They could not pass the
trial successfully."
"There are stones in the forest with names on them. They give great
power to dream. I have seen in my dreams the _m'teoulin_ of
ancient times,--the magicians, my father told me, of long ago. I have
seen them diving under the waters from one island to another. I have
seen them dive ten miles.
"When I was, young, J. N., who was a great _m'teoulin_, offered to
teach me the art. I could have become one, but I would not. I did not
think it was right.
"Once old J. N. and my grandfather hunted in the woods. It was near
Katahdin, the Great Mountain. [Footnote: Katahdin, like the Intervale
near North Conway, is haunted and enchanted ground, abounding in
fairies and other marvelous beings. But there is not a mile square of
New England which has not its legends.] And they wanted everything.
They had got out of everything. One night old N. said, 'I can bear this
no longer. Would you like a nice pipe of tobacco? We have had nothing
but meat for four weeks.' So he went away for a short time; perhaps it
was an hour. He returned with a box. There was in it three pounds of
tobacco; there was cheese, rice, and sugar; there was fifty pounds of
provision in all."
This famous _m'teoulin_ was long a popular governor of the
Passamaquoddies. I have a curious old brass candlestick, said to be one
hundred and fifty years old, which he owned all his life.
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