Ill I Qass. Book- COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT A BOOK New England Legends OLK Lore In f rojse ant) foctrn BY SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE AUTHOR OF " NOOKS AND CORNERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST,' "old LANDMARKS OF BOSTON," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY F. T. MERRILL /^^^^^^'^^'^^f'^^it^^ BOSTON ROBERTS BROTHERS "5" J/' Copyright, 1883, By Samuel Adams Drake. Cambrittgf : PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, UNIVERSITY PRESS. INTKODUCTION. THE recovery of many scattered legendary waifs that not only have a really important bearing upon the early history of our country, but that also shed much light upon the spirit of its ancient laws and upon the domestic lives of its people, has seemed to me a laudable undertaking. This purpose has now taken form in the following collection of New-England Legends. As in a majority of instances these tales go far beyond the time when the interior was settled, they naturally cluster about the seaboard ; and it would scarcely be overstepping the limit separating exaggeration from truth to say that every league of the New-England coast has its story or its legend. Disowned in an age of scepticism, there was once — and the time is not so far remote — no part of the body politic over which what we now vaguely term the legendary did not exer- cise the strongest influence ; so that, far from being merely a record of amusing fables, these tales, which are largely founded on fact, disclose the secret springs by which society was moved and history made. One looks beneath every mechanical con- trivance for the true origin of power. That is to assume that the beliefs of a people are the key to its social and political movements, and that history, taken in its broadest sense, cannot be truly written without having regard to such beliefs. Had the conviction that witches existed not been universal, public sentiment would never have countenanced the executions that took place in New England. vi INTRODUCTION. It may be said, then, that while History has its truth, the Legend has its own ; both taking for their end the portrayal of Man as he has existed in every age, — a creature in whom the imagination is supreme, and who performs deeds terrible or heroic according as it may be aroused into action. No apology need be made for the prevalence of superstition among our ancestors. Our century is not the judge of its prede- cessors. It was a superstitious age. King Charles I. inherited all the popular beliefs. He kept, as an attache of his court, an astrologer, whom he was accustomed to consult before enter- ing upon any important or hazardous undertaking. Laud, the highest prelate in England, the implacable persecutor of our Puritan ancestors, was a man haunted by the fear of omens. Indeed the most exalted personages in Church and State yielded full credence to all those marvels, the bare mention of which now calls up a smile of incredulity or of pity. New England was the child of a superstitious mother. Since the assertion is so often made that this is a practical age, owing no allegiance whatever to the degrading thraldom of ancient superstition, but coldly rejecting everything that cannot be fully accounted for upon rational grounds, I have thought it worth while to cite a few of those popular beliefs which neither the sceptical tendencies of the age we live in, nor its wonder-working achievements, have been able to eradicate. They belong exclusively to no class, and have been transmitted from generation to generation through the medium of an unwritten language, to Avhich the natural impulse of the human mind toward the supernatural is the common interpreter. While religion itself works through this mysterious channel of the Unknown and the Unseen, one need not stop to argue a fact that has such high sanction. So long as these beliefs shall continue to exert a control over the every-day actions of men, it would be useless to deny to them a place in the movements regulating society ; and so long as the twin mysteries of life and death confront us with their unsolved problems, it is certain that where reason cannot pass beyond, the imagination INTEODUCTION. vii will still strive to penetrate within, the barrier separating us from the invisible world. This invisible world is the realm of the supernatural. You will seldom see a man so much in a hurry that he will not stop to pick up a horseshoe. One sees this ancient charm against evil spirits in every household. In fact this piece of bent iron has become the popular symbol for good luck. Throw- ing an old shoe after a departing friend is as common a practice to-day as it ever was. Very few maidens neglect the opportu- nity to get a peep at the new moon over the right shoulder ; and the old couplet, — See the moon through the glass, You '11 have trouble while it lasts, — is still extant. I know people who could not be induced to sit with thirteen at the table, who consider spilling the salt as unlucky, and who put faith in dreams ! With Catholics the belief in the efficacy of charms and of relics is a part of their religion. It is not long since a person adver- tised in a public journal for a caul ; while among ignorant people charms against sickness, or drowning, or evil spirits are still much worn. But their use is not wholly confined to this class ; for I have myself known intelligent men who were in the habit of carrying a potato in their pocket, or of wearing a horse-chestnut suspended from the neck, as a cure for the rheumatism. Sailors retain unimpaired most of their old superstitions con- cerning things lucky or unlucky. Farmers are invariably a superstitious folk, — at least in those places where they have lived from generation to generation. The pretty and touching custom of telling the bees of a death in the family is, as I have reason to know, a practice still adhered to in some parts of the country. The familiar legend of the hedgehog remains a trusted indication of an early or a late spring. Farmers have many super- stitions that have been domesticated among them for centuries. For instance, it is a common belief that if a creature loses its cud the animal will die unless one is obtained for it by dividing vm INTKODUCTION. the cud of another beast. A sick cow will recover by having a live frog pass through her ; but the frog must be living, or the charm will not work. If a dog is seen eating grass, it is a sign of wet weather ; so it is if the grass is spotted with what is vul- garly called frogs' spittle. The girls believe that if you can form a wish while a meteor is falling, the wish will be fulfilled ; they will not pluck the common red field-lily, for fear it will make them become freckled. In the country there are still found persons plying the trade of fortune-telling, while the number of haunted houses is notably increasing. The " lucky-bone " of a codfish and the " wishing-bone " of a chicken are things of wide repute. Plants and flowers — those beautiful emblems of immortality — have from immemorial time possessed their peculiar attributes or virtues. There are the mystic plants, and there are the symbolical ones, like the evergreens used in church-decoration and in cemeteries. Where is the maiden who has not diligently searched up and down the fields for the bashful four-leaved clover? How many books enclose within their leaves this little token of some unspoken wish ! The oracle of the Mar- guerite in Goethe's "Faust," — II m'aime ; II m'aime beaucoup ; A la folie ; Pas du tout, — may oftener be consulted to-day than many a fair questioner of Fate Avould be willing to admit. Let those who will, say that all this is less than nothing ; yet I much doubt if the saying will bring conviction to the heart of womankind. Precious stones continue to hold in the popular mind some- thing of their old power to work good or evil to the wearer. A dealer in gems tells me that the sale of certain stones is mate- rially affected by the superstitions concerning them. It will be seen that some of these superstitions attach to the most im- portant concerns of life. My friend the dealer, who is quite as well versed in his calling as Mr. Isaacs was, says that the INTKODUCTION. IX opal is the gem that is most frequently spoken of as unlucky, and that the sale of the opal of late years has been very slow on that account. "It seems," he continues, "as if many ladies really believed that it would bring them misfortune to wear or even to own an opal ; and we frequently hear ladies say that they would not accept one as a gift." Some writers attribute this unpopularity to Scott's "Anne of Geierstein." This, at least, is a modern superstition ; for the opal was once considered a talisman of rare virtue. An old jeweller tells me that he frequently sells a moonstone as a " lucky stone." It is of little pecuniary value, but he says that it is worn in rings and charms as bringing good luck. The moonstone has furnished Wilkie Collins with the theme for one of his weird tales. My informant goes on to say that "a fine turquoise is of a beautiful blue, — about the color of a robin's egg. For some reason not perfectly understood it changes from blue to green, and sometimes to white. I own a turquoise myself, which I am sure changes color, sometimes looking green, and sometimes blue. This change of color gave rise to the belief that the color of a turquoise varied with the health of the wearer, being blue when the wearer was in good health, and white or green in case of ill-health. The emerald is said to be the symbol of jealousy, — ' the green-eyed monster.' For this reason it is not considered as being suitable for an engagement-ring. I don't know that I ever heard of one being offered as an engagement- gift ; and if a young gentleman should ask my advice in regard to buying an emerald ring for this purpose, I should dissuade him, on the ground that the young lady might look upon it as a bad omen." This feeling or superstition is used in Black's story of "The Three Feathers," in which a marriage is pre- vented by the gift of an emerald ring ; "for," says the novelist, " how could any two people marry who had engaged themselves with an emerald ringV A sapphire, on the contrary, given by another admirer, brings matters to a happy conclusion ; once more fulfilling the prophecy of an old rhyme, — X INTRODUCTION. Oh, green 's forsaken, And yellow 's forsworn, And blue 's the sweetest Color that 's worn ! There certainly is a difierence in the way that all these be- liefs are received, — some people subscribing to them fully and frankly, while others, who do not like to be laughed at by their sceptical neighbors, speaking of them as trifles. But such doubters may be better judged by their acts than by their pro- fessions, — at least so long as they are willing to try the potency of this or that charm, "just to see how it will come out." To return to the legendary pieces that compose this volume, it is proper to state that only certain poetic versions have hither- to been accessible to the public, and that consequently impres- sions have been formed that these versions were good and valid narratives ; while the fact is that the poems are not so much designed to teach history or its truth, as to illustrate its spirit in an effective and picturesque manner. Yet in most cases they do deal with real personages and events, and they stand for faithful relations. It was this fact that first gave me the idea of bringing the prose and poetic versions together, in order that those interested, more especially teachers, might have as ready access to the truth, as hitherto they have had to the romance, of history. For enabling me to carry out this idea my thanks are espe- cially due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., who promptly granted me their permission to use the several extracts taken from the poems of Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes; and I beg all those literary friends who have extended the like courtesy to accept the like acknowledgment. S. A. D. Melrose, Mass., Oct. 1883. Part Ji'rgt. BOSTON LEGENDS. PAGE The Solitary of Shawmut. — J. L. Motley 3 Boston Common. — 0. W. Holmes 10 Mistress Anne Hutchinson H The Death of Rainsborough 22 The Case of Mistress Ann Hibbins 28 Mary Dyer 36 The King's Missive 46 The Quaker Prophetess 56 In the Old South Church. — J. G. Whittier 59 More Wonders of the Invisible World 60 Calef in Boston. — J. G. Whittier 65 Nix's Mate 66 The Duel on the Common 69 Due d'Anville's Descent 71 A Ballad of the French Fleet. —5'. IT. Zon^/e/^ow 75 xii CONTENTS. PAGE Christ Church. — Edwin B. Russell 77 Paul Revere's Ride 78 Peter Rugg. — William Austin 90 A Legend of the Old Elin. — Isaac McLellan, Jr 105 Roxbur J Puddiug-Stone Ill The Dorchester Giaut. — 0. W. Holmes Ill Part Scconli. CAMBRIDGE LEGENDS. The Washington Elm 115 The Last of the Highwaymen 119 The Eliot Oak 121 Part Srttrti. LYNN AND NAHANT LEGENDS. The Bridal of Pennacook 128 The Pirate's Glen 132 Moll Pitcher 137 mgh. 'Rook. — Elizabeth F. Merrill 141 Nahant 148 The Sea-Serpent 156 The Floure of Souvenance 159 Swampscott Beach 162 Part JFourtl^. SALEM LEGENDS. Salem 167 The Escape of Philip English 176 Endicott and the Red Cross 180 Cassandra Southwick 183 The Witchcraft Tragedy 188 Giles Corey the Wizard 194 The Bell Tavern Mystery 196 CONTENTS. Part JFiftfi. MARBLEHEAD LEGENDS. PAGE Marblehead : The Town 205 The Shrieking Woman 211 The Strange Adventures of Philip Ashton 212 Agnes, the Maid of the Inn 221 Skipper Ireson's Bide 227 A Plea for Flood Ireson. — Charles T. Brooks ........ 232 Part St'itfi. CAPE-ANN LEGENDS. Cape Ann 237 Captain John Smith 243 Thacher's Island 244 Anthony Thacher's Shipwreck 245 The Swan Song of Parson Avery. — J. G. Whittier 252 The Spectre Leaguers 253 The Garrison of Cape Ann. — J. G. Whittier 258 Old Meg, the Witch 259 An Escape from Pirates 261 Norman's Woe 263 Hannah binding Shoes. — Lucy Larcom 267 Part Se&mtij. IPSWICH AND NEWBURY LEGENDS. Ipswich 273 Old Ipswich Town. — Appleton Morgan 277 Heartbreak Hill 279 Newburyport . . . . • 284 Lord Timothy Dexter 292 The Old Elm of Newbury .301 The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 304 The Double-Headed Snake 307 Thomas Macy, the Exile 310 Telling the Bees 314 XIV CONTENTS. Part lEigbti). HAMPTON AND PORTSMOUTH LEGENDS. PAGE Hampton 319 Jonathan Moulton and the Devil 322 Goody Cole 328 The Wveck oi my ermouth.— J. G. Whittier 329 Portsmouth 331 The Stone-throwing Devil 333 Lady Wentworth 337 Part Wintf). YORK, ISLES-OF-SHOALS, AND BOON-ISLAND LEGENDS. Isles of Shoals 345 On Star Island. — Sarah 0. Jewett 348 A Legend of Blackbeard 350 The Spanish Wreck 352 The Spaniards' Graves. — Celia Thaxter 354 Boon Island 355 The Watch of Boon Island. — Celia Thaxter 356 The Grave of Champernowne 357 Agamenticus (York, Maine) 358 Mount Agamenticus 359 Saint Aspenquid. — John Albee 360 Part Eentb. OLD-COLONY LEGENDS. Hanging by Proxy 365 The Old Oaken Bucket. — ^Sam^eMFoof/ifortA 370 Destruction of Minot's Light 375 Minot's Ledge. — Fitz-James O'Brien 377 Legends of Plymouth Rock 378 Mary Chilton. — George Bancroft Griffith 380 The Courtship of Myles Staudish 383 The Pilgrim Fathers. — Percival, Pierpont, Hemans, Sprague . . . 389 CONTENTS. XV fart i£l£&mt]^. EHODE-ISLAND LEGENDS. PAGE The Skeleton in Armor 393 The Newport Tower. — J. G. Bruinanl, L. H. Sujourney .... 401 Block Island 403 The Buccaneer 409 The Palatine. T. G. Whittier 413 The Last of the Wampanoags 414 fart SEtoelftfj. CONNECTICUT LEGENDS. The Phantom Ship 417 The Charter Oak 421 The Charter Oak (/>oe7ft). — L. H. Sigourney 426 The Place of Noises 427 Matchit Moodus. — J. G. Brainard 429 The Spanish Galleon 431 The Money-Diggers. — J. G. Brainard 435 The Norwicli Elms. — L. H. Sigourney 436 Part STi^irtEcntf). NANTUCKET AND OTHER LEGENDS. Nantucket Legends 441 The Alarmed Skipper. — James T. Fields 447 The LTnknown Chainpion 449 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Robinson, Stevenson, and Mary Dyer going to Execution, Frontispiece Vignette, Puritan Hats ... 3 The Solitary of Shawmut ... 6 Hanging-Lamp 11 Site of Mrs. Hutchinson's House 15 Trial of Mrs. Hutchinson ... 19 The Death of Rainsborough . . 26 Night-Watchman 28 Execution of Mrs. Hibblns . . 32 The Old Elm 34 Scourging a Quaker .... 37 Hand-Reel 42 Endicott receiving the King's Order 48 Liberty Tree 50 Ancient Houses, North End . . 58 Candlestick, Bible, and Spec- tacles 62 Tomb of the Mathers .... 64 Nix's Mate 66 The Duel on the Common . . 70 Old South Church 71 Christ Church 77 Boston, from Breed's Hill . . 80 Sign of the Green Dragon . . 81 Grenadier, 1775 83 Revere arousing the Jlinute-Man 86 Peter Rugg and the Thunder- storm 02 Equestrians 94 Hackney-Coach 95 Market-Woman 100 PAGE Boston Truck 103 Chaise, 1776 107 The Money-Digger 109 Old Milestone, Dorchester . . Ill Old Fire-Dogs 112 Vignette, Wine and Hour Glasses 1 15 The Washington Elm .... 116 The Eliot Oak, Brighton ... 122 Milestone, Cambridge .... 124 Vignette, Symbols of Witchcraft 127 An Indian Princess 129 Moll Pitcher 138 Moll Pitcher's Cottage .... 143 Egg Rock and the Sea-Serpent . 157 Forget-me-nots 159 A Spring Carol 164 Vignette, The Witches' Ride . 167 Philip English's House, Salem . 177 Cutting out the Cross .... 181 Soldier of 1630 182 Condemned to be sold .... 184 The Parsonage, Salem Village . 191 Staffs used bj' Jacobs when going to Execution .... 192 The Bell from an Old Print . . 199 Tailpiece 201 Endicott's Sun-Dial; Designs from Old Money 205 Low's Pirate Flag 212 Alone on the Desert Island . . 217 Love at First Sight 222 Skipper Ireson's Ride .... 229 Tailpiece . . 233 XVIU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Vignette, Pewter Dishes . . . 237 Tlie Magnolia 237 The Shipwreck 246 A Sortie upon the Demons . . 255 Norman's Woe Rock .... 204 Poor lone Hannah 2G8 Tailpiece, Bats 2G9 Vignette, The Cabalistic Nine . 273 Padlock and Key, Ipswich Jail . 275 Ipswich Heads 278 Men of INIark 280 The Maiden's Watch .... 281 Beacon, Salisbury Point . . . 285 Whitefield's Monument ... 290 Lord Timothy Dexter's Mansion 293 Warming-Pan 298 Lord Timothy Dexter .... 299 The Old Elm of Newbury . . 302 Ye Double-Headed Snake . . 308 Escape of Goodman Macy . . 312 Beehive 315 Tailpiece 31G Vignette, Bats 319 Boar's Head 319 .Jonathan Monlton and ye Devil 323 " I shall ride in my Chariot yet, Ma'am!" 340 Tailpiece, Umbrella 342 Captain Teach, or Blackbeard . 351 PAGE Vignette, Mayflowers .... 365 The Old Oaken Bucket ... 372 The First Minot's Lighthouse . 375 Mary Chilton's Leap .... 379 Ancient Gravestone, Burial Hill 381 Monument over Forefathers' Rock, Plymouth 382 Standish House, Duxbury . . 384 "Prithee, John, why don't you speak for yourself V " . . . 387 Tailpiece,Candlestick, Bible, and Spectacles 390 Helmets, Puritan Time . . . 393 Old Windmill, Newport ... 394 The Skeleton in Armor ... 397 Ancient Windmill 405 Lee on the Spectre Horse . . . 411 Vignette, Hairdresser's Shop . 417 The Phantom Ship 419 The Charter Oak 423 Old Warehouses, New London . 432 Ancient Mill, New London . . 433 Vignette, Quaker Heads . . . 441 Bass Rocks, Gay Head, Cutty- hunk 442 Goffe rallying the Settlers . . 453 Graves of the Regicides, New Haven 456 Tailpiece, Blacksmith's Arms . 457 ^art f ir^t. BOSTON LEGENDS. THE SOLITARY OF SHAWMUT. BY J. L. MOTLEY. 1628. 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, thought- ful face. He Avore a confused dark-colored, half-canonical dress, with a gray broad-leaved hat strung wnth shells, like an ancient palmer's, and slouched back from his pensive brow, around which his prematurely gray 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 w^as 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 Avere thickly strewn about the bay. The peak upon which the hermit sat was the highest of the three clifts of the peninsula ; upon the southeast, and very near him, rose another hill of lesser height and more rounded form ; and upon the other side, and toward the north, a third craggy ])eak presented its bold and elevated front to the ocean. Thus the whole peninsula was made up of three lofty crags. It was from 4 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. this triple conformation of the promontory of Shawmut that was derived the 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 habi- table earth beyond those outermost barriers and that far distant fatherland which the exile had left forever. ISTot 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 pictu- resque 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 trans- atlantic 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 neck- lace 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 un- adorned 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. On the left, as the pilgrim sat with his face to the east, the outlines of the coast were comparatively low, but broken into THE SOLITARY OF SHAWMUT. 5 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 Massachu- setts, or Mount Arrow Head, by the natives, and by the first English discoverer baptized the Cheviot Hills. On their left, and within the deep curve of the coast, were the slightly ele- vated heights of Passanogessit, or Merry Mount, and on their right stretched the broad forest, hill beyond hill, away. Towards the west and northwest, the eye wandered over a vast undu- lating panorama of gently rolling heights, upon whose summits the gigantic pine-forests, with their towering tops piercing the clouds, were darkly shadowed upon the Avestern 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 IMountains. Upon the inland side, at the base of the hill, the Quinobequin Eiver, 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 Avhole Avestern edge of the peninsula ; and within the same basin, directly opposite the northern peak of Shawmut, advanced 6 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. 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 THE SOLITARY OF SHAWMUT. 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 THE SOLITARY OF SHAWMUT. 7 hermit of Shawmut. It was a simple but sublime image, that gentle exile in his silvan solitude. It was a simple but sub- lime 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 dis- inclination 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. The impending revolution in Church and State which hung like a gathering thunder-cloud 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 clifls of Shawmut. Forswearing the country of his birth and early manhood, where there seemed, in the present state of her aff"airs, 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 8 NEW-KNGLANI) LEGENDS. its blossoms had iirst uufoldcnl, — ho had wandered into vol- untary 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 wliich his soul revolted, he had become a high priest of nature, and had reared a pure and solitary altar in the wihlerness. He had dwelt in this solitude for three or four years, and had found in the con- templation of nature, in the liberty of conscience, in solitary study and self-comnuining, a solace for the ills he had suffered, and a recompense for the world he had turned his back upon forever. His si)irit was a proi)hetic 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 licentious- ness, he left his fatherland to obtain it, and was as ready to rel)uke the intolerant tyranny of the nonconformist of the wil- derness, as he had been to resist the bigotry and persecution of the prelacy at home. In short, the soul of the gentle her- mit 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, ho 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 specvdation, and he loved to proceed from the known to the unknown, and to weave tine chains of thought, which to his soaring fancy served to l)ind the actual to the imseen 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 iipon the THE SOLITARY OF SHAWMUT. 9 peak and mused. He arose as the sun was sinking below the forest-crowned hills which girt his silvan 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, 'tis fearful, this eternal and unbroken silence. Upon what fitful and checkered scenes hath yonder sun looked down in other lauds, 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 sQence is unbroken, the whole face of nature stUl dewy and fresh. The step of civilization hath not adorned nor polluted the surface of this wilderness. Xo stately temples gleam in yonder valleys, no storied monument nor aspiring shaft pierces yonder floating clouds ; no mighty cities, swarming with life, filled to bursting with the ten thousand attendants of civilized humanity, luxury and Avant, 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 toUing thou- sands, 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 famUiar 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 flout 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 weave its virgin wreath 10 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. uusoiled by passion and pollution'? Shall this new, vast page in the broad hiatory 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, wliich tills 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 hat, 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, and then, grasping his long staff, began slowly to descend the hill. BOSTON COMMON, — FIRST PICTURE. BY O. W. HOLMES. [The first of the poet Holmes's "Three Pictures" depicts tlie same person and scene that we have considered the most fitting introduction to our Legends, — the solitary inhabitant and the solitude that his presence rendered still more lonely. But preferring this to the comjianionship of the "Lord's brethren," as he is said to have called the Puritan settlers of Boston, Blackstone removed into the heart of the outlying wilderness, where savages were his only neigh- bors. Here he died. The spot where his lonely cottage stood in Shawmut, and the place where he is buried, are equally unknown.] All overgrown with bush and fern. And straggling clumps of tangled trees, With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, Bent eastward by the mastering breeze, — With spongy bogs that drij) and fill A yellow pond with muddy rain. Beneath the shaggy southern hill, Lies, wet and low, the Shawmut plain. MISTEESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 11 And hark ! the trodden branches crack ; A crow flaps off with startled scream ; A straying woodchuck canters back ; A bittern rises from the stream ; Leaps from his lair a frightened deer ; An otter plunges in the pool ; — Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, The parson on his brindled bull ! MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 1634. THE biographies of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson have, so to speak, been written by her enemies. Modern authors, in writing of her, have rehearsed her story from the point of view of the seventeenth century, and we live in the nineteenth. But History accepts no verdict that is not founded in impartial justice, and impartial justice was the one thing that Anne Hutchinson could expect neither from her accusers nor her judges. All the errors imputed to her — and they were sufhciently venial of themselves — mere quibbles, in fact — might and should, we think, have been settled within the church of which she was a member; but the voice of the community in which she lived, which knew and respected her most for her Christian virtues and her shining talents, was silenced in the general outcry raised from without, "Crucify her, crucify her!" and, weakly yielding to it, the civil arm struck her down as relentlessly ^s it would have done the worst LAMP. 12 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. of criminals or the most dangerous enemy to public order. Mrs. Hutchinson was driven with ignominy from her home into exile, for maintaining in her own house that a mere profession of faith could not evidence salvation unless the Spirit hrst revealed itself from within. Her appeal is to be heard. It is too late to blot out the record, but there is yet time to. reverse the attainder. We begin our sketch with a simple introduction. Anne Marbury was a daughter of Francis Marbury, who was first a minister in Lincolnshire, and afterwards in London. This fact should be borne in mind when following her after career. She was the daughter of a scholar and a theologian. iSTaturally, therefore, much of her unmarried as well as her married life had been passed in the society of ministers, whom she learned to esteem more for what they knew than for what they preached. The same fact, too, her intellectual gifts being considered, reason- ably accounts for her pondering deeply the truths of Christian- ity and her fondness for theological discussion both for its own sake and as involving the great problem of her own life. It Avas the atmosphere in which she had lived and moved and had her being. It aroused and quickened her intellectual faculties and perceptions. She lived, too, in a time of great religious excitement, soon to become one of active warfare, the period of the great Puritan revolt, so that it is easily seen how that movement, which had enlisted some of the noblest women in England, should absorb such ai4one as Anne, who was intel- lectually an enthusiast and morally an agitator, who had been accustomed to breathe the atmosphere of adulation, and who was ambitious, capable, and adroit. While still young, she mar- ried William Hutchinson, a country gentleman of good character and estate, also of Lincolnshire. "We know very little of him, and that little comes from Winthrop, the bitter enemy and per- secutor of his wife, who indeed speaks of the husband in terms approaching contempt. But this is also an unconscious tribute to the superior talents of Anne. Were it all true, we simply discover once more the mutual yet unaccountable sympathy existing between a strong woman and a weak man which it is MISTEESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 13 the custom of the world to satirize or to sneer at. There is, however, little doubt that the attachment of one for the other was mutually lasting and sincere, in spite of the sore trials to which their married life Avas exposed. But allowing that he was eclipsed by the superior brilliancy of his wife, there is quite enough evidence to prove that William Hutchinson was a man of sterling character and worth. He played a secondary, but no ignoble, part in the events we have to narrate. It happened that the Hutchinsons were parishioners of the Rev. John Cotton when that celebrated divine was minister of the Church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. For liim and his abili- ties Mrs. Hutchinson had the highest respect and esteem. And when Cotton fled to New England, as he like so many others was at length compelled to do, in order to escape from the tyranny of the bishops, the Hutchinsons also resolved to emi- grate thither, and presently the whole family did so. It is proper to be mentioned here that Mrs. Hutchinson's daughter had married the Eev. John Wheelwright, another minister of Lincolnshire, who was also deprived for nonconformity, and who also came to New England in consequence of the perse- cutions of Archbishop Laud. The long interval that elapsed between the date of her mar- riage and that of her removal to America is very imperfectly filled out in the notices we have of Mrs. Hutchinson's life. We are not made acquainted with any of those formative processes by which she became so well equipped for the mental and spirit- ual conflict that she was soon to enter upon with an adversary who could neither learn nor forget. A family had now grown np around her. Besides the daughter, the Mrs. Wheelwright already mentioned, there were three sons ; so that it was no young, sentimental, or unbalanced novice, but a middle-aged, matured, and experienced woman of the world who embarked in the autumn of 1634 for New England, looking eagerly there to obtain and enjoy liberty of conscience among those who might be supposed, if any people on the earth could, to know its value. 