67 
 F83 
 opy 2 
 
The Barefoot Maid at 
 the Fountain Inn 
 
The Barefoot Maid at the 
 Fountain Inn 
 
 By 
 
 Charles Edward Cheney "^ 
 
 Chicago Literary Club 
 1912 
 
Copyright, 1912, by 
 CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 
 
 gCl.A3lG622'^(-. 
 
THE BAREFOOT MAID AT 
 THE FOUNTAIN INN 
 
 I 
 
 HE rugged coast of New 
 England has few points 
 more picturesque than where 
 the historic town of Marble- 
 head looks out on its land- 
 locked bay. As Pompeii and 
 Herculaneum, unearthed by 
 modern excavation, recall 
 vividly w^hat Roman cities were when Nero 
 sat upon the imperial throne, so Marble- 
 head restores to the Twentieth Century 
 much of the appearance it wore two hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago. Now, as then, 
 one seeks in vain a level area amidst the 
 jumbled mass of gray rocks forming the site 
 on which the town is built. The strata 
 are tilted on edge and twisted into weird 
 convolutions by some primeval cataclysm. 
 
 7 
 
To-day, as in colonial times, the wooden 
 buildings bid such defiance to all orderly 
 and systematic planning of their location 
 that a stranger might fancy them to have 
 been sown broadcast, as the old-time farm- 
 er scattered the seed of a future harvest. 
 Here a quaint cottage may nestle in the lee 
 of a beetling cliff, while another like struc- 
 ture faces from the summit the fierce winds 
 from off the sea. As in the Eighteenth 
 Century, the narrow paths which serve as 
 streets make their sinuous way in and out 
 among the houses — a perpetual sugges- 
 tion that the dwellings were built to escape 
 human approach, and that the roads had 
 later set out to find them. 
 
 But if, like an Egyptian sepulchre, the 
 Marblehead of to-day has kept embalmed 
 the town which our Puritan forefathers 
 knew, there are some features of its present 
 life in strange contrast to what it was when 
 its citizens were loyal subjects of the second 
 King George of England. 
 
 In our day, inside the long and rocky 
 promontory which divides the waters of the 
 harbor from the rude pulsings of the Atlan- 
 tic, each summer sees a congregating of tiny 
 sea-craft from every American port, while 
 even Europe sends its fleet-winged yachts 
 to struggle for supremacy in the annual 
 regatta. 
 
 A lonely expanse was the bay of Marble- 
 8 
 
head in the early colonial times. Then its 
 surface was furrowed only by the keels of 
 the fishing-boats which gave a livelihood 
 to its hardy population, while at long inter- 
 vals some venturous vessel from London or 
 Bristol cast anchor in its quiet waters. 
 
 In this generation wealth, fashion, and lux- 
 ury hold high carnival through the summer 
 months in the brilliant halls and broad ve- 
 randas of great hotels, conspicuous among 
 the simple dwellings of the ancient town. 
 But in the old times a single hostelry suf- 
 ficed for public entertainment. The Foun- 
 tain Inn was perched upon one of the rocky 
 hillocks which command a view of the open 
 sea. Close by was an old and deep-dug 
 well of purest water, which gave to the tav- 
 ern the striking name it bore. Choked up 
 and covered over for perhaps a hundred 
 years, its recent discovery and reopening 
 have served to identify the site of the fa- 
 mous inn which long ago crumbled into 
 ruin, but lives imperishable in the historic 
 traditions of the place. 
 
 Here the chance traveler of those days 
 found a hospitable welcome and such fare 
 and lodging as had made the name of mine 
 host, Nathaniel Bartlett, known to the far 
 corners of the Commonwealth. Here, too, 
 of an evening, when the storm beat on the 
 many-paned windows, and the booming of 
 the surf was like the explosion of great 
 
 9 
 
guns, the fishermen sat before the roaring 
 fire, drank their brown ale, sang their songs, 
 and told their weird tales of dories lost in 
 the fogs off George's Banks, and of fishing- 
 schooners that sailed out of the portals of 
 the bay, but which no man ever saw again. 
 
 II 
 
 One summer afternoon, in the year of 
 grace 1742, the cheery landlord of the Foun- 
 tain Inn bustled to the entrance of his 
 hostelry to welcome such a guest as never 
 before had crossed its threshold. His ad- 
 vent had been announced by the rumble 
 on the rocky road of a great coach with 
 armorial bearings on its panels, drawn by 
 four sleek horses, and attended by liveried 
 flunkies. Little wonder that when the cum- 
 brous vehicle halted before the door, and a 
 footman, leaping from his perch, let down 
 the folding steps for his master to alight, the 
 astonished Boniface, cap in hand, louted low 
 before such unaccustomed splendor. Still 
 more must the landlord have been over- 
 whelmed with reverential awe when he dis- 
 covered that his unexpected visitor was none 
 less than Charles Henry Frankland, Es- 
 quire, Collector of the port of Boston, and 
 next in dignity, as a representative of the 
 crown, to Sir William Shirley, Governor of 
 the Province of Massachusetts. If histori- 
 10 
 
ans are to be believed, even thus early the 
 smoldering sparks of Democracy had begun 
 to kindle in the bosom of New England. 
 But the fierce conflagration of the Revo- 
 lution was yet far down the future, and with 
 the fisher-folk of Marblehead blue blood 
 counted for much, and those in whose veins 
 it flowed commanded an almost obsequi- 
 ous respect. Charles Henry Frankland bore 
 one of the great family names of the Mother 
 Country. Almost from the days of the Nor- 
 man Conquest his forebears had been lords 
 of the manor of Thirsk, with their seat at 
 Great Thirkleby Hall, in the North Riding 
 of Yorkshire. The youngest daughter of 
 Oliver Cromwell, the favorite of her illus- 
 trious father, and a woman of such rare 
 charm that, according to Carlyle, Charles 
 the Second offered to make her his con- 
 sort, was Frankland's great-grandmother. 
 Yet despite the alliance with the line of the 
 great Lord Protector, the Franklands were 
 loyal to the Stuart dynasty, and, at the Res- 
 toration, in 1660, the head of the family 
 was rewarded by a baronetcy, and became 
 Sir William Frankland of Thirsk. Doubt- 
 less it added to the dignity of the Collector 
 of the port of Boston, when, in 1754, his 
 younger sister became the wife of Thomas 
 Pelham, Earl of Chichester. 
 
