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real estate in Albany, by the death of an uncle, as well as a few thousand
pounds currency, in ready money. This addition to his fortune made the captain
exceedingly comfortable; or, for that day, rich; and it left him to act his
pleasure as related to his lands. Situated as these last were, so remote from
other settlements as to render highways, for some time, hopeless, he saw no
use in endeavouring to anticipate the natural order of things. It would only
create embarrassment to raise produce that could not be sent to market; and he
well knew that a population of any amount could not exist, in quiet, without
the usual attendants of buying and selling. Then it suited his own taste to be
the commander-in-chief of an isolated establishment like this; and he was
content to live in abundance, on his flats, feeding his people, his cattle,
and even his hogs to satiety, and having wherewithal to send away the
occasional adventurer, who entered his clearing, contented and happy.
Thus it was that he neither sold nor leased. No person dwelt on his land who
was not a direct dependant, or hireling, and all that the earth yielded he
could call his own. Nothing was sent abroad for sale but cattle. Every year, a
small drove of fat beeves and milch cows found their way through the forest to
Albany, and the proceeds returned in the shape of foreign supplies. The rents,
and the interests on bonds, were left to accumulate, or were applied to aid
Robert in obtaining a new step in the army. Lands began to be granted nearer
and nearer to his own, and here and there some old officer like himself, or a
solitary farmer, began to cut away the wilderness; but none in his immediate
vicinity.
Still the captain did not live altogether as a hermit. He visited Edmeston of
Mount Edmeston, a neighbour less than fifty miles distant; was occasionally
seen at Johnson Hall, with Sir William; or at the bachelor establishment of
Sir John, on the Mohawk; and once or twice he so far overcame his indolence,
as to consent to serve as a member for a new county, that was called Tryon,
after a ruling governor.
CHAPTER IV.
Hail! sober evening! Thee the harass d brain
And aching heart with fond orisons greet;
The respite thou of toil; the balm of pain;
To thoughtful mind the hour for musing meet;
 Tis then the sage from forth his lone retreat,
The rolling universe around espies;
 Tis then the bard may hold communion sweet
Page 31
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
With lovely shapes unkenned by grosser eyes,
And quick perception comes of finer mysteries.
Sands
Inthe preceding chapter we closed the minuter narrative with a scene at the
Hut, in the spring of 1765. We must now advance the time just ten years,
opening, anew, in the month of May, 1775. This, it is scarcely necessary to
tell the reader, is bringing him at once up to the earliest days of the
revolution. The contest which preceded that great event had in fact occurred
in the intervening time, and we are now about to plunge into the current of
some of the minor incidents of the struggle itself.
Ten years are a century in the history of a perfectly new settlement. The
changes they produce are even surprising, though in ordinary cases they do not
suffice to erase the signs of a recent origin. The forest is opened, and the
light of day admitted, it is true; but its remains are still to be seen in
multitudes of unsightly stumps, dead standing trees, and ill-looking stubs.
These vestiges of the savage state usually remain a quarter of a century; in
certain regions they are to be found for even more than twice that period. All
this, however, had captain Willoughby escaped, in consequence of limiting his
clearing, in a great measure, to that which had been made by the beavers, and
from which time and natural decay had, long before his arrival, removed every
ungainly object. It is true, here and there a few acres had been cleared on
the firmer ground, at the margin of the flats, where barns and farm buildings
had been built, and orchards planted; but, in order to preserve the harmony of
his view, the captain had caused all the stumps to be pulled and burnt, giving
to these places the same air of agricultural finish as characterized the
fields on the lower land.
To this sylvan scene, at a moment which preceded the setting of the sun by a
little more than an hour, and in the first week of the genial month of May, we
must now bring the reader in fancy. The season had been early, and the Beaver
Manor, or the part of it which was cultivated, lying low and sheltered,
vegetation had advanced considerably beyond the point that is usual, at that
date, in the elevated region of which we have been writing. The meadows were
green with matted grasses, the wheat and rye resembled rich velvets, and the
ploughed fields had the fresh and mellowed appearance of good husbandry and a
rich soil. The shrubbery, of which the captain s English taste had introduced
quantities, was already in leaf, and even portions of the forest began to veil
their sombre mysteries with the delicate foliage of an American spring.
The site of the ancient pond was a miracle of rustic beauty. Everything like
inequality or imperfection had disappeared, the whole presenting a broad and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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