"They carried these foresters into fair Nottingham,
As many there did know,
They digged them graves in their churchyard,
And they buried them all a-row."
Nottingham is only the other side of the river, and they were not
exactly all a-row. You may read in the churchyard at Dunstable,
under the "Memento Mori," and the name of one of them, how they
"departed this life," and
"This man with seven more that lies in
this grave was slew all in a day by
the Indians."
The stones of some others of the company stand around the common
grave with their separate inscriptions. Eight were buried here,
but nine were killed, according to the best authorities.
"Gentle river, gentle river,
Lo, thy streams are stained with gore,
Many a brave and noble captain
Floats along thy willowed shore.
"All beside thy limpid waters,
All beside thy sands so bright,
_Indian_ Chiefs and Christian warriors
Joined in fierce and mortal fight."
It is related in the History of Dunstable, that on the return of
Farwell the Indians were engaged by a fresh party which they
compelled to retreat, and pursued as far as the Nashua, where
they fought across the stream at its mouth. After the departure
of the Indians, the figure of an Indian's head was found carved
by them on a large tree by the shore, which circumstance has
given its name to this part of the village of Nashville, - the
"Indian Head." "It was observed by some judicious," says Gookin,
referring to Philip's war, "that at the beginning of the war the
English soldiers made a nothing of the Indians, and many spake
words to this effect: that one Englishman was sufficient to chase
ten Indians; many reckoned it was no other but _Veni, vidi,
vici._" But we may conclude that the judicious would by this time
have made a different observation.
Farwell appears to have been the only one who had studied his
profession, and understood the business of hunting Indians. He
lived to fight another day, for the next year he was Lovewell's
lieutenant at Pequawket, but that time, as we have related, he
left his bones in the wilderness. His name still reminds us of
twilight days and forest scouts on Indian trails, with an uneasy
scalp; - an indispensable hero to New England. As the more recent
poet of Lovewell's fight has sung, halting a little but bravely
still: -
"Then did the crimson streams that flowed
Seem like the waters of the brook,
That brightly shine, that loudly dash,
Far down the cliffs of Agiochook."
These battles sound incredible to us. I think that posterity
will doubt if such things ever were; if our bold ancestors who
settled this land were not struggling rather with the forest
shadows, and not with a copper-colored race of men. They were
vapors, fever and ague of the unsettled woods. Now, only a few
arrow-heads are turned up by the plough. In the Pelasgic, the
Etruscan, or the British story, there is nothing so shadowy and
unreal.
It is a wild and antiquated looking graveyard, overgrown with
bushes, on the high-road, about a quarter of a mile from and
overlooking the Merrimack, with a deserted mill-stream bounding
it on one side, where lie the earthly remains of the ancient
inhabitants of Dunstable. We passed it three or four miles below
here. You may read there the names of Lovewell, Farwell, and
many others whose families were distinguished in Indian warfare.
We noticed there two large masses of granite more than a foot
thick and rudely squared, lying flat on the ground over the
remains of the first pastor and his wife.
It is remarkable that the dead lie everywhere under stones, -
"Strata jacent passim _suo_ quseque sub" _lapide_ -
_corpora_, we might say, if the measure allowed. When the stone
is a slight one, it does not oppress the spirits of the traveller
to meditate by it; but these did seem a little heathenish to us;
and so are all large monuments over men's bodies, from the
pyramids down. A monument should at least be "star-y-pointing,"
to indicate whither the spirit is gone, and not prostrate, like
the body it has deserted. There have been some nations who could
do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only traces
which they have left. They are the heathen. But why these
stones, so upright and emphatic, like exclamation-points? What
was there so remarkable that lived? Why should the monument be
so much more enduring than the fame which it is designed to
perpetuate, - a stone to a bone? "Here lies," - "Here lies"; - why
do they not sometimes write, There rises? Is it a monument to
the body only that is intended? "Having reached the term of his
_natural_ life"; - would it not be truer to say, Having reached
the term of his _unnatural_ life? The rarest quality in an
epitaph is truth. If any character is given, it should be as
severely true as the decision of the three judges below, and not
the partial testimony of friends. Friends and contemporaries
should supply only the name and date, and leave it to posterity
to write the epitaph.
Here lies an honest man,
Rear-Admiral Van.
- - - -
Faith, then ye have
Two in one grave,
For in his favor,
Here too lies the Engraver.
Fame itself is but an epitaph; as late, as false, as true. But
they only are the true epitaphs which Old Mortality retouches.
A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion
of nature by being buried in it. For the most part, the best
man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his grave, and it is
therefore much to the credit of Little John, the famous follower
of Robin Hood, and reflecting favorably on his character, that
his grave was "long celebrous for the yielding of excellent
whetstones." I confess that I have but little love for such
collections as they have at the Catacombs, Pere la Chaise, Mount
Auburn, and even this Dunstable graveyard.
