"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." "No, indeed! they have got here before you, but by your invitation; and a 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 l)oljbing their cups together, as if they were hobnobbing, and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since translated into English;

72 The Hudson River 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, he was buried in the yard of the little Dutch Church at Bergen, on the following Sunday.

To an earlier generation Jersey City was known as Paulus, Powles, or Pauws Hook. It was important as the w^estern end of the Paulus Hook Ferry, that was one of the chief means of communication between New Jersey and Manhattan Island. The Cortlandt Street Ferrv still crosses the same water, but the multitude that it transports each day would populate a goodsized citv; the several railroads making this their terminal station forming one of the principal arteries of New York life.