The dusk had quite fallen when I reached the neck of land. Arriving at the palisade that protected Jamestown, I beat upon the gate and called to the warden to open. He did so with starting eyes. Giving him a few words and cautioning him to raise no alarm in the town, I hurried by him into the street and down it toward the house that was set aside for the governor of Virginia, Sir Francis Wyatt.

The governor’s door was open, and in the hall servingmen were moving to and fro. When I came in upon them, they cried out as if it had been a ghost, and one fellow let a silver dish fall to the floor with a clatter. They shook with fright and stood back as I passed them without a word and went on to the governor’s great room. The door was ajar, and I pushed it open and stood for a minute on the threshold. They were all there—the principal men of the colony, the governor, the vtreasurer, vWest, vJohn Rolfe.

At sight of me the governor sprang to his feet; through the treasurer’s lips came a long, sighing breath; West’s dark face was ashen. I came forward to the table, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of the sea were roaring in my ears and the lights were going up and down.

“Are you man or spirit!” cried Rolfe through white lips. “Are you Ralph Percy?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am Percy.”

With an effort I drew myself erect, and standing so, told my tidings, quietly and with circumstance, so as to leave no room for doubt as to their verity, or as to the sanity of him who brought them. They listened with shaking limbs and gasping breath; for it was the fall and wiping out of a people of which I brought warning.

When all was told I thought to ask a question myself; but before my tongue could frame it, the roaring of the sea became so loud that I could hear naught else, and the lights all ran together into a wheel of fire. Then in a moment all sounds ceased and to the lights succeeded the blackness of outer darkness.

When I awoke from the sleep into which I must have passed from that swoon, it was to find myself lying in a room flooded with sunshine. For a moment I lay still, wondering where I was and how I came there. A drum beat, a dog barked, and a man’s quick voice gave a command. The sounds stung me into remembrance.

There were many people in the street. Women hurried by to the fort with white, scared faces, their arms filled with household gear; children ran beside them; men went to and fro, the most grimly silent, but a few talking loudly.

I could not see the palisade across the neck, but I knew that it was there that the fight—if fight there were—would be made. Should the Indians take the palisade, there would yet be the houses of the town, and, last of all, the fort in which to make a stand. I believed not that they would take it, for Indian warfare ran more to ambuscade and surprise than to assault in the open field.

The drum beat again, and a messenger from the palisade came down the street at a run.

“They’re in the woods over against us, thicker than ants!” he cried to West, who was coming along the way. “A boat has just drifted ashore, with two men in it, dead and scalped!”

I looked again at the neck of land and the forest beyond, and now, as if by magic, from the forest and up and down the river as far as the eye could reach, rose here and there thin columns of smoke. Suddenly, as I stared, three or four white smoke puffs, like giant flowers, started out of the shadowy woods across the neck. Following the crack of the muskets—fired out of pure bravado by the Indians—came the yelling of the savages. The sound was prolonged and deep, as though issuing from many throats.

The street, when I went out into it, was very quiet. All windows and doors were closed and barred. The yelling from the forest had ceased for the moment, but I knew well that it would soon begin with doubled noise. I hurried along the street to the palisade, where all the men of Jamestown were gathered, armed and helmeted and breast-plated, waiting for the foe in grim silence.

Through a loophole in the gate of the palisade I looked and saw the sandy neck joining the town to the mainland, and the deep and dark woods beyond, the fairy mantle giving invisibility to the foe. I drew back from my loophole and held out my hand to a woman for a loaded musket. A quick murmur like the drawing of a breath came from our line. The governor, standing near me, cast an anxious glance along the stretch of wooden stakes that were neither so high nor so thick as they should have been.

“I am new to this warfare, Captain Percy,” he said. “Do they think to use those logs they carry as battering rams?”

“As scaling ladders, your honor,” I replied. “It is possible that we may have some sword play after all.”

“We’ll take your advice the next time we build a palisade, Ralph Percy,” muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that we had thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he coolly looked over the pales at the oncoming savages.

