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Overwhelmed with the fear of his impending
calamity, Evert in the meantime resolved to apply
to his old friend, Governor Stuyvesant, for advice.
The thought relieved him, and he flew to put it into
execution. The ex-governor, who had retired from
the city at the time of the conquest by the English,
resided about two miles north of the wall, on his farm
or Bowerie, a locality as far within the bounds of the
modern town, as it was beyond the precincts of the
old. He received Evert's intelligence in silence, and
listened to the thrice-repeated story of the garrulous
old man without reply. His countenance gave no
indication of his thoughts, but his friend could read
his changing emotions with sufficient accuracy, in the
varying puffs that escaped from his pipe. The dense,
dark cloud which burst forth at first, the little angry
puffs that succeeded, and the light, easy, graceful
wreaths that next ensued, were all intelligible.
There was surprise and alarm at the danger—contemptuous
indignation at the lawyer—and, finally,
distinct and certain relief. Poor Evert's eye

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brightened as he beheld these harbingers of hope floating
gracefully over his companion's head. He seized the
hand of his friend, and, with watery eyes, looked the
gratitude of his heart. Stuyvesant smiled in reply,
and lowering his pipe for the first time, he said:

“Go home, Mr. Knickerbocker, and be quiet; I
think I know where your patent is. Hans shall bring
it to you. Go home, and go to bed, for you look like
a spook, Mr. Knickerbocker—go home, go home,” he
continued, shaking the old man's hand, and holding
him fast the meanwhile; and then, his whole face
changing to a thundercloud, he sputtered forth a
string of Dutch anathemas at the meddling lawyer,
as he turned hastily away, and left Evert quietly to
pursue his homeward path.

Hans, a tub-like lad of eighteen, was called and
despatched at once to summon to the governor's
presence, Mynheer Teunis Vanderbilt, an old, spare,
spindle-shanked, shadowy man, scarcely larger than
the smallest of his own money-bags, who had at one
time been chief officer of state under the valiant
Stuyvesant. He had been a sort of prime minister,
chief councillor, civic and military secretary, and aid-de-camp,
acting also occasionally as envoy extraordinary
to Yankeedom and New Sweden. In these
capacities and others, he had not only contrived to
feather his own nest pretty effectually, but had

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treasured up a wholesome degree of wrath against the
Yankees, and, like Stuyvesant, he now watched with
jealous eyes, all encroachments upon the privileges of
his order, the old aristocracy of the land.

When Mr. Vanderbilt arrived at the house of his
friend, he found the latter sitting beside a table, on
which were writing materials, and a large blank
sheet of parchment. There was a vacant chair at
the board, of which Teunis took possession, and lighting
his pipe, a silent fumigation ensued for about half
an hour, the secretary's eye falling occasionally with
an inquiring glance upon the parchment.

“Hef you forgotten how to write, Teunis?” at
length inquired the governor, between puffs.

“Nain—nain, Mynheer,” replied the secretary,
laughing. “Ich can write my name.”

“I don't believe it,” returned Stuyvesant quietly.

Teunis gravely repeated his assertion. It was
indeed a lesson that he had taken too much pains to
learn, to allow of his easily forgetting it, for the sum
total of his chirographical education had been devoted
to the acquirement of that one accomplishment,
the art of writing his name. The force of learning
could no further go.

Stuyvesant pushed the parchment toward his
amazed companion, and putting a pen into his hand,
pointed to the lower left-hand corner of the sheet.

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Amazement seized upon poor Teunis, who stared first
at the parchment, and then at the governor, but the
latter, with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, sat puffing
a regular ha! ha! and seemed utterly unconscious of
his presence. The secretary seized the pen, and after
some ineffectual attempts to mend it with his tobacco
knife, set himself about his task. It was a tedious
job, and the little man paused after accomplishing
the first half, and smoked three pipes before resuming
his labors, eyeing meanwhile, with much complacency,
the scrawl before him, which might easily
have been mistaken for the portrait of a many-legged
spider. In less than an hour, however, the feat was
satisfactorily performed, and Stuyvesant owned himself
mistaken. Mynheer Vanderbilt, however, was
an astute man, and after much silent cogitation, he
began to wonder what was in the wind; but his old
habits of deference to his superior, prevented him
from encroaching upon his confidence by inquiring
into anything which the other seemed desirous to
conceal. He, therefore, rose to depart, and was
arrested for a moment in the doorway by the voice of
his friend.

“Teunis!” said the governor, gruffly.

The secretary turned, and looked back.

