Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878

Maintaining still an eastward course, we pass Water Mill, lying upon one of the inlets of Mecoc Bay, and hurrying through Bridgehampton arrive at Sag Harbor, the chief port of the peninsula. It is a quiet, interesting town, beautifully situated on a branch of Gardiner's Bay. Across the neck that projects over toward Shelter Island on the north, and beyond the site chosen by Chief-Justice Daly for his residence, lies Peconic Bay. Toward the east stretches the bay, past the lower end of Shelter Island, past Cedar Point, and then away off to where Gardiner's Island is stretching its long arms to the north and south, as if to guard the great haven inside from the ocean storms. A century and a half ago nothing stood upon the spot where the town now stands but a few fishermen's huts. In a short time the settlers were engaged in whale-fishing off the coast, and thereby really laid the foundations of Sag Harbor's future prosperity and wealth. In 1760 three sloops were fitted out to prosecute the fishing in the northern seas, and after the war of independence Dr. N. Gardiner and his brother despatched on the same errand the first ship that ever sailed from Sag Harbor. The venture failed, but others succeeded, and in 1847 sixty-three ships were engaged in the business. After that date the decline was fast, and now not a single ship of the whole fleet is left. Captain Babcock, the lighthouse-keeper of Montauk, sailed six or seven years ago the brig Myra, the last whaler that left Sag Harbor. His success was not so great that the owners, the Messrs. French, cared to repeat the experiment; so that within twenty years Sag Harbor has fallen from its position as the third or fourth whaling-port in the country to that in which we find it to-day. The gold fever of '49, the discovery of petroleum and the increased expense attending the whale-fishing, all contributed to its decline. It is also claimed for Sag Harbor that Captain Cooper of the Manhattan, sailing from that port, was the first to take a ship into Yeddo.

In and around the town are many evidences of the generally well-to-do condition of its inhabitants, amongst whom are several whose rise to greater wealth was checked by the fall of the whale-fishing. In their homes and those of retired merchant captains are many mementos of long voyages to China, Japan, the Indies, and, in short, to every part of the world. It is singular how interesting, as compared with the choicest things to be found in the shops, these porcelains, lacquers, enamels, ivories, fans, silks, weapons and cabinets are. They are the trophies of the Ancient Mariner, who takes some pride in turning over the contents of his shelves, and derive a personal interest from having been with him through the storms he weathered before he brought them safe to port.

Every part of the town is interesting, and certainly not the least so is the old cemetery. It contains an extensive collection of rude headstones and quaint epitaphs. Here, on a sailor's grave, are engraved the lines—

Rude Boreas' winds and Neptune's wavesHave tossed me to and fro:By God's decree, you plainly see,I'm harbored here below.

In Sag Harbor there lived a certain Captain David Hand, who died in 1840 at the age of eighty-one. Here he and his five wives are sleeping, all in a row. The first died in 1791; the second, in 1794; the third, in 1798; the fourth, in 1810; the fifth, in 1835. The gallant captain himself went down while cruising in quest of a sixth. It is upon the grave of the third that the following appears:

Behold, ye living mortals passing by,How thick the partners of one husband lie.Vast and unsearchable the ways of God:Just, but severe, we feel His chastening rod.

The meaning is a little obscure, and it is only the subsequent matrimonial ventures of the captain that assure us he did not mean that the three who had gone were to him as a chastening rod.

