to head a party provided with large clothes-baskets, who were to enter the kitchen, during Doortje’s absence, and abstract the dishes, which could not yet be served, as all in Albany, of a certain class, sat down to supper at nine precisely. As for Doortje, a negro who was in the house, in waiting on one of the guests, his master, would manage to get her out to the area gate, the house having a cellar kitchen, where it would depend on Mr. Worden to detain her, three or four minutes. To my surprise, the parson entered on the execution of the wild scheme with boyish eagerness, affirming that he could keep the woman half an hour, if it were necessary, by delivering her a lecture on the importance of observing the eighth commandment. As soon as the preliminaries were thus arranged, the two parties proceeded on their respective duties, the hour admonishing us of the necessity of losing no time unnecessarily.
I did not like this affair from the first, the experiment of sliding down hill, having somewhat weakened my confidence in Guert Ten Eyck’s judgment. Nevertheless, it would not do for me to hold back, when Mr. Worden led, and, after all, there was no great harm in recovering a supper that had been abstracted from our own house. Guert did not proceed, like ourselves, by the street, but he went with his party, out of a back gate into an alley, and was to enter the yard of the house he assailed, by means of a similar gate in its rear. Once in that yard, the access to the kitchen, and the retreat, were very easy, provided the cook could be drawn away from her charge at so important a moment. Everything, therefore, depended on the address of the young negro who was in the house, and ourselves.
On reaching the gate of the area, we stopped while our negro descended to invite Doortje forth. This gave us a moment to examine the building. The house was large, much larger than most of those round it, and what struck me as unusual, there was a lighted lamp over the door. This looked as if it might be a sort of a tavern, or eating house, and rendered the whole thing more intelligible to me. Our roystering plunderers doubtless intended to sup on their spoils at that tavern.
The negro was gone but a minute, when he came out with a young black of his own sex, a servant whom he was leading off his post, on some pretence of his own, and was immediately followed by the cook. Doortje made many curtsies as soon as she saw the cocked-hat and black cloak of the Dominie, begging his pardon and asking his pleasure. Mr. Worden now began a grave and serious lecture on the sin of stealing, holding the confounded Doortje in discourse quite three minutes. In vain the cook protested she had taken nothing; that her master’s property was sacred in her eyes, and ever had been; that she never gave away even cold meats without an order, and that she could not imagine why she was to be talked to in this way. To give him his due, Mr. Worden performed his part to admiration, though it is true he had only an ignorant wench, who was awed by his profession, to manage. At length we heard a shrill whistle from the alley, the signal of success, when Mr. Worden wished Doortje a solemn good-night, and walked away with all the dignity of a priest. In a minute or two we were in the house again, and were met by Guert with cordial shakes of the hand, thanks for our acceptable service, and a summons to supper. It appears that Doortje had actually dished-up everything, all the articles standing before a hot fire waiting only for the clock to strike nine to be served. In this state, then, the only change the supper had to undergo, was to bring it a short distance through the alley and to place it on our table, instead of that for which it was so lately intended.
Notwithstanding the rapidity with which the changes had been made, it would not have been very easy for a stranger to detect any striking irregularity in our feast. It is true, there were two sets of dishes on the table, or rather dishes of two different sets; but the ducks, game, &c., were not only properly cooked, but were warm and good. To work everybody went, therefore, with an appetite, and for five minutes little was heard beyond the clatter of knives and forks. Then came the drinking of healths, and finally the toasts, and the songs, and the stories.
Guert sang capitally, in a fine, clear, sweet, manly voice, and he gave us several airs with words both in English and in Dutch. He had just finished one of these songs, and the clapping of hands was still loud and warm, when the young man called on Mr. Worden for a lady, or a sentiment.
“Come, Dominie,” he called out, for by this time the feast had produced its familiarity—“Come, Dominie, you have acquitted yourself so well as a lecturer, that we are all dying to hear you preach.”
“A lady do you say, sir?” asked the parson, who was as merry as any of us.
“A laty—a laty”—shouted six or seven at once. “The Tominie’s laty—the Tominie’s laty.”
“Well, gentlemen, since you will have it so, you shall have one. You must not complain if she prove a little venerable,—but I give you ‘Mother Church.’”
This produced a senseless laugh, as such things usually do, and then followed my turn. Mr. Van Brunt very formally called on me for a lady. After pausing a moment I said, as I flatter myself, with spirit—“Gentlemen, I will give you another almost as heavenly—Miss Anneke Mordaunt!”
“Miss Anneke Mordaunt!” was echoed round the table, and I soon discovered that Anneke was a general favourite, and a very common toast already at Albany.
“I shall now ask Mr. Guert Ten Eyck for his lady,” I said, as soon as silence was restored, there being very little pause between the cups that night.
This appeal changed the whole character of the expression of Guert’s face. It became grave in an instant, as if the recollection of her whose name he was about to utter produced a pause in his almost fierce mirth. He coloured, then raised his eyes and looked sternly round as if to challenge denial, and gave—
“Miss Mary Wallace.”
“Ay, Guert, we are used to that name, now,” said Van Brunt, a little drily. “This is the tenth time I have heard it from you within two months.”
“You will be likely to hear it twenty more, sir; for I shall give Mary Wallace, and nobody but Mary Wallace, while the lady remains Mary Wallace. How, now, Mr. Constable! What may be the reason we have the honour of a visit from you at this time of night.” 22
Chapter XIII
“Masters, it is proved already
That you are little better than false knaves;
And it will go near to be thought so, shortly.”
—Dogberry
The sudden appearance of the city constable, a functionary whose person was not unknown to most of the company, brought every man at table to his feet, the Rev. Mr. Worden, Dirck and myself, included. For my own part, I saw no particular reason for alarm, though it at once struck me that this visit might have some connection with the demolished supper, since the law does not, in all cases, suffer a man to reclaim even his own, by trick or violence. As for the constable himself, a short, compact, snub-nosed, Dutch-built person, who spoke English as if it disagreed with his bile, he was the coolest of the whole party.
“Vell, Mr. Guert,” he said, with a sort of good-natured growl of authority, “here I moost coome ag’in! Mr. Mayor woult be happy to see you, and ter Tominie, dat ist of your party; and ter gentleman dat acted as clerk, ven he lectured old Doortje, Mr. Mayor’s cook.”
Mr. Mayor’s cook! Here, then, a secret was out, with a vengeance! Guert had not reclaimed his own lost supper, which, having passed into the hands of the Philistines, was hopelessly gone; but he had actually stolen and eaten the supper
