University of Virginia Library

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,

except such wretches whom frequent crime had made
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
standing invitation to all city entertainments,) after
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,
giving free communication with the hall, from which,
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
as they hung over one solitary stick of wood, their allowance
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
youth for a moment with a sharp, quick, and inquisitive
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
of this man was naturally tall, but more from habit
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

if they punished the smaller rogues and pardoned the
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

so assuming courage from the alarming motions
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,

although so strangely conveyed, made the heart of Arnyte
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

gloomy region, (for, having satisfied themselves with
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
inhabitant of this dungeon at once whereon to crouch, to
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

reck of outward wo, and to which the grave were alone
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
hope seemingly of escape, or whether with courage braced
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

a determination to prosecute his search, and to learn at
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

of evil, and as the Latin proverb expresses it, nemo turpissime
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.

At times he could not restrain an involuntary
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

gainsay—there are worse places than this on the earth,
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;
for to restrain our passions, to command ourselves, is the
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

and fickle ideas that shifted alternate in his unstable
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
unwelcome intruder. The appearance of the person
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

the sage and the suffering victim of his tediousness,
“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!

hav de deshonneur to take away your bit souper dat
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

—him gone—tell me—tell you fren—votre ami—vy
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

him in der rue dat is by der porte, pour I'honneur de
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

from the man's behaviour more than from words, that he
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

in von littel minute, you sall see, a ha, cest vrai;” so saying
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,

without the slightest injury to their enemy by the intended
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

his face was buried in his hands as if in grief or reflection
—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,

“alas, where will my miseries end; oh, father, dear father,
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

and in silence—while the old man seemed roused by the
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

—miserable old man! the sins of all thy life hath been
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

make a rallying word against them; yes, this prison-house
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

ning the herd of his mates to look on the heaven and waters,
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
bell had tolled the hour of rest, rose to his ears from the
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
smoothed their pillow, but the grey hairs of age and the
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
crowd of mankind, the sore agonies of remorse, as though
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
hath the astronomer, that it is not an ideal fantasy, when
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,
adverse to their safe keeping, dread the jailer's visit,)
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,
the heart of Arnyte beat quickly with foreboding of evil,
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

un, belike they'll make a short job of it, so get thee up, man
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

saps us to the very core, and like a palsy withers
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.