I sympathized with Winnie in regard to the depleted condition of our treasury; but Miss Prillwitz remarked, enigmatically, that the adventure might not prove to be such a losing one as we imagined. We begged her to explain; but she bade us wait until we were at least ten miles from our encampment.
We relinquished the station to the showmen after a very early breakfast, and drove away with lightened carts and subdued spirits.
The rain had ceased, but was likely to begin again at any moment, for the sky was thickly overcast, and father suggested that, as this was a famous trout region, we might do well to spend the morning in fishing. This plan pleased all but Miss Prillwitz, who whispered to father that she had particular reasons for reaching a telegraph station as soon as possible, and we accordingly directed our course at a rattling pace toward the shire town of Greenfield. On the way Miss Prillwitz confided to us her suspicions; and in order that the reader may understand them, I must anticipate the events which are to be related in the next chapter, and explain that, after the explosion at Rickett's Court, Solomon Meyer and one of the anarchists had disappeared from New York, and Mr. Armstrong had offered a reward for their apprehension.
The anarchist was known to be a Russian, and though Miss Prillwitz had never seen Solomon Meyer, she felt sure, from Lovey Trimble's description of him, that he had decided to avoid the ordinary routes of travel, and to journey toward Canada on foot, disguised as an itinerant showman. She had more proofs of his identity than these suspicions. The men had conversed very freely with each other in Russian, never dreaming that there was any one present who could understand the language. The Russian had complained bitterly that this accident would delay their journey to Canada, and the Jew had replied that it might be as well to lie hidden until the search was over.
Arrived at Greenfield, Miss Prillwitz telegraphed to Mr. Armstrong, and in two hours received the following reply: "Have the local authorities arrest the parties and detain them until I can reach Greenfield."
Accordingly Mr. Stillman and father, with a sheriff and a constable, drove back toward Mount Toby in a sort of picnic wagon. Father advised us to await him at Deerfield, one of the most interesting villages in the Connecticut Valley—both from its intrinsic beauty and its historic associations. We engaged lodgings at the small hotel, where we found but one other traveler, a dejected book-agent. It was nearly dinner-time, and the landlord looked rather alarmed by the unexpected arrival of so many hungry-looking guests, but he soon set before us a capital dinner of broiled chicken, and after a little rest we took a stroll through the beautiful old town. We were informed that the Memorial Hall, a museum of antique furniture, books, costumes, and other curiosities, was well worth visiting; and so, indeed, we found it. One object which greatly interested me was an old spinnet, with a quaint collection of music, both sacred and secular. Here was a great bass-viol which formerly groaned out an accompaniment to the male voices of the choir as they took their part in such strange, metrical arrangements as
"Come, my beloved, haste away,
Cut short the hours of thy delay;
Fly like a youthful hart or roe,
Over the hills where spices grow."
The Library, too, a collection of "the (literary) remains" of many celebrated doctors of divinity, was a fascinating room, and one in which we would have enjoyed prowling for a long time. Hawthorne has given such an admirable description, in his "Old Manse," of just such a library, that I cannot forbear quoting it here.
"The old books would (for the most part) have been worth nothing at an auction. They possessed an interest quite apart from their literary value; many of them had been transmitted down through a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan divines. A few of the books were Latin folios written by Catholic authors; others demolished papistry as with a sledgehammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the book of Job, which only Job himself could have had the patience to read, filled at least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio 'Body of Divinity.' Volumes of this form dated back two hundred years and more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times: diminutive, but as black as their bulkier brethren. These little old volumes impressed me as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been, unfortunately, blighted at an early stage of their growth. Then there were old newspapers, and still older almanacs, which reproduced the epochs when they had issued from the press with a distinctness that was altogether unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass among the books, with the images of a vanished century in them."
We lingered long in the Library, and in the Indian Room, where stands an old door gashed by the tomahawks of the Indians who, with a company of French, in 1704, surprised Deerfield, massacred a great part of the inhabitants, and carried a hundred and twelve as prisoners to Canada. Yellow and crumbling letters, uncertainly spelled and quaintly phrased, hung around the room, telling how perilous such a driving-tour as we had just taken would have been in those pioneer days. One, dated 1756 and written to Captain John Burt in the Crown Point Army, read as follows: