The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2

The ridge forming Tom and Holyoke is, as has been said, composed of greenstone. All the other hills of consequence about the valley of the Connecticut are sandstone, and this is distinctively a sandstone region. Of the other three hills to be spoken of, Toby and Sugar Loaf hold about the same relation to each other as do Holyoke and Tom, the Connecticut flowing between Toby on the east and Sugar Loaf on the west. The former is nearly one thousand feet high, and lies in the northern part of Sunderland village. It is of irregular shape, being indented by a number of valleys, and is densely wooded, so that until within the last few years it has not been a very desirable place from which to obtain a view; but there are now accommodations for sight-seers, and some of the obstructing forest having been removed, interesting views may now be obtained from several parts of the hill. The view of the valley of the Connecticut from the southern part of the highest ridge is perhaps even finer than that from Holyoke.

Sugar Loaf, on the other side of the river, in South Deerfield, is one of the most picturesque objects to be found in this region. It is an isolated peak of red sandstone rising, on the riverside, by an almost perpendicular cliff, to the height of five hundred feet. From the river it looks wholly inaccessible, but on the opposite side is a very good path, rather steep, to be sure, by which one can gain the summit with comparative ease. Upon the top there is a house in which is a good telescope that visitors can use for a small fee, and a very extensive view may thus be obtained. But the most interesting feature of a visit to this hill is to stand upon the brink of the precipice on the eastern side, and look down to the river and green plain five hundred feet below. One feels an almost irresistible desire to take a plunge into the blue waters of the Connecticut.

This hill overlooks the place where one of the most inhuman atrocities was perpetrated by the Indians, and a scene of carnage enacted that will long be remembered by the people of New England. The Bloody Brook massacre occurred in 1675 on a spot about a mile north-west of this hill, and eighty young men, "the very flower of Essex County," while engaged in transporting grain from Deerfield to Hadley, were suprised by the Indians and murdered almost to a man.

A little north of Sugar Loaf is Deerfield Mountain, or, as it is often called in that region by the original Indian name, Pocumtuck, which is the last eminence to be visited in this locality. Its summit is about seven hundred feet above the village of Old Deerfield, and the bold sandstone brow overlooks the valley of the Deerfield River. This brow is bare and level for quite a space upon its top, and is called Pocumtuck Rock. It is a favorite place for picnic parties, and if there were a good road to the summit it would be more extensively patronized. It is certainly a most lovely spot in which to eat your evening meal, and gaze down upon the waters of the Deerfield, glittering in the rays of the setting sun; and as the sun descends towards the western hills, it is delightful to watch the shadows creeping along the plain below, until at last the brilliancy of the river is snuffed out, and the shades of evening gather fast within the peaceful valley. An excellent view of Old Deerfield, or Deerfield Street, as it is often called, is also obtained from the Rock. But very few of the houses can be seen owing to the magnificent elm trees that line either side of the street, and form in summer a continuous arch of greenness above it; and beneath the shade of these old patriarchs of nature nestle many a quaint dwelling. There is much in Deerfield to interest the antiquarian, historian, and lover of nature; and all admirers of art will take an interest in it because it was the birthplace, and for many years the residence, of George Fuller, the painter, who recently died in Boston. Deerfield is one of the best places in which to pass the summer, but is not so much frequented by visitors as it once was, as there are at present no sufficient hotel accommodations. A hotel of considerable size was burned there two years ago, and has not been rebuilt.

We depart from the hills of the Connecticut and Deerfield valleys with perhaps greater reluctance than was experienced on leaving the Berkshire hills, for the reason that the scenery in these valleys is toned down and mellowed into a uniformity of beauty, which can be appreciated not alone in a single locality, but as a whole. The river forms a centre about which all these beauties are aggregated; while in Berkshire one is impressed more by single and somewhat startling evidences of nature's beauty and grandeur.

Between the Connecticut and the Atlantic coast are many beautiful eminences, a few of which may be alluded to. Big Watatic and Little Watatic are two prominent hills situated in Ashburnham on very high land, but are densely wooded and little visited. In Fitchburg there is a hill which, though inconsiderable in size, being only about three hundred feet high, is worthy of mention. It is a rounded mass of solid granite, and, though extensively quarried for many years, seems to have suffered very little diminution in size. It is called Rollstone Hill, and the name is said to have originated from an event that occurred over two centuries ago. When, in 1676, the Indians sacked Lancaster, among the captives carried off by them towards Canada was Mrs. Rowlandson, the wife of the minister at Lancaster. It is claimed that the party encamped during the second night of their march upon the top of this hill, which was afterwards called Rowlandson hill, and since has degenerated into Rollstone. This origin is uncertain, however.

This sketch would be incomplete without a brief mention of a few of the eminences about Boston. The Blue Hills of Milton form the most conspicuous range in the vicinity, reaching an altitude of over seven hundred feet in the south-western part of Milton, and afford a fine view of Boston and its suburbs, and the harbor.

Corey Hill, in Brookline, is easily accessible, and offers the best and most complete view that could possibly be desired. One sees Brookline, with its handsome residences and public buildings just below him; Beacon street extends in a straight line towards the north-east, and leads the eye to the Common and the State House. To the north, beyond the Charles, lies the great university city of Massachusetts, with the tower of Memorial Hall overtopping all other buildings, and to the south, and near at hand, are the sparkling waters of Chestnut Hill reservoir.

We have spent but a brief time skipping over some of the principal elevations in the State, and what has been said gives but an imperfect picture of the reality; for views from elevated points do not, by any manner of means, show one all that is interesting and beautiful in the scenery of adjacent country. There are deep ravines, romantic gorges, and wooded valleys that require individual inspection to obtain a true idea of their picturesqueness. But this sketch, such as it is, is offered to the readers of the Bay State Monthly, in the hope that it may, to some slight degree, lead to a more complete recognition and appreciation of the vast amount of natural beauty contained within the limits of our beloved Bay State.

ELIZABETH.2

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYSBy Frances C. Sparhawk, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."

CHAPTER XVII

DESSERT

At dinner Elizabeth was between Sir Temple Dacre and Major Vaughan. The former devoted himself especially to her. Opposite sat Katie, Lord Bulchester on one hand, while on the other was placed the guest last arrived, the one whose coming had been doubtful because it had not been certain that he would reach the city in time to accept his invitation. Lord Bulchester so far forgot his manners as to pay very little attention to the pretty young lady who had been assigned to him; his thoughts were all for Katie Archdale, his ears were for her, and his eyes, except for the defiant glances which shot past her at Kenelm Waldo, this last arrival, to whom had fallen the place on her other hand. Katie's air of pensiveness as she took her seat seemed to her aunt suitable and very becoming. But it was impossible to the girl's nature not to enjoy the situation, and the smile that often lurked slyly in the depths of her dimples and brought a light beneath the grave droop of her eyelids made her only the handsomer. Her dress of white India muslin was simple and beautiful; it heightened the effect of her gravity of demeanor, and by making her seem even more youthful than she was, softened any expression of enjoyment that flashed across her pensiveness. Elizabeth in her brocade thought how little the girl needed ornament. Edmonson, watching the high-bred air of the latter, her attentiveness and tact where she used to be dreamy, her face full of indications of strength and refinement, felt that in ten years, when Katie's attractions had waned, Elizabeth would have an added charm of presence, and an added power. He admired intellect, although he so readily adapted himself to people with tastes, and pursuits differing from intellectual, and secretly he had his ambitions. When he should marry well, as he intended to do, the wealth thus gained would give him the place to which his birth entitled him, and then he looked forward to political eminence. Supposing, only supposing, that one day he should be premier he mused, studying Elizabeth,—stranger things had happened—what a help a wife like this would be to him; her pride, her self-control, her graciousness, her wit would then come into play excellently. She belonged to him by right, and–. Again there came that ominous flash in his eyes as they turned furtively in another direction, and the shadow that lurked in his heart leaped forward again and clutched at its victim. Then Edmonson turned with a smile to Colonel Pepperell beside him, and asked some further particulars about the hostility of the Indian tribes.

