University of Virginia Library

DIRK SCHUILER,
AND
THE VALIANT PETER.

This was one Dirk Schuiler (or Skulker,) a kind of
hanger-on to the garrison, who seemed to belong to nobody,
and in a manner to be self-outlawed. He was one
of those vagabond cosmopolites, who shark about the
world as if they had no right or business in it; and who
infest the skirts of society, like poachers and interlopers.
Every garrison and country village has one or more scapegoats
of this kind, whose life is a kind of enigma, whose
existence is without motive, who comes from the Lord
knows where, who lives the Lord knows how, and seems
to be made for no other earthly purpose but to keep up
the ancient and honourable order of idleness. This vagabond
philosopher was supposed to have some Indian
blood in his veins, which was manifested by a certain
Indian complexion and cast of countenance; but more
especially by his propensities and habits. He was a tall,
lank fellow, swift of foot, and long-winded. He was
generally equipped in a half Indian dress, with belt,
leggings, and moccasons. His hair hung in strait gallows-locks
about his ears, and added not a little to his
sharking demeanour. It is an old remark, that persons
of Indian mixture are half civilized, half savage, and
half devil; a third half being expressly provided for their
particular convenience. It is for similar reasons, and
probably with equal truth, that the back-wood men of
Kentucky are styled half man, half horse, and half alligator
by the settlers on the Mississippi, and held accordingly
in great respect and abhorrence.

The above character may have presented itself to the
garrison as applicable to Dirk Schuiler whom they familiarly
dubbed Gallows Dirk. Certain it is, he acknowledged
allegiance to no one—was an utter enemy to work.

holding it in no manner of estimation—but lounged about
the fort, depending upon chance for a subsistence, getting
drunk whenever he could get liquor, and stealing whatever
he could lay his hands on. Every day or two he
was sure to get a sound rib-roasting for some of his misdemeanours,
which, however, as it broke no bones, he
made very light of, and scrupled not to repeat the offence
whenever another opportunity presented. Sometimes, in
consequence of some flagrant villainy, he would abscond
from the garrison, and be absent for a month at a time;
skulking about the woods and swamps, with a long fowling-piece
on his shoulder, laying in ambush for game, or
squatting himself down on the edge of a pond catching
fish for hours together, and bearing no little resemblance
to that notable bird ycleped the Mud-pole. When he
thought his crimes had been forgotten or forgiven, he
would sneak back to the fort with a bundle of skins, or a
bunch of poultry, which perchance he had stolen, and
would exhange them for liquor, with which, having well
soaked his carcass, he would lay in the sun and enjoy all
the luxurious indolence of that swinish philosopher Diogenes.
He was the terror of all the farm-yards in the
country, into which he made fearful inroads; and sometimes
he would make his sudden appearance at the garrison
at daybreak, with the whole neighbourhood at his
heels, like a scoundrel thief of a fox, detected in his maraudings,
and hunted to his hole. Such was this Dirk
Schuiler; and from the total indifference he showed to
this world or its concerns, and from his truly Indian
stoicism and taciturnity, no one would ever have dreamed
that he would have been the publisher of the treachery of
Risingh.

When the carousal was going on, which proved so fatal
to the brave Von Poffenburgh and his watchful garrison,
Dirk skulked about from room to room, being a kind of
privileged vagrant or useless hound, whom nobody noticed.
But though a fellow of few words, yet, like your
taciturn people, his eyes and ears were always open, and
in the course of his prowlings he overheard, the whole plot
of the Swedes. Dirk immediately settled in his own mind
how he should turn the matter to his own advantage.
He played the perfect jack-of-both-sides; that is to say,
he made a prize of every thing that came in his reach,
robbed both parties, stuck the copper-bound cocked hat
of the puissant Von Poffenburgh on his head, whipped a

huge pair of Risingh's jackboots under his arm. and took to
his heels just before the catastrophe and confusion at the
garrison.

Finding himself completely dislodged from his haunt
in this quarter, he directed his flight towards his native
place, New-Amsterdam, from whence he had formerly
been obliged to abscond precipitately, in consequence of
misfortune in business, that is to say, having been detected
in the act of sheep-stealing. After wandering
many days in the woods, toiling through swamps, fording
brooks, swimming various rivers, and encountering a
world of hardships that would have killed any other being
but an Indian, a back-wood man, or the devil; he at length
arrived, half-famished, and lank as a starved weasel at
Communipaw, where he stole a canoe, and paddled over
to New-Amsterdam. Immediately on landing, he repaired
to Governor Stuyvesant, and in more words than
he had ever spoken before in the whole course of his life,
gave an account of the disastrous affair.

On receiving these direful tidings, the valiant Peter
started from his seat, as did the stout King Arthur when
at “merry Carleile,” the news was brought him of the
uncourteous misdeeds of the “grim barone”—without
uttering a word, he dashed the pipe he was smoking
against the back of the chimney, thrust a prodigious quid
of negro-headed tobacco into his left cheek, pulled up his
galligaskins, and strode up and down the room, humming,
as was customary with him when in a passion, a hideous
north-west ditty. But, as I have before shown, he was
not a man to vent his spleen in idle vapouring. His first
measure after the paroxysm of wrath had subsided, was
to stump up stairs to a huge wooden chest, which served
as his armoury, from whence he drew forth that identical
suit of regimentals described in the preceding chapter.
In these portentous habiliments he arrayed himself, like
Achilles in the armour of Vulcan, and maintaining all the
while a most appalling silence, knitting his brows, and
drawing his breath through his clenched teeth. Being
hastily equipped, he strode down into the parlour, jerked
down his trusty sword from over the fire-place, where it
was usually suspended; but before he girded it on his
thigh he drew it from its scabbard, and as his eye coursed
along the rusty blade, a grim smile stole over his iron
visage. It was the first smile that had visited his countenance
for five long weeks; but every one who beheld

it prophesied that there would soon be warm work in the
province!

Thus armed at all points, with grisly war depicted in
each feature, his very cocked hat assuming an air of uncommon
defiance, he instantly put himself on the alert,
and despatched Anthony Van Corlear hither and thither.
this way and that way, through all the muddy streets and
crooked lanes of the city, summoning by sound of trumpet
his trusty peers to assemble in instant council. This done,
by way of expediting matters, according to the custom
of people in a hurry, he kept in continual bustle, shifting
from chair to chair, popping his head out of every window,
and stumping up and down stairs with his wooden
leg in such brisk and incessant motion, that, as we are
informed by an authentic historian of the times, the continual
clatter bore no small resemblance to the music of
a cooper hooping a flour barrel.