The buccaneers a romance of our own country, in its ancient day : illustrated with divers marvellous histories, and antique and facetious episodes : gathered from the most authentic chronicles & affirmed records extant from the settlement of the Niew Nederlandts until the times of the famous Richard Kid |
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 | 4. | BOOK THE FOURTH. THE FATAL BANQUET. |
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 | The buccaneers |  |
BOOK THE FOURTH.
THE FATAL BANQUET.
SECTION I.
And then what bribes may do
In hastening execution, do but consider.—
This very age hath given
Horrid examples lately.
T. May.
The intentions of a writer, as to the peculiar fashion
which at setting out, and in the incipient stages of his
labour, he may have adopted to develope his ideas and
bring forward the various incidents of his work, are
more than once frustrated, if not entirely defeated, as he
progresses therein—like a person raising an edifice for
his own residence, and who, when he lays the foundation
of the building, stoutly determines on going to no more
than a certain moderate expenditure, which he then calculates
as equal to the uttermost parts of his undertaking,
and therefore he resolves to remain unvarying
by the original plan laid and approved on for the structure;
yet in spite of such determination, long ere the
dwelling is under roof, unconsciously, he has proceeded
to place innumerable additional comforts to his first design,
whose necessity hath become apparent as the fabric
grew under his sight and care, so that long before
the whole is completed, he finds it difficult to recognize
a feature of his first design, and is surprised that unawares
he should have been so widely led astray from the mark
feeling akin to this, is this one of the last books of this erratic
narrative commenced—for when I look back to the
matter already concluded, there is to be found, it must be
confessed, not much that follows the early conception; and
a wonder arises, how the limits, fixed as impassable on
the rude threshold of the plot, at its dawn have been so
strangely, and perhaps unadvisedly, overstepped. Yet so
it is; at commencing, a plain straight forward route had
been penciled, from which it appeared as if there could
be no departure; but the following was clear and without
an obstacle; still, numberless times has this high
road been wandered from, seemingly almost without the
slightest reason; matters that one scarcely thought of
treating on, have crowded themselves on the canvass;
characters whom it was proper to have kept in the back
ground, but for occasional use, have taken up the principal
portion of the picture; and in many places more
hath been done, and in others, much less than could
have been wished; and so it is, that now I am fully
aware that there is enough to do in accomplishing the
most critical point of my task, I mean the putting a last
finish—the smoothing of rough ends, and making whole
all broken shreds and the like, caused by such rash procedure
in the work, which may now be resembled not
unaptly, to some gallant bark with rent canvass and torn
tackling dangling in the wind, after the wild tempest
hath swept over her.
“And who is to blame except yourself, for the trouble
you may anticipate—for might not even more difficulties
than there are in reality, have been expected, and with
good cause, from the manner which without rhyme,
reason, or any advice whatsoever, you have headstrong
pursued in the developement of the facts of this strange
history?” methinks some sour tongued and scowling reader,
who intends to play the critic adverse and morose,
exclaims, while he peevishly turns over the leaves, having
looked at them with a stern resolve to be displeased
and find fault, and now eagerly snaps at an opportunity,
hat his ire may have vent, “was it not,” quoths he in
event, when whole pages have been dragged out with
drawling insipidities, which, with perverse obstinacy,
the inditer misconceives, misled with affectation and conceit,
thinking them excellent witticisms—he therefore
presumes they are advantageous to the world, and beget
a favourable opinion of the profoundness of his reflections,
and his views of mankind—and under this gross
mistake, the whole force of his story, if he has any, has
been destroyed by abrupt departures from its interest, to
thrust on the impatient ear of the peruser, spiteful complaints
against the fashion of existing manners; doubtless
all this may appear to him wondrous wise as well as
censorious, but he should remember that it has been remarked,
with some truth, that many writers have supposed
themselves very deep, when they were most superficial;
and forsooth, what entitles him to decry every
body and every thing, that comes within the range of his
pen? does this self constituted guardian of morals, believe
himself more pure than his fellows, or does he
suppose he renders himself the more conspicuous and
worthy of public attention by such unmeasured attacks?
If so, he is widely in error—for take my word for it, and
it is seldom I mistake, that he is presumptuous, in undertaking
to weary the reader with his sarcastic remarks on
human frailty—for who takes up a book but for an hour's
amusement, to wile away the ennui of the day, that
hangs heavy on his hands? and there is not one of a
thousand, who may look into these pages, if they have
the fortune to have so many readers, who care one atom
what is of evil or good effect in society; for of a surety,
each one in these hard times, has sufficient to attend to
his own concerns, without the trouble of such matters;
for there are few proverbs truer than the one which
teaches, that which is the business of all, is no one's affair;
and who is such a fool as to think of any one except
himself, now-a-days? Philanthropy is a good standing
subject for conversation, but its practice is entirely
out of the question—for it is the modern maxim of wisdom,
that each one use his fellow for his own interest,
or rather idol, who hath submitted to the purposes
of cunning that were worked on him, in the dust without
remorse: truly our lovers of mankind are men of sense;
there is nothing which comes in their way, but they derive
benefit from—
With thirsty lips, draw forth its blood, its juice,
Its ripeness, and its very life; and then,
Like some noxious herb, the flagged and empty
Skins, do cast aside for swine to revel on.
But even for the sake of argument, master author, admitting
your motives are good, what substantial influence
do you believe your railing will tend to have on the
conduct of the world? you are very vain an you suppose
it will better it one jot. Your experiment is not new—
it has been tried by better men heretofore, and what
avails it—not the tythe of a hair; and I repeat to you,
it is your part to learn wisdom, you must submit as others
have done, to circumstances, which are not in the power
of any mortal to control, or in the least to restrict—
things will be even as they are—not a giant's hand were
it to sweep and strew death like the poisonous blast of an
eastern samul, above the congregated herds of sharpers,
rogues, and villains that infest, or rather flourish in society,
could succeed in driving vice from the human
mind: for ere its task were more than begun, it would
tire and give over in despair at the vain attempt; for
like the ranks of some numerous army, as one squadron
bites the dust from adverse ball and steel, new files succeed,
closing each vacant space as though such had never
been—even so, to every knave who repents or gives
up business, there are a dozen successors ready to take
the ground he leaves, and improve on his knaveries. So
peace, sapient sir, for you are biting like a madman doth
his chain, your teeth meet iron—therefore desist in time,
and give us the fate of Leisler at once, without such preludes—a
continuance of which there is in your manner an
augury.”
As a very oracle and with truth, I must admit, sagacious
disciple of Longinus, hast thou spoken; and as I
give ear to your discourse, greatly am I inclined to adopt
your last advice. Yet there clings to me a few words
which I beg your patience on, as perforce they conquer
every resolution that I form to restrain them, and will
forth; and whether they refute your remarks, you must
judge.
“Nay, hold for mercy's sake, master author, I yawn already
at the thought of the vituperation that is gathering
around your pen and standish. I will allow all you are
going to say as truth—it is the best way to get rid of
your incorrigible sophisms—for you have an answer at all
times; yet I will say assuredly your pictures are many
times the very copies of nature. But have pity on yourself
if not on me; remember the famous Annibal Caracci
beheld his noblest works despised, neglected, and
discountenanced, for no other cause than that they were
faithful portraitures of creation, while his pupils Guido
and Carravagio succeeded, by following the advice given in
their master's despondency, of outraging all they attempted
to represent, to please the taste and whims of their patrons.
And let me inquire what painter would be so mad,
so envious, of losing every customer and admirer, as to
draw the pimples on the nose of a debauchee, or the
freckles on the cheeks of some would-be beauty, or deliver
himself up to the eternal enmity, and tea-table scandal
of some antiquated dame, whose finer feelings he has
wounded, by placing every line of age, even to the bristles
on the chin upon his canvass; and what would become
of the fairest specimens of his skill, the lines on which he
labored in expectation of fame for whole hours, for days,
while light could guide his pencil—the garret dust and decay
would be their lot, while the unfortunate artist would
of course, meet contempt and starvation; so be warned.”
Nay, wise sir, you know me not, if you suppose the course
I might care to undertake, was one from which I am easily
frightened, or that a moment's concern would be felt
by me, from what might be said by the self appointed, and
undisputed judges of literature, the magnates of the day,
an unread paragraph, increasing the native dullness
of some leaden journal, or after they have contributed
to render the pages of some abortive review yet more
stupid, by the barren efforts of their paltry brains, that they
have done that which has called towards themselves, the
sole attention of the world; and are installed as the arbiters
of public opinion, and have thereby a licence to run
down their betters, as well as to be the leaders in societies
of arts or sciences, in which they are ignorant. In
truth it is amusing to behold the freaks of such contemptible
things, who infest the walks of literature; with what
brazen assurance they push themselves forward, unmindful
of their senseless and empty heads. Here are a host of
them, directors of a national or city institution, for the encouragement
or exhibition of the works of the followers of
Raphael and Vandyke, not one of whom ever held a brush or
pencil in their hands, nor are equal scarcely to judge the difference
between a master-piece of Rubens' and a publican's
sign; there are others of the same class, if not the
self same personages, (for a pretension to universal knowledge
is the fashion) lecturing, and delivering discourses
on every species of learning, and philosophy, to simpering
and delighted things who term themselves the patterns
of fashion—the aristocracy of the day; who listen with
the same advantage and instruction to the unnatural
squallings of a foreign charlatan, in a tongue that not one
out of a hundred of them understands; although it would be
ungenteel to acknowledge their ignorance, and they therefore
pretend delight,—as well as to the motley undigested,
unformed nonsense, the skimmings of insignificance, that
hovers on the lips of some conceited ape called a professor—of
what truly except of vanity, it is hard to determine,
unless a pair of spectacles or some such foppery, to
assist youthful eyes, entitles one to the station, in spite of
the manners of a coxcomb and the stupidity of an ass.
And it is these, and such as these, who upheld by self sufficiency,
and an unquenchable thirst for notoriety, render
ludicrous and contemptible, the associations whose ostensible
object should be that of improvement, but which are
or to show off the sterile intellect and conceit of
some undaunted pretender, envious of having his name in
print; so it matters not what branch of knowledge, however
abstruse or foreign from his own calling, in which he
mingles;—even the meetings of horticulturists are crowded
with psuedo physicians, flippant lawyers, paltry merchants,
and presuming conductors of heavy journals, a
varied group among whom it is a chance if there is one
who knows the difference between a spade or a rake, an
artichoke or a cabbage; and whose only object in usurping
characters, the qualifications for which they are by no
means acquainted with, is a greedy avarice of public
attention, which is apparently the more powerful in the
human mind, the more narrow and confined the intellect;
for it is remarkable, folly believes itself the more admired
and akin to wisdom, the more it is exposed. Yet
though this be known and acknowledged, the evil has a
certain influence, and so preposterous is the mania, that
to secure the success of some new invention, the mechanic
or manufacturer deems it prudent to propitiate the
recommendation of these leaders of opinion: for the crowd,
brow-beaten by their haughty airs of superiority, have
silently endured their arbitrary dictation; while it is
common to rely on, and boast of the certificate of its
usefulness and perfection, from some noisy divine,
or shallow votary of Galen, ere the universal adoption
of a new discovery, whether it be for the sawing of logs,
the making of nails or pins, or the curing of a smoky
chimney; nevertheless, this absurdity might not call for
reprobation, were the actors guided in the least by principle
or disinterestedness—but it is in most instances too
palpable, that if by accident they serve the public essentially,
they have intended but to feed their avarice or
their vanity, without the slightest regard for social or
moral duty; nay, without the least sense of that obligation
which man owes to his fellow or his Maker; and
however worthless the objects of those passports of
public patronage—however false, paltry or insignificant,
their intrinsic composition, the easier is it to obtain advecates,—no
detection, if the proper methods be taken by securing the
selfish praise of some petty and venal press, but may be
eminently successful in its imposition—and this latter,
the press, is the most subservient tool in being at the
time—ready to serve the purposes of any one, without
the least deference as to the honour, honesty, or the
licentiousness of the cause it espouses, according to the
directions of the master of those who conduct it: with
the vilest inconsistency, it is ready to defame or laud any
man or measure—and however steady for a day it may
appear, however firm and determined its course for an
hour, yet, like the grave looking demagogue of Athens,
who roared in every assembly of the people against the
increasing power of the Macedonian, the sooner it may
be looked for to change its sentiments—the sooner it will
be corrupted—for like some starved hound, gazing at
other dogs revelling in an enclosure in which it is unable
to break on the kitchen offals, the more envious it is—
the more hungry its maw—the fiercer its barking—but
like the quadruped, it is but desirous of a bone to stop
its mouth;—and so is it with all, no matter what the degree,
or the station, all are for sale, all are to be bought;
and of too much truth is the line of the Roman orator,
“Fit enim deterior qui accipit atque ad idem semper expectandem
paratior.”—And although fortune may be
likened to a fickle courtesan, yet like such, her love and
favours are for the highest bidder, without respect to
qualifications or worth; and though many times accident
or caprice may raise the most unfit to stations whereto
their stupidity folly and vice gives disgrace,—still, too
often bribery is the only stepping stone to elevation
and office. Indeed from the prevalent spirit of the day,
one is led unawares into a reflection many times, similar
to that treated on by Machiavel, in the first book of his
Discourses, “whether, when the people have grown corrupt,
a free government can be maintained, if they enjoy
it,” and which he concludes is impossible—and that a
corrupt people, whom moderate laws cannot correct,
edicts by arbitrary power.—
Day awoke with heavy, languid and wintry light,
above the scene of the late tumult, and calm seemed o'er
the city succeeding the tempest, that, but a short time
before, had shook with alarm to its most distant quarters;
the usual hour, when the busy and stirring citizen crowded
the streets, had passed; an uncommon silence and
desertion pervaded, even in the places often most frequented;
the mechanic and the labourer, though at the
first breaking of the dawn, they had sprang from their
pallets and hastily attired themselves as wont, yet paused
ere they went forth unto their daily toils of life, in strange
and timid uncertainty; it appeared as if a feeling of conscious
guilt hung over all, and each man feared to gaze
upon his neighbour, lest in the countenance he looked on,
he should read the detestation and horror painted in his
own heart; with stealthy pace, and uneasy mind, the
burgher stole forth—and here and there as the hours
journeyed on, at some remote spots in the city, were
gathered small and anxious groups, among whom, discourse
on the events of the past night was busy, and
was carried on in low and fearful whispers; the rashness
that had been displayed, was commented on, and an indefinite
terror filled the breasts of those who listened to
the relations of the fray which was varied by every narrator,
of what would succeed, or in what manner the
massacre of Milbourne and the others, might be viewed;
rumours and tales, disjointed and mutilated, were on
every lip—while those who, either more courageous or
inquisitive than their fellows, had ventured earlier to approach
the front of the Stadthuis, which had been the
chief scene of the bloody drama, and had lingered to
examine the lacerated and torn strips of flesh strewed
around, that had been but awhile before a portion of a
human body, and which, though trodden in the mud and
snow, were easily distinguished by spots of blood frozen
by the morning air, and were handled with a revolting
the cruel butchery that had been committed, that made
the hearts of those who questioned thereon, thrill with
horror and wonder, at the extent of rage to which they
had been transported: suspense, as well as inquietude,
now followed, and for a time prevailed over the mind of
each apprehensive citizen; for that day, a change appeared
to have been made in the ordinary habits of the
city; customary occupations and pursuits were abandoned;
few stalls of trade were opened; the bosoms of
men struggled between fear and hope, and those who
remained not in the solitude of their houses in mournful
rumination, sought out their neighbours, to communicate
with them on all the night had witnessed, and to deprecate
the event; but this lasted not long—as the day wore
onwards, the signal of the city bell announced the arrival
of the hour at which the magistrates were used to
hold their sittings for the committal and punishment of
ordinary offenders, and for the conservation of the city's
peace, summarily award the wooden horse, the cucking
stool, the gallows, the transport ship, or the stake. At
the sound, as if moved by one impulse, every step
sought the Stadthuys, and every inquiring eye was bent
towards its walls; and though there might have been
some, who on their way thither, trod reckless by the
stains of crime and death that lay in their path, yet more
than one involuntarily shuddered at the sight as he hurried
past, and it was not long, ere a vast multitude of anxious
burghers had thronged within the portals of the building,
or with troubled visages strove for entrance from the steps
of the stoeb. And the planks laid across the ditch or
schroeinge, in front of the Stadthuys, were filled with
those who endeavoured, by frequent calls on the more
fortunate in advance of their position, to learn such
information as might be obtained from the burgomasters.
Mention hath been heretofore made of the structure,
within which the incidents of the narrative are
about to lead; nevertheless a peculiar description
of its outward appearance will not here be deemed
out of place, nor uninteresting to readers of an age
one we live in; for the Stadthuys of Nieuw Amsterdam
was of all the edifices that adorned that ancient city, the
one on which it might pride itself the most, being a very
model of buildings of the kind, on a plan at once ample
and convenient, and worthy of the spirit by which it had
been raised: it was in front of three stories high, composed
of neat Dutch brick, well plaistered and put together
with lime mortar made of oyster shells dragged in
the waters of Kill van Kull, and which had of old been
preferred from the best Holland lime by that judicious
personage, Mienheer Kieft, who had made repeated experiments
of its merit, in the erection of numerous public
edifices, with which during his administration he had
graced the metropolis of the Nieuw Nederlandts; indeed
the stadthuis was itself on the scite of one of the old Dutch
governor's structures, and occupied the ground on which
had stood the famous stadt-herberg, or city tavern, whereon
the liberal and munificent Hollander had expended at
once all the taste and treasure of invention of his ingenious
mind; for if the historian hath done Kieft justice,
he must have been a stout little Dutchman, of magnificent
and stupendous ideas, which were laid out to admirable
purpose, in the zeal with which he straitened the crooked
streets, demolished the ancient public buildings, and
raised on their ruins stately piles of wood and stone,
which were long the boast of the burghers of Nieuw Amsterdam;
in truth Kieft was the Palladio of the colony,
and it is with satisfaction perceived some little of his
spirit of improvement has been caught in these days, the
effects of which, were he alive, would make the thrifty
Nederlander start in wonder and delight; for now the
desire of being busy as well as that of splendor, and of
changing Nieuw Amsterdam into a second Athens, that
filled the bosom of the emulous Kieft, exists with powerful
influence, and urges forward the varied municipal additions,
which keep in motion both the minds of our city
rulers and the money of the citizens, in the laying out,
running, and widening of highways, the levelling of old
houses, and the erection of new ones, and of pulling down
the sake of raising in their steads tall ungainly heaps of
brick, which are so slightly laid as to threaten daily to
topple on their inhabitants; but indeed there can be no
better example of the excellence of a sway immediate
from the people, than is used in effecting the first of these,
the opening of streets and squares, the original design of
which mostly is awakened in the reflective brain of some
sapient member of the City Council, who, having property
badly situated, takes on himself to increase its
value and make his fortune, (which, by the by, is but
right, seeing his municipal services are rendered without
pay,) by making some new street through the grounds of
his neighbours to his own advantage and to the destruction
both of their comforts and residences; at the same
time smoothing the hurt and injury done, by the cries of
hirelings who have been promised pay, from contracts of
digging paving, or building at the public expense, and who
therefore preach up the benefits of the improvement, so
that the unfortunate man whose ground increases in value
from these causes, has to pay for the expected good more
than is allowed for what is taken from him, and twice
that which he can obtain for what is left, which, on being
forced to abandon in despair, falls into the hands of some
worthy burgomaster for little or nothing, while its original
possessor is a ruined man by the very means he was promised
to have made a mint of wealth: and while such consequence
follows the one, the others keep up a continual
commotion of noise and dust, filling the eyes and spoiling
the coats of all who pass such spots, as where the shallow
pomp and empty vanity of some purse proud knave sprang
from the stable or the cow yard, the amasser of riches by
chance and roguery rather than deserts, raises a palace
for his office or his dwelling. But as to the stadthuis of
Nieuw Amsterdam;—at the era of the narrative, it was
an entire new mansion, and in its erection neither expense
nor talent had been spared as befitted a lordly Dutch
city; in truth, if confidence is to be placed in the register
of the day, and the receipts as recorded of the city collector,
Baruche Judah, are accurate, and the contrary is not
to be presumed, no less a sum than four hundred pounds,
Burgerrecht of New Yorke for the purpose, every one
paying in proportion to his property and wealth; his honour
Colonel Frederick Phillipse, contributing as became
his high standing and superior riches, seventeen shillings
and sixpence, wampum peague, a sum at once enormous
for one man, liberal and magnificent as should be remembered
to the praise of the donor:[1] possessed of such large
and ample means to commence the grand undertaking, before
the corner stone was laid, the committee of Burgomasters,
to whose care the matter had been committed,
sat in profound dubitation and council upon the numerous
draughts and plans, that from every corner of the province
had been showered on them for acceptance; indeed
a reward had been offered for the one that should please,
and there was not an architect in the Nieuw Nederlandts,
but who strove for the prize, and as may be supposed, the
variety for choice exceeded all measure, from copies of
every noble structure boasted of in der Vaderlandt, to the
tall spired Indian pagoda. Long and doubtful was the deliberation
ere a decision was made, for such was the precise
and judicious taste that guided the burgomasters,
that scarce any thing that was presented to them, could
satisfy their fastidious desires of perfection, and indeed it is
a chance, if their opinion had been ever settled, although
they smoked much, and drank deep during the consultation,
had it not been for the pre-eminent genius of burgomaster
Outhout, to whom posterity must ever remain indebted;
for with sagacious skill, after having turned over all the
papers, he seized on the uppermost one, being the nearest
at hand, and declared with a round hollandsche oath,
that “dat vash der ding vor hish bleazure mit zome liddle
dalderazion dat he mould make in a minute,” and his
sage opinion was agreed to without dispute; however the
alterations to which the sapient burgomaster referred, were
submitted to his judgment entirely, as all were well aware
they would not in the burgomaster's hand increase the
expenditure: indeed, if possible his determination was to
diminish it, without hurt to the beauty of the intended
for although the composition of the model, was in
all points in proportion, yet desirous of saving a few guilders
of the public money, with honest Dutch thriftiness,
he curtailed it of one third of its breadth; he likewise
sunk the first story and raised the second, so that it might
in somewise, resemble a tall man mounted on the shoulders
of a small one; and as he verily shuddered with affright
when he computed the immense cost of brick which
must have been imported from Holland, to finish the
whole building, he bethought himself of an excellent device,
that as the rear of the edifice looked on the rasp huis,
the cellar kitchen of which was kept by vrouw Burger, it
mattered not of what the same was composed. The
front therefore of the structure was only brick, painted a
flaming dutch yellow, at once brilliant and costly, while
the other part of the building was of a rough brown stone,
without color or finish whatsoever, so that the Stadt-huis
might be compared to a vestcoat, very fine in front,
but common behind. Nevertheless although burgomaster
Outhout, was lauded long and loudly, for such excellent
procedure, and acquired more fame thereby, than any of
his name, since first they had emigrated from Schenkenshaus,
in Betuwe on the Waal, where his ancestry had
drove a respectable trade in the cod fishery, on the dogger
bank, on occupying the edifice, some little inconvenience
it must be admitted was encountered, which however,
it was impossible to lay to the burgomaster's restrictions,
there being in some places a want of light, and
in others too much thereof, some rooms being huge,
long and large, with ceilings, against which the voice
made no sound, but dissipated as it were in the open air,
a grievous thing for weak lunged orators, while others
were so small and cut up, that there was scarce doing any
thing with them;—all this gave rise and food to envy, from
the rival and disappointed architects, and as may be surmised,
they strove to hit off some tart jokes against the noble
building at the cost of their successful comate, who however,
as the latter was justly entitled to, laid all the honor
to the door of the burgomaster, and even it is said, in the
reward for the model with that sapient and puissant dignitary,
which if true, does credit to the proper sense, in
which the worthy burgomaster's talents were estimated,
and puts to defiance all the sarcasms of enemies; one of
whom Peiter Mesier, a runaway bookeverkooper, or bookseller's
apprentice, from Hammerkin in the low countries,
a sorry wag, who presumed on an acquaintance with classic
lore, having once held the bridle of the mule rode
by Thomas a Kempis, (who lived in his neighborhood,
on the river Aa, between Yssel and Vecht,) it is rumored,
had the audacity, in the presence of Mienheer William
Jannewaaye, der milkmensch, (on whom however the
spleen lost effect, for he was a dotard, ignorant, hardheaded
crone, awake only to the gathering of pelf, scarce
knowing how to read or write,) to compare the stadthuis of
the Nieuw Nederlandts, and the mighty, sapient, puissant,
and disinterested personages concerned in its superstructure,
to the raising of the famous Town Hall, of Scheldterbergsh,
in Allemagne, of which his story ran thus. The
Scheldterbergers being desirous of raising a magnificent
city building, and having set about it in earnest, soon
completed a structure at no little cost to themselves, and
the neighbouring cities, who contributed thereto, the whole
being under the direction of one the greatest architects, the
Scheldterbergsh could produce. The exterior of the edifice
was finished to the admiration of all who gazed on it;
crowds rushed in the interior to view it, but what was their
surprise on entering the council chamber, to find it dark
as midnight, so that they bumped against each other's
shins and noses at a terrible rate, and with dolorous execution;
the reason of this phenomenon set them all in
amaze—while the truth was this—the chief builder being
a man wide awake to his own interest, and a certain
sum being allowed for the work, had argued arithmetically,
that one window would do for at least four, and by putting
in one in the place of four, the expense and cost of
three would be clear profit to him; however, finding
the wise men of Scheltderbergsh somewhat crusty at
the explanation he was forced to make, he told them
easily remedied—that they had but to get large bags and
open them in the sun, and they could catch as much light
as they wished; the idea took, and every bag in the
city was in requisition: this difficulty being got over, a
new one sprung up—owing to the crowd of great men
living at Scheldterbergsh, there was, on putting each
man in his place of state, found to be a want of room, which
caused a grievous complaint, and was a drawback on the
boast of the architect of the hall, which was intended to
serve for ages, and also a great disadvantage to the city;
for those who could not get room in the edifice, withdrew
to a neighbouring tavern in a great huff, and whether
owing to liquor, or the choler natural to their being
almost ejected from the building, fell at loggerheads with
such fury that it was feared they might pull off each other's
ears: the council of Scheldterbergsh being thereon greatly
disturbed, took the matter in consideration; whereon
it was moved and acceded to, that an antidote to their
troubles should be tried, by putting in force an ingenious
contrivance suggested by the architect, whom the
matter had so intimately concerned;—he proposed that
the Scheldterbergers being in the interior, should place
their backs against the walls and push them out, thereby
enlarging the building so as to receive all persons, to
whom place therein should be given; whereupon, with
grievous grunting, groaning, labouring, and sweating,
they set to—but after a long trial, they could not perceive
they had made progress in their enterprise, and
were about to become enraged against the proposer and
proposal, but he requesting their patience, advised all to
divest themselves of their cloaks, and spread them at
the foot of the walls on the outer side; which being done
and the attempt renewed, the architect slily carried away
the offcast garments, while the Scheldterbergers coming
out and seeing them gone, set up a loud shout of success,
supposing they had pushed the walls so as to cover their
cloaks and hide them under the foundation. Now Mienheer
Mesier applied this veritable high German story to
be a right allegory, and in point;—the cunning architect
and builder being easily divined, while the gulled Scheldterbergers
taken with the fabrications and deceit of every rogue
who chose to make his fortune from the public folly,
and ever ready to become the dupes of any artifice,
however palpable or absurd, which wily and designing
knaves may offer as a bait for them to swallow; withal,
however, its flaming and shining hue, the Stadthuys of
Nieuw Amsterdam was a heavy and sombre building,
with a huge, tall, tiled roof, and small dark prison-looking
windows, the pediments of which were of stone—and in
the uppermost story, which served as a gaol, garnished
with gratings and stanchells of iron.
Following the course from the outward gate, which
was now wide open, but which, when closed, was usually
secured by strong bars and bolts, and a chain which led
across it on the inside, the crowd thronged through
the huge hall of the edifice, the walls of which were
rough and unplaistered in many places, and green with
damp as the sides of a dungeon, being cheerless and naked,
except where they were garnished with hangings of
iron fetters, and uncouth implements of torture, interspersed
with weapons of war, arquebusses, pistolets and
partuizans of antique make and form; and made their
way to a low and arched entrance, before which, stood
two civil officers with tall staffs, who, nearly in vain,
strove to distinguish those to allow admission,—and endeavoured
to drive back, with all the mightiness of authority,
the commoner herd, who pushed upon them in
despite of threats and commands. Indeed the consciousness
of the possession of power, however limited and
contemptible, like that of riches, inflates the mind to a
forgetfulness of every thing except its own mightiness—
and a person, who, but a day gone by, met and greeted
you cordially as an equal, be he advanced only to the
shadow of dignity beyond his former state, thinks a cold
nod of contemptuous indifference sufficient, if even he
cares so far to recognize his former intimate or associate.
This feeling, judging from the appearance, seemed peculiarly
to inhabit the breasts of the two guardians of
the door that opened in the apartment, wherein sat some
of the lordly magistracy of New-Yorke, for the crossing
pass it, rather increased than diminished by the opposition
made thereto, which was evidently a matter of moment
to the burghers, which was the more apparent,
when after a severe and warm contention of crowding,
pushing, jostling, tramping, kicking, plunging, shouldering
and shoving on both sides, during which, in despite
of vigilance or exertion, here and there an agile fellow,
with an eely slide would elude all caution, and slip from
the herd of his less fortunate companions, into the apartment;
an interval, or rather breathing space of mastery,
was obtained by the puissant keepers of the door way,
over those who claimed admittance—during which, the
greetings and epithets of kindness, that were showered
from the lips of petitioners on the officers, were innumerable
although nugatory, and served merely to increase
their obdurity, by swelling their opinions of their own
self importance: this was more peculiarly evident in the
conduct of one of them, a short thick man, with a black
surly visage, that resembled a cross-grained muzzled
mastiff, and who, to the numerous calls on his acquaintance
and remembrance, was as deaf as a beetle, and with
a coarse growl, bid all keep back—although this bearish
consequence was often dropped to servile humility,
whenever his eye singled out a person struggling in the
crowd whom he supposed of more power than himself,
and for whose benefit, he exerted himself straightway
to make room,—and this last conduct was also followed,
whenever any one was ingenious enough to slip a schilling
in his hand unperceived, and who, whatever were
his disadvantages, quickly was preferred before all that
might have stood in precedence before him. But now
for the interior of the room thus strictly guarded: it
was long and vaulted, with a stone floor, and massive
benches of the same material, placed in rows from the
wall, of which every seat was fast receiving an occupant,
while the apartment itself was filling to an overflow:
at the upper end, the room was divided by a short
railing, on the farther side of which, were on one part,
large yokes of plank or stocks for confining criminals,
and women, who, by their miserable and squalid looks,
for in some, there was a singular mixture of hardihood
and unconcern, while others, with anxious eye and pale
cheek, gazed about with fearful, uncertain and wandering
glances, were persons, expecting either to undergo
trial or judgment. These were attended by soldiers of
the hofdt wagt: on the part opposite to that last described,
were two forms or benches, the one raised
higher, and beyond the other: on the latter was seated,
in all the pomp and pride of a judge, Dirk Van Rikketie—while
on either side of him were placed, in monstrous
arm chairs of the brightest mahogany, burgomasters
Gelyn Verplancke and Filkins: the seats on the
other, and lower bench, were filled with the officers
of the court, the king's attorney, public notaries, auditors,
common or town clerk, court messenger or
crier, and various other attendants on whom it was
a duty to be present at the burgomasters hof; while the
large apartment was rendered comfortable to its numerous
sojourners by a fire of blocks and billets of wood,
which roared, blazed and ascended with smoke and
flame, up a huge tunnel, the mouth of which was large
enough to accommodate the greatest log cut by the woodman.
In the situation he was now placed, Dirk Van
Rikketie greatly was delighted, and was apparently at
perfect ease: indeed it was proverbial that he loved
the very stench of the apartment—for as the principal
of those who were brought before him were negroes,
Indians, or the lowest sweepings of the whites, the word
in the dog days, though vulgar, was not misapplied—and
now he looked on the crowd before him with exquisite
complaisance, and now he whispered some joke to his
sapient associates, who grinned in return with solemn
shakes of the head, and looked wondrous wise and edified
at his sallies. The anxiety that stirred the populace
was not unknown to Dirk, nor did he feel adverse
to gratifying their curiosity as far as he was able, neither
did he deem it prudent for him to let slip an opportunity
wherein he could please the crowd, and show
had commenced in the colony—therefore, as soon as
the crier had finished, and the common clerk, who was
a shock headed, queer, and testy looking little Frenchman,
a huegonot emigrant ftom Provence, had proclaimed
the court in session, having first advised in a whisper
with the burgomasters beside him, in which consultation
Dirk Van Rikketie was the only speaker, those he
communicated with, nodding wisely an assent to all he
advanced, possibly fearful of words, lest they should
commit themselves in ignorance, in dispute with so
learned a jurist, Dirk addressed the burghers in hearing.
First he spoke sadly and mournfully on the distraction
of the times—the horrors of civil war, and the distressing
length to which party spirit had been carried,—
`the woful tragedy that had so lately happened,' he said,
was much to be regretted—and yet he could not help
thinking that the two rash and unfortunate men, from
their turbulence, and the insolent manner with which they
had demeaned themselves towards his excellencie the
governor, (whom the lord preserve for many years to
rule over the province of New-Yorke) had met a fate,
though a dreadful one, which they deserved, seeing, if
they had survived, they could only have been considered
as attainted traitors: secondly, their majesties, in
their sovereign goodness, had sent over to govern the
colony, a man possessing every virtue under heaven; a
pious man—an honourable man—a merciful man—yea,
for his, (the speaker's part) he had long, by reputation,
been acquainted with the good name of colonel Sloughter,
for an honest fame was sweet smelling and savoury,
like a herb of perfume—and he had heard of the govenor's
name across the far waters, long ere he had
beheld his benignant face; and he was ready to vouch,
a better man than his excellency, did not exist—nay,
breathed not in Europe or America; for well he could
foresee, that under his government, peace and happiness
was not only to be restored, but to reign perennial; the
province would be a land flowing with milk and honey,
and the envy of every other colony on the sea board;
fear, from the prowess of his arm already? As they
heard his name, they trembled—and the Count De
Frontenac knew his conqueror. Heaven grant his excellency
many years of life, to fulfil all his promise.'
Then he strenuously exhorted all good citizens, to be
firm in their allegiance to their highnesses the king and
queen, and to assist to the uttermost in all he might be
pleased to undertake, his excellencie, their distinguished
subject, the governor of the loyal colony of New-Yorke:
and thirdly, he informed them, that their excellent and
worthy fellow citizens, Colonel Nicholas Bayard, and
master Walter Nichols, had been set at liberty, and
rescued unharmed, from the dungeons in which they
had been so vilely detained by the wicked and turbulent
partizans of Jacobus Leisler, and had been
restored to all the powers, offices, and emoluments
which they formerly held, and which said the speaker, I
pray they may long enjoy, and lastly his excellencie the
Governor, in supreme goodness, mercy, justice and wisdom,
had ordered a commission of Oyer and Terminer,
to be issued to Sir Thomas Robinson, Colonel Smith,
himself, Dirk Van Rikketie, and other judicial authorities,
for the trial on charges of rebellion, against their
leige sovereigns King William and Queen Mary, of the said
Jacobus Leisler, Pieter De Lanoy, and their adherents,
who were now in close confinement, in the very building
in which the Court was sitting, `and though the lord forfend
that he should say, that he believed any man guilty
before he was so adjudged, yet he would venture to affirm
in such case an they were convicted, he for himself would
vouch, and he had no doubt of the honorable and worthy
gentleman joined with him, that although their duty
might be a painful and really distressing one, considering
the ties of citizenship, and intimacy, which bound them to
the culprits, yet it would be firmly performed, without regard
to any thing except strict justice, for it was a maxim
with him, the greater the convict, the greater should
be the example.' This gracious and important communication
being ended, in the course of which, Dirk had ex
those on his lips but the day before, but which were now
the most profitable and reigning opinions, and therefore
he espoused them; the throng was somewhat thinned,
many dispersing to retail to their expectant acquaintances,
that which they had heard from the veracious tongue of
the geheim Schryveir, though others remained, withheld
by curiosity, while the court pursued their ordinary business.
There was sentencing of greedy tavern keepers,
who in despite of law had supplied supper parties of jovial
dutchmen, after the ringing of the bell, or who had
made some thirsty half bred Indian drunk, although the
council had passed an edict against such conduct, and allowed
the word of the savage when sober, as conclusive
evidence against the criminal, who had dared to contravene
the statute, by giving him food for “beastlinesse;”[2]
there were riotous sailors who had been in the holy land,
and creating disturbances with peaceable burghers, had
drawn their knives on the patrouille, who had been called
to quell the riot; these were condemned to throw themselves
three times each one, from the sail yard of the
yacht to which they belonged, and receive from each fellow
mariner on board, three lashes apiece. There were
also matters wherein the judge's discrimination and decision
were more widely exercised, some of these were
cases in which the delict had been informed against, for
eluding the spirit and letter of the laws made for public security
and welfare, as where an adventurous swine, the property
of a griping old fellow called Hauns Pieterse, had
strayed into the kitchen garden of burgomaster Bresier, and
cropped all the best of his cabbages; whereupon the burgomaster
became so worth, he being a mighty lover of
good eating, and passionately fond of cabbages, that he
seized upon the fourlegged offender, and had him impounded,
against which proceeding Pieterse appealed;-whereon
after maturely hearing the point in controversy, judgment
was given thus equitable, that as Pieterse it appeared was
not fit to keep hogs, the porker was forfeited, and ordered
to be sold at the next fair, and the proceeds of
and half to the informer, the said burgomaster
Bresier, and the “konstabel” were commanded to
pay the costs. Numerous indeed were the admirable
constructions and illustrative definitions of the jurisprudence
of the province propounded and pronounced by the
sapient Dirk Van Rikketie, and acceded to by his no
less wise and erudite associates, in the many similar
causes which came before them. Now, although the
statute laws of the colony in themselves were at this time
few, and (as might be supposed from perusal) easy of
being understood, being that singular code well known to
the antiquarian by the title of “The Duke's laws,” yet
nevertheless, while these were in some sort the common
law of the land, the members of the colonial assembly
and the burgomasters of the city were daily, in their discreet
wisdom, drafting and publishing edicts after their
own sovereign will, which natheless unmeant by them,
went in direct contravention to the “Jus novæ eboracensis;”
whereby, two opposite ordinances being in equal
force, a criminal was condemned by one, and cleared for
the same misdemeanour by the other; so, doing little
help to either morals, justice, or to the community. And
when, after having done incalculable service to wealthy
and powerful rogues, and having been the bane or death
of every poor vagabond who was unable from want of
money to bribe fortune, (for that reigns above right or
wrong, and to it justice is subservient;) a dead set was
perhaps made to remedy the evil by passing some amendment
to the original form of the act: but as most opportunely
for the well being of society, the honest men whose
unthankful duty it behoves to enact laws have generally
less care to make them perfect than the rogue, whose
chief study it has always been to find some hole in the
labour, of which he may avail himself—the matter of complaint
by such new consideration was often rendered worse;
and so the thing was necessary to be again and again reviewed,
but seldom to any better purpose. Although the
acts themselves would have scarce filled a diminutive volume,
yet their additions made ponderous tomes; for indeed
both resembled the will of some peevish old man with a
of his property, and one hour makes a codicil, which
in the next he destroys to make way for two others diametrically
opposite to his former intention, and probably ere
long both the last are revoked to make room for twice
their number, varying the disposition of the hypochondriac's
estate in a manner in which he is not a whit more satisfied.
