Produced by Daniel Fromont
COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS
VOL. CCCLI.
THE HILLS OF THE SHATEMUC
BY
ELIZABETH WETHERELL.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
THE
HILLS OF THE SHATEMUC
BY
ELIZABETH WETHERELL,
AUTHOR OF "THE WIDE WIDE WORLD."
A wise man is strong.
Proverbs xxiv.5.
_AUTHOR'S EDITION_.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1856.
THE HILLS OF THE SHATELUC.
VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind
Wakes all the green strings of the forest lyre.
LOWELL.
The light of an early Spring morning, shining fair on upland
and lowland, promised a good day for the farmer's work. And
where a film of thin smoke stole up over the tree-tops, into
the sunshine which had not yet got so low, there stood the
farmer's house.
It was a little brown house, built surely when its owner's
means were not greater than his wishes, and probably some time
before his family had reached the goodly growth it boasted
now. All of them were gathered at the breakfast-table.
"Boys, you may take the oxen, and finish ploughing that upland
field -- I shall be busy all day sowing wheat in the bend
meadow."
"Then I'll bring the boat for you, papa, at noon," said a
child on the other side of the table.
"And see if you can keep those headlands as clean as I have
left them."
"Yes, sir. Shall you want the horses, father, or shall we take
both the oxen?"
"Both? -- both _pairs_, you mean -- yes; I shall want the horses.
I mean to make a finish of that wheat lot."
"Mamma, you must send us our dinner," said a fourth speaker,
and the eldest of the boys; -- "it'll be too confoundedly hot
to come home."
"Yes, it's going to be a warm day," said the father.
"Who's to bring it to you, Will?" said the mother.
"Asahel -- can't he -- when he brings the boat for papa?"
"The boat won't go to the top of the hill," said Asahel; "and
it's as hot for me as for other folks, I guess."
"You take the young oxen, Winthrop," said the farmer, pushing
back his chair from the table.
"Why, sir?" said the eldest son promptly.
"I want to give you the best," answered his father, with a
touch of comicality about the lines of his face.
"Are you afraid I shall work them too hard?"
"That's just what I'm afraid they'd do for you."
He went out; and his son attended to his breakfast in silence,
with a raised eyebrow and a curved lip.
"What do you want, Winthrop?" the mother presently called to
her second son, who had disappeared, and was rummaging
somewhere behind the scenes.
"Only a basket, mamma," -- came from the pantry.
His mother got up from table, and basket in hand followed him,
to where he was busy with a big knife in the midst of her
stores. Slices of bread were in course of buttering, and lay
in ominous number piled up on the yellow shelf. Hard by stood
a bowl of cold boiled potatoes. He was at work with dexterity
as neat-handed and as quick as a woman's.
"There's no pork there, Governor," his mother whispered as he
stooped to the cupboard, -- "your father made an end of that
last night; -- but see -- here --"
And from another quarter she brought out a pie. Being made of
dried apples, it was not too juicy to cut; and being cut into
huge pieces they were stowed into the basket, lapping over
each other, till little room was left; and cheese and
gingerbread went in to fill that. And then as her hands
pressed the lid down and his hands took the basket, the eyes
met, and a quick little smile of great brilliancy, that
entirely broke up the former calm lines of his face, answered
her; for he said nothing. And the mother's "Now go!" -- was
spoken as if she had enough of him left at home to keep her
heart warm for the rest of the day.
The two ploughmen set forth with their teams. Or ploughboys
rather; for the younger of them as yet had seen not sixteen
years. His brother must have been several in advance of him.
The farmhouse was placed on a little woody and rocky
promontory jutting out into a broad river from the east shore.
Above it, on the higher grounds of the shore, the main body of
the farm lay, where a rich tableland sloped back to a mountainous
ridge that framed it in, about half a mile from the water.
Cultivation had stretched its hands near to the top of this
ridge and driven back the old forest, that yet stood and
looked over from the other side. One or two fields were but
newly cleared, as the black stumps witnessed. Many another
told of good farming, and of a substantial reward for the
farmer; at what cost obtained they did not tell.
Towards one of these upland fields, half made ready for a crop
of spring grain, the boys took their way. On first leaving the
house, the road led gently along round the edge of a little
bay, of which the promontory formed the northern horn. Just
before reaching the head of the bay, where the road made a
sharp turn and began to ascend to the tableland, it passed
what was called the _bend meadow_.
It was a very lovely morning of early Spring, one of those
days when nature seems to have hushed herself to watch the
buds she has set a swelling. Promising to be warm, though a
little freshness from the night still lingered in the air.
