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Title: Satanstoe

Author: James Fenimore Cooper

Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8880]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on August 20, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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SATANSTOE;
OR,
THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS.


A TALE OF THE COLONY.


BY
J. FENIMORE COOPER.


"The only amaranthine flower on earth
is virtue: the only treasure, truth."--SPENSER





PREFACE.

Every chronicle of manners has a certain value. When customs are connected
with principles, in their origin, development, or end, such records have
a double importance; and it is because we think we see such a connection
between the facts and incidents of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain
important theories of our own time, that we give the former to the world.

It is perhaps a fault of your professed historian, to refer too much to
philosophical agencies, and too little to those that are humbler. The
foundations of great events, are often remotely laid in very capricious and
uncalculated passions, motives, or impulses. Chance has usually as much to
do with the fortunes of states, as with those of individuals; or, if there
be calculations connected with them at all, they are the calculations of a
power superior to any that exists in man.

We had been led to lay these Manuscripts before the world, partly by
considerations of the above nature, and partly on account of the manner
in which the two works we have named, "Satanstoe" and the "Chainbearer,"
relate directly to the great New York question of the day, ANTI-RENTISM;
which question will be found to be pretty fully laid bare, in the third
and last book of the series. These three works, which contain all the
Littlepage Manuscripts, do not form sequels to each other, in the sense of
personal histories, or as narratives; while they do in that of principles.
The reader will see that the early career, the attachment, the marriage,
&c. of Mr. Cornelius Littlepage are completely related in the present book,
for instance; while those of his son, Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage, will be just
as fully given in the "Chainbearer," its successor. It is hoped that the
connection, which certainly does exist between these three works, will have
more tendency to increase the value of each, than to produce the ordinary
effect of what are properly called sequels, which are known to lessen the
interest a narrative might otherwise have with the reader. Each of these
three books has its own hero, its own heroine, and its own---picture--of
manners, complete; though the latter may be, and is, more or less thrown
into relief by its _pendants_.

We conceive no apology is necessary for treating the subject of
anti-rentism with the utmost frankness. Agreeably to our views of the
matter, the existence of true liberty among us, the perpetuity of the
institutions, and the safety of public morals, are all dependent on putting
down, wholly, absolutely, and unqualifiedly, the false and dishonest
theories and statements that have been boldly advanced in connection with
this subject. In our view, New York is at this moment, much the most
disgraced state in the Union, notwithstanding she has never failed to pay
the interest on her public debt; and her disgrace arises from the fact that
her laws are trampled underfoot, without any efforts, at all commensurate
with the object, being made to enforce them. If _words_ and _professions_
can save the character of a community, all may yet be well; but if states,
like individuals, are to be judged by their actions, and the "tree is to be
known by its fruit," God help us!

For ourselves, we conceive that true patriotism consists in laying bare
everything like public vice, and in calling such things by their right
names. The great enemy of the race has made a deep inroad upon us, within
the last ten or a dozen years, under cover of a spurious delicacy on the
subject of exposing national ills; and it is time that they who have not
been afraid to praise, when praise was merited, should not shrink from the
office of censuring, when the want of timely warnings may be one cause of
the most fatal evils. The great practical defect of institutions like
ours, is the circumstance that "what is everybody's business, is nobody's
business;" a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a very
dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory correctives of the honest man.




CHAPTER I.

  "Look you,
  Who comes here: a young man, and an old, in solemn talk."

  _As You Like it_.


It is easy to foresee that this country is destined to undergo great and
rapid changes. Those that more properly belong to history, history will
doubtless attempt to record, and probably with the questionable veracity
and prejudice that are apt to influence the labours of that particular
muse; but there is little hope that any traces of American society, in
its more familiar aspects, will be preserved among us, through any of the
agencies usually employed for such purposes. Without a stage, in a national
point of view at least, with scarcely such a thing as a book of memoirs
that relates to a life passed within our own limits, and totally without
light literature, to give us simulated pictures of our manners, and the
opinions of the day, I see scarcely a mode by which the next generation can
preserve any memorials of the distinctive usages and thoughts of this.
It is true, they will have traditions of certain leading features of the
colonial society, but scarcely any records; and, should the next twenty
years do as much as the last, towards substituting an entirely new race for
the descendants of our own immediate fathers, it is scarcely too much to
predict that even these traditions will be lost in the whirl and excitement
of a throng of strangers. Under all the circumstances, therefore, I have
come to a determination to make an effort, however feeble it may prove, to
preserve some vestiges of household life in New York, at least; while I
have endeavoured to stimulate certain friends in New Jersey, and farther
south, to undertake similar tasks in those sections of the country. What
success will attend these last applications, is more than I can say, but,
in order that the little I may do myself shall not be lost for want of
support, I have made a solemn request in my will, that those who come after
me will consent to continue this narrative, committing to paper their own
experience, as I have here committed mine, down as low at least as my
grandson, if I ever have one. Perhaps, by the end of the latter's career,
they will begin to publish books in America, and the fruits of our joint
family labours may be thought sufficiently matured to be laid before the
world.

It is possible that which I am now about to write will be thought too
homely, to relate to matters much too personal and private, to have
sufficient interest for the public eye; but it must be remembered that the
loftiest interests of man are made up of a collection of those that are
lowly; and, that he who makes a faithful picture of only a single important
scene in the events of single life, is doing something towards painting the
greatest historical piece of his day. As I have said before, the leading
events of my time will find their way into the pages of far more pretending
works than this of mine, in some form or other, with more or less of
fidelity to the truth, and real events, and real motives; while the humbler
matters it will be my office to record, will be entirely overlooked by
writers who aspire to enrol their names among the Tacituses of former ages.
It may be well to say here, however, I shall not attempt the historical
mood at all, but content myself with giving the feelings, incidents, and
interests of what is purely private life, connecting them no farther with
things that are of a more general nature, than is indispensable to render
the narrative intelligible and accurate. With these explanations, which are
made in order to prevent the person who may happen first to commence the
perusal of this manuscript from throwing it into the fire, as a silly
attempt to write a more silly fiction, I shall proceed at once to the
commencement of my proper task.

I was born on the 3d May, 1737, on a neck of land, called Satanstoe, in the
county of West Chester, and in the colony of New York; a part of the widely
extended empire that then owned the sway of His Sacred Majesty, George II.,
King of Great Britain, Ireland, and France; Defender of the Faith; and, I
may add, the shield and panoply of the Protestant Succession; God bless
him! Before I say anything of my parentage, I will first give the reader
some idea of the _locus in quo_, and a more precise notion of the spot on
which I happened first to see the light.

A "neck," in West Chester and Long Island parlance, means something that
might be better termed a "head and shoulders," if mere shape and dimensions
are kept in view. Peninsula would be the true word, were we describing
things on a geographical scale; but, as they are, I find it necessary to
adhere to the local term, which is not altogether peculiar to our county,
by the way. The "neck" or peninsula of Satanstoe, contains just four
hundred and sixty-three acres and a half of excellent West Chester land;
and that, when the stone is hauled and laid into wall, is saying as much in
its favour as need be said of any soil on earth. It has two miles of beach,
and collects a proportionate quantity of sea-weed for manure, besides
enjoying near a hundred acres of salt-meadow and sedges, that are not
included in the solid ground of the neck proper. As my father, Major
Evans Littlepage, was to inherit this estate from his father, Capt. Hugh
Littlepage, it might, even at the time of my birth, be considered old
family property, it having indeed, been acquired by my grandfather, through
his wife, about thirty years after the final cession of the colony to the
English by its original Dutch owners. Here we had lived, then, near half a
century, when I was born, in the direct line, and considerably longer if
we included maternal ancestors; here I now live, at the moment of writing
these lines, and here I trust my only son is to live after me.

Before I enter into a more minute description of Satanstoe, it may be well,
perhaps, to say a word concerning its somewhat peculiar name. The neck lies
in the vicinity of a well-known pass that is to be found in the narrow arm
of the sea that separates the island of Manhattan from its neighbour, Long
Island, and which is called Hell Gate. Now, there is a tradition, that I
confess is somewhat confined to the blacks of the neighbourhood, but
which says that the Father of Lies, on a particular occasion, when he was
violently expelled from certain roystering taverns in the New Netherlands,
made his exit by this well-known dangerous pass, and drawing his foot
somewhat hastily from among the lobster-pots that abound in those waters,
leaving behind him as a print of his passage by that route, the Hog's
Back, the Pot, and all the whirlpools and rocks that render navigation so
difficult in that celebrated strait, he placed it hurriedly upon the spot
where there now spreads a large bay to the southward and eastward of the
neck, just touching the latter with the ball of his great toe, as he passed
Down-East; from which part of the country some of our people used to
maintain he originally came. Some fancied resemblance to an inverted
toe (the devil being supposed to turn everything with which he meddles,
upside-down,) has been imagined to exist in the shape and swells of our
paternal acres; a fact that has probably had its influence in perpetuating
the name.

Satanstoe has the place been called, therefore, from time immemorial; as
time is immemorial in a country in which civilized time commenced not a
century and a half ago: and Satanstoe it is called to-day. I confess I am
not fond of unnecessary changes, and I sincerely hope this neck of land
will continue to go by its old appellation, as long as the House of Hanover
shall sit on the throne of these realms; or as long as water shall run
and grass shall grow. There has been an attempt made to persuade the
neighbourhood, quite lately, that the name is irreligious and unworthy of
an enlightened people, like this of West Chester; but it has met with no
great success. It has come from a Connecticut man, whose father they say is
a clergyman of the "_standing_ order;" so called, I believe, because they
stand up at prayers; and who came among us himself in the character of a
schoolmaster. This young man, I understand, has endeavoured to persuade the
neighbourhood that Satanstoe is a corruption introduced by the Dutch, from
Devil's Town; which, in its turn, was a corruption from Dibbleston; the
family from which my grandfather's father-in-law purchased having been,
as he says, of the name of Dibblee. He has got half-a-dozen of the more
sentimental part of our society to call the neck Dibbleton; but the attempt
is not likely to succeed in the long run, as we are not a people much given
to altering the language, any more than the customs of our ancestors.
Besides, my Dutch ancestors did not purchase from any Dibblee, no such
family ever owning the place, that being a bold assumption of the Yankee to
make out his case the more readily.

Satanstoe, as it is little more than a good farm in extent, so it is little
more than a particularly good farm in cultivation and embellishment.
All the buildings are of stone, even to the hog-sties and sheds, with
well-pointed joints, and field walls that would do credit to a fortified
place. The house is generally esteemed one of the best in the Colony, with
the exception of a few of the new school. It is of only a story and a half
in elevation, I admit; but the rooms under the roof are as good as any of
that description with which I am acquainted, and their finish is such as
would do no discredit to the upper rooms of even a York dwelling. The
building is in the shape of an L, or two sides of a parallelogram, one
of which shows a front of seventy-five, and the other of fifty feet.
Twenty-six feet make the depth, from outside to outside of the walls. The
best room had a carpet, that covered two-thirds of the entire dimensions
of the floor, even in my boyhood, and there were oil-cloths in most of the
better passages. The buffet in the dining-room, or smallest parlour, was
particularly admired; and I question if there be, at this hour, a handsomer
in the county. The rooms were well-sized, and of fair dimensions, the
larger parlours embracing the whole depth of the house, with proportionate
widths, while the ceilings were higher than common, being eleven feet, if
we except the places occupied by the larger beams of the chamber floors.

As there was money in the family, besides the Neck, and the Littlepages had
held the king's commissions, my father having once been an ensign, and my
grandfather a captain, in the regular army, each in the earlier portion of
his life, we always ranked among the gentry of the county. We happened to
be in a part of Westchester in which were none of the very large estates,
and Satanstoe passed for property of a certain degree of importance. It is
true, the Morrises were at Morrisania, and the Felipses, or Philipses, as
these Bohemian counts were then called, had a manor on the Hudson, that
extended within a dozen miles of us, and a younger branch of the de Lanceys
had established itself even much nearer, while the Van Cortlandts, or a
branch of them, too, dwelt near Kingsbridge; but these were all people who
were at the head of the Colony, and with whom none of the minor gentry
attempted to vie. As it was, therefore, the Littlepages held a very
respectable position between the higher class of the yeomanry and those
who, by their estates, education, connections, official rank, and
hereditary consideration, formed what might be justly called the
aristocracy of the Colony. Both my father and grandfather had sat in the
Assembly, in their time, and, as I have heard elderly people say, with
credit, too. As for my father, on one occasion, he made a speech that
occupied eleven minutes in the delivery,--a proof that he had something to
say, and which was a source of great, but, I trust, humble felicitation in
the family, down to the day of his death, and even afterwards.