Now, as may be supposed, the confusion arising from
the multiplicity of sub-edicts was the very element in which
the sagacity, probity and acuteness of Dirk was pre-eminent;
and the reader cannot be surprised from what he
hath already read of the talents of this learned character,
that the skill with which he thrided the labyrinth
was at once superior and astonishing; in truth, no man
living could apply the letter of the law so perfectly as he
could; he knew well when the time was proper to impose
a slight mulct, and when, for the self same infringement
of the public peace, a severe corporal punishment
ought to be inflicted; and withal, he was a merciful creature,
imbued with the very milk of human kindness; for
he was at all times ready to intercede for a pardon for the
very vilest convict, if some influential man requested it
of him. Indeed, the records of Nieuw Nederlandts are
fraught with numberless examples of the geheîmschryver's
virtues, for it was an invariable rule with him to
correct all reports of causes that came before him, by
erasing every thing that tended to interfere with the side
of the question which in his wisdom it had pleased him to
espouse; and no one can blame him therefor, seeing that
iniquity and wickedness can present many times a plausible
set of motives for action, which, as evil has more converts
and followers than virtue, might (being given publicity)
be tended with ill effects on minds in whom a
neutrality as to the matter may have made but poor and
uninterested judges; whereas the light in which Dirk had
eyed the subject being showered on the public, it totally
suppressed all murmurs of contradiction or condemnation
of the course he had chosen; for Dirk was fully
aware of the nature of mankind, and well knew no human
work is so perfect as to please every body. An example of
Dirk construed the penal statutes of the colony was observable
at the hour of the narrative, in the sentence which in
conjunction with the puissant burgomasters who were at
his elbow, he passed upon two certain offenders; considerable
interest and attention had been excited on the occasion,
and after burgomaster Breiser's and Hauns Peiterse's
business was disposed of, there was a hum of expectation
and conjecture among the crowd of hearers that thronged
the apartment—Dirk's countenance became more solemn
and important, and his two puissant supporters shook their
heads with pompous gravity; while every understrapper
of the court took the infection, and demeaned himself in
accordance with the visages of his superiors. Now the
fact, as appears from the chronicles yet extant, in the
first case, was this:—there was one Jan Hobbes, of facetious
memory, of whom a mention hath been heretofore
slightly made, a meddlesome, scandalous fellow, given
wonderfully to writing and making books, and therefore
was considered a person of little consequence in the stadt,
his calling being a mean trade and not allowed the city
license as a freeman. Now Jan being of a mischievous
nature and terribly discontented with the times, took on
himself to prove that matters and things were not as they
ought to have been, and that the lusty burghers of Nieuw
Amsterdam had derogated from the honesty and virtue
of their ancestors who had first founded the Dorp; and being
misled by wrong advice, `and not,' as the tradition
forcibly remarks, `having the fear of man and the law in
his sight,' did most sacrilegiously and outrageously profane
the people's ear with the unworthiness of certain
friends of Dirk Van Rikketie. Now it must be apparent
that nothing can be more libellous or disgusting to sense
and feeling than for a dirty fellow to brush against our
best attire and leave mud and stains upon us as he passes
—or what can be more offensive than for a scavenger to
shake his dirt and dust in our faces after we have just
cleansed ourselves from impurity? `yet such were nothing,'
saith the tradition, `compared to the acts of wilful Jan'—
who without the least delicacy or remorse, such a har
recalled to the minds of great men what they had been.
`The horrid enormity thrills one with affright,' continues
the sensitive writer of the chronicle; `hanging, the
wooden horse, and the cucking stool, were all too little
for such a wretch, who dared boldly tell the truth, even
though he insulted the sacred presence of a burgomaster.'
Now after this ebullition of rage and indignation, the
chronicler goes into a learned dissertation on truth,
wherein he concludes that to speak it to any man of
influence or power is a most unpardonable aggression,
and deserves the thumbscrew. Now Jan, although
he ought to have known of the risk he was at
of certain punishment for his crime, for had he tasked his
memory he would have recollected how Hendrick Jansen,
in the days of Wouter Van Twiller, was sentenced for
scandalizing the governor to a heavy penalty, namely, to
ride with face to the tail, behind the town crier, on a
jackass through the principal streets, the libeller having a
bridle in his mouth, a bunch of rods under his arm, and
an appropriate label on his breast, and acknowledge that
he lied falsely[3]
“dat de exegellenge did niet wears rood
broeks nor was grate mit hish plack frouw.” Neither
was there anything of which, in his wickedness, Jan could
be made to repent, for he was a stubborn sinner:—therefore
Dirk off hand pronounced him guilty of all charges
brought against him, considering it utterly unimportant
that Jan should be heard at all in his defence; for what
could any one say for himself that had perpetrated crimes
so heinous—who had without compunction ridiculed the
consequence of a warrior tailor, exposed the mock importance
of sundry self-conceited magnificents, and laughed
with irreverent scorn at the grave decorum and splendid
attainments of divers spectacled and profound Dutch
doctors and professors,—rendering by such derision of no
avail the laborious endeavours of these puissant and sapient
characters, to impress the minds of the burghers of
the Nieuw Nederlandts with a high opinion of their vast
erudition, ingenuity, and mightiness. Now it must be
a groat, and therefore had but little chance of having
over many influential characters step forward in his favour;
yet at the bottom of his heart there lurked a latent
fear that in case he enraged the satirist, he might turn his
venom on him. `Although in such conclusion Dirk
must have been deceived,' saith the Chronicle, `for no
man, not even Jan Hobbes, could have been of so ruthless
a disposition as to injure the fine and delicate feelings of
an honourable man of the virtue, candour, good-nature,
and perfect honesty and disinterestedness of Dirk Van
Rikketie;'—howbeit the wisdom of Dirk was exercised
in the matter, so that hereafter he might excuse himself
to Jan. He therefore, well knowing the answer that
would be received, inquired first of Burgomaster Filkins,
his opinion whether or no it would be popular to send Jan
to the Rasp huis, and quoted authorities therefor; as was
to be expected, Filkins, although he thought the matter
had better be made up, yet as he wanted Dirk to interest
himself in getting the vroedschap to pass a law to widen a
street where he held property, assented without refutation
of Dirk's various arguments pro and con; and
Burgomaster Gelyne, on Dirk's inquiry, bowed with
grave dignity his head in acquiescence, he having been
before the matter came up impressed against Jan by
his comate burgomaster Ezel-een Mensch, the mortal
foeman of the wicked satirist—so Dirk secure in shifting
the blame from his own shoulders on that of his associates
if any should be found, went on in decreeing the punishment
of Jan Hobbes, with stern composure; after descanting
largely and uncontradicted, Jan not being allowed a
word, on the enormity of the offence, which was, as Dirk
sublimely expressed it, with a significant annotation,
worse than murder or robbery, for as the poet laid down,
“he that steals my purse steals trash; but he that filches
my good name, makes me poor indeed”—Dirk closed
(however, first taking care to bestow one or two compliments
on Jan's talents, as was his custom, to keep Jan in
a good humour with himself,) by saying that the Court,
in mercy to his poverty, had fined him a sum of money
which he knew Jan was then unable to pay, therefore, in
until he could make the money to discharge the
mulct, and as authority for such procedure, he drew
profusely from the case of Baron Van Slightenhorst, the
agent for the Patroon of Ranselearwyck, who having
quarreled with Governor Stuyvesant, in the earlier day
of the Nieuw Nederlandt, on some question of jurisdiction
between that manor and the colony, was arrested and
confined by the order of the testy old Dutchman at Nieuw
Amsterdam on a charge of crimen lasæ majestatis, and heavily
fined therefor, in a certain sum, but which, understanding
he was ready to pay, having the money, the
Court that condemned reconsidered their fiat, and doubled
the amount of the mulct, the first being supposed no
punishment, as he could discharge it, and on appeal from
the last decree, the baron complained that neither himself
nor friends were in any wise able to raise the required
money, the Governor decided, that the baron should
stay in prison till he could make it,[4] or until he begged his
pardon, and got the Court to recommend him to mercy.
The other delinquent that was brought before this incorruptible
trio, was a noisy, vain, blustering blackguard,
coxcomb of a fellow, the gossip of the town, a man whose
veracity was as doubtful as his principles were bad: he
was charged with theft, in stealing and breaking open a
letter directed to a worthy burgher, in whose affairs he
was somewhat curious, and with whose private business
this convict was desirous of meddling and of exposing his
secrets to the city; the matter was completely made out
against the criminal, but he being an intimate of Dirk,
this wise and irreproachable judge considered it proper,
as he could not pass an impartial sentence on him, that
the same should be postponed until he should leave the
office of Geheim Schryveir, which might one day or the
other come to pass, as he supposed, or otherwise until
the last mentioned criminal should become his enemy,
which might be the case in his espousing the wrong side
in some political struggle. After this last proceeding was
and the city bell about to ring the signal for dinner, for
which, after the fulfilment of such arduous judicial duties
as they had performed, none felt more eager than the
magistrates; the prisoners, sentenced and unsentenced,
were removed to safe keeping, and by direction, the
hoarse voice of the crier, in formal manner, adjourned
the hoofdt, and Dirk and his puissant associates prepared
to leave their seats of dignity, and mingle in the body of
the dispersing audience, who were fain to wend away
with homeward steps; but ere Dirk had crossed the
apartment, his steps were stayed as were the burgomasters,
whose departures were regulated by his motions;
a stripling, partly enveloped in a cloak, and who appeared
to have been watching the breaking up of the Court
with eager and anxious impatience, sprang from a bench
by which Dirk was about passing, and with imploring
looks and in beseeching tones entreated his attention as
he clung to his garments and withheld his departure—
“Stay but a for moment, Mienheers,” exclaimed the youth
in a pleading and mournful tone, “stay but for a moment,
Sirs; ye who have been the bosom friends of the unfortunate
Jacob Leisler; ye who I have seen his supporters
and confidants, and more particularly you, heer Dirk, for
whom he hath done so much, stay your steps but for a
minute—by the memory of your former friendship, your
ancient league and alliance; by all that hath passed in favour
between ye, Sirs, I entreat, charge ye bestow kindness
on his child, on Arnyte Leisler, who stands before
you. For hours vain have I strove to gain a minute's
sight, a word with him—I have been put back by loaded
guns of guards, and driven with hoarse threats from my
attempts. Good friends, I only ask ye to allow me to
share his rugged dungeon with him, to sit by him and
console him in his sorrows, to support his aged head upon
my breast—for God's sake, Sirs, though the world may
have deserted him, though all whom he relied on may
have turned foes; let him not in the darkness of his wo
for a moment suppose that I, his son, his child, have fled
him too—have turned recreant with the rest.”
The feelings with which Dirk heard and received this
address, were by no means those of complaisance, indeed
he was as much startled by the sudden and unlooked for
presence of Arnyte, as if in his pathway a serpent had
sprang up and met his approach with barbed and poisonous
tongue, nor were the words of the stripling over well
chosen, either for the attainment of that he petitioned
for, had there at the moment been any inclination in Dirk's
breast to grant it, or such as, as they reminded him of passages,
which, at the present, he would fain have had forgotten,
were well calculated to be acceptable to his hearing,
he therefore, judging by his actions and countenance,
appeared not a little displeased by his detention, and with
quick and somewhat fearful glances, he looked about him
to see who was within hearing, and then with a hasty and
impatient motion, he strove to drag the skirt of his jerkin
from the hands of the youth, but he failed, for Arnyte
hung to it with all the pertinacity of despair.
“Nay, you shall not leave me,” cried he, “you shall
not do yourself the wrong to quit me thus, plunged in the
bitterness of affliction, nor extend the hand to help me in
my grief; the world speaks of you as a merciful, a compassionate
man; belie it not—show pity unto me—the
favour I seek is small in granting, yet if I gain it not, I
shall be most wretched, most miserable.”
Finding it difficult to unloose the hold of the stripling
without answer and in silence, unless by main force, Dirk
unbent his sternness, and in his most generous and considerate
manner, explained to Arnyte the impossibility of
his complying with his desires, as it was in direct contravention
he asserted to his excellency, the Governor's orders
on the matter; and that by permitting any person,
even his son, to have an interview at this time with an attainted
traitor, like Jacobus Leisler, he would be committing
crime as a man, and betraying the trust imposed
on him, as holding the station with which he was honoured
by public confidence; the fact was, the thing was entirely
against all rules and regulations, nay, against the law of
the colony itself; he much regretted it—it was a hard
case it must be confessed; but so it was, and he could
that was pursued with Mienheer Leisler was laid
down incontrovertibly; therefore he concluded it was
idle to request that which he was unable in any wise to
allow, and advised with the most friendly solicitude for his
welfare, that the young man should depart and make up
his mind to the dire necessity, as easy as the exigency
would suffer: and then finding the grasp of Arnyte relax
in utter hopelessness at his refusal of entrance to his parent,
he eagerly snatched the hem of his garment by
which he had been detained from the trembling hands of
the youth, and hastily strode away, leaving his suitor
overwhelmed with misfortune.
“He bids me begone! he bids me home! alas, I have
now no home; no roof shelters now the ruined family of
Leisler,” ejaculated, after a moment's pause, the agonized
stripling, “and what shall I do hence, when my duty lies
here? away I can give no relief; the heart-broken murmurs
of my poor mother distract me in our miserable home,
and I cannot sooth them even with hope, and here, yes,
in my father's dungeon my duty lies. Stay and hear me,”
continued he, interposing himself before the departing
burgomasters, “ye are fathers! ye have sons, even as
myself: reflect! did your situation as that of mine call on
your offspring, bethink ye, from that love they should
bear ye, in gratitude for the hours of servance in infancy,
the care, tears, and anxiety, ye have bestowed upon their
helplessness, were it not hard, cruel, to be denied but to
gaze upon your face, to clasp your hand, to share your
misery. If ye are men, formed in the mould of humanity:
if your hearts are not harder than the gyves that hang
upon yon wall, ye cannot deny my reasonable beseeching—ah!
and will ye not listen to me? can ye have the
souls, the frozen, icy souls to leave me with denial? for
mercy, sirs, can ye think light of the charge upon me?
remember ye not the precept of the holy book, and
would ye interfere with the commands of him whose
chariot is the whirlwind? I have spoken to you as fathers;
ye have been sons too; ye have felt the fostering care,
the tender warding from harm, and the thousand indescribable
for a moment, a son seeking to refund the great debt
so strongly bound upon his existence, yea, for life; for
when have I wept and he had the power that my tears
were not dried; hath he not borne me through the dangers
of my infancy and should he have cause to believe
that in this hour of adversity ungratefully I shunned his
fortune—nay, tell me it not, though it hath been so said,
the Governor's mandate doth not intervene; ye have the
power and can admit me to clasp his neck and kiss his
aged cheek.”
The stern determination of the sturdy burgomasters
was not, however, to be shaken by the piteous pleadings
of young Arnyte. They were possessed in too great a
degree with the influence of that base tyrannical feeling,
so common in the breast of man, that delights to have
acknowledged by the degradation of his creatures, the
power and superiority which it is luxury to exercise on
all but mercy—yes, there are some who, like statues,
love to hear their fellow beings sue and pray in vain,
proud in their hour of might, nor give a thought to the
transitory and fleeting changes of life, never deeming
their turn of lowliness may chance. Few, indeed, in the
summer hour of wanton prosperity, dream of the wintry
storm that will follow in the uncertain course of human
existence. With grim and unbending frowns the haughty
burgomasters met the tearful eyes of the boy, upon whose
long dark lashes the heavy drops fell, as when the spray,
kissed by the morning breeze, showers the dews that the
night spirit weeps upon the sleeping flowers;—he pleaded
to men, who, though in the common path of their duty as
burghers were kind and bore the reputation of religion—
but who, filled with consequence and authority, were rendered
cold and hardened as rocks on whose bleak sides
the ice of winter clings. Neither is such carelessness of
the miseries of a fellow creature, however inhuman, confined
to the selfish breasts of Mienheers Filkins and Verplanck;
numbers, even in these times, who have the reputation
of charity, who spend money to relieve the unfortunate
of their species, to appearance liberally—forsooth
into the secrets of their alms; and who thereby have
their vanity fed by public praise: yet they will grind the
poor debtor for the last shilling reserved to obtain bread,
and exult in his ruin and mourning. The burgomasters
unrelentingly repulsed the youth, and shook him roughly
and unceremoniously from their path.
“Pize on ye, younker, this is uncivil of you to pester us
—pugh—you have had our answer, pugh,” quoth Heer Filkins,
frappishly, as he strode away with an eager, shuffling
pace, as anxious to be rid of Arnyte's importunities.
“Ja! mannikin—dis is der nonschenze do geeb beobles
vor noding ven mien tinner is krowing gold,” echoed
burgomaster Gelyn, and he drew his steps after those of
his worthy associate—the eyes of Arnyte followed their
departure with a look of reproachful bitterness.
“And these,” he murmured indignantly, “are the men
my deluded and abused parent fostered and warmed in his
confidence, little recking that they followed him but for his
prosperity; these are the men that broke his bread and shared
his salt, and held his wine cup to their lips, and basked in
the smiles of his favour; and these he trusted, on such
as these he depended, nor dreamt of cold ingratitude.
Good heaven! am I deceived—am I within the pale of
civilized men, and can these things be? But yesterday,
the losel that hangs about the palace gate, and watches
for the crumbs the menials throw into the street, and
worships as a deity the veriest varlet that spurns him,
was not more lowly and abject than these time serving
sycophants, who now cast me away in scorn, and tread
me down as though I were a worm fit but to be crushed.
Oh, were that yesterday to return! Alas, alas! our sun
is set, and these birds that wantoned in its beams, fly the
shade:” he wrung his hands in anguish of spirit. “And
it is in the hands of beings thus cold, frozen and untouched
by human feelings, that my poor parent's destiny is
placed! what hope has he of justice? his unspotted loyalty—his
noble, daring exertions for the revolution—his
fortune spent in the Protestant cause—will these not
avail against the machinations of his enemies? they must,
trumpet tongue at the foot of the throne. And yet relief
is distant, and I cannot bear to think on it;—he suffers—his
aged limbs upon the dank dungeon floor—his
wife, his son, his friends forced from his presence, nor allowed
to share his sorrow. Great God! and I the cause!
I could have fled the pirates' den alone, and now this
Sloughter's mangled corpse had been food for the raging
wolf. And do I, shame on my lip that breathes the word,
regret saving a fellow creature from the murtherer's
knife? no! let what may happen that shall not be; the
very act done by these young hands shall plead even to
the gates of mercy, were they to seek his life. His life!
great God, his life!—what have I said—my father's life!
they will not, dare not attempt so foul a deed. Yet, their
hands are red with Milbourne's blood; but that was in
the moment of wild, ungoverned passion; reason was lost
—and he was rash and quick of temper; but my father
is old, is mild, is kind, is gentle.—No! the earth itself
would yawn, and swallow up the homicides that would
think on a crime so monstrous, foul and base—out on it!
the wild, mad thought doth fret me, and makes my heart
heat at my ribs in terror, and my pulses throb like those
of a chased and affrighted deer;—still, still I cannot
quell these dreadful,—fearful ideas that throng in horror
through my busy brain, and make me shrink from what
may come.” He cast himself at length upon the nearest
bench, and pressed hastily his heated brows to the stone,
as if to gather relief from its coldness to his burning temples.
After a short interval of uneasy rumination, he
continued:—“Too surely men cannot be so utterly
abandoned to all faith—so entirely regardless of every
ancient favour and friendship; there still must be some
who will venture limb, ere that which I dare not name
should happen:—too sure they will not allow him to
perish without an effort, however desperate. If words
fail, why the sword,—the sword remains. Alas! this is
but folly,—the very error of a dream; Manning, the
vilest of traitors suffered not death, disgrace alone was
his portion. My dear parent hath done nought that merits
their highnesses the king and queen visit on the heads of
the offenders their anger, did they but presume to touch
one hair of his revered head—but yet it is the wrath,—
the frenzy of the present hour,—the delirium, that hath
seized upon the minds of men and leads them remorseless,
pitiless and unthinking to rage like hungered beasts
of prey, and thirst for blood—that makes me tremble:
great God! they have already had a taste of gore, and
Milbourne may not be the only victim of their sacrifice.”
He broke off the sentence as if shuddering at the image
his own mind had conjured up, and then suddenly added
in a hurried and resolute voice, “by heaven! I must,—
I will see him, though I die in the attempt.”
“Who, in the devil's name, is it you want to see, and
what are you doing here, young one, when every body
else hath gone about their business? come, tramp;
take yourself off in a gliff; I am going to lock up;” said
a harsh, coarse voice that sounded like the noise made by
the grinding of a ragged millstone, at the side of the
stripling, at the same time he was roughly seized and
dragged from the bench. Arnyte started on his feet and
turned towards the speaker; he was a tall, ill-favoured,
bony, muscular looking man, with heavy and clumsily
jointed limbs, and an unpleasant expression of countenance,
every feature of which savoured of cunning
malice and wickedness—large, thick black eyebrows
overhung his small grey eyes, in which could be read little
favourable to their possessor, for they were lightened
by that sinister expression alone that bespeaks at once
selfishness and insolence of power;—a knotted forehead,
a long drooping nose with wide nostrils, a large
mouth, and a sallow complexion,—formed a visage from
which ignorance, dulness and hard-heartedness only could
be presumed. From the attire and appearance of this
personage his calling was easily to be divined; he had on
a sad-coloured jerkin and doublet, with a leathern belt
round his waist, from which depended a huge bunch of
keys, most of which were of enormous size. He was
the provost marshal, or city jailer; at his back were two
with large goggle eyes and beetle brows, and the other, a
stout, lusty, clownish lout; the one was armed with a
long steel-headed pike, while the other carried a number
of fetters, anklets and chains of iron.
“Ah! is it you, burgomaster?”—said Arnyte, forgetting
the unceremonious manner in which he had been just
used by the hands of this personage, as he perceived
who it was, and giving him the title which he had formerly
been dignified with,—for it is certain that the same
care in the ancient day was taken with all such ci-devant
characters of consequence as is done in the present, by
giving them or their relations some posts of profit; for it
is a hard thing to serve the public without pay, unless one
is rewarded at least with a dirt contract, or can in some
way get remunerated from the ever open pockets of the
grateful burghers;—this was the prevalent idea of the
day, and the city was always well served; for if a street
was paved, a hill dug down, or the public wharves let, the
son, second cousin, uncle, or the burgomaster himself
undertook the matter; and although the stadt was
charged somewhat more than the things could have been
effected for by others, yet it is well known the dearer
the purchase, oftener the better goods; and then the
advantage was to be considered of having such matters
carried on under the immediate inspection of a father
of the Stadt, who of course, would take the greatest
charge, and exercise the most careful economy as
to the manner of the work, and the cost and expenditure.
Roelofsen Stoutenbergh, for such was the name
of the city jailer, when elected to the Vroedschap,
was somewhat stricken with poverty—so much so, that
it is said it was a hard matter for him to muster up a
gabardine befitting his puissant situation; indeed his
rise was one of those singular freaks of fortune, which
assimilates to the elevation of a tailor or hatter, to the
rank of a general, or a baker to that of a mayor—several
singular instances of which marvellous chances,
have been the wonderment of the good burghers of Nieuw
Amsterdam; nevertheless Roelofsen, though very poor,
an old, rich, swearing, drunken gardener, of
Schakabanica; but he well knew it is long waiting for
dead men's shoes, so as soon as he got a chance of getting
a snug place, he left the station of burgomaster, and
assumed the salaried place of the provost marshal—an
office of considerable profit, as will be seen hereafter; adjoined
to the regular income of which situation, he obtained
an order of the council, which allowed him certain perquisites
of an extra nature, for conducting criminals to jail,
to the whipping post, the wooden horse, the cucking
stool, the transport ship, and the gallows—his profits,
particularly in the latter case, being oftentimes considerable,
as he was not only the receiver of the breeches
of the dead convict, but was his sole executor and heir;
and this last capacity, was not alone confined to such instances,
but numerous others could be enumerated,
wherein he exercised it by virtue of his station.
“Ah, burgomaster, is it you!” exclaimed Arnyte, a
beam of hope lighting his eyes, as he eagerly seized
the huge and reluctant hand of the provost marshal,
“right glad am I to behold you—for in your power, lies
the granting of that which I seek, and for which, an you
extend your help to the afflicted and unfortunate, a hundred
blessings will be showered on your head. My father,
Jacob Leisler, is in confinement under your charge
—you cannot, be you a man, deny a child the sight of
his parent; allow me then, kind Mienheer, to have an
interview but for a few brief moments with him—I ask
no more.”—
“Um—have you an order to effect admission, from
any of the sitting magistrates?” returned the jailer in a
growling tone, and coldly withdrawing his hand from the
tremulous grasp of the youth—
“Alas, no, they have refused me, sternly refused
me,” answered Arnyte in a desponding voice.
“Fico! young one, and did you believe I would let
you see the fish withouten order? um—it can't be, master,”
said the jailer gruffly.
“For heaven's sake, good burgomaster, what harm
fallen and desolate parent?”
“There's so much harm, that I won't let you in—fico!
I won't do it, young one, so you'd best be off withouten
more words,” replied the jailer short and testily.
“Nay, Mienheer Stoutenbergh,” quoth Arnyte somewhat
warmly, his spirit rising at the obdurate and insulting
bearing of the provost marshal, “is Jacob Leisler
one who hath coldly and unprovoked, embrued his
hands in innocent blood, and foully acted a deed of wanton
murther, or who hath felon-like threatened the existence
of his creature, for gold? Is he, I say, a convicted
knave, stained with crime—an outlawed villain,
who hath put to the defiance all human law—a blasphemer
of his Maker, that he and his are treated thus
with contumely? I repeat it, Mienheer, you have those,
the vilest of mankind, the homicide and the robber, in
your custody, to whom more leniency is shown, than to
him, who, whilome, was your ruler.
“Young one, I know my duty withouten your teaching,”
quoth the jailer in reply, and advancing on Arnyte
with fierce and impatient gestures, “come, no more ado,
nor wag that saucy tongue of thine so fast—but get thee
on thy way—troop, I say.”
“Sirrah! thou hast grown insolent with thy place,
and dost forget thyself too far,” indignantly returned the
provoked stripling, the blood crimsoning with a warm
flush of ire, his cheek, and his veins swelling as the angry
tide rushed through them, “I tell thee what, sir
knave, this bearing towards me, doth ill become thee;
sooth! it is not so long, since you quitted the losel rags
of your birth, that you may perchance resume them; I
say you may live to repent your inhumanity.”
Scarce had Arnyte, with proud and undaunted confidence,
uttered these imprudent words, when the jailer,
who had heretofore unloosened the keys from his girdle,
and had held them in his hand during the last speech,
and now stung to brutal passion by the youth's invective,
suddenly and violently struck the stripling in the face
with them, who, with a piercing shriek of agony, in an
the feet of his savage oppressor, his blood gushing from
the wounds made with the iron weapons, and his eyes
and nostrils running a stream of gore, which welled
around his prostrate body.
“That, malapert, will learn thee to be civil,” said the
provost marshal, as with a ferocious scowl he bent over
his fallen victim. “Here, Boele,” continued he, addressing
one of his attendants, “take this audacious varlet and
throw him out of doors on the slip, where his kinsman
met his fate. These Leisler hounds were all an impudent
race, it would not bring many tears from me did the
Aansprecker[5]
go his rounds for the whole set o' them—
and hark thee, Boele, when thou hast done that job, close
this room while I look to the under wards, here's the
keys. So now Dolph you may bring along the bracelets.”
Having thus directed, the provost marshal, accompanied
by the assistant who carried the fetters, quitted the
apartment; spurning as he went, with ruthless and unfeeling
unconcern, with his foot from his way his felled
and feeble antagonist; nor betraying in his unmoved and
sodden face the least pity or care as to the situation of
the rash boy, who had so incautiously brought on his
head his barbarous ire. The blow by which Arnyte had
been borne down was heavy and stunning, and if deliberately
aimed would doubtless have been fatal; but though
the flesh about the forehead was bruised and torn, and
his visage was gashed and lacerated wherever the keys
had scattered when he was struck by them, yet his insensibility
was happily but of short duration; for as he lay, a
sudden quickening of life came over him, and he felt a
hand busied upon his apparel. Recollection returned,
and the cold sweat that had bedewed his limbs died away
—every sinew of an instant was braced, and with an agitated
and convulsive motion, the effort of strength in
which apparently was beyond his years and delicate form,
he started on his feet. The first sound as he rose that
broke on his hearing was the rattling of something which
he seemed to have flung from him in rising; he dashed
aside with a hasty hand the clotted and gory locks that
lay a piece of money, while at a pace's distance, out-stretched
upon the pavement of the room, was the provost
marshal's assistant, in whose charge Arnyte had
been delivered; the man had been cast in this prostrate
situation while busied in plundering the youth, unexpecting
his sudden recovery. As Arnyte beheld the sullen
and disappointed glances with which the fellow eyed the
piece that had evidently escaped his clutches by the unlooked
for movement, and saw the eager struggling which
shook his outstretched hand as he resumed his feet, for
the possession of the glittering metal—a dread of further
violence came over the mind of the stripling, which increased
as he marked the threatening frown and surly
look with which he was gazed at.
“Here,” said Arnyte, taking up the dubbeltje and holding
it out for the acceptance of the turnkey, while a hope
of winning him to his purpose ran through his mind,
“here, take this good friend, and I will add to it a zesthalven,
which is all I have about me—aye, nearly all my
ruined fortunes hath left since they have seized upon my
parent's homestead, and hold it in the crown's name.
Take it, good friend, and let me but pass to the dungeon
of Jacob Leisler;” the man eagerly snatched at the money,
but hesitated on the request of the youth, who strenuously
renewed his entreaties. “Let me but pass, kind
friend—let me but enter his dungeon—my life shall be a
toil for you; my prayers shall be your reward; heaven
will bless you for the deed;—yea, the memory of it shall
live in my breast until it is cold in the grave. I have not
perhaps wherewithal now to repay such kindness, but depend
on it if I live you shall meet your deserts. There
are, there must be some who will extend their hands to
relieve the house of Leisler; and from them you shall receive
that gold which I am unsupplied with: and should
it be, as well I hope, that my family is restored to its former
consequence and possessions, I pledge myself this favour
shall be among the first that return shall be given to
—let me but pass, kind friend, and cheer him in his lonesome
dungeon.”
The fellow's resolution was apparently shaken by this
appeal, and after a moment's faint refusal his determination
was entirely changed by the sight of the zesthalven,
which Arnyte drew forth and held in his hand, and he
consented to conduct him to his father's prison. Arnyte
overwhelmed him with thanks and promises, as with cautious
steps he led him forth from the apartment to the
hall; when after commending him to silence, with a
stealthy pace they proceeded to mount the stairs that led
to the upper stories of the building. They were a wide
and heavy flight, with a clumsy balustrade, of which every
banister was carved, and was as thick as a man's arm.
On arriving at the top they came to a small and dark entry,
at the apparent end of which was a door of solid plank
studded with enormous nails, and braced and banded
with strips of iron; a chain was drawn across it on the
outside. Having undone this, and covering the large lock
as he opened it with his cloak, so as to deaden the creaking
of the key while it turned, the guide unlocked an inner
door or rather grating, and bid Arnyte enter, telling
him he must remain quiet within until after the rounds
had passed, when he would return and conduct him without
the stadthuis walls; he then left him, carefully closing
and locking the doors after him as he departed. Arnyte listened
for an instant to the harsh creaking of the lock,
which seemed to shut him in from the world, and looked
for a moment on the ponderous doors with an involuntary
shudder which he could not conquer, as it ran through
his frame; then with a sore heart he turned to the dismal
abode of wretchedness and crime in which he had
entered, and prepared to meet the unfortunate Jacob
Leisler within the miserable precincts.
SECTION II.
“I am so worn away with fears and sorrows,
So wintered with the tempest of affliction,
That the bright sun of your life quickening presence
Hath scarce one beam of force to warm again
My spring of comfort.”
THE PRISON.
The place in which Arnyte now stood, was a hall of
considerable size, but which, though lighted by several
windows which looked on the slip that fronted the building,
wore a gloomy and heavy aspect, for, added to the
numerous bars and close gratings of iron, which
nearly covered the exterior of the windows on the inside,
the rays of day were rather obstructed than helped,
by casements composed of small panes of glass of
a greenish dye, dirty and discoloured, many of which
were broken or shattered, and their places supplied with
foul rags, and hats, and paper, and through the remainder
of which, almost in vain, the sickly and feeble sunbeam
of a wintry day, strove to pierce. The place indeed,
with its low dank walls, and massy architraves,
wore the funereal hue of twilight, and darkness was wont
to sit within the miserable den long ere the day beams
had faded from the heaven, and gave place to the æthiop
visaged night; in spite, too, of its lofty situation, the air
of this prison was close, noxious and confined, and when
breathed, fell on the lungs with a feverish weight, while
the dampness of the season struck through the sides of
the building, and mingled with the unwholesome vapours
that hung around; fœtid and stifling odours, and an unnatural
heat, contended with the winter's cold. It was
a spot wherein health could not long exist, and but few,
accustomed to its horrors, could live within its bounds;
and yet, withal, saith the tradition, that most veracious
of journals, the Post-boy—its conductor, actuated by the
like motives with which his modern prototypes bepraise
and belard with flatteries every insect in office, was daily
superabundant and overwhelming with compliments on
the efficient, active and excellent burgomaster Stoutenbergh,
the keeper, for his exquisite management of the
prison—the cleanliness, wholesome air, and decency that
reigned throughout; that the place was never well taken
care of, until the worthy burgomaster came in office, nor
were the convicts under his charge, ever better behaved—
and that the latter case was not singular, considering the
mild temper, and manners, and kind humanity, which the
good Mienheer, the provost marshal, possessed. In truth
such was the circulation of these remarks of the Post-boy,
that many honest burghers, as they whiffed their
pipes over its sapient columns, were persuaded—for
even at present, there are many who consider all avouched
in print, particularly in a public journal, as certain
facts, to be undisputed, that the tigthuis of Nieuw Amsterdam,
was preferable to their own fire sides, and
grumbled that the stadt enforced a stiver a head as taxes,
for the support of rogues and vagabonds like gentlemen
—while the goed vrouws were profuse in admiration of
the generous hearted jailer, declaring he was worthy of
being made a deacon,—and therefrom, burgomaster
Stoutenbergh became a member of a charitable society,
formed for the purpose of sending Dutch Bibles to the
poor ignorant paynims of Madagascar—who stood, as
the Dutch dominies asserted, in danger of being damned
for the want of the light of Revelation taught them, in
the sonorous and melodious hoogduitch taal; and moreover,
to confirm the truth of the suggestions in his favour,
as to his lenient behaviour towards his prisoners, Mienheer
Stoutenbergh, once a year, received a visit from a
committee of the burgomasters, who, together with his
friend, of the Post-boy, (who from meddling with every thing,
acquired the reputation of importance, and thereby had a
having feasted voluptuously in the keeper's department,
at the cost, however, of the city, and having drank
Spanish wine and zwaar beir, until they were either blind
or saw things with a double sight, (which latter was no
uncommon case with double Dutch burgomasters,) gave
a cursory glance through the prison, which, in expectation
of their presence, had been scraped and scrubbed and
white-washed for the first time that twelvemonth, and
which they always took care to report to the vroedschap
as in a satisfactory situation, adding that Mienheer,
the provost marshal, treated them to the best Maaslandsley's
pipes they had ever smoked; and such reports being
ordered to be published, appeared thereafter at length in
the Post-boy, accompanied with the publisher's own remarks
and advice on prison discipline, with which, like
every thing else, he conceited he was well acquainted;
after which, for the edification of his readers, he was
wont to give them a perusal of all the learned and facetious
toasts drank by himself and the doughty members
of the stadt council on the occasion, his own being always
one pre-eminent for its wit and compliment to the entertainer
and Joffer Stoutenburgh. However, at the time
that Arnyte looked upon the prison walls, the visit of
examination by the burgomasters had long been past, nor
was there an immediate expectation of another, and the
place was loathsome with dirt and filth and neglect. On
the side of the hall opposite to the windows were entrances
to several small and darksome apartments, the
doors of which, as did every other thing about the place,
partook of a massiveness of structure, strength, and shape:
like the outer one of the hall, they were each cased and
bound with ribs and plates of iron, and almost lined with
large headed nails; a small square light, or rather grating
of cross bars, was in the centre of each of these doors,
some of which opening in an apartment where a solitary
criminal was chained, were fastened and strongly
secured with a stout bar, or rather iron tongue, that covering
the lock defended it from any attempt to force or tamper
with it; the entrances of the other rooms were unclosed,
however, there was as little chance of escape or departure
for its inmates, whose unhappy lot it was to be confined
in this place without distinction of age, sex, or crime;
men and women, boys and girls, the young, the aged, the
sick, the dying, the innocent and the guilty, were thrown
together as it were in one mass to taint and corrupt each
other; the novice gathering from the black despair of his
own heart and the encouragement and example of his
companions, a taste and love for crimes, for which, here-tofore,
he had only felt remorse, was here alike condemned
and forced to drink in his sighs of sorrow, with the malignant
and infected air of the prison. Beside the regardless
and careless ruffian, whose knife but lately ripped
life from the breast of a fellow creature, and who seeks to
whisper, with many a sneering laugh at his moans, which
the assassin terms childish repentance, sentiments at once
profane and obscene in his revolting hearing, sits some
youth, whose only crime is the misfortune that he is suspected
of guilt he never committed; here the felon and
the false coiner, hardened in vice and wickedness, are
glorying as they teach their trades of infamy, in their
wanton and lascivious lives to some attentive and emulous
listener, who as yet had been betrayed but in a single error;
the insolvent debtor, the drunken burglar, the abandoned
prostitute, and the leprous beggar, were huddled
in the same neighbourhood, compelled to endure at once
their own misery and behold that of others. When Arnyte
entered this den of grief and crime, here and there
only a straggling wretch was pacing the extent of the
place in moody silence, or scrawling with charcoal on the
wall, while at the farther end of the hall, as well as he
could discern through the clouds of smoke, which being
broken in their egress by double iron-gratings, that choaked
the mouth of the chimney, intended to prevent escape by
ascending its darksome and perilous passage, poured in
voluminous bodies in the prison, creeping with an avidity
for warmth to their shivering members, and gathered in a
heap of almost shapeless filth, the very vermin engendered
by their own bodies, dropping around at every motion
for several hours, and which, green and wet, scarcely
burnt, but smouldered to ashes, sat on the bare floor
four or five miserable beings, whose haggard, sickly, and
cadaverous looks, dim, sunken eyes, dishevelled hair,
and limbs, that but for a dirty blanket that was drawn
with feeble hand across their shoulders, would have been
naked, gave them an aspect of the most heart rending
despair, the effect of long severe sufferings and protracted
imprisonment; but this disgusting show of hopeless
wretchedness was apparently not general, for from several
of the adjoining cells, ever and anon broken out horrible
execrations, heartless curses, and the wild, discordant
notes of ribald song and of mirth and of laughter, while
in the dull or debauch-flushed countenances of one or two
of the walkers of the hall, could be traced an expression
of contented indifference and recklessness of fate; and
some wore in their apparel an air of comfort and even
some splendour of their past fortunes, which the mercy of
the keeper and his assistants permitted them to retain while
the prisoner could command such favour by the contributions
of connexions or friends, who might still adhere to
him in unhappiness, or until the excellent Mienheer Stoutenbergh
was thoroughly convinced he had extracted the
last dotkin, when both doublet and jerkin followed, and
the last remnant of worth was soon stripped from the victim's
limbs, and he was forced to hovel with the most
squalid and the lowest, subject to the jeers and mockery
of his heretofore envious companions, (for jealousy tyrannized
even in this miserable cavern, and various where
the vile arts and abandoned treachery practised often at
the expense of their fellows, with which the smile and
kindness of the brutal jailer, and even the most insignificant
turnkey, were bought,) and the insults of those to
glut whose rabid avarice his all had been sacrificed.
