University of Virginia Library

DOLPH HEYLIGER.

Tale of a Tub.

In the early time of the province of New York, while it
groaned under the tyranny of the English governor, Lord
Cornbury, who carried his cruelties towards the Dutch inhabitants
so far as to allow no Dominie, or schoolmaster, to
officiate in their language, without his special license; about
this time, there lived in the jolly little old city of the Manhattoes,
a kind motherly dame, known by the name of Dame
Heyliger. She was the widow of a Dutch sea-captain, who
died suddenly of a fever, in consequence of working too hard,
and eating too heartily, at the time when all the inhabitants
turned out in a panic, to fortify the place against the invasion
of a small French privateer.[1] He left her with very little
money, and one infant son, the only survivor of several
children. The good woman had need of much management
to make both ends meet, and keep up a decent appearance.
However, as her husband had fallen a victim to his zeal for the
public safety, was universally agreed that “something ought
to be done for the widow;” and on the hopes of this “something”
she lived tolerably for some years; in the meantime everybody
pitied and spoke well of her, and that helped along.

She lived in a small house, in a small street, called Garden-street,
very probably from a garden which may have flourished
there some time or other. As her necessities every year-grew
greater, and the talk of the public about doing “something
for her” grew less, she had to cast about for some mode of
doing something for herself, by way of helping out her slender
means, and maintaining her independence, of which she was
somewhat tenacious.

Living in a mercantile town, she had caught something of
the spirit, and determined to venture a little in the great lottery
of commerce. On a sudden, therefore, to the great surprise of
the street, there appeared at her window a grand array of
gingerbread kings and queens, with their arms stuck a-kimbo,
after the invariable royal manner. There were also several
broken tumblers, some filled with sugar-plums, some with
marbles; there were, moreover, cakes of various kinds, and
barley-sugar, and Holland dolls, and wooden horses, with
here and there gilt-covered picture-books, and now and then
a skein of thread, or a dangling pound of candles. At the
door of the house sat the good old dame's cat, a decent
demure-looking personage, who seemed to scan everybody
that passed, to criticise their dress, and now and then to
stretch her neck, and to look out with sudden curiosity, to
see what was going on at the other end of the street; but if
by chance any idle vagabond dog came by, and offered to be
uncivil—hoity-toity!—how she would bristle up, and growl,
and spit, and strike out her paws! she was as indignant as
ever was an ancient and ugly spinster on the approach of some
graceless profligate.

But though the good woman had to come down to those
humble means of subsistence, yet she still kept up a feeling of
family pride, being descended from the Vanderspiegels, of
Amsterdam; and she had the family arms painted and framed,
and hung over her mantel-piece. She was, in truth, much respected
by all the poorer people of the place; her house was
quite a resort of the old wives of the neighborhood; they

would drop in there of a winter's afternoon, as she sat knitting
on one side of her fireplace, her cat purring on the other, and
the tea-kettle singing before it, and they would gossip with her
until late in the evening. There was always an arm chair for
Peter de Groodt, sometimes called Long Peter, and sometimes
Peter Longlegs, the clerk and sexton of the little Lutheran
church, who was her great crony, and, indeed, the oracle of her
fireside. Nay, the Dominie himself did not disdain, now and
then, to step in, converse about the state of her mind, and take
a glass of her special good cherry brandy. Indeed, he never
failed to call on new year's day, and wish her a happy new
year; and the good dame, who was a little vain on some
points, always piqued herself on giving him as large a cake as
any one in town.

I have said that she had one son. He was the child of her
old age; but could hardly be called the comfort, for, of all unlucky
urchins, Dolph Heyliger was the most mischievous. Not
that the whipster was really vicious, he was only full of fun and
frolic, and had that daring, gamesome spirit, which is extolled in
a rich man's child, but execrated in a poor man's. He was continually
getting into scrapes; his mother was incessantly
harassed with complaints of some waggish pranks which he
had played off; bills were sent in for windows that he had
broken; in a word, he had not reached his fourteenth year before
he was pronounced, by all the neighborhood, to be a
“wicked dog, the wickedest dog in the street!” Nay, one old
gentleman, in a claret-colored coat, with a thin red face, and
ferret eyes, went so far as to assure Dame Heyliger that her
son would, one day or other, come to the gallows.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the poor soul loved her boy.
It seemed as though she loved him the better the worse he behaved,
and that he grew more in her favor, the more he grew
out of favor with the world. Mothers are foolish, fond-hearted
beings; there's no reasoning them out of their dotage; and,
indeed, this poor woman's child was all that was left to love
her in this world, so we must not think it hard that she turned

a deaf ear to her good friends, who sought to prove to her that
Dolph would come to a halter.

To do the varlet justice, too, he was strongly attached to his
parent. He would not willingly have given her pain on any
account, and when he had been doing wrong, it was but for
him to catch his poor mother's eye fixed wistfully and sorrowfully
upon him, to fill his heart with bitterness and contrition.
But he was a heedless youngster, and could not, for the life of
him, resist any new temptation to fun and mischief. Though
quick at his learning, whenever he could be brought to apply
himself, he was always prone to be led away by idle company,
and would play truant to hunt after birds' nests, to rob orchards,
or to swim in the Hudson.

In this way he grew up a tall, lubberly boy, and his mother
began to be greatly perplexed what to do with him, or how to
put him in a way to do for himself; for he had acquired such
an unlucky reputation, that no one seemed willing to employ
him.

Many were the consultations that she held with Peter de
Groodt, the clerk and sexton, who was her prime counsellor.
Peter was as much perplexed as herself, for he had no great
opinion of the boy, and thought he would never come to good.
He at one time advised her to send him to sea—a piece of
advice only given in the most desperate cases; but Dame
Heyliger would not listen to such an idea; she could not think
of letting Dolph go out of her sight. She was sitting one day
knitting by the fireside, in great perplexity, when the sexton
entered with an air of unusual vivacity and briskness. He had
just come from a funeral. It had been that of a boy of Dolph's
years, who had been apprentice to a famous German doctor,
and had died of a consumption. It is true, there had been a
whisper that the deceased had been brought to his end by being
made the subject of the doctor's experinents, on which he was
apt to try the effects of a new compound, or a quieting draught.
This, however, it is likely was a mere scandal; at any rate,
Peter de Groodt did not think it worth mentioning, though,

had we time to philosophize, it would be a curious matter for
speculation, why a doctor's family is apt to be so lean and
cadaverous, and a butcher's so jolly and rubicund.

Peter de Groodt, as I said before, entered the house of
Dame Heyliger with unusual alacrity. A bright idea had
popped into his head at the funeral, over which he had
chuckled as he shovelled the earth into the grave of the
doctor's disciple. It had occurred to him, that, as the situation
of the deceased was vacant at the doctor's, it would be the very
place for Dolph. The boy had parts, and could pound a
pestle, and run an errand with any boy in the town, and what
more was wanted in a student?

The suggestion of the sage Peter was a vision of glory to the
mother. She had already seen Dolph, in her mind's eye, with
a cane at his nose, a knocker at his door, and an M.D. at the
end of his name—one of the established dignitaries of the town.

The matter once undertaken, was soon effected: the sexton
had some influence with the doctor, they having had much
dealing together in the way of their separate professions; and
the very next morning he called and conducted the urchin, clad
in his Sunday clothes, to undergo the inspection of Dr. Karl
Lodovick Knipperhausen.

They found the doctor seated in an elbow-chair, in one
corner of his study, or laboratory, with a large volume, in
German print, before him. He was a short fat man, with a
dark square face, rendered more dark by a black velvet cap.
He had a little knobbed nose, not unlike the ace of spades, with
a pair of spectacles gleaming on each side of his dusky
countenance, like a couple of bow-windows.

