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diff --git a/old/54028-0.txt b/old/54028-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 12f92dc..0000000 --- a/old/54028-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2077 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Heroines of New England Romance, by -Harriet Prescott Spofford and Louise Imogen Guiney and Alice Brown - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Three Heroines of New England Romance - Their true stories herein set forth by Mrs Harriet Spoffard, - Miss Louise Imogen Guiney, and Miss Alice Brown - -Author: Harriet Prescott Spofford - Louise Imogen Guiney - Alice Brown - -Illustrator: Edmund H. Garrett - -Release Date: January 20, 2017 [EBook #54028] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE HEROINES--NEW ENGLAND ROMANCE *** - - - - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - -THREE HEROINES OF NEW ENGLAND ROMANCE - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: “_with her sweeping brocades and a cushion towering upon -her powdered head_”] - - - - -[Illustration] - -THREE HEROINES OF NEW ENGLAND ROMANCE - -[Illustration] - - -THEIR true stories herein set forth by Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford -Miss Louise Imogen Guiney and Miss Alice Brown - - With many little picturings - authentic and fanciful by - Edmund H Garrett and published - by Little Brown and - Company Boston 1894 - -[Illustration] - - - - - _Copyright, 1894,_ - BY EDMUND H. GARRETT. - - - University Press: - JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PRISCILLA 15 - HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. - - AGNES SURRIAGE 63 - ALICE BROWN. - - MARTHA HILTON 109 - LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. - - NOTES 137 - EDMUND H. GARRETT. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -LIST OF DRAWINGS - - - Martha Hilton. “With her sweeping brocades and a cushion - towering upon her powdered head” _Frontispiece._ - - Priscilla at the spinning wheel 14 - - “In his rough cradle by the sounding sea” 17 - - Rose Standish 21 - - “The daring and spirited girl” 25 - - “Or in calmer moments reading the blessed promises of His word” 29 - - Miles Standish 33 - - “Up and down the sands I’d pace” 36 - - “Her respected parent” 37 - - “There, too, came Priscilla” 41 - - “Ponds set like jewels in the ring of the green woods” 43 - - “First happened on the Mayflower” 45 - - “The blushing Sabbatia” 47 - - John Alden 49 - - “Silvers its wave, its rustling wave” 51 - - The wedding procession 53 - - Grape-vine 56 - - Woodbine 57 - - The ships of the merchants 59 - - “Up-stairs and down-stairs ran the streets” 64 - - “Houses set ‘catty cornered’” 65 - - “An old Marbleheader” 67 - - “The solid dignity of the old Town House” 69 - - “The old graveyard” 71 - - “The wild azalea” 74 - - “The blackberry clings and crowds” 75 - - Butterfly 75 - - “Again he came riding” 77 - - “Bravely attired in small clothes and wigs” 81 - - “She learned to play on the harpsichord” 83 - - Frankland 85 - - “Tragic battlings of heart and conscience” 87 - - “All the more did she turn to Frankland” 89 - - “The giant box and a few ancient trees” 92 - - “At the banquets” 93 - - “His ancestral home” 95 - - “The opera was the finest on the continent” 97 - - Agnes Surriage 99 - - “They again visited Lisbon” 102 - - “Married a wealthy banker of Chichester” 104 - - “The little figure with the swishing bucket” 108 - - “Sly damsels in Puritan caps” 110 - - “Gold laced dandies at Newport” 111 - - “Nor need link herself with the neighboring yokel whom - Providence had assigned her” 113 - - Where Governor Wentworth was born 114 - - “A fishmonger in London” 115 - - “He had the mortification to see her prefer one Shortridge, - a mechanic” 117 - - “His snuff-boxes and his bowls” 118 - - Governor Benning Wentworth 119 - - Wentworth house at Little Harbor 121 - - “Her strategic eye upon master’s deciduous charms” 123 - - “The great buck of his day” 127 - - “Fiddling at Stoodley’s far into the morning” 131 - - “Wharves now rotting along the harbor-borders” 133 - - Old houses 139 - - An old English church 139 - - Picturesque barns 140 - - The Weston flag-staff 141 - - “Houses sheltered by great elms” 142 - - “Past fertile farms” 142 - - “Over picturesque stone bridges” 143 - - “Here is a noble elm” 144 - - The Wayside Inn, Sudbury 145 - - Great elms at Hopkinton 149 - - Shirley Place 151 - - The Royall House, Medford 153 - - Medford Square 155 - - Street leading to Moll Pitcher’s 156 - - Moll Pitcher’s house and the graveyard 157 - - Some fishermen’s hats 159 - - Circle Street and Floyd Ireson’s house 161 - - “This is where the sailors in pigtails and petticoats - used to be” 165 - - St. John’s, Portsmouth 168 - - The Gardiner House and the linden 169 - - Stoodley’s 171 - - Plymouth, the home of Priscilla 172 - - A country road 173 - - Decorative designs Title, 7, 8, 9, 12, 105, 106, 134, 175 - - Initials 15, 63, 109, 137 - -[Illustration] - - - - -PRISCILLA - -[Illustration: _Priscilla_] - - - “The swallow with summer - Will wing o’er the seas, - The wind that I sigh to - Will visit thy trees. - The ship that it hastens - Thy ports will contain, - But me—I shall never - See England again!” - - -I OFTEN fancy John Alden, and others, too, among his companions of -kindly fame, wandering down the long Plymouth beach and murmuring to -themselves thoughts like these. And I like to look in the annals of the -gentle Pilgrims and the sterner Puritans for any pages where one may -find muffled for a moment the strain of high emprise which wins our awe -and our praise, but not so surely our love, and gain access on their -more human side to the men and women who lived the noblest romance in -all history. - -[Illustration: “‘_In his rough cradle by the sounding sea_—’”] - -So one comes on the story of the Lady Arbella, and her love and -death, with the sweet surprise one has in finding a fragile flower -among granite ledges. So the Baby Peregrine’s velvet cheek has the -unconscious caress of every mother who thinks of him rocked to sleep -in his rough cradle by the sounding sea. So the thought deals tenderly -with Dorothy Bradford, who crossed the mighty darkness of the deep only -to fall overboard from the “Mayflower,” and be drowned in harbor, and -would fain reap some harvest of romance in the coming over sea, three -years afterward, of Mrs. Southworth, with her young sons, Constant and -Thomas, to marry the Governor, who had loved her as Alice Carpenter -lang syne. And so the story of John Alden’s courtship is read as if -we had found some human beings camped in the midst of demigods. - -[Illustration: ROSE STANDISH] - -Certainly Miles Standish was not of the demigods, if he was of the -heroes. No Puritan ascetic he, by nature or belief. One might imagine -him some soul that failed to find incarnation among the captains and -pirates of the great Elizabeth’s time, the Raleighs and Drakes and -Frobishers, and who, coming along a hundred years too late, did his -best to repair the mistake. A choleric fellow, who had quarrelled -with his kin, and held himself wronged by them of his patrimony; of -a quarrelsome race, indeed, that had long divided itself into the -Catholic Standishes of Standish and the Protestant Standishes of -Duxbury; a soldier who served the Queen in a foreign garrison, and of -habits and tastes the more emphasized because he was a little man; -supposed never to have been of the same communion as those with whom -he cast in his lot,—it is not easy to see the reason of his attraction -to the Pilgrims in Holland. Perhaps he chose his wife, Rose, from -among them, and so united himself to them; if not that, then possibly -she herself may have been inclined to their faith, and have drawn -him with her; or it may have been that his doughty spirit could not -brook to see oppression, and must needs espouse and champion the side -crushed by authority. For the rest, at the age of thirty-five the love -of adventure was still an active passion with him. That he was of -quick, but not deep affections is plain from the swiftness with which -he would fain have consoled himself after the death of Rose, his wife; -and, that effort failing, by his sending to England for his wife’s -sister Barbara, as it is supposed, and marrying her out of hand. That -he was behind the spirit of the movement with which he was connected -may be judged by his bringing home and setting up the gory head of his -conquered foe; for although he was not alone in that retrograde act, -since he only did what he had been ordered to do by the elders, yet -the holy John Robinson, the inspirer and conscience of them all, -cried out at that, “Oh that he had converted some before he killed -any!” Nevertheless, that and other bloody deeds seem to have been -thoroughly informed with his own satisfaction in them. His armor, his -sword, his inconceivable courage, his rough piety, that “swore a prayer -or two,”—all give a flavor of even earlier times to the story of his -day, and bring into the life when certain dainties were forbidden, as -smacking of Papistry, a goodly flavor of wassail-bowls, and a certain -powerful reminiscence of the troops in Flanders. - -That such a nature as the fiery Captain’s could not exist without the -soothing touch of love, could not brook loneliness, and could not -endure grief, but must needs arm himself with forgetfulness and a new -love when sorrow came to him in the loss of the old, is of course to -be expected. If he were a little precipitate in asking for Priscilla’s -affection before Rose had been in her unnamed grave three months, -something of the blame is due to the condition of the colony, which -made sentimental considerations of less value than practical ones,—an -evident fact, when Mr. Winslow almost immediately on the death of his -wife married the mother of Peregrine White, not two months a widow, -hardly more a mother. - -Apparently there were not a great many young girls in the little -company. The gentle Priscilla Mullins and the high-minded Mary Chilton -were the most prominent ones, at any rate. One knows instinctively -that it would not be Mary Chilton towards whom the soldier would be -drawn,—the daring and spirited girl who must be the first to spring -ashore when the boat touched land. It is true that John Alden’s -descendants ungallantly declare that he was before her in that act; -but no one disputes her claim to be the first woman