14 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. During the voyage she entered into discussions with some Puritan ministers who were also going out to New England, upon such abstruse points as Avhat were the evidences of justi- fication, and she broadly hinted that when they should arrive at their destination they might expect to hear more from her. From these things, trivial in themselves, it is clear that Mrs. Hutchinson considered herself to have a mission to deliver to- the people and churches of New England. She avowed her entire belief in direct revelations made to the elect, moreover declaring that never had anything of importance happened to her which had not been revealed to her beforehand. The vessel made her port on the 18th of September, 1634. Its appearance Avas so mean and so uninviting, that one of her fellow passengers, supposing it to have depressed her spirits, commented upon it, in order, as it appeared, to draAV her out. But she denied that the meanness of the place had in any way afiected her, because, as she said, " she knew that the bounds- of her habitation were already determined." Upon their arrival, Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson made their application to be received as members of the church. This step was indispensable to admit them into Christian fellowship and him to the privileges of a citizen. He was admitted in Octo- ber, but in consequence of the reports already spread concerning her extravagant opinions, Mrs. Hutchinson was subjected to a searching examination before her request was granted. She, however, passed through the ordeal safely, the examining min- isters, one of whom was her old and beloved pastor, Mr. Cotton, declaring themselves satisfied with her ansAvers. She entered the Boston church in November. For some time onward Ave hear very little of Mrs. Hutchinson, except that she Avas treated with particular respect and attention by Mr. Cotton and others. The getting settled in a ncAv home probably occupied her to the exclusion of everything else. Her husband took a hoxise in Boston, and being duly admitted a freeman of the Colony, he was immediately called upon to bear his part in business of public concern, which he did Avillingly MISTEESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 15 and faithfully. He received a grant of lands in Braintree from the General Court. He Avas elected to, and served for several terms as a deputy in, this body, it being, singularly enough, his fortune to sit as a member when Roger Williams was brought to the bar, tried for his heretical opinions, and banished by it out of the Colony. The year 1C36 was destined to witness one of the greatest religious commotions that have ever puzzled the unlearned or seri- ously called in question the wisdom of the founders of the Colony. The more it is studied the more inexplicable it appears. SITE OP MRS. HUTCHINSON S HOUSE. A young man of liberal views, who had not been hardened by persecution, was then governor of the Colony, and, for the moment, the popular idol. This was Harry Vane, who after- wards died on the scaffold. He with Mr. Cotton took much notice of Mrs. Hutchinson, and their example was quickly fol- lowed by the leading and influential people of the town, who treated her with much consideration and respect. Already her benevolence toward the suffering or the needy had won for her 16 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. many friends, while her intrepidity of soul and her capacity for dealing with those interesting questions from the discussion of which tliey were excluded, led many of her own sex to look up to her not only as a person whose opinions were worth regarding, but also with admiration amounting to homage. Adopting an established custom of the town, Mrs. Hutchinson held in hen' own house two weekly meetings, — one for men and women, and one exclusively for women, — at which she was the oracle. These meetings were for no other purpose than to hear read and to discuss the sermons of the previous Sabbath, and for general religious conversation and edification. They were what would be called in our own day a club. The bringing women together in any way for independent thought and action was a most bold and novel innovation, requiring much moral courage on the part of the mover. Her manner and address, her ready wit, her thorough mastery of her subject, the strong purpose she displayed, established her ascendency in these dis- cussions, and were fast gaining for her a popularity that, spread- ing from her house as a centre, alarmed the ministers for their own hold upon the public mind, and so determined them to call her and her doctrines seriously to account. That Mrs. Hutchinson's conversations were not at first con- sidered to be dangerous either in themselves or in their effects, is clear from the fact that the most eminent ministers and magistrates, attracted by her fame, came from all quarters to hear and dispute with her. Such was her ready command of Scripture authorities and her skill in using all the weapons of argument, that the strongest heads in the colony found, them- selves unable to cope with her successfully upon her chosen ground. She was impassioned, she was adroit ; she was an enthusiast, and yet she was subtle, logical, and deep : she was a woman who believed herself inspired to do a certain work, and who had the courage of her convictions. Could any other have brought such men as Cotton, Vane, Wheelwright, Codding- ton, completely to embrace her views, or have sent one like Winthrop to his closet, wrestling with himself, yet more than MISTEESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 17 half persuaded 1 To call sucli a woman an adventuress, a ter- magant, or a "Jezebel," is a grave reflection upon the under- standing of some of the best minds in the Colony. Anne Hutchinson's doctrines were, in plain English, these : She held and advocated as the highest truth that a person could be justified only by an actual and manifest revelation of the spirit to him personally. There could be, she said, no other evidence of grace. She repudiated a doctrine of works, and she denied that hoHness of living alone could be received as evidence of regeneration, since hypocrites might live outwardly as pure lives as the saints do. The Puritan churches held that sanetification by the will was evidence of justification. For a time people of every condition were drawn into the dispute about these subtleties. The Boston church divided upon it, the greater number, however, siding with ]\Ir. Cotton, whose views were understood to agree with those maintained by Mrs. Hutchinson. From Boston it rapidly spread into the country, but there, removed from the potent personal magnetism of Mrs. Hutchinson, the clergy were better able to withstand the move- ment that it may be truly said had carried Boston by storm. In announcing these opinions of hers, Mrs. Hutchinson freely criticised those ministers who preached a covenant of works. This embittered them toward her. Emboldened by the in- creasing number of her followers, she became more and more aggressive, so that the number of her enemies was increasing in proportion to that of her proselytes. The breach that coolness and moderation might easily have bridged soon widened into a gulf that could not be crossed. Unsuspicious of any danger, or that what was said in the privacy of her own house was being carefullj' treasured up against her, poor Mrs. Hutchinson was led into speaking her mind more freely as to doctrines and persons than was consistent with prudence or foresight, so that before she Avas aware of it what had so far been a harmless war of words, now becoming an unreconcilable feud, burst forth into a war of factions. Events then marched rapidly on. Governor Winthrop and Mr. Wilson, the pastor of the church, 2 18 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. led the opposition in Eoston. The matter was first brought before the General Court upon a sermon preached by Mr. Wheel- wright, and in this body the country was able to make head against the town. A personal struggle ensued between Winthrop and Vane, in which the former was victorious. Vane then left the country in disgust. The party having as it Avere lost its head, made no difference with Mrs. Hutchinson. She continued her lectures, undisturbed by the signs of the approaching storm, until all the churches could be summoned to a general synod, which assembled in great solemnity at Cambridge, to sit in judgment upon the new and startling Familistic doctrines. This was the first synod held in the western hemisphere. Its deliberations were preceded by a day of fasting and prayer throughout the Colony. What it decreed would be sustained by the civil power. The convocation was a stormy one. Three weeks were spent in discussing the errors that were formulated in the indictment presented to it. Perceiving the drift toward persecution, some of the members for Boston withdrew in disgust. The Synod finished by condemning as heresies all of the eighty odd points covering the new opinions, thus bringing them within the pale ' of the lav\% Mr. Cotton was either too weak or too politic to withstand the pressure brought to bear upon him, and he gave a qualified adhesion to the proceedings. Being thus backed by the whole spiritual power of the Colony, the "Winthrop party no longer hesitated to use severe measures. Mr. Wheelwright was first called before the Court, to be sum- marily sentenced to disfranchisement and banishment. No one pretends that he was not an able, pure, and upright man. Others of Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents received various sen- tences. Then the priestess and prophetess herself was arraigned at the bar as a criminal of the most dangerous kind. The proceedings at this trial are preserved in the " History of Massachusetts under the Colony and Province," of which Gov- ernor Hutchinson, the descendant of the persecuted Anne, is the author. They are voluminous. Winthrop, who presided, first MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 19 catechised her. She answered him boldly, hut with dignity. Then Bradstreet, and then Dudley, the deputy-governor, took turns in trying to extort from her some damaging admission. Neither succeeded. Governor Winthrop allows as much when using this extraordinary lan- guage toward the prisoner who is defending herself single- handed against a multitude of prosecutors : "It is well discerned to the Court that Mrs. Hutchinson can tell when to speak and when to hold her tongue. Upon the 20 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. answering of a question which we desire her to tell her thoughts of, she desires to be pardoned." Anne Hutchinson did not fall into the snare. She replied : " It is one thing for me to come before a public magistracy and there to speak what they would have me to speak, and another when a man comes to me in a way of friendship, privately ; there is difference in that." Six of the foremost ministers in the (Jolony, among whom were the Apostle Eliot and the subsequently famous Hugh Peters, then gave evidence that she had told them they Avere not able ministers of the New Testament, and that they preached a covenant of works. Only Mr. Shepard, of the Cambridge church, spoke of her considerately ; the rest liad steeled them- selves against her. Mrs. Hutchinson gave a plump denial to some things that these ministers had alleged, and then she prudently asked that they might be recjuired to give their evidence under oath, in a case touching her personal liberty as this did. To this the Governor strongly demurred ; but Mrs. Hutchinson stoutly main- taining her riglit, she finally prevailed. From a score or more of accusers, the number of ministers who were willing to swear was thus reduced to three. The only persons who spoke for her were silenced by being browbeaten. Her fate was determined when the Court assem- bled. Mr. Cotton defended her weakly and equivocally. Mr. Coddington most valiantly, but to as little purpose. Seeing how the case was going against her, he spoke up hotly wliile smarting under a rebuke just administered by the President : " I beseech you do not speak so to force things along, for I do not, for my own part, see any equity in all your proceedings. Here is no law of God that she hath broken, nor any law of the country, and therefore deserves no censure. And if she say that the elders preach as the apostles did (before the Ascension), why they preached a covenant of grace, and what wrong is that to them 1 " Governor Winthrop then pronounced sentence of banishment MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON. 21 against the woman who, as Coddington truly said, " had broken no law either of Cod or of man." This mockery of a trial, in which the judges expounded theology instead of law, and in which no rule of evidence was respected until the prosecutors were shamed into allowing the prisoner's demand that her accusers should be sworn, was now ended. Pending the further order of the Court, Mrs. Hutchin- son was delivered into the custody of Mr. Joseph Weld, of Roxbury. She had still another, probably a harder, trial to go through with, when the Boston church of which she was a member, and which had so lately applauded and caressed her, sat in judgment upon her and excommunicated her. Her hus- band then sold all his property, and removed with his family to the Island of Aquidneck, as did many others whose opinions had brought them under the censure of the governing powers. Mr. Hutchinson nobly stood by his wife to the last. When a committee of the Boston church Avent to Rhode Island for the purpose of endeavoring to bring these lost sheep back into the fold, he told them that he accounted his Avife "a dear saint and servant of God." The triumphant opposition noAv carried matters Avitli a heavy hand. Winthrop strenuously exerted himself to crush Mrs. Hutchinson's folloAvers. In consecpience of this a great number of the principal inhabitants of Boston who had become involved in these troubles, and who were noAv deprived of their political privileges as a punishment therefor, also removed to Rhode Island. Of these Coddington and Dummer had been assist- ants or counsellors ; Hutchinson, Coggeshall, and Aspinwall were representatives. Rainsford, Sanford, Savage, Eliot, Easton, Ben- dall, and Denison, were all persons pf distinction. About sixty others were disarmed. These exiles, having purchased the island of the Indians, were the first to found a civil government there. And thus did the stone which the builders rejected become the head of the corner. The rest of Mrs. Hutchinson's history is briefly told. After the death of her husband, which happened five years later, she 22 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. again removed with her family into the Dutch territory of New Netherlands, settling near what is now New Eochelle. During the following year her house was suddenly assaulted by hostile Indians, who, in their revengeful fury, murdered the whole family, excepting only one daughter, who was carried away into captivity. Mrs. Hutchinson's offence consisted in using the great intel- lectual powers with which she was undeniably gifted for solving the jjroblem of her own life. Her enemies vanquished, but they could not convince, her. It is not denied that she Avas a pure woman, an affectionate wife and mother, to the poor a bene- factor, and to her convictions of Christian duty conscientious and faithful to the last. To succeeding generations she is an amazing example of the intolerance existing in her day. THE DEATH OF RAINSBOROUGH. 1648. THE civil wars in England preceding the dethronement and death of Charles I. opened an alluring field for reaping individual renown which many adventurous New Englanders hastened to enter. It was there in New England, if anywhere, that the revolt against the crushing tyranny from which thou- sands had fled should find its legitimate echo. Moreover, an appeal to arms had become the dream of many of the enthusias- tic young men of this martial age. No sooner, therefore, had the sword been drawn, than these men of New England, taking their Geneva Bibles and their Spanish rapiers in their hands, enrolled themselves under the banners of the Parliament, and some of them carved with their good blades an enduring record upon the history of the time. Foremost among these volunteers for the Puritan cause was William Rainsborough, who lived here in 1639, and was, with THE DEATH OF RAINSBOEOUGH. 23 Eobert Sedgwick and Israel Stoughton, then a member of the Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. Rainsborough had speedily risen to be colonel of a regiment in the Parliamentary army, in which this Stoughton was lieutenant-colonel, ISTehemiah Bourne, a Boston shipwright, major, and John Leverett, after- wards governor, a captain ; William Hudson, supposed to be also of Boston, was ensign. A son of Governor Winthrop also served Avitli credit in these -same wars, and in New England the having furnished one of Oliver's soldiers was long one of the most valued of family traditions. Raiusborough owed his rapid advancement to the distinguished gallantry that he displayed in the field, as well as to his zeal for the cause, both of which qualifications, so essential in the Puritan soldier, earned for him the warm friendship of Crom- well, with whom he was thoroughly one in spirit. Indeed he appears to have held political sentiments quite as advanced as those of his great leader. We find him sustaining positions of high trust both in camp and council, always with ability, and always with credit to himself and his patron. In the memorable storming of Bristol, then held by Prince Rupert, Rainsborough commanded a brigade which was posted in front of the strongest part of the enemy's line of defence. The duty of assaulting this position fell to him. Cromwell tells how it was performed, in an official letter written from Bristol immediately after the surrender of the place. "Colonel Rainsborough's post was near to Durham Down, whereof the dragoons and three regiments of horse made good a post upon the Down, between him and the River Avon, on his right hand. And from Colonel Rainsborough's quarters to P'room River, on his left, a part of Colonel Birch's and the whole of General Skippon's regiment Avere to maintain that post." The signal for storming being given, the Parliamentary troops advanced with great resolution against the enemy's whole line, and were suddenly in possession of the greater portion of it. 24 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. "During this," says the General, "Colonel Eainsborough and Colonel Hammond attempted Pryor's Hill Fort and the line downward towards Froom; and the major-general's regiment being to storm towards Froom Eiver, Colonel Hammond pos- sessed the line immediately, and beating the enemy from it, made way for the horse to enter. Colonel Eainsborough, who had the hardest task of all at Pryor's Hill Fort, attempted it, and fought near three hours for it. And indeed tliere was great despair of carrying the place, it being exceedingly high, a ladder of thirty rounds scarcely reaching the top thereof; but his reso- lution was such that, notwithstanding the inaccessibleness and difficulty, he would not give it over. The enemy had four pieces of cannon upon it, which they plied with round and case shot upon our men ; his lieutenant. Colonel Boweu (Bourne), and others were two hours at push of pike, standing upon the palisades, but could not enter. But now Colonel Hammond being entered the line ... by means of this entrance of Colonel Hammond, they did storm the fort on that part which was inward ; and so Colonel Eainsborough's and Colonel Hammond's men entered the fort, and immediately put almost all the men in it to the sword." For his resolute bravery on this occasion Eainsborough was one of the officers deputed by Fairfax to receive the surrender of the place. Eainsborough subsequently acted as one of the commissioners from the Army, Avith Treton and Hammond, to treat witli the King, and he was also one of the officers who stirred up in the Army that spirit of discontent with the half measures of Parlia- ment which, bursting out into open revolt, paved the way to its final and humiliating downfall. When the insurrection immediately preceding the second civil war broke out, Eainsborough was in command and on board of the English fleet, and he is then called Admiral Eainsborough. It is well known that the sailors embraced, almost to a man, the Eoyalist side. They put their Admiral on shore, and then hoisted sail for Holland and the young Prince THE DEATH OF KAINSBOROUGH. 25 of Wales. Rainsborough then went up to London, presently receiving orders to go upon his last service, into Yorkshire. It was in the year 1648 that the Yorkshire Royalists, who had been living in quiet since the first war, were again excited by intelligence of Duke Hamilton's intended invasion. A plan was laid and successfully carried out by them to surprise Pom- fret Castle (sometimes called Pontefract), the greatest and strongest castle in all England, then held by Colonel Cotterel as governor for the Parliament. It was then victualled to with- stand a long siege. The Castle was soon besieged by Sir Edward Ilhodes and Sir Henry Cholmondley with five thousand regular troops, but the royal garrison stubbornly held out for the King. It being likely to prove a tedious affair, General Rainsborough was sent from London by the Parliament to put a speedy end to it. He pitched his headquarters for the moment at Don- caster, twelve miles from Pomfret, Avith twelve hundred foot and two regiments of horse. The Castle garrison having in some way learned of Hamilton's disastrous defeat at Preston, that he was in full retreat for Scot- land, and that Sir Marmaduke Langdale, who commanded the English in that battle, was a prisoner, formed the bold design of seizing General Rainsborough in his camp and holding him as a hostage for Sir Marmaduke; for it was clear enough that the principal actors in this unlucky rising would now be in great peril of losing their heads on the charge of high treason. The scheme seemed all the more feasible because the General and his men were under no apprehension of any surprise ; the Castle being twelve miles distant, closely besieged, and being moreover now the only garrison held for the King in all England. The plan was shrewdly laid, favored by circumstances, and was completely successful, except that instead of bringing the General off as a prisoner, they killed him. With twenty-two picked men, all bold riders and well mounted, Captain William Paulden penetrated through the besiegers' lines into Doncaster undiscovered. Tlie guards were immediately assaulted and THE DEATH OF RAINSBOROUGH. 27 dispersed, while a party of four troopers made direct for the General's lodgings. At the door they were met by his lieutenant, who, upon their announcing that they had come with despatches from General Cromwell, conducted them to the chamber where Rainsborough was in bed. While the General was opening the false despatch, which contained nothing but blank paper, the King's men told him that he was their prisoner, but that not a hair of his head should be touched if he went quietly along with them. They then disarmed his lieutenant, who had so innocently facilitated their design, and brought both the General and hira out of the house. A horse stood ready saddled, which Eainsborough was directed to mount. He at first seemed willing to do so, and put his foot in the stirrup ; but upon look- ing about him and seeing only four enemies, while his lieutenant and a sentinel (whom they had not disarmed) were standing by him, he suddenly pulled his foot out of the stirrup and cried out, " Arms I Arms ! " Upon this, one of his enemies, letting fall his sword and pis- tol, — for the object was to take the General alive, — caught hold of liainsborough, who grappled fiercely with hira, and both fell struggling to the ground. The General's lieutenant then picked up the trooper's pistol, but was instantly run through the body by Paulden's lieutenant while he was in the act of cocking it. A third then stabbed Eainsborough in the neck ; yet the General gained his feet with the trooper's sword, with Avhom he had been struggling, in his hand. Seeing him deter- mined to die rather than be taken, the lieutenant of the party then passed his sword through his body, when the brave but ill-fated Rainsborough fell dead upon the pavement of the courtyard. 28 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. THE CASE OF MISTRESS ANN HIBBINS. 1656. " rinHE devil is in it ! " Is not this pithy expression, we in- -L quire, a surviving memento of the dark day of super- stition, when everything that was strange or inexplicable was by common consent referred to the devices of the Evil One 1 It would be both interesting and instructive further to ask if there are still people who regard spilling the salt, beginning a journey on Friday, breaking a looking-glass, or sitting with thirteen at the table, as things of evil omen, to be scrupulously avoided ; or whether they wonld be willing to admit that hanging a charm about a cliild's neck, setting a hen on an odd number of eggs, putting trust :n a rusty horseshoe, or seeing the moon over a particular shoulder, — to say nothing of dreams, signs, or haunted houses, — are neither more nor less than so many indications of the proneness of our nature to admit the supernatural. Kor is it so long ago since people were living in the rural towns of NeAv England who could remember reputed witches, and what dread they inspired in the minds of the ignorant or the timid. Upon looking back over the ground that the enlightenment of the age has conquered, one is half inclined to say that, in some form or other, superstition will be about the last thing eradicated from the human mind. It is in order to enable the reader fairly to make the comparison of his NIGHT WATCHMAN. MRS. ANN HIBBINS. 29 own with a remote time that we offer him these hints before beginning our story about Mrs. Hibbins. The little that can be recovered concerning this most unfor- tunate woman, of whom we would gladly know more than we do, puts any connected account of her out of the question. Our curiosity is strongly piqued, only to be unsatisfied at last by a perusal of the few meagre scraps that have the seal of authenticity upon them. Xor is it at all probable that it ever will be satisfied. We simply know that Mrs. Ann Hibbins, the aged widow of a merchant of note, the reputed sister of the Deputy-Governor of the Colony, was tried, convicted, and suftered death at Boston in the year 1656 for being a witch. This relationship by blood and marriage announces a person of superior condition in life, and not some Avretched and friendless hag such as is associated with the popular idea of a witch. It supposes her to have had connections powerful enough to protect her in such an extremity as that of life or death in which she was placed. But in her case it is clear that they were powerless to stay the final execu- tion of the horrid sentence, which was carried into effect, with all its revolting details, according to the decree of the Court. To be censorious is easy here. Such a tale of horror is in fact a shock to all our preconceived notions of the solid wis- dom and well-balanced judgments characterizing our ancient lawgivers. Still, when kings wrote learned treatises, ministers preached, and poets rhymed about it, — when the penal statutes of all civilized States recognized and punished it as a crime, — • people of every condition may Avell be pardoned for putting fidl faith in witchcraft as a thing belonging to the category of in- contestable facts, admitted by the wisest and holiest men, and punished as such by the ordinances of God and man. What is the wonder, then, that they dealt Avith it as a fact 1 For our own part, in order that we may understand this deplorable tragedy, and that full justice may be done to the actors therein, it is indispensable first candidly to admit all that this strange be- lief in witchcraft implied from tlieir point of view. We may 30 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. lament their ignorance, but we should be slow to condemn them for being no wiser than their own generation. Such a state of things being imagined, one easily sees why the men who were wisest and strongest in every other emer- gency simply lost their heads when confronting this terrible bugbear that kept the imagination continually upon tlie stretch, that was a lurking terror in every household, and that by expos- ing them, as thoy fully believed, to all the crafts and assaults of the Devil (their own friends and neighbors being the instru- ments), held their intellect in abject bondage. Against such insidious attacks as these there was no good defence. Hence the notion of a witch was like that of a serpent in the house whose sting is mortal. jS'o wonder it was the one thing capable of chasing tlie color From cheeks that never changed in woe, And never blanched in fear. This case of Mrs. Hibbins is further interesting as being the second one that the lamentable annals of witchcraft record, that of Margaret Jones, in 1G4S, being the first. The simple state- ment should suffice to correct the belief, more or less preva- lent to-day, that the Salem outbreak was the beginning, instead of being the tragical end, of the delusion in Xew England. Mrs. Hibbins's cause is also memorable as the first known instance of the General Court of the Colony sitting in trial in a case of life and death. The tragedy, therefore, lacked no element of solem- nity to render it deeply impressive. Mrs. Ann Hibbins was the wife of William Hibbins, a wealthy and influential merchant of Boston. Hutchinson says that he was one of the principal merchants in all the Colony. At this early day in its history he had served the Colony with credit, first as its agent in England, and again as one of the assistants, or chief magistrates. These important trusts denote tbe high esteem in which he was held, and they confirm his admitted capacity for public aff\iirs. A series of unlucky events, however, brought such heavy losses upon him in his old age as seriously MISTRESS ANN HIBBINS. 31 to impair his estate ; but what was perhaps worse to "bear, the sudden change from affluence to a more straitened way of living is alleged not only to have soured his wife's naturally unstable temper, but to have so far unsettled her mind that she became in turn so morose and so quarrelsome as to render her odious to all her neighbors. Instead of being softened by misfortune, she was hardened and embittered by it. And it is thought that some of these neighbors were led to denounce her as a witch, as presently they did, through motives of spite, or in revenge for her malice toward, or her abusive treatment of, them. It was a credulous age, when the spirit of persecution was easily aroused. The eye of the whole town was presently turned upon Mrs. Hibbins. There is little room to doubt that she was the unfortunate possessor of a sharp tongue and of a crabbed temper, neither of which was under proper restraint. Most unfortunately for her, as it fell out, a superior intelUgence and penetration enabled her to make shrewd guesses about her neighbors and their affairs, which the old wives and gossips be- lieved and declared no one else but the Devil or his imps could have known or told her of. From dislike they advanced to hatred, then to fear, and then it no doubt began to be freely whispered about that she was a witch. Such a reputation would naturally cast a fatal blight over her life. No wife or mother believed herself or her infant for one moment safe from the witch's detestable arts, since she might take any form slfe pleased to afflict them. Presently, the idle gossip of a neigh- borhood grew into a formal accusation. How much could be made in those days of a little, or how dangerous it then was to exercise any gift like that of clairvoyance or mind-reading, the following fragment will make clear to the reader's mind. Upon this point Uv. Beach, a minister in Jamaica, writes to Dr. Increase Mather as follows : — "You may remember what I have sometimes told you your famous Mr. Norton once said at his own table, before Mr. Wilson the pastor, Elder Penn, and myself and wife, etc., who had the honour to be his guests,— that one of your magistrates' wives, as I remember, was EXECUTION OF MKS. HIBBINS. MISTEESS ANN HIBBINS. 