Project Gutenberg's The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby, by Charles M. Skinner

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Title: The Isle of Manhattoes and Nearby
Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Volume 2.

Author: Charles M. Skinner

Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #6607]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY ***

Produced by David Widger

MYTHS AND LEGENDS
OF
OUR OWN LAND

By
Charles M. Skinner

Vol. 2.

THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY

CONTENTS:

Dolph Heyliger
The Knell at the Wedding
Roistering Dirck Van Dara
The Party from Gibbet Island
Miss Britton's Poker
The Devil's Stepping-Stones
The Springs of Blood and Water
The Crumbling Silver
The Cortelyou Elopement
Van Wempel's Goose
The Weary Watcher
The Rival Fiddlers
Wyandank
Mark of the Spirit Hand
The First Liberal Church

THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY

DOLPH HEYLIGER

New York was New Amsterdam when Dolph Heyliger got himself born there,--a
graceless scamp, though a brave, good-natured one, and being left
penniless on his father's death he was fain to take service with a
doctor, while his mother kept a shop. This doctor had bought a farm on
the island of Manhattoes--away out of town, where Twenty-third Street now
runs, most likely--and, because of rumors that its tenants had noised
about it, he seemed likely to enjoy the responsibilities of landholding
and none of its profits. It suited Dolph's adventurous disposition that
he should be deputed to investigate the reason for these rumors, and for
three nights he kept his abode in the desolate old manor, emerging after
daybreak in a lax and pallid condition, but keeping his own counsel, to
the aggravation of the populace, whose ears were burning for his news.

Not until long after did he tell of the solemn tread that woke him in the
small hours, of his door softly opening, though he had bolted and locked
it, of a portly Fleming, with curl