A great blundering fly had just bobbed into the net and the spider,
with hideous, carnivorous zest, was scrambling for it, when the
guardian of the manor returned with the family solicitor, a little man
who bore in his arms a bundle of papers which, after the customary
greetings, he spread upon the table. He helped himself to a glass of
burgundy and proceeded forthwith to enter into the history of his
trust.

Mynheer, the patroon, Mauville's predecessor, a lonely, arrogant man,
had held tenaciously to the immense tracts of land acquired in the
colonial days by nominal purchase. He had never married, his desire
for an heir being discounted by his aversion for the other sex, until
as the days dragged on, he found himself bed-ridden and childless in
his old age. Unfortunately the miser can not take his acres into
Paradise, and the patroon, with many an inward groan, cast about him
for some remote relative to whom he would reluctantly transfer his
earthly hereditaments. These were two: one a man of piety, who prayed
with the tenants when they complained of their lot; the other,
Mauville, upon whom he had never set eyes.

When the earliest patroons had made known to the West India Company
their intention of planting colonies in New Netherland, they had
issued attractive maps to promote their colonization projects. Among
those who had been lured to America by these enticing advertisements
was an ancestor of Edward Mauville. Incurring the displeasure of the
governor for his godless views, this Frenchman was sent to the
pillory, or whipping post, and his neighbors were about to cast out
the devil of irreverence in good old-fashioned manner, when one of
Mynheer's daughters interceded, carried off the handsome miscreant,
and--such was her imperious way!--married him! He was heard in after
years to aver that the whipping would have been the milder punishment,
but, be that as it may, a child was born unto them who inherited the
father's adventuresome and graceless character, deserted his home,
joined hands with some ocean-rovers and sailed for that pasture-ground
of buccaneers, the Caribbean sea. Of his subsequent history various
stories may be found in the chronicles of New Orleans and Louisiana.

The only other person who might have any pretensions to the estate was
a reverend gentleman who had been a missionary among the Indians,
preaching from a stump, and called "Little Thunder" by the red men
because of his powerful voice;