whose foot touched -shore; and that is quite enough for one who loves to think of her and -of the noble and serene Ann Hutchinson as the far-away mothers of the -loftiest and loveliest soul she ever knew. - -[Illustration: _The daring and spirited girl_] - -One can well conjecture Mary Chilton as comforting and supporting -Priscilla in the terrors of that voyage, in such storms as that -where the little ship, tossed at the waves’ will, lay almost on -her beam-ends, and the drowning man who had gone down fathoms deep -clutched her topsail-halyards and saved himself; or in calmer moments -reading the blessed promises of His word. Young girls willing to -undertake that voyage, that enterprise, and whose hearts were already -so turned heavenward as the act implied, must have been of a lofty -type of thought and nature; they must often have walked the narrow -deck, exchanging the confidences of their hopes and dreams. I see them -sitting and softly singing hymns together, on the eve of that first -Sunday on the new coast, sitting by that fragrant fire of the red -cedar which Captain Standish brought back to the ships after the first -exploration of the forest. Priscilla might have sung, “The Lord is my -shepherd,” and the voice of Rose may have added a note of sweetness to -the strain. But that gentle measure would never have expressed the -feelings of the Captain, whose God was “a man of war.” If, out of the -tunes allowed, there were one that fitted the wild burden,—and unless -their annexation to the book of Common Prayer caused the disapproval -of “All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sternholde, late Grome of the -Kinges Majestyes Robes, did in his lyfe-tyme drawe into Englyshe -Metre,”—I can feel the zest with which the Captain may have roared out,— - - “The Lord descended from above, - And bowed the heavens high, - And underneath His feet He cast - The darkness of the sky. - On seraph and on cherubim - Full royally He rode, - And on the wings of mighty winds - Came flying all abroad!” - -[Illustration: “_Or in calmer moments reading the blessed promises of -His word_”] - -One might suppose that Priscilla, gentle as tradition represents -her, would have been attracted by the fire and spirit of the brave -Captain. But perhaps she was not so very gentle. Was there a spice -of feminine coquetry in her famous speech to John Alden, for all her -sweet Puritanism? Or was it that she understood the dignity and worth -of womanhood, and was the first in this new land to take her stand upon -it? - -The whole story of the courtship which her two lovers paid to her is a -bit of human nature suddenly revealing itself in the flame of a great -passion,—a mighty drama moving before us, and a chance light thrown -upon the stage giving the life and motion of a scene within a scene. -There is a touching quality in the modest feeling of the soldier; he is -still a young man, not at all grizzled, or old, or gray, as the poet -paints him,—perhaps thirty-five or thirty-six years old. Daring death -at every daily exposure of the colony to dangers from disease, from the -tomahawk, from the sea, from the forest, always the one to go foremost -and receive the brunt, to put his own life and safety a barrier against -the common enemy,—yet he shrank from telling a girl that she had fired -his inflammable heart, and would fain let her know the fact by the -one who, if he has left no record of polished tongue or ready phrase, -was the one he loved as the hero loves the man of peace, the one who -loved him equally,—the youth of twenty-three whose “countenance of -gospel looks” could hardly at that time have carried in its delicate -lineaments much of the greatness of nature that may have belonged to -the ancestor of two of our Presidents. - -[Illustration: Miles Standish] - -For the purposes of romance, fathers and mothers are often much in -the way; and the poet and the romancer, with a reckless disregard of -the life and safety of Mr. William Mullins, her respected parent, -represent Priscilla as orphaned while her father was yet alive. It was -to Mr. Mullins that John Alden, torn between duty and passion, and -doubtless pale with suffering, presented the Captain’s claims. If the -matter was urged rather perfunctorily, Mr. Mullins seems not to have -noticed it, as he gave his ready consent. But we may be confident that -Priscilla did; and that, after all, maidenly delicacy would never -have suffered her to utter her historic words, “Why don’t you speak -for yourself, John?” if the deadly sinking of his heart had not been -evident in his downcast face. Does it need any chronicle to tell us -what a flame of joy shot through John Alden’s heart at the instant of -those words,—what an icy wave of despair quenched it,—what a horror of -shame overcame Priscilla till her blushes became a pain? For when she -had dared so much, and dared in vain, what else but shame could be her -portion? - -They must have been dark days that followed for the two young lovers. -Can you not see John Alden trying to walk away his trouble on the -stretch of the long beach, to escape his sense of treachery, his sorrow -in his friend’s displeasure, his joy and his shame together? - - “There, my cloak about my face, - Up and down the sands I’d pace, - Making footprints for the spray - To wash away. - . . . . . . - - “Up and down the barren beaches, - Round the ragged belts of land, - In along the curving reaches, - Out along the horns of sand.” - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: “Her respected parent”] - -There, too, came Priscilla, without much doubt, when the closeness -of the little cluster of log huts, within a few feet of one another, -grew too oppressive, or the notion that others looked askance at her, -lest in any recklessness of desperation the Captain, the mainstay -of the colony, threw his life away in the daily expeditions he -undertook,—came not as girls stroll along the shore to gather shells, -to write their names on the sand, to pick up the seaweed with hues like -those - - “Torn from the scarfs and gonfalons of Kings - Who dwell beneath the waters,” - -as very likely she had done ere this, but to forget her trouble, to -diffuse and lose it. For here, added to homesickness and horror and -impending famine, was a new trouble, worse perhaps than all the rest. -If her lover had been lost at sea, she might have watched for his sail, - - “And hope at her yearning heart would knock - When a sunbeam on a far-off rock - Married a wreath of wandering foam.” - -[Illustration: “There too came Priscilla”] - -[Illustration: “Ponds set like jewels on the ring of the green woods”] - -But this was more unbearable than loss: she had dishonored herself in -his eyes; she had betrayed herself, and he had scorned her; and she -came to the sea for the comfort which nearness to the vast and the -infinite always gives. Even that was not solitude; for there, a mile -away, lay the “Mayflower,” still at anchor, where the spy-glass made -her prisoner, while it was not safe for a lonely girl to tread the -shore at night, watching the glow of the evening star or the moonswale -on the sea. Perhaps, with Mary Chilton by her side, or with some of the -smaller children of the colony, she climbed a hill, protected by the -minion and the other piece of ordnance, which were afterwards mounted -on the roof of the rude church, and looked down over the cluster of -cabins where now the fair town lies, and thought life hard and sorry, -and longed, as John Alden himself did, for the shelter of Old England. -Perhaps she had no time for lovesick fancies, anyway, in the growing -sickness among the people, which tasked the strength and love of all; -and when, watching with the sick at night, she thrust aside a casement -latticed with oiled paper, or chanced to go outside the door for fresh -water to cool a fevered lip, she saw a planet rising out of the sea, -or the immeasurable universe of stars wheeling overhead, over desolate -shore, and water, and wilderness, she felt her own woe too trivial -to be dwelt upon; and when on the third of March her father died and -was laid in the field where the wheat was planted over the level graves -for fear of the Indians, we may be sure that she saw her trouble as -part of the cross she was to bear, and waited in patience and meekness -either till the rumor came of the death of Miles Standish in the Indian -skirmish,—of which we know nothing,—or till John Alden had made it up -with his conscience and found his chance, not in the crowded little log -huts, not on the open shore, but within the leafy covert of the freshly -springing woodside, with none but the fallow deer to see them, to put -an end to her unrest. - -[Illustration: “First happened on the Mayflower”] - -[Illustration: The blushing Sabbatia] - -Probably that period of bliss now dawned which makes most lovers -feel themselves lifted into a region just above the earth and when -they tread on air. It was in the hallowed time of this courtship, on -the skirts of the deep pine forests, that they first happened on the -mayflower, the epigea, full of the sweetest essence of the earth which -lends it her name, and felt as if love and youth and joy and innocence -had invented a flower for them alone,—the deeply rosy and ineffably -fragrant mayflower that blooms only in the Plymouth woods in its -pink perfection, and whose breath must have seemed like a breath blown -out of the open doors of the new life awaiting them together. If they -had ventured as far as any of the numberless ponds, set like jewels in -the ring of the green woods about them, something later in their new -year, they would have found the blushing sabbatia in all its pristine -loveliness,—the flower most typical of Priscilla herself; the flower to -which some fortunate fate, in view of the sabbatical character of the -region, gave the name of an old Italian botanist, as if it were its own -from the beginning; a flower which is to-day less rare around Plymouth -than elsewhere. Now, in the soft spring evenings, too, it may be that -they strolled along the beach, and watched the phosphorescence of the -waters playing about the sacred rock with which the continent had gone -out first to meet them, all unweeting that it was the “corner-stone of -a nation.” Now,—for lovers will be lovers still, although the whole -body of Calvinism be behind them, and the lurking foe of the forest -before,—they sat on the Burial Hill by night, and watched