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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old New England Traits, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old New England Traits
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Editor: George Lunt
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2009 [EBook #28013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD NEW ENGLAND TRAITS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank, Darleen Dove and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  OLD NEW ENGLAND TRAITS
+
+  EDITED BY
+
+  GEORGE LUNT
+
+  ... this story's actually true.
+  If any person doubt it, I appeal
+  To history, tradition, and to facts,
+  To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel.
+                                         BYRON
+
+  NEW YORK
+  PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON
+  Cambridge: the Riverside Press
+  1873
+
+
+
+
+  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
+  GEORGE LUNT,
+  in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+  RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+  STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
+  _H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY_.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+The Editor of this little volume does not deem it incumbent upon him to
+explain in what way the author's manuscript came into his possession. He
+hopes it may be enough for him to say, that the writer believed himself
+to be the only person whose memory retained most of the incidents and
+anecdotes herein recorded; and a long and familiar acquaintance with his
+character enables the Editor to state, that entire credence is due to his
+narrative of facts, written down as occurring within his own knowledge
+and to his relation of whatever he alleges himself to have derived from
+others. A slight veil of mystery seems to have been originally thrown
+over the story; especially in regard to the names of persons; but, as all
+who are familiar with the locality will at once recognize its general
+features, the Editor has thought it best, for the benefit of others not
+so well informed, to make all proper explanations on this point in the
+Index.
+
+Sometimes, New England has been spoken of as devoid of the elements of
+romance; but perhaps this idea may be owing to the fact, that the means
+of presenting a different aspect of the case have not been sufficiently
+investigated. A similar impression has prevailed in respect to Roman
+history and literature, whether fabulous or otherwise; and the fathers of
+New England, at least, have been thought to have exhibited some of the
+traits, especially the simplicity and severity of character, which
+distinguished those more ancient worthies, whose names and deeds have
+been so long famous. But without making other citations, I may remark,
+that I am scarcely acquainted with a poem more thoroughly romantic in
+conception and sentiment, than "Gallus," the tenth eclogue of Virgil;
+and Macaulay, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome," has turned some of its
+legends to fine poetical account. Where can be found, for instance, a
+prettier, or more suggestive picture, than the passage in his "Virginia,"
+which some inspired painter might make immortal upon canvas, as it is in
+verse:--
+
+  "With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on
+          her arm,
+   Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed
+          of shame or harm."
+
+Perhaps, the solemnities of the colonial history of New England may have
+overshadowed much of whatever poetical interest might be discovered in
+its private annals. It depends upon the reader, whether the present
+narrative may be thought in some measure to qualify the imputation in
+question.
+
+                                                                 G. L.
+
+
+OLD NEW ENGLAND TRAITS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+It was the winter of 18--, between fifty and sixty years ago. Certainly
+the winters of New England began earlier and were more severe than they
+have seemed at a later period. After the fervid heat of summer has become
+subdued by the progressive changes of the season, no atmosphere could be
+clearer, purer, more exhilarating than the prevailing tone of our October
+days, and this kindly influence, as if by way of preparing the human
+frame for the gradual approach of winter, generally extends, with
+occasional stormy intermissions, through November, and often very far
+into the frosty domain of December itself. And such snow-storms as we
+once endured! It may be alleged, that distance of time forbids accuracy
+of comparison, and that masses of snow, which appeared vast to a child,
+would not seem so immense to a full-grown man, and were really no more
+huge than some of those with which winter nowadays envelopes the ground.
+But facts within my memory do not admit of such an explanation, for I
+distinctly recollect the driving storm which continued for days and piled
+its accumulating heaps against the front of our dwelling-place, so as
+entirely to cover the windows of the lower story of the house, and to
+rise above the main door which was of ordinary height, and that at length
+we were released from this imprisonment by means of an archway to that
+entrance, dug through the drift by the friendly efforts of an opposite
+neighbor.[1]
+
+Our deliverer was a superannuated seaman; inspired partly, no doubt, by
+the good-heartedness formerly, at least, thought to be characteristic of
+that class of men, and, partly, by respect for the memory of my father,
+who had been dead for some years, in the early prime of life, leaving
+behind him the best of reputations as a shipmaster and a man. Perhaps Tom
+Trudge had, at some time, sailed under him. I well remember the
+triumphant air with which this ancient mariner introduced himself into
+the kitchen, where all the family was assembled, doffing his tarpaulin,
+flourishing his shovel, and cutting one or two capers, in token of his
+hilarity at the accomplishment of his somewhat arduous job. Of course,
+there were profuse thanks and congratulations on the occasion; but I
+recollect only, that, after the second glass of grog furnished by my
+mother,--a refreshment to which Tom was only too partial,--he executed
+another spring from the floor, snapped his fingers and cried, "Tired,
+ma'am!--not a bit of it! For all I've done to-day, by the blessed
+binnacle I should think nothing at all of jumping over a meetin-us,--yes,
+a meetin-us, ma'am!" to the amazement, at the idea of such a feat, of
+certainly all the younger fry who were present at the ceremony.
+
+The town in which we lived was one of the very oldest of the New England
+settlements. Its situation is uncommonly beautiful, upon a slope
+descending from a moderately elevated ridge towards the bank of a noble
+river, which of late years has furnished more motive power to various
+manufacturing establishments in the towns and villages, which have sprung
+up on its borders, than any other stream in the world. At the time of
+which I write, there was not a mill throughout its whole extent. It is
+told, that Louis Philippe, when a fugitive in this country, in his youth,
+passing up the road which leads mostly along the margin of the river to a
+point where the first falls interrupt the navigation, pronounced the
+scenery the most beautiful he had ever seen. The river was then chiefly
+famous for the rafts of admirable timber which it sent down from the
+primeval forests above, for the construction of the unsurpassed ships
+built near the town, and for the commerce flourishing upon its bosom and
+extending to every quarter of the globe. It was idle enough, in
+comparison, at a later period.
+
+Early in the present century, and for a long series of years in the past,
+no town on the American coast surpassed it in commercial enterprise and
+activity. The habits and traditions of the place were well calculated to
+nurse a hardy race of seamen, and their reputation for skill and courage
+was well known throughout the maritime world. Persons are very apt to
+look at some direct circumstance, nearest at hand, for the cause of
+events, which may after all result from much more remote contingencies.
+So, at first, in the days of the declining trade of the town, they said
+the obstruction to its commerce was owing to the sand-bar at the mouth of
+the river. But the bar had been there from time immemorial; and though it
+is true that modern-built vessels, with their cargoes, could not pass
+that barrier, as ships of lesser tonnage were formerly accustomed to do,
+yet the main cause for this decay of business was to be found in the
+growth of the capital of the State, and the greater facilities for the
+transaction of business which exist in larger than in smaller places.
+
+But the bar itself was always of very dangerous passage in boisterous
+weather, and often the daring pilots of the station, than whom none upon
+the coast were more competent and courageous, were exposed to extreme
+peril, in their small craft, in returning to the river, when they had
+been on the look-out for inward-bound vessels in the bay.
+
+It so happened that a schooner in which I was a passenger, when a
+youngster, was detained outside the bar, and was likely to be detained
+for several hours, waiting for the tide to make. A young pilot,
+accompanied by his still younger brother, came alongside in their
+whale-boat, and having some acquaintance with me invited me to sail with
+them to town; and, having been some time absent from home, I gladly
+accepted their offer. Their boat was under a single low sail. The breeze
+was fresh and the day fair, though I could not but be aware, as we bowled
+along towards the bar, that a retreating storm had left some indications
+of its past presence in the tossing foam that sprang upwards as the waves
+dashed upon that treacherous heap of shifting sand. The pilot sat in the
+stern-sheets of the dancing boat, steering steadily with an oar. His
+brother tended the sail, and I was crouched amidships. As we approached
+nearer the scene of commotion, our younger companion assumed a station
+in the bow of the boat and began to sound with an oar. This looked a
+little formidable to a landsman; and soon turning his head in the
+interval of hastily pushing his implement into the water, the bowsman
+called out to his brother, "Joe, are you going to try it?" Joe made no
+sign, but steered steadily on. Again and again the sounding oar went
+rapidly down, and I suppose at last to the bottom, and again the young
+man cried out with renewed energy, "Joe, are you going to try it?" Joe
+uttered no word, but chewing his quid, looked steadfastly forward. In a
+moment a heavy wave struck the boat, drenching us plentifully, but not
+filling her, and bounding up, staggering a little, she dashed on, and
+with another like slap or two, we were over and in fairly smooth water.
+Had the boat struck bottom, she would have been instantly dashed to
+pieces and we should have met the sad fate of others who, before and
+since, have been drowned and lost to sight forever in that seething
+tide.
+
+In a conversation with a very eminent English novelist, of profounder
+skill and more permanent fame, in my opinion, than any other since Scott,
+he expressed his surprise at the solid aspect of the city of Boston, in
+which we had met, on the day after his arrival in this country, upon his
+first lecturing tour. He had enjoyed the best opportunities of viewing
+"men and cities," not only in Europe, but in various parts of the farther
+East. I took the liberty of replying that Boston had been growing nearly
+two centuries and a half, and inquired if he expected to see wigwams, or
+even those slighter fabrics which betoken the earlier stages of advancing
+colonization. He said, "No, of course not; but it had quite as
+substantial an appearance as an English city." But it is to be remembered
+that the persons who came to this country, at first, and from time to
+time, afterwards, were already civilized, and brought with them and
+transmitted to their descendants much of the knowledge and many of the
+habits, peculiarities, and even the traditions of their ancestors "at
+home." Our town, too, looked old; though far from being so substantially
+built as Boston.
+
+In fact, while reading the fragment of Scott's autobiography of his
+earlier days, and Dean Ramsay's "Reminiscences," one might almost think
+that their descriptions of character and manners, in so ancient a city as
+Edinburgh, were in many respects but a recapitulation of popular ways and
+even of personal oddities in our own respectable American town.
+Especially, the great novelist's vivid narrative of the desperate street
+conflicts between the lads of the several quarters of the "auld town,"
+revives many boyish recollections. In my youth, the division was into
+Northenders and Southenders; but as our own residence was in the central
+part of the town, we stood, as it were, between two fires. The conflicts
+usually took place in the winter, when the snow was on the ground, and
+though heartily engaged in, and sometimes quite too rough for play, were
+generally good-natured enough to avoid any very serious danger to life or
+limb. In the higher schools, the lads were drawn from every quarter of
+the town; but upon dismissal for the day, or upon the afternoons of
+Wednesday and Saturday, when no school was kept, the partisans of the
+several sections offered combat which was seldom refused. The usual
+weapons were snow-balls, which were sometimes, I regret to say, dipped in
+water and frozen over night, and kept in some secure place to await the
+expected battle, and occasionally a pebble, the missile commonly used by
+the Scottish combatants, was inserted,--a practice which was almost
+universally condemned. Very seldom did we come to a hand-fight, for a
+spirited "rush," when either party felt strong enough for it, was almost
+always followed by a rapid retreat on the other side. But woe to the
+luckless stripling whose headlong courage carried him far in advance of
+his companions; for upon a sudden turn of affairs he was a captive, and
+down in an instant, and mercilessly "scrubbed" with snow by a dozen ready
+hands, until the rallying host of his compatriots advanced vigorously to
+the rescue. The normal alliance of us middle-men was with the
+Southenders, though a good deal rougher than ourselves; and in times of
+truce a solitary boy would walk a little gingerly through their quarter,
+as errands or family occasions led him that way. But the principal
+commercial interests centered in those parts of the town, and if, upon
+the breaking out of determined warfare, we could secure, in the capacity
+of leader, the services of some lubberly boy who had made a voyage, even
+a mere coasting trip, to sea, though I remember that these were
+sometimes far less adventurous in the field than those who had no
+experience of the perilous deep, the issue of the contest was not for a
+moment doubtful. The forces of our adversaries melted away, like the snow
+with which they fought, at the very presence of a champion supposed to be
+of such redoubted prowess. The dependence of those adverse combatants was
+rather upon some of the younger hangers-on at the ship-yards, in their
+territory, for such a casual auxiliary. Sometimes, the elements of
+military skill would be displayed. While the two forces were closely
+engaged, a flanking party would make a sudden rush up some short
+by-street, and then the complete demoralization and panic-flight of the
+warriors thus newly assailed was something truly disastrous to behold.
+
+Of course, we enjoyed the ordinary boyish sports of boating, swimming,
+and skating in the season for it; or, of a pleasant afternoon, would roam
+away "over the hills," as the phrase ran, huckleberrying, perhaps, or
+gathering penny-royal and other wild herbs for the old folks at home; to
+be dried and reserved for future occasions. For, in those days, a garret
+would hardly be considered complete, without bunches of these simples
+hanging from the beams by strings, or stored away in paper-bags. In the
+fall of the year, we had another resource, long since interdicted by the
+owners of farms in the neighborhood of populous towns. This was the
+pleasure of nutting; for the urchins of those days regarded these kinds
+of fruit, growing on trees in the fields, as a sort of _ferae natura_ and
+free to every passer-by; though the more surly proprietors, even then,
+took much pains to circumvent and capture the lads, as they returned with
+their poles for beating the branches and with their loaded bags, borne by
+two or three of them, hanging by the middle across those implements.
+Sometimes, predatory bands proceeded in force and defied the farmer on
+his own ground. The story was told of one luckless individual who went
+nutting alone and was caught and imprisoned, for a time, in the cellar of
+the farm-house, but mischievously contrived to set all the taps of the
+cider-barrels running, before he was released. These excursions led us
+often to the Devil's Den, an excavation in an abandoned ledge of
+limestone, in a solitary situation at some distance from the town, and
+guarded, now as then, by three rather spectral-looking Lombardy poplars,
+which to us boys had a sort of mystic and undefined significance. Here we
+procured bits of serpentine, interspersed with veins of _rag-stone_, as
+we denominated asbestos, which, strangely enough, we used to chew. I
+suppose that no boy ever went to that place alone, and a sort of solemn
+ceremony attended his first visit with his older playmates, to a scene
+bearing an appellation ominous enough to call up every vague dread of his
+youthful heart. The approach on these occasions was rather circuitous,
+through the pastures, until an elevated mass of stone, standing quite
+solitary, was reached, designated as "Pulpit Rock." To the summit of
+this, the neophyte was required to climb, and there to repeat some
+accustomed formula, I fear not very reverent, by way of initiation, and
+supposed to be of power to avert any malign influences to which the
+unprepared intruder upon the premises of the nominal lord of the domain
+might otherwise be subjected. For these youngsters the ordinary means of
+education were abundantly supplied, and the girls, too, had their Academy
+for those who aspired to something beyond the common range; and when, at
+a later period, I became conversant with their circle, I must say that I
+have never known young ladies of better manners or more cultivated minds.
+As an evidence of more expansive benevolence than usual, and of
+profounder interest in the affairs of the great world abroad, I remember
+that when the class of students in Goldsmith's Ancient History came to
+recitation, one young lady burst into a torrent of tears. The astonished
+teacher anxiously inquired into the cause of her emotion. In the midst of
+her sobs she ejaculated, "Oh, that good man, Socrates! To think they
+should have treated him so!" She was finally soothed; but considering
+that the incident in question was of a rather remote date, this
+ebullition of feeling evinced a generous sympathy with a victim of past
+injustice, truly worthy of a philanthropic mind.
+
+It is still a town of stately mansions upon its principal street, and one
+more beautiful can scarcely be imagined. The magnificent elms, of the
+graceful American kind, which line its borders, have always been reckoned
+a feature of extraordinary beauty. Of late years, special means for
+supplying and preserving this elegant and useful kind of embellishment of
+the streets have been provided by the liberal bequest, for this purpose,
+of Mr. John Bromfield, a native of the town, but long a respected
+merchant at the capital of the State. A conspicuous house standing upon a
+gentle elevation, at some distance from the street, with pleasant grounds
+in its front and rear, was appropriately named by its original proprietor
+"Mount Rural," though not, perhaps, with the most exact observance of the
+requirements of grammatical construction. Still, it has some authority
+for being considered idiomatic, for does not "Pilgrim's Progress" tell us
+of the "Palace Beautiful?" And doubtless many other instances might be
+cited of the substitution of an adjective for a noun. At all events, the
+worthy owner, who built his house in the most approved style of former
+New England architecture, spacious, square, and with projecting windows
+in the roof, made some pretensions to classical allusion; for cultivating
+extensive gardens in the rear of his dwelling, he placed for an
+inscription on his front wall,--
+
+            "Miraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma,"--
+
+a citation which, it is to be feared, would be taken rather as
+encouragement to mischievous urchins, if any of them understood it,
+rather than as a warning to abstain from the fruit.
+
+Near the extremity of the opposite quarter of the town still stands an
+ancient edifice of solid stone, with a couple of stories of porch of the
+same material, approached by a lane, bordered with trees, leading some
+distance from the highway, and constituting, with some modern additions,
+the dwelling-place of a considerable farm. It boasts an age of more than
+two centuries, as appears by the figures above its entrance, and was
+apparently built for defence, when precautions against Indian incursions
+were thought necessary, though afterwards used as a powder-house; and
+tradition has it that, on one occasion, an explosion took place by
+night, which blew away a part of the side wall, lifted the bed on which a
+negro woman, the slave of the occupant, was asleep, bore her safely
+across the road, and planted her, bed and all, upon the spreading
+branches of an apple-tree, without injury. An early owner of the place
+was the ancestor of one of the recent Presidents of the United States,
+and it was known, until quite a modern period, as the PIERCE Farm.
+
+Not many years ago, there still remained at the corner of a street,
+between the points just designated, one of those ancient houses not
+common in this country, the second story resting on heavy beams, which
+showed themselves in the outside walls, and the walls of the long, low
+dwelling filled in with a coat of dark plaster braced by wooden
+cross-pieces, like those of Shakespeare's birthplace at Stratford. The
+handsome houses before alluded to were the residences chiefly of
+merchants, or sea-captains, who had retired from their maritime or
+commercial occupations with a competence, or of prosperous professional
+persons.[2] But a competence in those frugal days was an insignificant
+sum in comparison with the fortunes of our own time, scarcely approaching
+the annual income of the shoddy-masters, who now regulate the avenues of
+social and so-called aristocratic life. Indeed, I was once informed by an
+old inhabitant, that the richest person in the town, near the close of
+the last century, was assessed upon only ten thousand dollars' worth of
+personal property. But I think there must be some mistake in this
+statement, unless the rate of taxation was exceedingly low; for this same
+prosperous merchant devoted twenty times as much as that reputed capital
+to certain pious uses, during his protracted life-time, and still left
+forty times as much at his decease. Doubtless in those better days, the
+inevitable "rates" ("death and rates," they used to say, "were certain")
+were so small as to press but lightly upon the incomes of individuals in
+moderate circumstances, and the means of getting at the exact measure of
+a man's worldly "worth," had not reached their present degree of
+perfection. Indeed I may state, upon unquestionable authority, that, late
+in the first quarter of the present century, a highly respected trader of
+the town, who lived genteelly and was taxed upon a supposed capital of
+eighteen thousand dollars, waited upon the assessors and blandly told
+them, "Gentlemen, I have been more than usually prosperous the last
+year, and am willing you should tax me upon an additional thousand."
+Such combined integrity and disinterestedness was the theme of universal
+commendation; but when the old gentleman went to another reckoning a few
+years afterwards, his heirs had the benefit of an estate nearer one
+hundred thousand dollars in value, than the limited capital which had
+contributed its quota to the public burdens. In a word, I have heard my
+Aunt Judith say, that in her youth it was usual for respectable young
+women to take service with more thriving neighbors or friends, for the
+annual allowance of their board and a single calico gown, at four and
+sixpence a yard,--as the price was before mills were established on our
+own ground.
+
+I cannot help referring more particularly to some of the families of the
+town, who imparted to it a well-founded reputation, not surpassed, if
+equaled, by that of any town or city in the land; for instance, there
+were the Lowells, who gave name, afterwards, to that wonderful city of
+spindles, which enjoys as world-wide a standing in the annals of
+manufacturing enterprise as the old-world Manchester of a long-anterior
+date, and one of whom, amid the desolate ruins of Luxor, struck by the
+hand of fatal disease, conceived the idea of establishing that noble
+Institute which bears his name, and will convey it to future grateful
+generations; a name, too, which has so resounded in the popular
+literature of the day. Then, there were the Jacksons, famous in mechanics
+and in two of the learned professions; Charles Jackson, the erudite and
+upright judge, and James Jackson, one of those skillful and truly
+benevolent physicians, whose memory is still in the hearts of many
+surviving patients. The Tyngs, too, resided there, long honorably
+connected with colonial history and still represented by descendants of
+national repute. Amongst other remarkable individuals was Jacob Perkins,
+the famous inventor, who at an advanced age ended his useful career with
+no little foreign celebrity in the great city of the world. I have read
+lately of his successful exhibition of his wonderful steam-gun, in the
+presence of the Duke of Wellington and other competent judges of the
+experiment, and know not what national prejudice, perhaps, or other
+casual reason, prevented its adoption.[3] In science, too, we had
+Master Nicholas Pike, an ancient magistrate, whose arithmetic held its
+ground throughout the country, until it was superseded by that of Master
+Michael Walsh, which received the high commendation of so capital a
+judge, in matters of calculation, as the old land-surveyor and finally
+head of the nation, Washington. Master Walsh was an Irishman by birth,
+though "caught young," as Dr. Johnson remarked, to account for any
+distinction acquired by natives of Scotland; and he displayed much of
+that impulsive temperament imputed to the people of Erin's Green Isle. He
+dressed in the old style, his gray hair gathered into a queue, and
+wearing top-boots to the last. He was an excellent classical scholar, as
+well as mathematician. The pupils he prepared for college did justice to
+his instructions, and some have acquired great eminence in the several
+professions and in the conduct of important national affairs. As an
+instance of his patriotic attachment to his adopted country, upon
+casually meeting, late in life, a certain writer of the town, after a
+cordial salutation, he added with a slight dash of the brogue, "I thank
+ye for the Red and the Blue!" The young person was a little taken aback,
+not remembering the allusion, for a moment, when the old gentleman
+repeated emphatically,--"The Red and the Blue, ye know--Tom Campbell." It
+was in reference to a couple of stanzas, addressed to the United States
+by that great lyric poet, scarcely equaled in his day, namely:--
+
+               "United States! your banner wears
+                  Two emblems: one of fame;
+                Alas! the other that it bears
+                  Reminds us of your shame!
+
+               "The white man's liberty in types
+                  Stands blazoned by your stars:
+                But what's the meaning of your stripes?
+                  They mean your negroes' scars."
+
+To this the American had retorted:--
+
+                        "TO THE ENGLISH FLAG.
+
+           "England! whence came each glowing hue,
+              That tints yon flag of 'meteor' light,[4]--
+            The streaming red, the deeper blue,
+              Crossed with the moonbeam's pearly white?
+
+           "The blood and bruise,--the _blue_ and _red_,--
+              Let Asia's groaning millions speak!
+            The _white_,--it tells the color fled
+              From starving Erin's pallid cheek!"
+
+The verses were at first circulated as above set down. Campbell
+afterwards altered the two first lines of the second stanza into:--
+
+                "Your standard's constellation types
+                 White freedom by its stars," etc.,--
+
+impairing it, as some will think, both in force and in whatever poetical
+expression it may have originally had. Poets are apt to make similar
+mistakes, frittering away the first glow of thought and language, in
+revision. Has not Tennyson thus injured "The ride of the six hundred?"
+and did not Campbell himself half spoil "Hohenlinden," by taming its
+phraseology down into a supposed superfluous accuracy? For example, he
+first wrote,--
+
+            "'Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun
+             Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun," etc.
+
+It occurred to him, or some "stop-watch critic" suggested, that the sun
+itself was not actually "lurid," on that celebrated occasion, and he
+accordingly changed the expression to "level," thus signifying a mere
+natural phenomenon; and, besides the sacrifice of a fine poetical
+expression, forgetting that the sun must have appeared actually "lurid"
+through the interposition of "the war-clouds, rolling dun." Nor is this
+the only instance of misapplied fastidiousness in that splendid and
+stirring piece.
+
+Then, there was the Rev. Dr. Spring, father of that celebrated clergyman,
+Dr. Gardiner Spring, of New York. He had been a chaplain in the army of
+the Revolution; and when I, as a boy, pulled off my cap to him in the
+street, I fancied there was something a little military in his polite
+salute in return. The good Doctor held to what were called Hopkinsian
+tenets, a special form of strict orthodoxy; and it was alleged that,
+differing from the ordinary practice of religious people in the town,
+and construing literally the record of the Creation, "The evening and the
+morning were the first day,"--the Saturday evening was observed with
+primitive strictness in the family, while on Sunday evening, after
+sunset, the excellent matron assumed her knitting-work, or attended to
+whatever secular occupation she chose. I have often thought, and it seems
+likely, that the name of Swett--that of one of the most eminent and
+excellent physicians of his day, in our community, and who in fact fell a
+sacrifice to the faithful discharge of his professional duty--was the
+same as Schwedt, borne by the Prince de Schwedt, well known at the court
+of Frederick of Prussia (so called) the Great. The good Doctor examined
+the throat of a yellow fever patient, in a vessel lying at quarantine
+ground in the river, and inhaling his infectious breath, went home
+declaring he had taken the disease, of which he shortly died. The efforts
+and liberality of his son, the late Colonel Samuel Swett, in promoting
+the establishment of the Public Library of the town, though himself long
+a resident in the capital of the State, will forever endear his memory to
+the inhabitants. The daughter of another distinguished physician, Dr.
