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Towards night, on the twelfth of March, 1775, a richly-equipped
double sleigh, filled with a goodly company of well-dressed
persons of the different sexes, was seen descending from
the eastern side of the Green Mountains, along what may now
be considered the principal thoroughfare leading from the upper
navigable portions of the Hudson to those of the Connecticut
River. The progress of the travellers was not only slow, but
extremely toilsome, as was plainly evinced by the appearance of
the reeking and jaded horses, as they labored and floundered
along the sloppy and slumping snow paths of the winter road,
which was obviously now fast resolving itself into the element of
which it was composed. Up to the previous evening, the dreary
reign of winter had continued wholly uninterrupted by the advent
of his more gentle successor in the changing rounds of the
seasons; and the snowy waste which enveloped the earth would,
that morning, have apparently withstood the rains and suns of

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months before yielding entirely to their influences. But during
the night there had occurred one of those great and sudden
transitions from cold to heat, which can only be experienced in
northern climes, and which can be accounted for only on the supposition,
that the earth, at stated intervals, rapidly gives out large
quantities of its internal heats, or that the air becomes suddenly
rarefied by some essential change or modification in the state of
the electric fluid. The morning had been cloudless; and the
rising sun, with rays no longer dimly struggling through the
dense, obstructing medium of the dark months gone by, but, with
the restored beams of his natural brightness, fell upon the smoking
earth with the genial warmth of summer. A new atmosphere,
indeed, seemed to have been suddenly created, so warm and
bland was the whole air; while, occasionally, a breeze came over
the face of the traveller, which seemed like the breath of a
heated oven. As the day advanced, the sky gradually became
overcast — a strong south wind sprung up, before whose warm
puffs the drifted snow-banks seemed literally to be cut down,
like grass before the scythe of the mower; and, at length, from
the thickening mass of cloud above, the rain began to descend
in torrents to the mutely recipient earth. All this, for a while,
however, produced no very visible effects on the general face of
nature; for the melting snow was many hours in becoming
saturated with its own and water from above. Nor had our
travellers, for the greater part of the day, been much incommoded
by the rain, or the thaw, that was in silent, but rapid
progress around and beneath them; as their vehicle was a covered
one, and as the hard-trodden paths of the road were the last
to be affected. But, during the last hour, a great change in the
face of the landscape had become apparent; and the evidence
of what had been going on unseen, through the day, was now
growing every moment more and more palpable. The snow
along the bottom of every valley was marked by a long, dark
streak, indicating the presence of the fast-collecting waters beneath.
The stifled sounds of rushing streams were heard issuing
from the hidden beds of every natural rill; while the larger
brooks were beginning to burst through their wintry coverings,
and throw up and push on before them the rending ice and
snow that obstructed their courses to the rivers below, to which
they were hurrying with increasing speed, and with seemingly
growing impatience at every obstacle they met in their way.
The road had also become so soft, that the horses sunk nearly to the
flank at almost every step, and the plunging sleigh drove heavily

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along the plashy path. The whole mass of the now saturated
and dissolving snow, indeed, though lying, that morning, more
than three feet deep on a level, seemed to quiver and move,
as if on the point of flowing away in a body to the nearest
channels.

