Much of his time was spent in out-of-the-way research and ferreting in the dust-holes of the past, from which he now and then would fish up some unsavory fact or useless piece of information. Those twilight portions of history in which fable and fact are mingled, were his delight. He would travel a day's journey to visit a spot where a ghost had been seen, or a murder committed. He regarded a superannuated negro as a mine of legendary wealth, and would hold him by the button by the hour to get at the truth of some incident recollected by the negro's great-grandmother, and detailed to him when he was a boy. In fact his foibles were so well known, that every vagabond in the country who could coin a plausible story, half-romance and half-fact, was sure of a welcome and a hearty meal in his kitchen.
He was not a little proud of his Dutch descent, and had small respect for any whose genealogy was not, like his own, lost in the fog which surrounded the Dutch dynasty.
His prime minister and confidential adviser was a gray-headed, wrinkled negro named Zeb. He had been in his youth a sturdy fellow, but had dried up into an old codger who looked like a frosted persimmon. He was tough and leathery, with a head as hard as adamant, an obstinacy of disposition which required the full strength of his skull to keep it in. He had been born and bred on the place, and looked upon it and his master as his own property.
In early life he had been somewhat of a reprobate, so that his name and the gallows had frequently been coupled together in a very familiar manner; but he had disappointed all their prophecies, and in spite of his faults had steered clear of the halter.
As he grew old he became proportionably steady in his habits, and his evil name seemed to peel off. By the time he had become entirely useless and good for nothing, he had acquired quite a good character, and of late years he had never been known to swear when he had his own way, nor get drunk at his own expense. He, however, retained the habit of shooting with a long bow, and the marvellous character of his stories was only exceeded by the pertinacity with which he stuck to them.
His memory was a perfect magazine of mysterious experiences, of encounters with spirits of every denomination. The whole neighborhood of Dosoris, Matinecock and Lattingtown was but so many weird spots, noted in his memory as scenes of ghostly adventure. He could point out the very tree at Flag Brook where Ralph Crafts had a friendly chat with the Devil, who volunteered to whip Ralph's wife for him, and was beaten himself; and he could show the large tulip-tree at Dosoris, under which Parson Woolsey had an encounter of a more hostile character with the same personage, in which he so exorcised the Old Boy in bad Latin, and raised such a din about his ears with hard Scripture texts, that he took to flight, and never dared show his hoof there while the old clergyman lived.
Volkert Van Gelder pretended to turn an incredulous ear to these tales when Zeb happened to speak of them in public, and put his old retainer off with a 'pish;' but he always took occasion when no one was by to glean from him the full particulars. These were committed to writing, and stowed away in an ancient book-case mounted with brass, which is a perfect repository of abstruse history.
Zeb, however, had a crony in his own sphere, though not of his own color, equally versed in legendary lore. This was an old weather-beaten fellow with a red nose and a moist eye, of the name of Nick Wanzer.
Nick was born and bred at Matinecock. Many of his family had gone off to seek their fortunes in other parts of the world. Nick quoted the old saw, 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,' and staid at home. He grew no richer, but in process of time he certainly acquired a kind of moss-grown look, as if he were reaping the reward of his resolution.
He was addicted to strong drink and long stories, and by dint of constant indulgence in both, it became a matter of doubt whether his head or his stories had become toughest. He was usually to be met with either on the borders of the Dosoris mill-pond, with a fishing-rod across his shoulder, or trudging along the sand-bars, carrying a gun as battered as himself, with a slouch-tailed dog at his heels. He however was indigenous to the place, and belonged to that class of worthies, one or two of whom hang about every country village, and who drift through life always in sight, living no one knows how or where, and winding up their career by being found dead under some hedge or in some hay-mow.