Then the military services of the family stood us in for a great deal, in
that day it was something to be an ensign even in the militia, and a far
greater thing to have the same rank in a regular regiment. It is true,
neither of my predecessors served very long with the King's troops, my
father in particular selling out at the end of his second campaign; but
the military experience, and I may add the military glory each acquired
in youth, did them good service for all the rest of their days. Both were
commissioned in the militia, and my father actually rose as high as major
in that branch of the service, that being the rank he held, and the title
he bore, for the last fifteen years of his life.

My mother was of Dutch extraction on both sides, her father having been a
Blauvelt, and her mother a Van Busser. I have heard it said that there was
even a relationship between the Stuyvesants and the Van Cortlandts, and the
Van Bussers; but I am not able to point out the actual degree and precise
nature of the affinity. I presume it was not very near, or my information
would have been more minute. I have always understood that my mother
brought my father thirteen hundred pounds for dowry (currency, not
sterling), which, it must be confessed, was a very genteel fortune for
a young woman in 1733. Now, I very well know that six, eight, and ten
thousand pounds sometimes fall in, in this manner, and even much more in
the high families; but no one need be ashamed, who looks back fifty years,
and finds that his mother brought a thousand pounds to her husband.

I was neither an only child, nor the eldest-born. There was a son who
preceded me, and two daughters succeeded, but they all died in infancy,
leaving me in effect the only offspring for my parents to cherish and
educate. My little brother monopolised the name of Evans, and living
for some time after I was christened, I got the Dutch appellation of my
maternal grandfather, for my share of the family nomenclature, which
happened to be Cornelius--Corny was consequently the diminutive by which I
was known to all the whites of my acquaintance, for the first sixteen or
eighteen years of my life, and to my parents as long as they lived. Corny
Littlepage is not a bad name, in itself, and I trust they who do me the
favour to read this manuscript, will lay it down with the feeling that the
name is none the worse for the use I have made of it.

I have said that both my father and grandfather, each in his day, sat in
the assembly; my father twice, and my grandfather only once. Although we
lived so near the borough of West Chester, it was not for that place they
sat, but for the county, the de Lanceys and the Morrises contending for the
control of the borough, in a way that left little chance for the smaller
fishes to swim in the troubled water they were so certain to create.
Nevertheless, this political elevation brought my father out, as it
might be, before the world, and was the means of giving him a personal
consideration he might not have otherwise enjoyed. The benefits, and
possibly some of the evils of thus being drawn out from the more regular
routine of our usually peaceable lives, may be made to appear in the course
of this narrative.

I have ever considered myself fortunate in not having been born in the
earlier and infant days of the colony, when the interests at stake, and the
events by which they were influenced, were not of a magnitude to give the
mind and the hopes the excitement and enlargement that attend the periods
of a more advanced civilization, and of more important incidents. In this
respect, my own appearance in this world was most happily timed, as any one
will see who will consider the state and importance of the colony in the
middle of the present century. New York could not have contained many less
than seventy thousand souls, including both colours, at the time of my
birth, for it is supposed to contain quite a hundred thousand this day on
which I am now writing. In such a community, a man has not only the room,
but the materials on which to figure; whereas, as I have often heard him
say, my father, when he was born, was one of less than half of the smallest
number I have just named. I have been grateful for this advantage, and I
trust it will appear, by evidence that will be here afforded, that I have
not lived in a quarter of the world, or in an age, when and where, and to
which great events have been altogether strangers.

My earliest recollections, as a matter of course, are of Satanstoe and the
domestic fireside. In my childhood and youth, I heard a great deal said of
the Protestant Succession, the House of Hanover, and King George II.; all
mixed up with such names as those of George Clinton, Gen. Monckton, Sir
Charles Hardy, James de Lancey, and Sir Danvers Osborne, his official
representatives in the colony. Every age has its _old_ and its _last_ wars,
and I can well remember that which occurred between the French in the
Canadas and ourselves, in 1744. I was then seven years old, and it was an
event to make an impression on a child of that tender age. My honoured
grandfather was then living, as he was long afterwards, and he took a
strong interest in the military movements of the period, as was natural for
an old soldier. New York had no connection with the celebrated expedition
that captured Louisbourg, then the Gibraltar of America, in 1745; but this
could not prevent an old soldier like Capt. Littlepage from entering into
the affair with all his heart, though forbidden to use his hand. As the
reader may not be aware of all the secret springs that set public events
in motion, it may be well here to throw in a few words in the way of
explanation.

There was and is little sympathy, in the way of national feeling, between
the colonies of New England and those which lie farther south. We are all
loyal, those of the east as well as those of the south-west and south; but
there is, and ever has been, so wide a difference in our customs, origins,
religious opinions, and histories, as to cause a broad moral line, in the
way of feeling, to be drawn between the colony of New York and those
that lie east of the Byram river. I have heard it said that most of the
emigrants to the New England states came from the west of England where
many of their social peculiarities and much of their language are still to
be traced, while the colonies farther south have received their population
from the more central counties, and those sections of the island that are
supposed to be less provincial and peculiar. I do not affirm that such is
literally the fact, though it is well known that we of New York have long
been accustomed to regard our neighbours of New England as very different
from ourselves, whilst, I dare say, our neighbours of New England have
regarded us as different from themselves, and insomuch removed from
perfection.

Let all this be as it may, it is certain New England is a portion of the
empire that is set apart from the rest, for good or for evil. It got its
name from the circumstance that the English possessions were met, on its
western boundary by those of the Dutch, who were thus separated from the
other colonies of purely Anglo-Saxon origin, by a wide district that was
much larger in surface than the mother country itself. I am afraid there is
something in the character of these Anglo-Saxons that predisposes them to
laugh and turn up their noses at other races; for I have remarked that
their natives of the parent land itself, who come among us, show this
disposition even as it respects us of New York and those of New England,
while the people of the latter region manifest a feeling towards us, their
neighbours, that partakes of anything but the humility that is thought
to grace that Christian character to which they are particularly fond of
laying claim.

My grandfather was a native of the old country, however, and he entered but
little into the colonial jealousies. He had lived from boyhood, and had
married in New York, and was not apt to betray any of the overweening
notions of superiority that we sometimes encountered in native-born
Englishmen, though I can remember instances in which he would point out the
defects in our civilization, and others in which he dwelt with pleasure on
the grandeur and power his own island. I dare say this was all right, for
few among us have ever been disposed to dispute the just supremacy of
England in all things that are desirable, and which form the basis of human
excellence.

I well remember a journey Capt. Hugh Littlepage made to Boston, in 1745,
in order to look at the preparations that were making for the great
expedition. Although his own colony had no connection with this enterprise,
in a military point of view, his previous service rendered him an object of
interest to the military men then assembled along the coast of New England.
It has been said the expedition against Louisbourg, then the strongest
place in America, was planned by a lawyer, led by a merchant, and executed
by husbandmen and mechanics; but this, though true as a whole, was a rule
that had its exceptions. There were many old soldiers who had seen the
service of this continent in the previous wars, and among them were several
of my grandfather's former acquaintances. With these he passed many a
cheerful hour, previously to the day of sailing, and I have often thought
since, that my presence alone prevented him from making one in the fleet.
The reader will think, I was young, perhaps, to be so far from home on such
an occasion, but it happened in this wise: My excellent mother thought I
had come out of the small-pox with some symptoms that might be benefited by
a journey, and she prevailed on her father-in-law to let me be of the party
when he left home to visit Boston in the winter of 1744-5. At that early
day moving about was not always convenient in these colonies, and my
grandfather travelling in a sleigh that was proceeding east with some
private stores that had been collected for the expedition, it presented a
favourable opportunity to send me along with my venerable progenitor, who
very good-naturedly consented to let me commence my travels under his own
immediate auspices.

The things I saw on this occasion have had a material influence on my
future life. I got a love of adventure, and particularly of military parade
and grandeur, that has since led me into more than one difficulty. Capt.
Hugh Littlepage, my grandfather, was delighted with all he saw until after
the expedition had sailed, when he began to grumble on the subject of the
religious observances that the piety of the Puritans blended with most
of their other movements. On the score of religion there was a marked
difference; I may say there _is_ still a marked difference between New
England and New York. The people of New England certainly did, and possibly
may still, look upon us of New York as little better than heathens; while
we of New York assuredly did, and for anything I know to the contrary may
yet, regard them as canters, and by necessary connection, hypocrites. I
shall not take it on myself to say which party is right; though it has
often occurred to my mind that it would be better had New England a little
less self-righteousness, and New York a little more righteousness, without
the self. Still, in the way of pounds, shillings and pence, we will not
turn our backs upon them any day, being on the whole rather the most
trustworthy of the two as respects money; more especially in all such cases
in which our neighbour's goods can be appropriated without having recourse
to absolutely direct means. Such, at any rate, is the New York opinion, let
them think as they please about it on the other side of Byram.

My grandfather met an old fellow-campaigner, at Boston, of the name of
Hight, Major Hight, as he was called, who had come to see the preparations,
too; and the old soldiers passed most of the time together. The Major was
a Jerseyman, and had been somewhat of a free-liver in his time, retaining
some of the propensities of his youth in old age, as is apt to be the case
with those who cultivate a vice as if it were a hot-house plant. The Major
was fond of his bottle, drinking heavily of Madeira, of which there was
then a good stock in Boston, for he brought some on himself; and I can
remember various scenes that occurred between him and my grandfather, after
dinner, as they sat discoursing in the tavern on the progress of things,
and the prospects for the future. Had these two old soldiers been of the
troops of the province in which they were, it would have been "Major" and
"Captain" at every breath; for no part of the earth is fonder of titles
than our eastern brethren; [1] whereas, I must think we had some claims to
more true simplicity of character and habits, notwithstanding New York has
ever been thought the most aristocratical of all the northern colonies.
Having been intimate from early youth, my two old soldiers familiarly
called each other Joey and Hodge, the latter being the abbreviation of
one of my grandfather's names, Roger, when plain Hugh was not used, as
sometimes happened between them. Hugh Roger Littlepage, I ought to have
said, was my grandfather's name.

"I should like these Yankees better, if they prayed less, my old friend,"
said the Major, one day, after they had been discussing the appearances of
things, and speaking between the puffs of his pipe. "I can see no great use
in losing so much time, by making these halts to pray, when the campaign is
fairly opened."

"It was always their way, Joey," my grandfather answered, taking his time,
as is customary with smokers. "I remember when we were out together, in the
year '17, that the New England troops always had their parsons, who acted
as a sort of second colonels. They tell me His Excellency has ordered a
weekly fast, for public prayers, during the whole of this campaign."

"Ay, Master Hodge, praying and plundering; so they go on," returned the
Major, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, preparatory to filling it anew;
an employment that gave him an opportunity to give vent to his feelings,
without pausing to puff.--"Ay, Master Hodge, praying and plundering; so
they go on. Now, do you remember old Watson, who was in the Massachusetts
Levies, in the year '12?--old Tom Watson; he that was a sub under Barnwell,
in our Tuscarora expedition?"

My grandfather nodded his head in assent, that being the only reply the
avocation of smoking rendered convenient, just at that moment, unless a
sort of affirmatory grunt could be construed into an auxiliary.

"Well, he has a son going in this affair; and old Tom, or Colonel Watson,
as he is now very particular to be called, is down here with his wife and
two daughters, to see the ensign off. I went to pay the old fellow a visit,
Hodge; and found him, and the mother and sisters, all as busy as bees
in getting young Tom's baggage ready for a march. There lay his whole
equipment before my eyes, and I had a favourable occasion to examine it at
my leisure."

"Which you did with all your might, or you're not the Joe Hight of the
year '10," said my grandfather, taking his turn with the ashes and the
tobacco-box.

Old Hight was now puffing away like a blacksmith who is striving to obtain
a white heat, and it was some time before he could get out the proper reply
to this half-assertion, half-interrogatory sort of remark.

