural gravity. "tell me one thing," he said. "what?" whispered barbara, impressed. "have you been taking any of jim pigeon's physic since i saw you?" "no!" shrieked barbara, with another wild peal of laughter. "doctor jim's a tory. he might poison me!" "then you shall have one kiss--no, two!" said doctor john, picking her up. "ten--twenty--a hundred!" insisted the child, hugging him violently. "there! there! enough is as good as a feast!" interrupted doctor john, presently, untwining her arms and setting her down. then, doctor jim holding one of her hands and doctor john the other, she skipped gaily up the path toward the house, like a wisp of light dancing between their giant bulks. at this moment the figure of mistress mehitable appeared on the porch; and barbara felt suddenly abashed. a realisation of all that had occurred, all she had done, all she had suffered, rushed over her. her little fingers shut like steel upon the great, comforting hands that held them, and the colour for a moment faded out of her cheeks. doctor john and doctor jim both felt the pang of emotion that darted through her. she felt, rather than saw, that their big faces leaned above her tenderly. but she did not want them to speak. she was afraid they might not say the right thing. she felt that _she_ must say something at once, to divert their attention from her plight. she looked around desperately and caught sight, in the barnyard behind her, of the hired man milking the vicious red 'mooley' cow that would not let abby milk her. "why!" she exclaimed, with a vast show of interest and surprise, "there's amos milking mooley!" on the instant she recognised the bald irrelevancy of the remark, and wished she had not spoken. but doctor john turned his head, eyed amos with critical consideration, and said: "goodness gracious! why, so it is! now, do you know, _i_ should have expected to see the parson, or squire gillig, milking mooley. dear me, dear me!" at this, though the deeper half of her heart was sick with apprehensive emotion, the other half was irresistibly titillated, and she laughed hysterically; while doctor jim emitted a vast, appreciative guffaw. before anything more could be said, the voice of mistress mehitable came from the porch, kindly sweet, familiar, and cadenced as if no cataclysms whatever had lately shaken the world. "supper is waiting," she said, and smiled upon them gently as they approached. "we come, fair mistress!" responded doctor jim, modulating his voice to a deferential softness. "we come--and here we are," broke out doctor john, snatching up barbara, dashing forward, and thrusting her into her aunt's not unwilling arms. it was a wise device to surmount the difficulty of the meeting. "i am truly most glad to see you, my dear child," said mistress mehitable, earnestly, pressing barbara to her heart and kissing her on the forehead. barbara looked up, searched her aunt's face piercingly for a second, saw that the gentle blue eyes were something red and swollen with weeping, and impulsively lifted her lips to be kissed. "i am sorry i grieved you, aunt hitty," she whispered, "i'll try hard not to." mistress mehitable kissed her again, almost impetuously, gave her a squeeze of understanding, and with her arm over the child's shoulder led the way in to supper. chapter vi. after this upheaval there was better understanding for a time between barbara and mistress mehitable. the lady made an honest effort to allow for some of the differences in the point of view of a child brought up on a maryland plantation, under another creed, and spoiled from the cradle. she tried, also, to allow for the volcanic and alien strain which mingled in barbara's veins with the well-ordered blood of the ladds. but this alien strain was something she instinctively resented and instinctively longed to subdue. moreover, she lacked imagination; and therefore, with the most sincere good purpose on both sides, the peace between herself and barbara was but superficial, demanding the price of ceaseless vigilance. barbara, on her part, strove to be more diligent with her tasks, and greatly conciliated mistress mehitable by her swift progress in plain sewing, penmanship, and playing on the harpsichord; and she quickly learned to read aloud with a charm and a justness of emphasis which her aunt never wearied of commending. but with the elaborate dresden embroidery and intricate lace-making, and the flummery art of "papyrotamia"--a cutting of paper flowers--which then occupied the leisure of young maids of gentle breeding, barbara had no patience at all. she scorned and hated them--and she purchased her release from them by electing rather the rigid and exacting pursuit of latin grammar, which only masculine intellects were considered competent to acquire. in this she had had some grounding from her father; and now, under the sympathetic tuition of doctor john, she found its strenuous intricacies a satisfaction to her restless brain, and made such progress as to compel the reluctant commendation of the reverend jonathan sawyer himself. meanwhile, seeing the restraint under which the child was holding herself, mistress mehitable tried to moderate to some degree her disapproval of barbara's vagaries and impetuosities, so that sometimes her wild rides, her canoeings at unseemly hours, her consortings with old debby, her incorrigible absences from the noonday board, were suffered to go almost unrebuked. but it was a perennial vexation to mistress mehitable to observe barbara's haughty indifference to the other young girls of her own class in the township, who were her fitting associates and might have redeemed her from her wildness; while, on the other hand, she insisted on making an intimate of mercy chapman, the daughter of doctor john's hired man. barbara found all the girls whom her aunt approved hopelessly uninteresting--prim, docile, pious, uninformed, addicted to tatting, excited over feather-work. but mercy chapman was fearless, adventurous within her limits, protectingly acquainted with all the birds' nests in the neighbourhood, and passionately fond of animals, especially horses and cats. mercy chapman, therefore, was admitted very cordially to certain outer chambers of barbara's heart; while the daughters of squire grannis and lawyer perley were treated to a blank indifference which amounted to incivility, and excited the excoriating comment of their mammas. another severe trial to mistress mehitable's patience was barbara's unhousewifely aversion to the kitchen. she vowed she could not abide the smell of cooking in her hair, averring that all cooks carried the savour of the frying-pan. when her aunt pointed out how humiliated she would be when she came to have a house of her own, she declared there would be time enough to learn when that day threatened; and she stoutly asseverated, moreover, that she could cook without learning. upon this rash claim mistress mehitable pinned her to a test, being minded to abase her for her soul's good; but she emerged from the trial with vast accession of prestige, doing up sundry tasty desserts with a readiness born of past interest in the arcana of her father's kitchen by the pawtuxet. but for all her aunt's exhortations she would explore no further in the domain of bake-pan and skillet. there was antagonism, moreover, between barbara and abby, to the point that if mistress mehitable had prevailed with her niece in this matter, she would have found herself obliged to change her cook. there was one department of the household economy, however, in which barbara was ever ready to meet her aunt half-way. it furnished a common ground, whereon many a threatened rupture was averted, or at least postponed. this was the still-room. barbara adored cleanliness and sweet smells. the clean, fragrant place, wherein bundles of herbs whose odours spoke to her of the south, and of strange lands, and of longed-for, half-forgotten dreams, and of desires which she could not understand, was to her a temple of enchanting mysteries. now mistress mehitable was a cunning distiller of the waters of bergamot, rosemary, mint, thyme, and egrimony; but barbara developed a subtlety in the combining of herbs and simples which resulted in perfumes hitherto unknown. one essence, indeed, which she compounded, proved so penetrating, lasting, and exquisite, that her aunt, in a burst of staid enthusiasm, suggested that she should name it and write down the formula for security. this was done, to barbara's great pride; and thereafter the "water of maryland memories" became the proper thing to use in second westings. nothing, perhaps, did more to make barbara a personage in the township than this highly approved "water of maryland memories." in this way the days passed, so that at times mistress mehitable had hopes that the child was going to assimilate herself, and cease to pine for her plantation in the south. in reality, the rebellion in barbara's soul but grew the stronger as her nature deepened and matured. throughout her second spring at second westings,--when the mounting sap set her veins athrill in unison, and she saw the violets come back to the greening meadows, the quaker-ladies and the windflowers to the little glades of the wood; and the wild ducks returned from the south to nest by the lake, and the blackbirds chirred again in the swaying tops of the pine-trees,--her spirit chafed more fiercely at every bar. the maddest rides over upland field and pasture lot at dawn, the fiercest paddlings up and down the lake when the wind was driving and the chop sea tried her skill, were insufficient vent to her restlessness. her thoughts kept reverting, in spite of herself, to the idea of seeking her uncle. misunderstandings with mistress mehitable grew more frequent and more perilous. but just as she was beginning to feel that something desperate must happen at once, there came to her a responsibility which for a time diverted her thoughts. the kitchen cat presented the household with four kittens. having a well-grounded suspicion that kittens were a superfluity in second westings, the mother hid her furry miracles in the recesses of a loft in the barn. not until their eyes were well open were they discovered; and it was barbara who discovered them. with joyous indiscretion, all undreaming of the consequences, she proclaimed her discovery in the house. then the customary stern decree went forth--but in this case tempered with fractional mercy, seeing that mistress mehitable was a just woman. one was spared to console the mother, and three were doomed to death. barbara, all undreaming of the decree, chanced to come upon amos in the cow-shed, standing over a tub of water. she saw him drop a kitten into the tub, and pick up the next. she heard the faint mewing of the victims. for one instant her heart stood still with pain and fury. then, speechless, but with face and eyes ablaze, she swooped down and sprang upon him with such impetuous violence that, bending over as he was, he lost his balance and sprawled headlong, upsetting the tub as he fell. as the flood went all abroad, sousing amos effectually, barbara snatched up the dripping and struggling mewer, clutched it to her bosom, seized the basket containing the other two, burst into wild tears, fled to the house, and shut herself into her room with her treasures. straightway realising, however, that they would not be safe even there, she darted forth again, defying her aunt's efforts to stop her, ran to the woods, and hid them in the secret hollow of an old tree. knowing that amos would never have committed the enormity at his own instance, she hastened to make her peace with him,--which was easy, amos being at heart her slave,--with a view to getting plenty of milk for the tiny prisoners; but against mistress mehitable her wrath burned hotly. she stayed out till long past supper, and crept to bed without speaking to any one--hungry save for warm milk supplied by amos. this was an open subversion of authority, and mistress mehitable was moved. in the morning she demanded the surrender of the kittens. barbara fiercely refused. then discipline was threatened--a whipping, perhaps, since duty must be done, however hard--or imprisonment in her room for a week. barbara had a vision of the kittens slowly starving in their hollow tree, and her face set itself in a way that gave mistress mehitable pause, suggesting tragedies. the next moment barbara rushed from the room, flew bareheaded down the street, burst into doctor jim's office, and announced that she would kill herself rather than go back to her aunt hitty. past events precluding the possibility of this being disregarded as an idle threat, it was perforce taken seriously. doctor john was summoned. the situation was thrashed out in all its bearings; and finally, while barbara curled herself up in a tired heap on the lounge and went to sleep, her two champions went to confer with mistress mehitable. hard in this case was the task, for the little lady considered a principle at stake; but they came back at last triumphant. barbara was to be allowed to retain the kittens, on the pledge that she would keep them from becoming in any way a nuisance to the rest of the house, and that she would, as soon as possible, find homes elsewhere for at least two of them. this last condition might have troubled her, but that doctor john and doctor jim both winked as they announced it, which she properly interpreted to mean that they, being catless and mouse-ridden, would help her. so barbara went back to aunt hitty--who received her gravely; and the kittens came back from their hollow tree; and the shock of clashing spheres was averted. but the peace was a hollow and precarious one--an armistice, rather than a peace. for about a week barbara's heart and hands were pretty well occupied by her little charges, and mistress mehitable found her conciliatory. but one day there came a letter from uncle bob, accompanied by a box which contained macaroons and marchpanes, candied angelica, a brooch of garnets, and a piece of watchet-blue paduasoy sufficient to make barbara a dress. the letter announced that uncle bob was at bridgeport, and about to sojourn for a time at the adjoining village of stratford. why, stratford was in connecticut--it could not be very far from second westings! barbara's heart throbbed with excitement. the very next day she made excuse to visit lawyer perley, and consult a map of the connecticut colony which she had once observed in his office. she noted the way the rivers ran--and her heart beat more wildly than ever. just at this point conscience awoke. she put the dangerous thought away vehemently, and for a whole week was most studious to please. but mistress mehitable was still austere, still troubled in her heart as to whether she had done right about the kittens. one morning just after breakfast barbara was set to hemming a fine linen napkin, at a time when she was in haste to be at something else more interesting. she scamped the uncongenial task--in very truth, the stitches were shocking. hence came an unpleasantness. barbara was sent to her room to meditate for an hour. she was now all on fire with revolt. escape seemed within reach. she meditated to such purpose that when her hour was past she came forth smiling, and went about her affairs with gay diligence. it was on the following morning that, when the first pallor of dawn touched the tree-tops, she climbed out of the window, down the apple-tree, and fled with her bundle and her kittens. chapter vii. after her breakfast at old debby's, barbara urged forward her canoe with keen exhilaration. now was she really free, really advanced in her great adventure. a load of anxiety was lifted from her mind. she had succeeded in arranging so that the letter would be delivered to her aunt--a matter which had been fretting at her conscience. moreover, old debby had shown no surprise or disapproval on hearing of her rash venture. it nettled barbara, indeed, to have so heroic an enterprise taken so lightly; but she augured therefrom that it was more feasible than she had dared to hope, and already she saw herself installed as mistress of uncle bob's home in stratford. "he'll love us, my babies!" she cried to the kittens in the basket, and forthwith plied her paddle so feverishly that in a few minutes she had to stop and take breath. the river at this point wound through low meadows, sparsely treed with the towering, majestic water poplar, sycamore, and arching elm, with here and there a graceful river birch leaning pensively to contemplate its reflection in the stream. the trees and flowers were personal to barbara, her quick senses differentiating them unerringly. the low meadow, swampy in spots, was a mass of herbs, shrubs, and rank grasses, for the most part now in full flower; and the sun was busy distilling from them all their perfumes, which came to barbara's nostrils in warm, fitful, varying puffs. she noted the tenderly flushing feathery masses of meadowsweet, which she could never quite forgive for its lack of the perfume promised by its name. from the dry knolls came the heavy scent of the tall, bold umbels of the wild parsnip, at which she sniffed with passing resentment. another breath of wind, and a turn of the stream into a somewhat less open neighbourhood, brought her a sweet and well-loved savour, and she half rose in her place to greet the presence of a thicket of swamp honeysuckle. she noted, as she went, pale crimson colonies of the swamp rose, hummed over softly by the bees and flies. purple jacob's-ladder draped the bushes luxuriantly, with wild clematis in lavish banks, and aerial stretches of the roseate monkey-flower on its almost invisible stems. her heart went out to a cluster of scented snakemouth under the rim of the bank. she was about to turn her prow shoreward and gather the modest pinkish blossoms for their enchanting fragrance, when she observed leaning above them her mortal enemy among the tree-folk, the virulent poison sumac. she swerved sharply to the other side of the stream to avoid its hostile exhalations. the little river now widened out and became still more sluggish. a narrow meadow island in mid-stream intoxicated barbara's eyes with colour, being fringed with rank on rank of purple flag-flower, and its grassy heart flame-spotted with the blooms of the wild lily. the still water along the shores was crowded with floating-heart, and pale-blossomed arrowhead, and blue, rank pickerel-weed; and barbara, who did not mind the heat, but revelled in the carnival of colour, drew a deep breath and declared to herself (giving the flat lie to ten thousand former assertions of the like intimacy) that the world was a beautiful place to live in. no sooner had she said it than her heart sank under a flood of bitter memories. she seemed once more to feel the water singing in her ears, to see its golden blur filling her eyes, as on that morning when she lay drowning in the lake. the glory of the summer day lost something of its brightness, and she paddled on doggedly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. but this was a mood that could not long hold dominion over barbara's spirit on this day of days, when she was journeying to freedom. it took no more than the scarlet flash of a tanager across her bow, the flapping of a startled brood of ducks from their covert in the sedge, to lure her back to gladness and the seeing eye. at last the river carried her into quite different surroundings. still slow, and smooth, and deep, it entered the neighbourhood of great trees growing close, the ancient and unviolated forest. the day grew cool and solemn, the diffused light floating hushed under the great arches of brown and gray and green. by contrast it seemed dark, but the air was of a wonderful transparency, and barbara's eyes, opening wide in delicious awe, saw everything more distinctly than in the open. she whispered to the yellow birch, the paper birch, the beech, the maple, and the chestnut, each by name lovingly, as she slipped past their soaring trunks, knowing them by the texture and the features of their bark though their leaves hung far overhead. her paddle dipped without noise, lest the mysteries of the forest conclave should be disturbed by her intrusion. so keen and so initiated were her young eyes that she discerned the sleeping nighthawk on his branch, where his likeness to a knotted excrescence of the bark made him feel secure from the most discriminating vision. passing a dead pine with a small, neatly rounded hole about ten feet up the trunk, she heard, or thought she heard, the safe conferring of the nest full of young woodpeckers in its hollow depth--which, indeed, was probably but the stirring of her own blood-currents within her over-attentive little ears. suddenly the vast stillness appeared to close down upon her, not with oppression, but with a calm that was half fearful, half delicious; and it seemed as if the fever of her veins was being slowly drawn away. the mystic shores slipped by with speed, though she hardly knew she was paddling. and when, suddenly, a great brown owl dropped from a beech limb and went winnowing soundlessly down the stream ahead of her, she caught her breath, feeling as if the soul of the silence had taken palpable shape before her eyes. now, as it seemed to barbara, life and movement began to appear, at the summons of those shadowy wings. a little troop of pale-winged moths drifted, circling lightly, over the stream; and a fly-catcher, with thin, cheeping cries, dropped some twenty feet straight downward from an overhanging limb, fluttered and zigzagged for a moment in mid-air, capturing some small insect darters which barbara could not see, then shot back into the leafage. then upon a massive, sloping maple-branch close to the bank, she saw a stocky black-and-white shape slowly crawling. the head was small and flattened, the bright little eyes glittered upon her in defiance, and a formidable ridge of pointed quills erected itself angrily along the back. the animal uttered a low, squeaking grunt, and barbara, with prompt discretion, steered as close as possible to the opposite bank, glancing apprehensively over her shoulder as she passed. she was strongly inclined to like the porcupine; but his ill-temper was manifest, and she had faith in the superstition that he could shoot his needle-like quills to a distance and pierce the object of his dislike. barbara could not contemplate the possibility of appearing before her uncle like a pin-cushion, stuck full of porcupine quills. barely had she left the resentful porcupine behind, safely out of quill-flinging distance, when she observed a small, ruddy head cleaving the water in mid-channel. a pair of prominent eyes met hers apprehensively. two smooth ripples curved away from the throat of the small swimmer. it was a red squirrel whom unwonted affairs had summoned to the other side of the river. whatever the affairs, barbara was determined to expedite them as far as she could. overtaking the swimmer with a couple of smart strokes, she politely held out to him the blade of the paddle. the invitation was not to be resisted. with a scramble and a leap he came aboard, skipped along the gunwale, and perched himself, jaunty and chipper for all his bedragglement of tail, on the extreme tip of the bow. there he twitched and chattered eagerly, while barbara headed toward the shore where he would be. while he was yet a wide space distant from it, he sprang into the air. barbara held her breath--but the little traveller knew his powers. he landed safely on a projecting root, flicked off behind a tree, and was gone. in a few seconds there came echoing from a tree-top far back in the shadows a loud, shrill chattering, which barbara took for an expression of either gratitude or impudence. caring not which it was, she smiled indulgently and paddled on. and now to her sensitive nostrils there came suddenly an elusive wafture of wintergreen, and she looked around for the gray birch whose message she recognised. the homely, familiar smell reclaimed her from her mood of exaltation, and she realised that she was hungry. just ahead was a grassy glade, whereinto the sun streamed broadly. she saw that it was far past noon. with a leap of the heart she realised that she must be nearing the point where the stream would join the great river which was to bear her, her kittens, and her fortunes, down to the sea and uncle bob. yes, she recognised this same open glade, with the giant willow projecting over the water at its farther end. she and uncle bob had both remarked upon its fairy beauty as they passed it going and coming, when they had explored the stream. she had but two or three miles farther to go, and her paddle would greet the waters of the great river. this was fitting place to halt and renew her strength. pulling up the prow of the canoe upon a tuft of sedge, she took out the basket and the bundle. from the heart of the bundle she drew a small leather bag, containing barley cakes, gingerbread, a tiny parcel of cold meat done up in oiled paper, a wooden saucer, and a little wooden bottle which she had filled with fresh milk at old debby's. having poured some of the milk into the saucer, and laid three or four shreds of the meat around its edges, she released the kittens from their basket. for two or three minutes, glad of freedom, the fat, furry things frisked and stretched and tumbled hither and thither, while barbara kept watch upon them with solicitous eyes. but soon they grew afraid of the great spaces and the woods, being accustomed to an environment more straitened. they came back mewing to barbara's feet, and she turned their attention to their dinner. while they lapped the milk, and daintily chewed the unaccustomed meat, she dined heartily but abstractedly on the barley cakes and gingerbread. then, having satisfied her thirst by lying flat on the wet, grassy brink of the stream and lowering her lips to the water, she decided to rest a few minutes before resuming her voyage. close by was a beech-tree, around whose trunk the moss looked tempting. seating herself with her back against the tree, and the kittens curled up in her lap, she looked out dreamily over the hot grasses--and presently fell asleep. she had slept perhaps half an hour when a crow, alighting on a low branch some half score paces distant, peered into the shade of the beech-tree and discovered the sweet picture. to him it was not sweet in the least, but indubitably interesting. "cah--ah!" he exclaimed loudly, hopping up and down in his astonishment. the sharp voice awoke barbara, and she rubbed her eyes. "gracious!" she exclaimed to the kittens, "what sleepyheads we are! come, come, we must hurry up, or we'll never get to uncle bob!" before she was really well awake, the kittens were in the basket, the canoe was loaded and shoved off, and the adventurers were once more afloat upon their quest. then only did barbara give herself time to stretch and rub her eyes. after a few strokes she let the canoe drift with the current, while she laid down the paddle, and cooled her wrists and refreshed her face with handfuls of water. as she straightened her brave little shoulders again to her labour, she was arrested by a strange sound as of the ripping of bark. it was an ominous kind of noise in the lonely stillness, and apprehensively she peered in the direction whence it came. then she grew afraid. on the other shore, about a couple of rods back from the water, she saw a large black bear sitting upon its haunches beside a fallen and rotten tree. as she stared, wide-eyed and trembling, he lifted his great paw and laid hold of the dead bark. again came the ripping, tearing noise, and off peeled a huge brown slab. to the exposed surface he applied a nimble tongue--and barbara's terror subsided. she saw that he was quite too absorbed in the delights of an ant-log to pay any attention to a mere girl; and she remembered, too, that the black bear was a rather inoffensive soul so long as he was not treated contumeliously. for all this, however, she made as much haste from the spot as was consistent with a noiseless paddle--and kept furtive watch over her shoulder until she had put a good half-mile between the canoe and the ant-log. by the time her concern about the bear had begun to flag she found that the current was quickening its pace. the trees slipped by more swiftly, and the shores grew bolder. a mellow, roaring clamour came to her ears, and with delicious trepidation she remembered a little rapid through which she must pass. around a turn of the stream it came into view, its small waves sparkling where the forest gave back and admitted the afternoon sun. her experience in running rapids had been slight, but she remembered the course which uncle bob had taken, between two large rocks where the water ran deep and smooth; and she called to mind, the further to brace her confidence, that uncle bob had stigmatised this particular rapid as mere child's play. her heart beat rather wildly as she entered the broken water, and the currents gripped her, and the banks began to flee upward past her view. but her eye held true and her wrist firm. the clamour filled her ears, but she laid her course with precision and fetched the very centre of the channel between the big rocks. from that point all was clear. the canoe went racing through the last ripple, which splashed her lightly as she passed; and in a reach of quiet water, foam-flecked and shining, she drew a deep breath of triumph. this, indeed, was to live. never had she experienced a keener consciousness of power. she felt her enterprise already successful. the ancient woods, with their bears, their porcupines, their wide-winged brown owls, lay behind her. second westings was incalculably far away. there in plain view, rising over its comfortable orchard trees, not half a mile distant, were the roofs and chimneys of gault house, overlooking, as she had heard, the waters of the great river. and beyond the next turn, as she thought with a thrill, she would see the great river itself. chapter viii. barbara rounded the next turn. there before her, widely gleaming, spread the waters of the great river itself. she cried out in her joy, and paddled madly--then paused, abashed, perceiving that she was the object of a critical but frankly admiring scrutiny. her attention was diverted from the great river. here was a tall boy--of her own caste unmistakably--poling himself out on a precarious little raft to meet her. her flush of confusion passed as quickly as it had come, and laying her paddle across the gunwale, she waited with interest to discover what he might have to say. barbara had met but few boys of her own class, and those few had seemed, under her merciless analysis, uniformly uninteresting. their salient characteristics, to her mind, were freckles, rudeness, ignorance, and a disposition to tease cats. but this youth was obviously different. apparently about seventeen years of age, he was tall and graceful, and the way the clumsy log-raft on which he stood surged forward under the thrusts of his pole revealed his strength. barbara loved strength, so long as delicacy saved it from coarseness. the boy was in his shirt sleeves, which were of spotless cambric, and barbara noted, with approbation, the ample ruffles turned back, for convenience, from his sinewy brown hands. she observed that his brown, long-fronted, flowered vest was of silk, and his lighter brown small-clothes of a fine cloth worn only by the gentry; that his stockings were of black silk, and his shoes, drenched most of the time in the water that lapped over the raft, were adorned with large buckles of silver. she admired the formal fashion in which his black hair was tied back in a small and very precise queue. but most of all she liked his face, which was even darker than her own--lean, somewhat square in the jaw, with a broad forehead, and gray-blue, thoughtful eyes, set wide apart. now, barbara's fearless scorn of conventions was equalled only by her ignorance of them. this boy pleased her, so why should she hesitate to show it? when the raft ranged up alongside the canoe, she laid hold upon it for anchorage and the greater convenience in conversation, and flashed upon the stranger the full dazzle of her scarlet lips, white teeth, and bewildering radiance of green eyes. the boy straightened himself from the pole in order to bow with the more ceremony--which he accomplished to barbara's complete satisfaction in spite of the unsteadiness of the raft. "what a nice-looking boy you are!" she said, frankly condescending. "what is your name?" [illustration: "_what a nice-looking boy you are!" she said._] "robert gault, your very humble servant!" he replied, bowing again, and smiling. the smile was altogether to barbara's fancy, and showed even, strong, white teeth, another most uncommon merit in a boy. "and i am sure," he went on, "that this is mistress barbara ladd whom i have the honour to address." "why, how do you know me?" exclaimed barbara, highly pleased. then, quickly apprehensive, she added, "what makes you think i am barbara ladd?" the boy noted the change in her countenance, and wondered at it. but he replied at once: "of course the name of mistress barbara ladd, and her daring, and her canoe-craft, and her beauty" (this he added out of his own instant conviction), "have spread far down the river. when i came up here the other day to visit my grandmother" (he indicated slightly the distant roofs of gault house), "i came with a great hope of being permitted to meet you!" evidently he knew nothing of her flight. her uneasiness vanished. but she had never had a compliment before--a personal compliment, such as is dear to every wise feminine heart--and that word "beauty" was most melodious to her ears. as a matter of fact, she did not herself admire her own appearance at all, and even had an aversion to the mirror--but it occurred to her now, for the first time, that this was a point upon which it was not needful that every one should agree with her. it was practically her first real lesson in tolerance toward an opinion that differed from her own. "i'll warrant you heard no good of that same barbara ladd, more's the pity!" she answered, coquettishly tossing her dark little head and shooting at him a distracting sidelong glance from narrowed lids. "anyhow, if you are lady gault's grandson, i am most happy to meet you." she stretched out to him her brown little hand, just now none too immaculate, indeed, but with breeding stamped on every slim line of it, and eloquent from the polished, well-trimmed, long, oval nails. instantly, careless of the water and his fine cloth breeches, robert went down upon one knee and gallantly kissed the proffered hand. barbara was just at an age when, for girls with southern blood in their veins, womanhood and childhood lie so close entwined in their personalities that it is impossible to disentangle the golden and the silver threads. never before had any one kissed her hand. she was surprised at the pleasant thrill it gave her; and she was surprised, too, at her sudden, inexplicable impulse to draw the hand away. it was a silly impulse, she told herself; so she controlled it, and accepted the kiss with the composure of a damsel well used to such ceremonious homage. but she did not like such a nice boy to be kneeling in the water. "why did you come out on that rickety thing?" she asked. "why haven't you a boat or a canoe?" "this was the only thing within reach," he explained, respectfully relinquishing her hand. "i saw you coming; and i knew it must be you, because no other girl could handle a canoe so beautifully; and i was afraid of losing you if i waited." "that was civil of you. but aren't you getting very wet there? won't you come into the canoe?" "really?" he exclaimed, lifting his chin with a quick gesture of eagerness. "are you going to be so good to me? then i must push this old raft ashore first and secure it. i don't know whom it belongs to." as he poled to land in too much haste for any further conversation, barbara paddled silently alongside and admired his skill. when the raft was tied up, and the pole tossed into the bushes, he took his place in the bow and knelt so as to face her. "you must turn the other way," laughed barbara. "no, i was proposing, by your leave, to make this the stern, and ask you to let me paddle," he answered. "won't you let me? you really look a little bit tired, and i want you to talk to me, if you will be so condescending. how can i turn my back to you?" "i am not the least, leastest bit tired," protested barbara, a little doubtfully. "but i don't mind letting you paddle for awhile, if you'll paddle hard and go the way i want you to." and with that she seated herself flat on the bottom of the canoe, with an air of relief that rather contradicted her protestation. the boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes. "surely i will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me. am i not the most obedient of your slaves?" this pleased barbara. she loved slaves. she accepted his servitude at once and fully. "paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded. at the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and pleased. obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled barbara with admiration. "oh, _how_ strong you are and _how_ well you paddle!" she cried, her eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls blowing about her face. never had robert seen so bewitching a picture as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown, slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves. he was proud of her praise. he was partly engrossed in displaying his skill and strength to the very best advantage. but above all he was thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that affected his action like a summons or an appeal. in a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current. barbara clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and relief that the boy's curiosity was excited. he began to feel that there was some mystery in the affair. slackening his pace ever so slightly, he remarked: "i suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this neighbourhood. how fortunate i am--that is, if you will graciously permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here." but even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too occupied to notice. his wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his frank eyes, and barbara was at a loss to explain. "no," she said, "i am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood. i don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you." "then--you've come right from second westings!" he exclaimed. "right from second westings." "all that distance since this morning?" he persisted. she nodded impatiently. "through those woods--through the rapids--all alone?" "yes, all alone!" she answered, a little crisply. she was annoyed. in his astonishment he laid down his paddle and leaned forward, scanning her face. "but--" said he, embarrassed, "forgive me! i know it is none of my business,--but what does it mean?" "go on paddling," commanded barbara. "did you not promise you would obey me? _i_ know what it means!" and she laughed, half maliciously. the boy looked worried,--and it was great fun to bring that worried look to his face. he resumed his paddling, though much less vigorously, while she evaded his gaze, and a wilful smile clung about her lips. the current was swift, and they had soon left the imposing white columns of gault house far behind. a tremendous sense of responsibility came over the boy, and again he stopped paddling. "oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested barbara, coolly. "give me the paddle, and i'll set you ashore right here." "i said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely, appealingly, "but, do you know, i think perhaps it ought to be my business! i ought to ask!" he retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held it steady. "what do you mean?" demanded barbara, angrily. "give me the paddle at once!" still he made no motion to obey. "do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,--that it will take till dark to work back against the current to where i met you,--that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the night--" "i don't care," interrupted barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and anxiety; "i'm going to travel all night. i'm going to the sea--to my uncle at stratford! i just don't want you to interfere. let me put you ashore at once!" robert was struck dumb with amazement. to the sea! this small girl, all alone! and evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the river. it was superb pluck,--but it was wild, impossible folly. he did not know what to do. he turned the canoe toward shore, and presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current. observing his ready obedience, barbara was mollified; but at the same time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark. she had not considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark. she made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise her as to where she could stay for the night. "i'm running away, you know, master gault," she said, sweetly, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. "are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before. "no!" confessed barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly. "a few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said the boy. "clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough work going through in broad daylight. at night you would just be dashed to pieces in a minute." "oh, what shall i do?" cried barbara, the perils of her adventure just beginning to touch her imagination. "let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded. "and we will paddle back to second westings to-morrow." barbara burst into a storm of tears. "never! never! never!" she sobbed. "i'll die in the rapids before i'll ever go back to aunt hitty! oh, why did i like you? why did i trust you? oh, i don't know what to do!" the boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her trouble. he longed desperately to help her. he had a wild impulse to swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to go, however impossible her undertaking. instead of that, however, he kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes, while barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs. at last he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the unruffled water. then he laid down his paddle. "tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he petitioned. "i do want so much to help you. and perhaps i can. and you _shall not_ be sorry for trusting me!" how very comforting his voice was! so tender, and kind, and with a faithful ring in its tenderness. barbara suffered it to comfort her. surely he would understand, if old debby could! in a few moments she lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears, and said: "how good and kind you are! forgive me if i was bad to you. yes, i'll tell you all about it, and then you can see for yourself why i had to come away." barbara's exposition was vivid and convincing. her emotion, her utter sincerity, fused everything, and she had the gift of the telling phrase. what wonder if the serious, idealistic, chivalrous boy, upon whose nerves her fire and her alien, elusive beauty thrilled like wizard music, saw all the situation through her eyes. her faults were invisible to him ere he had listened a minute to her narrative. she was right to run away. the venture, of course, was a mad one, but with his help it might well be carried through to success. as she talked on, an intoxication of enthusiasm and sympathy tingled along his blood and rose to his brain. difficulties vanished, or displayed themselves to his deluded imagination only as obstacles which it would be splendid to overcome. in the ordinary affairs of life the boy was cool, judicious, reasonable, to a degree immeasurably beyond his years; but barbara's strange magnetism had called forth the dreamer and the poet lurking at the foundations of his character; and his judgment, for the time, was overwhelmed. when barbara's piercing eloquence ceased, and she paused breathless, eyes wide and lips parted in expectation, he said, solemnly: "i will help you! to the utmost of my power i will help you!" the words had the weight and significance of a consecration. barbara clapped her hands. "oh!" she cried, "how can i ever thank you for being so lovely to me? but i knew you were nice the moment i looked at you!" and a load rolled off her mind. with such a helper, already was her enterprise accomplished. "i will try hard to be worthy of your favour," said robert, with deep gravity, feeling that now indeed was boyhood put away and full manhood descended upon his shoulders. his brain was racked with the terrific problem of finding barbara fit lodging for the night; but meantime he turned the canoe and paddled swiftly out into the current. hardly had he changed his course when he noticed a light rowboat creeping up along the shore. but boats were no unusual sight on the river, and he paid no heed to it. as for barbara, she was so absorbed in watching his great strokes, and in thinking how delightful it was to have found such an ally, that the sound of the oars passed her ears unheeded, and she did not turn her head. chapter ix. at length, however, the boy noticed with a tinge of surprise that the boat was steering as if to intercept his course. he was about to pass greeting to its occupants when something in the face of the big man sitting in the stern arrested his words. at the same moment the sound of the oars caught barbara's attention, and she turned her head. "oh!" she cried, shrilly. "doctor jim!--and doctor john!" she added, as one of the two rowers looked around and grinned at her in humourous triumph. then, her visions of life at stratford with uncle bob falling to ruin about her, she wept aloud in her disappointment. robert understood, and quick as thought swerved in his course, making a dart for the swifter water of mid-channel. his heart swelled with exultation. "they can't catch us!" he declared to barbara. "stop! you young rascal!" thundered the mighty voice of doctor jim. "i know you, bobby gault. don't i know your father's son? stop this instant!" "quit this tomfoolery, bobby!" roared doctor john, albeit a little breathless from his labour. barbara lifted her face and stared through her tears. but the boy paid no heed, paddling mightily, and the distance between boat and canoe was surely widening. but doctor jim knew barbara. "very well!" he said, grimly, in a loud voice. "i'm sorry to do bodily hurt to the son of my old friend richard, but it can't be helped." he drew a long-barrelled pistol from under the flap of his green coat. "i'll have to wing you, my boy!" he said, taking careful aim, while one eyelid quivered in the direction of doctor john. the boy's face paled a little, but his jaw set firmly, and he kept right on. "stop! stop! stop!" screamed barbara, but with no result. she half arose in the canoe, glancing with horror from the boy's resolute face to the muzzle of the pistol. "if you don't stop, robert, i will throw myself overboard this minute!" she vowed. the terror in her face convinced him. he sullenly drew in his paddle, laid it down in the canoe, folded his arms, and looked off over the western hills, as if scornful of all that might take place. in a few seconds the boat came up alongside of the drifting canoe, the oars were drawn in, and strong hands laid hold upon the gunwale. there were some awful moments of silence, broken only by barbara's sobbing and the splashing of waves on the boat and the canoe. the owner of the boat, a gaunt farmer from westings landing, a few miles down the river, who had not been initiated into the mystery, looked on in discreet astonishment. this was indeed a strange situation in which to see the grandson of lady gault. at last barbara, to whom suspense was hideous, broke out. "oh, do say something!" she wailed. indeed, neither doctor john nor doctor jim knew just what to say. they were embarrassed. but the child was right. somebody had to say something. by interchange of quick glances the lot fell to doctor john. "well, this is pretty gallivanting, running away with a young man,--carrying him off in your aunt's canoe!" said doctor john. barbara's eyes opened very wide. "i never!" she cried, indignantly. "as for you, bobby gault," interposed doctor jim, severely, and in a tone that made robert feel himself hatefully young, "i cannot comprehend how _you_ should come to be mixed up in this affair. i know well what my friend, richard gault, your lamented father, with his nice notions of honour, would have thought of such an escapade." (robert's father and mother had died within a few days of each other, by an epidemic of typhus, when the boy was only five years old.) "but i shall lay the matter before your good grandmother, and your uncle, who will doubtless deal with you as you deserve." robert shut his lips tight and eyed the speaker proudly; but barbara made reply in her vehement way. "it is not robert's fault at all, i tell you, doctor jim!" she cried, forgetting that she had said nothing whatever on the subject. "i just met him, an hour or two ago, on an old raft; and he knew who i was; and because he was getting his feet wet on the raft, i invited him to get into the canoe; and i made him promise to paddle me just wherever i wanted to go. so there! and it is not his fault one bit! and you may do what you like to me, but i won't have him punished when he has not done anything at all!" doctor john tried to look quite grave; and doctor jim, who was really annoyed, succeeded. "oh, ho! young man!" he remarked, sarcastically, "it appears that you have a champion. now, what have you to say for yourself?" "mistress barbara has neglected to add," said he, with all the dignity that he could assume, "that i insisted upon her narrating to me all the unhappy circumstances of her life in second westings. the story commanded my fullest sympathy, and i had just given her my word that i would aid her in escaping to her uncle, mr. glenowen, where she would be happy, when you came and violently interfered with her purpose. i ask you, sir, to consider. are you not ashamed to be instrumental in restoring a young lady to conditions where she has been made to suffer so cruelly?" in spite of his indignation, robert could not help feeling proud of this effort. in his own ears it sounded imposing, unanswerable, and altogether grown up. barbara thought it was a miracle of eloquence, and cast him a grateful look. but doctor john could not conceal his delight in the stilted periods. he burst into a huge guffaw, at which barbara's eyes snapped and robert's dark skin reddened angrily. but doctor jim exclaimed, hotly: "hoity-toity! how big we do feel! to think how often i dandled you on my knee when you were a mewling baby. if i had but known enough to spank you once in awhile, you might not have grown up to be such a priggish young coxcomb. richard's son! who would have thought it? eh, what?" meanwhile the boat and canoe were drifting rapidly down-stream. doctor john looked at the sun, now touching the horizon. "don't you think, master gault," said he, drily, "that unless you propose to honour us with your company to second westings, we had better set you ashore hereabouts, that you may stretch your legs in the direction of gault house?" "thank you!" said robert, stiffly, his heart bursting with humiliation and the longing to strangle his huge, supercilious antagonist. but barbara interrupted. "i'm not going back to second westings!" she declared obstinately, trying hard to set her full red lips together in the resolute way that robert's had. "i will never go back to live with aunt hitty. i'll drown myself first. i'm going to uncle bob, at stratford." the threat, once so effective, seemed now to have lost its potency. no one appeared impressed but robert,--and perhaps the stranger-man who owned the boat. "my dear child," said doctor john, eying her indulgently, "among the more or less serious obstacles to your plan is one of which i believe that even you will see the magnitude. mr. glenowen is no longer at stratford." "uncle bob not at stratford?" wailed barbara, overwhelmed, subjugated in an instant. robert started aghast. doctor john paused dramatically, while the full effect of the news worked upon his victims in the canoe. then he said, coolly: "mr. glenowen is just now at hartford, or has lately left that town. mistress ladd had a letter from him to-day, saying he expected to arrive at second westings not later than the end of next week, i think, moreover, that i saw a packet on the mantel-shelf addressed to mistress barbara ladd!" with one bound barbara's heart passed from despair to ecstasy. everything else was forgotten. she was as eager now to get back to second westings as she had been to escape from it. all she knew or cared for was that uncle bob would be there. he would make everything right. her face was all radiance, as it turned to doctor john, then to doctor jim, then to robert,--who eyed her gloomily, feeling himself now cast out into the cold. but in her joy barbara did not forget him after all. "just think, robert," she cried, "uncle bob so near, and we would have missed him if doctor john and doctor jim, the dears, had not come and caught us. they are always _angels_ to me, you know. now we will put you ashore right here. and you must be sure to come over to second westings and see me,--won't you?--while uncle bob is there. come next week." "i thank you for the gracious invitation," answered the boy, bowing a little stiffly. "but i think i had better wait for mr. glenowen's permission, as these gentlemen are not likely to present me to him in a very favourable light." "don't be silly and disagreeable, robert," said barbara, impatiently. "uncle bob will think of you just as i do. we always agree about people. now you must hurry!" "i think, however," persisted robert, "i ought to wait for mr. glenowen's invitation." "right, my lad!" exclaimed doctor jim, much mollified by this attitude. "that's my old friend richard's son speaking now. and i doubt not that our little mistress here will see to it that the invitation is forthcoming in good season,--eh, what?" there was a doubtful expression on barbara's face, over the lack of instantaneous obedience to her will on the part of her champion; but robert, encouraged by doctor jim's commendation, now made a bold proposal. "if you would be so kind, sir," he suggested, diffidently, "i should like to go down with you to the landing, where i can lodge very well for the night at the house of an old servant of my grandmother's. it will be a long and difficult tramp for me up the shore now, in the dark, and with no road through the woods. by going with you to the landing i might be of some service, to paddle the canoe. she will be an awkward craft to tow; and mistress barbara is very tired, i perceive." "sly young dog!" growled doctor john. "but, seeing that he is richard's son, we'll have to take him along with us as far as the landing, eh, jim?" "let him work his passage, then!" roared doctor jim. "let him paddle the canoe, and barbara, and her kittens, and all her contraptions,--and we'll see about not being too hard on him when we come to tell his grandmother!" this arrangement was highly satisfactory to all concerned. the gloom fell from robert's face, and his mouth grew boyish and happy as he paddled on in musing silence. he kept the canoe alongside of the boat, just out of reach of the oars, so that barbara could talk conveniently with doctor john and doctor jim, which she did in the most usual manner in the world, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. but presently, upon a lull in the conversation came the voice of robert, who had been thinking about barbara's life at second westings. "is not mistress ladd a very harsh, tyrannical sort of woman?" he inquired, solicitously. there was a huge roar from doctor jim, which made even barbara jump, inured though she was to these explosions. "i'd have you remember, young sir, that you are speaking of the gentlest, sweetest, truest, most gracious lady that ever lived, for whose little shoes you are not worthy to sweep the ground!" robert stared in confusion, too astonished to be at once ready with an apology. before he could gather his wits, doctor john spoke up, more gently. he was no less loyal a champion to mistress mehitable than was doctor jim, but with him his humour was ever at hand to assuage his wrath. subduing his great tones to a quizzical and confidential half-whisper, that feigned itself not meant for barbara's ears, he said, amiably: "my son, when you come to know well this little firebrand of ours, whom we have just plucked from a watery burning, this sower of dissension in our good village of second westings, i doubt not that you will spare a moiety of your sympathies for that very noble lady, mistress ladd. in truth, for all her tears and anxiety on this mad little maid's account, i have a misgiving that we are doing the sweet lady no great kindness in taking mistress barbara back to her. a pretty gallant you are, to undertake to carry a lady off, and then make a mess of it, and leave her embarrassed friends to straighten out the snarl!" under this daunting blend of rebuke and raillery, robert fell into a deeper confusion. he floundered through a few awkward phrases of deprecation and apology, but barbara cut in upon his struggles without mercy. the gibes of doctor john troubled her not a whit, but one thing which he had said captured her interest. "_did_ aunt hitty _really_ cry when she found i had gone away? did she really feel so badly about it? i thought she would be rather glad!" "she was in great grief, bitter grief, barbara. do you think no one has feelings but yourself?" answered doctor jim, with some severity. this pertinent question barbara ignored. she turned to robert. "you must understand, robert," she explained with care, "that aunt hitty is not really cruel to me,--at least she never intends to be. but she and i do not understand each other, and so we can't get on!" "you will simply have to learn some of the rudiments of obedience and self-control, barbara," said doctor jim. never had he spoken to her so severely before, and she was amazed. but she saw that this time she had gone very near to forfeiting the sympathy of her most faithful allies. perhaps, after all, she _was_ in the wrong to run away. the suspicion only made her the more obstinate. "i don't think one ought to obey any one, except one's father and mother," she proclaimed rebelliously. "one's father and mother, if they are good, and wise, and kind," she added, still further enlarging her freedom. "and the king!" added robert, sententiously. he flung out the word as a shibboleth. there was a moment of silence. barbara darted upon him a glance of petulant disappointment. doctor john laughed hugely. but as for doctor jim, his face underwent a swift change, as he scanned the boy with new interest. "well said, well said; spoken as richard's boy should speak, as a gault should ever speak!" he thundered, in high approval. "i am sorry if i seemed abrupt a moment ago, robert. pardon my quick temper. i see your heart is in the right place, and you have not let them stuff your head with pestilent and plebeian heresies. yes, yes, you must certainly come to second westings. i shall be honoured if my old friend's son will be my guest!" from that moment dated a friendship between robert and doctor jim which no after vicissitude was ever able to disturb. but barbara was of another mind. "king george is just a stupid old tyrant, and i hate him!" she exclaimed. "i'm sorry, robert, you have not quite so much sense as i thought you had. i'm really disappointed in you. but there are _some_ nice tories! you know even dear doctor jim is a tory, though we can't see why, and he's just as lovely as if he were on the right side. so you may come to second westings,--though you must promise not to argue with me. but i know, robert, i sha'n't like you now so well as i thought i was going to!" "let the young people fight it out, eh, jim?" said doctor john, greatly amused. "let them fight it out between them!" then, suddenly grave, he added, "god grant the differences now distracting our colonies grow not beyond the point of children's quarrels!" doctor jim shook his head sorrowfully. "there's trouble ahead, john. i feel it coming. this is a stiff-necked and disloyal people, and i have a foreboding. there's a sword in the air, john!" "it's surely a stiff-necked king, jim," muttered doctor john. "the sword of a gault will ever leap from its scabbard to serve the king!" said robert, loftily, his grave eyes aglow with exaltation. as he made this proclamation of his faith, devoting himself to a cause of which she disapproved, and quite ignoring her feelings in the matter, barbara felt a sudden pang of loneliness. she seemed forgotten, or, at least, grown secondary and trivial. "do let us hurry home to uncle bob!" she pleaded, her voice pathetic, her eyes tired and dissatisfied. then silence, with the twilight, descended upon the voyaging company; and in a little while, coming noiselessly to the landing-place, they stepped ashore into the dewy, sweet-smelling weeds and the evening peace. chapter x. a green lane, little used, but deeply rutted, led up from the wharf to the main street of westings landing. the village was silent, with no sign of life, except here and there a glimmer from a candle-lit window. from the pale sky overhead came the strange twang of swooping night-hawks, as of harp-strings suddenly but firmly plucked. in the intervals between these irregular and always unexpected notes was heard the persistent rhythm of a whippoorwill, softly threshing the dusk with his phantom song. barbara felt the whole scene to be unreal, her companions unreal, herself most unreal of all. could it be that she was the girl who had that same morning run away, that same morning made so brave and triumphant a start upon so splendid a venture? now, somehow, she felt rather than understood the folly of it. the fact that she would have missed her uncle bob if she had succeeded in her plan took out of it all the zest, and it became to her a very ridiculous plan indeed. but her change of attitude was emotional rather than intellectual. she was convinced in mood, not in mind. only she felt herself on the sudden a very small, tired girl, who deserved to be punished, and wanted to go to bed. her conviction of childishness was heightened by the fact that robert, who was walking just ahead with doctor jim, in grave discussion, seemed not only to have suddenly grown up, but to have quite forgotten her once imperious but now discredited existence. her exhaustion, her reaction, her defeat, her disappointment in robert, these all at once translated themselves into a sense of hopeless loneliness. she seized the large, kind hand of doctor john, who walked in silence by her side, and clung to him. presently doctor john felt hot tears streaming copiously down his fingers. without a word, he snatched her up into his arms, carrying her as if she were a baby; and shaking with voiceless sobs, she buried her small, wet face in his comforting neck. she felt as if she wanted to cry wildly, deliciously, for hours and hours. but she managed to remember that even a very small girl may be heavy to carry over a rough road in the dusk, when the man who carries her has had a hard day's work chasing her. and, furthermore, she thought how very, very little, how poor and pitiful a heroine she would seem in robert's eyes if he should chance to remember her existence and look back! she pulled herself together with a fierce effort, and choked down her sobs. "thank you so much, dear doctor john!" she whispered in his ear. "i'm better now, and you must put me down. i'm too heavy." "tut, tut, sweetheart!" growled doctor john, softly; "you bide where you are, and rest. _you_ heavy!" "but,"--she persisted, with a little earthward wriggle to show she meant it,--"i want to get down now, please! i don't want to look like quite such a baby. doctor john!" "tut, tut!" but he set her down, nevertheless, and kept comforting hold of one cold little hand. doctor john was quick in his sympathetic comprehension of women and children, and tolerant of what most men would account mere whim. in a moment he leaned down close to her ear, and whispered: "what are you but a baby, after all,--a tired out, bad baby, sweetheart? but we'll just keep that a secret between you and me, and not let jim pigeon or master robert even guess at it!" and barbara squeezed his hand violently in both of hers by way of answer. at this moment, doctor jim and robert, reaching the corner of the street, turned and waited for them to come up. doctor jim had barbara's precious basket of kittens on his arm, while robert was carrying her little red bundle, which he now handed over to doctor john. a certain reluctance with which he gave it up was quite lost upon barbara in her unwonted humility and depression; and it was a very white, wistful little face which she turned glimmeringly upon him as he bowed over her hand. "why are you leaving us here, robert?" she asked, in a small voice, most unlike the wilful tone with which she had talked to him in the canoe. "my way lies down the street, sweet mistress," said the boy. "your horses, doctor jim tells me, are waiting for you at the blue boar yonder. this has been a wonderful day for me. when you think of it, will you try to remember me kindly as one who would ever be your most devoted, humble servant?" delighted by this elaborate courtesy, so rehabilitating to her self-esteem, barbara began to feel herself almost herself again. she thought, with a sudden prickling heat of shame, of how childish she had been during all the past year,--and she almost fifteen! and here was robert, who was certainly very grown-up, treating her with a deference which he would never dream of paying to a mere little girl! she resolved to justify his deference, to conceal her pet childishnesses till time should mature them away; yet even as she registered this resolve, she registered a vague but deeper one, that she would cling for ever to every childish taste and pleasure in spite of the very utmost that time could do. but the feeling that came uppermost and found expression was a sharp little pang at something in his words which sounded as if he were bidding farewell for a long, indefinite time. "but i shall see you again soon, sha'n't i, robert?" she exclaimed, impulsively. "you'll come over to second westings right away, won't you, and meet uncle bob?" "yes," said the boy, bowing low again, and speaking with a mixture of hesitation and triumph, "i am promising myself that pleasure, mistress barbara, within a very few days. you see--doctor jim--he has been so kind--" "to be sure," broke in doctor jim, with an emphasis to preclude any discussion of consistency,--"i've asked the lad over to visit us, john. richard's son!-- and his heart's in the right place,--and his head, too,--eh, what? we'll see that mistress mehitable is not too hard on him,--eh, what? you know you're not going to be too hard on the boy yourself, john pigeon, for all you've been so uncommonly unpleasant to him!" doctor john chuckled softly, and squeezed barbara's left hand, which he had retained while she was receiving robert's adieux. "tut, tut, jim! you know well enough we've got to pardon anything in breeches, young or old, that gets led into mischief by this little limb o' darkness here. it's a peck of trouble she's been getting you and me into, time and time again. you needn't make excuses for robert to me, jim pigeon. at least, not yet!" "thank you, sir," said robert, a little stiffly, not relishing a pleasantry at barbara's expense, though barbara herself had broken into a peal of gay laughter, flattered at doctor john's implications, and comforted to know that robert was not slipping beyond her reach. "thank you, indeed, sir; but i have no excuse; i was fully committed to mistress barbara's venture, and i'm just as much to blame as she is!" barbara's heart glowed. this was the kind of unreasonable championship she adored. but truth compelled her to protest. "oh, no, no, robert, not at all! it wasn't you that ran away from aunt hitty, and took the canoe, and persuaded a nice, civil gentleman whom you'd never seen before in your life to do a perfectly crazy thing like you read of in story-books--" but, as she paused for breath, doctor jim, too impatient to be amused, interrupted her: "well, well, robert, you and barbara can settle all that between you some other time. we must get away. good night--good night. my best compliments to your honoured grandmother! and ride over the first day you can, lad!" and doctor john, shaking his head sorrowfully, exclaimed: "tut, tut, tut! how small a petticoat can turn how great a brain! i see trouble ahead for you, bobby!" "i shall be so glad to see you at my aunt's, robert!" cried barbara, over her shoulder, as they moved up the street toward the blue boar and the waiting horses. robert, standing hat in hand, gazed after them till they were swallowed up in the shadows. still he waited, till a pulse of light across the gloom and the sound of the inn door closing told him that he was alone under the night. then, suddenly, he became conscious of the lonely, wonderful night sounds, and suddenly the night perfumes sank into his heart. the spicy breaths from the clover field and blossoming thicket, cooled with dew, gave him a strange intoxication as he drew them into the depths of his lungs. the pulsing rhythm of the whippoorwill seemed to time itself to the pulsing of his heart and translate it to the terms of an impassioned, inarticulate chant. the plucked harp-strings sounding from time to time in the hidden heights of the sky set all his nerves vibrating mystically. walking as if in a dream, he came to the door of the cottage where he had planned to stay the night. then he turned on a swift impulse, hurried back to the landing, launched barbara's canoe, and, without consciousness of weariness or hunger, paddled all the way back to gault house against the current. chapter xi. from second westings that morning, after old debby's alarm, doctor john and doctor jim had came posthaste on horseback to westings landing. now, however, it was found that barbara was quite too worn out by the fatigues of her long, strenuous day to sit a horse for a ten mile's ride over rough roads in the dark. priding herself not less on her endurance than on her horsemanship, she vehemently repudiated the charge that she was done up, and was determined to ride back on the liveliest of the blue boar's horses. but doctor john and doctor jim, scanning critically her white face and the dark rims coming about her eyes, for once agreed in a professional judgment. they ordered the horses hitched to the roomy old chaise, which was one of the landlord's most cherished possessions; and barbara had to accept, rebelliously enough, the supineness of a cushioned seat for the free lift and swing of the saddle. before the lighted doorway of the inn was out of sight, however, she was glad of the decision. her overwrought nerves began to relax under the soothing of the wood scents and the tender summer dark. in a little while she was asleep in the strong curve of doctor jim's right arm,--so deep asleep that all the ruts and jolts and corduroy bridges of an old connecticut back-country road were powerless to disturb her peace. when they woke her up, at her aunt's door, she was so drenched with sleep that she forgot to dread the reckoning. with drowsy, dark eyes, and red mouth softly trustful as a baby's, she bewildered mistress ladd by a warm kiss and "i'm sorry, aunt hitty!" and went stumbling off to bed with her basket of sleeping kittens, oblivious and irresponsible as they. mistress mehitable looked after her with small, stern mouth, but troubled eyes. then she turned half helplessly to her friends, as if to say, "what can i--what ought i to do?" doctor john threw up both big, white hands in mock despair, and his sympathetic laugh said, "what do you expect?" but doctor jim, more direct and positive, said, "best leave her alone till to-morrow, mehitable; and then talk to her with no talk of punishing. she's not the breed that punishing's good for." mistress mehitable looked sorrowful, but resolute. "i fear that would not be right, jim!" she said. but there was a note of deep anxiety in her voice. "people who do wrong ought to be punished. barbara has done very, very wrong!" doctor jim was as near feeling impatient as he could dare to imagine himself with mistress mehitable. "nonsense--i mean, dear lady, punishment's not in itself one of our numerous unpleasant duties. it's a means to an end, that's all. in this case, it just defeats your end. it's the wrong means altogether. therefore--pardon me for saying it to you, mehitable--it's wrong. it's hard enough to manage barbara, i know, but to punish her, or talk to her of punishing, makes it harder still, eh, what?" "don't let your conscience trouble you, mehitable," said doctor john. "i'm thinking the little maid will manage to get for herself, full measure and running over, all the punishment that's coming to her. she's not the kind that punishment overlooks." was there a suspicion of criticism in all this? could it be that john pigeon and jim pigeon, her lifelong cavaliers, in whose sight all she did was wont to seem perfection, whose unswerving homage had been her stay through many an hour of faintness and misgiving, were now, at last, beginning to admit doubts? two large tears gathered slowly in the corners of mistress mehitable's blue eyes, the resolution fled from her mouth, and her fine lips quivered girlishly. she twisted her shapely little hands in her apron, then regained her self-control with an effort. "dear friends," said she, "i fear i have made a sad failure of the duty which i so confidently undertook. i thought i could surely do so much for her,--could so thoroughly understand winthrop's child. but that foreign woman--that strange blood! there is the trouble. that is what baffles all my efforts. oh, perhaps it is partly my fault, too. perhaps the child was right in the very singular letter she left for me, saying--just as if she were a grown woman and had the same rights as i had--that the trouble was that we could not understand each other! oh, i fear i am not the right woman to have the care of barbara!" "you are the rightest woman in the world, mehitable!" thundered doctor jim, in explosive protest against this self-accusation. "the rightest woman in the world to have the care of any man, woman, or child that ever lived." "jim pigeon's right, mehitable, as he usually is, outside of medicine and politics," declared doctor john. "the little maid will be ready enough some day, i'll warrant, to acknowledge how lucky she was in having her aunt hitty to care for her. but here in second westings we are not just at the centre of things exactly, and it may be we get into ruts, thinking our ways are the only ways. shall we try new ways with this very difficult little maid, hitty?" mistress mehitable brushed off the tears which had overflowed, and held out a hand to each of the big brothers. "you are the best friends a woman ever had," she averred with conviction; "and if you both disagree with me, i must be wrong. it shall be your way to the best of my power. after you've had the horses put up, come back here and i'll have a hot bite ready for you. but--oh, i do wish winthrop had married among his own people!" "it is late, dear lady, and you are tired after your anxieties," said doctor jim. "but, nevertheless, since you are so gracious, we will soon return,--eh, what, john?