Part 1 (2/2)

The house had an air of substantial comfort without, an appearance that its interior in no s, were low, it is true, nor were the rooe; but the latter arm in winter, cool in summer and tidy, neat and respectable all the year round Both the parlours had carpets, as had the passages and all the better bed-rooms; and there were an old-fashi+oned chintz settee, well stuffed and cushi+oned, and curtains in the ”big parlour,” as we called the best apart reached our valley as far back as the year 1796, or that in which my recollections of the place, as it then existed, are the most vivid and distinct

We had orchards, ranaries, styes, and other buildings of the far, and all in capital condition In addition to the place, which he inherited frorandfather, quite without any encumbrance, well stocked and supplied with utensils of all sorts,with him from sea some fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars, which he carefully invested in ot twenty-seven hundred pounds currency with reat landed proprietors, and as ford was generally supposed to be one of the stiffest men in Ulster county I do not know exactly how true was this report; though I never saw anything but the abundance of a better sort of American farm under the paternal roof, and I know that the poor were never sent away empty-handed It as true that our as made of currants; but it was delicious, and there was always a sufficient stock in the cellar to enable us to drink it three or four years old My father, however, had a small private collection of his own, out of which he would occasionally produce a bottle; and I ree Clinton, afterwards, Vice President, as an Ulster county , say that it was excellent East India Madeira As for clarets, burgundy, hock and chane, they ines then unknown in America, except on the tables of some of the principal entleer than coe Clinton used to stop occasionally, and tasteclassed with those who then coentry of the state To this, in that day, we could hardly aspire, though the substantial hereditary property of ood deal above the station of ordinary yeoe towns, our association would unquestionably have been with those who are usually considered to be one or two degrees beneath the highest class These distinctions were much more marked, immediately after the war of the revolution, than they are to-day; and they are more marked to-day, even, than all but the nifies, are willing to allow

The courtshi+p between my parents occurred while my father was at hoement between the Tru cause whyscar on the left side ofThe battle was fought in June 1780, and my parents were married in the autuain until after my birth, which took place the very day that Cornwallis capitulated at Yorktown These co sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more loried in He accordingly got a commission in a privateer, made two or three fortunate cruises, and was able at the peace to purchase a prize-brig, which he sailed, as master and owner, until the year 1790, when he was recalled to the paternal roof by the death ofan only son, the captain, as my father was uniformly called, inherited the land, stock, utensils and crops, as already mentioned; while the six thousand pounds currency that were ”at use,” went to ht to be well married, to men in their own class of life, in adjacent counties

My father never went to sea after he inherited Clawbonny From that time down to the day of his death, he rele winter passed in Albany as one of the representatives of the county In his day, it was a credit to a man to represent a county, and to hold office under the State; though the abuse of the elective principle, not to say of the appointing power, has since brought about so great a change Then, a ress was _soress

We were but two surviving children, three of the fa only my sister Grace and myself to console our mother in her hood The dire accident which placed her in this, the saddest of all conditions for a woman who had been a happy wife, occurred in the year 1794, when I was in my thirteenth year, and Grace was turned of eleven It may be well to relate the particulars

There was a h our valley tumbles down to a level below that on which the farm lies, and empties itself into a small tributary of the Hudson This reat convenience and of sorain that was consumed for domestic purposes, for several miles around; and the tolls enabled hiive both a sort of established character In a word, thepoint for all the products of the farin of the creek that put up from the Hudson, whence a sloop sailed weekly for town My father passed half his ti his work of the sloop, which was his property also, and about the gear of the mill He was clever, certainly, and had ht who occasionally came to examine and repair the works; but he was by no means so accurate a mechanic as he fancied hi thethe machinery in motion when necessary; what it was, I never knew, for it was not named at Clawbonny after the fatal accident occurred One day, however, in order to convince the ht of the excellence of this improvement, my father caused the ht upon the large wheel, in order to manifest the sense he felt in the security of his invention

