 | WOLFERT WEBBER,
OR
GOLDEN DREAMS. Tales of a traveller |  |
WOLFERT WEBBER,
OR
GOLDEN DREAMS.
In the year of grace one thousand seven hundred
and—blank—for I do not remember the
precise date; however, it was somewhere in the
early part of the last century, there lived in the
ancient city of the Manhattoes a worthy burgher,
Wolfert Webber by name. He was descended
from old Cobus Webber of the Brille in Holland,
one of the original settlers, famous for introducing
the cultivation of cabbages, and who came
over to the province during the protectorship of
Oloffe Van Kortlandt, otherwise called the
Dreamer.
The field in which Cobus Webber first planted
himself and his cabbages had remained ever
since in the family, who continued in the same
line of husbandry, with that praiseworthy perseverance
for which our Dutch burghers are noted.
The whole family genius, during several
generations, was devoted to the study and development
of this one noble vegetable; and to this
concentration of intellect may doubtless be ascribed
the prodigious size and renown to which
the Webber cabbages attained.
The Webber dynasty continued in uninterrupted
succession; and never did a line give more
unquestionable proofs of legitimacy. The eldest
son succeeded to the looks, as well as the territory
of his sire; and had the portraits of this line
of tranquil potentates been taken, they would
have presented a row of heads marvellously resembling
in shape and magnitude the vegetables
over which they reigned.
The seat of government continued unchanged
in the family mansion:—a Dutch-built house,
with a front, or rather gabel end of yellow brick,
weathercock at the top. Every thing about the
building bore the air of long-settled ease and
security. Flights of martins peopled the little
coops nailed against the walls, and swallows
built their nests under the eaves; and every one
knows that these house-loving birds bring good
luck to the dwelling where they take up their
abode. In a bright sunny morning in early
summer, it was delectable to hear their cheerful
notes, as they sported about in the pure sweet
air, chirping forth, as it were, the greatness and
prosperity of the Webbers.
Thus quietly and comfortably did this excellent
family vegetate under the shade of a mighty
buttonwood tree, which by little and little grew
so great as entirely to overshadow their palace.
The city gradually spread its suburbs round their
domain. Houses sprung up to interrupt their
prospects. The rural lanes in the vicinity began
to grow into the bustle and populousness of
streets; in short, with all the habits of rustic life
they began to find themselves the inhabitants of
hereditary character, and hereditary possessions,
with all the tenacity of petty German princes in
the midst of the Empire. Wolfert was the last
of the line, and succeeded to the patriarchal bench
at the door, under the family tree, and swayed the
sceptre of his fathers, a kind of rural potentate
in the midst of a metropolis.
To share the cares and sweets of sovereignty,
he had taken unto himself a help mate, one of
that excellent kind, called stirring women; that is
to say, she was one of those notable little housewives
who are always busy when there is nothing
to do. Her activity, however, took one particular
direction; her whole life seemed devoted to intense
knitting; whether at home or abroad;
walking, or sitting, her needles were continually
in motion, and it is even affirmed that by her unwearied
industry she very nearly supplied her
household with stockings throughout the year.
This worthy couple were blessed with one daughter,
who was brought up with great tenderness
and care; uncommon pains had been taken with
variety of way; make all kinds of pickles and
preserves, and mark her own name on a sampler.
The influence of her taste was seen also in the
family garden, where the ornamental began to
mingle with the useful; whole rows of fiery marigolds
and splendid holly-hocks bordered the cabbage
beds; and gigantic sun flowers lolled their
broad jolly faces over the fences, seeming to ogle
most affectionately the passers by.
Thus reigned and vegetated Wolfert Webber
over his paternal acres, peaceably and contentedly.
Not but that, like all other sovereigns, he
had his occasional cares and vexations. The
growth of his native city sometimes caused him
annoyance. His little territory gradually became
hemmed in by streets and houses, which
intercepted air and sunshine. He was now and
then subject to the irruptions of the border population,
that infest the streets of a metropolis,
who would sometimes make midnight forays into
his dominions, and carry off captive whole platoons
of his noblest subjects. Vagrant swine
the gate was left open, and lay all waste before
them; and mischievous urchins would often decapitate
the illustrious sunflowers, the glory of
the garden, as they lolled their heads so fondly
over the walls. Still all these were petty grievances,
which might now and then ruffle the surface
of his mind, as a summer breeze will ruffle
the surface of a mill-pond; but they could not
disturb the deep seated quiet of his soul. He
would but seize a trusty staff, that stood behind
the door, issue suddenly out, and annoint the back
of the agressor, whether pig, or urchin, and then
return within doors, marvellously refreshed and
tranquillized.
The chief cause of anxiety to honest Wolfert,
however, was the growing prosperity of the city.
The expenses of living doubled and trebled;
but he could not double and treble the magnitude
of his cabbages; and the number of competitors
prevented the increase of price; thus, therefore,
while every one around him grew richer, Wolfert
grew poorer, and he could not, for the life of him,
perceive how the evil was to be remedied.
