We shall omit the wild-turkey hunt of a bright autumnal
moon-light night in the woods, exciting and engaging though
it was, and the race with Streaker, in which Margaret bore no
part, while we proceed to enumerate some particulars of her
eldest brother, that have a relation to herself. Nimrod evinced
a volatile, roving, adventure-seeking habit from his boyhood.
The severe waspish temper of his mother he could not abide,
the coarse, dogged despotism of Hash he resented; Chilion
was only a boy, and one not sufficiently social and free; with
his father he had more in common. At the age of fourteen
he became an indented apprentice to Mr. Hatch the blacksmith
at No. 4. But of the different kind of blows of which
he was capable, he relished those best that had the least to do
with the anvil. He liked horses well enough, but preferred

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their hides to their hoofs; and became more skilful with the
fleam than the buttress. He left his master in a rage, himself
in good humor. He next let himself at the Crown and Bowl
in the village, where one might fancy he would find his element.
He was hostler, bar-tender, wood-bringer, errand-boy,
chore-doer, farrier, mistress'-man, waiting-maid's man and
everybody's man by turn. He entertained travellers at the
door, girls in the kitchen and boys in the stoop. He was
quick but he always loitered, he was ingenious yet nothing
was well done. It would not seem strange that he should
prove a better auxiliary to every one's taste and fancy, than to
Mr. Stillwater his employer's interest. He hung a flint stone
on the barn-door to keep the devil from riding the horses in
the night; but this did not prevent indications of their having
been used at unlawful times and in unlawful ways, which
their owner was disposed to charge upon Nimrod. He was
dismissed. While he served others at the bar he must needs
help himself, and he became at an early age an adept in what
an old writer denominates the eighth liberal art. At the close
of the revolutionary war, it became more difficult to fill
vacancies in the army, than it had been originally to form
companies. There were “Classes” in Livingston, as everywhere
else, whose duty it was to furnish a certain number of
soldiers, as exigency required. By one of these, Nimrod, not
yet fifteen years of age, but of due physical proportion and
compliance, was hired. He joined a detachment ordered on
the defence of our northern frontier.

But even military discipline was insufficient to correct his
propensities, or reform his habits. He deserted, and crossed
the Canada lines. He connected himself with a band of
smugglers that swarmed in those quarters, and during the
spring of the year 1784, we find him in New York in a sloop
from up river. The vessel was anchord in the stream not far
from the Albany Basin. She had a deck-load of lumber, and
wheat in her hold, the ordinary supply of the country at the
time; her contraband goods were stowed in proper places.
Government, both state and national, was pressed for means;
the war, taxes, suspension of productive labor, had heightened
necessity, and diminished resource. Duties were great, but
legislation was irregular. The city held in its bosom many
who had suffered during the late contest. The general amnesty
while it retained the disaffected, failed in some cases to
reconcile them. Hence smuggling, while it grew to be a
most vexatious practice, was one of tolerably easy

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accomplishment. Laws were severe, but there was wanting the force to
execute; the police was more numerous than energetic. Still
the business demanded skill, caution and prudence.

Late in the evening, the cabin of the sloop was visited by
an elderly gentleman in buff coat and breeches, having an
eagle holding an olive branch wrought on his left breast. He
was addressed by the Captain as Mr. Girardeau. He complained
bitterly of the times, the rise of taxes, financial depressions,
the decline of real estate and sundry misfortunes.
He said that his clerk, meaning thereby his daughter, had
eloped, and that his old servant Simon was dead. He had
evident connection with the private objects of the vessel, and
under his supervision preparations were made for carrying the
contraband articles to his own store in the city. These, consisting
of silks, ribbons, laces, &c. were laid in coffin-shaped
boxes, and Nimrod with another of the crew was detached as
porters. They rowed, in a small boat, as far as the beach in
Hudson Square, threaded a lane along the woods and hills of
Grand Street, came down through the marshes and fields of
Broadway, till they reached a small wooden house lying under
a hill back of the City Hall, which was the residence of Mr.
Girardeau whom they found waiting to receive them. They
encountered several of the police stationed on the skirts of the
city, one of whom they frightened by intimations of the
small-pox; another they avoided by slinking into the shadows
of trees; another they succeeded in stupifying by drafts of
rum, a supply of which they carried in their pockets. Nimrod
recounted his adroit passages to Mr. Girardeau, who seemed
pleased with the success if not with the character of the
youth; and, in fine, hearing him highly recommended by the
Captain, he the next day engaged him, under the assumed
name of Foxly, to fill the place recently held by his deceased
servant Simon. Nimrod was nothing loth to exchange masters,
and enter upon new scenes. Mr. Girardeau's quarters
comprised both his store and dwelling-house. The building
was one of the old style, having its gable to the street. In
the rear of the shop-room was a kitchen, and above were
sleeping apartments. In the first instance, Mr. Girardeau
intimated to Nimrod the necessity of a change of apparel, and
that he must wear one of a color like his own. He himself
had been a resident in the city during the war, while the
British had possession, and at that time wore a scarlet coat,
with the arms of the king. At the peace, he changed his hue
and badge. In the next place, he undertook to indoctrinate

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his new servant in the secrets of his business, and to impress
upon him a sense of the responsibleness of his vocation.
“I — I should say we, — 'tis all one concern, one interest,”
so his employer unfolded himself, “we are poor, we are embarrassed.
You, Mr. Foxly, perhaps know how awful a thing
poverty is. You can understand me. We are opposed, we
are maltreated, we are vilified. Enemies beset us night and
day; even now they may be listening to us through the
walls.”

