impetuosity of the Swedes, and, as one chronicler says, "ran about like a
herd of cattle"; the bridge across the river broke under the weight of
fugitives, panic followed, and when night fell the great Russian army of
eighty thousand men surrendered as prisoners of war to a boy of eighteen
with but eight thousand tired soldiers at his back.
So the boy conqueror entered upon his career of victory. Space does not
permit to detail his battles and his conquests. How he placed a new king
on the throne of Poland, kept Denmark in submission, held the hosts of
Russia at bay, humbled Austria, and made his name, ere yet he was twenty,
at once a wonder and a terror in all the courts of Europe. How, at last,
his ambition getting the better of his discretion, he thought to be a
modern Alexander, to make Europe Protestant, subdue Rome, and carry his
conquering eagles into Egypt and Turkey and Persia. How, by unwise
measures and fool-hardy endeavors, he lost all the fruits of his hundred
victories and his nine years of conquest in the terrible defeat by the
Russians at Pultowa, which sent him an exile into Turkey, kept him there a
prisoner of state for over five years; and how, finally, when once again
at the head of Swedish troops, instead of defending his own home-land of
Sweden, he invaded Norway in the depth of winter, and was killed, when but
thirty-six, by a cannon shot from the enemy's batteries at Frederickshall
on the 11th of December, 1718.
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden was one of the most remarkable of the
world's Historic Boys. Elevated to a throne founded on despotic power and
victorious memories, at an age when most lads regard themselves as the
especial salt of the earth, he found himself launched at once into a war
with three powerful nations, only to become in turn the conqueror of each.
A singularly good boy, so far as the customary temptations of power and
high station are concerned--temperate, simple, and virtuous in tastes,
dress, and habits,--he was, as one of his biographers has remarked, "the
only one among kings who had lived without a single frailty."
But this valorous boy, who had first bridled his own spirit, and then
conquered the Northern world, "reared," as has been said, "under a father
cold and stern, defectively educated, taught from childhood to value
nothing but military glory," could not withstand the temptation of
success. An ambition to be somebody and to do something is always a
laudable one in boy or girl, until it supplants and overgrows the sweet,
true, and manly boy and girl nature, and makes us regardless of the
comfort or the welfare of others. A desire to excel the great conquerors
of old, joined to an obstinacy as strong as his courage, caused young
Charles of Sweden to miss the golden opportunity, and instead of seeking
to rule his own country wisely, sent him abroad a homeless wanderer on a
career of conquest, as romantic as it was, first, glorious, and at the
last disastrous.
In the northern quarter of the beautiful city of Stockholm, surrounded by
palaces and gardens, theatres, statues, and fountains, stands Molin's
striking statue of the boy conqueror, Charles the Twelfth of Sweden.
Guarded at the base by captured mortars, the outstretched hand and
unsheathed sword seem to tell of conquests to be won and victories to be
achieved. But to the boy and girl of this age of peace and good
fellowship, when wars are averted rather than sought, and wise
statesmanship looks rather to the healing than to the opening of the
world's wounds, one cannot but feel how much grander, nobler, and more
helpful would have been the life of this young "Lion of the North," as his
Turkish captors called him, had it been devoted to deeds of gentleness and
charity rather than of blood and sorrow, and how much more enduring might
have been his fame and his memory if he had been the lover and helper of
his uncultivated and civilization-needing people, rather than the
valorous, ambitious, headstrong, and obstinate Boy Conqueror of two
centuries ago.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XII.
VAN RENSSELAER OF RENSSELAERSWYCK: THE BOY PATROON.
(_Afterward Major-General, and Lieutenant-Governor of the State of New
York._)
[A.D. 1777.]
[Illustration]
I question whether any of my young readers, however well up in history
they may be, can place the great River of Prince Maurice (_De Riviere Van
den Voorst Mauritius_), which, two hundred years ago, flowed through the
broad domain of the lord patroons of Rensselaerswyck. And yet it is the
same wide river upon whose crowded shore now stands the great city of New
York; the same fair river above whose banks now towers the noble front of
the massive State Capitol at Albany. And that lofty edifice stands not far
from the very spot where, beneath the pyramidal belfry of the old Dutch
church, the boy patroon sat nodding through Dominie Westerlo's sermon, one
drowsy July Sunday in the summer of 1777.
