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diff --git a/6609.txt b/6609.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..896dae1 --- /dev/null +++ b/6609.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4890 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales Of Puritan Land, by Charles M. Skinner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tales Of Puritan Land + Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Volume 4. + +Author: Charles M. Skinner + +Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #6609] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF PURITAN LAND *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + MYTHS AND LEGENDS + OF + OUR OWN LAND + + By + Charles M. Skinner + + Vol. 4. + + + TALES OF PURITAN LAND + + + + +CONTENTS: + +Evangeline +The Snoring of Swunksus +The Lewiston Hermit +The Dead Ship of Harpswell +The Schoolmaster had not reached Orrington +Jack Welch's Death Light +Mogg Megone +The Lady Ursula +Father Moody's Black Veil +The Home of Thunder +The Partridge Witch +The Marriage of Mount Katahdin +The Moose of Mount Kineo +The Owl Tree +A Chestnut Log +The Watcher on White Island +Chocorua +Passaconaway's Ride to Heaven +The Ball Game by the Saco +The White Mountains +The Vision on Mount Adams +The Great Carbuncle +Skinner's Cave +Yet they call it Lover's Leap +Salem and other Witchcraft +The Gloucester Leaguers +Satan and his Burial-Place +Peter Rugg, the Missing Man +The Loss of Weetamoo +The Fatal Forget-me-not +The Old Mill at Somerville +Edward Randolph's Portrait +Lady Eleanore's Mantle +Howe's Masquerade +Old Esther Dudley +The Loss of Jacob Hurd +The Hobomak +Berkshire Tories +The Revenge of Josiah Breeze +The May-Pole of Merrymount +The Devil and Tom Walker +The Gray Champion +The Forest Smithy +Wahconah Falls +Knocking at the Tomb +The White Deer of Onota +Wizard's Glen +Balanced Rock +Shonkeek-Moonkeek +The Salem Alchemist +Eliza Wharton +Sale of the Southwicks +The Courtship of Myles Standish +Mother Crewe +Aunt Rachel's Curse +Nix's Mate +The Wild Man of Cape Cod +Newbury's Old Elm +Samuel Sewall's Prophecy +The Shrieking Woman +Agnes Surriage +Skipper Ireson's Ride +Heartbreak Hill +Harry Main: The Treasure and the Cats +The Wessaguscus Hanging +The Unknown Champion +Goody Cole +General Moulton and the Devil +The Skeleton in Armor +Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket +Love and Treason +The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown +The Crow and Cat of Hopkins Hill +The Old Stone Mill +Origin of a Name +Micah Rood Apples +A Dinner and its Consequences +The New Haven Storm Ship +The Windham Frogs +The Lamb of Sacrifice +Moodus Noises +Haddam Enchantments +Block Island and the Palatine +The Buccaneer +Robert Lockwood's Fate +Love and Rum + + + + + +TALES OF PURITAN LAND + + + +EVANGALINE + +The seizure by England of the country that soon afterward was +rechristened Nova Scotia was one of the cruellest events in history. The +land was occupied by a good and happy people who had much faith and few +laws, plenty to eat and drink, no tax collectors nor magistrates, in +brief, a people who were entitled to call themselves Acadians, for they +made their land an Arcady. Upon them swooped the British ships, took them +unarmed and unoffending, crowded them aboard their transports,--often +separating husband and wife, parents and children,--scattered them far +and wide, beyond hope of return, and set up the cross of St. George on +the ruins of prosperity and peace. On the shore of the Basin of Minas can +still be traced the foundations of many homes that were perforce deserted +at that time, and among them are the ruins of Grand Pre. + +Here lived Evangeline Bellefontaine and Gabriel Lajeunesse, who were +betrothed with the usual rejoicings just before the coming of the +English. They had expected, when their people were arrested, to be sent +away together; but most of the men were kept under guard, and Gabriel was +at sea, bound neither he nor she knew whither, when Evangeline found +herself in her father's house alone, for grief and excitement had been +more than her aged parent could bear, and he was buried at the shore just +before the women of the place were crowded on board of a transport. As +the ship set off her sorrowing passengers looked behind them to see their +homes going up in flame and smoke, and Acadia knew them no more. The +English had planned well to keep these people from coming together for +conspiracy or revenge: they scattered them over all America, from +Newfoundland to the southern savannas. + +Evangeline was not taken far away, only to New England; but without +Gabriel all lands were drear, and she set off in the search for him, +working here and there, sometimes looking timidly at the headstones on +new graves, then travelling on. Once she heard that he was a _coureur des +bois_ on the prairies, again that he was a voyageur in the Louisiana +lowlands; but those of his people who kept near her inclined to jest at +her faith and urged her to marry Leblanc, the notary's son, who truly +loved her. To these she only replied, "I cannot." + +Down the Ohio and Mississippi she went--on a raft--with a little band of +those who were seeking the French settlements, where the language, +religion, and simplicity of life recalled Acadia. They found it on the +banks of the Teche, and they reached the house of the herdsman Gabriel on +the day that he had departed for the north to seek Evangeline. She and +the good priest who had been her stay in a year of sorrow turned back in +pursuit, and for weary months, over prairie and through forest, skirting +mountain and morass, going freely among savages, they followed vain +clues, and at last arrived in Philadelphia. Broken in spirit then, but +not less sweet of nature for the suffering that she had known, she who +had been named for the angels became a minister of mercy, and in the +black robe of a nun went about with comforts to the sick and poor. A +pestilence was sweeping through the city, and those who had no friends +nor attendants were taken to the almshouse, whither, as her way was, +Evangeline went on a soft Sabbath morning to calm the fevered and +brighten the hearts of the dying. + +Some of the patients of the day before had gone and new were in their +places. Suddenly she turned white and sank on her knees at a bedside, +with a cry of "Gabriel, my beloved!" breathed into the ears of a +prematurely aged man who lay gasping in death before her. He came out of +his stupor, slowly, and tried to speak her name. She drew his head to her +bosom, kissed him, and for one moment they were happy. Then the light +went out of his eyes and the warmth from his heart. She pressed his +eyelids down and bowed her head, for her way was plainer now, and she +thanked God that it was so. + + + + +THE SNORING OF SWUNKSUS + +The original proprietor of Deer Isle, off the coast of Maine--at least, +the one who was in possession one hundred and thirty years ago--had the +liquid name of Swunksus. His name was not the only liquid thing in the +neighborhood, however, for, wherever Swunksus was, fire-water was not +far. Shortly before the Revolution a renegade from Boston, one Conary, +moved up to the island and helped himself to as much of it as he chose, +but the longer he lived there the more he wanted. Swunksus was willing +enough to divide his domain with the white intruder, but Conary was not +satisfied with half. He did not need it all; he just wanted it. Moreover, +he grew quarrelsome and was continually nagging poor Swunksus, until at +last he forced the Indian to accept a challenge, not to immediate combat, +but to fight to the death should they meet thereafter. + +The red man retired to his half of the island and hid among the bushes +near his home to await the white man, but in this little fastness he +discovered a jug of whiskey that either fate or Conary had placed there. +Before an hour was over he was "as full and mellow as a harvest moon," +and it was then that his enemy appeared. There was no trouble in finding +Swunksus, for he was snoring like a fog horn, and walking boldly up to +him, Conary blew his head off with a load of slugs. Then he took +possession of the place and lived happily ever after. Swunksus takes his +deposition easily, for, although he has more than once paraded along the +beaches, his ghost spends most of the time in slumber, and terrific +snores have been heard proceeding from the woods in daylight. + + + + +THE LEWISTON HERMIT + +On an island above the falls of the Androscoggin, at Lewiston, Maine, +lived a white recluse at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The +natives, having had good reason to mistrust all palefaces, could think no +good of the man who lived thus among but not with them. Often they +gathered at the bank and looked across at his solitary candle twinkling +among the leaves, and wondered what manner of evil he could be planning +against them. Wherever there are many conspirators one will be a gabbler +or a traitor; so, when the natives had resolved on his murder, he, +somehow, learned of their intent and set himself to thwart it. So great +was their fear of this lonely man, and of the malignant powers he might +conjure to his aid, that nearly fifty Indians joined the expedition, to +give each other courage. + +Their plan was to go a little distance up the river and come down with +the current, thus avoiding the dip of paddles that he might hear in a +direct crossing. When it was quite dark they set off, and keeping headway +on their canoes aimed them toward the light that glimmered above the +water. But the cunning hermit had no fire in his cabin that night. It was +burning on a point below his shelter, and from his hiding-place among the +rocks he saw their fleet, as dim and silent as shadows, go by him on the +way to the misguiding beacon. + +Presently a cry arose. The savages had passed the point of safe sailing; +their boats had become unmanageable. Forgetting their errand, their only +hope now was to save themselves, but in vain they tried to reach the +shore: the current was whirling them to their doom. Cries and death-songs +mingled with the deepening roar of the waters, the light barks reached +the cataract and leaped into the air. Then the night was still again, +save for the booming of the flood. Not one of the Indians who had set out +on this errand of death survived the hermit's stratagem. + + + + +THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL + +At times the fisher-folk of Maine are startled to see the form of a ship, +with gaunt timbers showing through the planks, like lean limbs through +rents in a pauper's garb, float shoreward in the sunset. She is a ship of +ancient build, with tall masts and sails of majestic spread, all torn; +but what is her name, her port, her flag, what harbor she is trying to +make, no man can tell, for on her deck no sailor has ever been seen to +run up colors or heard to answer a hail. Be it in calm or storm, in-come +or ebb of tide, the ship holds her way until she almost touches shore. + +There is no creak of spars or whine of cordage, no spray at the bow, no +ripple at the stern--no voice, and no figure to utter one. As she nears +the rocks she pauses, then, as if impelled by a contrary current, floats +rudder foremost off to sea, and vanishes in twilight. Harpswell is her +favorite cruising-ground, and her appearance there sets many heads to +shaking, for while it is not inevitable that ill luck follows her visits, +it has been seen that burial-boats have sometimes had occasion to cross +the harbor soon after them, and that they were obliged by wind or tide or +current to follow her course on leaving the wharf. + + + + +THE SCHOOLMASTER HAD NOT REACHED ORRINGTON. + +The quiet town of Orrington, in Maine, was founded by Jesse Atwood, of +Wellfleet, Cape Cod, in 1778, and has become known, since then, as a +place where skilful farmers and brave sailors could always be found. It +also kept Maine supplied for years with oldest inhabitants. It is said +that the name was an accident of illiteracy, and that it is the only +place in the world that owes its title to bad spelling. The settlers who +followed Atwood there were numerous enough to form a township after ten +years, and the name they decided on for their commonwealth was +Orangetown, so called for a village in Maryland where some of the people +had associations, but the clerk of the town meeting was not a college +graduate and his spelling of Orange was Orring, and of town, ton. His +draft of the resolutions went before the legislature, and the people +directly afterward found themselves living in Orrington. + + + + +JACK WELCH'S DEATH LIGHT + +Pond Cove, Maine, is haunted by a light that on a certain evening, every +summer, rises a mile out at sea, drifts to a spot on shore, then whirls +with a buzz and a glare to an old house, where it vanishes. Its first +appearance was simultaneous with the departure of Jack Welch, a +fisherman. He was seen one evening at work on his boat, but in the +morning he was gone, nor has he since shown himself in the flesh. + +On the tenth anniversary of this event three fishermen were hurrying up +the bay, hoping to reach home before dark, for they dreaded that uncanny +light, but a fog came in and it was late before they reached the wharf. +As they were tying their boat a channel seemed to open through the mist, +and along that path from the deep came a ball of pallid flame with the +rush of a meteor. There was one of the men who cowered at the bottom of +the boat with ashen face and shaking limbs, and did not watch the light, +even though it shot above his head, played through the rigging, and after +a wide sweep went shoreward and settled on his house. Next day one of his +comrades called for him, but Tom Wright was gone, gone, his wife said, +before the day broke. Like Jack Welch's disappearance, this departure was +unexplained, and in time he was given up for dead. + +Twenty years had passed, when Wright's presumptive widow was startled by +the receipt of a letter in a weak, trembling hand, signed with her +husband's name. It was written on his death-bed, in a distant place, and +held a confession. Before their marriage, Jack Welch had been a suitor +for her hand, and had been the favored of the two. To remove his rival +and prosper in his place, Wright stole upon the other at his work, killed +him, took his body to sea, and threw it overboard. Since that time the +dead man had pursued him, and he was glad that the end of his days was +come. But, though Tom Wright is no more, his victim's light comes yearly +from the sea, above the spot where his body sank, floats to the scene of +the murder on the shore, then flits to the house where the assassin lived +and for years simulated the content that comes of wedded life. +MOGG MEGONE + +Hapless daughter of a renegade is Ruth Bonython. Her father is as unfair +to his friends as to his enemies, but to neither of them so merciless as +to Ruth. Although he knows that she loves Master Scammon--in spite of his +desertion and would rather die than wed another, he has promised her to +Mogg Megone, the chief who rules the Indians at the Saco mouth. He, +blundering savage, fancies that he sees to the bottom of her grief, and +one day, while urging his suit, he opens his blanket and shows the scalp +of Scammon, to prove that he has avenged her. She looks in horror, but +when he flings the bloody trophy at her feet she baptizes it with a +forgiving tear. What villainy may this lead to? Ah, none for him, for +Bonython now steps in and plies him with flattery and drink, gaining from +the chief, at last, his signature--the bow totem--to a transfer of the +land for which he is willing to sell his daughter. Ruth, maddened at her +father's meanness and the Indian's brutality, rushes on the imbruted +savage, grasps from his belt the knife that has slain her lover, cleaves +his heart in twain, and flies into the wood, leaving Bonython stupid with +amazement. + +Father Rasles, in his chapel at Norridgewock, is affecting his Indian +converts against the Puritans, who settled to the southward of him fifty +years before. To him comes a woman with torn garments and frightened +face. Her dead mother stood before her last night, she says, and looked +at her reprovingly, for she had killed Mogg Megone. The priest starts +back in wrath, for Mogg was a hopeful agent of the faith, and bids her +go, for she can ask no pardon. Brooding within his chapel, then, he is +startled by the sound of shot and hum of arrows. Harmon and Moulton are +advancing with their men and crying, "Down with the beast of Rome! Death +to the Babylonish dog!" Ruth, knowing not what this new misfortune may +mean, runs from the church and disappears. + +Some days later, old Baron Castine, going to Norridgewock to bury and +revenge the dead, finds a woman seated on the earth and gazing over a +field strewn with ashes and with human bones. He touches her. She is +cold. There has been no life for days. It is Ruth. + + + + +THE LADY URSULA + +In 1690 a stately house stood in Kittery, Maine, a strongly guarded place +with moat and drawbridge (which was raised at night) and a moated grange +adjacent where were cattle, sheep, and horses. Here, in lonely dignity, +lived Lady Ursula, daughter of the lord of Grondale Abbey, across the +water, whose distant grandeurs were in some sort reflected in this manor +of the wilderness. Silver, mahogany, paintings, tapestries, waxed floors, +and carven chests of linen represented wealth; prayers were said by a +chaplain every morning and evening in the chapel, and, though the main +hall would accommodate five hundred people, the lady usually sat at meat +there with her thirty servants, her part of the table being raised two +feet above theirs. + +It was her happiness to believe that Captain Fowler, now absent in +conflict with the French, would return and wed her according to his +promise, but one day came a tattered messenger with bitter news of the +captain's death. She made no talk of her grief, and, while her face was +pale and step no longer light, she continued in the work that custom +exacted from women of that time: help for the sick, alms for the poor, +teaching for the ignorant, religion for the savage. Great was her joy, +then, when a ship came from England bringing a letter from Captain Fowler +himself, refuting the rumor of defeat and telling of his coming. Now the +hall took on new life, reflecting the pleasure of its mistress; color +came back to her cheek and sparkle to her eye, and she could only control +her impatience by more active work and more aggressive charities. The day +was near at hand for the arrival of her lover, when Ursula and her +servants were set upon by Indians, while away from the protection of the +manor, and slain. They were buried where they fell, and Captain Fowler +found none to whom his love or sorrow could be told. + + + + +FATHER MOODY'S BLACK VEIL + +In 1770 the Reverend Joseph Moody died at York, Maine, where he had long +held the pastorate of a church, and where in his later years his face was +never seen by friend or relative. At home, when any one was by, on the +street, and in the pulpit his visage was concealed by a double fold of +crape that was knotted above his forehead and fell to his chin, the lower +edge of it being shaken by his breath. When first he presented himself to +his congregation with features masked in black, great was the wonder and +long the talk about it. Was he demented? His sermons were too logical for +that. Had he been crossed in love? He could smile, though the smile was +sad. Had he been scarred by accident or illness? If so, no physician knew +of it. + +After a time it was given out that his eyes were weakened by reading and +writing at night, and the wonder ceased, though the veiled parson was +less in demand for weddings, christenings, and social gatherings, and +more besought for funerals than he had been. If asked to take off his +crape he only replied, "We all wear veils of one kind or another, and the +heaviest and darkest are those that hang about our hearts. This is but a +material veil. Let it stay until the hour strikes when all faces shall be +seen and all souls reveal their secrets." + +Little by little the clergyman felt himself enforced to withdraw from the +public gaze. There were rough people who were impertinent and timid +people who turned out of their road to avoid him, so that he found his +out-door walks and meditations almost confined to the night, unless he +chose the grave-yard for its seclusion or strolled on the beach and +listened to the wallowing and grunting of the Black Boars--the rocks off +shore that had laughed on the night when the York witch went up the +chimney in a gale. But his life was long and kind and useful, and when at +last the veiled head lay on the pillow it was never to rise from +consciously, a fellow-clergyman came to soothe his dying moments and +commend his soul to mercy. + +To him, one evening, Father Moody said, "Brother, my hour is come and the +veil of eternal darkness is falling over my eyes. Men have asked me why I +wear this piece of crape about my face, as if it were not for them a +reminder and a symbol, and I have borne the reason so long within me that +only now have I resolved to tell it. Do you recall the finding of young +Clark beside the river, years ago? He had been shot through the head. The +man who killed him did so by accident, for he was a bosom friend; yet he +could never bring himself to confess the fact, for he dreaded the blame +of his townsmen, the anguish of the dead man's parents, the hate of his +betrothed. It was believed that the killing was a murder, and that some +roving Indian had done it. After years of conscience-darkened life, in +which the face of his dead friend often arose accusingly before him, the +unhappy wretch vowed that he would never again look his fellows openly in +the face: he would pay a penalty and conceal his shame. Then it was that +I put a veil between myself and the world." + +Joseph Moody passed away and, as he wished, the veil still hid his face +in the coffin, but the clergyman who had raised it for a moment to +compose his features, found there a serenity and a beauty that were +majestic. + + + + +THE HOME OF THUNDER + +Some Indians believe that the Thunder Bird is the agent of storm; that +the flashes of his eyes cause lightning and the flapping of his +cloud-vast wings make thunder. Not so the Passamaquoddies, for they hold +that Katahdin's spirit children are Thunders, and in this way an Indian +found them: He had been seeking game along the Penobscot and for weeks +had not met one of his fellow creatures. On a winter day he came on the +print of a pair of snow-shoes; next morning the tracks appeared in +another part of the forest, and so for many days he found them. + +After a time it occurred to him to see where these tracks went to, and he +followed them until they merged with others in a travelled road, ending +at a precipice on the side of Katahdin (Great Mountain). + +While lost in wonder that so many tracks should lead nowhere, he was +roused by a footfall, and a maiden stepped from the precipice to the +ledge beside him. Though he said nothing, being in awe of her stateliness +and beauty, she replied in kind words to every unspoken thought and bade +him go with her. He approached the rock with fear, but at a touch from +the woman it became as mist, and they entered it together. + +Presently they were in a great cave in the heart of Katahdin, where sat +the spirit of the mountain, who welcomed them and asked the girl if her +brothers had come. "I hear them coming," she replied. A blinding flash, a +roar of thunder, and there stepped into the cave two men of giant size +and gravely beautiful faces, hardened at the cheeks and brows to stone. +"These," said the girl to the hunter, "are my brothers, the Thunder and +the Lightning. My father sends them forth whenever there is wrong to +redress, that those who love us may not be smitten. When you hear +Thunder, know that they are shooting at our enemies." + +At the end of that day the hunter returned to his home, and behold, he +had been gone seven years. Another legend says that the stone-faced sons +of the mountain adopted him, and that for seven years he was a roaming +Thunder, but at the end of that time while a storm was raging he was +allowed to fall, unharmed, into his own village. + + + + +THE PARTRIDGE WITCH + +Two brothers, having hunted at the head of the Penobscot until their +snow-shoes and moccasins gave out, looked at each other ruefully and +cried, "Would that there was a woman to help us!" The younger brother +went to the lodge that evening earlier than the elder, in order to +prepare the supper, and great was his surprise on entering the wigwam to +find the floor swept, a fire built, a pot boiling, and their clothing +mended. Returning to the wood he watched the place from a covert until he +saw a graceful girl enter the lodge and take up the tasks of +housekeeping. + +When he entered she was confused, but he treated her with respect, and +allowed her to have her own way so far as possible, so that they became +warm friends, sporting together like children when the work of the day +was over. But one evening she said, "Your brother is coming. I fear him. +Farewell." And she slipped into the wood. When the young man told his +elder brother what had happened there--the elder having been detained for +a few days in the pursuit of a deer--he declared that he would wish the +woman to come back, and presently, without any summons, she returned, +bringing a toboggan-load of garments and arms. The luck of the hunters +improved, and they remained happily together until spring, when it was +time to return with their furs. + +They set off down the Penobscot in their canoe and rowed merrily along, +but as they neared the home village the girl became uneasy, and presently +"threw out her soul"--became clairvoyant--and said, "Let me land here. I +find that your father would not like me, so do not speak to him about +me." But the elder brother told of her when they reached home, whereon +the father exclaimed, "I had feared this. That woman is a sister of the +goblins. She wishes to destroy men." + +At this the elder brother was afraid, lest she should cast a spell on +him, and rowing up the river for a distance he came upon her as she was +bathing and shot at her. The arrow seemed to strike, for there was a +flutter of feathers and the woman flew away as a partridge. But the +younger did not forget the good she had done and sought her in the wood, +where for many days they played together as of old. + +"I do not blame your father: it is an affair of old, this hate he bears +me," she said. "He will choose a wife for you soon, but do not marry her, +else all will come to an end for you." The man could not wed the witch, +and he might not disobey his father, in spite of this adjuration; so when +the old man said to him, "I have a wife for you, my son," he answered, +"It is well." + +They brought the bride to the village, and for four days the +wedding-dance was held, with a feast that lasted four days more. Then +said the young man, "Now comes the end," and lying down on a bear-skin he +sighed a few times and his spirit ascended to the Ghosts' road--the milky +way. The father shook his head, for he knew that this was the witch's +work, and, liking the place no longer, he went away and the tribe was +scattered. + + + + +THE MARRIAGE OF MOUNT KATAHDIN + +An Indian girl gathering berries on the side of Mount Katahdin looked up +at its peak, rosy in the afternoon light, and sighed, "I wish that I had +a husband. If Katahdin were a man he might marry me." Her companions +laughed at this quaint conceit, and, filled with confusion at being +overheard, she climbed higher up the slope and was lost to sight. For +three years her tribe lost sight of her; then she came back with a child +in her arms a beautiful boy with brows of stone. The boy had wonderful +power: he had only to point at a moose or a duck or a bear, and it fell +dead, so that the tribe never wanted food. For he was the son of the +Indian girl and the spirit of the mountain, who had commanded her not to +reveal the boy's paternity. Through years she held silence on this point, +holding in contempt, like other Indians, the prying inquiries of gossips +and the teasing of young people, and knowing that Katahdin had designed +the child for the founder of a mighty race, with the sinews of the very +mountains in its frame, that should fill and rule the earth. Yet, one +day, in anger at some slight, the mother spoke: "Fools! Wasps who sting +the fingers that pick you from the water! Why do you torment me about +what you might all see? Look at the boy's face--his brows: in them do you +not see Katahdin? Now you have brought the curse upon yourselves, for you +shall hunt your own venison from this time forth." Leading the child by +the hand she turned toward the mountain and went out from their sight. +And since then the Indians who could not hold their tongues, and who +might otherwise have been great, have dwindled to a little people. + + + + +THE MOOSE OF MOUNT KINEO + +Eastern traditions concerning Hiawatha differ in many respects from those +of the West. In the East he is known as Glooskap, god of the +Passamaquoddies, and his marks are left in many places in the maritime +provinces and Maine. It was he who gave names to things, created men, +filled them with life, and moved their wonder with storms. He lived on +the rocky height of Blomidon, at the entrance to Minas Basin, Nova +Scotia, and the agates to be found along its foot are jewels that he made +for his grandmother's necklace, when he restored her youth. He threw up a +ridge between Fort Cumberland and Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, that he might +cross, dry shod, the lake made by the beavers when they dammed the strait +at Blomidon, but he afterward killed the beavers, and breaking down their +dam he let the lake flow into the sea, and went southward on a hunting +tour. At Mount Desert he killed a moose, whose bones he flung to the +ground at Bar Harbor, where they are still to be seen, turned to stone, +while across the bay he threw the entrails, and they, too, are visible as +rocks, dented with his arrow-points. Mount Kineo was anciently a cow +moose of colossal size that he slew and turned into a height of land, and +the Indians trace the outline of the creature in the uplift to this day. +Little Kineo was a calf moose that he slew at the same time, and Kettle +Mountain is his camp-caldron that he flung to the ground in the ardor of +the chase. + + + + +THE OWL TREE + +One day in October, 1827, Rev. Charles Sharply rode into Alfred, Maine, +and held service in the meeting-house. After the sermon he announced that +he was going to Waterborough to preach, and that on his circuit he had +collected two hundred and seventy dollars to help build a church in that +village. Would not his hearers add to that sum? They would and did, and +that evening the parson rode away with over three hundred dollars in his +saddlebags. He never appeared in Waterborough. Some of the country people +gave tongue to their fear that the possession of the money had made him +forget his sacred calling and that he had fled the State. + +On the morning after his disappearance, however, Deacon Dickerman +appeared in Alfred riding on a horse that was declared to be the +minister's, until