Ten years after the occurrence of the events narrated in the
preceding chapter, the glowing sun of a summer's day, was once
more sending its slanting beams across the vale of Rose-Mead, and
lighting up the topmost head of the height behind the village of
Hillside. The church spire beneath which, so many years ago,
the people had assembled to flee from the pestilence, glittered like
a lance of steel in its beams, and a soft, hazy mellow twilight, was
gently stealing over the valley, and the river below. The village
of Hillside had in the interval of time, undergone but a few
changes. The long, Main street, with its neat houses, its umbrageous
clms, and pleasant looking inn, remained the same. The
cross streets were a little more compact with dwellings, and a mill
had gone up by the river-side, at the spot where a group of willows
stood, covering the mouth of a creek that emptied into it.
The place where had stood the house of the Plague, was occupied
by a small and extremely pretty Methodist Chapel; and behind it,
under the shadow of some chesnut trees and willows, was a little
cemetery, surrounded by a white paling, containing, in its enclosure,
three graves. On the island in the river beyond, also, shone
a white slab, marking the graves of three young men, who, it
read `sacrificed themselves for the lives of their fellow-citizens,
by whom this monument is erected with grateful, yet heavy hearts;
for to their self-sacrificing devotion the town of Hillside owes its
escape from the Pestilence of 1832.'

The streets of the village no longer wore the deserted aspect in
which we first beheld them. The old people were seated in chairs
before their doors smoking; mechanics were idly talking on their
thresholds; children were playing in the streets, with loud and
merry voices, for children love most to play in the twilight hours;
cows were slowly returning, each to her mistress, from the commons
outside the town, where they had been all day grazing;
troops of swallows fitted twittering through the air above the
houses, darting hither and thither, after the flies that sport in the
setting sun-beams; the river went sparkling by, glancing and rippling
like the sound of laughter; the soft shadows crept up the
hill back of the village towards the blue sky; and the new moon,
like the fragment of a broken ring of pale gold, was hanging
above the western landscape. All was peace and beauty and confidence
in a good Providence. Fear and alarm no longer reigned;
and nature smiled peacefully in harmony with the peace at the
heart of her children. How beautiful was all this scene. And
what time is so affecting to the heart, as the season between the
going down of the sun, and the coming out of the stars; when
the moon, just balancing between day and evening, neither gives
nor withholds her gentle light.

The piazza of the village Inn, held its usual twilight group of
grave politicians, smokers and loungers; but for a year past one of
their number, the head and front of all their jokes and cheer, had
been absent. His leathern arm chair was now occupied by the
town school-master; and a grey head-stone of slate, in the church-yard
on the hill, told the passing stranger, where lay the remains
of `Captain Benjamin Power! this stone being erected by his
bereaved and disconsolate wife, to the memory of a beloved husband.
' `Tomb-stones be grave liars,' says a quaint old writer, and
in this case the fact bore out the assertion. The widow Power,
was doubtless bereaved, but she was very far from being `disconsolate.
' Captain Ben had not been two months in his last home,
whither love of brandy and dint of scolding, had prematurely
sent him, ere it was rumored that the bereaved widow, had set her
eyes kindly upon Preceptor Tobitt, the village pedagogue, a bach
clor of five and forty, tall and stern, with blue spectacles, a broad
brimned hat, and a stout hickory stick—for these three articles
named, were as much a part of the man as his nose, hands and
feet. He lodged at the `General Warren'; and it was proven beyond
doubt, that poor Ben had not been two months cold, ere the
warm widow ogled Domine Tobitt at the breakfast table. By degrees
as weeks passed on he became more intimate with the hostess,
and at length gradually settled himself into the seat at the
head of the table. It was then but another natural step to Ben's
arm chair on the piazza; and at the end of the year it was an understood
thing, that Preceptor Tobitt was to wed, and that very
shortly, the gay hostess of the `General Warren Inn.' This was
an event in which all the village children were deeply interested;
and they of late never said their prayers when they went to bed,
but they added a petition for the speedy union of `Master Tobitt;'
for a greater tyrant over little boys and girls, had never wielded
birch or ruler.

