When the boat stopped, the little stream came brawling down a ragged declivity, and a mill, one so arranged as to grind and saw, both in a very small way, however, gave the first signs of civilization she had beheld since quitting the last hut near the Mohawk.  After issuing a few orders, the captain drew his wife’s arm through his own, and hurried up the ascent, with an eagerness that was almost boyish, to show her what had been done towards the improvement of the “Knoll.”  There is a pleasure in diving into a virgin forest and commencing the labours of civilization, that has no exact parallel in any other human occupation.  That of building, or of laying out grounds, has certainly some resemblance to it, but it is a resemblance so faint and distant as scarcely to liken the enjoyment each produces.  The former approaches nearer to the feeling of creating, and is far more pregnant with anticipations and hopes, though its first effects are seldom agreeable, and are sometimes nearly hideous.  Our captain, however, had escaped most of these last consequences, by possessing the advantage of having a clearing, without going through the usual processes of chopping and burning; the first of which leaves the earth dotted, for many years, with unsightly stumps, while the rains and snows do not wash out the hues of the last for several seasons.

An exclamation betrayed the pleasure with which Mrs. Willoughby got her first glimpse of the drained pond.  It was when she had clambered to the point of the rocks, where the stream began to tumble downward into the valley below.  A year had done a vast deal for the place.  The few stumps and stubs which had disfigured the basin when it was first laid bare, had all been drawn by oxen, and burned.  This left the entire surface of the four hundred acres smooth and fit for the plough.  The soil was the deposit of centuries, and the inclination, from the woods to the stream, was scarcely perceptible to the eye.  In fact, it was barely sufficient to drain the drippings of the winter’s snows.  The form of the area was a little irregular; just enough so to be picturesque; while the inequalities were surprisingly few and trifling.  In a word, nature had formed just such a spot as delights the husbandman’s heart, and placed it beneath a sun which, while its fierceness is relieved by winters of frost and snow, had a power to bring out all its latent resources.

Trees had been felled around the whole area, with the open spaces filled by branches, in a way to form what is termed a brush fence.  This is not a sightly object, and the captain had ordered the line to be drawn within the woods, so that the visible boundaries of the open land were the virgin forest itself.  His men had protested against this, a fence, however unseemly, being in their view an indispensable accessory to civilization.  But the captain’s authority, if not his better taste, prevailed; and the boundary of felled trees and brush was completely