The book of Saint Nicholas

by James Kirke Paulding

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.”