Tales of a Traveller

raising his head above its naked edge, beheld the villains immediately below him, and so near that though he dreaded discovery, he dared not withdraw lest the least movement should be heard. In this way he remained, with his round black face peering over the edge of the rock, like the sun just emerging above the edge of the horizon, or the round-cheeked moon on the dial of a clock.
    The redcaps had nearly finished their work; the grave was filled up, and they were carefully replacing the turf. This done, they scattered dry leaves over the place. “And now,” said the leader, “I defy the devil himself to find it out.”
    “The murderers!” exclaimed Sam involuntarily.
    The whole gang started, and looking up, beheld the round black head of Sam just above them. His white eyes strained half out of their orbits; his white teeth chattering, and his whole visage shining with cold perspiration.
    “We’re discovered!” cried one.
    “Down with him!” cried another.
    Sam heard the cocking of a pistol, but did not pause for the report. He scrambled over rock and stone, through bush and briar; rolled down banks like a hedgehog; scrambled up others like a catamount. In every direction he heard some one or other of the gang hemming him in. At length he reached the rocky ridge along the river; one of the redcaps was hard behind him. A steep rock like a wall rose directly in his way; it seemed to cut off all retreat, when he espied the strong cord-like branch of a grape-vine reaching half way down it. He sprang at it with the force of a desperate man, seized it with both hands, and being young and agile, succeeded in swinging himself to the summit of the cliff. Here he stood in full relief against the sky, when the red-cap cocked his pistol and fired. The ball whistled by Sam’s head. With the lucky thought of a man in an emergency, he uttered a yell, fell to the ground, and detached at the same time a fragment of the rock, which tumbled with a loud splash into the river.
    “I’ve done his business,” said the red-cap, to one or two of his comrades as they arrived panting. “He’ll tell no tales, except to the fishes in the river.”
    His pursuers now turned off to meet their companions. Sam sliding silently down the surface of the rock, let himself quietly into his skiff, cast loose the fastening, and abandoned himself to the rapid current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and soon swept him off from the neighborhood. It was not, however, until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his oars; when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate, never heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan, or Hog’s-back itself; nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ancient farmhouse of the Suydams.
    Here the worthy Peechy paused to take breath and to take a sip of the gossip tankard that stood at his elbow. His auditors remained with open mouths and outstretched necks, gaping like a nest of swallows for an additional mouthful.
    “And is that all?” exclaimed the half-pay officer.
    “That’s all that belongs to the story,” said Peechy Prauw.
    “And did Sam never find out what was buried by the redcaps?” said Wolfert, eagerly; whose mind was haunted by nothing but ingots and doubloons.
    “Not that I know of; he had no time to spare from his work; and to tell the truth, he did not like to run the risk of another race among the rocks. Besides, how should he recollect the spot where the grave had been digged? every thing would look different by daylight. And then, where was the use of looking for a dead body, when there was no chance of hanging the murderers?”
    “Aye, but are you sure it was a dead body they buried?” said Wolfert.
    “To be sure,” cried Peechy Prauw, exultingly. “Does it not haunt in the neighborhood to this very day?”
    “Haunts!” exclaimed several of the party, opening their eyes still wider and edging their chairs still closer.
    “Aye, haunts,” repeated Peechy; “has none of you heard of father red-cap that haunts the old burnt farmhouse 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