This growing care, which increased from day
to day, had its gradual effect upon our worthy
burgher; insomuch, that it at length implanted
two or three wrinkles on his brow; things unknown
before in the family of the Webbers; and
it seemed to pinch up the corners of his cocked
hat into an expression of anxiety, totally opposite
to the tranquil, broad-brimmed, low-crowned
beavers of his illustrious progenitors.
Perhaps even this would not have materially
disturbed the serenity of his mind had he had only
himself and his wife to care for; but there was
his daughter gradually growing to maturity; and
all the world knows when daughters begin to
ripen no fruit or flower requires so much looking
after. I have no talent at describing female
charms, else fain would I depict the progress of
this little Dutch beauty. How her blue eyes
grew deeper and deeper, and her cherry lips redder
and redder; and how she ripened and ripened,
and rounded and rounded in the opening
breath of sixteen summers, until, in her seventeenth
her boddice, like a half blown rose-bud.
Ah, well-a-day! could I but show her as she
was then, tricked out on a Sunday morning, in
the hereditary finery of the old Dutch clothes
press, of which her mother had confided to her
the key. The wedding dress of her grandmother,
modernized for use, with sundry ornaments,
handed down as heir looms in the family. Her
pale brown hair smoothed with buttermilk in flat
waving lines on each side of her fair forehead.
The chain of yellow virgin gold, that encircled
her neck; the little cross, that just rested at the
entrance of a soft valley of happiness, as if it
would sanctify the place. The—but pooh!—it
is not for an old man like me to be prosing about
female beauty: suffice it to say, Amy had attained
her seventeenth year. Long since had
her sampler exhibited hearts in couples desperately
transfixed with arrows, and true lovers'
knots worked in deep blue silk; and it was evident
she began to languish for some more interesting
occupation than the rearing of sunflowers
or pickling of cucumbers.
At this critical period of female existence,
when the heart within a damsel's bosom, like its
emblem, the miniature which hangs without, is
apt to be engrossed by a single image, a new visiter
began to make his appearance under the roof
of Wolfert Webber. This was Dirk Waldron,
the only son of a poor widow, but who could
boast of more fathers than any lad in the province;
for his mother had had four husbands, and this
only child, so that though born in her last
wedlock, he might fairly claim to be the tardy
fruit of a long course of cultivation. This son
of four fathers united the merits and the vigour
of his sires. If he had not a great family before
him, he seemed likely to have a great one after
him; for you had only to look at the fresh gamesome
youth, to see that he was formed to be the
founder of a mighty race.
This youngster gradually became an intimate
visiter of the family. He talked little, but he
sat long. He filled the father's pipe when it
was empty, gathered up the mother's knitting-needle,
or ball of worsted when it fell to the
cat, and replenished the tea-pot for the
daughter from the bright copper kettle that sung
before the fire. All these quiet little offices may
seem of trifling import, but when true love is
translated into Low Dutch, it is in this way that
it eloquently expresses itself. They were not
lost upon the Webber family. The winning
youngster found marvellous favour in the eyes of
the mother; the tortoise-shell cat, albeit the most
staid and demure of her kind, gave indubitable
signs of approbation of his visits, the tea-kettle
seemed to sing out a cheering note of welcome
at his approach, and if the sly glances of the daughter
might be rightly read, as she sat bridling and
dimpling, and sewing by her mother's side, she
was not a whit behind Dame Webber, or grimalkin,
or the tea-kettle in good will.
Wolfert alone saw nothing of what was going
on. Profoundly wrapt up in meditation on the
growth of the city and his cabbages, he sat looking
in the fire, and puffing his pipe in silence.
One night, however, as the gentle Amy, according
and he, according to custom, took his parting salute,
the smack resounded so vigourously through
the long, silent entry, as to startle even the dull
ear of Wolfert. He was slowly roused to a new
source of anxiety. It had never entered into his
head, that this mere child who, as it seemed but
the other day, had been climbing about his knees,
and playing with dolls and baby-houses, could
all at once be thinking of love and matrimony.
He rubbed his eyes, examined into the fact, and
really found that while he had been dreaming of
other matters, she had actually grown into a
woman, and what was more, had fallen in love.
Here were new cares for poor Wolfert. He was
a kind father, but he was a prudent man. The
young man was a very stirring lad; but then he had
neither money nor land. Wolfert's ideas all ran
in one channel, and he saw no alternative in case
of a marriage, but to portion off the young couple
with a corner of his cabbage garden, the whole
of which was barely sufficient for the support of
his family.
Like a prudent father, therefore, he determined
to nip this passion in the bud, and forbad
the youngster the house, though sorely did it go
against his fatherly heart, and many a silent tear
did it cause in the bright eye of his daughter.
