that a-makin' of 'em mad, they broke into the house and shot young Brundage-as was a likely young man-when he was down onto his knees a-beggin' for his life; and Thomas Carpenter, another young man who was thar a-hidin' under a bed, was a'most killed on account of the British a-stickin' bagnets into him; and while they was a-foolin' around stickin' their bagnets into beds and young Carpenter and things, Gineral Thomas he jumped many folks b'lieved he berried his gold sommers along the shores of the Sound, here or over the t'other side on Long Island, and many folks has dug for it; and some of 'em, they do say, as has found it, see Captin Kidd allus a-settin' onto his pots o' gold, a-holdin' a sword in a thretnin'-like way, and of course they, bein' skeered, run away, and never git the gold. Not as I have any reason to b'lieve as Captin Kidd ever berried his gold along out a winder, and would 'a got away if a British dragon hadn't seen him, and a-strikin' at him with his sword and missed, made him surrender. the Sound, or had any to berry; and as to his ghost a-guardin' of it, it's jist what old folks as b'lieves in sich like things say, and that's what I tell you, not a-givin' any of my own opinions onto it." As it was about noon-time, the old man, gathering himself up out of the chair into which he had been spread during the long and animated recital of what he knew about Rye and around there, said, "Well, I guess I'd better be goin' along." He tightened the rope about him which served as a girdle, and pulling on an old but exceedingly picturesque slouch hat, took his departure. "Thar's another story as I have hearn my aunt an' mother tell about. Thar's a rock in Sleepy Holler as is called Raven Rock on account of ravens a-comin' round thar. Now this 'ere rock, they do say, is ha'nted by a woman as dresses in white and allus comes of a night jist afore a storm, and howls in a most awful way. Now she, they say, was a woman as was lost thar and died in a snow-storm, and a-wantin' to warn people agin her fate, she howls of a night jist afore a storm is a-comin' on. Now I don't tell you as I b'lieve in this 'ere ghost, or as I have ever seen it, but my aunt an' mother they, as they say, has, and it is said as it has been seen fur two hundred year back. "I think," said our friend Mrs. X, who "Captin Kidd? Yes, I have hearn as for a time lent us the inspiration of her III. "Not even rain can spoil the beauty of the country," exclaimed the artist, as he placed his hands behind his head and leaned back comfortably in his chair. lands. "I should not have thought that you would try to rob this little creation of mine, which has afforded me so much pleasure, of its beauty; it would have become you better, I think, to have added to the breadth and unity of it, if I may use an artistic phrase." presence at Rye-"I think that it is de- | rors to them than of beauty; and good in lightful." the sense of yielding timber, and its ca"And then," added our fair friend, aft-pabilities of being converted into arable er we had sat quietly for a while, "as I sit here, I think of the many changes, like those of light and color, that have passed over the people here since they settled down there on the little island by the Sound. I can see in imagination now the great primeval forest stretching away to the water, and not a sound but the songs of birds and the winds whispering through the branches of the oaks and stately tulip-trees to break the sense of solitude. Those sturdy men and devoted women could not have helped growing stronger in all things that are good, shut out as they were from the wicked world in all this solemn beauty of nature. This was Arcadia, the Golden Age.' The writer ventured to remark that it is likely these sturdy people thought much more of felling trees, raising crops of corn, and extending their possessions than of any thing else; and that it is possibly only those who have learned, through art and life in great cities, to feel something of the remote and subtler qualities of nature who have any great appreciation of it; that the vast unpeopled wilderness behind these people was fuller of vague ter "The picture," said the artist, "is good for all that, and it takes nothing from the beauty of nature that those who live in its midst have no thought of any but the material part of it. The true artist, unlike other people, does not see nature through association, or in any other than its own color." As the Sound grew brighter in the sun, that turned the white sails of vessels into sheets of gold, the lady's train of reverie possessed me, and I could see how but little more than two hundred years ago its broad waters had known scarcely a statelier craft than the Indian's canoe, and how then a little band of settlers coming here from Greenwich had slowly and laboriously worked their way up from the shores of the Sound to where we were sitting, and beyond, growing meanwhile gling back to find sad ruins where their cheerful homes had been, and the silence of desolation over all the land. Other generations, to whom these horrors were but as vague traditions, came, and new homes, and old ones with new people, nestled again in cool shadows and amidst smiling fields. The Sound, with its ever-changing beauty, the forests, and the fields, had come to teem with associations of a thousand stirring incidents of tragedy, of treachery, of superstition, and of love. Two hundred years had filled the land with themes for the historian, the poet, the novelist, and the painter; had woven about and through it memories of the deeds of men more lasting than the oaks of its primeval forests. And still how short a time! into a prosperous community of sturdy, pious people, jealous of their rights and quick to resent any encroachments upon them, full of seriousness, little vanities, and curious ostentation. They labored, loved, and passed away into the land of shadows, as is the way of all men, and others following them were fence viewcrs," "supervizers," officers of "ye trayne band,” “keepers of ye town drum," which called the good people to their devotions; and all the other goodly offices of honor and trust, which were plentiful enough to lend dignity to each and every one of the freeholders, exalted as they surely were, were filled always by the new generations with dignity and great ability, we may well believe. There were troubles and contentions in the little community from the first-troubles real and imagined. There were rumors of wars, and wars, and at last came the great struggle of the Colonies, which made of this the worst harassed of all the communities within the debatable grounds.' They wavered and hesitated, as a rule, these people, as to which way their sympathies should go. Meanwhile the great struggle of a new world for liberty surged round about and ingulfed them. Neighbor was against neighbor, father against son. The land was scourged by plunder, violence, and