"You may be sure of that," he at length ejaculated; when, certain of his
light, he proceeded to tell the whole story, stopping occasionally to puff,
lest he should lose the "vantage ground" he had just obtained. "What d'ye
think of half-a-dozen strings of red onions, for one item in a subaltern's
stores!"

My grandfather grunted again, in a way that might very well pass for a
laugh.

"You're certain they were red, Joey?" he finally asked.

"As red as his regimentals. Then there was a jug, filled with molasses,
that is as big as yonder demijohn;" glancing at the vessel which contained
his own private stores. "But I should have thought nothing of these, a
large empty sack attracting much of my attention. I could not imagine what
young Tom could want of such a sack; but, on broaching the subject to the
Major, he very frankly gave me to understand that Louisbourg was thought to
be a rich town, and there was no telling what luck, or Providence--yes, by
George!--he called it _Providence!_--might throw in his son Tommy's way.
Now that the sack was empty, and had an easy time of it, the girls would
put his bible and hymn-book in it, as a place where the young man would be
likely to look for them. I dare say, Hodge, you never had either bible or
hymn-book, in any of your numerous campaigns?"

"No, nor a plunder-sack, nor a molasses-jug, nor strings of red onions,"
growled my grandfather in reply.

How well I remember that evening! A vast deal of colonial prejudice and
neighbourly antipathy made themselves apparent in the conversation of
the two veterans; who seemed to entertain a strange sort of contemptuous
respect for their fellow-subjects of New England; who, in their turn,
I make not the smallest doubt, paid them off in kind--with all the
superciliousness and reproach, and with many grains less of the respect.

That night, Major Hight and Capt. Hugh Roger Littlepage, both got a little
how-come-you-so, drinking bumpers to the success of what they called "the
Yankee expedition," even at the moment they were indulging in constant side
hits at the failings and habits of the people. These marks of neighbourly
infirmity are not peculiar to the people of the adjacent provinces of New
York and of New England. I have often remarked that the English think and
talk very much of the French, as the Yankees speak of us; while the French,
so far as I have been able to understand their somewhat unintelligible
language--which seems never to have a beginning nor an end--treat the
English as the Puritans of the Old World. As I have already intimated, we
were not very remarkable for religion in New York, in my younger days;
while it would be just the word, were I to say that religion was
_conspicuous_ among our eastern neighbours. I remember to have heard
my grandfather say, he was once acquainted with a Col. Heathcote, an
Englishman, like himself, by birth, and a brother of a certain Sir Gilbert
Heathcote, who was formerly a leading man in the Bank of England. This Col.
Heathcote came among us young, and married here, leaving his posterity
behind him, and was lord of the manor of Scarsdale and Mamaroneck, in our
county of West Chester. Well, this Col. Heathcote told my grandfather,
speaking on the subject of religion, that he had been much shocked, on
arriving in this country, at discovering the neglected condition of
religion in the colony; more especially on Long Island, where the people
lived in a sort of heathenish condition. Being a man of mark, and connected
with the government, The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts, applied to him to aid it in spreading the truths of the
bible in the colony. The Colonel was glad enough to comply; and I remember
my grandfather said, his friend told him of the answer he returned to these
good persons in England. "I was so struck with the heathenish condition of
the people, on my arriving here," he wrote to them, "that, commanding the
militia of the colony, I ordered the captains of the different companies to
call their men together, each Sunday at sunrise, and to drill them until
sunset; unless they would consent to repair to some convenient place, and
listen to morning and evening prayer, and to two wholesome sermons read by
some suitable person, in which case the men were to be excused from drill."
[2] I do not think this would be found necessary in New England at least,
where many of the people would be likely to prefer drilling to preaching.

But all this gossip about the moral condition of the adjacent colonies of
New York and New England is leading me from the narrative, and does not
promise much for the connection and interest of the remainder of the
manuscript.

[Footnote 1: It will be remembered Mr. Littlepage wrote more than seventy
years ago, when this distinction might exclusively belong to the _East_;
but the _West_ has now some claim to it, also.]

[Footnote 2: On the subject of this story, the editor can say he has seen a
published letter from Col. Heathcote, who died more than a century since,
at Mamaroneck, West Chester Co., in which that gentleman gives the Society
for the propagation of the gospel an account of his proceedings, that
agrees almost _verbatim_ with the account of the matter that is here given
by Mr. Cornelius Littlepage. The house in which Col. Heathcote dwelt was
destroyed by fire, a short time before the revolution; but the property
on which it stood, and the present building, belong at this moment to his
great-grandson, the Rt. Rev. Wm. _Heathcote_ de Lancey, the Bishop of
Western New York. On the subject of the _plunder_, the editor will remark,
that a near connection, whose grandfather was a Major at the taking of
Louisbourg, and who was subsequently one of the first Brigadiers appointed
in 1775, has lately shown him a letter written to that officer, during the
expedition, by _his_ father; in which, blended with a great deal of pious
counsel, and some really excellent religious exhortation, is an earnest
inquiry after the _plunder_.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER II.

  "I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty;
  or that youth would sleep out the rest."

  _Winter's Tale_.


It is not necessary for me to say much of the first fourteen years of
my life. They passed like the childhood and youth of the sons of most
gentlemen in our colony, at that day, with this distinction, however. There
was a class among us which educated its boys at home. This was not a very
numerous class, certainly, nor was it always the highest in point of
fortune and rank. Many of the large proprietors were of Dutch origin, as a
matter of course; and these seldom, if ever, sent their children to England
to be taught anything, in my boyhood. I understand that a few are getting
over their ancient prejudices, in this particular, and begin to fancy
Oxford or Cambridge may be quite as learned schools as that of Leyden; but,
no Van, in my boyhood, could have been made to believe this. Many of the
Dutch proprietors gave their children very little education, in any way or
form, though most of them imparted lessons of probity that were quite as
useful as learning, had the two things been really inseparable. For my
part, while I admit there is a great deal of knowledge going up and down
the land, that is just of the degree to trick a fellow-creature out of his
rights, I shall never subscribe to the opinion, which is so prevalent among
the Dutch portion of our population, and which holds the doctrine that the
schools of the New England provinces are the reason the descendants of the
Puritans do not enjoy the best of reputations, in this respect. I believe a
boy may be well taught, and made all the honester for it; though, I admit,
there may be, and is, such a thing as training a lad in false notions,
as well as training him in those that are true. But, we had a class,
principally of English extraction, that educated its sons well; usually
sending them home, to the great English schools, and finishing at the
universities. These persons, however, lived principally in town, or, having
estates on the Hudson, passed their winters there. To this class the
Littlepages did not belong; neither their habits nor their fortunes
tempting them to so high a flight. For myself, I was taught enough Latin
and Greek to enter college, by the Rev. Thomas Worden, an English divine,
who was rector of St. Jude's, the parish to which our family properly
belonged. This gentleman was esteemed a good scholar, and was very popular
among the gentry of the county; attending all the dinners, clubs, races,
balls, and other diversions that were given by them, within ten miles of
his residence. His sermons were pithy and short; and he always spoke of
your half-hour preachers, as illiterate prosers, who did not understand
how to condense their thoughts. Twenty minutes were his gauge, though
I remember to have heard my father say, he had known him preach all of
twenty-two. When he compressed down to fourteen, my grandfather invariably
protested he was delightful.

I remained with Mr. Worden until I could translate the two first AEneids,
and the whole of the Gospel of St. Matthew, pretty readily; and then my
father and grandfather, the last in particular, for the old gentleman had a
great idea of learning, began to turn over in their minds, the subject of
the college to which I ought to be sent. We had the choice of two, in both
of which the learned languages and the sciences are taught, to a degree,
and in a perfection, that is surprising for a new country. These colleges
are Yale, at New Haven, in Connecticut, and Nassau Hall, which was then at
Newark, New Jersey, after having been a short time at Elizabethtown, but
which has since been established at Princeton. Mr. Worden laughed at
both; said that neither had as much learning as a second-rate English
grammar-school; and that a lower-form boy, at Eton or Westminster, could
take a master's degree at either, and pass for a prodigy in the bargain.
My father, who was born in the colonies, and had a good deal of the right
colony feeling, was nettled at this, I remember; while my grandfather,
being old-country born, but colony educated, was at a loss how to view the
matter. The captain had a great respect for his native land, and evidently
considered it the paradise of this earth, though his recollections of it
were not very distinct; but, at the same time, he loved Old York, and West
Chester in particular, where he had married and established himself at
Satan's Toe; or, as he spelt it, and as we all have spelt it, now, this
many a day, Satanstoe. I was present at the conversation which decided the
question, as regarded my future education, and which took place in the
common parlour, around a blazing fire, about a week before Christmas, the
year I was fourteen. There were present Capt. Hugh Roger, Major Evans, my
mother, the Rev. Mr. Worden, and an old gentleman of Dutch designation and
extraction, of the name of Abraham Van Valkenburgh, but who was familiarly
called, by his friends, 'Brom Follock, or Col. Follock or Volleck, as the
last happen to be more or less ceremonious, or more or less Dutch. Follock,
I think, however was the favourite pronunciation. This Col. Van Valkenburgh
was an old brother-soldier of my father's, and, indeed, a relation, a
sort of a cousin through my greatgrandmother, besides being a man of much
consideration and substance. He lived in Rockland, just across the Hudson,
but never failed to pay a visit to Satanstoe at that season of the year. On
the present occasion, he was accompanied by his son, Dirck, who was _my_
friend, and just a year my junior.

"Vell, den,"--the colonel commenced the discourse by saying, as he tapped
the ashes out of his pipe for the second time that evening, having first
taken a draught of hot flip, a beverage much in vogue then, as well as
now,--"vell, den, Evans, vat is your intention as to ter poy? Vill he pe
college-l'arnt, like as his grant-fat'er, or only school-l'arnt, like as
his own fat'er?" The allusion to the grandfather being a pleasantry of the
colonel's, who insisted that all the old-country born were "college-l'arnt"
by instinct.

"To own the truth, 'Brom," my father answered, "this is a point that is not
yet entirely settled, for there are different opinions as to the place to
which he shall be sent, even admitting that he is to be sent at all."

The colonel fastened his full, projecting, blue eyes on my father, in a way
that pretty plainly expressed surprise.

"Vat, den, is dere so many colleges, dat it is hart to choose?" he said.

"There are but two that can be of any use to us, for Cambridge is much too
distant to think of sending the boy so far. Cambridge was in our thoughts
at one time, but that is given up."

"Vhere, den, ist Camprige?" demanded the Dutchman, removing his pipe to ask
so important a question, a ceremony he usually thought unnecessary.

"It is a New England college--near Boston; not half a day's journey
distant, I fancy."

"Don't sent Cornelius dere," ejaculated the colonel, contriving to get
these words out alongside of the stem of the pipe.

"You think not, Col. Follock," put in the anxious mother; "may I ask the
reason for that opinion?"

"Too much Suntay, Matam Littlepage--the poy wilt be sp'ilt by ter
ministers. He will go away an honest lat, and come pack a rogue. He will
l'arn how to bray and to cheat."

"Hoity toity! my noble colonel!" exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Worden, affecting
more resentment than he felt. "Then you fancy the clergy, and too much
Sunday, will be apt to convert an honest youth into a knave!"

The colonel made no answer, continuing to smoke very philosophically,
though he took occasion, while he drew the pipe out of his mouth, in one of
its periodical removals, to make a significant gesture with it towards the
rising sun, which all present understood to mean "down east," as it is
usual to say, when we mean to designate the colonies of New England. That
he was understood by the Rev. Mr. Worden, is highly probable; since that
gentleman continued to turn the flip of one vessel into another, by way of
more intimately blending the ingredients of the mixture, quite as coolly as
if there had been no reflection on his trade.

"What do you think of Yale, friend 'Brom?" asked my father, who understood
the dumb-show as well as any of them.

"No tifference, Evans; dey all breaches and brays too much. _Goot_ men have
no neet of so much religion. Vhen a man is _really_ goot, religion only
does him harm. I mean Yankee religion."

"I have another objection to Yale," observed Capt. Hugh Roger, "which is
their English."

"Och!" exclaimed the Colonel--"Deir English is horriple! Wuss dan ast to us
Tutch."

"Well, I was not aware of that," observed my father. "They are English,
sir, as well as ourselves, and why should they not speak the language as
well as we?"