Let us now take our station where we can look down upon the town and over the surrounding scene of mingled island, sea and shore, and try to recall some of the thrilling events that give Sag Harbor its historical interest. Two hundred and fifty years ago these bays, now alive with coasting vessels, pleasure craft and an occasional steamer, showed nothing but the canoes of the Manhansetts and Montauketts. In 1637 we might have seen the large canoe of Wyandanch, the sachem of the Montauks, surrounded by those of his tribe, stealing across toward Shelter Island to complete the extermination of the Pequots. In 1699 the ship in which Kidd won his plunder in the southern seas was lying under the island's lee while the famous pirate was burying a part of his booty on its shore. It is said that the proprietor of the island has still in his possession a piece of gold cloth given to his ancestor by Captain Kidd. Soon afterward Gardiner's Island was visited and plundered by Paul Williams and some of his buccaneering associates. In 1728 these seas swarmed with the pirates of Spain, and one night in September of that year the crew of a schooner landed upon Gardiner's Island, and for three days it was given up to plunder. The next we see is a British fleet in 1775 sweeping round the arm of the island and coming to anchor in the bay, whence, like the pirates, they sent out parties to plunder Mr. Gardiner's house and farm. Sag Harbor was occupied by British troops, and one evening in 1777 across Peconic Bay from Southold the boat that carried Lieutenant-Colonel Meigs and his patriot companions was sailing. Landing a few miles to the west of the town, they fell upon the British garrison like a midnight thunderbolt. The commander was seized in bed, the shipping and provisions were fired, and Meigs and his men had finished their work and retired before the British soldiers were fully awake. Again, in 1780–81, the British fleet anchored in the bay, and yet again in 1813. In the latter year Commodore Hardy sent a launch and two barges with a hundred men to plunder Sag Harbor, but the project utterly failed. The town was roused, the guns of the fort opened upon the intruders, and then the villagers returned to their slumbers. When peace was restored the bay was ploughed by West Indiamen and whalers, and then, as we have seen, they also vanished. Apart, then, from the beauty of its situation, Sag Harbor has associations and a history that form appreciable items in the list of its attractions; and if its future should be less glowing than its past, it will not be for lack of a healthy and mild climate nor of exceptional advantages of location.

Before leaving the town in quest of Easthampton Village we find ourselves in the township of that name. All these woods and fair fields stretching from the Southampton limit eastward to Montauk, and comprising upward of thirty thousand acres, were in 1648 bought for "20 coats, 24 hoes, 24 hatchets, 24 knives, 24 looking-glasses and 100 muxes." Most of the settlers in the village we are now approaching came from Kent, and memories of their English home led them to give it the name of Maidstone, which was afterward changed to Easthampton. It lies in the midst of a beautiful section of country, full of pretty little pictures of rustic life. The main street is, like that of Southampton, a broad grass-grown avenue lined with stately trees, and as we go down in the direction of the shore we pass a spot interesting to English-speaking people all over the world—the birthplace of John Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet Home." It is with a feeling approaching reverence that we look at the old open fireplace, the rafters and walls; and as we emerge and glance up and down the spacious street, and drink in the placid beauty of the scene, the fountain of the poet's inspiration is revealed. Once seen, it is a place for every man to remember all through life, even if "he owed it not his birth." And here the thought recurs that there must be an unusually strong tie between the villagers in all the Hamptons and their homes. The names of many of the old settlers are still met with throughout the entire section from Southampton eastward, so that while Payne was giving expression to a sentiment that is universal in language that the world at large has adopted, his words have also a particular significance in telling us of the atmosphere of sentiment peculiar in its warmth and manifestation to the district in which he was reared.

Our path now lies eastward through the straggling little village of Amagansett, and through the woods beyond which lie Neapeague and Montauk, the "Hilly Land." The quiet repose of village-life is now left behind, and through rapidly-changing scenes we set our faces toward the grandest and most wonderful section of Long Island. For about two miles after leaving Amagansett our route lies through thick woods of young timber, and then we suddenly emerge at a point where the road turns round a spur of the high land we have just passed. On the south is the ocean, in sight of which the road thereafter runs the greater part of the way to the point, and in front, stretching for six or seven miles until it joins the hills of Montauk, is the marshy beach of Neapeague, the "Water Land." As we descend, the sea is hidden by the irregular dunes that lie along the shore, and the dreary expanse extends far before us and off toward the north. Every step leads us to realize more fully the dismal character of the sterile flat. The wagon-wheels alternately grind through the sand and bump into deep puddles in the marsh. There can be no doubt that once this whole tract was overflowed by the sea, and still in heavy storms the waves force their way between the sandhills and lay parts of the beach under water. Meanwhile, however, attention is likely to be diverted from the consideration of the inroads of the sea to the incessant attacks of the insatiate and bloodthirsty mosquitoes. We are here in their very home, and, galled by their furious stinging onslaughts, can recall nothing but Ayres's exclamation:

Cheerless Neapeague! how bounds the heart to gainThe hills that spring beyond thy weary plain!