Dolph felt struck with awe on entering into the presence
of this learned man; and gazed about him with boyish wonder
at the furniture of this chamber of knowledge, which appeared
to him almost as the den of a magician. In the centre stood a
claw-footed table, with pestle and mortar, phials and gallipots,
and a pair of small burnished scales. At one end was a heavy
clothes-press, turned into a receptacle for drugs and compounds;

against which hung the doctor's hat and cloak, and
gold-headed cane, and on the top grinned a human skull.
Along the mantel-piece were glass vessels, in which were
snakes and lizards, and a human fœtus preserved in spirits. A
closet, the doors of which were taken off, contained three
whole shelves of books, and some too of mighty folio dimensions;
a collection, the like of which Dolph had never before
beheld. As, however, the library did not take up the whole of
the closet, the doctor's thrifty housekeeper had occupied the
rest with pots of pickles and preserves; and had hung about the
room, among awful implements of the healing art, strings of
red pepper and corpulent cucumbers, carefully preserved for
seed.

Peter de Groodt and his protegé were received with great
gravity and stateliness by the doctor, who was a very wise,
dignified little man, and never smiled. He surveyed Dolph
from head to foot, above, and under, and through his spectacles,
and the poor lad's heart quailed as these great glasses glared
on him like two full moons. The doctor heard all that Peter
de Groodt had to say in favor of the youthful candidate; and
then wetting his thumb with the end of his tongue, he began
deliberately to turn over page after page of the great black
volume before him. At length, after many hums and haws,
and strokings of the chin, and all that hesitation and deliberation
with which a wise man proceeds to do what he intended
to do from the very first, the doctor agreed to take the lad as a
disciple; to give him bed, board, and clothing, and to instruct
him in the healing art; in return for which he was to have his
services until his twenty-first year.

Behold, then, our hero, all at once transformed from an unlucky
urchin, running wild about the streets, to a student of
medicine, diligently pounding a pestle, under the auspices of the
learned Doctor Karl Lodovick Knipperhausen. It was a
happy transition for his fond old mother. She was delighted
with the idea of her boy's being brought up worthy of his
ancestors; and anticipated the day when he would be able to

hold up his head with the lawyer, that lived in the large house
opposite; or, peradventure, with the Dominie himself.

Doctor Knipperhausen was a native of the Palatinate in Germany;
whence, in company with many of his countrymen, he
had taken refuge in England, on account of religious persecution.
He was one of nearly three thousand Palatines, who
came over from England in 1710, under the protection of
Governor Hunter. Where the doctor had studied, how he had
acquired his medical knowledge, and where he had received
his diploma, it is hard at present to say, for nobody knew at
the time; yet it is certain that his profound skill and abstruse
knowledge were the talk and wonder of the common people,
far and near.

His practice was totally different from that of any other
physician; consisting in mysterious compounds, known only to
himself, in the preparing and administering of which, it was
said, he always consulted the stars. So high an opinion was
entertained of his skill, particularly by the German and Dutch
inhabitants, that they always resorted to him in desperate
cases. He was one of those infallible doctors, that are always
effecting sudden and surprising cures, when the patient has
been given up by all the regular physicians; unless, as is
shrewdly observed, the case has been left too long before it was
put into their hands. The doctor's library was the talk and
marvel of the neighborhood, I might almost say of the entire
burgh. The good people looked with reverence at a man who
had read three whole shelves full of books, and some of them
too as large as a family Bible. There were many disputes
among the members of the little Lutheran Church, as to which
was the wisest man, the doctor or the Dominie. Some of his
admirers even went so far as to say, that he knew more than
the governor himself—in a word, it was thought that there was
no end to his knowledge!

No sooner was Dolph received into the doctor's family, than
he was put in possession of the lodging of his predecessor. It
was a garret-room of a steep-roofed Dutch house, where the

rain pattered on the shingles, and the lightning gleamed, and
the wind piped through the crannies in stormy weather; and
where whole troops of hungry rats, like Don Cossacks, galloped
about, in defiance of traps and ratsbane.

He was soon up to his ears in medical studies, being employed,
morning, noon, and night, in rolling pills, filtering
tinctures, or pounding the pestle and mortar in one corner of
the laboratory; while the doctor would take his seat in
another corner, when he had nothing else to do, or expected
visitors, and arrayed in his morning-gown and velvet cap,
would pore over the contents of some folio volume. It is true,
that the regular thumping of Dolph's pestle, or, perhaps, the
drowsy buzzing of the summer flies, would now and then lull
the little man into a slumber; but then his spectacles were
always wide awake, and studiously regarding the book.

There was another personage in the house, however, to
whom Dolph was obliged to pay allegiance. Though a
bachelor, and a man of such great dignity and importance, the
doctor was, like many other wise men, subject to petticoat
government. He was completely under the sway of his
housekeeper; a spare, busy, fretting housewife, in a little,
round, quilted German cap, with a huge bunch of keys
jingling at the girdle of an exceedingly long waist. Frau Ilsé
(or Frow Ilsy as it was pronounced) had accompanied him in
his various migrations from Germany to England, and from
England to the province; managing his establishment and
himself too: ruling him, it is true, with a gentle hand, but
carrying a high hand with all the world besides. How she
had acquired such ascendency I do not pretend to say.
People, it is true, did talk—but have not people been prone
to talk ever since the world began? Who can tell how
women generally contrive to get the upper hand? A husband,
it is true, may now and then be master in his own house;
but who ever knew a bachelor that was not managed by his
housekeeper?

Indeed, Frau Ilsy's power was not confined to the doctor's

household. She was one of those prying gossips who know
every one's business better than they do themselves; and
whose all-seeing eyes, and all-telling tongues, are terrors
throughout a neighborhood.

Nothing of any moment transpired in the world of scandal
of this little burgh, but it was known to Frau Ilsy. She had
her crew of cronies, that were perpetually hurrying to her
little parlor with some precious bit of news; nay, she would
sometimes discuss a whole volume of secret history, as she
held the street door ajar, and gossiped with one of these garrulous
cronies in the very teeth of a December blast.

Between the doctor and the housekeeper it may easily be
supposed that Dolph had a busy life of it. As Frau Ilsy kept
the keys, and literally ruled the roast, it was starvation to
offend her, though he found the study of her temper more
perplexing even than that of medicine. When not busy in the
laboratory, she kept him running hither and thither on her
errands; and on Sundays he was obliged to accompany her
to and from church, and carry her Bible. Many a time has
the poor varlet stood shivering and blowing his fingers, or
holding his frost-bitten nose, in the church-yard, while Ilsy
and her cronies were huddled together, wagging their heads,
and tearing some unlucky character to pieces.

With all his advantages, however, Dolph made very slow
progress in his art. This was no fault of the doctor's, certainly,
for he took unwearied pains with the lad, keeping him
close to the pestle and mortar, or on the trot about town with
phials and pill-boxes; and if he ever flagged in his industry,
which he was rather apt to do, the doctor would fly into a
passion, and ask him if he ever expected to learn his profession,
unless he applied himself closer to the study. The fact is, he
still retained the fondness for sport and mischief that had
marked his childhood; the habit, indeed, had strengthened
with his years, and gained force from being thwarted and constrained.
He daily grew more and more untractable, and lost
favor in the eyes both of the doctor and the housekeeper.

In the meantime the doctor went on, waxing wealthy and
renowned. He was famous for his skill in managing cases
not laid down in the books. He had cured several old
women and young girls of witchcraft; a terrible complaint,
and nearly as prevalent in the province in those days as hydrophobia
is at present. He had even restored one strapping
country girl to perfect health, who had gone so far as to vomit
crooked pins and needles; which is considered a desperate
stage of the malady. It was whispered, also, that he was possessed
of the art of preparing love-powders; and many applications
had he in consequence from love-sick patients of both
sexes. But all these cases formed the mysterious part of his
practice, in which, according to the cant phrase, “secresy and
honor might be depended on.” Dolph, therefore, was obliged
to turn out of the study whenever such consultations occurred,
though it is said he learnt more of the secrets of the art at the
key-hole, than by all the rest of his studies put together.

As the doctor increased in wealth, he began to extend his
possessions, and to look forward, like other great men, to the
time when he should retire to the repose of a country seat.
For this purpose he had purchased a farm, or, as the Dutch
settlers called it, a bowerie, a few miles from town. It had
been the residence of a wealthy family, that had returned some
time since to Holland. A large mansion-house stood in the
centre of it, very much out of repair, and which, in consequence
of certain reports, had received the appellation of the
Haunted House. Either from these reports, or from its actual
dreariness, the doctor found it impossible to get a tenant; and,
that the place might not fall to ruin before he could reside in
it himself, he placed a country boor, with his family, in one
wing, with the privilege of cultivating the farm on shares.

The doctor now felt all the dignity of a landholder rising
within him. He had a little of the German pride of territory
in his composition, and almost looked upon himself as owner
of a principality. He began to complain of the fatigue of
business; and was fond of riding out “to look at his estate.”

His little expeditions to his lands were attended with a bustle
and parade that created a sensation throughout the neighborhood.
His wall-eyed horse stood, stamping and whisking off
the flies, for a full hour before the house. Then the doctor's
saddle-bags would be brought out and adjusted; then, after a
little while, his cloak would be rolled up and strapped to the
saddle; then his umbrella would be buckled to the cloak;
while, in the meantime, a group of ragged boys, that observant
class of beings, would gather before the door. At length the
doctor would issue forth, in a pair of jack-boots that reached
above his knees, and a cocked-hat flapped down in front. As
he was a short, fat man, he took some time to mount into the
saddle; and when there, he took some time to have the saddle
and stirrups properly adjusted, enjoying the wonder and admiration
of the urchin crowd. Even after he had set off, he
would pause in the middle of the street, or trot back two or
three times to give some parting orders; which were answered
by the housekeeper from the door, or Dolph from the study, or
the black cook from the cellar, or the chambermaid from the
garret window; and there were generally some last words
bawled after him, just as he was turning the corner.

The whole neighborhood would be aroused by this pomp
and circumstance. The cobbler would leave his last; the
barber would thrust out his frizzed head, with a comb sticking
in it; a knot would collect at the grocer's door, and the word
would be buzzed from one end of the street to the other, “The
doctor's riding out to his country seat.”

These were golden moments for Dolph. No sooner was the
doctor out of sight, than pestle and mortar were abandoned;
the laboratory was left to take care of itself, and the student
was off on some mad-cap frolie.

Indeed, it must be confessed, the youngster, as he grew up,
seemed in a fair way to fulfil the prediction of the old claret-colored
gentleman. He was the ringleader of all holiday
sports and midnight gambols; ready for all kinds of mischievous
pranks and harebrained adventures.

There is nothing so troublesome as a hero on a small scale,
or, rather, a hero in a small town. Dolph soon became the
abhorrence of all drowsy, housekeeping old citizens, who
hated noise, and had no relish for waggery. The good dames,
too, considered him as little better than a reprobate, gathered their
daughters under their wings whenever he approached, and
pointed him out as a warning to their sons. No one seemed
to hold him in much regard, excepting the wild striplings of
the place, who were captivated by his open-hearted, daring
manners, and the negroes, who always look upon every idle, do-nothing
youngster as a kind of gentleman. Even the good
Peter de Groodt, who had considered himself a kind of patron
of the lad, began to despair of him,
and would shake his head
dubiously, as he listened to a long complaint from the housekeeper,
and sipped a glass of her raspberry brandy.

Still his mother was not to be wearied out of her affection
by all the waywardness of her boy, nor disheartened by the
stories of his misdeeds, with which her good friends were continually
regaling her. She had, it is true, very little of the
pleasure which rich people enjoy, in always hearing their children
praised; but she considered all this ill-will as a kind of
persecution which he suffered, and she liked him better on that
account. She saw him growing up a fine, tall, good looking
youngster, and she looked at him with the secret pride of a
mother's heart. It was her great desire that Dolph should appear
like a gentleman, and all the money she could save went
towards helping out his pocket and his wardrobe. She would
look out of the window after him, as he sallied forth in his
best array, and her heart would yearn with delight, and once,
when Peter de Groodt, struck with the youngster's gallant appearance
on a bright Sunday morning, observed, “Well, after
all, Dolph does grow a comely fellow!” the tear of pride started
into the mother's eye; “Ah, neighbor, neighbor!” exclaimed
she, “they may say what they please, poor Dolph will yet
hold up his head with the best of them.”

Dolph Heyliger had now nearly attained his one-and-twentieth

year, and the term of his medical studies was just expiring;
yet it must be confessed that he knew little more of the profession
than when he first entered the doctor's door. This,
however, could not be from any want of quickness of parts,
for he showed amazing aptness in mastering other branches of
knowledge, which he could only have studied at intervals. He
was, for instance, a sure marksman, and won all the geese and
turkeys at Christmas holidays. He was a bold rider; he was
famous for leaping and wrestling; he played tolerably on the
fiddle; could swim like a fish, and was the best hand in the
whole place at fives or ninepins.

All these accomplishments, however, procured him no favor
in the eyes of the doctor, who grew more and more crabbed
and intolerant the nearer the term of apprenticeship approached.
Fran Ilsy, too, was for ever finding some occasion to
raise a windy tempest about his ears; and seldom encountered
him about the house, without a clatter of the tongue; so that
at length the jingling of her keys, as she approached, was to
Dolph like the ringing of the prompter's bell, that gives notice
of a theatrical thunder-storm. Nothing but the infinite good
humor of the heedless youngster enabled him to bear all this
domestic tyranny without open rebellion. It was evident that
the doctor and his housekeeper were preparing to beat the poor
youth out of the nest, the moment his term should have expired,
a short-hand mode which the doctor had of providing
for useless disciples.

Indeed the little man had been rendered more than usually
irritable lately, in consequence of various cares and vexations
which his country estate had brought upon him. The doctor
had been repeatedly annoyed by the rumors and tales which
prevailed concerning the old mansion, and found it difficult to
prevail even upon the countryman and his family to remain
there rent-free. Every time he rode out to the farm he was
teased by some fresh complaint of strange noises and fearful
sights, with which the tenants were disturbed at night; and the
doctor would come home fretting and fuming, and vent his

spleen upon the whole household. It was indeed a sore
grievance, that affected him both in pride and purse. He was
threatened with an absolute loss of the profits of his property,
and then, what a blow to his territorial consequence, to be the
landlord of a haunted house.

It was observed, however, that with all his vexation, the
doctor never proposed to sleep in the house himself; nay, he
could never be prevailed upon to remain on the premises after
dark, but made the best of his way for town as soon as the bats
began to flit about in the twilight. The fact was, the doctor
had a secret belief in ghosts, having passed the early part of
his life in a country where they particularly abound; and, indeed,
the story went that, when a boy, he had once seen the
devil upon the Hartz mountains in Germany.

At length the doctor's vexations on this head were brought
to a crisis. One morning, as he sat dozing over a volume in
his study, he was suddenly startled from his slumbers by the
bustling in of the housekeeper.

“Here's a fine to-do!” cried she, as she entered the room.
“Here's Claus Hopper come in, bag and baggage, from the
farm, and swears he'll have nothing more to do with it. The
whole family have been frightened out of their wits, for there's
such racketing and rummaging about the old house, that they
can't sleep quiet in their beds!”

“Donner und blitzen!” cried the doctor, impatiently. “Will
they never have done chattering about that house? What a
pack of fools, to let a few rats and mice frighten them out of
good quarters.”

“Nay, nay,” said the housekeeper, wagging her head knowingly,
and piqued at having a good ghost-story doubted,
“there's more in it than rats and mice. All the neighborhood
talks about the house; and then such sights as have been seen
in it. Peter de Groodt tells me that the family that sold you
the house, and went to Holland, dropped several strange hints
about it, and said, `they wished you joy of your bargain;' and
you know yourself there's no getting any family to live in it.”

“Peter De Groodt's a ninny—an old woman,” said the
doctor, peevishly; “I'll warrant he's been filling these people's
heads full of stories. It's just like his nonsense about the ghost
that haunted the church belfry, as an excuse for not ringing the
bell that cold night when Harmanus Brinkerhoff's house was
on fire. Send Claus to me.”

Claus Hopper now made his appearance: a simple country
lout, full of awe at finding himself in the very study of Dr.
Knipperhausen, and too much embarrassed to enter in much
detail of the matters that had caused his alarm. He stood
twirling his hat in one hand, resting sometimes on one leg,
sometimes on the other, looking occasionally at the doctor,
and now and then stealing a fearful glance at the death's head
that seemed ogling him from the top of the clothes-press.

