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A tempest, which had for many days been sweeping over
land and sea, had at last subsided. The ocean was still tossing
in stormy surges beyond the two external pillars of the Massachusetts
Bay; and even within its beautiful archipelago of tufted
islands, where the tempest's rage was comparatively powerless,
the dark and foaming waves broke violently against the shore.

A silent, dreary ocean, lashed a shore as silent and dreary as
itself. The storm, as it careered over the ocean, had found
hardly a wilder or more savage solitude than when it swept over
those silent, western deserts. As the boundless waste of waters,
rolling unchanged through ages, even so expanded that ancient
wilderness, unmarked and stern as on creation's morning.

It was the year 1628. A bright April morning had at last
dawned upon the Massachusetts Bay; by which designation was
at that epoch understood all the land and water, with the scattered
islands, shut up within the two opposite headlands or
gateposts of Nahant and Nantasco.

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Near a jutting promontory, within a deep indentation of the
coast stood at that day a solitary cottage.

It was in a secluded cove, with the bay in front, the threeheaded
hill of Shawmut in the distance, and the primeval forest
stretching out, in unfathomable shade, behind and all around.
On the right hand, the headland of the cove was continued far
into the bay, by the long, rocky peninsula, which had already
been baptized by the Puritans with the name of their faithful
friend, Tisquantum; on the left, the forest retreated a few hundred
yards, leaving an open glade between the pebbly beach and
the wood crowned and rolling country beyond.

The cottage was simple and rude, but picturesque in its
effects. It was built of logs, which still retained their dark and
mossy bark. It covered a considerable extent of ground; the
thatched roof was low browed, with steep gables at the end,
and two or three windows were furnished with small diamond
panes of glass, a luxury which was at that day by no means
common even in England. Over the door, which opened on
the outside with a wooden latch, stood a pair of moose antlers,
and on the ends of the projecting rafters, under the eves, were
suspended the feet of wolves, the tails of foxes, raccoons, and
panthers, and other trophies of the chase. On the sward of
wild grass around the house lay a heap of game which had recently
been thrown there, — pied brant-geese, blue and green
winged teal, two or three long-necked, long-billed cranes, with a
rabble rout of plump, slate colored pigeons, lay promiscuously
with striped bass, dappled sea trout and other fish. It was evident
that, although the sporting season had nearly reached its
termination, there was yet no danger of starvation.

A fowling piece and shot pouch lay in the neighborhood,
accompanied, singularly enough, by a musical instrument resembling
the modern guitar.

A fair faced youth, apparently of some eighteen or nineteen

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years of age, sat by himself, near the closed door of the cottage,
mending a fishing net, two or three of which lay stretched
upon the beach to dry, while ever and anon he seemed to relapse
into a profound reverie, singing to himself the while, in a
low, musical, but rather melancholy tone.

The appearance of the youth was striking. A few raven
locks escaped from a slouched hat of brown felt, around a face
which was very fair, with small, regular features, and deep violet
eyes. A loose, dark jerkin, buttoned to the throat, and confined
around his slender waist with a gay colored shawl, with nether
garments of the same sombre hue, completed his equipment.
He seemed to be mechanically pursuing his task, interrupting
his plaintive song occasionally to gaze with an air of abstraction
upon the scene around him. It was a lovely solitude. That
iced sirocco, the north-east wind, had paused, and the vast, skeleton
trees showed throughout their leafless tracery the influence
of the genial warmth. The red flowering maples blushed with
blossoms, the birches were decked in their fragrant tassels, and
even from the sullen giants of the forest, the white and black
oaks, swung the small pendulous crimson flowers.

The youth looked wistfully out upon the ocean, when he was
suddenly startled by the report of a gun. He sprang to his
feet, threw down his net, and grasped eagerly the firearm which
lay near him upon the ground. The clumsy musket of the
period, almost always used with a rest, seemed altogether too
unwieldy for the slender boy, but he handled it with adroitness,
and his dark blue eye flashed in rapid glances to every side of
the forest, and then out upon the bay, in quest of apprehended
danger. The sound seemed to have proceeded from the deep
thickets on the edge of the promontory of Tisquantum, and
presently there was another report seeming to come from the
island opposite, at that time the abode of the Scotchman, David
Thompson, from whom it derives its name. The boy ran down