The company we have introduced consisted of four gentlemen
and two ladies, all belonging, very evidently, to the most wealthy,
and, up to that time, the most honored and influential class of
society. But though all seemed to be of the same caste, yet
their natural characters, as any physiognomist, at a glance,
would have discovered, were, for so small a party, unusually
diversified. Of the two men occupying the front seat, both
under the age of thirty, the one sitting on the right and acting as
driver was tall, showily dressed, and of a haughty, aristocratic
air; while his sharp features, which set out in the shape of a
half-moon, the convex outline being preserved by a retreating
forehead, an aquiline nose, and a chin sloping inward, combined
to give him a cold, repulsive countenance, fraught with expressions
denoting selfishness and insincerity. The other occupant
of the same seat was, on the contrary, a young man of an unassuming
demeanor, shapely features, and a mild, pleasing countenance.
The remaining two gentlemen of the party were much
older, but scarcely less dissimilar in their appearance than the
two just described. One of them was a gaunt, harsh-featured
man, of the middle age, with an air of corresponding arrogance
and assumption. The other, who was still more elderly, was a
thick-set and rather portly personage, of that quiet, reserved, and
somewhat haughty demeanor, which usually belongs to men of
much self-esteem, and of an unyielding, opinionated disposition.
The ladies were both young, and in the full bloom of maidenly
beauty. But their native characters, like those of their male
companions, seemed to be very strongly contrasted. The one
seated on the left was fair, extremely fair, indeed; and her
golden locks, clustering in rich profusion around her snowy neck
and temples, gave peculiar effect to the picture-like beauty of her
face. But her beauty consisted of pretty features, and her countenance
spoke rather of the affections than of the mind, being of
that tender, pleading cast, which is better calculated to call forth
sympathy than command respect, and which showed her to be
one of those confiding, dependent persons, whose destinies are in
the hands of those whom they consider their friends, rather than
in their own keeping. The other maiden, with an equally fine
form and no less beautiful features, was still of an entirely different
appearance. She, indeed, was, to the one first described,

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what the rose, with its hardy stem, is to the lily leaning on the
surrounding herbage for its support; and though less delicately
fair in mere complexion, she was yet more commandingly
beautiful; for there was an expression in the bright, discriminating
glances of her deep hazel eyes, and in the commingling
smile that played over the whole of her serene and benignant
countenance, that told of intellects that could act independently,
as well as of a heart that glowed with the kindly affections.

“Father,” said the last described female, addressing the eldest
gentleman, for the purpose, apparently, of giving a new turn to
the conversation, which had now, for some time, been lagging, —
“father, I think you promised us, on starting from Bennington
this morning, not only a fair day, but a safe arrival at Westminster
Court-House, by sunset, did you not?”

“Why, yes, perhaps I did,” replied the person addressed; “for
I know I calculated that we should get through by daylight.”

“Well, my weatherwise father, to say nothing about this
storm, instead of the promised sunshine, does the progress, made
and now making, augur very brightly for the other part of the
result?”

“I fear me not, Sabrey,” answered the old gentleman, “though,
with the road as good as when we started, we should have
easily accomplished it. But who would have dreamed of a thaw
so sudden and powerful as this? Why, the very road before us
looks like a running river! Indeed, I think we shall do well to
reach Westminster at all to-night. What say you, Mr. Peters, —
will the horses hold out to do it?” he added, addressing the
young man of the repulsive look, who had charge of the team,
as before mentioned.

“They must do it, at all events, Squire Haviland,” replied
Peters. “Sheriff Patterson, here,” he continued, glancing at the
hard-featured man before described, “has particular reasons for
being on the ground to-night. I must also be there, and likewise
friend Jones, if we can persuade him to forego his intended
stop at Brattleborough; for, being of a military turn, we will
give him the command of the forces, if he will go on immediately
with us.”

“Thank you, Mr. Peters,” replied Jones, smiling. “I do not
covet the honor of a command, though I should be ready to go
on and assist, if I really believed that military forces would be
needed.”

“Military forces needed for what?” asked Haviland, in some
surprise.

“Why, have you not heard, Squire Haviland,” said the sheriff,

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“that threats have been thrown out, that our coming court would
not be suffered to sit?”

“Yes, something of the kind, perhaps,” replied Haviland, contemptuously;
“but I looked upon them only as the silly vaporings
of a few disaffected creatures, who, having heard of the rebellious
movements in the Bay State, have thrown out these idle threats
with the hope of intimidating our authorities, and so prevent the
holding of a court, which they fear might bring too many of them
to justice.”

“So I viewed the case for a while,” rejoined Patterson; “but
a few days ago, I received secret information, on which I could
rely, that these disorganizing rascals were actually combining, in
considerable numbers, with the intention of attempting to drive
us from the Court-House.”