Nimrod, who was not without a tincture of the superstition
of his times, notwithstanding his ordinary display of fearlessness
and daring, started. “They won't take us off in the
night, will they?” exclaimed he.

“Yes, in the night,” replied Mr. Girardeau.

“Then I may as well be a packing,” said Nimrod. “I
can't stay here. I thought you hadn't any of them in the
city.”

“Why the city is full of them,” rejoined Mr. Girardeau,
“hence we see the necessity of care, confederation and
secrecy.”

“But they come in anywhere,” answered Nimrod. “They'll
whisk you right out of your bed. Aunt Ravel had seven
pins stuck into her in one night. Old uncle Kiah, that used
to live at Snake Hill, was trundled down hill three nights
agoing, and his skin all wore off, and he grew as lean as a
gander's leg.”

“Mr. Foxly!” interrupted Mr. Girardeau, “you misunderstand
me, — I see you are from the country, a good place, —
but you misunderstand me. It is men I mean, not spirits.
We have no witches here, only hard-hearted, covetous, ignorant,
griping, depraved, desperate men.”

“Sho! its humans you are speaking of,” replied Nimrod;
“I an't no more afraid of them than a cat is of a wren. I
like them, I could live among them as well as a fish in
water.”

“Mr. Foxly!” continued Mr. Girardeau, solemnly. “We
have something to fear from men. Here likewise you mistake.
I fear you are too rash, too head-strong.”

“Anything, Sir,” answered Nimrod, “I will do anything
you wish,” he added, more soberly. “I will serve you, as
they did the troops in the war, work for nothing and find
myself.”

“You may well say so,” added Mr. Girardeau, Simon was
faithful, he spared himself to provide for me. We are in

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straits, we must live frugally. Persecution surrounds us.
We have enemies who can do us a great injury. I can be
made to injure you, and you to injure me. We need circumspection,
we are, if I may so say, in one another's power.
There are those who might take advantage of my necessities,
to compel me to surrender you to the rigor of unjust laws,
and you might end your days in a prison. My whole life has
been one of exposure and want, labor and toil.” Thus was
Nimrod addressed. In the third place, added Mr. Girardeau,
“I must admonish you, Mr. Foxly, and most rigidly enjoin,
that on no account are you to have conference, or hold any
relations with a certain young woman, that sometimes comes
here, whom I will point out to you.” Nimrod found upon the
premises a little black-eyed boy eight or nine years of age,
whom he took for the grandson of his employer. This boy
was sent to school, and when at home played on the hill back
of the house, and slept in a room separate from Nimrod's,
with whom Mr. Girardeau did not seem anxious that he
should have much intercourse. These three constituted the
entire family. Nimrod became cook, washerman, porter, and
performed with alacrity whatever duty was assigned him.
How Nimrod relished his new service and new master for a
while, we need not relate. He could not fail, however, to be
sensible that his food was not quite as good as that to which
he had been accustomed, and to find that his master did not
prove exactly what he expected. He found Mr. Girardeau to
be, to say the least, harsh, arbitrary, exacting; he began to
suspect something worse than this; he believed he told him
falsehoods; that he had money, and that in abundance. As
he lay on the counter, where he usually slept at night, he was
sure he heard the sound of coin in the room over head. Of
the young woman, respecting whom he had been cautioned,
he saw nothing, till one day, he heard voices in the chamber.
He listened at the foot of the stairs, and distinguished a
female's voice. There were sharp words, severe epithets.
Presently a woman came hurriedly down, and passed into the
street.

“Did you see that girl?” asked Mr. Girardeau, descending
immediately afterwards.

“Yes, Sir,” replied Nimrod.

“She is my daughter,” added Mr. Girardeau. “Yes, my
own flesh and blood. You know not the feelings of a father.
She has been guilty of the greatest of crimes, she has disobeyed
me, she has violated my will, she has endangered my

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estate. She has married to her own shame, and my grief.
I have borne with her, till forbearance becomes a sin. She
would strip me of my possessions. The author of her degradation
she would make the pander to her cruelty. I am
doubly beset, they are in a conspiracy against me. Heed her
not, listen not to her importunity, let her suffer. I have no
feelings of a father; they have been wrenched and torn
away; I cannot own a viper for a child.”

Nimrod thrust his fists in his waistcoat pockets, where he
clenched them angrily. He was silent. He listened as to an
unanswerable argument; he believed not a word. In the
mean time let us refer to some events wherein his own interest
began to be awakened; and which we shall embody in a
new chapter, with a new title.