He Determined Privately To Seek Out The Negro Fisherman And Get
Him To Serve As Guide To The Place Where He Had Witnessed The
Mysterious Scene Of Interment.
Sam was easily found; for he was one of
those old habitual beings that live about a neighborhood until they
wear themselves a place in the public mind, and become, in a manner,
public characters.
There was not an unlucky urchin about the town that
did not know Mud Sam the fisherman, and think that he had a right to
play his tricks upon the old negro. Sam was an amphibious kind of
animal, something more of a fish than a man; he had led the life of an
otter for more than half a century, about the shores of the bay, and
the fishing grounds of the Sound. He passed the greater part of his
time on and in the water, particularly about Hell Gate; and might have
been taken, in bad weather, for one of the hobgoblins that used to
haunt that strait. There would he be seen, at all times, and in all
weathers; sometimes in his skiff, anchored among the eddies, or
prowling, like a shark about some wreck, where the fish are supposed to
be most abundant. Sometimes seated on a rock from hour to hour, looming
through mist and drizzle, like a solitary heron watching for its prey.
He was well acquainted with every hole and corner of the Sound; from
the Wallabout to Hell Gate, and from Hell Gate even unto the Devil's
Stepping Stones; and it was even affirmed that he knew all the fish in
the river by their Christian names.
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