upon the Black-moss, and now in a pause of silence the clock struck
twelve. Within these three hours William and Hannah had led a life
of trouble and of joy, that had enlarged and kindled their hearts
within them--and they felt that henceforth they were to live wholly
for each other's sakes. His love was the proud and exulting love of
a deliverer, who, under Providence, had saved from the frost and
the snow the innocence and the beauty of which his young passionate
heart had been so desperately enamoured--and he now thought of his
own Hannah Lee ever more moving about in his father's house, not as
a servant, but as a daughter--and when some few happy years had gone
by, his own most beautiful and most loving wife. The innocent maiden
still called him her young master--but was not ashamed of the holy
affection which she now knew that she had long felt for the fearless
youth on whose bosom she had thought herself dying in that cold
and miserable moor. Her heart leapt within her when she heard her
parents bless him by his name--and when he took her hand into his
before them, and vowed before that Power who had that night saved
them from the snow, that Hannah Lee should ere long be his wedded
wife--she wept and sobbed as if her heart would break in a fit of
strange and insupportable happiness.
The young shepherd rose to bid them farewell--"my father will think
I am lost," said he, with a grave smile, "and my Hannah's mother
knows what it is to fear for a child." So nothing was said to detain
him, and the family went with him to the door. The skies smiled
serenely as if a storm had never swept before the stars--the moon
was sinking from her meridian, but in cloudless splendour--and the
hollow of the hills was hushed as that of heaven. Danger there
was none over the placid night-scene--the happy youth soon crost
the Black-moss, now perfectly still--and, perhaps, just as he was
passing, with a shudder of gratitude, the very spot where his sweet
Hannah Lee had so nearly perished, she was lying down to sleep in
her innocence, or dreaming of one now dearer to her than all on
earth but her parents.
EREMUS.
MY NEIGHBOUR EPHRAIM.
I went this afternoon to pay a visit to my neighbour Ephraim; indeed
I find his cheerful fire-side so much more pleasant than my own
little solitary dwelling, that I am afraid I go there rather too
often; however, as yet I have not remarked any coldness or distance
in their reception of me. Ephraim had been a little indisposed, and
I found him reclining on the sofa; his wife was preparing something
comfortable for him by the fire, and his daughter, having arranged
his pillow to his mind, sat with her work at his feet, while
Ezekiel read to him--his other son was engaged in superintending
the business of the farm; but when the hour of tea approached,
he joined the circle in the parlour with a smiling countenance,
cheeks glowing with health, and an appetite which appeared in no
wise diminished by the exercise of the day. When I returned to my
own lonely habitation, I could not avoid contrasting a little my
situation with that of my old friend. Happy Ephraim! said I, thou
hast an excellent wife and dutiful daughter, to smooth the pillow
of thy aching head, to hover with feathery footsteps around thy
peaceful couch, and watch over thy slumbers with the assiduity of
anxious love--thou hast two manly intelligent sons, to attend to thy
business, to protect thy interests, and support thy tottering steps;
whose only strife is that of kindness, whose only rivalship, which
shall be most attentive to thee, each of whom would gladly say with
the poet,
Me, may the gentle office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age.--
And when at last, in a good old age, thou shalt be gathered to
thy fathers, a train of mourning relatives shall deposit with
decent care thy cherished remains in the narrow house appointed
for all living; while I stand alone in the world, an insulated,
insignificant being, for whom no one feels an interest, and whose
pains and pleasures are of consequence to no one; whose approach is
greeted with no smile, and whose departure excites no regret, and
when the closing scene approaches, no kindred hand shall support
my throbbing temples, or prepare the potion for my feverish lip,
but mercenary eyes alone mark with ill disguised impatience the
uncertain flutter of the lingering pulse, mercenary attendants
only receive, with frigid indifference, the last farewell of the
departing spirit--
"By strangers' hands my dying eyes be clos'd,
"By strangers' hands my lifeless limbs compos'd."
