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Updated: June 24, 2025
When he reached the entrance to the Daily News office he was followed by a motley crowd of noisy urchins whom he dismissed with a grimace and the cabalistic gesture with which Nicholas Koorn perplexed and repulsed Antony Van Corlear from the battlement of the fortress of Rensellaerstein.
Still, to this early affair of Rensellaersteen may be traced the remote origin of those windy wars in modern days which rage in the bowels of the Helderberg, and have well nigh shaken the great patroonship of the Van Rensellaers to its foundation: for we are told that the bully boys of the Helderberg, who served under Nicholas Koorn, the wacht-meester, carried back to their mountains the hieroglyphic sign which had so sorely puzzled Anthony Van Corlear and the sages of the Manhattoes; so that to the present day, the thumb to the nose and the fingers in the air is apt to be the reply of the Helderbergers whenever called upon for any long arrears of rent.
As regards the cutting off of British detachments, of which the affairs of Reddersburg and of Koorn Spruit, near Thaba Nchu, were the most conspicuous illustrations, the only thing essential to be remarked is that such reverses on a small scale are always to be expected in war, in even the most successful campaigns. This does not mean that no blame attaches to them.
Not liking to betray his ignorance, he again read with a loud voice the missive of William the Testy, and again Nicholas Koorn applied the thumb of his right hand to the end of his nose, and the thumb of his left hand to the little finger of the right, and repeated this kind of nasal weathercock.
Considering his embassy therefore at an end, he sounded his trumpet with great complacency, and set sail on his return down the river, every now and then practising this mysterious sign of the wacht-meester, to keep it accurately in mind. Arrived at New Amsterdam, he made a faithful report of his embassy to the governor, accompanied by a manual exhibition of the response of Nicholas Koorn.
The English, I expected, would retreat to Bloemfontein, and then from my position in Koorn Spruit I should be able to decimate them as they passed that ravine. I had sent a large number of burghers with the four generals so that our force might be sufficiently strong to turn General Broadwood, in case he should hear that there was fighting at Sanna's Post and come up to reinforce the garrison.
There, on the ramparts of the forts, 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.
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