p285-094 CHAPTER VIII. THE SOLITARY OF SHAWMUT.

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Upon the afternoon of that same day, a single figure sat upon
the highest peak of the triple-headed promontory of Shawmut.
Around him was spread the lovely panorama, which still, but
with diminished beauty, surrounds the picturesque city of
Boston.

A solitary figure sat upon the summit of Shawmut. He was
a man of about thirty years of age, somewhat above the middle
height, slender in form, with a pale, thoughtful face. He wore
a confused, dark-colored, half canonical dress, with a grey
broad-leaved hat strung with shells, like an ancient palmer's,
and slouched back from his pensive brow, around which his
prematurely grey hair fell in heavy curls, far down upon his
neck. He had a wallet at his side, a hammer in his girdle, and
a long staff in his hand. The hermit of Shawmut looked out
upon a scene of winning beauty. The promontory resembled
rather two islands than a peninsula, although it was anchored to
the continent by a long slender thread of land, which seemed
hardly to restrain it from floating out to join its sister islands,
which were thickly strewn about the bay. The peak upon
which the hermit sat, was the highest of the three cliffs of the
peninsula; upon the south-east, and very near him, rose another
hill of lesser height and more rounded form, and upon the other
side, and towards the north, a third craggy peak presented its
bold and elevated front to the ocean. Thus the whole peninsula
was made up of three lofty crags. It was from this triple conformation
of the promontory of Shawmut, that was derived the

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appellation of Trimountain, or Tremont, which it soon afterwards
received.

The vast conical shadows were projected eastwardly, as the
hermit, with his back to the declining sun, looked out upon the
sea.

The bay was spread out at his feet in a broad semicircle,
with its extreme headlands vanishing in the hazy distance, while
beyond rolled the vast expanse of ocean, with no spot of habitable
earth beyond those outermost barriers, and that far distant
fatherland, which the exile had left forever. Not a solitary sail
whitened those purple waves, and saving the wing of the sea
gull, which now and then flashed in the sunshine, or gleamed
across the dimness of the eastern horizon, the solitude was at
the moment unbroken by a single movement of animated nature.
An intense and breathless silence enwrapped the scene with a
vast and mystic veil. The bay presented a spectacle of great
beauty. It was not that the outlines of the coast around it were
broken into those jagged and cloud-like masses, that picturesque
and startling scenery where precipitous crag, infinite abyss, and
roaring surge unite to awaken stern and sublime emotions; on
the contrary, the gentle loveliness of this transatlantic scene
inspired a soothing melancholy, more congenial to the contemplative
character of its solitary occupant. The bay secluded
within its forest-crowned hills, decorated with its necklace of
emerald islands, with its dark blue waters gilded with the rays of
the western sun, and its shadowy forests of unknown antiquity,
expanding into infinite depths around, was an image of fresh
and virgin beauty, a fitting type of a new world, unadorned by
art, unploughed by industry, unscathed by war, wearing none of
the thousand priceless jewels of civilization, and unpolluted by
its thousand crimes — springing, as it were, from the bosom of
the ocean, cool, dripping, sparkling, and fresh from the hand of
its Creator.

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On the left, as the pilgrim sat with his face to the east, the
outlines of the coast were comparatively low, but broken into
gentle and pleasing forms. Immediately at his feet lay a larger
island, in extent nearly equal to the peninsula of Shawmut,
covered with mighty forest trees, and, at that day, untenanted
by a human being — although but a short time afterwards it
became the residence of a distinguished pioneer. Outside this
bulwark, a chain of thickly wooded islets, stretched across
from shore to shore, with but one or two narrow channels
between, presenting a picturesque and effectual barrier to the
boisterous storms of ocean. They seemed like naiads, those
islets lifting above the billows their gentle heads, crowned with
the budding garlands of the spring, and circling hand in hand,
like protective deities about the scene.

On the south, beyond the narrow tongue of land, which
bound the peninsula to the main, and which was so slender
that the spray from the eastern side was often dashed across it
into the calmer cove of the west, rose in the immediate distance,
that long boldly broken, purple-colored ridge, called
the Massachusetts, or Mount Arrow Head, by the natives, and
by the first English discoverer baptized the Cheviot Hills.[3] On
their left, and within the deep curve of the coast, were the
slightly elevated heights of Passanogessit or Merry-Mount, and
on their right stretched the broad forest, hill beyond hill, away.
Towards the west and north-west, the eye wandered over a vast
undulating panorama of gently rolling heights, upon whose
summits the gigantic pine forests, with their towering tops
piercing the clouds, were darkly shadowed upon the western
sky, while in the dim distance, far above, and beyond the whole,
visible only through a cloudless atmosphere, rose the airy summits
of the Wachusett, Watatick, and Monadnock Mountains.

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Upon the inland side, at the base of the hill, the Quinobequin
River, which Smith had already christened with the royal name
of his unhappy patron, Charles, might be seen writhing in its
slow and tortuous course, like a wounded serpent, till it lost
itself in the blue and beautiful cove which spread around the
whole western edge of the peninsula, and within the same
basin, directly opposite the northern peak of Shawmut, advanced
the bold and craggy promontory of Mishawum, where Walford,
the solitary smith, had built his thatched and palisaded house.
The blue thread of the River Mystic, which here mingled its
waters with the Charles, gleamed for a moment beyond the
heights of Mishawum, and then vanished into the frowning forest.

Such was the scene, upon a bright afternoon of spring, which
spread before the eyes of the solitary William Blaxton, the
hermit of Shawmut. It was a simple but sublime image, that
gentle exile in his sylvan solitude. It was a simple but sublime
thought which placed him and sustained him in his lone retreat.
In all ages, there seem to exist men who have no appointed
place in the world. They are before their age in their aspirations,
above it in their contemplation, but behind it in their
capacity for action. Keen to detect the follies and the inconsistencies
which surround them, shrinking from the contact and
the friction of the rough and boisterous world without, and
building within the solitude of their meditations the airy fabric
of a regenerated and purified existence, they pass their nights in
unproductive study, and their days in dreams. With intelligence
bright and copious enough to illuminate and to warm the
chill atmosphere of the surrounding world, if the scattered rays
were concentrated, but with an inability or disinclination to
impress themselves upon other minds, they pass their lives
without obtaining a result, and their characters dwarfed by their
distance from the actual universe, acquire an apparent indistinctness
and feebleness, which in reality does not belong to them.

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The impending revolution in church and state, which hung
like a gathering thundercloud above England's devoted head,
was exciting to the stronger spirits, whether of mischief or of
virtue, who rejoiced to mingle in the elemental war, and to
plunge into the rolling surge of the world's events, while to the
timid, the hesitating, and the languid, it rose like a dark and
threatening phantom, scaring them into solitude, or urging them
to seek repose and safety in obscurity. Thus there may be
men whose spirits are in advance of their age, while still the
current of the world flows rapidly past them.

Of such men, and of such instincts, was the solitary who sat
on the cliffs of Shawmut. Forswearing the country of his birth
and early manhood, where there seemed in the present state of
her affairs no possibility that minds like his could develop or
sustain themselves — dropping as it were, like a premature and
unripened fruit, from the bough where its blossoms had first unfolded—
he had wandered into voluntary exile, with hardly a
regret. Debarred from ministering at the altar to which he had
consecrated his youth, because unable to comply with mummery
at which his soul revolted, he had become a high-priest of
nature, and had reared a pure and solitary altar in the wilderness.
He had dwelt in this solitude for three or four years, and
had found in the contemplation of nature, in the liberty of conscience,
in solitary study and self-communing, a solace for the
ills he had suffered, and a recompense for the world he had
turned his back upon forever.

His spirit was a prophetic spirit, and his virtues belonged not
to his times. In an age which regarded toleration as a crime,
he had the courage to cultivate it as a virtue. In an age in
which liberty of conscience was considered fearful licentiousness,
he left his fatherland to obtain it, and was as ready to
rebuke the intolerant tyranny of the nonconformist of the wilderness,
as he had been to resist the bigotry and persecution of

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the prelacy at home. In short, the soul of the gentle hermit flew
upon pure white wings before its age, but it flew, like the dove,
to the wilderness. Wanting both power and inclination to act
upon others, he became, not a reformer, but a recluse. Having
enjoyed and improved a classical education at the university of
Cambridge, he was a thorough and an elegant scholar. He was
likewise a profound observer, and a student of nature in all her
external manifestations, and loved to theorize and to dream in
the various walks of science. The botanical and mineralogical
wonders of the new world were to him the objects of unceasing
speculation, and he loved to proceed from the known to the unknown,
and to weave fine chains of thought, which to his soaring
fancy served to bind the actual to the unseen and the spiritual,
and upon which, as upon the celestial ladder in the patriarch's
vision, he could dream that the angels of the Lord were descending
to earth from heaven.

The day was fast declining, as the solitary still sat upon the
peak and mused. He arose as the sun was sinking below the
forest-crowned hills which girt his sylvan hermitage, and gazed
steadfastly towards the west.

“Another day,” he said, “hath shone upon my lonely path,
another day hath joined the buried ages which have folded their
wings beneath yon glowing west, leaving in their noiseless flight
across this virgin world no trace nor relic of their passage.
'T is strange — 't is fearful — this eternal and unbroken silence.
Upon what fitful and checkered scenes hath yonder sun looked
down in other lands, even in the course of this single day's
career. Events, as thickly studded as the stars of heaven, have
clustered and shone forth beneath his rays, even as his glowing
chariot-wheels performed their daily course; and here, in this
mysterious and speechless world, as if a spell of enchantment
lay upon it, the silence is unbroken, the whole face of
nature still dewy and fresh. The step of civilization hath not

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adorned nor polluted the surface of this wilderness. No stately
temples gleam in yonder valleys, no storied monument nor aspiring
shaft pierce yonder floating clouds — no mighty cities,
swarming with life, filled to bursting with the ten thousand attendants
of civilized humanity, luxury and want, pampered sloth,
struggling industry, disease, crime, riot, pestilence, death — all
hotly pent within their narrow precincts — encumber yon sweeping
plains; no peaceful villages, clinging to ancient, ivy-mantled
churches — no teeming fields, spreading their vast and nourishing
bosoms to the toiling thousands, — meet this wandering
gaze. No cheerful chime of vesper bell, no peaceful low of the
returning kine, no watch-dog's bark, no merry shout of children's
innocent voices, no floating music from the shepherd's
pipe, no old familiar sounds of humanity, break on this listening
ear. No snowy sail shines on yon eternal ocean, its blue expanse
unruffled and unmarred as the azure heaven; and ah —
no crimson banners float the sky, and no embattled hosts shake
with their martial tread this silent earth. 'T is silence and mystery
all. Shall it be ever thus? Shall this green and beautiful
world, which so long hath slept invisibly at the side of its ancient
sister, still wear its virgin wreath unsoiled by passion and pollution?
Shall this new, vast page in the broad history of man,
remain unsullied, or shall it soon flutter in the storm-winds of
fate, and be stamped with the same iron record, the same dreary
catalogue of misery and crime, which fills the chronicle of the
elder world? 'T is passing strange, this sudden apocalypse!
Lo is it not as if the universe, the narrow universe which
bounded men's thoughts in ages past, had swung open, as if by
an almighty fiat, and spread wide its eastern and western wings
at once, to shelter the myriads of the human race?”

The hermit arose, slowly collected a few simples which he had
culled from the wilderness, a few roots of early spring flowers
which he destined for his garden, and stored them in his wallet,

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and then grasping his long staff, began slowly to descend the
hill.

As the slender form of the exile, with his sad-colored garb
and pilgrim's scrip and staff, stood out in dark relief against the
western sky, the only human figure in that solitude, he seemed
almost a creation of the fancy, a pathetic but sublime image,
contrasting and yet harmonizing in a wild and mystic sense with
the wilderness scene around. He slowly descended the steep
south-western declivity of the hill where he had so long been
musing, and which, broken with crags, and here and there
thickly overgrown with large trees, whose ponderous branches
stretched across his path, presented a rough and uncertain footing
to the wanderer. After a few minutes' walk, he reached a
wide and open glade, which was spread out at the base of the
hill and along the secluded basin which received the waters of
the Charles. The undulating surface of this grassy expanse
was studded with many detached and magnificent forest trees,
principally white oaks, hickory, and elms, and presented the
appearance of a natural park of some fifty acres, fringed towards
the water with a thick growth of maples, alders, and birches.
At the base of the hill which rose abruptly to the north and
east, facing southwardly upon the open park, and having the
broad and beautiful cove upon its right, stood the cottage of
Blaxton.

It was a startling and impressive picture of cultivation and
refinement that little cottage, embowered in freshly budding
vines, surrounded by a garden laid out with artistic elegance,
and backed by a young and thrifty orchard. It was an English
homestead, starting as if by magic out of the bosom of that
vast wilderness, and stirring the deepest fountains of feeling
with its placid beauty. It was the first gladdening footsteps of
culture; it was as if Minerva, mother of all humanizing arts,
had according to the ancient fable, just stamped her foot upon

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the virgin soil and the olive of civilization had leaped forth to
greet her coming.

The house was built in those picturesque forms which were
then so common in England. It was low-browed, irregular,
rambling, with sharp-pointed gables, a red-tiled roof, small
lattice windows with diamond panes, and a porch covered thickly
with woodbines. The materials of which it had been constructed
had been brought from England, and it resembled in
its general character a miniature parsonage. The early swallows
built their nests under its eaves, and the ancient crows with
sable stole and solemn note circled about the surrounding pines,
or rested in dark clusters upon their umbrageous tops. The
young orchard had but just come into bearing, indicating the
length of time during which the exile had made his abode here,
and the spring being earlier than common in that region, the
pink flakes of the peach blossoms were strewn already upon the
ground, while from the young and blushing buds upon the apple
boughs a faint fragrance diffused itself upon the evening breeze.
Between the cottage and the water's edge stood a single pine of
enormous height, the growth of centuries, its massive but tapering
trunk, rising like a colossal shaft to a dizzy height, bare of
branches till near the summit, and then throwing out those wild,
wizard boughs, crowned with eternal verdure, and murmuring
unceasing music, which make this tree so picturesque and remarkable.
In the fork of one of these arms was the large and
rudely raftered nest of an osprey or fish-hawk, who haunted the
same spot year after year, unscared by the gentle hermit who
had made him one of his most cherished companions. The
precinct around the house, garden, and orchard was separated
from the water and the great park in front, by a wild and impenetrable
fence of upturned roots, the skeleton remains of the
forest giants which had been felled, or had fallen in natural
decay, and was thus protected from the wolves and other enemies

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by a natural and very effective barrier. Upon the western confine
of this inclosure,[4] and very near the pebbly margin of the shore,
a pure and sparkling fountain, the silver spring from which the
whole promontory of Shawmut derived its name, welled forth
from the deep black mould, amid a thicket of shrubs and interlacing
vines, and was overshadowed by a rustic arbor, which
the graceful care of Blaxton had raised as a temple to the
water nymph whom he looked upon as the presiding deity of his
rural domain.

Blaxton passed through the entrance to his hermitage, lingered
a moment in his garden, and entered the house.

A cheerful fire of hickory logs looked invitingly to him as he
came in from the chill atmosphere. The room in which he sat
was his innermost sanctuary. He had brought with him what in
those days was no contemptible library, and the tall dark folios,
some two hundred in number, were ranged in a dark, antique,
bookcase against the walls of the silent apartment. A large
table, encumbered with books and manuscripts, stood in a
corner, and an ample cabinet, stored with a considerable number
of specimens of natural history, occupied a whole side of the
room.