+Sawyer, was Mrs. George Lee, who gained no little reputation by her
+"Lives of the Ancient Painters," and especially by a book which attained
+great popularity under the title of "Three Experiments of Living." I
+should do great injustice to a list of noted personages--to some of whom
+allusion is made elsewhere in these pages, and which might be extended,
+if consistent with the objects of this work, were I to omit mention of a
+lady, Miss Hannah F. Gould, whose poetical productions gained her
+well-deserved applause and many friends, and some of whose highly
+pleasing verses still retain their hold upon public esteem. Reflectively,
+too, we might claim some share in the distinction of the most popular
+American poet of our own day; for the direct ancestors of Longfellow
+were natives of our immediate vicinage. I had no intention, certainly, of
+offering any tribute to the living in these memorials of the past; but
+one name inevitably suggests itself, better known on 'Change, in London,
+than in the place of his birth. I speak of William Wheelwright, a lad, at
+the period to which these sketches refer, long resident abroad, though
+occasionally brought home by the obligations and affections of family
+ties, to whose enterprise, and arduous, untiring pursuit of his object
+are owing steam navigation and railway lines in the southern part of this
+Continent, and to whose praise the whole South American coast will
+respond.
+
+There were others and many, of high personal character and local
+reputation, and not a few of strongly marked characteristics, whose
+names, perhaps, would scarcely sound familiar to modern ears; but I
+cannot pass over one wealthy merchant, distinguished for his strong
+common sense and decided individuality, as well as for a success in
+business scarcely equaled in this country, in his day,--the well-known
+William Bartlett, to whose judicious bounty the chief theological
+seminary of the State and its principal Academy for the instruction of
+youth owe so much toward the assurance of their permanent foundation.
+
+Nor should the memory of Oliver Putnam fail of a record, who, long absent
+from his native town, provided by his will for a generous bequest, upon
+which a Free School of the highest character has been long established.
+Nor should due tribute be forgotten in honor of George Peabody, who,
+remembering those days of his youth which were passed in acquiring habits
+of business in the place, distinguished its Public Library by a
+munificent gift.
+
+There had been many other men of marked character and great local
+influence: Tracys, Daltons, Greenleafs, Davenports, Hoopers, Bradburys,
+Johnsons, Coffins, Bromfields, Crosses; and many more, doubtless, might
+be thought worthy of mention. Among those named above, Nathaniel Tracy
+was one of the wealthiest merchants of his day, elsewhere referred to in
+this narrative as suffering immense losses by his advances to the
+government, when its needs were great and its credit was low, and in
+other ways. Tristram Dalton was a Senator of the United States from
+Massachusetts, in the First Congress under the Constitution; and
+Theophilus Bradbury, afterwards appointed to the bench of the supreme
+court of the State, was a member of the Federal House of Representatives
+during a part of Washington's administration. Indeed, from some of the
+early inhabitants of the town are descended not a few of the principal
+families in the capital of the State; and its representatives, by some
+tie of original or later connection, are scattered throughout the whole
+country.
+
+I linger somewhat longer and lovingly upon this preliminary part of
+whatever story I may have to tell, because I am aware of nothing in the
+literature of New England which furnishes precisely similar
+reminiscences, and because pictures of past manners, if truthfully
+portrayed, can hardly fail to be both interesting and useful. We heard
+plentiful stories, in our youth, of a higher style of living in colonial
+days, of coaches kept by the upper class of citizens; of their slaves,
+whom we knew in their emancipated condition as gardeners and waiters in
+general; of the cocked hats, the gold-embroidered garments, the laced
+ruffles of the gentlemen, and the highly ornamented, but rather stiff
+garniture in which the ladies with their powdered heads saw fit to array
+themselves, as they now present themselves to us on the living canvas of
+Copley. It was in the handsome residence of Mr. Dalton, long after his
+decease, that I saw hangings of gilded morocco leather on the walls of
+the principal room,--a substitute for the wall-paper in common use, and
+which I have never seen or heard of in any other instance, in the United
+States.
+
+Our collector of the customs was peculiarly one of this class of
+gentlemen of the old school. He was a person of very warm temperament and
+of remarkable characteristics; an ardent Democrat, who, upon the
+accession of President Jefferson, had succeeded Colonel W----, the first
+collector of the port, appointed by Washington, under whom he had served
+with distinction in the Revolutionary War. The residence of the latter,
+and the office of customs itself, in those simpler days, were in the
+house which was afterwards the birthplace of the writer of these
+sketches. To that war the successor of the old soldier principally owed a
+large fortune, which he had accumulated as the result of his privateering
+adventures; and it is said that the prizes came in so plentifully, that
+once he lifted up his hand and declared, "O Lord, it is enough!" However
+this may be, it is certain that not long afterwards his riches gradually
+vanished, and he was compelled to seek and obtained the office upon which
+he supported his declining days. Though "aristocratic" enough in his own
+personal character and demeanor, he was not naturally in much favor with
+the grandees of the old Federal town; but they stood in awe of him,
+nevertheless; for he had been very rich, and in his less prosperous days
+was still a person of the most impulsive and resolute spirit. His
+appearance in public was very marked. His person was manly and his
+countenance singularly striking. He dressed in black, his small-clothes
+terminating in white cotton stockings down to his gouty foot. On his
+white head, decorated with a queue, was his three-cornered hat. He seemed
+to take a pride in walking up the principal business street of the town,
+at the time of high "'Change," and paying attention to no one, to utter
+his not always very conciliatory thoughts aloud, in regard to his
+contemporaries and matters in general, as he threw out sideways the gouty
+foot aforesaid, on his way to the one o'clock dinner, which was the
+fashion of the time.
+
+But the Revolutionary War exhausted the fortunes of many prosperous men
+of the day; and the story is told of one very rich merchant, who could
+drive in his own carriage several days' journey--when such a journey over
+difficult roads was hardly so much as could be accomplished by "the
+hollow, pampered jades of Asia,"--and sleep in his own house every night.
+He lent immense sums, for the time, to the Revolutionary government,
+received what he could recover in depreciated currency, and failed. At
+the period of my narrative, the country was suffering from the
+consequences of another war, and the once active commerce of the old town
+was reduced to the lowest ebb. It was then that active emigration began
+from the sterile soil of New England--since rendered so much more
+productive by intelligent cultivation--to the fertile region known as
+"The Ohio;" just as, not much more than half a century ago, people talked
+of "The Coos country" in New Hampshire, and within a few years we spoke
+of the "Far West," brought at length within the compass of ordinary
+travel and civilization.
+
+As a picture of the rigors and extremities, I fear only too common, of
+early New England life, among its hardy agricultural population, I
+present extracts of a letter received from a venerable friend, a few
+years ago, who from the depths of poverty, having emigrated in his youth
+to wild lands not very far West, had risen to comparative wealth, which
+he devoted to useful purposes. In fact, the son of an extremely poor
+Vermont farmer became, by his own energy and integrity, the possessor of
+a competent fortune, which enabled him, with views far surpassing the
+immediate claims of this transitory world, to build a church and to
+establish a flourishing educational institution, destined long, I trust,
+to dispense infinite blessings to future generations. Thus, after some
+preliminary matter, he proceeds to say, under date of March 16, 1866:--
+
+  "My father was one of the poor men of Vermont. When I was a small
+  boy I have pealed many a birch broom for a sixpence.[5] My Father
+  could get one shilling for what he made, take them on his back,
+  carry them four or five miles, sell them, bring home a little meal,
+  or a little bread, sometimes a half bushel Potatoes. My mother
+  would go two or three miles, and do a washing, bring home at night
+  a loaf of wry bread, and a small peace was all we had for supper
+  and a smaller Piece in the morning. Sometimes we was allowed one
+  Potato roasted in the ashes--no Hearth in the old log-House. My
+  mother has stirred butter in a tea-cup with the point of a knife,
+  to keep her little children from starving. My Father had about half
+  acre of oats--poor fence--the old cow got in the oats and died.
+  Then came the pinch--we as little children had to flee to the woods
+  to get something to sustain life--no schools, no meetings--nothing
+  but hunger and despair. I lived with my Father until I was
+  twenty-one years old. After I was sixteen my Father improved a
+  little in living. When I was a little over twenty-one I got me a
+  wife--we was both Poor--three knifes, three forks, three teacups,
+  three chairs, a poor bed--hardly could we keep house. But our
+  courage was good--my wife always standing by me, through all my
+  trouble and trials--shoulder to shoulder--heart & hand, from the
+  day of our marriage until the day of her Death. No man never had a
+  better wife than I had--always kind to the Poor and to all her
+  relations. She is now in the Grave Yard, and my judgment is, she is
+  well prepared for the next world--and for the good feeling I have
+  had for her for over fifty-six years, I have Erected a monument
+  over her grave weighing 7 tons, and twenty-one feet high--it is a
+  splendid monument--cost me over $600.00.
+
+  "On the Eighth day of last July the Bishop confirmed 28 in our
+  Church at the ---- everything in good order--the singing was
+  complete--my Voice is still heard above all the singers and I still
+  stand at the head of the choir--I am only 77.--On the 16th day of
+  last October, Previous notice being given, the wardens and Vestry
+  met at my house--one minister was also present, a Lawyer being
+  called to do the business. At 2 o'clock, P. M. I commenced handing
+  over Deeds of land, Buildings, Bonds, mortgages, money & furniture,
+  to the amount of nineteen thousand and five hundred Dollars, the
+  use and interest only to be used for the Church and the ----
+  Institute; but in case there should be a failure of the Church &
+  school, for seven years, at any one time, then the Property to go
+  back to my Heirs.
+
+  "I have been schooling from 7 to 11 Poor children, yearly--I am now
+  not schooling as many--my school is doing well--we have a good
+  minister and he is a good Preacher. The Church is doing well. I am
+  now commencing one more building, 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and
+  three stories high, for the convenience of more room for Boarders
+  in the ---- Institute.
+
+  "I wrung more Bells at the fall of Richmond than any man in the
+  United States, which they was all purchased with one man's money--7
+  was the number, 4 large ones & 3 small ones--it is true I was a
+  little opposed to the War--but no matter. The Brick Church and the
+  Buildings I built for the ---- Institute now with Interest cost me
+  now over $43.000. They are all Paid for and I am out of Debt. I
+  have furnished every stick of wood for the Church, and have carried
+  the most of it in since it was built. I still wring the Bells on
+  all occasions." etc. etc.
+
+There is, perhaps, a touch of the garrulity of age in this good man's
+recital; but I consider his record of his early life, slight as it is,
+yet too strikingly suggestive to be left to chances which might await a
+private letter. Indeed, the character thus displayed is surely equal to
+that of the best of the old Romans, in the middling class of life,
+enlightened too by a living faith of which they had no conception; and
+the sketch gives fair warrant for the conclusion, that, in point of manly
+simplicity and integrity, the traits and the trials of those elder
+worthies who helped to settle our republican institutions have not been
+overdrawn.
+
+-----
+  [1]  As I set down these reminiscences I observe the
+       following paragraph in a Boston daily paper of November
+       27, 1872:--
+
+       "NOVEMBER SNOW. Fifty-two years ago to-day there were
+       twenty-eight inches of snow on a level in the vicinity
+       of Portsmouth, N. H."
+
+  [2]  The late Mr. George Wood, of Washington, a native of our
+       town, in some highly interesting _Memorabilia_, formerly
+       published, says: "The aristocracy were not on High
+       Street, as now, but on Water Street, and more at the
+       South than the North end, as the old houses give
+       evidence to this day. The Johnsons, Jacksons,
+       Davenports, Coffins, Greenleafs, Bartletts, Pierces,
+       Hoopers, Tappans, Todds, Carters, Lunts, Marquands, and
+       others of wealth, were on Water Street or near it. There
+       were their grand houses and fine gardens, and it was not
+       till they thought of retiring from business that they
+       removed to the West-end or up-town, as gradually as they
+       always do in all places."
+
+  [3]  After resigning his office of judge, which he had held
+       for only a few years, but administered with
+       extraordinary ability and integrity, Judge Jackson went
+       abroad for relaxation, and a letter from a gentleman in
+       London to a friend on this side the water says,--"Two of
+       your townsmen, Judge Jackson and Jacob Perkins, now fill
+       the public eye of England, and are the subjects of
+       public and private conversation."
+
+  [4]  "The meteor flag of England," etc. Campbell. "Ye
+       mariners of England."
+
+  [5]  These brooms are made by peeling strips from the stump,
+       which are fastened below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+I should scarcely deem it expedient to enter at much detail into the
+eccentricities of our good townspeople, though it seems to me that in our
+own street I could recall enough to make a pretty sizable volume.
+
+But one feature of the times deserves a passing notice. I refer to the
+inconsiderable number of insane persons, compared with the sad increase
+of that unfortunate class in our own day, and the manner in which they
+were treated. Of course, a more widely extended population multiplies the
+sum of every description of disease. Besides, our ancestors were a
+hardier race than their descendants, more inured to the regular routine
+of physical toil, less given than the men and women of the present day to
+hurtful indulgence, and far less exposed to the disturbing excitements of
+business and pleasure. So far as I know, there were but two really
+insane persons in our population of some seven or eight thousand, though
+doubtless certain others were more or less "light-headed." One of those
+two was sullenly crazy, and accounted dangerous, and therefore subjected
+to physical restraint; the other, generally harmless, roamed through the
+town at his own will, calling occasionally upon the acquaintance of his
+better days, and making magnificent promises of the benefits he intended
+to bestow, "when his ship came in." If I had inherited only a moderate
+dividend of the proceeds of the successive ships and their cargoes, which
+he promised my mother, on the above favorable contingency, usually
+calling her out from dinner to whisper to her these magnificent promises,
+more to her alarm than satisfaction, though being a woman of spirit she
+put a brave face upon it--I should look down upon a Rothschild, an Astor,
+or a Vanderbilt with natural contempt. Sometimes, incarceration was
+thought necessary, also, in his case; and I have a vivid recollection of
+the place of confinement allotted to each patient.
+
+This was in the yard of the almshouse, for state and county asylums had
+not then been thought of, and the strong wooden building in which they
+were placed consisted of two apartments, perhaps twelve feet square, one
+above and the other beneath the surface of the ground; the latter, in
+fact, a dungeon with one barred window on a level with the yard. Here
+they passed their gloomy hours as they might, in solitude and darkness,
+scarcely relieved by light from without, with nothing to alleviate the
+horrors of their condition, and probably considered in a state too
+hopeless to admit of any remedy. The tenant of the upper cell was
+comparatively lively, on the occasion of resort to his window for
+conversation, or out of curiosity, which was freely permitted; but his
+neighbor in the dungeon was dangerous; and I can never forget the terror
+inspired by a sudden and vicious attempt made by him to seize the legs of
+us children through the bars, as we stood conversing with the inmate of
+the room above. Science and humanity have done very much, in modern
+times, toward the restoration of such unhappy beings, who are in a
+majority of cases susceptible of cure, or of improvement enough to
+warrant their return to domestic life. But it is to be feared we are yet
+far behind, in this country, the more enlightened and effectual methods
+pursued for this purpose in some other civilized nations.
+
+On one side of the street above alluded to lived for a long time, in my
+boyhood, an ancient shoemaker entirely alone; and as he guarded his
+residence with great secrecy and sold none of his wares, curious people
+were puzzled to understand how he supported existence. He was known to be
+partially deranged. Mischievous boys, sometimes, gathered in numbers,
+would often assail his door with stones, standing ready for a start. But
+if they were on the watch, so was Pettengill, from previous experience,
+waiting behind his door with a heavy wooden bar in his hand, and giving
+instant chase to the flying urchins, would send the bar rattling at their
+heels. One day, after a season of unusual quiet, one of our lads anxious
+to penetrate his mystery, ventured to knock gently at the barred portal,
+was admitted, and expressed his wish to purchase a pair of shoes. The old
+man opened several chests containing the articles sought for, and finally
+selected a pair which proved a fit; but upon his visitor's making known
+his readiness to buy, the maker deliberately returned them to their
+receptacle, locked it fast and gravely declared, that he did "not like to
+part with them, for fear of spoiling his assortment."
+
+The next building was occupied by a respectable English couple as a
+dwelling-place, with a small grocer's shop in front. They had no
+children, except one strapping son of the old lady by a former husband,
+grown to man's estate, and whose business seemed to be to lounge about
+the premises in drab small-clothes; for I never saw him do anything. The
+old lady might be seen of a morning, with iron pattens on her feet and
+her clothes tucked up, mopping the floor of the shop; but in the
+afternoon much more genteelly attired in silks of an ancient fashion. Mr.
+Brown was a very quiet, inoffensive person, the wife a little
+high-strung. It is certain that they had occasional domestic bickerings,
+perhaps about the young man in the knee-breeches; for on one occasion it
+is alleged that the old matron was overheard to address her spouse, with
+a slightly Hibernian accentuation,--"Brune, Brune, ye case-knife looking
+son of a gun! I married ye neither for love, nor for money, but the pure
+convanience of the shop!" As these worthy people have long ago passed
+away, there seems no scandal in detailing this little family incident.
+
+Directly opposite these premises was a large old-fashioned house, still
+standing, and, a century before, the residence of the minister of the
+First Church. It was long afterwards occupied by a noted magistrate for
+the trial of small actions, who served many years as town-clerk, and was
+an energetic orator at town-meetings and in parish affairs. A culprit was
+once brought before him for stealing a gentleman's set of new shirts. The
+fact was stiffly denied. "A pretty story," said the accused party, "that
+I should take his shirts!" An official scrutiny, however, soon exhibited
+him standing with the half dozen articles of attire, one over another,
+upon his person. "What a villain!" said the astonished justice. "Why
+didn't you tell me you was a villain and save the time of the court, of
+the witnesses, and the spectators, by owning up you were a villain, in
+the first place?"
+
+The citizens of the old town were pretty thorough Puritans, by
+inheritance and inclination, at the middle of the last century. But the
+minister of the First Church was, in his day, a gentleman noted for his
+liberal tastes and accomplishments. He had a picture painted on a broad
+panel over the fire-place of his library, representing himself and
+several others of the cloth sitting around a table, in the full
+canonicals of wig, gown, and band, before each a foaming mug of ale, and
+each supplied with a tobacco pipe from which rolled volumes of narcotic
+fumes. At the top of the painting was a legend in the Latin language, of
+which the following is, I believe, a correct copy,--
+
+  "In essentialibus unitas, in non-essentialibus libertas, in omnibus
+  charitas."
+
+They appeared to be having a jolly time, and evidently considered the
+slight indulgences to which they were addicted among the moral
+non-essentials, however necessary to their physical comfort. In this
+picture, which is still extant, the rules of perspective were not
+rigorously obeyed. In fact, the table is considerably tipped, whether
+supposed to result from some sudden hilarious movement on the part of the
+reverend compotators or owing to want of skill in the artist, I am not
+able to testify. Indeed, the manners of the times had not then attained
+their present professed strictness in regard to the use of exhilarating
+liquors, and I have inspected a tavern-bill rendered to the principal
+citizens, for articles of this sort consumed on some joyful public
+occasion, at a much later period, the amount of which in quantity, though
+not in price, would astonish a modern city council.
+
+At the corner of the street stood an ancient tavern, the principal
+establishment of the kind in the place, at which in staging times all the
+stage-coaches from Boston and the eastward hauled up to change horses.
+It was kept by the father of the popular host of one of the best known of
+the long-established New York hotels. I well remember seeing a
+considerable body of British sailors halted there for refreshment, under
+guard, on their way to some prison in the interior, during the War of
+1812. They were true British tars of the traditional type, with immense
+clubs of hair, tied up with eel-skins and hanging short and thick down
+their necks. They seemed in no wise depressed by their condition and in
+fact were treated extremely well, for the general feeling of the town was
+decidedly adverse to the war. I also remember a gathering in front of the
+tavern, when the evening coach was expected, with the idea of mobbing an
+unpopular general officer who was to pass through by that conveyance. But
+a better sentiment was inculcated by the more orderly portion of the
+assembly, and the obnoxious warrior was not molested, otherwise than by
+expressions of dislike, either upon alighting, or when taking his place
+to resume his journey. Politics ran very high at the time, almost to the
+entire suspension of social relations between the differing parties,--the
+Federalists, who opposed the war, and were accused of unpatriotic
+sympathy with the cause of the enemy, and the Republicans, often
+stigmatized as Jacobins, who were charged with the principles and designs
+which had given impulse to the great French Revolution. Doubtless these
+parties shared, on the one side and the other, in the hereditary enmity,
+long since allayed if not altogether extinguished, between England and
+France. But whatever might be the general turn of political sentiment,
+both sides felt a patriotic pride in the success of the American arms.
+Hence, it is probable, the temper of the crowd assembled to do dishonor
+to the unlucky general. While the Republicans were indignant at a
+supposed needless national disaster, the Federalists could scarcely
+rejoice at it; and thus the moderation of the latter tended to restrain
+the former from the display of any actually violent demonstration. At the
+same period, there was formed, among the older administration men of the
+day, a veteran military organization, of those beyond the ordinary age of
+military service, well-known locally under the significant appellation of
+the "Silver Greys." The corps was composed of elderly merchants and
+traders and retired sea-captains, and their drills manifested at least
+the ambition of military prowess. Their opponents alleged that their
+company was formed for merely political purposes, and to overawe the
+town; but their own doubtless more just solution of the matter was, that
+their object was to aid in repelling invasion, in the unlikely case that
+the British troops should land upon their own borders. They gave more
+promise, certainly, of efficient service, should danger arise, than
+could be expected of the superannuated Trojans chief of Priam's court, as
+their catalogue is translated by Pope from the living record of Homer:--
+
+          "Here sat the seniors of the Trojan race,
+           Old Priam's chiefs and most in Priam's grace;
+           The king the first, Thymoetes at his side,
+           Lampus and Clitias, long in council tried,
+           Panthus and Hicetaon, once the strong,
+           And next, the wisest of the reverend throng,
+           Antenor grave and sage Ucalegon,
+           Leaned on the walls and basked before the sun;
+           Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage,
+           But wise through time and narrative with age,
+           In summer days like grasshoppers rejoice,
+           A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice," etc.
+
+The town had suffered everything from the war and the interdiction of
+commerce in which it had been most actively engaged, preceding the event.
+Multitudes were absolutely ruined, and the gaunt wolf stood grinning at
+almost every other threshold. Among the memorials of that great struggle,
+it may be as well to mention the rusted cannon planted for posts at the
+corners of certain of the streets, the breech sunk in the ground and a
+bomb-shell fastened in the muzzle. At such a time, it is not strange that
+force occasionally took the place of law.
+
+I could recall not a few instances in which, under the impulse of
+political resentment, passion got the better of judgment. One day, the
+marshal of the United States, in his cocked hat and with other official
+insignia, entered the tavern I have mentioned, in quest of a fugitive
+from justice. He inquired of a person whom he met in the public
+apartment, if he had lately seen one Captain E----, who, it seems, on
+some supposed provocation, had only thrown a custom-house officer into
+the dock in one of our eastern harbors. The person addressed by the
+marshal said that Captain E---- had just passed down the street, and when
+the marshal turned to pursue the culprit, that individual, who was no
+other than the one just addressed, slipped out of another door, ran by
+the stable in the rear of the tavern and called upon Jem Knox, the
+hostler, to harness a chaise with all speed and to follow him forthwith
+in his flight. It appears, that the story of the captain's adventure was
+already pretty well known in the public places of the town, and as a
+visit of the marshal from Boston was a very extraordinary event in a
+place usually so quiet, a prying character who was upon the spot asked
+him if he was not looking for Captain E----. Upon receiving an
+affirmative reply,--"That's the man," said he, "you have just spoken to."
+The marshal started in pursuit and the captain had called out to such
+persons of his acquaintance as saw him running, that he was chased by a
+United States' officer. Half way through the street, one Clement Starr, a
+stalwart Englishman, who lived at the spot and whose sympathies,
+political and otherwise, were with the weaker party, seized the marshal
+by the collar and insisted upon knowing what was the cause of the
+considerable tumult which the outcry--"Stop him!" had raised. Escaping
+this obstacle, the poor marshal was soon afterwards clasped in the
+vigorous embrace of a spirited matron, who stood on her door-step as he
+passed, and, besides being an acquaintance of the captain, was of the
+same political proclivities as those of the retreating mariner.
+
+While tearing himself away from this lively lady, Knox drove furiously
+by, pulled up as he overtook the fugitive, who, as a witness of the
+affair told me, tumbled into the chaise, and was soon out of the reach of
+the threatening danger. Whether he was ever taken afterwards, or what
+became of the prosecution, I have never heard.
+
+Not far from us lived a worthy widow, with a family of children, and on
+one occasion she was heard to mingle rather curiously an office of
+devotion with a somewhat severe threat of domestic discipline. It was a
+day in summer, and the windows being open, a passer-by heard her
+objurgation. It seems the family had assembled at the dinner-table, and
+her oldest son began by making premature demonstrations toward the
+provisions, when his mother emphatically addressed him: "You Bob Barker,
+if you stick your fork into that meat before I've asked a blessing, I'll
+be the death of ye!"
+
+There was a worthy shipmaster, also, who used to trade to Hayti, when
+that stalwart colored person, Christophe, was the Emperor, who used to
+say, "Put a bag of coffee in the mouth of h----, and a Yankee will be
+sure to go after it." On one occasion, so the story ran, Captain H----
+complained of some insult from one of Christophe's ragged soldiery. The
+fact reached the ears of that potentate, who desired to stand well with
+Americans, and our townsman was summoned before him. He found in the
+presence of the monarch the whole body of the scanty force on duty in
+the town. "Can you pick out the man who insulted you?" asked the sable
+autocrat. Captain H---- pointed him out; but beginning to fear the
+infliction of some punishment too severe, attempted to extenuate the
+offence. "Stop!" cried Christophe, and called the soldier near him. "Do
+you say this was the man of whom you have told me?" "Yes, sir, it is,"
+replied the alarmed captain; "but"--In an instant Christophe had drawn
+his sword, and with one blow struck off the head of the unlucky culprit.
