Tales Of Puritan Land - Charles M. Skinner
"Had I the power I'd punish you for saying it," answered the swain; "but,
as I have not, I am compelled to ask that the girl go unharmed."
"Will you have it so, or will you share your lover's punishment?" asked
Endicott.
"I will take all upon myself," said the woman.
The face of the governor softened. "Let the young fellow's hair be cut,
in pumpkin-shell fashion," he commanded; "then bring them to me but
gently."
He was obeyed, and as the couple came before him, hand in hand, he took a
chain of roses from the fallen pole and cast it about their necks. And so
they were married. Love had softened rigor and all were better for the
assertion of a common humanity. But the May-pole of Merrymount was never
set up again. There were no more games and plays and dances, nor singing
of worldly music. The town went to ruin, the merrymakers were scattered,
and the gray sobriety of religion and toil fell on Pilgrim land again.
THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER
When Charles River was lined with groves and marshes there lived in a
cabin, near Brighton, Massachusetts, an ill-fed rascal named Tom Walker.
There was but one in the commonwealth who was more penurious, and that
was his wife. They squabbled over the spending of a penny and each
grudged food to the other. One day as Tom walked through the pine wood
near his place, by habit watching the ground--for even there a farthing
might be discovered--he prodded his stick into a skull, cloven deep by an
Indian tomahawk. He kicked it, to shake the dirt off, when a gruff voice
spake: "What are you doing in my grounds?" A swarthy fellow, with the
face of a charcoal burner, sat on a stump, and Tom wondered that he had
not seen him as he approached.
He replied, "Your grounds! They belong to Deacon Peabody."
"Deacon Peabody be damned!" cried the black fellow; "as I think he will
be, anyhow, if he does not look after his own sins a little sharper and a
little less curiously after his neighbors'. Look, if you want to see how
he is faring," and, pointing to a tree, he called Tom to notice that the
deacon's name was written on the bark and that it was rotten at the core.
To his surprise, Tom found that nearly every tree had the name of some
prominent man cut upon it.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I go by different names in different places," replied the dark one. "In
some countries I am the black miner; in some the wild huntsman; here I am
the black woodman. I am the patron of slave dealers and master of Salem
witches."
"I think you are the devil," blurted Tom.
"At your service," replied his majesty.
Now, Tom, having lived long with Mrs. Walker, had no fear of the devil,
and he stopped to have a talk with him. The devil remarked, in a careless
tone, that Captain Kidd had buried his treasure in that wood, under his
majesty's charge, and that whoever wished could find and keep it by
making the usual concession. This Tom declined. He told his wife about
it, however, and she was angry with him for not having closed the bargain
at once, declaring that if he had not courage enough to add this treasure
to their possessions she would not hesitate to do it. Tom showed no
disposition to check her. If she got the money he would try to get a
share of it, and if the devil took away his helpmate--well, there were
things that he had made his mind to endure, when he had to. True enough,
the woman started for the wood before sundown, with her spoons in her
apron. When Tom discovered that the spoons were gone he, too, set off,
for he wanted those back, anyway; but he did not overtake his wife. An
apron was found in a tree containing a dried liver and a withered heart,
and near that place the earth had been trampled and strewn with handfuls
of coarse hair that reminded Tom of the man that he had met in the woods.
"Egad!" he muttered, "Old Nick must have had a tough time with her." Half
in gratitude and half in curiosity, Tom waited to speak to the dark man,
and was next day rewarded by seeing that personage come through the wood
with an axe, whistling carelessly. Tom at once approached him on the
subject of the buried treasure--not the vanished wife, for her he no
longer regarded as a treasure.
After some haggling the devil proposed that Tom should start a loan
office in Boston and use Kidd's money in exacting usury. This suited Tom,
who promised to screw four per cent. a month out of the unfortunates who
might ask his aid, and he was seen to start for town with a bag which his
neighbors thought to hold his crop of starveling turnips, but which was
really a king's ransom in gold and jewels--the earnings of Captain Kidd
in long years of honest piracy. It was in Governor Belcher's time, and
cash was scarce. Merchants and professional men as well as the thriftless
went to Tom for money, and, as he always had it, his business grew until
he seemed to have a mortgage on half the men in Boston who were rich
enough to be in debt. He even went so far as to move into a new house, to
ride in his own carriage, and to eat enough to keep body and soul
together, for he did not want to give up his soul to the one who would
claim it just yet.
