University of Virginia Library

SECTION II.

Myles Couper.

THE BEGINNING OF A STRANGE STORY.

It was late in the fall of the year; the gloomy shades
of night were fast approaching, rendered darker by the
impending tempest; the wind howled low and mournfully
through the dried and ice fringed branches of the
trees; and as it shook their bare and unclad arms, it
seemed to moan like a wailing spirit, that is restless with
the knowledge of coming evil: the wild forest wore a
cheerless livery, and where a lonely sallow leaf hung
quivering on the drooping spray, the last of its once
green brotherhood, it clung faintly and fearfully to its
hold, as an aged man to life, when all his friends are
gone; a melancholy emblem of the changes of the earth—
speaking how passing is the pomp and vanity of all created
things: the waves of the usually quiet creek were
agitated, and drove sullenly on, dashing heavily and
roughly against the beach, crested with clear and sparkling
coronets of foam, that gathered on their tossing
heads like white flowers upon a dark and trembling
bush; here and there the brown backed tortoise showed
himself on the waters as he swam along—while the
white mews, with wailing shriek, on slow pinions dropt
downward to the sea, and the long winged wild duck
hied to its oozy nest amid the sedge, whose lank spears

sank beneath the flowings of the breaking waves; detached
masses of dense and misty clouds, chased each other
along the still and stirless heavens, seeming like the
fearless bands of a mighty army gathering to the conflict;
and now and then a white and straggling snow-drop, as
pure as its home, fell languidly through the air—a token
of the coming drift: the sun, as is in northern climates,
long ere the joining of night and day, could be scarcely
traced on the stormy horizon, except by a sickly circlet of
dim and ghastly light, that at intervals broke through the
thick haze and rolling clouds, that covered the blackened
visage of the lowering sky: from the depth of the brake,
was heard the hideous howlings of the wolf, who, frightened,
sought his den; and the piteous cries of the tameless
and prowling panther, swelled the passing blast: the
lithe brambles of the tangled copse and the deep hedge,
were verdureless; and shook in the nakedness of their
desolation: while their seared and decaying fruitage,
lay stricken on the dried earth, silent and deserted—sad
memorials of the departed beauties, and the loneliness of
nature. Yet on the hill side the strait and lordly pine
towered upwards, its green boughs beprankt with foliage
dark—as hung with votive wreaths by some sylvan worshipper,
flourishing in bloom amid the cheerless and
desolate scene, like the spirit of the good, which neither
misfortune, sickness nor poverty, can bend,—while
around was the season of man's decay, when all of hope
hath fled and perished, and every thought and prospect
of futurity, are frowning and bleak with storms.

Upon the ground in front of the ferry house, a large
chesnut lay outstretched like some fallen giant, torn up
by its massive roots, the victim of some late and appalling
hurricane. Its branches, which had once shot their
blossomed spires of silver upwards, and within the arbour
of whose pleasant shade, whole flights of summer
birds had nestled, were now crushed and broken: and
the countless foliage that had decked them in the hour of
pride and majesty, lacerated, torn and dank with rottenness,
were strewed in decayed heaps about the scathed
tree, or were driven to dust by the unsparing wind along

the uneven beach:—composedly seated on the trunk of
this o'erthrown pillar of the wilderness, and contented as
though he had been a burgomaster, while drawing the essence
of the tobacco which he was smoking from his pipe,
was placed the lordly Mynheer Sporus Vanderspeigl;
gazing with vacant eye at times on the heavy aspect of the
clouds, and on the labours of a stirring, sturdy, grey wooled
negro; whom it is proper to introduce to the reader
by the nominal of Yonne, or rather without disparagement,
Mynheer Yonne Vanderspeigl: by which sounding
designations, he modestly chose to be addressed. Now
as names have become mere optional matters in latter
years, wanting neither law nor estate, to be changed or
modelled as the user chooses to wear them; for a different
address is often a passport to credit—and an advantageous
cover, under whose disguise a foreign vagabond
adventurer, and escaped convict, may pretend to
the part of an honest man: therefore Yonne's right to
these innocent additions, was beyond question; the more
so, as the only sinister design apparent in their adoption,
was a little pride—excusable, since now the rage for a
great appellation, is much more ridiculous than it was in
the simple black: and though there is known of no existing
kindredship between Yonne and his proprietor—and to
which, were it not that modern example and philosophy
had exploded all doctrines that could be advanced, in an
insuperable difference of complexion, feature and race,
one might be inclined to suppose, from this bearing of
title;—yet nevertheless, he had more right to a respectable
surname, than nine out of ten of our great men
have, to that of honesty; or one of a thousand of our
cheating, shallow-brained, purse-proud, would-be nabobs,
to that of gentlemen. Indeed Yonne was the right hand
man of his master; his confidant—his ever ready assistant
and adviser in all business of importance: garrulous
in consultation, and active in execution, he was, in
truth, after Ya Vrouw, the person of most consequence
on the Nederlander's domain; and with all his Dutch breeding,
one could not look without a deal of satisfaction upon
his open, good humoured visage; for though he could not
be estimated as having an uncommon share of beauty in
his dark countenance—for his eyes, which were of extraordinary
magnitude, and bolted out from the sockets
like the same organs in the head of a beetle, appeared but
as huge white orbs, owing to his rolling the balls under
their lids;—his nose likewise, an admirer of correct proportion,
might not have considered fit for a model—it
being extremely flat and large at the nostrils; though to
make amends for a broad red under lip, that like a jutting
cliff o'erhung his chin—his huge mouth, which was
always widened by a grin, discovered a row of teeth white
as milk itself; added to these advantages, his cheeks were
decorated by sundry scars and seams, and his ears hung
with a pair of copper rings, which as ornaments, he
greatly prized: and though the fastidious might have
deemed his outward man unprepossessing, yet he owned
that simple purity of heart—that virtuous truth of soul,
that rendered him worthy of every trust with which he
was encharged; and Vanderspeigl gave him sufficient to do,
and keep his blood stirring; for while the Hollander took
his ease and rested from an hour's labour—an exertion
that required for the heavy moulded Dutchman on an average,
ten hours out of twelve, of inaction and recovery of
wind—and oftentimes a day to come to his proper stamina,
Yonne, during such lapses of time, was the very
game-cock of the fields—bustling in the cabbage garden,
and strutting among the Holland pinks and tulips, with
all the dimensions of a monarch; for while the mistress
made matters stir within doors, he pushed things on merrily
without; delving, weeding, and driving away the crows
from the corn—or making the shores of the creek resound
with his loud and hearty laugh, as he joked the
traveller or the pedlar, while he schouwed him across
the rivulet; for Yonne's nature was as comely as his
heart—mirthful as kind, in disposition: he was unlike
the servants of these times, who ape in vice their superiors;
for while the latter pilfer in the way of business,
the former follow the example, by trying it on their
masters: he was of a different species—and that now
rarely to be found; he had foibles, but they were of the
cast that wronged none; he was a faithful creature, and
could it be otherwise? he had been bred up with his master;
the companion of his youth, he had for sixty years
fed from the same table and dish, and had slept under
the same roof:—in a word, he had wintered and summered
from infancy to age, in the same family—and in
them his being was wrapt up: the name of ingratitude
to him, was strange; though now, a word more acted on,
than any in the language: he never dreamt of stinging
the bosom that fostered him; proud to be the dependant,
of his owner, and almost equal by treatment, he went
cheerfully to his duty—and all prospered under his assiduous
hand during the day; and when the dusky night
closed his task, ere he sought his little loft, which was
on a level with the swallow coops that were fastened on
the ferry-house wall, he would take his accustomed seat
on the well worn log that filled one corner of the huge
fire place—and while basking in the genial warmth of
his situation he would make the roof ring with his glee;
as, to the wondering urchins who regardless of his
colour, clung about his knees and neck, he would relate
the traditions of his mother, who had been brought from
the gold coast in a ship belonging to the Holland West
India Company—and which had been consigned to Guysbert
Myndero, of Nieuw Amsterdam: and at times, for
the further amusement of his infantine audience, he
would to the sonorous chords of a crack-stringed violin—
from which, with much grimace and many laborious
scrapings, he succeeded in producing a species of melody
that might alone be compared with the soft tones extracted
from the filing of a handsaw—blithely troll some
rude song. part English, part Dutch, and part African,
that would set all his hearers in a titter of delight. Besides
this, Yonne had many other powers of sociability—
he was the gazette of the whole country round; and
the honest Dutch neighbourhood, when any subject was
abroad, was always sure to hear the relation through the
medium of his tongue: there was not a wedding in embryo—an
old witch to be burnt—or a pirate to be gibbeted,
but what he was the person best informed on
every matter concerning them: his brain was truly a
chronicle of recorded experience; stored with tales of
ghosts, Indian massacres, spukes and wood demons innumerable:
he could tell whole histories of the devil's
dans kammer and the Hellegat—and never was there a
winding sheet curled in the lamp, or a stranger who had
fallen from the burning embers of the cheerful hearth,
but they were construed aright by the divining black;—
he was therefore, in high favour and credit with the
goed vrouw, particularly as he had foretold that the day
was to come when she would ride in a coach drawn by
four long switch tailed mares, which were to come from
Coeymans—and should yet live to carry her head as
high as the governor's lady herself; and it was a matter
of course, that his wife's favourite, was in this case
equally Mynheer's; and in indulging the whimsies of
Yonne, was one of the rare matters on which they
agreed.