She showed herself, however, a pattern of filial
piety and obedience. She never pouted and
sulked, she never flew in the face of parental
authority; she never fell into a passion, or fell
into hysterics, as many romantic novel-read
young ladies would do. Not she, indeed! She
was none such heroical rebellious trumpery, I
warrant ye. On the contrary, she acquiesced like
an obedient daughter; shut the street-door in her
lover's face, and if ever she did grant him an interview,
it was either out of the kitchen window,
or over the garden fence.
Wolfert was deeply cogitating these things in
his mind, and his brow wrinkled with unusual
care, as he wended his way one Saturday afternoon
to a rural inn, about two miles from the
city. It was a favourite resort of the Dutch part
of the community from being always held by a
relish of the good old times. It was a Dutch
built house, that had probably been a country seat
of some opulent burgher in the early time of the
settlement. It stood near a point of land, called
Corlears Hook, which stretches out into the
Sound, and against which the tide, at its flux
and reflux, sets with extraordinary rapidity.
The venerable and somewhat crazy mansion
was distinguished from afar, by a grove of elms
and sycamores that seemed to wave a hospitable
invitation, while a few weeping willows with
their dank; drooping foliage, resembling falling
waters, gave an idea of coolness, that rendered
it an attractive spot during the heats of summer.
Here, therefore, as I said, resorted many of the
old inhabitants of the Manhattoes, where, while
some played at the shuffle-board and quoits and
ninepins, others smoked a deliberate pipe, and
talked over public affairs.
It was on a blustering autumnal afternoon that
Wolfert made his visit to the inn. The grove
which whirled in rustling eddies about the fields.
The ninepin alley was deserted, for the premature
chilliness of the day had driven the company
within doors. As it was Saturday afternoon,
the habitual club was in session, composed
principally of regular Dutch burghers,
though mingled occasionally with persons of various
character and country, as is natural in a
place of such motley population.
Beside the fire place, and in a huge leather
bottomed arm chair, sat the dictator of this little
world, the venerable Rem, or, as it was pronounced,
Ramm Rapelye. He was a man of
Walloon race, and illustrious for the antiquity of
his line, his great grandmother having been the
first white child born in the province. But he
was still more illustrious for his wealth and
dignity: he had long filled the noble office of
alderman, and was a man to whom the governor
himself took off his hat. He had maintained
possession of the leathern bottomed chair from
time immemorial; and had gradually waxed in
in the course of years he filled its whole magnitude.
His word was decisive with his subjects;
for he was so rich a man, that he was never expected
to support any opinion by argument.
The landlord waited on him with peculiar officiousness;
not that he paid better than his neighbours,
but then the coin of a rich man seems
always to be so much more acceptable. The
landlord had always a pleasant word and a joke,
to insinuate in the ear of the august Ramm. It
is true, Ramm never laughed, and indeed, maintained
a mastiff-like gravity, and even surliness
of aspect, yet he now and then rewarded mine
host with a token of approbation; which, though
nothing more nor less than a kind of grunt, yet
delighted the landlord more than a broad laugh
from a poorer man.
“This will be a rough night for the money
diggers,” said mine host, as a gust of wind howled
round the house, and rattled at the windows.
“What, are they at their works again?” said
an English half-pay captain, with one eye, who
was a frequent attendant at the inn.
“Aye, are they,” said the landlord, “and well
may they be. They've had luck of late. They
say a great pot of money has been dug up in the
field, just behind Stuyvesant's orchard. Folks
think it must have been buried there in old times,
by Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor.”
“Fudge!” said the one-eyed man of war, as
he added a small portion of water to a bottom of
brandy.
“Well, you may believe, or not, as you please,”
said mine host, somewhat nettled; “but every
body knows that the old governor buried a great
deal of his money at the time of the Dutch
troubles, when the English red-coats seized on
the province. They say, too, the old gentleman
walks; aye, and in the very same dress that he
wears in the picture which hangs up in the
family house.”
“Fudge!” said the half-pay officer.
“Fudge, if you please!—But did'nt Corney
Van Zandt see him at midnight, stalking about
in the meadow with his wooden leg, and a
drawn sword in his hand, that flashed like fire?
people have been troubling the place where he
buried his money in old times?”
Here the landlord was interrupted by several
guttural sounds from Ramm Rapelye, betokening
that he was labouring with the unusual production
of an idea. As he was too great a man
to be slighted by a prudent publican, mine host
respectfully paused until he should deliver himself.
The corpulent frame of this mighty
burgher now gave all the symptoms of a volcanic
mountain on the point of an eruption. First,
there was a certain heaving of the abdomen, not
unlike an earthquake; then was emitted a cloud
of tobacco smoke from that crater, his mouth;
then there was a kind of rattle in the throat, as
if the idea were working its way up through a
region of phlegm; then there were several disjointed
members of a sentence thrown out, ending
in a cough; at length his voice forced its way
in the slow, but absolute tone of a man who
feels the weight of his purse, if not of his ideas;
testy puff of tobacco smoke.
