a third had a pair of rusty
gaiters hanging about his heels; while a fourth, a little duck-legged
fellow, was equipped in a pair of the general's cast-off breeches, which
he held up with one hand while he grasped his firelock with the other. The
rest were accoutred in similar style, excepting three ragamuffins without
shirts, and with but a pair and a half of breeches between them; wherefore
they were sent to the black hole, to keep them out of sight, that they
might not disgrace the fortress.

His men being thus gallantly arrayed--those who lacked muskets
shouldering spades and pickaxes, and every man being ordered to tuck in
his shirttail and pull up his brogues--General Van Poffenburgh first took
a sturdy draught of foaming ale, which, like the magnanimous More, of
More Hall,[48] was his invariable practice on all great occasions; this
done, he put himself at their head, and issued forth from his castle like
a mighty giant just refreshed with wine. But when the two heroes met,
then began a scene of warlike parade that beggars all description. The
shrewd Risingh, who had grown grey much before his time, in consequence
of his craftiness, saw at one glance the ruling passion of the great Van
Poffenburgh, and humored him in all his valorous fantasies.

Their detachments were accordingly drawn up in front of each other, they
carried arms and they presented arms, they gave the standing salute and
the passing salute, they rolled their drums, they flourished their fifes,
and they waved their colors; they faced to the left, and they faced to the
right, and they faced to the right about; they wheeled forward, and they
wheeled backward, and they wheeled into echelon; they marched and they
countermarched, by grand divisions, by single divisions, and by
subdivisions; by platoons, by sections, and by files; in quick time, in
slow time, and in no time at all; for, having gone through all the
evolutions of two great armies, including the eighteen manoeuvres of
Dundas; having exhausted all that they could recollect or image of
military tactics, including sundry strange and irregular evolutions, the
like of which were never seen before or since, excepting among certain of
our newly-raised militia, the two commanders and their respective troops
came at length to a dead halt, completely exhausted by the toils of war.
Never did two valiant train-band captains, or two buskined theatric
heroes, in the renowned tragedies of Pizarro, Tom Thu