The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884

One August evening of the year 1743 a boat lay as if anchored in the beautiful Piscataqua; her sail seemed swung only to show its whiteness in the bright moonlight. Every cord upon it hung lifeless, serving only the purpose of pictured lines, one silvered in the light, the dark shadow of the other traced in clear outlines on the sail. The swash of the waves against the side of the boat was too slight to sway it; the sheet dipped in the water and swung almost imperceptibly, while now and then a few straws floated against it and caught there.

The moon, high in the heavens, gave pearly tints to the clouds that floated near it; the pines on the shore flung dark masses against the oaks and maples, or stood as a Rembrandt background for the boughs of the trees on which the moonlight fell, or for some ghostly procession of the white birch trunks. The water, in the shadows as dark and smooth as a Claude Lorraine glass, showed far off in the moonlight faint quivers of its surface here and there, as if the breeze so longed for were coming to the idle boat. But it was too far off, or too faint, for it spent itself before reaching the watchers there, although at the symptoms one of them rose with great show of solemnity, and making a trumpet of his hands, blew vigorously against the sail. But neither these movements nor the concerts of whistling were successful. At last another of the company leaning over the side of the boat busied himself with the sheet.

"I'll tell you the reason this boat don't go," he said, gravely, "the rope was all twisted. I've straightened it out, and taken off the straws."

A burst of laughter greeted him as he turned around his face, still grave, but his dark eyes, roving from one to another, their laughing expression hidden in the shadow, for the moon was behind him.

"What a useful member of society you are, Stephen," cried Katie Archdale. "I don't see how we could get on without you."

"I don't think we're getting on with him very fast," remarked a young gentleman sitting opposite Katie, pointing significantly at a curve of the shore that they had not drifted out of sight of in the last half hour.

"At least he has roused us," returned the girl, "for I half believe I was sleepy before."

"I believe it wholly," answered Stephen, taking his seat beside her again and looking down into her face teazingly with a cousinly freedom. But it was not altogether a cousinly regard from which Katie drew back after a moment, tossing her head coquettishly, and with a heightened color, glancing past at her friend beyond him, who sat dipping one hand in the water and looking dreamily at the shore. Stephen Archdale and his cousin Katie lived within a few miles of each other, and there had always been constant intercourse between their families. When boy and girl, Stephen, four years the elder, the two had played together, and they had grown up, as people said, like brother and sister. But of late it was rumored that the conduct of young Archdale was more loverlike than brotherly, and that, if Katie choose, the tie between them would one day be closer than that of cousinhood. The stranger who sat opposite Archdale, watching them both in silence, was of the same opinion. He was rather portly for his age, which could not have been over thirty, and as he sat in the boat he looked a taller man than he proved to be when on his feet. His dark-brown beard was full, his eyes, like Archdale's, were in shadow, for he had drawn down his hat well over his brows, while Stephen and young Waldo sat bareheaded in the August air.

"I wonder"-began Katie.

"A sturgeon!" cried Mrs. Eveleigh, the last member of the party.

But the sound proved the soft dip of the paddle in the water as a canoe came toward them going down the stream. Its Indian occupant when he shot by turned his gaze stealthily upon the gay party.

"How many more of your red savages are there coming to spy upon us?" And the speaker pushed back his hat a trifle, and looked up and down the river with an anxiety that he could not quite conceal.

"You've not been out here long enough," laughed Waldo. "There's no danger; the red savages are friendly with us just at this moment, and will remain so until we forget our rifles some day, or they learn that we're short of ammunition. Shoot 'em down without mercy whenever they come spying about-it's the only way. They're friendly so long as they are afraid, and not a moment longer. For instance, why should that fellow stop? He saw three men whom he knew were armed, besides that young man who's pretending to sail the boat-why don't you do it, Kit?" and Waldo laughed good-humoredly at the lad whose office had become a sinecure. "When you get used to them, Mr. Harwin," he added, "they will not make you shiver."

"Oh, they don't do that now," returned the other, indifferently, "but, the ladies"-

"As to the ladies," laughed Katie, "one of them is quite fond of the red-skins; the other," glancing at her friend, "has gone into a brown study; I don't believe she's heard or seen anything for the last half hour. Elizabeth, when you fish up any pearls there out of the water, share them with us, won't you?"

