in Peter's face
showed him as a wet and weary man, with eyes turned up longingly at the
windows where his wife awaited him; then he was gone, and the ground
trembled as with an earthquake, while the rain fell more heavily.

Mrs. Rugg died within a twelvemonth, and Peter never reached home, but
from all parts of New England came stories of a man and child driving
rapidly along the highways, never stopping except to inquire the way to
Boston. Half of the time the man would be headed in a direction opposite
to the one he seemed to want to follow, and when set right would cry that
he was being deceived, and was sometimes heard to mutter, "No home
to-night." In Hartford, Providence, Newburyport, and among the New
Hampshire hills the anxious face of the man became known, and he was
referred to as "the stormbreeder," for so surely as he passed there would
be rain, wind, lightning, thunder, and darkness within the hour.

Some years ago a man in a Connecticut town stopped this hurrying
traveller, who said, in reply to a question, "I have lost the road to
Boston. My name is Peter Rugg." Then Rugg's disappearance half a century
before was cited by those who had long memories, and people began to look
askant at Peter and gave him generous road room when they met him. The
toll-taker on Charlestown bridge declared that he had been annoyed and
alarmed by a prodigious tramping of hoofs and rattling of wheels that
seemed to pass toward Boston before his very face, yet he could see
nothing. He took courage one night to plant himself in the middle of the
bridge with a three-legged stool, and when the sound approached he dimly
saw a large black horse driven by a weary looking man with a child beside
him. The stool was flung at the horse's head, but passed through the
animal as through smoke and skipped across the floor of the bridge. Thus
much the toll-collector said, but when asked if Rugg had appeared again
he made no reply.

THE LOSS OF WEETAMOO

Winnepurkit, sagamore of the coast settlements between Nahant and Cape
Ann, had married Weetamoo, daughter of Passaconaway, king of the
Pennacooks, and had taken her to his home. Their honeymoon was happy, but
old ties are strong, and after a little time the bride felt a longing to
see her people again. When she made known this wish the husband not only
consented to her visit, but gave her a guard of his most trusty hunters
who saw her safe in her father's lodge (near the site of Conc