The Domine sat now in his ample arm-chair, which Captain
Ben, now dead and gone, had made purposely for the reception of
his own ample dimensions. The master had on his broad-brim
brown, his blue spectacles, and held his hickory cudgel across his
leg, one of which was laid over the other. A short pipe was in
his mouth, and a Boston newspaper on his lap. Near him always
sat little short Johnny Stringer, the village chair-maker, who never
was known to speak a word, but who was noted for being a rare
listener, though he was as deaf as a post. He wore a short roundabout,
and a straw hat on his large, round, bullet-head winter
and summer. Johnny was bald and his pate ever shone like a
varnished pumpkin. His legs were duck-legs, and like a little
boy's, reaching only to the round of his chair. Domine Tobitt
was gratified by his devotion, and looked upon him as a sort of
protege: and always protected him when his tall, raw-boned wife
came to the tavern to bring him home; so that there existed an
unhealable feud between the Domine and Mrs. Johnny Stringer.
Johnny thought there was no body on the earth so great a man
as the Domine, and it was pleasant and gratifying to observe the
awful attention with which he listened to the Domine's communication,
as if he understood every word of it, and was drinking
in the wisdom of Solomon. On the Domine's left always sat, and
now sat, the village barber, Tony Taft, a little man of mettle, and
blessed by Providence with a mar ellous talking tongue. At
every few words spoken by the Domine Tony would put in, and
be instantly checked by a frowning look of the `Master;' and
this he did every seven or nine words, and thus was he frowned
silent by the Domine, by the hour at the time: save that the Domine,
losing all patience would sometimes come at a full stop in
his discourse, and pointing at Johnny with his finger, would say to
Tony,

`Sir, thy tongue hath no rest, and thou no manners. Look at
this honest chair-maker! See how he listens and interrupts me
not, and take example from him. Thy prate is ever like a parrot's.
`Nay, but, Master Tobitt,' this, and `save you, Master Tobitt' that,
and `But you mistake there, Master Tobitt,' or `I differ from you
herein, good Master Tobitt.' Thus goes thy tongue ever like the
discordant accompaniment of a bell-clapper heard in the midst of
church music.'

Next to the incorrigible little prating barber, on one end of a
high-back bench placed against the railing, and facing the Domine,
who was always the centre of the group on the piazza, sat the
village blacksmith, in his smutty shirt sleeves, and thick leather
apron; a man of rough visage and full of politics and religion, and the
stoutest and most obstinate opponent the Master and future host
of the General Warren had to deal with. He feared him not as
the little harber, he had no awe of him like deaf Johnny. He
could make speeches at village caucuses, and had once written a
report which was printed in the paper published at the county
seat. Therefore John Hammerhead was as much of a great man
in his own eyes as Domine Tobitt. The other person of any importance,
that remains to be named, was Simpson S. Snip, the tailor;
a pale, under-sized man, with long neglected whitish hair
about his ears, wearing an old hat, and most shabbily dressed;
with needles threaded with black silk and brown thread stuck in
his collar; pins innumerable adorned his left cuff; his vest and
shirt were open, showing his naked breast; he was without a neckcloth,
and without suspenders to his slouching trowsers. His feet
were thrust into old slippers, and his hands into his breeches pockets.
His seat was upon the railing, where he sat swinging his
thin legs, and never failing sharply to rebuke Tony Taft whenever
the little barber broke in upon the Domine's discourse, and to
silence the blacksmith whenever he interrupted the flow of the
Master's wisdom. There was doubtless, deep policy in this position
assumed by the tailor; for he was a drunken rogue, and the
Master was to be the future host of the Inn. Besides these principal
personages who were gathered on the piazza of the `General
Warren,' were sundry and divers others who had not yet reached
the dignity of a place on a chair or bench in the stoop; these
were the village wood-sawyer, an old grey headed negro, who

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always stopped near the piazza as he went homeward of an evening
and seated on his horse, lingered to listen to the politics and gossip
of Master Tobitt; the idle ostler, who was waiting for the
stage to come in; two or three intemperate, broken down towns-folk,
once men of better days, who lived half their time in the vicinity
of a tavern and bar-room, and several half grown boys—
embryo stage drivers and ostlers; with all the rag and bob-tail
crew that usually are gathered about the doors of a village tavern
on the eve of the coming in of the mail stage. It was altogether
a characterestic tavern scene. The air was still, and not a breath
moved the leaves of the tall wide-spreading elms that stood before
the Inn, and cast a soft grey twilight on all beneath. The red
glow of the sun-light was still visible to those on the piazza shining
brightly on the topmost peak of the hill east of the village.

