A SINGLE member of the Folk Lore Society was in Chicago at the opening of the Exposition. He returned a few days after the event. It was one of the plans of this Society to have its members give accounts of the new places they visited, and a meeting was called on the return of this fortunate member to hear him relate the story of the May Day opening of the Fair.

The story[2] increased the interest among the members in Mr. Marlowe’s visit. What suggestions might not Mr. Marlowe have to make?

It was almost twelve o’clock on the opening day of the World’s Fair. President Cleveland was on the grand stand in front of the Administration Building. The triumphant Columbian March had been rendered by the great orchestra; the director-general had given his admirable address; the ode and prophecy had been read, and the President was making his brief speech of the opening hour.

“Look sharp! He will touch the button in a moment more! Watch for the flags and the fountains!”

Massed before the platform, and extending away down the grand square toward the Peristyle, still streaming in through the broad courts, thronging the immense façades and capacious balconies of the mighty buildings, and even perched by scores and by hundreds on the lofty battlements and amidst the huge statuary groups of the roofs, were wellnigh four hundred thousand people.

It was a vast oceanic crowd, gathered from every land and nation of the globe to celebrate the inaugural day of the Columbian Exposition.

Turks, Arabs, Singhalese, and Malays; Algerians, Dahometans, Coreans, Samoans, Egyptians, and Eskimos, as well as Japanese, French, Germans, Spaniards, and Russians, were represented and mixed throughout that great throng, to which also were added a hundred or more painted and feathered Sioux Indians.

These last, in fact, were the only true, original Americans present, for in one sense all others are immigrants.

Although the preparations had been delayed by a long, cold, driving rainstorm, word had gone abroad that on Monday, May first, the World’s Fair would be opened, and foul weather did not keep the people at home.

When the President arrived, shortly before eleven o’clock, the sun, for the first time in several days, broke through the dark, low-lying clouds; but trailing fogs still half veiled the domes, towers, and finials of the gigantic buildings. Never, as it seemed to those who have marked their progress toward completion, had these huge structures looked so enormous, as now that their foundations were encompassed and blackened by the innumerable multitudes, while their domes and roofs were looming, half concealed, in the mist-clouds.

The magnitude of the grand square and the vastness of the assemblage alike defied the power of the human voice to fill or reach. The prayer and the ode were heard by but few. But the voice of the President was stronger, and audible farther; and when, advancing, amidst a tremendous outburst of cheers, he began his short address, the opening sentence, admirable in its simple modesty, “I am here, my fellow-citizens, to join in the congratulations which befit this occasion,” penetrated to a greater distance, and stimulated remote areas of the throng to try to approach nearer and hear more.

The pressure of these converging masses of humanity soon began to be felt alarmingly by the central concourse, directly in front of the platform. The lines of stalwart guards, although aided and re-enforced by platoons of United States infantry, were powerless to withstand this immense inward movement. Guards and soldiers were pushed aside, and borne on by the resistless pressure. Their brandished swords and shouts appeared not to be noticed or heeded; and for a time it seemed as if hundreds, perhaps thousands, would be borne down and crushed under foot.

Many women fainted, and were supported bodily by those near them; nor could the Red Cross chairs gain access, for a time, to take them away to the emergency hospitals.

The crowd swayed to and fro, oscillating rhythmically, and displaying within itself currents and counter-currents of human beings which met and mutually checked each other. At last, as if from restored equilibrium, the tumult ceased.

By good fortune no one had been seriously injured; but the spectacle of resistless might, presented by this movement of three hundred thousands of people, will not soon be forgotten by those who witnessed it from the platform.

From here and there in the great tract of human heads and faces, bursts of cheering rose at intervals, and were responded to from opposite quarters; and it was amidst such scenes as these that the President finished his speech and advanced to the little triple dais of oak and velvet, draped with the national colors, and pressed the electric key, or “button,” by means of which the great Allis engine in Machinery Hall was set in motion.

