University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
A REVISED ACCOUNT OF NIMROD AND HIS DOINGS.

We shall omit the wild-turkey hunt of a bright autumnal
moonlight night in the woods, exciting and engaging though
it was, and the race with Streaker, in which Margaret bore
no part, while we proceed to enumerate some particulars of
her eldest brother, that have a relation to herself. Nimrod
evinced a volatile, roving, adventure-seeking habit from
his boyhood. The severe waspish temper of his mother he
could not abide, the coarse, dogged despotism of Hash he
resented; Chilion was only a boy, and one not sufficiently
social and free; with his father he had more in common.
At the age of fourteen he became an indented apprentice to
Mr. Hatch, the blacksmith at No. 4. But of the different
kind of blows of which he was capable, he relished those
best that had the least to do with the anvil. He liked
horses well enough, but preferred their hides to their hoofs;
and became more skilful with the fleam than the butteris.
He left his master in a rage, himself in good humor. He
next let himself at the Crown and Bowl in the village,
where one might fancy he would find his element. He was
hostler, bar-tender, errand-boy, farrier, mistress'-man, waiting-maid's
man and every body's man by turn. He entertained
traveller's at the door, girls in the kitchen and boys
on the stoop. He was quick but he always loitered, he was
ingenious yet did nothing well. It would not seem strange
that he should prove a better auxiliary to every one's taste
and fancy, than to his employer's interest. He hung a

flint stone on the barn-door to keep the devil from riding
the horses in the night; but this did not prevent indications
of their having been used at unlawful times and in
unlawful ways. He was dismissed. While he served
others at the bar he must needs help himself, and he became
at an early age an adept in what an old writer denominates
the eighth liberal art. At the close of the Revolutionary
war, it became more difficult to fill vacancies
in the army than it had been originally to form companies.
There were “Classes” in Livingston, as every where else,
instituted to furnish a certain number of soldiers, as exigency
required. By one of these, Nimrod, not yet fifteen
years of age, but of due physical proportion and compliance,
was hired. He joined a detachment ordered on the
defence of our northern frontier.

But even military discipline was insufficient to correct
his propensities, or reform his habits. He deserted, and
crossed the Canada line. He joined a band of smugglers
that swarmed in those quarters, and during the spring of
the year 1784, we find him in New York city aboard a
sloop from up river. The vessel was anchored in the
stream not far from the Albany Basin. She had a deck-load
of lumber, and wheat in her hold, the ordinary supply
of the country at the time; her contraband goods were
stowed in proper places. Government, both state and national,
was pressed for means; the war, taxes, suspension
of productive labor, had heightened necessity and diminished
resource. Duties were great, but legislation was
irregular. The city held in its bosom many who had suffered
during the late contest. The general amnesty, while
it retained the disaffected, failed in some cases to reconcile
them. Hence smuggling, while it grew to be a most vexatious
practice, was one of tolerably easy accomplishment.

Late in the evening the cabin of the sloop was visited by
an elderly gentleman in buff coat and breeches, having an
eagle holding an olive branch wrought on his left breast.
He was addressed by the Captain as Mr. Girardeau. He
complained bitterly of the times, the rise of taxes, financial
depressions, the decline of real estate and sundry misfortunes.
He said that his clerk, meaning thereby his daughter,
had eloped, and that his old servant Samuel was dead.
He had evident connection with the private objects of the
vessel, and under his supervision preparations were made
for carrying the contraband articles to his own store in the
city. These, consisting of silks, ribbons, laces, &c., were
laid in coffin-shaped boxes, and Nimrod with another of the
crew was detached as porter. They rowed in a small
boat as far as the beach in Hudson Square, threaded a
lane along the woods and hills of Grand Street, came down
through the marshes and fields of Broadway, till they
reached a small wooden house lying under a hill back of the
City Hall, the residence of Mr. Girardeau. They encountered
several of the police stationed on the skirts of the city,
one of whom they frightened by intimations of the small-pox;
another they avoided by slinking into the shadows of
trees; a third they stupefied by drafts of rum, a supply of
which they carried in their pockets. Nimrod recounted
his adroit passages to Mr. Girardeau, who seemed pleased
with the success if not with the character of the youth;
and, in fine, hearing him highly recommended by the Captain,
he the next day engaged him, under the assumed
name of Foxly, to fill the place recently held by his deceased
servant.

Nimrod was nothing loth to exchange masters and
enter upon new scenes. Mr. Girardeau's quarters comprised
both his store and dwelling-house. The building
was one of the old style, having its gable to the

street. In the rear of the shop-room was a kitchen, and
above were sleeping apartments. In the first instance, Mr.
Girardeau intimated to Nimrod the necessity of a change
of apparel, and that he must wear one of a color like his
own. He himself had been a resident in the city during
the war, while the British had possession, and at that time
wore a scarlet coat, with the arms of the king. At the
peace, he changed his hue and badge. In the next place,
he undertook to indoctrinate his new servant in the secrets
of his business, and to impress upon him a sense of the responsibleness
of his vocation. “I—I should say we—'tis
all one concern, one interest,” so his employer unfolded
himself, “we are poor, we are embarrassed. You, Mr.
Foxly, perhaps know how awful a thing poverty is. You
can understand me. We are opposed, we are maltreated,
we are vilified. Enemies beset us night and day; even
now they may be listening to us through the walls.”

