Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/115

 TJie Doctor's Granddaughter.

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��that." — "What caused him to have these attacks?" — "I think it was a sunstroke," answered the doctor.

As they rode up a long hill, off to the left, partly hidden by large oaks, Su- sanna caught a glimpse of buildings in a tumbled-down condition.

" Is that the Captain Flanders place over there ? " she asked her grandfather. The doctor turned and said, " Yes ; that's the old place, and there seems to be something mysterious about that farm : ill luck goes with it. My father said that Capt. Flanders had been a pirate, and got his money by sea-rob- bery. Father always told this story about the captain. He said that when Capt. Kidd came back from London, with his ship the " Adventure Galley," to get a crew in New York, Capt. Flan- ders was among the volunteers. You know that the Earl of Bellamont was sent over by King William as governor of New York and Massachusetts in the latter part of 1600. He was anxious to put down piracy in the Indian Ocean. After a good deal of talk, and by the aid of friends in England, he got a ship, and hired Capt. Kidd — an old sailor of the settlement — to take command of her. Capt. Kidd couldn't get a crew in England, the men were taken up so by the English navy : so he came back to New York, shipped a full crew, and left the Hudson in February, 1697. When he reached the Indian Ocean, he found how much easier it was to capture the slow-sailing, defenceless merchant- ships, than it was to defend them, and try to capture the armed and desperate pirates : his pay would be small in com- parison to the prize he could easily take ; and he decided to throw over his command as privateer, and commenced piracy on his own hook in the English ship. He made a savage pirate, we

��always heard ; and his deeds of cold- blooded murder were fearful." The old man paused, and Susanna said, " How did Capt. Flanders get here, grandfather?" —"Well, when Capt. Kidd knew that England had heard of his treachery, he concluded to divide the riches they had captured among the crew, and burn the ship : he thought that they could get back to America with their spoils on some pirate ships, and they did. He, with several of his crew, got berths in a pirate sloop, and came back to New York. Capt. Kidd told many plausible lies to the gov- ernor, who at first believed him, and Kidd expected to live in luxury on his blood-money ; but at last the governor got his eyes open, and captured Kidd, and kept him until he was ordered to send him to England, where he was hanged. Some think that his trial was unfair, as he was tried for the murder of one of his sailors. This sailor was so dissatisfied with the way they were doing on the ship, that he said to Capt. Kidd, ' I shipped to protect these ships, and now we are stealing them, and killing the crews.' In the heat of this quarrel it is said Kidd struck the man, and killed him. Some don't believe it ; but I guess he deserved hanging any way." — "And Capt. Flanders," said Susanna, trying to call her grandfather back to his story. "Capt. Flanders was never a captain, so father said, but people called him so. When he landed with Kidd, he didn't stop in New York, but came on this way, and bought that great farm. He built a nice set of buildings, a monstrous barn, over a hun- dred feet long, and fixed the house off in great style. His wife was some out- landish woman — a Spaniard, I believe. They had some children, and they died except one : that lived a few years, and

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