The doctor tried every means to persuade him to return to
the farm, but all in vain; he maintained a dogged determination
on the subject; and at the close of every argument or solicitation
would make the same brief, inflexible reply, “Ich kan
nicht, mynheer.” The doctor was a “little pot, and soon
hot;” his patience was exhausted by these continual vexations
about his estate. The stubborn refusal of Claus Hopper
seemed to him like flat rebellion; his temper suddenly boiled
over, and Claus was glad to make a rapid retreat to escape
scalding.

When the bumpkin got to the housekeeper's room, he found
Peter de Groodt, and several other true believers, ready to receive
him. Here he indemnified himself for the restraint he had
suffered in the study, and opened a budget of stories about the
haunted house that astonished all his hearers. The housekeeper
believed them all, if it was only to spite the doctor for
having received her intelligence so uncourteously. Peter de
Groodt matched them with many a wonderful legend of the
times of the Dutch dynasty, and of the Devil's Stepping-stones;
and of the pirate hanged at Gibbet Island, that continued to
swing there at night long after the gallows was taken down;
and of the ghost of the unfortunate Governor Leisler, hanged

for treason, which haunted the old fort and the governmenthouse.
The gossiping knot dispersed, each charged with
direful intelligence. The sexton disburdened himself at a
vestry meeting that was held that very day, and the black cook
forsook her kitchen, and spent half the day at the street pump,
that gossiping-place of servants, dealing forth the news to all
that came for water. In a little time the whole town was in a
buzz with tales about the haunted house. Some said that
Claus Hopper had seen the devil, while others hinted that the
house was haunted by the ghosts of some of the patients whom
the doctor had physicked out of the world, and that was the
reason why he did not venture to live in it himself.

All this put the little doctor in a terrible fume. He threatened
vengeance on any one who should affect the value of his
property by exciting popular prejudices. He complained
loudly of thus being in a manner dispossessed of his territories
by mere bugbears; but he secretly determined to have the house
exorcised by the Dominie. Great was his relief, therefore,
when, in the midst of his perplexities, Dolph stepped forward
and undertook to garrison the haunted house. The youngster
had been listening to all the stories of Claus Hopper and Peter
de Groodt: he was fond of adventure, he loved the marvellous,
and his imagination had become quite excited by these tales of
wonder. Besides, he had led such an uncomfortable life at the
doctor's, being subjected to the intolerable thraldom of early
hours, that he was delighted at the prospect of having a house
to himself, even though it should be a haunted one. His offer
was eagerly accepted, and it was determined he should mount
guard that very night. His only stipulation was, that the
enterprise should be kept secret from his mother; for he knew
the poor soul would not sleep a wink if she knew her son was
waging war with the powers of darkness.

When night came on he set out on this perilous expedition.
The old black cook, his only friend in the household, had
provided him with a little mess for supper, and a rushlight;
and she tied round his neck an amulet, given her by an African

conjurer, as a charm against evil spirits. Dolph was escorted
on his way by the doctor and Peter de Groodt, who had agreed
to accompany him to the house, and see him safe lodged. The
night was overcast, and it was very dark when they arrived at
the grounds which surrounded the mansion. The sexton led
the way with a lantern. As they walked along the avenue of
acacias, the fitful light, catching from bush to bush, and tree to
tree, often startled the doughty Peter, and made him fall back
upon his followers; and the doctor grappled still closer hold of
Dolph's arm, observing that the ground was very slippery and
uneven. At one time they were nearly put to total rout by a
bat, which came flitting about the lantern; and the notes of the
insects from the trees, and the frogs from a neighboring pond,
formed a most drowsy and doleful concert.

The front door of the mansion opened with a grating sound,
that made the doctor turn pale. They entered a tolerably
large hall, such as is common in American country-houses, and
which serves for a sitting-room in warm weather. From this
they went up a wide staircase, that groaned and creaked as
they trod, every step making its particular note, like the key of
a harpsichord. This led to another hall on the second story,
whence they entered the room where Dolph was to sleep. It
was large, and scantily furnished; the shutters were closed;
but as they were much broken, there was no want of a circulation
of air. It appeared to have been that sacred chamber,
known among Dutch housewives by the name of “the best bedroom;”
which is the best furnished room in the house, but in
which scarce anybody is ever permitted to sleep. Its splendor,
however, was all at an end. There were a few broken
articles of furniture about the room, and in the centre stood a
heavy deal-table and a large arm-chair, both of which had the
look of being coeval with the mansion. The fireplace was
wide, and had been faced with Dutch tiles, representing Scripture
stories; but some of them had fallen out of their places,
and lay shattered about the hearth. The sexton lit the rushlight;
and the doctor, looking fearfully about the room, was

just exhorting Dolph to be of good cheer, and to pluck up a
stout heart, when a noise in the chimney, like voices and struggling,
struck a sudden panic into the sexton. He took to his
heels with the lantern; the doctor followed hard after him; the
stairs groaned and creaked as they hurried down, increasing
their agitation and speed by its noises. The front door slammed
after them; and Dolph heard them scrabbling down the
avenue, till the sound of their feet was lost in the distance.
That he did not join in this precipitate retreat might have been
owing to his possessing a little more courage than his companions,
or perhaps that he had caught a glimpse of the cause
of their dismay, in a nest of chimney swallows, that came
tumbling down into the fireplace.

Being now left to himself, he secured the front door by a
strong bolt and bar; and having seen that the other entrances
were fastened, returned to his desolate chamber. Having
made his supper from the basket which the good old cook had
provided, he locked the chamber door, and retired to rest on a
mattress in one corner. The night was calm and still; and
nothing broke upon the profound quiet, but the lonely chirping
of a cricket from the chimney of a distant chamber. The
rushlight, which stood in the centre of the deal table, shed
a feeble yellow ray, dimly illuminating the chamber, and
making uncouth shapes and shadows on the walls, from the
clothes which Dolph had thrown over a chair.

With all his boldness of heart, there was something subduing
in this desolate scene; and he felt his spirits flag within him,
as he lay on his hard bed and gazed about the room. He was
turning over in his mind his idle habits, his doubtful prospects,
and now and then heaving a heavy sigh, as he thought on his
poor old mother; for there is nothing like the silence and
loneliness of night to bring dark shadows over the brightest
mind. By-and-by he thought he heard a sound as of some one
walking below stairs. He listened, and distinctly heard a step
on the great staircase. It approached solemnly and slowly,
tramp—tramp—tramp! It was evidently the tread of some

heavy personage; and yet how could he have got into the
house without making a noise? He had examined all the
fastenings, and was certain that every entrance was secure.
Still the steps advanced, tramp—tramp—tramp! It was
evident that the person approaching could not be a robber, the
step was too loud and deliberate; a robber would either be
stealthy or precipitate. And now the footsteps had ascended
the staircase; they were slowly advancing along the passage,
resounding through the silent and empty apartments. The
very cricket had ceased its melancholy note, and nothing interrupted
their awful distinctness. The door, which had been
locked on the inside, slowly sprang open, as if self-moved.
The footsteps entered the room; but no one was to be seen.
They passed slowly and audibly across it, tramp—tramp—
tramp! but whatever made the sound was invisible. Dolph
rubbed his eyes, and stared about him; he could see to every
part of the dimly-lighted chamber; all was vacant; yet still
he heard those mysterious footsteps, solemnly walking about
the chamber. They ceased, and all was dead silence. There
was something more appalling in this invisible visitation, than
there would have been in anything that addressed itself to the
eyesight. It was awfully vague and indefinite. He felt his
heart beat against his ribs; a cold sweat broke out upon his
forehead; he lay for some time in a state of violent agitation;
nothing, however, occurred to increase his alarm. His light
gradually burnt down into the socket, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke it was broad daylight; the sun was peering
through the cracks of the window-shutters, and the birds were
merrily singing about the house. The bright cheery day soon
put to flight all the terrors of the preceding night. Dolph
laughed, or rather tried to laugh, at all that had passed, and
endeavored to persuade himself that it was a mere freak of the
imagination, conjured up by the stories he had heard; but he
was a little puzzled to find the door of his room locked on the
inside, notwithstanding that he had positively seen it swing
open as the footsteps had entered. He returned to town in a
state of considerable perplexity; but he determined to say
nothing on the subject, until his doubts were either confirmed
or removed by another night's watching. His silence was a
grievous disappointment to the gossips who had gathered at the
doctor's mansion. They had prepared their minds to hear
direful tales, and were almost in a rage at being assured he had
nothing to relate.