Arnyte had scarcely crossed the door way, and had time
to survey the dismal scene before him, ere a man, who
stood idly leaning against the wall with legs carelessly
crossed, in an attitude of listlessness, within a few
paces of the entrance of the place, and having eyed the
glance of impudent curiosity or wonder, ejaculated with a
loud, squeaking, and unpleasant utterance, the words “a
fish! a fish!” Those near the speaker taking the sound,
turned their eyes upon the stripling and repeated the
slang words, which in an instant flew from mouth to mouth
to the extremity of the hall, and were reiterated as they
passed from the interior of each dungeon, from most of
which in a moment a motley throng poured forth tumultuously,
while the small gratings of the others were crowded
with anxious faces and eager eyes which gazed with
different feelings of pleasure or derision upon the new
comer; indeed, for an interval, the most abject being in
the prison seemed to have his attention called from his
own cares and wo, as though to look upon a creature of
a different sphere, and it is hard to say, whether the predominant
feeling with which they regarded the fresh
mate of their confinement, as they supposed the stripling,
was pity for his as yet unknown misfortune, that gave him
a share of their sorrow, or delight that they alone were
not sufferers, but that misery poured her vials on others;
that besides them there were those who were wretched
and outcast; in truth, their greetings might rather be
compared to the welcome with which devils would receive
some fallen angel, or of the reception by the damned
of some lost soul, whose wickedness had numbered it with
their doleful ranks. It was with no little embarrassment
that Arnyte underwent the scrutiny of the ruffian and unencouraging
glances that were bent so rigidly upon him,
and it was with timid and hesitating manner, and an uncertain
and tremulous step that he approached and prepared
to address the person whose voice had first, in the strange
fashion related, announced his coming in the hall, and
who being the nearest he perforce sought to make inquiry
at him of his imprisoned parent; neither was his
failing confidence greatly reassured but rather diminished
by the cold, calculating, sneering, and unfeeling cast of
countenance of this personage, whose features it struck
him were somehow familiar to him, and whose bearing
was such as to make him falter to apply to him—the stature
than age his head sank forward on his shoulders, so that
although the whole body from this had attained somewhat
of a drooping posture, yet his shoulders appeared to set
straight and almost to rise above his ears; his limbs were
gaunt and fleshless, and his visage long, thin, and sallow
to such a degree that the skin fairly resembled the darkest
parchment, having the same livid and deathlike hue;
his beard was grizzled and his eyebrows long and thick,
nearly overshadowing his small sharp grey eyes, which
were the only speaking feature he possessed, and in whose
quick orbs lurked cunning and roguery, and indeed every
evil passion of human nature; however, ere Arnyte could
muster up resolution to speak to this character, he himself
was accosted by the prisoner.
“How comest in the net, lad?” quoth the man, with
an utterance at once shrill and disagreeable, while Arnyte,
from his peculiar countenance and voice, almost instantaneously
recognized in the speaker one of that desperate
gang of outlaws who prowled about the province,
confederate with the corsair Kid, in disposing of the plunder
of his roving cruises, and whose chief employment at
other times was the passing of counterfeit coin; indeed
this was the very same man who hath heretofore been
slightly introduced in this narrative, and the youth remembered
him as the one who but the night before, in
that forest wigwam, had been the first cause of the pirate
Loffe's mutiny against his vengeful leader, and who
having returned from that dreary place of rendezvous had
been seized on his first appearance in the city by the
hands of justice, which had been long watching to take
him, and he was now held to stand trial for some one of
the numerous crimes he had committed—his situation to
him, however, was a matter of little moment, he had
oftener been in greater danger, and had, either by clemency
or fortune, escaped punishment, though deserving
its severest measure; and now he counted from the peculiar
situation of the act for which he was confined, on
compounding the felony with Dirk Van Rikketie and his
worshipful associate, the king's attorney, who, in their
wisdom, many times considered they read the laws aright
greater; possibly fearful that in case they reversed the
plan their offices might become extinct for want of knaves
to try and condemn, and they thereby lose good livings
and rich salaries. As the memory of the man came o'er
him, a thrill of horror rushed through the quivering limbs
of the startled stripling, and he shrunk back as though
the deadly point of a naked dagger had been thrust to
stay him in his pathway, while the change of habiliments
which Arnyte had made since his restoration to his friends,
his face wounded with the conflict with the jailer, together
with the slight notice in his servile capacity, that the
man had bestowed upon the boy, prevented a like remembrance
upon his part. “How comest in the net,
lad?” said the coiner, without noticing the emotion of
him he spoke with, “hast slit a basket, or dipt in cognyac,
youngster? or art one of Koby Barquier's[6] highbinders?
though thou lookest green to handle a growler;
whose thy fence, lad? hast any o' thy bootle left from
the cuddies, say lad? I am an honest man you may depend
on me, so let us go quips.”
Having spoken thus he stepped close on the youth,
and very unceremoniously prepared, after slapping him
familiarly on the shoulder, to run his hand over the stripling's
jerkin, and to examine the contents of his pockets;
but Arnyte, who, during his captivity with the marauder,
had before heard the slang used by the coiner, understood
sufficient of his expressions, to perceive that the
fellow took him for a thief or a vagabond, who, by his
actions, he deemed was yet young in the business, and
whom he could therefore pilfer of his spoil with impunity—and
of the man, Arnyte abruptly shook the coiner from him.
“I am not what you take me for, master,” said he
somewhat haughtily, “I am not your fellow—I have admission
here to see Mienheer Jacobus Leisler, who, I
am taught, is here prisoned; an you like to do a favour,
conduct me to his presence.” As Arnyte uttered
this, the whole terror of the prison, and the idea of his
father's endurance of the ignominy and wretchedness of
such a place, burst at once on his mind with electric
force, superseding all other thoughts, and he felt nigh
sinking to the earth—“though great God!” continued
he, while his lips quivered with anguish as he spoke,
“they cannot—they have not dared to lodge him in this
horrible den—a place unmeet for humanity. It will
kill him—oh! it will kill him.”
“On my reputation, lad,” quoth the coiner, as he
drew back from Arnyte and gazed on him with a sharp
and inquiring look, “troth, it must be a man of little
spirit, that would give in to death for the sake o' the
place, though our bread be none of the whitest here,
and our broth be of bones that a starved dog would loathe
the gnawing—the liquor blacker than an African's skin;
yet one should make the best on it, though an it like
you,” here he dropped his voice to a whisper, and
brought his mouth almost to the ear of Arnyte, first,
however, having cast a hurried glance around him, to see
that none was near enough to catch his words, “though
an it like you,” pursued he, “to let me have your knife,
or mayhap you may ha' brought a file, or the like, an so,
give it here quickly, and warrant me, ere to-morrow,
yon sturdy locks of iron shall fly loose at my bid, as an the
doors were held by a straw wisp; the best stone shall
rise from its seat in the wall, while the mortar shall roll
on the floor, like crumbs for the feeding of birds: do
you take me, lad? what say ye? I mean for old Leisler's
vantage, on my reputation—so let me have a schilling, to
get some blackstrap of master Stoutenbergh—blast it,
my throat is parching for a dram.”
At the first moment, the idea of liberty to his father,
bound joyously within him, and he drew his breath
thick with hope; he unthinkingly was about to grasp with
cagerness the hand of the coiner, and express his heartfelt
gratitude for the offer of the criminal, and pledge
his own co-operation to perfect the object, when, as he
looked in the man's face, whether in thought or reality,
he could scarce for the instant determine, he perceived a
slight quivering of the upper lip, and a momentary contortion,
as of a sneer, ran through the features, while
something like derision lurked in the corners of the villain's
busy eyes; the expression, however, instantly died
away—but it had recalled recollection to the youth's
mind; the profligate character of the ruffian, the singularity
and the suddenness of this last address—and there
was something certainly in the manner, so he persuaded
himself, of the man's disusing his slang terms, and particularly,
in thus unbosoming himself to one who was
apparently an utter stranger to the fellows. All these
struck him, that the coiner was but sounding his own
purpose, to fathom his intentions whether there was a
plan on foot for his father's escape, and what was likely
if such had been—(for he had heard of persons equally
base, in like times,) after having wormed himself in the
secret for his own benefit or pardon, that he might hasten
to betray his confiding companion. Indeed the
criminal's bearing, was not that of a person whom Arnyte
could have trusted, or for a moment have depended
on. He therefore hastily proceeded to repel the man's
unwelcome advances—and the coiner, soon disappointed
in whatever he might have been aiming at, and seemingly
offended, withdrew, with a menacing brow and threatening
eye, from the side of the stripling, and walking off
joined a small group of his fellow prisoners, whom he
quickly engaged in a converse which was carried on in a
low voice, while judging from their gestures, and the
frequent glances cast in the direction he moved, Arnyte
was evidently the object of their discourse.
Being thus freed from the company of this dangerous
acquaintance, undisturbed by the other tenants of this
gazing on the stranger of their dwelling, some withdrew
to the sports wherewith they had been quelling the weariness
of imprisonment, or to the employment of their
sad reflections, while those who remained near the
youth, refrained from intruding themselves upon his notice,
possibly withheld by the idea that either the coiner,
who was well known by every rogue as a rare hand,
had already stripped the bird of all that could be got, or,
that from the last mentioned worthy's sudden retreat,
the pigeon was not worth the plucking,) he advanced
further in the place, but with slow and reluctant pace—
yet when he looked in the nearest cell, and viewed with
eye of grief, and heart moved by the sight, at once to
tenderness and pity, indignation and detestation—when
all the strange confusion, and the degradation of human
nature burst upon him that the horrid dungeon exhibited,
he paused for strength to bear it, ere he inquired
for his parent, while the wish rushed strongly on him,
that he had been deceived and misled by the keeper's
assistant, and that he was mocked with the idea that Jacob
Leisler was an inhabitant of this hell of guilt, infamy
and misery, or anywise a partaker of its frightful
recesses. Within the close, dank, and narrow corners
of this dreary hole, (and even such epithet, can scarcely
convey an idea of the loathsomeness of aspect of these
caverns, the confines of the largest of which, could not
have exceeded seven feet in the measure of length or
breadth,) from eight to ten wretched objects, in the
shape of living creatures, were crowded together as
it were, wallowing like beasts in some noisome penthouse:
the flickering ray of light that stole into this
dismal apartment was rendered more obscure and
dim by means of the obstruction of a filthy, ragged
mat that hung before the inner casement, so that
darkness, to eyes unaccustomed to pierce its misty
bounds, clouded the farther nooks and corners of the
place. Neither table, chair, bench, nor stool, nor any
other necessary utensil for the comfort of life, was to be
seen: the bare, hard plank of the prison floor served the
sit, and to eat from—and fortunate was the wretch, and it
was with difficult and unceasing guard and watch that he
retained them from the envious and greedy hands of his
fellows, if the hardness of his bed was relieved by a thread
worn and leprous looking blanket, or a small bundle of
long used and dirty straw. Upon the rugged walls horrible
and disgusting caricatures and figures were drawn;
words and couplets of grief, religion, and revolting obscenity
were confusedly sketched—here the trembling hand
of some repentant sinner had relieved the heavy burden
of his overwrought conscience by some melancholy verse
—while there the immoral and unconscious libertine had
scrawled a memento of the bagnio or the gambling house.
Armies of rank and poisonous spiders laboured at their
intricate meshes on the low and dusky ceiling; nor was
there absent from the den a nauseous insect or abhorred
thing that in its atmosphere could live. The venomous
rat there had his nest—the brown backed roach and each
creeping vermin that loves putridity, in hordes wandered
about it undaunted, crawling on the flesh and infesting
the garments of the prisoner.
Of the inmates of this place, Arnyte discerned one, a
very skeleton, stretched at length upon the floor, evidently
too enfeebled to arise from his recumbent position;
his attenuated and emaciated limbs were horrible in rags
and nakedness, covered with corrupt and sickening sores,
around which, as about the carcass of a carrion, huge
maggots were wantoning; passive he lay, stirless and unmoving
as already a corse, with features ghastly and
withered: and had it not been for now and then a low
and painful moan that heaved his bosom as it would have
burst it, a slight shiver as of coming death that shook the
fragile frame, he might have been taken for a body from
which the spirit had long departed, and which was cast
in that charnel vault unheeded, to rot and be consumed;
for Arnyte was too far from him to mark the quivering
lip, the beaded drop that stood upon the brow, or the big
tear that ever and anon made its way from the dim, half
closed eye, that bespoke a mind too much disturbed to
relief. But a pace or two distant from this last most
wretched creature, were two men widely different from
him but now described; they were seated on a heap of
chains, which fastened to an iron staple in the centre of
the floor, were locked at one end by separate anklets
round a leg of each of these criminals, and so held them
in companionship. The dress, looks, and character of
bearing of these were desperate and ruffian like; they
were engaged in gambling, and regardless of the dying
situation of their neighbour, they at times made the dungeon
roof ring again with their obstreperous peals of
laughter, oaths and curses, or discordant quarrels. The
complexion of the one who was apparently the most abandoned
of the two, was of a sandy hue,—high cheek bones,
light hair, reddish whiskers and mustaches, with light
blue eyes, scarcely marked by a brow, formed his abhorrent
visage. This man was condemned for murder, the
commission of which had been attended with the most
atrocious brutality. The other was one of those wily
villains, of whom there were at the time numbers, who
for the sake of plunder or revenge upon some enemy,
had complotted with the black slaves to rise and fire
some dwelling and slay its tenants. This wretch had
been a preacher, and by that means wormed himself into
the confidence of the ignorant and unsuspecting for his
own purpose. He was now under the dreadful sentence
so common in the annals of the province for punishment
of his class of crime, and particularly resorted to in after
years in the execution of the ringleaders of the great negro
conspiracy; he was to be placed in an iron cage,
which was to be hung from some lofty tree or gibbet, and
left for the wild and carnivorous birds of heaven to feast
on; bread was to be placed in his sight, but which his
load of chains would prevent him from reaching; all men
were forbid to yield him help under pain of a severer penalty:
and yet such was the recklessness of this hardened
and unrelenting creature, though but a brief space intervened
ere the commencement of his sufferings, whether
alive to the reality of his situation for which there was no
to a carelessness of his approaching fate, he scarce appeared
to heed it with a thought, but plunged in all the
blasphemy, revel, and wild wassail of the prison house.
On the ear of Arnyte the profanity of the dissolute
grated harshly as thunder claps, and struck terror to his
very soul; and the groans and sighs of the sorrowful fell
heavily on his heart, which sickened within him; while
tears of pity hung upon his eyes at the endurance of the
fearful sight of the afflictions of the tenants of that direful
abode. The heart rending spectacle of one group in particular
moved his every latent feeling of grief and tenderness:
this was a mother and her children; the miserable
parent with agonized impatience sought to still the sad
and querulous lamentations of a cadaverous and sickly
looking infant, which she supported in her feeble arms,
while more she strove to lend each moment to the squalid
babe, (which though hideous from suffering in other
eyes, appeared lovely in hers,) a further portion of her
own scanty raiment to shield it from the searching cold—
while at her knees clung two others of her hapless offspring,
half clad, though revolting to behold with the
filth of neglect; these with beseeching looks and visages
sunk with famine, were demanding food for existence,
from their unfortunate parent, who had already yielded
the mouldy prison crust, her day's allowance, to their unsatiated
hunger; and now only she could answer their
cries with a wild and despairing look, in which, terrible
to relate! anguish was mixed with the madness of inebriety!
The offence of that doating mother was infanticide
—the blood of one of her own children slain in drunkenness
yet reeked upon her hand.
Faint, and stricken with pity and horror, Arnyte slowly
turned his eyes from the sight of infamy and wretchedness;
he was at once overwhelmed by the terrific scene
and his own dreary reflections—for a moment he gasped
for breath, and could hardly sustain himself from falling
to the floor; and it was a minute or so ere he could recover
resolution and firmness enough to pursue the course
of his adventure. As he was about moving onward with
once the worst of the condition of his father, he was
addressed by a person who for some little time past had
been, with a peering scrutiny, employed in regarding his
actions and vivid emotions; this was an aged and venerable
looking man, whose locks were like some circlet of
snow that crowns a wintry mountain top; the expression
of his countenance, with the exception of his eye which
was slightly defective, was not unfavourable; and his body
bent beneath the weight of years. About his dress too,
which though whole was extremely threadbare, there
was a degree of cleanliness and neatness remarkable for
the place and his own situation. He had a peaked and
grizzled beard, trimmed in the fashion of the nobility and
courtiers of a century past, and his trunk hose was in the
Flemish taste of an ancient date; his fingers were covered
with numerous rings, which though of glittering cast
by being retained by their owner from the hungry grasp
of his fellow prisoners, must have been valueless; while
ornaments of the like material and shape depended from
his ears. But however, there was something ridiculous
that injured the respectability of appearance of this personage,
in the mock importance, gravity, and dignified
carriage with which he bore himself; which though befiting
some Spanish grandee amid his serfs, was totally at
variance with all character of an inhabitant of the rasphuis
of Nieuw Amsterdam.
“My son,” quoth the ancient with a decorous and solemn
enunciation, and with the sedate and majestic bearing
of a sage speaking to his disciple, but which sober
manner could scarce be relied on whether as jest or earnest
from the contradictory, or rather arch and wanton
roll and leer of the eye whose fault has been mentioned, and
which at the same time with one expression was apparently
lowering on the person he was engaged with, and
with another was jocosely eliciting the attention of such
as listened to the parlance, “my son,” said he, “you are
if appearance speaketh truly, a novice in this our monastic
seclusion; and though the saw hath it—trust not looks,
for a still surface covers deep water,—yet it giveth me
pleasance to greet thee, for your countenance speaks not
subito est. This is a sad home to crouch in, young
man: nathless why mourn, Diogenes was contented in
a tub; yet you will say Diogenes was a cynic, and you
are none. But look to Plato—does he not in his inimitable
Phedron give you an example of true contentment
and philosophy? Remember, young man, the divine
Socrates in his dungeon. With what equanimity did Seneca
bear the persecutions of a tyrant; and what were
the feelings on this head of Strato, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras,
and Democritus. Do you take my advice? grey
hairs should be listened to with reverence; when you
have seen as much of the world as I have young man, you
may speak of your knowledge—for experience is knowledge.
You are going to remind me of your misfortunes;
true, but what are misfortunes? nothing. Look on me,
young man; my father-in-law was Abraham Isaacs Plank,
to whom Governor Kieft sold Pauleus Hoek for four hundred
and fifty guilders Holland, on the first day of May
1638.[7] And mark me, young man, that is not all; this
very building stands on his ground, which ran a mile from
this place—yet I am kept from my right by power, and I
am now held my body in vile durance for a few paltry stivers
of costs, although the heir of wealth enough to buy
half Rotterdam. But I have appealed—my case is carried
before the judges at Westminster; and mark me, young
man, you are in that which you may live to see turned
into a palace that shall outdo Hampton Court or Whitehall
as my residence. Do you take my advice—fret not,
but bear the peltings of the storm of fate without repining
—for in what consists true philosophy but in making up
one's mind for a time to bear the worst. Can you find a
reason against my axiom, young man,—do you take my
advice? you should not hunt for reasons, but remember
what Aristotle taught according to the report of Sextus
Empiricus, `posthabito in sensu quaerere rationem.'
This singular discourse was heard by Arnyte with astonishment,
and he gazed with wonder on the speaker,
scarce knowing what construction to put on his eccentricity.
shudder that with a throbbing of alarm and sorrow mixed
beat at his heart, as he supposed this personage was one
of those lost beings whose mind, in the blasting conflict
of its powers, occasioned by an accumulation of misfortune
past human endurance, had become partially wrecked,
and sense had sunk under the burthen of misery;
but yet there was in contradiction to this idea of derangement
a placid, quiet, and orderly demeanour, and a system
or connexion in his speech: yet again so wild and doubtful
were the expressions he used relative to his own imprisonment,
that apparently such beacons of saneness were
but like watch fires on a dreary midnight coast, serving
to warn the mariner from encountering its dangers, darkness,
and desolation—they were but signs that there was
a method in his madness. So thought the stripling, and he
strove with impatience to disengage himself from one whose
words served no purpose but delay, and thereby added
new torments to the fever of anxiety that oppressed his
fretted heart. Distracted with dismal fears as to the parent
for whom he was in search, he eagerly sought in several
attempts to utter the smooth words which hung
upon his lips, to sooth that which he deemed the irritation
of the person who had thus directed his speech to
him, and to free himself from his company; but his endeavours
were fruitless, the sage was not so easily to be
shaken off, neither would he allow utterance to ought that
seemed to interfere with the purport of his parlance;
and he was truly dogmatical in retaining his unwilling listener,
for having griped him firmly by the sleeve lest he
should escape him, and in spite of the twists and jerks
with which ever and anon his hearer strove to loosen the
hold by which he was bound, and all unmindful of the
distressed attention with which his prolixity was received,
he pertinaciously continued to persevere in the motley
tenor of his speech.
“Young man,” pursued the philosopher, “do you take
my advice—though an I rede ye aright, you possess all
the frenzy of youth, and scorn with hasty rashness the
caution of greybeards: yet what I tell you none can
and where you may suffer more; yet possibly you may
argue, male pericolosam libertatem quam quietum servitium—however,
you have not yet seen as much of the
world as I have; or bad as it is, (and but little can be said
in its favour) you might be able, even in this prison
house, to find something to like and prefer to that wide
and bustling globe of which Balbus speaks so well, `nec
majus, nec melius mundo;' you should not despise that
which I say unto you on account of the plight and situation
I am in at present—mark my words young
man, the durance which I now undergo shall be viewed
with horror hereafter, and you may live to see pilgrimages
to my dungeon in honour of him who is now here
before you. Remember Galileo's prison, what but ignorance
was the cause of his persecution, and what is it in
my case but envy? however, let me but recover my right
—let me but once get the Plank property, and young man
you shall see that which shall surprise you. I will not
mind money where I find merit—do you take my advice
young man, and I trust it is not the admonition of a stoic
—I feel for my fellow creatures, even amid the ungenerous
treatment I have received at their hands, I have been
labouring for their good; yes young man, in this place have
I discovered the arcana, the grand secret of being, the very
alchemy from which existence is derived—the height of
human invention—the perpetuam rei—the philosopher's
stone—the true grand secret of life—the alembic, before
the trial of which every other vessel of chemistry fails! but
young man, this is inviolable between us; take my advice
and you may become a disciple to one who shall in time
have a name equal to Xenophanes Colophonius, the very
founder of the philosophy of ethics. You have youth on
your side, and you may one day be a Permenides, a Melissus,
or a Zeno Eleates. I will open my mind to you on this
matter at large hereafter, but at present I will follow the
example of those ancient naturalists, Empedocles, Anaximenes
and Heraclitus, who in the words of the learned
Bacon, `mentem rebus submiserunt,' therefore until fitting
time I will drop the matter, so bridle your desires;
first great step marked out for the philologist and philosopher—without
such power one is but an onsophist. But
to branch from this subject; you know the foundation of
my claims to the lands of 'Brom Plank, do you not think I
must recover? law, right, every thing are with me—the
blind decision made on the subject already doth not test
the points of the case: for instance, what can be more
plain—old Abraham Isaacs Plank bought of Governor
William Kieft, and was seized in fee tail on the first day
of May 1638, of certain lands, messuages, and tenements
situate at Paulus Hoek and in the city of Nieuw Amsterdam.
Now old Plank had two daughters, Gollotje and
Marie; Marie died intestate, so her right fell to the next
of kin, who was Gollotje; her first husband was Luyckes
Tienhoven, by whom she had lawful issue. Now mark
me, young man, I am Gollotje's second husband, and guardian
to her children, and therefore by right of marriage
heir to the Plank estate; now adverse possession is held
of that estate by certain persons, who set up title as they
affirm by right of purchase, and pretend to show old
Plank's deed therefor: but mark my words, young man,
he never gave a deed; my wife says she can swear to that
fact—but they would not receive her evidence; only
think of that—damn my cap, only think of that, they
would not take my wife's oath—the deeds are forgeries
—I know it—old Plank never put his hand to parchment
—he was a real cautious old Dutchman, too shrewd for
that. Such proceedings, such law as I have had is
enough to try one's patience—enough to make one blaspheme;
but I never swear except when I am in a passion,
and I flatter myself I am too much above the cares of this
world to get ever in a passion about any thing: but only
to think, young man, they would not take my wife's oath
—however I have appealed”—
To what further duration the old man would have
spun his untiring theme, is scarce to be determined; for
there seemed neither bound nor medium in his discourse,
the very frenzy of which was apparent in its protraction,
which grew in rapid changes, from the strange
mind, while with grave deportment, his lips seized and
ushered forth, every wild thought that for a moment
prevailed paramount in his disturbed brain. His condition
was truly such as of the many doubtful maniacs,
who, harmless in a manner, to all, except such as whose
time and patience they engross with the rehearsing of
speculative fancies, are suffered to roam at large, rendering
their infirmity at most times visible, by their ridiculous
conceit in forwarding their own learned qualities,
plans and projects on public endurance, to the exclusion
of matters of more moment;—I mean that class
of personages, who, blinded to reality, and opinionative
as to their own powers, deem themselves, in their own
idea, persons of considerable consequence; and therefore,
presuming that they are of equal importance in the
eyes of every body, and that their affairs are those of
the world at large, they believe they have a right to demand
of others, to suspend all business until they are
possessed of their personalities and own immediate concerns.
Indeed the manner of the ancient, wherewith
he confined the service of the wearied and half angered
youth, partook much of this last feeling; and, albeit, he
would not suffer him the chance of speech, yet he would
not allow (such was the sage's greediness of attention)
his hearer's eye to wink from the subject on which he
debated, or his diligence of listening, to relax for an instant,—for
whenever he perceived the visage of the half
distracted stripling turn from him with vexation and impatience,
with a sudden and pettish clutch at the boy's
gabardine, he would command his heed to the outpourings
of his inexplicable theories. Happily, however,
for the relief of the distressed Arnyte, at the moment
when the philosopher (from the failure of whose breath,
which was of apparently an unrelenting source, and to
the giving out of which, to his helpless captive, for such
the youth might truly be accounted, there was no hope
of rescue) had pronounced the latter words, which is
above narrated, his further perambulation of speech
was prevented, by the interruption of to him, doubtless, an
who now made himself a party to the scene, by thrusting
himself unceremoniously between Arnyte and his
tormentor, was singular, and in somewise differed from
that of most of the tenants of the prison house: he was
a man of the middle height, of a dark and foreign aspect,
a body shriveled, dried, and withered to the very
bone—and his dusky complexion, in no way lessened
by an unshorn beard of the blackest hue, while from his
person and flesh, every appearance of cleanliness was
absent: round his head, instead of a night cap, was
twisted, in an ungainly fashion, a dirty and soiled handkerchief
of an eastern figure, the brightness of whose
once vivid and flaring colours, was now departed and
lost 'mid stains and filth: he had carelessly wrapped
about him, an old, faded, flowered, damask morning
gown, lined with silk that might have once been green,
but in which now, varied streaks of yellow and blue,
contended with its original die. Through the opening
folds of this, could be discovered a tabbinet waistcoat,
edged with high wrought lace—but the filthy condition
of this garment, equalled that of the other portions of
his dress—the whole of which, to the well worn velvet
slippers, was sprinkled with divers gouts of that delicious
powder of the Indian weed, wherewith each moment,
his fingers fed with plenteous kindness, his huge nostrils
—nathless, not unmindful in smearing therewith his upper
lip, on which, many stray particles lingered at each
replenishment—so that at a short distance, it might have
been supposed he wore a huge, untrimmed mustache: between
his lips he held a merschaum, or smoking tube, of
Belgian manufacture, from the pipe of which, he devoured
with such avidity the essence of the herb it contained,
that even while speaking, he forbore to withdraw
it from his mouth—so that his natural broken accent and
language, was rendered thereby even more unintelligible
and thick and husky.
“Mon sacre dieu, misericorde, for vy you persecuter
dis pauvre garcon vid votre absurdité, Monsieur Isaaq?”
exclaimed the stranger, as he intervened his person between
“ma foi! parbleu! dis enfant no comprend—dat
is, no see de profundite of votre philosophie—dat is,
en verite, Monsieur, as dat is in der promise of le grand
monarque ou le Duc de Bouillon—ah ha! Monsieur,
sometime votre singularite make my recollecshon hav de
memorie dat vas say by un mareschal de France qu'un
sot l'embareassoit quelquefois plus qu'un habile homme—
ah ha!”
“By the light of philosophy, Jean Beartie, this is provoking,”
quoth the sage, with a voice somewhat deformed
with petulance in replication. “Damn my cap, Jean,
but you are the most troublesome, ignorant and officious
fellow, in the ward; here I was particularly engaged with
this young man, who is not like you, but a sensible youth,
and listens patiently to maxims of wisdom—and I am
well willing to render him the assistance of my mature
experience, in the paths of his improvement—for what,
saith the learned Bacon, is the trite adage of the Roman,
but that one cluster of grapes ripeneth best beside another?
and beatius est dare quam recipere,—but why
need I explain to thee, whose mind is of the baser
metal, and who holdest to the poor maxim of the poet
Pindar, that water is the best—yet nathless, it is well
for one like me, that by the like of thee, huguenot, I am
persecuted, teased and pestered: yet I am a meek man,
a suffering patient man, as well becometh that which I
have studied—and I have borne from the vulgar, until it
may be said of me—do you mark my words—tu ne cede
malis sed contra audentior ito.”
“Mesericorde! mesericorde! Monsieur, mon ami,”
returned Jean Beartie, with a significant shrug of the
shoulder, and a potent application of sustenance to the
nostril, “mon dieu! for vy you go off vid de grand
feu—ah ha? non, non, what you call dat in der language
Anglais? ah ha—der grand passion—parbleu!
Monsieur Izaaq, je suis votre ami por I'honneur de Provence,
en verite. I have come to tell you for you self,
non bon pour me—non, non, en verite! dat votre fren
—votre ami—dat hav his chambre vid you—misericorde!
you save vrom votre dejune and mange—dat is, eat him
up pour himself—a ha—en verite.”
“Damn my cap, can it be possible!” cried the ancient
like one thunderstruck, and with an unaccustomed
brevity of speech.
“Cest possible, Monsieur mon ami, cest vrai as dat is
the promise of le grand monarque ou le Duc de Bouillon,”
said the huguenot with the utmost indifference,
cramming his nose with the food for which it was apparently
at all times hungered, and of which, no quantity,
however large, seemed unacceptable.
“Damn the knave, I'll—I'll—no matter, this is the ingratitude
of man—but I must bear it—but to think, I put
my soup, my bread, so nicely away for to-night—death
and destraction! has he devoured it all?” cried the vexed
philosopher, forgetting both his precepts and his stoicism
in his perplexity.
“I vill no be certain of dat—non, non—mon ami—je
voir him at votre souper ven I leave de chambre—une,
non, non—deux littel minute dat is pass, Monsieur—a ha!
en verite!” answered Jean, at all times using a hundred
strange grimaces and convulsive contortions of countenance,
whereby at each breath, he eked out the meaning
he was scarcely capable of expressing, by his limited
knowledge of the language he attempted, to convey his
sentiments.
The enraged philosopher waited to hear no more—
but unmindful of his intended disciple, and even of
gravity in his deportment at departure, he burst away
with an air of vengeance, towards his cell, leaving his
companions, as befitted the extremity of the occasion,
without further word.
“A ha, ma foi! dat man hav de littel love at him
coeur vor himself, as der philosophie, en verite!” said
Jean Beartie, with a sly grin and lift of the shoulders,
as he cast his eyes after the ancient, “mon dieu, him
gesier—him gizzar like him no hav etudie der philosophie—a
ha! en verite—apropos,” continued he, suddenly
turning to Arnyte, and supplying his nostrils almost
at every word—“mon bonne garçon—mon littel garçon
you put here in dis prisone—a ha? you guerriere you take
you pistolet and shoot von man trou de head—a ha—en verite—you
petit brave homme—me see dat vid vone eye,
a ha, en verite,” here he paused a moment, and having
given, during the activity of his fingers, a long and inquisitive
glance at the boy, he resumed, “vat dat is not as
Jean Beartie say—cest non vrai—cest possible, ma foi—a ha
—den you take de largent, de louisd'or, de monies, mon dieu,
vrom the gentilhomme vat hav it in him 'poche—in him
pockets, a ha—en verite—ma foi, je voir—I preceive you
hav de monies—Jean Beartie you fren till him mort as
vone rousty nail—a ha—en verite—pour I'honneur de
Provence, Jean Beartie vill take de bon garde—de—
vat you call him in der Anglais—a ha, en verite—der
attention of you monies, till you get out vrom dis
prisone; you give Jean Beartie some littel recompense,
den he take de bon care of you healt—mon dieu! you
sall sleep—you sall mange—dat is Francois vor eat
him—you sall dancez—you sall chantez, as dat you
was fly wid de littel rouge gorge, vat—vat de diable
you call him in language Anglais—parbleu—to joomp
—a ha—en verite—in der spring chantez, in der
branches vertes—cest vrai, as dat is der promise of le
grand monarque ou le Duc de Bouillon.”
“You are much in error,” quoth Arnyte calmly,
“I, my good sir, am not in the situation, or of the character
you suppose—but indeed, I am an unhappy, an
unfortunate youth; and it is only the idea there
are others more dear to me than myself, who are suffering
worse than it is my lot, that keeps me up against the
power of my evil fortune. I am the son, the only son,
now alas, living, of Jacob Leisler, so late powerful in
this province; but now, a deserted prisoner, pining in
grief, much I fear me, in this dreary, horrible place.”
“Mon dieu! je comprendez vous—mon petit bonne
garcon,” replied Jean Beartie readily, “you com see you
fader, a ha, en verite—Je voir, cest vrai—you fader was
une grand homme, une gentilhomme, une gouveneur. Je
comprendez, on dit him ver riche, a ha—en verite—I
mak you fader agreable commode in dis prison as dat
Provence. Ma foi, I giv you fader vor him sleep my little
couverture—him clean, him nice, him no dirt, him
warm vor him healt, a ha, en verite—den vor dis I no
want non remerciement—no thank en verite—I do dis
vor noting, a ha—parbleau! den somedime—you give me
now one, two, tree louisd'or—vat you call dat, a ha—
en verite—guilder, vor my punition be finis here in
dis prison, in vone—quartre mois—den I go vere I com to
der ville Montreal, and I keep von confectionare, von littel
confectionare, vere de gentilhomme mange der bonbon,
a ha—en verite—cest vrai mon petit garcon, as dat
is der I'honneur de grand monarque ou le Duc de
Bouillon.”
“All that I have power will I extend in return for
your promised kindness, good friend,” said the stripling,
“but an you would fill the measure of your charity even
in the onset, at once conduct me to the dungeon of my
parent; I pray you proceed.”
“Je voir der attachement dat der fil hav vor votre
fader, bon, a ha, en verite,” said the huguenot, thrusting
with many contortions of visage, his hand well plenished
to his nose, “vat Jean Beartie say is vrai, no lie, ma
foi.”
“I prithee, kind sir, dally not with my impatience, but
lead me to my father's presence.”
The Canadian, however, seemed to linger, somewhat
expectant of something more passing between him and
the stripling, ere he listed in his service; but perceiving
the inattention to whatever was the subject of his
thoughts manifested by the anxious youth, and possibly
unwilling from hopes of future benefit, to offend his new
acquaintance, after a disappointed shrug, in which his
head and body nearly met, and a long recourse to a frequent
and accustomed solace, which he generally derived
from an extra supply to his devouring nostrils of the vivacious
powder, on which he seemed as it were alone to
exist, he bade the youth follow him, and proceeded towards
the farthest end of the hall; while the manner with
which the huguenot bore himself as he went, attracted
the attention of him whom he conducted; who gathered
was in higher favour with the keeper and his satellites
than his fellow prisoners; and that he was endued with
some authority over the hapless tenants of the hall—for
at almost every step the caitiff took he exercised the utmost
insolence of petty tyranny upon some haggard
wretch, who was even in appearance deserted by friendship,
influence, and hope; while again, with all the fawning
hypocrisy of the sycophant, he greeted others, perhaps
without regard to crime, but rather means of purchasing
his favour and as they stood with his masters, with
speech fair and kind. Truly this man was one of that
class of criminals who are singled out, chosen for their
apt and genial disposition by the keepers of prisons, to
serve their vilest views, as well as to further their brutal
cruelty. A convict himself, he was so situated as to
worm himself in the confidence of his fellows—to dive
into their views and plans, and then in spite of oath,
word, or conscience, or aught terrible and sacred even
with the worst of men, he would hasten to report all except
such as he concealed more for his own interest, to
the keepers, who encouraged his villany, and rewarded
him therefor with privileges they withheld from any other
in the prison house: and with persecutions severe and
inveterate against such as he disliked, to forward which
his reports were most times aided by fictions of his own
coinage rather than what really chanced, he was like one
of those last ravens who hover at a distance over the
slain, and watch until the ban dog and heath fox have
banquetted their fill, ere attempting to descend and pick
the remnants of flesh and feed upon the nearly bare bones
of the dead—which in this feast become peeled to very
nakedness.
Having approached the last of the range of cells, the
Frenchman pointed it out as that wherein Leisler was
confined. “Dere, mon fren, mon petit Monsieur,” said
he, “allez vous et que dieu vous conduisse, donnez consolation
à pauvre pere—ah misericorde! Je voir votre
visage—it no look like consolation, ma foi! wid der sang,
de rouge blood all over of him. Mon dieu! how com
dat? you combattez, a ha? Je comprend; den I vipe him
he took the end of his morning gown, which was by
far the most filthy looking part of the garment, and before
Arnyte could refuse the intended kindness, he ran it
over that part of the youth's face which was daubed with
stains of gore, the marks of the blow received from the
hand of Mynheer Stoutenbergh; “dere, you no see him
one littel bit pour I'honneur de Provence,” continued the
huguenot, “him blanc as der fluer de lisle of le grand
monarque; ma foi! mon petit garcon allez vous a pauvre
pere. Jean Beartie no can go vid, him must garde de
gentilhomme in der salle. Ven you fader don vid you,
you call Jean Beartie—you comprend? den he com, a
ha! cest vrai; as is de promise le grand monarque ou le
Duc de Bouillon.”
