footsteps, would sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of Merry
Mount. There were the silken colonists, sporting round their
Maypole; perhaps teaching a bear to dance, or striving to
communicate their mirth to the grave Indian; or masquerading in
the skins of deer and wolves, which they had hunted for that
especial purpose. Often, the whole colony were playing at
blindman's buff, magistrates and all, with their eyes bandaged,
except a single scapegoat, whom the blinded sinners pursued by
the tinkling of the bells at his garments. Once, it is said, they
were seen following a flower-decked corpse, with merriment and
festive music, to his grave. But did the dead man laugh? In their
quietest times, they sang ballads and told tales, for the
edification of their pious visitors; or perplexed them with
juggling tricks; or grinned at them through horse collars; and
when sport itself grew wearisome, they made game of their own
stupidity, and began a yawning match. At the very least of these
enormities, the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so
darkly that the revellers looked up imagining that a momentary
cloud had overcast the sunshine, which was to be perpetual there.
On the other hand, the Puritans affirmed that, when a psalm was
pealing from their place of worship, the echo which the forest
sent them back seemed often like the chorus of a jolly catch,
closing with a roar of laughter. Who but the fiend, and his bond
slaves, the crew of Merry Mount, had thus disturbed them? In due
time, a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as serious
on the other as anything could be among such light spirits as had
sworn allegiance to the Maypole. The future complexion of New
England was involved in this important quarrel. Should the
grizzly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners,
then would their spirits darken all the clime, and make it a land