 | Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
LEGENDS OF LONG ISLAND.
1. NO. I.
THE WRECKER OF RACCOON BEACH;
OR, THE DAUGHTER OF THE SEA.
It was during the reign of Anne, of blessed memory, and
while the blue laws executed wholesome judgment upon Connecticut
sinners, that Jerry Smith sought quiet seats, and a
safe retreat, from the persecution that afflicted a man who had
kissed his cousin on a Sunday. Wethersfield lost, and the
wet sands received him. The people of the classic shores of
Jerusalem, and Babylon, and Oyster-bay south, wondered and
wondered what could have induced Jerry to go down to that
unpeopled, barren spot, to live.
Raccoon beach is a ridge of sand. It runs from its western
point, seven miles south of Babylon, where Uncle Sam
has lately built a light-house—thirty miles due east, averaging
three fourths of a mile in breadth. It is one of those insular
breast-works, which nature has thrown up, to protect that ancient
and respectable country, called Long Island, from the
incursions and ravages of the southern tempest. On its northerly
side lies a smooth, quiet bay; its southern border is
lashed by the ocean. A mere nutshell of a skiff may ride
securely in the bay, but wo betides the pennant that floats
over the foam of the inlet! The surface of the beach is diversified
by irregular hills. A gloomy forest of pines has
sign of vegetation appears. Myriads of quackes and crows
share their solemn roost upon the aforesaid trees, the descendants
of happy ancestors, who were rent-free, undisturbed
tenants of said gallinary, when Jerry's skiff touched the
strand.
Jerry Smith knew what he was about, when he put up his
Esquimeaux-like hut on the side of one of the beach hills.
To be sure, it was cold, and exposed and barren: and it was,
moreover, very unsociable to stay there all alone; but what
of that, if he could make himself, in two or three years,
as rich as old pirate Jones? And after all, he was not so
much alone, neither. For there was the bay full of eels,
and crabs, and clams, and the surf was sparkling with striped
bass, and the air and the water were vocal with the hawnking,
and crucking, and perutting, and screaming of geese, and brant,
and broadbills, and oldwives, and cormorants and hell-divers,
and all the other varieties of the anseric and anatic families.
At this early period, too, before too much civilization had unpeopled
the land of its rightful lords, the bays of Long Island
were frequented by that interesting class of amphibiotics, whom
mortals call mermaids. Of the existence of this order of
created handiwork, the old colonists had the most substantial
and satisfactory evidence. Their songs might be heard every
evening, upon the sea, falling and sinking with the setting
sun; and at night, in the storm, amid the strangling surges of
the breakers; or in the calm, when moonlight and the waves
were mixed up so that a body couldn't tell them apart, their
siren voices, taking the tone from the elements, filled the air
with rich and fearful music. But there was danger in listening
to them. People used to put their fingers into their ears,
or have some evil happen to them.
But it was not clamming, nor fishing, nor shooting, nor
hearing mermaids sing, that took Jerry to the beach. More
prudential and substantial objects were his aim. To tell the
truth, he had from early life, been troubled with a grievous
and most jejune impecuniosity; and having heard that his
grandfather who had been afflicted with the same distemper,
had been cured by the sea air, he now determined to turn his
exile to the like advantage. Jerry was in the right. It has
been, before, indirectly suggested, that at this early period,
there was no light-house on the beach. Is it then to be wondered,
that many a richly freighted ship, in the hard south-easters,
rested her devoted keel upon the Fire island sand-bars,
and was battered and dashed to pieces? What bales of
rich French silks and laces, and Irish linens, and casks of
liquors used to come ashore! Was any body to blame, if
Jerry picked them up? The goods were probably insured,
and the owners could get their money out of the insurance
office; and then, if the insurance people, or the wreck-master
did come to look for the wreck, it couldn't be expected that
Jerry would give up what belonged to no one, so far as he
knew, after he had had all the trouble and pains of stowing
it away. Besides, by removing the property out of sight, he
prevented all misunderstanding and dispute about salvage,
and the other perplexing questions, that always give so much
trouble, to the United States marshal, and the proctors in the
admiralty courts. Occasionally, too, Jerry could administer
comfort to some shipwrecked sailor, who had the good luck
to be rolled ashore of a dark night; and his hospitality was
generally well paid for, as was no more than right. Even if
the subject of his benevolence happened not to live to see another
offices were sure to be discharged by Jerry; and then, if
there should happen to be a belt of doubloons around the waist
of the defunct, that would very naturally go towards paying
for the trouble of scratching a hole for the poor fellow in the
sand, and for the liquor he drank the night before.
In the performance of such charities and humanities, Jerry
contrived to pick up a very decent subsistence. He would
have been quickly rich, if he could only have readily sold his
jetsam and flotsam acquisitions. But Peet. Waters, the wreck-master,
was always snooping into his concerns. He suspected
that Jerry was active and painstaking for filthy lucre, merely,
and he was unable to comprehend the existence of any very
extensive disinterestedness in abandoning the warm upland,
for a bleak island in the sea. And no wonder; for Peet. was
one of those jealous mortals, who deny that any thing is virtuous,
which meets with its reward in this world, and who
look upon the chastenings of Providence in the shape of poverty,
and distress, as the only sure tokens of elect goodness.
Peet. was the man who spread the report about two sailors
coming ashore one dark night, with several kegs of dollars,
in a small boat, and how they put up at Jerry's, and were not
seen to go away; and how the boat was afterwards found
drawn up into Poor-man's harbor, half burned up. The story
about the false lights had the same origin. These scandals
distressed not Jerry much; for after all, nothing was proved
against him; and at all events, there was the stuff that could
buy the silence of fifty men like Peet.; and as to any loss of
reputation, Jerry knew very well that the best of his estimable
fellow citizens and neighbors were not overburdened with
scrupulosity. “Rem, quocunque modo, rem,” used to be as
good a maxim for people living along shore, as for hungry
yet very generally appreciated by the judicious republicans
who dwell upon the sea board. Salt air is a marvellous developer
of the organs of appetite and appropriation.
Years thus whistled over the point of the beach, and saw Jerry's
establishment increased to a snug double one-storied house,
with a spacious garret overhead, an out house, hog-pen, and
divers other appointments, or,—as Jerry called them,—“things
accorden,” indicating comfort and good living. That garret!
there was the hoard of things good and rich and rare; it was
a real museum of the seas! But no landsman ever got a sight
into it; except Jem Raynor, the captain of the sloop Intrepid,
that used to sail from the Widows creek at Islip, to Catherine
market, New York, every Saturday morning. Jem used to
carry on “quite a smart trade” with Jerry; and many a
goodly piece of broadcloath found its way into the slop-shops
in Cherry-street, that came from Raccon beach in the hold of
the Intrepid, covered over with clams.