As Arnyte paused before the dungeon of his father, he
scarce recked the words spoken by his conductor, but his
eye busied itself in search for the revered form, in its
darksome recesses, with glances wild, and rapid as those
with which the wood-pigeon regards the movements of the
fowler—There is no passion that debases the more generous
sentiments of the human frame, and brings the finer
feelings of mankind to the very level of brutality, and
gives greater scope for display of the savageness of our
nature, than of that seated hatred which hath its rise
from political enmity, particularly when chance grants
power to extend its venom on such as heretofore hath
soared upwards and baffled (with fortune at their side)
every evil wish: in the conqueror's treatment of Leisler,
that demoniac feeling of ever pursuing revenge was most
apparent by the manner and place of his confinement;
the object was easy to be perceived—it was to bring
down to degradation and contempt in the eye of the world,
him who late had been so loftily placed; as if the forced
companionship of felons and murderers—the imprisonment
in a common Bridewell, were of such power as to
destroy the man, and render him infamous in society;
forgetful that while his actions (which they desired to be
considered as most criminal) were yet in memory, that
they but discovered to the impartial and reflecting the
depth of their own weakness and pitiful malevolence,
contamination; and this seemingly was soon felt by the
authors of this conduct themselves, for the foemen of
Leisler soon grew discontented with this first course of
wreaking their angry feelings, and sought excuses for
it, by stating that it was but in return for the manner they
themselves had been served when in Leisler's hands; and
with their disappointment, their appetite grew ravenous
for sating their long felt evil will, and it was not long ere
they thirsted for blood; and this their victims unfortunate
durance proved but the melancholy note of preparation
to that woeful tragedy that is hereafter related, and which
stains the annals of the province—in conformity with
every part of the usage of their prisoner, the myrmidons
of Leisler's enemies, possibly believing they were doing
a pleasure in their masters' eyes, or at least with their encouragement,
heaped on him every ignominy and insult
their ingenious minds could invent—more dank and dismal
than its fellows was his cell—the most loathsome beings
that prison could produce were lodged with him, and
he was denied such comforts as the vilest felon was allowed—bad
as were the others, the place where Leisler
was confined was as it were the very receptacle of filth
and vermin from the other dens—Arnyte whose heart
had leaped joyously at the announcement of his proximity
to his father, looked for a moment in vain within the
dungeon bounds, and then drew back horror stricken with
that which met his sight, and almost overpowered with the
foul and heavy air he breathed, for an instant he was
unable to proceed—“Great God!” he cried, wringing
his hands and leaning for support to his sinking frame
against the door-way—“is this so indeed—I had no
thought—no idea—no dream of this—too certain my eyes
are mocked—can this be—can this be”—
Among the squalid group of wan, haggard, and emaciated
forms that were huddled in the precincts of the cavern,
the quick and eager vision of the anxious stripling,
marked (while as he looked every pulse trembled with indistinct
and uncertain fears) the figure in particular of one
man—he was seated on the bare hard flooring of the cell,
but seemingly he recked little of outward sufferance—or
—the marks of years were on his brows, and his hair was
dishevelled and matted as by neglect, and then his garments
were ragged—but apparently not with wear or time,
the rather as torn by some wanton hand in fray, for they
hung in numerous and lacerated strips that scarce concealed
the naked body of the wearer—Arnyte gazed, and his
heart throbbed fast, and with tremulous beatings knocked
at his ribs, for there was something in the air, form, and
character of him on whom his sight rested that spoke to his
very soul, and yet he knew not, he doubted much that
one in such piteous plight; that a shape of such hopeless
wretchedness could be him he sought—the man slowly
raised his head—it was indeed the unfortunate Leisler
—but his face was so pallid and care-worn—so different
from the burley visage which he had worn but in the early
evening of the past night, that none scarce but the
searching eye of affection could have recognized those altered
looks—the step of Arnyte as he rushed in the dungeon
faltered, and he could but stagger to his parent's feet
—“Father, dear father,” alone burst from his lips as he
flung his arms about the old man's neck—
“Father, dear father, look upon thy son,” continued
the youth after a moment's pause, “he is here, as he
should be, at thy side—at the side of him who gave him
birth; he hath come to bear with thee the evil tides of
fortune; he hath come, as he ought, to stand by thee
through weal, through wo; father, dear father, look upon
thy child.”
But yet the parent spoke not to his offspring;
deadlier pale had grown his countenance, and his teeth
were fixed and strongly set together; but his eye alarmed,
for it was distended with a look unconscious, wild
and glassy; so still, stirring not and motionless, did he
sit, that one might have supposed him frozen at the instant,
to a powerless and inanimate form, upon the spot.
“Why is this! what have I done, that thus the vials
of wrath should be poured to the very drain, upon my
head?” exclaimed the terror-stricken youth, dashing
himself upon the ground beside his parent, in despair,
know you me not? I am him whom you were wont
to call your joy—your hope—your blessing: you have
told me an hundred times, that the sight of me gave you
new life in age; ah, me, it appeareth to have killed thee,
rather.” He took his father's cold hand and pressed it
to his lips, his brows, and his bosom;—“ah,” sighed he,
“my heart strings are tough, that they crack not, for
much have I endured.”
Leisler's breast heaved slowly—his hands, that had
been clenched as in death, relaxed their stern gripe—
his lips laboured, and a trembling ran through his frame,
shaking it like the limbs of an ague stricken infant, and
he burst out at length into a wild and hysterical laugh,
which his surcharged feelings soon changed, as hey
vented themselves in a passionate flood of tears.
Within the dungeon, during this brief action, the wonted
voice of wo and lamentation, coarse ribaldry, and
hollow hearted merriment, that mocked, like the sound
of music at a funeral feast, the actual suffering of the
place, was stilled—and the harsh and iron hearted men
of outlawry and of crime, stood there in silence, and
looked on the scene in strange amazement; and while
the most hardened and unfeeling gazed with no throb
of heart, but with derisive eye, and lip of sneering
mockery—mayhap for a moment there was some
solitary wretch, unvisited of hope or comfort, to whom
the sight brought back the long lost tenderness of memory,
of shunning friend or parent, from whom unrepented
crime had banished and severed every natural tie, and
brought neglect alone, whether in disease, sickness or
death—for such are often the bitter and miserable fruits
of unthinking profligacy.
“Mien kind—mien zon—mien eyes are broken with
old age; I zee not regt,” quoth Leisler at last, as his
fast, heavy and blinding tear-drops trickled on Arnyte's
bosom, “I'd dort I was alleen in de waareld—but 'tis
niet zo—'tis niet zo—mien kinder is mit me—mien braaf
kinder, dat zeeks hish old vader in hish hartzeer mit der
komfort of hish liefde.”
“Yes, father,” returned the youth, “the growth of
thy flesh, the sapling of thy root, is not such as composed
the herd that trooped around thy holiday fortunes;
he hath joyed in the sunshine that o' late was on thy name;
but darkness, which now sits above our house, hath not
changed thee to him; ah yes, thou art still my parent;
am I not a part of thy very self? am I not a branch of
the very tree that derives its existence from the trunk?
the woodman's knife may lop away from the oak its
limb; the tempest, in its rage, may sweep it from its
hold; but can it then live? ah no, it is withered to death
by the very parting; the way hath been cheerless,
stormy and rugged, but I am here; even with thee, in
thy dreary prison.”
“Mien zeer kind, dis is well—regt well,” said the old
man after an interval, in which he fondly perused the
lineaments of the stripling's countenance, and held his
hand with the strong lock of affection, “de groodt God
rebay dien waard—vor dien szweed vace makes mien
hertz glad in mien zorrow—ja—ja! Arnyte, dou be'est
de sday op mien lieveen, mien goed kind! inderdaad I
have zufferred zince last I zee de, boy—but it is bast—
it is over, now I looks into dine eyesh, I am gelukkig—
I am bleased mit mien lot.” He apparently endeavoured
to lighten his features with a faint smile, as he continued,
“dis blace is niet zo bad—a klien koud and
schrikkelyk—dat's niet to a mensch—still dis is nien
dreatment vor a Nederlandt burgher, mien zon!”
To this last mournful and indignant observation, Arnyte
could give no answer of solace or of soothing, for
the gloomy prospect around, and the mean and spiteful
injustice of Leisler's foes, was too glaring in all its naked
and horrid truth, to admit of palliation, or of future hope;
it was too palpable, that the reins of their passions were
unloosed; that unless some curb or boundary, was soon
placed on their progress of persecution, that it would
be hard to tell what would be the fearful close of their
actions against the object of their venomous feelings, unprotected
and abandoned to their merciless revenge.
The youth clung to his father's shoulders, droopingly
thought of all he had undergone, and of the insults which
he was yet bearing from his enemies, from the usual
timid and lethargic manner, which had been his principal
characteristic, and which had so long made him the passive
tool of deeper and more designing politicians.”
“By myn trouwe!” said he at last, while the sore
anguish awakened in his heart from the mischances he
had so recently sustained, alike with the bitterness of his
attempted humiliation, brought words of anger more rapid
to his lips, and with a force beyond his accustomed hesitating
utterance and lack of thought, he spoke as if the
endurance of adversity had granted power of speech
uncommon to his heavy lip; and such hath been remarked
with wonder in men of slow and laborious character, and
uncultivated minds, that in the depth of their sorrows, or
in moments of need and stress, their tongues, as it were,
have been unloosened, and an eloquence far above them
hath flowed forth, like some lazy rivulet swoln by mountain
rains, bursting to the amazement of those who on its
borders dwell, the barriers at whose sides it had heretofore
slept in veriest gentleness.—“By myn trouwe!”
quoth he,—“by the ashes of my dead mother!” exclaimed
the burgher in the language most familiar from his
infancy, and abandoning the broken utterance of his vain
attempts at by him the less used speech of the conquerors
of the Nieuw Nederlandts;—“by the ashes of
my dead mother,—I swear, were I a rogue for the leash,
worse I had not been used; sooth, the dungeon wherein
Andross cast me when I stood as burgomaster of Albany
against his innovation on the Classes of Amsterdam, was
a stadtholder's palace to this hole;—were I a dog,—a
drove and beaten dog, I would sicken at this hovel and
rot upon a common dunghill, rather than bear its loathsomeness—and
then,—and then—but I'll not fret me, for
it pleases them; it is to make these eyes of mine forget
themselves and send forth tear-drops, that thus I am
treated; and then they'll shout at my childishness—but
I'll not do it—no, no! they shall wring blood first from
my heartstrings—great God! and have they not done it
punished in one hour—Milbourne—my rash,—my bold,
—my brave one, where art thou now! Oh villains!—
murtherous, bloody hounds, the waters of the Amstraccan
will not wash thy stained hands clean from the deed
thou hast foully done—and where sleeps the laggard
lightnings; of old, it hath shot down even at the altar's
base—why not now? But what help—from that—fool!
fool—what can give thee back thy daughter's husband,
thy son!—what then dost complain of—wild, doting,
childish man;—alas! my heart aches bitterly: if but
this doth come of all my fortunes, better,—far better had
I never seen light of life, than thus to be abandoned,
thus left alone, in sorrow and in solitude.” And he sat
down on the floor from which he had started, while he
poured out the hot o'erflowings of his burthened bosom,
and beat his breast, and wrung his hands, in all the agony
of grief. With many long and vain attempts, and anxious
breathings of comfort that his pallid cheek and
watery eye belied, did Arnyte strive to still the perturbed
feelings of his afflicted parent; but fruitless were his
endeavours, until the torrent of his grief had passed
away; and then a stern calm followed which was even
more frightful than the loud railings of the storm that
had disturbed him, and with its violence, shaken every
nerve. As the youth gazed with fearful look upon the
still stern and fixed visage of Leisler, the words of hope
and solace that he had called to his mind died away upon
his trembling lips, even at the utterance.
“Fond boy—fond boy,” muttered Leisler, grasping
with despairing violence the hand of his son, “you know
not what you say; you are young, and dream not what
bad men may do; you speak of change—of better times
to come;”—and he laughed wildly as he spoke—“death
will come first; know I not those whom I deal with?
they have tasted blood—Milbourne's blood. Think ye
they will be content?—no, boy, no! thou knowest not
what they will do; their thirst of hate will not be
quenched, (I deem it so from their nature;) while life
courses in these veins,—while my voice hath strength to
betokens the commencement of their mercies;—where
think you it will end?—why, in the grave, when the sod
of the burial ground is laid upon this head,—when the
wine cup passes round at my funeral, and I am but as a
clod, unenvied by the lowest wretch in life.”
“Death! my sire,—nay thou speakest not of death?”
inquired Arnyte, while a fearful shudder shook his frame;
“you do not deem they have the power—the fell purpose
to dare so vile an act! life rests not with them.—
Great God! you cannot think they will attempt a measure
unheard of, where there hath been no crime. The
law of the land is not a reed, to bend the way they
choose to turn it; if it is, out on it for a mockery—ay,
every thing malice can devise may be dreaded, but they
surely have not the wickedness of that which would bring
on their heads the scathing bolt of heaven's wrath.”
“No matter—boy—no matter—worry not thyself upon
the thought,” returned with affected calmness the devoted
burgher, “it is not worth thy tear—I reck not for the
worst they may do—cheer thee Arnyte, for an the last ill
come, they shall not see us grieve—my enemies shall not
triumph in a groan of mine—no! I'll not flinch from their
tortures—not an atom; an as though a seated and embedded
rock, this frame shall stir not for wind or wave.”
Slow and heavily did the wearisome hours of sorrow
move o'er the inmates of the prison, while sad and comfortless
(for sunken even in spite of the utmost endeavours
at resolution were the hearts of both the father
and his son,) was their dreary converse—they sat with
hands clasped in each other's in fond affection, unriven by
misfortune, and aye glancing on each other's care-worn
countenance with looks that spoke far more than words;
now and then a tear-drop blinded the sight of the boy as
he gazed on the furrowed face of his parent; but the orbs
of the old man were hot, burning, and dry as a fountain
channel in the desert when the Simoon had passed—a
stern and melancholy darkness of mind was on them unbroken
by a glimmer of light.
And now the solitary and desolate prisoner, who shun
for whose liberty his heart yearned, and breathe the rushing
of another atmosphere through the casement pane, and rusted
gratings of his dungeon window, marked as he counted
the close of another day of durance, (which noted on his
calendar, in length as it were a year,) the light of the sky
gorw dull without, and the deep, and dusky glow of the
setting sunbeam tinging with a long streak of crimson hue,
the deep and transparent waves of the Oost vloed that
flowed in front of the stadt-huis slip, and shedding a misty
glory over the solemn woods that lined the opposite shores
of New Yorkshire[8] —whose bold beach looked like ruins,
with stern crags and hoary rocks that rose from out the
brown and reddish tufts of autumnal fern in vast masses,
upon whose bare, bleak summits sudden and awful shadows
dwelt like dark clouds from out the waters, through
which now and then like snow flakes the sea-fowl showered
their white wings, scouring and wheeling in mid air, anon
dipping in the moving waves—slowly the mist grew closer,
and clouds of night, black and swelling, hung on the
utmost verge of the darkening horizon, in the breaks of
which the eye could trace here and there the outlines
and shapes of river craft drawing themselves away in the
distance, seeming with their white sails like birds flitting
before the coming night; while the living sea swept by
the breezy air ran rapidly along like a wild and bounding
steed—awhile and it grew darker, and the clumsy
dutch vessels at the slip's heads, which but a moment before
were distinguishable with their huge black masts,
their bows and stems rising high above the centre of the
deck, and their small cabin windows sunken and inserted
in their structure like the eyes of a sheep's head, mingled
in one formless, shapeless mass, beyond which only here
and there afar out the eye could catch glimpses of the
river through the gathered night; and then started to life
the cabin lights which dotted the wave far around, like
sparkling stars; the bondsman's mind painted them as
happy glow-worms disporting at large—and as the boatmen's
voice of revelry, which continued long after the city
anchored batteaux, he sickened at the joy of others, and
with a heavy heart turned in the charnel gloom of his
darksome dungeon—there no longer he could distinguish
the savage and desperate visages of his associates, for
the darkness of the sepulchre was there; but ever and
anon as he crouched him down upon his hard straw,
breaking the sleep he sought to woo, there brokeon
his ear the horrid imprecation—ferocious oath—and
the hollow rattle of chains and gyves—recalling to the
mind, which would have winged itself away to rest in
deep unconsciousness, the body's bondage, and the dreadful
place that enclosed him—and then too, though many
a callous ruffian dozed quietly as an infant dreaming in
its purity on its mother's bosom, there were some, now
that thought was no longer guiled with the sports or pursuits
to which to drown reflection day had been devoted
—who shivered as the aspen as their evil deeds thronged
on their busy brain, and shuddering superstition played
its dire pranks, and their blood grew ice even at the
horror of their own minds;—for indeed there are some
men so fashioned and textured by nature's hand, so timid
from birth and raising, that it wants not truth in punishments
of after life that monkish legends teach, to visit
on them justice for their crimes—and there are those
who in the broad day wantonly and boldly defy every
right of law—whether of the divinity or of mankind—yet at
the still and solemn hour of midnight, have felt the beaded
drop of fear course on their sullen cheeks, and undergone
all the anguish of awakened remorse—the pricking of an
angered conscience;—and now all was silence in that
prison save the deep and heavy breathing of the sleepers,
and ever and anon the half stifled moan of such whose
sufferings and sorrows dwelt even with him in the visions
of the night and gave him no rest; or the groan of the
burthened heart of one on whose eyes no sleep could
come;—the sight of Leisler and Arnyte, the father
and his child were closed, and they lay folded in each
other's arms upon the cold damp floor—no cover guarded
them from the searching night air—no hand of tenderness
black locks of youth mingled on the iron stanchions that
bound the dungeon floor—there they lay, the boy's arms
clung fondly (like the ivy wreath around the oak's trunk)
about the parent's neck, whose one arm pillowed the
youth's head, while his other drew him closer to his
breast, and the father's lip rested on the clear and snowy
forehead of his son; so bound together in that silent
embrace, they seemed, those two, the one bound as it
were, to the heart of the other—like bright and blooming
spring, upon the bosom of hoary winter; and they
slept—yet amid the soft breathings of the stripling, ever
and anon, there came a sigh, low but painful, showing
that sorrow was at the heart, and mingled with the
sweetness of his sleep; and on the long eyelash there
hung a little tear drop, that, ere the eye had closed, had
moistened it, like a bead of dew lingering at nightfall on
the leaves of the violet; but the old man's rest was
sound, deep and heavy; he appeared unconscious of
all that had befallen him, for the time, as though he had
been stretched upon a couch of downy softness, instead
of that rough floor. Even so, might it be said, that innocence
sleeps, alone rewarding the good when pressed
by misfortunes, and overwhelmed by the raging tempest of
the world, had there not been at hand, a stern contradiction
of the fair theory, a reality that laid in ashes as by the
devouring flames, the sweet fabric built by the busy hand
of virtue, to support its cause; for could the sight have
parted in light the darkness of that dungeon gloom, it
would have marked the placid countenances and unbroken
sleep of many, stained with the blackest crimes man
is capable of perpetrating; and there was one, who
couched almost at the side of that pure hearted pair—
a man of wicked deeds—a ruthless ruffian, with hands
incarnadine—and yet his visage was clear and open as
day itself; honesty, frankness, and nobleness of nature,
seemed settled on his brow, and his dreams, his sleep,
judging from his looks, were as sweet as that of youth
when pillowed on the breast of love. And is it not
truly so? A few, indeed, may suffer amid the great
a viper sucked the heart; but how many more appear
to grow hourly more and more callous, if they be not
born dead to every compunction of conscience, and
flinch from no pang, except such as is drawn forth from
the severing of their outward flesh, or the loss of the
blood that feeds their sluggish veins—and yet they prate;
the churchman preaches, for it is his duty; and the dull
moralist teaches, (though both know the hollowness of
their doctrines, which should be sound and true, but are
not,) the honours that attend an honest life, and the glories
of an unspotted mind; albeit, it is but a sophism;
how many honest men, the practisers of the theory,
sink in the grave, beneath the persecutions of their fellow,
after a most miserable life, the close of which, was
its happiest hour? hath the world, yea, the civilized
world, been known to give a man bread for his honesty?
hath it respected him the more—show when? Hath
he for a trait of virtue, been exalted above his fellow?
The examples, if any, are solitary ones, to which a thousand
of the opposite cast could be set off; nathless, virtue
seemeth but a holiday theme for dying dotards, school
boys, and for the carving of an inscription for a tombstone;
and where is the proof that it is no lie? go to the burial
ground; doth not the relics of the villain, lay as peaceful
as the best? doth the sod that covers him, tremble
and heave under the treading foot? doth not the young
flowret climb from his turf, as lovely as from that of
another? doth not his children enjoy in happiness, the
fruits of his multitudinous wrongs to his fellow? and yet
it is of the grave and its inhabitant, whether all ends
there, or there is aught beyond it, on which every human
maxim against vice and wickedness, is founded;
then if death be but the herald to a state of altered being,
the threshold of another life—the gate of entrance
to a new existence—why should nature shrink with terror
and affright, from its approach? why, as from the
bound of a tiger, should we start from the thought of
separation of animate being from the inert clay? and
yet, who living, can assert the truth? what actual proof
he proclaimed that every silvery spangle of the vast
heaven, was a world, even like that in which we breathe?
and who can look upon the corpse of him who was once
quick like ourselves—in whose eye light shone—on
whose cheek health wantoned—and in whose now palsied
and stiffened limbs, were strength and action, and
can show there is aught preserved, more than remains
of the corrupt and passive matter, already a dwelling
for the worms, loathsome to the sight, even of those who
loved it but late, and for which, darkness, the tomb, and
the damp earth, are alone fit receptacles. Alas! so impenetrable
to us is the mist which parteth life and death,
so little can we judge from the passages of life the true
incentives of human events, of that which vice may dread
and virtue hope, that the mind, wearied with the unsatisfied
thought, at times may fly, perhaps not erroneously,
to the wild idea that we are all creatures of some mighty
puppet show, foredoomed our parts to act, and when that's
o'er, e'en like the worthless images of wood, we drop
down a cold, blank piece of nothingness—no more! * * *
Suddenly, afar off within the building, there arose a hollow,
rumbling sound, which gathered force in its approach,
and rolling towards the outer door of the hall, broke with
its noise upon the dreary stillness of the interior prison;
and then it grew strong and more distinct, and now the
loud clattering of footsteps was plainly heard, and at
once three heavy and abrupt blows upon the iron that
secured the lock of the exterior entrance of the hall,
echoed sharply through the dungeons, startling from their
sleep the drowsy inhabitants of each cell, who scarce
awakened, gazed about them in the dreariness of the place
with vacant and alarmed looks; and then a strong, coarse
voice, which came from near the door, (as with words
of friendly caution to such as might have been engaged in
desperate strife to burst away the bonds that bound their
cramped limbs, or had been labouring with increasing
toil beneath the friendly shadow of the night, to break the
securities of the prison, and give themselves that liberty the
offended laws denied, or such as might from other causes,
pierced with the echo of its cry the farthest nook of
the prison-house—“the rounds, the rounds,”—it called;
“douse ahead, douse ahead,—keep dark, or there'll be
a team upon you.” The warning, like watchfire lit from
cape to headland to tell the approach of an enemy, ran
from lip to lip, and in an instant the ready file—the knife
—the saw, and every implement of assistance which, defying
the keeper's argus eye, had been by their associates
who were without, conveyed to the prisoners, were concealed
beyond search or discovery—and though anxious
and awake, upon their pallets did the cunning convict lay,
there was nought to be seen that could arouse suspicion.
In a few moments the doors were opened, and their vacancy
admitted Mienheer Stoutenbergh and his assistants,
who, in addition to their usual attire, wore pistolets which
bristled in the leather girdles about their waists; these
were accompanied by four of the adelborsten, having
their side-arms alone, and hearing huge torches, with
which the steps of the whole party were lighted, and
which, as they went along, cast a flickering and momentary
glare upon the rude and rugged prison walls, and flashed
with red and dusky hue upon the dark iron gratings
around, whose openings were thronged with the frowning
and ferocious visages of the criminals who herded in the
inner cells, and who, alternately in light and mist, seemed
like chattering and mowing fiends, that in the shadows of
the sepulchre are seen by burial lamps; or, like the souls
of the damned caged for the burning: at each cell the
rounds stopped with harsh and brief words of greeting,
—with curses or opprobrious epithets, not as discoursing
to a human being, a member of civilized society, a
man, but rather, as it were, some beast or obnoxious
slave that was addressed, the party spoke to some of its
inhabitants, while at the same time with hasty yet careful
labour they struck the walls and irons, and ran over with
quick glances every corner and nook of the gloomy den,
even to shooting once or twice, to learn their safety, the
bolts of the dungeon doors. Thus from cell to cell the
party moved along, while as he listened to their coming,
and trembling with terrors for miseries yet unknown, he
almost ceased to breathe, as though the air from which
he drank in life was pregnant with misfortune; at length
the door of his father's dungeon was flung back, and Mynheer
Stoutenbergh and his followers stood at the side of
Leisler, who in the din and clatter that was around, lay
silent, still, and motionless, so deep was the sleep that
was upon his brows.
“What ho! I say! Master Leisler—fico! old un, rouse
thee, thou art as fast as a new padlock,” hoarsely cried,
or rather bawled the jailer, in the ear of the dreaming
burgher, at the same time roughly and unceremoniously
shaking the old man by the shoulders. At the caitiff's violence
the blood of Arnyte boiled in his veins; he could
scarce restrain his rising choler at the sight of the unfeeling
ruffian—prudence alone kept him in silence. “What,
I say, the old dog dozes here as well as ever he did 'mid
his grandeur up yonder in the fort; fico! I say, Dolph,
between us, if I can see thro' a millstone, he'll sleep a
deal sight sounder ere long, if hemp seed can make him
easy: what think you, ha?—there'll be business for Tony
De,” and the wretch grinned horribly as he spoke,
on his associate, “but come, old un, get thee up; the
court waits to try thee man, an withouten thee there'll be
little or no sport.”
Leisler, awakened by the rude salutation, abruptly
raised himself upon his arm, and at first, with a wild, vacant,
and startled gaze, looked about and on the faces that
were peering over him, as unconscious for the moment of
the place where he was, and of the persons by whom he
was addressed and surrounded.
“What seek you of the desolate?” said he, after a
moment's pause, “Sooth! I had thought I had gone
down to the grave, and was beyond the reach of sounds
from human voice, or torture of man's presence.”
“Fico, man! you must have your trial before you die,
so don't be in a hurry,” quoth Mienheer Stoutenbergh in
reply, “and the Court hath sent us for you, for they are
waiting here in the stadthuis, though if it please you, old
and come along, for time wastes while we talk on the matter.”
“By my troth!” said Leisler, starting in astonishment,
“this is most strange! they have chosen a murky hour,
thus at night, when half the city lays in sleep, to drag me
to the presence of their judgment seat, with no friend or
counsel near me; this lithe boy alone at my side to support
my feeble step. Thou must mistake; it cannot be;
there are laws to govern us—what! with no warning for
preparation! no evidence to testify for me, or time to bring
them! What hope have I in meeting accusations as yet
unknown to me? What safety have I in innocence, thus
driven, thus persecuted? but it is not hard to see their
design; although inebriated and drunken with the conquest
they have attained, they dare not face their victim
when the world looks on: in the face of day they refuse
me hearing; but thus, at this dread hour, black as their
secret purposes, am I summoned, and—but no matter;
lead on thy way, Mienheer, I am ready to attend thee.”
As Leisler spoke, he uprose himself from the ground,
but his motion was slow and painful, for his limbs were
cramped and stiffened with the chill air of the night, that,
with the damp, unwholesome vapours of the dungeon,
and the iron hardness of the couch on which he had reposed,
had stricken to his blood—and as he stood up,
there came for a moment, and of a sudden, a dizziness
upon his brain and mist of darkness on his sight, that in
his weakness he had like to have fallen, for the objects
about him seemed to swim along in his eye, like the shore
in appearance to the passing mariner, and all things for
the time looked dim and indistinct.
“Mienheer, you totter and look faint,” said one of the
soldiers, approaching the old man kindly, “you had better
lean upon my arm; I can take guard of the torch, and
also support your faltering steps, for we have not far to
go to where the Court sits.”
“Nay, friend, I thank thee; but I have a son left,”
returned the burgher, recovering himself, “I had not
thought there was so little strength in me—I have grown
old in the last few hours; but it is not to be wondered at, misfortune
up the vital springs of being—and in truth I am not much
used to the fare I have just lived on—tears, tears,—
heartaches, and a dungeon lodging were wont to be strangers
to the name of Leisler: mine ancestors were burghers
of Rotterdam an hundred years, and there stands no
record against them, and yet I—but I'll not sorrow on it;
no crime; they cannot bring a shadow of guilt against me—
most faithful have I served their majesties of England,
and these chains—mayhap a scaffold, are my reward! well,
well, your hand, my boy; my aged frame, borne down
with sorrow, more from the stings of ingrates than mine
own sufferings, lacks prop.”
“Come, master, it is fit you hasten,” said the jailer, in
a surly and impatient tone.
“I pray you pardon my forgetfulness,” replied Leisler,
“Mienheer, I will go on with you.”
The jailer now led the way and preceded Leisler,
whose waning steps were upheld by the supporting arm
of Arnyte, whose presence, either by design on the part
of the jailer, or inattention from the more important circumstances
in the business of the moment, excited neither
surprise nor inquiry; the adelborsten with careful guard,
followed close upon their progress, and two of them bared
their swords and placed themselves nearer the prisoner
as they wended from the prison wards into the body of
the stadthuis; and as they walked along the passages of
the place, the pace of Leisler quickened and grew firmer,
for seemingly a new life sprung in his veins for the time
as he heard and beheld the dark gate of that dismal place
of penance, wherein he had pined, with its strong locks
and massy bars closed behind him, and he was revived by
the free air beating on his brow through casements where
no dungeon impediments broke its wild and wanton course,
and his hopes, and pride, and spirit, rose within him, contending
against the sad realities that encompassed him like
some wild fire entopping an opposing wall; albeit, he felt
like the lion loosed and uncaged, and called to the gladiator's
combat in the arena, scarce wotting, however nobly
he bore himself, he was the doomed sacrifice; a victim
marked for slaughter, unheard, untried.
An Illustrative Idea.—Divers serious enquiries have I made on
the meaning of the words in the text, yet fruitless hath been my
attempts to discover the spirit thereof; nathless, the idea which I
am inclined from many reasons, to give credence unto, is that the
words are the appellatives of some noted highwayman and freebooter
of the olden time; albeit, if so, I have not been enabled to
trace the precise spot where his lurking places were situate; nathless,
there goeth a tradition that the neighbourhood of the ancient
city wall (i. e. the place where Wall-street now is,) was sorely infested,
and of a verity, it hath always, yea, unto this day, been the
resort of many noted plunderers and suspicious characters.—T. P.
SECTION III.
Judge. A heavy sentence, noble Philocles.
And such a one as I could wish myself
Off from this place, some other might deliver;
You must die for it—death is your sentence.
The Heir, a comedy.
THE TRIAL.
The persons who composed the commission of Oyer
and Terminer which had been assembled to try Jacob
Leisler, and to decide his fate on the accusations already
charged against him by his active and inveterate enemies
by direction of Governor Sloughter and his new sworn
council, were convened together in a small dark room of
the Stadthuis, in the gloomy, mean, and ill-lighted precincts
of which there was but little that savoured of the
high and solemn sitting of a court, that periled in that
which it was about deliberating on, the life and honour
of a fellow creature. The judges were seated around a
table, in the centre of which was placed a dim and solitary
lanthorn, through the close, thick, and dingy glass of
which poured out the weak and prison rays that scarce
pierced the dismal shadows of the apartment, rendering
with their feeble gladness of light the cheerlessness of the
place more striking; but where its nearer beams were
thrown with more vividness of power on the countenances
of those who were present, and who in deep and anxious
converse huddled within its influence, it discovered in the
speaking visages of the greater part, neither the cool and
composed calmness of men firm in determination, nor the
collectedness of aspect and demeanour to be expected
from such, of whom was demanded fair and unmoved
judgment, both as to the accuser and the accused. Various
were the tell tale and convulsed movements of the
the hurry of alarm, fever of excited passion and hate
timid anxiety and selfish care for their own preservation
in the course they were called to pursue, that with busy
thoughts shook their distracted minds; for although selected
with caution requisite to the furtherance of their
purposes by those inimical to the deposed ruler of the
province, as persons in whom reliance could be placed in
their absolute devotion to the views of the Bayard faction,
yet so abrupt had been the change of public matters,
that like a vision it could scarce be realized; but
yesterday, the name of him whose fate was in their hands,
to be disposed of now as suited the enmity of his foemen,
was all powerful in the land—and yet within so brief a
space of time as had passed, it had become a stigma and
a reproach to be known his partizan: and then, too, without
previous warning or preparation they had been called
together—they had been suddenly and with haste summoned,
their perturbed feelings having scarce time to
tranquillize, from the late hurried violence and public irritation,
to fulfil the fearful duty, and painful part of which
there was not one, the most ignorant among them, who
dared encourage himself was not already marked out for
their performance; and that however clear of guiltiness,
or even innocent of the shadow of committal of the
crimes coined for his destruction and laid to his charge,
that if the victim of the unhallowed persecution of unceasing
and untiring revenge, was dismissed by their assent
from the power of his enemies, and by their means
was disentangled from his thraldom, untorn and unmangled
by the eager hands of his angered adversaries, their
actions could not have been such as were evidently
expected from them, nor would be pleasant in the sight
of those, who, from whom, if they did not immediately
derive their stations and their consequence, were, in the
least, the master spirits of the day, in whose presence all
favour was gained and in whose smiles were rank
and influence; and then too there were those elder
and wary, to whom experience had taught the instability
of popular opinion, the madness of decision founded on
potent, yet but for the hour, the wavering passions of the
crowd, unfaithful and changeable as the wind that sweeps
with wanton career the crest of the sounding surge—whom
years of endurance of the bitterness of disappointed calculation,
of wrecked hopes, and shattered power, while
like some fragile plank upon the stormy billow they swam
the current of uncertain fortune, gathering wisdom from
their own sufferance, had learnt how little faith could be
placed, however favourable for the time the appearance
of affairs, upon the steadiness of success, or the permanency
of the elevation of any rival faction of the day; nor
could doubts in the minds of such be banished that the
party triumphant now might ere long yield its sway as
quickly as it had conquered, to the one whose fugitive
remnants were every where seeking safety in concealment,
fallen and defeated. There was, therefore, in the
manner of the many, who could the less easy from want
of nerve conceal and cloak into the inmost recesses of
their hearts, the secret disturbance of their thoughts,
which was obvious to their companions, an unguarded
vacillation, a fickle, nervous and hesitating temper, both
in word and action; nevertheless, the cunning hand of
the deepest and darkest policy had framed the Court to
perfect the better its own hidden ends; well had been
foreseen and cared for in its composition the various nature
of its members: they were of mingled elements,
mixed of good and ill, artfully giving the shadow of justice
to the proceedings, which had, in truth, been catered out
to their peculiar tools, by Bayard and his associates—in
relief to the weak and undetermined, were stern and resolute
men, the very sycophants of their superiors, who
thought not, cared not for the future while revelling in the
present sunshine, who, without will of their own, were
ready to obey that command which was given them, and
pursue to the very uttermost the road pointed out to
them by those on whose skirts their fortunes hung; and
although there were among the judges of that court one
or two who were really honest, yet these were of that
weak disposition as to be overawed and borne down by
the active loudness of argument of their companions, although
themselves they were convinced of the rectitude of the
course they were taking; these were of that class of men,
honest, it is true, in intention, but who hush their consciences,
and who, to their own love of ease and comfort,
yield up to the more ardent in disputation the rights or
lives of their fellows; nor, however despicable, is this
species of being rare, the germ exists in this day—it is
from men of this kind that the fallacy is proved of that which
hath been so highly vaunted as the most perfect of human
institutions, the boasted bulwark of civil and social liberty—
the trial by jury; in which, withal its admirers have shown
is alone exhibited how fleeting a reliance, how false the
faith, and how uncertain the right which depend on the
strength of virtue and the changeable and variable resolutions
of mankind; for what can be more faithless than
that which is ever open to the assaults of interest and of
prejudice, and which being made up by numbers hath the
less power to resist united the attacks of open corruption,
or withstand being tampered with by insidious guiles and
temptation. And however dangerous these, they are
neither the only nor the worst influence which is to be
dreaded in the minds of men taken as judges indiscriminately
from the common crowd; there is among others,
(and it is a fearful principle, a blot dark and deep, a vile
deformity of nature, that with its general prevalence, like
a leprosy, spreads to the heart, making it rotten to the
very core,) that involuntary though natural bias of the
mind, which is momently received by imperceptible seeds
in its inmost recesses, from whence conviction itself cannot
uproot its avidious hold. Prejudice is like that fatal
disease, that in our northern clime wastes away our life
like a waning lamp, and maketh fat the grave; its grasp
is death, though the infatuated victim derides its power,
and when nearest the most fearful hour of its strength,
buoys itself up with hope of life, and dreams of health
while palsied with sickness; so prejudice is drank in greedily,
as it were in our very intercourse with the world
and often when most we condemn it, we are more driven,
by its fatal current—for it is the habitual idea which without
torpid until too late to be used, or be in the least efficacious,
that ingrafts itself from common rumour, (and belief
is ever ready to swallow aught monstrous, strange, or
ill of our fellows) and from the information of others upon
the pliant thought, it is the sense of the multitude which
the wisest uses as his own, mistaking it for the sober effects
of his own reason, when it is the air blown bubble
that he hears from a thousand lips—when it is the overpowering
impulse of his mind, heated by popular sway and
opinion, preventing a cool and correct direction of the
understanding; slight though its foundation, a breath, a
feather its cause, still will its purpose be the same, and
its reign hold pace with life itself, mixing with its minutest
circumstance, directing its duties and its actions; and
though on its face a gross absurdity, equally vile, terrible,
and detestable to other prevailing opinions, contrary to
right itself, yet guided by it, blinded to the truth, man
rushes headlong on, doing deeds unhallowed, crimes that
were it not for the applauding voice of the inconsistent
world would make him shudder at himself. To-day it
assumes in its terrific career the garb of religious zeal;
then to-morrow it is pretended principle, and again committing
every violence under the name boldly owned of
party, finding admirers, defenders, and followers for every
step it takes, making the laws themselves subservient to
sinister views, however adverse to common sense, to virtue,
and morality; and yet so fickle are the feelings that
arise from the promptings of prejudice, that that which
at one time is iniquity, at another is honesty itself, and the
same voice that elevates deception, cries it down from the
station to which it had lifted it; for it is the weakness of
nature to long after continual novelty, and deceit and falsehood
being the most admired by imagination, most times
rule our fancy, which ever thirsting for variety is the
more prone to credulity, and for the moment is inflamed
in proportion to the force and operation of the first cause
which it receives; but the animosity of the passion thus
addressed being satiated, it is the more avaricious of fresh
gratification, and is ready to be controlled by any dominion
What safety, then, exists to life or property, when at the
mercy of men liable to be sported with by this predominant
power—equally to be played on like the sands by
the sea breeze—who are more times piloted in their passage
of existence by passion than truth? in sooth it is a
mockery, a solemn masquerade that maketh a derision of
justice—that places in the hands of a dozen men, possibly
all ignorant or obstinate, the dearest privileges, the most
sacred rights, and the most hallowed principles of social
connexion. How feeble the chance of right, (though
sometimes blundered on) even if pure and honest, is to
be derived from the minds of a motley and indiscriminately
chosen jury—set to decide the most intricate subject—
affairs of national and mercantile importance depending
on the uninformed fiat of unlettered and unwashed artizans
and tradesmen, to whom the customs, and the law
which is to direct them, are as inexplicable as the labyrinth
of Crete; and then, too, the dangers that beset
them in their own selfishness—the dread of privation in
some, the uninterested feeling of others, whose whole
thoughts are centered in their own absent affairs, and
are ready to sacrifice any thing—conscience, their own
sense of rectitude, to escape from the subject to which
their attention is demanded; then the weak dependence
on the will of others, the composition of their opinion
to the majority; and last, the obstinate ignorance, unconvinced
by fact or reason, of some dogmatical logician,
whose only cause for adherence to the course he takes,
is the pride of bringing others, by dint of stubbornness,
to side with him in ideas which though preposterous,
having first started, he conceives it incumbent on him
to maintain:—all these render perilous the course of justice,
and are as quicksands, through which it is indeed
fortunate if it escape wreck or injury in its passage;
while to the dullest vision, the hollowness of the whole
solemn parade of law is apparent—and to its enactors
may justly be applied, what the ancient sage said of the
priests of Rome, `that he was surprised, that they who
were so well acquainted with the farce and holy juggles
laughing.'
