Chapter XII: Part 12

Wolfert alone saw nothing of what was going on. Profoundly wrapt
up in meditation on the growth of the city and his cabbages, he
sat looking in the fire, and puffing his pipe in silence. One
night, however, as the gentle Amy, according to custom, lighted
her lover to the outer door, and he, according to custom, took
his parting salute, the smack resounded so vigorously through the
long, silent entry as to startle even the dull ear of Wolfert. He
was slowly roused to a new source of anxiety. It had never
entered into his head, that this mere child, who, as it seemed
but the other day, had been climbing about his knees, and playing
with dolls and baby-houses, could all at once be thinking of love
and matrimony. He rubbed his eyes, examined into the fact, and
really found that while he had been dreaming of other matters,
she had actually grown into a woman, and what was more, had
fallen in love. Here were new cares for poor Wolfert. He was a
kind father, but he was a prudent man. The young man was a very
stirring lad; but then he had neither money or land. Wolfert’s
ideas all ran in one channel, and he saw no alternative in case
of a marriage, but to portion off the young couple with a corner
of his cabbage garden, the whole of which was barely sufficient
for the support of his family.

Like a prudent father, therefore, he determined to nip this
passion in the bud, and forbade the youngster the house, though
sorely did it go against his fatherly heart, and many a silent
tear did it cause in the bright eye of his daughter. She showed
herself, however, a pattern of filial piety and obedience. She
never pouted and sulked; she never flew in the face of parental
authority; she never fell into a passion, or fell into hysterics,
as many romantic novel-read young ladies would do. Not she,
indeed! She was none such heroical rebellious trumpery, I warrant
ye. On the contrary, she acquiesced like an obedient daughter;
shut the street-door in her lover’s face, and if ever she did
grant him an interview, it was either out of the kitchen window,
or over the garden fence.

Wolfert was deeply cogitating these things in his mind, and his
brow wrinkled with unusual care, as he wended his way one
Saturday afternoon to a rural inn, about two miles from the city.
It was a favorite resort of the Dutch part of the community from
being always held by a Dutch line of landlords, and retaining an
air and relish of the good old times. It was a Dutch-built house,
that had probably been a country seat of some opulent burgher in
the early time of the settlement. It stood near a point of land,
called Corlears Hook, which stretches out into the Sound, and
against which the tide, at its flux and reflux, sets with
extraordinary rapidity. The venerable and somewhat crazy mansion
was distinguished from afar, by a grove of elms and sycamores
that seemed to wave a hospitable invitation, while a few weeping
willows with their dank, drooping foliage, resembling falling
waters, gave an idea of coolness, that rendered it an attractive
spot during the heats of summer.

Here, therefore, as I said, resorted many of the old inhabitants
of the Manhattoes, where, while some played at the shuffle-board
and quoits and ninepins, others smoked a deliberate pipe, and
talked over public affairs.

It was on a blustering autumnal afternoon that Wolfert made his
visit to the inn. The grove of elms and willows was stripped of
its leaves, which whirled in rustling eddies about the fields.

The ninepin alley was deserted, for the premature chilliness of
the day had driven the company within doors. As it was Saturday
afternoon, the habitual club was in session, composed principally
of regular Dutch burghers, though mingled occasionally with
persons of various, character and country, as is natural in a
place of such motley population.

Beside the fire-place, and in a huge leather-bottomed armchair,
sat the dictator of this little world, the venerable Rem, or, as
it was pronounced, Ramm Rapelye.

He was a man of Walloon race, and illustrious for the antiquity
of his line, his great grandmother having been the first white
child born in the province. But he was still more illustrious for
his wealth and dignity: he had long filled the noble office of
alderman, and was a man to whom the governor himself took off his
hat. He had maintained possession of the leathern-bottomed chair
from time immemorial; and had gradually waxed in bulk as he sat
in his seat of government, until in the course of years he filled
its whole magnitude. His word was decisive with his subjects; for
he was so rich a man, that he was never expected to support any
opinion by argument. The landlord waited on him with peculiar
officiousness; not that he paid better than his neighbors, but
then the coin of a rich man seems always to be so much more
acceptable. The landlord had always a pleasant word and a joke,
to insinuate in the ear of the august Ramm. It is true, Ramm
never laughed, and, indeed, maintained a mastiff-like gravity,
and even surliness of aspect, yet he now and then rewarded mine
host with a token of approbation; which, though nothing more nor
less than a kind of grunt, yet delighted the landlord more than a
broad laugh from a poorer man.

“This will be a rough night for the money-diggers,” said mine
host, as a gust of wind howled round the house, and rattled at
the windows.

“What, are they at their works again?” said an English half-pay
captain, with one eye, who was a frequent attendant at the inn.

“Aye, are they,” said the landlord, “and well may they be.
They’ve had luck of late. They say a great pot of money has been
dug up in the field, just behind Stuyvesant’s orchard. Folks
think it must have been buried there in old times by Peter
Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor.”

“Fudge!” said the one-eyed man of war, as he added a small
portion of water to a bottom of brandy.

“Well, you may believe, or not, as you please,” said mine host,
somewhat nettled; “but every body knows that the old governor
buried a great deal of his money at the time of the Dutch
troubles, when the English red-coats seized on the province. They
say, too, the old gentleman walks; aye, and in the very Same
dress that he wears in the picture which hangs up in the family
house.”

“Fudge!” said the half-pay officer.