But alas! as Jerry's worldly substance waxed, his satisfaction
with himself and his profession waned. He began to
feel that sense of loneliness, which makes a man pine, and be
unhappy in the midst of abundance: he had no object of sympathy
to share his thoughts with, and then, it was so seldom
that he could get any fresh meat. The intellectual and the
sensual man both began to wake up and rebel. Without
knowing what philosophy or morals meant, he pondered and
discussed the cui bono of his heaped up chattels, and dreamed
of luxuriations, of which, in former days, he had not even the
most abstract or indefinite idea. Instead of going to bed, he
sat up late at night, and smoked, and thought, and drank. His
rusty razor was now astonished by an occasional interview
with his beard; eels began to have a fishy taste, and the unhappy
of such words as wife, and beef-steak, as they involuntarily
escaped from his muttering lips.
But what was the use of all this, he often said to himself.
Could he persuade any one of the fair damsels of Queens
county to bear him company on that desolate spot? Who
would leave the endearments of home, and family, and friends,
to live with such a sea-otter as he? And if he were to move
away, what could he do with his things? Jerry sighed, and
was wretched.
In the midst of his tribulation, he was one evening returning
home from a long cruise by the surf-side. It was a mild,
moonlit night in autumn. The spray broke so brightly, that
he could almost hear it sparkle as it fell in small stars at his
feet. Presently, a low, indistict murmur chimed in with the
music of the rippling water. It was faint, and soft, at first,
“A stealing, timid, unpresuming sound,”
as the singing of the mermaids, until the magic of the song
had begun to work upon him; his ears were unstopped—he
listened a little too long—a delicious tremor came gradually
over him—his heart was dissolved, and he sunk upon the
sand. Who can describe his feelings, as he lay there, a captive
bound by rapture and agony! Many were the fearful
stories that were told of these daughters of the sea; and
whether he was to be eaten up, or have his eye-balls pulled
out, to be strung upon the said ladies' pearl necklaces, who
could tell! It was evident that he was seen, and that he was
the victim of the spell. But O! what music! Jerry often
used to say that he had been to camp-meeting, once, at Mosquito
cove; but the singing there was “nothing to it.” At
like the lamentation of the whippoorwill in the far distance;
then it would die away upon some painfully delicious chromatic
scale, and by and by reviving and increasing in volume,
and perfectness of harmony, swell into a full and glorious
chorus; then, as though by sudden magic, the performers
had changed the orchestra, it would hover over him,—sostenato,
as the Hempstead singing-master used to say,—and
rise and rise high up into the air, diminishing though distinct,
like the mellow, attenuated trill of the soaring dowitcher, in the
spring time, until sense and sound were lost; and the next
moment, after a rapid and almost insensible cadenza, it moved
far off upon the sea, maestoso, solemn and slow, like a distant
church organ. Jerry soon could see the forms of the sirens
indistinctly. They were sporting among the breakers, singing
and plunging down, and coming up through the foam of
the dashing waters. As they did not appear to notice him,
particularly, his apprehensions were somewhat quieted, and
he began to examine “what the creatures were.” There
were about fifteen or twenty of them. So far as he could tell,
they looked very much like young women “in general,” only
they had pink eyes and long green hair. They were modestly
dressed in long robes of sea weed, thrown over their
shoulder, bound at the waist by a brilliant belt of pearls, and
falling in graceful drapery a little below the knee. Jerry had
always heard they had the tail of a fish; but he could see
nothing of the kind; except that on their ankles they had a
kind of fins, or wings, such as people see in the picture of the
heathen called Mercury.
At length, the song and the sport ceased. The nymphs
joined hands, and skated away over the surface of the sea, all
but one—and what did she do, but with fairy fleetness spring
hand upon the place where physiologists say a woman's heart
ought to be, and leaning forward, with an air of the most tender
affection, fixed her expressive eyes upon him, and bade
him “good evening,” in plain, christian English, and with a
sweet low voice.
This was a little too much for the poor man to bear. He
became—to use his own words—crazy as a sheldrake shot
through the head. Yet, not a word could he speak, nor a hand
could he move. Not so his new acquaintance. She, like
most of her sex, talked much, and fast, and well. She tried
to allay his fears, assuring him that she was no sea-monster,
that she came of a good family, and was well brought up, and
she would do him no harm, and all that.
Jerry listened, and considered her from head to foot, and
soon became familiar with the unusual sight and sound. Such
a voice, and such beautiful words, he had never heard before!
And the woman, or fish, herself, whatever she was—why—
she was well formed, and had a fair skin, and look but in her
eyes, and she seemed the gentlest and most amiable being in
the world. Alack! those eyes, those eyes! they were working
a dangerous work of fascination upon Jerry. They were
so deep, and clear, and good. It was like looking down into
a deep spring of water on a sultry day. Still he was speechless.
“Speak, man,” said the mermaid, “and don't be frightened
out of your wits.”
“Who—what are you?” at last stammered Jerry.
“Flesh and blood, like yourself, dear Jerry,” was the kind
response, “your friend, your true lover; yes, by Jupiter, I am
come to marry you.”
“The dence you are!” said Jerry, drawing a hard breath.
“Do you suppose that I would marry a fish?”
“Do not call me names, Jeremiah—you will regret it when
you know me better. I am a sea nymph, to be sure; but I
bring you wealth, and honor, and respectable connections, and
a heart full of love.”
“I should like to know where your wealth is,” interrupted
Jerry, waxing bolder, “and, as for your connections, I suppose
they are seals and penguins.”
“Have I not the keys of the treasures of the deep?” replied
the mermaid, half mournfully, half indignantly. “Come,
I will lead you into my coral grove, and into our pleasant orchards
of pearls:
“The floor is of sand. like the mountain drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow”—
am.” Thus saying, she threw up her eyes to the blue sky,
and began to sing in a soft, plaintive voice, a little ballad of
her history. What the tune was and what the words were,
Jerry never could remember. That ballad did the business
for him, however. The outline of the story was, that she was
a daughter of the king of the ocean, the father of fifty fair
daughters. Galatæa was her name. The pebbly strand of
Sicily received the print of her youthful footstep, and the billowy
Egean laved her tender limbs. One Acis, a shepherd,
saw and loved her, with requiting affection; but one Polyphemus
pursued him, with revengeful malice. The sea threw
up the crushed limbs of Acis, and the blue skirt of Columbia
fell upon the fugitive nymph. Here, she had had no comfort
for her desolate heart, until her eyes fell upon the wrecker of
Raccoon beach.
This was all heathen Greek to Jerry, whose learning did
he accordingly understood not a word that was sung, except
the name of Polyphemus, whom he took to be some namesake
of his fair cousin, for the violation of whose cheek he had suffered
exile. It smote upon his heart, with all his old hatred
of womankind.
“Polly Femis?” said he, “she was some poor devil, I'll warrant.
I had a cousin once named Poll, and I hate all upland
women for her sake. Yes, and I think I can—I will—I do
like you. Come, Galatæa, dry your tears—you shall be my
gal now, fish or flesh, by the living—.”
So saying, he took into his brawny grasp, the unresisting
little hand of the mermaid. It was a delicate, well formed,
soft hand as ever a man pressed; only it was bluey all over,
and a little cold, and webbed-like between the fingers. But
hearts, not fingers, ruled that hour. Forthwith was enacted
everything that is necessary and appropriate to the completion
of a sea-nymph's matrimonial contract. The many-voiced sea
sent up a newly concerted epithalamium; the servants of
æolus rolled a mellow strain along the hollow shore; and the
stars, blessed winkers at sudden and fierce love, distilled a
most classical essence upon the happy couple.