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to the beach, and strained his eyes eagerly out upon the ocean.
At last he saw very plainly the white sail of a small boat between
the island and the main, approaching rapidly towards him.
A dark object rose and fell upon the surface of the water some
hundred yards in front of the skiff, and as they drew nearer the
boy relaxed his grasp of the musket, and leaned leisurely upon
it, while he contemplated the scene. A large moose was swimming
gallantly for his life, still unwounded, but hotly pursued
by the boat. It was obvious that the first shot which the youth
had heard, had been fired from the thicket, and that the animal
having been near the edge of the promontory, had taken to the
water with the intention of gaining the opposite island. He had
evidently been received, as he approached the shore, by another
enemy, who had fired unsuccessfully, but caused him to relinquish
his attempt at landing. He was now making directly for
the cove, and was gaining perceptibly upon the boat, which contained
four persons. It would have been easy for the lad, hidden
as he was, to have destroyed him as he approached, but the
gentle youth seemed to be no sportsman, and on the contrary,
to be gazing with an intense interest upon the animal's struggles
for life. The magnificent creature renewed his efforts, the
crest of the waves broken already as the water grew shoaler,
dashed in his large face and over his splendid antlers. Already
he was close to the entrance of the cove. A few rapid bounds,
and his foot would touch the beach. Nearer and nearer he
struggled, when suddenly, with an inexplicable impulse, he
doubled upon his pursuers. The cause was explained in a moment,
as a second sail floated round the other headland. Still
unhurt, but bewildered, he turned madly round, and dashed
straight as an arrow at the first boat. The sportsman, calm as
a clock, took aim at the animal's head. The deer dashed onward,
rushing desperately upon his fate, when, instead of the
expected report, a light click of the lock told that at the critical

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moment the firearm, wet with spray, had hung its fire. The
moose struggled slowly by, fairly worried and exhausted by the
chase, while the boatmen threw a cord rapidly around his
antlers, and in spite of his furious struggles at last captured him
alive.

Both the little skiffs were now near the cove. The youth had
returned to his seat near the door of the cottage, after witnessing
the result of the chase, and had listlessly resumed his occupation.
In a few moments the keel of the first boat grated upon
the pebbly beach, and the commander sprang on shore.

“Well shot,” cried he, turning to the solitary occupant of the
second, who had already furled his sail and was making fast his
little cable to the gnarled trunk of an ancient oak.

“Well shot, jolly smith of Mishawum,” cried he, “for I
should have been sorry had you taken better aim, and deprived
me of my lawful honors. Say what you will, 't is no easy matter
to hit a plunging devil of a moose, with nothing better than the
top of a wave for your rest.”

The moose had in the mean time been dragged upon the
beach by two savages and an Englishman, all of whom appeared
to be subordinates of the speaker. The animal, which was of
gigantic stature, more than twenty hands high, with a short
body, long, powerful, but rather awkward legs, and an enormous
head, adorned with magnificent antlers, struggled but
faintly with his captors, and, exhausted with his exertions, submitted
to be thrown very summarily upon the ground with his
legs tied together, while his large, pathetic eye seemed mutely to
deprecate his fate.

Robert Bootefish was a short, squat looking individual of fifty,
with a pudding face, in which a pair of twinkling eyes were
almost extinguished by his shaggy brows, while a copper-colored
nose, pierced like a flaming beacon, through a fog of greyish

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yellow beard, which smothered all the other glories of his physiognomy.
He was attired in a coarse doublet and hose of bright
crimson, which, with his long crooked arms, and short legs,
gave him something of the look of a boiled lobster. This
worthy seated himself upon a stone, at the head of the prostrate
prisoner, amusing himself in an infantine and guileless manner
by tickling the victim's nose with the point of his long hunting
knife. His master, in the mean time, was exchanging greetings
with the other Englishman who had just stepped upon the
beach.

“Well, Master Walford,” he cried, “a sight of you is as rare
as the sight of the sun in this perverse New England April.
What brought you to the cove?”

“My skiff,” returned the other, sententiously.

“See what it is to live by oneself in the forest. Your skiff
brought your tongue, as well as yourself, I suppose; or is it still
frozen up, like a dead reindeer's, with the rest of your winter
provisions, at Mishawum?”