`Do you see, friends, how like a beacon flame that sun-shine
looks on that topmost red maple;' said the Domine, who had just
ended a political speech with the usual interruptions from Tony
Taft; the usual opposition from the sturdy Smith; the usual reproofs
touched at both from Simpson S. Snip; and the usual deaf
and reverent attention from little Johnny Stringer A beacon
is'—

`A beacon is a light-hus,' said Tony quickly. The Domine
frowned.

`Dont interrupt the Master,' cried Snip.

`Who does'nt know well enough what a beacon is without going
to school,' growled the Smith.

`A beacon is,' continued the Domine, too well used to these interruptions,
and too confident in himself to heed them, `a landmark
put up on a high hill near the coast, to warn vessels of the
vicinity of land.'

`Then its a light house,' said Tony Tafts.

`Hist!' said Snip.

`It is also, says Johnson, a monument, to show where danger has
been incurred; but Walker declares it to be only a signal fire kindled
on some unusual occasion.'

`There I differ from Mr. Walker, good Master,' said Taft in his
quick voice.

`Silence, Mr. Taft,' said the Domine; `you know nothing
about it.'

`Stick to your hone and razors, Mr. Taft,' said Snip angrily.

`And you to your needles and shears, Mr. Snip,' retorted Tony
fiercely!

`Peace, gentleman!' thundered the Domine bringing down the
end of his hickory stick upon the floor with emphasis.

`Nay, Master, if one may not speak at a tavern, he may as well
be at church,' said the Smith. `If a man should tell me to stick
to my anvil and hammer, as I heard Mr. Snip in a like style address
Mr. Taft, I should have given him good as he sent. You
are not in school now, good Master.'

`Fie! Mr. Hammerhead;' cried Snip. `Dost thou not know
that Master Tobitt is as good as master here.'

`Thou trespassest with too much licence upon domestic matters,
Mr. Snip,' answered the Domine, looking red yet not displeased;

`I do not forget I am not now a master in school, honest Hammerhead.
' I would not rule thee nor any man's speech. In a
tavern there is full licence for all acts a man may do, save he keep
within the law. A tavern is—'

`Nay, but good Master Tobitt, there I differ from you. A tavern
is—'

Here Tony was silenced by a terrible frown from the Domine,
and reproved by a sharp `Hist' from the little tailor.

`A tavern is,' continued the Master, `a free place for all men's
business or pleasure: Walker calls it `a place where liquors are
sold—'

`And right good liquors, Dame Power—'

`Wilt thou cease interrupting, Tony Taft. Thy tongue cuts in
like one of your razors,' cried the Domine, `see this honest man
Mr. Stringer; his attention should shame thee, and set the an example
for thy guidance.' Here the Master nodded approvingly to
Johnny who solemnly nodded in return, and then continued;—
`but Johnson says it is a house for the convenience of travelers.'

`Nay, good Master and for citizens too;' said the Smith; `for
what were a village without an Inn for its citizens. It is the centre
of news and business, and is as much benefit to the towns-folk
as to the traveler.'

`Nay—the Master is right, good Smith;' said Snip.

`Which thou never wert, good tailor,' retorted the blacksmith
dryly.

Here arose a laugh at the expense of Snip; and looking needles
and shears at the blacksmith, he got off the railing and shuffled
into the bar-room.

`I'm glad he's gone,' said Tony Tafts, he's always snappin' a
feller up so.'

`And sir, you deserve to be snapped up, for your ill-manners,'
said the Domine. `I cannot speak on any subject but you—'

`And the Smith too, Master.'

`Silence!—but you—as you have just done, must interrupt me.
How dost thou do now in church, when the minister preaches?'

`I am always making objections, Master, in my mind, which I
dare not speak out.'

`Then make them in thy mind and keep them henceforth, when
thou art in my company.'

`But I dont keep them there Master Tobitt; for I always, when
the minister comes to be shaved of a Monday mornin's, puts 'em
at him, and we al'ays has quite a argument.'

