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HIS EXPLOITS AND TACTICS.

tating cabbages by platoons; hewing down whole phalanxes of sunflowers, which he termed gigantic Swedes; and if, peradventure, he espied a colony of honest big bellied pumpkins quietly basking themselves in the sun, "ah, caitiff Yankees," would he roar, "have I caught ye at last!"-so saying, with one sweep of his sword, he would cleave the unhappy vegetables from their chins to their waistbands: by which warlike havoc, his choler being in some sort allayed, he would return to his garrison with a full conviction that he was a very miracle of military prowess.

The next ambition of General Von Poffenburgh was to be thought a strict disciplinarian. Well knowing that discipline is the soul of all military enterprize, he enforced it with the most rigorous precision; obliging every man to turn out his toes, and hold up his head on parade, and prescribing the breadth of their ruffles to all such as had any shirts to their backs.

Having one day, in the course of his devout researches in the Bible, (for the pious Eneas himself could not exceed him in outward religion,) encountered the history of Absalom and his melancholy end, the general, in an evil hour, issued orders for cropping the hair of both officers and men throughout the garrison. Now it came to pass, that among his officers was one Kildermees

KILDERMEESTER'S LONG TAIL.

73

ter; a sturdy veteran, who had cherished through the course of a long life, a rugged mop of hair, not a little resembling the shag of a Newfoundland dog, terminating with an immoderate queue like the handle of a frying pan; and queued so tightly to his head, that his eyes and mouth generally stood ajar, and his eye-brows were drawn up to the top of his forehead. It may naturally be supposed that the possessor of so goodly an appendage would resist with abhorrence an order condemning it to the shears. On hearing the general orders, he discharged a tempest of veteran, soldier-like oaths, and dunder and blixumsswore he would break any man's head who attempted to meddle with his tail-queued it stiffer than ever, and whisked it about the garrison as fiercely as the tail of a crocodile.

The eel-skin queue of old Kildermeester became instantly an affair of the utmost importance. The commander in chief was too enlightened an officer not to perceive that the discipline of the garrison, the subordination and good order of the armies of the Nieuw-Nederlandts, the consequent safety of the whole province, and ultimately the dignity and prosperity of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, but above all, the dignity of the great General Von Poffenburgh, all imperiously demanded the docking of that stubborn queue. He therefore deter

74

ORDERED TO BE DOCKED.

mined that old Kildermeester should be publicly shorn of his glories in presence of the whole garrison-the old man as resolutely stood on the defensive-whereupon the general, as became a great man, was highly exasperated, and the of fender was arrested and tried by a court martial for mutiny, desertion, and all the other list of offences noticed in the articles of war, ending with a "videlecit, in wearing an eel-skin queue, three feet long, contrary to orders"-Then came on arraignments, and trials, and pleadings, and the whole country was in a ferment about this unfortunate queue. As it is well known that the commander of a distant frontier post has the power of acting pretty much after his own will, there is little doubt but that the veteran would have been hanged or shot at least, had he not luckily fallen ill of a fever, through mere chagrin and mortification-and most flagitiously deserted from all earthly command, with his beloved locks unviolated. His obstinacy remained unshaken to the very last moment, when he directed that he should be carried to his grave with his eel-skin queue sticking out of a hole in his coffin.

This magnanimous affair obtained the general great credit as an excellent disciplinarian, but it is hinted that he was ever after subject to bad

NIGHTLY VISITATIONS TO THE GOVERNOR. 75

dreams and fearful visitations in the nightwhen the grizly spectrum of old Kildermeester would stand sentinel by his bed side, erect as a pump, his enormous queue strutting out like the handle.

BOOK IV.

CONTAINING THE SECOND PART OF THE REIGN OF PETER THE HEADSTONG-AND HIS GALLANT ACHIEVEMENTS ON THE DELAWARE.

CHAPTER I.

In which is exhibited a warlike portrait of the great Peter and how General Von Poffenburgh distinguished himself at Fort Casimir.

HITHERTO, most venerable and courteous reader, have I shown thee the adminstration of the valorous Stuyvesant, under the mild moonshine of peace, or rather the grim tranquillity of awful expectation; but now the war drum rumbles from afar, the brazen trumpet brays its thrilling note, and the rude clash of hostile arms speaks fearful prophecies of coming troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions, and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet, "piping time of peace," he sought