+The terror of the accusing party, at such a sudden and bloody
+consummation, may be partly imagined. He procured his clearance as soon
+as possible, and I believe made his future voyages to waters under a less
+summarily sanguinary domination.
+
+We had also a _soi-disant_ nobleman, of really the humblest extraction,
+and ignorant to a singular degree, but known by his eccentricities far
+and wide, who, on the score of a little money accidentally amassed,
+proclaimed himself, by an inscription beneath a wooden statue of himself,
+in front of his residence,--"LORD OF THE EAST, LORD OF THE WEST, AND THE
+GREATEST PHILOSOPHER IN THE WESTERN WORLD." He decorated his court-yard
+with an extraordinary amount of lumber of this sort, in the shape of
+human beings, and dumb creatures of many sorts, each statue standing upon
+its separate pillar, to the intense admiration of the gaping rustics who
+visited the town to inspect it; and he fairly beat the Scottish Earl of
+Buchan, who was infected with a similar mania. Upon an arch directly
+opposite his front door, he had placed Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.
+Adams, on the right, was bareheaded, and upon an inquiry by some one why
+this distinction was made, since Jefferson's chapeau was in its place,
+the great "lord" replied: "Do you suppose I would have anybody stand at
+the right hand of Washington, with his hat on?" He was said, also, upon
+certain hilarious occasions, celebrated in a tomb which he had
+constructed under a summer-house in his garden, to have indulged in the
+mastication of bank-bills between slices of bread and butter, doubtless
+to the envy of his boon companions; not, as might be inferred, of the
+better or richer classes, though, considering all things, it is perhaps
+needless to hope that these current symbols of value were a little
+cleaner than most of those of modern date. All this statuary rubbish,
+however, was long ago removed; and the house and grounds, by the taste of
+the present owner, have since ranked among the most pleasing objects of
+inspection in the town.
+
+This notably low and singularly eccentric character, as I have remarked,
+fairly beat that other oddity,--in a different class of life and
+contemporary with him,--the Scottish Earl of Buchan, elder half-brother
+of Lord Chancellor Erskine. That nobleman was possessed with a passion
+for the busts of persons, eminent or otherwise, not dissimilar to that of
+our New England "lord" for wooden statuary, and perhaps was actuated by
+equal vanity, though a person of real literary accomplishment, and in no
+sense, except as mentioned, to be put in comparison with the other. He
+displayed to his visitors a large and most incongruous collection of
+these objects of art in a sort of grotto excavated in his garden, thus
+reversing, however, the more conspicuous procedure of his brother
+connoisseur, who exhibited his assemblage of rarities in his front yard.
+The Scottish Earl, certainly, had some literary pretensions, while the
+"lord" Timothy, who could neither read nor write with ordinary
+expertness, honored the Muses, also, by affording countenance to a poet.
+Whether this patronage extended to much material sustenance may be
+considered doubtful, since this son of Apollo generally stood in the
+market-place, when not wandering away to other parts, for the disposal
+of his wares, dressed in semi-clerical habiliments, himself being of a
+singularly grave aspect, and retailed frightful ballads of his own
+composition, and small wares of various kinds from a basket on his arm.
+It is questionable whether any of these literary productions survive to
+the present day; and I fear that not one of them had any spark of that
+vitality, potent to influence popular sentiment, which Fletcher of
+Saltoun attributed to the songs of the people.
+
+In the centre of this market-place--a space inclosed on all sides by
+various shops or stores, and for some unaccountable reason styled "Market
+Square," since its irregular outline much more resembled a truncated
+triangle--stood the town pump, on the spot originally occupied by the
+meeting-house of the First Church, already mentioned. On two sides of the
+pump were set the wonted hand-carts of two superannuated individuals,
+whose gingerbread, candies, and apples were the delight of such urchins
+as were lucky enough to have coppers to buy with; for those convenient
+mediums of exchange were not too plentiful among boys in 18--, and
+frequently not with their parents either. These old men were the
+undisturbed possessors of the ground, wheeling their vehicles to the spot
+at early morning, and standing by them all day, though they never seemed
+to me to be driving a very thriving business.
+
+But the glory of the Square was during the week before
+Thanksgiving,--then, as now, appointed for a day late in November, when
+it was often difficult to make one's way through the throng of teams,
+and especially sleighs, loaded with poultry fattened for the occasion,
+and sometimes venison and abundance of other commodities for domestic use.
+The mention of sleighs leads me to recur to a former remark upon the
+earlier approach of winter in those times; for the employment of sleighs
+implies the presence of snow upon the ground; and the farmers had
+frequently driven from a great distance, "up country," from parts of
+New Hampshire and Vermont, even from the borders of Canada, perhaps a
+hundred and fifty or two hundred miles and more away, to attend the market
+in our town; sometimes as many as a hundred loaded country sleighs, or on
+other occasions as many wagons, in a single day. The construction of the
+Middlesex Canal, connecting the waters of the Merrimack with those of
+the Charles, diverted the main part of this traffic to Boston; and
+railways finally conveyed to the capital most of the remainder which
+came from any considerable distance. Wistful eyes, in the presence of
+these heaping dainties, were sometimes averted, no doubt, from a
+consciousness of empty pockets; yet there were always generous hearts
+and bounteous hands to meet the exigencies of every neighborhood; and
+we may be sure that no householder of decent repute, however poor or
+unlucky, and probably few others, even if a little tarnished in the
+moral world's esteem, lacked some kind friend who saw to it, that the
+accustomed turkey or chickens smoked on the board before the eyes of
+his hungry children on that day, at least, of all the year.
+
+But, unless respectable legends are to be peremptorily discredited, an
+incident once took place in this Market Square, of which I doubt if any
+other New England town can show the parallel. I am about to relate a
+statement made to me, not many years ago, by an elderly gentleman of
+excellent character and standing, a justice of the peace and of the
+quorum, and a devout member of the Orthodox Church. The story was told
+with all gravity and implicit confidence in its truth; and some may think
+it exhibits in a striking light the extent of human credulity and the
+imperfection of human testimony: "My father," said this worthy person,
+"has often told me of being in Market Square when a man, a woman, and a
+little dog appeared, and soon collected quite a crowd by the exhibition
+of feats of jugglery. At length, after a due collection of tribute from
+the standers-by, the man produced a ball of cord from his pocket, threw
+it into the air, and began to ascend it, hand over hand. The woman
+followed, and after her the little dog. While the crowd was gaping, in
+expectation of the return of this mysterious trio, some one drove into
+the market-place and inquired the occasion of this unusual congregation.
+Upon being informed, he said, that he had just met such a party on the
+road, about a mile from the town." I had read the most extraordinary
+accounts, by British officers and others, of exhibitions like this, which
+they alleged they had often witnessed in India. I remembered one, in
+particular, where tigers and other unwelcome guests, and even the
+somewhat unwieldy bulk of an elephant, had seemingly been brought down,
+before their eyes, upon a cable fastened by some mysterious agency far
+aloft; for I suppose it behooved to be made fast in some inconceivable
+region of the upper air. But that a similar demonstration could have been
+made in a sober New England town, at noonday, could scarcely fail to "put
+me from my faith." It impressed me, however, as at least an extraordinary
+relation, coming from such a source; and happening to meet another
+ancient and equally reputable friend on the same day, one, too, who had
+been much about the world in the capacity of a navigator to foreign
+climes, I took occasion to relate to him the strange narrative which I
+had just heard. "Oh," said he, "there is no doubt about it; my mother has
+often told me she was present and saw the whole transaction." "In the
+mouth of two or three witnesses," says the Scripture, "shall every word
+be established." In this case, it will be observed, the witnesses were
+two, but both at second-hand. I shall not vouch, therefore, for anything
+except that, as Scott says, "I tell the tale as 'twas told to me,"--and
+it may be set down as one of these veritable legends which all persons
+are at liberty to reject or accept, as they please. I expect to try the
+faith of the reader still further before I have finished this historical
+sketch. People often tell us, nowadays, that vulgar superstitions are
+altogether things of the past. This may be so in public; but I imagine
+that in private there is a lurking tinge of it in every human bosom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+In maritime towns, at a season of the year when there is no inducement
+for them to wander into the fields, boys who have nothing else to do, on
+play-days, are very apt to lounge, more or less, on the wharves and in
+the Market Place. When quite a youngster, I witnessed a scene on the spot
+last named, the incidents of which are as vivid in my memory as at the
+moment when they occurred, more than half a century ago. Though the
+commerce of our town had very materially declined from its former
+condition of wonderful activity and enterprise, it was still kept up with
+considerable semblance of its former spirit, and, besides our native
+vessels, a foreign ship occasionally sailed up our beautiful river. A few
+miles beyond the stream, in the neighboring State, dwelt a population
+chiefly agricultural, a portion of which, pursuing the avocation of
+small farmers and fishermen, alternately, for they were directly on the
+borders of the sea and somewhat isolated in their position, besides, were
+certainly a little wild in character and habits; though I am told that
+great improvement among them, in these respects, has taken place of later
+years. We called them "Algerines," from which epithet, more opprobrious
+than probably just, our estimate of their pretensions to civilization may
+be inferred. It was the practice of these people to bring their fish in
+whale-boats to our market, which was the nearest to their homes, and to
+dispose of this fruit of their often perilous labors either for money, or
+for such commodities as they required. I was standing, one afternoon,
+near a group of foreign sailors, believed to be Spaniards, with the
+natural curiosity of a boy, and rough-looking specimens of humanity they
+certainly were. It seemed that they had fallen into dispute with the
+crew, some three or four men, of an Algerine boat, and though the
+language on one side and the other was altogether unintelligible to the
+parties, the tones were uncommonly high. Doubtless, the Spaniards were
+resenting some insult offered by the Algerines,--prompted by that sort of
+jealousy and dislike with which the lower classes of English blood have
+been in the habit of regarding those of other nationalities. The quarrel
+seemed especially at its height between one of the Spanish crew and a
+young man of remarkable stature in coarse seaman's dress, with a great
+bush of long yellow locks hanging over the collar of his jacket, whose
+name it appeared was Souter. The Spanish champion had drawn an ugly
+looking knife, from which unfamiliar weapon, flourished so near his
+person, the Algerine instinctively flinched. At this critical moment, the
+patriarch of the Yankee crew, a tall, gaunt old man, with grizzled hair,
+stepped into the arena, and, seizing the foreigner by the collar, cried
+out,--"Now I'll bet Tom Souter" (pronounced Saouter) "could take this
+'ere fellow right here by the collar and shake every g---- right aout of
+him,"--using a more vulgar phrase, and suiting the action to the word so
+vigorously that the reeling and astounded Spaniard was glad enough to
+relinquish the field and to slink away crestfallen with his companions.
+
+As a further illustration of the ways of our neighbors, I will give one
+more anecdote of an affair which occurred years afterwards. Not far from
+the hamlet of our friends, the Algerines, but within the borders of
+Massachusetts, was another settlement, on the outskirts of a thriving
+village, the male inhabitants of which also followed the calling of small
+farmers and fishermen, some of them diversifying these pursuits by the
+occupation of shoemaking, at the ungenial season of the year. They were
+industrious, and far less rude than their compatriots, to whom reference
+has just been made. At this point lived three young men, hard by each
+other, and brothers, of the name, I will say, of Lowe. One day a tall and
+respectable looking old gentleman called upon the writer of this history,
+announcing himself as Colonel Lowe, and the father of the three young men
+in question. He had formerly commanded, it seems, a regiment of militia,
+and had a sort of semi-military bearing. He was now in great agitation
+and distress, occasioned by some trouble in which his sons were involved,
+through forcible resistance to the civil authorities of the Commonwealth,
+and he required the professional services of the writer for their
+defence. He justly regarded it as a case likely to lead to very serious
+consequences, and particularly dreaded for the young men the disgraceful
+punishment of the State Prison. It was a case to elicit every degree of
+sympathy for the worthy Colonel, and to prompt every effort for his
+relief. The facts, as they appeared at the trial before the Court of
+Common Pleas, were quite picturesque. A constable had appeared with an
+execution against one of the young Lowes, in the matter of a claim which
+he disputed as unjust; but without giving the peace-officer opportunity
+to discharge his duty, he was driven from the ground by the trio, in
+mortal terror of his life. The execution of the process was then
+undertaken by a somewhat fantastic country deputy sheriff; who was
+ordered off as he attempted to approach the parties in defence, and
+between them and the officer there was a good deal of raillery, which had
+an important bearing upon the final result of the trial. At length, the
+elder brother Lowe drew a line with a stick across the road and defied
+the officer to pass it, which he declined to do, but at once made good
+his retreat, smothering his indignation at such a rebuff, until he could
+give it vent in more safety than the existing circumstances warranted.
+Such reckless conduct was not to be endured, and no doubt the deputy was
+laughed at by his neighbors for his failure to carry his purpose into
+effect. The majesty of the Commonwealth had been insulted in his official
+person, and he determined to summon a _posse comitatus_, to vindicate the
+power and dignity of the law. Stories in the country, especially those
+involving any extraordinary incidents, sometimes fly faster than in town,
+and accordingly these young rebels forewarned, no doubt, of the peril in
+prospect, prepared themselves, as well as they could, to resist the more
+formidable invasion presently to be expected. Before daylight, one
+morning, the mustered force of some twenty men, variously armed, led by
+the valiant sheriff's officer, cautiously drew near the premises, in the
+hope of catching the culprits asleep. The brothers were too quick for
+their visitors, however, and evidently having been on the watch had
+retreated to a barn, securely fastening the door, and awaited the
+approach of the enemy. They had with them certain weapons, which were
+exhibited in the court, consisting of ancient rusty halberds and
+spontoons, probably borne in turn by their gallant father, in his several
+gradations of military service. As they were summoned to surrender, a
+musket was discharged out of a window of the barn, over the heads of the
+assailants, occasioning considerable confusion in their line. Assuming
+courage, at length, axes and crowbars were brought into requisition, and
+the door was forced. As the attacking party entered, however, the Lowes
+let down the stairs leading to the story above a heavy broad cart-wheel,
+and as it bounded clattering towards the floor below, the assailants fled
+out of doors in a panic, and taking advantage of their disorder, the
+Lowes, disregarding the vast disproportion of numbers, rushed upon them,
+and a regular melee began. It is thought, that the smaller party would
+have been victorious, but for an ugly blow on the head of the youngest
+brother, which felled and disabled him; whereupon his associates escaped
+unmolested and he was taken helpless into the house, where he remained
+until the time of the trial. Of course, the jury found him guilty, for
+the facts of the case were patent; but it was taken up, by exceptions to
+the ruling of the Judge, into the Supreme Court, in which, though it
+would be irreverent to intimate that the justices entered at all into the
+humor of such a Donnybrook Fair sort of scrimmage, yet, after argument,
+and it is presumed in consideration of some provocation on the part of
+the sheriff's deputy, especially the needlessly warlike and really
+ridiculous aspect he impressed on the affair, leading the young men to
+look upon it rather as an invitation to play their part, than as a
+serious purpose to violate the law, the sentence imposed was only a few
+months' imprisonment in the common jail. The prosecution was never
+enforced against the brothers, and never was more lively gratitude
+displayed, than at the escape of the convicted culprit from sentence to
+the ignominious seclusion of the State Prison.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A term of the Court of Common Pleas was always held in the town in the
+month of September, and "court week" was a regular time of holiday for
+the pupils of the higher schools. Some of us attended upon these solemn
+proceedings with extraordinary interest, especially when criminal cases
+were before the court. I know not how it is, but suppose it to be the
+expected revelation of incidents, as in the plot of a novel, which draws
+crowds together, in most uncomfortable contiguity in a courtroom,
+whenever a culprit, especially one of more than usually notorious
+antecedents, is put upon his trial. While most of the old-fashioned
+lawyers of the Essex Bar were more than respectable for professional
+acquisitions and legal skill, there were persons among them of
+distinguished ability and character; and real eloquence seldom fails to
+prove peculiarly fascinating to youthful hearers. Who could forget, for
+example, with what rapt attention he listened, at a somewhat later date,
+to the glowing language and was stirred by the honest warmth of
+Saltonstall, incapable by nature of attempting to make the worse appear
+the better reason; or watched that marvel, the matchless ingenuity of
+Choate, whose faculties shone brightest, the more apparently hopeless was
+the cause at stake; or thrilled with profound admiration, under the
+resistless influence of Webster's force and closeness of argument,
+rising, with due occasion, to the highest point of eloquent illustration,
+when some more than usually important matter for adjudication by the
+court called him from the ordinary sphere of his great practice to the
+forum of a comparatively inferior tribunal.
+
+Years afterwards, when I had the honor of a place at that Bar, I was much
+struck with the testimony of a respectable witness, a farmer named
+Sheldon, who lived near Beverly Corner, upon an indictment of a fellow
+for burglary, in entering Mr. Sheldon's house by night and taking the
+money from his pockets in his sleeping chamber without disturbing the
+occupants. One of the earliest questions proposed to him was,--"How did
+the robber gain entrance to the house?" and, by the way, the man had been
+previously employed as a laborer by the farmer. "I suppose he came in by
+the usual way," was the answer. "He came in by the door, do you mean?"
+"Yes." "How did he get it open?" "I suppose he lifted the latch." "Do you
+mean to say, that the door was not fastened?" "Yes I do; we never fasten
+it." The culprit was convicted upon various satisfactory testimony; but
+the incident betokens a state of security, at that period, and a rarity
+of flagitious offences, which puts to shame the demoralization of our own
+day. For the house in question stood on the high road and was scarcely
+more than half a mile distant from a populous neighborhood, and within
+less than three miles of a town with many thousands of inhabitants.
+
+Strangely enough, considering the want of precaution on the part of the
+farmer, coming down, doubtless, from a still simpler period of social
+life, not half a mile from Mr. Sheldon's house stood a solitary
+habitation upon a desolate tract of land, and also near the highway,
+which at a time not long subsequent had acquired a very evil reputation;
+and with this house became connected circumstances which some may think
+scarcely admit of the solution of merely accidental occurrence. At the
+autumnal term of the court just indicated, when I had become a young
+practitioner at the bar, a certain vixenish old beldam was put upon trial
+for the offence of maintaining this ill reputed establishment. Her
+demeanor was singularly exceptional; for she did not scruple to interrupt
+the proceedings with the most fluent billingsgate, and upon receiving
+sentence berated the presiding judge in language betokening an
+extraordinary depth of desperate hardihood. Inquiry revealed the fact,
+that her solitary house, standing upon an elevated plain of some extent,
+the ground rising from the shores of Wenham Lake, in front but little
+removed from the road, and the space in its rear interspersed with
+scattered groups of funereal pines, had been the resort of various
+desperadoes, several of whom had suffered punishment for their crimes,
+and one of them had not long before committed suicide in jail, to escape
+public execution for a most atrocious murder.
+
+Late one day, in the beginning of the following Spring, I happened to be
+called upon to proceed to Boston, distant some forty miles, upon the
+sudden requirement of certain business to be transacted the next morning
+in the city. It was before the railway was in operation, and to
+accomplish the object in view I was to drive this considerable distance
+in a chaise, at night and alone. I was accustomed to this mode of
+locomotion, in my attendance upon the several sessions of the courts in
+the county, and the idea of fear never entered my mind. Accordingly,
+starting about dusk, at half past ten o'clock of a starlit night, I had
+reached a point in the journey where the road rises by a gentle ascent to
+the plain, on which stood "the house of evil counsel." All at once, the
+scene and the narrative of the previous Fall flashed upon my mind. Before
+leaving home, I had bethought myself of a brace of pistols in my
+possession, which I had loaded and placed in the pockets of my overcoat.
+And now comes the remarkable circumstance to which I have already
+referred. These weapons had been borrowed of a friend, months before,
+when in the midst of an unusually exciting election for a member of
+congress, continuing some two years, and stirring up extraordinary rancor
+in the minds of some of the partisans of the several candidates, I had
+been threatened with violence, if I should attend the polls. I had
+notified my opponents that I should vote at a certain hour, on the
+appointed day, and placed these pistols in my pocket, by way of defence;
+but nothing inconsistent with my freedom of political action in fact
+occurred. This was the only time in my life that I had carried such
+implements, which were then put aside in the drawer of a bureau, and I
+have never thought it worth while to take them since, except on the
+occasion now referred to. I had thus provided myself with them, on an
+entirely different occasion, and took them with me, on a sudden thought,
+as I was about to proceed on my journey, more in the spirit of youthful
+bravado, than with any other motive; for the roads, at that period, were
+considered perfectly safe, by night as well as by day. As I have
+remarked, the thought of the shrewish and abandoned old woman, of her
+house and its evil companions, occurred to me, as my horse slowly
+ascended the rising ground towards the plain. In a few minutes I was in
+the neighborhood of a habitation which I looked upon rather with
+detestation than any emotion of alarm; when what was my astonishment to
+behold a man--the sound of the wheels of the chaise being doubtless
+audible at some distance in the clear, still night--come out of the gate
+in front of the house and station himself in the middle of the somewhat
+narrow highway. In fact, the stranger was within a rod of the vehicle,
+and must either be driven over or move out of the way. At this unexpected
+encounter, I own that my heart, as the saying is, jumped into my mouth;
+but I instantly drew and cocked my pistol, and the click probably
+disturbing the nerves of my proposed assailant, he turned aside without
+offering further molestation. In a few minutes, the lamps of the
+mail-stage, as it turned Beverly Corner on its way eastward, were a
+grateful spectacle, and my onward journey was pursued without other
+adventure. The driver of that stage afterwards informed me, that the
+trunks strapped to the rear of their coaches had more than once been cut
+off in that very neighborhood, and that on one occasion beams had been
+placed in the road so that the carriage would have been overturned,
+unless they had been discovered in time, and doubtless had been so placed
+for purposes of robbery. I inquired, why investigation did not take place
+on the spot; but the reply was, that the passengers were in haste to get
+on, were unarmed, and perhaps timid, and preferred to remove the
+obstacles and proceed upon their way. The contrast, however, is
+striking, between the habit of a farmer to leave his door unfastened at
+night and the machinations of rogues not a quarter of a mile distant, who
+could be guilty of such crimes. I believe, however, that the existence of
+such a nest of villains was quite exceptional at that period, and unknown
+to the farmer, and that his sense of safety, without the most ordinary
+means of protection to his premises, was at that time the rule. The
+reader may draw what conclusions he pleases from the facts of my own
+personal narrative.
+
+I have remarked that politics, never stagnant in our ancient communities,
+at the period of my story, oftentimes grew extremely warm, and then every
+leading citizen took his personal part. Nor is it strange that the
+survivors of those who had borne their share in the Revolutionary War,
+who had the traditions, at least, of their fathers who served with the
+New England troops, and followed the gallant and generous Wolfe up the
+formidable heights of Abraham, and after the victorious field which cost
+that true hero his life, stood triumphant, under the Red Cross banner,
+upon the subjugated ramparts of Quebec, should exhibit marked
+peculiarities of character; should hold fast to strong opinions; and
+indeed should manifest that individuality and originality of thought and
+action which is scarcely witnessed in the promiscuous crowd of our own
+tamer times. Instead of that indifference, the bane of a republic, among
+the upper class, the result of accumulated wealth and luxurious habits,
+the chief men of both parties stood at the door of the Town Hall, on days
+of election, distributing votes, and encouraging the timid and the
+doubtful, and their influence was effectively felt in the direction of
+public affairs, which now seem mostly to be left to the management of the
+least competent, and often the most ignorant, mercenary, and corrupt. I
+firmly believe that the equal, if not preeminent position long maintained
+by Massachusetts, among rivals vastly superior in territory and
+population, was owing to the active interest formerly taken by her
+leading men of all professions and occupations in the politics of the
+day, and that thus the sources of political well being were kept
+comparatively pure. At present, these men take their political opinions
+from the newspaper they read, and trouble themselves very little further
+about a matter in which their own stake, one would think, would rouse
+them to exertion, from the promptings of enlightened self-interest, if
+not from the more generous emotions of public spirit.
+
+On one occasion, when some eager dispute had arisen, as to which of the
+two parties actually preponderated, for the balance sometimes wavered
+from one side to the other, it was determined to poll the town; that is,
+to assemble all citizens entitled to vote in the Town Hall, to divide
+them personally according to their several politics and by actual count
+to ascertain which was the strongest in point of numbers. I happened to
+be present, as a boy who heard political questions discussed with
+animation at home, and was curious to witness the scene, which was one
+really of the intensest interest. The selectmen occupied their tribune,
+at the head of the Hall, and the meeting was presided over by their
+chairman, a man of imposing height and general personal development, with
+flowing white locks, who commanded the respect of all parties. His father
+had been a soldier of Wolfe, and he and his associates were on the
+Federal side. When the parties were arranged for the enumeration, one
+worthy individual, who kept the principal tavern of the town, stood
+hesitating, at the end of the hall, between the two files; for, in fact,
+both parties of necessity made use of his house, by turns, in
+commemoration of some public event, or for festive purposes, which, to
+tell the truth; were frequently coming round; for the liquor was both
+better and cheaper than in these degenerate days. I shall never forget
+the start which the sonorous voice of the chairman gave me, as he bawled
+out,--"None of that, Jenkins; we can't have any shirking here; you must
+take one side or the other,"--and he did, amidst the tumultuous laughter
+with which the Hall resounded. The contest was a good-natured one, and I
+have no doubt which party proved victorious, considering that the
+prevailing sentiment of the town was pretty well evidenced by the
+political leanings of the _Board_; but at this late day it is of little
+consequence to authenticate the fact.
