efiance, which it had
doubtless learned from a long and intimate neighborhood with that
melodious instrument.

Governor Risingh heard him through trumpet and all, but with infinite
impatience; leaning at times, as was his usual custom, on the pommel of
his sword, and at times twirling a huge steel watch-chain, or snapping
his fingers. Van Corlear having finished, he bluntly replied, that Peter
Stuyvesant and his summons might go to the d----, whither he hoped to send
him and his crew of ragamuffins before supper time. Then unsheathing his
brass-hilted sword, and throwing away the scabbard, "'Fore gad," quoth he,
"but I will not sheathe thee again until I make a scabbard of the
smoke-dried leathern hide of this runagate Dutchman." Then having flung a
fierce defiance in the teeth of his adversary, by the lips of his
messenger, the latter was reconducted to the portal, with all the
ceremonious civility due to the trumpeter, squire, and ambassador, of so
great a commander; and being again unblinded, was courteously dismissed
with a tweak of the nose, to assist him in recollecting his message.

No sooner did the gallant Peter receive this insolent reply, than he let
fly a tremendous volley of red-hot execrations, which would infallibly
have battered down the fortifications, and blown up the powder magazine
about the ears of the fiery Swede had not the ramparts been remarkably
strong, and the magazine bomb proof. Perceiving that the works withstood
this terrific blast, and that it was utterly impossible, as it really was
in those unphilosophic days, to carry on a war with words, he ordered his
merry men all to prepare for an immediate assault. But here a strange
murmur broke out among his troops, beginning with the tribe of the Van
Bummels, those valiant trenchermen of the Bronx, and spreading from man to
man, accompanied with certain mutinous looks and discontented murmurs. For
once in his life, and only for once, did the great Peter turn pale; for he
verily thought his warriors were going to falter in this hour of perilous
trial, and thus to tarnish forever the fame of the province of New
Netherlands.

But soon did he discover, to his great joy, that in this suspicion he
deeply wronged this most undaunted army; for the cause of this agitation
and uneasiness simply was that the hour of dinner was at hand, and it
would almost have broken the hearts of these regular Dutch warriors to
have broken in upon the invariable routin