"Why toes not a Yorkshireman, or a Cornishman, speak as veil as a Lonnoner?
I tell you what, Evans, I'll pet the pest game-cock on ter Neck, against
the veriest tunghill the parson hast, ter Presitent of Yale calls p e e n,
pen, ant roof, ruff--and so on."

"My birds are all game," put in the divine; "I keep no other breed."

"Surely, Mr. Worden, _you_ do not countenance cock-fights by your
presence!" my mother said, using as much of reproach in her manner as
comported with the holy office of the party she addressed, and with her own
gentle nature. The Colonel winked at my father, and laughed _through his
pipe_, an exploit he might have been said to perform almost hourly. My
father smiled in return; for, to own the truth, he _had_ been present
at such sports on one or two occasions, when the parson's curiosity had
tempted him to peep in also; but my grandfather looked grave and much in
earnest. As for Mr. Worden himself, he met the imputation like a man. To do
him justice, if he were not an ascetic, neither was he a whining hypocrite,
as is the case with too many of those who aspire to be disciples and
ministers of our blessed Lord.

"Why not, Madam Littlepage?" Mr. Worden stoutly demanded. "There are worse
places than cock-pits; for, mark me, I never bet--no, not on a horse-race,
even; and _that_ is an occasion on which any gentleman might venture a few
guineas, in a liberal, frank, way. There are so few amusements for people
of education in this country, Madam Littlepage, that one is not to be too
particular. If there were hounds and hunting, now, as there are at home,
you should never hear of me at a cock-fight, I can assure you."

"I must say I do not approve of cock-fights," rejoined my mother meekly;
"and I hope Corny will never be seen at one. No--never--never."

"Dere you're wrong, Matam Littlepage," the Colonel remarked, "for ter sight
of ter spirit of ter cocks wilt give ter boy spirit himself. My Tirck,
dere, goes to all in ter neighbourhood and he is a game-cock himself, let
me tell you. Come, Tirck--come--cock-a-doodle-doo!"

This was true all round, as I very well knew, young as I was. Dirck, who
was as slow-moving, as dull-seeming, and as anti-mercurial a boy to look at
as one could find in a thousand, was thorough game at the bottom, and he
had been at many a main, as he had told me himself. How much of his spirit
was derived from witnessing such scenes I will not take on me to affirm;
for, in these later times, I have heard it questioned whether such
exhibitions do really improve the spectator's courage or not. But Dirck had
pluck, and plenty of it, and in that particular, at least, his father was
not mistaken. The Colonel's opinion always carried weight with my
mother, both on account of his Dutch extraction, and on account of his
well-established probity; for, to own the truth, a text or a sentiment from
him had far more weight with her than the same from the clergyman. She was
silenced on the subject of cock-fighting for the moment, therefore, which
gave Capt. Hugh Roger further opportunity to pursue that of the English
language. The grandfather, who was an inveterate lover of the sport, would
have cut in to that branch of the discourse, but he had a great tenderness
for my mother, whom everybody loved by the way, and he commanded himself,
glad to find that so important an interest had fallen into hands as good as
those of the Colonel. _He_ would just as soon be absent from church as be
absent from a cock-fight, and he was a very good observer of religion.

"I should have sent Evans to Yale, had it not been for the miserable manner
of speaking English they have in New England," resumed my grandfather; "and
I had no wish to have a son who might pass for a Cornish man. We shall have
to send this boy to Newark, in New Jersey. The distance is not so great,
and we shall be certain he will not get any of your round-head notions of
religion, too, Col. 'Brom, you Dutch are not altogether free from these
distressing follies.

"Debble a pit!" growled the Colonel, through his pipe; for no devotee of
liberalism and latitudinarianisrn in religion could be more averse to
extra-piety than he. The Colonel, however, was not of the Dutch Reformed;
he was an Episcopalian, like ourselves, his mother having brought this
branch of the Follocks into the church; and, consequently, he entered into
all our feelings on the subject of religion, heart and hand. Perhaps Mr.
Worden was a greater favourite with no member of the four parishes over
which he presided, than with Col. Abraham Van Valkenburgh.

"I should think less of sending Corny to Newark," added my mother, "was it
not for crossing the water."

"Crossing the water!" repeated Mr. Worden. "The Newark we mean, Madam
Littlepage, is not at home: the Jersey of which we speak is the adjoining
colony of that came."

"I am aware of that, Mr. Worden; but it is not possible to get to Newark,
without making that terrible voyage be tween New York and Powles' Hook. No,
sir, it is impossible; and every time the child comes home, that risk will
have to be run. It would cause me many a sleepless night!"

"He can go by Tobb's Ferry, Matam Littlepage," quietly observed the
Colonel.

"Dobb's Ferry can be very little better than that by Powles' Hook,"
rejoined the tender mother. "A ferry is a ferry; and the Hudson will be the
Hudson, from Albany to New York. So water is water."

As these were all self-evident propositions, they produced a pause in the
discourse; for men do not deal with new ideas as freely as they deal with
the old.

"Dere is a way, Evans, as you and I know py experience," resumed the
Colonel, winking again at my father, "to go rount the Hudson altoget'er. To
pe sure, it is a long way, and a pit in the woots; but petter to untertake
dat, than to haf the poy lose his l'arnin'. Ter journey might be made in
two mont's, and he none the wuss for ter exercise. Ter Major and I were
never heartier dan when we were operating on the he't waters of the Hutson.
I will tell Corny the roat."

My mother saw that her apprehensions were laughed at, and she had the good
sense to be silent. The discussion did not the less proceed, until it was
decided, after an hour more of weighing the _pros_ and the _cons_, that I
was to be sent to Nassau Hall, Newark, New Jersey, and was to move from
that place with the college, whenever that event might happen.

"You will send Dirck there, too," my father added, as soon as the affair in
my case was finally determined. "It would be a pity to separate the boys,
after they have been so long together, and have got to be so much used to
each other. Their characters are so identical, too, that they are more like
brothers than very distant relatives."

"Dey will like one anot'er all de petter for pein' a little tifferent,
den," answered the Colonel, drily.

Dirck and I were no more alike than a horse resembles a mule.

"Ay, but Dirck is a lad who will do honour to an education--he is solid and
thoughtful, and learning will not be thrown away on such a youth. Was he in
England, that sedate lad might get to be a bishop."

"I want no pishops in my family, Major Evans; nor do I want any great
l'arnin'. None of us ever saw a college, and we have got on fery vell. I
am a colonel and a memper; my fat'er was a colonel and a memper; and my
grand-fet'er _woult_ have peen a colonel and a memper, but dere vast no
colonels and no mempers in his time; though Tirck, yonter can be a colonel
and a memper, wit'out crosting dat terriple ferry that frightens Matam
Littlepage so much."

There was usually a little humour in all Col. Follock said and did, though
it must be owned it was humour after a very Dutch model; Dutch-built fun,
as Mr. Worden used to call it. Nevertheless, it was humour; and there was
enough of Holland in all the junior generations of the Littlepages to enjoy
it. My father understood him, and my mother did not hear the last of the
"terriple ferry" until not only I, but the college itself, had quitted
Newark; for the institution made another remove to Princeton, the place
where it is now to be found, some time before I got my degree.

"You have got on very well without a college education, as all must admit,
colonel," answered Mr. Worden; "but there is no telling how much _better_
you would have got on, had you been an A. M. You might, in the last case,
have been a general and a member of the King's council."

"Dere ist no yeneral in ter colony, the commander-in-chief and His
Majesty's representatif excepted," returned the colonel. "We are no
Yankees, to make yenerals of ploughmen."

Hereupon, the colonel and my father knocked the ashes out of their pipes at
the same instant, and both laughed,--a merriment in which the parson, my
grandfather, my dear mother, and I myself joined. Even a negro boy, who was
about my own age, and whose name was Jacob, or Jaap, but who was commonly
called Yaap, grinned at the remark, for he had a sovereign contempt for
Yankee Land, and all it contained; almost as sovereign a contempt as that
which Yankee Land entertained for York itself, and its Dutch population.
Dirck was the only person present who looked grave; but Dirck was
habitually as grave and sedate, as if he had been born to become a
burgomaster.

"Quite right, Brom," cried my father; "_colonels_ are good enough for us;
and when we do make a man _that_, even, we are a little particular about
his being respectable and fit for the office. Nevertheless, learning will
not hurt Corny, and to college he shall go, let you do as you please with
Dirck. So that matter is settled, and no more need be said about it."

And it was settled, and to college I _did_ go, and that by the awful
Powles' Hook Ferry, in the bargain. Near as we lived to town, I paid my
first visit to the island of Manhattan the day my father and myself started
for Newark. I had an aunt, who lived in Queen Street, not a very great
distance from the fort, and she had kindly invited me and my father to
pass a day with her, on our way to New Jersey, which invitation had been
accepted. In my youth, the world in general was not as much addicted to
gadding about as it is now getting to be, and neither my grandfather nor my
father ordinarily went to town, their calls to the legislature excepted,
more than twice a year. My mother's visits were still less frequent,
although Mrs. Legge, my aunt, was her own sister. Mr. Legge was a lawyer of
a good deal of reputation, but he was inclined to be in the opposition,
or espoused the popular side in politics; and there could be no great
cordiality between one of that frame of mind and our family. I remember
we had not been in the house an hour, before a warm discussion took place
between my uncle and my father, on the question of the right of the subject
to canvass the acts of the government. We had left home immediately
after an early breakfast, in order to reach town before dark; but a long
detention at the Harlem Ferry, compelled us to dine in that village, and it
was quite night before we stopped in Queen Street. My aunt ordered supper
early, in order that we might get early to bed, to recover from our
fatigue, and be ready for sight-seeing next day. We sat down to supper,
therefore, in less than an hour after our arrival; and it was while we were
at table that the discussion I have mentioned took place. It would seem
that a party had been got up in town among the disloyal, and I might almost
say, the disaffected, which claimed for the subject the right to know in
what manner every shilling of the money raised by taxation was expended.
This very obviously improper interference with matters that did not belong
to them, on the part of the ruled, was resisted by the rulers, and that
with energy; inasmuch as such inquiries and investigations would naturally
lead to results that might bring authority into discredit, make the
governed presuming and prying in their dispositions, and cause much
derangement and inconvenience to the regular and salutary action of
government. My father took the negative of the proposition, while my uncle
maintained its affirmative. I well remember that my poor aunt looked
uneasy, and tried to divert the discourse by exciting our curiosity on a
new subject.

"Corny has been particularly lucky in having come to town just as he has,
since we shall have a sort of gala-day, to-morrow, for the blacks and the
children."

I was not in the least offended at being thus associated with the negroes,
for they mingled in most of the amusements of us young people; but I did
not quite so well like to be ranked with the children, now I was fourteen,
and on my way to college. Notwithstanding this, I did not fail to betray an
interest in what was to come next, by my countenance. As for my father, he
did not hesitate about asking an explanation.

"The news came in this morning, by a fast-sailing sloop, that the Patroon
of Albany is on his way to New York, in his coach-and-four, and with two
out-riders, and that he may be expected to reach town in the course of
to-morrow. Several of my acquaintances have consented to let their children
go out a little way into the country, to see him come in; and, as for the
blacks, you know, it is just as well to give them _permission_ to be of the
party, as half of them would otherwise go without asking it."

"This will be a capital opportunity to let Corny see a little of the
world," cried my father, "and I would not have him miss it on any account.
Besides, it is useful to teach young people early, the profitable lesson of
honouring their superiors and seniors."

"In that sense it may do," growled my uncle, who, though so much of a
latitudinarian in his political opinions never failed to inculcate all
useful and necessary maxims for private life; "the Patroon of Albany being
one of the most respectable and affluent of all our gentry. I have no
objections to Corny's going to see that sight; and, I hope, my dear, you
will let both Pompey and Caesar be of the party. It won't hurt the fellows
to see the manner in which the Patroon has his carriage kept and horses
groomed."

