Though exceedingly ugly, as I have told my brother, there was one faculty she possessed in a more remarkable degree than any woman that had ever lived in the tribe—it was that of singing. Nothing—unless such could be found in the land of spirits—could equal the sweetness of her voice, or the beauty of her songs. Her favourite place of resort was a small hill, a little removed from the river of her people, and there, seated beneath the shady trees, she would while away the hours of summer with her charming songs. So soft and beautiful were the things she uttered, that, by the time she had sung a single sentence, the branches above her head would be filled with the birds that came thither to listen, and the thickets around her, and the waters rolling beside her, would be crowded with beasts and fishes attracted to the nearest brink or covert by the same sweet sounds. From the minnow to the porpoise, from the sparrow to the eagle, from the snail to the lobster, from the mouse to the mole—all hastened to the spot to listen to the charming songs of the hideous Marshpee maiden. And various, but sufficiently noisy and dissonant, were the means by which the creatures testified the delight and admiration produced by the sounds which had drawn them thither.
Amongst the fishes, who repaired every night to the vicinity of the Little Hillock, which was the chosen resting-place of the ugly songstress, was the great war-chief of the Trouts, a tribe of fishes inhabiting the river near by, and who, as my brother knows, generally make the cold and pebbly stream their place of residence. It is a chosen sport of theirs to hide among the roots of trees which stand near the brink of their favourite streams. They are a very cunning and shy people, and seldom fail, by their cunning and shyness, to escape all the snares laid for them by their enemies. The chief of the tribe, who dwelt in the river of the Marshpees, and who was also their guardian spirit, was of a far larger size than the people of his nation usually are, being as long as a man, and quite as thick, which my brother knows is a size that few of his people attain. But, to enable my brother to account for his great size, it is only necessary to tell him that the mother of this great trout was a monstrous flounder.
Of all the creatures which came to listen to the singing of Awashanks, none appeared to enjoy it so highly as the Chief of the Trouts. As his bulk prevented him from approaching as near as he wished, he, from time to time, in his eagerness to enjoy the music to the best advantage, ran his nose into the ground, and thus soon worked his way a considerable distance into the greensward. Nightly he continued his exertions to approach the source of the delightful sounds he heard; till at length he had ploughed out a wide and handsome brook, and effected his passage from the river to the hill whence that music issued—a distance exceeding an arrow's flight. Thither he repaired every night at the commencement of darkness, sure to meet the maiden who had become so necessary to his happiness. Soon he began to speak of the pleasure he enjoyed, and to fill the ears of Awashanks with fond protestations of his love and affection. Instead of listening, it was not long before he was listened to. It was something so new and strange to the maiden to hear the tones of love and courtship; a thing so unusual to be told that she was beautiful, and to be pressed to bestow her heart upon a suitor; that it is not strange that her head, never very strong, became completely turned by the new incident in her life, and that she began to think the gurgling speech of the lover the sweetest she had ever heard. There, upon the little hillock, beneath the shade of lofty trees, she would sit for a whole sleep, listening to the sweetest sounds her ears had ever heard; the while testifying her affection for her ardent lover by feeding him with roots and other food in which he delighted. But there were obstacles to the accomplishment of their mutual wishes, which they knew not how to overcome. He could not live on the land above two minutes at a time, nor she in the water above thrice that period. This state of things gave them much vexation, occasioning many tears to be shed by the maiden, and perplexing much her ardent lover.
They had met at the usual place one evening, discoursing of these things, and lamenting that two so fond and affectionate should be doomed to live apart, when a slight noise at the shoulder of the maiden caused her to turn her head. Terror filled her bosom when she found that it proceeded from a little striped man, scarcely higher than a tall boy of ten seasons. He wore around his neck a string of glittering shells, and his hair, green as ooze, was curiously woven with the long weeds which are found growing upon the rocks at the bottom of the Great Lake. His hands and feet were shaped like the fins of fish, and his head was that of a great haddock. His body was covered with scales like any other scaly fish; indeed, except that he walked erect like a human being, and had two legs, and two arms, and that his eyes were not placed as the eyes of fish are, he might well have been taken for a fish of a kind not before known. Having surveyed the lovers for a short time in silence, he demanded "why they were so gloomy and downcast."
The bashfulness of the maiden prevented her replying, but the Chief of the Trouts answered that "they loved each other, and wished to live together, but that the maiden could not exist in his element, nor he in her's; and hence it appeared they were never to know the joys which are tasted by those who have their dwelling in one cabin."
"Be not grieved nor hopeless," answered the Spirit; "the impediments can be removed. I am the genius that presides over the fishes, and was invested at the beginning with power to procure for them all the enjoyments they are susceptible of tasting. I cannot transform a trout into a man—that must be effected by a spirit of the earth—but I can work the transformation of a man into a trout—under my charm the Marshpee maiden shall become a beautiful fish of the same species with the chief."
With that he bade Awashanks follow him into the river. When they had waded in to a considerable depth, he took up a handful of water and threw it upon the head of the maiden, pronouncing certain words of which none but himself knew the meaning. Immediately a change commenced upon her, attended with such pain and distress that the very air resounded with her cries. Her body became in a few moments covered with scales; her ears, and nose, and chin, and arms, disappeared, and her two legs became joined, forming that part of a fish which is called the tail—she became a complete trout. Having fully accomplished the task of transformation, the Genius of the Fishes delivered her to the Chief of the Trouts. The pair were soon observed gliding side by side, very lovingly, into the deep and quiet waters. But, though she had become a trout, she did not forget the land of her birth. Every season, on the same night as that upon which her disappearance from the tribe had been wrought, there would be seen two trouts, of a magnitude surpassing fifty-fold any ever caught by the Marshpees, busily employed in ploughing out the brook. They continued the labour or sport, whichever it may be called, till the pale-faces came to the country, when, deeming themselves in danger from a people who paid no reverence to the spirits of the land, they bade adieu for ever to Coatuit, or the Brook of the Great Trout.
THE SPIRITS OF VAPOUR.
There was, among the Knisteneaux, in the days that are past, a very wise chief, who was also the greatest medicine-man that ever dwelt in the nation. He knew all the herbs, and plants, and roots, and barks, which were good for the curing of diseases: and, better still, the words, and charms, and prayers, and ceremonies, without which they were not effective. He could call down rain from the clouds, and foretell the approach of storms, and hail, and tempests, beyond any man that ever lived in the nation. Had not his worship of the Ki-jai Manitou, or Great Spirit, been sincere, frequent, and fervent, these things had not been; he would have found his prayers unheard, or unheeded, or unanswered—he would have seen his skill baffled, and his charms and medicines impotent and ineffective. But he was beloved by the Great Spirit, and thence came his wisdom, and power, and strength, and success; and thence, my brother knows—for he is himself a wise priest and a cunning man—come the wisdom, and strength, and power, and success, of all men, whether white like him, or red like myself.