Tales Of Puritan Land - Charles M. Skinner
In the early days of this century a skinny old woman known as Aunt
Woodward lived by herself in a log cabin at Minot Corner, Maine, enjoying
the awe of the people in that secluded burg. They moved around but little
at night, on her account, and one poor girl was in mortal fear lest by
mysterious arts she should be changed, between two days, into a white
horse. One citizen kept her away from his house by nailing a horseshoe to
his door, while another took the force out of her spells by keeping a
branch of "round wood" at his threshold. At night she haunted a big,
square house where the ghost of a murdered infant was often heard to cry,
and by day she laid charms on her neighbors' provisions and utensils, and
turned their cream to buttermilk. "Uncle" Blaisdell hurried into the
settlement to tell the farmers that Aunt Woodward had climbed into his
sled in the middle of the road, and that his four yoke of oxen could not
stir it an inch, but that after she had leaped down one yoke of cattle
drew the load of wood without an effort. Yet she died in her bed.
THE GLOUCESTER LEAGUERS
Strange things had been reported in Gloucester. On the eve of King
Philip's War the march of men was heard in its streets and an Indian bow
and scalp were seen on the face of the moon, while the boom of cannon and
roll of drums were heard at Malden and the windows of Plymouth rattled to
the passage of unseen horsemen. But the strangest thing was the arrival
on Cape Ann of a force of French and Indians that never could be caught,
killed, or crippled, though two regiments were hurried into Gloucester
and battled with them for a fortnight. Thus, the rumor went around that
these were not an enemy of flesh and blood, but devils who hoped to work
a moral perversion of the colony. From 1692, when they appeared, until
Salem witchcraft was at an end, Cape Ann was under military and spiritual
guard against "the spectre leaguers."
Another version of the episode, based on sworn evidence, has it that
Ebenezer Babson, returning late on a summer night, saw two men run from
his door and vanish in a field. His family denied that visitors had
called, so he gave chase, for he believed the men to have a mischievous
intention. As he left the threshold they sprang from behind a log, one
saying to the other, "The master of the house is now come, else we might
have taken the house," and again they disappeared in a swamp. Babson woke
the guard, and on entering the quarters of the garrison the sound of many
feet was heard without, but when the doors were flung open only the two
men were visible and they were retreating. Next evening the yeoman was
chased by these elusive gentry, who were believed to be scouts of the
enemy, for they wore white breeches and waistcoats and carried bright
guns.
For several nights they appeared, and on the 4th of July half a dozen of
them were seen so plainly that the soldiers made a sally, Babson bringing
three of "ye unaccountable troublers" to the ground with a single shot,
and getting a response in kind, for a bullet hissed by his ear and buried
itself in a tree. When the company approached the place where lay the
victims of that remarkable shot, behold, they arose and scampered away as
blithely as if naught had happened to them. One of the trio was cornered
and shot anew, but when they would pick him up he melted into air. There
was fierce jabbering in an unknown tongue, through all the swamp, and by
the time the garrison had returned the fellows were skulking in the
shrubbery again. Richard Dolliver afterward came on eleven of them
engaged in incantations and scattered them with a gunshot, but they would
not down. They lurked about the cape until terror fell on all the people,
remaining for "the best part of a month together," so it was deemed that
"Satan had set ambushments against the good people of Gloucester, with
demons in the shape of armed Indians and Frenchmen."
Stones were thrown, barns were beaten with clubs, the marching of unseen
hosts was heard after dark, the mockers grew so bold that they ventured
close to the redoubtable Babson, gazed scornfully down the barrel of his
gun, and laid a charm on the weapon, so that, no matter how often he
snapped it at them, it flashed in the pan. Neighboring garrisons were
summoned, but all battling with goblins was fruitless. One night a dark
and hostile throng emerged from the wood and moved toward the blockhouse,
where twenty musketeers were keeping guard. "If you be ghosts or devils I
will foil you," cried the captain, and tearing a silver button from his
doublet he rammed it into his gun and fired on the advancing host. Even
as the smoke of his musket was blown on the wind, so did the beleaguering
army vanish, the silver bullet proving that they were not of human kind.
The night was wearing on when a cry went out that the devils were coming
again. Arms were laid aside this time, and the watchers sank to their
knees in prayer. Directly that the name of God was uttered the marching
ceased and heaven rang with the howls of the angry fiends. Never again
were leaguers seen in Gloucester.