“To say the truth, Master Morton,” said the smith, “I only
floated down with the tide to look in upon Sir Christopher, this
morning, to see if he had returned from his expedition to the
psalm singers. If I had not met you and your moose by the
way, perhaps I should have extended my voyage as far as the
Merry Mountain, as you call it.”

“Come when you like, and as often as you like,” cried the
other; “with your tongue, or without it — you shall always be
welcome. We will rub off the rust from it I warrant you. You
shall find it run more glibly when oiled with a drop of right
rosa solis. And that reminds me,” said he, interrupting himself,
while he filled a little tin can from a hunting flask in his
pouch, and presented it to his companion — “Drink a drop of
his own nectar to salute the orb of day; 't is not often that you
have seen the one or the other of late.” The smith, nothing

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loth, pledged his jovial companion, who continued, as he refilled
the cup for himself — “To our better friendship, Master
Walford, and trusting you may find more jolly companions than
your friends the wolves, ere another spring cuts our throats with
her double-edged east winds. But I wrong you sweet south-western
zephyrs, breathing upon me so wooingly,” cried he,
taking off his cap, and snuffing the air with affected ecstasy.

“`Frigora mitescunt Zephyris — ver proterit æstas,' as our
friend Horatius Flaccus hath it; — ah! I beg your pardon, you
have no acquaintance with Horatius Flaccus.”

“Never met the gentleman in my life,” returned the smith;
“but a Pokanoket I should think, by his language. I never
could make head or tail of their lingo in my life.”

“A Pokanoket! Hear him not, shade of the laurelled bard
of soft Venusia! A Pokanoket! a Roman — thou eremite
Vulcan! A Roman, thou two-fold anchorite, in that thou art
both solitary and a forger of anchors!”

“And good anchors too; aye, and picks and spades; no better
in all New England, Master Morton,” cried the burly smith,
somewhat nettled at this storm of hard names, which his classical
companion was rattling like hail upon his head.

“Shall I slit his weasand, your worship,” said the contemplative
Bootefish, towards whom the two had now approached,
and who still remained in his reposing attitude by the side of
his prisoner. “It would make him comfortable, I think. He
seems impatient to have it done. His eye says, as plain as mortal
tongue could speak, `Robert Bootefish, no more words, but
slit my wizen and have done with it.”'

“Slit his weasand! if you do I'll slit your nose,” cried Morton;
“and yet that pure and perfect carbuncle should remain,
an indivisible gem forever. But stay! The blessings of Flora
upon your head — the softest plume from the wing of Zephyrus
for your velvet cheek.”

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These latter invocations were not showered by the classical
Morton, as it might seem, upon the head and velvet cheek of his
henchman Bootefish, but were intended solely for the benefit of
the slender youth, who, finding the party holding, as it were, a
court martial upon their sylvan prisoner, had advanced towards
them to advocate his cause.

“Good morrow, Master Morton; and good morrow to you,
Master Walford. I have been waiting impatiently for you to
find the way from the beach to the cottage, but you have apparently
found matter more important.”

“Your knightly cousin, Sir Christopher, is he returned from
our Puritanical friends of the nether bay?” asked Morton, as
he took off his cap and made a fantastic, half jocular salute to
the stripling.

“Sir Christopher has not yet found his way back,” answered
the youth, “but I think the first shot fired was from his gun. I
think I should know its crack among a thousand, though I suppose
you will hold that a foolish fancy. At any rate, I claim the
game as lawful prize.”

“'T is yours before you ask it.”

“Then, thus do I take possession of my prize;” and with this
the youth bounded forward and snatched the knife from the
hands of Bootefish. That worthy individual looked on with
profound astonishment, while the lad rapidly cut the cords which
bound the feet of the prisoner, and then clapped his hands, and
uttered a musical halloo, as the animal, freed from his bondage,
sprang to his feet, tossed his branched head high in air, and
with a mighty bound disappeared in the thick recesses of the
forest.

“You are quite right, Signor Jaspar,” said Morton; “I assure
you that no true lover of the gentle craft but would have
done as you have done. 'T is murder to shoot a buck so out of
season.”

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“And I am ashamed that the worshipful Master Morton,
Lord of Misrule and Sachem of Merry-Mount, should have been
obliged to receive a rebuke from one wholly a tyro in the science,”
answered Jaspar — stay; I hear a footstep in the
thicket.” And with the graceful bound of a panther, he flew
towards the wood.

p285-027

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