GUESTS FROM GIBBET-ISLAND. A LEGEND OF COMMUNIPAW. BY WASHINGTON IRVING.

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Whoever has visited the ancient and renowned
village of Communipaw, may have noticed an old
stone building, of most ruinous and sinister appearance.
The doors and window-shutters are ready to
drop from their hinges; old clothes are stuffed in the
broken panes of glass, while legions of half-starved
dogs prowl about the premises, and rush out and
bark at every passer by; for your beggarly house in
a village is most apt to swarm with profligate and illconditioned
dogs. What adds to the sinister appearance
of this mansion, is a tall frame in front, not a
little resembling a gallows, and which looks as if
waiting to accommodate some of the inhabitants with
a well merited airing. It is not a gallows, however,
but an ancient sign-post; for this dwelling, in the
golden days of Communipaw, was one of the most
orderly and peaceful of village taverns, where all the
public affairs of Communipaw were talked and
smoked over. In fact, it was in this very building

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that Oloffe the Dreamer, and his companions, concerted
that great voyage of discovery and colonization,
in which they explored Buttermilk Channel,
were nearly shipwrecked in the strait of Hellgate, and
finally landed on the island of Manhattan, and founded
the great city of New-Amsterdam.

Even after the province had been cruelly wrested
from the sway of their High Mightinesses, by the
combined forces of the British and the Yankees, this
tavern continued its ancient loyalty. It is true, the
head of the Prince of Orange disappeared from the
sign; a strange bird being painted over it, with the
explanatory legend of `Die Wilde Gans,' or The
Wild Goose; but this all the world knew to be a sly
riddle of the landlord, the worthy Teunis Van Gieson,
a knowing man in a small way, who laid his finger
beside his nose and winked, when any one studied
the signification of his sign, and observed that his
goose was hatching, but would join the flock whenever
they flew over the water; an enigma which
was the perpetual recreation and delight of the loyal
but fat-headed burghers of Communipaw.

Under the sway of this patriotic, though discreet
and quiet publican, the tavern continued to flourish
in primeval tranquillity, and was the resort of all truehearted
Nederlanders, from all parts of Pavonia; who
met here quietly and secretly, to smoke and drink the
downfall of Briton and Yankee, and success to Admiral
Van Tromp.

The only drawbrack on the comfort of the establishment,
was a nephew of mine host, a sister's son,
Yan Yost Vanderscamp by name, and a real scamp
by nature. This unlucky whipster showed an early

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propensity to mischief, which he gratified in a small
way, by playing tricks upon the frequenters of the
Wild Goose; putting gunpowder in their pipes, or
squibs in their pockets, and astonishig them with an
explosion, while they sat nodding round the fire-place
in the bar-room; and if perchance a worthy burgher
from some distant part of Pavonia had lingered until
dark over his potation, it was odds but that young
Vanderscamp would slip a briar under his horse's
tail, as he mounted, and send him clattering along
the road, in neck-or-nothing style, to his infinite astonishment
and discomfiture.

It may be wondered at, that mine host of the Wild
Goose did not turn such a graceless varlet out of
doors; but Teunis Van Gieson was an easy-tempered
man, and, having no child of his own, looked upon
his nephew with almost parental indulgence. His
patience and good nature were doomed to be tried by
another inmate of his mansion. This was a crossgrained
curmudgeon of a negro, named Pluto, who
was a kind of enigma in Communipaw. Where he
came from, nobody knew. He was found one morning,
after a storm, cast like a sea-monster on the
strand, in front of the Wild Goose, and lay there,
more dead than alive. The neighbors gathered
round, and speculated on this production of the deep;
whether it were fish or flesh, or a compound of both,
commonly yclept a merman. The kind-hearted
Teunis Van Gieson, seeing that he wore the human
form, took him into his house, and warmed him into
life. By degrees, he showed signs of intelligence,
and even uttered sounds very much like language,
but which no one in Communipaw could understand.

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Some thought him a negro just from Guinea, who
had either fallen overboard, or escaped from a slaveship.
Nothing, however, could ever draw from him
any account of his origin. When questioned on the
subject, he merely pointed to Gibbet-Island, a small
rocky islet, which lies in the open bay, just opposite
to Communipaw, as if that were his native place,
though every body knew it had never been inhabited.

