for punishing this degenerate caitiff, who despised his ordinances
and customs, and was moreover one who, in dealing with borrowers,
not only shaved but skinned them. Remembering not the perils of the
chimney, he was about departing the same way he came, but the little
pony obstinately refused; and the good saint, having first taken off
the lace nightcap, and put a foolscap in its place, and given the
money lender a tweak of the nose that made him roar, whipped instantly
through the keyhole to pursue his benevolent tour through the ancient
city of Fort Orange.
Gliding through the streets unheard and unseen, he at length came
to a little winding lane, from which his quick ear caught the sound
of obstreperous revelry. Stopping his pony, and listening more
attentively,— he distinguished the words, “Ich ben Liederich,” roared
out in a chorus of mingled voices seemingly issuing from a little low
house of the true orthodox construction, standing on the right-hand
side, at a distance of a hundred yards, or thereabout.
“Wat donderdag!” exclaimed St. Nicholas, “is mine old friend, Baltus
Van Loon, keeping it up at this time of the morning? The old rogue! but
I'll punish him for this breach of the good customs of Fort Orange.”
So he halted on the top of Baltus's chimney, to consider the best way
of bringing it about, and was, all at once, saluted in the nostrils by
such a delectable perfume, arising from a certain spiced beverage, with
which the substantial burghers were wont to recreate themselves at this
season of the year, that he was sorely tempted to join a little in the
revelry below, and punish the merry caitiffs afterwards. Presently he
heard honest Baltus propose—“The jolly St. Nicholas,” as a toast, which
was drunk in a full bumper, with great rejoicing and acclamation.
St. Nicholas could stand it no longer, but descended forthwith into
the little parlour of old Baltus, thinking, by-the-way, that, just
to preserve appearances, he would lecture the roistering rogues a
little for keeping such late hours, and, provided Baltus could give
a good reason, or indeed any reason at all, for such an unseemly
transgression, he would then sit down with them, and take some of the
savoury beverage that had regaled his nostrils while waiting at the top
of the chimney.
The roistering rogues were so busy roaring out, “Ich ben Liederich,”
that they did not take note of the presence of the saint, until he
cried out with a loud and angry voice, “Wat blikslager is dat?”—he
did not say blixem, because that would have been little better than
swearing. “Ben je be dondered, to be carousing here at this time of
night, ye ancient, and not venerable sinners?”
Old Baltus was not a little startled at the intrusion of the
strangers—for, if the truth must out, he was a little in for it, and
saw double, as is usual at such times. This caused such a confusion in
his head that he forgot to rise from his seat, and pay due honour to
his visiter, as did the rest of the company.
“Are you not ashamed of yourselves,” continued the saint, “to set
such a bad example to the neighbourhood, by carousing at this time of
the morning, contrary to good old customs, known and accepted by all,
except such noisy splutterkins as yourselves?”
“This time of the morning,” replied old Baltus, who had his full
portion of Dutch courage—”this time of the morning, did you say? Look
yonder, and see with your own eyes whether it is morning or not.
The cunning rogue, in order to have a good excuse for transgressing
the canons of St. Nicholas, had so managed it, that the old clock in
the corner had run down, and now pointed to the hour of eleven, where
it remained stationary, like a rusty weathercock. St. Nicholas knew
this as well as old Baltus himself, and could not help being mightily
tickled at this device. He told Baltus that this being the case, with
permission of his host he would sit down by the fire and warm himself,
till it was time to set forth again, seeing he had mistaken the hour.
Baltus, who by this time began to perceive that there was but one
visiter instead of two, now rose from the table with much ado, and
approaching the stranger, besought him to take a seat among the jolly
revellers, seeing they were there assembled in honour of St. Nicholas,
and not out of any regard to the lusts of the flesh. In this he was
joined by the rest of the company, so that St. Nicholas, being a
good-natured fellow, at length suffered himself to be persuaded,
whereto he was mightily incited by the savoury fumes issuing from a
huge pitcher standing smoking in the chimney corner. So he sat down
with old Baltus, and being called on for a toast, gave them “Old
Faderland” in a bumper.
