THE WELLFLEET OYSTEEMAN. 
83 
At length the fool, whom my companion called the 
wizard, came in, muttering between his teeth, “ Damn 
book-pedlers, — all the time talking about books. Bet¬ 
ter do something. Damn ’em. I ’ll shoot ’em. Got a 
doctor down here. Damn him, I ’ll get a gun and shoot 
him ”; never once holding up his head. Whereat the 
old man stood up and said in a loud voice, as if he 
was accustomed to command, and this was not the first 
time he had been obliged to exert his authority there: 
“ John, go sit down, mind your business, —we’ve heard 
you talk before, — precious little you ’ll do, — your bark 
is worse than your bite.” But, without minding, John 
muttered the same gibberish over again, and then sat 
down at the table which the old folks had left. He ate 
all there was on it, and then turned to the apples, which 
his aged mother was paring, that she might give her 
guests some apple-sauce for breakfast, but she drew 
them away and sent him ofi*. 
When I approached this house the next summer, over 
the desolate hills between it and the shore, which are 
worthy to have been the birthplace of Ossian, I saw 
the wizard in the midst of a cornfield on the hillside, 
but, as usual, he loomed so strangely, that I mistook him 
for a scarecrow. 
This was the merriest old man that we had ever seen, 
and one of the best preserved. His style of conversa¬ 
tion was coarse and plain enough to have suited Kabe- 
lais. He would have made a good Panurge. Or 
rather he was a sober Silenus, and we were the boys 
Chromis and Mnasilus, who listened to his story. 
“ Not by Haemonian hills the Thracian bard, 
Nor awful Phoebus was on Piudus heard 
With deeper silence or with more regard.” 
