"
The divine, who lately officiated, if he do not now officiate, in the
principal church of the village, is called the reverend Meek Lamb. Though
claiming a descent from him who ministered in the temple at the period of
our tale, time and intermarriages have produced this change in the name,
and happily some others in doctrinal interpretations of duty. When this
worthy servant of the church found the object which had led one born in
another state and claiming descent from a line of religionists who had
left the common country of their ancestors to worship in still another
manner, to take an interest in the fortunes of those who first inhabited
the valley, he found a pleasure in aiding the inquiries. The abodes of the
Dudleys and Rings were numerous in the village and its environs. He showed
a stone, surrounded by many others that bore these names, on which was
rudely carved, "I am Nipset, a Narragansett; the next snow, I shall be a
warrior!" There is a rumor, that though the hapless brother of Faith
gradually returned to the ways of civilized life, he had frequent glimpses
of those seducing pleasures which he had once enjoyed in the freedom of
the woods.
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