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.
So thought the good St. Nicholas, as he revolved in his mind a plan 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?”