But albeit, to return to the matter that hath been digressed
from; the tenor of action planned for the court, before
which Leisler was now about to appear, the rather
for form than for the least opportunity of vindication of
conduct, was such as well became the dark intentions of
his enemies and the more befitted the tyrannic tribunal
of an arbitrary and military despot—a Roman prætor of
a conquered province, than one convened in pursuance
of the strict and equitable law of the province; and
bound in its bearing and decision, by long established
and matured authorities, which had been exercised in
similar cases, without regard to private feelings, either for
or against the delinquent. It is true, that owing to the disordered
and convulsed situation of public affairs during
the latter part of the rule of Leisler himself, that cases
of emergency, that had a bearing on the welfare of the
state as it then stood, such as treasonable attempts to
overthrow the then established authority, by a law, or
rather a necessary edict, passed for its own safety by the
partizan council of the day, were taken under a hasty
and immediate cognizance, and the power of deciding for
life or death was assumed against the criminal, as in the
case of Bayard and Nichols, detailed in one of the former
sections of this narration; the height of party spirit,
and unceasing exertion of their opponents, rendering
an undue severity on the part of the Leslerian faction
towards their invidious foes, oftentimes, if not wholly
excusable, at least, greatly to be extenuated. Yet now,
the case was materially changed in its aspect—owing
to the Bayard party being countenanced by the new govenor,
and thereby apparently upheld by the shadow of
the sovereign in its course, together with the fatal and stunning
blow, stricken so suddenly to the very roots of the late
opposing faction, for the present, at least, there could
not be the same causes, for fear that had visited the power
of Leisler, or the smallest murmur of discontent towards
them—so much in awe did all stand, on that which
seemed to bear the royal sanction, even though through
upon the government which they had so strenuously
stood out against, and that it might appear unfavourable
abroad, and their procedures the more warranted, they
already had eagerly set out to investigate, and cry down
as violent, rebellious, and illegal, its every act, declaring
not only the laws passed during the period of their power,
as contrary to polity, adverse to the statutes of the
mother country, but null and void as the acts and deeds
of rebellious traitors—who, for pursuing a path under
them, were deserving of the scaffold; and with an eagerness
only to be accounted for by the rabid and ravenous
hunger, to destroy all that could remind them that
they had ever been held under the sway of a man so detested
by them as Leisler, or fearful that something
might be drawn from them, lessening the charges that
they were making to the world against him, and bring on
themselves an accusation of over hastiness, and perhaps
malice, no sooner could they obtain possession of the
public records of the province, (and in the performance
of their wishes, they were, as may be supposed, assiduously
assisted by the zeal of Dirk Van Rikketie, to whom
great advantage therefor was given, by his incorruptibility
and the station he held,) than with a bold hand
they obliterated from the colonial archives nearly every
thing that related to the transaction of the time, which
did not accord with their own story of the Revolution
which had brought forward the name and influence of
Leisler; and indeed, the minutes of the provincial history
(such was the determined hatred of their destruction of
all documents relating thereto) may in vain be searched
as to aught that truly relates to the time—a vacuum, a
silence, dark as the hearts of his foes alone remains,
which even the after fortune of his partizans, the justice
done his family when he lay rotten in the grave by
the undeceived sovereign, has not been able to fill; indeed
the memory that hath followed the fate of this unfortunate
man hath been an unjust one, and is an example of to
what extent power and prejudice can be carried, in its influence
deforming the fair page of the historian, even for
and mayhap a misguided man, Jacobus Leisler was neither
the bad nor the vile one he hath been painted; in
truth he was one against whom the voice of the world
hath been louder than his career deserved, and the might
of his enemies hath been such as to overshadow all the
good branches, leaving the bared plant of evil to flourish
to after times, making true the sublime sentiment of the
Indian orator, `that it is a truth, and a melancholy truth,
that the good things which men do are often buried in the
ground, while their evil deeds are stripped naked and exposed
to the world;' and yet we are told of the veracity
of this or that chronicler, whose solitary judgment is to
be relied on in the tradition he pens, as bearing the index
of the hearts of those departed to the tomb, and whose
vain conceit lays down the secret sources, the hidden intention,
and the undivulged feelings that prompted the
deed whose effect they alone are able to relate; making
this man, as their fancy chooses, a Nero, and that a Camillus;
sooth, it is all a fiction, hollow and worthless—
can others judge our hearts? where is the man living,
or that can ever exist, who can read that which may outwardly
appear plain? Dare he presume to tell from what
thought, what fancy, or instinctive spring it hath arisen?
If so, he must be endued with more than men from whom
I have drawn my knowledge of the species; yea, far
more than half the bold historian hath chosen to write, is
but a tissue of invented falsehood, baseless and unfounded;
and could the grave be opened, and the harmless
dust that fills them speak as at confessional, there would
be a strange change upon the pages whose substance
hath been so greedily swallowed; the good man would
many times be the bad, and the vile might attain respect,
such as now we dream not on; for so singular is the
course of life, that often that which is excellence, when
it should command admiration, is clouded, like the moon
in a stormy night, in the world's eye, by envious calumny,
unfortunate mischance, suffering, or vile persecution;
but as to the proceedings which were taken against Leisler,
nathless, the somewhat like during his power, the
defence of the mockery, the laws of England during the
preceding reigns, and the arbitrary course of the Star
Chamber; not regarding, (for revenge and hate will
always find arguments to support the most infamous precedents—and
for the most horrible and monstrous crimes
there is no dearth of the last,) that among the very complaints
against the house of Stuart, and among the very
main springs of the revolution, which they pretended so
much to glory in, as from it the present government of
England had arisen, had been the very acts which they
called forth in their justification; for they had by their
cruelty and injustice aroused an oppressed nation to snap
asunder their chains of thraldom. And as to the success
of the Bayard party in their black design of a heavy
sentence on their prisoner, there was apparently no obstacle,
although in the principal judge of the Oyer and Terminer,
(Sir Thomas Robinson, a man though of dull intellect
and but little native brightness of character, yet of
intentional uprightness,) they found one whose feelings
did not assimilate to the savage thirst of persecution they
desired; and indeed he was the means of impeding
slightly the course proceeded against the victim, as will
shortly be seen, by his doubts on the evidence of the
crimes for which Leisler was arraigned; he was a short,
harsh, cold and austere featured man, with dark eyes and
thick brows, deep, black, and frowning countenance, the
forbidding aspect of which was heightened by a contraction
of the muscles at the corner of the mouth, which appeared
always knit and wrinkled, and bespoke a selfish
though determinate character. About him thronged the
gloomy visages of the others, who were joined with him
in his office, their features pallid and gloomy in the shadows
of the lantern; and as the busy hum of their whispering
voices arose as they eagerly strove to attain of
each other their secret sentiments and bent of mind
toward the prisoner, whose presence was momently
expected, the thought easily pictured them as conspirators
assembled in some lonesome cavern, planning
their murderous path of crime. As the rushing of
murmured converse of the court, and a loud and hollow
knock upon the door betokened the expected
coming of the prisoner, a deep and intense stillness pervaded
the apartment; by the sound every tongue was
chained to instant silence;—something like a fearful
expectancy seemed imprinted on the anxious countenances
of the persons present, and for a moment, each appeared
to hold his breath at the vibration; for the while, at the
noise the eager communication that had been passing was
stilled, as though the speaker's words had been chilled
upon the warm lip of utterance. Some there were who
turned pale and felt ill at ease, to look upon their victim's
face, as a momentary remorse smote at the dark resolution
of their hearts; others startled as until then they had
not been aware of the stern certainty of that which they
were doomed to take a part in; but there were those,
who with fierce and steady glance, turned their cold and
unfeeling eyes towards the unclosing door of the apartment,
and set their unmoved and forbidden visages in
that fixed cast that tempered and bespoke the character
of their intentions. Clad in his soiled and prison array,
his spirits that had arisen in the semblance of relief from
sufferance and thraldom, afforded in the passage from the
dungeon to the court—sunken and exhausted almost in
the convincement of a moment, like the sudden flash of a
lamp stricken in a charnel-house, and which dies as soon
as lighted, smothered by dank and poisonous vapours from
the rottenness of the surrounding dead,—Jacob Leisler
advanced before the tribunal of his judges; as he walked,
his pace was apparently slow and waning, the rather from
faintness than age, if the wan lustre of his sunken eye,
and his pallid and fallen cheek were read aright;—and as
though scarce able to support his own frame, he leaned
its trembling weight upon his son; and as he clung,
drooping and careworn, to the stripling's patient arm, he
resembled some tottering ruin of an ancient column, upheld
alone from falling by the protecting tendril, whose
roots found succour at its mouldering base—the parent
and the child—the goodly oak bent by the blasting storm
its own shoot and scion.
It were a tedious, useless and unnecessary course to
pursue, to set forth at length the many passages, the
minute and tiresome proceedings of this mockery of a
trial,—this false examination of the acts of Leisler; sooth,
it will be sufficient to state, that no form that might
strictly be considered legal was wanting; in that the
farce was played unto its uttermost. There was in this
investigation all the treachery of outward right to the
accused, but encountered by judicial subtleties; Leisler
was, with an apparent anxiety for fairness, forewarned of
that which was his service and privilege as an English
subject, only to be silenced when he applied the arguments
pointed out to him, by the court's deeming them
inapplicable when used: nor was there, as may be supposed,
a lack of prepared testimony from the corrupt
lips of suborned or prejudiced witnesses, in whose partial
relation the simplest action and the purest intentions were
turned to manifest guiltiness. For, to some men the
sacred obligation of an oath, no matter how it affects the
life or fortune of a fellow, is but the bending of a straw,
—the passing of breath, leaving no feeling unless that of
exultation at the triumph it achieved, in the vile breast
from which it took its being; albeit, with most the solemn
action of a vow, the bond of truth hath not the slightest
force or control; sooth, he that hath no veracity withouten
these, nothing human or divine can bind: yet such
is nature, that there are but few when their interest is at
stake, or when guided by ill will or revenge, who will not
almost unknown to themselves, or at least without premeditated
guidance, stretch their evidence to leave an
unfavourable impression against the object of those bitter
feelings, arguing even at the time, that they have spoken
uprightly and given that which was the fact, scarce reflecting
that the words of good were weak and evanescent
to the detail of evil; and then, too often man allows
himself to be borne away, like the forest bark on a mountain
current, without either care, power, or will to stay
his impetuous way, by sudden impulse arisen from the
or startling envy, a hatred, to trace whose cause
were vain, have each their predominance, against which
there is no contention: the propensity of spiteful retribution
to retaliate ancient injuries, when the opportunity
offers, is greedily snatched at; and man is wont at such
hours to be ravenous, and lacerate as the lion tears the
lamb, his defenceless prey. The principle too is inherent
in the human formation, and animates at once the
high and the low to pull down all that they conceive soar
above them, either by good fortune or capacity; and
there is nought more than this that will stimulate the
most inveterate falsehood; for by railing at worth and
depreciating it with filthy lies, if not oftentimes its success
is marred, it at least eases of gall, with the idea, the
overflowing hearts of its enemies. Every circumstance,
therefore, that his direst foemen desired, was set
forth in its most vivid colourings against the hapless
prisoner; and if by chance, unmeant, aught in his
favour escaped, it was hastily glossed over until his
case resembled some dark and high wrought portrait
of death—of whose terrors so deep and lasting were the
horrors that struck the eye—that to them the whole attention
was embound and entranced, so that scarce a
glance could be drawn to any redeeming quality or relieving
pleasure that the conynge hand of the artist had
drawn to the groupings on his living canvass.—And it was
easy to determine as this midnight tribunal drew fast to
the closing of the protracted sitting which engaged it,
by the cold and icy looks, and frowning and relentless
visages that peered upon the desolate and fallen, though
once proud and haughty burgomaster of Niew Amsterdam—that
the majority of his judges were impatient to
give the last seal to his miserable fortune, and that if any
latent hope stirred within him (for that deserts but with
life,) it were vain to indulge its faithless whisperings—the
harsh set features around him looked not of mercy or even
compassion: but it was not so with Leisler—well knew
he those whom he dealt with then, and he sought not idly
favours of men who were directed to spurn at him, and to
refuse his beseeching.—The old man sat at the bar firm
and unmoved, scarce showing by smile or word the scorn
he felt for the taunts of his adversaries, which were allowed
by the Court to be showered on him; he attempted no
defence, he sought not to deprecate the wrath that burst
around his head—for he was taught it were useless as
shouting to the embattled elements: apparently a change
had come on the man in the trials he was now subject to,
which in his former life had been wanting—there was
indeed a natural constitutional obstinacy, the heirloom
of his dutch descent, which he possessed and which in
the hour of success in council he had exercised with all
the infatuation of ignorance to his own injury, but this
very defect seemed metamorphosed into a virtue, an undaunted
firmness of bearing like the mighty hemlock the
wings of the tempest unbending—but once, and that was
at the first, when demanded to answer to the truth of the
charges preferred against his life, he spoke as to the cruelty
of urging on a trial against him unwarned, unnoticed,
and unprepared—of hurrying him from his dungeon as it
were to instant condemnation, without even the chance
given to the most infamous criminal for defence, of reflection,
of summoning such whose testimony might be
of service in contradiction of that which was false in the
accusations, and of consultation with his friends who might
advise on points which to him were unknown, or unthought
of—and then Leisler finding these attempts for
time availed not—for with the most plausible and sophistical
words his judges combatted and overwhelmed
all that he had offered—he strove to justify his conduct
in seizing the government of the province, by insisting
that Lord Nottingham's letter entitled him to act in the
quality of Lieutenant Governor, and plead for himself
and adherents (many of whom he understood his own
trial was but the prelude to proceedings against) their zeal
and service for King William—but when he found all he
had advanced was unattended with any impression, and
that those to whom he spoke listened weary and impatient,
he sank in silence resigned and expectant of the
it but waste of word and time to oppose the progress
of concerted action; not so his son—with flushed cheek,
and quick and flashing eye Arnyte heard the garbled tale
of treachery woven to existence from the mouths of men,
many of whom had been the sycophantic spaniels who
had humbly licked the foot-prints of his father but a day
or so gone by, and these without to him apparent cause
for such base ingratitude, were most active and inveterate
as though they desired to suck the blood of their
late patron, eager and contending for the first mouthful,
like wild dogs over the corse on a battle plain; he scarce
wotted that those who fawn the most, or who swear the
loudest of return for received gifts are the most hollow
and faithless, and are soon ready, if themselves are vantaged
thereby, to change the tenor of their sounding oaths,
careless, an it serve their interest, if it destroy him whose
hand had raised them. The youth's heart beat quick, and
his lips trembled as he saw the barefaced slanders received
as reality; his choler rose within him, nor could he control
the indignation that swelled his panting breast, and
like the rabid serpent of the east, leaping from the branch
where it had coiled itself in watch upon its incautious
prey, his quick and angered feelings burst forth at times
driving in their violence the appalled wretch against
whom his speech was directed to fearful silence; the
power of the Judges, the threats of the Court, could
scarce keep bounds upon his irritated temper.
“Great God! do I stand among men who pretend to
civilization?” cried the impetuous stripling, starting at
last astonished from his seat, his feelings inflamed to the
uttermost by an unblushing and unrelenting pursuance in
the Court of its arbitrary and unjust course of proceeding
towards the prisoner, the crisis of whose predetermined
condemnation was now evidently fast approaching: “Great
God! do I stand among men who pretend to civilization?”
exclaimed he with passionate warmth, and with a voice
whose sound kindled in strength to later manhood: “or
is this an assemblage of heathen salvages, the infidels of
the wilderness, wearing the human form, yet lacking its
hart they slay for sport? can it be, that here among christian
men, words and the relation of deeds, to which the
safety of a human being is enchained are played with at
will, and that grave jurists, experienced in mankind and the
laws can drink in palpable falsities, contrary to their own
knowledge,—adverse to reason, with all the thirstiness of
the foul kite sucking the gore of its slain victim? Is there
no power, no justice in the land to whom appeal can
come; but shall the innocent perish by the tainted breath
of such whose very touch is as the leper, making poisonous
and rotten the wholesome air in which they move?
Can this be intended, or is it but some grave pastime
at which ye are amused withal, that on, the which hath
been set out against Jacob Leisler ye mean to proceed to
judgment, an so—these ye have construed are fine customs,
rare edicts, that read so well for the accused yet
act against him.”
“You are presumptuous, young man, thus unwarranted
to invade, with rude license of speech, the deliberation
of this tribunal;” quoth Sir Thomas Robinson, sternly,
“your hastiness, young Sir, tendeth not in advantage to
the accused, to whom lenity is shown that you are not
now taken from his side—albeit, his apparent weakness
of health seeketh thy arms' support:—my froward master,
this Court knoweth what is proper in its procedures
withouten your sage invective or angry strictures—I pray
ye an ye look to the consequence of your words, keep
silence! we seek not to exercise the powers vested in us
to your harm, though ye have braved them more than
once; therefore bide ye still.” After he thus reprehended
the youth, the judge turned to his associates and continued:
“having now, Sirs, the full evidence of this matter
of accusation against Jacob Leisler before you, I call
on you brothers of this Court for your sentiments thereon,
as to the guilt or innocence of this man, and whether
if you agree as to the crime, there hath been enough produced
for us to found the punishment usual to the offence
of treason—death! How say ye, Sirs?”
“I pray ye, my learned masters, to bear with me but a
blanched with terror at the words of the judge, at the same
time struck with the truth conveyed in the rebuke he
had received, and becoming aware instantly that his incautious
and unadvised bearing was truly more calculated
to increase the imminent danger of him for whose safety
his heart yearned than to aid him: “I pray ye to bear with
me, Sirs, and pardon the rashness that hath given vent
thus to my fault, and hear me ere you proceed to pronounce
on the offences that have been charged against Jacob
Leisler—hear me, grave Sirs, I pray ye,” he continued,
“for I am a child, pleading for his parent, and by that holy
tie of kindred, than which on earth there lives none
stronger, an ye have one touch of nature in ye, ye will
listen with patience to that which I urge, and though mayhap
aught presumptuous escape me, be not prejudiced
against him for whom I speak, or offended thereat, but
set it down to the unguarded warmth of my green youth,
sore touched at heart by the miseries of my family; set
it down, I pray ye, Sirs, to the anxiety that moves me
for the life and welfare of him from whose loins I have
sprang—who from the seed to the shoot hath succoured,
tended, and protected me, and to whom, next
to God, I am indebted for being. I do not mean,
neither will I, sirs, speak any thing to injure those
who have taken the pains to make so foul that beloved
friend; neither will I urge on you that he hath
been a good and faithful servant of our lord the king—
though that and even more might I insist on. Neither
will I ask of you the law or the statute that teacheth
what is and what is not treason, for it would be unwise in
one so wanting in years like me, to demand of you, old
and sage as you are, where is the mark, the token upon
the crime which ye have placed up against Jacob Leisler.
In troth, from want of knowledge, briefness of days, experience,
and above all the trembling of this heart, which
like a frightened bird beating in alarm at its wiry prison,
throbs against my side with quick and rapid motion of
fear, I am unmeet at time like this to be my father's advocate;
yet of this great principle, which from the cradle
from the image of your Creator you take away life; for
that of which you rob it you can never make restoration:
remember sirs, I beseech of you, in this trying time, the
wide difference between accusers, prosecutors, and
judges. How misbecoming in the latter character is
that heat of temper, desire and fervour for triumph,
which are so praiseworthy and commendable in the conduct
of the two former situations. It is good, it is honest,
yea most noble, to work hand and heart to discover
iniquity, to drag the truth to light; but when that great
end is accomplished, every passion that warmed inquiry
should be dismissed, and those to whom the judgment
thereupon is given ought to be calm, unstirred and cautious—for
in this the fiat ye are deeply responsible; better
every hair of your heads were twined by the grave
worms, than that your judgment should be biassed—
that ye should sport the blood of a fellow being to satiate
hate, prejudice, or revenge—for to God Almighty have
ye to reckon for its rectitude or obliquity; nor can ye
say when called, like Cain of the olden day, ye are not
your brother's keeper; for like then blood will smoke
from the earth against ye, and ye will be forced to give a
strict account for every drop to whose shedding ye have
been the remotest accessors: for the judge is God's own
steward, and if in the scale of justice he cast a grain of
sand, bitter shall he rue it. If this be not hearkened to,
(but there is a mark on the door of my house like the
plague were within, forbidding all to enter,—but to shun
the death cry of its chambers,) if the doom is set, oh bethink
of what will be said hereafter! let not the curses of
posterity light on your memory; let not men as they
cross your graves spurn the sod that covers your relics,
repeating as a stigma which will descend from generation
to generation, like a disease of the blood, that ye were
injust judges or corrupted men. No! the rather now let
every man of this court lay his hand upon his heart, and
seriously consider that which he is a-going to do with a single
breath, yea, with the breath of his nostrils, the gift of his
maker, he is about to do justice, or (start not, for it is so)
hear me out, I will not trespass long; ye have the choice
—justice on one side, and rank murder on the other, with
all its heightened and aggravated features; for he that,
led by thirst of plunder madly takes the life of the traveller,
is light of crime, to the cool and deliberate judge
that giveth knowingly a wrongful sentence:—the first
doubtless commits a mighty sin, but the last is impious
in his crime, for he applies the ordinance of God to suit
his bloody purpose. Sooth sirs, I pray ye purge your
hearts from all evil passions in this business, and ere ye
utter forth your opinions cleanse your minds of every foul
affection, even as ye would the glassy surface of your
eyes when shaping to the discernment some distant and
doubtful form, from every mote which the wind casts on
the tender vision to impede its subtleness: take heed, I
seek of ye that your intentions be not pretincted by
blight, shade, or colour—beware, I charge on ye that ye
look not with a blood-shotten eye on that which ye are
to make up judgment on; remember that ye are but men,
weak and liable to err, and that he whom ye are to pronounce
on is your fellow, against whom there should be with
you no corruptive of justice—no personal animosity should
with a righteous man weigh a grain in the scale; no
greedy desire of popularity—no thirst of flatteries to the
multitude, should animate the bosom of any one of ye—
banish from the places where you set to decide on life or
death, all principle of selfish fear, that by sparing blood
ye will incense those to whom the accused is odious
—let it not be an ingredient in your sentence that by
mildness to him ye endanger yourselves—fear not that
while Jacob Leisler breathes the life of any one of ye is
not in safety, so that ye hasten his death by so fell a
thought; yea sirs, I do beseech of ye to discharge your
duty before God, so that ye may look on your work with
a clear conscience—for on the effect of this solemn protestation
depends not alone the life, fame, and fortune of
my beloved father who stands before you, but the existence
of one whom you must allow most innocent; I have
another parent to whom the tidings of your sentence brings
these rebel tears that wet my cheeks—of that which I
may suffer myself I will not trouble you. I had a word
more to say, but am choaked with sorrow—I have not
strength further to speak—sirs, I have done, bidding ye
again, ere I close my lips, to wash your hands and your
souls of innocent blood.”
As Arnyte commenced this appeal to the uprightness
of the court, his manner was fearful and timorous, his actions
hurried and agitated, and his utterance faint, low,
and broken, and the gasping and somewhat convulsive
efforts with which he endeavoured to gain composure,
were plainly perceptible, with the husky tones of his
voice and the tremor of his limbs; but as he proceeded
onward his confidence apparently increased—and though
ever and anon between the pauses of his speech his lips
trembled and his outstretched hand shook violently, as
the young branches of a tree disturbed by the autumnal
wind, yet his colour heightened and his eye blazed with
a steadier light, and the sound of his words was full and
strong, and flowed boldly forth, like the mighty current
of some noble stream; and there was a solemn bearing in
his mien, that for the time was felt by the most ironhearted
of the judges; for as he stood with foot advanced
and head thrown back, and every limb and feature swelling
with the feeling that stirred him, he looked like one
inspired beyond his years, a forewarning messenger calling
on men about committing ill, to pause upon their
wickedness:—nor did his courage fail him until he drew
nigh to the close of that which he had spoken, then his
own words disturbed him with the horrid pictures that
followed them abruptly in his sensitive imagination; and
as he continued, his cheek grew paler and paler, and every
muscle was moved, and in spite of his attempts to restrain
them, big and beaded drops coursed each other down his
face, until overcome as it were for the moment, he paused
ere he pursued his discourse, to recruit his waning powers
in one strong effort, which he breathed forth in the last
sentence to which he commended the attention of his father's
judges.
When Arnyte had finished speaking there succeeded
an interval, during which there was scarce perceptible
voice, stir, or motion throughout that apartment—it was
an awful pause of conviction for the minute, mingled with
a breathless anticipation of that which might thereafter
chance. Some, who at the first words of the youth had
drawn up their lips with ireful scorn, and prepared to
listen to that which he should offer with cold and hasty
indifference, but of which little remained long ere they
heard him through, now sat motionless, with eye and
attention rivetted on the youthful suppliant, as though
bound by the magic spell of an enchanter, melted down
from the iron confidence of their intended determination,
—stricken, wavering and irresolute, with minds startled
and amazed to wonderment, devouring, as it were with
greediness, the warm and thrilling memory of the stripling's
deprecation, as though it had been a sweet and
touching sound of mistrelsy and song, that had so wrought
on the tender chords of the heart, that though the melody
itself had departed and died in the distance, it seemed as
if perception yet lingered and reigned upon the spirit;
but this endured not;—the slight affection of the moment
passed away like summer rain drops on a bleak and barren
rock, leaving behind neither warmth nor kindliness:
for, bursting the thrall that for the time enchained the
thoughts of the judges, there uprose the worst enemy
Leisler had in the court, and with a malicious, yet cunning
tongue, he hastened to goad the serpent hate to ire from
the sleep in which it had been lulled; he laboured to recall
to the recollection of those around him, with vivid and
skilful description, yet concealing outwardly every sinister
motive for his sentiments,—all that was condemned,
detested and envied in the accused as the grounds of the
opinion which he gave, at the same time expressing in
indignant terms of resentment his apprehension of the
presumptuous boldness, the “endurance of which,” as he
said, “was a matter of surprise, by a court conscious of its
own dignity, of that insolent and unabashed boy who had
dared dictate to the learned and chosen of the land, and
insult them with suggestions unfavourable to their uprightness
else,” pursued the speaker, “aims his discourse, but that
he hath doubts of the impartiality, firmness and virtue of
this tribunal? yea,” continued he, “this malapert stripling
beseeches neither from us mercy or compassion, but
hath addressed this court as though it were composed of
malefactors, men ready,—ay, even now baring the murtherous
knife to the throat of the passive and inoffensive
victim; forsooth, why passeth he so glaring an insult on
wise and prudent judges, unswayed by aught that can
interfere with their sworn duty, an it be not that he hopes
by this imprudent strain to make us appear venal and
corrupt partisans, using the name and shadow of our
offices to suit our personal enmity?—to this point palpably
he alone hath laboured, thinking since so lightly
he hath touched on the crimes of the accused, that
by stamping the court with sin he covers the prisoner's
guilt; and this disrespect is the less excusable
in the wilful chatterling, seeing that he lacketh not
sense, but hath the ability and knowledge to act a
better part—but nathless, withal Sirs he is young—young,
a mere child, heedless and unthinking mayhap of the full
construction of that which he hath ventured forth—I
pray ye sirs to pardon him therefore, and attribute his
rashness to his immaturity, and want of experience—besides
the boy hath been warmed naturally—for it is his
parent's cause which hath awakened his words—it is not
therefore worth time to dwell upon the matter longer:—but
I will proceed to state that as the proof appears to me, it
is evident the measures pursued by Jacobus Leisler during
the latter part at least of his power, together with
his dissolving the late Convention, and imprisoning divers
reputable persons inhabitants of the province, and
subjects of the kingdom of England are tumultuous, illegal,
and against their majesties' right, and greatly do I
fear that the late heart-rending and appalling tragedy—the
slaughter and fire at Schenectadie by the salvages, are
mainly to be attributed to his unlawful and injudicious
osurpation of all power, for which he hath had no authority
save the promptings of vile and inordinate ambition,
and confiscation of the effects of sundry persons,
and against the unauthorized levying of money on their
majesties' liege subjects in the manner the same hath
been done by this man, and I do not hesitate to say that
his holding the fort against his Excellency Colonel
Sloughter, the governor, is an open and intended act of rebellion
for which alone the severest punishment that can be
inflicted he deserves to suffer: viewing things in this light,
however painful it may be to me as a man situated as I am
—a neighbour for years, an acquaintance of the accused—
yet before God my duty as a citizen and a judge must be
performed, and which I trust to the latest period of my existence
I shall discharge with a pure conscience, and that
my judgment in this affair shall be consonant to the best
of my understanding in all integrity; I must say, that I
do consider that the life of a traitor is but poor atonement
for his offence, which is heinous—being against his
sovereign, his benefactor, and his country; and as this
case stands I solemnly protest I acquit myself honestly
thereby in asserting that on candid and cool deliberation
I declare for the death of the criminal.”
The determination of the generality of mankind hath
its source not from reason or positive conviction of right,
but rather from prepossession, from desire which oftentimes
(as in the case of the judges of Leisler,) is formed
before hearing a just and fair representation of the matter
to be deliberated on—if the wish of the heart be for
acquittal or condemnation, where is the mind of man
(though elevated on the judgment seat, which weak and
presuming creatures of mortality have raised, a mockery
of their Creator, where folly and obduracy, infamy and
corruption are enthroned to pronounce the vain edicts
of social order, as it is called, the technical trickeries
that men term law and justice:) that can resist the predominant
bias—a doubt, a hesitation, it is admitted of the
soundness of such inclination by truth and plausible argument
may be raised for the time, if the intention of the
hearer be honest—yet the hold of this is feeble and soon
banished if the predetermination can be borne out by sentiments
face be hollow as a mask, yet the partial feeling will succour
its unworthiness until it seemeth reality to the ready sight
—indeed the appetite is ravenous, and earnestly and anxiously
searches out support for the inclination which
taketh pains to banish all that interferes with its bent.—
Albeit from such cause fled the late awakened compassion
towards the prisoner from the breast of the Court, and
an eager accordance was rendered by the judges to the
opinion and words last expressed by their comate; one
alone of the tribunal seemed to pause as if scarce satisfied
that the course now strenuously urged, by the others
associated in his power, to be pursued—as if the dire and
fatal judgment which would devolve on him to give unto
the accused as principal of the Court, was adverse to his
sense of right:—in truth the mind of Sir Thomas Robinson
was like one of those cold, sluggish and icy streams
which no wind can stir, nor agitates more than a ruffle of its
waves, which heavily subside in motion almost as soon
as roused—neither vindictive nor compassionate even in
this time of popular excitement, it mattered little to his
private feelings whether clearance or punishment awaited
the accused—laggard in idea, he neither snatched like
his fellows at the arguments proposed against the prisoner
nor sought he out any matter in favour—but like most
men of his formation of intellect at once obstinate and
dispassionate, he had seized on a thought which had
been offered in the course of the examination as a ground
of opinion, and on that he had based himself, and he was
neither therefrom to be moved by aught either fair in
reason or otherwise, for his was a nature that prided itself
in being unbending and unwavering in its integrity.
“Sirs of this court,” quoth he, “with patience I have
listened to that which ye have presented as your different
opinions in this business; and it is a matter wherein I
trust I am in nowise misled by a wrongful judgment, seeing
that in all we agree not; for that I am not able to
side in full with you—I will give you therefor my inducements,
informing first that assuredly the acts as charged
and made out against Jacob Leisler, are of themselves,
—and in the next, as they stand, the sentence which the
most of this court have decided on, is just; all this I
grant. Nathless ye will remember, sirs, the prisoner
hath asseverated in behalf of his own innocence, the which
in my mind I am unable to do away, that in the exercise
of his gubernatorial sway of this province and its dependencies,
he was authorized by a certain letter from the
lords Caermarthen and Halifax, directed to `Francis Nicholson,
Esq., or in his absence to such as for the time
being take care for preserving the peace and administering
the laws in their majesties' province of New-Yorke, in
America;' which letter is dated the twenty-ninth of July,
1689, accompanying that of Lord Nottingham to Nicholson,
dated the next day, empowering him, Nicholson, to
take upon himself the chief command (Colonel Dongan,
our late governor, having sailed for London on his recall,)
and to appoint for his assistance as many of the freeholders
and inhabitants of the province as he should see fit,
requiring also to do every thing appertaining to the office
of Lieutenant Governor, according to the laws and customs
of New-Yorke, until further orders. Now sirs,
though it may be urged that these could not apply to the
prisoner, he having seized on the government by force,
and driven Nicholson, the person first addressed in the
documents alluded to from the country—he, Leisler, albeit
it must be confessed was then the person who for
the time being held the reins of the government, and
this is the letter of the address on the packet; now
this fact may not be a strict inference, the accused being
not regularly or lawfully chosen to the place he then filled;
yet the success of the Protestant cause in some measure
excuses the means of his elevation, and putteth an
equity about his defence; on this head, to avoid and prevent
what may be a rash decision otherwise, I declare
myself in doubt, and ask your minds more freely and full
thereon; for let us not wantonly, or rather ignorantly,
dip our hands in blood; let us not be lost in any licentiousness
of feeling against the prisoner, but seek alone to
administer justice. And therein I promise myself, if enlightened
except my duty in the vindictiveness of the law against
the guilty: but at present to accord with you under my
hesitation, would be like driving a dagger in a healing
wound, the which I cannot think on without trembling.
Sirs, let the judgment we determine be like my Lord
Bacon said of the laws of Henry IV., “not made upon
the spur of particular occasion for the present, but out of
providence for the future.”
Sir Thomas Robinson having thus freely delivered the
feelings that weighed on his mind, a long discussion ensued
among the members of the court relative thereto;
in the course of which the unrelenting adversaries of the
prisoner growing warm and irritable from the hindrance
likely to arise to their views of an early determination of
Leisler's career, in the doubts expressed as to the guilt
of their victim by the principal judge, ardently and obstreporously
exerted themselves, at times almost to anger
when unsuccessful, to convince him of the hollowness
of that which he had advanced, or rather to overwhelm
his hesitation to accede to that which they so earnestly
desired, with a torrent of sophistry and of sounding words;
but like most arguments with persons at once obstinate
and opinionative, this was unfruitful of success; from the
very heat in which the opposition was urged, Sir Thomas
gathered new strength for the ground he assumed, and
the greater the endeavours the less he was convinced.
There are of that kind, who though the stand in disputation
they have chosen be utterly untenable, and adverse
to reason itself, yet out of pure stubbornness of nature,
or from a spirit disliking to be subdued and acknowledge
error, will not yield, even though o'erborne by
numbers and by truth; but will carp and hang on trifles
and inaccuracies picked from the discourses of those with
whom they are contending; like the shipwrecked mariner,
who while in vain he hath strove to seize the sides
of the slippery crag itself to draw him from the deep,
whose hungry and devouring waves are roaring round
him, in the madness of despair in a last effort, snatches
with wild hopes of success at the sea plant, and the moss
for life in things so tender, frail, and feeble, and which
tear and break at a touch.
Of a species allied to the one last described was Sir
Thomas Robinson; nathless in the present position he had
much of sense to bear him out; nor was the harsh and
eager manner with which the others laboured to enforce
their wishes, favourable with him to the attainment:
indeed so far did it lose effect as to make
those ideas which at first were wavering and indefinite,
apparently mere creatures of the moment, thoughts
bound to conscience—like seated rocks that dive with
deep embedded roots in the dark earth, fearless and
unshaken by hurricane or tempest rain—and besides
adverse to the desire of the Bayard faction, there were
those whom the obstinacy and firmness of Sir Thomas
worked on, among such as had already declared in favour
of the course that had been proposed against Leisler's
life—for there are many who will assent to the most preposterous
or monstrous matter started to them, finding it
undisputed, either incited by a carelessness of disposition,
unapt to reflection, or from a timidness of temperament
to be alone a dissenter from what is agreed on by every
body else, who, when there starts out one bold enough
to attack the doctrine, will either waver from or openly
desert the side which they had at the commencement
blindly or unthinkingly enlisted on. The anti Leslerians
soon perceiving that several of their partizans were growing
cold in the cause, and apparently were desirous of
moderate measures towards the accused, while others,
pricked by remorse, were unsettled and wandering from
that which heretofore had been fixed in their resolution,
became fearful lest by some untoward circumstance
their prey might yet escape them; and being induced
by this thought, the leaders having, among themselves,
unperceived by the rest of the Court, interchanged a
brief and sudden counsel, insidiously, and to appearance,
reluctantly, to gain their ends, accorded with the doubts
which Sir Thomas had honestly expressed, and appeared
thoroughly convinced, having changed for the mo
question arising on the point that had been started, which
they were unable to give a fair decision on; and after flattering
the discrimination of Sir Thomas, they prompted
fresh difficulties, until he himself and his party wearied
and unable to decide in any way, of their own accord proposed
what, however, had first been cunningly suggested
by the foes of Leisler, that the part of the prisoner's defence
from which their controversy had taken its source,
should be referred to the governor and council, praying
their opinion whether the letter of the lords Caermarthen
and Halifax, “or any other letters or papers, in the packet
from Whitehall could be understood or interpreted to
be or contain any power or direction to Captain Leisler,
to take the government of the province upon himself, or
that the administration thereupon be holden good in law;”[9]
and it was settled, that in case the reference was answered
in the negative, that Leisler was guilty of the crime of
high treason and should be condemned to expiate that
offence upon the scaffold. In this artifice, the enemies
of the accused obtained their triumph completely, for
they were well aware of their success in the question,
for the bitterest foemen of Leisler were now alone to
speak, and it requires but little foresight to believe that
where malice and inveterate hate were to determine a less
questionable reliance, than on which hung the life of the
accused would be o'erborne; nathless, at the same time
they whispered themselves confidently that their own
actions would tell better, and such as pretended to a delicacy
of conscience, although they well knew the catastrophe
that was to follow, flattered themselves no blame
hereafter could be theirs, that the direful weight of crime,
if any there was, had been heaped on the shoulders of
others, and that they had pursued a prudent and honest
course; for with such selfish principles doth a little and
narrow minded man entrench and satisfy himself on his
own conduct, seeing with his prejudices, and caring for
himself alone—in such a limited light, in that one single
contracted point of view did the judges of Leisler look
his fate, nor bore in mind the vivid and plain circumstances
that were combined with the act, which while they plumed
themselves on their impartiality, rendered them parties
in guilt; for to the most unwilling, there was evident but
one construction of the act with which the Court concluded
this trial, and that could not be otherwise than
unfavourable, setting the participators in the proceedings
down as either ignorant or sycophants; for they had certainly
performed the parts of the sluth hounds, who, after
driving the game in the huntsman's ring, from which there
was no escape, stand by panting with delight while the
knife is drawn across the throat of the deer, eager and
rejoicing in the portion of the spoil which their masters
might award them for their activity and exertion in
their service; and now having in this manner determined
the fate and trial of Leisler, the Court rose to dissolve
its sitting; and it was commanded, that ere the
judges departed from their seats, that the prisoner should
be conducted back to the cell wherein he had heretofore
been confined, but that additional care should be taken in
his guard, and that like one past condemnation, he should
be strongly and heavily ironed, and no one on any account
whatever, except with a special order, should be allowed
admittance or intercourse with him, but that his dungeon
should be cleared of its other miserable inhabitants, that
his durance might be lone and solitary, as that of a man
sentenced to suffer death.