Pompey and Caesar were of the party, though the latter did not join us
until Pompey had taken me all round the town, to see the principal sights;
it being understood that the Patroon had slept at Kingsbridge, and would
not be likely to reach town until near noon. New York was certainly not the
place, in 1751, it is to-day; nevertheless, it was a large and important
town, even when I went to college, containing not less than twelve thousand
souls, blacks included. The Town Hall is a magnificent structure, standing
at the head of Broad Street; and thither Pompey led me, even before my
aunt had come down to breakfast. I could scarcely admire that fine edifice
sufficiently; which, for size, architecture and position, has scarcely now
an equal in all the colonies. It is true, that the town has much improved,
within the last twenty years; but York was a noble place, even in the
middle of this century! After breakfast, Pompey and I proceeded up
Broadway, commencing near the fort, at the Bowling Green, and walking some
distance beyond the head of Wall Street, or quite a quarter of a mile. Nor
did the town stop here; though its principal extent is, or was then, along
the margin of the East River. Trinity Church I could hardly admire enough
either; for, it appeared to me, that it was large enough to contain all the
church-people in the colony. [3] It was a venerable structure, which had
then felt the heats of summer and the snows of winter on its roofs and
walls, near half a century, and it still stands a monument of pious zeal
and cultivated taste. There were other churches, belonging to other
denominations, of course, that were well worthy of being seen; to say
nothing of the markets. I thought I never should tire of gazing at the
magnificence of the shops, particularly the silversmiths'; some of which
must have had a thousand dollars' worth of plate in their windows, or
otherwise in sight. I might say as much of the other shops, too, which
attracted a just portion of my admiration.

About eleven, the number of children and blacks that were seen walking
towards the Bowery Road, gave us notice that it was time to be moving in
that direction. We were in the upper part of Broadway, at the time, and
Pompey proceeded forthwith to fall into the current, making all the haste
he could, as it was thought the traveller might pass down towards the East
River, and get into Queen Street, before we could reach the point at which
he would diverge. It is true, the old town residence of Stephen de Lancey,
which stood at the head of Broadway, just above Trinity, [4] had been
converted into a tavern, and we did not know but the Patroon might choose
to alight there, as it was then the principal inn of the town; still, most
people preferred Queen Street; and the new City Tavern was so much out of
the way, that strangers in particular were not fond of frequenting it.
Caesar came up, much out of breath, just as we got into the country.

Quitting Broadway, we went along the country road that then diverged to the
east, but which is now getting to contain a sort of suburb, and passing
the road that leads into Queen Street, we felt more certain of meeting the
traveller, whose carriage we soon learned had not gone by. As there were
and are several taverns for country people in this quarter, most of us went
quite into the country, proceeding as far as the villas of the Bayards, de
Lanceys, and other persons of mark; of which there are several along the
Bowery Road. Our party stopped under some cherry-trees, that were not
more than a mile from town, nearly opposite to Lt. Gov. de Lancey's
country-house; [5] but many boys &c. went a long long way into the country,
finishing the day by nutting and gathering apples in the grounds of
Petersfield and Rosehill, the country residences of the Stuyvesant and
Watt, or, as the last is now called the Watts, families. I was desirous of
going thus far myself, for I had heard much of both of those grand places;
but Pompey told me it would be necessary to be back for dinner by half-past
one, his mistress having consented to postpone the hour a little, in order
to indulge my natural desire to see all I could while in town.

We were not altogether children and blacks who were out on the Bowery
Road that day,--many tradesmen were among us, the leathern aprons making
a goodly parade on the occasion. I saw one or two persons wearing
swords, hovering round, in the lanes and in the woods,--proof that even
gentlemen had some desire to see so great a person as the Patroon of
Albany pass. I shall not stop to say much of the _transit_ of the
_Patroon_. He came by about noon, as was expected, and in his
coach-and-four, with two out-riders, coach-man, &c. in liveries, as is
usual in the families of the gentry, and with a team of heavy, black,
Dutch-looking horses, that I remember Caesar pronounced to be of the
true Flemish breed. The Patroon himself was a sightly, well-dressed
gentleman, wearing a scarlet coat, flowing wig, and cocked hat; and I
observed that the handle of his sword was of solid silver. But my father
wore a sword with a solid silver handle, too, a present from my
grandfather when the former first entered the army. [6] He bowed to the
salutations he received in passing, and I thought all the spectators
were pleased with the noble sight of seeing such an equipage pass into
the town. Such a sight does not occur every day in the colonies, and I
felt exceedingly happy that it had been my privilege to witness it.

A little incident occurred to myself that rendered this day long memorable
to me. Among the spectators assembled along the road on this occasion, were
several groups of girls, who belonged to the better class, and who had been
induced to come out into the country, either led by curiosity or by the
management of the different sable nurses who had them in charge. In one of
these groups was a girl of about ten, or possibly of eleven years of age,
whose dress, air, and mien, early attracted my attention. I thought her
large, bright, full, blue eye, particularly winning; and boys of fourteen
are not altogether insensible to beauty in the other sex, though they are
possibly induced oftener to regard it in those who are older than in those
who are younger than themselves. Pompey happened to be acquainted with
Silvy, the negress who had the care of my little beauty, to whom he bowed,
and addressed as Miss Anneke (Anna Cornelia abbreviated). Anneke I thought
a very pretty name too, and some little advances were made towards an
acquaintance by means of an offering of some fruit that I had gathered by
the way-side. Things were making a considerable progress, and I had asked
several questions, such as whether 'Miss Anneke had ever seen a patroon,'
which 'was the greatest personage, a patroon or a governor, whether 'a
nobleman who had lately been in the colony, as a military officer, or the
patroon, would be likely to have the finest coach,' when a butcher's boy,
who was passing, rudely knocked an apple out of Anneke's hand, and caused
her to shed a tear.

I took fire at this unprovoked outrage, and lent the fellow a dig in the
ribs that gave him to understand the young lady had a protector. My chap
was about my own age and weight, and he surveyed me a minute with a species
of contempt, and then beckoned me to follow him into an orchard that was
hard by, but a little out of sight. In spite of Anneke's entreaties I went,
and Pompey and Caesar followed. We had both stripped before the negroes
got up, for they were in a hot discussion whether I was to be permitted to
fight or not. Pompey maintained it would keep dinner waiting; but Caesar,
who had the most bottom, as became his name, insisted, as I had given a
blow, I was bound to render satisfaction. Luckily, Mr. Worden was very
skilful at boxing, and he had given both Dirck and myself many lessons, so
that I soon found myself the best fellow. I gave the butcher's boy a bloody
nose and a black eye, when he gave in, and I came off victor; not, however,
without a facer or two, that sent me to college with a reputation I hardly
merited, or that of a regular pugilist.

When I returned to the road, after this breathing, Anneke [7] had
disappeared, and I was so shy and silly as not to ask her family name from
Caesar the Great, or Pompey the Little.

[Footnote 3: The intelligent reader will, of course, properly appreciate
the provincial admiration of Mr. Littlepage, who naturally fancied his own
best was other people's best. The Trinity of that day was burned in the
great fire of 1776. The edifice that succeeded it, at the peace of 1783,
has already given place to a successor, that has more claim to be placed
on a level with modern, English, town church-architecture, than any other
building in the Union. When another shall succeed this, which shall be as
much larger and more elaborated than this is compared to its predecessor,
and still another shall succeed, which shall bear the same relation to
that, then the country will possess an edifice that is on a level with the
first-rate Gothic cathedral-architecture of Europe. It would be idle to
pretend that the new Trinity is without faults; some of which are probably
the result of circumstances and necessity; but, if the respectable
architect who has built it, had no other merit, he would deserve the
gratitude of every man of taste in the country, by placing church-towers of
a proper comparative breadth, dignity and proportions, before the eyes of
its population. The diminutive meanness of American church-towers, has been
an eye-sore to every _intelligent_, travelled American, since the country
was settled.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 4: The site of the present City Hotel.--ED.]

[Footnote 5: Now, de Lancey Street.--ED.]

[Footnote 6: This patroon must have been Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, who lived
to be a bachelor of forty before he married. If there be no anachrenism,
this gentleman married Miss Van Cortlandt, one of the seven daughters
of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, who was proprietor of the great manor of
Cortlandt, West Chester county, and who, in his day, was the principal
personage of the colony. The seven daughters of this Colonel Van Cortlandt,
by marrying into the families of de Lancey, Bayard, Van Rensellaer,
Beekman, M'Gregor--Skinner, &c. &c. brought together a connection that was
long felt in the political affairs of New York. The Schuylers were related
through a previous marriage, and many of the Long Island and other families
of weight by other alliances. This connection formed the court party, which
was resisted by an opposition led by the Livingstons, Morris, and other
names of _their_ connection. This old bachelor, Jeremiah Van Rensellaer,
believing he would never marry, alienated, in behalf of his next brother
and anticipated heir, the Greenbush and Claverack estates,--portions of
those vast possessions which, in our day, and principally through the
culpable apathy, or miserable demagogueism of those who have been entrusted
with the care of the public weal, have been the pretext for violating
some of the plainest laws of morality that God has communicated to
man.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 7: Pronounced On-na-_kay_, I believe.--EDITOR]




CHAPTER III.

  "Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has
  he any unbraided wares?"

  "Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach singing."

  _Winter's Tale_.


I have no intention of taking the reader with me through college, where
I remained the usual term of four years. These four years were not idled
away, as sometimes happens, but were fairly improved. I read all of the New
Testament, in Greek; several of Cicero's Orations; every line of Horace,
Satires and Odes; four books of the Iliad; Tully de Oratore, throughout;
besides paying proper attention to geography, mathematics, and other of the
usual branches. Moral philosophy, in particular, was closely attended to,
senior year, as well as Astronomy. We had a telescope that showed us all
four of Jupiter's moons. In other respects, Nassau might be called the seat
of learning. One of our class purchased a second-hand copy of Euripides, in
town, and we had it in college all of six months; though it was never
my good fortune to see it, as the young man who owned it, was not much
disposed to let profane eyes view his treasure. Nevertheless, I am certain
the copy of the work was in college; and we took good care to let the Yale
men hear of it more than once. I do not believe _they_ ever saw even the
outside of an Euripides. As for the telescope, I can testify of my own
knowledge; having seen the moons of Jupiter as often as ten times, with my
own eyes, aided by its magnifiers. We had a tutor who was expert among the
stars, and who, it was generally believed, would have been able to see the
ring of Saturn, could be have found the planet; which, as it turned out, he
was unable to do.

My four college years were very happy years. The vacations came often, and
I went home invariably; passing a day or two with my aunt Legge, in going
or coming. The acquisition of knowledge was always agreeable to me; and I
may say it without vanity, I trust, at this time of life, I got the third
honour of my class. We should have graduated four, but one of our class was
compelled to quit us at the end of junior year, on account of his health.
He was an unusually hard student, and it was generally admitted that he
would have taken the first honour had he remained. We were thought to
acquit ourselves with credit at the commencement; although I afterwards
heard my grandfather tell Mr. Worden, that he was of opinion the addresses
would have been more masculine and commendable, had less been said of
the surprising growth, prosperity, and power of the colonies. He had no
objection to the encouragement of a sound, healthful, patriotic feeling;
but to him it appeared that something more novel might have better pleased
the audience. This may have been true, as all three of us had something to
say on the subject; and it is a proof how much we thought alike, that our
language was almost as closely assimilated as our ideas.

As for the Powles Hook Ferry, it was an unpleasant place I will allow;
though by the time I was junior I thought nothing of it. My mother,
however, was glad when it was passed for the last time. I remember the very
first words that escaped her, after she had kissed me on my final return
from college, were, "Well, Heaven be praised, Corny! you will never again
have any occasion to cross that frightful ferry, now college is completely
done with!" My poor mother little knew how much greater dangers I was
subsequently called on to encounter, in another direction. Nor was she
minutely accurate in her anticipations, since I have crossed the ferry in
question, several times in later life; the distances not appearing to be as
great, of late years, as they certainly seemed to be in my youth.

It was a feather in a young man's cap to have gone through college in 1755,
which was the year I graduated. It is true, the University men, who had
been home for their learning, were more or less numerous; but they were of
a class that held itself aloof from the smaller gentry, and most of them
were soon placed in office, adding the dignity of public trusts to their
acquisitions--the former in a manner overshadowing the latter. But, I was
nearer to the body of the community, and my position admitted more of
comparative excellence, as it might be. No one thinks of certain habits,
opinions, manners, and tastes, in the circle where they are expected to
be found; but, it is a different thing where all, or any of these
peculiarities form the exception. I am afraid more was anticipated from my
college education than has ever been realized; but I will say this for my
_Alma Mater_, that I am not conscious my acquisitions at college have ever
been of any disadvantage to me; and I rather think they have, in some
degree at least, contributed to the little success that has attended my
humble career.