33 hanged lor a witch, only for having more wit than her neighbours. It was his very expression, she having, as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in. the street, were talking of her ; which, proving true, cost her her life, notwithstanding all he could do to the contrary, as he himself told us." One can hardly read this fragment without shuddering. The increasing feeling of detestation and fear having now broken out into a popular clamor for justice upon the witch, Mrs. Hibbins w^as first publicly expelled from the communion of her church, and then publicly accused and thrown into prison. When the prison door closed behind her, her doom was sealed. Fortunately, perhaps, for him, for lie died a year before this bitter disgrace sullied his good name, the husband was not alive to meet the terrible accusation or to stem the tide setting so strongly and so pitilessly against the wife whom he had sworn at the altar to love, cherish, and protect. If her brother, Eichard Bellingham, then holding the second place in the Colony, made any effort to save her, that fact nowhere appears. Her three sons, whom she seems to have loved with the affectionate tender- ness of a fond mother, were all absent from the Colony. Alone, friendless, an object of hatred to her own neighbors, her heart may well have sunk within her. Under such distressing circumstances was poor old Dame Hib- bins, who once held her head so high, dragged from her dungeon before the Court which was to try her as the worst of criminals known to the law. The jury, however, failed to convict her of any overt act of witchcraft. But she could not escape thus. The people, it is said, demanded her blood, and nothing short of this Avould satisfy them. So the magistrates, having the power to set aside the verdict, obeying the popular voice, brought her before the bar of the General Court, where, in presence of the assembled wisdom of the Colony, she was again required to plead guilty or not guilty to being a witch. She answered with firmness and spirit that she was not guilty, and said she was willing to be tried by God and the Court. The evidence already taken against her was then read, witnesses \vere heard, and her 3 34 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. answers considered ; and the whole case being then submitted for its decision, the Court by its vote this time found her guilty of witchcraft according to the tenor of the bill of indictment. Governor Endicott, rising in his place, then pronounced in open court the awful sentence of death upon the doomed woman for a crime which had no existence save in the imagination of her accusers. The warrant for her execution was made out in due form, the fatal day was fixed, and the marshal-general was THE OLD ELM. therein directed to take with him "a sufficient guard." Then the poor, infirm, su^^erannuated old woman, as innocent as the babe unborn, was led back to prison a condemned felon. Then the members of the Great and General Court, satisfied that they had done God's work in hanging a witch, dispersed in peace to their homes, made more secure, as they believed, by this act of justice. MISTEESS ANN HIBBINS. 35 As the sentence was not carried into effect for a whole year, it is probable that the intercession of friends may have procured for the condemned woman tliis reprieve. But it could not avert her final doom, however it might delay it. That was sealed. On the day that she was to suifer she made and executed in prison a codicil to her will, clearly disposing of all her property. She Avas then taken to the usual place of execution, and there, hanged. The " usual place of execution " being the Common, it is a tradition that Mrs. Hibbins, as well as others who suti'ered at the liands of the public executioner, was launched into eternity from the branch of the Great Elm Tree that stood, until within a few years, a commanding and venerated relic of the past, near the centre of this beautiful park. Her remains were shamefully violated. A search was immediately made upon the dead body of the poor woman for the distinguishing marks that all witches were supposed to have on their persons. Her chests and boxes were also ransacked for the puppets or images by which their victims were afflicted, but none were found. The remains were then probably thrust into some obscure hole, for the suf- ferer, being excommunicated and a condemned witch, would not be entitled to Christian burial, although she earnestly begged this poor boon in her will. Hubbard, who writes nearest to the event, says that they who were most forward to condemn Mrs. Hibbins were afterward observed to be special marks for the judgments of Divine Providence. And all this really happened in the good town of Boston in the year 1656 ! 36 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. MARY DYER. 1659. IT is a matter of history that in 1656 a people who wore their hair long, kept their hats on iu the public assemblies, and who said "thee" and "thou," instead of "you," when address- ing another person, made their unwelcome appearance in New England. They were forthwith attacked with all the energy of a bitter persecution. When called upon to speak out in defence of their cruel proceedings, the Puritan authorities declared their creed to be this : They having established themselves in a wilderness in order to enjoy undisturbed their own religious convictions, held it right to exclude all others who might seek to introduce tlif- ferent opinions, and therefore discord, among them. From this it is plain to see that the idea of toleration had not yet been born. The further fact that to tliis cruel and selhsh policy, sternly persevered in to the last, the Colony owed the loss (jf most of the political privileges that it had hitherto enjoyeil, renders it one of the stepping-stones of history. Nor have the most zealous apologists for these acts of the Puritan fathers ever been able to erase the stain of blood from tlieir otherwise fair escutcheon. Let us recount a single startling episode of this lugubrious history. Two words will explain the situation. On both sides of the ocean the Puritan cry was " freedom to worship God as we do." The persecution of Quakers had already begun in England under the austere rule of the Puritan Commonwealth. They were treated as Aveak fanatics who needed wholesome correction, rather than as persons dangerous to the public weal. After this had been some time in progress, some of the persecuted Friends came over to New England for MARY DYER. 37 an asylum, or ont of the frying-pan into the fire. The local authorities, urged on by the whole body of Orthodox ministers, resolved to strangle this new heresy in its cradle. But they had forgotten the story of the dragon's teeth. For every Qnaker they banished, ten arose in his place. SCOUKGING A QUAKER. Among the first Quakers to arrive in the Colony were two women. And it should be observed that the women all along took as active a part in disseminating the new doctrines as the 38 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. men did. As was iuevitable, such an abrupt innovation upon the settled convictions of the time respecting woman's i)lace in the churches and in society, was a moral shock to the comnni- nity which quickly recoiled upon the lieads of the offenders. These intruding Quakers, having anuounced themselves as confessors and missionaries of the true faith of Christ, were all presently put under lock and key as persons guilty of promul- gating rank heresies, and as blasphemers, and tlieir sectarian books were also seized and committed to the flames by the common hangman. The Quakers then became violent and aggressive in their turn. They retaliated with prophesies of evil. They freely denounced the judgments of Heaven upon their oppressors. One woman, seeing Governor Endicott pass by the prison, vociferated from her grated window, — " "Woe unto thee ! thou art an oppressor ! " The first comers were all banished, with a stern admonition not to return to the Colony. They were put on shipboard and ordered to depart. And this, it was hoped, would be the last of them. This was, in fact, the easiest Avay of ridding the coun- try of them and their errors, had these not already taken root in the soil itself. Then, as no such law existed, one was made, punishing an}' Quaker who might afterward come into the jurisdiction. This law imposed severe penalties. Yet, though cruelly enforced, it was soon found inadequate, the number of Quakers increasing ; and so, the authorities being now at their wits' end, another law, decreeing death to any of that sect who should presume to return after banishment, was enacted,, against strong opposition. There was, in fact, a conscience in the Colo- nial body. But the rulers could not now retreat without admitting themselves vanquished ; and so, pressing the point, the " bloody law " was inscribed upon the statute-book of the Colony. AYe have now finished the prologue of the drama, and it is time to introduce the real actors upon the stage. Marv Dyer, a comely and grave matron, then living in Rhode Island, was one of those rare spirits who are predestined to become martyrs and saints to the faith that they profess. MAKY DYER. 39 She and her husband, William Dyer, were originally inhabi- tants of Uoston, and members of the church there, they having emigrated from England to the Colony in the year 1635. From these incidents surrounding Mrs. Dyer's career it is clear that both she and her husband belonged to the better class of emi- grants. She is represented by Sewel, the Quaker historian, as being a person of good family and estate, and by Winthrop as a very proper and fair woman, but, as he deprecatingiy adds, having a " very proud spirit." In her, therefore, we have the portrait of a comely woman of fine presence, high spirit, a fair share of education, and possessing, moreover, a soul endowed with the purpose of an evangelist or, at need, a martyr. Both Mrs. Dyer and her husband became early converts to the pecu- liar doctrines held by that priestess of common-sense, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, to whose untoward fortunes they continued steadfost. Tliere was, in fact, a bond of sympathy between tliese two women. When Mrs. Hutchinson was excommuni- cated, young Mrs. Dyer walked out of the church with her in presence of the whole congregation. When she was banished, Mrs. Dyer followed her to Rhode Island. This was in 1637. During the excitement produced by the rapid spread of Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions, and by her subsequent arrest and trial on the charge of heresy, Mrs. Dyer gave premature birth, it was said, to a monster, which Winthrop describes with nauseating minute- ness. Losing sight of Mrs. Dyer for nearly twenty years, we suppose her life to have been an uneventful one, — perhaps one of unconscious preparation and of spiritual growth for the work she was to do and the suffering she was destined to undergo. When we next see her, the comely young wife has become a middle-aged matron, who is blindly obeying the command of des- tiny. She now presents herself in the garb of a Quakeress, and in company with professing Quakers, to the people of Boston, any one of whom, by harboring her even for a single night, or offering her a crust of bread, became a breaker of the law, and was liable to a heavy penalty for so doing. She was imme- diately taken up and thrust into the common jail, where she 40 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. remained in confinement until her husband, being apprised of her arrest, hastened to her relief. His urgent prayer for his wife's release was only granted upon his giving bonds in a large sum to take her away out of the Colony, and even then the authorities further stipulated that she should be permitted to speak with no one during the journey. Upon these conditions she was conducted under guard beyond the settlements. In September, 1659, in company with "William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Nicholas Davis, Mary again, and this time with full knowledge of the peril of the act, visited Boston for the purpose of testifying against the iniquitous laws in force there, or, as they declared it themselves, " to look the bloody laws in the face," and to meet the oppressors of her people, as it were, in their own stronghold. Short was the time allowed them. The whole four were quickly made prisoners, and were brought before the Court, which passed sentence of banishment, to which the certain penalty of death now attached, should they return again. They were then released, and ordered to depart out of the Colony. Not obeying this mandate, Eobinson and Stevenson were soon again apprehended, and were again consigned to prison, where they were used like condemned felons, being chained to the floor of their dungeon. Within a month Mary also became, for the second time, an inmate of the same prison, having been recognized and taken while standing in front of it. By thus setting the law at defiance, the trio were regarded as rushing upon a fool's fate. With Mary came Hope Clifton, also of Ehode Island. The declared purpose of the women was to visit and minister to the Friends then lying in prison. The settled purpose of the pris- oners to defy the law being known to their friends, and no mercy being expected for them, several of these came to Boston in order to assist in the last act of the tragedy. One even brought linen for the sufferers' shrouds. All this imparts a highly dramatic character to the acts of the resolute martyrs. The three prisoners who had thus forfeited their lives to the law were, on the 20th of October, brought before the Court of MARY DYER. 41 M.aLjistrates. The incorruptible but implacable Endicott pre- sided. The men keeping their liats on, Endicott ordered the officer to pull them off. He then addressed the prisoners in the language of stern remonstrance and reproof. He told them tha't neither he nor the other magistrates then present desired their death, but that the laws must be enforced. All three were con- demned to be hanged. Mrs. Dyer heard her doom pronounced with serene composure, simply saying, — " The Lord's will be done ! " "Take her aAvay, marshal," commanded Endicott, im])a- tiently. " I joyfully return to my prison," she rejoined. On her w^ay back to prison, filled with the exaltation of the Spirit, she said to the marshal, or high-sheriff, who was conduct- ing her, " Indeed, you might let me alone, for I would go to the prison without you." " I believe you, Mrs. Dyer," the officer replied ; " but my orders are to take you there, and I must do as I am com- manded." During the interval of a week occurring between the sen- tence and the day fixed for its execution, Mrs. Dyer wrote an " Appeal to the General Court," in which she compares herself with Queen Esther, and her mission with that of the queen to Ahasuerus. It is pervaded throughout by a simple and touching dignity. There is not one craven word in it, or one entreating pardon or expressing a doubt of the righteousness of her own acts. Calmly she rehearses the history of her case, and then concludes her appeal, " in love and the spirit of meek- ness," to the justice and magnanimity of the Court which was able to set her free. But if it was heeded, her prayer was unanswered. The renewed and earnest intercession of Mrs. Dyer's husband and son were alike ineifectual ; the magistrates remained unmoved. But it is said that the son, in the hope of yet saving her, passed the last night in his mother's cell, beseeching her to abjure, or at least so far to retract her mis- 42 XEW-E^y"GLAXD LEGENDS. taken opinions as to give some chance for hope that the judges might yet relent, and so commute her sentence of death to ban- ishment. History has kindly drawn the veil over this scene. All we know is that the mother preferred death to dishonor. Xor wei-e other ef- ■^■■■■■^^ forts wanting to save the condemned prison- ers. Suitoi"s who Avere able to make them- selves heard in the council-chamber and in tlie Governor's closet earnestly labored to prevent the consumma- tion of the crime. On Thursday, the 27th of October, in the morning, according to an ancient custom, the drummers of the trained bauds beat their drums up and down the streets, to notify the soldiers to get under arms. This being the time-honored lecture- day, which was also the one usually appointed for holding pub- lic executions, as soon as the public worship was over, the drums were again heard, the trained bands assembled and formed in order, and were then marched to the prison, where they halted. Then the high-sherilf, exhibiting his warrant, called for the bodies of the prisoners by name, their irons were knocked oif by the jailer, and, after tenderly embracing each other, they were led forth to take their places in the ranks of the guani, Mary being placed between the two men Avho were to suffer with her. A great multitude had assembled to witness these solemn pro- HAXD R£ZL. MAKY DYER. 43 ceediugs. The procession then moved, the prisoners on foot, the people pressing closely around theui, in order not to lose a word of what they might say ; but whenever the condemned attempted to speak, as now and then they did, the drummers were ordered to heat their drums, and so drowned the voices in the uproar. One sees here, as always, that every tyranny is afraid of its victims. Hemmed in by armed men, and sur- rounded by a surging and excited throng, the prisoners walked hand in hand all the way to the scaffold, supporting and com- forting each oth-er in this most trying moment with a sublime fortitude. The brutal marshal, seeing this, said sneeringly to Mary : " Are you not ashamed, you, to walk thus hand in hand between two young men 1 " Unmoved by the taunt, she replied : " No ; this is to me an hour of the greatest joy I could have in this world." The cortege having at length reached the place of execution, it having marched by a roundabout Avay, — -for fear, it is said, that a rescue might be attempted, — Mary and her fellow sufferers bid each other a last farewell. Eobinson first ascended the fatal ladder. While uttering his dying words, predicting a visitation of divine wrath to come upon his slayers, a harsh voice in the crowd cried out : " Hold thy tongue ! Thou art going to die with a lie in thy mouth ! " Stevenson's last words Avere these : " Be it known unto all, this day, that Ave suffer not as evil-doers, but for conscience' sake." It was now Mary's turn. Her two dear friends were hanging dead before her eyes. Fearlessly she mounted the fatal ladder, and fearlessly she submitted herself to the hangman's hands. She was then pinioned, blindfolded, and the fatal noose placed about her neck. All being then ready, the crowd awaited the last act in breathless suspense, when in the distance a voice was heard crying out, " Stop ! She is reprieved ! " The agitation of the spectators is something that we can only faintly conceive. But Mary, it is said, remained calm and unmoved through it all. " Her feet being loosed," says Sewel, 44 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. '• they bade lier come down. But she, whose mind was ah-eady as it were in heaven, stood still, and said she Avas there willing to suffer as her brethren did, unless they would annul their wicked law." She was then taken down from the scaffold and re-conducted to prison, where her son, who was anxiously await- ing her return, embraced her as one risen from the dead. Only then she learned that to his importunity with the magistrates she owed her deliverance from the fate of her brethren. The son had saved l)is mother. The death-sentence had been com- muted to banishment ; but Mary now received a solemn warning to the effect that the extreme penalty would surely be exacted should she again offend against the majesty of the law. She Avas then conducted under guard to the Colony frontier, whence she pursued her way home to Rhode Island. But the old impulse reviving in her in full force, in defiance of the warning thrice repeated, Mary again sought to obtain the crown of martyrdom to which she was foreordained. Burning with fanatical zeal, regardless, too, of the conditions which had procured the remission of her sentence, she deliberately violated the law again. In May, 1660, the unfortunate woman had so little regard for her personal safety as again to come to " the bloody town of Boston." She was soon summoned before the General Court. Swift was the judgment, swift the execution. Endicott, indeed, — respect to his manhood for it ! — offered her a chance of escape ; but her soul was too lofty, her purpose too strongly fixed, to avail herself of a subterfuge to save her life. Endicott conducted her examination. He was as hard as iron, she gentle but undaunted. " Are you the same Mary Dyer that was here before 1 " he began. " I am the same Mary Dyer that was here at the last General Court," she replied. " Then you own yourself a Quaker, do you not 1 " said the Governor. " I own myself to be reproachfully called so." Then the jailer spoke up and said that Mary was a vaga- bond. MARY DYEK. 45 " I must then repeat the seuteuce once before pronounced upon you," said Endicott. Mary quietly rejoined : " That is no more tlian what thou saidst before." " True," said Endicott sternly, " but now it is to be executed ; therefore prepare yourself for nine o'clock to-morrow." Mary then began to speak of her call, when the Governor burst out with, — " Away with her ! away with her ! " In great anguish of mind, he being wholly ignorant that slie meditated this fatal step, her husband wrote to the General Court of Massachusetts, once more imploring its clemency. His entreaties would have moved a stone to pity. But it was now too late. On the hrst day of June tlie solemn ceremonies of the previous October were repeated. The scaffold was erected on Boston Common, a broad area of unoccupied land adjoining the town, then used by the inhabitants in commonage, and on muster-days as a training-field, as well as for the place of public execution. At the appointed hour the marshal came for her, and enter- ing without ceremony the cell where she was, he roughly bade her make haste. Mary, speaking to him mildly, asked a few moments' delay, saying that she would be ready presently. But he rudely and unfeelingly retorted that it was her place to wait upon him, and not his upon her. Then one of the female pris- oners, with the instinct of her sex, ventured to expostulate with this brutal functionary, when he turned upon her fiercely, and with threats and abuse silenced her. In fact, the Quakeresses were treated like vagaboiids and outcasts. The authorities having reason to fear a popular tumult, the prisoner was taken strongly guarded over a circuitous route to the fatal spot, and again her voice was silenced by the rattle of drums before and behind her. AVith the birds innocently twit- tering above her liead, once more Mary ascended the scalfold with a firm step. Pity was not wholly extinct. Some of the people present made a last effort to save her, but Mary would 46 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. not agree to leave the country. To the hope some expressed that her life would be again spared, the officer commanding the armed escort roughly retorted that she was guilty of her own blood. " Nay," she replied, " I came to keep bloodguiltiness from you, desiring you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law made against the innocent servants of the Lord." Mr. Wilson, minister of Boston, attended her on the scaffold in her last moments, not to offer consolation, but to exhort her to recant. " Mary Dyer," he exclaimed, "oh, repent! oh, repent! Be not so deluded and carried away by the deceits of the Devil ! " She answered him in terms of mild reproof: "N"ay, man, I am not now to repent." A colloquy by which her last moments were embittered was kept up on the scaffold. She Avas reproached for saying that she had been in paradise. She reiterated it. " Yes," said tliis undaunted woman, " I have been in paradise several days." The executioner then performed his office. THE KING'S MISSIVE. 1661. " Charles R. " Trusty and Wellbelpved, we greet you well. Having been informed that several of our Subjects among you, called Quakers, have been and are imprisoned by you, whereof some have been exe- cuted, and others (as hath been represented unto us) are in Danger to undergo the Like : We have thought fit to signify our Pleasure in that Behalf for the future, and do require, that if there be any of those people called Quakers amongst you, now already condemned to suffer Death, or other Corporal Punishment, or that are imprisoned, or obnoxious to the like Condemnation, you are to forbear to proceed any farther, but that you foithwith send the said Persons (whether THE king's missive. 47 condemned or imprisoned) over to this our Kingdom of England, together with their respective Crimes or Offences laid to their Charge, to the End such Course may be taken with them here, as shall be agreeable to our Laws and their Demerits. And for so doing, these our Letters shall be your sufficient Warrant and Discharge. Given at our Court at Whitehall, the 9th day of September, 1661, in the thirteenth Year of our Reign. " Subscribed, To our Trusty and Wellbeloved John Endicot, Esq. ; and to all and every other the Governoiu- or Governours of our Plan- tation of New-England, and of the Colonies thereunto belonging, that now are, or hereafter shall be : And to all and every the Ministers and Officers of our said Plantation and Colonies whatever, within the Continent of New-England. " By His Majesty's Command. "WiL. Morris." THIS was no common letter wJiich iu ^S'ovember, 1661, fell like a bombshell into the wicked town of Boston. It was certainly an alarming manifesto. It brought a proud and sen- sitive people, wlio had ceased to pay respect to loyalt}^ and had almost forgotten its forms, once more rudely to their knees. And they were a stern race, fearing God more than they lionored the King. But they felt the shock that had just overthrown the Puritan Commonwealth; and the voice which rose from among its ruins, commanding them to obey, sounded at the moment in their ears very much like the voice of God. Continued encroachment upon the prerogative of the throne had doubtless much to do wath ordering their destiny, — possi- bly as much as had the cruelties practised toward the offending Quakers, to whose prayers for redress the Parliament had paid little attention ; but witli the return of the old monarchy, its likings and its hatreds, the politic Friends had hopes tliat the easy-going Charles would lend a more gracious ear to them in the hour of his great triumph over the Puritan cause ; nor would he be found unwilling to lower the pride of those haughty Puritan subjects of liis on the other side of the Atlantic who w^ere endeavoring to carry on a little commonwealth of 48 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. their own. The moment was indeed opportune. Floating in adulation, Charle.s the king was well disposed to clemency toward all except those who had kept him for twelve years Charles the exile. The Quakers were on their part strongly roused to make renewed effort, too, by the news they received of the execution of William Leddra at Boston. Then Edward Burroughs, a leading Friend, and a man of action, entreated and obtained an audience of the King. ENDICOTT RECEIVING TUE KINO S OllDEIl. When he was ushered into the presence-chamber his first words were, — " Sire, there is a vein of innocent blood opened in your Majesty's dominions which, if not stopped, may overrun all." " I will stop that vein," said the King, shortly. Burroughs then laid before the King a detailed account of what had been done in IS'ew England. After he had listened to the catalogue of scourgings, brandings, cropped ears, banish- ments upon pain of death, and lastly of the execution of four THE king's missive. 49 persons of tliis sect for presuming to return to the Colony when forbidden to do so, the suitor, turning accuser, then presented the King with the proofs that the j^yew England autliorities had refused to allow the Quakers an appeal to England when they had demanded it. His Majesty is reported to have taken great notice of this particular item of the indictment, calling out to the lords who were with him to hear it, and then exclaiming ironically, — " Lo ' these are my good subjects of Xew England." He then inquired when a ship would be ready to sail for New England, and upon being informed, dismissed Burroughs, with the promise that he should presently hear from him through the Lord Chancellor. This promise Charles punctually kept. The mandatory letter which precedes our account was duly prepared, and then — bitterest pill of all for the disloyal colonists to swal- low ! — whom should the King's minister select to be the bearer of it, but Samuel Shattuck, an exiled Quaker, and one who had given the New England magistrates no end of trouble, he being finally banished by them from the Colony upon pain of death. It will thus be seen that nothing had been omitted that could render the humiliation complete. The London Friends, immediately this was done, chartered a vessel, of which Ealpli Goldsmith, another Quaker, was cap- tain, to carry the King's order and his messenger to Boston. In six weeks the ship arrived at her destination. It being the Sabbath, all the company remained quietly on board. Seeing a vessel, with an English ensign at her peak, cast anchor in their road, some of the selectmen of the town hastened on board to learn the news, little dreaming it, however, to be of so much personal interest to themselves. They eagerly asked the captain if he had brought any letters ; for, as may be imag- ined, intelligence of the events then taking place in England was awaited with the utmost anxiety and impatience. The master replied that he had, but he would not deliver them on that day ; and so his visitors got into their boat and went on shore again as wise as they came. But in the meantime some of them 4 50 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. having recognized Shattuck and others on board as being Quakers, they spread the report that " Shattuck and the devil and all had come back again." The next morning, armed with the King's mandate, Shattuck came on shore accompanied by Goldsmith, the master, and they two, after sending their boat back to the ship, went directly through the town to Governor Endicott's house, passing in their LIBERTY TKEE, PLANTED 1646. BUILDING ERECTED 1666. way the market-place where so many of their friends had been mercilessly whipped, and the jail in which many were still con- fined. A few steps more would bring them face to face with their worst enemy. They knew that they were bearding the lion when they knocked at Governor Endicott's door. The servant who opened it asked what was their business with his master. They bid him say that, being charged with THE king's missive. 