The man of God kindled in the face. He was a dark-eyed, square-browed, serious man, with black hair falling below his white band. His mouth had a sweet benign expression, even when he quizzed me about my dauphinhood. A New England pastor was a flame that burned for the enlightenment of the nations. From that hour it was settled that I should be his pupil, and go with him to Longmeadow to finish my education.
When we landed he helped me to sell my Babylonish clothes, except the white court dress, to which I clung with tenacity displeasing to him, and garb myself in more befitting raiment. By Skenedonk's hand I sent some of the remaining gold coins to my mother Marianne and the chief, when he rejoined the tribe and went to pass the winter at St. Regis. And by no means did I forget to tell him to bring me letters from De Chaumont's manor in the spring, if any arrived there for me.
How near to heaven the New England village seemed, with Mount Tom on the horizon glorious as Mount Zion, the mighty sweep of meadow land, the Connecticut river flowing in great peace, the broad street of elms like some gigantic cathedral nave, and in its very midst a shrine—the meetinghouse, double-decked with fan-topped windows.
Religion and education were the mainsprings of its life. Pastor Storrs worked in his study nearly nine hours a day, and spent the remaining hours in what he called visitation of his flock.
This being lifted out of Paris and plunged into Longmeadow was the pouring of white hot metal into chill moulds. It cast me. With a seething and a roar of loosened forces, the boy passed to the man.
Nearly every night during all those years of changing, for even faithfulness has its tides, I put the snuffbox under my pillow, and Madame de Ferrier's key spoke to my ear. I would say to myself: "The one I love gave me this key. Did I ever sit beside her on a ledge of stone overlooking a sunken garden?—so near that I might have touched her! Does she ever think of the dauphin Louis? Where is she? Does she know that Lazarre has become Eleazar Williams?"
The pastor's house was fronted with huge white fluted pillars of wood, upholding a porch roof which shaded the second floor windows. The doors in that house had a short-waisted effect with little panels above and long panels below. I had a chamber so clean and small that I called it in my mind the Monk's Cell, nearly filled with the high posted bed, the austere table and chairs. The whitewashed walls were bare of pictures, except a painted portrait of Stephen Williams, pastor of Longmeadow from 1718 to 1783. Daily his laughing eyes watched me as if he found my pretensions a great joke. He had a long nose, and a high forehead. His black hair crinkled, and a merry crease drew its half circle from one cheek around under his chin to the other.
Longmeadow did not receive me without much question and debate. There were Williamses in every direction; disguised, perhaps, for that generation, under the names of Cooley, Stebbins, Colter, Ely, Hole, and so on. A stately Sarah Williams, as Mrs. Storrs, sat at the head of the pastor's table. Her disapproval was a force, though it never manifested itself except in withdrawal. If Mrs. Storrs had drawn back from me while I lived under her roof, I should have felt an outcast indeed. The subtle refinement of those Longmeadow women was like the hinted sweetness of arbutus flower. Breeding passed from generation to generation. They had not mixed their blood with the blood of any outsiders; and their forbears were English yeomen.
I threw myself into books as I had done during my first months at De Chaumont's, before I grew to think of Madame de Ferrier. One of those seven years I spent at Dartmouth. But the greater part of my knowledge I owe to Pastor Storrs. Greek and Hebrew he gave me to add to the languages I was beginning to own; and he unlocked all his accumulations of learning. It was a monk's life that I lived; austere and without incident, but bracing as the air of the hills. The whole system was monastic, though abomination alighted on that word in Longmeadow. I took the discipline into my blood. It will go down to those after me.
There a man had to walk with God whether he wanted to or not.