Yonne, at the period herein deseribed, under the
immediate superintendance of Vanderspeigl, was busily
engaged in scraping and overhauling the bottom of the
schouw in which he daily laboured, ere it was laid up
for the winter; near him, bubbling over a brisk flame
which had been kindled from the dry brush wood that
lay around, stood an iron pot, heating with tar, from
which he was busied in filling the gaping chinks of the
boat, though now and then he would pause in his occupation
to address some passing word to his master, who, taken
up with the arduous task of smoking and thinking, would
merely assent to his words by a slow motion of the head;
or, as he felt the increase of the cold, and the nearer approach
of the tempest, with a quick jerk of the pipe from
his mouth, and a shrug of the shoulder, he would bid the
black hasten his work.

“Me tink him birate be a berry bad man,” said Yonne,
as he stirred the boiling liquid and addressed Sporus in
one of the intervening conversations, which were occasioned
by some necessary hindrance of his pursuit,
“Massa Boomelhyser say him kill neegur man to gard
him goold—der brute! him hab no bowel—tink neegur
man hab no feelin—him blood no run ven him hurt nuder,”—then
apostrophizing his work, he continued, “ter

debbil dake a nail—him plit ter schouw clebber, sartain
—him rotten ting Massa Sporus—vat you tink Massa
Boomelheyser 'pose him no stand noder rack—me neder
sartain;—den to tink dem debbils dreat negur man so—
him no cristin cretur; bad as dem ingin beasts—sartain
him all hang some dime a noder.”

“Ja! Ja!” drawled out his half dozing auditor,
between long intervals of heavy breathing and puffing,
“mein Got! der ish der sensh in dein woord, ash vat
ish in der spraken von der groodt Stadhouder, op myn
ziel—ja! ja! Dou betwisten ash broper ash der Burgomaster
in der raadkamer, dat ish, der gounshil der
Nieuw Amsterdam—mien Got! ja! ja, Yonne! ja!”