“Fudge, if you please!—But didn’t Corney Van Zandt see him at
midnight, stalking about in the meadow with his wooden leg, and a
drawn sword in his hand, that flashed like fire? And what can he
be walking for, but because people have been troubling the place
where he buried his money in old times?”

Here the landlord was interrupted by several guttural sounds from
Ramm Rapelye, betokening that he was laboring with the unusual
production of an idea. As he was too great a man to be slighted
by a prudent publican, mine host respectfully paused until he
should deliver himself. The corpulent frame of this mighty
burgher now gave all the symptoms of a volcanic mountain on the
point of an eruption. First, there was a certain heaving of the
abdomen, not unlike an earthquake; then was emitted a cloud of
tobacco smoke from that crater, his mouth; then there was a kind
of rattle in the throat, as if the idea were working its way up
through a region of phlegm; then there were several disjointed
members of a sentence thrown out, ending in a cough; at length
his voice forced its way in the slow, but absolute tone of a man
who feels the weight of his purse, if not of his ideas; every
portion of his speech being marked by a testy puff of tobacco
smoke.

“Who talks of old Peter Stuyvesant’s walking?—puff—Have people no
respect for persons?—puff—puff—Peter Stuyvesant knew better what
to do with his money than to bury it—puff—I know the Stuyvesant
family—puff—every one of them—puff—not a more respectable family
in the province—puff—old standers—puff—warm
householders—puff—none of your upstarts—puff—puff—puff.—Don’t
talk to me of Peter Stuyvesant’s walking—puff—puff—puff—puff.”

Here the redoubtable Ramm contracted his brow, clasped up his
mouth, till it wrinkled at each corner, and redoubled his smoking
with such vehemence, that the cloudly volumes soon wreathed round
his head, as the smoke envelopes the awful summit of Mount Etna.

A general silence followed the sudden rebuke of this very rich
man. The subject, however, was too interesting to be readily
abandoned. The conversation soon broke forth again from the lips
of Peechy Prauw Van Hook, the chronicler of the club, one of
those narrative old men who seem to grow incontinent of words, as
they grow old, until their talk flows from them almost
involuntarily.

Peechy, who could at any time tell as many stories in an evening
as his hearers could digest in a month, now resumed the
conversation, by affirming that, to his knowledge, money had at
different times been dug up in various parts of the island. The
lucky persons who had discovered them had always dreamt of them
three times beforehand, and what was worthy of remark, these
treasures had never been found but by some descendant of the good
old Dutch families, which clearly proved that they had been
buried by Dutchmen in the olden time.

“Fiddle-stick with your Dutchmen!” cried the half-pay officer.
“The Dutch had nothing to do with them. They were all buried by
Kidd, the pirate, and his crew.”

Here a key-note was touched that roused the whole company. The
name of Captain Kidd was like a talisman in those times, and was
associated with a thousand marvellous stories.

The half-pay officer was a man of great weight among the
peaceable members of the club, by reason of his military
character, and of the gunpowder scenes which, by his own account,
he had witnessed.

The golden stories of Kidd, however, were resolutely rivalled by
the tales of Peechy Prauw, who, rather than suffer his Dutch
progenitors to be eclipsed by a foreign freebooter, enriched
every spot in the neighborhood with the hidden wealth of Peter
Stuyvesant and his contemporaries.

Not a word of this conversation was lost upon Wolfert Webber. He
returned pensively home, full of magnificent ideas of buried
riches. The soil of his native island seemed to be turned into
gold-dust; and every field teemed with treasure. His head almost
reeled at the thought how often he must have heedlessly rambled
over places where countless sums lay, scarcely covered by the
turf beneath his feet. His mind was in a vertigo with this whirl
of new ideas. As he came in sight of the venerable mansion of his
forefathers, and the little realm where the Webbers had so long
and so contentedly flourished, his gorge rose at the narrowness
of his destiny.

“Unlucky Wolfert!” exclaimed he, “others can go to bed and dream
themselves into whole mines of wealth; they have but to seize a
spade in the morning, and turn up doubloons like potatoes; but
thou must dream of hardship, and rise to poverty—must dig thy
field from year’s end to year’s end, and—and yet raise nothing
but cabbages!”

Wolfert Webber went to bed with a heavy heart; and it was long
before the golden visions that disturbed his brain, permitted him
to sink into repose. The same visions, however, extended into his
sleeping thoughts, and assumed a more definite form. He dreamt
that he had discovered an immense treasure in the centre of his
garden. At every stroke of the spade he laid bare a golden ingot;
diamond crosses sparkled out of the dust; bags of money turned up
their bellies, corpulent with pieces of eight, or venerable
doubloons; and chests, wedged close with moidores, ducats, and
pistareens, yawned before his ravished eyes, and vomited forth
their glittering contents.

Wolfert awoke a poorer man than ever. He had no heart to go about
his daily concerns, which appeared so paltry and profitless; but
sat all day long in the chimney-corner, picturing to himself
ingots and heaps of gold in the fire. The next night his dream
was repeated. He was again in his garden, digging, and laying
open stores of hidden wealth. There was something very singular
in this repetition. He passed another day of reverie, and though
it was cleaning-day, and the house, as usual in Dutch households,
completely topsy-turvy, yet he sat unmoved amidst the general
uproar.

The third night he went to bed with a palpitating heart. He put
on his red nightcap, wrong side outwards for good luck. It was
deep midnight before his anxious mind could settle itself into
sleep. Again the golden dream was repeated, and again he saw his
garden teeming with ingots and money-bags.

