Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/94

76 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

Before the year 1818 the Congregationalists had it all their own way in Concord. For nearly a century after the Rev. Timothy Walker, in 1730, began religious services with eight members in his congregation, no differences had shaken the community. A society of the Friends, indeed, and very recently some movements of the Baptists and the Methodists, showed that the ancient unity was near its dissolution, and for the past year the Episcopal Liturgy had been occasionally followed by a small assemblage of persons, but no new denomination had yet gained a sound footing. The Episcopal movement was much furthered by the efforts of a young graduate in divinity, Edgar Somerton by name, who was not yet in orders. The first rector, the Rev. Cha's Burroughs, was not appointed until the following year. Mr. Somerton was a slight and sensitive young man, thoroughly devoted to the work to which he had consecrated his life. It was in the month of April that this chronicle begins. The young man had already been for some months in Concord, where he had by this time made friends with several fine old families of the place, whose companionship sufficed in some measure to drive from his mind a certain morbid melancholy to which his too susceptible nature had ever been prone. No family stood higher in the esteem of the community than that of the Walkers. The Honorable Timothy Walker, now a man of eighty years, lived in the old, gable-windowed, gambrel-roofed mansion, which was built by his father, the Rev. Timothy, in 1734, and which still stands on the old family place. Not far away stood the more modern house of his son, Charles Walker, whose daughter, Lucretia, now in her nineteenth year, was accounted the most beautiful and accomplished young lady in the place. A tall, graceful figure, borne with a certain conscious dignity that was almost pride, yet redeemed from the shadow of severity by the kindness that lay in the depth of her blue eyes, and by the frank smile upon her lips — a smile always dignified and quiet, yet always kind, — betokened a mind that knew its own worth without vanity, and a heart full of ardent but elevated emotion. Can any one wonder if the young student, fresh from the dreams and the romance of history and legend, found his friendship for this beautiful girl beginning to prey upon his peace?

The May-flowers were just bursting their cerements and clothing the hills in the purity without the chill of snow.