Part 14

“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.”

It was broad daylight before he had finished his pipe and his cogitations, and placing his old polished delft pipe carefully in his buttonhole, the good saint sallied forth, leaving Johannes and his family still fast asleep in their chairs. Directly opposite the miserable abode of Johannes there dwelt a little fat Dutchman, of a reasonable competency, who had all his life manfully stemmed the torrent of modern innovation. He eschewed all sorts of paper money as an invention of people without property to get hold of those that had it; abhorred the practice of widening streets; and despised in his heart all public improvements except canals, a sneaking notion for which he inherited from old faderland. He was honest as the light of the blessed sun; and though he opened his best parlour but twice a year to have it cleaned and put to rights, yet this I will say of him, that the poor man who wanted a dinner was never turned away from his table. The worthy burgher was standing at the street door, which opened in the middle, and leaning over the lower half, so that the smoke of his pipe ascended in the clear frosty morning in a little white column far into the sky before it was dissipated.

St. Nicholas stopped his wagon right before his door, and cried out in a clear hearty voice,

“Good-morning, good-morning, mynheer; and a happy Newyear to you.”

“Good-morning,” cried the hale old burgher, “and many happy Newyears to _you_. Hast got any good fat hen turkies to sell?” for he took him for a countryman coming in to market. St. Nicholas answered and said that he had been on a different errand that morning; and the other cordially invited him to alight, come in, and take a glass of hot spiced rum, with the which it was his custom to regale all comers at the jolly Newyear. The invitation was frankly accepted, for the worthy St. Nicholas, though no toper, was never a member of the temperance society. He chose to be keeper of his own conscience, and was of opinion that a man who is obliged to sign an obligation not to drink, will be very likely to break it the first convenient opportunity.

As they sat cozily together, by a rousing fire of wholesome and enlivening hickory, the little plump Dutchman occasionally inveighing stoutly against paper money, railroads, improving streets, and the like, the compassionate saint took occasion to utter a wish that the poor man over the way and his starving family had some of the good things that were so rife on Newyear's day, for he had occasion to know that they were suffering all the evils of the most abject poverty.

“The splutterkin,” exclaimed the little fat burgher—”he is as proud as Lucifer himself. I had a suspicion of this, and sought divers occasions to get acquainted with him, that I might have some excuse for prying into his necessities, and take the privilege of an old neighbour to relieve them. But _vuur en vlammen_! would you believe it—he avoided me just as if he owed me money, and couldn't pay.”

St. Nicholas observed that if it was ever excusable for a man to be proud, it was when he fell into a state where every one, high and low, worthless and honourable, looked down upon him with contempt. Then he related to him the story of poor Johannes, and taking from his pocket a heavy purse, he offered it to the worthy old burgher, who swore he would be dondered if he wanted any of his money.

“But hearken to me,” said the saint; “yon foolish lad is the son of an old friend of mine, who did me many a kindness in his day, for which I am willing to requite his posterity. Thou shalt take this purse and bestow a small portion of it, as from thyself, as a loan from time to time, as thou seest he deserves it by his exertions. It may happen, as I hope it will, that in good time he will acquire again the competency he hath lost by his own folly and inexperience; and as he began the world a worthy, respectable citizen, I beseech thee to do this—to be his friend, and to watch over him and his little ones, in the name of St. Nicholas.”

The portly Burgher promised that he would, and they parted with marvellous civility, St. Nicholas having promised to visit him again should his life be spared. He then mounted his little wagon, and the little Dutchman having turned his head for an instant, when he looked again could see nothing of the saint or his equipage. “_Is het mogelyk!_” exclaimed he, and his mind misgave him that there was something unaccountable in the matter.

My story is already too long, peradventure, else would I describe the astonishment of Johannes and his wife when they awoke and found the benevolent stranger had departed without bidding them farewell. They would have thought all that had passed was but a dream, had not the fragments of the good things on which they regaled during the night bore testimony to its reality. Neither will I detail how, step by step, aided by the advice and countenance of the worthy little Dutchman, and the judicious manner of his dispensing the bounty of St. Nicholas, Johannes Garrebrantze, by a course of industry, economy, and integrity, at length attained once again the station he had lost by his follies and extravagance. Suffice it to say, that though he practised a rational self-denial in all his outlayings, he neither became a miser, nor did he value money except as the means of obtaining the comforts of life, and administering to the happiness of others.

In the mean time, the money lender, not being content with the wealth he had obtained by taking undue advantage of the distresses of others, and becoming every day more greedy, launched out into mighty speculations. He founded a score of towns without any houses in them; dealt by hundreds of thousands in fancy stocks; and finally became the victim of one of his own speculations, by in time coming to believe in the very deceptions he had practised upon others. It is an old saying, that the greatest rogue in the world, sooner or latter, meets with his match, and so it happened with the money lender. He was seduced into the purchase of a town without any houses in it, at an expense of millions; was met by one of those reactions that play the mischief with honest labourers, and thus finally perished in a bottomless pit of his own digging. Finding himself sinking, he resorted to forgeries, and had by this means raised money to such an amount, that his villany almost approached to sublimity. His property, as the phrase is, came under the hammer, and Johannes purchased his own house at half the price it cost him in building.

The good St. Nicholas trembled at the new ordeal to which Johannes had subjected himself; but finding, when he visited him, as he did regularly every Newyear's eve, that he was cured of his foolish vanities, and that his wife was one of the best housekeepers in all Fort Orange, he discarded his apprehensions, and rejoiced in the prosperity that was borne so meekly and wisely. The little fat Dutchman lived a long time in expectation that the stranger in the one-horse wagon would come for the payment of his purse of money; but finding that year after year rolled away without his appearing, often said to himself, as he sat on his stoop with a pipe in his mouth,

“I'll be dondered if I don't believe it was the good St. Nicholas.”

THE END.

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