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+Project Gutenberg's The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby, by Charles M. Skinner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby
+       Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Volume 2.
+
+Author: Charles M. Skinner
+
+Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #6607]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+                           MYTHS AND LEGENDS
+                                   OF
+                              OUR OWN LAND
+
+                                   By
+                           Charles M. Skinner
+
+                                Vol. 2.
+
+
+                   THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+Dolph Heyliger
+The Knell at the Wedding
+Roistering Dirck Van Dara
+The Party from Gibbet Island
+Miss Britton's Poker
+The Devil's Stepping-Stones
+The Springs of Blood and Water
+The Crumbling Silver
+The Cortelyou Elopement
+Van Wempel's Goose
+The Weary Watcher
+The Rival Fiddlers
+Wyandank
+Mark of the Spirit Hand
+The First Liberal Church
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
+
+
+
+DOLPH HEYLIGER
+
+New York was New Amsterdam when Dolph Heyliger got himself born there,--a
+graceless scamp, though a brave, good-natured one, and being left
+penniless on his father's death he was fain to take service with a
+doctor, while his mother kept a shop. This doctor had bought a farm on
+the island of Manhattoes--away out of town, where Twenty-third Street now
+runs, most likely--and, because of rumors that its tenants had noised
+about it, he seemed likely to enjoy the responsibilities of landholding
+and none of its profits. It suited Dolph's adventurous disposition that
+he should be deputed to investigate the reason for these rumors, and for
+three nights he kept his abode in the desolate old manor, emerging after
+daybreak in a lax and pallid condition, but keeping his own counsel, to
+the aggravation of the populace, whose ears were burning for his news.
+
+Not until long after did he tell of the solemn tread that woke him in the
+small hours, of his door softly opening, though he had bolted and locked
+it, of a portly Fleming, with curly gray hair, reservoir boots, slouched
+hat, trunk and doublet, who entered and sat in the arm-chair, watching
+him until the cock crew. Nor did he tell how on the third night he
+summoned courage, hugging a Bible and a catechism to his breast for
+confidence, to ask the meaning of the visit, and how the Fleming arose,
+and drawing Dolph after him with his eyes, led him downstairs, went
+through the front door without unbolting it, leaving that task for the
+trembling yet eager youth, and how, after he had proceeded to a disused
+well at the bottom of the garden, he vanished from sight.
+
+Dolph brooded long upon these things and dreamed of them in bed. He
+alleged that it was in obedience to his dreams that he boarded a schooner
+bound up the Hudson, without the formality of adieu to his employer, and
+after being spilled ashore in a gale at the foot of Storm King, he fell
+into the company of Anthony Vander Hevden, a famous landholder and
+hunter, who achieved a fancy for Dolph as a lad who could shoot, fish,
+row, and swim, and took him home with him to Albany. The Heer had
+commodious quarters, good liquor, and a pretty daughter, and Dolph felt
+himself in paradise until led to the room he was to occupy, for one of
+the first things that he set eyes on in that apartment was a portrait of
+the very person who had kept him awake for the worse part of three nights
+at the bowerie in Manhattoes. He demanded to know whose picture it was,
+and learned that it was that of Killian Vander Spiegel, burgomaster and
+curmudgeon, who buried his money when the English seized New Amsterdam
+and fretted himself to death lest it should be discovered. He remembered
+that his mother had spoken of this Spiegel and that her father was the
+miser's rightful heir, and it now appeared that he was one of Heyden's
+forbears too. In his dream that night the Fleming stepped out of the
+portrait, led him, as he had done before, to the well, where he smiled
+and vanished. Dolph reflected, next morning, that these things had been
+ordered to bring together the two branches of the family and disclose the
+whereabouts of the treasure that it should inherit. So full was he of
+this idea that he went back to New Amsterdam by the first schooner, to
+the surprise of the Heer and the regret of his daughter.
+
+After the truant had been received with execrations by the doctor and
+with delight by his mother, who believed that spooks had run off with
+him, and with astonishment, as a hero of romance, by the public, he made
+for the haunted premises at the first opportunity and began to angle at
+the disused well. Presently he found his hook entangled in something at
+the bottom, and on lifting slowly he discovered that he had secured a
+fine silver porringer, with lid held down by twisted wire. It was the
+work of a moment to wrench off the lid, when he found the vessel to be
+filled with golden pieces. His fishing that day was attended with such
+luck as never fell to an angler before, for there were other pieces of
+plate down there, all engraved with the Spiegel arms and all containing
+treasure.
+
+By encouraging the most dreadful stories about the spot, in order to keep
+the people wide away from it, he accomplished the removal of his prizes
+bit by bit from their place of concealment to his home. His unaccounted
+absence in Albany and his dealings with the dead had prepared his
+neighbors for any change in himself or his condition, and now that he
+always had a bottle of schnapps for the men and a pot of tea for the
+women, and was good to his mother, they said that they had always known
+that when he changed it would be for the better,--at which his old
+detractors lifted their eyebrows significantly--and when asked to dinner
+by him they always accepted.
+
+Moreover, they made merry when the day came round for his wedding with
+the little maid of Albany. They likewise elected him a member of the
+corporation, to which he bequeathed some of the Spiegel plate and often
+helped the other city fathers to empty the big punch-bowl. Indeed, it was
+at one of these corporation feasts that he died of apoplexy. He was
+buried with honors in the yard of the Dutch church in Garden Street.
+
+
+
+
+THE KNELL AT THE WEDDING
+
+A young New Yorker had laid such siege to the heart of a certain
+belle--this was back in the Knickerbocker days when people married for
+love--that everybody said the banns were as good as published; but
+everybody did not know, for one fine morning my lady went to church with
+another gentleman--not her father, though old enough to be--and when the
+two came out they were man and wife. The elderly man was rich. After the
+first paroxysm of rage and disappointment had passed, the lover withdrew
+from the world and devoted himself to study; nor when he learned that she
+had become a widow, with comfortable belongings derived from the estate
+of the late lamented, did he renew acquaintance with her, and he smiled
+bitterly when he heard of her second marriage to a young adventurer who
+led her a wretched life, but atoned for his sins, in a measure, by dying
+soon enough afterward to leave a part of her fortune unspent.
+
+In the lapse of time the doubly widowed returned to New York, where she
+met again the lover of her youth. Mr. Ellenwood had acquired the reserve
+of a scholar, and had often puzzled his friends with his eccentricities;
+but after a few meetings with the object of his young affection he came
+out of his glooms, and with respectful formality laid again at her feet
+the heart she had trampled on forty years before. Though both of them
+were well on in life, the news of their engagement made little of a
+sensation. The widow was still fair; the wooer was quiet, refined, and
+courtly, and the union of their fortunes would assure a competence for
+the years that might be left to them. The church of St. Paul, on
+Broadway, was appointed for the wedding, and it was a whim of the groom
+that his bride should meet him there. At the appointed hour a company of
+the curious had assembled in the edifice; a rattle of wheels was heard,
+and a bevy of bridesmaids and friends in hoop, patch, velvet, silk,
+powder, swords, and buckles walked down the aisle; but just as the bride
+had come within the door, out of the sunlight that streamed so
+brilliantly on the mounded turf and tombstones in the churchyard, the
+bell in the steeple gave a single boom.
+
+The bride walked to the altar, and as she took her place before it
+another clang resounded from the belfry. The bridegroom was not there.
+Again and again the brazen throat and iron tongue sent out a doleful
+knell, and faces grew pale and anxious, for the meaning of it could not
+be guessed. With eyes fixed on the marble tomb of her first husband, the
+woman tremblingly awaited the solution of the mystery, until the door was
+darkened by something that made her catch her breath--a funeral. The
+organ began a solemn dirge as a black-cloaked cortege came through the
+aisle, and it was with amazement that the bride discovered it to be
+formed of her oldest friends,--bent, withered; paired, man and woman, as
+in mockery--while behind, with white face, gleaming eyes, disordered
+hair, and halting step, came the bridegroom, in his shroud.
+
+"Come," he said,--"let us be married. The coffins are ready. Then, home to
+the tomb."
+
+"Cruel!" murmured the woman.
+
+"Now, Heaven judge which of us has been cruel. Forty years ago you took
+away my faith, destroyed my hopes, and gave to others your youth and
+beauty. Our lives have nearly run their course, so I am come to wed you
+as with funeral rites." Then, in a softer manner, he took her hand, and
+said, "All is forgiven. If we cannot live together we will at least be
+wedded in death. Time is almost at its end. We will marry for eternity.
+Come." And tenderly embracing her, he led her forward. Hard as was the
+ordeal, confusing, frightening, humiliating, the bride came through it a
+better woman.
+
+"It is true," she said, "I have been vain and worldly, but now, in my
+age, the truest love I ever knew has come back to me. It is a holy love.
+I will cherish it forever." Their eyes met, and they saw each other
+through tears. Solemnly the clergyman read the marriage service, and when
+it was concluded the low threnody that had come from the organ in key
+with the measured clang of the bell, merged into a nobler motive, until
+at last the funeral measures were lost in a burst of exultant harmony.
+Sobs of pent feeling and sighs of relief were heard as the bridal party
+moved away, and when the newmade wife and husband reached the portal the
+bell was silent and the sun was shining.
+
+
+
+
+ROISTERING DIRCK VAN DARA
+
+In the days when most of New York stood below Grand Street, a roistering
+fellow used to make the rounds of the taverns nightly, accompanied by a
+friend named Rooney. This brave drinker was Dirck Van Dara, one of the
+last of those swag-bellied topers that made merry with such solemnity
+before the English seized their unoffending town. It chanced that Dirck
+and his chum were out later than usual one night, and by eleven o'clock,
+when all good people were abed, a drizzle set in that drove the watch to
+sleep in doorways and left Broadway tenantless. As the two choice spirits
+reeled out of a hostelry near Wall Street and saw the lights go out in
+the tap-room windows they started up town to their homes in Leonard
+Street, but hardly had they come abreast of old St. Paul's when a strange
+thing stayed them: crying was heard in the churchyard and a
+phosphorescent light shone among the tombs. Rooney was sober in a moment,
+but not so Dirck Van Dara, who shouted, "Here is sport, friend Rooney.
