University of Virginia Library

GUESTS FROM GIBBET ISLAND.
A LEGEND OF COMMUNIPAW.

Whoever has visited the ancient and renowned village of
Communipaw, may have noticed an old stone building, of most
ruinous and sinister appearance. The doors and window-shutters
are ready to drop from their hinges; old clothes are
stuffed in the broken panes of glass, while legions of half-starved
dogs prowl about the premises, and rush out and bark
at every passer by; for your beggarly house in a village is
most apt to swarm with profligate and ill-conditioned dogs.
What adds to the sinister appearance of this mansion, is a tall
frame in front, not a little resembling a gallows, and which
looks as if waiting to accommodate some of the inhabitants with
a well-merited airing. It is not a gallows, however, but an
ancient sign-post; for this dwelling, in the golden days of
Communipaw, was one of the most orderly and peaceful of
village taverns, where all the public affairs of Communipaw
were talked and smoked over. In fact, it was in this very
building that Oloffe the Dreamer, and his companions, concerted
that great voyage of discovery and colonization, in
which they explored Buttermilk Channel, were nearly shipwrecked
in the strait of Hell-gate, and finally landed on the Island
of Manhattan, and founded the great city of New Amsterdam.

Even after the province had been cruelly wrested from the
sway of their High Mightinesses, by the combined forces of
the British and the Yankees, this tavern continued its ancient
loyalty. It is true, the head of the Prince of Orange disappeared
from the sign; a strange bird being painted over it,
with the explanatory legend of “Die Wilde Gans,” or The
Wild Goose; but this all the world knew to be a sly riddle of

the landlord, the worthy Teunis Van Gleson, a knowing man
in a small way, who laid his finger beside his nose and winked,
when any one studied the signification of his sign, and observed
that his goose was hatching, but would join the flock whenever
they flew over the water; an enigma which was the
perpetual recreation and delight of the loyal but fat-headed
burghers of Communipaw.

Under the sway of this patriotic, though discreet and quiet
publican, the tavern continued to flourish in primeval tranquillity,
and was the resort of all true-hearted Nederlanders,
from all parts of Pavonia; who met here quietly and secretly,
to smoke and drink the downfall of Briton and Yankee, and
success to Admiral Von Tromp.

The only drawback on the comfort of the establishment,
was a nephew of mine host, a sister's son, Yan Yost Vanderscamp
by name, and a real scamp by nature. It is an old
Spanish proverb, worthy of all acceptation, that “where God
denies sons the devil sends nephews,” and such was the case
in the present instance. This unlucky whipster showed an
early propensity to mischief, which he gratified in a small
way, by playing tricks upon the frequenters of the Wild
Goose; putting gunpowder in their pipes or squibs in their
pockets, and astonishing them with an explosion, while they
sat nodding round the fire-place in the bar-room; and if
perchance a worthy burgher from some distant part of Pavonia
lingered until dark over his potation, it was odds but
that young Vanderscamp would slip a brier under his horse's
tail, as he mounted, and send him clattering along the road, in
neck-or-nothing style, to his infinite astonishment and discomfiture.

It may be wondered at, that mine host of the Wild Goose
did not turn such a graceless varlet out of doors; but Teunis
Van Gieson was an easy-tempered man, and, having no child
of his own, looked upon his nephew with almost parental indulgence.
His patience and good nature were doomed to be
tried by another inmate of his mansion. This was a crossgrained

curmudgeon of a negro, named Pluto, who was a kind
of enigma in Communipaw. Where he came from, nobody
knew. He was found one morning, after a storm, cast like a
sea-monster on the strand, in front of the Wild Goose, and lay
there, more dead than alive. The neighbors gathered round,
and speculated on this production of the deep; whether it were
fish or flesh, or a compound of both, commonly yclept a
merman. The kind-hearted Teunis Van Gieson, seeing that
he wore the human form, took him into his house, and warmed
him into life. By degrees, he showed signs of intelligence, and
even uttered sounds very much like language, but which no
one in Communipaw could understand. Some thought him a
negro just from Guinea, who had either fallen overboard, or
escaped from a slave-ship. Nothing, however, could ever
draw from him any account of his origin. When questioned
on the subject, he merely pointed to Gibbet Island, a small
rocky islet, which lies in the open bay just opposite to Communipaw,
as if that were his native place, though everybody
knew it had never been inhabited.