The good dominie's "seventhly" came to a sudden stop as the tinkle of the
deacon's collection-bell fell upon the ears of the slumbering
congregation. In the big Van Rensselaer pew it roused Stephanus, the boy
patroon, from a delightful dream of a ten-pound _twaalf_, or striped bass,
which he thought he had just hooked at the mouth of Bloemert's Kill; and,
rather guiltily, as one who has been "caught napping," he dropped his two
"half-joes" into the deacon's "fish-net"--for so the boys irreverently
called the knitted bag which, stuck on one end of a long pole, was always
passed around for contributions right in the middle of the sermon. Then
the good dominie went back to his "seventhly," and the congregation to
their slumbers, while the restless young Stephanus traced with his
finger-nail upon the cover of his psalm-book the profile of his highly
respected guardian, General Ten Broek, nodding solemnly in the
magistrate's pew. At last, the sands in the hour-glass, that stood on the
queer, one-legged, eight-sided pulpit, stopped running, and so did the
dominie's "noble Dutch"; the congregation filed out of church, and the
Sunday service was over. And so, too, was the Sunday quiet. For scarcely
had the people passed the porch, when, down from the city barrier at the
Colonie Gate, clattered a hurrying horseman.
"From General Schuyler, sir," he said, as he reined up before General Ten
Broek, and handed him an order to muster the militia at once and repair to
the camp at Fort Edward. St. Clair, so said the despatch, had been
defeated, Ticonderoga was captured, Burgoyne was marching to the Hudson,
the Indians were on the war-path, and help was needed at once if they
would check Burgoyne and save Albany from pillage.
The news fell with a sudden shock upon the little city of the Dutchmen.
Ticonderoga fallen, and the Indians on the war-path! Even the most stolid
of the Albany burghers felt his heart beating faster, while many a mother
looked anxiously at her little ones and called to mind the terrible tales
of Indian cruelty and pillage. But the young Van Rensselaer, pressing
close to the side of fair Mistress Margarita Schuyler, said soberly:
"These be sad tidings, Margery; would it not be wiser for you all to come
up to the manor-house for safety?"
"For safety?" echoed high-spirited Mistress Margery. "Why, what need,
Stephanus? Is not my father in command at Fort Edward? and not for
Burgoyne and all his Indians need we fear while he is there! So, many
thanks, my lord patroon," she continued, with a mock courtesy; "but I'm
just as safe under the Schuyler gables as I could be in the Van Rensselaer
manor-house, even with the brave young patroon himself as my defender."
The lad looked a little crestfallen; for he regarded himself as the
natural protector of this brave little lady, whose father was facing the
British invaders on the shores of the Northern lakes. Had it not been one,
almost, of the unwritten laws of the _colonie_, since the day of the first
patroon, that a Van Rensselaer should wed a Schuyler? Who, then, should
care for a daughter of the house of Schuyler in times of trouble but a son
of the house of Rensselaer?
"Well, at any rate, I shall look out for you if danger does come," he
said, as he turned toward the manor-house. "You'll surely not object to
that, will you, Margery?"
"Why, how can I?" laughed the girl. "I certainly may not prevent a gallant
youth from keeping his eyes in my direction. So, thanks for your promise,
my lord patroon, and when you see the flash of the tomahawk, summon your
vassals like a noble knight and charge through the Colonie Gate to the
rescue of the beleaguered maiden of the Fuyck.[AL] Why, it will be as good
as one of Dominie Westerlo's Northland saga-tales, won't it, Stephanus?"
And, with a stately good-by to the little lord of seven hundred thousand
acres, the girl hastened homeward to the Schuyler mansion, while the boy
rode in the opposite direction to the great brick manor-house by the
creek.
Twenty-four miles east and west, by forty-eight miles north and south,
covering forest and river, valley and hill, stretched the broad _colonie_
of the patroons of Rensselaerswyck, embracing the present counties of
Albany, Rensselaer, and Columbia, in the State of New York; and over all
this domain, since the days of the Heer Killian Van Rensselaer, first of
the lord patroons, father and son, in direct descent, had held sway after
the manner of the old feudal barons of Europe. They alone owned the land,
and their hundreds of tenants held their farms on rentals or leases,
subject to the will of the "patroons," as they were called,--a Dutch
adaptation of the old Roman _patronus_, meaning patrician or patron.