Archdale, glancing at Elizabeth, saw that she looked extremely well. He was grateful for her courage and her helpfulness, and he understood better than she dreamed of his doing the distress that the present state of affairs caused her. He liked her in a spirit of comradeship. She seemed to him sensitive, yet he felt that in an emergency she would prove as strong to act as to endure. In no case, he told himself, could he ever be in love with her; she was too cold, too intellectual, she had not enough softness or sweetness to charm him even if his fair cousin had never existed. But when there was need of a woman with pride and resolution enough to deny strenuously the force of a marriage ceremony that had never been intended, nobody could answer the need better than Mistress Royal. And it really was not necessary for that purpose that she should feel him such an ogre as he believed she did. However, that was of no consequence. He brought himself back forcibly from a gloomy study of possibilities. There was enough for a man to do in this new world if love were denied him. He began to talk to those next him about the war already going on at the North.

"Young Archdale has caught the infection," said Pepperell, soon after to his listener. "He will be in harness before we know it." Edmonson smiled musingly.

"The very thing," he answered, "the very thing, Colonel Pepperell, for a young man to do. If he go, I have no doubt I shall catch the fever, too, being in the same house with him; Lord Bulchester may also, who knows? there are three soldiers for you."

"For me, indeed!" echoed the Colonel with a laugh. "I should not refuse you, though; I should be proud to pass you over to our commander, whoever he may be."

Lord Bulchester at the moment looked as if his struggles for the coming months were more likely to be personal than political. Katie had turned to him with the kindest attention; her eyes looked into his with a shy interest in the devotion that she found there. She was answering some remark of his, more at length, it may be, than she need have done, but with a most graceful amendment of an opinion doubtfully expressed, when Waldo broke in with some question to her, and she finished in haste and turned to him. Bulchester turned to him also, and in the eyes of the two men as they met was war. Waldo had come back with the determination that while there was life there should be hope. He had until this time regarded Bulchester's marked attentions with the amusement that the nobleman's unattractive exterior was likely to meet with in a rival. Added to that was Waldo's conceit, which made him look through the large end of the telescope in viewing others. But now he had heard Katie's dallying—why hadn't she finished the fellow up quickly?—he had read the determination in Bulchester's face, and had remembered his title. Katie, meanwhile, with admirable unconsciousness, talked, now with one, now with the other, giving most attention to Waldo, and yet making Bulchester feel that if she had been assigned to him at dinner the greater share would without effort from her have been his.

The dinner went on. Sir Temple Dacre's comments were so kind that they could not be offensive. Most of them were made to Elizabeth. He admired Madam Archdale, and thought that her son resembled her; he thought that Colonel Pepperell had the air of a leader of men. "One born so," he said. "He seems always to know what he means, that's it, and he doesn't always tell you. On the whole, perhaps, the last is as great a point, because men don't take ideas readily; they never half look at them; they have too many crotchets of their own; or if not that, too much thick-headedness. The only way to do is to send out the result of one's conclusions in the form of an order, and say nothing about how it was come at."

"You are speaking only of military matters?" she asked.

"Well, no, of things in general."

"Then it wouldn't do in our part of the Colonies," she said. "I once heard of a little boy who was called 'Whatfor Winship' because he was perpetually asking the reasons of things. That is like us. We think a great deal of an aristocracy, provided we can all be aristocrats. Everybody is sure that he can decide any matter that comes up, and then from a sense of fairness we put it to vote. That's the way we manage here."

"Yes," answered Sir Temple, "we across the water know that you people are deuced fond of managing—Beg pardon.—But let me tell you what Walpole, our former minister, said one day when I dined with him. 'Going to America, I understand?' he asked. I said I was. 'Well, I hope over there they'll let you travel in the way it pleases you, it's more than they did to our orders; there is such an ado if those people are not handled with velvet gloves, and the thickest velvet we have, too. I would like you to tell me if you can make out what it all means,' he said."

