University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER II.

Whoever first described common
fame, or rumour, as belonging to the
sager sex, was a very owl for shrewdness.
She has in truth certain feminine
qualities to an astonishing degree; particularly
that benevolent anxiety to take
care of the affairs of others, which keeps
her continually hunting after secrets,
and gadding about proclaiming them.
Whatever is done openly and in the face
of the world, she takes but transient notice
of; but whenever a transaction is
done in a corner, and attempted to be
shrouded in mystery, then her goddessship
is at her wits' end to find it out, and
takes a most mischievous and lady-like
pleasure in publishing it to the world.

It is this truly feminine propensity
that induces her continually to be prying
into cabinets of princes, listening at the
keyholes of senate-chambers, and peering
through chinks and crannies, when
our worthy Congress are sitting with
closed doors, deliberating between a
dozen excellent modes of ruining the
nation. It is this which makes her so
baneful to all wary statesmen and intriguing
commanders—such a stumbling-block
to private negotiations and secret
expeditions; which she often betrays by
means and instruments which never
would have been thought of by any but
a female head.

Thus it was in the case of the affair
of Fort Casimir. No doubt the cunning
Risingh imagined, that by securing the
garrison he should for a long time prevent
the history of its fate from reaching
the ears of the gallant Stuyvesant; but
his exploit was blown to the world when
he least expected; and by one of the last
beings he would ever have suspected of
enlisting as trumpeter to the wide-mouthed
deity.

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