+
+The father of the sturdy chairman had set up the tavern, after returning
+from the expedition to Quebec, which he called the WOLFE HOUSE, in
+memory of his commander, General James Wolfe, who is presented in such a
+pleasing light in Thackeray's "Virginians," and, as a noble-minded man
+and true hero, deserved all which could be said in his praise. In after
+days, and I believe it is still there, the sign was suspended in front of
+the hotel, which took the place of that destroyed by the "Great Fire."
+The brave general wore his red coat and cocked hat, all through the War
+of the Revolution and that of 1812-14, without molestation from colonial
+rebels, or Yankees fighting against the mother country, by land and by
+sea. The tavern was kept for a long time by a shrewd and active host, who
+had a keen eye to the main chance. Among his dinner guests were farmers
+who attended market, and others, content to take their meals at half
+price, after the chief company had finished that repast. Of these was one
+Major Muncheon, somewhat celebrated for his remarkable powers of making
+away with whatever the table furnished. One day, Wilkins, the host, who
+was addicted to a slightly nasal intonation, addressed him, when he had
+just risen from his seat,--"Major, I can't dine you any more for
+twenty-five cents." "Why not?" asked the well-satisfied trencherman. "I
+tell you, Major," said his host, "the very vegetables you've eaten cost
+two and three pence" (37-1/2 cents), "saying nothing of the meat and
+pies." "Pho! Wilkins," remonstrated the farmer, "it's only the second
+table." "Second table!" replied the host; "why, Major, if you had sat
+down to the first table, there wouldn't have been no second."
+
+But if parties in those times were often hotly opposed, there was one
+occasion, every year, when a broader sentiment of patriotism warmed the
+hearts of all in the fellowship of a common cause. The Anniversary of
+Independence was duly commemorated by appropriate exercises for
+considerably more than half a century in our spirited town, and with a
+general loosening of party ties on the occasion, until the War of 1812,
+when the parties conducted separate celebrations, though the orators were
+always only too apt to tighten them again by untimely political
+allusions, in the narrower sense of the phrase.[6]
+
+On one of these anniversaries, the orator expectant we will call Mr.
+Moses, a member of the Bar, who had already acquired distinction and was
+afterwards a leader in his profession, well known in the county of Essex.
+It was in reference to this gentleman, that an ambitious colored person
+of that day instructed the shoemaker he employed, that he wanted "his
+boots to have as much creak in them as Squire Moses's." On the day before
+the services were to take place, the orator repaired to the meeting-house
+appointed for the purpose, in order to rehearse his performance, and
+having mounted the stairs to the pulpit by a back-entrance, and probably
+wearing boots, at this time, of less distinctive resonance, did not
+attract the attention of an old woman who was on her knees scrubbing the
+broad aisle. The speaker had a melodious and ringing voice, and began, I
+suppose,--"Friends and fellow-countrymen!" "Oh, lud-a-mercy!" cried the
+ancient female on the floor, starting to her feet, with uplifted hands.
+The occupant of the pulpit was a very polite person. "Oh, don't be
+alarmed, madam," cried he; "it's only Moses." "Moses!" screamed the
+woman--"Moses is come! Moses is come!" and not much to the credit of a
+piety which ought to have felt so highly favored by a vision of the great
+prophet, rushed from the church into the street in an agony of terror,
+spreading consternation in the neighborhood by her outcries, until the
+mystery was speedily cleared up.
+
+-----
+  [6]  Of all these productions I have seldom seen one equal to
+       the printed sermon preached by Rev. Mr. Murray, of our
+       Old South Church, upon the Proclamation of Peace;[A]
+       for its array of various interesting information upon
+       the condition and prospects of the country, and for
+       soundly patriotic views, enforced with fervid and
+       striking eloquence. In one respect, it could scarcely be
+       surpassed. We have heard of the protracted discourses of
+       the old Puritan divines, in both countries with which
+       most of us claim origin, and like them Mr. Murray's
+       sermon must have consumed at least two hours and a half
+       in the delivery. He was educated at Edinburgh and was no
+       doubt a native of Scotland.
+
+  [A]  1783
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+I know there are those who will kindly regard these reminiscences of
+things, trifling, it may be, in themselves, but affording a glimpse of
+manners perhaps already forgotten by most or all of those who were
+formerly more or less conversant with them, and which may prove of some
+interest in the future. We had spent our Thanksgiving at home, in the
+year 18--, but went all together to the farm of our uncle Richard, who
+was of the Episcopal Church, for the celebration of Christmas; for many
+of his persuasion, at that time, regarded "Thanksgiving" pretty much as
+the Highlander, in Scott's novel, did "ta little government Sunday, tat
+tey call ta Fast." He was a well-to-do farmer, at a place within easy
+reach of the town in which we lived, and where very few were at all
+rich, even according to the former moderate standard of wealth, and most
+people were poor, or at least depended on their daily labor for their
+daily bread. Those were very hard times following upon the war; and that
+had followed fast upon the Great Fire, which reduced to ruin almost the
+entire central business part of the town. Our family had suffered private
+losses, too, by a swindling failure on an extensive scale,--a rare
+incident in those days;[7] and again by the embargo and the war, most
+of my mother's limited means having been invested in one vessel after
+another, employed in the coasting trade, and this source of income at
+length stopped altogether. Still, people bore up bravely against these
+misfortunes, and showed quite as much spirit and hardihood as in these
+latter times, and got along decently, after a fashion. To be sure, the
+proclamation of Peace, a few years before, had revived all hearts; though
+I heard of a washerwoman engaged in her avocation, while the bells were
+ringing, who, on learning the cause of jubilation, peevishly
+exclaimed,--"Peace! peace! what's peace, when there's no water?"[8] Our
+Thanksgiving had been a cheerful one, though colored, as such
+anniversaries are likely to be, with recollections of the absent, or the
+dead; for the memory of my father was always present to my mother, then
+and during a long widowhood of almost half a century, and my older
+brothers were at sea. My mother was an excellent housekeeper, and we had
+plenty of the usual belongings of the festival, so eagerly looked forward
+to by the young, and something to bestow upon others not so well
+supplied. It was the practice of some of this class to knock at the doors
+of those thought to be better off, on the evening before, begging
+"something for Thanksgiving;" and, by way of a joke, the children of
+comfortable neighbors and friends would often array themselves in
+cast-off bizarre habiliments, and come in bands of three or four to the
+houses of those whom they knew, preferring the same request. Ordinarily,
+the disguise was readily detected. Sometimes the little mimics would come
+in, and keep up the show and the fun for a while; but for the most part
+their courage failed them at the threshold, and they scurried away,
+shouting for glee, almost before they got any answer to their mock
+petitions. It was a queer fancy, thus to simulate poverty; but kings have
+sometimes done so. Did not James of Scotland find amusement in roaming
+through a portion of his domain, as a "gaberlunzie-man?" Yes--and even
+composed a famous ballad to celebrate his exploits in this humble way. In
+the evening, we had a lively company, regaled with nuts, apples, and
+cider; and my grandmother, who indulged in the old-fashioned practice,
+that is for females, of smoking a pipe, sat in the chimney-corner, where
+a genial wood-fire was brightly blazing, for coal was then a thing
+unknown in family consumption, duly furnished with the implement, and
+sometimes called out to us,--"A-done, children, a-done," when in anywise
+annoyed by us, and occasionally would sing us an old song, of which I
+remember only "Robert Kid" and "A galliant ship, launched off the stocks,
+from Old England she came," etc.; and, often when a storm was raging
+without, repeating to us the rhymes,--
+
+         "How little do" (pronounced doe) "we think, or know,
+          What _the_ poor sailors undergo."
+
+But we had a livelier time at Uncle Richard's; for there were more of us
+and merrier. Of course, those of the household who could be spared from
+domestic duties had attended service in the morning, and some of us from
+the town had also appeared at church; for though our branch of the
+family were now Presbyterians, we remembered that our common ancestor and
+the company who came over with him, a couple of centuries and more before
+that time, were of the Church of England, only protesting against the
+abuses which had crept into it; and Uncle Richard carefully preserved,
+with the genealogy of the family on this side the water, the Orders in
+Council, prescribing for the passengers, by the "Mary and John," of which
+my ancestor was one, then lying in the Thames, in the year 1633, amongst
+other regulations, the daily service to be observed on board, according
+to the ordinances of the Prayer Book.
+
+No doubt the dinner was all which the domestic celebration of the
+festival imports, for the farm was well stocked with every description of
+creature, and with most other things needful for the purpose; but I may
+be excused if I remember none of the particulars, now that so many years
+have intervened. I know that Uncle Richard always prided himself upon his
+excellent cider, and there is little question that there was a due
+allowance of spirits, which most persons of fair means kept, in those
+days, in decanters openly ranged upon the parlor sideboard. Indeed, about
+the same period, while I was a student at a famous Academy not many miles
+distant from our own home, the English teacher, an orthodox clergyman of
+high repute, who cultivated a few acres of land at the place where he
+lived on the outskirts of the town, invited a few of the pupils, myself
+in the number, to assist him in making hay, one play-afternoon. The boys
+had a good frolic, and, after work was ended, our master treated us to
+milk-punch, a highly agreeable, but rather exhilarating beverage. Our
+uncle's house was of the old-fashioned New England description,
+pleasantly facing the south, with a high-peaked roof, which descended,
+in the opposite quarter, to not much more than a man's stature from the
+ground. In front was a spacious green yard, leading on one side to the
+garden for vegetables and trees of the choicer kinds of fruit, and
+sprinkled here and there with bunches of gay flowers; and at the entrance
+gate by the road two magnificent elms, of an age and height which denoted
+that they must have given shade to several past generations from the
+summer heat, flung out drooping branches which extended a very great
+distance from the parent trunks. After dinner, our host entertained us
+with a narrative of his recent visit to the capital town of Boston, to
+testify, in company with a former neighbor, now resident there, in behalf
+of his hired man, Jasper Towne, of English birth, who having, duly and at
+a long term beforehand, declared his intention, in proper form, was at
+length, after a continuous residence of fourteen years in the United
+States, admitted by the Federal Court to all the rights and privileges
+which free citizenship could confer upon him. The scene in court my uncle
+thought peculiarly solemn and impressive. The candidate for the franchise
+was strictly questioned by the presiding justice, in open court, with
+regard to his origin and his past life. The witnesses were subjected to a
+similar scrutiny as to his character and habits, and their judgment of
+his fitness for the responsible position and the new duties he was about
+to assume. When this part of the transaction was completed, the oaths of
+renunciation of allegiance to every foreign power, prince, or potentate
+whatsoever, and the oath to support the Constitution of the United States
+were administered to him by the clerk in a manner to fix it in his mind
+that it was a very serious business, indeed, in which he had just been
+engaged. Thereupon, the judge addressed him in language of congratulation
+and counsel, and our newly-made fellow-countryman respectfully departed
+from the tribunal, conscious that he had attained no mean privilege and
+had secured a safeguard, like that, by the declaration of which the
+Apostle of the Gentiles stayed the uplifted hands of his persecutors, and
+caused them to tremble at the thought of misuse or degradation inflicted
+upon a Roman citizen. Now, I believe, whatever is left of the ceremony
+upon such occasions is slurred over in a clerk's office, or the part
+performed in court scarcely attracts the attention of the magistrate upon
+the bench. The moral of this change of practice may be left to the
+reflection of the judicious reader. But it was something then to be, or
+to be made an American citizen.
+
+Not long before this, there had been an earthquake, which, though of
+brief duration, had caused no little alarm,--a terrific sound always,
+however slight the shock,--and in this instance making houses tremble
+and shaking down various articles from their places of deposit. In the
+early days of the colony, these phenomena were not uncommon, and are said
+to have been of no little power in this part of New England. Uncle
+Richard described the recent one as rumbling under the frozen ground
+leading to his barns, as if a line of heavily-loaded wagons had rolled
+over it. Being something of a philosopher, and better educated than usual
+at the time, he explained the cause of such physical occurrences to us
+young ones.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "the water in certain parts of the earth becomes
+intensely heated and lets off a quantity of steam of amazing expansive
+power. It is like a tea-kettle, which if you shut the nozzle tight, may
+either throw off the lid with great force, or the kettle itself bursts
+with the strain upon it. So the steam, under the earth, heated by central
+fires, and gaining immense volume and power, seeks the hollows in its
+neighborhood, and rushes into them with a force which produces the
+concussion and the rumbling sound; and the shaking of the surface which
+we perceive is really like the commotion in the tea-kettle and the
+trembling of the vessel when the steam has no vent. It is an awful
+thought that we thus live over the action of these subterranean fires;
+but they are in the control of the Almighty, and all we have to do is to
+submit to God's will and merciful providence."
+
+St. Paul's Church, of which Uncle Richard was a vestryman, owed its
+origin to the separation of certain persons from the Congregational mode
+of worship, and the formation of a society for the resumption of the
+Protestant Episcopal pattern, as long ago as the year 1712. Their place
+of worship they named Queen Anne's Chapel,[9] in honor of the
+sovereign "at home," the last of the direct Stuart line, whose royal
+person, it is said, having grown too unwieldy to permit horseback
+exercise, she was in the habit of following the hunt, of which she was
+passionately fond, driving herself, helter-skelter, in a one-horse
+chaise. She has the credit of having bestowed some endowment upon the
+Chapel, and the Bishop of London presented it with a bell; which, if all
+accounts be true, still hangs in the steeple of a congregational
+meeting-house within the precinct of the "Plains," where the Chapel once
+stood. For that edifice, probably not having been very substantially
+built, and being situated on a barren tract of land, afterwards known as
+"Grasshopper Plains," and, for the convenience of the scattered
+parishioners, placed at a distance from every one of them, and hence
+subject to various causes of dilapidation, especially when St. Paul's,
+within the town, was in process of construction, at length fell to ruin;
+and the bell was carried privately away--so runs the tale--and was long
+buried in the ground, but has now for many years summoned the people to a
+style of worship which would have appealed in vain to the good Bishop of
+London for any such donation. It may be supposed that it could not be
+identified, after its interment, and perhaps the obliteration, naturally
+or otherwise, of its peculiar marks; or the successors of Queen Anne's at
+St. Paul's, built about thirty years after the former, would have
+reclaimed their property.
+
+The motives of those who thus revived the relation of their ancestors
+with the Established Church were not altogether pious; but the fact
+incontestably proves, that after nearly a century of separation from that
+establishment, the objections to it, in the minds of many of the children
+of the colonists, were by no means insurmountable. Indeed, it was about
+a question of parish taxation that they differed with their
+co-religionists. The place selected for the meeting-house was so far
+distant from the homes of many of the parish, that they could not attend
+without great inconvenience, and yet they were required to pay the parish
+rates for the support of the minister. They remonstrated and appealed in
+vain to the civil authorities in the colony and to those in England, for
+relief; for the law was clearly against them, unless they chose to
+conform to the doctrines and discipline of the Established Church.
+Finding nothing in the Thirty-nine Articles inconsistent with the faith
+they professed, they easily reconciled themselves to the ceremonies, and
+thus succeeded in their object of removing from their shoulders an
+involuntary burden.
+
+As may be imagined, at first and for years afterwards, they remained but
+"a feeble folk," regarded with suspicion and dislike by the more
+narrow-minded of their contemporaries, though the days were long gone by,
+when an Episcopalian, especially if suspected of a leaning towards
+Popery, was set in the pillory or the stocks. The Church, however, had
+been long flourishing, in my youth, and I was always particularly
+impressed when I attended service there, as I always did on Christmas
+Day, with the organ, an instrument utterly unknown in our other places of
+public worship, and with the comfort diffused by the large Russian stove
+which projected from a corner of the building; while we, for long years
+afterwards, shivered in our meeting-houses of a cold Sunday. To be sure,
+the younger children carried their mothers' hand-stoves, constructed of
+tin in a frame of wood and pierced with holes in the top, to let out such
+heat as could be communicated by a small pan of coals covered with ashes.
+But for the male part of the congregation, who despised such a luxury,
+it was almost impossible to avoid occasionally striking the benumbed feet
+together, and sometimes the clatter was almost as considerable, as in
+letting down the seats after the long prayer, especially if that proved
+to be a very protracted exercise. But I have known young ladies so
+indifferent to the severity of the weather, as to attend meeting, on very
+cold days of winter, with bare arms. What would delicate ladies, who,
+wrapped in warm furs, listen to service in a heated church, think of such
+exposure now? On one particular occasion, however, our minister announced
+the text,--"Who can stand before His cold?" and closed the services with
+the usual blessing, a little to the dissatisfaction, I think, of the more
+staid members of the congregation, who having come through cold and snow,
+or a furious wintry storm, it might be, to hear a sermon, were not
+altogether contented to miss the expected edification, or perhaps the
+opportunity of criticising the discourse. Indeed, I know not what my
+respected great grandsire, an elder of the church in his day, would have
+said to such defection from spiritual needs towards indulgence in carnal
+comfort. For it is said, that when some less searching and thorough-going
+preacher of the word exchanged with our minister, or casually officiated
+for him, the old gentleman tottered out of the meeting-house, leaning on
+his staff, and with elevated eyebrows muttered pretty audibly to those
+near him,--"Peas in a bladder--thorns under a pot--no food to-day!" And
+however it might be with many of his neighbors, not the minutest particle
+of the quality of original Puritanism had been shaken out of his system
+by the changes of the times. The family tradition is, that before the
+sunset of Saturday everything necessary for the support of nature upon
+the Sabbath was cooked and in readiness. Whether he allowed the
+accustomed beans and rye and Indian bread to remain in the oven subject
+to the working heat, over Saturday night, I am not able to certify. But
+in the intervals of public worship on Sunday,--a term, by the way, which
+he would have scorned to employ,--the family was assembled and ranged
+around the walls of the room, and the reading of Scripture, or of some
+well-worn book of devotion, was proceeded with, while the head of the
+family sat in the centre, with a stick in his hand long enough to reach
+the head and shoulders of any inattentive or unquiet child.
+
+-----
+  [7]  When a trader failed, as was rarely the case at that
+       primitive period, his sign was taken down at night, to
+       the wonder of the public in the morning, and he remained
+       fast locked from the sheriff, or too inquisitive
+       callers, in his house, until the disposition of his
+       creditors became known,--dependent upon their confidence
+       in his good intentions, or their sympathy with his
+       unexpected misfortunes.
+
+  [8]  An anecdote quite parallel to this is to be found in the
+       now late lamented Dean Ramsay's "Reminiscences." He
+       relates, as a specimen of the cool Scottish
+       matter-of-fact view of things, the following
+       communication of a correspondent:--
+
+       "The back windows of the house where he was brought up
+       looked upon the Greyfriars' Church that was burned down.
+       On the Sunday morning in which that event took place, as
+       they were all preparing to go to church, the flames
+       began to burst forth; the young people screamed from the
+       back part of the house, 'A fire! a fire!' and all was in
+       a state of confusion and alarm. The housemaid was not at
+       home, it being her turn for the Sunday 'out.' Kitty, the
+       cook, was taking her place, and performing her duties.
+       The old woman was always very particular on the subject
+       of her responsibility on such occasions, and came
+       panting and hobbling upstairs from the lower regions,
+       and exclaimed, 'Oh what is't, what is't?' 'O, Kitty,
+       look here, the Greyfriars' Church is on fire!' 'Is that
+       a', Miss? What a fright ye geed me! I thought ye said
+       the parlor fire was out.'"
+
+  [9]  It was, I believe, the oldest Episcopal Church in
+       Massachusetts, with the exception of King's Chapel, in
+       Boston, a small wooden structure, which stood upon the
+       place where the stone edifice of that name is now
+       situated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+An aged friend, years ago deceased, who had seen much of the world, once
+observed to me, that he had never seen a more "scrupulous people," to use
+his expression, than our Presbyterian congregation. The clergy of the
+town were always distinguished, at a period when to be a clergyman was to
+be much more an object of reverence than in these latter days, and when a
+boy in the street would scarcely venture to pass one, on the opposite
+sidewalk, without pulling off his cap. But they set their people an
+excellent example, though they did not always escape the censure of the
+over "scrupulous." For instance, Mr. Murray, the accomplished scholar and
+divine to whom reference has already been made, was known to take no
+dinner in the interval of public worship, substituting for that repast a
+slice or two of bread and a few glasses of wine. Why such a fact, when
+everybody drank more or less wine, or something stronger, every day of
+the week, should have alarmed the conscience of Miss Betty Timmins, a
+maiden lady of a certain age, it seems difficult to conjecture.
+Nevertheless, she made a solemn call, one day, upon her pastor, and with
+such apology as she could muster for impertinence--at length out with it:
+"I must tell you, reverend sir, they do say you drink." "Drink! Miss
+Timmins," said Mr. Murray; "to be sure I do, don't you? How can anybody
+live without drinking?" and the discomfited spinster retreated. Mr.
+Murray had a fund of humor. The parsonage was close by the house of his
+parishioner, the sheriff, and the adjoining jail and whipping-post in the
+charge of that officer, and in the last illness of the minister the
+official was in the habit of taking him to a drive. Once, as he was
+getting into the chaise, a friend passed by and he called out, "If you
+see any one inquiring for me, tell him the last you saw of me I was in
+the hands of the sheriff." But after his time, and at the period of which
+I am writing, we had no less than three English ministers settled in the
+town, all educated upon the foundation of the celebrated Countess of
+Huntington. I recall, with vivid recollection, the figure of one of these
+worthies who called himself an "Independent," as he proceeded to meeting
+on a Sunday: his high cocked hat, his flowing, black curled locks,--more
+in the cavalier than the Puritan fashion; his long blue cloak over his
+clerical gown, his bands, his knee-breeches,--objected to by a fastidious
+young lady, as "short pantaloons,"--his square shoe-buckles, and his
+ponderous cane. His person was somewhat short and thick, whence "lewd
+fellows of the baser sort" sometimes irreverently called him the "The
+Jack of Clubs." But he was a really good man, with the most powerful
+voice I remember to have heard, and he preached, always an unwritten
+sermon, but with heads set down, anything but smooth things to his
+numerous congregation. Towards the close of his life he used to remark,
+that when he first came to this country, the topic of sermons was "Jesus
+Christ and Him crucified; now it was nothing but niggers and rum." He was
+good at retort. Early one Monday morning he was going home from the
+market, with some mackerel which he had just purchased strung upon his
+cane. "Mr. Milton," said some passer-by, "them mackerel was caught
+Sunday." "Well," was the reply, "that ain't the fishes' fault."
+
+One burden of this worthy minister's Sunday prayer, during the sessions
+of Congress and of the State legislature, was, "Counsel our councillors,
+and teach our senators wisdom." By many of the stronger faith of an elder
+day, his fervent supplications were believed to exercise a specific
+influence upon the atmosphere, particularly in bringing needed rain at a
+dry time. I have often heard it said, after the drought had continued a
+good while,--"Well, Milton has prayed for rain and now we shall have it."
+This reminds me of an anecdote appropriate to the topic, in that very
+entertaining book, Dean Ramsay's "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and
+Character." At one time when the crops were much laid by continuous
+rains, and wind was earnestly desired in order to restore them to a
+condition fit for the sickle,--"A minister," he says, "in his Sabbath
+services expressed their wants in prayer, as follows: 'O Lord, we pray
+thee to send us wind, no a rantin' tantin,' tearin' wind, but a noohin',
+(noughin?) soughin', winnin' wind.'" In like manner, I have heard of a
+prayer preferred by a somewhat simple New Englander, who was overheard
+offering his petition behind a clump of bushes in a field: "O Lord, I
+want a new coat--good cloth--none of your coarse, flimsy, slimsy, sleazy
+kind of stuff, but a good piece of thick, warm, comfortable
+broadcloth--such as Bill Hale wears."
+
+It must be admitted that the reverend person was rather rough in manner;
+but he had a truly kind heart. Like John Wesley, he was unfortunate in
+his domestic relations; a circumstance which doubtless tended somewhat to
+lessen the amiability of an originally good disposition. But,
+notwithstanding his various trials and we fear conflicts at home, no one
+questioned his piety. Indeed, one well acquainted with his character and
+experiences, when his death was announced, at once exclaimed,--"What a
+change! From pitching skillets, to handling harps!" There could be no
+greater contrast than in the person and character of our long and
+well-beloved Presbyterian minister, graceful in person, courteous and
+affable in demeanor, accomplished in ancient learning and in that
+portion of English literature which is styled classical; a devoted and
+affectionate pastor, a most able and persuasive preacher; of whom
+President Dwight, of Yale, is reported to have said, that there had been
+scarcely such a writer of pure English since Addison. With the exception
+of some failure of physical powers, towards the close of his life, he
+retained these admirable characteristics and accomplishments to the end
+of his more than ninety years. He always preached in gown and bands, with
+black gloves upon his hands, his nether limbs encased in small-clothes
+and silk stockings, until in later life he adopted the prevailing mode.
+We always knew when he intended to preach, because through several
+intervening yards and gardens we could see from our house the light in
+his study, at a distance, of a Saturday night. His morning discourses
+were usually admirable expositions of Scripture delivered without notes;
+his afternoon sermons were written exercises, and we so depended upon
+both, that it was a disappointment when we discovered that he was to
+exchange, by the absence of the usual light. He would descend from the
+contemplation of the highest themes, which address themselves to human
+reason and imagination, and from the relaxation of reading "Tully," or
+Horace, or Pope, who was a special favorite with him, to the preparation
+of his fire-wood for domestic use, and doubtless this accustomed
+saw-horse practice tended very much to the promotion and continuance both
+of his bodily and mental health. In my childhood, he taught me and other,
+I fear, reluctant pupils all we were capable of learning of the
+Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism, contained, at that time, in a
+small but miscellaneous volume called the Primer. He was a great lover of
+the writings of Cowper, which name, in the English manner, he always
+pronounced Cooper, and of the Psalms and Hymns and the lyrical
+productions, in general, of Dr. Watts; and long after I had grown up, he
+pointed out to me a verse in one of those Hymns, remarking upon a point
+which I do not remember to have seen noticed elsewhere, that it presented
+the finest specimen of alliteration in the language, as follows:--
+
+                 "How vain are all things here below,
+                    How false and yet how fair!
+                  Each pleasure hath its poison too,
+                    And every sweet a snare."
+
+The eventual condition and standing of our Episcopal Church may be
+inferred from the fact, that its Rector, in early times, was chosen
+Bishop of the diocese, a dignity which he long piously and humbly
+enjoyed. Along the beautiful street on which St. Paul's stood, and in its
+immediate neighborhood, were some of the more elegant residences of the
+town, and an air of superior gentility seemed to pervade the precinct, so
+that some caviller saw fit to call it St. James's, in allusion to the
+Christian name of the excellent Rector who succeeded the venerable
+Bishop. He was, indeed, a most devoted churchman, looking upon all
+persons outside of his communion as sheep wandering from the fold, and
+used to say, that he considered the whole town as really belonging to his
+parish. He was a person very highly esteemed for his piety and sincerity,
+and as evidence of this repute, and of liberality on both sides, he
+preached, by invitation, and read the service in the Presbyterian
+meeting-house, on one occasion, at least, when our minister was absent
+and his own pulpit was supplied. We were then under another pastor; but
+some years before this manifestation of truly Christian toleration a
+controversy arose between the Rector and our Presbyterian clergyman, in
+regard to the obligatory observance of Christmas. It was conducted in the
+newspaper of the town, then published only on two days of the week, and
+to the multitude of readers appeared more spirited than edifying, as is
+the case with most polemical disputes. The worthy Episcopal Doctor had
+asserted on Christmas Day, that the observance of that festival was of
+universal Christian obligation. The Presbyterian Doctor took up the
+cudgels to demonstrate, that, although it was proper and reasonable
+enough to keep the day, as a matter of religious edification, like a
+lecture-day, for example, by those who saw fit to do so, yet there was no
+authority, in this respect, binding upon the consciences of those who
+chose to disregard it. Both of the disputants were acknowledged gentlemen
+and scholars; but after much argument and learning wasted upon the
+subject, it is to be feared that the controversy, through the medium of a
+public journal, between two such highly respected controversialists, on a
+topic of religious practice, only gave too much occasion to the scoffer.
+Indeed, Johnnie Favor, the Episcopal sexton's helper, one of those
+persons, reputed half-witted, who sometimes make very apposite remarks,
+observed,--"Well--Christmas here, or Christmas there, I'm not so
+narrer-contracted as to like to see the surplices of two such good men as
+your Doctor and my Doctor draggled in the dirt."
+
+Certainly, a tone of unusual refinement pervaded the better educated
+class of the community in the old town, at the period of this relation,
+and not a little stateliness of manner was kept up by some of the older
+families. Indeed, I think they would compare very favorably in point of
+intelligence and manners, with persons of a similar class, as described
+by the great authorities heretofore referred to, and others, who have
+given us vivid pictures of social life in the Scottish capital. To be
+sure, the colonial days of distinct social rank had long gone by. But,
+half a generation before, the town had been one of the most flourishing
+and wealthy in New England, and to the counting-houses of its principal
+merchants young men resorted, even from the capital of the State, to
+learn the art and practice of business. Those who filled the several
+learned professions were persons of the highest eminence in their several
+callings,--drawing pupils around them who afterwards, and on wider fields
+of action, attained great names and some of whom occupied the loftiest
+civil positions in the land.
+
+Among the students, for example, in the office of that great lawyer and
+judge, Chief Justice Parsons, while he practised at the Bar, and who
+subsequently attained eminence, were John Quincy Adams, afterwards
+President of the United States, and Rufus King, afterwards Senator in
+Congress from the State of New York, and twice Minister Plenipotentiary
+to Great Britain; and Robert Treat Paine, so celebrated in his day, as
+an orator and poet.[10] Of one of these eminent persons I heard a
+story, formerly, from a friend of very high character as a man and a
+lawyer, the late Hon. William Baylies, of West Bridgewater,
+Massachusetts. It seems that while Mr. King, then a young man, was in the
+practice of his profession in Boston he was detained in attendance upon
+court at Plymouth, until late on Saturday evening. It was necessary for
+him to be at home seasonably on Monday morning, and accordingly he
+mounted his horse early on Sunday, the ordinary mode of travel, in those
+days, and proceeded leisurely on his way. It was summer time; and in
+passing through the township of Hanover, in Plymouth County, he
+approached a plain wooden structure by the roadside, in which, as he
+could see by the assemblage within, the door and windows being open, that
+it was a time of religious service. Alighting, out of deference to the
+character of the day, he hitched his horse and quietly entered the
+building. It proved to be a Quaker meeting, and perfect silence
+prevailed. At length tiring of this state of things, Mr. King arose and
+began to address the assembly upon topics suitable to the day. He was an
+uncommonly handsome young man, and then and ever afterwards distinguished
+for extraordinary powers of eloquence. The Quakers listened with mute
+amazement and admiration to the discourse of some twenty minutes'
+duration, when the speaker slipped out, remounted, and proceeded on his
+journey. The incident was the occasion of great and mysterious interest,
+for a long time afterwards, in the quiet country neighborhood. No
+imagination could conceive who the wonderful speaker might be, and many
+insisted it must have been, indeed, "an angel from heaven." Some years
+afterwards, at the session of a Constitutional Convention in
+Massachusetts, Mr. King rose to make a motion. He had no sooner begun,
+than a Quaker member started up from a back seat, and, carried away by
+the first glimpse at solution of the long-standing mystery, cried out,
+"That's the man that spoke in our meetin'."
+
+Provision for the instruction of youth was liberal, and not long
+previously the most famous, and I believe the longest established
+academy of the day, flourished in the immediate neighborhood, in all
+its glory. Of the school-books then in use, I cannot but think that
+one in particular, Murray's English Reader, was a better manual than any
+other which has since been produced. For it was mainly made up of extracts
+from the writings of the best authors, in the best age of English
+literature, and I can answer that its lessons were calculated to make
+impressions on the youthful mind, never to be forgotten. But the
+prevalent idea, of late years, seems to have been to nationalize
+school-books, so as to narrow their teachings, and thus to make our
+future fellow-citizens partisans instead of men. But literature and
+learning are confined to no age or nation; and meaning in no sense to
+say a word which could abate the ardor of manly patriotism in any
+bosom, it is certain that much is to be learned from the history of
+other people beside our own; and I suppose there are standards of high
+intellectual attainment in the past,--in poetry and eloquence, and
+various ranges of thought and expression,--which never have been and
+are not likely to be surpassed. The deluge of modern transitory
+literature had not then begun to flow. But, to say nothing of the
+"Scottish Chiefs," and "Thaddeus of Warsaw," over the pages of which,
+doubtless, millions of youthful eyes have formerly shed copious tears,
+we had Miss Edgeworth's writings, those of Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, the
+novels of Charlotte Smith, the Memoirs of Baron Trenck, and, perused a
+little stealthily, Peregrine Pickle and Roderick Random; and in poetry
+Henry Kirke White and Montgomery were favorites; nor am I ashamed to say,
+that Cottle's "Alfred" was read aloud at our fireside of evenings, with
+an interest due to the story, perhaps, as much as to its poetical
+ability. Original American productions were few; the importation of
+new works from abroad was not large, and the demand for reprints a
+good deal limited. But we had the well-known books of sterling value at
+command, and our publishers occasionally favored us with new editions.
+One of my early studies was Guthrie's Grammar of Geography, a
+ponderous volume of English manufacture, which belonged in our family;
+and I was fascinated with Pope at almost as early an age as that in
+which he first "lisped in numbers." I see, by the way, that Forster, in
+his Life of Dickens, quotes from a letter of Scott, in which he refers
+to the scarcity of books at Edinburgh in his time.
+
+In connection with this reference to our means of intellectual
+cultivation, I am reminded of an incident illustrative of a faculty
+commonly attributed to Yankees, that is New Englanders, though there is
+reason to believe that some other parts of the country are quite as
+liberally gifted with the qualities of "Yorkshire." It affords a striking
+instance of shrewdness on the one side, and of lamentable deficiency of
+it on the other. This was before the town had exchanged its original
+simpler mode of regulating its municipal affairs for the form of a city
+government. On a certain occasion the School Committee became
+dissatisfied with the master of one of the higher schools, after a brief
+trial of his qualities, and, as delicately as the subject permitted,
+requested him to resign his place. The master was not a native of the
+town, or of the "region round about," so that it was a mere question of
+qualifications, real or otherwise, between himself and his employers. He
+demurred, unless his salary were paid him for the unexpired considerable
+part of the year for which he alleged himself to have been engaged; but
+finally consented, if the chairman of the committee would only furnish
+him with a certificate of honorable discharge. The chairman, at this easy
+rate of saving the town's money, wrote it, without suspicion of its
+effect. Thereupon, the master read it, put it into his pocket, and by
+virtue of the document, demanded payment of the sum in question. It was
+paid; and the triumphant master forthwith proceeded--
+
+                  "To fresh woods and pastures new."
+
+The state of things, in regard to our reading resources, was before the
+modern facilities for gadding about existed; and while those who find
+time lying heavy on their hands can now steam it a hundred miles to make
+a morning-call, journeying was then both more tedious and more expensive,
+seldom undertaken except as an affair of business, or with the deliberate
+purpose of a long-concerted visit; and a good part of the day was
+consumed in travelling half that distance by public conveyance. The
+consequence was, that people's pleasures, with their duties, laid mostly
+at home, or near at hand. Hence family and friendly ties were more
+closely drawn. The better feelings of our nature were, I think, deeper,
+than when scattered over a wide but thin social surface; just as the
+water in a well is more concentrated, than if diffused in the basin of a
+pond. To some extent, therefore, wholesomely isolated, besides the
+ordinary round of not very formal visiting parties, there were reading
+circles, for those who were prompted by intellectual yearnings,
+frequented by young ladies and gentlemen, married or single, at which
+passages from the better class of books were read aloud by such of the
+male members as felt competent to the exercise, by turns. In fact, taking
+into view the intelligence, the inexpensive accomplishments, and the
+unaffected manners of the fairly educated among us, it has not fallen to
+the lot of most persons to meet with any society more really agreeable.
+St. James's, however, and the congregation of the successors of those who
+founded the First Church, who had at length become what was called
+"liberal," in contrast with the orthodoxy of the rest of the town,
+aspired to a higher degree of gentility and accomplishment than the
+commonalty; and, in evidence that we were not bigoted, my mother would
+sometimes allow me, when a boy, and desirous of some change, to attend
+service of an afternoon, at the latter place of public worship with some
+friends of the family who waited upon its ministrations. Of the
+diversions of the common people I particularly remember one under the
+curious name of a "Joppa Jine" (join); to which I allude from the oddity
+of its name, derived from a part of the town so called by the river-side,
+when several families of neighbors and friends contributed their
+respective quota of a common feast, and repaired to the island at the
+mouth of the river to enjoy a day of leisure and merriment.
+
+In a certain class, the ancient pronunciation of many English words was
+maintained, doubtless brought by the ancestors of New England families
+from "home," and transmitted to their descendants; such as _airth_ for
+earth, _fairm_ for firm, _sartain_ for certain, _pint_ for point, en_vy_
+for envy, _ax_ with the broad _a_ for ask, _housen_ for houses, _his'n_
+and _her'n_ for his and hers, _rare_ for rear; as, for instance, the
+horse _rares_ up; and sounding the _l_ in would. Common enough names,
+too, were clipped or contracted in English fashion. Thus, the names of
+Norwood and Harwood became Norrod in sound and Harrod in spelling; and
+the name of Currier, whether with any reference or not to the French
+_Cuir_, for leather, was not long since uniformly pronounced _Kiah_, with
+the long _[=i]_; Thurlow was strangely transformed into _Thurrill_; and
+Pierpont, often formerly spelled Pierpoint, with entire neglect of its
+derivation, was pronounced _Pearpint_, by old-fashioned people, the first
+syllable approximating to the original formation of _pierre_.
+
+In connection with this modification of language, I observe in a daily
+paper how much a worthy old lady puzzled her minister, for a moment, by
+inquiring the meaning of "silver shiners for Diana," in the Bible; but a
+good deacon, at an evening meeting in the chapel of their house of
+worship, in our town, sadly disturbed the gravity of the religious
+assembly, by reading it _silver shins for Dinah_!
+
+-----
+ [10]  The late Mr. Edward Everett is authority (with me) for
+       the story, that on the occasion of the visit of
+       Washington to New England, in 1789, Parsons was
+       appointed to deliver the address of welcome, on the part
+       of the town, and said to his students, "Well, boys, I am
+       to make this address. Now, go to work and write it, and
+       I will deliver the best." He chose the one prepared by
+       Adams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+I trust it will not be thought inappropriate to the allusion already made
+to our reading circles, if I here insert a _jeu d'esprit_, the production
+of one of the members, indicating a certain forwardness in the sphere of
+literary investigation, and affording a plausible solution of a literary
+problem, which had been so long shrouded in mystery, namely, the true
+narrative of "Old Grouse in the Gun-room."
+
+This is the name of the story to which Goldsmith alludes in his comedy,
+"She Stoops to Conquer." Mr. Hardcastle, the host of the occasion, in
+preparation for the dinner he is about to give his guests, charges his
+rustic servants that if he should say a good thing at the table, they are
+not to burst out laughing, as if they were a part of the company to be
+entertained. Diggory, thereupon replies to his master,--"Then, ecod,
+your worship must not tell the story of 'Ould Grouse in the Gun-room.' I
+can't help laughing at that--he! he! he!--for the soul of me. We have
+laughed at that these twenty years--ha! ha! ha!" Mr. Hardcastle admits,
+that this pet narrative of his may properly be considered an exceptional
+case. On the other hand, it has uniformly foiled the researches of
+critics and commentators to ascertain what this story really was which
+"Squire Hardcastle," in the exuberance of his own enjoyment of it, gave
+them the liberty to laugh at, if they liked. It has been generally
+supposed, indeed, that the story itself was, in fact, non-existent, and
+that the ingenious author of the play merely invented the title in order
+to show off the uncouth peculiarities which it was his object to
+display.
+
+Now, it so happens, that the means are not wanting for the solution of
+this mystery, and in illustration of the life of a writer and a man so
+interesting as Goldsmith, I am glad to be able to clear up the critical
+embarrassment. Years ago, the writer of this article fell by chance into
+the company of Miss Goldsmith, grandniece of Mrs. Johnson, who was
+housekeeper of old Mr. Featherston, of County Kerry, Ireland. She knew
+the story in question very well, and it is gratifying to be able to
+verify the authenticity of the allusion of a great poet and writer in
+general, of whom Dr. Johnson has said, in those familiar words in his
+epitaph, that he touched nothing which he did not adorn, and whose
+character has been very much misunderstood, chiefly by reason of the
+misrepresentations of Boswell. This parasite of Johnson, who has given us
+one of the most entertaining books of biography ever written, was jealous
+not only of Goldsmith's literary reputation, so far as it might rival
+that of his special idol, but also of the real hold which Goldsmith,
+because of his simplicity as well as his genius, had upon the affections
+of the great moralist. While he was himself admitted to the high literary
+society which he frequented, on terms of sufferance chiefly, Boswell took
+every pains to disparage poor Goldsmith. The poet, whose writings possess
+a charm so seldom paralleled, it must be allowed, gave no little occasion
+for depreciation, by his want of firmness of character; and Boswell
+maliciously set forth all his singularities and weaknesses in the most
+ludicrous point of view. Whoever will take pains, however, to read his
+delightful "Life" by John Forster, will find the general impressions on
+the subject very materially corrected, and will see, that, if the
+hard-driven bard had many faults, he had also many virtues, which, as
+Lord Bacon remarks, is "the posy of the best characters."
+
+But to the veritable story of "Old Grouse in the Gun-room." It seems,
+according to the narrative of Mrs. Johnson, that the family of Mr.
+Featherston were seated at the tea-table, at the close of a chilly day, a
+bright fire blazing on the hearth, and the servants, as usual, being in
+attendance. On a sudden, a tremendous crash was heard in a distant part
+of the ancient mansion, followed by a succession of wails of the most
+lugubrious and unearthly character, which reverberated through the
+echoing passage-ways of the house. Whatever the cause of the sounds might
+be, there was no doubt they were of the most horrifying description. The
+family, consisting of the 'Squire, a maiden sister, and one or two
+younger persons, jumped from their seats in the utmost consternation,
+while Patrick and the rest of the domestics rushed from the room in a
+state of terror more easily to be conceived than described, and huddled
+together in the kitchen, as far as possible from the occasion of their
+fright.
+
+Imagine a lonely country-house, a quiet and well-ordered family seated
+at their evening meal, after dark, of a somewhat gloomy day, the
+apartment imperfectly lighted by the glowing fire, and according to such
+conveniences for the purpose as old times ordinarily afforded; the
+conversation, perhaps, turning on such unexciting topics as the weather,
+past, present, and to come, or the thoughts reverting, it may be, to such
+mundane topics as the expected game of whist or backgammon,--and the
+scene suddenly broken in upon by the most startling and terrific sounds,
+which seemed to result from no intelligible cause, and for which it
+seemed impossible to account by reference to any merely human agency. The
+young folks, after their first scream of terror, sat dumb, pale, and
+utterly helpless.
+
+"It's the Banshee!" screamed Aunt Nelly, sinking back, in a faint, into
+her chair.
+
+"It's the devil, I believe," cried the 'Squire, who, notwithstanding age
+and infirmity, retained a good deal of that original pluck, which had
+formerly distinguished him as an officer in his Majesty's military
+service. "Yes, it is the devil, I verily believe; and there is no way but
+to send for the priest, to get him out of a house that never was troubled
+in this way before. Where are those sneaking curs?" as Patrick and the
+rest in a body peeped into the room through the door they had forgotten
+to shut in their flight, and too much frightened to stay quietly
+anywhere. "Patrick," called out the 'Squire, "go at once for Father
+O'Flaherty."
+
+At this moment, another preternatural yell, long-toned and of the most
+mournful cadence, burst upon their ears, and the dismayed servants fairly
+tumbled over each other and sprawled and scrambled through the passage,
+in their haste to get away. The 'Squire followed and ordered Patrick
+forthwith to mount Sorrel and hasten for the priest, at the village, a
+mile or more away.
+
+"O Lord! your worship," cried that valiant man-of-all-work,--though aided
+in the day-time by two or three assistants from the village,--"O Lord!
+your worship! only ask me anything but that"--as, of course, on such
+occasions people are ready to do all but the very thing which the
+exigency demands,--"O Lord! your worship's honor! I couldn't for the
+world go round _that_ corner of the house, to get to the stable; but if
+Nancy here--now Nancy, darlint, I know you will, honey--if she'll only go
+with me, I'll run for his reverence as fast as my poor legs, that's all
+of a tremble, will carry me"--shrewdly reflecting, as did Nancy also,
+that the farther they left the house behind, they left the danger, too.
+This affair being hastily arranged, as the two ready messengers proceeded
+towards the door, a quick step was heard upon the gravel, followed by an
+emphatic knock, and the embodied household fell back with renewed
+trepidation; when fortunately who should it be but Father O'Flaherty
+himself, who found the 'Squire, his family, and servants all huddled
+together in the hall.
+
+"Good-evening to you, 'Squire," said he; "and faix, what is the matter
+that you all look so pale? The holy saints forbid that any ill luck has
+come to this house!"
+
+Again, rang echoing through the open doors and empty rooms the same
+portentous sound, rendered none the less terrific that its tones were
+partly subdued by distance. "Holy Father!" exclaimed the priest, crossing
+himself--"what is that? Has Satan dared to cross this blessed
+threshold?"
+
+Upon this, half a dozen tongues began to relate the circumstances of
+terrors only too manifest; but Mr. Featherston silenced them, and
+proposed to Father O'Flaherty to accompany him to the investigation of
+the mystery. Accordingly they solemnly proceeded towards the scene of
+alarm, the 'Squire having provided himself with a long-disused sword
+which hung over his mantel-piece, and the priest, more spiritually,
+brandishing his cross, and muttering "_Vade retro, Satanas!_" and such
+other exorcisms as occurred to him on the way. The whole body of the
+inmates of the mansion followed, closely though tremulously, upon the
+footsteps of the advanced guard, and, indeed, afraid to be left behind.
+As they reached the neighborhood of the door, whence the sounds appeared
+to come, there was a truly awful noise of scampering round the room and
+pattering, as it were, within.
+
+"The saints defend us!" cried the priest, falling back, as this new
+demonstration was responded to by the screams of the females, who sank to
+the floor, in the extremity of their terror, when another horrible yell
+sounded close at hand.
+
+"It's he, I verily believe," said the priest; "the holy saints be about
+us! It's he, I wager. Lord, forgive us! for I heard the sound of his
+hoofs. But where's the dog?"
+
+"The dog!" cried the 'Squire. "Why didn't I think of that before! Open
+the door, I say, Pat, you cowardly vagabond!"
+
+At this instant, there was a tremendous bounce against the door, which
+forced the latch, and out tumbled Old Grouse, capering among the party,
+who still screamed and scattered out of his way, not yet convinced that
+the Evil One was not loosed and bodily among them.
+
+The relieved household at length returned to their interrupted
+avocations, and Pat declared to the folks in the kitchen, that all the
+while he knew it was the dog, only he kept up the fright for the sake of
+the joke. It seemed that the 'Squire had been out with his gun that day,
+and had shut the big dog which accompanied him into the gun-room, upon
+his return. The dog, no doubt fatigued with his excursion, had stretched
+himself out in a corner of the room, where various articles tending to
+his comfort lay disposed. He had remained, until tired of his confinement
+he had risen, and fumbling about had thrown down an ancient heavy shield,
+which produced the first cause of alarm, no less to himself than to the
+household. The moon shining through the window had attracted his
+attention, and he began to bay, as dogs sometimes will. The sudden
+fright, and the distance of the gun-room from the family apartment,
+served to modify the intonation, and in his confusion of mind Mr.
+Featherston failed to recognize his voice. "Indeed," said he, "I never
+knew the whelp to bay before."
+
+As time wore on, and the story had often been told by him, it lost none
+of its original features, except, perhaps, the remembrance of his own
+agitation. But the fright of the family and his domestics, the assent of
+the priest to their superstitious fears, and the mortal terror which
+overwhelmed them, when out bounded the shaggy black monster of a dog and
+in an instant was pawing them all round, in his ecstasy of escape, and
+whatever else was ludicrous in the adventure, was oftentimes related by
+the 'Squire, with all the aid it could derive from a somewhat lively
+imagination and considerable power of native eloquence.
+
+And now, if I have only invented this story of "Old Grouse in the
+Gun-room," for the entertainment of my readers, I have at least attached
+a tale, which may be thought to have some plausibility, to a famous
+title, which has run through the world, for so many years, without any
+tale at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+In a note at the end of Chapter V. of "Waverley," Sir Walter Scott
+remarks:--"These introductory chapters have been a good deal censured as
+tedious and unnecessary. Yet there are circumstances recorded in them
+which the author has not been able to persuade himself to retract or
+cancel." So if, in giving certain loose hints rather than sketches of
+characters and manners in a very interesting town, ardently beloved by
+all who have ever had any near connection with it, during a former
+generation of its inhabitants, I should be thought to have set down too
+many "unconsidered trifles," I can only shelter myself under the shadow
+of his great name, and plead that I had not the heart to leave them out,
+as they occurred to my memory while writing; and however they may lack,
+as they necessarily must, the storied value of Sir Walter's fascinating
+fictions, they have at least this merit,--that every narrative and
+anecdote in these pages is a veritable fact.
+
+I should not wonder, however, if a couple of stories or so, which I am
+about to relate, were looked upon as purely fictitious by the
+philosophical reader. I do not pretend that the facts stated were within
+my own experience, only that I positively heard them related by persons
+of the strictest veracity, who were actual observers or actors in the
+transactions of which they professed to give an account. People ridicule,
+nowadays, when in company, the superstitions of earlier times; though it
+is not unlikely that the nerves of some of the boldest contemners of
+marvellous manifestations, once universally accepted as true, might still
+tremble, if alone and under circumstances calculated to awaken
+apprehension and to puzzle the understanding. Notwithstanding the
+accepted theory, that the very pretence of witchcraft, for example, was
+exploded a hundred and fifty years ago, and the idea of an apparition, in
+spite of Dr. Johnson's belief, and that of others as wise and stout as
+he, would be scouted as preposterous in cultivated circles, I believe
+that there are many places in New England where undoubting faith in both
+superstitions still prevails, and I know that within a third part of the
+period above mentioned, very many creditable persons in a certain place
+in New England accepted the strangest occurrences of both kinds, upon the
+supposed evidence of their sober senses.
