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 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.