the tavern hostler affirmed that the minister's horse +had a white star on forehead and breast, whereas this horse was all +black. The deacon said that he found the horse grazing in his yard at +daybreak, and that he would give it to whoever could prove it to be his +property. Nobody appeared to demand it, and people soon forgot that it +was not his. He extended his business at about that time and prospered; +he became a rich man for a little place; though, as his wealth increased, +he became morose and averse to company. + +One day a rumor went around that a belated traveller had seen a misty +thing under "the owl tree" at a turn of a road where owls were hooting, +and that it took on a strange likeness to the missing clergyman. +Dickerman paled when he heard this story, but he shook his head and +muttered of the folly of listening to boy nonsense. Ten years had gone +by-during that time the boys had avoided the owl tree after dark--when a +clergyman of the neighborhood was hastily summoned to see Mr. Dickerman, +who was said to be suffering from overwork. He found the deacon in his +house alone, pacing the floor, his dress disordered, his cheek hectic. + +"I have not long to live," said he, "nor would I live longer if I could. +I am haunted day and night, and there is no peace, no rest for me on +earth. They say that Sharply's spirit has appeared at the owl tree. Well, +his body lies there. They accused me of taking his horse. It is true. A +little black dye on his head and breast was all that was needed to +deceive them. Pray for me, for I fear my soul is lost. I killed Sharply." +The clergyman recoiled. "I killed him," the wretched man went on, "for +the money that he had. The devil prospered me with it. In my will I leave +two thousand dollars to his widow and five thousand dollars to the church +he was collecting for. Will there be mercy for me there? I dare not think +it. Go and pray for me." The clergyman hastened away, but was hardly +outside the door when the report of a pistol brought him back. Dickerman +lay dead on the floor. Sharply's body was exhumed from the shade of the +owl tree, and the spot was never haunted after. + + + + +A CHESTNUT LOG + +There is no doubt that farmer Lovel had read ancient history or he would +not have been so ready in the emergency that befell him one time in the +last century. He had settled among the New Hampshire hills near the site +that is now occupied by the village of Washington and had a real good +time there with bears and Indians. It was when he was splitting rails on +Lovel Mountain--they named it for him afterward--that he found himself +surrounded by six Indians, who told him that he was their prisoner. He +agreed that they had the advantage over him and said that he would go +quietly along if they would allow him to finish the big chestnut log that +he was at work on. As he was a powerful fellow and was armed with an axe +worth any two of their tomahawks, and as he would be pretty sure to have +the life of at least one of them if they tried to drive him faster than +he wanted to go, they consented. He said that he would be ready all the +sooner if they would help him to pull the big log apart, and they agreed +to help him. Driving a wedge into the long split he asked them to take +hold, and when they had done this he knocked out the wedge with a single +blow and the twelve hands were caught tight in the closing wood. Struggle +as the savages might, they could not get free, and after calmly enjoying +the situation for a few minutes he walked slowly from one to the other +and split open the heads of all six. Then he went to work again splitting +up more chestnuts. + + + + +THE WATCHER ON WHITE ISLAND + +The isles of Shoals, a little archipelago of wind and wave-swept rocks +that may be seen on clear days from the New Hampshire coast, have been +the scene of some mishaps and some crimes. On Boone Island, where the +Nottingham galley went down one hundred and fifty years ago, the +survivors turned cannibals to escape starvation, while Haley's Island is +peopled by shipwrecked Spanish ghosts that hail vessels and beg for +passage back to their country. The pirate Teach, or Blackbeard, used to +put in at these islands to hide his treasure, and one of his lieutenants +spent some time on White Island with a beautiful girl whom he had +abducted from her home in Scotland and who, in spite of his rough life, +had learned to love him. It was while walking with her on this rock, +forgetful of his trade and the crimes he had been stained with, that one +of his men ran up to report a sail that was standing toward the islands. +The pirate ship was quickly prepared for action, but before embarking, +mindful of possible flight or captivity, the lieutenant made his mistress +swear that she would guard the buried treasure if it should be till +doomsday. + +The ship he was hurrying to meet came smoothly on until the pirate craft +was well in range, when ports flew open along the stranger's sides, guns +were run out, and a heavy broadside splintered through the planks of the +robber galley. It was a man-of-war, not a merchantman, that had run +Blackbeard down. The war-ship closed and grappled with the corsair, but +while the sailors were standing at the chains ready to leap aboard and +complete the subjugation of the outlaws a mass of flame burst from the +pirate ship, both vessels were hurled in fragments through the air, and a +roar went for miles along the sea. Blackbeard's lieutenant had fired the +magazine rather than submit to capture, and had blown the two ships into +a common ruin. A few of both crews floated to the islands on planks, sore +from burns and bruises, but none survived the cold and hunger of the +winter. The pirate's mistress was among the first to die; still, true to +her promise, she keeps her watch, and at night is dimly seen on a rocky +point gazing toward the east, her tall figure enveloped in a cloak, her +golden hair unbound upon her shoulders, her pale face still as marble. + + + + +CHOCORUA + +This beautiful alp in the White Mountains commemorates in its name a +prophet of the Pequawket tribe who, prior to undertaking a journey, had +confided his son to a friendly settler, Cornelius Campbell, of Tamworth. +The boy found some poison in the house that had been prepared for foxes, +and, thinking it to be some delicacy, he drank of it and died. When +Chocorua returned he could not be persuaded that his son had fallen +victim to his own ignorance, but ascribed his death to the white man's +treachery, and one day, when Campbell entered his cabin from the fields, +he found there the corpses of his wife and children scalped and mangled. + +He was not a man to lament at such a time: hate was stronger than sorrow. +A fresh trail led from his door. Seizing his rifle he set forth in +pursuit of the murderer. A mark in the dust, a bent grass blade, a torn +leaf-these were guides enough, and following on through bush and swamp +and wood they led him to this mountain, and up the slope he scrambled +breathlessly. At the summit, statue-like, Chocorua stood. He saw the +avenger coming, and knew himself unarmed, but he made no attempt to +escape his doom. Drawing himself erect and stretching forth his hands he +invoked anathema on his enemies in these words: "A curse upon you, white +men! May the Great Spirit curse you when he speaks in the clouds, and his +words are fire! Chocorua had a son and you killed him while the sky +looked bright. Lightning blast your crops! Winds and fire destroy your +dwellings! The Evil One breathe death upon your cattle! Your graves lie +in the war-path of the Indian! Panthers howl and wolves fatten over your +bones! Chocorua goes to the Great Spirit. His curse stays with the white +man." + +The report of Campbell's rifle echoed from the ledges and Chocorua leaped +into the air, plunging to the rocks below. His mangled remains were +afterward found and buried near the Tamworth path. The curse had its +effect, for pestilence and storm devastated the surrounding country and +the smaller settlements were abandoned. Campbell became a morose hermit, +and was found dead in his bed two years afterward. + + + + +PASSACONAWAY'S RIDE TO HEAVEN + +The personality of Passaconaway, the powerful chief and prophet, is +involved in doubt, but there can be no misprision of his wisdom. By some +historians he has been made one with St. Aspenquid, the earliest of +native missionaries among the Indians, who, after his conversion by +French Jesuits, travelled from Maine to the Pacific, preaching to +sixty-six tribes, healing the sick and working miracles, returning to die +at the age of ninety-four. He was buried on the top of Agamenticus, +Maine, where his manes were pacified with offerings of three thousand +slain animals, and where his tombstone stood for a century after, bearing +the legend, "Present, useful; absent, wanted; living, desired; dying, +lamented." + +By others Passaconaway is regarded as a different person. The Child of +the Bear--to English his name--was the chief of the Merrimacs and a +convert of the apostle Eliot. Natives and colonists alike admired him for +his eloquence, his bravery, and his virtue. Before his conversion he was +a reputed wizard who sought by magic arts to repel the invasion of his +woods and mountains by the white men, invoking the spirits of nature +against them from the topmost peak of the Agiochooks, and his native +followers declared that in pursuance of this intent he made water burn, +rocks move, trees dance, and transformed himself into a mass of flame. + +Such was his power over the forces of the earth that he could burn a tree +in winter and from its ashes bring green leaves; he made dead wood +blossom and a farmer's flail to bud, while a snake's skin he could cause +to run. At the age of one hundred and twenty he retired from his tribe +and lived in a lonely wigwam among the Pennacooks. One winter night the +howling of wolves was heard, and a pack came dashing through the village +harnessed by threes to a sledge of hickory saplings that bore a tall +throne spread with furs. The wolves paused at Passaconaway's door. The +old chief came forth, climbed upon the sledge, and was borne away with a +triumphal apostrophe that sounded above the yelping and snarling of his +train. Across Winnepesaukee's frozen surface they sped like the wind, and +the belated hunter shrank aside as he saw the giant towering against the +northern lights and heard his death-song echo from the cliffs. Through +pathless woods, across ravines, the wolves sped on, with never slackened +speed, into the mazes of the Agiochooks to that highest peak we now call +Washington. Up its steep wilderness of snow the ride went furiously; the +summit was neared, the sledge burst into flame, still there was no pause; +the height was gained, the wolves went howling into darkness, but the +car, wrapped in sheaves of fire, shot like a meteor toward the sky and +was lost amid the stars of the winter night. So passed the Indian king to +heaven. + + + + +THE BALL GAME BY THE SACO + +Water-Goblins from the streams about Katahdin had left their birthplace +and journeyed away to the Agiochooks, making their presence known to the +Indians of that region by thefts and loss of life. When the manitou, +Glooskap, learned that these goblins were eating human flesh and +committing other outrages, he took on their own form, turning half his +body into stone, and went in search of them. The wigwam had been pitched +near the Home of the Water Fairies,--a name absurdly changed by the +people of North Conway to Diana's Bath,--and on entering he was invited +to take meat. The tail of a whale was cooked and offered to him, but +after he had taken it upon his knees one of the goblins exclaimed, "That +is too good for a beggar like you," and snatched it away. Glooskap had +merely to wish the return of the dainty when it flew back into his +platter. Then he took the whale's jaw, and snapped it like a reed; he +filled his pipe and burned the tobacco to ashes in one inhalation; when +his hosts closed the wigwam and smoked vigorously, intending to foul the +air and stupefy him, he enjoyed it, while they grew sick; so they +whispered to each other, "This is a mighty magician, and we must try his +powers in another way." + +A game of ball was proposed, and, adjourning to a sandy level at the bend +of the Saco, they began to play, but Glooskap found that the ball was a +hideous skull that rolled and snapped at him and would have torn his +flesh had it not been immortal and immovable from his bones. He crushed +it at a blow, and breaking off the bough of a tree he turned it by a word +into a skull ten times larger than the other that flew after the wicked +people as a wildcat leaps upon a rabbit. Then the god stamped on the +sands and all the springs were opened in the mountains, so that the Saco +came rising through the valley with a roar that made the nations tremble. +The goblins were caught in the flood and swept into the sea, where +Glooskap changed them into fish. + + + + +THE WHITE MOUNTAINS + +From times of old these noble hills have been the scenes of supernatural +visitations and mysterious occurrences. The tallest peak of the +Agiochooks--as they were, in Indian naming--was the seat of God himself, +and the encroachment there of the white man was little liked. Near +Fabyan's was once a mound, since levelled by pick and spade, that was +known as the Giant's Grave. Ethan Allen Crawford, a skilful hunter, +daring explorer, and man of herculean frame, lived, died, and is buried +here, and near the ancient hillock he built one of the first public +houses in the mountains. It was burned. Another, and yet another hostelry +was builded on the site, but they likewise were destroyed by fire. Then +the enterprise was abandoned, for it was remembered that an Indian once +mounted this grave, waved a torch from its top, and cried in a loud +voice, "No pale-face shall take root on this spot. This has the Great +Spirit whispered in my ear." + +Governor Wentworth, while on a lonely tour through his province, found +this cabin of Crawford's and passed a night there, tendering many +compliments to the austere graces of the lady of the house and drinking +himself into the favor of the husband, who proclaimed him the prince of +good fellows. On leaving, the guest exacted of Crawford a visit to +Wolfeborough, where he was to inquire for "Old Wentworth." This visit was +undertaken soon after, and the sturdy frontiersman was dismayed at +finding himself in the house of the royal governor; but his reception was +hearty enough to put him at his ease, and when he returned to the +mountains he carried in his pocket a deed of a thousand acres of forest +about his little farm. The family that he founded became wealthy and +increased, by many an acre, the measure of that royal grant. + +Not far below this spot, in the wildest part of the Notch, shut in by +walls of rock thousands of feet high, is the old Willey House, and this, +too, was the scene of a tragedy, for in 1826 a storm loosened the soil on +Mount Willey and an enormous landslide occurred. The people in the house +rushed forth on hearing the approach of the slide and met death almost at +their door. Had they remained within they would have been unharmed, for +the avalanche was divided by a wedge of rock behind the house, and the +little inn was saved. Seven people are known to have been killed, and it +was rumored that there was another victim in a young man whose name was +unknown and who was walking through the mountains to enjoy their beauty. +The messenger who bore the tidings of the destruction of the family was +barred from reaching North Conway by the flood in the Saco, so he stood +at the brink of the foaming river and rang a peal on a trumpet. This +blast echoing around the hills in the middle of the night roused several +men from their beds to know its meaning. The dog belonging to the inn is +said to have given first notice to people below the Notch that something +was wrong, but his moaning and barking were misunderstood, and after +running back and forth, as if to summon help, he disappeared. At the hour +of the accident James Willey, of Conway, had a dream in which he saw his +dead brother standing by him. He related the story of the catastrophe to +the sleeping man and said that when "the world's last knell" sounded they +were going for safety to the foot of the steep mountain, for the Saco had +risen twenty-four feet in seven hours and threatened to ingulf them in +front. + +Another spot of interest in the Notch is Nancy's Brook. It was at the +point where this stream comes foaming from Mount Nancy into the great +ravine that the girl whose name is given to it was found frozen to death +in a shroud of snow in the fall of 1788. She had set out alone from +Jefferson in search of a young farmer who was to have married her, and +walked thirty miles through trackless snow between sunset and dawn. Then +her strength gave out and she sank beside the road never to rise again. +Her recreant lover went mad with remorse when he learned the manner of +her death and did not long survive her, and men who have traversed the +savage passes of the Notch on chill nights in October have fancied that +they heard, above the clash of the stream and whispering of the woods, +long, shuddering groans mingled with despairing cries and gibbering +laughter. + +The birth of Peabody River came about from a cataclysm of less violent +nature than some of the avalanches that have so scarred the mountains. In +White's "History of New England," Mr. Peabody, for whom the stream is +named, is reported as having taken shelter in an Indian cabin on the +heights where the river has its source. During the night a loud roaring +waked the occupants of the hut and they sprang forth, barely in time to +save their lives; for, hardly had they gained the open ground before a +cavern burst open in the hill and a flood of water gushed out, sweeping +away the shelter and cutting a broad swath through the forest. + +Although the Pilot Mountains are supposed to have taken their name from +the fact that they served as landmarks to hunters who were seeking the +Connecticut River from the Lancaster district, an old story is still told +of one Willard, who was lost amid the defiles of this range, and nearly +perished with hunger. While lying exhausted on the mountainside his dog +would leave him every now and then and return after a couple of hours. +Though Willard was half dead, he determined to use his last strength in +following the animal, and as a result was led by a short cut to his own +camp, where provisions were plenty, and where the intelligent creature +had been going for food. The dog was christened Pilot, in honor of this +service, and the whole range is thought by many to be named in his honor. + +Waternomee Falls, on Hurricane Creek, at Warren, are bordered with rich +moss where fairies used to dance and sing in the moonlight. These sprites +were the reputed children of Indians that had been stolen from their +wigwams and given to eat of fairy bread, that dwarfed and changed them in +a moment. Barring their kidnapping practices the elves were an innocent +and joyous people, and they sought more distant hiding-places in the +wilderness when the stern churchmen and cruel rangers penetrated their +sylvan precincts. + +An old barrack story has it that Lieutenant Chamberlain, who fought under +Lovewell, was pursued along the base of Melvin Peak by Indians and was +almost in their grasp when he reached Ossipee Falls. It seemed as if +there were no alternative between death by the tomahawk and death by a +fall to the rocks below, for the chasm here is eighteen feet wide; but +without stopping to reckon chances he put his strength into a running +jump, and to the amazement of those in pursuit and perhaps to his own +surprise he cleared the gap and escaped into the woods. The foremost of +the Indians attempted the leap, but plunged to his death in the ravine. + +The Eagle Range was said to be the abode, two hundred years ago, of a man +of strange and venerable appearance, whom the Indians regarded with +superstitious awe and never tried to molest. He slept in a cave on the +south slope and ranged the forest in search of game, muttering and +gesturing to himself. He is thought to be identified with Thomas Crager, +whose wife had been hanged in Salem as a witch, and whose only child had +been stolen by Indians. After a long, vain search for the little one he +gave way to a bitter moroseness, and avoided the habitations of civilized +man and savages alike. It is a satisfaction to know that before he died +he found his daughter, though she was the squaw of an Indian hunter and +was living with his tribe on the shore of the St. Lawrence. + + + + +THE VISION ON MOUNT ADAMS + +There are many traditions connected with Mount Adams that have faded out +of memory. Old people remember that in their childhood there was talk of +the discovery of a magic stone; of an Indian's skeleton that appeared in +a speaking storm; of a fortune-teller that set off on a midnight quest, +far up among the crags and eyries. In October, 1765, a detachment of nine +of Rogers's Rangers began the return from a Canadian foray, bearing with +them plate, candlesticks, and a silver statue that they had rifled from +the Church of St. Francis. An Indian who had undertaken to guide the +party through the Notch proved faithless, and led them among labyrinthine +gorges to the head of Israel's River, where he disappeared, after +poisoning one of the troopers with a rattlesnake's fang. Losing all +reckoning, the Rangers tramped hither and thither among the snowy hills +and sank down, one by one, to die in the wilderness, a sole survivor +reaching a settlement after many days, with his knapsack filled with +human flesh. + +In 1816 the candlesticks were recovered near Lake Memphremagog, but the +statue has never been laid hold upon. The spirits of the famished men +were wont, for many winters, to cry in the woods, and once a hunter, +camped on the side of Mount Adams, was awakened at midnight by the notes +of an organ. The mists were rolling off, and he found that he had gone to +sleep near a mighty church of stone that shone in soft light. The doors +were flung back, showing a tribe of Indians kneeling within. Candles +sparkled on the altar, shooting their rays through clouds of incense, and +the rocks shook with thunder-gusts of music. Suddenly church, lights, +worshippers vanished, and from the mists came forth a line of uncouth +forms, marching in silence. As they started to descend the mountain a +silver image, floating in the air, spread a pair of gleaming pinions and +took flight, disappearing in the chaos of battlemented rocks above. + + + + +THE GREAT CARBUNCLE + +High on the eastern face of Mount Monroe shone the Great Carbuncle, its +flash scintillating for miles by day, its dusky crimson glowing among the +ledges at night. The red men said that it hung in the air, and that the +soul of an Indian--killed, that he might guard the spot--made approach +perilous to men of all complexions and purposes. As late as Ethan +Crawford's time one search band took a "good man" to lay the watcher, +when they strove to scale the height, but they returned "sorely bruised, +treasureless, and not even saw that wonderful sight." The value of the +stone tempted many, but those who sought it had to toil through a dense +forest, and on arriving at the mountain found its glories eclipsed by +intervening abutments, nor could they get near it. Rocks covered with +crystals, at first thought to be diamonds, were readily despoiled of +their treasure, but the Great Carbuncle burned on, two thousand feet +above them, at the head of the awful chasm of Oakes Gulf, and baffled +seekers likened it to the glare of an evil eye. + +There was one who had grown old in searching for this gem, often +scrambling over the range in wind and snow and cloud, and at last he +reached a precipitous spot he had never attained before. Great was his +joy, for the Carbuncle was within his reach, blazing into his eyes in the +noon sunlight as if it held, crystallized in its depths, the brightness +of all the wine that had ever gladdened the tired hearts of men. There +were rivals in the search, and on reaching the plateau they looked up and +saw him kneeling on a narrow ledge with arms extended as in rapture. They +called to him. He answered not. He was dead--dead of joy and triumph. +While they looked a portion of the crag above him fell away and rolled +from rock to rock, marking its course with flashes of bloody fire, until +it reached the Lake of the Clouds, and the waters of that tarn drowned +its glory. Yet those waters are not always black, and sometimes the +hooked crest of Mount Monroe is outlined against the night sky in a ruddy +glow. + + + + +SKINNER'S CAVE + +The abhorrence to paying taxes and duties--or any other levy from which +an immediate and personal good is not promised--is too deeply rooted in +human nature to be affected by statutes, and whenever it is possible to +buy commodities that have escaped the observation of the revenue officers +many are tempted to do so for the mere pleasure of defying the law. In +the early part of this century the northern farmers and their wives were, +in a way, providing themselves with laces, silver-ware, brandy, and other +protected and dreadful articles, on which it was evident that somebody +had forgotten to pay duty. The customs authorities on the American side +of the border were long puzzled by the irruption of these forbidden +things, but suspicion ultimately fell on a fellow of gigantic size, named +Skinner. + +It was believed that this outlaw carried on the crime of free trade after +sunset, hiding his merchandise by day on the islands of Lake +Memphremagog. This delightful sheet of water lies half in Canada and half +in Vermont--agreeably to the purpose of such as he. Province Island is +still believed to contain buried treasure, but the rock that contains +Skinner's Cave was the smuggler's usual haunt, and when pursued he rowed +to this spot and effected a disappearance, because he entered the cave on +the northwest side, where it was masked by shrubbery. One night the +officers landed on this island after he had gone into hiding, and after +diligent search discovered his boat drawn up in a covert. They pushed it +into the lake, where the winds sent it adrift, and, his communication +with the shore thus cut off, the outlaw perished miserably of hunger. His +skeleton was found in the cavern some years later. + + + + +YET THEY CALL IT LOVER'S LEAP + +In the lower part of the township of Cavendish, Vermont, the Black River +seeks a lower level through a gorge in the foot-hills of the Green +Mountains. The scenery here is romantic and impressive, for the river +makes its way along the ravine in a series of falls and rapids that are +overhung by trees and ledges, while the geologist finds something worth +looking at in the caves and pot-holes that indicate an older level of the +river. At a turn in the ravine rises the sheer precipice of Lover's Leap. +It is a vertical descent of about eighty feet, the water swirling at its +foot in a black and angry maelstrom. It is a spot whence lovers might +easily step into eternity, were they so disposed, and the name fits +delightfully into the wild and somber scene; but ask any good villager +thereabout to relate the legend of the place and he will tell you this: + +About forty years ago a couple of young farmers went to the Leap--which +then had no name--to pry out some blocks of the schistose rock for a +foundation wall. They found a good exposure of the rock beneath the turf +and began to quarry it. In the earnestness of the work one of the men +forgot that he was standing on the verge of a precipice, and through a +slip of his crowbar he lost his balance and went reeling into the gulf. +His horrified companion crept to the edge, expecting to see his mangled +corpse tossing in the whirlpool, but, to his amazement, the unfortunate +was crawling up the face of a huge table of stone that had fallen from +the opposite wall and lay canted against it. + +"Hello!" shouted the man overhead. "Are you hurt much?" + +The victim of the accident slowly got upon his feet, felt cautiously of +his legs and ribs, and began to search through his pockets, his face +betraying an anxiety that grew deeper and deeper as the search went on. +In due time the answer came back, deliberate, sad, and nasal, but +distinct above the roar of the torrent: "Waal, I ain't hurt much, but +I'll be durned if I haven't lost my jack-knife!" + +And he was pulled out of the gorge without it. + + + + +SALEM AND OTHER WITCHCRAFT + +The extraordinary delusion recorded as Salem witchcraft was but a +reflection of a kindred insanity in the Old World that was not extirpated +until its victims had been counted by thousands. That human beings should +be accused of leaguing themselves with Satan to plague their fellows and +overthrow the powers of righteousness is remarkable, but that they should +admit their guilt is incomprehensible, albeit the history of every +popular delusion shows that weak minds are so affected as to lose control +of themselves and that a whimsey can be as epidemic as small-pox. + +Such was the case in 1692 when the witchcraft madness, which might have +been stayed by a seasonable spanking, broke out in Danvers, +Massachusetts, the first victim being a wild Irishwoman, named Glover, +and speedily involved the neighboring community of Salem. The mischiefs +done by witches were usually trifling, and it never occurred to their +prosecutors that there was an inconsistency between their pretended +powers and their feeble deeds, or that it was strange that those who +might live in regal luxury should be so wretchedly poor. Aches and pains, +blight of crops, disease of cattle, were charged to them; children +complained of being pricked with thorns and pins (the pins are still +preserved in Salem), and if hysterical girls spoke the name of any feeble +old woman, while in flighty talk, they virtually sentenced her to die. +The word of a child of eleven years sufficed to hang, burn, or drown a +witch. + +Giles Corey, a blameless man of eighty, was condemned to the mediaeval +_peine forte et dure_, his body being crushed beneath a load of rocks and +timbers. He refused to plead in court, and when the beams were laid upon +him he only cried, "More weight!" The shade of the unhappy victim haunted +the scene of his execution for years, and always came to warn the people +of calamities. A child of five and a dog were also hanged after formal +condemnation. Gallows Hill, near Salem, witnessed many sad tragedies, and +the old elm that stood on Boston Common until 1876 was said to have +served as a gallows for witches and Quakers. The accuser of one day was +the prisoner of the next, and not even the clergy were safe. + +A few escapes were made, like that of a blue-eyed maid of Wenham, whose +lover aided her to break the wooden jail and carried her safely beyond +the Merrimac, finding a home for her among the Quakers; and that of Miss +Wheeler, of Salem, who had fallen under suspicion, and whose brothers +hurried her into a boat, rowed around Cape Ann, and safely bestowed her +in "the witch house" at Pigeon Cove. Many, however, fled to other towns +rather than run the risk of accusation, which commonly meant death. + +When the wife of Philip English was arrested he, too, asked to share her +fate, and both