`He is a patient man, and doubtless thou hast, under Heaven,
been a main instrument in teaching him this christian virtue.
But this is dry talking my friends, so if you will, we will have, at
my personal expense, something to drink the person's health; for
know ye,' he added smiling grimly, `to-morrow is to be my wedding
day. Fanny, bring glasses, hither.'

At this intelligence the barber cut a caper, the blacksmith slapped
his hand into the Domine's palm; and little Johnny the chair-maker,
as if comprehending the good news, jumped down from
his chair, and kicking it over, flapped his short elbows against his
sides and crowed like a cock, this being the little man's usual way
of expressing his gratification. The news was received by the
hangers on around, with a shout that made the welkin ring. It
was soon spread throughout the village, and in ten minutes every
little boy, whether up or gone to bed, knew that Master Tobitt's
reign was forever over. To anticipate: bonfires were burned in
the middle of the street, and some joyous urchins getting into
the window of the church, set the bell ringing a merry peal.
Never were such rejoicings in anticipation of the marriage of a man
so universally hated. It was the rejoicing of freedom, and not
for the nuptials. This the Domine felt full clearly: and though
he outwardly smiled, he experienced no happiness within. He
nevertheless pretended to believe all this joy was for love, and not
for hate; and ordering a gallon of rum to be brought to the door,
he invited all to pretake freely. His command was obeyed by an
exceedingly lovely young girl of sixteen, who putting it down, instantly,
and blushingly, retreated. His health was boisterously
drunk, and also that of the widow, who appeared smiling and nodding
at the little parlor window. In the midst of the scene, the
Mail Stage came dashing up to the door; the driver flung the
mail bag to the ground, with which the Post master's clerk scampered
off; the passengers, two in number alighted; and with a loud
crack of the whip, the coach whirled with a dashing turn round
the corner of the Inn, and disappeared in the stable yard. One
of the passengers was a handsome and very elegantly dressed
young man; the other was also young and richly dressed, but he
was a hunchback, and hardly came up to the other's shoulder.
They had no other baggage than a carpet bag, and were evidently
friends traveling together. The widow was scanning them through
the open windew as they ascended the steps, when the beautiful
face of the young girl appeared behind her, gazing over her shoulder.
It caught the eyes of the taller stranger, who startled with
surprise and admiration, and stared at her so intently that the
beauteous countenance disappeared. The widow who at first took
his admiration to herself, finding that his glance shot over her,
looked round in time to see the maiden retreating.

`What are you doing, you huzzy, peeping out of the window at
young men?' she exclaimed in an angry tone, and with a face as
red as flame. `Go into the bar and wash them glasses they have
been drinkin' rum out on. You need watching, I see, you lazy
thing, and are getting to get above your betters. Next time Dr.
Eustace Forrest, or any other Eustace comes telling you you are
handsome, I shall send him packing.'

This tirade was uttered in a voice that was not often lowered for
any presence, and every word was overheard by the young men as
they entered. The young girl, whose pale cheek and downcast
eyes showed her to be the victim of domestic tyranny, made no reply;
but gently sighing, took her place behind the bar and commenced
washing up the tumblers which the ostler had just brought
in from the piazza. The taller young man lounged in with a highly
fashionable air of ease and indifference, and after slightly glancing
at the widow in recognition of her curtesy, and laying down
his cloak, he went up to the bar, and in what might be termed a
confidential tone of voice, said:

`You can let us have tea, my dear, I suppose.'

`Yes, sir,' she answered, dropping her eyes beneath the free
gaze of his dark, admiring glance, and then looking timidly at her
Mistress, who instantly said, something sharply:

`I am the landlady, sir.'

`No doubt, ma'm, no doubt,' he answered with immoveable indifference,
surveying her from head to foot with his eye-glass;
`but I was directing my conversation quite to the young person.—
You will let us have green tea, dear, dry toast, and, above all, your
own charming presence!'

`Fanny, leave them glasses, and go and order tea for the gentlemen,
' said the widow sharply, and looking with a most unamiable
visage at the young man

The pretty bar-maid instantly disappeared, followed by the eyes

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of the young man, who, as the door closed, turned to the widow
and said with a provoking ease;

`You have a beautiful daughter, ma'm! Dem me if I recollect
when I have seen such a face! Her figure is superb; not yet quite
developed, but time will finish that.'

`She is not my daughter, sir;' answered widow Power curtly.

