Brenda's Summer at Rockley/Chapter 11
XI
THE PILGRIMAGE
The only person who seemed to disapprove of the intimacy between Amy and the three girls of the Barlow household was Fritz. It was hardly to be expected that a boy could be included in expeditions in which the girls would outnumber him, four to one. In fact, had he been regularly invited, Fritz would probably have declined to go about with a lot of girls. But he did resent the fact that Amy had been taken away from him. Whenever she could be spared from home, she was sure to go down to the beach, or over to Mrs. Barlow’s house, to spend an hour or two with Brenda. Really, it was unbearable! This at least was the point of view of Fritz, who began to feel rather aggrieved when on three successive days he had failed to find Amy at home when he called. On one of these occasions he had run upstairs to talk with cousin Joan, and he had found her equally dissatisfied. She did not see why Amy need be always going off for amusement. “I’m sure she has her books, and her piano, and when her mother is out, I am always here, so that she can’t say that she has n’t any one to talk to.” Poor cousin Joan! in all her life she had never been able to put herself in the place of any one else. She expected the other person, old or young, to see things exactly as she did, that is, to stand in her place.
But one good thing came from Fritz’s visit to her. He took up a book which lay, on the little table beside her, and offered to read for a half hour. The half hour lengthened to an hour, and at its end cousin Joan decided that after all there might be a little good in boys,—at least in some—boys, and she almost smiled on Fritz when he laid down the “History of Our Own Times,” after his hour of work. Possibly he would not have read so long, and so willingly, had not the book itself really interested him. He found it surprisingly entertaining “for a history,” as he said to cousin Joan, and privately he resolved to find out if his uncle had n’t a copy at home.
“I wonder if Mrs. Redmond is very busy now,” he said, when he had finished.
“She’s in the studio; you might go and see,” answered cousin Joan; and Fritz excused himself to find Amy’s mother. Though dignified by the name “studio,” the room where Mrs. Redmond worked was a small apartment, and its only really artistic property was its northern window. This was rather large, and in the good light Mrs. Redmond spent many hours working every day. Many of her flower sketches, fastened to colored cartridge paper, were tacked around the wall, and the easel at which she was working, had a thoroughly business-like air.
She welcomed Fritz cordially, and laughed at him a little when, almost without meaning to do so, he disclosed the fact that he was rather jealous of the new friends, who took Amy away from him.
“Amy cares just as much for you as ever; but it is so pleasant for her to have the companionship of girls of her own age that she cannot be blamed for spending all the time she can with them.”
“I should n’t suppose that you could spare her so much,” murmured Fritz, a little crossly. “Now when I am around, she can go on with whatever she is doing, just the same. But I rather think that Miss Barlow would be surprised if she were asked to wait around and help with the dishes. Of course I never mind things like that.”
Mrs. Redmond again laughed at the doleful tone and expression assumed by Fritz.
“You are certainly not feeling very happy to-day, are you?”
“Well, it’s no fun. I came over this afternoon expressly to invite Amy to go down to Lynn with me to-morrow. My uncle has an errand there. But I suppose that it is n’t any use for me to ask her. She probably has an engagement with Miss Barlow.”
“Well, Fritz, it does happen to be the day that they have chosen for their expedition to Marblehead. Amy calls it a Pilgrimage, and she expects to enjoy it very much. She is going to point out most of the objects of interest, or, in other words, the famous houses to the girls.”
“She’d better read them some of her own poetry. They’d probably enjoy it.”
“Oh, no, indeed, I’m sure that she would n’t do that. Amy is very sensitive about her own verses. She hardly ever reads any of them to me.”
“Well, then I’m rather lucky. I have several things that she has given me. You know I think it’s just great for a girl to be able to write the way she does. Well, I suppose that it’s no use to wait for her, especially as she can’t go with me,” and Fritz, bidding Mrs. Redmond good-bye, went downstairs. As he passed the door of the sitting-room, a sudden thought seized him, and he went to the little desk belonging to Amy, which stood in one corner. A large book lay on top of it, and, opening the covers, he took out several loose sheets of paper.
“The very thing,” he exclaimed, and he folded up the sheets, and placed them in his pocket.
Now on the Thursday of their expedition to Marblehead, the four girls were especially favored by the weather. It was one of those gray days that occasionally come in summer; the kind of day when a photographer knows the instantaneous views are out of question, and yet the kind of day that persons fond of out-door life welcome heartily. They know that they can walk or ride or wheel almost as comfortably as in autumn.
“Are all the young people in Marblehead dead?” asked Nora, frivolously, as they stood at the head of a narrow hilly street.
“What a question!” Brenda’s voice sounded just a little impatient.