Nimrod, who was not without a tincture of the superstition
of his times, notwithstanding his ordinary display of
fearlessness and daring, started. “They won't take us off
in the night, will they?” exclaimed he.

“Yes, in the night,” replied Mr. Girardeau.

“Then I may as well be a packing,” said Nimrod. “I
can't stay here. I thought you hadn't any of them in the
city.”

“Why the city is full of them,” replied Mr. Girardeau,
“hence we see the necessity of care, confederation and
secrecy.”

“But they come in any where,” answered Nimrod.
“They'll whisk you right out of your bed. Aunt Ravel
had seven pins stuck into her in one night. Old uncle
Kiah, that used to live at Snake Hill, was trundled down
hill three nights agoing, and his skin all wore off, and he
grew as lean as a gander's leg.”

“Mr. Foxly!” interrupted Mr. Girardeau, “you misunderstand
me,—I see you are from the country, a good
place,—but you misunderstand me. It is men I mean, not
spirits. We have no witches here, only hard-hearted, covetous,
ignorant, griping, depraved, desperate men.”

“Sho! it's humans you are speaking of,” replied Nimrod;
“I an't no more afraid of them than a cat is of a wren.
I like them, I could live among them as well as a fish in
water.”

“Mr. Foxly!” continued Mr. Girardeau, solemnly,
“we have something to fear from men. Here likewise
you mistake. I fear you are too rash, too headstrong.”

“Any thing, Sir,” answered Nimrod, “I will do any
thing you wish,” he added more soberly. “I will serve
you, as they did the troops in the war, work for nothing
and find myself.”

“You may well say so,” added Mr. Girardeau, Samuel
was faithful, he spared himself to provide for me. We are
in straits, we must live frugally. Persecution surrounds us.
We have enemies who can do us a great injury. I can be
made to injure you, and you to injure me. We need circumspection;
we are, if I may so say, in one another's
power. There are those who might take advantage of my
necessities, to compel me to surrender you to the rigor of
unjust laws, and you might end your days in a prison. My
whole life has been one of exposure and want, labor and
toil.” Thus was Nimrod addressed. In the third place,
added Mr. Girardeau, “I must admonish you, Mr. Foxly,
and most rigidly enjoin, that on no account are you to have
conference, or hold any relations with a certain young
woman, that sometimes comes here, whom I will point out
to you.”

Nimrod found upon the premises a little black-eyed
boy eight or nine years of age, whom he took for the

grandson of his employer. This boy was sent to school,
and when at home played on the hill back of the house,
and slept in a room separate from Nimrod's, with whom
Mr. Girardeau did not seem anxious that he should have
much intercourse. These three constituted the entire
family. Nimrod became cook, washerman, porter, and
performed with alacrity whatever duty was assigned him.
How Nimrod relished his new service and new master for
a while, we need not relate. He could not fail however
to be sensible that his food was not quite as good as that to
which he had been accustomed, and to see that his master
did not prove exactly what he expected. He found Mr.
Girardeau to be, to say the least, harsh, arbitrary, exacting;
he began to suspect something worse than this; he
believed he told him falsehoods; that he had money, and
that in abundance. As he lay on the counter, where he
usually slept at night, he was sure he heard the sound of
coin in the room overhead. Of the young woman, respecting
whom he had been cautioned, he saw nothing, till one
day he heard voices in the chamber. He listened at the
foot of the stairs, and distinguished a female's voice. There
were sharp works, severe epithets. Presently a woman
came hurriedly down, and passed into the street.

“Did you see that girl?” asked Mr. Girardeau, descending
immediately afterwards.

“Yes, Sir,” replied Nimrod.

“She is my daughter,” added Mr. Girardeau. “Yes,
my own flesh and blood. You know not the feelings of a
father. She has been guilty of the greatest of crimes, she
has disobeyed me, she has violated my will, she has endangered
my estate. She has married to her own shame, and
my grief. I have borne with her, till forbearance becomes
a sin. She would strip me of my possessions. The author

of her degradation she would make the pander to her cruelty.
I am doubly beset, they are in a conspiracy against
me. Heed her not, listen not to her importunity, let her
suffer. I have no feelings of a father; they have been
wrenched and torn away; I cannot own a viper for a
child.”

Nimrod thrust his fists in his waistcoat pockets, where
he clenched them angrily. He was silent. He listened as
to an unanswerable argument; he believed not a word.
In the mean time let us refer to some events wherein his
own interest began to be awakened; and which we shall
embody in a new chapter, with a new title.