I kept up my intimacy with Dirck Follock, during the whole time I remained
at college. He continued the classics with Mr. Worden, for two years after
I left the school; but I could not discover that his progress amounted
to anything worth mentioning. The master used to tell the Colonel, that
"Dirck's progress was slow and sure;" and this did not fail to satisfy a
man who had a constitutional aversion to much of the head-over-heels rate
of doing things among the English population. Col. Follock, as we always
called him, except when my father or grandfather asked him to drink a
glass of wine, or drank his health in the first glass after the cloth
was removed, when he was invariably styled Col. Van Valkenburgh, at full
length; but Col. Follock was quite content that his son and heir should
know no more than he knew himself, after making proper allowances for the
difference in years and experience. By the time I returned home, however,
a material change had been made in the school. Mr. Worden fell heir to a
moderate competency at home, and he gave up teaching, a business he had
never liked, accordingly. It was even thought he was a shade less zealous
in his parochial duties, after the acquisition of this fifty pounds
sterling a-year, than he had previously been; though I am far from
insisting on the fact's being so. At any rate, it was not in the power of
L50 per annum to render Mr. Worden apathetic on the subject of the church;
for he continued a most zealous churchman down to the hour of his death;
and this was something, even admitting that he was not quite so zealous as
a Christian. The church being the repository of the faith, if not the
faith itself, it follows that its friends are akin to religion, though not
absolutely religious. I have always liked a man the better for being what
I call a sound, warm-hearted churchman, though his habits may have been a
little free.

It was necessary to supply the place left vacant by the emigration of Mr.
Worden, or to abandon a school that had got to be the nucleus of knowledge
in Westchester. There was a natural desire, at first, to obtain another
scholar from home; but no such person offering, a Yale College graduate was
accepted, though not without sundry rebellions, and plenty of distrust.
The moment he appeared, Col. Follock, and Major Nicholas Oothout, another
respectable Dutch neighbour, withdrew their sons; and from that hour Dirck
never went to school again. It is true, Westchester was not properly a
Dutch county, like Rockland, and Albany, and Orange, and several others
along the river; but it had many respectable families in it, of that
extraction, without alluding to such heavy people as the Van Cortlandts,
Felipses, Beekmans, and two or three others of that stamp. Most of our
important county families had a different origin, as in the case of the
Morrises, of Morrisania, and of the Manor of Fordham, the Pells, of Pelham,
the Heathcotes, of Mamanneck, the branch of the de Lanceys, at West Farms,
the Jays, of Rye, &c., &c. All these came of the English, or the Huguenot
stock. Among these last, more or less Dutch blood was to be found, however;
though Dutch prejudices were a good deal weakened. Although few of these
persons sent their boys to this school, they were consulted in the
selection of a master; and I have always supposed that their indifference
was the cause that the county finally obtained the services of a Yankee,
from Yale.

The name of the new pedagogue was Jason Newcome, or, as he pronounced the
latter appellation himself, Noo-come. As he affected a pedantic way of
pronouncing the last syllable long, or as it was spelt, he rather called
himself Noo-comb, instead of Newcome, as is the English mode, whence he
soon got the nick-name of Jason Old Comb among the boys; the lank,
orderly arrangement of his jet-black, and somewhat greasy-looking locks,
contributing their share towards procuring for him the _sobriquet_, as I
believe the French call it. As this Mr. Newcome will have a material part
to play in the succeeding portions of this narrative, it may be well to be
a little more minute in his description.

I found Jason fully established in the school, on my return from college. I
remember we met very much like two strange birds, that see each other for
the first time on the same dunghill; or two quadrupeds, in their original
interview in a common herd. It was New Haven against Newark; though the
institution, after making as many migrations as the House of Loretto,
finally settled down at Princeton, a short time before I took my degree. I
was consequently entitled to call myself a graduate of Newark,--a sort of
scholar that is quite as great a curiosity in the country as a Queen Anne's
farthing, or a book printed in the fifteenth century. I remember the first
evening we two spent in company, as well as if the meeting occurred only
last night. It was at Satanstoe, and Mr. Worden was present. Jason had a
liberal supply of puritanical notions, which were bred in-and-in in his
moral, and I had almost said, in his physical system; nevertheless, he
could unbend; and I did not fail to observe that very evening, a gleam of
covert enjoyment on his sombre countenance, as the hot-stuff, the cards,
and the pipes were produced, an hour or two before supper,--a meal we
always had hot and comfortable. This covert satisfaction, however, was not
exhibited without certain misgiving looks, as if the neophyte in these
innocent enjoyments distrusted his right to possess his share. I remember
in particular, when my mother laid two or three new, clean packs of cards
on the table, that Jason cast a stealthy glance over his shoulder, as if
to make certain that the act was not noted by the minister, or the
"neighbours." The neighbours!--what a contemptible being a man becomes,
who lives in constant dread of the comments and judgments of these social
supervisors! and what a wretch, the habit of deferring to no principle
better than their decision has made many a being, who has had originally
the materials of something better in him, than has been developed by the
_surveillance_ of ignorance, envy, vulgarity, gossiping and lying! In those
cases in which education, social position, opportunities and experience
have made any material difference between the parties, the man who yields
to such a government, exhibits the picture of a giant held in bondage by a
pigmy. I have always remarked, too, that they who are best qualified to
sit in this neighbourhood-tribunal, generally keep most aloof from it, as
repugnant to their tastes and habits, thus leaving its decisions to the
portion of the community least qualified to make such as are either just or
enlightened.

I felt a disposition to laugh outright, at the manner in which Jason
betrayed a sneaking consciousness of crime, as he saw my meek, innocent,
simple-minded, just and warm-hearted mother lay the cards on the table that
evening. His sense of guilt was purely conventional, while my mother's
sense of innocence existed in the absence of false instruction, and in the
purity of her intentions. One had been taught no exaggerated and false
notion of sin,--nay, a notion that is impious, as it is clearly impious
in man to torture acts that are perfectly innocent, _per se_, into formal
transgressions of the law of God,--while the other had been educated under
the narrow and exaggerated notions of a provincial sect, and had obtained a
species of conscience that was purely dependent on his miserable schooling.
I heard my grandfather say that Jason actually showed the white of his eyes
the first time he saw Mr. Worden begin to deal, and he still looked, the
whole time we were at whist, as if he expected some one might enter, and
tell of his delinquency, I soon discovered that Jason had a much greater
dread of being told of, than of doing such things as taking a hand at
whist, or drinking a glass of punch, from which I inferred his true
conscience drew perceptible distinctions between the acts and the penalties
he had been accustomed to see inflicted on them. He was much disposed to a
certain sort of frailty; but it was a sneaking disposition to the last.

But, the amusing part of the exhibition, that first evening of our
acquaintance, was Mr. Worden's showing off his successor's familiarity
with the classics. Jason had not the smallest notion of quantity; and he
pronounced the Latin very much as one would read Mohawk, from a vocabulary
made out by a hunter, or a savant of the French Academy. As I had received
the benefit of Mr. Worden's own instruction, I could do better, and,
generally, my knowledge of the classics went beyond that of Jason's. The
latter's English, too, was long a source of amusement with us all, though
my grandfather often expressed strong disgust at it. Even Col. Follock did
not scruple to laugh at Newcome's English, which, as he frequently took
occasion to say, "hat a ferry remarkaple sount to it." As this peculiarity
of Jason's extended a good way into the Anglo-Saxon race, in the part of
the country in which he was born, it may be well to explain what I mean a
little more at large.

Jason was the son of an ordinary Connecticut farmer, of the usual
associations, and with no other pretension to education than such as was
obtained in a common school, or any reading which did not include the
Scriptures, some half-dozen volumes of sermons and polemical works, all the
latter of which were vigorously as well as narrowly one-sided, and a
few books that had been expressly written to praise New England, and to
undervalue all the rest of the earth. As the family knew nothing of the
world beyond the limits of its own township, and an occasional visit
to Hartford, on what is called "election-day," Jason's early life was
necessarily of the most contracted experience. His English, as a matter of
course, was just that of his neighbourhood and class of life; which was
far from being either very elegant or very Doric. But on this rustic,
provincial, or rather, hamlet foundation, Jason had reared a superstructure
of New Haven finish and proportions. As he kept school before he went to
college, while he was in college, and after he left college, the whole
energies of his nature became strangely directed to just such reforms of
language as would be apt to strike the imagination of a pedagogue of his
calibre. In the first place, he had brought from home with him a great
number of sounds that were decidedly vulgar and vicious, and with these in
full existence in himself, he had commenced his system of reform on other
people. As is common with all tyros, he fancied a very little knowledge
sufficient authority for very great theories. His first step was to improve
the language, by adapting sound to spelling and he insisted on calling
angel, _an_-gel, because a-n spelt an; chamber, _cham_-ber, for the same
reason; and so on through a long catalogue of similarly constructed words.

"English," he did not pronounce as "__lish" but as "_Eng_lish," for
instance; and "nothing" (anglice _nuth_ing), as _noth_-ing; or, perhaps, it
were better to say "_naw_thin'." While Jason showed himself so much of
a purist with these and many other words, he was guilty of some of the
grossest possible mistakes, that were directly in opposition to his own
theory. Thus, while he affectedly pronounced "none," (nun,) as "known," he
did not scruple to call "stone," "stun," and "home," "hum." The idea of
pronouncing "clerk," as it should be, or "clark," greatly shocked him, as
it did to call "hearth," "h'arth;" though he did not hesitate to call this
good earth of ours, the "'arth." "Been," he pronounced "ben," of course,
and "roof," he called "ruff," in spite of all his purism.

From the foregoing specimens, half a dozen among a thousand, the reader
will get an accurate notion of this weakness in Jason's character. It was
heightened by the fact that the young man commenced his education, such as
it was, late in life, and it is rare indeed that either knowledge or tastes
thus acquired are entirely free from exaggeration. Though Jason was several
years my senior, like myself he was a recent graduate, and it will be easy
enough to imagine the numberless discussions that took place between us, on
the subject of our respective acquisitions. I say 'respective,' instead of
mutual acquisitions, because there was nothing mutual about it, or _them_.
Neither our classics, our philosophy, nor our mathematics would seem to
have been the same, but each man apparently had a science, or a language of
his own, and which had been derived from the institution where he had been
taught. In the classics I was much the strongest, particularly in the
quantities, but Jason had the best of it in mathematics. In spite of his
conceit, his vulgarity, his English, his provincialism, and the awkwardness
with which he wore his tardily acquired information, this man had strong
points about him, and a native shrewdness that would have told much more in
his favour had it not been accompanied by a certain evasive manner, that
caused one constantly to suspect his sincerity, and which often induced
those who were accustomed to him, to imagine he had a sneaking propensity
that rendered him habitually hypocritical. Jason held New York in great
contempt; a feeling he was not always disposed to conceal, and of necessity
his comparisons were usually made with the state of things in Connecticut,
and much to the advantage of the latter. To one thing, however, he was much
disposed to defer, and that was money. Connecticut had not then, nor has it
now, a single individual who would be termed rich in New York; and Jason,
spite of his provincial conceit, spite of his overweening notions of moral
and intellectual superiority, could no more prevent this profound deference
for wealth, than he could substitute for a childhood of vulgarity and
neglect, the grace, refinement and knowledge which the boys of the more
fortunate classes in life obtain as it might be without knowing it. Yes,
Jason bowed down to the golden calf, in spite of his puritanism, his
love of liberty, his pretension to equality and the general strut of his
disposition and manner.

Such is an outline of the character and qualifications of the man whom I
found, on my return from college, at the head of Mr. Worden's school. We
soon became acquainted, and I do not know which got the most ideas from the
other, in course of the first fortnight. Our conversation and arguments
were free, almost to rudeness, and little mercy was shown to our respective
prejudices. Jason was ultra leveling in his notions of social intercourse,
while I had the opinions of my own colony, in which the distinctions of
classes are far more strongly marked than is usual in New England, out of
Boston, and its immediate association. Still Jason deferred to names, as
well as money, though it was in a way very different from my own. New
England was, and is, loyal to the crown; but having the right to name
many of its own governors, and possessing many other political privileges
through the charters that were granted to her people, in order to induce
them to settle that portion of the continent, they do not always manifest
the feeling in a way to be agreeable to those who have a proper reverence
for the crown. Among other points, growing out of this difference in
training, Jason and I had sundry arguments on the subject of professions,
trades and callings. It was evident he fancied the occupation of a
schoolmaster next in honour to that of a clergyman. The clergy formed a
species of aristocracy, according to his notions; but no man could commence
life under more favourable auspices, than by taking a school. The following
dialogue occurred between us, on this subject; and I was so much struck
with the novelty of my companion's notions, as to make a note of it, as
soon as we parted.

