Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 2

Myths And Legends of Our Own
Land, vol 2: Manhattoes

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Title: Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land (The Isle of Manhattoes
and Nearby)
Author: Charles M. Skinner
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6607] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 31,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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MYTHS-LEGENDS, BY SKINNER, V2 ***

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MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF OUR OWN LAND
By Charles M. Skinner
Vol. 2.
THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY

CONTENTS:
Dolph Heyliger The Knell at the Wedding Roistering Dirck Van Dara
The Party from Gibbet Island Miss Britton's Poker The Devil's
Stepping-Stones The Springs of Blood and Water The Crumbling
Silver The Cortelyou Elopement Van Wempel's Goose The Weary
Watcher The Rival Fiddlers Wyandank Mark of the Spirit Hand The
First Liberal Church

THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY
DOLPH HEYLIGER
New York was New Amsterdam when Dolph Heyliger got himself
born there, --a graceless scamp, though a brave, good-natured one, and
being left penniless on his father's death he was fain to take service
with a doctor, while his mother kept a shop. This doctor had bought a
farm on the island of Manhattoes--away out of town, where
Twenty-third Street now runs, most likely--and, because of rumors that
its tenants had noised about it, he seemed likely to enjoy the
responsibilities of landholding and none of its profits. It suited Dolph's
adventurous disposition that he should be deputed to investigate the

reason for these rumors, and for three nights he kept his abode in the
desolate old manor, emerging after daybreak in a lax and pallid
condition, but keeping his own counsel, to the aggravation of the
populace, whose ears were burning for his news.
Not until long after did he tell of the solemn tread that woke him in the
small hours, of his door softly opening, though he had bolted and
locked it, of a portly Fleming, with curly gray hair, reservoir boots,
slouched hat, trunk and doublet, who entered and sat in the arm-chair,
watching him until the cock crew. Nor did he tell how on the third
night he summoned courage, hugging a Bible and a catechism to his
breast for confidence, to ask the meaning of the visit, and how the
Fleming arose, and drawing Dolph after him with his eyes, led him
downstairs, went through the front door without unbolting it, leaving
that task for the trembling yet eager youth, and how, after he had
proceeded to a disused well at the bottom of the garden, he vanished
from sight.
Dolph brooded long upon these things and dreamed of them in bed. He
alleged that it was in obedience to his dreams that he boarded a
schooner bound up the Hudson, without the formality of adieu to his
employer, and after being spilled ashore in a gale at the foot of Storm
King, he fell into the company of Anthony Vander Hevden, a famous
landholder and hunter, who achieved a fancy for Dolph as a lad who
could shoot, fish, row, and swim, and took him home with him to
Albany. The Heer had commodious quarters, good liquor, and a pretty
daughter, and Dolph felt himself in paradise until led to the room he
was to occupy, for one of the first things that he set eyes on in that
apartment was a portrait of the very person who had kept him awake
for the worse part of three nights at the bowerie in Manhattoes. He
demanded to know whose picture it was, and learned that it was that of
Killian Vander Spiegel, burgomaster and curmudgeon, who buried his
money when the English seized New