The busy, bloodthirsty wretches spring in clouds from every swamp. They fill the air, obscure the blue lining of the wagon with their own tawny gray, and would, I verily believe, turn a white horse brown. But the end comes at length, and as we climb the hill bounding the beach on the east the last of the little tormentors disappears. To our left are the Nommonock Hills, and those of Hither Wood rise in front of us. At the point now reached it is well to turn round and view the land we have passed. We can look across from shore to shore, from the ocean breakers on the south to the little harbor of Neapeague on the north, and beyond it to where Gardiner's Island lies out in the bay. The conviction grows upon us that where we now stand was once an island, and that the rugged base of Nommonock was once washed by the sea.

Soon we pass through the Hither Woods, and with them leave behind the last remnant of the forest that formerly covered Montauk. All else, to where Womponomon—the Indian name of the eastern point—juts out into the sea, are hills and rolling downs which rise and fall like the sea when the waves are running "mountains high." Here and there we pass a pond, and often startle the cattle that graze over the greater part of Montauk; and at length pause, spellbound by the view from the hills looking down upon Fort Pond, or Kongonock. The road runs past its southern extremity, where, until the embankment was built, the ocean-surf frequently broke across; and after passing this plain, called Fithian's, we find ourselves a very short distance south of the site of the old Indian village. The hill about halfway between the two ends of the pond on its eastern side was once occupied by an Indian fort, and between it and us lies the valley where were clustered the wigwams of Wyandanch and his tribe. He figures in history as the staunch and often severely-tried ally of the whites, and was the lifelong friend of Lion Gardiner. His warriors were, hyperbolically, "as many as the spires of the grass" until reduced by sickness and battle. The Narragansetts pursued him with an insatiate and vindictive hate, and this peaceful valley was once the scene of a bloody tragedy from which the Montauketts never recovered. Wyandanch had pursued a party of Narragansetts to Block Island, and killed a great number of them. To retaliate, Ninicraft (or Ninigret) invaded Montauk, and on the night of the nuptials of the chief's daughter fell upon the village, burned, sacked and slew, and, in spite of Wyandanch's bravery, totally defeated his followers. Among the fallen was the bridegroom, and beside his dead body the invaders found the bride in a stupor of grief. She was hurried away, an unresisting captive, but was ultimately restored to her father by the exertions of Lion Gardiner. In 1659, Wyandanch died from the effects of poison, and with him went out the glory of his tribe. Piece after piece, the lands he had held were ceded to the whites, and the royal line of Faro came to an end. In 1819 "King" Stephen died, and was buried by subscription. His distinctive badge consisted of a yellow ribbon round his hat. After him others reigned, and although the royal family long ago became extinct, the name of king or chief is still retained. The late holder of the title was David Faro, and he reigned over two families, his own and the Fowlers. He will probably be succeeded by his cousin Stephen, an athletic gentleman and a full-blooded Indian, who is said to have walked in one day from Brooklyn to Montauk, and who thinks little of stepping from Montauk to Bridgehampton, thence to Sag Harbor for dinner, and so on back to Montauk. The late chief left a widow and five children. The eldest is a boy named Wyandanch, who occasionally visits the few houses on the peninsula and the nearest villages, selling berries. The queen's mother and the rest of the tribe are basket-makers. The second of David's children is Maggie Arabella, a pleasant-faced girl with thick-set figure; the third and fourth are bright-eyed boys, Samuel Powhattan and Ebenezer Tecumseh; and the fifth is a child of about six months, Sarah Pocahontas. Besides these there are the present king, Stephen, and his son Samuel. King Sylvester preceded David, so that we are in possession of the likenesses of three of the line of sachems. Ephraim Fowler, a son of Sylvester, also survives. Of the other family of Fowlers, there are the husband and wife and their four children, three sons and a daughter. Such, so far as I know, is a complete census of the tribe of Montauketts. Their possessions are small and their way of living rude. Ichabod! Ichabod!