--for a bowl of that hot sangaree which mehitable's fair hands know how to brew so delicately." "don't misunderstand jim, mehitable," said doctor john, as the two withdrew. "the comfort of your punch is nothing to us as the comfort of your presence. had you ever consented to make one man happy, how miserable would you have made others, mehitable!" there was deep meaning and an old reproach under doctor john's tender raillery; and mistress ladd's cheeks flushed as she stood a few moments motionless, alone in her low-ceiled, wide parlour. she was convicted of failure at every point. well she knew how happy she might have made either one of the big-limbed, big-hearted brothers, had she not shrunk from making the other miserable. and she had never been able to decide which was the dearer to her heart; for, though she was apt to turn first to jim in any need, or any joy, the thought of pain for john was ever hard for her to endure. her heart was very full as she set about preparing the brew which they both loved: and before they came she stole noiselessly up-stairs to the room over the porch, and softly kissed the dark, unrepentant waves of the sleeping barbara's hair. chapter xii. it was late morning when barbara awoke--so late that she saw, by the position of the square of sunshine on the wall beyond her bed, that the hour for breakfast was over. her first vague waking sense was one of joy to come, which she presently caught and fixed as the knowledge that her uncle bob would soon be with her. then a great flood of depression rolled over her, blotting out the joy, as she remembered that she had aunt hitty yet to reckon with. to make matters worse, she had slept past breakfast time,--which was almost an immorality in that punctual household. a lump came up in her throat, and tears ached behind her eyes, for she had meant to try so hard to make up,--and now she had gone and sinned again. she shut her eyes tight, and made a determined effort to regain hold of the sleepiness which still drenched and clouded her brain. this effort was too much, and on the instant the last vestige of her drowsiness cleared away, and her brain grew keen as flame. she sat up, determined to face the conflict and get it over. as she sat up, her eyes fell upon the little table by her bedside, whereon she was wont to keep her candle, her filagreed bottle of lavender water, her much marked copy of sir philip sidney's sonnets, and her bible, which was thumbed chiefly at isaiah, ecclesiastes, and the song of solomon. her eyes opened very wide as she saw there now,--event unprecedented and unbelievable,--a little tray with white linen napkin. on the tray were a glass and a jug of milk, a plate of the seed-cakes which she particularly loved, a big slice of barley bread, and a bowl of yellow raspberries. she stared for half a minute, and rubbed her eyes, and thought. abby, certainly, could not have done it. she would neither have dared nor cared to. then--it was aunt hitty,--and after the way she had treated her,--and after that cold, hateful letter! she reached out a doubtful hand and touched the bread and berries. she started to eat a seed-cake, but it stuck in her throat, quite unable to get past a certain strange, aching obstruction, which had gathered there all at once. tears suddenly streamed down her face; and springing impulsively out of bed, she ran, barefooted and in her white nightgown, straight to the little bow-windowed sewing-room, where she knew that at this hour her aunt would be busy with the needle. mistress mehitable had just time to thrust aside her needle and the fine fabric she was fashioning before barbara flung herself into her arms, sobbing passionately. the good lady's heart warmed in response to this outburst, and she held barbara close to her breast, whispering, "there, there, dearie, we just won't talk about it at all! we'll just try hard to understand each other better in the future!" at the same moment, while her eyes were filling with tears, she could not help a whimsical thought of what doctor john would say. "he would say,"--she said to herself at the back of her brain,--"'seed-cakes may save a soul quicker than switchings, mehitable!'" mistress mehitable's earnest mind had no apprehension of humour save as it reached her by reflection from doctor john or doctor jim. presently barbara found her voice. "forgive me, aunt hitty, forgive me!" she sobbed. mistress mehitable held her a little closer by way of reply. "i'm not worth your while, aunt hitty--i'm not one bit worth all the trouble you take for me--i'm nothing but a wretched little reptile, aunt hitty,--and i just wonder you don't hate and despise me!" "there, there, dear," murmured mistress mehitable, patting her hair. she was sure of her feelings, but could not be quite sure that words would rightly express them at this crisis. if she talked, she knew she might say the wrong thing. she'd leave it all to barbara, and be safe at least for the moment. "i knew how bad i was," continued barbara, justifying the statement by remembrance of some brief and scattered moments of self-questioning. "i knew how bad i was, but i couldn't say so, and i never, never knew how lovely you could be, aunt hitty! i was so dreading to see you this morning,--and then, oh, you just brought me the seed-cakes, and the yellow raspberries, and never said one word!" as she dwelt on this magnanimity, barbara's sobs broke forth afresh. "there, there, dear," murmured mistress mehitable again, and kissed her tenderly, still refusing to be drawn from her intrenchments, but deeply rejoicing in the triumph of her new strategy. "to think--why, i never really knew you till now, aunt hitty!" and barbara hugged her with swift vehemence. "when i saw the things by my bed, and thought of you stealing in and putting them there, and stealing out without waking me,--oh, aunt hitty, i thought such a lot all in one instant, and i knew you couldn't have done that, after me being so bad, unless you loved me,--could you?" "indeed i couldn't!" answered mistress ladd, with conviction. "and you will really and truly forgive me?" persisted barbara. this was a direct challenge, and mistress mehitable was too honest not to come forth and meet it. she gently pushed barbara off, and held her so she could look straight into her fearless young eyes. "i really and truly forgive you--and love you, barbara!" she said. "and"--she continued, with a slight hesitancy, in an instant's resolve achieving a resolution,--"i ask you to forgive me for my misunderstandings of you, and all my many mistakes." "why, aunt hitty!" exclaimed barbara, too tender in her mood to agree with these self-accusations, but too honest to contradict. "i have failed to realise how, being so different from other girls, you required different treatment from other girls," went on mistress mehitable, firmly abasing herself. "i thought there was only one right mould, and i must try to force you into it, however much the effort should hurt us both, dear. i have been blind, very blind, and wrong. in this remote little world of ours, barbara, we get into ruts, and come to think that the only way is our way." barbara's eyes were glowing with enthusiasm. she had discovered aunt kitty's heart,--and now she was discovering a breadth and insight which she could never have believed possible in that competent but seemingly restricted brain. if aunt hitty could thus lift herself to look beyond the atmosphere of second westings, and to understand people different from those she had always been used to, she must be a very great woman. barbara's eyes flamed with the ardour of her appreciation. she did not know what to say, but her expression was eloquent. "that's a quotation from doctor john," said the conscientious mistress mehitable, suddenly afraid from barbara's glowing look that she was getting more credit than her due. "but i have become convinced of its truth." "how wise and good you are, aunt hitty! i'll never, never misunderstand you again!" cried barbara, rashly, breaking down mistress mehitable's guard, and once more hugging her with vehemence. mistress mehitable smiled, gratified but doubtful. she was surprised at her own unexpected appreciation of barbara's demonstrativeness and warmth, so unlike anything that had ever before invaded the cool sphere of her experience. she felt it her duty, however, to qualify barbara's extravagant expectations, not realising that what the impetuous girl intended to express was rather a hope than a conviction. "we hardly dare expect quite that, dear," she said, gently. "but at least we can agree to trust each other's good intentions. we can promise that, can't we?" "of course, i'll always trust you now, aunt hitty, since i've seen your lovely heart!" exclaimed barbara, with flattering fervour. "i have failed to realise," continued mistress mehitable, "that you are no longer a little girl, but very nearly a grown woman. many girls are grown women at your age, barbara, so that i have decided on something that will surprise you. from this time forward, i shift my responsibility for you largely to your own shoulders, and shall hope to be more your friend than your guardian. i hand you over to yourself, barbara. you must learn to discipline yourself!" barbara slipped down to the floor, and leaned against her aunt's knee, her dark, small face grown very thoughtful. "all i dare say, aunt hitty," she said, slowly, weighing her words with unwonted care, "is that i'll try with all my might. but i warn you that you are leaving me in very bad hands. i want to be good, but sometimes i can't help being bad!" "well," said mistress mehitable, with a curious reflex of doctor john's humour, "you'll have to punish yourself after this. i warn you that you must not look to me for punishment after this!" barbara's eyes got very wide, and danced; and she gave a little shriek of delight, such as that with which she was wont to greet doctor john's whimsical sallies. "why, aunt hitty," she cried, clapping her hands, "you said that just like doctor john!" mistress mehitable flushed faintly, and laughed like a girl. she stooped over and kissed barbara fairly on the mouth. then she arose rather hurriedly. "i have often wished i could make myself in many ways more like those two great-hearted gentlemen!" she said. barbara remained sitting upon the floor. her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she stared out of the window. "they are perfectly dear," she agreed, without reservation, "isn't it splendid that they love us so, aunt hitty?" "i'm going to the still-room now," said mistress mehitable, moving toward the door. "i put in the bergamot just before breakfast." "i'll come and help you in a little while,--dear!" said barbara, suddenly realising the changed relations, and suddenly making practical application of it. that caressing, equal, half-protecting "dear" sounded strange to mistress mehitable. it gave her something of a shock, yet she was not sure she didn't like it. it made her feel less alone than of old. she appeared not to notice it, however, merely saying before she vanished: "if i'm not in the still-room, i'll be down the back garden, gathering herbs. the lemon-thyme's in flower, if you're going to distill any more of your 'maryland memories.' uncle robert might like a flask of it." "lovely," said barbara, dreamily. "we will make him some. i'll hurry." but for a few minutes she did not hurry at all. her rich, rebellious hair all down about her vivid face, her thin little shapely feet peeping out from under the frills of her white nightgown, she sat in the square of sunshine and pondered. since she fled away yesterday morning, what a change had come about! she felt as if that wild and foolish adventure was years behind her. a certain vague sense of responsibility oppressed her, a responsibility to herself hitherto unacknowledged. she made the momentous resolve that she would learn to know herself a little, as a step to enabling other people, robert gault and aunt hitty in particular, to understand her. she got up and scrutinised herself keenly in the glass. "you didn't know you were getting so grown up, did you, you ugly, skinny, little black thing!" she muttered. then she flitted back to her own room, poured out a dish of milk for the hungry kittens, and snatched at her breakfast by mouthfuls, while she made her toilet and dressed. last of all, before going to join mistress mehitable, she sat down on the edge of her bed, and took the kittens into her lap. one by one she held up their round, pinky-nosed faces, and gazed seriously into their enigmatic young eyes. "i want you to remember, now, my babies," said she, insisting upon their unwilling attention, "that your missis is now most grow'd up--she's grow'd up in one night, like old mr. jonah's gourd. i want you to remember that we mustn't be silly and childish any more, except just in private, and where we can't help it. and i want you to remember that you mustn't try to coax your missis into mischief any more like you did yesterday, going and helping her run off with the canoe, and such foolishnesses. and i want you to remember that after this, if we can think of it, it isn't going to be 'aunt hitty' this, and 'aunt hitty' that, all the time,--but 'dear,' and 'honey' (as we used to say in maryland), and 'blue-eyed lady,' and 'small person,' because we're just as tall as she is,--and we're too big to be punished any more, if we are bad,--and uncle bob's coming next week,--and robert gault may come any day, if he's impatient!" with a face of unwonted sobriety, but dancing lights in her eyes, she went to the door. with her hand on the latch she changed her mind. rushing to her glass, with a few deft touches she changed the arrangement of her hair, heaping it over her ears, and leaving just one crinkly curl to hang down over her left shoulder. the change added years to her appearance. then, snatching up a pair of scissors, she swiftly ripped out a deep tuck in her frock, letting the skirt down a good three inches. with vigorous brushings and assiduous pattings she smoothed out the crease so that it was not obtrusive; and severely checking her wonted rush and skip, she went to join aunt hitty in the fragrant mysteries of the still-room. chapter xiii. to both mistress mehitable and barbara the new order of things proved itself, all through that first day, supremely satisfactory; and each vowed most solemnly in her heart that she, at least, would not be the one to blame if it did not last. during the afternoon, when doctor john and doctor jim were drinking a pot of tea with them, and wondering delightedly at the unexpected atmosphere of peace, barbara asked, suddenly: "how did you ever manage, aunt hitty, to get doctor john and doctor jim off after me so quickly. i thought i had _such_ a good start! and how _did_ you know which way i was going?" both men looked meaningly at mistress mehitable, but failed to catch her eye. doctor jim began to shake his head violently, but stopped in confusion under barbara's look of questioning astonishment. but mistress mehitable, serenely unconscious, answered at once: "old debby blue," said she, "with whom you breakfasted, rode over as fast as she could to doctor jim with the news. the poor old woman was nearly dead from her exertions, i think you told me, jim. she has a good heart, and truly loves you, barbara. i am sorry if i have seemed harsh to her at times." barbara's eyes grew wide, her face darkened ominously, and her full, bowed lips drew together to a straight line of scarlet. doctor john sat up straight, with twinkling eyes, expecting the outbreak of a characteristic barbara storm, such as he always enjoyed in his big, dry way. but doctor jim made haste to interpose. "you mustn't be too hard on debby, barbara, because she told what she had promised not to tell. what else _could_ she do? you know well enough she couldn't stop you herself, you headstrong baggage. i won't have you unfair to debby. she loves you, and nearly killed herself to save you!" barbara's look of anger changed to a sort of obstinate sullenness for an instant. then with an effort she forced herself to smile, while tears sprang into her eyes. "of course, debby was right," she acknowledged. "but i wish she'd done it some other way. she shouldn't have let me trust her. she _fooled_ me when i trusted her. oh, i'll _forgive_ her, of course," she continued, bitterly, "but never, never, will i _trust_ her again!" then she sprang up impetuously, and ran and flung both arms around mistress mehitable. "_of course_ i'd forgive her, anyway, because if she hadn't fooled me i might have never found out how lovely you were,--honey!" both doctor john and doctor jim were breathless with amazement for a moment. what was this miracle? whence came this understanding and this sympathy, all in a night? they saw a new glad warmth in mistress mehitable's eyes. they exchanged significant glances. "all i can say, barbara," growled doctor jim, at length, "is that you've been a long while finding out what ought to have been as plain as the nose on your face,--eh, what?" "for a young lady who was able to discern at first glance the fascinations of jim pigeon," chimed in doctor john, "i think you have been rather undiscriminating, barbara!" "she could see two battered old tallow dips, when she couldn't see the moon!" added doctor jim, solemnly. there was always a relish of peril in rallying barbara, whose audacity in retort was one of the scandals of second westings. she flashed her white teeth upon them in a naughty smile, and her eyes danced as she kissed mistress mehitable on both cheeks. "of _course_," she cried. "nobody knows better than you two great big dears what a perfect little fool i've been, not to be in love with aunt hitty all this time." "barbara!" protested mistress mehitable, in a tone of rebuke,--and then again, bethinking herself, "barbara, child!" in a tone of appeal. "but now, you can tell a hawk from a handsaw, eh, baggage?" chuckled doctor john; while doctor jim exploded noisily, and then, checking himself, cast upon mistress mehitable a glance of apprehension. but barbara had heeded neither the rebuke nor the appeal. "i know, i know," she went on, clapping her hands with delight. "you didn't _want_ me to find her out,--you didn't want me to know how lovely she is! conspirators! i won't love you any more, either of you. and i'm going to keep aunt hitty all to myself here; and not let you even _see_ her; and make you both so jealous you'll wish you had let me run away in the canoe and get drowned in the rapids." "barbara, barbara," murmured mehitable. doctor jim wagged his great head, and growled inarticulately. "it's we who are the victims of conspiracy, john," said he. "if mehitable and barbara have discovered each other, what becomes of us, i'd like to know! but it sha'n't last. we'll sow seeds of dissension presently,--eh, what?" "just let us wait till bobby gault comes!" suggested doctor john, with gentle malice. barbara's face grew grave on the instant. "of course, aunt hitty, they have told you all about robert," she said, earnestly, "but all they know about his reasons is what he told them himself, you know. and he was determined to shield me, of course. but it was _all_ my fault. how could he know how bad and foolish i was? i just mixed him all up; and it makes me ashamed to think how horrid i was; and i will never forgive myself. but you mustn't let them prejudice you against robert, honey,--but just wait and see what you think of him yourself, won't you, please?" mistress mehitable smiled, and exchanged looks with doctor john and doctor jim. "really, dear," said she, "they have not given me any very bad impressions of robert. i think both doctor john and doctor jim knew where to put the blame. and _i_ know, too!" barbara looked at her doubtfully. such complete acceptance of her position almost seemed unkind and critical. but her aunt's smile reassured her. this was not criticism, but something as near raillery as mistress mehitable would permit herself. "i believe they have been abusing me behind my back,--and they pretending to love me!" cried barbara, tossing her head in saucy challenge. "never, child; we hug our delusions, jim pigeon and i," said doctor john. "no, hug me," laughed barbara, darting around the tea-table and seating herself on his lap. "you are our worst delusion, baggage!" said doctor jim, shaking a large finger at her. "and now i see you're setting out to delude your poor aunt, after making life a burden to her for two years. and poor bobby gault,--he'll find you a delusion and a snare!" "i think you are unkind, even if you are just in fun," protested barbara, half offended, half amused. but at this moment both men rose to go. doctor john, as he raised his towering bulk from the chair, lifted barbara with him as if she had been a baby, held her in his arms for a moment while he peered lovingly and quizzically into her swiftly clearing face, gave her a resounding kiss, and set her on her feet. "bless the child!" said doctor jim, noticing now for the first time the change in appearance. "what's become of our little barbara? how she's grown up over night!" "and how her petticoats have grown down!" added doctor john, backing off to survey her critically. "tut, tut, the wanton hussy! how did she dare to kiss me! goodness gracious! to think i had a young woman like that sitting on my lap!" "you had better be careful what you say, doctor john," retorted barbara, firmly, "or i _will_ be grown up, and never kiss you or let you hold me on your lap any more!" "i humbly crave your pardon, gracious fair. i am your most devoted, humble servant!" said doctor john, setting his heels together at a precise right angle, and bowing profoundly over her hand till his brocaded coat-tails stuck out stiffly behind him. barbara rather liked this hand-kissing, after robert's initiation, and took it with composure as her due. why should she not have her hand kissed, as well as aunt hitty? but doctor jim made his farewell in different fashion. "i won't have her grow up this way!" he growled, snatching her up and holding her as if he feared she would be taken away from him. "she's just our little barby, our little, thorny brier-rose! eh--what?" "our _barby_ brier-rose, you mean!" interjected doctor john, with a chuckle. but every one ignored this poor witticism, and doctor jim continued, while barbara softly kicked her toes against his waistcoat. "it would break my heart to have her grown up, and young missish, and prim. what have you done to her, mehitable?" mistress mehitable gave a clear little ripple of laughter, flute-like and fresh. she was feeling younger and gayer than she had felt for years. "i have just tried to carry out your own suggestion, jim!" said she, cheerfully. "i must say, i think it was a very wise suggestion. i have handed barbara over to her own care, that's all. i am sorry you don't like the results!" "don't worry, doctor jim!" cried barbara, purchasing her release by kissing him hard on both cheeks. "don't worry about me being changed. i was _born_ bad, you know. and i'm afraid i'll be just as bad as ever by to-morrow--except to aunt hitty! if i'm bad to you any more, dear,"--and she turned impetuously to mistress mehitable, "i'll--i'll--" and feeling a sudden imperious threat of tears, she fled away to her own room. it had been a wonderful, wonderful day for her, and she felt that she must have a little cry at once. on her white bed she wept deliciously. then she thought, and thought, and thought, and made resolves, in sympathetic communion with her pillow. in the parlour below, doctor jim had said, before leaving: "i think you are going to get a lot of comfort out of her now, mehitable, eh, what?" and doctor john, troubled by a maudlin kind of moisture about his eyes, had said nothing. and mistress mehitable had said, fervently: "i hope she is going to get a lot of comfort out of me, jim. i see that i have been greatly in the wrong!" chapter xiv. all the next morning mistress mehitable and barbara were busy overhauling barbara's frocks. such as would admit of it were let down some three or four inches. of the others, two of rich material were laid away in mistress mehitable's huge carved oak chest lined with cedar, a repository of varied treasures of the loom. the rest, three in number and plain of weave, were set aside to be given to mercy chapman. there was much important planning, much interesting consultation; and in this feminine intimacy they grew ever closer to each other, throwing off the watchful self-consciousness, the sense of admiring and reciprocal discovery, which made them more happy than at ease in each other's company. early in the afternoon barbara decided she would go out to her favourite apple-tree in the back garden and read. she openly took down the second volume of "clarissa harlowe,"--having already got through the first volume in surreptitious moments. mistress mehitable discreetly, but with difficulty and some soul-questioning, refrained from admonition. barbara felt in her heart a faint quaver of trepidation, as she thus frankly assumed her independence; but she had the full courage of her convictions, and outwardly she was calm. "mr. richardson does not seem to me a very strong writer," she remarked at the door,--"especially after one has read those wonderful plays of mr. shakespeare and mr. ben jonson, as i did at home in maryland! but every one should know 'clarissa,' shouldn't they, dear?" mistress mehitable gasped. she, too, had read those wonderful plays of mr. shakespeare and mr. ben jonson. but she was thoroughbred, and gave no sign of her dismay. "i never liked the lady, myself, dear," she answered, casually. "she always seemed to me rather silly." this was barbara's own judgment, and confirmed her new appreciation of her aunt's intelligence. at the same time, this apparently easy acceptance, on mistress mehitable's part, of barbara's emancipation, seemed almost too good to be true. her heart swelled passionately toward this blue-eyed, calm, patrician little woman, whom she had so long misunderstood. she came back, put a caressing arm around mistress mehitable's waist, kissed her fervently, and looked deep into her eyes. mistress mehitable actually trembled in the recesses of her soul lest that searching gaze should discover what she had nearly said about young girls and novel-reading! but she kept the blue deeps of her eyes clear and tranquil, and her lips smiled frank response. "oh, you are so good and wonderful and wise, honey," barbara said, at length. "what a foolish, foolish child i've been,--and you, my dear, dear father's sister! why, just to look at you ought to have brought me to my senses. so _many_ ways you look like him!" then a thing very remarkable indeed took place. mistress mehitable's fine poise wavered and vanished. she almost clutched barbara to her breast, then buried her head on the firm young shoulders and cried a little quite unrestrainedly, feeling a great ache in her heart for her dead brother winthrop, and a great love in her heart for her dead brother's child. barbara was surprised, but greatly touched by this outburst. she held her close, and patted her hair, and called her soft names suddenly remembered from the soft-voiced endearments of plantation days; till presently mistress mehitable recovered, and laughed gently through her tears. "don't think me silly, dear," she pleaded, "but i've just realised for the first time that you have your dear father's wonderful eyes. your colouring, and your hair, and your mouth, are all very different from his. but your eyes,--they are his _exactly_. such wonderful, deep, clear, _true_ eyes, barbara, sometimes sea-gray, sometimes sea-green. where have my eyes been all this time?" barbara sighed happily. "isn't it lovely we have found each other at last, aunt hitty? i don't think it will be so hard now for me to be good!" then she picked up "clarissa" again, and ran gaily out to the garden. barbara's apple-tree had three great limbs branching out at about five feet from the ground, forming a most luxurious crotch in which to sit and read. smaller apple-trees, interspersed with tangled shrubbery and some trellised vines, almost surrounded it, so that on three sides it afforded perfect seclusion. sweet airs breathed through it, from the neighbouring thyme and mint beds; and sunshine sifted down through its leaves in an intricate and exquisite pattern; and a pair of catbirds, nesting in the shrubs close by, made it their haunt without regard to barbara's presence. as she looked at this dear nook, with all its memories of intimate hours and dreams, barbara thought to herself how glad she was that she had not succeeded in running away from second westings. she clambered cleverly into the tree, settled herself with a long breath of satisfaction, swung her little scarlet-shod feet idly too and fro, and made a long, absorbing survey of her green realm. then, locking her ankles lithely as only a slim girl can, she opened her book, and was soon engrossed in the fortunes of lovelace and clarissa. about the time that barbara was settling herself in the apple-tree, robert gault was triumphantly pushing barbara's canoe to land through the gold-green sedges on the second westings shore of the little lake. with pole and paddle he had made the ascent of the stream from gault house, having been seized that morning with a violent conviction that it was his duty to return the canoe without delay. he had poled through the rapids, and paddled eagerly through the silent solemnities of the woods, too intent upon his purpose to be alive to their mystic influences. the furtive eyes that watched him from pine-tree boll and ironwood bush, from skyey branch or moss-veiled root, touched not his consciousness. to his self-centred mood the peopled stillness was empty as a desert. his eyes, at other times alert and not uninitiated, were turned inward upon his own dreams. he emerged from the great shadows, paddled through the meadowy windings with their iris-beds and lilies, and passed at length old debby's clamorous dooryard, giving hardly a glance to the green slope with its ducks and fowls, the little red-doored cabin against its trees, or old debby herself, with the cock-eared yellow pup beside her, sitting on the stoop. he was in a hurry, and had caught glimpses of the open waters of the lake beyond; and he knew from barbara's description that mistress mehitable's landing-place was straight across the lake. but old debby, sitting knitting in the sun with the cock-eared yellow pup beside her, saw him, and chuckled at his haste. she had been over to second westings the day before, and had got the whole story from doctor jim. she had made up her mind to keep well out of the way, till barbara's indignation should have time to cool; but she was mightily interested in the youth who had been so readily persuaded to the backing of barbara's mad venture. a moment later she made up her mind that she must have a good look at him, a word with him if possible. she got up and hobbled actively down to the shore; but robert's haste had carried him already beyond earshot. following the path up from the lake-shore, robert crossed the cow-pasture and climbed the bars back of the barn. here he was met and challenged by keep, the mastiff, who, with the discernment of a well-bred dog, appreciated robert's good clothes, nosed his hand cordially, and let him pass without protest. keep knew a gentleman at a glance, and was convinced that good manners meant good morals. he had no fear of robert setting fire to the barn. seeking a way to the front of the house, robert passed through the wicket leading into the back garden. suddenly, between the tall clumps of hollyhocks, he stopped short, and his heart gave a queer little sliding leap. his breath came quick and light, in a way that greatly perplexed him. what he saw to so disturb him was a pair of little scarlet shoes, two small ankles, and a few inches of slim, shapely silk stockings, lithely intertwined, and vividly in evidence beneath a screen of apple-leaves. robert did not need any one to tell him that the rest of the bewildering picture, hidden behind the screen of apple-leaves, was the small, inspiring lady, mistress barbara ladd. he hesitated, and was almost on the point of slipping away,--he knew not why, for the life of him. then, recovering a part of his composure, he stepped forward in trepidation, hat in hand, forgot the graceful speeches on which he was wont to pride himself, and stammered--"mistress barbara!--i beg your pardon!" the slim ankles unlocked, "clarissa" fell upon the grass, and lightly as a bird barbara sprang down from her perch, unconscious, unembarrassed, gracious in her greetings. she smiled him radiant welcome, frankly pleased, and held out her hand to be kissed. "why, how did you come?" she cried, gaily, "stealing in this way through the back premises?" "by water, dear lady," he answered, still stammering. "i brought back the canoe, you know!" "by my dear river, and through the great, still woods!" she exclaimed, looking him over with clear eyes of approval. "how lovely! i wish i'd been with you!" "i wish you had!" said robert, with devout conviction. "but how tired you must be, all that journey against the current. really, robert, it was _very_ nice of you to come so soon!" now robert was in a sad state of bewilderment, dazzled by eyes and lips and scarlet shoes. and he was further shaken from his customary poise by his perception of barbara's change in the arrangement of her hair, and by what seemed a sudden increase in her stature through the lengthening of her frocks. otherwise he would not have been so stupid as to imagine that the promptitude of his coming called for any apology in barbara's eyes, whatever might be the opinion of doctor john, or doctor jim, or mistress mehitable ladd! "i thought i ought to come at once, you know," he explained, "to bring back the canoe! otherwise i should have waited, as i ought, for mr. glenowen's coming, and an invitation from him." "oh!" said barbara, her face changing slightly, her voice growing a little cooler. "that was very thoughtful of you. i couldn't sleep for thinking of the canoe!" robert looked at her doubtfully, wondering if that were sarcasm in her voice. "it's a dear canoe. i love it!" said he. "i wonder you did not want to keep it a little longer, then,--at least, till uncle bob could come and send you a proper, formal invitation to bring it back!" said barbara. "but i wanted to bring it back now,--i thought it was such a good excuse for coming at once, though i knew i _ought_ to have waited for the invitation, of course," persisted robert, vaguely worried. "oh!" exclaimed barbara, again, allowing herself to be mollified in part, but still feeling a shade of disappointment. she was too inexperienced to appreciate the tribute of robert's confusion and unexpected awkwardness. she liked him so much better in his grand, elaborate, self-possessed manner, paying stately compliments, making her feel important and grown-up by formal homage. however, he certainly was very nice, and he certainly looked very distinguished; and she realised that, for all his apparent solicitude about returning the canoe, the canoe was not his reason for coming so soon. she would forgive him,--but she would punish him! in fact, she was making progress in the arts of the imperishable feminine. "well, we shall _all_ be glad to see you, robert," she said. "and now you must go straight to doctor jim, who did invite you, as you seem to have forgotten! you go through that white gate, over there, and turn to the left, and then the first turn to the right puts you right on the main street. you're almost at doctor jim's then,--any one will point it out to you." "but,--i didn't come to see doctor jim," protested robert, much taken aback. "i came to bring back the canoe, you know!" "of course, i understand!" said barbara, sweetly. "tell doctor jim and doctor john that i want them to bring you back here presently, in an hour or two, to present you to aunt hitty, and have tea with us!" "but can't i stay a _little_ while _now_,--while no one knows i am here at all?" pleaded robert. ordinarily, this was just what would have seemed reasonable and delightful to barbara. but just now it pleased her to discipline the boy. "decidedly _not_, robert!" said she. "you know how careful you are about etiquette,--so troubled over the idea of coming here at all on the mere invitation of mere me! you shall not talk to me any more till you have been properly presented to aunt hitty! besides, i am just at a _most_ interesting place in this lovely book,"--and she snatched 'clarissa' up from the grass, where it had lain forgotten since robert's appearance,--"and i can't really take my mind off it till i find out what is going to happen. i will see you in the house, with aunt hitty, in--let me see--about an hour and a half! now go right away!" robert looked very miserable, but bowed submission, and backed off. "how will mistress ladd receive me?" he asked, doubtfully. "oh," replied barbara, one small brown hand on the apple-tree as she waited for robert to depart ere she climbed back to her nook, "aunt hitty is just perfect. she will be very nice to you, and will quite approve of you, i know. since everything has turned out for the best, she has already forgiven you for leading her young niece into mischief the way you did!" robert stared at her in speechless amazement. but barbara would not let him ask any more questions. with a mocking little grimace at his confusion, she pointed to the white gate. "go away immediately!" she commanded. "and be sure you come back in an hour and a half!" robert turned and strode off with an aggrieved air, between the hollyhock rows. when he was half way to the gate, barbara, who had stood looking after him with a smile on her lips, called imperiously: "robert!" he turned quickly, and snatched off his hat. "what is it, my lady?" "you forgot to help me into my tree!" said barbara. he was beside her in an instant, his face brightening. he knelt on one knee, and held out his two hands firmly locked, to form a sort of stirrup. setting one light foot into this support, barbara sprang up and in a flash was perched gracefully in her niche. it was done with such swiftness that robert had hardly time to realise her foot had touched him. she laughed down upon him with gay commendation. "that was very handsomely done, indeed, robert!" she declared. "now hurry right away to doctor jim, or you'll never manage to get back in one hour and a half!" and she buried her eyes in the first page at which "clarissa" chanced to open. robert hesitated, opened his lips as if to speak, and went without a word. barbara, watching him from the corner of her eye, was puzzled at the look upon his face, but felt satisfied that it was not displeasure. about half-way up the walk toward the gate, when he believed himself unobserved, robert gazed curiously at the palms wherein the little foot had rested for that fraction of a heart-beat. light as was the touch, it had left a subtle tingling behind it. he pressed the place to his lips. this action astonished barbara, but greatly interested her, and gave her, at the same time, an inexplicable thrill. her heart understood it, indeed, while it remained an enigma to her brain. and purposeless, profitless, absurd though it seemed to her, that robert should kiss his own hand, she decided nevertheless that in some way the action had expressed a more fervent homage to her than when the hand that he kissed was hers. she forgot to go on reading the excellent mr. richardson's romance. chapter xv. mistress mehitable liked robert, whose bearing and breeding were in all ways much to her taste. she had seen him when a babe in arms, just before his father and mother had taken him away from gault house to new york. so gracious was she, that robert was filled with wonder as he thought of the piteous story which barbara had told him in the canoe. but this wonder was as nothing, compared to the amazement with which he viewed the warm affection between barbara and her aunt. what could it all mean? it was plain that they two understood each other, trusted each other, admired each other, loved each other. he had an uneasy feeling that barbara had made a fool of him. then, as his dignity was beginning to feel ruffled, and his grave young face to darken, he would remember other details of that eventful afternoon which forbade him to question the girl's sincerity. at this the cloud would lift. there was a mystery behind it all, of course, which he would doubtless, in his determined fashion, succeed in penetrating. meanwhile, every one seemed extremely happy,--barbara gaily, whimsically gracious, mistress mehitable composedly glad, doctor jim as boisterous in his joy as good manners would permit, doctor john quizzically approving, and filled with mellow mirth. robert was made to feel himself an honoured guest, for his own sake as well as for the sake of his parents; and in this cordial atmosphere he soon justified all good opinions. barbara was intensely gratified with him. she audaciously claimed credit for having discovered him, and rescued him from the barbaric wilderness that lay beyond second westings. she began to plan expeditions and amusements to make his visit memorable; and when he announced his intention of returning to gault house on the morrow, there was a unanimous protest. mistress mehitable said it was not to be heard of, for one moment. doctor jim growled that his hospitality was not to be flouted in any such fashion. doctor john levelled bushy eyebrows at him, and suggested that no true gault would run away in the hour of triumph. "you will do nothing of the kind, robert," decreed barbara, with finality. "we want you here. i wonder you are not ashamed, after all the trouble you made for us so lately, when you were old enough and big enough to know better!" robert's face flushed with pleasure at all this warmth; and he hugely wanted to stay. but with astonishing discretion he refused to be persuaded. some intuition taught him the wisdom of timely reserve. without at all formulating any theory on the subject, which would have been impossible to such inexperience as his, he felt instinctively that at this moment, when she was most gracious to him, a judicious absence would best fix him in barbara's interest. he said there were matters to be attended to for his grandmother which would not well bear delay. at this unexpected firmness on the part of her cavalier, barbara was so annoyed that for nearly an hour she seemed to forget his existence; but robert hid his discomfort under an easy cheerfulness, and no one else seemed to notice the passing shadow. mistress mehitable insisted that the guests should stay to sup with her and barbara; and the boy's coming was made a little festival. mistress mehitable was one of those notable housekeepers who seem to accomplish great things with little effort by being craftily forehanded. before anything was said of supper she had vanished for a few minutes to the kitchen; and in those few minutes she had planned with abby for a repast worthy the event. the larder of the ladd homestead was kept victualled beyond peril of any surprise; and mistress mehitable, for all her ethereal mould and mien, believed in the efficacy of good eating and good drinking. well regulated lives, she held, should also be well nourished, and her puritan conscience was not illiberal in regard to the seemly pleasures of the board. both doctor john and doctor jim, as befitted their stature, were valiant trenchermen; and robert was a boy; and the lavish delicacies of abby's serving met with that reception which was the best tribute to their worth. gaiety made herself handmaid to appetite; and the ale was nutty-mellow from last october; and mistress mehitable's old madeira wine, of which herself partook but sparingly, was fiery-pungent on the tongue. as she toasted him, and her blue eyes sparkled upon him over the glass, robert wondered anew how barbara could have wanted to run away from so admirable an aunt. as for barbara, reduced for a little to silence by supreme content, she sipped at her angelica cordial, surveyed mistress mehitable with grateful ardour, and took it all as largess to herself. at last, with a happy sigh, she cried, "oh, if only uncle bob could have come in time for this!" and so electric with sympathy was the air that on the word every eye turned and glanced at the door, as if expecting that a wish so well-timed might bring fruition on the instant. there was silence for some seconds. then mistress mehitable said, "he will be here in a very few days, dear! and then you, robert, must come to us again without delay. i agree with barbara that nothing i can think of except mr. glenowen's presence could add to our happiness to-night!" after supper there was music in the candle-lit drawing-room, mistress mehitable having a rare gift for the harpsichord, and doctor jim a nice art in the rendering of certain old english ballads of the robuster sort. where they might have seemed to the ladies' ears a trifle more robust than nice, doctor jim had fined them down to a fitting delicacy. but they suited his rolling bass, and he loved them because, being cavalier-born, they appealed to his king-loving sympathies. doctor jim was an exemplary congregationalist, but solely by force of environment, congregationalism being the creed of all the gentry of that region. episcopalianism he looked upon with a distrust mingled with affection; but in all other respects he was a king's man, through and through, an aristocrat, and a good-natured scorner of the masses. it was a stupendous triumph for accident and atmosphere to have succeeded in fitting doctor jim to his inherited environment of second westings. his congregationalism was a thing that might conceivably be changed to meet changed conditions; while his toryism was bred in the bone. with mistress mehitable, on the other hand, her congregationalism was deep-rooted, a matter of conscience. it was by conscience, too, no less than by blood, that she was an aristocrat. she was a royalist, a tory, no less unquestioning than doctor jim, but this by a chance election of that strenuous conscience which, by a different chance twist, would have made her an equally sincere whig. when doctor jim had sung till doctor john told him he was getting hoarse and spoiling his voice, barbara, in a burst of daring, started up a wild plantation song, patting her accompaniment. to mistress mehitable, as to robert, this was an undreamed novelty, and their eyes opened wide in wonder. at first they thought it barbarous, but in a few minutes the piquing rhythms and irresponsible cadences caught them, and they listened in rapture. barbara's store of these songs was a rich one, and she had perfected the rendering in many a secret performance to the audience of doctor john and doctor jim. when she was quite sure of the effect she was producing, she sprang to her feet, flung her hair loose by a quick movement of both hands, and began to dance as she sang. and now, to the ever-growing amazement of mistress mehitable, doctor jim took up the patting, while doctor john, seating himself at the harpsichord, began a strange staccato picking of the keys. then barbara stopped singing, and gave herself up wholly to the dance. she danced with arms and hands and head and feet, and every slender curve of her young body. she moved like flames. her eyes and lips and teeth were a radiance through the live, streaming darknesses of her hair. light, swift, unerring, ecstatic, it was like the most impassioned of bird-songs translated into terms of pure motion. doctor john played faster and faster his wild, monotonous melody. doctor jim patted harder and harder. barbara's dance grew madder and stranger, till at last, with a little breathless cry that was half a sob, she stopped, darted across the room, flung herself down, and buried her dishevelled head in mistress mehitable's lap. on ordinary occasions mistress mehitable would have felt inclined to hold that anything so extraordinary, so utterly outside the range of all conceptions, and at the same time so very beautiful, must be wrong. now, however, she was under the spell of barbara and under the spell of the whole situation. "i cannot see any possible harm in it!" she said to herself. and to barbara she said, tenderly and deftly arranging the disordered locks: "most beautiful, and most singular, dear. i suppose that is your _dance_ of 'maryland memories,' is it not? it seems to me not only amazingly beautiful, but as if it might be the most wholesome and desirable of exercises." barbara gurgled a gasping laugh from the depths of mistress mehitable's taffeta. it had never occurred to her that these mad negro dances, in which she found expression for so much in herself which she did not understand, could be regarded in the light of exercise. but she was glad indeed if they could be so regarded by aunt hitty. "oh, yes, honey," she agreed, in haste. "i'm _sure_ it's wholesome; and i _know_ it's _desirable_,--isn't it?" this appeal was to every one, but it was robert, at last awaking from his rapture and finding breath, who answered: "there was never anything else so wonderful in all the world," he said, solemnly. doctor john and doctor jim, with one impulse, jumped up, each seized one of barbara's hands, and plucked her to her feet. they then stood hand in hand in a row before mistress mehitable and robert, bowing their thanks for such appreciation of their poor efforts to please. "we are going to london to perform before the king!" declared doctor jim. mistress mehitable gravely took a shilling from her purse, and bestowed it upon doctor john because he was the tallest. he pretended to spit on it, for luck, but kissed it instead, and slipped it into the bosom of his ruffled shirt. when the approving laughter had subsided, mistress mehitable said, musingly: "i see now how you have been teaching barbara her latin. it was that peculiar dialect of latin that prevails in maryland!" after this a sack posset was mixed by mistress mehitable, with the eager assistance of every one but robert, who was still too much possessed by barbara's dancing to do more than stand about and get in the way, and smile a gravely fatuous smile whenever spoken to. when the posset began to go around, calling forth encomiums at every sip, doctor jim demanded the cards. there was silence. to robert, just from the tory circles of new york, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. to barbara it seemed natural, but foreign to mistress mehitable and second westings. to doctor john it seemed right and desirable, but he chuckled and said nothing, being aware of mistress mehitable's views. and this time mistress mehitable was firm. "no, jim," said she, "we won't play. i know good people do play,--people who know just as well as i do what is right and what is wrong. but for some reason card-playing does not seem right to me. you know doctor sawyer would strongly disapprove!" "officially, that's all, dear lady!" corrected doctor john. "but you have them in the house,--yonder in that very drawer, most gracious mistress!" persisted doctor jim. "my dear father used them," confessed mistress mehitable. "therefore i would not for a moment think of refusing to have them in my house. but i think it is better not to play, jim." and though mistress mehitable spoke with appeal and apology rather than with decision, the matter was plainly settled. there was nothing to do but tell riddles and drink up the rest of the posset. the pervading satisfaction was in no way checked by doctor jim's failure, for all agreed that cards were stupid anyway. barbara, in spite of her excitement, and to her intense self-disgust, began to grow sleepy. she was horribly afraid she might show it, which, for one but forty-eight hours grown-up, would have been humiliating beyond words. she felt herself divided between a fear lest so perfect an evening should end too soon, and an equally harassing fear lest it should end not soon enough. at length the keen and loving eyes of doctor john discerned her trouble; and at the dissolute hour of half-past ten he broke up the party. adieux were made with a warmth, an abandon of homage held in fetters of elaborate courtliness, which might have seemed excessive at a less propitious conjunction of time and sentiment. at last the three, doctor john, doctor jim, and robert, found themselves arm-in-arm on the street, and all talking at once, overbrimming with happiness and reciprocal congratulations, as they took their discreet way homeward. barbara and mistress mehitable, left alone, silently put out the lights. then, each lighting her candle, they paused at the head of the stairs to say good night. each set down her candle on the little mahogany table under the clock, and looked into the other's eyes. barbara was first to break the sweet but too searching scrutiny. she flung both arms around mistress mehitable's neck, and kissed her with a tremulous fervour that told much. mistress mehitable, whose eyes were brighter than barbara had ever guessed that they could be, pressed her in a close embrace which concealed much, even from mistress mehitable herself. then barbara, after whispering something to the kittens, went straight to bed, and straight to sleep. but mistress mehitable sat looking out of her window. chapter xvi. it had been arranged that robert should borrow a horse from doctor john's stables, ride it over to gault house, and keep it there till his return to second westings. but as he was strolling down the village street before breakfast, he saw, in a paddock beside an unpretentious cottage, a splendid narragansett pacer, a dark sorrel, one of the handsomest of the breed that he had ever seen. he had long coveted one of these horses, famous in all the thirteen colonies for their easy gait, speed over rough country, and unparalleled endurance. with characteristic promptness in getting to his point, he went in, interviewed the owner, tried the horse, loved it, and asked the price. the owner was not anxious to sell; but when he found out who the would-be purchaser was, and the liberal price he was ready to pay, the prospect of an immediate draft on the bank at hartford proved irresistible, and robert rode off with his prize. he knew horse-flesh, and did not grudge the price; and both doctor john and doctor jim, who knew this sorrel pacer well, were constrained to commend the purchase, though to them it seemed that so weighty an action demanded, if but for form's sake, the tribute of delay and pondering. "buy a horse like that, robert, in three shakes of a ram's tail? it's undignified!" roared doctor jim, eyeing the beast with unmixed approbation. "it's an insult to the horse. and it's a slight upon the value of our assistance, you cock-sure young rascal. but it's just the mulish way your father would have gone and done it, so i suppose we must forgive you." doctor john, meanwhile, had been handling the beast critically, and looking at its teeth. "worth all you gave for him, bobby; and not a day over five years old!" was the verdict. "i see you're old enough to go about alone. don't you mind what jim pigeon says. he'd have had you run to him and ask if you might have a horse of your own, and then get him and me to go down and look at the beast, and come back here and talk it all over in council, and then go back and bully enoch barnes some more about the price, and then all three of us ride the beast up to mistress mehitable's, to ask the opinion of her and barbara on the subject, and then--" but robert interrupted at this point in the tirade. "that _would_ have been a good idea," he asserted, regretfully. "i wish i had thought to consult the ladies. but, you know, i _knew_ that horse was just the one i'd so long been wanting the moment i set eyes on him. so i didn't dare wait, lest some one else should come along and snap him up. of course you both know a thousand times more about horses than i do,--but i knew enough to know i wanted this one!" "you _generally_ seem to know what you want, master gault!" said doctor jim. "and you seem like to get it, generally, if i don't mistake the cut of you,--eh, what?" "tut, tut," said doctor john, scowling upon him quizzically. "that's all very well as far as horses are concerned, and men! but wait till it comes to women, robert. you've a lot to learn, my son. if i'm not much mistaken, you'll be taught a lot, and not spared in the teaching!" "i'm always anxious to learn," answered robert, modestly. "you will! you will!" said doctor john. breakfast was a substantial meal of boiled "yokeag" with molasses, and broiled salmon, and venison cutlets, and fried ham, and rich guava jelly from the west indies. robert was surprised to see each of his friends preface the repast with a quart mug of the hardest and headiest old cider, he himself being accustomed to a small cup of light ale merely, or a sip of claret, at this hour. both doctor john and doctor jim assured him that there was nothing like sound cider to tone up the stomach for its day's adventures; and on their advice he tried it, though sparingly, and therefore with no tragic results. after breakfast, he was so obviously restless that the big-hearted brothers made no effort to detain him. with heavy hands upon his shoulders, they told him to make the least possible delay in his return, and to bear in mind how warm the welcome ever awaiting him at second westings. "how like to richard in the saddle!" exclaimed doctor john, when robert had mounted the sorrel pacer. "and that's a compliment not many a lad of your age could win, my son!" said doctor john. robert's dark face flushed with pleasure. "i try hard to be as like my father as possible," said he. "don't you think i might properly ride around and pay my respects to the ladies before i leave?" "unquestionably you might! 'pon my word a capital idea!" laughed doctor jim, with huge derision. "unquestionably, my boy, you would find yourself in hot water if you didn't!" said doctor john. so robert, without more ado, turned the head of his narragansett pacer toward westings house, whose wide white gables were partly visible through the trees. a very erect, graceful, and masterful young figure he made, as he reined in his tall sorrel before mistress mehitable's porch. mistress mehitable from her window above had seen him coming, and was on the steps to greet him. he flung himself from the saddle, kissed her hand deferentially, thanked her with fervour for her delightful hospitality,--and at the same time cast a solicitous eye about the walks and windows, wondering where barbara could be. mistress mehitable had an amused smile, but would not help him. she said polite things, and assured him of the pleasure with which she would look forward to his next visit,--and even added that he had better not postpone that next visit beyond five or six days, or a week at most, as mr. glenowen was expected at once, and might not be able to stay long at second westings. but of barbara she said not a word. robert showed her, with pride, his sorrel pacer, related with an abstracted air the circumstances of its purchase, and enlarged upon the special merits of the breed, while mistress mehitable patted the silky white nose, and murmured boundless admiration. but still no sign, no word, of barbara. at last robert could contain himself no longer. "i ought to be on the road," he stammered, "but i should be sorry to leave without making my adieux to mistress barbara. is she within?" "she went out about half an hour ago!" said mistress mehitable, "and did not say where she was going!" robert's face fell so pathetically that mistress mehitable felt a little flush of resentment against barbara for her cruelty. "she left kindest messages for you," she continued, hastily. "she told me to say how sorry she was not to see you this morning, and that she would never forgive you if you did not come again to second westings very soon. and i was to say good-bye to you for her!" "i thank you," said robert, heavily. "pray you give her my devotions, and tell her how grieved i am to be denied the privilege of paying them in person. i kiss your hand again, dear mistress ladd!" and with that he rode off musingly, through a morning whose sunlight had on the sudden lost its sparkle, whose spicy airs had all at once lost their zest. his pride in the new pacer, which he had hoped to show off to barbara, was all fallen flat. he forced the restive beast to walk soberly for some moments. then a swift heat of anger, a sense of undeserved injury, went over him. he swore he would come no more to second westings all that summer; and setting spurs to the willing sorrel, he tore away down the road at a pounding gallop. chapter xvii. the road toward westings landing, which was the shortest way to gault house, was joined about a mile out by another, equally rough and unfriendly to travel, coming from westings centre. robert had passed this junction at full gallop, but a few rods beyond a stretch of mire compelled him to rein in and pick his way. as he did so he caught a sound of beating hoofs behind him, and turned in the saddle to see who came. careering recklessly down the road from westings centre, her black curls flying from beneath the rim of her little white beaver, came a slim figure in a black habit on a great black horse. she burst into a peal of laughter as robert turned, and cried, gaily: "i'm coming. wait for me, robert!" robert wheeled his horse as if on a pivot, fairly lifted him with voice and spur, and was with her in a few great strides. "you!" was all his voice could say; but his face said so much more that the greeting did not seem curt to barbara. her small face was radiant with excitement, audacity, and delight. at the beginning of the miry ground she reined in, patted her beast's wet neck, and said, breathlessly: "i thought you might like me to ride a little way with you, robert, to make sure of your getting the right road. wasn't it very nice of me,--when you don't one bit deserve any such attention?" "you are an angel!" cried robert, in an ecstasy. barbara laughed clear and high at this. "_oh!_" she shrilled, melodiously derisive, "that's what _i_ think i am, of course. but no one has ever agreed with me after knowing me more than three days. this is your third day, robert. it's well for me you're going while you labour under this flattering delusion." "it's no delusion," averred robert, stoutly, far past wit, and with no weapon left but bluntness. "you are the loveliest thing in the world." this, in barbara's own opinion, was nonsense. but she liked to hear him say it, nonsense or not. she pondered for a moment, her face turned away indifferently, that he might not see she was pleased. "you contradict yourself," she retorted. "you know angels are not in the world!" "one is!" said robert. "i like you so much better, robert, when you're saying clever things like that," said barbara, patronisingly, "than when you are just stupid, and don't do anything but just look at me, as you do sometimes!" she was too young to know that when a man can be witty with a woman he is not, at the moment, so engrossed in her but that he is able to think of himself. before robert could reply they were past the miry ground, and barbara had once more set her black horse at the gallop. the sorrel needed no urging to follow,--and indeed, for a few minutes both riders were fully occupied in preventing the ride from degenerating into a headlong race, so emulous were the two horses. the road was still very bad, broken with ruts, holes, and boulders, and the pace was therefore full of peril. the black just escaped plunging his fore legs into a bog-hole, and the narrowness of the escape seemed to make him lose nerve. robert saw with anxiety that barbara, though her horsemanship equalled her canoeing, was just now in a far too reckless mood. "wait, please, my dear lady," he begged. "this is no road for fast riding. that good beast of yours just escaped a bad fall, and he's a bit nervous. let's walk them till we get to better ground." but barbara had not noticed her escape, and she was thrilling with exhilaration. she did not know how beside herself she was. "if you're afraid, follow at your own pace!" she cried, mockingly. "_i_ came out to _ride_!" and with a wild word of encouragement to the black, and a throwing forward of the reins upon his neck, she shot on at full speed. "i _beg_ you don't be so reckless!" cried robert. "you will get a bad fall riding this way on such a road!" there was intensest anxiety in his voice, but the faintest tinge of reproof went with it, as barbara's sensitive pride was quick to discern. "i shall ride as recklessly as i please," said she. "but don't let that trouble you. be careful if you like. ride like an old woman if you like!" this taunt did not touch robert, as he knew the quality of his own horsemanship,--which, indeed, barbara's attentive eyes had been quick to note. but the mood it betrayed alarmed and half angered him. he saw in fancy that fleeing, daring, wayward little figure stretched lifeless on the roadside, the radiant face white and still. his own face paled and his jaw set obstinately as he urged forward his big sorrel in silence. the new horse proved worthy of narragansett fame. over the worst ground his peculiar pace carried him with an ease which the big black's heavy tread could not match. and when the ground was firmer, and he could stretch out at full run, he soon closed up the gap between himself and his rival. this nettled barbara, who thought her black prince a record-breaker; and she even went so far as to wave her riding-crop, as if she might be inclined to use it on this beast, which had never felt the whip. nevertheless, the heavy hoof-beats behind crept closer; and soon the sorrel's nose was at her stirrup; and then robert's stirrup and his knee were level with her own,--and with a quick sidelong glance she caught the grim resolve on his dark face. she was feeling by this time the least bit ashamed of herself, and awaking to the risks of the road, so she said, sweetly: "that's a _splendid_ horse of yours, robert. and you can ride!" "thank you, mistress barbara!" said robert, unmollified. and just then the road straightened out, a stretch of hard, dry level, inviting to the loose rein and the unchecked run. "there's no danger _here_, master careful!" cried barbara. "no, not here,--except branches!" acknowledged robert, drawing a deep breath of relief. and now for more than a mile the road was good. it wound in slow curves, the high-branched ash and white maple meeting over it in stately arches. under foot it was hard and fairly even, with a thin turf between the shallow ruts. sunlight and shadow flecked it in vivid patches; and the summer winds, which were blowing briskly in the open, breathed down this sheltered corridor only as half-stirred exhalations of faint perfume. neck by neck the horses galloped, their riders silent, looking straight ahead, but thrillingly conscious of each other's nearness. and the strong rhythm of the hoof-beats beneath them seemed to time itself to the rushing of their blood. it was now no longer with vexation, but with a sort of half pride, that barbara realised the superiority of the sorrel over her own mount. she saw that only robert's firm hand on the rein kept his beast from forging ahead. thus they rushed along through the vast solitudes,--really alone together, although those solitudes were populous with the furtive kindreds of fur and feather. for the sound of their coming travelled far before them, and gave the shy folk time to withdraw from such unwelcome intrusion. even the big black bear,--he whom barbara had seen tearing the ant-log,--now withdrew as noiselessly and shyly as the wood-mouse, not delaying for even a glance at the two wild riders. only the red squirrel, inquisitive, daring, and impudent, stuck to his vantage-post on a high-arched limb and jabbered shrill derision at them as they raced by. at length, just as the intoxication of the ride and the companionship were beginning to bewilder his brain, a turn of the road showed robert a stretch of very bad ground right ahead. the careless roadmakers had tried, in a half-hearted way, to fill up a long bog with brush and poles. had the attempt been fully carried out, the result would have been a rough but thoroughly passable piece of "corduroy road." as it was, however, the brush and poles together had in spots sunk a foot below the surface, at one side or the other, and in other spots had been quite engulfed by the hungry black mire, making that stretch the curse of wheel-travellers, and perilous enough to any but the most cautious horsemen. the sight cooled robert's nerves. instead of reining in, however, he let his beast push a half-length to the front, that he might the better control the situation if need should arise. then he said, resolutely: "if you have no care for your own life, dear lady, i beg you to think of that good beast of yours. he will break a leg in yon bog-holes, and then he will have to be shot!" barbara had been fully prepared, by now, to listen to reason and check the pace. she knew she had been unreasoning in her excitement. but the fact that robert knew she had been unreasonable, and dared to show, by his tone as well as by his argument, that he knew it, stirred a hot resentment in her heart. in a flash she forgot that she had ever been unreasonable at all. her first impulse was to spur on with added speed. had it been her own neck, merely, that she would risk, she would not have hesitated. but robert had hit on the one compelling plea. she could not face the risk of hurt to her horse, or to any kindly beast whatever. she reined in sharply, therefore, without a word; and at a walk the two horses began to pick their wary way over the corduroy. "there's danger to the good beasts, even at this pace," remarked robert, with more truthfulness than tact. "did you suppose," retorted barbara, in a voice of withering scorn, "that i was going to ride my black prince at a gallop over such a piece of road as this?" this was exactly what robert had supposed, of course. but a sudden ray of insight entering his candid brain in time, he refrained from saying so. he was on the point of saying, however, by way of explanation, that the ground which barbara had already insisted upon traversing at full speed was but little better than this; but here, too, a sharpening perception checked him. he kept silence, seemingly absorbed in guiding his horse between the miry pitfalls, until they found themselves once again on firm ground,--firm but rough. the horses, still apprehensive, showed no disposition to resume their vehement gait. "it's an outrage," cried robert, "that the township should permit such a piece of road as this. i shall have a voice in affairs here in three or four years, and then i'll see that the road-work is properly done. i'll have no traps in this township to break good horses' legs!" this sentiment was so much to barbara's taste that she found it an excuse for being mollified. "that's right, robert!" she answered, very graciously. "now, be sure you remember that when the time comes!" "i'll remember it," cried robert, with cheerful confidence. by this time, when the leisurely walking of the horses offered no affront to the forest quiet, the birds were resuming their busy calls and the bustle of their intimate affairs; and the less shy members of the furry fellowship went once more about their business in the busy precincts of the road. barbara's sympathetic and unerring vision singled them out, differentiating them from their harmonious surroundings, when robert's eye, as a rule, could not without help see anything but lichened stumps and stones, or bunches of brown weed, or odd-shaped excrescences on the trees. yet robert's eye was the eye of the hunter, skilled in the ruses of all quarry. barbara's woodcraft went immeasurably beyond his,--and perceiving this, her last resentment faded out and she began to initiate him. she named and distinguished for him birds of which he had never even heard, and corrected him with gleeful pride when he innocently mistook the cry of a woodpecker for that of a jay. as for robert, his delight in this initiation was second only to his delight in his wilful initiator, who was now all earnestness and to him a marvel of abstruse erudition. he learned very quickly, however, and so barbara was pleased not less by his comparative ignorance than by his superlative aptitude, which was an incense of flattery to his instructress. only on the subject of deer and grouse barbara could teach him nothing. "you know all about those," she cried, reproachfully, "because you have taken the trouble to learn about them, so you can kill them!" "it does seem a pity to kill such lovely, interesting creatures," acknowledged the lad, thoughtfully. "but what can we do? surely they were given to us for our use. providence intended them for our food. it must be right for us to kill them!" "of course," assented barbara, unequipped with any philosophy which might have enabled her to combat this argument. "of course, it is right for us to _eat_ them. but you, robert, you _take pleasure_ in _killing_ them. i don't quite like you for that!" robert's face grew more and more thoughtful, for this was to him a hard saying, indeed, and he had no answer ready. he was a skilled shot and a keen huntsman. "i could not understand a man not taking pleasure in the chase," said he, "but i suppose if he got to know the wild things intimately, and love them, as you do, he could no longer bear to kill them, sweet lady!" "i'm going to teach you to love them all, robert," said barbara, easily confident in her powers. "i am taught already," he began, with the little elaborate air which barbara liked. then he changed his mind quickly. "no, i don't mean that at all! i shall need a great many lessons; but i shall learn at last, if you teach me faithfully!" barbara laughed, a clear, ringing laugh, that astonished the lurking weasel and made the red squirrel highly indignant. "you don't mean anything at all you say, robert. you just like to say pretty things!" which was wantonly unjust, as barbara knew, and as her very gracious glance acknowledged. a few rods farther on, barbara suddenly drew rein, wheeled her horse about, and held out her hand. "now i must go home, robert. i think i can trust you to find the rest of the way alone! don't forget what i've told you. and don't forget to come and see uncle bob, the very first of next week. and thank you so much for bringing back the canoe." robert had promptly taken the little brown hand, and kissed it with somewhat more fervour than form required, till barbara, without any sign of displeasure, snatched it away. then, instead of saying good-bye, he wheeled his big sorrel. "you must allow me the honour of riding back with you, mistress barbara," said he. "no, indeed!" cried the girl. "i cannot think of letting you do any such thing. it will be late enough as it is when you get to gault house!" robert's mind was quite made up, but he scanned her face anxiously to see if she really meant her inhibition. her dancing eyes and laughing mouth convinced him that she did not mean it with any serious conviction, so his obstinate jaw relaxed. "allow you to ride back through these woods alone, my lady?" he protested, gaily. "do you think the wood spirits would let slip such an opportunity to carry off their queen? you are theirs, by rights, i know. but i must see you back safely into the hands of mistress mehitable." so it came about that, in spite of his exigencies, robert dined at mistress mehitable's, and did not start for gault house till long past noon. chapter xviii. two days later mr. robert glenowen arrived at second westings by the hartford coach, alighting to be publicly kissed and embraced with a heedless fervour which would have been a scandal to the community, had not the community by this time grown accustomed to barbara's joyous flouting of its conventions. barbara had established for herself a general privilege, and second westings had ceased to do more than lift its eyebrows. "it's the same barbara, the same naughty little baggage of mine i left two years ago, for all that her petticoats are longer, and her lovelocks shorter, and she takes the trouble to powder her saucy little nose!" said mr. glenowen, presently, holding her at arms' length, and eyeing her with critical approval. barbara endured the scrutiny for a moment or two, then her dark cheeks flushed, her lips pouted, and she impetuously thrust herself again into his arms. "i have grown up since you saw me, uncle bob!" she cried, kissing him on both cheeks. "whose fault is that?" he asked, again pushing her away that he might search her eyes. "aunt kitty's!" answered barbara, innocently, her eyes as clear as a child's. mr. glenowen