Wolfert rose the next morning in complete bewilderment. A dream
three times repeated was never known to lie; and if so, his
fortune was made.

In his agitation he put on his waistcoat with the hind part
before, and this was a corroboration of good luck. He no longer
doubted that a huge store of money lay buried somewhere in his
cabbage-field, coyly waiting to be sought for, and he half
repined at having so long been scratching about the surface of
the soil, instead of digging to the centre.

He took his seat at the breakfast-table full of these
speculations; asked his daughter to put a lump of gold in to his
tea, and on handing his wife a plate of slap-jacks, begging her
to help herself to a doubloon.

His grand care now was how to secure this immense treasure
without it being known. Instead of working regularly in his
grounds in the day-time, he now stole from his bed at night, and
with spade and pickaxe, went to work to rip up and dig about his
paternal acres, from one end to the other. In a little time the
whole garden, which had presented such a goodly and regular
appearance, with its phalanx of cabbages, like a vegetable army
in battle array, was reduced to a scene of devastation, while the
relentless Wolfert, with nightcap on head, and lantern and spade
in hand, stalked through the slaughtered ranks, the destroying
angel of his own vegetable world.

Every morning bore testimony to the ravages of the preceding
night in cabbages of all ages and conditions, from the tender
sprout to the full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet
beds like worthless weeds, and left to wither in the sunshine. It
was in vain Wolfert’s wife remonstrated; it was in vain his
darling daughter wept over the destruction of some favorite
marygold. “Thou shalt have gold of another guess-sort,” he would
cry, chucking her under the chin; “thou shalt have a string of
crooked ducats for thy wedding-necklace, my child.” His family
began really to fear that the poor man’s wits were diseased. He
muttered in his sleep at night of mines of wealth, of pearls and
diamonds and bars of gold. In the day-time he was moody and
abstracted, and walked about as if in a trance. Dame Webber held
frequent councils with all the old women of the neighborhood, not
omitting the parish dominie; scarce an hour in the day but a knot
of them might be seen wagging their white caps together round her
door, while the poor woman made some piteous recital. The
daughter, too, was fain to seek for more frequent consolation
from the stolen interviews of her favored swain, Dirk Waldron.
The delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to dulcify
the house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget her
sewing and look wistfully in her father’s face as he sat
pondering by the fireside.

Wolfert caught her eye one day fixed on him thus anxiously, and
for a moment was roused from his golden reveries—“Cheer up, my
girl,” said he, exultingly, “why dost thou droop?—thou shalt hold
up thy head one day with the—and the Schenaerhorns, the Van
Hornes, and the Van Dams—the patroon himself shall be glad to get
thee for his son!”

Amy shook her head at this vain-glorious boast, and was more than
ever in doubt of the soundness of the good man’s intellect.

In the meantime Wolfert went on digging, but the field was
extensive, and as his dream had indicated no precise spot, he had
to dig at random. The winter set in before one-tenth of the scene
of promise had been explored. The ground became too frozen and
the nights too cold for the labors of the spade. No sooner,
however, did the returning warmth of spring loosen the soil, and
the small frogs begin to pipe in the meadows, but Wolfert resumed
his labors with renovated zeal. Still, however, the hours of
industry were reversed. Instead of working cheerily all day,
planting and setting out his vegetables, he remained thoughtfully
idle, until the shades of night summoned him to his secret
labors. In this way he continued to dig from night to night, and
week to week, and month to month, but not a stiver did he find.
On the contrary, the more he digged the poorer he grew. The rich
soil of his garden was digged away, and the sand and gravel from
beneath were thrown to the surface, until the whole field
presented an aspect of sandy barrenness.

In the meantime the seasons gradually rolled on. The little frogs
that had piped in the meadows in early spring, croaked as
bull-frogs in the brooks during the summer heats, and then sunk
into silence. The peach tree budded, blossomed, and bore its
fruit. The swallows and martins came, twittered about the roof,
built their nests, reared their young, held their congress along
the eaves, and then winged their flight in search of another
spring. The caterpillar spun its winding-sheet, dangled in it
from the great buttonwood tree that shaded the house, turned into
a moth, fluttered with the last sunshine of summer, and
disappeared; and finally the leaves of the buttonwood tree turned
yellow, then brown, then rustled one by one to the ground, and
whirling about in little eddies of wind and dust, whispered that
winter was at hand.

Wolfert gradually awoke from his dream of wealth as the year
declined. He had reared no crop to supply the wants of his
household during the sterility of winter. The season was long and
severe, and for the first time the family was really straightened
in its comforts. By degrees a revulsion of thought took place in
Wolfert’s mind, common to those whose golden dreams have been
disturbed by pinching realities. The idea gradually stole upon
him that he should come to want. He already considered himself
one of the most unfortunate men in the province, having lost such
an incalculable amount of undiscovered treasure, and now, when
thousands of pounds had eluded his search, to be perplexed for
shillings and pence was cruel in the extreme.

Haggard care gathered about his brow; he went about with a
money-seeking air, his eyes bent downwards into the dust, and
carrying his hands in his pockets, as men are apt to do when they
have nothing else to put into them. He could not even pass the
city almshouse without giving it a rueful glance, as if destined
to be his future abode.

The strangeness of his conduct and of his looks occasioned much
speculation and remark. For a long time he was suspected of being
crazy, and then every body pitied him; at length it began to be
suspected that he was poor, and then every body avoided him.