In the process of time, he acquired something of the Dutch
language, that is to say, he learnt all its vocabulary of oaths
and maledictions, with just words sufficient to string them
together. “Donder en blicksem!' (thunder and lightning) was
the gentlest of his ejaculations. For years he kept about the
Wild Goose, more like one of those familiar spirits, or household
goblins, that we read of, than like a human being. He
acknowledged allegiance to no one, but performed various
domestic offices, when it suited his humor; waiting occasionally
on the guests; grooming the horses, cutting wood, drawing
water; and all this without being ordered. Lay any command
on him, and the stubborn sea-urchin was sure to rebel. He was
never so much at home, however, as when on the water, plying
about in skiff or canoe, entirely alone, fishing, crabbing, or
grabbing for oysters, and would bring home quantities for the
larder of the Wild Goose, which he would throw down at the
kitchen door with a growl. No wind nor weather deterred

him from launching forth on his favorite element: indeed, the
wilder the weather, the more he seemed to enjoy it. If a
storm was brewing, he was sure to put off from shore; and
would be seen far out in the bay, his light skiff dancing like a
feather on the waves, when sea and sky were all in a turmoil,
and the stoutest ships were fain to lower their sails. Sometimes,
on such occasions, he would be absent for days together.
How he weathered the tempests, and how and where he
subsisted, no one could divine, nor did any one venture to ask,
for all had an almost superstitious awe of him. Some of the
Communipaw oystermen declared that they had more than
once seen him suddenly disappear, canoe and all, as if they
plunged beneath the waves, and after a while come up again,
in quite a different part of the bay; whence they concluded that
he could live under water like that notable species of wild
duck, commonly called the Hell-diver. All began to consider
him in the light of a foul-weather bird, like the Mother Carey's
Chicken, or stormy Petrel; and whenever they saw him putting
far out in his skiff, in cloudy weather, made up their minds for
a storm.

The only being for whom he seemed to have any liking, was
Yan Yost Vanderscamp, and him he liked for his very
wickedness. He in a manner took the boy under his tutelage,
prompted him to all kinds of mischief, aided him in every wild
harum-searum freak, until the lad became the complete scapegrace
of the village; a pest to his uncle, and to every one else.
Nor were his pranks confined to the land; he soon learned to
accompany old Pluto on the water. Together these worthies
would cruise about the broad bay, and all the neighboring
straits and rivers; poking around in skiffs and canoes; robbing
the set nets of the fishermen; landing on remote coasts, and
laying waste orchards and water-melon patches; in short,
carrying on a complete system of piracy, on a small scale.
Piloted by Pluto, the youthful Vanderscamp soon became
acquainted with all the bays, rivers, creeks, and inlets of the
watery world around him; could navigate from the Hook to

Spiting-devil on the darkest night, and learned to set even the
terrors of Hell-gate at defiance.

At length, negro and boy suddenly disappeared, and days
and weeks elapsed, but without tidings of them. Some said
they must have run away and gone to sea; others jocosely
hinted, that old Pluto, being no other than a namesake in disguise,
had spirited away the boy to the nether regions. All, however,
agreed in one thing, that the village was well rid of them.

In the process of time, the good Teunis Van Gieson slept
with his fathers, and the tavern remained shut up, waiting for a
claimant, for the next heir was Yan Yost Vanderscamp, and
he had not been heard of for years. At length, one day, a
boat was seen pulling for shore, from a long, black, rakishlooking
schooner, which lay at anchor in the bay. The boat's
crew seemed worthy of the craft from which they debarked.
Never had such a set of noisy, roistering, swaggering varlets
landed in peaceful Communipaw. They were outlandish in
garb and demeanor, and were headed by a rough, burly, bully
ruffian, with fiery whiskers, a copper nose, a scar across his
face, and a great Flaunderish beaver slouched on one side of his
head, in whom, to their dismay, the quiet inhabitants were
made to recognise their early pest, Yan Yost Vanderscamp.
The rear of this hopeful gang was brought up by old Pluto,
who had lost an eye, grown grizzly-headed, and looked more
like the devil than ever. Vanderscamp renewed his acquaintance
with the old burghers, much against their will, and in a
manner not at all to their taste. He slapped them familiarly
on the back, gave them an iron grip of the hand, and was hail
fellow well met. According to his own account, he had been
all the world over; had made money by bags full; had ships
in every sea, and now meant to turn the Wild Goose into a
country-seat, where he and his comrades, all rich merchants
from foreign parts, might enjoy themselves in the interval of
their voyages.

