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 was a man of great weight among the peaceable
members of the club, by reason of his military character, and of the
gunpowder scenes which, by his own account, he had witnessed.
The golden stories of Kidd, however, were resolutely rivalled by the
tales of Peechy Prauw, who, rather than suffer his Dutch progenitors to
be eclipsed by a foreign freebooter, enriched every spot 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 of buried riches.
The soil of his native island seemed to be turned into gold-dust; and
every field teemed 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 a vertigo 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.
