the ancient rural retreat of the chivalric Peter Stuyvesant. I am not
without hopes of one day seeing this formidable piece of ordinance
restored to its proper station in the arsenal of the Roost. Before
closing this historic document, I cannot but advert to certain notions
and traditions concerning the venerable pile in question. Old-time
edifices are apt to gather odd fancies and superstitions about them, as
they do moss and weather-stains; and this is in a neighborhood a little
given to old-fashioned notions, and who look upon the Roost as somewhat
of a fated mansion. A lonely, rambling, down-hill lane leads to it,
overhung with trees, with a wild brook dashing along, and crossing
and re-crossing it. This lane I found some of the good people of the
neighborhood shy of treading at night; why, I could not for a long time
ascertain; until I learned that one or two of the rovers of the Tappan
Sea, shot by the stout Jacob during the war, had been buried hereabout,
in unconsecrated ground.

Another local superstition is of a less gloomy kind, and one which I
confess I am somewhat disposed to cherish. The Tappan Sea, in front of
the Roost, is about three miles wide, bordered by a lofty line of waving
and rocky hills. Often, in the still twilight of a summer evening, when
the sea is like glass, with the opposite hills throwing their purple
shadows half across it, a low sound is heard, as of the steady, vigorous
pull of oars, far out in the middle of the stream, though not a boat
is to be descried. This I should have been apt to ascribe to some boat
rowed along under the shadows of the western shore, for sounds are
conveyed to a great distance by water, at such quiet hours, and I can
distinctly hear the baying of the watch-dogs at night, from the farms on
the sides of the opposite mountains. The ancient traditionists of the
neighborhood, however, religiously ascribed these sounds to a judgment
upon one Rumbout Van Dam, of Spiting Devil, who danced and drank late