"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. He offered them a drink out of his goblet, but just as one of
the soldiers was putting it to his mouth-Whew! a flash of fire blazed
through the cellar, blinded every mother's son of them for several
minutes, and when they recovered their eye-sight, jug, goblet, and
red-cap had vanished, and nothing but the empty cider-barrel remained."
Here the half-pay officer, who was growing very muzzy and sleepy, and
nodding over his liquor, with half-extinguished eye, suddenly gleamed
up like an expiring rushlight.
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