Sir William is a stout man, an inch or two below the middle size, and rather beyond the middle point of life; his dress is of velvet, a dark purple, broadly embroidered, and his sword-hilt, and the lion’s head of his cane display specimens of the gold from the Spanish wreck; on his head, in the fashion of the court of Louis XIV, is a superb full-bottomed periwig, amid whose heap of ringlets his face shows like a rough pebble in the setting that befits a diamond. Just emerging from the door are two footmen, one an African slave of shining ebony, the other an English bond-servant, the property of the governor for a term of years. As Sir William comes down the steps, he is met by three elderly gentlemen in black, grave and solemn as three tombstones on a ramble from the burying ground. These are ministers of the town, among whom we recognize Dr. Increase Mather, the late provincial agent at the English court, the author of the present governor’s appointment, and the right arm of his administration. Here follow many bows and a deal of angular politeness on both sides. Sir William professes his anxiety to re-enter the house and give audience to the reverend gentlemen; they, on the other hand, cannot think of interrupting his walk; and the courteous dispute is concluded by a junction of the parties, Sir William and Dr. Mather setting forth side by side, the two other clergymen forming the centre of the column, and the black and white footmen bringing up the rear. The business in hand relates to the dealings of Satan in the town of Salem. Upon this subject the principal ministers of the province have been consulted, and these three eminent persons are their deputies, commissioned to express a doubtful opinion, implying upon the whole an exhortation to speedy and vigorous measures against the accused. To such councils, Sir William, bred in the forest and on the ocean, and tinctured with the superstitions of both, is well inclined to listen.

As the dignitaries of church and state make their way beneath the overhanging houses, the lattices are thrust ajar, and you may discern, just in the boundaries of light and shade, the prim faces of the little puritan damsels, eyeing the magnificent governor, and envious of the bolder curiosity of the men. Another object of almost equal interest, now appears in the middle of the way. It is a man clad in a hunting shirt and Indian stockings, and armed with a long gun; his feet have been wet with the waters of many an inland lake and stream, and the leaves and twigs of the tangled wilderness are intertwined with his garments; on his head he wears a trophy which we would not venture to record without good evidence of the fact,—a wig made of the long and straight black hair of his slain savage enemies. This grim old heathen stands bewildered in the midst of King-street. The governor regards him attentively, and recognizing a playmate of his youth, accosts him with a gracious smile, inquires as to the prosperity of their birth place and the life or death of their ancient neighbors, and makes appropriate remarks on the different stations allotted by fortune to two individuals, born and bred beside the same wild river. Finally, he puts into his hand, at parting, a shilling of the Massachusetts coinage, stamped with the figure of a stubbed pine tree, mistaken by King Charles for the oak which saved his royal life. Then all the people praise the humility and bountifulness of the good governor, who struts onward flourishing his gold-headed cane, while the gentleman in the straight black wig is left with a pretty accurate idea of the distance between himself and his old companion.

Meantime Sir William steers his course towards the town dock. A gallant figure is seen approaching on the opposite side of the street in a naval uniform profusely laced, and with a cutlass swinging by his side. This is Captain Short, the commander of a frigate in the service of the English King, now lying in the harbor. Sir William bristles up at sight of him, and crosses the street with a lowering front, unmindful of the hints of Dr. Mather, who is aware of an unsettled dispute between the captain and the governor, relative to the authority of the latter over a king’s ship on the provincial station. Into this thorny subject Sir William plunges headlong; the captain makes answer with less deference than the dignity of the potentate requires; the affair grows hot, and the clergymen endeavor to interfere in the blessed capacity of peacemakers. The governor lifts his cane, and the captain lays his hand upon his sword, but is prevented from drawing by the zealous exertions of Doctor Mather; there is a furious stamping of feet, and a mighty uproar from every mouth, in the midst of which his Excellency inflicts several very sufficient whacks on the head of the unhappy Short. Having thus avenged himself by manual force, as befits a woodsman and a mariner, he vindicates the insulted majesty of the governor by committing his antagonist to prison. This done, Sir William removes his periwig, wipes away the sweat of the encounter, and gradually composes himself, giving vent to a few oaths, like the subsiding ebullitions of a pot that has boiled over.

It being now near twelve o‘clock, the three ministers are bidden to dinner at the governor’s table, where the party is completed by a few Old-Charter Senators, men reared at the feet of the pilgrims, and who remember the days when Cromwell was a nursing father to New England. Sir William presides with commendable decorum till grace is said, and the cloth removed. Then, as the grape-juice glides warm into the ventricles of his heart, it produces a change like that of a running stream upon enchanted shapes, and the rude man of the sea and wilderness appears in the very chair where the stately governor sat down. He overflows with jovial tales of the forecastle and of his father’s hut, and stares to see the gravity of his guests become more and more portentous, in exact proportion as his own merriment increases. A noise of drum and fife fortunately breaks up the session.

The governor and his guests go forth, like men bound upon some grave business, to inspect the train-bands of the town. A great crowd of people is collected on the common, composed of whole families, from the hoary grandsire to the child of three years old; all ages and both sexes look with interest on the array of their defenders; and here and there stand a few dark Indians in their blankets, dull spectators of the strength that has swept away their race.