51 the commands of his Majesty the King, they should deliver their message into none but the Governor's own hands. They were then admitted without further questioning, and presently the redoubted Governor came in to them ; but upon perceiving that Shattuck kept his hat on, he commanded it to be taken off, which was done. Then having received the deputation and the papers, the Governor formally acknowledged its official char- acter by removing his own hat, and ordering that of Shattuck to be given to him again. Yet the man who now stood before him enjoying his moral degradation while protected by an in- violable safeguard, was the same one whom he had formerly sentenced to stripes and banishment. The draught was a bitter one, but Endicott bore himself with dignity. After this by- play indicating the homage due to royalty and its representative, the Governor read the letter, and bidding Shattuck and Gold- smith to follow him, then Avent to the Deputy-Governor's house, which stood near his own, and laid the papers before Belling- luim. Having held some conference with the Deputy, the nature of which may easily be imagined from the sequel, the Governor turned to the messengers and said briefly and with dignity, — "We shall obey his Majesty's command." After this interview was ended, Goldsmith gave liberty to all his passengers to come on shore, which they did, and afterward publicly held a religious meeting with those of their faith in the town, " returning thanks to God for his mercy manifested in this most Avonderful deliverance." All such assemblies as this having been unlawful, this act announced the King's active intervention in their affairs to the people. An order soon after issued, releas- ing all Quakers then in custody. The scene between Endicott and Bellingham is imagined by Mr. Longfellow in his "Kew England Tragedies." He there endeavors to depict the characters of the chief actors, and to show the spirit of these extraordinary times. In this par- ticular field he has therefore preceded Mr. Whittier, whose "King's Missive," prepared for the "Memorial History of Bos- 52 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. ton," deals exclusively with the events surrounding the order of Charles II. The two pieces otfer, however, a striking contrast in method as well as in style, one being a consecutive and homo- geneous narrative, while the other is made up of separated inci- dents, selected here and there for their dramatic quality rather than their coherence or historical sequence. Eoth, however, have the same purpose — eternally to set the seal of condem- nation on a great wrong by exhibiting the Quakers in the light of martyrs. To this end Mr. Longfellow takes for his heroine a young girl, Edith Christison by name, who is brutally scourged from town to town, is then released, and driven forth into the wilderness. Such was the law, and such things actually occurred. Singularly enough, this is also the motive of Mr. Whittier's " Cassandra Southwick." In both cases the youth, beauty, constancy, and heroism of the sufferers strongly appeal to our sympathies, and are supposed deeply to move the actual spectators. But with a deeper insight into the human heart Mr. Longfellow makes the son of Governor Endicott himself fall in love with Edith, whose martyrdom he has witnessed, thus bringing straight home to the stern father the consequences of his own evil acts. The King's imperious mandate wounds his pride ; his son's conduct strikes at the heart, and this wound is mortal. Thus it is no less strange than true that, under favor of one of the -most profligate and irreligious of monarchs, the beneficent era of religious toleration began its unpromising dawning in New England. It is to be noted that whenever tliey can do so, Mr. Long- fellow's characters speak in the actual language of history. Indeed, the tragedy is not a creation, like " Ernani," but a frag- ment of sober history, taken from existing records, into which a poetic feeling is infused, and whose episodical parts afford occasional glimpses of the author's genius shming like pure gold in the rou«rh metal. THE king's missive. 53 {From Longfelloiv' s '^ Neio England Tragedies.''^) Scene III. The Governor's Private Room. Papers upon the table. Endicott and Bellingham. ENDICOTT. Thus the old tyranny revives again ! Its arm is long enough to reach us here, As you will see. For, more insulting still Than flaunting in our faces dead men's shrouds, Here is the King's Mandamus, taking from i;s. From this day forth, all power to punish Quakers. BELLINGHAM. That takes from us all power ; we are but puppets, And can no lon£;er execute our laws. Opens the Mandamus and hands it to Bellingham ; and while he is reading, Endicott walks up and doicn the room. Here, read it for yourself ; you see his words Are pleasant words — considerate — not reproachful — Nothing could be more gentle — or more royal ; But then the meaning underneath the words, Mark that. He says all people known as Quakers Among us, now condemned to suffer death Or any corporal punishment whatever. Who are imprisoned, or may be obnoxious To the like condemnation, shall be sent Forthwith to England, to be dealt with there In such wise as shall be agreeable Unto the English law and their demerits. Is it not so ? BELLINGHAM {returning the paper). Ay, so the paper says. I 54 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. ENDICOTT. I tell you, Richard Belliugliam, — I tell you, That this is the beguining of a struggle Of which no mortal can foresee the end. I shall not live to fight the battle for you, I am a man disgraced in every way ; This order takes from me my self-respect And the resj^ect of others. 'T is my doom, Yes, my death-warrant, — but must be obeyed ! Take it, and see that it is executed So far as this, that aU be set at large : But see that none of them be sent to England To bear false witness, and to spread reports That might be prejudicial to ourselves. [Exit Bellingham. There 's a dull pain keeps knocking at my heart, Dolefully saying, " Set thy house in order, For thou shalt surely die, and shalt not live ! " For me the shadow on the dial-plate Goeth not back, but on into the dark ! [Exit. Mr. Wliittier's poem presents the events we have recorded in a harmonious and remarkably picturesque narrative. He is conscientiously faithful both to the spirit and letter of the subject itself, while to the implacable spirit of persecution, personified here by Endicott, he is a generous and impartial judge. We write it, nevertheless, as a fact, that the poem caused much discussion on its first appearance, — a discussion fully vindicating the Quaker poet's adherence to the truth of history. But the prose and poetic versions are now before the reader for his decision. THE KING'S MISSIVE. Under the great hill sloping bare To cove and meadow and Common lot, In his council chamber and oaken chair Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott, — THE king's missive. 55 A grave, strong man, wlio knew no peer In the pilgrim land where he ruled in fear Of God, not man, and for good or ill Held his trust with an iron will. He had shorn with his sword the cross from out The flag, and cloven the May-pole down, Harried the heathen round about, And whipped the Quakers from town to town. Earnest and honest, a man at need To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed, He kept with the flaming Lrand of his zeal The gate of the holy commonweal. The door swung open, and Rawsou the Clerk Entered and whispered underbreath : " There waits below for the hangman's work A fellow banished on pain of death, — Shattuck of Salem, unhealed of the whip, Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship. At anchor here in a Christian port With freight of the Devil and all his sort ! " Twice and thrice on his chamber floor Striding fiercely from wall to wall, " The Lord do so to me and more," The Governor cried, " if I hang not at all ! Bring hither the Quaker." Calm, sedate, With the look of a man at ease with fate, Into that presence grim and dread Came Samuel Shattuck with hat on head. " Oft' with the knave's hat ! " An angry hand Smote down the offence ; but the wearer said. With a quiet smile : " By the King's command I bear his message and stand in his stead." In the Governor's hand a missive he laid With the Royal arms on its seal displayed. And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat, Uncoverin", " Give Mr. Shattuck his hat." 56 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. He turned to the Quaker, bowing low : " The King commandeth your friends' release. Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase. What he here enjoineth John Endicott His loyal servant questioneth not. You are free ! — God grant the spirit you own May take you from us to parts unknown." THE QUAKER PROPHETESS. 1677. THE Old South Church in Boston — not the present build- ing, but the one first erected upon the same spot — was the scene of an event without a parallel in the annals of our Puritan churches, in some of which, nevertheless, remarkable scenes had occurred. To the simple and austere Quaker manners, outdoing even Puritan ideas of moral and physical self-restraint, now and then comes the unexpected contrast of theatrical climax in its most bizarre forms. So the early history of the Friends in New England shows the dominant principle of passive opposition to persecution occasionally giving way, all at once, to an aggressive spirit that impelled the actors on through thorny ways toward the goal for which they strove 'and struggled. If, now and then, one half crazed by sufiering was betrayed into some act of folly, it is surely not a matter for astonishment or exultation. Their annals present the names of no informers and no apostates. Obeying the command of a hallucination to which she bowed as if it were a divine behest, the Quakeress Deborah Wilson had walked naked through the streets of Salem " as a sign of spiritual nakedness in town and country," and for so doing she was most uncharitably whipped with thirty stripes. Again, Lydia Wardwell, who is called " a young and tender chaste THE QUAKER PROPHETESS. 57 person," for startling the congregation of JSTewbury by walking into the meeting-house there, unclothed, in the time of public worship, was tied up to the fence-post of the tavern where the court sat, at Ipswich, to undergo a similar punishment. But the case of Margaret Brewster differs from these others in that a number of persons took part in carrying out what it was expected would strike terror to the hearts of the beholders, and to this end it was conducted with studied attention to dramatic effect. One quiet Sabbath morning in July, 1677, accompanied by several of the most noted persons of her sect, both male and female, Margaret Brewster presented herself at the door of the Old South Meeting-house in sermon-time, the strangest visitor that had ever crossed its consecrated threshold. She first took off her riding-habit and her shoes and stockings, and then entered. In his Diary, which perhaps may become as famous as that of the immortal Pepys, Judge Sewall notes that while the congregation was listening to the words of the sermon from the aged pastor's lips, there suddenly was seen the apparition of a woman walking slowly up the broad aisle between two men, while two others walked behind. The woman was bare- footed, her head was sprinkled with ashes, her loosened hair straggled wildly down about her neck and shoulders, her face was besmeared with soot, and she wore a sackcloth gown loosely gathered around her person. This appearance, says the indig- nant diarist, "occasioned the greatest and most amazing uproar that ever I saw." No one has told us, but we can imagine the congregation rising in consternation to their feet, the sudden stop in the sermon, the moment of silence, like the calm before the storm, during which the dark prophetess delivered her solemn warning of a grievous calamity shortly to signify to them the displeasure of God. Then the excited voices of the men, all talking and gesticulating at once, the women shrieking in terror or dropping in a dead faint, the surging to and fro of a multitude, all occa- sioning " the greatest and most amazing uproar " that was ever 58 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. heard inside these sacred walls, witnessed to the little central group that they had indeed created a profound sensation. The oifenders were all quickly taken into custody and hurried off to prison. When Margaret was arraigned before the court, the constable declared himself wholly unable to identify her as the _,^g^J^ ^i^^-^;^ ANCIENT HOUSES, NORTH END. person he had arrested, she being then, as he deposed, " in the shape of a devil." She was sentenced to be Avhipped iip and down the town at the cart's tail, which cruel order was carried into effect a few days later. This event, as well it might, newly brought the affairs of the Friends to a crisis. The first feeling of exasperation demanded its victims. But this having spent itself, the Quakers, taking courage, assembled in their houses of worship in such formidable numbers that the multitude of offenders became their safe- guard. IN THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH. 59 m THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH. J. G. WHITTIER. She came and stood in tlie Old South Church, A wonder and a sign, With a look the old-time sibyls wore Half crazed and half divine. Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound, Unclothed as the primal mother, With limbs that trembled, and eyes that blazed With a fire she dare not smother. Loose on her shoulder fell her hair, With sprinkled ashes gray ; She stood in the broad aisle, strange and weird As a soul at the judgment-day. And the minister paused in his sermon's midst, And the people held their breath, For these were the words the maiden said Through lips as pale as death : — " Thus saith the Lord : ' With equal feet All men my courts shall tread, And priest and ruler no more shall eat My people up like bread! ' " Eepent ! repent ! ere the Lord shall speak In thunder and breaking seals ! Let all souls worship him in the way His light within reveals ! " She shook the dust from her naked feet. And her sackcloth closely drew. And into the porch of the awe-hushed church She passed like a ghost from view. 60 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. "MORE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD." 1693. TO one who is not familiar with all the phases which the history of witchcraft in New England takes, Mr. Whit- tier's poem entitled " Calef in Boston " would doubtless be an enigma, although its foundation is fact and its purpose distinct. For such a champion of common-sense as Robert Calef proved himself to be when he entered the lists against this monstrous superstition, the poet has a natural and unstinted sympathy, and, using the privilege of genius, he has conferred upon the humble tradesman a patent of nobihty. Our own generation, applaud- ing the act, hastens to inscribe the name of Calef among the benefactors of his age. The general subject of witchcraft, including the settled be- liefs touching it, is set forth in another place in all its defor- mity. The active agency of Satan in human affairs being a thing admitted, it became the bounden duty of the godly minis- ters to meet his insidious attacks upon the churches, and they, as men deeplj'' learned in such things, were naturally appealed to by magistrates and judges for help and guidance. They at once put on all the armor of righteousness. Solemn fasting and prayer were resorted to as things most efficacious in the emer- gency. It was declared from the pulpit that the Devil was mak- ing a most determined effort to root out the Christian religion in New England, and the Government was advised vigorously to prosecute the cases of witchcraft before it. In all the subse- quent proceedings the ministers took a prominent part. They assisted in framing the questions to be put in such a way as to entrap the supposed witches, and they attended and took minutes of the examinations. They visited the accused persons "MOEE WONDEKS OF THE INVISIBLE WOELD." 61 in prison who were believed to be in league with Satan, thus putting in practice the principle that, — The godly may allege For anything their privilege, And to the Devil himself may go, If they have motives thereunto ; For as there is a war between The Dev '1 and them, it is no sin If they, by subtle stratagem. Make use of him as he does them. Cotton Mather was the foremost clergyman of that dark day. He directed all his great abilities and learning energetically to exterminate the "devils" who, as he tells us in his "Wonders," were walking about the streets " with lengthened chains, making a dreadful noise ; and brimstone (even without a metaphor) was making a horrid and hellish stench" in men's nostrils. Learned, eloquent, and persuasive, a man of great personal magnetism and large following, his influence was sure to be potential on which- ever side it might be cast. It was now thrown with all its force, not to avert, but to strengthen, the delusion, thereby aggra- vating its calamitous consequences. Some writers, indeed, have found it easy to doubt his sincerity. Mr. Whittier, it will be .seen, writes in full accord with this feeling. But the same charge might with equal fairness include all the Christian ministers of Mather's time. Against Mather, the neighbor, adviser, and bosom friend of Governor Sir William Phips, the acknowledged head of the l^ew England clergy in its highest spiritual estate, a man having ancient and modern lore at his tongue's end, and withal gifted with a fluency, vivacity, and readiness in composing and writing that might make a bolder man hesitate to attack him, now entered the lists, like another David, Robert Calef, a simple clothier, unknown outside of his own obscure neighborhood. The controversy began in this wise. Calef addressed some let- ters to Dr. Mather, in which he arraigned not only the witchcraft proceedings, but the delusion itself, the occasion being one Mar- 62 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS, garet Eule, a young woman of Mather's own congregation, whose singular afflictions had just been published to the world by him under the startling caption of " Another Brand pluckt from the Burning." According to Mather, this young woman was haunted by no fewer than eight malignant spectres, led on by a principal demon, who upon her refusal to enter into a bond with him, continually put her in excruciating bodily torture by pinching, scorching, and sticking pins into her flesh, throwing her into convulsions, lifting her bodily off the bed, and the like, wherein, CANDLESTICK, BIBLE, AND SPECTACLES. says Mather, she languished " for just six weeks together." And we are also told that at times the spectators of her miseries would be nearly choked with the fumes of brimstone rising in the chamber. Taking the alarm, which many no doubt equally shared, dread- ing a new outbreak of the delusion whose embers, unquenched by blood, were still smouldering, Calef also seems to have dis- trusted either the integrity or the wisdom of his learned adver- sary, whom he now opposed in behalf of religion and of public policy, not only with ability and vigor, but with a surprisingly well-equipped arsenal of scriptural learning. In vain Mather sneeringly spoke of him as '' the weaver turned minister," Calef "MORE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD." 63 only plied him the more pointedly. At the end of the con- troversy the despised clothier turned out to be one of those men whose reason is never overthrown by panic, and who do not recede a single inch. Mather began with the mistake of under- rating him as an antagonist. After Mather's story of Margaret Eule had been made public, Calef also drew up and circulated one, taken from the mouths of other eye-witnesses, which is a protest against the methods used by Mather to draw out extravagant and iiicoherent statements from the afflicted girl. This proceeding gave great offence to the reverend author of " The Wonders." He retorted with abu- sive epithets, and threatened Calef with an action for slander. Calef was, in fact, arrested on a Avarrant for uttering " scandalous libels," and was bound over for trial ; but no prosecutor appear- ing, the case was dismissed. Instead of being silenced, Calef pursued with unremitting pertinacity his purpose to prevent a new access of the dismal frenzy of the preceding year, which he terms, with strong feel- ing, " the sorest affliction and greatest blemish to religion that ever befell this country." Later on Mather condescended to reply ; but it is evident that the reaction had now set in, and that those who had been the most forward in abetting the witch- craft proceedings were anxiously considering how best to excul- pate themselves both to their own and to the newly awakened public conscience. Mather was no exception. Favored by this reaction, Calef continued to press him hard. Cotton Mather's story of Margaret Rulfe is, in fact, a plea and an apology for the past. In it he asks, " Why, after all my unwearied cares and pains to rescue the miserable from the lions and bears of hell, which had seized them, and after all my studies to disappoint the devils in their designs to confound my neighborhood, must I be driven to the necessity of an apology 1 " This language shows how hard a thing it was for him to be forced to descend from his high pedestal. And again he naively says : " And now I suppose that some of our learned witlings of the coffee-house, for fear lest these proofs 64 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. of an Invisible World should spoil some of their sport, will endeavor to turn them all into sport ; for wliich buflbonery their only pretence will be : ' They can't understand how such things as these could be done.' " He has become exquisitely sensitive to ridicule. But witchcraft had now indeed got to the length of its blood- corroded chain, and while the belief still prevailed almost as strongly as ever, few men could be found bold enough openly to advocate it. The sickening reflection that the judges had decreed the death of a score of innocent persons upon a mis- take paralyzed men's tongues, unless, like Calef, they spoke in obedience to the command of conscience. In 1700 lie collected and had printed in London all tlie pieces relating to his controversy with Cotton Mather, to which were added an " Impartial Account " of the Salem outbreak, and a review of Mather's life of Sir Wil- liam Pliips. To this he gave the title of " j\Iore Wonders of the Invisible World." Iso prin- ter could be found in Boston or in the Colony willing to undertake the publication, or expose it for sale. It "was publicly burned in the College- yard at Cambridge by order of the president, whom its exposures reached througli his near rel- ative. To break its force, a vindication was prepared and printed ; but there were no more denunciations made for witch- craft, or courts assembled to hang innocent people. Calef in- deed felt the resentment of the Matliers, but he had saved the cause. This is the subject to which Mr. AYhittier addresses his verses entitled " Calef in Boston." The allusion to puppet-play is drawn from the account of the Eule case, wherein it is related by Mather that the demons svho tormented the girl had puppets into which they would thrust pins whenever they wished to TOMB OF THE MATHEKS, COPP'S HILL. CALEF IN BOSTON. 65 hurt her. This was a piece of olden superstition which as- sumed that by making an image in Avax or clay of the person she might hold a grudge against, a witch could put that person to the same torture that she did, in a mimic way, the image. CALEF IN BOSTON. J. G. WHITTIBR. In the solemn days of old Two men met in Boston town, One a tradesman frank and bold, One a preacher of renown. Cried the last, in bitter tone : " Poisoner of the wells of truth ! Satan's hireling, thou hast sown With his tares the heart of youth ! " Spake the simple tradesman then ; " God be j udge 'twixt thou and I ; All thou knowest of truth bath been Unto men like thee a lie. " Of your spectral puppet play I have traced the cunning wires ; Come what will, I needs must say, God is true, and ye are liars." When the thought of man is free, Error fears its lightest tones ; So the priest cried, " Sadducee ! " And the people took up stones. In the ancient burying-ground, Side by side, the twain now lie, — One wdth humble grassy mound, One with marbles pale and high. 5 66 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. NIX'S MATE. THERE are two local legends, one of disaster and one of piracy, which, most unfortunately for the completeness of our collection, come either in whole or in part under the head of lost legends. The first is the account of the drowning of Captain George Worthylake, the keeper of the first lighthouse that was erected at the entrance to Boston Harbor. This sufficiently simple incident derives its chief interest from the curious fact that it Avas the subject xTn.''c Ti^Arri. of Franklin's earliest, and if we- are to believe him, misdirected, effort to court the Muses in a ballad. He says of it that his brother James, whose apprentice he then was, thinking that he might find his account in printing them, had encouraged him to write two ballads, one called the " Lighthouse Tragedy," containing an account of the loss of Captain Worthylake and his two daughters, the other a sailor's song on the capture of the noted pirate, Blackbeard. " They were," he ingenuously remarks, " wretched verses in point of style, mere blind-men'& ditties." When they were struck off, his brother despatched him to hawk them about the town. The first he assures us- had a prodigious run, because the event was recent and had made a great noise. ISTo copy of this ballad is known to exist, nor has tradition transmitted to us a single line of its verses. It is easily learned from contemporary records that Captain George Worthylake, who lived upon Lovell's Island, while on his way up the harbor, " took heaven by the way," as one writer piously puts it. His wife Ann and his daughter Faith, who NIXS MATE. 67 accompanied him, also perished with him by drowning, and the three unfortunates were all buried in one grave in the ancient cemetery of Copp's Hill. The gravestone records the fact that they died November 3, 1718; but it is exasperatingly silent concerning any incident that was likely to produce a commemo- rative ballad. The other legend is the true story of the origin of the name long ago given to the submerged islet called Nix's Mate, over which a lonely obelisk rises out of the flowing tides, not for a memorial of dark and bloody deeds, as some people suppose, but as a guiding landmark to warn ships to steer clear of the dangerous reef beneath. No spot within a wide range of the coast is the subject of more eager curiosity to sailors or lands- men, or of more exaggerated conjecture, precisely because to this day its true history remains an enigma. But such as it is the legend is given for what it may be worth. Following the repulsive custom of erecting the public gibbet at the entrance to a town or a village, where the stark bodies of condemned malefactors were the first objects seen by all who passed in or out, it was usual to hang in chains condemned pirates at the entrance to a port, to signal a like warning to those who followed the sea as their highway. Long custom had sanctioned this iMst-mortem sentence. The laws allowed it and the people approved it. It followed that the stranger who passed underneath one of these ensigns of terror could have no doubt that he had entered a Christian land, since the administration of justice according to its most civilized forms confronted him upon its very threshold. The sunken reef now known as Nix's Mate was once an islet containing several acres of land, and it was at a very early day the property of a certain John Gallup, from whom the adjacent island is named. The sea has destroyed everj'^ vestige of it, excepting only the blackened boulders that lie exposed at low tide, over which the monument stands guard. Yet not more certainly has the islet perished through the action of destroying currents than has the memory of Nix or his Mate been swept 68 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. away into oblivion by the tides of time. Still the name is a fact entered upon the public records of the Colony as a thing of general knowledge ; and we therefore continue to call the reef Nix's Mate without in the least knowing why we do so. The only other fact giving authority to the tradition connected with the islet is the certainty that it was more or less used in times past as a place of execution for condemned pirates, several of whom finished here a career of crime, the bare recital of which makes one's blood run cold. The name of Nix only is wanted to complete the black calendar. Every trace of the soil to which the bones of the victims were consigned has disappeared, and only the solitary monument indicates this graveyard of the sea, which the waves have kindly levelled and blotted out forever. It has, however, been handed down from generation to gener- ation, — and we have yet to find the individual bold enough to dispute it, — that one of these freebooters persisted to the last in declaring his innocence of the crimes for which he was to sufi'er death at the hangman's hands ; and he protested with his latest breath, before giving up the ghost, that in proof of the truth of his dying assertion the island would be destroyed. In eifect, the Avaves having done their work unhindered by any artificial obstruction, the superstitious have always seen in this a decree of Fate, and Nix's Mate is supposed by them to have suffered unjustly. But knowing as we do that the disappear- ance of the island is due to natural causes, we are unable satis- factorily to establish the connection between the prediction and its fulfilment. In any case, the verification of innocence, if such it shall be accounted, came too late by a century to save Nix's Mate from the halter. THE DUEL ON THE COMMON. 69 THE DUEL ON THE COMMON. 1728. ASSOCIATED with the vicinity of the Great Elm, is an episode not only of deepest tragical interest, but one still further remarkable as disproving for the thousandth time the popular fallacy that " murder will out." In JSTew England there had been nc need of edicts against duelling. The practice was universally looked upon as being no whit better than murder, and that feeling was voiced by Franklin, truly, though in language more pungent than polite, in his memorable reply to a demand for satisfoction a la mode. A combat of words began. After two or three passes, the philosopher easily dis- armed his adversary with his usual weapon, hard logic, of which he was a consummate master. Our story is a brief one. On the morning of July 4, 1728, at daybreak, the body of Benjamin Woodbridge, a young merchant of the town, was found lying in a pool of blood in a deserted part of the Common. He had been dead some hours of a sword-thrust. In fact, the weapon had passed completely through the unfor- tunate young man. No one can begin to imagine the consternation excited by the discovery ; and the feeling was not allayed when it tran- spired that Woodbridge had fallen in a duel with another young gentleman of the town named Phillips. Both of the principals were of the highest respectability. The affair was conducted without seconds, and the victor, after seeing his adversary fall, had fled. It was evidently a duel to the death. This has proved one of the best-kept family secrets that ever bafiied a scandal-loving generation. To this day the real cause of the singular and fatal nocturnal combat remains shrouded in mystery. It is indeed alleged that the quarrel originated over a game of cards at the public-house; but this supposition is 70 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. hardly consistent with the secrecy, the absence of all witnesses, and the deadly purpose with which the duel was conducted. The parties had met early on the previous evening at the Royal Exchange, arranged the meeting, and immediately repaired to the rendezvous which one of them was destined never to leave alive. Positively nothing, then, is known of the origin of the affair. Still, it is evident that no common and vulgar quarrel over dice or cards, when one or both had made too free with " the Tus- can grape," could have so eternally sealed the lips of those to whom the real cause of this singular affair of honor must have been revealed. Phillips was hurried away on board a ship by / ^, - <= cuiiuimihl uII(MiIumi i>u lu'cotnil. ut' it.H ii|t|>iinMil m'oi\l ii,m' ; lull it i.'i .Miitiit»tliiii^ iiuin' lltiiii a Iroo. Silciil wiliiKMs III all I III' ;icoinvi Itial lia\i> Imon (Miafloil ln'io Hliu'o llio wliilo MUMi linil I'oi'cod tlipir \va\ lliiKii^h liio lliit'lvt>trt oovori\»|^ (lio ;tun'(>uiultu^ |>laiM, it in a.-i iimch an nl«|0(l \A' vi'ii oraliKii 111 (lio (Mli:'iiHM an il" il wpip nvillv aMo l,> iiuparl wlial rill' \\ VSUIMil'ON KIM, It luwl soon. May U-. .-.liailow uovor Ix' li-.-.s ' Il saw tlio inns toriu^" i»t" llu> raw rrv>\nhial li'\ los i'oillu' si'voii vivivs' inanli t*> Y<>rktown i U lias liooii I'lacki'iUHl l>v * aiinou siuoko, lia.s soon th«» ^liltonu}^ oi»\-lo of ramp fill's li^^liling tlio \o\\^ lino ot" an invoHtinji nruiy utouilily tightoninj,' ilsooils t»l>onl tlio lu'loaguoit'il oupitul, l»ut »tl»oi's, iuvosts it willi a vrauilrur iusoptimblo IVvMu Imii who was tlu^ nohU'st ICoiuan I't' lluiu all. TMIC WAHM/N'/ION KJ,M, I )'/ Tlx) inwif'ij/Uon (>l(i<;'r'( OfX III' lUK Ai^I'Mli ,\^ AUMY, ,niij\ H", nit,, •nil. vvA;iiii:.'f;'io;; i;i,m, W';(t(;H ! wr;;'/l», 0)/| 'I'lvA; I '/'l(';i( l/((.«l, «(( nH\ii-i;i, lair, A vip{*>»''>u» Ik'hH, u l«!(iv«r()-(i(,i; l/inl'w iu'mI. WnitU'.] ^ivt: (|« wr(»'(|»I Mt'iiini^fUl n i/jdUiMlH/_ l>l««t M( ihc inii/\i\.y l'(i«(., 'Iliul, Iw.kwuc) curoc, '/() )(((iio()K ll'mtJ/ipr hIdw ; "'I'll'' (uic,/i(il (()()^,l,<(« <»l lli<^ i?'))) I k()<;w, Wli'»«i; iMiii: innfi'ii wiywniii-', i\i;i',kt:'\ Ui«; i'iiii":l \iiiiwn ; '\'\i'.'if \iiiiiU-r l'i>ii\t'.iA-\if. f,wt'\ii, U)mKj/, f'/rUj frodi r<; A/i'l 'loddc'l );'T licloicf, i'lii' llic f/onc of dn;,-!