Everywhere on the hills the soft colours of the young Spring-
time were starting out, that delicate livery which is so soon
worn. They were more soft to-day under a slight sultry
haziness of the atmosphere -- a luxurious veil that Spring had
coyly thrown over her face; she was always a shy damsel. It
soothed the light, it bewitched the distance, it lay upon the
water like a foil to its brightness, it lay upon the mind with
a subtle charm winning it to rest and enjoy. It etherealized
Earth till it was no place to work in. But there went the
oxen, and the ploughmen.
The one as silently as the other; till the bay was left behind
and they came to the point where the road began to go up to
the tableland. Just under the hill here was a spring of
delicious water, always flowing; and filling a little walled-
up basin.
Will, or Will Rufus, as his father had long ago called him,
had passed on and begun to mount the hill. Winthrop stopped
his oxen till he should fill a large stone jug for the day.
The jug had a narrow neck, and he was stooping at the edge of
the basin, waiting for the water to flow in, when his head and
shoulders made a sudden plunge and the jug and he soused in
together. Not for any want of steadiness in either of them;
the cause of the plunge was a worthless fellow who was coming
by at the moment. He had a house a little way off on the bay.
He lived by fishing and farming alternately; and was often,
and was then, employed by Mr. Landholm as an assistant in his
work. He was on his way to the bend meadow, and passing close
by Winthrop at the spring, the opportunity was too good to be
resisted; he tipped him over into the water.
The boy soon scrambled out, and shaking himself like a great
water-dog, and with about as much seeming concern, fixed a
calm eye on his delighted enemy.
"Well, Sam Doolittle, -- what good has that done anybody?"
"Ha'n't it done you none, Governor?"
"What do you think?"
"Well! I think you be a cool one -- and the easiest customer
ever _I_ see."
"I've a mind it shall do somebody good; so see you don't give
my father any occasion to be out with you; for if you do, I'll
give him more."
"Ay, ay," said the man comfortably, "you won't tell on me. Hi!
here's somebody!"
It was Rufus who suddenly joined the group, whip in hand, and
looking like a young Achilles in ploughman's coat and
trousers. Not Achilles' port could be more lordly; the very
fine bright hazel eye was on fire; the nostril spoke, and the
lip quivered; though he looked only at his brother.
"What's the matter, Winthrop?"
"I've been in the water, as you see," said his brother
composedly. "I want a change of clothes, rather."
"How did you get into the water?"
"Why, head foremost -- which wasn't what I meant to do."
"Sam, you put him in!"
"He, he! -- well, Mr. Rufus, maybe I helped him a leetle."
"You scoundrel!" said Rufus, drawing the whip through his
fingers; "what did you do it for?"
"He, he! -- I didn't know but what it was you, Will."
For all answer, the ox-whip was laid about Sam's legs, with
the zest of furious indignation; a fury there was no standing
against. It is true, Rufus's frame was no match for the
hardened one of Mr. Doolittle, though he might be four or five
years the elder of the two boys; but the spirit that was in
him cowed Sam, in part, and in part amused him. He made no
offer to return the blows; he stood, or rather jumped, as the
whip slung itself round his legs, crying out,
"Lay it on, Will! -- Lay it on! Hi -- That's right -- Tuck it on,
Will! --"
Till Will's arm was tired; and flinging away from them, in a
towering passion still, he went up the hill after his oxen.
Sam rubbed his legs.
"I say, Governor, we're quits now, ben't we?" he said in a
sort of mock humble good-humour, as Winthrop was about to
follow his brother.
"Yes, yes. Be off with yourself!"
"I wish it had ha' been 'tother one, anyhow," muttered Sam.
Not a word passed between the brothers about either the
ducking or the flagellation. They spoke not but to their oxen.
Rufus's mouth was in the heroic style yet, all the way up the
hill; and the lips of the other only moved once or twice to
smile.
The day was sultry, as it had promised, and the uphill lay of
the ground made the ploughing heavy, and frequent rests of the
oxen were necessary. Little communication was held between the
ploughmen nevertheless; the day wore on, and each kept
steadily to his work and seemingly to his own thoughts. The
beautiful scene below them, which they were alternately facing
and turning their backs upon, was too well known even to delay
their attention; and for the greater part of the day probably
neither of them saw much beyond his plough and his furrow.