The same key also gave the signal to all the flagmen, fountain-men, cannoneers, and boatmen on the lagoons, to enact their parts in the great programme of display.

But louder even than the artillery salutes and the shrieking of steam whistles was the mighty roar of applause from the multitude. It was, in truth, vox populi: the voice of the people in their united might. Then for a few moments a kind of silence fell, and the great sea of faces was seen to be rapt and intent on the brilliant spectacle of the unfurling flags, and leaping white jets and spray-bursts from the fountains.

On the instant, at the touch of the button, the great buildings turned suddenly resplendent with gay colors: the flags, ensigns, streamers, gonfalons, and emblems of all nations. In a moment the stately “white city of palaces” had grown deliriously gay with bright bunting; and on the lagoons swiftly propelled gondolas, in Venetian red and blue, mingled with the even brighter-hued electric launches.

And over all—a curious, pleasing feature of the hour—wheeled hundreds of white gulls, visitors from the great lake just outside, whose peculiar wild cries blended with the human acclamations.

The President had spoken, and had opened the Exposition. The brief ceremonies were over, and the mighty concourse in Administration Square melted away, in streamlets and groups, for a day of sight-seeing in the grounds.

Many made their way to the Manufactures Building, to behold the largest edifice in the world, and also in the hope of gaining another glimpse of the President and Cabinet, who were soon to proceed thither in company with the Duke of Veragua, a direct descendant, in the eleventh generation, of Christopher Columbus.

Almost as many more turned toward Machinery Hall, to see the huge engines and dynamos which had been so recently set in motion. The rest distributed themselves in many directions through the grounds.

Then indeed it was apparent that half a million of people may be present at the Exposition without crowding or mutual inconvenience. From many points of view, in fact, no one would now have suspected that an unusual number of visitors were on the grounds. The great squares, plazas, avenues, courts, and interspaces swallowed them up, and if one may use the expression, gaped for more.

Eighty thousand may visit the Manufactures Building at one time. Agricultural Building has room for thirty thousand, Machinery Hall for as many more, and so on of all the other great structures. A million of people may be present at the Fair on a single day without serious obstruction to sight-seeing.

The four hundred thousand or more who attended the May-day opening were a remarkably quiet and orderly assemblage. Very few dissensions or disturbances of any kind occurred. Few rogues were present, so far as known; if present, they contented themselves with sight-seeing. But one pickpocket attempted to ply his vocation, and he was detected in the act.

After the opening exercises, the great assemblage gave an observer the impression of being unusually silent, as if awed by the grandeur and magnitude of the buildings. On every hand people were seen to be gazing in absorbed contemplation. Foreigners present remarked this silence of the people with surprise, it was so unlike the vivacious chatter of a European crowd. Americans are unemotional, irresponsive, stupid, they exclaimed.

They failed to understand the American type of mind. Our people were beholding, intelligently comparing, estimating, thinking; and one who really thinks is not apt to chatter. These silent gazers were taking in the height, breadth, beauty, and magnificent variety of the great Exposition,—taking it in and storing it away for future use.

T HE Folk-Lore Society which became a part of the Village Improvement Society in West Roxbury, used to have Story-Telling Nights, and on these occasions elderly people were invited to attend and relate old village stories. The Folk-Lore story is a very interesting department of Folk-Lore; and of all places in America, the towns that follow the windings of the Charles River, are rich in quaint old tales. The Brook Farm-House, now the German Orphan Asylum, sent into the world a coterie of magic story-tellers. The old houses around the Dedham Woods all have their legends. West Roxbury and the Newtons are haunted places.

Among the popular subjects of this antique story-telling, are “The Old New England Ghost Story,” and “Funny Tales of Old Independence Days.”

There were several of these stories that were particularly popular. One of them was the reading of that masterpiece of old wonder-books, known as “The Devil and Tom Walker,” a warning to usurers, speculators, and all over-reaching people.

