Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878. Various
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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 moon
Makes 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.
"FOR PERCIVAL."
CHAPTER XLVI
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