Stealing onward as far as I
durst, without hazard of discovery, I saw a concourse of strange
figures beneath the overshadowing branches. They appeared, and
vanished, and came again, confusedly with the streaks of sunlight
glimmering down upon them.
Among them was an Indian chief, with blanket, feathers, and war-paint,
and uplifted tomahawk; and near him, looking fit to be his woodland
bride, the goddess Diana, with the crescent on her head, and attended
by our big lazy dog, in lack of any fleeter hound. Drawing an arrow
from her quiver, she let it fly at a venture, and hit the very tree
behind which I happened to be lurking. Another group consisted of a
Bavarian broom-girl, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two
foresters of the Middle Ages, a Kentucky woodsman in his trimmed
hunting-shirt and deerskin leggings, and a Shaker elder, quaint,
demure, broad-brimmed, and square-skirted. Shepherds of Arcadia, and
allegoric figures from the "Faerie Queen," were oddly mixed up with
these. Arm in arm, or otherwise huddled together in strange
discrepancy, stood grim Puritans, gay Cavaliers, and Revolutionary
officers with three-cornered cocked hats, and queues longer than
their swords. A bright-complexioned, dark-haired, vivacious little
gypsy, with a red shawl over her head, went from one group to another,
telling fortunes by palmistry; and Moll Pitcher, the renowned old
witch of Lynn, broomstick in hand, showed herself prominently in the
midst, as if announcing all these apparitions to be the offspring of
her necromantic art.
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