“Impossible! impossible! Patterson,” said the squire; “they
will never be so audacious as to attempt to assail the king's
court.”

“They are making a movement for that purpose, nevertheless,”
returned the former; “for, in addition to the information I have
named, I received a letter from Judge Chandler, just as I was
leaving my house in Brattleborough, yesterday morning, in which
the judge stated, that about forty men, from Rockingham, came
to him in a body, at his house in Chester, and warned him
against holding the court; and had the boldness to tell him, that
blood would be shed, if it was attempted, especially if the sheriff
appeared with an armed posse.”

“Indeed! why, I am astonished at their insolence!” exclaimed
the squire. “But what did the judge tell them?”

“Why the judge, you know, has an oily way of getting along
with ugly customers,” replied the sheriff, with a significant wink;
“so he thanked them all kindly for calling on him, and gravely
told them he agreed with them, that no court should be holden
at this time. But, as there was one case of murder to be tried,
he supposed the court must come together to dispose of that;
after which they would immediately adjourn. And promising
them that he would give the sheriff directions not to appear with
any armed assistants, he dismissed them, and sat down and wrote
me an account of the affair, winding off with giving me the directions
he had promised, but adding in a postscript, that I was such
a contrary fellow, that he doubted whether I should obey his
directions; and he should not be surprised to see me there with a
hundred men, each with a gun or pistol under his great-coat!
Ha! ha! The judge is a sly one.”

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“One word about that case of murder, to which you have alluded,
Mr. Patterson,” interposed Jones, after the jeering laugh,
with which the sheriff's account was received by Haviland and
Peters, had subsided. “I have heard several mysterious hints
thrown out by our opponents about it, which seemed to imply
that the prosecution of the prisoner was got up for private purposes;
and I think I have heard the name of Secretary Brush
coupled with the affair. Now, who is the alleged murderer? and
where and when was the crime committed?”

“The fellow passes by the name of Herriot, though it is suspected
that this is not his true name,” responded the sheriff.
“The crime was committed at Albany, several years ago, when
he killed, or mortally wounded, an intimate friend of Mr. Brush.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“Why, from what I have gathered, I should think the story
might be something like this: that, some time previous to the
murder, this Herriot had come to Albany, got into company
above his true place, dashed away a while in high life, gambled
deeply, and, losing all his own money, and running up a
large debt to this, and other friends of Brush, gave them his obligations
and absconded. But coming there again, for some purpose,
a year or two after, with a large sum of money, it was
thought, which had been left or given him by a rich Spaniard,
whose life he had saved, or something of the kind, those whom
he owed beset him to pay them, or play again. But he refused
to play, pretending to have become pious, and also held back
about paying up his old debts. Their debts, however, they determined
to have, and went to him for that purpose; when an affray
arose, and one of them was killed by Herriot, who escaped, and
fled, it seems, to this section of the country, where he kept himself
secluded in some hut in the mountains, occasionally appearing
abroad to preach religion and rebellion to the people, by
which means he was discovered, arrested, and imprisoned in
Westminster jail, where he awaits his trial at the coming term
of the court. And I presume he will be convicted and hung,
unless he makes friends with Brush to intercede for a pardon,
which he probably might do, if the fellow would disgorge enough
of his hidden treasures to pay his debts, and cease disaffecting
the people, which is treason and a hanging matter of itself, for
which he, and fifty others in this quarter, ought, in justice, to be
dealt with without benefit of the clergy. — What say you, Squire
Haviland?”

“I agree with you fully,” replied the squire. “But to

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return to Judge Chandler's communication: what steps have you
taken, if any, in order to sustain the court in the threatened
emergency?”

“Why, just the steps that Chandler knew I should take — sent
off one messenger to Brush, there on the ground at Westminster;
another to Rogers, of Kent; and yet another to a trusty friend
in Guilford, requesting each to be on, with a small band of resolute
fellows; while I whipped over to Newfane myself, fixed
matters there, and came round to Bennington to enlist David Redding,
and a friend or two more; as I did, after I arrived, last
night, though I was compelled to leave them my sleigh and horses
to bring them over, which accounts for my begging a passage with
you. So, you see, that if this beggarly rabble offer to make any
disturbance, I shall be prepared to teach them the cost of attempting
to put down the king's court.”

