Patroon van Volkenberg

by Henry Thew Stephenson

This signal, fired from the Battery, was the way of announcing the arrival of a vessel in the port. The crowd forgot all about Pierre and his helpless condition. In two minutes the square was vacant save for three men: Pierre, the dominie, and myself.

Pierre was not long in regaining consciousness. He was, however, too weak to walk alone. I lifted him in my arms and was about to carry him away when we met Lady Marmaduke in her chair. She bade the negro carriers set her down, and inquired what was the matter.

“Good lack! Little Pierre ducked for being drunk! You naughty fellow. How often have I told you not to do that or I should never speak you well again to sweet Annetje Dorn?” She paused; her face clouded and grew hard and bitter. I heard her mutter the name of the patroon. “Here, put him in my chair,” she said at last. “I will attend to him.” She got in herself after he was comfortably stowed away, and then left us alone upon the Slip.

“Just her way,” said the dominie. “She’ll take care of him and nurse him and feed him up as if he were her own child. She is good to every one, friend or slave, it makes no matter which.”

I accompanied the dominie as far as the door of his house, where I left him in order to continue my way to the Ferry-House. It was in this quiet ordinary that the governor had advised me to seek temporary lodgings. I reached the place without difficulty and was surprised to find that it was the very house before which Lady Marmaduke had halted her coach when I heard her speak to the people and bid them to stand fast by the Earl of Bellamont.

I went in and made the necessary arrangements to stay there that night, and then sat down to eat my dinner and to think over the events of the day. By the time I was ready to rise from the table the hand of the clock was close upon the stroke of two. This was the time set for Bromm’s proclamation concerning my sister. I betook myself to the square before the Stadt Huys, where I walked up and down in momentary expectation of the crier. The public excitement of the morning was somewhat abated; but a fair crowd had gathered by the time Bromm appeared, marching behind two drummers, who beat a sober rap-tap suited to the aged man’s deliberate step. Bromm mounted the platform near the public scaffold and began to read his proclamation. It was short, simply requesting in the name of the governor any information concerning the whereabouts of Ruth Le Bourse. At the first reading no one came forward to volunteer any information. The drums beat again and Bromm read the proclamation a second time. Just as he finished, some one touched my arm from behind. It was Van Volkenberg at my elbow for the second time that day. He smiled as before, the same cutting smile of contempt. He spoke but a word or two before he vanished in the cover of the crowd; but he had said enough to rouse my anger.

“Good luck, Monsieur Le Bourse; but, as I said before, we shall meet again. Beware of the Red Band.”

That was all he said. His words were nothing but a mere threat. But he had done something that set every drop of blood in my body to tingling with hot anger. I should have followed him had he not disappeared instantly. From the moment I had first laid eyes on this man in the Jacobite Coffee-House I had taken an unaccountable dislike to him. Even when I advanced to meet him in the tap-room, I had kept the silver button hid in my closed hand as if I were unwilling to acknowledge my claim upon him. Now I understood what had given birth to my unreasonable antipathy. As he turned away after speaking the above words, Van Volkenberg made the sign of the cross. The patroon was a Catholic. How I thanked God I had received no favor from him! Instantly, as one sees the landscape at night when the lightning flashes, there lay before me that scene in Paris of the black robed priest who years before had caught my sister by the arm, and whom I had struck down upon the spot as he deserved. In quick succession there passed before my mind’s eye our flight to La Rochelle, my ten years of fruitless search, the Mariner’s Rest at Bristol, our last separation—finally the public flogging I had received in Maryland. All these troubles had been brought upon me by Catholics. A Catholic was once more threatening my peace of mind, telling me to beware. I little knew then how much greater cause I had to hate the patroon for wrongs already done to me and mine. I thought only of the present instant. I felt that we two were fated to—God knows what! I gripped my hands together and wished that I could hurry time.

Bromm repeated the proclamation again, but received no response. He marched back to the fort and soon the crowd drifted into smaller groups. I returned to the Ferry-House to nurse my disappointment alone, hoping also that some word would come from the Earl concerning news received at the fort. I found Pierre sitting alone in a corner of the public room when I entered the Ferry-House.

“Well,” I said. “Have you recovered?”