"And so you're taking notes to see what sort of a set we are? One thing, Sir Temple, you'll find us loyal to our mother, though she does domineer sometimes. And tell Sir Robert that children old enough to contribute to the support of the family, as we do, ought to be allowed to put in a word now and then as to its management."

Sir Temple looked at her, not having an answer ready and little dreaming that a generation later this truth that the beautiful lips had uttered so simply, yet with a proud curve through their merriment, would be forced upon the English ministry at the point of the bayonet. But he lived to see it. Then he thought more than once of this day, of Elizabeth, with her dignity and her brightness, who had seen into the heart of one of the world's great struggles and had spoken the thought that later the cannon of a nation thundered through the earth. Now, however, he looked at her without a full idea of her meaning, thinking her only clever, and ready, and a trifle wanting in respect toward the powers that be, and that this lack came from her youth and should be treated with indulgence. It was a woman's way of looking at things, he said to himself, for he recognized sometimes the same spirit in Lady Dacre.

"Florence seems well entertained," he said aloud, looking at his wife, who was laughing at one of Edmonson's sallies. "That's a brilliant fellow, Mistress Royal; he will make his mark in the world; it's a pity, though, he hasn't a fortune to help him forward; he ought to be in Parliament."

"So he thinks, perhaps," she answered, remembering something that he had said to her one day on his first visit to the country, and understanding more clearly than ever the use that she might have been in the world.

"Very possibly he does. He appreciates himself, that is certain. It's half the battle to know one's own power; sometimes I think it's three-quarters of it. Because, you see, when a man knows his strong points he's always meeting others at his best, and as for his worst,—why, I imagine Edmonson would rather keep those dark." Elizabeth looked up inquiringly, but she said nothing, and Sir Temple added, "In fact, most of us would; we don't expect that charity from men which we find from Heaven." She did not answer, and he talked on, for theorizing was a favorite amusement, but his wife always snubbed him when he attempted it, and most men either showed weariness or had theories of their own which they were in such haste to air that his had only half a chance. Now, here was a young lady ready to listen, and, since it was not because she was unable to talk well herself, her listening was a compliment that he felt.

At first Elizabeth did listen. But her companion fairly launched, went on excellently by himself, and involuntarily her eyes turned upon Edmonson. He was very handsome; she wondered if it was his conversation with Lady Dacre that gave him so much animation. Since circumstances had roused Elizabeth from the dreamy state in which she used to indulge, she had lost something of her belief in his intellectual superiority, for the things that had once seemed so difficult as to be almost impossible to her had suddenly become simple enough; now that, they being required of her, she found herself doing them. That was the way with Elizabeth; whatever she could do she thought easy; it was the things that she believed lay beyond her for which she had the reverence. She was not much used to praise; the little that occasionally fell to her surprised and embarrassed her, so that she seemed to receive it coldly, or else the thing itself appeared to her so trivial that doing it well was a matter of course. She learned with remarkable quickness, for her mind was in good working order and grasped strongly whatever it laid hold of. A few months ago Edmonson's social accomplishments had seemed a marvel to her. Already she was beginning to see that, after all, they did not require a very high order of mind, though she was far from undervaluing them or thinking it possible that she could ever have such power of being agreeable. She was wondering that day as she watched him how much better ambitions he had, and what life would bring him. She could not understand him.