“Things are getting to a strange pass among these deluded
people, that is certain. I cannot, however, yet believe them so
infatuated as to take this step. But if they should, decided measures
should be taken — such, indeed, as shall silence this alarming
spirit at once and forever.”

“I hope,” observed Miss Haviland, who had been a silent but
attentive listener to the dialogue, “I hope no violence is really
intended, either on the part of the authorities or their opponents.
But what do these people complain of? There must be some
cause, by which they, at least, think themselves justified in the
movement, surely. Do they consider themselves aggrieved by
any past decisions of the court?”

“O, there are grumblers enough, doubtless, in that respect,”
answered the sheriff. “And among other things, they complain
that their property is taken and sold to pay their honest debts,
when money is so scarce, they say, that they cannot pay their
creditors in currency — just as if the court could make money
for the idle knaves! But that is mere pretence. They have
other motives, and those, too, of a more dangerous character to
the public peace.”

“And what may those motives be, if it be proper for me to
inquire, sir?” resumed the fair questioner.

“Why, in the first place,” replied the sheriff, “they have an
old and inveterate grudge against New York, whose jurisdiction
they are much predisposed to resist. But to this they might have
continued to demur and submit, as they have done this side of
the mountain, had New York adopted the resolves of the Continental
Congress of last December, and come into the American

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Association, as it is called, which has no less for its object, in
reality, than the entire overthrow of all royal authority in this
country. But as our colony has nobly refused to do this, they
are now intent on committing a double treason — that of making
war on New York and the king too.”

“Well, I should have little suspected,” remarked Haviland,
“that the people of this section, who have shown themselves
commendably conservative, for the most part, had any intention
of yielding to the mob-laws of Ethan Allen, Warner, and others,
who place the laws of New York at defiance on the other side
of the mountains; and much less that they would heed the resolves
of that self-constituted body of knaves, ignoramuses, and
rebels, calling themselves the Continental Congress.”

“Are you not too severe on that body of men, father?” said
Miss Haviland, lifting her expressive eye reprovingly to the face
of the speaker. “I have recently read over a list of the members
of the Congress; when I noticed among them the names of
men, who, but a short time since, stood very high, both for learning
and worth, as I have often heard you say yourself. Now,
what has changed the characters of these men so suddenly?”

“Why is it, Sabrey,” said the old gentleman, with an air of
petulance, and without deigning any direct answer to the troublesome
question, — “why is it that you cannot take the opinion of
your friends, who know so much more than you do about these
matters, instead of raising, as I have noticed you have lately
seemed inclined to do, questions which seem to imply doubts of
the correctness of the measures of our gracious sovereign and
his wise ministers?”

“Why, father,” replied the other, with an ingenuous, but somewhat
abashed look, “if I have raised such questions, in relation
to the quarrel between the colonies and the mother country, I
have gone on the ground that the party which has the most
right on its side would, of course, have the best reasons for its
measures; and as I have not always been able to perceive good
reasons for all the king's measures, I had supposed you would be
proud to give them.”

The old gentleman, though evidently disturbed and angry at
this reply, did not seem inclined to push the debate any further
with his daughter. The other gentlemen, also, looked rather
glum; and for many moments not a word was spoken; when
the other young lady, who had not yet spoken, after glancing
round on the gentlemen in seeming expectation that those better
reasons would be given, at length ventured to remark, —

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“Well, for my part, it is enough for me that my friends all
belong to the loyal party; and whatever might be said, I know I
should always feel that they were in the right, and their opposers
in the wrong.”

“And in that, Jane, I think you are wise,” responded Jones,
with an approving smile. “The complaints of these disaffected
people are based on mistaken notions. They are too ill informed,
I fear, to appreciate the justice and necessity of the measures of
our ministers, or to understand very clearly what they are quarrelling
about.”