“Wait until they pass the blasted pine, men!” he cried. “Then give them a hail of lead that will beat them back to the Pamunkey.”

An arrow whistled by his ear; a second struck him on the shoulder but pierced not his coat of mail. He came down from his dangerous post with a laugh.

“If the leader could be picked off”—I said. “It’s a long shot, but there’s no harm in trying.”

As I spoke I raised my gun to my shoulder, but West leaned across Rolfe, who stood between us, and plucked me by the sleeve.

“You’ve not looked at him closely,” he said. “Look again.”

I did as he told me, and lowered my musket. It was not for me to send that Indian leader to his account. Rolfe’s lips tightened and a sudden pallor overspread his face. “Nantaquas?” he muttered in my ear, and I nodded yes.

The volley that we fired full into the ranks of our foe was deadly, and we looked to see them turn and flee, as they had fled so often before at a hot volley. But this time they were led by one who had been trained in English steadfastness. Broken for the moment by our fire, they rallied and came on yelling, bearing logs, thick branches of trees, oars tied together—anything by whose help they could hope to surmount the palisade. We fired again, but they had planted their ladders. Before we could snatch the loaded muskets from the women a dozen painted figures appeared above the sharpened stakes. A moment, and they and a score behind them had leaped down upon us.

It was no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant yelling of madly hurrying reinforcements.

We flung open the gates. I drove my sword through the heart of an Indian who would have opposed me, and, calling for my men to follow, sprang forward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for the opening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set upon them with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devils drove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor, the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping of the savages; before us a rush that must be met and turned.

It was done. A moment’s fierce fighting, then the Indians wavered, broke, and fled. Like sheep we drove them before us, across the neck, to the edge of the forest, into which they plunged. Into that ambush we cared not to follow, but fell back to the palisade and the town, believing, and with reason, that the lesson had been taught. The strip of sand was strewn with the dead and the dying, but they belonged not to us. Our dead numbered but three, and we bore their bodies with us.

Within the palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case. Of the score or more Indians cut off by us from their mates and penned within that death trap, half at least were already dead, run through with sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now time to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken the vinitiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife. They were brave men that we slew that day.

At last there was left but the leader—unharmed, unwounded, though time and again he had striven to close with some one of us, to strike and to die striking with his fellows. Behind him was the wall; of the half circle which he faced, well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of the colony. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation he would have thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with keeping him at sword’s length, and at last West sent the knife in the dark hand whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the musketeers to spare him.

When he saw that he stood alone, he stepped back against the wall, drew himself up to his full height, and folded his arms. Perhaps he thought that we would shoot him down then and there; perhaps he saw himself a captive amongst us, a show for the idle and for the strangers that the ships brought in.

The din had ceased, and we the living, the victors, stood and looked at the vanquished dead at our feet, and at the dead beyond the gates, and at the neck upon which was no living foe, and at the blue sky bending over all. Our hearts told us, and truly, that the lesson had been taught, and that no more forever need we at Jamestown fear an Indian attack. And then we looked at him whose life we had spared.

He opposed our gaze with his folded arms and his head held high and his back against the wall. Slowly, as one man and with no spoken word, we fell back, the half circle straightening into a line, and leaving a clear pathway to the open gates. The wind had ceased to blow, and a sunny stillness lay upon the sand and the rough-hewn wooden stakes and a little patch of tender grass. The church bell began to ring.

The Indian out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glanced from the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond, and understood. For a full minute he waited, not moving a muscle, still and stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped from the shadow of the wall and moved past us, with his eyes fixed on the forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. He went by the huddled dead and the long line of the living that spoke no word, and out of the gates and across the neck, walking slowly, that we might yet shoot him down if we saw fit to repent ourselves. He reached the shadow of the trees: a moment, and the forest had back her own.

We sheathed our swords and listened to the governor’s few earnest words of thankfulness and recognition; and then we set to work to search for ways to reach and aid those who might be yet alive in the plantations above and below us.