`No. You are quite a handsome woman, and must have been
a belle in your day; but then I do not see any resemblance.'

The widow smiled at the compliment, and answered with her
good nature restored:

`She is an orphan that my late dear husband adopted.'

`Ah, a lovely orphan indeed! Who were her parents? Doubtless
she is your niece.'

`No—no relation. Her father and mother died here of the cholery
ten years ago, and my poor dear husband, who was ever doing
foolish things, adopted her, when he ought to have sent her to the
poor house.'

`And do you not know who her parents were?' asked the young
man with interest.

`No—their names could never be discovered. My poor dear
husband went up to Boston, where the hackman who drove 'em
out said the English ship lay he took them from; but the ship had
gone to sea, and was lost the same voyage; and so nothing could
ever de heard from them.'

`And did they arrive at Boston as emigrants, in an English ship?'

`They wasn't emigrants, I don't think,' she answered, lowering
her voice; `but were passengers, as their clothes and looks showed
them to be genteel like. But I don't want her to get such a idea
into her head, for she is almost good for nothing now, by the flattery
and attention of strangers who stop here.'

`And what is her position in your family?' inquired the deformed
young man in a tone of deep sympathy, for he had listened to the
narrative of the hostess with thoughtful attention, his fine intellectual
face lighted up with feeling and intelligent interest in the fate
of one so young and beautiful.

`Why, I treat her as a—as a daughter,' answered the widow
hesitating; `though you know,' she instantly added, feeling the
dark eye of the hunchback reading her heart, `that one can't feel
towards another child, and nobody knows whose, as one can towards
one's own! We never had any pay for keepin' her, and so
she has to work to help her own livin'.'

Work! yes, to work, to help, to earn her own living, was the
poor child's lot from the day she was left an orphan under the
household tyranny of the wife of honest Ben Power. Poor little
Fanny! The first few months of thy orphanage were a period of
tears, and sorrow, and pain. But the child soon ceased to weep,
and to learn to endure! She was the vent of all the anger of the
mother, and all the spite of the children, because she was prettier
that they. She went to school, for captain Ben was resolute on
this point, and carried it; and being a favorite of the master, (not
Domine Tobitt,) for her quickness and intelligence, she was envied
and disliked by the scholars. Thus she lived till she was in her
fifteenth year, when her friend and protector died; and from the
day of his funeral Fanny became a slave! Roused at dawn in the
morning by a voice of anger, and driven through the day by continual
scolding and fault-finding, the poor girl was glad at night to
creep to her little bed in the attic over the kitchen, and forget, in
sleep, her misery. But in all her servitude she was cheered by
pleasant thoughts, like dreams, of a once happier state, when she
was loved and was happy, and the hope (she knew not whence it
came) that she should once more be happy, buoyed her young
heart and kept her from breaking down beneath her tasked life.—
Where was the venerable minister, Mr. Forrest? Where was the
brave Eustace, his son—the sole survivor of the four victims who
offered their lives for the safety of the whole people? The tomb
had seven years before closed over the last remains of the venerable
man; and Eustace, now become a physician, practised in the
city. The story of the orphan girl had long been known to all,
but there was none that took an interest in her fate. And so long
as her mistress did not maltreat her person, no one interfered in
her behalf, or took notice of her condition. She was known far
and near as the pretty bar-maid, for beautiful and lovely she was,
in spite of the circumstances in which her life passed.

An event which occurred a few weeks before the present time
of our story, served not only to help Fanny to support her hard
lot, but to make her condition still more unpleasant. She was
crossing the yard from the pump with a heavy tub of water, which
she had been commanded by her mistress to fill there and bring
into the wash-room as a punishment for some trivial neglect. She
had proceeded but two or three steps, staggering beneath the cruel
burden, when a young man, who had just alighted from his horse
at the trough, ran up to her and said politely, while his eyes rested
with eager admiration upon her beautiful face.

`That is too heavy for you, Miss. Permit me to assist you;'
and taking hold of one of the handles of the tub, they carried it
together into the porch. Fanny thanked him tremblingly, for she
saw the cloud on her mistress's brow.

`It is too heavy a weight for you to attempt to carry again,' he
said, gently reproving her; `you will injure yourself for life!'

