It was not always that the villagers of New England could place themselves on hill tops, and leave their doors unfastened. There is a striking contrast between their present security and the fears of their forefathers, in the days when the nursling went to church, because it was unsafe at home, in the absence of its father. Father, mother, and children, all went on one horse to meet the total population within the walls of the church; the one parent armed, the other prying about for traces of the fearful red man. Those were the days when the English regicides had fled to the colonies, and were there secreted. Those were the days when anything that was to be made known to all was announced in church, because everybody was sure to be there; and a fast-day was ordained if anything very remarkable was to be done, or conveyed. Sometimes formal announcements were made; sometimes intimations were so interwoven with the texture of the discourse, as that unfriendly ears, if such should be present, should not apprehend the meaning. When any emissary of Charles the Second was prowling in search of a concealed regicide, the pastor preached from some such text as, "Hide the outcasts. Bewray not him that wandereth;"[9] and the flock understood that they were to be on their guard against spies. Charles the Second could never get hold of one of his enemies who had taken refuge in these colonies.
On looking abroad over the valley of the Connecticut, from the top of Mount Holyoke, I saw the village of Hadley, seated in the meadows, and extending across a promontory, formed by the winding of the river. This promontory afforded a secure grazing ground for the cattle by day, which were driven by night into the area of the village, where the church stood. Goffe, the regicide, was concealed for many years in the parsonage at Hadley; all the people in the village, except two or three, being, in this instance, unaware of an outcast being among them. One Sunday, the Indians attacked the village while the people were all in church. The women and children were left in the church, while their husbands, fathers, and brothers went out to do battle with the cruel foe. It went hard with the whites; the Indians were fast bearing them down, when an unknown figure appeared in their ranks, with flowing robes, streaming white hair, and a glittering sword. The cry was raised that the angel Gabriel had been sent in answer to the prayers of the women in the church. Every spirit was cheered, every arm was nerved, and the Indians were beaten off, with great slaughter. Upon this, Gabriel vanished; but tradition long preserved the memory of his miraculous appearance. The very few who recognized in him Goffe, with his undressed hair, and in his morning gown, kept the secret faithfully. How blessed a change has come over rural life in Massachusetts since those days! Never may its peace and security be invaded by those social abuses which are more hateful than foreign spies; more cruel and treacherous than the injured and exasperated red man of the wilderness!
The contrast is also striking between the country life of New England and that of the west. I staid for some weeks in the house of a wealthy land-owner in Kentucky. Our days were passed in great luxury; and some of hottest of them very idly. The house was in the midst of grounds, gay with verdure and flowers, in the opening month of June; and our favourite seats were the steps of the hall, and chairs under the trees. From thence we could watch the play of the children on the grass-plat, and some of the drolleries of the little negroes. The red bird and the blue bird flew close by; and the black and white woodpecker with crimson head, tapped at all the tree-trunks, as if we were no interruption. We relished the table fare, after that with which we had been obliged to content ourselves on board the steam-boats. The tender meat, fresh vegetables, good claret and champagne, with the daily piles of strawberries and towers of ice-cream, were welcome luxuries. There were thirty-three horses in the stables, and we roved about the neighbouring country accordingly. There was more literature at hand than time to profit by it. Books could be had at home; but not the woods of Kentucky;—clear, sunny woods, with maple and sycamore springing up to a height which makes man feel dwarfish. The glades, with their turf so clean, every fallen leaf having been absorbed, reminded me of Ivanhoe, I almost looked for Gurth in my rambles. All this was, not many years ago, one vast canebrake, with a multitude of buffalo and deer: the pea-vine spreading everywhere, and the fertility far greater than even now.
One morning I took a lesson in rifle-shooting; the gentlemen having brought out their weapons for a few hours' sport among the squirrels. A rifle does not bounce like a musket, and affords, therefore, an easy beginning. I took aim at twenty-five paces, and hitting within an inch, thought it best to leave off with credit. A child of eighteen months stood in the middle of the gravel-walk, very composedly, while the rifles were popping off; and his elder brothers were busy examining the shots. Children seem born to their future pursuits, in new countries. Negro children seem all born riders and drivers. It was an amusement to see little children that in England could not hold themselves on a large horse, playing pranks with a whole equipage that they were leading to water.