Presently there came a great noise from the watchers on the river-bank, and a cry that boats were coming down the stream. It was so, and there were in them white men, nearly all of whom had wounds to show, and cowering women and children—all that were left of the people for miles along the James.

Then began that strange procession that lasted throughout the afternoon and night and into the next day, when a sloop dropped down from vHenricus with the news that the English were in force there to stand their ground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they came as fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk, whose homes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves escaped as by a miracle. Each boatload had the same tale to tell of treachery, surprise, and fiendish butchery.

Before the dawning we had heard from all save the remoter settlements. The blow had been struck and the hurt was deep. But it was not beyond remedy, thank God! We took stern measures for our protection, and the wound to the colony was soon healed; vengeance was meted out to those who had set upon us in the dark and had failed to reach the heart. The colony of Virginia had passed through its greatest trial and had survived—for what greater ends, under Providence, I knew not.

Mary Johnston.

HELPS TO STUDY

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

• Prisoners of Hope—Mary Johnston.
• My Lady Pokahontas—John Esten Cooke.
• The Wept of Wish-ton-wish—J. Fenimore Cooper.
• Hiawatha—Henry W. Longfellow.
• Old Virginia and Her Neighbors—John Fiske.

HARRY ESMOND’S BOYHOOD

There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of this fair creature, an angelical softness and bright pity—in motion or repose she seemed gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It cannot be called love, that a lad of fourteen years of age felt for an exalted lady, his mistress, but it was worship. To catch her glance; to divine her errand, and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch, follow, adore her, became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never thought of or suspected the admiration of her little adorer.

My Lady had on her side three idols: first and foremost, vJove and supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry’s patron, the good vViscount of Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache, she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was always at the window to see him ride away. She made dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him; hushed the house when he slept in his chair, and watched for a look when he woke. Her eyes were never tired of looking at his face and wondering at its perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father’s look and curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his eyes—were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure.

Harry Esmond was happy in this pleasant home. The happiest period of all his life was this; and the young mother, with her daughter and son, and the orphan lad whom she protected, read and worked and played, and were children together. If the lady looked forward—as what fond woman does not?—toward the future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was left out; and a thousand and a thousand times, in his passionate and impetuous way, he vowed that no power should separate him from his mistress; and only asked for some chance to happen by which he might show his vfidelity to her.

The second fight which Harry Esmond had was at fourteen years of age, with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw’s son, who, advancing the opinion that Lady Castlewood henpecked my Lord, put Harry in so great a fury that Harry fell on him and with such rage that the other boy, who was two years older and far bigger than he, had by far the worst of the assault. It was interrupted by Doctor Tusher, the clergyman, who was just walking out of the dinner-room.

Bryan Hawkshaw got up bleeding at the nose, having indeed been surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the attack on him.

“You little beggar,” he said, “I’ll murder you for this.”

And indeed he was big enough.

“Beggar or not,” said Harry, grinding his teeth, “I have a couple of swords, and if you like to meet me, as man to man, on the terrace to-night—”

And here, the doctor coming up, the vcolloquy of the young champions ended. Very likely, big as he was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a fight with such a ferocious opponent as this had been.

One day, some time later, Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with a face of consternation, saying that smallpox had made its appearance at the blacksmith’s house in the village, which was also an alehouse, and that one of the maids there was down with it.

Now, there was a pretty girl at this inn, called Nancy Sievewright, a bouncing, fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks over the pales of the garden behind the inn. Somehow it often happened that Harry Esmond fell in with Nance Sievewright’s bonny face. When Doctor Tusher brought the news that the smallpox was at the blacksmith’s, Harry Esmond’s first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy, and then of shame and disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might have brought this infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been sitting in a back room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was with a little brother who complained of headache, and was lying crying in a chair by the corner of the fire or in Nancy’s lap.

