the chronicler of these events is to be believed, and much to the scandal of the community; for to the Orthodox mind in those days, dancing was a lure of the fiend. In Provincial Falmouth dancing was prohibited by law, in places of "public resort." The "quality" in town held their dances at Freeman's tavern, an old-time hostelry of most excellent repute, and on one occasion, as early as the first year of the Revolution, the dancers were indicted. Among them was Theophilus Bradbury, who afterwards became a distinguished lawyer, and with whom the celebrated Theophilus Parsons studied in after years. Bradbury appeared for the respondents with the ingenious defence that as the dancers had hired the room for the season, it became a private apartment and was not a place of "public resort." The court sustained the counsel's view of the case, and the "quality" danced to their heart's content ever after.

Sitting here, with the sound of the firemusic within, and the whistle of the robin in the orchard trees without, my hostess told a story connected with the inn, of a couple of not over-hardened gamesters and their experience with the occupant of the Bradley parsonage. It was on a Saturday night. In this selfsame room it may have been, that a group of revellers, betwixt their hot toddy, their card-playing and their wooing of the fickle goddess, with a constantly increasing pile of winnings on one side and a constantly lightening purse on the other, grew so oblivious to churchly precept that the game lasted well into Sunday morning. A look at the tall clock in its corner in the hall told them what, with all its loud striking, had gone unheeded, that midnight had come and gone, a revelation not unmixed with twinges of conscience, that caused the cards at once to disappear. With an extra mug of flip around, they said their good-night.

"Alone remained the drowsy squire,

To rake the embers of the fire,
And quench the waning parlor light;
While from the windows here and there,
The scattered lamps a moment gleamed,
And the illumined hostel seemed
The constellation of the Bear,
Downward, athwart the misty air,

Sinking and setting toward the sun. Far off, the village clock struck one." Not all of those midnight revellers took their candles from the narrow mantel to light them to bed along the big hall and up the stairway. Two of the hilarious company, wishing their sleepy landlord a good night's rest, went out into the dark highway that crept past Parson Bradley's. With uncertain steps they kept the faintly discernible track, down the hollow and up the hill between the inn and the old gristmill brook that went down to the marsh as noisily in the dark as in broad daylight, as if it knew the way so well it had no need of eyes,—which was more than could be said of the two scapegraces who went creeping over it by the help of the sagging handrail of its old bridge.

The nearer they came to the parsonage, the livelier grew their consciences at having trespassed upon the Lord's time. After a brief debate, and not without misgiving, they concluded to call up the parson and divide the spoils with him, thinking that by turning into the church treasury a part of their ill-gotten gains, partial absolution might be secured. They plodded along through the dark and over the hill by the Tate house, past its black elms, glancing no doubt at its gloomy windows, as if expecting some uncanny thing, perhaps some old woman's ghost, might be there to cast its glowering eyes upon them,- for those were times when uneasy spirits went abroad o'nights. They kept up their courage by dint of loud talk and an occasional pull at the black bottle, dreading most of all the parson's scathing rebuke, which would undoubtedly greet their endeavor to make him a party to their unchristian practices. The parson's slender wicket rattled loudly as they opened it, and they made a furious din with the brazen knocker at the door, whereat the preacher, noted for his dry sayings, his keen satire, and his eccentricities, came to the door to listen to the midnight confession. What they said is not recorded, but hardly had the old man received the silver, when he astonished his callers by his mild acquiescence and the half-approving inquiry:

"Well, gentlemen, why did you not play longer?"

Along a narrow old-fashioned mantel, so high up that I could no more than easily reach it standing, were the same old candlesticks arow which belonged to the earliest days of this inn, and which gleamed as kindly and looked as gay as if they had just come from the modern manufacturer of bric-a-brac; only there was the not easily describable flavor of antiquity about them which is lacking in the modern article.