The black's visage lighted instantly up with a smile of
satisfaction at this high encomium, in having the sense of
his words compared to the profound reason that actuates
the speeches of their heerships, the lords of the city in
council assembled,—that showed the double fence of ivory
which guarded his mouth from ear to ear; and it is understood,
from the chronicles extant of the enlightened era
which is here treated of, and which in most things resembled
the present improved times, that Vanderspeigl's discrimination
in the matter was extremely accurate; for
it appears that their mightinesses, like our own puissant
aldermen, were much addicted to silence in city affairs,
and only spoke sensibly and interestingly at large, before
voting on giving a contract or bestowing an office, and it
has also been made certain by deep research, that as the
present test on taking a place under government, municipal
or national, is to make what you can out of it—so the
ancient burgomaster took the oath of allegiance, by swearing
“to maintain the reformed religion in conformity to the
word of God, and the decree of the Synod of Dordrecht,”[29]
and in other matters to promote public good, whilst it
served his own purposes. However, it is but just to these
by-gone dignitaries that their histories should not be
wrongly inserted, for the former part of the test was that

which they spoke with a loud voice, while the latter was a
mental reservation, and like all mental determinations, was
kept strictly to the letter; but perhaps it is erroneous
thus to hazard remarks on persons of such heavy heads
and stations, whether living or dead, for the inditer is innocent
and unlearned as to what is proper in such great and
profound characters, whose dignity is in reality sublime, and
this, though well-meaning, might be construed into scandal,
and as it hath been demonstrated, there is but small change
of sentiment or power among them from former days, he
might be forced to suffer the ancient punishment of the
wooden horse[30] ; or like Jan Hobbes, the early Dutch satirist,
who had the audacity to write a classic hollandsche
distich, by way of compliment to one Burgomaster Ezel-een
Mensch, who sold lumber near the Webber's Kreek,[31]
wherein he stated in verse that would have become a
Johannes Secundus, that when Ezel-een's yard was empty,
(to wit of lumber,) his head was full, and that the thickest
block he possessed, was his own skull, which Hobbes writes
kop, in the original; this, however unfortunately, Echevin
Mensch did not altogether rightly understand, for he
was a strong stomached Dutchman, and rather hard of
digestion, owing doubtless to his extreme ignorance and
his not having studied the learned Dutch authors, for it
is reported, that when he was a child, being more lacking
in sense than children are in common, he used to run
without broeks and play with the hogs, and from these
animals his manners being formed, the term `hoggish,'
in stating a man's perfections, hath arisen, and was first
applied to this renowned burgomaster; who, from these
causes, was utterly unable to take and relish the delicate
allusion to his business and his mind, contained in Jan
Hobbes' poetry, and he therefore commanded his two
Schepens, before whom, as he himself was an interested
person, the cause came on to be tried, to order that the
said Jan, his guilt not clearly appearing in evidence,
should be punished that a confession might be extorted
from him by torture; therefore the presumptive satirist
was sentenced, to allay the irritated and delicate feelings
of the burgomaster, to pay four stuyvers, when it was
known he was not worth a groat, and also to stand in
the rasphouse door at the ringing of the bell, and humbly
and contritely beseech the magnanimous Ezel-een
Mensch's pardon.[32]

“Me sure Massa Burgher,” continued Yonne, presuming
on the applause he had received, and anxious to prolong
the discourse, “me sure him do him bowel mush
good did him kill dem birates dere—den be so berry tankerous
wid poor negur man, sartain—ony tink, Massa
Roperdauser lick Primus, vat lib wid him, till he kill der
neegur,[33] and den him money, him goold, bring him off;
no, dey no hang rich white burgher at Nieuw Amsterdam,
ony poor neegur, sartain.”