+Let's climb the wall. If the dead are for a dance, we will take partners
+and show them how pigeons' wings are cut nowadays."
+
+"No," exclaimed the other; "those must perish who go among the dead when
+they come out of their graves. I've heard that if you get into their
+clutches, you must stay in purgatory for a hundred years, and no priest
+can pray you out."
+
+"Bah! old wives' tales! Come on!" And pulling his friend with him, they
+were over the fence. "Hello! what have we here?" As he spoke a haggard
+thing arose from behind a tombstone, a witchlike creature, with rags
+falling about her wasted form and hair that almost hid her face. The
+twain were set a-sneezing by the fumes of sulphur, and Rooney swore
+afterwards that there were little things at the end of the yard with
+grinning faces and lights on the ends of their tails. Old Hollands are
+heady. Dirck began to chaff the beldam on her dilapidation, but she
+stopped his talk by dipping something from a caldron behind her and
+flinging it over both of her visitors. Whatever it was, it burned
+outrageously, and with a yell of pain they leaped the wall more briskly
+than they had jumped it the other way, and were soon in full flight. They
+had not gone far when the clock struck twelve.
+
+"Arrah! there's a crowd of them coming after," panted Rooney. "Ave Mary!
+I've heard that if you die with witch broth being thrown over you, you're
+done for in the next world, as well as this. Let us get to Father
+Donagan's. Wow!"
+
+As he made this exclamation the fugitives found their way opposed by a
+woman, who looked at them with immodest eyes and said, "Dirck Van Dara,
+your sire, in wig and bob, turned us Cyprians out of New York, after
+ducking us in the Collect. But we forgive him, and to prove it we ask you
+to our festival."
+
+At the stroke of midnight the street before the church had swarmed with a
+motley throng, that now came onward, waving torches that sparkled like
+stars. They formed a ring about Dirck and began to dance, and he, nothing
+loth, seized the nymph who had addressed him and joined in the revel. Not
+a soul was out or awake except themselves, and no words were said as the
+dance went wilder to strains of weird and unseen instruments. Now and
+then one would apply a torch to the person of Dirck, meanly assailing him
+in the rear, and the smart of the burn made him feet it the livelier. At
+last they turned toward the Battery as by common consent, and went
+careering along the street in frolic fashion. Rooney, whose senses had
+thus far been pent in a stupor, fled with a yell of terror, and as he
+looked back he saw the unholy troop disappearing in the mist like a
+moving galaxy. Never from that night was Dirck Van Data seen or heard of
+more, and the publicans felt that they had less reason for living.
+
+
+
+
+THE PARTY FROM GIBBET ISLAND
+
+Ellis Island, in New York harbor, once bore the name of Gibbet Island,
+because pirates and mutineers were hanged there in chains. During the
+times when it was devoted to this fell purpose there stood in Communipaw
+the Wild Goose tavern, where Dutch burghers resorted, to smoke, drink
+Hollands, and grow fat, wise, and sleepy in each others' company. The
+plague of this inn was Yan Yost Vanderscamp, a nephew of the landlord,
+who frequently alarmed the patrons of the house by putting powder into
+their pipes and attaching briers beneath their horses' tails, and who
+naturally turned pirate when he became older, taking with him to sea his
+boon companion, an ill-disposed, ill-favored blackamoor named Pluto, who
+had been employed about the tavern. When the landlord died, Vanderscamp
+possessed himself of this property, fitted it up with plunder, and at
+intervals he had his gang ashore,--such a crew of singing, swearing,
+drinking, gaming devils as Communipaw had never seen the like of; yet the
+residents could not summon activity enough to stop the goings-on that
+made the Wild Goose a disgrace to their village. The British authorities,
+however, caught three of the swashbucklers and strung them up on Gibbet
+Island, and things that went on badly in Communipaw after that went on
+with quiet and secrecy.
+
+The pirate and his henchmen were returning to the tavern one night, after
+a visit to a rakish-looking vessel in the offing, when a squall broke in
+such force as to give their skiff a leeway to the place of executions. As
+they rounded that lonely reef a creaking noise overhead caused
+Vanderscamp to look up, and he could not repress a shudder as he saw the
+bodies of his three messmates, their rags fluttering and their chains
+grinding in the wind.
+
+"Don't you want to see your friends?" sneered Pluto. "You, who are never
+afraid of living men, what do you fear from the dead?"
+
+"Nothing," answered the pirate. Then, lugging forth his bottle, he took a
+long pull at it, and holding it toward the dead felons, he shouted,
+"Here's fair weather to you, my lads in the wind, and if you should be
+walking the rounds to-night, come in to supper."
+
+A clatter of bones and a creak of chains sounded like a laugh. It was
+midnight when the boat pulled in at Communipaw, and as the storm
+continued Vanderscamp, drenched to the skin, made quick time to the Wild
+Goose. As he entered, a sound of revelry overhead smote his ear, and,
+being no less astonished than in need of cordials, he hastened up-stairs
+and flung open the door. A table stood there, furnished with jugs and
+pipes and cans, and by light of candles that burned as blue as brimstone
+could be seen the three gallows-birds from Gibbet Island, with halters on
+their necks, clinking their tankards together and trolling forth a
+drinking-song.
+
+Starting back with affright as the corpses hailed him with lifted arms
+and turned their fishy eyes on him, Vanderscamp slipped at the door and
+fell headlong to the bottom of the stairs. Next morning he was found
+there by the neighbors, dead to a certainty, and was put away in the
+Dutch churchyard at Bergen on the Sunday following. As the house was
+rifled and deserted by its occupants, it was hinted that the negro had
+betrayed his master to his fellow-buccaneers, and that he, Pluto, was no
+other than the devil in disguise. But he was not, for his skiff was seen
+floating bottom up in the bay soon after, and his drowned body lodged
+among the rocks at the foot of the pirates' gallows.
+
+For a long time afterwards the island was regarded as a place that
+required purging with bell, book, and candle, for shadows were reported
+there and faint lights that shot into the air, and to this day, with the
+great immigrant station on it and crowds going and coming all the time,
+the Battery boatmen prefer not to row around it at night, for they are
+likely to see the shades of the soldier and his mistress who were drowned
+off the place one windy night, when the girl was aiding the fellow to
+escape confinement in the guard-house, to say nothing of Vanderscamp and
+his felons.
+
+
+
+
+MISS BRITTON'S POKER
+
+The maids of Staten Island wrought havoc among the royal troops who were
+quartered among them during the Revolution. Near quarantine, in an old
+house,--the Austen mansion,--a soldier of King George hanged himself
+because a Yankee maid who lived there would not have him for a husband,
+nor any gentleman whose coat was of his color; and, until ghosts went out
+of fashion, his spirit, in somewhat heavy boots, with jingling spurs,
+often disturbed the nightly quiet of the place.
+
+The conduct of a damsel in the old town of Richmond was even more stern.
+She was the granddaughter, and a pretty one, of a farmer named Britton;
+but though Britton by descent and name, she was no friend of Britons,
+albeit she might have had half the officers in the neighboring camp at
+her feet, if she had wished them there. Once, while mulling a cup of
+cider for her grandfather, she was interrupted by a self-invited
+myrmidon, who undertook, in a fashion rude and unexpected, to show the
+love in which he held her. Before he could kiss her, the girl drew the
+hot poker from the mug of drink and jabbed at the vitals of her amorous
+foe, burning a hole through his scarlet uniform and printing on his burly
+person a lasting memento of the adventure. With a howl of pain the fellow
+rushed away, and the privacy of the Britton family was never again
+invaded, at least whilst cider was being mulled.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEVIL'S STEPPING-STONES
+
+When the devil set a claim to the fair lands at the north of Long Island
+Sound, his claim was disputed by the Indians, who prepared to fight for
+their homes should he attempt to serve his writ of ejectment. Parley
+resulted in nothing, so the bad one tried force, but he was routed in
+open fight and found it desirable to get away from the scene of action as
+soon as possible. He retreated across the Sound near the head of East
+River. The tide was out, so he stepped from island to island, without
+trouble, and those reefs and islands are to this day the Devil's
+Stepping-Stones. On reaching Throgg's Neck he sat down in a despairing
+attitude and brooded on his defeat, until, roused to a frenzy at the
+thought of it, he resolved to renew the war on terms advantageous
+entirely to himself. In that day Connecticut was free from rocks, but
+Long Island was covered with them; so he gathered all he could lay his
+hands on and tossed them at the Indians that he could see across the
+Sound near Cold Spring until the supply had given out. The red men who
+last inhabited Connecticut used to show white men where the missiles
+landed and where the devil struck his heel into the ground as he sprang
+from the shore in his haste to reach Long Island. At Cold Spring other
+footprints and one of his toes are shown. Establishing himself at Coram,
+he troubled the people of the country for many years, so that between the
+devil on the west and the Montauks on the east they were plagued indeed;
+for though their guard at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and other places
+often apprised them of the coming of the Montauks, they never knew which
+way to look for the devil.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPRINGS OF BLOOD AND WATER
+
+A great drought had fallen on Long Island, and the red men prayed for
+water. It is true that they could get it at Lake Ronkonkoma, but some of
+them were many miles from there, and, beside, they feared the spirits at
+that place: the girl who plied its waters in a phosphor-shining birch,
+seeking her recreant lover; and the powerful guardians that the Great
+Spirit had put in charge to keep the fish from being caught, for these
+fish were the souls of men, awaiting deliverance into another form. The
+people gathered about their villages in bands and besought the Great
+Spirit to give them drink. His voice was heard at last, bidding their
+chief to shoot an arrow into the air and to watch where it fell, for
+there would water gush out. The chief obeyed the deity, and as the arrow
+touched the earth a spring of sweet water spouted into the air. Running
+forward with glad cries the red men drank eagerly of the liquor, laved
+their faces in it, and were made strong again; and in memory of that
+event they called the place the Hill of God, or Manitou Hill, and Manet
+or Manetta Hill it is to this day. Hereabouts the Indians settled and
+lived in peace, thriving under the smile of their deity, making wampum
+for the inland tribes and waxing rich with gains from it. They made the
+canal from bay to sea at Canoe Place, that they might reach open water
+without dragging their boats across the sand-bars, and in other ways they
+proved themselves ingenious and strong.