laughed, held her with his left arm about her slim waist, and stepped up toward the inn door to greet doctor john and doctor jim, who had held themselves in the background that barbara might have the first greetings uninterrupted. a few minutes later the four were on the way to mistress mehitable's, walking up the middle of the street. barbara and her uncle, arm in arm, walked between, with the great bulks of doctor john and doctor jim on either side, seeming to overshadow them; while a little way behind trudged amos, in his blue duffle shirt and leather breeches, carrying the baggage. in this position, framed as it were and set off by doctor john and doctor jim, the likeness between barbara and her uncle came out as never before, so that both the brothers exclaimed at it together. glenowen was a shade above middle height, with square, athletic shoulders, and no suggestion of leanness; but he had the same indescribable lightness, swiftness, fineness of bearing, which characterised barbara. under his very smart three-cornered hat of black beaver with its fashionable rosette, his thick, bronze-black, vigorous hair, which was worn in a queue and tied with an ample ribbon, had the same rebellious wave in it that barbara's had. his face, like barbara's, was short, with slightly rounded forehead, rounded chin, firm jaw, cheeks somewhat thin, lips full and passionate. but barbara's mouth was sad, while glenowen's was laughing, daring, tender; and barbara's eyes were of a transparent, fathomless, gray-green, sometimes flaming, sometimes darkly inscrutable, while glenowen's were of a sunny, merry brown, darkening and growing keen as steel when he was intent. as he was carrying his gauntlet gloves of light, american-made goat-leather, the further likeness to barbara came out in his bare hands, which were dark and slender and fine like hers, with long-oval, polished, aristocratic nails. barbara herself would never wear gloves about second westings in summer, save at meeting, or when riding, or in pulling herbs or cutting flowers. she loved nice gloves, as a dainty and suggestive article of toilet; but she loved the freedom of her little, sensitive fingers, and felt that second westings had no atmosphere to fit the suggestion of gloved hands. it was manifest that barbara was chiefly a glenowen,--but it was equally manifest that her eyes were the eyes of the ladds; for they were profoundly different from those of her uncle bob, and so far as enigmatic gray-green could resemble untroubled sky-blue, they were like to the deep, transparent eyes of mistress mehitable. mr. glenowen brought to second westings a lot of presents for barbara, a whiff of freshness from the outside world, and an indefinable sense of ferment and change. it was as if the far-off tales of strife between king and colonies ceased on the sudden to be like the affairs of story-books, and became crystallised, by the visitor's mere presence, into matters of vital import. a premonition of vast events flashed through the quiet heart of the village; and from the day of the arrival of mr. robert glenowen by the hartford coach, the repose of second westings was never again quite the same. yet glenowen at this time was no partisan. he was merely in active touch with the troubles of the time, and vexatiously divided within himself. by sentiment, taste, and tradition a tory, and by intellectual conviction a whig, he shunned rather than courted argument in which he could heartily support neither side. nevertheless, before dinner was over, all the company, save barbara, were at him,--mistress mehitable and doctor jim on the one side, and doctor john, with whimsical insinuations and parthian shafts, on the other. as for barbara, she was too happy to care whether kings thwarted colonies or colonies thwarted kings, so long as she might sit in unwonted and radiant silence and beam upon her uncle bob. but mr. glenowen was not to be entrapped into any serious discussions so soon after his journey. he showed an unmistakable and determined desire to play. barbara's one curl, where he had been wont to see many, was of concern to him. her one kitten--now admitted to the dignified precincts of the dining-room since the other two had been given away, the day before, to doctor jim and mercy chapman respectively--appeared to him of more concern than mr. adams or lord north. he was brimful of appreciative merriment over the story of barbara's adventurous voyage, and troublesomely interrogative as to the various attributes of robert. he had attentive inquiries for old debby, and mercy chapman, and keep, and the reverend jonathan sawyer, and black prince, and many others whom none would have dreamed he could remember after two years of well-occupied absence. by the time dinner was over none had achieved to know whether uncle bob would call himself tory or whig. barbara, of course, felt confident that he was a joyously established rebel; while doctor jim was equally sure he was a king's man through and through. the others were in doubt. nor was mr. glenowen more communicative when the meal was done. he was then too impatient even to smoke his pipe, for haste to get at his travelling-bags and show barbara what he had brought for her. as he pulled out these treasures one by one, barbara forgot all the dignity of her lengthened frocks, and screamed with delight, and kissed him spasmodically, and exhausted her rich vocabulary of endearments in the vain effort to give her rapture words; till doctor john and doctor jim vowed they would have to go a journey themselves ere long, if only to bring barbara presents and find out in person how sweet she could be. while mistress mehitable remarked demurely that "such knowledge of what would please a woman could only have been attained by more assiduity in effort than was quite becoming, surely, in a bachelor!" "i hope, dear mistress," retorted uncle bob, with laughing eyes, "that the discernment with which you so generously credit me did not fail when i was selecting this little gift, unmeet as it is to adorn your charms." and on one knee he presented to her a bundle in green tissue, tied delicately with gilt cord. all crowded about mistress mehitable while she undid the cord, and unfolded, with blushes, and with little breathless exclamations not unworthy of barbara herself, an elaborately ruffled and laced french night-rail, embroidered heavily with silk, and lettered in gold thread with her initials. it was such a gown as often served to make bedroom receptions popular. and mistress mehitable, though she held those customs in scorn as indolent and frivolous, had a healthy feminine delight in such sweet fripperies of apparel as this creation of french art. amid the clamour of applause it was some moments before she could word her acknowledgments. at last she said: "i shall perhaps thank you less fervently than i do now, mr. glenowen, for this delightful present, when its fascinations keep me from sleeping. i'm afraid i shall lie awake just to appreciate it!" "sleep, rather, i beg you, fair mistress, and honour me with some small place in your dreams!" cried uncle bob, gallantly. "fie! fie! fie!" said mistress mehitable, shaking at him a slim, reproving finger. "you must not put such gallantries into these young people's heads. doctor jim is steady enough, but such notions are very upsetting to john and barbara!" "glenowen, you young scoundrel, sir!" roared doctor jim, "what do you mean by coming in here and turning our girls' heads with your bold compliments and french night-rails? i marvel at your devilish audacity, sir! you'll have trouble on your hands before you know what you're about,--eh, what?" uncle bob was darting around the room like a pleased boy, delighted with the effect he had produced, delighted with his success in pleasing mistress mehitable, and in bringing out the gayer, brighter side of her conscience-burdened spirit. "pistols, pigeon! pistols let it be, this very night after moonset, under mistress mehitable's window!" he cried, slapping doctor jim's great shoulders. "i give you fair warning i shall bring the dear lady a far handsomer one the next time i come!" barbara, meanwhile, and mistress mehitable, and doctor john, had their heads close together over the intricate and beautiful embroidery, admiring each fine detail in careful succession. "it is _perfectly beautiful_!" pronounced barbara, at length, with a deep breath of satisfaction and a consciousness of duty loyally done. there were several of her own presents which she admired more fervently, and she already had five, with the possibility of more yet to come from uncle bob's wonderful bag. but she felt it would not be playing fair if she failed to give full measure of time and fervour to sympathising with aunt hitty in her good fortune. at the same time, she felt that in her aunt's frank delight in such a frivolous and quite unnecessarily beautiful garment she had found a new bond of understanding with that long-misunderstood lady. but mistress mehitable had yet one more word to say before she was ready, in turn, to give undivided attention to barbara's fortunes. "i am going to confess, mr. glenowen," said she, with a smiling, half-shamefaced glance, as she held up the dainty creation of lawn and lace and silk, caressing her smooth pink and white cheek with it, "i am going to confess that this lovely garment is just such a thing as i have longed to have, yet should have considered it wicked self-indulgence to purchase. even so sober and prosy a dame as i may dearly love the uselessly beautiful. i'm beginning to doubt whether i really want to be quite so useful and competent as i am thought to be. you, mr. glenowen, a comparative stranger, and with but a casual, courteous regard for me, have read my heart as these my dearest and lifelong friends, who would, i believe, give their right hands to serve me, could not do." "glenowen, you die to-night!" roared doctor jim, knitting his great brows. but doctor john was on one knee at mistress mehitable's black-satin-shod small feet, one hand upon his breast. "nothing more utilitarian than silk stockings, most dear and unexpectedly frivolous lady," he vowed, "shall be my tributes of devotion to you henceforth!" "and mine shall be garters, fickle mehitable!" cried doctor jim, dropping on his knee beside doctor john, and swearing with like solemnity. "silk garters,--and such buckles for silk garters!" "and little silk shoes, and such big buckles for little silk shoes!" said doctor john. "and silk petticoats!" went on doctor jim, antiphonally. "brocaded silk, flowered silk, watered silk, painted silk, corded silk, tabby silk, paduasoy silk, alamode silk, taffety silk, charrydarry--" till mistress mehitable put her hand over his mouth and stopped the stream of his eruditions. "and silk--and silk--" broke in doctor john, once more, but stammeringly, because his knowledge of the feminine wardrobe was failing him. "tut, tut, silk night-rails, indeed! the scoundrel! the vagabond welshman! may i die of jim pigeon's physic if i don't make shift--make silk shift--" "john!" cried mistress mehitable, in tone of rebuke, and pushing them both away from her. "get up at once, both of you, and don't be so silly!" her eyes shone, and her cheeks were flushed with mingled pleasure and embarrassment, and glenowen realised that she was much younger and prettier than he had been wont to think. "o mehitable-demoralised-by-barbara!" vowed doctor john, towering over her. "your sweet and now perverted soul shall be satisfied with gewgaws! i, john pigeon, swear it!" [illustration: "_o mehitable-demoralised-by-barbara!" vowed doctor john._] "then i want a bosom-bottle, of venice glass and gold filigree, to keep my nosegays from withering!" retorted mistress mehitable, flashing up at him a look of her blue eyes. "i've never had such a chance as this in all my life!" "there now, hussy!" growled doctor jim, turning upon barbara. "see what you have done. in three days you have demoralised her completely. and i see the ruin of john and jim pigeon, buying her things!" but barbara was by this time too absorbed in her own things to heed the catastrophe thus impending. it was plain that uncle bob had been prosperous these past two years,--and equally plain that he was in full sympathy with barbara's tastes. first of all, there were books,--a handsomely bound copy of sir philip sidney's "arcadia," an old, time-stained copy of "england's helicon," a copy in boards of the admired "odes" of mr. gray, and a copy of mr. thompson's "the castle of indolence." with these, in strange companionship, a white silk mask,--a black velvet mask with silver buttons on silver cord behind the mouth, to enable the wearer to hold it in place with her lips, when both hands might chance to be occupied,--and a small pistol, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl. this seductive little weapon barbara hugged rapturously to her breast. though she would not kill anything for the world, she loved to feel she could be slaughterous an she wished! then came wonders of the wardrobe. barbara hungered to try them on all at once, and in truth made marvellous efforts toward that unachievable end. there were kerchiefs of sheerest lawn and lace, and of embroidered silk. there were two pairs of silk garters, three pairs of silk stockings, and six pairs of fine thread stockings. she loved the silk stockings as she did the pistol and sir philip sidney. there were shoes, low, shapely, thin-soled shoes of red morocco, and black chamois, and black satin, and a pair of daintiest slippers of white satin, all with buckles satisfyingly resplendent. "i knew your feet would never be any larger than they are now," explained uncle bob, "so having the opportunity to get some uncommon fine shoes at a price uncommon reasonable, i thought it just as well to embrace occasion boldly!" "but how _did_ you _ever_ guess the right size, uncle bob?" cried barbara, in ecstasy, trying on a black satin one with supreme forgetfulness of company manners, and poking out ingenuously the most bewitching foot in the thirteen colonies. "do just look. it fits like a glove!" stooping quickly as if to examine it, doctor jim engulfed it in one large, white hand; and kissed it just above the glittering buckle. "there, bob glenowen," he growled, as he straightened himself, "is that the proper civility to show a lady when she pokes out her foot at you? i suppose you would pocket the shoe and carry off the lady! eh, what?" "how dare you kiss my niece without my leave?" demanded mr. glenowen. "he shall kiss me just whenever he likes, and no one in the world shall interfere!" declared barbara, springing up, and pulling doctor jim's neck down to be swiftly hugged. "but--how _did_ you know the right size, uncle bob?" a look passed between mistress mehitable and glenowen; and barbara, intercepting it, understood in a flash. "oh! oh! aunt hitty! _you_ did it!" she shrieked, clapping her hands. "you sent him my green silk slipper for a pattern! and i've been thinking i had lost it! and i was ashamed to tell you! oh, how dear, and deceitful of you, honey!" "here, indeed, is the delinquent slipper!" acknowledged uncle bob, drawing the green silk toy from his bag. he handed it over to mistress mehitable, for barbara was again absorbed, her glowing face, with one massive black curl hanging straight past her cheek, bent low over her spoils, among which were lengths of silk,--a rich brocade, a taffeta, and a silk damascus, out of which her quick fancy conjured up a dream of petticoats, panniers, and bodices that should appear most sumptuously grown-up. there were gloves, too, and mitts; and a mighty handsome little "equipage" of silver-gilt, containing scissors, thimble, nail-trimmer, tweezers, and such small needments, to hang at the left side of her bodice. there was a flimsy affair of a "lovehood," silk and gauze and mystery, from which barbara's vivid, petulant, dark little face flashed forth with indescribable bewitchment. this love-hood, swore doctor john, should never be worn by barbara on the streets of second westings, for reasons affecting the public weal, as it would bedevil the reverend jonathan sawyer himself in the very sanctuary of his pulpit. barbara suddenly looked forward with interest to going to meeting on the following sunday, bedecked in the disastrous love-hood. last, but not least in barbara's eyes, there was an exceedingly delicate frivolity in the shape of a carven gilt patch-box, about an inch and a half in length. in the top was set a painted china medallion, representing a richly dressed shepherdess enwreathed in roses, with the appropriate posy: "my love in her attire doth show her wit, it doth so well become her!" on the inside of the cover was a tiny mirror. when barbara, silent with delight, peered into this mirror, she caught a vision of herself in a gay ballroom, patched and powdered and furbelowed, shattering the hearts of a host of cavaliers, who every one of them looked like a relative of robert gault. chapter xix. that night, when she was going to bed, came barbara's really deep reaction from the exaltation and excitement which had possessed her since the morning with mistress mehitable. the joy of her uncle's coming, the whirl of childish delight over the presents he had brought her, had swept her spirits to a pinnacle which could not be maintained. she slipped, and fell down on the other side. first she lighted the four candles that stood, two on each side of the mirror, on her shining mahogany dressing-table. then she undressed, put on her long, white nightgown, and said her prayers with a troubled alternation of fervour and forgetfulness. she was slipping. then, one by one, she looked her presents well over again, noted that each was just as perfect as it had seemed to her every other one of the dozen times she had examined it, and wondered with a pang what had become of all their magic. her scintillant delight in them had faded to a mere dull drab perception of their merits. her eyes filled, and a lump rose in her throat. she was far over the crest of the pinnacle, on the cold, enshadowed side of the steep. the one kitten, whom she had named "mr. grim,"--a round-faced, round-eyed gray and white furred baby, not yet accustomed to the loss of his two saucer mates,--crept snuggling against her bare ankles and mewed mildly, begging to be noticed. barbara picked it up, fondled it in her bosom, threw herself down on the bed with it, and burst into a passion of tears. she felt as if she had been long, long away. she was poignantly homesick for her old self, her old childishness. the burden of being grown-up suddenly arose, thrust itself upon her, and grew great and terrifying and not to be borne. she was oppressed, too, with self-reproach. absorbed in vivid and novel sensations, during the past few eventful days she had not thought as much as usual about her old comrades,--the kittens, keep, black prince, and mercy chapman. and now in her weakness she thought they had suffered from her neglect. as a matter of fact, the difference had been purely in her own mind. the kittens, who were quite dependent upon her, had been as tenderly cared for as ever, but while caring for them she had thought of other things more novel and significant. in giving away two of them she had done just what she had planned and promised from the first. but now she scourged herself for heartlessness and inconstancy, pretending she had sent them away just because she was tired of taking care of them and wanted to be free for new interests. "did its missis forget all about the poor little lonely baby, and send away her other babies, and get cruel and hard-hearted, just because she thought she was grown-up, and a new friend came along?" she murmured, after the first tempest was over, to the gray and white kitten now purring comfortably against her soft throat. she sat up in bed with it to caress it more effectively. "she is a bad missis, and perfectly horrid!" she went on, between sobs; and the kitten, who did not mind damp, was highly pleased. "she has been perfectly horrid. but to-morrow she's going to be just her old self again, and take up the tuck in her petticoats, and fix her hair like it was before we ran away. and we'll go to doctor jim and mercy chapman and just _snatch_ back those other poor babies; and we'll all go off together down into the back garden, by our apple-tree, and have a lovely time. and--and--yes, we _will_ forgive old debby, and go and see her to-morrow. we'll take uncle bob, and then there won't be any bother about explanations." then her tears flowed forth anew, till the kitten was quite uncomfortably wet; and, with fresh resolves to be all child again on the morrow, she sobbed herself to sleep, with the thick hair tangled over her eyes and grieving lips. but the long, sweet sleep brought complete renewal to barbara's spent forces, and waking found her composedly happy, with a blessed sense of problems solved and desired things coming to pass. her heart was a-brim with sunshine, but the only sunshine in the room was that she held in her heart, for the light that came through the diamond panes was gray, and the sky behind the leafy branch was gray, and, as she looked, the first of the rain came, blown in streaming gusts against the glass, and shedding a narrow line of drops across the polished floor. one leaf of the window was open, and barbara sprang from bed to shut it, laughing as the cold drops spattered her feet. she had no quarrel with the rain that day, there being enough pleasures indoors to keep any maid's mind busy. after breakfast, however, when she found that uncle bob was going down into the village to call on the reverend jonathan sawyer, to drink a glass with squire gillig in his snug office behind the store, and to pay his respects to doctor john and doctor jim, then barbara felt the lure of the rain, and said she would go with him. "i _love_ the rain," she explained,--"and it's so nice for the complexion, too! i'll go and tell mercy chapman about my presents, and take some jellies to her poor sick mother, while you are talking politics in the squire's back office, uncle bob. then i'll meet you at doctor john's office, and we'll step into doctor jim's, and bring both of them up to dinner with us, so we'll all be together as much as possible. won't we, dear?" and she paused in the task of strapping on her goloshes, to appeal to mistress mehitable. "you are proposing to make a lot of trouble for your aunt!" protested glenowen. "indeed she is not," began mistress mehitable, warm to second barbara's proposal. but before she could say more, there was a wilder gust among the trees outside, a fiercer burst of rain against the windows, and, with a huge stamping in the vestibule, came doctor jim, as if blown in by storm. all hurried to meet him, where he stood dripping in the hall door, and the expedition to the village was postponed. an hour later came doctor john, even wetter and more dishevelled than his brother, from the bedside of a patient at the opposite end of the village. the two had planned that theirs should be the hospitality of that day, but the storm and mistress mehitable together triumphed. the old house was merry all day long with gay voices, its maiden fragrances of lavender and rose touched genially with breaths of the mild virginia weed. and barbara forgot, completely and for ever, how near she had been to drowning the furry "mr. grim" in the tears of her regret for her lost childishness. toward sunset the rain stopped, and a copper flame was reflected up from the windows of a cottage visible to the eastward through the trees; and the western sky, opening along the horizon under great smoky-purple battlements of cloud, revealed unspeakable glories of clear gold. throughout the rare hour, till dusk fell, the thrushes sang ecstatically, so unusual an outburst that barbara dragged every one out upon the wet porch to listen to the thrilling, cloistral-pure cadences, the infinite tranquillities of tone. so inspiring was that hour in the front of twilight that even the catbird down in the back garden forgot that he had been for days too busy to sing, and mounted the topmost bough of a tall cherry, and eased his soul in a chaos of golden phrases. very early the next morning,--the kind of morning when the sunlight itself seems as if it were just sparkling from a bath in cold fountains,--barbara and glenowen started out for a paddle across the lake to visit old debby. they went through the barn-yard, through the bars, through the pasture, and through the wood; and in response to his bounding and wagging appeals, they took keep, the mastiff, with them. they went early, in order to be back in time for the dinner with doctor john and doctor jim. and barbara insisted on letting keep go in the canoe, that she might erase from his generous heart the memory of her harshness on the morning of her great adventure. at her command, the dog stepped in so circumspectly, and lay down with so nice a balance, that uncle bob was impressed. "the dog's a born canoeist, barb," he declared, as he headed up the shore instead of straight out across the lake. "i wonder you ever had the heart to leave him behind,--and to take those kittens, who couldn't tell a canoe from a horse-trough." barbara would have answered that the kittens needed her more than keep did, who had all the world for his friend; but her thoughts were diverted by the direction in which her uncle was steering. "why do you go this way, uncle bob?" she demanded, looking at him over her shoulder while her dripping paddle-blade rested on the gunwale. "i want to examine a certain big rock, where a certain small girl did certain strange things!" replied glenowen, gravely. barbara flushed, and drooped her head. "i didn't know you knew about that, uncle bob!" she said, in a low voice. "don't let's go there!" "all right!" assented glenowen, cheerfully. he had recalled the old tragedy of deliberate purpose, because, being of welsh blood, and superstitious, he was afraid barbara's unparalleled high spirits might bring her some keen disappointment. he had purposed to discipline her with a dash of bitter memories, that he might avert the envy of the gods; and when her head drooped he had accomplished his purpose. but barbara had changed her mind. "no!" she said. "let's go close to the rock, and look right down into the water, just where i was lying when old debby pulled me out!" and they did so. the sand was clear gold down there, but as they looked a huge eel wriggled over it. barbara shuddered, and seized her paddle once more to get away. "it's good for me to be reminded, uncle bob," she said. "i forget, when i am happy, how wicked and foolish i can be when things go wrong! but oh, you can never know how unhappy i used to be! you'd have come to me if you had known, uncle bob!" "poor little girlie!" murmured glenowen, his kind brown eyes moistening at the corners. "but i was crazy, both naughty and crazy, and it was all my fault!" went on barbara, resting her paddle again as the canoe skimmed fleetly out across the water, away from the sorrowful spot. "it's all so different now! and it's always going to be different!" glenowen smiled to himself, as he was apt to do when confronted with any of the pathetic ironies of life. barbara would not have liked him to smile, for to her a smile meant amusement or mirth, and she could never learn to appreciate the depth of tenderness that might lurk beneath a ripple of laughter. but she was looking straight ahead. in his heart and behind his smile, glenowen said, "child, dear child, is it all so securely different now, and just eight days gone since you climbed out of your window before daybreak?" but aloud he said, after a silence: "it is indeed most different, barb, old girl? some of your troubles are really done now, thrown into the dark corner with the discarded dollies. the others will keep bobbing up now and then, claiming old acquaintance. but just you cut them dead. they are in sober truth not the same, now that you are older and more responsible. well i know, what so many forget, that childish sorrows, while they last, are the most bitter and hopeless of sorrows. the wall that a man steps over blots out a child's view of heaven." "how wonderfully you understand, uncle bob!" cried barbara, with ardent appreciation. as they neared the other side of the lake, a kingfisher dropped like an azure wedge into the ripples, missed his prey, and flew off down to the outlet clattering harshly in his throat. from the deep reeds of the point above the outlet a wide-winged bird got up heavily as the canoe drew near. "there goes my old blue heron!" shouted barbara, gleefully. "you should have seen the way he fixed me with his glassy eyes as i passed, the morning i ran away!" "he is very old, and very wise, and thinks of lots of things besides frogs!" said glenowen. they entered the outlet, and met old debby's geese. the big gray and white gander, in the pride of many goslings, hissed fiercely at them as they paddled past, so that keep raised his head and gave him a look of admonition over the gunwale. the next turn brought them out in full view of debby's cabin, and straightway rose a clamorous outcry from watchful drakes and challenging chanticleers. the yellow pup ran barking down from the steps, and keep cocked a sympathetic ear. "lie down, sir!" commanded barbara, and keep meekly suppressed his budding interest. mrs. debby blue was spinning flax, on the hard-beaten clean earth some paces in front of her threshold, when she saw and recognised her approaching visitors. in the presence of mr. glenowen she read peace, for her shrewd perception of barbara's character told her that the girl would never have permitted her a glimpse of the cherished uncle except as a sign of favour. nevertheless the grim old woman was conscious of a sinking qualm at thought of the first straight look of barbara's eyes. she knew she had betrayed her; and that knowledge was not wholly mended by the fact that she knew she had done right to betray. her lonely old heart so yearned to the child that she feared her reproach as she feared no other thing in life. she stopped her wheel, dropped her roll of flax, picked up her stick, and limped sturdily down toward the landing. before she had got half-way the canoe came to land, and barbara unceremoniously skipped ashore. "lie down, keep!" she ordered again, and then, leaving glenowen to land and follow at leisure, she ran up the path to greet old debby. "this does my old eyes good, miss barby!" exclaimed the old woman, her voice a trifle unsteady. barbara seized her, and kissed her heartily on both cheeks. "you were very bad to me, debby," she cried, cheerfully, "but you'd have been worse to me if you hadn't been bad to me! so i forgive you, and love you just the same, you old dear. the most _dreadful_ things might have happened to me if it hadn't been for you!" mrs. blue heaved a huge sigh of relief; but the subject was too difficult and delicate a one for her to expand upon. she gave barbara a vehement squeeze, looked her up and down, and exclaimed: "land sakes alive, miss barby, why, if you hain't been an' growed up over night. what've they been doin' to you over there?" "it was _you_ did it, debby, much as anybody!" and barbara flicked her petticoats audaciously before the old woman's eyes, to emphasise their added length. "such lovely things have happened; and aunt hitty and i have made up; and i've so much to tell you, that i must come over some day and spend the whole day with you, after uncle bob goes away. and here's uncle bob himself, who only came day before yesterday, and has come to see you, debby dear, before any one else in second westings." as barbara stopped breathless, glenowen came up and grasped the old dame warmly by the hand. "you're looking ten years younger than when i saw you two years ago, debby!" he declared, sweetly and transparently mendacious. "'tain't so much my youth, as my beauty, that i set store by, mr. glenowen, thankin' you jest the same!" retorted the old woman, as she led them into her cabin for refreshment. she was a cunning cook, if somewhat unconventional in her recipes, and she remembered with satisfaction that barbara's uncle had seemed to share barbara's weakness for her concoctions. eight days ago she would have offered barbara milk to drink; but now she brought out only a strong root wine for which she was famous, a beverage which was extolled throughout the township as a most efficacious preventative of all disorders. "it's a wonder how letting down one's petticoats seems to destroy one's fondness for milk!" said barbara. instead of sitting on the edge of the high bed and swinging her legs, as she would have done eight days ago, she sat on a bench and kept her feet on the floor. and from this old debby realised, with a pang, that the child had truly grown to womanhood. chapter xx. returning about noon to westings house, early that they might have time to dress for dinner, glenowen started to let down the pasture bars. but barbara, in high spirits, went over them like a cat, forgetful of her new dignity. so glenowen vaulted after her. as they rounded the end of the barn, amos came leading a tall sorrel across the yard; and straightway barbara assumed a more stately air, while a quick radiance went over her face. "that's robert gault's horse!" she explained. "i want you to be very lovely to him, uncle bob, for he's such a nice boy, and was so very civil to me when i made him help me run away. i gave him a terrible lot of anxiety, you know!" glenowen laughed uproariously. "i don't doubt you did, dear heart!" he agreed. "but lord, oh, lord, what a way of commending a young man to a young lady's doting uncle, to say he mighty civilly helped her to run away!" "now, uncle bob, i won't like you if you talk nonsense! you know very well what i mean. and you are to be nice to robert!" retorted barbara, crisply. as they went up the long, box-bordered path, mistress mehitable and robert came strolling down to meet them; and the warmth of glenowen's greetings to robert fulfilled barbara's utmost demands. for her own part, however, under the sway of a sudden whim, she chose to be by no means extraordinarily civil. and robert's contentment was dashed by a chilly doubt as to whether or no he had chosen the right day for his visit. before they went to their rooms to dress, however, barbara relented. "you should have come last night, robert," she said, turning to him graciously at the foot of the stairs. "then uncle bob and i would have taken you over the lake with us this morning, in _the_ canoe, to see old debby!" she threw an intimate emphasis on the "the,"--and watched with a curious sense of triumph the swift fading of the cloud from robert's face. for this dinner barbara dressed with unwonted care. her plain white silk petticoat, duly lengthened, worn under her cream brocaded satin panniers, with buff satin bodice, and white lace short sleeves, gave her, as she could not but think, a most genteel appearance. with her new white silk stockings and white satin shoes, two large red roses in her bosom, and one in the dark mass of her hair just where the curl hung down, a tiny patch from the adorable new patch-box discreetly fixed near the corner of her mouth, and the new love-hood to be thrown carelessly over her head in due time, she felt herself equipped to be as imperious and unpleasant to robert as the caprice of the moment might suggest. when she went down-stairs she found mistress mehitable waiting in the hall, in a gayer gown than she had ever before seen her wear. it was a silk polonaise, of a tender, gris-de-lin shade, which became her fair colouring to a marvel; and barbara was astonished to see how young and pretty she looked. "how _perfectly lovely_ you look, dear!" she cried, turning mistress mehitable twice around, and putting a deft touch to the light, abundant, simply coiffured hair. "no one will give one look at me to-day!" her aunt flung an arm about her, smiling, then tripped away girlishly, flushed a pretty pink, lifted the edge of her petticoat, and displayed a slender ankle encased in embroidered sky-blue silk. barbara clapped her hands with approval. "it is five years since i have worn them," said mistress mehitable. "seeing that i failed so, child, in my efforts to lead you along the paths of gravity, i have concluded to try and let you lead me along the paths of frivolity--a little! so i got out my blue silk stockings!" and spreading her skirts, she was in the act of making barbara an elaborate curtsey, when glenowen, coming up quickly behind her, caught her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. mistress mehitable, startled and taken aback, blushed furiously, and stood for a second or two in confusion. then she recovered herself. she made another stately curtsey, and saying, demurely, "let me turn the other cheek also, mr. glenowen," presented her face again for a more formal and less hasty salute. barbara clapped her hands with gleeful approbation, but her comment brought a new rose to mistress mehitable's face. "if i didn't love you so much, uncle bob," said she, "i'd tell doctor john and doctor jim." and from the fact that she felt embarrassed by this raillery, the conscientious mistress mehitable was almost ready to believe she had done wrong. the dinner was at two o'clock--an extremely formal hour for second westings; and a further element of formality was added by the presence of the reverend jonathan and mrs. sawyer, which effectually removed it from the category of family affairs. these outsiders, however, were a kindly pair, and cast no serious shadow upon the gathering. the reverend jonathan kept his austerity pretty strictly for the sabbath; and being both well-bred and well educated, knew how on occasion to lay aside his cloth without sacrifice of dignity or prestige. he was something of a _bon vivant_, too, in his scholarly way, and among folk who were unimpeachably of his own class. and his judgment on a butt of madeira or a hogshead of old west india rum was accounted second to none in second westings. his hands were long and white, and he used them with impressive pulpit-gestures to point his carefully constructed witticisms. his presence was favourably regarded even by barbara, who appreciated his brains and breeding in spite of certain disastrous associations which she could never quite erase from her memory. his wife was a non-significant, abundant, gently acquiescent pudding of a woman, not without her utility as a background; and no one but barbara had the slightest objection to her presence. but barbara, having a fierce impatience of nonentities in general unless they chanced to be animals instead of human beings, felt critical when her eyes fell upon the good lady's expansive red bosom. she could not refrain from a private grimace at doctor john, and from whispering in his ear an acrid comment on the inviting of a feather-bed to dinner. she was greatly disconcerted, however, when doctor john roared aloud; and, crediting the good lady with an intuition quite foreign to her placid substance, her conscience smote her smartly for the unkind comment. by calculated chance she managed to let herself drift into the scant, unoccupied corner of the sofa on which mrs. sawyer was sitting; and for the long half-hour before dinner was served she beguiled the good lady most successfully with thrilling descriptions of the presents which glenowen had brought. mistress sawyer was dearly fond of dining; but so enthralled did she become in the description of mistress mehitable's french night-rail that she did not hear when dinner was announced. then barbara escaped, with an appetite and a proud conscience; and proceeded to deal robert a cruel blow by seating herself as far away from him as possible, between glenowen and doctor jim, who wisely avoided trouble by avoiding interference on the dejected youth's behalf. doctor john and doctor jim being both tenacious of old connecticut customs, the dinner began with a pudding of boiled yokeag, or maize meal, stuffed with raisins and suet, and eaten with a rich sauce. then came fish and meats in lavish variety, with ripe old ale, followed by elaborate confections, nuts and fruits, and a fiery, high-flavoured madeira. with the madeira came eloquence in conversation, and the elaborate interchange of repartee and compliment deepened into a discussion of the great matters which at that hour filled men's minds. barbara tried by daring gaieties to stem the tide of seriousness, which seemed to her incongruous with the nuts and wine. but she was swept away, at first reluctantly, then willingly; for, during the past two years, in the intervals of fighting her aunt and loving her cats, dogs, and horses, she had studied history, both colonial and english, with a characteristic, avid zeal, and now had a pretty foundation of theory under her seemingly reckless conclusions. in response to many interrogations, glenowen had given at some length and with temperate fairness an account of the latest difference in virginia between the royal governor and the stiff-necked house of burgesses. as the result of this lamentable clash of authorities, the house had been dissolved, the old dominion was being governed in a fashion contrary to the terms of her long-cherished charter, and the trade of the colony was disastrously shrunken, because her people were refusing to import goods subject to duties which they had not themselves imposed. "when men and women begin to deny themselves voluntarily for the sake of a principle, whether it be right or wrong," continued glenowen, "it is time for those at the helm to consider clearly the course on which they are steering the ship of state!" "when kings lay hands on charters, free men rise up armed," said the reverend jonathan sawyer, rolling the polished phrase with a relish. the sentiment sounded so at variance with those which he was commonly held to cherish, that every one looked at him for a moment in silent question. "i speak but in the abstract," he explained, waving a white hand airily. "in the concrete the question baffles me, and i wait for light!" "i confess i am astounded at virginia," said doctor jim, in a great voice, solemn with reprobation. "virginia, colony of gentlemen, siding with the rabble against the king! where are virginia's aristocrats?" "would you impugn the gentility of mr. washington?" inquired doctor john, mildly. "yes, i would, john pigeon," snapped doctor jim, "or of any one else who did not show his gentility by his deeds. and so would you, if you were not a bit tarred with the same dirty brush as mr. washington." "don't you think," ventured robert, with diffidence, "that our grievance--for, of course, there is a grievance, doctor jim--is against the english parliament? what is parliament to us, that we should bow down to it, when we have always had parliaments of our own? what's sacred in parliament? but the king,--that's a question of loyalty. what's a gentleman without loyalty? surely the gentry must stand or fall with the king! surely--" "what nonsense, robert!" interrupted barbara, severely scornful, indignant at him for his views, but grateful to him for the opportunity to express her own with point. "who was it that whipped king john into submission, and made him sign magna charta? was it the riffraff or the gentry, i'd like to know? where there is a real aristocracy, robert, there is no need of kings!" "barbara, dear!" cried mistress mehitable, appalled at this sweeping heterodoxy. but the others laughed, with varying degrees of sympathy or dissent. doctor jim wagged his head. "that's right, robert, my boy," said he, sympathetically. "you draw her fire, and let me skirmish around. that's the kind of thing i get continually!" "is it true," inquired doctor john, "that that clear and capacious intellect, james otis, is permanently clouded since the wound he got in the affair with the king's officers?" "''tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true!'" quoted glenowen. "a fine brain wasted in a smuggler's brawl. i take it there's no wisdom to waste, among either tories or whigs, these days,--for these days are big with fate!" "uncle bob!" said barbara, fixing him with a wide, level look, "what are you, whig or tory? you seem so careful!" glenowen laughed. "you insist on pinning me down to it, do you, saucy hussy? well, i wish i knew! i think there are some hundred thousand or more of honest men in these colonies who are trying to find out which they really are, right to the bone. but i can tell you in part. for one thing, i am an englishman, just as much an englishman here as if i lived in england! do you know what that means?" "no!" said barbara, bluntly, dissatisfied at this caution when she counted on a hot partisanship. "it means that i will not be taxed save by my own consent! i am too good an englishman to let englishmen in england treat me as less than an englishman because i am a colonist. but i am no leveller. i have no patience with the doctrine of those sentimental frenchmen who promulgate the palpable folly that all men are born equal. i am loyal to the king,--or, perhaps, rather, i should say, to the throne, which seems to me just now unfortunate in its occupant. but i will not pay a tax imposed by those who have no right to tax me! i would fight first. i stand on magna charta." "then you are a patriot now, uncle bob," said barbara, fairly satisfied, "and before long you will be a rebel! you wait and see! you're all afraid to say it, but before long the colonies will be fighting king george!" there were exclamations of protest from every one, even doctor john, the avowed and consistent whig,--every one but glenowen, who smiled thoughtfully at barbara's rashness. "tut! tut! you little fire-eater!" exclaimed doctor john. "you mustn't bring discredit on your party! we will fight with constitutional weapons for our just rights, and bring that pig-headed george to his senses. we must teach him to reign properly, and not to meddle, that's all. no throat-cuttings in the english family!" "it would break my heart to fight against my countrymen," said robert, earnestly. "but if they should be so misguided as to take up arms against the king, i should have no doubt as to my duty. the king may be unjust; but if so, the injustice will doubtless be remedied by and by. but better, surely, suffer some injustice than be traitor to your king." this speech took courage on robert's part, with barbara's eyes blazing scorn upon him. but he looked into vacancy, and made his confession of faith regardless of consequence. "you fatigue me, robert!" said barbara. "would you rather betray your country than your king? was the country made for the king? what's a king? greece and rome did pretty well without them!" "what's this stuff and nonsense about fighting?" broke in doctor jim, ignoring barbara's argument as the chatter of a child. "stuff and nonsense! the notion of our clodhoppers standing up to the king's soldiers, who have whipped the armies of the world! it is easy for demagogues to rant, but they'd find it still easier to run!" "i fear you all underrate the peril--except this sauce-box here!" said glenowen, soberly. "and you, pigeon, are like the king's purblind advisers in underrating the spirit of the people. it is not a noisy, but a sullen temper that seems to be spreading. and clodhoppers are not all cowards! and those who call themselves patriots are not all clodhoppers." "but who among our people can be so suicidal as to think of war?" asked the reverend jonathan sawyer, taking a contemplative pinch of snuff. "to fight a hopeless battle, and in inevitable defeat lose all!" "it is not the people who think of war as yet!" said glenowen. "but the arrogant soldiery, the blindly self-confident officials, the insolent english officers, who seem chosen not to conciliate but to enrage. so many of the officers sent out here do dishonour to the repute of english gentlemen. they seem to look on colonists as a subject race. i have seen them, in new york and in boston, treat our ladies with an insufferable condescension, such as they would never have dared to show toward the same ladies in england. and i have seen them studiously insolent to colonial gentlemen of birth and breeding far above their own, as if the accident of being born in the mother country instead of in america made them another race. such conduct, while unimportant in itself, rankles deeply, and sets the two branches of the race in antagonism. personal affront is mightier than argument, and men cannot overlook a slight to their women." "i should think not!" cried robert, loftily. "i would shed the last drop of my blood for the king, but i should not let the king himself put slight upon one of our ladies! i wonder you could endure to see such things, mr. glenowen!" "i did not!" confessed glenowen. "i have had several differences of late!" barbara's eyes sparkled, and her lips parted eagerly over her white teeth. "you fought them, uncle bob! you fought them!" she cried. "real duels! how many did you fight? oh, how lovely!" "two, sweetheart, i'm sorry to say!" replied glenowen, modestly. "it was very inconvenient and annoying, because i have so many responsibilities and could not afford to be skewered." "and how did you come off?" asked doctor john, leaning far over the table in his eagerness. "nothing but a scratch or two, thanks to the righteousness of my cause!" said glenowen. "and the other chaps?" inquired doctor jim. "doubtless they were low-bred scoundrels, whom london would have none of! i hope you pricked 'em!" "i wish i could feel sure that their manners had mended as well as their wounds!" laughed glenowen, gaily. then, to barbara's ill-concealed disgust, mistress mehitable led the way into the drawing-room, leaving the men to smoke long pipes and thrash out problems of constitutional law to the accompaniment of the fiery old madeira. in the drawing-room she was moody and silent, grudging all the arguments that were going on without her. and when robert, who felt himself too unseasoned to stay with his elders beyond one pipe and an extra glass, followed the ladies at a decent interval, barbara received him far from graciously. his last speech, in comment on the insolence of the officers, had mollified her a little, but she felt a smart resentment at his presumption in maintaining views so opposite to hers. "i should think you would stay with the other men," she said, tartly. "i couldn't stay a moment longer," said robert, gallantly, "for longing to be with the most fair if _not_ the most gracious of ladies!" "you had better go back and learn something about your duty to your country, by listening to doctor john and uncle bob!" she counselled, rudely. robert bowed low, having himself just now well in hand, though his heart was sore. "i take great pleasure in listening to them, as well as to doctor jim, who also seems intelligent!" said he. "oh," exclaimed barbara, much nettled. "doctor jim talks a lot of nonsense just to tease me; but he doesn't mean it,--at least, not all of it. besides, he is always interesting. but you, with your pedantic stuff about loyalty and kings and treason, i don't find you interesting at all! please go and talk to aunt hitty and mrs. sawyer, and let me read. perhaps i'll be able to forget what you said at dinner!" "it is my pleasure to obey your lightest wish, fair mistress!" said robert, inwardly indignant, but outwardly amused at her ill-humour. he went at once to the other side of the room, and exerted himself to such good purpose that soon mistress mehitable's rare and silvery laughter grew frequent, against an almost ceaseless gurgle of content from mrs. sawyer. robert was completely absorbed, while barbara's interest in her book was vexatiously divided. after half an hour she got up and left the room, but he never noticed her going. fifteen minutes later she came back, with the gray and white "mr. grim" on her shoulder; and he never noticed her coming, so intent he was, and so successful, in his task of amusing aunt hitty and mrs. sawyer. this was carrying obedience a little too far, and it fretted barbara. then the men came in from the dining-room, smoky, and a little more fluent than ordinary, and robert was ousted from his post by glenowen and doctor john. but instead of returning now to barbara, he attached himself with an engrossed air to doctor jim; and barbara found herself established in her nook with the reverend jonathan sawyer. to be sure, his reverence made himself most agreeable, flattering her by the attention he would have paid to a grown woman whom he considered intelligent. he appreciated her brains, and acknowledged the lengthening of her petticoats; and his attitude was a gratifying proof to her that she really had grown to be a personage, rather than a child, within the past few days. but she found herself unable to concentrate her wits on what he was saying, and passed a rather grievous hour trying to look the attention which her brain was not giving. when, at last, doctor sawyer arose to go, she felt that he must think her the most stupid girl in the world. doctor sawyer, on the contrary, enchanted by the rapt silence and appreciation with which apparently she had hung upon his words, went away with the conviction that she was a young woman of astonishing intellect, whom they had, indeed, wronged greatly in striving to force her into the narrow second westings mould. from that hour, when she had watched him with glowing eyes, but hearing scarce a word of all his wit, the reverend jonathan sawyer was one of barbara's staunchest champions. when she turned from saying good-bye to mrs. sawyer, barbara found robert standing close beside her in the hall door, apparently absorbed in contemplation of mrs. sawyer's billowy, retreating figure. barbara touched him on the arm, and he turned to her with a quick apologetic courtesy, as if his thoughts had been far off. "what were you thinking of, so far, far away?" she asked, feeling somewhat left out and forlorn. "why--why--i was thinking--" he stammered, as if unwilling to say, yet unready with an evasion. "oh, you needn't tell me, if it is so embarrassing as all that!" said barbara, tossing her head. "i was going to say, that after all the talk and the excitement, i think the loveliest thing would be some fresh, sweet air, and the smell of the woods!" "it would be, indeed--with you!" said robert. "then we will ride till supper-time. no,--there is a moon. we will ride after supper. you may escort me if you want to! do you?" robert drew a long breath before he answered--and to barbara the answer was sufficient. "yes, i want to!" he said, simply. "i was afraid i was to go away without really seeing you at all!" "go away!" exclaimed barbara, lifting her brows in sharp displeasure. "what do you mean, robert?" "i must go back to gault house to-morrow morning, without fail, for i start for new york the day following, to be gone all winter." "oh!" said barbara; and turned and led the way back into the drawing-room, leaving robert completely mystified as to the meaning of that noncommittal interjection. chapter xxi. after supper, when barbara came down dressed for riding and calmly told robert she was ready, mistress mehitable gasped, and looked at glenowen, expecting that he would meet the emergency by making a third. as he seemed unconscious of the need of action, she shot an appealing glance at doctor jim and doctor john in turn. but they only grinned inscrutably. then she lifted her hands slightly and let them drop into her lap, as if to say, "bear witness, heaven, that i am helpless!" and thus she stifled the voice of protest in her bosom. she had given barbara freedom, and the responsibility that goes with freedom; and she would not take back the gift. but it was one of the notable victories of mistress mehitable's career, when she forced herself to sit in smiling acquiescence while barbara flew full in the face of all convention. amos, meanwhile, had brought the horses to the door; and when the two young riders were gone, the hoof-beats sounding in slow cadence down the drive, glenowen said to her, with an understanding smile, "you did right, sweet lady. 'tis a filly, that, to be ridden without the curb. give her her head, and you'll have no great trouble!" "i feel sure you are right, mr. glenowen," said mistress mehitable, sweetly. "but you may well believe it was a hard lesson for me, a ladd of connecticut, to learn. and i fear i have not more than half learned it yet!" "you can learn anything you have a mind to, mehitable," said doctor jim, with emphasis, "in the time it would take another woman to learn the a, b, c of it!" neither barbara nor robert spoke till the horses emerged upon the highway. then barbara cried: "quick! quick! i want the wind in my face!" with two miles of good road before them, they set their faces to the night breeze and their horses to the run, and raced madly down the moonlight, their shadows dancing long and black before them. the saddle-leathers creaked a low, exhilarating music, and the galloping swung like a pulse, and the roadside fence and shrubs fled by, and the world was white in the moonlight. and still there was no speech, save a soft word now and then to the rejoicing horses, whose ears turned back for it sympathetically from time to time. at length they came to rougher ground, and slowed to a gentle canter. then robert noticed a narrow wood-road turning off to the right, vaulted over with lofty trees, and mystical with moon-shadows. "where does that road go, my lady?" he inquired. "where we are going!" answered barbara, turning into it at a walk. then, as if she thought the answer too whimsical, she continued, "it will take us back to the village by a longer and more beautiful way!" "any longer way would be the more beautiful way!" said robert. the reply interested barbara, and in musing over it she forgot to say anything more. the wood-road, thick-carpeted with turf and moss, muffled the horses' hoofs, and an enchanted silence sank into the hearts of the young riders. here and there the woods gave back for a little clearing with a lonely cabin; and the moonlight flooded in; and around the edges of the clearing the thick-leaved branches seemed afloat, bubbles of glass and silver on a sea of dream. then, again, the fairy-lit glooms, haunted but unterrifying! and barbara began to think repentantly of her harshness toward robert. soon the road dipped sharply, and crossed a wide, shallow brook, upon whose pebbles the horses' hoofs splashed a light music. here they let the horses drink a mouthful, because barbara said the waters of that brook were especially sweet. when they emerged on the other side, barbara discovered she wanted a drink of it herself, so sovereign were the virtues of that water. "how shall i bring it to you?" asked robert, instantly dismounting, and casting a hasty glance about him in quest of a birch-tree, from whose bark to make a cup. "make me a cup of your hands, of course!" said barbara. "give me your reins. i must have the water, at once!" robert removed his leather gloves, rinsed his hands in the sliding sand, and then, with mighty painstaking care, got at least two mouthfuls of the crystal uplifted to barbara's lips. as she sipped, and light as a moth her lips touched his hands, his heart seemed to turn over in his breast, and he could not find voice for a word. silently he remounted, and in silence they ascended the slope from the brook. his apparent unresponsiveness puzzled barbara; but an awakening intuition suggested to her that it was perhaps not so uncomplimentary as it might seem; and she was not displeased. for half an hour they walked their horses thus, robert sometimes laying a light hand on black prince's shoulder or satiny flank, but never daring to touch so much as barbara's skirt. then they saw the highway opening ahead of them, a ribbon of moonlit road. barbara reined up. "i think my saddle is slipping a little," said she. "i don't believe amos can have girt it tight enough!" "why, i--" began robert, about to remind her that, like a good horseman, he had himself looked well to the girth before letting her mount. but he cut the words short on his tongue, sprang from his saddle, and busied himself intently with black prince's straps. when he raised his head, barbara smiled down upon him, and reached him her left hand, saying sweetly: "thank you, robert. you are really very nice, you know!" whereupon robert bent abruptly, kissed the instep of the little riding-boot which stuck out from under her skirt, and swung into his saddle. the action thrilled barbara somewhat, but at the same time piqued her interest; and the interest dominated. "why did you do that, robert?" she asked, curiously, looking at him with wide, frank eyes. "i didn't mind it a bit, you know! but it's funny, to kiss my old shoe!" robert gave a little unsteady laugh. "it was homage, my lady," said he. "just my pledge of fealty, before i go. you forget--i have the misfortune to displease you by being a monarchist!" barbara was silent a moment. she was sorry he had reminded her of their differences of opinion. but, on the other hand, homage was not unpleasant; and her scorn of kings did not of necessity extend to queens. "_why_ do you go?" she asked. "my grandmother is sending me at a moment's notice, to represent her in a law-scrape which some property of hers--of ours--in new york has suddenly got into. you know that, now that i am through college, i have to get down to work at once in new york, and fit myself to look after our estates. but i didn't dream i should have to go so soon!" "i am sorry!" said barbara, simply. "we were having such a pleasant time together!" "were we, dear lady?" asked robert. "_weren't_ we?" demanded barbara. "i am broken-hearted at going. i dare not tell you how broken-hearted!" replied robert, gravely. "but until this ride i have been rather unhappy to-day, for you have several times made me feel that you were displeased at my coming!" now barbara hated explanations, and she hated still more to be accused justly. urging black prince to a canter, she retorted: "i have no patience with you, robert. i have been an angel to you. didn't i ride almost half-way home with you, when you were here before? and now, haven't i let you come this _perfect_ ride with me,--when i know aunt hitty thought i oughtn't? and you don't _deserve_ that i should even let you talk to me one minute, when you are such a stupid, bigoted tory." robert thought of many things to say in answer to this dashing flank attack; but each answer seemed to carry unknown perils, so he kept a prudent silence. after some time barbara spoke again, mistaking his silence for contrition. "robert," she began, in a voice of thrilling persuasion, "won't you do something i very much want you to do?" "i can think of no other pleasure to compare with the pleasure of pleasing you, my lady!" he answered, ardently. "then, will you not _really study_, without prejudice, the things that are at the bottom of the trouble between us and king george? you have such a good brain, robert, i cannot think you will be on the side of a king against your own country, when you have fully informed yourself!" robert looked troubled. "i can honestly promise," said he, "to study the question still more carefully than i have already. but i fear you will still consider me obstinate, even then. if i could imagine myself disloyal to the king, i should not consider myself worthy to profess myself your ever loyal and devoted servant, fair mistress!" "to serve me, robert, you must serve your country!" "and to serve my country, most dear lady, i must serve the king!" persisted robert. barbara set her lips tight together, and galloped on. "i wish you better wisdom as you grow older!" she said, coldly, after some minutes. "the best wisdom i may ever hope to attain will be all too little to serve you with, my lady!" answered robert, half gallantly, yet all in earnest. and barbara could not but vouchsafe a reluctant smile in acknowledgment of so handsome a compliment. thereafter there was little more said. they rode through the village, past the lighted inn, up the dim moonlit road to the porch of westings house. but when robert, with a sort of bold deference, lifted her from her saddle, holding her, perhaps, just a shade more closely than was requisite, she felt in a forgiving mood. she knew that she liked him, she knew she had been unpleasant to him, she was most sorry he was going away; and what were old kings anyway that friends should be at loggerheads about them? answering her own thought, she impulsively pulled off her glove, and gave robert her bare hand. "we will be friends, won't we, king or no king?" and the radiance of the smile she lifted to him, as he held her thin little hand in both his own, nearly turned the poor boy's head. he bent over her--and just saved himself, with a gasp, from kissing the ignorantly provocative mouth so rashly upraised. but he recovered his balance, in part, and compensated himself by kissing the hand passionately,--fingers and soft palm, and rosy oval nails, and wrist,--in a fashion that seemed to barbara very singular. at length she withdrew the hand with a soft laugh, saying, composedly: "there, don't you think that will do, robert? you did not kiss mrs. sawyer's hand like that, did you?" "of course i did!" declared robert. "there was more of it to kiss, so i kissed it more!" "now you are horrid!" she cried, and ran past him into the house. but when he said good-bye to them all on the porch the next morning, and set forth on his long ride back to gault house, robert carried with him in the pocket over his heart what barbara considered the highest token of her favour, her well-studied, intimately marked, oft-slept-with copy of sir philip sidney's sonnets. chapter xxii. the life of the individual, within its limits, is apt to present a sort of microcosmic image of the life of the nation. there comes a period of stress, when the germs of change and growth are sown. then, apparently without reason, time drags. the seasons roll apathetically in their rut, and all is done as it was done last year. but in the deeps the great impulses are maturing, the great forces are gathering. the hour comes that looses them. then in an instant, it seems almost without warning, the quiet heart is in an insurrection, the people of ploughshares is become a people of swords. with a life, or with a nation, the events of a day may crowd ten volumes, or the annals of ten years leave a page but meanly filled. significance is all. we live in our great moments. the rest is a making ready. that blue and yellow morning of sweet winds, when robert rode away from second westings, and barbara, looking after him, felt three-fourths regretful for his going and one-fourth for her dear copy of sir philip sidney's sonnets, was a morning in the late summer of . he was to have returned the following june. but neither that june nor the next, nor the next following nor the one thereafter, did he return to the quiet villages of connecticut and the banks of the great river that had given him birth. from year's end to year's end he found himself tied to the desk in his mother's brother's office, the office with the coat of arms over the door, and the diamond windows looking out on bowling green. he worked faithfully; but, being of the king's party yet sturdily american, a loyalist yet alive to the grievances of the people, a tory yet not intolerant of views hostile to his own, an aristocrat, yet unfettered by the traditions of his clique and clan, he had all the social diversion that the gay, extravagant, rich, and foppish little city in the toe of manhattan island could afford. wealthy, well-born, courtly, and kindly, the garlanded snares of the mammas of manhattan were laid thickly but vainly for his feet. he was squire to all the fair; but not one, unless by some of those thrilling fictions with which maids triumph over their rivals, could claim aught of him that was exclusive or committal. and he knew sir philip sidney's sonnets by heart. about once in two months, or thereabouts, went a letter to second westings, full of coloured comment on the doings of the city,--of remarks sometimes stilted and sometimes illuminating on the latest books from london,--of elaborate compliments that concealed rather than revealed the emotion glowing behind them,--but of the questions of the day, of penal acts, port bills, tea duties, coercion, and continental congresses, no word. robert had fulfilled to the letter and the spirit barbara's demand that he study minutely the points at issue between the colonies and the king. he had realised the blindness and folly of the king, he had acknowledged that the colonies were right to resist, by every constitutional means, taxation by a parliament in which they were not represented. but his loyalty to the throne was unshaken by his regret that the king should be unjust. he tried to believe that the counsels of the great englishmen whom he adored,--pitt and burke, the friends of america,--would open the eyes of george iii. in time to prevent the cruel arbitrament of war. but--should it be war,--well, his ancestors had bled cheerfully for charles stuart when they knew he was in the wrong, and robert felt that he would maintain, at whatever cost, the tradition of his ancestors. to be loyal to a good king, a king in the right, where was the distinguishing merit of that? but to be loyal to king in the wrong, and at great cost,--that, to robert, seemed loyalty worth the name. meanwhile to barbara, in her green world of second westings, life seemed to have got caught in a drowsy eddy. the months went by in uneventful circuit, for all the echoes of great doings that came up from time to time and stirred the tranquil air. she rode, canoed, read, studied spasmodically, bullied amos, loved the animals, distilled strange essences, repudiated the needle and the crochet-hook, as of old. as of old, she had wild whims, repentances, indignations, dreams, and ardours born of dreams. but all these things had grown paler, in a way, had lost something of their bite and vividness. it was as if fate had turned a screw and changed the focus. moreover, she could no longer, as before, believe each mood eternal and all-important. she had a consciousness that there were other interests lurking in life, and this kept her in an attitude of waiting. but the love between her and doctor john and doctor jim lost nothing in this waiting time, but grew as barbara grew in stature and self-knowledge; and she lost nothing of her delight in the friendship of mrs. debby blue, to whose cabin she would flee about once a month, when the vagrant blood, growing riotous in her breast, would make her tolerant of no company but that of the shrewd old outlaw dame. as for her aunt, barbara's love for the blue-eyed little puritan spinster, born that crucial morning of mistress mehitable's unexpected forbearance and seed-cakes, flourished and ripened with not one serious setback. of course, a complete understanding between two such opposite tempers could not spring up in a day; but mistress mehitable was nothing less than heroic in the consistency with which she held herself to her new policy; and barbara, having been astonished into an incongruous devotion, was ready enough to make sacrifices on the new altar. whenever the atmosphere began to feel overcharged between them, they would say the nicest things they could think of to each other, and then, with much ingenuity of chance, keep apart for two or three days. in this way new misunderstandings were avoided; till gradually the natural love between them set deep root into their hearts, and grew strong enough to dare such tempestuous flurries of the mood as cannot but blow up once in awhile when two women are living alone together. but while her own life had seemed to have grown so tranquil that she wondered if things had forgotten to happen, barbara knew that in the outside world it was different, so different as to make her stillness seem like sleep. in the outside world she knew events were crowding and clamouring upon one another's heels, under a sky of strange portent. she kept herself informed. she wrangled lovingly with doctor jim; she argued tactfully, though hopelessly, with mistress mehitable; she debated academically with the reverend jonathan sawyer; she ranted joyously with doctor john, and squire gillig, and lawyer perley, and old debby, all four patriots, and the last two frank rebels. for the sake of finding out the drift of second westings sentiment, she once in awhile emerged from her prickly exclusiveness to smile upon her fellows of quality, and was surprised to find them mostly patriots in their way, with souls that strove to rise above embroidery and tatting. as for the common people, the workmen and apprentices and their kind, she got at their hearts easily in her impulsive fashion, and found the majority of them slowly heating to rebellion. in amos, her devoted amos, however, she unearthed a fiery royalist, ready to out-thunder doctor jim himself; so she ceased to do amos the favour of bullying him, and amos grew at times too dejected to care much about king george. the results of these observations she conveyed minutely in frequent letters to her uncle bob, who was now committed to the so-called 'continental' side. to robert gault, also, in his office looking out on bowling green, barbara would write about once in three months. but in these letters she wrote of the woods and the winds, of what blooms were out in the river-meadows, of what birds were nesting or winging,--and never a word of what was in all men's mouths. she was waiting for robert to declare himself converted to her views, after digesting the course of study to which she had set him. and she refused to admit the possibility of a clear-headed gentleman, as she knew him to be, being so misguided as to cling to opinions different from her own. to her mind truth was a crystal of which but one facet could be lighted at a time. one side of a question was apt to present itself to her with such brilliancy that all the other sides were thrown into obscurity together. as for the flamboyant toryism of doctor jim, she regarded it with an invincible indulgence, as one of those things preordained from the first,--a thing which she could not even regret, because without it doctor jim, who was in every way adorable, would be so much the less himself. who cared for an eccentricity or two in a being so big of body and soul as doctor jim? but she could not help being glad that doctor john's eccentricity, to which she would have been equally indulgent in case of need, took a different form from doctor jim's. the toryism of her aunt hitty she regarded as a part of the lady's religion, and with that barbara would never dream of meddling. by an unspoken understanding, she and mistress mehitable had agreed to leave each other's sanctuaries unprofaned. by the time of the "boston tea-party," a little before christmas in , second westings was so established in its stiff-necked, though indolent, whiggery, that doctor jim and mistress mehitable sat enthroned, as it were, in the lonely isolation of their toryism, with amos proudly humble at their feet. the reverend jonathan sawyer, whose interest in the controversy had been almost wholly academic from the first, and who cultivated on all matters outside his creed a breadth of mind to compensate for his narrowness within it, had judged it right to follow his flock where he could not lead it, and had amused himself by letting barbara--of whose conquest he was genuinely proud--convert him to her doctrines. he was now a constitutional patriot, a temperate and conservative champion of colonial privilege, as opposed to kingly prerogative. when came the soul-stirring news of how the valiant men of boston town had confronted the dread tea-chests in their harbour, and torn them piecemeal, and cast their fragrant contents into the tide, then no soul in second westings but doctor jim, mistress mehitable, and amos, would drink a drop of tea--except in private. certain compromising spirits, anxious to be both patriotic and comfortable, had laid in a supply betimes, and so without public scandal could dally in secret with the uninebriating cup. but barbara despised the alien leaf at all times; and doctor john preferred hard cider or new england rum; and old debby had a potent concoction of "yarbs" which made the chinese visitor insipid; so mistress mehitable