“Who talks of old Peter Stuyvesant's walking?—puff—Have
people no respect for persons?—puff—puff—Peter
Stuyvesant knew better
what to do with his money than to bury it—
puff—I know the Stuyvesant family—puff—
every one of them—puff—not a more respectable
family in the province—puff—old standers—
puff—warm householders—puff—none of your
upstarts—puff—puff—puff.—Don't talk to me of
Peter Stuyvesant's walking—puff—puff—puff—
puff.”
Here the redoubtable Ramm contracted his
brow, clasped up his mouth, till it wrinkled at
each corner, and redoubled his smoking with
such vehemence, that the cloudy volumes soon
wreathed round his head, as the smoke envellops
the awful summit of Mount Etna.
A general silence followed the sudden rebuke
of this very rich man. The subject, however,
was too interesting to be readily abandoned.
The conversation soon broke forth again from
of the club, one of those narrative old men
who seem to grow incontinent of words, as they
grow old, until their talk flows from them almost
involuntarily.
Peechy, who could at any time tell as many
stories in an evening as his hearers could digest
in a month, now resumed the conversation, by
affirming that, to his knowledge, money had at
different times been dug up in various parts of
the island. The lucky persons who had discovered
them had always dreamt of them three
times before hand, and what was worthy of remark,
these treasures had never been found but
by some descendant of the good old Dutch families,
which clearly proved that they had been
buried by Dutchmen in the olden time.
“Fiddle stick with your Dutchmen!” cried
the half-pay officer. “The Dutch had nothing
to do with them. They were all buried by Kidd,
the pirate, and his crew.”
Here a key note was touched that roused the
whole company. The name of Captain Kidd
with a thousand marvellous stories.
The half-pay officer was a man of great
weight among the peaceable members of the
club, by reason of his military character, and of
the gunpowder scenes which, by his own account,
he had witnessed.
The golden stories of Kidd, however, were
resolutely rivalled by the tales of Peechy Prauw,
who, rather than suffer his Dutch progenitors
to be eclipsed by a foreign freebooter, enriched
every spot in the neighbourhood with the hidden
wealth of Peter Stuyvesant and his contemporaries.
Not a word of this conversation was lost upon
Wolfert Webber. He returned pensively home,
full of magnificent ideas of buried riches. The
soil of his native island seemed to be turned into
gold dust; and every field teemed with treasure.
His head almost reeled at the thought how often
he must have heedlessly rambled over places
where countless sums lay, scarcely covered by
the turf beneath his feet. His mind was in a
came in sight of the venerable mansion of his
forefathers, and the little realm where the Webbers
had so long, and so contentedly flourished,
his gorge rose at the narrowness of his destiny.
“Unlucky Wolfert!” exclaimed he; “others
can go to bed and dream themselves into whole
mines of wealth; they have but to seize a spade
in the morning, and turn up doubloons like potatoes;
but thou must dream of hardship, and
rise to poverty—must dig thy field from year's
end to year's end, and—and yet raise nothing but
cabbages!”
Wolfert Webber went to bed with a heavy
heart; and it was long before the golden visions
that disturbed his brain, permitted him to sink
into repose. The same visions, however, extended
into his sleeping thoughts, and assumed
a more definite form. He dreamt that he had
discovered an immense treasure in the centre of
his garden. At every stroke of the spade he
laid bare a golden ingot; diamond crosses sparkled
out of the dust; bags of money turned up
venerable doubloons; and chests, wedged close
with moidores, ducats, and pistareens, yawned
before his ravished eyes, and vomited forth their
glittering contents.
Wolfert awoke a poorer man than ever. He
had no heart to go about his daily concerns,
which appeared so paltry and profitless; but sat
all day long in the chimney corner, picturing to
himself ingots and heaps of gold in the fire. The
next night his dream was repeated. He was
again in his garden, digging, and laying open
stores of hidden wealth. There was something
very singular in this repetition. He passed
another day of reverie, and though it was cleaning
day, and the house, as usual in Dutch households,
completely topsy-turvy, yet he sat unmoved
amidst the general uproar.
The third night he went to bed with a palpitating
heart. He put on his red nightcap,
wrong side outwards for good luck. It was
deep midnight before his anxious mind could
settle itself into sleep. Again the golden dream
with ingots and money bags.
Wolfert rose the next morning in complete
bewilderment. A dream three times repeated
was never known to lie; and if so, his fortune
was made.
In his agitation he put on his waistcoat with
the hind part before, and this was a corroboration
of good luck. He no longer doubted that a huge
store of money lay buried somewhere in his cabbage
field, coyly waiting to be sought for, and he
half repined at having so long been scratching
about the surface of the soil, instead of digging to
the centre.
He took his seat at the breakfast table full of
these speculations; asked his daughter to put a
lump of gold into his tea, and on handing his wife
a plate of slap jacks, begged her to help herself to
a doubloon.