 It is not difficult to discover from the 
 annals of the period that of all the aristo- 
 II 
 
cratic society which reflected in the colonial 
 capital of New England something of the 
 glitter and stateliness of the court of St. 
 James, Charles Henry Frankland shone in 
 peerless pre-eminence. An education be- 
 coming his rank, and a fortune which was 
 ample, had cultivated a mind of no ordinary 
 acuteness to a degree which gave a schol- 
 arly tinge to his character. What we call 
 natural science was then in the infancy of 
 its development. But Frankland' s acquaint- 
 ance with botany, gardening, and scientific 
 agriculture was far beyond that of his con- 
 temporaries. Well grounded in the Latin 
 classics, he spoke French with the ease and 
 elegance of ' ' one to the manner born. ' ' We 
 have the testimony of those who were his 
 companions and intimates that an almost 
 undefinable grace of manner charmed all 
 who came within the circle of his acquaint- 
 ance. Refinement and gentle breeding were 
 manifest in his conversation and, in con- 
 trariety to the habit of men of his class in 
 that age, he treated with equal courtesy 
 of address the humblest yeoman and the 
 proudest official. In his diary he gives 
 expression to this trend of mind, when he 
 makes the following entry: ''I cannot suf- 
 fer a man of low condition to excel me in 
 manners. ' ' Two portraits of Frankland are 
 still extant — one in this country and another 
 in England — both bearing witness to the 
 
 12 
 
manly beauty superadded to his intellect 
 and accomplishments. As one of his biog- 
 raphers has said: ''He had a refined and 
 noble cast of features, with a peculiarly pen- 
 sive and melancholy expression. His face 
 bears witness to a certain sweetness of tem- 
 per and delicacy of taste. ' ' 
 
 Such was the visitor whose advent over- 
 whelmed the landlord of the Fountain Inn 
 on that summer day of 1742. It would be 
 interesting to permit imagination to color 
 the scanty facts which history has handed 
 down. We can fancy the hurried prepara- 
 tions to give fitting entertainment to a guest 
 so manifestly in startling contrast to the rude 
 fishermen and sailors who were the ordi- 
 nary patrons of the ancient inn. We can 
 see the portly host as he himself shows the 
 newly-arrived dignitary to the best chamber 
 which his house affords. We can hear his 
 orders to the hurrying servants, and his apol- 
 ogies to his guest for humble accommoda- 
 tions and rustic fare. The bare outlines 
 of the incident have been filled in with en- 
 trancing lights and shadows in a modern 
 novel, and also in a charming poem by Doc- 
 tor Oliver Wendell Holmes. That which 
 concerns this essay is to relate only what 
 actually occurred. Certain it is that, as 
 Frankland was descending the staircase of 
 the Fountain Inn, his attention was attracted 
 to a young servant-maid of perhaps sixteen 
 
 13 
 
years, who on her knees was vigorously 
 scrubbing the floor. Clad in coarse home- 
 spun, much the worse for wear, but scru- 
 pulously clean, her poverty was emphasized 
 by the conspicuous absence of shoes and 
 stockings. But, as she looked up at the 
 sound of footsteps, and rose respectfully to 
 make room for the gentleman to pass, there 
 burst upon Frankland's sight a vision of daz- 
 zling beauty. It may be that in maturer life 
 some great painter, like Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, tried to portray the charm of her 
 womanhood ; but there is no authentic like- 
 ness in existence of the barefoot maid at 
 the Fountain Inn. Nevertheless, with one 
 consent, the writers who have handed the 
 story down, bear witness to a loveliness such 
 as Frankland had never seen at the court of 
 King George, or among the stately dames 
 and blushing damsels of the colonial aris- 
 tocracy. One author says : "Her ringlets 
 were black and glossy as the raven ; her dark 
 eyes beamed with light; her voice was 
 musical, and she bore the charming name 
 of Agnes Surriage. ' ' Perhaps no attempt to 
 picture her face and form can rival that of 
 Doctor Holmes: 
 
 "She turned — a reddening rose in bud, 
 Its calyx half withdrawn — 
 Her cheek on fire with damasked blood 
 Of girlhood's glowing dawn." 
 
 There can be no doubt that Frankland was 
 14 
 
amazed at the vision of such charms in so 
 unlikely a place. The scene, however, which 
 followed was singularly commonplace and 
 unromantic. 
 
 Frankland asked the child about her pa- 
 rents, and, learning that she was the fourth 
 of the seven children of Edward Surriage, a 
 fisherman of Marblehead, whose poverty had 
 compelled his young daughter to earn her 
 bread as ''maid of all work" at the Foun- 
 tain Inn — the pitying gentleman handed her 
 five shillings, and bade her buy herself a 
 pair of shoes. 
 