The rich old burghers of his acquaintance met him, outside of the
door when he called, entertained him hospitably on the threshold,
pressed him warmly by the hand on parting, shook their heads as
he walked away, with the kind-hearted expression of “poor
Wolfert,” and turned a corner nimbly, if by chance they saw him
approaching as they walked the streets. Even the barber and
cobbler of the neighborhood, and a tattered tailor in an alley
hard by, three of the poorest and merriest rogues in the world,
eyed him with that abundant sympathy which usually attends a lack
of means, and there is not a doubt but their pockets would have
been at his command, only that they happened to be empty.

Thus every body deserted the Webber mansion, as if poverty were
contagious, like the plague; every body but honest Dirk Waldron,
who still kept up his stolen visits to the daughter, and indeed
seemed to wax more affectionate as the fortunes of his mistress
were on the wane.

Many months had elapsed since Wolfert had frequented his old
resort, the rural inn. He was taking a long lonely walk one
Saturday afternoon, musing over his wants and disappointments,
when his feet took instinctively their wonted direction, and on
awaking out of a reverie, he found himself before the door of the
inn. For some moments he hesitated whether to enter, but his
heart yearned for companionship; and where can a ruined man find
better companionship than at a tavern, where there is neither
sober example nor sober advice to put him out of countenance?

Wolfert found several of the old frequenters of the tavern at
their usual posts, and seated in their usual places; but one was
missing, the great Ramm Rapelye, who for many years had filled
the chair of state. His place was supplied by a stranger, who
seemed, however, completely at home in the chair and the tavern.
He was rather under-size, but deep-chested, square, and muscular.
His broad shoulders, double joints, and bow-knees, gave tokens of
prodigious strength. His face was dark and weather-beaten; a deep
scar, as if from the slash of a cutlass, had almost divided his
nose, and made a gash in his upper lip, through which his teeth
shone like a bull-dog’s. A mass of iron gray hair gave a grizzly
finish to his hard-favored visage. His dress was of an amphibious
character. He wore an old hat edged with tarnished lace, and
cocked in martial style, on one side of his head; a rusty blue
military coat with brass buttons, and a wide pair of short
petticoat trousers, or rather breeches, for they were gathered up
at the knees. He ordered every body about him with an
authoritative air; talked in a brattling voice, that sounded like
the crackling of thorns under a pot; damned the landlord and
servants with perfect impunity, and was waited upon with greater
obsequiousness than had ever been shown to the mighty Ramm
himself.

Wolfert’s curiosity was awakened to know who and what was this
stranger who had thus usurped absolute sway in this ancient
domain. He could get nothing, however, but vague information.
Peechy Prauw took him aside, into a remote corner of the hall,
and there in an under-voice, and with great caution, imparted to
him all that he knew on the subject. The inn had been aroused
several months before, on a dark stormy night, by repeated long
shouts, that seemed like the howlings of a wolf. They came from
the water-side; and at length were distinguished to be hailing
the house in the seafaring manner. “House-a-hoy!” The landlord
turned out with his head-waiter, tapster, hostler, and errand
boy—that is to say with his old negro Cuff. On approaching the
place from whence the voice proceeded, they found this
amphibious-looking personage at the water’s edge, quite alone,
and seated on a great oaken sea-chest. How he came there, whether
he had been set on shore from some boat, or had floated to land
on his chest, nobody could tell, for he did not seem disposed to
answer questions, and there was something in his looks and
manners that put a stop to all questioning. Suffice it to say, he
took possession of a corner room of the inn, to which his chest
was removed with great difficulty. Here he had remained ever
since, keeping about the inn and its vicinity. Sometimes, it is
true, he disappeared for one, two, or three days at a time, going
and returning without giving any notice or account of his
movements. He always appeared to have plenty of money, though
often of very strange, outlandish coinage; and he regularly paid
his bill every evening before turning in.

He had fitted up his room to his own fancy, having slung a
hammock from the ceiling instead of a bed, and decorated the
walls with rusty pistols and cutlasses of foreign workmanship. A
great part of his time was passed in this room, seated by the
window, which commanded a wide view of the Sound, a short
old-fashioned pipe in his mouth, a glass of rum toddy at his
elbow, and a pocket telescope in his hand, with which he
reconnoitred every boat that moved upon the water. Large
square-rigged vessels seemed to excite but little attention; but
the moment he descried any thing with a shoulder-of-mutton sail,
or that a barge, or yawl, or jolly boat hove in sight, up went
the telescope, and he examined it with the most scrupulous
attention.

All this might have passed without much notice, for in those
times the province was so much the resort of adventurers of all
characters and climes that any oddity in dress or behavior
attracted but little attention. But in a little while this
strange sea monster, thus strangely cast up on dry land, began to
encroach upon the long-established customs and customers of the
place; to interfere in a dictatorial manner in the affairs of the
ninepin alley and the bar-room, until in the end he usurped an
absolute command over the little inn. It was in vain to attempt
to withstand his authority. He was not exactly quarrelsome, but
boisterous and peremptory, like one accustomed to tyrannize on a
quarter deck; and there was a dare-devil air about every thing he
said and did, that inspired a wariness in all bystanders. Even
the half-pay officer, so long the hero of the club, was soon
silenced by him; and the quiet burghers stared with wonder at
seeing their inflammable man of war so readily and quietly
extinguished.