From the conclusion of the black's speech, it will be
perceived that he was no mean observer of the course
pursued towards criminals in the province, and it may be
fairly deduced from his words that there is not a great alteration

in our own era, for now probably, even more
than the period spoken of in this volume, riches have
their influence—gold in the hands of any man is the
strongest passport that can be held;—if even a murder is
committed, juries are tampered with by those whose situation
as public officers demands that they should prosecute.
—Judges themselves become but mere tools of corruption
—and should even the public outcry call for a condemnation,
so rank the crime, that not even premeditated and
artful delays will serve, and should the solemn mockery of
trial be gone through—what is it all—a farce! Go hunt
the prisons; they are filled with wretched losels, beggars,
who had not wherewithal to bribe, or whose crimes were
forced upon them by mere want, by bitter misfortune and
accident—these have no friends, but wear away their
lives in sad and solitary wo, while he who was unfit to
breathe the free air, whose black heart swelled with
wickedness, hath been set at large; his wealth hath
loosened the chain—he crossed the threshold of the dungeon
door, but his pardon was in his pocket. Think not
from what here hath been set forth, that this is but the
fevered railing of one disgusted by petty wrongs, and
who gazes on all things with a jaundiced eye, making
mountains from sand hills—far from it: there is not a
word in this paragraph, to prove which, examples are not
easy to be pointed out—they need not far to be gone for
—they are even at hand.

“Ja! ja! Yonne! dou sbeaks mit der menschlyke
natuur—op myn ziel, dou dalks ash goot ash dosh der dominie,—mien
Got! vat a neger!” said the smoking Vanderspeigl
in answer to his slave, blowing with the labour
of utterance, and the unaccustomed exercise of his jaws,
“Got tam, der storm ish come vroom der Spyt den duyvel,
ash it would plow myn ziel out—myn Got,” he continued
somewhat more briskly, as with unusual haste he
doubled his jerkin across his body, “myn Got! de wind
waart hard—Yonne, mensch haast—Got tam de ding will
dake you all night, op myn ziel.”

“Lor a mitetee, vy you crumple Massa,” returned the
negro pettishly, “some dime one ting, some dime nuder,”

added he, muttering sullenly to himself with the freedom
of a favourite servant checked in this indulgence of his
career—“habbe no peace; der debbil, me workee,
workee, no tanks neder, sartain”—then turning sulkily
to the boat, as is the natural resource of most in fault, he
sought to vent his spleen on a new object—“den tink
me patch dis old schouw—dam him tar, de neegur—him
plack snoot no run in him hole, him berry cantagus—tink
wid me no loose him dime mend dis old schouw—dam
him imperance—ony tink!”

But it was not in the nature of the garrulous and even
tempered African to remain long put out or displeased
with any body or thing, for having quickly discharged the
momentary bile in these ejaculations which Sporus's admonition
had called forth, he shortly turned again to his
testy companion, and with a complaisant grin, sought to
join in his anticipations of a tempestuous night.

“Massa Boomelhyser,” said he, for it seemed this important
personage was a favorite oracle and undisputed
authority with him on all subjects and occasions, “tell
me dis morning him hab no doubt it snow 'fore night like
him berry debbil, sartain, him corn gib him clebber trouble—sure
sign ven man's toe itch dere someting come—
Massa Boomelhyser no 'staken—him berry clebber man.”

“Ja! Ja!” growled the Mynheer, whose crabbedness
was rather increased as he felt the air grow sharper
with cold, and feeling somewhat worried at having the
tranquillity of his mind disturbed by his attention being
called to listen to Yonne's ill-timed address—“mien Got!
dien clipper klapper, dien taal, dosh as moosch wark ash
dien hand, dou art ash bad ash der vrouw. Goot Got,”
he continued, puffing clouds of smoke from his mouth,
and blowing like a swimmer between every three or four
words, “der sneuw ish naa by, op myn ziel, dou praater
mak haast; ich mun smoke mien byp mit beace, so
holdsch dien tam blaffing, negur.”