 Despite the prosaic quality of this in- 
 terview, its memory did not fade from the 
 mind of Frankland. The face of the girl 
 must have haunted his thoughts, for only 
 a few months later we find him again visit- 
 ing Marblehead. If he needed excuse for 
 return to the spot where he was drawn as 
 by a loadstone in the autumn following, it 
 was easy to find it in the line of official duty. 
 Some years earlier Marblehead had become 
 a port of entry, and its revenue probably 
 passed through the hands of the Boston 
 Collector. In that very year, 1742, the Gen- 
 eral Court had made a grant of six hundred 
 and ninety pounds for the protection of 
 Marblehead from French cruisers. The 
 ancient stone bastions, regarded then as 
 proof against the artillery of that period, 
 had just begun to frown upon the harbor, on 
 
 15 
 
the site where to-day the Stars and Stripes 
 float over the ramparts of Fort Sewall. It is 
 no unreasonable conjecture that Sir William 
 Shirley may have designated his next in au- 
 thority in the colony of Massachusetts Bay 
 to inspect the rising fortification, and to re- 
 port upon the progress of the work. Per- 
 haps Frankland welcomed his commission 
 with a secret joy which he did not himself 
 altogether understand. For the Fountain 
 Inn was in close proximity to the rocky pla- 
 teau chosen as the location of the colonial 
 stronghold. 
 
 Be that as it may, it requires no stretch 
 of the imagination to believe that Frank- 
 land lost no time in learning whether Ag- 
 nes Surriage was still scrubbing the floors 
 of the Fountain Inn. The scene when he 
 again found the girl engaged in her menial 
 labor has been picturesquely delineated by 
 his biographers. As he entered the tavern, 
 he found the object of his inquiry as inde- 
 scribably beautiful as a few weeks before. 
 Her homespun dress could not detract from 
 the exquisite symmetry of her figure. Her 
 face was radiant with pleasure at the recog- 
 nition of the remembered guest, and her 
 low courtesy spoke as plainly of a modest 
 self-respect as of honor for one of such 
 widely different station from herself. If 
 her speech was disfigured by the strange 
 dialect which then marked the native of 
 i6 
 
Marblehead as unmistakably as to-day the 
 abuse of the letter '*h" betrays the cock- 
 ney, it could not wholly conceal the rare 
 sweetness of a voice which in after years 
 was celebrated for the music of its tones. 
 Suddenly the visitor saw that, with all her 
 undeniable loveliness, the girl was still bare- 
 foot. With an expression of disappoint- 
 ment, he said: *'So you did not buy the 
 shoes which I asked you get. " '' Oh, yes, 
 sir, ' ' was the naive reply, ' ^ but I wear them 
 only to meeting." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Let us follow Frankland, as, later in that 
 October afternoon, he makes his way along 
 the rocky path leading to the Surriage home. 
 The lowly dwelling was, doubtless, in the 
 quarter of Marblehead little frequented by 
 any save the poor. Here and there were 
 scattered the cottages of the less successful 
 fishermen, behind which rose the ''flakes,'* 
 or fish-fences for the drying of the catch. 
 Why Edward and Mary Surriage were in 
 such humble environment — and what vicis- 
 situdes of the struggle with barren soil and 
 pitiless sea had brought them to such pen- 
 ury — it would be fruitless to inquire. But 
 the genealogical revival, marking the last 
 fifty years, has brought to light that Dame 
 Mary Surriage was one of the descendants 
 and heirs of the famous John Brown, who, 
 
 17 
 
soon after the landing of the Pilgrims at 
 Plymouth, purchased of the Indians a vast 
 tract covering four modern townships in 
 the Penobscot Valley. There is reason to 
 believe that she had been reared in com- 
 parative comfort; and, even in the depth 
 of poverty, had retained something of the 
 gentlewoman's breeding. The records of 
 the ancient Puritan church at Marblehead 
 bear witness to the piety of both the parents 
 of Agnes Surriage. However destitute the 
 humble dwelling of even such graces as 
 adorned the homes of their neighbors, their 
 roof sheltered a brood of children reared in 
 the fear of God and in the daily practice of 
 the virtues of religion. Before hard neces- 
 sity had driven Agnes to the service of the 
 landlord of the Fountain Inn, she had been 
 a favorite pupil of the pastor of the Second 
 parish of Marblehead. It is no fanciful 
 conjecture that a girl, inheriting intellect 
 and refinement from an ancestry of distinc- 
 tion in the annals of New England, should, 
 like our western plains under the touch of 
 irrigation, develop a latent fertility of mind 
 under the tuition of such a teacher as the 
 Reverend Edward Holyoke, afterward the 
 celebrated President of Harvard College. 
 
 As Edward Surriage sat before his drift- 
 wood fire, drying his garments after the 
 day's hard toil at sea, a knock at his door 
 woke him from his reverie. Crossing the 
 i8 
 
puncheon floor, he Hfted the heavy wooden 
 latch, to find himself face to face with one 
 whose dress and bearing proclaimed un- 
 mistakably that he belonged to a class far 
 different from the plain fisherfolk of the 
 town. 
 
 There has come down to us no authentic 
 record of the conversation which followed. 
 Only this is certain : Frankland must have 
 set before the parents of Agnes the injustice 
 of allowing such a maiden as their daughter 
 to grow to womanhood in the menial occupa- 
 tions and the coarse environment of a com- 
 mon tavern. We can fancy the eloquence 
 with which he pleaded for the development 
 of such a mind and character by a better 
 education. It was a sin to permit such a 
 flower to ''waste its sweetness on the des- 
 ert air'* of a village like Marblehead. And 
 if — as we may readily imagine — an honest 
 pride gave way before the glowing picture 
 of the possible future of their child, and 
 they confessed that only their abject poverty 
 compelled them to sacrifice hopes which her 
 loveliness and talent had inspired in them — 
 Frankland was prompt to suggest a way of 
 escape from the obstacles in the path of the 
 realization of their dreams. So profound 
 was the interest which Agnes had awakened 
 in his mind, that he would gladly bear every 
 cost involved in the intellectual and social 
 cultivation of a girl of such extraordinary 
 