such a scene -as William Allingham has pictured,— - -[Illustration: John Alden.] - -[Illustration] - - “Above the headlands massy, dim, - A swelling glow, a fiery birth, - A marvel in the sky doth swim, - Advanced upon the hush of earth. - - “The globe, o’erhanging bright and brave - The pale green-glimmering ocean-floor, - Silvers its wave, its rustling wave - Soft folded on the shelving floor. - - “O lonely moon, a lonely place - Is this thou cheerest with thy face; - Three sand-side houses, and afar - The steady beacon’s faithful star”— - -only, instead of the three sand-side houses it was “the Seven Houses of -Plymouth,” and all the beacon was the light in the “Mayflower’s” or -the “Fortune’s” shrouds. - -That the betrothal did not impair the friendship of the lovers with the -impetuous Captain Standish, we can understand from the fact that when, -subsequently, the Captain built his house over on Duxbury Hill, John -Alden’s house stood near it; and that later,—and unhindered, for aught -we know,—John Alden’s daughter married the Captain’s son. It pleases me -to think that the dear daughter-in-law, by whom, in his last will and -testament, the old Captain desired to be buried, was the daughter of -Priscilla Mullins. - -[Illustration] - -Priscilla and John must have had time enough for this sweet acceptance -of life and nature together, for although in other instances courtship -was brief, yet we know that their wedding certainly did not take -place till May, as Governor Winslow then married Mrs. White, and that -marriage was recorded as the first in the colony. There is indeed some -probability that the engagement of the young people was of quite -another character from the incomprehensibly brief one just mentioned. -Perhaps John Alden was building his house, and it may be that it had to -be more or less commodious, since he probably became the protector of -the family which Mr. Mullins left, and which is registered as numbering -five persons upon landing. But if we accept the legend regarding the -wedding journey, we might have to postpone the bridal for some seasons, -as it was not until three years after their arrival that Edward -Winslow, having gone to England and returned with cattle, made such a -thing possible as that traditional ride on the back of the gentle white -bull with its crimson cloth and cushion. - -[Illustration] - -In fact, the incidents of real occurrence and the traditions of real -descent, concerning the courtship of Priscilla, are very few. We know -that Rose Standish died; that the Captain sent John Alden to urge his -suit before Mr. Mullins, who replied favorably; that Priscilla asked -him why he did not speak for himself; that Mr. Mullins presently -died; that Captain Standish presently married elsewhere; and that John -eventually married Priscilla, lived in the neighborhood of the Captain, -married his daughter to the Captain’s son, and died in his old age, -being known to the end as a severe and righteous and reverend man. -These are the bare facts; all the rest is coloring and conjecture. Yet -one has the right to surround these facts with all the possibilities of -human emotion, alike in any age and with any people, which go to the -making of romance and poetry, and which will do so as long as hearts -beat, lips tremble, and souls desire companionship. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: “The ships of the merchants”] - -It is because we like to make these people, looming large through the -mists of time, and on the stage of their mighty drama, real enough for -our sympathies, that we love Mr. Longfellow’s version of their story. -Nothing more skilful, gentle, and beautiful has ever been written -concerning the Pilgrims than the beloved poet’s verses. Every incident -in their pages is absolutely true to the life of the period, and -although the anachronisms are many, yet they do not exceed the province -of poetic license,—they are perhaps necessary to it; and many of the -events are those which actually took place, if not at the stated time. -Thus, for instance, it was at a later season than the poem intimates -that the gory head of the savage was brought home; yet it was brought -home. It was at another date that the rattlesnake skin filled with -arrows was sent; yet it was sent. It was Governor Bradford and not -Captain Standish who returned it stuffed with powder and shot; yet it -was returned. It was much later than represented that property was held -in severalty, and individuals owned their dwellings; yet they did do -so in time. It was much later than the first autumn that the ships of -the merchants brought cattle; yet they did bring cattle. But whether -the cattle came early or late, that snow-white bull with his crimson -saddle-cloth gives occasion for one of the most beautiful pictures in -literature. Europa herself, fleeing over the meadow on her white bull, -flecked with warm sunshine, with shadows of leaves and flowers, all -white and rosy loveliness as she fled, is not a fairer picture to the -mind than this exquisite one of the bridal procession, where - - “Pleasantly murmured the brook as they crossed the ford in the forest, - Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love, through its bosom, - Tremulous, floating in air, o’er the depths of the azure abysses. - Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors, - Gleaming on purple grapes that, from branches above them suspended, - Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree, - Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol, - Like a picture, it seemed, of the primitive pastoral ages, - Fresh with the youth of the world.” - - - - -AGNES SURRIAGE - - “_Misled by Fancy’s meteor ray, - By Passion driven, - But yet the light that led astray - Was light from Heaven”_ - - -[Illustration: down-stairs ran the streets] - -ONE of the few perfect jewels of romance, needing neither the craft -of imagination nor cunning device of word-cutting lapidary, is that -of Agnes Surriage, so improbable, according to every-day standards, -so informed with the truest sentiment, and so calculated to satisfy -every exaction of literary art, that even the most critical eye might -be forgiven for tracing its shifting color to the light of fancy, -and not of homely truth. Even at the present day, when the “Neck” is -overrun by the too-civilized cottager, to whose gilded ease summer -life everywhere most patiently conforms, Marblehead is one of our coast -wonders,—a fortress perennially held by beauty, and dedicated to her -use; but let the reminiscent gaze wander back a century and a half, -and how entirely fitted to the requirements of fancy would it find the -quaint town, the vagrant peninsula, and serenely hospitable harbor! -The town itself was fantastically builded, as if by a generation of -autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee in his bonnet. Upstairs -and downstairs ran the streets; they would have respected not my -lady’s chamber. Their modest dwellings seem by no means the outcome of -a community governed by common designs and necessities; rather do they -voice a capricious and eccentric individualism. - -[Illustration: “Houses set catty cornered to the street”] - -[Illustration] - -“Well, you see,” said an old Marbleheader, indulgently, “they built the -houses fust, an’ the streets arterwards. One man says to himself, ‘I’m -a-goin’ to set here; _you_ can set where you’re a mind to.’ But,” he -added, in loyal justification of his forbears, “I tell ye what ’tis, -they done the best they could with what they had to do _with_!” - -For they were governed by no inexplicable and crazy fancy,—these -sturdy fishermen of Marblehead; they were merely constrained by the -rigid requirements of their chosen site. Building on that stony -hillside, they were slaves of the rock, dominated by it, pressed -into corners. The houses themselves were founded upon solid ledges, -while the principal streets followed the natural valleys between; -and with all such rioting of irregularity, that long-past generation -was doubtless well content. A house set “catty-cornered” to the -world at large, sovereign over its bit of a garden, was sufficient -unto itself, overtopped though it were by the few great colonial -mansions, upspringing here and there, or by the solid dignity of the -old Town-House. The smaller dividing paths, zigzag as they would, led -to all the Romes of local traffic, and presently the houses followed -the paths, the paths developed into rocky streets, and lo! there was -Marblehead, a town dropped from the skies, and each house taking root -where it fell. - -[Illustration: The solid dignity of the old Town House] - -[Illustration] - -But if any one reading the tale of these wilful dwellings should -soberly doubt the common interests of the people, let him climb the -rocky eminence in their midst to the old graveyard, where stood -the little church, the oldest of all; here the first settlers -worshipped, and here, in comforting nearness, they buried their dead, -within the niches spared them by the rock. It was set thus high, -this homely tabernacle of faith, to overlook land and water, that no -stealthy Indian band might creep upon the worshippers unaware,—for -those were the days of the church militant in more than a poetic -sense. An admirable spot this for the antiquary, wherein to pursue his -loving labor of coaxing forward a reluctant past! Ancient headstones -will salute his eye, and of these said one local lingerer, garrulous -as he who discoursed on Yorick’s skull, “I can tell the date of ’em -all, jest as I could a buildin’, by the architectur’!” But let him not -conclude that in scanning the slabs erected two centuries ago he has -seen all,—for here lies many an unrecorded grave. “They had to send to -England for their stones then,” said the Oldest Inhabitant. “Poor folks -couldn’t afford that, an’ most of ’em went without.” - -[Illustration: “The wild azalea”] - -[Illustration: “The blackberry clings and crowds”] - -[Illustration: Butterfly] - -Across the little harbor, at nightfall populous with white sails, -stretches the “Neck,” once a lonely, rock-defended treasury of beauty, -besieged by wave, and alternately lashed and caressed by the fickle, -but persistent foam. Well fitted are its girdling citadels for -enduring warfare; their towers outlast the feet that climb them, and -their masonry crumbles not below, save slowly, through the infinite -patience of the eternally tossing