Long ere the court broke up from its arduous and
wearisome task of deliberation, the light of the lantern
by which they were assembled waned and flickered with
heavy and broken beams; while striking through the
gloom and shadow of the apartment, there darted from
the chinks and vents cut in the shape of half moons in
the casement shutters, bright and vivid gleams proclaiming
that day had dawned without. A pleasure came even
in the midst of his wretchedness with the coming morning,
to the seared heart of Leisler, for another night,—a
fearful night to him had passed,—a night of oppression,
ignominy and suffering; and that which he might have
expected had happened, his veriest doubts had been
which should not hereafter be a reproach to his name;
but otherwise with the sorrow-stricken Arnyte;—in his
misery he noted not the flitting hours, and when he
heard the hoarse voice of the jailer bid his father arise
from the place whereon he had sat during the trial, and
follow him to his prison-house, he with an involuntary
motion started forward to accompany him, but was sternly
forbid;—then with a piteous bewailing, like the infant
torn from its mother, he besought, as he clung to his
father's garment, the allowance of the court to proceed
with him to his incarceration, but he was rudely and
harshly denied the favour he so earnestly requested;
and although again and again he appealed to the personal
commiseration of the judges, the more determinately and
angrily was his perseverance repelled, and he was constrained
with a heart, whose heavy throbbings shook his
bosom nigh to bursting, in its fearful agony, though with
an eye parched and tearless, to gaze on the departing step
of his father, as he quitted the fatal apartment wherein
he had been judged so partially, to proceed with slow and
mournful pace to the dark cell, which the foreboding mind
of Arnyte pictured as the last resting place,—the
only habitation wherein he was to reside with life; and
as the hollow and dismal clanking of a massy weight of
chains already prepared to load the limbs of the unfortunate
prisoner, and carried at his side by one of the jailer's
assistants, struck on the anxious hearing of the youth, the
sharp sound pierced to his very brain, like the warning
tollings of a funereal bell; and when he beheld Leisler
cross the threshold of the doorway that led from the
room, his overwhelming grief of soul burst its bounds,
and for the moment he could not restrain the wild
promptings of nature; but in spite of encircling guards,
fierce looks, and threatening words, he rushed after the
parent from whom he had been severed, and snatching
his hand, he pressed it with a long and convulsive motion,
now to his breast, and now to his quivering lip,
until thrust back by ungentle hands and ruder force; and
when thus at last torn from his trembling hold, he met a
away from him cast back, the deep and touching
expression of that speechless glance came over him like
a withering blow from the wild and darting lightning—he
stood as one frozen to the spot, powerless and inanimate,
with vision strained and gazing on a receding object, in
which every faculty was wrought and magnetized, like
the spirit in the first moments of departure, turning
towards the loved ones of earth whom it is leaving, as it
were for evermore; and when his receding form was
nearly lost to the sight, beneath the darksome shadows of
the ponderous architraves under which he and such as
guarded him passed, and as they disappeared in the long,
narrow and gloomy way, they seemed as though swallowed
in the jaws of the tomb, and when he could distinguish
no trace, when even the echo of the distant footsteps
was silent,—then, as one wounded to the death by
the sudden blow of an unseen enemy, as though stricken
by a blight from the air on which he breathed, the stripling
sank powerless for support against the portals of the
door by which he stood, and involuntarily a groan of bitter
anguish escaped his utterance.
The apartment wherein the court had been held for
Leisler's trial was now fast deserted; one by one of
those who loitered retired each to his way; few even as
they passed him in departure cared to notice the situation
of the desolate offspring of the man, the work of whose
fate they had been busied on so late. Some there might
have been who threw on him a look of pity, but that
scarce ever was lasting more than while he interfered
with the vision;—the next object the sight fell upon
engrossed the mind to forgetfulness;—the feeling was
like the minute whisperings of humanity, that go not to
the disturbance of the selfish heart, from whence they
emanate; and yet there were those whose undisguised
rejoicings of triumph over the fall of Jacobus Leisler
were vented without mercy on the youth, regardless of
his sufferings, which were viewed with the same pleasure
by these as a wanton and cruel urchin delights in the
agonies and miserable palpitations of the quivering and
cut and lacerated, and through each parted member of
which is running the last and dying throe: but Arnyte,
buried in anguish, listened not to their cold and sneering
contumelies, and they, disappointed in meeting such passiveness,
where was sought fire for fuel to excuse severer
injuries, moved on, leaving the youth lone and neglected.
—Arnyte heard them not as they left him, for a faintness
was on him, and sense, sight and hearing fast failed, and
suffocating emotions shook his frame, as though he had
been grasped by a giant's hand;—he must have dropped
upon the vaulted floor, but for the assistance of some
kind and piteous stranger, whom he wotted not in his moment
of agony. He was led forth without the stadthuis
walls, scarce weening of a step he took; nor was it until
he drank the fresh and morning breeze from the pure
heavens, undefiled, that the weakness of nature gave
itself forth, and his voiceless struggles were past; for
then broke out agonized sobs from his labouring breast,
and tears quick and fast, in beaded drops, wrung like
blood from his heart strings, coursed down his cheeks in
wo;—he wept aloud, and his surcharged bosom found
relief, like the earth long dried and parched by burning
suns of summer, and waterless from enduring drought,
receiving in its fainting bosom the cooling rain, the gentle
dew and offering of the pitying clouds.
SECTION III.—Proceeded in.
It was a mild and beautiful morning, that spoke not of
the dark winter whose reign had commenced, but shone
like the deceiving colour on the visage of the sick, which
misleads with hope when it should foretell the dank grave
and the funeral hearse. Few traces remained of the rage
of the late tempest, and these seemed like the tears on
the cheek of beauty, smiling even in her sorrow; the
of intelligence, breathing health and vigour to man and
nature's renovation, fanned the broad surface of the living
wave, disporting with the pulses of the moving waters,
lifting and spreading out their swelling bosoms, like a warrior
in his hour of dalliance, playing with amorous hand
in the silken locks of his betrothed; while the gay and
laughing light of the young sunbeam danced joyously o'er
the snow and ice embound hill and dale, making them
blaze as strewn with multitudinous gems, diamond and
rose hued; and its genial warmth penetrated unchecked
among the high walls and peaked and blackened
roofs, and clustering chimneys of the city, from whose
tiled pinnacles the wreaths of the melting and decaying
sleet, that like a shroud had covered them, rose like incense
to the shrine of the day god—earth, sky and water
were as animated by one sensation of happiness and festival.
The hour of the day was already somewhat advanced,
and the narrow streets of the city were fast awakening to
their accustomed bustle, and in quick succession the stirring
burghers poured forth from their habitations, delighting
in the clamour and noise their own eager and busy
movements caused. The smart winkelier was arraying
in the most tempting form his wares to the eye of the
passing saunterer; while the shrill and lively notes of the
thriving matron, with voice at topmost key, were heard
from the sanded entries of each awakened dwelling, startling
the half roused and nodding negro to his labour, and
with its fearful sound frightening for the time his laziness
of nature; here and there at the latticed window might
be descried, fair and lovely as the flowers she tended,
with cheek painted with the tint of health, some bashful
maiden, who with soft white hand was cherishing and supporting
the fallen and drooping tendrils of her favourite
plants, amid the odorous waftings of whose delicious fragrance
she moved, a being of light, and life, and youthful
beauty; indeed at this time of the year, in honour of the
approaching `Nieuw Jaar,' there were but few of the
Dutch mansions of the city of New-Yorke, within whose
can preserve in the coldest seasons in bud, bloom
and perfume. In the casements of the richer class might
be seen leaden vases and urns, with large chased portraitures
of fat and jolly divinities who figured in the heathen
mythology, or the more patriotic representations of the
pride of the Netherland arts and arms, the busts of the
De Witts, De Ruyter, or Von Tromp, with triumphal
wreaths, flags, trumpets, and all the paraphernalia of fame
—these, placed on low and painted stands, were filled
with the rarest and most beautiful artimesias, tulips,
and greenhouse exotics of priceless value, each bulb having
its name painted beneath it in large staring letters of
yellow and gilt. And albeit the domiciles of the poorer
sort lacked not the votive circlet for their halls, the ever-green,
the furred branches of the cedar tree, and the
misletoe. All within the prosperous precincts of Nieuw
Amsterdam appeared moving and aroused to business—
none hugged the hot and sickly comfort of the couch, except
the sluggish idler or heavy drunkard, and in those days
there were not many of that kind of miserable wretches
—for as now, it was not made a boast either for late hours,
high feasting, or deep drinking—and it was a bad excuse,
that weighed but little with his crusty Dutch bos, for his
apprentice to plead sickness from debauchery for late attendance
to his duty. The young men were about hitching
their horses to their bowl shaped sleds, cracking their
whips or hailing each other in tones as loud, clear, and
melodious as the music that was drawn by the nose of
Handel, from the great organ at Harlæm. Outwardly,
none bore the impress of the hand of grief, as each one
busied in his avocation, hurried on, though at times the
visage might have deceived by hollow smiles, when the
soul was in agony, that the keen eye of observance
marked not the shadow of existing sorrow;—all was apparently
thoughtless, light of heart, and happy. Arnyte
stood without the walls of his father's prison, and looked
on,—a lone and solitary being, seeming as one unnoted
unregarded, unperceived, and neglected, as it were, by
friends and foes.
The sun shone down in its golden gleam of splendour,
—the breath of heaven,—the murmur of the wave
spoke not strange music to the ear,—the faces of men
were unchanged,—the world seemed not altered in its
pursuits, and yet the fall of Leisler, a thing of yesterday,
appeared erased from men's minds, as though years had
rolled over it. Nathless, conjectures of his fate were
made in the presence of his child, with cold, calculating
indifference, as it were the death of a worm,—a creature
of neither care, price, or estimation, that was debated:
few mourned the event, still fewer cared to hope
or to speak in terms of favour either of the unfortunate
man, or of his acts;—his very family were condemned
with him; they were regarded as a part of the criminal;
and if an eye of pity glanced for the moment's curiosity
on his solitary and deserted son, it was withdrawn as soon
and abrupt, as fearful of being discovered, albeit if
an ill deed or punishable offence had been committed.
Arnyte, however, deadened in his feelings to exterior
subjects by the anguish of his mental afflictions, still
could not but notice that he was the object of neglect
and scrutiny from others,—neglect from such as
he of right might claim in the day of his distress, attendance
and that relief which in them lay, as the remembered
familiars of the decayed fortune of his house,—as
the moths who fluttered in life about the light of his
prosperity—scrutiny from those whose unseen observance
with jealous eye, snake-like, drank in his every
motion, watchful, lest any incident should arise to change
the current of the fate of his doomed family, from means
or guile wherewith uncertain chance should arm him,
even in his present weakness. The first looked with
strange sight on him, or reckless turned their backs from
the glance of greeting, as the wassailer from the new-covered
grave of his mate, to seek the revel, the appetite
for whose wine and harlotry lives keener in his thoughts
than the fresh-closed coffin of his companion; while
the last, with the heedful caution of suspicion that trembles
at a whisper, like the fragile leaf of the anemone,
noted the minutest circumstance of his action. The
divided flood of despair and the bitterness of misanthrophy;
he felt the cheerlessness of his situation, that
placed him like an all-shunned beggar, (whose unbandaged
sores beget disgust and scorn,) a being of contempt alone;
and the lofty spirit that lived within the stripling's
breast, though borne down with its load of grief, yet
started from its lowliness of sufferance, and eagle-like,
sprang upwards from the pressure of the foot of contumely.—He
gave with moistened vision one last, long,
lingering look at departure on the dreary walls, within
whose prison confines his parent lay in durance; nor
raised he his sight from that object, until his very soul,
as it were, had leaped from the orbs with which he
gazed, as he would have joined through bars and stone,
him whom they unconsciously severed from his embrace.
And as he wended him onwards in his solitary way, ever
and anon, while the place was yet to be descried, he
would involuntarily, by starts, cast back a piteous glance
towards it, as one who is forced from a casket wherein a
precious jewel is bestowed. He wandered onwards without
a goal, careless whithersoe'er he bent his regardless
steps, so as he fled from the presence of ingrateful man;
for his young heart was weary and sick of his unkindness.
He moved with a wild, unmeasured pace through the
busy streets, as one that took no part of the living throng
that crowded them, but as a solitary, phantom-like thing
wrapt within himself, who, while all others hurried to
and fro in their directed race, each busied in some particular
care of the day was lonely and deserted, brooding
o'er deep and silent spells of inward thought, reckless of
the outward group that passed him in his meditation.
Fearful in the moment of his abstraction were the picturings
of his imagination; ingenious in the invention of
torments to his lacerated feelings, and unbroken by
dreams of hope or confidence,—there swam before his
eyes visions of death, cruel and harrowing, of which vain
were endeavours to disperse—the bloody scaffold,—
the gore dripping axe,—the dim, terrible figure of the
headsman, with savage and triumphant frown; and there
fronted him the bodiless head, whose indistinct visage
clayey cheeks, and lips knit in death's agony—his very
flesh trembled at the torturing view; and then arose as
eager of inventive pain, dark and dismal terrors of violence,
of abuse and of poison, that might be committed in
the secrecy of those prison boundaries;—not one of the
thousand ways which could be struck on by the most
desperate murtherer to rid him of a hated foe, but was
painted visibly to the mind of Arnyte; and he shuddered
in very fear at the dread shadows of his alarmed brain.
Thus cherishing and brooding over in secret and silence
his unhappiness, he roamed to the outskirts of the city;
—no tender voice of consolation or assistance,—not one
frank, kind question from the many known in better
days, whom he met ere he attained the Poort, was advanced
at him; and yet it wanted but a whisper of commiseration,
for the heart, sick and tried with grief, in an
instant o'erflows like the eyes of infancy, in whose glassy
brilliance tears and smiles alternate reign, to have unlocked,
as from the sources of a fountain, every channel
of his pent up sorrows—it lacked but the benignant
countenance of pity, and the outstretched arm of protection
to be extended, for the stripling to have grasped at
its support in very helplessness; still as it was, the trials
he had undergone in the past night, he appeared scarce
to be conscious to have suffered; he knew not, or seemed
not to know, as he walked onward, the overpowerings of
fatigue; but his hollow and vacant look, and pallid cheek
bespoke the faintness of his o'er laboured body; however,
he sought no food nor rest, but albeit as lacking
not these, with undetermined course he proceeded beyond
the city pallisades; nathless ere he had gone this
distance, there had been those who had accosted him;
but these were few, and they had approached him with
cold words of comfort, that they decked their lips
withal, but which were far from their hearts. They
were of those who talk of patience, and give counsel to
misery, yet would not stretch their hands to pluck from
the water the drowning man, to whom they had so kindly
lent advice. Arnyte listened impatiently to their guidance;
their busy tones sounded in his ears like the
madness, although that which they taught sank profitless in
his hearing as water in a sieve; for his was not a wo to
be relieved by the timely proverbs or philosophical applications
ever ready in the mouths of such dotard dreamers,
who preach quiet to a wretched soul burdened with adversity,
as they would eat a meal from custom. In truth
the voices of these men and their measured kindness fell
like ice bolts on the soul of the sufferer, searing and
withering instead of healing, for they bared his wounds
to the very quick,—they discovered how wide was his
wretchedness and desolation,—they wrecked at one dark
swoop the youthful enthusiasm of his confiding nature.
The path which Arnyte had unwittingly taken led
direct from the old Water Poort,[10]
or East-river gate, over
the suburb street, called the Green-lane, and passing the
Smee's Vly and Beekman's hill, continued to wind along
from the city, by a low, slimy shore, fringed with the
bare and leafless sprouts of the osier, whose winter blackened
branches were hung with multitudinous icicles that
were rattled by the morning breeze, and glittered in the
light of the gay sun, who, from his gorgeous pavilion of
curtaining clouds, dispensed around upon the frosty earth,
—the feathery thorn, and the proud spire, alike, loveliness
and life. Here and there at the side of the way,
were interspersed amid the wild shrubs and stumps that
vein the soil or grow forth like excrescences of nature,
in salt and marshy land,—the scarred trunks of a stunted
polled willow, while at intervals on some small and cleared
space of ground which bore traces of cultivation, rose
on the sight some hovel, half mud and half logs, with
paneless window and patched roof, the dwelling of a
fisher, (for the Dutch landsmen hugged the higher and
richer country,) whose inmate's occupation was proclaimed
by the huge heaps of frozen oyster-shells about the
door, the threshold of which was thronged by sportive
and breechless urchins, regardless of the weather,
surface of the river, or echoing back the call and hail from
the lusty-throated negro, who plied the paddles of the
passing skiff, that shot in sight like an arrow on the green
waters, on its way to the city, loaded with market truck.
Now freed of the city, Arnyte seemed to have shook
off something that had clogged his pace, and his steps
were redoubled, as though the swifter he left behind him
the residence of humanity, the more that which distracted
him was absorbed; the very air relieved him, as he
thought; and now more and more the congregated hum
of man subsided, the less terrible was the conflict of his
mind in appearance; but it deceived;—for still deep and
lasting was the fire that consumed him; he only stilled
his pangs of heart for the moment, as the Spartan boy
cloaked the stolen fox to tear his entrails forth; nathless,
he hurried on, as though he left behind a den of wolves,
from whose rapacious hunger nought was in safety. He
pursued the road, busied with grief, nor noted the kind
salute of the honest boer, as he drove by in his gay sled,
whose jingling bells rang out their merry peal, until he
was far out of sight; nor gave he return to the `Mynheer,
hoe is het met u dis morgen,'—with which he was
addressed by the light-hearted labourer, who with axe
on shoulder, crossed the road towards the upland fields,
and who, surprised at the inattention of the youth to his
social greeting, stood awhile to gaze after his rapid steps,
deeming strange things, in his wonderment, of the unfortunate
stripling, both from his wild looks, and the disordered
pace wherewith he moved, regardless of obstacle
or hurt.
The road which young Leisler had pursued after following
the irregular windings of the beach of the Oost Vloed,
for a considerable distance through a swampy and unfruitful
country, the very pathway at times encroached on from
the water by creeks, and on the land by morasses, at
length opened on a small stream or rather rivulet, which
was called the fresh water river; and which deriving its
birth from a lagoon of fresh water, known by the name of
the De Kolck,[11]
at flood times with no insignificant strength
River, whose tide rising several feet higher than that of
its sister river the Nordt Vloed, caused a water communication
across the island; for the fresh water pond on its
opposite side was joined to the lordly Hudson by a streamlet
whose natural channel had been widened by a mill
run. The shores of the De Kolck were diversified with
wind mills and neat Dutch mansions; the first strong and
substantially built with stone, having the dates of their
erection in ornamental figures of iron on their fronts in the
same fashion in which they adorned the gable ends of the
houses in the city, while their huge fans extended at their
sides, seemed like the covering shield of some warlike
form;—and the last raised on the very brink of the water,
and many times ran far out in the lagoon itself, which was
dyked around each dwelling after the manner of some of the
great mansions on the canals in the Vaderlandts, the taste
of whose superstructure and situation had struck the architect's
fancy so potently, that as far as nature would allow,
he had copied it in building in the Nieuw Nederlandts;
so that the owner might step in his schouw from the very
door of his dwelling, or look from his bed-chamber window,
wrapped in his morning gown and covered with his
night cap, and as he smoked his merschaum, eye the dipping
of his poultry in the clear waters of the stream, or
watch the sportive counsel of his thriving congregation
of geese and ducklings as they sailed delighted on the
smooth wave, which ran murmuring in echo to their
amorous parlance about the homesteads of the puissant
masters of their destinies.
At this time the De Kolck was frozen over, and its
mirrored surface presented to the sight a glass whereon
there seemed a reflection of the stilly heavens, unbroken
save where from 'neath the gelid sheet that enclosed the
water, there broke forth in a wild torrent of foam, over
some temporary dam or flood gate, the unbridled current
—the dashing spray wantoning and leaping about as rejoicing
at having burst its thraldom, looked in its wild
and headlong flow like the snowy flakes of froth flung
from the fiery nostrils of a gallant war steed, as he
while the hollow and continued sound of the falling cataract,
chafing in angry mood the encroaching ice, like a
proud spirit contending with an invader, was like the distant
and long repeated noise of a conflict of warring armies,
the echo of whose desperate struggles shakes the
burthened earth; and where the sleety covering of the
liquid element was illuminated by the rays of the morning,
its dazzling and unsullied surface of living chrystal glowed
with tints of every hue that far out-vied the fantasies
of art; cerulean and roseate, sapphire and emerald, mocking
the richest gems of the lapidary.—Here and there scattered
on the face of the imprisoned pond, where the ice
was thickest, could be seen the hardy skater, enwrapped
in his warm cloak and balanced by his poised stick, disporting
and marking out curves and fantastic figures on
the polished and frozen visage of the lagoon—now darting
along swift as a winged shaft shotten from a bow—
now circling and cleaving with rapid heel, quick as the
following of sight itself, the congealed bosom of the
streamlet, anon shooting hither, then thitherward as a
thing borne by the wanton sweep of the invigorating
breeze, at a moment's will, taking one course, pursued
by his eager fellows, and again, like the swoop of the
lammer geyer, round an alpine peak to avoid their playful
grasp, eluding the extended hand of his sanguine
companion, he wheels abrupt unto an adverse way, leaving
his baulked pursuer, unwitting of his drift, to take
a wider circuit,—all skimming away in their revelry, like
a flight of swallows, cutting the clouds in the merriment
of their summer lives. There too, within a stone's cast
of the beach, though often some venturesome little varlet,
was perceived making his way far out towards the
centre of the pool, braving, in his gambols, the mournful
and warning voice of the groaning and creaking ice
on which he rambled, and on whose treacherous support
he relied, while at many times, in mere hardihood of
mischief he enlarged the air holes of the stream by
breaking away the surrounding snow, delighting in the
gladsome gurgling forth of the released waters, nor
dreamed in his rash sport of the danger he tempted,
gliding on the breast of the frozen lagoon in mimicry of
the more fortunate skater, with small pieces of wood or
bone fitted to the bottom of their feet, avidious of their
slippery and precarious enjoyment—some, a mingled
band of male and female, black and white, throwing
themselves in various attitudes, grotesque and gamesome,
chased each other in sliding on places, which they, by
repeated and successive trips, had worn smooth as the
finest silk, and on which, it was scarce possible to stand
or walk, without risking a limb to the person who braved
their slipperiness, albeit, well accustomed to so perilous
a labour; some, who with their mates, had deserted the
sides of the slanting, Flattenbarrack, the lofty Golden,
and the noble Potbaker's hills, were engaged in racing
their miniature sledges, that were gayly ornamented
after the style of their originals, which paraded the
streets of New-Yorke to the music of their many tinkling
bells; while these bore the name of some Dutch
hero, skipper, dorp or dogger, fancifully painted and
decorated on them, in accordance to the humour and
whim of the sportive and thoughtless owner, who urged
the course of his ingenious imitation, either astride or
laying on his breast, with legs outstretched, to guide the
route resembling a flying squirrel, except in pace; and
there were others, weary for the time, or the excluded,
albeit, envious of the partakers of the sports from which
they were discarded, that in herds and groups were assembled,
and gazed on the merry career of their competitors.
There was the tender school boy, wrapped
close from the chillness of the raw winter atmosphere
by his careful mother, with ears bandaged and 'kerchief
about his neck, guarding him from sickness, and with hand
warmly encased in his party coloured mittens, whose
clumsy fingers scarce served him to sustain the satchel
that contained the hated task, and which, while he loitered,
remembered him of his Dutch primer, and the surly
frown and uplifted rod of his querulous preceptor, so
apt to disregard the ready tears and faltering excuse.
There too, was the little idler, the young lawless vagabond,
whom the lash, the gentle word, nor scolding,
crownless hat, through the yawning gaps of which,
peeped his stray and blowsed locks, utterly regardless of
his ragged jacket, wantonly lacerated attire and shoeless
foot, he capered, tossed, tumbled and floundered about, like
an eel fresh drawn from its native element; and now, slily
and unseen, sending at his heedless companions, for the
sake of riot, hardened balls of snow, anon whooping and
shouting, shrieking and yelling from triumph, as his favourite
wins in the game hefore him, though many times
for no reason, except for noise and wantonness—his
hands, toes and face, unprotected and uncovered, and
died to the very redness of the ripened cherry, from
the sharp and piercing breeze as it stole along, gathering
chillness, from the pond itself, while the hardy urchin,
apparently delighted in defying its keenness, rather than
flinched from its pinching and hungered bite. In good sooth,
all on the wide spread De Kolck, from the clumsy garbencumbered
Dutch lad, with his three cornered hat, double
broeks, worsted stockings and plated knee buckles,
the merry eyed maiden with close cut coif, to the grinning
and curly pated offspring of the kitchen negroes
who shared the play, was one throng of holiday laughter
and jocund hilarity—the bright and mirthful glee of
youth—of that spring-tide of life, when sorrow is ever
but as the last drops of a summer shower, through which
sunbeams are breaking—when death and wo are heard
of as a fireside tale, that saddens for a moment the
sparkling countenance, but whose terrors are soon forgotten
in the laugh of joy, and that unrepressed vivacity
less experienced of the instability of hope, which sees
nothing but happier days, and gayer garlands in futurity.
Arnyte paused not a moment on the sight of the happy
rout, for the pleasures of others do but tend to mock
the deserted creature of misery—like green fields and
sunny glades, for which he longs in vain as he gazes
through his prison bars, are to the eyes of the desolate
convict—like the voice of the healthful, in the ear of
the sick man, bringing with its sound but a bitter comparison
of the wretchedness of his poisoned lot; even so
with a face jaundiced with an evil, as if when he had cause
to any, doth he that is racked of heart, regard the
wreathed smile of the gay, or the mingled shout and
tread of revelry or merriment—for misfortune makes
those at whom she darts her snakelike fangs, at once
selfish and envious, turning to the bitterest gall all liberal
and inborn virtue—for its victim deems in the madness
of his trials, that on him alone the curse of Ishmael
hath fallen, that all men's hands are against him, and he
feels as if against all men he could gladly turn the besom
of destruction. Hastily, therefore, did young Leisler
pass over the little bridge of logs that crossed the outlet
or rather arm of the De Kolck, and rushed forward on
the path, which, on the farther side of the rivulet, ascended
with a winding course, a somewhat rising tract
of country, overlooking in its tortuous sweep, the
fresh water pond and all its busy crowd, the sound of
whose diversions, uprose to the higher ground as from
the bosom of a valley. Having kept an uneven route
for a short time, and risen insensibly to a considerable
height above the water, which, caught in glimpses through
clumps of hanging fir trees, gloomy rocks, snow and embedded
ice, looked like a silver mirror, the road suddenly
branched off in two separate ways, the one proceeding
and extending in the neighbourhood of the Oost vloed
towards the Nechtant or Coerlar's Hoek, and the other
running far up in the open country, pursued its course
past the landhuisen of the Bayards, the Rombouts, the
Minthornes, and the Stuyvesants, until it reached Bestavers
Killitjie, and the Spijt den duyvel Kill. The
progress of Arnyte had been somewhat in unison
with the disorder of his mind—at times his pace
was slow, hesitating and thoughtful, with brows bent as
perusing the earth on which they were unconsciously fixed,
and so silent and noiseless was his step that he startled
not, until close upon him, the watchful snow-bird that
sat chirping upon the lowermost branches of the naked
trees that skirted the way-side, and who when frightened
skimmed with his dark wing the frozen surface of the
snowy ground as he sought a safer perch; and then anon
the horrors of the gloomy clouds that thronged upon him,
he hurried along with rapid, unmindful, and violent
strides and look disturbed and unsettled as one who flies
from the hot pursuit of an armed and deadly foe. It was
in one of these last described paroxysms of grief that he approached
the division of the road, and before he was well
aware of his presence, he came nigh rushing on a person
who had stationed himself at the very fork of the path;
he had but a chance to check his headlong career within
a pace of the stranger, by whom he was unperceived,
and who thus abruptly thrown on the observance of the
youth was one who from the singularity of his position
and appearance, had the power to draw his attention for
the time, having his eye once fixed upon this object, relieving
his more dismal meditations with surprise and conjecture;
for it scarce needed a repetition of his glance for
young Leisler to recognize with wonderment, in spite
of the unlucky disposition of his garments through rags,
filth and tatters the still burley visage and portly form
of Ensign Jost Stoll, whom the fears of the youth had
of a certainty long since given up as a mournful feast to
the grave worm or the mountain eaglet; and in sooth
reader it was our old acquaintance hearty, but somewhat
worn by suffering, yet safe and graphical as ever, in defiance
of the almost unheard of straits, travail, turmoil,
and danger he had undergone since the narrative left him
in consequence of his own obduracy, at the mercy of
the pirate's steel, in the ruined wigwam—a forlorn and
selfentangled sacrifice for the blood-thirsty buccaneer to
satiate his cruel spleen upon for the escape of his intended
victim; and indeed it had fared severely with the
rash amateur, his life had been spared it was true, but
that was nearly all that he had escaped with, being stript
by the plunderer of every article of value, even to his
bare flesh—at the first burst of rage from the pirate at his
being baffled as to Sloughter, the ensign's existence hung
but on a word, and it was but the change of a whim—the
humour of the moment that prevented the luckless wight's
having his heart rent from its casket, an immolation to
rover being disappointed in the principal object of his
expedition, the capture of Sloughter and the rifling of
the despatches and papers of which the Colonel was the
bearer, and the contents of which as injurious, by authorizing
effective proceedings against his illicit courses,
to the prosperity of the free trade of the buccaneer, by
some secret advices which (an the rumour of the day is
to have credence) came from no mean source, had been
made known to the desperate marauder, he apparently
disdained to wreak his anger or revenge on the mere
secondary personage who was left in his hands;—the first
passion having somewhat subsided in the heat of immediate
pursuit made unsuccessfully after the fugitive captives,
and day fast dawning at the return of those who
had followed the trail, and disliking the incumbrance of
the Ensign in the march, on dispersing his confederates
and Kid's making for his boats which were moored in concealment
and ambush in the nearest inlet to the place
where the scene of the past night had been transacted,
he gave directions to his followers to enlarge the luckless
prisoner, which however was not done until they had
disrobed him completely of every garment to which they
took a fancy, bestowing on him nevertheless in return the
most tattered, worthless, and ragged portions of their own
wardrobes, in spite of every entreaty for moderation made
to their ruthless compassion—and as it were out of mere
malice and wilful fancy, not content with heaping the
most outrageous indignities on the helpless bondsman,
they with most atrocious cruelty beat and pricked him
with their naked cutlasses until his very back ran seams
of welled gore, all the while mocking, with hideous
and brutal laughter, the acuteness of his sufferings;—
and even terrible as were the torments thus inflicted,
the ensign was fortunate that their commander grudged
them time, ere the fierce adventurers could put
in force worse tortures—for there were some among
the band who meditated his murder, for the purpose of
giving, according to their rude and maritime superstition,
charge to his spirit, who, they supposed, would keep
in their unlawful voyages, and buried or concealed about
the rocks and in the earth around this spot of their harbourage;
for such was the wild idea, that while the
riches were in keeping of the dead, no mortal hand, save
their own, could ever touch them; and under this impression,
many are the golden ingots and wedges,—crosses
of diamonds torn from the hand of the trembling devotee,
moidores, ducats, and pieces of eight, the spoil of the
conquered flota and galleons of Spain, and the haughty
Portuguese, which lay rusting to this day, in the sod of
the Manahadoes, unclaimed and unknown—the hands
which deposited them, being colder, and as powerless
as the metals themselves—the stern acquirers having
perished on the wave, or in the blood-stained
breach of some stormed town, leaving none in the secret
of the gain they left from their dangerous toils, their
murders or their battles, save the eternal heavens, whose
cold and silent moon, gilds, with its light at full, the hidden
spot, but whose direction, living eye can read not—
and the melancholy forest, whose mournful whisper
prates not to human ear of the place of their concealment.
And when indeed at last, the unfeeling tormentors
quitted the sinking object of their brutal sport, yielding
not to a weariness of cruelty, but reluctantly, to the frequent
and impatient calls of their fierce leader, who,
having, as is before shown, dispatched Eumet to carry
the eventful tidings of Sloughter's arrival to Leisler,
and his interested protectors of the faction, embarked
on board his light armed shallop, and spread his broad
sails from the shore; they left the abused soldier nearly
fainting, and almost insensible from excruciating pain,
in a wood path, where they had driven or rather dragged
him, from the neighbourhood of their den, cautious lest
he should know the tract that might discover the wigwam.
Overpowered with weakness, his dull ear awoke
to no sound in that which seemed his last mortal agony,
save the sudden and sharp howl of the hungry and voracious
wolf, as he approached from the neighbouring
brake, and caught the scent of an expected banquet;
where he had been cast by the ruthless buccaneer, unable
from weakness, or unwilling from despair, to exert
his remaining powers to a single effort to preserve life,
but for the fortunate approach of a hunter. By the
hardy and compassionate son of the chace, he was assisted
to an adjacent log hut, from whose poor but hospitable
inmates, his wounded limbs and bruised body, received
every tendance and care, their limited resources
could supply; they fed his parched lips with the renovating
balsam of the fever tree, and the juice of the aromatic
anise; they stanched the gory flowings on his lacerated
flesh, with the life-preserving essence of many
a wild Indian herb, unknown to the votaries of science;
the heart-shaped leaves of the deer's tongue, the sassafras
and the star weed, lent their genial powers; and the
rude art of his kind hosts, with needful rest, restored
him far sooner to health, strength and spirits, than could
the false trickeries of the mediciner—so that, having
been set on his way, by his benevolent entertainers, Jost
Stoll had proceeded the distance on the road, when Arnyte
recognised him, to rejoin his late comate and fellow
traveller, the now governor of the colony of New-Yorke.
But however, in the pursuance of this last intention,
the ensign's journey was by no means one of
great expedition—for his route was through the wild
and picturesque land, scarce trodden, and perchance
heretofore unnoted—but on which no eye of painter,
or of the lover of untutored nature, could gaze unmoved,
or pass by without admiration—for as he wended
onwards, now beside the road, there swelled like heavings
of the mountainous billow, high and majestic hills;
less, had been the theme of fame in other lands, but
nameless they stood within the desert and the solitude,
clad in their shroud of winter; the stern gigantic battlements
of nature, along whose icy walls, like armed warriors,
towered skyward mighty and gnarled trees, whose
limbs, brown, bare and without foliage, were stretched
out as defying the tempest to hurl them from their rooted
seats—and now, first on the ear like the hollow rumbling
the enraptured pedestrian, the roar of the precipice of
waters, as like the timorous hart flying from the pursuing
hound, delirious with affright, the bright wave in flashing
masses of foam and flood, leaped wildly from rock to
rock, while each rude cleft that received the bounding
fall glittered with crystal incrustations and fantastic masses
of ice, the snow white spray freezing as it sprung and
scattered on the dark surface of the granite, like jewels
round the neck of an æthiop; and then as he emerged
from these primeval ramparts of crag and highland, there
would come on the view, the deep and silent glade, the
sloping dells, and the dark forest gorges and defiles, all
lovely and fair to see, even with the fleecy covering of
the season—beautiful in their dreariness, like the young
and innocent in death, upon whose blanched lips sets the
fixed and peaceful smile the spirit left at parting;—and
yet withal, the white and ghastly desolation, told not of
the rich and holiday aspect, worn by those wild and solitary
vales, rugged crags, and desert glens, in their hour
of summer glory, few of whose relics remained, and
these hung like withered trophies in the winter's dreariness;
no more the ground glowed in its carpet of deep
green sward, from whose rich sod leaped up the wildling
green and budding woodland flower, fresh in its childhood,
making redolent with its aromatic breath the
odorous breeze with living fragrance; no more the juniper,
the ivy vine, and the rhodendrum, clung to the
fissures and crevices of the rocks, swathing their iron
breasts as with a mantle; the copsewood was no longer
garlanded with dewy foliage, nor did the luxuriant trees
flaunt their spiry heads as wont, like gay banners o'er a
festal rout; the busy winglet of the humming bird was
hushed, and the stock dove's gentle murmurings, filled
not the air with music longer—but all the scene was naked—desolate,
as if a blast had come upon the beauty
and the pride of that fair wilderness, and stricken its
splendours with the pallidness and coldness of the silent
tomb. As the doughty ensign passed through this romantic
country, he found that neither the danger that it
mainly for its sake, had expelled his ancient passion
and habit, but it came on him as with redoubled
force, and frequent were its irresistible promptings and
attacks, that induced him to linger on the dale, and pause
enraptured, on the peak of mount and hill as he soberly
trudged forward, that at leisure, his eager eye might
drink in the boundless prospect, and all the liberal profuseness
of creation, whose blooming and brightest
wealth, thus as it were unknown, unculled, and nearly
unseen by human eye, bespoke how little was the world
made for the vain creature of humanity, who hath the
audacity to claim it as his own—man fond man, a god in
presumption, and yet a mote, an atom, in reality—worthless
as the dust, that is played on by the wind. Oftentimes,
as he went along, the ready hand of our connoiseur,
transferred, with pliant power, the scenes which
enrapt his vision, in a skeleton form, to the surface of a
crumpled and dirty bit of vellum, which, with the tender
and assiduous care a mother strives to shield from harm
and hurt her sickly infant, Jost Stoll had made out to
preserve, amid the severest trials of his late adversities,
and whose motley visage presented a heterogeneous
mass of objects, mingled and confused, from the innumerable
subjects gathered by the avidious amateur, at
nearly every step. In the last instance, sometime before
young Leisler had advanced on his road, the ensign had,
for a better view, elevated himself on the very topmost
bar of a rough hewn fence of pine or cedar logs, which
kinds of wood, splitten on the spot where often they had
been felled and placed transversely, for the most part
formed the rude enclosures of the settler's cultivated
land, which did not, many times, exceed an half acre,
a patch chosen where the soil was richest and most free
from impediments of sterility; the earnest soldier sat
poised snug and secure, as apparently, on his narrow and
uncomfortable seat, with legs crossed, patiently, in support
of the object of his labour, and so avidious of the
satisfaction he mentally enjoyed, as scarce to perceive
the least inconvenience of a minor nature, when compared
slouched on one side, so as at once to give a knowing
and burlesque air to the countenance it enshadowed, being,
nevertheless, of itself, somewhat as rare a curiosity
as its wearer—for it showed, with rueful aspect, the sad
effect of time and long and faithful service, having neither
shape, manner, nor fashion, and being withal a
most woful spectacle of decrepitude, so perforated with
holes and cruel rents, as to resemble a keg riddled with
pistol balls: the plunderers had left him no weapon of
any sort, and his goodly rapier was absent from his sturdy
thigh—a shrunk and tattered mantle, and that which
may be termed an apology for a pair of galligaskins, so
tattered, torn and stained, that it would have puzzled the
shrewdest antiquarian, to have decided on its original
texture and form—finished his complement of garment,
or more properly speaking, his hangings; so strange and
wretched an appearance, did the once gay soldier present
from the robber's hand, that albeit, looking so very an
emblem of distress as he did, had he offered to stroll
the streets of Nieuw Amsterdam at noon day, he would
not alone risked the fretfulness of each snappish hound,
who, fattened at his master's feet, for very spleen, barks
at poverty, sickening at the sight, like the purse proud,
and the upstart—but he certainly would have run a fair
chance of an intimate acquaintance, by means of the friendly
intercession of Mass Garrit Abeel, the little waddling
Dutch overseer of the poor, with the stadt werkhuis, which
was the miniature counterpart of the famous one on the
Westperveld in the Low Countries, and was always kept
by a sufficient person, the office sometimes with others
being adjoined, that is, when there was no beggarly alderman
to hunger for the salary, as a kind of sinecure
to the mayoralty—his honour, the Schout, being also
commissioned coroner and clerk of the market. So entirely
was Jost Stoll engrossed in his occupation, the
matter of which might have been readily surmised
from his posture and glances, which last were now
quickly thrown towards the distant de Kolck and all its
mingled assemblage, and then with intense intention,
seemed to hear nor see, or to be stirred by motion
or sound, within his immediate neighbourhood, while at
times, a smirk of inward gratification would move the
muscles of his face, as he triumphed in the success of
that on which he was employed; and ever and anon, with
strange grimace of peculiar admiration, he would twist
his head in one direction at first, and then in another, as
the sketch at which he so greedily worked, pleased his
steadfast taste and imagination. The ensign saw not the
startled look of the stripling, nor heard his first ejaculation
of surprise.