and doctor jim were free to victual their strongholds with nearly all the tea in second westings. over the achievement of the boston heroes mistress mehitable was gently sarcastic and doctor jim boisterously derisive; while doctor john exclaimed, "tut! tut! such child's play does no good! such mummery! tut! tut!" and squire gillig, ardent "continental" but cautious merchant, said, "such wicked waste! there's a lot of good money gone! they should have confiscated the stuff, an' hid it, an' sold it by an' by cheap, along through the back townships!" but to barbara it seemed that the act was one shrewdly devised and likely to bring matters to a head. her reading of it seemed justified a few months later, when the port of boston was closed, as a punishment for rebellious contumacy,--and the charter of massachusetts abrogated,---and a military governor, with four english regiments, established in the haughty city by the charles,--and the capital of the province removed to its ancient rival, salem. the news of the billeting of the troops on boston, and the removal of the capital to salem, came with a shock to westings house. it came in a copy of the _connecticut gazette_, delivered at mistress mehitable's dinner-table while she and barbara were entertaining doctor john and doctor jim, squire gillig, and the reverend jonathan and mrs. sawyer. it had been a gay repast, but when mistress mehitable, craving indulgence by reason of the times, read out the boston news, a cloud descended upon the company. squire gillig began to say something bitter, forgetful of mistress mehitable's sentiments, but was stopped by a level stare from the reverend jonathan sawyer's authoritative eyes. then doctor john spoke--no longer droll and jibing, but with the gravity of prescience, and turning by instinct to his brother. "jim! jim!" said he, "this is going to mean _war_. i see it! i see it! the people will not stand much more,--and more is coming, as sure as my name's john pigeon. your precious king's gone mad. he's going to force it on us!" doctor jim shook his great head sorrowfully. "i am sorry for this, john. i think the king is not well advised in this--on my word i do. it is too harsh, too sudden. but the people won't fight. they may riot, and talk,--but they won't fight. we are too strong for you, john. there will be no war. that would be absurd!" "there will be war!" repeated doctor john, still looking into his brother's eyes. the two men had forgotten every one else. "there will be war, if not this year, the next. the people will fight,--and that soon!" "then the people will be beaten, and that soon, john!" retorted doctor jim, firmly, but in a low voice. "the king's armies will be beaten, jim! you mark my words! but it is going to be a terrible thing! a horrible and unrighteous thing! there will be dividing of houses, jim!" there were several seconds of silence, a heavy, momentous silence, and barbara held her breath, a strange ache at her throat. then doctor jim brought down his fist upon the table, and cried in his full voice: "a dividing of houses, maybe,--but not a dividing of hearts, john pigeon, never a dividing of hearts, eh, what? eh, what?" he reached out his hand across the table, and doctor john seized it in a mighty grip. the long years of love and trust between them spoke suddenly in their strong, large faces. "no, never a dividing of hearts, jim, in the days that are to come, when our swords go different ways, and we see each other not for a time!" then their hands dropped apart, and both laughed uneasily, as they glanced with a shamefaced air about the table. "tut! tut!" said doctor john. "that precious king of yours bids fair to make life damnably serious, jim. send him away from the table at once!" but the diversion came too late; for barbara was weeping heedlessly, and mistress mehitable, with her white chin quivering, was dabbing her handkerchief to her eyes with an air of vexation at her own weakness; while good mrs. sawyer gazed at them both in wide-eyed, uncomprehending wonder. "if there's a war," sobbed barbara, "_you sha'nt_ go to it, either of you! we need you, _here_. and--and--you'd both get killed, i know! you're both so splendid and big and tall,--and you wouldn't--take care of yourselves, and the bullets _couldn't_ miss you!" at this picture mistress mehitable grew pale, where she had been red, and cast a frightened look at doctor jim, then at doctor john,--then back at doctor jim. "barbara's right, i think," she said, with an air of having weighed the question quite dispassionately. "you should not leave your patients, on any account. there are so many men who can destroy life, so few who can save it. physicians have no right to go soldiering." "that's just it, honey!" cried barbara, flashing radiant eyes through her tears. "oh, what a wise little aunt hitty you are! what would we ever do without you!" and her apprehensions laid themselves obediently to rest. "well, well!" cried doctor jim. "what are two graceless old dogs like us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their sex should shed tears on our account? we should go and kick each other up and down the length of second westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such precious tears,--eh, what, john pigeon?" "'tis the least we can do, jim!" said doctor john. "but now i come to think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war to go to, after all." "and when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you belong!" decreed barbara, holding the question well settled. "who knows what may happen?" cried doctor jim. "you stiff-necked rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?" "barbara, sweet baggage," said doctor john, wagging his forefinger at her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "i cannot let this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit. set your heart at rest. if there be war, jim pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of holes as a colander, and i'll do my duty by staying at home and looking after his patients. there'll be a chance of some of them getting well, then! i've never yet had a fair chance to save jim pigeon's patients. _i_ won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth!" "how can you lie so shamelessly, john pigeon?" demanded doctor jim. "i'll lay you a barrel of madeira you'll be leaning against the butt of a musket before i am!" "done!" said doctor john. "i think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried barbara. chapter xxiii. that day of the news was a boundary day. it set sharp limit to barbara's years of calm. from that day events came quickly, change pressed hard on change, and no day, for her, was quite like its predecessor. a veering of the current had snatched her from her shining eddy, and swept her forth into the tide of life. on the morning following the dinner, while still alive to a sense of menace in the air, barbara received a letter from her uncle. as she read it, her eyes sparkled, her heart bounded. then, as she passed it to mistress mehitable, and mistress mehitable took it with cheerful interest, her heart sank. she felt a pang of self-reproach, because she found herself willing to go away and leave her aunt uncompanioned in the solitude of westings house. glenowen had undertaken certain business, in the way of searching records and examining titles, which was driving him at once to new york, and bade fair, he said, to keep him there for upwards of a year. he wanted barbara to go with him. and barbara's pulses bounded. there, she thought, were the lights and the dances, the maskings and the music, the crossing of swords and wits, the gallants and the compliments and the triumphs, which she was longing to taste. mistress mehitable's face grew grave as she read the letter. it grew pale as she looked up and saw by barbara's face the hunger in her heart. mistress mehitable had a vision of what westings house would be, emptied of the wilful, flashing, vivid, restless spirit which for the past few years had been its life. but she was unselfish. she would not say a word to lessen barbara's delight. "it will be lovely for you, dear!" said she, with hearty sympathy. "you are just at the age, too, when it will mean most to you, and be of most value to you. i am so glad, dear!" but barbara had seen the look in her face, and gave no heed to her brave words. "i _can't_ go, honey, and leave you here alone!" she cried, impetuously, jumping up and hugging the little lady with a vehemence born of the effort to convince herself that what she said was true. she felt that she could and must go; but that the joy of going would be more than damped--drenched, indeed, with tears--at the thought of how much mistress mehitable would miss her, of how empty westings house would be without her, of the scar her absence would leave in their little world. with her intense individuality, her lively self-concentration, it almost seemed to her as if their little world could not even attempt to go on without her, but must sleep dully through her absence. "of course you will go, barbara dear!" said mistress mehitable, decidedly. "it is only natural and right you should want to go, and go. i cannot pretend that it makes me very happy to think of doing without you for a whole year. no words can tell you how i shall miss you, dear child. but i should be a thousand times more unhappy if i were to feel myself standing in the way of your happiness. no, no, indeed, don't talk any nonsense about not going. besides, your uncle bob has the right to have you with him for a while." "oh, i wish you could go, too!" sighed barbara. "_can't_ you? _then_ it _would_ be lovely!" mistress mehitable laughed softly. "not very well just now, child!" she answered, assuming a gaiety. "perhaps some other time it might be managed. now, we'll have to plan about getting you ready,--and your uncle has only left us a wretched little week to do it in!" so it was settled, without any stress or argument whatever, that barbara should go to new york with uncle bob just eight days from that day; and so was decreed, with such effort as it might take to order a breakfast, nothing less than a revolution in barbara's life. while the two women were discussing weighty problems of dressmaking, lingerie, and equipment various,--what should be made at second westings, and what should be left to new york shops and the tried taste of uncle bob,--doctor jim came in, less robustious and breezy than his wont, his eyes big with momentous tidings. he kissed the ladies' hands, and sat down thoughtfully opposite, scanning their faces from under bushy, drawn brows. they both looked at him with expectant inquiry. "you were most intent on whatever you were talking about!" said he, presently. "i hope i don't interrupt! may i hear all about it? or should i run away, eh, what?" "you never interrupt,--or if you do, you are forgiven beforehand, jim!" said mistress mehitable. "what we were talking about will interest _you_, doctor jim, you naughty old thing!" cried barbara, saucily. "it was petticoats, bodices, and silk stockings, and such like feminine frivolities! but what have _you_ got to tell _us_? you are just _bursting_, you know you are. tell us, and we'll tell you something!" "john pigeon's going away to-morrow!" said doctor jim, and then shut his mouth hard. "what? going away?" cried both women at once, scarce crediting their ears. "going away to hartford, to-morrow, to take a hand in organising some of their rebellious militia!" continued doctor jim. "i'm ashamed to tell you. but he was ashamed to tell you himself, thinking you would not like it, so he sent me ahead to make his peace for him. it doesn't mean anything, you know. just a sort of bragging counterblast to those four regiments of ours at boston. i wouldn't be down on john for it, eh, what, mehitable?" "when will he return?" asked mehitable, feeling that her world was being emptied. "down on him!" exclaimed barbara. "why, it's _noble_ of him. think how it will encourage all the patriots of our township!" since she was going away herself, doctor john's going was easy enough to bear. "i wasn't talking to you, you saucy rebel!" retorted doctor jim. "we'll have that crazy little black head of yours chopped off for high treason, one of these days, if you don't mend your naughty manners. 'patriots,' indeed! addle-pated bumpkins! but"--and he turned to mistress mehitable, "you asked me, dear lady, when john pigeon would return. within a month, i think. he will tell you more precisely for himself!" "jim," said mistress mehitable, gravely, "we are going to be lonely for awhile, you and i." "lonely!" exclaimed doctor jim. "that's not what bothers me. it's the pestilent, low, vulgar business that's taking him!" "yes, of course," assented mistress mehitable, "but 'tis not doctor john only that purposes to forsake us, jim. barbara is going to new york, to stay a year." doctor jim's face fell. he glared at barbara for half a minute, his shaggy eyebrows working. "nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous. "what cock-and-bull story's this? i won't have my feelings worked upon!" "it's true, doctor jim. i'm to go with uncle bob, next week!" said barbara, very soberly. "but you sha'n't go! we can't spare our bad little girl. you're too young, barby, for that wicked city down there. we _need_ you here, to keep us from getting too _good_. you sha'n't go, that's all! you see what john pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?" "i must, doctor jim!" answered barbara. "aunt hitty and uncle bob have both decided on that. i feel homesick, sort of, already, at the thought of it. and i know i shall miss you all just horribly. but, oh, i do want to go, after all. it's all so gay and mysterious to me, and i know i'll have such fun. and it will be so lovely, when i'm tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it! won't it?" "well! well! i suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed doctor jim. "thank heaven, _you're_ not going, mehitable, dear lady!" "i'm glad _you're_ not going, jim,--either to new york or to hartford!" said mistress mehitable, with a little laugh. then she held out her hand to him, flushing softly. "it would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, mehitable, were you to bid me stay!" said doctor jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had held out. then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily turned again to barbara, saying: "by the way, sweetheart, bobby gault is in new york, is he not,--eh, what? he will be glad to see you again, perhaps! it is possible he may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?" but barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind. "i don't know that i'll make things pleasant for robert," she answered, thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings and things!" "tell that to the marines, you sly hussy!" exclaimed doctor jim, regaining mysteriously his wonted large good humour. "don't tell me this isn't all made up between you and robert!" barbara looked at him soberly for a moment. then the old audacious light laughed over her face, her eyes danced perilously,--and mistress mehitable felt a tremor of apprehension. she always felt nervous when doctor jim had the hardihood to draw barbara's fire. "do you know, doctor jim, i don't feel quite so badly as i did about leaving you and aunt hitty! i think, you know, you will be quite a comfort to each other, won't you, even if doctor john should have to stay longer than he expects in hartford!" at this moment doctor john himself came in, to mistress mehitable's infinite relief. chapter xxiv. when glenowen came to second westings he was in such haste that barbara concluded he had other duties in new york than the searching of records and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no questions. affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed uncle. from second westings they journeyed by coach to new haven, and from that city voyaged by packet down the sound to new york. arrived in new york, they went straight into lodgings which glenowen had already engaged, in an old, high-stooped dutch house on state street. from the moment of her landing on the wharf, barbara was in a state of high exhilaration. the thronging wharves, the high, black, far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might happen to her and story-books come true. then the busy, bustling streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his own affairs, how different from second westings, where three passers-by and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small consequence to the village cows! and then the houses--huddled together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses! it was all very stirring. she felt that it was what she wanted, at the moment,--a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past. but she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the woods and fields and wild waters. of her arrival barbara sent no word to robert, though she knew by somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw away from her lodging. she looked forward to some kind of a dramatic meeting, and would not let her impatience--which she scarcely acknowledged--risk the marring of a picturesque adventure. when glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous information that robert's office was close by, right among the fashionable houses of bowling green, and proposed that they should begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window, barbara demurred with emphasis. "well," said glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine. i'll drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call with all due and fitting ceremony!" "oh, uncle bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know yet how little _i_ care for ceremony? 'tis not that--by any manner of means. but i want to surprise robert,--i want to meet him at some fine function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me! you know, it is five years, nearly, since we saw him. have i changed much, uncle bob?" "precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered glenowen. "you're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown witch that you were then, only a _little_ taller, a _little_ more good-looking, a little--a very little--more dignified. no fear but he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years. 'twere as easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my barbe! but forget you! oh, no!" so it was that in the walks which they took about the point of manhattan island, during the first three or four days after their coming, they avoided bowling green, save in the dim hours of twilight; and glenowen, prone to humour barbara in everything, had a care to shun the resorts which robert gault affected. he learned, by no means to his surprise, that robert was uncompromisingly committed to the tory party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell barbara. "time enough! time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half sorrowful. "let the child have her little play with all the mirth that's in it! let hearts not bleed until they must! she won't forgive him,--and he won't yield,--or i'm not bob glenowen!" in new york, where most of his life had been spent, glenowen knew everybody; and he was _persona grata_ to almost everybody of consequence. his standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most arrogant of the old tory aristocrats--the delanceys, the philipses, the beverley robinsons--were not disposed to let their hostility to his views hamper their hospitality to his person. it followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the changed surroundings, barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of new york gaieties. every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the old dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was homesick, very homesick, and a child again. she would sob for aunt hitty, and doctor john, and doctor jim,--and for big, round-faced, furry "mr. grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,--and for black prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her absence,--and for dear old debby in her lonely cabin. she would think very tenderly of amos,--and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted. with great surges of pathos she would picture mistress mehitable going into the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down by the bed and wishing barbara would come back. in such a melting mood barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for robert the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to see him. but when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full of excitements and conquests to come. chapter xxv. to her first ball barbara went in a chair, just five days after her arrival in new york. the method of locomotion appealed greatly to her mood; and as the bearers jogged her gently along, she kept her piquant face at the window and felt as if she were playing one of the pictures of court ladies on their way to st. james's,--ladies such as she had often dreamed over in the london prints. for this ball, given at the van griff house, just a few blocks from her own lodgings, she was dressed in the very height of the mode, as to all save her hair. she was obstinate in her aversion to the high, elaborate coiffure,--in her adherence to the simple fashion and the single massive curl which she had decided upon, after many experiments, as best becoming her face. she liked her hair, accounting it her only beauty, and rather than disguise it she would let the mode go hang. for the rest, her attire met the severest demands of uncle bob, who was even won, at the last, to approve what he called her eccentricity in the matter of hair. he decided that her very precise modishness in other respects would prove her title to independence in the one respect; and it was with unqualified satisfaction that he contemplated the effect she would produce on the new york fashionables. "are you sure i look fit to be seen with you, uncle bob?" she had inquired, anxiously, the last thing before they set out. "you are such a beau, you dear; and so distinguished-looking!" "i shall take no discredit by reason of you, i think!" answered glenowen, dryly. "unless, indeed, by reason of the slayings of your eyes! but slay the gallants, slay them, sweetheart! they be king's men, mostly,--and there'll be so many the less to fight, by and by, for the king!" "i'll do what such a homely little brown thing can!" laughed barbara, blithely, an excited thrill in her voice. but even at the moment her heart misgave her, at the thought that, more than likely, robert was one of these same "king's men!" this first ball, at the van griffs', was to barbara a whirl of lights, and colours, and flowers, and bowing, promenading, pirouetting forms. the spacious rooms and shining floors and smiling faces and stirring music intoxicated her. the variety and brightness of the costumes astonished her, the women's dresses being fairly outshone by the strong colours of the uniforms worn by the english officers, and by the even more dazzling garb affected by the civilians. yet if all this bewildered her heart, outwardly she was at ease, composed, and ready; and glenowen, across the room, watching her the centre of a group of eager gallants,--fop, officer, and functionary alike clamouring for her hand in the dance,--wondered if this could be the headlong, hard-riding little hussy whom he had brought from the wilds of second westings. the stately belles of manhattan, beauties serene or beauties gay, sisters to the lily or sisters to the poppy and the tulip, eyed with critical half-disfavour this wilding rose from the backwoods, agreed that she was queer-looking if not ugly, and resented her independence in wearing her hair so as to display its beauties to full advantage. that she was well gowned and danced well, they were in general fair enough to acknowledge; but they could not see why so many men found her interesting to talk to. in a word, she was a success from the start. she went home at last, very wide-eyed, tired, triumphant, excited--and disappointed. she had not seen robert. she had just once heard his name, spoken casually, as that of one whose absence seemed a thing unusual, whose presence seemed a thing to be desired. she knew that she had made an impression. she knew, even, that she had made herself popular, at least with the men. with her accustomed candour she had proclaimed herself a rebel, in response to some jest at the expense of boston, and had settled the score thrice over by her witty jibes at king george. but even in that royalist circle her audacity had done her no harm. the english officers themselves, carried away by her brilliance and amused by her daring, were loudest in their applause. they not unreasonably agreed in their hearts that it could do the king no harm, while it undoubtedly would be a great satisfaction to themselves, if they could win some favour in the eyes of this most bewildering and provocative little rebel. perceiving this, barbara had not spared her shafts; and the most deeply wounded of her victims had been the most assiduous of her admirers. but of all the men who had been presented to her, danced with her, paid court to her, of all the women whom she had met, favoured, or in clash of glances subtly defied, she retained but a bright jumble of unassorted names and faces. one only had gained a foothold in her remembrance. a certain young officer in the colonial militia, one cary patten by name, had been presented to her by her uncle with particular commendation, as being altogether of his own way of thought; and him, for his laughing blue eyes, his frank mouth, his broad shoulders, and his boyish swagger, she had liked so well that he stood out among her impressions, and she felt it would be pleasant to meet him again. in fact, to his open and immense elation, she had told him so. "well, mistress mine, how did you like it?" asked glenowen, as, candle in one hand and skirts in the other, she held up her face to be kissed good-night. "oh, i loved it, uncle bob!" she answered, with conviction. "well, it loved you!" said uncle bob. but as he turned away to his own room, he wondered if barbara was really quite as satisfied as she professed, or whether her failure to meet robert, and include him among the numbers of her slain, had clouded at all the splendour of her triumph. two evenings later there was another ball, an altogether bigger and more imposing function, at the house of the surveyor-general half a mile out of town. at this, as she was told, every one would be present, and therefore, she agreed, robert would certainly appear. with a view to circumstances which might conceivably arise in the event of robert's appearance, she had with great difficulty kept a number of dances free, when her admiring cavaliers at the van griffs' were striving to fill her cards in advance. if he should fail to come,--well, she had reason to think that she would not be left to languish unattended. meanwhile, however, she little knew how violently her pretty scheme was being brought to nought, she little knew how emphatically robert was being enlightened as to her presence in new york. she should, indeed, have thought that the story of her triumphs at the van griffs' would reach his ears, for on the day following that event, her maid, a garrulous west indian mulatto whom glenowen had engaged immediately on their arrival, had told her over her toilet that her name was already the toast of the finest gentlemen in town. but somehow it never occurred to her that robert would hear anything. she thought of him only as riding, or paddling a canoe, or sitting at his desk, or going to balls and wandering about alone, thinking of her, gravely smiling now and then, courteous, and silent. as a vital factor in this glittering life he had never presented himself to her imagination,--or it is possible she might have written to him from second westings more often than twice or thrice in the year! the house of the surveyor-general stood behind its trees far back from the road, on a series of terraces set with walks, parterres, trimmed hedges, statuary, and secret arbours. the house was a blaze of light. the terraces were lighted with a gay discretion, here shining, there enshadowed. as she drove up with her uncle in the coach, a little late, and heard the music and the musical babble of voices, barbara thrilled deliciously, with a prescience that this was to be an eventful night. she was no longer dazzled,--only strung to the highest tension. she realised that all this was her birthright, to be used, played with, thrown aside when tired of, but meanwhile enjoyed to the topmost pitch of relish,--hers just as much as the buttercup fields, the thrush-sweet orchards, the ancient woods of connecticut. she felt herself mistress of the situation. "oh, uncle bob," she whispered, drawing a quick breath of anticipation, as she gave him her hand and stepped daintily from the coach, her high-buckled, high-heeled white satin slippers and little white silken ankles glimmering for an instant to the ensnaring of the favoured eye,--"oh, uncle bob, isn't it lovely?" "you are, my barbe!" he answered, peering down with high content upon the small disastrous face half-hidden in the hood of her scarlet cardinal. "let me tell you, uncle bob, you look extremely nice yourself!" she responded, squeezing his hand hard. "i didn't see one other man at mr. van griff's so handsome and distinguished-looking as you!" "dear me!" retorted glenowen, musingly, "what is the baggage going to ask me for to-morrow? whatever it be, she must have it!" barbara reached her hostess with difficulty, and was given small time for her greetings. all through her first dance she was so absorbed in looking for robert that she paid scant attention to her partner's compliments, though she realised that they contained imcomprehensible veiled reference to something which she was supposed to know all about. to her partner, one jerry waite by name, her ignorance seemed assumed, and vastly well assumed; and presently with his growing admiration for her cleverness came a dread lest he should transgress, so he diplomatically shifted to new ground. but had she not been quite absorbed in her quest, barbara's most lively curiosity would have been awakened by his meaning words. at last she sat down by a curtained doorway and sent mr. waite to get her fan, that she might make up her mind as to the advisability of inquiring frankly about robert. her scheme was working too slowly for her impatient spirit; and, moreover, it was beginning to dawn upon her that robert might not unnaturally feel aggrieved, and perhaps even prove difficult and exasperating, if she did not see him soon. she had about concluded to invoke the aid of uncle bob,--with whom she was by and by to dance the minuet,--when a word behind the curtain caught her ear. "la! mr. gault!" cried a pretty, affected, high-pitched voice. "who thought we should be so favoured as to see you here to-night! not dancing, surely! but 'twere less cruel to us poor maids to stay away entirely, than to come and let us look and pine in vain. but you are very white,--sit down by me and tell me all about it. la, there's nothing i so love!" it was robert's voice that answered,--robert's voice, but grown deeper, stronger, more assured, than as barbara thought she remembered it. "it was nothing at all, dear miss betty,--a mere scratch!" he answered. "'tis but the loss of a little blood makes me paler than ordinary, i suppose. but the doctor said there was no reason in the world i should not look in on the gaieties for a minute or two,--and see what new wonder of a gown miss betty was wearing,--provided i gave my word not to dance." barbara was conscious of the rustle of miss betty's flirtatious fan. "la, sir!" cried the pretty, high voice again, "you make light, of it; but they tell me it was very handsome done. and is it true that poor carberry is in a bad way? fie upon you, mr. gault, to spit an officer of the king and so strengthen the hands of the enemy." barbara's heart was beating very fast. so robert had been fighting a duel, had he! and been wounded,--but slightly! and the quarrel with an officer of the king! this looked as if her anxieties were unfounded. but on the other hand, this loquacious girl--whom barbara despised instantly and honestly--seemed to claim him as belonging to the king's party. barbara trembled with excitement, and with fear lest her absent escort should come back too soon. he did come back, at that moment; but with a ravishing look that turned his brain she sent off again for an ice and a glass of punch. meanwhile her alert ears had heard robert replying cheerfully to miss betty. "oh, carberry will be all right in a week or two," said he. "'twould much hasten his recovery were one to send him word of miss betty's solicitude. a three weeks at most will take him off my conscience and the doctor's hands!" here another voice intervened. "traitress!" it exclaimed, "i have been seeking you this half-hour!" "let me talk to mr. gault one moment more, jack!" pleaded miss betty. "he was just going to tell me all about it,--weren't you, mr. gault?" "not if i know bob gault," retorted the voice. "nay, nay, dear lady, i will yield you not one minute more to gault, on any pretext. shall i court disaster by leaving the most fickle as the fairest of her sex to the wiles of this pale hero, this wounded champion of dames!" "you're right, jack!" cried miss betty. "i see he's dying with impatience to go and find her, and claim a champion's reward! she's here, mr. gault. i saw her but a moment back. go wherever you see the men a-crowding fiercest!" so robert had fought for some woman, had he? he had a tie, then! barbara felt a tightening about her heart, an impulse to rush from the room. then she said to herself, "what more natural? what are we but the best of friends? and have i ever been really nice to him?" promptly anger took the place of the unreasonable hurt; and the anger made her cool upon the surface, so that she had herself well gathered in hand when the curtain was pushed aside, and robert came through--just at the same moment that her partner came up with the punch. robert sprang forward with face transfigured. but to barbara's chagrin he did not seem at all surprised. "i am glad to see you, robert!" she said, gravely, holding out her hand. robert bent over it and kissed it in silence, unable, for the moment, to find his voice. "are you not glad to see me--to see an old friend out of the old days?" asked barbara. "i have no words to tell you how glad i am, my dear lady!" he answered, in a low voice, wishing that jerry waite would have sense enough to go away, instead of standing there in that idiotic fashion with the punch. "but aren't you _surprised_ to see me, robert?" barbara went on, forgetful of mr. waite and the punch. "i suppose i ought to be surprised, my lady," answered robert, with some bitterness in his tone, "surprised that you have condescended to see me at all, in view of the length of time you have been here without letting me know! i learned yesterday of your coming--after every one in town apparently knew of it!" to jerry waite the scene was utterly incomprehensible. oblivious to all good manners, he was staring open-mouthed. barbara saw the astonishment in his face, quite naturally misunderstood it, and flushed angrily. the pain and wrath which she had by such an effort of will crushed down in her heart crept up again stealthily, and began to mingle unrecognised with this superficial annoyance. "i had thought to surprise you,--a harmless little play, robert, to see if you would recognise an old, old friend grown up!" she said, in a cool voice. "but since you are so dissatisfied, we had better not talk about it. you may call and see me some day soon, if you like. i am just around the corner, on state street. uncle bob will give you the address. will you take me back to my seat, mr. waite? thank you so much for the punch." robert could not believe his ears. was he dismissed for the evening? the blood began to beat fiercely in his head. "but, barbara," he exclaimed, "aren't you going to give me at least _one_ dance?-- hold on, waite, just a minute, will you!-- you can't be engaged for all so early in the evening. i came at the very first, in hopes of catching you and getting several." barbara paused. by this time the thought of that other woman, for whom he had fought,--for whom he was wounded,--for whom he carried now this pallor,--for whom he had been too impatient to talk to miss betty behind the curtain,--the thought of that other woman was gnawing at her brain in a way to confuse her judgment. she was not exactly in love with robert, but she was intensely interested, and in the course of the years a sense of proprietorship had grown up. the idea of another woman, with a prior claim, outraged her pride at the same time that it wrenched her heart with a sense of irremediable loss. "you are not dancing, i understand, robert," she said, looking coldly into his eyes. robert's heart gave an exultant leap. she knew about the duel, then! "i had thought, my lady," said he, softly, "that you might, under the circumstances, consent to forego a dance or two, and talk with me about old times." the circumstances, indeed! barbara's eyes blazed in spite of all her efforts at self-control. this was insolence. yet she could in no way show she recognised it. for a second or two she held her tongue. "i hear you have been greatly distinguishing yourself, robert," she answered, in a voice of somewhat artificial sweetness, "and have taken some hurt in the affair, and really should not be here at all!" she looked at her tablets with hypocritical care. "you should have found me earlier. i shall not be free to give you a dance for _hours_ yet,--not till quite near the last. you will probably not be able to stay so long!" robert grew tenfold whiter than before, and his mouth set itself like iron. she knew,--it was clear she knew,--and yet she could act in this hopelessly light, cruel, merciless way. it was inhuman. had she no spark of womanly tenderness? he would trouble her no more. "no, i shall not stay," he said, quietly. "good-night, mistress ladd! good-night, waite!" he took her outstretched hand so lightly that she saw rather than felt that he had taken it; bowed over it, so low that he seemed to kiss it, yet did not actually touch it with his lips; then nodded civilly to waite, strode off down the side of the room, through the door, and was gone. barbara little guessed the many eyes that had watched and wondered at the episode. she imagined that all were quite engrossed in the dancing. "now please take me to the other room, mr. waite!" she commanded. "i fear i was engaged for this very dance, and my partner will think me rude!" waite was in hopeless bewilderment. he particularly liked and admired robert gault. he was silent for a few moments, and then exclaimed with seeming irrelevance: "women do beat me!" barbara looked up at him quickly, as she took her seat. "what do you mean?" she asked. "i beg your pardon, most fair and inexplicable mistress ladd," replied waite, who had been puzzled almost out of his manners, "but,--if you will permit me to say it,--if this be the fate of your friends, what, oh, what must be the fate of your enemies!" "i don't understand you!" said barbara, haughtily. "pray explain yourself!" but just then a young scarlet-coated officer, nevil paget, came up, claiming the hand of mistress ladd; and jerry waite, who had begun to realise that he was in deep water, hailed the rescue gladly. "i shall have the honour to claim you again, gracious mistress," said he, "and i shall explain myself then, if you bid me. meanwhile, i make way for those more fortunate than i." and now, in her bitterness and disappointment, barbara flung herself heart and soul into the folly. when the young englishman started to speak of a duel, she shut him up so mercilessly that for five minutes he durst not open his mouth. but she proceeded to flirt and bedazzle him, half flouting, half flattering, till in five minutes more he was nigh ready to fling all the pedigree of all the pagets at her small, light-dancing feet and beg her to dance upon it her whole life long. she danced everything, and between the dances held a court more crowded and more devoted than that which had paid her homage at the van griffs'. she was deaf to all attempts to lure her out upon the fairy terraces, because when she first saw them she had decided that robert should take her out there to tell her what a wonderful surprise she had given him. but the men whom she refused were not driven away by her denial. she mixed bitter and sweet for them all so cunningly that none could tell in which of the twain lay the magic that held them thrall. and all the while her heart smouldered in her breast like a hot coal in the ash. at length came her minuet with glenowen; and after it her uncle, who thought he detected something feverish in her gaiety, and felt moved to cool it a little if he might without damage, asked her if she had seen robert. "for a moment or two," she answered, with an indifference beyond reason. glenowen had heard all the story of the duel, and wondered what had gone wrong. "why did he go home, sweetheart, so soon after our coming?" he inquired. "did he go home?" she queried, casually. "you know he was hardly fit to be out. even heroes can't stand the loss of blood!" "what did you do to him, child?" persisted glenowen. this questioning chafed on barbara's raw and bleeding nerves. "robert made himself very disagreeable," she replied, crisply. "i showed that i was disappointed in him, and he seems to have got angry and gone home!" "disappointed in him!" exclaimed glenowen. then he hesitated, and went on: "really, barbara, are you quite human? forgive me if i--" barbara faced him squarely, and he felt, though he could not see, the flood of tears pent up behind her shining eyes. "uncle bob!" she whispered, in a tense voice, "if you are going to criticise, take me home _right away_. i can't stand one thing more!" glenowen knew her better than any one else ever could, and his displeasure melted as he caught signal of a distress which he did not understand. yet he knew better than to be too sympathetic, having more than once experienced the perilous relaxing powers of sympathy. "well, well, sweetheart," he laughed, lightly, "forgive me. i've no doubt it would seem all right if i knew. and what does it matter to me about bobby gault, anyhow, so long as my little girl is happy?" "she isn't happy, uncle bob! but that isn't _your_ fault, you dear, not ever in the world!" as they moved apart from the promenading throng, and paused at an open window overlooking the terraces, barbara's ears, acute as those of the furtive kindred in westings forest, again caught a word that was not intended for them. she saw two painted and tower-headed dames, sitting not far from the window, point her out to another who had just taken a seat beside them; and she heard the newcomer remark, behind her fan: "that ugly little rebel! insult an officer of the king's troops for her!" barbara's face flushed scarlet, and she looked at her uncle. but he had heard nothing,--and she remembered that her ears were keener than those of other people. the remark, however, puzzled her, and started a vague, troublesome misgiving. thereafter she found it difficult to resume the spontaneous fervour of her gaiety. fits of abstraction would take her unawares; but her courtiers thought them merely another touch of art, effective as they were unexpected. she was now looking forward to the dance with jerry waite, and the explanation which he had so rashly promised. she had intended to snub him severely, but when he came for her at last he found her altogether gracious. "would you mind very much if we sat somewhere and talked, instead of dancing?" she asked. and waite, nothing loth, led her to a seat just beyond the long windows,--nearer to the terrace than any other man had succeeded in getting her to go. this filled him with elation, and he was glad, rather than otherwise, that she had refused to go out among the walks and arbours. here his triumph was visible every moment to his disappointed rivals. he was, of course, like the rest, half infatuated with barbara; but being a sane youth, with a sense of humour, he knew the difference between infatuation and half infatuation. he imagined there was more between barbara and robert than there really was; and he did not hold himself any match for robert in a race for hearts. therefore, he was capable of thinking of his own prestige. and to heighten that he had an inspiration. when, after waiting till she could wait no longer, for him to bring up the subject, barbara asked him to give her the promised explanation of his remark, he fenced cleverly till the time was close at hand when he knew she would be claimed by another partner. he saw this prospective partner, cary patten, eyeing her hungrily, ready to swoop down and take possession at the first permissible moment. then he said: "in very truth, fair mistress, the explanation necessitates a long story. to tell you a little would leave me in a worse light than i could endure you to behold me in. the story comes first,--and then the explanation follows with ease!" "when will you explain? my curiosity has been most artistically aroused!" said barbara, maintaining with an effort her tone of sprightly merriment. "if i might have the honour of waiting upon you to-morrow, i am bold to hope i might succeed in interesting you!" suggested waite. "you may come in the morning," answered barbara, promptly. "say about eleven o'clock." the delighted jerry was ceremoniously bowing his gratitude for this command, conscious that it would make him the envied of all the gallants of manhattan, when cary patten came up and carried barbara off with rather more eagerness than ceremony. he had been most hard hit of all her victims at the van griffs' ball, and had experienced deep dejection over the rumour which had that day associated her name with robert gault's. robert's early departure from the ball had somewhat cheered him, however; and now, with that simplicity, not unlike barbara's own, born of secure family position and careless disregard of convention, he determined to find out if the field were open. he saw that barbara was distinctly friendly to him,--whether for his own sake or for what glenowen had told her of his sympathies,--and he trusted to his directness to disarm her possible resentment of his questioning. "if you will pardon me, gracious lady," he began, after the customary interchange of compliment, "i am going to ask you something about our friend gault. carberry was accounted till to-day the best sword in the colony. now he stands second best! it took uncommon high courage or uncommon deep interest in the quarrel, to cross swords with such a master,--but, of course--" barbara's face changed, and she interrupted him crisply. his first phrases had been interesting enough, but at the words "uncommon deep interest in the quarrel," the vision of that unknown woman floated up and laughed in her face. "i am weary of the subject, captain patten. it seems to me it should be possible to talk of something else. if not, let us listen to the music, please!" never before had cary patten been so snubbed. the experience was novel to him, and he did not like it. but he found more than ample compensation in the thought that barbara's words showed no impassioned interest in robert gault! if such a fight, and in such a cause, left her indifferent, then surely he need have no great fear of robert as a rival. to be sure, he thought barbara's indifference a little cruel, a little heartless,--but so much the greater the reward if he could awaken heart in this flashing, audacious, irresistible little witch. cary patten had small knowledge of the feminine heart, being much absorbed in his boyish ambitions, his dreams of splendid daring; and he had a healthy, well-founded faith in his own powers. his bright, handsome face looked glum for a moment or two; then he laughed frankly and cried: "served me just right, for being so bold, sweet mistress. i implore you forgive me, and be friends! on bended knee i sue--to speak figuratively. i dare not do it in fact, you know, else all the men in the room would be on their knees about you, which would look singular!" yes, he was a nice boy, and barbara not only forgave him, but tried to resume her old gaiety for his pleasure. so far as his pleasure was concerned, she succeeded; though older and keener eyes than cary patten's would have seen that her mirth was forced. he left her feeling that he had made no small progress; and he trod on air in his elation because she had promised him no less than three dances at the very next ball at which they should meet. his succeeding partners found him tender but absent-minded,--a combination which they interpreted to their advantage or otherwise, according to their knowledge of men's hearts. but as for barbara's heart, it was now yielding to the strain, and she felt that she could keep up the play no longer. her anger had given out before the need of it, as a stimulant to flirtation, was past. only pain, humiliation, disappointment, remained to her, and she felt that if she did not get away at once something would happen. with all the obstinate force of her will she kept a hold upon her imperious vivacity, and would hear no appeals when her next partner was bidden to fetch her uncle and call her coach. "take me home, _please_, uncle bob!" she pleaded; and he, after a glance into her eyes, yielded comprehendingly. her reason for going, indeed, he did not comprehend; but her need of going he comprehended instantly. till the very last moment she kept herself at pitch, laughing, sweetly jibing, taunting, provoking, inviting, so that the men who insisted on helping glenowen escort her to her coach felt that the glitter had gone from the dance with her departure. but once safe inside the coach, and beyond the lights, she flung herself upon uncle bob's neck and broke into a storm of sobbing. she vouchsafed no explanation, and the sagacious glenowen asked no questions; and she wept, intermittently, all the way to the high-stooped old dutch house on state street. to such a bitter end had come the evening, the wondrous evening, of which she had hoped, expected, claimed so much! chapter xxvi. barbara slept little, but lay late, and glenowen was away about business ere she appeared. by the time her caller arrived she was fairly herself, only subdued in spirit, sorrowful, and homesick. she had taken pains, however, that her morning toilet should be becoming; and jerry waite thought her pallor, the shadows about her great grave eyes, the wistfulness of her scarlet mouth, even more enchanting than her radiance and sparkle of the night before. "this is most gracious of you, fair lady, to let me come so soon!" he murmured ecstatically, over the rosy brown tips of her slim fingers. "did the other men but know of it, i should have feared for my life to come without a guard!" barbara smiled faintly, willing to appreciate his flatteries, but in no mood for badinage and quip. "nay, sir!" she answered, "do not lay it to my graciousness, which is scant to even so charming a gentleman as mr. waite, but to my curiosity, which i acknowledge to be great and insistent. tell me this wonderful thing you promised to tell me!" jerry waite assumed an air of mock supplication. "i implore you, dear lady, suffer me for one moment to delude myself with the ravishing dream that 'twas for my company, no less than for my story, that you permitted me to come.-- what, no, not for one moment the sweet delusion?" barbara shook her head resolutely. "no, first deserve favour, before you presume to claim it, sir!" she retorted. "earn my grace by a story as interesting as you have led me to expect. then, perhaps, i may like you well enough to let you stay awhile, for the sake of your company!" "so be it, if so the queen decrees!" said waite. "my little story is about a duel, of which, as i gathered last night, the fairest but--pardon me--not always the most gracious of her sex knows a little, but not the most interesting details!" "i have heard too much already of this duel!" interrupted barbara. "i do not understand how it concerns me!" "oh, lady, this impatience of yours!" said waite, watching her keenly. "how can you expect to understand the manner in which it concerns you, if you will not let any one tell you the story? i stand pledged to make the story interesting on pain of forfeiting your good will!" "well," agreed barbara, with seeming reluctance. in very truth she was trembling with eagerness for him to go on. "but, i pray you, be as brief as is consistent with justice to your claim as a narrator!" "i will be most brief!" said waite. "for the merit lies in the story itself, not in the fashion of the telling. yesterday, a little after the noon hour, some half-score gentlemen were gathered by chance in pym's ordinary, where many of us frequent for the latest bit of gossip. there was talk of this, that, and the other, but most of the charms of a lady whom we know and reverence--" "who was she?" asked barbara. but waite, intent upon his story, paid no heed. "the praises, the compliments, the eulogiums," he went on, "that were heaped upon this magical name seemed to show that every man was at her feet. all but carberry. captain carberry is a chill-souled, carping, sarcastical fellow, and arrogant withal, by reason of the unmatched agility of his blade. it had pleased him to be displeased by certain sweet, if a trifle pungent, sprightlinesses of the lady in question; and now his comments ran sharply counter to those of the rest of the company. he did not admire her at all,--which was, of course, within his undoubted rights, however it discredited his taste. but presently his criticisms became a trifle harsher than was fitting; and there was a moment of uneasy silence. then, clear upon the silence, gault spoke,--gault, who had hitherto been listening without a word. "'carberry,' said he, quietly, 'you have said just enough. one word more will be too much!' "every one held his breath. there was an ugly look about gault's mouth, and we trembled for him. he is liked, you know; while carberry, a man ten years older, is feared. carberry looked bob over, with a supercilious smile, which meant mischief, as we knew, and then drawled slowly: "'i shall say whatever it may please me to say about that damned little--' but no one was to hear the sentence finished. we can never have our curiosity certainly satisfied as to that word, which just then got smashed beyond recognition behind carberry's teeth. it was probably not so very bad a word, if the truth were known. bob was taking no risks on that score. his blow was straight as a bullet; and carberry went sprawling over two chairs and a table. "when he picked himself up he was quite cool,--collected and businesslike. that we knew to be his deadly way, and we trembled for bob. bob, however, seemed as easy in his mind as carberry. the two of them, indeed, were so deuced civil you might have thought they were arranging to marry each other's sisters. there was no time lost, you may be sure. seconds were chosen, terms agreed upon, a doctor sent for, and we promptly made up a little pleasure party to the woods. "as for the fight, dear lady, i spare your gentle soul the details. it lacked just one element of interest to the connoisseur,--both combatants fought in one fashion. there was no contrast, such as one might have expected between a boy of twenty-three and a veteran of thirty-six. at the very first carberry had attacked with fury,--but when he felt the quality of bob's wrist he saw it was not a case for bluster, and settled down to business. both fought smiling, alike cool, wary, dangerous, sure of the result. where and when bob learned it, we none of us knew. he is a queer, reticent chap in some ways. but learned it he had,--and i, who like to study faces, saw the tinge of surprise in carberry's face pass to admiration. his rage was forgotten in the exhilaration of his favourite game. i never again expect to see two blades so nicely matched. the excitement to us watchers grew intense, till our knees felt weak. but they two seemed as fresh as when they started. "at last--'a touch!" said carberry,--and then, by the slight hissing of the words between his teeth i realised the strain. "'not at all!' answered robert,--and his words, too, came hissingly, for all the easy smile upon his lips. then both grew white. and for a few minutes there was no change. and it seemed to us that our eyes could follow the blades no longer. and then--for the life of me i could not see how it happened--a red stain came on the shoulder of bob's shirt; and in the next second carberry, letting his sword fall, dropped in a heap. "before we could recover our astonishment, robert and the doctor together were bending over the wounded man, and had his shirt ripped open. 'i've got it, eh?' said carberry, faintly. 'a fair, clean thrust, an' served me damn well right!' and he held out his hand to bob,--who grasped it with both his, and looked now, all of a sudden, like a boy ready to cry. "'stuff and nonsense, captain!' exclaimed the doctor. 'you've not got your quietus with _this_ bare bodkin. you'll be all right, sound as ever, in a month, a fortnight maybe!' "'thank god!' cried robert. "'my sentiments exactly!' said carberry, his voice stronger with the knowledge that he was not dying. 'gault, my compliments, with my best apologies! great sword, my boy, great--' and with that he swooned from the pain and loss of blood. and we, very happy that all had ended so happily, got him to the coach, and so home. and the rest, dear mistress ladd, you know!" "a mighty interesting story, i admit!" said barbara. "but still i ask, of what especial, immediate interest to me?" waite looked at her curiously. was it possible she could be so blind? but her wide eyes were innocent of all comprehension. it suddenly occurred to him that, new come to town as she was, she found it impossible to imagine _her_ name the theme of tongues. he began to understand. "you know the lady," said he, and paused. "well, sir, 'tis possible. i have met many in the few days that i have been in new york. what is her name--since you seem to hold it an important matter." "her name, dear lady--her name is one that stirs a thrill of admiring homage in all our hearts. it is--_mistress barbara ladd_!" barbara caught her breath, and her eyes dilated. "what?" she cried, though she had heard quite clearly. "her name is mistress barbara ladd!" repeated jerry waite. "oh, mr. waite. no! no! don't tell me it was on my account that robert fought. impossible! he might have been killed! and i thought--" but she stopped herself in time, without saying what it was she had thought. jerry waite became serious. "it seems to me, dear lady, that your thought, whatever it was, did gault an injustice," said he, gently. "and that is my explanation. am i forgiven?" barbara conquered her distress. this was the easier--after the first pang of remorse--because the fact that robert had not failed her soon overtopped in her mind the fact that she had failed robert. that unknown woman--the hateful vision vanished in a burst of light. the ache of loss was healed in her heart. she was reinstated, too, in her self-esteem. new york grew bright again. her conquests were once more worth while. robert should behold them all,--and be one of them,--the most subjugated of them all. at last her face grew radiant,--her eyes dancing, her teeth flashing, her mouth the reddest rose, her clear brown cheeks softly aflush. "yes, indeed, mr. waite," she cried, holding out her hand. "it is a beautiful story, and wins you a very high place in my regard. you may stay and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then my uncle will be glad to have you dine with us!" the first part of the invitation waite accepted with alacrity, and cursed himself bitterly that he had an engagement to prevent him staying for dinner. in the conversation that followed barbara gained him and chained him fast, not as a mad, intoxicated lover, but as one of the best and most loyal of her friends. but the moment he was gone she rushed to her scrutoir and in fierce haste scribbled a note. it ran: "dear robert:--i did not understand at all. i thought something quite different from the truth. i have just found out about things. please come and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then let me tell you how perfectly horrid i think myself. "barbara." this she sealed with a care that contrasted curiously with the haste with which she had written it. then she called her maid and sent it around to the stately-doorwayed office on bowling green. the answer that came was merely a bunch of dark red roses, with never a written word; but barbara found it quite satisfactory. to robert it would have seemed superfluous to have said he would come. barbara made her toilet with especial care, selecting everything with a view to making herself look as nearly as possible like the barbara of the old second westings days. as she surveyed herself in the glass, she was astonished at the result. had she really put the hands of time back five years? as she remembered, she had looked just so on the afternoon when robert came, and found her in the apple-tree reading "clarissa." it was three o'clock already,--and robert had been waiting already half an hour in the drawing-room below,--but she took yet a few minutes more for a finishing touch. she basted up a deep tuck in her petticoat,--about half an inch off for each year blotted from her calendar,--and then, with flaming eyes and mouth wreathed in laughter, she ran down to receive her guest. it was the direct obverse of the meeting she had planned. "did you ride over, robert? or did you come in the canoe?" she asked, as if she had but that moment jumped down out of the apple-tree. "barbara!" he cried, and seized and kissed both hands. "i was beginning to fear that you had forgotten the way to second westings!" she went on, in gay reproach. "why, it is _weeks_ since you were over; and the young catbirds in the currant bush have grown their wings and flown; and the goldenrod's in flower; and the 'early harvests' are beginning to turn red on the old apple-tree over by the gate; and how will you explain your long absence, sir, to aunt hitty, and doctor john, and doctor jim, i'd like to know!" robert was devouring her with his eyes as she spoke. "oh, you do indeed look just as you did that day i found you in the apple-tree!" he cried, at last. "so weary long ago,--yet now, sweet lady, it seems but now!" "let us play it is but now," laughed barbara. "yes," said robert,--"but _please_ don't send me right away to doctor jim, as you did that morning! i will try not to incur your displeasure. and don't be in such a hurry to get back to 'clarissa' as you were then!" so all the afternoon they talked the language and the themes of second westings, with the difference that barbara was all graciousness, instead of her old mixture of acid and sweet. and when glenowen came in to supper he was admitted to the game, and played it with a relish. and when, after supper, the three went riding, they took what they swore to be the westings landing road,--though certain of the landmarks, as they could not but agree, looked unfamiliar. almost they persuaded themselves that on their return they might entreat mistress mehitable to brew them a sack posset. it was not till three days later, when robert was begging more than his share of dances for a ball to be given that night at government house, that barbara explained--lightly and laughingly, but in a way that suffered robert to understand--her quite inadequate reasons for having treated him so cavalierly on the evening after his duel. chapter xxvii. for the next few weeks barbara enjoyed herself without stint, and found new york quite all that she had painted it. to robert she now vouchsafed sufficient favour to keep him fairly happy and good company,--or, at least, to enable him to make himself good company by an effort of will. yet she held him on the chilly side of that frontier which separates the lover from the comrade. he was her favoured escort, but not so favoured that other admirers could fancy themselves warned from the field. and he was kept restless, tormented, jealous. he was made to feel--as others were allowed to think--that his primacy in privilege was based solely upon old friendship and familiar memories. but the moment he attempted to crowd aside the new friends,--among whom cary patten, jerry waite, and young paget caused him especial worry,--barbara would seem to forget all their intimacy and relegate him to a position somewhat more remote than that of the merest acquaintance. the utmost that he durst claim at any time was a certain slight precedence in her train of devoted cavaliers. she danced, rode, flirted, with something so near approaching impartiality that she let no moth quite feel itself a fool in scorching its wings at her eyes. yet no one could presume upon her graciousness; and no one but cary patten had the temerity to push his suit to the point where she was put on the defensive. cary patten was promptly dismissed. but when he as promptly came back on the very first occasion, she had forgotten the matter, and remembered only how she liked his honest boyishness, his sanguine boldness. cary, applying one of those general rules which were apt to be so inapplicable in the special case of barbara, decided that not one, nor indeed a dozen, refusals need reduce him to despair! and barbara, when afterward she came to think of it, liked cary patten the better because he had not sulked over his defeat. meanwhile barbara was exercising a restraint upon one point, which was in flat contradiction to her wonted directness. she was carefully avoiding, in robert's presence, a discussion of those political questions with which the whole country, from maine to georgia, was then seething. this was easier than it would have been even a few weeks before, for the reason that as the differences grew more deadly society grew more cautious about letting them intrude themselves among its smooth observances. barbara, in fact, had come to fear the inevitable discussion with robert. she knew he was identified with the tory party, but she did not know how far. and she feared her own heat of partisanship not less than his resolution--which she called obstinacy. so, by tacit consent, she and robert gave wide berth to the perilous theme; till at length their avoidance of it, when it was thrilling on the very air they breathed, made it begin to loom all the larger and darker between them. presently the apprehension that it was an impending peril to their relation drove robert to speak, precipitately, on the subject that was bursting his heart night and day. they had just come in from an afternoon ride, and were alone in the drawing-room. barbara was in high good humour; and robert seized the moment to ask leave to return that same evening. "i'm sorry, robert! i'd love to have you come," she replied. "but i've promised the evening to cary patten. he wants to bring his fiddle and try over some new music with me." robert's face darkened. "cary patten seems to be here all the time!" he exclaimed, with natural exaggeration. "what nonsense! you know that's not true, robert. he's not here _half_ as much as you are. but if he were, what of it? he's very good-looking, and uncle bob and i both like him, and, indeed, he's _much_ more _entertaining_ than you, robert!" robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked. she felt that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits to manage it. "barbara,--my lady,--my lady,--i love you!" he said, very quietly. "of course, robert! i know that," she answered, with composure, smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists. yet in some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his arms. his breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible. "with all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, i love you, i have loved you, ever since the old child days in second westings!" "that is very dear of you, robert," she responded, her voice and eyes showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words. "but, of course, i have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed true to her at the moment. he could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding her wrists as he was. he flung them from him, drew back a step, and searched her face with a desperate look. "and you--you do not love me at all!" barbara looked thoughtful, regretful. "no, robert, i don't _love_ you--not in the way you mean. i'm not in love with you, you know. but i do care a lot for you, more than for _almost_ any one else!" they had both forgotten--for it was weeks away--how barbara had felt about the imaginary unknown lady. that "almost" was, to robert, the end of all things. he thought at once of cary patten. pain and jealous madness struggled together in his breast, strangling him. "good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the door. "i shall leave to-night!" "robert!" cried barbara, sharply. "come back at once!" he paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility, but showed no sign of obeying. "come back to me!" she commanded. and he, being a courteous gentleman, obeyed. "what is it, lady?" "what on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded. no answer occurred to him as necessary. he looked at her inquiringly, his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard. barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way. she certainly could not let him go. yet she certainly did not love him enough to give up her freedom for him,--to sacrifice all the enchanting experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated vanity. "don't you know, robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that i _couldn't possibly_ get along without you? i don't love you, but i do love you to love me, you know. i couldn't bear to have you go away and forget me, and love some other woman,--some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who could love you and make you happy. i need you to love me. though i know there is no earthly reason why you should, and i think you are a crazy goose to do it, and i believe you only think you do, anyhow!" robert stood motionless. the storm raging up and down within him turned him to steel on the surface. from a dry throat he tried to speak clearly and with moderation. "you said--'almost!' who is it--you care more for?--cary patten?" barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with a fine assumption of glee. "oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed. "it was uncle bob, of course, that i was thinking of when i said that. i love uncle bob better than any one else in the world,--_far_ better than i love you, robert, i can tell you that. but i care for you almost as much as for aunt hitty. cary patten! why, he and these other nice men who are making things so pleasant for me, they are just _new_ friends. i _like_ them, that's all. you are altogether different, you know. but i'm just not in love with you,--and so you talk of going away and spoiling everything for me. i don't call that loving me, robert,--not as _i_ would love a girl if i were a man. but it's not my fault if i'm not in love myself, is it? i'm sorry,--but i don't believe i _can_ love, really, the way you mean! cary patten, indeed! why, he's just a boy,--a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!" "can't you try to love me, barbara?" pleaded robert, his wrath all gone. he flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them. all this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was, a very foolish one. "no, i can't!" she answered, with decision. "trying wouldn't make me. and i don't think i want to, anyhow. i want to enjoy myself here while i can. and i want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not bother me. love me just as much as you like, robert, but don't tell me so--too often! and don't ask me to love you. and _don't_ go and be lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with me, for that would displease me very much, though i should know it was making believe because you were cross at me. so, don't be horrid!" this seemed to robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement. he knew he would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of its injustice. "i certainly would be lovely to the other girls if i wanted to, my lady," said he, doggedly. "the trouble is, i _don't_ want to. and i sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think i don't care. i love you, that's all--better than anything else in heaven or earth. and i shall make you love me, my lady!" this threat amused barbara, but did not displease her. "very well, robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that made his heart jump. "i sha'n't try to prevent you. i'll even like you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute and let me dress." "dress for cary patten!" muttered robert, kissing her hand without enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow. that he should go in this temper did not please her ladyship at all. "and, robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door. "yes, my lady!" and he came back once more. "you said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!" she held out her hand to him again. this time he kissed it with what she considered a more fitting warmth. "and, robert, don't forget that i am _very, very_ good to you, far more so than you deserve. i don't think of telling cary patten, or any of the others, not to flirt with the other girls. cary patten may be as lovely to them as he likes, and i sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me! now, it is a great honour i do you, robert, in not letting you flirt." "i appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile. "a great honour, indeed,--though a superfluous one!" "i have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection," said barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as robert disappeared. chapter xxviii. after this robert was careful, and so was permitted to be fairly happy when he could keep the fires of jealousy banked down in his heart. once in awhile they would begin to get the better of him; and then, after letting barbara see just a glimpse of the flame, that she might not forget it was there, he would leave before she could find him troublesome and work it under by hours of furious riding. he skilfully avoided giving her any further excuse for discipline; and was even so cunning, at times, as to pique her by his show of self-control. in this way he scored continually over the too confident cary patten, who, after a week or two of almost daily calls at the old dutch house on state street, would disappear and not be seen near barbara for days. at such times robert concluded that cary had been tempting providence and suffering the usual disaster of those who so presume. as for jerry waite, and young paget, and the rest of the infatuated train, robert thought that barbara was quite too infernally nice to them all, and cursed them all hotly in his heart; but he could not refrain from admiring the neat manner in which she held them all in hand. early in the autumn, however, it became still more difficult for barbara and robert to keep silent on the great questions which they so dreaded to discuss. the first continental congress was in session at philadelphia, and its deliberations formed a theme to blister men's tongues. made up of tories, radical patriots or potential rebels, and moderates, in fairly even proportion, it satisfied neither barbara nor robert. the latter, in spite of the fact that its new york delegates were of his own party, viewed it with singularly clear eyes, and saw in it not merely an instrument for the constitutional redress of just grievances,--wherein it had his sympathy,--but a forerunner of revolt,--wherein it called forth his passionate reprobation. to barbara, on the other hand, this continental congress, of which she had hoped so much, seemed a mean-spirited, paltering, blear-eyed thing, incapable of seeing what destiny had written large across the continent, or too timorous to acknowledge what it saw. the strain was further increased by matters which touched them both personally. with the news that connecticut, stirred up by false rumours of a struggle with the royal troops in boston, had thousands of her militia under arms, came a letter from mistress mehitable, saying that doctor john was among them, in command of a regiment, and that doctor jim was looking after his patients. at this tidings barbara's heart swelled with mingled pride and anxiety. she pictured the heroic figure doctor john would make, in his uniform, about to fight for the cause which she held so splendid and so righteous. at the same time she saw him already in the fight, waving his sword amid the smoke and slaughter, and she shook with terror for him. both robert and glenowen were with her when the letter came, and as she read it out her voice broke and the tears rolled down her cheeks. "good for john pigeon!" cried glenowen, his eyes aglow. then there was a heavy stillness on the air, such as that which sometimes portends an earthquake, and neither looked at robert. robert's face was very grave, but inspiration came to him, and he said exactly the right thing. "how lonely doctor jim and mistress mehitable must be! second westings must be perfectly desolate!" the danger was averted. he had dwelt, not upon the point of difference, but the point of sympathy; and the difference sank again out of sight. "oh," murmured barbara, "i almost feel as if i ought to go back to aunt hitty!" "i know! but you can't, very well, sweetheart! for which i am most thankful!" said glenowen, promptly. "and mistress mehitable has doctor jim," said robert. "we need you more than she does, dearest lady!" with all the country seething as it was, nowhere else, perhaps, save in new york, would it have been possible to keep up so long the pretence of harmony between opposing factions. new york was full of "moderates," men no less determined to resist the tyranny of parliament than to retain the supremacy of the crown. extremes were thus held in check; and men met in apparent social harmony whose opinions, once put in practice, would have hurled them at one another's throats. but to the little company resorting at the old dutch house on state street there entered now a new element of disruption. at a dance barbara had met a slender, dark youth, a student at king's college, who had made himself prominent by his radical eloquence at a great mass-meeting of the continental party. his scholarly breadth of thought, combined with almost fanatical zeal, delighted her. and he had the uncommon merit of expressing unforgettably the very views she herself had long maintained. they became too interested in conversation to dance; and from that evening mr. alexander hamilton came often to glenowen's lodgings. he was a mere boy in years, but glenowen felt his power at once,--and even robert, who was not unnaturally prejudiced, was too honest not to admit that barbara's young mr. hamilton was a very remarkable and accomplished youth. understanding the sharp divergence of opinion in the little circle, hamilton kept a curb upon his tongue save at convenient seasons. but to his eager and convicted spirit this soon became too difficult. one evening, when there were none to hear him but barbara, robert, and glenowen, the torrent of his boyish ardour overflowed. he depicted the momentous changes toward which each fateful hour was hurrying them. he declared it was no more than a matter of days ere all america would be in the throes of a righteous revolution. he prophesied the birth of a great republic, that should establish liberty in her new world home, and scourge kings, thrones, and tyrannies into the sea. glenowen had looked at him warningly, but in vain. barbara, troubled at first, grew suddenly hot and resentful at the thought that robert should be blind to the splendid dream. she applauded aggressively. robert's brows were knit, but he had no emotion save distress. "i pray you pardon me, dear lady, and you, mr. glenowen, if i take my departure at once," said he, at the first pause. "knowing my sentiments as you both do, fully, you will understand that i could not in honour stay and listen to such doctrines as these of mr. hamilton's and not oppose them with all my force." he bent over barbara's hand, but she petulantly snatched it away without letting him kiss it. then, having shaken hands heartily with glenowen, and bowed stiffly to hamilton, he withdrew in great trouble of mind, feeling that now, in truth, had come to an end the truce between his honour and his love. he walked the streets half the night, and in the morning, white and dejected, but determined to know the worst at once, he went around to state street at the earliest moment permissible after breakfast. barbara received him coldly. but he made haste to face the issue. "surely, dearest lady, you see that i had no alternative but to go!" he pleaded. "i could not quarrel with him, seeing that he was your guest. yet i could not sit and listen to his treason!" "i think the same treason as he uttered, if treason it be! and utter it, too, when i see fit!" said barbara. "that's different!" said robert, and paused. it was on barbara's lips to ask, "how?