“There, there on eagles’ wings I soar,
And sense and sin are felt no more.
There heaven comes down our souls to greet,
And glory crowns the Mercy Seat—
And glo-ry crowns the Mer-cy Seat.”
The road was bounded by that distinctively American fence, the rail, or stake-and-ridered, showing drifts of snow in its angles, and white lines like illuminations along the top of every lichened rail. The sled flew over corduroy spaces now deeply bedded. On each side the trees rose out of frozen pools, from which they seemed to conduct a glazed coating upward, for every twig glinted icily through the dusk. In spring-time, when the Feeder and creek rose out of banks, acres of this swamp lay under water, with moss scum and rotting leaves at the top and bottom.
Priscilla found always in these woods a solemn beauty. Her wildest dream was of living deep in their summer shade with an unnamed person, and sitting on the doorstep at nightfall, her hand locked in his. The amber lights, the cry of tree-frog and locust, the mysterious snap of twigs, the reverberating bark of a dog, the ceaseless motion of water under a foot-log, all gave her delight. One spring she worked in her father’s sugar-camp. A bark shelter that they passed reminded her of it, of collecting the sugar-water, watching the bubbling kettles, and dropping the wax on snow, of stirring-off, which was such a festival, and at the same time such a miracle, for you could feel the hardening wax grain to sugar on your tongue.
Theophilus Gill turned his horses from the road, and drove through a gap into the woods.
“What are you doin’ that for?” exclaimed John Davis, who loved a horse, like every good Ohio man, but was always ready to sacrifice it to his comfort or speed.
Theophilus explained there was a bad bit of road ahead, and the circuit through the woods might be better.