Little Beatrix screamed at the news; and my Lord cried out, “God bless me!” He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in any shape but this. “We will take the children and ride away to Walcote,” he said.

To love children and be gentle with them was an instinct rather than merit in Harry Esmond; so much so that he thought almost with a feeling of shame of his liking for them and of the softness into which it betrayed him. On this day the poor fellow had not only had his young friend, the milkmaid’s brother, on his knee, but had been drawing pictures and telling stories to the little Frank Castlewood, who was never tired of Harry’s tales and of his pictures of soldiers and horses. As luck would have it, Beatrix had not on that evening taken her usual place, which generally she was glad enough to have, on Harry’s knee. For Beatrix, from the earliest time, was jealous of every caress which was given her little brother Frank. She would fling away even from the vmaternal arms, if she saw Frank had been there before her; insomuch that Lady Esmond was obliged not to show her love for her son in presence of the little girl, and embrace one or the other alone. Beatrix would turn pale and red with rage if she caught signs of intelligence or affection between Frank and his mother; would sit apart and not speak for a whole night if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger cake than hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one, and would utter vinfantile sarcasms about the favor shown her brother.

So it chanced upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had the blacksmith’s son and the vpeer’s son, alike upon his knee, little Beatrix, who would come to him willingly enough with her book and writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother. Luckily for her, she had sat at the farther end of the room, away from him, playing with a spaniel dog which she had, and talking to Harry Esmond over her shoulder, as she pretended to caress the dog, saying that Fido would love her, and she would love Fido and nothing but Fido all her life.

When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the blacksmith’s was ill with the smallpox, poor Harry Esmond felt a shock of alarm, not so much for himself as for his mistress’s son, whom he might have brought into peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently, her little brother being now gone to bed, was for taking her place on Esmond’s knee. But as she advanced toward him, he started back and placed the great chair on which he was sitting between him and her—saying in the French language to Lady Castlewood, “Madam, the child must not approach me. I must tell you that I was at the blacksmith’s to-day and had his little boy on my lap.”

“Where you took my son afterward,” Lady Castlewood said, very angry and turning red. “I thank you, sir, for giving him such company. Beatrix,” she said in English, “I forbid you to touch Harry Esmond. Come away, child; come to your room. And you, sir, had you not better go back to the alehouse?”

Her eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger as she spoke; and she tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with the vmien of a princess.

“Heyday!” said my Lord, who was standing by the fireplace, “Rachel, what are you in a passion about? Though it does you good to get in a passion—you look very handsome!”

“It is, my Lord, because Mr. Harry Esmond, having nothing to do with his time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the blacksmith’s alehouse, where he has some friends.”

My Lord burst out with a laugh.

“Take Mistress Beatrix to bed,” my Lady cried at this moment to her woman, who came in with her Ladyship’s tea. “Put her into my room—no, into yours,” she added quickly. “Go, my child: go, I say; not a word.” And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from one who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room with a scared face and waited even to burst out crying until she got upstairs.

For once, her mother took little heed of her. “My Lord,” she said, “this young man—your relative—told me just now in French—he was ashamed to speak in his own language—that he had been at the blacksmith’s all day, where he has had that little wretch who is now ill of the smallpox on his knee. And he comes home reeking from that place—yes, reeking from it—and takes my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me. He may have killed Frank for what I know—killed our child! Why was he brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go—let him go, I say, and vpollute the place no more!”

She had never before uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond, and her cruel words smote the poor boy so that he stood for some moments bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been before.

“If my coming nigh your boy pollutes him,” he said, “it was not so always. Good-night, my Lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your goodness to me. I have tired her Ladyship’s kindness out, and I will go.”

“He wants to go to the alehouse—let him go!” cried my Lady.

“I’ll be hanged if he shall,” said my Lord. “I didn’t think you could be so cruel, Rachel!”

My Lord broke out: “There may be no harm done. Leave the boy alone.” She looked a little red, and pressed the lad’s hand as she dropped it.

