By an accidental concurrence of moral and physical causes, much of
that equality which distinguishes the institutions of the country is
extended to the progress of society over its whole surface.
Although the impetus of improvement was not as great in the time of Mark
Heathcote as in our own days, the principle of its power was actively in
existence. Of this fact we shall furnish a sufficient evidence, by
pursuing our intention of describing one of those changes to which
allusion has already been made.
The reader will remember that the age of which we write had advanced into
the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The precise moment at which
the action of the tale must re-commence, was that period of the day when
the gray of twilight was redeeming objects from the deep darkness with
which the night draws to its close. The month was June, and the scene such
as it may be necessary to describe with some particularity.
Had there been light, and had one been favorably placed to enjoy a
bird's-eye view of the spot, he would have seen a broad and undulating
field of leafy forest, in which the various deciduous trees of New-England
were relieved by the deeper verdure of occasional masses of evergreens.
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