His grand care now was how to secure this
immense treasure without its being known. Instead
of working regularly in his grounds in
the day time, he now stole from his bed at night,
up and dig about his paternal acres, from one
end to the other. In a little time the whole garden,
which had presented such a goodly and regular
appearance, with its phalanx of cabbages,
like a vegetable army in battle array, was reduced
to a scene of devastation, while the relentless
Wolfert, with nightcap on head, and lantern
and spade in hand, stalked through the slaughtered
ranks, the destroying angel of his own vegetable
world.
Every morning bore testimony to the ravages
of the preceding night in cabbages of all ages
and conditions, from the tender sprout to the
full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet
beds like worthless weeds, and left to wither in
the sunshine. It was in vain Wolfert's wife remonstrated;
it was in vain his darling daughter
wept over the destruction of some favourite marygold.
“Thou shalt have gold of another guess
sort,” he would cry, chucking her under the
chin; “thou shalt have a string of crooked ducats
for thy wedding necklace, my child.” His family
wits were diseased. He muttered in his sleep at
night of mines of wealth, of pearls and diamonds
and bars of gold. In the day time he
was moody and abstracted, and walked about
as if in a trance. Dame Webber held frequent
councils with all the old women of the neighbourhood,
not omitting the parish dominie;
scarce an hour in the day but a knot of them
might be seen wagging their white caps together
round her door, while the poor woman made
some piteous recital. The daughter too was fain
to seek for more frequent consolation from the
stolen interviews of her favoured swain Dirk
Waldron. The delectable little Dutch songs
with which she used to dulcify the house grew
less and less frequent, and she would forget her
sewing and look wistfully in her father's face as
he sat pondering by the fire side. Wolfert
caught her eye one day fixed on him thus anxiously,
and for a moment was roused from his
golden reveries.—“Cheer up my girl,” said he,
hold up thy head one day with the—
and the Schermerhorns, the Van Hornes, and
the Van Dams—the patroon himself shall be
glad to get thee for his son!”
Amy shook her head at this vain glorious
boast, and was more than ever in doubt of the
soundness of the good man's intellect.
In the mean time Wolfert went on digging,
but the field was extensive, and as his dream
had indicated no precise spot, he had to dig at
random. The winter set in before one tenth of
the scene of promise had been explored. The
ground became too frozen, and the nights too cold
for the labours of the spade. No sooner, however,
did the returning warmth of spring loosen
the soil, and the small frogs begin to pipe in the
meadows, but Wolfert resumed his labours with
renovated zeal. Still, however, the hours of industry
were reversed. Instead of working
cheerily all day, planting and setting out his vegetables,
he remained thoughtfully idle, until the
shades of night summoned him to his secret labours.
night to night, and week to week, and month to
month, but not a stiver did he find. On the contrary,
the more he digged, the poorer he grew.
The rich soil of his garden was digged away,
and the sand and gravel from beneath were
thrown to the surface, until the whole field resented
an aspect of sandy barrenness.
In the mean time the seasons gradually rolled
on. The little frogs that had piped in the meadows
in early spring, croaked as bull-frogs in the
brooks, during the summer heats, and then sunk
into silence. The peach tree budded, blossomed,
and bore its fruit. The swallows and martins
came, twittered about the roof, built their
nests, reared their young, held their congress
along the eaves, and then winged their flight in
search of another spring. The caterpillar spun
its winding sheet, dangled in it from the great
buttonwood tree that shaded the house; turned
into a moth, fluttered with the last sunshine of
summer, and disappeared; and finally the leaves
of the buttonwood tree turned yellow, then
whirling about in little eddies of wind and dust,
whispered that winter was at hand.
Wolfert gradually awoke from his dream of
wealth as the year declined. He had reared no
crop to supply the wants of his household during
the sterility of winter. The season was long
and severe, and for the first time the family was
really straightened in its comforts. By degrees
a revulsion of thought took place in Wolfert's
mind, common to those whose golden dreams
have been disturbed by pinching realities. The
idea gradually stole upon him that he should come
to want. He already considered himself one of
the most unfortunate men in the province, having
lost such an incalculable amount of undiscovered
treasure, and now, when thousands of pounds
had eluded his search, to be perplexed for shillings
and pence was cruel in the extreme.
Haggard care gathered about his brow; he
went about with a money seeking air, his eyes
bent downwards into the dust, and carrying his
hands in his pockets, as men are apt to do when
could not even pass the city almshouse without
giving it a rueful glance, as if destind to be his
future abode.
The strangeness of his conduct and of his looks
occasioned much speculation and remark. For
a long time he was suspected of being crazy, and
then every body pitied him; at length it began
to be suspected that he was poor, and then every
body avoided him.
The rich old burghers of his acquaintance met
him outside of the door when he called, entertained
him hospitably on the threshold, pressed
him warmly by the hand on parting, shook
their heads as he walked away, with the kindhearted
expression of “poor Wolfert,” and
turned a corner nimbly, if by chance they saw
him approaching as they walked the streets.
Even the barber and cobbler of the neighbourhood,
and a tattered tailor in an alley hard by,
three of the poorest and merriest rogues in the
world, eyed him with that abundant sympathy
which usually attends a lack of means; and there
at his command, only that they happened to be
empty.
