e fields.

The ninepin alley was deserted, for the premature chilliness of the day
had driven the company within doors. As it was Saturday afternoon, the
habitual club was in session, composed principally of regular Dutch
burghers, though mingled occasionally with persons of various,
character and country, as is natural in a place of such motley
population.

Beside the fire-place, and in a huge leather-bottomed armchair, sat the
dictator of this little world, the venerable Rem, or, as it was
pronounced, Ramm Rapelye.

He was a man of Walloon race, and illustrious for the antiquity of his
line, his great grandmother having been the first white child born in
the province. But he was still more illustrious for his wealth and
dignity: he had long filled the noble office of alderman, and was a man
to whom the governor himself took off his hat. He had maintained
possession of the leathern-bottomed chair from time immemorial; and had
gradually waxed in bulk as he sat in his seat of government, until in
the course of years he filled its whole magnitude. His word was
decisive with his subjects; for he was so rich a man, that he was never
expected to support any opinion by argument. The landlord waited on him
with peculiar officiousness; not that he paid better than his
neighbors, but then the coin of a rich man seems always to be so much
more acceptable. The landlord had always a pleasant word and a joke, to
insinuate in the ear of the august Ramm. It is true, Ramm never
laughed, and, indeed, maintained a mastiff-like gravity, and even
surliness of aspect, yet he now and then rewarded mine host with a
token of approbation; which, though nothing more nor less than a kind
of grunt, yet delighted the landlord more than a broad laugh from a
poorer man.

"This will be a rough night for the money-diggers," said mine host, as
a gust of wind howled round the house, and rattled at the windows.

"What, are they at their works again?" said an English half-pay
captain, with one eye, who was a frequent attendant at the inn.

"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
field, 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, or not, as y