+
+When the English landed on the island they saw that the Indians were not
+a people to be trifled with, and in order to properly impress them with
+their superiority, they told them that John Bull desired a treaty with
+them. The officers got them to sit in line in front of a cannon, the
+nature of which instrument was unknown to them, and during the talk the
+gun was fired, mowing down so many of the red people that the survivors
+took to flight, leaving the English masters at the north shore, for this
+heartless and needless massacre took place at Whale's Neck. So angry was
+the Great Spirit at this act of cruelty and treachery that he caused
+blood to ooze from the soil, as he had made water leap for his thirsting
+children, and never again would grass grow on the spot where the murder
+had been done.
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUMBLING SILVER
+
+There is a clay bank on Little Neck, Long Island, where metallic nodules
+are now and then exposed by rain. Rustics declare them to be silver, and
+account for their crumbling on the theory that the metal is under a
+curse. A century ago the Montauks mined it, digging over enough soil to
+unearth these pellets now and again, and exchanging them at the nearest
+settlements for tobacco and rum. The seeming abundance of these lumps of
+silver aroused the cupidity of one Gardiner, a dweller in the central
+wilderness of the island, but none of the Indians would reveal the source
+of their treasure. One day Gardiner succeeded in getting an old chief so
+tipsy that, without realizing what he was doing, he led the white man to
+the clay bed and showed him the metallic spots glittering in the sun.
+With a cry of delight Gardiner sprang forward and tore at the earth with
+his fingers, while the Indian stood by laughing at his eagerness.
+
+Presently a shade crossed the white man's face, for he thought that this
+vast treasure would have to be shared by others. It was too much to
+endure. He wanted all. He would be the richest man on earth. Stealing
+behind the Indian as he stood swaying and chuckling, he wrenched the
+hatchet from his belt and clove his skull at a blow. Then, dragging the
+body to a thicket and hiding it under stones and leaves, he hurried to
+his house for cart and pick and shovel, and returning with speed he dug
+out a half ton of the silver before sunset. The cart was loaded, and he
+set homeward, trembling with excitement and conjuring bright visions for
+his future, when a wailing sound from a thicket made him halt and turn
+pale. Noiselessly a figure glided from the bush. It was the Indian he had
+killed. The form approached the treasure, flung up its arm, uttered a few
+guttural words; then a rising wind seemed to lift it from the ground and
+it drifted toward the Sound, fading like a cloud as it receded.
+
+Full of misgiving, Gardiner drove to his home, and, by light of a
+lantern, transferred his treasure to his cellar. Was it the dulness of
+the candle that made the metal look so black? After a night of feverish
+tossing on his bed he arose and went to the cellar to gloat upon his
+wealth. The light of dawn fell on a heap of gray dust, a few brassy
+looking particles showing here and there. The curse of the ghost had been
+of power and the silver was silver no more. Mineralogists say that the
+nodules are iron pyrites. Perhaps so; but old residents know that they
+used to be silver.
+
+
+
+
+THE CORTELYOU ELOPEMENT
+
+In the Bath district of Brooklyn stands Cortelyou manor, built one
+hundred and fifty years ago, and a place of defence during the Revolution
+when the British made sallies from their camp in Flatbush and worried the
+neighborhood. It was in one of these forays on pigs and chickens that a
+gallant officer of red-coats met a pretty lass in the fields of
+Cortelyou. He stilled her alarm by aiding her to gather wild-flowers, and
+it came about that the girl often went into the fields and came back with
+prodigious bouquets of daisies. The elder Cortelyou had no inkling of
+this adventure until one of his sons saw her tryst with the red-coat at a
+distance. Be sure the whole family joined him in remonstrance. As the
+girl declared that she would not forego the meetings with her lover, the
+father swore that she should never leave his roof again, and he tried to
+be as good, or bad, as his word. The damsel took her imprisonment as any
+girl of spirit would, but was unable to effect her escape until one
+evening, as she sat at her window, watching the moon go down and paint
+the harbor with a path of light. A tap at the pane, as of a pebble thrown
+against it, roused her from her revery. It was her lover on the lawn.
+
+At her eager signal he ran forward with a light ladder, planted it
+against the window-sill, and in less than a minute the twain were running
+toward the beach; but the creak of the ladder had been heard, and
+grasping their muskets two of the men hurried out. In the track of the
+moon the pursuers descried a moving form, and, without waiting to
+challenge, they levelled the guns and fired. A woman's cry followed the
+report; then a dip of oars was heard that fast grew fainter until it
+faded from hearing. On returning to the house they found the girl's room
+empty, and next morning her slipper was brought in from the mud at the
+landing. Nobody inside of the American lines ever learned what that shot
+had done, but if it failed to take a life it robbed Cortelyou of his
+mind. He spent the rest of his days in a single room, chained to a staple
+in the floor, tramping around and around, muttering and gesturing, and
+sometimes startling the passer-by as he showed his white face and ragged
+beard at the window.
+
+
+
+
+VAN WEMPEL'S GOOSE
+
+Allow us to introduce Nicholas Van Wempel, of Flatbush: fat, phlegmatic,
+rich, and henpecked. He would like to be drunk because he is henpecked,
+but the wife holds the purse-strings and only doles out money to him when
+she wants groceries or he needs clothes. It was New Year's eve, the eve
+of 1739, when Vrouw Van Wempel gave to her lord ten English shillings and
+bade him hasten to Dr. Beck's for the fat goose that had been bespoken.
+"And mind you do not stop at the tavern," she screamed after him in her
+shrillest tone. But poor Nicholas! As he went waddling down the road,
+snapping through an ice-crust at every step, a roguish wind--or perhaps
+it was one of the bugaboos that were known to haunt the shores of
+Gravesend Bay--snatched off his hat and rolled it into the very doorway
+of the tavern that he had been warned, under terrible penalties, to
+avoid.
+
+As he bent to pick it up the door fell ajar, and a pungency of schnapps
+and tobacco went into his nostrils. His resolution, if he had one,
+vanished. He ordered one glass of schnapps; friends came in and treated
+him to another; he was bound to do as much for them; shilling by shilling
+the goose money passed into the till of the landlord. Nicholas was heard
+to make a muttered assertion that it was his own money anyhow, and that
+while he lived he would be the head of his own house; then the mutterings
+grew faint and merged into snores. When he awoke it was at the low sound
+of voices in the next room, and drowsily turning his head he saw there
+two strangers,--sailors, he thought, from their leather jackets, black
+beards, and the rings in their ears. What was that they said? Gold? On
+the marshes? At the old Flatlands tide-mill? The talkers had gone before
+his slow and foggy brain could grasp it all, but when the idea had fairly
+eaten its way into his intellect, he arose with the nearest approach to
+alacrity that he had exhibited in years, and left the place. He crunched
+back to his home, and seeing nobody astir went softly into his shed,
+where he secured a shovel and lantern, and thence continued with all
+consistent speed to the tumbledown tide-mill on the marsh,--a trying
+journey for his fat legs on a sharp night, but hope and schnapps impelled
+him.
+
+He reached the mill, and, hastening to the cellar, began to probe in the
+soft, unfrozen earth. Presently his spade struck something, and he dug
+and dug until he had uncovered the top of a canvas bag,--the sort that
+sailors call a "round stern-chest." It took all his strength to lug it
+out, and as he did so a seam burst, letting a shower of gold pieces over
+the ground. He loosed the band of his breeches, and was filling the legs
+thereof with coin, when a tread of feet sounded overhead and four men
+came down the stair. Two of them he recognized as the fellows of the
+tavern. They saw the bag, the lantern, then Nicholas. Laden though he was
+with gold until he could hardly budge, these pirates, for such they were,
+got him up-stairs, forced him to drink hot Hollands to the success of
+their flag, then shot him through the window into the creek. As he was
+about to make this unceremonious exit he clutched something to save
+himself, and it proved to be a plucked goose that the pirates had stolen
+from a neighboring farm and were going to sup on when they had scraped
+their gold together. He felt the water and mud close over him; he
+struggled desperately; he was conscious of breathing more freely and of
+staggering off at a vigorous gait; then the power of all the schnapps
+seemed to get into his head, and he remembered no more until he heard his
+wife shrilling in his ears, when he sat up and found himself in a
+snow-bank close to his house, with a featherless goose tight in his
+grasp.
+
+Vrouw Van Wempel cared less about the state of her spouse when she saw
+that he had secured the bird, and whenever he told his tale of the
+pirates she turned a deaf ear to him, for if he had found the gold why
+did he not manage to bring home a few pieces of it? He, in answer, asked
+how, as he had none of his own money, she could have come by the goose?
+He often told his tale to sympathetic ears, and would point to the old
+mill to prove that it was true.
+
+
+
+
+THE WEARY WATCHER
+
+Before the opening of the great bridge sent commerce rattling up
+Washington Street in Brooklyn that thoroughfare was a shaded and
+beautiful avenue, and among the houses that attested its respectability
+was one, between Tillary and Concord Streets, that was long declared to
+be haunted. A man and his wife dwelt there who seemed to be fondly
+attached to each other, and whose love should have been the stronger
+because of their three children none grew to years. A mutual sorrow is as
+close a tie as a common affection. One day, while on a visit to a friend,
+the wife saw her husband drive by in a carriage with a showy woman beside
+him. She went home at once, and when the supposed recreant returned she
+met him with bitter reproaches. He answered never a word, but took his
+hat and left the house, never to be seen again in the places that had
+known him.
