aside without
offering further molestation. In a few minutes, the lamps of the
mail-stage, as it turned Beverly Corner on its way eastward, were a
grateful spectacle, and my onward journey was pursued without other
adventure. The driver of that stage afterwards informed me, that the
trunks strapped to the rear of their coaches had more than once been cut
off in that very neighborhood, and that on one occasion beams had been
placed in the road so that the carriage would have been overturned,
unless they had been discovered in time, and doubtless had been so placed
for purposes of robbery. I inquired, why investigation did not take place
on the spot; but the reply was, that the passengers were in haste to get
on, were unarmed, and perhaps timid, and preferred to remove the
obstacles and proceed upon their way. The contrast, however, is
striking, between the habit of a farmer to leave his door unfastened at
night and the machinations of rogues not a quarter of a mile distant, who
could be guilty of such crimes. I believe, however, that the existence of
such a nest of villains was quite exceptional at that period, and unknown
to the farmer, and that his sense of safety, without the most ordinary
means of protection to his premises, was at that time the rule. The
reader may draw what conclusions he pleases from the facts of my own
personal narrative.

I have remarked that politics, never stagnant in our ancient communities,
at the period of my story, oftentimes grew extremely warm, and then every
leading citizen took his personal part. Nor is it strange that the
survivors of those who had borne their share in the Revolutionary War,
who had the traditions, at least, of their fathers who served with the
New England troops, and followed the gallant and generous Wolfe up the
formidable heights of Abraham, and after the victorious field which cost
that true hero his life, stood triumphant, under the Red Cross banner,
upon the subjugated ramparts of Quebec, should exhibit marked
peculiarities of character; should hold fast to strong opinions; and
indeed should manifest that individuality and originality of thought and
action which is scarcely witnessed in the promiscuous crowd of our own
tamer times. Instead of that indifference, the bane of a republic, among
the upper class, the result of accumulated wealth and luxurious habits,
the chief men of both parties stood at the door of the Town Hall, on days
of election, distributing v