Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 4 | Page 3

lived a white recluse at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The
natives, having had good reason to mistrust all palefaces, could think
no good of the man who lived thus among but not with them. Often
they gathered at the bank and looked across at his solitary candle
twinkling among the leaves, and wondered what manner of evil he
could be planning against them. Wherever there are many conspirators
one will be a gabbler or a traitor; so, when the natives had resolved on
his murder, he, somehow, learned of their intent and set himself to
thwart it. So great was their fear of this lonely man, and of the

malignant powers he might conjure to his aid, that nearly fifty Indians
joined the expedition, to give each other courage.
Their plan was to go a little distance up the river and come down with
the current, thus avoiding the dip of paddles that he might hear in a
direct crossing. When it was quite dark they set off, and keeping
headway on their canoes aimed them toward the light that glimmered
above the water. But the cunning hermit had no fire in his cabin that
night. It was burning on a point below his shelter, and from his
hiding-place among the rocks he saw their fleet, as dim and silent as
shadows, go by him on the way to the misguiding beacon.
Presently a cry arose. The savages had passed the point of safe sailing;
their boats had become unmanageable. Forgetting their errand, their
only hope now was to save themselves, but in vain they tried to reach
the shore: the current was whirling them to their doom. Cries and
death-songs mingled with the deepening roar of the waters, the light
barks reached the cataract and leaped into the air. Then the night was
still again, save for the booming of the flood. Not one of the Indians
who had set out on this errand of death survived the hermit's stratagem.

THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL
At times the fisher-folk of Maine are startled to see the form of a ship,
with gaunt timbers showing through the planks, like lean limbs through
rents in a pauper's garb, float shoreward in the sunset. She is a ship of
ancient build, with tall masts and sails of majestic spread, all torn; but
what is her name, her port, her flag, what harbor she is trying to make,
no man can tell, for on her deck no sailor has ever been seen to run up
colors or heard to answer a hail. Be it in calm or storm, in-come or ebb
of tide, the ship holds her way until she almost touches shore.
There is no creak of spars or whine of cordage, no spray at the bow, no
ripple at the stern--no voice, and no figure to utter one. As she nears the
rocks she pauses, then, as if impelled by a contrary current, floats
rudder foremost off to sea, and vanishes in twilight. Harpswell is her
favorite cruising-ground, and her appearance there sets many heads to
shaking, for while it is not inevitable that ill luck follows her visits, it
has been seen that burial-boats have sometimes had occasion to cross
the harbor soon after them, and that they were obliged by wind or tide
or current to follow her course on leaving the wharf.

THE SCHOOLMASTER HAD NOT REACHED ORRINGTON.
The quiet town of Orrington, in Maine, was founded by Jesse Atwood,
of Wellfleet, Cape Cod, in 1778, and has become known, since then, as
a place where skilful farmers and brave sailors could always be found.
It also kept Maine supplied for years with oldest inhabitants. It is said
that the name was an accident of illiteracy, and that it is the only place
in the world that owes its title to bad spelling. The settlers who
followed Atwood there were numerous enough to form a township after
ten years, and the name they decided on for their commonwealth was
Orangetown, so called for a village in Maryland where some of the
people had associations, but the clerk of the town meeting was not a
college graduate and his spelling of Orange was Orring, and of town,
ton. His draft of the resolutions went before the legislature, and the
people directly afterward found themselves living in Orrington.

JACK WELCH'S DEATH LIGHT
Pond Cove, Maine, is haunted by a light that on a certain evening,
every summer, rises a mile out at sea, drifts to a spot on shore, then
whirls with a buzz and a glare to an old house, where it vanishes. Its
first appearance was simultaneous with the departure of Jack Welch, a
fisherman. He was seen one evening at work on his boat, but