And then the tales that he would tell were enough to make a
peaceable man’s hair stand on end. There was not a sea fight, or
marauding or free-booting adventure that had happened within the
last twenty years but he seemed perfectly versed in it. He
delighted to talk of the exploits of the buccaneers in the
West-Indies and on the Spanish Main. How his eyes would glisten
as he described the waylaying of treasure ships, the desperate
fights, yard arm and yard arm—broadside and broad side—the
boarding and capturing of large Spanish galleons! with what
chuckling relish would he describe the descent upon some rich
Spanish colony; the rifling of a church; the sacking of a
convent! You would have thought you heard some gormandizer
dilating upon the roasting a savory goose at Michaelmas as he
described the roasting of some Spanish Don to make him discover
his treasure—a detail given with a minuteness that made every
rich old burgher present turn uncomfortably in his chair. All
this would be told with infinite glee, as if he considered it an
excellent joke; and then he would give such a tyrannical leer in
the face of his next neighbor, that the poor man would be fain to
laugh out of sheer faint-heartedness. If any one, however,
pretended to contradict him in any of his stories he was on fire
in an instant. His very cocked hat assumed a momentary
fierceness, and seemed to resent the contradiction.—“How the
devil should you know as well as I! I tell you it was as I say!”
and he would at the same time let slip a broadside of thundering
oaths and tremendous sea phrases, such as had never been heard
before within those peaceful walls.

Indeed, the worthy burghers began to surmise that he knew more of
these stories than mere hearsay. Day after day their conjectures
concerning him grew more and more wild and fearful. The
strangeness of his manners, the mystery that surrounded him, all
made him something incomprehensible in their eyes. He was a kind
of monster of the deep to them—he was a merman—he was behemoth—he
was leviathan—in short, they knew not what he was.

The domineering spirit of this boisterous sea urchin at length
grew quite intolerable. He was no respecter of persons; he
contradicted the richest burghers without hesitation; he took
possession of the sacred elbow chair, which time out of mind had
been the seat of sovereignty of the illustrious Ramm Rapelye.
Nay, he even went so far in one of his rough jocular moods, as to
slap that mighty burgher on the back, drink his toddy and wink in
his face, a thing scarcely to be believed. From this time Ramm
Rapelye appeared no more at the inn; his example was followed by
several of the most eminent customers, who were too rich to
tolerate being bullied out of their opinions, or being obliged to
laugh at another man’s jokes. The landlord was almost in despair,
but he knew not how to get rid of this sea monster and his
sea-chest, which seemed to have grown like fixtures, or
excrescences on his establishment.

Such was the account whispered cautiously in Wolfert’s ear, by
the narrator, Peechy Prauw, as he held him by the button in a
corner of the hall, casting a wary glance now and then towards
the door of the bar-room, lest he should be overheard by the
terrible hero of his tale.

Wolfert took his seat in a remote part of the room in silence;
impressed with profound awe of this unknown, so versed in
freebooting history. It was to him a wonderful instance of the
revolutions of mighty empires, to find the venerable Ramm Rapelye
thus ousted from the throne; a rugged tarpaulin dictating from
his elbow chair, hectoring the patriarchs, and filling this
tranquil little realm with brawl and bravado.

The stranger was on this evening in a more than usually
communicative mood, and was narrating a number of astounding
stories of plunderings and burnings upon the high seas. He dwelt
upon them with peculiar relish, heightening the frightful
particulars in proportion to their effect on his peaceful
auditors. He gave a long swaggering detail of the capture of a
Spanish merchantman. She was laying becalmed during a long
summer’s day, just off from an island which was one of the
lurking places of the pirates. They had reconnoitred her with
their spy-glasses from the shore, and ascertained her character
and force. At night a picked crew of daring fellows set off for
her in a whale boat. They approached with muffled oars, as she
lay rocking idly with the undulations of the sea and her sails
flapping against the masts. They were close under her stern
before the guard on deck was aware of their approach. The alarm
was given; the pirates threw hand grenades on deck and sprang up
the main chains sword in hand.

The crew flew to arms, but in great confusion some were shot
down, others took refuge in the tops; others were driven
overboard and drowned, while others fought hand to hand from the
main deck to the quarter deck, disputing gallantly every inch of
ground. There were three Spanish gentlemen on board with their
ladies, who made the most desperate resistance; they defended the
companion-way, cut down several of their assailants, and fought
like very devils, for they were maddened by the shrieks of the
ladies from the cabin. One of the Dons was old and soon
despatched. The other two kept their ground vigorously, even
though the captain of the pirates was among their assailants.
Just then there was a shout of victory from the main deck. “The
ship is ours!” cried the pirates.

One of the Dons immediately dropped his sword and surrendered;
the other, who was a hot-headed youngster, and just married, gave
the captain a slash in the face that laid all open. The captain
just made out to articulate the words “no quarter.”

“And what did they do with their prisoners?” said Peechy Prauw,
eagerly.

“Threw them all overboard!” said the merman.

A dead pause followed this reply. Peechy Prauw shrunk quietly
back like a man who had unwarily stolen upon the lair of a
sleeping lion. The honest burghers cast fearful glances at the
deep scar slashed across the visage of the stranger, and moved
their chairs a little farther off. The seaman, however, smoked on
without moving a muscle, as though he either did not perceive or
did not regard the unfavorable effect he had produced upon his
hearers.

