He Had Prosecuted His
Studies Also Under A Travelling Sage Who United All The Mysteries Of
Medicine With Magic And Legerdemain.
His mind, therefore, had become
stored with all kinds of mystic lore:
He had dabbled a little in
astrology, alchemy, and divination; knew how to detect stolen money,
and to tell where springs of water lay hidden; in a word, by the dark
nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the High German
doctor, which is pretty nearly equivalent to that of necromancer. The
doctor had often heard rumors of treasure being buried in various parts
of the island, and' had long been anxious to get on the traces of it.
No sooner were Wolfert's waking and sleeping vagaries confided to him,
than he beheld in them the confirmed symptoms of a case of
money-digging, and lost no time in probing it to the bottom. Wolfert
had long been sorely depressed in mind by the golden secret, and as a
family physician is a kind of father confessor, he was glad of the
opportunity of unburthening himself. So far from curing, the doctor
caught the malady from his patient. The circumstances unfolded to him
awakened all his cupidity; he had not a doubt of money being buried
somewhere in the neighborhood of the mysterious crosses, and offered to
join Wolfert in the search. He informed him that much secrecy and
caution must be observed in enterprises of the kind; that money is only
to be digged for at night; with certain forms and ceremonies; the
burning of drugs; the repeating of mystic words, and above all, that
the seekers must be provided with a divining rod, which had the
wonderful property of pointing to the very spot on the surface of the
earth under which treasure lay hidden. As the doctor had given much of
his mind to these matters, he charged himself with all the necessary
preparations, and, as the quarter of the moon was propitious, he
undertook to have the divining rod ready by a certain night.[5]
[Footnote 5: The following note was found appended to this paper in the
handwriting of Mr. Knickerbocker. "There has been much written against
the divining rod by those light minds who are ever ready to scoff at
the mysteries of nature, but I fully join with Dr. Knipperhausen in
giving it my faith. I shall not insist upon its efficacy in discovering
the concealment of stolen goods, the boundary-stones of fields, the
traces of robbers and murderers, or even the existence of subterraneous
springs and streams of water; albeit, I think these properties not
easily to be discredited; but of its potency in discovering vein of
precious metal, and hidden sums of money and jewels, I have not the
least doubt. Some said that the rod turned only in the hands of persons
who had been born in particular months of the year; hence astrologers
had recourse to planetary influence when they would procure a talisman.
Others declared that the properties of the rod were either an effect of
chance, or the fraud of the holder, or the work of the devil.
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