gift in prayer, was considered eloquent, was fond of listening to their
spiritual experiences, and had a sickly wife. This is what Byles Gridley
said; but he was apt to be caustic at times.

Father Pemberton visited his people but rarely. Like Jonathan Edwards,
like David Osgood, he felt his call to be to study-work, and was
impatient of the egotisms and spiritual megrims, in listening to which,
especially from the younger females of his flock, his colleague had won
the hearts of so many of his parishioners. His presence had a wonderful
effect in restoring the despondent Miss Silence to her equanimity; for
not all the hard divinity he had preached for half a century had spoiled
his kindly nature; and not the gentle Melanchthon himself, ready to
welcome death as a refuge from the rage and bitterness of theologians,
was more in contrast with the disputants with whom he mingled, than the
old minister, in the hour of trial, with the stern dogmatist in his
study, forging thunderbolts to smite down sinners.

It was well that there were no tithing-men about on that next day,
Sunday; for it shone no Sabbath day for the young men within half a dozen
miles of the village. They were out on Bear Hill the whole day, beating
up the bushes as if for game, scaring old crows out of their ragged
nests, and in one dark glen startling a fierce-eyed, growling, bobtailed
catamount, who sat spitting and looking all ready to spring at them, on
the tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young
fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and
through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a
wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and
alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near
enough to spring their man-trap on the curious experimenter. At Wood-End
there were some Indians, ill-conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making