 19 
 
promise. There is no reason whatever to 
 suppose that in this offer Frankland was 
 not absolutely sincere, or that any dishonor- 
 able purpose lurked like a serpent under 
 his generous proposal. There is little like- 
 lihood that the courtly and scholarly man of 
 the world had fallen in love with a scullion 
 in the kitchen of a Marblehead inn — how- 
 ever unusual her beauty and the amiability 
 of her nature. Moreover, it is evident that 
 through the four years following the con- 
 sent of the Surriage household to the edu- 
 cation of Agnes, although Frankland must 
 have seen her almost daily — no breath of 
 gossip ever clouded the purity of the rela- 
 tion between the benefactor and his protegee. 
 Some of the writers who have handed down 
 this romantic story of colonial days assert 
 positively that Frankland placed his beau- 
 tiful ward under the matronly supervision 
 and chaperonage of Lady Frances, the 
 charming wife of Sir William Shirley, the 
 Governor of Massachusetts. The warm 
 friendship which is known to have bound 
 the young Collector of the port of Boston 
 to the Governor and his lady, gives proba- 
 bility to the tradition. 
 
 In Leverett Lane, near King Street, in 
 Boston, one Peter Pelham at this time con- 
 ducted a school patronized by the wealthy 
 and aristocratic families of the New Eng- 
 land capital. It was here that the young girl 
 
 20 
 
began her career as a pupil. But Frank- 
 land's well-filled purse was ever open to 
 provide Agnes with additional instructors 
 in every branch of learning which could 
 expand her budding intellect and develop 
 her social graces. She was taught not only 
 the common elements of mental culture, but 
 music, dancing, embroidery, and the various 
 accomplishments befitting a young woman 
 of wealth and rank. How well and how 
 rapidly she responded to these advantages 
 rests upon undoubted witness. The singu- 
 lar mixture which she displayed of artless 
 simplicity and elegant refinement crowned 
 her personal loveliness and intelligence with 
 an irresistible charm. The stately and dig- 
 nified society of Boston received her as 
 became one chaperoned by Lady Shirley. 
 Her dazzling beauty made her the envy of 
 the younger women; yet her unselfishness 
 disarmed the critic, and changed jealous 
 rivalry into admiring love. 
 
 Four years of growth, for which Frank- 
 land was responsible, had transformed the 
 barefoot serving-maid of the Fountain Inn 
 into a being whose loveliness made life with- 
 out her '' not worth the living. " It is clear 
 that at first he decided to defy the social con- 
 ventions of his Boston friends by honorable 
 marriage. But what of his kindred and old 
 comrades across the sea ? He was intimate 
 with the Earl of Chesterfield, whose perfec- 
 
 21 
 
tion of manners he was said to have acquired. 
 Horace Walpole was his personal and polit- 
 ical friend. What would be the comments 
 of these cynical gentlemen, when across 
 the Atlantic there floated the incredible tale 
 that Charles Henry Frankland — the culti- 
 vated, refined and accomplished heir of a 
 splendid name — had taken as his wife "a. 
 maid of all work" in a New England inn? 
 Or, could he without a shudder contemplate 
 the agony of his patrician mother, and the 
 horror of the Countess of Chichester, his 
 sister, when their pride should be humbled 
 by the tidings of such a mesalliance? 
 
 IV 
 
 There is no hallucination more mischiev- 
 ous and blinding to the moral sense than the 
 notion that genius should condone wrong- 
 doing. Yet most of us are prone to permit 
 the glamour of a great name in literature or 
 science, in arms or statesmanship, to distort 
 the judgement till sin looks like righteous- 
 ness through the smoke that rises from the 
 burning incense of hero-worship. 
 
 King George's collector of the port of 
 Boston was not of heroic build. But his 
 rank, his education, and the personal charm 
 which made him socially irresistible have 
 conspired to bias the views of the writers 
 who have told the story of Frankland and 
 
 22 
 
Agnes Surriage. Somehow, the reader of 
 the tale gets a vision of prismatic colors, till 
 he forgets that the medium through which 
 they come has refracted the rays of rectitude 
 and truth. For, after all, the social superi- 
 ority of the man, the unusual opportunities 
 which he had enjoyed, and his undoubted 
 intellectual brilliancy really ought to aggra- 
 vate rather than minimize the wretched 
 wrong which he committed. He betrayed 
 a sacred trust to which he had pledged his 
 honor, when the parents of the girl gave her 
 education into his keeping. 
 
 No doubt a righteous judgement involves 
 also the condemnation of Agnes. But it is 
 to be remembered that the circumstances 
 of her life had led her to look up to Frank- 
 land with something of an Oriental idolatry. 
 He had found her a poor, barefoot me- 
 nial, engaged in the lowest services, with 
 no thought of any uplifting above the sta- 
 tion to which she has been born. Out of 
 a boundless generosity he had opened to 
 her the door into a new life. Not a want of 
 hers which he had not anticipated and sup- 
 plied. Through four years he had spared 
 nothing which could minister to her com- 
 fort, cultivate her intellect, and polish her 
 manners. He had, as she felt, transformed 
 through his alchemy a bit of base metal into 
 shining gold. In her eyes he was a king, 
 and **the king can do no wrong." He was 
 
 23 
 
a god, and at his shrine she bowed in pros- 
 trate adoration. So crept the serpent into 
 Eden. 
 
 Samson's foxes with firebrands fastened 
 to their tails were no quicker to set in flame 
 the ripe wheat-fields of the Philistines than 
 were the fiery tongues of scandal to spread 
 the burning wrath of aristocratic Boston. 
 True, the standard of morals had previously 
 sagged low, through the vicious example of 
 some of the officials of the crown, but after 
 all, the bone and the sinew of the colonial 
 town, the wealthy merchants, the scholarly 
 citizens that Harvard College had been 
 training for a hundred years, and that sub- 
 stantial element of the population in whom 
 the influence of Puritan principles still sur- 
 vived — were ablaze with horror and indig- 
 nation as the story sped upon it way. 
 