Stories of “Lord Timothy Dexter” and old New England Ghost Stories were among the interesting narratives that had entertained the society. We give two of these,— Blingo the Blacksmith, or Lord Timothy Dexter’s Poet and The Darby Ring.

Tommy Topp sat sunning himself in the wide open door of Blingo’s blacksmith shop, when a cloud of dust appeared in the highway; a chariot presently broke into view from the dusty cloud, and four black horses stopped under the golden elms that shaded a rustic watering-trough near the rural smithy.

This was a strange event. People did not ride in “chariots” in Massachusetts during the last century, as a rule, and never in a chariot like this.

The vehicle was not of the classic Roman pattern, such as swept under the triumphal arches in the purple days of the emperors; nor, indeed, a state coach like the disjointed affairs of the days of good Queen Anne. But it was as lively and picturesque in color as a band carriage of to-day, and it was ornamented with a very curious coat-of-arms, the design of which was mysterious, and probably was intended to be so.

Tommy Topp started up with eyes wide with wonder. Blingo dropped an iron whiffle-tree that he was making, and ran to the door, shading his eyes with his sooty hand.

The horses having drank at the watering-trough, the liveried coachman, or charioteer, drove them toward the door, exclaiming, “Whoa!” in an imperial tone, as a footman alighted, in a glory of shining buttons.

The door of the chariot was opened, and another wonder appeared in the shape of an old man in a cocked hat, cape-cloak, and knee-buckles, carrying a gold-headed cane. He rose up from under a kind of canopy, and said in a terrific tone:—

“Where’s the blacksmith?”

The word “where” rasped the very air.

“Ah, ah—I see,—Lord Dexter,” stammered Blingo. “You do me great honor. How can I serve you? What can I do for you?”

The old man turned to his coachman, and said, laconically,—

“You talk with him.”

“One of the horses has cast a shoe,” said the coachman.

The blacksmith at once examined the foot of the horse,—a matter in which Tommy Topp took little interest, as that was a common affair. The boy’s eyes were riveted on the infirm but pompous old man, as he hobbled about with the aid of his gold-headed cane.

The strange restlessness of his eyes would have excited the curiosity of any one, and seemed to fascinate Tommy, whose life had been uneventful, but who had a very lively imagination.

The old man took a few turns under the trees, through which the sunlight was sifting that bright, mellow afternoon. Then he turned suddenly and exclaimed in a tone of command,—

“Plummer, get out.”

Another marvel appeared, a marvel to Tommy, and a spectacle that would have been equally exciting to almost any one outside of the sea-town of Newburyport and its neighborhoods.

Out of a richly embroidered or figured robe rose a figure covered by a cloak that was decorated with stars and fringes. It was a poet,—an unusual curiosity, for poets were not common in those days. He, too, had a cocked hat, large silver knee-buckles, and a gold-headed cane.

Tommy had heard of Jonathan Plummer, the former fish-peddler, who had discovered that he could make rhymes, and had been appointed laureate by “Lord” Timothy Dexter, whose château, with its remarkable statues and gilded eagle, looked down from a high street on the blue harbor of Newburyport. To Tommy, this transformation of a poor fish-peddler into the poet of the self-created “lord” was one of the most marvellous events since the days of which he had read in the “Thousand and One Nights.”

The poems of Jonathan Plummer are still to be found in the quaint lore of antiquarian societies, in whose safe deposits so much of the world’s genius has to wait appreciation.

Who was this strange man, thus impatiently waiting for the shoeing of his horse, who so greatly excited the curiosity of the Yankee boy?

A more picturesque answer cannot be given than that presented in the words of Jonathan Plummer, the poet, quoted from a long poem which relates his master’s history:—

“Lord Dexter is a man of fame;

Most celebrated is his name,

More precious far than gold that’s pure

Lord Dexter shines forevermore.”

It will be seen that the poet sometimes used imperfect rhymes.

