Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/257

 An Elder of Ye Oldcn Time.

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��Madison set out to interview the preacher, much disturbed, for he knew that he was not the man whom elo- quence could intimidate, unless he was convinced of the fact that the best interest of all parties would be promoted.

It so chanced that the two met under a low-growing oak. Drawing rein they sat upon their horses, discussing earnestly the subject in all its phases until the sun cast long shadows in the late after- noon ; then dismounting they fastened their horses by the wayside, and wrapt in the interest of the occasion, talked on forgetful of the passing hours, when the scholarly Madison, whose every sentence was rounded with eloquence, and upon whose words the best audiences of the country had attended with rapture, had heard the first words of Leland, plain, without show of eloquence, but bold and creative in his reasoning powers, and possessed of a mind that might be a little slow but whose decisions were rarely reversed, then he knew that his opinion was settled, and he plead with all the persuasion he could command.

Tne sun had long gone down, and the shadows of night were deepening when Leland sprang to his feet, exclaim- ing, " I am convinced. You are right, and shall have my support."

" Then," said Madison grasping his hand, " I shall be elected."

We have already spoken of the wife this man had chosen ; but words cannot paint truthfully her life at this time. This section of Virginia is now a more fertile and cultivated country. At the time of which I write, the road ran for miles through low woods, and across marshy moors. The private travel and commerce was carried on largely on horseback or in huge wagons, and all the neighborhood was infested by Tor-

��ies, straggling soldiers, and characters ot bad repute, who are apt always to drift in to a country so unsettled. Gamb- ling and drinking were carried on furiously.

With these surroundings, the wife of Leland spent weeks and months alone. The poor man's blessing was theirs, foi little children came to them rapidly, and in the cabin by the roadside the mother was compelled to work beyond the midnight hours, trembling, as she thought of the wild carousings, and re- membered that sometimes even darker deeds were hinted at ; and often as Mrs. Leland at night-time toiled for her Httle flock, the light glimmering across the moor attracted to her door the strag- gling soldier or marauder begging for food and shelter.

Virginia has ever been said to nourish supersition ; there is something in the very air upon which it thrives. ]Massa- chusetts had its superstition, and that hill at Salem, and the one day of every year spent by Cotton Mather in lonely vigils, will tell forever the tale of great men falling, sometimes, into the com- mission of the smallest Aveaknesses. Many Virginians believed in that day that the dead slept not well in her lone, low-lying grave-yards, but wandered too and fro, haunting the earthly places they knew of yore. Doubtless, some will be- lieve the story I will tell you, due to this belief J but none of the practical, strong yeomany of Berkshire who ha re listened to it as it fell from the hps of Leland himself, can ever question that the incident took place exactly as it is related.

It was one afternoon in the Virginia fall time ; the Evangelist and his A\ife were busy in preparing for the depart- ure of the husband and father for a tour of manv weeks, when, as the tall clock in the comer struck the hour of

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