In the afternoon of this day we took a long drive in search of buffalo; the only herd of those hideous animals now to be seen in Kentucky. None of the family liked to be left behind, so we filled the barouche and the phaeton, and Master H., eight years old, in his garden costume, mounted the mare, whose foal could not be induced to remain at home, and frolicked beside us all the way. We rattled on through lanes, over open ground above a pond, beneath locust groves, and beechen shades, seeing herds of mules, and the finest of cattle within the verge of the woods. The mules are raised for exportation to the fields of Louisiana. Then we reached the hill-side where eight buffalo were grazing, four of the pure and four of a mixed breed. The creatures stood looking at us as if they had been turned into stone at the sight of us. Their sidelong gaze, as they stood motionless beside a stump, or beneath a tree, was horrid. I never saw an eye and attitude of which I should be so much afraid. As they appeared to have no intention of moving a hair of their tails or huge necks while we halted, a little slave, named Oliver, was sent up the hill to put them in motion; there being no danger whatever in the operation. Oliver disappeared, and no result of his exertions was visible. When the buffalo and we had mutually stared for another five minutes, Oliver's master called to him to know what he was about. He replied that the buffalo looked too hard at him. At last, however, he went near enough to put them in motion; and then they moved all at once, each seeming more clumsy than the others in its headlong run. I am glad to have seen buffalo, but there is nothing to be said for their beauty or grace.
In the evening we repaired to the cool grass-plat, to amuse ourselves with the pretty sport of trying which should find out the first star. It was then ascertained that two gentlemen present were well qualified to entertain us with stories of horrible western murders,—more fearful than any other murders. So we sat till late at night, amidst summer lightning and the glancing of fire-flies, listening to the most harrowing and chilling set of tales of human misdeeds and their retributions, that it ever was my fortune to listen to. The Christmas firesides of England yield no impressions of horror like the plain facts of a life in the wilderness, told under the trees, in a sultry night, while the pale lightning is exploding on the horizon.
We had tidings of a camp-meeting to be held at some distance, the next day. I had never seen a camp-meeting; but the notice was too short, and the distance too great, and I missed the chance.
One of the slaves of a neighbouring gentleman came and asked his master what he would give him for two bee-holes. "You are a pretty fellow," said his master, "to ask me to pay for my own trees." The negro urged that his master would never have found out the bee-holes for himself; which was very true. He was referred to his mistress; and it was finally arranged that three of us English strangers should see the felling of a bee-tree; a spectacle we had all heard of, but not seen. A large party dined at this gentleman's house; and, presently after dinner, all set out in carriages, or on horseback, for the spot in the woods where the bee-tree stood. It was a shabby black walnut, which seemed scarcely fit company for the noble array of trees around it. It was of so respectable a circumference near the ground, however, and the negroes were making such slow progress into its interior, that it was plain we should have time for a drive in the woods before the catastrophe; so my host mounted the box of our barouche, and we wound hither and thither under the trees, over the rich grass; and, seldom having to stoop to avoid the branches, catching bright glimpses of a hundred glades. It was a full hour before the tree fell. We arrived just when it was chopped into the middle, and some minutes before the event. It is a pretty sight to see the top branches of the falling glory quiver, its canopy shake, and its huge bulk come crashing down, while everybody runs away at the shout which tells that it is coming. This tree fell on the wrong side, and destroyed several yards of fence, snapping the stakes, and setting them flying in all directions.
Straw and sulphur were burned in the hollow of the trunk. A few little startled bees flew out, and wreaked their vengeance on our host and myself; but most of them perished very quietly. I was asked whether I should like to look into the cleft; and when I was stepping over the bristling branches for the purpose, a bough was put into my hand, with directions to wave it before me. I returned, stung, but having seen what I wanted; and then I was told that if I had not waved a bough, I should have escaped the bees. Mine was the common fate of persons who follow unasked advice. Our host capered among the trees, with a bee or two under his cravat and hair. It was impossible to help laughing. A stout gentleman of the party did the same, under the mere idea of bees being upon him; and, while tossing his head and arms about, he ran up, with a great shock, against his own horse; on which sat a little negro, grinning from ear to ear. The result of the whole was,—half a tumbler glass full of blackened honey, and the high gratification of the spectators, native and foreign, unharmed and stung.
Such is a fair specimen of our life in the West. Contrasts rise up before my mind's eye, as the scenes of my journeying present themselves; contrasts in the face of the country, as striking as in the modes of living.