sea. And when the eye tired of this -majesty of the illimitable, when it wearied of ocean spray, spouting -column-like through some gigantic cleft, and found itself oppressed by -the rhythm of rolling foam, what would it have seen, on turning inland -from Castle Rock, that century and a half agone? A stretch of green -pasture-land, becoming yellow as August marches on,—the “Neck” itself. -Then, wandering on unwearied, still traversing the “Neck,” sweet, -bosky hollows, where lie to-day such treasures of shining leaf and -soft-lipped flower as Paradise might claim. These are the wild, sunken -gardens on the road to Devereux, glowing in the gold of a royal tansy, -greenly odorous of fern, and sweet with the wild azalea,—honey-smeared -and pollen-powdered, loved of the bee, and his chief tempter to drunken -revels on the way from market. The button-bush holds aloft her sign of -cool white balls; loosestrife stars the green undergrowth with yellow; -and over stick and stone the blackberry clings and crowds. There the -wild rose lives and blooms, fed on manna brought by roving winds and -fleeting sunlight, never unblest, even when the purveyors of honey -come winging by, to rifle her sweets, and leave her to the ripening of -maturity and the solid glow of her red-hipped matron-hood. And on the -left again, still facing south, is the insistent sea, dragging down its -pebbly beach, and on the right, the dimpling harbor, reddened, for him -who is wise enough to wander that way at sunset, with flaming banners -of the sky. To cross the harbor again, and follow the mainland back -to a point nearly opposite the lighthouse of the Neck, is to find, -neighbored by the old graveyard, ruined and grassy Fort Sewall, to-day -the lounging-place for village great-grandfathers, or vantage-ground -for overlooking a yacht race, but in 1742, when Charles Henry Frankland -was Collector of the Port of Boston, just a building. And one day in -the previous year, the gallant young Collector, smartly dressed in -the fine feathers of the period, and no doubt humming a song,—since -he seems to have fulfilled all the conditions of an interesting -young galliard,—came riding down on some business connected with the -prospective fort. He stopped at the Fountain Inn for a draught,—not so -innocent, perhaps, as that from the clear well still springing near -the spot,—and, scrubbing the tavern floor, there knelt before him, in -lovely disarray, the sweet beggar-maid destined to be crowned at once -by the favor of this careless Cophetua. Let that phrase be swiftly -amended! Agnes Surriage was no beggar-maid, but the honest daughter -of hard-working fisher-folk, and patient under her own birthright of -toil. Her beauty was something rare and delicate, calculated to arrest -the eye and chain the heart; the simple dignity of her demeanor was -no more to be affected through her menial task than a rose by clouded -skies. Her fair feet were naked, and blushed not at their poverty, but -Frankland’s heart ached with pity of them, and he closed her fingers -over a coin, to buy shoes and stockings. Then he gave her “good-day,” -and rode away,—but not to forget her; only to muse on her grace, and -to start at the vision of her eyes, shining between him and his bills -of merchandise and lading. Again he came riding that way, and again he -found her, still barefooted; but when he reproached her for having -failed to put his coin to its destined use, she blushed, and answered -in the homely dialect of Marblehead, which yet had no power over the -music of her voice, that the shoes and stockings were bought, but that -she kept them to wear to meeting. And now the young Collector went -often and more often to Marblehead, until the day came when he obtained -her parents’ permission to become her guardian, and take her away to -be educated. So the wild bird entered voluntarily into the life of -cages, to learn the demeanor and song-notes which were approved by the -fashionable Boston of the day. - -[Illustration: “again he came riding”] - -[Illustration] - -The quaint, village-like, and yet all-regal Boston of the past! Perhaps -this was one of the most interesting pages of its life history, before -the royal insolence had roused in it an answering manhood; when fashion -scrupulously followed a far-away court over sea, and the daily life of -luxurious British officials was so distinct from that of the Puritan -stratum of society. In England, public affairs seesawed between the -policies of George II. and Walpole, and from the world of letters, -Richardson and Fielding were amusing the young bloods of the day, and -by no means toughening their moral fibre. The leisure of the bold -Britons who ruled over us was not for a moment poisoned by fear of -American defection from the royal mother-land. Rather, for men like -Frankland, was this loitering in western airs their _Wanderjahr_, a -pleasant exile, whence they would some day return, with treasures -of new experience, to sit down beside the English hearthstone, and, -Othello-like, rehearse the wonders they had seen. Meantime, they walked -the streets, bravely attired in small-clothes and wigs, discussing the -troubles brewing with the French, and seeking, so far as they might, -to build up a miniature England within the savage-girdled settlements -of the New World. Sir Harry Frankland stands out from the faint -portraiture of the time as one of the most knightly souls of all. -He was young, blest with an attractive presence, and his tastes -were those of the gentleman and the scholar. That he was sensitive -and refined even to the point of evincing that feminine strain of -temperament so fascinating in a manly man, is very apparent from the -fragmentary records of his life, but he lacked no sturdiness of temper -or demeanor. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: Frankland] - -[Illustration] - -Agnes Surriage responded at once to the new influences about her. -Indeed, she was of those to whom borrowed graces are external and -almost unnecessary: Nature had dowered her with the riches of beauty, -nobility, and modesty of mien; and to adorn her by artifice was merely -to remove the rose from its garden bed, and set it in a silver vase. -From God’s lady, fitted to scrub the tavern floor and lose no charm -thereby, she became a dame who might have been commended to courts and -palaces. She learned to sing, to play on the harpsichord, and dance; -for painting, embroidery, and all the fragile accomplishments of the -day, she had a surprising aptitude. She was surrounded by luxuries -which might have proved bewildering to a less simple and noble nature, -and, last of all, she stooped to receive the crown of her guardian’s -love. Alas! poor maid of Marblehead! for this was a crown that smirched -the brow and stung as with nettles, no matter how bravely its blossoms -nodded above. Frankland loved her, but he was bound by the fetters of -an ancestral pride; he owed all to his family, and nothing to his own -manly honor,—and he could not marry her. It is pitiful to guess -with what tragic battlings of heart and conscience her overthrow must -have been accomplished, but even she could scarcely have counted the -cost,—the daily torture, the hourly pinch of circumstance, when one -after another of Boston’s best, who had not failed to recognize the -fisher-girl, rich in nothing but her dower of beauty and character, -refused to countenance the fine lady, so ironically favored of Fortune. -In the humble home at Marblehead, her name became the keynote of -shame; for though these fisher-folk were rude of speech almost beyond -belief, though they caroused wildly half the year, preparatory to their -summer voyaging, they had a hard hand and a rough word ready for one -who was light o’ love. She had given all for the one jewel, and both -her little worlds, of birth and adoption, trembled from their centres. -All the more did she turn to Frankland, as to her sun of happiness, and -in the unfailing warmth of his affection she alternately drooped and -smiled. - -[Illustration: “All the more did she turn to Frankland”] - -Then began the second and more glowing chapter of this dramatic tale. -Sir Harry must have been bitterly moved by the social ostracism of his -ward and lady, and he shortened the period of her expiation by the only -possible device left him, save one, and took her away. He had bought a -large tract of land in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and there he proceeded -to build a manor-house, where, in a humble fashion, life might copy -the abundance and solid magnificence of England’s ancestral homes. The -country itself was a wonder of hill and valley,—hills where the -loftier beauty of Wachusett and Monadnock might be viewed, valley where -a happy village nestled, and where clear, cool streams flowed lightly -to their outlet. Sir Harry was a clever purveyor of the good things of -life; he made his manor-house commodious and fair to see, and erected -a comfortable farm-house for his laborers; his great hall roof was -supported by fluted columns, and its walls were hung with tapestry, -rich of hue and texture. The house was approached by a long and stately -avenue cut through magnificent chestnut-trees; the ground sloped down -in commanding terraces of blooming sward, and the gardens and orchards -were marvels of growth and abundance. In his gardening he took delight, -but, alas for human pride and power! only the giant box of his borders -and a few ancient trees have seen the present century, to attest his -vanished life. - -[Illustration: “The giant box and a few ancient trees.”] - -[Illustration: “At the banquets”] - -Here the two must have lived Arcadian days, in all but lightness -of heart. The lovely maid, for whom no labor had been too menial, -reigned the queen, of this lavish domain. She was the mistress of negro -slaves, she walked in silk attire; and local gossip assures us that her -tastes and those of Sir Harry were in the most perfect harmony. They -rode together through their own plantation or over the fascinatingly -unbroken country without; they read the latest consignment of books -from England; and Sir Harry hunted the fox and fished for trout in the -cold streams, possibly while Agnes did a bit of graceful and ladylike -sketching on her own account,—for it must not be forgotten that she -belonged to that unexacting era when large eyes and sloping shoulders -were much in vogue, and when the work of