The most singular proof of his thrift--showing that he wanted to save
soul and money both--was shown in his joining the church and becoming a
prayerful Christian. He kept a Bible in his pocket and another on his
desk, resolved to be prepared if a certain gentleman should call. He
buried his old horse feet uppermost, for he was taught that on
resurrection day the world would be turned upside down, and he was
resolved, if his enemy appeared, to give him a run for it. While employed
one afternoon in the congenial task of foreclosing a mortgage his
creditor begged for another day to raise the money. Tom was irritable on
account of the hot weather and talked to him as a good man of the church
ought not to do.
"You have made so much money out of me," wailed the victim of Tom's
philanthropies.
"Now, the devil take me if I have made a farthing!" exclaimed Tom.
At that instant there were three knocks at the door, and, stepping out to
see who was there, the money lender found himself in presence of his
fate. His little Bible was in a coat on a nail, and the bigger one was on
his desk. He was without defence. The evil one caught him up like a
child, had him on the back of his snorting steed in no time, and giving
the beast a cut he flew like the wind in the teeth of a rising storm
toward the marshes of Brighton. As he reached there a lightning flash
descended into the wood and set it on fire. At the same moment Tom's
house was discovered to be in flames. When his effects were examined
nothing was found in his strong boxes but cinders and shavings.
THE GRAY CHAMPION
It befell Sir Edmund Andros to make himself the most hated of the
governors sent to represent the king in New England. A spirit of
independence, born of a free soil, was already moving in the people's
hearts, and the harsh edicts of this officer, as well as the oppressive
measures of his master, brought him into continual conflict with the
people. He it was who went to Hartford to demand the surrender of the
liberties of that colony. The lights were blown out and the patent of
those liberties was hurried away from under his nose and hidden from his
reach in a hollow of the Charter Oak.
In Boston, too, he could call no American his friend, and it was there
that he met one of the first checks to his arrogance. It was an April
evening in 1689, and there was an unusual stir in the streets. People
were talking in low tones, and one caught such phrases as, "If the Prince
of Orange is successful, this Andros will lose his head." "Our pastors
are to be burned alive in King Street." "The pope has ordered Andros to
celebrate the eve of St. Bartholomew in Boston: we are to be killed."
"Our old Governor Bradstreet is in town, and Andros fears him." While
talk was running in this excited strain the sound of a drum was heard
coming through Cornhill. Now was seen a file of soldiers with guns on
shoulder, matches twinkling in the falling twilight, and behind them, on
horseback, Andros and his councillors, including the priest of King's
Chapel, all wearing crucifixes at their throats, all flushed with wine,
all looking down with indifference at the people in their dark cloaks and
broadbrimmed hats, who looked back at them with suspicion and hate. The
soldiers trod the streets like men unused to giving way, and the crowd
fell back, pressed against the buildings. Groans and hisses were heard,
and a voice sent up this cry, "Lord of Hosts, provide a champion for thy
people!"
Ere the echo of that call had ceased there came from the other end of the
street, stepping as in time to the drum, an aged man, in cloak and
steeple hat, with heavy sword at his thigh. His port was that of a king,
and his dignity was heightened by a snowy beard that fell to his waist.
Taking the middle of the way he marched on until he was but a few paces
from the advancing column. None knew him and he seemed to recognize none
among the crowd. As he drew himself to his height, it seemed in the dusk
as if he were of no mortal mould. His eye blazed, he thrust his staff
before him, and in a voice of invincible command cried, "Halt!"
Half because it was habit to obey the word, half because they were cowed
by the majestic presence, the guard stood still and the drum was
silenced. Andros spurred forward, but even he made a pause when he saw
the staff levelled at his breast. "Forward!" he blustered. "Trample the
dotard into the street. How dare you stop the king's governor?"
"I have stayed the march of a king himself," was the answer. "The king
you serve no longer sits on the throne of England. To-morrow you will be
a prisoner. Back, lest you reach the scaffold!"
A moment of hesitation on Andros's part encouraged the people to press
closer, and many of them took no pains to hide the swords and pistols
that were girt upon them. The groans and hisses sounded louder. "Down
with Andros! Death to tyrants! A curse on King James!" came from among
the throng, and some of them stooped as if to tear up the pavings.