“His house is white, and trimmed with green;

For many miles it may be seen.

It shines as bright as any star;

The fame of it has spread afar.

“Lord Dexter, like King Solomon,

Had gold and silver by the ton,

And bells to churches he hath given,

To worship the Great King of Heaven.”

The Arabian kings had their astrologers, and so had other kings in the Middle Ages. “Lord” Dexter was as famous for his intimacy with fortune-tellers as for his garden of statues of heroes, among which his own effigy occupied two pedestals at Newburyport.

He was on the way to Lynn, when he drove up before Blingo’s door, to visit “Moll” Pitcher, a woman who was reputed to have the gift of second sight, and who “told fortunes by tea-cups.”

“Lord” Dexter, as he was called, but really Timothy Dexter, of Newburyport, was a real and very famous character of the last century. He was a mildly insane man, who had acquired a large fortune by trading adventurously at sea. The grotesque fact of his sending warming-pans to hot climates, and of the ship’s captain selling them for ladles for molasses and returning with a fortune, was an old-time wonder-tale, as well as the joke of his writing a book called “A Pickle for the Knowing Ones,” and putting all the punctuation marks on the last page, with the direction to the readers to “Pepper the dish to suit themselves.”

His strange mansion and gardens and statues are still to be seen pictured in old books, as is his own portrait in costume, with embroidered vest, cocked hat, and laced trousers. There were many stories of this eccentric man who so greatly enjoyed the fancy that he was a lord.

Curious as is this history, well-known to the old New England families, it is hardly more so than that of “Moll” Pitcher, who figures in one of Whittier’s poems, and who was equally celebrated as an odd character in New England a century ago, when trading by sea was the principal business along the coast.

This strange woman seems to have been sincere in her belief that she possessed the gift of “second sight,”—an hallucination that she probably inherited from her grandfather, who thought that he was a “wizard,” whatever that may have been.

The sailors went to consult her in regard to their voyages, and crews sometimes refused to depart from port if her predictions were unfavorable. She had a strong, masculine face, with something hidden behind it; a rather kindly face withal, but self-conscious and keen.

Apart from her hallucination and its evil influences, she was a good and self-respecting woman. The simple cottage where she lived was visited for many years after her death, which occurred in 1813, by collectors of traditions and folk-lore, and by nearly all strangers who made a pilgrimage to Lynn.

Like Lord Dexter, this woman seems to have been mildly insane. The two seemed to be confidential friends, and Dexter used to ride over to Lynn to consult with her. He was reputed to have gained a part of his wealth by the aid of her divining tea-cups.

Blingo soon shod the horse. The imaginary “lord” and his plebeian poet entered the coach. The driver mounted his box, and the footman his post. There was a crack of the whip, a rush of the startled black horses, and a great cloud of dust rose again, as the grotesque vehicle wheeled away under the glimmering autumn leaves, in the direction of the blue capes of Lynn.

As it passed from the view of the humble smithy, Blingo the blacksmith and Tommy Topp sat down beside each other in the open door, and discussed the import of this curious event. The effect of this harlequinade on the mind of the old blacksmith and the boy was to make them ill at ease in their simple stations of life.

“This is a strange world,” said Blingo,—“a very strange, strange world. Look at Timothy Dexter. He got rich by accident, and thinks he’s a lord. Here I have to work hard all day in order to live, and pay my honest debts, and then have nothing left for old age. That man never worked as I work a day in his life. Now he’s going to see that lying old fortune-teller. It’s all wrong, yet see how he prospers! I declare I lose faith in everything.”

The sun was sinking over the autumn hills in mingled lustres of vermilion and gold. The shadows were darkening in the woods and orchards. Everywhere the crickets were chirping in the fading grasses, and their lonesome notes only added to the honest blacksmith’s dissatisfaction. There are times when even a true heart becomes discouraged.

“Blingo!” said Tommy, “I’m thinkin’ that we might be rich.”

