Chapter 19

"I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are;--
But I have
That honorable grief lodged here, which burns
Worse than tears drown."

Winter's Tale.

If the pen of a compiler, like that we wield, possessed the mechanical
power of the stage, it would be easy to shift the scenes of this legend as
rapidly and effectively as is required for its right understanding, and
for the proper maintenance of its interest. That which cannot be done with
the magical aid of machinery, must be attempted by less ambitious, and we
fear by far less efficacious means.

At the same early hour of the day, and at no great distance from the spot
where Dudley announced his good fortune to his brother Ring, another
morning meeting had place, between persons of the same blood and
connexions. From the instant when the pale light, that precedes the day,
was first seen in the heavens, the windows and doors of the considerable
dwelling, on the opposite side of the valley, had been unbarred. Ere the
glow of the sun had gilded the sky over the outline of the eastern woods,
this example of industry and providence was followed by the inmates of
every house in the village, or on the surrounding hills; and, by the time
the golden globe itself was visible above the trees, there was not a human
being in all that settlement, of proper age and health, who was not
actively afoot.

It is unnecessary to say that the dwelling particularly named was the
present habitation of the household of Mark Heathcote. Though age had
sapped the foundations of his strength, and had nearly dried the channels
of his existence, the venerable religionist still lived. While his
physical perfection had been gradually giving way before the ordinary
decay of nature, the moral man was but little altered. It is even probable
that his visions of futurity were less dimmed by the mists of carnal
interests than when last seen, and that the spirit had gained some portion
of that energy which had certainly been abstracted from the more corporeal
parts of his existence. At the hour already named, the Puritan was seated
in the piazza, which stretched along the whole front of a dwelling, that,
however it might be deficient in architectural proportions, was not
wanting in the more substantial comforts of a spacious and commodious
frontier residence. In order to obtain a faithful portrait of a man so
intimately connected with our tale, the reader will fancy him one who had
numbered four-score and ten years, with a visage on which deep and
constant mental striving had wrought many and menacing furrows, a form
that trembled while it yet exhibited the ruins of powerful limb and
flexible muscle, and a countenance in which ascetic reflections had