The next night, then, Dolph repeated his vigil. He now
entered the house with some trepidation. He was particular
in examining the fastenings of all the doors, and securing them
well. He locked the door of his chamber, and placed a chair
against it; then having dispatched his supper, he threw himself
on his mattress and endeavored to sleep. It was all in
vain; a thousand crowding fancies kept him waking. The time
slowly dragged on, as if minutes were spinning themselves out
into hours. As the night advanced, he grew more and more
nervous; and he almost started from his couch when he heard
the mysterious footstep again on the staircase. Up it came, as
before, solemnly and slowly, tramp—tramp—tramp! It approached
along the passage; the door again swung open, as if
there had been neither lock nor impediment, and a strange
looking figure stalked into the room. It was an elderly man,
large and robust, clothed in the old Flemish fashion. He
had on a kind of short cloak, with a garment under it, belted
round the waist; trunk hose, with great bunches or bows at
the knees; and a pair of russet boots, very large at top, and
standing widely from his legs. His hat was broad and slouched,
with a feather trailing over one side. His iron-grey hair hung
in thick masses on his neck; and he had a short grizzled
beard. He walked slowly round the room, as if examining
that all was safe: then, hanging his hat on a peg beside the
door, he sat down in the elbow-chair, and, leaning his elbow
on the table, fixed his eyes on Dolph with an unmoving and
deadened stare.

Dolph was not naturally a coward; but he had been
brought up in an implicit belief in ghosts and goblins. A

thousand stories came swarming to his mind that he had
heard about this building; and as he looked at this strange
personage, with his uncouth garb, his pale visage, his grizzly
beard, and his fixed, staring, fish-like eye, his teeth began to
chatter, his hair to rise on his head, and a cold sweat to break
out all over his body. How long he remained in this situation
he could not tell, for he was like one fascinated. He could
not take his gaze off from the spectre; but lay staring at him,
with his whole intellect absorbed in the contemplation. The
old man remained seated behind the table, without stirring, or
turning an eye, always keeping a dead, steady glare upon
Dolph. At length the household cock, from a neighboring
farm, clapped his wings, and gave a loud cheerful crow that
rang over the fields. At the sound the old man slowly rose,
and took down his hat from the peg; the door opened, and
closed after him; he was heard to go slowly down the staircase,
tramp—tramp—tramp!—and when he had got to the
bottom, all was again silent. Dolph lay and listened earnestly;
counted every footfall; listened, and listened, if the steps
should return, until, exhausted by watching and agitation, he
fell into a troubled sleep.

Daylight again brought fresh courage and assurance. He
would fain have considered all that had passed as a mere
dream; yet there stood the chair in which the unknown had
seated himself; there was the table on which he had leaned;
there was the peg on which he had hung his hat; and there
was the door, locked precisely as he himself had locked it,
with the chair placed against it. He hastened down stairs, and
examined the doors and windows; all were exactly in the
same state in which he had left them, and there was no apparent
way by which any being could have entered and left the
house, without leaving some trace behind. “Pooh!” said
Dolph to himself, “it was all a dream:”—but it would not
do; the more he endeavored to shake the scene off from his
mind, the more it haunted him.

Though he persisted in a strict silence as to all that he had

seen or heard, yet his looks betrayed the uncomfortable night
that he had passed. It was evident that there was something
wonderful hidden under this mysterious reserve. The doctor
took him into the study, locked the door, and sought to have
a full and confidential communication; but he could get nothing
out of him. Frau Ilsy took him aside into the pantry, but
to as little purpose; and Peter de Groodt held him by the button
for a full hour, in the church-yard, the very place to get at
the bottom of a ghost story, but came off not a whit wiser
than the rest. It is always the case, however, that one truth
concealed makes a dozen current lies. It is like a guinea
locked up in a bank, that has a dozen paper representatives.
Before the day was over, the neighborhood was full of reports.
Some said that Dolph Heyliger watched in the haunted house,
with pistols loaded with silver bullets; others, that he had a
long talk with a spectre without a head; others that Doctor
Knipperhausen and the sexton had been hunted down the
Bowery lane, and quite into town by a legion of the ghosts of
their customers. Some shook their heads, and thought it a
shame the doctor should put Dolph to pass the night alone in
that dismal house, where he might be spirited away, no one
knew whither, while others observed, with a shrug, that if the
devil did carry off the youngster, it would be but taking his own.

These rumors at length reached the ears of the good Dame
Heyliger, and, as may be supposed, threw her into a terrible
alarm. For her son to have opposed himself to danger from
living foes, would have been nothing so dreadful in her eyes, as
to dare alone the terrors of the haunted house. She hastened
to the doctor's, and passed a great part of the day in attempting
to dissuade Dolph from repeating his vigil; she told him
a score of tales, which her gossiping friends had just related to
her, of persons who had been carried off, when watching alone
in old ruinous houses. It was all to no effect. Dolph's pride, as
well as curiosity, was piqued. He endeavored to calm the apprehensions
of his mother, and to assure her that there was no
truth in all the rumors she had heard; she looked at him

dubiously, and shook her head; but finding his determination
was not to be shaken, she brought him a little thick Dutch
Bible, with brass clasps, to take with him as a sword where-with
to fight the powers of darkness; and, lest that might not
be sufficient, the housekeeper gave him the Heidelberg catechism
by way of dagger.

The next night, therefore, Dolph took up his quarters for the
third time in the old mansion. Whether dream or not, the
same thing was repeated. Towards midnight, when everything
was still, the same sound echoed through the empty
halls—tramp—tramp—tramp! The stairs were again ascended
—the door again swung open—the old man entered, walked
round the room, hung up his hat, and seated himself by the
table. The same fear and trembling came over poor Dolph,
though not in so violent a degree. He lay in the same way,
motionless and fascinated, staring at the figure, which regarded
him as before, with a dead, fixed, chilling gaze. In this way
they remained for a long time, till, by degrees, Dolph's courage
began gradually to revive. Whether alive or dead, this being
had certainly some object in his visitation, and he recollected
to have heard it said, spirits have no power to speak until
spoken to. Summoning up resolution, therefore, and making
two or three attempts, before he could get his parched tongue
in motion, he addressed the unknown in the most solemn form
of adjuration, and demanded to know what was the motive of
his visit.

No sooner had he finished, than the old man rose, took
down his hat, the door opened, and he went out, looking back
upon Dolph just as he crossed the threshold, as if expecting
him to follow. The youngster did not hesitate an instant.
He took the candle in his hand, and the Bible under his arm,
and obeyed the tacit invitation. The candle emitted a feeble,
uncertain ray, but still he could see the figure before him,
slowly descend the stairs. He followed, trembling. When it
had reached the bottom of the stairs, it turned through the
hall towards the back door of the mansion. Dolph held the

light over the balustrades, but, in his eagerness to catch a sight
of the unknown, he flared his feeble taper so suddenly, that it
went out. Still there was sufficient light from the pale moonbeams,
that fell through a narrow window, to give him an indistinct
view of the figure, near the door. He followed, therefore,
down stairs, and turned towards the place; but when he
arrived there, the unknown had disappeared. The door remained
fast barred and bolted; there was no other mode of
exit, yet the being, whatever he might be, was gone. He unfastened
the door, and looked out into the fields. It was a
hazy, moonlight night, so that the eye could distinguish objects
at some distance. He thought he saw the unknown in a footpath
which led from the door. He was not mistaken; but
how had he got out of the house? He did not pause to think,
but followed on. The old man proceeded at a measured pace,
without looking about him, his footsteps sounding on the hard
ground. He passed through the orchard of apple-trees, always
keeping the footpath. It led to a well, situated in a little hollow,
which had supplied the farm with water. Just at this well
Dolph lost sight of him. He rubbed his eyes and looked
again, but nothing was to be seen of the unknown. He
reached the well, but nobody was there. All the surrounding
ground was open and clear; there was no bush or hiding-place.
He looked down the well, and saw, at a great depth,
the reflection of the sky in the still water. After remaining
here for some time, without seeing or hearing anything more
of his mysterious conductor, he returned to the house, full of
awe and wonder. He bolted the door, groped his way back to
bed, and it was long before he could compose himself to
sleep.

