The Blithedale Romance - Page 6/170

So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and merrily along, by

stone fences that were half buried in the wave-like drifts; and through

patches of woodland, where the tree-trunks opposed a snow-incrusted

side towards the northeast; and within ken of deserted villas, with no

footprints in their avenues; and passed scattered dwellings, whence

puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly impregnated with the

pungent aroma of burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we

shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster

and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our

courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him.

The churl! He understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for

our blithe tones of brotherhood. This lack of faith in our cordial

sympathy, on the traveller's part, was one among the innumerable tokens

how difficult a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world.

We rode on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good

companionship with the tempest that, at our journey's end, we professed

ourselves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer good-by. But, to own

the truth, I was little better than an icicle, and began to be

suspicious that I had caught a fearful cold.

And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse, the

same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the

beginning of this chapter. There we sat, with the snow melting out of

our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past

inclemency and present warmth. It was, indeed, a right good fire that

we found awaiting us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty limbs,

and splintered fragments of an oak-tree, such as farmers are wont to

keep for their own hearths, since these crooked and unmanageable boughs

could never be measured into merchantable cords for the market. A

family of the old Pilgrims might have swung their kettle over precisely

such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one; and, contrasting it

with my coal-grate, I felt so much the more that we had transported

ourselves a world-wide distance from the system of society that

shackled us at breakfast-time.

Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who was

to manage the farm at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art of

husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. At her back--a back of generous

breadth--appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably, but looking

rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be their

position in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands

affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the blessed

state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might fairly be

dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly concluded when the

door opened, and Zenobia--whom I had never before seen, important as

was her place in our enterprise--Zenobia entered the parlor.