“Are you? I should like to know how?”

“We might get Moll Pitcher to tell our fortunes, as well as Lord Dexter. I have been told something that I believe is true.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been told that there is a pot of gold hidden in the High Rock of Lynn.”

“Who told you that?”

“Grandma Pennypacker.”

There was a thoughtful silence.

“Well, what if there is?” continued Blingo.

“I’ve a plan,” said Tommy, hesitatingly. “I’d like to go and ask Moll Pitcher if she’ll tell me where the money-pot is hidden. And then if she tells me we can go and dig it up, and you can have half of the gold and I will have half. That will be fair. Everybody knows it’s up there somewheres, but no one knows where. She only asks three shillings to look into her tea-cup. And then—and then—perhaps we might ride in a chariot and have a big house.”

There had been a legend for nearly a hundred years in Lynn that certain pirates landed on the coast, and buried treasures at High Rock or Dungeon Rock, two well-known places near the village. Three of these men were captured and taken to England, but a third one, Thomas Veale, continued to live there for many years, but, it is supposed, was buried in the rocks by the earthquake of 1658.

This legend, as is usual with legends, grew with years, and it is still repeated in Lynn. It filled the popular fancy more than one hundred years ago, and was especially vivid in Lord Timothy Dexter’s day.

Visions of riches began to expand in the boy’s mind, and his mental mood perceptibly affected the honest soul of Blingo.

“Think what we might do if we were only rich!” said the boy, with eager eyes.

“I don’t know. I’m afraid we shouldn’t feel just honest as we do now, if we had money that we had not earned ourselves, and that didn’t belong to us,” said Blingo. “It’s a great thing to feel that one’s honest.”

“But the money-pot don’t belong to anybody. It’s as much yours and mine as any one’s. It belongs to the man that finds it.”

“Yes, yes; p’r’aps so; p’r’aps not; and p’r’aps I’d lose my own respect if I was to let you go to a fortune-teller to find it. Stands to reason that the Lord don’t reveal His secrets through Moll Pitcher’s tea-cups; and if He don’t who does? That’s what I’d like to know—who does? It’s the Evil One himself.”

The boy sat silent. The sounds around the farm-houses were echoed here and there,—the dog’s bark and the chore-boy’s whistle. Now and then a light gust of wind, like the passing of a messenger unseen, shook down the yellow leaves, and left a rustling in the withered trees.

Afar, a bell was ringing in a steeple of Lynn, and nearer there was a rumble of cart-wheels laboring under a weight of corn.

“There is a great deal of comfort,” said Blingo, after this pause, as if talking to himself, “there is a great deal of comfort to be taken with money if it can be got honestly.”

“But I’ll go to the fortune-teller.”

“That wouldn’t help me inwardly. I’m afeard it wouldn’t be right for me to allow you to do what I wouldn’t like to do myself, and I never heard of any good that ever come from consulting tea-grounds. Still—” and there was another pause—“Still, money would be handy with a wife and seven children, and gray hairs comin’. Yes, it would.”

The word “still” settled the question with Tommy, and he started up and walked away without another word. He had almost reached the decision to pay a visit to the Lynn fortune-teller, after the example of Lord Dexter. As he hurried home that wish was confirmed, and he fell asleep in the attic to dream of fortune and fame, chariots and poets, and a château overlooking the blue capes of the sea.

The next morning Tommy arose, and after breakfast started in the direction of Lynn. The first pause in his rapid journey he made at Blingo’s smithy.

“Blingo, I’m goin’.”

“Do tell!” said Blingo, dropping his hammer. “Well, it may be right, but I don’t feel quite right about it. Still, I would not fly into the face of good fortune. Here, she’ll charge you three shillings for lookin’ into the tea-cup, and I’ll pay my part. Here it is.”

Tommy took the money. Then his feet flew along the path by the side of the turnpike. He did not stop again until he reached the fortune-teller’s door.

