In his youth he had been a harum-scarum fellow, a keen sportsman, and a persevering fisherman. Every rock from the Stepping Stones to Lloyd's Neck, was as familiar to him as his own dwelling, and there was not a corner of any swamp, or nook of woodland, which he had not traversed with dog and gun.
He had been terribly harried in the early part of his life, by a termagant wife, but he had at last deposited her in the Lattingtown church-yard, with a heavy stone over her to commemorate her virtues and to keep her quiet.
He had been too much cowed by stringent petticoat government, ever to be the man that he had been before his marriage; but it was a great weight off his mind to know that she was at rest, as well as himself. From that time he had been his own master, loitered about the country, attending to every body's business except his own. When the weather was fine, and the Sound smooth, he and Zeb passed whole mornings in a rickety boat, paddling about in search of fish. When the fish did not bite, the worthies might be descried upon one of the rocks at Martinecock, philosophizing over the past, while Nick's dog slept in the sunshine at their feet.
Of late Volkert had shown a strong yearning toward Nick. There was something in his good-for-nothing character which harmonized with the taste of Volkert, who had a weak spot in his affections for vagabonds. Nick, from a casual loiterer about the place, was gradually become a kind of appendage to it: running of errands, catching a mess of fish, or dropping a few woodcock at Volkert's door; ringing the noses of his pigs, and making himself generally useful. But the great secret of their intimacy was a certain adventure which Nick had met with, many years previously, in which Teunis Van Gelder bore a conspicuous part. It did not speak very well for the old pioneer, but Volkert took a strange pride in the evil odor which hung round the skirts of his ancestor. He forthwith took Nick by the hand, and although the tale was scouted by many as the fabrication of Nick's drunken brain, Volkert cross-examined him faithfully; took the whole down in writing, decided it to be both plausible and true, and forthwith deposited it among the arcana of his historic lore, from which I have drawn it. The adventure was as follows:
NICK WANZER'S ADVENTURE.
Nick had been passing an evening many years since at a husking-frolic. Like most persons who are good for nothing else, he was in his element there. He was a lusty dare-devil fellow then, ready for a fight or a frolic, and full of that rash yet jovial recklessness which makes friends of the men and plays the very deuce among the other sex. The party had been merry, and when the time came for breaking up, their merriment had become boisterous. Nick, overflowing with good cheer, took his leave of his host, shook hands with the mothers, kissed the prettiest of their daughters, and set out on his return to his own quarters.
The road was dark and gloomy, but he knew every inch of it. He was mellow with ale, apple-brandy and hard cider. He knew that he had to pass through a weird neighborhood, and all the tales which he had heard of ghosts and hobgoblins and Kidd and old Teunis Van Gelder were circulating freely through his brain, and, as he afterward acknowledged, what with the spirits within and the spirits without, his head was in somewhat of a turmoil.
He had a small boat drawn up in a creek near Peacock's Point, and as the road became somewhat unsteady as he proceeded, he determined to return home by water. Taking a short-cut across the fields and floundering through a swamp or two, he finally reached the creek, drew out his boat, and pushed out into the Sound.
It was one of those quiet still nights when there was scarcely a ripple on the water; every star was plainly reflected on its surface, and the moon hung in the sky like a huge globe of silver.
Nick pulled lazily along, thinking at one time of a farmer's daughter with whom he had passed a few love-passages behind the door; then of the ale and cider and apple-brandy; then of the tales of Kidd, with which an old black fiddler had regaled them at intervals during the evening: until he had got the apple-brandy and the farmer's daughter and Kidd and his treasure terribly jumbled together. He had been wondering where the freebooter could have put his money: and whether it was in gold-dust, or in bars or coin, and was in deep speculation as to whether it would be possible for him to discover it, dig it up, buy up the whole country round, and marry the girl just spoken of, when his attention was arrested by a loud hail.