The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1903-12-30


Have my man drive you to his house
and bring him here at once
AS the caretaker again disappeared
the heir bent over the curiously shaped
bottle in delight. for when the cork
was drawn fragrance filed the musty
apartment as from a bouquet.
BLESSINGS on the ancestor who laid
down this wine-' he muttered. MAY
his ghost wander in to sniff it, These
oly-koeks are not bad. l suppose this
man, Ten Breecheses, or whatever he
is called, is at once cook and house
keeper. Although | don't think much
of his housekeeping" ruminated Maui
vile as he observed Il herculean spider
weaving web from an old volume of
Giraldus Cambrensis, antiquary. to
the classical works of one Joseph o.
Exeter. There is strong sympathy
between wine and cobwebs, and Mau-
vile watched with increasing interest
the uses to which these ponderous
tones had sunk-but serving the blood
thirsty purpose of the nimble arcld-
tect evolving its delicate engineering
problem in midair
A great laundering fly had just bob
bed into the net, and the spider, with
hideous, carnivorous zest, was scram-
bling for it when the guardian of the
manor returned with the family solicit
or, little man who bore in his arms a
bundle of papers, which after the Gus
tomary greetings lie spread upon the
table. He helped himself to a glass of
burgundy and proceeded forthwith to
enter into the history of his trust.
Mynheer the PATRON. Mauville's pred
ecessor, a lonely, arrogant man, had
held tenaciously to the immense tracts
of land acquired in the colonial days
by nominal purchase He had never
married. his desire for an heir being
discounted by his aversion for the 9th
er sex, until as the days dragged on
he found himself bedridden and child
less in his old age. Unfortunately
the miser cannot take his acres into
paradise, and the PATRON, with many
an inward groan, cast about him for
some remote relative to whom he would
reluctantly transfer his earthly here
ditaments These were two-one a man
of piety, who prayed with the tenants
when they complained of their lot; the
other, Mauville, upon whom he had
never set eyes.
When the earliest PATRONS had made
known to the West India company
their intention of planting colonies in
New Netherland they had issued at
tractive maps to promote their coloni-
zation projects. Among those who had
been lured to America by these entic-
Ing advertisements was an ancestor of
Edward Mauvile. Incurring the dis
pleasure of the governor for his god
less views, this Frenchman was sent
to the plllory, or whipping post, and
his neighbors were about to cast out
the devil of irreverence in good Old
fashioned manner when one of the gov
errors daughters interceded. carried off
the handsome miscreant. and. sucl
was her imperious way, married him
He was heard in after years to aver
that the whipping would have been
the milder punishment; but, be tha'
as Il may, child was born unto
them who inherited the fathers adj
venturesome and graceless character,
deserted his home. Joined hands with
some ocean rovers and sailed for that
pasture ground of buccaneers. the Car
ibbean sea. OF his subsequent history
various stories may be found in the
chronicles OF New orleans and Louisi-
ana.
The only other person who might
have any pretensions to the estate was
a reverend gentleman who had been a
missionary among the Indians, preach
ing from a stump, and called Little
Thunder by the red men because of
his powerful voice, a lineal descendant
of the Rev. DR.. Johannes Vanderklonk
the first dominic of the PATRONS, who
served for 1000 guilders, payable in
meat or drink, twenty-five bushels of
wheat and two firkins of butter. He
saved the souls of the savages, while
the white men cheated their bodies.
Now and then, in those early days, the
children of the forest protested against
this evangelizing process and carried
OIL lnt ROOu uOHllillt " inc lOIluIt
stake, where they plucked out his fin
ger nails, but he returned with as much
zest TO his task of landing these simple
souls in paradise as those who employ
ed him displayed in making an earthly
paradise out Of the lands the red men
left behind them.
When by this shrewd system the saw
ages were gradually saved and incl
1entally exterminated, Little Thunder's
occupation was gone, and he became
pensioner of mynheer the PATRON.
earning his bread by an occasional ser
mon to the tenants, exhorting them to
thrift and industry, to be faithful and
multiply and to pay their rents prompt
ly. AS mynheer's time drew near he
sent for his attorney and commanded
him to look up the life, deeds and char
acter of Edward Mauville.
This did" said the lawyer, 'and
here it is" waving a roll of papers be-
fore his interested listener.
"A nauseatinR mess no doubt" care