CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN BLOSSOM TIME.

Pages  308-315

[Page 308]              

     Like a sunbeam slanting in at the half-closed door of the old parsonage, there appears on final scene connected with the old home, full of a romantic interest and youthful happiness.  The Dominies' wife and daughter, and the grandchildren who composed the parsonage family, had moved into a house on the Kolderberg with one of the old Dominie's sons, Dr. John G. Gebhard, and his Philadelphia wife, while they awaited the building of a new home near by, and the [page 309] Rev. Richard Sluyter, the English minister, occupied the parsonage.

     The following spring, Mr. Richard Morse, a son of Jedeiah Morse of geography fame, was traveling through the country obtaining subscribers to the New York Observer, a religious weekly lately established in New York city.  He bore letters of introduction to the clergy, and among them was one to the Rev. Richard Sluyter with whom he stayed over a Sabbath.  Being a linguist himself and a book lover, he was attracted by a bookcase in Dominie Sluyter's parlor, containing volumes in many languages.  It proved to be Dominie Gebhard's library which had not yet been removed from the parsonage.  Upon enquiry, he was told that the old Dominie's wife held the key, and would be very willing that he should examine the books.

     He lost no time in taking the walk over the Kolderberg.  It was just at sunset, and the beauty of the magnificent view which swept off to the Catskills, over fields and woods and orchards, sunk deep into the New Englander's soul.  The Old-Man-of-the-Mountain was sinking to sleep beneath a pink coverlid [page 310] of clouds, and for a wide half circle the sky was ablaze with a mass of brilliant colors.  Thoughts of sun-set and spring-time were woven through the young man's thoughts, as he approached his destination.  He found his host, the son of the old Dominie, upon the porch, enjoying the rest and quietness of the close of the day, and seating his guest in this pleasant out-door gathering place, the two men entered into a conversation of marked interest to both.  Long ago Jedeiah Morse had written in his geography, that "the Dutch were an honest,  industrious, and enterprising people," and his son was very willing to make their acquaintance.

     The bright clouds faded while they talked, and the gathering twilight hung a mist about them full of the odor of the blossoming trees.  Sweetly out of the twilight there sounded a girl's voice.  She was evidently somewhere within the house.  What she said we do not know, or what vibrant quality thrilled through her words.  Perhaps it was the inherited musical charm of the grandmother's singing, which touched an answering chord in the young man's heart.  Perhaps the sunset and the blossoms had created a hush in his soul which waited for the voice of the maiden to fill [page 311] it.  From this time his host held only half his attention.  With all his heart he was listening for the musical voice again, and when at last he left, with the promise of the key to the library on Monday morning, the books in many languages had become a secondary interest,--he was in love with a voice.

     A little discreet questioning at the parsonage brought out the fact that the old Dominie's granddaughter, Louisa Davis, lived with her mother in her uncle's home on the Kolderberg, and the young man resolved to stay in Claverack till he had made her acquaintance.

     Eagerly he looked forward to the hour of church service, and the opportunity to behold the maiden whose voice had charmed him, but disappointment was in store for him.  All unconsciously she had stayed at home that spring day.

     Her absence but fanned the rising flame in the visitor's heart.  There is time for much quiet meditation and the formation of many plans and purposes through a long church service, and piety and love alternately swayed one worshiper that morning.  Before the close of the service he had resolved to search [page 312] the church records and discover whether the Dominie's granddaughter was a member of the church, his New England conscience refusing its consent to an affection unblessed by religious experience. 

     Here again he was doomed to disappointment, for the eighteen-year-old maiden was not a church member, but between the pages of the church records he found the entries of the many marriages performed by the old Dominie.  It was a poor source from which to strengthen his resolution to forget the beautiful voice, if he could not prove its owner's piety.  And so, disappointed once more, his heart only grew fonder, and on Monday morning, instead of fleeing from the enchanted spot back to his city home, or the breathe the air of his native New England, he took his way once more over the Kolderberg in the dewy morning, a path already rich with the thought of love.

     At the end of his walk, a vision burst upon his sight, which made his heart start, and then stand still with awe.  Etched against the masses of white and pink blossoming trees, with pools of blue sky between, stood a young girl holding in her hands a mass of filmy white material.  The gentle breezed blew the [page 313] white film, her dress, and hair in the summer sunshine.  Her beautiful arms, dimpled at the elbows, waved in the air as she tried to throw the lacey goods out straight in front of her, before placing it on the hillside grass.  Her motions as well as her voice were full of grace, her long swan-like throat, the escaping tendrils of her hair, the liquid depths of her blue eyes, and the pink of her wind-swept cheeks, making a picture a painter might long capture, and before which a lover worshiped.

     The young girl was sent with the key and the guest to the parsonage, and once more the Kolderberg seemed a road of light to the young man's feet.  They looked over the books together, her sweet voice offering many happy comments as he handled the old volumes, and at length, thirsty with the walk and the morning's occupation, they strolled down to the old well in the garden.  Perhaps the young man planned to stray beyond ear-shot of the parsonage family, for it was not only a cup of cool water he offered the maiden at the parsonage well, but his heart, and his hand, and his life.  There is no chronicle of her answer, but we may reasonable suppose that she said it [page 314] was "very sudden."

     In the end she asked her lover to wait a year for his answer, which he consented to do, writing regularly, letters which breathed his passion on every sheet.  As for the Dominie's granddaughter it would seem that she was somewhat of a coquette, for she never answered the letters, till at last being expostulated with by her mother, she acknowledged that she cared for her ardent suitor.

     He is said to have sailed toward Claverack for his answer one year to a day from the time that was set.  By some means the letter with the crown of his hopes reached him upon a steamboat on the Hudson, while he was traveling northward, and his joy knew no bounds.

     In the fall of the same year they were married in the uncle's new home, and the maiden of the sweet voice rode over the Kolderberg, that pathway of beautiful sunsets and love, to the town of Hudson, where she set sail for New York, and a life in the wide world little dreamed of in the days before a stranger fell in love with her voice in the twilight.

     The Manors with their Court Leet and Court [page 315] Baron and their old world grandeur are gone.  The tenants no longer pay rent in "scheppels" of wheat, but own their own farms.  The old Dominie is gone to his reward, and the parsonage with it gambrel roof and its past associations in no more, but talks of them all still hang low over Clover-reach, like sunset clouds edged with gold and rose color, making it a land of legend and story, of a romantic interest and dream-like charm, equaled by few sections of our home-land.

THE END