womankind was all the more -attractive for being a trifle thin and “very pretty.” Probably her -accomplishments were all the more entrancing for matching “lady’s -Greek, without the accents.” Here in their primeval wilderness, -primeval morals were more to be tolerated, and the autocrats of Boston -did not disdain to visit them—undoubtedly without their wives! At -least Sir Harry did not lack society; and there is a tale that at the -banquets, enlivened by the choice wines which came in his way by virtue -of his collectorship, he, canny man! drank from a glass cunningly made -shallow, so that he could toss off an equal number of potations with -his guests, and yet remain sober while they slid imperceptibly under -the table. For in these days, it was almost incumbent upon gentlemen to -conclude a banquet by lying reclined “like gods together, careless of -mankind.” - -[Illustration: “His ancestral home”] - -[Illustration: “The opera was the finest on the continent”] - -But the swiftly moving drama could not be stayed; and Sir Harry, called -to England by imperative duties, carried his treasure with him to -his ancestral home. At least there was this to be said in his favor, -during these doubtful days,—he was not of those who love and ride away, -and his loyalty to the one chosen woman never suffered reproach. In -England, either defiant or strangely obtuse to the values of their -relation, he introduced Agnes to his family; but neither her beauty -nor accomplishments redeemed her unhappy standing, and she was made -to suffer that social ignominy which is so absolutely blighting to a -sensitive spirit. The strange irony of her position is very dramatic in -retrospect. A lovely and loving woman, bound to the man who should have -been her husband, by all the most holy vows of nature, she was destined -to an unrelieved and bitter expiation; and though Sir Harry doubtless -suffered with her, yet, in obedience to the laws that govern womankind, -Agnes must have endured a desolation of misery entirely unimagined by -him. Again they went into happy exile, and made the grand tour of the -Continent, ending at Lisbon, at that time a species of modern Sybaris. -Enriched by Brazilian gold, the court was supported in a magnificence -then unparalleled in Europe. The opera was the finest on the Continent, -and one pageant succeeded another, obedient to the whims of any -ever-regnant luxury. Here, too, on the eminence of the seven hills, a -colony of wealthy English merchants had congregated, and spent their -fairy gold, flowing back through the magic portals leading to the New -World, with a prodigality emulating that of the court. Here Frankland -gave himself up to the fair god of Pleasure; he lived as if there were -to be no morrow, and lo! the morrow came, and with it the judgment of -God. On All Saints’ Day, 1755, the sun rose in splendor over the city -of Lisbon; and all its inhabitants, from courtier to beggar, took their -way churchward, for the celebration of High Mass. Frankland, in his -court dress, was riding with a lady, when without warning the earth -surged sea-like under them, and a neighboring house fell, engulfing -them in its ruins. The lady (who was she, O Historic Muse? and was -their talk light or sober, that care-free day in Lisbon?), this unnamed -lady, in her agony and terror, bit through the sleeve of Frankland’s -cloth coat, and tore a piece of flesh from his arm. And for him, he lay -helpless, reading the red record of his sins, and adjudging himself in -nothing so guilty as the wrong to the woman who loved him. Strange and -awful scenes had driven the city frantic. Churches and dwellings had -fallen; the sea swelled mountain-high, and swallowed the quay, with -its thousands of bewildered fugitives. Lisbon went mad, and beat its -breast, beseeching all the saints for mercy. But to one great spirit, -even the insecurity of the solid earth was as nothing compared with -the danger of her beloved mate. Agnes Surriage, aflame with anxiety -for Frankland, ran out, as soon as the surging streets would give her -foothold, and rushed about the desolated city in agonizing search. By -some chance, strange as all the chances of her dramatic life, she came -upon the very spot of his fearful burial. She tore at the rubbish above -him with her tender hands; she offered large rewards, so purchasing the -availing strength of others, and Frankland was saved. - -[Illustration: Agnes Surriage] - -To court and people, the earthquake voiced the vengeance of an angry -God; to Frankland, it had been a flaming finger, writing on the -wall a sentence for him alone, and in security he did not forget -its meaning. Waiting only for the healing of his wounds, he at last -besought the blessing of holy church upon his love; and Agnes Surriage -under went a radiant change into the Lady Agnes Frankland. And now for -a time her days became gleaming points in a procession of happiness. -Her husband returned with her to England, where she was received as a -beloved daughter of the house, and enshrined in those steadfast English -hearts, where fealty, once given, so seldom grows cold; and after a -tranquil space, the two set sail again for America. Even amid the -scenes of her former martyrdom, Agnes was no longer to be regarded as -an alien and social outcast. She walked into Boston society as walks a -princess entering her rightful domain, and there took up the sceptre -of social sway at the aristocratic North End. Frankland had purchased -the most lordly mansion there, of which the fragmentary descriptions -are enough to make the antiquary’s mouth water. The stairs ascending -from the great hall were so broad and low that he could ride his pony -up and down in safety; there were wonderful inlaid floors, Italian -marbles, and carven pillars. There Agnes lived the life of a dignified -matron, and a social leader whose fiats none might gainsay. Indeed, -from this time forward her story is that of the happy women whose -deeds are unrecorded, and is only to be guessed through scanning the -revelations of her husband’s journal. His health seems to have guided -their movements in great measure; for they again visited Lisbon, and -then came home to England, where he died, in 1768. - -[Illustration: “They again visited Lisbon”] - -[Illustration] - -Lady Frankland returned to Hopkinton, and there she lived through -uneventful days, with her sister and sister’s children, overseeing her -spacious estate, and entertaining her hosts of friends, until 1775, -that fiery date of American story. A jealous patriotism was rife; -and it was not unnatural that the widow of an officer of the Crown, -herself a devotee of the Established Church, should become an object -of local suspicion, hand in glove as she was with the British invaders -of our peace. Like many another avowed royalist, she judged it best -to leave her undefended estate at Hopkinton, and place herself under -military protection in Boston, and there she arrived, after a short -detention by some over-zealous patriot, in time to witness the battle -of Bunker Hill from the windows of her house, and to receive some of -the wounded within its shelter. Thence she sailed for England, as our -unpleasantness with the mother-country increased in warmth, and at -this point she becomes lost to the romance-loving vision,—for, alas -for those who “love a lover,” and insist upon an ideal constancy! Lady -Frankland was married, in the fourteenth year of her widowhood, to John -Drew, a wealthy banker of Chichester, and at Chichester she died, in -one year’s time. But after all, on that sober second thought which is -so powerful in regilding a tarnished fancy, does not her remarriage -suit still better the requirements of romance? For instead of dying a -staid Lady Frankland, her passions merged in the vital interests of -caps and lap-dogs, she transmutes herself into another person, and -thus fades out into an unrecognized future. Since neither the name of -Surriage nor Frankland is predominant in its legend, even her tomb -seems lost; and the mind goes ever back in fancy to her maiden name, -her maiden state, when she was the disguised and humble princess of -Marblehead. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -MARTHA HILTON - -[Illustration: “The little figure with the swishing bucket.”] - -[Illustration: Sly damsels in puritanical caps] - -[Illustration] - - -NEW ENGLAND had her spurts of human nature in old times, whenever she -was not taken up with the witches and the Tories, and could afford a -nine-days’ wonder over so simple a thing as a marriage between high and -low. For we had not got then to a professional denial of difference -between high and low; not as yet had the bell of Philadelphia cracked -its heart, like the philosopher Chilo, with public joy, and proclaimed -the crooked ways straight, and the rough places plain. When some sweet -scrub of an Agnes Surriage captured a Sir Harry, at the end of a moving -third act, there was a thrill of awe and satisfaction: and forthwith -the story went into our folk-lore, and very properly; since it had -incidents and character. Sly damsels in Puritan caps made the most of -a shifting society, full of waifs and strays from the foreign world. -Royal commissioners were yet to be seen, and gold-laced Parisian barons -at Newport and Norwich, and pirate Blackbeards tacking from the Shoals, -and leaving sweethearts to wring ghostly hands there to this day. So -that no lass had too dull an outlook upon life, nor need link herself -with the neighboring yokel whom Providence had assigned her, while -such splendid fish were in the seas. Let her but wed “above her,” and -she shall be a fountainhead of precedent and distinction, and the -sister ideal of King Cophetua’s beggar-bride. - -[Illustration: Gold laced dandies at Newport] - -[Illustration: Nor need link herself with the neighbouring yokel whom -Providence had assigned her] - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: Where Governor Wentworth was Born] - -[Illustration: “A fishmonger in London”] - -[Illustration: He had the mortification to see her prefer one -Shortridge, a mechanic] - -[Illustration] - -Poor Agnes of Marblehead, as faithful as the Nut-Browne Maid herself, -adorns her romantic station with living interest; but Martha Hilton, -who figures in true histories and in Mr. Longfellow’s pretty ballad, -is a heroine of the letter, rather than of the spirit. We hear nothing -of her deserts; we hear merely of