“But now really I am in earnest. You must have noticed how many old men and old women we see, and quantities of children. But I have n’t seen a really young-looking man or woman either yet.”
“Just wait until noon. When the whistle sounds, you ’ll see them pouring out of the factories. You know that there are a great many factories in Marblehead. Then, of course, it’s such an old place that a great many people like to go away to seek their fortunes in Lynn, or some of the cities.”
“I’m sure I’d live somewhere else, if I had to spend all the year in Marblehead,” said Brenda, and then, when the others laughed at her, she looked offended until they pointed out the bull that she had made.
“Don’t you think it’s a fascinating place?” asked Julia.
“No, I honestly don’t. That is, I prefer places where the houses are bright and cheerful-looking, freshly painted, you know. Why, these houses look as if they had n’t had a coat of paint in a hundred years!”
“She’s pining for Queen Anne cottages, all red and green and yallery,” said Nora apologetically to Amy.
“Well, on a gray day, Marblehead does look rather dingier than usual,” said Amy.
“Oh, I know what Marblehead’s like in all kinds of weather!” said Brenda. “I can’t count the times I ’ve been here on my way to the boat. I never thought that it was beautiful, and I don’t think I ’ll change my mind so very much, even at the end of this pilgrimage. But I’m willing to get all the improvement 1I can out of this trip. That’s what we ’re here for, are n’t we?” and she turned inquiringly toward Amy.
Amy did not know exactly whether or not it was worth while to be offended with Brenda. Or rather she could not tell whether or not Brenda was in earnest.
“It was your mother who suggested our coming in this way. Of course I shall be glad to tell you anything I can about places. But I don’t wish to make myself tiresome.”
“Of course you won’t make yourself tiresome. Brenda did n’t mean that.”
“No, I really did n’t, though I won’t pretend that I am quite as much interested in history as Nora and Julia. They ’re regular cormorants.”
“What in the world is that?” asked Nora, in an aside, while Brenda looked rather proud of her success in using a particularly uncommon word.
“I’m afraid that you ’ll never tell us anything unless we ask questions; you are altogether too modest,” said Julia. “So, as I am the oldest, I will begin. Why is that house standing there below us in the middle of the street? Were they short of sidewalks?”
“That’s the old Town House,” replied Amy. “You can see the date there over the door, 1727. They still hold town meetings there, I believe, though they can’t be as exciting as in the days of the Revolution when men like Elbridge Gerry, and Jeremiah Lee, and perhaps Mugford himself used to speak there.”
“I never heard of a single one of those men, did you, Nora?” and Brenda lowered her voice a little so that Amy might not know the depths of her ignorance. Nora shook her head, although whether in assent or contradiction it was not easy to tell. They had now moved nearer the Town House, and lingered there to study it more closely.
“Judge Story was born in that house where the apothecary’s shop is,—the father of the artist Story,” explained Amy.
“Oh, yes, the grandfather-in-law of Emma Eames; now don’t say that I didn’t know anything about any one in Marblehead,” said Nora, so appealingly that the others laughed.
Near the Story House, Amy paused for a moment. “There, I think that we’d better go up this street while we ’re fresh. There’s a great deal to see up here,” and she led the way with Julia, while the other two followed at some little distance.
“Is she going to draw money?” asked Nora, as Amy and Julia entered a large house, the lower story of which was a bank. Hastening their steps, they found them both admiring the wall paper on the wall above a handsome flight of stairs.
“It was made in England, and looks almost as if painted by hand,” said Amy. “Colonel Lee, who lived here at the time of the Revolution, was a great patriot. When this house was built, there was said to be no other as expensive and fine in all the British Colonies.”
“Was Washington ever entertained here?” asked Nora, demurely.
“Yes,” replied Amy.
“And Lafayette, too?”
“Why, yes.”
“I thought so. I ’ve been in historic towns before, and Washington and Lafayette have always been entertained in the handsomest houses.”
“Well, Colonel Lee was naturally honored by Washington, because he had been so devoted to the American cause. You see, ever so many of the Marblehead merchants were Loyalists. Why, Colonel Lee himself had a brother-in-law, Benjamin Marston,—that is his house up there at the top of the hill,—who was exiled to Nova Scotia because he was on the King’s side. Another brother-in-law. King Hooper, as he was called on account of his great wealth, had a large banquet-hall in the top of his house, and my mother says that she can remember, not so very long ago, a coat-of-arms there over the door. This part of Washington Street, especially up here on the hill, seems to have been the Court End of the town,—at least, all the handsomest houses are here,” said Amy.
“Is every old house standing that ever was built in Marblehead?” asked Brenda.
“Well I’m not going to point them all out to you, so don’t be worried,” answered Amy, good-naturedly.
