g that he well knew
Shipman, the Leather-Stocking of Cooper's novels, and that Shipman was
never married. Graves said that he had often visited the old hunter's
cave in company with him. This testimony seems to point to the Hoosick
Shipman, who having deserted his family for twenty-six years, might
easily pass for a bachelor in Otsego, and who is said to have lived in a
cave, concerning which nothing is mentioned in the traditions of David
Shipman.]

CHAPTER XI

STRANGE TALES OF THE GALLOWS

At the eastern end of the main street of the village the bridge across
the Susquehanna River commands a view for a short distance up and down
the stream, far enough toward the north to glimpse its source in Otsego
Lake, while to the south Fernleigh House appears, high amid the trees on
the western bank, and the drifting current below is lost in foliage.
Nearer at hand, as seen from the south side of the bridge, Riverbrink
claims the eastern shore. Here stands a solemn-visaged house that looks
down upon the scene of one of the most extraordinary dramas ever enacted
beneath the gallows-tree.

[Illustration: RIVERBRINK]

In the summer of 1805, on the flat a little below the place where the
house now stands, the gibbet was erected for a public execution. The
condemned man was Stephen Arnold, whose crime was committed in
Burlington, in this county, during the previous winter. Arnold was a
school teacher, and having no children of his own, had taken into his
home Betsey Van Amburgh, a child six years of age. An ungovernable
temper added a kind of ferocious zeal to the duty of educating this
child, for it was her inability to pronounce the word "gig" according
to his directions that brought the teacher to the gallows. Betsey
insisted on pronouncing the word as "jig," and declared that she could
not do otherwise. Whereupon Arnold took her out of the house into the
severely cold evening air, and there whipped her naked body until he
himself became cold. He then took her indoors to make her pronounce the
word correctly, which she failed to do; and again she was taken out and
whipped in the same manner. This act of brutality he repeated seven
times, declaring that he "had as lieve whip her to death as not." The
poor child languished four days, and expired.

Arnold's trial was held in June, in Cooperstown. He was speedily
convicted of murder, and sentenced to die.

The date fixed for the execution, Friday, July 19, 1805, was a