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