her success. She became Lady -Wentworth (all personable Madams were Ladies then and awhile after, -even in the model republican air of Mount Vernon!) and she had been -a kitchen-wench. But she was also the descendant of the honorable -founder of Dover, “a fishmonger in London,” even as the great and gouty -Governor, her appointed spouse, was grandson to a noblest work of God, -who, in 1670, got “libertie to entertayne strangers, and sell and brew -beare.” In that house of beer, the hearty-timbered house planted yet -by a Portsmouth inlet, with one timid bush to be seen over against -the door, was Benning Wentworth born. Having subdued the alphabet, -grown his last inch, looked about, married, and buried his sons and -Abigail his wife, he enters upon our tale “inconsolable, to the minuet -in _Ariadne_.” He had played a game, too, and lost, since his weeds -withered. Having proposed himself and his acres to young Mistress -Pitman, he had the mortification to see her prefer one Shortridge, a -mechanic. The sequel shows that Benning’s Excellency could rise -grandly to an occasion, and also that he had an amorphous turn for the -humor of things; for he had the obnoxious mechanic kidnapped and sent -to sea, “for seven years long,” like the child in the fairy-lay. This -stroke of playfulness insured him nothing but a recoil of fate. Events -restored the lovers to each other, and he was left to console himself -with his restless colony, with his snuff-boxes and his bowls. And into -that lonely manor of his, malformed and delightful, sleeping over -against Newcastle, meekly as befits her menial office (though it is to -be suspected that she was always a minx!) enters Martha Hilton, late -the horror of the landlady of the Earl of Halifax. That well-conducted -Juno of Queen Street, beholding a shoeless girl fetching water from -the decent pump of Portsmouth, in a bare-shouldered estate sacred only -to the indoor and adult orgies of the aristocracy, did not content -herself, as the poet hath it, with - - “O Martha Hilton, fie!” - -[Illustration: His snuff boxes and his bowls] - -[Illustration: Gov. Benning Wentworth] - -Her comment had greater vivacity, and was pleasingly metrical. “You -Pat, you Pat, how dare you go looking like that?” There seems to be no -doubt that the pseudo-Hibernian did reply with a prophecy, and, better -yet, that she made it her business to have spoken true. Seven years, -according to the verses in question, did Martha serve her future lord; -and it is not for this oracle, on whatever computation, to dispute -with a son of Apollo. There she shed her clever childhood, and took -her degree in the arts of womankind; busy with pans and clothes-lines, -the sea-wind always in her hair, her strategic eye upon master’s -deciduous charms, and perhaps, provisionally, upon master’s only son, -“a flower too early faded” for any mortal plucking. The latter was not -fore-doomed, either, to be a stepson. He died; and in March of 1760, -one year after, a moment of historic astonishment befell the Reverend -Arthur Brown, shared by the painted Strafford on the wall, when the -good rector of St. John’s, having dined sumptuously at Little Harbor, -heard his host proclaim:— - - “This is my birthday; it shall likewise be - My wedding-day, and you shall marry me!” - -[Illustration: Wentworth house at Little Harbour] - -(Ah, no; he marrified him, did that Reverend Arthur Brown from the -north of Ireland, who had so much to do, first and last, with the -matrimonial oddities of the Wentworths.) And the victress, as all the -world knows, was “You Pat,” suddenly found standing in the fine old -council-chamber, appropriately vested, and radiant with her twenty -years. Abruptly were they joined, these wondrous two, and literally -“across the walnuts and the wine.” And now Martha had her chariot, as -foretold, and her red heels, and her sweeping brocades, and a cushion -towering on her powdered head, and a famous beautiful carven mantel, -on which to lean her indolent elbow. By able and easy generalship is -she here, with him of a race of rulers, aged sixty-five and terrible in -his wrath, for her gentle orderly, her minion. The rustling of Love’s -wings is not audible in the Governor’s corridors, perhaps would be -an impertinence there, like any blow-fly’s; but domestic comfort was -secured upon one side, and power, swaggering power, upon the other,—a -heady draught of it, such as might well turn a novice giddy. -Tradition saith that very shortly after her elevation, Martha dropped -her ring, and summoned one of her recent colleagues to rescue it from -the floor. But the colleague, alas! became piteously short-sighted, and -could offer no help worth having, until my lady, with great acumen, -dismissed her, and picked it up. - -[Illustration: and her strategic eye upon master’s deciduous charms”] - -For a full decade she rolled along, behind outriders, through the fair -provincial roads, with kerchiefed children bobbing respectfully at -every corner. The strange, stout, splenetic being to whom she owed her -meridian glory, disgusted with events, and out of office, was gathered -presently to his fathers, and left all his property in her hands. With -instant despatch, the scene shifts. The Reverend Arthur Brown beholds -the siren of Hilton blood again before him, with an imported Wentworth -by her side: one red-coated Michael of England, who had been in the -tragic smoke of Culloden. For three years now, in shady Portsmouth, -he has been striding magnificently up and down, and fiddling at -Stoodley’s far into the morning, for pure disinterested enthusiasm -that the dancing might not flag; a live soldierly man, full of bluster -and laughter, equal to many punches, and to afternoon gallops between -the hills of Boston and his own fireside! The fortunate widow of -one Georgian grandee became the wife of this other, his namesake; -and save that Colonel Michael Wentworth was a much more suave and -flexible person, besides being the “great buck” of his day, there was -small divergence in him from the type of his predecessor. Men of that -generation fell into a monotony: if they were rural, they were given -to hunting, bousing, and swearing; the trail of Squire Western is over -them all. Well did Martha, tamer of lions, know her _métier_. - -[Illustration: “The great buck of his day.”] - -Unto this twain gloriously reigning, came Washington, in 1789, rowed by -white-jacketed sailors to their vine-hung, hospitable door. They were -the mighty in the land; they had somehow weathered the Revolution; -they were peers of— - - “The Pepperells, the Langdons, and the Lears, - The Sparhawks, the Penhallows, and the rest,” - -with their stately Devon names; and none could more fitly honor the -Father of the Country. He went about the town, indeed, in a visible -halo, weaving the web of peace; and his smile was called as good as -sunshine, and his Sunday black velvet small-clothes elegant in the -extreme. There was a younger Martha in the house, curtseying to this -kind guest, who had grown up to play the spinet by the open window -in lilac-time, and who, later, tautologically bestowed her hand on -a Wentworth, and passed with him to France. Her father’s cherry -cheeks paled gradually, before he gave up his high living, and took -to a bankrupt’s grave, in New York, in 1795. It was feared that he -checkmated too hard a fate by suicide. “I have eaten my cake,” he said -at the end, with a homely brevity. What was in his mind, no chronicler -knoweth; but it is not unlawful to remember that in that eaten cake -Martha Hilton was a plum. - -[Illustration: Fiddling at Stoodley’s far into the morning] - -[Illustration: Wharves now rotting along the harbor-borders] - -Legends such as hers have truth and rustic dignity, and they tell -enough. It will not do to be too curious, to thirst for all that -can be guessed or gleaned. Let Martha herself remain a myth, not to -be stared at. _Il ne faut pas tout corriger._ Breathe it not to the -mellower civilizations that a myth of New England can have a daughter -only forty years dead! That, after all, is not the point, and is -useful to recall only inasmuch as it assures sceptics that the myth -was, in its unregenerate days, a fact. It rode in stage-chairs which -performed once a week for thirteen-and-six; it held babes to a porphyry -baptismal font stolen by heretics from Senegal; it looked upon the busy -wharves now rotting along the harbor-borders; it produced love-letters -on lavender-scented paper, and with an individual spelling which the -brief discipline of a school for “righters, reeders, and Latiners” was -not calculated to blight. Martha must have done these things! and -it is no matter at all if they be suppressed. Gossip concerns itself -exclusively with her first daring nuptial campaign, an event of epic -significance, and in the practical manner of that immortal eighteenth -century. Is it so long ago that the shouting sailors in pigtails and -petticoats lounged under the lindens, along the flagged lanes of -Portsmouth, fresh from the gilded quarter-galleries and green lamps -of the Spanish ships? It is not so to anybody with a Chinese love of -yesterday; which is an emotion somewhat exotic, it is to be feared, -on our soil. Near to politics, if not to poetry, are the patriot -pre-revolutionary mutterings of our seaboard cities, reaching the ears -of the surly nightwatch, before the stocks were swept away. And it was -in that immediate past of effigy-burning, and tea-throwing, and social -panic, that - - “Mistress Stavers in her furbelows” - -shook her fat finger at the little figure with the swishing bucket, not -dreaming how it should blend with what we have of dearest story and -song. The life back of our democracy is unsensational enough. The saucy -beauty from the scullery is one of its few dabs of odd local color, and -therefore to be cherished. She is part forever of the blue Piscataqua -water, the wildest on the coast, and of the happy borough which shall -never be again. - -[Illustration: End of Chapter motif] - - - - -NOTES - - ’TIS hard, methinks, that a man cannot publish a book - but he must presently give the world a reason for it, - when there is not one book of twenty that will bear a - reason. - - SIR ROGER L’ESTRANGE. - -[Illustration] - - -SO I do now offer my excuses, and leave a generous public to the -decision whether this book may be regarded as the one of all the -twenty, or shall be counted among the unhappy