Part 6 (2/2)
”Wylie informed me that you could have pa.s.sed the remains under a closed door without sc.r.a.ping the b.u.t.tons of the waistcoat. They merely slid him into a crack in the ground when they buried him, and the fat woman pined away until she became thin and valueless. Then the Wild Man married her, and began life again on a new basis.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”Was Mr. Wylie what you might consider a man of veracity?”
”Certainly he was; and his story is undoubtedly true, because his toes did turn in.”
”That settles the matter. With such incontrovertible evidence as that at hand, it would be folly to doubt the story. We will go quietly and confidently to tea instead of discussing it.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER VII.
THE BATTERY AND ITS PECULIARITIES--A LOVELY SCENE--SWEDE AND DUTCHMAN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO--OLD NAMES OF THE RIVER--INDIAN NAMES GENERALLY--COOLEY'S BOY--HIS ADVENTURE IN CHURCH--THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT--MR. COOLEY'S DOG AND OUR TROUBLES WITH IT.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The closing hours of the long summer afternoon can be spent in no pleasanter place than by the water's side. And after tea I like to take my little group of Adelers out from the hot streets over the gra.s.sy way which leads to the river sh.o.r.e, and to find a comfortable loitering-place upon the Battery. That spot is adorned with a long row of rugged old trees whose trunks are gashed and scarred by the penknives of idlers. Their branches interlock overhead and form one great ma.s.s of tender green foliage, here sweeping down almost to the earth, and there hanging far out over the water, trembling and rustling in the breeze.
Beneath, there is a succession of hewn logs, suggesting the existence of some sort of a wharf in the remote past, but now serving nicely for seats for those who come here to spend a quiet hour. Around there is a sod which grows lush and verdant, excepting where the tread of many feet has worn a pathway backward to the village.
In front is as lovely a scene as any the eye can rest upon in this portion of the world. Below us the rising and the ebbing tides hurl the tiny ripples upon the pebbly beach, and the perpetual wash of the waves makes that gentle and constant music which is among the most grateful of the sounds of nature.
Away to the southward sweeps the Delaware sh.o.r.e line in a mighty curve which gives the river here the breadth and magnificence of a great lake, and at the end of the chord of the arc the steeples and the masts at Delaware City rise in indistinct outline from the waves. To the left, farther in the distance, old Fort Delaware lifts its battlements above the surface of the stream. And see! A puff of white smoke rises close by the flag-staff. And now a dull thud comes with softened cadence across the wide interval. It is the sunset gun. Far, far beyond, a sail glimmers with rosy light caught from the brilliant hues of the clouds which make the western heavens glorious with their crimson drapery; and while here as we gaze straight out through the bay there is naught in the perspective but water and sky, to the right the low-lying land below the island fortress seems, somehow, to be queerly suspended between river and heaven, until as it recedes it grows more and more shadowy, and at last melts away into the mist that creeps in from the ocean. It is pure happiness to sit here beneath the trees and to look upon the scene while the cool air pours in from the water and lifts into the upper atmosphere the oppressive heat that has mantled the earth during the day.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTERY]
I do not know why the place is called ”the Battery.” Perhaps a couple of centuries ago the Swedes may have built here a breastwork with which to menace their hated Dutch rivals who held the fort just below us there upon the river bank. (We will walk over to the spot some day, Mrs.
Adeler.) And who can tell what strange old Northmen in jerkin and helmet have marched up and down this very stretch of level sward, carrying huge fire-lock muskets and swearing mighty oaths as they watched the intruding Dutchman in his stronghold, caring little for the placid loveliness of the view which the rolling tide of the majestic river ever offered to their eyes!
[Ill.u.s.tration]
But some of those people could appreciate this beautiful panorama.
Some of them did not forget the grandeur of nature while their little pa.s.sions raged against the Dutchmen. It was Jasper Dankers who came here from Sweden in 1676, and looked out from this Battery; returning home, he wrote in his diary in this fas.h.i.+on:
”The town is situated upon a point which extends out with a sandy beach, affording a good landing-place. It lies a little above the bay where the river bends and runs south from there, so that you can see down the river southwardly. The greater portion of it presents a beautiful view in perspective, and enables you to see from a distance the s.h.i.+ps come out from the great bay and sail up the river.”
The sandy beach is gone, and the s.h.i.+ps which float upward from the bay are not such craft as Dankers saw; but the stream has its ancient majesty, and the wooded banks, I like to think, present to our eyes nearly the same sweet picture that touched the soul of that old Swede two long centuries ago.
Another thing has changed--yes, it has changed many times. The Indians, Mrs. A., called the bay Poutaxat and the river Lenape Wihittuck. The stream, too, was named the Arasapha, and also Mackerish Kitton--a t.i.tle pretty enough in its way, but oddly suggestive of mackerel and kittens.
But the Swedes came, and with that pa.s.sion which burned in the bosoms of all the early European immigrants for prefixing the word ”new” to the names of natural objects, they ent.i.tled the river New Swedeland Stream.
Then the Dutch obtained the mastery here, and it became the South River, the Hudson being the North River, and finally the English obtained possession, and called it Delaware.
What a pity it is that they didn't suffer one of the original t.i.tles to remain! The Lenape would have been a beautiful name for the river--far better than the Gallic compound that it bears now. The men who settled this country seem to have had for Indian names the same intense dislike that they entertained for the savages themselves, and as a rule they rejected with scorn the soft, sweet syllables with which mountain and forest and stream were crowned, subst.i.tuting too often most barbarous words therefor. Even Penn and his Quakers disdained the Indian names.
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