Only the town-lands of Beverwyck, or Albany, were free from this feudal
right--a territory stretching thirteen miles north-west, by one mile wide
along the river front, and forced from an earlier boy patroon by the
doughty Peter Stuyvesant, and secured by later English governors; and at
the time of our story, though the old feudal laws were no longer in force,
and the rentals were less exacting than in the earlier days, the tenantry
of Rensselaerswyck respected the authority and manorial rights of Stephen
Van Rensselaer, their boy patroon, who, with his widowed mother and his
brothers and sisters, lived in the big brick manor-house near the swift
mill creek and the tumbling falls in the green vale of Tivoli, a mile
north of the city gate.
And now had come the Revolution. Thanks to the teaching of his tender
mother, of his gallant guardian, and of the good Dominie Westerlo, young
Stephen knew what the great struggle meant--a protest against tyranny, a
blow for human rights, a defence of the grand doctrine of the immortal
Declaration that "All men are created free and equal." And he had been
told, too, that the success of the Republic would be the death-blow to all
the feudal rights to which he, the last of the patroons, had succeeded.
"Uncle," he said to his guardian, that stern patriot and whig, General
Abram Ten Broek, "you are my representative and must act for me till I
grow to be a man. Do what is best, sir, and don't let the Britishers
beat!"
"But, remember, lad," said his uncle, "the Revolution, if it succeeds,
must strip you of all the powers and rights that have come to you as
patroon. You will be an owner of acres, nothing more; no longer baron,
patroon, nor lord of the manor; of no higher dignity and condition than
little Jan Van Woort, the cow-boy of old Luykas Oothout on your cattle
farm in the Helderbergs."
"But I'll be a citizen of a free republic, won't I, Uncle?" said the boy;
"as free of the king and his court across the sea as Jan Van Woort will be
of me and the court-leet of Rensselaerswyck. So we'll all start fair and
even. I'm not old enough to fight and talk yet, Uncle; but do you fight
and talk for me, and I know it will come out all right."
And so, through the battle-summer of 1777, the work went on. Men and
supplies were hurried northward to help the patriot army, and soon General
Ten Broek's three thousand militia-men were ready and anxious for action.
The air was full of stirring news. Brandt and his Indians, Sir John
Johnson and his green-coated Tories, swarmed into the Mohawk Valley; poor
Jane McCrea fell a victim to Indian treachery, and the whole northern
country shuddered at the rumor that twenty dollars had been offered for
every rebel scalp. And fast upon these came still other tidings. The noble
General Schuyler, fair Mistress Margery's father, had, through the
management of his enemies in the Congress and in the camp, been superseded
by General Gates; but, like a true patriot, he worked just as hard for
victory nevertheless. Herkimer had fallen in the savage and uncertain
fight at Oriskany; in Bennington, stout old Stark had dealt the British a
rousing blow; and Burgoyne's boast that with ten thousand men he could
"promenade through America" ended dismally enough for him in the smoke of
Bemis Heights and the surrender at Saratoga.
But, before that glorious ending, many were the dark and doubtful days
that came to Albany and to Rensselaerswyck. Rumors of defeat and disaster,
of plot and pillage, filled the little city. Spies and Tories sought to
work it harm. The flash of the tomahawk, of which Mistress Margery had so
lightly jested, was really seen in the Schuyler mansion. And the brave
girl, by her pluck and self-possession, had saved her father and his
household from the chance of Tory pillage and Indian murder. Good Dominie
Westerlo kept open church and constant prayer for the success of the
patriot arms through one whole anxious week, and on a bright September
afternoon, General Ten Broek, with a slender escort, came dashing up to
the "stoop" of the Van Rensselaer manor-house.
"What now, Uncle?" asked young Stephen, as he met the General in the broad
hall.
"More supplies--we must have more supplies, lad," replied his uncle. "Our
troops need provisions, and I am here to forage among both friends and
foes."
"Beginning with us, I suppose," said the young patroon. "Oh, Uncle, cannot
I, too, do something to show my love for the cause?"