“Welcome, friends of my solitude,” he exclaimed, as his eye
looked complacently upon his dumb but eloquent companions.
“Welcome, ye sages of the olden time; welcome, ye bards whose
strains, enshrined in the eternal crystal of a buried language,
are ever redolent of youth and joy, breathing as freshly here
upon this silent wilderness as once, attuned to classic lyres and
gushing from the reedy voices of garlanded youths or dancing
nymphs, amid shouts of martial triumph or bacchanalian rapture,
they did thousands of years ago. Waked by the music of
your immortal strains, these savage and solitary realms become

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instinct with fabulous life. A gentle nymph rises from yonder
fountain, and pours the sparkling water from her silver urn.
Forth from the dim recesses of yon ancient wood, behold the
graceful fawns trooping in mystic dances, beating the earth to
the wild harmony of their clashing cymbals. In every tangled
thicket lurk the leaping satyrs, through all the forest floats the
rustic music of the hairy Pan, from every ancient oak or drooping
elm starts forth a green-robed Dryad. What is it to me, that
the solitude is unbroken by the voice of man? Led by your
hand, am I not surrounded and entranced by visions of a long
vanished world? And you, ye stern, rude chroniclers of later
and darker ages, ye dark-cowled, cloistered monks, holding
aloft, above the wild and barbarous deluge, ingulphing the
world around you, the sacred torch of reason and of science,—
do ye not read to me a lesson of undying wisdom? As I shudder
at the dark tale of rapine, and the ceaseless conflict between
brother men, the eternal and almost hopeless striving of the
good, the unholy triumph of the evil spirits of our race, am I
not taught to seek in solitude and self-communion for the solace
which the world denies. And most of all, to thee, holy and
blessed talisman, which alone art powerful to guide my tottering
steps; to thee, ever-gushing fountain of divine revelation; to
thee, comforter in sorrow, guide in danger, all-sufficient companion
in the solitary valley of dark shadows, to thee do I look
for support and consolation; and most of all do I bless his holy
name that hath vouchsafed to me this treasure. The Lord is my
shepherd. I shall not want.”

The yellow light of the fire fell fitfully upon the meek head of
the recluse, as he sat upon his antique chair, bending over his
clasped and illuminated bible. Late he sat within that secluded
cell, immersed in sacred study, or indulging ever and anon in
profound and enraptured reverie. The long, distorted shadows,
projected by the various objects in the apartment, wavered upon

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the walls and ceiling, while the deep-toned, monotonous ticking
of an ancient clock which stood by the door, seemed to moralize
with its iron tongue upon the steady but unheeded flight of time.
The fire burned low, the wind of night sighed gently through
the pine tops, and there was a faintly audible whisper, as the
thin skeleton arms of the drooping elms which hung around
the house, swept mournfully across the roof.

Blaxton shut the book and gazed, lost in meditation, upon the
smouldering firebrands. In the oppressive silence of that midnight
solitude, the slightest sounds of nature seemed to acquire
a vague importance. The dropping of a brand upon the hearth,
the low hissing of the sap in the green logs, or the sigh of the
breeze around the lattice, which sounded like an articulate, disembodied
voice, would ever and anon cause the solitary to start
and listen as if unseen spirits were holding communion with
him. In that age of superstition, when a belief in supernatural
visitation was universal, it was not to be expected that a man of
imaginative mind and nervous temperament like Blaxton, leading
such a life of seclusion and study, being himself, as it were, an
unreal and almost impossible phantom in the wild scene through
which he seemed rather to flit like an apparition than to inhabit
it like an earthly resident, should be free from the prevailing
conviction of his times. Suddenly, as he mused by his fireside,
there seemed to be a faint, inexplicable sound, as if a finger
were drawn across the window-pane. His heart stood stock
still, and for an instant he dared not raise his eyes towards the
casement. He aroused himself, however, in a moment, and,
without moving from his seat, strained his eyes upon the glass
from whence the sound seemed to have proceeded. There was
nothing there, save the wandering spray of a woodbine, moved
by the wind and flickering in the sickly light of the late risen
moon. It must have been his imagination. He composed himself
again, and forcibly directed his thoughts to other matters.

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Yet the sound had been distinct, though gentle, and seemed not
to have been produced by the swaying of the delicate vine.
Presently the sound was repeated, and this time more audibly
than before. He could not be mistaken, the glass of his casement
was swept gently by human fingers. It was a low, strange
sound, or something resembling rather the phantom of a
sound, which jarred upon his nerves, and sent a shiver through
his frame. It was as if spectral fingers were beckoning him to
the window to look out perhaps upon some nameless horror
which should freeze his blood. His heart, which had stood
still before, now beat audibly in his bosom. He could hear its
pulsations as distinctly as he could the slow tick of the clock
which had been sounding monotonously on, and which now by its
deep-throated, premonitory gurgle, seemed about to strike the
hour of midnight. Again the sweeping spirit fingers stole along
the glass. He sprang to his feet, gazed hurriedly at the window,
and then stood as if changed to stone. A face of ashy paleness
was gazing at him from without. He could see its features
distinctly, and recognised them but too well, The phantom of
one, too dearly loved, too early lost, was gazing upon him. The
countenance wore a sad and warning expression, and the large,
mournful eyes spoke of guilt and late remorse. Two white
hands clung to the lattice and seemed to implore his forgiveness
and pity with their mute supplication. It was a fearful thing
for the solitary, thus at deep midnight, in the midst of that
boundless desert, with his mind already filled with mystic fancies,
engendered by his late reading and his prolonged reveries,
to be confronted with what he could not but deem a visitant
from the world of spirits. There is nothing more startling in
the midnight solitude, than even the fancied apparition of a face
looking in through our window from the external gloom, and to
this lonely man there seemed not a doubt that this was an apparition.

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He stood as if transfixed. He essayed to speak, but his
tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He strove to move, to
shake off, if he could, what perhaps was an incubus, a creation
of a disordered fancy. His limbs refused to obey his will, his
knees shook, but would neither advance or recede. How long
he stood gazing at the phantom he could not tell, but after a
time it seemed to clasp its hands above its head, and then to
melt away into the darkness. What meant this visitation? Did
it bid him forth, for some mysterious reason, into the midnight
wilderness? He breathed more freely now that those sorrowful
eyes were no longer gazing upon him; his blood, which had
been chilled in its current, now throbbed freely from his heart,
his limbs regained their elasticity, his soul resumed its mastery.

Impelled by an irresistible impulse, he sprang towards the
door, breathing a fervent prayer for protection as he went. He
passed rapidly through the little porch, emerged from its shadow
into the moonlight, and then gazed hurriedly around. The
sickly rays of the waning moon shed a mystic light upon the
scene. An unaccountable and oppressive influence seemed to
pervade the air. A sensation of being the victim of unseen
mockery stole over him. The weird fantastic shapes of the
vast roots, which inclosed his domain, looked, in the shifting
and uncertain light, like a troop of squat and jeering demons.
The owl shrieked, the boding whippoorwill uttered her ceaseless
plaint, and the shrill, piercing cry of the tree toad struck
upon his ear like the yell of a fiend. He strained his eyes in
every direction, but nothing met his gaze that seemed to have
connection or sympathy with his late mysterious visitant. The
moonlight lay in faint patches among the shadows of the trees,
but no semblance of humanity seemed to be stirring throughout
the breathless solitude. After remaining in the cold night air
for a few moments, he was turning back to his cottage, feeling
more and more convinced that he had been the prey of some

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wild delusion, when suddenly, far down in the dim distance,
just on the edge of the alder thicket, and not far from the
margin of the bay, he beheld the dim outline of a human figure,
wildly extending its arms for an instant, and then hurriedly
clasping its hands above its head, as it glanced swiftly as a flash
through the moonlight, and then faded away into the dark
shadow of the forest. For a moment, the hermit, who was
excited, but less perturbed, by this second apparition, was
inclined to follow the phantom into the morass, where it had
seemed to melt away. He restrained himself, however, and
stood still upon the spot, gazing steadfastly upon the dark and
tangled thicket where the mysterious figure had disappeared.
But there was no farther indication of its presence. After
remaining till he was chilled with the bleak night air, and
exhausted with excitement, he became convinced that, whatever
it might betoken, the phantom had at last vanished. He fell
upon his knees to offer a devout prayer for guidance and support,
and then, overcome by the tumultuous sensations of those
midnight moments, he walked languidly into the house.

As the door closed after him, the faint plash of an oar seemed
to float, for an instant, from the cove, and then all was still
again.

eaf285v1.n3

[3] See Note III.

eaf285v1.n4

[4] See Note IV.

p285-109 CHAPTER IX. SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY.

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It was natural that Esther should be looking with as much
eagerness, although with widely different motives, for a confirmation
of the intelligence by their own private letters, as did
Sir Christopher Gardiner. Truly it seemed a strange destiny
which had brought these two powerful spirits, so contrasted, into
such recent and accidental conjunction. An imaginative temper
might have figured these two personages, thus, as it were, hovering
about the cradle of an infant state, the mysterious and
threatening form of the knight, the angelic figure of the maiden,
thus floating in strange proximity, as the embodiments of the
two great conflicting elements of our nature. Like a dark
enchanter and a beneficent fairy, like an evil genius and a halocrowned
saint, these two opposite but powerful influences
seemed fated to some mystic conflict — who could foretell its
duration or its result?

As Esther looked forth from the door-step along the glade,
which had so recently witnessed her conflict with the wolf, and
her rescue by some unknown but unforgotten deliverer, she saw
the figure of a man in Puritan habiliments, just emerging from
the corner of the forest. She supposed at first that it was Sir
Christopher Gardiner coming to renew his inquiries, but before
she had time to call to her brother, whose presence she desired
at all their future interviews, she observed that she was mistaken.
The new comer, although above the middle height, was
by no means so tall as Gardiner, and moved with a languid gait,
very different from the knight's lithe movements. His

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steeple-crowned hat was slouched deeply upon his brows, so as almost
entirely to conceal his features — his garments were old and
travel stained, and he supported his feeble steps upon a staff.
He appeared, however, to be more oppressed with fatigue than
with age, and his frame, muscular and well knit, seemed to belie
his drooping deportment.

He gravely saluted Esther as he approached.

“Is this the residence of Walter Ludlow?” he asked in a
husky voice.

“It is,” said Esther; “have you business with my brother?”

“And you are Esther Ludlow,” he continued, in a low hesitating
tone, looking upon the ground as he spoke, and, as it
would seem, laboring under some kind of embarrassment.

“I am Esther Ludlow,” replied the maiden, “but you seem
fatigued, good brother. By your garb you should be from
Plymouth — and you must have travelled far to-day. Enter, I
pray you, into the house; my brother is now in the neighborhood,
and will insist that a travelling stranger like yourself
should partake his hospitality.”

“You are very kind, good maiden, but my frame is, perhaps,
not so languid as it seems — I have still far to travel, and the
sun hath already set.”

“The twilight,” said Esther, “will soon be upon us. Enter
our house and refresh yourself. It is the hour of our evening
meal, and my brother will soon be here.”

The stranger seemed reluctant to enter the house. He
lingered near the door-step, unwilling to accept Esther's proffered
hospitality, and yet seeming slow to declare his errand.
He seemed oppressed by some secret emotion.

“My brother will deem himself ill treated, if you decline the
shelter of our humble roof this night,” continued Esther, “The
night is approaching, the air is already growing keen, the
wilderness is full of danger to a lonely wayfarer.”

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

“The dangers of the wilderness are not those which I most
fear,” answered the stranger enigmatically, and in the same
husky tone. “But I have forgotten myself strangely,” he continued,
as he observed something like suspicion floating about
the clear brow of his companion. “My business is a brief
one, and concerns as much Esther Ludlow as her brother. A
vessel has arrived at Plymouth, and I have been intrusted by
the man of God, our worthy governor and brother, to deliver one
or two packets to the scattered indwellers of the wilderness.
Lo! here is that which beareth the superscription of Esther
Ludlow.”

The humble and toil-worn stranger drew two parcels from his
bosom, as he spoke, and handed them respectfully to the maiden.
Esther with eager thanks snatched the proffered epistles, one of
which was addressed to herself, and one to her brother, and
hastily breaking the seals of her own dispatch, she found, with
delight, that it inclosed four different letters. She hurriedly
examined the handwriting of each, and then laid them all down
with a heavy sigh.

“From him alone not one line of remembrance, not one word
of regret,” she murmured.

The tears came into the proud eyes of Esther, and with the
letters all unopened upon her lap, she sat like a beautiful statue,
all her animation fled, her cheek pale as marble, and her
features working with the expression of subdued but deep
emotion. For a moment she seemed totally unaware of the
presence of the stranger. The eagerness with which she had
opened the dispatch vanished, her anxiety to hear all the
details of the great movement, in which she felt so intense an
interest, had apparently subsided into indifference, and, lost in
sorrowful thought, she seemed heedless of all, save the one
feeling, which exclusively occupied her mind.

While she remained apparently unconscious of all that was

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

passing before her, the stranger stood, gazing intently upon her,
from beneath the slouched hat which concealed his features.
His presence seemed to have been wholly forgotten, or she
might have perhaps felt some surprise that the feeble, toil-worn
wanderer should prefer to stand thus transfixed and motionless
before her, rather than seek repose and refreshment in the house.

She aroused herself at last with an effort, mechanically lifted
one of her letters, and broke the seal. The trifling physical
exertion seemed for a moment to change the current of her
thoughts, and to arouse her interest in the weighty matters
which had so recently occupied her mind. She began to read
one of the letters with avidity, when suddenly she remembered
the stranger, and turned her eyes full upon him. She blushed,
she knew not why, as she saw him thus immovably gazing upon
her; but as he seemed embarrassed and unwilling to meet her
glance, she merely attributed the strangeness of his deportment
to awkwardness.

“In sooth,” said she, “I have strangely forgotten my duty.
You will have but a lame account to give of the hospitality of
Naumkeak when you return to the brethren of Plymouth. If
you persist in refusing the shelter of our roof, at least suffer me
to bring you some trifling refreshment; and I pray you to repose
your wearied limbs on yonder bench for a little time before you
proceed upon your journey.”

“A crust of bread and a cup of cold water,” continued the
stranger in the same husky tones which had first marked his voice;
“a crust of bread and a cup of cold water is all that I require,
and I shall crave your pardon if I take this refreshment upon
the outside of your domicil. I have yet far to travel to night,
and I will repose for a moment upon this bench.”

With this the stranger seated himself, and Esther went for a
moment into the house. She soon re-appeared, bringing the
simple food which he had desired, and placed it upon the bench
beside him.

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

“With your leave,” said she, “I will even glance over the
contents of this letter, while you are reposing and refreshing
yourself.”

As she spoke, Esther again resumed the letter which she had
opened, and became absorbed in the contents.

Meanwhile the stranger sat with untasted bread, hiding his
face with his hands, and gazing upon the excited features of
the beautiful Puritan, as if he would have read her soul.

“Then they have not yet sailed,” she murmured half audibly,
as she hastily turned the pages of her letters. “Endicott is to
set forth in June, and with him Gott and Brakenbury and Davenport,
and other good and true men — and much opposition is
expected from certain friends of Sir Ferdinando Gorges — the
knight and his powerful party are supposed to be moving heaven
and earth to prevent the king's grant of a charter — he is thought
already to have sent his emissaries to this country — two worthy
and learned clergymen, Master Higginson and Master Skelton
have agreed to embark in the —; Holy Father of Mercy!
Henry Maudsley in New England!” The letter dropped from
her hands as she uttered this exclamation; and her eyes filled
with tears as she murmured, “Then I did him wrong; one
cause alone could bring Henry Maudsley to New England.”

“Aye, Esther, but one cause,” said a deep, familiar voice
at her side.

Esther started, grew pale as ashes, and trembled like a leaf.
She looked towards the stranger. He was no longer reclining
upon the bench, but had advanced very near to her, his tattered
cloak was thrown aside, his hat had fallen to the ground, revealing
the well-remembered face of Harry Maudsley.