were, through friendly intercession, removed to Boston, +where they were allowed to have their liberty by day on condition that +they would go to jail every night. Just before they were to be taken back +to Salem for trial they went to church and heard the Rev. Joshua Moody +preach from the text, "If they persecute you in one city, flee unto +another." The good clergyman not only preached goodness, but practised +it, and that night the door of their prison was opened. Furnished with an +introduction from Governor Phipps to Governor Fletcher, of New York, they +made their way to that settlement, and remained there in safe and +courteous keeping until the people of Salem had regained their senses, +when they returned. Mrs. English died, soon after, from the effects of +cruelty and anxiety, and although Mr. Moody was generally commended for +his substitution of sense and justice for law, there were bigots who +persecuted him so constantly that he removed to Plymouth. + +According to the belief of the time a witch or wizard compacted with +Satan for the gift of supernatural power, and in return was to give up +his soul to the evil one after his life was over. The deed was signed in +blood of the witch and horrible ceremonies confirmed the compact. Satan +then gave his ally a familiar in the form of a dog, ape, cat, or other +animal, usually small and black, and sometimes an undisguised imp. To +suckle these "familiars" with the blood of a witch was forbidden in +English law, which ranked it as a felony; but they were thus nourished in +secret, and by their aid the witch might raise storms, blight crops, +abort births, lame cattle, topple over houses, and cause pains, +convulsions, and illness. If she desired to hurt a person she made a clay +or waxen image in his likeness, and the harms and indignities wreaked on +the puppet would be suffered by the one bewitched, a knife or needle +thrust in the waxen body being felt acutely by the living one, no matter +how far distant he might be. By placing this image in running water, hot +sunshine, or near a fire, the living flesh would waste as this melted or +dissolved, and the person thus wrought upon would die. This belief is +still current among negroes affected by the voodoo superstitions of the +South. The witch, too, had the power of riding winds, usually with a +broomstick for a conveyance, after she had smeared the broom or herself +with magic ointment, and the flocking of the unhallowed to their sabbaths +in snaky bogs or on lonely mountain tops has been described minutely by +those who claim to have seen the sight. Sometimes they cackled and +gibbered through the night before the houses of the clergy, and it was +only at Christmas that their power failed them. The meetings were devoted +to wild and obscene orgies, and the intercourse of fiends and witches +begot a progeny of toads and snakes. + +Naturally the Indians were accused, for they recognized the existence of +both good and evil spirits, their medicine-men cured by incantations in +the belief that devils were thus driven out of their patients, and in the +early history of the country the red man was credited by white settlers +with powers hardly inferior to those of the oriental and European +magicians of the middle ages. Cotton Mather detected a relation between +Satan and the Indians, and he declares that certain of the Algonquins +were trained from boyhood as powahs, powwows, or wizards, acquiring +powers of second sight and communion with gods and spirits through +abstinence from food and sleep and the observance of rites. Their severe +discipline made them victims of nervous excitement and the +responsibilities of conjuration had on their minds an effect similar to +that produced by gases from the rift in Delphos on the Apollonian +oracles, their manifestations of insanity or frenzy passing for deific or +infernal possession. When John Gibb, a Scotchman, who had gone mad +through religious excitement, was shipped to this country by his tired +fellow-countrymen, the Indians hailed him as a more powerful wizard than +any of their number, and he died in 1720, admired and feared by them +because of the familiarity with spirits out of Hobbomocko (hell) that his +ravings and antics were supposed to indicate. Two Indian servants of the +Reverend Mr. Purvis, of Salem, having tried by a spell to discover a +witch, were executed as witches themselves. The savages, who took Salem +witchcraft at its worth, were astonished at its deadly effect, and the +English may have lost some influence over the natives in consequence of +this madness. "The Great Spirit sends no witches to the French," they +said. Barrow Hill, near Amesbury, was said to be the meeting-place for +Indian powwows and witches, and at late hours of the night the light of +fires gleamed from its top, while shadowy forms glanced athwart it. Old +men say that the lights are still there in winter, though modern doubters +declare that they were the aurora borealis. + +But the belief in witches did not die even when the Salem people came to +their senses. In the Merrimac valley the devil found converts for many +years after: Goody Mose, of Rocks village, who tumbled down-stairs when a +big beetle was killed at an evening party, some miles away, after it had +been bumping into the faces of the company; Goody Whitcher, of Ameshury, +whose loom kept banging day and night after she was dead; Goody Sloper, +of West Newbury, who went home lame directly that a man had struck his +axe into the beam of a house that she had bewitched, but who recovered +her strength and established an improved reputation when, in 1794, she +swam out to a capsized boat and rescued two of the people who were in +peril; Goodman Nichols, of Rocks village, who "spelled" a neighbor's son, +compelling him to run up one end of the house, along the ridge, and down +the other end, "troubling the family extremely by his strange +proceedings;" Susie Martin, also of Rocks, who was hanged in spite of her +devotions in jail, though the rope danced so that it could not be tied, +but a crow overhead called for a withe and the law was executed with +that; and Goody Morse, of Market and High Streets, Newburyport, whose +baskets and pots danced through her house continually and who was seen +"flying about the sun as if she had been cut in twain, or as if the devil +did hide the lower part of her." The hill below Easton, Pennsylvania, +called Hexenkopf (Witch's head), was described by German settlers as a +place of nightly gathering for weird women, who whirled about its top in +"linked dances" and sang in deep tones mingled with awful laughter. After +one of these women, in Williams township, had been punished for +enchanting a twenty-dollar horse, their sabbaths were held more quietly. +Mom Rinkle, whose "rock" is pointed out beside the Wissahickon, in +Philadelphia, "drank dew from acorn-cups and had the evil eye." Juan +Perea, of San Mateo, New Mexico, would fly with his chums to meetings in +the mountains in the shape of a fire-ball. During these sallies he left +his own eyes at home and wore those of some brute animal. It was because +his dog ate his eyes when he had carelessly put them on a table that he +had always afterward to wear those of a cat. Within the present century +an old woman who lived in a hut on the Palisades of the Hudson was held +to be responsible for local storms and accidents. As late as 1889 two +Zuni Indians were hanged on the wall of an old Spanish church near their +pueblo in Arizona on a charge of having blown away the rainclouds in a +time of drouth. It was held that there was something uncanny in the event +that gave the name of Gallows Hill to an eminence near Falls Village, +Connecticut, for a strange black man was found hanging, dead, to a tree +near its top one morning. + +Moll Pitcher, a successful sorcerer and fortune-teller of old Lynn, has +figured in obsolete poems, plays, and romances. She lived in a cottage at +the foot of High Rock, where she was consulted, not merely by people of +respectability, but by those who had knavish schemes to prosecute and who +wanted to learn in advance the outcome of their designs. Many a ship was +deserted at the hour of sailing because she boded evil of the voyage. She +was of medium height, big-headed, tangle-haired, long-nosed, and had a +searching black eye. The sticks that she carried were cut from a hazel +that hung athwart a brook where an unwedded mother had drowned her child. +A girl who went to her for news of her lover lost her reason when the +witch, moved by a malignant impulse, described his death in a fiercely +dramatic manner. One day the missing ship came bowling into port, and the +shock of joy that the girl experienced when the sailor clasped her in his +arms restored her erring senses. When Moll Pitcher died she was attended +by the little daughter of the woman she had so afflicted. + +John, or Edward, Dimond, grandfather of Moll Pitcher, was a benevolent +wizard. When vessels were trying to enter the port of Marblehead in a +heavy gale or at night, their crews were startled to hear a trumpet voice +pealing from the skies, plainly audible above the howling and hissing of +any tempest, telling them how to lay their course so as to reach smooth +water. This was the voice of Dimond, speaking from his station, miles +away in the village cemetery. He always repaired to this place in +troublous weather and shouted orders to the ships that were made visible +to him by mystic power as he strode to and fro among the graves. When +thieves came to him for advice he charmed them and made them take back +their plunder or caused them to tramp helplessly about the streets +bearing heavy burdens. + +"Old Mammy Redd, of Marblehead, Sweet milk could turn to mould in churn." + +Being a witch, and a notorious one, she could likewise curdle the milk as +it came from the cow, and afterward transform it into blue wool. She had +the evil eye, and, if she willed, her glance or touch could blight like +palsy. It only needed that she should wish a bloody cleaver to be found +in a cradle to cause the little occupant to die, while the whole town +ascribed to her the annoyances of daily housework and business. Her +unpleasant celebrity led to her death at the hands of her fellow-citizens +who had been "worrited" by no end of queer happenings: ships had appeared +just before they were wrecked and had vanished while people looked at +them; men were seen walking on the water after they had been comfortably +buried; the wind was heard to name the sailors doomed never to return; +footsteps and voices were heard in the streets before the great were to +die; one man was chased by a corpse in its coffin; another was pursued by +the devil in a carriage drawn by four white horses; a young woman who had +just received a present of some fine fish from her lover was amazed to +see him melt into the air, and was heart-broken when she learned next +morning that he had died at sea. So far away as Amesbury the devil's +power was shown by the appearance of a man who walked the roads carrying +his head under his arm, and by the freak of a windmill that the miller +always used to shut up at sundown but that started by itself at midnight. +Evidently it was high time to be rid of Mammy Redd. + +Margaret Wesson, "old Meg," lived in Gloucester until she came to her +death by a shot fired at the siege of Louisburg, five hundred miles away, +in 1745. Two soldiers of Gloucester, while before the walls of the French +town, were annoyed by a crow, that flew over and around them, cawing +harshly and disregarding stones and shot, until it occurred to them that +the bird could be no other than old Meg in another form, and, as silver +bullets are an esteemed antidote for the evils of witchcraft, they cut +two silver buttons from their uniforms and fired them at the crow. At the +first shot its leg was broken; at the second, it fell dead. On returning +to Gloucester they learned that old Meg had fallen and broken her leg at +the moment when the crow was fired on, and that she died quickly after. +An examination of her body was made, and the identical buttons were +extracted from her flesh that had been shot into the crow at Louisburg. + +As a citizen of New Haven was riding home--this was at the time of the +goings on at Salem--he saw shapes of women near his horse's head, +whispering earnestly together and keeping time with the trot of his +animal without effort of their own. "In the name of God, tell me who you +are," cried the traveller, and at the name of God they vanished. Next day +the man's orchard was shaken by viewless hands and the fruit thrown down. +Hogs ran about the neighborhood on their hind legs; children cried that +somebody was sticking pins into them; one man would roll across the floor +as if pushed, and he had to be watched lest he should go into the fire; +when housewives made their bread they found it as full of hair as food in +a city boarding-house; when they made soft soap it ran from the kettle +and over the floor like lava; stones fell down chimneys and smashed +crockery. One of the farmers cut off an ear from a pig that was walking +on its hind legs, and an eccentric old body of the neighborhood appeared +presently with one of her ears in a muffle, thus satisfying that +community that she had caused the troubles. When a woman was making +potash it began to leap about, and a rifle was fired into the pot, +causing a sudden calm. In the morning the witch was found dead on her +floor. Yet killing only made her worse, for she moved to a deserted house +near her own, and there kept a mad revel every night; fiddles were heard, +lights flashed, stones were thrown, and yells gave people at a distance a +series of cold shivers; but the populace tried the effect of tearing down +the house, and quiet was brought to the town. + +In the early days of this century a skinny old woman known as Aunt +Woodward lived by herself in a log cabin at Minot Corner, Maine, enjoying +the awe of the people in that secluded burg. They moved around but little +at night, on her account, and one poor girl was in mortal fear lest by +mysterious arts she should be changed, between two days, into a white +horse. One citizen kept her away from his house by nailing a horseshoe to +his door, while another took the force out of her spells by keeping a +branch of "round wood" at his threshold. At night she haunted a big, +square house where the ghost of a murdered infant was often heard to cry, +and by day she laid charms on her neighbors' provisions and utensils, and +turned their cream to buttermilk. "Uncle" Blaisdell hurried into the +settlement to tell the farmers that Aunt Woodward had climbed into his +sled in the middle of the road, and that his four yoke of oxen could not +stir it an inch, but that after she had leaped down one yoke of cattle +drew the load of wood without an effort. Yet she died in her bed. + + + + +THE GLOUCESTER LEAGUERS + +Strange things had been reported in Gloucester. On the eve of King +Philip's War the march of men was heard in its streets and an Indian bow +and scalp were seen on the face of the moon, while the boom of cannon and +roll of drums were heard at Malden and the windows of Plymouth rattled to +the passage of unseen horsemen. But the strangest thing was the arrival +on Cape Ann of a force of French and Indians that never could be caught, +killed, or crippled, though two regiments were hurried into Gloucester +and battled with them for a fortnight. Thus, the rumor went around that +these were not an enemy of flesh and blood, but devils who hoped to work +a moral perversion of the colony. From 1692, when they appeared, until +Salem witchcraft was at an end, Cape Ann was under military and spiritual +guard against "the spectre leaguers." + +Another version of the episode, based on sworn evidence, has it that +Ebenezer Babson, returning late on a summer night, saw two men run from +his door and vanish in a field. His family denied that visitors had +called, so he gave chase, for he believed the men to have a mischievous +intention. As he left the threshold they sprang from behind a log, one +saying to the other, "The master of the house is now come, else we might +have taken the house," and again they disappeared in a swamp. Babson woke +the guard, and on entering the quarters of the garrison the sound of many +feet was heard without, but when the doors were flung open only the two +men were visible and they were retreating. Next evening the yeoman was +chased by these elusive gentry, who were believed to be scouts of the +enemy, for they wore white breeches and waistcoats and carried bright +guns. + +For several nights they appeared, and on the 4th of July half a dozen of +them were seen so plainly that the soldiers made a sally, Babson bringing +three of "ye unaccountable troublers" to the ground with a single shot, +and getting a response in kind, for a bullet hissed by his ear and buried +itself in a tree. When the company approached the place where lay the +victims of that remarkable shot, behold, they arose and scampered away as +blithely as if naught had happened to them. One of the trio was cornered +and shot anew, but when they would pick him up he melted into air. There +was fierce jabbering in an unknown tongue, through all the swamp, and by +the time the garrison had returned the fellows were skulking in the +shrubbery again. Richard Dolliver afterward came on eleven of them +engaged in incantations and scattered them with a gunshot, but they would +not down. They lurked about the cape until terror fell on all the people, +remaining for "the best part of a month together," so it was deemed that +"Satan had set ambushments against the good people of Gloucester, with +demons in the shape of armed Indians and Frenchmen." + +Stones were thrown, barns were beaten with clubs, the marching of unseen +hosts was heard after dark, the mockers grew so bold that they ventured +close to the redoubtable Babson, gazed scornfully down the barrel of his +gun, and laid a charm on the weapon, so that, no matter how often he +snapped it at them, it flashed in the pan. Neighboring garrisons were +summoned, but all battling with goblins was fruitless. One night a dark +and hostile throng emerged from the wood and moved toward the blockhouse, +where twenty musketeers were keeping guard. "If you be ghosts or devils I +will foil you," cried the captain, and tearing a silver button from his +doublet he rammed it into his gun and fired on the advancing host. Even +as the smoke of his musket was blown on the wind, so did the beleaguering +army vanish, the silver bullet proving that they were not of human kind. +The night was wearing on when a cry went out that the devils were coming +again. Arms were laid aside this time, and the watchers sank to their +knees in prayer. Directly that the name of God was uttered the marching +ceased and heaven rang with the howls of the angry fiends. Never again +were leaguers seen in Gloucester. + + + + +SATAN AND HIS BURIAL-PLACE + +Satan appears to have troubled the early settlers in America almost as +grievously as he did the German students. He came in many shapes to many +people, and sometimes he met his match. Did he not try to stop old Peter +Stuyvesant from rowing through Hell Gate one moonlight night, and did not +that tough old soldier put something at his shoulder that Satan thought +must be his wooden leg? But it wasn't a leg: it was a gun, loaded with a +silver bullet that had been charged home with prayer. Peter fired and the +missile whistled off to Ward's Island, where three boys found it +afterward and swapped it for double handfuls of doughnuts and bulls' +eyes. Incidentally it passed between the devil's ribs and the fiend +exploded with a yell and a smell, the latter of sulphur, to Peter's +blended satisfaction and alarm. And did not the same spirit of evil +plague the old women of Massachusetts Bay and craze the French and +Spaniards in the South? At Hog Rock, west of Milford, Connecticut, he +broke up a pleasant diversion: + + "Once four young men upon ye rock + Sate down at chuffle board to play + When ye Deuill appearde in shape of a hogg + And frightend ym so they scampered away + And left Old Nick to finish ye play." + +One of the first buildings to be put up in Ipswich, Massachusetts, was a +church built on a ledge above the river, and in that church Satan tried +to conceal himself for purposes of mischief. For this act he was hurled +from the steeple-top by some unseen instrument of righteousness with such +force that his hoofmark was stamped into a solid stone near by. This did +not deter him from mounting to the ridge-pole and assuming a defiant air, +with folded arms, when Whitefield began to preach, but when that +clergyman's tremendous voice was loosed below him he bounced into the air +in terror and disappeared. + +The Shakers report that in the waning of the eighteenth century they +chased the evil one through the coverts of Mount Sinai, Massachusetts, +and just before dawn of a summer morning they caught and killed and +buried him. Shakers are spiritualists, and they believe their numbers to +have been augmented by distinguished dead, among whom they already number +Washington, Lafayette, Napoleon, Tamerlane, and Pocahontas. The two first +named of these posthumous communists are still seen by members of the +faith who pass Satan's grave at night, for they sit astride of white +horses and watch the burial spot, lest the enemy of man arise and begin +anew his career of trouble. Some members of the brotherhood say that this +legend typifies a burial of evil tendencies in the hearts of those who +hunted the fiend, but it has passed down among others as a circumstance. +The Shakers have many mystic records, transmitted verbally to the present +disciples of "Mother Ann," but seldom told to scoffers "in the world," as +those are called who live without their pure and peaceful communes. Among +these records is that of the appearance of John the Baptist in the +meeting-house at Mount Lebanon, New York, one Sunday, clothed in light +and leading the sacred dance of the worshippers, by which they signify +the shaking out of all carnal things from the heart. + + + + +PETER RUGG, THE MISSING MAN + +The idea of long wandering as a penalty, symbolized in "The Wandering +Jew," "The Flying Dutchman," and the character of Kundry, in "Parsifal," +has application in the legend of Peter Rugg. This strange man, who lived +in Middle Street, Boston, with his wife and daughter, was esteemed, as a +person of probity and good manners except in his swearing fits, for he +was subject to outbursts of passion, when he would kick his way through +doors instead of opening them, bite tenpenny nails in two, and curse his +wig off In the autumn of 1770 he visited Concord, with his little girl, +and on the way home was overtaken by a violent storm. He took shelter +with a friend at Menotomy, who urged him to stay all night, for the rain +was falling heavier every moment; but Rugg would not be stayed, and +seeing that there was no hope of a dry journey back to town he roared a +fearful oath and cried, "Let the storm increase. I will see home to-night +in spite of it, or may I never see home!" With that he tossed the child +into the open chaise, leaped in after her, lashed his horse, and was off. + +Several nights afterward, while Rugg's neighbors were out with lanterns +trying to discover the cause of a heavy jarring that had begun to disturb +them in bad weather, the excitable gentleman, who had not been seen since +his Concord visit, came whirling along the pavement in his carriage, his +daughter beside him, his black horse plunging on in spite of his efforts +to stop him. The lanterns that for a moment twinkled in Peter's face +showed him as a wet and weary man, with eyes turned up longingly at the +windows where his wife awaited him; then he was gone, and the ground +trembled as with an earthquake, while the rain fell more heavily. + +Mrs. Rugg died within a twelvemonth, and Peter never reached home, but +from all parts of New England came stories of a man and child driving +rapidly along the highways, never stopping except to inquire the way to +Boston. Half of the time the man would be headed in a direction opposite +to the one he seemed to want to follow, and when set right would cry that +he was being deceived, and was sometimes heard to mutter, "No home +to-night." In Hartford, Providence, Newburyport, and among the New +Hampshire hills the anxious face of the man became known, and he was +referred to as "the stormbreeder," for so surely as he passed there would +be rain, wind, lightning, thunder, and darkness within the hour. + +Some years ago a man in a Connecticut town stopped this hurrying +traveller, who said, in reply to a question, "I have lost the road to +Boston. My name is Peter Rugg." Then Rugg's disappearance half a century +before was cited by those who had long memories, and people began to look +askant at Peter and gave him generous road room when they met him. The +toll-taker on Charlestown bridge declared that he had been annoyed and +alarmed by a prodigious tramping of hoofs and rattling of wheels that +seemed to pass toward Boston before his very face, yet he could see +nothing. He took courage one night to plant himself in the middle of the +bridge with a three-legged stool, and when the sound approached he dimly +saw a large black horse driven by a weary looking man with a child beside +him. The stool was flung at the horse's head, but passed through the +animal as through smoke and skipped across the floor of the bridge. Thus +much the toll-collector said, but when asked if Rugg had appeared again +he made no reply. + + + + +THE LOSS OF WEETAMOO + +Winnepurkit, sagamore of the coast settlements between Nahant and Cape +Ann, had married Weetamoo, daughter of Passaconaway, king of the +Pennacooks, and had taken her to his home. Their honeymoon was happy, but +old ties are strong, and after a little time the bride felt a longing to +see her people again. When she made known this wish the husband not only +consented to her visit, but gave her a guard of his most trusty hunters +who saw her safe in her father's lodge (near the site of Concord, New +Hampshire), and returned directly. Presently came a messenger from +Passaconaway, informing his son-in-law that Weetamoo had finished her +visit and wished again to be with her husband, to whom he looked for an +escort to guide her through the wilderness. Winnepurkit felt that his +dignity as a chief was slighted by this last request, and he replied that +as he had supplied her with a guard for the outward journey it was her +father's place to send her back, "for it stood not with Winnepurkit's +reputation either to make himself or his men so servile as to fetch her +again." + +Passaconaway returned a sharp answer that irritated Winnepurkit still +more, and he was told by the young sagamore that he might send his +daughter or keep her, for she would never be sent for. In this unhappy +strife for precedent, which has been repeated on later occasions by +princes and society persons, the young wife seemed to be fated as an +unwilling sacrifice; but summoning spirit to leave her father's wigwam +she launched a canoe on the Merrimack, hoping to make her way along that +watery highway to her husband's domain. It was winter, and the stream was +full of floating ice; at the best of times it was not easy to keep a +frail vessel of bark in the current away from the rapids, and a wandering +hunter reported that a canoe had come down the river guided by a woman, +that it had swung against the Amoskeag rocks, where Manchester stands +now, and a few moments later was in a quieter reach of water, broken and +empty. No more was seen of Weetamoo. + + + + +THE FATAL FORGET-ME-NOT + +Three miles out from the Nahant shore, Massachusetts, rises Egg Rock, a +dome of granite topped by a light-house. In the last century the +forget-me-nots that grew in a little marsh at its summit were much +esteemed, for it was reported that if a girl should receive one of these +little flowers from her lover the two would be faithful to each other +through all their married life. It was before a temporary separation that +a certain young couple strolled together on the Nahant cliffs. The man +was to sail for Italy next day, to urge parental consent to their union. +As he looked dreamily into the sea the legend of the forget-me-not came +into his mind, and in a playful tone he offered to gather a bunch as a +memento. Unthinkingly the girl consented. He ran down the cliff to his +boat, pushed out, and headed toward the rock, but a fisherman shouted +that a gale was rising and the tide was coming in; indeed, the horizon +was whitening and the rote was growing plain. + +Alice had heard the cry of warning and would have called him back, but +she was forsaken by the power of speech, and watched, with pale face and +straining eyes, the boat beating smartly across the surges. It was seen +to reach Egg Rock, and after a lapse came dancing toward the shore again; +but the tide, was now swirling in rapidly, the waves were running high, +and the wind freshened as the sun sank. At times the boat was out of +sight in the hollowed water, and as it neared Nahant it became +unmanageable. Apparently it had filled with water and the tiller-rope had +broken. Nothing could be done by the spectators who had gathered on the +rocks, except to shout directions that were futile, even if they could be +heard. At last the boat was lifted by a breaker and hurled against a mass +of granite at the very feet of the man's mistress. When the body was +recovered next day, a bunch of forget-me-not was clasped in the rigid +hand. + + + + +THE OLD MILL AT SOMERVILLE + +The "old powder-house," as the round stone tower is called that stands on +a gravel ridge in Somerville, Massachusetts, is so named because at the +outbreak of the Revolutionary War it was used temporarily as a magazine; +but long before that it was a wind-mill. Here in the old days two lovers +held their tryst: a sturdy and honest young farmer of the neighborhood +and the daughter of a man whose wealth puffed him with purse-pride. It +was the plebeian state of the farmer that made him look at him with an +unfavorable countenance, and when it was whispered to him that the young +people were meeting each other almost every evening at the mill, he +resolved to surprise them there and humiliate, if he did not punish them. +From the shadow of the door they saw his approach, and, yielding to the +girl's imploring, the lover secreted himself while she climbed to the +loft. The flutter of her dress caught the old man's eye and he hastened, +panting, into the mill. For some moments he groped about, for his eyes +had not grown used to the darkness of the place, and hearing his muttered +oaths, the girl crept backward from the stair. + +She was beginning to hope that she had not been seen, when her foot +caught in a loose board and she stumbled, but in her fall she threw out +her hand to save herself and found a rope within her grasp. Directly that +her weight had been applied to it there was a whir and a clank. The cord +had set the great fans in motion. At the same moment a fall was heard, +then a cry, passing from anger into anguish. She rushed down the stair, +the lover appeared from his hiding-place at the same moment, and together +they dragged the old man to his feet. At the moment when the wind had +started the sails he had been standing on one of the mill-stones and the +sudden jerk had thrown him down. His arm caught between the grinding +surfaces and had been crushed to pulp. He was carried home and tenderly +nursed, but he did not live long; yet before he died he was made to see +the folly of his course, and he consented to the marriage that it had +cost him so dear to try to prevent. Before she could summon heart to fix +the wedding-day the girl passed many months of grief and repentance, and +for the rest of her life she avoided the old mill. There was good reason +for doing so, people said, for on windy nights the spirit of the old man +used to haunt the place, using such profanity that it became visible in +the form of blue lights, dancing and exploding about the building. + + + + +EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT + +Nothing is left of Province House, the old home of the royal governors, +in Boston, but the gilded Indian that served as its weathercock and aimed +his arrow at the winds from the cupola. The house itself was swept away +long ago in the so-called march of improvement. In one of its rooms hung +a picture so dark that when Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson went to live +there hardly anybody could say what it represented. There were hints that +it was a portrait of the devil, painted at a witch-meeting near Salem, +and that on the eve of disasters in the province a dreadful face had +glared from the canvas. Shirley had seen it on the night of the fall of +Ticonderoga, and servants had gone shuddering from the room, certain that +they had caught the glance of a malignant eye. + +It was known to the governors, however, that the portrait, if not that of +the arch fiend, was that of one who in the popular mind was none the less +a devil: Edward Randolph, the traitor, who had repealed the first +provincial charter and deprived the colonists of their liberties. Under +the curse of the people he grew pale and pinched and ugly, his face at +last becoming so hateful that men were unwilling to look at it. Then it +was that he sat for his portrait. Threescore or odd years afterward, +Hutchinson sat in the hall wondering vaguely if coming events would +consign him to the obloquy that had fallen on his predecessor, for at his +bidding a fleet had come into the harbor with three regiments of red +coats on board, despatched from Halifax to overawe the city. The coming +of the selectmen to protest against quartering these troops on the people +and the substitution of martial for civic law, interrupted his reverie, +and a warm debate arose. At last the governor seized his pen impatiently, +and cried, "The king is my master and England is my home. Upheld by them, +I defy the rabble." + +He was about to sign the order for bringing in the troops when a curtain +that had hung before the picture was drawn aside. Hutchinson stared at +the canvas in amazement, then muttered, "It is Randolph's spirit! It +wears the look of hell." The picture was seen to be that of a man in +antique garb, with a despairing, hunted, yet evil expression in the face, +and seemed to stare at Hutchinson. + +"It is a warning," said one of the company. + +Hutchinson recovered himself with an effort and turned away. "It is a +trick," he cried; and bending over the paper he fixed his name, as if in +desperate haste. Then he trembled, turned white, and wiped a sweat from +his brow. The selectmen departed in silence but in anger, and those who +saw Hutchinson on the streets next day affirmed that the portrait had +stepped out of its canvas and stood at his side through the night. +Afterward, as he lay on his death-bed, he cried that the blood of the +Boston massacre was filling his throat, and as his soul passed from him +his face, in its agony and rage, was the face of Edward Randolph. + + + + +LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE + +Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, being orphaned, was admitted to the family of +her distant relative, Governor Shute, of Massachusetts Bay, and came to +America to take her home with him. She arrived at the gates of Province +House, in Boston, in the governor's splendid coach, with outriders and +guards, and as the governor went to receive her, a pale young man, with +tangled hair, sprang from the crowd and fell in the dust at her feet, +offering himself as a footstool for her to tread upon. Her proud face +lighted with a smile of scorn, and she put out her hand to stay the +governor, who was in the act of striking the fellow with his cane. + +"Do not strike him," she said. "When men seek to be trampled, it is a +favor they deserve." + +For a moment she bore her weight on the prostrate form, "emblem of +aristocracy trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of nature," and +as she stood there the bell on South Church began to toll for a funeral +that was passing at the moment. The crowd started; some looked annoyed; +Lady Eleanore remained calm and walked in stately fashion up the passage +on the arm of His Excellency. "Who was that insolent fellow?" was asked +of Dr. Clarke, the governor's physician. + +"Gervase Helwyse," replied the doctor; "a youth of no fortune, but of +good mind until he met this lady in London, when he fell in love with +her, and her pride and scorn have crazed him." + +A few nights after a ball was given in honor of the governor's ward, and +Province House was filled with the elect of the city. Commanding in +figure, beautiful in face, richly dressed and jewelled, the Lady Eleanore +was the admired of the whole assembly, and the women were especially +curious to see her mantle, for a rumor went out that it had been made by +a dying girl, and had the magic power of giving new beauty to the wearer +every time it was put on. While the guests were taking refreshment, a +young man stole into the room with a silver goblet, and this he offered +on his knee to Lady Eleanore. As she looked down she recognized the face +of Helwyse. + +"Drink of this sacramental wine," he said, eagerly, "and pass it among +the guests." + +"Perhaps it is poisoned," whispered a man, and in another moment the +liquor was overturned, and Helwyse was roughly dragged away. + +"Pray, gentlemen, do not hurt my poor admirer," said the lady, in a tone +of languor and condescension that was unusual to her. Breaking from his +captives, Helwyse ran back and begged her to cast her mantle into the +fire. She replied by throwing a fold of it above her head and smiling as +she said, "Farewell. Remember me as you see me now." + +Helwyse shook his head sadly and submitted to be led away. The weariness +in Eleanore's manner increased; a flush was burning on her cheek; her +laugh had grown infrequent. Dr. Clarke whispered something in the +governor's ear that made that gentleman start and look alarmed. It was +announced that an unforeseen circumstance made it necessary to close the +festival at once, and the company went home. A few days after the city +was thrown into a panic by an outbreak of small-pox, a disease that in +those times could not be prevented nor often cured, and that gathered its +victims by thousands. Graves were dug in rows, and every night the earth +was piled hastily on fresh corpses. Before all infected houses hung a red +flag of warning, and Province House was the first to show it, for the +plague had come to town in Lady Eleanore's mantle. The people cursed her +pride and pointed to the flags as her triumphal banners. The pestilence +was at its height when Gervase Helwyse appeared in Province House. There +were none to stay him now, and he climbed the stairs, peering from room +to room, until he entered a darkened chamber, where something stirred +feebly under a silken coverlet and a faint voice begged for water. +Helwyse tore apart the curtains and exclaimed, "Fie! What does such a +thing as you in Lady Eleanore's apartment?" + +The figure on the bed tried to hide its hideous face. "Do not look on +me," it cried. "I am cursed for my pride that I wrapped about me as a +mantle. You are avenged. I am Eleanore Rochcliffe." + +The lunatic stared for a moment, then the house echoed with his laughter. +The deadly mantle lay on a chair. He snatched it up, and waving also the +red flag of the pestilence ran into the street. In a short time an effigy +wrapped in the mantle was borne to Province House and set on fire by a +mob. From that hour the pest abated and soon disappeared, though graves +and scars made a bitter memory of it for many a year. Unhappiest of all +was the disfigured creature who wandered amid the shadows of Province +House, never showing her face, unloved, avoided, lonely. + + + + +HOWE'S MASQUERADE + +During the siege of Boston Sir William Howe undertook to show his +contempt for the raw fellows who were disrespectfully tossing +cannon-balls at him from the batteries in Cambridge and South Boston, by +giving a masquerade. It was a brilliant affair, the belles and blades of +the loyalist set being present, some in the garb of their ancestors, for +the past is ever more picturesque than the present, and a few roisterers +caricaturing the American generals in ragged clothes, false noses, and +absurd wigs. At the height of the merriment a sound of a dirge echoing +through the streets caused the dance to stop. The funeral music paused +before the doors of Province House, where the dance was going on, and +they were flung open. Muffled drums marked time for a company that began +to file down the great stair from the floor above the ball-room: dark men +in steeple-hats and pointed beards, with Bibles, swords, and scrolls, who +looked sternly at the guests and descended to the street. + +Colonel Joliffe, a Whig, whose age and infirmity had prevented him from +joining Washington, and whose courtesy and intelligence had made him +respected by his foes, acted as chorus: "These I take to be the Puritan +governors of Massachusetts: Endicott, Winthrop, Vane, Dudley, Haynes, +Bellingham, Leverett, Bradstreet." Then came a rude soldier, mailed, +begirt with arms: the tyrant Andros; a brown-faced man with a sailor's +gait: Sir William Phipps; a courtier wigged and jewelled: Earl Bellomont; +the crafty, well-mannered Dudley; the twinkling, red-nosed Shute; the +ponderous Burnet; the gouty Belcher; Shirley, Pownall, Bernard, +Hutchinson; then a soldier, whose cocked hat he held before his face. +"'Tis the shape of Gage!" cried an officer, turning pale. The lights were +dull and an uncomfortable silence had fallen on the company. Last, came a +tall man muffled in a military cloak, and as he paused on the landing the +guests looked from him to their host in amazement, for it was the figure +of Howe himself. The governor's patience was at an end, for this was a +part of the masquerade that had not been looked for. He fiercely cried to +Joliffe, "There is a plot in this. Your head has stood too long on a +traitor's shoulders." + +"Make haste to cut it off, then," was the reply, "for the power of Sir +William Howe and of the king, his master, is at an end. These shadows are +mourners at his funeral. Look! The last of the governors." + +Howe rushed with drawn sword on the figure of himself, when it turned and +looked at him. The blade clanged to the floor and Howe fell back with a +gasp of horror, for the face was his own. Hand nor voice was raised to +stay the double-goer as it mournfully passed on. At the threshold it +stamped its foot and shook its fists in air; then the door closed. +Mingled with the strains of the funeral march, as it died along the empty +streets, came the tolling of the bell on South Church steeple, striking +the hour of midnight. The festivities were at an end and, oppressed by a +nameless fear, the spectators of this strange pageant made ready for +departure; but before they left the booming of cannon at the southward +announced that Washington had advanced. The glories of Province House +were over. When the last of the royal governors left it he paused on the +threshold, beat his foot on the stone, and flung up his hands in an +attitude of grief and rage. + + + + +OLD ESTHER DUDLEY + +Boston had surrendered. Washington was advancing from the heights where +he had trained his guns on the British works, and Sir William Howe +lingered at the door of Province House,--last of the royal governors who +would stand there,--and cursed and waved his hands and beat his heel on +the step, as if he were crushing rebellion by that act. The sound brought +an old woman to his side. "Esther Dudley!" he exclaimed. "Why are you not +gone?" + +"I shall never leave. As housekeeper for the governors and pensioner of +the king, this has been my home; the only home I know. Go back, but send +more troops. I will keep the house till you return." + +"Grant that I may return," he cried. "Since you will stay, take this bag +of guineas and keep this key until a governor shall demand it." + +Then, with fierce and moody brow, the governor went forth, and the faded +eyes of Esther Dudley saw him nevermore. When the soldiers of the +republic cast about for quarters in Boston town, they spared the official +mansion to this old woman. Her bridling toryism and assumption of old +state amused them and did no harm; indeed, her loyalty was half admired; +beside, nobody took the pride in the place that she did, or would keep it +in better order. That she sometimes had a half-dozen of unrepentant +codgers in to dinner, and that they were suspected of drinking healths to +George III. in crusted port, was a fact to blink. Rumor had it that not +all her guests were flesh and blood, but that she had an antique mirror +across which ancient occupants of the house would pass in shadowy +procession at her command, and that she was wont to have the Shirleys, +Olivers, Hutchinsons, and Dudleys out of their graves to hold receptions +there; so a touch of dread may have mingled in the feeling that kept the +populace aloof. + +Living thus by herself, refusing to hear of rebel victories, construing +the bonfires, drumming, hurrahs, and bell-ringing to signify fresh +triumphs for England, she drifted farther and farther out of her time and +existed in the shadows of the past. She lighted the windows for the +king's birthday, and often from the cupola watched for a British fleet, +heeding not the people below, who, as they saw her withered face, +repeated the prophecy, with a laugh "When the golden Indian on Province +House shall shoot his arrow and the cock on South Church spire shall +crow, look for a royal governor again." So, when it was bandied about the +streets that the governor was coming, she took it in no wise strange, but +dressed herself in silk and hoops, with store of ancient jewels, and made +ready to receive him. In truth, there was a function, for already a man +of stately mien, and richly dressed, was advancing through the court, +with a staff of men in wigs and laced coats behind him, and a company of +troops at a little distance. Esther Dudley flung the door wide and +dropping on her knees held forth the key with the cry, "Thank heaven for +this hour! God save the king!" + +The governor put off his hat and helped the woman to her feet. "A strange +prayer," said he; "yet we will echo it to this effect: For the good of +the realm that still owns him to be its ruler, God save King George." + +Esther Dudley stared wildly. That face she remembered now,--the +proscribed rebel, John Hancock; governor, not by royal grant, but by the +people's will. + +"Have I welcomed a traitor? Then let me die." + +"Alas! Mistress Dudley, the world has changed for you in these later +years. America has no king." He offered her his arm, and she clung to it +for a moment, then, sinking down, the great key, that she so long had +treasured, clanked to the floor. + +"I have been faithful unto death," she gasped. "God save the king!" + +The people uncovered, for she was dead. + +"At her tomb," said Hancock, "we will bid farewell forever to the past. A +new day has come for us. In its broad light we will press onward." + + + + +THE LOSS OF JACOB HURD + +Jacob Hurd, stern witch-harrier of Ipswich, can abide nothing out of the +ordinary course of things, whether it be flight on a broomstick or the +wrong adding of figures; so his son gives him trouble, for he is an +imaginative boy, who walks alone, talking to the birds, making rhymes, +picking flowers, and dreaming. That he will never be a farmer, mechanic, +or tradesman is as good as certain, and one day when the child runs in +with a story of a golden horse, with tail and mane of silver, on which he +has ridden over land and sea, climbing mountains and swimming rivers, he +turns pale with fright lest the boy be bewitched; then, as the awfulness +of the invention becomes manifest, he cries, "Thou knowest thou art +lying," and strikes the little fellow. + +The boy staggers into his mother's arms, and that night falls into a +fever, in which he raves of his horse and the places he will see, while +Jacob sits by his side, too sore in heart for words, and he never leaves +the cot for food or sleep till the fever is burned out. Just before he +closes his eyes the child looks about him and says that he hears the +horse pawing in the road, and, either for dust or cloud or sun gleam, it +seems for an instant as if the horse were there. The boy gives a cry of +joy, then sinks upon his pillow, lifeless. + +Some time after this Jacob sets off one morning, while the stars are out, +to see three witches hanged, but at evening his horse comes flying up the +road, splashed with blood and foam, and the neighbors know from that of +Jacob's death, for he is lying by the wayside with an Indian arrow in his +heart and an axemark on his head. The wife runs to the door, and, though +she shakes with fear at its approach, she sees that in the sunset glow +the horse's sides have a shine like gold, and its mane and tail are +silver white. Now the animal is before the house, but the woman does not +faint or cry at the blood splash on the saddle, for--is it the dust-cloud +that takes that shape?--she sees on its back a boy with a shining face, +who throws a kiss at her,--her Paul. He, little poet, lives in spirit, +and has found happiness. + + + + +THE HOBOMAK + +Such was the Indian name of the site of Westboro, Massachusetts, and the +neighboring pond was Hochomocko. The camp of the red men near the shore +was full of bustle one day, for their belle, Iano, was to marry the young +chief, Sassacus. The feast was spread and all were ready to partake of +it, when it was found that the bride was missing. One girl had seen her +steal into the wood with a roguish smile on her lip, and knew that she +intended to play hide-and-seek with Sassacus before she should be +proclaimed a wife, but the day wore on and she did not come. Among those +who were late in reaching camp was Wequoash, who brought a panther in +that he had slain on Boston Hill, and he bragged about his skill, as +usual. There had been a time when he was a rival of the chief for the +hand of Iano, and he showed surprise and concern at her continued +absence. The search went on for two days, and, at the end of that time, +the girl's body was taken from the lake. + +At the funeral none groaned so piteously as Wequoash. Yet Sassacus felt +his loss so keenly that he fell into a sickness next day, and none was +found so constant in his ministrations as Wequoash; but all to no avail, +for within a week Sassacus, too, was dead. As the strongest and bravest +remaining in the tribe, Wequoash became heir to his honors by election. + +A year later he sat moodily by the lakeside, when a flame burst up from +the water, and a canoe floated toward him that a mysterious agency +impelled him to enter. The boat sped toward the flame, that, at his +approach, assumed Iano's form. He heard the water gurgle as he passed +over the spot where the shape had glimmered, but there was no other sound +or check. Next year this thing occurred again, and then the spirit spoke: +"Only once more." + +Yet a third time his fate took him to the spot, and as the hour came on +he called his people to him: "This," said he, "is my death-day. I have +done evil, and the time comes none too soon. Sassacus was your chief. I +envied him his happiness, and gave him poison when I nursed him. Worse +than that, I saw Iano in her canoe on her wedding-day. She had refused my +hand. I entered my canoe and chased her over the water, in pretended +sport, but in the middle of the lake I upset her birch and she was +drowned. See! she comes!" + +For, as he spoke, the light danced up again, and the boat came, +self-impelled, to the strand. Wequoash entered it, and with head bent +down was hurried away. Those on the shore saw the flame condense to a +woman's shape, and a voice issued from it: "It is my hour!" A blinding +bolt of lightning fell, and at the appalling roar of thunder all hid +their faces. When they looked up, boat and flame had vanished. Whenever, +afterward, an Indian rowed across the place where the murderer had sunk, +he dropped a stone, and the monument that grew in that way can be seen on +the pond floor to this day. + + + + +BERKSHIRE TORIES + +The tories of Berkshire, Massachusetts, were men who had been endeared to +the king by holding office under warrant from that sacred personage. They +have been gently dealt with by historians, but that is "overstrained +magnanimity which concentrates its charities and praises for defeated +champions of the wrong, and reserves its censures for triumphant +defenders of the right." While the following incidents have been so well +avouched that they deserve to stand as history, their picturesqueness +justifies renewed acquaintance. + +Among the loyalists was Gideon Smith, of Stockbridge, who had helped +British prisoners to escape, and had otherwise made himself so obnoxious +that he was forced for a time to withdraw and pass a season of penitence +and meditation in a cavern near Lenox, that is called the Tories' Glen. +Here he lay for weeks, none but his wife knowing where he was, but at his +request she walked out every day with her children, leading them past his +cave, where he fed on their faces with hungry eyes. They prattled on, +never dreaming that their father was but a few feet from them. Smith +survived the war and lived to be on good terms with his old foes. + +In Lenox lived a Tory, one of those respectable buffers to whom wealth +and family had given immunity in the early years of the war, but who +sorely tried the temper of his neighbors by damning everything American +from Washington downward. At last they could endure his abuse no longer; +his example had affected other Anglomaniacs, and a committee waited on +him to tell him that he could either swear allegiance to the colonies or +be hanged. He said he would be hanged if he would swear, or words to that +effect, and hanged he was, on a ready-made gallows in the street. He was +let down shortly, "brought around" with rum, and the oath was offered +again. He refused it. This had not been looked for. It had been taken for +granted that he would abjure his fealty to the king at the first +tightening of the cord. A conference was held, and it was declared that +retreat would be undignified and unsafe, so the Tory was swung up again, +this time with a yank that seemed to "mean business." He hung for some +time, and when lowered gave no sign of life. There was some show of alarm +at this, for nobody wanted to kill the old fellow, and every effort was +made to restore consciousness. At last the lungs heaved, the purple faded +from his cheek, his eyes opened, and he gasped, "I'll swear." With a +shout of joy the company hurried him to the tavern, seated him before the +fire, and put a glass of punch in his hand. He drank the punch to +Washington's health, and after a time was heard to remark to himself, +"It's a hard way to make Whigs, but it'll do it." + +Nathan Jackson, of Tyringham, was another Yankee who had seen fit to take +arms against his countrymen, and when captured he was charged with +treason and remanded for trial. The jail, in Great Barrington, was so +little used in those days of sturdy virtue that it had become a mere +shed, fit to hold nobody, and Jackson, after being locked into it, might +have walked out whenever he felt disposed; but escape, he thought, would +have been a confession of the wrongness of Tory principles, or of a fear +to stand trial. He found life so monotonous, however, that he asked the +sheriff to let him go out to work during the day, promising to sleep in +his cell, and such was his reputation for honesty that his request was +granted without a demur, the prisoner returning every night to be locked +up. When the time approached for the court to meet in Springfield heavy +harvesting had begun, and, as there was no other case from Berkshire +County to present, the sheriff grumbled at the bother of taking his +prisoner across fifty miles of rough country, but Jackson said that he +would make it all right by going alone. The sheriff was glad to be +released from this duty, so off went the Tory to give himself up and be +tried for his life. On the way he was overtaken by Mr. Edwards, of the +Executive Council, then about to meet in Boston, and without telling his +own name or office, he learned the extraordinary errand of this lonely +pedestrian. Jackson was tried, admitted the charges against him, and was +sentenced to death. While he awaited execution of the law upon him, the +council in Boston received petitions for clemency, and Mr. Edwards asked +if there was none in favor of Nathan Jackson. There was none. Mr. Edwards +related the circumstance of his meeting with the condemned man, and a +murmur of surprise and admiration went around the room. A despatch was +sent to Springfield. When it reached there the prison door was flung open +and Jackson walked forth free. + + + + +THE REVENGE OF JOSIAH BREEZE + +Two thousand Cape Cod fishermen had gone to join the colonial army, and +in their absence the British ships had run in shore to land crews on +mischievous errands. No man, woman, or child on the Cape but hated the +troops and sailors of King George, and would do anything to work them +harm. When the Somerset was wrecked off Truro, in 1778, the crew were +helped ashore, 'tis true, but they were straightway marched to prison, +and it was thought that no other frigate would venture near the shifting +dunes where she had laid her skeleton, as many a good ship had done +before and has done since. It was November, and ugly weather was shutting +in, when a three-decker, that had been tacking off shore and that flew +the red flag, was seen to yaw wildly while reefing sail and drift toward +land with a broken tiller. No warning signal was raised on the bluffs; +not a hand was stirred to rescue. Those who saw the accident watched with +sullen satisfaction the on-coming of the vessel, nor did they cease to +look for disaster when the ship anchored and stowed sail. + +Ezekiel and Josiah Breeze, father and son, stood at the door of their +cottage and watched her peril until three lights twinkling faintly +through the gray of driving snow were all that showed where the enemy +lay, straining at her cables and tossing on a wrathful sea. They stood +long in silence, but at last the boy exclaimed, "I'm going to the ship." + +"If you stir from here, you're no son of mine," said Ezekiel. + +"But she's in danger, dad." + +"As she oughter be. By mornin' she'll be strewed along the shore and not +a spar to mark where she's a-swingin' now." + +"And the men?" + +"It's a jedgment, boy." + +The lad remembered how the sailors of the Ajax had come ashore to burn +the homes of peaceful fishermen and farmers; how women had been insulted; +how his friends and mates had been cut down at Long Island with British +lead and steel; how, when he ran to warn away a red-faced fellow that was +robbing his garden, the man had struck him on the shoulder with a +cutlass. He had sworn then to be revenged. But to let a host go down to +death and never lift a helping hand--was that a fair revenge? "I've got +to go, dad," he burst forth. "Tomorrow morning there'll be five hundred +faces turned up on the beach, covered with ice and staring at the sky, +and five hundred mothers in England will wonder when they're goin' to see +those faces again. If ever they looked at me the sight of 'em would never +go out of my eyes. I'd be harnted by 'em, awake and asleep. And to-morrow +is Thanksgiving. I've got to go, dad, and I will." So speaking, he rushed +away and was swallowed in the gloom. + +The man stared after him; then, with a revulsion of feeling, he cried, +"You're right, 'Siah. I'll go with you." But had he called in tones of +thunder he would not have been heard in the roar of the wind and crash of +the surf. As he reached the shore he saw faintly on the phosphorescent +foam a something that climbed a hill of water; it was lost over its crest +and reappeared on the wave beyond; it showed for a moment on the third +wave, then it vanished in the night. "Josiah!" It was a long, querulous +cry. No answer. In half an hour a thing rode by the watcher on the sands +and fell with a crash beside him--a boat bottom up: his son's. + +Next day broke clear, with new snow on the ground. In his house at +Provincetown, Captain Breeze was astir betimes, for his son Ezekiel, his +grandson Josiah, and all other relatives who were not at the front with +Washington were coming for the family reunion. Plump turkeys were ready +for the roasting, great loaves of bread and cake stood beside the oven, +redoubtable pies of pumpkin and apple filled the air with maddening +odors. The people gathered and chattered around his cheery fire of the +damage that the storm had done, when Ezekiel stumbled in, his brown face +haggard, his lips working, and a tremor in his hands. He said, "Josiah!" +in a thick voice, then leaned his arms against the chimney and pressed +his face upon them. Among fishermen whose lives are in daily peril the +understanding of misfortune is quick, and the old man put his hand on the +shoulder of his son and bent his head. The day of joy was become a day of +gloom. As the news went out, the house began to fill with sympathizing +friends, and there was talking in low voices through the rooms, when a +cry of surprise was heard outside. A ship, cased in tons of ice, was +forging up the harbor, her decks swarming with blue jackets, some of whom +were beating off the frozen masses from lower spars and rigging. She +followed the channel so steadily, it was plain to be seen that a wise +hand was at her helm; her anchor ran out and she swung on the tide. "The +Ajax, as I'm a sinner!" exclaimed a sailor on shore. A boat put off from +her, and people angrily collected at the wharf, with talk of getting out +their guns, when a boyish figure arose in the stern, and was greeted with +a shout of surprise and welcome. + +The boat touched the beach, Josiah Breeze leaped out of it, and in +another minute his father had him in a bear's embrace, making no attempt +to stop the tears that welled out of his eyes. An officer had followed +Josiah on shore, and going to the group he said, "That boy is one to be +proud of. He put out in a sea that few men could face, to save an enemy's +ship and pilot it into the harbor. I could do no less than bring him +back." There was praise and laughter and clasping of hands, and when the +Thanksgiving dinner was placed, smoking, on the board, the commander of +H. M. S. Ajax was among the jolliest of the guests at Captain Breeze's +table. + + + + +THE MAY-POLE OF MERRYMOUNT + +The people of Merrymount--unsanctified in the eyes of their Puritan +neighbors, for were they not Episcopals, who had pancakes at Shrovetide +and wassail at Christmas?