The half-pay officer was the first to break the silence; for he
was Continually tempted to make ineffectual head against this
tyrant of the seas, and to regain his lost consequence in the
eyes of his ancient companions. He now tried to match the
gunpowder tales of the stranger by others equally tremendous.
Kidd, as usual, was his hero, concerning whom he had picked up
many of the floating traditions of the province. The seaman had
always evinced a settled pique against the red-faced warrior. On
this occasion he listened with peculiar impatience. He sat with
one arm a-kimbo, the other elbow on a table, the hand holding on
to the small pipe he was pettishly puffing; his legs crossed,
drumming with one foot on the ground and casting every now and
then the side glance of a basilisk at the prosing captain. At
length the latter spoke of Kidd’s having ascended the Hudson with
some of his crew, to land his plunder in secrecy.

“Kidd up the Hudson!” burst forth the seaman, with a tremendous
oath; “Kidd never was up the Hudson!”

“I tell you he was,” said the other. “Aye, and they say he buried
a quantity of treasure on the little flat that runs out into the
river, called the Devil’s Dans Kammer.”

“The Devil’s Dans Kammer in your teeth!” cried the seaman. “I
tell you Kidd never was up the Hudson—what the plague do you know
of Kidd and his haunts?”

“What do I know?” echoed the half-pay officer; “why, I was in
London at the time of his trial, aye, and I had the pleasure of
seeing him hanged at Execution Dock.”

“Then, sir, let me tell you that you saw as pretty a fellow
hanged as ever trod shoe leather. Aye!” putting his face nearer
to that of the officer, “and there was many a coward looked on,
that might much better have swung in his stead.”

The half-pay officer was silenced; but the indignation thus pent
up in his bosom glowed with intense vehemence in his single eye,
which kindled like a coal.

Peechy Prauw, who never could remain silent, now took up the
word, and in a pacifying tone observed that the gentleman
certainly was in the right. Kidd never did bury money up the
Hudson, nor indeed in any of those parts, though many affirm the
fact. It was Bradish and others of the buccaneers who had buried
money, some said in Turtle Bay, others on Long-Island, others in
the neighborhood of Hell Gate. Indeed, added he, I recollect an
adventure of Mud Sam, the negro fisherman, many years ago, which
some think had something to do with the buccaneers. As we are all
friends here, and as it will go no farther, I’ll tell it to you.

“Upon a dark night many years ago, as Sam was returning from
fishing in Hell Gate—”

Here the story was nipped in the bud by a sudden movement from
the unknown, who, laying his iron fist on the table, knuckles
downward, with a quiet force that indented the very boards, and
looking grimly over his shoulder, with the grin of an angry bear.
“Heark’ee, neighbor,” said he, with significant nodding of the
head, “you’d better let the buccaneers and their money
alone—they’re not for old men and old women to meddle with. They
fought hard for their money, they gave body and soul for it, and
wherever it lies buried, depend upon it he must have a tug with
the devil who gets it.”

This sudden explosion was succeeded by a blank silence throughout
the room. Peechy Prauw shrunk within himself, and even the
red-faced officer turned pale. Wolfert, who, from a dark corner
of the room, had listened with intense eagerness to all this talk
about buried treasure, looked with mingled awe and reverence on
this bold buccaneer, for such he really suspected him to be.
There was a chinking of gold and a sparkling of jewels in all his
stories about the Spanish Main that gave a value to every period,
and Wolfert would have given any thing for the rummaging of the
ponderous sea-chest, which his imagination crammed full of golden
chalices and crucifixes and jolly round bags of doubloons.

The dead stillness that had fallen upon the company was at length
interrupted by the stranger, who pulled out a prodigious watch of
curious and ancient workmanship, and which in Wolferts’ eyes had
a decidedly Spanish look. On touching a spring it struck ten
o’clock; upon which the sailor called for his reckoning, and
having paid it out of a handful of outlandish coin, he drank off
the remainder of his beverage, and without taking leave of any
one, rolled out of the room, muttering to himself as he stamped
up-stairs to his chamber.

It was some time before the company could recover from the
silence into which they had been thrown. The very footsteps of
the stranger, which were heard now and then as he traversed his
chamber, inspired awe.

Still the conversation in which they had been engaged was too
interesting not to be resumed. A heavy thunder-gust had gathered
up unnoticed while they were lost in talk, and the torrents of
rain that fell forbade all thoughts of setting off for home until
the storm should subside. They drew nearer together, therefore,
and entreated the worthy Peechy Prauw to continue the tale which
had been so discourteously interrupted. He readily complied,
whispering, however, in a tone scarcely above his breath, and
drowned occasionally by the rolling of the thunder, and he would
pause every now and then, and listen with evident awe, as he
heard the heavy footsteps of the stranger pacing overhead.

The following is the purport of his story.

THE ADVENTURE OF SAM, THE BLACK FISHERMAN COMMONLY DENOMINATED MUD SAM

Every body knows Mud Sam, the old negro fisherman who has fished
about the Sound for the last twenty or thirty years. Well, it is
now many years since that Sam, who was then a young fellow, and
worked on the farm of Killian Suydam on Long Island, having
finished his work early, was fishing, one still summer evening,
just about the neighborhood of Hell Gate. He was in a light
skiff, and being well acquainted with the currents and eddies, he
had been able to shift his station with the shifting of the tide,
from the Hen and Chickens to the Hog’s back, and from the Hog’s
back to the Pot, and from the Pot to the Frying-pan; but in the
eagerness of his sport Sam did not see that the tide was rapidly
ebbing; until the roaring of the whirlpools and rapids warned him
of his danger, and he had some difficulty in shooting his skiff
from among the rocks and breakers, and getting to the point of
Blackwell’s Island. Here he cast anchor for some time, waiting
the turn of the tide to enable him to return homewards.

