The Water-Witch | Page 4

the devil spurred them, along
the dykes of Leyden, without remorse as without leave?"
"I alway b'rieve some make-mischief tell Masser dat time;" returned the
negro sulkily, though not without doubt.
"His own eyes were the tell-tales. If masters had no eyes, a pretty world
would the negroes make of it! I have got the measure of every black
heel, on the island, registered in the big book, you see me so often
looking into, especially on Sundays; and, if either of the tire-legs I have
named dares to enter my grounds, let him expect to pay a visit to the
city Provost. What do the wild-cats mean? Do they think that the
geldings were bought in Holland, with charges for breaking in,
shipment, insurance, freight, and risk of diseases, to have their flesh
melted from their ribs like a cook's candle?"
"Ere no'tin' done in all 'e island, but a color' man do him! He do a
mischief, and he do all a work, too! I won'er what color Masser t'ink
war' Captain Kidd?"
"Black or white, he was a rank rogue; and you see the end he came to. I

warrant you, now, that water-thief began his iniquities by riding the
neighbors' horses, at night. His fate should be a warning to every negro
in the colony. The imps of darkness! The English have no such scarcity
of rogues at home, that they could not spare us the pirate to hang up on
one of the islands, as a scarecrow to the blacks of Manhattan."
"Well, I t'ink 'e sight do a white man some good, too;" returned Euclid,
who had all the pertinacity of a spoiled Dutch negro, singularly blended
with affection for him in whose service he had been born. "I hear
ebbery body say, 'er'e war' but two color man in he ship, and 'em bot'
war' Guinea-born."
"A modest tongue, thou midnight scamperer! look to my
geldings--Here--here are two Dutch florins, three stivers, and a Spanish
pistareen for thee; one of the florins is for thy old mother, and with the
others thou canst lighten thy heart in the Paus merrymakings--if I hear
that either of thy rascally cousins, or the English Diomede, has put a
leg across beast of mine, it will be the worse for all Africa! Famine and
skeletons! here have I been seven years trying to fatten the nags, and
they still look more like weasels than a pair of solid geldings."
The close of this speech was rather muttered in the distance, and by
way of soliloquy, than actually administered to the namesake of the
great mathematician. The air of the negro had been a little equivocal,
during the parting admonition. There was an evident struggle, in his
mind, between an innate love of disobedience, and a secret dread of his
master's means of information. So long as the latter continued in sight,
the black watched his form in doubt; and when it had turned a corner,
he stood at gaze, for a moment, with a negro on a neighboring stoop;
then both shook their heads significantly, laughed aloud, and retired.
That night, the confidential servant attended to the interests of his
absent master, with a fidelity and care which proved he felt his own
existence identified with that of a man who claimed so close a right in
his person; and just as the clock struck ten, he and the negro last
mentioned mounted the sluggish and over-fattened horses, and galloped,
as hard as foot could be laid to the earth, several miles deeper into the
island, to attend a frolic at one of the usual haunts of the people of their

color and condition.
Had Alderman Myndert Van Beverout suspected the calamity which
was so soon to succeed his absence, it is probable that his mien would
have been less composed, as he pursued his way from his own door, on
the occasion named. That he had confidence in the virtue of his
menaces, however, may be inferred from the tranquillity which
immediately took possession of features that were never disturbed,
without wearing an appearance of unnatural effort. The substantial
burgher was a little turned of fifty: and an English wag, who had
imported from the mother country a love for the humor of his nation,
had once, in a conflict of wits before the city council, described him to
be a man of alliterations. When called upon to explain away this breach
of parliamentary decorum, the punster had gotten rid of the matter, by
describing his opponent to be "short, solid and sturdy, in stature; full,
flushed and funny, in face; and proud, ponderous and pragmatical, in
propensities." But, as is usual, in all sayings of effort there was more
smartness than truth in this description; though, after