"I wonder your folks don't think of giving you suthin' to do, Corny,"
commenced Jason, one day, after our acquaintance had ripened into a sort
of belligerent intimacy. "You're near nineteen, now, and ought to begin to
think of bringing suthin' in, to pay for all the outgoings."

By "your folks," Jason meant the family of Littlepage; and the blood of
that family quickened a little within me, fit the idea of being profitably
employed, in the manner intimated, because I had reached the mature and
profitable age of nineteen.

"I do not understand you exactly, Mr. Newcome, by your bringing something
in," answered I, with dignity enough to put a man of ordinary delicacy on
his guard.

"Bringing suthin' in is good English, I hope, Mr. Littlepage. I mean that
your edication has cost your folks enough to warrant them in calling on you
for a little interest. How much do you suppose, now, has been spent on your
edication, beginning at the time you first went to Mr. Worden, and leaving
off the day you quitted Newark?"

"Really, I have not the smallest notion; the subject has never crossed my
mind."

"Did the old folks never say anything to you about it?--never foot up the
total?"

"I am sure it is not easy to see how this could be done, for I could not
help them in the least."

"But your father's books would tell that, as doubtless it all stands
charged against you."

"Stands charged against me!--How, sir! do you imagine my father makes
a charge in a book against me, whenever he pays a few pounds for my
education?"

"Certainly; how else could he tell how much you have had?--though, on
reflection, as you are an only child, it does not make so much difference.
You probably will get all, in the end."

"And had I a brother, or a sister, do you imagine, Mr. Newcome, each
shilling we spent would be set down in a book, as charges against us?"

"How else, in natur', could it be known which had had the most, or any sort
of justice be done between you?"

"Justice would be done, by our common father's giving to each just as much
of his own money as he might see fit. What is it to me, if he chose to give
my brother a few hundred pounds more than he chose to give to me? The money
is his, and he may do with it as he choose."

"An hundred pounds is an awful sight of money!" exclaimed Jason, betraying
by his countenance how deeply he felt the truth of this. "If you have had
money in such large sums, so much the more reason why you should set about
doing suthin' to repay the old gentleman. Why not set up a school?"

"Sir!"

"Why not set up a school, I say? You might have had this of mine, had you
been a little older; but once in, fast in, with me. Still, schools are
wanted, and you might get a tolerable good recommend. I dare say your tutor
would furnish a certificate."

This word "recommend" was used by Jason for "recommendation" the habit of
putting verbs in the places of substantives, and _vice versa_, being much
in vogue with him.

"And do you really think that one who is destined to inherit Satanstoe,
would act advisedly to set up a school? Recollect, Mr. Newcome, that my
father and grandfather have both borne the king's commission; and that
the last bears it, at this very moment, through his representative, the
Governor."

"What of all that? What better business is there than keeping a good
school? If you are high in your notions, get to be made a tutor in that New
Jersey college. Recollect that a tutor in a college is somebody. I did hope
for such a place, but having a Governor's son against me, as a candidate,
there was no chance."

"A Governor's son a candidate for a tutorship in a college! You are pleased
to trifle with me, Mr. Newcome."

"It's true as the gospel. You thought some smaller fish put me down, but he
was the son of the Governor. But, why do you give that vulgar name to your
father's farm--Satanstoe is not decent; yet, Corny, I've heard you use it
before your own mother!"

"That you may hear every day, and my mother use it, too, before her own
son. What fault do you find with the name of Satanstoe?"

"Fault!--In the first place it is irreligious and profane; then it is
ungenteel and vulgar, and only fit to be used in low company. Moreover, it
is opposed to history and revelation, the Evil One having a huff, if you
will, but no toes. Such a name couldn't stand a fortnight before public
opinion in New England."

"Yes, that may be very true; but we do not care enough for His Satanic
Majesty in the colony of New York, to treat him with so much deference. As
for the 'huffs,' as you call them----"

"Why, what do _you_ call 'em, Mr. Littlepage?"

"Hoofs, Mr. Newcome; that is the New York pronunciation of the word."

"I care nothing for York pronunciation, which everybody knows is Dutch and
full of corruptions. You'll never do anything worth speaking of in this
colony, Corny, until you pay more attention to your schools."

"I do not know what you call attention, Mr. Jason, unless we have paid it
already. Here, I have the caption, or rather preamble of a law, on that
very subject, that I copied out of the statute-book on purpose to show you,
and which I will now read in order to prove to you how things really stand
in the colony."

"Read away," rejoined Jason, with an air of sufficient disdain.

Read I did, and in the following sententious and comprehensive language,
viz:--"Whereas the youth of this colony are found, by manifold experience,
to be not inferior in their natural geniuses to the youth of any other
country in the world, therefore be it enacted, &c." [8]

"There, sir," I said in exultation, "you have chapter and verse for the
true character of the rising generation in the colony of New York."

"And what does that preamble lead to?" demanded Jason, a little staggered
at finding the equality of our New York intellects established so clearly
by legislative enactment.

"It is the preamble to an act establishing the free schools of New York, in
which the learned languages have now been taught these twenty years; and
you will please to remember that another law has not long been passed
establishing a college in town."

"Well, curious laws sometimes do get into the statute-books, and a body
must take them as he finds them. I dare say Connecticut might have a word
to say on the same subject, if you would give her a chance. Have you heard
the wonderful news from Philadelphia, Corny, that has just come among us?"

"I have heard nothing of late; for you know I have been over in Rockland,
with Dirck Follock, for the last two weeks, and news never reaches that
family, or indeed that county."

"No, that is true enough," answered Jason, drily; "News and a Dutchman have
no affinity, or attraction, as we would say in philosophy; though there is
gravitation enough on one side, ha! boy?"

Here Jason laughed outright, for he was always delighted whenever he could
get a side-hit at the children of Holland, whom he appeared to regard as a
race occupying a position between the human family and the highest class of
the unintellectual animals. But it is unnecessary to dwell longer on this
dialogue, my object being merely to show the general character of Jason's
train of thought, in order to be better understood when I come to connect
his opinions with his acts.

Dirck and myself were much together after my return from college. I passed
weeks at a time with him, and he returned my visits with the utmost freedom
and good-will. Each of us had now got his growth, and it would have done
the heart of Frederick of Prussia good, to have seen my young friend after
he had ended his nineteenth year. In stature he measured exactly six feet
three, and he gave every promise of filling up in proportion. Dirck was
none of your roundly-turned, Apollo-built fellows, but he had shoulders
that his little, short, solid, but dumpy-looking mother, who was of the
true stock, could scarcely span, when she pulled his head down to give him
a kiss; which she did regularly, as Dirck told me himself, twice each year;
that is to say, Christmas and New-Year. His complexion was fair, his limbs
large and well proportioned, his hair light, his eyes blue, and his face
would have been thought handsome by most persons. I will not deny, however,
that there was a certain ponderosity, both of mind and body, about my
friend, that did not very well accord with the general notion of grace and
animation. Nevertheless, Dirck was a sterling fellow, as true as steel, as
brave as a game-cock, and as honest as noon-day light.

Jason was a very different sort of person, in many essentials. In figure,
he was also tall, but he was angular, loose-jointed and swinging--slouching
would be the better word, perhaps. Still, he was not without strength,
having worked on a farm until he was near twenty; and he was as active as a
cat; a result that took the stranger a little by surprise, when he regarded
only his loose, quavering sort of build. In the way of thought, Jason would
think two feet to Dirck's one; but I am far from certain that it was always
in so correct a direction. Give the Dutchman time, he was very apt to come
out right; whereas Jason, I soon discovered, was quite liable to come to
wrong conclusions, and particularly so in all matters that were a little
adverse, and which affected his own apparent interests. Dirck, moreover,
was one of the best-natured fellows that breathed; it being almost
impossible to excite him to anger; when it did come, however, the
earthquake was scarcely more terrific. I have seen him enraged, and would
as soon encounter a wild-boar in an open field, as run against his course,
while in the fit.

Modesty will hardly permit me to say much of myself. I was well-grown,
active, strong, for my years; and, I am inclined to think, reasonably
well-looking; though I would prefer that this much should be said by
any one but myself. Dirck and I often tried our manhood together, when
youngsters, and I was the better chap until my friend reached his
eighteenth year, when the heavy metal of the young Dutch giant told in our
struggles. After that period was past, I found Dirck too much for me, in a
close gripe, though my extraordinary activity rendered the inequality less
apparent than it might otherwise have proved. I ought not to apply the
term of "extraordinary" to anything about myself, but the word escaped
me unconsciously, and I shall let it stand. One thing I will say,
notwithstanding, let the reader think of it as he may: I was good-natured
and well-disposed to my fellow-creatures, and had no greater love of money
than was necessary to render me reasonably discreet.

Such is an outline of the characters and persons of three of the principal
actors in the scenes I am about to relate; scenes that will possess some
interest for those who love to read accounts of adventures in a new
country, however much they may fail in interesting others, when I speak of
the condition and events of the more civilized condition of society, that
was enjoyed, even in my youth, in such old counties as Westchester, and
such towns as York.

[Footnote 8: This quotation would seem to be accurate, and it is somewhat
curious to trace the reason why a preamble so singular should have been
prefixed to the law. Was it not owing to the oft-repeated and bold
assertions of Europeans, that man deteriorated in this hemisphere? Any
American who has been a near observer of European opinion, even in our day,
must have been frequently amused at the expression of surprise and doubt
that so often escapes the residents of the Old World, when they discover
anything that particularly denotes talent coming from the New. I make
little question that this extraordinary preamble is a sort of indirect
answer to an imputation that was known to be as general, in that age, as
it was felt to be unjust. My own experience would lead me to think native
capacity more abundant in America than in the midland countries of Europe,
and quite as frequently met with as in Italy itself; and I have often heard
teachers, both English and French, admit that their American and West-India
scholars were generally the readiest and cleverest in their schools. The
great evil under which this country labours, in this respect, is the sway
of numbers, which is constantly elevating mediocrity and spurious talent to
high places. In America we have a _higher average_ of intelligence, while
we have far less of the _higher class;_ and I attribute the latter fact
to the control of those who have never enjoyed the means of appreciating
excellence.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER IV.

  "Let us, then, be up and doing,
  With a heart for any fate;
  Still achieving, still pursuing,
  Learn to labour and to wait."

  LONGFELLOW.


The spring of the year I was twenty, Dirck and myself paid our first visit
to town, in the characters of young men. Although Satanstoe was not more
than five-and-twenty miles from New York, by the way of King's-Bridge, the
road we always travelled in order to avoid the ferry, it was by no means as
common to visit the capital as it has since got to be. I know gentlemen who
pass in and out from our neighbourhood, now, as often as once a fortnight,
or even once a week; but thirty years since this was a thing very seldom
done. My dear mother always went to town twice a year; in the spring to
pass Easter week, and in the autumn to make her winter purchases. My father
usually went down four times, in the course of the twelve months, but he
had the reputation of a gadabout, and was thought by many people to leave
home quite as much as he ought to do. As for my grandfather, old age coming
on, he seldom left home now, unless it were to pay stated visits to certain
old brother campaigners who lived within moderate distances, and with whom
he invariably passed weeks each summer.

The visit I have mentioned occurred some time after Easter, a season of
the year that many of our country families were in the habit of passing
in town, to have the benefit of the daily services of Old Trinity, as the
Hebrews resorted to Jerusalem to keep the feast of the passover. My mother
did not go to town this year, on account of my father's gout, and I
was sent to supply her place with my aunt Legge, who had been so long
accustomed to have one of the family with her at that season, that I was
substituted. Dirck had relatives of his own, with whom he staid, and thus
every thing was rendered smooth. In order to make a fair start, my friend
crossed the Hudson the week before, and, after taking breath at Satanstoe
for three days, we left the Neck for the capital, mounted on a pair of as
good roadsters as were to be found in the county: and that is saying a good
deal; for the Morrises, and de Lanceys, and Van Cortlandts all kept racers,
and sometimes gave us good sport, in the autumn, over the county course.
West Chester, to say no more than she deserved, was a county with a
spirited gentry, and one of which no colony need be ashamed.

