Though against all the rules of story-writing, we continue our
narrative of these mainly true incidents (for such they are,) no
further. Only to say that _the murderer_ soon departed for a new
field of action--that he is still living--and that this is but one of
thousands of cases of unravel'd, unpunish'd crime--left, not to the
tribunals of man, but to a wider power and judgment.
THE LAST LOYALIST
"_She came to me last night, The floor gave back no tread_."] The
story I am going to tell is a traditional reminiscence of a country
place, in my rambles about which I have often passed the house,
now unoccupied, and mostly in ruins, that was the scene of the
transaction. I cannot, of course, convey to others that particular
kind of influence which is derived from my being so familiar with the
locality, and with the very people whose grandfathers or fathers were
contemporaries of the actors in the drama I shall transcribe. I must
hardly expect, therefore, that to those who hear it thro' the medium
of my pen, the narration will possess as life-like and interesting a
character as it does to myself.
On a large and fertile neck of land that juts out in the Sound,
stretching to the east of New York city, there stood, in the latter
part of the last century, an old-fashion'd country-residence. It had
been built by one of the first settlers of this section of the New
World; and its occupant was originally owner of the extensive tract
lying adjacent to his house, and pushing into the bosom of the salt
waters.
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