Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 5 | Page 2

season, and nipping cold), was like unto a vision of a better world. As we passed the small wooded islands, which make the bay very pleasant, and entered close upon the town, and saw the houses; and orchards, and meadows, and the hills beyond covered with a great growth of wood, my brother, lifting up both of his hands, cried out, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy habitations, O Israel!" and for my part I did weep for joy and thankfulness of heart, that God had brought us safely to so fair a haven. Uncle and Aunt Rawson met us on the wharf, and made us very comfortable at their house, which is about half a mile from the water-side, at the foot of a hill, with an oaken forest behind it, to shelter it from the north wind, which is here very piercing. Uncle is Secretary of the Massachusetts, and spends a great part of his time in town; and his wife and family are with him in the winter season, but they spend their summers at his plantation on the Merrimac River, in Newbury. His daughter, Rebecca, is just about my age, very tall and lady-looking; she is like her brother John, who was at Uncle Hilton's last year. She hath, moreover, a pleasant wit, and hath seen much goodly company, being greatly admired by the young men of family and distinction in the Province. She hath been very kind to me, telling me that she looked upon me as a sister. I have been courteously entertained, moreover, by many of the principal people, both of the reverend clergy and the magistracy. Nor must I forbear to mention a visit which I paid with Uncle and Aunt Rawson at the house of an aged magistrate of high esteem and influence in these parts. He saluted me courteously, and made inquiries concerning our family, and whether I had been admitted into the Church. On my telling him that I had not, he knit his brows, and looked at me very sternly.
"Mr. Rawson," said he, "your niece, I fear me, has much more need of spiritual adorning than of such gewgaws as these," and took hold of my lace ruff so hard that I heard the stitches break; and then he pulled out my sleeves, to see how wide they were, though they were only half an ell. Madam ventured to speak a word to encourage me, for she saw I was much abashed and flustered, yet he did not heed her, but went on talking very loud against the folly and the wasteful wantonness of the times. Poor Madam is a quiet, sickly-looking woman, and seems not a little in awe of her husband, at the which I do not marvel, for he hath a very impatient, forbidding way with him, and, I must say, seemed to carry himself harshly at times towards her. Uncle Rawson says he has had much to try his temper; that there have been many and sore difficulties in Church as well as State; and he hath bitter enemies, in some of the members of the General Court, who count him too severe with the Quakers and other disturbers and ranters. I told him it was no doubt true; but that I thought it a bad use of the Lord's chastenings to abuse one's best friends for the wrongs done by enemies; and, that to be made to atone for what went ill in Church or State, was a kind of vicarious suffering that, if I was in Madam's place, I should not bear with half her patience and sweetness.
Ipswitch, near Agawam, May 12.
We set out day before yesterday on our journey to Newbury. There were eight of us,--Rebecca Rawson and her sister, Thomas Broughton, his wife, and their man-servant, my brother Leonard and myself, and young Robert Pike, of Newbury, who had been to Boston on business, his father having great fisheries in the river as well as the sea. He is, I can perceive, a great admirer of my cousin, and indeed not without reason; for she hath in mind and person, in her graceful carriage and pleasant discourse, and a certain not unpleasing waywardness, as of a merry child, that which makes her company sought of all. Our route the first day lay through the woods and along the borders of great marshes and meadows on the seashore. We came to Linne at night, and stopped at the house of a kinsman of Robert Pike's,--a man of some substance and note in that settlement. We were tired and hungry, and the supper of warm Indian bread and sweet milk relished quite as well as any I ever ate in the Old Country. The next day we went on