--why?" but she refrained, lest she should complicate the discussion. "that's different," he repeated, "because you are a woman, and because i love you. but indeed, my lady, i intended no discourtesy to mr. hamilton. if discourtesy there were, surely it was his. i would not have attacked what he holds sacred. yet my sentiments are not less well known than his. he knew that i was pledged to the king's side." barbara bit her lips hard. this was just what she had taken such pains not to know. her heart was bitter enough against him for his views themselves; it was still more bitter against him now for forcing her to confess knowledge of those views. "a little discourtesy, one way or the other, what would that matter?" she asked, scornfully. "there's just one thing that matters to me now, robert. war is coming. have you chosen your side?" "my side has chosen me, dear lady!" he answered, sorrowfully. "listen, robert," she went on, "i have tried not to know that you hold opinions which i hate, and loathe, and despise. it means everything to me, when i say i love my country and hate the enemies of my country. i believe in patriotism." "and i believe, also, in honour and loyalty, oh, my dearest lady!" "your own stupid ideas of honour and loyalty!" cried barbara, with fierce impatience. "i tell you, robert, the enemy of my country cannot be my friend." "but if i am the enemy of your country, so is doctor jim!" protested robert. barbara flushed with annoyance. she did not like an unanswerable argument. "i love doctor jim!" she shot back at him, with cruel implication. "and i love you, barbara!" answered robert, also with meaning. she tossed her head scornfully. "a fig for such love!" she cried. "years ago, when you were just a boy, and could not have your opinions fixed" ("about the age of your mr. hamilton!" he interjected, rashly), "i remember asking you, for my sake, to teach yourself the right things, robert, and join our side, and be faithful to your own country. what do you do? it's not as if it were a mere difference of opinion,--but _i_ am _right_! i am with all the great and wise of old, who have taught that patriotism is a man's highest duty. yet what have you done, robert? you vow you love me! indeed! and you prefer a stupid, far-off, half-crazy tyrant, whom you call your king, and whom you have never seen, to your country, which has borne and cherished you--and to me!" "oh, barbara!" cried robert, desperately. "what are king or country, what are heaven and earth, to me, compared with you? but what would my love be worth to you if, for the sake of my own happiness, i could be a rebel and a traitor? should i be worthy to love you, despising myself? what would you think of me, if i could sell my honour at your bidding!" "i think our ideas of honour are different, robert!" retorted barbara. "but i am not going to quarrel with you now. i am disappointed in you, that's all. and you need not expect that after this we are going to be such friends as we have been. remember that. but--you may come and see us sometimes, of course; and i will dance with you sometimes, of course--if you ask me! only--it is all so different!" and she could not choke down a little weary sigh. robert was on his knees in an instant, kissing her hands; but she repulsed him resolutely. "no, you have chosen for yourself," she said, not unkindly. "it hurts me, truly. but i mean what i say! now, you must go, for i have much to do before dinner. good-bye!" chapter xxix. barbara was as good as her word. from this time forward through that portentous fall and disastrous winter, she never let robert forget that the old footing of familiar friendship was no longer his. she began to make a difference, too,--slight but appreciable,--toward all the declared tories among her followers. she was bound to show some consistency toward robert. and moreover, her fiery and dissatisfied heart was growing restless for the breach that all saw coming but all strove to postpone. oh, she thought, let the cruel line be drawn,--let the make-believe end,--let us know our friends and enemies apart,--let the suspense be done, be done! and--let me get back home to second westings! meanwhile the half-mad king went on fashioning the hooks that were to rend the race in twain,--and an insensate parliament lent power to his fatal hands,--and men like chatham and burke, shelburne and rockingham, poured out impassioned eloquence in vain, pleading for justice to the colonies. by mid-winter (the winter of ) it was plain to every one that the king meant war, if that were the only way to bring the colonies to their knees. ten thousand troops were ordered to boston, and plans were laid for organising the indians on the frontiers. in the colonies, though few dared say it, all were making ready for the struggle. on every hand there was drilling of militia and gathering of the munitions of war. only in new york, as it seemed, things moved as usual, and the royal government remained in full force. as a matter of fact, there were practically two governments going on side by side; for the various "committees of safety" went about their ominous preparations, and the governor well knew it would be unsafe to interfere. the air became so tense with impending storm that people seemed to hold their breath, and when they met their eyes questioned, "has it come?" then it came! and those who had longest and most preparedly waited were most shocked. the bolt that fell was the news of lexington and concord, of the king's troops,--disciplined, war-toughened, the bravest in the world,--driven in wild rout before the sharp-shooting colonial farmers. for five days of amazement men waited, expecting the bloody vengeance that would come. but, instead of vengeance, came the word that boston was beleaguered, that gage with his veteran regiments was shut up tight in the city by ill-armed and unorganised countryside militia. straightway men drew breath again; and the undecided chose their side; and masks were thrown away. even new york, the prudent, the divided, the long politic, proclaimed herself at last, threw off the last empty forms of royal authority, and seized all military supplies within her borders. the glittering life, which had been to barbara so gay an intoxication all these months, now burst like a bubble, leaving her to realise how hollow it had been. she had no regret for it, save as a help to forgetting regrets. she was dissatisfied, and wanted second westings. when, therefore, her uncle came to her, a few days after the news of bunker hill, with word that he had accepted a commission under general washington, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the continental forces, she was not greatly surprised or shocked. she had known all along that glenowen would be at the front. she had faced all the fear of it, and taught herself to think only of the honour. now, she turned very pale, tried to smile encouragement, but sobbed instead, ran to him and held him and kissed him. "of course, uncle bob! you must, i know. i will be brave about it, i promise i will, and not worry you with any silliness!" she murmured at last, finding her voice. "i wish _i_ were a man, so i could go with you!" "and a fiery little fighter you would make, sweetheart!" said glenowen, cheerfully. "but the immediate point is, since you can't go a-soldiering with your old uncle, what shall we do with you? i leave within a week for the general's headquarters at cambridge." "you will take me with you, and leave me at second westings, uncle bob, with aunt hitty and doctor jim to keep me cheered up while you are fighting!" "that's the best plan, decidedly, barbe, for more reasons than one," he answered, suddenly grave. "but i don't think you can depend on doctor jim for very long!" "why, where is he going?" queried barbara, anxiously. "well, you know, he'll _choose_ to go wherever the royalist volunteers may be organising their forces; but if he did not choose, he'd probably have no choice. our connecticut folk left many dead on breed's hill, dear, and the royalists are beginning to find their homes too hot for them. i'm afraid doctor jim will be in peril of rough handling, with his hot temper and his fearless tongue!" "no one in second westings would _dare_ to be rude to doctor jim!" cried barbara, indignantly. "you don't know what they will do, sweetheart, when they are stirred out of their accustomed frame of mind. besides, even if the second westings lads should be mindful of their manners, there are the rougher sort from the neighbouring villages to be thought of. _they_ owe no allegiance to a pigeon, or a ladd either! it may be you will find yourself a very necessary shield to mistress mehitable, even!" "i should like to see them try to interfere with aunt hitty!" flamed barbara, setting her white teeth and flushing. "i'd shoot them, if they _are_ patriots!" glenowen nodded approval, but counselled caution. "you may need to be firm, girlie, but you'll need to be careful and tactful too, or you may find yourself fighting on the wrong side!" he laughed. "do you really mean to say that our people are beginning to attack the tories, just because they think they ought to stick to old king george?" queried barbara, her thought turning to robert, whom she had not seen or heard of for more than a week. "that's inevitable," said glenowen. "if we are to fight england, we fight the tories,--and the tories with the more bitterness because we feel that they ought to be with us. i've heard ugly talk already of tar and feathers for some of our important men here. and they have heard it themselves, and found that business called them urgently elsewhere! other of our tory friends are getting up volunteer companies,--a sort of counterblast to our militia battalions. i hear talk, too, of forcibly disarming all our tories,--especially on long island, where they are as thick as hornets!" "i suppose that's what robert is doing--getting up a company to fight against us! we've not seen him for a week!" said barbara, with a bitterness which her affected indifference failed to disguise. "exactly that! he is one of our most dangerous antagonists here!" answered glenowen, sadly. "he would have been seized days ago, to prevent him doing more mischief; but he's so liked, and respected for his fairness, by all of our party, that no one cares to take the necessary action. he's the sort of man we want on our side!" "he's as pig-headed as king george himself!" cried barbara, hotly. "no, he's true to his colours!" said glenowen. "only he can't see that he has nailed them to the mast of the wrong ship!" "i have no patience with him!" muttered barbara, bitterly, after a moment's silence. "did you ever have, dearie?" inquired glenowen. "what do you mean, uncle bob?" "forgive me, barbe, if i speak plainly, these being times for plain speaking!" said glenowen. "truly, i can't understand a man who loves you being other than wax in your hands, you witch,--if you took the trouble to manage him. that may sound cynical, but i hope not. it's true. you owe robert to our cause! we want him!" barbara looked down, her face scarlet and her lips quivering. then she faced her uncle bravely. "i begin to fear i want him for myself, as much as for the cause, uncle bob!" she confessed. "it's not cary patten, then?" asked glenowen. barbara smiled enigmatically. "cary patten is extremely charming!" she answered. "but do you know, uncle bob, if robert is still in town?" "i think," said glenowen, "i can say with confidence that he will get away from the city to-morrow or next day,---for friends who love him, in our party, will let him know the danger of remaining! one must make such compromises sometimes, if one is a red-blooded human being and not a bloodless saint!" "uncle bob, i'm afraid you will never be a lucius junius brutus!" said barbara. "no, thank god!" cried glenowen, with conviction. "i'm so glad!" said barbara, who was very human when she was not all woman. "brutus was right, i think! but i've always hated him!" then she turned to her scrutoir and wrote a cool little note to robert, asking him to come in and speak to her a moment the next morning. at an hour almost unseemly robert came, of course. and barbara was gracious to him. as if there had been no estrangement, she talked frankly of second westings matters,--of doctor john's service in the siege of boston, of doctor jim's danger because of his opinions, of mistress mehitable's need of her presence at westings house,--just as if they were robert's concern as well as hers. the gladness came back to robert's dark face, and for a moment he was forgetting the barrier between them. "and what are you doing, robert? is it not becoming a little dangerous for you in new york now?" she asked, with gentle frankness. "i am going away to-morrow, dearest lady," he answered, "lest your fiery continentals tie me up!" "and i go back to second westings next week! and you were going away without seeing me for good-bye?" asked barbara, reproachfully. "is this the robert that used to say he loved me a little?" robert looked at her in silence. "i adore the very ground that your foot treads upon!" he said, presently, in a quiet voice. "you love me just as much as you used to?" she inquired, almost wistfully. "as much!" he exclaimed, with scorn. "more and more, every day i breathe. these months that you have treated me so cruelly have been hell on earth. i don't see how i have lived through them." "i, too, have not been very happy, robert!" she acknowledged, softly. "i believe i have needed you more than i thought. do you know, i almost think i might learn to care a great deal--perhaps all that a woman can--if only, if _only_, dear robert, there were not this dreadful barrier between us? oh, if you knew how i long to have you in sympathy with the cause that all my heart is given to,--to talk it all over with you, to hope and plan and look forward with you, in comradeship and understanding! if you knew--but there, i see by your obstinate mouth it is no use. i might as well pour out my heart against a stone wall. _nothing_ will soften you! _nothing_ will convince you! love me? _you_ love me? you have no heart at all in your breast! nothing but a priggish theory!" she burst into passionate, disappointed tears, flung herself down on the sofa, and buried her face in the cushions. robert was in an anguish. his mouth was drawn and white. why should _he_ be called upon to face so hideous an alternative? why must _he_ pay so appalling a price for loyalty, for fidelity, for honour? what was this bourgeois tyrant in england, that the price of loyalty to him should be the love of the woman who was dearer than heaven? robert felt a fierce hatred of the man george of england, who was so unworthy of his kingship! he was mad to throw himself at barbara's feet, and tell her all his life was hers to do as she would with, to offer his faith, loyalty, honour, a living sacrifice to her love, and bid her send him to fight under whatever flag she called hers! but--he held the madness in leash. the tough fibre of his will gave a little, but would not break. the drops stood out on his forehead. but all he said was: "beloved, beloved, i worship you. you are all i can dream of womanhood. you are all of life, all of love, all of wonder and beauty that the world can show. there is nothing my soul can ever desire but you, you, you, wonderful one!" and he tried to take her hands from under her wet face. through her sobs, barbara had listened eagerly for one word that might show a yielding. but there was no such word,--no sign that he even realised that she had been offering her love as the incalculable price that should purchase him to the service of his country. this infinitely precious price,--he spurned it, then! angry mortification surged over her, mixed with a pain that clutched at her heart. the humiliation of it--and the loss! she sat up suddenly. "go, go, go!" she cried, pointing to the door. "i don't want to ever see you again. i hate you. i hate you. go--at _once_!" and then, as robert made no move, and strove to plead once more, she sprang to her feet, darted from the room, and fled up-stairs. he heard her door close sharply,--like the cutting off of life, it seemed to him. and he went away, walking rather blindly, and fumbling for some moments at the hall door before he could find the latch. that same evening he left new york. it was hours before barbara was herself again, so glenowen had to dine alone. late in the afternoon, after having bathed her face back to presentability, she dressed to go out for a sharp walk. when her toilet was almost complete, word came up that cary patten was in the drawing-room. now it was at least six weeks since cary had last attempted to make love to her, and in the meantime he had been altogether charming,--attentive, deferential, full of enthusiastic ambition, and vastly interesting in his large forecasts of what the thirteen colonies would do with independence when they got it. barbara, therefore, had practically forgotten that he was ever in disgrace, and was unwilling to refuse him admittance, little though it suited her mood to see him. she went down at once and received him cordially. cary was in a mood of triumphant excitement, dashed with romantic melancholy. he looked even straighter, taller, more broad-shouldered and high-mettled than usual. his goldy-brown short hair had a crisper curl, his candid blue eyes sparkled with joy and importance. "oh, i know! you needn't tell me!" cried barbara, with hearty sympathy. "only one thing in the world could make your face shine as it does now, cary! you are ordered to the front!" "you've guessed it, sweet mistress!" he cried, in a voice whose boyish exultation would not be kept down. "my company is one of those chosen by the committee of safety to go north. we march _to-morrow_! in a few days we will be in the field--we shall be in the thick of it!" "oh, you are so fortunate, cary!" responded barbara. "think what it must be to be just a woman, and have to stay at home gnawing one's heart, while others have the glorious joy of fighting for freedom!" "only one thing i need to make me happy as i go, sweet lady!" said he, his voice tender, passionate, caressing. "it is bitter to leave you. but i should go thrilling with happiness, to win fame that would make you proud, or to die willingly for my country,--if i might go wearing your favour, if i might go as--" but here he paused. barbara's face was cold and discouraging. there was a moment of strained silence. barbara felt a harsh resentment at his persistence, and an added anger that it should be thrust upon her on this day when her heart was so bitter sore. "yet," she was arguing with herself, "the poor boy does love me. and, unlike some others, he is going to fight on the right side, to shed his blood, perhaps, for the land of his birth. why should i not be a little kind to him,--if he does not ask too much!" on a sudden generous and pitying, if misleading, impulse, she took a ribbon from her throat and gave it to him. "there, boy," she said, gently, "take that, and don't ever say i was not good to you! may it be a charm to ward off the bullet and the steel!" a glad light flashed into the lad's face. he went down on one knee and kissed the hem of her skirt, crying something inarticulately. then he sprang up and seized her in his arms, and would have kissed her but that she wrenched herself free with some violence. "how dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot. cary looked crestfallen and bewildered. "but, barbara," he protested, blundering in his confusion, "don't you love me? i thought--why--this dear ribbon--" and he held it out to her appealingly. barbara's anger faded on the instant. she saw that in desiring to be kind she had misled him. she held out her hand to him, and smiled, as she said: "oh, truly, i'm sorry if i seemed rude, cary. forgive me. but, you know, i _had_ to be rather hasty, or you would have kissed me. and i couldn't let you kiss me, cary, even though you are going to the war!" "why not, dear heart?" persisted he. "am i not going as your chosen cavalier? have you not given me your favour?" "why, no--at least, not exactly that--" she stammered. "i thought you _knew_, cary, that i don't love you one bit! i've told you so over and over again; and i've sent you away over and over again for bothering me about it when i had told you not to! but i do like you, ever so much. and i shall think of you, away fighting bravely--as i know you will--for our sacred cause. and so, i gave you the ribbon--because--because--you said it would make you a little happier if you had something of the sort to take with you! oh, please do try to understand, cary!" and she twisted her hands in distress. cary patten was too much of a boy not to show all the bitterness of his overthrow. he had been lifted up to the crest of triumph, and hurled down disastrously. he had believed, when barbara gave him her token, that the victory, which his confident spirit had never doubted would be his at last, had come at this high moment of his career. he was not only desperately hurt, but sorely humbled. his mind worked rapidly, seeking explanations. one passion after another chased itself over his transparent face; till at length barbara saw his features grow harder and more mature than she had ever before seen them, and the poor little ribbon was crumpled ruthlessly in his grip. "i understand!" he exclaimed, fiercely, a strident tone in his voice which was quite new to her. "it is that runaway tory hound, that traitor gault, that--" and here he choked. "if he has not already run away i shall settle the scoundrel to-night. i shall--" "silence, sir!" cut in barbara. the tone, the look in her face, brought the mad boy to his senses like a drenching in cold water. he could have bitten off his tongue for the outburst. "mr. gault _was_ my friend, and his name is entitled to respect in my presence!" she went on. "and he _is_ a _gentleman_! of you i should have said the same thing--a few moments ago! give me back my ribbon--what you have left of it, mr. patten!" "oh, no! no! forgive me!" cary was crying, in abject penitence, even while she spoke, at the same time thrusting the ribbon into his breast, as if he feared that barbara would take it by force. "i was crazy mad, dear heart. i didn't know what i was saying. i take it all back. it was not so. i know he is a gentleman and a brave man, if he _is_ a traitor tory. surely you will forgive me, when you have broken my heart--barbara." while he was speaking barbara had moved away to the other side of the table; but now, so dejected did he look, so humble, so repentant, and withal so wholesomely boyish, that her heart softened once more, and she came back. "yes, cary, i will overlook it, and make allowance, because i see you are sorry. and i am still truly your friend, and will think about you when you are away. and i am sorry i did anything to make you misunderstand me, so you _must_ give me back the poor little ribbon that did the mischief." "no, you surely can't be so cruel as that!" he pleaded. "i feel it would be unlucky to give it back. don't kill me, dear. let me keep the dear ribbon!" barbara hesitated. she wanted the ribbon back. the giving had been spoiled for her. her impulse was to insist. but events of late had softened her, had given her more comprehension of feelings other than her own,--had made her, indeed, a little less self-centred. she crushed down her vexation. "well, keep it then, cary,--and my friendship with it," she said, gravely. "and to the blessing with which i blessed it for you, i add many more,--that fame may come your way, and danger turn aside. good-bye!" chapter xxx. barbara felt as if a strange great wind had blown upon new york, scattering and changing everything. robert was gone,--when she was seeing little of him, and not desiring to see more, she had, nevertheless, had a satisfaction in knowing he was within reach. now cary patten was gone, and jerry waite was gone, and young paget was gone, and the student enthusiast, young mr. hamilton, came no more to the old dutch house on state street, being engrossed in matters of secrecy and import. and now she herself and uncle bob were going. she felt as if that separating wind would inexorably have lifted and borne her somewhere, even if the haven of second westings had not been open. fate drove indifferently, but left her free to shape her course for westings house and aunt hitty, and her own apple-tree down in the back garden. a few days later she was at home. glenowen, resting but an hour or two, had hastened on to his duties. everything seemed to barbara just as when she went away, save that doctor jim was graver than of old, seeming weighed down with care; and doctor john's absence left a void that ached all the time. but her little room was just as she had left it,--fresh dusted, and with a few things lying about out of place, as she loved to have it. the dust upon the coverlet where "mr. grim" slept was there as of old. "he did not, in fact, sleep there once during all your absence, dear," declared mistress mehitable, "till the very night before your return, when he forsook me and stalked back to his old place. then i knew that you'd be here the next day, and we were very happy together; and i gave him clear cream for his breakfast, and made him very sick!" within three days the old life had taken barbara back at every point, and she felt as if she had awakened from a brilliant but oppressive dream. of course it was interesting telling it all--or not quite all--to every one; to every one the truth, yet not to each the same story. there was one emphasis for aunt hitty and doctor jim, one for the reverend jonathan sawyer, one for mercy chapman, and one much more vivid and enlightening for old debby. but even as she told it, it began to seem unreal to herself. and soon she grew unwilling to talk of it at all. as the bright connecticut summer slipped by, barbara could not but notice a change of temper among the villagers of second westings. to herself they were as civil, as deferential as ever, but, she thought, with a little difference. half a dozen families had representatives in the army besieging boston, and two of the village homes were in mourning. when she was walking with doctor jim she noticed the sullenness with which his hearty, kindly greetings were returned,--a sullenness which doctor jim never allowed himself to observe. then there was difficulty in getting extra help when special needs arose at westings house. the people were unwilling to work for mistress mehitable. they positively refused to work with amos, who had to give up his innocently convivial evenings at the tavern and remain sulking in the kitchen, abused and scorned by abby because he was always in her way. in september, when congress despatched the army of the north to conquer canada, seven more men went from second westings, and enthusiasm grew. with news of the capture of montreal came word also that two of the second westings men had fallen in the battle. then feelings grew hot. one morning, when barbara was visiting mercy chapman's mother,--now a bedridden invalid,--she looked out of the window and saw mistress mehitable coming down the street. as she passed his office, she was joined by doctor jim, and the two strolled together toward squire gillig's store. suddenly she saw doctor jim leave mistress mehitable's side, and stride angrily toward the tavern. she ran out at once to see what was the matter. what she saw set her speeding after doctor jim in breathless indignation. amos, his arms tied behind him, was struggling and kicking in the hands of a dozen men and youths, several of whom had bloody noses to prove that amos had stood to his colours. now they were hurrying him to the cooper shop.--where they knew there was a barrel of pitch,--amid cries of "ride the sneaking tory on a rail," "tar and feather him," "duck him," "hang him." all at once they were confronted by the tall bulk of doctor jim; and they stopped short. the old habit of deference was strong upon them, and several drew away, while others, though they doggedly maintained their grip on the furious and unterrified amos, dropped their eyes and hung their heads when doctor jim's angry gaze fell upon them. "hands off! drop that man! you cowardly bullies, a dozen against one! drop him, do you hear?" and without waiting for the effect of his words he strode into the mob, flung the fringes of it to this side and that with no gentle hand, and reached those who had actual hold upon the prisoner. when he found that they were standing their ground, daring to disobey his orders, his wrath was tremendous. "you scoundrels! you dirty scum of the earth!" he roared. and with that he plucked the nearest fellow by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his breeches and flung him into the gutter. to the next he gave an open-handed buffet that sent him reeling from the mêlée. ignoring the rest, he was proceeding to unpinion amos, when the leader of the mob, a big blacksmith from westings centre, who was a famous demagogue, confronted him. "look a-here, doctor pigeon," he said, defiantly, "we're lettin' _you_ be, leastways for the present! you let us be, an' jest mind yer own business. hands off yerself!" doctor jim, apparently, never heard him. the blacksmith therefore seized amos by the waist and jerked him from doctor jim's grasp. "look a-here, you!" he shouted, squaring off. "you've got to fight me afore you untie that man!" fight him! doctor jim gave an inarticulate roar of scorn and fury at the idea. then his great white hands shot out like lightning. one seized the champion's throat; the other laid terrible hold upon his waistband, with just so much of clothing and skin and flesh as those iron fingers could compass. one huge, dislocating shake and the champion had no more fight in him. doctor jim lifted his demoralised opponent bodily, carried him several paces, and dropped him over the horse trough into the dirty, deep-trodden mud. then, seeing that amos had got himself free, he strode back to where mistress mehitable was waiting, his heavy eyebrows still working with indignation. barbara, whom he had not seen, now had a word to say to the discomfited rabble, who one and all knew her views and admired her prodigiously. she eyed them for half a minute with slow, eviscerating scorn. then she said: "_you_ call yourselves patriots! you make me ashamed of the name. if all americans were like you they'd deserve freedom, wouldn't they? and what is that ruffian doing here?" pointing to the bedraggled, discredited, foaming blacksmith. "must you go to westings centre for a leader? you had better send him back where he belongs!" "you'd better shet your mouth, miss," sputtered the champion, "or you may git--" but at this moment the men of second westings, recovering their manhood, fell upon him with great unanimity and completed the discipline which doctor jim had left unfinished. and barbara walked away with her head in the air. after this mistress mehitable, who was herself, and for herself, absolutely fearless behind her quiet blue eyes, yielded to doctor jim's persuasions and let it be known that barbara, being her heir, was partly in authority at westings house. whenever extra help was needed, therefore, amos was sent down to doctor jim's and barbara hired her helpers in her own name. to her employ the second westings men came willingly enough, and showed themselves humourously tolerant of abby's caustic tongue, which was given full run whenever they entered the kitchen. and the village settled back gradually into a hollow imitation of its ancient somnolence. in the winter, however, not long after christmas, there was another stirring of the hot embers. word came of montgomery's death and arnold's repulse before the walls of quebec. there were men of connecticut among those who fell that night in the northern snow. those at home required an outlet for their feelings. what were the tories for, if not to afford them a chance of evening matters up? a rabble of the worser elements from the up-river villages, led by some noisy fanatics, descended upon gault house by night, and set it on fire. finding old lady gault ill in bed, they somewhat regretted their haste, and carried her, bed and all, with as much of her clothing as they could conveniently save, to the house of one of the tenants on the grounds. the leaders apologised to her, indeed, assuring her that, had they known it would so inconvenience her to have her house burnt down just then, they would have turned their avenging attention elsewhere for that night and awaited her recovery. the fiery and arrogant old lady was so overwhelmed with helpless rage, less at the destruction of the home of the gaults with all its treasures than at the desecration she had suffered, that she was seized next morning with an apoplexy and died in an hour. this news brought consternation to westings house. doctor jim came up to talk it over. he was too much enraged to find relief in one of his customary large ebullitions. it reduced him to a black silence, which barbara found much more impressive than his wrath. "i feel that you ought to go away, jim," said mistress mehitable, with a tenderness that made barbara eye them both sharply, and think of doctor john. "these townships are no place for a reckless partisan like you!" "there is just one reason why you might urge me to go, sweet mistress!" said he. "lest i be prisoned here, and so lose the chance to fight for the king! but my place is here till john comes back. you and barbara cannot be left alone. and the sick folks,--i cannot desert them. but when john comes--" "if it be not then too late! oh, think, jim! every hour now that you stay here carries the menace of some ignominious violence! how can i stand it?" "my place is here, at present, most dear lady!" answered doctor jim, with a positiveness that left no room for argument. "but i think the men of second westings would not quite fail jim pigeon, even though they do curse him behind his back for a tory!" the destruction of gault house and the death of lady gault filled barbara's heart with pity and tenderness toward robert. it oppressed her with a feeling that he was left desolate, a homeless and wandering outcast. she wondered where and when the news would reach him,--being such evil news she felt sure it would journey fast. no word or rumour had she heard of him since that day of their harsh parting in the old dutch house on state street. a few days later she heard from glenowen, who was now in command of one of the regiments besieging boston, that cary patten, after covering himself with glory by his wild daring and desperate exploits, had fallen with montgomery before the walls of quebec. this news sent barbara to her room for the afternoon. besides her many tears for the gallant boy, who had loved her gallantly and truly, she could not for the moment rid herself of a vague remorse. had she been quite fair to him? had she encouraged him even while repelling him? at first she called herself guilty. but after some hours of this self-reproach she came to a clearer view, and saw that it was sentimental weakness to accuse herself. her grief on his account, however, was deep and sincere. "poor, beautiful, brave boy!" she sighed, at last. "how little good to him were my token and my blessings! i fear i am a curse, and not a blessing, to any one who greatly cares for me!" then the thought flashed across her--"if it were robert, instead of poor cary! how do i know that robert, too, has not been--" and at the thought her heart stood still. a sort of numbness came over her, and she found herself shaking violently. she had been lying with her face in the pillow, but now she sat up sharply, brushed the thick, dark locks back from her eyes, went over to the dressing-table, lit two candles, and looked at her white, frightened face in the glass. "i didn't know i cared--like that!" she said to herself, at last. chapter xxxi. in the spring, a little before the fall of boston, doctor john came home. second westings learned then for the first time what he had so studiously and considerately kept concealed,--the fact that he had been wounded in a skirmish two months before. as soon as he was well enough for the journey, he had been ordered home. he looked gaunt, and walked with some difficulty, but otherwise seemed fairly well; and he made haste to take back his old patients, with many expressions of amazement that they had not died off under jim pigeon's treatment. his coming brought new cheer to westings house; and to barbara, reassured by his explicit accounts of her uncle's abounding health, it meant such stimulus and diversion as was to be had of endless, sympathetic talks. the little group of four were as close to one another as of old,--yet with a difference. the love and trust were as of old, but the dividing of hopes and aims threw barbara more and more with doctor john, mistress mehitable more and more with doctor jim. this seemed perfectly natural,--yet it soon began to cause a certain heaviness on doctor john's part, which made his whimsical sallies grow infrequent. it caused, at the same time, a certain uneasiness on the part of doctor jim; and mistress mehitable was seen more than once with tears in her eyes, when, as it seemed to barbara, there was no very definite reason for the phenomenon. and all these symptoms troubled barbara. she grew more than commonly tender of doctor john. one day when she and doctor john and doctor jim had strolled down to the tavern to see the hartford coach come in, they found a knot of eager listeners gathered about two horsemen who were drinking a pot of ale. as the little party approached, its members were pointed out, and the horsemen turned to look at them with sharp interest. the two came from up the river, in the next county, and were on their way to join the connecticut battalions under putnam. they were bitter partisans, and one of them had lost a brother in the fighting at quebec. to them it was of little account that doctor john was a good rebel,--such, in their eyes, all good men were bound to be. and they did not appreciate the fact that he was an officer in the army they were about to join. what they saw was simply doctor jim, the declared tory, shameless and unafraid. they eyed him with growing menace, uncertain, by reason of the fact that he was walking between barbara and doctor john, just what they wanted to do. presently doctor jim swung away by himself to speak to a lad whose mother he was treating. he was giving some little order, when the two horsemen, riding up to him, thrust him against the icy watering-trough so unexpectedly that he fell over it. bewildered, and not understanding that he had been deliberately attacked, he was picking himself up in a sputter of vexation, when one of the riders, a fierce-eyed, burly fanatic, reached over the trough and cut at him viciously with his riding-whip, exclaiming, "take that, you damned tory dog!" the blow missed doctor jim's head, but fell smartly across his shoulders. the next moment a great hand seized the rider, tore him from his seat, jammed him furiously against his horse's rump, and dashed him down upon the dirty snow. then doctor john turned to deal likewise with the second culprit. but he had forgotten his wound. he grew white, reeled, and would have fallen, but that two of the second westings men sprang to his aid and held him up. when the stroke of the whip fell on his shoulders, doctor jim had understood. with one of his wordless explosive roars he had sprung right over the trough to take homeric vengeance. but when he saw doctor john he forgot all about vengeance, he forgot all about the attack. "what is it, john?" he cried, picking him up as if the huge frame were a feather, and carrying him to the settee outside the inn door. "nothing, jim, nothing! the old wound, you know, and the heart not yet just right," muttered doctor john, recovering quickly, but leaning on his brother's shoulder. barbara, meanwhile, had run to fetch brandy, which she now brought, along with the landlord. the two horsemen had had their wrath for the moment diverted by the sudden turn of events. but now--the fellow who had been so mauled in doctor john's grip having remounted, bursting with rage--they thought it time to return to the attack, and made an effort to push through the little crowd. failing in this, they cursed doctor jim with varied vigour, and told him what they intended to do when they could get at him. in their righteous wrath they failed to notice that they were not making themselves popular with the crowd. neither doctor jim nor barbara paid the slightest attention to their curses, not seeming to hear them; but doctor john attended. "lads!" he said, lifting his head with difficulty. "lads of second westings! shall we let these insolent scoundrels talk to us that way?" "no, sir! no, sir! no, sir!" shouted a dozen voices,--whereupon barbara turned and beamed upon them unutterable favour. the landlord, with several other stout fellows, seized the strangers' bridles and forced the horses back toward the road. "ye'd better be gettin' on!" admonished mine host, grinning but decisive. "ye don't rightly understand us here, i calculate! better get on now, for convenience!" the horsemen seemed to have forgotten their wrath in their astonishment. "are you all tories, too?" they found voice to demand. "we're as good patriots as ever you be!" rejoined mine host, crisply. "but if we've got any tories among us they're our own, and we'll see about 'em ourselves, our own way. now clear out!" and he hit the nigh horse a smart slap on the rump, making him bound forward. by this time the leader and spokesman of the twain had recovered his full head of anger. he had no quixotic notion of undertaking to discipline second westings village. but he conceived a very clear purpose. reining his excited horse down violently, he shook his fist at the crowd, and shouted: "if you choose to harbour a dirty tory, there be men and patriots in the other townships who'll come right soon an' teach you yer duty!" "oh, you clear out!" jeered the second westings men. that evening, at westings house, while the beginnings of a bleak march wind storm blustered and whimpered outside, mistress mehitable brewed a hot posset of uncommonly cheering quality. the cheer was needed; for all felt that a crisis of some sort, or some grave change, was at hand. doctor john, who had quite recovered, tried in vain to make his fooling sound spontaneous. the grave eyes of destiny would persist in looking out through the jester's-mask. at length doctor jim exclaimed, abruptly: "i must go, now! i must take amos and slip away in the night, and go wherever men are gathering to fight for the king. i'm not needed here now, john, since you are back to take care of mehitable and barbara!" it was what all had been waiting for, but it came with a shock--the shock of conviction, not of surprise--to all. mistress mehitable turned ghost pale, and unconsciously her hand went to her heart. doctor john noticed the action, with sad eyes that belied the humour of his mouth. barbara sprang up, rushed over to doctor jim, and flung her arms around his neck. "_please_ don't go, doctor jim!" she pleaded. "this is the place for you. and here we all love you so we don't care _what_ side you're on. and as for going to fight for your side,--of course, you want to, we all know that,--but you _never_ can get through to the coast. you can never get through our people. no, you can't, doctor jim! you must stay here with us. help me hold him, aunt hitty!" "jim," said doctor john, his voice trembling with earnestness, "i appeal to you to stay. don't break our hearts by going. stay for our sakes. i know, brother, how you feel,--and believing as you do, i don't blame you,--i'll never blame you. but _barbara is right_. _you can't get through_. you can stay with a clear conscience!" mistress mehitable, since becoming assured of the attitude of the second westings men, had lost all her dread of having him stay, and gained a quivering fear of having him go. forgetful of all else, she now laid her slim hand on his, looked at him with her whole soul in her eyes, and said: "_must_ you? oh, jim, are you so sure you ought to go?" a faint spasm passed over doctor john's face--barbara alone observing it--and seemed to leave it older and sterner. he opened his mouth to speak, but doctor jim was ahead of him. "yes, i know my duty. if a man sees it, he's got to do it,--eh, what, dearest lady in the world? i wish i didn't see it so plain. then i might stay here with you all, you whom i love. but i see my duty, to fight for the king, just as plain as you saw yours, john, to fight for your damned old congress!" "i'm not going to fight any more!" interrupted doctor john, speciously. doctor jim laughed, tenderly derisive. "no, but you're sending, and equipping, and supporting two able-bodied substitutes, aren't you? but another point is, my barbara,--by staying i should bring disaster on you all. the good folk of second westings--and they _are_ good folk, though rebels, alas!--will never stand by and see the ladds and pigeons, whatever their views, molested by an outside world. when your fiery patriots from up the river come to ride me on a rail, second westings will stand in the way and get its honest head broken. _you_ wouldn't do it, john pigeon! you'd cut off your head, before you'd let the poor souls get their heads broken for you in a cause that they believe all wrong. i'd be a coward to let them, john. would you ask me to be a coward?" "wouldn't be much use asking," growled doctor john. "but you're all wrong, as usual, jim!" then he turned suddenly to mistress mehitable, with a meaning look. "you speak, mehitable! you _make_ him stay. demand it of him--as your right! keep him!" doctor jim searched his brother's face, first with terrible question, then with the growing light of a great joy. barbara watched breathless, forgetful of the fate of dynasties. here, she felt, were problems that had held long lives in doubt, now working to instant solution. mistress mehitable turned scarlet, and she, too, questioned the sombre, tender eyes of doctor john. but she said, quite simply: "i'm afraid, john, if he thinks he ought to go he'll go. but i do ask you to stay, jim." "_don't_, mehitable!" groaned doctor jim. "there, what did i tell you, john?" she said. but now certain things, uncertain all his life till now, were quite clear to doctor john. slowly, as if it hurt him, he got up. he went over to where mehitable was sitting, quite close to doctor jim. he laid a hand on each, caressingly,--and to mehitable that touch, suddenly grown bold and firm, was a renunciation. he had never touched her that way before. "it is all right, jim! it is all right, mehitable!" said he, in a very low but quite steady voice. "i never was sure till now,--but i ought to have understood,--for i see now it was always _yours_, jim. forgive me, brother. i ought not to have stood in the way." "john!" cried doctor jim, catching the caressing hand in a fervent clasp. "god bless you! but--on my honour i have never said a word!" "i know, jim, i know. we've always played fair to each other. but now you can speak. and now,--you don't need to speak, either of you. your faces speak plain enough, to the eyes of one who loves you both!" "is it true, mehitable? after all these years that i've kept silence,--oh, is it true?" asked doctor jim, scarcely above a whisper, reaching out his hands to her longingly. for one instant she laid hers in his. then she withdrew them quickly, seized doctor john's hand in both of hers, laid her cheek against it, and burst into tears. "oh, john, dear john," she sobbed. "how can i bear that you should be unhappy?" doctor john blinked, and made a little noise in his throat. then, with a brave levity, he exclaimed: "tut! tut! don't you worry about me, either of you, now. as for you, jim pigeon, you tory scoundrel, i'm getting the best of you, after all. for i stay right here and take care of her, lord knows how long, while you go off, lord knows where, and get yourself poked full of holes for your old king george-- eh, what, baggage? as jim would say!" and he turned unexpectedly toward barbara, who had been standing by the window, and peering diligently out into the blackness for the past ten minutes,--and surreptitiously wiping her eyes as well as her nose. "yes, indeed you _do_ get the best of the bargain," she cheerfully and mendaciously agreed. two days later, in the dark before moonrise, doctor jim and amos slipped away on horseback by the road to westings landing. and doctor john went with them as far as the landing, to put them into trusty hands for their night voyage down the river. chapter xxxii. a few days after doctor jim's going, came the news that washington had entered boston, the troops of the king having given up the defence and sailed away to halifax. soon afterward there was bustle in second westings, and camp talk, and military swagger; for a portion of the army was moving down to new york, and many men had leave to visit their homes in passing; and some, who had enlisted for a short service, had come home to get in the crops before reënlisting; and some, grudging souls, had come home to stay, saying that it was now the time for others to sweat and bleed for their country. amid all this excitement, which had some effect even upon mistress mehitable, antagonistic though she was to it, the palely brilliant connecticut spring rushed over the land with promise. never before, it seemed, did the vanguards of the song-sparrows and thrushes so crowd the blowing thickets with melody; never before the bright hordes of the dandelions so suddenly and so goldenly over-flood the meadows. but to barbara the iridescent glory was somehow more sad than gloom. the fact that her cause was everywhere prospering, that success had fallen to the continental arms beyond anything that she had dared to hope, brought her no elation. she felt the sorrow that had come into doctor john's life in spite of the big, whimsical gaiety with which he kept it covered up. she felt the fierce tugging at mistress mehitable's heart-strings, though that thoroughbred little lady never revealed, save by the dark eye-shadows of sleepless nights, the pangs it cost her to be deprived in a day of the lover whom she had been half a lifetime in finding out. barbara felt, too, the absence of doctor jim, who seemed to her so big and boyish and reckless and unfit to take care of himself that he could not fail to get into trouble if not kept at home and mothered by small women like herself and aunt hitty. and most of all she felt the crushing uncertainty as to robert. when summer was approaching high tide, second westings grew quiet again, the soldiers being all called back to their colours to make ready the defences of new york. then, by hard-riding express messengers, the tidings flew over the country that congress at philadelphia, on the fourth day of july, had declared independence, and set up a republic to be known as the "united states of america." second westings went wild with enthusiasm, and that night there was a terrific consumption of old tar barrels and dry brush. and there was a select little dinner at squire gillig's, to which barbara and doctor john felt in duty bound to go,--and from which mistress mehitable, with an equal devotion to duty, stayed away. she had taken the news gracefully enough, however, merely suggesting to barbara and doctor john that possibly all the rejoicing might turn out to be a little premature. thereafter it seemed to barbara that events moved furiously, one piece of vital news following close upon the heels of its predecessor. early in august came word that a great english army for the capture of new york was landing at staten island. then, the first tidings of robert,--reaching barbara in a letter from her uncle, whose regiment was holding brooklyn. glenowen wrote that from certain neutrals, country-folk of long island, who had no party but their cabbage-patch, he had learned of both robert gault and doctor jim. doctor jim, as representing one of the oldest and most distinguished families of connecticut, and himself widely known, had been attached to the staff of the english general, sir william howe, while robert gault, with the rank of captain, was in command of a troop of irregular loyalist horse. with the unspeakable relief that these tidings brought her, barbara regained for a few days her old vivacity, imperiousness, and daring. she tore about the country wildly as of old, on horseback,--no longer, as a rule, on black prince, who had grown too sedate to fully fall in with her caprices, but on a fiery young sorrel which she had bought for herself, choosing it partly for its own qualities, and partly for its resemblance to robert's old narragansett pacer. she resumed her canoeing on the lake. she sang again her old plantation songs, to doctor john's accompaniment and mistress mehitable's diversion. she put a new and gayer ribbon on the neck of the furry "mr. grim." she even remembered that the bergamot was in flower, and set herself with interest to the distilling of her half-forgotten "water of maryland memories," laughing indulgently the while at the girlishly sentimental name of it. meantime she was conscious of a curiously divided interest in the war,--conscious that her interest was divided in a fashion that would, a year ago, have seemed to her wicked and impossible. just as passionately as ever was her heart set upon the triumph of her cause. but she felt an irrational desire that robert and doctor jim should win each a splendid victory on his own account. she was full of pity that they should be on what she held the surely losing side, and she wanted some measure of glory to be theirs. but the next news that came dashed her spirits. it told of the battle of long island, and the defeat of the continentals by the ordered british lines. it told of the panic flight of patriot regiments. it told of general washington's retreat from long island and entrenching of the army at new york. a few days later came a letter to barbara from glenowen,--whose regiment had stood firm and suffered heavily,--in which he said that he did not think it would be possible to hold new york with the troops at washington's command, and that there would doubtless soon be a further retreat to some position beyond the harlem. the letter made no mention of doctor jim,--which caused barbara to remind mistress mehitable that no news was good news,--but it spoke with somewhat bitter praise of robert gault. it said that robert's little squadron of mad tories had gone through the continental ranks like flame, irresistible and deadly, and had done more than anything else to cause the breaking of putnam's lines. robert had had his horse shot under him, and his hat shot off, but had himself, as report said, escaped without a scratch, though with a much diminished troop. as she was reading this out to mistress mehitable, all at once and to her deep mortification her scrupulously matter-of-fact voice thrilled and broke. mistress mehitable shot her a glance of swift understanding and sympathy, and then pretended that she had noticed nothing unusual. barbara coughed, and went on. but her voice had become unmanageable. with an impatient gesture and a toss of her head she handed over the letter. "you'll have to read it yourself, honey! it upsets me to hear of our poor fellows beaten like this!" she cried, hypocritically. "of course, dear, i quite understand!" replied mistress mehitable, keeping her eyes strictly upon the letter, that she might the more easily seem deceived. a few days later, glenowen's prediction was fulfilled, and the news that came to second westings was of washington's hasty retreat from new york to the harlem heights, leaving his artillery and heavy baggage behind. then for a month there was expectancy, and to barbara in her quiet green land it seemed marvellous that the two armies could lie facing each other in this way, day after day, and not be stirred to decisive action. she wondered how their nerves could bear the strain of such waiting. the bright september dragged by in drowsy fashion, and october ran on in its blue and golden-brown; and then the word that came was of yet another retreat. the british had enlarged their narrow borders, and washington had drawn back to the line of the bronx, where he fortified himself strongly so as to hold the roads leading inland. would he never stop retreating, questioned barbara, anxiously, echoing the cry that went up all over the infant union. "i think not, dear!" responded mistress mehitable, cheerfully. but doctor john, who understood the conditions, declared that this fabian policy was the only sound one, while the continental troops were getting seasoned and learning the arts of war. even while this teaching was being digested, came word of the fierce battle of white plains, where the two armies, in numbers closely matched, long held each other by the throat without decisive advantage. when, two days later, the continentals again withdrew, this time to hasty entrenchments at new castle, doctor john had hard work to convince barbara that this long-drawn-out and bloody struggle was not an american defeat. for days thereafter word kept coming in, telling of the losses on both sides, and supplying vivid details; and the blinds of mourning were drawn down in more than one modest second westings home. a brief message came from glenowen, saying that he was safe and well. but of doctor jim no word; of robert not a word. and barbara and mistress mehitable durst not meet each other's eyes lest either should read therein, and cry aloud, the fear in the other's heart. chapter xxxiii. with the coming in of this tumultuous november, there came to second westings a few days of indian summer magic. the moveless air seemed a distillation of dreams. the faint azure haze hung everywhere, soft yet cool, with an elusive fragrance as of clean smoke and fading roses and fresh earth-mould and lofts of grain. and on one of these consecrated days barbara set out early in the morning to paddle across the lake and see old debby. as on a morning long ago, but not so early, she ran down the back garden path, and behind the barn, and climbed the pasture bars. this time she called to keep; and the big mastiff, who now slept later than of old, came somewhat stiffly gamboling from his manger bed in the horse stable. she tripped along the pasture path, between the hillocks. she trod rapidly the black earth of the old wood-road, where the shadows were lighter now, and no sound broke the stillness save the eerie sigh and footfall of the dropping leaves. she launched the canoe with easy vigour, motioned keep to his place in the bow, and pushed out with strong, leisurely strokes across the enchanted mirror. that far-off morning of her flight came back to her with strange poignancy, and she wondered if the blue heron would be standing at the outlet to admonish her with his enigmatic gaze. as she approached the outlet, the point was vacant. but suddenly a strange, dishevelled figure, hatless, and in a blood-stained british uniform, emerged from the trees near by, came down amid the tall yellow grasses, and stood staring across the lake. he stood thus with blank eyes for a moment, apparently not seeing the canoe, then pitched forward, and lay on his face close to the water's edge. with one sharp cry of his name, barbara surged upon the paddle and shot the canoe toward land, wasting no mare breath on words. she sprang ashore, turned the still form over, loosened the low vest and the throat of the shirt, and dashed water in the white, stained, deathlike face. at first she thought he was dead, and she felt things growing black before her eyes. then she caught herself, and held herself steady for the need. if she could not be strong now, what right had she to call herself a woman, or to love a man. she felt at his heart and found that he was alive. she saw that he was sorely wounded. she told herself that he had swooned from loss of blood, weariness, hunger,--but that he had lived, would live, must live. then she dragged him further back into the grass, where he was hidden. calling keep from the canoe, she sat down for a moment with robert's head in her lap, and planned what should be done. he must not be found in second westings, that she knew. for an english prisoner of war it would be all very well,--but for a tory it might be different. she could take no risks. in a moment or two her mind was made up. she bent over, and kissed the unresponding mouth. then she rose, and turned to keep, who had stood sniffing at robert's clothes with sympathetic interest. they were shocking clothes, but keep dimly remembered the man within them. barbara pointed to the helpless figure, saying: "lie down, keep!" and keep lay down, with his muzzle on robert's arm. "guard, sir!" commanded barbara. and keep rolled upon her a comprehending and obedient eye. then she pushed off the canoe, and paddled hastily down the river to fetch old debby. during all these years since barbara's interrupted flight, no one had really read her heart, or been the unacknowledged recipient of her confidences, so fully as mrs. debby blue. now, when barbara arrived, breathless, with great, strained eyes, tears in her voice, but her red mouth sternly set, the old woman understood with few words. at another time, barbara would have been amazed at this swift understanding. now, she was only grateful for it. while she was explaining, debby was rummaging on shelves and in boxes, looking for sundry simples of her cunning extraction. at last she said: "don't you be worried, my sweeting. if mr. robert kin be cured up, old debby's the one that kin cure him up, well as any doctor in the land, not even exceptin' doctor jim. an' i've got the place where we kin hide him, too, an' keep him safe till he gits well. an' now, i'm after you, miss barby, sweetheart!" "god bless your dear, true heart, debby," cried barbara, leading the way in hot haste to the canoe. when they arrived at the point, robert was just recovering consciousness, in a dazed fashion. they saw him make an effort to sit up; and they saw keep, who was nothing if not literal in his interpretation of barbara's commands, put his two huge fore paws on robert's breast and firmly push him down again. the tears jumped to barbara's eyes at this, and she gave a little hysterical laugh, exclaiming: "just look at that, debby! good _dear_ old keep! even he knows that robert must be kept hidden!" when they got to him, he sat up determinedly, and recognised barbara with a look of utter content. "you, my lady! i have come a very long way to look--" and then he sank off again, falling back into barbara's supporting arms. [illustration: _he sank off again, falling back into barbara's supporting arms_.] "why, he's _starved_, that's what he is!" exclaimed debby, examining him critically and feeling his pulse. "an' he's lost pretty nigh all the blood was ever in him. an' he's got two wounds here, either one enough to do for a man!" she forced some fiery liquor down his throat, and then, as a faint colour came back to his lips, she gave him to drink from a bottle of milk. he drank eagerly, but automatically, without opening his eyes. "he's been wounded at white plains, poor dear!" murmured barbara, leaning over him a face of brooding tenderness. "an' he's wandered all the way up here, a-lookin' for you, miss barby!" responded the old woman. "do you really think so?" murmured barbara. "no manner of doubt!" said old debby, positively, as she set about dressing and binding robert's wounds. in a little while robert was able to sit up again; and then to be helped to his feet; and then to be half guided, half carried to the canoe. there he was placed on a bed of heaped armfuls of dry grass. old debby squatted precariously in the bow,--she was more at home in a punt than in a canoe,--and barbara thrust out from shore, heading down the little river. robert was still too far gone in exhaustion to explain his strange appearance at second westings, or to ask any questions, or to care where he was going, so long as he was able to open his eyes every once in awhile and look at barbara. when he did so, barbara would smile back reassuringly, and lay a slim brown finger on her lips, as a sign that he was not to talk. and happily he would close his eyes again. barbara paddled down past debby's landing, past the ducks and hens and turkeys, now too lazy to make more than casual comment. keep, meanwhile, followed anxiously along the shore, close to the edge, and now and then splashing in belly deep. "how far is it, debby dear?" asked barbara, presently. "jest a little mite furder," answered the old woman, who relished the situation immensely. "a matter of half a mile, maybe!" and so they slipped noiselessly on, in that enchanted light, over that enchanted water with its reflections of amber and blue. some crows, grown suddenly garrulous over private matters, cawed pleasantly in the pine-tops a little way off against the sky, and then subsided again into silence. on both banks of the stream the trees held out their leaves, russet and gold, amethyst and bronze and scarlet, like so many little elfin hands attesting that all fair dreams come true at last for those who have the key to the inner mysteries. barbara was paddling in a dream herself, when suddenly old debby said, "turn in here, my sweeting! here to your right!" "but where?" asked barbara, puzzled. "i don't see any place to turn in!" "straight through them dripping branches yonder by the water-logged stump!" directed the old woman. "straight on through!" as the prow of the canoe came up to what was seemingly the shore, old debby parted the branches. as the canoe pushed onward, she continued this process,--and a few feet in from the main stream they entered a long, narrow deadwater, deep and clear, and perfectly hidden from the world. it was perhaps a hundred yards in length, slightly winding; and at its head, on a gentle rise, stood a little deserted log cabin. "oh, _debby_!" cried barbara. "how did you ever find such a place?" "it's been empty this ten year!" answered debby. "an' folks has forgotten, that ever knowed. an' i've been keepin' it to myself, when i wanted to get away from the ducks an' hens a mite. an' i've kep' it from fallin' to pieces. i'll nurse master robert here till he's able to get away, if it takes a year. an' i'll come back and forward in my punt. there's a bunk ready now, full of pine-needles; an' when we get him into it we'll go back to make it all right with aunt hitty. _ain't_ i got a head on my old shoulders, now, miss barby?" even as debby had so swiftly and fully planned, it was done. robert was still so far gone in exhaustion, and so wandering in his mind, that barbara would not let him talk; and before they left him--with keep an incorruptible sentry at the door--he had fallen into a deep sleep. when they returned a couple hours later, he was awake and quite clear, and so determined to talk that barbara could not but let him. he sat up in the bunk, but barbara, bending shining eyes down close to his, laid him back upon the pillow. "debby says you must not sit up at all, robert!" she said. "and what do you say, my lady?" he asked, devouring her radiant dark face with his eyes. "i say so, too!" she answered, laughing softly. "why, my lady?" he persisted. "because it will hinder you getting well, silly!" she replied, touching his hair with cool fingers. "what matter about a 'damned tory' getting well?" he began, being very weak and foolish. but the slim hand sweetly closed his mouth. "how did you get here--to me?" barbara asked, changing the subject. he smiled up at her. "we charged through the rebels!" he explained, frankly. "we cut them down, and scattered them, and chased them till we were within the enemy's lines. then we could not get back. they surrounded us. they overwhelmed us. we were annihilated. i escaped, i shall never know how, hatless and horseless, as you found me, my lady, i tried to get back to my regiment. it was no use. then, somehow, a spirit in my feet led me back here, to you. i just escaped capture a score of times. i had nothing to eat for days, save roots and leaves. i remember coming to the shore of the dear lake, and straining my eyes across it, to see the chimneys of the house where my love lay. then i saw no more, knew no more, till i saw my love herself in very truth, leaning her face over mine. and i thought i was in heaven, my lady." "you still love me, robert, after the hideous way i treated you?" questioned barbara, her voice a little tremulous. he started again to sit up; but being again suppressed, was fain to content himself with clutching both her hands to his lips. "there is nothing in the world but you, barbara," he said. "there is nothing i want but you, wonderful one!" "then--you may take me, robert, i think!" she whispered, dropping her face, and brushing his lips with her hair. "me?" he cried, in a voice suddenly strong, glad, and incredulous. "me? sick near to death, hunted near to death, a beaten and fleeing enemy, a tory? i may take you, my queen, my beloved?" "whatever you are, dear, i have found that you are my love," she answered. "i don't care much what you are, so long as you are mine. i find i am just a woman, robert--and in my conceit i thought myself something more. i love my country, truly. but i love my lover more. i shall not ask you whether you bow to king or to congress,--but only ask you to get well!" he reached up both arms, and slowly pulled down her still averted face till it was close to his. then she turned her face suddenly to him, and her lips met his. a moment later she untwined his arms, went to the door, and glanced unheeding down at old debby, gathering wood. then, her face and eyes still glowing, she came back, smoothed his hair, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and said, "now you must be quiet, dear. debby will scold me if i let you talk any more!" but robert was excited, drunk with new joy after long despair. "just one word, and i will obey, dear heart! listen, my lady. i will draw sword no more in this quarrel. i have given my blood, my lands,--i have given, as i thought, my love,--for a cause already lost, for a cause that i felt to be wrong from the day of lexington, but whichever side wins, i will stay in my own country, if my country, when it is all over, will let me stay. when i am well enough to go away--love, love, will you go with me, to return, when the fighting and the fury cease, to our own dear river and our own dear woods?" "yes, you know i will, robert," answered barbara, kneeling down and looking into his eyes. "you know that is what i am planning, dear one. now go to sleep, and get well, and take me away when you will!" and holding her hand against his neck he forthwith went to sleep, like a child, tired and contented. barbara knelt for a long time unmoving, her hand warm in his weak clasp, and was grateful to old debby for staying so long away. as she knelt, the side of her face to the door, she heard a soft _thud, thud_ on the threshold, and looked around out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head. she saw two wild rabbits, filled with curiosity at finding the cabin door open. they hopped in warily, and went bounding all about the room, sniffing with their sensitive, cleft nostrils; waving their ears back and forth at every faint whisper; and from time to time sitting up to ponder their discovery. one of them bounded over barbara's little foot, turned to examine it, and nibbled tentatively at the heel of her shoe till she had to make the muscles tense to keep him from pulling it off. then, standing up together for a moment, they seemed to take counsel and conclude that they had business elsewhere. as they hopped lazily away from the door, barbara got up and followed to look after them. the wonderful day was drawing to its close; and long, straight beams of rosy gold, enmeshed with the haze, were streaming through the trees to her very feet. she laughed a little happy laugh under her breath. those bright paths leading to the sun seemed a fair omen. the end. a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices new, clever, entertaining. gret: the story of a pagan. by beatrice mantle. illustrated by c. m. relyea. the wild free life of an oregon lumber camp furnishes the setting for this strong original story. gret is the daughter of the camp and is utterly content with the wild life--until love comes. a fine book, unmarred by convention. old chester tales. by margaret deland. illustrated by howard pyle. a vivid yet delicate portrayal of characters in an old new england town. dr. lavendar's fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine, healthful and life giving. "old chester tales" will surely be among the books that abide. the memoirs of a baby. by josephine daskam. illustrated by f. y. cory. the dawning intelligence of the baby was grappled with by its great aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something at which even the infant himself winked. a delicious bit of humor. rebecca mary. by annie hamilton donnell. illustrated by elizabeth shippen green. the heart tragedies of this little girl with no one near to share them, are told with a delicate art, a keen appreciation of the needs of the childish heart and a humorous knowledge of the workings of the childish mind. the fly on the wheel. by katherine cecil thurston. frontispiece by harrison fisher. an irish story of real power, perfect in development and showing a true conception of the spirited hibernian character as displayed in the tragic as well as the tender phases of life. the man from brodney's. by george barr mccutcheon. illustrated by harrison fisher. an island in the south sea is the setting for this entertaining tale, and an all-conquering hero and a beautiful princess figure in a most complicated plot. one of mr. mccutcheon's best books. told by uncle remus. by joel chandler harris. illustrated by a. b. frost, j. m. conde and frank verbeck. again uncle remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another little boy to that non-locatable land called "brer rabbit's laughing place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play their parts, for the edification of a small but appreciative audience. the climber. by e. f. benson. with frontispiece. an unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman's soul--a woman who believed that in social supremacy she would find happiness, and who finds instead the utter despair of one who has chosen the things that pass away. lynch's daughter. by leonard merrick. illustrated by geo. brehm. a story of to-day, telling how a rich girl acquires ideals of beautiful and simple living, and of men and love, quite apart from the teachings of her father, "old man lynch" of wall st. true to life, clever in treatment. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * grosset & dunlap's dramatized novels a few that are making theatrical history mary jane's pa, by norman way illustrated with scenes from the play. delightful, irresponsible "mary jane's pa" awakes one morning to find himself famous, and, genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny. one of the most numerous bits of recent fiction. cherub devine. by sewell ford. "cherub," a good hearted but not over refined young man is brought in touch with the aristocracy. of sprightly wit, he is sometimes a merciless analyst, but he proves in the end that manhood counts for more than and? cut lineage by winning the love of the fairest girl in the flock. a woman's way. by charles somerville. illustrated with scenes from the play. a story in which a woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently tragic situation into one of delicious comedy. the climax. by george c. jenks. with ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little village where she was born and the limited audience of st. jude's to train for the opera in new york. she leaves love behind her and meets love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment. how she works, how she studies, how she suffers, are vividly portrayed. a fool there was. by porter emerson browne, illustrated by edmund magrath and w. w. fawcett. a relentless portrayal of the career of a man who comes under the influence of a beautiful but evil woman; how she lures him on and on, how he struggles, falls and rises, only to fall again into her net, make a story of unflinching realism. the squaw man. by julie opp faversham and edwin milton royle. illustrated with scenes from the play. a glowing story, rapid in action, bright in dialogue with a fine courageous hero and a beautiful english heroine. the girl in waiting. by archibald eyre. illustrated with scenes from the play. a droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a venturesome spirit and an eye for human oddities. the scarlet pimpernel. by baroness orczy. illustrated with scenes from the play. a realistic story of the days of the french revolution, abounding in dramatic incident, with a young english soldier of fortune, daring, mysterious as the hero. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices cy whittaker's place. by joseph c. lincoln. illustrated by wallace morgan. a cape cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl. full of honest fun--a rural drama. the forge in the forest. by charles g. d. roberts. illustrated by h. sandham. a story of the conflict in acadia after its conquest by the british. a dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of poetic romance. a sister to evangeline. by charles g. d. roberts. illustrated by e. mcconnell. being the story of yvonne de lamourie, and how she went into exile with the villagers of grand pré. swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong novel. the opened shutters. by clara louise burnham. frontispiece by harrison fisher. a summer haunt on an island in casco bay is the background for this romance. a beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. a delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all. the right princess. by clara louise burnham. an amusing story, opening at a fashionable long island resort, where a stately englishwoman employs a forcible new england housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. how types so widely apart react on each others' lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in sentiment. the leaven of love. by clara louise burnham. frontispiece by harrison fisher. at a southern california resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of living--of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy. the story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasé woman by this glimpse into a cheery life. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices the music master. by charles klein. illustrated by john rae. this marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a german musician in new york for his little daughter. mr. klein has well portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door. a superb bit of fiction, palpitating with the life or the great metropolis. the play in which david warfield scored his highest success. dr. lavendar's people. by margaret deland. illustrated by lucius hitchcock. mrs. deland won so many friends through old chester tales that this volume needs no introduction beyond its title. the lovable doctor is more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies of the old village are told with dramatic charm. old chester tales. by margaret deland. illustrated by howard pyle. stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in a sleepy old town. dr. lavendar, a very human and lovable "preacher," is the connecting link between these dramatic stories from life. he fell in love with his wife. by e. p. roe. with frontispiece. the hero is a farmer--a man with honest, sincere views of life. bereft of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source, comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his respect and eventually wins his love. a bright and delicate romance, revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies. the yoke. by elizabeth miller. against the historical background of the days when the children of israel were delivered from the bondage of egypt, the author has sketched a romance of compelling charm. a biblical novel as great as any since "ben hur." saul of tarsus. by elizabeth miller. illustrated by andré castaigne. the scenes of this story are laid in jerusalem, alexandria, rome and damascus. the apostle paul, the martyr stephen, herod agrippa and the emperors tiberius and caligula are among the mighty figures that move through the pages. wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices quincy adams sawyer. a picture of new england home life. with illustrations by c. w. reed, and scenes reproduced from the play. one of the best new england stories ever written. it is full of homely human interest * * * there is a wealth of new england village character, scenes and incidents * * * forcibly, vividly and truthfully drawn. few books have enjoyed a greater sale and popularity. dramatized, it made the greatest rural play of recent times. the further adventures of quincy adams sawyer. by charles felton pidgin. illustrated by henry roth. all who love honest sentiment, quaint and sunny humor, and homespun philosophy will find these "further adventures" a book after their own heart. half a chance. by frederic s. isham. illustrated by herman pfeifer. the thrill of excitement will keep the reader in a state of suspense, and he will become personally concerned from the start, as to the central character, a very real man who suffers, dares--and achieves! virginia of the air lanes. by herbert quick. illustrated by william r. leigh. the author has seized the romantic moment for the airship novel, and created the pretty story of "a lover and his lass" contending with an elderly relative for the monopoly of the skies. an exciting tale of adventure in midair. the game and the candle. by eleanor m. ingram. illustrated by p. d. johnson. the hero is a young american, who, to save his family from poverty, deliberately commits a felony. then follow his capture and imprisonment, and his rescue by a russian grand duke. a stirring story, rich in sentiment. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices bruvver jim's baby. by philip verrill mighels. an uproariously funny story of a tiny mining settlement in the west, which is shaken to the very roots by the sudden possession of a baby, found on the plains by one of its residents. the town is as disreputable a spot as the gold fever was ever responsible for, and the coming of that baby causes the upheaval of every rooted tradition of the place. its christening, the problems of its toys and its illness supersede in the minds of the miners all thought of earthy treasure. the furnace of gold. by philip verrill mighels, author of "bruvver jim's baby." illustrations by j. n. marchand. an accurate and informing portrayal of scenes, types, and conditions of the mining districts in modern nevada. the book is an out-door story, clean, exciting, exemplifying nobility and courage of character, and bravery, and heroism in the sort of men and women we all admire and wish to know. the message. by louis tracy. illustrations by joseph c. chase. a breezy tale of how a bit of old parchment, concealed in a figurehead from a sunken vessel, comes into the possession of a pretty girl and an army man during regatta week in the isle of wight. this is the message and it enfolds a mystery, the development of which the reader will follow with breathless interest. the scarlet empire. by david m. parry. illustrations by hermann c. wall. a young socialist, weary of life, plunges into the sea and awakes in the lost island of atlantis, known as the scarlet empire, where a social democracy is in full operation, granting every man a living but limiting food, conversation, education and marriage. the hero passes through an enthralling love affair and other adventures but finally returns to his own new york world. the third degree. by charles klein and arthur hornblow. illustrations by clarence rowe. a novel which exposes the abuses in this country of the police system. the son of an aristocratic new york family marries a woman socially beneath him, but of strong, womanly qualities that, later on, save the man from the tragic consequences of a dissipated life. the wife believes in his innocence and her wit and good sense help her to win against the tremendous odds imposed by law. the thirteenth district. by brand whitlock. a realistic western story of love and politics and a searching study of their influence on character. the author shows with extraordinary vitality of treatment the tricks, the heat, the passion, the tumult of the political arena, the triumph and strength of love. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices happy hawkins. by robert alexander wason. illustrated by howard giles. a ranch and cowboy novel. happy hawkins tells his own story with such a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last in positive affection. comrades. by thomas dixon, jr. illustrated by c. d. williams. the locale of this story is in california, where a few socialists establish a little community. the author leads the little band along the path of disillusionment, and gives some brilliant flashes of light on one side of an important question. tono-bungay. by herbert george wells. the hero of this novel is a young man who, through hard work, earns a scholarship and goes to london. written with a frankness verging on rousseau's, mr. wells still uses rare discrimination and the border line of propriety is never crossed. an entertaining book with both a story and a moral, and without a dull page--mr. wells's most notable achievement. a husband by proxy. by jack steele. a young criminologist, but recently arrived in new york city, is drawn into a mystery, partly through financial need and partly through his interest in a beautiful woman, who seems at times the simplest child and again a perfect mistress of intrigue. a baffling detective story. like another helen. by george horton. illustrated by c. m. relyea. mr. horton's powerful romance stands in a new field and brings an almost unknown world in reality before the reader--the world of conflict between greek and turk on the island of crete. the "helen" of the story is a greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant--pure as snow. there is a certain new force about the story, a kind of master-craftsmanship and mental dominance that holds the reader. the master of appleby. by francis lynde. illustrated by t. de thulstrup. a novel tale concerning itself in part with the great struggle in the two carolinas, but chiefly with the adventures therein of two gentlemen who loved one and the same lady. a strong, masculine and persuasive story. a modern madonna. by caroline abbot stanley. a story of american life, founded on facts as they existed some years ago in the district of columbia. the theme is the maternal love and splendid courage of a woman. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * a few of grosset & dunlap's great books at little prices when a man marries. by mary roberts rinehart. illustrated by harrison fisher and mayo bunker. a young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a visit is due from his aunt selina, an elderly lady having ideas about things quite apart from the bohemian set in which her nephew is a shining light. the way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms the motif of the story. a farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "seven days." the fashionable adventures of joshua craig. by david graham phillips. illustrated. a young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and social life in washington. he attains power in politics, and a young woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education in social amenities. "doc." gordon. by mary e. wilkins-freeman. illustrated by frank t. merrill. against the familiar background of american town life, the author portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery. "doc." gordon, the one physician of the place, dr. elliot, his assistant, a beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved in the plot. a novel of great interest. holy orders. by marie corelli. a dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful financiers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in holy orders"--problems that we are now struggling with in america. katrine. by elinor macartney lane. with frontispiece. katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely irish girl, of lowly birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice. the narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one. the fortunes of fifi. by molly elliot seawell. illustrated by t. de thulstrup. a story of life in france at the time of the first napoleon. fifi, a glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third rate parisian theatre. a story as dainty as a watteau painting. she that hesitates. by harris dickson. illustrated by c. w. relyea. the scene of this dashing romance shifts from dresden to st. petersburg in the reign of peter the great, and then to new orleans. the hero is a french soldier of fortune, and the princess, who hesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates may be lost and yet saved. grosset & dunlap, west th st., new york * * * * * brilliant and spirited novels agnes and egerton castle handsomely bound in cloth. price, cents per volume, postpaid. the pride of jennico. being a memoir of captain basil jennico. "what separates it from most books of its class is its distinction of manner, its unusual grace of diction, its delicacy of touch, and the fervent charm of its love passages. it is a very attractive piece of romantic fiction relying for its effect upon character rather than incident, and upon vivid dramatic presentation."--_the dial_. "a stirring, brilliant and dashing story."--_the outlook_. the secret orchard. illustrated by charles d. williams. the "secret orchard" is set in the midst of the ultra modern society. the scene is in paris, but most of the characters are english speaking. the story was dramatized in london, and in it the kendalls scored a great theatrical success. "artfully contrived and full of romantic charm * * * it possesses ingenuity of incident, a figurative designation of the unhallowed scenes in which unlicensed love accomplishes and wrecks faith and happiness."--_athenaeum_. young april. with illustrations by a. b. wenzell. "it is everything that a good romance should be, and it carries about it an air of distinction both rare and delightful."--_chicago tribune_. "with regret one turns to the last page of this delightful novel, so delicate in its romance, so brilliant in its episodes, so sparkling in its art, and so exquisite in its diction."--_worcester spy_. flower o' the orange. with frontispiece. we have learned to expect from these fertile authors novels graceful in form, brisk in movement, and romantic in conception. this carries the reader back to the days of the bewigged and beruffled gallants of the seventeenth century and tells him of feats of arms and adventures in love as thrilling and picturesque, yet delicate, as the utmost seeker of romance may ask. my merry rockhurst. illustrated by arthur e. becher. in the eight stories of a courtier of king charles second, which are here gathered together, the castles are at their best, reviving all the fragrant charm of those books, like _the pride of jennico_, in which they first showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances. "the book is absorbing * * * and is as spontaneous in feeling as it is artistic in execution."--_new york tribune_. grosset & dunlap, publishers,--new york * * * * * the masterly and realistic novels of frank norris handsomely bound in cloth. price, cents per volume, postpaid. the octopus. a story of california. mr. norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels which, taken together, shall symbolize american life as a whole, with all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length and breadth of the continent. and for the central symbol he has taken wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of american power and prosperity. _the octopus_ is a story of wheat raising and railroad greed in california. it immediately made a place for itself. it is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength. one cannot read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness, the breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man. the pit. a story of chicago. this powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the chicago wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning. in a masterly way the author has grasped the essential spirit of the great city by the lakes. the social existence, the gambling in stocks and produce, the characteristic life in chicago, form a background for an exceedingly vigorous and human tale of modern life and love. a man's woman. a story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary run of fiction. it is most dramatic, containing some tremendous pictures of the daring of the men who are trying to reach the pole * * * but it is at the same time essentially a _woman's_ book, and the story works itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is continually presented in real life--the wife's attitude in relation to her husband when both have well-defined careers. mcteague. a story of san francisco. "since bret harte and the forty-niner no one has written of california life with the vigor and accuracy of mr. norris. his 'mcteague' settled his right to a place in american literature; and he has now presented a third novel, 'blix,' which is in some respects the finest and likely to be the most popular of the three."--_washington times_. blix. "frank norris has written in 'blix' just what such a woman's name would imply--a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are true and honest because she is true and honest. how she saved the man she fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship, makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author's mcteague.' a splendid and successful story."--_washington times_. grosset & dunlap, publishers,--new york * * * * * [illustration: cover art] [frontispiece: "we're all that's left of the charles darlington post." see page .] comrades by elizabeth stuart phelps illustrated by howard e. smith harper & brothers new york and london m . c . m . x . i copyright, , by harper & brothers printed in the united states of america published september, illustrations "we're all that's left of the charles darlington post" . . . . . . frontispiece "folks don't amount to anything. it's you, peter" she thought of the slow news of the slaughtering battles comrades in the late may evening the soul of summer had gone suddenly incarnate, but the old man, indifferent and petulant, thrashed upon his bed. he was not used to being ill, and found no consolations in weather. flowers regarded him observantly--one might have said critically--from the tables, the bureau, the window-sills: tulips, fleurs-de-lis, pansies, peonies, and late lilacs, for he had a garden-loving wife who made the most of "the dull season," after crocuses and daffodils, and before roses. but he manifested no interest in flowers; less than usual, it must be owned, in patience, his wife. this was a marked incident. they had lived together fifty years, and she had acquired her share of the lessons of marriage, but not that ruder one given chiefly to women to learn--she had never found herself a negligible quantity in her husband's life. she had the profound maternal instinct which is so large an element in the love of every experienced and tender wife; and when reuben thrashed profanely upon his pillows, staring out of the window above the vase of jonquils, without looking at her, clearly without thinking of her, she swallowed her surprise as if it had been a blue-pill, and tolerantly thought: "poor boy! to be a veteran and can't go!" her poor boy, being one-and-eighty, and having always had health and her, took his disappointment like a boy. he felt more outraged that he could not march with the other boys to decorate the graves to-morrow than he had been, or had felt that he was, by some of the important troubles of his long and, on the whole, comfortable life. he took it unreasonably; she could not deny that. but she went on saying "poor boy!" as she usually did when he was unreasonable. when he stopped thrashing and swore no more she smiled at him brilliantly. he had not said anything worse than damn! but he was a good baptist, and the lapse was memorable. "peter?" he said. "just h'ist the curtain a mite, won't you? i want to see across over to the shop. has young jabez locked up everything? somebody's got to make sure." behind the carpenter's shop the lush tobacco-fields of the connecticut valley were springing healthily. "there ain't as good a crop as there gener'lly is," the old man fretted. "don't you think so?" replied patience. "everybody say it's better. but you ought to know." in the youth and vigor of her no woman was ever more misnamed. patient she was not, nor gentle, nor adaptable to the teeth in the saw of life. like wincing wood, her nature had resented it, the whole biting thing. all her gentleness was acquired, and acquired hard. she had fought like a man to endure like a woman, to accept, not to writhe and rebel. she had not learned easily how to count herself out. something in the sentimentality or even the piety of her name had always seemed to her ridiculous; they both used to have their fun at its expense; for some years he called her impatience, degenerating into imp if he felt like it. when reuben took to calling her peter, she found it rather a relief. "you'll have to go without me," he said, crossly. "i'd rather stay with you," she urged. "i'm not a veteran." "who'd decorate tommy, then?" demanded the old man. "you wouldn't give tommy the go-by, would you?" "i never did--did i?" returned the wife, slowly. "i don't know's you did," replied reuben oak, after some difficult reflection. patience did not talk about tommy. but she had lived tommy, so she felt, all her married life, ever since she took him, the year-old baby of a year-dead first wife who had made reuben artistically miserable; not that patience thought in this adjective; it was one foreign to her vocabulary; she was accustomed to say of that other woman: "it was better for reuben. i'm not sorry she died." she added, "lord forgive me," because she was a good church member, and felt that she must. oh, she had "lived tommy," god knew. her own baby had died, and there were never any more. but tommy lived and clamored at her heart. she began by trying to be a good stepmother. in the end she did not have to try. tommy never knew the difference; and his father had long since forgotten it. she had made him so happy that he seldom remembered anything unpleasant. he was accustomed to refer to his two conjugal partners as "my wife and the other woman." but tommy had the blood of a fighting father, and when the _maine_ went down, and his chance came, he, too, took it. tommy lay dead and nameless in the trenches at san juan. but his father had put up a tall, gray slate-stone slab for him in the churchyard at home. this was close to the baby's; the baby's was little and white. so the veteran was used to "decorating tommy" on memorial day. he did not trouble himself about the little, white gravestone then. he had a veteran's savage jealousy of the day that was sacred to the splendid heroisms and sacrifices of the sixties. "what do they want to go decorating all their relations for?" he argued. "ain't there three hundred and sixty-four days in the year for _them_?" he was militant on this point, and patience did not contend. sometimes she took the baby's flowers over the day after. "if you can spare me just as well's not, i'll decorate tommy to-morrow," she suggested, gently. "we'll see how you feel along by that." "tommy's got to be decorated if i'm dead or livin'," retorted the veteran. the soldier father struggled up from his pillow, as if he would carry arms for his soldier son. then he fell back weakly. "i wisht i had my old dog here," he complained--"my dog tramp. i never did like a dog like that dog. but tramp's dead, too. i don't believe them boys are coming. they've forgotten me, peter. you haven't," he added, after some slow thought. "i don't know's you ever did, come to think." patience, in her blue shepherd-plaid gingham dress and white apron, was standing by the window--a handsome woman, a dozen years younger than her husband; her strong face was gentler than most strong faces are--in women; peace and pain, power and subjection, were fused upon her aspect like warring elements reconciled by a mystery. her hair was not yet entirely white, and her lips were warm and rich. she had a round figure, not overgrown. there were times when she did not look over thirty. two or three late jonquils that had outlived their calendar in a cold spot by a wall stood on the window-sill beside her; these trembled in the slant, may afternoon light. she stroked them in their vase, as if they had been frightened or hurt. she did not immediately answer reuben, and, when she did, it was to say, abruptly: "here's the boys! they're coming--the whole of them!--jabez trent, and old mr. succor, and david swing on his crutches. i'll go right out 'n' let them all in." she spoke as if they had been a phalanx. reuben panted upon his pillows. patience had shut the door, and it seemed to him as if it would never open. he pulled at his gray flannel dressing-gown with nervous fingers; they were carpenter's fingers--worn, but supple and intelligent. he had on his old red nightcap, and he felt the indignity, but he did not dare to take the cap off; there was too much pain underneath it. when patience opened the door she nodded at him girlishly. she had preceded the visitors, who followed her without speaking. she looked forty years younger than they did. she marshaled them as if she had been their colonel. the woman herself had a certain military look. the veterans filed in slowly--three aged, disabled men. one was lame, and one was palsied; one was blind, and all were deaf. "here they are, reuben," said patience oak. "they've all come to see you. here's the whole post." reuben's hand went to his red night-cap. he saluted gravely. the veterans came in with dignity--david swing, and jabez trent, and old mr. succor. david was the one on crutches, but jabez trent, with nodding head and swaying hand, led old mr. succor, who could not see. reuben watched them with a species of grim triumph. "i ain't blind," he thought, "and i hain't got the shakin' palsy. nor i hain't come on crutches, either." he welcomed his visitors with a distinctly patronizing air. he was conscious of pitying them as much as a soldier can afford to pity anything. they seemed to him very old men. "give 'em chairs, peter," he commanded. "give 'em easy chairs. where's the cushions?" "i favor a hard cheer myself," replied the blind soldier, sitting solid and straight upon the stiff bamboo chair into which he had been set down by jabez trent. "i'm sorry to find you so low, reuben oak." "_low!_" exploded the old soldier. "why, nothing partikler ails _me_. i hain't got a thing the matter with me but a spell of rheumatics. i'll be spry as a kitten catchin' grasshoppers in a week. i can't march to-morrow--that's all. it's darned hard luck. how's your eyesight, mr. succor?" "some consider'ble better, sir," retorted the blind man. "i calc'late to get it back. my son's goin' to take me to a city eye-doctor. i ain't only seventy-eight. i'm too young to be blind. 'tain't as if i was onto crutches, or i was down sick abed. how old are you, reuben?" "only eighty-one!" snapped reuben. "he's eighty-one last march," interpolated his wife. "he's come to a time of life when folks do take to their beds," returned david swing. "mebbe you could manage with crutches, reuben, in a few weeks. i've been on 'em three years, since i was seventy-five. i've got to feel as if they was relations. folks want me to ride to-morrow," he added, contemptuously, "but i'll march on them crutches to decorate them graves, or i won't march at all." now jabez trent was the youngest of the veterans; he was indeed but sixty-eight. he refrained from mentioning this fact. he felt that it was indelicate to boast of it. his jerking hand moved over toward the bed, and he laid it on reuben's with a fine gesture. "you'll be round--you'll be round before you know it," he shouted. "i ain't deef," interrupted reuben, "like the rest of you." but the palsied man, hearing not at all, shouted on: "you always had grit, reuben, more'n most of as. you stood more, you was under fire more, you never was afraid of anything-- what's rheumatics? 'tain't antietam." "nor it ain't bull run," rejoined reuben. he lifted his red nightcap from his head. "let it ache!" he said. "it ain't gettysburg." "it seems to me," suggested jabez trent, "that reuben he's under fire just about now. _he_ ain't used to bein' disabled. it appears to me he's fightin' this matter the way a soldier 'd oughter-- comrades, i move he's entitled to promotion for military conduct. he'd rather than sympathy--wouldn't you, reuben?" "i don't feel to deserve it," muttered reuben. "i swore to-day. ask my wife." "no, he didn't!" blazed patience oak. "he never said a thing but damn. he's getting tired, though," she added, under breath. "he ain't very well." she delicately brushed the foot of jabez trent with the toe of her slipper. "i guess we'd better not set any longer," observed jabez trent. the three veterans rose like one soldier. reuben felt that their visit had not been what he expected. but he could not deny that he was tired out; he wondered why. he beckoned to jabez trent, who, shaking and coughing, bent over him. "you'll see the boys don't forget to decorate tommy, won't you?" he asked, eagerly. jabez could not hear much of this, but he got the word tommy, and nodded. the three old men saluted silently, and when reuben had put on his nightcap he found that they had all gone. only patience was in the room, standing by the jonquils, in her blue gingham dress and white apron. "tired?" she asked, comfortably. "i've mixed you up an egg-nog. think you could take it?" "they didn't stay long," complained the old man. "it don't seem to amount to much, does it?" "you've punched your pillows all to pudding-stones," observed patience oak. "let me fix 'em a little." "i won't be fussed over!" cried reuben, angrily. he gave one of his pillows a pettish push, and it went half across the room. patience picked it up without remark. reuben oak held out a contrite hand. "peter, come here!" he commanded. patience, with her maternal smile, obeyed. "you stay, peter, anyhow. folks don't amount to anything. it's _you_, peter." [illustration: "folks don't amount to anything. it's _you_, peter."] patience's eyes filled. but she hid them on the pillow beside him--he did not know why. she put up one hand and stroked his cheek. "just as if i was a johnnyquil," said the old man. he laughed, and grew quiet, and slept. but patience did not move. she was afraid of waking him. she sat crouched and crooked on the edge of the bed, uncomfortable and happy. out on the street, between the house and the carpenter's shop, the figures of the veterans bent against the perspective of young tobacco. they walked feebly. old mr. succor shook his head: "looks like he'd never see another decoration day. he's some considerable sick--an' he ain't young." "he's got grit, though," urged jabez trent. "he's pretty old," sighed david swing. "he's consider'ble older'n we be. he'd ought to be prepared for his summons any time at his age." "we'll be decorating _him_, i guess, come next year," insisted old mr. succor. jabez trent opened his mouth to say something, but he coughed too hard to speak. "i'd like to look at reuben's crop as we go by," remarked the blind man. "he's lucky to have the shop 'n' the crop too." the three turned aside to the field, where old mr. succor appraised the immature tobacco leaves with seeing fingers. "connecticut's a _great_ state!" he cried. "and this here's a great town," echoed david swing. "look at the quota we sent--nigh a full company. and we had a great colonel," he added, proudly. "i calc'late he'd been major-general if it hadn't 'a' been for that infernal shell." "boys," said jabez trent, slowly, "memorial day's a great day. it's up to us to keep it that way-- boys, we're all that's left of the charles darlington post." "that's a fact," observed the blind soldier, soberly. "that's so," said the lame one, softly. the three did not talk any more; they walked past the tobacco-field thoughtfully. many persons carrying flowers passed or met them. these recognized the veterans with marked respect, and with some perplexity. what! only old blind mr. succor? just david swing on his crutches, and jabez trent with the shaking palsy? only those poor, familiar persons whom one saw every day, and did not think much about on any other day? unregarded, unimportant, aging neighbors? these who had ceased to be useful, ceased to be interesting, who were not any longer of value to the town, or to the state, to their friends (if they had any left), or to themselves? heroes? these plain, obscure old men?--heroes? so it befell that patience oak "decorated tommy" for his father that memorial day. the year was . the incident of which we have to tell occurred twelve months thereafter, in . these, as i have gathered them, are the facts: time, to the old, takes an unnatural pace, and reuben oak felt that the year had sprinted him down the race-track of life; he was inclined to resent his eighty-second march birthday as a personal insult; but april cried over him, and may laughed at him, and he had acquired a certain grim reconciliation with the laws of fate by the time that the nation was summoned to remember its dead defenders upon their latest anniversary. this resignation was the easier because he found himself unexpectedly called upon to fill an extraordinary part in the drama and the pathos of the day. he slept brokenly the night before, and waked early; it was scarcely five o'clock. but patience, his wife, was already awake, lying quietly upon her pillow, with straight, still arms stretched down beside him. she was careful not to disturb him--she always was; she was so used to effacing herself for his sake that he had ceased to notice whether she did or not; he took her beautiful dedication to him as a matter of course; most husbands would, if they had its counterpart. in point of fact--and in saying this we express her altogether--patience had the genius of love. charming women, noble women, unselfish women may spend their lives in a man's company, making a tolerable success of marriage, yet lack this supreme gift of heaven to womanhood, and never know it. our defects we may recognize; our deficiencies we seldom do, and the love deficiency is the most hopeless of human limitations. patience was endowed with love as a great poet is by song, or a musician by harmony, or an artist by color or form. she loved supremely, but she did not know that. she loved divinely, but her husband had never found it out. they were two plain people--a carpenter and his wife, plodding along the connecticut valley industriously, with the ideals of their kind; to be true to their marriage vows, to be faithful to their children, to pay their debts, raise the tobacco, water the garden, drive the nails straight, and preserve the quinces. there were times when it occurred to patience that she took more care of reuben than reuben did of her; but she dismissed the matter with a phrase common in her class, and covering for women most of the perplexity of married life: "you know what men are." on the morning of which we speak, reuben oak had a blunt perception of the fact that it was kind in his wife to take such pains not to wake him till he got ready to begin the tremendous day before him; she always was considerate if he did not sleep well. he put down his hand and took hers with a sudden grasp, where it lay gentle and still beside him. "well, peter," he said, kindly. "yes, dear," said patience, instantly. "feeling all right for to-day?" "fine," returned reuben. "i don't know when i've felt so spry. i'll get right up 'n' dress." "would you mind staying where you are till i get your coffee heated?" asked patience, eagerly. "you know how much stronger you always are if you wait for it. i'll have it on the heater in no time." "i can't wait for coffee to-day," flashed reuben. "i'm the best judge of what i need." "very well," said patience, in a disappointed tone. for she had learned the final lesson of married life--not to oppose an obstinate man, for his own good. but she slipped into her wrapper and made the coffee, nevertheless. when she came back with it, reuben was lying on the bed in his flannels, with a comforter over him; he looked pale, and held out his hand impatiently for the coffee. his feverish eyes healed as he watched her moving about the room. he thought how young and pretty her neck was when she splashed the water on it. "goin' to wear your black dress?" he asked. "that's right. i'm glad you are. i'll get up pretty soon." "i'll bring you _all_ your clothes," she said. "don't you get a mite tired. i'll move up everything for you. your uniform's all cleaned and pressed. don't you do a thing!" she brushed her thick hair with upraised, girlish arms, and got out her black serge dress and a white tie. he lay and watched her thoughtfully. "peter," he said, unexpectedly, "how long is it since we was married?" "forty-nine years," answered patience, promptly. "fifty, come next september." "what a little creatur' you were, peter--just a slip of a girl! and how you did take hold--tommy and everything." "i was 'most twenty," observed patience, with dignity. "you made a powerful good stepmother all the same," mused reuben. "you did love tommy, to beat all." "i was fond of tommy," answered patience, quietly. "he was a nice little fellow." "and then there was the baby, peter. pity we lost the baby! i guess you took that harder 'n i did, peter." patience made no reply. "she was so dreadful young, peter. i can't seem to remember how she looked. can you? pity she didn't live! you'd 'a' liked a daughter round the house, wouldn't you, peter? say, peter, we've gone through a good deal, haven't we--you 'n' me? the war 'n' all that--and the two children. but there's one thing, peter--" patience came over to him quietly, and sat down on the side of the bed. she was half dressed, and her still beautiful arms went around him. "you'll tire yourself all out thinking, reuben. you won't be able to decorate anybody if you ain't careful." "what i was goin' to say was this," persisted reuben. "i've always had you, peter. and you've had me. i don't count so much, but i'm powerful fond of you, peter. you're all i've got. seems as if i couldn't set enough by you, somehow or nuther." the old man hid his face upon her soft neck. "there, there, dear!" said patience. "it must be kinder hard, peter, not to _like_ your wife. or maybe she mightn't like him. sho! i don't think i could stand that.... peter?" "don't you think you'd better be getting dressed, reuben? the procession's going to start pretty early. folks are moving up and down the street. everybody's got flowers--see?" reuben looked out of the window and over the pansy-bed with brilliant, dry eyes. his wife could see that he was keeping back the thing that he thought most about. she had avoided and evaded the subject as long as she could. she felt now that it must be met, and yet she parleyed with it. she hurried his breakfast and brought the tray to him. he ate because she asked him to, but his hands shook. it seemed as if he clung wilfully to the old topic, escaping the new as long as he could, to ramble on. "you've been a dreadfully amiable wife, peter. i don't believe i could have got along with any other kind of woman." "i didn't used to be amiable, reuben. i wasn't born so. i used to take things hard. don't you remember?" but reuben shook his head. "no, i don't. i can't seem to think of any time you wasn't that way. sho! how'd you get to be so, then, i'd like to know?" "oh, just by loving, i guess," said patience oak. "we've marched along together a good while," answered the old man, brokenly. unexpectedly he held out his hand, and she grasped it; his was cold and weak; but hers was warm and strong. in a dull way the divination came to him--if one may speak of a dull divination--that she had always been the strength and the warmth of his life. suddenly it seemed to him a very long life. now it was as if he forced himself to speak, as he would have charged at fredericksburg. he felt as if he were climbing against breastworks when he said: "i was the oldest of them all, peter. and i was sickest, too. they all expected to come an' decorate me to-day." patience nodded, without a word. she knew when her husband must do all the talking; she had found that out early in their married life. "i wouldn't of believed it, peter; would you? old mr. succor he had such good health. who'd thought he'd tumble down the cellar stairs? if mis' succor 'd be'n like you, peter, he wouldn't had the chance to tumble: i never would of _thought_ of david swing's havin' pneumonia--would you, peter? why, in ' he slept onto the ground in peltin', drenchin' storms an' never sneezed. he was powerful well 'n' tough, david was. and jabez! poor old jabez trent! i liked him the best of the lot, peter. didn't you? he was sorry for me when they come here that day an' i couldn't march along of them.... and now, peter, i've got to go an' decorate _them_. "i'm the last livin' survivor of the charles darlington post," added the veteran. "i'm going to apply to the department commander to let me keep it up. i guess i can manage someways. _i won't be disbanded_. let 'em disband me if they can! i'd like to see 'em do it. peter? _peter_!" "i'll help you into your uniform," said patience. "it's all brushed and nice for you." she got him to his swaying feet, and dressed him, and the two went to the window that looked upon the flowers. the garden blurred yellow and white and purple--a dash of blood-red among the late tulips. patience had plucked and picked for memorial day, she had gathered and given, and yet she could not strip her garden. she looked at it lovingly. she felt as if she stood in pansy lights and iris air. "peter," said the veteran, hoarsely, "they're all gone, my girl. everybody's gone but you. you're the only comrade i've got left, peter.... and, peter, i want to tell you--i seem to understand it this morning. peter, you're the best comrade of 'em all." "that's worth it," said patience, in a strange tone--"that's worth the--high cost of living." she lifted her head. she had an exalted look. the thoughtful pansies seemed to turn their faces toward her. she felt that they understood her. did it matter whether reuben understood her or not? it occurred to her that it was not so important, after all, whether a man understood his wife, if he only loved her. women fussed too much, she thought; they expected to cry away the everlasting differences between the husband and the wife. if you loved a man you must take him as he was--just man. you couldn't make him over. you must make up your mind to that. better, oh, better a hundred times to endure, to suffer--if it came to suffering--to take your share (perhaps he had his--who knew?) of the loneliness of living. better any fate than to battle with the man you love, for what he did not give or could not give. better anything than to stand in the pansy light, married fifty years, and not have made your husband happy. "i 'most wisht you could march along of me," muttered reuben oak. "but you ain't a veteran." "i don't know about that," patience shook her head, smiling, but it was a sober smile. "tommy can't march," added reuben. "he ain't here; nor he ain't in the graveyard either. he's a ghost--tommy. he must be flying around the throne. there's only one other person i'd like to have go along of me. that's my old dog--my dog tramp. that dog thought a sight of me. the united states army couldn't have kep' him away from me. but tramp's dead. he was a pretty old dog. i can't remember which died first, him or the baby; can you? lord! i suppose tramp's a ghost, too, a dog ghost, trottin' after--i don't know when i've thought of tramp before. where's he buried, peter? oh yes, come to think, he's under the big chestnut. wonder we never decorated him, peter." "i have," confessed patience. "i've done it quite a number of times. reuben? listen! i guess we've got to hurry. seems to me i hear--" "you hear drums," interrupted the old soldier. suddenly he flared like lightwood on a camp-fire, and before his wife could speak again he had blazed out of the house. the day had a certain unearthly beauty--most of our memorial days do have. sometimes they scorch a little, and the processions wilt and lag. but this one, as we remember, had the climate of a happier world and the temperature of a day created for marching men--old soldiers who had left their youth and strength behind them, and who were feebler than they knew. the connecticut valley is not an emotional part of the map, but the town was alight with a suppressed feeling, intense, and hitherto unknown to the citizens. they were graver than they usually were on the national anniversary which had come to mean remembrance for the old and indifference for the young. there was no baseball in the village that day. the boys joined the procession soberly. the crowd was large but thoughtful. it had collected chiefly outside of the post hall, where four old soldiers had valiantly sustained their dying organization for now two or three astonishing years. the band was outside, below the steps; it played the "star-spangled banner" and "john brown's body" while it waited. for some reason there was a delay in the ceremonies. it was rumored that the chaplain had not come. then it went about that he had been summoned to a funeral, and would meet the procession at the churchyard. the chaplain was the pastor of the congregational church. the regimental chaplain, he who used to pray for the dying boys after battle, had joined the vanished veterans long ago. the band struck up "my country, 'tis of thee." the crowd began to press toward the steps of the post hall and to sway to and fro restlessly. then slowly there emerged from the hall, and firmly descended the steps, the charles darlington post of the grand army of the republic. people held their breaths, and some sobbed. they were not all women, either. erect, with fiery eyes, with haughty head--shrunken in his old uniform, but carrying it proudly--one old man walked out. the crowd parted for him, and he looked neither to the right nor to the left, but fell into the military step and began to march. in his aged arms he carried the flags of the post. the military band preceded him, softly playing "mine eyes have seen the glory," while the crowd formed into procession and followed him. from the whole countryside people had assembled, and the throng was considerable. they came out into the street and turned toward the churchyard--the old soldier marching alone. they had begged him to ride, though the distance was small. but he had obstinately refused. "this post has always marched," he had replied. except for the military music and the sound of moving feet or wheels, the street was perfectly still. no person spoke to any other. the veteran marched with proud step. his gray head was high. once he was seen to put the flag of his company to his lips. a little behind him the procession had instinctively fallen back and left a certain space. one could not help the feeling that this was occupied. but they who filled it, if such there had been, were invisible to the eye of the body. and the eyes of the soul are not possessed by all men. now, the distance, as we have said, was short, and the old soldier was so exalted that it had not occurred to him that he could be fatigued. it was an astonishing sensation to him when he found himself unexpectedly faint. patience oak, for some reasons of her own hardly clear to herself, did not join the procession. she chose to walk abreast of it, at the side, as near as possible, without offense to the ceremonies, to the solitary figure of her husband. she was pacing through the grass, at the edge of the sidewalk--falling as well as she could into the military step. in her plain, old-fashioned black dress, with the fleck of white at her throat, she had a statuesque, unmodern look. her fine features were charged with that emotion which any expression would have weakened. her arms were heaped with flowers--bouquets and baskets and sprays: spiraea, lilacs, flowering almond, peonies, pansies, all the glory of her garden that opening summer returned to her care and tenderness. she was tender with everything--a man, a child, an animal, a flower. everything blossomed for her, and rested in her, and yearned toward her. the emotion of the day and of the hour seemed incarnate in her. she embodied in her strong and sweet personality all that blundering man has wrought on tormented woman by the savagery of war. she remembered what she had suffered--a young, incredulous creature, on the margin of life, avid of happiness, believing in joy, and drowning in her love for that one man, her husband. she thought of the slow news after slaughtering battles--how she waited for the laggard paper in the country town; she remembered that she dared not read the head-lines when she got them, but dropped, choking and praying god to spare her, before she glanced. even now she could feel the wet paper against her raining cheek. then her heart leaped back, and she thought of the day when he marched away--his arms, his lips, his groans. she remembered what the dregs of desolation were, and mortal fear of unknown fate; the rack of the imagination; and inquisition of the nerve--the pangs that no man-soldier of them all could understand. "it comes on women--war," she thought. [illustration: she thought of the slow news after slaughtering battles] now, as she was stepping aside to avoid crushing some young white clover-blossoms in the grass where she was walking, she looked up and wondered if she were going blind, or if her mind were giving way. the vacant space behind the solitary veteran trembled and palpitated before her vision, as if it had been peopled. by what? by whom? patience was no occultist. she had never seen an apparition in her life. she felt that if she had not lacked a mysterious, unknown gift, she should have seen spirits, as men marching, now. but she did not see them. she was aware of a tremulous, nebulous struggle in the empty air, as of figures that did not form, or of sights from which her eyes were holden. ah--what? she gasped for the wonder of it. who was it, that followed the veteran, with the dumb, delighted fidelity that one race only knows of all created? for a wild instant this sane and sensible woman could have taken oath that reuben oak was accompanied on his march by his old dog, his dead dog, tramp. if it had been tommy-- or if it had been jabez trent-- and where were they who had gone into the throat of death with him at antietam, at bull run, at fair oaks, at malvern hill? but there limped along behind reuben only an old, forgotten dog. this quaint delusion (if delusion we must call it) aroused her attention, which had wavered from her husband, and concentrated it upon him afresh. suddenly she saw him stagger. a dozen persons started, but the wife sprang and reached him first. as she did this, the ghost dog vanished from before her. only reuben was there, marching alone, with the unpeopled space between him and the procession. "leave go of me!" he gasped. patience quietly grasped him by the arm, and fell into step beside him. in her heart she was terrified. she was something of a reader in her way, and she thought of magazine stories where the veterans died upon memorial day. "i'll march to decorate the post--and tommy--if i drop dead for it!" panted reuben oak. "then i shall march beside you," answered patience. "what 'll folks say?" cried the old soldier, in real anguish. "they'll say i'm where i belong. reuben! reuben! _i've earned the right to_." he contended no more, but yielded to her--in fact, gladly, for he felt too weak to stand alone. inspiring him, and supporting him, and yet seeming (such was the sweet womanliness of her) to lean on him, patience marched with him before the people; and these saw her through blurred eyes, and their hearts saluted her. with every step she felt that he strengthened. she was conscious of endowing him with her own vitality, as she sometimes did, in her own way--the love way, the wife way, powerfully and mysteriously. so the veteran and his wife came on together to the cemetery, with the flags and the flowers. nor was there a man or a woman in the throng who would have separated these comrades. in the churchyard it was pleasant and expectant. the morning was cool, and the sun climbed gently. not a flower had wilted; they looked as if they had been planted and were growing on the graves. when they had come to these, patience oak held back. she would not take from the old soldier his precious right. she did not offer to help him "decorate" anybody. his trembling mechanic's fingers clutched at the flowers as if he had been handling shot or nails. his breath came short. she watched him anxiously; she was still thinking of those stories she had read. "hadn't you better sit down on some monument and rest?" she whispered. but he paid no attention to her, and crawled from mound to mound. she perceived that it was his will to leave the new-made graves until the others had been remembered. then he tottered across the cemetery with the flowers that he had saved for david swing and old mr. succor and jabez trent, and the cheeks of the charles darlington post were wet. last of all he "decorated tommy." the air ached with the military dirge, and the voice of the chaplain faltered when he prayed. the veteran was aware that some persons in the crowd were sobbing. but his own eyes had now grown dry, and burned deep in their sunken sockets. as his sacred task drew to its end he grew remote, elate, and solemn. it was as if he were transfigured before his neighbors into something strange and holy. a village carpenter? a connecticut tobacco-planter? rather, say, the glory of the nation, the guardian of a great trust, proudly carried and honored to its end. taps were sounding over the old graves and the new, when the veteran slowly sank to one knee and toppled over. patience, when she got her arms about him, saw that he had fallen across the mound where he had decorated tommy with her white lilacs. beyond lay the baby, small and still. the wife sat down on the little grave and drew the old man's head upon her lap. she thought of those memorial day stories with a deadly sinking at her heart. but it was a strong heart, all woman and all love. "you _shall not_ die!" she said. she gathered him and poured her powerful being upon him--breath, warmth, will, prayer, who could say what it was? she felt as if she took hold of tremendous, unseen forces and moved them by unknown powers. "live!" she whispered. "_live!_" some one called for a doctor, and she assented. but to her own soul she said: "what's a doctor?" the flags had fallen from his arms at last; he had clung to them till now. the chaplain reverently lifted them and laid them at his feet. once his white lips moved, and the people hushed to hear what outburst of patriotism would issue from them--what tribute to the cause that he had fought for, what final apostrophe to his country or his flag. "peter?" he called, feebly. "_peter!_" but patience had said he should not die. and patience knew. had not she always known what he should do, or what he could? he lay upon his bed peacefully when, with tears and smiles, in reverence and in wonder, they had brought him home--and the flags of the post, too. by a gesture he had asked to have these hung upon the foot-board of his bed. he turned his head upon his pillow and watched his wife with wide, reflecting eyes. it was a long time before she would let him talk; in fact, the may afternoon was slanting to dusk before he tried to cross her tender will about that matter. when he did, it was to say only this: "peter? i was goin' to decorate the baby. i meant to when i took that turn." patience nodded. "it's all done, reuben." "and, peter? i've had the queerest notions about my old dog tramp to-day. i wonder if there's a johnnyquil left to decorate him?" "i'll go and see," said patience. but when she had come back he had forgotten tramp and the johnnyquil. "peter," he muttered, "_this has been a great day_." he gazed solemnly at the flags. patience regarded him poignantly. with a stricture at the heart she thought: "he has grown old fast since yesterday." then joyously the elderly wife cried out upon herself: "but i am young! he shall have all my youth. i've got enough for two--and strength!" she crept beside him and laid her warm cheek to his. the end state of connecticut state geological and natural history survey bulletin no. drainage modifications and glaciation in the danbury region connecticut by ruth sawyer harvey, ph. d. hartford ~published by the state~ bulletins of the state geological and natural history survey of connecticut. . first biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . a preliminary report on the protozoa of the fresh waters of connecticut: by herbert william conn. (out of print. to be obtained only in vol. i, containing bulletins - . price $ . , postpaid.) . a preliminary report on the hymeniales of connecticut: by edward albert white. . the clays and clay industries of connecticut: by gerald francis loughlin. . the ustilagineæ, or smuts, of connecticut: by george perkins clinton. . manual of the geology of connecticut: by william north rice and herbert ernest gregory. (out of print. to be obtained only in vol. ii, containing bulletins - . price $ . , postpaid.) . preliminary geological map of connecticut: by herbert ernest gregory and henry hollister robinson. . bibliography of connecticut geology: by herbert ernest gregory. . second biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . a preliminary report on the algæ of the fresh waters of connecticut: by herbert william conn and lucia washburn (hazen) webster. . the bryophytes of connecticut: by alexander william evans and george elwood nichols. . third biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . the lithology of connecticut: by joseph barrell and gerald francis loughlin. . catalogue of the flowering plants and ferns of connecticut growing without cultivation: by a committee of the connecticut botanical society. . second report on the hymeniales of connecticut: by edward albert white. . guide to the insects of connecticut: prepared under the direction of wilton everett britton. part i. general introduction: by wilton everett britton. part ii. the euplexoptera and orthoptera of connecticut: by benjamin hovey walden. . fourth biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . triassic fishes of connecticut: by charles rochester eastman. . echinoderms of connecticut: by wesley roscoe coe. . the birds of connecticut: by john hall sage and louis bennett bishop, assisted by walter parks bliss. . fifth biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . guide to the insects of connecticut: prepared under the direction of wilton everett britton. part iii. the hymenoptera, or wasp-like insects, of connecticut: by henry lorenz viereck, with the collaboration of alexander dyer macgillivray, charles thomas brues, william morton wheeler, and sievert allen rohwer. . central connecticut in the geologic past: by joseph barrell. . triassic life of the connecticut valley: by richard swann lull. . sixth biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . the arthrostraca of connecticut: by beverly waugh kunkel. . seventh biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . eighth biennial report of the commissioners of the state geological and natural history survey, - . . the quaternary geology of the new haven region, connecticut: by freeman ward, ph.d. . drainage, modification and glaciation in the danbury region, connecticut: by ruth sawyer harvey, ph.d. . check list of the insects of connecticut: by wilton everett britton, ph.d. (in press.) bulletins , , , , , , , and are merely administrative reports containing no scientific matter. the other bulletins may be classified as follows: geology: bulletins , , , , , , , , , . botany: bulletins , , , , , . zoölogy: bulletins , , , , , , . these bulletins are sold and otherwise distributed by the state librarian. postage, when bulletins are sent by mail, is as follows: no. $ . no. $ . no. $ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the prices when the bulletins are sold are as follows, postpaid: no. $ . no. $ . no. $ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a part of the edition of these bulletins have been assembled in volumes substantially bound in cloth, plainly lettered, and sell for the following prices, postpaid: volume i, containing bulletins - $ . volume ii, containing bulletins - . volume iii, containing bulletins - . volume iv, containing bulletins - . volume v, containing bulletin . it is intended to follow a liberal policy in gratuitously distributing these publications to public libraries, colleges, and scientific institutions, and to scientific men, teachers, and others who require particular bulletins for their work, especially to those who are citizens of connecticut. applications or inquiries should be addressed to ~george s. godard~, _state librarian_, hartford, conn. in addition to the bulletins above named, published by the state survey, attention is called to three publications of the united states geological survey prepared in co-operation with the geological and natural survey of connecticut. these are the following: bulletin . the granites of connecticut: by t. nelson dale and herbert e. gregory. water-supply paper . ground water in the hartford, stamford, salisbury, willimantic and saybrook areas, connecticut: by herbert e. gregory and arthur j. ellis. water-supply paper . ground water in the waterbury area, connecticut: by arthur j. ellis, under the direction of herbert e. gregory. these papers may be obtained from the director of the united states geological survey at washington. catalogue slips. _=connecticut.= state geological and natural history survey._ bulletin no. . drainage modifications and glaciation in the danbury region, connecticut. by ruth s. harvey, ph.d. hartford, . pp., pls., fig., cm. =_harvey, ruth sawyer, ph.d._= drainage modification and glaciation in the danbury region, connecticut. by ruth s. harvey, ph.d. hartford, . pp., pls., figs., cm. =_geology._= harvey, ruth s. drainage modifications and glaciation in the danbury region, connecticut. hartford, . pp., pls., figs., ^cm. state of connecticut public document no. state geological and natural history survey herbert e. gregory, superintendent bulletin no. ~hartford~ printed by the state geological and natural history survey state geological and natural history survey commissioners ~marcus h. holcomb~, governor of connecticut ~arthur twining hadley~, president of yale university ~william arnold shanklin~, president of wesleyan university ~remsen brickerhoff ogilby~, president of trinity college ~charles lewis beach~, president of connecticut agricultural college ~benjamin tinkham marshall~, president of connecticut college for women superintendent ~herbert e. gregory~ _publication approved by the board of control_ drainage modifications and glaciation in the danbury region connecticut by ruth sawyer harvey, ph. d. hartford printed by the state geological and natural history survey contents. ------ page introduction regional relations rocky river description of the river and its valley relation of the valley to geologic structure junction of rocky and housatonic rivers abnormal profile preglacial course the buried channel effect of glaciation the neversink-danbury valley still river statement of the problem evidence to be expected if still river has been reversed a valley wide throughout or broadening toward the south tributary valleys pointing upstream the regional slope not in accord with the course of the still evidence of glacial filling and degrading of the river bed glacial scouring the still-saugatuck divide features of the umpog valley the preglacial divide the still-croton divide introduction features of still river valley west of danbury the still-croton valley glacial lake kanosha divides in the highlands south of danbury the ancient still river departures of still river from its preglacial channel suggested courses of housatonic river glacial deposits beaver brook swamp deposits northeast of danbury deposits between beaver brook mountain and mouth of still river lakes history of the glacial deposits illustrations. ----------- to face page plate i view south on the highland northeast of neversink pond ii a. view up the valley of umpog creek b. view down the valley of umpog creek iii limestone plain southwest of danbury, in which are situated lake kanosha and the danbury fair grounds iv a. view down the housatonic valley from a point one-half mile below stillriver station b. part of the morainal ridge north of danbury v a. kames in still river valley west of brookfield junction b. till ridges on the western border of still river valley, south of brookfield page figure . present drainage of the danbury region . geological map of still river valley . profiles of present and preglacial rocky river . preglacial course of rocky-still river . diagram showing lowest rock levels in rocky river valley . course of still river . map of umpog swamp and vicinity . profiles of rivers . early stage of rocky-still river . five suggested outlets of housatonic river introduction the danbury region of connecticut presents many features of geographic and geologic interest. it may be regarded as a type area, for the history of its streams and the effects of glaciation are representative of those of the entire state. with this idea in mind, the field work on which this study is based included a traverse of each stream valley and an examination of minor features, as well as a consideration of the broader regional problems. much detailed and local description, therefore, is included in the text. the matter in the present bulletin formed the main theme of a thesis on "drainage and glaciation in the central housatonic basin" which was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy at yale university. the field work was done in and under the direction of professor herbert e. gregory. i am also indebted to the late professor joseph barrell and to dr. isaiah bowman for helpful cooperation in the preparation of the original thesis, and to dr. h. h. robinson for assistance in preparing this paper for publication. drainage modifications and glaciation in the danbury region, connecticut -------- by ruth s. harvey regional relations the region discussed in this bulletin is situated in western connecticut and is approximately miles wide and miles long in a north-south direction, as shown on fig. .[ ] throughout, the rocks are crystalline and include gneiss, schist, and marble--the metamorphosed equivalents of a large variety of ancient sedimentary and igneous rocks. for the purposes of this report, the geologic history may be said to begin with the regional uplift which marked the close of the mesozoic. by that time the mountains formed by triassic and jurassic folding and faulting had been worn down to a peneplain, now much dissected but still recognizable in the accordant level of the mountain tops. erosion during cretaceous time resulted in the construction of a piedmont plain extending from an undetermined line to miles north of the present connecticut shore to a point south of long island.[ ] this plain is thought to have been built up of unconsolidated sands, clays, and gravels, the débris of the jurassic mountains. inland the material consisted of river-made or land deposits; outwardly it merged into coastal plain deposits. when the plain was uplifted, these loose gravels were swept away. in new york, pennsylvania, and new jersey, however, portions of the cretaceous deposits are still to be found. such deposits are present, also, on the north shore of long island, and a well drilled at barren island on the south shore revealed not less than feet of cretaceous strata.[ ] the existence of such thick deposits within miles of the connecticut shore and certain peculiarities in the drainage have led to the inference that the cretaceous cover extended over the southern part of connecticut. [footnote : the streams and other topographic features of the danbury region are shown in detail on the danbury and the new milford sheets of the united states topographic atlas. these sheets may be obtained from the director of the united states geological survey, washington, d. c.] [footnote : it was probably not less than miles, for that is the distance from the mouth of still river, where the housatonic enters a gorge in the crystallines, to the sea. fifty-five miles is the distance to the sea from the probable old head of housatonic river on wassaic creek, near amenia, new york.] [footnote : veatch, a. c., slichter, c. s., bowman, isaiah, crosby, w. o., and horton. r. e., underground water resources of long island: u. s. g. s., pp. , p. and fig. , .] a general uplift of the region brought this period of deposition to a close. as the peneplain, probably with a mantle of cretaceous deposits, was raised to its present elevation, the larger streams kept pace with the uplift by incising their valleys. the position of the smaller streams, however, was greatly modified in the development of the new drainage system stimulated by the uplift. the modern drainage system may be assumed to have been at first consequent, that is, dependent for its direction on the slope of the uplifted plain, but it was not long before the effect of geologic structure began to make itself felt. in the time when all the region was near baselevel, the harder rocks had no advantage over the softer ones, and streams wandered where they pleased. but after uplift, the streams began to cut into the plain, and those flowing over limestone or schist deepened, then widened their valleys much faster than could the streams which flowed over the resistant granite and gneiss. by a system of stream piracy and shifting, similar to that which has taken place throughout the newer appalachians, the smaller streams in time became well adjusted to the structure. they are of the class called subsequents; on the other hand, the housatonic, which dates at least from the beginning of the uplift if not from the earlier period of peneplanation, is an antecedent stream. the complex rock surface of western connecticut had reached a stage of mature dissection when the region was invaded by glaciers.