Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 4 | Page 5

of the wilderness. Silver, mahogany, paintings,
tapestries, waxed floors, and carven chests of linen represented wealth;
prayers were said by a chaplain every morning and evening in the
chapel, and, though the main hall would accommodate five hundred
people, the lady usually sat at meat there with her thirty servants, her
part of the table being raised two feet above theirs.
It was her happiness to believe that Captain Fowler, now absent in
conflict with the French, would return and wed her according to his
promise, but one day came a tattered messenger with bitter news of the
captain's death. She made no talk of her grief, and, while her face was
pale and step no longer light, she continued in the work that custom
exacted from women of that time: help for the sick, alms for the poor,
teaching for the ignorant, religion for the savage. Great was her joy,
then, when a ship came from England bringing a letter from Captain
Fowler himself, refuting the rumor of defeat and telling of his coming.
Now the hall took on new life, reflecting the pleasure of its mistress;
color came back to her cheek and sparkle to her eye, and she could only
control her impatience by more active work and more aggressive
charities. The day was near at hand for the arrival of her lover, when
Ursula and her servants were set upon by Indians, while away from the

protection of the manor, and slain. They were buried where they fell,
and Captain Fowler found none to whom his love or sorrow could be
told.

FATHER MOODY'S BLACK VEIL
In 1770 the Reverend Joseph Moody died at York, Maine, where he
had long held the pastorate of a church, and where in his later years his
face was never seen by friend or relative. At home, when any one was
by, on the street, and in the pulpit his visage was concealed by a double
fold of crape that was knotted above his forehead and fell to his chin,
the lower edge of it being shaken by his breath. When first he presented
himself to his congregation with features masked in black, great was
the wonder and long the talk about it. Was he demented? His sermons
were too logical for that. Had he been crossed in love? He could smile,
though the smile was sad. Had he been scarred by accident or illness? If
so, no physician knew of it.
After a time it was given out that his eyes were weakened by reading
and writing at night, and the wonder ceased, though the veiled parson
was less in demand for weddings, christenings, and social gatherings,
and more besought for funerals than he had been. If asked to take off
his crape he only replied, "We all wear veils of one kind or another, and
the heaviest and darkest are those that hang about our hearts. This is but
a material veil. Let it stay until the hour strikes when all faces shall be
seen and all souls reveal their secrets."
Little by little the clergyman felt himself enforced to withdraw from the
public gaze. There were rough people who were impertinent and timid
people who turned out of their road to avoid him, so that he found his
out-door walks and meditations almost confined to the night, unless he
chose the grave-yard for its seclusion or strolled on the beach and
listened to the wallowing and grunting of the Black Boars--the rocks
off shore that had laughed on the night when the York witch went up
the chimney in a gale. But his life was long and kind and useful, and
when at last the veiled head lay on the pillow it was never to rise from
consciously, a fellow-clergyman came to soothe his dying moments
and commend his soul to mercy.
To him, one evening, Father Moody said, "Brother, my hour is come
and the veil of eternal darkness is falling over my eyes. Men have

asked me why I wear this piece of crape about my face, as if it were not
for them a reminder and a symbol, and I have borne the reason so long
within me that only now have I resolved to tell it. Do you recall the
finding of young Clark beside the river, years ago? He had been shot
through the head. The man who killed him did so by accident, for he
was a bosom friend; yet he could never bring himself to confess the fact,
for he dreaded the blame of his townsmen, the anguish of the dead
man's parents, the hate of his betrothed. It was believed that the killing
was a murder, and that some roving Indian had done it. After years of
conscience-darkened life, in