“Aye, Esther, but one cause,” he cried, while she seemed
contending with a variety of emotions, among which pride
seemed at length to gain the mastery, suppressing her tears,
smoothing her agitated brow and restoring a faint tinge to her

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

marble cheek. “Forgive me,” he continued in an impassioned
tone, “that I have dared to appear in this disguise before you.
It was accident which prompted it, as it was accident which
first revealed to me the place of your residence, when I deemed
you an inhabitant of the Plymouth Colony.”

“And was it accident, too,” replied Esther, who had by a
strong effort recovered a portion of her calmness, “and was it
accident that brought Henry Maudsley into these wild deserts?”

“No, Esther,” was the reply. “Your own heart tells you
why I am here. Yet believe me, that although impelled across
half a world by a passion which I have struggled to conquer,
till at last it has conquered me, although brought to your feet by
an impulse which I could no longer resist, yet, believe me, I had
no unmanly, no unworthy motives in this disguise.”

“And yet,” answered Esther, “false robes should never hide
a true heart. If, as I am willing to believe, I was the motive of
your exile, why steal thus masked into my presence, why treacherously
surprise my unguarded thoughts?”

“Again I implore you to forgive me, Esther,” replied Maudsley.
“I had been longer than you think a resident in this
neighborhood, not dreaming that you were so near me. A poor
wayfaring pilgrim, whom I chanced to rescue from indignity,
had been intrusted with letters addressed to you and to others.
Learning thus unexpectedly the place of your residence, I
could not resist the temptation to look once more upon your
face.”

“And yet it would have been easy for you,” answered Esther,
“to have made your appearance long ago, and without disguise.”

“Aye,” answered Maudsley, “and one constituted as you,
cannot perhaps conceive of the wayward and perverse impulses
of a temperament like mine. Although I had crossed a winter's
sea in a miserable bark, only that I might throw myself once

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

more at your feet, yet no sooner did I find myself in the
same wilderness with you, then I began almost to shrink from
our interview.”

“This is indeed strange,” said Esther calmly.

“And it is strange, too,” continued Maudsley, “that a miser
should starve among uncounted riches. Why did I hoard, like
a treasure, the golden moments of our meeting? I know not.
At last, influenced by a rebellious feeling at the power which I
felt you exercised over my whole nature, and assisted by the
singular accident which I have explained, I determined to look
upon you once more, once more to listen to your voice, and then
to tear myself away forever.”

“Maudsley,” replied Esther sorrowfully, “your character
remains as wilful and as enigmatical as ever. Why then did
you not execute your purpose?”

“Because,” was the passionate reply, “because unintentionally
I had surprised a secret dearer to me than the whole world
beside. When I found that I had not been entirely forgotten,
when I heard your gentle voice breathing my name, when, as
you believed, there was not an ear in the whole wilderness to
hear you, judge if it were then in my power to tear myself
away.”

It is unnecessary to record at length the conversation of the
lovers. It may be believed that the displeasure of Esther at
Maudsley's disguise was not very difficult to appease; and it may
be believed, too, that she was deeply affected by the evidence
which he had given of his constancy and his devotion to herself.
In this interview, the first which had occurred between them for
years, there were a thousand matters to excite their interest,
about which Esther, who had now been so long in exile, was desirous
to be informed.

“You have told me nothing of yourself, Henry,” said she,
“nor of your friends. You have not told me how the world

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

hath prospered with those who are nearest and dearest to you at
home. Your sister, is she still so sad and broken-spirited, or
doth she recover from the heavy blow?”

“My sister is dead,” answered Maudsley, mechanically, but
in a deep and gloomy voice.

“Dead! is Edith dead? so young — so beautiful — so gentle—
so virtuous. Has she so soon gone down in sorrow to her
grave! Though I never enjoyed but a slight and passing acquaintance
with her, yet I could weep with you, Henry, for I
know how much you were to each other, and I know how much
affection, and how many pure womanly graces are buried in her
tomb.”

“I do not weep for her,” said her companion, in a moody but
composed tone. “You see I do not weep for her. She has
been released from a life of suffering; nay, more,” added Maudsley,
in a hoarser tone, “she has been released from a life of
unmerited but deep disgrace. Virtuous, high-spirited, as she
was, it was better that she should sink at once into her grave,
rather than creep through an obscure life, bowed to the earth
with shame that was not hers, and with tears of blood lamenting
that she had ever seen the light of day.”

“And her husband?”

“Her husband,” cried Maudsley, grinding his teeth with a
passionate expression, and uttering his words slowly, one by one,
as if they fell like drops of blood from his heart — “her husband
has fled. The villain has escaped me. I have sought him long,
but he has still eluded my pursuit. But vengeance, though it
sleeps, doth not die; and if he be still upon the living earth, I
will yet track him to his lair. The blood of my murdered sister
cries out to me from the ground. My heart is not deaf to the
appeal.”

“Alas, Henry,” said Esther, “vengeance belongeth only to
God. Vengeance is his, and he will repay. Believe me, that it

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

is not wise nor well thus to constitute yourself the avenger even
of one so deeply injured. Think you, that he who hath been
the wicked cause of all this misery shall escape God's wrath?
But tell me, Henry, was the fearful mystery ever solved, which
rendered your sister's marriage a nullity, and thus blasted her
happiness and laid her in an untimely grave?”

“It was so,” answered Maudsley, in the same calm but gloomy
tone. “The mystery was solved, at least in part; solved sufficiently
to teach my sister that there was no relief except beyond
the grave. But the tale is long, and at this time and place need
not be repeated; but you shall know it all. Suffice it now,
when I inform you, that their marriage was indeed a nullity
because —” and as he spoke, Maudsley's voice subsided into
a hoarse whisper, which, however, fell distinctly upon Esther's
ear, “because there was another gentle and earlier claimant for
the honored hand of her husband.”

As he spoke these words, Maudsley laughed with a low, savage
laugh, that chilled the blood of his companion. “There
were other matters too, but I will not now spread aught of the
foul mass before your eyes. Suffice it, that the villain has
escaped, for you know that I was unfortunately absent during
the whole of these transactions, but while he exists, the fires of
hell could not burn out the record of his guilt. Let us speak
no more of this, dear Esther,” continued Maudsley, shaking off
the dark shadow from his mind, and speaking again in the
earnest, but more vivacious tone which was natural to him. “Let
us speak no more of this, but of you. The dead are in their
graves, where the broken-hearted sleep well. But do not, in
mercy do not, persist in your sad determination to entomb yourself
thus body and soul together in these gloomy deserts. With
every day which finds your stay prolonged, the cold enchantment
seems to wind itself more and more about your senses. Arouse
yourself ere your blood be chilled and your brain bewildered.

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

Promise me, dearest Esther, that I may return and bear you
from this fearful world.”

“I had hoped,” said Esther, “that we had done with this
subject, upon which it is impossible that our hearts should ever
beat in unison. Distress me, I beseech you, no farther, and
believe that my decision is irrevocable.”

It will appear from these last observations, that the lovers, in
spite of the knowledge of their mutual affections, were as far
from a real understanding, as when they last separated in England.

The impetuosity and wilfulness of Maudsley's character were
as incorrigible as the calm but almost infatuated enthusiasm of
Esther was inflexible.

It had been her lover's object throughout their whole interview,
to induce her to forswear the purpose to which she had
devoted her life. He represented to her in the most passionate
terms the cruelty to herself, to him, to her brother, to all the
world, of which she was guilty in thus encloistering herself for
life in that dreary wilderness. He painted in the most glowing
colors, which a lively fancy could suggest, the delights which
might yet be theirs, surrounded at home by all the enjoyments
of affluence in a civilized land.

His words fell coldly, more than coldly upon Esther's ear. It
was not that she was an enthusiast, and therefore, like many
enthusiasts, a bigot; for this her nature was too feminine. But
she was more and more convinced that the dissimilarity of their
characters and ruling motives, was so absolute, that happiness
together was impossible. All that she deemed most high and
holy upon earth in his eyes was trivial or false. While he could
not help respecting her enthusiasm, he looked upon it as madness,
and could not avoid expressing, in indignant language, his
abhorrence of the influences by which her whole existence was
sacrificed to the maintenance of a pernicious and an absurd idea.

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

All his social relations, his whole education, all the influences
under which he had existed since boyhood, had taught him to look
upon Puritanism as an uncouth and uncomfortable fanaticism.
His mind revolted at the thought that a woman like Esther Ludlow,
partly in deference to the feelings of a moody and weakminded
brother, partly in sympathy with a perverse movement of
the age, should bury all her graces in this living sepulchre.
His pride too had been aroused, and in crossing the ocean his
purpose had been fixed — he had vowed in his heart to tear
Esther from the wilderness to which she had devoted herself,
and to bear her home in triumph. He looked upon her as a
martyr, chained to a funereal pyre, as a victim exposed in the
desert to appease the wrath of a fabulous dragon, and he felt a
thousand hearts swelling within him, as he swore to rescue her
from her impending fate.

The quarrel which had occurred between them long before in
England, was of a nature which was almost irremediable, because
it had for the first time torn aside the veil from both their hearts,
and revealed to each other the gulf which in reality flowed between
them. The sneering indignation which Maudsley had
allowed himself to express against the infatuation of Walter
Ludlow, and the influence which it had exercised upon the mind
of his sister, had led to a more full development of their feelings,
and Maudsley learned for the first time, with anger and dismay,
the extent of what he designated Esther's fanaticism.

Between two natures, both proud, while the determination of
the one was fully matched by the impetuosity of the other, it
may be easily imagined that the chasm must have grown each
day wider. It is unnecessary, therefore, at this time, to relate
much more of their present interview, farther than to say, that
they found each other unchanged in feelings, and yet unchanged
in purpose. Esther's nature revolted at the sacrifice of all her
convictions and purposes, which was demanded of her almost

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

imperiously by her wilful lover; while he, despite the words of
affection which had fallen from her lips when there could have
been no intention to deceive, felt his pride engaged in the contest,
and could not help arguing to himself, that, after all, that
affection must be calm and passionless, which possessed not
sufficient power to conquer her religious fanaticism.

Suddenly, while these thoughts were passing through his
mind, another thought suggested itself to him. With startling
abruptness he requested to know who was the fortunate personage
in Puritan habiliments, who had lifted her from the
ground at the time when she had so nearly escaped destruction
by the wolf.

Although at the moment when the adventure happened
Maudsley had not the slightest suspicion whose life was in his
hands, yet he now felt a certainty under the circumstances that
the female whom he had rescued from danger could have been
no other than Esther.

Esther was almost overpowered, when she was thus suddenly
informed that it was to Maudsley's arm that her safety upon that
occasion had been owing; but even while she was murmuring
her broken expressions of gratitude, Maudsley impetuously repeated
his question.

“Led hither,” said he, “by a mysterious fate, I was yet too
far removed to recognise either your own countenance or that
of your sable-suited admirer. It was not your brother — the
stranger was far taller than Walter Ludlow. Rebuke my impetuosity,
if you like, but you cannot wonder that I should be
desirous of learning the name of one who appeared to stand
toward you in such near and dear relationship.”

“Master Maudsley,” replied Esther, with cold dignity, “I
have no hesitation in informing you, that the individual whom
you saw upon this spot is not in near or dear relationship with
me. He is a casual acquaintance, brought hither upon that day

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

by some trifling business with my brother. He is, I believe, a
member of no church community, although he seems a man of
a religious and even ascetic disposition. He is a person, however,
whose society I am very far from affecting.”

“How call you his name?” asked Maudsley, eagerly.

“He is called Sir Christopher Gardiner,” answered Esther.

“Sir Christopher Gardiner,” cried Maudsley, with a strange
sharp cry, as if a dagger had been plunged into his heart. “Sir
Christopher Gardiner, the associate of Esther Ludlow! Idiot
that I was, not to have suspected this before,” continued he to
himself, in an undertone.

He mastered his emotion, however, by a strong effort, and
forcibly directed the conversation, for a few moments, into other
channels. There was, however, a baleful and inexplicable spell
exercised upon his nature, by the very name of Sir Christopher
Gardiner. Suspicions, vaguely defined, and yet insurmountable,
united with a real knowledge of certain matters which inspired
distrust and even hatred, filled his soul whenever the image of the
mysterious knight was presented to him. It would be premature
at this time, to say more than that he felt a strong, although, to
a certain degree, a mysterious repugnance, to the character of
that adventurer, and a sensation of horror at finding him in
communion with Esther Ludlow. His disordered fancy would
not, for a long time, obey the dictates of his reason, and after
a few moments of broken and incoherent conversation, during
which the wonder, indignation, and pity of Esther were alternately
excited, he found at last that it was impossible for him
any longer to repress his agitation. Muttering a curse upon
his weakness, and upon the folly which had led him across the
ocean, only to exhibit and proclaim it the more, he uttered
aloud a few hasty and common-place expressions of farewell, and
then abruptly quitted the presence of Esther, whom he left
profoundly afflicted at the character and the result of this
singular interview.

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

The dark shadows of evening were already descending upon
the earth, as Maudsley, yielding to the tumultuous torrent of his
emotions, strode down the glade with wild rapidity, as if lashed
forth into the outer darkness by furies. He dashed violently
across the open space which lay immediately before him, and
plunged into the gloomy arches of the pine forest. The eternal
shade, the cold and fragrant breath of the mighty grove, conveyed
no coolness to his heated brow, no soothing balm to the
fever in his soul. Stung by a multitude of torturing fancies,
which writhed and coiled like serpents from his heart, he swept
rapidly through the dim and silent wood. He fled like a coward
before the phantom shapes of his excited imagination. Was it
for this, that he had sacrificed or was ready to sacrifice his all,
home, country, friends, ease, wealth, ambition, pleasure? Was
it for this, that he had been ready, though he avowed it not, to
forsake the bright sunshine of the world, and bury himself in
the vast cloisters of the secluded wilderness? Was it for this,
that he had struggled so long and so bravely with his feelings,
only to find himself at last, the laughing-stock of a hypocritical,
mysterious adventurer, whom he had found to his horror, or
whom he imagined that he had found his successful rival. It
was strange, but with only the most casual acquaintance with
Gardiner, Maudsley had, from the first, conceived an indefinable
hatred for him, which, moreover, as he fancied, had been as
cordially reciprocated. He had, when occasionally in his
presence, been overcome by a singular and unaccountable sensation,
and had found himself, urged by he knew not what
strange fascination, gazing intently upon his face, and striving
to call up some dim, vague, long faded impression of earlier
years. In such times, he had been oppressed by a supernatural
sense of previous existence, fantastically united with a boding
presentiment of the future, a mysterious blending in his mind of
the forgotten past, and the unknown hereafter, which troubled

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

him, he knew not how or why, and which seemed as it were, a
spell exercised upon him by the dark physiognomy of the
knight. But his sensations now were real, or he deemed them
such. Here was the mystery of Gardiner's existence solved;
here was the hidden reason of his enigmatical and apparently
aimless residence in this wilderness; here was the cause of all
this masquerading, his double-faced contradictory mode of life,
his solitary journeys, his sudden absences. It was plain as
light. He had wondered at his Puritanism, or at what he had
always considered his affectation of Puritanism — he wondered
no longer. It was the love of Esther Ludlow, which he sought
in the depths of these deserts. It was the love of Esther
Ludlow which worked these sudden and bewildering transformations.
Was it strange? Was it unnatural? Did he not himself
acknowledge but too truly the potency of the spell? He
shuddered when he contemplated the picture. If Esther loved
him, what a fate was hers. In what a gulf of desolation would
her trusting heart be wrecked!

