Ewriting Format by Carl Peterson © 2001

Everybody knows Black Sam,
the old negro fisherman,
or,
as he is commonly called,
"Mud Sam," who has fished about the Sound
for the last half century.

It is now many years since Sam,
who was then as active a young negro as any in the province,
and worked on the farm of Killian Suydam on Long Island,
having finished his day's work at an early hour,
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,
had shifted his station,
according
to the shifting of the tide,
from the Hen and Chickens
to the Hog's Back,
from the Hog's Back
to the Pot,
and from the Pot
to the Frying Pan;
but in the eagerness of his sport he did not see that the tide was rapidly ebbing,
until the roaring of the whirlpools and eddies 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.[1] Here he cast anchor
for some time,
waiting the turn of the tide
to enable him
to return homeward.

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 crouching in his skiff,
rocking upon the billows until he fell asleep.

[1] A long,
narrow island in the East River,
between New York and Long Island City.

When he woke 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 homeward when he saw a light gleaming along the water from a distance,
which seemed rapidly approaching.

As it drew near he perceived it came from a lantern in the bow of a boat 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 lantern,
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 woolen 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 burden up the rocky bank.

Sam's curiosity was now fully aroused,
so leaving his skiff he clambered silently up a ridge that overlooked their path.

They had stopped
to rest
for a moment,
and the leader was looking about among the bushes
with his lantern.

"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 lantern was held up in the direction of the noise.

One of the red-caps cocked a pistol,
and pointed it toward the very place 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 lantern.

"What a plague!

you would not fire off your pistol and alarm the country!"
The pistol was uncocked,
the burden was resumed,
and the party slowly toiled along 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.

He hesitated,
and lingered,
and listened.

By and by he heard the strokes of spades.

"They are digging the grave!" said he
to himself,
and 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;
everything had an air of terrible 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 resist an impulse,
in spite of every danger,

to steal nearer
to the scene of mystery,
and overlook the midnight fellows 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,

for he saw the light of their lantern 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 above 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 brush and brier,
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 fortunately he espied the strong,
cord-like branch of a grapevine 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 in
to 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
to meet their companions.

Sam,
sliding silently down the surface of the rock,
let himself quietly in
to 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,
nor Hog's Back itself,
nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ancient farmhouse of the SuydaMs. Here the worthy Peechy Prauw 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 red-caps?"

said Wolfert eagerly,
whose mind was haunted by nothing but ingots and doubloons."

Not that I know of," said Peechy;
"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?

everything would look so 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;
"have none of you heard of Father Red-cap,
who haunts the old burned farmhouse 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 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 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 eyesight,
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 rush-light."

That's all fudge!" 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 that 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 abroad among the elements,
when suddenly they were electrified by a tremendous clap of thunder.

A lumbering crash followed instantaneously,
shaking the building
to its very 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 sank 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 shores.

Everyone crowded
to the window;
another musket shot was heard,
and another long shout,
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 barroom 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 afterwards was seen assisting the veteran
to lug the ponderous sea chest downstairs.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."

Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the veteran;
"don't preach about weather
to a man that has cruised in whirlwinds and tornadoes."


The obsequious Peechy was again struck dumb.

The voice from the water was heard once more in a tone of impatience;
the bystanders stared
with redoubled awe at this man of storms,
who seemed
to have come up out of the deep,
and
to be summoned back
to it again.

As,

with the assistance of the negro,
he slowly bore his ponderous sea chest toward the shore,
they eyed it
with a superstitious feeling,
half doubting whether he were not really about
to embark upon it and launch forth upon the wild waves.

They followed him at a distance
with a lantern."

Dowse[1] the light!" roared the hoarse voice from the water.

"No one wants light here!"
[1] Extinguish.

"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the veteran,
turning short upon them;
"back
to the house
with you!"
Wolfert and his companions shrank back in dismay.

Still their curiosity would not allow them entirely
to withdraw.

A long sheet of lightning now flickered across the waves,
and discovered a boat,
filled
with men,
just under a rocky point,
rising and sinking
with the heaving surges,
and swashing the waters at every heave.

It was
with difficulty held
to the rocks by a boat hook,

for the current rushed furiously round the point.

The veteran hoisted one end of the lumbering sea chest on the gunwale of the boat,
and seized the handle at the other end
to lift it in,
when the motion propelled the boat from the shore,
the chest slipped off from the gunwale,
and,
sinking in
to the waves,
pulled the veteran headlong after it.

A loud shriek was uttered by all on shore,
and a volley of execrations by those on board,
but boat and man were hurried away by the rushing swiftness of the tide.

A pitchy darkness succeeded.

Wolfert Webber,
indeed,
fancied that he distinguished a cry
for help,
and that he beheld the drowning man beckoning
for assistance;
but when the lightning again gleamed along the water all was void;
neither man nor boat was
to be seen,--nothing but the dashing and weltering of the waves as they hurried past.The company returned
to the tavern
to await the subsiding of the storm.

They resumed their seats and gazed on each other
with dismay.

The whole transaction had not occupied five minutes,
and not a dozen words had been spoken.

When they looked at the oaken chair they could scarcely realize the fact that the strange being who had so lately tenanted it,
full of life and Herculean vigor,
should already be a corpse.

There was the very glass he had just drunk from;
there lay the ashes from the pipe which he had smoked,
as it were,

with his last breath.

As the worthy burghers pondered on these things,
they felt a terrible conviction of the uncertainty of existence,
and each felt as if the ground on which he stood was rendered less stable by his awful example.As,
however,
the most of the company were possessed of that valuable philosophy which enables a man
to bear up
with fortitude against the misfortunes of his neighbors,
they soon managed
to console themselves
for the tragic end of the veteran.

The landlord was particularly happy that the poor dear man had paid his reckoning before he went,
and made a kind of farewell speech on the occasion."

He came," said he,
"in a storm,
and he went in a storm;
he came in the night,
and he went in the night;
he came nobody knows whence,
and he has gone nobody knows where.


for aught I know he has gone
to sea once more on his chest,
and may land
to bother some people on the other side of the world;
though it's a thousand pities," added he,
"if he has gone
to Davy Jones's[1] locker,
that he had not left his own locker[2] behind him."


[1] Davy Jones is the spirit of the sea,
or the sea devil,
and Davy Jones's locker is the bottom of the ocean;
hence,
"gone
to Davy Jones's locker" signifies "dead and buried in the sea."


[2] Chest.

"His locker!

St.

Nicholas preserve us!" cried Peechy Prauw.

"I'd not have had that sea chest in the house
for any money;
I'll warrant he'd come racketing after it at nights,
and making a haunted house of the inn.

And as
to his going
to sea in his chest,
I recollect what happened
to Skipper Onderdonk's ship on his voyage from Amsterdam."

The boatswain died during a storm,
so they wrapped him up in a sheet,
and put him in his own sea chest,
and threw him overboard;
but they neglected,
in their hurry-skurry,

to say prayers over him,
and the storm raged and roared louder than ever,
and they saw the dead man seated in his chest,

with his shroud
for a sail,
coming hard after the ship,
and the sea breaking before him in great sprays like fire;
and there they kept scudding day after day and night after night,
expecting every moment
to go
to wreck;
and every night they saw the dead boatswain in his sea chest trying
to get up
with them,
and they heard his whistle above the blasts of wind,
and he seemed
to send great seas,
mountain high,
after them that would have swamped the ship if they had not put up the deadlights.

And so it went on till they lost sight of him in the fogs off Newfoundland,
and supposed he had veered ship and stood
for Dead Man's Isle.[1] So much
for burying a man at sea without saying prayers over him."


[1] Probably Deadman's Point,
a small island near Deadman's Bay,
off the eastern coast of Newfoundland.

The thunder gust which had hither
to detained the company was now at an end.

The cuckoo clock in the hall told midnight;
everyone pressed
to depart,

for seldom was such a late hour of the night trespassed on by these quiet burghers.

As they sallied forth they found the heavens once more serene.

The storm which had lately obscured them had rolled away,
and lay piled up in fleecy masses on the horizon,
lighted up by the bright crescent of the moon,
which looked like a little silver lamp hung up in a palace of clouds.The dismal occurrence of the night,
and the dismal narrations they had made,
had left a superstitious feeling in every mind.

They cast a fearful glance at the spot where the buccaneer had disappeared,
almost expecting
to see him sailing on his chest in the cool moonshine.

The trembling rays glittered along the waters,
but all was placid,
and the current dimpled over the spot where he had gone down.

The party huddled together in a little crowd as they repaired homeward,
particularly when they passed a lonely field where a man had been murdered,
and even the sexton,
who had
to complete his journey alone,
though accustomed,
one would think,

to ghosts and goblins,
went a long way round rather than pass by his own churchyard.Wolfert Webber had now carried home a fresh stock of stories and notions
to ruminate upon.

These accounts of pots of money and Spanish treasures,
buried here and there and everywhere about the rocks and bays of these wild shores,
made him almost dizzy.

"Blessed St.

Nicholas!" ejaculated he,
half aloud,
"is it not possible
to come upon one of these golden hoards,
and
to make oneself rich in a twinkling?

How hard that I must go on,
delving and delving,
day in and day out,
merely
to make a morsel of bread,
when one lucky stroke of a spade might enable me
to ride in my carriage
for the rest of my life!"
As he turned over in his thoughts all that had been told of the singular adventure of the negro fisherman,
his imagination gave a totally different complexion[1]
to the tale.

He saw in the gang of red-caps nothing but a crew of pirates burying their spoils,
and his cupidity was once more awakened by the possibility of at length getting on the traces of some of this lurking wealth.

Indeed,
his infected fancy tinged everything
with gold.

He felt like the greedy inhabitant of Bagdad when his eyes had been greased
with the magic ointment of the dervish,
that gave him
to see all the treasures of the earth.[2] Caskets of buried jewels,
chests of ingots,
and barrels of outlandish coins seemed
to court him from their concealments,
and supplicate him
to relieve them from their untimely graves.

[1] Aspect.[2] See Story of the Blind Man,
Baba Abdalla,
in Arabian Nights' Entertainment.

An inhabitant of Bagdad,
Asiatic Turkey,
meets
with a dervish,
or Turkish monk,
who presents him
with a vast treasure and
with a box of magic ointment,
which,
applied
to the left eye,
enables one
to see the treasures in the bosom of the earth,
but on touching the right eye,
causes blindness.

Having applied it
to the left eye
with the result predicted,
he uses it on his right eye,
in the hope that still greater treasures may be revealed,
and immediately becomes blind.

On making private inquiries about the grounds said
to be haunted by Feather Red-cap,
he was more and more confirmed in his surmise.

He learned that the place had several times been visited by experienced money diggers who had heard Black Sam's story,
though none of them had met
with success.