SATAN AND HIS BURIAL-PLACE
Satan appears to have troubled the early settlers in America almost as
grievously as he did the German students. He came in many shapes to many
people, and sometimes he met his match. Did he not try to stop old Peter
Stuyvesant from rowing through Hell Gate one moonlight night, and did not
that tough old soldier put something at his shoulder that Satan thought
must be his wooden leg? But it wasn't a leg: it was a gun, loaded with a
silver bullet that had been charged home with prayer. Peter fired and the
missile whistled off to Ward's Island, where three boys found it
afterward and swapped it for double handfuls of doughnuts and bulls'
eyes. Incidentally it passed between the devil's ribs and the fiend
exploded with a yell and a smell, the latter of sulphur, to Peter's
blended satisfaction and alarm. And did not the same spirit of evil
plague the old women of Massachusetts Bay and craze the French and
Spaniards in the South? At Hog Rock, west of Milford, Connecticut, he
broke up a pleasant diversion:
"Once four young men upon ye rock
Sate down at chuffle board to play
When ye Deuill appearde in shape of a hogg
And frightend ym so they scampered away
And left Old Nick to finish ye play."
One of the first buildings to be put up in Ipswich, Massachusetts, was a
church built on a ledge above the river, and in that church Satan tried
to conceal himself for purposes of mischief. For this act he was hurled
from the steeple-top by some unseen instrument of righteousness with such
force that his hoofmark was stamped into a solid stone near by. This did
not deter him from mounting to the ridge-pole and assuming a defiant air,
with folded arms, when Whitefield began to preach, but when that
clergyman's tremendous voice was loosed below him he bounced into the air
in terror and disappeared.
The Shakers report that in the waning of the eighteenth century they
chased the evil one through the coverts of Mount Sinai, Massachusetts,
and just before dawn of a summer morning they caught and killed and
buried him. Shakers are spiritualists, and they believe their numbers to
have been augmented by distinguished dead, among whom they already number
Washington, Lafayette, Napoleon, Tamerlane, and Pocahontas. The two first
named of these posthumous communists are still seen by members of the
faith who pass Satan's grave at night, for they sit astride of white
horses and watch the burial spot, lest the enemy of man arise and begin
anew his career of trouble. Some members of the brotherhood say that this
legend typifies a burial of evil tendencies in the hearts of those who
hunted the fiend, but it has passed down among others as a circumstance.
The Shakers have many mystic records, transmitted verbally to the present
disciples of "Mother Ann," but seldom told to scoffers "in the world," as
those are called who live without their pure and peaceful communes. Among
these records is that of the appearance of John the Baptist in the
meeting-house at Mount Lebanon, New York, one Sunday, clothed in light
and leading the sacred dance of the worshippers, by which they signify
the shaking out of all carnal things from the heart.
PETER RUGG, THE MISSING MAN
The idea of long wandering as a penalty, symbolized in "The Wandering
Jew," "The Flying Dutchman," and the character of Kundry, in "Parsifal,"
has application in the legend of Peter Rugg. This strange man, who lived
in Middle Street, Boston, with his wife and daughter, was esteemed, as a
person of probity and good manners except in his swearing fits, for he
was subject to outbursts of passion, when he would kick his way through
doors instead of opening them, bite tenpenny nails in two, and curse his
wig off In the autumn of 1770 he visited Concord, with his little girl,
and on the way home was overtaken by a violent storm. He took shelter
with a friend at Menotomy, who urged him to stay all night, for the rain
was falling heavier every moment; but Rugg would not be stayed, and
seeing that there was no hope of a dry journey back to town he roared a
fearful oath and cried, "Let the storm increase. I will see home to-night
in spite of it, or may I never see home!" With that he tossed the child
into the open chaise, leaped in after her, lashed his horse, and was off.
Several nights afterward, while Rugg's neighbors were out with lanterns
trying to discover the cause of a heavy jarring that had begun to disturb
them in bad weather, the excitable gentleman, who had not been seen since
his Concord visit, came whirling along the pavement in his carriage, his
daughter beside him, his black horse plunging on in spite of his efforts
to stop him. The lanterns that for a moment twinkled in Peter's face
showed him as a wet and weary man, with eyes turned up longingly at the
windows where his wife awaited him; then he was gone, and the ground
trembled as with an earthquake, while the rain fell more heavily.