He checked himself for a moment as he was speeding breathlessly
on, curbed the career of his insane thoughts, and endeavored
forcibly to dismiss the subject from his mind. What was
it all to him? He had torn himself from the presence of
Esther, and he had internally vowed, that the charm should be
forever broken, which had bound him so long. What then to
him was Gardiner's character, or his mystery, or his way of life?
Let him be the devil if he would, and if the pure-hearted
Puritan maiden chose to devote her white soul to the fiend, what
mattered it to him, when, how, or why, the unholy contract
should be completed?

On, on the fled once more through the mirky night, a fugitive
from his own thoughts, which seemed like spectres to people the
gloomy glades of the forest.

p285-124 CHAPTER X. THE MISHAWUM GIANT RECEIVES COMPANY.

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

Upon that same morning, Thomas Walford, the smith of
Mishawum, was standing alone at his wilderness forge. The
promontory of Mishawum was a narrow tongue of land, thrust
boldly out into the bay, having the Mystic River on its northern,
and the Charles River on its southern side, and advancing very
closely to the craggy heights of Shawmut. Like its neighbor
peninsula, Mishawum was a rough, precipitous spot of ground,
with vast granite rocks frowning here and there through the
masses of pine and cedar, which with white and black oak,
hickory, birch, and maple, covered its sides with wild and
ancient verdure. Thomas Walford has already been presented
to the reader's acquaintance. His residence, consisting of a
thatched log-house, with a kind of shed or shanty which he
called his forge, was surrounded by a strong palisade of cedar
trunks, ten feet in height and driven deeply into the earth. The
general aspect of the place, as may be easily conceived, was
wild, rugged, and solitary. The house stood not far from the
water's edge, upon the southern declivity of a high and precipitous
hill which sloped boldly down into the bay, and the prospect,
excepting the remarkable feature of the triple-headed,
craggy peninsula opposite, which of course presented a more
striking and picturesque effect, when seen from this distance,
was very much the same as that which was spread before the
eyes of the solitary of Shawmut.

The burly smith stood in his half-subterranean and rustic
shanty, whose low thatched roof was supported by the twisted

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

and rugged stems of cedars. The glare of a brilliant fire
fell upon his bull-fronted, shaggy head, his rude and swarthy
features, and his massive half-naked bust, while the rest of his
leathern clad person was in dark and heavy shadow. He was
striking millions of sparks from a ponderous and red-hot bar
of iron, at every stroke of his heavy sledge-hammer, and as
he stood there in his hairy strength, the only human figure in
that solitary retreat, he looked more like some gigantic creature
of heathen mythology, some half fabulous Cyclops forging in his
mountainous cavern the thunderbolts of Jupiter, than a real and
tangible mass of human flesh. Although Walford was the only
European inhabitant of the little peninsula where we find him,
and which, as has been seen, he held under the Gorges patent,
the place and the neighborhood were frequented from time to
time by straggling parties of Indians, who were under the nominal
jurisdiction of a peaceable and amiable young sagamore,
who had already formed friendly connections with the scattered
residents of the bay. The natives generally entertained a considerable
respect for the blacksmith, who, although very good-natured,
and never disposed to quarrel with them unnecessarily,
had yet occasionally been known to inflict severe chastisement
upon some of their number who had presumed to meddle
with him.

The smith paused for a moment, as the plash of oars sounded
from the water immediately below him, and listened to learn
if perchance any visitors were about to claim his hospitality that
morning. He supposed, however, for he did not take the trouble
to go to the verge of the cliff to look, that some stray Indians
were landing from their canoes upon the beach below, for the
sake of baking clams, frying fish, boiling lobsters, or for some
other peaceful and culinary purpose, and he had ceased to
trouble himself any more about the matter, when all at once he
heard footsteps scrambling up the steep ascent, and the sound

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

of several English voices sounding nearer and nearer to his
own precincts. Presently there was a loud rapping at his outer
gate.

“Hillo, hillo, hillo, Master Walford!” sounded through the
palisades.

“Hillo, hillo,” answered the smith, without stirring from his
anvil. “Who makes such a pother at this early hour in the
morning?”

“Open thy gates, thou inhospitable smith,” said a deep,
muddy voice, which evidently had soaked through the frowzy
beard of Robert Bootefish. “Dost mean to treat thy loving
friends and Christian neighbors as pagan Indians or heathen
Puritans? Here be I, firstly, and secondly Master Humphrey
Rednape, with your friends Cakebread and the Canary Bird, all
come to visit you.”

“They will call me Canary Bird, Master Smith,” whistled a
shrill voice through the palisade, “though they know as well as
you that my name is Bernaby Doryfall. But for the love of
good fellowship let us in. Fear nothing here; we are but honest
friends and Christian white men.”

“Walk in, my masters,” said the burly smith, in a good-humored
voice, swinging wide open the gate to admit his
visitors.

“Good morrow, Master Smith,” said Bootefish, saluting his
host with great dignity, as, followed by his three companions, he
waddled through the gates, with the stately importance of a
plethoric duck. “You have, I think, met with these worthy
gentlemen before. Look you, this be Rednape, a swashing
knave, and a godly but a drunken sot, and a quarreller in his
liquor. And this be Peter Cakebread, a wise fellow, I promise
you, and well-instructed and witty, but a vile coward, who
would cut his shadow from his heels if he could, to prevent
it from following and frightening him forever. And here, this

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

yellow-coated, piping, whistling little gentleman, is the Canary
Bird.”

“They call me Cana —”

“Hold your tongue, sot,” interposed the chief butler of Merry-Mount,
indignant at the interruption, as the poor little Canary
Bird was beginning to chirp his favorite tune.

“Ye are all heartily welcome, my masters,” said the smith
after the ceremonious Bootefish had concluded his introductory
harangue; “and now, if each of you will seat himself upon the
softest stump he can find, we will, if you like, proceed to business.
What brings you here so early in the morning, Master
Bootefish?”

“Master Morton of Merry-Mount,” began the Canary Bird.

“Hold your tongue, again, thou impudent yellow-breasted
biped,” interrupted the butler, “and allow your superior to
answer all questions directed to him. Is it thus I am to be
rewarded for my indulgence in taking you out a pleasuring this
fine morning? Have I not bountifully permitted you the healthful
recreation of rowing all the way from Passanogessit? for the
devil an oar have I pulled that you might all be gratified, and now
is this my reward? Be silent all. Good master smith, I pray
your indulgence upon these malapert young followers of mine.”

“A truce to your apologies,” said the blacksmith, “and now
if there be one among you who hath brains enough, I pray to be
informed of the purpose of your visit to my humble abode this
morning. What would ye of me, Master Bootefish, for in truth
thou alone seemest possessed of a sufficient amount of gravity
and sobriety to answer a grave and sober question?”

“I praise Heaven,” answered the respectable Bootefish, in
answer to this address, “I praise Heaven that I am grave and
sober, and, as you remark, the only person of gravity and sobriety
in this worshipful company. Know then, Master Blacksmith,
or in other words, good Master Thomas Walford, that we

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have been specially deputed by his worship, Master Thomas
Morton, armigero and lord of the manor of Merry-Mount, to bid
you to certain mid-summer night revels, which we propose to
keep at the said manor of Merry-Mount, to begin at five of the
clock upon the morrow evening, and to continue throughout the
May-day, which immediately succeedeth, and as many hours
longer as the butt holdeth out.”

“And be this all which bringeth you here this morning, ye
devil's crew?” said the courteous blacksmith to his guests.
“Have I not already been bidden to your mid-summer revels for
May-day, as this pudding-brained Bootefish hath it, and must my
privacy be disturbed for such a marvellous piece of information?
Know, then, that I have already promised your Master of Misrule
to visit him to-morrow, and with that take yourselves off. Away,
ye buffoons; yet stop awhile, your throats shall be moistened
before you go.”

So saying, he thrust his colossal thumb and fore-finger into an
iron ring which was fastened into a large square stone in the
corner of his shanty, and lifting the rough and ponderous granite
slab as easily as if it had been the lid of a snuff-box, he suddenly
disappeared, like some eastern enchanter, into the entrails
of the earth.

When he returned, he bore an earthen jug in his hand, out of
which he filled a pewter can of ample dimensions for each of
his guests, and pledging them himself from the mouth of the
jug, he exclaimed,

“There, my merrymen all, taste ye the rosa solis, which hath
been ripened in the bowels of the wilderness. What sayest thou,
Robin Bootefish, is it potent?”

“Truly good, Master Walford,” said the pompous butler, his
elephant eyes twinkling with delight, “truly thou hast laid bare
a fountain of unequalled purity; thou hast laid up a treasure in
the earth; thou hast found a mine of virgin gold in the

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entrails of the desert. Good master smith, I honor thee and
love thee.”

Peter Cakebread drained his measure of the potent fluid at a
single draught, gasped for breath as if he had swallowed a
sword, according to his paternal avocation, and then with his
toad-like eyes, glittering and almost darting from his leathern
face, he exclaimed, —

“Thou marvellous ogre of Mishawum! Thou potent enchanter!
Let me worship thee. Truly it is comforting to see so sweet
and spiritual a resurrection from beneath you mighty tombstone.
Come then to Merry-Mount, and be king over us, most stalwart
smith, for truly he who can compel such spirits from the bosom
of the earth should fitly rule his fellows.”

To this spontaneous indication of fealty to himself, or rather
to his subterranean treasures, the blacksmith made no further
answer than by filling each man's goblet again, and bidding
them drink it off and begone.

Thus conjured, the respectable party of visitors, having
again done due honor to the blacksmith's cellar, bade their
host farewell.

The blacksmith closed and barred the door as they departed,
and then, after listening for a moment to their confused shouting
and hallooing as they descended the precipitous hills, helter-skelter,
now tumbling over each other, now quarrelling, now
laughing, now cursing, he stepped calmly back to his forge.

“Truly an ill-begotten pack of drunken knaves,” said he to
himself, as he lustily plied the bellows and resumed the occupation
which had been interrupted. “This Master Morton is like
to raise trouble now for himself, by keeping such a nest of
buzzing hornets to swarm about the country, disturbing every
honest man in his business. Small love do I bear yonder
Plymouth crop-ears, yet I swear by my stedge-hammer, I had
rather consort with psalm-singers than with such brawling,

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drunken vermin. Thank fortune, I am fairly rid of them for
to-day; but stay — what mean these shouts yonder? Heaven
forefend the hornets be not all buzzing back again about mine
ears. Stay, that was the yell of a red-breech.”

In truth, during the worthy blacksmith's soliloquy, a complication
of noises had been faintly audible in his sylvan retreat.
For a few moments after the last shouts of his departing visitors
had died away beneath the hill, there had been an absolute
silence. It was, however, soon broken by a confused din of
angry shouts, ferocious execrations, clashing weapons, reports of
fire-arms, and that shrill, unearthly, fiendlike yell of the savage,
which seems to blend into one cry the guttural trill of a Tyrolese
mountaineer with the long howl of a famished wolf.

“The drunken varlets are squabbling with the savages,” said
the smith, after listening attentively. “Have a care, my masters,
or mayhap ye may find the Mishawum red-skins not so
easily tamed as your Passanogessit savages! Yonder coppernosed
Bootefish may chance to find himself without a scalp to
his wooden head before he gets home to his ale butt. By my
beard, he would gain by the loss of it, for methinks his wits be
mightily in need of airing, and I marvel how the fog is to be
ever cleared from his brain, unless a little daylight be let into it
with a tomahawk. Fore George! but there be swinging blows
and bloody coxcombs passing about by this time, I warrant me,”
concluded the smith, as the noise of the scuffle became gradually
louder and more distinct, while the contending parties appeared
to be struggling nearer to the blacksmith's abode.

The worthy blacksmith, who had no particular desire that his
solitude should again be interrupted by the drunken foolery of
his late visitors, was yet something curious as to the cause of
the uproar. As he was, however, about sallying forth to investigate
the matter, the sounds seemed suddenly to cease. Either

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

the contest, whatever it might have been, was terminated, or the
scene had been shifted to a more distant spot. He accordingly
relinquished his intention, and went on with his work for a few
minutes, until he was again aroused by confused shouts, yells,
and a variety of other disturbing sounds, which again arrested
his attention.

p285-132 CHAPTER XI. THE BATTLE OF MISHAWUM.

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“Beshrew me,” said Walford to himself, suddenly abandoning
his forge, and advancing towards a look-out which he had
built for himself within the precincts; “beshrew me, but there
seems to be warm work going on yonder. Of a surety yon
vagabonds have incensed by their devil's tricks, some straggling
party of my red-legged friends. Peaceable they be and well
disposed to those whom they have learned to respect; but the
Lord preserve the scalps of such as meddle with them without
need.”

With these words he ascended his rustic watch-tower, and
looked out upon every side. He was apparently not long in
arriving at a conclusion as to the state of the case, for after
remaining but a few moments in his elevated position, he descended
with great rapidity, put on a huge iron head-piece, and
arming himself with his sledge-hammer, strode resolutely towards
his gate, unbarred its fastening, and sallied forth in the
direction of the din which had now subsided again into a confused
and discordant murmur.

He strode through the craggy and unsteady pathway which
led along the heights, descended from the elevation upon which
his solitary abode was situated, and after tearing his way through
the tangled thickets which obstructed his passage, he emerged
at length upon a low, open plain, which, studded with a few
large oak trees, expanded itself upon the southern and south-eastern
base of the crag where his hermitage was placed. When

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

he arrived there, he found a very peculiar scene exhibited to his
observation.

Upon the plain were assembled some half dozen savages,
belonging, as he well knew by their costume, to the scattered
tribe who inhabited the neighborhood of his peninsula. They
had evidently that morning established a temporary encampment,
as a single wigwam, hastily constructed of oak saplings fastened
into the earth, with their boughs bent together at the top,
and covered over with coarse matting, formed the central point
of the scene. The savages were all young, active, clean-limbed
men. Although tall, stout, and evidently excelling both in
activity and strength, their limbs possessed that smooth, rounded,
harmonious proportion, in which a general diffusion of bodily
force over the whole frame, rather than any local development of
striking and exaggerated muscular power, indicated the remarkable
adaptation of the race to encounter the life of constant
endurance and danger to which their climate and their habits
subjected them. Their glossy black hair was shorn straight
across their foreheads, with a long tuft streaming like a horse's
tail behind, except in the case of one who seemed to be a kind
of chief, and who wore his shaggy locks turned up over his
head like a helmet, with the wing of a hawk fantastically twisted
into the crest. They were dressed in deer-skin mantles, picturesquely
hanging from their shoulders, wore leather sandals
upon their feet, and were all armed with tomahawks, and one
with bow and arrows. Their bare and robust chests were
daubed with rude, hieroglyphical emblems, among which the
impression of a bloody hand seemed the most favorite device,
probably because it was the most easily depicted.

As the blacksmith supposed, there had been a contest between
the savages and his late visitors, which had evidently terminated
in favor of the red skins, who had borne their enemies captive
from the scene of the affray to their encampment. Rednape,

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

who had received an ugly gash upon the shoulder, was seated on
the ground with a very ghastly and woe-begone expression upon
his sinister phisiognomy, near the entrance to the hut. The
helpless Canary Bird was ruefully contemplating an arrow
which had struck him in the calf of the leg, without inflicting a
very severe wound, and which he was painfully attempting to
extract, to the manifest gratification and amusement of his captors,
who looked upon his struggles with the most ironical and
irritating expressions of condolence. As for the dignified Bootefish,
who seemed to have escaped without bodily harm from the
contest, the savages had bound him fast to the trunk of an oak,
where he stood the butt of his merciless tormentors, looking,
however, upon their grimacing visages, and enduring their painful,
practical gibes with stoical fortitude.