“Ah, that is it,” warmly responded Haviland. “That is what
I have always said of them. They don't understand their own
rights, or what is for their own good, and should be treated accordingly.
And I think some of our leading men miss it in trying
to reason with them. Reason with them! Ridiculous! As if the
common people could understand an argument!”

“You are perfectly right, squire,” responded Peters, with eager
promptness. “My own experience among the lower classes fully
confirms your opinion. My business, for several years past, has
brought me often in contact with them, in a certain quarter; and
I have found them not only ignorant of what properly belongs to
their own rights and privileges, but jealous and obstinate to a
degree that is excessively annoying.”

“Friend Peters probably alludes to his experience in the great
republic of Guilford,” said Jones, archly.

“There and elsewhere,” rejoined the former; “though I have
seen quite enough of republicanism there, for my purpose. One
year, the party outvoting their opponents, and coming into power,
upsets every thing done by their predecessors. The next year
the upsetters themselves get upset; and all the measures they
had established are reversed for others no better; and so they go
on from year to year, forever quarrelling and forever changing.”

“And yet, Peters,” resumed Jones, banteringly, “I doubt
whether you have been much the loser by their quarrels.”

“How so, Mr. Jones?” asked Haviland, who noticed that
Peters had answered only by a significant smile.

“Why, you know, Squire Haviland,” replied Jones, “that I
have been on to attend several of the last sessions of your court,
as the agent of Secretary Fanning,* to see to his landed interests in

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this quarter. Well, friend Peters, here, who has gone considerably
into land speculations east of the mountains, you know, had
brought, it seems, several suits for the possession of lands, mostly
in this same Guilford; and among the rest, one for a right of land
in possession of a sturdy young log-roller, whom they called Harry
Woodburn, who appeared in court in his striped woollen frock,
and insisted on defending his own case, as he proceeded to do
with a great deal of confidence. But when he came to produce
his deed for the land he contended was his own, it was found, to
his utter astonishment, to bear a later date than the one produced
by Peters. This seemed to settle the case against him.
But he appeared to have no notion of giving up so; and, by favor
of court, the further hearing of the case was deferred a day or
two, to enable him to procure the town records, which, he contended,
would show the priority of his deed. So he posted back
to Guilford for the purpose; but, on arriving there, found, to
his dismay, that the records were nowhere to be found. One of
the belligerent parties of that town, it seems, had broken into the
clerk's office, stolen the records, and buried them somewhere in
the ground. The fellow, therefore, had to return, and submit to a
judgment against him. Still, however, he clung to his case, and
obtained a review of it, in expectation that the records would be
found before the next court. But the poor fellow seemed doomed
to disappointment. At the next court, no records were forthcoming;
and though he defended his case with great zeal, he
was thrown in his suit again; when he concluded, I suppose, to
yield to his fate without further ado.”

“Not by any means,” said Peters, in a tone of raillery. “He
has petitioned for a new trial; and the question is to come on at
this court.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Jones, laughing. “Well, I must confess
I have never seen so much dogged determination exhibited
in so hopeless a case. And I really could not help admiring the
fellow's spirit and uncultured force of mind, as much misapplied
as, of course, I suppose it to have been. Your lawyer, Stevens,
really appeared, once or twice, to be quite annoyed at his home
thrusts; while lawyer Knights, or Rough-hewn Sam, as they call
him, who, either from a sly wish to see his friend Stevens bothered,
or from a real wish to help Harry, volunteered to whisper a

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few suggestions in his ear occasionally, sat by, and laughed out
of his eyes, till they ran over with tears, to see a court lawyer so
hard pushed by a country bumpkin.”

“Pooh! you make too much of the fellow,” said Peters, with
assumed contempt. “Why, he is a mere obstinate boor, whose
self-will and vanity led him to set up and persevere in a defence
in which he knows there is neither law nor justice.”

