Margaret Smith's Journal, and Tales and Sketches Part 4

"VERSES

"Writ by Sir Christopher when a prisoner among the Turks in Moldavia, and expecting death at their hands.

1.

"Ere down the blue Carpathian hills The sun shall fall again, Farewell this life and all its ills, Farewell to cell and chain

2.

"These prison shades are dark and cold, But darker far than they The shadow of a sorrow old Is on mine heart alway.

3.

"For since the day when Warkworth wood Closed o'er my steed and I,-- An alien from my name and blood,-- A weed cast out to die;

4.

"When, looking back, in sunset light I saw her turret gleam, And from its window, far and white, Her sign of farewell stream;

5.

"Like one who from some desert sh.o.r.e Does home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave and sky,

6.

"So, from the desert of my fate, Gaze I across the past; And still upon life's dial-plate The shade is backward cast

7.

"I've wandered wide from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, I've knelt at many a shrine, And bowed me to the rocky floor Where Bethlehem's tapers shine;

8.

"And by the Holy Sepulchre I've pledged my knightly sword, To Christ his blessed Church, and her The Mother of our Lord!

9.

"Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife How vain do all things seem!

My soul is in the past, and life To-day is but a dream.

10.

"In vain the penance strange and long, And hard for flesh to bear; The prayer, the fasting, and the thong, And sackcloth shirt of hair:

11.

"The eyes of memory will not sleep, Its ears are open still, And vigils with the past they keep Against or with my will.

12.

"And still the loves and hopes of old Do evermore uprise; I see the flow of locks of gold, The shine of loving eyes.

13.

"Ah me! upon another's breast Those golden locks recline; I see upon another rest The glance that once was mine!

14.

"'O faithless priest! O perjured knight!'

I hear the master cry,

'Shut out the vision from thy sight, Let earth and nature die.'

15.

"'The Church of G.o.d is now my spouse, And thou the bridegroom art; Then let the burden of thy vows Keep down thy human heart.'

16.

"In vain!--This heart its grief must know, Till life itself hath ceased, And falls beneath the self-same blow The lover and the priest!

17.

"O pitying Mother! souls of light, And saints and martyrs old, Pray for a weak and sinful knight, A suffering man uphold.

18.

"Then let the Paynim work his will, Let death unbind my chain, Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill The sunset falls again!"

My heart is heavy with the thought of these unfortunates. Where be they now? Did the knight forego his false worship and his vows, and so marry his beloved Anna? Or did they part forever,--she going back to her kinsfolk, and he to his companions of Malta? Did he perish at the hands of the infidels, and does the maiden sleep in the family tomb, under her father's oaks? Alas! who can tell? I must needs leave them, and their sorrows and trials, to Him who doth not willingly afflict the children of men; and whatsoever may have been their sins and their follies, my prayer is, that they may be forgiven, for they loved much.

October 20.

I do purpose to start to-morrow for the Ma.s.sachusetts, going by boat to the Piscataqua River, and thence by horse to Newbury.

Young Mr. Jordan spent yesterday and last night with us. He is a goodly youth, of a very sweet and gentle disposition; nor doth he seem to me to lack spirit, although his father (who liketh not his quiet ways and easy temper, so contrary to his own, and who is sorely disappointed in that he hath chosen the life of a farmer to that of a minister, for which he did intend him) often accuseth him of that infirmity. Last night we had much pleasant discourse touching the choice he hath made; and when I told him that perhaps he might have become a great prelate in the Church, and dwelt in a palace, and made a great lady of our cousin; whereas now I did see no better prospect for him than to raise corn for his wife to make pudding of, and chop wood to boil her kettle, he laughed right merrily, and said he should never have gotten higher than a curate in a poor parish; and as for Polly, he was sure she was more at home in making puddings than in playing the fine lady.

"For my part," he continued, in a serious manner, "I have no notion that the pulpit is my place; I like the open fields and sky better than the grandest churches of man's building; and when the wind sounds in the great grove of pines on the hill near our house, I doubt if there be a choir in all England so melodious and solemn. These painted autumn woods, and this sunset light, and yonder clouds of gold and purple, do seem to me better fitted to provoke devotional thoughts, and to awaken a becoming reverence and love for the Creator, than the stained windows and lofty arched roofs of old minsters. I do know, indeed, that there be many of our poor busy planters, who, by reason of ignorance, ill- breeding, and lack of quiet for contemplation, do see nothing in these things, save as they do affect their crops of grain or gra.s.ses, or their bodily comforts in one way or another. But to them whose minds have been enlightened and made large and free by study and much reflection, and whose eyes have been taught to behold the beauty and fitness of things, and whose ears have been so opened that they can hear the ravishing harmonies of the creation, the life of a planter is very desirable even in this wilderness, and notwithstanding the toil and privation thereunto appertaining. There be fountains gushing up in the hearts of such, sweeter than the springs of water which flow from the hillsides, where they sojourn; and therein, also, flowers of the summer do blossom all the year long. The brutish man knoweth not this, neither doth the fool comprehend it."

"See, now," said Polly to me, "how hard he is upon us poor unlearned folk."

"Nay, to tell the truth," said he, turning towards me, "your cousin here is to be held not a little accountable for my present inclinations; for she it was who did confirm and strengthen them. While I had been busy over books, she had been questioning the fields and the woods; and, as if the old fables of the poets were indeed true, she did get answers from them, as the priestesses and sibyls did formerly from the rustling of leaves and trees, and the sounds of running waters; so that she could teach me much concerning the uses and virtues of plants and shrubs, and of their time of flowering and decay; of the nature and habitudes of wild animals and birds, the changes of the air, and of the clouds and winds. My science, so called, had given me little more than the names of things which to her were familiar and common. It was in her company that I learned to read nature as a book always open, and full of delectable teachings, until my poor school-lore did seem undesirable and tedious, and the very chatter of the noisy blackbirds in the spring meadows more profitable and more pleasing than the angry disputes and the cavils and subtleties of schoolmen and divines."

