It may have been some Rachel dwelt therein, who met a second Jacob at the spring, and Fancy listens for the words they said, not found in "Ovid's Art of Love,"—the maid a matron, and the matron dead.
And then, strolling thoughtfully along, where the track grows dim, and loses itself in the grass, we come to the beeches, whereto, we like to think, glad children once made pilgrimage. That chafed and sturdy limb has borne a weight more precious than its leaves. Upon the stout old arm, swayed to and fro like canaries in a ring, swung clusters of laughing girls and boys, and then beneath it, hand-in-hand, made bows and courtesies to the passing traveler, while tattered hats of straw and wool tossed here and there proclaimed the coming stage. Ah! there were days when, over the old road, ran the yellow, mud-stained coach; laboring up its hills, and pitching along its log-ways, and lurching in its deep-worn tracks, and rattling down its steeps, and splashing through its brooks.
And there, in that roofless dwelling, whose clap-boards rattle in the wind, behold "the stage house" of the elder time. Very grand people used to get out of that stage sometimes, and quite as grand were the dinners that the bustling landlady and her girls set forth. Then it was that the blacksmith, in his dusty shop across the road, was wont to lean upon his hammer, and discuss the merits of wheel-horse and leader.
You can see, even to this day, the burned and blackened ring in the greensward where he used to "set the tire." Of the smithy and the man, no other trace remains.
Children sometimes wander out to the old road, and wonder where it leads, and whether to the end of the world; and we delight to join them in conjecture; to think what stalwart men they were, that, ax in hand, so bravely cut their way through the dim resounding woods, and rolled their cabins up; to think what "beauty" and what "beast" in elder times did pass along this road; what laughter echoed and what jests went round; that canvas-covered wains in many a camp were scattered towards the West, and red fires twinkled through the leafy tents; that soldiers in some old campaign, and ponderous cannon went that way to battle, and returned at last, but fewer than they went. This was the route of them, perhaps, who founded cities in the brave young West, its future sinews and its coming men; of newly-wedded pairs bound for the later Canaan; of murderers hastening from the hue and cry.
Across its beaten path the deer have trooped, the Indian noiseless stole, the forest shadows fallen at high noon. Westward it went to some great lake, they said, where fields all ready for the plow grew green to the water's edge, where springs came early and golden autumns lingered late.
Along that way, trampled beneath the driver's feet, the mail-bag went and came, and now and then a letter from the West; a great brown sheet, and traced with awkward pen and faded ink, yet how like a ballad ran the homely missive: of green March fields, and February flowers; of Nature's meadows waiting for the scythe; of clustering grapes that mantled all the woods; of nearest neighbors but two miles apart; of dreams of plenty and of peace. Blended therewith were memories of home and words of love sent back, and a little sigh, half breathed, for faces they never more should see.
What tidings went, sometimes, of fortunes won, and fame, by errant sons; of girls whose graves were made where the sunbeams rest, "when they promise a glorious morrow."
Thus slowly to and fro crept the sweet syllables of love, the untranslated Gospel of the human heart; and, though long on the way, they never grew chilly or old.
Ah, those letters on huge, buckram foolscap, crackling when you opened them like a fire in the hemlocks, that used to be written when letters were as honest as an open palm! Those old, half-naked letters, their blue ribs showing through, ventured out at long and painful intervals, were indited "after meeting," and were sure to contain religion, death or a wedding. The old-time writer, though wicked as Captain Kyd on week days, was bound to have religion enough in his letter to float it on Sunday, and he was no hypocrite that did it, for it was the deliberate, passionless transcript of his better self. Lay side by side an old letter of 1840 and a new letter of 1874: the one right-angled, neat and snug in its white or buff jacket, wearing a medallion as if it belonged to the legion of honor, self-folding, self-sealing, self-paying, and ready for the road. The other in its shirt-sleeves, broad, long, and possibly five-cornered, written across its baggy back like a note at the bank, "for here you see the owner's name,"—an "18¾" or a "25" done in red ink in a corner, and sealed with a pat of shoe-maker's wax or a little biscuit of dough. But as honest hearts were done up in those rude letters as ever were set going, and the awkward pages were more richly illuminated than an old Saint's Legend, with unadorned and simple friendship.