My charge was in a beautifully romantic and fertile spot, the natural features of which would seem sufficient teachers of the power and the goodness of God, if, indeed, nature were, as some insist, a sufficient teacher without revelation. I soon found myself, upon here taking up my residence, almost the only man who thought it worth his while to study and admire the beauties which nature, with a lavish hand, had scattered over the scene. It was a valley, enclosed on all sides with hills, whose ascents, crowned with verdure, exhibited every variety of tint and shade of green; for the trees of our country display, more than any other, those varying colors and gentle yet distinctly marked contrasts which the painter envies, but strives in vain to transfer to his canvas. There were only two breaks in the surrounding amphitheatre. One was where a mountain stream came tumbling and babbling into the valley; the other where, in a more subdued and quiet current, it found egress. The sinuous path of this little river, or “run,” across the dale, was marked by a growth of beautiful trees, among which the straight-leaved willow, with its silver foliage shivering in the light, was most frequent and conspicuous; other trees which delight in water diversified the long, green defile; and a little boat, which belonged to one of my parishioners, offered me frequent twilight pastime. Some labor, to which, though unused at first, I soon became accustomed, was required to force the boat upstream; but the highest “boatable” point once reached, I had only to turn the shallop’s head and guide it down, letting my little barque slowly float, and conducting it clear of the shallows and obstructions. Delightful were the views which the turns in the stream were continually opening; the overhanging trees, forming a green roof above, were reflected below; and while I seemed thus suspended between answering skies and trees, over my head and beneath my feet, to look in either direction of the stream seemed like peering into a mysterious fairy grot.

One evening as I paused, looking delighted upon the scene of enchantment, a new feature was, as if by magic, added to the picture. A little girl—a child of surpassing loveliness—slipped out from among the bushes, and, skipping from stone to stone, stood on a high rock, near the middle of the current—the beau ideal of such a sprite as one might fancy inhabiting the spot. Her loose tresses floated on the evening breeze, and her scanty drapery—it was mid-summer—as the wind pressed it against her form, exhibited a delicacy and grace of contour which that artist would become immortal who could copy. She did not at first perceive me; and when the flash of my oar startled her, I almost expected she would prove herself a vision, by vanishing into the sky above in a cloud, or dissolving in a foam-wreath in the water which rippled among the rocks behind her.

But youth and innocence are courageous; and she took no other notice of my approach than to seat herself, to await my coming, upon the same stone on which she had been standing. Her artless ease and beauty won my heart—as men’s hearts are often too easily won, through the eyes. Hers was grace unaffected and natural. No drawing-room belle, after years of practice before her mirror, could have vied with this rustic nymph. She possessed what art can with difficulty imitate, and that never entirely—perfect and unconscious self-possession; and she was the more admirable, that in her child-like simplicity she dreamed not of admiration.

I pushed my shallop up beside the rock, and commenced a conversation with her. I was grieved and amazed to find her helplessly ignorant upon the commonest subjects which those who fear God teach their children. She could not even read, she told me. She was born far away, she said—in another land, mother used to say—and did not remember that she ever went to church; but mother had told her that she was carried there once to be baptized, and her name was Bessie.

“Is your mother dead?” I asked.

“No—not dead—I think not; but father—”

A hoarse voice from the shore now shouted her name; and, unalarmed as she had been when I approached, her little frame now shook with terror, and her interesting face was pale and sullen with mingled fear and anger.

“Is that your father?” I said.

She did not stop to answer, but instantly commenced picking her way back to the bank. While she did so, her trepidation several times almost tripped her into the river. I should have watched her every step at any other time, but my attention was irresistibly drawn to the repulsive form which had come, like a dark and unwelcome shadow, over this fair scene. The face was positively one of the most demoniacal in expression I have ever met. Thick, black hair, unkempt, hung over the low forehead, and the shaggy dark eye-brows seemed to glower in habitual gloom over a rough and unshaven face. The expression of the whole was that of a man whose countenance is saddened into surliness, like a clay image of Satan, by habitual strong potations. A slovenly disregard to dress completed the picture of a man who has sold himself to the vilest and most disgusting habits of intoxication.

While I trembled for the fate of such a child, in such hands, she had come within his reach, and, stretching forth his arm, he dragged her to him by the hair, tripping her from her footing into the water, and pulling her to the shore with more inhuman rudeness than I can describe—her dress draggled and muddied, and her limbs bleeding from contact with the sharp stones and pebbles. Blow upon blow the ruffian inflicted upon her, which I could hear as well as see from where I stood. Not a sound, not a cry escaped her; and while I was hesitating whether I ought not to try to reach and rescue her, he ceased beating her, and turned up a path in the bank-side. She silently and doggedly followed him; and I sadly took my way home, lamenting that the beauty and peace of such a place should be so brutally interrupted; and sorrowing more than all, that frequent ill-usage had so deadened the child’s sensibilities as to make her, otherwise so natural and unaffected, thus endure pain with the sullen fortitude of an old offender. I trembled for the life of a child growing up under such influences; for I could see in her future nothing but crime, suffering and degradation.

