Amidst the stirring excitements of the present day, when every thrill of the electric wire conveys a new subject for thought or action to a generation as eager as the ancient Athenians for some new thing, simple legends of the past like that which we have transcribed have undoubtedly lost in a great degree their interest. The lore of the fireside is becoming obsolete, and with the octogenarian few who still linger among us will perish the unwritten history of border life in New England. [Footnote 1: The "Narragansett War" was a name applied to that part of King Philip's War which resulted from the defection of the powerful tribe of Narragansetts, formerly allies of the English, to the standard of the Indian chief.] [Footnote 2: Longfellow's *Evangeline,* lines 205, 206.] [Footnote 3: "Her angel's face As the great eye of heaven shyned bright And made a sunshine in the shadie place; Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace." --Spenser: *The Faerie Queene,* bk. I. canto iii. st. 4.] [Footnote 4: *Anathema maranatha* occurs at the close of St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, and in the English version is made to appear as a composite phrase. It has so passed into common use, *maranatha* being taken as intensifying the curse contained in *anathema*. The words are properly to be divided, *maranatha* signifying "The Lord cometh."] [Footnote 5: An interesting account of Sir William Phips will be found in Parkman's *Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.* Hawthorne also tells his romantic story in *Fanshawe and Other Pieces.*] End of Project Gutenberg's The Boy Captives, by John Greenleaf Whittier