In front of the house was in former times a large deep slough, that had been suffered by the municipal authorities to remain there for several winters, with all its inconveniences, which in wet weather rendered it nearly impassable. One day, Dr. Byles observed from his window that a chaise, containing two of the select men, or regulators of the town, had been completely arrested in its progress by sticking fast in the thick heavy mud,—and they were both obliged to get out, and putting their shoulders to the wheel, work almost knee-deep in the mire before they could liberate their vehicle. The doctor came out to his gate, and bowing respectfully, said to them—“Gentlemen, I have frequently represented that slough to you as a nuisance to the street, but hitherto without any effect. Therefore I am rejoiced to see you stirring in the matter at last.”
Certain fanatics who called themselves New-Lights had become very obnoxious to the more rational part of the community, and were regarded with much displeasure by the orthodox churches. A woman of this sect, who lived in the neighborhood, came in as usual, one morning, to annoy Dr. Byles, by a long argumentative, or rather vituperative visit. “Have you heard the news?” asked the doctor, immediately on the entrance of his unwelcome guest; he having just learnt the arrival, from London, of three hundred street lamps.
She replied in the negative.
“Well then,”—resumed the doctor,—“Not less than three hundred new lights have just arrived from England, and the civil authorities are going immediately to have them all put in irons.”
The lady was shocked to hear of the cruel treatment designed for her sectarian brethren that had just come over, and she hastened away directly, to spread the intelligence among all her acquaintances, in the hope, as she said, that something might be done to prevent the infliction of so unmerited a punishment. And the doctor congratulated himself on the success of the jest by which he had gotten rid of a troublesome visiter.
A son of Dr. Byles, that retired to Halifax, must have probably inherited a portion of his father’s mantle; for his sisters repeated to me one of his conundrums, the humor of which almost atones for its coarseness—“Why do the leaders of insurrections resemble men that like sausages?”—“Because they are fond of intestine broils.”
The Miss Byleses told me much of the scarcity of provisions and fire-wood, throughout Boston, during the winter of 1775, when the British and their adherents held out the town against the Yankee rebels, as they called them—and who had invested it every-where on the land side, taking especial care that no supplies should pass in. It was then that the old North Church was torn down by order of General Howe, that the soldiers might convert into fuel the wood of which it was built.
By the bye, Mrs. Corder, an aged and intelligent female, living at the North end, informed me that, when a little girl, she witnessed from her father’s house on the opposite side of the way, the demolition of this church; and that she was terrified at the noise of the falling beams and of the wooden walls, as they battered them down, and at the shouting and swearing of the soldiers as they quarrelled over their plunder. Nevertheless, when the work of destruction was over, and the soldiers all gone, she and other children of the neighborhood ran out to scramble among the rubbish—and she found and carried home a little wooden footstool or cricket, that had evidently been thrown out from one of the demolished pews. I bought of my informant (who was in indigent circumstances) this humble and time-darkened relic, and it is now in possession of my youngest niece.
To return to the daughters of Dr. Byles.—They still lamented greatly over the privations endured that winter by the British army shut up and beleaguered in Boston; though certainly the same sufferings were shared by all the inhabitants that remained in the town.—And they grieved accordingly, to think that these inconveniencies finally compelled their English friends to take to their ships and depart.
Miss Mary Byles related to me, that on one occasion she had given to a hungry British soldier a piece of cold pork that had been left from dinner. A few evenings after, the same man knocked at the door, and requested to see one of the ladies—Miss Mary presented herself, and the grateful soldier slipped into her hand a paper containing a small quantity of the herb called by the whigs of that time “the detested tea;” and which it was then scarcely possible to obtain on any terms.