Then they had a high time of it you may be sure. Old Baltus sang a
famous song celebrating the valour of our Dutch ancestors, and their
triumph over the mighty power of Spain after a struggle of more than a
generation, in which the meads of Holland smoked, and her canals were
red with blood. Goeden Hemel! but I should like to have been there,
for I hope it would have been nothing unseemly for one of my cloth to
have joined in chorus with the excellent St. Nicholas. Then they talked
about the good old times when the son who departed from the customs of
his ancestors was considered little better than misbegotten; lamented
over the interloping of such multitudes of idle flaunting men and
women in their way to and from the springs; the increase of taverns,
the high price of everything, and the manifold backslidings of the
rising generation. Ever and anon, old Baltus would observe that sorrow
was as dry as a corn cob, and pour out a full bumper of the smoking
beverage, until at last it came to pass that honest Baltus and his
worthy companions, being not used to such late hours, fell fast a sleep
in their goodly armchairs, and snored lustily in concert. Whereupon St.
Nicholas, feeling a little waggish, after putting their wigs the hinder
part before, and placing a great China bowl upside down on the head of
old Baltus, who sat nodding like a mandarin, departed laughing ready to
split his sides. In the morning, when Baltus and his companions awoke,
and saw what a figure they cut, they laid all the trick to the door of
the stranger, and never knew to the last day of their lives who it was
that caroused with them so lustily on Newyear's morning.
Pursuing his way in high good humour, being somewhat exhilarated by
the stout carousal with old Baltus and his roistering companions, St.
Nicholas in good time came into the ancient _Colonie_, which being,
as it were, at the outskirts of Fort Orange, was inhabited by many
people not well to do in the world. He descended the chimney of an old
weatherworn house that bore evident marks of poverty, for he is not one
of those saints that hanker after palaces and turn their backs on their
friends. It is his pleasure to seek out and administer to the innocent
gratifications of those who are obliged to labour all the year round,
and can only spare time to be merry at Christmas and Newyear. He is
indeed the poor man's saint.
On entering the room, he was struck with the appearance of poverty
and desolation that reigned all around. A number of little children
of different ages, but none more than ten years old, lay huddled
close together on a straw bed, which was on the floor, their limbs
intertwined to keep themselves warm, for their covering was scant and
miserable. Yet they slept in peace, for they had quiet countenances,
and hunger seeks refuge in the oblivion of repose. In a corner of the
room stood a miserable bed, on which lay a female, whose face, as the
moonbeams fell upon it through a window without shutters, many panes
of which were stuffed with old rags to keep out the nipping air of the
winter night, bore evidence of long and painful suffering. It looked
like death rather than sleep. A little pine table, a few broken
chairs, and a dresser, whose shelves were ill supplied, constituted the
remainder of the furniture of this mansion of poverty.
As he stood contemplating the scene, his honest old heart swelled with
sorrowful compassion, saying to himself, “God bewaar ous, but this is
pitiful.” At that moment, a little child on the straw bed cried out in
a weak voice that went to the heart of the saint, “Mother, mother, give
me to eat—I am hungry.” St. Nicholas went to the child, but she was
fast asleep, and hunger had infected her very dreams. The mother did
not hear, for long-continued sorrow and suffering sleep sounder than
happiness, as the waters lie stillest when the tempest is past.
Again the little child cried out, “Mother, mother, I am freezing—give
me some more covering.” “Be quiet, Blandina,” answered a voice deep and
hoarse, yet not unkind; and St. Nicholas, looking around to see whence
it came, beheld a man sitting close in the chimney corner, though there
was no fire burning, his arms folded close around him, and his head
drooping on his bosom. He was clad like one of the children of poverty,
and his teeth chattered with cold. St. Nicholas wiped his eyes, for he
was a good-hearted saint, and coming close up to the miserable man,
said to him kindly, “How do ye, my good friend?”
“Friend,” said the other, “I have no friend but God, and he seems to
have deserted me.” As he said this, he raised his saddened eyes to the
good saint, and after looking at him a little while, as if he was not
conscious of his presence, dropped them again, even without asking who
he was, or whence he came, or what he wanted. Despair had deadened his
faculties, and nothing remained in his mind but the consciousness of
suffering.