+
+We will imagine, then, that we are sitting in a circle around the
+fire-place in Uncle Richard's spacious kitchen, on the evening of
+Christmas-day, the room lighted only by the blazing logs upon the hearth,
+the glow of which glanced along the walls and drew brilliant reflections
+from the brightly-scoured dishes and other utensils of metal, which
+stood ranged upon the shelves. We were quite a party, and had made merry,
+according to our fashion, during the day. Uncle Richard was himself the
+most conspicuous of the group. I have said that he was well-to-do, and he
+was certainly a gentleman in spirit and bearing. The black dress which he
+assumed on Sundays, and other occasions of public importance, set off his
+figure well, and his white hair gathered into a pig-tail behind and tied
+up with a ribbon by some one of his daughters, of a morning, gave him a
+venerable appearance, at least in the eyes of us youngsters, beyond what
+the actual number of his years warranted. For I have observed that those
+who may have seemed to us approaching the verge of old age, in our youth,
+begin to look almost like coevals again, as we ourselves have advanced in
+the stage of manhood. Aunt Judith, on the other hand, who was a maiden
+lady of a certain age, was dressed with all the care and neatness which
+somewhat scanty means enabled her to apply, and, as I am about to produce
+her as a witness, I feel it incumbent upon me to asseverate, that, being
+a devoutly religious woman, I have never met in my life with a more
+conscientious and scrupulously truth-telling person. After tea, my uncle
+had requested the young people present to sing a new Christmas Hymn, not
+to be found in the Prayer Book, but the production of a devout poetical
+acquaintance, in the performance of which he joined with a bass voice of
+singular compass and melody.
+
+                         THE CHRISTMAS HYMN.
+
+                  How hallowed grew the night,
+                  When the auspicious light
+          Of heaven descending shone along the plain;
+                  And wondering shepherds heard
+                  The soul-inspiring word,
+          That swelled exultant the celestial strain!
+
+                 "Peace and good-will to earth,
+                  For, lo, a Saviour's birth!"
+          So the high song addressed the simple swains;
+                 "The gates of life again
+                  Open to guilty men,
+          For God, the God of love, eternal reigns!"
+
+                  What though all earth was still,
+                  And no ecstatic thrill
+          In wakening lands the gracious message hailed;
+                  Yet through heaven's highest cope
+                  Echoed immortal hope,
+          And hell's dark caves beneath trembled and wailed.
+
+                  Let then creation sing,--
+                  Hail, sovereign priest and king!
+          Blest be thy holy name and holy Word!
+                  Hail, Son of God Most High,
+                  Helper forever nigh,--
+          Hail, Prince of Peace and universal Lord!
+
+The conversation, at such times, is very apt to run into story-telling,
+among those who have any stores of memory, or are possessed of inventive
+faculties, and often turns upon such inexplicable incidents as might well
+bewilder the imaginations of simple country folks. My uncle gave us an
+account of a lad not long before in his employ, who laughed at the idea
+of supernatural appearances, and was indeed afraid of nothing. "The young
+scamp," said he, "though I don't know why I should call him so, for he
+was as honest as he was bold,--appeared so thoroughly fearless, that it
+sometimes looked like mere bravado (I am afraid he pronounced it
+_brave-ardor_); and a companion who also lived with us resolved to put
+his courage to the test. Accordingly, at dusk one evening, when Jack was
+about to lead the horse to the pasture, he provided himself with a sheet,
+and placed himself on one end of the crossbeam which rested on the rather
+high posts of the gate. Jack came whistling along, leading the horse,
+and, opening the gate, slipping off the halter, gave the animal a slap
+with it; and as he shut the gate cocked up his eye at the elevated
+figure. "And as for you, Mr. Devil," says he, "you may sit there just as
+long as you please." A decent respect for the proprieties of his position
+kept the scarecrow quiet until Jack was well on his way to the house
+which was not far distant. Pretty soon the door was burst open, and, to
+our alarm, some one tumbled in upon the floor in an agony of terror, as
+we soon discovered, pale as a ghost and scarcely able to speak. As soon
+as he recovered some degree of self-possession, he could barely stutter
+out,--"When Jack got out of sight--I turned to get down--and there sat
+another one, on the other post--looking just like me!"[11]
+
+A great deal was thereupon said about the power of the imagination and
+the effect it was likely to have upon one who had placed himself in such
+an equivocal situation, and the terrors which, under its influence, might
+naturally revert to him, who in an excited state of his own nerves had
+endeavored to inflict such terrors upon another. Hereupon there was a
+general call upon Aunt Judith, from the youngsters present, to tell us
+something about reputed witches in her younger days,--a subject in regard
+to which she was said to be able to make some remarkable statements,
+though as yet we had never obtained from her any satisfactory information
+about it. She seemed a little reluctant to indulge our curiosity.
+
+"As to witches," said my uncle Richard, gravely, "I don't know. Whether
+the denunciations of them in Holy Writ are intended to apply to any
+actually supernatural power possessed by them, or only to the pretence of
+it,--and both are mischievous in their effect on the popular mind,--I
+shall not undertake to say. It is certain that the poor old women who are
+thus stigmatized seem to have little power to help themselves in this
+world, or, if real tamperers with the powers of darkness, any enjoyable
+expectations from the other. But this I do know, that I was riding, not
+many days since, with my lawyer, a man of considerable acuteness, though
+a little eccentric at times, coming from K--'s Island, where we had been
+on some business; and as we neared the turn of the causeway to the main
+road, he pulled up the chaise, jumped out, and placing himself on a broad
+flat rock by the road-side, began violently to dance up and down and to
+shake his clothes. 'Good Heavens!' cried I, 'are you mad?' 'Oh, no,' said
+he, resuming his seat, 'but my mother always told me, that whenever I was
+coming away from K--'s Island, I must stand upon that rock and shake the
+witches off!'"
+
+"But your story, Aunt Judith! your story," we all cried out, and after a
+little more hesitation the good woman _prit la parole_, as Madame de
+Staeel so often phrases it in "Corinne."
+
+"When I was a grown-up girl," said she, "I and my older sister, who had
+lost her husband at sea, lived with my mother, who was also a widow. We
+had few of this world's goods, but health and energy enough to take care
+of ourselves. At one time, we moved into half a house, in a decent
+quarter of the town, the other part of which was occupied by an old woman
+called by the neighbors 'Granny Holt.' Coming from a street of the town
+at some distance, we had heard nothing that I remember about her; but the
+day had not gone by, before it was made fully known to us by such
+acquaintances as we saw, that we had taken up our abode in the same house
+with a person of a very crabbed disposition, whom all the neighborhood
+looked upon as a witch. This was not very agreeable news, but we tried
+to make the best of it. Our house was near the river-side, and we were
+surrounded by the families of those who followed the sea, and we
+endeavored to flatter ourselves with the idea, that idle tales of
+marvelous things are very common among that class of population; and that
+the stories we heard were mere gossip, as we whispered to ourselves, for
+fear of being overheard through the thin partition which divided us from
+the other tenant. But, 'No!' said one of our callers in a low voice--one
+of the Pearse girls (a young lady, by the way, about seventy, but Aunt
+Judith was of a certain age); 'I tell you it's as true as a sermon in the
+meetin'-house. You'll soon find out what she can do. Why, there's young
+Stout, as fine a lad as ever walked the streets, or stood by the helm of
+his vessel in a gale o' wind; and look at him now, pale and cadaverous,
+and walking round people's gardens, on the edge of narrow fences where
+nobody but a rope-dancer, with a pole in his hands, could keep his
+balance, and a hundred more such antics; everybody knows she bewitched
+him.'
+
+"'But what for?' we asked.
+
+"'Oh, they had a quarrel, and pretty soon he began to cut these capers.'
+
+"My sister Ann, the widow, however, who had always a brave spirit,
+declared that she did not care a fig for all the witches in Christendom;
+but I must own that I was very much alarmed. You may be sure, we none of
+us much liked this sort of greeting, on the first day of our entering
+into our new habitation, and we prepared to retire early, my mother, who
+was a truly pious person, trusting to the only sure defence. Upon going
+to my chamber, I found there was no fastening to the door; in fact the
+handle itself was quite out of kilter, and it could not be shut tight. I
+moved up to it, therefore, a chest of drawers, putting some things on
+top, and thus brought the door close. I was just about to blow out the
+candle to get into bed, when I heard a scrambling in the chimney, and you
+may believe it or not, but it's the solemn truth--a black cat jumped from
+the fire-place, ran and leaped a-top of the things I had placed against
+the door, put her paw upon the handle of it, gave me one sidelong glance,
+opened the door itself and passed out. I was too frightened for anything
+but to wrap myself thoroughly in the bedclothes, and trembling with
+terror, at last fell into a troubled sleep."
+
+"Are you sure, Aunt Judith," said my uncle Richard, "that the cat did not
+go under the bed?"
+
+"I tell you, as plainly as I see you now, I saw her open the door, look
+round at me with that malicious kind of expression, go out and shut the
+door behind her; and in the morning everything I had piled up against it
+was unmoved."
+
+"It must have been the ghost of a cat, then," said my uncle; "but did
+anything else happen, afterwards?"
+
+"Yes, in a few days we had got a baking ready and the oven heated, when
+the old woman came in with an armful of wood, threw it down on the
+hearth, and said she wanted to bake. The oven was for the use of both
+parts of the house; but we told her as soon as we had got through she
+should have it. She went off muttering, and when we thought our batch was
+done and went to take it out, it was burned just as black as a coal."
+
+"I am afraid," said my uncle, "you let it stay in too long, or the oven
+was too hot."
+
+"You may laugh as much as you please," replied Aunt Judith, with spirit,
+"but I tell you what I actually saw with my own eyes. We did not stay
+longer in that house than we could find another place; but before we left
+something took place which perhaps you'll not find it so easy to explain.
+Young William Stout's folks had been so troubled about him, and the
+doctors said they could do nothing, that they determined to try a
+'project.'"
+
+I may as well explain what Aunt Judith's modesty prevented her from
+doing; that a "project" was to inclose a certain liquid emanation of the
+afflicted person in a phial tightly stopped, and to put it over the fire
+in a pot to boil. Of course, as in the case of the sympathetic remedies
+described by Sir Kenelm Digby and practised by him, as the contents of
+the phial boil, the witch burns, and she is inevitably detected by the
+scorching she gets and the scars it leaves behind. It is from this
+circumstance, undoubtedly, that the nursery rhyme derives its
+authority,--
+
+                   "Hinx minx, the old witch winks,
+                    The fat begins to fry," etc.
+
+This is precisely the operation of the process in question.
+
+"Accordingly," continued Aunt Judith, "the Stout folks made all their
+preparations, in company with some trusty neighbors; the doors were
+fastened, and exactly at twelve o'clock the 'project' was begun.
+Everything went on well; but, as often happens in such cases, something
+was forgotten, or the witches' master interferes; for it seemed, after a
+while, that more water was wanted, and one of the company took the pail
+to go to the well for it. As he cautiously opened the door, there to
+their horror stood Granny Holt, in the darkness of midnight! She came in
+grinning and complimenting, and without expressing surprise at finding so
+many persons together, at such an unusual hour, or making any inquiry as
+to the reason, she said, 'one of their folks was taken sick and seeing a
+light there, she had come over to beg some herbs.' There was the end of
+the _project_, and I don't know as it was ever tried again."
+
+"Were you there, yourself?" asked Uncle Richard.
+
+"No, I can only swear to the black cat and the burnt pies; but everybody
+in our neighborhood knew all about the project and Granny Holt's breaking
+it up."
+
+We had become pretty well stirred up by this time, but as is likely to be
+the case under such circumstances, were eager for whatever other marvel
+might be forthcoming; for no matter how intelligent or incredulous the
+circle of hearers may be, there is something strangely fascinating in
+these weird stories. People may affect indifference "amidst the blazing
+light of the nineteenth century;" but I think that of a dark night, in a
+lonely spot, the starting up of so familiar a creature as a white horse,
+for instance, would set the strongest nerves into perturbation, at the
+idea of something ghostly. Indeed, Addison declared in his day, that
+there "was not a village in England that had not a ghost in it; the
+churchyards were haunted; nor was there a peasant who had not seen a
+spirit."
+
+"Well, Aunt Judith," said Uncle Richard, "these wonderful things seem to
+have very much gone by, in our day, or else people, for some reason, take
+less notice of them than formerly. Witches, nowadays, are characters
+entirely unknown, except," he gallantly remarked, "for the sometimes
+really inexplicable fascinations of members of your own sex; and, except
+in one singular instance, I have known of no appearances which could not
+be rationally accounted for. I have heard my father, however, tell of one
+which, according to the tradition, manifested itself, one hundred years
+ago or more, upon a bridge, over the Ipswich River, in our Essex County
+town of Topsfield, and was the terror of all the country round. He
+appeared in the shape of a monstrous hog, taking his station, at night,
+in the very centre of the bridge; and those who had occasion to cross it,
+on horseback or on foot, were either fain to turn back, as he encountered
+them, bristling and snarling, or rushed by, if their occasion demanded
+it, in a state of extraordinary trepidation. At length, Parson Capen, the
+worthy minister of the town, riding up to the bridge one evening, saw the
+spectre in his usual position. Nothing daunted, in virtue of his holy
+office, the good man thus accosted him: 'You that were once an angel of
+light, ain't you ashamed to appear in the shape of a dirty swine?' This
+expostulation was too much for the foul fiend, who at once jumped over
+the railing of the bridge into the river, and was no more seen."
+
+Amongst others of the few guests of the evening was a young gentleman, a
+member of one of the learned professions, who was accounted an
+intellectual person and was of rather grave demeanor. Though known to
+have been the author of occasional verses which gained applause, he would
+not have been thought likely to be the subject of any extraordinary
+hallucination. He was an intimate friend of our family, and on certain
+occasions of unusual excitement, if not danger, in the midst of the
+various adventures of young people, had shown a singular firmness of
+nerve and presence of mind, and was thought to be in fact insensible to
+fear. He had listened to the story of the bold lad who saw the supposed
+apparition on the gate-post, and to that of the Topsfield spectre, with
+much the same interest as that which Marmion exhibited at Sir David
+Lindesay's narrative of the appearance of the beloved Apostle to King
+James in Linlithgow. Apparently induced by a similar irresistible impulse
+to that which drew from the redoubted warrior of Scott's fascinating poem
+the rehearsal of his nocturnal adventure, our guest volunteered a
+relation quite as remarkable.
+
+"I will tell you a story," said he, "of something unaccountable which
+once happened to me, though the circumstances are still so vivid in my
+memory, that I look back upon it with a sort of superstitious dread, and
+feel a decided reluctance in appealing to the sympathy of others, in
+regard to an incident which seemed exclusively addressed to myself and
+was confined to my own sole experience.
+
+"In my senior year at College, now as you know, not many years since, I
+was appointed by my class to prepare for delivery, on what is called
+Class Day, a literary exercise,--in fact a poem, in anticipation of the
+usual Commencement performances, and was at home, during the preceding
+long vacation, making ready for this event. The writing of poetry for
+public recitation before a critical audience is a rather exacting
+occupation, and my ambition was naturally excited to do the best in my
+power. Indeed, the work absorbed all my faculties; but I preferred to
+write during the still hours of the night, rather than amidst the
+ordinary distractions of the day, spending that period, usually,
+wandering in the neighboring fields and woods, or in other diversions.
+The season was summer, and I was sitting one night at an open window,
+committing to paper such thoughts as occurred to me, by the light of a
+single candle,--for lamps were then not very common and gas was entirely
+unknown. Outside, there was not a sound, for the whole town was buried in
+profound sleep, and our own household was in the same state of repose. It
+was just on the stroke of twelve. Our house was a very ancient one,
+though I never heard that there was anything peculiarly remarkable in its
+history. Sitting thus, and thus engaged in serious, solitary
+contemplation, the sudden fall of something heavy in the garret overhead
+gave me a momentary start. I could compare it to nothing but to the
+effect likely to be produced by something as solid as a smaller
+description of cannon-ball, though it afterwards appeared to have
+attracted the attention of no one else in the family. Supposing that
+some article of furniture had accidentally fallen, the noise of which had
+been rendered more noticeable by the perfect stillness of the night, I
+pursued my occupation, until I felt disposed for sleep. On the following
+night, while engaged in the same way, and at the same midnight hour, came
+the same heavy, sharp, distinct thud upon the floor directly above my
+head. I was disposed to philosophize on the subject, and, though the
+coincidence was certainly peculiar, I still conceived that this unusual
+sound, at such an unusual hour, might be attributed to some natural
+cause. Perhaps, a heavy cat might have jumped down from beams above, on
+both occasions, and the noise was magnified by the otherwise unbroken
+stillness, though so far as I remember we kept no such cat of our own. I
+am sure that the idea of anything supernatural scarcely occurred to me,
+or was dismissed with derision. Nevertheless, the circumstances were
+peculiar enough to induce me to make a thorough examination of the garret
+on the following morning, and I was struck by the fact, that it was
+perfectly bare of any article of furniture above my chamber, or in the
+neighborhood of that part of the attic, which could have fallen. I was
+naturally a good deal perplexed at an occurrence for which there seemed
+no rational means of accounting, but I kept my own counsel. On the third
+night, at the same hour, when the clear bell from the steeple of a
+meeting-house not far distant had just tolled twelve, came the same
+sudden, single, distinct sound of a fall on the floor, directly over my
+head. I will not say as Marmion did, on the occasion above referred
+to,--
+
+               "'I care not though the truth I show,--
+                 I trembled with affright.'
+
+"On the contrary, though not a little disturbed by incidents so
+unaccountable, and rendered by the interruption quite unfit to pursue my
+occupation further, I deliberately undressed, said my prayers, put out my
+candle, and went to bed. It was a bright starlight night, and the two
+windows of my chamber made objects within indistinctly visible. No sooner
+had I laid my head upon the pillow, than through a door at the foot of my
+bed appeared a slowly moving figure, turning the corner of the bed and
+approaching the side of it upon which I lay. I could distinctly see its
+outlines, and it seemed to me apparelled like a monk, with a hood drawn
+over its features, and long trailing garments. As Eliphaz the Temanite,
+under similar circumstances, has related,--'the hair of my flesh stood
+up.' But I did not quite lose my self-possession. As the figure came
+nearer, I instantly threw off the bedclothes and jumped towards it into
+the middle of the room,--and it was gone! Though startled enough at so
+strange an occurrence, I reflected that it must be an illusion produced
+by some casual disorder of the natural faculties, and returned to bed
+and slept as usual until morning. But the next day I was much more
+disturbed in recalling the several circumstances of this extraordinary
+visitation. The repeated previous heavy blows upon the floor, and their
+apparent consummation in the vision I supposed myself to have seen, made
+me, as Othello says, 'perplexed in the extreme.' On that day I told my
+mother the story; she laughed at the idea of supernatural appearances,
+perhaps to quiet her son's emotion; but she said she was afraid of no
+ghosts, proposed an exchange of chambers, and this accommodation at once
+took place. But though I finished and delivered the poem in question, I
+continued to muse by myself upon what had occurred, unwilling to speak to
+any one about it. It was many months before I recovered from the shock to
+my nervous system. Reflecting upon it at the time, again I summoned
+whatever philosophy I had at command, as well as I could. I conceived
+that possibly in the excitement of verse-writing, in the silence of the
+night, some tenseness had affected the drum of my ear; that hearing, or
+imagining that I heard some unusual sound, amid the perfect stillness
+around me, a continuous disordered state of physical functions had
+produced a similar effect at a correspondent hour; and that this
+experience not unnaturally culminated in the spectral visitation."
+
+We heard the story in terror, and put little faith in the theory of
+explanation.
+
+"But," said my uncle Richard, himself a good deal amazed at the
+narrative, "did anything happen afterwards, to account for what you have
+told us?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," replied our friend.
+
+"Did you ever sleep in that chamber again?"
+
+"Yes, some years afterwards. It so happened that during several weeks in
+the summer, our whole family except myself, was away. My mother was in
+close attendance upon sick members of my sister's family. My brothers
+were at sea, and even our ordinary servant was dismissed for the
+occasion. When the time for rest arrived, it was my habit to let myself
+into the house, to proceed to the same chamber, usually without a light,
+and go to bed. One night, putting my hand upon the pillow, I felt
+something soft and started back, but again reaching forward, the object
+proved to be a dove that had flown into the open window, and securing it
+without difficulty I gave that symbol of innocence immediate release.
+Perhaps, it was my former visitant in a less forbidding form. But this,
+as well as the other, passed into the course of ordinary events."
+
+I need not say, that we had listened to this extraordinary narrative with
+rapt attention and in breathless silence. Our friend had told his story
+with emotion, certainly, but still with serious deliberation, and
+exhibiting no undue signs of excitement. No one seemed disposed to make
+any observation upon it, and indeed most of the company were utterly
+incapable of the effort of speech. In a few moments, he remarked that he
+would quote to us a brief passage from Dante's great poem which was
+applicable to the subject, and did so as follows:--
+
+          ... "Now, O reader! mark,
+            And if my tale thou slowly shalt receive,
+          Thy doubt will cause in me no great surprise,
+            For I, who saw it, scarcely can believe."[12]
+
+"But, Uncle Richard," was now the cry, "you said you had once seen an
+apparition, or something like one; please tell us all about it."
+
+"I certainly saw something strange," said he, "on more than one occasion,
+which has never yet been accounted for; and I suppose it is now too late
+to expect it. If it was really a matter of concert and collusion, the
+motive for it has never been discovered. You remember the open space in
+town, in front of the Reverend Mr. ----'s meeting-house. Your house, as
+you know, Jemmie," addressing me, "looks directly up the street towards
+this square, and to the somewhat old-fashioned mansion opposite the
+meeting-house. On one side of the square was a small dwelling, occupied
+by several distant relatives of ours; Aunt Midkiff (Metcalf), Aunt
+Foggison (Ferguson, so called), and her sister, Miss Samples (Mrs.
+Semple), with the daughter of our Aunt Foggison, Mrs. Lane, and her only
+child. You remember, sister," addressing my mother, "that you have told
+me, that one night, after you had gone to bed, your lamented husband
+stood at the window looking up the street towards the old house above, of
+which he had a complete view. Upon your asking what detained him, he
+called you up, and it was evident to you both that one chamber of the
+house was in a light blaze. Persons appeared to be moving rapidly around
+it, and, as it were, pulling down the curtains of the bed, which looked
+as if on fire. After a little time the appearance gradually ceased, and
+your husband remarking that he would inquire in the morning of his
+neighbor, a highly respectable lawyer, who occupied the house, what was
+the cause of the extraordinary spectacle of the night before, he also
+retired. But upon putting the question to his acquaintance on the
+following morning, he seemed astonished, and utterly denied that anything
+unusual had taken place in the chamber, which was the one occupied by
+himself and his wife, or that they had been at all disturbed during the
+night.
+
+"Now all this," continued my uncle, "is quite consistent with the
+supposition, that this gentleman may have had some secret motive for
+concealing the fact of a threatened conflagration, pretty sure, if
+known, to become the town talk and perhaps to expose him to inconvenient
+inquiries; and though a strictly moral and religious man, he may have
+thought that the circumstances warranted a direct denial of the matter,
+seeing it was, as it turned out, an affair of purely domestic concern."
+
+My mother, I thought, looked at my uncle a little anxiously, and seemed
+about to make a movement for our departure; but we urged him to tell us
+to what strange thing he had referred, and why he had so particularly
+described the situation and characteristics of this square, as if there
+were something more in relation to it which it might interest us to know;
+for you may be sure our mother had never mentioned to us children
+anything likely to alarm us.
+
+"I am afraid," said he, at last "that something, which really did happen
+in front of the house I have spoken of, will startle you young folks, and
+perhaps it is foolish to relate it, as you seem already quite excited
+enough; but I will premise by saying, that I will only tell you what I
+saw myself, or heard from those upon whose word I could implicitly rely;
+and, moreover, that I do not believe in ghosts, however singular the
+facts in question may appear. Of course, you know, sister," addressing my
+mother, "my calls at your house were sometimes in the evening, after
+attending the market or to other business during the day. It was during
+one of your husband's absences at sea, that we were sitting around the
+fire of a wintry night, when a lively neighbor, a lady who took much
+interest in whatever was going on, came in evidently in a state of
+agitation, and taking her seat, with very brief greeting, broke out with
+the exclamation, 'There he is again!' I did not understand what this
+meant, but it was soon explained to us that, for a week or ten days past,
+some person, or figure, or whatever it might be, had been observed
+walking fore and aft, in front of the house opposite the meeting-house,
+at a certain hour of the evening, and though many had passed, no one had
+recognized him, nor did he take any notice whatever of any one whom he
+met. He was said to wear a pea-jacket buttoned to the chin, and a glazed
+hat, as if prepared for any kind of weather; or, as the gossips
+afterwards said, indicating the fact that he was the forerunner of the
+loss of not a few masters of vessels residing in the neighborhood, who
+perished at sea during the storms of that season. I took my hat and went
+out to see if I could discover anything uncommon. It was a moonlight
+night, with a light fall of snow upon the ground. As I passed up the
+short street to the square, Aunt Foggison's chamber window was thrown
+open, and her daughter's voice was plainly heard berating the supposed
+spectral night-walker. 'What are you doing there, you good-for-nothing
+scamp, you?' cried she, in a voice that must have reached any mortal
+ears; 'why don't you go home to your family, if you've got any family, or
+wherever else you belong, instead of stalking up and down here,
+frightening honest folks out of their senses?' Overcome perhaps by the
+vigor of her expostulation, the window was shut down with a slam. As I
+advanced, though I certainly had a full view of a human-looking figure
+upon its round and at no great distance either, and my senses had been
+confirmed by the objurgations addressed to it by our worthy relative,
+when I actually reached the ground of his perambulations, prepared to
+seize a single man by the collar and learn what he was about, it is
+certain that he was no longer visible. I returned to the house and made
+report of my unsuccessful doings, and unhitched my horse and drove home.