Lost in a train of such like melancholy musings, and pondering on
the past, the present and the future, I had suffered my fire to
become nearly extinguished, and the feeble glimmer of my untrimmed
taper faintly illumined my little study, when I was roused from my
revery by the entrance of Ezekiel and his sister: The good girl
said she had remarked that I was more silent than usual, and as
the evening was fine, they had come over to see if I was unwell:
this little act of kindness, though in itself no way remarkable,
yet coming at such a moment, affected me not a little.--But I must
shake off this gloom and depression of spirit, I am not now to learn
that the world had much rather laugh _with_ or _at_ a man than mourn
with him; I did not sit down to lament the desolation of my own
situation, which cannot now be remedied; but to exhort the young
to get married, to encourage them by the example of Ephraim, and
to warn them of my own: "Do nothing in a hurry," is an excellent
maxim in the main, but in some cases it is possible to use too much
deliberation; in the important business of taking a wife, many a man
has debated and deliberated, until the season for acting has passed
away. An old fellow like myself has little to do in the world, but
to talk for the benefit of his neighbours; and I would willingly
devote my experience to the service of the rising generation. I
should feel no objection to narrate the disastrous consequences of
my own superabundant caution in the affair of matrimony, and to
enumerate the many eligible matches which have slipped through my
fingers; the opportunities to form advantageous connexions which
have been unimproved in consequence of my hesitation and indecision,
for I have now no plans to be defeated or prospects blasted by a
knowledge of my failings, and no vanity to be mortified by the
exposure of my disappointments, but I am apprehensive the detail
might prove rather tedious and uninteresting; I may, however,
mention a few circumstances attending my last attempts to obtain a
help mate, if attempt it may be called. I had become acquainted in
the family of a respectable farmer, who had a daughter of a suitable
age, and although I cannot say that
"Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
"In every motion, dignity and love,"
yet her correct and orderly deportment seemed to promise that she
would make an excellent wife; I was therefore pretty frequent in my
visits, and though on these occasions my discourse was principally,
if not entirely, addressed to the parents, yet I kept a sharp
eye upon the daughter, in order to endeavour to form a tolerable
estimate of her disposition and character; and as I had in those
days a handsome little estate at my own disposal, and was upon the
whole considered rather a promising young man, my company seemed
always very acceptable, to the father and mother at least.
In this manner, eight or ten months, perhaps, passed pleasantly
away, and I was beginning to think that I might before long venture
to address her with a little freedom and familiarity, preparatory
to a serious negotiation when all my plans were defeated, and my
visionary castle crumbled into dust, by the precipitation of others.
One evening I was sitting with them as usual, when after a little
time the father and mother, on some occasion, absented themselves
from the room, and left the daughter and myself together. As I had
not the most distant suspicion that there was any design in their
movements, and expected their return every moment, I took up the
almanack, (being fond of reading) and had just got cleverly through
it, when they returned. I thought I remarked something particularly
scrutinizing in the looks of the mother, but I believe she soon
discovered that I had done nothing but read the almanack. On my
next visit, I felt no small trepidation, having a strong suspicion
of what might occur; and, in fact, we were again soon left alone
together--and now the consciousness of what was expected, kept me as
silent as ignorance had done before. In my distress I looked about
for the almanack, but they had taken it away. In vain I endeavoured
to find something to say, my faculties seemed spell bound; and I
sat, I know not how long, in a pitiable state of confusion and
embarrassment, until my companion made some remark respecting the
weather--this was a great relief. I immediately proceeded to treat
of the weather in all its bearings, past, present and to come, and
strove to prolong the discussion until some one might come in,
but in vain--the subject at length became exhausted, and silence
again took place; which lasted so long, and became so glaringly
ridiculous, that in utter despair, I was upon the point of having
recourse to the weather again, when we were relieved by the entrance
of company.
Determined never again to cut so silly a figure, I resolved to
provide against my next visit a fund of agreeable conversation.