As the night set in it grew blustering and gusty. Dark clouds
came bundling up in the west; and now and then a growl of thunder
or a flash of lightning told that a summer storm was at hand. Sam
pulled over, therefore, under the lee of Manhattan Island, and
coasting along came to a snug nook, just under a steep beetling
rock, where he fastened his skiff to the root of a tree that shot
out from a cleft and spread its broad branches like a canopy over
the water. The gust came scouring along; the wind threw up the
river in white surges; the rain rattled among the leaves, the
thunder bellowed worse than that which is now bellowing, the
lightning seemed to lick up the surges of the stream; but Sam,
snugly sheltered under rock and tree, lay crouched in his skiff,
rocking upon the billows, until he fell asleep. When he awoke all
was quiet. The gust had passed away, and only now and then a
faint gleam of lightning in the east showed which way it had
gone. The night was dark and moonless; and from the state of the
tide Sam concluded it was near midnight. He was on the point of
making loose his skiff to return homewards, when he saw a light
gleaming along the water from a distance, which seemed rapidly
approaching. As it drew near he perceived that it came from a
lanthorn in the bow of a boat which was gliding along under
shadow of the land. It pulled up in a small cove, close to where
he was. A man jumped on shore, and searching about with the
lanthorn exclaimed, “This is the place—here’s the Iron ring.” The
boat was then made fast, and the man returning on board, assisted
his comrades in conveying something heavy on shore. As the light
gleamed among them, Sam saw that they were five stout,
desperate-looking fellows, in red woollen caps, with a leader in
a three-cornered hat, and that some of them were armed with
dirks, or long knives, and pistols. They talked low to one
another, and occasionally in some outlandish tongue which he
could not understand.

On landing they made their way among the bushes, taking turns to
relieve each other in lugging their burthen up the rocky bank.
Sam’s curiosity was now fully aroused, so leaving his skiff he
clambered silently up the ridge that overlooked their path. They
had stopped to rest for a moment, and the leader was looking
about among the bushes with his lanthorn. “Have you brought the
spades?” said one. “They are here,” replied another, who had them
on his shoulder. “We must dig deep, where there will be no risk
of discovery,” said a third.

A cold chill ran through Sam’s veins. He fancied he saw before
him a gang of murderers, about to bury their victim. His knees
smote together. In his agitation he shook the branch of a tree
with which he was supporting himself as he looked over the edge
of the cliff.

“What’s that?” cried one of the gang. “Some one stirs among the
bushes!”

The lanthorn was held up in the direction of the noise. One of
the red-caps cocked a pistol, and pointed it towards the very
lace where Sam was standing. He stood motionless—breathless;
expecting the next moment to be his last. Fortunately, his dingy
complexion was in his favor, and made no glare among the leaves.

“’Tis no one,” said the man with the lanthorn. “What a plague!
you would not fire off your pistol and alarm the country.”

The pistol was uncocked; the burthen was resumed, and the party
slowly toiled up the bank. Sam watched them as they went; the
light sending back fitful gleams through the dripping bushes, and
it was not till they were fairly out of sight that he ventured to
draw breath freely. He now thought of getting back to his boat,
and making his escape out of the reach of such dangerous
neighbors; but curiosity was all-powerful with poor Sam. He
hesitated and lingered and listened. By and bye he heard the
strokes of spades.

“They are digging the grave!” said he to himself; the cold sweat
started upon his forehead. Every stroke of a spade, as it sounded
through the silent groves, went to his heart; it was evident
there was as little noise made as possible; every thing had an
air of mystery and secrecy. Sam had a great relish for the
horrible—a tale of murder was a treat for him; and he was a
constant attendant at executions. He could not, therefore, resist
an impulse, in spite of every danger, to steal nearer, and
overlook the villains at their work. He crawled along cautiously,
therefore, inch by inch; stepping with the utmost care among the
dry leaves, lest their rustling should betray him. He came at
length to where a steep rock intervened between him and the gang;
he saw the light of their lanthorn shining up against the
branches of the trees on the other side. Sam slowly and silently
clambered up the surface of the rock, and raising his head above
its naked edge, beheld the villains immediately below him, and so
near that though he dreaded discovery, he dared not withdraw lest
the least movement should be heard. In this way he remained, with
his round black face peering over the edge of the rock, like the
sun just emerging above the edge of the horizon, or the
round-cheeked moon on the dial of a clock.

The red-caps had nearly finished their work; the grave was filled
up, and they were carefully replacing the turf. This done, they
scattered dry leaves over the place. “And now,” said the leader,
“I defy the devil himself to find it out.”

“The murderers!” exclaimed Sam involuntarily.

The whole gang started, and looking up, beheld the round black
head of Sam just above them. His white eyes strained half out of
their orbits; his white teeth chattering, and his whole visage
shining with cold perspiration.

“We’re discovered!” cried one.

“Down with him!” cried another.

Sam heard the cocking of a pistol, but did not pause for the
report. He scrambled over rock and stone, through bush and briar;
rolled down banks like a hedgehog; scrambled up others like a
catamount. In every direction he heard some one or other of the
gang hemming him in. At length he reached the rocky ridge along
the river; one of the red-caps was hard behind him. A steep rock
like a wall rose directly in his way; it seemed to cut off all
retreat, when he espied the strong cord-like branch of a
grape-vine reaching half way down it. He sprang at it with the
force of a desperate man, seized it with both hands, and being
young and agile, succeeded in swinging himself to the summit of
the cliff. Here he stood in full relief against the sky, when the
red-cap cocked his pistol and fired. The ball whistled by Sam’s
head. With the lucky thought of a man in an emergency, he uttered
a yell, fell to the ground, and detached at the same time a
fragment of the rock, which tumbled with a loud splash into the
river.