"Something, Stephen? You can do much," his uncle replied. "Time was, lad,
when your ancestors, the lord patroons of Rensselaerswyck, were makers and
masters of the law in this their _colonie_. From their own forts floated
their own flag and frowned their own cannon. Their word was law and from
Beeren's Island to Pafraet's Dael the Heer Van Rensselaer's orders were
obeyed without question. Forts and flags and cannon are no longer yours,
Stephen, and we would not have it otherwise; but your word still holds as
good with your tenantry as did that of the first boy patroon, Johannes the
son of Killian, when, backed by his _gecommitteerden_ and his
_schepens_,[AM] he bearded the Heer General Stuyvesant and claimed all
Rensselaerswyck as his 'by right of arms.' Try your word with them, lad.
Let me be your _gecommitteerden_ and, in the name of the patroon, demand
from your tenantry of Rensselaerswyck provisions and forage for our
gallant troops."
"Oh, try it, Uncle, try it--do," young Stephen cried, full of interest;
"but will they give so much heed, think you, to my word?"
"Ay, trust them for that," replied the general. "So strong is their
attachment to their young patroon that they will, I know, do more on your
simple word than on all the orders and levies of the king's Parliament or
the Continental Congress."
So, out into the farm-lands that checkered the valley and climbed the
green slopes of the Helderbergs, went the orders of the boy patroon,
summoning all "our loyal and loving tenantry" to take of their stock and
provender all that they could spare, save the slight amount needed for
actual home use, and to deliver the same to the commissaries of the army
of the Congress at Saratoga. And the "loyal and loving tenantry" gave good
heed to their patroon's orders. Granaries and cellars, stables and
pigsties, pork-barrels and poultry-sheds, were emptied of their contents.
The army of the Congress was amply provisioned, and thus, indeed, did the
boy patroon contribute his share toward the great victory at Saratoga--a
victory of which one historian remarks that "no martial event, from the
battle of Marathon to that of Waterloo--two thousand years,--exerted a
greater influence upon human affairs."
The field of Saratoga is won. Six thousand British troops have laid down
their arms, and the fears of Northern invasion are ended. In the Schuyler
mansion at Albany, fair Mistress Margery is helping her mother fitly
entertain General Burgoyne and the paroled British officers, thus
returning good for evil to the man who, but a few weeks before, had
burned to the ground her father's beautiful country-house at Saratoga.
Along the fair river, from the Colonie Gate to the peaks of the Katzbergs,
the early autumn frosts are painting the forest leaves with gorgeous
tints, and to-day, the first of November, 1777, the children are joyously
celebrating the thirteenth birthday of the boy patroon in the big
manor-house by the creek. For, in Albany, a hundred years ago, a
children's birthday party really meant a _children's_ party. The
"grown-folk" left home on that day, and the children had free range of the
house for their plays and rejoicing. So, through the ample rooms and the
broad halls of the Van Rensselaer mansion the children's voices ring
merrily, until, tired of romp and frolic, the little folks gather on the
great staircase for rest and gossip. And here the fresh-faced little host,
in a sky-blue silk coat lined with yellow, a white satin vest broidered
with gold lace, white silk knee-breeches, and stockings tied with pink
ribbons, pumps, ruffles, and frills, is listening intently while Mistress
Margery, radiant in her tight-sleeved satin dress, peaked-toed and
bespangled shoes, and wonderfully arranged hair, is telling the group of
girls and boys all about General Burgoyne and the British officers, and
how much they liked the real Dutch supper her mother gave them one
day--"suppawn and malck[AN] and rulliches,[AO] with chocolate and soft
waffles, you know,"--and how General the Baron Riedesel had said that if
they stayed till Christmas he would play at Saint Claes (Santa Claus) for
them.
"Oh, Margery!" exclaimed Stephen, "you wouldn't have a Hessian for good
old Saint Claes, would you?"
"Why not?" said Mistress Margery, with a toss of her pretty head. "Do you
think you are the only patroon, my lord Stephen?"
For Santa Claus was known among the boys and girls of those old Dutch days
as "the children's patroon" (_De Patroon van Kinder-vreugd_).
"I saw the Hessian baron t' other night, Margarita," said Stephen's best
boy-friend, Abram Van Vechten; "he never could play at Santa Claus. He's
not the right shape at all. And then a Hessian! Why, I'd sooner have old
Balthazar!"
