Having already satisfied myself as to the several modes in which the four others attained felicity , I next set my mind at work to discover what enjoyments were peculiar to the old `` Straggler , '' as the people of the country would have termed the wandering mendicant and prophet . As he pretended to familiarity with the Devil , so I fancied that he was fitted to pursue and take delight in his way of life , by possessing some of the mental and moral characteristics , the lighter and more comic ones , of the Devil in popular stories . Among them might be reckoned a love of deception for its own sake , a shrewd eye and keen relish for human weakness and ridiculous infirmity , and the talent of petty fraud . Thus to this old man there would be pleasure even in the consciousness , so insupportable to some minds , that his whole life was a cheat upon the world , and that , so far as he was concerned with the public , his little cunning had the upper hand of its united wisdom . Every day would furnish him with a succession of minute and pungent triumphs : as when , for instance , his importunity wrung a pittance out of the heart of a miser , or when my silly good-nature transferred a part of my slender purse to his plump leather bag ; or when some ostentatious gentleman should throw a coin to the ragged beggar who was richer than himself ; or when , though he would not always be so decidedly diabolical , his pretended wants should make him a sharer in the scanty living of real indigence . And then what an inexhaustible field of enjoyment , both as enabling him to discern so much folly and achieve such quantities of minor mischief , was opened to his sneering spirit by his pretensions to prophetic knowledge . All this was a sort of happiness which I could conceive of , though I had little sympathy with it . Perhaps , had I been then inclined to admit it , I might have found that the roving life was more proper to him than to either of his companions ; for Satan , to whom I had compared the poor man , has delighted , ever since the time of Job , in `` wandering up and down upon the earth '' ; and indeed a crafty disposition , which operates not in deep-laid plans , but in disconnected tricks , could not have an adequate scope , unless naturally impelled to a continual change of scene and society . My reflections were here interrupted . `` Another visitor ! '' exclaimed the old showman . The door of the wagon had been closed against the tempest , which was roaring and blustering with prodigious fury and commotion , and beating violently against our shelter , as if it claimed all those homeless people for its lawful prey , while we , caring little for the displeasure of the elements , sat comfortably talking . There was now an attempt to open the door , succeeded by a voice , uttering some strange , unintelligible gibberish , which my companions mistook for Greek , and I suspected to be thieves ' Latin . However , the showman stepped forward , and gave admittance to a figure which made me imagine ; either that our wagon had rolled back two hundred years into past ages , or that the forest and its old inhabitants had sprung up around us by enchantment . It was a red Indian , armed with his bow and arrow . His dress was a sort of cap , adorned with a single feather of some wild bird , and a frock of blue cotton , girded tight about him ; on his breast , like orders of knighthood , hung a crescent and a circle , and other ornaments of silver ; while a small crucifix betokened that our Father the Pope had interposed between the Indian and the Great Spirit , whom he had worshipped in his simplicity . This son of the wilderness , and pilgrim of the storm , took his place silently in the midst of us . When the first surprise was over , I rightly conjectured him to be one of the Penobscot tribe , parties of which I had often seen , in their summer excursions down our Eastern rivers . There they paddle their birch canoes among the coasting schooners , and build their wigwam beside some roaring milldam , and drive a little trade in basket-work where their fathers hunted deer . Our new visitor was probably wandering through the country towards Boston , subsisting on the careless charity of the people , while he turned his archery to profitable account by shooting at cents , which were to be the prize of his successful aim .
The XXXXX had not long been seated , ere our merry damsel sought to draw him into conversation .
Boston Greek Indian day importunity knighthood miser pittance schooners wigwam