CHAPTER XXI.
THE MINISTER AT BAYS HOLLOW GETS A WIFE.
I dare say that the village to which I take my reader is a town of some importance now; but years ago, it was nothing but a cluster of houses snugly nested in a valley, through which a small stream wound itself, sinuously creeping through the meadows and along the base of the hills, in so many picturesque windings, that you really could not tell in what direction it was destined to run at last, north or south.
The village stood at two crossroads, which the river intersected three or four times; besides, a brook from the hills met it just below the corners, demanding a little plank bridge for itself, over which a clump of golden willows bent and sighed pleasantly all the day long. A great, square, barnlike meeting-house, with pews laid out like town lots, and aisles broader than any street in Constantinople, occupied the centre of the village. A range of wagon sheds stood behind it, and a small prairie of greensward lay all around it. There had been some vague attempt at a steeple, which the prejudices of the community had cut short at the belfry, and left without a spire, which gave the edifice a broad, flat look, which would have driven a modern architect mad.
On the top of a broad platform, which rose half way to the ceiling, and was approached by two steep flights of steps, was perched a little sentry box of a pulpit, surmounted by something in the shape of a huge toadstool, which the architects of that day called a sounding board.
In this pulpit, Sunday after Sunday, Mr. Prior, minister of the parish, held forth after the good old fashion, when sermons had more heads than a centipede has legs, and hearers got the value of the minister's salary in good, sound gospel. Besides, Mr. Prior had other sources of popularity—his doctrine was sound, and his sentences offered rare opportunities for short snoozes, which came oftenest between seventhly and eighthly, or thereabout. Not that minister Prior was dull—nothing of the kind; he was a very learned man, educated solemnly in a gloomy college, and lifted so completely out of the world during his clerical studies that he never quite found his way back again.
After Mr. Prior had settled himself in the ministry some ten or fifteen years, he married the most accomplished and correct person of all that region, a lady who had kept the district school, to general acceptance, six consecutive summers, had embroidered a cover for the communion table with her own hands, and was only prevented adding a gorgeous book mark and a pair of slippers for the minister, by the fear of what people might say.
I think it was one of his deacons who first put a vague idea of matrimony in the minister's head. One day the two were standing on a little swell of ground which overlooked the juncture of the mountain rivulet and the river. The clump of golden willows looked beautiful that morning; the yellow boughs and twigs glanced in the sunshine, and the thick leaves were all in a quiver under the kisses of the wind. Have I said that the brook clove one of the greenest meadows you ever set eyes on, before it crossed the road? If not, understand that pleasant fact now, and more, that groups of trees had been left near the brook, all along its banks, and one of its grand curves hedged in the loveliest spot for a house your imagination ever dwelt upon.
"I say, minister," said the deacon—this was some time before our story, remember—"I say, what if you get married, and settle down in that ere meadow?"
The minister blushed, and looked, as the deacon afterward said, every which way, before he answered.