+I learned, a few days afterwards, that the figure regularly appeared,
+giving one sign of vitality by a regular tramp--tramp--tramp--upon the
+frozen ground, so far as any one was disposed to listen, and spreading
+consternation throughout the vicinity. The affair at length became
+unendurable. Women were afraid to go into the street, and, for that, a
+good many men too, and it was really so serious, that, as I learned, it
+was resolved to form what is called, I believe, a cordon, and gradually
+approaching the place simultaneously from every avenue, so to inclose him
+that escape would be impossible. Being much acquainted with the people of
+that part of the town, I was invited to join the company, and accordingly
+drove in seasonably for the purpose. Certainly, most sober people
+believed the whole was but some trick, which it only needed reasonable
+pains to discover and defeat. The mysterious figure, it seemed, continued
+to walk, ignorant of or indifferent to our devices.
+
+"There were three main avenues, by streets, to the premises, together
+with a narrow passage way leading from one of the streets to another. At
+the appointed hour we duly assembled on our several stations. Our
+director was 'a rude and boisterous captain of the sea'"--(for Uncle
+Richard could sometimes be poetical, at least in the way of quoting
+Shakespeare). "It had been arranged by him that, being on our posts, at a
+fixed moment, we should move rapidly up the several avenues and so join
+forces as to form a circle inclosing the open space, and gradually
+contracting our company, if the rogue was then within our compass we
+should have him sure. The arrangement had been made in profound secrecy,
+and if any there were traitors, I was not aware of it. Sure enough there
+was our guest on his usual stroll. As our circle speedily drew in, and
+just as hands were stretched out to seize him--presto, as the jugglers
+say--he was gone!"
+
+"By the jumping gingerbread!" exclaimed Thurlow, our uncle's hired man,
+springing from his chair by the wall, outside of our family
+party,--seeing this was Christmas night.
+
+"Oh dear sus!" cried Sally Bannocks, our own particular help of many
+years, from the like position.
+
+"Our detective band," resumed my uncle, "looked at one another in
+amazement, and after some hard swearing from a few of the roughest, and
+the exchange of a hasty 'good-night,' dispersed, as far as convenient in
+companies of two or three, and departed, a good deal disconcerted, to
+their several places of abode. The same experiment was tried on two or
+three other occasions, as I was informed by friends, with no better
+success. Spectre or not, he always found means to elude them; and there
+were always those who, having no other means of accounting for his
+evasion, insisted upon it that he must have had confederates among those
+who sought to arrest him."
+
+"Could he not have escaped slyly into the house?" asked some incredulous
+inquirer.
+
+"That was hardly likely, with so many eyes upon him. Besides there was
+nobody there but women and children, excessively alarmed themselves, the
+husband, Captain Y----, being at sea, and one of those who was afterwards
+known to have been lost with all his crew, upon nearing our dangerous
+coast."
+
+"But why did not the city government make a piece of work of putting an
+end to such a scandal?" inquired a doubter in spectral visitations.
+
+"Well, I suspect a whole body of police could do little towards capturing
+an actual ghost; and then, too, there was at that time no city and no
+such force. Our town government consisted of mostly ancient citizens, and
+three or four constables, all of whom, probably, preferred to remain
+quietly and comfortably at home, instead of venturing out into the wintry
+night air, to hunt up ghosts."
+
+"Why didn't somebody try the effect of a bullet?" inquired another.
+
+"Well, shooting was a rather violent remedy; and as for firing at a
+ghost, I believe every one was afraid."
+
+"Wasn't it strange, considering that he must have had some particular
+object in haunting that spot, and was likely, therefore, to be found out
+by some of the neighborhood by his face, or dress, or figure, or gait, or
+in some way or other, if a real person, that he never was recognized?"
+asked another of our evening guests.
+
+"It was strange enough," said my uncle; "but few, if any, got very near
+him, and they perhaps, casual passers-by, who paid no attention to the
+fact. As for him, he only walked steadily backward and forward, turning
+neither to the right nor to the left, except at each end of his beat;
+replying to no interrogatories, and appearing utterly unconscious of any
+epithets or railings which from a distance were hurled at him. Only one
+man ever professed to have seen his face."
+
+"Who was that, uncle?" we all eagerly exclaimed.
+
+"Late one stormy night, when the snow was falling fast," continued my
+uncle,--"and one would suppose that any reasonable creature of flesh and
+blood would wish to be safely housed,--an hostler named Dobbin, who had
+charge of a stable at one end of the street, was trudging home, swinging
+a lantern in his hand, to the small house in which he lived, at a little
+distance beyond the now pretty notorious 'Ghost's Walk.' As he approached
+the spot, there, to be sure, was the object of terror, taking his usual
+exercise. 'Now,' as Dobbin told the story, 'thinks I to myself, I'll play
+you a trick, mister, and find out who you are, if I can. So, jest slyly
+unfastening the door of the lantern, as I met him, I flung the door wide
+open and held it up to his face, and I says, says I, "A stormy night,
+friend." I thought I should know him, and guess I should if ever I do
+see him again, which I don't want to, I tell _you_; and may I hope to
+die, if ever I saw that face before. He looked pale, and his eyes, as he
+fixed 'em on me, had what I call a sort of a stony glare. He never opened
+his mouth, but just looked. It was only a glance, as it were, for I never
+was so frightened in my life, and jest dropped lantern and scampered away
+home as fast as my legs could carry me.'"
+
+"Lud-a-massy!" screamed Sally Bannocks, on the verge of hysterics,--and
+some of the rest of us were not far from that condition. We were mostly
+on our feet, and as my mother insisted upon our bidding "Good-night,"
+Uncle Richard proposed, after a further trial of his capital cider, to
+harness his horse and drive us home in his covered wagon. But it was a
+fine night and, though getting rather late, we concluded that it would do
+us more good to take the air, in the mile or two of the walk to town. In
+the course of our preparations for departure, and in answer to a variety
+of questions, our uncle informed us, that the mystery was never cleared
+up, nor the trick, if trick it were, ever discovered. As to the tale of
+such a person as Dobbin, we might place what reliance upon it we saw fit;
+and though the motive seemed certainly difficult to see, it might have
+been, after all, a well-contrived piece of deception, to be sure, a very
+laborious and unaccountable one, concealed by the collusion of parties in
+the secret. How long the ghost continued to walk he did not know; but it
+finally disappeared, and the house had been inhabited by respectable
+people ever since, who had suffered no disturbance.
+
+We reached home after a brisk walk, crossing rapidly--and with now and
+then a furtive look--the very premises so haunted in other days, and
+"Thanks be to Praise!" ejaculated Sally Bannocks, as we entered and
+closed the door. The house was cold, after having been shut up all day.
+We quickly separated to our several chambers, and as I laid my head upon
+the pillow and was soon sound asleep, I too, murmured to myself, "Thanks
+be to Praise!"
+
+-----
+ [11]  Jack's composure has a parallel in that of an old-time
+       Scottish clergyman, as the story is told by Dean Ramsay.
+       On returning home late from a dinner abroad his way led
+       through the churchyard, and some mischievous fellows
+       thought to frighten him. One of them came up to him
+       dressed as a ghost, but the minister coolly inquired,
+       "Weel, maister Ghaist, is this a general rising, or are
+       ye juist taking a daunder frae yer grave by yersel?"
+
+ [12]  _Inferno_, Canto xxv., Parsons's translation.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+The following papers, marked I., II., III. are copies of those discovered
+among family documents in the house of Mr. H. W. S. Cleveland, of Salem,
+Massachusetts, several years ago. They were communicated by him to the
+late Mr. Henry Lunt, formerly a merchant of Boston, father of the late
+highly distinguished Rev. Dr. William Parsons Lunt, who died, much
+lamented, while on his travels, at Akaba, in Arabia. How these documents
+came to be deposited in Salem, it is not easy to say. It is probable,
+however, that copies were brought over by the "Mary and John," or the
+"Elizabeth and Dorcas," which appear to have wintered in Boston, after
+their arrival, the passengers, or such of them as saw fit and were
+permitted, proceeding to Ipswich, the following year (1634) and thence to
+the plantation which they called Newbury. It is likely, therefore, that
+the papers which concerned the passengers of those vessels might be
+taken to Salem, perhaps during Governor Endicott's administration, and
+placed in the hands of some official person at that place, so as to be
+more accessible to the home of the people in question, instead of being
+retained at Boston, the journey to which from Newbury was in those days a
+long and tedious one, to be made on foot through the wilderness.
+
+To many persons the abstract of the Charter of Charles I., which is a
+very liberal one, can hardly fail to be interesting. The Orders in
+Council, referred to in the text, are still more so; while the list of
+passengers by the "Mary and John" comprises many names still to be found
+in Newbury. Many more familiar names will be found among those of the
+company which came by the "Elizabeth and Dorcas." It will be seen that in
+the list given are the names of Thomas Parker, an eminent divine, and of
+James Noyes, his nephew; the first the long respected pastor of the
+church and the other the "teacher" at Newbury.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+An Abstract of His Ma^{ty's} Charter for incorporating the Company of the
+Mattachusetts Bay in New England in America, Granted in the 4th yeare of
+His Highness' Reign of England, Scotland France & Ireland, Anno. Domini
+1628--
+
+And we do further of our especial Grace, certain Knowledge & mere mocion
+for us our Heirs & Successors--Give and Grant to the said Governour &
+Company & their Sucessors for ever by these presents, That it shall be
+lawfull & free for them & their Assigns at all & every Time & Times
+hereafter out of any of our Realms or Dominions whatsoev^{r}, to take
+lade carry & transport for in & into their voyages, & for & towards the
+said Plantation in New England all such & so many of our Loving Subjects
+or any other Strangers that will become our Loving Subjects & live under
+our Alleigeance as shall willingly accompany them in the said Voyages &
+Plantations, And also Shipping, Armour, Weapons, Ordnance, Munition,
+Powder, Shott, Corn victuals & all manner of Cloathing, Implements,
+Furniture, Beasts, Cattle, Horses, Mares, Merchandizes & all other things
+necessary for the said Plantation and for their use & Defence & for Trade
+with the People there & in passing & returning to & fro, any Law or
+statute to the Contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding--And without
+paying or yielding any custom or Subsidy either Inwards or Outwards, to
+us our Heirs or Successors for the same, by the space of seaven years
+from the Day of the Date of these Presents--Provided that none of the
+said Persons be such as shall hereafter by Especial name be restrained by
+us, our Heirs or Successors----
+
+And for their further Incouragem^{t} of our Especial Grace & favor--we Do
+by these presents for us, our Heirs & successors yield & grant to the
+said Governour & Company & their successors & every of them their Factors
+& Assigns that they & every of them shall be free & quit from all Taxes
+Subsidys & Customs in New England for the space of seaven years, and from
+all Taxes & Impositions for the space of Twenty one years upon all Goods
+& merchandizes at any time or times hereafter Either upon Importation
+there, or Exportation thence, into our Realm of England or into any of
+our Dominions, by the said Governour or Company & their successors, their
+Deputys, Factors & Assigns or any of them except only the Five Pounds
+p^{r} Centum due for Custom upon all such Goods & Merchandizes as, after
+the said seaven years shall be expired, shall be brought or imported
+into our Realm of England or any other of our Dominions according to the
+Ancient Trade of Merchants, which Five Pounds p^{r} centum only being
+paid it shall be thenceforth lawfull & free for the s^{d} Adventurers the
+same Goods & Merchandizes to export & carry out of our Dominions into
+Foreign Parts without any Custom, Tax or other Duty to be paid to us our
+Heirs or Successors or to any other officer or officers or ministers of
+us our Heirs or Successors,--
+
+Provided that the said Goods & merchandize be shipp'd out within thirteen
+months after their first Landing within any part of the said Dominions--
+
+This is a true Copy of His Ma^{ties} Letters Patent aforesaid--Custom
+House London 30th January 1633 Anno. R. Caroli Nono--
+
+                                       JOHN WOLSTENHOLME, _Collector_.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+ORDERS IN COUNCIL.
+
+_New England,--At Whitehall the last of February, 1633._
+
+Present:
+
+  Lo. Arch. Bp. of Cant.
+  Earle of Kelley.
+  Lo. Keep^{r}.
+  Lo. Cottington.
+  Lo. Privie Seal
+  M^{r}. V. Chamb^{r}line.
+  Lo. High Chamb^{r}line.
+  M^{r}. Compt^{r}.
+  M^{r}. Secretary Wyndibank.
+
+Whereas by a Warr^{t}. bearing date 22nd of this Present, the sev'all
+ships following bound for New England, and now lying in the River of
+Thames were made staye of untill further order from their Lo'pps. viz.,
+The Clement & Job, The Reformation, The True Love, The Elizabeth
+Bonadventure, The Sea Flower, The Mary & John, The Planter, The Elizabeth
+& Dorcas, The Hercules & The Neptune.
+
+Forasmuch as the masters of the said ships were this day called before
+the Board & several Particulars given them in charge to be performed in
+their said voyage, amongst which the said masters were to enter into
+several Bonds of One Hundred Pounds a piece to His Maj^{s}tys use before
+the Clarke of the Councell attendant to observe & cause to be observed
+and putt in Execucion these Articles following viz:
+
+1. That all and every Person aboard their Ships now bound for New England
+as aforesaid, that shall blaspheme or profane the Holy name of God be
+severely punis'h't.
+
+2. That they cause the Prayers contained in the Book of Common Prayers
+establisht in the Church of England, to be said daily at the usual hours
+for Morning & Evening Prayers & that they cause all Persons aboard their
+said ships to be present at the same.
+
+3. That they do not receive aboard or transport any Person that hath not
+Certificate from the Officers of the Port where he is to imbarke that he
+hath taken both the Oathes of Alleigeance & Supremacy.
+
+4. That upon their return into this Kingdom they Certify to the Board the
+names of all such Persons as they shall transport together with their
+Proceedings in the Execu'ion of the aforesaid Articles--Whereunto the
+said M^{rs}. have conformed themselves--It was therefore & for diverse
+other Reasons best known to their Lo^{pps}. thought fitt that for this
+time they should be permitted to proceed on their Voyage, and it was
+thereupon ordered that Gabriel Marsh Esq^{r}. Marshalle of the Admiralty,
+& all other His Maj'ty's Officers to whom their said Warr^{t}. was
+directed should be required upon sight hereof to discharge all & every
+the said Ships, & suffer them to depart on their intended Voyage to New
+England--EX. JON. MEANTYS.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+_The names of such Passengers as took the Oathes of Supremacy, and
+Alleigeance to pass for New England in the Mary & John of London Robert
+Sayres Master,_
+
+24th Mar. 1633.
+
+  William Trace (Tracy)
+  John Marshe
+  John Luff
+  Henry Traske
+  William Moudey
+  Robert Sever
+  Thomas Avery
+  Henry Travers
+  Thomas Sweete
+  John Woodbridge
+  Thomas West
+  Thomas Savery
+  Christopher Osgood
+  Phillip Fowler
+  Richard Jacob
+  Daniel Ladd
+  Robert Kingsman
+  John Bartlett
+  Robert Coker
+  William Savery
+  John Anthoney (left behind)
+  Stephen Jurden
+  John Godfrey
+  George Browne
+  Nicholas Noyce
+  Richard Browne
+  Richard Reynolds
+  Richard Littlehall
+  William White
+  Matthew Hewlett (Hercules)
+  John Whelyer
+  William Clarke
+  Robert Newman
+  Adrian Vincent.
+
+
+The 26th day of March.
+
+  Nicholas Easton
+  Richard Kent
+  Abraham Mussey
+  William Spencer
+  Henry Shorte
+  William Hibbens
+  William Ballard
+  Matthew Gillett
+  William Franklin
+  John Mussey
+  Thomas Cole
+  Thomas Parker
+  James Noyce
+  John Spencer
+  Richard Kent
+  Joseph Myles
+  John Newman
+  William Newbey
+  Henry Lunt
+  Joseph Pope
+  Thomas Newman
+  John Newman.
+
+For which we gave certificate, together with five others, which are said
+to be left behind to oversee the Chattle to pass in the Hercules viz.
+
+The names of the Passengers in the Hercules of London, John Kiddey
+Ma^{r}. for New England.
+
+These six Passengers took their Oathes of Supremacy & Alleigeance the
+24th March and were left behind the Mary & John, as intended to pass in
+y^{e} Hercules--viz:
+
+  John Anthony      }    Cert, the six first
+  Robert Early      }  to Mt'er Sayers as
+  William Satcome   }  intended.
+  Thomas Foster     }    Secondth to Mr.
+  William Foster    }  Kiddey to pass in the
+  Matthew Hewlett.  }  Hercules.
+
+  16th April, 1634.
+  Nathaniel Davyes
+  George Kinge
+  Thomas Rider
+  William Elliot
+  William Fifeilde
+  Henry Phelps.
+
+18. These proceedings were Copyed out of an Olde Book of Orders belonging
+to the Port of South'ton but now remaining at the Custom house in
+Portsmouth the 6th Day of December 1735.
+
+                                                Per THOMAS WHITEHOUSE.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+In regard to the costume which prevailed, among persons of wealth and
+standing in New England, within a century, I quote a descriptive passage
+from a history of Newburyport, by Mrs. E. V. Smith, published in 1854, as
+follows:--
+
+  "With the incoming of the nineteenth century, garments more in
+  conformity with present fashions took precedence of three-cornered
+  hats, long coats with immense pocket-folds and cuffs, but without
+  collars, in which the men of the eighteenth century prided
+  themselves; with their buttons of pure silver, or plated, of the
+  size of a half-dollar, presenting a great superfluity of coat and
+  waistcoat when contrasted with the short nether garments, ycleped
+  "breeches," or "small-clothes," which reached only to the knee,
+  being there fastened with large (?) silver buckles, which ornament
+  was also used in fastening the straps of shoes. The gentlemen quite
+  equalled the ladies at this period in the amount of finery, and the
+  brilliancy of colors in which they indulged. A light blue coat with
+  large fancy buttons, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, red
+  velvet breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, with a
+  neckcloth, or scarf, of finely embroidered cambric, or figured
+  stuff, the ends hanging loose, the better to show the work, and
+  liberal bosom and wrist ruffles (the latter usually fastened with
+  gold or silver buckles), were usually considered a proper evening
+  dress for a gentleman of any pretension to fashion. The clergy and
+  many other gentlemen commonly wore black silk stockings, and others
+  contented themselves with gray woollen. The boots had a broad fold
+  of white leather turned over the top, with tassels dangling from
+  either side. The clergy frequently wore silk or stuff gowns and
+  powdered wigs. The ladies usually wore black silk or satin bonnets,
+  long-waisted and narrow-skirted dresses for the street, with long
+  tight sleeves, and in the house, sleeves reaching to the elbow,
+  finished with an immensely broad frill; high-heeled shoes, and
+  always, when in full dress, carried a profusely ornamented fan. The
+  excessively long waists, toward the close of this period, were
+  exchanged for extremely short ones; so short, that the belt or
+  waist was inhumanly contrived to come at the broadest part of the
+  chest. But no fashion of dress was so permanent as other customs
+  clinging to particular eras. Anciently, as now, fashions were
+  changed more or less extensively every ten years, though certain
+  broad characteristics remained long enough to give specific
+  character to the costuming of the eighteenth century."
+
+The writer is accurate enough, no doubt, in her general description; but
+what lady could give an entirely correct account of a gentleman's attire?
+Knee-buckles, for instance, were almost necessarily small, instead of
+"large"; it may be questioned whether top-boots were ever decorated with
+tassels, a single article of that sort often hanging at the front of a
+different kind of high boot, worn long after the beginning of the present
+century; and as to the silk gowns of clergymen, it is but a very few
+years since they began to be disused in the pulpit by Presbyterian and
+Congregational ministers. About forty years before the present period,
+many gentlemen wore dresses of the cut described by Mrs. Smith, though of
+a more subdued color,--black, blue, or drab. Not long after the
+beginning of the present century, a chief magistrate of Massachusetts,
+Gov. Gore, made a sort of progress through the State, in imposing style.
+His elegant, open carriage was drawn by four handsome and spirited
+horses, and he was attended by his aids and several outriders. The
+governor was a gentleman of fine personal appearance, and was attired in
+the highest style of contemporary civil costume, with his white hair
+gathered behind into a satin bag, and his aids were in undress military
+costume. He was a "Federalist," and this demonstration cost him his
+election the next time; for, though a man of brilliant ability and high
+personal character, he served but one year. At a date fifteen years
+later, I saw the "Democratic" governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Eustis, in
+attendance upon the Commencement exercises, at Harvard College, dressed
+much in the fashion of half a century earlier; namely, coat and waistcoat
+with broad flaps, small-clothes, ruffles at his bosom and wrists, a
+cocked hat of the old style, and a steel-hilted rapier at his side. Ten
+years afterwards, one of the best governors the Commonwealth has ever
+had, Mr. Lincoln, who served the State in this capacity for nine several
+terms, wore also a distinguishing costume, but more conformable to modern
+fashions. About the ruffles to his shirt-bosom I am sure, and feel much
+confidence, from memory, in regard to black small-clothes and black silk
+stockings, and his hat was always decorated with a black cockade.
+Nowadays a governor's appearance scarcely distinguishes him from any
+ordinary person in the crowd.
+
+The cocked hats, however, and much of the costume of the eighteenth
+century, continued to be worn by the survivors of Revolutionary officers
+and some others, during the first quarter of the present century and
+afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+The subjoined interesting sketch of an ancient dwelling-house and of a
+family which has inhabited it for several generations, was furnished by
+a distinguished friend, Thomas Coffin Amory, Esq., of Boston, who
+traces his ancestry on the maternal side to the family in question. Nor,
+in producing this highly interesting sketch, could I overlook Joshua
+Coffin, the historian of Newbury and a resident of that town, from the
+originally extensive territory of which various adjacent towns were
+eventually formed. He was possessed of many amiable qualities and
+inspired by the true antiquarian spirit, and laboriously pored among
+the not very carefully kept early records of the original settlement, and
+brought much out of chaos well calculated to illustrate its former
+history. Mr. Amory has, on various occasions, shown the spirit of a
+careful historical student and of an intelligent and zealous antiquary.
+His recent contributions to that excellent periodical, "The New England
+Historical and Genealogical Register," which has become of inestimable
+value, as a collection of facts illustrative of early New England
+history and biography, have given great pleasure to multitudes of
+readers,--especially his vivid and graphic descriptions of certain
+ancient and storied mansions in Boston and Cambridge, and of their former
+inhabitants. Let us hope that researches of such abundant interest and
+value will soon claim and gain a still larger share of the public
+attention in a collected form.
+
+  MY DEAR SIR,--In your reminiscences of Newburyport you must not
+  forget Joshua Coffin its historian,--one of the best of men, whom
+  no one knew but to love. I see him now as he came to visit me
+  several years ago, when he was representing his native town in the
+  General Court, a fresh, hale, cheery gentleman, full of pleasant
+  anecdotes relating to the past. He owned and occupied the Coffin
+  mansion, which had been the abode of seven generations of his
+  family and name. Out of its portals had issued numberless admirable
+  men and women, and from among the former, a large share of college
+  graduates, at Harvard and other New England colleges, of lawyers,
+  clergy, and soldiers, to do good service in their day and
+  generation.
+
+  At his suggestion, I visited this ancient dwelling which was
+  erected about 1649, by Mr. Somerby, the widow of whose progenitor
+  Tristram Coffin, Jr., married. This Tristram was the eldest son of
+  another Tristram, first of the race in America, who not many years
+  before, in 1642, came over from Brixton, near Plymouth, in
+  Devonshire, bringing with him his mother, and two sisters,--Eunice
+  who married William Butler, and Mary who became the wife of
+  Alexander Adams, of Boston. He brought with him also several sons
+  and daughters, to whom were added others born to him on this side
+  the ocean. His family in the home country had shown the same
+  tenacity and steadfastness, exemplified by their long continued
+  residence at Newburyport; for at Alwington and Portledge in Devon,
+  they had flourished, if not from the flood, from periods very
+  remote; for according to the historical statement, the Normans when
+  they came over in the eleventh century found them there, and left
+  them unmolested; and there still dwell their descendants in the
+  female line, who have assumed their appellation of Pine Coffin, one
+  of the house of Pine having married the heiress of the family
+  estates.
+
+  Tristram the elder, and his sons James and Stephen, were among the
+  nine who purchased the island of Nantucket from the Earl of
+  Stirling in 1659, and went there to dwell. Their descendants have
+  ever since been respectable and greatly multiplied, and not only on
+  that island but all over the country, having since been estimated
+  by thousands if not tens of thousands. Their usual average of
+  children has been half a score, and from their numerous progeny and
+  great longevity, we may judge what vigor was in the race. One of
+  them, William, son of Nathaniel, son of James, cruised over many
+  seas, as commander of a merchantman, and becoming interested in a
+  Boston maiden, Ann Holmes, settled about 1720 in the provincial
+  capital, where among other offices he filled with credit to himself
+  and his name was that for many years of warden of Trinity Church.
+  He died before the Revolution, leaving many children; most of his
+  sons at that period becoming refugee loyalists, they and their
+  descendants taking high rank in the British military and naval
+  service. John, son of Nathaniel, was a distinguished officer in the
+  Carolinas, and afterwards became Major-general. His brother, Sir
+  Isaac, early became distinguished on the ocean, was an Admiral,
+  Member of Parliament, and created a Baronet, which latter rank was
+  also bestowed on Thomas Astor, son of William, the eldest son of
+  the warden. Several others of the name and blood then and since
+  have filled with distinction posts of honor and respectability in
+  the civil service of the mother country at home, in Canada, and in
+  India.