The next question was, where they were to go to get married.
For although the nymph considered their then pledged
vows, in the court of Diana, and in the midst of the glorious
radiations from the very throne of the goddess, to be ceremonial
quite sufficient, yet Jerry had some New-England qualms,
about taking a wife without the sanction of a deacon, or a justice
of the peace. Upon this point Jerry was not a little uneasy.
“They'll take me up, perhaps,” thought he, “and send
me to the court-house.” The lady, however, dispelled his
anxiety, by yielding to his prejudices, assuring him that she
not even he, much less the justice, would suspect her to be a
nereid.
To the house, then, they hastened, and the stores of the
garret were tumbled before Galatæa: Linen cambric, and
dimity, and velvet, and brocade, and lace, were soon in requisition.
It was matter of astonishment to the bridegroom, to
see with what nimble speed his bride plied her needle. He was
the happiest man alive. At length, he had the delight to see her
descend from the garret, dressed in such style! Nassau island
never saw a girl like her. And then,—says the transported
narrator of the legend,—she had on white kid gloves, and silk
shoes and stockings, and a real French velvetine hat, with
white wavy plumes: the bridegroom could scarcely believe
his senses.
By this time night began to grow gray, and infant day
showed his sandy hair in the east. The tide served, and off
the lovers started in Jerry's skiff, for the island, in search of
the squire. They landed at the head of the creek, below Lif
Snedicor's, at Islip, just as the people began to go to their
work. The appearance of the rugged fisherman, accompanied
by a lady of unparalleled beauty, bedizened out in such extravagant
apparel, excited no little wonderment. The little
children ran after them, and the women went out to consult
their neighbors about the meteoric visit. All sorts of speculation
were on foot as to the meaning of the apparition. One
old lady said she shouldn't be surprised if the queen of England
had been shipwrecked on the beach, and that Jerry was
showing her the way down to York. This idea took well.
It soon spread like wild-fire, and threw the whole county into
commotion. To see the queen was no trifling matter for the
colonists in those times. In a few hours foot passengers, and
thronged the roads from East Hampton to Babylon. All the
schools were let out and not a clam was caught in the bay
during that whole day.
The morning was far advanced before Jerry and his bride
were ushered after a weary walk, into the squire's parlor. A
boy was soon despatched after the representative of Hymen,
who happened then to be employed some miles off, on the
brush plains, a-carting wood. Jerry was, meanwhile, smitten
with sore apprehension, as he reconnoitered the door yard, and
saw the throngs of anxious faces peering in at the windows.
And why there should be so many unbidden guests, so many
unknown friends, to do him honor at his wedding, he could
not divine: unless, O horror! Galatæa's aquatic parentage
was suspected. The mystery was not dispelled by the conduct
and conversation of the squire, who at last arrived, and
who, advancing into the centre of the room, fell upon his
knees, and addressed Galatæa by the name of his “liege lady,”
or something of that kind, and welcomed her “majesty into
his poor house.” Having done this to his infinite satisfaction,
he arose, and invited Jerry to go into the kitchen and take
something to drink. Jerry signified to the squire that he was
mistaken in the persons.
“What, is not your majesty the queen?”
“Oh no, squire, what put that into your head?” replied the
bridgroom: “this is Mrs. Smith that is to be—we have come
here to be married—that's all.”
The squire's magisterial discrimination was sadly confused
by this declaration. He looked, first at one, then at the other,
and dwelt with no little admiration on the contrast presented
by the couple. “And who could the lady be? And how had
she ever consented to marry that rough”—but then he remembered
silk and scarlet, and he thought of the rumors about Jerry's
wealth—and this might be some town lady, who was no better
than she—but that could not be, for he glanced on her
face, and it was so modest and decorous, and her eyes—no,
they looked as though she drank a little, being pinkish, as before
mentioned.
His honor shook his head. However, he was satisfied it
was a match, and the why and wherefore were none of his
business, so long as he got his fee. So he put on his
gravity, and pulled out his book in which he kept the hymeneal
record. Having set down into the proper column, the
name, age, and occupation of Jerry, he turned to the bride.
“What is your name, ma'am?”
“Galatæa, sir.”
“Galatæa? That's a queer name. Galatæa what?”
“That is my whole name sir.”
“Ha? What ma'am? Oh yes, yes—Gally Teer.” And
he wrote it down. “Where do your parents reside, Miss
Teer?”
“Indeed, I do not know their present residence, sir,”
answered Galatæa, hesitatingly, while Jerry spoke up, and
asked the squire if it was necessary to know her whole seed,
breed, and genealogy.
“I thought as much,” said the squire, affecting to take no
notice of Jerry's impudent blustering. And now it occurred
to him, that here was a proper occasion to inflict wisdom and
authority. So with all the importance of a police justice, when
he has caught a big villain, he called to his son John to bring
him the vagrant book, and to tell the constable to clear the
people out of the door-yard.
“How long is it since you left your parent's roof, young
woman?”
“I cannot tell, sir, exactly. It was about the time of the
first Punic war.”
“Punic war? I never heard of such a war as that;
Come no deception, miss; I know you better than you think
for”—poor Jerry trembled from head to foot—“what is your
father's name? We'll see about this matter.”
Galatæa now rose, with the blood of a goddess mantling
in her cheek. She saw the danger they had fallen into, but
she had a woman's wit to get out of it. She commended
and flattered her examiner, for his zealous vigilance, but besought
him not to condemn her by appearances. She told
him that she had lately been obliged to fly from her native
land, on account of some popular excitement against her
family, which, she said, had always furnished the rulers and
judges of the country. That on her voyage of expatriation
she had been shipwrecked upon Raccoon beach. That her
life had been saved by her betrothed, and she had determined
to give him herself and her treasures forever.
This was plausible, although, in the main, terribly destitute
of fact. She added, further, that her fortune was ample, and
that most of it was rescued from the wreck, and that she
intended to make a generous present to the magistrate who
should make her happy.
The good justice's heart was affected by this recital, and
particularly by the concluding part of it. He began to see
the case more clearly.
He assured her, that he had not intended to say any thing
unpleasant, and the ceremony should be finished with all
speed. First, however, he said it was his duty to write in
the book the christian names of her father and mother.
This was a poser of a requisition; but Galatæa simply said
that the names of her parents were Nereus and Doris. So,
down it went into the book, “Gally Teer, daughter of
Nereus Teer and Doris Teer, spinster.”
The formality was now soon completed, and without further
trouble; although Jerry once told a particular friend of the
grandfather of the narrator of this legend, that the justice
looked “most almighty awful,” when Galatæa pulled off her
glove, and presented her hand for the investment of the wedding
ring. He must have noted, in that dangerous moment,
the submarine conformation of the lady's fingers. But on
that same afternoon, a keg of Hollands found its way into the
cellar under the bridal altar, and before many months the justice
built a new house.
Thus Providence rewards discreet and considerate magistrates.
The aforesaid narrator told me once, when I was a boy, that
“he had a drink out on to that 'ere same liquor, in his honor's
new house, several times, and that it was the best gin
he ever tasted.”