“Grin away, ye horse-faced, painted devils,” said he, with his
copper nose flashing defiance at his captors, as one of them, who
seemed to take an especial delight in administering to his discomfort,
was solacing himself by pricking the worthy precentor's
massive cheeks with the point of his knife till the blood flowed
at each successive puncture; “Grin away, ye ugly villains. Prick
away, ye black-snouted, red-legged vermin. Do ye think a
white man and an Englishman is afraid of his own blood? By
the bones of my father, had yonder sneaking cowards but stood
their ground like men, ye should have had another tale to tell
when ye got back, if ye ever did get back to your hovel here.
Whoop away, and split your throats, an' it please ye,” he continued,
as the savage uttered a fiendish and discordant yell close
in his ear, which was elicited not by the chief butler's remarks,
as he supposed, but by the sudden appearance of the blacksmith
upon the scene of action.

Walford had advanced with a good deal of caution after entering
upon the open ground, and had posted himself behind a tree
for a few moments, while he took a rapid survey of the spectacle

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

before him. He had entertained no doubt from the first, that
the Englishmen had in some manner or other originally provoked
the savages, and he had been at first disposed to let them finish
the quarrel for themselves as they had begun it. Finding,
however, that the odds were so unequal, or rather observing that
the contest had in reality ceased, and that his countrymen and
late turbulent visitors were likely to suffer a great deal of injury
from their captors, even if they escaped with their lives, his
blood was roused; and having great reliance on the personal
strength and unparalleled audacity which had hitherto supported
him so well during his solitary existence in these deserts, he had
resolved to come to their rescue if possible. While the savages,
one or two of whom had already entered into their hut intent
upon domestic and culinary affairs, while the rest were playfully
indulging themselves in a variety of pretty and humorous sports
at the expense of their victims, pricking their ears, pulling their
noses, and punching their sides with the points of their sharp
knives, were thus comparatively inattentive to all but the business
before them, he had stolen silently and cautiously, but with
rapidity from one tree to another, till at last, with a sudden
bound he had thrown himself among them, cutting the cords
which bound the valorous Bootefish at two blows of his hunting
knife, and then waving his sledge-hammer about his head with
an imposing air of defiance.

Meanwhile the savages, two or three of whom had thrown
their arms upon the ground, and were busily occupied with a
great heap of clams, upon which they were proposing to hold a
triumphal feast in honor of their victory, sprang suddenly to
their feet, uttering a shrill halloo of mingled surprise and rage.

The doughty butler, finding himself no longer a prisoner,
seized a tomahawk which lay providentially near him upon
the ground, and rushed like an enraged bull upon the nearest
Indian.

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

The savage, after receiving a severe blow upon the head,
which seemed, however, not even to stun him, closed with his
foe in a fierce and close embrace, which lasted for a few minutes,
till both the combatants, furious with rage and hatred, rolled
together upon the ground, dealing each other blows with hands,
teeth and feet, neither seeming capable of relinquishing his
deadly hold upon the other so long as life or breath remained.
While these two were thus engaged in desperate struggle, the
savage who had taken the lead in tormenting the butler while he
was bound, infuriated at his escape, and quivering all over with
disappointed malice, now turned upon the blacksmith, who had
thus come so unexpectedly to the rescue. He was a tall, powerful
creature, less in stature than his gigantic antagonist, but
wonderfully active and supple in his movements. He had thrown
off the deer-skin mantle from his shoulders, and now advanced
to the conflict, wielding aloft his tomahawk, his eye flaming with
fury, and his yell ringing through the plain like the cry of a
wild beast.

The blacksmith saw that there was no child's play before him.
He was unwilling to engage at first in close hug with his enemy,
for he knew, by experience, that his anointed and slippery skin,
the snake-like movements of his body, and his practical adroitness,
would counteract somewhat the advantages of his own
enormous strength. He retreated a little space to a tree, while
the savage standing at about six yards' distance paused a moment
with his tomahawk brandished high in air, and apparently deliberating
in his own mind, whether he would close with him at
once, or assail him from that distance. His decision was apparently
soon made, for whirling his heavy tomahawk twice or
thrice around his head, he suddenly hurled it with the velocity
of a thunderbolt at the head of his enemy. If the smith had
not providentially donned his head-piece before sallying forth
that morning, his days had been numbered, for the weapon

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

struck full upon his forehead, glanced from the rounded iron
surface of his cap, and then buried itself in the trunk of the
tree against which he was leaning. The bull-fronted smith
shook his head slightly, as if a wasp had been buzzing in his
ears, and stood as unmoved and impassible as before. The
savage, furious at having been foiled, uttered a yell, and then
plucking his long, sharp knife from its sheath, rushed madly
upon him. Walford calmly awaited his onset till his enemy's
hands were almost at his throat, and then swinging his mighty
sledge-hammer high in the air, he dealt the savage a single blow
upon the skull. It was enough. The wretch dropped like a
log, without a single cry or motion, and lay stone dead at his
feet.

While this rapid tragedy was acting, Bootefish and his foe still
lay coiled together in ferocious embrace, while the other four
savages had been engaged in an attempt to secure Rednape and
the Canary Bird. They had been but half successful, however,
for Rednape, having caught up a knife which one of the savages
had left upon the ground, had struck about him so vigorously as
to disable one of them, and to free himself entirely from their
grasp. Finding himself clear, and not troubling himself much
about the general issue of the combat, he had taken to his
long legs, and was skimming across the open plain with great
celerity.

The unfortunate Doryfall, however, was securely bound hand
and foot, and fastened to the same tree which had just before
held Bootefish in captivity. He was of course unable to render
assistance to the blacksmith, who now found himself opposed
single handed to three vigorous and unwounded enemies, not
counting the fourth who had received several ugly blows from
Rednape, and who now seemed crawling towards Bootefish and
his foe, for the apparent purpose of expending his remaining
strength in behalf of his red brother, who appeared in danger

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

of yielding up the last breath in the hands of the truculent
butler.

The three now made a concerted and wary attack upon the
Thunder-cloud of Mishawum, who had just given such impressive
proof of his strength and courage. The smith maintained
his post, with his back securely planted against the tree, and
daring his enemies to the assault with calm but contemptuous
gestures. The savages had, however, evidently no inclination
to trust themselves to close quarters with their colossal foe, any
sooner than was absolutely necessary. They stood at some
twenty paces' distance from him, and as they saw that he was
unprovided with any missile weapons, they knew themselves in
safety so long as he remained in his quiet attitude against the
tree. So many and so fabulous were the reports, that had been
related among the scattered dwellers of the neighborhood, concerning
the strength of the solitary blacksmith, that the Indians,
as we have seen, had long stood in wholesome awe of his
prowess, and had generally been inclined rather to cultivate his
friendship than to encounter his enmity. Being now engaged
in actual contest with him, they were resolved, if possible, to
deal with him warily and at advantage. Fortunately for the
blacksmith, not one of his enemies was provided with fire-arms,
then very rare among the savages, and but one of them was
armed with bow and arrows. They were in fact not accoutred
for battle, and had accidently become engaged in conflict, after
having sought the peninsula that morning with entirely pacific
purposes. They had indeed, as will hereafter appear, been first
provoked by their enemies to the contest.

The Indian who appeared to be the leader of the party, and
who wore the hawk's wing in his head, now suddenly drew his
bow, while the blacksmith's attention had been momentarily
withdrawn from his enemies by an unexpected noise in an
opposite direction, and taking a rapid aim, discharged an arrow

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

at the solitary champion. The shaft sped with such precision
that it struck his left shoulder, pierced through the fleshy part of
the arm, and pinned it to the tree.

At the same time, the two other savages were cautiously
stealing, each in an opposite direction, towards their intended
victim, both armed with knife and tomahawk.

“Beshrew me,” said the blacksmith to himself, as without
wincing he tore the arrow from his arm, “but this be no time
to stand pinned like a scarecrow to a tree. Am I to stay longer
here as a butt for yon clumsy red-breech, may I be damned?
Look to thyself, thou greasy villain, for, by the Lord, there is a
bloody nose in store for thee, and that before thou'rt thirty
seconds older.”

As he spoke he waved his sledge-hammer, and was about
rushing single-handed upon his foe, when a shrill whisper in the
air above him suddenly arrested his attention, and for an instant
almost caused his stout heart to tremble.

“Now may the foul fiend burn ye all,” he shouted, “for if
mortal man must fight single-handed with three painted devils
upon the earth, and with the powers of the air beside, the odds
be too unequal.”

“Hist, hist, hist, Thomas Walford,” cried a shrill voice
above him, which seemed to have something unearthly, and yet
familiar in its tones. “Stop where thou art, mine honest and
most valorous Smith, dodge about the tree for a few minutes
longer, and thou art safe. Take my word for it, and stick to the
tree.”

“Thy word, in sooth, thou invisible devil,” answered the
simple-minded blacksmith, somewhat puzzled by this counsel
from an aerial source, and yet involuntarily obeying the command.
“Thy word, in sooth, thou mocking goblin, and why
should I obey thy counsel, if I would keep my scalp under my
iron-pot, and not leave it dangling at yonder slippery villain's
girdle? What art thou, speak?”

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

The blacksmith had dodged around the tree as he made this
address to his invisible companion, and had thus avoided a
second arrow from his most troublesome enemy, while, at the
same time, the other two savages had paused in their advance
upon him, for reasons which soon appeared.

The pugnacious Bootefish, who had clung to his foe with the
tenacity of a bull-dog, and who might have been cut into a
hundred pieces before his hands and teeth would have relinquished
their hold while life remained, had at last succeeded in
exhausting his enemy and obtaining the upper hand. Extricating
himself from his savage clutches, he had planted his knee
upon his breast, and plunged his knife into his throat. Being
thus delivered from the mortal struggle in which he had borne
himself so manfully, he had, although somewhat fatigued by his
short but ferocious encounter, found no difficulty in dispatching
the savage whom Rednape had wounded, and who had well nigh
crept upon him, before he had completely vanquished his first
antagonist.

Under these circumstances, the contest assumed a totally
different aspect. There were now but three of the six Indians
remaining, and they were opposed by two Englishmen, not
sufficient odds for the savages, in the estimation of the bold
blacksmith.

“Who art thou, thou voice without body or legs?” asked
Walford, pausing, in spite of himself, to listen to the admonitions
of his mysterious companion.

“Body enough, Master Bootefish, and legs more than enough,
or my name's not Peter,” cried the voice. “Look up here,
man, 't is no devil in the air, but simply your friend Peter Cakebread,
roosting and cooing like an innocent dove upon the
branches of this protective oak.”

“Roosting like an innocent dove, sneaking and squealing like
a villainous tree-toad rather,” said the blacksmith indignantly,

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

as he looked up and saw the wizzened and preternatural visage
of Cakebread, grinning at him through the leafless spray of the
tree, while, with his long, ape-like arms and legs, he swung
himself from one limb to another. “Why thou lily-livered,
toad-faced coward thou, had'st thou had one particle of manhood
in thee, thou would'st have been down here like the brave
old Bootefish yonder, whom, by heaven, I will never quarrel
with again, the longest day I have to live, helping me to punish
these greasy red-skins, and not roosting there like an unclean
bird among the branches of a tree.”

“Fair words, fair words, I pray thee, master blacksmith,”
replied the unabashed Cakebread from his commanding position.
“Truly, am I not sitting here like a guardian angel, directing
your endeavors, and praying devoutly for your success? I tell
thee, there be succor approaching, for from the summit of this
tree I have just seen a boat approaching yonder beach.”

“Succor indeed, thou miserable varlet!” answered Walford,
“why seest thou not, that three of the six enemies be lumps of
dead clay already, and that if I stay here now talking to thee, it
is that the other poor devils may run away if they will, for by
the Lord, I have marvellously more desire to trounce thee for
thy cowardice, than to chastise these red-legged creatures.”

In effect the combat seemed to have ended. The three
savages had withdrawn to the neighborhood of their wigwam,
dragging the two bodies of their slaughtered friends with them,
but not daring to meddle with the one which lay at the feet of
the blacksmith. They seemed now to limit their ambition to
securing their captive, the luckless Doryfall, who, as soon as
they had again arrived within ear-shot, had not ceased in his
vociferous attempts to set them right as to his real name, and to
assure them that Canary Bird was only his “totem,” or war
name, in Indian phraseology.

Whether the savages supposed that this appellation, derived

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

from so valiant a bird, indicated the extraordinary heroism of its
wearer, whether they were particularly acquainted with the
habits of his feathered sponsor, which was not then often to be
found in New England, or whether indeed they understood or
attended to any thing which fell from their captive's lips, did
not distinctly appear. They contented themselves simply in
answer to each successive exclamation, with the normal grunt of
their race, which might have indicated approbation, dissent,
reproof, or any thing else that happened to be in their minds.
At all events, the unfortunate Doryfall did not seem likely at
that moment to effect his liberation, which probably was the
object to which tended his incessant vociferations.

While these matters were going on more rapidly than has
been related, for indeed the whole contest which has taken us so
long to recite, had occupied but a few minutes, Peter Cakebread
had again scrambled to the top of the oak, upon which he
was perched, to take a survey of the surrounding country,
while one of the savages, he, namely, who had so adroitly nailed
the blacksmith to the tree with his arrow, crept cautiously to the
edge of the thicket, and placed his ear to the ground. Scarcely
had he done so, when he started to his feet again with a yell of
triumph, and dashed furiously back, hatchet in hand, towards
the wigwam. At the same moment Cakebread uttered a shrill
cry of disappointment and terror from the summit of the tree.

“What ails thee now, thou liverless child of Satan?” cried
the blacksmith, standing upon the defensive again, while Bootefish
seized the tomahawk which had been discharged at the
commencement of the conflict and buried in the tree.

“What ails thee now, that thou howlest so dismally? What
seest thou in yonder thicket to scare thee out of thy senses
again?”

Before Cakebread had time to reply to the blacksmith's
interrogation, the cause of his dismay and of the savage's

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

exultation was explained. A party of Indians, numbering eight or
ten, commanded by a chief who appeared to be of considerable
importance, broke suddenly from the thicket which fringed the
plain, and advanced rapidly towards the scene of action. At
this unexpected reinforcement, the three savages, who had been
quite satisfied with the length of the contest, and who would
have been well pleased to have got rid of the blacksmith and
his truculent friend, now plucked up heart again, and leaving
the captive Doryfall to guard himself at the entrance to their
wigmam, they renewed the attack with the assurance of an
easy victory. Bootefish and the blacksmith, each placed himself
against a tree, prepared to sell their lives as dearly as
possible. Retreat was out of the question, for the party who
had just emerged from the wood which extended along the
western and northern verge of the plain, and crowned the neighboring
heights, effectually surrounded them in the rear, and the
sea which spread before them upon the southern and eastern
side, cut off all escape in front. One of the three savages now
advanced very near to the blacksmith, executing a very furious
and warlike dance before his face, yelling with ferocity, and
taunting him with a variety of irritating gestures. The smith,
convinced that there was nothing to be gained by remaining
stationary any longer, feeling a far stronger inclination to
exchange his own life for that of two or three of his foes, than
to stand still to become the captive and the laughing-stock of
creatures for whom he had a hearty contempt, desperate at this
evil stroke of fortune after he had considered his victory secure,
and lashed into fury by the insulting grimaces of the savage,
now abandoned all idea of defence, and leaving the covert of
the tree, rushed madly at his antagonist, waving aloft his
sledge-hammer.