“And yet, Mr. Peters,” observed Miss Haviland, inquiringly,
“the young man must have known that he was making great expense
for himself, in obtaining delays and new trials, in the hope
that the lost records would be found. If he was not very confident
those records would have established his right, why should
he have done this?”

“O, that was a mere pretence about the records altering the
case, doubtless,” replied Peters, with the air of one wishing to
hear no more on the subject.

“It may have been so,” rejoined the former, doubtfully; “but
I should have hardly inferred it from Mr. Jones's description of
the man and his conduct.”

“Nor I,” interposed the other lady, playfully, but with considerable
spirit. “Mr. Jones has really excited my curiosity by his
account of this young plough-jogger. I should like to get a sight
of him — shouldn't you, Sabrey?”

But the latter, though evidently musing on the subject, and
mentally discussing some unpleasant doubts and inferences which
it seemed to present to her active mind, yet evaded the question,
and turned the conversation, by directing the attention of her
companion and the rest of the company to a distant object in the
wild landscape, which here opened to their view. This was the
tall, rugged mountain, which, rising from the eastern shore of the
Connecticut, was here, through an opening in the trees, seen
looming and lifting its snowy crest to the clouds, and greeting the
gladdened eyes of the way-worn travellers with the silent but
welcome announcement that they were now within a few miles
of the great river, and in the still more immediate vicinity of their
intended halting-place — the thriving little village which was then
just starting into life, under the auspices of the man from whom
its name was derived — the enterprising Colonel Brattle, of Massachusetts.

Having now the advantage of a road, which, as it received the
many concentrating paths of a thicker settlement, here began to
be comparatively firm, the travellers passed rapidly over the descending
grounds, and, in a short time, entered the village. As

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they were dashing along towards the village inn, at a full trot,
a man, with a vehicle drawn by one horse, approaching in an
intersecting road from the south, struck into the same street a
short distance before them. His whole equipment was very
obviously of the most simple character, — a rough board box,
resting on four upright wooden pins inserted into a couple of
saplings, which were bent up in front for runners — the whole
making what, in New England phrase, is termed a jumper, constituted
his sleigh. And this vehicle was drawn by a long switchtailed
young pony, whose unsteady gait, as he briskly ambled
along the street, pricking up his ears and veering about at every
new object by the way-side, showed him to be but imperfectly
broken. The owner of this rude contrivance for locomotion was
evidently some young farmer from the neighboring country.
But although his dress and mode of travelling seemed thus to
characterize him, yet there was that in his personal appearance,
as plain as was his homespun garb, which was calculated to command
at once both attention and respect. And as he now rose
and stood firmly planted in his sleigh, occasionally looking back
to watch the motions of the team behind him, with his long, togalike
woollen frock drawn snugly over his finely-sloping shoulders
and well-expanded bust, and closely girt about at the waist by a
neatly-knotted Indian belt, while the flowing folds below streamed
gracefully aside in the wind, he displayed one of those compact,
shapely figures, which the old Grecian sculptors so delighted to
delineate. And in addition to these advantages of figure, he
possessed an extremely fine set of features, which were shown
off effectively by the profusion of short, jetty locks, that curled
naturally around his white temples and his bold, high forehead.

“Miss McRea — Jane,” said Jones, turning round to the amiable
girl, and tapping her on the shoulder, with the confiding
smile and tender playfulness of the accepted lover, as he was, —
“Jane, you said, I think, that you should like to get a sight of
that spunky opponent of Mr. Peters, whom we were talking of a
little while since — did you not?”

“O, yes, yes, to be sure I did,” replied the other briskly; “but
why that question, just at this time?”

“Because, if I do not greatly mistake, that man who is pushing
on before us, in yon crazy-looking establishment, is the self-same
young fellow. Is it not so, Peters?”

“I have not noticed him particularly, nor do I care whether it
is he or not,” answered Peters, with an affected indifference, with
which his uneasy and frowning glances, as he kept his eye keenly
fixed on the person in question, but illy comported.

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