66 Washington Irving.
there some rainy day, listening to the patter of the rain on the old weather-worn shingles while I read the Knickerbocker Chronicles.
The old man whom I have before mentioned, told me a story of the building, and of the equally ancient stone mill-dam, which he solemnly affirmed to be true in every particular. Lord Philipsen, being much less zealous in religious matters than his good wife Katrina,
was a long time in building the church. He laid the foundations and then abandoned the work to build the mill and dam. The latter structure was hardly completed when a terrific storm so enraged the
usually placid Pocantico that it tore the dam away. He immediately rebuilt it, much stronger than at first, and again it was speedily washed away. In his vexation and distress he was approached by his old slave, Harry, who informed him that he had had a dream which had been repeated for several nights. In the dream he had been told that God was displeased with his master for abandoning work on the church, and that he had punished him by causing the dam to be destroyed. Let him finish the church, and then rebuild the dam, and
it would stand. Lord Philipsen was so much impressed by this dream that he at once completed the church, and then, for the third time, reconstructed his mill-dam, where it still stands as a monument of his obedience to the commands of the dream—or possibly of his extra
care in building it more firmly and securely than at first.
Returning to the church we pass around on the east side of it and begin a ramble along the banks of the Pocantico—"the wizard stream," as Irving was so fond of calling it. Its musical Indian name suggests sylvan dells and shady glens—a murmuring, rippling, half-
noisy, half-subdued sort of name, which is in perfect keeping with its character.
A few minutes walk brings us to "the dark glen at raven rock." So called because the vicinity was formerly a favorite haunt of that
bird of ill-omen, and which is also said to have been haunted by "the woman in white," who perished here in a terrible storm, and whose shrieks were often heard afterwards during wild winter nights.
