engaged his pen in later years. James Kirke Paulding, his senior by several years, was his guide and friend, if not philosopher; and it is not improbable that the people of the neighbourhood, who have conjured for half a century by Geoffrey Crayon's name, must thank that engaging youngster for their titular saint. It is hard for us to realise, looking at the cultivated "grounds," the "improved" residences^ and innumer- able smooth lawns, what those two boys found as they rambled with guns or rods over the hills, or pushed their boat into the bays along the river shore. The Pocantico and its tributary streams then teemed with trout. The quail piped in every cornfield, and the grouse whirred from every invaded thicket. One little distant church folded the entire rural flock on Sabbath days. Revolutionary veterans, in the prime of life, fought their battles over at the tavern or the store. The market boat that sailed at stated inter- vals for New York, wind and weather permitting, tied up near the Paulding house, and the farm waggons lumbered down with their produce to the landing. A century has made mighty changes. Years afterward, Washington Irving wrote: To me the Hudson is full of storied associations, connected as it is with some of the happiest portions of my life. Each striking feature brings to mind some early adventure or enjoy- Digitized by Microsoft® In the Land of Irving 241 merit, some favourite companion who shared it with me, some fair object, perchance, of youthful admiration, who, hke a star, may have beamed her allotted time and passed away. There is something deHghtfuUy youthful and pas- toral in that last touch. We catch a glimpse of other boyish pastimes than gunning or fishing or dreaming in a boat under the willows near Mr. Oliver Ferris 's house, — ^the Sunnyside of future years. The "beam- ing" objects of youthful admiration, met at the church or down by the mill-pond between services, or perhaps at the market-boat landing, gave, we cannot doubt, a peculiar zest to life, a particular delight to memory. The granddaughters of those girls of long ago must, some of them at least, be with us still. I wonder if there are preserved pleasant traditions of those inno- cent flirtations. I would like to know how the slower country beaux regarded the encroachments of those two city boys. One of the resorts well known to all the fishermen on the Tappan Zee was the Hafenje, or little harbour, a pleasant bay that indented the shore to the north of the "Yellow Rocks." In later days the old Dutch name became corrupted to "Hobbinger." It can hardly be doubted that the youthful companions wet their lines in its quiet water or beached their boat under the pines and hemlocks that bordered it. What is left of the Hafenje now is a shallow cove between the rail- road track and the dam behind which General Watson Webb confined its tributary brook. John C. Fremont Digitized by Microsoft® 242 The Hudson River afterward bought that property, and the pond and cove are locally known by his name. From an old sketch written by Paulding and published in 1828 in one of the then fashionable annuals, we get a glimpse of the local oddities, the characters, whose originality appealed so strongly to Irving, and of landmarks that have been obliterated. He describes " the little mar- ket town on the river, from whence the boats plied weekly to New York with produce," as a "pestilent little place [in 1793] for running races, pitching quoits, and wrestling for gin-slings," but adds: I must do it credit to say that it is now [1828] a very orderly town, sober and quiet, save when Parson Mathias, who calls himself a Son of Thunder, is praying in secret so as to be heard across the river. It so happened that of all the days in the year, this was the very day [one Tuesday in November] a rumour had got into the town that I myself, the veritable writer of this true story, had been poisoned by a dish of souchong tea. . . . There was not a stroke of work done in the village that day. The shoemaker abandoned his awl, the hatter his bowstring, the tailor his goose, and the forge of the blacksmith was cool from dawn till nightfall. Silent was the sonorous harmony of the big spinning wheel, silent the village song, and silent the fiddle of Master Timothy Canty, who passed his livelong time in playing tuneful measures and catching bugs and butterflies. It may not be out of place to let the careful Duyck- inck supply the grain of salt with which he warns us that Paulding should be enjoyed: