The man was tried for murder and found guilty, but through the influence of his family he escaped punishment, or, rather, the court decreed that he should be hanged when he attained the age of ninety-nine 3^ears. In addition to this sentence, he was to present himself annually to the judges when the court was in session, and wear always a cord about his neck as a memorial of his crime. He lived for many years, and continued each year to fulfil the conditions of his sentence. People talked of the silken cord that he wore, and he was shunned and solitary in his life, while spectres of various sorts gathered around his isolated dwelling. Sometimes a female figure would appear alone, then a terrific white horse followed by a ghastlv thing in tattered clothes, and again a wraith in a winding-sheet -- altogether the neighbourhood of the house became uncanny. The Revolutionary war came and found the criminal an old man; his ninety-ninth year, that had been selected in what seems like grim ijleasantry as the date of his execution, came, and he lived on. When over a hundred years of age he fell quietly asleep, and who shall doubt that the crime of his youth was

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The Catskill Region 499

expiated by three quarters of a century of punishment. The details of this story have no doubt been coloured, but there is a foundation in fact. The man in question did tie a servant to a rope, to make her return to his home, from which she had escaped; but he tied the other end of the rope to his own body and was himself dragged to the ground w^hen the horse ran awa}'. He gave himself up to the authorities, who, it is said, acquitted him and let him go free.