“_Het is jammer, het is jammer_—it is a pity, it is a pity!” quoth
the kind-hearted saint, as he passed his sleeve across his eyes. “But
something must be done, and that quickly too.” So he shook the poor man
somewhat roughly by the shoulder, and cried out, “Ho! ho! what aileth
thee, son of my good old friend, honest Johannes Garrebrantze?”
This salutation seemed to rouse the poor man, who arose upon his seat,
and essaying to stand upright, fell into the arms of St. Nicholas,
who almost believed it was a lump of ice, so cold and stiff did it
seem. Now, be it known that Providence, as a reward for his benevolent
disposition, has bestowed on St. Nicholas the privilege of doing good
without measure to all who are deserving of his bounty, and that by
such means as he thinks proper to the purpose. It is a power he seldom
exerts to the uttermost, except on pressing occasions, and this he
believed one of them.
Perceiving that the poor man was wellnigh frozen to death, he called
into action the supernatural faculties which had been committed to him,
and lo! in an instant a rousing fire blazed on the hearth, towards
which the poor man, instinctively as it were, edged his chair, and
stretched out one of his bony hands, that was as stiff as an icicle.
The light flashed so brightly in the face of the little ones and their
mother, that they awoke, and seeing the cheerful blaze, arose in their
miserable clothing, which they had worn to aid in keeping them warm,
and hied as fast as they could to bask in its blessed warmth. So eager
were they, that for a while they were unconscious of the presence of a
stranger, although St. Nicholas had now assumed his proper person, that
he might not be taken for some one of those diabolical wizards who,
being always in mischief, are ashamed to show their faces among honest
people.
At length the poor man, who was called after his father Johannes
Garrebrantze, being somewhat revived by the genial warmth of the fire,
looked around, and became aware of the presence of the stranger,
which inspired him with a secret awe, for which he could not account,
insomuch that his voice trembled, though now he was not cold, when,
after some hesitation, he said,
“Stranger, thou art welcome to this poor house. I would I were better
able to offer thee the hospitalities of the season, but I will wish
thee a happy Newyear, and that is all I can bestow.” The good yffrouw,
his wife, repeated the wish, and straightway began to apologize for the
untidy state of her apartment.
“Make no apologies,” replied the excellent saint; “I come to give, not
to receive. To-night I treat, to-morrow you may return the kindness to
others.”
“I?” said Johannes Garrebrantze; “I have nothing to bestow but good
wishes, and nothing to receive but the scorn and neglect of the world.
If I had anything to give thee to eat or drink, thou shouldst have it
with all my heart. But the newyear, which brings jollity to the hearts
of others, brings nothing but hunger and despair to me and mine.”
“Thou hast seen better days, I warrant thee,” answered the saint; “for
thou speakest like a scholar of Leyden. Tell me thy story, Johannes, my
son, and we shall see whether in good time thou wilt not hold up thy
head as high as a church steeple.”
“Alas! to what purpose, since man assuredly has, and Heaven seems to
have forsaken me.”
“Hush!” cried St. Nicholas, “Heaven never forsakes the broken spirit,
or turns a deaf ear to the cries of innocent children. It is for the
wicked never to hope, the virtuous never to despair. I predict thou
shalt live to see better days.”
“I must see them soon then, for neither I, my wife, nor my children
have tasted food since twenty-four hours past.”
“What! God be with us! is there such lack of charity in the burghers of
the Colonie, that they will suffer a neighbour to starve under their
very noses? Onbegrypelik—I'll not believe it.”
“They know not my necessities.”
“No? What! hast thou no tongue to speak them?”
“I am too proud to beg.”
“And too lazy to work,” cried St. Nicholas, in a severe tone.
“Look you,” answered the other, holding up his right arm with his left,
and showing that the sinews were stiffened by rheumatism.
“Is it so, my friend? Well, but thou mightst still have bent thy spirit
to ask charity for thy starving wife and children, though, in truth,
begging is the last thing an honest man ought to stoop to. But Goeden
Hemel! here am I talking while thou and thine are perishing with
hunger.”