“There is no use, my Lord,” she said. “Frank was on his knee as he was making pictures and was running constantly from Harry to me. The evil is done, if any.”

“Not with me,” cried my Lord. “I’ve been smoking.” And he lighted his pipe again with a coal. “As the disease is in the village—plague take it!—I would have you leave it. We’ll go to-morrow to Walcote.”

“I have no fear,” said my Lady. “I may have had it as an infant.”

“I won’t run the risk,” said my Lord. “I’m as bold as any man, but I’ll not bear that.”

“Take Beatrix with you and go,” said my Lady. “For us the mischief is done.”

My Lord, calling away Doctor Tusher, bade him come in the oak parlor and have a pipe.

When the lady and the boy were alone, there was a silence of some moments, during which he stood looking at the fire whilst her Ladyship busied herself with the vtambour frame and needles.

“I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice—“I repeat I am sorry that I said what I said. It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you must see that, at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family. You have wished to go to college, and I think ’tis quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press the matter, thinking you a child, as you are indeed in years—quite a child. But now I shall beg my Lord to despatch you as quick as possible; and will go on with Frank’s learning as well as I can. And—and I wish you a good night, Harry.”

With this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone, and then her image was impressed upon him and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room and to bed, but could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache.

He had brought the contagion with him from the alehouse, sure enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no more than it did the cottage.

When Harry Esmond had passed through the vcrisis of the vmalady and returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and rallied from the disease, and that his mother was down with it. Nor could young Esmond agree in Doctor Tusher’s vvehement protestations to my Lady, when he visited her during her vconvalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her Ladyship’s beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. The delicacy of her rosy complexion was gone; her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her hair fell, and she looked older. When Tusher in his courtly way vowed and protested that my Lady’s face was none the worse, the lad broke out and said, “It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was.” On this poor Lady Castlewood gave a vrueful smile and a look into a little mirror she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass and her eyes filled with tears.

The sight of these always created a sort of rage of pity in Esmond’s heart, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the young blunderer sank down on his knees and besought her to pardon him, saying that he was a fool and an idiot. Doctor Tusher told him that he was a bear, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor Harry was so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl.

“He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, doctor,” said my Lady, putting her hand kindly on the boy’s head, as he was still kneeling at her feet. “How your hair has come off! And mine, too!” she added with another sigh.

“It is not for myself that I care,” my Lady said to Harry, when the parson had taken his leave; “but am I very much changed! Alas! I fear ’tis too true.”

“Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the world, I think,” the lad said; and indeed he thought so.

For Harry Esmond his benefactress’ sweet face had lost none of its charms. It had always the kindest of looks and smiles for him—and beauty of every sort. She would call him “Mr. Tutor,” and she herself, as well as the two children, went to school to him. Of the pupils the two young people were but lazy scholars, and my Lord’s son only learned what he liked, which was but little. Mistress Beatrix chattered French prettily, and sang sweetly, but this from her mother’s teaching, not Harry Esmond’s. But if the children were careless, ’twas a wonder how eagerly the mother learned from her young tutor—and taught him, too. She saw the vlatent beauties and hidden graces in books; and the happiest hours of young Esmond’s life were those passed in the company of this kind mistress and her children.

These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by Lady Castlewood’s own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It happened about Christmas-tide, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen years of age. A messenger came from Winchester one day, bearer of the news that my Lady’s aunt was dead and had left her fortune of £2,000 among her six nieces. Many a time afterward Harry Esmond recalled the flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind lady regarded him. When my Lord heard of the news, he did not make any long face. “The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and the vcellar,” he said, “which is getting low, and buy your Ladyship a coach and a couple of horses. Beatrix, you shall have a vspinet; and Frank, you shall have a little horse from Hexton fair; and Harry, you shall have five pounds to buy some books.” So spoke my Lord, who was generous with his own, and indeed with other folks’ money. “I wish your aunt would die once a year, Rachel; we could spend your money, and all your sisters’, too.”