/) , 118 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. While in the hero's heart there dwelt a prayer That Heaven's protecting arm might never cease To make his young, endangered land its care, Till through the war-cloud looked the angel Peace. " Be wise, my children," said that ancient Tree, In earnest tone, as though a Mentor spake, " And prize the blood-bought birthright of the free. And firmly guard it for your country's sake." Thanks, thanks, Old Elm ! and for this counsel sage. May Heaven thy brow with added beauty grace, Grant richer emeralds to thy crown of age, And changeless honors from a future race. THE WASHINGTON ELM. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Beneath our consecrated elm A century ago he stood, Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm From colleges, where now the gown To arms had yielded, from the town, Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see The new-come chiefs, and wonder which was he. No need to question long ; close-lipped and tall, Long trained in rnurder-brooding forests lone To bridle others' clamors and his own, Firmly erect, he towered above them all, The incarnate discipline that was to free With iron curb that armed democracy. Musing beneath the legendary tree, The years between furl off ; I seem to see The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue, THE LAST OF THE HIGHWAYMEN. 119 And weave prophetic aureoles round the head That shines our beacon now, nor darkens with the dead. man of silent mood, A stranger among strangers then, How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, Familiar as the day in all the homes of men ! The winged years, that winnow praise and blame, Blow many names out ; they but fan t(j flame The self-renewing si)leudors of thy fame. THE LAST OF THE HIGHWAYMEN. MICHAEL MARTIN, alias Captain Lightfoot, after a checkered career in Ireland, liis native country, and in Scotland, as a highway robber, became in 1819 a fugitive to America. He first landed at Salem, where he obtained employ- ment as a farm-laborer. But a life of honest toil not being so congenial to him. as that of a bandit, he again took to his old occupation on the road, this time making Canada the scene of his exploits. After committing many robberies there and in Vermont and New Hampsliire, and always eluding capture, Martin at length arrived in Boston. He at once began his bold operations upon tlie highway ; but here his usual good luck deserted him. His first and last victim was Major John Bray, of Boston. Martin had somehow found out that His Excellency Governor Brooks intended giving a dinner-party at his mansion in Medford on a certain afternoon, and he had determined to waylay some of the company on their return, shrewdly guessing that they might be well worth the picking. In fact, as Major Bray was driving leisurely homeward in his chaise over the Medford turnpike, he was suddenly stopped by a masked horseman, who presented a pistol and sternly commanded him to deliver up his valuables. 120 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Tlie place was a lonely one, and well chosen for the robber's pur- pose. The astounded Major handed over his watch and his purse. Having secured his booty, the highwayman wheeled his horse, gave him the spur, and galloped oif ; while his frightened avA crestfallen victim, lashing his horse to a run, raised a hue- and-cry at the nearest house. Martin fled. He was hotly pursued, and was taken, after a chase of a hundred miles, asleep in bed at Springfield. The officers brought him back, and lodged him in East Cambridge jail to await his trial. He was tried at the next assizes for highway robbery, was convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. This being the first trial occurring under the statute punish- ing such an offence, it naturally created a great deal of stir, and when the prisoner was brought to the bar, the court-room was thronged with curious spectators. Throughout the proceedings the prisoner was perfectly cool. As the pupil of the celebrated Thunderbolt, he had a reputation to maintain ; and when the judge, putting on the black cap, pronounced the awful sentence of death, he dryly observed : " Well, that 's the worst you can do for me." The doomed man, however, made one desperate efibrt to escape from prison. He had found some way to procure a tile, with which he filed off his irons so that he could remove them whenever he liked ; and when the turnkey one morning came into the cell, he being off his guard, tlie prisoner, using his irons as a weapon, felled him to the ground with a savage blow on the' head, and leaving him stunned and bleeding upon the floor of the cell, rushed out of the open door into the prison-yard. Tlie outer walls were too high to be scaled, and free passage into the street was barred by a massive oaken gate. But this did not stop the resolute highwayman, who was a man of herculean strength. Dashing himself repeatedly, with all his force, against it, he at last succeeded in breaking the gate open, and passing quicldy through, he emerged into the street beyond ; but being exhausted by his frantic efforts to escape, after a short flight his pursuers overtook and secured him. He was loaded with THE ELIOT OAK. 121 irons and chained to his cell. After this desperate attempt to gain his liberty, he was guarded with greater vigilance until the day appointed for his execution, when the " Last of the High- waymen" paid the penalty of his crimes upon the scaffold. THE ELIOT OAK. IN that part of Boston formerly constituting the town of Brighton, and still farther back forming a precinct of Cam- bridge, there is a pleasant locality called Oak Square. It was so named on account of the old oak-tree which stood there, and which is probably better known as the Eliot Oak. This gigantic relic of the primeval forest was in its day the largest and the oldest tree of its species growing within the four boundaries of the old Bay State, and it was officially declared to be so by a scientific commission which was charged with making a botanical survey of the State. The declaration is made that " It had probably passed its prime centuries before the first English voice was heard on the shores of Massachusetts Bay." Its circumference at the ground was given at twenty- five feet and nine inches, or two feet more than that of the Great Elm of Boston. Through decay the trunk became hollow at the base, furnishing a cavity large enough to serve as a hid- ing-place for the schoolboys who played under tlie shade of its wide-spreading branches. The enormous weight of these, with their foliage, was at last supported by a mere shell of trunk, and as every gale threatened to lay it low, to the regret of thou- sands, the brave old oak was through a hard necessity compelled to bite the dust. By an order of the town it was cut down in May, 1855. A little west of this tree was the former site of the wigwam of Waban, Chief of the Nonantums, and he must often have rested under its generous shade. The old Indian trail extended THE ELIOT OAK, BRIGTITON. f Eliot's oak. 123 from this tree northeast to the Charles River, connecting the settlement here with the Colleges at Old Cambridge. Tradition says that the Apostle Eliot of glorious memory preached to the Indians here under this oak. We are amazed to think of it as then being — near two centuries and a half ago — in its vigorous maturity. This is the incident which the poet Longfellow embalms in his sonnet, the scene being, how- ever, transferred to Natick, Massachusetts, where these Indians, by the advice of Eliot, founded one of their Praying Towns, and adopted the customs of civilized life. ELIOT'S OAK. H. W. LONGFELLOW. Thou ancient oak ! whose myriad leaves are loud With sounds of unintelligible speech, Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach, Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd ; With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed, Thou speakest a different dialect to each ; To me a language that no man can teach. Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud. For underneath thy shade, in days remote, Seated like Abraham at eventide Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote His Bible in a language that hath died And is forgotten, save by thee alone. parr rfjirtj. LYXN AXD NAHAXT LEGEND: 'iiri"><, , ^ - ,11,1 . LYNN AND NAHANT LEGENDS. THE vivid and life-like description of the coast scenery of ancient Saugus, borrowed from " The Bridal of Penna- cook," is a most fitting introduction to our legends ; for nowhere could a wilder or more romantic region, or one embodying more striking natural traits, prepare the mind for receiving those weird tales which so truly present to it the superstitious side of old New England life. A wild and broken landscape, spiked witli firs, Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge, Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock spurs And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept ledge Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose, Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon the snows. And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away. Dull dreary flats without a bush or tree, O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea ; And faint with distance came the stifled roar. The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore. 128 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. IN the " Bridal of Pennacook," Mr. Wliittier, who is himself at once the product and the poet of this romantic coast, tells us that he chanced upon the motive of the poem while poring over An old clironicle of border wars And Indian history. This was undoubtedly Thomas Morton's " JSTew English Ca- naan," — a book which the Puritans indignantly denominated "scandalous," and for wliich they imprisoned the author a whole year, then dismissing him with a fine. But aside from its merciless ridicule of them and their ways, its value as " Indian history " is duly certified by most competent judges, one of whom says that Morton's description of the Indians " is su- perior to that of most authors before his time ; and though he sometimes indulges his imagination, yet this part of his work is of exceeding great value to inquirers about the primitive inhabi- tants of New England." The poet goes on to relate, that among the ill-assorted collec- tion of books forming his landlord's library he found this old chronicle, Avherein he read, — A story of the marriage of the Chief Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, Daughter of Passaconawaj^ who dwelt In the old time upon the Merrimack. This is the story as it is related by Morton. Winnepurkit, the son of Nanapashemet, or tire New Moon, was the Sagamore of Saugus, Naumkeag, and Massabequash, — now known as Saugus, Lynn, Salem, and Marblehead. "When he came to man's estate THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 129 this young sachem, who was both valiant and of noble blood, made choice for his wife of the daughter of Passaconaway, the great chieftain of the tribes inliabiting the valley of the Merri- mack. Not only was Passaconaway a mighty chief in war or peace, but he was also the greatest powow, or wizard, of whom AN INDIAN PRINCESS. we have any account. Indeed the powers attributed to him by the English colonists would almost surpass belief, were they not fully vouched for by the learned and reverend chroniclers of that day, who gravely assert that so skilled was he in the arts of necromancy, that he could cause a green leaf to grow in winter, 9 130 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. trees to dance, water to burn, and the like marvels to ajDpear in the course of his mystical invocations. With the consent and good liking of this redoubtable saga- more, Winnepurkit wooed and married the daughter of Passa- conaway. Bountiful was the entertainment that he and his attendants received at her father's hands, according to the cus- to]u of his people when celebrating an event of this kind, and such as suited the exalted rank of tlie bride and groom. Feasting and revelry succeeded, or rather they made a part of the marriage solemnities, as with all ancient peoples. The cere- monies being over, Passaconaway caused a select number of his braves to escort his daughter into the territories belonging to her lord and husband, where being safely come, they were, in a like manner, most hospitably entertained by Winnepurkit and his men, and when they Avere ready to depart, were generously rewarded with gifts for their loving care and service. i^ot long afterward the newly wedded princess was seized with a passionate longing to revisit once again her native country, and to behold once more the face of the mighty chief, her father. Her lord listened to her prayer, which seemed reasonable enough, and he therefore, in all love and kindness for her welfare, chose a picked body from among his most trusted warriors to conduct his lady to her father, to whom they with great respect presently brought her safe and sound ; and then, after being graciously received and as graciously dismissed, they returned to give an account of their errand, leaving their princess to continue among her friends at her own good will and pleasure. After some stay in her old home by the beautiful mountain river, the lady signi- fied her desire to go back to her husband again, upon which Pas- saconaway sent an embassy to Winnepurkit with order to notify liim of this Avish on her part, and to request tliat the Sachem of Saugus, his son-in-law, might at once despatch a suitable guard to escort his wife back through the wilderness to her home. But Winnepurkit, strictly standing for his honor and reputation as a chief, bade the messengers to carry his father-in-law this answer : " That when his wife departed from him, he caused THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 131 his own men to wait upon her to lier father's territories, as did become liiiu ; but now that she had an intent to return, it did become her father to send lier back with a convoy of bis own people ; and that it stood not with Winnepurkit's reputation either to make himself or his men so servile as to fetch her again." Thereupon the old sachem, Passaconaway, was much incensed at having this curt answer returned to him by one whom he considered at most only a petty chief and a vassal; and being moreover sadly nettled to think that his son-in-law should pre- tend to give him, Passaconaway, a lesson in good-breeding, or did not esteem him more highly than to make this a matter for negotiation, sent back tliis sharp reply : " That his daughters blood and birtli deserved more respect than to be slighted in such a manner, and therefore if he (Winnepurkit) would have her company, he were best to send or come for her." The young sachem, not being willing to undervalue himself, and being withal a man of stout spirit, did not hesitate to tell his indignant father-in-law that he must either send his daughter home in cliarge of his own escort, or else he might keep her ; since Winnepurkit was, for his own part, fully determined not to stoop so low. As neither would yield, the poor princess remained with her father, — at least until Morton, the narrator, left tlie country ; but she is supposed to have finally rejoined her haughty spouse, though in what way does not appear in the later relation before us. She was no true woman, however, if she failed to discover a means to soften the proud heart of Winnepurkit, who after all was perhaps only too ready to accord to her tears and her entreaties what he had so loftily refused at the instigation of a punctiliousness that was worthy of the days of chivalry. The poet has made a most felicitous use of this story, into which are introduced some descriptions of the scenery of the Merrimack of exceeding beauty and grace. The poem has, however, a more dramatic ending than the prose-tale we have just given. In the poem the heart-broken and deserted bride of 132 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Pennacook at last determines to brave the perils of the swollen and turbid Merrimack alone, to seek the wigwam of her dusky husband. Stealing away from her companions, she launches her frail canoe upon the bosom of the torrent, and is instantly swept by it, — Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide, The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either .side, The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view, With arrowv swiftness — Down the white rapids like a sere leaf whirled. On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled. Empty and broken, circled the canoe In the vexed pool below — but where was Weetamoo ? THE PIRATES' GLEN. THE year 1658 was signalized in New England by a great earthquake, which is mentioned in some of the old chron- icles. Connected with this convulsion, which in the olden time was regarded as a most signal mark of the displeasure of Heaven, is the following story. There are, it should be said, two or three circumstances, or rather facts, giving to this legend a color of authenticity, which are of themselves sufficient to create a doubt whether, after all, it has not a more substantial foundation than has generally been conceded to it. We will- ingly give it the benefit of this doubt ; meanwhile contenting ourselves with the statement that its first appearance in print, so far as known to the writer, was in Lewis's " History of Lynn." But here is the legend in all its purity. THE PIEATES' GLEN. 133 Some time previous to the great earthquake, in the twilight of a pleasant evening on the coast, a small bark was seen to approach the shore, furl her sails, and drop her anchor near the mouth of Saugus River. A boat was presently lowered from her side, which four men got into and rowed silently up the river to where it enters the hills, when they landed, and plunged into the woods skirting the banks. These movements had been noticed by only a few individuals ; but in those early times, when the people were surrounded by dangers and were easily alarmed, such an incident was well calculated to a-waken sus- picion, so that in the course of the evening the intelligence had spread from house to house, and many were the conjectures respecting the strangers' business. In the morning all eyes were naturally directed toward the shore, in search of the stranger- vessel ; but she was no longer there, and no trace either of her or of her singular crew could be found. It Avas af- terward learned, however, that on the morning of the vessel's disappearance a workman, upon going to his daily task at the Forge, on the river's bank, had found a paper running to the effect that if a certain quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and other articles named were made, and with secrecy deposited in a cer- tain place in the woods, which was particularly described, an amount of silver equal to their full value would be found in their stead. The manacles were duly made and secreted, in conformity with the strange directions. On the following morning they had been taken away, and the money left accord- ing to the letter of the promise ; but notwithstanding the fact that a strict watch had been kept, no sign of a vessel could be discovered in the offing. Some months later than this event, which had furnished a fruitful theme for the village gossips, the four men returned, and selected one of the most secluded and romantic spots in the woods of Saugus for their abode ; and the tale has been further embellished to the effect that the pirate chief brought with him a beautiful Avonian. The place of their retreat was a deep and narrow valley, shut in on two sides by craggy, precipitous rocks, and screened on the others 13-i NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. by a thick growth of pines, hemlocks, and cedars. There was only one small spot to which the rays of the noonday sun could penetrate. Upon climbing the rude and nearly perpendicular steep of the cliff on the eastern side of this glen, the eye com- manded a noble expanse of sea stretching far to the south, be- sides a wide extent of the surrounding country. No spot on the coast could have been better chosen for the double purpose of concealment and observation. Even at this da)', w^hen the neighborhood has become thickly peopled, it is still a lonely and desolate place, whose gloomy recesses are comparatively unknown and unvisited. Here the pirates built themselves a small hut, made a garden, and dug a well, of which some traces still remain. It is supposed that they also buried money here, and search has been made for it at A-arious times, but none has ever been found ; and to deepen the mystery, it is said that the pirate's mistress, who is described as very pale and beautiful, having sickened and died, was buried here in an unknown grave, under the thick shade of the pines. After a time the retreat of the pirates became noised about. They were traced to their glen. Three of them were taken to England, — there being at that time no law in the Colony to punish piracy, — where it is sup- posed that they paid the penalty for their crimes upon the gib- bet. The third, whose name was Thomas Veale, escaped to a cavern in the woods, which he and his confederates had previ- ously made use of as a place of deposit for their ill-gotten booty. In this lonely place the fugitive fixed his residence, practising the trade of a shoemaker, and occasionally visiting the village to obtain food, until the earthquake which ushered in the legend, sphtting to its foundations the rock in which the cavern was situated, forever sealed the entrance, enclosing the doomed corsair in his frightful tomb. This cliff has ever since been known as Dungeon Eock, and the first retreat of the free- booters has always borne the name of The Pirates' Glen. The sequel to the legend that we have so conscientiously related to the reader, is more striking by its reality, more incred- ible, one might almost say, than the legend itself is, with ail its THE PIEATES' GLEN. 135 dramatic surroundings. The story of Dungeon Eock now leaves the realm of the legendary for that of active supernatural agency ; and it may be doubted if the whole world can produce another such example of the absorbiug pursuit of an idea which has become the fixed and dominant unpulse of a life. But firet let us introduce the i-eader to the locality itself. Two miles out of the city of Lynn, in the heart of the secluded and romantic region overlookiug it, is a hill high and steep, one side of which is a naked precipice ; the other, which the 'road ascends, is stiU covered with a magnificent grove of oak-ti-ees gi-owing among enormous bowlders, and clad, when I saw them, in the rags of their autumnal purple. Few wOder or mor^ picturesque spots can be found among the White Hills ; and here Ave are not a dozen miles removed from the homes of half a miUion people. The rumored existence of treasure shut up in the heart of this chff by the earthquake seems to have found credit in the neighborhood, if one may judge from the evidences of a heavy explosion in what was supposed to be the ancient vestibule of the cavern, where a yawning rent in the side of the ledge is blocked up with tons of massy debris and every ves- tige of what was perhaps an interesting natural curiosity thus wantonly destroyed. Under the direction of spirit mediums, the work of piercin'ho can tell the anguish of her soul in that moment 1 She was, indeed, saved; but where was her lord and protector 1 Frantic and despairing, but faithful to death, she followed such 15 226 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. faint traces as in the confusion of that hour could be obtained, until chance at length led her to the spot where he lay, helpless and overwhelmed. A fine lady would have recoiled and fainted dead away ; Agnes Surriage, again the working girl of Marble- head, instantly set to work to rescue her lover from the ruins with her own hands. In an hour he was extricated from the rubbish. He was still living. She conveyed him to a place that had escaped the shock of the earthquake, where she nursed him into health and strength again. Vanquished by this last supreme proof of her love for him, the knight gave her his hand in return for his life. And who can doubt that with this act there came back to both that peace of mind which alone was wanting to a perfect union of two noble and loving hearts 1 We are obliged to content ourselves with the following extracts from the poem which Holmes has founded upon the story : — A scampering at the Fountain Inn ; A rush of great and small ; With hurrying servants' mingled din, And screauung matron's call ! Poor Agnes ! with her work half done, They caught her unaware. As, humbly, like a praying nun, She knelt vipon the stair ; Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien She knelt, but not to pray, — Her little hands must keep them clean, And wash their stains away. A foot, an ankle, bare and white, Her girlish shapes betrayed, — " Ha ! Nymphs and Graces ! " spoke the Knight ; " Look up, my beauteous Maid ! " She turned, — a reddening rose in bud, Its calyx half withdrawn ; Her cheek on fire with damasked blood Of girlhood's glowini:^ dawn ! SKIPPER IKESON's RIDE. 227 He searched her features through and through, As royal lovers look On lowly maidens when they woo Without the ring and book. " Come hither, Fair one ! Here, my Sweet ! Nay, prithee, look not down ! Take this to shoe those little feet," — He tossed a silver crown. A sudden paleness struck her brow, — A swifter flush succeeds ; It burns her cheek ; it kindles now Beneath her golden beads. She flitted ; but the glittering eye Still sought the lovely face. Who was she ? What, and whence 1 and why Doomed to such menial place I A skipper's daughter, — so they said, — Left orphan by the gale That cost the fleet of Marblehead And Gloucester thirty sail. SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. ONE of the most spirited of Whittier's home ballads — cer- tainly the most famous — is his "Skipper Ireson's Ride," which introduces by way of refrain the archaic Marblehead dia- lect that is now nearly, if not quite, extinct. Like most of this poet's characters. Skipper Ireson is a real personage, whose story, briefly told, is this : — Late in the autumn of the year 1808 the schooner "Betsy," of Marblehead, Benjamin Ireson, master, while buffeting its way towards tlie home port in the teeth of a tremendous gale, fell iu with a wreck drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves. 228 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. This was the schooner " Active," of Portkuid, that had been over- set in the gale. It was then midnight, with a tremendous sea ruiming. The skipper of the sinking vessel hailed the "Betsy" and asked to be taken off the wreck, from which every wave indeed threatened to wash the distressed and exhausted crew. To this it is said that the " Betsy's " crew — one does not like to traduce the name by calling them sailors • — strongly demurred, alleging the danger of making the attempt in such a sea in sup- port of their cowardly purjiose to abandon the sinking craft to her fate. Some say that Captain Ireson was himself disposed to act with humanity, and to lie by the wreck until daylight, but that he was overruled by the unanimous voice of his men, who selfishly decided not to risk their own miserable lives in order to save o'thers. The " Betsy's " course was accordingly shaped for Marblehead, where she arrived on the following Sunday. Her crew at once spread the news through the town of their having fallen in with a vessel foundering in the bay, when, to their honor, the Marblehead people immediately despatched two vessels to her relief. But the "Active" had then gone to the bot- tom of the sea, and the relieving vessels returned from a fruit- less search, only to increase the resentment alread}'^ felt against Skipper Ireson, upon whom his crew had thrown all the blame of their own dastardly conduct. Usually dead men tell no tales; but it so fell out that in this instance a more damning evidence to Ireson's inhumanity appeared, as it were, from the grave itself to confront him. It happened that on the morning next following the night of the " Betsy's " desertion of them, the captain and three others were rescued from the sinking vessel. They soon made public the story of the cruel conduct of the " Betsy's" people ; and as ill news travels fast, it was not long before it reached Marblehead, throwing that excitable town into a hubbub over the aspersions thus cast upon its good name. It was soon determined to take exemplary vengeance upon the offender. One bright moonlight night Skipper Ireson heard a knock at his door. Upon opening it he found himself in the nervous grasp of a band of resolute men, who silently hurried 230 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. him off into a deserted place, — with what object, his fears alone could divine. They first securely pinioned and then besmeared him from head to foot with a coat of tar and feathers. In the morning the whole population of the town turned out to wit- ness or assist in this ignominious punishment, which had been planned by some of the bolder spirits, and silently approved by the more timid ones. Ireson in his filthy disguise was seated in the bottom of a dory, — instead of a cart, — and, surrounded by a hooting rabble, the unfortunate skipper was then dragged through the streets of the town as far as the Salem boundary- line, where the crowd was met and stopped by the selectmen of that town, who forbid their proceeding farther, — thus frustrating the original purpose to drag Ireson through the streets of Salem and of Beverly, as well as those of Marblehead. During Ireson's rough ride, the bottom of the dory had fallen out. The mob then procured a cart, and hfting the boat, culprit and all, upon it, in this way Ireson was taken back to Marblehead. More dead than alive, he was at last released from the hands of his tormentors and allowed to go home. When he was free, Ireson quietly said to them : " I thank you, gentlemen, for my ride ; but you will live to regret it." And thus ended Benjamin Ireson's shameful expiation of a shameful deed. Using the facts as they came to him, and with the sanction of what was in its own time very generally applauded as the righteous judgment of the people of Marblehead, the poet has put Ireson in a perpetual pillory, from which no sober second thought is able to rescue him. But whether culpable or not culpable in intention, his weakness in yielding to his dastard crew, if in fact he did so yield, amounted to a grave fault, closely verging upon the criminal. To-day everybody defends Ireson's memory from the charge which was once as universally believed to be true ; and the public verdict was, " served him right." Unfortunately, however, for him, his exasperated townsfolk exe- cuted justice on the spot, according to their own rude notions of it, before their wrath had had time to grow cool. But to this fact we owe the most idiosyncratic ballad of purely home origin SKIPPER ieeson's eide. 231 in the language, although it is one for which the people of Marblehead have never forgiven the poet. With poetic instinct Whittier seized upon the incident, using more or less freedom in presenting its dramatic side. In the versified story we are made lookers on while the strange proces- sion, counting its Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Wrinkled scolds, with hands on hips. Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase. Brief of skirt, with ankles bare. Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, — o-oes surging on through the narrow streets, now echoing to the wild refrain, — " Here 's Flud Oirson, for his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead ! " The only liberty that the poet has taken with the story is in saying, — Small pity for him ! — He had sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, — Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck ! The disaster really happened oft^ the Highlands of Cape Cod, and, so far as is known, there were no Marblehead people on board of the unlucky craft when she went down. But in truth such trifling departures from the literal facts are of little moment. The world long ago granted to the poets complete absolution for such venial sins as these are, seeing that since the days of Homer it has been their profession to give all possible enlarge- ment to their subjects. 