"Aye are they," said the landlord, "and well may they be. They've
had luck of late. They say a great pot of money has been dug up in
the fields just behind Stuyvesant's orchard. Folks think it must
have been buried there in old times by Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch
governor."
"Fudge!" said the one-eyed man of war, as he added a small portion
of water to a bottom of brandy.
"Well, you may believe it or not, as you please," said mine host,
somewhat nettled, "but everybody knows that the old governor buried
a great deal of his money at the time of the Dutch troubles, when
the English redcoats seized on the province. They say, too, the
old gentleman walks, aye, and in the very same dress that he wears
in the picture that hangs up in the family house."
"Fudge!" said the half-pay officer.
"Fudge, if you please! But didn't Corney Van Zandt see him at
midnight, stalking about in the meadow with his wooden leg, and a
drawn sword in his hand, that flashed like fire? And what can he
be walking for but because people have been troubling the place
where he buried his money in old times?"
Here the landlord was interrupted by several guttural sounds from
Ramm Rapelye, betokening that he was laboring with the unusual
production of an idea.
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