Thus every body deserted the Webber mansion,
as if poverty were contagious, like the
plague; every body but honest Dirk Waldron,
who still kept up his stolen visits to the daughter,
and indeed seemed to wax more affectionate as
the fortunes of his mistress were in the wane.
Many months had elapsed since Wolfert had
frequented his old resort, the rural inn. He was
taking a long lonely walk one saturday afternoon,
musing over his wants and disappointments,
when his feet took instinctively their
wonted direction, and on awaking out of a reverie,
he found himself before the door of the
inn. For some moments he hesitated whether
to enter, but his heart yearned for companionship;
and where can a ruined man find better companionship
than at a tavern, where there is
neither sober example nor sober advice to put
him out of countenance?
Wolfert found several of the old frequenters of
usual places; but one was missing, the great
Ramm Rapelye, who for many years had filled
the chair of state. His place was supplied by a
stranger, who seemed, however, completely at
home in the chair and the tavern. He was rather
under size, but deep chested, square and muscular.
His broad shoulders, double joints, and bow
knees, gave tokens of prodigious strength. His
face was dark and weather beaten; a deep scar,
as if from the slash of a cutlass had almost divided
his nose, and made a gash in his upper lip,
through which his teeth shone like a bull dog's.
A mass of iron gray hair gave a grizly finish to
his hard-favoured visage. His dress was of an
amphibious character. He wore an old hat edged
with tarnished lace, and cocked in martial style,
on one side of his head; a rusty blue military
coat with brass buttons, and a wide pair of short
petticoat trowsers, or rather breeches, for they
were gathered up at the knees. He ordered
every body about him, with an authoritative air;
talked in a brattling voice, that sounded like the
landlord and servants with perfect impunity, and
was waited upon with greater obsequiousness
than had ever been shown to the mighty Ramm
himself.
Wolfert's curiosity was awakened to know
who and what was this stranger who had thus
usurped absolute sway in this ancient domain.
He could get nothing, however, but vague information.
Peechy Prauw took him aside, into
a remote corner of the hall, and there in an
under voice, and with great caution, imparted to
him all that he knew on the subject. The inn
had been aroused several months before, on a
dark stormy night, by repeated long shouts, that
seemed like the howlings of a wolf. They came
from the water side; and at length were distinguished
to be hailing the house in the seafaring
manner. “House-a-hoy!” The landlord turned
out with his head waiter, tapster, hostler and errand
boy—that is to say, with his old negro Cuff.
On approaching the place from whence the voice
proceeded, they found this amphibious looking
seated on a great oaken sea chest. How he came
there, whether he had been set on shore from
some boat, or had floated to land on his chest, nobody
could tell, for he did not seem disposed to
answer questions, and there was something in
his looks and manners that put a stop to all
questioning. Suffice it to say, he took possession
of a corner room of the inn, to which his
chest was removed with great difficulty. Here
he had remained ever since, keeping about the
inn and its vicinity. Sometimes, it is true, he
disappeared for one, two, or three days at a time,
going and returning without giving any notice or
account of his movements. He always appeared
to have plenty of money, though often of very
strange outlandish coinage; and he regularly
paid his bill every evening before turning in.
He had fitted up his room to his own fancy,
having slung a hammock from the ceiling instead
of a bed, and decorated the walls with rusty
pistols and cutlasses of foreign workmanship.
A great part of his time was passed in this room,
wide view of the Sound, a short old fashioned
pipe in his mouth, a glass of rum toddy at his
elbow, and a pocket telescope in his hand, with
which he reconnoitred every boat that moved
upon the water. Large square rigged vessels
seemed to excite but little attention; but the
moment he descried any thing with a shoulder
of mutton sail, or that a barge, or yawl, or jolly
boat hove in sight, up went the telescope, and he
examined it with the most scrupulous attention.
All this might have passed without much notice,
for in those times the province was so much the
resort of adventurers of all characters and climes
that any oddity in dress or behaviour attracted
but little attention. But in a little while this
strange sea monster, thus strangely cast up on
dry land, began to encroach upon the long established
customs and customers of the place;
to interfere in a dictatorial manner in the affairs
of the ninepin alley and the bar room, until in
the end he usurped an absolute command over
the little inn. It was all in vain to attempt to
quarrelsome, but boisterous and peremptory,
like one accustomed to tyrannize on a quarter
deck; and there was a dare-devil air about every
thing he said and did, that inspired a wariness
in all bystanders. Even the half-pay officer, so
long the hero of the club, was soon silenced by
him; and the quiet burghers stared with wonder
at seeing their inflammable man of war so readily
and quietly extinguished.