They were at work on a very elevated point of view, from which
the channel of the river and the high grounds on the other
side were excellently seen. Valley there was hardly any; the
up-springing walls of green started from the very border of
the broad white stream which made its way between them. They
were nowhere less than two hundred feet high; above that,
moulded in all manner of heights and hollows; sometimes
reaching up abruptly to twelve or fourteen hundred feet, and
sometimes stretching away in long gorges and gentle
declivities, -- hills grouping behind hills. In Summer all
these were a mass of living green, that the eye could hardly
arrange; under Spring's delicate marshalling every little hill
took its own place, and the soft swells of ground stood back
the one from the other, in more and more tender colouring. The
eye leapt from ridge to ridge of beauty; not green now, but in
the very point of the bursting leaf, taking what hue it
pleased the sun. It was a dainty day; and it grew more dainty
as the day drew towards its close and the lights and shadows
stretched athwart the landscape again. The sun-touched lines
and spots of the mountains now, in some places, were of a
bright orange, and the shadows between them deep neutral tint
or blue. And the river, apparently, had stopped running to
reflect.
The oxen were taking one of their rests, in the latter part of
the day, and Winthrop was sitting on the beam of his plough,
when for the first time Rufus came and joined him. He sat
down in silence and without so much as looking at his brother;
and both in that warm and weary day sat a little while quietly
looking over the water; or perhaps at the little point of
rest, the little brown spot among the trees on the promontory,
where home and mother and little baby sister, and the end of
the day, and the heart's life, had their sole abiding-place. A
poor little shrine, to hold so much!
Winthrop's eyes were there, his brother's were on the
distance. When did such two ever sit together on the beam of
one plough, before or since! Perhaps the eldest might have
seen nineteen summers, but his face had nothing of the boy,
beyond the fresh colour and fine hue of youth. The features
were exceedingly noble, and even classically defined; the eye
as beautiful now in its grave thoughtfulness as it had been a
few hours before in its fire. The mouth was never at rest; it
was twitching or curving at the corners now with the working
of some hidden cogitations. The frame of the younger brother
was less developed; it promised to be more athletic than that
of the elder, with perhaps somewhat less grace of outline; and
the face was not so regularly handsome. A very cool and clear
grey eye aided the impression of strength; and the mouth, less
beautifully moulded than that of Rufus, was also infinitely
less demonstrative. Rufus's mouth, in silence, was for ever
saying something. Winthrop's for the most part kept its fine
outlines unbroken, though when they did give way it was to
singular effect. The contrast between the faces was striking,
even now when both were in repose.
The elder was the first to break silence, speaking slowly and
without moving his eye from its bent.
"Governor, -- what do you suppose lies behind those mountains?"
"What?" -- said Winthrop quickly.
The other smiled.
"Your slow understanding can make a quick leap now and then."
"I can generally understand you," said his brother quietly.
Rufus added no more for a little, and Winthrop let him alone.
"We've got the farm in pretty good order now," he remarked
presently in a considerate tone, folding his arms and looking
about him.
"Papa has," observed Winthrop. "Yes -- if those stumps were out
once. We ought to have good crops this year, of most things."
"I am sure I have spent four or five years of my life in hard
work upon it," said the other.
"Your life ain't much the worse of it," said Winthrop,
laughingly.
Rufus did not answer the laugh. He looked off to the hills
again, and his lips seemed to close in upon his thoughts.
"Papa has spent more than that," said the younger brother
gravely. "How hard he has worked -- to make this farm!"
"Well, he has made it."
"Yes, but he has paid a dozen years of _his_ life for it. And
mamma! --"
"It was a pretty tough subject to begin with," said the elder,
looking about him again. "But it's a nice farm now; -- it's the
handsomest farm in the county; -- it ought to pay considerable
now, after this."
"It hasn't brought us in much so far," observed Winthrop,
"except just to keep along; -- and a pretty tight fit at that."
"The house ought to be up here," said Rufus, considering the
little distant brown speck; -- "it would be worth twice as
much."
"What would?"
"Why! -- the farm!"
"The house wouldn't," said Winthrop, -- "not to my notions."
"It's confoundedly out of the way, down there, a mile off from
the work."
"Only a quarter of that, and a little better," said Winthrop
calmly.
"A little worse! -- There's a great loss of time. There would
be twice as much work done if the house was up here."
"_I_ couldn't stand it," said Winthrop. "How came it the house
was put down there?"
"Papa bought the point first and built the house, before ever
he pushed his acquirements so far as this. He would be wise,
now, to let that, and build another up here somewhere."
"It wouldn't pay," said the younger brother; "and for one, I'm
not sorry."
"If the farm was clear," said the elder, "I'd stand the chance
of it's paying; it's that keeps us down."
"What?"
"That debt."
"What debt?"
"Why, the interest on the mortgage."
"I don't know what you are talking of."
"Why," said Rufus a little impatiently, "don't you know that
when papa bought the property he couldn't pay off the whole
price right down, and so he was obliged to leave the rest
owing, and give security."
"What security?"
"Why, a mortgage on the farm, as I told you."
"What do you mean by a mortgage?"