232 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Assuming the stigma upon Ireson's memory to he an unjust one, the antidote should accompany the poison. His reputation has found a vigorous defender in the verses which follow. A PLEA FOR FLOOD IRESON. CHARLES T. BROOKS. Old Flood Ireson ! all too long Have jeer and jibe and ribald song Done thy memory cruel wrong. Old Flood Ireson sleeps in his grave ; Howls of a mad mob, worse than the wave, Now no more in his ear shall rave ! Gone is the pack and gone the prey, Yet old Flood Ireson's ghost to-day Is hunted still down Time's highway. Old wife Fame, with a fish-horn's blare Hooting and tooting the same old air, Drags him along the old thoroughfare. Mocked evermore with the old refrain, Skilfully wrought to a tuneful strain. Jingling and jolting, he comes again Over that road of old renown, Fair broad avenue leading down Through South Fields to Salem town, Scourged and stung by the Muse's thong, Mounted high on the car of song, Sight that cries, O Lord ! how long Shall Heaven look on and not take part With the poor old man and his fluttering heart. Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart l SKIPPER IKESON's RIDE. Old Flood Iresou, now when Fame Wipes away with tears of shame Stains from many an injured name, Sluill not, in the timeful line, Beams of truth and mercy shine Throuoh the clouds that darken thine ? 233 CAPE ANN LEGENDS. CAPE ANN. BY command of Nature, one of those iron-ribbed ridges which it astounds us to see forests growing and people living upon, detaches itself from the Essex coast, and advances steadily five leagues out into the sea. Halting there, it covers its head with a bristling array of rocky islands and jagged reefs, which, like skirmishers in the front of battle, now here, now there, announce their presence in the offing by puffs of water smoke. An incessant combat rages be- tween these rocks and the advan- cing ocean. From the Highlands, at the land's end, it is possible on a clear day to make out the dim white streak of Cape Cod stretching its emaciated arm from the south coast towards tliis lialf-extended and rock-gauntleted one from the north. Between the two capes, which really seem to belong to difterent zones, is the entrance to the grand basin of Massachusetts Bay, over which, in the darkness, the brilliant rays from Thacher's and Highland lighthouses cross each other like flaming sword-blades. Among the thousands that have passed in or out, one seeks in his memory for only one little bark carrying an entire nation. The " Mayflower" passed here. THE MAGNOLIA. 238 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. « The sea, we notice, welcomes the iutruding headland Avith in- hospitable arms ; but at the extreme point, where the rock is pierced and the sea flows in, there is a port of refuge that has grown to be the greatest fishing-mart in the Union. At nearly- all times, without regard to season, the waters around it are covered with a flight of sails entering or leaving the principal port, reminding one of the restless sea-gnlls that circle about their rocky aerie when bringing food to their young. The muscular shoulder of the Cape is occupied by the towns of Beverly, Wenham, and Hamilton, the central portion by Manchester and Essex, and the extremity by Gloucester and Rockport. Nearly the whole interior region remains the same untamed wilderness that it was a hundred years ago ; for among these rugged hills there is little land that is tit for farming, and that little is found in the hollows, or bordering upon occasional arms of the sea. There are, however, extensive and valuable forests of pine and cedar covering scattered portions with a per- ennial green. The sea having peopled it, and the land off"ering nothing better than stones, timber, and fuel, the fishing-villages were built close to the edge of the shore, where there were nat- ural harbors like that of Gloucester, or upon tidal creeks or inlets like those of Manchester and Annisquam. From these villages sprang a hardy race of sailors renowned in song and story. Cooper's " Captain Barnstable " comes from Chebacco, a precinct of Essex ; Miss Larcom's " Skipper Ben " from Beverly. One does not think of these people as having any fixed relation with the land : they are amphibious. Its general and apparently irreclaimable sterility drove the earliest settlers back upon the mainland. They therefore aban- doned their rude cabins and their fishing-stages at the extreme end of the Cape, and newly began at what was later on called Salem, which at first included the whole Cape. Yet notwith- standing this desertion, settlements were soon begun at Beverly and Manchester, and Gloucester was permanently re-occupied on account of the excellence and advantageous position of its har- bor. But for a time these settlements were very humble ones. CAPE ANN. 239 Roger Conant says that in his time Beverly was nicknamed " Beggarly." He wished to have it changed to Budleigh, from a town in Devonshire, Engiaml. Conant should find a name somewhere on Cape Ann. That would at least lead to the inquiry "Who was Conant 1" He remarks that he had no hand in naming Salem, where he had built the first house. IS^or was Blackstone, the first white settler of Boston, or Eoger Wil- liams, who founded Providence, more fortunate in securing post- humous remembrance. Bayard Taylor was nevertheless extremely taken with the picturesqueness of the interior of Cape Ann, and he was a trav- eller who had grown something fastidious in his notions of natu- ral scenery. He speaks of it thus, — " A great charm of the place is the wild wooded scenery of the inland. There are many little valleys, branching and winding as if at random, where the forests of fir and pine, the great, mossy bowl- ders, the shade and coolness and silence, seem to transfer you at once to the heart of some mountain wilderness. The noise of the sea does not invade them ; even the salt odor of the air is smothered by the warm, resinous breath of the pines. Here you find slender brooks, pools spangled with ponddily blossoms, and marshes all in a tangle with wild flowers. After two or three miles of such scenery there is no greater surprise than to find suddenly a l)lue far deeper than that of the sky between the tree trunks, and to hear the roar of the break- ers a hundred feet below you." While exploring the coast one finds it continually shifting from beaches of hard sand, strewn with a fine dark gravel, to picturesque coves bordered all around with rocks shattered into colossal fragments, and bulging out like masses that have sud- denly cooled, rusted by spray, worn to glassy smoothness, yet all split and fractured and upheaved by the powerful blows dealt them by the waves. These coves make the most charm- ing summer retreats imaginable ; and some of them, like Old Kettle Cove, — which under the name of Magnolia has a sweeter sound, • — and Pigeon Cove, have turned their primitive solitudes into populousness, and their once worthless rocks into pedestals for the scores of beautiful villas that have sprung 240 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. up like the work of magic upon tlieir bald aud overhanging brows. In one place, say that you leave the road in order to walk over a smooth esplanade of sand, up whose gentle slope panting wave chases panting wave unceasingly, while the forest-trees skirting the head of the beach bend over and watch this fierce play, with all their leaves trembling. You look off over the ridged and sparkling sea-foam into the open mouth of INIarble- head Harbor, whose iron headlands the distance softens to forms of wax. Two or three treeless islands, behind which a passing vessel lifts its snowy sails, are luxuriously dozing in the sun and sea. This must be the haven where the fleet of Win- throp first furled its tattered sails after a tempestuous voyage across the Atlantic of more than two months. Yes, there is Baker's Isle, and there is Little Isle, within which it anchored. Then it was here that the colonists, of whom he was the Moses, first sot foot upon the soil of their Promised Land ; and it was here they roamed among the rocky pastures, gathering wild strawberries and roses, examining everything with eager curi- osity, and perhaps with doubt whether it was all real, and would not vanish with the night. From the domain of History we enter that of Poetry over the threshold of Nature. Not many years ago, while he was the guest of the genial and gifted Fields, whose cottage is the conspicuous object on the bald brow of Thunderbolt Hill, in Manchester, Bayard Taylor was taken to visit, in his chosen and secluded retreat, the venerable poet who dated before Byron, Shelley, and Keats, and who dis- covered the genius of Bryant. The host and his guests are now dead; but the poet traveller, obeying the habit of a lifetime, jotted down some minutes of his visit, now serving to recall the man and the scene to our remembrance. He says : — " Retracing our way a mile or so, we took a different road, and approached the coast through open, grassy fields, beyond which, on the edge of a lofty bluff, stood the gray old mansion of the venerable poet, Richard H. Dana. The place is singularly wild, lonely, and CAFE ANN. 241 picturesque. No other dwelling is visible. A little bight of the coast thrusts out its iron headlands at a short distance on either side ; the surf thunders incessantly below ; and in front the open ocean stretches to the sky. Mr. Dana's only neighbors are the vessels that come and go at greater or less distances." From this seclusion the Nestor of American poetry thus addresses the scene before him, in liis lines to the ocean. Now stretch your eye off shore, o'er waters made To cleanse the air and bear the world's great trade. To rise, and Wet the mountains near the smi, Then back into themselves in rivers run, Fulfilling mighty uses far and wide. Through earth, in air, or here, as ocean tide. Ho ! how the giant heaves himself and strains And flings to break his strong and viewless chains ; Foams in his wrath ; and at his prison doors, Hark ! hear him ! how he beats and tugs and roars. As if he would break forth again and sweep Each living thing within his lowest deep. And though the land is thronged again, sea ! Strange sadness touches all that goes with thee. The small bird's plaining note, the wild, sharp call. Share thy own spirit : it is sadness all ! How dark and stern ujjon thy waves looks down Yonder tall cliff — he with the iron crown. And see ! those sable pines along the steep Are come to join thy requiem, gloomy deep! Like stoled monks they stand and chant the dirge Over the dead with thy low-beating surge. As we approach the end of the Cape we enter a storied region. Here is the deep cleft known as Rafe's Chasm, and the tawny clump of stark ledges which the coast throws off and the sea flies incessantly at, called Norman's Woe. Then we enter the beautiful islet-studded harbor of Gloucester, and with an inter- est that the natural beauties of the spot enhance, we fix our eyes upon the verdurous southern shore ; for here the little 16 242 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. colony of Eoger Conant, the pioneer governor, maintained a struggling existence, until, like a garrison which can no longer hold out, it fell back to Salem, newly chose its ground, and again bravely confronted its old enemies, want and neglect. But long before liim, this cape in the sea picked up many adventur- ous voyageurs, one of whom presently demands a word from us. In the heart of the Gloucester woodlands a most interesting floral phenomenon exists. There, apparently defying nature's lines and laws, the beautiful magnolia of the South unfolds in secret its snowy flowers and exhales its spicy perfume. Another phenomenon is the beach at Manchester, whose sands emit weird musical tones when crushed by the passage of wheels through them. Still another is the enormous Moving Rock at Squam Common, — a heavy mass of granite so exactly poised that the pressure of a child's finger is sufficient to change its position. This sterile sea-cape may also lay claim to other and more enduring associations than the memories of a summer passed among its rocky sea-nooks can afford. Beverly Avas the home of Eobert Eantoul, whose epitaph has been written by Whittier, and of Lucy Larcom ; Hamilton that of Abigail Dodge ; Essex, of Rufus Choate ; Gloucester, of E. P. Whipple and William Winter. Manchester was Dana's by adoption, as well as the summer haunt of Holmes, James and Annie Fields, Elizabeth Phelps, and of that ancient landmark of the Boston Pulpit, the Reverend Dr. Bartol. The lamented Dr. E. H. Chapin loved his summer home at Pigeon Cove; and it was there he sought relief from the haunting " demon of the study." This was also the favorite haunt of Bryant and of Starr King; so that among those who were either native or who were habitually sojourners are many of the men and women most eminent in our literary annals. That fact of itself speaks volumes for the Cape. The legends of Cape Ann are indigenous, and are mostly sea- legends, as might be expected of a seafaring and sea-subsisting population, among wliom the marvellous always finds its most congenial soil. Let us add that no longer ago than last win- ter, in consequence of the prediction that a storm unexampled in CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 243 the caiinals of the century was to burst forth with destructive fury over sea and land upon a given day, not a vessel of the Glouces- ter fishing fleet dared put to sea. Although the great " Wiggins storm " failed to make its appearance at the time predicted^the losses incurred by reason of the number of fishermen lying 'idly at their moorings amounted to many thousands of dollars." The first of these legends proper to be introduced — not forgetting that De Monts and Champlain had already named this penin° sula the Cape of Islands — is a sort of historical complement to our descrij^tion. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. rp HE following lines from Whittier's beautiful apostrophe to -L his beloved river, "The Merrimack," introducing his col- lection of legendary pieces, is seen to be commemorative of that prince of explorers and hero of many exploits, Captain John Smith, to Avhom a perverse fortune has denied any share of honor for his efforts to make New England known and appreci- ated in the Old World. In the belief that none of these rugged rocks had ever received other baptism than tliat of the waves,\e first gave this promontory the name of "Tragabigzanda" for a perpetual souvenir of a fair Moslem to whom he owed a debt of love and gratitude, vrhile for a memorial of himself he conferred tliat of the " Three Turks' Heads " upon the three islands, Milk, Thacher's and Straitsmouth, lying off its extreme point, and now crowning it with their triple lights. But these names were so quickly superseded that the personal ambition of Smith has no other memorial than this : On yonder rocky cape, which braves The stormy challenge of the waves, Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood, The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood. Planting upon the topmost crag The staff of England's battle-flag ; 244 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. And, while from out its heavy fold St. George's crimson cross unrolled, Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare, And weapons brandishing in air, He gave to that lone promontory The sweetest name in all his story ; Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters, "Whose harems look on Stamboul's waters, Who, when the chance of war had bound The Moslem chain his limbs around. Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain. Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain, And fondly to her youthful slave A dearer gift than freedom gave. TEACHER'S ISLAND. THACHER'S Island is one of the most important light- house stations on the whole coast of the United States. It contains about eighty acres of gravelly soil thickly strewn with coarse granite bowlders, among which the light-keeper's cows crop a scanty growth of grass. The westernmost headland, upon which are some ancient graves, said to be those of the vic- tims of the first recorded shipwreck here, resembles Point Aller- ton, — it being a lofty cliff of gravel intermixed with bowlders that vary in size, from the smallest pebbles to those weighing many tons. It is continually crumbling away before the wear and tear of the southeast gales. The light-keeper's residence is a comfortable modern brick building of two stories. There is, or rather was, at the time of the writer's visit to the island, an old stone house standing there that was reputed to be of great age. The two light-towers, built of uncut granite, are each one hundred and fifty feet high, and they are furnished with lenses in which a dozen persons might stand erect without inconvenience. The keepers have all tiiachek's island. 245 followed the sea. Only sailors are capable of appreciating the responsibility that the station imposes. One of the keepers said to me — and habitual care is stamped upon the faces of these men — "We know how eyes may be strained in thick weather at sea to get hold of the light ; and that makes us pain- fully anxious to keep it up to its full power, especially when frosts or sea-scud dims the lantern ; for that is the very time when minutes count for hours on board ship." ANTHONY THACHEE'S SHIPWEECK. The story of how Thacher's Island came by its name is one of tragical interest, and is found in a letter written by Anthony Thacher to his brother Peter, first printed in Increase Mather s " Eemarkable Providences." It is also briefly related in AYin- throp's "Journal," where it is entered, under the year of its occurrence, 1635, as an incident of the awful tempest that has thus become historical. The historian Hubbard, writing long after the event, says that "the like was never in this place known in the memory of man, before or since." On the land houses were overturned and unroofed, the corn was beaten down to the ground, and the harvest nearly rained, and thousands of trees were torn up by the roots, broken in two like pipe-stems, or twisted off" like withes, so that the effects of it were visible for many years afterwards. At sea its results were no less ter- rible, the tide rising to twenty feet on some parts of the coast, and being then kept from ebbing in its usual course by the extraordinary violence of the gale. Of the many disasters sig- nalizing its presence, that which the letter relates is a most graphic episode. It would be an injustice to the reader not to present it in all its primitive quaintness of form and style as a specimen literary composition of the day. Here it is : — I must turn my drowned pen and shaking hand to indite this story of such sad news as never before this happened in New England. There was a league of perpetual friendship between my cousin Avery and myself, never to forsake each other to the death, but to be 246 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. partakers of each other's misery or welfare, as also of habitation, in the same place. Now upon our arrival in New England there was an offer made unto us. My cousin Avery was invited to ]\Iarble- head to be their pastor in due time ; there being no church planted there as yet, but a town appointed to set up the trade of fishing. Because many there (the most being fishermen) were something loose and remiss in their behavior, my cousin Avery was unwillinp- to go thither ; and so refusing, we went to Newberry, intending there to sit down. But being solicited so often both by the men of the '■) r: THE SHIPWRECK. place and by the magistrates, and by Mr. Cotton, and most of the ministers, who alleged what a benefit we might be to the people there, and also to the countiy and commonwealth, at length we embraced it, and thither consented to go. They of Marblehead forthwith sent a pinnace for us and our goods. We embarked at Ipswich, August 11, 1635, with our families and substance, bound for Marblehead, we being in all twenty-three souls, — viz., eleven in my cousin's family, seven in mine, and one Mr. Wil- liam Eliot, sometimes of New Sarum, and four mariners. The next thacher's island. 247 morning, having commended ourselves to God, with cheerful hearts we hoisted sail. But the Lord suddenly turned our cheerfulness into mourning and lamentations. For on the 14th of this August, 1635, about ten at night, having a fresh gale of wind, our sails, being old and done, were split. The mariners, because that it was night, would not put to new sails, but resolved to cast anchor till the morning. But before daylight it pleased the Lord to send so mighty a storm, as the like was never known in New England since the English came, nor in the memory of any of the Indians. It was so fm'ious, that our anchor came home. Whereupon the mariners let out more cable, which at last slipped away. Then our sailors knew not what to do ; but we were driven before the wind and waves. My cousin and I perceived our danger, [and] solemnly recom- mended ourselves to God, the Lord both of earth and seas, expecting with every wave to be swallowed up and drenched in the deeps. And as my cousin, his wife, and my tender babes sat comforting and cheering one the other in the Lord against ghastly death, which every moment stared us in the face and sat triumphing upon each one's forehead, we were by the violence of the waves and fury of the winds (by the Lord's permission) lifted up upon a rock between two high rocks, yet all was one rock. But it raged with the stroke, which came into the pinnace, so as we were presently up to our middles in water, as we sat. The waves came furiously and violently over us, and against us ; but by reason of the rock's proportion could not lift us off, but beat her all to pieces. Now look with me upon our dis- tress, and consider of my misery, who beheld the ship broken, the water in her and violently overwhelming us, my goods and provis- ions swimming in the seas, my friends almost drowned, and mine own poor children so untimely (if I may so term it without offence) before mine eyes drowned, and ready to be swallowed iip and dashed to pieces against the rocks by the merciless waves, and myself ready to accompany them. But I must go on to an end of this woful relation. In the same room whereas he sat, the master of the pinnace, not knowing what to do, our foremast was cut down, our mainmast broken in three pieces, the fore part of the piimace beat away, our goods swimming about the seas, my children bewailing me, as not pitying themselves, and myself bemoaning them, poor souls, whom I had occasioned to such an end in their tender years, whenas they could scarce be sensible of death, — and so likewise my cousin, his wife, 248 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. and his children ; and both of us bewailing each other in our Lord and only Saviour Jesus Christ, in whom only we had comfort and cheerfulness : insomuch that, from the greatest to the least of us, there was not one screech or outcry made ; but all, as silent sheep, were contentedly resolved to die together lovingly, as since our acquaintance we had lived together friendly. Now as I was sitting in the cabin room door, with my body in the room, when lo ! one of the sailors, by a wave being washed out of the pinnace, was gotten in again, and coming into the cabin room over my back, cried out, " We are all cast away. The Lord have mercy upon us ! I have been washed overboard into the sea, and am gotten in again." His speeches made me look forth. And looking toward the sea, and seeing how we were, I turned myself to my cousin and the rest, and spake these words : " O cousin, it hath pleased God to cast us hei'e between two rocks, the shore not far from us, for I saw the tops of trees when I looked forth." Whereupon the master of the pinnace, looking up at the scuttle-hole of the quarter-deck, went out at it ; but I never saw him afterward. Then he that had been in the sea went out again by me, and leaped overboard toward the rocks, whom afterward also I could not see. Now none were left in the bark that I knew or saw, but my cousin, his wife and children, myself and mine, and his maidservant. But my cousin thought I Avould have fled from him, and said unto me : " cousin, leave us not, let us die together ; " and reached forth his hand imto me. Then I, letting go my son Peter's hand, took him by the hand and said : " Cousin, I purpose it not. W^hither shall I go ? I am willing and ready here to die with you and my poor children. God be merciful to us, and receive us to himself ! " adding these words : " The Lord is able to help and deliver us." He replied, saying, " Truth, cousin ; but what his pleasure is, we know not. I fear we have been too unthankful for former deliverances. But he hath promised to deliver us from sin and condemnation, and to bring us safe to heaven through the all-sufficient satisfaction of Jesus Christ. This, therefore, we may challenge of him." To which I, replying, said, " That is all the deliverance I now desire and expect." Which words I had no sooner spoken, but by a mighty wave I was, with the piece of the bark, washed out upon part of the rock, where the wave left me almost drowned. But recovering my feet, I saw above me on the rock my daughter Mary. To whom I had no sooner gotten, but my cousin Avery and his eldest son came to us, thacher's island. 249 being all four of ns washed out by one and the same wave. We went all into a small hole on the top of the rock, whence we called to those in the pinnace to come imto us, supposing we had been in more safetj- than they were in. My wife, seeing us there, was crept up into the scuttle of the quarter-deck, to come unto us. But presently came another wave, and dashing the pinnace all to pieces, carried my wife away in the scuttle as she was, with the greater part of the c[uarter- deck, unto the shore ; where she was cast safely, but her legs were something bruised. And much timber of the vessel being there also cast, she was some time before she could get away, being washed by the waves. All the rest that were in the bark were drowned in the merciless seas. We four by that wave were clean swept away from off the rock also into the sea ; the Lord, in one instant of time, dis- posing of fifteen souls of us according to his good pleasure and will. His pleasure and wonderful great mercy to me was thus. Stand- ing on the rock, as before you heard, with my eldest daughter, my cousin, and his eldest son, looking upon and talking to them in the bark, whenas we were by that merciless wave washed off the rock, as before you heard, God, in his mercy, caused me to fall, by the stroke of the wave, flat on my face ; for my face was toward the sea. Inso- much, that as I was sliding off the rock into the sea, the Lord directed my toes into a joint in the rock's side, as also the tops of some of my fingers, with my right hand, by means whereof, the w^ave leaving me, I remained so hanging on the rock, only my head above the water ; when on the left hand I espied a board or plank of the pinnace. And as I was reaching out my left hand to lay hold on it, by another com- ing over the top of the rock I was -washed away from the rock, and by the violence of the waves was driven hither and thither in the seas a great while, and had many dashes against the rocks. At length, past hopes of life, and wearied in body and spirits, I even gave over to nature ; and being ready to receive in the waters of death, I lifted up both my heart and hands to the God of heaven, — for note, I had my senses remaining perfect with me all the time that I was under and in water, — who at that instant lifted my head above the top of the water, that so I might breathe without any hindrance by the waters. I stood bolt upright, as if I had stood upon my feet ; but I felt no bottom, nor had any footing for to stand upon but the waters. While I was thus above the water, I saw by me a piece of the mast, as I suppose, about three foot long, which I labored to catch into my arms. But suddenly I was overwhelmed with water, and driven to 250 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. and fro again, and at last I felt the ground with my right foot. When immediately, whilst I was thus grovelling on my face, I, presently recovering my feet, was in the water up to my breast, and through God's great mercy had my face nnto the shore, and not to the sea. I made haste to get out, but was thrown down on my hands with the waves, and so with safety crept to the dry shore, where, blessing God, I turned about to look for my children and friends, but saw neither, nor any part of the pinnace, where I left them, as I supposed. But I saw my wife, about a butt length from me, getting herself forth from amongst the timber of the broken bark ; but before I could get unto her, she was gotten to the shore. I was in the water, after I was washed from the rock, before 1 came to the shore, a quarter of an hour at least. When we were come each to other, we went and sat under the bank. But fear of the seas' roaring, and our coldness, would not suffer us there to remain. But we went up into the land, and sat us down under a cedar-tree, which the wind had thrown down, where we sat about an hour, almost dead with cold. But now the storm was broken up, and the wind was calm ; but the sea remained rough and fearful to us. My legs were much bruised, and so was my head. Other hurt had I none, neither had I taken in much quantity of water. But my heart would not let me sit still any longer ; but I would go to see if any niore were gotten to the land in safety, espe- cially hoping to have met with some of my own poor children; but I could find none, neither dead nor yet living. You condole with me my miseries, who now began to consider of my losses. Now came to my remembrance the time and manner how and when I last saw and left my children and friends. One was severed from me sitting on the rock at my feet, the other three in the pinnace ; my little babe (ah, poor Peter!) sitting in his sister Edith's arms, who to the uttermost of her power sheltered him from the waters ; my poor William standing close unto them, all three of them looking ruefidly on me on the rock, their very coimtenances calling unto me to help them ; whom I could not go unto, neither could they come at me, neither would the merciless waves afford me space or time to use any means at all, either to help them or myself. Oh, I yet see their cheeks, poor silent lambs, pleading pity and help at my hands. Then, on the other side, to consider the loss of my dear friends, with the spoiling and loss of all our goods and provisions, myseK cast upon an unknown land, in a wilderness, I knew not THACHER'S ISLAND. 251 where nor how to get thence. Then it came to my mind how I had occasioned the death of my children, who caused them to leave their native land, who might have left them there, yea, and might have sent some of them back again, and cost me nothing. These and such like thoughts do press down my heavy heart very much. But I must let this pass, and will proceed on in the relation of God's goodness unto me in that desolate island, on which I was cast. I and my wife were almost naked, both of us, and wet and cold even unto death. 1 found a snapsack cast on the shore, in which I had a steel, and flint, and powder-horn. Going farther, I found a drowned goat ; then I found a hat, and my son William's coat, both which I put on. My wife found one of her petticoats, which she put on. I found also two cheeses and some butter driven ashore. Thus the Lord sent us some clothes to put on, and food to sustain our new lives, which we had lately given unto us, and means also to make tire ; for in a horn I had some gunpowder, which, to mine own, and since to other men's admiration, was dry. So taking a piece of my wife's neckcloth which I dried in the sun, 1 struck fire, and so dried and warmed our wet bodies ; and then skinned the goat, and having found a small brass pot, we boiled some of her. Our drink was brackish water ; bread we had none. There we remained until the Monday following ; when, about three of the clock in the afternoon, in a boat that came that way, we went ofl' that desolate island, which I named after my name, Thacher's Woe, and the rock, Avery his Fall, to the end that their fall and loss, and mine own, might be had in perpetual remembrance. In the isle lieth buried the l)ody of my cousin's eldest daughter, whom I found dead on the shore. On the Tuesday following, in the afternoon, we arrived at Marblehead. Such an event would naturally have its poetic pendant. Tlie simple pathos of the prose narrative may now be contrasted with the chaste beauty of Whittier's " Swan Song of Parson Avery," which turns upon the popular fallacy that the swan pours forth its expiring breath in song. 252 NEW-ENGLAJfD LEGENDS. THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY. J. G. WHITTIER. When the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late, Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight. Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop " Watch and Wait." All day they sailed : at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died, The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied, And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied ! All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside, To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide ; And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide. There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair, A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare. And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's prayer. " In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy word ! — Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears bave heard ! — Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord ! " When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near, And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear. The ear of God was open to his servant's last request ; As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed, And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest. THE SPECTKE LEAGUEKS. 253 THE SPECTRE LEAGUERS. THE fatal year 1692, in which the -witchcraft terrorism so thoroughly permeated things mundane, has one ludicrous chapter to redeem it from utter fatuity. ^ It is gravely told in the " Magnalia Christi " of Cotton Mather, and on the authority of the Reverend John Emerson, of Glou- cester, how a number of rollicking apparitions, dressed like gentle- men, in white waistcoats and breeches, kept that and the neigh- boring towns in a state of feverish excitement and alarm for a whole fortnight together. And neither of the reverend persons named seems to have entertained a doubt that these unaccount- able molestations were caused by the Devil and his agents in ■propria persona, who took the human form for the better exe- cution of their deep design. It is not very clear what that de- sign was. The spectres, if such they were, — and as it would be impardonable in us to doubt, — appear to have been a harm- less sort of folk enough, for they did no injury either to the per- sons or the property of the inhabitants, thus laying their natural propensities under a commendable restraint. But the fact that they were spirits, and no ordinary spirits at that, being so con- fidently vouched for, and by such high authority on such mat- ters as Dr. Cotton Mather, would seem to dispose of all doubt upon the subject. Should any, however, remain in the reader's mind after perusing the following account, he is reminded that what he has read is the sworn evidence of men who actually fought with, and on more than one occasion disgracefully routed and drove the invading demons before them into dark swamps and thickets. These witnesses are all persons of character and credibility. Moreover, their testimony remains unshaken by any subsequent revelations to this day. The reader may therefore depend upon the authoritative character of the narrative. 254 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. In the midsummer time, in the year 1G92, of fatal memory, Ebenezer Babson, a sturdy yeoman of Cape Ann, with the rest of his family, almost every night heard noises as if some persons were walking or running hither and thither about the house. He being out late one night, when returning home saw two men come out of his own door, and then at sight of him run swiftly from the end of the house into the adjoining cornfield. Going in, he immediately questioned his family concerning these strange visitors. They promptly rej^lied that no one at all had been there during his absence. Staggered by this denial, but being withal a very resolute, stout-hearted man, Babson seized his gun and went out in pursuit of the intruders. When he had gone a little way from the house, he saw the same men suddenly start up from behind a log and run into a swamp that was near by. He also overheard one say to the other, " The man of the house is now come, else we might have taken the house." Then he lost sight of them. Upon this, expecting an immediate attack, the whole family rose in consternation, and went with all haste to the nearest garrison, which was only a short distance off. They had only just entered it when they heard heavy footfalls, as if a number of men were trampling on the ground around it. Then Babson again took his gun and ran out, and he again saw the two men running away down the hill into the swamp. By this time no one doubted that they were threatened with an Indian for- ray, that these men were the enemy's scouts, and that the danger was imminent. The next night but one, Babson, for the third time, saw two men, who he thought looked like Frenchmen, one of them hav- ing a bright gun, such as the French Canadians used, slung on his back. Both of them started towards him at the top of their speed ; but Babson, taking to his heels, made good his escape into the garrison, and so eluded them. When he had got safely in, the noise of men moving about on the outside was again distinctly heard. I^ot long after these strange things had taken place, Babson, with another man, named John Brown, saw three THE SPECTRE LEAGUEES. 255 men (the number, like FalstafF's men in buckram, bad now in- creased to three), whom they tried hard to get a shot at, but did not, owing to the strangers' dodging about in so lively a manner that they could not take aim. For two or three nights these men, or devils in the form of men, continued to appear in the same mysterious way, for the purpose of drawing the Cape men out into a wild-goose chase after them. On July 14, Babson, Brown, and all the garrison saw within gunshot of them half-a- dozen men, whom they supposed to be reconnoitring, or trying A SOKTIE UPON THE DEMONS. to decoy them into an ambush. The brave garrison at once sallied out in hot pursuit. Babson, who seems to have ever sought the forefront of battle, presently overtook two of the skulking vagabonds, took good aim, and pulled the trigger ; but his trust}^ gun missed fire, and they got away and hid them- selves among the bushes. He then called out to his comrades, who immediately answered, " Here they are ! here they are ! " when Babson, running to meet them, saw three men stealing out of the swamp side by side. Bringing his gun to his shoulder, with sure aim this time he fired ; when all three fell as if shot. 256 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Almost beside himself, Babson cried out to his companious that he had killed three. But when he was come nearly up to tlie supposed dead men, they all rose up and ran away, apparently without hurt or wound of any kind. Indeed one of them gave Babson a shot in return for his own, the bullet narrowly miss- ing him, and burying itself in a tree, from which it was after- ward dug out, and preserved as a trophy of the combat. Babson thinking this warm work, took refuge behind a tree and reloaded. Then, his comrades having joined him, they all charged together upon the spot where the fugitives lay concealed. Again the spectres started up before their eyes and ran, " every man his way." One, however, they surrounded and hemmed in, and Babson, getting a fair shot at him, saw him drop. But when search was made, the dead body had vanished. After a fruit- less liunt, during which the stout-hearted Colonists heard a loud talking going on in the swamp, in some outlandish jargon they could not understand a word of, they returned, crestfallen and half dead with fatigue, to the garrison, in order to report their ill-success. But no sooner were the}'' back there, than they saw more men skulking among the bushes, who prudently kept out of gunshot. What could it all mean"? The next morning Babson started to go over to the harbor in order to give the alarm there, for it was not doubted by any one that an attack was imminent. While on his Avay thither he was waylaid and fired at by the " unaccountable troublers," who, strange to say, loaded their guns with real bullets, as poor Bab- son was near finding out to his cost. Having procured help, the neighborhood was scoured for traces of the attacking party, two of Avhom were seen, but not being mortal flesh and blood, could not be harmed by lead or steel. In the course of a few days more, two of the garrison went out upon a scout, who saw several men come out of an orchard, in which they seemed to be performing some strange incanta- tions. They counted eleven of them. Eichard Dolliver raised his gun and fired into the midst of them, where they stood the thickest ; but of course without other effect than to make them scatter as before. THE SPECTKE LEAGUERS. 257 It now being clear that the strange visitors bore a charmed life, and that the Cape was in great peril from this diabolical invasion, the end of which no man could foresee, the aid of the surrounding towns was invoked in this truly alarming crisis. A reinforcement of sixty men from Ipswich, led by Captain Ap- pleton, coming promptly to the rescue, gave the garrison much encouragement, beleaguered round as they were by the Powers of Darkness, against which lead and steel were of no more effect than snowballs or rushes would have been. For a fortnight they had been kept in continual alarm, night and day. The infernal visitants showed themselves first in one place and then in another, to draw out and harass them, until a foeman seemed lurking in every bush. Though repeatedly shot at, none could be killed. They threw stones, beat upon barns with clubs, and otherwise acted more in the spirit of diabolical revelry than as if actuated by any deadlier purpose. They moved about the swamps without leaving any tracks, like ordinary beings. In short, it was evident that such adversaries as these were, must be fought with other weapons besides matchlocks and broad- swords ; consequently a strange fear fell upon the Cape. Finally they became still more insolently bold, and so far from showing the same cowardly disposition to take to their heels whenever they were chased, they now treated their pur- suers with open contempt. For instance, seeing three of the unknown approaching him one morning, walking slowly and apparently unmindful of any danger, Babson ensconced himself behind some bushes to lie in wait for them. He held his fire until they were come -within a stone's throw before he pulled the trigger. But to his unspeakable dismay his gun flashed in the pan, though he repeatedly snapped it at the phantoms, who took no other notice of him than to give him a disdainful look as they walked by. Yet he soon afterward snapped the same gun several times in succession, and it never once missed fire. The goblins liad charmed it ! It being settled that these insults proceeded from spectres, and not from beings who were vulnerable to weapons of mortal make, 17 258 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. the unequal contest was abandoned. When this was done, the demons' occupation being gone, they too disappeared. It should be said in conclusion, and on the same authority as that to which we owe the narration, that the most conserva- tive minds regarded these occurrences as a part of the descent from the invisible world then menacing the peace of the Colony, and threatening the churches therein with irretrievable disaster. The poetic version of this legend opens with a glimpse of the scene that is itself worth a whole chapter of description. We are then introduced to the Colonial garrison-house, rudely but strongly built, to protect the settlers from their savage foes, and to its valiant defenders, who with their useless arms in their hands await in dread the assault of the demons. Mr. Whittier, be it said, is seldom happier than when dealing with the legend- ary lore extracted from the old chronicles. In him the spirit of an antiquary and the feeling of the poet exist in as amiable fellowship as they did in Sir Walter Scott, who ransacked the legends of Scotland for his tales in prose or verse. THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. J. G. WHITTIER. Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse with rolling pebbles, ran, The garrison-house stood watching on the gray rocks of Cape Ann ; On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade, And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight overlaid. Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying brands, Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands ; On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared. And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard. But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky tones of fear. As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil near ; Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun ; Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals run ! OLD MEG, THE WITCH. 259 Midnight came ; from out the forest moved a dusky mass that soon Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching in the moon. " Ghosts or witches," said the captain, " thus I foil the Evil One ! " And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down his gun. " God preserve us ! " said the captain ; '''never mortal foes were there ; They have vanished with their leader, Prince and Power of the air ! Lay aside your useless weapons ; skill and prowess naught avail ; They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat of mail ! " So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again a warning call Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round the dusky hall ; And they looked to flint and priming, and they longed for break of day ; But the captain closed his Bible : " Let us cease from man, and pray ! " To the men who went before us, all the unseen powers seemed near, And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots in holy fear. Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed and bare, Every stout knee pressed the flagstones, as the captain led in prayer. Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres round the wall. But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and hearts of all, — Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish ! Never after mortal man Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the blockhouse of Cape Ann. OLD MEG, THE WITCH. WE can easily bring the age of credulity as far forward as the middle of the last century, by means of a local legend in which mediaeval superstition respecting witches sur- vives in full vigor. The test of the silver bullet recalls the weird incantation scene in " Der Freischiitz," and all the demon lore associated with the gloomy depths of the Hartz. 260 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. There was a reputed witch by the name of Margaret Wesson, and familiarly known by the name of "Old Meg," who once resided in Gloucester. After having been for many years the object of superstitious curiosity and dread to the inhabitants of the Cape, she at length came to her end in the following strange and mysterious manner. At the time of the celebrated victorious siege of Louisburg by the Colonial troops in 1745, two soldiers of the Massachusetts line belonging to Gloucester happened to have their attention drawn to the movements of a crow that kept hovering over them. They threw stones, and then fired their muskets at it, but could neither touch nor terrify it ; the bird still continued Hying round them and cawing horribly in their ears. At length it occurred to one of them that it might be Old Meg. He communicated his suspicions to his comrade ; and as nothing but silver was believed to have any power to injure a witch, they cut the silver buttons off from their uni- form coats and discharged them at the crow. The experiment succeeded. At the first shot they broke its leg ; at the second it fell dead at their feet. When they returned to Gloucester, they learned that Old Meg had broken her leg while walking by the fort in that place at the precise time when they had shot and killed the crow five hundred miles distant ; after lingering for a while in great agony she died. And now comes the sin- gular part of the story ; for upon examining her fractured limb, the identical silver buttons which the soldiers had fired from their muskets under the walls of Louisburg were extracted from the flesh. The story of Old Meg was long familiarly told in Gloucester, although the credulity which once received it as solemn truth has nearly, if not quite, passed away, says the Eeverend Charles W. Upham, who makes the statement so lately as 1832. It has, however, been reproduced among the sober records of fact contained in Mr. Babson's "History of Gloucester." AN ESCAPE FKOM PIKATES. 261 AN ESCAPE FROM PIRATES. ACCORDING to the historian Thncydides, the Greeks were the first pirates. The ancient poets tell us that those who sailed along the coasts in quest of prey were everywhere accosted with the question, " wliether they were pirates," not as a term of reproach, but of honor. So also the vikings of the North were little less than corsairs, whose valiant deeds of arms, and whose adventurous voyages to distant lands, celebrated in their sagas, were conceived and performed with no nobler pur- pose than robbery. But the modern pirate had neither the rude sense of honor nor the chivalrous notions of warfare distinguishing his ancient prototype. He was simply a robber and a murderer, bidding all honest traders to " stand and deliver " like the aquatic liighway- man that he was. Even the mildest-mannered man among them " that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat " was no more than this ; while the majority were beings fitted by nature for a career of crime, the bare recital of which makes us shudder. During the first quarter of the eighteenth century our own seas swarmed with these freebooters, whose depredations upon our commerce are the theme of some of the most startling epi- sodes preserved in the whole annals of piracy. Blackbeard, Low, and Phillips stand pre-eminent at the head of this black list. It is with the last that our story has to do. In the course of his last piratical cruise, during which he swept the coast from Jamaica to Newfoundland, Phillips fell in with and captured the sloop " Dolphin," Andrew Harraden, master, belonging to Cape Ann. The " Dolphin," being a bet- ter vessel than his own, the pirate transferred his black flag to her, sending the crew away in another of his prizes. Captain Harraden was, however, detained a prisoner on board his own 262 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. vessel. Two of the pirate crew, John Fillmore, of Ipswich, and Edward Cheesman were men whom Phillips had taken out of the ships that he had plundered and pressed into his service, thus making them pirates against their will. Being found use- ful, Cheesman had been promoted to the post of ship's carpenter shortly before the " Dolphin" was captured. Both he and Fill- more, however, were brave young fellows, and both had fully determined, come what might, to take the first opportunity that presented itself of escaping from Phillips' clutches ; but the jealous watchfulness of the older pirates was such that they could get no opportunity of talking to each other about what was in their minds, except when feigning to be asleep, or when pretending to play at cards together. But by stealth they at length came to an understanding. To Captain Harraden these two presently broached their pur- pose ; and finding him ready and willing to strike a blow for the recovery of his vessel and his liberty, they with four confeder- ates, who were already pledged to stand by them, fixed the day and the hour for making the hazardous attempt. When the appointed hour of noon had arrived, Cheesman, the leader, with Fillmore and Harraden, were on deck, as also were Nut, the master of the " Dolphin," a fellow of great strength and courage, the boatswain, and some others of the pirate crew. But of all on board, Nut and the boatswain were the two whom the conspirators most feared to encounter. Cheesman, however, promised to take care of the master if the others would attend to the boatswain. No firearms were to be used. The attack was to be suddenly made, and possession of the deck to be gained, before the alarm should spread below. Cheesman, having left his working tools on the deck, as if he were going to use them about the vessel, walked aft to begin with the master ; but seeing some signs of timidity in Harraden, he came back, gave him and his mates a dram of brandy each, drinking to the boatswain and the master the toast, "To our next merry-meeting." He then took a turn up and down the deck with Nut, in order to occupy the pirate's attention, while NORMAN'S WOE. 263 Fillmore, as if in sport, picked up the carpenter's axe from where it was lying, and began to twirl it around on the point. This was the signal agreed upon. Cheesman instantly gi'ap- pled with the master, and, being a man of powerful frame, after a brtef struggle pitched him over the side into the sea. Fill- more, rushing upon the boatswain, with one blow of the axe laid him dead upon the deck. The noise of the scuffle brought the pirate chief on deck ; but Cheesman quickly disabled him with a blow from the carpenter's mallet, which fractured his jaw- bone. Having armed himself with an adze, Harraden then sprang upon Phillips with his uplifted weapon ; but the gunner of the pirate interposing between them, Cheesman tripped up his heels, throwing him into the arms of a confederate, who flung him overboard, after the master. Harraden then finished with Phillips. The conspirators then jumped into the hold and fell upon the quartermaster, Avho was the only officer remaining alive ; when a young lad on board pleaded so earnestly for his life that he was spared. The rest of the pirate crew being securely put in irons, the vessel was steered directly for Boston, where she arrived on the 3d of May, 1724, to the great joy of the people of the province. Two of the Pirates, Archer, the quartermaster, and William White, were tried, convicted, and executed. Fill- more, Cheesman, and their confederates were honorably acquit- ted. John Fillmore, the pirate in spite of himself, was the great-grandfather of the thirteenth President of the United States. NORMAN'S WOE. TOUCHING the name of the rock called Norman's Woe, little more is known than that Goodman Norman and his son were among the first to settle here ; and it is therefore as- sumed that this headland and its outlying islet preserve a family 264 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. surname at once bold and picturesque. That no record is known, to explain how the rock originally received its name, or what the catastrophe it was intended to perpetuate, is only another in- stance of the instability of local traditions. Many of the names now in use on Cape Ann go as far back as the first decade of the settlement. For instance, Kettle Island and Baker's Island were named before 1634. This one, like Thacher's Island, is pro- bably commemorative of some uncommon individual experience or disaster; but whatever that may have been, its memory is probably lost beyond recovery. NORMAN S WOE KOCK. Not lost its claim to a wider celebrity than some of our most famous battlefields, for it is the scene so vividly described in Longfellow's " Wreck of the ' Hesperus.' " In his biographical sketch of the poet Longfellow, Mr. Francis H. Underwood says of this ballad that it "is deservedly ad- mired, especially for the vigor of its descriptions. It is," he continues, " in truth a ballad such as former centuries knew, and which are seldom written now. Its free movement, directness, and pictorial power combine to make it one of the most remark- able of the author's poems." nokman's woe. 265 Yet Mr. Fields, the poet's genial friend and whilom his pub- lisher, says that the " Wreck of the ' Hesperus ' " hardly caused its author an effort. The facts with regard to its composition are these : After a dreadful gale in the winter of 1839, which strewed the coast with wrecks, he had been reading the cata- logue of its disasters with which the newspapers were filled. The stormy Cape had reaped its full share of this terrible har- vest. Forty dead bodies, among them that of a woman lashed to a piece of wreck, had been washed up on the Gloucester shore. One of the lost vessels was named the " Hesperus," and the name of Norman's Woe now met his eye, — perhaps for the first time. The event impressed him so deeply that he deter- mined to write a ballad upon it. Late one night as he sat by the fire smoking his pipe, the whole scene came vividly into his mind ; and under the absorbing impulse of the moment, taking his pen, he wrote this most graphic of ballads. He then went to bed, but, as he tells us, not to sleep ; for new thoughts were run- ning in his head which kept him awake. He rose and added them to the first draught. At three in the morning he had fin- ished the ballad as it stands. Although, in point of fact, no such vessel as the " Hesperus " was wrecked on the reef of Norman's W^oe, the poet's versified story is founded upon a real incident, to which the use of these names lends a terrible interest. In one sense, therefore, this ballad belongs to the legendary ; but by the poet's genius it is now firmly associated with the surf-beaten rock of Cape Ann, whose name of terror, derived from some unrecorded disaster, found no reason for its being, until a few strokes of the pen gave it immortality. From being merely the scene of a wreck, Norman's Woe has become a spot consecrated by genius. It is, therefore, no com- mon rock, but a monument to Mr. Longfellow far more sug- gestive and enduring than any memorial shaft that the most reverent hands niay raise over his honored dust. " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The ballad is, as Mr. Underwood says, written in the quaint 266 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. old manner ; but what is more to the purpose, it has the genuine ring, nervous action, sonorous rhythm, and unmistakable flavor of the sea throughout. Those stanzas descriptive of the increas- ing fury of the gale have never been surpassed in the language. Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength ; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. And fast through the midnight dark and drear. Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Towards the Reef of Norman's Woe. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool. But the cruel rocks, they gored her sides Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board ; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank. Ho ! ho ! the breakers roared ! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair. Lashed close to a drifting mast. HANNAH BINDING SHOES. 267 HANNAH BINDING SHOES. " Beverly Farms, Mass., Dec. 22, 1874. " Dear Sir, — As to ' Hannah's ' locale, it is bard to determine. I used to see her at all the windows in Beverly when I was a little child ; but I saw her more distinctly, about twenty years ago, on the road between Beverly and Marblebead. I think she lived in the latter place qviit.e as much as at the former. You see my home was in Beverly, and we Beverly children were rather afraid of the ^larble- headers ; they had the reputation of ' rocking ' their neighbors out of town. I suspect, on the whole, that ' Hannah ' must have been a tramp, and bound shoes anywhere she put up. Mr. Wood, who painted her picture, says he was shown her house in Marblehead. and he ought to know. " But I have honestly told you all I know about her, except as a lodger in my imagination. " Sincerely ashamed of my ignorance, I am truly yours, "Lucy Larcom." Poor lone Hannah, Sitting at the window binding shoes ! Faded, wrinkled. Sitting, stitching in a mournful muse. Bright-eyed beauty once was she When the bloom was on the tree. Spring and winter Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. Not a neighbor Passing nod or answer will refuse To her whisper : " Is there from the fishers any news ? " Oh, her heart 's adrift with one On an endless voyage gone ! Night and morning Hannah 's at the window bindins: shoes. 268 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Fair young Hannah Ben, the suu-burnt fisher gayly wooes ; Hale and clever, For a willing heart and hand he sues. POOR LONE HANNAH. May-day skies are all aglow, For her wedding, Hannah leaves her window and her shoes. HANNAH BINDING SHOES. 269 May is passing, — Mid the apple-boughs a pigeou cooes. Hannah shudders, For the wild sou'-wester mischief brews. Round the rocks of Marblehead, Outward bound, a schooner sped. Silent, lonesome, Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. 'T is November : Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews. From Newfoundland Not a sail returning will she lose ; Whispering hoarsely, '•' Fishermen, Have you, have you heard of Ben I " Old with watching, Hamiah 's at the window binding shoes. Twenty winters Bleach and tear the rugged shore she views ; Twenty seasons ; — Never one has brought her any news. Still her dim eyes silently Chase the white sails o'er the sea. Hopeless, faithful Hannah 's at the window binding shoes. IPSWICH AND NEWBURY LEGENDS. IPSWICH LEGENDS. OLD IPSWICH is one of the most delightful comers into which the artist or the antiquary could have the good f(3rtune to stray, for here either will find ahundant occupation. Its physiognomy is old, its atmosphere drowsy, its quiet un- broken. The best residences are still the oldest ones, and among them are some very quaint specimens of the early Colonial archi- tecture, upon which time seems to have made little impression ; while here and there others stand up mere crazy hulks, so shaken and dilapidated inside and out, that every gale threatens to bring them down with a loud crash into the cellars beneath. Some of these have the reputation of being haunted houses, and are of course enveloped in mystery, — and indeed the whole atmos- phere of the place is thick with legendary lore, which the old people drop their voices when they are relating. To me now there is no more striking picture than that of some such crazy old structure, trembling, as the wind shakes it, like an old man with the palsy, its windows gaping wide, its chimney bent and tottering, the fire on its hearthstone extin- guished forever, the path to it overgrown with weeds, the old well choked up with rubbish and poisonous ivy, — everything expressing irretrievable decay, — standing in the midst of a still vigorous orchard just putting forth its sweet perennial bloom, 18 274 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. with the fresh and tender grass creeping up to the broken threshold, as if Nature claimed admittance, and would not be much longer denied. That house, you are told, was built two centuries ago. Where are the builders ; and where the genera- tions that came after them 1 The old weU-sweep creaks mourn- fully in the wind, and points its bony finger to the sky. Yet here are the trees that they planted, still putting forth their buds, like mortals putting on immortality. It is natural, I think, in such a place to try to imagine the first-comers looking about them. How did it look ; what did they think 1 They were a mere handful, — the apostolic num- ber, — a vanguard sent to establish a semi-military post. Upon ascending the hill above the river they found an outcropping ledge of goodly extent, forming a sort of natural platform, and upon this rock they built their church, which subsequently be- came so famous throughout the Colony under the successive ministrations of Ward, Eogers, ISTorton, and Hubbard, — all men eminent for their learning and piety. Satan himself was not able to prevail against it ; for upon the smooth ledge out- side is still seen the distinct print of his sable majesty's cloven foot, when he Avas hurled from the pinnacle to the ground for attempting to conceal himself within the sanctuary. In another place, down by the river side, the house where Harry Main lived is pointed out to the visitor. He having thus a local habitation, the legend concerning him is no vagabond tra- dition. Harry Main is the Wandering Jew of Ipswich, around whom darkly hangs the shadow of an unpardonable crime and its fearful doom. It is said that he had been by turns a pirate, a smuggler, and a wrecker, who followed the wicked trade of building fires on the sands, in order to decoy vessels among the breakers, where they were wrecked, and their crews perished miserably. For these crimes, at his death he was doomed to be chained on Ipswich Bar, the scene of his former murderous ex- ploits, and everlastingly to coil a cable of sand there. When the cable broke, his demoniacal j^ells of baffled rage could be heard for miles around ; and when those fearful sounds an- IPSWICH LEGENDS. 