 As if to add to the conspicuity of the prin- 
 cipal offender, just at this critical moment 
 came the news from England of the death 
 of an uncle — Sir Thomas Frankland, one 
 of the Lords of the Admiralty. The baro- 
 netcy of Thirsk had fallen to the nephew in 
 America, as the nearest of kin ; and hence- 
 forth he was to be known as Sir Charles 
 Henry Frankland, baronet. But inherited 
 title and large estates were of no avail to 
 restore the good opinion which he had reck- 
 24 
 
lessly flung away. Society felt itself out- 
 raged; and when Agnes Surriage came to 
 preside over his domestic establishment, his 
 neighbors curtly declined invitations which 
 once they would have been proud to ac- 
 cept, and the doors of the great mansions 
 of Beacon Street were shut in Frankland's 
 face. 
 
 Not infrequently the voice of conscience 
 may be silenced by absorption in some new 
 and fascinating occupation. Sometimes, too, 
 when a man is cut to the quick by insults 
 evoked by his own conduct, he may con- 
 temptuously turn his back upon his critics 
 and his enemies. Probably, it was some- 
 thing of this sort which led Frankland to 
 exchange his social ostracism in Boston for 
 the enjoyments of country life. 
 
 Twenty-five miles southwest of the colo- 
 nial capital, in the heart of a heavily wooded 
 district, was the town of Hopkinton. Incor- 
 porated in 1715, it was still an insignificant 
 village; but its romantic situation, the fer- 
 tility of the soil, and the springs of pure 
 water gushing from the surrounding hills 
 combined to make it an unusually attractive 
 site for a country estate such as Frankland 
 had been familiar with in his native Eng- 
 land. On the borders of the little town 
 he purchased a tract of five hundred acres. 
 One who visited the place some years ago 
 draws a glowing picture of its beauty. He 
 
 25 
 
says: ''Frankland's property was on the 
 western slope of a noble eminence called in 
 the Indian tongue Magunco, *the place of 
 great trees.' Here, in earlier times, John 
 Eliot had gathered an Indian congregation 
 and built a rude place of worship. The 
 summit of the hill commands a view of Wa- 
 chusett and Monadnock toward the north- 
 west ; of a rich and varied landscape to the 
 south, and on the east of the charming vil- 
 lage of Ashland, where the Concord river 
 and the Cold Springs blend their waters. ' ' 
 Here Frankland laid out a princely do- 
 main, and erected a stately manor-house 
 which reflected his memories of the country 
 homes of the English aristocracy. Through 
 the chestnut forest, which formed a noble 
 park, a broad avenue wound its way to the 
 entrance of the mansion. The slope of 
 Magunco afforded opportunity for terraces 
 blooming with native and imported flowers; 
 while the grounds immediately surrounding 
 the dwelling were planted with rare shrubs, 
 and shaded with great elms. In 1858 the 
 house was destroyed by fire; but the foun- 
 dation-stones of the costly building linger 
 still. A friend of the writer of this paper 
 — a cultivated New England woman — re- 
 calls from the days of her childhood fre- 
 quent visits to the historic place. The salient 
 features of the great estate were then easily 
 identified, and the noble mansion, soon to 
 26 
 
be swept away by remorseless flames, re- 
 vealed something of its original majesty in 
 the Corinthian pillars of the wide and lofty 
 hall, and in the tattered tapestry which clung 
 to the mouldering walls. 
 
 Even to this day elms of Frankland's 
 planting tower above the lawn ; the outline 
 of the box hedges of the gardens can be 
 traced, and pear and apple trees, venerable 
 with moss, survive the decay of a hundred 
 and sixty years. 
 
 There is little except local tradition to 
 enable us to picture the life which Frank- 
 land led in the rural retreat which his taste 
 and wealth had called into being. Perhaps 
 it is as well that no authentic information 
 can be obtained. For the glimpses which 
 we get of this period of his career only make 
 it evident that close upon the betrayal of 
 his sacred trust had followed a lowering of 
 ethical standards, and a weakening of moral 
 fibre. Stories have been handed down of 
 bacchanalian feasts, at which the guests were 
 men and women of a sadly different type 
 from Frankland's former associates. We 
 hear of costly wines flowing like water; of 
 boon companions ending a night's banquet 
 in stupid drunkenness or brutal quarrels; 
 and of the lord of the manor drowning the 
 ever-present voice of conscience in revelry 
 with those whom his own refinement would 
 once have led him to despise. 
 
 21 
 
It requires no vivid imagination to pic- 
 ture the wretchedness of the hapless woman, 
 who knew that this degradation of a noble 
 life had begun in a guilty love for her. Add- 
 ed to the pangs of remorse for her own lost 
 purity was the agony of witnessing the grad- 
 ual but steady crumbling of the foundations 
 of character in one whom she still loved 
 with a passionate devotion. 
 
 Ancient records are extant which show 
 that Frankland's country life did not pre- 
 vent his attention to his duties as Collector 
 of the port of Boston. But in 1754 a law- 
 suit involving his heirship to the Manor of 
 Thirsk in Yorkshire demanded his return 
 to his native country. With him went the 
 unhappy Agnes. It seems that Frankland 
 hoped that his own persuasions, reinforced 
 by the rare loveliness, the charm of manner, 
 and the mental cultivation of Agnes, would 
 prevail to secure her recognition by his kins- 
 folk in England. But in this — as might 
 have been expected — he was doomed to 
 bitter disappointment. His haughty mother 
 and his sister, the Countess of Chichester, 
 alike refused an interview with the woman 
 who might be Frankland 's wife in fact, but 
 not in the eyes of the law, nor with the 
 sanction of the church. 
 