+
+The wife watched and waited, daily looking for his return, but days
+lengthened into weeks, months, years, and still he came not. Sometimes
+she lamented that she had spoken hastily and harshly, thinking that, had
+she known all, she might have found him blameless. There was no family to
+look after, no wholesome occupation that she sought, so the days went by
+in listening and watching, until, at last, her body and mind gave way,
+and the familiar sight of her face, watching from a second floor window,
+was seen no longer. Her last day came. She had risen from her bed; life
+and mind seemed for a moment to be restored to her; and standing where
+she had stood so often, her form supported by a half-closed shutter and a
+grasp on the sash, she looked into the street once more, sighed
+hopelessly, and so died. It was her shade that long watched at the
+windows; it was her waxen face, heavy with fatigue and pain, that was
+dimly seen looking over the balusters in the evening.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIVAL FIDDLERS
+
+Before Brooklyn had spread itself beyond Greenwood Cemetery a stone could
+be seen in Martense's Lane, south of that burial-ground, that bore a hoof
+mark. A negro named Joost, in the service of the Van Der
+Something-or-others, was plodding home on Saturday night, his fiddle
+under his arm. He had been playing for a wedding in Flatbush and had been
+drinking schnapps until he saw stars on the ground and fences in the sky;
+in fact, the universe seemed so out of order that he seated himself
+rather heavily on this rock to think about it. The behavior of the stars
+in swimming and rolling struck him as especially curious, and he
+conceived the notion that they wanted to dance. Putting his fiddle to his
+chin, he began a wild jig, and though he made it up as he went along, he
+was conscious of doing finely, when the boom of a bell sent a shiver down
+his spine. It was twelve o'clock, and here he was playing a dance tune on
+Sunday. However, the sin of playing for one second on the Sabbath was as
+great as that of playing all day; so, as long as he was in for it, he
+resolved to carry the tune to the end, and he fiddled away with a
+reckless vehemence. Presently he became aware that the music was both
+wilder and sweeter than before, and that there was more of it. Not until
+then did he observe that a tall, thin stranger stood beside him; and that
+he was fiddling too,--composing a second to Joost's air, as if he could
+read his thought before he put it into execution on the strings. Joost
+paused, and the stranger did likewise.
+
+"Where de debble did you come frum?" asked the first. The other smiled.
+
+"And how did you come to know dat music?" Joost pursued.
+
+"Oh, I've known that tune for years," was the reply. "It's called 'The
+Devil's joy at Sabbath Breaking.'"
+
+"You're a liar!" cried the negro. The stranger bowed and burst into a
+roar of laughter. "A liar!" repeated Joost,--"for I made up dat music dis
+very minute."
+
+"Yet you notice that I could follow when you played."
+
+"Humph! Yes, you can follow."
+
+"And I can lead, too. Do you know the tune 'Go to the Devil and Shake
+Yourself?'"
+
+"Yes; but I play second to nobody."
+
+"Very well, I'll beat you at any air you try."
+
+"Done!" said Joost. And then began a contest that lasted until daybreak.
+The stranger was an expert, but Joost seemed to be inspired, and just as
+the sun appeared he sounded, in broad and solemn harmonies, the hymn of
+Von Catts:
+
+"Now behold, at dawn of day, Pious Dutchmen sing and pray."
+
+At that the stranger exclaimed, "Well, that beats the devil!" and
+striking his foot angrily on the rock, disappeared in a flash of fire
+like a burst bomb. Joost was hurled twenty feet by the explosion, and lay
+on the ground insensible until a herdsman found him some hours later. As
+he suffered no harm from the contest and became a better fiddler than
+ever, it is supposed that the recording angel did not inscribe his feat
+of Sabbath breaking against him in large letters. There were a few who
+doubted his story, but they had nothing more to say when he showed them
+the hoof-mark on the rock. Moreover, there are fewer fiddlers among the
+negroes than there used to be, because they say that the violin is the
+devil's instrument.
+
+
+
+
+WYANDANK
+
+From Brooklyn Heights, or Ihpetonga, "highplace of trees," where the
+Canarsie Indians made wampum or sewant, and where they contemplated the
+Great Spirit in the setting of the sun across the meeting waters, to
+Montauk Point, Long Island has been swept by the wars of red men, and
+many are the tokens of their occupancy. A number of their graves were to
+be seen until within fifty years, as clearly marked as when the warriors
+were laid there in the hope of resurrection among the happy hunting
+grounds that lay to the west and south. The casting of stones on the
+death-spots or graves of some revered or beloved Indians was long
+continued, and was undoubtedly for the purpose of raising monuments to
+them, though at Monument Mountain, Massachusetts, Sacrifice Rock, between
+Plymouth and Sandwich, Massachusetts, and some other places the cairns
+merely mark a trail. Even the temporary resting-place of Sachem
+Poggatacut, near Sag Harbor, was kept clear of weeds and leaves by
+Indians who passed it in the two centuries that lapsed between the death
+of the chief and the laying of the road across it in 1846. This spot is
+not far from Whooping Boy's Hollow, so named because of a boy who was
+killed by Indians, and because the rubbing of two trees there in a storm
+gave forth a noise like crying. An older legend has it that this noise is
+the angry voice of the magician who tried to slay Wyandank, the
+"Washington of the Montauks," who is buried on the east end of the
+island. Often he led his men into battle, sounding the warwhoop, copied
+from the scream of the eagle, so loudly that those who heard it said that
+the Montauks were crying for prey.
+
+It was while killing an eagle on Block Island, that he might use the
+plumes for his hair, that this chief disclosed himself to the hostiles
+and brought on a fight in which every participant except himself was
+slain. He was secretly followed back to Long Island by a magician who had
+hopes of enlisting the evil ones of that region against him,--the giants
+that left their tracks in "Blood-stone Rock" and "Printed Rock," near
+Napeague, and such renegades as he who, having betrayed his people, was
+swallowed by the earth, his last agony being marked by a stamp of the
+foot that left its print on a slab near the Indian burial-ground at
+Kongonok. Failing in these alliances the wizard hid among the hollows of
+the moors, and there worked spells of such malice that the chief's hand
+lost steadiness in the hunt and his voice was seldom heard in council.
+When the haunt of this evil one was made known, a number of young men
+undertook to trap him. They went to the hills by night, and moved
+stealthily through the shrubbery until they were almost upon him; but his
+familiars had warned him of their approach, though they had wakened him
+only to betray him for a cloud swept in from the sea, fell about the
+wretch, burst into flame, and rolled back toward the ocean, bearing him
+in the centre of its burning folds. Because of the cry he uttered the
+place long bore the name of Whooping Hollow, and it used to be said that
+the magician visited the scene of his ill-doing every winter, when his
+shrieks could be heard ringing over the hills.
+
+
+
+
+MARK OF THE SPIRIT HAND
+
+Andover, New Jersey, was quaint and quiet in the days before the
+Revolution--it is not a roaring metropolis, even yet--and as it offered
+few social advantages there was more gathering in taprooms and more
+drinking of flip than there should have been. Among those who were not
+averse to a cheering cup were three boon companions, Bailey, Hill, and
+Evans, farmers of the neighborhood. They loved the tavern better than the
+church, and in truth the church folk did not love them well, for they
+were suspected of entertaining heresies of the most forbidden character.
+It was while they were discussing matters of belief over their glasses
+that one of them proposed, in a spirit of bravado, that whichever of the
+trio might be first to die should come back from the grave and reveal
+himself to the others--if he could--thus settling the question as to
+whether there was a future.
+
+Not long after this agreement--for consent was unanimous--Hill departed
+this life. His friends lamented his absence, especially at the tavern,
+but they anticipated no attempt on his part to express the distinguished
+consideration that he had felt for his old chums. Some weeks passed, yet
+there was no sign, and the two survivors of the party, as they jogged
+homeward to the house where both lived, had begun to think and speak less
+frequently of the absent one. But one night the household was alarmed by
+a terrible cry. Bailey got a light and hurried to the bedside of his
+friend, whom he found deathly white and holding his chest as if in pain.
+"He has been here!" gasped Evans. "He stood here just now."
+
+"Who?" asked Bailey, a creep passing down his spine.
+
+"Hill! He stood there, where you are now, and touched me with a hand that
+was so cold--cold--" and Evans shivered violently. On turning back the
+collar of his shirt the impression of a hand appeared on the flesh near
+the shoulder: a hand in white, with one finger missing. Hill had lost a
+finger. There was less of taverns after that night, for Evans carried the
+token of that ghostly visit on his person until he, too, had gone to
+solve the great secret.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST LIBERAL CHURCH
+
+In 1770 the brig Hand-in-Hand went ashore at Good Luck, New Jersey. Among
+the passengers on board the vessel, that it would perhaps be wrong to
+call ill fated, was John Murray, founder of Universalism in America. He
+had left England in despair, for his wife and children were dead, and so
+broken was he in his power of thought and purpose that he felt as if he
+should never preach again.
+
+In fact, his rescue from the wreck was passive, on his part, and he
+suffered himself to be carried ashore, recking little whether he reached
+it or no. After he had been for half an hour or so on the soil of the new
+country, to which he had made his entrance in so unexpected a manner, he
+began to feel hungry, and set off afoot along the desolate beach. He came
+to a cabin where an old man stood in a doorway with a basket of fish
+beside him. "Will you sell me a fish?" asked Murray.
+
+"No. The fish is all yours. I expected you."
+
+"You do not know me."
+
+"You are the man who is to tell us of God."
+
+"I will never preach of Him again."
+
+"I built that log church yonder. Don't say that you will not preach in
+it. Whenever a clergyman, Presbyterian, Methody, or Baptist, came here, I
+asked him to preach in my kitchen. I tried to get him to stay; but no--he
+always had work elsewhere. Last night I saw the brig driven on the bar,
+and a voice said to me, 'In that ship is the man who will teach of God.
+Not the old God of terrors, but one of love and mercy. He has come
+through great sorrow to do this work.' I have made ready for you. Do not
+go away."
+
+The minister felt a strange lifting in his heart. He fell on his knees
+before the little house and offered up a prayer. Long he staid in that
+place, preaching gentle doctrines and ministering to the men and women of
+that lonely village, and when the fisherman apostle, Thomas Potter, died
+he left the church to Murray, who, in turn, bequeathed it, "free, for the
+use of all Christian people."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby
+by Charles M. Skinner
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, v2
+#2 in our series by Charles M. Skinner
+
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+Title: Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land (The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby)
+
+Author: Charles M. Skinner
+
+Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6607]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS-LEGENDS, BY SKINNER, V2 ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
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+
+                           MYTHS AND LEGENDS
+                                   OF
+                              OUR OWN LAND
+
+                                   By
+                           Charles M. Skinner
+
+                                Vol. 2.