"No, she'll do no such thing," interposed Mistress Eveleigh; "she'll give them all to you." The tone was so serious that Elizabeth cried, indignantly,-

"Cousin Patience, how can you?"

"I suppose she likes to tease you," retorted Katie, still laughing, "and so do I. It's so funny to see you wake out of a revery and find yourself."

"And not find myself, you mean," returned Elizabeth, joining in with a ripple of merriment.

"Master Waldo knows all about the red-skins," said Archdale to his opposite neighbor; "he had the pleasure of shooting one last winter."

"Did you?" exclaimed Mrs. Eveleigh, while Harwin looked at the young fellow with a new interest. "How did it happen? Tell us about it."

"Yes, tell us about it," cried Katie, turning toward Waldo. But Elizabeth was still looking at Archdale. Suppose the shooting had been necessary, how could he speak of killing a human being as he would an animal, and then lean back and look at Mr. Waldo with a smile on his face?

Kenelm Waldo, on his part, gazed at the speaker in astonishment.

"'Pon honor," he cried, "I never killed a red-skin in my life, or even had a shot at one. Oh, I know now what he means; he is talking of a fox that I shot two miles from his house, one that you ought to have secured yourself, Mr. Archdale. This was the way I did it, the best way."

When he had finished his account, Katie said:-

"I have a plan for amusing ourselves. Let us make every one tell a story, and we'll lay forfeits on the person that doesn't give us an interesting one. Mistress Eveleigh, please begin."

"That is rather arbitrary, Mistress Katie, with no warning," returned that lady, smiling. "But since we've been talking about the Indians, I will tell you something that my mother did once before she was married, while she was living down on the Cape."

"What a pity, Katie, you did not keep Mistress Eveleigh until the last," cried Archdale; "I know she will have the best story of us all."

"You have too high estimation of my powers," returned Mrs. Eveleigh, flattered; "but if I do well," she added, "it must be remembered that none of you have had forty-five years in which to find one."

The story, like a thousand others of that time, was of the presence of mind and courage of one of the early settlers of America, and was listened to with the attention it deserved. All, with one exception, were outspoken in admiration of its heroine.

"You say nothing, Mistress Royal," said Waldo; "but it may be you've heard it before, since you and Mistress Eveleigh are in the same house."

"Yes," she answered, "I have heard it before." She moved her head quickly as she spoke, and as the moonlight struck her face, Archdale fancied that he saw a moist brightness in her eyes. But certainly no tear fell, and when the next moment Katie declared it Elizabeth's turn for a story, she told some trifling anecdote that had in it neither sentiment nor heroism. It was laughable though, and was about to receive its deserts of praise when at Archdale's first word Elizabeth cried, eagerly:-

"Don't, please. It was not worth telling; only I could remember nothing else."

At this entreaty Harwin stared at her, and his lip curled disdainfully under the hand that partially covered his face. "Have you so much wealth of fascination, young lady," his thoughts ran, "that you can afford to scatter your coins in this way? I rather think not." His eyes rested upon her for a moment as she sat looking at Katie Archdale, and the scorn of his mouth deepened. "Admiration of one woman for another," he commented. "Pshaw! the girl lavishes everything; she will soon be bankrupt. She is drinking in the intoxication of Katie's beauty just as-no, not like me, of course. If ever there could be excuse for such a thing it would be here, for Katie is bewitching, she is perfect; affectionate, too, but with no nonsense about her. She reserves her admiration for-for whom does she reserve it? For the proud young nabob beside her, or for the good-humored little coxcomb over here? It shall be for neither; it shall be for me. I, too, can be fascinating when I take the trouble. Fair lady, I have plans for you."

"Master Harwin," cried the girl's clear voice, interrupting his thoughts, "why don't you begin? We're waiting for you."

"Pardon me," he answered, "I was not aware of it. Well, since you are inexorable, I'll try. I will not attempt anything in this New World, which you all know so much more about than I do, for then there'd be every chance of my being heavily fined. But if you want a story of Old England, perhaps on that ground I can barely escape my forfeit."

"We shall be delighted," said Miss Royal, courteously, for Katie, to whom she saw that he was speaking, was at the moment claimed by Archdale; he was saying something to her in a low voice, and she gave him willing attention.

Only a flash in the narrator's eyes as he began showed that he noticed this.

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