 Then, as never before, must have burst 
 upon Agnes the terrible revelation of her 
 false position. Wherever she turned her 
 28 
 
steps, on either side of the Atlantic, the 
 women with whom her native gifts and 
 trained intellect entitled her to mingle on 
 equal terms shunned the possibility of her 
 leprous touch. She was an outcast, as com- 
 pletely beyond the pale of social recognition 
 as if the ''scarlet letter" of the old Puritan 
 tradition had been branded on her bosom. 
 As her memory retraced the pathway she 
 had traveled, there must have sprung up 
 within her heart a longing — now impossi- 
 ble of realization — that she were once 
 more the barefooted, but innocent, maid of 
 the Fountain Inn, at Marblehead. 
 
 Embittered by his rejection on the part 
 of his relatives, and conscious that he was 
 only tolerated by his former friends in pub- 
 lic life, Frankland turned his face toward 
 the continent of Europe. At that period of 
 history Portugal was in effect a dependency 
 of the British Empire. While a golden 
 stream of wealth still flowed into her coffers 
 from her South American possessions, and 
 luxury and extravagance were fostered by 
 riches gained without labor, the Portuguese 
 monarchy, ever threatened with Spanish 
 conquest, would have tottered to its fall, but 
 for the strong support of English diplo- 
 macy, backed by English bayonets. Lis- 
 bon had become the most dissolute of the 
 European capitals. Its beauty and splendor, 
 its delightful climate and gay society had 
 
 29 
 
attracted to it the idle rich from many lands, 
 but especially from England. Toward the 
 English colony in this pleasure-loving capi- 
 tal Frankland gravitated by a natural force. 
 For predominant among these expatriated 
 Britons was a class who, like himself, had 
 either lost caste at home or could not brook 
 the moral restraints of Anglo-Saxon civili- 
 zation and religion. The social qualities 
 of Frankland, his facinating manners, and 
 his newly-inherited wealth and title soon 
 made him foremost in the dissipations which 
 engrossed this company of voluntary exiles. 
 One of his biographers hints that, although 
 in Boston he had maintained at least a sem- 
 blance of conformity to the Church of Eng- 
 land, he now adopted the skeptical opinions 
 of Bolingbroke and La Rochefoucauld, and, 
 like hundreds of others, before and since 
 his day, found a convenient hiding-place 
 from the pursuit of Conscience in the fog- 
 banks of tjnbelief . 
 
 VI 
 
 It was the first day of November, 1755. 
 That morning the sun had risen in un- 
 clouded splendor. As its rays fell upon 
 the palaces and spires of the city, and 
 sparkled on the mimic waves of the Tagus, 
 Lisbon, always beautiful, seemed to have 
 acquired a new loveliness. The balmy 
 and soft air temperature made the autumn 
 
 30 
 
day like one borrowed from the early 
 summer. 
 
 With the dawn the population from the 
 homes of the rich and poor alike poured 
 into the streets and squares, and packed to 
 the doors every one of Lisbon's seventy 
 churches. From the vast spaces of the Ca- 
 thedral to the narrow aisles of the humbler 
 chapels where mass was said, every place of 
 worship was thronged to suffocation. For 
 this was All-Saints Day, when, as in all Ro- 
 man Catholic countries, solemn commem- 
 oration of the dead goes hand-in-hand with 
 holiday festivities. 
 
 In the cool of the morning Frankland, 
 accompanied by a lady of the English colony, 
 whose name has not been preserved to us, 
 had driven out to witness the varied scenes 
 which the streets presented, or to enjoy the 
 breezes from the broad bosom of the Tagus. 
 The Cathedral clock had just tolled the hour 
 of ten, when, though the heavens were still 
 without a cloud, there burst upon aston- 
 ished Lisbon a long roll of deafening thun- 
 der, not from the blue dome above, but 
 from the depths of earth beneath. With 
 no other warning, the surface of the ground 
 heaved in vast billows like the swelling of 
 the ocean tides. As if some subterranean 
 giant, such as the old mythologies fancied 
 to be buried under Aetna, were struggling 
 to stand erect, the foundation-stones of the 
 
 31 
 
stateliest buildings were lifted from their 
 ancient places. Structures which were of 
 yesterday and those hoary with the history 
 of ages alike toppled into indiscriminate des- 
 olation. Down came the roofs and walls 
 of the crowded churches, crushing out the 
 lives of the trapped worshipers within. In 
 three minutes thirty thousand souls had 
 perished. But the first fearful shock was 
 followed by others, each adding its quota 
 to the death-roll of Nature's desperate bat- 
 tle, until sixty thousand of Lisbon's popu- 
 lation lay buried in its ruins. Those who 
 survived the cataclysm long recalled the 
 nightmare horror of groans and shrieks for 
 help which made the day one of hideous 
 memories. 
 
 Suddenly a cry rang through the ruined 
 city: ''To the quay!" The thousands 
 who had escaped from the falling buildings 
 choked the streets which led in the direc- 
 tion of the harbor. There a beautiful and 
 massive quay, built of white marble, had 
 recently been erected at a vast cost to the 
 nation. As yet it stood unmoved. But 
 hardly had the multitude taken refuge on its 
 broad platform than there came a fearful 
 sequence to the convulsion of the earth. 
 At Lisbon the Tagus is a full mile in 
 breadth. From shore to shore the waters 
 receded toward the Atlantic, leaving the 
 bar exposed to view. How many minutes 
 
 32 
 
elapsed has never been recorded — but as 
 the luckless fugitives looked seaward they 
 saw a mighty wall of water, fifty feet in 
 height, rolling in to engulf them. Caught 
 in its remorseless grip, ships of every size 
 and build were swept upon the shore. Be- 
 neath the quay there opened an abyss; 
 and, when the tidal-wave again retired, the 
 marble quay, the refugees who had sought 
 its shelter, and the shattered vessels — all 
 had disappeared. 
 