"Why, he gave a right over the farm -- a right to sell the farm
at a certain time, if the debt was not paid and the interest
upon it."
"What is the debt?"
"Several thousands, I believe."
"And how much does he have to pay upon that every year?"
"I don't know exactly -- one or two, two or three hundred
dollars; and that keeps us down, you see, till the mortgage is
paid off."
"I didn't know that."
They sat silent a little time. Then Winthrop said,
"You and I must pay that money off, Will."
"Ay -- but still there's a question which is the best way to do
it," said Rufus.
"The best way, I've a notion," said Winthrop looking round at
his cattle, -- "is not to take too long noon-spells in the
afternoon."
"Stop a bit. Sit down! -- I want to speak to you. Do you want
to spend all your life following the oxen?"
Winthrop stopped certainly, but he waited in silence.
"_I_ don't!"
"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know -- something --"
"What is the matter, Will?"
"Matter?" -- said the other, while his fine features shewed the
changing lights and shadows of a summer day, -- "why Winthrop,
that I am not willing to stay here and be a ploughman all my
life, when I might be something better!"
The other's heart beat. But after an instant, he answered
calmly,
"How can you be anything better, Will?"
"Do you think all the world lies under the shadow of Wut-a-
qut-o?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you think all the world is like this little world which
those hills shut in?"
"No," -- said Winthrop, his eye going over to the blue depths
and golden ridge-tops, which it did not see; "-- but --"
"Where does that river lead to?"
"It leads to Mannahatta. What of that?"
"There is a world there, Winthrop, -- another sort of world, --
where people know something; where other things are to be done
than running plough furrows; where men may distinguish
themselves! -- where men may read and write; and do something
great; and grow to be something besides what nature made them!
-- I want to be in that world."
They both paused.
"But what will you do, Rufus, to get into that world? -- we are
shut in here."
"_I_ am not shut in!" said the elder brother; and brow and lip
and nostril said it over again; -- "I will live for something
greater than this!"
There was a deep-drawn breath from the boy at his side.
"So would I, if I could. But what can we do?"
How difficult it was to do anything, both felt. But after a
deliberate pause of some seconds, Rufus answered,
"There is only one thing to do. -- I shall go to College."
"To College! -- Will?"
The changes in the face of the younger boy were sudden and
startling. One moment the coronation of hope; the next moment
despair had thrown the coronet off; one more, and the hand of
determination, -- like Napoleon's, -- had placed it firmly on
his brow; and it was never shaken again. But he said nothing;
and both waited a little, till thoughts could find words.
"Rufus, -- do papa and mamma know about this?"
"Not yet."
"What will they think of it?"
"I don't know -- they _must_ think of it as I do. My mind is made
up. I can't stay here."
"But some preparation is necessary, Rufus, ain't it? -- we must
know more than we do before we can go to College, mustn't we?
How will you get that?"
"I don't know, I will get it. Preparation! -- yes!"
"Father will want us both at home this summer."
"Yes -- this summer -- I suppose we must. We must do something --
we must talk to them at home about it, -- gradually."
"If we had books, we could do a great deal at home."
"Yes, if, -- But we haven't. And we must have more time. We
couldn't do it at home."
"Papa wants us this summer. -- And I don't see how he can spare
us at all, Rufus."
"I am sure he will let us go," said the other steadily, though
with a touch of trouble in his face.
"We are just beginning to help him."
"We can help him much better the other way," said Rufus
quickly. "Farming is the most miserable slow way of making
money that ever was contrived."
"How do _you_ propose to make money?" inquired his brother
coolly.
"I don't know! I am not thinking of making money at present!"
"It takes a good deal to go to College, don't it?"
"Yes."
And again there was a little silence. And the eyes of both
were fixed on the river and the opposite hills, while they saw
only that distant world and the vague barrier between.
"But I intend to go, Winthrop," said his brother, looking at
him, with fire enough in his face to _burn up_ obstacles.
"Yes, you will go," the younger said calmly. The cool grey eye
did not speak the internal "So will I!" -- which stamped itself
upon his heart. They got up from the plough beam.
"I'll try for't," was Rufus's conclusion, as he shook himself.
"_You'll get it_," said Winthrop.
There was much love as well as ambition in the delighted look
with which his brother rewarded him. They parted to their
work. They ploughed the rest of their field: -- what did they
turn over besides the soil?
They wended their slow way back with the oxen when the evening
fell; but the yoke was off their own necks. The lingering
western light coloured another world than the morning had
shined upon. No longer bondsmen of the soil, they trode it
like masters. They untackled their oxen and let them out, with
the spirit of men whose future work was to be in a larger
field. Only Hope's little hand had lifted the weight from
their heads. And Hope's only resting point was determination.