Returning to the hill overlooking Fort Pond, we are almost due south of Point Culloden. When Montauk throws off entirely its old character and fully assumes the inevitable new, the bay to the west of Culloden will probably be converted by a breakwater into a harbor, and to the north of where we stand it is not unlikely that the snort of the locomotive may yet be heard. Already there are rumors of impending change. With the railroad brought through from Sag Harbor, Fort Pond Bay will be the point of arrival and departure of steamers plying between the island and the New England shore. It is even suggested that the Transatlantic steamers might make it a stopping-place to land mails and passengers. The bay is so deep that vessels of any tonnage could enter it, and it would moreover prove an excellent refuge in stormy weather. When thus brought into more speedy communication with the western part of the island, the lonely grandeur of Montauk will be modified by the inroads of traffic and the things that tell of the far-distant city and its seething mass of jaded humanity. The tens who now seek it will be exchanged for hundreds in quest of the health and vigor that are inhaled with every breath of the fresh salt air. There is, it must be admitted, a certain amount of resignation in our view of such a transformation. We wish for no change in Montauk—would not even ask for the iron road to span the waste of Neapeague. All around is beauty—of the sky, of the sea, of lake and land—beauty of wavy outline and delicious color. There is a deep pleasure also in the feeling that we are here away from the world. Care went riding down the wind into the marshes of the Water Land, and we are emancipated from drudgery and routine. The workshop has receded so far from its usual prominence that it is almost out of memory, a thousand miles away. Why should it be brought nearer and Montauk be made a portion of the old, every-day world?

But to turn to the present. To the east of the hill upon which we stand lies Great Pond, the largest sheet of water on Long Island, and across it may be seen the Shagwannock Hills. And now we may return to the point whence we started at the south end of Fort Pond, and resume our drive across the downs. Soon after passing Stratton's, the third house between Neapeague and the point, the road makes a sweeping détour to the south, bringing us nearer to the sea-cliff, and we hastened to reach the lighthouse before the night made the rough track dangerous. The sky was threatening, and had to the west and north-west an aspect ominous of storm. It was on that night that Wallingford was swept almost out of existence by a tornado. Before we arrived at the lighthouse the lightning was playing brilliantly over the dense mass of clouds that overhung the Connecticut shore. Gradually the black bank drifted eastward, and then to the south, and as it drew near the rumble of the thunder became more audible. By and by a counter-current of wind seemed to set in toward the south-west, and a part of the huge vapory mass was broken off from the rest and whirled directly overhead. The unceasing roar of the surf was drowned by the thunder, and the foam-crested waves that came curling into Turtle Bay were lit up by the glare of the lightning. Toward the east the darting forks of fire seemed now to flash down into the inky sea, and now to throw a baleful and blinding light around the lighthouse. What made the phenomenon singular was that the wind had been blowing a southerly gale all day, and that for a time the motion of the clouds appeared to be entirely independent of the wind. A heavy rainstorm accompanied the thunder, and it was in the midst of this elemental chaos that we first looked out upon the ocean from Womponomon. Soon, however, the heavy cloud passed away to sea, and again

The pale and quiet moonMakes her calm forehead bare.

In the morning a dull gray sky hung over the still-vext ocean, and upon its long swell a few fishing craft were riding at anchor. The view from the lighthouse, the lantern of which was presented to the United States by the French government, is worth all and far more than is ever likely to be passed through in reaching it. Block Island lay like a dark mark deepening the horizon-line, and to the south and east were ships passing gallantly out to sea. To the north the view was hazy, and to the west were the hills of Montauk and glimpses of its ponds. Round the point the water was comparatively still, but the long swell was breaking grandly among the boulders on the south. Below the lantern is the room in which the keepers maintain their vigils, listening to the roar of the wind, and occasionally feeling the tower vibrate to such an extent that the lantern ceases its revolutions. This, however, rarely happens. The tower is strongly built of stone and brick, and, although it has seen many a storm since 1795, it is staunch enough to weather many more.

