THE DUKE OF STOCKBRIDGE
A ROMANCE OF SHAYS' REBELLION

BY EDWARD BELLAMY




CHAPTER FIRST

THE MARCH OF THE MINUTE MEN


The first beams of the sun of August 17, 1777, were glancing down the
long valley, which opening to the East, lets in the early rays of
morning, upon the village of Stockbridge. Then, as now, the Housatonic
crept still and darkling around the beetling base of Fisher's Nest,
and in the meadows laughed above its pebbly shoals, embracing the
verdant fields with many a loving curve. Then, as now, the mountains
cradled the valley in their eternal arms, all round, from the Hill of
the Wolves, on the north, to the peaks that guard the Ice Glen, away
to the far south-east. Then, as now, many a lake and pond gemmed the
landscape, and many a brook hung like a burnished silver chain upon
the verdant slopes. But save for this changeless frame of nature,
there was very little, in the village, which the modern dweller in
Stockbridge would recognize.

The main settlement is along a street lying east and west, across the
plain which extends from the Housatonic, northerly some distance, to
the foot of a hill. The village green or "smooth" lies rather at the