Margaret Smith's Journal, and Tales and Sketches Part 12

June 10.

The condemned woman hath been reprieved by the Governor and the Magistrates until the sitting of the Court in October. Many people, both men and women, coming in from the towns about to see the hanging, be sore disappointed, and do vehemently condemn the conduct of the Governor therein. For mine own part, I do truly rejoice that mercy hath been shown to the poor creature; for even if she is guilty, it affordeth her a season for repentance; and if she be innocent, it saveth the land from a great sin. The sorrowful look of the old creature at the Lecture hath troubled me ever since, so forlorn and forsaken did she seem.

Major Pike (Robert's father), coming in this morning, says, next to the sparing of Goody Morse's life, it did please him to see the bloodthirsty rabble so cheated out of their diversion; for example, there was Goody Matson, who had ridden bare-backed, for lack of a saddle, all the way from Newbury, on Deacon Dole's hard-trotting horse, and was so galled and lame of it that she could scarce walk. The Major said he met her at the head of King Street yesterday, with half a score more of her sort, scolding and railing about the reprieve of the witch, and prophesying dreadful judgments upon all concerned in it. He said he bade her shut her mouth and go home, where she belonged; telling her that if he heard any more of her railing, the Magistrates should have notice of it, and she would find that laying by the heels in the stocks was worse than riding Deacon Dole's horse.

June 14.

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

Rebecca, or Lady Hale, as she is now called, had invited Robert Pike to her wedding, but he sent her an excuse for not coming, to the effect that urgent business did call him into the eastern country as far as Monhegan and Pemaquid. His letter, which was full of good wishes for her happiness and prosperity, I noted saddened Rebecca a good deal; and she was, moreover, somewhat disturbed by certain things that did happen yesterday: the great mirror in the hall being badly broken, and the family arms hanging over the fire-place thrown down, so that it was burned by the coals kindled on the hearth, on account of the dampness; which were looked upon as ill signs by most people. Grindall, a thoughtless youth, told his sister of the burning of the arms, and that nothing was left save the head of the raven in the crest, at which she grew very pale, and said it was strange, indeed, and, turning to me, asked me if I did put faith in what was said of signs and prognostics.

So, seeing her troubled, I laughed at the matter, although I secretly did look upon it as an ill omen, especially as I could never greatly admire Sir Thomas. My brother's wife, who seemed fully persuaded that he is an unworthy person, sent by me a message to Rebecca, to that effect; but I had not courage to speak of it, as matters had gone so far, and uncle and aunt did seem so fully bent upon making a great lady of their daughter.

The vessel in which we are to take our pa.s.sage is near upon ready for the sea. The bark is a London one, called "The Three Brothers," and is commanded by an old acquaintance of Uncle Rawson. I am happy with the thought of going home, yet, as the time of departure draws nigh, I do confess some regrets at leaving this country, where I have been so kindly cared for and entertained, and where I have seen so many new and strange things. The great solemn woods, as wild and natural as they were thousands of years ago, the fierce suns of the summer season and the great snows of the winter, and the wild beasts, and the heathen Indians,--these be things the memory whereof will over abide with me.

To-day the weather is again clear and warm, the sky wonderfully bright; the green leaves flutter in the wind, and the birds are singing sweetly.

The waters of the bay, which be yet troubled by the storm of last night, are breaking in white foam on the rocks of the main land, and on the small islands covered with trees and vines; and many boats and sloops going out with the west wind, to their fishing, do show their white sails in the offing. How I wish I had skill to paint the picture of all this for my English friends! My heart is pained, as I look upon it, with the thought that after a few days I shall never see it more.

June 18.

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

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

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

"It appears that the brave gallant calling himself Sir Thomas Hale, for all his fair seething and handsome address, was but a knave and impostor, deceiving with abominable villany Rebecca Rawson and most of her friends (although my grandmother was never satisfied with him, as is seen in her journal). When they got, to London, being anxious, on account of sea-sickness and great weariness, to leave the vessel as soon as possible, they went ash.o.r.e to the house of a kinsman to lodge, leaving their trunks and clothing on board. Early on the next morning, he that called himself Sir Thomas left his wife, taking with him the keys of her trunks, telling her he would send them up from the vessel in season for her to dress for dinner. The trunks came, as he said, but after waiting impatiently for the keys until near the dinner-hour, and her husband not returning, she had them broken open, and, to her grief and astonishment, found nothing therein but shavings and other combustible matter. Her kinsman forthwith ordered his carriage, and went with her to the inn where they first stopped on landing from the vessel, where she inquired for Sir Thomas Hale. The landlord told her there was such a gentleman, but he had not seen him for some days.

'But he was at your house last night,' said the astonished young woman.