[ ] the ice sheet scraped off and redistributed the mantle of decayed rock which covered the surface and in places gouged out the bedrock. the resulting changes were of a minor order, for the main features of the landscape and the principal drainage lines were the same in preglacial time as they are today. it is thus seen that the history of the smaller streams like those considered in this report involves three factors: ( ) the normal tendencies of stream development, ( ) the influence of geologic structure, and ( ) the effect of glaciation. the cover of glacial deposits is generally thin, but marked variations exist. the fields are overspread with coarse till containing pebbles inches in diameter to huge boulders of feet or more. the abundance, size, and composition of the boulders in the till of a given locality is well represented by the stone fences which border fields. [footnote : this stage of glaciation is presumably wisconsin. no definite indication of any older glacial deposits was found.] [illustration: ~fig. .~ present drainage of the danbury region.] the regional depression which marked the close of the glacial period slackened the speed of many rivers and caused them to deposit great quantities of modified or assorted drift. since glacial time, these deposits have been dissected and formed into the terraces which are characteristic of the rivers of the region. a form of terrace even more common than the river-made terrace is the kame terrace found along borders of the lowlands. eskers in the danbury region have not the elongated snake-like form by which they are distinguished in some parts of the country, notably maine; on the contrary, they are characteristically short and broad, many having numerous branches at the southern end like the distributaries of an aggrading river. the material of the eskers ranges from coarse sand to pebbles four inches in diameter, the average size being from one to two inches. no exposures were observed which showed a regular diminution in the coarseness of the material toward their southern end. the clean-washed esker gravels afford little encouragement to plant growth, and the rain water drains away rapidly through the porous gravel. consequently, accumulations of stratified drift are commonly barren places. a desert vegetation of coarse grasses, a kind of wiry moss, and "everlastings" (_gnaphalius decurrens_) are the principal growth. rattlebox (_crotolaria sagittalis_), steeplebush (_spiraea tomentosa_), sweet fern (_comptonia asplenifolia_), and on the more fertile eskers--especially on the lower, wetter part of the slope--golden rod, ox-eyed daisy, birch, and poplar are also present. all the eskers observed were found to be similar: they ranged in breadth across the top from to feet and the side slopes were about degrees. only a single heavily wooded esker was found, and this ran through a forest region. the accumulations of stratified drift are distinguished from other features in the landscape by their smoother and rounder outlines, by their habit of lying unconformably on the bedrock without reference to old erosion lines, and by a slightly different tone in the color of the vegetation covering the water-laid material. the difference in color, which is due to the unique elements in the flora of these areas, may cause a hill of stratified drift in summer to present a lighter green color than that of surrounding hills of boulder clay or of the original rock slopes; in winter the piles of stratified drift stand out because of the uniform light tawny red of the dried grass. [illustration: ~state geol. nat. hist. survey bull. . plate i.~ view south on the highland northeast of neversink pond. the base of a ridge in which rock is exposed is seen at the left; a crescent-shaped lateral moraine bordering the valley lies at the right.] rocky river description of the river and its valley rocky river begins its course as a rapid mountain brook in a rough highland, where the mantle of till in many places is insufficient to conceal the rock ledges (fig. ). near sherman, about four miles from its source, it enters a broad flood plain and meanders over a flat, swampy floor which is somewhat encumbered with deposits of stratified drift and till. rocky hills border the valley and rise abruptly from the lowland. the few tributaries of the river in this part of its course are normal in direction. about six miles below sherman, rocky river enters wood creek swamp, which is - / miles long by about one mile wide and completely covers the valley floor, extending even into tributary valleys. within the swamp the river is joined by squantz pond brook and wood creek. tributaries to wood creek include mountain brook and the stream passing through barses pond and neversink pond. the head of barses pond is separated from the swamp only by a low ridge of till. neversink pond with its inlet gorge and its long southern tributary record significant drainage modifications, as described in the section entitled "the neversink-danbury valley." within and along the margin of wood creek swamp, also east of wood creek and at barses pond, are rounded, elongated ridges of till, some of which might be called drumlins. east of neversink pond is the lateral moraine shown in pl. i. from the mouth of wood creek to jerusalem, rocky river is a quiet stream wandering between low banks through flat meadows, which are generally swampy almost to the foot of the bordering hills. near jerusalem bridge two small branches enter rocky river. immediately north of the bridge is a level swampy area about one-half mile in length. where the valley closes in again, bedrock is exposed near the stream, and beginning at a point one-half mile below (north of) jerusalem, rocky river--a swift torrent choked by boulders of great size--deserves its name. in spite of its rapid current, however, the river is unable to move these boulders, and for nearly three miles one can walk dry-shod on those that lie in midstream. at two or three places below jerusalem, in quiet reaches above rapids, the river has taken its first step toward making a flood plain by building tiny beaches. one-half mile above the mouth of the river the valley widens and on the gently rising south bank there are several well-marked terraces about three feet in height and shaped out of glacial material. a delta and group of small islands at the mouth of rocky river indicate the transporting power of the stream and the relative weakness of the slow-moving housatonic. relations of the valley to geologic structure rocky river is classed with streams which are comformable to the rock structure. this conclusion rests largely on the analogy between rocky river and other rivers of this region. the latter very commonly are located on belts of limestone, or limestone and schist, and their extension is along the strike. the interfluvial ridges are generally composed of the harder rocks. the valleys of the east aspetuck and womenshenuck brook on the north side of the housatonic, and of the still, the umpog, beaver brook, the upper saugatuck, and part of rocky river are on limestone beds (fig. ). in the valleys between town hill and spruce mountain (south of danbury), two ravines northwest of grassy plain (near bethel), and the saugatuck valley north of umpawaug pond, the limestone bed is largely buried under drift, talus, and organic deposits, but remnants which reveal the character of the valley floors have been found. the parallelism between the courses of these streams and that of rocky river and the general resemblance in the form of their valleys, flat-floored with steep-sided walls, as well as the scattered outcrops of limestone in the valley, have led to the inference that rocky river, like the others, is a subsequent stream developed on beds of weaker rock along lines of foliation. [illustration: ~fig. .~ geological map of still river valley.] the geological map of connecticut[ ] shows that the valleys of still river, womenshenuck brook, aspetuck river, and upper rocky river are developed on stockbridge limestone. the lower valley of rocky river is, however, mapped as becket gneiss and thomaston granite gneiss. although the only outcrops along lower rocky river are of granite, it is believed that a belt of limestone or schist, now entirely removed, initially determined the course of the river. the assumption of an irregular belt of limestone in this position would account for the series of gorges and flood plains in the vicinity of jerusalem bridge and for the broad drift-filled valley at the mouth of rocky river. these features are difficult to explain on any other basis. [footnote : gregory, h. e., robinson, h. h., preliminary geological map of connecticut; geol. and nat. hist. survey. bull. , .] junction of rocky and housatonic rivers one of the distinguishing features of rocky river is the angle at which it joins the housatonic (fig. ). the tributaries of a normal drainage system enter their master stream at acute angles, an arrangement which involves the least expenditure of energy. rocky river, however, enters the housatonic against the course of the latter, that is, the tributary points upstream. still river and other southern tributaries of the housatonic exhibit the same feature, thus producing a barbed drainage, which indicates that some factor interfered with the normal development of tributary streams. barbed drainage generally results from the reversal of direction of the master stream[ ], but it is impossible to suppose that the housatonic was ever reversed. as will appear, it is an antecedent master stream crossing the crystalline rocks of western connecticut regardless of structure, and its course obliquely across the strike accounts for the peculiar orientation of its southern tributaries, which are subsequent streams whose position is determined by the nature of the rock. for the same reason, the northern tributaries of the housatonic present the usual relations. [footnote : leverett, frank, glacial formations and drainage features of the erie and ohio basins: u. s. geol. survey mon. , pp. - , figs. and , . see, also, the genoa, watkins, penn yan, and naples (new york) topographic atlas sheets.] abnormal profile the airline distance from the bend in rocky river at sherman to its mouth at the housatonic is - / miles, but the course of the river between these two points is miles, or . times the airline distance. this is a more extraordinary digression than that of tennessee river, which deserts its ancestral course to the gulf and flows northwest into the ohio, multiplying the length of its course - / times. the fall of rocky river between sherman and its mouth is feet or feet to the mile, and were the river able to take a direct course the fall would be feet to the mile. the possibility of capture would seem to be imminent from these figures, but in reality there is no chance of it, for an unbroken mountain ridge of resistant rock lies between the two forks of the river. this barrier is not likely to be crossed by any stream until the whole region has been reduced to a peneplain. measured from the head of its longest branch, rocky river is about miles long and falls feet. of this fall, feet occurs in the first miles and feet in the last - / miles of its course. for the remaining distance of - / miles, in which the river after flowing south doubles back on itself, the fall is feet, or slightly less than - / feet to the mile (fig. , a). [illustration: ~fig. .~ profiles of present and preglacial rocky river. elevations at a, b, c and i are from u. s. g. s. map. elevation at d is estimated from r. e. dakin's records. elevations at e, f, g and h are from r. e. dakin's records. the u. s. g. s. figures for the same are enclosed in parenthesis.] in tabular form the figures, taken from the danbury and new milford atlas sheets and from reports of r. e. dakin, are as follows: miles fall in feet per mile source to sherman . sherman to wood creek . wood creek to jerusalem . . jerusalem to mouth . . near jerusalem, where rocky river makes its sudden change in grade, there is an abrupt change in the form of the valley from broad and flat-bottomed to narrow and v-shaped. the profile of rocky river is thus seen to be sharply contrasted with that of a normal stream, which is characterised throughout its course by a decreasing slope. preglacial course the present profile of rocky river and the singular manner in which the lower course of the river is doubled back on the upper course are believed to represent changes wrought by glaciation. before the advent of the glacier, rocky river probably flowed southward through the "neversink-danbury valley," to be described later, and joined the still at danbury, as shown in fig. . the profile of the stream at this stage in its history is shown in fig. , b. at sherman a low col separates rocky river basin from that of the small northward flowing stream which enters the housatonic about a mile below gaylordsville. streams by headward erosion at both ends of the belt of limestone and schist on which they are situated have reduced this divide to an almost imperceptible swell. the rock outcrops in the channel show that the glacier did not produce any change in the divide by damming, though it may have lowered it by scouring. assume that at one time a divide also existed on the eastern fork of rocky river, for example near jerusalem. according to this hypothesis there was, north of this latter divide, a short northward flowing branch of the housatonic located on a belt of weak rock, similar to the small stream which now flows northward from sherman, and very like any of the half-dozen parallel streams in the rock mass south and southwest of danbury, all of which are subsequent streams flowing along the strike. while these stream valleys were growing, the southern ends of the same weak belts of rock were held by southward-flowing streams which united in the broad limestone area now occupied by the city of danbury. [illustration: ~fig. .~ preglacial course of rocky-still river. dotted lines show present courses of the two rivers.] the southward-flowing streams whose heads were, respectively, above sherman and near jerusalem joined at the southern end of the long ridge which includes towner hill and green mountain. thence the stream flowed southward along the valley now occupied by wood creek and reached still river by way of the valley which extends southward from neversink pond (fig. ). the preglacial course of rocky river, as above outlined, is subject to possible modification in one minor feature, namely, the point where the east and west forks joined. the junction may have been where neversink pond is now situated, or three miles farther south than the indicated junction near the mouth of wood creek. a low ridge of till is the only barrier that at present prevents the western branch from flowing into the head of barses pond and thence into neversink pond (fig. ). as thus reconstructed the greater part of rocky river formerly belonged to the still-umpog system and formed a normal tributary in that distant period when the still joined the saugatuck on its way to the sound (fig. ). however, the normal condition was not lasting, for the reversal of still river, as later described, brought about a complex arrangement of barbed streams (fig. ) which remained until modified by glacial action. in a large stream system which has been reversed, considerable evidence may be gathered from the angle at which tributary streams enter. as the original direction of rocky river in its last - / miles is unchanged, normal tributaries should be expected; whereas between jerusalem and the head of the stream entering neversink pond from the south, in accordance with the hypothesis that this portion of the stream was reversed, tributaries pointing upstream might be expected. such little gullies as join rocky river near its mouth are normal in direction; between jerusalem and the mouth of wood creek, a distance of - / miles, there are no distinct tributaries. south of the mouth of wood creek are four tributaries: ( ) the brook which enters the valley from the west about one mile south of neversink pond, ( ) balls brook, which empties into neversink pond, and ( ) two streams on the east side--mountain brook and one other unnamed (fig. ). all these, except mountain brook, are normal to the reconstructed drainage. the evidence of the tributaries, though not decisive, is thus favorable to the hypothesis of reversal. the buried channel figures and show what is known of the buried channel of rocky river. the only definite information as to rock levels is that derived from the drill holes made by r. e. dakin for the j. a. p. crisfield contracting company in connection with work on a reservoir for the connecticut light and power company. numerous holes were drilled at the points indicated on fig. as no. , d, j, no. + , and no. , but only those showing the lowest rock levels need be considered. in the following account the elevations quoted are those determined by r. e. dakin which differ, as shown in fig. , a, from those of the new milford atlas sheet. between the mouth of wood creek and jerusalem bridge holes made near the river show that the depth of the drift--chiefly sand, gravel, and clay--varies from to feet. the greatest thickness of drift, consisting of humus, quicksand and clay, is feet at a point feet from the east bank of rocky river and about - / miles north of the mouth of wood creek (fig. , d). although some allowance should be made for glacial scouring, the rock level at this point, feet, is so much lower than any other record obtained between this point and danbury that one is obliged to assume a buried channel with a level at danbury at least feet below the rock level found in the lowest well record.[ ] it is probable that this well is not situated where the rock is lowest, that is, it may be on one side of the old still river channel. [footnote : well of j. hornig, rear of bottling works, near foot of tower place, ft. to rock, indicated at _a_, fig. . the well of bartley & clancey, white street, ft. to rock, is also indicated at _b_, fig. .] the level obtained at no. is from a hole drilled within feet of the river. the drill struck rock at an elevation of feet after passing through feet of quicksand, gravel, and till. this is clearly not within the channel as it is quite impossible to reconcile the figure with that at d, less than a mile distant. south of jerusalem bridge at j, feet from the river, a hole was bored through feet of clay, sand, and gravel before striking rock at an elevation of feet. [illustration: ~fig. .~ rocky river valley. diagram indicating lowest rock levels which have been discovered by drilling.] at the point marked no. + , about - / miles from the mouth of rocky river, the evidence derived from drill holes, bored at distances ranging from to feet from the right bank, shows the drift cover to be from to feet in thickness. at feet from the river the drill passed through feet of sand, clay, and gravel before striking rock at feet above sea-level. at no. , about one mile from the mouth of rocky river, a hole drilled feet from the right bank showed feet of drift, consisting of clay, sand, gravel, and boulders. the drill reached rock at feet, which is the figure given by r. e. dakin for the elevation of the river at this point. drill holes made, respectively, at and feet to the right of this one showed a drift cover of feet, so that the underlying rock rises only feet in a distance of feet to the east of the river. the foregoing evidence, showing a rock level at d feet lower than that at no. , leaves no doubt that the preglacial course of rocky river was to the south from no. , and there is nothing in the topography between jerusalem and danbury to make improbable the existence of a buried channel. effect of glaciation the preglacial history of rocky river as outlined assumes that before the glacier covered this part of connecticut the present lower course of rocky river was separated from the rest of the system by a divide situated somewhere between the present mouth of the river and the mouth of wood creek. it remains to be shown by what process rocky river was cut off from its southern outlet into still river and forced up its eastern branch and over the col into a tributary of the housatonic. though the preglacial course of rocky river appears to be more natural than the present one, it is really a longer course to the housatonic; the older route being miles, whereas the present course is miles. this fact explains, in part, why the glacier had little difficulty in altering the preglacial drainage, and how the change so effected became permanent. eccentric as the resulting system of drainage is, it would have been still more so had rocky river when ponded overflowed at the head of its western instead of its eastern fork, taken its way past sherman into the housatonic near gaylordsville, and discharging at this point lost the advantage of the fall of the housatonic between gaylordsville and boardman. in glaciated regions an area of swamp land may be taken as an indication of interference by the glacier with the natural run-off. the swamp in which wood creek joins the upper fork of rocky river (fig. ), was formerly a lake due to a dam built across the lower end of a river valley. although the ponded water extended only a short distance up the steeper side valleys, it extended several miles up the main stream. the whole area of this glacial lake, except two small ponds and the narrow channels through which the river now flows, has been converted into a peat-filled bog having a depth of from to feet.[ ] at the termination of the swampy area on the eastern branch of rocky river no indication is found of a dam such as would be required for so extensive a ponding of the waters. here the valley is very narrow, and though the river bed is encumbered with heavy boulders, rock outcrops are so numerous as to preclude the idea of a drift cover raising the water level. this is just the condition to be expected if rocky river reached its present outlet by overtopping a low col at the head of its former eastern branch. the southern end of the neversink pond valley is the only other place whose level is so low that drift deposits could have interfered with the rocky river drainage. the moraine at the head of this valley, crossing the country some two miles north of the city of danbury and binding together two prominent north-and-south ridges, was evidently the barrier which choked the rocky river valley near its mouth and turned back the preglacial river. when rocky river was thus ponded its lowest outlet was found to be at the head of its eastern fork. here the waters spilled over the old divide and took possession of the channel of a small stream draining into the housatonic. accordingly rocky river should be found cutting its bed where it crosses the former divide. it seems reasonable to regard the gorge half-way between jerusalem bridge and housatonic river as approximately the position of the preglacial divide and to consider the small flat area to the north of jerusalem bridge as a flood plain on softer rock, worn down as low as the outcrops of more resistant rock occurring farther down the valley will permit. the reversal of the river may account for the sudden transition from a flat-bottomed valley to a rocky gorge; and for the abrupt change in the profile, bringing the steepest part of the river near its mouth. the increased volume of water flowing through the channel since glacial time has plainly cut down the bed of the ravine between jerusalem and the river's mouth, but the channel is still far from being graded. [footnote : report of soundings made in by t. t. giffen.] the neversink-danbury valley. between neversink pond and danbury extends a deep rock valley, in places filled with drift. as has been shown, this valley was probably occupied in preglacial time by rocky river, which then flowed southward. at its southern end is still river, which flows through danbury from west to east. the most important tributary of the still rises northwest of the city, just beyond the new york-connecticut boundary line, and has two forks. the northern fork, which drains east lake, padanaram reservoir, and margerie pond, flows along the northeast side of clapboard ridge. the southern fork has two branches; the northern one includes the reservoirs of upper kohanza and lake kohanza, while the upper waters of the southern branch have been recently dammed to form an extensive reservoir. on approaching the city, the northernmost fork (draining east lake) turns sharply out of its southeast course and flows in a direction a little east of north. at the end of clapboard ridge, the stream makes a detour around a knoll of coarse stratified drift. from this turn until it joins still river, a distance of about a mile, the stream occupies a broad and partly swampy valley. at the cemetery in this valley (fig. , c) are two eskers of symmetric form, each a few hundred yards in length and trending nearly parallel with the valley axis. east of the valley, and about - / miles north of the cemetery, is a broad, flat-topped ridge of till with rock exposed at the ends, forming a barrier which doubtless existed in preglacial time. west of the valley is a hill with rock foundation rounded out on the northeast side by a mass of drift. the preglacial course of rocky river was between the outcrops at these two localities. northwest of the cemetery for one and a half miles the uneven surface is formed of till and small patches of stratified drift. in a swamp near the north end of the cemetery is a curved esker with lobes extending south and southwest. one mile north of this swamp is an area of excessively coarse till containing boulders which range in diameter from to feet and forming a low ridge separating two ravines, in which head streams flowing in opposite directions. the area of coarse till is bounded on the north by a long sinuous esker of coarse gravel terminating in a flat fan, which is superposed on a field of fine till. associated with the esker is an interesting group of kames and kettleholes, the largest kettlehole being distinguished by distinct plant zones banding the sides of the depression. north of the area of boulders, eskers, and kames just described lies a swamp whose surface is to feet below the upper level of the kame gravels. soundings made by t. t. giffen revealed the presence of feet of peat and feet of silt overlying firm sand, so that feet is the minimum estimate for the difference in level between the surface of the gravels and the floor of the swamp. below the rocky cliffs which line the valley sides are boulders brought by the ice from near-by ledges, and about one-half mile above the head of the swamp are remnants of a terrace standing to feet above the level of the stream. although the terrace appears to consist of till, it may conceal a rock floor which was cut by a former stream. as the valley is followed toward neversink pond, the various features of a till-coated, rock-floored valley are seen. [illustration: ~fig. .~ course of still river. dotted lines show the preglacial channels.] still river statement of the problem still river presents several unusual features, as shown in fig. . tributaries from the west and south unite at danbury to form a stream flowing northward opposite to the regional land slope. near its junction with the housatonic, the river flows northward, whereas its master stream half a mile distant flows southward. the lower valley of the river is broad and flat and apparently much out of proportion to the present stream; it is, indeed, comformable in size and direction with the valley of the housatonic above the mouth of the still. the housatonic, however, instead of choosing the broad lowland in the limestone formation, spread invitingly before it, turns aside and flows through a narrow gorge cut in resistant gneiss, schist, and igneous intrusives. the headwaters of the still mingle with those of the croton system, and its chief southern branch, the umpog, is interlaced with the sources of the saugatuck on a divide marked by glacial drift and swamps. the explanation of these features involves not only the history of the still river system, but also that of the housatonic. in explanation of the present unusual arrangement of streams in the still river system, four hypotheses may be considered: i. still river valley is the ancient bed of the housatonic from which that river has been diverted through reversal caused by a glacial dam. ii. the housatonic has always had its present southeasterly course, but the still, heading at some point in its valley north of danbury, flowed initially southward through one of four possible outlets. the latter stream was later reversed by a glacial dam at the southern end, or by glacial scouring at the northern end of its valley which removed the divide between its headwaters and the housatonic. iii. the housatonic has always held its present southeasterly course, and the still initially flowed southward, as stated above. reversal in this case, however, occurred in a very early stage in the development of the drainage, as the result of the capture of the headwaters of the still by a small tributary of the housatonic. iv. the housatonic has always held its present southeasterly course, but the still has developed from the beginning as a subsequent stream in the direction in which it now flows. the first hypothesis, that the still is the ancient channel of the housatonic, has been advocated by professor hobbs, who has stated: "that the valley of the still was formerly occupied by a large stream is probable from its wide valley area.... the former discharge of the waters of the housatonic through the still into the croton system, on the one hand, or into the saugatuck on the other, would require the assumption of extremely slight changes only in the rock channels which now connect them.... to turn the river (the housatonic) from its course along the limestone valley some obstruction or differential uplift within the river basin may have been responsible. the former seems to be the more probable explanation in view of the large accumulations of drift material in the area south and west of bethel and danbury." "the structural valleys believed to be present in the crystalline rocks of the uplands due to post-newark deformation may well have directed the course of the housatonic after it had once deserted the limestone ... the deep gorge of the housatonic through which the river enters the uplands not only crosses the first high ridge of gneiss in the rectilinear direction of one of the fault series, but its precipitous walls show the presence of minor planes of dislocation, along which the bottom of the valley appears to have been depressed."[ ] the hypothesis proposed by professor hobbs and also the second and third hypotheses here given involve the supposition of reversal of drainage, and their validity rests on the probability that the stream now occupying still river valley formerly flowed southward. the first and second hypotheses will be considered in the following section. [footnote : hobbs, w. h., still rivers of western connecticut: bull. geol. soc. am., vol. , pp. - , .] evidence to be expected if still river has been reversed if still river occupies the valley of a reversed stream, the following physiographic features should be expected: . a valley with a continuous width corresponding to the size of the ancient stream, or a valley comparatively narrow at the north and broadening toward the south. . tributary valleys pointing upstream with respect to the present river. . the regional slope not in accord with the present course of the river. . extensive glacial filling and ponded waters in the region of the present sources of still river. . strong glacial scouring at the northern end in default of a glacial dam at the southern end of the valley, or to assist a dam in its work of reversing the river. the evidence of glacial erosion would be a u-shaped valley, overdeepening of the main valley, and tributaries ungraded with respect to the main stream. . a valley wide throughout or broadening toward the south at the mouth of still river and for several miles north and south of it there is a plain more than a mile broad. this plain continues southward with a width of about one-half mile until, at brookfield, it is interrupted by ledges of bare rock. a little distance south of brookfield the valley broadens again to one-half mile, and this width is retained with some variation as far as danbury. drift deposits along the border of the valley make it appear narrower in some places than is indicated by rock outcrops. between brookfield and danbury the narrowest place in the valley is southwest of beaver brook mountain, where the distance between the hills of rock bounding the valley is one-fifth of a mile (fig. ). opposite beaver brook mountain, which presents vertical faces of granite-gneiss toward the valley, is a hill of limestone. ice, crowding through this narrow place in the valley, must have torn masses of rock from the side walls, so that the valley is now broader than in preglacial time. the constrictions in the valley near shelter rock are due to the fact that the preglacial valley, now partly buried in till, lies to the north. there are stretches of broad floor in the valley of beaver brook, in the lower valley of umpog creek, in the fields at the south end of main street in danbury, about lake kanosha, and where the danbury fair grounds are situated. in the western part of danbury, however, and at mill plain the valley is very narrow, and at the head of sugar hollow, the valley lying east of spruce mountain, is a narrow col. the broadest continuous area in the still-umpog valley is, therefore, in the lower six miles between brookfield and new milford; south of that portion are several places where the valley is sharply constricted; and beyond the head of the umpog, about one and a half miles below west redding station (fig. ), the saugatuck valley is a very narrow gorge. on the whole, the valleys south and southwest of danbury are much narrower than the valley of the still farther north. it is evident from these observations that still river valley is neither uniformly broad, nor does it increase in width toward the south. but if a broad valley is to be accepted as evidence of the work of a large river, then there is too much evidence in the still river valley. the broad areas named above are more or less isolated lowlands, some of them quite out of the main line of drainage, and can not be grouped to form a continuous valley. they can not be attributed to the housatonic nor wholly to the work of the insignificant streams now draining them. these broad expanses are, in fact, local peneplains developed on areas of soluble limestone. the rock has dissolved and the plain so produced has been made more nearly level by a coating of peat and glacial sand. in a region of level and undisturbed strata, such as the ohio or mississippi valley, a constant relation may exist between the size of a stream and the valley made by it; but in a region of complicated geologic structure, such as western connecticut, where rocks differ widely in their resistance to erosion, the same result is not to be expected. in this region the valleys are commonly developed on limestone and their width is closely controlled by the width of the belt of limestone. even the narrow valleys in the upland southwest of danbury are to be accounted for by the presence of thin lenses of limestone embedded in gneiss and schist. the opinion of hobbs that still river valley is too wide to be the work of the present stream takes into consideration only the broad places, but when the narrow places are considered it may be said as well that the valley is too narrow to be the work of a stream larger than the one now occupying it. valley width has only negative value in interpreting the history of still river. . tributary valleys pointing upstream the dominant topographic feature of western connecticut, as may be seen on the atlas sheets, is elongated oval hills trending north by west to south by east, which is the direction of the axes of the folds into which the strata were thrown at the time their metamorphism took place. furthermore, the direction of glacial movement in this part of new england was almost precisely that of foliation, and scouring by ice merely accentuated the dominant north-south trend of the valleys and ridges. as a result, the smaller streams developed on the softer rocks are generally parallel to each other and to the strike of the rocks. these streams commonly bend around the ends of the hills but do not cross them. the narrowness of the belts of soft rock makes it easy for the drainage of the valleys to be gathered by a single lengthwise stream. the still and its larger tributaries conform in this way to the structure. on the east side of the still-umpog every branch, except two rivulets - / miles south of bethel, points in the normal direction, that is, to the north, or downstream as the river now flows (fig. ). the largest eastern tributary, beaver brook, is in a preglacial valley now converted into a swamp the location and size of which are due entirely to a belt of limestone. it is not impossible that beaver brook may have once flowed southward toward bethel, but the limestone at its mouth, which lies at least feet lower than that at its head, shows that if such were ever the case it must have been before the north-flowing still river had removed the limestone north of beaver brook swamp. on the flanks of beaver brook mountain are three tributaries which enter the river against its present course. examination of the structure reveals, however, that these streams like those on the east side of the river are controlled in their direction by the orientation of the harder rock masses. the southward flowing stream four miles in length which drains the upland west of beaver brook mountain has an abnormal direction in the upper part of its course, but on reaching the flood plain it takes a sharp turn to the north. above the latter point it is in line with the streams near beaver brook mountain and is abnormal in consequence of a line of weakness in the rock. the lowland lying west of umpog valley, extending from main street in danbury to a point one mile beyond bethel, affords no definite evidence in regard to the direction of tributaries. in reconstructing the history of this valley the chief difficulty arises from the old-age condition of the flood plain. drainage channels which must once have existed have been obliterated, leaving a swampy plain which from end to end varies less than feet in elevation. it is likely that in preglacial times the part of the valley north of grassy plain, if not the entire valley, drained northward into still river, as now do umpog creek and beaver brook. from this outlet heavy drift deposits near the river later cut it off. the lowland is now drained by a stream which enters the umpog north of grassy plain. several small streams tributary to the umpog south of bethel also furnish no evidence in favor of the reversal of still river. west of danbury the tributaries of still river point upstream on one side and downstream on the other side of the valley, in conformity with the rock structure which is here diagonal to the limestone belt on which the river is located. their direction in harmony with the trend of the rocks has, therefore, no significance in the earlier history of the river. from the foregoing discussion, it appears that no definite conclusions in regard to the history of still river can be drawn from the angle at which tributaries enter it. the direction of the branches which enter at an abnormal angle can be explained without assuming a reversal of the main stream, and likewise many of the tributaries with normal trends seem to have adopted their courses without regard to the direction of still river. . regional slope not in accord with course of the still although the regional slope of western connecticut as a whole is contrary to that of still river, there is no marked lowering of the hill summits between the source of the river and its mouth. as branches on the south side of the housatonic are naturally to be expected, there is nothing unusual in the still flowing in opposition to the regional slope, except that it flows toward the north instead of the northeast. . evidence of glacial filling and degrading of the river bed hobbs has suggested that the waters of the housatonic may have been ponded at a point near west redding until they rose high enough to overflow into the "fault gorge" below still river station, thus giving the streams of the danbury region an outlet to the sound by this route. this hypothesis calls for a glacial dam which has not been found. it is true there are glacial deposits in the umpog valley south of bethel. the umpog flows as it does, however, not because of a glacial "dam" but in spite of it. the river heads on rock beyond and above the glacial deposits and picks its way through them (fig. ). drift forms the divide at the western end of still river valley beyond mill plain, but the ponded water which it caused did not extend as far as danbury (see discussion of still-croton valley). the sugar hollow pass is also filled with a heavy mantle of drift, but the valley is both too high and too narrow at the col to have been the outlet of the housatonic. it might be assumed that just previous to the advent of the ice sheet still river headed south of its present mouth and flowed southward. in this case the still, when reversed, should have overflowed at the lowest point on the divide between it and the housatonic. it should have deepened its channel over the former divide, and the result would have been a gorge if the divide were high, or at least some evidence of river cutting even if the divide were low. on the contrary, still river joins the housatonic in a low, broad, and poorly drained plain. the existing relief is due to the uneven distribution of drift. the river is now cutting a gorge at lanesville, but the appearance of the valley to the west indicates that glacial deposits forced the river out of its former bed (fig. ) and that no barrier lay between the preglacial still river valley and the housatonic valley. . glacial scouring a reversal of still river may be explained by glacial scouring which caused the northern end of the valley to become lower than the present divides at west redding and mill plain. the evidence of such scour should be an overdeepened, u-shaped main valley and ungraded tributaries. the northern part of still river valley has not the typical u form which results from glacial erosion. as contrasted with the u-shaped glacial valley and the v-shaped valley of normal stream erosion, it might be called rectangular so sharply does the flat valley floor terminate against the steep hillsides. the floor is too smooth and flat and the tributary valleys too closely adjusted to the variant hardness of the rocks to be the work of such a rough instrument as the glacier. a level so nearly perfect as that of the flood plain is the natural result of erosion of soft rock down to a baselevel, whereas glacial scouring tends to produce a surface with low rounded hills and hollows. overdeepening would be expected, because glaciers erode without reference to existing baselevels. that a river valley should be cut out by ice just enough to leave it graded with respect to the main valley would be an unusual coincidence. this is what is found where the still river valley joins the housatonic, and it indicates normal stream erosion. also, if the limestone of the northern still river valley were gouged out by the glacier, the action would in all probability have been continuous in the limestone belt to the north of the housatonic, and where the belt of soft rock crosses the housatonic the river bed would be overdeepened. although the valley of the housatonic near new milford is very flat, as is natural where a river crosses a belt of weak rock, the outcrops are sufficiently numerous to show that it has not been overdeepened. the limestone area along the east aspetuck is largely overlain by till, but here again the presence of rock in place shows that the valley has not been overdeepened. moreover, limestone boulders in the southern part of still river valley are not as abundant as they should be under the hypothesis that the northern part had been gouged out extensively. that the northern part of the still river valley was not deeply carved by ice is shown also by the character of the tributary streams. the three small brooks on the west side of the valley, near beaver brook mountain, were examined to see if their grades indicated an over-deepening of the main valley. these streams, however, and others so far as could be determined, were found to have normal profiles; that is, their grades become increasingly flatter toward their mouths. the streams are cutting through the till cover and are not building alluvial cones where they join the lowland. all their features, in fact, are characteristic of normal stream development. throughout the length of the valley, rock outcrops are found near the surface, showing that the changes produced by the glacier were due to scouring rather than to the accumulation of glacial material. except where stratified drift is collected locally in considerable quantity, the glacial mantle is thin. on the other hand, it has been shown that glacial gouging was not sufficient in amount to affect the course of the stream. the glacier simply cleaned off the soil and rotten rock from the surface, slackening the stream here and hastening it there, and by blocking the course with drift it forced the river at several places to depart slightly from its preglacial course. the evidence shows, therefore, that if still river has suffered reversal, glaciation is not responsible for the change, and thus the first two hypotheses for explaining the history of the valley are eliminated. there remain for discussion the third and fourth hypotheses; the former being that reversal was effected in a very early stage in the development of the drainage, the latter that no reversal has occurred. the choice between these two hypotheses rests on evidence obtained in the umpog, croton, and other valleys of the danbury region. this evidence is presented in the three following sections, after which the former courses of still river will be discussed. the still-saugatuck divide features of the umpog valley the valley of the umpog, which extends from still river to the source of the saugatuck near west redding (fig. ), is a critical area in the study of the still river system. it is possible that this valley once afforded an outlet for still river, and it has been suggested that the housatonic formerly followed this route to long island sound. the relation of this valley to the former drainage system of the danbury region demands, therefore, a careful examination of the features of the valleys occupied by umpog creek and the upper waters of the saugatuck, and of the divide between those streams. [illustration: ~fig. .~ map of umpog swamp and vicinity.] north of bethel the umpog occupies an open valley developed in limestone. knolls of limestone rise to heights of about feet above the floor of the valley and their upper surfaces are cut across the highly, tilted beds. this truncation, together with a general correspondence in height, suggests that these knolls, as well as the rock terraces found between bethel and west redding, and the limestone ridge which forms the divide itself, are portions of what was once a more continuous terrace produced by stream erosion and that they determine a former river level. the absence of accurate elevations and the probability of glacial scour make conclusions regarding the direction of slope of this dissected rock terrace somewhat uncertain. as will be indicated later, however, it seems likely that these terrace remnants mark the course of a southward flowing river that existed in a very early stage in the development of the drainage. south of bethel the old umpog valley, has lost from one-third to one-half its width through deposits of stratified drift (pl. ii, a and b). on the west, gravel beds lie against rock and till; on the east, deposits of sand and coarse gravel form a bench or terrace from to feet broad, which after following the side of the valley for one-half mile, crosses it diagonally and joins the western slope as a row of rounded hills. through this drift the present stream has cut a narrow channel. the narrowest part of the umpog valley is about one mile south of bethel. farther upstream the valley expands into the flat occupied by umpog swamp, which presents several interesting features. the eastern, southern, and western sides of the swamp are formed of irregular masses of limestone and granite-gneiss to feet high. near the northwestern edge of the swamp is a terrace-like surface cut on limestone. its elevation is about the same as that of the beveled rock remnants lying in umpog valley north of bethel. [illustration: ~state geol. nat. hist. survey. bull. . plate ii.~ a. view up the valley of umpog creek. the valley dwindles in the distance to the "railroad divide." in the middle distance is umpog swamp; in the foreground the edge of the southern end of row of kames which points down the valley. b. view down the valley of umpog creek. to the left is the edge of limestone terrace; in the middle distance is the catholic cemetery situated on a terrace of stratified drift; on the right are mounds of stratified drift; in the distance is the granite ridge bounding the valley on the east.] [illustration: ~fig. .~ profiles of rivers. a. profile of present still river and buried channel of 	 umpog-still river. b. profile of preglacial croton-still river. c. profile of preglacial umpog-still river. solid lines show the present levels. dotted lines show preglacial levels.] umpog swamp was formerly a lake but is now nearly filled with organic matter so that only a small remnant of the old water body remains. soundings have revealed no bottom at feet[ ] and the depth to rock bottom is not less than feet. the swamp situated one-half mile southwest of bethel has a depth to rock of feet. in their relation to the still river system these two swamps may be regarded simply as extensions of the umpog creek channel, but when the elevations of their bottoms are compared with that of points to the north and south, where the river flows on rock, it will be seen that a profile results which is entirely out of harmony with the present profile of the river. thus umpog creek falls feet at the point where it spills over the rock ledge into the swamp, and if the feet which measures the depth of umpog swamp be added, the difference in level is seen to be at least feet. a similar calculation locates the bottom of the smaller swamp near bethel at an elevation of feet above sea-level or on the same level as the bottom of umpog swamp. in a straight line - / miles north of bethel, still river crosses rock at a level of feet, or feet higher than the bottom of umpog swamp. at brookfield, - / miles north of the mouth of the umpog, the still crosses rock at feet, and - / miles farther north, it joins the housatonic on a rock floor feet above sea-level (fig. , a). such a profile can be explained in either of two ways: glaciers gouged out rock basins in the weak limestone, or the river in its lower part has been forced out of its graded bed onto rock at a higher level. probably both causes have operated, but the latter has produced more marked effects. umpog creek has its source in a small forked stream which rises in the granite hills east of the south end of umpog swamp. after passing westward through a flat swampy area, where it is joined by the waters from todd pond, the stream turns north and follows a shallow rock gorge until umpog swamp is reached. the divide which separates the present headwaters of the umpog from those of the saugatuck is a till-covered swampy flat about one-quarter mile east of todd pond. this arrangement of tributary streams is correctly shown in fig. and differs essentially from that shown on the danbury atlas sheet. this divide owes its position to the effects of glaciation. deposits of till and the scouring of the bed rock so modified the preglacial surface that the upper part of the saugatuck was cut off and made tributary to the umpog. [footnote : report by t. t. giffen, .] the preglacial divide in order to determine whether still river flowed southward through the saugatuck valley just before the advent of the ice sheet, the borders of umpog swamp and the region to the south and east were examined. it was found that umpog swamp is walled in on the south by ledges of firm crystalline limestone and that the rock-floored ravine leading southward from the swamp, and occupied by the railroad, lies at too high an elevation to have been the channel of a through-flowing stream. a south-flowing still river, and much less an ancient housatonic, could not have had its course through this ravine just previous to glaciation. a course for these rivers through the short valley which extends southeastward from umpog swamp is also ruled out, because the bedrock floor of this hypothetical passageway is feet higher than the floor of the ravine through which the railroad passes. the eastern border of umpog swamp is determined by a ridge of limestone which separates the swamp from lowlying land beyond. this ridge is continuous, except for the postglacial gorge cut by the tributary entering from the east, and must have been in existence in preglacial times. the entire lowland east of this limestone ridge possesses a unity that is not in harmony with the present division of the drainage. the streams from this hillside and those from the west may have joined in the flat-floored valley at the head of the saugatuck and from there flowed into the saugatuck system. the former divide then lay in a line connecting the limestone rim of the swamp with the tongue of highland which the highway crosses south of todd pond (fig. ). the still-croton divide introduction the deep valley extending from the danbury fair grounds to the east branch reservoir in the croton river system, has given rise to the suggestion that the course of the housatonic formerly may have been along the line of still and croton rivers and thence to the hudson.[ ] from the evidence of the topographic map alone, this hypothesis appears improbable. the trend of the larger streams in western connecticut is to the south and southeast; a southwesterly course, therefore, would be out of harmony with the prevailing direction of drainage. also, the distance from the present mouth of still river to tidewater by the still-croton route is longer than the present route by way of the housatonic. [footnote : hobbs, w. h., still rivers of western connecticut: bull. geol. soc. am., vol. , p. , .] features of still river valley west of danbury from danbury to its source still river occupies a valley whose features are significant in the history of the drainage. between danbury and the fair grounds (fig. ) the valley is a v-shaped ravine - / miles long, well proportioned to the small stream now occupying it but entirely too narrow for the channel of a large river. along the valley are outcrops of schist, and granite rock is present on both sides of the valley for a distance of about one-quarter mile. part of the valley is a mere cleft cut in the rock and is unglaciated. at the danbury fair grounds the valley opens out into a marshy plain, through which the river meanders and receives two tributaries from the south. the plain, which extends beyond lake kanosha on the west, has a generally level surface but is diversified in places by mounds of stratified drift. near the railroad a rock outcrop was found which gives a clue to the nature of the broad lowland. the rock consists mainly of schist, but on the side next the valley there is a facing of rotten limestone. this plain, like all the others in this region, is a local peneplain developed on soluble limestone. a better example could not be found to prove the fallacy of the saying that "a broad valley proves the existence of a large river." the plain is simply a local expansion of a valley which on each side is much narrower. no other river than the one flowing through it can have been responsible for the erosion, for the plain is enclosed by hills of gneiss and schist (pl. iii). at mill plain the valley is crowded by ragged rock outcrops which jut into the lowland. here the river occupies a ravine cut in till near the north side of the valley. west of mill plain station the valley is encumbered with ridges of stratified drift, interspersed with heavy accumulations of till. near andrew pond the true width of the valley--one-eighth mile--is shown by rock outcrops on both the north and south slopes. the valley at this point gives no indication of narrowing toward the headwaters; in fact, it becomes broader toward the west. between andrew pond and haines' pond is the divide which separates the waters of the still system from those of the croton. it consists of a jumbled mass of morainal hills, seemingly of boulder clay, that rise from to feet above the level of the ponds. the divide is thus merely a local obstruction in what was formerly a through drainage channel. the still-croton valley it is evident that before the advent of the glacier a stream must have flowed through the still-croton valley past the present divide in order to have excavated the rock valley there found. the housatonic could not have flowed west through this valley if it was as narrow and shallow as is indicated by known rock outcrops; the river could have flowed through it only in a deep narrow gorge which was later buried under drift, but the evidence at hand does not support this view. [illustration: ~state geol. nat. hist. survey bull. . plate iii.~ limestone plain southwest of danbury, in which are situated the danbury fair grounds and lake kanosha.] it is most probable that this valley was made by the preglacial croton river. this explanation demands no change in the direction of still and croton rivers but calls for a divide at some point east of the present one. from a divide between the fair grounds and danbury, a small stream may be supposed to have flowed toward the east, joining the larger northern branch of the still at a point near the middle of the city of danbury. the stream flowing westward from this divide formed the headwaters of one branch of the croton system. the presence of till in a ravine can be used as a criterion for locating the site of a former divide, for where till is present in the bed of a stream the channel is of preglacial date. where the river crosses a divide it should be cutting through rock, though till may be present on the valley slopes. judged by this test, the old divide was situated either just east of the fair grounds plain or at the east end of the ravine described in the preceding topic. of these two positions the one near the fair grounds seems the more likely (fig. ), for at this place the river has excavated a recent channel with steep sides in gneissoid rock. the absence of the limestone at this point may be sufficient in itself to explain the location of the divide. exact measurements of the drift in the upper still valley are needed in order to establish this hypothesis completely and to plot the old channel, but the position of the rock floor of the former channel extending westward from the fair grounds may be fixed approximately. the rock at the assumed divide now stands at feet above sea-level and it is reasonable to assume that ten feet has been removed by glacial scouring and postglacial erosion, making the original elevation feet. the present divide between andrew pond and haines' pond has an elevation of , but the bedrock at this place is buried under feet of drift, so that the valley floor lies at feet. according to these estimates the stream which headed east of the fair grounds had a fall of feet before reaching the site of the present haines' pond (fig. , b). glacial lake kanosha when the croton branch was beheaded by drift choking up its valley west of andrew pond, the ponded waters rose to a height of from to feet and then overflowed the basin on the side toward danbury. the outlet was established across the old divide, and as the gorge by which the water escaped was cut down, the level of the ponded waters was lowered. at the same time, also, the lake was filled by debris washed into it from the surrounding slopes. thus the present flat plain was formed and the old valley floor, a local peneplain developed on the limestone, was hidden. divides in the highlands south of danbury the mountain mass to the south and southwest of danbury, including town hill and spruce, moses, and thomas mountains, is traversed by a series of parallel gorges trending nearly north and south (fig. ). about midway in each valley is a col, separating north and south-flowing streams. two of the valleys, those between spruce and moses mountains, and thomas mountain and town hill, form fairly low and broad passes. they were examined to see whether either could have afforded a southerly outlet for still river. the rock composing the mountains is granite-gneiss and schist with an average strike of n ° w, or very nearly in line with the trend of the valleys. the gneiss was found to be characteristic of the high ridges and schist to be more common in the valleys. no outcrops of limestone were found on the ridges, but at two or three localities limestone in place was found on low ground. from the facts observed it is evident that the stronger features of the relief are due to the presence of bodies of resistant rock, whereas the valleys are due to the presence of softer rock. the series of deep parallel valleys is attributed to the presence of limestone rather than schist. the gorge between spruce and moses mountains, locally called "sugar hollow," narrows southward as it rises to the col, and the rock floor is buried under till and stratified drift to depths of to feet. nevertheless it is probable that the valley was no deeper in preglacial time than it is now. the plan of the valley with its broad mouth to the north favored glacial scour so that the ice widened and deepened the valley and gave it a u form. scouring and filling are believed to have been about equal in amount, and the present height of the divide, about feet, may be taken as the preglacial elevation. this is feet higher than the rock floor of the divide at west redding. the pass could not, therefore, have served as an outlet for still river. the valley west of town hill is similar in form and origin to sugar hollow. the water parting occurs in a swamp, from each end of which a small brook flows. the height of the pass in this valley-- feet-- precludes its use as an ancient outlet for still river. likewise the valley east of town hill affords no evidence of occupation by a southward through-flowing stream. the ancient still river the conclusion that the still-umpog was not reversed by a glacial dam does not preclude the possibility that this valley has been occupied by a south-flowing stream. it is probable that in an early stage in the development of the drainage, the streams of the danbury region reached long island sound by way of the still-umpog-saugatuck valley. along this route, as described under the heading "the still-saugatuck divide," is a fairly broad continuous valley at a higher level than the beds of the present rivers. a south-flowing river, as shown in fig. , brings all the drainage between danbury and the housatonic into normal relations. this early relationship of the streams was disturbed by the reversal of the waters of the ancient still in the natural development of a subsequent drainage. the housatonic lowered the northern end of the limestone belt, in the region between new milford and stillriver village, faster than the smaller south-flowing stream was able to erode its bed. eventually a small tributary of the housatonic captured the headwaters of the south-flowing river, and by the time the latter had been reversed as far south as the present divide at umpog swamp, it is probable that the advantage gained by the more rapid erosion of the housatonic was offset by the saugatuck's shorter course to the sea. as a result the divide between still and saugatuck rivers at umpog swamp had become practically stationary before the advent of the glacier. the complex history of still river is not fully shown in the stream profile, for the latter is nearly normal, except in the rock basins in the valley of the umpog. this is due to the fact that changes in the course of the still, caused by the development of a subsequent drainage through differential erosion, were made so long ago that evidence of them has been largely destroyed. the foregoing conclusion practically eliminates hypothesis iv--that the still developed from the beginning as a subsequent stream in the direction in which it now flows. this hypothesis holds good only for the short portion of the lower course of the present river, that is, the part representing the short tributary of the housatonic which captured and reversed the original still. departures of still river from its preglacial channel between danbury and beaver brook mountain the still departs widely from its former channel, as shown in fig. . at the foot of liberty street in danbury the river makes a sharp turn to the southeast, flows through a flat plain, and for some distance follows the limestone valley of the umpog, meeting the latter stream in a swampy meadow. it then cuts across the western end of shelter rock in a gorge-like valley not over feet wide. outcrops of a gneissoid schist on the valley sides and rapids in the stream bear witness to the youthfulness of this portion of the river channel. an open valley which extends from the foot of liberty street in a northeasterly direction (the railroad follows it) marks the former course of still river, but after the stream was forced out of this course and superimposed across the end of shelter rock by the accumulation of drift in the central and northern parts of the valley, it was unable to regain its old channel until near beaver brook mountain. the deposits of drift not only have kept the still confined to the eastern side of its valley but have forced a tributary from the west to flow along the edge of the valley for a mile before it joins its master stream. about a mile north of brookfield junction, still river valley begins to narrow, and at brookfield the river, here crowded to the extreme eastern side, is cutting a gorge through limestone. the preglacial course of the still in the brookfield region seems to have been near the center of the valley where it was joined by long brook and other short, direct streams draining the hillsides. the glacier, however, left a thick blanket of drift in the middle of the valley which turned the still to the east over rock and forced long brook to flow for more than a mile along the extreme western side of the valley. [illustration: ~fig. .~ early stage of the rocky-still river, antedating preglacial course shown in figure .] the broad valley through which the still flows in the lower part of its course extends northward beyond it for over two miles, bordering the housatonic river. at lanesville near the mouth of the still, the river has cut a gorge feet deep and one-quarter mile long in the limestone. upstream from this gorge the river meanders widely in a flat valley, whereas on the downstream side it has cut a deep channel in the drift in order to reach the level of the housatonic. there is room in the drift-covered plain to the west for a buried channel of still river which could join the housatonic at any point between new milford and stillriver station. if the depth of the drift be taken at feet, there would seem to be no objection to the supposition that the still initially joined its master stream opposite new milford, as shown in fig . after the limestone had been worn down to approximate baselevel, the tendency of the still would have been to seek an outlet farther south in order to shorten its course and reach a lower level on the housatonic. this stage in the evolution of the river may not have been reached before the ice age, and it is thus possible that glacial deposits may have pushed the river to the extreme southern side of its valley, superimposed it over rock, and forced it to cut its way down to grade. suggested courses of housatonic river as possible former outlets for the housatonic, hobbs has suggested the still-umpog-saugatuck valley or the still-croton valley (by way of the east branch reservoir)[ ], whereas crosby has suggested the ten mile-swamp river-muddy brook-croton river valley (by way of webatuck, wing's station, and pawling), or the fall's village-limerock-sharon- webatuck creek-ten mile valley.[ ] the sketch map, fig. , indicates the courses just outlined and one other by way of the norwalk. the latter is the route followed by the danbury and norwalk division of the housatonic railroad. it is natural to assume that the housatonic might have occupied anyone of these lines of valleys, particularly where they are developed on limestone and seem too broad for the streams now occupying them. nevertheless, although each of these routes is on soft rock and some give shorter distances to the sea than the present course, it is highly improbable that the housatonic ever occupied any of these valleys. for had the river once become located in a path of least resistance, such as is furnished by any of these suggested routes, it could not have been dislodged and forced to cut its way for miles through a massive granitic formation, as it does between still river and derby, without great difficulty (pl. iv, a). [illustration: ~fig. .~ five suggested outlets of housatonic river.] an inspection of the larger river systems of connecticut shows that the streams composing them exhibit two main trends. likewise, the courses, of the larger rivers themselves, whether trunk streams or tributaries, combine these two trends, one of which is northwest-southeast and the other nearly north-south. the north-south drainage lines are the result of geologic structure, and many broad, flat-floored valleys, often apparently out of proportion to the streams occupying them, have this direction. on the other hand, the northwest-southeast drainage lines across the strike of formations, coincide with the slope toward the sea of the uplifted peneplain whose dissected surface is represented by the crests of the uplands. the valleys of streams with this trend are generally narrow, and some are gorges where resistant rock masses are crossed. the northwest-southeast trends of master streams thus were determined initially by the slope of the peneplain, whereas the north-south trends represent later adjustments to structure. it is concluded, therefore, that the housatonic between bulls' bridge and derby (fig. ), had its course determined by the slope of the uplifted peneplain and is antecedent in origin. the old headwaters extended northwest from the turn in the river near bull's bridge, whereas that part of the river above bull's bridge was initially a minor tributary. this tributary, because of its favorable situation, in time captured all the drainage of the extensive limestone belt to the north and then became part of the main stream. the lower housatonic, therefore, has always maintained its ancient course diagonal to the strike of formations, and differential erosion, which reaches its maximum expression in limestone areas, is responsible for the impression that the still river lowland and other valleys west of the housatonic may once have been occupied by the latter stream. [illustration: ~state geol. nat. hist. survey bull. . plate iv.~ a. view down the housatonic valley from a point one-half mile below still river station. pumpkin hill, a ridge of resistant schist and quartzite, stands on right. a small island lies in the river. b. part of the morainal ridge north of danbury. till capped by stratified drift one mile north of shelter rock.] [footnote : hobbs, w. h., still rivers of western connecticut: bull. geol. soc. am., vol. , p. , .] [footnote : crosby, w. o., notes on the geology of the sites of the proposed dams in the valleys of the housatonic and ten mile rivers: tech. quart., vol. , p. , .] glacial deposits beaver brook swamp a broad belt of limestone extends along the eastern side of the granite ridge of shelter rock and in preglacial time formed a broad-bottomed valley whose master stream had reached old age. when the glacier came it hampered the drainage by scooping out the rock bottom of the valley in places and by dropping deposits at the mouth of beaver brook valley, thus forming beaver brook swamp or "the flat," as it is called (fig. ). among the deposits at the southern end of beaver brook swamp is considerable stratified drift in the form of smoothly rounded hills or kames, which are situated both on the border of the valley and in the swamp. till containing medium-sized boulders of granodiorite-gneiss occurs along the road which borders the east side of the densely wooded swamp. along the northeastern border of the swamp is a flat-topped terrace of till, perhaps a lateral moraine, through which a small stream heading to the north has cut a v-shaped ravine. a lobe of fine till extends into the valley from the northeast and narrows the outlet. between the railroad and highway, which cross the northern end of the swamp, is an irregular wooded eminence of rock, partly concealed by a veneer of drift. between this knoll and shelter rock are heavy deposits of sand in the form of a short, broad terrace with lobes which point into the still river valley. a similar terrace is found to the northwest on the opposite side of the valley. at the northern end of shelter rock along the blind road leading to the summit is a peninsula-like body of drift which contains huge granite boulders mixed here and there with pockets of sand and gravel. stratified drift was found at the foot of the hill, and till overlying it higher up. the more usual arrangement is boulder clay overlain by modified drift, the first being laid down by the ice itself, the second being deposited by streams from the melting glacier in its retreat. huge boulders, many ten feet or more in diameter, are strewn over the northern slope of shelter rock. deposits northeast of danbury north of the railroad, opposite shelter rock (fig. ), is a most interesting flat-topped ridge of drift which topographically is an extension of the higher rock mass to the northwest. in this drift mass are to be found in miniature a number of the forms characteristic of glacial topography. the broad-topped gravel ridge slopes sharply on the north into a flat-bottomed ravine which is evidently part of the still river lowland. this portion of the valley has been shut off by drift deposits. the drainage has been so obstructed that the stream in the ravine turns northeast away from its natural outlet. in the valley of "x" brook (fig. ) are terraces, esker-like lobes, and detached mounds of stratified drift resting on a foundation of till. along the eastern border of the hill is to be seen the contact between two forms of glacial deposits (pl. iv, b). a mass of stratified drift overlies a hummocky deposit of coarse till, but large boulders occurring here and there on top of the stratified drift show that the ice-laid and water-laid materials were not completely sorted. boulders seem to have been dropping out of the ice at the same time that gravel was being deposited. boulders of granite-gneiss eight feet or more in diameter, carried by the ice from the hills to the north and northeast, are strewn at the foot of the hill. deposits between beaver brook mountain and mouth of still river about a mile beyond beaver brook mountain, the railroad cuts through the edge of a hill feet in height exposing a section consisting of distinctly stratified layers of fine white quartz sand, coarser yellowish sand, and small round pebbles. the quartz sand was used at one time in making glass. farther east where the two tracks of the new york and new england railroads converge, a cut shows a section of at least feet of boulder clay. near the river, limestone boulders are common, indicating that the valley to the north was degraded to some extent by the glacier. [illustration: ~state geol. nat. hist. survey bull. . plate v.