“Ah, Coverdale, don’t laugh at what little enthusiasm you have left!” said one of my companions.  “I maintain that this nitrous atmosphere is really exhilarating; and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves regenerated men till a February northeaster shall be as grateful to us as the softest breeze of June!”

So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and merrily along, by stone fences that were half buried in the wave-like drifts; and through patches of woodland, where the tree-trunks opposed a snow-incrusted side towards the northeast; and within ken of deserted villas, with no footprints in their avenues; and passed scattered dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma of burning peat.  Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him.  The churl!  He understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for our blithe tones of brotherhood.  This lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the traveller’s part, was one among the innumerable tokens how difficult a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world.  We rode on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good companionship with the tempest that, at our journey’s end, we professed ourselves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer good-by.  But, to own the truth, I was little better than an icicle, and began to be suspicious that I had caught a fearful cold.

And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse, the same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the beginning of this chapter.  There we sat, with the snow melting out of our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past inclemency and present warmth.  It was, indeed, a right good fire that we found awaiting us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty limbs, and splintered fragments of an oak-tree, such as farmers are wont to keep for their own hearths, since these crooked and unmanageable boughs could never be measured into merchantable cords for the market.  A family of the old Pilgrims might have swung their kettle over precisely such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one; and, contrasting it with my coal-grate, I felt so much the more that we had transported ourselves a world-wide distance from the system of society that shackled us at breakfast-time.

Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who was to manage the farm at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art of husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome.  At her back—­a back of generous breadth—­appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably, but looking rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be their position in our new arrangement of the world.  We shook hands affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the blessed state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might fairly be dated from this moment.  Our greetings were hardly concluded when the door opened, and Zenobia—­whom I had never before seen, important as was her place in our enterprise—­Zenobia entered the parlor.