inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment--and had never been a well man
since. Another of the adventurers was Master Ichabod Pigsnort, a weighty merchant and
selectman of Boston, and an elder of the famous Mr. Norton's church. His enemies had a
ridiculous story that Master Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer
time, every morning and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense quantity of pine-
tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of Massachusetts. The fourth whom we
shall notice had no name that his companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a
sneer that always contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair of spectacles, which
were supposed to deform and discolor the whole face of nature, to this gentleman's
perception. The fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as he
appeared to be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but wofully pined away, which was no
more than natural, if, as some people affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning mist, and
a slice of the densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine, whenever he could get
it. Certain it is, that the poetry which flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties The
sixth of the party was a young man of haughty mien, and sat somewhat apart from the rest,
wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders, while the fire glittered on the rich
embroidery of his dress, and gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. This
was the Lord de Vere, who, when at home, was said to spend much of his time in the burial
vault of his dead progenitors, rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly
pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides his own share,
he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line of ancestry.
Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side a blooming little person,
in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve was just melting into the rich glow of a young
wife's affection. Her name was Hannah and her husband's Matthew; two homely names, yet
well enough adapted to the simple pair, who seemed strangely out of place among the
whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog by the Great Carbuncle.
Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire, sat this varied group of
adventurers, all so intent upon a single object, that, of whatever else they began to speak,
their closing words were sure to be illuminated with the Great Carbuncle. Several related
the circumstances that brought them thither. One had listened to a traveller's tale of this
marvellous stone in his own distant country, and had immediately been seized with such a
thirst for beholding it as could only be quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago
as when the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it blazing far at sea, and
had felt no rest in all the intervening years till now that he took up the search. A third, being
encamped on a hunting expedition full forty miles south of the White Mountains, awoke at
midnight, and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so that the shadows of
the trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the innumerable attempts which had been
made to reach the spot, and of the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success
from all adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a light that
overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It was observable that each smiled
scornfully at the madness of every other in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet
nourished a scarcely hidden conviction that he would himself be the favored one. As if to
allay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the Indian traditions that a spirit kept watch
about the gem, and bewildered those who sought it either by removing it from peak to peak
of the higher hills, or by calling up a mist from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But
these tales were deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe that the search had
been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in the adventurers, or such other causes as