The ancient brass-mounted andirons, the fender and heavy tongs, and the long, slender-backed, broad-bladed shovel, polished to the brilliancy of gold, keep them demure company about the broad fireplace that with its short chunky jambs speak of the stout-heartedness and toughness of things in general when its virgin flues were first aglow with flame. What tales these quaint appurtenances of this old room could tell with its medley of experiences of home life, that began with the hanging of its stalwart crane, the dawning of its child life, the in-coming and the out-going of its stranger guests, its episodes of roistering entertainment and its midnight revels. What a store of precious secrets are held within the heart of its old roof-tree of pine; as sound, every timber about it, as when with big broadaxe they were hewn square, and with mallet and chisel were fitted into a perfect roof-plate, rafter and ridge-pole. A square house goodly in proportions, set upon capacious foundations, with two good stories above. It is painted white, with cool-looking green blinds, to give a pleasing contrast; and from the eaves on the side toward the highway its sharply pitched roof runs up to a stout ridge-pole with its single stout chimney amidships, to make as steep a descent on its rear side, keeping on down over its ell, shedlike, until its low eaves overshadow the windows of the ancient kitchen. East and west its gables look with the highway. From the horse-sheds eastward, it is a delightful vista of birchen woods over the June landscape to the farthest point of the horizon, old "Black-strap," with its wooden monument, a relic of a coast survey made in the early part of the century. Westward from the hooded doorway with its sidelights of green-glass, one

sees the sun set amid the orchard tops, and that is all.

From the restful entertainment of this old room and its smouldering hearthfire, the musical speech of my gentle hostess in her suit of gray, and the June sunlight without, with the west wind blowing through the orchard and into the open windows, bringing with it a bar or two of some orchard singer's madrigal, it is but a step to the quaint staircase with its slender handrail. The shadows thicken as the garret is approached with its single window in either gable, a roomy, unfinished interior, rich in memorials of a time and a people, the simplest episodes of whose most matter-of-fact existence are tinged now with the color of romance.

This old garret is not so different from one I knew as a playground on wet days at the home farm when a boy; and I never hear the rain beating on the roof or tapping with its wet fingers at my windowpane, but the sloping rafters of that garret come to mind. I look again out on its cobwebby panes upon the dripping woods across the pastures, while all the sky between is gray with driving mists, and wind-blown rain flies across the dark background of the pines in slanting sheets of wet, that leave the tussocks of kalmias white with crystal drops, paint the walls and fences and the trunks of the trees black with the drenching, and drive the birds into their leafy hiding-places. What strange things one finds in these garrets of old houses, with their stained pine rafters and sloping walls, so thickly hung with tapestry from the loom of some vagrant spider. What antique furnishings are these that fill every nook with a presence that inclines one to silence and makes one step softly over the creaking boards of the floor as if in fear of disturbing the slumbers of its dusty tenants that have been asleep so long. These old garrets are the homes of the ghost family, and it is no wonder that one feels the weird influences that lurk behind every shadow. It is a drowsy enough place, but what suggestions look out upon one with puzzling query from the medley of old paraphernalia that has outlived its day and people by so many generations! What a rare place for an

auction, a real old-fashioned country "Vandoo," to which everybody would come for miles around, to have a bit of harmless gossip about their neighbors or their crops, to bid a few cents for some coveted object that has been long cherished in this "Old Curiosity Shop." These auction entertainments, however, as I remember, are largely of the out-ofdoor kind; whatever was to be sold under the hammer was piled promiscuously into the ample front yard for everybody to see, while many a yarn was spun at the expense of one article after another, and it was a miracle if the rain did not come down before the sale was over or the day was out. Fair or foul, it did not matter, as the whole transaction bore a funereal aspect; while the auctioneer's wit was of the subdued melancholy sort, as if this selling of family heirlooms was an indefensible piece of sacrilege, as if there were something of shame attaching to the garrulous part he felt himself to have taken in this closing act of an old-time dream. There are several families living peacefully in this out-of-the-way community, where the first day of April has no more significance than the first day of any other month, so far as the visit of the town assessors is concerned; and the tax collector evidently knows nothing of the place, for he is never seen here. What taxes are levied and collected here are those common to the domain of the house-cat, whose bright eyes may be seen at almost any time of the day flashing like a pair of emeralds aflame, set in the black obscurity of the farthest garret corner, while their owner knows no more delightful occupation than this silent waiting for the unsuspicious rodent whose appetite is like to be his ruin. Here is a rare table for the squirrels and the lesser mice, with the garret floor strewn with the yellow harvest of the corn-rows, where every setting sun ushers in a field-day, or rather a field-night, for these mischief-makers, who go scampering up and down with a queer rustling footstep that reminds one of shivering leaves and winter snows. An old battered squirrel trap of wood, sprung long days ago for the last time, is here with its nubbin of corn stripped bare of every

