t the
Hutted Knoll, who had a voice at all, the two conspirators excepted,
had given it in favour of the captain. So decided was this expression
of feeling, indeed, that it compelled Joel and the miller to chime in
with the cry of the hour, and to vote contrary to their own wishes.

One, dwelling at the Hutted Knoll, in the summer of 1776, could never
have imagined that he was a resident of a country convulsed by a
revolution, and disfigured by war. There, everything seemed peaceful
and calm, the woods sighing with the airs of their sublime solitude,
the genial sun shedding its heats on a grateful and generous soil,
vegetation ripening and yielding with all the abundance of a bountiful
nature, as in the more tranquil days of peace and hope.

"There is something frightful in the calm of this valley, Beulah!"
exclaimed Maud one Sunday, as she and her sister looked out of the
library window amid the breathing stillness of the forest, listening to
the melancholy sound of the bell that summoned them to prayers. "There
is a frightful calm over this place, at an hour when we know that
strife and bloodshed are so active in the country. Oh! that the hateful
congress had never thought of making this war!"

"Evert writes me all is well, Maud; that the times will lead to good;
the people are right; and America will now be a nation--in time, he
thinks, a great, and a very great nation."

"Ah! It is this ambition of greatness that hurries them all on! Why can
they not be satisfied with being respectable subjects of so great a
country as England, that they must destroy each other for this phantom
of liberty? Will it make them wiser, or happier, or better than they
are?"

Thus reasoned Maud, under the influence of one engrossing sentiment. As
our tale proceeds, we shall have occasion to show, perhaps, how far was
that submission to events which she inculcated, from the impulses of
her true character. Beulah answered mildly, but it was more as a young
American wife:

"I know Evert thinks it all right, Maud; and you will own he is neither
fiery nor impetuous. If _his_ cool judgment approve of what has
been done, we may well suppose that it has not been done in too much
haste, or needlessly."

"Think, Beulah," rejoined Maud, with an ashen cheek, and in trembling
tones, "that Evert and Robert may, at this very moment, be engaged in
strife against each other. The last messenger who came in, brought us
the miserable tidings that Sir