His dreams were strange and troubled. He thought he was
following the old man along the side of a great river, until
they came to a vessel on the point of sailing, and that his conductor
led him on board and vanished. He remembered the
commander of the vessel, a short swarthy man, with crisped
black hair, blind of one eye, and lame of one leg; but the

rest of his dream was very confused. Sometimes he was
sailing, sometimes on shore; now amidst storms and tempests,
and now wandering quietly in unknown streets. The figure
of the old man was strangely mingled up with the incidents of
the dream; and the whole distinctly wound up by his finding
himself on board of the vessel again, returning home, with a
great bag of money.

When he awoke, the grey, cool light of dawn was streaking
the horizon, and the cocks passing the reveille from farm to
farm, throughout the country. He rose more harassed and
perplexed than ever. He was singularly confounded by all
that he had seen and dreamt, and began to doubt whether his
mind was not affected, and whether all that was passing in his
thoughts might not be mere feverish fantasy. In his present
state of mind, he did not feel disposed to return immediately to
the doctor's, and undergo the cross-questioning of the household.
He made a scanty breakfast, therefore, on the remains
of the last night's provisions, and then wandered out into the
fields to meditate on all that had befallen him. Lost in
thought, he rambled about, gradually approaching the town,
until the morning was far advanced, when he was roused by a
hurry and bustle around him. He found himself near the
water's edge, in a throng of people, hurrying to a pier, where
was a vessel ready to make sail. He was unconsciously carried
along by the impulse of the crowd, and found that it was
a sloop, on the point of sailing up the Hudson to Albany.
There was much leave-taking and kissing of old women and
children, and great activity in carrying on board baskets of bread
and cakes, and provisions of all kinds, notwithstanding the
mighty joints of meat that dangled over the stern; for a
voyage to Albany was an expedition of great moment in those
days. The commander of the sloop was hurrying about, and
giving a world of orders, which were not very strictly attended
to, one man being busy in lighting his pipe, and another in
sharpening his snicker-snee.

The appearance of the commander suddenly caught Dolph's

attention. He was short and swarthy, with crisped black
hair; blind of one eye and lame of one leg—the very commander
that he had seen in his dream! Surprised and aroused,
he considered the scene more attentively, and recalled still
further traces of his dream: the appearance of the vessel, of the
river, and of a variety of other objects, accorded with the imperfect
images vaguely rising to recollection.

As he stood musing on these circumstances, the captain
suddenly called out to him in Dutch, “Step on board, young
man, or you'll be left behind!” He was startled by the summons;
he saw that the sloop was cast loose, and was actually
moving from the pier; it seemed as if he was actuated by some
irresistible impulse; he sprang upon the deck, and the next
moment the sloop was hurried off by the wind and tide.
Dolph's thoughts and feelings were all in tumult and confusion.
He had been strongly worked upon by the events which had
recently befallen him, and could not but think there was some
connexion between his present situation and his last night's
dream. He felt as if under supernatural influence; and tried to
assure himself with an old and favorite maxim of his, that
“one way or the other, all would turn out for the best.” For
a moment, the indignation of the doctor at his departure, without
leave, passed across his mind, but that was matter of little
moment; then he thought of the distress of his mother at his
strange disappearance, and the idea gave him a sudden pang;
he would have entreated to be put on shore; but he knew
with such wind and tide the entreaty would have been in vain.
Then the inspiring love of novelty and adventure came rushing
in full tide through his bosom; he felt himself launched
strangely and suddenly on the world, and under full way to explore
the regions of wonder that lay up this mighty river, and
beyond those blue mountains which had bounded his horizon
since childhood. While he was lost in this whirl of thought,
the sails strained to the breeze; the shores seemed to hurry
away behind him; and, before he perfectly recovered his self-possession,
the sloop was ploughing her way past Spiking-devil

and Yonkers, and the tallest chimney of the Manhattoes had
faded from his sight.

I have said that a voyage up the Hudson in those days was
an undertaking of some moment; indeed, it was as much
thought of as a voyage to Europe is at present. The sloops
were often many days on the way; the cautious navigators
taking in sail when it blew fresh, and coming to anchor at
night; and stopping to send the boat ashore for milk for tea;
without which it was impossible for the worthy old lady passengers
to subsist. And there were the much-talked-of perils
of the Tappaan Zee, and the highlands. In short, a prudent
Dutch burgher would talk of such a voyage for months, and
even years, beforehand; and never undertook it without putting
his affairs in order, making his will, and having prayers said for
him in the Low Dutch Churches.

In the course of such a voyage, therefore, Dolph was
satisfied he would have time enough to reflect, and to make up
his mind as to what he should do when he arrived at Albany.
The captain, with his blind eye and lame leg, would, it is true,
bring his strange dream to mind, and perplex him sadly for a
few moments; but of late his life had been made up so much
of dreams and realities, his nights and days had been so jumbled
together, that he seemed to be moving continually in a delusion.
There is always, however, a kind of vagabond consolation
in a man's having nothing in this world to lose; with this
Dolph comforted his heart, and determined to make the most
of the present enjoyment.

In the second day of the voyage they came to the highlands.
It was the latter part of a calm, sultry day, that they floated
gently with the tide between these stern mountains. There
was that perfect quiet which prevails over nature in the languor
of summer heat; the turning of a plank, or the accidental
falling of an oar on deck, was echoed from the mountain side,
and reverberated along the shores; and if by chance the captain
gave a shout of command, there were airy tongues which
mocked it from every cliff.

Dolph gazed about him in mute delight and wonder at these
scenes of nature's magnificence. To the left the Dunderberg
reared its woody precipices, height over height, forest over
forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the right strutted
forth the bold promontory of Anthony's Nose, with a solitary
eagle wheeling about it; while beyond, mountain succeeded to
mountain, until they seemed to lock their arms together, and
confine this mighty river in their embraces. There was a feeling
of quiet luxury in gazing at the broad, green bosoms here
and there scooped out among the precipices; or at woodlands
high in air, nodding over the edge of some beetling bluff, and
their foliage all transparent in the yellow sunshine.

In the midst of his admiration, Dolph remarked a pile of
bright, snowy clouds peering above the western heights. It
was succeeded by another, and another, each seemingly pushing
onwards its predecessor, and towering, with dazzling brilliancy,
in the deep blue atmosphere: and now muttering peals
of thunder were faintly heard rolling behind the mountains.
The river, hitherto still and glassy, reflecting pictures of the
sky and land, now showing a dark ripple at a distance, as the
breeze came creeping up it. The fish-hawks wheeled and
screamed, and sought their nests on the high dry trees; the
crows flew clamorously to the crevices of the rocks, and all
nature seemed conscious of the approaching thunder-gust.

The clouds now rolled in volumes over the mountain-tops;
their summits still bright and snowy, but the lower parts of an
inky blackness. The rain began to patter down in broad and
scattered drops; the wind freshened, and curled up the waves;
at length it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by
the mountain-tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling
down. The lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and streamed
quivering against the rocks, splitting and rending the
stoutest forest-trees. The thunder burst in tremendous explosions;
the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain;
they crashed upon Dunderberg, and rolled up the long defile

of the highlands, each headland making a new echo, until old
Bull Hill seemed to bellow back the storm.

For a time the scudding rack and mist, and the sheeted rain
almost hid the landscape from the sight. There was a fearful
gloom, illuminated still more fearfully by the streams of
lightning which glittered among the rain-drops. Never had
Dolph beheld such an absolute warring of the elements; it
seemed as if the storm was tearing and rending its way through
this mountain defile, and had brought all the artillery of heaven
into action.