In the process of time, he acquired something of
the Dutch language, that is to say, he learnt all its
vocabulary of oaths and maledictions, with just words
sufficient to string them together. `Donder en blicksem!
' (thunder and lightning,) was the gentlest of
his ejaculations. For years he kept about the Wild
Goose, more like one of those familiar spirits, or
household goblins, that we read of, than like a human
being. He acknowledged allegiance to no one, but
performed various domestic offices, when it suited his
humor; waiting occasionally on the guests; grooming
the horses, cutting wood, drawing water; and all
this without being ordered. Lay any command on
him, and the stubborn sea-urchin was sure to rebel.
He was never so much at home, however, as when
on the water, playing about in skiff or canoe, entirely
alone, fishing, crabbing, or grabbing for oysters, and
would bring home quantities for the larder of the
Wild Goose, which he would throw down at the
kitchen door, with a growl. No wind nor weather
deterred him from launching forth on his favorite
element: indeed, the wilder the weather, the more
he seemed to enjoy it. If a storm was brewing, he
was sure to put off from shore; and would be seen
far out in the bay, his light skiff dancing like a

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feather on the waves, when sea and sky were all in
a turmoil, and the stoutest ships were fain to lower
their sails. Sometimes, on such occasions, he would
be absent for days together. How he weathered the
tempests, and how and where he subsisted, no one
could divine, nor did any one venture to ask, for all
had an almost superstitious awe of him. Some of
the Communipaw oystermen declared that they had
more than once seen him suddenly disappear, canoe
and all, as if they plunged beneath the waves, and
after a while come up again, in quite a different part
of the bay; whence they concluded that he could
live under water like that notable species of wild
duck, commonly called the Hell-diver. All began to
consider him in the light of a foul-weather bird, like
the Mother Carey's Chicken, or Stormy Petrel; and
whenever they saw him putting far out in his skiff,
in cloudy weather, made up their minds for a storm.

The only being for whom he seemed to have any
liking, was Yan Yost Vanderscamp, and him he liked
for his very wickedness. He in a manner took the
boy under his tutelage, prompted him to all kinds of
mischief, aided him in every wild harum-scarum
freak, until the lad became the complete scape-grace
of the village; a pest to his uncle, and to every one
else. Nor were his pranks confined to the land; he
soon learned to accompany old Plutor on the water.
Together these worthies would cruise about the broad
bay, and all the neighboring straits and rivers;
poking around in skiffs and canoes; robbing the set
nets of the fishermen; landing on remote coasts, and
laying waste orchards and water-melon patches; in
short, carrying on a complete system of piracy, on a

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small scale. Piloted by Pluto, the youthful Vanderscamp
soon became acquainted with all the bays,
rivers, creeks, and inlets of the watery world around
him; could navigate from the Hook to Spiting-devil
on the darkest night, and learned to set even the terrors
of Hell-gate at defiance.

At length, negro and boy suddenly disappeared, and
days and weeks elapsed, but without tidings of them.
Some said they must have run away and gone to sea;
others jocosely hinted, that old Pluto, being no other
than his namesake in disguise, had spirited away the
boy to the nether regions. All, however, agreed in
one thing, that the village was well rid of them.

In the process of time, the good Teunis Van Gieson
slept with his fathers, and the tavern remained
shut up, waiting for a claimant, for the next heir was
Yan Yost Vanderscamp, and he had not been heard
of for years. At length, one day, a boat was seen pulling
for shore, from a long, black, rakish-looking
schooner, that lay at anchor in the bay. The boat's
crew seemed worthy of the craft from which they
debarked. Never had such a set of noisy, roistering,
swaggering varlets landed in peaceful Communipaw.
They were outlandish in garb and demeanor, and
were headed by a rough, burly, bully ruffian, with
fiery whiskers, a copper nose, a scar across his face,
and a great Flaunderish beaver slouched on one side
of his head, in whom, to their dismay, the quiet inhabitants
were made to recognise their early pest,
Yan Yost Vanderscamp. The rear of this hopeful
gang was brought up by old Pluto, who had lost an
eye, grown grizzly-headed, and looked more like a
devil than ever. Vanderscamp renewed his

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acquaintance with the old burghers, much against their will,
and in a manner not at all to their taste. He slapped
them familiarly on the back, gave them an iron grip
of the hand, and was hail fellow well met. According
to his own account, he had been all the world over;
had made money by bags full; had ships in every sea,
and now meant to turn the Wild Goose into a country
seat, where he and his comrades, all rich merchants
from foreign parts, might enjoy themselves in the
interval of their voyages.

