Phillis then advanced to the bar, to give her testimony. She was, as her counsel represented, truly made up of flesh and blood, being what is called a strapping wench, as black as the ace of spades. She was dressed in the low Dutch fashion, which has not varied for a century, linsey-woolsey petticoats, very short, blue worsted stockings, leather shoes, with a massive pair of silver buckles, bead ear-rings, her woolly hair combed, and face sleek and greasy. There was no “dejected ’haviour of visage”--no broken heart visible in her face--she looked fat and comfortable, as if she had sustained no damage by the perfidy of her swain. Before she was sworn, the court called the defendant, who came from among the crowd, and stood respectfully before the bench. Cuff was a good-looking young fellow, with a tolerably smartish dress, and appeared as if he had been in the metropolis taking lessons of perfidious lovers--he cast one or two cutting looks at Phillis, accompanied by a significant turn up of the nose, and now and then a contemptuous ejaculation of Eh!--Umph!--Ough!--which did not disconcert the _fair_ one in the least, she returning the compliment by placing her arms a-kimbo, and surveying her lover from head to foot. The court inquired of Cuff whether he had counsel? “No, massa, (he replied) I tell my own ’tory--you see massa ’Squire, I know de gentlemen of de jury berry vell--dere is massa Teerpenning, of Little ’Sophus, know him berry vell--I plough for him;--den dere is massa Traphagan, of our town--how he do massa?--ah, dere massa Topper, vat prints de paper at Big ’Sophus--know him too;--dere is massa Peet Steenberg--know him too--he owe me little money:--I know ’em all massa ’Squire;--I did go to get massa Lucas to plead for me, but he gone to the Court of Error, at Albany;--Massa Sam Freer and massa Cockburn said they come to gib me good character, but I no see ’em here.”
Cuff was ordered to stand aside, and Phillis was sworn.
Plaintiff said she did not know how old she was; believed she was sixteen; she looked nearer twenty-six; she lived with Hons Schoonmaker; was brought up in the family. She told her case as pathetically as possible:--
“Massa ’Squire,” said she, “I was gone up to massa Schoonmaker’s lot, on Shaungum mountain, to pile brush; den Cuff, he vat stands dare, cum by vid de teem, he top his horses and say, ‘How de do, Phillis?’ or, as she gave it, probably in Dutch, ‘How gaud it mit you’ ‘Hail goot,’ said I; den massa he look at me berry hard, and say, Phillis, pose you meet me in the nite, ven de moon is up, near de barn, I got sumting to say--den I say, berry bell, Cuff, I vill--he vent up de mountain, and I vent home; ven I eat my supper and milk de cows, I say to myself, Phillis, pose you go down to de barn, and hear vat Cuff has to say. Well, massa ’Squire, I go, dare was Cuff sure enough, he told heaps of tings all about love; call’d me Wenus and Jewpeter, and other tings vat he got out of de playhouse ven he vent down in the slope to New York, and he ax’d me if I’d marry him before de Dominie, Osterhaut, he vat preached in Milton, down ’pon Marlbro’. I say, Cuff, you make fun on me; he say no, ‘By mine zeal, I vil marry you, Phillis;’ den he gib me dis here as earnest.”--Phillis here drew from her huge pocket an immense pair of scissars, a jack knife, and a wooden pipe curiously carved, which she offered as a testimony of the promise, and which was sworn to as the property of Cuff, who subsequently had refused to fulfil the contract.