On the contrary,
they had always been dogged
with ill luck of some kind or other,
in consequence,
as Wolfert concluded,
of not going
to work at the proper time and
with the proper ceremonials.

The last attempt had been made by Cobus Quackenbos,
who dug
for a whole night,
and met
with incredible difficulty,

for as fast as he threw one shovelful of earth out of the hole,
two were thrown in by invisible hands.

He succeeded so far,
however,
as
to uncover an iron chest,
when there was a terrible roaring,
ramping,
and raging of uncouth figures about the hole,
and at length a shower of blows,
dealt by invisible cudgels,
fairly belabored him off of the forbidden ground.

This Cobus Quackenbos had declared on his deathbed,
so that there could not be any doubt of it.

He was a man that had devoted many years of his life
to money digging,
and it was thought would have ultimately succeeded had he not died recently of a brain fever in the almshouse.Wolfert Webber was now in a worry of trepidation and impatience,
fearful lest some rival adventurer should get a scent of the buried gold.

He determined privately
to seek out the black fisherman,
and get him
to serve as guide
to the place where he had witnessed the mysterious scene of interment.

Sam was easily found,

for he was one of those old habitual beings that live about a neighborhood until they wear themselves a place in the public mind,
and become,
in a manner,
public characters.

There was not an unlucky urchin about town that did not know Sam the fisherman,
and think that he had a right
to play his tricks upon the old negro.

Sam had led an amphibious life
for more than half a century,
about the shores of the bay and the fishing grounds of the Sound.

He passed the greater part of his time on and in the water,
particularly about Hell Gate,
and might have been taken,
in bad weather,

for one of the hobgoblins that used
to haunt that strait.

There would he be seen,
at all times and in all weathers,
sometimes in his skiff,
anchored among the eddies,
or prowling like a shark about some wreck,
where the fish are supposed
to be most abundant;
sometimes seated on a rock from hour
to hour,
looking,
in the mist and drizzle,
like a solitary heron watching
for its prey.

He was well acquainted
with every hole and corner of the Sound,
from the Wallabout[1]
to Hell Gate,
and from Hell Gate un
to the Devil's Stepping-Stones;
and it was even affirmed that he knew all the fish in the river by their Christian names.

[1] A bay of the East River,
on which the Brooklyn Navy Yard is situated.

Wolfert found him at his cabin,
which was not much larger than a tolerable dog house.

It was rudely constructed of fragments of wrecks and driftwood,
and built on the rocky shore at the foot of the old fort,
just about what at present forms the point of the Battery.[1] A "very ancient and fishlike smell"[2] pervaded the place.

Oars,
paddles,
and fishing rods were leaning against the wall of the fort,
a net was spread on the sand
to dry,
a skiff was drawn up on the beach,
and at the door of his cabin was Mud Sam himself,
indulging in the true negro luxury of sleeping in the sunshine.

[1] The southern extremity of New York City.[2] See Shakespeare's The Tempest,
act ii.,
sc.

2.

Many years had passed away since the time of Sam's youthful adventure,
and the snows of many a winter had grizzled the knotty wool upon his head.

He perfectly recollected the circumstances,
however,

for he had often been called upon
to relate them,
though in his version of the story he differed in many points from Peechy Prauw,
as is not infrequently the case
with authentic historians.

As
to the subsequent researches of money diggers,
Sam knew nothing about them;
they were matters quite out of his line;
neither did the cautious Wolfert care
to disturb his thoughts on that point.

His only wish was
to secure the old fisherman as a pilot
to the spot,
and this was readily effected.

The long time that had intervened since his nocturnal adventure had effaced all Sam's awe of the place,
and the promise of a trifling reward roused him at once from his sleep and his sunshine.The tide was adverse
to making the expedition by water,
and Wolfert was too impatient
to get
to the land of promise
to wait
for its turning;
they set off,
therefore,
by land.

A walk of four or five miles brought them
to the edge of a wood,
which at that time covered the greater part of the eastern side of the island.

It was just beyond the pleasant region of Bloomen-dael.[1] Here they struck in
to a long lane,
straggling among trees and bushes very much overgrown
with weeds and mullein stalks,
as if but seldom used,
and so completely overshadowed as
to enjoy but a kind of twilight.

Wild vines entangled the trees and flaunted in their faces;
brambles and briers caught their clothes as they passed;
the garter snake glided across their path;
the spotted toad hopped and waddled before them;
and the restless catbird mewed at them from every thicket.

Had Wolfert Webber been deeply read in romantic legend he might have fancied himself entering upon forbidden,
enchanted ground,
or that these were some of the guardians set
to keep watch upon buried treasure.

As it was,
the loneliness of the place,
and the wild stories connected
with it,
had their effect upon his mind.

[1] At the time this story was written Bloomen-dael (Flowery Valley) was a village four miles from New York.

It is now that part of New York known as Bloomingdale,
on the west side,
between about Seventieth and One Hundredth Streets.

On reaching the lower end of the lane they found themselves near the shore of the Sound,
in a kind of amphitheater surrounded by forest trees.

The area had once been a grass plot,
but was now shagged
with briers and rank weeds.

At one end,
and just on the river bank,
was a ruined building,
little better than a heap of rubbish,

with a stack of chimneys rising like a solitary tower out of the center.

The current of the Sound rushed along just below it,

with wildly grown trees drooping their branches in
to its waves.Wolfert had not a doubt that this was the haunted house of Father Red-cap,
and called
to mind the story of Peechy Prauw.

The evening was approaching,
and the light,
falling dubiously among the woody places,
gave a melancholy tone
to the scene well calculated
to foster any lurking feeling of awe or superstition.

The night hawk,
wheeling about in the highest regions of the air,
emitted his peevish,
boding cry.

The woodpecker gave a lonely tap now and then on some hollow tree,
and the firebird[1] streamed by them
with his deep red plumage.

[1] Orchard oriole.

They now came
to an inclosure that had once been a garden.

It extended along the foot of a rocky ridge,
but was little better than a wilderness of weeds,

with here and there a matted rosebush,
or a peach or plum tree,
grown wild and ragged,
and covered
with moss.

At the lower end of the garden they passed a kind of vault in the side of a bank,
facing the water.

It had the look of a root house.[1] The door,
though decayed,
was still strong,
and appeared
to have been recently patched up.

Wolfert pushed it open.

It gave a harsh grating upon its hinges,
and striking against something like a box,
a rattling sound ensued,
and a skull rolled on the floor.

Wolfert drew back shuddering,
but was reassured on being informed by the negro that this was a family vault,
belonging
to one of the old Dutch families that owned this estate,
an assertion corroborated by the sight of coffins of various sizes piled within.

Sam had been familiar
with all these scenes when a boy,
and now knew that he could not be far from the place of which they were in quest.

[1] "Root house," i.e.,
a house
for storing up potatoes,
turnips,
or other roots
for the winter feed of cattle.

They now made their way
to the water's edge,
scrambling along ledges of rocks that overhung the waves,
and obliged often
to hold by shrubs and grapevines
to avoid slipping in
to the deep and hurried stream.

At length they came
to a small cove,
or rather indent of the shore.

It was protected by steep rocks,
and overshadowed by a thick copse of oaks and chestnuts,
so as
to be sheltered and almost concealed.

The beach shelved gradually within the cove,
but,
the current swept deep and black and rapid along its jutting points.

The negro paused,
raised his remnant of a hat,
and scratched his grizzled poll
for a moment,
as he regarded this nook;
then suddenly clapping his hands,
he stepped exultingly forward,
and pointed
to a large iron ring,
stapled firmly in the rock,
just where a broad shelf of stone furnished a commodious landing place.

It was the very spot where the red-caps had landed.

Years had changed the more perishable features of the scene;
but rock and iron yield slowly
to the influence of time.

On looking more closely Wolfert remarked three crosses cut in the rock just above the ring,
which had no doubt some mysterious signification.

Old Sam now readily recognized the overhanging rock under which his skiff had been sheltered during the thunder gust.


to follow up the course which the midnight gang had taken,
however,
was a harder task.

His mind had been so much taken up on that eventful occasion by the persons of the drama as
to pay but little attention
to the scenes,
and these places looked so different by night and day.

After wandering about
for some time,
however,
they came
to an opening among the trees which Sam thought resembled the place.

There was a ledge of rock of moderate height,
like a wall,
on one side,
which he thought might be the very ridge whence he had overlooked the diggers.

Wolfert examined it narrowly,
and at length discovered three crosses similar
to those on the above ring,
cut deeply in
to the face of the rock,
but nearly obliterated by moss that had grown over them.

His heart leaped
with joy,

for he doubted not they were the private marks of the buccaneers.

All now that remained was
to ascertain the precise spot where the treasure lay buried,

for otherwise he might dig at random in the neighborhood of the crosses,
without coming upon the spoils,
and he had already had enough of such profitless labor.

Here,
however,
the old negro was perfectly at a loss,
and indeed perplexed him by a variety of opinions,

for his recollections were all confused.

Sometimes he declared it must have been at the foot of a mulberry tree hard by;
then beside a great white stone;
then under a small green knoll,
a short distance from the ledge of rocks,
until at length Wolfert became as bewildered as himself.The shadows of evening were now spreading themselves over the woods,
and rock and tree began
to mingle together.

It was evidently too late
to attempt anything further at present,
and,
indeed,
Wolfert had come unprovided
with implements
to prosecute his researches.

Satisfied,
therefore,

with having ascertained the place,
he took note of all its landmarks,
that he might recognize it again,
and set out on his return homeward,
resolved
to prosecute this golden enterprise without delay.The leading anxiety which had hither
to absorbed every feeling being now in some measure appeased,
fancy began
to wander,
and
to conjure up a thousand shapes and chimeras as he returned through this haunted region.

Pirates hanging in chains seemed
to swing from every tree,
and he almost expected
to see some Spanish don,

with his throat cut from ear
to ear,
rising slowly out of the ground,
and shaking the ghost of a money bag.Their way back lay through the desolate garden,
and Wolfert's nerves had arrived at so sensitive a state that the flitting of a bird,
the rustling of a leaf,
or the falling of a nut was enough
to startle him.

As they entered the confines of the garden,
they caught sight of a figure at a distance advancing slowly up one of the walks,
and bending under the weight of a burden.

They paused and regarded him attentively.

He wore what appeared
to be a woolen cap,
and,
still more alarming,
of a most sanguinary red.The figure moved slowly on,
ascended the bank,
and stopped at the very door of the sepulchral vault.

Just before entering it he looked around.

What was the affright of Wolfert when he recognized the grisly visage of the drowned buccaneer!

He uttered an ejaculation of horror.

The figure slowly raised his iron fist and shook it
with a terrible menace.