I accordingly brushed up my acquaintance with the philosophy of
Aristotle, and of the peripatetics generally; collected some
anecdotes of the wise men of Greece, and, not to lack matters of
more recent date, stored my memory with a few amusing particulars
respecting Mary Queen of Scots, and of the court of Elizabeth:
thus prepared, I ventured once more to make my appearance, but I
had no opportunity to say a word about Aristotle or the Queen of
Scots; it was rather late when I entered the room, and I found my
intended in earnest conversation with a young man who had drawn
his chair very near to her: their discourse seemed to be of an
interesting nature, but they spoke in so low a tone, that I was
unable to profit by their remarks; I observed at last, that they
frequently smiled when looking towards me, and as I love a cheerful
countenance, and smiling is certainly contagious, I smiled a good
deal too. This seemed wonderfully to promote their risibility, and
my laughter increasing in the same proportion, we had a deal of
merriment, although little or nothing was said: how long this might
have continued I know not, had not my intended father-in-law called
me aside, and hinted that as the night was dark, and there was some
appearance of rain, I had perhaps better return. I thanked him for
his truly paternal care, and accordingly took my departure in high
good humour, and the next week was informed that the young people
were married.
[_Rural Visiter._
VIEW OF A GOSSIP.
_Mr. Editor_--I send you the following account of a short inspection
of a fellow creature, which, if it will convey any information to
your readers, you are at liberty to publish.
I had the curiosity, as a neighbouring gossip was one day at my
house, and while she happened to be napping on the sofa, to try if I
could obtain a view of her ear, the structure of which I had often
speculated about. With the aid of a good eye-glass I succeeded. It
was a curious piece of mechanism: the outside folding was of the
usual size, but by long habit of eager listening, had acquired a
kind of gaping shape, which seemed to bid an indiscriminate welcome
to every sound. Next to this was a kind of whispering gallery,
so extremely susceptible of noise, that one of my most careful
breathings was immediately reverberated to the tympanum, and though
not loud enough to awake the sleeper, it was evident that it made
her dream of scandal. I was curious to know the construction of the
tympanum, which vibrated so easily to an empty breath. I could see
it plainly: for the long habit of extreme anxiety to receive every
breath that stirred, had pushed it forward to the very orifice of
the ear, where it seemed waiting in an agony of impatience for
something new, and complaining grievously that all the tit-bits of
intelligence had to pass such a distance before they could come to
its hearing. Its make was curious: it was an extremely fine sieve
of the most elastic materials. It was evidently constructed so
that every thing of the least weight should rebound as soon as
it touched, and only those articles which were as light as air,
should enter. It was too fine to admit any thing larger than a
bit of scandal. The whole external ear was designed to catch and
communicate every thing audible, for it is a maxim with gossips as
well as others, that nothing is too poor for a nice hand to sift
some good from it. This sifting was the office of the tympanum:
it was in a perpetual quiver. Its nice threads were constantly
shaking to pieces what was too light to rebound, and too large to
enter whole, and then dropping them to the receiver below. There
were a great many curious articles sticking in this sieve, which
had got half through but could go no further. There were little
pieces of serious and affecting family secrets, tales of distress,
cullings from the little failings of good men, morsels of sermons,
drippings of church business, ends, middles and halves of people's
sayings, anecdotes of funerals, with numerous suspicions, half heard
hear-says, and suspicions of near-says.--All these had evidently
been operated upon. A kind of scandalic acid had been at work on
those parts which had got within. They were partly decomposed;
their seriousness had assumed a ridiculous aspect, their solidity
had become gaseous: what had been affecting, seemed now to be
laughable; what had appeared commendable, seemed now composed of
so many disgusting materials as to be odious. Here I learned the
reason which I never knew before, why it is that gossips hear so
many lectures upon the degrading, injurious, disreputable character
of their pursuits, and so entirely without effect. These lectures
never passed their ears: their matter was too heavy not to rebound,
or the truths too great to gain admission; or, if any detached parts
chanced to enter, they were so broken by sifting, and so decomposed
and changed by the very pungent acid within, as to retain nothing
of their original seriousness, and become fit companions for the
nice selections which passed before them.