`It was my orders, sir; and `I thank you not to interfere with
my domestics,” said the hostess angrily.

`Then you are very unfeeling, madam, to say the least,' answered
the young gentleman with a glance of indignation at the fiery
visage of the widow. `Did you say she was your domestic?'

`Fanny, what are you doing standing staring at the imperent feller?
Go in to your work! In with you!' And with this the
virago, after deigning no other reply to the question put her than
a glance of angry contempt, followed her in and banged the door
in his face.

The young man could not help smiling at her manner; but the
next moment his fine thoughtful face assumed a grave expression.
He felt his whole sympathy enlisted in behalf of that young and
lovely victim of tyranny, and resolved to ascertain her history.—
His eye at this moment rested on Tony Taft, the barber, who had
witnessed the incident, having at that moment come to the pump
to take a drink of water at the spout.

`You got a taste, then, sir,' said Tony, who was always ready to
volunteer his gossip. `The widder's a keen one!'

The young man at once approached him.

`Do you know the name, my good man, of this pretty maiden?'

`Fanny.'

What else?'

`Nothing. She is an orphan, and her folks, who were emigrants,
died in the cholera time, over there in a house where the methodist
church stands. Old Captain Ben, the widder's husband that
vos, took her and 'dopted her; and now he's dead she leads a life
on't. I think it would be a good law, sir, when parents dies and
leaves no money, to poison the children too. All them orphans
as ever I've seen fared hard. There's mighty little charity for orphans
in this world, sir. She's a nice good girl, sir, and a deal
handsomer than the pictur of the `Lowell Belle' I've got hanging
up in the shop. I'd court her if I dared; but the widder'd soon be
in my hair if she 'spected such 'tentions; for I heard her tell her
one day she meant to keep her ten years, to work for her, now she
was a young woman grown, to pay up for the ten years she has been
on her hands, though dear knows, she has had her full ten years'
work out o' the poor girl already. You havn't shaved to-day sir;
hadn't you better step in, while your horse is breathing himself?'

`Thank you,' said the young gentleman, and followed the communicative
barber into his shop, where Tony did not fail to point
out to him the colored print of the `Lowell Belle,' and to descant
upon the superior attractions of Fanny, with whose charms he evidently
was not a little enamored.

`Such beautiful hair, sir,' he continued, as he fastened the towel
about the neck of his customer; `it is a good yard long already,
and she but seventeen! It is like floss silk, and is so rich and
brown. I would give my little finger to dress it! Wouldn't I
spend hours about it? Do you shave up on the upper lip, sir?'

`Such a person must be very much exposed to rudeness in such
a situation as she is in, remarked the young man, who was amused
and yet half vexed to hear a lovely girl, in whom he had taken a
warm interest, so freely spoken of by a dapper little barber. His
remark was interrogative, and though made in an indifferent way,
was evidently suggested by a desire to know fully her character.

`Yes; but she is as modest as she is pretty, sir. Not a man about
the house or the stables but treats pretty Fanny with respect.—
There is something about her, sir, that keeps off freedom. Does
the razor pull, sir? Besides, there's her mistress keeps her always
under her eye, as jealous of her as any man could be of a young
wife. No body ever said a rude word to Fanny. Do I shave to
suit you, sir?'

`Quite well.'

`Thank you, sir; will you have oil on your hair? Bear's, Macassar,
Antique, I have all. No? Let me brush you, sir. Fine
broadcloth this! From Boston, sir?'

`No—I live not many miles from here.'

`A young lawyer, likely going to attend the courts? Stop, sir,
there is a lint on your lappel.'

`No.'

`I think your coat has a leetle smell of medicine. You mout be
a young doctor, perhaps. Let me brush your hat, sir.'

`No—my father is a physician,' answered the young man pleasantly.

`Perhaps you yourself might be looking to the ministry—and
are come from Andover to-day. I see you dress in black.'

`No,' answered the young gentleman smiling.

`Then I'm mistaken. A young merchant, perhaps?' persevered
the indomitable Tony, who never let a stranger escape without
knowing all about him.

`No, I am a student of medicine with my father, going to Boston
to attend lectures.'

`I guessed within one of it,' answered Tony with triumph. I
knew I couldn't be mistaken in the smell of your coat. Sixpence.
Thank you, sir! There's your change.'

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