Sure enough, in a little while there was a complete metamorphose
of the Wild Goose. From being a quiet, peaceful

Dutch public house, it became a most riotous, uproarious
private dwelling; a complete rendezvous for boisterous men
of the seas, who came here to have what they call a “blow
out” on dry land, and might be seen at all hours lounging
about the door, or lolling out of the windows; swearing
among themselves, and cracking rough jokes on every passer
by. The house was fitted up, too, in so strange a manner;
hammocks slung to the walls, instead of bedsteads; odd
kinds of furniture, of foreign fashion; bamboo couches,
Spanish chairs; pistols, cutlasses, and blunderbusses, suspended
on every peg; silver crucifixes on the mantel-pieces,
silver candlesticks and porringers on the tables, contrasting
oddly with the pewter and Delf ware of the original establishment.
And then the strange amusements of these seamonsters!
Pitching Spanish dollars, instead of quoits; firing
blunderbusses out of the window; shooting at a mark, or at
any unhappy dog, or cat, or pig, or barn-door fowl, that
might happen to come within reach.

The only being who seemed to relish their rough waggery,
was old Pluto; and yet he led but a dog's life of it; for they
practised all kinds of manual jokes upon him; kicked him
about like a foot-ball; shook him by his grizzly mop of wool,
and never spoke to him without coupling a curse by way of
adjective to his name, and consigning him to the infernal
regions. The old fellow, however, seemed to like them the
better, the more they cursed him, though his utmost expression
of pleasure never amounted to more than the growl
of a petted bear, when his ears are rubbed.

Old Pluto was the ministering spirit at the orgies of the
Wild Goose; and such orgies as took place there! Such
drinking, singing, whooping, swearing; with an occasional interlude
of quarrelling and fighting. The noisier grew the
revel, the more old Pluto plied the potations, until the
guests would become frantic in their merriment, smashing
everything to pieces, and throwing the house out of the
windows. Sometimes, after a drinking bout, they sallied

forth and scoured the village, to the dismay of the worthy
burghers, who gathered their women within doors, and would
have shut up the house. Vanderscamp, however, was not to
be rebuffed. He insisted on renewing acquaintance with his
old neighbors, and on introducing his friends, the merchants,
to their families; swore he was on the look-out for a wife,
and meant, before he stopped, to find husbands for all their
daughters. So, will-ye, nill-ye, sociable he was; swaggered
about their best parlors, with his hat on one side of his head;
sat on the good wife's nicely-waxed mahogany table, kicking
his heels against the carved and polished legs; kissed and
tousled the young vrouws; and, if they frowned and pouted,
gave them a gold rosary, or a sparkling cross, to put them in
good humor again.

Sometimes nothing would satisfy him, but he must have
some of his old neighbors to dinner at the Wild Goose.
There was no refusing him, for he had got the complete
upper hand of the community, and the peaceful burghers all
stood in awe of him. But what a time would the quiet,
worthy men have, among these rake-hells, who would delight
to astound them with the most extravagant gunpowder tales,
embroidered with all kinds of foreign oaths; clink the can
with them; pledge them in deep potations; bawl drinking
songs in their ears; and occasionally fire pistols over their
heads, or under the table, and then laugh in their faces, and
ask them how they liked the smell of gunpowder.

Thus was the little village of Communipaw for a time like
the unfortunate wight possessed with devils; until Vanderscamp
and his brother merchants would sail on another trading
voyage, when the Wild Goose would be shut up, and everything
relapse into quiet, only to be disturbed by his next visitation.

The mystery of all these proceedings gradually dawned
upon the tardy intellects of Communipaw. These were the
times of the notorious Captain Kidd, when the American
harbors were the resorts of piratical adventurers of all kinds,
who, under pretext of mercantile voyages, scoured the West

Indies, made plundering descents upon the Spanish Main,
visited even the remote Indian Seas, and then came to dispose
of their booty, have their revels, and fit out new expeditions, in
the English colonies.

Vanderscamp had served in this hopeful school, and having
risen to importance among the buccaneers, had pitched upon
his native village and early home, as a quiet, out-of-the way,
unsuspected place, where he and his comrades, while anchored
at New York, might have their feasts, and concert
their plans, without molestation.

