The reader will recollect the deep doubt into which that most pacific of governors was thrown on Killian Van Rensellaer’s taking possession of Bearn Island by _wapen recht_. While the governor doubted and did nothing, the lordly Killian went on to complete his sturdy little castellum of Rensellaerstein, and to garrison it with a number of his tenants from the Helderberg, a mountain region famous for the hardest heads and hardest fists in the province. Nicholas Koorn, a faithful squire of the patroon, accustomed to strut at his heels, wear his cast-off clothes, and imitate his lofty bearing, was established in this post as wacht-meester. His duty it was to keep an eye on the river, and oblige every vessel that passed, unless on the service of their High Mightinesses, to strike its flag, lower its peak, and pay toll to the lord of Rensellaerstein. This assumption of sovereign authority within the territories of the Lords States-General, however it might have been tolerated by Walter the Doubter, had been sharply contested by William the Testy on coming into office; and many written remonstrances had been addressed by him to Killian Van Rensellaer, to which the latter never deigned a reply. Thus, by degrees, a sore place, or, in Hibernian parlance, a _raw_, had been established in the irritable soul of the little governor, insomuch that he winced at the very name of Rensellaerstein. Now it came to pass, that, on a fine sunny day, the Company’s yacht, the _Half-Moon_, having been on one of its stated visits to Fort Aurania, was quietly tiding it down the Hudson. The commander, Govert Lockerman, a veteran Dutch skipper of few words but great bottom, was seated on the high poop, quietly smoking his pipe under the shadow of the proud flag of Orange, when, on arriving abreast of Bearn Island, he was saluted by a stentorian voice from the shore, “Lower thy flag, and be d——d to thee!” Govert Lockerman, without taking his pipe out of his mouth, turned up his eye from under his broad-brimmed hat to see who hailed him thus discourteously. There, on the ramparts of the fort, stood Nicholas Koorn, armed to the teeth, flourishing a brass-hilted sword, while a steeple-crowned hat and cock’s tail-feather, formerly worn by Killian Van Rensellaer himself, gave an inexpressible loftiness to his demeanor. Govert Lockerman eyed the warrior from top to toe, but was not to be dismayed. Taking the pipe slowly out of his mouth, “To whom should I lower my flag?” demanded he. “To the high and mighty Killian Van Rensellaer, the lord of Rensellaerstein!” was the reply. [Illustration: “I LOWER IT TO NONE.” ] “I lower it to none but the Prince of Orange and my masters the Lords States-General.” So saying, he resumed his pipe and smoked with an air of dogged determination. Bang! went a gun from the fortress; the ball cut both sail and rigging. Govert Lockerman said nothing, but smoked the more doggedly. Bang! went another gun; the shot whistled close astern.