as the Chief of the Trouts. As his
bulk prevented him from approaching as near as he wished, he, from
time to time, in his eagerness to enjoy the music to the best
advantage, ran his nose into the ground, and thus soon worked his way
a considerable distance into the greensward. Nightly he continued his
exertions to approach the source of the delightful sounds he heard;
till at length he had ploughed out a wide and handsome brook, and
effected his passage from the river to the hill whence that music
issued--a distance exceeding an arrow's flight. Thither he repaired
every night at the commencement of darkness, sure to meet the maiden
who had become so necessary to his happiness. Soon he began to speak
of the pleasure he enjoyed, and to fill the ears of Awashanks with
fond protestations of his love and affection. Instead of listening, it
was not long before he was listened to. It was something so new and
strange to the maiden to hear the tones of love and courtship; a thing
so unusual to be told that she was beautiful, and to be pressed to
bestow her heart upon a suitor; that it is not strange that her head,
never very strong, became completely turned by the new incident in her
life, and that she began to think the gurgling speech of the lover the
sweetest she had ever heard. There, upon the little hillock, beneath
the shade of lofty trees, she would sit for a whole sleep, listening
to the sweetest sounds her ears had ever heard; the while testifying
her affection for her ardent lover by feeding him with roots and other
food in which he delighted. But there were obstacles to the
accomplishment of their mutual wishes, which they knew not how to
overcome. He could not live on the land above two minutes at a time,
nor she in the water above thrice that period. This state of things
gave them much vexation, occasioning many tears to be shed by the
maiden, and perplexing much her ardent lover.

They had met at the usual place one evening, discoursing of these
things, and lamenting that two so fond and affectionate should be
doomed to live apart, when a slight noise at the shoulder of the
maiden caused her to turn her head. Terror filled her bosom when she
found that it proceeded from a little striped man, scarcely higher
than a tall boy of ten seasons. He wore around his neck a string of
glittering shells, and his hair, green as ooze, was curiously woven
with the long weeds which are found growing upon the rocks at the
bottom