At length the attention of the British government was called
to these piratical enterprises, that were becoming so frequent
and outrageous. Vigorous measures were taken to check and
punish them. Several of the most noted freebooters were caught
and executed, and three of Vanderscamp's chosen comrades, the
most riotous swash-bucklers of the Wild Goose, were hanged
in chains on Gibbet Island, in full sight of their favorite
resort. As to Vanderscamp himself, he and his man Pluto
again disappeared, and it was hoped by the people of Communipaw
that he had fallen in some foreign brawl, or been
swung on some foreign gallows.

For a time, therefore, the tranquillity of the village was restored;
the worthy Dutchmen once more smoked their pipes in
peace, eyeing, with peculiar complacency, their old pests
and terrors, the pirates, dangling and drying in the sun, on
Gibbet Island.

This perfect calm was doomed at length to be ruffled. The
fiery persecution of the pirates gradually subsided. Justice
was satisfied with the examples that had been made, and there
was no more talk of Kidd, and the other heroes of like kidney.
On a calm summer evening, a boat, somewhat heavily laden,
was seen pulling into Communipaw. What was the surprise
and disquiet of the inhabitants, to see Yan Yost Vanderscamp
seated at the helm, and his man Pluto tugging at the oar.
Vanderscamp, however, was apparently an altered man. He
brought home with him a wife, who seemed to be a shrew, and

to have the upper hand of him. He no longer was the swaggering,
bully ruffian, but affected the regular merchant, and
talked of retiring from business, and settling down quietly, to
pass the rest of his days in his native place.

The Wild Goose mansion was again opened, but with
diminished splendor, and no riot. It is true, Vanderscamp had
frequent nautical visitors, and the sound of revelry was occasionally
overheard in his house; but everything seemed to be
done under the rose; and old Pluto was the only servant that
officiated at these orgies. The visitors, indeed, were by no
means of the turbulent stamp of their predecessors; but quiet,
mysterious traders, full of nods, and winks, and hieroglyphic
signs, with whom, to use their cant phrase, “everything was
smug.” Their ships came to anchor at night, in the lower
bay; and, on a private signal, Vanderscamp would launch his
boat, and, accompanied solely by his man Pluto, would make
them mysterious visits. Sometimes boats pulled in at night, in
front of the Wild Goose, and various articles of merchandise
were landed in the dark, and spirited away, nobody knew whither.
One of the more curious of the inhabitants kept watch, and
caught a glimpse of the features of some of these night visitors,
by the casual glance of a lantern, and declared that he
recognised more than one of the freebooting frequenters of the
Wild Goose, in former times; from whence he concluded that
Vanderscamp was at his old game, and that this mysterious
merchandise was nothing more nor less than piratical plunder.
The more charitable opinion, however, was, that Vanderscamp
and his comrades, having been driven from their old line of
business, by the “oppressions of government,” had resorted to
smuggling to make both ends meet.

Be that as it may: I come now to the extraordinary fact,
which is the butt-end of this story. It happened late one
night, than Yan Yost Vanderscamp was returning across the
broad bay, in his light skiff, rowed by his man Pluto. He had
been carousing on board of a vessel, newly arrived, and was
somewhat obfuseated in intellect, by the liquid he had imbibed.

It was a still, sultry night; a heavy mass of lurid clouds was
rising in the west, with the low muttering of distant thunder.
Vanderscamp called on Pluto to pull lustily, that they might
get home before the gathering storm. The old negro made no
reply, but shaped his course so as to skirt the rocky shores of
Gibbet Island. A faint creaking overhead caused Vanderscamp
to cast up his eyes, when, to his horror, he beheld the bodies of
his three pot companions and brothers in iniquity, dangling in
the moonlight, their rags fluttering, and their chains creaking,
as they were slowly swung backward and forward by the rising
breeze.

“What do you mean, you blockhead,” cried Vanderscamp,
“by pulling so close to the island?”

“I thought you'd be glad to see your old friends once more,”
growled the negro; “you were never afraid of a living man,
what do you fear from the dead?”

“Who's afraid?” hiccupped Vanderscamp, partly heated by
liquor, partly nettled by the jeer of the negro; “who's afraid?
Hang me, but I would be glad to see them once more, alive or
dead, at the Wild Goose. Come, my lads in the wind,” continued
he, taking a draught, and flourishing the bottle above
his head, “here's fair weather to you in the other world; and
if you should be walking the rounds to-night, odds fish, but
I'll be happy if you will drop in to supper.”