Doubtful, yet overawed, the governor wheeled about and gloomily marched
back through the streets where he had ridden so arrogantly. In truth, his
next night was spent in prison, for James had fled from England, and
William held the throne. All eyes being on the retreating company, the
champion of the people was not seen to depart, but when they turned to
praise and thank him he had vanished, and there were those who said that
he had melted into twilight.
The incident had passed into legend, and fourscore years had followed it,
when the soldiers of another king of England marched down State Street,
and fired on the people of Boston who were gathered below the old State
House. Again it was said that the form of a tall, white-bearded man in
antique garb was seen in that street, warning back the troops and
encouraging the people to resist them. On the little field of Lexington
in early dawn, and at the breastwork on Bunker Hill, where farmers worked
by lantern-light, this dark form was seen--the spirit of New England. And
it is told that whenever any foreign foe or domestic oppressor shall dare
the temper of the people, in the van of the resisting army shall be found
this champion.
THE FOREST SMITHY
Early in this century a man named Ainsley appeared at Holyoke,
Massachusetts, and set up a forge in a wood at the edge of the village,
with a two-room cottage to live in. A Yankee peddler once put up at his
place for shelter from a storm, and as the rain increased with every hour
he begged to remain in the house over night, promising to pay for his
accommodation in the morning. The blacksmith, who seemed a mild,
considerate man, said that he was willing, but that, as the rooms were
small, it would be well to refer the matter to his wife. As the peddler
entered the house the wife--a weary-looking woman with white hair--seated
herself at once in a thickly-cushioned arm-chair, and, as if loath to
leave it, told the peddler that if he would put up with simple fare and a
narrow berth he was welcome. After a candle had been lighted the three
sat together for some time, talking of crops and trade, when there came a
rush of hoofs without and a hard-looking man, who had dismounted at the
door, entered without knocking. The blacksmith turned pale and the wife's
face expressed sore anxiety.
"What brings you here?" asked the smith.
"I must pass the night here," answered the man.
"But, stranger, I can't accommodate you. We have but one spare room, and
that has been taken by the man who is sitting there."
"Then give me a bit to eat."
"Get the stranger something," said the woman to her husband, without
rising.
"Are you lame, that you don't get it yourself?"
The woman paused; then said, "Husband, you are tired. Sit here and I will
wait on the stranger."
The blacksmith took the seat, when the stranger again blustered, "It
would be courtesy to offer me that chair, tired as I am. Perhaps you
don't know that I am an officer of the law?"
When supper was ready they took their places, the woman drawing up the
arm-chair for her own use, but, as the custom was, they all knelt to say
grace, and while their faces were buried in their hands the candle was
blown out. The stranger jumped up and began walking around the room. When
a light could be found he had gone and the cushion had disappeared from
the chair. "Oh! After all these years!" wailed the woman, and falling on
her knees she sobbed like a child, while her husband in vain tried to
comfort her. The peddler, who had already gone to bed, but who had seen a
part of this puzzling drama through the open door, knew not what to do,
but, feeling some concern for the safety of his own possessions, he drew
his pack into bed with him, and, being tired, fell asleep with the sobs
of the woman sounding in his ears.
When he awoke it was broad day and the earth was fresh and bright from
its bath. After dressing he passed into the other room, finding the table
still set, the chair before it without its cushion, the fire out, and
nobody in or about the house. The smithy was deserted, and to his call
there was no response but the chattering of jays in the trees; so,
shouldering his pack, he resumed his journey. He opened his pack at a
farm-house to repair a clock, when he discovered that his watches were
gone, and immediately lodged complaint with the sheriff, but nothing was
ever seen again of Ainsley, his wife, or the rough stranger. Who was the
thief? What was in the cushion? And what brought the stranger to the
house?
WAHCONAH FALLS
The pleasant valley of Dalton, in the Berkshire Hills, had been under the
rule of Miacomo for forty years when a Mohawk dignitary of fifty scalps
and fifty winters came a-wooing his daughter Wahconah. On a June day in
1637, as the girl sat beside the cascade that bears her name, twining
flowers in her hair and watching leaves float down the stream, she became
conscious of a pair of eyes bent on her from a neighboring coppice, and
arose in some alarm. Finding himself discovered, the owner of the eyes, a
handsome young fellow, stepped forward with a quieting air of
friendliness, and exclaimed, "Hail, Bright Star!"
"Hail, brother," answered Wahconah.