+
+
+                   THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+Dolph Heyliger
+The Knell at the Wedding
+Roistering Dirck Van Dara
+The Party from Gibbet Island
+Miss Britton's Poker
+The Devil's Stepping-Stones
+The Springs of Blood and Water
+The Crumbling Silver
+The Cortelyou Elopement
+Van Wempel's Goose
+The Weary Watcher
+The Rival Fiddlers
+Wyandank
+Mark of the Spirit Hand
+The First Liberal Church
+
+
+
+
+                    THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
+
+                              DOLPH HEYLIGER
+
+New York was New Amsterdam when Dolph Heyliger got himself born there,
+--a graceless scamp, though a brave, good-natured one, and being left
+penniless on his father's death he was fain to take service with a
+doctor, while his mother kept a shop.  This doctor had bought a farm on
+the island of Manhattoes--away out of town, where Twenty-third Street
+now runs, most likely--and, because of rumors that its tenants had
+noised about it, he seemed likely to enjoy the responsibilities of
+landholding and none of its profits.  It suited Dolph's adventurous
+disposition that he should be deputed to investigate the reason for
+these rumors, and for three nights he kept his abode in the desolate old
+manor, emerging after daybreak in a lax and pallid condition, but
+keeping his own counsel, to the aggravation of the populace, whose ears
+were burning for his news.
+
+Not until long after did he tell of the solemn tread that woke him in
+the small hours, of his door softly opening, though he had bolted and
+locked it, of a portly Fleming, with curly gray hair, reservoir boots,
+slouched hat, trunk and doublet, who entered and sat in the arm-chair,
+watching him until the cock crew.  Nor did he tell how on the third
+night he summoned courage, hugging a Bible and a catechism to his breast
+for confidence, to ask the meaning of the visit, and how the Fleming
+arose, and drawing Dolph after him with his eyes, led him downstairs,
+went through the front door without unbolting it, leaving that task for
+the trembling yet eager youth, and how, after he had proceeded to a
+disused well at the bottom of the garden, he vanished from sight.
+
+Dolph brooded long upon these things and dreamed of them in bed.  He
+alleged that it was in obedience to his dreams that he boarded a
+schooner bound up the Hudson, without the formality of adieu to his
+employer, and after being spilled ashore in a gale at the foot of Storm
+King, he fell into the company of Anthony Vander Hevden, a famous
+landholder and hunter, who achieved a fancy for Dolph as a lad who could
+shoot, fish, row, and swim, and took him home with him to Albany.  The
+Heer had commodious quarters, good liquor, and a pretty daughter, and
+Dolph felt himself in paradise until led to the room he was to occupy,
+for one of the first things that he set eyes on in that apartment was a
+portrait of the very person who had kept him awake for the worse part of
+three nights at the bowerie in Manhattoes.  He demanded to know whose
+picture it was, and learned that it was that of Killian Vander Spiegel,
+burgomaster and curmudgeon, who buried his money when the English seized
+New Amsterdam and fretted himself to death lest it should be discovered.
+He remembered that his mother had spoken of this Spiegel and that her
+father was the miser's rightful heir, and it now appeared that he was
+one of Heyden's forbears too.  In his dream that night the Fleming
+stepped out of the portrait, led him, as he had done before, to the
+well, where he smiled and vanished.  Dolph reflected, next morning, that
+these things had been ordered to bring together the two branches of the
+family and disclose the whereabouts of the treasure that it should
+inherit.  So full was he of this idea that he went back to New Amsterdam
+by the first schooner, to the surprise of the Heer and the regret of his
+daughter.
+
+After the truant had been received with execrations by the doctor and
+with delight by his mother, who believed that spooks had run off with
+him, and with astonishment, as a hero of romance, by the public, he made
+for the haunted premises at the first opportunity and began to angle at
+the disused well.  Presently he found his hook entangled in something at
+the bottom, and on lifting slowly he discovered that he had secured a
+fine silver porringer, with lid held down by twisted wire.  It was the
+work of a moment to wrench off the lid, when he found the vessel to be
+filled with golden pieces.  His fishing that day was attended with such
+luck as never fell to an angler before, for there were other pieces of
+plate down there, all engraved with the Spiegel arms and all containing
+treasure.
+
+By encouraging the most dreadful stories about the spot, in order to
+keep the people wide away from it, he accomplished the removal of his
+prizes bit by bit from their place of concealment to his home.  His
+unaccounted absence in Albany and his dealings with the dead had
+prepared his neighbors for any change in himself or his condition, and
+now that he always had a bottle of schnapps for the men and a pot of tea
+for the women, and was good to his mother, they said that they had
+always known that when he changed it would be for the better,--at which
+his old detractors lifted their eyebrows significantly--and when asked
+to dinner by him they always accepted.
+
+Moreover, they made merry when the day came round for his wedding with
+the little maid of Albany.  They likewise elected him a member of the
+corporation, to which he bequeathed some of the Spiegel plate and often
+helped the other city fathers to empty the big punch-bowl.  Indeed, it
+was at one of these corporation feasts that he died of apoplexy.  He was
+buried with honors in the yard of the Dutch church in Garden Street.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE KNELL AT THE WEDDING
+
+A young New Yorker had laid such siege to the heart of a certain belle--
+this was back in the Knickerbocker days when people married for love--
+that everybody said the banns were as good as published; but everybody
+did not know, for one fine morning my lady went to church with another
+gentleman--not her father, though old enough to be--and when the two
+came out they were man and wife.  The elderly man was rich.  After the
+first paroxysm of rage and disappointment had passed, the lover withdrew
+from the world and devoted himself to study; nor when he learned that
+she had become a widow, with comfortable belongings derived from the
+estate of the late lamented, did he renew acquaintance with her, and
+he smiled bitterly when he heard of her second marriage to a young
+adventurer who led her a wretched life, but atoned for his sins, in a
+measure, by dying soon enough afterward to leave a part of her fortune
+unspent.
+
+In the lapse of time the doubly widowed returned to New York, where
+she met again the lover of her youth.  Mr. Ellenwood had acquired the
+reserve of a scholar, and had often puzzled his friends with his
+eccentricities; but after a few meetings with the object of his young
+affection he came out of his glooms, and with respectful formality laid
+again at her feet the heart she had trampled on forty years before.
+Though both of them were well on in life, the news of their engagement
+made little of a sensation.  The widow was still fair; the wooer was
+quiet, refined, and courtly, and the union of their fortunes would
+assure a competence for the years that might be left to them.  The
+church of St. Paul, on Broadway, was appointed for the wedding, and it
+was a whim of the groom that his bride should meet him there.  At the
+appointed hour a company of the curious had assembled in the edifice;
+a rattle of wheels was heard, and a bevy of bridesmaids and friends in
+hoop, patch, velvet, silk, powder, swords, and buckles walked down the
+aisle; but just as the bride had come within the door, out of the
+sunlight that streamed so brilliantly on the mounded turf and tombstones
+in the churchyard, the bell in the steeple gave a single boom.
+
+The bride walked to the altar, and as she took her place before it
+another clang resounded from the belfry.  The bridegroom was not there.
+Again and again the brazen throat and iron tongue sent out a doleful
+knell, and faces grew pale and anxious, for the meaning of it could not
+be guessed.  With eyes fixed on the marble tomb of her first husband,
+the woman tremblingly awaited the solution of the mystery, until the
+door was darkened by something that made her catch her breath--
+a funeral.  The organ began a solemn dirge as a black-cloaked cortege
+came through the aisle, and it was with amazement that the bride
+discovered it to be formed of her oldest friends,--bent, withered;
+paired, man and woman, as in mockery--while behind, with white face,
+gleaming eyes, disordered hair, and halting step, came the bridegroom,
+in his shroud.
+
+"Come," he said,--let us be married.  The coffins are ready.  Then, home
+to the tomb."
+
+"Cruel!"  murmured the woman.
+
+"Now, Heaven judge which of us has been cruel.  Forty years ago you took
+away my faith, destroyed my hopes, and gave to others your youth and
+beauty.  Our lives have nearly run their course, so I am come to wed you
+as with funeral rites."  Then, in a softer manner, he took her hand, and
+said, "All is forgiven.  If we cannot live together we will at least be
+wedded in death.  Time is almost at its end.  We will marry for
+eternity.  Come."  And tenderly embracing her, he led her forward.  Hard
+as was the ordeal, confusing, frightening, humiliating, the bride came
+through it a better woman.
+
+"It is true," she said, "I have been vain and worldly, but now, in my
+age, the truest love I ever knew has come back to me.  It is a holy
+love.  I will cherish it forever."  Their eyes met, and they saw each
+other through tears.  Solemnly the clergyman read the marriage service,
+and when it was concluded the low threnody that had come from the organ
+in key with the measured clang of the bell, merged into a nobler motive,
+until at last the funeral measures were lost in a burst of exultant
+harmony.  Sobs of pent feeling and sighs of relief were heard as the
+bridal party moved away, and when the newmade wife and husband reached
+the portal the bell was silent and the sun was shining.
+
+
+
+
+                        ROISTERING DIRCK VAN DARA
+
+In the days when most of New York stood below Grand Street, a roistering
+fellow used to make the rounds of the taverns nightly, accompanied by a
+friend named Rooney.  This brave drinker was Dirck Van Dara, one of the
+last of those swag-bellied topers that made merry with such solemnity
+before the English seized their unoffending town.  It chanced that Dirck
+and his chum were out later than usual one night, and by eleven o'clock,
+when all good people were abed, a drizzle set in that drove the watch to
+sleep in doorways and left Broadway tenantless.  As the two choice
+spirits reeled out of a hostelry near Wall Street and saw the lights go
+out in the tap-room windows they started up town to their homes in
+Leonard Street, but hardly had they come abreast of old St. Paul's when
+a strange thing stayed them: crying was heard in the churchyard and a
+phosphorescent light shone among the tombs.  Rooney was sober in a
+moment, but not so Dirck Van Dara, who shouted, "Here is sport, friend
+Rooney.  Let's climb the wall.  If the dead are for a dance, we will
+take partners and show them how pigeons' wings are cut nowadays."