Sure enough, in a little while there was a complete
metamorphose of the Wild Goose. From being a
quiet, peaceful Dutch public house, it became a most
riotous, uproarious private dwelling; a complete rendezvous
for boisterous men of the seas, who came
here to have what they called a `blow out' on dry
land, and might be seen at all hours, lounging about
the door, or lolling out of the windows; swearing
among themselves, and cracking rough jokes on every
passer by. The house was fitted up, too, in so strange
a manner: hammocks slung to the walls, instead of
bedsteads; odd kinds of furniture, of foreign fashion;
bamboo couches, Spanish chairs; pistols, cutlasses,
and blunderbusses, suspended on every peg; silver
crucifixes on the mantle-pieces, silver candle-sticks
and porringers on the tables, contrasting oddly with
the pewter and Delf ware of the original establishment.
And then the strange amusements of these
sea-monsters! Pitching Spanish dollars, instead of
quoits; firing blunderbusses out of the window;
shooting at a mark, or at any unhappy dog, or cat, or
pig, or barn-door fowl, that might happen to come
within reach.

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The only being who seemed to relish their rough
waggery, was old Pluto; and yet he led but a dog's
life of it; for they practised all kinds of manual jokes
upon him; kicked him about like a foot-ball; shook
him by his grizzly mop of wool, and never spoke to
him without coupling a curse by way of adjective to
his name, and consigning him to the infernal regions.
The old fellow, however, seemed to like them the
better, the more they cursed him, though his utmost
expression of pleasure never amounted to more than
the growl of a petted bear, when his ears are rubbed.

Old Pluto, was the ministering spirit at the orgies
of the Wild Goose; and such orgies as took place
there! Such drinking, singing, whooping, swearing;
with an occasional interlude of quarreling and fighting.
The noisier grew the revel, the more old Pluto
plied the potations, until the guest would become
frantic in their merriment, smashing every thing to
pieces, and throwing the house out of the windows.
Sometimes, after a drinking bout, they sallied forth
and scoured the village, to the dismay of the worthy
burghers, who gathered their women within doors,
and would have shut up the house. Vanderscamp,
however, was not to be rebuffed. He insisted on renewing
acquaintance with his old neighbors, and on
introducing his friends, the merchants, to their families;
swore he was on the look out for a wife, and
meant, before he stopped, to find husbands for all
their daughters. So, will-ye, nill-ye, sociable he was;
swaggered about their best parlors, with his hat on
one side of his head; sat on the good wife's nicelywaxed
mahogany table, kicking his heels against the
carved and polished legs; kissed and tousled the

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young vrouws; and, if they frowned and pouted,
gave them a gold rosary, or a sparkling cross, to put
them in good humor again.

Sometimes nothing would satisfy him, but he must
have some of his old neighbors to dinner at the Wild
Goose. There was no refusing him, for he had got
the complete upper hand of the community, and the
peaceful burghers all stood in awe of him. But what
a time would the quiet and worthy men have, among
these rake-hells, who would delight to astound them
with the most extravagant gunpowder tales, embroidered
with all kinds of foreign oaths; clink the can
with them; pledge them in deep potations; bawl
drinking songs in their ears; and occasionally fire pistols
over their heads, or under the table, and then
laugh in their faces, and ask them how they liked the
smell of gunpowder.

Thus was the little village of Communipaw for a
time like the unfortunate wight possessed with devils;
until Vanderscamp and his brother merchants would
sail on another trading voyage, when the Wild Goose
would be shut up, and every thing relapse into quiet,
only to be disturbed by his next visitation.

The mystery of all these proceedings gradually
dawned upon the tardy intellects of Communipaw.
These were the times of the notorious Captain Kidd,
when the American harbors were the resorts of piratical
adventurers of all kinds, who, under pretext of
mercantile voyages, scoured the West Indies, made
plundering descents upon the Spanish Main, visited
even the remote Indian Seas, and then came to dispose
of their booty, have their revels, and fit out new
expeditions, in the English colonies.

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Vanderscamp had served in this hopeful school,
and having risen to importance among the bucaniers,
had pitched upon his native village and early home,
as a quiet, out-of-the-way, unsuspected place, where
he and his comrades, while anchored at New-York,
might have their feasts, and concert their plans, without
molestation.

At length the attention of the British government
was called to these piratical enterprises, that were becoming
so frequent and outrageous. Vigorous measures
were taken to check and punish them. Several
of the most noted freebooters were caught and executed,
and three of Vanderscamp's chosen comrades,
the most riotous swashbucklers of the Wild Goose,
were hanged in chains on Gibbet-Island, in full sight
of their favorite resort. As to Vanderscamp himself,
he and his man Pluto again disappeared, and it
was hoped by the people of Communipaw that he
had fallen in some foreign brawl, or been swung on
some foreign gallows.