The savage, whose brains would have been dashed out if he
had stood still an instant longer, took to his heels as Walford

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

advanced, and fled in the direction of the wood. The smith
pursued, but with less rapidity, his fugitive foe, and in so
doing, found himself directly in the centre of the plain, separated
from any protecting tree, and offering a mark for half a dozen
arrows, which were immediately discharged at him by the new
comers, and which inflicted two or three flesh wounds. He
paused, foaming with rage, and eyeing his antagonists, who were
thus goading him at the same time that they remained out of
his reach, with the fury of a baited and wounded bull. His
career seemed at an end; the savage who had provoked him was
already surrounded by his friends, an arrow in the leg impeded
the smith's advance, and as he stood there a defenceless mark,
one of the new comers, who was the only one provided with a
fire-arm, suddenly advanced to within twenty yards of him, and
levelled his piece at his breast. The smith's hour was come.
He was to die at last like a wolf in the wilderness, and what
would become of the old woman on the hill yonder. He cursed
his folly, which had tempted him forth from his fortress in behalf
of the riotous crew, who had disturbed his solitude that morning;
he cursed the fate which had sent the new party of red-skins
thither, when he had so fairly routed the first; he cursed
ten thousand times the carelessness which had sent him out
without his trusty fire-arm, which alone would have made him
more than a match for the whole of them.

“Fire away,” he roared with the voice of a lion, “ye greasy
villains, and stop your chattering; 't is a brave deed surely,
for a dozen Indians to get the better of two Englishmen, for as
to yon trussed chicken yonder —” The report of a matchlock
interrupted him as he shouted his defiance. Strange to
say, it seemed to come from an opposite direction, and scarcely
had the sound broken upon his ear, when the savage who was
so nearly threatening his life, suddenly sprang high into the air,
uttering a quick, sharp cry, and then rolled dead upon the

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

plain, his gun exploding harmlessly as he fell. At the same
instant two figures sprang rapidly forward from the eastern edge
of the plain, both armed with long, heavy matchlocks, and
advancing near enough to be easily recognised, stationed themselves
each behind a tree at a short distance from the blacksmith.

“Fairly shot, Sir Kit, by Jupiter Diespiter,” said the shorter
of the two as he coolly took aim at the nearest savage, who was
however several hundred yards' distant; while Sir Christopher,
to whose ready hand and skilful eye the blacksmith's preservation
was owing, rapidly re-loaded his piece. At the same moment
Walford darted gallantly forward, and notwithstanding the discharge
of a half dozen arrows, succeeded in seizing the musket
of the savage whom Gardiner had slain, and in tearing his ammunition
pouch from his body. Armed with these, and without
receiving a single additional wound, he hastily took up a position
behind an oak, not far removed from his two confederates.

“Hold your hand, Morton, for an instant,” said the knight,
as he saw Morton preparing to fire. “'T is but a waste of
powder — yonder fellows are out of your reach at present, and
unless I mistake the matter, will be in no hurry to come to
nearer quarters; my life for it, they have been provoked to this,
for I know their temper well. At all events, here be three of us,
with good weapons in our hands, and a fit match, I take it, for
yonder round dozen of painted vagabonds. Pause a moment
and observe their motions — you know how deeply important I
consider it to secure the good-will of the savages in this neighborhood.
Had not our trusty giant yonder been in such
imminent peril, I would not have hurt a hair of their heads.
Pause a moment and watch their conduct. By saint John, methinks
they show a marvellous inclination to skulk into the
covert yonder.”

“They are deliberating, Sir Christopher — taking grave and

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

deep counsel; I obey you, and await the result of their cogitations.”
With this the Lord of Merry-Mount lowered his weapon
and leaned coolly against the tree.

“But look at the giant of Mishawum, Sir Christopher,” he
resumed, “with an arrow sticking in each leg! Tell me now,
looks he not like a feathered Mercury, with the talaria on his
heels — save that he is perhaps a trifle stout for sailing through
the air. Why he hath arrows enow in his legs to furnish Robin
Hood. Had he but a bow now, he were as well equipped an
archer as ever trod the merry green wood. And yet what
recks he of bows or arrows? `Non eget Mauris jaculis neque
arcu,' for hath he not possessed himself of pouch and matchlock
from yonder stiffening savage? But how camest thou to see in
one half second the whole state of the matter, and to drop
yonder unfortunate savage so promptly?”

“Experience, Master Morton,” answered the knight, “experience,
from earliest childhood to the present moment, has been
tutoring me. When danger threatens, never lay about you in
the dark. Trust me, a man with his eyes wide open is worth a
dozen heedless fellows who rush upon danger blindfold.”

While these events had been taking place, or rather just before
the very opportune arrival of Morton and Gardiner, the valorous
butler, who had been severely bruised during the progress of the
affray, and was well nigh exhausted by his extraordinary efforts,
had been captured at last by the two remaining Indians of the
first party, who had attacked him, the one with his bow and
arrows, the other with a long hatchet-headed pole. They had
now bound him again, and had dragged him to the neighborhood
of the wigwam, where he now sat upon the ground very near the
Canary Bird, looking the image of dogged resolution.

“Ah, look yonder, Sir Christopher,” continued Morton, after
a little pause, during which the savages seemed to be still deliberating
whether to attack or to hold a parley with the three

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

Englishmen. “Ah, look yonder at my paragon of precentors,
my most bibulous of butlers, my most bandy-legged of Bootefishes,
taken he is, captured, in durance vile. There too lies the
luckless Canary Bird by his side, picked, trussed, and ready for
roasting; and yonder sneaks back Humphrey Rednape with the
pouch on his shoulders according to your command. This way,
Humphrey Rednape, or the red devils will add you to the brace
yonder. Sneak this way man,” continued Morton, as Rednape,
who, as will be remembered, had fled early from the field of
battle, but who had in reality been the cause of the favorable
turn which things had taken, by the information which he had
conveyed to Morton and Gardiner, of whose whereabouts he
happened to be informed, now stole forward with a large pouch
of ammunition upon his shoulder, and a fire-arm in his hand.

“These savages are peaceably disposed,” said Gardiner,
suddenly. “I have no doubt on the subject. Down with your
piece, you mistake me. No more killing. They have not the
least appetite for gunpowder remaining. 'T is much more to
my purpose to deal gently with them. They respect me and
fear me; 't is time that they should love me. Moreover, I recognise
their chief — 't is Sagamore John, as well disposed a fellow
as can be found in the bay. My life for it, he comes half way to
welcome me as soon as I am recognised.”

With these words the knight, to Morton's profound astonishment,
left the cover of the tree with his matchlock carelessly
lying in the hollow of his arm, and coolly advanced to within
fifty yards of the second party of Indians, who had been standing
huddled together in earnest conversation since the fall of
their first champion. Half a dozen bows were lifted in an
instant, half a dozen arrows were drawn to the head, while
Morton, transfixed with wonder, stood gazing at the incomprehensible
fool-hardiness of the knight, when suddenly, at a word
of command, the weapons were all lowered, and the chief of the

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

party uttering a shrill cry of recognition, advanced forward to
meet the Englishman, proffering his hand, and making a hundred
gestures and unintelligible protestations of friendship.

The sagamore was a young man, tall and well limbed, like
most of their other warriors, and wore a variety of ingeniously
painted devices upon his arms and bust. A robe of magnificent
beaver skins hung from his shoulder, a girdle of wampum was
around his waist, and he held a tomahawk in his hand. Like
all the other savages who had appeared upon the scene, he was
equipped for peace, and had had no expectations that morning of
a conflict of any kind. He had a good-humored, horse face, with
an expression of considerable intelligence, and was evidently regarded
by his companions with perfect respect. This was Sagamore
John, a petty chieftain of a small body of natives who
inhabited the neighborhood of Mishawum, and who were all subjects
to the more extensive sovereignty of the Squaw Sachem of
the Massachusetts.

Between this potentate and the knight, there had for a long
time existed relations of perfect friendship and mutual esteem.
During his residence in the Massachusetts, Sir Christopher had
ably employed the long period of apparent inactivity to which
the slow moving and somewhat recalcitrating operations of his
confederates in England had condemned him, in establishing secret
but extensive relations of amity with the chiefs of all the
scattered tribes in the neighborhood of the territory, over which
he eventually contemplated establishing his own sovereignty.
His connections with them were widely ramified, and managed
with the adroitness which was his distinguishing characteristic.

The sagamore and Sir Christopher exchanged salutations.
In a few hurried expressions, which were inaudible to the other
parties, and by a careless gesture of the knight towards the savage
who had fallen by his hand, it was evident that he had
explained his own part in the transaction. Desirous of

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

investigating the original cause of the affray, he seemed willing to prolong
his interview with the sagamore. All appearances of hostility
having ceased on both sides, the other Indians retired by
themselves for the present to the vicinity of the wigwam, where
they resumed the interrupted preparations for their feast; while
Morton and Walford together proceeded to liberate the two captives
Bootefish and Doryfall, and then withdrew to the vicinity
of the beach to hold deliberation.

“Beshrew me,” said the blacksmith to the knight, “but you
seem marvellously to understand yourself with my friend the
sagamore yonder. A man of pith he is, and no skulker; and
by the beard of my father, I would not have valued your life at a
farthing when you marched out upon them just now. To be
sure, their arrows be mighty clumsy tools,” continued the giant,
who had been amusing himself, since the cessation of hostilities,
with extracting the stone points of the darts, which, as we have
seen, had inflicted several annoying although trifling wounds
upon his person — “to be sure, they be mighty clumsy tools, unless
the game be cocksparrows; and look ye, I be something
bigger and tougher than a cocksparrow,” he concluded, contemptuously
tossing the weapons which had galled him upon the
ground.

“Aye,” said Morton, replying in the careless humor which
was habitual with him, to the observations of Walford, which
Gardiner, engaged in colloquy with the sachem, did not appear
to heed. “Aye, master smith, thou seest that our worthy
friend Sir Christopher is even more closely allied to his highness
Sagamore John, even than thy gigantic self. The devil a bit
would yonder cocksparrow archers have dropped their weapons
at thy command, or even at mine, suzerain of Passanogessit,
though they know know me to be. See what it is to be born
with the jewel of command in your eye, as a beaver with a
priceless treasure in his tail. And truly this Sagamore John, as

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

he delights to style himself — thanks to his highness, by the way,
for eschewing his savage name, which would crack our jaws
worse than his tomahawk or thy sledge-hammer, and into more
pieces than it hath syllables — truly John is a very agreeable
young man.”

“Aye,” answered the smith, who had troubled himself but
little with savage pedigrees or politics, “'t is as pretty a fellow in
a squabble as one would care to meet with of a summer's day.
A great chieftain he is, to be sure, and the Lord of all these
parts I believe — may they have never a worse one.”

“Poh, nonsense, thou most careless and uninstructed giant,”
answered Morton, “thy ignorance of the genealogy and political
history of the tribes among whom thou hast pitched thy tent,
is lamentable. Know, then, that yonder dignified red-skin,
with the wholesome name of John, is but a satrap, a prefect,
under the mighty personage who rules these savage realms.
Know that this whole country of the Massachusetts obeys the
sovereignty of an illustrious squaw. This squaw sachem is the
dowager of the lamented Nanepashemit, or the New Moon,
which New Moon being brought into unlucky conjunction with
certain Tarrantine tomahawks, was suddenly eclipsed somewhere
in the year of our Lord 1619. He left behind four lesser satelites,
three sons and a daughter — one of the sons, the respectable
young man now before us, whose pagan name, Wonohaquahan,
I will for once venture to pronounce, has command over some
twenty or thirty warriors, while his brothers possess a similar authority
farther towards the east, but the dowager, the Saunks,
hath succeeded to the throne, and exercises despotic sway over
her sons and subjects.”

“Master smith,” suddenly interrupted Gardiner, turning
from the sagamore, “what began the riot this morning? That
is the matter to be looked to now.”

“Faith, Sir Christopher, the devil a bit can I instruct you on

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

the subject. Four drunken vagabonds of the pious crew, harbored
by our friend Master Morton here, paid me a visit this
morning. I should have said three vagabonds, for yonder Robin
Bootefish hath this day borne himself so like a man of mettle, that
he shall be damned before he hears hard names again from
Thomas Walford; aye, or hard knocks either,” said the smith,
extending his hand towards the doughty butler. That individual
who by a kind of miracle had escaped unwounded, though
marvellously bruised, from his various adventures that morning,
and who had been refreshing himself during the interval afforded
by the historical disquisition of Morton, with a quiet nap in the
sun, had aroused himself at the voice of the blacksmith, and now
listened with gratification to this encomium upon his conduct.

“Thanks to you, worthy Goodman Walford,” said he with
stately but sincere cordiality, as he arose from his recumbent
position, and extended a hand to the blacksmith.

“Thanks to you, master blacksmith, and truly I be well
pleased that the individual whom you chose to honor with the
name of lobster, and mayhap to handle somewhat more roughly
than was necessary, one fine morning, hath had opportunity to
show the stuff he be made of.”

As the butler paused for breath, Gardiner, who had become
impatient at this effusion of sentiment on the part of the butler
and smith, now repeated his inquiry as to the cause of the
conflict.

“If your worship, Master Morton, will allow,” resumed the
butler, “I can explain to Sir Christopher the whole of the matter
in about six words.”

“Out with it, man,” said Sir Christopher impatiently, “methinks
it needs no urging.”

“Well, then, know your worship,” said the butler, “that the
whole cause of this little riot with the red-breeches is all along
of Peter Cakebread. He be a mischievous, idle varlet, as your

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

honor knows, ready to get a friend into trouble, and willing to
let him get out of it for himself. Now you see, this Master
Cakebread, as we landed from our boats at Mishawum this
morning, chanced to find a canoe belonging to these very red-breeches
snugly lying in the cove.”

“I knew there was knavery at the beginning,” cried Morton.

“There was a mighty bag of corn-meal in the boat,” continued
Bootefish, “and your worship knows that the devil a pinch
of meal or flour has been at Merry-Mount these three months.
There were also several measures of dried beans besides. Now
what does my gentleman, Master Cakebread, but takes me this
very bag of meal and these very dry beans, and pops me them
into our boat, saying that we would have bread enow for May-day
at Merry-Mount, or the devil was in it. I reproved him for
it, your honor, and called him a vile thief. This made him
laugh, hardened sinner that as he is, and without more ado, he
shoved the empty canoe out upon the water, as if it was not
enow to steal the contents thereof. As we were squabbling
among ourselves, the red-breeches, who had from the hill-top
discovered their canoe floating off into the bay, came down upon
us, shrieking like devils, before we had put off in our skiff. As
soon as they discovered Peter's knavery, you may be sure that
they screamed and yelled all the louder. Now what does my
little Canary Bird, when we found ourselves beset, but drop on
his face and pipe for mercy. As for Peter Cakebread, the cause
of all the mischief, why the devil even lent him his own wings,
to fly away withal, for how else he could make his escape as he
did, clean over the heads of us all, Christians and pagans,
friends and foes, is more than Robert Bootefish can tell you. In
the midst of our tussle upon the plain, up comes Goodman
Walford, and the rest is known to your worship.”

The worthy butler concluded his harangue, which, without
more circumlocution than was to have been expected, had at

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

last instructed Morton and the knight as to the real cause of the
quarrel, by a beaming glance of affection directed towards the
smith.

“And now, where is this skulking Cakebread?” said the
knight, “the culprit is known, and must be found and punished.
Master Morton, I shall insist upon an exemplary chastisement as
the only means of satisfying the savages' sense of justice.”

“Right as Rhadamanthus,” answered Morton, “but where
has the knave bestowed himself?”

“I have already told thee, Master Morton,” interrupted the
smith, “that the creature hath been seen by me in the midst of
the squabble. Flying in the air he was, like an imp of the old
one, for Satan protects his children. But if he be any where
outside the hottest cauldron in Beelzebub's kitchen, you'll find
him upon yonder oak. Take him an' ye will, but by the Lord, I
would not singe my fingers with his carcase to please the best
Christian in the bay.”

