acquainted, was a rare fellow, such as seldom rains down anywhere, much
less on a country village. He was of “merry England,” as they call
it—lucus a non lucendo—at least so he said and I believe, although he
belied his nativity, by being the merriest rogue in the world, even
when the fog was at the thickest. In truth, he was ever in a good
humour, unless it might be when a rare bug or gorgeous butterfly,
that he had followed through thick and thin, escaped his net at last.
Then, to be sure, he was apt to call the recreant all the “vagabonds”
he could think of. He was a middle-sized man, whose person decreased
regularly, from the crown of his head to the—I was going to say, sole
of his foot—but it was only to the commencement of the foot, to speak
by the card. The top of his head was broad and flat, and so was his
forehead, which took up at least two thirds of his face, that tapered
off suddenly to a chin, as sharp as the point of a triangle. His
forehead was indeed a large field, diversified like the country into
which he had rained down, with singular varieties of hill and dale,
meadow and plough land, hedge and ditch, ravine and watercourse. It had
as many points as a periwinkle. The brow projected exuberantly, though
not heavily, over a pair of rascally little cross-firing, twinkling
eyes, that, as the country people said, looked at least nine ways from
Sunday. His teeth were white enough, but no two of them were fellows.
But his head would have turned the brains of a phrenologist, in
exploring the mysteries of its development; it was shaped somewhat like
Stony Point—which everybody knows as the scene of a gallant exploit of
Pennsylvanian Wayne—and had quite as many abruptnesses and quizzical
protuberances to brag about. At the upper extremity of his forehead, as
he assured us, he carried his money, in the shape of a piece of silver,
three inches long and two wide, inserted there in consequence of a
fracture he got by falling down a precipice in hot chase of a “vagabond
of a beetle,” as he was pleased to call him. Descending towards terra
firma, to wit, his feet, we find his body gradually diminishing to his
legs, which were so thin, everybody wondered how they could carry the
great head. But, like Captain Wattle, each had a foot at the end of
it, full as large as the Black Dwarf. It is so long ago that I almost
forget his costume. All I recollect is, that he never wore boots or
pantaloons, but exhibited his spindles in all weathers in worsted
stockings, and his feet in shoes, gorgeously caparisoned in a pair of
square silver buckles, the only pieces of finery he ever displayed.
In the merry months of spring and summer, and early in autumn, Master
Timothy was most of his time chasing bugs and butterflies about the
fields, to the utter confusion of the people, who wondered what
he could want with such trumpery. Being a genius and an idler by
profession, I used to accompany him frequently in these excursions, for
he was fond of me, and called me vagabond oftener than he did anybody
else. He had a little net of green gauze, so constructed as to open and
shut as occasion required, to entrap the small fry, and a box with a
cork bottom, upon which he impaled his prisoners with true scientific
barbarity, by sticking a pin in them. Thus equipped, this Don Quixote
of butterfly catchers, with myself his faithful esquire, would sally
out of a morning into the clovered meadows and flower-dotted fields,
over brook, through tangled copse and briery dell, in chase of these
gentlemen commoners of nature. Ever and anon, as he came upon some
little retired nook, where nature, like a modest virgin, shrouded her
beauties from the common view—a rocky glen, romantic cottage, rustic
bridge, or brawling stream, he would take out his little portfolio,
and pointing me to some conspicuous station to animate his little
landscape, sketch it and me together, with a mingled taste and skill
I have never since seen surpassed. I figure in all his landscapes,
although he often called me a vagabond, because he could not drill me
into picturesque attitudes. But the finest sport for me, was to watch
him creeping slily after a humming bird, the object of his most intense
desires, half buried in the bliss of the dewy honeysuckle, and just
as he was on the point of covering it with his net, to see the little
vagrant flit away with a swiftness that made it invisible. It was an
invaluable sight to behold Master Timothy stand wiping his continent of
a forehead, and blessing the bird for a “little vagabond.” These were
happy times, and at this moment I recall them, I hardly know why, with
a melancholy yet pleasing delight.
During the winter season, Master Timothy was usually employed in the
daytime painting pleasure sleighs, which, at that period, it was the
fashion among the farmers to have as fine as fiddles. Timothy was
a desperate hand at a true lover's knot, a cipher, or a wreath of
flowers; and as for a blazing sun! he painted one for the squire,
that was seriously suspected of melting all the snow in ten leagues
round. He would go ten or a dozen miles to paint a sleigh, and always
carried his materials on a board upon the top of his head—it was before
the invention of high-crowned hats. Destiny had decreed he should
follow this trade, and nature had provided him a head on purpose.