'He is my husband, and I was with him.' The landlord then said that one Thomas Rumsey was at his house, with a young lady, the night before, but she was not his lawful wife, for he had one already in Kent. At this astounding news, the unhappy woman swooned outright, and, being taken back to her kinsman's, she lay grievously ill for many days, during which time, by letters from Kent, it was ascertained that this Rumsey was a graceless young spendthrift, who had left his wife and his two children three years before, and gone to parts unknown.

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

"After the marriage of my grandmother, Rebecca was induced to live with her for some years. My great-aunt, Martha Grindall, an ancient spinster, now living, remembers her well at that time, describing her as a young woman of a sweet and gentle disposition, and much beloved by all the members of the family. Her father, hearing of her misfortunes, wrote to her, kindly inviting her to return to New England, and live with him, and she at last resolved to do so. My great-uncle, Robert, having an office under the government at Port Royal, in the island of Jamaica, she went out with him, intending to sail from thence to Boston.

From that place she wrote to my grandmother a letter, which I have also in my possession, informing her of her safe arrival, and of her having seen an old friend, Captain Robert Pike, whose business concerns had called him to the island, who had been very kind and considerate in his attention to her, offering to take her home in his vessel, which was to sail in a few days. She mentions, in a postscript to her letter, that she found Captain Pike to be much improved in his appearance and manners,--a true natural gentleman; and she does not forget to notice the fact that he was still single. She had, she said, felt unwilling to accept his offer of a pa.s.sage home, holding herself unworthy of such civilities at his hands; but he had so pressed the matter that she had, not without some misgivings, consented to it.

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

"R. G."

TALES AND SKETCHES

MY SUMMER WITH DR. SINGLETARY.

A FRAGMENT.

CHAPTER I. DR. SINGLETARY IS DEAD!

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

Why, in the first place, Dr. Singletary, as a man born to our common inheritance of joy and sorrow, earthly instincts and heavenward aspirations,--our brother in sin and suffering, wisdom and folly, love, and pride, and vanity,--has a claim upon the universal sympathy.

Besides, whatever the living man may have been, death has now invested him with its great solemnity. He is with the immortals. For him the dark curtain has been lifted. The weaknesses, the follies, and the repulsive mental and personal idiosyncrasies which may have kept him without the sphere of our respect and sympathy have now fallen off, and he stands radiant with the transfiguration of eternity, G.o.d's child, our recognized and acknowledged brother.

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

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

Let n.o.body infer from what I have said that the good man died unlamented; for, indeed, it was a sad day with his neighbors when the news, long expected, ran at last from house to house and from workshop to workshop, "Dr. Singletary is dead!"

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

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

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

WELL and truly said the wise man of old, "Much study is a weariness to the flesh." Hard and close application through the winter had left me ill prepared to resist the baleful influences of a New England spring.

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

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

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

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

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

The house of Dr. Singletary was situated somewhat apart from the main street, just on the slope of Blueberry Will,--a great, green swell of land, stretching far down from the north, and terminating in a steep bluff at the river side. It overlooked the village and the river a long way up and down. It was a brown-looking, antiquated mansion, built by the Doctor's grandfather in the earlier days of the settlement. The rooms were large and low, with great beams, scaly with whitewash, running across them, scarcely above the reach of a tall man's head.

Great-throated fireplaces, filled with pine-boughs and flower-pots, gave promise of winter fires, roaring and crackling in boisterous hilarity, as if laughing to scorn the folly and discomfort of our modern stoves.

In the porch at the frontdoor were two seats, where the Doctor was accustomed to sit in fine weather with his pipe and his book, or with such friends as might call to spend a half hour with him. The lawn in front had scarcely any other ornament than its green gra.s.s, cropped short by the Doctor's horse. A stone wall separated it from the lane, half overrun with wild hop, or clematis, and two n.o.ble rock-maples arched over with their dense foliage the little red gate. Dark belts of woodland, smooth hill pasture, green, broad meadows, and fields of corn and rye, the homesteads of the villagers, were seen on one hand; while on the other was the bright, clear river, with here and there a white sail, relieved against bold, wooded banks, jutting rocks, or tiny islands, dark with dwarf evergreens. It was a quiet, rural picture, a happy and peaceful contrast to all I had looked upon for weary, miserable months. It soothed the nervous excitement of pain and suffering. I forgot myself in the pleasing interest which it awakened.

Nature's healing ministrations came to me through all my senses. I felt the medicinal virtues of her sights, and sounds, and aromal breezes.

From the green turf of her hills and the mossy carpets of her woodlands my languid steps derived new vigor and elasticity. I felt, day by day, the transfusion of her strong life.

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