"I am Nessacus," said the man, "one of King Philip's soldiers. Nessacus
is tired with his flight from the Long Knives (the English), and his
people faint. Will Bright Star's people shut their lodges against him and
his friends?"
The maiden answered, "My father is absent, in council with the Mohawks,
but his wigwams are always open. Follow."
Nessacus gave a signal, and forth from the wood came a sad-eyed,
battle-worn troop that mustered about him. Under the girl's lead they
went down to the valley and were hospitably housed. Five days later
Miacomo returned, with him the elderly Mohawk lover, and a priest,
Tashmu, of repute a cringing schemer, with whom hunters and soldiers
could have nothing in common, and whom they would gladly have put out of
the way had they not been deterred by superstitious fears. The strangers
were welcomed, though Tashmu looked at them gloomily, and there were
games in their honor, Nessacus usually proving the winner, to Wahconah's
joy, for she and the young warrior had fallen in love at first sight, and
it was not long before he asked her father for her hand. Miacomo favored
the suit, but the priest advised him, for politic reasons, to give the
girl to the old Mohawk, and thereby cement a tribal friendship that in
those days of English aggression might be needful. The Mohawk had three
wives already, but he was determined to add Wahconah to his collection,
and he did his best, with threats and flattery, to enforce his suit.
Nessacus offered to decide the matter in a duel with his rival, and the
challenge was accepted, but the wily Tashmu discovered in voices of wind
and thunder, flight of birds and shape of clouds, such omens that the
scared Indians unanimously forbade a resort to arms. "Let the Great
Spirit speak," cried Tashmu, and all yielded their consent.
Invoking a ban on any who should follow, Tashmu proclaimed that he would
pass that night in Wizard's Glen, where, by invocations, he would learn
the divine will. At sunset he stalked forth, but he had not gone far ere
the Mohawk joined him, and the twain proceeded to Wahconah Falls. There
was no time for magical hocus-pocus that night, for both of them toiled
sorely in deepening a portion of the stream bed, so that the current ran
more swiftly and freely on that side, and in the morning Tashmu announced
in what way the Great Spirit would show his choice. Assembling the tribe
on the river-bank, below a rock that midway split the current, a canoe,
with symbols painted on it, was set afloat near the falls. If it passed
the dividing rock on the side where Nessacus waited, he should have
Wahconah. If it swerved to the opposite shore, where the Mohawk and his
counsellor stood, the Great Spirit had chosen the old chief for her
husband. Of course, the Mohawk stood on the deeper side. On came the
little boat, keeping the centre of the stream. It struck the rock, and
all looked eagerly, though Tashmu and the Mohawk could hardly suppress an
exultant smile. A little wave struck the canoe: it pivoted against the
rock and drifted to the feet of Nessacus. A look of blank amazement came
over the faces of the defeated wooer and his friend, while a shout of
gladness went up, that the Great Spirit had decided so well. The young
couple were wed with rejoicings; the Mohawk trudged homeward, and, to the
general satisfaction, Tashmu disappeared with him. Later, when Tashmu was
identified as the one who had guided Major Talcott's soldiers to the
valley, the priest was caught and slain by Miacomo's men.
KNOCKING AT THE TOMB
Knock, knock, knock! The bell has just gone twelve, and there is the
clang again upon the iron door of the tomb. The few people of Lanesboro
who are paying the penance of misdeeds or late suppers, by lying awake at
that dread hour, gather their blankets around their shoulders and mutter
a word of prayer for deliverance against unwholesome visitors of the
night. Why is the old Berkshire town so troubled? Who is it that lies
buried in that tomb, with its ornament of Masonic symbols? Why was the
heavy iron knocker placed on the door? The question is asked, but no one
will answer it, nor will any say who the woman is that so often visits
the cemetery at the stroke of midnight and sounds the call into the
chamber of the dead. Starlight, moonlight, or storm--it makes no
difference to the woman. There she goes, in her black cloak, seen dim in
the night, except where there are snow and moon together, and there she
waits, her hand on the knocker, for the bell to strike to set up her
clangor. Some say that she is crazy, and it is her freak to do this
thing. Is she calling on the corpses to rise and have a dance among the
graves? or has she been asked to call the occupant of that house at a
given hour? Perhaps, weary of life, she is asking for admittance to the
rest and silence of the tomb. She has long been beneath the sod, this
troubler of dreams. Who knows her secret?