A dismal creaking was the only reply. The wind blew
loud and shrill, and as it whistled round the gallows, and
among the bones, sounded as if there were laughing and gibbering
in the air. Old Pluto chuckled to himself, and now
pulled for home. The storm burst over the voyagers, while
they were yet far from shore. The rain fell in torrents, the
thunder crashed and pealed, and the lightning kept up an incessant
blaze. It was stark midnight before they landed at
Communipaw.

Dripping and shivering, Vanderscamp crawled homeward.
He was completely sobered by the storm; the water soaked
from without having diluted and cooled the liquor within.

Arrived at the Wild Goose, he knocked timidly and dubiously
at the door, for he dreaded the reception he was to experience
from his wife. He had reason to do so. She met him at the
threshold, in a precious ill-humor.

“Is this a time,” said she, “to keep people out of their beds,
and to bring home company, to turn the house upside down?”

“Company?” said Vanderscamp meekly, “I have brought
no company with me, wife.”

“No, indeed! they have got here before you, but by your
invitation; and a blessed looking company they are, truly.”

Vanderscamp's knees smote together. “For the love of
heaven, where are they, wife?”

“Where?—why in the blue room, up stairs, making themselves
as much at home as if the house were their own.”

Vanderscamp made a desperate effort, scrambled up to the
room, and threw open the door. Sure enough, there at a table
on which burned a light as blue as brimstone, sat the three
guests from Gibbet Island, with halters round their necks, and
bobbing their cups together, as if they were hob-or-nobbing,
and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since translated
into English:

Vanderscamp saw and heard no more. Starting back with
horror, he missed his footing on the landing place, and fell
from the top of the stairs to the bottom. He was taken up
speechless, and, either from the fall or the fright, was buried in
the yard of the little Dutch Church at Bergen, on the following
Sunday.

From that day forward, the fate of the Wild Goose was
sealed. It was pronounced a haunted house, and avoided accordingly.
No one inhabited it but Vanderscamp's shrew of a
widow, and old Pluto, and they were considered but little better

than its hobgoblin visitors. Pluto grew more and more
haggard and morose, and looked more like an imp of darkness
than a human being. He spoke to no one, but went about
muttering to himself; or, as some hinted, talking with the devil,
who, though unseen, was ever at his elbow. Now and then
he was seen pulling about the bay alone, in his skiff, in dark
weather, or at the approach of night-fall; nobody could tell
why, unless on an errand to invite more guests from the gallows.
Indeed it was affirmed that the Wild Goose still continued
to be a house of entertainment for such guests, and that
on stormy nights the blue chamber was occasionally illuminated,
and sounds of diabolical merriment were overheard, mingling with
the howling of the tempest. Some treated these as idle stories,
until on one such night-it was about the time of the equinox—
there was a horrible uproar in the Wild Goose, that could not
be mistaken. It was not so much the sound of revelry, however,
as strife, with two or three piercing shrieks, that pervaded
every part of the village. Nevertheless, no one thought
of hastening to the spot. On the contrary, the honest burghers
of Communipaw drew their nightcaps over their ears, and
buried their heads under the bed-clothes, at the thoughts of
Vanderscamp and his gallows companions.

The next morning, some of the bolder and more curious
undertook to reconnoitre. All was quiet and lifeless at the
Wild Goose. The door yawned wide open, and had evidently
been open all night, for the storm had beaten into the house.
Gathering more courage from the silence and apparent desertion,
they gradually ventured over the threshold. The house
had indeed the air of having been possessed by devils. Everything
was topsy turvy; trunks had been broken open, and
chests of drawers and corner cupboards turned inside out, as
in a time of general sack and pillage; but the most woful
sight was the widow of Yan Yost Vanderscamp, extended a
corpse on the floor of the blue chamber, with the marks of a
deadly gripe on the windpipe.

All now was conjecture and dismay at Communipaw; and

the disappearance of old Pluto, who was nowhere to be found,
gave rise to all kinds of wild surmises. Some suggested that
the negro had betrayed the house to some of Vanderscamp's
buccaneering associates, and that they had decamped together
with the booty; others surmised that the negro was nothing
more nor less than a devil incarnate, who had now accomplished
his ends, and made off with his dues.

Events, however, vindicated the negro from this last imputation.
His skiff was picked up, drifting about the bay, bottom
upwards, as if wrecked in a tempest; and his body was found,
shortly afterwards, by some Communipaw fishermen, stranded
among the rocks of Gibbet Island, near the foot of the pirates'
gallows. The fishermen shook their heads, and observed that
old Pluto had ventured once too often to invite Guests from
Gibbet Island.