“I have but one aunt—and—and I have another use for the money,” said my Lady, turning red.

“Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?” cried my Lord.

“I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry,” said my Lady, “you mustn’t stay any longer in this dull place, but make a name for yourself.”

“Is Harry going away? You don’t mean to say you will go away?” cried out Beatrix and Frank at one breath.

“But he will come back, and this will always be his home,” replied my Lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness; “and his scholars will always love him, won’t they?”

“Rachel, you’re a good woman,” said my Lord. “I wish you joy, my kinsman,” he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder, “I won’t balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy.”

When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a moment and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had been passed. And Harry remembered, all his life after, how he saw his mistress at the window looking out on him, the little Beatrix’s chestnut curls resting at her mother’s side. Both waved a farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave him.

The village people had good-bye to say to him, too. All knew that Master Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind word and a look of farewell. And with these things in mind, he rode out into the world.

THE FAMILY HOLDS ITS HEAD UP

The home I had come to as vvicar was in a little neighborhood consisting of farmers who tilled their own grounds and were equal strangers to vopulence and poverty. As they had almost all the conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities in search of vsuperfluity. Remote from the polite, they still retained the vprimeval simplicity of manners; and, frugal by habit, they scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with cheerfulness on days of labor, but observed festivals as intervals of idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol, sent love-knots on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on vShrovetide, showed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on vMichaelmas-eve. Being apprised of our approach, the whole neighborhood came out to meet their minister, dressed in their finest clothes and preceded by a vpipe and vtabor: a feast, also, was provided for our reception, at which we sat cheerfully down, and what the conversation wanted in wit was made up in laughter.

Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill, sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land. Nothing could exceed the neatness of my little enclosures, the elms and hedgerows appearing with inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was covered with vthatch, which gave it an air of great snugness; the walls on the inside were nicely whitewashed, and my daughters undertook to adorn them with pictures of their own designing. Though the same room served us for parlor and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides, as it was kept with the utmost neatness,—the dishes, plates and coppers being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves—the eye was agreeably relieved and did not want richer furniture. There were three other apartments: one for my wife and me; another for our two daughters within our own; and the third, with two beds, for the rest of the children.

The little republic to which I gave laws was regulated in the following manner: by sunrise we all assembled in our common apartment, the fire being previously kindled by the servant. After we had saluted each other with proper ceremony—for I always thought fit to keep up some mechanical forms of good breeding, without which freedom ever destroys friendship—we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another day. This duty performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual industry abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in providing breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed half an hour for this meal, and an hour for dinner, which time was taken up in innocent mirth between my wife and daughters, and in vphilosophical arguments between my son and me.

As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labors after it was gone down, but returned home to the expecting family, where smiling looks, a neat hearth, and a pleasant fire were prepared for our reception. Nor were we without guests; sometimes Farmer Flamborough, our talkative neighbor, and often a blind piper, would pay us a visit and taste our gooseberry wine, for the making of which we had lost neither the recipe nor the reputation. These harmless people had several ways of being good company; while one played, the other would sing some soothing ballad—“Johnny Armstrong’s Last Good-Night,” or “The Cruelty of Barbara Allen.” The night was concluded in the manner we began the morning, my youngest boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day; and he that read loudest, distinctest and best was to have an halfpenny on Sunday to put into the poor-box. This encouraged in them a wholesome rivalry to do good.

When Sunday came, it was, indeed, a day of finery, which all my vsumptuary edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I still found them secretly attached to all their former finery; they still loved laces, ribbons, and bugles, and my wife herself retained a passion for her crimson vpaduasoy, because I formerly happened to say it became her.

The first Sunday, in particular, their behavior served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next day, for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed out in all their former splendor—their hair plastered up with vpomatum, their faces vpatched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap behind and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more discretion. In this vexigence, therefore, my only resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed at the command, but I repeated it, with more solemnity than before.