And then the tales that he would tell were
enough to make a peaceable man's hair stand
on end. There was not a sea fight, or marauding,
or freebooting adventure that had happened
within the last twenty years but he seemed perfectly
versed in it. He delighted to talk of the
exploits of the buccaneers in the West-Indies
and on the Spanish Main. How his eyes would
glisten as he described the waylaying of treasure
ships, the desperate fights, yard arm and yard
arm—broadside and broadside—the boarding and
capturing of large Spanish galleons! with what
chuckling relish would he describe the descent
church; the sacking of a convent! You would
have thought you heard some gormandizer dilating
upon the roasting a savory goose at
Michaelmas as he described the roasting of
some Spanish Don to make him discover his
treasure—a detail given with a minuteness that
made every rich old burgher present turn uncomfortably
in his chair. All this would be told
with infinite glee, as if he considered it an excellent
joke; and then he would give such a
tyrannical leer in the face of his next neighbour,
that the poor man would be fain to laugh out of
sheer faint-heartedness. If any one, however,
pretended to contradict him in any of his stories
he was on fire in an instant. His very cocked
hat assumed a momentary fierceness, and seemed
to resent the contradiction.—“How the devil
should you know as well as I! I tell you it
was as I say!” and he would at the same time
let slip a broadside of thundering oaths and tremendous
sea phrases, such as had never been
heard before within those peaceful walls.
Indeed, the worthy burghers began to surmise
that he knew more of these stories than mere
hearsay. Day after day their conjectures concerning
him grew more and more wild and fearful.
The strangeness of his manners, the mystery
that surrounded him, all made him something
incomprehensible in their eyes. He was
a kind of monster of the deep to them—he was
a merman—he was behemoth—he was leviathan—in
short they knew not what he was.
The domineering spirit of this boisterous sea
urchin at length grew quite intolerable. He was
no respecter of persons; he contradicted the richest
burghers without hesitation; he took possession
of the sacred elbow chair, which time out of
mind had been the seat of sovereignty of the illustrious
Ramm Rapelye. Nay, he even went
so far in one of his rough jocular moods, as to
slap that mighty burgher on the back, drink his
toddy and wink in his face, a thing scarcely to
be believed. From this time Ramm Rapelye
appeared no more at the inn; his example was
followed by several of the most eminent customers,
out of their opinions, or being obliged to laugh
at another man's jokes. The landlord was almost
in despair, but he knew not how to get rid
of this sea monster and his sea chest, which
seemed to have grown like fixtures, or excresences
on his establishment.
Such was the account whispered cautiously in
Wolfert's ear, by the narrator, Peechy Prauw,
as he held him by the button in a corner of the
hall, casting a wary glance now and then towards
the door of the bar-room, lest he should be overheard
by the terrible hero of his tale.
Wolfert took his seat in a remote part of the
room in silence; impressed with profound awe
of this unknown, so versed in freebooting history.
It was to him a wonderful instance of the revolutions
of mighty empires, to find the venerable
Ramm Rapelye thus ousted from the throne;
a rugged tarpaulin dictating from his elbow chair,
hectoring the patriarchs, and filling this tranquil
little realm with brawl and bravado.
The stranger was on this evening in a more
a number of astounding stories of plunderings
and burnings upon the high seas. He dwelt
upon them with peculiar relish, heightening the
frightful particulars in proportion to their effect
on his peaceful auditors. He gave a long swaggering
detail of the capture of a Spanish merchantman.
She was laying becalmed during a long
summer's day, just off from an island which was
one of the lurking places of the pirates. They
had reconnoitred her with their spy glasses from
the shore, and ascertained her character and force.
At night a picked crew of daring fellows set off
for her in a whale boat. They approached with
muffled oars, as she lay rocking idly with the undulations
of the sea and her sails flapping against
the masts. They were close under her stern before
the guard on deck was aware of their approach.
The alarm was given; the pirates
threw hand grenades on deck and sprang up the
main chains sword in hand.
The crew flew to arms, but in great confusion;
some were shot down, others took refuge in the
while others fought hand to hand from the
main deck to the quarter deck, disputing gallantly
every inch of ground. There were three
Spanish gentlemen on board with their ladies,
who made the most desperate resistance, they
defended the companion way, cut down several
of their assailants, and fought like very devils,
for they were maddened by the shrieks of the ladies
from the cabin. One of the Dons was old
and soon despatched. The other two kept their
ground vigourously, even though the captain of
the pirates was among their assailants. Just
then there was a shout of victory from the main
deck. “The ship is ours!” cried the pirates.
One of the Dons immediately dropped his
sword and surrendered; the other, who was a hot
headed youngster, and just married, gave the captain
a slash in the face that laid all open. The
captain just made out to articulate the words “no
quarter.”
“And what did they do with their prisoners?”
said Peechy Prauw, eagerly.
“Threw them all overboard!” said the merman.
A dead pause followed this reply. Peechy Prauw
shrunk quietly back like a man who had unwarily
stolen upon the lair of a sleeping lion. The
honest burghers cast fearful glances at the deep
scar slashed across the visage of the stranger, and
mooved their chairs a little farther off. The seaman,
however, smoked on without moving a
muscle, as though he either did not perceive or
did not regard the unfavourable effect he had produced
upon his hearers.