+
+"No," exclaimed the other; "those must perish who go among the dead
+when they come out of their graves.  I've heard that if you get into
+their clutches, you must stay in purgatory for a hundred years, and no
+priest can pray you out."
+
+"Bah! old wives' tales!  Come on!"  And pulling his friend with him,
+they were over the fence.  "Hello! what have we here?"  As he spoke a
+haggard thing arose from behind a tombstone, a witchlike creature, with
+rags falling about her wasted form and hair that almost hid her face.
+The twain were set a-sneezing by the fumes of sulphur, and Rooney swore
+afterwards that there were little things at the end of the yard with
+grinning faces and lights on the ends of their tails.  Old Hollands are
+heady.  Dirck began to chaff the beldam on her dilapidation, but she
+stopped his talk by dipping something from a caldron behind her and
+flinging it over both of her visitors.  Whatever it was, it burned
+outrageously, and with a yell of pain they leaped the wall more briskly
+than they had jumped it the other way, and were soon in full flight.
+They had not gone far when the clock struck twelve.
+
+"Arrah!  there's a crowd of them coming after," panted Rooney.  "Ave
+Mary!  I've heard that if you die with witch broth being thrown over
+you, you're done for in the next world, as well as this.  Let us get to
+Father Donagan's.  Wow!"
+
+As he made this exclamation the fugitives found their way opposed by a
+woman, who looked at them with immodest eyes and said, "Dirck Van Dara,
+your sire, in wig and bob, turned us Cyprians out of New York, after
+ducking us in the Collect.  But we forgive him, and to prove it we ask
+you to our festival."
+
+At the stroke of midnight the street before the church had swarmed with
+a motley throng, that now came onward, waving torches that sparkled like
+stars.  They formed a ring about Dirck and began to dance, and he,
+nothing loth, seized the nymph who had addressed him and joined in the
+revel.  Not a soul was out or awake except themselves, and no words were
+said as the dance went wilder to strains of weird and unseen
+instruments.  Now and then one would apply a torch to the person of
+Dirck, meanly assailing him in the rear, and the smart of the burn made
+him feet it the livelier.  At last they turned toward the Battery as by
+common consent, and went careering along the street in frolic fashion.
+Rooney, whose senses had thus far been pent in a stupor, fled with a
+yell of terror, and as he looked back he saw the unholy troop
+disappearing in the mist like a moving galaxy.  Never from that night
+was Dirck Van Data seen or heard of more, and the publicans felt that
+they had less reason for living.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE PARTY FROM GIBBET ISLAND
+
+Ellis Island, in New York harbor, once bore the name of Gibbet Island,
+because pirates and mutineers were hanged there in chains.  During the
+times when it was devoted to this fell purpose there stood in Communipaw
+the Wild Goose tavern, where Dutch burghers resorted, to smoke, drink
+Hollands, and grow fat, wise, and sleepy in each others' compaay.  The
+plague of this inn was Yan Yost Vanderscamp, a nephew of the landlord,
+who frequently alarmed the patrons of the house by putting powder into
+their pipes and attaching briers beneath their horses' tails, and who
+naturally turned pirate when he became older, taking with him to sea his
+boon companion, an ill-disposed, ill-favored blackamoor named Pluto, who
+had been employed about the tavern.  When the landlord died, Vanderscamp
+possessed himself of this property, fitted it up with plunder, and at
+intervals he had his gang ashore,--such a crew of singing, swearing,
+drinking, gaming devils as Communipaw had never seen the like of; yet
+the residents could not summon activity enough to stop the goings-on
+that made the Wild Goose a disgrace to their village.  The British
+authorities, however, caught three of the swashbucklers and strung them
+up on Gibbet Island, and things that went on badly in Communipaw after
+that went on with quiet and secrecy.
+
+The pirate and his henchmen were returning to the tavern one night,
+after a visit to a rakish-looking vessel in the offing, when a squall
+broke in such force as to give their skiff a leeway to the place of
+executions.  As they rounded that lonely reef a creaking noise overhead
+caused Vanderscamp to look up, and he could not repress a shudder as he
+saw the bodies of his three messmates, their rags fluttering and their
+chains grinding in the wind.
+
+"Don't you want to see your friends?"  sneered Pluto.  "You, who are
+never afraid of living men, what do you fear from the dead?"
+
+"Nothing," answered the pirate.  Then, lugging forth his bottle, he took
+a long pull at it, and holding it toward the dead felons, he shouted,
+"Here's fair weather to you, my lads in the wind, and if you should be
+walking the rounds to-night, come in to supper."
+
+A clatter of bones and a creak of chains sounded like a laugh.  It was
+midnight when the boat pulled in at Communipaw, and as the storm
+continued Vanderscamp, drenched to the skin, made quick time to the Wild
+Goose.  As he entered, a sound of revelry overhead smote his ear, and,
+being no less astonished than in need of cordials, he hastened up-stairs
+and flung open the door.  A table stood there, furnished with jugs and
+pipes and cans, and by light of candles that burned as blue as brimstone
+could be seen the three gallows-birds from Gibbet Island, with halters
+on their necks, clinking their tankards together and trolling forth a
+drinking-song.
+
+Starting back with affright as the corpses hailed him with lifted arms
+and turned their fishy eyes on him, Vanderscamp slipped at the door and
+fell headlong to the bottom of the stairs.  Next morning he was found
+there by the neighbors, dead to a certainty, and was put away in the
+Dutch churchyard at Bergen on the Sunday following.  As the house was
+rifled and deserted by its occupants, it was hinted that the negro had
+betrayed his master to his fellow-buccaneers, and that he, Pluto, was no
+other than the devil in disguise.  But he was not, for his skiff was
+seen floating bottom up in the bay soon after, and his drowned body
+lodged among the rocks at the foot of the pirates' gallows.
+
+For a long time afterwards the island was regarded as a place that
+required purging with bell, book, and candle, for shadows were reported
+there and faint lights that shot into the air, and to this day, with the
+great immigrant station on it and crowds going and coming all the time,
+the Battery boatmen prefer not to row around it at night, for they are
+likely to see the shades of the soldier and his mistress who were
+drowned off the place one windy night, when the girl was aiding the
+fellow to escape confinement in the guard-house, to say nothing of
+Vanderscamp and his felons.
+
+
+
+
+                           MISS BRITTON'S POKER
+
+The maids of Staten Island wrought havoc among the royal troops who were
+quartered among them during the Revolution.  Near quarantine, in an old
+house,--the Austen mansion,--a soldier of King George hanged himself
+because a Yankee maid who lived there would not have him for a husband,
+nor any gentleman whose coat was of his color; and, until ghosts went
+out of fashion, his spirit, in somewhat heavy boots, with jingling
+spurs, often disturbed the nightly quiet of the place.
+
+The conduct of a damsel in the old town of Richmond was even more stern.
+She was the granddaughter, and a pretty one, of a farmer named Britton;
+but though Britton by descent and name, she was no friend of Britons,
+albeit she might have had half the officers in the neighboring camp at
+her feet, if she had wished them there.  Once, while mulling a cup of
+cider for her grandfather, she was interrupted by a self-invited
+myrmidon, who undertook, in a fashion rude and unexpected, to show the
+love in which he held her.  Before he could kiss her, the girl drew the
+hot poker from the mug of drink and jabbed at the vitals of her amorous
+foe, burning a hole through his scarlet uniform and printing on his
+burly person a lasting memento of the adventure.  With a howl of pain
+the fellow rushed away, and the privacy of the Britton family was never
+again invaded, at least whilst cider was being mulled.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE DEVIL'S STEPPING-STONES
+
+When the devil set a claim to the fair lands at the north of Long Island
+Sound, his claim was disputed by the Indians, who prepared to fight for
+their homes should he attempt to serve his writ of ejectment.  Parley
+resulted in nothing, so the bad one tried force, but he was routed in
+open fight and found it desirable to get away from the scene of action
+as soon as possible.  He retreated across the Sound near the head of
+East River.  The tide was out, so he stepped from island to island,
+without trouble, and those reefs and islands are to this day the Devil's
+Stepping-Stones.  On reaching Throgg's Neck he sat down in a despairing
+attitude and brooded on his defeat, until, roused to a frenzy at the
+thought of it, he resolved to renew the war on terms advantageous
+entirely to himself.  In that day Connecticut was free from rocks, but
+Long Island was covered with them; so he gathered all he could lay his
+hands on and tossed them at the Indians that he could see across the
+Sound near Cold Spring until the supply had given out.  The red men who
+last inhabited Connecticut used to show white men where the missiles
+landed and where the devil struck his heel into the ground as he sprang
+from the shore in his haste to reach Long Island.  At Cold Spring other
+footprints and one of his toes are shown.  Establishing himself at
+Coram, he troubled the people of the country for many years, so that
+between the devil on the west and the Montauks on the east they were
+plagued indeed; for though their guard at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and
+other places often apprised them of the coming of the Montauks, they
+never knew which way to look for the devil.
+
+
+
+
+                      THE SPRINGS OF BLOOD AND WATER
+
+A great drought had fallen on Long Island, and the red men prayed for
+water.  It is true that they could get it at Lake Ronkonkoma, but some
+of them were many miles from there, and, beside, they feared the spirits
+at that place: the girl who plied its waters in a phosphor-shining
+birch, seeking her recreant lover; and the powerful guardians that the
+Great Spirit had put in charge to keep the fish from being caught, for
+these fish were the souls of men, awaiting deliverance into another
+form.  The people gathered about their villages in bands and besought
+the Great Spirit to give them drink.  His voice was heard at last,
+bidding their chief to shoot an arrow into the air and to watch where it
+fell, for there would water gush out.  The chief obeyed the deity, and
+as the arrow touched the earth a spring of sweet water spouted into the
+air.  Running forward with glad cries the red men drank eagerly of the
+liquor, laved their faces in it, and were made strong again; and in
+memory of that event they called the place the Hill of God, or Manitou
+Hill, and Manet or Manetta Hill it is to this day.  Hereabouts the
+Indians settled and lived in peace, thriving under the smile of their
+deity, making wampum for the inland tribes and waxing rich with gains
+from it.  They made the canal from bay to sea at Canoe Place, that they
+might reach open water without dragging their boats across the sand-
+bars, and in other ways they proved themselves ingenious and strong.
+
+When the English landed on the island they saw that the Indians were not
+a people to be trifled with, and in order to properly impress them with
+their superiority, they told them that John Bull desired a treaty with
+them.  The officers got them to sit in line in front of a cannon, the
+nature of which instrument was unknown to them, and during the talk the
+gun was fired, mowing down so many of the red people that the survivors
+took to flight, leaving the English masters at the north shore, for this
+heartless and needless massacre took place at Whale's Neck.  So angry
+was the Great Spirit at this act of cruelty and treachery that he caused
+blood to ooze from the soil, as he had made water leap for his thirsting
+children, and never again would grass grow on the spot where the murder
+had been done.
+
+
+
+
+                           THE CRUMBLING SILVER
+
+There is a clay bank on Little Neck, Long Island, where metallic nodules
+are now and then exposed by rain.  Rustics declare them to be silver,
+and account for their crumbling on the theory that the metal is under a
+curse.  A century ago the Montauks mined it, digging over enough soil to
+unearth these pellets now and again, and exchanging them at the nearest
+settlements for tobacco and rum.  The seeming abundance of these lumps
+of silver aroused the cupidity of one Gardiner, a dweller in the central
+wilderness of the island, but none of the Indians would reveal the
+source of their treasure.  One day Gardiner succeeded in getting an old
+chief so tipsy that, without realizing what he was doing, he led the
+white man to the clay bed and showed him the metallic spots glittering
+in the sun.  With a cry of delight Gardiner sprang forward and tore at
+the earth with his fingers, while the Indian stood by laughing at his
+eagerness.
+
+Presently a shade crosssed the white man's face, for he thought that
+this vast treasure would have to be shared by others.  It was too much
+to endure.  He wanted all.  He would be the richest man on earth.
+Stealing behind the Indian as he stood swaying and chuckling, he
+wrenched the hatchet from his belt and clove his skull at a blow.  Then,
+dragging the body to a thicket and hiding it under stones and leaves, he
+hurried to his house for cart and pick and shovel, and returning with
+speed he dug out a half ton of the silver before sunset.  The cart was
+loaded, and he set homeward, trembling with excitement and conjuring
+bright visions for his future, when a wailing sound from a thicket made
+him halt and turn pale.  Noiselessly a figure glided from the bush.  It
+was the Indian he had killed.  The form approached the treasure, flung
+up its arm, uttered a few guttural words; then a rising wind seemed to
+lift it from the ground and it drifted toward the Sound, fading like a
+cloud as it receded.
+
+Full of misgiving, Gardiner drove to his home, and, by light of a
+lantern, transferred his treasure to his cellar.  Was it the dulness of
+the candle that made the metal look so black?  After a night of feverish
+tossing on his bed he arose and went to the cellar to gloat upon his
+wealth.  The light of dawn fell on a heap of gray dust, a few brassy
+looking particles showing here and there.  The curse of the ghost had
+been of power and the silver was silver no more.  Mineralogists say that
+the nodules are iron pyrites.  Perhaps so; but old residents know that
+they used to be silver.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE CORTELYOU ELOPEMENT
+
+In the Bath district of Brooklyn stands Cortelyou manor, built one
+hundred and fifty years ago, and a place of defence during the
+Revolution when the British made sallies from their camp in Flatbush
+and worried the neighborhood.  It was in one of these forays on pigs and
+chickens that a gallant officer of red-coats met a pretty lass in the
+fields of Cortelyou.  He stilled her alarm by aiding her to gather wild-
+flowers, and it came about that the girl often went into the fields and
+came back with prodigious bouquets of daisies.  The elder Cortelyou had
+no inkling of this adventure until one of his sons saw her tryst with
+the red-coat at a distance.  Be sure the whole family joined him in
+remonstrance.  As the girl declared that she would not forego the
+meetings with her lover, the father swore that she should never leave
+his roof again, and he tried to be as good, or bad, as his word.  The
+damsel took her imprisonment as any girl of spirit would, but was unable
+to effect her escape until one evening, as she sat at her window,
+watching the moon go down and paint the harbor with a path of light.
+A tap at the pane, as of a pebble thrown against it, roused her from
+her revery.  It was her lover on the lawn.
+
+At her eager signal he ran forward with a light ladder, planted it
+against the window-sill, and in less than a minute the twain were
+running toward the beach; but the creak of the ladder had been heard,
+and grasping their muskets two of the men hurried out.  In the track of
+the moon the pursuers descried a moving form, and, without waiting to
+challenge, they levelled the guns and fired.  A woman's cry followed the
+report; then a dip of oars was heard that fast grew fainter until it
+faded from hearing.  On returning to the house they found the girl's
+room empty, and next morning her slipper was brought in from the mud at
+the landing.  Nobody inside of the American lines ever learned what that
+shot had done, but if it failed to take a life it robbed Cortelyou of
+his mind.  He spent the rest of his days in a single room, chained to a
+staple in the floor, tramping around and around, muttering and
+gesturing, and sometimes startling the passer-by as he showed his white
+face and ragged beard at the window.
+
+
+
+
+                            VAN WEMPEL'S GOOSE
+
+Allow us to introduce Nicholas Van Wempel, of Flatbush: fat, phlegmatic,
+rich, and henpecked.  He would like to be drunk because he is henpecked,
+but the wife holds the purse-strings and only doles out money to him
+when she wants groceries or he needs clothes.  It was New Year's eve,
+the eve of 1739, when Vrouw Van Wempel gave to her lord ten English
+shillings and bade him hasten to Dr. Beck's for the fat goose that had
+been bespoken.  "And mind you do not stop at the tavern," she screamed
+after him in her shrillest tone.  But poor Nicholas!  As he went
+waddling down the road, snapping through an ice-crust at every step, a
+roguish wind--or perhaps it was one of the bugaboos that were known to
+haunt the shores of Gravesend Bay--snatched off his hat and rolled it
+into the very doorway of the tavern that he had been warned, under
+terrible penalties, to avoid.
+
+As he bent to pick it up the door fell ajar, and a pungency of schnapps
+and tobacco went into his nostrils.  His resolution, if he had one,
+vanished.  He ordered one glass of schnapps; friends came in and treated
+him to another; he was bound to do as much for them; shilling by
+shilling the goose money passed into the till of the landlord.  Nicholas
+was heard to make a muttered assertion that it was his own money anyhow,
+and that while he lived he would be the head of his own house; then the
+mutterings grew faint and merged into snores.  When he awoke it was at
+the low sound of voices in the next room, and drowsily turning his head
+he saw there two strangers,--sailors, he thought, from their leather
+jackets, black beards, and the rings in their ears.  What was that they
+said?  Gold?  On the marshes?  At the old Flatlands tide-mill?  The
+talkers had gone before his slow and foggy brain could grasp it all, but
+when the idea had fairly eaten its way into his intellect, he arose with
+the nearest approach to alacrity that he had exhibited in years, and
+left the place.  He crunched back to his home, and seeing nobody astir
+went softly into his shed, where he secured a shovel and lantern, and
+thence continued with all consistent speed to the tumbledown tide-mill
+on the marsh,--a trying journey for his fat legs on a sharp night, but
+hope and schnapps impelled him.
+
+He reached the mill, and, hastening to the cellar, began to probe in the
+soft, unfrozen earth.  Presently his spade struck something, and he dug
+and dug until he had uncovered the top of a canvas bag,--the sort that
+sailors call a "round stern-chest."  It took all his strength to lug it
+out, and as he did so a seam burst, letting a shower of gold pieces over
+the ground.  He loosed the band of his breeches, and was filling the
+legs thereof with coin, when a tread of feet sounded overhead and four
+men came down the stair.  Two of them he recognized as the fellows of
+the tavern.  They saw the bag, the lantern, then Nicholas.  Laden though
+he was with gold until he could hardly budge, these pirates, for such
+they were, got him up-stairs, forced him to drink hot Hollands to the
+success of their flag, then shot him through the window into the creek.
+As he was about to make this unceremonious exit he clutched something to
+save himself, and it proved to be a plucked goose that the pirates had
+stolen from a neighboring farm and were going to sup on when they had
+scraped their gold together.  He felt the water and mud close over him;
+he struggled desperately; he was conscious of breathing more freely and
+of staggering off at a vigorous gait; then the power of all the schnapps
+seemed to get into his head, and he remembered no more until he heard
+his wife shrilling in his ears, when he sat up and found himself in a
+snow-bank close to his house, with a featherless goose tight in his
+grasp.
+
+Vrouw Van Wempel cared less about the state of her spouse when she saw
+that he had secured the bird, and whenever he told his tale of the
+pirates she turned a deaf ear to him, for if he had found the gold why
+did he not manage to bring home a few pieces of it?  He, in answer,
+asked how, as he had none of his own money, she could have come by the
+goose?  He often told his tale to sympathetic ears, and would point to
+the old mill to prove that it was true.
+
+
+
+
+                            THE WEARY WATCHER
+
+Before the opening of the great bridge sent commerce rattling up
+Washington Street in Brooklyn that thoroughfare was a shaded and
+beautiful avenue, and among the houses that attested its respectability
+was one, between Tillary and Concord Streets, that was long declared to
+be haunted.  A man and his wife dwelt there who seemed to be fondly
+attached to each other, and whose love should have been the stronger
+because of their three children none grew to years.  A mutual sorrow is
+as close a tie as a common affection.  One day, while on a visit to a
+friend, the wife saw her husband drive by in a carriage with a showy
+woman beside him.  She went home at once, and when the supposed recreant
+returned she met him with bitter reproaches.  He answered never a word,
+but took his hat and left the house, never to be seen again in the
+places that had known him.
+
+The wife watched and waited, daily looking for his return, but days
+lengthened into weeks, months, years, and still he came not.  Sometimes
+she lamented that she had spoken hastily and harshly, thinking that, had
+she known all, she might have found him blameless.  There was no family
+to look after, no wholesome occupation that she sought, so the days went
+by in listening and watching, until, at last, her body and mind gave
+way, and the familiar sight of her face, watching from a second floor
+window, was seen no longer.  Her last day came.  She had risen from her
+bed; life and mind seemed for a moment to be restored to her; and
+standing where she had stood so often, her form supported by a half-
+closed shutter and a grasp on the sash, she looked into the street once
+more, sighed hopelessly, and so died.  It was her shade that long
+watched at the windows; it was her waxen face, heavy with fatigue and
+pain, that was dimly seen looking over the balusters in the evening.