Wolfert did not pause
to see any more,
but hurried off as fast as his legs could carry him,
nor was Sam slow in following at his heels,
having all his ancient terrors revived.

Away,
then,
did they scramble through bush and brake,
horribly frightened at every bramble that tugged at their skirts,
nor did they pause
to breathe until they had blundered their way through this perilous wood,
and fairly reached the highroad
to the city.Several days elapsed before Wolfert could summon courage enough
to prosecute the enterprise,
so much had he been dismayed by the apparition,
whether living or dead,
of the grisly buccaneer.

In the meantime,
what a conflict of mind did he suffer!

He neglected all his concerns,
was moody and restless all day,
lost his appetite,
wandered in his thoughts and words,
and committed a thousand blunders.

His rest was broken,
and when he fell asleep the nightmare,
in shape of a huge money bag,
sat squatted upon his breast.

He babbled about incalculable sums,
fancied himself engaged in money digging,
threw the bedclothes right and left,
in the idea that he was shoveling away the dirt,
groped under the bed in quest of the treasure,
and lugged forth,
as he supposed,
an inestimable pot of gold.Dame Webber and her daughter were in despair at what they conceived a returning touch of insanity.

There are two family oracles,
one or other of which Dutch housewives consult in all cases of great doubt and perplexity,--the dominie and the doctor.

In the present instance they repaired
to the doctor.

There was at that time a little dark,
moldy man of medicine,
famous among the old wives of the Manhattoes
for his skill,
not only in the healing art,
but in all matters of strange and mysterious nature.

His name was Dr. Knipperhausen,
but he was more commonly known by the appellation of the "High German Doctor."

[1]
to him did the poor women repair
for counsel and assistance touching the mental vagaries of Wolfert Webber.

[1] The same,
no doubt,
of whom mention is made in the history of Dolph Heyliger.

They found the doctor seated in his little study,
clad in his dark camlet[1] robe of knowledge,

with his black velvet cap,
after the manner of Boerhaave,[2] Van Helmont,[3] and other medical sages,
a pair of green spectacles set in black horn upon his clubbed nose,
and poring over a German folio that reflected back the darkness of his physiognomy.

The doctor listened
to their statement of the symptoms of Wolfert's malady
with profound attention,
but when they came
to mention his raving about buried money the little man pricked up his ears.

Alas,
poor women!

they little knew the aid they had called in.

[1] A fabric made of goat's hair and silk,
or wool and cotton.[2] Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738),
a celebrated Dutch physician and philosopher.[3] Jan Baptista Van Helmont (1577-1644),
a celebrated Flemish physician and chemist.

Dr. Knipperhausen had been half his life engaged in seeking the short cuts
to fortune,
in quest of which so many a long lifetime is wasted.

He had passed some years of his youth among the Harz[1] mountains of Germany,
and had derived much valuable instruction from the miners touching the mode of seeking treasure buried in the earth.

He had prosecuted his studies,
also,
under a traveling sage who united the mysteries of medicine
with magic and legerdemain.

His mind,
therefore,
had become stored
with all kinds of mystic lore;
he had dabbled a little in astrology,
alchemy,
divination;[2] knew how
to detect stolen money,
and
to tell where springs of water lay hidden;
in a word,
by the dark nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the "High German Doctor," which is pretty nearly equivalent
to that of necromancer.

The doctor had often heard rumors of treasure being buried in various parts of the island,
and had long been anxious
to get on the traces of it.

No sooner were Wolfert's waking and sleeping vagaries confided
to him than he beheld in them the confirmed symptoms of a case of money digging,
and lost no time in probing it
to the bottom.

Wolfert had long been sorely oppressed in mind by the golden secret,
and as a family physician is a kind of father confessor,
he was glad of any opportunity of unburdening himself.

So far from curing,
the doctor caught the malady from his patient.

The circumstances unfolded
to him awakened all his cupidity;
he had not a doubt of money being buried somewhere in the neighborhood of the mysterious crosses,
and offered
to join Wolfert in the search.

He informed him that much secrecy and caution must be observed in enterprises of the kind;
that money is only
to be dug
for at night,

with certain forms and ceremonies and burning of drugs,
the repeating of mystic words,
and,
above all,
that the seekers must first be provided
with a divining rod,[3] which had the wonderful property of pointing
to the very spot on the surface of the earth under which treasure lay hidden.

As the doctor had given much of his mind
to these matters he charged himself
with all the necessary preparations,
and,
as the quarter of the moon was propitious,
he undertook
to have the divining rod ready by a certain night.

[1] A mountain chain in northwestern Germany,
between the Elbe and the Weser.[2] Astrology,
alchemy,
and divination were three imaginary arts.

The first pretended
to judge of the influence of the stars on human affairs,
and
to foretell events by their positions and aspects;
the second aimed
to transmute the baser metals in
to gold,
and
to find a universal remedy
for diseases;
while the third dealt
with the discovery of secret or future events by preternatural means.[3] A divining rod is a rod used by those who pretend
to discover water or metals underground.

It is commonly made of witch hazel,

with forked branches.

Wolfert's heart leaped
with joy at having met
with so learned and able a coadjutor.

Everything went on secretly but swimmingly.

The doctor had many consultations
with his patient,
and the good women of the household lauded the comforting effect of his visits.

In the meantime the wonderful divining rod,
that great key
to nature's secrets,
was duly prepared.

The doctor had thumbed over all his books of knowledge
for the occasion,
and the black fisherman was engaged
to take them in his skiff
to the scene of enterprise,

to work
with spade and pickax in unearthing the treasure,
and
to freight his bark
with the weighty spoils they were certain of finding.At length the appointed night arrived
for this perilous undertaking.

Before Wolfert left his home he counseled his wife and daughter
to go
to bed,
and feel no alarm if he should not return during the night.

Like reasonable women,
on being told not
to feel alarm they fell immediately in
to a panic.

They saw at once by his manner that something unusual was in agitation;
all their fears about the unsettled state of his mind were revived
with tenfold force;
they hung about him,
entreating him not
to expose himself
to the night air,
but all in vain.

When once Wolfert was mounted on his hobby,[1] it was no easy manner
to get him out of the saddle.

It was a clear,
starlight night when he issued out of the portal of the Webber palace.

He wore a large flapped hat,
tied under the chin
with a handkerchief of his daughter's,

to secure him from the night damp,
while Dame Webber threw her long red cloak about his shoulders,
and fastened it round his neck.

[1] Hobby,
or hobbyhorse,
a favorite theme of thought;
hence,
"
to mount a hobby" is
to follow a favorite pursuit.

The doctor had been no less carefully armed and accoutered by his housekeeper,
the vigilant Frau Ilsy,
and sallied forth in his camlet robe by way of surcoat,[1] his black velvet cap under his cocked hat,
a thick clasped book under his arm,
a basket of drugs and dried herbs in one hand,
and in the other the miraculous rod of divination.

[1] Overcoat.

The great church clock struck ten as Wolfert and the doctor passed by the churchyard,
and the watchman bawled in hoarse voice a long and doleful "All's well!" A deep sleep had already fallen upon this primitive little burgh;
nothing disturbed this awful silence excepting now and then the bark of some profligate,
night-walking dog,
or the serenade of some romantic cat.

It is true Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them;
but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps along the quiet streets.

He thought also at one time that he saw a tall figure skulking after them,
stopping when they stopped and moving on as they proceeded;
but the dim and uncertain lamplight threw such vague gleams and shadows that this might all have been mere fancy.They found the old fisherman waiting
for them,
smoking his pipe in the stern of the skiff,
which was moored just in front of his little cabin.

A pickax and spade were lying in the bottom of the boat,

with a dark lantern,
and a stone bottle of good Dutch courage,[1] in which honest Sam no doubt put even more faith than Dr. Knipperhausen in his drugs.

[1] Dutch courage is courage that results from indulgence in Dutch gin or Hollands;
here applied
to the gin itself.

Thus,
then,
did these three worthies embark in their cockleshell of a skiff upon this nocturnal expedition,

with a wisdom and valor equaled only by the three wise men of Gotham,[1] who adventured
to sea in a bowl.

The tide was rising and running rapidly up the Sound.

The current bore them along,
almost without the aid of an oar.

The profile of the town lay all in shadow.

Here and there a light feebly glimmered from some sick chamber,
or from the cabin window of some vessel at anchor in the stream.

Not a cloud obscured the deep,
starry firmament,
the lights of which wavered on the surface of the placid river,
and a shooting meteor,
streaking its pale course in the very direction they were taking,
was interpreted by the doctor in
to a most propitious omen.

[1] "Three wise men of Gotham,
They went
to sea in a bowl-- And if the bowl had been stronger,
My tale had been longer."

Mother Goose Melody.

[1] Gotham was a village proverbial
for the blundering simplicity of its inhabitants.

At first the name referred
to an English village.

Irving applied it
to New York City.

In a little while they glided by the point of Corlear's Hook,

with the rural inn which had been the scene of such night adventures.

The family had retired
to rest,
and the house was dark and still.

Wolfert felt a chill pass over him as they passed the point where the buccaneer had disappeared.

He pointed it out
to Dr. Knipperhausen.

While regarding it they thought they saw a boat actually lurking at the very place;
but the shore cast such a shadow over the border of the water that they could discern nothing distinctly.

They had not proceeded far when they heard the low sounds of distant oars,
as if cautiously pulled.

Sam plied his oars
with redoubled vigor,
and knowing all the eddies and currents of the stream,
soon left their followers,
if such they were,
far astern.

In a little while they stretched across Turtle Bay and Kip's Bay,[1] then shrouded themselves in the deep shadows of the Manhattan shore,
and glided swiftly along,
secure from observation.

At length the negro shot his skiff in
to a little cove,
darkly embowered by trees,
and made it fast
to the well-known iron ring.

They now landed,
and lighting the lantern gathered their various implements and proceeded slowly through the bushes.

Every sound startled them,
even that of their own footsteps among the dry leaves,
and the hooting of a screech owl,
from the shattered chimney of the neighboring ruin,
made their blood run cold.

[1] A small bay in the East River below Corlear's Hook.

In spite of all Wolfert's caution in taking note of the landmarks,
it was some time before they could find the open place among the trees,
where the treasure was supposed
to be buried.

At length they came
to the ledge of rock,
and on examining its surface by the aid of the lantern,
Wolfert recognized the three mystic crosses.

Their hearts beat quick,

for the momentous trial was at hand that was
to determine their hopes.The lantern was now held by Wolfert Webber,
while the doctor produced the divining rod.

It was a forked twig,
one end of which was grasped firmly in each hand,
while the center,
forming the stem,
pointed perpendicularly upward.