The simple cottage of Moll Pitcher was gay with the last blossoms of a morning-glory vine. Tommy paused to wonder a moment at the pile of variegated bloom, when the small front door opened, and the fortune-teller herself appeared, with an inquiring face.

“The frost has spoiled them,” said she, seeing Tommy looking at the morning-glories. “They will all die in a few days; it is a pity. Won’t you come in?”

Tommy entered the solitary cottage, and was shown a chair in a simple, plain room.

“I’ve come to ask you about something,” he said. “I’m poor. We’re all poor at home, and—and—I—I wish I had money. I’ve come to see if you’ll help me to find some.”

“To find some? Mercy, child,—

“If I only knew, if I only knew,

What do you think that I would do?”

She sat down in a patched chair, and rocked to and fro.

“They say that you know everything,—all the secrets of the hidden treasures, where the money-pots are, and all,” ventured Tommy.

She looked the lad sharply in the face with her keen eyes, then smiled and said:—

“If I only knew, if I only knew,

What do you think that I would do?”

There was another silence, which Tommy ventured to break.

“Would you be willing to look into the tea-cup for me? I’ve brought the pay with me.”

“What for?” asked the old woman.

“To tell me where the pirates hid the money-pot,” said Tommy, his voice trembling.

“Mercy on ye, boy,—

“If I only knew, if I only knew,

What do you think that I would do?”

There was another long silence. Tommy was very nervous; he waited until it seemed to him he could wait no longer, and then he asked, faintly, “What would you do, if you only knew?”

She drew her chair near to him. “Listen. What would I do? I’d go and get it for myself. Now you’d better go home, my lad. This is all I can do for you this morning. Go to work and honestly earn your money. There, don’t say that Moll Pitcher has not given you good advice, and I won’t charge you anything for it.”

The disappointed boy dragged his feet back to the smithy over the highways and byways during the long autumn afternoon, and sank down at last on the doorsill of the shop, where the vision of Lord Dexter’s magnificence had appeared to him.

Blingo came and leaned over him.

“Well, what did she tell you?”

“She couldn’t find it,” said Tommy.

“What did she say?”

“She only said if she knew where the money was, she’d get it herself.”

THE “DARBY RING.”[3]

When I was young, it was common to hear boys upon the skating ponds speak of “cutting the Darby,” by which expression they were supposed to indicate a swift ring movement upon the ice. The term, I believe, is still used, although comparatively few people may be acquainted with its origin. It came into use through a very singular occurrence, which for a time was the one great local event of a considerable farming and maritime region stretching along the northeastern shore of Narragansett Bay.

In the summer of 1798, many respectable persons, whose homes were in the pleasant towns of Bristol, Warren, and Barrington, R. I., together with some few in the neighboring communities of Swansea and Rehoboth, Mass., were made the victims of a queer delusion.

A short time previous, a man named Darby, or Derby,—the first being the form generally accepted by tradition,—had come to Warren from some part of Connecticut, taken up his abode in the town, and opened a school. As he was a person of pleasing address, he soon became a decided favorite with the honest sea-captains and farmers, who constituted the “solid men” of a population at once rural and commercial.

A keen judge of human nature, he knew how to adapt his speech to suit the character of the person whose sympathies he wished to engage; while the fact that he was a schoolmaster made his utterances oracular to a degree with a people to whom the “Columbiad” of good Joel Barlow was the only known classic.

He was fond of conversing upon mineralogy; and thence gliding easily into necromancy and kindred subjects, he would dwell upon the possibility of unearthing buried treasure through the exercise of some mysterious art akin to the supernatural.

[3]Adapted from a story by Mr. George Coomer in “Youth’s Companion.”

With abundant citations and authorities at his tongue’s end, he would call up the traditions of Kidd, Bellamy and other freebooters, and show how probable it was that much of their ill-gotten gain remained somewhere hidden about the New England shores.

