His pursuers now turned off to meet their companions. Sam sliding
silently down the surface of the rock, let himself quietly into his
skiff, cast loose the fastening, and abandoned himself to the rapid
current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and soon swept
him off from the neighborhood. It was not, however, until he had
drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his oars; when he made
his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate, never
heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan, or Hog's-back itself; nor did he
feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the
cockloft of the ancient farm-house of the Suydams.
Here the worthy Peechy paused to take breath and to take a sip of the
gossip tankard that stood at his elbow. His auditors remained with open
mouths and outstretched necks, gaping like a nest of swallows for an
additional mouthful.
"And is that all?" exclaimed the half-pay officer.
"That's all that belongs to the story," said Peechy Prauw.
"And did Sam never find out what was buried by the redcaps?" said
Wolfert, eagerly; whose mind was haunted by nothing but ingots and
doubloons.
"Not that I know of; he had no time to spare from his work; and to tell
the truth, he did not like to run the risk of another race among the
rocks. Besides, how should he recollect the spot where the grave had
been digged? every thing would look different by daylight. And then,
where was the use of looking for a dead body, when there was no chance
of hanging the murderers?"
"Aye, but are you sure it was a dead body they buried?" said Wolfert.
"To be sure," cried Peechy Prauw, exultingly. "Does it not haunt in the
neighborhood to this very day?"
"Haunts!" exclaimed several of the party, opening their eyes still
wider and edging their chairs still closer.
"Aye, haunts," repeated Peechy; "has none of you heard of father
red-cap that haunts the old burnt farm-house in the woods, on the
border of the Sound, near Hell Gate?"
"Oh, to be sure, I've heard tell of something of the kind, but then I
took it for some old wives' fable."
"Old wives' fable or not," said Peechy Prauw, "that farmhouse stands
hard by the very spot. It's been unoccupied time out of mind, and
stands in a wild, lonely part of the coast; but those who fish in the
neighborhood have often heard strange noises there; and lights have
been seen about the wood at night; and an old fellow in a red cap has
been seen at the windows more than once, which people take to be the
ghost of the body that was buried there. Once upon a time three
soldiers took shelter in the building for the night, and rummaged it
from top to bottom, when they found old father red-cap astride of a
cider-barrel in the cellar, with a jug in one hand and a goblet in the
other.