--were dancing about their May-pole one summer +evening, for they tried to make it May throughout the year. Some were +masked like animals, and all were tricked with flowers and ribbons. +Within their circle, sharing in song and jest, were the lord and lady of +the revels, and an English clergyman waiting to join the pair in wedlock. +Life, they sang, should be all jollity: away with care and duty; leave +wisdom to the weak and old, and sanctity for fools. Watching the sport +from a neighboring wood stood a band of frowning Puritans, and as the sun +set they stalked forth and broke through the circle. All was dismay. The +bells, the laughter, the song were silent, and some who had tasted +Puritan wrath before shrewdly smelled the stocks. A Puritan of iron +face--it was Endicott, who had cut the cross from the flag of +England--warning aside the "priest of Baal," proceeded to hack the pole +down with his sword. A few swinging blows, and down it sank, with its +ribbons and flowers. + +"So shall fall the pride of vain people; so shall come to grief the +preachers of false religion," quoth he. "Truss those fellows to the trees +and give them half a dozen of blows apiece as token that we brook no +ungodly conduct and hostility to our liberties. And you, king and queen +of the May, have you no better things to think about than fiddling and +dancing? How if I punish you both?" + +"Had I the power I'd punish you for saying it," answered the swain; "but, +as I have not, I am compelled to ask that the girl go unharmed." + +"Will you have it so, or will you share your lover's punishment?" asked +Endicott. + +"I will take all upon myself," said the woman. + +The face of the governor softened. "Let the young fellow's hair be cut, +in pumpkin-shell fashion," he commanded; "then bring them to me but +gently." + +He was obeyed, and as the couple came before him, hand in hand, he took a +chain of roses from the fallen pole and cast it about their necks. And so +they were married. Love had softened rigor and all were better for the +assertion of a common humanity. But the May-pole of Merrymount was never +set up again. There were no more games and plays and dances, nor singing +of worldly music. The town went to ruin, the merrymakers were scattered, +and the gray sobriety of religion and toil fell on Pilgrim land again. + + + + +THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER + +When Charles River was lined with groves and marshes there lived in a +cabin, near Brighton, Massachusetts, an ill-fed rascal named Tom Walker. +There was but one in the commonwealth who was more penurious, and that +was his wife. They squabbled over the spending of a penny and each +grudged food to the other. One day as Tom walked through the pine wood +near his place, by habit watching the ground--for even there a farthing +might be discovered--he prodded his stick into a skull, cloven deep by an +Indian tomahawk. He kicked it, to shake the dirt off, when a gruff voice +spake: "What are you doing in my grounds?" A swarthy fellow, with the +face of a charcoal burner, sat on a stump, and Tom wondered that he had +not seen him as he approached. + +He replied, "Your grounds! They belong to Deacon Peabody." + +"Deacon Peabody be damned!" cried the black fellow; "as I think he will +be, anyhow, if he does not look after his own sins a little sharper and a +little less curiously after his neighbors'. Look, if you want to see how +he is faring," and, pointing to a tree, he called Tom to notice that the +deacon's name was written on the bark and that it was rotten at the core. +To his surprise, Tom found that nearly every tree had the name of some +prominent man cut upon it. + +"Who are you?" he asked. + +"I go by different names in different places," replied the dark one. "In +some countries I am the black miner; in some the wild huntsman; here I am +the black woodman. I am the patron of slave dealers and master of Salem +witches." + +"I think you are the devil," blurted Tom. + +"At your service," replied his majesty. + +Now, Tom, having lived long with Mrs. Walker, had no fear of the devil, +and he stopped to have a talk with him. The devil remarked, in a careless +tone, that Captain Kidd had buried his treasure in that wood, under his +majesty's charge, and that whoever wished could find and keep it by +making the usual concession. This Tom declined. He told his wife about +it, however, and she was angry with him for not having closed the bargain +at once, declaring that if he had not courage enough to add this treasure +to their possessions she would not hesitate to do it. Tom showed no +disposition to check her. If she got the money he would try to get a +share of it, and if the devil took away his helpmate--well, there were +things that he had made his mind to endure, when he had to. True enough, +the woman started for the wood before sundown, with her spoons in her +apron. When Tom discovered that the spoons were gone he, too, set off, +for he wanted those back, anyway; but he did not overtake his wife. An +apron was found in a tree containing a dried liver and a withered heart, +and near that place the earth had been trampled and strewn with handfuls +of coarse hair that reminded Tom of the man that he had met in the woods. +"Egad!" he muttered, "Old Nick must have had a tough time with her." Half +in gratitude and half in curiosity, Tom waited to speak to the dark man, +and was next day rewarded by seeing that personage come through the wood +with an axe, whistling carelessly. Tom at once approached him on the +subject of the buried treasure--not the vanished wife, for her he no +longer regarded as a treasure. + +After some haggling the devil proposed that Tom should start a loan +office in Boston and use Kidd's money in exacting usury. This suited Tom, +who promised to screw four per cent. a month out of the unfortunates who +might ask his aid, and he was seen to start for town with a bag which his +neighbors thought to hold his crop of starveling turnips, but which was +really a king's ransom in gold and jewels--the earnings of Captain Kidd +in long years of honest piracy. It was in Governor Belcher's time, and +cash was scarce. Merchants and professional men as well as the thriftless +went to Tom for money, and, as he always had it, his business grew until +he seemed to have a mortgage on half the men in Boston who were rich +enough to be in debt. He even went so far as to move into a new house, to +ride in his own carriage, and to eat enough to keep body and soul +together, for he did not want to give up his soul to the one who would +claim it just yet. + +The most singular proof of his thrift--showing that he wanted to save +soul and money both--was shown in his joining the church and becoming a +prayerful Christian. He kept a Bible in his pocket and another on his +desk, resolved to be prepared if a certain gentleman should call. He +buried his old horse feet uppermost, for he was taught that on +resurrection day the world would be turned upside down, and he was +resolved, if his enemy appeared, to give him a run for it. While employed +one afternoon in the congenial task of foreclosing a mortgage his +creditor begged for another day to raise the money. Tom was irritable on +account of the hot weather and talked to him as a good man of the church +ought not to do. + +"You have made so much money out of me," wailed the victim of Tom's +philanthropies. + +"Now, the devil take me if I have made a farthing!" exclaimed Tom. + +At that instant there were three knocks at the door, and, stepping out to +see who was there, the money lender found himself in presence of his +fate. His little Bible was in a coat on a nail, and the bigger one was on +his desk. He was without defence. The evil one caught him up like a +child, had him on the back of his snorting steed in no time, and giving +the beast a cut he flew like the wind in the teeth of a rising storm +toward the marshes of Brighton. As he reached there a lightning flash +descended into the wood and set it on fire. At the same moment Tom's +house was discovered to be in flames. When his effects were examined +nothing was found in his strong boxes but cinders and shavings. + + + + +THE GRAY CHAMPION + +It befell Sir Edmund Andros to make himself the most hated of the +governors sent to represent the king in New England. A spirit of +independence, born of a free soil, was already moving in the people's +hearts, and the harsh edicts of this officer, as well as the oppressive +measures of his master, brought him into continual conflict with the +people. He it was who went to Hartford to demand the surrender of the +liberties of that colony. The lights were blown out and the patent of +those liberties was hurried away from under his nose and hidden from his +reach in a hollow of the Charter Oak. + +In Boston, too, he could call no American his friend, and it was there +that he met one of the first checks to his arrogance. It was an April +evening in 1689, and there was an unusual stir in the streets. People +were talking in low tones, and one caught such phrases as, "If the Prince +of Orange is successful, this Andros will lose his head." "Our pastors +are to be burned alive in King Street." "The pope has ordered Andros to +celebrate the eve of St. Bartholomew in Boston: we are to be killed." +"Our old Governor Bradstreet is in town, and Andros fears him." While +talk was running in this excited strain the sound of a drum was heard +coming through Cornhill. Now was seen a file of soldiers with guns on +shoulder, matches twinkling in the falling twilight, and behind them, on +horseback, Andros and his councillors, including the priest of King's +Chapel, all wearing crucifixes at their throats, all flushed with wine, +all looking down with indifference at the people in their dark cloaks and +broadbrimmed hats, who looked back at them with suspicion and hate. The +soldiers trod the streets like men unused to giving way, and the crowd +fell back, pressed against the buildings. Groans and hisses were heard, +and a voice sent up this cry, "Lord of Hosts, provide a champion for thy +people!" + +Ere the echo of that call had ceased there came from the other end of the +street, stepping as in time to the drum, an aged man, in cloak and +steeple hat, with heavy sword at his thigh. His port was that of a king, +and his dignity was heightened by a snowy beard that fell to his waist. +Taking the middle of the way he marched on until he was but a few paces +from the advancing column. None knew him and he seemed to recognize none +among the crowd. As he drew himself to his height, it seemed in the dusk +as if he were of no mortal mould. His eye blazed, he thrust his staff +before him, and in a voice of invincible command cried, "Halt!" + +Half because it was habit to obey the word, half because they were cowed +by the majestic presence, the guard stood still and the drum was +silenced. Andros spurred forward, but even he made a pause when he saw +the staff levelled at his breast. "Forward!" he blustered. "Trample the +dotard into the street. How dare you stop the king's governor?" + +"I have stayed the march of a king himself," was the answer. "The king +you serve no longer sits on the throne of England. To-morrow you will be +a prisoner. Back, lest you reach the scaffold!" + +A moment of hesitation on Andros's part encouraged the people to press +closer, and many of them took no pains to hide the swords and pistols +that were girt upon them. The groans and hisses sounded louder. "Down +with Andros! Death to tyrants! A curse on King James!" came from among +the throng, and some of them stooped as if to tear up the pavings. +Doubtful, yet overawed, the governor wheeled about and gloomily marched +back through the streets where he had ridden so arrogantly. In truth, his +next night was spent in prison, for James had fled from England, and +William held the throne. All eyes being on the retreating company, the +champion of the people was not seen to depart, but when they turned to +praise and thank him he had vanished, and there were those who said that +he had melted into twilight. + +The incident had passed into legend, and fourscore years had followed it, +when the soldiers of another king of England marched down State Street, +and fired on the people of Boston who were gathered below the old State +House. Again it was said that the form of a tall, white-bearded man in +antique garb was seen in that street, warning back the troops and +encouraging the people to resist them. On the little field of Lexington +in early dawn, and at the breastwork on Bunker Hill, where farmers worked +by lantern-light, this dark form was seen--the spirit of New England. And +it is told that whenever any foreign foe or domestic oppressor shall dare +the temper of the people, in the van of the resisting army shall be found +this champion. + + + + +THE FOREST SMITHY + +Early in this century a man named Ainsley appeared at Holyoke, +Massachusetts, and set up a forge in a wood at the edge of the village, +with a two-room cottage to live in. A Yankee peddler once put up at his +place for shelter from a storm, and as the rain increased with every hour +he begged to remain in the house over night, promising to pay for his +accommodation in the morning. The blacksmith, who seemed a mild, +considerate man, said that he was willing, but that, as the rooms were +small, it would be well to refer the matter to his wife. As the peddler +entered the house the wife--a weary-looking woman with white hair--seated +herself at once in a thickly-cushioned arm-chair, and, as if loath to +leave it, told the peddler that if he would put up with simple fare and a +narrow berth he was welcome. After a candle had been lighted the three +sat together for some time, talking of crops and trade, when there came a +rush of hoofs without and a hard-looking man, who had dismounted at the +door, entered without knocking. The blacksmith turned pale and the wife's +face expressed sore anxiety. + +"What brings you here?" asked the smith. + +"I must pass the night here," answered the man. + +"But, stranger, I can't accommodate you. We have but one spare room, and +that has been taken by the man who is sitting there." + +"Then give me a bit to eat." + +"Get the stranger something," said the woman to her husband, without +rising. + +"Are you lame, that you don't get it yourself?" + +The woman paused; then said, "Husband, you are tired. Sit here and I will +wait on the stranger." + +The blacksmith took the seat, when the stranger again blustered, "It +would be courtesy to offer me that chair, tired as I am. Perhaps you +don't know that I am an officer of the law?" + +When supper was ready they took their places, the woman drawing up the +arm-chair for her own use, but, as the custom was, they all knelt to say +grace, and while their faces were buried in their hands the candle was +blown out. The stranger jumped up and began walking around the room. When +a light could be found he had gone and the cushion had disappeared from +the chair. "Oh! After all these years!" wailed the woman, and falling on +her knees she sobbed like a child, while her husband in vain tried to +comfort her. The peddler, who had already gone to bed, but who had seen a +part of this puzzling drama through the open door, knew not what to do, +but, feeling some concern for the safety of his own possessions, he drew +his pack into bed with him, and, being tired, fell asleep with the sobs +of the woman sounding in his ears. + +When he awoke it was broad day and the earth was fresh and bright from +its bath. After dressing he passed into the other room, finding the table +still set, the chair before it without its cushion, the fire out, and +nobody in or about the house. The smithy was deserted, and to his call +there was no response but the chattering of jays in the trees; so, +shouldering his pack, he resumed his journey. He opened his pack at a +farm-house to repair a clock, when he discovered that his watches were +gone, and immediately lodged complaint with the sheriff, but nothing was +ever seen again of Ainsley, his wife, or the rough stranger. Who was the +thief? What was in the cushion? And what brought the stranger to the +house? + + + + +WAHCONAH FALLS + +The pleasant valley of Dalton, in the Berkshire Hills, had been under the +rule of Miacomo for forty years when a Mohawk dignitary of fifty scalps +and fifty winters came a-wooing his daughter Wahconah. On a June day in +1637, as the girl sat beside the cascade that bears her name, twining +flowers in her hair and watching leaves float down the stream, she became +conscious of a pair of eyes bent on her from a neighboring coppice, and +arose in some alarm. Finding himself discovered, the owner of the eyes, a +handsome young fellow, stepped forward with a quieting air of +friendliness, and exclaimed, "Hail, Bright Star!" + +"Hail, brother," answered Wahconah. + +"I am Nessacus," said the man, "one of King Philip's soldiers. Nessacus +is tired with his flight from the Long Knives (the English), and his +people faint. Will Bright Star's people shut their lodges against him and +his friends?" + +The maiden answered, "My father is absent, in council with the Mohawks, +but his wigwams are always open. Follow." + +Nessacus gave a signal, and forth from the wood came a sad-eyed, +battle-worn troop that mustered about him. Under the girl's lead they +went down to the valley and were hospitably housed. Five days later +Miacomo returned, with him the elderly Mohawk lover, and a priest, +Tashmu, of repute a cringing schemer, with whom hunters and soldiers +could have nothing in common, and whom they would gladly have put out of +the way had they not been deterred by superstitious fears. The strangers +were welcomed, though Tashmu looked at them gloomily, and there were +games in their honor, Nessacus usually proving the winner, to Wahconah's +joy, for she and the young warrior had fallen in love at first sight, and +it was not long before he asked her father for her hand. Miacomo favored +the suit, but the priest advised him, for politic reasons, to give the +girl to the old Mohawk, and thereby cement a tribal friendship that in +those days of English aggression might be needful. The Mohawk had three +wives already, but he was determined to add Wahconah to his collection, +and he did his best, with threats and flattery, to enforce his suit. +Nessacus offered to decide the matter in a duel with his rival, and the +challenge was accepted, but the wily Tashmu discovered in voices of wind +and thunder, flight of birds and shape of clouds, such omens that the +scared Indians unanimously forbade a resort to arms. "Let the Great +Spirit speak," cried Tashmu, and all yielded their consent. + +Invoking a ban on any who should follow, Tashmu proclaimed that he would +pass that night in Wizard's Glen, where, by invocations, he would learn +the divine will. At sunset he stalked forth, but he had not gone far ere +the Mohawk joined him, and the twain proceeded to Wahconah Falls. There +was no time for magical hocus-pocus that night, for both of them toiled +sorely in deepening a portion of the stream bed, so that the current ran +more swiftly and freely on that side, and in the morning Tashmu announced +in what way the Great Spirit would show his choice. Assembling the tribe +on the river-bank, below a rock that midway split the current, a canoe, +with symbols painted on it, was set afloat near the falls. If it passed +the dividing rock on the side where Nessacus waited, he should have +Wahconah. If it swerved to the opposite shore, where the Mohawk and his +counsellor stood, the Great Spirit had chosen the old chief for her +husband. Of course, the Mohawk stood on the deeper side. On came the +little boat, keeping the centre of the stream. It struck the rock, and +all looked eagerly, though Tashmu and the Mohawk could hardly suppress an +exultant smile. A little wave struck the canoe: it pivoted against the +rock and drifted to the feet of Nessacus. A look of blank amazement came +over the faces of the defeated wooer and his friend, while a shout of +gladness went up, that the Great Spirit had decided so well. The young +couple were wed with rejoicings; the Mohawk trudged homeward, and, to the +general satisfaction, Tashmu disappeared with him. Later, when Tashmu was +identified as the one who had guided Major Talcott's soldiers to the +valley, the priest was caught and slain by Miacomo's men. + + + + +KNOCKING AT THE TOMB + +Knock, knock, knock! The bell has just gone twelve, and there is the +clang again upon the iron door of the tomb. The few people of Lanesboro +who are paying the penance of misdeeds or late suppers, by lying awake at +that dread hour, gather their blankets around their shoulders and mutter +a word of prayer for deliverance against unwholesome visitors of the +night. Why is the old Berkshire town so troubled? Who is it that lies +buried in that tomb, with its ornament of Masonic symbols? Why was the +heavy iron knocker placed on the door? The question is asked, but no one +will answer it, nor will any say who the woman is that so often visits +the cemetery at the stroke of midnight and sounds the call into the +chamber of the dead. Starlight, moonlight, or storm--it makes no +difference to the woman. There she goes, in her black cloak, seen dim in +the night, except where there are snow and moon together, and there she +waits, her hand on the knocker, for the bell to strike to set up her +clangor. Some say that she is crazy, and it is her freak to do this +thing. Is she calling on the corpses to rise and have a dance among the +graves? or has she been asked to call the occupant of that house at a +given hour? Perhaps, weary of life, she is asking for admittance to the +rest and silence of the tomb. She has long been beneath the sod, this +troubler of dreams. Who knows her secret? + + + + +THE WHITE DEER OF ONOTA + +Beside quiet Onota, in the Berkshire Hills, dwelt a band of Indians, and +while they lived here a white deer often came to drink. So rare was the +appearance of an animal like this that its visits were held as good +omens, and no hunter of the tribe ever tried to slay it. A prophet of the +race had said, "So long as the white doe drinks at Onota, famine shall +not blight the Indian's harvest, nor pestilence come nigh his lodge, nor +foeman lay waste his country." And this prophecy held true. That summer +when the deer came with a fawn as white and graceful as herself, it was a +year of great abundance. On the outbreak of the French and Indian War a +young officer named Montalbert was despatched to the Berkshire country to +persuade the Housatonic Indians to declare hostility to the English, and +it was as a guest in the village of Onota that he heard of the white +deer. Sundry adventurers had made valuable friendships by returning to +the French capital with riches and curiosities from the New World. Even +Indians had been abducted as gifts for royalty, and this young ambassador +resolved that when he returned to his own country the skin of the white +deer should be one of the trophies that would win him a smile from Louis. + +He offered a price for it--a price that would have bought all their +possessions and miles of the country roundabout, but their deer was +sacred, and their refusal to sacrifice it was couched in such indignant +terms that he wisely said no more about it in the general hearing. There +was in the village a drunken fellow, named Wondo, who had come to that +pass when he would almost have sold his soul for liquor, and him the +officer led away and plied with rum until he promised to bring the white +doe to him. The pretty beast was so familiar with men that she suffered +Wondo to catch her and lead her to Montalbert. Making sure that none was +near, the officer plunged his sword into her side and the innocent +creature fell. The snowy skin, now splashed with red, was quickly +stripped off, concealed among the effects in Montalbert's outfit, and he +set out for Canada; but he had not been many days on his road before +Wondo, in an access of misery and repentance, confessed to his share of +the crime that had been done and was slain on the moment. + +With the death of the deer came an end to good fortune. Wars, blights, +emigration followed, and in a few years not a wigwam was left standing +beside Onota. + +There is a pendant to this legend, incident to the survival of the deer's +white fawn. An English hunter, visiting the lake with dog and gun, was +surprised to see on its southern bank a white doe. The animal bent to +drink and at the same moment the hunter put his gun to his shoulder. +Suddenly a howl was heard, so loud, so long, that the woods echoed it, +and the deer, taking alarm, fled like the wind. The howl came from the +dog, and, as that animal usually showed sagacity in the presence of game, +the hunter was seized with a fear that its form was occupied, for the +time, by a hag who lived alone in the "north woods," and who was reputed +to have appeared in many shapes--for this was not so long after witch +times that their influence was forgotten. + +Drawing his ramrod, the man gave his dog such a beating that the poor +creature had something worth howling for, because it might be the witch +that he was thrashing. Then running to the shanty of the suspected woman +he flung open her door and demanded to see her back, for, if she had +really changed her shape, every blow that he had given to the dog would +have been scored on her skin. When he had made his meaning clear, the +crone laid hold on the implement that served her for horse at night, and +with the wooden end of it rained blows on him so rapidly that, if the dog +had had half the meanness in his nature that some people have, the +spectacle would have warmed his heart, for it was a prompt and severe +revenge for his sufferings. And to the last the hunter could not decide +whether the beating that he received was prompted by indignation or +vengeance. + + + + +WIZARD'S GLEN + +Four miles from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, among the Berkshire Hills, is +a wild valley, noted for its echoes, that for a century and more has been +called Wizard's Glen. Here the Indian priests performed their +incantations, and on the red-stained Devil's Altar, it was said, they +offered human sacrifice to Hobomocko and his demons of the wood. In +Berkshire's early days a hunter, John Chamberlain, of Dalton, who had +killed a deer and was carrying it home on his shoulders, was overtaken on +the hills by a storm and took shelter from it in a cavernous recess in +Wizard's Glen. In spite of his fatigue he was unable to sleep, and while +lying on the earth with open eyes he was amazed to see the wood bend +apart before him, disclosing a long aisle that was mysteriously lighted +and that contained hundreds of capering forms. As his eyes grew +accustomed to the faint light he made out tails and cloven feet on the +dancing figures; and one tall form with wings, around whose head a wreath +of lightning glittered, and who received the deference of the rest, he +surmised to be the devil himself. It was such a night and such a place as +Satan and his imps commonly chose for high festivals. + +As he lay watching them through the sheeted rain a tall and painted +Indian leaped on Devil's Altar, fresh scalps dangling round his body in +festoons, and his eyes blazing with fierce command. In a brief +incantation he summoned the shadow hordes around him. They came, with +torches that burned blue, and went around and around the rock singing a +harsh chant, until, at a sign, an Indian girl was dragged in and flung on +the block of sacrifice. The figures rushed toward her with extended arms +and weapons, and the terrified girl gave one cry that rang in the +hunter's ears all his life after. The wizard raised his axe: the devils +and vampires gathered to drink the blood and clutch the escaping soul, +when in a lightning flash the girl's despairing glance fell on the face +of Chamberlain. That look touched his manhood, and drawing forth his +Bible he held it toward the rabble while he cried aloud the name of God. +There was a crash of thunder. The light faded, the demons vanished, the +storm swept past, and peace settled on the hills. + + + + +BALANCED ROCK + +Balanced Rock, or Rolling Rock, near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is a mass +of limestone that was deposited where it stands by the great continental +glacier during the ice age, and it weighs four hundred and eighty tons +(estimated) in spite of its centuries of weathering. Here one of the +Atotarhos, kings of the Six Nations, had his camp. He was a fierce man, +who ate and drank from bowls made of the skulls of enemies, and who, when +he received messages and petitions, wreathed himself from head to foot +with poison snakes. The son of this ferocious being inherited none of his +war-like tendencies; indeed, the lad was almost feminine in appearance, +and on succeeding to power he applied himself to the cultivation of +peaceful arts. Later historians have uttered a suspicion that he was a +natural son of Count Frontenac, but that does not suit with this legend. + +The young Atotarho stood near Balanced Rock watching a number of big boys +play duff. In this game one stone is placed upon another and the players, +standing as far from it as they fancy they can throw, attempt to knock it +out of place with other stones. The silence of Atotarho and his slender, +girlish look called forth rude remarks from the boys, who did not know +him, and who dared him to test his skill. The young chief came forward, +and as he did so the jeers and laughter changed to cries of astonishment +and fear, for at each step he grew in size until he towered above them, a +giant. Then they knew him, and fell down in dread, but he took no +revenge. Catching up great bowlders he tossed them around as easily as if +they had been beechnuts, and at last, lifting the balanced rock, he +placed it lightly where it stands to-day, gave them a caution against ill +manners and hasty judgments, and resumed his slender form. For many years +after, the old men of the tribe repeated this story and its lesson from +the top of Atotarho's duff. + + + + +SHONKEEK-MOONKEEK + +This is the Mohegan name of the pretty lake in the Berkshires now called +Pontoosuc. Shonkeek was a boy, Moonkeek a girl, and they were cousins who +grew up as children commonly do, whether in house or wigwam: they roamed +the woods and hills together, filled their baskets with flowers and +berries, and fell in love. But the marriage of cousins was forbidden in +the Mohegan polity, and when they reached an age in which they found +companionship most delightful their rambles were interdicted and they +were even told to avoid each other. This had the usual effect, and they +met on islands in the lake at frequent intervals, to the torment of one +Nockawando, who wished to wed the girl himself, and who reported her +conduct to her parents. + +The lovers agreed, after this, to fly to an Eastern tribe into which they +would ask to be adopted, but they were pledged, if aught interfered with +their escape, to meet beneath the lake. Nockawando interfered. On the +next night, as the unsuspecting Shonkeek was paddling over to the island +where the maid awaited him, the jealous rival, rowing softly in his wake, +sent an arrow into his back, and Shonkeek, without