“He!  Zoo!” exclaimed the soldiers.

“Foei! weg!” cried the fishermen.

Only three persons said “Ach! helas!”—­the Widow Cloos, pretty Elsje, and Nanking.

“Thy stork is a savage bird!” cried Peter Alrichs.  “The English on the Chisopecke name it a swan!”

Nanking burst into tears.  His uncle struck the ground with his schout’s staff, swore dreadfully, and shouted to the Widow Cloos: 

“Sister, thy boy is nothing but a big idiot.  Thou hadst better drown him, as I told thee!”

Nothing could equal the mortification of Nanking.  He thought he would die of grief.  He was now known to be more of an idiot than ever, and the fickle Miss Elsje would not let him hold her doll for a whole week.

“My poor son,” entreated the widow, “do not pine and lose courage!  The venison will feed us half the winter.  You can help me smoke it and dry it.  Do not give up your sweet simple faith, my boy!  As long as you keep that we are rich!”

The next day Schout Van Swearingen, the great dignitary, came in and said to Nanking:  “As you are a big idiot and good for nothing else, I will give you an office.  Even there you will be a failure, for you are too simple to steal any thing.”

Nanking’s mother was happy to hear this, and to see her son in a linsey-woolsey coat with large brass buttons, and six pairs of breeches—­the gift of the city of Amsterdam—­stride up the streets of New Amstel, with copper buckles in his shoes and his hair tied in an eel-skin queue.  The schout, his uncle, who was sheriff and chief of police in one, marched him up to the jail and presented him with a beautiful plaything—­a handle of wood with nine leather whip-lashes upon the end of it.  “Your duties will be light,” said the schout.  “Every man you flog will give your mother a fee.  Come here with me and begin your labors!”

In the open space before the jail and stadt huys were a pair of stocks and a whipping-post.  Nanking’s uncle released a rough but light-built man, who had been sitting in the stocks, and taking off the man’s jacket and shirt, fastened him to the post by his wrists.

“Give this culprit fifty lashes, well laid on!” ordered the schout.

Nanking turned pale.  “Must I whip him?  What has he been doing that he is wicked?”

“Smuggling!” exclaimed Schout Van Swearingen.  “He has taken advantage of the free port of New Amstel to smuggle to the Swedes of Altona and New Gottenburg, and the English of Maryland.  Mark his back well!”

The sailor, as he seemed to be, looked at Nanking without fear.  “Come, earn your money,” he said.

“Uncle,” cried Nanking, throwing down the whip, “how can I whip this man who never injured me?  Do not all the people smuggle in New Amstel?  Was it not to stop that which brought the mighty Director Stuyvesant hither with the great schout of New Amsterdam, worshipful Peter Tonneman?  Yes, uncle, I have heard the people say so, and that you have smuggled yourself ever since your superior, the glorious Captain Hinoyossa, sailed to Europe.”