It was as flat as a pancake. In the long winter evenings it was his
pleasure to sit by the fireside, and tell enormous stories to groups
of horrorstruck listeners. I never knew a man that had been so often
robbed on Hounslow Heath, or had seen so many ghosts in his day, as
Master Tim Canty. Peace to his ashes! he is dead, and, if report is to
be credited, is sometimes seen on moonlight nights in the churchyard,
with his little green gauze net, chasing the ghosts of moths and
beetles, as he was wont in past times.
But it is high time to return to my story; for I candidly confess I
never think of honest Tim that I don't grow as garrulous as an old
lady, talking about the revolution and the Yagers. In all country
villages I ever saw or heard of, whenever anything strange, new,
horrible, or delightful happens, or is supposed to have happened, all
the male inhabitants, not to say female, make for the tavern as fast
as possible, to hear the news, or tell the news, and get at the bottom
of the affair. I don't deny that truth is sometimes to be found at the
bottom of a well; but in these cases she is generally found at the
bottom of the glass. Be this as it may—when Cobus Yerks looked into
the village inn, just to say How d'ye do to the landlady, he beheld a
party of some ten or a dozen people, discussing the affair of my being
poisoned with Souchong tea, which by this time had been extended to the
whole family, not one of whom had been left alive by the bloody-minded
damsel, Rumour.
Cobus could not resist the fascination of these horrors. He edged
himself in among them, and after a little while they were joined
by Master Timothy, who, on hearing of the catastrophe of his old
fellow-labourer in butterfly catching, had strode over a distance of
two miles to our house to ascertain the truth of the story. He of
course found it was a mistake, and had now returned with a nefarious
design of frightening them all out of their wits by a story of more
than modern horrors. By this time it was the dusk of the evening, and
Cobus had a long way to travel before he could reach home. He had been
so fascinated with the story, and the additions every moment furnished
by various new comers, that he forgot the time till it began to grow
quite dark; and then he was so horrorstruck at what he had heard,
that he grew fast to his chair in the chimney corner, where he had
intrenched himself. It was at this moment Master Timothy came in with
the design aforesaid.
The whole party gathered round him to know if the story of the
poisoning was true. Tim shook his head, and the shaking of such a head
was awful. “What! all the family?” cried they, with one voice. “Every
soul of them,” cried Tim, in a hollow tone—“every soul of them, poor
creatures; and not only they, but all the cattle, horses, pigs, ducks,
chickens, cats, dogs, and guinea hens, are poisoned.” “What! with
Souchong tea?” “No—with coloquintida.” Coloquintida! the very name was
enough to poison a whole generation of Christian people. “But the black
bulldog!” cried Timothy, in a sepulchral voice, that curdled the very
marrow of their innermost bones. “What of the black bulldog?” quoth
little Cobus. “Why, they do say that he came to life again after laying
six hours stone dead, and ran away howling like a d—l incarnate.” “A
d—l incarnate!” quoth Cobus, who knew no more about the meaning of that
fell word than if it had been Greek. He only knew it was something
very terrible. “Yes,” replied Timothy; “and what's more, I saw where
he jumped over the barnyard gate, and there was the print of a cloven
foot, as plain as the daylight this blessed minute.” It was as dark
as pitch, but the comparison was considered proof positive. “A cloven
foot!” quoth Cobus, who squeezed himself almost into the oven, while
the thought of going home all alone in the dark, past the churchyard,
the old grave at the cross roads, and, above all, the spot where John
Ryer was hanged for shooting the sheriff, smote upon his heart, and
beat it into a jelly—at least it shook like one. What if he should
meet the big black dog, with his cloven foot, who howled like a d—l
incarnate! The thought was enough to wither the heart of a stone.
Cobus was a little, knock-kneed, broad-faced, and broad-shouldered
Dutchman, who believed all things, past, present, and to come,
concerning spooks, goblins, and fiends of all sorts and sizes, from a
fairy to a giant. Tim Canty knew him of old, for he had once painted a
sleigh for him, and frightened Cobus out of six nights' sleep, by the
story of a man that he once saw murdered by a highwayman on Hounslow
Heath. Tim followed up the story of the black dog with several others,
each more appalling than the first, till he fairly lifted Cobus's
wits off the hinges, aided as he was by certain huge draughts upon a
pewter mug, with which the little man reinforced his courage at short
intervals. He was a true disciple of the doctrine that spirit and
courage, that is to say, whiskey and valour were synonymous.