Of all the meannesses of which a man can be guilty,
none equals the treachery of a friend who blabs your secret,
provided, of course, he is well paid to keep it. Let not the
juxta-position of this axiom, and the precedent narrative,
lead any one to believe that the justice told Peet. Waters
that he believed Jerry's wife was a mermaid. Scandal is
an impalpable essence, and Hermes cannot seal it up. The
tongue may be dumb, and the ear may be deaf, and the
hand may be tied, yet does this entity extricate itself from
its supposed place of confinement, and insinuate itself into
other dwelling places, vainly believed to be surely fortified
against its admission. It is like the pressure of the mighty
and into the eyes. The pores of the flesh, the touch of
the hand, the air, are all its sure and well regulated avenues
of travel. Mist, fog, and steam,—particularly of the
tea-kettle,—are the frequent vehicles of its portation.
The beginning of the third year after Jerry's marriage,
saw him the father of two as fine boys as a man could
wish to look on; and a happier couple than he and his
wife never existed. But suspicion was abroad, and dark
surmises threatened the family on the beach. In sorrowful
truth, it became pretty generally known, that Galatæa was
not, exactly after the order of women, although no one ventured
to call her, in so many words, a mermaid. She was
too good, and too human-like for that. Yet Peet. Waters
swore he heard her singing, one night, out in the breakers;
and that he believed that more than one vessel had
been lured on shore by the magic of her voice. Alas!
alas! malice and envy were working fearful sorrows for
the daughter of the sea.
One melancholy night, at the time when rumor was most
busy, and danger was most imminent, Galatæa came home
from the wide waters, where she had been disporting, pale
and in deep distress. She told her husband that she had
seen her father—that he had warned her of sudden peril,
and insisted that she, with her sisters, must leave the inhospitable
coast forever. Forever! Husband and wife!—
that tells the story of the scene that followed. But there
was a rosy-cheeked little fellow in the cradle—“Oh! my
boy!”—what else Galatæa said could hardly be understood
—a woman always talks so thick and unintelligibly, when
she is crying and kissing—and kissing her child, and bidding
it good-by, never to see it again. The morrow's sun
Galatæa had been indicted under the statute against
witches.
“Where is your wife?” was the first gruff sentence that
broke the still air of the morning.
The response of “gone, gone, and buried in the sea,”
added a mortified, if not a much grieved gentleman, to the
trio of mourners which the beach had already possesed.
Yes—Galatæa had torn herself away, and had departed
with her sisters in search of some more charitable clime.
Jerry could never be induced to tell the circumstances of
their separation. All that he ever related, was that, about
three o'clock in the morning, just as the moon was going
down, he was awakened by the mermaid music. Galatæa
sprang out of bed, burst into tears of bitter agony, and
saying, “they have come for me—farewell, farewell,” she
bounded into the surf. Jerry followed, with a breaking
heart, but was waved back by the mermaids, with an authority
and a spell which he could not resist. He then
stood upon the beach, watching their fading forms, as they
glided away to the southeast, singing a mournful dirge;
and he traced them until they came to where the sky and the
water met, when they seemed to open a door in the blue
firmament, and disappeared from his aching eyes,
Since that time, not a mermaid has been seen on the
south side of Long Island.
It was not long before Jerry left a spot full of such
painful associations. Within a few weeks he removed down
east, and laid the foundation of the ancient city of Smithtown.
His boys were the greatest sea-dogs in the country;
and to this day, not a man on Long Island can clam,
crab, jack, shoot, or draw a net for bony fish with the
name of “Smith.”
Note.—The lover of classical proprieties, to whom the
interesting facts of this narrative are new, must not shake
his incredulous head, without making some inquiry into the
matter. That a sea-nymph should take a fancy to a fisherman,
is nothing new nor strange. All women whether of
the land or of the sea, will bestow their hearts upon whom
they please. As to the fact of mermaids having lived on
the coast, there is now no doubt whatever. Every man of literary
pretensions on Long Island, will confirm the well-attested
tradition. Moreover it is incontrovertibly shown,
by the laborious author of the “Parakalummata Hamerikana,”
that after the general spread of christianity throughout
Greece, the divinities of the air, earth and sea, all
abandoned their neglected shrines, and migrated to this
country. Every body knows, that the American Antiquarian
Society points to its demonstration, that the old fortifications
and other extensive works at the west, were constructed
by Vulcan and the cyclops, as the chef d'œuvre of
its learned labors. If anything farther be needed, reference
may be had to the very man, mentioned above as the particular
friend of the grandfather of the narrator of this
legend, and who is now living at Jerusalem, very old, but
very sensible. He is the same veracious chronicler who
tells the story well known all over the island, as “the
legend of Brickhouse Creek.”
2. NO. II.
THE LEGEND OF BRICK-HOUSE CREEK.
Whoever has paid a visit to the interesting country around
and about Jerusalem, has found a spot rich in legendary lore
and romantic story. I mean not the ancient city of the holy
land, but that modern Jerusalem, nigh unto Babylon, in the
southern part of Queens country, Long Island, which is commonly
distinguished and known as Jerusalem South. Here,
while that right good penman, Cornelius Van Tienhoven,
yet signed himself secretary of Niew Netherlands, ran the
division line between the domain of the Briton and the Hollander.
Here was the field of many a border skirmish, and
plundering foray; and the musket and the scalping-knife
gave frequent occupation to Dutchman, Indian and Yankee.
Here are still to be seen the remains of old Fort-Neck, where
Tackapuasha, the Marsapeague sachem, was constrained to
yield a sullen submission to the conquering arms of the new
settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts, under the command of
Deacon Tribulation Smith.[1]
This was the place that was
wept over by the ministers of New-England, even as a mother
weepeth over her ailing infant, because the land was licentious,
and covered with a flood of manifold profaneness.[2]
It
was the place afterwards designated by Governor Fletcher,
in his speech to the New-York Assembly, as a place needing
a schoolmaster and a minister, because he “didn't find any
provision had yet been made for propagating religion.”[3]
This, alas! is not all. It is grievous to add, that the
neighboring bays and inlets of the sea furnished sad temptations
to maritime speculations, which they who were so fortunate
as to have money enough of their own, affected to
esteem of rather equivocal morality, and which the pressure
of the times and the necessities of the people made in many
instances very persuasive, ay, almost irresistible.
Not that the Jerusalemites were absolutely all pirates.
That is a hard name, and one that carries with it the idea
of blood and robbery. But people must live; and if a man
has his crops all cut off or stolen, or if his house and barn
are burned down by the savages, he must, as a matter of
course, look out for some other means of livelihood; and certain
it is, that about these times, many worthy gentlemen invested
much property in divers small craft, yclept brigantines
and cutters, wherewith they scoured the sea, paying visits
unto other vessels, and carrying on a general trade, after a
very wholesale and extensive fashion. Goodly revenues are
said to have been derived from the business, and the names
of many great men and lords were enrollod on the books of
the concerns, as sleeping partners. The excellent historian
of New-York tells us, that Captain Kidd had for his associates
Lord Chancellor Somers, the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls
of Romney and Oxford, and other equally illustrious individuals.[4]
The fact speaks much for the honor of the trade; and
we should be careful how we indulge in harsh nomenclature
of gentlemen engaged in it, seeing that it met the sanction
and protection of the rulers of the land.
