Suddenly, with scant ceremony and but the apology of a request for admittance, there came into the Heer Governor's presence the Dominie Doctor Alexander Carolus Curtius, master of the Latin School.
"Here is a pretty pass, Heer Governor!" he cried excitedly. "My pupils of the Latin School have turned upon me in revolt and have deserted me in a body."
"Ach; then you are rightly served for a craven and a miser, sir!" burst out the angry Governor, turning savagely upon the surprised schoolmaster.
This was a most unexpected reception for Doctor and Dominie Curtius. But, as it happened, the Heer Governor Stuyvesant was just now particularly vexed with the objectionable Dominie. At much trouble and after much solicitation on his part the Heer Governor had prevailed upon his superiors and the proprietors of the province, the Dutch West India Company, to send from Holland a schoolmaster or "rector" for the children of their town of New Amsterdam, and the Company had sent over Dominie Curtius.
The Heer Governor had entertained great hopes of what the new schoolmaster was to do, and now to find him a subject of complaint from both the parents of the scholars and the officials of the town made the hasty Governor doubly dissatisfied. The Dominie's intrusion, therefore, at just this stage of all his perplexities gave the Heer Governor a most convenient person on whom to vent his bad feelings.
"Yes, sirrah, a craven and a miser!" continued the angry Governor, stamping upon the floor with both wooden leg and massive cane. "You, who can neither govern our children nor pay your just dues to the town, can be no fit master for our youth. No words, sirrah, no words," he added, as the poor dominie tried to put in a word in his defence, "no words, sir; you are discharged from further labour in this province. I will see that one who can rule wisely and pay his just dues shall be placed here in your stead."
Protests and appeals, explanations and arguments, were of no avail. When the Heer Governor Stuyvesant said a thing, he meant it, and it was useless for any one to hope for a change. The unpopular Dominie Curtius must go—and go he did.
But, as he left, the delegation of boys, headed by young Patem Onderdonk, came into the fort and sought to interview the Heer Governor.
The sentry at the door would have sent them off without further ado, but, hearing their noise, the Heer Governor came to the door.
"So, so, young rapscallions," he cried, "you, too, must needs disturb the peace and push yourself forward into public quarrels! Get you gone! I will have none of your words. Is it not enough that I must needs send the schoolmaster a-packing, without being worried by graceless young varlets as you?"