a cry, pitched +headlong into the water. Yet, to the eyes of Nockawando, he appeared to +keep his seat and urge his canoe forward. The girl saw the boat approach: +it sped, now, like an eagle's flight. One look, as it passed the rock; +one glance at the murderer, crouching in his birchen vessel, and with her +lover's name on her lips she leaped into her own canoe and pushed out +from shore. Nockawando heard her raise the death-song and rowed forward +as rapidly as he could, but near the middle of the lake his arm fell +palsied. + +The song had ended and the night had become strangely, horribly still. +Not a chirp of cricket, not a lap of wave, not a rustle of leaf. +Motionless the girl awaited, for his boat was still moving by the impetus +of his last stroke of the paddle. The evening star was shining low on the +horizon, and as her figure loomed in the darkness the star shone through +at the point where her eye had looked forth. It was no human creature +that sat there. Then came the dead man's boat. The two shadows rowed +noiselessly together, and as they disappeared in the mist that was now +settling on the landscape, an unearthly laugh rang over the lake; then +all was still. When Nockawando reached the camp that night he was a +raving maniac. The Indians never found the bodies of the pair, but they +believed that while water remains in Pontoosuc its surface will be vexed +by these journeys of the dead. + + + + +THE SALEM ALCHEMIST + +In 1720 there lived in a turreted house at North and Essex Streets, in +Salem, a silent, dark-visaged man,--a reputed chemist. He gathered +simples in the fields, and parcels and bottles came and went between him +and learned doctors in Boston; but report went around that it was not +drugs alone that he worked with, nor medicines for passing ailments that +he distilled. The watchman, drowsily pacing the streets in the small +hours, saw his shadow move athwart the furnace glare in his tower, and +other shadows seemed at the moment to flit about it--shadows that could +be thrown by no tangible form, yet that had a grotesque likeness to the +human kind. A clink of hammers and a hiss of steam were sometimes heard, +and his neighbors devoutly hoped that if he secured the secret of the +philosopher's stone or the universal solvent, it would be honestly come +by. + +But it was neither gold nor the perilous strong water that he wanted. It +was life: the elixir that would dispel the chill and decrepitude of age, +that would bring back the youthful sparkle to the eye and set the pulses +bounding. He explored the surrounding wilderness day after day; the +juices of its trees and plants he compounded, night after night, long +without avail. Not until after a thousand failures did he conceive that +he had secured the ingredients but they were many, they were perishable, +they must be distilled within five days, for fermentation and decay would +set in if he delayed longer. Gathering the herbs and piling his floor +with fuel, he began his work, alone; the furnace glowed, the retorts +bubbled, and through their long throats trickled drops--golden, ruddy, +brown, and crystal--that would be combined into that precious draught. + +And none too soon, for under the strain of anxiety he seemed to be aging +fast. He took no sleep, except while sitting upright in his chair, for, +should he yield entirely to nature's appeal, his fire would die and his +work be spoiled. With heavy eyes and aching head he watched his furnace +and listened to the constant drip, drip of the precious liquor. It was +the fourth day. He had knelt to stir his fire to more active burning. Its +brightness made him blink, its warmth was grateful, and he reclined +before it, with elbow on the floor and head resting on his hand. How +cheerily the logs hummed and crackled, yet how drowsily--how slow the +hours were--how dull the watch! Lower, lower sank the head, and heavier +grew the eyes. At last he lay full length on the floor, and the long +sleep of exhaustion had begun. + +He was awakened by the sound of a bell. "The church bell!" he cried, +starting up. "And people going through the streets to meeting. How is +this? The sun is in the east! My God! I have been asleep! The furnace is +cold. The elixir!" He hastily blended the essences that he had made, +though one or two ingredients were still lacking, and drank them off. +"Faugh!" he exclaimed. "Still unfinished-perhaps spoiled. I must begin +again." Taking his hat and coat he uttered a weary sigh and was about to +open the door when his cheek blenched with pain, sight seemed to leave +him, the cry for help that rose to his lips was stifled in a groan of +anguish, a groping gesture brought a shelf of retorts and bottles to the +floor, and he fell writhing among their fragments. The elixir of life, +unfinished, was an elixir of death. + + + + +ELIZA WHARTON + +Under the name of Eliza Wharton for a brief time lived a woman whose name +was said to be Elizabeth Whitman. Little is known of her, and it is +thought that she had gone among strangers to conceal disgrace. She died +without telling her story. In 1788 she arrived at the Bell Tavern, +Danvers, in company with a man, who, after seeing her properly bestowed, +drove away and never returned. A graceful, beautiful, well-bred woman, +with face overcast by a tender melancholy, she kept indoors with her +books, her sewing, and a guitar, avoiding the gossip of the idle. She +said that her husband was absent on a journey, and a letter addressed to +"Mrs. Eliza Wharton" was to be seen on her table when she received +callers. Once a stranger paused at her door and read the name thereon. As +he passed on the woman groaned, "I am undone!" One good woman, seeing her +need of care and defiant of village prattling, took her to her home, and +there, after giving birth to a dead child, she passed away. Among her +effects were letters full of pathetic appeal, and some verses, closing +thus: + + "O thou for whose dear sake I bear + A doom so dreadful, so severe, + May happy fates thy footsteps guide + And o'er thy peaceful home preside. + Nor let Eliza's early tomb + Infect thee with its baleful gloom." + +A stone was raised above her grave, by whom it is not known, and this +inscription was engraved thereon: "This humble stone, in memory of +Elizabeth Whitman, is inscribed by her weeping friends, to whom she +endeared herself by uncommon tenderness and affection. Endowed with +superior genius and acquirements, she was still more endeared by humility +and benevolence. Let candor throw a veil over her frailties, for great +was her charity for others. She sustained the last painful scene far from +every friend, and exhibited an example of calm resignation. Her departure +was on the 25th of July, 1788, in the thirty-seventh year of her age, and +the tears of strangers watered her grave." + + + + +SALE OF THE SOUTHWICKS + +Bitter were the persecutions endured by Quakers at the hands of the +Puritans. They were flogged if they were restless in church, and flogged +if they did not go to it. Their ears were slit and they were set in the +stocks if they preached, and if any tender-hearted person gave them bed, +bite, or sup, he, too, was liable to punishment. They were charged with +the awful offence of preaching false doctrine, and no matter how pure +their lives might be, the stern Salemite would concede no good of them +while their faith was different from his. They even suspected Cobbler +Keezar of mischief when he declared that his magic lapstone which Agrippa +had torn from the tower at Nettesheim--gave him a vision of the time when +men would be as glad as nature, when the "snuffler of psalms" would sing +for joy, when priests and Quakers would talk together kindly, when +pillory and gallows should be gone. Poor Keezar! In ecstasy at that +prospect he flung up his arms, and his lapstone rolled into the +Merrimack. The tired mill-girls of Lowell still frequent the spot to seek +some dim vision of future comfort. + +In contrast to the tales of habitual tyranny toward the Quakers is the +tradition of the Southwicks. Lawrence and Cassandra, of that name, were +banished from Salem, in spite of their blameless lives, for they had +embraced Quakerism. They died within three days of each other on Shelter +Island, but their son and daughter, Daniel and Provided, returned to +their birthplace, and were incessantly fined for not going to church. At +last, having lost their property through seizures made to satisfy their +fines, the General Court of Boston issued an order for their sale, as +slaves, to any Englishman of Virginia or Barbadoes. Edward Butter was +assigned to sell and take them to their master. The day arrived and Salem +market-place was crowded with a throng of the curious. Provided Southwick +mounted the block and Butter began to call for bids. While expatiating on +the aptness of the girl for field or house-service, the master of the +Barbadoes ship on which Butter had engaged passage for himself and his +two charges looked into her innocent face, and roared, in noble dudgeon, +"If my ship were filled with silver, by God, I'd sink her in harbor +rather than take away this child!" The multitude experienced a quick +change of feeling and applauded the sentiment. As the judges and officers +trudged away with gloomy faces, Provided Southwick descended from the +auction-block, and brother and sister went forth into the town free and +unharmed. + + + + +THE COURTSHIP OF MYLES STANDISH + +Myles Standish, compact, hard-headed little captain of the Puritan guard +at Plymouth, never knew the meaning of fear until he went a-courting +Priscilla Mullins--or was she a Molines, as some say? He had fought white +men and red men and never reeked of danger in the doing it, but his +courage sank to his boots whenever this demure maiden glanced at him, as +he thought, with approval. Odd, too, for he had been married once, and +Rose was not so long dead that he had forgotten the ways and likings of +women; but he made no progress in his suit, and finally chose John Alden +to urge it for him. John--who divides with Mary Chilton the honor of +being first to land on Plymouth Rock--was a well-favored lad of +twenty-two. Until he could build a house for himself he shared Standish's +cottage and looked up to that worthy as a guardian, but it was a hard +task that was set for him now. He went to goodman Mullins with a slow +step and sober countenance and asked leave to plead his protector's +cause. The father gave it, called his daughter in, and left them +together; then, with noble faith to his mission, the young man begged the +maiden's hand for the captain, dwelling on his valor, strength, wisdom, +his military greatness, his certainty of promotion, his noble lineage, +and all good attributes he could endow him with. + +Priscilla kept at her spinning while this harangue went on, but the drone +of the wheel did not prevent her noting a sigh and a catch of the breath +that interrupted the discourse now and then. She flushed as she replied, +"Why does not Captain Standish come to me himself? If I am worth the +winning I ought to be worth the wooing." + +But John Alden seemed not to notice the girl's confusion until, in a +pause in his eloquence, Priscilla bent her head a little, as if to mend a +break in the flax, and said, "Prithee, John, why don't you speak for +yourself?" + +Then a great light broke on the understanding of John Alden, and a great +warmth welled up in his heart, and--they were married. Myles +Standish--well, some say that he walked in the wedding procession, while +one narrator holds that the sturdy Roundhead tramped away to the woods, +where he sat for a day, hating himself, and that he never forgave his +protege nor the maiden who took advantage of leap year. However that may +be, the wedding was a happy one, and the Aldens of all America claim John +and Priscilla for their ancestors. + + + + +MOTHER CREWE + +Mother Crewe was of evil repute in Plymouth in the last century. It was +said that she had taken pay for luring a girl into her old farm-house, +where a man lay dead of small-pox, with intent to harm her beauty; she +was accused of blighting land and driving ships ashore with spells; in +brief, she was called a witch, and people, even those who affected to +ignore the craft of wizardry, were content to keep away from her. When +the Revolution ended, Southward Howland demanded Dame Crewe's house and +acre, claiming under law of entail, though primogeniture had been little +enforced in America, where there was room and to spare for all. But +Howland was stubborn and the woman's house had good situation, so one day +he rode to her door and summoned her with a tap of his whip. + +"What do you here on my land?" said he. + +"I live on land that is my own. I cleared it, built my house here, and no +other has claim to it." + +"Then I lay claim. The place is mine. I shall tear your cabin down on +Friday." + +"On Friday they'll dig your grave on Burying Hill. I see the shadow +closing round you. You draw it in with every breath. Quick! Home and make +your peace!" The hag's withered face was touched with spots of red and +her eyes glared in their sunken sockets. + +"Bandy no witch words with me, woman. On Friday I will return." And he +swung himself into his saddle. As he did so a black cat leaped on Mother +Crewe's shoulder and stood there, squalling. The woman listened to its +cries as if they were words. Her look of hate deepened. Raising her hand, +she cried, "Your day is near its end. Repent!" + +"Bah! You have heard what I have said. If on Friday you are not +elsewhere, I'll tear the timbers down and bury you in the ruins." + +"Enough!" cried the woman, her form straightening, her voice grown +shrill. "My curse is on you here and hereafter. Die! Then go down to +hell!" + +As she said this the cat leaped from her shoulder to the flank of the +horse, spitting and clawing, and the frightened steed set off at a +furious pace. As he disappeared in the scrub oaks his master was seen +vainly trying to stop him. The evening closed in with fog and chill, and +before the light waned a man faring homeward came upon the corpse of +Southward Howland stretched along the ground. + + + + +AUNT RACHEL'S CURSE + +On a headland near Plymouth lived "Aunt Rachel," a reputed seer, who made +a scant livelihood by forecasting the future for such seagoing people as +had crossed her palm. The crew of a certain brig came to see her on the +day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad +company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the +chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your +gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man, +she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships +for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these +sands and left me childless and a widow. He who rides the pale horse be +your guide, and you be of the number who follow him!" + +That night old Rachel's house was burned, and she barely escaped with her +life, but when it was time for the brig to sail she took her place among +the townfolk who were to see it off. The owner of the brig tried to +console her for the loss of the house. "I need it no longer," she +answered, "for the narrow house will soon be mine, and you wretches +cannot burn that. But you! Who will console you for the loss of your +brig?" + +"My brig is stanch. She has already passed the worst shoal in the bay." + +"But she carries a curse. She cannot swim long." + +As each successive rock and bar was passed the old woman leaned forward, +her hand shaking, her gray locks flying, her eyes starting, her lips +mumbling maledictions, "like an evil spirit, chiding forth the storms as +ministers of vengeance." The last shoal was passed, the merchant sighed +with relief at seeing the vessel now safely on her course, when the woman +uttered a harsh cry, and raised her hand as if to command silence until +something happened that she evidently expected. For this the onlookers +had not long to wait: the brig halted and trembled--her sails shook in +the wind, her crew were seen trying to free the cutter--then she careened +and sank until only her mast-heads stood out of the water. Most of the +company ran for boats and lines, and few saw Rachel pitch forward on the +earth-dead, with a fierce smile of exultation on her face. The rescuers +came back with all the crew, save one--the man who had challenged the old +woman and revengefully burned her cabin. Rachel's body was buried where +her house had stood, and the rock--before unknown--where the brig had +broken long bore the name of Rachel's Curse. + + + + +NIX'S MATE + +The black, pyramidal beacon, called Nix's Mate, is well known to +yachtsmen, sailors, and excursionists in Boston harbor. It rises above a +shoal,--all that is left of a fair, green island which long ago +disappeared in the sea. In 1636 it had an extent of twelve acres, and on +its highest point was a gallows where pirates were hanged in chains. One +night cries were heard on board of a ship that lay at anchor a little way +off shore, and when the watch put off, to see what might be amiss, the +captain, named Nix, was found murdered in his bed. There was no direct +evidence in the case, and no motive could be assigned for the deed, +unless it was the expectancy of promotion on the part of the mate, in +case of his commander's death. + +It was found, however, that this possibility gave significance to certain +acts and sayings of that officer during the voyage, and on circumstantial +evidence so slight as this he was convicted and sentenced to death. As he +was led to execution he swore that he was not guilty, as he had done +before, and from the scaffold he cried aloud, "God, show that I am +innocent. Let this island sink and prove to these people that I have +never stained my hands with human blood." Soon after the execution of his +sentence it was noticed that the surf was going higher on the shore, that +certain rocks were no longer uncovered at low tide, and in time the +island wasted away. The colonists looked with awe on this manifestation +and confessed that God had shown their wrong. + + + + +THE WILD MAN OF CAPE COD + +For years after Bellamy's pirate ship was wrecked at Wellfleet, by false +pilotage on the part of one of his captives, a strange-looking man used +to travel up and down the cape, who was believed to be one of the few +survivors of that night of storm, and of the hanging that others +underwent after getting ashore. The pirates had money when the ship +struck; it was found in the pockets of a hundred drowned who were cast on +the beach, as well as among the sands of the cape, for coin was gathered +there long after. They supposed the stranger had his share, or more, and +that he secreted a quantity of specie near his cabin. After his death +gold was found under his clothing in a girdle. He was often received at +the houses of the fishermen, both because the people were hospitable and +because they feared harm if they refused to feed or shelter him; but if +his company grew wearisome he was exorcised by reading aloud a portion of +the Bible. When he heard the holy words he invariably departed. + +And it was said that fiends came to him at night, for in his room, +whether he appeared to sleep or wake, there were groans and blasphemy, +uncanny words and sounds that stirred the hair of listeners on their +scalps. The unhappy creature cried to be delivered from his tormenters +and begged to be spared from seeing a rehearsal of the murders he had +committed. For some time he was missed from his haunts, and it was +thought that he had secured a ship and set to sea again; but a traveller +on the sands, while passing his cabin in the small hours, had heard a +more than usual commotion, and could distinguish the voice of the wild +man raised in frantic appeal to somebody, or something; still, knowing +that it was his habit to cry out so, and having misgivings about +approaching the house, the traveller only hurried past. A few neighbors +went to the lonely cabin and looked through the windows, which, as well +as the doors, were locked on the inside. The wild man lay still and white +on the floor, with the furniture upset and pieces of gold clutched in his +fingers and scattered about him. There were marks of claws about his +neck. + + + + +NEWBURY'S OLD ELM + +Among the venerable relics of Newbury few are better known and more +prized than the old elm. It is a stout tree, with a girth of twenty-four +and a half feet, and is said to have been standing since 1713. In that +year it was planted by Richard Jacques, then a youthful rustic, who had a +sweetheart, as all rustics have, and adored her as rustics and other men +should do. On one of his visits he stayed uncommonly late. It was nearly +ten o'clock when he set off for home. The town had been abed an hour or +more; the night was murky and oppressively still, and corpse-candles were +dancing in the graveyard. Witch times had not been so far agone that he +felt comfortable, and, lest some sprite, bogie, troll, or goblin should +waylay him, he tore an elm branch from a tree that grew before his +sweetheart's house, and flourished it as he walked. He reached home +without experiencing any of the troubles that a superstitious fancy had +conjured. As he was about to cast the branch away a comforting vision of +his loved one came into his mind, and he determined to plant the branch +at his own door, that in the hours of their separation he might be +reminded of her who dwelt beneath the parent tree. He did so. It rooted +and grew, and when the youth and maid had long been married, their +children and grandchildren sported beneath its branches. + + + + +SAMUEL SEWALL'S PROPHECY + +The peace of Newbury is deemed to be permanently secured by the prophecy +of Samuel Sewall, the young man who married the buxom daughter of +Mint-Master John Hull, and received, as wedding portion, her weight in +fresh-coined pine-tree shillings. He afterward became notorious as one of +the witchcraft judges. The prophecy has not been countervailed, nor is it +likely to be, whether the conditions are kept or not. It runs in this +wise: + +"As long as Plum island shall faithfully keep the commanded Post, +Notwithstanding the hectoring words and hard blows of the proud and +boisterous ocean; As long as any Salmon or Sturgeon shall swim in the +streams of Merrimack, or any Perch or Pickeril in Crane Pond; As long as +the Sea Fowl shall know the time of their coming, and not neglect +seasonably to visit the places of their acquaintance; As long as any +Cattel shall be fed with Grass growing in the meadows which doe humbly +bow themselves before Turkie Hill; As long as any Sheep shall walk upon +Old town Hills, and shall from thence look pleasantly down upon the River +Parker and the fruitful Marishes lying beneath; As long as any free and +harmless Doves shall find a White Oak or other Tree within the township +to perch or feed, or build a careless Nest upon, and shall voluntarily +present themselves to perform the office of Gleaners after Barley +Harvest; As long as Nature shall not grow old and dote, but shall +constantly remember to give the rows of Indian Corn their education by +Pairs; So long shall Christians be born there and being first made meet, +shall from thence be translated to be made partakers of the Saints of +Light." + + + + +THE SHRIEKING WOMAN + +During the latter part of the seventeenth century a Spanish ship, richly +laden, was beset off Marblehead by English pirates, who killed every +person on board, at the time of the capture, except a beautiful English +lady, a passenger on the ship, who was brought ashore at night and +brutally murdered at a ledge of rocks near Oakum Bay. As the fishermen +who lived near were absent in their boats, the women and children, who +were startled from their sleep by her piercing shrieks, dared not attempt +a rescue. Taking her a little way from shore in their boat, the pirates +flung her into the sea, and as she came to the surface and clutched the +gunwale they hewed at her hands with cutlasses. She was heard to cry, +"Lord, save me! Mercy! O, Lord Jesus, save me!" Next day the people found +her mangled body on the rocks, and, with bitter imprecations at the worse +than beasts that had done this wrong, they prepared it for burial. It was +interred where it was found, but, although it was committed to the earth +with Christian forms, for one hundred and fifty years the victim's cries +and appeals were repeated, on each anniversary of the crime, with such +distinctness as to affright all who heard them--and most of the citizens +of Marblehead claimed to be of that number. + + + + +AGNES SURRIAGE + +When, in 1742, Sir Henry Frankland, collector of the port of Boston, went +to Marblehead to inquire into the smuggling that was pretty boldly +carried on, he put up at the Fountain Inn. As he entered that hostelry a +barefooted girl, of sixteen, who was scrubbing the floor, looked at him. +The young man was handsome, well dressed, gallant in bearing, while Agnes +Surriage, maid of all work, was of good figure, beautiful face, and +modest demeanor. Sir Henry tossed out a coin, bidding her to buy shoes +with it, and passed to his room. But the image of Agnes rose constantly +before him. He sought her company, found her of ready intelligence for +one unschooled, and shortly after this visit he obtained the consent of +her parents--humble folk--to take this wild flower to the city and +cultivate it. + +He gave her such an education as the time and place afforded, dressed her +well, and behaved with kindness toward her, while she repaid this care +with the frank bestowal of her heart. The result was not foreseen--not +intended--but they became as man and wife without having wedded. Colonial +society was scandalized, yet the baronet loved the girl sincerely and +could not be persuaded to part from her. Having occasion to visit England +he took Agnes with him and introduced her as Lady Frankland, but the +nature of their alliance had been made known to his relatives and they +refused to receive her. The thought of a permanent union with the girl +had not yet presented itself to the young man. An aristocrat could not +marry a commoner. A nobleman might destroy the honor of a girl for +amusement, but it was beneath his dignity to make reparation for the act. + +Sir Henry was called to Portugal in 1755, and Agnes went with him. They +arrived inopportunely in one respect, though the sequel showed a blessing +in the accident; for while they were sojourning in Lisbon the earthquake +occurred that laid the city in ruins and killed sixty thousand people. +Sir Henry was in his carriage at the time and was buried beneath a +falling wall, but Agnes, who had hurried from her lodging at the first +alarm, sped through the rocking streets in search of her lover. She found +him at last, and, instead of crying or fainting, she set to work to drag +away the stones and timbers that were piled upon him. Had she been a +delicate creature, her lover's equal in birth, such as Frankland was used +to dance with at the state balls, she could not have done this, but her +days of service at the inn had given her a strength that received fresh +accessions from hope and love. In an hour she had liberated him, and, +carrying him to a place of safety, she cherished the spark of life until +health returned. The nobleman had received sufficient proof of Agnes's +love and courage. He realized, at last, the superiority of worth to +birth. He gave his name, as he had already given his heart, to her, and +their married life was happy. + + + + +SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE + +Flood, Fluid, or Floyd Ireson (in some chronicles his name is Benjamin) +was making for Marblehead in a furious gale, in the autumn of 1808, in +the schooner Betsy. Off Cape Cod he fell in with the schooner Active, of +Beverly, in distress, for she had been disabled in the heavy sea and was +on her beam ends, at the mercy of the tempest. The master of the Active +hailed Ireson and asked to be taken off, for his vessel could not last +much longer, but the Betsy, after a parley, laid her course again +homeward, leaving the exhausted and despairing crew of the sinking vessel +to shift as best they might. The Betsy had not been many hours in port +before it was known that men were in peril in the bay, and two crews of +volunteers set off instantly to the rescue. But it was too late. The +Active was at the bottom of the sea. The captain and three of his men +were saved, however, and their grave accusation against the Betsy's +skipper was common talk in Marblehead ere many days. + +On a moonlight night Flood Ireson was roused by knocking at his door. On +opening it he was seized by a band of his townsmen, silently hustled to a +deserted spot, stripped, bound, and coated with tar and feathers. At +break of day he was pitched into an old dory and dragged along the roads +until the bottom of the boat dropped out, when he was mounted in a cart +and the procession continued until Salem was reached. The selectmen of +that town turned back the company, and for a part of the way home the +cart was drawn by a jeering crowd of fishwives. Ireson was released only +when nature had been taxed to the limit of endurance. As his bonds were +cut he said, quietly, "I thank you for my ride, gentlemen, but you will +live to regret it." + +Some of the cooler heads among his fellows have believed the skipper +innocent and throw the blame for the abandonment of the sinking vessel on +Ireson's mutinous crew. There are others, the universal deniers, who +believe that the whole thing is fiction. Those people refuse to believe +in their own grandfathers. Ireson became moody and reckless after this +adventure. He did not seem to think it worth the attempt to clear +himself. At times he seemed trying, by his aggressive acts and bitter +speeches, to tempt some hot-tempered townsman to kill him. He died after +a severe freezing, having been blown to sea--as some think by his own +will--in a smack. + + + + +HEARTBREAK HILL + +The name of Heartbreak Hill pertains, in the earliest records of Ipswich, +to an eminence in the middle of that town on which there was a large +Indian settlement, called Agawam, before the white men settled there and +drove the inhabitants out. Ere the English colony had been firmly planted +a sailor straying ashore came among the simple natives of Agawam, and +finding their ways full of novelty he lived with them for a time. When he +found means to return to England he took with him the love of a maiden of +the tribe, but the girl herself he left behind, comforting her on his +departure with an assurance that before many moons he would return. +Months went by and extended into years, and every day the girl climbed +Heartbreak Hill to look seaward for some token of her lover. At last a +ship was seen trying to make harbor, with a furious gale running her +close to shore, where breakers were lashing the rocks and sand. The girl +kept her station until the vessel, becoming unmanageable, was hurled +against the shore and smashed into a thousand pieces. As its timbers went +tossing away on the frothing billows a white, despairing face was lifted +to hers for an instant; then it sank and was seen nevermore--her lover's +face. The "dusky Ariadne" wasted fast from that day, and she lies buried +beside the ledge that was her watch-tower. + + + + +HARRY MAIN: THE TREASURE AND THE CATS + +Ipswich had a very Old Harry in the person of Harry