is side and, without more ado,
started with them to interview the Heer Governor.

But, quickly as they acted, the schoolmaster was still more prompt in
action. Defeated and deserted by his scholars, Dominie Curtius had
raged about the schoolroom for a while, spluttering angrily in mingled
Dutch and Polish, and then, clapping his broad black hat upon his
head, marched straight to the fort to lay his grievance before the
Heer Governor.

The Heer Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General for the Dutch West India
Company in their colony of New Netherlands, walked up and down the
Governor's chamber in the fort at New Amsterdam woefully perplexed.
The Heer Governor was not a patient man, and a combination of
annoyances was hedging him about and making his government of his
island province anything but pleasant work.

The "malignant English" of the Massachusetts and Hartford colonies
were pressing their claim to the ownership of the New Netherlands,
just as, to the south, the settlers on Lord De La Ware's patent were
also doing; the "people called Quakers," whom the Heer Governor had
publicly whipped for heresy and sent a-packing, were spreading their
"pernicious doctrine" through Long Island and other outer edges of the
colony, and the Indians around Esopus, the little settlement which the
province had planted midway on the Hudson between New Amsterdam and
Beaverwyck (now Albany), were growing restless and defiant. Thump,
thump, thump, across the floor went the wooden leg with its silver
bands, and with every thump the Heer Governor grew still more puzzled
and angered. For the Heer Governor could not bear to have things go
wrong.

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 propr