Mrs. Rugg died within a twelvemonth, and Peter never reached home, but
from all parts of New England came stories of a man and child driving
rapidly along the highways, never stopping except to inquire the way to
Boston. Half of the time the man would be headed in a direction opposite
to the one he seemed to want to follow, and when set right would cry that
he was being deceived, and was sometimes heard to mutter, "No home
to-night." In Hartford, Providence, Newburyport, and among the New
Hampshire hills the anxious face of the man became known, and he was
referred to as "the stormbreeder," for so surely as he passed there would
be rain, wind, lightning, thunder, and darkness within the hour.
Some years ago a man in a Connecticut town stopped this hurrying
traveller, who said, in reply to a question, "I have lost the road to
Boston. My name is Peter Rugg." Then Rugg's disappearance half a century
before was cited by those who had long memories, and people began to look
askant at Peter and gave him generous road room when they met him. The
toll-taker on Charlestown bridge declared that he had been annoyed and
alarmed by a prodigious tramping of hoofs and rattling of wheels that
seemed to pass toward Boston before his very face, yet he could see
nothing. He took courage one night to plant himself in the middle of the
bridge with a three-legged stool, and when the sound approached he dimly
saw a large black horse driven by a weary looking man with a child beside
him. The stool was flung at the horse's head, but passed through the
animal as through smoke and skipped across the floor of the bridge. Thus
much the toll-collector said, but when asked if Rugg had appeared again
he made no reply.
THE LOSS OF WEETAMOO
Winnepurkit, sagamore of the coast settlements between Nahant and Cape
Ann, had married Weetamoo, daughter of Passaconaway, king of the
Pennacooks, and had taken her to his home. Their honeymoon was happy, but
old ties are strong, and after a little time the bride felt a longing to
see her people again. When she made known this wish the husband not only
consented to her visit, but gave her a guard of his most trusty hunters
who saw her safe in her father's lodge (near the site of Concord, New
Hampshire), and returned directly. Presently came a messenger from
Passaconaway, informing his son-in-law that Weetamoo had finished her
visit and wished again to be with her husband, to whom he looked for an
escort to guide her through the wilderness. Winnepurkit felt that his
dignity as a chief was slighted by this last request, and he replied that
as he had supplied her with a guard for the outward journey it was her
father's place to send her back, "for it stood not with Winnepurkit's
reputation either to make himself or his men so servile as to fetch her
again."
Passaconaway returned a sharp answer that irritated Winnepurkit still
more, and he was told by the young sagamore that he might send his
daughter or keep her, for she would never be sent for. In this unhappy
strife for precedent, which has been repeated on later occasions by
princes and society persons, the young wife seemed to be fated as an
unwilling sacrifice; but summoning spirit to leave her father's wigwam
she launched a canoe on the Merrimack, hoping to make her way along that
watery highway to her husband's domain. It was winter, and the stream was
full of floating ice; at the best of times it was not easy to keep a
frail vessel of bark in the current away from the rapids, and a wandering
hunter reported that a canoe had come down the river guided by a woman,
that it had swung against the Amoskeag rocks, where Manchester stands
now, and a few moments later was in a quieter reach of water, broken and
empty. No more was seen of Weetamoo.
THE FATAL FORGET-ME-NOT
Three miles out from the Nahant shore, Massachusetts, rises Egg Rock, a
dome of granite topped by a light-house. In the last century the
forget-me-nots that grew in a little marsh at its summit were much
esteemed, for it was reported that if a girl should receive one of these
little flowers from her lover the two would be faithful to each other
through all their married life. It was before a temporary separation that
a certain young couple strolled together on the Nahant cliffs. The man
was to sail for Italy next day, to urge parental consent to their union.
As he looked dreamily into the sea the legend of the forget-me-not came
into his mind, and in a playful tone he offered to gather a bunch as a
memento. Unthinkingly the girl consented. He ran down the cliff to his
boat, pushed out, and headed toward the rock, but a fisherman shouted
that a gale was rising and the tide was coming in; indeed, the horizon
was whitening and the rote was growing plain.
