“Do ladies ride horseback in the Colonies?”
“Oh, yes. Were you to attend meeting in the country on the Sabbath, you would see many ladies riding up to the horse-block, wives on pillions behind their husbands. Do the ladies who hunt foxes attend meeting on the Sabbath, my lord?”
“Ha, ha! I suspect what you call going to meeting, with us is going to church. Oh, we are very devout. On Sunday we all go to church, kneel on our hassocks, and confess we are miserable sinners, recite the creed, pray for the king, queen, Prince of Wales, the army and navy. We do our full duty as Christians, and are loyal to the church, as well as to his majesty. My rector, at Halford, is a very good man. To be sure the living isn’t much, but he reads the prayers well, preaches a nice little sermon of ten minutes or so, for he knows I don’t care to be bored by the hour. He enjoys a fox hunt, says grace at dinner, and makes a point of having a little game of cards with me Saturday evening. He doesn’t know much about cards, so I usually let him win a few shillings, knowing the poor fellow will feel better Sunday morning while reading the service if he knows he has a half-crown in his pocket, instead of being out that much. I know how it is, Miss Newville. I can be more devout and comfortable on Sunday after winning instead of losing five or ten thousand at Almack’s.”
“Perhaps, my lord, you feel you are not quite such a miserable sinner as you might be after all.”
“You have stated it correctly, Miss Newville,” his lordship replied, not discerning the quiet sarcasm. “Of course I am not, for if I lose, I curse my luck, and am ready to punch somebody’s head, and rip out some swear words, but if I win, I am ready to bless the other fellow for playing a king when he should have laid down an ace.”
His lordship apologized for having tarried so long, and took his departure.
“She’s a Puritan, through and through. As lovely and pure as an angel in heaven,” he said to himself as he walked down the street.
While the months were going by, Roger Stanley, student of Harvard College, was learning about life in Rumford, as a surveyor of land, spending his evenings in the house of Joshua Walden, with Robert and Rachel to keep him company, especially Rachel. He found pleasure in telling her the story of Ulysses and Penelope. Most of the young men of Rumford who came to the Walden home could only talk about oxen, which pair of steers could pull the heaviest load, or whose horse could out-trot all others. When the surveying was done, Roger accepted the invitation of the committeemen to keep the winter school. Never before had there been a master who could keep the big boys in order without using the ferule, but somehow the great strapping fellows, who might have put the master on his back in a twinkling, could not find it in their hearts to do anything that would trouble him. Other masters were content if they went through the regular daily stint of reading, writing, spelling, and ciphering, but he told them about men who made the most of themselves, and who had done great things,—Cæsar, Augustus, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great.
It was the schoolmaster who suggested that the people should meet once a week in the schoolhouse to discuss the great questions affecting the welfare of the Colonies, and who wrote out the questions to be considered:—