gorgeously with sparkling isinglass, seated under the shade of a tuft
of laurels, he beheld a female figure, holding a little flageolet,
and playing the sprightly air which he had just heard. Her height,
notwithstanding the distance, appeared majestic; the flash of her
bright beaming eye illumined the depths of the gloom, and her air
seemed that of a goddess. She was dressed in simple robes of virgin
white, and on her head she wore a cap, such as has since been
consecrated to Liberty by my gallant countrymen.
Shearjashub looked, trembled, and was silent. In a few minutes,
however, his recollection returned.
“Shearjashub!” exclaimed the lady of the rock, “listen!”
But Shearjashub had given leg bail. Both he and his faithful squire,
little Snap, had left the haunted glen as fast as their feet would
carry them.
He told the story when he got home, with some little exaggeration.
Nobody believed him except the widow, his honoured mother, who had
faith to swallow a camel. All the rest laughed at him, and the wicked
damsels of the village were always joking about his mountain sweetheart.
At last he got out of patience, and one day demanded of those who were
bantering him what proof they would have of the truth of his story.
“Why,” said old Deacon Mayhew, “I guess I should be considerably
particular satisfied if you would bring us hum that same fife you heard
the gal play on so finely.”
“And I,” said another, “will believe the young squire if he'll play the
same tune on it he heard yonder in the mountain.”
Shearjashub was so pestered and provoked at last, that he determined to
put his courage to the proof, and see whether it would bear him out in
another visit to the chasm in the mountain. He thought he might as well
be dead as have no comfort of his life.
“I'll be darned if I don't go,” said he, and away he went, with no
other company than his little dog. It was on the fourth day of July,
1776, that Shearjashub wrought himself up to a second visit.
“I'm just come of age this very day,” said he, “and I'll show the
kritters I'm not made a man for nothing.”
He certainly felt, as he afterwards confessed, a little skittish on
this occasion, and his dog seemed not much to relish the excursion.
Shearjashub had his gun, but had not the heart to fire at any of the
birds that flitted about, and seemed as if they were not afraid of
coming nigh him. His mind ran upon other matters entirely. He was a
long while getting to the chasm in the mountain. Sometimes he would
stop to rest, as he said to himself, though he was not in the least
tired; sometimes he found himself standing still, admiring nothing;
and once or twice actually detected his feet moving on their way home,
instead of towards the mountain.
On arriving at the vast gates that, as it were, guarded the entrance to
the glen, he halted to consider the matter. All was silence, repose,
gloom, and sublimity. His spirit at first sunk under the majesty of
nature, but at length became gradually inspired by the scene before
him with something of a kindred dignity. He marched forward with a
vigorous step and firm heart, rendered the more firm by hearing and
seeing nothing of the white nymph of the rock or her sprightly music.
He hardly knew whether he wished to see her or not, if she appeared he
might be inspired to run away again; and if she did not, the deacon and
the girls would laugh at him worse than ever.
With these conflicting thoughts he arrived at the very centre of the
gloomy solitude, where he stood a few moments, expecting to hear the
music. All was loneliness; Repose lay sleeping on his bed of rocks, and
Silence reigned alone in her chosen retreat.
“Is it possible that I was dreaming the other day, when I was here, as
these tarnal kritters twit me I was?” asked the young man of himself.
He was answered by the voice of the white girl of the mountain,
exclaiming, in the same sweet yet clear, animating, trumpet tones,
“Shearjashub! Shearjashub! listen.”
Jashub's legs felt some little inclination to run away; but this time
he kept his ground like a brave fellow.
Again the same sprightly air echoed through the silence of the deep
profound, in strains of animating yet simple, careless vivacity.
Shearjashub began to feel himself inspired. He bobbed his head from
side to side to suit the air, and was once or twice on the point of
cutting a caper.
He felt his bosom thrill with unwonted energies, and a new vigour
animated his frame as he contemplated the glorious figure of the
mountain nymph, and listened to her sprightly flageolet.
“Shearjashub!” cried the nymph, after finishing her strain of music,
“listen!”
“Speak—I hear,” said the young man.
“My name is Liberty; dost thou know me?”
“I have heard my father and grandfather speak of thee, and say they
came to the New World to seek thee.”
