eriodic outbursts of the
fighting spirit of that warlike age; and it was invaded during the
great struggle for national independence by the camps of Washington.

There is a dignity common to Washington battling for liberty, and the
Quaker pioneers serenely planning seven years before the Revolution for
the freedom of the slave. But he was a Revolutionist, they were loyal to
King George; he was a man of blood, brilliant in the garb of a warrior,
and they were men of peace, dreaming only of the kingdom of God. He was
fighting for a definite advance in liberty to be enjoyed at once; they
were set on an enfranchisement that involved one hundred years; and a
greater war at the end than his revolution. Their records contains no
mention of his presence here, though his soldiers seized and fortified
the Meeting House.[5] His letters never mention the Quakers, neither
their picturesque abode, their dreams of freedom for the slave, nor
their Tory loyalty.

Each cherished his ideal and staked his life and ease and happiness upon
it. Each, after the fashion of a narrow age, ignored the other's
adherence to that ideal. To us they are sublime figures in bold contrast
crossing that far-off stage: Washington, booted, with belted sword,
spurring his horse up the western slope of the Hill, to review the
soldiers of the Revolution in 1778; and Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish and
Abner Hoag, plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding their plough
horses down the eastern slope in 1775, to plead for the freedom of the
slave at the Yearly Meeting at Flushing.

What effect the beauty of the place had upon the pioneer settlers it is,
of course, impossible to say, for they have left no record of their
appreciation of its beauty. Probably their interest in the picturesque
was the same as that of a Quaker elder, of fine and choice culture after
the Quaker standards, who said to the author, with a quiet laugh:
"People all say that the views from my house are very beautiful, and I
suppose they are; but I have lived here all my life, and I have never
seen it." A Quakeress confessed to the same indifference to the beauty
of the Hill, until she had resided for a time in another state, and had
mingled with those who had a lively sense of beauty of scene; returning
thereafter to the Hill, it appeared beautiful to her ever afterward.

The land has been for several generations under a high state of
cultivation. The keeping of many cattle has enriched the broa