Down under the cliffs, where the "cruel, hungry foam" is dashing among the rocks, the seaward view is grand and awful. In Turtle Bay, as we casually learned, the dead bodies of those shipwrecked farther up the coast generally come ashore, and a ghastly kind of interest attaches to the place. For miles along the shore the same sad tale is being continually told: it is the solemn burden of the sea's loud wail. We heard it at Fire Island; walking along the beach opposite Sayville, we heard it again in the billows that broke over the wreck of the Great Western; it haunted us at Quogue, and rang in our ears on the lovely beach at the Hamptons; it followed us to Amagansett, and within a few miles of the point we can sit in a veritable "graveyard" filled with beams, broken timbers and rusty iron bolts, the rejected spoils of the ocean. For the moment one cannot help sympathizing with the shepherd of the Noctes, who "couldna thole to lieve on the seashore." There is, in truth, something disturbing to the imagination and confusing to the senses in its everlasting thunder. We see it and leave it—perhaps for a month, possibly for a year—and it is hard to realize when we return that throughout the long interval it has never for a single moment been at rest.

But the time comes when we must retrace our steps to the world which seems so far away. Again we roll over the pasture-land, swept by constant winds, sometimes by storms, and long before we reach Neapeague have learned the truth and felt the sentiment that inspired Ayres's lines:

There is no country like Montauk's rude isle.Strange are its rolling hills, its valleys' smile,Its trees lone dying in their ancient place,As if in sorrow for a dying race.Jennie J. Young.

"FOR PERCIVAL."

CHAPTER XLVI

THE RESULT OF PERCIVAL'S ECONOMY

JUDITH'S letter lay on the table still. Bertie had not come to claim it, and she had not come home.

Having ascertained these facts, Percival went to his own room, and, finding his tea set ready for him, ate and drank hurriedly, hesitating whether he should go and meet her. Standing by the window he looked out on the darkening street. All vulgarity of detail was lost in the softening dusk, and there was something almost picturesque in the opposite roof, whose outline was delicately drawn on the pale-blue sky. Everything was refined, subdued and shadowy in the tender light, but Percival, gazing, saw no charm in the little twilight picture. Sorrow may be soothed by quiet loveliness, but perplexities absorb all our faculties, and we do not heed the beauty of the world, which is simple and unperplexed. If it is forced upon our notice, the contrast irritates us: it is almost an impertinence. Percival would have been angry had he been called upon to feel the poetry which Bertie had found only a few days before in the bit of houseleek growing on that arid waste of tiles. It is true that in that dim light the houseleek was only a dusky little knob.

Should he go and meet Judith? Should he wait for her? What would she do? Should he go to St. Sylvester's? By the time he could reach the church the choristers would have assembled: would the organist be there? While he doubted what to do his fingers were in his waistcoat pocket, and he incidentally discovered that he had only a shilling and a threepenny-piece in it. He went quickly to the table and struck a light. Since he had enrolled himself as Judith Lisle's true knight, ready to go anywhere or render her any service in her need, it would be as well to be better provided with the sinews of war. He unlocked the little writing-case which stood on a side table.

Percival's carefulness in money matters had helped him very much in his poverty. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to him that, since his income was fixed, his expenditure must be made to fit it. He hardly understood the difficulties of that numerous class of which Bertie was an example—men who consider certain items of expenditure as fixed and unchangeable, let their income be what it may. But Percival had retained one remembrance of his wealthier days, a familiarity with money. People who have been stinted all their lives are accustomed to handle silver and copper, but are anxious about gold and frightened at notes or cheques. Percival, though he was quite conscious of the relative greatness of small sums to his narrow means, retained the old habit of thinking them small, and never bestowed an anxious thought on the little hoard in his desk. As he went to it that evening he remembered with sudden pleasure that there was the money that had been accumulating for some time in readiness for Mrs. Bryant's return. He could borrow from that if need were.

The money was gone.

Percival stood up and stared vaguely round the room. Then, unable to believe in his misfortune, he emptied out the contents of the desk upon the table and tossed them over in a hurried search. A carelessly-folded paper caught his eye as something unfamiliar. He opened it and read:

"Dear Thorne: You were good enough to let me borrow of you once when I was in a scrape. I am in a worse difficulty now, and, as I have not the chance of asking your leave, I've ventured to help myself. You shall have it back again in a few days, with an explanation of this cool proceeding."