I
The Four Corners in Middleton made a pleasant drive from the
university town of Camberton. Many a time in the history of the house
a party of young fellows had driven over the old turnpike that started
where the arsenal used to stand in the sacred quarter of Camberton,
and as the evening sun gilded the low, fresh-water marshes beyond
Spring Pond, would trot on toward the rolling hills of Middleton.
After dinner, or a dance, or, perhaps, mere chat over a late supper,
they rode away at midnight singing as they whipped up their sleepy
nags and otherwise disturbing the decorum of night in Middleton. Or,
maybe, routed out early on a frosty October morning, after lighting
pipes and a word with the stable-boy, they would snuggle into
overcoats and spin away over the hard roads where the night frost
still lay on the caked dust in the hollows like a crust of milk. In
crossing the meadows the autumn sun swung into their faces, a
comfortable solace on a morning drive, exciting them forward toward
Camberton that they might report in the little stucco chapel while the
tinny college bell was still harshly calling to prayer.
The Ellwells had kept the old Four Corners in Middleton long after the
family had moved out into the wider world of Boston, and from farming
and the ministry had entered the spheres of commerce and money-owning.
In the time of old Roper Ellwell the Four Corners had been the
parsonage for Middleton, and there first the Rev. Roper Ellwell had
stirred the placid waters of meeting-house faith until something like
a primitive revival had spread into neighboring parishes. His wife, a
learned woman, had managed half a dozen young men who were preparing
their Greek and Latin for Camberton. Those were the homely and kindly
days of the Four Corners.
Then Roper Ellwell was called by the Second Church, in Boston, to be
their pastor. This was the beginning of the Ellwell family in the good
society of New England. The pastor's eloquence waxed into books that
are found to-day on the shelves of the Harvard Library, with the
University book-plate recording their gift by the author; also in
black-cloth bindings, admirably printed, going to auction from some
private library formed by a parishioner of the noted divine. When he
became old in service, the congregation, now rich and fashionable,
added to his ministrations the vigor of a younger man. Yet Roper
Ellwell, on fine Sundays, still fired one of his former discourses
from the lofty pulpit of his church. As these days grew rarer, the old
pastor divided his time between his son's house on Beacon Street and
the Four Corners.
Mark Ellwell was, as he should be, his father's son with the leaven of
a newer world which led him into business instead of the ministry. But
a fair product of Camberton, and a man well known and liked in Boston,
where he was a merchant, when that term did not cover shop-keeping or
gambling. He made a solid fortune in wool; built a house just beyond
Charles Street on Beacon Street; was a member of two good clubs, and a
deacon in his father's church.
In these days the Four Corners was used chiefly in the autumn months,
and as a playhouse for the feeble pastor. Mark Ellwell built a summer
home in Nahant.
There was one son who grew up--John. This Ellwell was sent to
Camberton in due time, where he broke the family tradition by living a
licentious life. He was kept in the university for two years, from
respect to his family, in spite of his drunkenness and idleness. When
the war broke out--John was then in his third year at Camberton--the
wilder blood at the university found its field. Young Ellwell shirked
his chance; while his mates were enlisting and leaving college, he
slunk away in little sprees, pleading weak health. Mark Ellwell,
shamed and mortified, would have horsewhipped his son into the ranks,
but the mother defended the weakling.
One day young Ellwell announced his marriage to a Salem girl whom he
had met the week before. His father gave him a house; as he chose to
be a broker, his father started him with his own credit. A few years
later, when the war was over and John Ellwell was succeeding in the
general tide of success, established with a family and three young
children, all seemed well. Now the Four Corners was rarely visited.
The verandas broke down; grass and hardy roses grew into the cracks
where the clap-boards had started. The Ellwells, father and son, were
fashionable people; the family had developed.
Early in the seventies there came rumors of young Ellwell's disgrace
in the Tremont Club. He was detected cheating at play, and left the
club, of which Mark Ellwell was vice-president. John Ellwell was a
large, florid man, with the fine features of the good New England
pastor, a slightly Roman nose, and a gouty tendency in his walk. He
was the flourishing broker, of the kind who worked on nerve, who was
never sober after three in the afternoon, and having begun to drink at
ten was uncertain after twelve. He knew a side of business life that
his father had never seen; he associated with men whom the stiff Mark
would have disdained to recognize. But his reputation for cleverness
carried him on in spite of the club affair until....
One day, after a spree, he went on the Board wild and flurried. What
he did he could never remember, but when the settlement for that day's
transactions was made he was ruined. The Board gave him a week to find
the necessary funds and pay his debts. His father settled the affair,
opened the Four Corners for his family, sold his own house on Beacon
Street, and taking his two daughters, who had never married, sailed
for Europe. That was the end of the Ellwells in old Boston. Mark
Ellwell never came back.
"The old man is done with me." That had been John's comment to his
wife. And well might Mark Ellwell be done with him; there was not much
left for another clearing up. There were the Four Corners, and his
seat in the Board, and then--beggary. So in the third generation the
Ellwells established themselves once more in Middleton at the Four
Corners.