THE WHITE DEER OF ONOTA
Beside quiet Onota, in the Berkshire Hills, dwelt a band of Indians, and
while they lived here a white deer often came to drink. So rare was the
appearance of an animal like this that its visits were held as good
omens, and no hunter of the tribe ever tried to slay it. A prophet of the
race had said, "So long as the white doe drinks at Onota, famine shall
not blight the Indian's harvest, nor pestilence come nigh his lodge, nor
foeman lay waste his country." And this prophecy held true. That summer
when the deer came with a fawn as white and graceful as herself, it was a
year of great abundance. On the outbreak of the French and Indian War a
young officer named Montalbert was despatched to the Berkshire country to
persuade the Housatonic Indians to declare hostility to the English, and
it was as a guest in the village of Onota that he heard of the white
deer. Sundry adventurers had made valuable friendships by returning to
the French capital with riches and curiosities from the New World. Even
Indians had been abducted as gifts for royalty, and this young ambassador
resolved that when he returned to his own country the skin of the white
deer should be one of the trophies that would win him a smile from Louis.
He offered a price for it--a price that would have bought all their
possessions and miles of the country roundabout, but their deer was
sacred, and their refusal to sacrifice it was couched in such indignant
terms that he wisely said no more about it in the general hearing. There
was in the village a drunken fellow, named Wondo, who had come to that
pass when he would almost have sold his soul for liquor, and him the
officer led away and plied with rum until he promised to bring the white
doe to him. The pretty beast was so familiar with men that she suffered
Wondo to catch her and lead her to Montalbert. Making sure that none was
near, the officer plunged his sword into her side and the innocent
creature fell. The snowy skin, now splashed with red, was quickly
stripped off, concealed among the effects in Montalbert's outfit, and he
set out for Canada; but he had not been many days on his road before
Wondo, in an access of misery and repentance, confessed to his share of
the crime that had been done and was slain on the moment.
With the death of the deer came an end to good fortune. Wars, blights,
emigration followed, and in a few years not a wigwam was left standing
beside Onota.
There is a pendant to this legend, incident to the survival of the deer's
white fawn. An English hunter, visiting the lake with dog and gun, was
surprised to see on its southern bank a white doe. The animal bent to
drink and at the same moment the hunter put his gun to his shoulder.
Suddenly a howl was heard, so loud, so long, that the woods echoed it,
and the deer, taking alarm, fled like the wind. The howl came from the
dog, and, as that animal usually showed sagacity in the presence of game,
the hunter was seized with a fear that its form was occupied, for the
time, by a hag who lived alone in the "north woods," and who was reputed
to have appeared in many shapes--for this was not so long after witch
times that their influence was forgotten.
Drawing his ramrod, the man gave his dog such a beating that the poor
creature had something worth howling for, because it might be the witch
that he was thrashing. Then running to the shanty of the suspected woman
he flung open her door and demanded to see her back, for, if she had
really changed her shape, every blow that he had given to the dog would
have been scored on her skin. When he had made his meaning clear, the
crone laid hold on the implement that served her for horse at night, and
with the wooden end of it rained blows on him so rapidly that, if the dog
had had half the meanness in his nature that some people have, the
spectacle would have warmed his heart, for it was a prompt and severe
revenge for his sufferings. And to the last the hunter could not decide
whether the beating that he received was prompted by indignation or
vengeance.
WIZARD'S GLEN
Four miles from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, among the Berkshire Hills, is
a wild valley, noted for its echoes, that for a century and more has been
called Wizard's Glen. Here the Indian priests performed their
incantations, and on the red-stained Devil's Altar, it was said, they
offered human sacrifice to Hobomocko and his demons of the wood. In
Berkshire's early days a hunter, John Chamberlain, of Dalton, who had
killed a deer and was carrying it home on his shoulders, was overtaken on
the hills by a storm and took shelter from it in a cavernous recess in
Wizard's Glen. In spite of his fatigue he was unable to sleep, and while
lying on the earth with open eyes he was amazed to see the wood bend
apart before him, disclosing a long aisle that was mysteriously lighted
and that contained hundreds of capering forms. As his eyes grew
accustomed to the faint light he made out tails and cloven feet on the
dancing figures; and one tall form with wings, around whose head a wreath
of lightning glittered, and who received the deference of the rest, he
surmised to be the devil himself. It was such a night and such a place as
Satan and his imps commonly chose for high festivals.