My cousin blushed, and, smiling through her moist eyes at this language of her beloved friend, said that I must not believe all he said; for, indeed, it was along of his studies of the heathen poets that he had first thought of becoming a farmer. And she asked him to repeat some of the verses which he had at his tongue's end. He laughed, and said he did suppose she meant some lines of Horace, which had been thus Englished:--

"I often wished I had a farm, A decent dwelling, snug and warm, A garden, and a spring as pure As crystal flowing by my door, Besides an ancient oaken grove, Where at my leisure I might rove.

"The gracious G.o.ds, to crown my bliss, Have granted this, and more than this,-- They promise me a modest spouse, To light my hearth and keep my house.

I ask no more than, free from strife, To hold these blessings all my life!"

Tam exceedingly pleased, I must say, with the prospect of my cousin Polly. Her suitor is altogether a worthy young man; and, making allowances for the uncertainty of all human things, she may well look forward to a happy life with him. I shall leave behind on the morrow dear friends, who were strangers unto me a few short weeks ago, but in whose joys and sorrows I shall henceforth always partake, so far as I do come to the knowledge of them, whether or no I behold their faces any more in this life.

HAMPTON, October 24, 1678.

I took leave of my good friends at Agamenticus, or York, as it is now called, on the morning after the last date in my journal, going in a boat with my uncle to Piscataqua and Strawberry Bank. It was a cloudy day, and I was chilled through before we got to the mouth of the river; but, as the high wind was much in our favor, we were enabled to make the voyage in a shorter time than is common. We stopped a little at the house of a Mr. Cutts, a man of some note in these parts; but he being from home, and one of the children sick with a quinsy, we went up the river to Strawberry Bank, where we tarried over night. The woman who entertained us had lost her husband in the war, and having to see to the ordering of matters out of doors in this busy season of harvest, it was no marvel that she did neglect those within. I made a comfortable supper of baked pumpkin and milk, and for lodgings I had a straw bed on the floor, in the dark loft, which was piled wellnigh full with corn- ears, pumpkins, and beans, besides a great deal of old household trumpery, wool, and flax, and the skins of animals. Although tired of my journey, it was some little time before I could get asleep; and it so fell out, that after the folks of the house were all abed, and still, it being, as I judge, nigh midnight, I chanced to touch with my foot a pumpkin lying near the bed, which set it a-rolling down the stairs, b.u.mping hard on every stair as it went. Thereupon I heard a great stir below, the woman and her three daughters crying out that the house was haunted. Presently she called to me from the foot of the stairs, and asked me if I did hear anything. I laughed so at all this, that it was some time before I could speak; when I told her I did hear a thumping on the stairs. "Did it seem to go up, or down?" inquired she, anxiously; and on my telling her that the sound went downward, she set up a sad cry, and they all came fleeing into the corn-loft, the girls bouncing upon my bed, and hiding under the blanket, and the old woman praying and groaning, and saying that she did believe it was the spirit of her poor husband. By this time my uncle, who was lying on the settle in the room below, hearing the noise, got up, and stumbling over the pumpkin, called to know what was the matter. Thereupon the woman bade him flee up stairs, for there was a ghost in the kitchen. "Pshaw!" said my uncle, "is that all? I thought to be sure the Indians had come." As soon as I could speak for laughing, I told the poor creature what it was that so frightened her; at which she was greatly vexed; and, after she went to bed again, I could hear her scolding me for playing tricks upon honest people.

We were up betimes in the morning, which was bright and pleasant. Uncle soon found a friend of his, a Mr. Weare, who, with his wife, was to go to his home, at Hampton, that day, and who did kindly engage to see me thus far on my way. At about eight of the clock we got upon our horses, the woman riding on a pillion behind her husband. Our way was for some miles through the woods,--getting at times a view of the sea, and pa.s.sing some good, thriving plantations. The woods in this country are by no means like those of England, where the ancient trees are kept clear of bushes and undergrowth, and the sward beneath them is shaven clean and close; whereas here they be much tangled with vines, and the dead boughs and logs which have fallen, from their great age or which the storms do beat off, or the winter snows and ices do break down.

Here, also, through the thick matting of dead leaves, all manner of shrubs and bushes, some of them very sweet and fair in their flowering, and others greatly prized for their healing virtues, do grow up plenteously. In the season of them, many wholesome fruits abound in the woods, such as blue and black berries. We pa.s.sed many trees, well loaded with walnuts and oilnuts, seeming all alive, as it were, with squirrels, striped, red, and gray, the last having a large, spreading tail, which Mr. Weare told me they do use as a sail, to catch the wind, that it may blow them over rivers and creeks, on pieces of bark, in some sort like that wonderful sh.e.l.l-fish which transformeth itself into a boat, and saileth on the waves of the sea. We also found grapes, both white and purple, hanging down in cl.u.s.ters from the trees, over which the vines did run, nigh upon as large as those which the Jews of old plucked at Eschol. The air was sweet and soft, and there was a clear, but not a hot sun, and the chirping of squirrels, and the noise of birds, and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach a little distance off, and the leaves, at every breath of the wind in the tree- tops, whirling and fluttering down about me, like so many yellow and scarlet-colored birds, made the ride wonderfully pleasant and entertaining.

Mr. Weare, on the way, told me that there was a great talk of the bewitching of Goodman Morse's house at Newbury, and that the case of Caleb Powell was still before the Court, he being vehemently suspected of the mischief. I told him I thought the said Caleb was a vain, talking man, but nowise of a wizard. The thing most against him, Mr.