The vessel was hurried on by the increasing wind, until she
came to where the river makes a sudden bend, the only one in
the whole course of its majestic career.[2] Just as they turned
the point, a violent flaw of wind came sweeping down a mountain
gully, bending the forest before it, and, in a moment, lashing
up the river into white froth and foam. The captain saw
the danger, and cried out to lower the sail. Before the order
could be obeyed, the flaw struck the sloop, and threw her on
her beam-ends. Everything now was fright and confusion; the
flapping of the sails, the whistling and rushing of the wind,
the bawling of the captain and crew, the shrieking of the passengers,
all mingled with the rolling and bellowing of the
thunder. In the midst of the uproar the sloop righted; at the
same time the mainsail shifted, the boom came sweeping the
quarter-deck, and Dolph, who was gazing unguardedly at the
clouds, found himself, in a moment, floundering in the river.

For once in his life one of his idle accomplishments was of
use to him. The many truant hours he had devoted to sporting
in the Hudson had made him an expert swimmer; yet with
all his strength and skill, he found great difficulty in reaching
the shore. His disappearance from the deck had not been
noticed by the crew, who were all occupied by their own danger.
The sloop was driven along with inconceivable rapidity.

She had hard work to weather a long promontory on the
eastern shore, round which the river turned, and which completely
shut her from Dolph's view.

It was on a point of the western shore that he landed, and,
scrambling up the rocks, threw himself, faint and exhausted, at
the foot of a tree. By degrees the thunder-gust passed over.
The clouds rolled away to the east, where they lay piled in
feathery masses, tinted with the last rosy rays of the sun. The
distant play of the lightning might be seen about the dark
bases, and now and then might be heard the faint muttering of
the thunder. Dolph rose, and sought about to see if any path
led from the shore, but all was savage and trackless. The
rocks were piled upon each other; great trunks of trees lay
shattered about, as they had been blown down by the strong
winds which draw through these mountains, or had fallen
through age. The rocks, too, were overhung with wild vines
and briers, which completely matted themselves together, and
opposed a barrier to all ingress; every movement that he made
shook down a shower from the dripping foliage. He attempted
to scale one of these almost perpendicular heights; but,
though strong and agile, he found it an Herculean undertaking.
Often he was supported merely by crumbling projections of the
rock, and sometimes he clung to roots and branches of trees,
and hung almost suspended in the air. The wood-pigeon
came cleaving his whistling flight by him, and the eagle
screamed from the brow of the impending cliff. As he was
thus clambering, he was on the point of seizing hold of a shrub
to aid his ascent, when something rustled among the leaves,
and he saw a snake quivering along like lightning, almost from
under his hand. It coiled itself up immediately, in an attitude
of defiance, with flattened head, distended jaws, and quickly
vibrating tongue, that played like a little flame about its
mouth. Dolph's heart turned faint within him, and he had
well nigh let go his hold, and tumbled down the precipice.
The serpent stood on the defensive but for an instant; and,
finding there was no attack, glided away into a cleft of the

rock. Dolph's eye followed it with fearful intensity, and saw
a nest of adders, knotted, and writhing, and hissing in the
chasm. He hastened with all speed from so frightful a neighborhood.
His imagination, full of this new horror, saw an
adder in every curling vine, and heard the tail of a rattlesnake in
every dry leaf that rustled.

At length he succeeded in scrambling to the summit of a
precipice, but it was covered by a dense forest. Wherever he
could gain a look out between the trees, he beheld heights and
cliffs, one rising beyond another, until huge mountains overtopped
the whole. There were no signs of cultivation; no smoke
curling among the trees, to indicate a human residence.
Everything was wild and solitary. As he was standing on
the edge of a precipice overlooking a deep ravine fringed with
trees, his feet detached a great fragment of rock; it fell, crashing
its way through the tree tops, down into the chasm. A
loud whoop, or rather yell, issued from the bottom of the glen;
the moment after there was the report of a gun; and a ball
came whistling over his head, cutting the twigs and leaves, and
burying itself deep in the bark of a chestnut tree.

Dolph did not wait for a second shot, but made a precipitate
retreat, fearing every moment to hear the enemy in pursuit.
He succeeded, however, in returning unmolested to the shore,
and determined to penetrate no further into a country so beset
with savage perils.

He sat himself down, dripping, disconsolately, on a wet
stone. What was to be done? Where was he to shelter himself?
The hour of repose was approaching; the birds were
seeking their nests, the bat began to flit about in the twilight,
and the night-hawk, soaring high in the heaven, seemed to be
calling out the stars. Night gradually closed in, and wrapped
everything in gloom; and though it was the latter part of
summer, the breeze stealing along the river, and among these
dripping forests, was chilly and penetrating, especially to a half-drowned
man.

As he sat drooping and despondent in this comfortless condition,

he perceived a light gleaming through the trees near the
shore, where the winding of the river made a deep bay. It
cheered him with the hope of a human habitation, where he
might get something to appease the clamorous cravings of his
stomach, and what was equally necessary in his shipwrecked
condition, a comfortable shelter for the night. With extreme
difficulty he made his way towards the light, along ledges of
rocks, down which he was in danger of sliding into the river,
and over great trunks of fallen trees, some of which had been
blown down in the late storm, and lay so thickly together, that
he had to struggle through their branches. At length he
came to the brow of a rock overhanging a small dell, whence
the light proceeded. It was from a fire at the foot of a great
tree in the midst of a grassy interval or plat among the rocks.
The fire cast up a red glare among the grey crags and impending
trees; leaving chasms of deep gloom, that resembled
entrances to caverns. A small brook rippled close by, betrayed
by the quivering reflection of the flame. There were
two figures moving about the fire, and others squatted before
it. As they were between him and the light, they were in
complete shadow, but one of them happening to move round
to the opposite side, Dolph was startled at perceiving, by the
glare falling on painted features, and glittering on silver ornaments,
that he was an Indian. He now looked more narrowly,
and saw guns leaning against a tree, and a dead body lying
on the ground. Here was the very foe that had fired at him
from the glen. He endeavored to retreat quietly, not caring to
intrust himself to these half-human beings, in so savage and
lonely a place. It was too late; the Indian, with that eagle
quickness of eye so remarkable in his race, perceived something
stirring among the bushes on the rock; he seized one of
the guns that leaned against the tree; one moment more, and
Dolph might have had his passion for adventure cured by a
bullet. He hallooed loudly, with the Indian salutation of
friendship; the whole party sprang upon their feet; the salutation
was returned, and the straggler was invited to join them
at the fire.

On approaching, he found, to his consolation, the party was
composed of white men, as well as Indians. One, evidently
the principal personage, or commander, was seated on a trunk
of a tree before the fire. He was a large stout man, somewhat
advanced in life, but hale and hearty. His face was bronzed
almost to the color of an Indian's; he had strong but rather
jovial features, an aquiline nose, and a mouth shaped like a
mastiff's. His face was half thrown in shade by a broad hat,
with a buck's tail in it. His grey hair hung short in his neck.
He wore a hunting-frock, with Indian leggins and moccasins,
and a tomahawk in the broad wampum-belt round his waist.
As Dolph caught a distinct view of his person and features,
something reminded him of the old man of the haunted house.
The man before him, however, was different in dress and age;
he was more cheery too in aspect, and it was hard to define
where the vague resemblance lay; but a resemblance there
certainly was. Dolph felt some degree of awe in approaching
him; but was assured by a frank, hearty welcome. He was
still further encouraged, by perceiving that the dead body,
which had caused him some alarm, was that of a deer; and
his satisfaction was complete in discerning, by savory steams
from a kettle, suspended by a hooked stick over the fire, that
there was a part cooking for the evening's repast.

He had, in fact, fallen in with a rambling hunting party;
such as often took place in those days among the settlers along
the river. The hunter is always hospitable; and nothing
makes men more social and unceremonious than meeting in
the wilderness. The commander of the party poured out a
dram of cheering liquor, which he gave him with a merry leer,
to warm his heart; and ordered one of his followers to fetch
some garments from a pinnace, moored in a cove close by,
while those in which our hero was dripping might be dried
before the fire.