“Well, I am found at last. Listen to me.”
“Speak on.”
“Your country has just devoted herself forever to me and my glory. Your
countrymen have this day pronounced themselves freemen, and they shall
be what they have willed, in spite of fate or fortune. But my blessings
are never thrown away on cowards; they are to be gained by toil,
suffering, hunger, wounds, and death; by courage and perseverance;
by virtue and patriotism. The wrath and the mighty energies of the
oppressor are now directed against your people; hunger assails them;
force overmatches them, and their spirits begin to fail. Take this
pipe,” and she flung him the little flageolet, which he caught in his
hand. “Canst thou play on it? Try.”
He put it to his lips, and to his surprise, produced the same animating
strain he had heard from the nymph of the mountain.
“Now go forth among the people and their armies, and inspire them for
battle. Wherever thou goest with thy pipe, and whenever thou playest
that air, I will be with thee and thy countrymen. Go, fear not; those
who deserve me shall always win me. Farewell—we shall meet again.” So
saying, she vanished behind the tuft of laurels.
Shearjashub marched straight home with his pipe, and somehow or other
felt he did not quite know how; he felt as if he could eat gunpowder,
and snap his fingers at the deacon.
“What the dickens has got in the kritter?” said the deacon, when he saw
him strutting along like a captain of militia.
“I declare, Jashub looks like a continental,” exclaimed the girls.
Just then Shearjashub put his pipe to his mouth, and played the tune
he had learned, as if by magic, from the mountain nymph; whereat
Deacon Mayhew made for the little white meeting house, whither all
the villagers followed him, and preached a sermon, calling on the
people to rise and fight for liberty, in such stirring strains that
forthwith all the men, young and old, took their muskets and went out
in defence of their country, under the command of Shearjashub. Wherever
he came he played the magic tune on his pipe, and the men, like those
of his native village, took to their arms, and went forth to meet the
oppressor, like little David against Goliath, armed with a sling and a
stone.
They joined the army of Liberty, which they found dispirited with
defeat, and weak with suffering and want. They scarcely dared hope for
success to their cause, and a general gloom depressed the hearts of all
the true friends of freedom. In this state the enemy attacked them, and
threw them into confusion, when Shearjashub came on at the head of his
troops, playing his inspiring music with might and main. Wherever he
went the sounds seemed to awaken the spirit of heroism in every breast.
Those who were retreating rallied; and those who stood their ground
maintained it more stoutly than ever. The victory remained with the
sons of Liberty, and Shearjashub celebrated it with a tune on his pipe,
which echoed through the whole land, and wakened it to new triumphs.
After a hard and bloody struggle, in which the pipe of Shearjashub
animated the very clods of the valley wherever he went, the promise of
the nymph of the mountain was fulfilled. The countrymen of Shearjashub
were free and independent. They were about to repose under the laurels
they had reaped, and to wear what they had so dearly won.
Shearjashub also departed for his native village with his pipe,
which had so materially assisted in the attainment of the blessings
of freedom. His way lay through the chasm in the mountain, where he
first encountered the nymph with the cap and snow-white robe. He was
anticipating the happiness of seeing his aged mother, who had lived
through the long war, principally on the excitement of news, and the
still more near and dear happiness of taking to his bosom the girl of
his heart, Miss Prudence Worthy, as fair a maid as ever raised a sigh
in the bosom of lusty youth.
He had got to the centre of the glen when he was roused from his
sweet anticipations by the well-remembered voice of the nymph of the
mountain, who sat on the same inaccessible rock, under the same tuft of
laurel, where he had first seen her, with an eagle at her side.
“Shearjashub!” cried she, in a voice which made the echoes of the rocks
mad with ecstasy—“Shearjashub! thou hast done well, and deserved nobly
of thy country. The thought of that is, in itself, a glorious reward
for toil, danger, and suffering. But thou shalt have one as dear, if
not dearer than even this. Look where it comes.”
Shearjashub looked, and beheld afar off a figure all in white coming
towards him, at the entrance of the glen. It approached nearer, and it
was a woman; nearer yet, and it was a young woman; still nearer, and
Shearjashub rushed towards it, and kissed its blushing cheek. It was
the girl of his heart, Miss Prudence Worthy.