In the course of a few months he had wormed himself into the confidence of a number of sober and substantial people,—but he always chose for his intimate friends those who had property.

The generation of our great-grandfathers must have been much more credulous than our own, for it is agreed upon all sides that the crafty adventurer met with no difficulty in obtaining converts to his pretended golden views. His operations were systematized more and more, till they extended from Warren to the neighboring towns, where he readily found those who became eager to sit at the feet of one possessed of so much mystic learning.

Thus the plans of the schemer progressed to his complete satisfaction, until the “Darbyites” began to hold regular night-gatherings with a view to a more complete organization, and for the perfecting of certain necessary charms. It appears surprising that in so short a time he should have been able to find so many victims, all of excellent character and social position. Of course, the “Nobodies,” as the uninvited were called, were not wanted,—and it was this class which stood off and hooted at the “Somebodies.”

The impostor was not long in giving his adherents to understand that nothing could be effected without money,—metal must be made to attract metal; and, however close-fisted they may have been in the ordinary affairs of life, the excited old farmers and shipmasters contributed liberally of their substance to further Darby’s scheme. Would they not be repaid a thousandfold when the treasures of the “Adventure” galley, buried with many a charm by Kidd’s own hand, should be given forth to the light of the moon?

Imagination must have wrought powerfully with them, giving their plodding, everyday hearts for the time a kind of poetry. No doubt they had wonderful dreams by night and day, and saw many a tempting vision:

“Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl;

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels.”

And now came the placing of the famous “Darby Rings,” one of which was situated near the main road between the villages of Warren and Bristol, and another at Mount Hope, once the home of the great Indian sachem, King Philip; while others still were, I believe, established.

The “Darby Ring” was merely a circle of some forty feet in diameter, about which the treasure-seekers, in single file, would follow their leader at a dog-trot, reciting some exceedingly silly jargon, and at times pausing to perform such grotesque and childish acts as at a more rational moment would have disgusted them. A part of my childhood was passed on the premises which embraced one of these; and although nearly forty years had then gone by since the feet of the Darbyites had paced its magic round, there were still visible some faint traces of what had been. The earth was a little depressed, and the outer edge of the circle showed something like a ridge.

It was in the southeast corner of an orchard; and, no doubt the soft, golden buttercups sprang there in Darby’s time, as they did when we children played about the spot years and years after.

The excitement was now at its height. Nothing was thought of among the dancing, prancing treasure-hunters but Kidd, with his black flag and his kegs of broad doubloons. With wild enthusiasm they recited the lines of the old doggerel, wherein he recounts his fortune:—

“I had ninety bars of gold,

As I sailed, as I sailed;

I had ninety bars of gold,

As I sailed;

I had ninety bars of gold,

And dollars manifold,

And riches uncontrolled,

As I sailed.”

At each nightly meeting they were required to carry in their hands sticks of witch-hazel, which were supposed to possess the power of enabling their holders to detect the presence of buried treasure. Thus each devotee had his little rod, carefully cut and trimmed in some deep old swamp, where he had sought it out with a seriousness and intentness of purpose that one smiles to think upon.

How they must have looked capering about the ring, each with his stick of witch-hazel!—not boys, but men,—grave, practical old fellows, some of whom had, perhaps, that very afternoon been hoeing corn in their own broad fields, and others taking account of cargoes of molasses and sugar at the village wharves.

That there might be no disposition to waver in the ranks, it was Darby’s custom to cheer his retainers with encouraging words; and his smooth and confident tones were as reassuring to them as the “honk” of the leading gander to a flock of wild geese.

“Only be true to me,” he would say, “and I will get the money,”—a remark of which they saw the significance a great deal better afterwards than they did at the time.

Their case illustrated the homely aphorism that “they who dance must pay the fiddler.”

They were subjected among other things to a constant expenditure for a certain wonderful kind of sand, costing sixteen dollars an ounce, which was indispensable to the success of Darby’s magic, and which he alone could procure. It was this which was to unlock the secret of the old-time buccaneer.