Saying which, St. Nicholas straightway bade the good yffrouw to bring
forth the little pine table, which she did, making divers apologies for
the want of a tablecloth; and when she had done so, he incontinently
spread out upon it such store of good things from his little cart, as
made the hungry childrens' mouths to water, and smote the hearts of
their parents with joyful thanksgivings. “Eat, drink, and be merry,”
said St. Nicholas, “for to-morrow thou shalt not die, but live.”
The heart of the good saint expanded, like as the morning-glory does
to the first rays of the sun, while he sat rubbing his hands at seeing
them eat with such a zest, as made him almost think it was worth while
to be hungry in order to enjoy such triumphant satisfaction. When they
had done, and returned their pious thanks to Heaven and the good
stranger, St. Nicholas willed the honest man to expound the causes
which had brought him to his present deplorable condition. “My own
folly,” said he; and the other sagely replied, “I thought as much.
Beshrew me, friend, if in all my experience, and I have lived long,
and seen much, I ever encountered distress and poverty that could not
be traced to its source in folly or vice. Heaven is too bountiful to
entail misery on its creatures, save through their own transgressions.
But I pray thee, go on with thy story.”
The good man then went on to relate that his father, old Johannes
Garrebrantze—
“Ah!” quoth St. Nicholas, “I knew him well. He was an honest man, and
that, in these times of all sorts of improvements, except in mind
and morals, is little less than miraculous. But I interrupt thee,
friend—proceed with thy story, once more.”
The son of Johannes again resumed his story, and related how his father
had left him a competent estate in the _Colonie_, on which he lived
in good credit, and in the enjoyment of a reasonable competency, with
his wife and children, until within a few years past, when seeing
a vast number of three-story houses, with folding doors and marble
mantelpieces rising up all around him, he began to be ashamed of his
little one-story house with the gable end to the street, and—
“Ah! Johannes,” interrupted the pale wife, “do not spare me. It was I
that in the vanity of my heart put such notions in thy head. It was I
that tempted thee.”
“It was the duyvel,” muttered St.Nicholas, “in the shape of a pretty
wife.”
Johannes gave his helpmate a look of affectionate forgiveness, and
went on to tell St. Nicholas how, finally egged on by the evil example
of his neighbours, he had at last committed sacrilege against his
household gods, and pulled down the home of his fathers, commencing a
new one on its ruins.
“Donderdag!” quoth the saint to himself; “and the bricks came from
faderland too!”
When Johannes had about half finished his new house, he discovered one
day, to his great astonishment and dismay, that all his money, which he
had been saving for his children, was gone. His strong box was empty,
and his house but half finished, although, after estimating the cost,
he had allowed one third more in order to be sure in the business.
Johannes was now at a dead stand. The idea of borrowing money and
running in debt never entered his head before, and probably would
not now, had it not been suggested to him by a neighbour, a great
speculator, who had lately built a whole street of houses, not a single
brick of which belonged to him in reality. He had borrowed the money,
mortgaged the property, and expected to grow rich by a sudden rise.
Poor Johannes may be excused for listening to the seductions of this
losel varlet, seeing he had a house half finished on his hands; but
whether so or not, he did listen and was betrayed into borrowing money
of a bank just then established in the _Colonie_ on a capital paid in
according to law—that is, not paid at all—the directors of which were
very anxious to exchange their rags for lands and houses.
Johannes finished his house in glorious style, and having opened
this new mine of wealth, furnished it still more gloriously; and as
it would have been sheer nonsense not to live gloriously in such a
glorious establishment, spent thrice his income in order to keep up
his respectability. He was going on swimmingly, when what is called a
reaction took place; which means, as far as I can understand, that the
bank directors, having been pleased to make money plenty to increase
their dividends, are pleased thereafter to make it scarce for the
same purpose. Instead of lending it in the name of the bank, it is
credibly reported they do it through certain brokers, who charge lawful
interest and unlawful commission, and thus cheat the law with a clear
conscience. But I thank Heaven devoutly that I know nothing of their
wicked mysteries, and therefore will say no more about them.