"Oh, dear, what a Saint Claes he'd make!" cried all the girls and boys,
for old Balthazar Lydius was the terror of the Albany children in those
days--"a tall, spare Dutchman, with a bullet head," a sort of Bluebeard to
their imaginations, living in his "big mahogany house with carved beams,"
near the old _Kerk_, and scowling and growling at every _Kind_ who passed
his door.
"No, no, Abram," protested Margery, "I'd rather have the baron, even if he
is a Hessian. Only imagine old Balthazar playing at Saint Claes, girls!
Why, he's as sour as a ladle of Aunt Schuyler's _kool-slaa_. Show us how
he looks, Stephen; you can, you know."
"Yes, do, do!" shouted all the girls and boys. "Show us Abram's sour face.
Let's see which is the best patroon."
[Illustration: "SUPPAWN AND MALCK AND RULLICHES, WITH CHOCOLATE AND SOFT
WAFFLES, YOU KNOW," SAID MISTRESS MARGERY.]
So the boy lengthened down his face and pulled in his cheeks and looked so
ferociously sour that the children fairly shrieked with delight at the
caricature, and Abram cried: "That's it; that's old Balthazar as sure as
you live! That's just the way he looked at me last winter when I almost
ran into him as I was sliding down the long coast at Fort hill. My! I was
so scared that I ran as fast as my legs could carry me from way below the
_Kerk_ clear past the Van der Hayden palace."[AP]
But, in the midst of the laughter, a quick step sounded in the hall, and
General Ten Broek came to the children-crowded staircase. "The Helderberg
farmers are here, lad," he said to his nephew; and the young patroon,
bidding his guests keep up the fun while he left them awhile, followed his
uncle through the door-way and across the broad court-yard to where, just
south of the manor-house, stood the rent-office. As the boy emerged from
the mansion, the throng of tenants who had gathered there at his
invitation gazed admiringly at the manly-looking little lad, resplendent
in blue and yellow, and gold lace, and greeted him with a rousing birthday
cheer--a loyal welcome to their boy patroon, their young _Opperhoofdt_, or
chief.
"My friends," the lad said, acknowledging their greeting with a courtly
bow, "I have asked you to come to the manor-house on this, my birthday, so
that I might thank you for what you did for me before the Saratoga fight,
when you sent so much of your stock and produce to the army simply on my
order. But I wish also to give you something besides thanks. And so, that
you may know how much I value your friendship and fealty, I have, with my
guardian's approval, called you here to present to each one of you a free
and clear title to all the lands you have, until now, held in fee from me
as the patroon of Rensselaerswyck. General Ten Broek will give you the
papers before you leave the office, and Pedrom has a goodly spread waiting
for you in the lower hall. Take this from me, my friends, with many thanks
for what you have already done for me."
Then, what a cheer went up! The loyal tenantry of the Helderberg farms had
neither looked for nor expected any special return for their generous
offerings to the army of the Congress, and this action of the boy patroon
filled every farmer's heart with something more than gratitude; for now
each one of them was a land-owner, as free and untrammelled as the boy
patroon himself. And, as fair Portia says in the play,
"So shines a good deed in a naughty world,"
that, when young Stephen Van Rensselaer went joyfully back to his
children's party, and the Helderberg farmers to black Pedrom's "spread" in
the lower hall, it would have been hard to say which felt the happier--the
giver or the receivers of this generous and manly gift.
The years of battle continued, but Dominie Doll's boarding-school, smoked
out of 'Sopus when the British troops laid Kingston in ashes, found
shelter in Hurley; and here the boys repaired for instruction--for school
must go on though war rages and fire burns. The signs of pillage and
desolation were all around them; but, boy-like, they thought little of the
danger, and laughed heartily at Dominie Doll's story of the poor 'Sopus
Dutchman who, terribly frightened at the sight of the red-coats, fled
wildly across a deserted hay-field, and stepped suddenly upon the end of a
long hay-rake left behind by the "skedaddling" farmers. Up flew the long
handle of the rake and struck the terrified Dutchman a sounding whack upon
the back of his head. He gave himself up for lost. "_Oh, mein Got, mein
Got!_" he cried, dropping upon his knees and lifting imploring hands to
his supposed captors, "I kivs up, I kivs up, mynheer soldiermans. Hooray
for King Shorge!"