It now began to wax late in the evening, and the company departed, not
one by one, but in pairs, to their respective homes. The landlady, a
bitter root of a woman, and more than a match for half the men in the
village, began to grow sleepy, as it was now no longer worth her while
to keep awake. Gradually all became quiet within and without the house,
except now and then the howling of a wandering cur, and the still more
doleful moaning of the winds, accompanied by the hollow thumpings of
the waves, as they dashed on the rocky shores of the river that ran
hard by. Once, and once only, the cat mewed in the garret, and almost
caused Cobus to jump out of his skin. The landlady began to complain
that it grew late, and she was very sleepy; but Cobus would take no
hints, manfully keeping his post in the chimney corner, till at last
the good woman threatened to call up her two negroes, and have him
turned neck and heels out of doors. For a moment the fear of the big
black dog with the cloven foot was mastered by the fear of the two
stout black men, and the spirit moved Cobus towards the door, lovingly
hugging the stone jug, which he had taken care to have plentifully
replenished with the creature. He sallied forth in those graceful
curves, which are affirmed to constitute the true lines of beauty; and
report says that he made a copious libation of the contents of the
stone jug outside the door, ere the landlady, after assisting to untie
his patient team, had tumbled him into his wagon. This was the last
that was seen of Cobus Yerks.
That night his faithful, though not very obedient little wife, whom
he had wedded at Tappan, on the famous sea of that name, and who wore
a cap trimmed with pink ribands when she went to church on Sundays,
fell asleep in her chair, as she sat anxiously watching his return.
About midnight she waked, but she saw not her beloved Cobus, nor heard
his voice calling her to open the door. But she heard the raven, or
something very like it, screaming from the Raven Rock, the foxes
barking about the house, the wind whistling and moaning among the
rocks and trees of the mountain side, and a terrible commotion among
the poultry, Cobus having taken the great house-dog with him that
day. Again she fell asleep, and waked not until the day was dawning.
She opened the window, and looked forth upon as beautiful an autumnal
morning as ever blessed this blessed country. The yellow sun threw a
golden lustre over the many-tinted woods, painted by the cunning hand
of Nature with a thousand varied dies; the smoke of the neighbouring
farmhouses rose straight upward to heaven in the pure atmosphere, and
the breath of the cattle mingled its warm vapour with the invisible
clearness of the morning air. But what were all these beauties of
delicious nature to the eye and the heart of the anxious wife, who saw
that Cobus was not there?
She went forth to the neighbours to know if they had seen him, and
they good-naturedly sallied out to seek him on the road that led from
the village to his home. But no traces of him could be found, and they
were returning with bad news for his anxious wife, when they bethought
themselves of turning into a byroad that led to a tavern, that used
whilome to attract the affections of honest Cobus, and where he was
sometimes wont to stop and wet his whistle.
They had not gone far, when they began to perceive traces of the
lost traveller. First his broad-brimmed hat, which he had inherited
through divers generations, and which he always wore when he went to
the village, lay grovelling in the dirt, crushed out of all goodly
shape by the wheel of his wagon, which had passed over it. Next, they
encountered the backboard of the wagon, ornamented with C. Y. in a true
lover's knot, painted by Tim Canty, in his best style—and anon a little
farther, a shoe, that was identified as having belonged to our hero,
by having upward of three hundred hobnails in the sole, for he was a
saving little fellow, though he would wet his whistle sometimes, in
spite of all his wife and the minister could say. Proceeding about a
hundred rods farther, to a sudden turn of the road, they encountered
the wagon, or rather the fragments of it, scattered about and along
in the highway, and the horses standing quietly against a fence, into
which they had run the pole of the wagon.
But what was become of the unfortunate driver, no one could discover.
At length, after searching some time, they found him lying in a tuft
of blackberry briars, amid the fragments of the stone jug, lifeless
and motionless. His face was turned upward, and streaked with seams
of blood; his clothes torn, bloody, and disfigured with dirt; and his
pipe, that he carried in the buttonholes of his waistcoat, shivered all
to naught. They made their way to the body, full of sad forebodings,
and shook it, to see if any life remained. But it was all in vain—there
seemed neither sense nor motion there. “Maybe, after all,” said one,
“he is only in a swound—here is a little drop of the spirits left in
the bottom of the jug—let us hold it to his nose, it may bring him to
life.”
