hat was that they said? Gold? On
the marshes? At the old Flatlands tide-mill? The talkers had gone before
his slow and foggy brain could grasp it all, but when the idea had fairly
eaten its way into his intellect, he arose with the nearest approach to
alacrity that he had exhibited in years, and left the place. He crunched
back to his home, and seeing nobody astir went softly into his shed,
where he secured a shovel and lantern, and thence continued with all
consistent speed to the tumbledown tide-mill on the marsh,--a trying
journey for his fat legs on a sharp night, but hope and schnapps impelled
him.

He reached the mill, and, hastening to the cellar, began to probe in the
soft, unfrozen earth. Presently his spade struck something, and he dug
and dug until he had uncovered the top of a canvas bag,--the sort that
sailors call a "round stern-chest." It took all his strength to lug it
out, and as he did so a seam burst, letting a shower of gold pieces over
the ground. He loosed the band of his breeches, and was filling the legs
thereof with coin, when a tread of feet sounded overhead and four men
came down the stair. Two of them he recognized as the fellows of the
tavern. They saw the bag, the lantern, then Nicholas. Laden though he was
with gold until he could hardly budge, these pirates, for such they were,
got him up-stairs, forced him to drink hot Hollands to the success of
their flag, then shot him through the window into the creek. As he was
about to make this unceremonious exit he clutched something to save
himself, and it proved to be a plucked goose that the pirates had stolen
from a neighboring farm and were going to sup on when they had scraped
their gold together. He felt the water and mud close over him; he
struggled desperately; he was conscious of breathing more freely and of
staggering off at a vigorous gait; then the power of all the schnapps
seemed to get into his head, and he remembered no more until he heard his
wife shrilling in his ears, when he sat up and found himself in a
snow-bank close to his house, with a featherless goose tight in his
grasp.

Vrouw Van Wempel cared less about the state of her spouse when she saw
that he had secured the bird, and whenever he told his tale of the
pirates she turned a deaf ear to him, for if he had found the gold why
did he not manage to bring home a few pieces of it? He, in answer, asked
how, as he had none of his own money, she could have come by the goose?