+
+
+
+
+                            THE RIVAL FIDDLERS
+
+Before Brooklyn had spread itself beyond Greenwood Cemetery a stone
+could be seen in Martense's Lane, south of that burial-ground, that bore
+a hoof mark.  A negro named Joost, in the service of the Van Der
+Something-or-others, was plodding home on Saturday night, his fiddle
+under his arm.  He had been playing for a wedding in Flatbush and had
+been drinking schnapps until he saw stars on the ground and fences in
+the sky; in fact, the universe seemed so out of order that he seated
+himself rather heavily on this rock to think about it.  The behavior of
+the stars in swimming and rolling struck him as especially curious, and
+he conceived the notion that they wanted to dance.  Putting his fiddle
+to his chin, he began a wild jig, and though he made it up as he went
+along, he was conscious of doing finely, when the boom of a bell sent a
+shiver down his spine.  It was twelve o'clock, and here he was playing a
+dance tune on Sunday.  However, the sin of playing for one second on the
+Sabbath was as great as that of playing all day; so, as long as he was
+in for it, he resolved to carry the tune to the end, and he fiddled away
+with a reckless vehemence.  Presently he became aware that the music was
+both wilder and sweeter than before, and that there was more of it.  Not
+until then did he observe that a tall, thin stranger stood beside him;
+and that he was fiddling too,--composing a second to Joost's air, as if
+he could read his thought before he put it into execution on the
+strings.  Joost paused, and the stranger did likewise.
+
+"Where de debble did you come frum?"  asked the first.  The other
+smiled.
+
+"And how did you come to know dat music?"  Joost pursued.
+
+"Oh, I've known that tune for years," was the reply.  "It's called 'The
+Devil's joy at Sabbath Breaking.'"
+
+"You're a liar!"  cried the negro.  The stranger bowed and burst into a
+roar of laughter.  "A liar!"  repeated Joost,--for I made up dat music
+dis very minute."
+
+"Yet you notice that I could follow when you played."
+
+"Humph!  Yes, you can follow."
+
+"And I can lead, too.  Do you know the tune Go to the Devil and Shake
+Yourself?'"
+
+"Yes; but I play second to nobody."
+
+"Very well, I'll beat you at any air you try."
+
+"Done!"  said Joost.  And then began a contest that lasted until
+daybreak.  The stranger was an expert, but Joost seemed to be inspired,
+and just as the sun appeared he sounded, in broad and solemn harmonies,
+the hymn of Von Catts:
+
+                   "Now behold, at dawn of day,
+                    Pious Dutchmen sing and pray."
+
+At that the stranger exclaimed, "Well, that beats the devil!"  and
+striking his foot angrily on the rock, disappeared in a flash of fire
+like a burst bomb.  Joost was hurled twenty feet by the explosion, and
+lay on the ground insensible until a herdsman found him some hours
+later.  As he suffered no harm from the contest and became a better
+fiddler than ever, it is supposed that the recording angel did not
+inscribe his feat of Sabbath breaking against him in large letters.
+There were a few who doubted his story, but they had nothing more to say
+when he showed them the hoof-mark on the rock.  Moreover, there are
+fewer fiddlers among the negroes than there used to be, because they say
+that the violin is the devil's instrument.
+
+
+
+
+                                 WYANDANK
+
+From Brooklyn Heights, or Ihpetonga, "highplace of trees," where the
+Canarsie Indians made wampum or sewant, and where they contemplated the
+Great Spirit in the setting of the sun across the meeting waters, to
+Montauk Point, Long Island has been swept by the wars of red men, and
+many are the tokens of their occupancy.  A number of their graves were
+to be seen until within fifty years, as clearly marked as when the
+warriors were laid there in the hope of resurrection among the happy
+hunting grounds that lay to the west and south.  The casting of stones
+on the death-spots or graves of some revered or beloved Indians was long
+continued, and was undoubtedly for the purpose of raising monuments to
+them, though at Monument Mountain, Massachusetts, Sacrifice Rock,
+between Plymouth and Sandwich, Massachusetts, and some other places the
+cairns merely mark a trail.  Even the temporary resting-place of Sachem
+Poggatacut, near Sag Harbor, was kept clear of weeds and leaves by
+Indians who passed it in the two centuries that lapsed between the death
+of the chief and the laying of the road across it in 1846.  This spot is
+not far from Whooping Boy's Hollow, so named because of a boy who was
+killed by Indians, and because the rubbing of two trees there in a storm
+gave forth a noise like crying.  An older legend has it that this noise
+is the angry voice of the magician who tried to slay Wyandank, the
+"Washington of the Montauks," who is buried on the east end of the
+island.  Often he led his men into battle, sounding the warwhoop, copied
+from the scream of the eagle, so loudly that those who heard it said
+that the Montauks were crying for prey.
+
+It was while killing an eagle on Block Island, that he might use the
+plumes for his hair, that this chief disclosed himself to the hostiles
+and brought on a fight in which every participant except himself was
+slain.  He was secretly followed back to Long Island by a magician who
+had hopes of enlisting the evil ones of that region against him,--the
+giants that left their tracks in "Blood-stone Rock" and "Printed Rock,"
+near Napeague, and such renegades as he who, having betrayed his people,
+was swallowed by the earth, his last agony being marked by a stamp of
+the foot that left its print on a slab near the Indian burial-ground at
+Kongonok.  Failing in these alliances the wizard hid among the hollows
+of the moors, and there worked spells of such malice that the chief's
+hand lost steadiness in the hunt and his voice was seldom heard in
+council.  When the haunt of this evil one was made known, a number of
+young men undertook to trap him.  They went to the hills by night, and
+moved stealthily through the shrubbery until they were almost upon him;
+but his familiars had warned him of their approach, though they had
+wakened him only to betray him for a cloud swept in from the sea, fell
+about the wretch, burst into flame, and rolled back toward the ocean,
+bearing him in the centre of its burning folds.  Because of the cry he
+uttered the place long bore the name of Whooping Hollow, and it used to
+be said that the magician visited the scene of his illdoing every
+winter, when his shrieks could be heard ringing over the hills.
+
+
+
+
+                         MARK OF THE SPIRIT HAND
+
+Andover, New Jersey, was quaint and quiet in the days before the
+Revolution--it is not a roaring metropolis, even yet--and as it offered
+few social advantages there was more gathering in taprooms and more
+drinking of flip than there should have been.  Among those who were not
+averse to a cheering cup were three boon companions, Bailey, Hill, and
+Evans, farmers of the neighborhood.  They loved the tavern better than
+the church, and in truth the church folk did not love them well, for
+they were suspected of entertaining heresies of the most forbidden
+character.  It was while they were discussing matters of belief over
+their glasses that one of them proposed, in a spirit of bravado, that
+whichever of the trio might be first to die should come back from the
+grave and reveal himself to the others--if he could--thus settling the
+question as to whether there was a future.
+
+Not long after this agreement--for consent was unanimous--Hill departed
+this life.  His friends lamented his absence, especially at the tavern,
+but they anticipated no attempt on his part to express the distinguished
+consideration that he had felt for his old chums.  Some weeks passed,
+yet there was no sign, and the two survivors of the party, as they
+jogged homeward to the house where both lived, had begun to think and
+speak less frequently of the absent one.  But one night the household
+was alarmed by a terrible cry.  Bailey got a light and hurried to the
+bedside of his friend, whom he found deathly white and holding his chest
+as if in pain.  "He has been here!"  gasped Evans.  "He stood here just
+now."
+
+"Who?"  asked Bailey, a creep passing down his spine.
+
+"Hill!  He stood there, where you are now, and touched me with a hand
+that was so cold--cold--" and Evans shivered violently.  On turning back
+the collar of his shirt the impression of a hand appeared on the flesh
+near the shoulder: a hand in white, with one finger missing.  Hill had
+lost a finger.  There was less of taverns after that night, for Evans
+carried the token of that ghostly visit on his person until he, too, had
+gone to solve the great secret.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE FIRST LIBERAL CHURCH
+
+In 1770 the brig Hand-in-Hand went ashore at Good Luck, New Jersey.
+Among the passengers on board the vessel, that it would perhaps be wrong
+to call ill fated, was John Murray, founder of Universalism in America.
+He had left England in despair, for his wife and children were dead, and
+so broken was he in his power of thought and purpose that he felt as if
+he should never preach again.
+
+In fact, his rescue from the wreck was passive, on his part, and he
+suffered himself to be carried ashore, recking little whether he reached
+it or no.  After he had been for half an hour or so on the soil of the
+new country, to which he had made his entrance in so unexpected a
+manner, he began to feel hungry, and set off afoot along the desolate
+beach.  He came to a cabin where an old man stood in a doorway with a
+basket of fish beside him.  "Will you sell me a fish?"  asked Murray.
+
+"No.  The fish is all yours.  I expected you."
+
+"You do not know me."
+
+"You are the man who is to tell us of God."
+
+"I will never preach of Him again."
+
+"I built that log church yonder.  Don't say that you will not preach in
+it.  Whenever a clergyman, Presbyterian, Methody, or Baptist, came here,
+I asked him to preach in my kitchen.  I tried to get him to stay; but
+no--he always had work elsewhere.  Last night I saw the brig driven on
+the bar, and a voice said to me, 'In that ship is the man who will teach
+of God.  Not the old God of terrors, but one of love and mercy.  He has
+come through great sorrow to do this work.'  I have made ready for you.
+Do not go away."
+
+The minister felt a strange lifting in his heart.  He fell on his knees
+before the little house and offered up a prayer.  Long he staid in that
+place, preaching gentle doctrines and ministering to the men and women
+of that lonely village, and when the fisherman apostle, Thomas Potter,
+died he left the church to Murray, who, in turn, bequeathed it, "free,
+for the use of all Christian people."
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS-LEGENDS, BY SKINNER, V2 ***
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