sary to the very chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising
his sword, warded it off so narrowly, that, glancing on one side,
it shaved away a huge canteen in which he carried his
liquor,--thence pursuing its trenchant course, it severed off a
deep coat-pocket, stored with bread and cheese,--which provant,
rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between
the Swedes and Dutchmen, and made the general battle to wax more
furious than ever.

"Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, the stout Risingh,
collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's
crest. In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course.
The biting steel clove through the stubborn ram beaver, and would
have cracked the crown of any one not endowed with supernatural
hardness of head; but the brittle weapon shivered in pieces on the
skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of
glory, round his grizzly visage.

"The good Peter reeled with the blow, and turning up his eyes
beheld a thousand suns, besides moons and stars, dancing about the
firmament; at length, missing his footing, by reason of his wooden
leg, down he came on his seat of honor with a crash which shook the
surrounding hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he not
been received into a cushion softer than velvet, which Providence,
or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, or some cow, had benevolently prepared
for his reception.

"The furious Risingh, in despite of the maxim, cherished by all
true knights, that 'fair play is a jewel,' hastened to take
advantage of the hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal
blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over the sconce with his
wooden leg, which set a chime of bells ringing triple bob-majors in
his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and
the wary Peter seizing a pocket-pistol, which lay hard by,
discharged it full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not my
reader mistake; it was not a murderous weapon loaded with powder
and ball, but a little sturdy stone pottle charged to the muzzle
with a double dram of true Dutch courage, which the knowing Antony
Van Corlear carried about him by way of replenishing his valor, and
which had dropped from his wallet during his furious encounter with