No place was better calculated for a depot and a sally-port,
than the bays of Matowacs, as Long Island was then properly
called. It was so easy to run out and run in; and pro
and there were such good safe harbors, where you might lie
and keep a watch over the beach; so that if a French barque
from Martinique, or a Dutchman from Surinam, or, in short,
any vessel with which it might be desirable to have a little
trade, hove in sight, you could up sail, and be on the spot in
ten minutes. There are many relics, and many curious stories
of these expeditions. The historian before mentioned,
speaking of the said water merchants with rather too much
abruptness, says; “It is certain that the pirates were supplied
with provisions by the people of Long Island, who for
many years afterwards were so infatuated with a notion that
they buried great quantities of money along the coast, that
there is scarce a point of land on the island, without the marks
of their `auri sacra fames.' Some credulous people have
ruined themselves by these researches, and propagated a
thousand idle fables current to this day among our country
farmers.”[5]
One of the most distinguished of the brotherhood, whose
names have come down to posterity, was old Thomas Johnson,
otherwise, and more familiarly and commonly called, old
Colonel Tom. He was a man of unquestioned courage and
talent; and though every body knew that his clipper-built
little schooner carried a six pounder and a military chest, for
some other purpose than mere self-defence, yet there was
not the man who was more respected, and walked abroad
more boldly than that same Colonel Tom. He had the best
farm too, and lived in the best and the only brick-house in all
Queens county. This venerable edifice is still standing,
though much dilapidated, and is an object of awe to all the
struck with its reverend and crumbling ruins, as his eye first
falls upon it from the neighboring turnpike; and if he has
heard the story, he will experience a chilly sensation, and
draw a hard breath, while he looks at the circular, sashless
window, in the gable-end. That window has been left open
ever since the old colonel's death. His sons and grandsons
used to try all manner of means in their power to
close it up, so as to keep out the rain and snow in winter,
and to preserve, moreover, the credit of the mansion.
They put in sashes, and they boarded it up, and they bricked
it up, but all would not do; so soon as night came, their
work would be destroyed. A thunder shower was sure to
come up, and the window would be struck with lightning, and
the wood or brick burned up, or broken to pieces; and strange
sights would be seen, and awful voices heard, and bats, and
owls, and chimney-swallows be screaming and flapping
about. So they gave it up, concluding that as this window
looked into the colonel's bedroom, his ghost wanted it left
open for him to revisit the old tenement, without being
obliged to insinuate himself through a crack or a key-hole.
The location of the said domicil is romantic. A beautiful
little stream comes out of a grassy grove in its rear, and after
meandering pleasantly by its side, and more than half encircling
it, shoots away, and crossing the road under the cover
of a close thicket, a little distance off, gradually swells into
a goodly creek, and rolls on its waters to the bay. The
extraordinary material and uncommon grandeur of the colonel's
tenement, very properly gave to this stream the distinguishing
appellation of Brick-house creek. It is a quiet,
innocent looking piece of water, as ever dimpled; yet does no
market-man drive his eel-wagon across that creek, of a Saturday
brisk application of the whip; or without singing or whistling,
peradventure, a good loud stave. This is no impeachment
of the courage of eel merchants; for any man is justifiable
in keeping as far off from a burying-ground as possible;
and in fearful truth, when the passing hoof makes the
first heavy splash into this stream, of a dark night, it is ten
chances to one that the sleepy driver will see a dull, sulphureous
flame start up, a few hundred yards to his left,
from the spot where lie deposited the mortal remains of old
Colonel Tom. That spot is the place of all places for the
grave of a man who loved the water during his lifetime.
It is a little hillock, lying immediately on the edge of the
creek, which always keeps its sides cool and green, and, in
the spring tides, overflows its very summit. Sportsmen
know the place as a peculiar haunt of the largest trout.
Often have I felt the truth and force of old Izaak Walton's
doctrines about piety and running brooks, when kneeling on
that knoll, silent and almost breathless, I have thrown a
quivering May fly, “fine and far off,” below the last circle
that broke the watery mirror before me. And then, when I
had become weary of the excitement, or “the school was
broke up,” it was luxury to stretch myself out on the good
green grass, and lean my rod against one of the tombstones,
and decipher the almost obliterated epitaphs.
No man dare, no man can be irreverend here. Independently
of the associations and the stories about the place, the
very locality, the air, the ground, the water, make one sentimentally
and seriously disposed in spite of himself—excepting,
always, in mosquito time. In ancient days, if Jim
Smith and Daniel Wanza—who always killed more fish than
any two men in the county—spoke of trying Brickhouse creek,
they were talking of going to jail, or a funeral. And well they
might; for they were soaking their villainous ground-bait there
one afternoon, when a Yorker, who had been lashing the waters
with all manner of entomological excerpts from his fishing-book
for tedious hours, at last struck a glorious three-pounder.
“By heavens,” he ejaculated in the transports of
his delight, “I've got a good one.” But the words were no
sooner out of his mouth, than the fish was off his hook. The
ground heaved underneath them; a low, rumbling noise was
heard; a few drops of rain fell, and Daniel said he smelt sulphur
very plainly.
But Saturday night used to be the time to go down to the
creek to see sights. That was the time when the old pirate
was sure to have a frolic. There are many most credible people
who remember repeatedly seeing his little schooner dashing
across the bay with her full complement of men and arms,
sailing right into the eye of the wind; while every now and
then the crew's uplifted right hands showed each a brimming
goblet, and the air smelt of Jamaica spirits, and then rung with
a hoarse hurrah. Just at dawn the schooner would make up
Brick-house creek, and run into the grave yard and vanish.
When Jaac Spragg first went down to Hungry harbor to
live—this was a good many years ago—he used to laugh at all
these stories. His aunt Chastity often took him to task, and
told him he'd be sorry for his want of faith one day or other;
but Jaac stuck to his infidelity, and once he even went so far
as to say, that “he'd be hang'd if he wouldn't like to come
across this same Colonel Tom.” Ben Storer was standing by
and heard that speech, and offered Jaac to wager him a quart
of rum he wouldn't dare to go eeling the next Saturday night
alone, down in the bay below Brick-house creek.
Jaac laughed, and took the bet at once. Saturday night
came, and his skiff, jack, and firewood were all ready.
Now, as the word “jack” is not to be found in any but icthyological
dictionaries, it shall be the glory, as it is the duty
of the faithful narrator of this authentic legend, here to explain
its signification, and to introduce it into good society.
“Jack” is an English abbreviation of the Latin “jaculum,”
which signifies anything that may be shot or thrown. This
is the definition given by the learned Varro, whose words—as
the scholar will remember—are “jaculum dicitur, quod ut jaciatur,
fit.” The Roman fishermen, in the time of Augustus,
applied the word precisely as do our modern piscators. Thus
Horace, in his ode to Grosphus, goes out of his way to pay himself
a compliment for his own skill with the eel-spear—
“—brevi fortes jaculamur ævo
Multa.”—
It consists of a series of sharp iron prongs or forks, barbed
and headed, united in a straight cross piece, and secured,
nailed, or otherwise fastened, upon a light wooden rod or pole,
fifteen or twenty feet long. It may be likened, above all things
else, to a three-pronged pitchfork, save that a pitchfork hath
no barb, and that the eel-spear is calculated to catch eels, and
the pitchfork to toss hay and sinners, which are not so slippery.