“I’ve done his business,” said the red-cap, to one or two of his
comrades as they arrived panting. “He’ll tell no tales, except to
the fishes in the river.”

His pursuers now turned off to meet their companions. Sam sliding
silently down the surface of the rock, let himself quietly into
his skiff, cast loose the fastening, and abandoned himself to the
rapid current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and
soon swept him off from the neighborhood. It was not, however,
until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his
oars; when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the
strait of Hell Gate, never heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan,
or Hog’s-back itself; nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure
until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ancient
farm-house of the Suydams.

Here the worthy Peechy paused to take breath and to take a sip of
the gossip tankard that stood at his elbow. His auditors remained
with open mouths and outstretched necks, gaping like a nest of
swallows for an additional mouthful.

“And is that all?” exclaimed the half-pay officer.

“That’s all that belongs to the story,” said Peechy Prauw.

“And did Sam never find out what was buried by the redcaps?” said
Wolfert, eagerly; whose mind was haunted by nothing but ingots
and doubloons.

“Not that I know of; he had no time to spare from his work; and
to tell the truth, he did not like to run the risk of another
race among the rocks. Besides, how should he recollect the spot
where the grave had been digged? every thing would look different
by daylight. And then, where was the use of looking for a dead
body, when there was no chance of hanging the murderers?”

“Aye, but are you sure it was a dead body they buried?” said
Wolfert.

“To be sure,” cried Peechy Prauw, exultingly. “Does it not haunt
in the neighborhood to this very day?”

“Haunts!” exclaimed several of the party, opening their eyes
still wider and edging their chairs still closer.

“Aye, haunts,” repeated Peechy; “has none of you heard of father
red-cap that haunts the old burnt farm-house in the woods, on the
border of the Sound, near Hell Gate?”

“Oh, to be sure, I’ve heard tell of something of the kind, but
then I took it for some old wives’ fable.”

“Old wives’ fable or not,” said Peechy Prauw, “that farmhouse
stands hard by the very spot. It’s been unoccupied time out of
mind, and stands in a wild, lonely part of the coast; but those
who fish in the neighborhood have often heard strange noises
there; and lights have been seen about the wood at night; and an
old fellow in a red cap has been seen at the windows more than
once, which people take to be the ghost of the body that was
buried there. Once upon a time three soldiers took shelter in the
building for the night, and rummaged it from top to bottom, when
they found old father red-cap astride of a cider-barrel in the
cellar, with a jug in one hand and a goblet in the other. He
offered them a drink out of his goblet, but just as one of the
soldiers was putting it to his mouth-Whew! a flash of fire blazed
through the cellar, blinded every mother’s son of them for
several minutes, and when they recovered their eye-sight, jug,
goblet, and red-cap had vanished, and nothing but the empty
cider-barrel remained.”

Here the half-pay officer, who was growing very muzzy and sleepy,
and nodding over his liquor, with half-extinguished eye, suddenly
gleamed up like an expiring rushlight.

“That’s all humbug!” said he, as Peechy finished his last story.

“Well, I don’t vouch for the truth of it myself,” said Peechy
Prauw, “though all the world knows that there’s something strange
about the house and grounds; but as to the story of Mud Sam, I
believe it just as well as if it had happened to myself.”

The deep interest taken in this conversation by the company, had
made them unconscious of the uproar that prevailed abroad, among
the elements, when suddenly they were all electrified by a
tremendous clap of thunder. A lumbering crash followed
instantaneously that made the building shake to its foundation.
All started from their seats, imagining it the shock of an
earthquake, or that old father red-cap was coming among them in
all his terrors. They listened for a moment, but only heard the
rain pelting against the windows, and the wind howling among the
trees. The explosion was soon explained by the apparition of an
old negro’s bald head thrust in at the door, his white goggle
eyes contrasting with his jetty poll, which was wet with rain and
shone like a bottle. In a jargon but half intelligible he
announced that the kitchen chimney had been struck with
lightning.

A sullen pause of the storm, which now rose and sunk in gusts,
produced a momentary stillness. In this interval the report of a
musket was heard, and a long shout, almost like a yell, resounded
from the shore. Every one crowded to the window; another musket
shot was heard, and another long shout, that mingled wildly with
a rising blast of wind. It seemed as if the cry came up from the
bosom of the waters; for though incessant flashes of lightning
spread a light about the shore, no one was to be seen.

Suddenly the window of the room overhead was opened, and a loud
halloo uttered by the mysterious stranger. Several hailings
passed from one party to the other, but in a language which none
of the company in the bar-room could understand; and presently
they heard the window closed, and a great noise overhead as if
all the furniture were pulled and hauled about the room. The
negro servant was summoned, and shortly after was seen assisting
the veteran to lug the ponderous sea-chest down stairs.

The landlord was in amazement. “What, you are not going on the
water in such a storm?”

“Storm!” said the other, scornfully, “do you call such a sputter
of weather a storm?”

“You’ll get drenched to the skin—You’ll catch your death!” said
Peechy Prauw, affectionately.