motion of his ill-trained beast at defiance; "How good it is, O see, And
how it pleaseth well, Together e'en in unity, For brethren so to dwell.
It's like the choice ointment, From the head to the beard did go; Down
Aaron's head, that downward went His garment's skirts unto."

The delivery of these skillful rhymes was accompanied, on the part
of the stranger, by a regular rise and fall of his right hand, which
terminated at the descent, by suffering the fingers to dwell a moment on
the leaves of the little volume; and on the ascent, by such a flourish
of the member as none but the initiated may ever hope to imitate.
It would seem long practice had rendered this manual accompaniment
necessary; for it did not cease until the preposition which the poet had
selected for the close of his verse had been duly delivered like a word
of two syllables.

Such an innovation on the silence and retirement of the forest could not
fail to enlist the ears of those who journeyed at so short a distance in
advance. The Indian muttered a few words in broken English to Heyward,
who, in his turn, spoke to the stranger; at once interrupting, and, for
the time, closing his musical efforts.

"Though we are not in danger, common prudence would teach us to journey
through this wilderness in as quiet a manner as possible. You will then,
pardon me, Alice, should I diminish your enjoyments, by requesting this
gentleman to postpone his chant until a safer opportunity."

"You will diminish them, indeed," returned the arch girl; "for never did
I hear a more unworthy conjunction of execution and language than that
to which I have been listening; and I was far gone in a learned inquiry
into the causes of such an unfitness between sound and sense, when you