Alice had heard the cry of warning and would have called him back, but
she was forsaken by the power of speech, and watched, with pale face and
straining eyes, the boat beating smartly across the surges. It was seen
to reach Egg Rock, and after a lapse came dancing toward the shore again;
but the tide, was now swirling in rapidly, the waves were running high,
and the wind freshened as the sun sank. At times the boat was out of
sight in the hollowed water, and as it neared Nahant it became
unmanageable. Apparently it had filled with water and the tiller-rope had
broken. Nothing could be done by the spectators who had gathered on the
rocks, except to shout directions that were futile, even if they could be
heard. At last the boat was lifted by a breaker and hurled against a mass
of granite at the very feet of the man's mistress. When the body was
recovered next day, a bunch of forget-me-not was clasped in the rigid
hand.
THE OLD MILL AT SOMERVILLE
The "old powder-house," as the round stone tower is called that stands on
a gravel ridge in Somerville, Massachusetts, is so named because at the
outbreak of the Revolutionary War it was used temporarily as a magazine;
but long before that it was a wind-mill. Here in the old days two lovers
held their tryst: a sturdy and honest young farmer of the neighborhood
and the daughter of a man whose wealth puffed him with purse-pride. It
was the plebeian state of the farmer that made him look at him with an
unfavorable countenance, and when it was whispered to him that the young
people were meeting each other almost every evening at the mill, he
resolved to surprise them there and humiliate, if he did not punish them.
From the shadow of the door they saw his approach, and, yielding to the
girl's imploring, the lover secreted himself while she climbed to the
loft. The flutter of her dress caught the old man's eye and he hastened,
panting, into the mill. For some moments he groped about, for his eyes
had not grown used to the darkness of the place, and hearing his muttered
oaths, the girl crept backward from the stair.
She was beginning to hope that she had not been seen, when her foot
caught in a loose board and she stumbled, but in her fall she threw out
her hand to save herself and found a rope within her grasp. Directly that
her weight had been applied to it there was a whir and a clank. The cord
had set the great fans in motion. At the same moment a fall was heard,
then a cry, passing from anger into anguish. She rushed down the stair,
the lover appeared from his hiding-place at the same moment, and together
they dragged the old man to his feet. At the moment when the wind had
started the sails he had been standing on one of the mill-stones and the
sudden jerk had thrown him down. His arm caught between the grinding
surfaces and had been crushed to pulp. He was carried home and tenderly
nursed, but he did not live long; yet before he died he was made to see
the folly of his course, and he consented to the marriage that it had
cost him so dear to try to prevent. Before she could summon heart to fix
the wedding-day the girl passed many months of grief and repentance, and
for the rest of her life she avoided the old mill. There was good reason
for doing so, people said, for on windy nights the spirit of the old man
used to haunt the place, using such profanity that it became visible in
the form of blue lights, dancing and exploding about the building.
EDWARD RANDOLPH'S PORTRAIT
Nothing is left of Province House, the old home of the royal governors,
in Boston, but the gilded Indian that served as its weathercock and aimed
his arrow at the winds from the cupola. The house itself was swept away
long ago in the so-called march of improvement. In one of its rooms hung
a picture so dark that when Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson went to live
there hardly anybody could say what it represented. There were hints that
it was a portrait of the devil, painted at a witch-meeting near Salem,
and that on the eve of disasters in the province a dreadful face had
glared from the canvas. Shirley had seen it on the night of the fall of
Ticonderoga, and servants had gone shuddering from the room, certain that
they had caught the glance of a malignant eye.
It was known to the governors, however, that the portrait, if not that of
the arch fiend, was that of one who in the popular mind was none the less
a devil: Edward Randolph, the traitor, who had repealed the first
provincial charter and deprived the colonists of their liberties. Under
the curse of the people he grew pale and pinched and ugly, his face at
last becoming so hateful that men were unwilling to look at it. Then it
was that he sat for his portrait. Threescore or odd years afterward,
Hutchinson sat in the hall wondering vaguely if coming events would
consign him to the obloquy that had fallen on his predecessor, for at his
bidding a fleet had come into the harbor with three regiments of red
coats on board, despatched from Halifax to overawe the city. The coming
of the selectmen to protest against quartering these troops on the people
and the substitution of martial for civic law, interrupted his reverie,
and a warm debate arose. At last the governor seized his pen impatiently,
and cried, "The king is my master and England is my home. Upheld by them,
I defy the rabble."