kernel by some sly chipmunk or by the mice that have crawled in and out its spindle-hole, no doubt somewhat enlarged by the sharp chisels of their teeth. Here is the identical tow string that, I trow, has more than one bit of boyish romance twisted into its yellow fibre, that carried the message from the spindle to the heavy box-cover that it was time to shut its squirrel guest in, when down it dropped with a terrible crash, holding the striped marauder a close prisoner until a flaxen-haired boy, whose counterpart I some time knew, should come to release him. It is a wonderful panorama of bygone days that unwinds from this selfsame spindle, as I lift the heavy cover tied down with many a mesh of cobweb. Unlike Pandora's box, this is over-brimming with good things; and like it, too, they come trooping out so fast, and so many of them, that it is impossible to keep them in,- for every day in all of boyhood's fleeting years is here, and each is crowded with a reminiscence for every hour. It is a music-box as well, for it seems to be full of tunes of bobolinks, of white-throated sparrows, of thrashers and robins, and of swift-running brooks and falling raindrops; and there are hints of flame of cardinal blossoms, of windflowers and bluets, of yellow and purple corn leaves, and of orchard bloom and dandelions, of mellow sunlight and flashing wings. This is a delightful family to visit, and once in its company there is nothing to say, although so much to think of.

Near neighbors to these are the flaxwheel and hatchel, and the huge bunch of tow. I twirl the little wheel round and round, and it is a rare song of old days it sings, for all the rickety treadle creaks its remonstrance in a way not to be misunderstood, for it sets up to belong to the aristocracy of the Linen family, and a good old Irish family it is. The big spinning-wheel, with a musical burr to its speech, chides the flax-wheel upon this exhibition of family pride, and suggests in a brisk sort of way common to the connections of the Woollen family, that the family name does not go a great way nowadays in the getting of a living, and people who rely on their ancestral

honors to win them a place in the world, find themselves in a precarious way. The great hand-loom, that has made I do not know how many yards of homespun in its day, sets its ponderous seal of approval to this opinion of the spinningwheel, with a single clash of its empty sleys. There is an affirmative rustling among the bobbins in the huge square basket of ash that keeps its place beside the bench on which the good wife sat at her weaving. Not knowing how the matter may end, and wishing to keep good friends all around, I turn my back upon this cousinly difference, to catch a glimpse of a brave old muster coat of stained and faded blue, with its huge brass buttons and chevrons wrought in red cord, the only relic of a once warlike family, peaceful enough in these peaceful days. The battered sword that hangs beside it, that glistened bravely at the old-fashioned musters and on training days, is now subjected to a more ignominious fate. To keep it fitting company, the equally ancient flintlock musket stands guard in a corner close by, with a box of battered flints that were brought home from Madawaska or from some other forage, and a -cartridge-box covered with black leather hanging by a rusty nail close by the rustier musket-muzzle. There is no smell of powder smoke about the old coat; but visions of woodland trails and gleams of campfires in the shadows of the deep hemlocks, of watchful men, and of roystering training days with their buts of Jamaica rum and gingerbread booths that lasted long after the Revolution, are painted up and down its dusty lapels. My eyes are not old enough to see all there is here, for it all occurred before my day. The old iron sword, never drawn upon a more belligerent occasion than one of these trainings, if the truth were known,- a bloodless relic, — made a capital corn-sheller before the mechanical device for shelling corn was invented. I suspect that more than one country boy has sat astraddle the corn box with the point of one of these old sword relics held in place by an iron staple driven into the end of the box before him, while the handle, placed between two boards

set

cross-wise this selfsame box, was

held down by the avoirdupois of the operator, his legs sprawling wide apart and his left hand grasping the back of the sword, while the ear, held in the right, was drawn stoutly upward against the dull edge of the clumsy weapon, and so the corn scraped clean from the cob, first at the little end and then at the but. This was a not unusual occupation on rainy days in summer or in the firelight of a winter evening, when the meal chest needed replenishing; it was a sign that the next stormy day would send some one of the men folk to the miller. was a part of the story of the old sword

to me.