He was in the very act of laughing exultingly at the ht shook his head at the risk he ran, when the arresting power lost its control of the machinery, the heavy head of water burst into the buckets, and the wheel whirled round carrying my unfortunate father with it I was an eye-witness of the whole, and saw the face of my parent, as the wheel turned it from me, still expanded in ht succeeded in stopping the works This brought the great wheel back nearly to its original position, and I fairly shouted with hysterical delight when I saw ly unhurt Unhurt he would have been, though he , but for one circumstance He had held on to the wheel with the tenacity of a seao his hold would have thrown him down a cliff of near a hundred feet in depth, and he actually passed between the wheel and the planking beneath it unharh there was only an inch or two to spare; but in rising from this fearful strait, his head had been driven between a projecting beam and one of the buckets, in a way to crush one temple in upon the brain So swift and sudden had been the whole thing, that, on turning the wheel, his lifeless body was still inclining on its periphery, retained erect, I believe, in consequence of so attached, to the head of a nail This was the first serious sorrow of arded my father as one of the fixtures of the world; as a part of the great system of the universe; and had never conte That another revolution ht occur, and carry the country back under the dominion of the British croould have seemed to me far more possible than that my father could die Bitter truth now convinced me of the fallacy of such notions

It was htful scene At rief took strong hold of my heart Grace and I used to look at each other without speaking, long after the event, the tears starting tothe only communications between us, but communications that no uttered words could have uish with tre She was sent for to the house of the miller, where the body lay, and arrived unapprised of the extent of the evil Never can I--never shall I forget the outbreakings of her sorrohen she learned the whole of the dreadful truth She was in fainting fits for hours, one succeeding another, and then her grief found tongue There was no term of endearment that the heart of woman could dictate to her speech, that was not lavished on the lifeless clay She called the dead ”her Miles,” ”her beloved Miles,” ”her husband,” ”her own darling husband,” and by such other endearing epithets Once she seemed as if resolute to arouse the sleeper from his endless trance, and she said, soleht be to the parent of her children, the tenderest and most comprehensive of all woman's terms of endearment--”Father--dear, dearest father! open your eyes and look upon your babes--your precious girl, and noble boy! Do not thus shut out their sight for ever!”

But it was in vain There lay the lifeless corpse, as insensible as if the spirit of God had never had a dwelling within it The principal injury had been received on that ain did ht yet restore her husband to life All would not do The sa, and three days later it was laid in the church-yard, by the side of three generations of forefathers, at a distance of only a mile from Clawbonny That funeral service, too, land people in the valley; and old Miles Wallingford, the first of the nalish franklin, had been influenced in his choice of a purchase by the fact that one of Queen Anne's churches stood so near the farh, pointed roof, without steeple, bell, or vestry-rooenerations of us been taken to be christened, and three, including my father, had been taken to be buried Excellent, kind-hearted, just-e read the funeral service over the man whom his own father had, in the sahbourhood has her thanus, who had not some sort of hereditary claiy actually rand-parents The son had united my father and mother, and noas called on to officiate at the funeral obsequies of the first Grace and I sobbed as if our hearts would break, the whole time ere in the church; and my poor, sensitive, nervous little sister actually shrieked as she heard the sound of the first clod that fell upon the coffin Ourit impossible to support it She remained at home, on her knees, most of the day on which the funeral occurred

Tih my mother, a woman of more than common sensibility, or, it were better to say of uncommon affections, never entirely recovered from the effects of her irreparable loss She had loved too well, too devotedly, too engrossingly, ever to think of a second e, and lived only to care for the interests of Miles Wallingford's children I firmly believe ere more beloved because we stood in this relation to the deceased, than because ere her own natural offspring Her health becaradually undermined, and, three years after the accident of the e laid her at my father's side I was now sixteen, and can better describe what passed during the last days of her existence, than what took place at the death of her husband Grace and I were apprised of as so likely to occur, quite a month before the fatal moment arrived; and ere not so rief as we had been on the first great occasion of fah we both felt our loss keenly, and uishably Mr Hardinge had us both brought to the bed-side, to listen to the parting advice of our dying parent, and to be ihtly iood Mr