The doctor moved his wand about,
within a certain distance of the earth,
from place
to place,
but
for some time without any effect,
while Wolfert kept the light of the lantern turned full upon it,
and watched it
with the most breathless interest.

At length the rod began slowly
to turn.

The doctor grasped it
with greater earnestness,
his hands trembling
with the agitation of his mind.

The wand continued
to turn gradually,
until at length the stem had reversed its position,
and pointed perpendicularly downward,
and remained pointing
to one spot as fixedly as the needle
to the pole."

This is the spot!" said the doctor,
in an almost inaudible tone.Wolfert's heart was in his throat."

Shall I dig?"

said the negro,
grasping the spade."

Pots tausend,[1] no!" replied the little doctor hastily.

He now ordered his companions
to keep close by him,
and
to maintain the most inflexible silence;
that certain precautions must be taken and ceremonies used
to prevent the evil spirits which kept about buried treasure from doing them any harm.

He then drew a circle about the place,
enough
to include the whole party.

He next gathered dry twigs and leaves and made a fire,
upon which he threw certain drugs and dried herbs which he had brought in his basket.

A thick smoke rose,
diffusing a potent odor savoring marvelously of brimstone and asafetida,
which,
however grateful it might be
to the olfactory nerves of spirits,
nearly strangled poor Wolfert,
and produced a fit of coughing and wheezing that made the whole grove resound.

Dr. Knipperhausen then unclasped the volume which he had brought under his arm,
which was printed in red and black characters in German text.

While Wolfert held the lantern,
the doctor,
by the aid of his spectacles,
read off several forms of conjuration in Latin and German.

He then ordered Sam
to seize the pickax and proceed
to work.

The close-bound soil gave obstinate signs of not having been disturbed
for many a year.

After having picked his way through the surface,
Sam came
to a bed of sand and gravel,
which he threw briskly
to right and left
with the spade.

[1] A German exclamation of anger,
equivalent
to the English "zounds!"
"Hark!" said Wolfert,
who fancied he heard a trampling among the dry leaves and a rustling through the bushes.

Sam paused
for a moment,
and they listened.

No footstep was near.

The bat flitted by them in silence;
a bird,
roused from its roost by the light which glared up among the trees,
flew circling about the flame.

In the profound stillness of the woodland they could distinguish the current rippling along the rocky shore,
and the distant murmuring and roaring of Hell Gate.The negro continued his labors,
and had already digged a considerable hole.

The doctor stood on the edge,
reading formulae every now and then from his black-letter volume,
or throwing more drugs and herbs upon the fire,
while Wolfert bent anxiously over the pit,
watching every stroke of the spade.

Anyone witnessing the scene thus lighted up by fire,
lantern,
and the reflection of Wolfert's red mantle,
might have mistaken the little doctor
for some foul magician,
busied in his incantations,
and the grizzly- headed negro
for some swart goblin obedient
to his commands.At length the spade of the fisherman struck upon something that sounded hollow.

The sound vibrated
to Wolfert's heart.

He struck his spade again."

'Tis a chest," said Sam."

Full of gold,
I'll warrant it!" cried Wolfert,
clasping his hands
with rapture.Scarcely had he uttered the words when a sound from above caught his ear.

He cast up his eyes,
and lo!

by the expiring light of the fire he beheld,
just over the disk of the rock,
what appeared
to be the grim visage of the drowned buccaneer,
grinning hideously down upon him.Wolfert gave a loud cry and let fall the lantern.

His panic communicated itself
to his companions.

The negro leaped out of the hole,
the doctor dropped his book and basket,
and began
to pray in German.

All was horror and confusion.

The fire was scattered about,
the lantern extinguished.

In their hurry-scurry[1] they ran against and confounded one another.

They fancied a legion of hobgoblins let loose upon them,
and that they saw,
by the fitful gleams of the scattered embers,
strange figures,
in red caps,
gibbering and ramping around them.

The doctor ran one way,
the negro another,
and Wolfert made
for the water side.

As he plunged struggling onward through brush and brake,
he heard the tread of some one in pursuit.

He scrambled frantically forward.

The footsteps gained upon him.

He felt himself grasped by his cloak,
when suddenly his pursuer was attacked in turn;
a fierce fight and struggle ensued,
a pistol was discharged that lit up rock and bush
for a second,
and showed two figures grappling together;
all was then darker than ever.

The contest continued,
the combatants clinched each other,
and panted and groaned,
and rolled among the rocks.

There was snarling and growling as of a cur,
mingled
with curses,
in which Wolfert fancied he could recognize the voice of the buccaneer.

He would fain have fled,
but he was on the brink of a precipice,
and could go no farther.

[1] A swift,
disorderly movement.

Again the parties were on their feet,
again there was a tugging and struggling,
as if strength alone could decide the combat,
until one was precipitated from the brow of the cliff,
and sent headlong in
to the deep stream that whirled below.

Wolfert heard the plunge,
and a kind of strangling,
bubbling murmur,
but the darkness of the night hid everything from him,
and the swiftness of the current swept everything instantly out of hearing.

One of the combatants was disposed of,
but whether friend or foe Wolfert could not tell,
nor whether they might not both be foes.

He heard the survivor approach,
and his terror revived.

He saw,
where the profile of the rocks rose against the horizon,
a human form advancing.

He could not be mistaken;
it must be the buccaneer.

Whither should he fly?- -a precipice was on one side,
a murderer on the other.

The enemy approached--he was close at hand.

Wolfert attempted
to let himself down the face of the cliff.

His cloak caught in a thorn that grew on the edge.

He was jerked from off his feet,
and held dangling in the air,
half choked by the string
with which his careful wife had fastened the garment around his neck.

Wolfert thought his last moment was arrived;
already had he committed his soul
to St.

Nicholas,
when the string broke,
and he tumbled down the bank,
bumping from rock
to rock and bush
to bush,
and leaving the red cloak fluttering like a bloody banner in the air.It was a long while before Wolfert came
to himself.

When he opened his eyes,
the ruddy streaks of morning were already shooting up the sky.

He found himself grievously battered,
and lying in the bottom of a boat.

He attempted
to sit up,
but was too sore and stiff
to move.

A voice requested him in a friendly accents
to lie still.

He turned his eyes toward the speaker;
it was Dirk Waldron.

He had dogged the party,
at the earnest request of Dame Webber and her daughter,
who,

with the laudable curiosity of their sex,
had pried in
to the secret consultations of Wolfert and the doctor.

Dirk had been completely distanced in following the light skiff of the fisherman,
and had just come in time
to rescue the poor money digger from his pursuer.Thus ended this perilous enterprise.

The doctor and Black Sam severally found their way back
to the Manhattoes,
each having some dreadful tale of peril
to relate.

As
to poor Wolfert,
instead of returning in triumph,
laden
with bags of gold,
he was borne home on a shutter,
followed by a rabble-rout[1] of curious urchins.

His wife and daughter saw the dismal pageant from a distance,
and alarmed the neighborhood
with their cries;
they thought the poor man had suddenly settled the great debt of nature in one of his wayward moods.

Finding him,
however,
still living,
they had him speedily
to bed,
and a jury of old matrons of the neighborhood assembled
to determine how he should be doctored.

The whole town was in a buzz
with the story of the money diggers.

Many repaired
to the scene of the previous night's adventures;
but though they found the very place of the digging,
they discovered nothing that compensated them
for their trouble.

Some say they found the fragments of an oaken chest,
and an iron pot lid,
which savored strongly of hidden money,
and that in the old family vault there were traces of bales and boxes;
but this is all very dubious.

[1] A noisy throng.

In fact,
the secret of all this story has never
to this day been discovered.

Whether any treasure were ever actually buried at that place;
whether,
if so,
it were carried off at night by those who had buried it;
or whether it still remains there under the guardianship of gnomes and spirits until it shall be properly sought for,
is all matter of conjecture.


for my part,
I incline
to the latter opinion,
and make no doubt that great sums lie buried,
both there and in other parts of this island and its neighborhood,
ever since the times of the buccaneers and the Dutch colonists;
and I would earnestly recommend the search after them
to such of my fellow citizens as are not engaged in any other speculations.There were many conjectures formed,
also,
as
to who and what was the strange man of the seas,
who had domineered over the little fraternity at Corlear's Hook
for a time,
disappeared so strangely,
and reappeared so fearfully.

Some supposed him a smuggler stationed at that place
to assist his comrades in landing their goods among the rocky coves of the island.

Others,
that he was one of the ancient comrades of Kidd or Bradish,
returned
to convey away treasures formerly hidden in the vicinity.

The only circumstance that throws anything like a vague light on this mysterious matter is a report which prevailed of a strange,
foreign-built shallop,

with much the look of a picaroon,[1] having been seen hovering about the Sound
for several days without landing or reporting herself,
though boats were seen going
to and from her at night;
and that she was seen standing out of the mouth of the harbor,
in the gray of the dawn,
after the catastrophe of the money diggers.

[1] A piratical vessel.

I must not omit
to mention another report,
also,
which I confess is rather apocryphal,
of the buccaneer who is supposed
to have been drowned,
being seen before daybreak,

with a lantern in his hand,
seated astride of his great sea chest,
and sailing through Hell Gate,
which just then began
to roar and bellow
with redoubled fury.While all the gossip world was thus filled
with talk and rumor,
poor Wolfert lay sick and sorrowfully in his bed,
bruised in body and sorely beaten down in mind.

His wife and daughter did all they could
to bind up his wounds,
both corporal and spiritual.

The good old dame never stirred from his bedside,
where she sat knitting from morning till night,
while his daughter busied herself about him
with the fondest care.

Nor did they lack assistance from abroad.

Whatever may be said of the desertion of friends in distress,
they had no complaint of the kind
to make.

Not an old wife of the neighborhood but abandoned her work
to crowd
to the mansion of Wolfert Webber,

to inquire after his health and the particulars of his story.

Not one came,
moreover,
without her little pipkin of pennyroyal,
sage,
balm,
or other herb tea,
delighted at an opportunity of signalizing her kindness and her doctorship.

What drenchings did not the poor Wolfert undergo,
and all in vain!

It was a moving sight
to behold him wasting away day by day,
growing thinner and thinner and ghastlier and ghastlier,
and staring
with rueful visage from under an old patchwork counterpane,
upon the jury of matrons kindly assembled
to sigh and groan and look unhappy around him.Dirk Waldron was the only being that seemed
to shed a ray of sunshine in
to this house of mourning.

He came in
with cheery look and manly spirit,
and tried
to reanimate the expiring heart of the poor money digger,
but it was all in vain.

Wolfert was completely done over.[1] If anything was wanting
to complete his despair,
it was a notice,
served upon him in the midst of his distress,
that the corporation was about
to run a new street through the very center of his cabbage garden.