For a time, therefore, the tranquillity of the village
was restored; the worthy Dutchmen once more
smoked their pipes in peace, eyeing, with peculiar
complacency, their old pests and terrors, the pirates,
dangling and drying in the sun, on Gibbet-Island.

This perfect calm was doomed at length to be
ruffled. The fiery persecution of the pirates gradually
subsided. Justice was satisfied with the examples
that had been made, and there was no more
talk of Kidd, and the other heroes of like kidney.
On a calm summer evening, a boat, somewhat heavily
laden, was seen pulling into Communipaw. What
was the surprise and disquiet of the inhabitants, to

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see Yan Yost Vanderscamp seated at the helm, and
his man Pluto tugging at the oar! Vanderscamp,
however, was apparently an altered man. He brought
home with him a wife, who seemed to be a shrew,
and to have the upper hand of him. He no longer
was the swaggering, bully ruffian, but affected the
regular merchant, and talked of retiring from business,
and settling down quietly, to pass the rest of
his days in his native place.

The Wild Goose mansion was again opened, but
with diminished splendor and no riot. It is true,
Vanderscamp had frequent nautical visitors, and the
sound of revelry was occasionally overheard in his
house; but every thing seemed to be done under the
rose; and old Pluto was the only servant that officiated
at these orgies. The visitors, indeed, were by
no means of the turbulent stamp of their predecessors;
but quiet, mysterious traders, full of nods, and
winks, and hieroglyphic signs, with whom, to use
their cant phrase, `every thing was smug.' Their
ships came to anchor at night, in the lower bay; and,
on a private signal, Vanderscamp would launch his
boat, and accompanied solely by his man Pluto, would
make them mysterious visits. Sometimes boats pulled
in at night, in front of the Wild Goose, and various
articles of merchandise were landed in the dark,
and spirited away, nobody knew whither. One of
the more curious of the inhabitants kept watch, and
caught a glimpse of the features of some of these
night visitors, by the casual glance of a lantern, and
declared that he recognized more than one of the
freebooting frequenters of the Wild Goose, in former
times; from whence he concluded that Vanderscamp

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was at his old game, and that this mysterious merchandise
was nothing more nor less than piratical
plunder. The more charitable opinion, however, was,
that Vanderscamp and his comrades, having been
driven from their old line of business, by the `oppressions
of government,' had resorted to smuggling to
make both ends meet.

Be that as it may: I come now to the extraordinary
fact, which is the butt-end of this story. It
happened late one night, that Yan Yost Vanderscamp
was returning across the broad bay, in his light skiff,
rowed by his man Pluto. He had been carousing on
board of a vessel, newly arrived, and was somewhat
obfuscated in intellect, by the liquor he had imbibed.
It was a still, sultry night; a heavy mass of lurid
clouds was rising in the west, with the low muttering
of distant thunder. Vanderscamp called on Pluto
to pull lustily, that they might get home before the
gathering storm. The old negro made no reply, but
shaped his course so as to skirt the rocky shores of
Gibbet-Island. A faint creaking over head, caused
Vanderscamp to cast up his eyes, when, to his horror,
he beheld the bodies of his three pot companions and
brothers in iniquity dangling in the moonlight, their
rags fluttering, and their chains creaking, as they
were slowly swung backward and forward by the
rising breeze.

`What do you mean, you blockhead!' cried Vanderscamp,
`by pulling so close to the island?'

`I thought you'd be glad to see your old friends,
once more,' growled the negro: `you were never
afraid of a living man, what do you fear from the
dead?'

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`Who's afraid?' hiccupped Vanderscamp, partly
heated by liquor, partly nettled by the jeer of the
negro; `who's afraid! Hang me, but I would be
glad to see them once more, alive or dead, at the
Wild Goose. Come, my lads in the wind!' continued
he, taking a draught, and flourishing the bottle above
his head, `here's fair weather to you in the other
world; and if you should be walking the rounds
to-night, odds fish! but I'll be happy if you will
drop in to supper.'

A dismal creaking was the only reply. The wind
blew loud and shrill, and as it whistled round the
gallows, and among the bones, sounded as if there
were laughing and gibbering in the air. Old Pluto
chuckled to himself, and now pulled for home. The
storm burst over the voyagers, while they were yet
far from shore. The rain fell in torrents, the thunder
crashed and pealed, and the lightning kept up an
incessant blaze. It was stark midnight, before they
landed at Communipaw.