Hardinge,” she said, in a voice that was already enfeebled by physical decay, ”and you signed then of the cross, in token of Christ's death for them; and I now ask of your friendshi+p and pastoral care to see that they are not neglected at the most critical period of their lives--that when impressions are the deepest, and yet the most easily made God will reward all your kindness to the orphan children of your friends” The excellent divine, a man who lived more for others than for himself, made the required proht in peace

Neither rieved as deeply for the loss of this last of our parents, as we did for that of the first We had both seen so oodness, had been witnesses of so great a triuh silent, persuasion that her death was e to a better state of existence--that it seeret Still, ept and mourned, even while, in one sense, I think we rejoiced She was relieved fro, and I remember, when I went to take a last look at her beloved face, that I gazed on its cal akin to exultation, as I recollected that pain could no longer exercise do in bliss Bitter regrets came later, it is true, and these were fully shared--nay, more than shared--by Grace

After the death of ht me of the manner in which he had disposed of his property I heard soleaned a little, accidentally, of the for the instru its probate

Shortly after e had a free conversation with both me and Grace on the subject, e learned, for the first time, the disposition that had been , sloop, stock, utensils, crops, &c &c, in full property; subject, however, to my mother's use of the whole until I attained ive her co of the house, which had every convenience for a ses in the fields, dairy, styes, orchards, ranaries, &c, and to pay her three hundred pounds currency, per annum, in money Grace had four thousand pounds that were ”at use,” and I had all the remainder of the personal property, which yielded about five hundred dollars a-year As the far, &c, produced a net annual income of rather more than a thousand dollars, besides all that was consu, I was very well off, in the way of tes, for one who had been trained in habits as sined at Clawbonny

My father had left Mr Hardinge the executor, and my mother an executrix of his will, with survivorshi+p He had also uardians Thus Grace and I becay parent This was grateful to us both, for we both truly loved this good man, and, as es corresponding very nearly with our own; Rupert Hardinge being not quite a year older than I was er than Grace We were all four strongly attached to each other, and had been so froe of my education as soon as I was taken from a woe was ever a boy to give his father the delight that a studious, well-conducted, considerate and industrious child, has it so much in his power to yield to his parent

Of the two, I was much the best scholar, and had been pronounced by Mr Hardinge fit to enter college, a twelve me to Yale, the institution selected by my father, untilbeen her intention to give the clergyh education, in furtherance of his father's views of bringing him up to the church This delay, so well and kindlythe whole course of my subsequent life

My father, it seems, wished tome advanced to some honourable position in the State

But I was averse to anything like serious hted when e a twelveht be my class; but the first I could not very well help, while the reading I liked was that which amused, rather than that which instructed h not absolutely dull, but, on the other hand, absolutely clever in certain things, he disliked mental labour even more than myself, while he liked self-restraint of any sort far less His father was sincerely pious, and regarded his sacred office with tooup a ”cosset-priest,” though he prayed and hoped that his son's inclinations, under the guidance of Providence, would take that direction He seldom spoke on the subject hih hted with the idea, looking forward to the time when her brother would officiate in the sarandfather had now conducted the worshi+p of God forpeople, seees of the country And all this the dear girl wished for her brother, in connection with his spiritual rather than his te orth only a badly-paid salary of one hundred and fifty pounds currency per annulebe of five-and-twenty acres of very tolerable land, which it was thought no sin, in that day, for the clergyman to work by means of two male slaves, whom, with as many females, he had inherited as part of the chattels of his roes who, as a race, had been in the fa as Clawbonny About half of these blacks were singularly laborious and useful, viz, four males and three of the fe _otiunitate_, as heir-looood, or evil, they had done There were some small-fry in our kitchens, too, that used to roll about on the grass, and munch fruit in the summer, _ad libitum;_ and stand so close in the chimney-corners in cold weather, that I have often fancied they al wit of New York once pronounced certain eastern coal-roes all went by the patrony them Hector Clawbonny, Venus Clawbonny, Caesar Clawbonny, Rose Clawbonny--as as black as a crow--Romeo Clawbonny, and Julietta, commonly called Julee, Clawbonny; ere, with Pharaoh, Potiphar, Sampson and Nebuchadnezzar, all Clawbonnys in the last resort Neb, as the na of Babylon was called, was about e, and had been a sort of huht proper to set him about the more serious toil which was to mark his humble career, I often interfered to call hi-piece, or in the boat, of which we had one that frequently descended the creek, and navigated the Hudson for miles at a tih an off-hand friendliness of manner that I rather think was characteristic of ot to love me as a brother or comrade It is not easy to describe the affection of an attached slave, which has blended with it the pride of a partisan, the solicitude of a parent, and the blindness of a lover I do think Neb hadto Master Miles, than I ever had in any quality or thing I could call reatly encouraged Rupert andhours that could never be recalled