275 nounced the rising gale, mothers would clasp their babes to their breasts, while the men shook their heads and said, " Old Harry 's growling again ! " His name was long the bugbear used to frighten refractory children into obedience, while the rote on the bar, heard in storms, still audibly perpetuates the legend, with its roar. The old people living on Plum Island used to say that Harry PADLOCK AND KEY, IPSWICH JAIL. Main's ghost troubled them by wandering about the sand-hills on stormy nights, so that they were afraid to venture out of doors after dark. Indeed the town itself, in its palmy days, was so full of ghostly legends, that certain localities supposed to be haunted, were scrupulously avoided by the timid ones, who had a mortal dread of being accosted by some vagabond spectre with its tale of horror. Harry Main's house — for we must remember that he had 276 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. one — was ransacked, and every rod of the garden dug up for the money that he was supposed to have buried there ; but nothing rewarded the search. Other places, too, have been ex- plored with the same result, in quest of Kidd's hidden treasures. One good man dreamed three nights in succession that vast sums were buried in a certain hill in the town. He could see the very spot. Haunted by the realism of tlie dream, he determined to test the matter for himself; and one dark night, just as mid- night struck, he took his spade, his lantern, and his Bible, and started on his weird errand. Upon reaching the spot he recog- nized it as the same that he had seen in his dream. He imme- diately fell to work. After plying his spade vigorously a while, it struck against some hard object. He now felt sure of his prize. Scraping the earth away with feverish haste, he came to a flat stone having a bar of iron laid across it. This he eagerly grasped with one hand, and was about to turn the stone over with the other when he was suddenly surrounded by a troop of cats, whose eyeballs blazed in the darkness. The digger felt his hair slowly rising on end. A cold sweat stood on his brow. Brandishing the bar aloft, he cried out, " Scat ! " when these vig- ilant guardians of the treasure vanished in a twinkling, leaving the crestfallen money-digger standing up to his middle in cold water, which had poured into the hole, when he broke the spell by sj)eaking. Half drowned, and wholly disgusted, he crawled out of it. The iron bar, however, remained tightly clutched in his hand. He carried it home, and I was assured that upon going to a certain house in Ipswich I might see the identical door-latch which a smith had made out of this bar for a souvenir of the night's adventure. Such are a few of the many stories which Mr. Morgan has picturesquely grouped together in his poem entitled " Old Ips- wich Town," — a charming bit of reminiscence, and charmingly told. OLD IPSWICH TOWN. 277 OLD IPSWICH TOWN. APPLETON MORGAN. I LOVE to think of old Ipswich town, Old Ipswich town in the East countree, Whence, on the tide, you can float down Through the long salt grass to the wailing sea. Where the " Mayflower " drifted off the bar Sea- worn and weary, long years ago, And dared not enter, but sailed away Till she landed her boats in Plymouth Bay. I love to think of old Ipswich town, Where Whitefield preached in the church on the hill, Driving out the Devil till he leaped down From the steeple's top, where they show you stiU, Imbedded deep in the solid rock, The indelible print of his cloven hoof, And tell you the Devil has never shown Face or hoof since that day in the honest town. I love to think of old Ipswich town. Where they shut up the witches until the day When they should be roasted so thoroughly brown. In Salem Village, twelve miles away ; They 've moved it off for a stable now ; But there are the holes where the stout jail stood, And, at night, they say that over the holes You can see the ghost of Goody Coles. I love to think of old Ipswich town ; Tliat house to your right, a rod or more. Where the stern old elm-trees seem to frown If you peer too hard through the open door, Sheltered the regicide judges three When the royal sheriffs were after them, And a queer old villager once I met. Who says in the cellar they 're living yet. 278 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. I love to think of old Ipswich town ; Harry Main — you have heard the tale — lived there ; He blasphemed God, so they put him down With an iron shovel, at Ipswich Bar ; They chained him there for a thousand years, As the sea rolls up to shovel it back ; So when the sea cries, the goodwives say " Harry Main growls at his work to-day." IPSWICH HEADS. I love to think of old Ipswich town ; There 's a graveyard up on the old High street, Where ten generations are looking down On the one that is toiling at their feet ; Where the stones stand shoulder to shoulder, like troops Drawn up to receive a cavalry charge, And graves have been dug in graves, till the sod Is the mould of good men gone to God. I love to think of old Ipswich town, Old Ipswich town in the East countree, Whence, on the tide, you can float down Through the long salt grass to the wailing sea. And lie all day on the glassy beach, And learn the lesson the green waves teach, Till at sunset, from surf and seaweed brown. You are pulling back to Ipswich town. HEARTBREAK HILL. 279 Ipswich contains many interesting memorials of its antique ■worthies and times. In the Old Hill burying-ground on High Street may be found incontestable proofs to the rank held by some of the founders, in the family arms that are sculptured on the ancient tombstones ; but you will not find the gravestone of the Reverend William Hubbard, the historian of l^ew Eng- land, there, because no one knows the spot where he is buried. HEARTBREAK HILL. T ITEMING away from the town through unfrequented by- lanes, all green and spotted with daisies, let us ascend Heartbreak Hill in the southeast corner. The view is certainly charming. The reader asks what we see ; and, like one on a tower, we reply : In the distance, across a lonely waste of marshes, through which glistening tidal streams crawl on their bellies among reeds, and sun their glossy backs among sand- dunes, we see the bald Ipswich Hundreds, a group of smooth, gray-green, desolate-looking hills stretched along the coast. They are isolated by these marshes from the mainland, which they seem trying to rejoin. Through the openings between these hills we catch the glitter of a ragged line of sand-dunes heaped up like snow-drifts at the edge of the shore, over which rises the sea, and the harbor-bar, overspread with foam. It being a clear day, we can see from Cape Ann as far as Cape N'eddock, and all that lies or floats between ; but for leagues the coast is sad and drear, and from the sand, intrenching it everywhere with a natural dyke, the eye turns gratefully upon the refreshing sea. Then, as the Maine coast sweeps gracefully round to the east, the blue domes of Agamenticus rise above it, while the long dark land-line shoots ofi" into the ocean, diminishing gradually from the mountain, like a musical phrase whose last note we strive to catch long after it has died away. 280 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Beneath us is a narrow valley through which a river runs with speed. The town occupies both banks, which rise into considerable eminences above it. All around are the evidences of long occupation of the land, — fields that have borne crops, and trees that have been growing for centuries ; houses whose steep roofs descend almost to the ground ; graveyards whose mossed stones lean tins way and that with age. Finally, the traditions that we are unwilling to see expire, cast a pleasing glamour ovei the place, — something like the shadows which the ancient elms fling down upon the hot and dusty roads. MEN OF MARK. The river shoots through the gray arches of a picturesque stone bridge out upon the broad levels of marsh land stretching seaward. Through these it loiters quietly along down to the sea. At the town it is an eager mill-stream ; at the ocean it is as calm as a mill-pond. The tide brings in a few fishing-boats, but seldom anything larger ; for it is no longer an avenue of commerce, as in bygone days. The oldest of Ipswich legends is associated with this hill, and accounts for its name ; though the obscurity surrounding its ori- gin baffles any attempt to trace it to an authentic source. The name is however f.)und upon the earliest records of the town, and it is probably as old as the settlement, which was begun 4^-'^ 2^' 9 ''"■" ^^^^ THE maiden's watch. 282 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. by the Avhites in 1635 as a check to the expected encxoachments of Cardinal Richelieu's colony, then established in Acadia. But before this, we know, from Captain Smith, that the place was the most populous Indian settlement in all Massachusetts Bay, it being the seat of a powerful sagamore, and known by its In- dian name of Agawam. That a few white people were living among the Indians here previous to 1635 is evident from the tenor of one of the first recorded acts of the new Colony, dated September 7, 1630, commanding those that were planted at Agawam forthwith to come away. It is perhaps to this early time that the legend of Heartbreak Hill refers, since it is known that the Agawams were a docile and hospitable people, who welcomed the coming of the English among them with open arms ; and it is also known that the place was more or less frequented by the English fishing-ships. Briefly, the legend relates the romantic story of an Indian maiden who fell in love with a white sailor, and upon his sailing for a distant land, she used to climb this hill and pass her days sitting upon the summit watching for his return. But the months and years passed without bringing any tidings of him. He never did come back ; and still the deserted one watched and waited, until she pined away, and at length died of a broken heart. There is a ledge on the summit where the Indian girl sat watching for her lover's return ; and when she died, her lonely grave was made by the side of it. By others the legend is dif- ferently related. Some say that as the girl one day wended her way wearily to the top of the hill, she saw her lover's vessel making the desperate attempt to gain the port in the height of a violent gale. But it drove steadily on among the breakers, and was dashed to pieces and swallowed up before her eyes. In her poem Mrs. Thaxter adopts the former version, which, if less tragic, appeals in a more subtle way to our sympathies. In any case the hill has become a monument to faithful aflTec- tion, and as such is the favorite resort of lovers in all the country round. HEARTBREAK HILL. 283 HEAETBREAK HILL. CELIA THAXTER. In Ipswich town, not far from the sea, Rises a hill which the people call Heartbreak Hill, and its history- Is an old, old legend, known to aU. It was a sailor who won the heart Of an Indian maiden, lithe and young ; And she saw him over the sea depart. While sweet in her ear his promise rung ; For he cried, as he kissed her wet eyes dry, " I '11 come back, sweetheart ; keep your faith ! " She said, " I will watch while the moons go by." Her love was stronger than life or death. So this poor dusk Ariadne kept Her watch I'rom the hill-top rugged and steep ; Slowly the enij^ty moments crept While she studied the changing face of the deep, Fastening her eyes upon every speck That crossed the ocean within her ken ; Might not her lover be walking the deck, Surely and swiftly returning again ? The Isles of Shoals loomed, lonely and dim, In the northeast distance far and gray, And on the horizon's uttermost rim The low rock heap of Boone Island lay. Oh, but the weary, merciless days, With the sun above, with the sea afar, — No change in her fixed and wistful gaze From the morning- red to the evening star! 284 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Like a slender statue carved of stone She sat, with hardly motion or breath. She wept no tears and she made no moan, But her love was stronger than life or death. He never came back ! Yet, faithful still, She watched from the hill-top her life away. And the townsfolk christened it Heartbreak Hill, And it bears the name to this very day. NEWBURYPORT LEGENDS: LET us stroll a little about the city of Newburyport and its charming environs. Upon leaving Ipswich the landscape grows less austere. The flat Rowley marslies succeed the rocky pastures and tumbling hills, with their stiffly-upright cedars and their shut-in vistas, like a calm after a storm. Then we glide on among haycocks, stand- ing up out of the inflowing tide, across the beautiful and peace- ful prairie of Old Newbury, and are suddenly brought up by a ridge of high land, lifting its green wall between us and the basin of the Merrimack. At the right, thrust up through the tops of the elm-trees that hide the village, like a spear tipped with gold, springs the village spire With the crest of its cock in the sun afire. That is old Newbury meeting-house. Extending now far along the slopes of the ridge as we approach it, are the city cemeteries, whose mingled gray and white monuments throng the green swells, ■ — a multitude of spectators turned into stone. Then, cutting through the ridge, the train plunges into the darkness of a tunnel, soon emerging again upon the farther slope among the city streets from which the broad wdiite sheet of the Merrimack is seen moving steadily out to sea. One side NEWBURYPORT LEGENDS. 285 of these heights then is appropriated by the living, the other by the dead. The most remarkable and fascinating object in the landscape now is the river. The Eiver Merrimack, when near the end of its long course, expands into a noble basin enclosed within the sweep of pictur- esquely grouped and broken highlands. It is here every inch a river, broad, deep, clear, and sparkling. On one side are the BEACOK, SALISBUKY POINT. hills of Amesbury and Salisbury, on tlie other side the city of Newburyport rises from the curved shore to the summit of the ridge, crowned with trees and spiked with steeples. Down below the city and toward the sea all this changes. The high shores drop into fens, marshes, and downs. A long, low island thrusts itself half across the channel and blockades it. Beyond this again the sea breaks heavily on the low bar outside, and the river disappears in a broken line of foam. One loving and reverential hand has stamped all this region with the impress of his genius, and so has made all the world *286 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. partakers of his own feeliug for the famihar scenes he describes. Amesbury is Whittier's home, the Merrimack his unfaihug theme. Here are his surroundings : — Stream of my fathers ! sweetly still The sunset rays thy valley fill ; Poured slantwise down the long defile, Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile. I see the winding Powow fold The green liill in its belt of gold. And following down its Avavy line. Its sparkling waters blend witli thine. There 's not a tree ujjon thy side. Nor rock which thy returning tide As yet hath left abrupt and stark Above thy evening water-mark, But lies distinct and full in sight, Beneath this gush of sununer light. In the same spirit, which by a sort of poetic alcliemy seems capable of converting the waste sands of the seashore into grains of gold, Mrs. Spofford has described the approaches to the river through the flat lagoons that furnish a circulation to tlie marshes. We floated in the idle breeze, With all our sails a- shiver : The shining tide came softly through, And filled Plum Island River. And clear the flood of silver swung Between the brimming edges ; And now the depths were dark, and now The boat slid o'er the sedges. And here a yellow sand-spit foamed Amid the great sea-meadows ; And here the slumberous waters gloomed Lucid in emerald shadows. NEWBURYPORT LEGENDS. 287 Around the sunny distance rose A blue and hazy highland, And winding down our winding way The sand-hills of Plum Island. From the domain of poetry we pass easily into that of history. Mr. John Quincy Adams once described Siberia as being cele- brated for its malefactors and malachite. Some one, in an epi- grammatic vein, has summed up Newburyport as being famous for piety and privateering ; and the analogy seems established when one turns to the History of Newbury written by Whittier's old schoolmaster, Joshua Coffin, and reads there that the pri- vateersmen on putting to sea were accustomed to request the prayers of the churches for the success of the cruise, — to which petition all those having a share in the voyage responded with a hearty amen. Newburyport, then, is a city built upon a bill. One reads its history as he walks. Like Salem, it rose and flourished through its commerce ; but when that failed, the business of the place had to be recast in a wholly different mould, and its merchants be- came spinners and weavers, instead of shipowners and ship- builders. It now seems trying rather awkwardly to adapt itself to the changes that the last half-century has brought about, — changes emphasized by the tenacity with which the old people clin- to the traditions that are associated with its former pros- perity, and gave it a prestige that mills and factories can no longer maintain. The waterside street begins at a nest of idle shipyards, winds with the river along a line of rusty wharves, where colliers take the place of Indiamen, and ends with the antiquated suburb of Joppa, — which at least retains some of the flavor of a seaport, it having a population that gets its living by fishing, piloting, or doing such odd jobs as watermen can pick up along shore. From here the sails of a vessel that is nearing the port can be- seen gliding along over the sand-drifts of Plum Island or Salis- bury Beach. Joppa is crowded with houses, but it is torpid. 288 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. This long street leaves us at OlJtown, the parent settlement here, whose church spire we saw at a distance. It is narrow, irregular, and untidy ; but High Street, the avenue laid out along the top of the ridge, and extending from Oldtown Green to the Chain Bridge over the Merrimack, is a thoroughfare one does not often see equalled, even if he has travelled far and seen much. Here, upon the cool brow of the ridge, are the stately homes of the wealthy citizens ; here the old merchants, who amassed fortunes in West India rum and sugar in little stuffy counting- rooms on the wharves below, lived like princes in the great roomy mansions whose Avindows overlooked all the town, the silvery course of the river, and the surrounding country for miles up and down. Altliough they are now sadly out of date, and of such size as to suggest that a blow of the hospitable knocker would fiU them with echoes, there is an air of gentility and of good living about all these houses which makes us feel regret for the generation whose open-handed hospitality has passed into a tradition ; while the mansions themselves, grown venerable, continue to unite two wholly dissimilar eras. Usually there was an observatory on the roof, from which the owner could sweep the offing with his glass of a morning, and could run over in his mind the chance of a voyage long before his vessel had wallowed over the bar outside. He might then descend, take his cocked hat and cane from the hall-table, order dinner, with an extra cover for his captain, pull out his shirt-frill, and go down to his counting-house without a wrinkle on his brow or a crease in his silk stockings ; everybody would know that his ship had come in. Sound in head and stomach, bluff of speech, yet with a certain homely dignity always distinguishing his class, the merchant of the olden time, undoubted autocrat to his immediate circle of dependants, was a man whose like we shall not look upon again. He left no successors. During the two wars with England, a swarm of privateers, as well as some of the most famous vessels of the old, the invin- cible, navy, were launched here. In 1812 the port suffered as long NEWBURYPOKT LEGENDS. 289 and rigorous a blockade from the enemy's cruisers, as it had before been nearly paralyzed by Mr. Jelferson's embargo. Then the mercliant had ruin staring him in the face whenever he lev- elled his glass at the two and three deckers exchanging signals in the ofl&ng, or when he paced up and down his grass-grown wharves, where his idle ships rusted; but if he did sometimes shut his glass with an angry jerk, or stamp his foot to say, be- tween an oath and a groan, " Our masts take root, bud forth too, and beare akornes ! " he was never found wanting in patriotism, nor did he show a niggardly or a craven spirit in the face of his reverses, so that the record of the Tracys, the Daltons, the Browns, is one of which their descendants are justly proud. Still, it was not thought to be a sinful thing in those days for the clergy to pray that a change of rulers might remove the embargo, or that a stiff gale of wind would raise the blockade, — the means to this end being left to the wisdom of an over- ruling Providence. For the stranger, however, there are but two things in New- buryport for which he asks the first person he meets. One is the tomb of George Whitefield, and the other is the mansion of Lord Timothy Dexter. One is in a quiet and unpretending neighborhood; the other stands in the higli places of the city. Two objects more diverse by their associations, two lives more opposite in their aspirations, it would be difficult to conceive of, yet here the memories of the two men jostle each other. Truly it is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The number of pilgrims who visit the tomb of Whitefield is very large. The great itinerant preacher is buried in a vault that is entered by a door underneath the pulpit of the Old South Presbyterian meeting-house, in Federal Street. Its slender and modest spire, Avith its brazen weathercock, rises above a neigh- borhood no longer fashionable, perhaps, but quite in keeping with its own severe simplicity. Neither belongs to the present. The house has the date 1756 over the entrance-door, and is built of wood. At the left of the pulpit, as we enter, is a marble cenotaph erected to the memory of Whitefield, one face of which 19 290 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. bears a long eulogistic inscrijjtion. Descending into the crypt, whose sepulchral darkness a lamp dimly lights, we are alone with its silent inmates. Yonder dark object presently shapes itself into a bier. We approacli it. The coffin-lid is thrown open, so as to expose what is left of its tenant, — the fleshless skull and bones of George Whitelield. It is not forbidden WIIITEFIELD S MONUilENT. to shudder. Who, indeed, that looks can believe that " there, Whitefield, pealed thy voice " 1 Owing, doubtless, to the fact that many come to gratify an idle curiosity, the trustees have closed the tomb "for a spell," as the NEWBURYPORT LEGENDS. 291 old sextun remarked, with too evident vexation for the loss of his fees for showing it to visitors. It is a curious instance of vandalism that one of the arm-bones should have been surrep- titiously taken from the coffin, and after having twice crossed the ocean, have found its way back to its original resting-place. The story goes that an ardent admirer of the eloquent preacher, who wished to obtain some relic of him, gave a commission to a friend for the purpose, and this friend, it is supposed, procured the limb through the connivance of the sexton's son. The act of desecration being, however, discovered, aroused so much indig- nation everywhere, that the possessor thought it best to relin- quish his prize ; and he accordingly intrusted it to a shipmaster, with the injunction to see it again safely placed in the vault with his own eyes, — which direction was strictly carried out. " And I," finished the sexton, " have been down in the tomb ■with the captain who brought that ar' bone back," But this all happened many years ago. This neighborhood is further interesting as being the birth- place of William Lloyd Garrison, whose dwelling is the first on the left in School Street, while the next is that in which White- field died of an attack of asthma. The extraordinary religious awakening that followed his preaching is one of the traditions common to all our New-England seaboard towns, the houses where he stopped being always pointed out ; so that everywhere Whitetield has a monument. A missionary who crossed tlie ocean fourteen times, an evangelist who preached more than eighteen thousand sermons, and whose audiences were so nume- rous that he was compelled to hold his meetings in the open air, was no ordinary man. To this exposure of himself his death is attributed. It caused a deep sensation ; and so much had the pub- lic estimate of him changed, that there was even a contention for the honor of possessing his remains, which now lie in the place where he was stoned when he first attempted to preach in it. Such is the retribution that time brings. When this cowardly assault nearly struck the Bible from his hand, the man who al- ways had an answer for everything, holding up the book, said 292 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. with calm dignity, but in a voice that went through his hearers Hke an electric shock : "I Jjave a Avarraut from God to preach : his seal is in my hand, and I stand in the King's highway." LORD TIMOTHY DEXTER. TIMOTHY DEXTER was not born great, neither did he have greatness thrust upon him ; yet so effectually does he seem to have thrust his quasi-greatness upon Newburyport, that even now, after the lapse of nearly fourscore years, count- ing from the time when he laid his eccentricities in the dust, as all lords, sooner or later, must do, the stranger visiting Newbury- port asks first to be guided to the spot where the renowned Lord Timothy lived in most uurepublican state. Timothy Dexter was not a native of Newburyport. Maiden has the honor of being his birthplace ; and the family still exists there, a branch of it having occupied one estate for more t]ian two hundred years. Although bred to the tanner's trade, Timo- thy was far too shrewd to hide his talents in a vat. He saw easier avenues to wealth opening before him ; and with a forecast which would make any merchant's fortune, he bought and sold in the way of trade until he had accumulated a snug capital for future speculations. Having " put money in his purse," Timothy Dexter became ambitious ; believing that a golden key would admit him within the circles of the aristocracy. Then, as now, Newburyport was the seat of culture, refinement, and literature ; and it was there- fore to Newburyport that the titled tanner now turned his eyes. He found in its picturesque precincts two mansion houses avail- able for his purpose, and these he purchased. He first occupied one situated on State Street ; but having soon sold this at a profit, he removed to the well-known estate situated on High Street, thenceforth making it, through an odd perversion of its real character, one of the historic mansions of Essex County. 294 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. Vain to excess, he longed for the adulation which a certain class of people are always ready to lavish upon the possessors of great wealth. He now began the work of renovation which transformed the sober mansion of his predecessor into a liarlequinade in wood. By his directions the painters adorned the outside a brilliant white, trimmed with green. Minarets were built upon the roof, in the centre of wliich rose a lofty cujjola surmounted by a gilded eagle with outspread wings. Standing as it did upon the crown of the hill, the house could be seen for miles around, and soon became a landmark for mariners. But the great and unique display was made in the garden fronting this house. There then was working at his trade in the town a skilful ship-carver named Wilson, whom Dexter employed to carve from tlje solid wood some forty gigantic statues of the most ■celebrated men of the period. Gladly did the sculptor accept and execute this order, for it enabled him to lay the foundation of a small fortune, and to acquire a lasting reputation among his townsmen for his workmanship. These images wore about eight feet in height. With conscientious fidelity to fact and fitness, the carved clothing was painted to resemble that worn by the real personages, — blue coats, white shirts, buff breeches, and the rest, — altogether making a display which no museum in the country could equal. Over the main entrance to the house, on a beautiful arch, stood George Washington, with John Adams, bareheaded, at his right hand ; for Dexter said that no one should stand covered on the riglit hand of his greatest hero. General Washington. On the left was Thomas Jefferson, lioLl- ing in his hand a scroll inscribed " Constitution." But my Lord Timothy, it is said, in spite of the painter's objections, insisted upon spelling the name of the Sage of Monticello, "Tomas," instead of Thomas, finally threatening to shoot the artist on the spot if he persisted in his refusal to do what was required of him. The man who had planned and created this garden of statues was as capricious as fame itself. If he raised a statue to some LORD TIMOTHY DEXTER. 295 favorite to-day, he reserved the right to change his name to- morrow ; and often a stroke of the painter's brush transformed statesmen into soldiers, or soldiers into civilians. General Mor- gan yesterday was Bonaparte to-day, to whom Dexter always paid the civility of touching his hat when he passed underneath the great Corsican's shadow. In the panels of the entablatures of each of the columns on which these images stood were the names of the characters represented. Among them were Gov- ernor John Langdon of Xew Hampshire, Governor Caleb Strong of Massachusetts, Eufus King, General Butler of South Caro- lina, General Knox, John Jay, John Hancock, William Pitt, Louis XVI., King George, Lord Nelson, and the Indian Chief, Corn Planter. There was also one allegorical figure representing Maternal Affection, and another a Travelling Preacher, besides several enormous lions occupying pedestals. Dexter himself monopolized two statues. One of these stood near the door, holding in its hand a placard, which was inscribed, " I am first in the East, the first in the West, and the Greatest Philosopher in the known world." The cost of these images, with the col- umns on which they were placed, is said to have been fifteen thousand dollars. This was the only way, however, in which Lord Timothy was able to bring himself into association with greatness. Society refused him recognition with the same hard obduracy that his own wooden images did, his vulgarity and ignorance being too gross even for all his gold to gild ; and so he lived only among sycophants and parasites, who cajoled and flattered him to his heart's content. Having a house and grounds wliich he flattered himself would make his stuck-up neighbors split with envy. Dexter next re- solved to set up an equipage fit for a lord ; and one suiting his ideas of magnificence was accordingly procured. Some one having told him that the carriages of the nobility were always decorated with a coat of arms, one was composed on demand and painted on tlie panel. The crest may have been a dexter arm brandishing a warming-pan, with the motto, " By this I got ye." 296 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. In the matter of horses Dexter was extremely fastidious, as well as capricious. As soon as he grew tired of one c