Dripping and shivering, Vanderscamp crawled
homeward. He was completely sobered by the
storm; the water soaked from without, having diluted
and cooled the liquor within. Arrived at the
Wild Goose, he knocked timidly and dubiously at the
door, for he dreaded the reception he was to experience
from his wife. He had reason to do so. She
met him at the threshold, in a precious ill humor.

`Is this a time,' said she, `to keep people out of
their beds, and to bring home company, to turn the
house upside down?'

` `Company?' said Vanderscamp, meekly; `I have
brought no company with me, wife.'

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`No indeed! they have got here before you, but
by your invitation; and blessed looking company
they are, truly!'

Vanderscamp's knees smote together. `For the
love of heaven, where are they, wife?'

`Where?—why in the blue room, up stairs making
themselves as much at home as if the house were
their own.'

Vanderscamp made a desperate effort, scrambled
up to the room, and threw open the door. Sure
enough, there at a table, on which burned a light as
blue as brimstone, sat the three guests from Gibbet
Island, with halters round their necks, and bobbing
their cups together, as if they were hob-or-nobbing,
and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since
translated into English:


`For three merry lads be we,
And three merry lads be we;
I on the land, and thou on the sand,
And Jack on the gallows-tree.'

Vanderscamp saw and heard no more. Starting
back with horror, he missed his footing on the landing
place, and fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom.
He was taken up speechless, and, either from
the fall or the fright, was buried in the yard of the
little Dutch church at Bergen, on the following Sunday.

From that day forward, the fate of the Wild Goose
was sealed. It was pronounced a haunted house,
and avoided accordingly. No one inhabited it but
Vanderscamp's shrew of a widow, and old Pluto, and
they were considered but little better than its hobgoblin
visitors. Pluto grew more and more haggard and

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morose, and looked more like an imp of darkness than
a human being. He spoke to no one, but went about
muttering to himself; or, as some hinted, talking with
the devil, who, though unseen, was ever at his elbow.
Now and then he was seen pulling about the bay
alone, in his skiff, in dark weather, or at the approach
of night-fall; nobody could tell why, unless on an
errand to invite more guests from the gallows.
Indeed it was affirmed that the Wild Goose still continued
to be a house of entertainment for such guests,
and that on stormy nights, the blue chamber was occasionally
illuminated, and sounds of diabolical merriment
were overheard, mingling with the howling of
the tempest. Some treated these as idle stories, until
on one such night, it was about the time of the equinox,
there was a horrible uproar in the Wild Goose,
that could not be mistaken. It was not so much the
sound of revelry, however, as strife, with two or three
piercing shrieks, that pervaded every part of the village.
Nevertheless, no one thought of hastening to
the spot. On the contrary, the honest burghers of
Communipaw drew their night-caps over their ears,
and buried their heads under the bed-clothes, at the
thoughts of Vanderscamp and his gallows companions.

The next morning, some of the bolder and more
curious undertook to reconnoitre. All was quiet and
lifeless at the Wild Goose. The door yawned wide
open, and had evidently been open all night, for the
storm had beaten into the house. Gathering more
courage from the silence and apparent desertion, they
gradually ventured over the threshold. The house
had indeed the air of having been possessed by devils.

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Every thing was topsy turvy; trunks had been
broken open, and chests of drawers and corner cupboards
turned inside out, as in a time of general sack
and pillage; but the most woful sight was the widow
of Yan Yost Vandercamp, extended a corpse on the
floor of the blue chamber, with the marks of a deadly
gripe on the wind-pipe.

All now was conjecture and dismay at Communipaw;
and the disappearance of old Pluto, who was
no where to be found, gave rise to all kinds of wild
surmises. Some suggested that the negro had betrayed
the house to some of Vanderscamp's bucaniering
associates, and that they had decamped together
with the booty; others surmised that the negro was
nothing more nor less than a devil incarnate, who
had now accomplished his ends, and made off with
his dues.

Events, however, vindicated the negro from this
last imputation. His skiff was picked up, drifting
about the bay, bottom upward, as if wrecked in a tempest;
and his body was found, shortly afterward, by
some Communipaw fishermen, stranded among the
rocks of Gibbet-Island, near the foot of the pirates'
gallows. The fishermen shook their heads, and observed
that old Pluto had ventured once too often to
invite Guests from Gibbet-Island.