~ a. kames in still river valley west of brookfield junction. b. till ridges on the western border of still river valley, south of brookfield.] in the valley at brookfield junction and on its western side, are thick deposits of clean sand. one mile north of brookfield junction, along the western border of the valley, an esker follows an irregular course for several hundred yards approximately parallel to the river and terminates at its southern end in a group of kames (pl. v, a and b). opposite the point where these accumulations occur, is a terrace-like deposit of till. between the gorge at brookfield and the mouth of still river, swampy areas, flat meadows, and small hills of drift occur. in comparison with the still river lowland, the flat land east of green mountain may be called a plateau. the step between the two is made by an east-facing rocky slope, the outline of which has been softened by a lateral moraine separated from the plateau edge by a small ravine. on the lowland below the moraine is a group of kames. near lanesville (fig. ), are thick deposits of water-laid material, including a hill of gravel near the river having a large bowl-shaped depression on one side formed by the melting of an ice block. two and a half miles south of lanesville on the west side of the lowland, a wooded esker extends for about one-quarter mile parallel to the valley axis and then merges into the rocky hillside. lakes the lakes of this region are of two kinds: ( ) those due to the damming of river valleys by glacial deposits and ( ) rock basins gouged out by the ice. among the lakes which owe their origin to drift accumulations in the valleys are andrew and haines' ponds at the head of still river. these are properly parts of the croton river system, but andrew pond has been held back by the deep filling of boulder clay in the valley. lake kanosha, in the same valley, is a shallow lake formed in the drift. the lake south of spruce mountain at the head of the saugatuck seems to be enclosed by drift alone. neversink pond, barses pond, creek pond, and leonard pond are the remnants of larger water bodies now converted into swamps. squantz pond and hatch pond have dams of drift. eureka lake and east lake appear to be rock basins whose levels have been raised somewhat by dams of till. great mountain pond and green's pond, between great mountain and green mountain, are surrounded by rock and their level has been raised several feet by artificial dams. great mountain pond is at least feet above the level of green pond and separated from it by a rock ridge (fig. ). history of the glacial deposits a tongue of the glacier is supposed to have lain in the valley of the umpog and gradually retreated northward after the ice had disappeared from the uplands on either side. the ridge of intermediate height built of limestone and schist, which extends down the middle of the valley, was probably covered by ice for some time after the glacier had left the highlands. when the mountain mass extending from pine mountain to town hill west of the umpog basin and the granite hills to the east terminating in shelter rock are considered in their relation to the movement of the ice, it is apparent that the valley of the umpog must have been the most direct and lowest outlet for glacial streams south of danbury. these streams built up the terraces and other deposits of stratified drift which occupy the valley between bethel and west redding. the heavy deposits of till near west redding mark a halt in the retreating glacier. the boulders at this point are large and numerous, and kames and gravel ridges were formed. the deposits at the divide, supposed to have formed a glacial dam which reversed the umpog,[ ] are much less heavy than at points short distances north and south of the water parting. as the ice retreated, sand and gravel in the form of terraces accumulated along the margin of the umpog valley, where the drainage was concentrated in the spaces left by the melting of the ice lobe from the hillside. among these deposits are the bodies of sand and gravel which lie against the rocky hillslopes most of the way from the umpog-saugatuck divide to bethel. north of bethel, the drainage seems to have been gathered chiefly in streams flowing on each side of the low ridge occupying the center of the valley; consequently the gravel was deposited along the sides and southern end of the ridge and in the sag which cuts across its northern end. the row of kames at the north end of umpog swamp, several knolls of drift in bethel, and the kame-like deposits and esker north of grassy plain were laid down successively as the ice retreated down the valley. during this period, the drainage was ponded between the ice front and the umpog-saugatuck divide. uncovering the still-croton valley did not give the glacial drainage any lower outlet than the umpog-saugatuck divide afforded (fig. , b and c.) the heavy deposits of boulder clay forming the moraine which blocks the rocky river valley indicate the next halting place of the glacier. in this period the ice margin formed an irregular northeast-southwest line about a mile north of danbury. the country west and south of danbury was thus uncovered, but the lower part of still river valley was either covered by the ice sheet or occupied by an ice lobe. the drainage was, therefore, up the river valley, and being concentrated along the valley sides resulted in the accumulation of sand and gravel at the foot of rocky slopes. it is possible that an ice lobe extended down the old rocky river valley, perhaps occupying much of the country between beaver brook mountain and the high ridge west of the valley. the streams issuing from this part of the ice front would have laid down the eskers and kame gravels north of danbury and the thick mantle of drift over which still river flows through the city. as would be expected, this accumulation of material ponded all the north-flowing streams--umpog creek, beaver brook, and smaller nameless ones--and at the same time pushed still river, at its mouth, to the southern side of its valley. beaver brook valley, umpog valley, and all the danbury basin must have been flooded during this period up to the height of the "railroad divide." within the area covered by the city, the valley was filled up to at least feet and probably much more than that above its former level. flowing at this higher level, the river was thrown out of its course and here and there superimposed on hard rock--as, for example, at shelter rock. that part of the drainage coming down the valley opposite beaver brook met the drainage from still river ice lobe in the valley north of shelter rock, and as a result heavy deposits of stratified drift were laid down. the peninsula-like mass of drift beyond the river north of shelter rock appears from its form to have been built up as the delta of southward and eastward-flowing streams; probably the drainage from the hilltops united with streams coming down the two valleys. the lobes of stratified drift extending from the ridge may have been built first, and later the connecting ridge of gravel which forms the top of the hill may have accumulated as additional material was washed in, tying together the ridges of gravel along their western ends. the mingling in this region of stratified drift of all grades of coarseness indicates the union in the same basin of debris gathered from several sources. between danbury and new milford no moraine crosses either the rocky or the still valley, but the abundance of till which overspreads the whole country indicates a slowly retreating glacier well loaded with rock debris. the mounds of stratified drift scattered along the valley doubtless represent the deltas of streams issuing from the ice front. the waters of rocky river were ponded until the outlet near jerusalem was uncovered and the disappearance of ice from the ravine below allowed an escape to the housatonic. stratified drift is present in greatest amount along the valleys of still river and the west fork of rocky river, indicating that these were the two chief lines of drainage. the uplands are practically without stratified drift. along the valley of the housatonic, glacial material is chiefly in the form of gravel terraces; they extend from gaylordsville to new milford, in some places on one side only, in others on both sides of the river. part of these gravel benches are kame terraces, as shown by their rolling tops and the ravine which separates the terrace from the hillside; others may have been made by the river cutting through the mantle of drift which was laid down in the period of land depression at the time of glacial retreat,[ ] or they may be a combination of the two forms. in many places by swinging in its flood plain, the river has cut into the terraces and left steep bluffs of gravel. the valley of womenshenuck brook above merwinsville contains heavy deposits of stratified drift, indicating that this broad valley which extends from kent on the housatonic to merwinsville was an important channel for the water which flowed from the melting ice. [footnote : rice, w. n. and gregory, h. e., manual of the geology of connecticut: conn. geol. and nat. hist. survey bull. , pp. - , .] [footnote : hobbs, w. h., op. cit.] * * * * * transcriber's notes: with the following exceptions, the text presented here is that obtained through scanned images from an original copy of the manuscript. possible typographic errors corrected occuying => occupying plate ii a. "of" repeated emphasis notation: _text_ - italicized =text= - bold ~text~ - small caps a plain and faithful narrative of the original design, rise, progress and present state of the _indian_ charity-school at lebanon, in connecticut. [illustration] by eleazar wheelock, a.m. pastor of a church in lebanon. [illustration] "the liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things "shall he stand." isai. xxxii. . "the liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth "shall also be watered himself." prov. xi. . [illustration] _boston_: printed by richard and samuel draper, in _newbury_-street. m.dcc.lxiii. to the right honourable _william_, marquis of lothian. _may it please your lordship_, that charity and disinterested care for the souls of men, which make so amiable a part of your lordship's character, and give a lustre and grace to all those worldly honours with which god has dignified you, and entitle you to the kindest wishes, and sincerest prayers of all who love our lord jesus christ, and long for the enlargement of his kingdom in the world; do now embolden me to inscribe the following narrative to your lordship, as a testimonial of my gratitude, for that repeated liberality, whereby you have testified your approbation of our feeble attempts in the important affair here related, and given your sanction to the plan we have been prosecuting. and as you have animated and encouraged our small beginnings, when we had most need of such countenance and assistance; so your condescention and generosity have made me solicitous how to manifest my gratitude suitably to a personage of such distinction. but as your lordship could propose no other end, besides that which we were pursuing, when you thus opened your hand for our assistance therein, while it was yet small and obscure; so i may reasonably suppose, nothing i can return will give your lordship more satisfaction, than a plain, and concise account of the progress of it, and our still growing and encreasing prospects of those good effects, which will be the only reward which your lordship could have in view. and though it be presented to your lordship in a very plain and unfashionable dress, agreeable to the country from whence it comes, yet i am perswaded your lordship will not despise it on that account, since the dress, plain and unfashionable as it is, does so much excel the savage, and sordid habit, and appearance of those miserable creatures, who have so moved your lordship's compassion as to become the objects of your charity and beneficence. nor will modesty itself under such endearing and inviting expressions of your lordship's condescention and goodness, forbid our reposing confidence in you as our patron, or indulging the animating expectation of future benefit by your smiles on this infant institution. may the blessing of many, who shall, in the present and succeeding generations, reap the benefit of your generous donations, come upon you. and that god may graciously lengthen out your valuable and important life, to refresh the bowels of his saints, and encourage this, and every attempt to make known the name of christ, "and manifest the savour of his knowledge in every place," and late confer upon you a crown of life with distinguished honours, is the earnest prayer of, may it please your lordship, your lordship's much obliged, and most obedient humble servant, _eleazar wheelock_. lebanon, dec. . . [illustration] a narrative of the original design, rise, progress and present state of the _indian_ charity-school in _lebanon_. understanding there are numbers of religious and charitably disposed persons, who only wait to know where their charities may be bestowed in the best manner for the advancement of the kingdom of the great redeemer; and, supposing there may also be in some, evil surmisings about, and a disposition to discredit a cause which they don't love, and have no disposition to promote; i have, to gratify the one, and prevent the mischiefs of the other, thought it my duty to give the publick a short, plain, and faithful narrative of the original design, rise, progress, and present state of the charity-school here, called _moor's indian-charity school, &c._ and i hope there is need of little or nothing more than a plain and faithful relation of facts, with the grounds and reasons of them, to justify the undertaking, and all the pains and expence there has been, in the prosecution thereof. and to convince all persons of ability, that this school is a proper object of their charity; and that whatever they shall contribute for the furtherance of it, will be an offering acceptable to god, and properly bestowed for the promoting a design which the heart of the great redeemer is infinitely set upon. the considerations first moving me to enter upon the design of educating the children of our heathen natives were such as these; viz. the great obligations lying upon us, as god's covenant-people, who have all we have better than they in a covenant way, and consequently are under covenant-bonds to improve it in the best manner for the honour and glory of our liberal benefactor. and can such want of charity to those poor creatures, as our neglect has shewn; and, our neglect of that which god has so plainly made to be the matter of our care and duty; and that which the heart of the great redeemer is so set upon, as that he never desired any other compensation for all the travail of his soul, can it, i say, be without great guilt on our part? it has seem'd to me, he must be stupidly indifferent to the redeemer's cause and interest in the world; and criminally deaf and blind to the intimations of the favour and displeasure of god in the dispensations of his providence, who could not perceive plain intimations of god's displeasure against us for this neglect, inscribed in capitals, on the very front of divine dispensations, from year to year, in permitting the savages to be such a sore scourge to our land, and make such depredations on our frontiers, inhumanly butchering and captivating our people; not only in a time of war, but when we had good reason to think (if ever we had) that we dwelt safely by them. and there is good reason to think, that if one half which has been, for so many years past expended in building forts, manning and supporting them, had been prudently laid out in supporting faithful missionaries, and school-masters among them, the instructed and civilized party would have been a far better defence than all our expensive fortresses, and prevented the laying waste so many towns and villages: witness the consequence of sending mr. _sergeant_ to _stockbridge_, which was in the very road by which they most usually came upon our people, and by which there has never been one attack made upon us since his going there; and this notwithstanding there has been, by all accounts, less appearance of the saving effects of the gospel there than in any other place, where so much has been expended for many years past. and not only our covenant bonds, by which we owe our all to god, and our divine redeemer--our pity to their bodies in their miserable, needy state--our charity to their perishing souls--and our own peace, and safety by them, should constrain us to it; but also gratitude, duty, and loyalty to our rightful sovereign. how great the benefit which would hereby accrue to the crown of _great-britain_, and how much the interests of his majesty's dominions, especially in _america_, would be promoted hereby, we can hardly conceive. and the christianizing the natives of this land is expressly mentioned in the royal charter granted to this colony, as a motive inducing his majesty to grant that royal favour to our fathers. and since we are risen up in their stead, and enjoy the inestimable favour granted to them, on this consideration; what can excuse our not performing to our utmost, that which was engaged by, and reasonably expected from, them? but that which is of greatest weight, and should powerfully excite and perswade us hereto, are the many commands, strong motives, precious promises, and tremendous threatnings, which fill so great a part of the sacred pages; and are so perfectly calculated to awaken all our powers, to spread the knowledge of the only true god, and saviour, and make it as extensive and common as possible. it is a work, in which every one in his place, and according to his ability, is under sacred bonds to use his utmost endeavours. but for brevity sake, i omit a particular mention of them, supposing none have read their bibles attentively, who do not know, that this is a darling subject of them; and that enough is there spoken by the mouth of god himself, to obviate and silence all the objections which sloth, covetousness, or love of the world can suggest against it; and to assure them it is not a course to penury, and outward want, but to fulness, and worldly felicity; while they are at the same time laying up a treasure to be remitted by christ himself, a thousand fold, when he shall _say to them on his right-hand, come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you--for i was an hungred, and ye gave me meat_, &c. if denying food and raiment, when we have them in our power, to supply the bodily necessities of the poor and needy, does in the apostle's account, evidence, that the love of god is wanting in our hearts; how much more does the neglect of the precious souls of our fellow-creatures, who are perishing for lack of vision, when we have such fulness to impart, fall below our high profession of love to christ. can the objection that there is extraordinary expence and difficulty in accomplishing it, be esteemed weighty enough to excuse and justify our neglect, in a case of such necessity and importance? and especially if we consider, there is not so much necessary hereto, as would render the attempt any thing like an intolerable burden, or a burden to be felt, if those who are concerned therein, i. e. the christian world, were in any measure united and agreed in it. and considering further, that the advantage thereby to the crown of _great-britain_ (supposing the success of endeavours should be only in proportion as have been, the successes of feeble endeavours in times past) would abundantly compensate all the expence, besides all those temporal and eternal rewards of such charity and liberality, which are secured in the many great and precious promises of god. these were some of the considerations which, i think, had some influence to my making an attempt in this affair; though i did not then much think of any thing more than only to clear myself, and family, of partaking in the public guilt of our land and nation in such a neglect of them. and as there were few or none who seemed so much to lay the necessity and importance of the case to heart, as to exert themselves in earnest, and lead the way therein, i was naturally put upon consideration and enquiry what methods might have the greatest probability of success; and upon the whole was fully perswaded that this, which i have been pursuing, had by far the greatest probability of any that had been proposed, viz. by the mission of their own sons in conjunction with the _english_; and that a number of girls should also be instructed in whatever should be necessary to render them fit, to perform the female part, as house-wives, school-mistresses, tayloresses, &c. and to go and be with these youth, when they shall be hundreds of miles distant from the _english_ on the business of their mission: and prevent a necessity of their turning savage in their manner of living, for want of those who may do those offices for them, and by this means support the reputation of their mission, and also recommend to the savages a more rational and decent manner of living, than that which they are in--and thereby, in time, remedy and remove that great, and hitherto insuperable difficulty, so constantly complained of by all our missionaries among them, as the great impediment in the way to the success of their mission, viz. their continual rambling about; which they can't avoid so long as they depend so much upon fishing, fowling, and hunting for their support. and i am more and more perswaded, that i have sufficient and unanswerable reasons to justify this plan. as, . the deep rooted prejudices they have so generally imbibed against the _english_, that they are selfish, and have secret designs to incroach upon their lands, or otherwise wrong them in their interests. this jealousy seems to have been occasioned, nourished, and confirmed by some of their neighbours, who have got large tracts of their lands for a very inconsiderable part of their true value, and, it is commonly said, by taking the advantage of them when they were intoxicated with liquor. and also, by unrighteous dealers, who have taken such advantage to buy their skins and furrs at less than half price, &c. and perhaps these jealousies may be, not a little, increased by a consciousness of their own perfidy and inhumanity towards the _english_. and it seems there is no way to avoid the bad influence and effects of these prejudices, at present, unless it be by the mission of their own sons. and it is reasonable to suppose their jealousies are not less, since the late conquest in this land, by which they are put into our power, than they were before. . an _indian_ missionary may be supported with less than half the expence, that will be necessary to support an _englishman_, who can't conform to their manner of living, and who will have no dependance upon them for any part of it. and an _indian_ who speaks their language, it may reasonably be supposed, will be at least four times as serviceable among them, supposing he be otherwise equally qualified as one who can communicate to or receive nothing from them, but by an interpreter: he may improve all opportunities not only in public, but, "when he fits in the house, walks by the way, when he lies down, and when he rises up:" and speak with as much life and spirit as the nature and importance of the matter require, which is very much lost when communicated by an interpreter. . indian missionaries may be supposed better to understand the tempers and customs of _indians_, and more readily to conform to them in a thousand things than the _english_ can; and in things wherein the nonconformity of the _english_ may cause disgust, and be construed as the fruit of pride, and an evidence and expression of their scorn and disrespect. . the influence of their own sons among them will likely be much greater than of any _englishman_ whatsoever. they will look upon such an one as one of them, his interest the same with theirs; and will naturally esteem him as an honour to their nation, and be more likely to submit patiently to his instructions and reproofs than to any _english_ missionary. this is quite evident in the case of mr. _occom_, whose influence among the _indians_, even of his own tribe, is much greater than any other man's; and when he shall settle and live decently, and in fashion, among them, will likely do more to invite them to imitate his manner of living, than any _englishman_. . the acquaintance and friendship which _indian_ boys from different and distant tribes and places, will contract and cultivate, while together at school, may, and if they are zealously affected will, be improved much for the advantage and furtherance of the design of their mission; while they send to, hear from, or visit one another, confirming the things which have been spoken. and this without so much ceremony to introduce one another, as will be necessary in the case of _english_ missionaries; and without the cumber and expence of interpreters. . indian missionaries will not disdain to own english ones, who shall be associates with them, (where the _english_ can be introduced) as elder brethren; nor scorn to be advised or reproved, counselled or conducted by them; especially so long as they shall be so much dependent upon the _english_ for their support; which will likely be till god has made them his people; and then, likely, they will not stand in such need of _english_ guides and counsellors. and they will mutually help one another, to recommend the design to the favourable reception and good liking of the pagans, remove their prejudices, conciliate their friendship, and induce them to repose due confidence in the _english_. . in this school, children of different nations may, and easily will learn one another's language, and english youth may learn of them; and so save the vast expence and trouble of interpreters; and their ministry be much more acceptable and edifying to the _indians_. but, . there is no such thing as sending _english_ missionaries, or setting up and maintaining _english_ schools to any good purpose, in most places among them, as their temper, state and condition have been and still are. it is possible a school may be maintained to some good purpose, at _onohoquagee_, where there have been heretofore several faithful missionaries, by the blessing of god upon whose labours the _indians_ are in some measure civilized, some of them baptized, a number of them in a judgment of charity, real christians; and where they have a sachem, who is a man of understanding, virtue, steadiness, and entirely friendly to the design of propagating the gospel among them, and zealous to promote it. and where the hon. _scotch_ commissioners, i hear, have sent two missionaries, and have made some attempt to set up a school. but at _jeningo_, a little beyond, they will by no means admit an _english_ missionary to reside among them. and tho' they were many of them under great awakenings and concern, by god's blessing on the labours of a christian _indian_ from these parts; yet such was the violent opposition of numbers among them, that it was thought by no means safe for an _englishman_ to go among them, with design to tarry with them. and like to this is the case with the parties of _indians_, for near an hundred miles together, on the west side of _susquehanah_ river. another school or two may possibly be set up with success among the _mohawks_, where mr. _ogilvie_ and other episcopal missionaries have bestowed much labour, to good purpose; and where they have got into the way of cultivating their lands for a living, and so have more ability to support their children, and less occasion to ramble abroad with them. but even in these places we may find it more difficult than we imagine before the trial be made (though i would by no means discourage the trial of every feasible method for the accomplishing this great design) but by acquaintance with the schools which the hon. _london_ commissioners have with pious zeal, set up and maintained among the several tribes in these parts, i am much confirmed in such sentiments. these parties live amongst, and are encompassed by the _english_, have long had good preaching, and numbers of them appear to be truly godly. yet such is the savage temper of many, their want of due esteem for learning, and gratitude to their benefactors, and especially their want of government, that their school-masters, tho' skilful and faithful men, constantly complain they can't keep the children in any measure constant at school. mr. _clelland_ the school-master at _mohegan_ has often told me what unwearied pains he has taken by visiting, and discoursing with their parents, &c. to remedy this evil, and after all can't accomplish it. the children are suffered to neglect their attendance on instruction, and waste much time, by which means they don't learn so much in several years as they might, and others do in one, who are taken out of the reach of their parents, and out of the way of _indian_ examples, and are kept to school under good government and constant instruction. i the rather mention this instance, because of the well-known fidelity and skill of that good gentleman, and because that tribe are as much civilized, and as many of them christianized, as perhaps any party of them in this government. and by all i can learn, it is no better in this respect with any other. they are so disaffected towards a good and necessary government, that as gentle an exercise of it as may be, and answer the design of keeping up order and regularity in any measure among them, will likely so disgust them as to render the case worse rather than better. captain _martin kellog_ complain'd of this as his great discouragement in the school at _stockbridge_, notwithstanding he understood as well as any man the disposition of _indians_, and had the advantage of knowing their language and customs, having been so long a captive among them, and was high in their affection and esteem; yet he was obliged to take the children home to _weathersfield_ with him, quite away from their parents, before he could exercise that government which was necessary in order to their profiting at school. but as to most places, there is no such thing at present as introducing either _english_ school-masters or missionaries to continue with them; such are their prejudices in general, and such the malevolent, and ungovernable temper of some, that none but an _indian_ would dare venture his life among them. and besides all this, they are so extremely poor, and depend so much upon hunting for a livelihood, that they are in no capacity to support their children at school, if their disposition for it were ever so good. mr. _occom_ informed me by a letter from the _oneida_ country last summer, and the same account i had also from the young man which i sent there, that the _indians_ were almost starved, having nothing to live upon but what they got by fishing, fowling and hunting, that he had no other way to come at them, to preach to them, but by following them from place to place in their hunting. and though the condition of all may not be quite so indigent as of these, nor the condition of these at all times quite so bad as it was then, yet it is well known that they universally depend upon roving and hunting mainly for their support; and whoever has heard the constant complaint of missionaries, and the matter of their discouragement, or has only read what the reverend messi'rs. _sergeant_ and _d. brainerd_ have wrote upon this head, can't charge me with writing without sufficient evidence, and good authority, if i had no other but theirs. and what are a few instances, where schools may possibly be maintained to some good purpose, compared with those tribes and nations of them, where there are no circumstances at present, but their misery and necessity, to invite us so much as to make the trial. by the blessing of god on his late majesty's arms, there is now, no doubt, a door opened for a hundred missionaries; and (unless we can find such as can speak to them in their own language) for as many interpreters; and perhaps for ten times that number, provided we could find such as are suitable for the business, and such as may be introduced in a way agreeable to the savages, and so as to avoid the bad effects of their prejudices against the _english_. but, . there are very few or no interpreters, who are suitable and well-accomplished for the business, to be had. mr. _occom_ found great difficulty last year in his mission on this account. and not only the cause, but his own reputation suffered much by the unfaithfulness of the man he employed. i suppose the interpreters now employed by the hon. commissioners are the best that are to be had at present. but how many nations are there for whom there is no interpreter at all, except, it may be, some ignorant and perhaps vicious person, who has been their captive, and whom it is utterly unsafe to trust in matters of such eternal consequence. and how shall this difficulty be remedied? it seems it must be by one of these two ways, viz. either their children must come to us, or ours go to them. but who will venture their children with them, unless with some of the civilized parties, who have given the strongest testimonies of their friendship? if it be said, that all the natives are now at peace with us: it may be, their chiefs, and the better-temper'd part of them are so. but who does not know that their leagues and covenants with us are little worth, and like to be so till they become christians? and that the tender mercies of many of them are cruelty? who is so unacquainted with the history of them, as not to know, there is reason to think, there are many among their lawless herds, who would gladly embrace an opportunity to commit a secret murder on such _english_ youth?--even mr. _occom_, though an _indian_, did not think it safe for him, being of another tribe and language, and in such connections with the _english_, to go among the numerous tribe of the _seneca_'s, where he had no avenger of his blood for them to fear. when, and as soon as the method proposed by the rev'd mess. _sergeant_ and _brainerd_, can be put into execution, viz. to have lands appropriated to the use of _indian_ schools, and prudent skilful farmers, or tradesmen, to lead and instruct the boys, and mistresses to instruct the girls in such manufactures as are proper for them, at certain hours, as a diversion from their school exercises, and the children taken quite away from their parents, and the pernicious influence of _indian_ examples, there may be some good prospect of great advantage by schools among them. and must it be esteemed a wild imagination, if it be supposed that well-instructed, sober, religious _indians_, may with special advantage be employed as masters and mistresses in such schools; and that the design will be much recommended to the _indians_ thereby; and that there may be special advantage by such, serving as occasional interpreters for visitors from different nations from time to time; and they hereby receive the fullest conviction of the sincerity of our intentions, and be confirmed and established in friendly sentiments of us, and encouraged to send their children, &c.? i am fully perswaded from the acquaintance i have had with them, it will be found, whenever the trial shall be made, to be very difficult if not impossible, unless the arm of the lord should be revealed in an eminent manner, to cure them of such savage and sordid practices, as they have been inured to from their mother's womb, and form their minds and manners to proper rules of virtue, decency and humanity, while they are daily under the pernicious influence of their parents example, and their many vices made familiar thereby. . i have found by experience, there may be a thorough and effectual exercise of government in such a school, and as severe as shall be necessary, without opposition from, or offence taken by, any. and who does not know, that evils so obstinate as those we may reasonably expert to find common in the children of savages, will require that which is severe? sure i am, they must find such as have better natures, or something more effectually done to subdue their vicious inclinations, than most i have been concerned with, if it be not so. and moreover, in such a school, there will be the best opportunity to know who has such a genius and disposition, as most invite to bestow extraordinary expence to fit them for special usefulness. . we have the greatest security we can have, that when they are educated and fitted for it, they will be employed in that business. there is no likelihood at all that they will, though ever so well qualified, get into business, either as school-masters or ministers, among the _english_; at least till the credit of their nations be raised many degrees above what it now is, and consequently they can't be employed as will be honorable for them, or in any business they will be fit for, but among their own nation. and it may reasonably be supposed, their compassion towards their "brethren according to the flesh" will most naturally incline them to, and determine them upon such an employment as they were fitted and designed for. and besides all this, abundant experience has taught us, that such a change of diet, and manner of living as missionaries must generally come into, will not consist with the health of many _englishmen_. and they will be obliged on that account to leave the service, though otherwise well disposed to it. nor can this difficulty be avoided at present (certainly not without great expence.) but there is no great danger or difficulty in this respect as to _indians_, who will only return to what they were used to from their mother's womb. and there may also be admitted into this school, promising _english_ youth of pregnant parts, and who from the best principles, and by the best motives, are inclined to devote themselves to that service; and who will naturally care for their state. divine skill in things spiritual, pure and fervent zeal for the salvation of souls, shining examples of piety and godliness, by which pagans will form their first notions of religion, rather than from any thing that shall be said to them, are most necessary qualifications in a missionary; and promise more real good than is to be expected from many times the number who have never "known the terrors of the lord," and have no experimental, and therefore no right understanding of the nature of conversion and the way wherein it is wrought. such were never under the governing influence of a real sense of the truth, reality, greatness and importance of eternal things, and therefore will not be likely to treat them suitable to the nature and eternal consequences of them, surely they will not naturally do it. and how sad are like to be the consequences to those who are watching to see whether the preacher himself does really believe the things which he speaks. in such a school their studies may be directed with a special view to the design of their mission. several parts of learning, which have no great subserviency to it, and which will consume much time, may be less pursued, and others most necessary made their chief study. and they may not only learn the pagan languages, but will naturally get an understanding of their tempers, and many of their customs, which must needs be useful to missionaries. and instead of a delicate manner of living, they may by degrees, as their health will bear, enure themselves to such a way of living as will be most convenient for them to come into when on their mission. and if the one half of the _indian_ boys thus educated shall prove good and useful men, there will be no reason to regret our toil and expence for the whole. and if god shall deny his blessing on our endeavours, as to the general design, it may be these particular youth may reap eternal advantage by what we do for them; and if but one in ten does so, we shall have no cause to think much of the expence. and if a blessing be denied to all, "we shall notwithstanding be unto god a sweet savour of christ in them that perish." after the trial i made of this nature some years ago, by the assistance of the honourable london commissioners, in the education of mr. _samson occom_, one of the _mohegan_ tribe, who has several years since been a useful school-master and successful preacher of the gospel to the _indians_ at _montauk_ on _long-island_, where he took the place of the rev. mr. _horton_, missionary; and was, under god, instrumental to cure them, in a good measure, of the wildness they had been led into by some exhorters from _new-england_, and in a judgment of charity was the instrument of saving good to a number of them. he was several years ago ordained to the sacred ministry by the reverend presbytery of _suffolk_ county on said island; and has done well, so far as i have heard, as a missionary to the _oneida_ nation, for two years past. may god mercifully preserve him, amidst loud applauses, from falling into the snare and condemnation of the devil!--i say, after seeing the success of this attempt, i was more encouraged to hope that such a method might be very successful. with these views of the case, and from such motives as have been mentioned, above eight years ago i wrote to the reverend _john brainerd_, missionary in _new-jersey_, desiring him to send me two likely boys for this purpose, of the _deleware_ tribe: he accordingly sent me _john pumshire_ in the th, and _jacob woolley_ in the th years of their age; they arrived here _december th. _, and behaved as well as could be reasonably expected; _pumshire_ made uncommon proficiency in writing. they continued with me till they had made considerable progress in the latin and greek tongues; when _pumshire_ began to decline, and by the advice of physicians, i sent him back to his friends, with orders, if his health would allow it, to return with two more of that nation, whom mr. _brainerd_ had at my desire provided for me. _pumshire_ set out on his journey, _november th. _, and got home, but soon died. and on _april th. _, _joseph woolley_ and _hezekiah calvin_ came on the horse which _pumshire_ rode. the decline and death of this youth was an instructive scene to me, and convinced me more fully of the necessity of special care respecting their diet; and that more exercise was necessary for them, especially at their first coming to a full table, and with so keen an appetite, than was ordinarily necessary for _english_ youth. and with the exercise of such care, as one who understands the case, and is willing to take the trouble of it, may use, i am persuaded there is no more danger of their studies being fatal to them, than to our own children. there have been several long fits of sickness of one and another in this school, with a nervous fever, pleurisies, dysenterys &c. but perhaps not more than have been among so large a number of common labouring people in so long a time. sometime after those boys came, the affair appearing with an agreeable aspect, it being then a time of profound peace in this country, i represented the affair to colonel _elisha williams_, esq; late rector of _yale-college_, and to the rev'd messi'rs _samuel moseley_ of _windham_, and _benjamin pomeroy_ of _hebron_, and invited them to join me; they readily accepted the invitation; and a gentleman learned in the law supposed there might be such an incorporation among ourselves as might fully answer our purpose. and mr. _joshua moor_, late of _mansfield_, deceased, appeared to give a small tenement in this place, for the foundation, use and support of a charity-school, for the education of _indian_ youth, &c. but it pleased god to take the good colonel from an unthankful world soon after the covenant was made and executed, and thus deprived us of the benefit of his singular learning, piety and zeal in the affair. notwithstanding, a subscription was soon made of near _£_. lawful money, towards a fund for the support of it at per cent. but several gentlemen of the law, doubting of the validity and sufficiency of such an incorporation; several steps were taken to obtain the royal favour of a charter, but none effectual. the war soon commenced, and the reports from day to day of the ravages made, and inhumanities and butcheries committed by the savages on all quarters, raised in the breasts of great numbers, a temper so warm, and so contrary to charity, that i seldom thought it prudent so much as to mention the affair. many advised me to drop it, but it appeared to others so probable to be the very method which god would own, that i thought better to scrabble along with it, as well as i could, till divine providence should change the scene. the prospects, notwithstanding our outward troubles, seemed to be increasing: such was the orderly and good behaviour of the boys, through the blessing of god on instruction and discipline, that enemies could find but little or nothing that was true wherewith they might reproach the design; and those whose sentiments were friendly, observed with pleasure the good effects of our endeavours: and the liberalities, especially of gentlemen of character, encouraged me more and more to believe it to be of god, and that he designed to succeed and prosper it, to the glory of his own great name; and that i ought in compliance with such intimations of providence from time to time, proportionably to increase the number. i have had two upon my hands since _december th. _, and four since _april, _, and five since _april _, and seven since _november, _, and eleven since _august st. _, and after this manner they have encreased as i could obtain those who appeared promising. and for some time i have had twenty-five devoted to school as constantly as their health will allow, and they have all along been so, excepting that in an extraordinary croud of business, i have sometimes required their assistance. but there is no great advantage, excepting to themselves, to be expected from their labour, nor enough to compensate the trouble of instructing them in it, and the repair of the mischiefs they will do, while they are ignorant of all the affairs of husbandry, and the use of tools. the principal advantage i have ever had in this respect has been by _david fowler_ and _joseph woolley_, and more by _david_ than all the rest: these lads will likely make good farmers, if they should ever have the advantage of experience in it. three of this number are _english_ youth, one of which is gone for a time to _new-jersey_ college, for the sake of better advantage for some parts of learning: he has made some proficiency in the _mohawk_ tongue: the other two are fitting for the business of missionaries. one of the _indian_ lads is _jacob woolley_, who is now in his last year at _new-jersey_ college, and is a good scholar; he is here by the leave and order of the president, designing to get some acquaintance with the _mohawk_ tongue. two others are sent here by the rev. mr. _brainera_, and are designed for trades; the one for a blacksmith (a trade much wanted among the _indians_) and is to go to his apprenticeship as soon as a good place is ready for him; the other is designed for a carpenter and joiner, and is to go to an apprenticeship as soon as he has learned to read and write. another of the _indians_ is son to the sachem at _mohegan_, and is heir-aparent; he is somewhat infirm as to his bodily health: for his support last year i have charged nothing more than l. lawful money, granted by the hon. _london_ commissioners. several of my scholars are considerably well accomplished for school masters, and or will likely be well fitted for interpreters in a few years more. and four of this number are girls, whom i have hired women in this neighbourhood to instruct in all the arts of good housewifery, they attending the school one day in a week to be instructed in writing, &c. till they shall be fit for an apprenticeship, to be taught to make men's and women's apparel, &c. in order to accompany these boys, when they shall have occasion for such assistance in the business of their mission.[ ] and six of them are _mohawks_, obtained pursuant and according to the direction of the honorable general assembly of the province of the _massachusetts-bay_, and are learning to speak, write, and read _english_: and the most of them make good proficiency therein. i have, by the good providence of god, been favoured with religious, faithful and learned masters, in general, from the first setting up of this school, at the expence of about _£._ lawful money per annum, i. e. _£._ per month, with their board, and all accommodations, and a horse kept or provided when needed; which i suppose can't be esteemed less than the sum which i mention: and if this seems to any to be large, i have only this to say, that i could not have the choice of masters at less expence. but the expence for tuition will likely be saved for some time, by the generosity of a young gentleman, who proposes to keep it _gratis_ a few months. the method of conducting this school has been, and is designed to be after this manner, viz. they are obliged to be clean, and decently dressed, and be ready to attend prayers, before sun-rise in the fall and winter, and at o'clock in the summer. a portion of scripture is read by several of the seniors of them: and those who are able answer a question in the _assembly's catechism_, and have some questions asked them upon it, and an answer expounded to them. after prayers, and a short time for their diversion, the school begins with prayer about , and ends at , and again at , and ends at o'clock with prayer. evening prayer is attended before the day-light is gone. afterwards they apply to their studies, &c. they attend the publick worship, and have a pew devoted to their use, in the house of god. on lord's-day morning, between and after the meetings, the master, or some one whom they will submit to, is with them, inspects their behaviour, hears them read, catechises them, discourses to them, &c. and once or twice a week they hear a discourse calculated to their capacities upon the most important and interesting subjects. and in general they are orderly and governable: they appear to be as perfectly easy and contented with their situation and employment as any at a father's house, i scarcely hear a word of their going home, so much as for a visit, for years together, except it be when they first come. and the success of endeavours hitherto, the general approbation of great and good men, and the testimonies many have given of it, by their seasonable liberality towards its support, have seemed to me such evident tokens of a divine hand in favour of it, and so plain intimations of the divine will concerning it, that i have, as i said before, thought it duty, notwithstanding all discouragements, to pursue the design, and endeavour to keep pace with the providences of god in favour of it as to their number, and trust in him, "whose the earth is, and the fulness thereof," for further supplies. and i have hoped this would be esteemed sufficient to clear me of the imputation of presumption and rashness in risquing my own private interest, as i have done. the honourable london commissioners hearing of the design, enquired into it, and encouraged it by an allowance of l. lawful money, by their vote _november . _. and again in the year they allowed me l.--and in _november_ th, , granted me an annual allowance of l. for my assistance--and in _october_ th, , they granted me l. towards the support of _isaiah uncas_, son of the sachem of _mohegan_, and l. more for his support the following year. in _october _, i received a legacy of fifty-nine dollars of mrs. _ann bingham_ of _windham_. in _july _, i received a generous donation of fifty pounds sterling from the right hon. william, marquis of _lothian_. and in _nov. _, a donation of l. sterl. from mr. _hardy_ of _london_--and in _may _, a second donation of l. sterl. from that most honorable and noble lord, the marquis of _lothian_; and at the same time l. sterl. from mr. _samuel savage_, merchant in _london_: and a collection of ten guineas from the rev. dr. _a. giffords_ in _london_: and l. sterl. more from a lady in _london_, unknown, which is still in the hands of a friend, and to be remitted with some additional advantage, and to be accounted for when received. and also for years past i have, one year with another, received about l. lawful money annually, interest of subscriptions. and in my journey to _portsmouth_ last _june_, i received in private donations l. s. d. - th. lawful money. i also received for the use of this school, a bell of about lb. weight, from a gentleman in _london_. in _november _, the great and general court or assembly of the province of _massachusetts-bay_, voted, that i should be allowed to take under my care six children of the _six nations_, for education, clothing and boarding, and be allowed for that purpose, for each of said children, l. per annum for one year, which boys i have obtained, and they have been for some time in this school. the honourable scotch commissioners in and near _boston_, understanding and approving of the design of sending for _indian_ children of remote tribes, to be educated here, were the first body, or society, who have led the way in making an attempt for that purpose. which because of the newness and remarkable success of it, and because it may encourage such a design in time to come, i suppose it may not be disagreeable, if i am a little particular in my account of it: while i was in _boston_ they passed a vote to this purpose, _may , _, "that the reverend mr. _wheelock_ of _lebanon_ be desired, to fit out _david fowler_, an _indian_ youth, to accompany mr. _sampson occom_, going on a mission to the _oneidas_, that said _david_ be supported on said mission for a term not exceeding months; and that he endeavour on his return to bring with him a number of _indian_ boys, not exceeding three, to be put under mr. _wheelock_'s care and instruction, and that l. be put into mr. _wheelock_'s hands to carry this design into execution; and that when said sum shall be expended, he advise the treasurer of it, and send his accounts for allowance." pursuant to this vote i cloathed and furnished said _david_ with horse and money, for his long tour into the wilderness, which he set out on _june_ th, in company with mr. _occom_, by the way of _new-york_; in which journey he rode above a thousand miles, and by the advice, direction and assistance of sir william johnson, obtained three boys of the _mohawk_ nation, who were willing to leave their friends and country and come among strangers of another language, and quite another manner of living, and where, perhaps, no one of their nation then living had ever been; and among a people of whom their nation have been of a long time inclined to entertain jealousies. their names were _joseph_, _negyes_, and _center_. they arrived here _august_ st, , but had so much caution in the extraordinary enterprize, that they brought each of them an horse from their own country. two of them were but little better than naked, and could not speak a word of _english_. the other being of a family of distinction among them, was considerably cloathed, _indian_-fashion, and could speak a few words of _english_. they let me know, as soon as i could understand them, that sir wm. johnson had told them they should return and visit their friends in the fall of the year. i took speedy care to _cleanse_ and cloath them. they many ways discovered some jealousies respecting the design of their coming; but by acquaintance and freedom with other _indians_ in the school, and by constant care for them and kindness to them, those jealousies seemed in a little time to wear away, and they appeared to feel and enjoy themselves as though they had been at home in a father's house. daily care was exercised for them, and particular caution that they might in no instance appear to be, thro' disrespect, distinguished from any in the school. such distinction, or any thing which they apprehend to be so, i find will at once occasion jealousies and disaffection. and this seems to be agreeable to a settled principle among themselves, (according to which they are wont to treat their captives) viz. that those who take the patronage of children, not their own, shall treat them in all respects as their own. _center_'s countenance, as i thought when he came, discovered that he was not in health. my suspicions increased, and the issue proved they were not groundless. he continued with me till the fall, when the physician i employed advised me, that his disorders threatned his life, and prevailed to such a degree that he looked upon him to be incurable, and that he judged it best to send him back to his friends, and that soon, or it would be too late to send him at all; and according to this advice i sent him away with _negyes_, having furnished them with money for their journey into the _mohawk_ country, on the d day of _october_. _joseph_ tarried longer to accompany young _kirtland_, who was learning the _mohawk_ language of him, and whom i sent into that country to obtain six boys of those nations, to partake of the benefit of sir peter warren's legacy, according to the instructions of the general assembly of the province of _massachusetts-bay_, before mentioned. _center_ reached home, but died soon after. _negyes_, i hear, was captivated by a young female and married. mr. _kirtland_ and _joseph_ set out for the _mohawk_ country _november_ th, and returned _november_ th, and brought two _mohawk_ lads with them, viz. _moses_ and _johannes_, by whom sir wm. johnson informed me that he expected to be able to send the rest when they came in from hunting. i informed the hon. commissioners of the state of the case, and by a letter from the reverend dr. chauncy, chairman of their committee, in the name of the rest, was desired to let them have in their pay and under their direction these two who came last with _joseph_, which i consented to, provided they would remit the necessary charges which i had been at in procuring and cloathing them, and give me as i afterwards charged them for their support and tuition, upon which conditions they took them. i immediately sent to sir wm. johnson for other six to partake of sir peter warren's legacy. these three, viz. _joseph_, _moses_ and _johannes_, continued with me in the pay of the commissioners till _may , _, when i offered said committee my accompt, the whole amount of which, that is, for cloathing and furnishing _david_ with horse and money for his support in his long journey of several months, the expence of the boy's journey home above miles. the expence of _kirtland_'s journey (excepting his horse) into that country to bring down _moses_ and _johannes_. the pasturing the horses of the first three the time they continued here, in a dry and difficult season; the cloathing all five, and repairing their cloathing the whole time they tarried; the boarding and schooling them, finding washing, lodging, firewood, candles, books, paper, &c. i say, the amount of the expence for the five and in the whole affair for near twelve months, errors excepted, was but just l. s. d. - th. sterling. but in this accompt i charged nothing for several expensive journeys in this government, taken by myself, and another preparatory and necessary to the design of _david_'s mission, nor for any labour, care or pains of my own therein from first to last--for their board, washing and lodging but s. per week; the lowest common price in these parts was s. l. m. what cloathing, &c. they had of me, i charged at the lowest cash-price, and what i got for them of our traders, shoemakers, taylors, &c. i charged just as they charged me, without any advance in one instance. i charged nothing for extraordinary trouble and care for _center_, in his declining state; nor did the physician charge for what he did for him. and there were other provisions made to prevent expence of money in their journeyings more than is common, for which there was nothing charged, by all which the accompt was somewhat less than it would otherwise have been----but then on the other hand it may be considered, . that provisions of all sorts were then, and still are, at an higher price than ever before in these parts, occasioned by the preceeding wars and extreme drought. when they are reduced to their usual price, the expence of educating _indian_ youth will be much less. . the circumstances of this undertaking were extraordinary, and the necessary expences of it were consequently so, and such as there may never be such occasion for again. this was the opening a door which never had been opened for such a purpose to these nations; and it was thought by many who knew their great fondness for their children, that it could not be soon accomplished, i. e. to make either parents or children willing to comply with an invitation to come such a vast length, and under such circumstances as have been mentioned. but the report of _david_ confirmed by the boys on their return, has given such conviction of the sincerity and kindness of our intentions towards them, as has removed all objections. and nothing more is now necessary to our obtaining as many well-chosen boys and girls as we please, but to employ some faithful missionary among them for that purpose. i have been the more particular in this account, because i would remove the unreasonable prejudices raised against this method, by partial and unfair accounts, and a cry of enormous expences, &c. and to let the world know there is nothing in it worthy to be objected by one who is in earnest to accomplish this great and important design. what i have done for this school since its beginning, in many expensive journies; (for none of which have i ever charged any thing at all); in constant care for their health, in endeavours to cure their savage disposition, and form their minds and manners to right rules of virtue and religion, in extraordinary care and trouble for several of them in sickness, in expences by company, not only of _english_ but _indians_ at my house, occasioned thereby; and incidental charges in many instances, none are able justly to estimate, or likely so much as to think of many of them, but one who is intimately acquainted with the business: in consideration for which i have had the assistance of several of them a few times in an extraordinary croud of business; and of late some advantage by the school to two of my own children. which reward i suppose impartial judges will not think to bear a very considerable proportion to these expences which are not charged, and which in my judgment is not the one tenth part of them. mr. moor's grant contains about two acres of pasturing, a small house and shop; for the use of which from the first i have received about _£_. lawful money, clear of the charge of repairing, which is not equal to the money i have paid to physicians which is not charged. i have professed to have no view to making an estate by this affair: what the singleness and uprightness of my heart has been before god, he knows; and also how greatly i stand in need of his pardon. my accompt with the school has been charged after the following manner, viz. for the whole expence of cloathing, boarding and tutoring the boys from _december_ th. , to _november_ th. . at the rate of _£_. lawful money per annum, for each; but when their number was so increased i found it necessary to come nearer to the true value of it, and have since used greater exactness; but have never charged higher than at the lowest money price for what they have had of me, and for what i have bought for them of our traders, shoemakers, taylors, &c. i have charged just what i have given, and no more. i have charged for their tuition, as for _english_ scholars, i. e. for latin scholars, and such as were savage and needed much care and instruction, at _s._ l.m. per week, or _£_. _s._ per annum; and for others proportionally. the whole school, one year with another, has not quite cleared my expence for the master. last year it did a little more; and since the th of _may_ last, it has over-done my expence for the master _s._ _d._ besides the tuition of the girls. i have charged for the girls but _d._ per week, i. e. for one day's schooling and dinner; and the whole expence for their education will be but little more than their cloathing. the total amount of all my disbursements in this whole affair, for near eight years, that is, since _december_ . , to _november_ . , charged in the manner, and after the rate before-mentioned, is, (errors excepted) _£_. _s._ _d._ sterling.--and the total amount of all the donations before-mentioned, together with smaller ones, which i suppose needless to mention particularly, received within the said term, is, (errors excepted) _£_. _s._ _d._ sterling. and as this school was set up when there was no scheme devised, or plan laid, which this could be in opposition to; so it is not continued in opposition to any other measures which are proposed or pursued by others. and, blessed be god that he has put it into the hearts of a number of gentlemen of ability in and near boston, to contribute so liberally towards the furtherance of the general design. and is it not a pity that christians of all denominations should not unite their utmost endeavours for the accomplishment of it; and especially now while the door is so widely opened for it? and what a pity is it that any time should be lost? and how exceeding mean, and infinitely beneath those noble sentiments, and that generous love to the souls of men, and to our king and country, which true religion inspires, will it be to fall into parties; and on account of differing opinions reflecting the most probable methods for accomplishing the end, to obstruct and hinder one another therein? there is enough for all to do; and the affair is of so great importance, that it calls for the trial of every method that has the least probability of success; and different methods may greatly subserve and assist one another. we can none of us boast such perfection of understanding and skill in the affair as to set up safely for infallibility. many attempts have been made by wise and good men; and the issue has taught them their want of that knowledge which is got by experience; and that their pious labour and expence had been in a great measure lost for want of it. and i would take this opportunity to express my gratitude for those generous benefactions whereby this infant institution has been hitherto supported; and i hope through the blessing of god upon our our endeavours, those pious benefactors will have occasion for the most easy and comfortable reflections, as having made an offering acceptable to god, and bestowed it well for the advancement of the kingdom, and glory of the great redeemer: and that the blessing of many of our _american_ heathens, who shall in the present and succeeding generations, reap the benefit thereof, may come upon them: and that others understanding that this school stills lives, under god, upon the charity of good men, will be moved to open their hands to minister further, and necessary supplies for it. [illustration] hebron, december . . to the printers. _we having been informed that the rev'd_ eleazar wheelock _of_ lebanon _has lately prepared and sent to your press_, a narrative of the indian charity school under his care; _and being willing to contribute to the furtherance of that truly noble and charitable undertaking, which, though new and untried before he entered upon it, appears to us to have the greatest probability of success, and to afford the most encouraging prospect of spreading the gospel far and wide among our_ american _pagans, of any method that has yet been attempted: and we can't but hope that a recommendatory letter, which was some time since sent to a private friend, signed by a number of neighbouring ministers, may serve to satisfy the world, that the charitable design which that gentleman is pursuing, is, in the judgment of his neighbours, who are well acquainted with him, and with the affair of his school, neither selfish, nor enthusiastic; nor the plan proposed so expensive, as may be any reasonable objection against making a thorough trial thereof: and we having consulted several of the subscribers who join with us (as we believe all wou'd do if they had opportunity for it) in desiring that said letter might be published at the end of said narrative; that so far as the credit and reputation of the clergy in this neighbourhood will influence thereto, all prejudices may be removed from the minds of christians of every denomination, and all be excited to unite their endeavours according to their ability to encourage and promote so noble and important an undertaking: wherefore please to give said letter (a copy whereof you will receive with this) a place at the close of said narrative, and you will oblige_ _your's to serve_, benjamin pomroy, elijah lothrop, nathaniel whitaker. [illustration] [illustration] _copy of the letter._ chelsea, in _norwich, july . _. sir, we ministers of the gospel, and pastors of churches hereafter mentioned with our names, having for a number of years past heard of, or seen with pleasure, the zeal, courage and firm resolution of the reverend eleazar wheelock of _lebanon_, to prosecute to effect a design of spreading the gospel among the natives in the wilds of our _america_, and especially his perseverance in it, amidst the many peculiar discouragements he had to encounter during the late years of the war here, and upon a plan which appears to us to have the greatest probability of success, _viz._ by the mission of their own sons. and as we are verily perswaded, that the smiles of divine providence upon his school, and the success of his endeavours hitherto, justly may and ought to encourage him and all, to believe it to be of god, and that which he will own and succeed for the glory of his own great name in the enlargement of the kingdom of our divine redeemer, as well as for the great benefit of the crown of _great-britain_, and especially of his majesty's dominions in _america_; so we apprehend, that the present openings in providence ought to invite christians of every denomination to unite their endeavours, and lend a helping hand in carrying on the charitable design; and we are heartily sorry if party spirit and party differences shall at all obstruct the progress of it, or the old leaven in this land ferment upon this occasion, and give a watchful adversary opportunity so to turn the course of endeavours into another channel, as to defeat the design of spreading the gospel among the heathen. to prevent which, and encourage unanimity and zeal in prosecuting the design, we look upon it our duty as christians, and especially as ministers of the gospel, to give our testimony, that, as we verily believe, a disinterested regard to the advancement of the redeemer's kingdom, and the good of his majesty's dominions in _america_ were the governing motives which at first induced the reverend mr. wheelock to enter upon the great affair, and to risque his own private interest as he has done since in carrying it on; so we esteem his plan to be good, his measures prudently and well-concerted, his endowments peculiar, his zeal fervent, his endeavours indefatigable for the accomplishing this design; and we know no man like-minded who will naturally care for their state. may god prolong his life, and make him extensively useful in the kingdom of christ! we have also some of us at his desire examined his accounts, and find that besides giving in all his own labour and trouble in the affair, he has charged for the support, schooling, &c. of the youth, at the lowest rate it could be done for, as the price has been and still is among us; and we apprehend the generous donations already made, has been, and we are confident will be laid out in the most prudent manner, and with the best advice for the furtherance of the important design. and we pray god abundantly to reward the liberality of any upon this occasion; and we hope the generosity, especially of persons of distinction and note, will be a happy lead and inducement to still greater liberalities, and that in consequence thereof the wide extended wilderness of _america, will blossom as the rose, habitations of cruelty become dwelling-places of righteousness, and the blessing of thousands ready to perish come upon all those_ whose love to christ, and charity to them, has been shown upon this occasion, which is the hearty prayer of, sir, _your sincere friends_ _and humble servants_, ebenezer rosseter, _pastor of the st church in_ stonington. joseph fish, _pastor of the nd church in_ stonington. nathaniel whitaker, _pastor of the church at_ chelsea, _in_ norwich. benjamin pomroy, _pastor of the st church in_ hebron. elijah lothrop, _pastor of the church of_ gilead, _in_ hebron. nathaniel eells, _pastor of a church in_ stonington. mather byles, _pastor of the st church in_ new-london. jonathan barber, _pastor of a church in_ groton. matt graves, _missionary at_ new-london. peter powers, _pastor of the church at_ newent, _in_ norwich. daniel kirtland, _former pastor of the ch. at_ newent, _in_ norwich. asher rosseter, _pastor of the st church in_ preston. jabez wight, _pastor of the th church in_ norwich. david jewett, _pastor of the nd church in_ new-london. benjamin throop, _pastor of a church in_ norwich. samuel mosely, _pastor of a church in_ windham. stephen white, _pastor of a church in_ windham. richard salter, _pastor of a church in_ mansfield. timothy allen, _pastor of the church in_ ashford. ephraim little, _pastor of the st church in_ colchester. hobart estabrook, _pastor of a church in_ east-haddam. joseph fowler, _pastor of a church in_ east-haddam. benjamin boardman, _pastor of the th ch. of_ christ _in_ middletown. john norton, _pastor of the th ch. of_ christ _in_ middletown. benjamin dunning, _pastor of a ch. of_ christ _in_ marlborough. n. b. the names of the subscribers stand in the same order in which they subscribed, and not according to seniority; and it is hoped any inaccuracies observable in the draught will be excused, at least not charged upon more than one of the number, inasmuch as they signed separately, not having the advantage of a convention for that purpose. [illustration] the end. [illustration] footnote [ ] this part of my plan seems to be abundantly justified by that which the rev dr _colman_ of _boston_, and the rev mr. _sergeant_ of _stockbridge_, have wrote upon this head. see mr. _sergeant_'s letter to the doctor, printed at _boston _. page . the doctor writes thus:--"another thing suggested by mr. _sergeant_, and a most wise and necessary one in the present case is--his taking in girls as well as boys, if providence succeed the design, and a fund sufficient to carry it on can be procured:----i must needs add on this head, that this proposal is a matter of absolute necessity, wherein we are not left at liberty, either as men or christians; for there cannot be a propagation of religion among any people, without an equal regard to both sexes; not only because females are alike precious souls, form'd for god and religion as much as the males; but also because the care for the souls of children in families, and more especially in those of low degree, lies chiefly upon the mothers for the first or years: which is an observation or remark which i had the honour to make unto my dear and honoured ancient friend, _henry newman_, esq; secretary to the hon. and rev. society for promoting christian knowledge; which when he had communicated to them they put into print, and sent it to the directors of the schools; (if i have not miscounted) that so a greater proportion of girls might be taken into them to receive a religious education for the sake of their posterity, and therein for the more effectual answering the very end of their charity schools."---- transcriber's notes -obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. -archaic spelling has been retained as printed.