The half-pay officer was the first to break the
silence; for he was continually tempted to make
ineffectual head against this tyrant of the seas,
and to regain his lost consequence in the eyes of
his ancient companions. He now tried to match
the gunpowder tales of the stranger by others
equally tremendous. Kidd, as usual, was his
hero, concerning whom he seemed to have picked
up many of the floating traditions of the province.
The seaman had always evinced a settled
pique against the red-faced warrior. On
this occasion he listened with peculiar impatience.
He sat with one arm a-kimbo, the other
small pipe he was pettishly puffing; his legs
crossed, drumming with one foot on the ground
and casting every now and then the side glance
of a basilisk at the prosing captain. At length
the latter spoke of Kidd's having ascended the
Hudson with some of his crew, to land his plunder
in secresy.
“Kidd up the Hudson!” burst forth the seaman,
with a tremendous oath; “Kidd never was
up the Hudson!”
“I tell you he was,” said the other. “Aye,
and they say he buried a quantity of treasure on
the little flat that runs out into the river, called
the Devil's Dans Kammer.”
“The Devil's Dans Kammer in your teeth!”
cried the seaman. “I tell you, Kidd never was
up the Hudson—what a plague do you know of
Kidd and his haunts?”
“What do I know?” echoed the half-pay officer;
“why, I was in London at the time of his
trial, aye, and I had the pleasure of seeing him
hanged at Execution Dock.”
“Then, sir, let me tell you that you saw as
pretty a fellow hanged as ever trod shoe leather.
Aye!” putting his face nearer to that of the officer,
“and there was many a coward looked on,
that might much better have swung in his stead.”
The half-pay officer was silenced; but the indignation
thus pent up in his bosom glowed with
intense vehemence in his single eye, which kindled
like a coal.
Peechy Prauw, who never could remain silent,
now took up the word, and in a pacifying tone
observed that the gentleman certainly was in the
right. Kidd never did bury money up the Hudson,
nor indeed in any of those parts, though
many affirmed the fact. It was Bradish and
others of the buccaneers who had buried money,
some said in Turtle Bay, others on Long Island,
others in the neighbourhood of Hell Gate. Indeed,
added he, I recollect an adventure of Mud
Sam, the negro fisherman, many years ago, which
some think had something to do with the buccaneers.
As we are all friends here, and as it will
go no farther, I'll tell it to you.
“Upon a dark night many years ago, as Sam
was returning from fishing in Hell Gate—”
Here the story was nipped in the bud by a sudden
movement from the unknown, who laying
his iron fist on the table, knuckles downward,
with a quiet force that indented the very boards,
and looking grimly over his shoulder, with the
grin of an angry bear. “Heark'ee, neighbour,”
said he, with significant nodding of the head,
“you'd better let the buccaneers and their money
alone—they're not for old men and old women
to meddle with. They fought hard for their
money, they gave body and soul for it, and
wherever it lies buried, depend upon it he must
have a tug with the devil who gets it.”
This sudden explosion was succeeded by a
blank silence throughout the room. Peechy
Prauw shrunk within himself, and even the red-faced
officer turned pale. Wolfert, who from a
dark corner of the room, had listened with intense
eagerness to all this talk about buried treasure,
looked with mingled awe and reverence on
this bold buccaneer, for such he really suspected
sparkling of jewels in all his stories about the
Spanish Main that gave a value to every period,
and Wolfert would have given any thing for the
rummaging of the ponderous sea chest, which his
imagination crammed full of golden chalices and
crucifixes and jolly round bags of doubloons.
The dead stillness that had fallen upon the
company was at length interrupted by the stranger,
who pulled out a prodigious watch of curious
and ancient workmanship, and which in Wolfert's
eyes had a decidedly Spanish look. On touching
a spring it struck ten o'clock; upon which the
sailor called for his reckoning, and having paid
it out of a handful of outlandish coin, he drank
off the remainder of his beverage, and without
taking leave of any one, rolled out of the room,
muttering to himself, as he stamped up stairs to
his chamber.
It was some time before the company could recover
from the silence into which they had been
thrown. The very footsteps of the stranger
which were heard now and then as he traversed
his chamber, inspired awe.
Still the conversation in which they had been
engaged was too interesting not to be resumed.
A heavy thunder gust had gathered up unnoticed
while they were lost in talk, and the torrents
of rain that fell forbade all thoughts of setting off
for home until the storm should subside. They
drew nearer together, therefore, and entreated
the worthy Peechy Prauw to continue the tale
which had been so discourteously interrupted.
He readily complied, whispering, however, in
a tone scarcely above his breath, and drowned
occasionally by the rolling of the thunder; and
he would pause every now and then, and listen
with evident awe, as he heard the heavy footsteps
of the stranger pacing over head.
The following is the purport of his story.
| WOLFERT WEBBER,
OR
GOLDEN DREAMS. Tales of a traveller | |