The experiment was tried, and wonderful to tell, in a moment or
two, Cobus, opening his eyes, and smacking his lips with peculiar
satisfaction, exclaimed, “Some o' that, boys!” A little shaking brought
him to himself, when being asked to give an account of the disaster of
his wagon and his stone jug, he at first shook his head mysteriously,
and demurred. Being, however taken to the neighbouring tavern, and
comforted a little with divers refreshments, he was again pressed for
his story, when, assuming a face of awful mystification, he began as
follows:—
“You must know,” said Cobus, “I started rather late from town, for I
had been kept there by—by business; and because, you see, I was waiting
for the moon to rise, that I might find my way home in the dark night.
But it grew darker and darker, until you could not see your hand
before your face, and at last I concluded to set out, considering I
was as sober as a deacon, and my horses could see their way blindfold.
I had not gone quite round the corner, where John Ryer was hung for
shooting Sheriff Smith, when I heard somebody coming, pat, pat, pat,
close behind my wagon. I looked back, but I could see nothing, it was
so dark. By-and-by, I heard it again, louder and louder, and then
I confess I began to be a little afeard. So I whipped up my horses
a quarter of a mile or so, and then let them walk on. I listened,
and pat, pat, pat, went the noise again. I began to be a good deal
frightened, but considering it could be nothing at all, I thought I
might as well take a small dram, as the night was rather chilly, and I
began to tremble a little with the cold. I took but a drop, as I am a
living sinner, and then went on quite gayly; but pat, pat, pat, went
the footsteps ten times louder and faster than ever. And then! then
I looked back, and saw a pair of saucer eyes just at the tail of my
wagon, as big and as bright as the mouths of a fiery furnace, dancing
up and down in the air like two stage lamps in a rough road.
“By gosh, boys, but you may depend I was scared now! I took another
little dram, and then made the whip fly about the ears of old Pepper
and Billy, who cantered away at a wonderful rate, considering.
Presently, bang! something heavy jumped into the wagon, as if heaven
and earth were coming together. I looked over my shoulder, and the
great burning eyes were within half a yard of my back. The creature
was so close that I felt its breath blowing upon me, and it smelled
for all one exactly like brimstone. I should have jumped out of the
wagon, but, somehow or other, I could not stir, for I was bewitched
as sure as you live. All I could do was to bang away upon Pepper and
Billy, who rattled along at a great rate up hill and down, over the
rough roads, so that if I had not been bewitched, I must have tumbled
out to a certainty. When I came to the bridge, at old Mangham's, the
black dog, for I could see something black and shaggy under the goggle
eyes, all at once jumped up, and seated himself close by me on the
bench, snatched the whip and reins out of my hands like lightning. Then
looking me in the face, and nodding, he whispered something in my ear,
and lashed away upon Pepper and Billy, till they seemed to fly through
the air. From that time I began to lose my wits by degrees, till at
last the smell of brimstone overpowered me, and I remember nothing
till you found me this morning in the briars.”
Here little Cobus concluded his story, which he repeated with several
variations and additions to his wife, when he got home. That good
woman, who, on most occasions, took the liberty of lecturing her
good man, whenever he used to be belated in his excursions to the
village, was so struck with this adventure, that she omitted her
usual exhortation, and ever afterwards viewed him as one ennobled by
supernatural communication, submitting to him as her veritable lord
and master. Some people, who pretend to be so wise that they won't
believe the evidence of their senses when it contradicts their reason,
affected to be incredulous, and hinted that the goggle eyes, and the
brimstone breath, appertained to Cobus Yerks's great house-dog, which
had certainly followed him that day to the village, and was found
quietly reposing by his master, in the tuft of briars. But Cobus was
ever exceedingly wroth at this suggestion, and being a sturdy little
brusier, had knocked down one or two of these unbelieving sinners, for
venturing to assert that the contents of the stone jug were at the
bottom of the whole business. After that, everybody believed it, and
it is now for ever incorporated with the marvellous legends of the
renowned Buttermilk Hill.
A STRANGE BIRD
IN
NIEUW-AMSTERDAM.