“How?—what—am I to believe my sight deceives
not?” exclaimed Arnyte after a short silence, wherein
he strove to recover his amazement at the unlooked for
rencounter, “art thou unharmed, safe from the savage
anger of the rover—safe—safe from the bloody knife of
murther—can such things happen? The ways of heaven
are indeed provident and merciful; seeing this, why
should I despair—is there no hope also for me?”
At this address of mixed astonishment and soliloquy,
the Ensign, with a peevish start of body, elevated his
brows, drew up the corners of his mouth in wrinkles, and
twisted in very pettishness the muscles of his visage, giving
at the same time a burlesque cast of ruefulness and dolour
to his whole countenance, like one who hath unawares
swallowed an unpleasant medicinal potion; but, nevertheless,
his face underwent this change of aspect from its
former placidity without his raising in the least his sight
from that which he was tracing (for to that his eyes were
held as enraptured) towards the person who accosted
him, nor did he in any wise alter either posture or attitude,
nor stirred he a limb, save an impatient drumming
of one of his feet against the log on which it rested, so
as to discontinue his genial task; but he the rather appeared
to ply thereat with increased and renewed determination,
and sooth he worked away with all the freshness
of effort wherewith an high spirited and indignant
stripling, having escaped from the restraining hands of
pacifying arbitrators, flies at his taunting adversary who
opponent was withheld from the combat.
“Now by mine halidome! this is provoking—the road
ha? you've eyes—follow your nose; its long enough to
guide you—an't it damnable! detestable! forsooth, I meant,
—my dear fellow!” growled Jost Stoll, busily employed
while speaking, which was with the hasty manner of one
whose pleasure is abruptly and unceremoniously broken
upon by the hated voice of scholastic advice, or as though
an ill natured gnat had wound his buzzing pipe about his
ear and nose, in defiance of his fretful endeavour to drive
away the humming insect, and evidently mistaking Arnyte
for some troublesome passenger on the way, who
had made inquiry at him of the path, “Now by mine
troth! this would perplex a saint—my master, an you'd
use sight, you need not vex your neighbours thus: thy
unwise hurry hath drove me wrong in this outline;” he
went on, “faith, master, time's a beggar, and would
wrong one of a sketch that might honour Frans Mieris
or old Breugel. Hum! ha! Gad, I have it! I have
it!” continued he, suddenly changing his tone to exultation,
“by the hand of Carlo Maratti, that touch hath
given it new spirit—there's life! there's soul! it is nature's
self! Sir Godfrey would die of envy, did he see
this winter landscape o' mine—the putting on of that last
shade is inimitable! it improves the whole aspect from
its former state, making it like the master piece of De
Rhyn when compared to the insipid works of a Crayer,
Schut or Van Balen.” And having thus spoken aloud the
overflowings of his heart with unrestrained delight, the
Ensign pursued his occupation, apparently relapsed into
his former heedlessness of all around, and solely attentive
to that at which both heart and mind were at once enchained
in pleasant slavery; and indeed it was not until
after several repeated attempts, that young Leisler succeeded
in arousing the soldier from his infatuation, and
attracted his dormant curiosity, and then it was not until
he had explained his altered dress and appearance, and
by a relation of circumstances stamped his truth, that
the stripling was recognized as his fellow in the wigwam
at the meeting, reconcile the chance that had so strangely
brought them again together—again and again he told the
tale of his sufferings, feeling as if in the repetition of each
incident he found a satisfaction; and in truth there is an
indescribable pleasure in telling those dangers we have
braved to such as we believe sympathize and rejoice with
us, that nearly repays for all that in the endurance hath
been borne, and this was felt by the honest ensign in the
highest degree, that for awhile he had nearly forgot his
sketch, though that was not long, for scarce had the
paroxysm past of his joy, ere he thrust on the examination
of the youth, and teased him with the explanation of
his labours; but the ensign, selfish as he was in this particular,
could not be blind to the obvious inattention of
his auditor to that which he exhibited, and though at
the first, he was somewhat irritated and offended, yet, on
remarking severely at Arnyte's neglect, as he looked in
the youth's face, he was struck with the settled sorrow
and despair that in his speaking visage was fearfully depicted.
The warm hearted amateur thrust his vellum in
his bosom, pocketed his pencil, and having gazed for a
minute in silence in his face, he questioned the stripling
in a voice soothing and inviting confidence, and with a
manner replete with persuasive kindness on the cause
of his apparent sorrow.
“For God's sake, my young master, what aileth thee?
quoth the ensign;—“thou lookest more like the picture
of a corse, than one whose only tint should be the bloom
of health—why, man, your countenance hath the bloodless,
heart-appalling hue which Rembrandt hath spread
over his painting of Belshazzer's vision of the hand-writing
on the wall—nay, cheer thee, my brave cavalier;
it is a friend that bids thee have comfort; give me thy
hand, youngster, and unbosom thy load of grief; mayhap
Jost Stoll may find a means to lighten that which now
seemeth to burthen thee so heavily.”
It had been a long time since one frank question, thus
dictated by the voice of friendship, had broke with a
consolatory effort on the bereaved and benumbed heart
Jost Stoll warmly grasped his hand, that unlocked, as
from a pent up stream, all the withered feelings of his
soul: but young Leisler saw, or deemed be read sincerity
in his companion's every look, and the thought,
that he had once risked his life for his rescue, though
unavailing, confirmed, as it were, faith in his sympathy;
for it is hard to believe that such as have been with us in
the hour of need and peril, and have shared its stress,
should be cold to us in our solitary woes; and the poor
soldier is struck deepest by denial, when he seeks alms
of a brother warrior.
As he rehearsed the doleful incidents of the ruin of his
family to his companion, the eyes of the stripling overran,
and tears as fast, as free, as rain drops from summer
clouds, fell on his cheeks; and the voice of his story
was tremulous, inarticulate and broken, although he
vainly strove for manly resolution; that firmness with
which he had fronted the court was fled in the presence
of one, before whom he deemed there was no need for
exercise of pride; albeit, the energy wherewith he had
borne himself was but as a cloak around a wounded
body, concealing for a time the terror of the heart, but
which at last is made known, by the bursting forth of
flooding gore.
“Now, by mine halidome!” cried the ensign, scarce
waiting to hear in patience the conclusion of the youth's
recital of misfortune, while as he spoke, his features
beamed with a glad smile of solace and resolution;—
“why, my master, art thou so wrapt,—so lost in the
depths of misery as to see no hope to catch at? art blind,
man, to mourn thus over irretrievable sorrow, when relief
is within a pallet's length of thy grasp;—why, thy case is
but like a gem of antiquity,—a rare painting, that from
age and ill usage, hath all its beauties obscured in darkness
and dirt; sooth, man, it only lacks the cunning hand of
the artist, and careful tendance, to bring forth in freshness
as when first laid on, the tints and colouring; for
you must know, that these in the old masters fly not like
in the works of our unskilful moderns—ay, the ancients
ensamples of Guido and Titian, and that wonderful colourist,
Tintoretto, that seemed as if but painted yesterday,
while there are Du Jardyn's heads that scarce last a
year but the white turns yellow—there's no keeping them;
age improves the old masters, but destroys the daubers
of our day;—but sooth, as the facts are, Mynheer Leisler,
it is well you have met me; for, perchance, you
might have fallen in the hands of some botching pretender,
who would have advised you as vilely as he would
mend a picture—gad! he'd laid on the varnish till the
canvass cracked in rags, and touched and tampered with
the lights and shadows, till all the sweetness of the
original was merged in his own filthy paint and clumsiness.
—Why, thou hast been blind as an ignorant critic,
examining a fine and finished group, who sees all faults
where there is nought but beauty; troth, man, why art
thou not at Sloughter's elbow? does he not owe thee a
life? and think ye he can have the heart to take thy
father's, or to stand calmly by, while the source of the
blood which was risked for his preservation is poured
out like mountain wine, to quench the thirst of any living
being?—no! with all his faults, Hal Sloughter can never
be capable of such ingratitude; he is, it is true, a sad fellow,
but could he do that,—after he hath seen thee, an he
suffers thy father's death,—by my halidome! I'll—I'll—
damn it, I'll paint a picture like Michael Angelo, and put
him among the damned;—come, we'll to his presence.
I've learned the Colonel hath his quarters at Mynheer
Bayard's, for the present, until the fort is fitted for his
reception. I've been seeking the place; they tell me it
is hereabout; so, let us on,—we have no time to spare
to the machinations of your father's enemies—though,
hum—ha,—I should like to finish my sketch; it will
scarce take a minute,—yet a minute may to your father's
fate now he hours.—I'll leave the thing; and if thereby
for ever I lose the opportunity of its perfect finish, it shall
remain like Buanarotti's famous head, drawn on the wall
with charcoal, in the idless of the moment,—a monument,
if not of power, at least of what Jost Stoll hath
Leisler—let us onward to the Bayard mansion.”
Having thus said, the Ensign seized the youth by the
arm and hurried him with rapid steps forward on the
road, and indeed what with the assured manner of his
companion, together with the words of Sloughter when
they separated after the escape from the blood-hounds of
the pursuing pirate, and which now with renewed strength
returned to his remembrance; there sprang forth in the
heretofore desolate breast of the stripling a confidence of
hope that before had not visited him in the darkness of
his miseries, and that claim which he had of a return of
benefit from the Governor grew in his thoughts of more
magnitude than he had ever supposed it—he had been
the saviour of the Colonel's life, thanks—eternal thanks,
had been vowed for the deed, and certainly his excellency
had been committed in honor, and by all that should be
held sacred between man and man;—yet at this last thought
the fearful Arnyte shuddered, for he had seen and learnt
of late how little, how weak, and easy to be rent and
trampled on were those holy bonds, and he well knew
how wide was the difference of granting and of asking a
return of favour and of gratitude; that too often the basis
of the request is forgotten and lost in a calculation of personal
interest, and the policy of that which is besought
stands for itself without a redeeming and collateral circumstance
to prompt a favourable assent—but the enthusiasm
and sanguine wishes of youth conquered all latent doubts,
and Arnyte rejected indignantly every harsh idea that
submitted itself against the good feelings of Governor
Sloughter.
“Yes, kind friend, thou advisest right—thank thee!
thank thee!” exclaimed the stripling rapidly, as mentally
he chided the laggard brain whose promptings had not
sooner presented the course to his imagination, and entering
into the intention of his companion he warmly pressed
the hand that held him in encouragement and support:
“yes, I'll to the presence of Sloughter—he cannot have
the feelings of humanity an he list not my supplication—
my tears shall wring his heart—my lamentations shall
though the accursed Bayard fence him from me with a
wall of iron—yes—yes—dear father, I have yet a chance
to preserve thee remaining—great God! how late the
thought—by one word—one precious thought, dull brain
hadst thou not been as dead, ere this how much misery
—what fruitless length of sorrow had been spared to me
and mine;”—and as with increased speed he urged his
associate on with the quick reflection of the moment, all
the self delusion of his young nature gathered power and
burst forth, accompanied with those hopes which had for a
time laid dormant, checked by the untimely frost of despair
—the blasted tree of life seemed renewed within him, and
once again blossomed bright and exuberant, as it were
nourished by the warm and secret fountain whose well-spring
lay hidden in the recesses of his heart, like a flower
that from the night and storm had but shrunk inward,
and as awakened from a honied sleep it opens its bosom
to the dew, and spreads around the perfumed fragrance
its closed leaves had held as it rejoices in the reviving
embrace of the sunbeam which it smiles to meet;—and yet
nevertheless amid this glimpse of light, a distant cloud at
times appeared at whose darkness when it crossed him a
sensation of rage and terror stole involuntarily through
him as though he gazed on the white crown of the basilisk,
the breath of whose vapour is pregnant with death,
and at the black idea, it took a moment's resolution to
regain his self possession; he had endured the very extremity
of anguish as his evil fortune, he had truly breasted
wretchedness and despair, he had drank of a draught as
bitter as the juice of the chamfered aloe leaf—the fearful
tenor of his fate could not be augmented in sorrow, it had
been but for him to smile at fresh malice from ungenerous
fortune, and he deemed he had been wound to that pitch of
frenzied bravery that the evil fate might heap on him, if it
destroyed, was welcome, and he would meet it withal as
the worn out and starved wretch who clings to the scatterling
of the wreck, as he awaits death greets the gathering of
the travado whose coming wings are to whelm him in destruction—but
this it seemed he scarce could bend his spirit
adopted of seeing Sloughter, he must perforce, in lowly
guise, a suppliant and humble beggar at the knee of
power, cross the threshold of the proud residence of the
inveterate Bayard, the foeman of his house. The idea
made his high heart swell within him, while every limb
trembled with agitation, at the very mention of the man
whose dark complottings had been so fatal to the name
of Leisler; and this, when breathed from the lips of
others, though ever present in his own breast, herded up
with a deep and seated trust for retribution, made his
eye flash, and flushed his cheek to fever; in truth, strong
was his reluctance to place a foot towards the dwelling,
that owned as master the deadliest enemy of his father's
life, even to seek its preservation. It was hard to see
the triumphant splendours of him whose untiring hate
had brought his unfortunate parent to the degradation,
and the chains he now bore and suffered, and to whose
never to be sated malice, most possibly, his blood was to
be shed as an oblation. Indeed Arnyte could not at
times, in this train of thought, disguise from himself that
it were not unlikely that should chance usher him in
the presence of that man, that, did not fortune prevail
as wont in Bayard's favour, and his arm was not unwithered,
though he fell for the deed, that the years of Bayard
would not save him from his fury; and it was
with difficulty, and the remembrance of the consequence
that might ensue to his father from so wild an
attempt, that he could quell his rebel feelings, which at
some moments wanted but the sight of his enemy to
have arisen to very madness. The need—the safety of
his father, prevailed—and he determined at length to
forbear all, and creep, for his sake, were it demanded,
to the dust that Bayard shook from his feet, so it led to
Sloughter's presence—so it assisted in preserving from
the axe, the venerated head of Jacobus Leisler.
A few minutes brisk walking, brought the ensign and
Arnyte to a noble and lordly avenue, on each side of
which rose a row of the lofty acacias, and here and
there in the line towered a mighty poplar, which, straight,
vessel. Having entered the avenue, and followed the
course it led for a considerable distance, the country rising
higher from the river, whose sight they had sometime
left behind, as they went along, passing small forests of
huge pine trees and hemlocks, through which the path
was carefully cut, and ever and anon, some wide field,
which bore the trace of clearance and culture, and
which in the summer, perhaps, glowed with rich burdens
of rye or wheat, they came at length to a neat
gateway, that opening on a large space of ground, in
which here and there was scattered an ancient sycamore,
that fronted the homestead of Nicholas Bayard—a
large, and somewhat imposing mansion, in which the
Dutch and English architecture and material was not
unadvantageously blended. The building was one of that
class of mansions, introduced early after the conquest of
the English on the island of Manahadoes, as the country
residences of the wealthy. Here and there, still remains
in the vicinity of the city, a solitary remnant of these
dwellings, with its wide porticoes, and massy balustrades
and huge halls, though their stable and century enduring
foundations are fast rooting up, to make way for the
more flimsy, yet fashionable villas of the upstart and
fantastic crowd, who disdain the homes of the gentry of
the olden day, which look as men who have outlived
their time—whose comates are withering in the grave,
while they endure, lonely and neglected, and worn with
age, and move among the throng of the young and the
gay, that have, as in an hour, sprung up around them,
filling the places of departed friends, with cold and
scornful looks, like melancholy spectres of departed time.
A soldier of the adelborst, with arms folded, supporting
his musquetoon, paced slowly backwards and forwards
in front of the house, announcing by his guard of honour,
that the mansion was the temporary residence of the governor
and commander in chief of the province of New-Yorke.
As the ensign and Arnyte approached the
dwelling, the soldier halted in his march, and fronted
their advance—and having drawn his pipe from his
wiling away the hour of duty, he for a moment stared
at them as they neared his post, with a suspicious survey,
ere, in a stern voice, he demanded their business,
and whom they wanted. To his questions, Jost Stoll
eagerly, and somewhat authoritatively, answered, that he
wished to see his excellency the governor—at the hearing
of which, instead of making way for him to pass, as
the ensign expected, the soldier, with an insulting and
insolent air and expression, laughing in mockery at his
ragged attire, bade him keep off and depart with his companion—stating
that colonel Sloughter was not free to be
seen by such vagabonds—and threatened, if they did
not instantly retire, that he should fire his gun upon
them—which, with bold audacity, he levelled, to put
such purpose in execution. It was in vain they endeavoured
to argue and prevail on the determination of the
man—he was still obdurate—he laughed at their anger,
and scorned their promises and persuasions, and, but for
the lucky and unexpected interference of an auxiliary, they
would have been forced to commit violence, to have passed
the fellow, or have given over as fruitless the attempt.
The person who came to their assistance, was a brisk
looking little old woman, who advanced from the door of
the mansion, apparently attracted by the noise and
voices of the contending parties. The clamorous outrage
of the soldier was in an instant stilled at the presence
of this personage, as before a superior, while his
opponents ceased their struggles in the curiosity of the
moment, somewhat stricken with the singularity of the
figure that was ushered before them—whose undulatory
and multitudinous form, in breadth, size and shape, might
have been compared with some truth to a Dutch fishing
dogger—for though wanting in height, the dame lacked
nothing in breadth, being as squab as a barrel—and to
her vast expansion of body, her dress made a considerable
addition—for her hips protruded plainly from the
compass of her voluminous attire, their swelling shape
increased by monstrous quiltings and gatherings of dress,
which were puckered up in numerous folds at her side,
ribands and pointed lace, covered her head—her ears
were decorated with old fashioned golden ear-rings,
which depended down to her broad shoulders, and round
her neck she had a double string of beads, of yellow
amber, each one as large as a ripe cherry; about her
waist and shoulders, though low in the neck, she had a
kind of jacket of black velvet, worked with many coloured
silks, in flowers, and decorated with rows of multitudinous
little silver buttons, fastening in front with a huge
stomacher, and lacings above it, with bars and crossings of
gilt fillagree, and edgings of Flemish lace; her gown, or
rather petticoat, was of a stout woollen stuff, coloured
with alternate lines of red and blue, and short enough to
exhibit to advantage her warm knit, yarn stockings,
with their enormous yellow clocks; and her substantial
feet were comfortably encased in a strong pair of shoes
of lackered leather, with polished buckles. Every thing
about the dame's attire and appearance, was neat, tidy
and notable, and well comported with the dignity of her
station as housekeeper to colonel Nicholas Bayard;
and indeed of the authority derived from such situation,
she was not a little proud, nor was she one who was
accustomed to leniency in the exercise of such sway as
she attained therefrom. No—in sober truth, frau
Hyletje was one of that sort who wait not with deference
to the opinion of others, to set a true value on
themselves; and the good dame, though a short woman,
in earnest, was accustomed to hold her head mighty
high; nathless, vulgar sneers,—but these she set down as
from the source they came, the jealousy of the canaille,
or `konolye,' as she termed them, with ineffable scorn.
“Why, mensch Peterkin,” said the dame to the soldier,
“what in the name of wonder, is this clatter? who
and what are these, mensch Peterkin?” pursued the
frauw directing a sharp scrutiny towards the ensign and
Arnyte, and somewhat disappointed by the unfavourable
plight of the graphist's garments, “we can't have any konolye
about the house, mensch Peterkin.”
“I have forbid them the grounds, frau Hyletje,”
for civil words, and I am driven to force to learn them
manners.”
“Ay, mensch Peterkin, the konolye never know their
distance,” quoth the dame in return, “yet, mensch Peterkin,
it is not respectful before our doors, when his honour
and excellency dignifies the house with his presence
and visit,—it is not respectful, I say, as the tailor
said to his needle, when it pricked his thumb instead of
the cloth, that the entrance of a domicile of a respectable
burgher, should be disgraced by the clamour of
konolye—yet what can be expected from such persons,
as the goose said to the gander, when the ducks eat up
all the corn. I say, mensch Peterkin, this does not become
a decent and reputable family like ours, mensch
Peterkin!—And yet,” said the dame, somewhat mollified
in her precise and lofty notions, by the attractive appearance
of young Leisler, “the look of the younker is
not altogether so coarse, as the miller said to the grain,
when the wheel cracked and refused to grind. What's
your name and wish, Mienheer?—an't your name
Schermerhorne? I never saw such a likeness as there is
about your eyes, to the Schermerhorne family at Schenectadie;
the colour of your hair is just theirs, as the cat
said to the kitten, when she told her of the rat. In the
name of wonder, you must be Douw Schermerhorne—that
is, little Douw—he is the youngest of all the Schermerhornes.
Why child, how you've grown, as the crab said
to the mushroom. How's aunt Elbertje? is sister Janetje
married yet? what's become of her old spark,
Gardt Van Wee? you don't know I am a relation to the
Schermerhornes. I'll tell you all about it, as the salmon
said to the flounder, after she had escaped the hook
with the bait. My second cousin, Winant Van Zandt,
married the sister of Bolee Van Wagenen, who was the
step daughter of Ostheim Van Dolen—no konolye, I
can let you know—but ugh! ugh!”—
The frau had got this length in her dissertation,
when a fit of coughing seized her, and gave a moment's
respite to her hearers, who, from her positive and rapid
themselves to her, or even get in a word edgeways, she
having the whole field to herself. With more success
than heretofore, Arnyte seized the opportunity, and
freely discovered his name and situation, and his desire
and object in seeing the governor; and although a retainer
of his enemy, he besought the dame's compassion
to afford him a chance to save his father's life, by an interview
with colonel Sloughter. Frau Hyletje was
somewhat startled at this appeal, and although apparently
fearful and indecisive, her feelings were evidently enlisted
in favour of the stripling, whose suit was warmly
backed by his anxious companion.
“By mine halidome,” quoth the generous hearted
ensign, “though this grumbling watch-dog growls at me
now, and forgets that like me, the great Salvator must
have made a ragged subject, when he left the Apulian
robbers—an I see Hal Sloughter, by mine troth, I'll
make him change his tints—and 'faith, fair dame, an you
conduct us to him, I'll paint your picture—you'll make
a noble head, and shall vie with Titian's daughter, Rembrandt's
wife, and D'Urbino's mistress.”
“You're one of the Leisler family,” said frau Hyletje
in reply to Arnyte, “what a pretty set of konolye you've
all made of yourselves—a fine stew your father has put
the province in, as the cook said to the frying-pan—you
are the youngest an't you—your father has had but two children
has he—a girl, she married Jacobus Milbourne, and
a boy that's you an't it—why you are the image of your
mother—you look as like as two peas, as the farmer said
to his pigs—only to think now how you have grown out
one's recollection—why I was at your christening—it
seems like yesterday—and a rare frolic there was—the
waits played before your father's door all night, and the
slaves beat the bonjo lustily the whole day—and then
what a feast there was, it done one good only to look at it,
as the fox said to the chickens when he found the wall too
high for him to leap—why your mother was one of the
Van Alstynes—a reputable family—no konolye among
them—they belonged to Poghkeepsing and were some
you have got into a sad dish, as the scullion said to his
mate when the cat ran away with the meats, and you
need not tell me your story child, I know all about it—
bad enough it is in all conscience—your father's just sure
to be hanged child, so take comfort, for such things can't be
helped, as the doctor said to the sick man, when he found
he would die in spite of his medicine, what can't be cured
must be endured, is a wise saw that you must take profit
by—so take comfort child—take comfort:”—and the
garralous dame indulged herself in this desultory gossip,
unmeaningly wounding where she thought to succour her
hearers, who found it in vain to breast the torrent of her
words, and it was not literally until her breath gave out
for the time that Arnyte was able again to exert himself
to interest her in affording him facility towards attaining
the object at which he was now bent—at last with some
difficulty he gained her consent, though she observed
when expressing it, her fears that she was acting unadvisedly
to introduce him to the chamber of the governor.
“But Colonel Sloughter is a fine man—a real gentleman,
nothing konolye about him whatever,” said the dame,
as she led them in the house, “there's something one can
see at once about a true cavalier and a great man, as the
crab said to the whale—why there's no more pretension
about his excellence than there is about me—he talks as
familiar to me as if we had known each other for years,
let alone he is their majesties' governor general of the
province—but then there's some inducement to his honor's
condescension towards me—there never was any
thing konolye about me or mine—which is more than
many people can say—no Larry Van Schawachofer of
the Brill who was my great grandfather was a reputable
burgher as any in the Vaderlandts, gainsay him who
may, and then let the worst come to the worst, as the
butcher said to the ox when he snapt the rope that bound
him, if my giving you any means of access to his honor
should anger his excellence or Mienheer Bayard—though
child I can't see the harm in it, as the monkey said to the
looking-glass—and it's no more than right you should strive
much as he deserves to be hung child—for though—take
comfort child—I assure you I have no hopes of your success
in saving Mienheer Leisler—for though I say, you do
not save him child—and I get in trouble by doing what I do,
as the thief said to his booty when he robbed its owner—yet
child I will have some consolation in knowing I assisted you
in your afflictions, and poor infirm creatures like we mortals
are, child, as the dominie said, should—You'll find his excellence
in that chamber child—be of good heart—though I
am certain it's of no use your trying, you can't possibly
succeed, as the frying-pan said to the eel as he strove to
leap out—I leave you here at the door, you'll find his honor
very sociable—there's nothing konoyle about him
child.”
Frau Hyletje, after entering the door of the mansion,
preceded Arnyte and Jost Stoll to the upper end of a huge
and low roofed hall, whose sides and pannels of dark oak,
gave it a sombre and gloomy aspect; there she abruptly
paused at the half opened entrance of a room, in which,
as her speech had indicated, Colonel Sloughter was to be
found, and with that which she deemed words of assurance
at parting, she hastily left them to make such
way themselves across the threshold of the Governor's
apartment as they were best able,—and it appeared as if
in the very accomplishment of her kind action towards
Arnyte, by her fearful and precipitate manner of departure,
that fran Hyletje, in spite of her words, repented
and failed in heart as she approached near to the personage
whose anger her officiousness in introducing unwished
for suitors, as might be supposed, would arouse, and the
tenor of her speech did not disguise from her hearers her
timidity on this point so as to induce them to care to arrest
her retreating steps. The advantage of the situation
where they were left by frau Hyletje, and the partly unclosed
door of the apartment, discovered to Arnyte and
his companion the interior and its inmates, by whom they
were as yet unnoticed and unperceived in the earnestness
of their engagement. The room was an old fashioned,
low locust wainscoted chamber, with heavy shelved fire
place, dark and polished with outpourings of the smoke, the
inlaid Dutch-china tiles, on whose visage the
brightness of the fire glittered sparklingly, and the shooting
and brilliant flame was reflected as on the surface of
a mirror; above the fire place hung black, soiled and
scarce distinguishable from age, neglect, and the ascending
vapours of the smoke, a painting of the Flemish school,
which instantly attracted the eye of Jost Stoll, whose
whole attention was enwrapt in its examination the moment
it caught his sight, so as to be utterly regardless, as
wont, of time, place, or situation, and every object about
him,—the apartment otherwise was rather cumberously
than sumptuously furnished: huge satyr legged tables,
monstrous chairs, with damask cushions and feet of lions'
claws, and other articles equally unwieldy and sumptuously
ornamented, the glass and picture frames being
formed by twisted ribbons, serpents, rose stalks, leaves,
and flowers, all entwining in gilt, according to the taste of
the time; indeed, the house of Mynheer Bayard, and its
internal arrangement and decorations assorted much with
his political feelings, having less traces of the Dutch than
assimilation towards the innovation of the fashions of the
English aristocracy of the time, as far as the intercouse
and means of importation of their splendour would permit
the distant colonist to enjoy. Sloughter, somewhat
neglectfully attired, with looks flushed and disturbed, was
standing by a table, over which bundles of parchment and
papers were carelessly strewn, while Nicholas Bayard,
his host, was at his side, holding in his hand a roll of vellum,
and apparently earnestly addressing the Governor,
who seemed to listen to his words peevish and impatient;
the broken sentence which struck the ear of Arnyte as
he advanced to enter the chamber, thrilled through him,
and made him pause for the instant with breathless solicitude
to listen to their converse.
“But Colonel Sloughter,” Bayard was saying, as in
conclusion of what might have been an expostulation and
argument to enforce the Governor's performance of that
which he was in some wise averse, and using in his manner
of speech that candour of utterance and argument as
with the matter, “but Colonel Sloughter,” quoth
Nicholas Bayard, “the Council have already negatived
the frivolous plea of the criminal; the court hath passed
sentence of death, such as the law hath dictated to them;
the warrant for his execution hath been drawn out—I
hold it in my hand—You cannot, permit me, Sir, to remind
you, refuse that which is your duty, and perfect by
your signature this instrument which seals the peace of
this province! What, Sir, will the world, the people say
to this strange aversion to fulfil the sentence of the law?
the court hath decided, the Council have accorded that
he hath done the deed of a rebel and a traitor, and must
die the death—”
“Let me tell you Colonel Bayard,” suddenly interrupted
Sloughter, and pacing the room with an abrupt step
and irritated air—“by mine honour let me tell you Colonel
Bayard, I am no boy to be led in leading strings, by
the Council or Court, or by living man—you have been
over zealous Sir, over hasty in this matter—you have
taken me unawares Sir,—I had no idea that things had
been hurried to this last stage;—that I feel hostile, yea,
condemn this man Leisler—that he deserves punishment,
exemplary punishment, no man is more willing than I am to
accord—but I will not be dictated to, this looks like dictation;
all here hath been too precipitate—last night the trial,
and at its heels, within an hour, the Council awards its
sanction—that scarce breathed, ere I am demanded to sign
the warrant for the execution of a severe and desolating
sentence, a sentence which once put in force, there can
come no after repentance;—Colonel Bayard I am a soldier,
and have in the heat of contest, in the fiery throng
of battle seen gore—life gore run like water—but albeit I
must confess I shudder at taking a man's existence,—at
quenching in cool blood the lamp of life—nathless your
forms and trickeries of law—without first having good and
mature consideration on the step ere I take it;—I do also
remember me Colonel Bayard my own life within a day
was in the hands of others, I therefore lack not feeling
for a sufferer, albeit different in situation, though like
work, things shall be reflected on—and as for the people
Sir,—what are the people, you yourself have decried
them—beasts of burthen, hounds that must obey the beck
of their masters; they shall not dictate, Colonel Bayard,
my course, I am sufficient judge I hope of right or wrong
without their gainsay.”
“Your exellencie most assurely looketh on the business
erroneously,” returned Bayard in a soothing tone of
voice, “it hath never been the part, act, or intention of
the court that tried Jacobus Leisler—or your faithful
counsel in performing the severe duty assigned them in
the same—nor, speaking honestly Colonel Sloughter hath
it been, or is it the design of Nicholas Bayard your firm
well wisher to point out for ill, or enforce your adoption
of any course—this we leave most respectfully to your
better judgment—but that it well becomes us, our stations,
our allegiance to their sacred majesties as most dutiful and
loyal subjects, who, in our hearts, abhor and detest all the
rebellious, arbitrary, and illegal proceedings of the late
usurpers of their majesties' authority over this province;
who, from the bottom of our hearts, I repeat, with all integrity
acknowledge and declare that there are none that can
or ought to have right to rule or govern their majesties'
subjects here in New-Yorke, but by their majesties' proper
commission and authority, which is now placed in your
excellency. Under these pure feelings, we are enspirited
to advise, to suggest, and I will assert it, Colonel
Sloughter, to urge that which we in faith believe is sound
policy, and best conducive to the conservation of the
tranquillity of the inhabitants of this colony; and if, I say,
your excellency, any of us, in the pursuance of this laudable
endeavour, have been too pertinacious, or rather
frankly speaking, for that way I interpret your words,
Colonel Sloughter,—if the honest and anxious zeal of
Nicholas Bayard hath been miscontrued, and from my exertions
for the public weal, unfavourable impressions
have visited your excellency's mind, I do make bold to
say that my earnest desire, my strenuous wish for your
excellency's welfare, and of their majesties' dominions in
discretion—a plain man like me, your excellency,
knows not the art to control his honest feelings; for I
will not disguise it, Sir, the death of Jacobus Leisler is,
in my poor opinion, sought at your hands an expiatory offering,
not alone to the magnitude of his crime, but at
once as a terrible ensample to his secret and unsubdued
partizans, who remain hidden in the core of the multitude,
and moreover, to the wishes, hopes, and offended
feelings of the well affected, and this must be immediate:
for permit me to remind you, that delays breed obstacles
as well as dangers, which, to one who so well knows
the fickle nature of the people with whom you have to
deal as I do, and of whose violence and madness of excitement
in the massacre of the traitor Milbourne, your excellency
hath a stern specimen,—may ground some fears
that, an public justice be not straightforth satisfied, disturbances,
that will give no slight trouble to quell, may
arise; and your excellency's knowledge of mankind, I
doubt not, hath taught you ere now, that in such times of
civil commotion, the lives, properties, nay, sir, both friend
and foe are at peril. I beseech your excellency to pause
and reflect on the convulsed state of this province, ere,
by an undue leniency, or may I without offence so term
it, for want of an instantaneous firmness of action, the unhappy
citizens of New-Yorke are thrown back into that
terrific state of disorder, wherefrom, I was flattering myself,
the benignant presence of your excellency was extricating
them.”
To the first part of this exhortation of Bayard, the
Governor listened fretfully and unwillingly, as one who
hears an argument which is at discord with his own opinions;
but ere the speaker had finished, his uneasy air and
broken gait, as he measured the length of the apartment
with pensive strides, marked the force of the impressions
which he received from the insidious foeman of the suffering
Leisler—Sloughter heard his counsellor through,
and then stood with hand raised to his thoughtful brow,
motionless and silent for a time, while Bayard, as if he
look regarded his deliberations.
“Colonel Bayard, it is not for me to deny that what
you advance is not of moment,” said the Governor at
length, though the hesitation and decision of his mind
were perceptible in his manner, “yet, my friend, I cannot
rid me of an inclination to delay the last and violent
step you advise; it certainly doth strike me at once as
dangerous as well as impolitic, and these promptings I
have not the resolution to subdue, to cut off a man, who
like Leisler, (for this, nathless later misdeeds, must be
allowed him in all praise,) hath so vigorously and early
appeared for William of Orange, and whose conduct hath
so signally contributed to the revolution; and I would
have you remember, I have others besides the people of
this province to account to for my actions—I have doubts,
sir, how a deed of so bloody a cast as that suggested will
be received at Whitehall.”
“In my poor judgment, what your excellency hath
thrown out, though natural, are unfounded fears, if without
offence I may apply the term on the matter in question,”
eagerly responded Nicholas Bayard, perceiving
the advantage he was fast gaining over the wavering
mind of the governor, “and I think the least reflection
on the part of one, whose discrimination is usually so just
and clear on most subjects, will at once convince your
excellency's latent doubts that what I argue is strictly
right and unanswerable. I apprehend, that whatever
hesitation your excellency labours under, on such points
as your excellency has been pleased to mention, can be
satisfied; for let me ask your excellency, whether a man,
who having preserved another from death, murthers afterwards
the object of such charity, deserves or ought to escape
the liability of the law for the life he takes, forsooth,
because at first, at imminent hazards, he saved that very
life which later he destroys; again, I would seek at your
excellency what favour of gratitude doth one deserve who
having bestowed inadvertently a great benefit on his fellow,
no sooner discovers its worth, than he robs him
put the fact to conviction: what doth he merit, who, for
his own ambition strikes off the shackles with which a
tyrant binds his serfs, and who no sooner hath attained
his conquest than he seeks, base born as he is, to fill that
fallen tyrant's place? Yes, your excellency, what hath
Leisler done but enacted the part of a faithful subject
that he might the better play the rebel and the traitor?
shall a man who commits a crime, for the deceptive
and superficial show of a former day, escape legal
punishment? Shall a highwayman plead that in the days
of his virtue he gave charity? Your excellency's good
sense (with due submission) must coincide with my assertion,
that such a criminal should be an ensample to the
world, to show how just the punishment for an aberration
from virtue—but the actions of Jacobus Leisler
have not been such as to offer themselves in mitigation
of his sentence—your excellency, the province is convinced
of the magnitude of his guilt, and the righteousness
of a severe and exemplary punishment—and as for
the feelings at Court—as for the reception of his death
at Whitehall—what friends—what mourners can a convicted
traitor—a hardened rebel have in the hallowed
circle of their sacred majesties—God keep all such from
their presence—besides, can any one be averse to the
true administration of justice—can any man regret or be
offended at the sentence of a just and impartial Court—
no your excellency, the traitor Jacobus Leisler has been
condemned by the law of the land, and whatever blame
should come, must fall on that law—you made it not—
neither did you try the criminal—but you fulfil by signing
his death-warrant, the high and imperious dictates
that the law hath awarded your station; I am bold to say
it Sir, you fulfil your duty only by the act—your excellency
may as well refuse the death of a robber, a pirate, a
murtherer, as to stand between the appointed sentence
of the law and a convicted traitor.”
The irresolution of Governor Sloughter sank before
the forceful earnestness and perseverance of the cold
hearted Bayard, he unfolded slowly his arms, and raised
on his breast, and there was a slight and tremulous
movement of his under lip as he compressed it inward,
and his brows contracted themselves in the sternness of
determination, as his reluctance momently gave way and
yielded to the warmth of representation by which he was
pressed—the weakness of Colonel Sloughter was evident,
and well did the wily Bayard know the chord of mastery to
work on—for while he paraded forth his respect and submission,
he in fact governed him whose commands he appeared
to worship as a servile slave: for at the same time by
the guileful manner wherewith he pronounced his sentiments
and enforced his arguments for Leisler's execution,
he flattered the selfish pride of a vain man—quick, irritable
and alive to that he deemed detractive either to his independence
of opinion or authority—as in the advancement
of his reasons he seemed alone to appeal to the
sagacity and discretion of him whom he addressed, as if in
the perception of each fact he used, the hearer had preceded
the speaker, and as from that which he asserted
common sense and experience could not deteriorate—he
also lulled in slumber all the political apprehensions of
personal consequences which deterred the accedence of
the governor to the act he sought his completion—and
moreover by a cunning show of disinterested honesty—an
ardent desire for the welfare as well as the credit of his
government, to which the most imbecile ruler is awake;
he finally succeeded in bending Colonel Sloughter to his
will—thus it is that the credulous, unwary, and weak
minded when they least suspect it, when most boastful of
their freedom are in the thraldom, and dwindle down into
the passive tool of vile and designing knaves—and by
surrendering heedlessly, and without due caution the impulses
of their own generous hearts to the fine spun sophistry
invented for their deception; from their characters
or stations the opprobrium of villanies, whose benefit
they reap not fall on their heads, while their directors
and advisers covered and in secret escape pursuit, and
banquet on the spoil, to gain which they have dared no
danger—receiving the advantages of another's blinded
that stood near, and thrusting it with an air that even
controlled as it was by policy and art, bespoke anticipated
trumph, and interest in the event of a personal nature,
in the pliant hand of the governor which had been
partially lifted to receive it, he officiously unrolled the
warrant and spread it out before Colonel Sloughter to
receive his signature.
“Colonel Bayard, I owe this man Leisler, however
affected by his imprudence, no animosity; I am moved
by no resentment of a personal nature whatever. In
placing my name to the warrant for his execution, I
would have it understood, I perform an act rendered necessary,
by the event of his trial. It is an approval of
the court I can neither avoid nor withhold, as being
honoured by their majesties' commission over this province;
and albeit, I can find no room for the exercise of
mercy, considering the enormity of guilt committed by
the unfortunate wretch—for his crime hath truly placed
his blood on his own head.”