“This is thy other blessing,” exclaimed the mountain nymph, the
sight of whom made Miss Prudence a little jealous; “a richer reward
for noble exertions than a virtuous woman I know not of. Live free,
live virtuous, and then thou wilt be happy. I shall be with thee an
invisible witness, an invisible protector; but, in the mean while,
should the spirit of the people ever flag, and their hearts fail them
in time of peril, go forth among them as thou didst before, and rouse
them with thy pipe and thy music. Farewell, and be happy!”
The nymph disappeared, and the little jealous pang felt by Miss
Prudence melted away in measureless confidence and love. The tune of
the mountain nymph was played over and over again at Shearjashub's
wedding, and ever afterwards became known by the name of YANKEE DOODLE.
THE
RIDE OF SAINT NICHOLAS
ON
NEWYEAR'S EVE.
Of all the cities in this New World, that which once bore the name of
Fort Orange, but now bears it no more, is the favourite of the good St.
Nicholas. It is there that he hears the sound of his native language,
and sees the honest Dutch pipe in the mouths of a few portly burghers,
who, disdaining the pestilent innovations of modern times, still cling
with honest obstinacy to the dress, the manners, and customs of old
faderland. It is there, too that they have instituted a society in
honour of the excellent saint, whose birthday they celebrate in a
manner worthy of all commendation.
True it is, that the city of his affections has from time to time
committed divers great offences which sorely wounded the feelings of
St. Nicholas, and almost caused him to withdraw his patronage from
its backsliding citizens. First, by adopting the newfangled style of
beginning the year at the bidding of the old lady of Babylon, whereby
the jolly Newyear was so jostled out of place that the good saint
scarcely knew where to look for it. Next, they essayed themselves to
learn outlandish tongues, whereby they gradually sophisticated their
own, insomuch that he could hardly understand them. Thirdly, they did,
from time to time, admit into their churches preachings and singings
in the upstart English language, until by degrees the ancient worship
became adulterated in such a manner that the indignant St. Nicholas,
when he first witnessed it, did, for the only time in his life, come
near to uttering a great oath, by exclaiming, “Wat donderdag is dat?”
Now be it known that had he said, “Wat donder is dat,” it would have
been downright swearing; so you see what a narrow escape he had.
Not content with these backslidings, the burghers of Fort Orange—a
pestilence on all new names!—suffered themselves by degrees to be
corrupted by various modern innovations, under the mischievous disguise
of improvements. Forgetting the reverence due to their ancestors, who
eschewed all internal improvement, except that of the mind and heart,
they departed from the venerable customs of the faderland, and pulling
down the old houses that, scorning all appearance of ostentation,
modestly presented the little end to the street, began to erect in
their places certain indescribable buildings, with the broadsides as
it were turned frontwise, by which strange contortion the comeliness
of Fort Orange was utterly destroyed. It is on record that a heavy
judgment fell upon the head of the first man who adventured on this
daring innovation. His money gave out before this monstrous novelty
was completed, and he invented the pernicious system of borrowing and
mortgaging, before happily unknown among these worthy citizens, who
were utterly confounded, not long afterwards, at seeing the house
change its owner—a thing that had never happened before in that goodly
community, save when the son entered on the inheritance of his father.
Becoming gradually more incorrigible in their backslidings, they were
seduced into opening, widening, and regulating the streets; making the
crooked straight and the narrow wide, thereby causing sad inroads into
the strong boxes of divers of the honest burghers, who became all at
once very rich, saving that they had no money to go to market. To cap
the climax of their enormities, they at last committed the egregious
sacrilege of pulling down the ancient and honourable Dutch church,
which stood right in the middle of State-street, or Staats-street,
being so called after the family of that name, from which I am lineally
descended.
At this the good St. Nicholas was exceedingly grieved; and when, by
degrees, his favourite burghers left off eating sturgeon, being thereto
instigated by divers scurvy jests of certain silly strangers, that knew
not the excellence of that savoury fish, he cried out in the bitterness
of his soul, “Onbegrypelyk!”—“Incredible!” meaning thereby that he
could scarcely believe his eyes. In the bitterness of his soul he
had resolved to return to faderland, and leave his beloved city to be
swallowed up in the vortex of improvement. He was making his progress
through the streets, to take his last farewell, in melancholy mood,
when he came to the outlet of the Grand Canal, just then completed.
