Patroon van Volkenberg

by Henry Thew Stephenson

I caught up the nearest of the three boys and spanked him well for a bully; upon which the other two fled precipitately into the midst of a duck pond where they stood knee deep in the slimy water and dared me to follow them at my peril.

“I’m as good an Earl’s man as them,” cried the defender of the doorstep. “But I’ll be a Jacobite now for spite. Don’t come near me, you rebel brats.”

He shouldered his stick like a musket and strutted ahead, offering to accompany me to the next corner if I was afraid.

I took the little fellow safely to his mother’s doorstep and then continued my way through King Street to the Slip, whence I could see the whole water front and the merchant ships lying at anchor. I had scarcely reached the battery by the Stadt Huys when a crowd of people came pell mell along the square. They were shouting and yelling at a score of persons who went before and were provided with brooms decked in the victorious white ribbons of the Earl’s party. They were sweeping the street industriously. As they drew near I saw that the ground in front of them was plentifully strewed with little blue marbles the size of birds’ eggs. The sweepers were thus in play cleansing the town of the blue taint of their enemies. They drew near the water, each vying with his neighbor to be the first to get the marbles in front of him into the bay. Ere long they were popping merrily upon the surface. At that moment a diversion occurred in the form of a charge by a company of marines from one of the merchant ships in the harbor. The marines came up the Slip on the run, and in two minutes a hot fight began.

The brooms were not bad weapons of defense. The cutlasses of the sailors got entangled in the brushy ends and sometimes the weapons of the sailors were jerked clean out of their hands. Now and then a stinging thrust in the face would set a man yelling with pain and anger. Meantime the bystanders amused themselves by egging on the combatants as if it were a cock fight.

This sort of thing could not last long. One by one the ends of the brooms were lopped off. The sweepers gave back and at last broke into flight just as the sheriff and a guard of six men came to their relief. Not at all daunted by the appearance of the officers of the law, the marines continued the attack, now gaining ground, now losing, but keeping to it with a will.

My blood was up. Swords ringing and mine in its sheath was a craven plight. I was for joining in but did not know which side to join. Suddenly the sheriff fell wounded and his men turned tail to run.

“Cowards,” I yelled, flourishing my sword, “follow me.”

They plucked up courage and did as I bade them. I led them aside some twenty yards to the mouth of a narrow lane where we were protected on the flanks by a fence on one side and a house on the other. Here the fray began again with redoubled spirit. I had time to notice that each of the sailors wore about his arm a band of red cloth that gave his dress somewhat the appearance of a uniform. Three of them soon lay on the ground by the mouth of the lane, and I doubt not that they were killed, for there seemed to be great enmity between the marines and the city officers. The sailors continued to fight like fiends, yelling and cursing between their blows like so many madmen. I have no doubt they were full of drink, for they did not fight well together but often turned on one another, or hampered themselves by crowding shoulder to shoulder too close to fight to good advantage. In twenty minutes we had reduced their number by half. The sobering effect of this lively scrimmage put a little reason into the heads of those who were still upon their legs. It was now their turn to run, which they did with a marvelous speed considering the fact that they were sailors.

The battle at an end, I wiped the blade of my sword and continued down the Slip, casting my eyes curiously upon the tradesmen’s signs. There were but a few names on the street, though a symbol of some sort stood over the entrance to each shop. At one place a pair of scissors indicated the dock barber and peruke maker. A red ball hung before a vender of cheese; and an empty cask before every third or fourth door showed where spirits was sold. I made my way past a long row of petty shops and small ordinaries till my eyes fell upon that for which I was looking.