While the smith was speaking, the knight had already advanced
to the oak under which the blacksmith had received the
aerial communications from the offending Cakebread. The rest
of the party followed him, and soon became aware of the presence
of the luckless culprit, who ensconced among the topmost
branches of the tree, sat grinning at them in defiance, and obstinately
refusing to obey the knight's order to descend from his
pinnacle, from a very shrewd suspicion of the treatment he was
likely to meet with.

“I knew we should find the culprit at last,” exclaimed Morton.
“Cakebread, Peter Cakebread, thy sins must be atoned
for, and that speedily. Of this thou mightest have been sure,
ere thou becamest a corn-stealer, for punishment, sooner or
later, surely overtaketh the guilty. What says my friend Flaccus
upon this point?


`Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Pœna claudo.'

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

Which for thy better apprehension is, `Punishment with her
club-foot, will yet overtake the nimblest and most thievish
baboon.' Have the kindness, then, to come down and be
whipped.—`Valet ima summis mutare.' Leave thy infernal
mopping and mowing and descend.”

Master Cakebread, however, seemed little inclined to obey the
behest of his liege lord and sovereign, and remained in his
elevated position, looking very malicious, very obstinate, and
very much frightened withal.

The knight became now very impatient, and shouted to him
in a voice whose peremptory tones seemed to produce an instantaneous
effect upon the culprit.

“I tell thee to descend from the tree, and that instantly, thou
misbegotten child of Satan; it were better for thee to obey my
commands without hesitation; for I swear to thee if thou palterest
with me ten seconds longer, the tree shall be felled to the
ground, and thyself delivered over to the savages whom thou hast
plundered, to be dealt with according to their pleasure. Obey
me instantly and thou shalt be chastised, indeed, but thou shalt
be protected from the vengeance of the Indians.”

This last threat, or rather the mixtures of threats and promises,
seemed to have its effect upon the culprit. He began
slowly to descend from the summit of the tree, and when he
had reached the lowermost branch of all, he sat himself quietly
down for a moment, at about ten feet elevation above their
heads, and seemed disposed to enter into a parley with the
imperious knight.

“Worthy and most valiant Sir Christopher,” he began in a
fawning and suppliant manner, “thou knowest that bread is the
staff of life, and that—”

“Now by St. John,” cried the knight in a towering passion,
“if thou darest to utter one single word of expostulation, or
delayest one single second longer thy descent to the ground, I

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

swear I will shoot thee as I would a fox, and give thy carcase to
the Indians in exchange for their poor devils who have been
knocked on the head in consequence of thy misdemeanor.”

As he spoke, the knight lifted his matchlock to his shoulder,
and deliberately covered the body of the trembling culprit.
Cakebread knowing with whom he had to deal, and finding Sir
Christopher thus indisposed to trifle, made no more ado, but
turning a sumerset, which did honor to his early education, he
alighted upon his feet in the very midst of the group, wearing a
ludicrous expression of mingled fear, malice, and curiosity upon
his wizzened features.

The knight seized him by the throat in an instant, and then
making a sign to Rednape and Bootefish to approach, he handed
the culprit to them, with orders to bind him closely with a cord
which Rednape held in his hands.

The unfortunate Cakebread fell upon his knees, for he believed
that the knight had determined to execute him at once
without judge or jury, by suspending him to the branch of the
tree which hung so conveniently a few feet above his head.
The frightened culprit fell upon his knees and roared for
mercy.

“Have compassion upon me, thou most humane and puissant
knight, and thou, too, my honored lord and sovereign, most
worshipful Master Morton,” he cried, with his teeth chattering
as he spoke; “truly have I done nothing but abstract a little
superfluous provender from the savages. I did but forage upon
the enemy as a Christian warrior should. Bread is the staff of
life, and for the lack of it must we die, and yet be hanged for
procuring it?”

“Gag the cowardly driveller,” said the knight impatiently to
Bootefish and Rednape; “and know, thou unlucky and most
thievish imp, that there is no question of hanging. Chastised thou
shalt be; whipped, and that soundly, to appease the vengeance of

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

the Indians, and to furnish them an additional proof of the justice
that Englishmen know how to render, even when their own
countrymen must bear the pain and the shame. Master Morton,
have the kindness to summon the savages from yonder
wigwam.”

“Willingly, Sir Kit,” answered Morton, “but permit me
before I do so to make a suggestion, — Is it certain that it would
not be better to hand the culprit —?”

Here the unfortunate Cakebread struggled violently to speak,
and to throw himself upon his knees, but the gag and cords
prevented, and Morton proceeded,—

“Would it not be better to hang the culprit, or at least a
culprit? If Cakebread be too valuable a subject for me to lose,
and I confess his many excellent social qualities have endeared
him very much to the society of Merry-Mount, why I am
not sure that I could not find among the more aged and weather-beaten
veterans of the crew, a worthy substitute for the gallows.
There is a fellow in my mind just now, a huge feeder, who
dwells at Merry-Mount, and hath done so for years, who is old,
blind, deaf, and altogether of no value to me or to any body;
what sayest thou, Sir Kit, suppose we discharge Master Cakebread
from custody and send forthwith for my venerable friend and
hang him vicariously to yonder branch, in presence of the
savages? My life for it, they will be most salutarily impressed
by so imposing a spectacle.”

“Tush, Morton,” said Gardiner, who, although impatient at
this delay in executing his orders, treated the Sachem of Merry-Mount,
as he always did even in his most whimsical moments,
with considerable deference. “Tush, Morton, thou triflest too
unseasonably; I have determined, that although this actual
offence be not very grave in amount, yet that this practice of
pilfering by white men upon Indians is likely to bring us into
contempt, and that it is necessary to make an example of this

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

fellow, who, as thou hast thyself informed me, has been guilty
of such tricks before. He must be chastised in presence of the
Indians, and that at once.”

Cakebread, who, in spite of his cords, had contrived to execute
a hampered dance of rapture, and to emit certain smothered
and unnatural sounds indicative of his intense delight at Morton's
proposition, and his unqualified approval of this project of
a vicarious punishment, now received a smart rap on the head
from Bootefish, to induce a more reverential demeanor, while Sir
Christopher continued,—

“If you will have the kindness to call yonder savages together,
and will simply appoint your servant Bootefish yonder to
the temporary office of executioner, I will, without farther delay,
see that a proper chastisement is meted out to this culprit, which
will be sufficient as an example, but which will hardly prevent
him from fulfilling his duties as principal buffoon, so long as he
can find greater fools than himself to laugh at his folly.”

“Robertus Bootefish!” suddenly exclaimed Morton, upon
finding by the knight's determined manner, that the matter must
be forthwith settled, — “Robertus Bootefish, thou art hereby
authorized by the command of thy suzerain, to take upon thyself,
in addition to thy other responsible offices of butler, precentor,
and head clerk, the dignity of carnifex maximus, which
is in the vernacular, head executioner, not only for the present
but for all future time, and thou art hereby instructed to hold
thyself in readiness to execute the penalty of the law according
to the behest of the illustrious knight, Sir Christopher Gardiner,
upon the body of the culprit, Petrus Panificium, or, in the
vulgar, Peter Cakebread, upon this very spot and at this very
moment of time. Dixi.”

The worthy Bootefish, who had been well aware of the result
towards which all this parley was tending, and who was nothing
loth to inflict upon the sneaking comrade who had well nigh,

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

through his knavery, cost him his life, a proper chastisement,
which he regarded as rather due to his unmanly flight from the
battle-field than for the larceny, had already prepared a formidable
whip, and now came forward with considerable alacrity in
obedience to the order of his august master.

The savages were immediately summoned, and squatted themselves
gravely upon their hams, forming a circle around their
chief, who received from Morton and Gardiner a rapid and
succinct account of the matter from the beginning to the end,
and expressed himself thoroughly satisfied with the penalty proposed.
The luckless Cakebread was then unbound and led
forward by Rednape and the Canary Bird into the centre of the
circle, when he dropped upon his knees and with chattering
teeth and streaming eyes made a full confession of his guilt, accompanied
by many whining appeals for mercy. He was, however,
promptly condemned to receive forty lashes immediately;
and although his fears had perhaps anticipated a far more fearful
penalty, he again attempted by a variety of hideous howls, to
obtain a mitigation of punishment. Finding all his efforts in
vain, after casting an imploring but ineffectual look at Morton,
he permitted himself to be seized by Rednape and Doryfall. As
soon, however, as they had taken him by the arms, he dropped
heavily upon the ground, affecting to have fallen into a swoon,
and lay motionless and apparently as senseless as a log. At a
look from Gardiner, Bootefish advanced to assist the others and
they then lifted him from the earth in their arms, where he lay
like a man, from whom all the bones had been suddenly extracted,
with his lithe and supple frame swaying and twisting in
every direction like a dead serpent. As they carried him past
Gardiner, however, he opened his eyes and directed one demoniac
glance of mingled fear, rage and hatred, which was worthy
of the countenance of a fiend, and which might have inspired a
more susceptible mind than the knight's with a sensation of

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terror. Sir Christopher, however, appeared not even to observe
the expression of the imp whose hatred he was at that moment
incurring, and who, contemptible as he seemed, possessed
venom and determination sufficient to inflict a signal vengeance
upon the author of his punishment, if the opportunity should
occur.

The abject creature was now tied by the neck and shoulders
to a young hickory, and the forty lashes were laid on with a
hearty good-will, and with solemn composure, by Bootefish.
The first stroke aroused the culprit from his affected torpor, and
elicited a howl which resounded among the wooded crags of the
surrounding wilderness. At the second he began to dance
about with extraordinary vivacity, and throughout the whole
chastisement he performed a series of wonderful gyrations about
the tree, accompanied with frantic but unsuccessful struggles to
escape from his bonds. When the last blow had been struck,
and the echo of the last howl had died away among the cliffs of
Mishawum, the savages, at Gardiner's request, were drawn up
in a double line, the cords which secured the culprit were unbound,
and he was ordered in conclusion to run the gauntlet
through them, and to receive a swinging thwack from every
one of them as he passed. As soon, however, as he was liberated,
he dropped again like a torpid snake upon the earth, and
appeared entirely inanimate from the effects of his punishment;
upon Gardner's stirring his prostrate carcase with his foot, however,
and threatening him with an additional allowance of stripes
upon the failure of instant obedience, he jumped upon his legs
and proceeded cautiously to the head of the line. Here, as he
was attempting to steal quietly by the first post of danger, he was
received by a hearty knock from the flat side of a hatchet; when,
suddenly recovering his powers, as if by enchantment, and
exerting the whole of his extraordinary muscular agility, he
bounded into the air, threw a somerset clean over the heads of

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his enemies, and then fled swiftly across the plain. At the command
of their chief, the savages desisted from the pursuit which
they had at once commenced; and all parties being thoroughly
satisfied with the penalty inflicted, and with the general result
of the morning's operations, they severally dispersed to their
respective destinations.

p285-161 CHAPTER XII. TWILIGHT MYSTERIES.

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Late in the afternoon of the same day, Esther Ludlow, who
was walking alone very near her own door, was surprised to see
the tall figure of Sir Christopher Gardiner crossing the glade
and approaching the house. The knight appeared no longer in
the gay attire which he had worn in the morning and throughout
the scenes in which we have found him engaged, but appeared
again in the sad-colored suit, and wearing the steeple-crowned
hat which marked the Puritan. His demeanor and bearing
were no less altered, and it would have been difficult for the
keenest observer to have discovered in the grave and measured
deportment, the meek and gentle voice, and the calm and somewhat
melancholy countenance of the personage who was now
exchanging salutations with Esther Ludlow, any trace of the mnn
of action whom we left so lately upon the plain of Mishawum.

“I have taken the liberty to intrude once more upon your
presence,” said he, with a demure glance at Esther, which was
quickly withdrawn as her eyes met his own, “because, since I
last parted from you I have received letters, which confirm the
tidings which you somewhat briefly imparted to me, the last
time we met. Believing that in all probability your own dispatches
might not yet have been delivered, I have come to
proffer whatever information I may have obtained for your own
use.”

“I thank you for your courtesy,” replied Esther coldly, for
she was not too well pleased with the knight's visit, and felt a
strange trouble, she knew not why, at his presence; “I thank

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you respectfully, but the letters which have been delivered to my
brother and myself from our friends in England, have fully
instructed us as to the course of events in England, and as to
the particular details of the matters most interesting to the
dwellers in the wilderness.”

“Then I have only to express to you,” replied the knight,
my sincere congratulations at the auspicious tidings. Before
another three months shall have elapsed, we may hope to see the
commencement of a religious settlement, the laying of the
corner-stone of a permanent asylum for the persecuted. I know
how much of pure and sublime happiness such an event must
excite in your breast. I sincerely trust that you will not be
offended that a lonely and unworthy wayfarer like myself, ventures
to express to you his sympathy with a cause which he
knows to be nearest to your heart.”

“It lies doubtless very near to my heart,” replied Esther,
who was somewhat softened to the stranger by his apparently
fervid interest in the cause to which she had devoted herself, but
whose mind, pre-occupied at that moment by deep and melancholy
regrets at the recent demeanor of her absent lover, was
but little open to any strong impression from the language of the
man who was now addressing her. “It lies doubtless very near
to my heart, and I am truly impatient that the expected ships
should arrive. Still my mind at times misgives me, whether
obstacles may not, after all, occur during these troublous times,
which may make their endeavors fruitless.”

“Not so, believe me,” answered her companion, who, as will
be explained hereafter, had already made up his mind as to the
line of conduct he was to pursue for the present, having now
received the instructions which he had been so eagerly expecting
from his confederates in England. “I have reason to believe
that the good work is likely to go on and prosper. Such is the
tenor of the advices which I have received from my own friends,

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and such, doubtless, must be the hopes held forth in your correspondence.”

“I cannot tell,” answered Esther, whose manner became
distant again, in spite of herself, as she found the knight desirous
of protracting the interview without any apparent cause.
“Our enemies in England are powerful and malignant, and I
fear they may send emissaries to the wilderness to impede our
cherished work.”

“But the friends of the colony at home are powerful and
influential,” replied the knight, who was gazing with a look of
undisguised admiration at the fair face of his companion. He
checked himself suddenly, however, and remembering that passionate
words and bold glances but ill comported with the stern
and grave character which he had assumed, he added in an altered
tone, “Believe me when I assure you that you have but little to
fear from the machinations of the enemies whom you deem so
powerful. As to the emissaries to whom you allude, I doubt
very much their existence; certainly I have found but few
persons in whose sincere attachment to our great religious
enterprise, I could not confide as much as in my own.”

“And yet,” said Esther, who was still more and more
desirous to terminate the interview with the mysterious personage,
who inspired her with an unaccountable feeling of distrust,
but unwilling to be absolutely discourteous to a man whom she
knew her brother regarded with respect, — “I fear me that,
among the wild and lawless spirits who inhabit the south-western
coasts of Massachusetts, there be many who are both evil
wishers and evil doers. Strange tales reach our ears, of godless
and profane ribaldry in those regions, which would be in itself
sufficient to bring a curse and a desolation upon the land.”

“If you speak of the rioters and worthless revellers of
Passanogessit,” answered Gardiner, “you may dismiss any fears
as to evil influence from such a source; believe me, that crew of

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outcasts is too contemptible and too insignificant in every
manner, to merit a thought. They will be swept away like the
foul and noisome mists of the morass yonder, before the clear
sunlight of religion which is so soon to rise upon this benighted
land. Let but your brave and energetic people arrive, and you
will see them shrink away like owls, and bats, and foul things,
which fear the light of day. Profane not, beautiful Esther
Ludlow,” added the knight with another look of earnest and
irrepressible, but respectful admiration, “profane not your
serene thoughts, by allowing them to wander to subjects so
infinitely below your own exalted sphere.”