“Is het mogelyk?”—which means, is it possible—exclaimed St. Nicholas;
and thereupon he was so delighted with this proof that his beloved
people had not altogether degenerated from their ancestors, that he
determined not to leave them to strange saints, outlandish tongues, and
modern innovations. He took a sail on the canal, and returned in such
measureless content, that he blessed the good city of Fort Orange, as
he evermore called it, and resolved to distribute a more than usual
store of his Newyear cookies, at the Christmas holydays. That jovial
season was now fast approaching. The autumn frosts had already invested
the forests with a mantle of glory; the farmers were in their fields
and orchards, gathering in the corn and apples, or making cider, the
wholesome beverage of virtuous simplicity; the robins, blackbirds, and
all the annual emigrants to southern climes, had passed away in flocks,
like the adventurers to the far West; the bluebird alone lingered last
of all to sing his parting song; and sometimes of a morning, the river
showed a little fretted border of ice, looking like a fringe of lace on
the garment of some decayed dowager. At length the liquid glass of the
river cooled into a wide, immoveable mirror, glistening in the sun;
the trees, all save the evergreens, stood bare to the keen cold winds;
the fields were covered with snow, affording no lures to tempt to rural
wanderings; the enjoyments of life gradually centred themselves at the
cheerful fireside—it was winter, and Newyear's eve was come again!
The night was clear, calm, and cold, and the bright stars glittered in
the heavens in such multitudes, that every man might have had a star to
himself. The worthy patriarchs of Fort Orange, having gathered around
them their children, and children's children, even unto the third and
fourth generation, were enjoying themselves in innocent revelry at the
cheerful fireside. All the enjoyments of life had contracted themselves
into the domestic circle; the streets were as quiet as a churchyard,
and not even the stroke of the watchman was heard on the curbstone.
Gradually it waxed late, and the city clocks rang, in the silence
of night, the hour which not one of the orderly citizens had heard,
except at midday, since the last anniversary of the happy Newyear,
save peradventure troubled with a toothache, or some such unseemly
irritation.
The doleful warning, which broke upon the frosty air like the tolling
of a funeral bell, roused the sober devotees of St. Nicholas to a sense
of their trespasses on the waning night, and after one good, smoking
draught of spiced Jamaica to the patron saint, they, one and all, young
and old, hied them to bed, that he might have a fair opportunity to
bestow his favours without being seen by mortal eye. For be it known,
that St. Nicholas, like all really heart-whole generous fellows, loves
to do good in secret, and eschews those pompous benefactions which are
duly recorded in the newspapers, being of opinion they only prove that
the vanity of man is sometimes an overmatch for his avarice.
Having allowed them fifteen minutes, which is as much as a sober
burgher of good morals and habits requires, to get as fast asleep as a
church, St. Nicholas, having harnessed his pony, and loaded his little
wagon with a store of good things for well-behaved, diligent children,
together with whips and other mementoes for undutiful varlets, did set
forth gayly on his errand of benevolence.
_Vuur en vlammen!_ how the good saint did hurry through the streets,
up one chimney and down another; for be it known, they are not such
miserable narrow things as those of other cities, where the claims
of ostentation are so voracious that people can't afford to keep up
good fires, and the chimneys are so narrow that the little sweeps
of seven years old often get themselves stuck fast, to the imminent
peril of their lives. You may think he had a good deal of business
on hand, being obliged to visit every house in Fort Orange, between
twelve o'clock and daylight, with the exception of some few would-be
fashionable upstarts, who had mortally offended him, by turning up
their noses at the simple jollifications and friendly greetings of the
merry Newyear. Accordingly, he rides like the wind, scarcely touching
the ground; and this is the reason that he is never seen, except by
a rare chance, which is the cause why certain unbelieving sinners,
who scoff at old customs and notions, either really do, or pretend
to doubt, whether the good things found on Christmas and Newyear
mornings in the stockings of the little varlets of Fort Orange and
New-Amsterdam, are put there by the jolly St. Nicholas or not. Beshrew
them, say I—and may they never taste the blessing of his bounty! Goeden
Hemel! as if I myself, being a kinsman of the saint, don't know him
as well as a debtor does his creditor! But people are grown so wise
nowadays, that they believe in nothing but the increased value of
property.
