I think I told her then that when I had my house on the hill, she should
be the housekeeper to guard my keys and conduct my affairs; "that is, my
dear, attend to all the little practical details connected with living,"
and Rebecca, to whom my castles on the Hill were never castles in the
air, but who believed most implicitly that I would, sooner or later,
perform all things that ever I dreamed of doing, accepted her prospective
matronship with a becoming sense of its advantage and dignity.
Eagle Hill was haunted by a horse, a pure white horse--not Lovell's--with
a flowing mane and tail, and a beautiful arched neck. His motions, the
Wallencampers said, were most fiery and graceful. Occasionally he paused
and fell back, quivering on his haunches, looked this way and that, and
then, with a wild plunge, swept on again, swifter than before. Every true
Wallencamper could both see and hear the "white horse" when, at night,
clearly outlined against the sky, he galloped back and forth along the
very summit of the hill.
It was on one of the blackest nights of the season that the fuel, which
less grand and poetic souls would doubtless have reserved for another
winter's use, was borne in jubilant triumph by the Wallencampers up the
sides of this sacred and illustrious steep, and there consumed in a most
glorious conflagration.
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