“Show us one that has some romantic story connected with it.”
“I’m afraid that there are not so very many. The houses of very rich people were just about as unromantic a hundred and twenty years ago as they are to-day,” responded Amy. “But there’s the old Bowden House over there on the hill. Michael Bowden was a Loyalist, but he was n’t as unpopular as some of them, and so when another Loyalist sought refuge in his house from an angry mob, he promised to protect him. Well, the crowd rushed into the house, and Mrs. Bowden tried to keep them from going farther than the sitting-room.
“‘I can assure you, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘that the man you seek is not under my roof. If you make any greater disturbance, you may cause the death of my sick daughter.’
“So the citizens did not go any farther. They believed Mrs. Bowden.”
“But the man was in the house, was n’t he?”
“Well, it seems that he was on the roof, hiding behind one of the big chimneys. So that in one way Mrs. Bowden told the truth.”
“I did n’t know there were so many Loyalists in this part of the world,” said Nora, as Julia pointed out a house on the opposite side of the Square which Amy said had belonged to Benjamin Watson, a prominent Tory.
“Oh, well, my mother says that Marblehead was rich then, that Boston was the only town that was richer, and some of the merchants, fearing that their business would be disturbed, were on the side of England.”
“Where is the very oldest house of all?” asked Julia; “these up here look almost too comfortable and modern, even if they are more than one hundred years old.”
“Then I must take you down to the old Tucker House, built—” and Amy referred to her little note-book,—“about 1660.” Her mother had advised her to write a few dates and facts with which to refresh her memory, as she guided her friends around the town.
“Well, it isn’t much to look at,” said Brenda; “it’s shabby, and it is no more distinguished-looking than the other old houses around here. The very oldest house ought to be different in some way.”
“Somebody told me that the very first settler, who came here in the winter of 1629, lived in a fish-hogshead which he set up in a sheltered cove, near Peach’s Point. Now if that house had been preserved, I fancy that it would have suited you. It would have been so unlike anything else here.”
Thus they wandered about, these four girls, each finding something that had some special interest for her. Julia was very much impressed by the fact that James Mugford’s house was still to be seen (“the very house in which he and his young wife set up housekeeping”); and when Brenda and Nora admitted that they did not know what Mugford had done to distinguish himself, she told them the story which every patriotic boy and girl should know. She told how Mugford, in his little schooner “Franklin,” succeeded in the spring of 1776 in capturing the British transport “Hope,” loaded with ammunition and military stores that were of the greatest value to the Americans. He took his prize safely into Boston, and then started for home. There was a British fleet lying then in Nantasket Roads, and of course they kept watch for Mugford. When part way home, the “Franklin” unfortunately ran aground, and this gave the British their opportunity to attack. Although Mugford and his men drove them off, and saved their vessel, the enemy succeeded in fatally wounding Mugford. His body was carried back to Marblehead and buried with great honors.
“You can see his grave up in the Burying Hill,” said Amy; “it is marked by a stone, and there’s a monument at the other end of the town.”
While Amy was talking, Nora appeared to be thinking deeply. At length she exclaimed, “There, I have it; there’s a Marblehead monument in Boston, at least it’s to a Marblehead man. It’s in the Park in Commonwealth Avenue. I remember when I was a little girl, fond of spelling out inscriptions, I used to wonder what Marblehead was. It did n’t seem to me like a place. I wonder whose the statue was on that monument! It’s a kind of Continental looking figure.”
“Oh, that is General Glover; I ’ve seen that monument myself on some of my trips to town.”
“General Glover?” Nora showed her curiosity very plainly. “Well, he started as Colonel John Glover, and joined Washington at Cambridge. His regiment was made up wholly of Marblehead men, all except seven. Washington Irving called them the ‘amphibious regiment of Marblehead fishermen.’ They knew more about boats than any of the other soldiers, and these Marbleheaders were the men who rowed Washington across the Delaware on that Christmas night of 1776.”
“Is General Glover’s house standing, too?” asked Nora, in a tone of mock-seriousness.
“Certainly,” replied Amy. “I ought to have pointed it out to you. Well, there may be a chance by-and-by.”
“There,” said Brenda, hardly waiting until Amy had finished. “It’s just come to me. I knew that there was something romantic that I had read about Marblehead. ‘Agnes Surriage,’—she’s much more romantic than any of the people you ’ve been talking about,” and she laid her hand playfully first on Julia’s arm, and then on Nora’s.
“You ’re so down on novels that I don’t suppose that either of you has read ‘Agnes Surriage.’”
“Oh, we know all about her, don’t worry about that,” rejoined Nora.