The black well knew the sudden changes of his owner's
humour, and therefore forbore answering him, but grumbling
sourly, in a few half whispered and unintelligible
sentences, expressive of discontent, he proceeded to apply
himself solely to his work, which soon rapidly progressed,

and the ringings of his busy hammer were loudly
and oftentimes repeated; yet Yonne's thoughts were not
engaged with his labours—he had been barred in the very
moment he was entering on the relation of an important subject;
in truth he was swelling with news, and he felt like
some talkative gossip who receives an offence at the opening
of her budget, and though provoked to silence, wants
but a word's concession to loosen the strings of the whole
communication, and at last fearful of receiving no encouragement
or hearing, of her own will, details her story,
amply and at large, as it were out of mere wantoness;
and thus it was, that not even the long drawn puffs, the
half closed eyes, and the nodding head of the nederlander,
which bespoke, that in spite of the weather and of care,
he was making himself as easy and comfortable as any
Dutchman could be in his situation, were able to deter
the slave, brimful of his subject and unmindful of his late
repulse, from again breaking on Vanderspeigl's quietude.

* * * * * But ere proceeding with the narration, (and
indeed the matter grows out of Yonne's situation,) it seems
as if it ought to be remarked, that though it is certain all
are greedy, selfish, and avaricious, without generosity in
most matters, so that it may be fairly supposed that it is a
principle of civilized society that any thing bearing a value
obtained by one should be denied another by the very hand
that hath been gifted, yet in some affairs of moment and
import there is an unbounded and liberal feeling, and the
first among these that is given without a seeking or a demand
of return, is the fame of the day, the current of
passing intelligence, the reports and rumours, which are
the existence and the moving breath of the crowd, that
flies from mouth to mouth swift as a signal on the mountain;
for in truth, it is seldom but what the person who
hath received aught that he deems interesting or strange,
is anxious that others should share his wonderment, and
he is no more to be obstructed in his intention, though
met by coldness and even frowns, than the swollen linn,
that dashing down its rude and worn channel in the face
of the hill, is to be changed or dammed up from its irresistible
and brawling journey by the splintered shrubs
and shattered pieces of rocks that it hath washed in its