As the governor expressed these words, he approached
the open warrant, and leaned over it as about to commence
the writing, which was to seal for ever the fate of
his fallen predecessor.
“Hold, colonel Sloughter, an instant, forbear the
fearful deed that takes his life—while thus clasping your
knees, I supplicate you to spare my father.” And as
he spoke, Arnyte rushed breathless into the apartment,
and cast himself at the governor's feet.
“By mine halidome, that is by an old master,—I'll
wager it is from the brush of Huysum,—I know it by
the stiffness of his grouping,” exclaimed Jost Stoll, as he
followed the steps of young Leisler, his attention evidently
as much rivetted to the picture, which had first
engaged his sight, as either by the presence of the governor,
or that which was stirring in the scene, “troth,
your excellence, I greet ye from my heart:—by the by,
who painted that? the figures are not bad—a little
rough, though—by the glory of Sir Godfrey, there are
no mean touches about the piece.”
“Heaven and earth! what do I behold—my brave
deliverer—ensign Jost Stoll alive—are miracles rife?”
ejaculated the governor simultaneously with their entrance.
Language can scarce realize the startled and amazed
looks of the inmates of that room, at this most unexpected
and undreamed of interruption, at a moment so interesting
and important, and when to the accordance of
the wishes of his political foeman, the blood of Leisler
was about to be yielded irrevocably. Marvel and ire
were blended in the visage and action of Bayard, whose
every feature scowled in malignancy, at the intrusion.
The unused pen dropped from the palsied fingers of
Sloughter, as he turned his eyes on the youth and his
companion in alternate wonder and alarm, gazing on
each, as in the lapses of a vision, while his eye ran over
their persons as one that scans a thing, scarce reconciled
to the mind as real, or as beings given up from the grave
or dropped from some bursting of a stormy cloud;—an
instant's glance served for recognition—but the governor's
gaze rested last and longest, reverting from the
well known countenance of the ensign, which it had met
pleased and astonished, to the haggard and care worn
lineaments of the stripling—while the attitude in which
the youth had prostrated himself in humbleness and
misery, had his words, his piercing and grief-like tones,
been unheard, could not be misconstrued; they struck
to the soul of Sloughter—they shot in his ears like bolts
of burning iron, and for the moment's breath, his blood
flowed backward to his heart, leaving him pale as death,
and then, sudden as their retreat, the hot fountains of
his veins swelled upwards to his crimsoned cheeks.
“What, thou the son of Leisler—doth sense or hearing
mock me?” muttered he in a faint accent of surprise
and agitation, and he paused for a moment, like
one who strives to recover from the stunning force of a
thunder shock, ere he continued—“brave and noble
youth,” pursued he, “this should not be—it doth shame
me greatly, to see thee thus:—it is not for him who
saved my life, at my knee thus in lowliness to seek his
to my heart, thou deservest to fill—to my arms, sir—
prithee, rise to my heart!” And with a caress of kindness,
he endeavoured to lift the stripling from his humble
posture.”
“Nay, nay, your excellency doth yourself wrong,”
quoth Arnyte, repelling his attempt with animation, “I
come not here your creditor nor your equal—but as the
son of a condemned man; I am the wretched child of
the forlorn and unfortunate Jacobus Leisler; of him,
whose miserable destruction you were but now about to
consummate; by all that earth and heaven holds sacred,
I do conjure, implore and pray you, not to sign, not to
touch that horrid and bloody instrument—for God's sake,
sign it not, but spare, oh, spare the life of my poor father.”
And as he spoke, he clung to the governor in
the wild agony of passionate entreaty, while his eyes,
with a tearful and piteous expression of pleading, were
raised to the countenance of Sloughter, who, undetermined,
yet shaken, listened to the beseechings of the
stripling, his aspect disturbed, and his frame trembling
with palpable emotion.
Bayard having rallied his amazement at young Leisler's
presence, and harassed with fearful forebodings as
to its evident effect on Sloughter, in which he already beheld
the downfal and disappointment of his hopes, now
advanced, and prepared to interpose himself before the
influence of the petitioner.
“Young man,” quoth he, with affected feeling, placing
as he spoke, his hand gently on the youth's shoulder, as
with intent to assist him in kindness from his suppliant
position, “your own sense must make you aware how
unavailing under the present circumstances, is this conduct;
you are exhausting your strength and nerves to
no purport whatever, except at once cruelly lacerating and
rending the tender heart of his excellency. I speak for him,
Mienheer Leisler—I would wish to spare him the regret
and sorrow of denial to you, to whom he acknowledges such
obligation; he hath the sympathy of a man for your situation;
his heart, as you cannot but be convinced of,
duty enjoined on him—the high place which he fills,
hath made him the dispenser of the law—and it behooves
not to commingle therewith, ought personal—and
were it his own, nathless your father, he could not—nay
boy, he dare not for his conscience—for his honor's sake
—grant more than his commiseration for the unhappy
man.
The voice of Bayard was nervous and emphatic in its
tone, and with a stern and meaning look as he uttered his
words he perused the features of the Governor, wherein
were painted the conflicting struggles of his soul, paramount
in which his failing resolution could be read—
Sloughter seemed to shrink before the fixed gaze of Bayard
as conscious of his weakness, and almost like a
school-boy humbled before the haughty frown of his domineering
preceptor; he noted the latter sentence uttered
by Bayard, who plainly by his manner appeared rather as
if he addressed them to Colonel Sloughter's attention
than to the stripling.
When Arnyte felt the touch of the mortal foe of his
name, his very flesh seemed to quiver and shrunk from
the grasp, as if the hand whose weight was on him bore
contagion to his blood; while his cheek grew to a livid
hue, and he drew his breath long, heavily, and thick between
his clenched teeth, and his eyes sparkled in deep
rage as he scanned the living lineaments of rooted hate;
“I asked not of thee, Colonel Bayard, to back my suit,”
retorted the youth, quickly turning on the unwelcome and
unfriendly intermeddler; his voice sharp with sarcastic
anger, and his fiery spirit darting from his speaking visage
as it would have withered his adversary; “a son of
the house of Leisler could expect no favour from such
as thee, it might as well be demanded of the treacherous
tiger to surrender from the gripe of his merciless jaws the
fresh slain victim, ere he had glutted his ruthless appetite
on a drop of the gore; or the fierce and ravenous vulture
to yield a morsel of the flesh that its beak hath
stripped from the carcass of the dead, as to suppose that
Nicholas Bayard would aid in preserving the life of Jacobus
Leisler: no, Mienheer” continued Arnyte severely,
at hand with axe and cord, lest the stout heart of the
executioner fail him in that awful hour of need, and that
you may make your work sure—”
Arnyte paused awhile as he me with calm and bold front
the grim smile of unutterable malice that passed over the
face of his opponent, as he relaxed the hold he had taken
upon the garment of the youth—Bayard drew himself back
with high and lofty motion, while his eye lowered in dark,
quenchless, and insatiate ire upon the offender, like the
arrowy fire of a gloomy cloud that darts from the black
and stormy heaven towards the palaces of earth as eager
for destruction.
“Nay Colonel Bayard it is not meet that you restrain
Mienheer Leisler,” quoth the Governor, “it surely
becomes me to hear the young man ere I decide on
his application, or his father's death, it is just, it is
fair, Colonel Bayard!” Bayard answered only with a bitter
sneer, and Arnyte turned towards the Governor:
“Be ye not deaf of ear and of heart, and ye will hear me
with compassion,” he said, the high tone wherewith he
had attacked Bayard changing to one of almost womanish
lamentation, “yes, it is thy feet Colonel Sloughter I embrace—it
is to you I lift my hands in suppliance in affliction,
for thou hast the power and can save him,” and he
clasped his hands in the strenuousness of his solicitation,
“spare, oh spare” he wildly cried, “my father's life!”—
The Governor in silence covered his face to conceal his
agitation: “Spare the life of Jacobus Leisler,” the youth
continued, “I ask it at your hands, not by the memory of
such services as I may have rendered you in extremity
—not by the blood which as water I would have poured
out to shield you from the poniard of the assassin—but I
seek it from your mercy, from your humanity—whatever
have been his crimes for which he deserves to suffer,
though a parent is never guilty in the eyes of his child,
yet far be it from me now to dispute them—yet, oh I entreat
let not his evil deeds be heard, blot them out from
the calendar of his days and spare him—I beg it of you
by the love you have borne to the protectors of your own
by—by the thousand ties that bound you to them while
living—by your reverence for them in death—by the
dust of their graves—I pray you spare him, he is my
parent; make not our home a place of desolation, widow
not my mother, have mercy on him who now begs it from
you—oh! you have never had the heart of a son an you
refuse me, an you deny, you never could have received
or known the fond and tender blandishments, the multitudinous
cares that link the parent and his offspring, or
you could not hear in vain the voice of a son who pleads for
his father's life—oh! there is a sacredness in the very
name of a parent, that will make it sacrilege to harm a
single hair of his revered head—oh! forbear, forbear the
horrid death you have marked out for him: let him not
die the death of infamy; expose him not to the heartless
scorn of an infuriated rabble, who will but mock his
agonies—your heartstrings must be insensible and bloodless,
your eyes stone an they can look on the suffering ye
have doomed him to, and not be blasted; bethink you
yet but a little while, a few circling years death will
claim his own, the sorrows he hath seen will bow him to
the grave—cut not short by violence his brief span of
years, and far from this land of wo in poverty, in exile,
our prayers, our blessings shall stream up in incense to
thee—oh! spare him, spare him from the scaffold;—it is
hard to endure the thought of parting, when the course
of age in its infirmity brings the hoary headed man unto
the last resting place of mortality—but that death of
blood and crime—that fearful death—it will madden me
—oh God have mercy—oh spare his precious life!—I
call on you Colonel Sloughter by your solemn promise in
the hour of gratitude—plighted in the sight of heaven and
of earth—the words are wrought on my heart—remember
that pledge—when you refused what I might ask,
though it were that which you might not well do—yet if
you refused it, you called on the face of heaven which
had then so smiled upon you, to be turned for ever from
your fortunes—I ask the life of Jacobus Leisler at your
lips—spare, oh spare my father's life!”
Sloughter could no longer suppress the emotion that
shook his frame in violence, beyond all caution;-prudence,
former determination, and every feeling of hereafter consequence,
were lost in the sight of the suppliant before
him.
“He shall not die! he shall not die!” exclaimed the
Governor, in an almost involuntary ejaculation.
This annunciation struck Arnyte with an almost electric
power—it came on his ear with a stunning force—he
heard the words that proclaimed safety to his father at
first in breathless amazement, as if he could scarce be
assured of the reality of the sound, even while he listened,
or as though he had not understood that which had been
said; nor when the lips of the Governor closed was his
stupor broken; for he stirred not eye nor limb, and he
stood for the time as one frozen in an attitude of attention;
yet this lasted not, for suddenly his eyes rolled in
wild exultation, and with a passionate burst of joy, he
struggled to press the hand of the governor to his quivering
lips.
“Thou hast said it!” he cried, rejoicingly, “he shall
not die! he shall not die!”
The strength of the stripling, exhausted by repeated
exertions, could support him no longer; for the sudden
fulfilment of hope,—the reception of good and evil are
oftentimes attended with similar effects, and madness hath
been caused by both, so nearly allied are the emotions of
happiness and sorrow;—all that had upheld Arnyte in the
misery he had passed through, now apparently deserted
him with the abrupt turn of fortune, and as he uttered
the last words in a strain of almost incoherent rapture, he
contended for an instant against the excess of agitation
which seemed nearly to choak him; but his endeavour
was fruitless, and a wild and hysteric passion of tears and
of laughter, started from his lips, ere he dropt down at
the feet of Sloughter in a paroxysm of death-like insensibility.
Help! Colonel Bayard, Jost Stoll, help! for God's
sake! the boy is dying! help to bear him in the air!”
senseless youth towards the window of the apartment.
Bayard answered the call with slow and reluctant step,
apparently unmoved by the fearful situation of young
Leisler, and as though wishing the worst might happen
ere his interference. Not so Jost Stoll; the Ensign, as
he beheld the stripling fall to the earth, dashed from his
hand the pencil that it held, and the now neglected death-warrant,
which, in the mania of the moment, with utter
indifference as to the consequence, and it would have
been the same with a paper of even more importance,
he had snatched up and was transferring on its surface,
where there was a blank to be found, the leading traits of
that which was passing before his eyes, with his usual exclamations
of delight at the varied attitudes and passions
of the living group he was drawing; an observer, unattended
to by the more interested actors; but when he
marked the fading colour of Arnyte's countenance, every
other consideration vanished, and he threw from him all
incumbrances, and rushed in haste to the stripling's assistance.
Young Leisler was lifted forward between Jost
Stoll and Colonel Sloughter, while Bayard, as loathing
the object of their care, with slow hand, threw back the
casement and admitted the breeze to enter the chamber
freely; and while its refreshing coolness scattered his
disordered locks upon his scarce throbbing temples, his
supporters chafed his white and pallid brow, and rubbed
to warmth his blood deserted hands. An interval of almost
breathless expectation and incertitude passed, ere
their utmost endeavours were able to recall a sign of reanimation,
and they had nearly despaired of success in
their anxious attempts, ere the reviving hue of life revisited
and mingled its faint tinge on the colourless cheek
of the stripling, and the first prognostication of returning
consciousness, showed itself in a slight tremour that
passed over his features;—and then followed and became
perceptible a quick, short respiration, like that of a sleeping
infant, while a faint spark of intelligence emanated
through the shadows of his long dark eye lashes, whose
there broke a sudden, low, and scarce articulate sound,
like the dying murmur of a distant echo, from his parted
lips, which were fast empurpled with the rush of blood.
“By mine halidome,” quoth Jost Stoll, his accustomed
disposition again resuming its power in the assurance
of the moment, as his fears, which had been
strongly excited for the recovery of the youth, were
somewhat relieved, and his anxiety for his safety diminished,
as he felt sensibly the renewed beatings of Arnyte's
heart against the pressure of his watchful hand,
“By mine halidome,” said he, “much would I give, had
I a pallet well assorted here, that I might catch the
changes of his colour—gad, the tints would immortalize
me; what an inimitable subject he would make for the
Scripture piece of Elisha raising the widow's son from
death—the life just returning to the before pallid cheek
—the eye just opening—oh, he certainly would make a
capital figure for the widow's son—what lovely, beautiful
tints—they vie with the best ever laid out by the
brush of Rubens.”
“Where am I—where is my father?” murmured the
youth, as he recovered from his faintness, “there seems
a weight as if of clotted blood, upon my brain—where
am I?” exclaimed Arnyte, as he glanced wildly around.
He passed his hand rapidly across his brow, “ay, I remember
it all, now—thou hast said thou wouldst spare
my father's life—say I not right?” pursued he, “or can
it be possible I have been in the frenzied delirium of fever,
for the horrible confusion of a dream is on my brain
—I pray you, mock me not with false comfort—thou
hast surely said he shall not die.”
“Be certain the life of Jacob Leisler is safe,” said
colonel Sloughter, “I prithee calm thyself, your frame
cannot bear these frantic paroxysms.”
“Thank heaven! thank heaven, I heard right,” exclaimed
Arnyte, “the words are true, he shall not die!
Oh, God, the sound darts through my brain, and rushes
on my heart—ha! ha! ha!—this agony of joy will madden
me—he shall not die! he shall not die!”
“I beg of you be composed,” said the governor.
“Composed—calm—ay, I am composed—calm—and
yet there is a tumult here within, that vies with the tempest
driven ocean in its rage,” continued Arnyte, beating
his bosom, “great God, how shall I express the wild
rush of happiness, that fills every vein as with a flood?
he shall not die! you have said my father shall live! ah,
your excellency, can words ever express all this throbbing
heart would declare to you, oh let me fall down at
your feet, thus cling for ever, and pour out in one endless
stream of weeping, as though the sluices of my
eyes were rent, my never ceasing blessing—my untiring
gratitude—but this is not for me alone—my whole race—
yes, and chief of all he whose life you have spared, will
join me in these thanks.”
“Nay, nay, my good youth,” vainly interposed the
governor.
“Yes, your excellency, when you look on that aged
man,” continued Arnyte, “when you see him to whom your
word hath given life, free and breathing the air of heaven—when
you hear him call down the choicest of blessings
in the store of providence on his benefactor, then
will you know the value of the gift you have extended
to our afflictions—then will you know how the obligation
is appreciated—but ah, he, my father, is not here; no,
he still lingers in his darksome and solitary dungeon, nor
knows the mercy that has been extended him; it shall
be mine to bear him the gladsome tidings—ay, generous
benefactor, at once I will wend me to that prison house,
and he shall worship thy name.”
“In truth, I fear me, noble boy, you are not equal to
the task; your frame already weak and exhausted, will
scarce bear such exertion and fatigue; you shall remain
here, while I despatch a messenger to the Stadthuis, who
will inform Jacobus Leisler, that for the son's sake, I
have pardoned the father's errors.”
“I will crave your excellence to bear with me,” replied
Arnyte with ardour, “you know not the power,
the strength, left in these limbs—they could accomplish
more than may be supposed, in such a duty; bethink ye,
the insults heaped on him in that vile prison, and all that
he momently suffers, even while I now linger. Who
then so swift, so fit on such an errand of joy, as his son?
others know not the worth of every instant; he whom
your excellency's kindness might select, might be laggard;
indifferent in feelings for the sad prisoner, he
would not count the loss of time; he has no father to
release, and cannot feel like me, how much it is to cheat
the lot, the mourner's lot, of even a pang—no! though
your excellency seems incredible of my boast—for it is
true, but now, I gave way to weakness, yet believe me,
my nerves are braced as iron, and my sinews seem as if
a giant's power had been infused in my system; the
very winds themselves, in their wild waftings, shall be
shamed by the course of a child, who, upborne by duty
and by joy, files on the sacred errand that sooths the
sorrows of a despairing parent.”
“Your excellency must perceive, that prompted by
such noble springs of nature, it is useless to dissuade the
young man from being in person the first to bear the
good news of his deliverance to Mienheer Leisler;”
quoth Nicholas Bayard who, with ill cloaked chagrin,
had been the sullen and silent spectator of the over-throw
of his deep laid plans, and whose countenance
had suddenly cleared up during Arnyte's last speech,
and now bore no trace of discontent, “and I, for my
own part, must say, that I at once applaud the motives,
and admire the propriety, of the action and intention of
this praiseworthy stripling,” he continued, with apparent
frankness, “I must confess me, colonel Sloughter, that I
did disapprove of mercy towards Jacobus Leisler, for I
deemed it wrong, one so criminal should escape severe
punishment; but since the matter is as it stands—since
your excellency hath been so moved by the touching
distress of his son—and I must say, I myself heard the
youth with no little emotion; my heart bled in pity, as
he spoke for his life, and I did forget the guilt, while the
innocent interceded, and wonder not at your excellency's
being prevailed on to extend a pardon and forgiveness
none but a brute could have done otherwise—and since,
I repeat, your excellency hath granted clemency towards
Mienheer Leisler, it becomes me to state, that as to
every personal feeling of my own, I am gratified at the
event. Whatever false suggestions may be started to
the contrary by my enemies, I assert, I have acted towards
Jacobus Leisler in all things, even in persuading
his execution, by that which I deemed for the best interest
of the public—the peace and safety of this province.
No liberal-minded man can blame me for what I
have done, what I may have advised—having solely
acted under such impressions; but let me add, admiration
for the son hath conquered in my breast even those
prudent wishes for the father's death; and I am now
somewhat inclined to think, your excellency, mercy in
this case will do more towards planting the olive in this
colony, than would harsh measures. If I am not deceived,
there is a pledge in the countenance of young
Mienheer Leisler, to the effect that he will not be backward
in the compact of peace; and since the urgency
of his filial duty demands his leaving my roof so soon, I
would say it becomes him not to part in anger with his
host. I doubt not he hath deemed me an enemy, but
let the past be forgotten; I have made the first advance,
though an older man—and if he will accept the courtesy,
a horse from my stable, than whose breed none swifter
ever ran, awaits his order to bear him to the city on
his pious errand—while it shall be my duty, as my office
of secretary to your excellency's dictates, to have the
formal pardon drawn out; and as its completion would
only delay Mienheer Leisler's impatience, as soon as it
is sanctioned by your excellency, it shall be sent for the
immediate release of Jacobus Leisler. I extend my
hand and desire your friendship, young man.”
Although there was as it seemed a loathing which he
could not conquer in the heart of Arnyte towards Leisler,
yet in the excess of happiness, his very enemy appeared
less hateful—and the sentiments and actions,
which at another time from Bayard would only have
pervaded with pleasure, met with confidence. So sudden
and inconsistent is the transition of the human feelings,
that he, that but awhile before looked with an eye
jaundiced by grief upon mankind, now excited by a favourable
change of momentary fortune, viewed even
him who he had reason to believe an implacable and
wily foe, with kindness, and became easily a rash and
ready victim for deception. Arnyte had no time nor
feeling for cool deliberation on the evidently studied form
by which Bayard had addressed him—he but glanced his
eyes towards him, for he saw the governor appeared
gratified with Bayard's behaviour, and with looks expectant
and somewhat wistfully, was gazing on his countenance.
“I will not by a remembrance of ancient enmity mar
the satisfaction of the present moment,” said he, meeting
with a cordial grasp the hand that was offered him,
“and, colonel Bayard, I do accept the courtesy you
proffer; and albeit, I hope from my very heart, that in
this tendered kindness, all animosity between the names
of Bayard and Leisler may for ever cease. I will attend
where you lead, sir—for time doth wear, and I long for
my father's arms. God keep your excellency!”—And
having made his leave of colonel Sloughter and Jost
Stoll, Arnyte with a rapid pace, followed Bayard from
the apartment. His conductor, as he preceded him, by
various little attentions evidently endeavoured to win
his confidence, and to erase from out the tablet of his
breast, the late rankling sores and wounds cut by long
rooted hate and ire.
The Gate, and the Block House appertaining, stood at the
intersection of the present Pearl and Wall streets.
SECTION III.—Ended.
More than an hour elapsed before Bayard, after his
departure with Arnyte, returned to the apartment wherein
Colonel Sloughter and Jost Stoll had remained, and
they during that period were too busily engaged to mark
its progress, while they interchanged at once relations of
their escapes from the hands of Kid and his crew, and
their mutual congratulations on each other's safety, so
that when their host entered the room, after his temporary
absence, they were scarce aware of the length of
time that had been consumed in their intercourse. The
aspect of Bayard as he advanced towards his guests, was
calm, clear, and placid as a summer stream at mid-day,
when no breeze lives to ruffle its limpid surface; all
clouds had fled his brows, which were open and free as
innocence itself; but yet amidst all his courteous bearing
and collected manner, the keen eye of observance might
have descried, but which by his companions was unmarked,
that ever and anon an expression shot upon his
countenance—a movement of feature between a smile and
a sneer, whose indefinite meaning was hard to be read,
as whether applying in contempt to those whom he was
addressing, as the pagan worships his idol, or as the fantasy
that mingled with some wandering thought of things
not present to his vision, and perhaps ideal. In the look,
the timid and suspicious would have drawn an evil inference,
without being able to trace the reason; for it was
as the flash of a serpent's eye, caught then lost in its ambushment
in the green and deceitful grass of the savanna,
whose forest of tangled spears might in vain be searched
for a trace of the danger, the reality of which is only made
known when too late to escape the darting fang of the
treacherous animal. Bayard explained the cause of the
delay of his return, by informing Colonel Sloughter that
his absence had been occasioned by the reception of several
of his excellency's council, and many of the leading
according to the writs of summons issued by his excellency's
order to the sheriffs of the different counties, was to
commence its session early in the coming month, had arrived
at the mansion for the purpose of assuring his excellency
of the entire devotedness of the Legislature to
the views of the Governor, and who now remained awaiting
the presence of Colonel Sloughter for personal communication
to that purport. Bayard also mentioned that
he had taken the liberty to order a preparation for such
proper entertainment as his residence supplied, for the
use and refreshment of his excellency and his friends, and
to partake of the same, he now invited him and the ensign,
Jost Stoll; for the latter of whom was prudently
hinted that a change of apparel was in readiness.
Colonel Bayard, in thus addressing the Governor, but
slightly touched on the name of Leisler; and that only to
a direct inquiry of Colonel Sloughter,—he answered that
he had seen Arnyte depart, and that the pardon was in a
state of forwardness, and would very shortly be handed
to his excellency for approbation; but he the rather appeared
to avoid and pass over rapidly all that related to
the object of his late reconciliation, or of the condemned
parent of the stripling; he spoke but briefly and carelessly
on the matter, and shunned with evident caution a recur
rence of discourse upon the subject, by artfully directing
the governor's attention to points of political importance,
the thought and discussion of which at once engrossed his
excellency when started, to the manifest forgetfulness of
of all minor objects. Colonel Sloughter proceeded with
Bayard to meet his expectant visitors; but he was somewhat
startled on entering the apartment where they were
assembled, to behold a table spread forth with the luxu
ries of a sumptuous feast, and the arrangement of festival
which pervaded the whole chamber, and for which he
had in nowise been prepared; neither from the words
of Bayard had he drawn any thing which could intimate
the brilliance that surrounded him, when he entered the
room, as with the suddenness of magic; so much was he
taken unawares by the appearance of festivity, the gorgeous
smiling, and rich attired assemblage who pressed to greet
his entrance, that he yielded unreservedly, the very direction
of his motions, to his conductor, who appeared,
had an opportunity chanced, to have no wish for further
explanation; and he allowed himself to be ushered by
Bayard through the bowing throng, to a seat which
seemed to have been destined for him at the head of the
feast, the enjoyment of which apparently had only wanted
his sanction to have commenced; and although Colonel
Sloughter was astonished at the splendour and the crowd
to which he was introduced, yet unwarned as he was
of the least expectation, beyond the simple reception of
his friends, he could not view the spectacle that greeted
him as other than a most respectful and flattering attention
on the part of his host, secretly and delicately
planned, at once to amaze and please him with unlooked
for homage; and the more the Governor reflected on the
art with which he had been kept in ignorance of the getting
up of the entertainment, which he construed as a
celebration of his safe arrival, and success in putting
down sedition in the very outset of his government of the
province, the greater was the gratification to his vanity
—and he lent himself to the warm glances of an almost
apparent worship, that were bent upon him as he were a
superior being—a star among the men with whom he
mingled without suspicion or deeper thought. How weak
how feeble the penetration which from the outer beauty of
an object sets its intrinsic worth, or that gathers faith from
false show, nor descries the deep and wily artifice beneath
the gaud which covers but to blind the incautious
eye—cut credulity is the failing of many, and when assailed
by sycophantic hypocrisy it seems to love its own
destruction, and he that should be the most shunned is
soonest embraced, for the darkest villain too often wears
the goodliest outside, and he whose specious tongue and
bearing cloaks his foul nature, can worm into the confidence,
while the honest are scorned; and little did Colonel
Sloughter, as he scanned with the sparkling glance of
food that loaded the tables, the red wine that bubbled to
the beakers' brim, and the livery of mirth and revel worn
by each cheek, know that the short absence of Bayard
when he conducted Arnyte to his mansion door glowing
with success at the promised preservation of his father,
had devised the dark design of which he was now the
willing yet blinded dupe.—Evil stratagems are visited by
the smiles of fortune more than honest endeavours—and
Bayard found both means, time, and persons propitious
to his wish, and not one of these seeming courtiers, who
as a lover wooes the heart of his mistress, sought the favour
of the Governor, but were the devoted partizans of
Bayard or of the principles which had doomed the death
of Leisler; and to perpetrate the deed they aimed at, no
obstacle—no tie sacred or honourable but they would
ruthless of all conscience, at once break down and destroy;—they
thirsted for the blood of their adversary—
so inveterate the rage that nought less than life could
satisfy them,—and to such fearful purport, though for the
time disguised, rather than obeisance to their new ruler,
was this concerted meeting and banquet.
The revel of the festive board, the free passage of the
rosy hued goblet, and the gay and cheering discourse of
social happiness, wore on the swift winged hours; each
visage in that apartment shone in gladsome triumph of
mirth and joy, and none could discern beneath the festal
mask the colour of the venomous and deceptive hearts
which were concealed in the bosoms of those wily revellers;—and
ever and anon, amid the pauses of that banquet,
there would burst out from the attendant musicians,
sweet strains of melody,—from trump and clarion, viol and
recorder,—making the heart bound and leap at their delicious
clamours, and drowning all discordant thoughts within
the merry sound; and when the early twilight proclaimed
the closing day, bright lamps cast down upon the
busy feasters their dazzling rays, and lit the sparkling
wine cups, as the loud song and blithe pledge passed from
lip to lip in fast and pleasant route. In the present
scene, Sloughter lost all remembrance of that which had
of wassail; none recalled to his recollection the pardon
which he had bound himself by word to grant to Leisler,
and even Jost Stoll, though a guest at the banquet, reminded
him not of the suffering prisoner; for though the
bright goblet stood on the board by him untasted, yet so
eager did he ply his pencil in draughting the figures at the
festal as they engaged his fancy, that his mind's eye and
ear was as one deaf and blinded to word or thought, that
could divide him from his occupation, and on the gay
group, among whom he sat, he looked with the admiring
eye of a spectator, who views the picture of some master
painter, delighted with every change of place and shadow,
colour and tint that the shifting scene presented to his
vision. The character of colonel Sloughter in most
points, hath been heretofore presented; therefore it will
not be supposed, bred up to the manners and dissipations
of a licentious court, that he was abstemious enough to
withstand the frequent presentation of the wassail bowl;
he was one of those men who in the day of adversity or
sorrow only feel repentance and form solemn resolutions,
which as the tide of their fortunes turn, are driven
to the winds, with whose pleasant waftings they are
sailing;—awakened conscience, a certain rectitude of
thought which often roused within him, had demanded of
him a reform of manners and of life, and stimulated to
a course that would give his latent and dormant energies
of mind towards the honour and happiness of the country
which he was called to govern; but he wanted
strength, he lacked firmness, to put in force against
temptation, such resolves as in the moment of reflection
he determined on. An ancient habit, particularly if dissolute,
clings to the human system like a snake when he
hath twisted around his wictim; cut the reptile in twain,
the dismembered body will still strive to enfold in death
the conquering antagonist, and perhaps with a last and
fatal stroke, even in the expiring agony in the moment
of defeat, the venomous creeper may attain the victory
and yield its latest breath, well pleased with the ruin it
effected. Often, too often in the progress of that banquet,
with its potent yet smiling poison, the ready hand of
Sloughter—and besides, with many a guileful pledge for
his health, his happiness, and his fortunes, hollow and
empty wishes, which went no further than the formation
of the utterance, did the artful conspirators who were
around him, ply his courtesy with many a recurring
draught, compelling him in pretended friendship, to drain
goblet on goblet, until sense reeled under the influence of
the liquor he had drank, and scarce a faculty remained
over which the powerful grape did not domineer.
Bayard, with looks gleaming in the hope of anticipated
success, marked the vain struggle of Sloughter's intellect
as reason contended for mastery on its tottering
throne, shaking in its fruitless conflict like a tower shattered
by the battering of a fierce leaguer. His mental
darkness fast increased, and he quaffed now floods of
the juice of the vine, until his mind became like a wandering
bark left astray upon the ocean without a star to
guide its way, and every guard of passion and of temper
was loosened by the excess into which he was plunging
momently deeper and deeper. The wary enemies of
Leisler now deemed the time at hand to push their intrigue
to the point for which they had schemed, for
colonel Sloughter appeared fit to be worked, as an helpless
instrument, to their purposes—for such was his
situation, that it seemed as if common discretion had
fled him, and his whole soul had surrendered to the present
debauchery, like a town whose gates are opened by
a treacherous inmate, to the entrance of the foe.”
“Hast heard, Mienheer Pell,” said Bayard, to the person
who was seated next to him, and though he spoke
apart as if he meant not the governor to remark what
he discoursed, yet he perceived colonel Sloughter could
not avoid, even in the confusion of the revel, hearing
what he said, and he to whom he had addressed himself
well knew the part set out for him to perform, for he
was the devoted creature of Bayard, and by his influence
he had been returned as the member of the colonial
assembly from the county of Westchester; the ready
was depicted in his countenance—he was a short stout
man, of rather handsome features, and right bravely attired;—but
he bore a supercilious cast of visage, with
eyes that sparkled with cunning and deceit—that told
the knave and the hypocrite. “Hast heard, Mienheer
Pell,” said Bayard, “of the gracious mercy that his excellency
hath been pleased to extend to Jacobus Leisler?—why
sooth, Mienheer, you look at me in wonder;
know you not that the traitor hath received a full and
free clearance of all crime? he is pardoned by the governor's
order—or at least, his excellency hath given
promise to such end.”
“Impossible! you jest, colonel Bayard—the thing
cannot be,” quoth Pell in return, as one stricken with
wonder and alarm, “pardoned, say you? surely his excellency
hath never been so rash—so heedless, as to
set at large the caged tiger, who wants but freedom, to
spring upon the throat of his benefactor. I say, colonel
Bayard, his excellency can never have done an act so
adverse to his own safety, and that of his government;—
he must be unassuredly aware that within but a brief period
past, the authorities have discovered bloody and deadly
designs, on the part of the still existing partizans of the
rebel Leisler, which want but his liberation to be put in
force; and these designs threaten not only the over-throw
of the existing executive, but it hath been whispered,
and not I presume, without foundation, that his
life is equally compassed. I do indeed trust, though if I
heard aright from you, the thing is settled by his excellency—but
if not, that colonel Sloughter will pause, ere
he definitely decides on so unwise a measure.”
“It is most certain,” replied Bayard deceptively,
“that in the matter his excellency hath not had chance to
exercise his accustomed prudence and judgment; nor,
Mienheer, for I was present at the scene, and my heart
melted to womanish weakness, could any man, have
withstood being so assailed, the tears, cries and lamentations
of the young man, who worked on the goodness
and merciful nature of his excellency. And now the
ashamed, to have been so deluded—for I much
doubt me but the stripling Leisler's an artful knave,
and acted a wily and ensnaring part—and as you have
intimated, I do somewhat fear me, at the next meeting we
have with the youth, he will have the bared knife at our
throats, demanding submission to his upstart father for
the kindness he recived from his excellency in the gift
of life. I must say it Mienheer Pell, the more I reflect,
the more I misdoubt me of its truth;—his excellency
hath not yet placed his name on the pardon. I do most
humbly and fervently pray, he will not do the thing
without consideration—the act may be his ruin.”
“Colonel Bayard—Mienheer Pell,” quoth his excellency,
interrupting the converse and struggling for words
against the potency of the wine he had drank, and although
every other feeling within him was overpowered
by its influence, still a desire for vindication of the proceeding
which mitigated the sentence of Leisler, shot
like a ray of sunlight through a cloud, upon his burthened
brain—“colonel Bayard—Mienheer Pell,” said he,
“my friends, I will tell you—that is, good sirs, I will
convince you—but you know the boy saved my life—
and—and the right I'll not dispute with you—but I could
not bring myself to sign the father's death; no matter—
while the heart's rejoicing, why strike a melancholy
chord? I drink to you, gentlemen—with this flowing
goblet, I salute ye, sirs.” Pell bowed to colonel Sloughter
as he drained his wine cup, in answer to the compliment.
“May God preserve your excellency,” said Bayard
as the governor drank, “and knowing my affection,” he
continued, “you will surely pardon my pressing this subject
untimely, even at the social board, for I seek of you not to
spare against the counsel of your friends, the life of a
traitor, lest you rue such clemency; revoke the promise
which you have given, I beseech you, and which but
disgraces the firmness and impartial action of your station,
and sign instead of the pardon, this, the death warrant,
which will release for ever your excellency and
your excellency to act with decision—let not then, a
false pity interfere with a correct administration of justice;
let not the grave sentence of a court of law, be
a mockery—a shallow breath for criminals to laugh at
as a maygame, and not a reality—let it not be a proverb,
that the law hath sentenced, but your excellency hath
made its solemn decree an idle word. If your excellency
spare the life of Jacob Leisler, it were well you
burn your statutes—for it will not be in consistency—
nay, it will be a commission of a crime in your excellency,
to visit murther, felony—yea, the worst of iniquities
that human hand can do, or mind suggest, with the
severity of their appointed punishment. I call on your
excellency for your own honour's sake, to write your
sanction on this warrant, which approves the judgment
of the court against the rebellious traitor Leisler.” And
as he spoke, Bayard produced the death warrant, which
he had about him for the occasion. But though the
brain of Sloughter was too much heated and disordered
by his dissipation for a capability of thought or care,
memory or reflection, yet as Bayard presented him the
parchment and he comprehended that which was sought
of him, an involuntary shudder ran through him, and
with a tremulous motion he put aside the band which
offered him the warrant, as awakened somewhat to his
conscious inability of mind, and his unfit state to perform
so serious a duty of his office.
“Not now, colonel Bayard, not now,” exclaimed he
rapidly, “to-morrow I will be more at leisure to hear
and think—yes, to follow what you advise—but now, the
cheery goblet waits and chides my laggard lip; you
would not have one doom a life away over this wine cup
—that which foams within its circlet is of a ruddy hue,
but let it not be blood—blood—blood—that were a vain
conceit—I thirst not for blood, but I pledge ye again and
again, by the bright and glowing bowl.”
Bayard perceiving the attempt as yet premature to
induce colonel Sloughter to consent to Leisler's execution,
desisted from his persuasion for the time, and eagerly,
debauch, endeavoured to drown the governor's few remaining
senses in utter imbecility, anxious to finish the
work of destruction which had been resolved against
the hated enemy of his party. Nor was he defeated in
his treacherous object—for besides the conquering bowl
to advance the evil purpose of his wily brain, having by
lascivious converse inflamed the soul and passions of
Sloughter to a callousness of all virtue, he introduced to
aid a completion of his work the loose and wanton presence
of the courtezan, who by the witcheries and spells of
pretended love wound him to their wish, subduing him by
their artful smiles to very bondage. And soon warm and
flushed by wassail and the banquet—bewildered by music
and the voluptuous songs of women, whose sorceries
pervaded every sense—entranced to madness by the deluding
light of sparkling eyes, whose brightness told of
heaven, but in which neither truth nor faith existed—but
shone in beauty and enchantment as the false mirage on
Arabian sands to the thirsting pilgrim, who meets a dreary
waste where he deemed there flowed the cool and lucid
water—giddy with the happiness of the hour, rewarded
by the kiss of a leman, and applauded by the praise of
the rioter, Colonel Sloughter affixed his signature to the
fatal deed which condemned Jacob Leisler to the scaffold,
almost ignorant at the moment of the purport of that
which he had done—although at another period he would
rather have had the right hand severed from the limb
than it should have guided the pen to the execution of
that instrument. But though after that revel closed, his
midnight rest was troubled, and feverish, and broken
with wild dreams, that started him in fear and horror
from his hot and uncomfortable couch, yet morning's light
that dawned on his sallow cheek and sunken eye, and
aspect worn and sicklied as with care and age, found him
unconscious of the act that he had lent his power to, on
the preceding evening—he knew not he had signed the
death warrant—though 'mid bright dreams and images of
loveliness, of flowers, garlands, music, rose odours, and
smiles, and all the ravishing brilliance of the past banquet,
like clouds before the face of the bright heavens athwart
his soul—a heaviness on his heart—a damp like death
would rise upon his forehead, and with the melody of
song that stole upon his enraptured memory, there would
mingle that which his chilled spirit construed as a solemn
knell foreboding death or sorrow, and for an instant the
warm current of his blood would chill until he laughed
that which he deemed but folly from him, and his brow
was clear again, and his bosom calm and tranquil in forgetfulness.
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