settlements of
the whites. Mayall was young and handsome, and would have been
considered a prize for a young lady of merit, who was not looking for a
companion that possessed lands and money. He seemed to be a favorite
among the young ladies of the Mohawk Valley who dressed in
linsey-woolsey--I mean that class

"Who slept on down their early rising bought,
And wore the garments their own hands had spun"--

but was looked upon with suspicion by some of the more aristocratic and
wealthy, who possessed broad farms and extensive grants of land, and
wished to trace the pedigree of their relatives to some old ancestral
pile, surrounded with wide-spread manors.

Mayall was a hero by nature, and had all the quickness of perception to
carry it out successfully; and yet he had cultivated the most refined
manners of that wild, romantic age. He was fond of hunting, as the
abundance of game and furred animals gave the hunter a rich reward.
Mayall had reached his majority, and had become enamored of a beautiful
young lady of a wealthy family, the only daughter and heir to a rich
inheritance, by the name of Nelly G., who returned his advances in the
same warmth of love and fidelity. As soon as the parents of the young
lady became aware of Mayall's intentions and their daughter's attachment
to young Mayall, they commenced a furious and determined opposition, and
refused to allow Mayall to visit their daughter or even enter their
house. Mayall took the matter calmly, and was no longer seen at the
house of the farmer, but found many opportunities to meet the lady of
his choice at evening parties and places of amusement. Their love was
mutual, and every reasonable means was used to overcome the objections
of the lady's parents--but all seemed in vain. They had promised the
heart and hand of their daughter to the son of a wealthy farmer (a
distant relative), who was void of merit, and one who was despised by
the young lady, on account of his awkward manner of behavior, and his
ignorance of what constituted a well-bred gentleman. Nelly G. informed
her father and mother that she chose a companion and protector without
money, in preference to money and lands without a companion and
protector.

One sunny morning, in summer's golden days, when the Valley of the
Mohawk appeared like an Eden outstretched in loveliness, and bowed in
summer's rosy bloom, the father of Mayall's intended wife saw Mayall
coming with hurried steps towards