Be this as it may, there was nothing that more delighted Antony than this command of the great Peter, for he could have followed the stout-hearted old governor to the world’s end, with love and loyalty—­and he moreover still remembered the frolicing, and dancing, and bundling, and other disports of the east country, and entertained dainty recollections of numerous kind and buxom lasses, whom he longed exceedingly again to encounter.

Thus then did this mirror of hardihood set forth, with no other attendant but his trumpeter, upon one of the most perilous enterprises ever recorded in the annals of knight-errantry.  For a single warrior to venture openly among a whole nation of foes—­but, above all, for a plain, downright Dutchman to think of negotiating with the whole council of New England!—­never was there known a more desperate undertaking!  Ever since I have entered upon the chronicles of this peerless, but hitherto uncelebrated, chieftain, has he kept me in a state of incessant action and anxiety with the toils and dangers he is constantly encountering.  Oh, for a chapter of the tranquil reign of Wouter Van Twiller, that I might repose on it as on a feather-bed!

Is it not enough, Peter Stuyvesant, that I have once already rescued thee from the machinations of these terrible Amphictyons, by bringing the powers of witchcraft to thine aid?  Is it not enough that I have followed thee undaunted, like a guardian spirit, into the midst of the horrid battle of Fort Christina?  That I have been put incessantly to my trumps to keep them safe and sound—­now warding off with my single pen the shower of dastard blows that fell upon thy rear—­now narrowly shielding thee from a deadly thrust by a mere tobacco-box—­now casing thy dauntless skull with adamant, when even thy stubborn ram beaver failed to resist the sword of the stout Risingh—­and now, not merely bringing thee off alive, but triumphant, from the clutches of the gigantic Swede, by the desperate means of a paltry stone pottle?  Is not all this enough, but must thou still be plunging into new difficulties, and hazarding in headlong enterprises thyself, thy trumpeter, and thy historian?

And now the ruddy-faced Aurora, like a buxom chambermaid, draws aside the sable curtains of the night, and out bounces from his bed the jolly red-haired Phoebus, startled at being caught so late in the embraces of Dame Thetis.  With many a stable-boy oath he harnesses his brazen-footed steeds, and whips, and lashes, and splashes up the firmament, like a loitering coachman, half-an-hour behind his time.  And now behold that imp of fame and prowess, the headstrong Peter, bestriding a raw-boned, switch-tailed charger, gallantly arrayed in full regimentals, and bracing on his thigh that trusty, brass-hilted sword, which had wrought such fearful deeds on the banks of the Delaware.