“Yes, I dare say you ’ve read some scrap about her in a history; but that ’s very different from the novel. That’s one of the most interesting books I ever read.”
“More interesting than ‘The Countess’ books?” asked Julia, mischievously.
“Oh, well, of course not quite,” responded Brenda, in the same spirit, while Nora chanted expressively,—
“’Tis like some poet’s pictured trance
His idle rhymes recite,—
This old New England-born romance
Of Agnes and the knight.’
“I could recite any amount more, but we have n’t time now.”
“There’s no doubt that you can recite poetry very well, Nora,” said Brenda, “and I’m glad that you liked Agnes.”
“Oh, I have read the novel, too; I read it after we visited the North End last winter, with Miss South.”
“Before we go home to-day, perhaps we can go up to the place where the Fountain Inn used to stand. It’s some little distance up the hill. There’s a kind of interesting looking pump over a well there, and they suppose that the inn was named from it.”
“From the pump?”
“No, from the well,” replied Amy, without a shade of annoyance at Brenda’s interruption.
“Well, I wish that instead of building his great mansion house at Hopkinton, Sir Harry had built it at Marblehead. If he had done that, it would probably still be standing, as in Marblehead the people apparently never pull down a stick or a stone.”
“You ’ll have to be contented with the well, and imagine that the little old house across the road is the inn where Agnes was scrubbing the steps when Sir Harry first saw her.”
“I wonder if she ever came back here, after she became a titled lady.”
“I ’ve never heard about that, but I know that my mother read me the story from the town history once, and it says there that Agnes was very good to her own family, and never neglected the interests of her brothers and sisters.”
“I must read the novel myself; the story is certainly a very romantic one. Are n’t there some more interesting Marblehead women or girls to tell us about?”
“There are the Floyd Ireson women,” said Nora,
“‘Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
Loose of kerchief, and loose of hair.
With conch-shells blowing, and fish-horns’ twang.
Over and over the Mænads sang,
“Here’s Find Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr’d and futherr’d and corr’d in a corrt
By the women o’ Morble’ead.”’
“And after all, poor man, they say now that he did n’t do what Whittier thought he had done when he wrote that poem.”
“Oh, what was it?” There was considerable eagerness in Brenda’s voice.
“Well, they thought that he sailed away from a Marblehead vessel that had sprung aleak in Chaleur Bay. That was the report that was spread in Marblehead, that he had refused to help the sailors who were in danger of drowning. So when he reached Marblehead, the women tarred and feathered him, and rode him around the streets in a cart. That part of the story is true enough, and so it is n’t so strange, perhaps, that Whittier should have written a poem about it. But it’s a pity, too, for it was afterwards shown that Skipper Ireson himself wanted to go to the help of the wreck, only his sailors would n’t let him. To save themselves from blame, they told this story about him. But anyway the whole thing was n’t quite as bad as it seems in the poem, for the men on the sinking vessel were finally rescued by another vessel that passed their way.”
“But it’s all true about the women of Marblehead?”
“Oh, yes, they used to be a rather queer lot. Their husbands were off at sea so much that they had to look out for themselves, and this made them very mannish. Their short skirts and queer head-dresses came down to them, I suppose, from their French ancestors,—the first settlers are said to have come from the Island of Jersey, and that’s where they got many of their strange words. They say that it’s almost impossible to understand some of the old people now. By the way, Floyd Ireson’s house is standing,” said Amy. “I can show it to you soon. It is n’t as old as some of the other houses, but strangers always want to see it. It was in the very early years of this century that Skipper Ireson lived.”
During this conversation the girls had been walking very slowly through the old streets, and while Nora was reciting the verses about Agnes Surriage, they had come to a complete stop leaning against the fence in front of an old garden. Only one or two persons passed them while they stood there, and no one seemed surprised at their actions. A white-bearded old man hobbled by, leaning on a cane, and an old woman passed along, wearing a black shawl and a large scoop bonnet, such as one would never see in any place but Marblehead. A dog-cart with two young people, evidently summer residents, clattered through the street; an electric car whirled down Washington Street, toward which they were walking, and these were chief signs of life in that part of the sleepy old town where they found themselves.
“The thing that I should most like to see,” said Brenda, “would be the place where we can get a good comfortable luncheon. I’m starved.”
“You poor thing!” cried Nora, sympathetically, and Amy hastened to add,—
“We ’ll take the next car down toward the Fort. We might as well save ourselves any further walking. Your mother said that we might go to one of those little restaurants. Except on a Saturday or a holiday, there’s never any crowd in the middle of the day.” .
“Oh, what fun!” cried Nora. “I was just wondering where we’d find anything to eat. I had an idea that perhaps we were to make a raid on some of these fruit stores.”