The passionate glances of the knight fell upon the beautiful
Puritan as harmlessly as tropical sunshine upon a marble statue.
With a cold and unembarrassed look, which almost disconcerted
him, she replied, —

“I am willing to receive your account of them, Sir Knight,
and to participate in the hopefulness with which you seem to
regard the undertaking of which we were speaking, but the air
is growing chill and the evening is approaching. I regret that
my brother's absence must make me appear uncourteous, in not
inviting you to partake of the humble hospitality of our roof,
and I must even crave your permission to retire.”

Gardiner was not the man to be abashed by a repulse as
decided as this seemed to be, and he still lingered at the door-step,
ready and yet reluctant to take leave; thus detaining, for a
few moments, his companion, who was naturally unwilling to
withdraw into the house until he had departed.

It was a strange but not unaccountable attraction, which had
exerted so sudden an influence upon the knight's imagination.
It should, moreover, be never lost sight of, that although the
scenery of this tale is found in the stern deserts of New England,
yet that the actors were all Europeans, born and reared
among all the influences of an ancient civilization, and

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subjected to all the conflicting, turbulent and chequered sentiments,
motives, and passions, which beset human nature when developed
under the exciting atmosphere of a high social culture.
Such almost wilful contrasts are not the least remarkable features
in the singular scene presented upon the opening pages of New
England's chronicle.

“I purpose visiting our brethren at New Plymouth very
shortly,” said he, as he found Esther determined to abridge their
interview, “and I should be well pleased if in aught I could be
serviceable to you. I have tarried long enough among them, to
know that you have heaped upon your head the blessings of
those who were nigh to perish, and that your departure has been
bitterly lamented by the poorer of the brethren and their families
in that sterile spot of earth. Is there naught in which I
can be useful to you?”

“I thank you for your courtesy,” said Esther, advancing a
few steps towards him, “for I do remember me, that there is a
family there which truly demands my care. A certain weaver
from Suffolkshire, who emigrated to these shores during the past
year, and who has been sojourning at New Plymouth, is, I
believe, still tarrying there. He is feeble in health, and not
overburdened with capacity for this wilderness work. Commend
me to him, and advise him, in my name, to tarry still a little
with the brethren of Plymouth. Delays still attend the enterprise
of the settlement at Naumkeak. He must at this time be
suffering many pangs of poverty, and perhaps illness, for he has
a considerable family. Sir Knight, I shall even accept your
courteous offer, and entreat you to convey to this poor weaver,
whose name is Mellowes, a small token of my remembrance,
with an assurance of my continued interest in his welfare.”

Esther went into the house for a moment, and presently returned.
“There are a very few gold pieces in this purse,” said
she, extending it to him, “but they are all which are at present

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at my command, and more than sufficient to save my poor
friends from absolute starvation. If, however, want should continue
to press upon them, they may be able to procure the
necessaries of life by means of this useless gaud, which I pray
you to convey to the Goodwife Mellowes, with the assurance
that the trifling gewgaw is not sent to be worn as a piece of
worldly apparel, but to be exchanged for the necessaries of life,
when they shall find themselves sorely beset.”

As Esther spoke, she took from her neck a heavy gold chain
which she wore studiously concealed beneath the folds of her
folds of her garments, and delivered it to the knight.

“And now Sir Knight,” she concluded, “once more imploring
your pardon for my withdrawal, I shall even bid you farewell.”

She entered the humble cottage as she spoke, and closed the
door behind her. The knight stood stock still for a moment,
gazing enraptured at her retiring figure. He then advanced a
few steps across the glade, when he suddenly paused and leaned
musingly against the trunk of an oak which stood on the verge
of the forest. He lifted the chain to his lips, and kissed it passionately
many times, and then fastened it round his neck. As
he did so, a smile of indefinite triumph shone for an instant
across his dark features.

The brown shadows of evening were fast descending upon
the landscape, and objects were already growing indistinct in
the twilight. The knight still leaned against the tree, lost in a
vague but delicious reverie. He believed himself alone in that
wilderness, but he was wrong. Within a few paces of him, but
concealed by the heavy branches of the very tree against which
he was leaning, stood the dusky figure of a man. He stood with
his eyes glaring fearfully upon the knight, his hand clenching
a naked rapier, his breath suspended, and his features
and whole frame convulsed by fierce, but resolutely suppressed
emotion. The man who stood in ambush there was no savage,

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although he was thirsting for the heart's blood of his enemy,
and was delaying with an almost voluptuous sensation of hatred,
the moment of gratification, which fate seemed at last to have
placed within his reach. That man was Henry Maudsley. He
had arrived at the spot a few moments before, with his heart
filled with regret and remorse for what had seemed to him in his
cooler moments, the unjust and unworthy suspicion which had
fastened so uncontrollably upon his soul at his last interview
with Esther.

After that last interview he had been hardly able to explain even
to himself the sudden and stormy passions which had overflowed
his heart like a torrent, when he first learned the existence of
what he believed to be an intimacy between the knight and his
beloved. From that moment a demon seemed to have assumed
dominion over him, and he had struggled in vain against the
fearful influence. He had, however, during the many solitary
hours of absence which had passed since he had left Esther so
deeply wounded as his unseemly outbreak of anger and jealousy,
found a little time to reflect upon his conduct and situation.
Although still unable to shake off the indistinct fears which
weighed like lead upon his spirit, he had, however, schooled
himself into believing that he was perhaps the victim of his own
imagination, and had so far prevailed over his hot temper and
his pride as to form the resolution to seek once more an interview
with Esther. He would once more, he thought, appeal to
the old friendship between them; he would once more, but with
more eloquent appeals than the tame language with which, as it
now seemed to him, he had last urged his suit, again endeavor
to tear her from the desolation in which she had made her home,
would once more, and in bold and irresistible terms, warn her
of the dangerous character of the unworthy knight whom she
had admitted to her acquaintance. Should he find his first suspicious
as baseless as he fondly prayed that they might prove,

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he would upon his knees implore her forgiveness, that he should
have dared to profane the purity of her mind with the breath of
his suspicions. If, however, he should find that those boding
thoughts which still haunted him could not be dispelled by her
presence, he would at any rate bid her farewell in a spirit more
worthy both of her character and his own. Having once formed
this resolution, he had, with the headlong impatience of his character,
been unable to rest till he had fulfilled it. With a bosom
beating high with renewed hope, he had devoured the rugged
and difficult tract of wilderness which still separated him from
her, and had paused a moment within the edge of the thicket
which fringed the glade before her door, to collect his whirling
thoughts, and to calm his feverish brain.

At that very moment, as he thus paused, in full view of that
lowly door-step, but himself screened from sight by the protecting
branches of the tree, he had been an involuntary witness to
the concluding moments of Esther's interview with the hated
and mysterious adventurer. He stood there transfixed, gazing
as mute and motionless upon the face of that fair Puritan, as if,
like the loveliness of the fabled Medusa, it possessed the power
to transform him to stone, while, as in that fearful fable, a
thousand serpents sprang from the life's blood which seemed
slowly dropping from his heart. He stood there, like one enchanted,
too distant to hear the low accents of Mabel, and with
his whole soul concentrated in his eyes He stood rooted to that
spot, and an earthquake would hardly have aroused him. He
heard not, spoke not, scarcely breathed, but he saw all that
passed. He saw Esther place the chain in Gardiner's hand; he
saw him kiss the sacred pledge of affection, accursed hypocrite
that he was, and then place it next his heart; he saw his smile of
gratitude; he saw Esther's lips breathing the gentle accents of
farewell; he saw the long, audacious glance, with which the
knight dwelt upon her retiring form; he saw his smile of triumph

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as he advanced, in slow and repturous self communion as it
seemed, directly towards the tree which sheltered his own figure.
He saw all this, and stood motionless. He suppressed even his
breath as he saw his hated rival striding so closely to him. The
knight paused at last, and leaned against the tree. Maudsley
was so near that he might almost touch him; he saw the chain
glittering upon his breast, he could almost see the bright and
soaring thoughts, which he knew were swarming and singing
their triumphal music in his brain. They were alone together
in the wilderness, with only the stars to look down upon them,
and his hand clutched the hilt of his sword convulsively, as he
felt that if the hour of certainty and of despair had struck, that
the hour of vengeance, too, had sounded. He stood there
gazing upon the face of his successful rival, and resolved, as he
studied the lineaments of that dark and impassible physiognomy,
that he would calm himself before he addressed him, because he
knew the self-balanced character of his antagonist, and was
unwilling to confront the man who was always master of himself,
while his own reason was well nigh blinded by his passion.
He stood there striving in vain to compose himself, for a few
rapid moments, and remembering that the spot where they now
stood was too near the abode of Ludlow, and therefore unfitted
for the work which they were soon to have in hand, he determined
to accost Sir Christopher tranquilly that they might
remove together to a more appropriate place. While Maudsley
was thus hesitating, the knight suddenly aroused himself from
his reverie, and, with rapid movements, strode away from the
tree in the direction of the coast. Maudsley, forgetting his
resolution of calmness, and furious lest his prey should escape
him, sprang madly forward, calling out to his enemy in a low,
husky tone, choked with emotion, which was inaudible to the
rapidly retreating and unconscious Gardiner. At the same
moment his arm was suddenly clutched from behind, and his

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progress towards his antagonist impeded. Thus assaulted, he
turned upon his new enemy, raising his sword to cut down the
skulking savage, by whom he supposed himself attacked. What
was his surprise to see that his arm had been seized, and his
career arrested by the hand of a fair, slight youth, who held a
dagger indeed, but whose frame, though graceful, seemed so
powerless compared to his own, that he lowered his uplifted
sword, contenting himself with shaking off the arm which held
him, while he gazed with a sudden emotion of wonder into the
face of the youth.

“Spare him, spare him, Harry Maudsley,” said the young
stranger, in a voice which was wild emotion. “Not to you,
not to you belongs the task — you shall not escape me,” he continued,
clinging with all his strength to Maudsley, who strove in
vain to cast him off, as he found that the form of Gardiner had
already disappeared in the darkling forest. Enraged at this
singular and unaccountable interruption, maddened to see his
enemy thus eluding his grasp, and cursing the folly which had
restrained him from dashing to the earth the slender creature
who had thus stepped between him and his revenge, he once
more turned to him.

“Now, by the God of Heaven,” he cried, “I know not what
prevents me, thou insolent stripling, from cleaving thee to the
earth. Whence come ye, in the name of the foul fiend, who, I
believe, hath sent you hither to balk me? whence come ye,
what are ye, and why have you dared thus to lay violent hands
upon me, and to interfere with my purposes? Speak, or even
this slender frame shall not —.”

Maudsley interrupted himself as he spoke, for his face was
now close to his companion's, and there was something fearful
in the expression of the stripling's beautiful but distorted features,
and in the wild light that gleamed from his eyes, with the
yellowish, unnatural glare of a savage creature of the forest.

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“Strike, if you will,” said the youth, without the slightest
indication of fear, as he looked contemptuously upon the threatening
blade of Maudsley — “strike, if you will. My purpose
is at least answered. The knight is already far beyond your
reach. Strike, Harry Maudsley, think you I fear your anger.
Alas! this heart of mine hath been more deeply struck this
night than sword of yours could wound it. Strike, Harry
Maudsley. Think ye my life's blood will be a love potion for
ye to win back the heart of your fair and fickle Puritan?”

Maudsley chafing at this allusion to the wound which was
festering in his bosom, and completely enraged that the interruption
of the stranger had been, indeed, successful in compelling
him to defer his vengeance upon Gardiner, exclaimed in a voice
hoarse with passion —

“I hardly know why I pause, why I obey not your bold defiance,
save that I scorn to strike at aught so feeble. What art
thou, peevish boy, that thou hast dared thus to intercept my
purposes, and even to goad me beyond endurance, by thy sharp
and scornful language. But I cry your pardon, my gentle
youth. Doubtless, you too are a suitor to yon fair and fickle
Puritan, as you term her, and have learned by what you have
seen this evening, how well such suit is like to prosper. Is it
so? Tell me, and I will forgive thee for thy insolence.”

The lad laughed a low, scornful laugh as he replied, looking
as he did so, with an indefinitely taunting expression, upon the
face of Maudsley. “No, truly, Master Maudsley, you are
strangely deceived by your passion. Think you, then, that
yonder marble face and stony heart, to which you yourself bow
down in such hopeless adoration, have such an omnipotent
charm, that all who look upon her in this savage wilderness
must straightway kneel and worship? Oh, no, believe me, your
frigid Puritan hath no charms for me.”

“Insolent, presumptuous?” interrupted Maudsley, who,

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however, was so impressed with the extraordinary apparition of this
youth, whom he now looked upon for the first time, that he stood
still and listened to him, with a curiosity excited by his mysterious
appearance and language, that not even the tumultuous
emotions that were raging in his bosom, could entirely extinguish.
Who the singular stranger was, how he seemed to be so
familiar with his name and person, how he was able thus to
probe the secrets of his heart, whence he derived his strange
power thus to taunt and dare him to his face, with such impunity,
were questions which he asked himself but could not
answer.

“No, Master Maudsley, no,” continued the stranger, “neither
insolent nor presumptuous. My words are meant in kindness,
for God knows I would almost spare my deadliest enemy the
pang of jealousy.”

The youth's features were livid with emotion, and his voice
grew hoarse and husky as he spoke, but he commanded himself
again, and continued in a more gay but bitter tone,—

“No, no, Harry Maudsley, your wondrous Puritan hath no
charms for me. I loathe the very name of Puritan, I hate their
rigid looks, frigid hearts, and insolent sanctity, and for yonder
daughter and fitting model of her whole dreary sect, I assure
you I do esteem her well assorted in this gloomy wilderness.
Believe me, I looked upon you but now with pity, when I marked
the benumbing spell spread over you by yonder passionless
beauty.”

“Thou dost most grossly abuse,” said Maudsley, “the privilege
of thy weakness. I would I knew if thou wert man or
child, angel or demon, that thou standest here calmly mocking
me, while I stand listening like a slave.”

“Be calm, Harry Maudsley,” answered the mysterious youth,
while Maudsley, who really seemed in a manner fascinated, and
who, perhaps, as would not have seemed extraordinary in that

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

age of boundless superstition, believed himself in the presence of
something unearthly, stood obediently silent again.

“Be calm, Harry Maudsley; I tell you I pitied you from my
heart, when I saw you thus spell-bound by your cold enchantress.
No, the woman I could worship should be one who
should make the blood whirl through the veins, not a statue
carved in ice, to freeze my heart and chill my senses.”

“Why then,” asked Maudsley, “why in the name of Heaven,
if you are not bound by some singular tie to the fate of yonder
maiden, or my own, why are you thus interested, why were you
thus impassioned, why did you arrest my arm, and frustrate
my intentions; in one word, whence and what are ye?”

“Faith,” answered the lad, still in the same gentle but
taunting manner, “I hardly know why I should answer your
catechism. My own information as to your name and purposes,
your past and your future career, are all sufficiently well known
to me, and yet have I not intruded upon the privacy of your
thoughts by one single question?”

“My future! my future! inexplicable and perplexing being!”
exclaimed Maudsley, “presumest thou then to read the dark,
unwritten page of coming events?”

“Truly,” answered the stranger, “it needeth no ghost from
the grave to foretell thy future. A less preternatural hand might
venture to lift the curtain, which hardly conceals the mad career
of such a reckless spirit as thou seemest.”

“Read it to me, if thou canst and darest,” exclaimed Maudsley,
impatiently.

“No, no,” exclaimed his companion, “I am no necromancer
nor mountebank. Least of all, to-night, shouldst thou listen to
thy doom. Suffice that if I read the stars aright, thy fortune is
still within thy command, thy destiny not so direful as thou
thinkest. Nay more, thou shalt have a pledge of this promise.
Mark me, ere three days are flown, shalt thou find around thy
neck, something which is very dear to thy heart.”

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