way, or that hath been cast from the overhanging cliffs to
impede its passage; truly the earth is overstocked with
beings of this species, ever active newsmongers, who
would scarce be known to have stirred in an honourable
action, but are still of so free spirited a disposition that
their whole business is to fetch and carry information—if
in the heat of argument an irritable word falls from one,
they are sure to let it be known to whom it may concern;
not as truly spoken, but larded with their own conclusions,
and then when the hearer hath expressed himself in return,
all is brought back to the original speaker, and after that it
becomes their part to let the world into the secret; surely
the idea of these disgusting insects, whose brains are thus
stored, and whose venomous tongues are thus urged to
activity, calls in view the flight of a busy, buzzing blue-bottle,
who sounds his wings with great noise and beats
actively against the window pane without impression, but
yet though insignificant, is troublesome; for however contemptible
are these constant bearing and ever talkative
gentry, so slight is public belief and confidence, that many
times their adsurdities thrust them into consideration, for
the bustle and appearance they assume are apt to deceive,
and are calculated to impose on the ignorant and unreflecting,
who contribute largely in the formation of the
crowd: for the surface is that which soonest attracts the
eye, and there the lightest air blown bubble always swims
—that this is true must be obvious, for it is not to be supposed,
that the possession of great abilities, so often as
a moving, noisy nature, aided by the influence of accident,
have brought men forward or lifted them from a lowly
sphere; it has happened that many a hollow but strong
lunged blockhead hath been thrown in a place of consequence,
for the world goes to great lengths when once it
sets out, and when once a man is raised a step above his
fellows, he is pushed up in spite of his own dullness to the
very top of the ladder, and while so exalted, the adoration
of a blinded mob, (for there is no reasoning with a
popular rage, however ridiculous,) even though his baseness
be as vivid as light, it is in vain to deny him talents
and acquirements, as stragglers from the opinion of the
great mass and herd, the world, are sure to be considered
envious or foolish; indeed, in many instances, the same
thing that calls attention to a village bellman, raises to
notice a beer house politician, or whence are public trusts
held so commonly by characters of the meanest and lowest
description, if not that they bully themselves to power, or
that designing men, believing them from their hot, senseless,
and unquiet spirits, fit puppets to gratify their private
malice, intrigue, ambition, or avarice,—for who is
more capable of wallowing in dirt and filth than those who
have been bred amidst them,—have helped them to authority
and power, which their vulgarity and ignorance render
contemptible as well as disgraced: and there cannot be
a more singular difference than in the conduct and bearing
of these hour raised mongrels while mixing in the common
duties of life with their equals, and while robed in
the insolence of the functions of their ill borne greatness:
in the one, they are on the level with their kind, bending to
their constituents and fawning and cringing to their superiors;
in the other, swelled and conceited with ideas of
their own vast importance; they are haughty to those
above them, and overbearing to those below them; dressing
themselves in all the vulgar airs of affected greatness,
acting a part to which hitherto they have been unknown;
they almost conceive themselves of a higher class
and finer mould than the rest of mankind, but having neither
opinions, thoughts, or actions that are their own,
moving without reason, method, or sense, they soon are
made the mere jests and tools of the wary; but what else
could be expected? If you place a butcher in a legislative
hall to make your laws, doth he not partake of the
stupidity of a bull? If you take a potter from his jars and
jugs, and set him to enact statutes, will they not be as
empty as his ware? Drag a hatter from his line of business,
is not his skull as hollow as his work ere it is used?
a mason's brains are, in government, as hard as the brick
he was born to lay; and a publican, though he may be
able to guard his till, and measure out drams, knows but
little of finance or public measures, except what he might
have gathered from tap room knowledge and wit. How
far nobler would it be, were men more diffident, did they
not endeavour to make themselves ridiculous by aiming
at stations for which they are unfit, but keep to those which
were allotted them by education; were this the case there
would be a lack of that host with which we are now over-run,
barefaced and insolent upstarts, who, without foundation,
pretend to every thing. To the conceited greatness
and impudent self-filled consequence of such, the Records
of Nieuw Nederlandts present an excellent lesson in the
humility and condescension of that worthy ancient, Whamuldus
Schermerhorne, of Schenectadie, who being preferred
to the trust worthy and dignified situation of dog
whipper for that famous city, attended Dominie Meir's lecture
the Sunday after his exaltation without any feeling of
pride or elation, which he modestly, as he entered the
kerk, evinced, for as he waddled towards his pew under
the pulpit, at the commencement of a solemn portion of
the dominie's service, to unite with which, the pious
Dutch congregation had arisen from their seats, and by
which motion, the sapient Schermerhorne understood they
were paying respect to him; yet nothing puffed up by
this mistake, which might have raised the head of any
man, the worthy Hollander, bowing humbly and with
profound lowliness, so that his nose almost touched the
ground, an exertion in so fat a man of no ordinary kind,
exclaimed in a loud voice that all might have the benefit
of his words—“By myn ziel, dish ish doo musch, Ik ish
nien lift up mit mien brosberity—Ik ish but a man;” so
were the persons just written of, to remember they were
but men, and what kind of men they had been; it would
be much more creditable to their modesty as well as sense.

Hiatus in MSS.

And now having concluded to my own satisfaction this
important theme, the necessity of entering on which,
easily excuses its length, and the propriety of which I
leave entirely to the judgment of the reader, who, I have
already found, a most gentle, courteous, and candid personage,
I will straightway and with great alacrity go back

to where we first set out, if he so desire it, and will accompany
me thither; for indeed our friend Yonne's words
have been a long while on the end of his tongue, and the
poor fellow has been bursting to speak could he have found
an opportunity, but as no one has been in a hurry to hear
him, I have not cared much to attend to his discourse; yet
as some one or the other will take up this volume, to
whom the state of disposition and opinions laid down, will
not give a moment's concern, but whose whole heart will
be placed on the unravelling of the important tradition
with which this section began, and as I am a very obliging
author, always minding the admonitions or wishes of the
peruser, I am minded to let all the odds and ends of matters
for a time take care of themselves, and once more
journey towards the pith and marrow of the business in
right earnest, on which account an attentive application is
recommended to all that follows.