The distinction is very happily expressed by Quintilian,
in the word “abrupta”—“abrupta quædam jaculantur.”
This said jack, then, being thrust with vehement force at the
fishy victim, apprehends him in his muddy course, and brings
him, wounded and squirming, out of his element. Night is
the best time for this amusement, as you can then have the
benefit of the light of a good fire to stream upon the water, and
attract and dazzle your prey. The brightest fire is made by old
fire-place of large flat stones. The light, thus kindled, is called
a “jack-o'-lantern,” from the word “jaculantur,” above quoted,
expressive of the act of throwing the spear; and the word
thus originally formed, is now common to every schoolboy in
the country as the name of any wild fiery shoot or exhalation.
Midnight arrived, and found Jaac on the bow of his skiff,
faithfully shoving about the flats below Brick-house creek, as
unconcerned as though he had never heard of pirate Johnson,
or what is more, as if he had no rum at stake upon his night's
adventure. Jaac was always a bold, reckless fellow, and for
fear of accidents, and the night being cool, he had fortified his
inner man upon this occasion, with a spiritual coat of mail,
which made him courageous enough to face the d—l himself.
The time was come to try his pluck. A stranger made his
appearance through the murky shade, and paddling his old
shattered boat alongside of Jaac's skiff, presented in the glare
of the jack-light an object of fear and admiration. He was
tall, muscular, sun-browned, large-featured, and lank-jawed.
His eyes of piercing black were set far back under tremendous
arches of overhanging eye-brows. His long, strait, black
hair fell in every direction from under a naval chapeau-debras,
which was evidently much the worse for the wear. He
was booted to the thighs, and his body was wrapped in a pea-jacket,
tied about his waist with a piece of old rope. Around
his neck was hung a speaking-trumpet, and a pistol handle
peeped from either outside breast-pocket.
“Hilloa, mister, is that you?” He sung out in a familiar,
good-natured tone to Jaac, as he struck his oar into the mud,
and held on.
Now, any ordinary man would have been frightened out of
his wits, by this salutation. But Jaac, although he felt rather
the old colonel,—answered the new-comer's question without
the least trepidation.
“Hilloa, yourself, stranger, I don't know you.” Conversation
at once commenced; conducted without reserve, and with
some shrewdness on the part of Jaac; but all that he was able
to get from the man with the cap, was, that he lived up the
creek, and had come down to catch a mess of eels. Jaac
knew that there was no living man like him that had his habitation
about those parts;—as for ghosts he began to have his
doubts. But he was nothing daunted. He talked to old Pea-jacket
like a catechism-book; and quite a familiarity began to
be established. After a while, the stranger yawned, and said he
believed it was time for him to go to work, so he asked Jaac
for a light to set his jack-a-lantern a-going. Jack handed him
a fire-brand, which the new comer stooping down, touched to
some fire-works in the centre of his boat; and immediately up
there started two long greenish shoots of flame, edged with
black streaks. It was enough to make the stoutest heart
quail; for the light was oppressive to the eyes, and there was
an almost choking smoke, and the fire-place was nothing else
than a human skull, and the two streams of flame came from
the eyeless sockets!
The old colonel—for it was evident now that it was he—
having got all ready, took up his jack, which had only one
prong—but that was very sharp, and with a long barb—and
began his sport. Jaac had not yet trembled a jot; but now it
made his hair stand on end, to see the old man catch eels.
When his arrow-like weapon struck the water, there was a
hissing sound, as though the iron was hot; and every eel that
was drawn out, winding and writhing on the fatal point,
screamed and cried as he came into the air, like a little child.
seemed to be very expert, and presently there was such a
squalling and roaring in his boat that one would have thought
all the children in Erebus had paid a visit to the bay. The
noise at last seemed to disturb the colonel himself; for he
turned around all of a sudden, and swore at the slimy musicians
a loud big oath; when they immediately left off crying
and began whistling. Jaac used to say that he'd “take his
affidavit of the fact, that they whistled a leetle ahead of old
Caspar Van Sinderen's niggars; and they're the best whistlers
on Long Island, by all odds.” It set him a laughing, though,
and he was quaking, and trembling, and laughing all at the
same time, for half an hour, so that he lost all hopes of holding
himself together much longer; when a gun was heard
down among the breakers, in the direction of Gilgoa inlet.
“A ship on shore—by God!” exclaimed the old colonel;
and he threw down his jack, stamped out his light, kicked his
eels overboard, and paddled up towards Jaac. There was a
fierce and determined rigidness of the muscles of his face; his
teeth were set; his fists clenched; and his eye shot out a
terrible gleam, that made Jaac wither away before him. He
pulled alongside.
“Jaac,” said he; and then he stopped short; fixing his
keen, savage eyes upon the almost blinded vision of the poor
fisherman, and looking with intense gaze into his face, for
more than a minute as though he would read his very soul.
At length relaxing his features, as if satisfied with the investigation
he proceeded; “Jaac, I like you; you are a brave
man; and I will make your fortune.” He then went on and
told him that he was satisfied that there was a ship in the
breakers, and he proposed that they should row down and get
aboard, and kill the crew, and passengers, and secure the
Jaac could make no reply. The old man seeing that he had
been too fast, sat down and began to reason about it.
Alas! alas! for human nature, that the god-like exercise of
the mind should make him a villain, who ignorant, had been
innocent! The wise man said truly, that “in much wisdom
is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth
sorrow.” It was the serpent's subtle reasoning, and poor
Eve's simple thinking that accomplished the first transgression.
Every thorough-bred felon is a skilful, although he be
an unsound logician. He can, at the least, find a reason or
an excuse for his conduct, which himself, who is the only
judge in the case, will readily determine to be good and sufficient.
Were there not always some “flattering unction” to
be laid to the souls of incipient transgressors, vice would have
few, perhaps no willing proselytes.
What said the old colonel to Jaac that could reconcile piracy
and murder to his conscience? Why, he took for his
text the speech made to Alexander by the Mediterranean pirate
brought in chains before him; and commented most Dale
—Owenistically upon natural rights, and abstract good, and
evil, and faith, and evidence, and property, and poverty, and
oppression; until Jaac's brains were all in a whirl.
“If all men are born free and equal,” argued the tempter,
“what right have those rich merchants to possess broadcloths,
and silks, and specie, while you have none? And if they
will not willingly give you your share, haven't you a right to
take it yourself? And if they resist you with force, haven't
you a right to kill them in self-defence? And what if the
law forbid you—what is the law? Is not that law against
the constitution of human nature, which takes a poor man's
share in the goods of this world, and gives it to the rich?
to law, than offences are committed against law? And after
all, what does this `virtue' consist in, but in the not being
found out? Answer me that;”—concluded the old casuist,
with emphasis; and he stuck his fists into his sides, and threw
back his head with an air of triumph.