Main, a dark-souled +being, who, after a career of piracy, smuggling, blasphemy, and +dissipation, became a wrecker, and lured vessels to destruction with +false lights. For his crimes he was sent, after death, to do penance on +Ipswich bar, where he had sent many a ship ashore, his doom being to +twine ropes of sand, though some believe it was to shovel back the sea. +Whenever his rope broke he would roar with rage and anguish, so that he +was heard for miles, whereon the children would run to their trembling +mothers and men would look troubled and shake their heads. After a good +bit of cable had been coiled, Harry had a short respite that he enjoyed +on Plum Island, to the terror of the populace. When the tide and a gale +are rising together people say, as they catch the sound of moaning from +the bar, "Old Harry's grumbling again." + +Now, Harry Main--to say nothing of Captain Kidd--was believed to have +buried his ill-gotten wealth in Ipswich, and one man dreamed for three +successive nights that it had been interred in a mill. Believing that a +revelation had been made to him he set off with spade, lantern, and +Bible, on the first murky night--for he wanted no partner in the +discovery--and found a spot which he recognized as the one that had been +pictured to his sleeping senses. He set to work with alacrity and a +shovel, and soon he unearthed a flat stone and an iron bar. He was about +to pry up the stone when an army of black cats encircled the pit and +glared into it with eyes of fire. + +The poor man, in an access both of alarm and courage, whirled the bar +about his head and shouted "Scat!" The uncanny guards of the treasure +disappeared instanter, and at the same moment the digger found himself up +to his middle in icy water that had poured into the hole as he spoke. + +The moral is that you should never talk when you are hunting for +treasure. Wet, scared, and disheartened, the man crawled out and made +homeward, carrying with him, as proof of his adventure, a case of +influenza and the iron bar. The latter trophy he fashioned into a latch, +in which shape it still does service on one of the doors of Ipswich. + + + + +THE WESSAGUSCUS HANGING + +Among the Puritans who settled in Wessaguscus, now Weymouth, +Massachusetts, was a brash young fellow, of remarkable size and strength, +who, roaming the woods one day, came on a store of corn concealed in the +ground, in the fashion of the Indians. As anybody might have done, he +filled his hat from the granary and went his way. When the red man who +had dug the pit came back to it he saw that his cache had been levied on, +and as the footprints showed the marauder to be an Englishman he went to +the colonists and demanded justice. The matter could have been settled by +giving a pennyworth of trinkets to the Indian, but, as the moral law had +been broken, the Puritans deemed it right that the pilferer should +suffer. + +They held a court and a proposition was made and seriously considered +that, as the culprit was young, hardy, and useful to the colony, his +clothes should be stripped off and put on the body of a bedridden weaver, +who would be hanged in his stead in sight of the offended savages. Still, +it was feared that if they learned the truth about that execution the +Indians would learn a harmful lesson in deceit, and it was, therefore, +resolved to punish the true offender. He, thinking they were in jest, +submitted to be bound, though before doing so he could have "cleaned out" +the court-room, and ere he was really aware of the purpose of his judges +he was kicking at vacancy. + +Butler, in "Hudibras," quotes the story, but makes the offence more +serious-- + + "This precious brother, having slain, + In time of peace, an Indian, + Not out of malice, but mere zeal, + Because he was an infidel, + The mighty Tottipotimoy + Sent to our elders an envoy + Complaining sorely of the breach Of league." + +But the Puritans, having considered that the offender was a teacher and a +cobbler, + + "Resolved to spare him; yet, to do + The Indian Hoghan Moghan, too, + Impartial justice, in his stead did + Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid." + +The whole circumstance is cloudy, and the reader may accept either +version that touches his fancy. + + + + +THE UNKNOWN CHAMPION + +There was that in the very air of the New World that made the Pilgrims +revolt against priests and kings. The Revolution was long a-breeding +before shots were fired at Lexington. Stout old Endicott, having +conceived a dislike to the British flag because to his mind the cross was +a relic of popery, paraded his soldiers and with his sword ripped out the +offending emblem in their presence. There was a faint cry of "Treason!" +but he answered, "I will avouch the deed before God and man. Beat a +flourish, drummer. Shout for the ensign of New England. Pope nor tyrant +hath part in it now." And a loud huzza of independence went forth. + +With this sentiment confirmed among the people, it is not surprising that +the judges who had condemned a papist king--Charles I.--to the block +should find welcome in this land. For months at a time they lived in +cellars and garrets in various parts of New England, their hiding-places +kept secret from the royal sheriffs who were seeking them. For a time +they had shelter in a cave in West Rock, New Haven, and once in that town +they were crouching beneath the bridge that a pursuing party crossed in +search of them. In Ipswich the house is pointed out where they were +concealed in the cellar, and the superstitious believed that, as a +penalty for their regicidal decision, they are doomed to stay there, +crying vainly for deliverance. + +Philip, the Narragansett chief, had declared war on the people of New +England, and was waging it with a persistence and fury that spread terror +through the country. It was a struggle against manifest destiny, such as +must needs be repeated whenever civilization comes to dispute a place in +new lands with savagery, and which has been continued, more and more +feebly, to our own day. The war was bloody, and for a long time the issue +hung in the balance. At last the Indian king was driven westward. The +Nipmucks joined him in the Connecticut Valley, and he laid siege to the +lonely settlements of Brookfield, Northfield, Deerfield, and Springfield, +killing, scalping, and burning without mercy. On the 1st of September, +1675, he attacked Hadley while its people were at church, the war-yelp +interrupting a prayer of the pastor. All the men of the congregation +sallied out with pikes and guns and engaged the foe, but so closely were +they pressed that a retreat was called, when suddenly there appeared +among them a tall man, of venerable and commanding aspect, clad in +leather, and armed with sword and gun. + +His hair and beard were long and white, but his eye was dark and +resolute, and his voice was strong. "Why sink your hearts?" he cried. +"Fear ye that God will give you up to yonder heathen dogs? Follow me, and +ye shall see that this day there is a champion in Israel." + +Posting half the force at his command to sustain the fight, he led the +others quickly by a detour to the rear of the Indians, on whom he fell +with such energy that the savages, believing themselves overtaken by +reinforcements newly come, fled in confusion. When the victors returned +to the village the unknown champion signed to the company to fall to +their knees while he offered thanks and prayer. Then he was silent for a +little, and when they looked up he was gone. + +They believed him to be an angel sent for their deliverance, nor, till he +had gone to his account, did they know that their captain in that crisis +was Colonel William Goffe, one of the regicide judges, who, with his +associate Whalley, was hiding from the vengeance of the son of the king +they had rebelled against. After leaving their cave in New Haven, being +in peril from beasts and human hunters, they went up the Connecticut +Valley to Hadley, where the clergyman of the place, Rev. John Russell, +gave them shelter for fifteen years. Few were aware of their existence, +and when Goffe, pale with seclusion from the light, appeared among the +people near whom he had long been living, it is no wonder that they +regarded him with awe. + +Whalley died in the minister's house and was buried in a crypt outside of +the cellar-wall, while Goffe kept much abroad, stopping in many places +and under various disguises until his death, which occurred soon after +that of his associate. He was buried in New Haven. + + + + +GOODY COLE + +Goodwife Eunice Cole, of Hampton, Massachusetts, was so "vehemently +suspected to be a witch" that in 1680 she was thrown into jail with a +chain on her leg. She had a mumbling habit, which was bad, and a wild +look, which was worse. The death of two calves had been charged to her +sorceries, and she was believed to have raised the cyclone that sent a +party of merrymakers to the sea-bottom off the Isles of Shoals, for +insulting her that morning. Some said that she took the shapes of eagles, +dogs, and cats, and that she had the aspect of an ape when she went +through the mummeries that caused Goody Marston's child to die, yet while +she was in Ipswich jail a likeness of her was stumping about the +graveyard on the day when they buried the child. For such offences as +that of making bread ferment and give forth evil odors, that housekeepers +could only dispel by prayer, she was several times whipped and ducked by +the constable. + +At last she lay under sentence of death, for Anna Dalton declared that +her child had been changed in its cradle and that she hated and feared +the thing that had been left there. Her husband, Ezra, had pleaded with +her in vain. "'Tis no child of mine," she cried. "'Tis an imp. Don't you +see how old and shrewd it is? How wrinkled and ugly? It does not take my +milk: it is sucking my blood and wearing me to skin and bone." Once, as +she sat brooding by the fire, she turned to her husband and said, "Rake +the coals out and put the child in them. Goody Cole will fly fast enough +when she hears it screaming, and will come down chimney in the shape of +an owl or a bat, and take the thing away. Then we shall have our little +one back." + +Goodman Dalton sighed as he looked into the worn, scowling face of his +wife; then, laying his hands on her head, he prayed to God that she might +be led out of the shadow and made to love her child again. As he prayed a +gleam of sunset shone in at the window and made a halo around the face of +the smiling babe. Mistress Dalton looked at the little thing in doubt; +then a glow of recognition came into her eyes, and with a sob of joy she +caught the child to her breast, while Dalton embraced them both, deeply +happy, for his wife had recovered her reason. In the midst of tears and +kisses the woman started with a faint cry: she remembered that a poor old +creature was about to expiate on the gallows a crime that had never been +committed. She urged her husband to ride with all speed to justice Sewall +and demand that Goody Cole be freed. This the goodman did, arriving at +Newbury at ten o'clock at night, when the town had long been abed and +asleep. By dint of alarms at the justice's door he brought forth that +worthy in gown and night-cap, and, after the case had been explained to +him, he wrote an order for Mistress Cole's release. + +With this paper in his hand Dalton rode at once to Ipswich, and when the +cock crew in the dawning the victim of that horrible charge walked forth, +without her manacles. Yet dark suspicion hung about the beldam to the +last, and she died, as she had lived, alone in the little cabin that +stood near the site of the academy. Even after her demise the villagers +could with difficulty summon courage to enter her cot and give her +burial. Her body was tumbled into a pit, hastily dug near her door, and a +stake was driven through the heart to exorcise the powers of evil that +possessed her in life. + + + + +GENERAL MOULTON AND THE DEVIL + +Jonathan Moulton, of Hampton, was a general of consequence in the +colonial wars, but a man not always trusted in other than military +matters. It was even hinted that his first wife died before her time, for +he quickly found consolation in his bereavement by marrying her +companion. In the middle of the night the bride was awakened with a +start, for she felt a cold hand plucking at the wedding-ring that had +belonged to the buried Mrs. Moulton, and a voice whispered in her ear, +"Give the dead her own." With a scream of terror she leaped out of bed, +awaking her husband and causing candles to be brought. The ring was gone. + +It was long after this occurrence that the general sat musing at his +fireside on the hardness of life in new countries and the difficulty of +getting wealth, for old Jonathan was fond of money, and the lack of it +distressed him worse than a conscience. "If only I could have gold +enough," he muttered, "I'd sell my soul for it." Whiz! came something +down the chimney. The general was dazzled by a burst of sparks, from +which stepped forth a lank personage in black velvet with clean ruffles +and brave jewels. "Talk quick, general," said the unknown, "for in +fifteen minutes I must be fifteen miles away, in Portsmouth." And picking +up a live coal in his fingers he looked at his watch by its light. "Come. +You know me. Is it a bargain?" + +The general was a little slow to recover his wits, but the word "bargain" +put him on his mettle, and he began to think of advantageous terms. "What +proof may there be that you can do your part in the compact?" he +inquired. The unknown ran his fingers through his hair and a shower of +guineas jingled on the floor. They were pretty warm, but Moulton, in his +eagerness, fell on hands and knees and gathered them to his breast. + +"Give me some liquor," then demanded Satan, for of course he was no +other, and filling a tankard with rum he lighted it with the candle, +remarked, affably, "To our better acquaintance," and tossed off the +blazing dram at a gulp. "I will make you," said he, "the richest man in +the province. Sign this paper and on the first day of every month I will +fill your boots with gold; but if you try any tricks with me you will +repent it. For I know you, Jonathan. Sign." + +Moulton hesitated. "Humph!" sneered his majesty. "You have put me to all +this trouble for nothing." And he began to gather up the guineas that +Moulton had placed on the table. This was more than the victim of his +wiles could stand. He swallowed a mouthful of rum, seized a pen that was +held out to him, and trembled violently as a paper was placed before him; +but when he found that his name was to appear with some of the most +distinguished in the province his nerves grew steadier and he placed his +autograph among those of the eminent company, with a few crooked +embellishments and all the t's crossed. "Good!" exclaimed the devil, and +wrapping his cloak about him he stepped into the fire and was up the +chimney in a twinkling. + +Shrewd Jonathan went out the next day and bought the biggest pair of +jack-boots he could find in Hampton. He hung them on the crane on the +last night of that and all the succeeding months so long as he lived, and +on the next morning they brimmed with coins. Moulton rolled in wealth. +The neighbors regarded his sudden prosperity with amazement, then with +envy, but afterward with suspicion. All the same, Jonathan was not +getting rich fast enough to suit himself. + +When the devil came to make a certain of his periodical payments he +poured guineas down the chimney for half an hour without seeming to fill +the boots. Bushel after bushel of gold he emptied into those spacious +money-bags without causing an overflow, and he finally descended to the +fireplace to see why. Moulton had cut the soles from the boots and the +floor was knee-deep in money. With a grin at the general's smartness the +devil disappeared, but in a few minutes a smell of sulphur pervaded the +premises and the house burst into flames. Moulton escaped in his shirt, +and tore his hair as he saw the fire crawl, serpent-like, over the beams, +and fantastic smoke-forms dance in the windows. Then a thought crossed +his mind and he grew calm: his gold, that was hidden in wainscot, +cupboard, floor, and chest, would only melt and could be quarried out by +the hundred weight, so that he could be well-to-do again. Before the +ruins were cool he was delving amid the rubbish, but not an ounce of gold +could he discover. Every bit of his wealth had disappeared. It was not +long after that the general died, and to quiet some rumors of disturbance +in the graveyard his coffin was dug up. It was empty. + + + + +THE SKELETON IN ARMOR + +The skeleton of a man wearing a breastplate of brass, a belt made of +tubes of the same metal, and lying near some copper arrow-heads, was +exhumed at Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1834. The body had been +artificially embalmed or else preserved by salts in the soil. His arms +and armor suggest Phoenician origin, but the skeleton is thought to be +that of a Dane or Norwegian who spent the last winter of his life at +Newport. He may have helped to carve the rock at West Newbury, or the +better-known Dighton rock at Taunton River that is covered with +inscriptions which the tides and frosts are fast effacing, and which have +been construed into a record of Norse exploration and discovery, though +some will have it that the inevitable Captain Kidd cut the figures there +to tell of buried treasure. The Indians have a legend of the arrival of +white men in a "bird," undoubtedly a ship, from which issued thunder and +lightning. A battle ensued when the visitors landed, and the white men +wrote the story of it on the rock. Certain scholars of the eighteenth +century declared that the rock bore an account of the arrival of +Phoenician sailors, blown across the Atlantic and unable or unwilling to +return. A representation of the pillars of Hercules was thought to be +included among the sculptures, showing that the castaways were familiar +with the Mediterranean. Only this is known about Dighton Rock, however: +that it stood where it does, and as it does, when the English settled in +this neighborhood. The Indians said there were other rocks near it which +bore similar markings until effaced by tides and drifting ice. + +Longfellow makes the wraith of the long-buried exile of the armor appear +and tell his story: He was a viking who loved the daughter of King +Hildebrand, and as royal consent to their union was withheld he made off +with the girl, hotly followed by the king and seventy horsemen. The +viking reached his vessel first, and hoisting sail continued his flight +over the sea, but the chase was soon upon him, and, having no alternative +but to fight or be taken, he swung around before the wind and rammed the +side of Hildebrand's galley, crushing in its timbers. The vessel tipped +and sank, and every soul on board went with her, while the viking's boat +kept on her course, and after a voyage of three weeks put in at +Narragansett Bay. The round tower at Newport this impetuous lover built +as a bower for his lady, and there he guarded her from the dangers that +beset those who are first in savage countries. When the princess died she +was buried in the tower, and the lonely viking, arraying himself in his +armor, fell on his spear, like Brutus, and expired. + + + + +MARTHA'S VINEYARD AND NANTUCKET + +There is no such place as Martha's Vineyard, except in geography and +common speech. It is Martin Wyngaard's Island, and so was named by +Skipper Block, an Albany Dutchman. But they would English his name, even +in his own town, for it lingers there in Vineyard Point. Bartholomew +Gosnold was one of the first white visitors here, for he landed in 1602, +and lived on the island for a time, collecting a cargo of sassafras and +returning thence to England because he feared the savages. + +This scarred and windy spot was the home of the Indian giant, Maushope, +who could wade across the sound to the mainland without wetting his +knees, though he once started to build a causeway from Gay Head to +Cuttyhunk and had laid the rocks where you may now see them, when a crab +bit his toe and he gave up the work in disgust. He lived on whales, +mostly, and broiled his dinners on fires made at Devil's Den from trees +that he tore up by the roots like weeds. In his tempers he raised mists +to perplex sea-wanderers, and for sport he would show lights on Gay Head, +though these may have been only the fires he made to cook his supper +with, and of which some beds of lignite are to be found as remains. He +clove No-Man's Land from Gay Head, turned his children into fish, and +when his wife objected he flung her to Seconnet Point, where she preyed +on all who passed before she hardened into a ledge. + +It is reported that he found the island by following a bird that had been +stealing children from Cape Cod, as they rolled in the warm sand or +paddled on the edge of the sea. He waded after this winged robber until +he reached Martha's Vineyard, where he found the bones of all the +children that had been stolen. Tired with his hunt he sat down to fill +his pipe; but as there was no tobacco he plucked some tons of poke that +grew thickly and that Indians sometimes used as a substitute for the +fragrant weed. His pipe being filled and lighted, its fumes rolled over +the ocean like a mist--in fact, the Indians would say, when a fog was +rising, "Here comes old Maushope's smoke"--and when he finished he +emptied his pipe into the sea. Falling on a shallow, the ashes made the +island of Nantucket. The first Indians to reach the latter place were the +parents of a babe that had been stolen by an eagle. They followed the +bird in their canoe, but arrived too late, for the little bones had been +picked clean. The Norsemen rediscovered the island and called it +Naukiton. Is Nantucket a corruption of that word, or was that word the +result of a struggle to master the Indian name? + + + + +LOVE AND TREASON + +The tribes that inhabited Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard before the +whites settled the country were constantly at war, and the people of the +western island once resolved to surprise those of Nantucket and slay as +many as possible before they could arm or organize for battle. The attack +was to be made before daybreak, at an hour when their intended victims +would be asleep in their wigwams, but on rowing softly to the hostile +shore, while the stars were still lingering in the west, the warriors +were surprised at finding the enemy alert and waiting their arrival with +bows and spears in hand. To proceed would have been suicidal, and they +returned to their villages, puzzled and disheartened. Not for some years +did they learn how the camp had been apprised, but at the end of that +time, the two tribes being at peace, one of their young men married a +girl of Nantucket, with whom he had long been in love, and confessed that +on the night preceding the attack he had stolen to the beach, crossed to +Nantucket on a neck of sand that then joined the islands, and was +uncovered only at low tide, sought his mistress, warned her of the +attack, that she, at least, might not be killed; then, at a mad run, with +waves of the rising tide lapping his feet, he returned to his people, who +had not missed him. He set off with a grave and innocent face in the +morning, and was as much surprised as any one when he found the enemy in +arms. + + + + +THE HEADLESS SKELETON OF SWAMPTOWN + +The boggy portion of North Kingston, Rhode Island, known as Swamptown, is +of queer repute in its neighborhood, for Hell Hollow, Pork Hill, Indian +Corner, and Kettle Hole have their stories of Indian crimes and +witch-meetings. Here the headless figure of a negro boy was seen by a +belated traveller on a path that leads over the hills. It was a dark +night and the figure was revealed in a blaze of blue light. It swayed to +and fro for a time, then rose from the ground with a lurch and shot into +space, leaving a trail of illumination behind it. Here, too, is +Goose-Nest Spring, where the witches dance at night. It dries up every +winter and flows through the summer, gushing forth on the same day of +every year, except once, when a goose took possession of the empty bed +and hatched her brood there. That time the water did not flow until she +got away with her progeny. + +But the most grewsome story of the place is that of the Indian whose +skull was found by a roadmender. This unsuspecting person took it home, +and, as the women would not allow him to carry it into the house, he hung +it on a pole outside. Just as the people were starting for bed, there +came a rattling at the door, and, looking out of the windows, they saw a +skeleton stalking around in quick and angry strides, like those of a +person looking for something. But how could that be when the skeleton had +neither eyes nor a place to carry them? It thrashed its bony arms +impatiently and its ribs rattled like a xylophone. The spectators were +transfixed with fear, all except the culprit, who said, through the +window, in a matter-of-fact way, "I left your head on the pole at the +back door." The skeleton started in that direction, seized the skull, +clapped it into the place where a head should have grown on its own +shoulders, and, after shaking its fists in a threatening way at the +house, disappeared in the darkness. It is said that he acts as a kind of +guard in the neighborhood, to see that none of the other Indians buried +there shall be disturbed, as he was. His principal lounging place is +Indian Corner, where there is a rock from which blood flows when the moon +shines--a memento, doubtless, of some tragedy that occurred there in +times before the white men knew the place. There is iron in the soil, and +visitors say that the red color is due to that, and that the spring would +flow just as freely on dark nights as on bright ones, if any were there +to see it, but the natives, who have given some thought to these matters, +know better. + + + + +THE CROW AND CAT OF HOPKINSHILL + +In a wood near Hopkins Hill, Rhode Island, is a bowlder, four feet in +diameter, scored with a peculiar furrow. Witch Rock, as it is called, +gained its name two centuries ago, when an old woman abode in a deserted +cabin close by and made the forest dreaded. Figures were seen flitting +through its shadows; articles left out o' nights in neighboring +settlements were missing in the morning, though tramps were unknown; +cattle were afflicted with diseases; stones were flung in at windows by +unseen hands; crops were blighted by hail and frost; and in stormy +weather the old woman was seen to rise out of the woods and stir and push +the clouds before her with a broom. For a hundred yards around Witch Rock +the ground is still accursed, and any attempt to break it up is +unavailing. Nearly a century ago a scoffer named Reynolds declared that +he would run his plough through the enchanted boundary, and the neighbors +watched the attempt from a distance. + +He started well, but on arriving at the magic circle the plough shied and +the wooden landside--or chip, as it was called--came off. It was replaced +and the team started again. In a moment the oxen stood unyoked, while the +chip jumped off and whirled away out of sight. On this, most of the +people edged away in the direction of home, and directly there came from +the north a crow that perched on a dead tree and cawed. John Hopkins, +owner of the land, cried to the bird, "Squawk, you damned old Pat +Jenkins!" and the crow took flight, dropping the chip at Reynolds's feet, +at the same moment turning into a beldam with a cocked hat, who descended +upon the rock. Before the men could reach her she changed into a black +cat and disappeared in the ground. Hunting and digging came to naught, +though the pursuers were so earnest and excited that one of them made the +furrow in the rock with a welt from his shovel. After that few people +cared to go near the place, and it became overgrown with weeds and trees +and bushes. + + + + +THE OLD STONE MILL + +If the round tower at Newport was not Benedict Arnold's wind-mill, and +any one or two of several other things, it is probably a relic of the +occupancy of this country by Thorwald and his Norsemen. After coasting +Wonderstrands (Cape Cod), in the year 1007, they built a town that is +known to historians--if not in their histories--as Norumbega, the lost +city of New England. It is now fancied that the city stood on the Charles +River, near Waltham, Massachusetts, where a monument may be erected, but +it is also believed that they reached the neighborhood of Newport, Rhode +Island. After this tower--popularly called the old stone mill-was built, +a seer among the Narragansetts had a vision in which he foresaw that when +the last remnant of the structure had fallen, and not one stone had been +left on another, the Indian race would vanish from this continent. The +work of its extermination seems, indeed, to have begun with the +possession of the coast by white men, and the fate of the aborigines is +easily read. + + + + +ORIGIN OF A NAME + +The origin of many curious geographical names has become an object of +mere surmise, and this is the more the pity because they suggest such +picturesque possibilities. We would like to know, for instance, how Burnt +Coat and Smutty Nose came by such titles. The conglomerate that strews +the fields south of Boston is locally known as Roxbury pudding-stone, +and, according to Dr. Holmes, the masses are fragments of a pudding, as +big as the State-house dome, that the family of a giant flung about, in a +fit of temper, and that petrified where it fell. But that would have been +called pudding-stone, anyway, from its appearance. The circumstance that +named the reef of Norman's Woe has passed out of record, though it is +known that goodman Norman and his son settled there in the seventeenth +century. It is Longfellow who has endowed the rock with this legend, for +he depicts a wreck there in the fury of a winter storm in 1680--the wreck +of the Hesperus, Richard Norman, master, from which went ashore next +morning the body of an unknown and beautiful girl, clad in ice and lashed +to a broken mast. + +But one of the oddest preservations of an apposite in name is found in +the legend of Point Judith, Rhode Island, an innocent _double entendre_. +About two centuries ago a vessel was driving toward the coast in a gale, +with rain and mist. The skipper's eyes were old and dim, so he got his +daughter Judith to stand beside him at the helm, as he steered the vessel +over the foaming surges. Presently she cried, "Land, father! I see land!" +"Where away?" he asked. But he could not see what she described, and the +roar of the wind drowned her voice, so he shouted, "Point, Judith! +Point!" The girl pointed toward the quarter where she saw the breakers, +and the old mariner changed his course and saved his ship from wreck. On +reaching port he told the story of his daughter's readiness, and other +captains, when they passed the cape in later days, gave to it the name of +Point Judith. + + + + +MICAH ROOD APPLES + +In Western Florida they will show roses to you that drop red dew, like +blood, and have been doing so these many years, for they sprang out of +the graves of women and children who had been cruelly killed by Indians. +But there is something queerer still about the Micah Rood--or +"Mike"--apples of