Be this as it may, Johannes was called upon all of a sudden to pay his
notes to the bank, for the reaction had commenced, and there was no
more renewals. The directors wanted all the money to lend out at three
per cent. a month. It became necessary to raise the wind, as they say
in Wall-street, and Johannes, by the advice of his good friend the
speculative genius, went with him to a certain money lender of his
acquaintance, who was reckoned a good Christian, because he always
charged most usury where there was the greatest necessity for a loan.
To a rich man he would lend at something like a reasonable interest,
but to a man in great distress for money he showed about as much mercy
as a weazel does to a chicken. He sucked their blood till there was not
a drop left in their bodies. This he did six days in the week, and on
the seventh went three times to church, to enable him to begin the next
week with a clear conscience. Beshrew such varlets, I say; they bring
religion itself into disrepute, and add the sin of hypocrisy to men to
that of insult to Heaven.
Suffice it to say, that poor Johannes Garrebrantze the younger went
down hill faster than he ever went up in his life; and inasmuch as
I scorn these details of petty roguery as unworthy of my cloth and
calling, I shall content myself with merely premising, that by a
process very common nowadays, the poor man was speedily bereft of all
the patrimony left him by his worthy father in paying commission to
the money lender. He finally became bankrupt; and inasmuch as he was
unacquainted with the mystery of getting rich by such a manœuvre, was
left without a shilling in the world. He retired from his fine house,
which was forthwith occupied by his good friend the money lender, whose
nose had been tweaked by St. Nicholas, as heretofore recorded, and took
refuge in the wretched building where he was found by that benevolent
worthy. Destitute of resources, and entirely unacquainted with the art
of living by his wits or his labours, though he tried hard both ways,
poor Johannes became gradually steeped in poverty to the very lips, and
being totally disabled by rheumatism, might, peradventure, with all his
family, have perished that very night, had not Providence mercifully
sent the good St. Nicholas to their relief.
“_Wat donderdag!_” exclaimed the saint, when he had done—”_wat
donderdag!_—was that your house down yonder, with the fine bedroom, the
wardrobes, the looking-glass as big as the moon, and the bedstead with
a cocked hat and feathers?”
“Even so,” replied the other, hanging down his head.
“_Is het mogelyk!_” And after considering a little while, the good
saint slapped his hand on the table, broke forth again—“By donderdag,
but I'll soon settle this business.”
He then began to hum an old Dutch hymn, which by its soothing and
wholesome monotony so operated upon Johannes and his family, that one
and all fell fast asleep in their chairs.
The good St. Nicholas then lighted his pipe, and seating himself by
the fire, revolved in his mind the best mode of proceeding on this
occasion. At first he determined to divest the rich money lender of all
his ill-gotten gains, and bestow them on poor Johannes and his family.
But when he considered that the losel caitiff was already sufficiently
punished in being condemned to the sordid toils of money making, and
in the privation of all those social and benevolent feelings which,
while they contribute to our own happiness, administer to that of
others; that he was for ever beset with the consuming cares of avarice,
the hope of gain, and the fear of losses; and that, rich as he was, he
suffered all the gnawing pangs of an insatiable desire for more—when he
considered all this, St. Nicholas decided to leave him to the certain
punishment of ill-gotten wealth, and the chances of losing it by an
over craving appetite for its increase, which sooner or later produces
all the consequences of reckless imprudence.
“Let the splutterkin alone,” thought St. Nicholas, “and he will become
the instrument of his own punishment.”
Then he went on to think what he should do for poor Johannes and his
little children. Though he had been severely punished for his folly,
yet did the good saint, who in his nightly holyday peregrinations had
seen more of human life and human passions than the sun ever shone
upon, very well know that sudden wealth, or sudden poverty, is a sore
trial of the heart of man, in like manner as the sudden transition
from light to darkness, or darkness to light, produces a temporary
blindness. It was true that Johannes had received a severe lesson,
but the great mass of mankind are prone to forget the chastening rod
of experience, as they do the pangs of sickness when they are past.
He therefore settled in his mind, that the return of Johannes to
competence and prosperity should be by the salutary process of his own
exertions, and that he should learn their value by the pains it cost to
attain them. “_Het is goed visschen in troebel water_,” quoth he, “for
then a man knows the value of what he catches.”