Jack scratched his consideration-cap, and though he did
not wholly relish the morals of his rapid instructor, yet he
could urge not a doubt nor a query upon the behalf of his forlorn
virtue. Was it cowardice, or was it principle that made
him hesitate?
“Come, take a horn,” pursued the cunning old seducer,
“and cheer your spirits up. You'll be none the worse for
a little steam this chilly night.”
Shall we stop here, and read a homily on temperance?
No, no, let every moral follow its own story.
Jaac took the proffered jug, and being really very thirsty
after his long excitement, he drank a good long drink, before
he tasted what kind of liquor it was. At last he stopped, and
shrieking out, as if in pain, he beseeched the colonel for some
water, for the old rascal had given him something raw, that
burned him just as though it were molten lead.
The colonel told him he never kept such stuff, but advised
him to cool his throat with a little of his own rum. Jaac did
so, and he always said that it was like so much cold water,
in comparison with the spiritual beverage to which his companion
had treated him.
It was not long before the co-operation of persuasion and
liquid fire had gained for Colonel Tom a willing coadjutor in
his projected expedition. Jaac's eyes began to swell, and
burn, and he felt a vigor in his arm, and a fierceness in his
heart, which he never knew before. He started up in his
himself.
On they pulled towards the inlet, in grim and death-like
silence, while another, and yet another gun flashed upon the
sky in the south-east, and illuminated the way to the scene
of distress.
A half an hour's row brought them into full view of a
noble galleon, heaving and pitching, and beating her racked
and groaning sides upon a high sand-bank, about a quarter
of a mile from the beach. The wind was blowing a gale,
and the angry waves washed over her decks, and the cordage
creaked, and her white sails all standing fluttered and
veered, as if the crew were so frozen that they could not
pull a rope. Just as they turned the point of the inlet, her
jib was blown clean off, and fell into the water. Then up
rose a wild cry of terror from the wrecked wretches on board.
It was enough to melt a heart of stone.
Just then the moon gleamed out from behind a black cloud,
and discovered our two cut-throat friends. It was a gleam
of hope and joy to the perishing crew; “thank God! there's
help,” went up from many a happy heart.
“Bring us a rope from shore,” sung out the captain of the
ship; “we're going to pieces.”
The colonel, with all the coolness in the world, took up
his speaking-trumpet, and in a voice above the multitudinous
uproar of the elements, answered, “ay, ay, sir, we are coming.
Hold on.”
“Now, Jaac,” said he, bending over towards his pupil,
“take this cutlass, and when we get alongside, fasten your
skiff to the ship, follow me, and go to work. Kill them all
—every soul of them.”
Although Jaac was now possessed of the soul of a demon,
at this late hour. His destiny controlled him—he had gone
too far to retreat.
“Where's the rope?” said the captain, leaning over the
ship's side, as they came up.
“Here it is,” answered the colonel, discharging a pistol
into his right eye, and leaping with a supernatural bound upon
the deck, Jaac followed at a slow pace, and found the colonel
cutting and slashing away, with great spirit and activity. The
passengers were all down in the cabin, at prayers, but the
crew were running about the deck, pursued by the old man,
and screaming for mercy and quarter. Some ran up the
shrouds, others sought the stern or the bowsprit, the long-boat
or the hen-coop, and three or four poor fellows made
their escape up to the cross-trees. But it was of no use.
The old man pursued, and cut them down every where, and
in every fashion; and at one time the men fell from the masthead
thick as hail. Jack stood still, not exactly in horror but
in amazement. The excitement of the tragedy was glorious,
but almost too acute for comfort. He was like a living dead
man. He could neither act nor speak. He felt within him
all the fire of a murderer; but he did'nt know how to begin.
perhaps, it was because he had never yet drawn blood. He
struggled hard, but could not move his hands. While laboring
in this distress, the colonel came running up to him, mad
enough to tear him to pieces, and asked him “what he was
standing there for, idle?”
Jaac started and looked round for a man to kill, but there
was not a living soul left on deck. So, being willing to do
all he could, he picked up a sailor, whom the colonel had cut
down with a sabre gash across his head, and who was not
overboard.
“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted the old gentleman, taking off his
chapeau, and wiping on it the blood that was dripping from
his hands. “Well done for a new beginner. But come, my
boy, there's more work to do. Let's take a drink, and go
and attend to the women, in the cabin. We'll finish our frolic
there, and then see if there's any specie aboard. Drink, drink,
my boy, and hurry, for the ship will go apart soon.”
The mad potation was renewed, and Jaac raved for blood.
One blow with his foot threw the cabin-door off its hinges,
and one bound brought him into the room where the miserable
passengers, men, women, and children were huddled all
together. They were all upon their knees, and one old grey-headed
man was praying aloud, with great fervency. They
gave a terrible shriek, as Jaac and the colonel rushed in, and
crowded like cattle in a slaughter-yard, into a corner of the
cabin, offering no resistance against their murderers.
The colonel very quietly took a seat upon a sea-chest, and
stretching out his arms, gaped long and lazily, and complaining
of fatigue, told Jaac that he must kill these folks.
“Certainly, sir;” said Jaac, and he dashed at the crowd,
cutlass in hand. But some how or other, he couldn't either
strike straight, or else he couldn't get up close enough, or
else, fierce as he felt, he didn't, after all, want to draw blood;
for he kept thrusting and slashing for a long time, and he
didn't touch hide or hair.
“Go ahead, Jaac,” cried the colonel, sharply. “It's getting
late, and we've no time to spare.”
Jaac sprang at the bidding of that awful voice, and dropping
his cutlass, threw himself upon the grey-headed man above
mentioned, and pulling him out into the centre of the cabin,
at him with his fists; then drawing back his sinewy arm,
until his knuckles were close to his chin, he hit him a smasher
of a blow, in the left cheek, and knocked him down.
“I'll stand by that lick,” said the old man chuckling. “He
won't rise again.” The grey-headed passenger was dead.
On rushed the initiated murderer. The spell was broken
that had tied his hands. He had shed blood, and was now
insatiate as his demoniac instructor. He swung aloft his
cutlass over the head of the next wretch who came in his
way, and who happened to be a pale young man, dressed in
black, with spectacles, and who looked like a doctor, or a
lawyer. But, just as the death-bringing weapon was descending
in its swift course, upon its devoted victim, a new figure
made his appearance in the scene, and brought salvation where
before there was not even hope. This was none other than
a large Newfoundland dog, who had before contented himself
with howling, but who, now that danger threatened his master
so imminently, seemed to acquire a new impulse. He
sprang at the breast of Jaac, and fixed his long, sharp teeth
deep into his flesh. The pain was severe, but Jaac dropped
his cutlass, and clasping his hands around his assailant's
neck, throttled him off, and strangled him with the ease that
he would have crushed a caterpillar. The beautiful animal
fell lifeless from his grasp.
The next person Jaac laid hold of was a young woman, of
about seventeen years of age. She was a beautiful creature,
and her long hair was all dishevelled, and her blue eyes
streamed with a flood of pearly drops, and she fell on the
floor, and clung to Jaac's knees, and looked up in his face
with such a piteous expression that a very d—I would have
spared her life.