The sight of the ear excited my curiosity to look for the mind
within: whatever may be the difficulty of determining the seat of
the mind in persons of ordinary construction, the matter is clear,
that the gossip's mind must be as near to the vehicle of sound as
possible. This is confirmed by observation; I found it just inside
the ear, where there was but a small space, to be sure, for its
operation; but its dimensions were of no enlarged description. It
had evidently been made for some useful employment: its nerves
were strong, its perceptions quick, its action skilful; but it was
miserably contracted. Part of it, and plainly the best part, was
ruined by long inaction. It contained a few good ideas, grown rusty
by long disuse, which evidently might have been made to appear
respectable, could they have been delivered from the stuff which
covered them. This mind was a complete factory in miniature: there
was its picking machine, its spinning machine, a contrivance for
weaving, for shearing, for trimming; with dyes of every variety
of shade. All these machines were so artfully combined, that you
could see nothing of the raw material after it once went to be
picked, till it came out in an article nicely dressed and dyed for
distribution. There was a very smooth communication from the mind
to the mouth, through which the different articles, as soon as
finished, were conveyed, to be _kindly_, and _complacently_, and
_charitably_, rattled out to every one that should come. A peculiar
excellence of this mechanism was, that there seemed to be no refuse:
every thing was worked, every thing was turned to some account:
the motion here was perpetual, and acid was strangely used instead
of oil to facilitate it. All around, there were receipts for the
best method of making a good story out of almost nothing; of how
to extract something laughable from the most serious subjects; of
how to dye white into a good black, and how to find materials for
manufacturing, where no one would think of looking. The day-book
was a curiosity. "April 1st, eked out of John B's apprentice two
skeins of scandal about his master." "Monday, learned a good deal
from Mrs. C's cook about her mistress' private ways, and gained
a variety of nice bits, which, with a chain of good _home-spun_,
will make up a very good article." "Tuesday, heard a whisper about
something disagreeable in Mr. D's family, can't rest till I know
more about it; must send Sally into their kitchen to see what can
be picked up there. A few family quarrels would help finely just
now." "Wednesday, caught the thread to the tale which I have been
trying these three months to unwind, it seems to lead to some noble
pickings." "To-day, must go out and hear the news, and ask about
this marriage rumour."
As I was finishing my observations, a little neglected thing struck
my attention, which seemed to demand some notice. It was the
gossip's conscience. It was a little, contracted, fantastical body,
that seemed extremely averse to noise and all kinds of disturbance;
to avoid which, it had squeezed itself into a narrow corner, where,
with the help of several ingenious contrivances, it kept clear of
all interference: it seemed to sleep almost all the time, in which
it was assisted by the influence of numerous little nostrums which
were kept for the purpose. When conscience did sometimes awake,
(as I conjectured) it was mostly on a Sunday, while there was but
little doing, _comparatively_, when it looked about a little, made
some bustle, and went to sleep again perfectly satisfied. From
appearance, I judged that conscience and the gossip had very little
intercourse.
One thing was remarkable about this mental factory, which was, the
flourishing state of its business; a circumstance which seems the
more strange, because such establishments are so very numerous, and
their productions so eminently worthless.
Now, sir, having finished my description, permit me to ask, if
there is any thing to excuse the employment of gossips, great or
small? Can the want of other occupation, or the amusement which this
affords them, make amends for such degradation of themselves; such
abominable trifling with their neighbour's character; such vexatious
meddling with other's business; such remorseless transformation of
good into evil; of secrets into public news; of the serious into the
ridiculous; of peace into disputing; as they are constantly guilty
of? Ought not such persons to be universally shunned as public
evils, and if a public law will do no good, should it not be the
secret resolution of every gossip-hater, to avoid as a pestilence,
the scandalous atmosphere of a scandalous tale-bearer?
There is a celebrated description of law which affords a good
outline for the description of what of all things is most lawless.
Of scandal, there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat
is in the temple of fame; her voice the confusion of the world;
all things in earth and hell own her influence; the very least as
feeling her hate, and the greatest as not exempt from her power;
both men and women, and creatures of what condition soever, though
each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent,
detesting her as the pest of their peace and joy. ANTI-TATTLER.