 VII 
 
 But what of those with whom this essay 
 is the more immediately concerned? 
 
 We can picture Frankland and his com- 
 panion, as, in the full enjoyment of the 
 sweet morning air, the delicious sunshine, 
 and the brilliant coloring of the motley 
 throng through which they drove, they chat- 
 ted as gaily as the volatile Lisbonese them- 
 selves. 
 
 Just where a narrow street was cast into 
 shadow by the stately mansion of a Por- 
 tuguese noble, Dom Francesco da Ribeiro, 
 their conversation suddenly was checked by 
 a deep rumbling out of the earth beneath 
 them. A moment more, and the huge struc- 
 ture, past which lay their road, toppled from 
 its base. The avalanche of stone buried 
 the horses, the carriage and its occupants. 
 The only recollection of that terrible mo- 
 
 33 
 
ment which Frankland could recall in after 
 years was that the woman beside him, in 
 her death-agonies, set her teeth in his arm, 
 piercing the sleeve, and tearing the flesh 
 within. To his dying hour he kept the em- 
 broidered and laced coat that bore such fear- 
 ful witness to the tragedy, and once in each 
 after year, with that memorial before his 
 eyes, he kept a day of fasting, humiliation 
 and prayer. 
 
 But we anticipate. Crushed by an over- 
 whelming weight, and helpless to move hand 
 or foot, Frankland did not wholly lose con- 
 sciousness. What thoughts crowded upon 
 his mind; what agonies of remorse, and what 
 yearnings to undo the wrong he had wreaked 
 upon a trustful girl — we only know from 
 the effects upon his later life. He never 
 told them in words. They have no record 
 in his diary which is still preserved in the 
 archives of the Historical Society of Mas- 
 sachusetts. 
 
 But where, meantime, was the unhappy 
 Agnes.? Startled by the premonitions of the 
 coming cataclysm, and anticipating its hor- 
 rors, her one absorbing thought was not for 
 her own life, but for that of the man she 
 loved. Before her own dwelling had gone 
 down in the general ruin, her woman's wit 
 foresaw that gold would be the only power 
 prevailing upon the terror-stricken throng 
 to aid her in her search for Frankland. So 
 
 34 
 
she had gathered up, and hidden upon her 
 person, all the money which the house con- 
 tained. Then she rushed out, in total ignor- 
 ance of the way that Frankland had taken, 
 to find her path blocked everywhere by the 
 ruins, her own safety in constant peril from 
 falling walls, and to be jostled and cursed 
 by those whose fright made them utterly 
 indifferent to the needs of any but them- 
 selves. 
 
 Through the stopped- up ways, which half 
 an hour before had been streets lined with 
 splendid houses, she wandered distracted 
 with fear, yet with every faculty alert. An 
 hour — two hours — had passed in fruitless 
 search, when, as she tried to climb a huge 
 hillock of the dt^bris, her quick ear caught 
 the pitiful groaning of a voice she knew. In 
 a moment she had flung herself upon the 
 heap of ruins, and thrown the whole force 
 of her vigorous arms into the effort to lift 
 the mass of stone and timber pinning down 
 Frankland by it weight. In vain she strained 
 her muscles, and bruised her soft hands. 
 Something more than a woman's strength 
 was needed if Frankland was to be saved. 
 In desperation she appealed to the hurrying 
 crowd, brutalized by sheer terror. As well 
 have cried to the stones that were crushing 
 out his life ! Even then hope did not die 
 in that brave heart. A group of sailors from 
 one of the wrecked ships came stumbling 
 
 35 
 
over the mound in which her beloved lay. 
 Quick as thought, she spread out before 
 their hungry eyes her hands filled with glit- 
 tering gold-coins. The bait was too tempting 
 to be ignored, even in such an hour. The 
 brawny seamen laid hold upon the beams and 
 blocks of stone, and struggled with them, 
 as if around the capstan they were heaving 
 an anchor from the depths. Slowly but 
 surely their hands tore away the covering 
 of that living grave, and Frankland lay re- 
 vealed to the eyes of the woman whose love 
 had saved him from certain and horrible 
 death. 
 
 Fast upon the heels of the earthquake 
 followed pursuing flames. Uncounted thou- 
 sands of candles, blazing on the altars of 
 the churches, had set on fire all that was 
 combustible in the ruined city. Somehow — 
 and with no loss of time — they must flee 
 from the conflagration already upon their 
 track. Again Agnes plied successfully the 
 lever which wealth placed in her hands. 
 The desperately injured and half-conscious 
 Frankland was carried on an extemporized 
 litter to a temporary refuge. One account 
 makes his place of shelter to have been 
 a house spared by the convulsion, at Be- 
 lem, where the Tagus flows into the sea. 
 Another narrative relates that, from the 
 hills above Lisbon, Frankland and Agnes 
 watched the devouring flames which for 
 
 36 
 
three days ate into the ruins of the most 
 beautiful capital of Europe. 
 
 VIII 
 
 To those whose summer days are spent 
 upon the rugged coast where the cliffs of 
 New England fling back the surges of the 
 sea there is a pivotal moment which we 
 call ''the turning of the tide." It is the 
 instant when the hand of the God of Nature 
 reverses the outward flow of the mighty 
 waters, and bids them take their shoreward 
 way. From that instant begins the strange 
 movement which, pulsing through tidal-bay 
 and tributary creek, buries out of sight the 
 slime and ugly deposits which the ebb had 
 exposed to view. But only for twelve short 
 hours. Not so the ''turn of the tide" in 
 the life and character of Charles Henry 
 Frankland. It was ' ' once for all. ' ' In that 
 crisis of his history, when he lay like a buried 
 corpse beneath the fallen walls, he had come 
 face to face with God and eternity. Call 
 it a moral revolution or a spiritual conver- 
 sion, in either case it was a lasting trans- 
 formation. ' ' By their fruits ye shall know 
 them. ' ' He was impatient of delay in mak- 
 ing such reparation as was in his power for 
 the wrong which awakened Conscience could 
 no longer tolerate. Somewhere in the sub- 
 urbs of Lisbon was found a priest of the 
 
 17 
 
Church of Rome ; and, while the earth had 
 not yet ceased to tremble, and the smoke of 
 the burning town still hovered over its ruins, 
 Frankland and Agnes were joined in lawful 
 marriage. 
 