death, until racked by passions the hearts of all the people there grew callous and fruitless of emotion, as were their fields of harvests. No sound of vehicles was heard upon roads that had once thronged with busy life. "Not a single solitary traveller," says a writ-gray-green of their leaves, leaving all the er of the time,* "was visible from week to week or from month to month. The world was motionless and silent, except when one of these unhappy people ventured upon a rare and lonely excursion to the house of a neighbor no less unhappy, or a scouting party traversing the country in quest of enemies alarmed the inhabitants with expectations of new injuries and suffering. As we sat on the porch of the old shingle-sided farm-house, with no sound but the cool rustling of the wind through the great leafy trees, watching the deepening tones of the sky as the sun sank lower and lower beneath the horizon, we lost ourselves in the still beauty of the scene about us, and it seemed, being so full of peacefulness and rest, as though nothing else had ever been. The long avenue of locust-trees that stood in dark masses against the pale gold and green of the sky, where the sun had set and left its seal of beauty, blended and lost itself after a while in one sweet mystery of gloom. And all about was darkness, save where the light from the house cast a soft glow over the trunks of some ancient cherrytrees, sparkling here and there upon the beyond in darkness, and the imagination free to wander through its immeasurable expanses. Away to the west the multitudinous lights of the city cast a feeble reflection up into the sky, but no disturbing sense of its troubled life could reach us. Slowly from over the distant shore of Long Island the round full moon came up and cast a broad track of sparkling phosThe very tracks of the car-phorescent light across the waters of the riages were grown over and obliterated, and when they were discernible resembled the faint impressions of chariot wheels said to be left on the pavements of Herculaneum." At last, when the long, long struggle was over and a nation born, soldiers, worn by want, disease, and wounds, came strag * Dr. Timothy Dwight. Sound. The sky was lighted, and all the far-stretching landscape slept in the silvery glow. "Why is it that lovers so love the moon?" the lady asked, for now it seemed that we might speak. "Because it is so remote from all material things, so sweet, and so uncertain— so uncertain," the artist said, slowly; and we went each of us his way. THE HONORABLE HUDSON BAY COMPANY. N the year 1670 a charter was granted ment conferred upon the new Company ny, calling themselves "The Company of Adventurers from England trading with Hudson's Bay," were constituted absolute proprietors of "all the lands and territories upon the countries, coasts, and confines of the seas, lakes, bays, rivers, creeks, and sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall be, that lie between the entrance of the straits called Hudson's Straits." In return for all this the Company was to pay yearly to the sovereign two elks and two black beavers, but this only whenever the sovereign should happen to be within the territories granted. Unfortunately for this exclusive privilege of trade, as early as 1640 French colonists pushed their way into the interior from Lake Superior, across the valley of the Red River, and up the great Saskatchewan River. They established their posts at every available point, and intercepted the Indians on their way to trade their furs with the agents of the Hudson Bay Company at their factories, which, for more than a century after the date of the charter, do not appear to have extended very far beyond the sea-coast. In the year 1783 a combination of these fur traders gave rise to the "Northwest Company of Montreal." This company is said to have employed about 5000 men altogether in its service at this time. With its organization hostilities broke out between the agents of the rival corporations. For more than for ty years the conflict raged over a large part of North America. It was a golden era for the red man. Rival traders sought him out, coaxed and bribed him to have nothing to do with the shop across the way, assured him that Codlin, not Short, was his friend, paid him an extravagant price for his furs, and, better still, paid that price in rum. So wretched at last did the general condition of the territory become that efforts were made to bring the traders to an amicable settlement and union of interests. Under conditions satisfactory to both parties, a coalition was formed in 1821, by which the Northwest Company ceased to exist, and henceforth the Hudson Bay Company ruled supreme from the shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific. At the suggestion of the British government, Parlia tract of Indian country not included in their own chartered territories, tenable for a term of twenty years. In 1838 these privileges were again extended for a further term of twenty years, at the expiration of which the request for their renewal was denied. In 1869 the Company's rights to all the territory held under its charter were bought up, under imperial authority, by the Dominion of Canada, and the Company, as a monopoly and semi-sovereign power, ceased to exist. Not so its organization, however, or the influence and extent of its operations. The supreme control of Hudson Bay affairs is vested, under the charter, in a Governor, Deputy-Governor, and committee of five directors, all annually chosen by the stockholders at a general meeting held each November. These functionaries, residing in London, delegate their authority to an official resident in their American possessions, called the Governor of Rupert Land, who acts as their representative. The authority of the Governor is supreme, except during the session of his Council, which is held once a year, and continues its formal sittings for two or three days. The The other parties to the Council are the members of the “Fur Trade," which constitutes, in its relations to the Hudson Bay Company, the wheel within the wheel. From this the profits of the Company may be said to be entirely derived. It constitutes the means by which the Company avails itself of the right to trade, which it possesses in its territories. members of the Fur Trade reside entirely in the localities where the business is carried on in North America, and are employed in carrying out its actual workings. They are composed of the two highest grades of commissioned officers, called Chief Factors and Chief Traders. These furnish none of the capital stock, and receive their commissions merely as the rewards of long service, seldom of shorter date than fourteen years, as clerks. No annual election of officials forming any thing like the Company's London Board takes place among the partners of the Fur Trade. The only approximation to a common action which exists is af |