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    The ghosts of their ancestors
    The ghosts of their ancestors
    The ghosts of their ancestors
    Ebook100 pages56 minutes

    The ghosts of their ancestors

    By Weymer Jay Mills and John Rae

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The ghosts of their ancestors

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      Book preview

      The ghosts of their ancestors - Weymer Jay Mills

      Project Gutenberg's The ghosts of their ancestors, by Weymer Jay Mills

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The ghosts of their ancestors

      Author: Weymer Jay Mills

      Illustrator: John Rae

      Release Date: August 6, 2011 [EBook #36991]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOSTS OF THEIR ANCESTORS ***

      Produced by Alex Gam, Suzanne Shell and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

      file was produced from images generously made available

      by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

      The Ghosts

      of their

      Ancestors

      "Those ancestry books are a standard joke with us"

      The Ghosts of

      their Ancestors

      by Weymer Jay Mills

      Author of

      "Caroline of Courtlandt Street"

      Pictures by John Rae

      New York

      Fox Duffield & Co.

      1906

      Copyright, 1906, by

      Fox Duffield & Company

      Published, March, 1906

      The Trow Press, N. Y.

      To American Ladies & Gentlemen of prodigious Quality

      To

      Minerva

      and

      Virginia

      Pictures

      Chapter One

      here was a clanging, brassy melody upon the air. For three-score years since York of the Scarlet Coats died, and the tune God Save the King floated for the last time out of tavern door and mansion window, the bells of old St. Paul's had begun their ringing like this:

      Loud and full voiced at eight o'clock sends good cheer abroad, said the tottering sexton. Softer and softer, as folks turn into bed, and faint and sweet at midnight, when our dear Lord rises with the dawn. Cheery bells full of hope—gentle chimes, as if the holy mother were dreaming of her babe. Joyous, jingling, jangling bells! Through the town their tones drifted, over the thousands of slate-colored roofs, now insistent on the Broadway, now lessening a little in some long winding alley, and then finally dying away on the bare Lispenard Meadows.

      Vesey Street—the gentry street—heard them first. The bigwigs in the long ago, with the help of Gracious George, built the church, and who had a better right than their children to its voices. Calm and serene lay Vesey Street with its rows of leafing elms. Over the dim confusion of architectural forms slipped the moonlight in silver ribbons, seeming to make sport of the grave, smug faces of the antiquated domiciles. Like a line of deserted dowagers waiting for some recalcitrant Sir Roger de Coverley, they stood scowling at one another. No longer linkboys and running footmen stuck brave lights into the well-painted extinguishers at each doorstep. No longer fashion fluttered to their gates. The gallants who had been wont to pass them with, Lud! what a pretty house! were most of them asleep now on the green breast of mother England, forgetful of that wide thoroughfare, which had never reckoned life without them.

      Into the parlor of Knickerbocker House, dubbed Knickerbocker Mansion some years after the bibulous Sir William Howe had laid down his sceptre as ruler of the town, the chorus of bells crashed.

      What a dastardly noise! cried Jonathan Knickerbocker, throwing his newspaper over his head. Can this Easter time never be kept without an infernal bell bombilation? I shall call a meeting of the vestry—that idiot Jenkins should be kept at home! The head of the Knickerbocker family turned irately in his chair and glared at his daughters. Three timid pairs of blinking eyes were raised from short sacks in answer to his challenge, then lowered again over the wool. The fourth and fairest daughter of the house, seated on the walnut sofa in the bow-window, gave no heed to his vehemence but a suppressed sigh. With a final snort the Gazette was picked up again. The Easter melody was waning.

      The Knickerbocker parlor—not the state parlor, which had long been closed—was a dismal place—so large that four candles and one Rumford lamp made but a patch of brightness in the gloom. Most of the furniture was ponderous and ugly, with two or three alien little chairs that looked as if they

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