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Page 49
Be that as it may: I come now to the extraordinary fact, which is the
butt-end of this story. It happened late one night, that Yan Yost
Vanderscamp was returning across the broad bay, in his light skiff,
rowed by his man Pluto. He had been carousing on board of a vessel,
newly arrived, and was somewhat obfuscated in intellect, by the liquor
he had imbibed. It was a still, sultry night; a heavy mass of lurid
clouds was rising in the west, with the low muttering of distant
thunder. Vanderscamp called on Pluto to pull lustily, that they might
get home before the gathering storm. The old negro made no reply, but
shaped his course so as to skirt the rocky shores of Gibbet-Island. A
faint creaking overhead caused Vanderscamp to cast up his eyes, when,
to his horror, he beheld the bodies of his three pot companions and
brothers in iniquity dangling in the moonlight, their rags fluttering,
and their chains creaking, as they were slowly swung backward and
forward by the rising breeze.
"What do you mean, you blockhead!" cried Vanderscamp, "by pulling so
close to the island?"
"I thought you'd be glad to see your old friends once more," growled the
negro; "you were never afraid of a living man, what do you fear from the
dead?"
"Who's afraid?" hiccupped Vanderscamp, partly heated by liquor, partly
nettled by the jeer of the negro; "who's afraid! Hang me, but I would be
glad to see them once more, alive or dead, at the Wild Goose. Come, my
lads in the wind!" continued he, taking a draught, and flourishing the
bottle above his head, "here's fair weather to you in the other world;
and if you should be walking the rounds to-night, odds fish! but I'll be
happy if you will drop in to supper."
A dismal creaking was the only reply. The wind blew loud and shrill, and
as it whistled round the gallows, and among the bones, sounded as if
there were laughing and gibbering in the air. Old Pluto chuckled to
himself, and now pulled for home. The storm burst over the voyagers,
while they were yet far from shore. The rain fell in torrents, the
thunder crashed and pealed, and the lightning kept up an incessant
blaze. It was stark midnight, before they landed at Communipaw.
Dripping and shivering, Vanderscamp crawled homeward. He was completely
sobered by the storm; the water soaked from without, having diluted and
cooled the liquor within. Arrived at the Wild Goose, he knocked timidly
and dubiously at the door, for he dreaded the reception he was to
experience from his wife. He had reason to do so. She met him at the
threshold, in a precious ill humor.
"Is this a time," said she, "to keep people out of their beds, and to
bring home company, to turn the house upside down?"
"Company?" said Vanderscamp, meekly; "I have brought no company with me,
wife."
"No, indeed! they have got here before you, but by your invitation; and
blessed-looking company they are, truly!"
Vanderscamp's knees smote together. "For the love of heaven, where are
they, wife?"
"Where?--why, in the blue-room, up-stairs, making themselves as much at
home as if the house were their own."
Vanderscamp made a desperate effort, scrambled up to the room, and threw
open the door. Sure enough, there at a table, on which burned a light as
blue as brimstone, sat the three guests from Gibbet-Island, with halters
round their necks, and bobbing their cups together, as if they were
hob-or-nobbing, and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since
translated into English:
"For three merry lads be we,
And three merry lads be we;
I on the land, and thou on the sand,
And Jack on the gallows-tree."
Vanderscamp saw and heard no more. Starting back with horror, he missed
his footing on the landing-place, and fell from the top of the stairs to
the bottom. He was taken up speechless, and, either from the fall or the
fright, was buried in the yard of the little Dutch church at Bergen, on
the following Sunday.
From that day forward, the fate of the Wild Goose was sealed. It was
pronounced a _haunted house_, and avoided accordingly. No one inhabited
it but Vanderscamp's shrew of a widow, and old Pluto, and they were
considered but little better than its hobgoblin visitors. Pluto grew
more and more haggard and morose, and looked more like an imp of
darkness than a human being. He spoke to no one, but went about
muttering to himself; or, as some hinted, talking with the devil, who,
though unseen, was ever at his elbow. Now and then he was seen pulling
about the bay alone, in his skiff, in dark weather, or at the approach
of night-fall; nobody could tell why, unless on an errand to invite more
guests from the gallows. Indeed it was affirmed that the Wild Goose
still continued to be a house of entertainment for such guests, and that
on stormy nights, the blue chamber was occasionally illuminated, and
sounds of diabolical merriment were overheard, mingling with the howling
of the tempest. Some treated these as idle stories, until on one such
night, it was about the time of the equinox, there was a horrible uproar
in the Wild Goose, that could not be mistaken. It was not so much
the sound of revelry, however, as strife, with two or three piercing
shrieks, that pervaded every part of the village. Nevertheless, no one
thought of hastening to the spot. On the contrary, the honest burghers
of Communipaw drew their night-caps over their ears, and buried their
heads under the bed-clothes, at the thoughts of Vanderscamp and his
gallows companions.
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