It was less steep than
its aspect threatened. The eminence formed part of an extensive tract of
pasture land, and was traversed by cow paths in various directions; but,
strange to tell, though the whole slope and summit were of a peculiar
deep green, scarce a blade of grass was visible from the base upward.
This deceitful verdure was occasioned by a plentiful crop of "wood-wax,"
which wears the same dark and glossy green throughout the summer, except
at one short period, when it puts forth a profusion of yellow blossoms.
At that season, to a distant spectator, the hill appears absolutely
overlaid with gold, or covered with a glory of sunshine, even beneath a
clouded sky. But the curious wanderer on the hill will perceive that all
the grass, and everything that should nourish man or beast, has been
destroyed by this vile and ineradicable weed: its tufted roots make the
soil their own, and permit nothing else to vegetate among them; so that a
physical curse may be said to have blasted the spot, where guilt and
frenzy consummated the most execrable scene that our history blushes to
record. For this was the field where superstition won her darkest
triumph; the high place where our fathers set up their shame, to the
mournful gaze of generations far remote.
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