+
+  But this is a digression. The only connection of the Nantucket
+  branch with Newbury is that old Tristram lived there for a brief
+  period, before repairing to his island home, and his son (the
+  younger of the name of Tristram, the family name of a grandmother)
+  and his posterity occupied the old mansion down through seven or
+  eight generations, and still dwell beneath its roof. At the time of
+  its erection the edifice must have been among the most elegant, as
+  its good state of preservation proves it to have been one of the
+  most substantial of its day, when the notion, prevailing in
+  England, that oak was the most suitable material of the forest for
+  dwellings, governed in their choice, with less reason, our
+  American planters. It was built in the mode common to the period,
+  round a vast brick chimney-stack, ten or twelve feet square. The
+  principal apartment, now divided into two, possessed, as did also
+  the kitchen, one of those spacious fireplaces which are the marvel
+  and envy of these degenerate days, when a hole in the carpet has
+  superseded in many households the family hearth. It is pleasant to
+  think of the groups that in the olden time clustered around them;
+  charming people, whom we know by tradition, and who are remembered
+  by many associations.
+
+  The house possesses various other apartments of size and
+  pretension, and has answered well the needs of the successive
+  generations that have occupied it, not only as a spacious and
+  commodious abode, but one sufficiently elegant to satisfy the
+  advancing standards of taste and refinement. Among the marked
+  features of the building are several small casements, lighting
+  closets and staircases, which give variety to the monotonous
+  symmetry of windows all of a size, one on top of another, and where
+  all the openings for egress or light are in straight lines and of
+  equal dimensions. It is many years since my visit, and I hope you
+  will see it, for much that was peculiar, and made a weird
+  impression at the time, has passed out of mind. If the trickles in
+  my own veins do not mislead, the present proprietors will be glad
+  to have pleasure afforded to the reading community, even by this
+  inadequate description of a house which has such claims to be
+  known, if, as you intimate, you purpose to place this account of it
+  in your Appendix. They will not consider it a liberty if I repeat
+  what some one not long since told me of an interesting relic of the
+  past discovered on its walls, a statement which might be related
+  almost in the same words of the house of MacPhaedrics at
+  Portsmouth.
+
+  Not many years since it was concluded to repaper the hall, the
+  walls of which were covered with several thicknesses of paper which
+  had from generation to generation been pasted one upon another. It
+  was thought best to remove them all, and when a large party of
+  young people, home for the holidays, were gathered for a dull week
+  of weather under its roof, they determined to amuse themselves by
+  stripping off the various layers of previous decorations,
+  preparatory to the new one intended to take their place. Underneath
+  them all was discovered, painted on the wall, artistic designs of
+  figures and foliage, such as were common in the days of the
+  Stuarts. All antiquarians are familiar with the similar
+  discoveries at Portsmouth, to which allusion has been made.
+
+  There are not many houses in America which have been so long owned
+  and occupied by the same name. The old brick mansion near
+  Portsmouth, of the Weeks family, the Curtis house at Boston
+  Highlands, Fairbanks at Dedham, Pickering at Salem, were
+  contemporaries in the period of the construction, and have
+  descended from sire to son as has this of the Coffins.
+
+  The house is pleasantly placed, and commands fine views from its
+  windows. Even in winter it must be, if not a cheerful, an
+  interesting abode to dwell in. In duller days, when skies are
+  leaden, and the more you see around you the less you like it, its
+  dreamy look of age and strangeness within and without may have a
+  somewhat depressing influence. The aches and agonies of so many
+  generations may gain an ascendancy over the exuberant joys that
+  made their life worth living. It would sometimes seem that if
+  fondness for the supernatural must be indulged, an old edifice like
+  this would prove a haunt more attractive, and certainly more
+  appropriate, for ghost and apparition than any school-room, however
+  noted for its spells. Yet notwithstanding some lugubrious
+  associations connected with the family patronymic, phantoms would
+  have to tread softly and whisper low if they invaded its precincts;
+  for the vigorous vitality of its occupants and their cheery tones,
+  if up to the traditional standard of their race, would exorcise the
+  very king of spectres himself, should he venture to stalk about at
+  the noonday, or revisit the glimpses of the moon in its ancient
+  chambers.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+I might have mentioned, as one of the amusements of childhood, the
+throwing of a piece of paper upon the embers of our wood-fire, for we had
+no coal in those days, and watching the gradual extinguishment of the
+sparks, likening it to a congregation entering the meeting-house. "There
+they go in," we would say. "There's the minister;" and as the final spark
+disappeared,--"Now, the sexton has gone in and shut the door." I speak of
+this only as a curious illustration of English ways traditionally
+surviving in New England. Thus Cowper tells us:--
+
+         "So when a child, as playful children use,
+          Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,
+          The flame extinct, he views the roving fire,--
+          There goes my lady, and there goes the squire;
+          There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!
+          And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!"
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+Several allusions having been made in the text to the "Wolfe" Tavern, I
+am able to present the following original bill of lading, constituting an
+incident in relation to the famous expedition to Quebec, and evincing at
+least a more formal recognition of a superintending Providence, than is
+the custom of more modern days:--
+
+  12 Oxen,
+  6 Horses,
+  No. 29 to 32. 4 Hogshd. Corn,
+  10 Baggs Corn,
+  10 Baggs Meal,
+  2 Carts with Furniture,
+  500 feet Boards,
+  1 pr. Smiths Bellows,
+  1 Box Smiths Tools,
+  1 Anvil,
+  1 Camp Kettle
+  10 Ox Yokes,
+  70 Bundles of Hay,
+  2 Handpumps,
+  18 Pails,
+  4 Tubbs,
+  2 Shovells,
+  4 Barr's Water, Settled.
+
+Shipped by the Grace of God in good Order and well Condition'd by Thomas
+Hancock, by order of His Excell'cy Major General Amherst, in and upon the
+good sloop call'd the "Endeavour," whereof is Master under GOD, for this
+present Voyage, William Clift, and now riding at Anchor in the Harbour of
+Boston, and by God's Grace bound for The Expedition up the River St.
+Lawrence, to say, Twelve Oxen, Six Horses, Four Hogshead and Ten Bags of
+Corn, Ten Bags of Meal, two Carts with their Furniture, Five hundred feet
+of Boards, One Pair Smiths Bellows, One Box Smiths Tools, One Anvill, One
+Camp Kettle, Ten Ox Yokes, Seventy Bundles of Hay, Two handpumps,
+Eighteen pails, Four Tubbs, Two Shovells, Four Barrells Water; being
+mark'd and number'd as in the Margin, and to be delivered in the like
+good Order, and well Condition'd, at the aforesaid Port of ---- (the
+Danger of the Seas only excepted) unto His Excell'cy Major General Wolfe,
+or to his Assigns,----or they paying Freight for the said
+Goods----Nothing----with Primage and Average accustom'd. In Witness
+whereof the Master or Purser of the said sloop hath affirmed to Two Bills
+of Lading, all of this Tenor and date; the one of which Two Bills being
+accomplished, the other one to stand void. And so GOD send the good sloop
+to her desired Port in Safety, _Amen_. Dated in
+
+BOSTON, _May 14, 1759_.
+
+                                                    WILL^{M}. CLIFT.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+On my occasional visit to Boston, I usually put up at the Eastern Stage
+House, perhaps because it was there that the stage-coach by which I
+arrived at the city discharged its passengers. It was an old fashioned
+establishment, which but for the absence of galleries, might remind one
+of the famous Tabard Inn, from which Chaucer's pilgrims set out. For its
+capacious yard, in which the passengers alighted, and where they
+remounted for their homeward journey, was approached through a narrow
+cross street, and in its ample stables the stage-horses took their rest
+and refreshment. The front entrance to the tavern was under an archway on
+Ann street, loyally named for the old queen; for which title was not long
+ago senselessly substituted the unsuggestive appellation of North street.
+It has long since given place to more modern edifices. It was a
+comfortable place of temporary residence, and in illustration of former
+manners I remember one practice which I have never seen elsewhere. At the
+plate of each guest, at dinner, was placed a small decanter of brandy,
+holding I suppose half-a-pint of that liquor, and for which no extra
+charge appeared in the bill, which account itself was moderate enough
+compared with the inordinate hotel reckonings of the present day.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+In small matters, as well as in great, history repeats itself. Thus, the
+anachronic emotion of Miss ---- (on page 17) finds its parallel in
+"Facetiae Poggii," written at Florence, in the year 1450, of which the
+following story is one:--
+
+"Cyriac of Ancona, a wordy man and much given to talk, was once deploring
+in our presence the fall and ruin of the Roman empire, and seemed to be
+vehemently grieved at it. Then Anthony Lusco, a most learned man, who
+also stood by, said, jeering at the silly grief of the fellow, 'He is
+very like a man of Milan, who, hearing on a feast day one of the race of
+minstrels, who are wont to sing the deeds of departed heroes to the
+people, reciting the death of Roland, who was slain about seven hundred
+years before in battle, fell at once a-weeping bitterly, and when he got
+home to his wife, and she saw him sad and sighing, and asked what was the
+matter, "Alas! alas! wife," he said, "we are as good as dead and gone."
+"Why, man," she answered, "what dreadful thing has befallen you? Take
+comfort and come to supper." But he, when he went on sobbing and sighing,
+and would take no food, and his wife pressed him to tell the cause of his
+woe, at last said, "Don't you know the bad news I have heard to-day?"
+"What?" asked the wife. "Roland is dead, who alone was the safeguard of
+Christendom." On which his wife tried to soothe the silly grief of her
+husband, and yet, with all her tenderness, could scarce get him to sit
+down to meat.'"[13]
+
+The effect of the ballad, however, upon the worthy man of Milan reminds
+one of the historical incident, recording the effect of song, celebrated
+anew in one of the stanzas of Childe Harold:--
+
+     "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
+      And fettered thousands felt the yoke of war,
+      Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
+      Her voice their only ransom from afar;
+      See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
+      Of the o'ermastered victor stops: the reins
+      Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar
+      Starts from its belt--he rends his captives' chains,
+      And bids them thank the bard for freedom and his strains."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+The ancestor of Colonel Edward Wigglesworth, mentioned in the text, an
+officer of the Revolution, highly esteemed by Washington, was Rev.
+Michael Wigglesworth, author of "The Day of Doom," published in the last
+quarter of the seventeenth century, and reprinted in London; a dreadfully
+dismal, but edifying poem, and not without a certain horrifying merit.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+Were it within the scope of this work, I might furnish a catalogue, by no
+means meagre, of inhabitants formerly distinguished in their day and
+generation. For example, I have heard it stated as a curious fact, that,
+not far from the beginning of the present century, each of the three
+Professors of Harvard College, namely, Professors Webber, afterwards
+President; Pearson, and Toppan, were natives of Newbury.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+I could hardly dismiss this volume from my hands without some reference
+to the means of public information furnished by the newspapers of the
+town. Of these, there have been, since "The Essex Journal," soon
+afterwards merged in "The Impartial Herald," and first published in 1773,
+between thirty and forty attempts to establish newspapers; but the
+"Herald," the successor of those before-named, for many years conducted
+as a semi-weekly journal, and since the year 1832 as a daily paper, has
+alone steadily maintained its ground. It has always been distinguished
+for the editorial ability displayed in its columns, and for a care
+bestowed upon its several departments, which gave it a high reputation,
+scarcely surpassed by that of leading journals in our larger cities.
+
+"The Essex Journal" was begun by Isaiah Thomas, who in the course of a
+year sold his interest in it to Ezra Lunt; and he, after two years,
+obeying another call to public service, sold it to John Mycall. The first
+of these began life in the humblest condition, without schooling of any
+kind, it is alleged; taught himself to read and write, and after a time
+removed to Worcester, became connected with a noted paper there, the
+"Massachusetts Spy," at length accumulated a handsome fortune, for the
+times, much of which, after a long life, he bequeathed to the Antiquarian
+Society of Worcester, and a portion to Harvard College, and other
+literary institutions. He was the founder, also, of the American
+Antiquarian Society. He became a writer and educator of much repute.
+
+Upon the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, Mr. Ezra Lunt was the
+first man who volunteered, in the meeting-house, when the minister, Rev.
+Mr. Parsons, exhorted his parishioners to military service; was chosen
+captain of the company, with which he was present in command at Bunker
+Hill, and afterwards was raised to the rank of major. He took part in the
+battle of Monmouth Court House, when the British army, under Sir Henry
+Clinton, retired with much difficulty and loss before Washington, and
+used to relate the particulars of the well-known rebuke administered by
+that great chief to General Charles Lee for his hasty retreat from the
+advanced post, which had been assigned him. He declared himself to have
+been close by at the moment, and to have heard the energetic language
+used on the occasion. After the war, he received his allotment of land,
+and settled upon it, at Marietta, Ohio.
+
+Mr. Mycall was a person of much natural capacity and shrewdness, with
+certain eccentricities of character, and kept up a little politic mystery
+about himself. He once engaged a well-known carriage-maker of the day to
+build him a chaise, which it was agreed should be finished at a certain
+time. When the specified period arrived, the vehicle was not forthcoming.
+Enduring a similar disappointment several times, and expressing himself
+strongly about it to the offender, that individual promised it to him
+positively at a certain date, _if he was alive_. Even then, it was not
+delivered; but what was the astonishment of the faulty party to read in
+his newspaper the next morning, "Died, yesterday, P. B., chaise-maker,"
+etc. In a state of boiling indignation he rushed to the street, and on
+the way to the office of publication called the attention of various
+acquaintances to the wrongful statement, which, it appeared, no one had
+observed. Entering the office, he inquired, with much feeling, how Mr.
+Mycall could have published such a paragraph. "Did you not promise me,"
+said the editor, "that my chaise should be sent home, on such a day, if
+you were alive?" "Well, supposing I did?" "Why, then, of course, you must
+be dead!" Taking up a copy of the paper from his desk, and examining the
+obituary notices, "But," said the editor, "there is no such statement
+here." The bewildered chaise-maker hastened home to examine his paper
+anew; and it appeared, on inquiry, that the account of his decease was
+printed only in his own copy; a gloomy jest, which was soon much relished
+by the community.
+
+Indeed, the town became for a time a noted place for the publication of
+standard works, and books of various descriptions. It was here that the
+well-known Mr. Edmund M. Blunt, who subsequently removed to the city of
+New York, published his valuable and famous "American Coast Pilot," and,
+afterwards, the no less useful "Practical Navigator."
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+In attestation of the remark, on page 144 of the text, that an antiquated
+pronunciation of many English words prevailed long in New England, after
+it was disused in Old England, and was brought by the colonists from the
+Mother Country, see the criticism of "Holofernes" upon innovations in
+pronunciation, in Act V., Sc. 1, of "Love's Labor Lost," showing the
+state of the case in Shakespeare's time.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+In closing this Appendix, which might be extended to almost any length,
+as recollections which did not occur to me in writing the body of the
+work come up, I cannot omit a remarkable use of the American language,
+let us say, since the Czar once so denominated the English tongue. It was
+upon the part of a town constable, perhaps as nearly of the Dogberry type
+as could be imagined. I was standing in the town hall, at a moment
+preliminary to a public meeting. A knot of youngsters had been joking one
+another, when this authoritative official approached. All but one
+speedily retired before the awful presence. "Master Constable" addressed
+the lingerer: "_Disperge_,"--a difficult operation for an
+individual,--"_disperge_, I say; we can't have no _burlash_ here!"
+
+Even Shakespeare might have been glad of such an opportunity to enlarge
+the cacology, by actual hearing, of some of his most amusing characters.
+
+-----
+ [13]  Quoted in Dasent's "Jest and Earnest." London, 1873.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Academy, of good standing, 137
+  Adams, J. Q., 134
+  Addison on English Superstition, 176
+  Adventure of American Sea-captain with Christophe, Emperor of Hayti, 61
+  "Algerines;" their Quarrel with Foreign Sailors, 74
+  Ancient Elder, 120
+  Ancient Episcopal Church; its former Rector, Bishop of Massachusetts,
+  114, 130
+  Apparition, an, 184
+  Aristocracy, 21
+  Aunt Judith, 23
+  Aunt Judith's Narrative of Witchcraft, 169
+
+  Balaklava Charge, 28
+  Bar, dangerous, 6
+  Bartlett, William, 33
+  Beggars, mimic, 106
+  Beverages, formerly, 96
+  Bishop Bass, 130
+  Bold Youngster, 165
+  Books, some that we read, 138, 139
+  Borderers, 74
+  Boyish Sports, 14
+  Bradbury, Judge, 34
+  British Orders in Council, 108
+  Bromfield Legacy, 18
+  Buchan, Earl of, 63
+
+  Campbell, "Tom," 27
+  Cannon for street posts, 58
+  Capen, Parson, 178
+  Characteristic Letter, 40
+  Christmas Evening, 161
+  Christmas Hymn, 163
+  Christophe of Hayti, 61
+  Clergy of the town, 122
+  Clergyman, Scottish, 166
+  Collector Marquand, 37
+  Collector Wigglesworth, 36
+  Comparative value of money, 21
+  Congregation, "Scrupulous," 122
+  Consequences of war and embargo, 57
+  Court of Common Pleas, 83
+  Cunning expedient, 22
+
+  Dalton, Tristram, 34
+  Damage of war, 38
+  Dana, Rev. Dr., 128
+  Dangerous bar, 6
+  Devil's den, 15
+  Dexter, "Lord," 63
+  Dexter's poet, 66
+  Dinah for Diana, 145
+  Discourse of Rev. Mr. Murray, 99
+  Dissatisfied washerwoman, 104
+  Dogberry and Verges, 198
+  Domestic, Scottish, 104
+
+  Earl of Buchan, 63
+  Earthquakes in former times, 113
+  Edinburgh, similar habits in, 10
+  Elder, an old-fashioned, 120
+  Emperor of Hayti, 61
+  English Clergymen, 124
+  English Reader. Are modern text-books as useful?, 137
+  English superstition, 176
+  Enterprise, Maritime and Commercial, 5
+  Extraordinary images, 63
+
+  Failure, swindling, 103
+  Favor, Johnny: his opinion of polemics, 133
+  Few insane persons, and the treatment of them formerly, 45
+  Fights of boys, 10
+  Fine trees, 17
+  Fire, strange, 190
+  Fire, the "great," 103
+  Foot-warming process, 118
+  Former Rector of St. Paul's a Bishop, 130
+  Former severe winters, 1
+  Former solemn proceedings in naturalization, 110
+  Fourth of July, 98
+  Fright of an old woman, 100
+  Fugitive Sea-captain and a lively chase, 58
+
+  Ghost, reputed, 180
+  Gould, Miss Hannah F., 31
+  Gourmand, a, 98
+  Great Fire, 103
+  Greys, Silver, 56
+  Grouse, Old, story of, 146
+  Growth of Episcopal Church, 130
+
+  Habits in Edinburgh, 10
+  Habits, jovial, of old times, 96
+  Hardships of early times, 40
+  Hay-time treating, 109
+  "Hinx-minx," origin of, 174
+  Hohenlinden, 28
+  Holt, Granny, 169
+  Home, return to, 202
+  How they used to "break," 103
+  Huntington, Countess of, and her Seminary, 124
+  Hymn, Christmas, 163
+
+  Images, extraordinary, 63
+  Indifference to cold, 119
+  Inquisitive spinster, 123
+  Insane persons, few, 45
+  Internal trade, 67
+  Introductory chapters to Scott's novels, 159
+
+  Jackson family, 24
+  James, King of Scotland, 106
+  Johnson, Samuel, Dr., 26
+  "Joppa Jine," 144
+  Jovial habits of old times, 109
+  Judith, Aunt, 23
+  July 4th, 98
+
+  King James of Scotland, 106
+  King Louis Philippe, 4
+  King, Rufus, 135
+
+  Lee, Mrs. George, 31
+  Longfellow, 32
+  Lowells, The, 24
+
+  Magistrate and culprit, 51
+  Mansions, remarkable, 18
+  Manufacturing establishments, 4
+  Maritime enterprise, 5
+  Market Square, triangular, 66
+  Marquand, Collector, 37
+  Massachusetts, Diocese of, 130
+  Meeting-houses--stoves and organs, 118
+  Merchant, rich, 34
+  Milton, Rev. Mr., 124
+  Mimic beggars, 106
+  Money, comparative value of, 21
+  "Moses is come!," 100
+  Murray, Rev. Mr., 99
+  Murray's Reader, 137
+
+  Naturalization, etc., 110
+  New England pronunciation, 144
+  New England superstition, of old, 160
+  Novelist, English, his surprise, 9
+  Nutting, etc., 14
+
+  Old-fashioned hospitality in beverages, 109
+  "Old Grouse," story of, 146
+  Old Peddlers, 67
+  Old Woman, fright of, 100
+  Orders in Council, British, 108
+  Organ of St. Paul's, 118
+  Origin of "Hinx-Minx," 174
+  Our Town, 5
+
+  Paine, Robert Treat, 134
+  Parson, Capen, 178
+  Parsonage and its curious picture, 52
+  Parsons, Chief Justice, 134
+  Particular Shoemaker, 48
+  Peabody, George, 33
+  Peace of 1783, 99
+  Peddlers, old, 67
+  People of St. James's, 131
+  Perkins, Jacob, 25
+  Personal part of leading citizens in politics, 94
+  Persons, distinguished, 34
+  Picture, curious, 52
+  Pike, Nicholas, 25
+  Polemics, 132
+  Political hostilities, 55
+  Poultry in profusion, 67
+  Practice, modern, of naturalization, 110
+  Professional persons, etc., 83
+  "Project," what it is, 174
+  Putnam, Oliver, 33
+
+  Quaker meeting, 136
+  Queer contrast of language, 61
+
+  Railways and their influence, 142
+  Ramsay, Dean, and others, Reminiscences of, 10
+  Reader, Murray's English, 137
+  Reading parties, 142
+  Refinement of certain classes, 133
+  Reputed apparition, 192
+  Respect for the clergy, 29
+  "Retort courteous," 27
+  Rev. Dr. Dana, 128
+  Rev. Mr. Milton, 124
+  Rev. Dr. Morse, 131
+  Rev. Mr. Murray, 122
+  Rev. Dr. Spring, 29
+  Richard, Uncle, 162
+
+  Sabbath, how kept, 120
+  Sailing adventure, 7
+  "Salt," ancient, 3
+  Saturday and Sunday evenings, 30
+  Scenery on the river, 5
+  School books, etc., 137
+  Schoolmaster, a shrewd, 140
+  Scott's Autobiography, 10
+  Scott's reply to certain critics, 159
+  Scottish domestic, cool and faithful, 104
+  "Scrupulous" congregation, 122
+  Scrupulous shoemaker, 48
+  Severe winters, 1
+  Shipbuilding, etc., 5
+  Silver Greys, 56
+  Singular companion, 168
+  Singular night adventure, 87
+  Snow-storm in old times, 2
+  Social security, 85
+  Stage-house, 53
+  St. James's, 143
+  Story of an apparition, 179
+  Story of bold youngster, 165
+  Stove in Church, 118
+  Street fights of boys, 10
+  Striking adventure of Rufus King, 135
+  Surprise of Thackeray, 9
+  Swett and Schwedt, 30
+  Swindling failure, 103
+  Sympathetic young lady, 17
+
+  Tennyson's "Charge at Balaklava," 28
+  Text instead of sermon, 119
+  "Thanks be to Praise!," 202
+  Thanksgiving, 105
+  Timber and shipbuilding, 5
+  "Tom" Campbell, 27
+  Topsfield spectre, 177
+  Town-meeting and resolute chairman, 96
+  Trade, internal, of the town, 67
+  Traders, small, 67
+  Treating in hay-time, 109
+  Trees of great beauty, 17
+  Triangular Market Square, 66
+  Tyng Family, 24
+
+  Uncle Richard, 162
+  United States after a runaway, 58
+  Unterrified clergyman, 166
+
+  Verges and Dogberry, 198
+  Vulgarian of the nouveaux riches, 62
+
+  Wages, low rate of, 23
+  Walsh, Michael, 25
+  What a "project" is or was, 174
+  Wheelwright, William, 32
+  Whipping-post, 123
+  Wigglesworth, Colonel, 36
+  Winters, severe formerly, 1
+  Witchcraft, and Uncle Richard's opinion of it, 167
+  Wood's account of the aristocracy., 21
+
+  Yankee acuteness, 141
+  Young persons sent to the town for education, 134
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Archaic, variable, and misspelled words and punctuation
+  inconsistancies have been preserved as printed in all of the
+  quoted material with one exception. This includes all poetry,
+  quotations, letters, and documents.
+
+  The one exception is in the poem Childe Harold, a section of
+  which is quoted in the Appendix, Section IX. The word =scimeter=
+  was changed to =scimitar= because it is spelled correctly in the
+  original poem by Lord Byron located at PG,
+  EText-No. 5131, Canto IV, Stanza XVI.
+
+  The following changes were made to the original text. The
+  correction is enclosed in brackets:
+
+  Page 106: and they skurried away [scurried]
+
+  Page 116: but the fact incontestibly proves, [incontestably]
+
+  Page 187: My mother was in close attendance upon sick members of
+  my sister's family? [changed punctuation to a period]
+
+  Page 230: Fall from his hands--his idle scimetar [scimitar]
+
+  The following word has been found in both hyphenated and
+  unhyphenated form in the original text: road-side (roadside).
+  The original hyphenation has been preserved.
+
+  Footnotes have been numbered consecutively and have been placed
+  at the end of each chapter.
+
+  Superscripted letters in the original book and the HTML version are
+  represented by ^{} in the text version.
+
+  The "long i" macron is respresented in the text as [=i].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old New England Traits, by Anonymous
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