He now saw nothing before him but poverty and ruin;
his last reliance,
the garden of his forefathers,
was
to be laid waste,
and what then was
to become of his poor wife and child?
[1] Exhausted.

His eyes filled
with tears as they followed the dutiful Amy out of the room one morning.

Dirk Waldron was seated beside him;
Wolfert grasped his hand,
pointed after his daughter,
and
for the first time since his illness broke the silence he had maintained."

I am going!" said he,
shaking his head feebly,
"and when I am gone,
my poor daughter--"
"Leave her
to me,
father!" said Dirk manfully;
"I'll take care of her!"
Wolfert looked up in the face of the cheery,
strapping youngster,
and saw there was none better able
to take care of a woman."

Enough," said he,
"she is yours!

And now fetch me a lawyer--let me make my will and die."


The lawyer was brought,--a dapper,
bustling,
round-headed little man,
Roorback (or Rollebuck,
as it was pronounced) by name.

At the sight of him the women broke in
to loud lamentations,

for they looked upon the signing of a will as the signing of a death warrant.

Wolfert made a feeble motion
for them
to be silent.

Poor Amy buried her face and her grief in the bed curtain.

Dame Webber resumed her knitting
to hide her distress,
which betrayed itself,
however,
in a pellucid tear,
which trickled silently down,
and hung at the end of her peaked nose;
while the cat,
the only unconcerned member of the family,
played
with the good dame's ball of worsted as it rolled about the floor.Wolfert lay on his back,
his nightcap drawn over his forehead,
his eyes closed,
his whole visage the picture of death.

He begged the lawyer
to be brief,

for he felt his end approaching,
and that he had no time
to lose.

The lawyer nibbed[1] his pen,
spread out his paper,
and prepared
to write.

[1] In Irving's time,
quills were made in
to pens by pointing or "nibbing" their ends.

"I give and bequeath," said Wolfert faintly,
"my small farm--"
"What!

all?"

exclaimed the lawyer.Wolfert half opened his eyes and looked upon the lawyer."

Yes,
all," said he."

What!

all that great patch of land
with cabbages and sunflowers,
which the corporation is just going
to run a main street through?"


"The same," said Wolfert,

with a heavy sigh,
and sinking back upon his pillow."

I wish him joy that inherits it!" said the little lawyer,
chuckling and rubbing his hands involuntarily."

What do you mean?"

said Wolfert,
again opening his eyes."

That he'll be one of the richest men in the place," cried little Rollebuck.The expiring Wolfert seemed
to step back from the threshold of existence;
his eyes again lighted up;
he raised himself in his bed,
shoved back his red worsted nightcap,
and stared broadly at the lawyer."

You don't say so!" exclaimed he."

Faith but I do!" rejoined the other.

"Why,
when that great field and that huge meadow come
to be laid out in streets and cut up in
to snug building lots,--why,
whoever owns it need not pull off his hat
to the patroon!"
"Say you so?"

cried Wolfert,
half thrusting one leg out of bed;
"why,
then,
I think I'll not make my will yet."



to the surprise of everybody the dying man actually recovered.

The vital spark,
which had glimmered faintly in the socket,
received fresh fuel from the oil of gladness which the little lawyer poured in
to his soul.

It once more burned up in
to a flame.Give physic
to the heart,
ye who would revive the body of a spirit- broken man!

In a few days Wolfert left his room;
in a few days more his table was covered
with deeds,
plans of streets and building lots.

Little Rollebuck was constantly
with him,
his right hand man and adviser,
and instead of making his will assisted in the more agreeable task of making his fortune.

In fact Wolfert Webber was one of those worthy Dutch burghers of the Manhattoes whose fortunes have been made,
in a manner,
in spite of themselves;
who have tenaciously held on
to their hereditary acres,
raising turnips and cabbages about the skirts of the city,
hardly able
to make both ends meet,
until the corporation has cruelly driven streets through their abodes,
and they have suddenly awakened out of their lethargy,
and,

to their astonishment,
found themselves rich men.Before many months had elapsed a great,
bustling street passed through the very center of the Webber garden,
just where Wolfert had dreamed of finding a treasure.

His golden dream was accomplished;
he did,
indeed,
find an unlooked-
for source of wealth,
for,
when his paternal lands were distributed in
to building lots and rented out
to safe tenants,
instead of producing a paltry crop of cabbages they returned him an abundant crop of rent,
insomuch that on quarter day it was a goodly sight
to see his tenants knocking at the door from morning till night,
each
with a little round-bellied bag of money,
a golden produce of the soil.The ancient mansion of his forefathers was still kept up,
but,
instead of being a little yellow-fronted Dutch house in a garden,
it now stood boldly in the midst of a street,
the grand home of the neighborhood;

for Wolfert enlarged it
with a wing on each side,
and a cupola or tea room on top,
where he might climb up and smoke his pipe in hot weather,
and in the course of time the whole mansion was overrun by the chubby-faced progeny of Amy Webber and Dirk Waldron.As Wolfert waxed old and rich and corpulent he also set up a great gingerbread-colored carriage,
drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares
with tails that swept the ground;
and
to commemorate the origin of his greatness he had
for his crest a full-blown cabbage painted on the panels,

with the pithy motto,
ALLES KOPF,
that is
to say,
ALL HEAD,
meaning thereby that he had risen by sheer head work.
to fill the measure of his greatness,
in the fullness of time the renowned Ramm Rapelye slept
with his fathers,
and Wolfert Webber succeeded
to the leather-bottomed armchair in the inn parlor at Corlear's Hook;
where he long reigned,
greatly honored and respected,
insomuch that he was never known
to tell a story without its being believed,
nor
to utter a joke without its being laughed at.


Introduction
to "Wieland's Madness," from "Wieland,
or The Transformation."


From Virtue's blissful paths away The double-tongued are sure
to stray;
Good is a forth-right journey still.

And mazy paths but lead
to ill.

"WIELAND" is the first American novel.

It appeared in 1798;
its author was soon recognized as the earliest American novelist;
and he remained the greatest,
until Fenimore Cooper brought forth his Leather-stocking Tales,
a quarter of a century later.Although modern sophistication easily points out flaws in Charles Brockden Brown's story-structure,
and reproves him
for improbability,
morbidness,
and a style often too elevated,
yet his work lives.

His downright originality is worthy of Cooper himself,
and his weird imaginations and horribly sustained scenes of terror have been surpassed by few writers save Edgar Allan Poe.


Charles Brockden Brown
FIRST PART
I
Wieland's Madness
[As the story opens,
the narratress,
Clara Wieland,
is entering upon the happy realization of her love
for Henry Pleyel,
closest friend of her brother "Wieland."


Their woodland home,
Mettingen,
on the banks of the then remote Schuylkill,
is the abode of music,
letters and thorough culture.

The peace of high thinking and simple outdoor life hovers over all.]
One sunny afternoon I was standing in the door of my house,
when I marked a person passing close
to the edge of the bank that was in front.

His pace was a careless and lingering one,
and had none of that gracefulness and ease which distinguish a person
with certain advantages of education from a clown.

His gait was rustic and awkward.

His form was ungainly and disproportioned.

Shoulders broad and square,
breast sunken,
his head drooping,
his body of uniform breadth,
supported by long and lank legs,
were the ingredients of his frame.

His garb was not ill adapted
to such a figure.

A slouched hat,
tarnished by the weather,
a coat of thick gray cloth,
cut and wrought,
as it seemed,
by a country tailor,
blue worsted stockings,
and shoes fastened by thongs and deeply discolored by dust,
which brush had never disturbed,
constituted his dress.There was nothing remarkable in these appearances:

they were frequently
to be met
with on the road and in the harvest-field.

I cannot tell why I gazed upon them,
on this occasion,

with more than ordinary attention,
unless it were that such figures were seldom seen by me except on the road or field.

This lawn was only traversed by men whose views were directed
to the pleasures of the walk or the grandeur of the scenery.He passed slowly along,
frequently pausing,
as if
to examine the prospect more deliberately,
but never turning his eye toward the house,
so as
to allow me a view of his countenance.

Presently he entered a copse at a small distance,
and disappeared.

My eye followed him while he remained in sight.

If his image remained
for any duration in my fancy after his departure,
it was because no other object occurred sufficient
to expel it.I continued in the same spot
for half an hour,
vaguely,
and by fits,
contemplating the image of this wanderer,
and drawing from outward appearances those inferences,

with respect
to the intellectual history of this person,
which experience affords us.

I reflected on the alliance which commonly subsists between ignorance and the practice of agriculture,
and indulged myself in airy speculations as
to the influence of progressive knowledge in dissolving this alliance and embodying the dreams of the poets.

I asked why the plow and the hoe might not become the trade of every human being,
and how this trade might be made conducive to,
or at least consistent with,
the acquisition of wisdom and eloquence.Weary
with these reflections,
I returned
to the kitchen
to perform some household office.

I had usually but one servant,
and she was a girl about my own age.

I was busy near the chimney,
and she was employed near the door of the apartment,
when some one knocked.

The door was opened by her,
and she was immediately addressed with,
"Prythee,
good girl,
canst thou supply a thirsty man
with a glass of buttermilk?"

She answered that there was none in the house.

"Aye,
but there is some in the dairy yonder.

Thou knowest as well as I,
though Hermes never taught thee,
that,
though every dairy be a house,
every house is not a dairy."


to this speech,
though she understood only a part of it,
she replied by repeating her assurances that she had none
to give.

"Well,
then," rejoined the stranger,
"
for charity's sweet sake,
hand me forth a cup of cold water."

The girl said she would go
to the spring and fetch it.

"Nay,
give me the cup,
and suffer me
to help myself.

Neither manacled nor lame,
I should merit burial in the maw of carrion crows if I laid this task upon thee."

She gave him the cup,
and he turned
to go
to the spring.I listened
to this dialogue in silence.

The words uttered by the person without affected me as somewhat singular;
but what chiefly rendered them remarkable was the tone that accompanied them.

It was wholly new.

My brother's voice and Pleyel's were musical and energetic.

I had fondly imagined that,
in this respect,
they were surpassed by none.

Now my mistake was detected.

I cannot pretend
to communicate the impression that was made upon me by these accents,
or
to depict the degree in which force and sweetness were blended in them.

They were articulated
with a distinctness that was unexampled in my experience.

But this was not all.

The voice was not only mellifluent and clear,
but the emphasis was so just,
and the modulation so impassioned,
that it seemed as if a heart of stone could not fail of being moved by it.

It imparted
to me an emotion altogether involuntary and uncontrollable.

When he uttered the words,
"
for charity's sweet sake," I dropped the cloth that I held in my hand;
my heart overflowed
with sympathy and my eyes
with unbidden tears.This description will appear
to you trifling or incredible.

