Willoughby, a gentle, tranquil creature, had a profound
admiration of the beauties of nature; and to her, her
parents had yielded the control of everything that
was considered accessary to the mere charms of the
eye; her taste had directed most of that which had
not been effected by the noble luxuriance of nature.
Wild roses were already putting forth their leaves
in various fissures of the rocks, where earth had
been placed for their support, and the margin of the
little stream, that actually washed the base of the
cliff, winding off in a charming sweep through the
meadows, a rivulet of less than twenty feet in width,
was garnished with willows and alder. Quitting
this sylvan spot, we will return to the little shrub-adorned
area in front of the Hut. This spot the captain
called his glacis, while his daughters termed
it the lawn. The hour, it will be remembered,
was shortly before sunset, and thither nearly all the
family had repaired to breathe the freshness of the
pure air, and bathe in the genial warmth of a season,
which is ever so grateful to those who have recently
escaped from the rigour of a stern winter. Rude,
and sufficiently picturesque garden-seats, were scattered
about, and on one of these were seated the captain
and his wife; he, with his hair sprinkled with grey,
a hale, athletic, healthy man of sixty, and she a
fresh-looking, mild-featured, and still handsome matron
of forty-eight. In front, stood a venerable-looking
personage, of small stature, dressed in rusty black,
of the cut that denoted the attire of a clergyman,
before it was considered aristocratic to wear the outward
symbols of belonging to the church of God. This
was the Rev. Jedidiah Woods, a native of New England,
who had long served as a chaplain in the same regiment
with the captain, and who, being a bachelor, on retired
pay, had dwelt with his old messmate for the last eight
years, in the double capacity of one who exercised
the healing art as well for the soul as for the body.
To his other offices, he added that of an instructor,
in various branches of knowledge, to the young people.
The chaplain, for so he was called by everybody in
and around the Hut, was, at the moment of which we
are writing, busy in expounding to his friends certain
nice distinctions that existed, or which he fancied
to exist, between a tom-cod and a chub, the former
of which fish he very erroneously conceived he held
in his hand at that moment; the Rev. Mr. Woods being
a much better angler than naturalist. To his dissertation
Mrs. Willoughby listened with great good-nature, endeavouring
all the while to feel interested; while her husband
kept uttering his “by all means,” “yes,”
“certainly,” “you’re quite
right, Woods,” his gaze, at the same time, fastened
on Joel Strides, and Pliny the elder, who were unharnessing
their teams, on the flats beneath, having just finished
a “land,” and deeming it too late to commence
another.