“Don't kill that girl, Jaac,” cried the colonel, “I want
her. Stab that old woman.”
“Want her, sir?” replied Jaac, with a hesitating look, at
the old reprobate.
“Want her, sir?” iterated the pirate in a voice of thunder.
“Ay, don't you see she is pretty? Ha! ha! ha!” and he
laughed that infernal laugh again.
“Oh! spare me, spare me,” cried the fair victim—“save me
from that worse than demon; or have pity, and strike your
knife into my heart. Is there no mercy for a helpless girl?
Have you a sister or a wife? think—oh! think of her!”
Jaac relaxed his grasp; a cold chill ran over him, the perspiration
stood upon his brow, and he was near fainting on
the spot. He had been married only about a year before,
and to a girl so like — it must, it must have been her sister.
He dropped his hands by his sides, and looked down
with a vacant gaze at the lovely petitioner. The appeal was
too much for him—he forgot his master, and saw and knew
nothing but the face before him, which, strange to say, became
every moment more and more painfully familiar. As
she urged her appeal more earnestly, and passionately, pleading
with a voice well accustomed to his ear, a mist seemed to
fall from his eyes—his virtue returned to him—he could not
weep, but he groaned aloud; could it be? that countenance!
those eyes! that voice! “oh save me, save me, my husband!”
shrieked the poor conscious girl, and Jaac in agony clasped
to his breast his own darling faithful wife.
The old colonel did not seem to relish much this discovery,
or the change of conduct on the part of Jaac. He cursed him
for a tender-hearted chicken, and commanded him, with a
savage voice, to “hand over the girl to him.”
“It's my wife, sir,” said Jaac, suppliantly.
“What of that? you fool!” replied the colonel, advancing
towards the clinging couple.
Jaac had no idea of surrendering his young consort to the
gloating old rascal so readily; so he picked up his cutlass,
and made at him. He could strike, now, fair and hard, and
he gave good blows too; but they went through his antagonist
just as though he were a cloud. The colonel stood still,
laughing at him, in his fiendish fashion; and he let Jaac cut
him through and through, up and down, and crossways; still
there he stood, sound, and whole, and laughing.
Well at last he stopped short, and swore he wouldn't wait
any longer, and drawing a pistol from his pocket, he struck
Jaac with the stock a blow on the temples that sent him reeling
against the opposite lockers; at the same time he seized
the fainting girl, and bearing her utterly senseless, upon his
left arm, he hurried up the companion-way and disappeared.
Jaac was on his feet again in a twinkling, and in hot and
close pursuit. The spectre pirate was just shoving off from
the ship as he threw himself over her side, so that he was
only a few strokes of an oar behind. Then was rowed the
goodliest-boat race, and for the richest prize, too, that the
country has ever seen. The “Raynortown Standard,” in
giving an account of the contest remarked that the odds were
decidedly in favor of the colonel at the start, for he was not
only ahead, but he carried the least weight, being considerably
ethereal himself, and not weighing over a quarter of a
pound at the utmost, and having aboard, in addition, only Jaac's
wife and his fire skull, that together would not raise a ton;
while Jaac, on the contrary, was over a hundred and fifty
himself, and had at least twenty pounds of stone, besides his
eels, and a very heavy heart to pull with. This inequality
however, was somewhat compensated by the difference of the
all the world like Charon's old ferry-er, and leaked so badly
that Mrs. Spragg's frock got quite wet. But Jaac's was a
trim, clean, long, narrow, tight, beautiful skiff. She walked
over the top of the waves, flinging back their combing edges
like the foam from the neck of a gallant racer, or like the long
flowing hair of a country maiden, parted on her forehead, and
blown back by the wanton, dallying wind. She seemed to
live and feel the honor of the contest, and to anticipate the
glory of a victory. The husband fast gained upon the ravisher.
Two to one were freely bet by the sympathizing mermaids
that the pirate would be overtaken. The mermen, who
took the odds, had to interfere to prevent foul play, and to
keep the ladies from pushing Jaac along. Presently the
pirate shot ahead, and created an awful distance between
him and the despairing Jaac. When, joy! joy! in his eager
speed, he left the safe channel and ran hard upon a sand bar.
This good fortune brought up the lost distance of the skiff,
and Jaac could almost touch the pirate-craft with his oar,
when out jumped the old colonel, and, with superhuman force,
dragged her out of his reach across the bar, and launched her
into the opposite channel. This manœuvre threw the fisherman
completely off the course, and he was obliged to back
water, and go around the point of the bar. Now came the
time for the last desperate struggle. West island, and Wanza's
flat, and the Squaw islands, were all passed, and strait
before the panting oarsman lay the spectre-pirate's home.
There was the creek, glittering in the moon-beams, looking
so virtuous and so happy, and there was the little hillock soon
to swallow up—nay, nay, one struggle more—Jaac looked to
the east, but not a streak of light was yet to be seen. He
strained with a desperate exertion. In vain, in vain;—the
Like a vapor the spectre-skiff swept around the
bend of the creek, and disappeared behind the high bank.
Jaac saw no more; a long piteous scream fell upon his ear,
and he became insensible of further suffering.
How long our adventurous friend lay in that condition, it is
impossible to tell. But the next afternoon, some of his neighbors
who knew of the bet, and felt anxious on account of his
not returning, went out to look for him. They found him in
the bottom of his boat, fast asleep, high and dry, on a mud flat
near Gin island. It seems that after he came to himself, he
fell asleep from mere exhaustion, and drifted with the tide to
the spot where he was discovered. When they waked him
up he was quite stupid, and had a very confused, misty sort
of imagination, as to where he was and what he had been
about. To such an extent does bodily exertion and mental
distress weaken and reduce poor mortals! When he was
told that his wife was very much distressed about him, and
was at home crying and wringing her hands, about the probable
consequences of his fool-hardiness, the poor man was
almost disposed to believe that he had been drunk or dreaming.
Like a prudent man, however, he said nothing, but
steered for his house as soon as possible, and went to bed.
The neighbors saw from Jaac's mysterious manner, that something
had been the matter, and the report soon got around that
Jaac had had an interview with old Colonel Tom.
The next day Jaac was more cool and collected, and he
remembered all the occurrences of that fearful night with
great accuracy and minuteness. He related the whole matter,
without any reserve or hesitation, declaring that he
thought it his duty to confess, and that he couldn't die happy
unless he unburdened his mind, and that if he must swing for
with fear, and horror, and pity. Three justices met
and took his examination, but the thing never went any further.
Some say that the state's attorney entered a nolle prosequi
on the account of Jaac's wife swearing she was home
all that night, which made an alibi, and that's enough to kill
any indictment. Others, again wink their eye and look
knowing, and say that Jaac was under a high pressure of
steam that night. But this was a scandalous insinuation,
made, no doubt, by some of the friends of Ben Storer, who
lost the bet. On the whole it is a very mysterious affair.
There's a good deal to be said on both sides, as there is in
fact about every thing else. As for myself, sometimes, I believe
it, and then again I don't believe it, but I think I have
always believed the greatest part of it. But that's the end of
the legend.
| Sporting scenes and sundry sketches | |