Chapter 8

"Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me. I am dejected; I am
not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet
over me: use me as you will."

Merry Wives of Windsor.

Poets, aided by the general longing of human nature, have given a
reputation to the Spring, that it rarely merits. Though this imaginative
class of writers have said so much of its balmy airs and odoriferous
gales, we find it nearly everywhere the most reluctant, churlish, and
fickle of the four seasons. It is the youth of the year, and, like that
probationary period of life, most fitted to afford the promise of better
things. There is a constant struggle between reality and hope throughout
the whole of this slow-moving and treacherous period, which has an
unavoidable tendency to deceive. All that is said of its grateful
productions is fallacious, for the earth is as little likely to yield a
generous tribute without the quickening influence of the summer heats, as
man is wont to bring forth commendable fruits without the agency of a
higher moral power than any he possesses in virtue of his innate
propensities. On the other hand, the fall of the year, possesses a
sweetness, a repose, and a consistency, which may be justly likened to the
decline of a well-spent life. It is, in all countries and in every
climate, the period when physical and moral causes unite to furnish the
richest sources of enjoyment. If the Spring is the time of hope, Autumn is
the season of fruition. There is just enough of change to give zest to the
current of existence, while there is too little of vicissitude to be
pregnant of disappointment. Succeeding to the nakedness of Winter, the
Spring is grateful by comparison; while the glories of Autumn are enjoyed,
after the genial powers of Summer have been lavishly expended.

In obedience to this great law of the earth, let poets sing and fancy as
they may, the Spring and Autumn of America partake largely of the
universally distinctive characters of the rival seasons. What Nature has
done on this Continent, has not been done niggardly; and, while we may
boast of a decline of the year that certainly rivals, and, with few
exceptions, eclipses the glories of most of the climates of the old world,
the opening months rarely fail of equalizing the gifts of Providence, by a
very decided exhibition of all the disagreeable qualities for which they
are remarkable.

More than half a year had elapsed, between the time when the Indian boy
had been found lurking in the valley of the Heathcotes, and that day when
he was first permitted to go into the forest, fettered by no other
restraint than the moral tie which the owner of the valley either knew, or
fancied, would not fail to cause him to