That

But there is a more royal family yet in this old garret; for, in a sequestered corner, I have spied a pair of rusty iron dogs with their legs crossed in a dignified way; and hanging from the rafters overhead is an old copper warming-pan with a long handle, that, filled with glowing coals raked from between these identical andirons, lent its warmth to its owner's bed on cold winter nights. Close beside it is the ancient tin baker, in which countless batches of cream biscuit have been baked to perfection, and to keep it company is the spit on which the Thanksgiving turkeys were basted and done to a turn; and here is the iron crank, dreaded by boy and girl alike, by which the roast was turned round and round with a slowness that was exasperating. An ancient tin lantern, with perforated sides and a socket for its "dipped" candle, that no doubt had its place upon the mantel over the sitting-room fireplace, that no doubt lighted the goodman over the drifted path to the barns, and that had no doubt shed its dim light over many a husking bout, is here. It is of a quaint pattern, with square sides and a top that resembles the hip-roof to a toy house; and its sides are figured with scrolls and flower-work deftly outlined by puncturings large and small, and at the top or peak of its roof is a little loop of tin, just big enough to receive a single finger, which was to serve the lantern-bearer for a bale. To keep this old lantern from being lonesome, is a tin horn, a good yard in length, that used to sound its alarm across lots on week days to call the farm-help to dinner,

and on Sundays, maybe, to call the good people of the vicinity to church, and in case of conflagration to summon the neighbors with their buckets; this before church bells could be afforded, and before the new-fangled trumpets with their whanging notes came in with the peripatetic vender of Connecticut notions.

Here is something that could tell a story if it would, a curiously gotten-up affair that, in the days before such a comfort as a fire was known at church, was taken along, with the rest of the family, full of ruddy coals to keep the feet of the

women warm.

But this is not all I have found in this haunted spot; for there is a warning of singing wings, and I have discovered a huge wasp's nest over the window, which has no doubt been there many a year, for wasps are partial to such places, and once well settled are loath to leave, no matter how much they may discommode the housewife as she goes after her herbs that hang from the adjacent rafter.

Was there ever an old garret without its pine chest, into which all things have been piled from decade to decade, which always repays rummaging to the bottom? I have found one here, and scarcely have I lifted the lid before there is a scampering of mice and a rustling among the bits of faded paper that cover the bottom so thickly, and sure enough, I find just what I expected after I caught the scam

pering sound, a nest of tiny mice, as snugly ensconced in their house of paper as the people downstairs in their house of wood. If there were ever any tales of olden days in this chest, the mice have worn them out with their reading of them, or found them so dry that, critic like, they tore them into bits to build them into an edifice of their own.

It was years ago that I saw these things, and I know not how much fact and fancy are mixed in the order of relation. A rare memorial of a rare and bygone race is this Wayside Inn of old Stroudwater, with its peaked gables, its black roofs, and its big chimney, that bespeak a comfort, a substance and a thrift of exceptional quality, and a hospitality the like of which is as rare as the brass-mounted bedsteads I found in its sleeping-rooms, all four posts of which, of dainty and slender proportions, reached to the ceiling, each bedstead surmounted by a bed of royal dimensions, white as the driven snow, that no doubt owned the magic panacea of perfect rest for humankind. A grand house then, it must be the same to-day, standing under the shadows of its door-yard trees, the broad elms and the broad maples. The best wish I have for it is that it may stand a century longer, or as long as the world stands, for that matter, for the story it tells to the wayfarer is one that will bear repeating every day.

W