The importance of these circumstances will be manifested in the sequel.

The manner in which I was affected on this occasion was,

to my own apprehension,
a subject of astonishment.

The tones were indeed such as I never heard before;
but that they should in an instant,
as it were,
dissolve me in tears,
will not easily be believed by others,
and can scarcely be comprehended by myself.It will be readily supposed that I was somewhat inquisitive as
to the person and demeanor of our visitant.

After a moment's pause,
I stepped
to the door and looked after him.

Judge my surprise when I beheld the selfsame figure that had appeared a half-hour before upon the bank.

My fancy had conjured up a very different image.

A form and attitude and garb were instantly created worthy
to accompany such elocution;
but this person was,
in all visible respects,
the reverse of this phantom.

Strange as it may seem,
I could not speedily reconcile myself
to this disappointment.

Instead of returning
to my employment,
I threw myself in a chair that was placed opposite the door,
and sunk in
to a fit of musing.My attention was in a few minutes recalled by the stranger,
who returned
with the empty cup in his hand.

I had not thought of the circumstance,
or should certainly have chosen a different seat.

He no sooner showed himself,
than a confused sense of impropriety,
added
to the suddenness of the interview,

for which,
not having foreseen it,
I had made no preparation,
threw me in
to a state of the most painful embarrassment.

He brought
with him a placid brow;
but no sooner had he cast his eyes upon me than his face was as glowingly suffused as my own.

He placed the cup upon the bench,
stammered out thanks,
and retired.It was some time before I could recover my wonted composure.

I had snatched a view of the stranger's countenance.

The impression that it made was vivid and indelible.

His cheeks were pallid and lank,
his eyes sunken,
his forehead overshadowed by coarse straggling hairs,
his teeth large and irregular,
though sound and brilliantly white,
and his chin discolored by a tetter.

His skin was of coarse grain and sallow hue.

Every feature was wide of beauty,
and the outline of his face reminded you of an inverted cone.And yet his forehead,
so far as shaggy locks would allow it
to be seen,
his eyes lustrously black,
and possessing,
in the midst of haggardness,
a radiance inexpressibly serene and potent,
and something in the rest of his features which it would be in vain
to describe,
but which served
to betoken a mind of the highest order,
were essential ingredients in the portrait.

This,
in the effects which immediately flowed from it,
I count among the most extraordinary incidents of my life.

This face,
seen
for a moment,
continued
for hours
to occupy my fancy,

to the exclusion of almost every other image.

I had proposed
to spend the evening
with my brother;
but I could not resist the inclination of forming a sketch upon paper of this memorable visage.

Whether my hand was aided by any peculiar inspiration,
or I was deceived by my own fond conceptions,
this portrait,
though hastily executed,
appeared unexceptionable
to my own taste.I placed it at all distances and in all lights;
my eyes were riveted upon it.

Half the night passed away in wakefulness and in contemplation of this picture.

So flexible,
and yet so stubborn,
is the human mind!

So obedient
to impulses the most transient and brief,
and yet so unalterably observant of the direction which is given
to it!

How little did I then foresee the termination of that chain of which this may be regarded as the first link!
Next day arose in darkness and storm.

Torrents of rain fell during the whole day,
attended
with incessant thunder,
which reverberated in stunning echoes from the opposite declivity.

The inclemency of the air would not allow me
to walk out.

I had,
indeed,
no inclination
to leave my apartment.

I betook myself
to the contemplation of this portrait,
whose attractions time had rather enhanced than diminished.

I laid aside my usual occupations,
and,
seating myself at a window,
consumed the day in alternately looking out upon the storm and gazing at the picture which lay upon a table before me.

You will perhaps deem this conduct somewhat singular,
and ascribe it
to certain peculiarities of temper.

I am not aware of any such peculiarities.

I can account
for my devotion
to this image no otherwise than by supposing that its properties were rare and prodigious.

Perhaps you will suspect that such were the first inroads of a passion incident
to every female heart,
and which frequently gains a footing by means even more slight and more improbable than these.

I shall not controvert the reasonableness of the suspicion,
but leave you at liberty
to draw from my narrative what conclusions you please.Night at length returned,
and the storm ceased.

The air was once more clear and calm,
and bore an affecting contrast
to that uproar of the elements by which it had been preceded.

I spent the darksome hours,
as I spent the day,
contemplative and seated at the window.

Why was my mind absorbed in thoughts ominous and dreary?

Why did my bosom heave
with sighs and my eyes overflow
with tears?

Was the tempest that had just passed a signal of the ruin which impended over me?

My soul fondly dwelt upon the images of my brother and his children;
yet they only increased the mournfulness of my contemplations.

The smiles of the charming babes were as bland as formerly.

The same dignity sat on the brow of their father,
and yet I thought of them
with anguish.

Something whispered that the happiness we at present enjoyed was set on mutable foundations.

Death must happen
to all.

Whether our felicity was
to be subverted by it to-morrow,
or whether it was ordained that we should lay down our heads full of years and of honor,
was a question that no human being could solve.

At other times these ideas seldom intruded.

I either forbore
to reflect upon the destiny that is reserved
for all men,
or the reflection was mixed up
with images that disrobed it of terror;
but now the uncertainty of life occurred
to me without any of its usual and alleviating accompaniments.

I said
to myself,
We must die.

Sooner or later,
we must disappear forever from the face of the earth.

Whatever be the links that hold us
to life,
they must be broken.

This scene of existence is,
in all its parts,
calamitous.

The greater number is oppressed
with immediate evils,
and those the tide of whose fortunes is full,
how small is their portion of enjoyment,
since they know that it will terminate!

for some time I indulged myself,
without reluctance,
in these gloomy thoughts;
but at length the delection which they produced became insupportably painful.

I endeavored
to dissipate it
with music.

I had all my grandfather's melody as well as poetry by rote.

I now lighted by chance on a ballad which commemorated the fate of a German cavalier who fell at the siege of Nice under Godfrey of Bouillon.

My choice was unfortunate;

for the scenes of violence and carnage which were here wildly but forcibly portrayed only suggested
to my thoughts a new topic in the horrors of war.I sought refuge,
but ineffectually,
in sleep.

My mind was thronged by vivid but confused images,
and no effort that I made was sufficient
to drive them away.

In this situation I heard the clock,
which hung in the room,
give the signal
for twelve.

It was the same instrument which formerly hung in my father's chamber,
and which,
on account of its being his workmanship,
was regarded by everyone of our family
with veneration.

It had fallen
to me in the division of his property,
and was placed in this asylum.

The sound awakened a series of reflections respecting his death.

I was not allowed
to pursue them;

for scarcely had the vibrations ceased,
when my attention was attracted by a whisper,
which,
at first,
appeared
to proceed from lips that were laid close
to my ear.No wonder that a circumstance like this startled me.

In the first impulse of my terror,
I uttered a slight scream and shrunk
to the opposite side of the bed.

In a moment,
however,
I recovered from my trepidation.

I was habitually indifferent
to all the causes of fear by which the majority are afflicted.

I entertained no apprehension of either ghosts or robbers.

Our security had never been molested by either,
and I made use of no means
to prevent or counterwork their machinations.

My tranquillity on this occasion was quickly retrieved.

The whisper evidently proceeded from one who was posted at my bedside.

The first idea that suggested itself was that it was uttered by the girl who lived
with me as a servant.

Perhaps somewhat had alarmed her,
or she was sick,
and had come
to request my assistance.

By whispering in my ear she intended
to rouse without alarming me.Full of this persuasion,
I called,
"Judith,
is it you?

What do you want?

Is there anything the matter
with you?"

No answer was returned.

I repeated my inquiry,
but equally in vain.

Cloudy as was the atmosphere,
and curtained as my bed was,
nothing was visible.

I withdrew the curtain,
and,
leaning my head on my elbow,
I listened
with the deepest attention
to catch some new sound.

Meanwhile,
I ran over in my thoughts every circumstance that could assist my conjectures.My habitation was a wooden edifice,
consisting of two stories.

In each story were two rooms,
separated by an entry,
or middle passage,

with which they communicated by opposite doors.

The passage on the lower story had doors at the two ends,
and a staircase.

Windows answered
to the doors on the upper story.

Annexed
to this,
on the eastern side,
were wings,
divided in like manner in
to an upper and lower room;
one of them comprised a kitchen,
and chamber above it
for the servant,
and communicated on both stories
with the parlor adjoining it below and the chamber adjoining it above.

The opposite wing is of smaller dimensions,
the rooms not being above eight feet square.

The lower of these was used as a depository of household implements;
the upper was a closet in which I deposited my books and papers.

They had but one inlet,
which was from the room adjoining.

There was no window in the lower one,
and in the upper a small aperture which communicated light and air,
but would scarcely admit the body.

The door which led in
to this was close
to my bed head,
and was always locked but when I myself was within.

The avenues below were accustomed
to be closed and bolted at nights.The maid was my only companion;
and she could not reach my chamber without previously passing through the opposite chamber and the middle passage,
of which,
however,
the doors were usually unfastened.

If she had occasioned this noise,
she would have answered my repeated calls.

No other conclusion,
therefore,
was left me,
but that I had mistaken the sounds,
and that my imagination had transformed some casual noise in
to the voice of a human creature.

Satisfied
with this solution,
I was preparing
to relinquish my listening attitude,
when my ear was again saluted
with a new and yet louder whispering.

It appeared,
as before,

to issue from lips that touched my pillow.

A second effort of attention,
however,
clearly showed me that the sounds issued from within the closet,
the door of which was not more than eight inches from my pillow.This second interruption occasioned a shock less vehement than the former.

I started,
but gave no audible token of alarm.

I was so much mistress of my feelings as
to continue listening
to what should be said.

The whisper was distinct,
hoarse,
and uttered so as
to show that the speaker was desirous of being heard by some one near,
but,
at the same time,
studious
to avoid being overheard by any other:--
"Stop!

stop,
I say,
madman as you are!

there are better means than that.

Curse upon your rashness!

There is no need
to shoot."


Such were the words uttered,
in a tone of eagerness and anger,
within so small a distance of my pillow.

What construction could I put upon them?

My heart began
to palpitate
with dread of some unknown danger.

Presently,
another voice,
but equally near me,
was heard whispering in answer,
"Why not?

I will draw a trigger in this business;
but perdition be my lot if I do more!"
to this the first voice returned,
in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper,
"Coward!

stand aside,
and see me do it.

I will grasp her throat;
I will do her business in an instant;
she shall not have time so much as
to groan."

What wonder that I was petrified by sounds so dreadful!

Murderers lurked in my closet.

They were planning the means of my destruction.

One resolved
to shoot,
and the other menaced suffocation.