“Teunis!” repeated Stuyvesant, more emphatically.

“Wal, Mynheer!” was the response.

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The governor laid down his pipe, and pressed his
forefinger upon his closed lips, until the displaced
blood left them as colorless as the wall. Vanderbilt
replied to this pantomime by a similar gesture, and
departed.

No sooner was Stuyvesant left alone, than he
seemed desirous of ascertaining whether he also retained
the art of writing, and taking the pen which
lay beside him, he affixed his own name to the lower
part of the parchment, opposite that of the secretary.
This being done, the services of Hans were once
more in requisition. Again he went into the city,
and returned this time accompanied by another
elderly man, whose sagacious look, and quick rolling
eye, gave token of a different order of intellect. He
was, in fact, an ancient Dutch lawyer, who stood high
in the confidence of the governor, and whose little
crotchety handwriting was to be seen on all the public
documents of the late administration. But like many
other sagacious men, Mynheer Myndert Ten Eyck
had contrived to overlook the main chance, and had
found himself, in the downhill of life, almost a pensioner
upon the bounty of his ancient comrades. He
had no reason, however, to complain of stinted generosity
on the part of the ex-governor, and it was
owing perhaps partly to this circumstance that he had
responded with such alacrity to the summons of the

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latter. Stuyvesant had arranged a chair for him at
the table in such a manner that he could scarcely fail
to observe the mysterious parchment, with its signatures
in blank; but this precaution was quite unnecessary,
for Mynheer Ten Eyck would have
discovered it, had it lain in the darkest corner of the
room. The governor proceeded at once to business,
by informing his visitor of Mr. Knickerbocker's loss,
and of the immense importance of finding the document
without delay.

“I have reason to think,” he said, “that it is in your
possession, Mr. Ten Eyck, inasmuch as you wrote all
the old patents, and I want you to look for it, and to
look very sharp,”—and again his merry pipe sent forth
a succession of little laughing puffs, while the gravity
of his countenance remained undisturbed.

The lawyer comprehended the whole subject; that
he did so was sufficiently evident from the fact, that
while his companion was looking another way, he
had already slipped the parchment slyly into his
pocket. “I think I can find Mr. Knickerbocker's
patent,” he replied; but a cloud of doubt rested on
his face, as he slowly continued, “but I hope you
have considered—”

“Everything,” retorted the governor, angrily. “I
have considered everything, Mr. Ten Eyck, and it
must be found. I will be responsible—I, sir—Peter

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

Stuyvesant, with my manors and estates. Do you understand
me now?”

The lawyer bowed.

“Donner and blitzen!” exclaimed the old man,
striding up and down the room till the house echoed
with the strokes of his wooden leg upon the oaken
floor—“Donner and blitzen!” he said, scowling at the
frightened attorney, “would you sit still and see the
finest estate in the province confiscated, and the gray-haired
Evert in the poor-house, while a parcel of idle
Yankees were rioting on his lands? Would you—”

How far the venerable Peter's oration would have
extended is uncertain, but on the breaking away of a
thick cloud which had hung stationary for some time,
midway to the ceiling, he discovered that his auditor
was missing.

Scarce two hours had elapsed, however, before a
messenger from the attorney arrived, who delivered
a sealed package into the hands of Mr. Stuyvesant,
and disappeared. The latter eagerly tore off the envelope,
and, to his great amazement, beheld an old,
worn, smoke-dried, mouse-nibbled sheet of parchment,
containing letters patent to Evert Knickerbocker
for all his manor lands. It was dated in 1657—
bore the signatures of Peter Stuyvesant as governor,
and Teunis Vanderbilt as secretary, and had
an old dirty seal of white was appended to it with a

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faded blue ribbon. Again and again did the governor
examine and scrutinize it with the most overwhelming
astonishment.

“The tuyfel is in the lawyer,” he exclaimed at
length, after turning it over for the fiftieth time; and
had it not been for an extra cross which he had accidentally
bestowed upon the final letter of his name,
he would have sworn that the document before him
was in every respect genuine. As it was, his delight
knew no bounds. Calling upon Hans once more, he
despatched him with the precious document, carefully
enveloped, to Mr. Knickerbocker, whose amazement
and joy had well nigh overturned his reason; for no
faintest gleam of suspicion did he entertain as to the
authenticity of the deed. Soft was his pillow on that
happy night; no spectral sheriffs were about it; the
demons were all gone; and the long, spectacle-stridden
nose and rat-gray eyes of Hiram Sharp did not
peer from behind the bed-post once during the livelong
night.

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