In the year of the building of the city (which in Latin is called
_Anno Urba Conditur_) fifty-five, to wit, the year of our Lord 1678,
there appeared a phenomenon in the street of Nieuw-Amsterdam called
Garden-street. This was a youthful stranger, dressed in the outlandish
garb of the English beyond the Varsche river, towards the east, where
those interlopers have grievously trespassed on the territories of
their high mightinesses, the states general. Now, be it known that this
was the first stranger from foreign parts that ever showed himself in
the streets of Nieuw-Amsterdam, which had never been before invaded
in like manner. Whereat the good people were strangely perplexed and
confounded, seeing they could by no means divine his business. The good
yffrouws did gaze at him as he passed along by their stoops, and the
idle boys followed him wheresoever he went, shouting and hallooing, to
the great disturbance of the peaceable and orderly citizens, of whom it
was once said that the barking of a cur disturbed the whole city.
But the stranger took not the least heed of the boys or their
hallooings, but passed straight onward, looking neither to the right
nor to the left, which circumstance seemed exceedingly perplexing to
the good yffrouws, seeing it savoured of having no curiosity to see or
be seen, which to them appeared altogether out of nature. The stranger
proceeded in a sort of rigmarole way, seeming little to care whither he
went, all along by the Stadt Huys, the East and West Docks, the Bendeel
or Battery, the Rondeels, and I can't tell where else. All the while he
seemed to take no notice of anything, which everybody thought strange,
since he appeared as if he had no other business than to see the city.
In the course of his marvellous peregrinations, he at length came to
the great building, which, being the only house of public resort, was
called, by way of eminence, the City Tavern. Here he stopped all of
a sudden, so abruptly, that little Brom, son of Alderman Botherwick,
who was close at his heels, did run right upon his hinder parts, and
almost knocked him down, before he could stop himself. Whereupon the
stranger turned round and gave him a look, whether of menace or good
will, was long after disputed by divers people that saw him. Be this
as it may, the stranger, on seeing the tavern, nodded his head, and
went straight up the steps into the bar-room, where he courteously
saluted the landlord, good Mynheer Swighauser, by pulling off his hat,
saying, at the same time, nothing; which mynheer thought rather mighty
particular. He asked the interloping stranger what he would please
to have; for he was a polite man enough, except to losel beggars,
and that sort of vermin. The stranger hereupon said nothing, but
addressed Mynheer Swighauser in a figurative style, which all landlords
comprehend. He pulled out a purse, and showed him the money, at the
sight of which mynheer made him a reverend bow, and ushered him into
the Half Moon, so called from being ornamented with a gallant picture
of the vessel of that name, in which good Master Hendrick Hudson did
first adventure to the discovery of the Manhadoes. It was the best room
in the house, and always reserved by Mynheer Swighauser for guests that
carried full purses.
Having so done, mynheer courteously asked the stranger what he would
please to have for dinner, it being now past eleven o'clock, and the
dinner hour nigh. Whereat the stranger looked hard at him, and said not
a word. Mynheer thereupon raised his voice so loud, that he frightened
divers tame pigeons, sitting on their coop in the yard, who rose into
the air out of sight, and, it is affirmed, never returned again. The
stranger answered not a word, as before.
“_Wat donder is dat?_” exclaimed mynheer; “a man with such a full purse
might venture to call for his dinner, I think.”
However, when Mynheer Swighauser and his family sat down to their
dinner at twelve o'clock, the stranger, without any ceremony, sat
down with them, taking the chair from time immemorial appropriated
to mynheer's youngest child, who was thereat so mortally offended,
that she set up a great cry, and refused to eat any dinner. Yffrouw
Swighauser looked hard and angry at the stranger, who continued to eat
as if it were his last, saying nothing all the while, and paying no
more heed to the little child than he did to the hallooing of the boys
or mynheer's courteous interrogatories.
When he had finished, he took up his hat, and went forth on a
peregrination, from which he did not return until it was nigh dusk.
Mynheer was in tribulation lest he should lose the price of his
dinner, but the Yffrouw said she did not care if she never saw such a
dumb noddy again. The stranger ate a huge supper in silence, smoked
his pipe, and went to bed at eight o'clock, at which hour mynheer
always shut up the front of his house, leaving the back door open
to the roistering younkers, who came there to carouse every night,
and play at all-fours. Soon after the stranger retired, there was
heard a great noise in his room, which so excited the curiosity of
Yffrouw Swighauser, that she took a landlady's liberty, and went and
listened at the door. It proved only the stranger playing a concert
with Morpheus, on the nasal trumpet, whereupon the yffrouw went away,
exclaiming,
“The splutterkin! he makes noise enough in his sleep, if he can't when
he is awake.”