Friend Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his
sixtieth year in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and
looked forward with confidence to the final change, as a translation
into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous eternity of mild
voices, subdued colors, and suppressed emotions.
He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned "chair," with its heavy
square canopy and huge curved springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the
Hicksite Friends, in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and
grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air which made
him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart of his master among
men. He would no more have thought of kicking than the latter would of
swearing a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was gained,
and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable which had been his
home since colthood, he showed no undue haste or impatience, but waited
quietly, until Frient Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines,
gave him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon set
forward once more, jogging soberly down the eastern slope of the
hill,--across the covered bridge, where, in spite of the tempting level
of the hollow-sounding floor, he was as careful to abstain from
trotting as if he had read the warning notice,--along the wooded edge
of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance were
grazing,--and finally, wheeling around at the proper angle, halted
squarely in front of the gate which gave entrance to the private lane.
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