But in a few moments she was watching another face that had now a stronger fascination for her than ever—Katie's. How lovely she looked. Her demureness was giving way under the assaults that fate was making upon it, and she was becoming more and more like her old self—with a difference, however, toward Elizabeth, if toward no one else. It was true, she had greeted her with effusive warmth, but even then Elizabeth had felt the change and drawn back humbly in response to it. But if more proof had been needed, it had been given. For, as they stood together a moment before dinner, Katie said, "How much pleasure it must have given you to meet these guests of Stephen's; no wonder they seem agreeable to you; it may be that you owe so much to them." Elizabeth looked at her in amazement. "You know," continued Katie, "that these are the people whose romantic story Master Harwin related to us one memorable evening?" "No, indeed, I never dreamed of it, Katie," she added, her voice trembling. "Why are you like this? You know how it all came about; you know that—" "Mistress Archdale," Waldo's voice broke in, and the young man came forward to be welcomed by a touch of Katie's hand and a smile that gave him some excuse for lingering at her side. Elizabeth, after responding briefly to his greeting, turned away. Her heart was heavy. It made very little difference about the Dacres, but she had lost Katie, that was a great deal. Last night she had thought that she might find the girl's resentment gone and her sense of justice, if not her affection, ruling her. At least there was this comfort, thought the watcher, she had not broken Katie's heart, it had only been her own—that was better, after all, than breaking anyone's else. Yet a sudden choking came into her throat, she found her eyes grown dim, steadied her vision, heard a few words of what Sir Temple was saying about English rule, assented by a monosyllable, and went back to watching Katie, who seemed above sad fortunes as she sat so unmistakably enjoying herself. She talked a little with Bulchester, and smiled upon him until he beamed with delight; then leaving him full of a secret conviction that she found him more congenial than the neighbor on her other hand, she devoted herself to Waldo, whose fierce suspicions had died out so that he was tranquilly enjoying his dinner, or exchanging remarks with some other guest, secretly delighted with the skill which Katie showed in making herself agreeable to bores. Her bright brown hair would have gleamed in the sunlight without the gold-dust it was powdered with. Her complexion, one of Titian's warm blondes, was at its perfection; her eyes were grave enough for steady expression, and at times for a touch of pathos; it was at the sudden curving of her lips they filled with light, which was gone again directly, making the beholder feel that the sunshine had flashed over her face. As Elizabeth looked at her, and admired her, and felt her heart still going out toward her and tried to find excuse for her cruelty, the wish not to meet Katie's glance made her turn her eyes away for a moment. They fell upon Archdale, who sat motionless, looking at Katie. At that moment his mind, stung by jealousy, made one of those maddened leaps against the slowness of the age that prophesied the railroad and the telegraph by showing the necessity for them. The second man who had been sent off to England the day that Archdale had told Elizabeth of the misadventure of the first was clear in head and as quick in movement as means of locomotion at that time permitted, but it seemed to Archdale at that instant that the very sun had stood still in the heavens to make the summer days run longer, and that the most welcome certainty with such a messenger as had been chosen would come too late. When he should be free, let rivals do their best; but now–. He seemed to have lost himself and to be living in a dream of the girl, as if her presence and her beauty and a sudden sense of distance from her filled him with agony. Suddenly he stirred and his eyes met Elizabeth's and fell. He turned away quickly and began to talk.

For the moment she had no power at all. She was pierced by a sharper sense of her situation than had ever come to her before, and that had been enough. She was one too many in the world. She must give place, and she must not be long about it. A ringing was in her ears; a darkness was around her. But she called back her forces with an effort; she must not think until she should be alone. She turned back to Sir Temple, caught his last words, and answered him in haste, beginning at random and going on with a fluency which even he had not expected.

Colonel Pepperell, who was able to do more things at once than carry on his dinner and a conversation with his neighbor, looked down hard at his plate a moment and muttered under his breath, "Poor thing! Poor thing!"

CHAPTER XVIII

LANDMARKS

When the ladies had left the table and gone into the garden Elizabeth moved restlessly from one to another. Before very long the gentlemen joined them, when Edmonson, after a little engineering, a few moments of detention here and there, came up to her as she was sauntering with several others on the bank of the little river. He contrived to separate her from the rest and walked with her a few steps behind them. His vivacity had not deserted him, and she felt that it would be no effort to talk to him, and that in listening she should be enough interested not to forget herself.