Franklin, Connecticut, which are sweet, red of skin, +snowy of pulp, and have a red spot, like a blood-drop, near the core; +hence they are sometimes known as bloody-hearts. Micah Rood was a farmer +in Franklin in 1693. Though avaricious he was somewhat lazy, and was more +prone to dream of wealth than to work for it. But people whispered that +he did some hard and sharp work on the night after the peddler came to +town--the slender man with a pack filled with jewelry and +knickknacks--because on the morning after that visit the peddler was +found, beneath an apple-tree on Rood farm, with his pack rifled and his +skull split open. + +Suspicion pointed at Rood, and, while nothing was proved against him, he +became gloomy, solitary, and morose, keeping his own counsels more +faithfully than ever--though he never was disposed to take counsel of +other people. If he had expected to profit by the crime he was obviously +disappointed, for he became poorer than ever, and his farm yielded less +and less. To be sure, he did little work on it. When the apples ripened +on the tree that had spread its branches above the peddler's body, the +neighbors wagged their heads and whispered the more, for in the centre of +each apple was a drop of the peddler's blood: a silent witness and +judgment, they said, and the result of a curse that the dying man had +invoked against his murderer. Micah Rood died soon after, without saying +anything that his fellow-villagers might be waiting to hear, but his tree +is still alive and its strange fruit has been grafted on hundreds of +orchards. + + + + +A DINNER AND ITS CONSEQUENCES + +The Nipmucks were populous at Thompson, Connecticut, where they skilfully +tilled the fields, and where their earthworks, on Fort Hill, provided +them with a refuge in case of invasion. Their chief, Quinatisset, had his +lodge on the site of the Congregational church in Thompson. They believed +that Chargoggagmanchogagog Pond was paradise--the home of the Great +Spirit and departed souls--and that it would always yield fish to them, +as the hills did game. They were fond of fish, and would barter deer-meat +and corn for it, occasionally, with the Narragansetts. + +Now, these last-named Indians were a waterloving people, and to this day +their "fishing fire"--a column of pale flame--rises out of Quinebaug Lake +once in seven years, as those say who have watched beside its waters +through the night. Knowing their fondness for blue-fish and clams, the +Narragansetts asked the Nipmucks to dine with them on one occasion, and +this courtesy was eagerly accepted, the up-country people distinguishing +themselves by valiant trencher deeds; but, alas, that it should be so! +they disgraced themselves when, soon after, they invited the +Narragansetts to a feast of venison at Killingly, and quarrelled with +their guests over the dressing of the food. This rumpus grew into a +battle in which all but two of the invites were slain. Their hosts buried +them decently, but grass would never grow above their graves. + +This treachery the Great Spirit avenged soon after, when the Nipmucks had +assembled for a powwow, with accessory enjoyments, in the grassy vale +where Mashapaug Lake now reflects the charming landscape, and where, +until lately, the remains of a forest could be seen below the surface. In +the height of the revel the god struck away the foundations of the hills, +and as the earth sank, bearing the offending men and women, waters rushed +in and filled the chasm, so that every person was drowned, save one good +old woman beneath whose feet the ground held firm. Loon Island, where she +stood, remains in sight to-day. + + + + +THE NEW HAVEN STORM SHIP + +In 1647 the New Haven colonists, who even at that early day exhibited the +enterprise that has been a distinguishing feature of the Yankee, sent a +ship to Ireland to try to develop a commerce, their trading posts on the +Delaware having been broken up by the Swedes. When their agent, Captain +Lamberton, sailed--in January--the harbor was so beset with ice that a +track had to be cut through the floes to open water, five miles distant. +She had, moreover, to be dragged out stern foremost--an ill omen, the +sailors thought--and as she swung before the wind a passing drift of fog +concealed her, for a moment, from the gaze of those on shore, who, from +this, foretold things of evil. Though large and new, the ship was so +"walty"--inclined to roll--that the captain set off with misgiving, and +as she moved away the crew heard this solemn and disheartening invocation +from a clergyman on the wharf:--"Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury +these, our friends, in the bottom of the sea, take them; they are thine: +save them." + +Winter passed; so did spring; still the ship came not; but one afternoon +in June, just as a rain had passed, some children cried, "There's a brave +ship!" for, flying up the harbor, with all sail set and flaunting colors, +was a vessel "the very mould of our ship," the clergyman said. + +Strange to tell, she was going flat against the wind; no sailors were on +her deck; she did not toss with the fling of the waves; there was no +ripple at her bow. As she came close to land a single figure appeared on +the quarter, pointing seaward with a cutlass; then suddenly her main-top +fell, her masts toppled from their holdings, the dismantled hulk careened +and went down. A cloud dropped from heaven and brooded for a time above +the place where it had vanished, and when it lifted the surface of the +sea was empty and still. The good folk of New Haven believed that the +fate of the absent ship had been revealed, at last, for she never came +back and Captain Lamberton was never heard from. + + + + +THE WINDAM FROGS + +On a cloudy night in July, 1758, the people of Windham, Connecticut, were +awakened by screams and shrill voices. Some sprang up and looked to the +priming of their muskets, for they were sure that the Indians were +coming; others vowed that the voices were those of witches or devils, +flying overhead; a few ran into the streets with knives and fire-arms, +while others fastened their windows and prayerfully shrank under the +bedclothes. A notorious reprobate was heard blubbering for a Bible, and a +lawyer offered half of all the money that he had made dishonestly to any +charity if his neighbors would guarantee to preserve his life until +morning. + +All night the greatest alarm prevailed. At early dawn an armed party +climbed the hill to the eastward, and seeing no sign of Indians, or other +invaders, returned to give comfort to their friends. A contest for office +was waging at that period between two lawyers, Colonel Dyer and Mr. +Elderkin, and sundry of the people vowed that they had heard a +challenging yell of "Colonel Dyer! Colonel Dyer!" answered by a guttural +defiance of "Elderkin, too! Elderkin, too!" Next day the reason of it all +came out: A pond having been emptied by drought, the frogs that had lived +there emigrated by common consent to a ditch nearer the town, and on +arriving there had apparently fought for its possession, for many lay +dead on the bank. The night was still and the voices of the contestants +sounded clearly into the village, the piping of the smaller being +construed into "Colonel Dyer," and the grumble of the bull-frogs into +"Elderkin, too." The "frog scare" was a subject of pleasantry directed +against Windham for years afterward. + + + + +THE LAMB OF SACRIFICE + +The Revolution was beginning, homes were empty, farms were deserted, +industries were checked, and the levies of a foreign army had consumed +the stores of the people. A messenger rode into the Connecticut Valley +with tidings of the distress that was in the coast towns, and begged the +farmer folk to spare some of their cattle and the millers some of their +flour for the relief of Boston. On reaching Windham he was received with +good will by Parson White, who summoned his flock by peal of bell, and +from the steps of his church urged the needs of his brethren with such +eloquence that by nightfall the messenger had in his charge a flock of +sheep, a herd of cattle, and a load of grain, with which he was to set +off in the morning. The parson's daughter, a shy maid of nine or ten, +went to her father, with her pet lamb, and said to him, "I must give +this, too, for there are little children who are crying for bread and +meat." + +"No, no," answered the pastor, patting her head and smiling upon her. +"They do not ask help from babes. Run to bed and you shall play with your +lamb to-morrow." + +But in the red of the morning, as he drove his herd through the village +street, the messenger turned at the hail of a childish voice, and looking +over a stone wall he saw the little one with her snow-white lamb beside +her. + +"Wait," she cried, "for my lamb must go to the hungry children of Boston. +It is so small, please to carry it for some of the way, and let it have +fresh grass and water. It is all I have." + +So saying, she kissed the innocent face of her pet, gave it into the arms +of the young man, and ran away, her cheeks shining with tears. Folding +the little creature to his breast, the messenger looked admiringly after +the girl: he felt a glow of pride and hope for the country whose very +children responded to the call of patriotism. "Now, God help me, I will +carry this lamb to the city as a sacrifice." So saying, he set his face +to the east and vigorously strode forward. + + + + +MOODUS NOISES + +The village of Moodus, Connecticut, was troubled with noises. There is no +question as to that. In fact, Machimoodus, the Indian name of the spot, +means Place of Noises. As early as 1700, and for thirty years after, +there were crackings and rumblings that were variously compared to +fusillades, to thunder, to roaring in the air, to the breaking of rocks, +to reports of cannon. A man who was on Mount Tom while the noises were +violent describes the sound as that of rocks falling into immense caverns +beneath his feet and striking against cliffs as they fell. Houses shook +and people feared. + +Rev. Mr. Hosmer, in a letter written to a friend in Boston in 1729, says +that before white settlers appeared there was a large Indian population, +that powwows were frequent, and that the natives "drove a prodigious +trade at worshipping the devil." He adds:--"An old Indian was asked what +was the reason of the noises in this place, to which he replied that the +Indian's god was angry because Englishman's god was come here. Now, +whether there be anything diabolical in these things I know not, but this +I know, that God Almighty is to be seen and trembled at in what has been +often heard among us. Whether it be fire or air distressed in the +subterranean caverns of the earth cannot be known for there is no +eruption, no explosion perceptible but by sounds and tremors which are +sometimes very fearful and dreadful." + +It was finally understood that Haddam witches, who practised black magic, +met the Moodus witches, who used white magic, in a cave beneath Mount +Tom, and fought them in the light of a great carbuncle that was fastened +to the roof. The noises recurred in 1888, when houses rattled in +witch-haunted Salem, eight miles away, and the bell on the village church +"sung like a tuning-fork." The noises have occurred simultaneously with +earthquakes in other parts of the country, and afterward rocks have been +found moved from their bases and cracks have been discovered in the +earth. One sapient editor said that the pearls in the mussels in Salmon +and Connecticut Rivers caused the disturbance. + +If the witch-fights were continued too long the king of Machimoddi, who +sat on a throne of solid sapphire in the cave whence the noises came, +raised his wand: then the light of the carbuncle went out, peals of +thunder rolled through the rocky chambers, and the witches rushed into +the air. Dr. Steele, a learned and aged man from England, built a +crazy-looking house in a lonely spot on Mount Tom, and was soon as much a +mystery as the noises, for it was known that he had come to this country +to stop them by magic and to seize the great carbuncle in the cave--if he +could find it. Every window, crack, and keyhole was closed, and nobody +was admitted while he stayed there, but the clang of hammers was heard in +his house all night, sparks shot from his chimney, and strange odors were +diffused. When all was ready for his adventure he set forth, his path +marked by a faint light that moved before him and stopped at the closed +entrance to the cavern. + +Loud were the Moodus noises that night. The mountain shook and groans and +hisses were heard in the air as he pried up the stone that lay across the +pit-mouth. When he had lifted it off a light poured from it and streamed +into the heaven like a crimson comet or a spear of the northern aurora. +It was the flash of the great carbuncle, and the stars seen through it +were as if dyed in blood. In the morning Steele was gone. He had taken +ship for England. The gem carried with it an evil fate, for the galley +sank in mid-ocean; but, though buried beneath a thousand fathoms of +water, the red ray of the carbuncle sometimes shoots up from the sea, and +the glow of it strikes fear into the hearts of passing sailors. Long +after, when the booming was heard, the Indians said that the hill was +giving birth to another beautiful stone. + +Such cases are not singular. A phenomenon similar to the Moodus noises, +and locally known as "the shooting of Nashoba Hill," occurs at times in +the eminence of that name near East Littleton, Massachusetts. The +strange, deep rumbling was attributed by the Indians to whirlwinds trying +to escape from caves. + +Bald Mountain, North Carolina, was known as Shaking Mountain, for strange +sounds and tremors were heard there, and every moonshiner who had his +cabin on that hill joined the church and was diligent in worship until he +learned that the trembling was due to the slow cracking and separation of +a great ledge. + +At the end of a hot day on Seneca Lake, New York, are sometimes heard the +"lake guns," like exploding gas. Two hundred years ago Agayentah, a wise +and honored member of the Seneca tribe, was killed here by a +lightning-stroke. The same bolt that slew him wrenched a tree from the +bank and hurled it into the water, where it was often seen afterward, +going about the lake as if driven by unseen currents, and among the +whites it got the name of the Wandering Jew. It is often missing for +weeks together, and its reappearances are heralded by the low booming +of--what? The Indians said that the sound was but the echo of Agayentah's +voice, warning them of dangers and summoning them to battle, while the +Wandering Jew became his messenger. + + + + +HADDAM ENCHANTMENTS + +When witchcraft went rampant through New England the Connecticut town of +Haddam owned its share of ugly old women, whom it tried to reform by +lectures and ducking, instead of killing. It was averred that Goody +So-and-So had a black cat for a familiar, that Dame Thus-and-Thus rode on +a broomstick on stormy nights and screeched and gibbered down the +farm-house chimneys, and there were dances of old crones at Devils' Hop +Yard, Witch Woods, Witch Meadows, Giant's Chair, Devil's Footprint, and +Dragon's Rock. Farmers were especially fearful of a bent old hag in a red +hood, who seldom appeared before dusk, but who was apt to be found +crouched on their door-steps if they reached home late, her mole-covered +cheeks wrinkled with a grin, two yellow fangs projecting between her +lips, and a light shining from her eyes that numbed all on whom she +looked. On stormy nights she would drum and rattle at windows, and by +firelight and candle-light her face was seen peering through the panes. + +At Chapman Falls, where the attrition of a stream had worn pot-holes in +the rocks, there were meetings of Haddam witches, to the number of a +dozen. They brewed poisons in those holes, cast spells, and talked in +harsh tongues with the arch fiend, who sat on the brink of the ravine +with his tail laid against his shoulder, like a sceptre, and a red glow +emanating from his body. + +In Devils' Hop Yard was a massive oak that never bears leaves or acorns, +for it has been enchanted since the time that one of the witches, in the +form of a crow, perched on the topmost branch, looked to the four points +of the compass, and flew away. That night the leaves fell off, the twigs +shrivelled, sap ceased to run, and moss began to beard its skeleton +limbs. + +The appearance of witches in the guise of birds was no unusual thing, +indeed, and a farmer named Blakesley shot one of them in that form. He +was hunting in a meadow when a rush of wings was heard and he saw pass +overhead a bird with long neck, blue feathers, and feet like scrawny +hands. It uttered a cry so weird, so shrill, so like mocking laughter +that it made him shudder. This bird alighted on a dead tree and he shot +at it. With another laughing yell it circled around his head. Three times +he fired with the same result. Then he resolved to see if it were +uncanny, for nothing evil can withstand silver--except Congress. Having +no bullets of that metal he cut two silver buttons from his shirt and +rammed them home with a piece of cloth and a prayer. This time the bird +screamed in terror, and tried, but vainly, to rise from the limb. He +fired. The creature dropped, with a button in its body, and fell on its +right side. At that moment an old woman living in a cabin five miles +distant arose from her spinning-wheel, gasped, and fell on her right +side-dead. + + + + +BLOCK ISLAND AND THE PALATINE + +Block Island, or Manisees, is an uplift of clayey moorland between +Montauk and Gay Head. It was for sailors an evil place and "bad medicine" +for Indians, for men who had been wrecked there had been likewise robbed +and ill treated--though the honest islanders of to-day deny it--while the +Indians had been driven from their birthright after hundreds of their +number had fallen in its defence. In the winter of 1750-51 the ship +Palatine set forth over the seas with thrifty Dutch merchants and +emigrants, bound for Philadelphia, with all their goods. A gale delayed +them and kept them beating to and fro on the icy seas, unable to reach +land. The captain died--it was thought that he was murdered--and the +sailors, a brutal set even for those days, threw off all discipline, +seized the stores and arms, and starved the passengers into giving up +their money. + +When those died of hunger whose money had given out--for twenty guilders +were demanded for a cup of water and fifty rix dollars for a +biscuit--their bodies were flung into the sea, and when the crew had +secured all that excited their avarice they took to their boats, leaving +ship and passengers to their fate. It is consoling to know that the +sailors never reached a harbor. The unguided ship, in sight of land, yet +tossed at the mercy of every wind and tenanted by walking skeletons, +struck off Block Island one calm Sunday morning and the wreckers who +lived along the shore set out for her. Their first work was to rescue the +passengers; then they returned to strip everything from the hulk that the +crew had left; but after getting her in tow a gale sprang up, and seeing +that she was doomed to be blown off shore, where she might become a +dangerous obstruction or a derelict, they set her on fire. From the rocks +they watched her drift into misty darkness, but as the flames mounted to +the trucks a scream rang across the whitening sea: a maniac woman had +been left on board. The scream was often repeated, each time more +faintly, and the ship passed into the fog and vanished. + +A twelvemonth later, on the same evening of the year, the islanders were +startled at the sight of a ship in the offing with flames lapping up her +sides and rigging, and smoke clouds rolling off before the wind. It +burned to the water's edge in sight of hundreds. In the winter following +it came again, and was seen, in fact, for years thereafter at regular +intervals, by those who would gladly have forgotten the sight of it (one +of the community, an Indian, fell into madness whenever he saw the +light), while those who listened caught the sound of a woman's voice +raised in agony above the roar of fire and water. + +Substantially the same story is told of a point on the North Carolina +coast, save that in the latter case the passengers, who were from the +Bavarian Palatinate, were put to the knife before their goods were taken. +The captain and his crew filled their boats with treasure and pulled away +for land, first firing the ship and committing its ghastly freight to the +flames. The ship followed them almost to the beach, ere it fell to +pieces, as if it were an animate form, bent on vengeance. The pirates +landed, but none profited by the crime, all of them dying poor and +forsaken. + + + + +THE BUCCANEER + +Among the natives of Block Island was a man named Lee. Born in the last +century among fishermen and wreckers, he has naturally taken to the sea +for a livelihood, and, never having known the influences of education and +refinement, he is rude and imperious in manner. His ship lies in a +Spanish port fitting for sea, but not with freight, for, tired of +peaceful trading, Lee is equipping his vessel as a privateer. A Spanish +lady who has just been bereaved of her husband comes to him to ask a +passage to America, for she has no suspicion of his intent. Her jewels +and well-filled purse arouse Lee's cupidity, and with pretended sympathy +he accedes to her request, even going so far as to allow Senora's +favorite horse to be brought aboard. + +Hardly is the ship in deep water before the lady's servants are stabbed +in their sleep and Lee smashes in the door of her cabin. Realizing his +purpose, and preferring to sacrifice life to honor, she eludes him, +climbs the rail, and leaps into the sea, while the ship ploughs on. As a +poor revenge for being thus balked of his prey the pirate has the +beautiful white horse flung overboard, the animal shrilling a neigh that +seems to reach to the horizon, and is like nothing ever heard before. But +these things he affects to forget in dice and drinking. In a dispute over +a division of plunder Lee stabs one of his men and tosses him overboard. +Soon the rovers come to Block Island, where, under cover of night, they +carry ashore their stealings to hide them in pits and caves, reserving +enough gold to buy a welcome from the wreckers, and here they live for a +year, gaming and carousing. Their ship has been reported as a pirate and +to baffle search it is set adrift. + +One night a ruddy star is seen on the sea-verge and the ruffians leave +their revelling to look at it, for it is growing into sight fast. It +speeds toward them and they can now see that it is a ship--their +shipwrapped in flames. It stops off shore, and out of the ocean at its +prow emerges something white that they say at first is a wave-crest +rolling upon the sands; but it does not dissolve as breakers do: it +rushes on; it scales the bluff it is a milk-white horse, that gallops to +the men, who inly wonder if this is an alcoholic vision, and glares at +Lee. A spell seems to be laid on him, and, unable to resist it, the +buccaneer mounts the animal. It rushes away, snorting and plunging, to +the highest bluff, whence Lee beholds, in the light of the burning ship, +the bodies of all who have been done to death by him, staring into his +eyes through the reddening waves. + +At dawn the horse sinks under him and he stands there alone. From that +hour even his companions desert him. They fear to share his curse. He +wanders about the island, a broken, miserable man, unwilling to live, +afraid to die, refused shelter and friendship, and unable to reach the +mainland, for no boat will give him passage. After a year of this +existence the ship returns, the spectre horse rises from the deep and +claims Lee again for a rider. He mounts; the animal speeds away to the +cliff, but does not pause at the brink this time: with a sickening jump +and fall he goes into the sea. Spurning the wave-tops in his flight he +makes a circuit of the burning ship, and in the hellish light, that fills +the air and penetrates to the ocean bottom, the pirate sees again his +victims looking up with smiles and arms spread to embrace him. + +There is a cry of terror as the steed stops short; then a gurgle, and +horse and rider have disappeared. The fire ship vanishes and the night is +dark. + + + + +ROBERT LOCKWOOD'S FATE + +In the winter of 1779, General Putnam was stationed at Reading, +Connecticut, with a band of ill-fed, unpaid troops. He was quartered at +the Marvin house, and Mary, daughter of farmer Marvin, won her way to the +heart of this rough soldier through the excellence of her dumplings and +the invigorating quality of her flip. He even took her into his +confidence, and, being in want of a spy in an emergency, he playfully +asked her if she knew any brave fellow who could be trusted to take a +false message into the British lines that would avert an impending +attack. Yes, she knew such an one, and would guarantee that he would take +the message if the fortunes of the colonial army would be helped thereby. +Putnam assured her that it would aid the patriot cause, and, farther, +that he would reward her; whereat, with a smile and a twinkling eye, the +girl received the missive and left the room. + +When daylight had left the sky, Mary slipped out of the house, crossed a +pasture, entered a ravine, and in a field beyond reached a cattle +shelter. On the instant a tall form stepped from the shadows and she sank +into its embrace. There was a kiss, a moment of whispered talk, and the +girl hurriedly asked her lover if he would carry a letter to the British +headquarters, near Ridgefield. Of course he would. But he must not read +it, and he must on no account say from whom he had it. The young man +consented without a question--that she required it was sufficient; so, +thrusting the tiny paper into his hand and bidding him God-speed, she +gave him another kiss and they parted--he to go on his errand, she to +pass the night with the clergyman's daughter at the parsonage. At about +ten o'clock Putnam was disturbed by the tramping of feet and a tall, +goodlooking fellow was thrust into his room by a couple of soldiers. The +captive had been found inside the lines, they said, in consultation with +some unknown person who had escaped the eye of the sentry in the +darkness. When captured he had put a piece of paper into his mouth and +swallowed it. He gave the name of Robert Lockwood, and when Putnam +demanded to know what he had been doing near the camp without a permit he +said that he was bound by a promise not to tell. + +"Are you a patriot?" asked the general. + +"I am a royalist. I do not sympathize with rebellion. I have been a man +of peace in this war." + +Putnam strode about the room, giving vent to his passion in language +neither choice nor gentle, for he had been much troubled by spies and +informers since he had been there. Then, stopping, he said: + +"Some one was with you to-night-some of my men. Tell me that traitor's +name and I'll spare your life and hang him before the whole army." + +The prisoner turned pale and dropped his head. He would not violate his +promise. + +"You are a British spy, and I'll hang you at sunrise!" roared Putnam. + +In vain the young man pleaded for time to appeal to Washington. He was +not a spy, he insisted, and it would be found, perhaps too late, that a +terrible mistake had been committed. His words were unheeded: he was led +away and bound, and as the sun was rising on the next morning the +sentence of courtmartial was executed upon him. + +At noon Mary returned from the parsonage, her eyes dancing and her mouth +dimpling with smiles. Going to Putnam, she said, with a dash of +sauciness, "I have succeeded, general. I found a lad last night to take +your message. I had to meet him alone, for he is a Tory; so he cannot +enter this camp. The poor fellow had no idea that he was doing a service +for the rebels, for he did not know what was in the letter, and I bound +him not to tell who gave it to him. You see, I punished him for abiding +by the king." + +The general laughed and gazed at her admiringly. + +"You're a brave girl," he said, "and I suppose you've come for your +reward. Well, what is it to be?" + +"I want a pass for Robert Lockwood. He is the royalist I spoke of, but he +will not betray you, for he is not a soldier; and--his visits make me +very happy." + +"The spy you hanged this morning," whispered an aide in Putnam's ear. +"Give her the pass and say nothing of what has happened." + +The general started, changed color, and paused; then he signed the order +with a dash, placed it in the girl's hand, gravely kissed her, watched +her as she ran lightly from the house, and going to his bedroom closed +the door and remained alone for an hour. From that time he never spoke of +the affair, but when his troops were ordered away, soon after, he almost +blenched as he gave good-by to Mary Marvin, and met her sad, reproachful +look, though to his last day he never learned whether or no she had +discovered Robert Lockwood's fate. + + + + +LOVE AND RUM + +Back in the seventeenth century a number of Yankee traders arrived in +Naugatuck to barter blankets, beads, buttons, Bibles, and brandy for +skins, and there they met chief Toby and his daughter. Toby was not a +pleasing person, but his daughter was well favored, and one of the +traders told the chief that if he would allow the girl to go to Boston +with him he would give to him--Toby--a quart of rum. Toby was willing +enough. He would give a good deal for rum. But the daughter declined to +be sold off in such a fashion unless--she coyly admitted--she could have +half of the rum herself. Loth as he was to do so, Toby was brought to +agree to this proposition, for he knew that rum was rare and good and +girls were common and perverse, so the gentle forest lily took her mug of +liquor and tossed it off. Now, it is not clear whether she wished to +nerve herself for the deed that followed or whether the deed was a result +of the tonic, but she made off from the paternal wigwam and was presently +seen on the ledge of Squaw Rock, locally known also as High Rock, from +which in another moment she had fallen. Toby had pursued her, and on +finding her dead he vented a howl of grief and anger and flung the now +empty rum-jug after her. A huge bowlder arose from the earth where it +struck, and there it remains--a monument to the girl and a warning to +Tobies. + +Another version of the story is that the girl sprang from the rock to +escape the pursuit of a lover who was hateful to her, and who had her +almost in his grasp when she made the fatal leap. In the crevice half-way +up the cliff her spirit has often been seen looking regretfully into the +rich valley that was her home, and on the 20th of March and 20th of +September, in every year, it is imposed on her to take the form of a +seven-headed snake, the large centre head adorned with a splendid +carbuncle. Many have tried to capture the snake and secure this precious +stone, for an old prophecy promises wealth to whoever shall wrest it from +the serpent. But thus far the people of Connecticut have found more +wealth in clocks and tobacco than in snakes and carbuncles. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Tales Of Puritan Land, by Charles M. 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