_To prevent Skippers in Bacon._--Take of red pepper finely powdered
one spoonful for every joint of meat, and rub it on the meat with
the salt, when it is first cut up. It has been often tried and was
never known to fail in producing the above effect.
A DISCOURSE, READ BEFORE THE
Essex Agricultural Society,
In Massachusetts, February 21, 1820,
_Suggesting some Improvements in the Agriculture of the County._
BY TIMOTHY PICKERING, President of the Society.
At a Meeting of the Essex Agricultural Society, at Topsfield,
February 21, 1820,
Voted, That the thanks of the Society be presented to the Hon.
TIMOTHY PICKERING for his interesting Address, and that he be
requested to furnish a copy thereof for publication.--Attest,
FREDERICK HOWES, _Secretary_.
DISCOURSE.
_Gentlemen_--The secretary has put into my hands a vote of the
Society, requesting me to "make to it such communications as may in
my opinion most conduce to the interest of Agriculture."
This was an unlooked for request. I have myself much to learn from
observing farmers, of longer experience, and whose attentions have
been exclusively devoted to husbandry. Mine, since I became a
farmer, have been diverted by other pursuits; so that at intervals
only my thoughts have been turned to this subject.
No one doubts the importance of our profession; and the actual
formation of our society is a declaration that improvements in it
are necessary.--But the field of agriculture is of boundless extent;
and though traversed for some thousands of years by the greater
portion of the human race, yet by no one, nor by all combined, has
a complete survey been accomplished. Every year, and every day,
presents something new: and even of old things, the practices of
ages, there still exist diversities of opinions. For instance,
which is preferable, deep or shallow ploughing?--Should manures be
spread on the surface, or be buried by the plough? If the latter, at
what depth, to produce the greatest effect, with the most lasting
fertility?--Should manure be applied in its rough, coarse, and
unfermented state, or, by keeping and repeated turnings, be more
or less rotted?--These are points which appear to me deeply to
affect the interests of agriculture. On these therefore I will give
you my opinion, enlightened by the observations of intelligent
husbandmen. I will then advert to a few other topics which demand
your attention; _dwelling_ on one of them--Root crops for the Food
of Live Stock--as lying at the foundation of an improved agriculture.
I. _On Deep Ploughing and Manuring._
For myself, I entertain no doubt of the utility of deep ploughing;
not at once, in our lands in general, but by an increase of two
or three inches at every annual ploughing, until the earth be
stirred and pulverized to the depth of ten or twelve inches. Indian
corn, planted in such a mass of loosened earth, would not, I am
persuaded, ever suffer by ordinary droughts.--Like a spunge, it
would absorb a vast quantity of rain water, and become a reservoir
to supply the wants of that and all other plants.--Nothing is
more common in a dry summer, than the rolling of the leaves of
corn; and that circumstance is often mentioned as an evidence of
the severity of the drought. This rolling of the leaves of Indian
corn, is the consequence, in part, of scant manuring, but still
more of shallow ploughing. Few, perhaps, are aware of the depth
to which the roots of plants will penetrate in a deeply loosened
earth. A gentleman,[11] much inclined to agricultural inquiries and
observations, informed me, near fifty years ago, that seeing some
men digging a well, in a hollow place, planted with Indian corn,
then at its full growth, he stopped to examine how far its roots had
descended; and he traced them to the depth of nine feet. The soil
was an accumulation of rich earth which had run or been thrown into
the hollow.
[11] Peter Oliver, Esq. then a Judge of the Superior Court of
Massachusetts.
The seed of the common turnip, sown in warm weather, and on
a soil sufficiently moist, I have known to vegetate in about
eight-and-forty hours; and in only four or five days afterwards, I
found the plants had sent down roots to the depth of four or five
inches.
I have often noticed forest trees blown down by violent winds, whose
roots, of the same species, were very differently formed. Such as
had grown in grounds having a hard, impenetrable pan of clayey
gravel, at the depth of twelve or eighteen inches from the surface,
exhibiting a flat mass of roots; while others, torn up from a deep
loam, or loamy gravel, showed downward roots of several feet in
length.