It was later than my usual time of return when I reached the landing, and there were already lights in the few houses which stood there. I might have mentioned before—but that I hate to acknowledge the fact—that the utilitarian habits of our era had converted my romantic streamlet into a “power” to turn a mill-wheel. It is not a grist-mill, which is a proper appendage to rural scenery, but a woolen manufactory, which, with its unromantic surroundings, caused me many a joke from my friend, the owner of the boat and of the mill. When I excepted to such things as stretching frames, as a blot on the beauty of the landscape, and to the dirty wool and dye-stuff as ruining its romance, he would tell me that if these valleys and rocks had never heard the clatter of his machinery, neither would the “sound of the church-going bell” have disturbed their echoes. There was no answering this, because it was perfectly true, and I could therefore only “humph” and be silent. Though wrong in some points of his course, Mr. Mariot, our “owner,” was a liberal man and well disposed—would there were more such! He built the little church in which I officiated, and he, in effect, supported the rector. If he had not done so, there could have been neither church nor service. And he found his account in the superior order of his establishment; and would have done still more if, beside building the church, he had abated or forbidden a nuisance which sadly impeded my usefulness.

Mr. Mariot stood at the landing, and as I stepped ashore said, “I came down to meet you, Doctor, for Yorkshire Jack is in one of his furious fits, and vows he will beat you—priest or no priest.”

“And who is Yorkshire Jack?” I asked, though a suspicion who he might be instantly shot through my mind. My suspicion was correct—for, upon Mr. Mariot’s explanation, I found that he was the very ruffian whose conduct I have been describing. As we passed the house dignified with the title of the “Mariotdale Hotel,” loud voices came through the open windows. Mr. Mariot would have hurried me past, but I laid my hand upon his arm, and in a low but determined tone said, “Wait, sir!”

Sunday after Sunday I had preached—to little purpose—and here was the reason. Several of my usual congregation, upon whose hearts the word of God fell like seed upon a beaten path-way, sat listening, half laughing, half terrified, at the blasphemy of this fiendish fellow—Yorkshire Jack—and half a score more, who never, by any chance, were seen within the church walls, were applauding him at the top of their voices. O, they will have a fearful reckoning who have supplied fools who deny God with words of blasphemy, and with the scoffings of infidelity, through a prostituted press—who have caught the thoughtless with profane wit, and betrayed the daringly wicked with the hardihood of declared infidelity! The worst words of the worst men were rolled from this wretch’s lips, as if they were his own utterance; the shallowest cant of infidel literature came from his mouth as if his own heart had originated what, indeed, it had only harbored. Out of the borrowed abundance of a vile heart, his lips spake; and the applause of his auditory was scarcely less disgusting than his words were.

Women began to gather round the windows of the house—they dared not enter—and to call in hoarse whispers to their husbands, fathers and sons to come out. Children climbed up and looked in, now gazing, open-mouthed, with terrified interest to the drunken maniac’s fury—now laughing, in thoughtless merriment, as his antics became ridiculous. At length, spent with the vanity of a successful orator to a fit audience, filled with drink, and worn out with rage, Yorkshire John sank on a chair. The efforts of his satellites failed to awaken him to new ravings. The joke was worn out—the women coaxed their husbands away, the children walked off, rehearsing, describing, and laughing over what they had heard. The place was soon hushed and still, the monotonous voice of the water only breaking the silence of the night, and Mariot and I took our way homeward—for I lodged with him.

On our way nothing was said. The family, except Mrs. M., had retired; and Mariot seemed as if he would have made that circumstance a pretext for following them in silence. He put a night lamp in my hand, but I placed it on the table, and, sitting down, took up The Book. He sat also—but it was evidently with unwilling politeness. Conscience was at work—and he was desirous to evade, rather than listen to, her warnings. I opened to the twenty-eighth of Isaiah, and he started as I read, “Wo to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim!”

“Edward Mariot,” I said, “God will hold you accountable for the sin which we have this night witnessed!”

He arose—I thought angrily. He commenced to speak, but a look from his wife dissuaded him. How would he defend himself with such facts so fresh? But I knew that there was a coldness in his manner as he returned my “good night,” with a half nod, such as I never before had witnessed from him. I feared that our friendship, and of course my further residence in Mariotdale, was at an end; but I feared more, that it would be written of my generous but business devoted friend, “Ephraim is joined to his idols—let him alone!”

——