rsonal interest from having been with him
through the storms he weathered before he brought them safe to port.

[Illustration: "HOME, SWEET HOME!"--PAYNE'S INTERIOR.]

Every part of the town is interesting, and certainly not the least so is
the old cemetery. It contains an extensive collection of rude headstones
and quaint epitaphs. Here, on a sailor's grave, are engraved the lines--

Rude Boreas' winds and Neptune's waves
Have tossed me to and fro:
By God's decree, you plainly see,
I'm harbored here below.

In Sag Harbor there lived a certain Captain David Hand, who died in 1840
at the age of eighty-one. Here he and his five wives are sleeping, all
in a row. The first died in 1791; the second, in 1794; the third, in
1798; the fourth, in 1810; the fifth, in 1835. The gallant captain
himself went down while cruising in quest of a sixth. It is upon the
grave of the third that the following appears:

Behold, ye living mortals passing by,
How thick the partners of one husband lie.
Vast and unsearchable the ways of God:
Just, but severe, we feel His chastening rod.

The meaning is a little obscure, and it is only the subsequent
matrimonial ventures of the captain that assure us he did not mean that
the three who had gone were to him as a chastening rod.

Let us now take our station where we can look down upon the town and
over the surrounding scene of mingled island, sea and shore, and try to
recall some of the thrilling events that give Sag Harbor its historical
interest. Two hundred and fifty years ago these bays, now alive with
coasting vessels, pleasure craft and an occasional steamer, showed
nothing but the canoes of the Manhansetts and Montauketts. In 1637 we
might have seen the large canoe of Wyandanch, the sachem of the
Montauks, surrounded by those of his tribe, stealing across toward
Shelter Island to complete the extermination of the Pequots. In 1699 the
ship in which Kidd won his plunder in the southern seas was lying under
the island's lee while the famous pirate was burying a part of his booty
on its shore. It is said that the proprietor of the island has still in
his possession a piece of gold cloth given to his ancestor by Captain
Kidd. Soon afterward Gardiner's Island was visited and plundered by
Paul Williams and some of his buccaneering associates. In 1728 these
seas swarmed with the pirates of Spain, and one night