Patroon van Volkenberg

by Henry Thew Stephenson

Shortly the attention fell off from me somewhat and the inmates began to talk again. Kirstoffel, as they called the host, was a merry fellow. He soon seemed to repent of the rude way in which he had answered my question, for he saw when I took out my purse that I had plenty of ready money. Taking advantage of a moment when attention was diverted to the some disturbance in the street, he came across the room to me and made a qualified apology.

“Gott, man,” he began. “Your demand was too sudden. I have got no rooms here to let out. They were all thrown into one for that what-you-call-it Jacobite Club to meet in. No, I have no rooms.”

As he seemed to be friendly, I asked him why my entrance had been the cause of so much attention. He was about to answer when the people who had been temporarily attracted to the door came pouring back. The tapster laid his finger on his lips, shook his head at me in a warning sort of way, and then stalked haughtily back to his place as if to affect his customers with the largeness of his contempt for me.

I was all alert to discover the clew to this treatment. As each of several new people entered I was pointed out amid whispering and shaking of heads and threatening glances. One fellow, a sailorly looking man, cried out an angry oath and took a step or two in my direction. A comrade caught him by the arm and whispered something in his ear. At that the fellow gave up his notion, whatever it was, and soon their interest in me waned.

Everyone I had seen in the room so far wore somewhere on his coat or hat a bit of the blue ribbon that stood for the Merchants’ party. It was not long, however, before I noticed in one corner a slight, alert man who looked as if he might be a native of my own country. Furthermore, so far as I could see, he wore none of the blue ribbon. I changed my seat so as to come near him. He was an affable sort of fellow and spoke to me at once.

“You and I seem to be on the under side,” he began. “I wonder you don’t wear white.”

I told him, as I had told the ferryman, that I was a stranger in the city and that I had not yet learned the difference between the parties. He at once began a long explanation, telling me all about the Earl of Bellamont and the People’s party whose color was white, and of the Merchants’ party, whose color was blue. Thus begun, I pressed the conversation further to learn why I had been treated with so much attention when I came into the coffee-house. He did not know. Had I worn white or no color at all, as he did, they would have let me alone. There must be something more than that. Did I not know? “How could I?” I said, in answer to his question, for I had been in New York scarce above two hours. All this mystery was very annoying to me, for every few moments I was pointed out and showed off to some new comer like an animal in a cage.

In the meantime my chance acquaintance, who informed me that his name was Pierre, drank continually and was in the merrier mood therefor. “I hate these Dutchmen,” he said, “with their dozen pairs of breeches like barrels round their middles. And the women, ha! I’ve seen a very bean-pole swell out below like a double jib.”

This reference to the Dutchmen reminded me of my desire to see the patroon, and I asked Pierre if he knew Van Volkenberg.

“Know him? I’d know his bones in a button shop. You couldn’t polish the crabbedness out of him. I could tell you where he is at this very moment only—I declare, my head is getting fuddled. I must have a gill of rum to settle this weak beer with.” In a moment he came back from the tap-rail, empty-handed and shaking his head disconsolately. “He will not trust me, not another stuyver. I’m plum fuddled. Where was I?”