 But beneath their eyes was the desolation 
 of Lisbon. Every memory which the sight 
 aroused was freighted with regrets. Little 
 wonder that few weeks elapsed before the 
 good ship Swithington, with favoring winds, 
 was bearing them swiftly toward Frank- 
 land's native land. It was an English ves- 
 sel, and on board was a clergyman of the 
 English Church. Little as either Frankland 
 or Agnes had hitherto exhibited of the spirit 
 of religion, both were nominally of the Pro- 
 testant faith. So, lest any possible ques- 
 tion should arise to cast doubt upon the 
 validity of their marriage, a second cere- 
 mony was performed in the solemn ritual 
 of the Anglican communion, and with the 
 officers of the ship as witnesses. 
 
 It is highly probable that the story of 
 Frankland' s deliverance from a horrible 
 death, of the heroic devotion of Agnes, and 
 of their marriage under such strange cir- 
 cumstances, had preceded their arrival in 
 England. For, certain it is that when at 
 the ancestral home of the family at Matter- 
 sea, in Nottinghamshire, Frankland led Ag- 
 nes to meet his proud mother, the matron 
 opened her arms in welcome to a beloved 
 
 38 
 
daughter, and the Countess of Chichester 
 wept tears of gratitude as she embraced the 
 woman who had saved her brother's life. 
 
 IX 
 
 It would be interesting to trace this ro- 
 mance of veritable history down to its end. 
 It would lead us where Agnes, Lady Frank- 
 land, became the admiration of the courtly 
 circle in which shone such brilliant names 
 as Walpole, Pitt, Pelham, and Chesterfield. 
 We should follow her and her husband 
 again and again across the sea. We should 
 pass from one stately room to another of 
 the house in Garden Court Street, which 
 the ancient chronicles of Boston picture as 
 the noblest mansion in America. In her 
 country-seat at Hopkinton we should mingle 
 with the guests who paid their court to a 
 hostess unrivaled in her gracious hospital- 
 ity. We should see the fisherman's daugh- 
 ter of Marblehead, and barefoot maid of the 
 Fountain Inn, as, with dignity softened by 
 native wit and grace of manner behind which 
 was gentleness of heart, she charmed the 
 refined and cultivated society of the city 
 which once had cast her out. 
 
 We should learn that, with all the selfish 
 narrowness which wealth and social rank 
 sometimes engender, this was a woman not 
 ashamed to ' ' look unto the rock from which 
 
 39 
 
she was hewed, and the hole of the pit 
 whence she was digged. ' ' For we should 
 find her providing for every member of her 
 humble kindred, welcoming her fisherman 
 brother to her splendid home, sharing its 
 luxury with a poverty-stricken sister, and 
 sparing no money or time to educate that 
 sister's children. We should witness the 
 effort to undo the evil her one great sin had 
 wrought, and to atone for what, though for- 
 given, could never be forgotten — as she 
 moved a ministering spirit where sin and suf- 
 fering found hope, comfort, and cheer in her 
 gentle presence and loving words of sym- 
 pathy. And, could we follow still farther 
 the stream of these two lives, as they flowed 
 calmly on together, we should see that which, 
 though far from rare, is one of the elements 
 which make life ''worth living" — the un- 
 selfish devotion of a true woman to her hus- 
 band. 
 
 High up on the wall of Ireston Church, 
 near Bath, in England, the curious visitor, 
 with difficulty, deciphers the epitaph in mem- 
 ory of ''Sir Charles Henry Frankland, of 
 Thirkleby, in the County of York, Baro- 
 net. ' ' Its closing words read, ' ' This monu- 
 ment is erected by his loving widow, Agnes, 
 Lady Frankland." 
 
 40 
 
Her own tomb is in the burial-ground of 
 St.Pancras Church, in Chichester. 
 
 XI 
 
 From the pages of Ovid some of us may 
 recall the story of Pygmalion, king of Cy- 
 prus. A royal sculptor, out of purest ivory 
 he carved a statue so rarely beautiful that 
 he fell in love with the work of his own 
 hands. Among the grim rocks of Marble- 
 head and in prosaic Boston, New England 
 reproduces the charming myth. Frank- 
 land's keen perception saw purest ivory in 
 the white soul of the barefoot maid of the 
 Fountain Inn. His kindly interest wrought 
 out of that material an image of transcendent 
 grace — only to kindle in his own soul a 
 passionate love for the product of his gen- 
 erosity. We may not blind our eyes to the 
 wrong which that love wreaked. But we can 
 acknowledge the repentance and the rep- 
 aration— even though they had their birth 
 in what our Puritan forefathers called ''an 
 act of God." 
 
THIS PAPER WAS WRITTEN FOR 
 THE CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB, 
 AND WAS READ BEFORE THE 
 CLUB MONDAY EVENING NO- 
 VEMBER THE THIRTEENTH, 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED AND 
 ELEVEN \^ EDITION, SIX 
 HUNDRED AND SIXTY 
 COPIES, PRINTED FOR THE 
 MEMBERS OF THE CLUB, IN 
 THE MONTH OF JUNE, NINE- 
 TEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE 
 
JUL 24 )9U 
 
LIBRfiRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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