Their means being chosen,
they would forth
with break the door.

Flight instantly suggested itself as most eligible in circumstances so perilous.

I deliberated not a moment;
but,
fear adding wings
to my speed,
I leaped out of bed,
and,
scantily robed as I was,
rushed out of the chamber,
downstairs,
and in
to the open air.

I can hardly recollect the process of turning keys and withdrawing bolts.

My terrors urged me forward
with almost a mechanical impulse.

I stopped not till I reached my brother's door.

I had not gained the threshold,
when,
exhausted by the violence of my emotions and by my speed,
I sunk down in a fit.How long I remained in this situation I know not.

When I recovered,
I found myself stretched on a bed,
surrounded by my sister and her female servants.

I was astonished at the scene before me,
but gradually recovered the recollection of what had happened.

I answered their importunate inquiries as well as I was able.

My brother and Pleyel,
whom the storm of the preceding day chanced
to detain here,
informing themselves of every particular,
proceeded
with lights and weapons
to my deserted habitation.

They entered my chamber and my closet,
and found everything in its proper place and customary order.

The door of the closet was locked,
and appeared not
to have been opened in my absence.

They went
to Judith's apartment.

They found her asleep and in safety.

Pleyel's caution induced him
to forbear alarming the girl;
and,
finding her wholly ignorant of what had passed,
they directed her
to return
to her chamber.

They then fastened the doors and returned.My friends were disposed
to regard this transaction as a dream.

That persons should be actually immured in this closet,

to which,
in the circumstances of the time,
access from without or within was apparently impossible,
they could not seriously believe.

That any human beings had intended murder,
unless it were
to cover a scheme of pillage,
was incredible;
but that no such design had been formed was evident from the security in which the furniture of the house and the closet remained.I revolved every incident and expression that had occurred.

My senses assured me of the truth of them;
and yet their abruptness and improbability made me,
in my turn,
somewhat incredulous.

The adventure had made a deep impression on my fancy;
and it was not till after a week's abode at my brother's that I resolved
to resume the possession of my own dwelling.There was another circumstance that enhanced the mysteriousness of this event.

After my recovery,
it was obvious
to inquire by what means the attention of the family had been drawn
to my situation.

I had fallen before I had reached the threshold or was able
to give any signal.

My brother related that,
while this was transacting in my chamber,
he himself was awake,
in consequence of some slight indisposition,
and lay,
according
to his custom,
musing on some favorite topic.

Suddenly the silence,
which was remarkably profound,
was broken by a voice of most piercing shrillness,
that seemed
to be uttered by one in the hall below his chamber.

"Awake!

arise!" it exclaimed;
"hasten
to succor one that is dying at your door!"
This summons was effectual.

There was no one in the house who was not roused by it.

Pleyel was the first
to obey,
and my brother overtook him before he reached the hall.

What was the general astonishment when your friend was discovered stretched upon the grass before the door,
pale,
ghastly,
and
with every mark of death!
But how was I
to regard this midnight conversation?

Hoarse and manlike voices conferring on the means of death,
so near my bed,
and at such an hour!

How had my ancient security vanished!

That dwelling which had hither
to been an inviolate asylum was now beset
with danger
to my life.

That solitude formerly so dear
to me could no longer be endured.

Pleyel,
who had consented
to reside
with us during the months of spring,
lodged in the vacant chamber,
in order
to quiet my alarMs. He treated my fears
with ridicule,
and in a short time very slight traces of them remained;
but,
as it was wholly indifferent
to him whether his nights were passed at my house or at my brother's,
this arrangement gave general satisfaction.

II
I will enumerate the various inquiries and conjectures which these incidents occasioned.

After all our efforts,
we came no nearer
to dispelling the mist in which they were involved;
and time,
instead of facilitating a solution,
only accumulated our doubts.In the midst of thoughts excited by these events,
I was not unmindful of my interview
with the stranger.

I related the particulars,
and showed the portrait
to my friends.

Pleyel recollected
to have met
with a figure resembling my description in the city;
but neither his face or garb made the same impression upon him that it made upon me.

It was a hint
to rally me upon my prepossessions,
and
to amuse us
with a thousand ludicrous anecdotes which he had collected in his travels.

He made no scruple
to charge me
with being in love;
and threatened
to inform the swain,
when he met him,
of his good fortune.Pleyel's temper made him susceptible of no durable impressions.

His conversation was occasionally visited by gleams of his ancient vivacity;
but,
though his impetuosity was sometimes inconvenient,
there was nothing
to dread from his malice.

I had no fear that my character or dignity would suffer in his hands,
and was not heartily displeased when he declared his intention of profiting by his first meeting
with the stranger
to introduce him
to our acquaintance.Some weeks after this I had spent a toilsome day,
and,
as the sun declined,
found myself disposed
to seek relief in a walk.

The river bank is,
at this part of it and
for some considerable space upward,
so rugged and steep as not
to be easily descended.

In a recess of this declivity,
near the southern verge of my little demesne,
was placed a slight building,

with seats and lattices.

From a crevice of the rock
to which this edifice was attached there burst forth a stream of the purest water,
which,
leaping from ledge
to ledge
for the space of sixty feet,
produced a freshness in the air,
and a murmur,
the most delicious and soothing imaginable.

These,
added
to the odors of the cedars which embowered it,
and of the honeysuckle which clustered among the lattices,
rendered this my favorite retreat in summer.On this occasion I repaired hither.

My spirits drooped through the fatigue of long attention,
and I threw myself upon a bench,
in a state,
both mentally and personally,
of the utmost supineness.

The lulling sounds of the waterfall,
the fragrance,
and the dusk,
combined
to becalm my spirits,
and,
in a short time,

to sink me in
to sleep.

Either the uneasiness of my posture,
or some slight indisposition,
molested my repose
with dreams of no cheerful hue.

After various incoherences had taken their turn
to occupy my fancy,
I at length imagined myself walking,
in the evening twilight,

to my brother's habitation.

A pit,
methought,
had been dug in the path I had taken,
of which I was not aware.

As I carelessly pursued my walk,
I thought I saw my brother standing at some distance before me,
beckoning and calling me
to make haste.

He stood on the opposite edge of the gulf.

I mended my pace,
and one step more would have plunged me in
to this abyss,
had not some one from behind caught suddenly my arm,
and exclaimed,
in a voice of eagerness and terror,
"Hold!

hold!"
The sound broke my sleep,
and I found myself,
at the next moment,
standing on my feet,
and surrounded by the deepest darkness.

Images so terrific and forcible disabled me
for a time from distinguishing between sleep and wakefulness,
and withheld from me the knowledge of my actual condition.

My first panic was succeeded by the perturbations of surprise
to find myself alone in the open air and immersed in so deep a gloom.

I slowly recollected the incidents of the afternoon,
and how I came hither.

I could not estimate the time,
but saw the propriety of returning
with speed
to the house.

My faculties were still too confused,
and the darkness too intense,

to allow me immediately
to find my way up the steep.

I sat down,
therefore,

to recover myself,
and
to reflect upon my situation.This was no sooner done,
than a low voice was heard from behind the lattice,
on the side where I sat.

Between the rock and the lattice was a chasm not wide enough
to admit a human body;
yet in this chasm he that spoke appeared
to be stationed.

"Attend!

attend!

but be not terrified."


I started,
and exclaimed,
"Good heavens!

what is that?

Who are you?"


"A friend;
one come not
to injure but
to save you:

fear nothing."


This voice was immediately recognized
to be the same
with one of those which I had heard in the closet;
it was the voice of him who had proposed
to shoot rather than
to strangle his victim.

My terror made me at once mute and motionless.

He continued,
"I leagued
to murder you.

I repent.

Mark my bidding,
and be safe.

Avoid this spot.

The snares of death encompass it.

Elsewhere danger will be distant;
but this spot,
shun it as you value your life.

Mark me further:

profit by this warning,
but divulge it not.

If a syllable of what has passed escape you,
your doom is sealed.

Remember your father,
and be faithful."


Here the accents ceased,
and left me overwhelmed
with dismay.

I was fraught
with the persuasion that during every moment I remained here my life was endangered;
but I could not take a step without hazard of falling
to the bottom of the precipice.

The path leading
to the summit was short,
but rugged and intricate.

Even starlight was excluded by the umbrage,
and not the faintest gleam was afforded
to guide my steps.

What should I do?


to depart or remain was equally and eminently perilous.In this state of uncertainty,
I perceived a ray flit across the gloom and disappear.

Another succeeded,
which was stronger,
and remained
for a passing moment.

It glittered on the shrubs that were scattered at the entrance,
and gleam continued
to succeed gleam
for a few seconds,
till they finally gave place
to unintermitted darkness.The first visitings of this light called up a train of horrors in my mind;
destruction impended over this spot;
the voice which I had lately heard had warned me
to retire,
and had menaced me
with the fate of my father if I refused.

I was desirous,
but unable
to obey;
these gleams were such as preluded the stroke by which he fell;
the hour,
perhaps,
was the same.

I shuddered as if I had beheld suspended over me the exterminating sword.Presently a new and stronger illumination burst through the lattice on the right hand,
and a voice from the edge of the precipice above called out my name.

It was Pleyel.

Joyfully did I recognize his accents;
but such was the tumult of my thoughts that I had not power
to answer him till he had frequently repeated his summons.

I hurried at length from the fatal spot,
and,
directed by the lantern which he bore,
ascended the hill.Pale and breathless,
it was
with difficulty I could support myself.

He anxiously inquired in
to the cause of my affright and the motive of my unusual absence.

He had returned from my brother's at a late hour,
and was informed by Judith that I had walked out before sunset and had not yet returned.

This intelligence was somewhat alarming.

He waited some time;
but,
my absence continuing,
he had set out in search of me.

He had explored the neighborhood
with the utmost care,
but,
receiving no tidings of me,
he was preparing
to acquaint my brother
with this circumstance,
when he recollected the summer-house on the bank,
and conceived it possible that some accident had detained me there.

He again inquired in
to the cause of this detention,
and of that confusion and dismay which my looks testified.I told him that I had strolled hither in the afternoon,
that sleep had overtaken me as I sat,
and that I had awakened a few minutes before his arrival.

I could tell him no more.

In the present impetuosity of my thoughts,
I was almost dubious whether the pit in
to which my brother had endeavored
to entice me,
and the voice that talked through the lattice,
were not parts of the same dream.

I remembered,
likewise,
the charge of secrecy,
and the penalty denounced if I should rashly divulge what I had heard.


for these reasons I was silent on that subject,
and,
shutting myself in my chamber,
delivered myself up
to contemplation.What I have related will,
no doubt,
appear
to you a fable.

