The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish | Page 6

a hand that, to the world,
seemed clenched in cautious and reserved frugality; nor did any of the
faithful of his vicinity cast their fortunes together in wedlock, without
receiving from him evidence of an interest in their worldly happiness,
that was far more substantial than words.
On the morning when the vehicles, groaning with the household goods
of Mark Heathcote, were seen quitting his door, and taking the road
which led to the sea-side, not a human being, of sufficient age, within
many miles of his residence, was absent from the interesting spectacle.
The leave-taking, as usual on all serious occasions, was preceded by a
hymn and prayer, and then the sternly-minded adventurer embraced his
neighbors, with a mien, in which a subdued exterior struggled fearfully

and strangely with emotions that, more than once, threatened to break
through even the formidable barriers of his acquired manner. The
inhabitants of every building on the road were in the open air, to
receive and to return the parting benediction. More than once, they,
who guided his teams, were commanded to halt, and all near,
possessing human aspirations and human responsibility, were collected
to offer petitions in favor of him who departed and of those who
remained. The requests for mortal privileges were somewhat light and
hasty, but the askings in behalf of intellectual and spiritual light were
long, fervent, and oft-repeated. In this characteristic manner did one of
the first of the emigrants to the new world make his second removal
into scenes of renewed bodily suffering, privation and danger.
Neither person nor property was transferred from place to place, in this
country, at the middle of the seventeenth century, with the dispatch and
with the facilities of the present time. The roads were necessarily few
and short, and communication by water was irregular, tardy, and far
from commodius. A wide barrier of forest lying between that portion of
Massachusetts-bay from which Mark Heathcote emigrated, and the spot,
near the Connecticut river, to which it was his intention to proceed, he
was induced to adopt the latter mode of conveyance. But a long delay
intervened between the time when he commenced his short journey to
the coast, and the hour when he was finally enabled to embark. During
this detention he and his household sojourned among the godly-minded
of the narrow peninsula, where there already existed the germ of a
flourishing town, and where the spires of a noble and picturesque city
now elevate themselves above so many thousand roofs.
The son did not leave the colony of his birth and the haunts of his youth,
with the same unwavering obedience to the call of duty, as the father.
There was a fair, a youthful, and a gentle being in the
recently-established town of Boston, of an age, station, opinions,
fortunes, and, what was of still greater importance, of sympathies
suited to his own. Her form had long mingled with those holy images,
which his stern instruction taught him to keep most familiarly before
the mirror of his thoughts. It is not surprising, then, that the youth
hailed the delay as propitious to his wishes, or that he turned it to the
account, which the promptings of a pure affection so naturally
suggested. He was united to the gentle Ruth Harding only the week

before the father sailed on his second pilgrimage.
It is not our intention to dwell on the incidents of the voyage. Though
the genius of an extraordinary man had discovered the world which was
now beginning to fill with civilized men, navigation at that day was not
brilliant in accomplishments. A passage among the shoals of Nantucket
must have been one of actual danger, no less than of terror; and the
ascent of the Connecticut itself was an exploit worthy of being
mentioned. In due time the adventurers landed at the English fort of
Hartford, where they tarried for a season, in order to obtain rest and
spiritual comfort. But the peculiarity of doctrine, on which Mark
Heathcote laid so much stress, was one that rendered it advisable for
him to retire still further from the haunts of men. Accompanied by a
few followers, he proceeded on an exploring expedition, and the end of
the summer found him once more established on an estate that he had
acquired by the usual simple forms practised in the colonies, and at the
trifling cost for which extensive districts were then set apart as the
property of individuals.
The love of the things of this life, while it certainly existed, was far
from being predominant in the affections of the Puritan. He was frugal
from habit and principle, more than from an undue longing after
worldly wealth. He contented himself, therefore, with acquiring an
estate that should be valuable, rather from its