Be this as it may, St. Nicholas went forth blithely on his goodly
errand, without minding the intense cold, for he was kept right warm by
the benevolence of his heart, and when that failed, he ever and anon
addressed himself to a snug little pottle, the contents of which did
smoke lustily when he pulled out the stopper, a piece of snow-white
corn cob.
It is impossible for me to specify one by one the visits paid
that night by the good saint, or the various adventures which he
encountered. I therefore content myself, and I trust my worthy and
excellent readers, with dwelling briefly on those which appear to me
most worthy of descending to posterity, and withal convey excellent
moral lessons, without which history is naught, whether it be true or
false.
After visiting various honest little Dutch houses, with notched
roofs, and the gable ends to the street, leaving his benedictions,
St. Nicholas at length came to a goodly mansion bearing strong marks
of being sophisticated by modern fantastic innovations. He would have
passed it by in scorn, had he not remembered that it belonged to a
descendant of one of his favoured votaries, who had passed away to
his long home without being once backslided from the customs of his
ancestors. Respect for the memory of this worthy man wrought upon his
feelings, and he forthwith dashed down the chimney, where he stuck
fast in the middle, and came nigh being suffocated with the fumes of
anthracite coal, which this degenerate descendant of a pious ancestor,
who spent thousands in useless and unseemly ostentation, burned by way
of economy.
If the excellent saint had not been enveloped, as it were, in the odour
of sanctity, which in some measure protected him from the poison of
this pestilent vapour, it might have gone hard with him; as it was, he
was sadly bewildered, when his little pony, which liked the predicament
no better than his master, made a violent plunge, drew the wagon
through the narrow passage, and down they came plump into a magnificent
bedchamber, filled with all sorts of finery, such as wardrobes,
bedizened with tawdry ornaments; satin chairs too good to be looked
at or sat upon, and therefore covered with brown linen; a bedstead of
varnished mahogany, with a canopy over it somewhat like a cocked hat,
with a plume of ostrich feathers instead of orthodox valances and the
like; and a looking-glass large enough to reflect a Dutch city.
St. Nicholas contemplated the pair who slept in this newfangled
abomination with a mingled feeling of pity and indignation, though I
must say the wife looked very pretty in her lace nightcap, with one arm
as white as snow partly uncovered. But he soon turned away, being a
devout and self-denying saint, to seek for the stockings of the little
children, who were innocent of these unseemly innovations. But what was
his horror at finding that, instead of being hung up in the chimney
corner, they were thrown carelessly on the floor, and that the little
souls, who lay asleep in each other's arms in another room, lest they
should disturb their parents, were thus deprived of all the pleasant
anticipations accompanying the approaching jolly Newyear.
“Een vervlocte jonge,” said he to himself, for he never uttered his
maledictions aloud, “to rob their little ones of such wholesome and
innocent delights! But they shall not be disappointed.” So he sought
the cold and distant chamber of the children, who were virtuous and
dutiful, who, when they waked in the morning, found the bed covered
with good things, and were as happy as the day is long. When St,
Nicholas returned to the splendid chamber, which, be it known, was
furnished with the spoils of industrious unfortunate people, to whom
the owner lent money, charging them so much the more in proportion
to their necessities. It is true that he gave some of the wealth he
thus got over the duyvel's back, as it were, to public charities, and
sometimes churches, when he knew it would get into the newspapers, by
which he obtained the credit of being very pious and charitable. But
St. Nicholas was too sensible and judicious not to know that the only
charitable and pious donations agreeable to the Giver of good, are
those which are honestly come by. The alms which are got by ill means
can never come to good, and it is better to give back to those from
whom we have taken it dishonestly even one fourth, yea, one tenth, than
to bestow ten times as much on those who have no such claim. The true
atonement for injuries is that made to the injured alone. All other is
a cheat in the eye of Heaven. You cannot settle the account by giving
to Peter what you have filched from Paul.