You will believe that calamity has subverted my reason,
and that I am amusing you
with the chimeras of my brain instead of facts that have really happened.

I shall not be surprised or offended if these be your suspicions.

I know not,
indeed,
how you can deny them admission.

For,
if
to me,
the immediate witness,
they were fertile of perplexity and doubt,
how must they affect another
to whom they are recommended only by my testimony?

It was only by subsequent events that I was fully and incontestably assured of the veracity of my senses.Meanwhile,
what was I
to think?

I had been assured that a design had been formed against my life.

The ruffians had leagued
to murder me.

Whom had I offended?

Who was there,

with whom I had ever maintained intercourse,
who was capable of harboring such atrocious purposes?
My temper was the reverse of cruel and imperious.

My heart was touched
with sympathy
for the children of misfortune.

But this sympathy was not a barren sentiment.

My purse,
scanty as it was,
was ever open,
and my hands ever active,

to relieve distress.

Many were the wretches whom my personal exertions had extricated from want and disease,
and who rewarded me
with their gratitude.

There was no face which lowered at my approach,
and no lips which uttered imprecations in my hearing.

On the contrary,
there was none,
over whose fate I had exerted any influence or
to whom I was known by reputation,
who did not greet me
with smiles and dismiss me
with proofs of veneration:

yet did not my senses assure me that a plot was laid against my life?
I am not destitute of courage.

I have shown myself deliberative and calm in the midst of peril.

I have hazarded my own life
for the preservation of another;
but now was I confused and panic- struck.

I have not lived so as
to fear death;
yet
to perish by an unseen and secret stroke,

to be mangled by the knife of an assassin,
was a thought at which I shuddered:

what had I done
to deserve
to be made the victim of malignant passions?
But soft!

was I not assured that my life was safe in all places but one?

And why was the treason limited
to take effect in this spot?

I was everywhere equally defenseless.

My house and chamber were at all times accessible.

Danger still impended over me;
the bloody purpose was still entertained,
but the hand that was
to execute it was powerless in all places but one!
Here I had remained
for the last four or five hours,
without the means of resistance or defense;
yet I had not been attacked.

A human being was at hand,
who was conscious of my presence,
and warned me hereafter
to avoid this retreat.

His voice was not absolutely new,
but had I never heard it but once before?

But why did he prohibit me from relating this incident
to others,
and what species of death will be awarded if I disobey?
Such were the reflections that haunted me during the night,
and which effectually deprived me of sleep.

Next morning,
at breakfast,
Pleyel related an event which my disappearance had hindered him from mentioning the night before.

Early the preceding morning,
his occasions called him
to the city:

he had stepped in
to a coffee-house
to while away an hour;
here he had met a person whose appearance instantly bespoke him
to be the same whose hasty visit I have mentioned,
and whose extraordinary visage and tones had so powerfully affected me.

On an attentive survey,
however,
he proved,
likewise,

to be one
with whom my friend had had some intercourse in Europe.

This authorized the liberty of accosting him,
and after some conversation,
mindful,
as Pleyel said,
of the footing which this stranger had gained in my heart,
he had ventured
to invite him
to Mettingen.

The invitation had been cheerfully accepted,
and a visit promised on the afternoon of the next day.This information excited no sober emotions in my breast.

I was,
of course,
eager
to be informed as
to the circumstances of their ancient intercourse.

When and where had they met?

What knew he of the life and character of this man?
In answer
to my inquiries,
he informed me that,
three years before,
he was a traveler in Spain.

He had made an excursion from Valencia
to Murviedro,

with a view
to inspect the remains of Roman magnificence scattered in the environs of that town.

While traversing the site of the theater of old Saguntum,
he alighted upon this man,
seated on a stone,
and deeply engaged in perusing the work of the deacon Marti.

A short conversation ensued,
which proved the stranger
to be English.

They returned
to Valencia together.His garb,
aspect,
and deportment were wholly Spanish.

A residence of three years in the country,
indefatigable attention
to the language,
and a studious conformity
with the customs of the people,
had made him indistinguishable from a native when he chose
to assume that character.

Pleyel found him
to be connected,
on the footing of friendship and respect,

with many eminent merchants in that city.

He had embraced the Catholic religion,
and adopted a Spanish name instead of his own,
which was CARWIN,
and devoted himself
to the literature and religion of his new country.

He pursued no profession,
but subsisted on remittances from England.While Pleyel remained in Valencia,
Carwin betrayed no aversion
to intercourse,
and the former found no small attractions in the society of this new acquaintance,
On general topics he was highly intelligent and communicative.

He had visited every corner of Spain,
and could furnish the most accurate details respecting its ancient and present state.

On topics of religion and of his own history,
previous
to his TRANSFORMATION in
to a Spaniard,
he was invariably silent.

You could merely gather from his discourse that he was English,
and that he was well acquainted
with the neighboring countries.His character excited considerable curiosity in the observer.

It was not easy
to reconcile his conversion
to the Romish faith
with those proofs of knowledge and capacity that were exhibited by him on different occasions.

A suspicion was sometimes admitted that his belief was counterfeited
for some political purpose.

The most careful observation,
however,
produced no discovery.

His manners were at all times harmless and inartificial,
and his habits those of a lover of contemplation and seclusion.

He appeared
to have contracted an affection
for Pleyel,
who was not slow
to return it.My friend,
after a month's residence in this city,
returned in
to France,
and,
since that period,
had heard nothing concerning Carwin till his appearance at Mettingen.On this occasion Carwin had received Pleyel's greeting
with a certain distance and solemnity
to which the latter had not been accustomed.

He had waived noticing the inquiries of Pleyel respecting his desertion of Spain,
in which he had formerly declared that it was his purpose
to spend his life.

He had assiduously diverted the attention of the latter
to indifferent topics,
but was still,
on every theme,
as eloquent and judicious as formerly.

Why he had assumed the garb of a rustic Pleyel was unable
to conjecture.

Perhaps it might be poverty;
perhaps he was swayed by motives which it was his interest
to conceal,
but which were connected
with consequences of the utmost moment.Such was the sum of my friend's information.

I was not sorry
to be left alone during the greater part of this day.

Every employment was irksome which did not leave me at liberty
to meditate.

I had now a new subject on which
to exercise my thoughts.

Before evening I should be ushered in
to his presence,
and listen
to those tones whose magical and thrilling power I had already experienced.

But
with what new images would he then be accompanied?
Carwin was an adherent
to the Romish faith,
yet was an Englishman by birth,
and,
perhaps,
a Protestant by education.

He had adopted Spain
for his country,
and had intimated a design
to spend his days there,
yet now was an inhabitant of this district,
and disguised by the habiliments of a clown!

What could have obliterated the impressions of his youth and made him abjure his religion and his country?

What subsequent events had introduced so total a change in his plans?

In withdrawing from Spain,
had he reverted
to the religion of his ancestors?

or was it true that his former conversion was deceitful,
and that his conduct had been swayed by motives which it was prudent
to conceal?
Hours were consumed in revolving these ideas.

My meditations were intense;
and,
when the series was broken,
I began
to reflect
with astonishment on my situation.

From the death of my parents till the commencement of this year my life had been serene and blissful beyond the ordinary portion of humanity;
but now my bosom was corroded by anxiety.

I was visited by dread of unknown dangers,
and the future was a scene over which clouds rolled and thunders muttered.

I compared the cause
with the effect,
and they seemed disproportioned
to each other.

All unaware,
and in a manner which I had no power
to explain,
I was pushed from my immovable and lofty station and cast upon a sea of troubles.I determined
to be my brother's visitant on this evening;
yet my resolves were not unattended
with wavering and reluctance.

Pleyel's insinuations that I was in love affected in no degree my belief;
yet the consciousness that this was the opinion of one who would probably be present at our introduction
to each other would excite all that confusion which the passion itself is apt
to produce.

This would confirm him in his error and call forth new railleries.

His mirth,
when exerted upon this topic,
was the source of the bitterest vexation.

Had he been aware of its influence upon my happiness,
his temper would not have allowed him
to persist;
but this influence it was my chief endeavor
to conceal.

That the belief of my having bestowed my heart upon another produced in my friend none but ludicrous sensations was the true cause of my distress;
but if this had been discovered by him my distress would have been unspeakably aggravated.

III
As soon as evening arrived,
I performed my visit.

Carwin made one of the company in
to which I was ushered.

Appearances were the same as when I before beheld him.

His garb was equally negligent and rustic.

I gazed upon his countenance
with new curiosity.

My situation was such as
to enable me
to bestow upon it a deliberate examination.

Viewed at more leisure,
it lost none of its wonderful properties.

I could not deny my homage
to the intelligence expressed in it,
but was wholly uncertain whether he were an object
to be dreaded or adored,
and whether his powers had been exerted
to evil or
to good.He was sparing in discourse;
but whatever he said was pregnant
with meaning,
and uttered
with rectitude of articulation and force of emphasis of which I had entertained no conception previously
to my knowledge of him.

Notwithstanding the uncouthness of his garb,
his manners were not unpolished.

All topics were handled by him
with skill,
and without pedantry or affectation.

He uttered no sentiment calculated
to produce a disadvantageous impression;
on the contrary,
his observations denoted a mind alive
to every generous and heroic feeling.

They were introduced without parade,
and accompanied
with that degree of earnestness which indicates sincerity.He parted from us not till late,
refusing an invitation
to spend the night here,
but readily consented
to repeat his visit.

His visits were frequently repeated.

Each day introduced us
to a more intimate acquaintance
with his sentiments,
but left us wholly in the dark concerning that about which we were most inquisitive.

He studiously avoided all mention of his past or present situation.

Even the place of his abode in the city he concealed from us.Our sphere in this respect being somewhat limited,
and the intellectual endowments of this man being indisputably great,
his deportment was more diligently marked and copiously commented on by us than you,
perhaps,
will think the circumstances warranted.

Not a gesture,
or glance,
or accent,
that was not,
in our private assemblies,
discussed,
and inferences deduced from it.

It may well be thought that he modeled his behavior by an uncommon standard,
when,

with all our opportunities and accuracy of observation,
we were able
for a long time
to gather no satisfactory information.

He afforded us no ground on which
to build even a plausible conjecture.There is a degree of familiarity which takes place between constant associates,
that justifies the negligence of many rules of which,
in an earlier period of their intercourse,
politeness requires the exact observance.

Inquiries in
to our condition are allowable when they are prompted by a disinterested concern
for our welfare;
and this solicitude is not only pardonable,
but may justly be demanded from those who choose us
for their companions.

This state of things was more slow
to arrive at on this occasion than on most others,
on account of the gravity and loftiness of this man's behavior.Pleyel,
however,
began at length
to employ regular means
for this end.

He occasionally alluded
to the circumstances in which they had formerly met,