The first tie of Neb, who decoyedon the ood as the spelling-book, or any priotten to mention that the death of ht about an ie in the condition of our do only fourteen, to preside over such a household, and I could be of little use, either in the way of directing or advising Mr Hardinge, who had received a letter to that effect fro saint, that was only put into his hand the day after the funeral, with a view to give her request the greater weight, rented the rectory, and ca with him both his children My reatest service to the orphans she left behind her; while the ht enable this single-minded minister of the altar to lay by a hundred or two for Lucy, who, at his deht otherwise be left without a penny, as it was then said, cents not having yet coave Grace and me much pleasure, for she was as fond of Lucy as I was of Rupert, and, to tell the truth, so was I, too Four happier young people were not to be found in the State than we thus becaereeable to our feelings Previously, we only saw each other every day; no each other all day At night we separated at an early hour, it is true, each having his or her roo, and to resume our amusements in company From study, all of us were relieved for a athered fruit, or saw others gather it as well as the crops, taking as ood of our bodies, and the lightening of our spirits

I do not think vanity, or any feeling connected with self-love, misleadspeople more likely to attract the attention of a passer-by, than we four were, in the fall of 1797 As for Rupert Hardinge, he reseularly handsoraceful in entility of air, of which he kne to ue and a flow of spirits that rendered hireeable, if not a very instructive coh far fro associate In th and activity, however, I had essentially the advantage over hi me in masculine qualities of this nature, after I had passed my twelfth year My hair was a dark auburn, and it was the only thing about er to notice it; but this hung about lets, until frequent applications of the scissors brought it into so like subjection

It never lost its beauty entirely, and though nohite as snow, it is still admired But Grace was the one of the party whose personal appearance would be most likely to attract attention Her face bea one of those countenances on which nature soled radiance, sweetness, truth and sentihter than mine; her eyes of a heavenly blue, all softness and tenderness; her cheeks just of the tint of the palest of the coloured roses; and her sain, it has controlled etting the ht Grace, in a slight degree, too fragile, though her limbs would have been delicate models for the study of a sculptor

Lucy, too, had certainly great perfection, particularly in figure; though in the crowd of beauty that has been so profusely lavished on the youthful in this country, she would not have been at all reirls Her face was pleasing nevertheless; and there was a piquant contrast between the raven blackness of her hair the deep blue of her eyes, and the dazzling whiteness of her skin Her colour, too, was high, and changeful with her eht have travelled weeks to h she seee, she had a naturaltheether agreeable

Her voice and laugh, too, when happy and free fro toowas ever totally indifferent to his or her personal appearance Still, I do not think either of our party, Rupert alone excepted, ever thought on the subject, unless as it related to others, down to the period Of which I a I knew, and saw, and felt that irls of her age and condition that I had seen in her society; and I had pleasure and pride in the fact I knew that I reseh to i for difference of sex My own conceit, so far as I then had any--plenty of it came, a year or two later--but my own conceit, in 1797, rather ran in the direction of reat for sixteen, and stature As for Rupert, I would not have exchanged these ht of envy never crossed h for a parson to be a little delicate, and a good deal handsome; but for one who intended to knock about the world as I had it already in contee and activity, were ht of as handso; fancied she was even more so to me than to any one else; and I never looked upon her sunny, cheerful and yet perfectly fe of security and happiness As for her honest eyes, they invariably met my oith an open frankness that said, as plainly as eyes could say anything, there was nothing to be concealed