Dolph found, as he had suspected, that the shot from the
glen, which had come so near giving him his quietus when on
the precipice, was from the party before him. He had nearly
crushed one of them by the fragments of rock which he had
detached; and the jovial old hunter, in the broad hat and
buck-tail, had fired at the place where he saw the bushes
move, supposing it to be some wild animal. He laughed
heartily at the blunder; it being what is considered an exceeding
good joke among hunters; “but faith, my lad,” said he,
“if I had but caught a glimpse of you to take sight at, you
would have followed the rock. Antony Vander Heyden is
seldom known to miss his aim.” These last words were at
once a clue to Dolph's curiosity; and a few questions let him
completely into the character of the man before him, and of his
band of woodland rangers. The commander in the broad hat
and hunting-frock was no less a personage than the Heer
Antony Vander Heyden, of Albany, of whom Dolph had many
a time heard. He was, in fact, the hero of many a story; his
singular humors and whimsical habits being matters of wonder
to his quiet Dutch neighbors. As he was a man of property,
having had a father before him, from whom he inherited large
tracts of wild land, and whole barrels full of wampum, he
could indulge his humors without control. Instead of staying
quietly at home, eating and drinking at regular meal times,
amusing himself by smoking his pipe on the bench before the
door, and then turning into a comfortable bed at night, he
delighted in all kinds of rough, wild expeditions. Never so
happy as when on a hunting party in the wilderness, sleeping
under trees or bark sheds, or cruising down the river, or on
some woodland lake, fishing and fowling, and living the Lord
knows how.

He was a great friend to Indians, and to an Indian mode of
life; which he considered true natural liberty and manly
enjoyment. When at home he had always several Indian
hangers-on, who loitered about his house, sleeping like hounds
in the sunshine; or preparing hunting and fishing-tackle for

some new expedition; or shooting at marks with bows and
arrows.

Over these vagrant beings Heer Antony had as perfect
command as a huntsman over his pack; though they were
great nuisances to the regular people of his neighborhood. As
he was a rich man, no one ventured to thwart his humors;
indeed, his hearty, joyous manner made him universally
popular. He would troll a Dutch song as he tramped along
the street; hail every one a mile off, and when he entered a
house, would slap the good man familiarly on the back, shake
him by the hand till he roared, and kiss his wife and daughter
before his face—in short, there was no pride nor ill humor
about Heer Antony.

Besides his Indian hangers-on, he had three or four humble
friends among the white men, who looked up to him as a
patron, and had the run of his kitchen, and the favor of being
taken with him occasionally on his expeditions. With a
medley of such retainers he was at present on a cruise along
the shores of the Hudson, in a pinnace kept for his own recreation.
There were two white men with him, dressed partly
in the Indian style, with moccasins and hunting-shirts; the
rest of his crew consisted of four favorite Indians. They had
been prowling about the river, without any definite object,
until they found themselves in the Highlands; where they had
passed two or three days, hunting the deer which still lingered
among these mountains.

“It is lucky for you, young man,” said Antony Vander
Heyden, “that you happened to be knocked overboard to-day;
as to-morrow morning we start early on our return homewards;
and you might then have looked in vain for a meal
among the mountains—but come, lads, stir about! stir about!
Let's see what prog we have for supper; the kettle has boiled
long enough; my stomach cries cupboard; and I'll warrant
our guest is in no mood to dally with his trencher.”

There was a bustle now in the little encampment; one took
off the kettle and turned a part of the contents into a huge

wooden bowl. Another prepared a flat rock for a table;
while a third brought various utensils from the pinnace; Heer
Antony himself brought a flask or two of precious liquor from
his own private locker; knowing his boon companions too
well to trust any of them with the key.

A rude but hearty repast was soon spread; consisting of
venison smoking from the kettle, with cold bacon, boiled
Indian corn, and mighty loaves of good brown household
bread. Never had Dolph made a more delicious repast; and
when he had washed it down with two or three draughts from
the Heer Antony's flask, and felt the jolly liquor sending its
warmth through his veins, and glowing round his very heart,
he would not have changed his situation, no, not with the
governor of the province.

The Heer Antony, too, grew chirping and joyous; told half
a dozen fat stories, at which his white followers laughed
immoderately, though the Indians, as usual, maintained an
invincible gravity.

“This is your true life, my boy!” said he, slapping Dolph on
the shoulder; “a man is never a man till he can defy wind and
weather, range woods and wilds, sleep under a tree, and live
on bass-wood leaves!”

And then would he sing a stave or two of a Dutch drinking
song, swaying a short squab Dutch bottle in his hand, while his
myrmidons would join in the chorus, until the woods echoed
again;—as the good old song has it,

In the midst of his joviality, however, Heer Antony did not
lose sight of discretion. Though he pushed the bottle without
reserve to Dolph, he always took care to help his followers
himself, knowing the beings he had to deal with; and was
particular in granting but a moderate allowance to the Indians.

The repast being ended, the Indians having drunk their liquor and
smoked their pipes, now wrapped themselves in their blankets,
stretched themselves on the ground, with their feet to the fire,
and soon fell asleep, like so many tired hounds. The rest of
the party remained chattering before the fire, which the gloom
of the forest, and the dampness of the air from the late storm,
rendered extremely grateful and comforting. The conversation
gradually moderated from the hilarity of supper-time, and
turned upon hunting adventures, and exploits and perils in the
wilderness; many of which were so strange and improbable,
that I will not venture to repeat them, lest the veracity of
Antony Vander Heyden and his comrades should be brought
into question. There were many legendary tales told, also,
about the river, and the settlements on its borders; in which
valuable kind of lore the Heer Antony seemed deeply versed.
As the sturdy bush-beater sat in a twisted root of a tree, that
served him for an arm-chair, dealing forth these wild stories,
with the fire gleaming on his strongly-marked visage, Dolph
was again repeatedly perplexed by something that reminded him
of the phantom of the haunted house; some vague resemblance
not to be fixed upon any precise feature or lineament, but
pervading the general air of his countenance and figure.

The circumstance of Dolph's falling overboard led to the
relation of divers disasters and singular mishaps that had
befallen voyagers on this great river, particularly in the earlier
periods of colonial history; most of which the Heer deliberately
attributed to supernatural causes. Dolph stared at this suggestion;
but the old gentleman assured him it was very currently
believed by the settlers along the river, that these highlands
were under the dominion of supernatural and mischievous
beings, which seemed to have taken some pique against the
Dutch colonists in the early time of the settlement. In consequence
of this, they have ever taken particular delight in
venting their spleen, and indulging their humors, upon the
Dutch skippers; bothering them with flaws, head-winds,
counter-currents, and all kinds of impediments; insomuch, that

a Dutch navigator was always obliged to be exceedingly wary
and deliberate in his proceedings; to come to anchor at dusk;
to drop his peak, or take in sail, whenever he saw a swag-bellied
cloud rolling over the mountains; in short, to take so
many precautions, that he was often apt to be an incredible
time in toiling up the river.

Some, he said, believed these mischievous powers of the air
to be evil spirits conjured up by the Indian wizards, in the early
times of the province, to revenge themselves on the strangers
who had dispossessed them of their country. They even
attributed to their incantations the misadventure which befell
the renowned Hendrick Hudson, when he sailed so gallantly
up this river in quest of a northwest passage, and, as he
thought, ran his ship aground; which they affirm was nothing
more nor less than a spell of these same wizards, to prevent his
getting to China in this direction.

The greater part, however, Heer Antony observed, accounted
for all the extraordinary circumstances attending this river, and
the perplexities of the skippers who navigated it, by the old
legend of the Storm-ship which haunted Point-no-point. On
finding Dolph to be utterly ignorant of this tradition, the Heer
stared at him for a moment with surprise, and wondered where
he had passed his life, to be uninformed on so important a point
of history. To pass away the remainder of the evening, therefore,
he undertook the tale, as far as his memory would serve,
in the very words in which it had been written out by Mynheer
Selyne, an early poet of the New Nederlandts. Giving, then,
a stir to the fire, that sent up its sparks among the trees like a
little volcano, he adjusted himself comfortably in his root of a
tree; and throwing back his head, and closing his eyes for a
few moments, to summon up his recollection, he related the
following legend.