“Surely, you jest!” cried my wife. “We can walk perfectly well; we want no coach to carry us now.”

“You mistake, child,” returned I; “we do want a coach, for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after us.”

“Indeed!” replied my wife. “I always imagined that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.”

“You may be as neat as you please,” interrupted I, “and I shall love you the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These rufflings and pinkings and patchings will only make us hated by all the wives of our neighbors. No, my children,” continued I, more gravely, “those gowns must be altered into something of a plainer cut, for finery is very unbecoming in us who want the means of vdecency.”

This remonstrance had the proper effect. They went with great composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waist-coats for Dick and Bill, the two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by this vcurtailing.

But the reformation lasted but for a short while. My wife and daughters were visited by the wives of some of the richer neighbors and by a squire who lived near by, on whom they set more store than on the plain farmers’ wives who were nearer us in worldly station. I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. Some distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters’ eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing.

Instead, therefore, of finishing George’s shirts, we now had the girls new-modeling their old gauzes. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures, taste, and Shakespeare.

But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come to raise us into perfect vsublimity. The tawny vsibyl no sooner appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece to cross her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling; after they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great.

“Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?”

“She positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less than a twelvemonth.”

“Well, now, Sophy, my child,” said I, “and what sort of husband are you to have?”

“I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire,” she replied.

“How,” cried I, “is that all you are to have for your two shillings? Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have promised you a prince and a vnabob for half the money.”

This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious effects. We now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.

In this agreeable time my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world, which she took care to tell us every morning, with great solemnity and exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughters’ pockets filled with farthings, a certain sign they would shortly be stuffed with gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They saw rings in the candle, purses bounced from the fire, and love-knots lurked in the bottom of every teacup.

Toward the end of the week we received a card from two town ladies, in which, with their compliments, they hoped to see our family at church the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together, and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a vlatent plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in fine spirits, she began thus:

“I fancy, Charles, my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company at our church to-morrow.”

“Perhaps we may, my dear,” returned I, “though you need be under no uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon, whether there be or not.”

“That is what I expect,” returned she; “but I think, my dear, we ought to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?”

“Your precautions,” replied I, “are highly commendable. A decent behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout and humble, cheerful and serene.”

“Yes,” cried she, “I know that; but I mean we should go there in as proper a manner as possible; not like the scrubs about us.”

“You are quite right, my dear,” returned I, “and I was going to make the same proposal. The proper manner of going is to go as early as possible, to have time for meditation before the sermon begins.”

“Phoo! Charles,” interrupted she, “all that is very true, but not what I would be at. I mean, we should go there vgenteelly. You know the church is two miles off, and I protest I don’t like to see my daughters trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking for all the world as if they had been winners at a vsmock race. Now, my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plough-horses, the colt that has been in our family these nine years and his companion, Blackberry, that has scarce done an earthly thing for this month past. They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should they not do something as well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little, they will cut a very tolerable figure.”

To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed, and the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broken to the rein, but had an hundred vicious tricks, and that we had but one saddle and vpillion in the whole house. All these objections, however, were overruled, so that I was obliged to comply.

The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such materials as might be necessary for the expedition; but as I found it would be a business of time, I walked on to the church before, and they promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading desk for their arrival; but not finding them come as I expected, I was obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some uneasiness at finding them absent.

This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the family. I therefore walked back by the horseway, which was five miles round, though the footway was but two; and when I had got about half-way home, I perceived the procession marching slowly forward toward the church—my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted on one horse, and my two daughters upon the other. It was then very near dinner-time.

I demanded the cause of their delay, but I soon found, by their looks, that they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses had, at first, refused to move from the door, till a neighbor was kind enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel. Next, the straps of my wife’s pillion broke down, and they were obliged to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering from this dismal situation when I found them; but, perceiving everything safe, I own their mortification did not much displease me, as it gave me many opportunities of future triumph, and would teach my daughters more humility.

Oliver Goldsmith.

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