nineteen. Very many there -are who never hear a story but they must at once know if it be true; -and if it be but partly true, they fain would know just how much is -fact and how much fancy. It is to satisfy such curious folk, so far as -relates to three New England heroines, that these true histories have -been written. The proverb runs that “Truth is stranger than fiction;” -and true it is that truth is ofttimes more romantic, and does little -violence, withal, to our delight in a tale. - -He who reads “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and, later, learns -something of the true lives of its characters, must confess to a slight -shock in the discovery that the scholarly John Alden, of Longfellow’s -lines, was but a cooper at Southampton. Then, too, the romance that -surrounds the martial Miles Standish is somewhat dulled, when one reads -of his parley with the Indians and of his killing of some of them. And -so, though we must confess that the tale is not wholly true, we may -adopt the Italian saying, “So much the worse for truth.” - -Sharp eyes might see, even were it not here confessed, that Priscilla -alone bears not the dignity of her full name on the half-titles of this -book. Despite the eloquence of Juliet, one cannot feel the need of -Mullins. - -Yet, after all is said, we cannot love the poem less, but love the -poet more. His genius the brighter shines, the while our curiosity is -satisfied. Curiosity is a quality denied to few, and it is pleasant to -satisfy; and so three New England girls have written these three true -histories, while I, the artist, have wandered here and there, with an -eye to such picturesque bits as may have escaped calamity and progress. -This the excuse for the book, and now the story of the artist’s quest. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -First to Hopkinton, from Winchester, by bicycle,—a way which lay by -the “Wayside Inn.” Nothing is more disappointing than such a search -for oldtime scenes, but yet it is a joy, for one sees so much that is -delightful, if not closely related to the object of the quest. The road -wound always to new beauties. The way led by old houses and picturesque -barns, shaded by lofty trees, past fertile farms and modern dwellings, -bristling with gables and rising among green, smooth-shaven lawns. A -season earlier I had spent in England; and when Weston was reached, -with its quaint stone church, the thought arose of those village -churches of Old England with their ivy-covered towers, and, all about, -God’s acre. - -[Illustration] - -But here no manor-house rose proudly above the trees, no coat-of-arms -was sculptured over the cottage doors. Indeed, the picturesque -cottages themselves were missed, and in their stead were the plainest -of dwellings; but upon the green rose something far prouder than a coat -of arms, the flag-staff, and, at its head, the flag streaming in the -breeze. - -[Illustration] - -This is the one distinctive feature of the typical New England village. -Always upon the village green is seen the flag-staff, although the -town-pump may have long ago gone, and the bandstand not yet come. - -[Illustration] - -The ride continued, and still I found comparisons between Old and New -England, but not to the discredit of either. Now are more old houses -sheltered by great elms; stone walls, green fringed; merry children -coming from school; pastures, with grazing cattle; and so lies the -way through Wayland, by the fields and rivers, over picturesque stone -bridges, up hill and down, until we come to Sudbury. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -Sudbury is connected with our Martha Hilton, for her story makes one -of the “Tales of the Wayside Inn.” The old hostelry does not look -particularly antique now. It reminds me of what a friend of mine once -said, “’Tis wonderful what one can do with a little putty and paint.” -There are some who would, doubtless, prefer to see the old inn without -that fresh coat of yellow; and yet all will commend that generous -public spirit which is preserving for us this shrine of the muse. And -it may be that it will longer resist the attacks of time, protected by -its jacket of yellow, than it would be able to, did it wear Nature’s -soft mantle of gray. But yet the place is one of interest, and all -about is beautiful. The inn has, at least, one merit, inasmuch as it -leaves much to be imagined, and it is well worthy of a visit. - -[Illustration] - -From thence to Hopkinton is a matter of a dozen miles, the last four of -which are exceedingly rough and hilly. At Ashland, it is said that it -is four miles to Hopkinton, and three miles back. From this it may be -inferred that the village is one of those which, “set on a hill, cannot -be hid.” Little of bygone days is left for the sight of the pilgrim to -this village. Here is a noble elm, said to measure twenty-five feet in -circumference. It is said to have been brought from England, and set -out by the fair hands of Madam Elizabeth Price, whose husband, then -rector of King’s Chapel, was a close friend of Frankland. It was in -their house that Agnes Surriage found shelter while she and Frankland -were building their home. - -[Illustration: The Wayside Inn, Sudbury] - -The Frankland mansion stood upon the old highway, now a country road, -pleasant and shady, midway between Hopkinton and Ashland. The old -mansion was destroyed by fire in 1858, and in its place now stands a -modern structure, said, though questionably, to bear a resemblance to -the original building. A bit of the ancient woodwork is seen in a shed, -at the rear; and at the side is a beautiful and gigantic flower vase, -made from the upturned stump of one of Frankland’s great trees. This -is the tree to which Dr. Holmes refers in his poem, “Agnes,” where he -says,— - - “Three elms, high arching, still are seen, - And one lies stretched below.” - -This elm, too, is said to have had a girth of twenty-five feet. -Indeed, this is the legend which attaches to all of the ancient -trees hereabout, so that I concluded that it was a figure of speech -equivalent to the forty-eleven of my boyhood and the _trente-six_ of -the French. The fine, noble elms at the west of the lawn, said by Dr. -Chadwick to have been planted by the lovers, cast a broad curtain of -shade over the drive and lawn. Dr. Nason,[1] writing in 1865, records -the circumference of the largest two of these as twelve feet each, but -doubtless by this time they have reached the conventional girth of -twenty-five. - -[Illustration: Great Elms, Hopkinton] - -Since Dr. Nason’s time the old box of Sir Harry’s borders, described as -having a height of ten or twelve feet, has nearly disappeared except -a few plants remaining before the house, and on the terraces built by -Sir Harry’s slaves. One who knew some of the descendants of Agnes and -Frankland well says that, in her youthful days, the young girls were -wont to gather this box, for Christmas greens, with which to deck the -old church. A bright, sunny day will serve to dispel the terrible ghost -of Dr. Nason’s early days, and the bewitched pump no longer displays -its weird waywardness, but yields, instead, a cool, refreshing -draught. - -[Illustration] - -The pilgrim to the places that knew Agnes would naturally first -visit Marblehead, her birthplace; yet, on my quest, I reached it -last. Others, in a similar pilgrimage, would go first where fancy or -opportunity leads; and this is the true spirit of roaming. So next to -Roxbury, to visit Shirley Place. The reader remembers how delightfully -Mr. Bynner introduced Mrs. Shirley into his romance, and will recall -his story of Agnes’s ride there, in the collector’s coach. In my -boyhood days in Roxbury, the old mansion was called the Eustis House, -and it stood in a great field given over to goats and burdocks. There -are those living who remember it when Madam Eustis still lived there. -This grand dame wore a majestic turban; and the tradition still lingers -of madam’s pet toad, on gala days decked with a blue ribbon. Now the -old house is sadly dilapidated. It is shorn of its piazzas, the -sign “To Let” hangs often in the windows, and the cupola is adorned -with well-filled clothes-lines. Partitions have cut the house into -tenements. One runs right through the hall, but the grand old staircase -and the smaller one are still there, and the marble floor, too, in the -back hall. A few of the carved balusters are missing, carried away by -relic-hunters. - -“’Tis a great city,” said Goody Surriage, as she peered at Colonial -Boston, over the shoulders of Agnes and Mrs. Shirley. Now, it is truly -a great city, wreathed in smoke and steam; and all about are churches, -school-houses, and factories, while the “broomstick train” of Dr. -Holmes’ fancy whirls along, close by the ancient mansion. The engraving -is from a sketch made many years ago. Since then the old house has been -entirely surrounded by modern dwelling-houses. The pilgrim who searches -for it will leave the Mt. Pleasant electric car at Shirley Street. - -[Illustration: The Royall House Medford] - -In Medford is a house often visited by Sir Harry and Agnes, known as -the Royall House. This house, also, to-day shelters more than a single -tenant. Here is a little drawing of this home of hospitality, which was -forsaken so hastily by its fleeing owner, the Colonel, alarmed by -the too near crack of the guns at Lexington. “A Tory against his will; -it was the frailty of his blood, more than the fault of his judgment.” -The electric cars from Boston to Medford pass the door of the old -mansion, as it stands near the corner of Royall Street. Medford has a -picturesque town square; and it is only a pleasant walk to the Craddock -House, built in 1632, now converted into a museum, and thus, after many -vicissitudes, rescued from the usual fate of ancient landmarks. - -[Illustration: Medford Square] - -And now to Marblehead, by road or by rail as one chooses. Perhaps the -pleasantest route is from Lynn or Salem by electric car. By either -route, the ride is a pleasure, and although little remains to tell of -Agnes in her girlhood, there is much that is quaint and picturesque; -and to visit the old town is well worth one’s time. Arrived at -Marblehead, the visitor walking down the main road to Orne Street, and -ascending the hill to the old burying-ground, will see by the wayside -the old houses, “set catty-cornered,” as the quaint old saying is, -and the bright gardens. Now upstairs and now down run the streets, -and likely enough the visitor will meet “many an old Marbleheader,” -pictures in themselves. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -Just where the road turns to skirt the burying-ground at the left, is -Moll Pitcher’s house. Whittier draws the portrait of our New England -witch in one of his poems, handling her no more gently than he does her -fellow-townsman, old Floyd Ireson. This house is the home of her youth; -as a witch, she flourished in Lynn. I have often heard stories of her -predictions, and one of my cherished possessions is a small square of -yellow quilted silk, which once formed a part of Moll’s brave array. - -Across the way stood the Fountain Inn. Here, upon its site, and -overlooking the harbor, are two cottages, in front of which is the -well of the old hostelry, from whence Agnes drew the draught of water -which she offered to Sir Harry. This fountain has been recently brought -to light, and still refreshes the traveller as of yore. Beneath the -apple-trees which shade it is found a restful seat, from which one may -look out over a scene of singular beauty. As often as one looks upon -this scene, it meets the eye with an added charm. - -We little realize the beauty of our sea. In summer time it is ofttimes -as blue as the waters of the Mediterranean, a dark, intense blue, -broken by purple patches, by beautiful streaks of emerald, dotted with -warm, glowing rocks, and accentuated by snowy, foaming breakers. Below -the hill, to the left, are some fishermen’s huts, surrounded by nets, -drying in the sunshine, boats ashore, old lobster-pots, and anchors, -all in picturesque confusion, ready to be sketched and painted. - -Away up above the well and the cottages, is the old burying-ground, -with restful benches here as well. Here, one can look across the little -harbor to old Fort Sewall, and here, just at the base of the fort, so -says Mr. Bynner, is the probable site of the home of Agnes Surriage. - -[Illustration] - -A walk to the old fort is full of interest. Many shady spots are there, -in which to rest, and watch the waves breaking on the rocks below. From -this point it is but a step to the terminus of the electric cars, at -the foot of Circle Street. In this street, upon the right, is old Floyd -Ireson’s house, dark and weather-beaten. But the tourist is advised not -to ask too many questions concerning him, of the old Marbleheaders; -for it is a tender point with them, and it is whispered that Mr. -Whittier’s ballad is more fraught with fancy than with fact. - -From this point, it is interesting to walk up the hill, following the -windings and turnings of the street. Let the traveller not fail to -look into the queer old back-yards, and at the gardens, filled with -old-fashioned flowers, gorgeous in their splendor, nor to turn and -view the prospect toward the town. The quaint streets here are filled -with old and picturesque houses. Some are fine examples of colonial -architecture, and some are interesting as the birthplaces of eminent -men. These places should be preserved and marked with appropriate -tablets. - -Now cross over to the hill on which sits the Abbott memorial. Here are -many stately old houses, well worth the attention of the sight-seer. -The electric cars or the steam railway are near at hand, on the other -side of the hill, and to return to Boston by way of Salem is a pretty -ride. - -So much for Agnes and Marblehead. Her stately house at the North End in -Boston, from the windows of which she watched the battle of Bunker -Hill, has long since gone; but Copp’s Hill burying-ground, the Old -North Church, Paul Revere’s house, and many other old houses are still -there. - -[Illustration: Circle Street and “Old Flud Orson’s” House] - -And now, of Martha Hilton. Portsmouth was her home and the scene of her -brilliant matrimonial campaign. This is one of the most picturesque -of our New England towns. Aldrich’s “An Old Town by the Sea” should -be read by the pilgrim on his way. No one loves the old town more, -or knows it better than he. Much remains, here, to tell of Martha -Hilton, but a day well suffices to see it all. A short walk from the -railway-station is a pleasant, old-fashioned market square. At times -it is filled with wagons of hay and loads of wood, while, all about, -is a subdued bustle. From this square leads Pleasant Street, well -named, and, only a few steps away, it is crossed by State Street, once -Queen Street, at the foot of which once stood Stavers’ Inn, the “Earl -of Halifax.” It was in the doorway of this inn that Mistress Stavers -“fied” Martha Hilton _circa anno Domini_ 1754. No print or picture of -this old inn is known to exist. Beyond State Street is Court Street, -with interesting old houses, and some of the ancient flagging here -and there. On the cross streets is more of this, with sometimes a -gutter in the middle of the street. All of this portion of the town -is interesting, dirty, primitive, and full of memories. Parallel with -Pleasant Street are Washington and Water streets, from which, at right -angles, run a dozen lanes, not a whit altered since Martha’s time. Here -is where the sailors in pig-tails and petticoats used to gather. At the -corner of Water and Gardiner streets, let the visitor notice the great -golden linden, overshadowing a house as old and as lovely as the tree -itself. - -The neighborhood is full of old houses, with hip roofs and gables. The -Point of Graves, a stone’s throw away, is sadly neglected. Children -sometimes play on a large, flat tombstone, and curiosity-seekers skip -from one headstone to another, in search of the oldest date. The -old stones are sculptured with grim skulls and cross-bones, or with -humorous cherubs. One thinks of the days Tom Bailey spent here, when he -was a blighted being. Let us hope that it was a more secluded spot then -than now. - -Close by is Manning Place, very short, and at the corner is the square, -strong house, built prior to 1670, where Benny Wentworth and his -sires were born. A grand place this once was, with its lawn extending -to Puddle Dock. Once this was a fair inlet, but now no one will dispute -the rightfulness of its name. - -[Illustration: “This is where the sailors in pigtails and petticoats -used to be.”] - -From this point it is a pleasant walk to the old Wentworth mansion, -where Martha came, slaved and conquered, even receiving as her guest -the Father of his country. Skirt around the Point of Graves, and follow -along the water side, by the Gardiner House and its big linden, over -the bridge, and past the Proprietors’ burying-ground; everywhere it -is picturesque. From thence let the traveller follow the left fork -of the road in full view of the river for a portion of the way, and -thence pass through pine groves and between great bowlders, until, -with a sudden descent, a fair prospect seaward bursts upon the vision. -At one’s feet, toward the left, is the old house, “malformed and -delightful.” I well remember when it was venerable in appearance and in -its rooms were to be seen the old spinet, the Strafford portrait, and -many other things so delightful to the antiquary. But, alas! it now is -“spick-span” in yellow and white paint, and set back in a well-groomed -lawn. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: The Gardiner House and the Linden] - -The visitor will, of course, wish to see St. John’s. It has an -interesting interior. Here is the old plate, the “Vinegar” Bible, and -other quaint and curious things. The steeple is modern. All about are -fine old houses and great spreading trees. Stoodley’s, too, one will -wish to see, where the gallant captain “fiddled far into the morning.” -It is the brick building, marked “Custom House,” and it stands at the -corner of Daniel and Penhallow streets. - -[Illustration] - -These are the principal points of interest connected with the life of -Martha Hilton, but Portsmouth old and quaint affords much more to which -the eye of the lover of the antique will surely turn. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -Every one visits Plymouth, the home of Priscilla. There is little -need to dwell upon this place here. A Plymouth pilgrimage, if by sea, -is easy and pleasant. Of guide-books there is no lack, and all that -remains of the Puritan maiden’s time is readily found. Even Plymouth -Rock is carefully enclosed; and rightly, too, else it would long -since have been carried away in fragments. On the hill is the old -burying-ground, from which fine views may be had of the old town and -of the harbor where the “Mayflower” lay at anchor, the sweeping coast -here low in sandy dunes, now high in bolder bluffs. The electric car -is here also, which takes one the length of the town and far beyond, -passing the Memorial Hall, where are so many relics of old colony days. -Plymouth, indeed, is easily to be seen. It is the Mecca, to-day, of -many pilgrims. What has been done for Plymouth, I have tried to do for -the other old towns into whose histories are woven the lives of our -heroines. Many of these old houses will soon have passed away. Many -have disappeared within a few years past. Let us hope, however, that -the little now left to us will long remain, and especially may we hope -will be preserved all that serves to remind us of these Three Heroines -of New England Romance. - -[Illustration: THE END] - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] “Sir Charles Henry Frankland, or Boston in the Colonial Times.” -Elias Nason, M. A. Albany, N. Y.: J. Munsell. - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Note: Repeated major section titles were removed. Varied -hyphenation was retained as printed. The list of illustrations and -the captions on the illustrations varied widely. This was retained. -The illustrations were moved to stop them interrupting the middle of -paragraphs so the page numbers in the list will often not match the -actual location of the illustration mentioned. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Heroines of New England Romance, by -Harriet Prescott Spofford and Louise Imogen Guiney and Alice Brown - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE HEROINES--NEW ENGLAND ROMANCE *** - -***** This file should be named 54028-0.txt or 54028-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/0/2/54028/ - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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