He was about to sign the order for bringing in the troops when a curtain
that had hung before the picture was drawn aside. Hutchinson stared at
the canvas in amazement, then muttered, "It is Randolph's spirit! It
wears the look of hell." The picture was seen to be that of a man in
antique garb, with a despairing, hunted, yet evil expression in the face,
and seemed to stare at Hutchinson.
"It is a warning," said one of the company.
Hutchinson recovered himself with an effort and turned away. "It is a
trick," he cried; and bending over the paper he fixed his name, as if in
desperate haste. Then he trembled, turned white, and wiped a sweat from
his brow. The selectmen departed in silence but in anger, and those who
saw Hutchinson on the streets next day affirmed that the portrait had
stepped out of its canvas and stood at his side through the night.
Afterward, as he lay on his death-bed, he cried that the blood of the
Boston massacre was filling his throat, and as his soul passed from him
his face, in its agony and rage, was the face of Edward Randolph.
LADY ELEANORE'S MANTLE
Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, being orphaned, was admitted to the family of
her distant relative, Governor Shute, of Massachusetts Bay, and came to
America to take her home with him. She arrived at the gates of Province
House, in Boston, in the governor's splendid coach, with outriders and
guards, and as the governor went to receive her, a pale young man, with
tangled hair, sprang from the crowd and fell in the dust at her feet,
offering himself as a footstool for her to tread upon. Her proud face
lighted with a smile of scorn, and she put out her hand to stay the
governor, who was in the act of striking the fellow with his cane.
"Do not strike him," she said. "When men seek to be trampled, it is a
favor they deserve."
For a moment she bore her weight on the prostrate form, "emblem of
aristocracy trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of nature," and
as she stood there the bell on South Church began to toll for a funeral
that was passing at the moment. The crowd started; some looked annoyed;
Lady Eleanore remained calm and walked in stately fashion up the passage
on the arm of His Excellency. "Who was that insolent fellow?" was asked
of Dr. Clarke, the governor's physician.
"Gervase Helwyse," replied the doctor; "a youth of no fortune, but of
good mind until he met this lady in London, when he fell in love with
her, and her pride and scorn have crazed him."
A few nights after a ball was given in honor of the governor's ward, and
Province House was filled with the elect of the city. Commanding in
figure, beautiful in face, richly dressed and jewelled, the Lady Eleanore
was the admired of the whole assembly, and the women were especially
curious to see her mantle, for a rumor went out that it had been made by
a dying girl, and had the magic power of giving new beauty to the wearer
every time it was put on. While the guests were taking refreshment, a
young man stole into the room with a silver goblet, and this he offered
on his knee to Lady Eleanore. As she looked down she recognized the face
of Helwyse.
"Drink of this sacramental wine," he said, eagerly, "and pass it among
the guests."
"Perhaps it is poisoned," whispered a man, and in another moment the
liquor was overturned, and Helwyse was roughly dragged away.
"Pray, gentlemen, do not hurt my poor admirer," said the lady, in a tone
of languor and condescension that was unusual to her. Breaking from his
captives, Helwyse ran back and begged her to cast her mantle into the
fire. She replied by throwing a fold of it above her head and smiling as
she said, "Farewell. Remember me as you see me now."
Helwyse shook his head sadly and submitted to be led away. The weariness
in Eleanore's manner increased; a flush was burning on her cheek; her
laugh had grown infrequent. Dr. Clarke whispered something in the
governor's ear that made that gentleman start and look alarmed. It was
announced that an unforeseen circumstance made it necessary to close the
festival at once, and the company went home. A few days after the city
was thrown into a panic by an outbreak of small-pox, a disease that in
those times could not be prevented nor often cured, and that gathered its
victims by thousands. Graves were dug in rows, and every night the earth
was piled hastily on fresh corpses. Before all infected houses hung a red
flag of warning, and Province House was the first to show it, for the
plague had come to town in Lady Eleanore's mantle. The people cursed her
pride and pointed to the flags as her triumphal banners. The pestilence
was at its height when Gervase Helwyse appeared in Province House. There
were none to stay him now, and he climbed the stairs, peering from room
to room, until he entered a darkened chamber, where something stirred
feebly under a silken coverlet and a faint voice begged for water.
Helwyse tore apart the curtains and exclaimed, "Fie! What does such a
thing as you in Lady Eleanore's apartment?"