Again and again the supply was exhausted, only to be again and again renewed; until it must have seemed, even to those patient trotters about the ring, that the spirit who guarded the pirate’s gold could be nothing short of sand-proof!

In the centre of the circle there was a hole several feet deep, into which the schoolmaster magician and his followers would successively pour small quantities of the precious material, during the intervals of their antics.

A sight more unique than that of these decent, well-meaning gentlemen, trotting about the enchanted ring, under the shadow of the apple-trees, it would not be easy to imagine. Some of them were fat and duck-legged, others tall and lean; but each one kept his pace with tolerable accuracy to the music of the Darby chant.

The inexpressibly comic feature of the case was the entire respectability of the actors in this strange scene. They were householders, owners of broad farms and tall ships. Yet trot, trot, trot, they went, around and around, like so many mad dogs, in that old Bristol Neck orchard! They were required, upon going home, to write some strange characters with onion juice upon bits of paper, which were to be carefully placed under their pillows as assistants to divination. The characters were, of course, invisible, but this did not affect their potency.

A paper called the “Herald of the United States” was at the time published in Warren, and in its issue of August 25, 1798, we find a communication written while the Darby affair was in full blast, describing many of the performances, and expressing great disgust at the silliness of the delusion. From this it appears that not all our great-grandsires were trotters or prancers, but that some of them looked upon the matter very much as we should do to-day.

At last, even the credulous victims themselves began to lose patience, and whispers of discontent were passed from mouth to mouth. It was the beginning of one of those revolutions which never go backwards. It was discovered that the magic sand was obtained from Connecticut, and two trusty members of the circle were appointed to visit that State, for the purpose of gathering further information with regard to the mysterious mineral, which, to eyes in some measure disenchanted, had already begun to assume a woefully common appearance.

The result of their mission was a complete exposure of the fraud. With but little difficulty they obtained an interview with the very person by whom the sand had been furnished, but who, however, disclaimed all knowledge of Darby’s scheme. As to the magic article itself, they discovered it to be the common burden of the seashore in the neighborhood of New London, although of a more silvery hue than the sand of the Narragansett shore,—a difference which the wily impostor had turned to account through the simplicity of his followers.

And now arose the question as to what should be done with the recreant magician. Surrounded by his enraged dupes, he was still more than a match for them in subtlety of tongue.

“I never told you that you would get anything,” he said. “What I did tell was, that if you would only be true to me, I should get the money, and so I should have done!”

We have thus far followed and quoted our friend Coomer’s historical narrative, as it appeared in a popular paper. Mr. Coomer, an excellent poet and writer of sea-stories, lives on the borders of the Mt. Hope Lands, near the boundary-line between the towns of Warren and Bristol, and quite near the place where these strange events occurred. The high lands near to his home, overlooking the Mt. Hope and Narragansett Bays, are full of haunting traditions. They are best visited from the ancient highway between the two towns, now known as the Back Road. The Rhode Island Soldiers’ Home is on this beautiful elevation, and the outlook from it commands the most picturesque waters in New England. The Kickemuit River is particularly beautiful, seen from these flowery and orchard-shaded highlands on a mid-summer day. One of Massasoit’s Springs was on this river, and the great legend of the Northmen is connected with the Mt. Hope Bay. We will give this legend later in verse. A ride of a few miles, out of Bristol or Warren, would enable the visitor to Rhode Island to view from these Back Road farms, or from Mt. Hope, the old Pokonoket country, which has the oldest traditional history in America. Here it is supposed that the Northmen landed, and here certainly is the ancient burying-grounds of the Indian race. Near Massasoit Spring in Warren, R. I., Roger Williams spent the famous winter of his exile, intent on the problems of soul freedom, and the separation of church and state. King Philip must have been a boy then. It is proposed to erect a memorial of Massasoit at this spring.