My mother was a tender-hearted parent, and full of anxiety in behalf of an
only child. She knew that travelling always has more or less of hazard,
and was desirous we should be off betimes, in order to make certain of our
reaching town before the night set in. Highway robbers, Heaven be praised!
were then, and are still, unknown to the colonies; but there were other
dangers that gave my excellent parent much concern. All the bridges were
not considered safe; the roads were, and are yet, very circuitous, and it
was possible to lose one's way; while it was said persons had been known to
pass the night on Harlem common, an uninhabited waste that lies some seven
or eight miles on our side of the city. My mother's first care, therefore,
was to get Dirck and myself off early in the morning; in order to do which
she rose with the light, gave us our breakfasts immediately afterwards, and
thus enabled us to quit Satanstoe just as the sun had burnished the eastern
sky with its tints of flame-colour.

Dirck was in high good-humour that morning, and, to own the truth, Corny
did not feel the depression of spirits which, according to the laws of
propriety, possibly ought to have attended the first really free departure
of so youthful an adventurer from beneath the shadows of the paternal roof.
We went our way laughing and chatting like two girls just broke loose from
boarding-school. I had never known Dirck more communicative, and I got
certain new insights into his feelings, expectations and prospects, as we
rode along the colony's highway that morning, that afterwards proved to
be matters of much interest with us both. We had not got a mile from the
chimney-tops of Satanstoe, ere my friend broke forth as follows:--

"I suppose you have heard, Corny, what the two old gentlemen have been at,
lately?"

"Your father and mine?--I have not heard a syllable of any thing new."

"They have been suing out, before the Governor and Council, a joint claim
to that tract of land they bought of the Mohawks, the last time they were
out together on service in the colony militia."

I ought to mention, here, that though my predecessors had made but few
campaigns in the regular army, each had made several in the more humble
capacity of a militia officer.

"This is news to me, Dirck," I answered. "Why should the old gentlemen have
been so sly about such a thing?"

"I cannot tell you, lest they thought silence the best way to keep off the
yankees. You know, my father has a great dread of a yankee's getting a
finger into any of his bargains. He says the yankees are the locusts of the
west."

"But, how came you to know any thing about it, Dirck?"

"I am no yankee, Corny."

"And your father told _you_ on the strength of this recommendation?"

"He told me, as he tells me most things that he thinks it best I should
know. We smoke together, and then we talk together."

"I would learn to smoke too, if I thought I should get any useful
information by so doing."

"Dere is much to be l'arnt from ter pipe!" said Dirck, dropping into a
slightly Dutch accent, as frequently happened with him, when his mind took
a secret direction towards Holland, though in general he spoke English
quite as well as I did myself, and vastly better than that miracle of
taste, and learning, and virtue, and piety, Mr. Jason Newcome, A.B., of
Yale, and prospective president of that, or some other institution.

"So it would seem, if your father is telling you secrets all the time you
are smoking together. But where is this land, Dirck?"

"It is in the Mohawk country--or, rather, it is in the country near the
Hampshire Grants, and at no great distance from the Mohawk country."

"And how much may there be of it?"

"Forty thousand acres; and some of it of good, rich flats, they say; such
as a Dutchman loves."

"And your father and mine have purchased all this land in company, you
say--share and share alike, as the lawyers call it."

"Just so."

"Pray how much did they pay for so large a tract of land?"

Dirck took time to answer this question. He first drew from his breast a
pocket-book, which he opened as well as he could under the motion of his
roadster, for neither of us abated his speed, it being indispensable to
reach town before dark. My friend succeeded at length in putting his hand
on the paper he wanted, which he gave to me.

"There," he said; "that is a list of the articles paid to the Indians,
which I have copied, and then there have been several hundred pounds of
fees paid to the Governor and his officers."

I read from the list, as follows; the words coming out by jerks, as the
trotting of my horse permitted. "Fifty blankets, each with yellow strings
and yellow trimmings; ten iron pots, four gallons each; forty pounds of
gunpowder; seven muskets; twelve pounds of small beads; ten strings of
wampum; fifty gallons of rum, pure Jamaica, and of high proof; a score of
jews-harps, and three dozen first quality English-made tomahawks."

"Well, Dirck," I cried, as soon as through reading, "this is no great
matter to give for forty thousand acres of land, in the colony of New York.
I dare say a hundred pounds currency ($250) would buy every thing here,
even to the rum and the first quality of English-made tomahawks."

"Ninety-six pounds, thirteen shillings, seven pence 't'ree fart'in's' was
the footing of the whole bill," answered Dirck deliberately, preparing to
light his pipe; for he could smoke very conveniently while trotting no
faster than at the rate of six miles the hour.

"I do not find that dear for forty thousand acres; I suppose the muskets,
and rum, and other things were manufactured expressly for the Indian
trade."

'Not they, Corny: you know how it is with the old gentlemen;--they are as
honest as the day."

"So much the better for them, and so much the better for us! But what is to
be done with this land, now they own it?"

Dirck did not answer, until we had trotted twenty rods; for by this time
the pipe was at work, and the moment that smoke was seen he kept his eye on
it, until he saw a bright light in front of his nose.

"The first thing will be to find it, Corny. When a patent is signed and
delivered, then you must send forth some proper person to find the land it
covers. I have heard of a gentleman who got a grant of ten thousand acres,
five years since; and though he has had a hunt for it every summer since,
he has not been able to find it yet. To be sure, ten thousand acres is a
small object to look for, in the woods."

"And our fathers intend to find this land as soon as the season opens?"

"Not so fast, Corny; not so fast! That was the scheme of your father's
Welsh blood, but mine takes matters more deliberately. Let us wait until
next year, he said, and then we can send the boys. By that time, too, the
war will take some sort of a shape, and we shall know better how to care
for the children. The subject has been fairly talked over between the two
patentees, and we are to go early _next_ spring, not this."

The idea of land-hunting was not in the least disagreeable to me; nor was
it unpleasant to think that I stood in reversion, or as heir, to twenty
thousand acres of land, in addition to those of Satanstoe. Dirck and I
talked the matter over, as we trotted on, until both of us began to regret
that the expedition was so far in perspective.

The war to which Dirck alluded, had broken out a few months before our
visit to town: a Mr. Washington, of Virginia--the same who has since become
so celebrated as the Col Washington of Braddock's defeat, and other events
at the south--having been captured, with a party of his men, in a small
work thrown up in the neighbourhood of the French, somewhere on the
tributaries of the Ohio; a river that is known to run into the Mississippi,
a vast distance to the west. I knew very little then, nor do I know much
now of these remote regions, beyond the fact that there are such places,
and that they are sometimes visited by detachments, war-parties, hunters,
and other adventurers from the colonies. To me, it seems scarce worth
fighting about such distant and wild territory; for ages and ages must
elapse before it can be of any service for the purposes of civilization.
Both Dirck and myself regretted that the summer would be likely to go by
without our seeing the enemy; for we came of families that were commonly
employed on such, occasions. We thought both our fathers might be out;
though even that was a point that still remained under discussion.

We dined and baited at Kingsbridge, intending to sup in town. While the
dinner was cooking, Dirck and I walked out on the heights that overlook the
Hudson; for I knew less of this noble river than I wished to know of it. We
conversed as we walked; and my companion, who knew the river much better
than myself, having many occasions to pass up and down it, between the
village of Haverstraw and town, in his frequent visits to his relatives
below, gave me some useful information.

"Look here, Corny," said Dirck, after betraying a good deal of desire to
obtain a view of some object in the distance, along the river-side; "Look
here, Corny, do you see yonder house, in the little bay below us, with the
lawn that extends down to the water; and that noble orchard behind it?"

I saw the object to which Dirck alluded. It was a house that stood near the
river, but sheltered and secluded, with the lawn and orchard as described;
though at the distance of some two or three miles all the beauties of the
spot could not be discovered, and many of them had to be received on the
faith of my companion's admiration. Still I saw very plainly, all the
principal objects named; and, among others, the house, the orchard, and the
lawn. The building was of stone--as is common with most of the better sort
of houses in the country--was long, irregular, and had that air of
solid comfort about it, which it is usual to see in buildings of that
description. The walls were not whitewashed, according to the lively tastes
of our Dutch fellow-colonists, who appear to expend all their vivacity in
the pipe and the brush, but were left in their native grey; a circumstance
that rendered the form and dimensions of the structure a little less
distinct, at a first glance, than they might otherwise have proved. As
I gazed at the spot, however, I began to fancy it a charm, to find the
picture thus sobered down; and found a pleasure in drawing the different
angles, and walls, and chimneys, and roofs, from this back-ground, by means
of the organ of sight. On the whole, I thought the little sequestered bay,
the wooded and rocky shores, the small but well distributed lawn, the
orchard, with all the other similar accessories, formed together one of the
prettiest places of the sort I had ever seen. Thinking so, I was not slow
in saying as much to my companion. I was thought to have some taste in
these matters, and had been consulted on the subject of laying out grounds
by one or two neighbours in the county.

"Whose house is it, Dirck?" I enquired; "and how came you to know anything
about it?"

"That is Lilacsbush," answered my friend; "and it belongs to my mother's
cousin, Herman Mordaunt."

I had heard of Herman, or, as it is pronounced, Harmar Mordaunt. He was
a man of considerable note in the colony, having been the son of a Major
Mordaunt, of the British army, who had married the heiress of a wealthy
Dutch merchant, whence the name of Herman; which had descended to the son
along with the money. The Dutch were so fond of their own blood, that they
never failed to give this Mr. Mordaunt his Christian name; and he was
usually known in the colony as Herman Mordaunt. Further than this, I knew
little of the gentleman, unless it might be that he was reputed rich, and
was admitted to be in the best society, though not actually belonging to
the territorial or political aristocracy of the colony.

"As Herman Mordaunt is your mother's cousin, I suppose, Dirck," I resumed,
"that you have been at Lilacsbush, and ascertained whether the inside of
the house is as pleasant and respectable as the outside."

"Often, Corny; while Madam Mordaunt lived, my mother and I used to go there
every summer. The poor lady is now dead, but I go there still."

"Why did you not ride on as far as Lilacsbush, and levy a dinner on your
relations? I should think Herman Mordaunt would feel hurt, were he to learn
that an acquaintance, or a relation, had put up at an inn, within a couple
of miles of his own house. I dare say he knows both Major and Capt.
Littlepage, and I protest I shall feel it necessary to send him a note of
apology for not calling. These things ought not to be done, Dirck, among
persons of a certain stamp, and who are supposed to know what is proper."

"This would be all right enough, Corny, had Herman Mordaunt, or his
daughter, been at Lilacsbush; but they live in Crown Street, in town, in
winter, and never come out here until after the Pinkster holidays, let
_them_ come when they may."

"Oh! he is as great a man as that, is he?--a town and country house; after
all, I do not know whether it would do to be quite so free with one of his
standing, as to go to dine with him without sending notice."

"Nonsense, Corny. Who hesitates about stopping at a gentleman's door, when
he is travelling? Herman Mordaunt would have given us a hearty welcome,
and I should have gone on to Lilacsbush, did I not know that the family
is certain to be in town at this season. Easter came early this year, and
to-morrow will be the first day of the Pinkster holidays. As soon as they
are over, Herman Mordaunt and Anneke will be out here to enjoy their lilacs
and roses."

"Oh, ho! there is an Anneke, as well as the old gentleman. Pray, how old
may Miss Anneke be, Master Dirck?"

As this question was asked, I turned to look my friend in the face, and I
found that his handsome, smooth, fair Dutch lineaments were covered with a
glow of red, that it was not usual to see extended so far from his ruddy
cheeks. Dirck was too much of a man, however, to turn away, or to try to
hide blushes so ingenuous; but he answered stoutly--

"My cousin, Anneke Mordaunt, is just turned of seventeen; and, I'll tell
you what, Corny--"

"Well--I am listening, with both ears, to hear your _what_--Out with it,
man; both ears are open."

"Why, Anneke (On-na-_kay_), is one of the very prettiest girls in the
colony!--What is more, she is as sweet and goot"--Dirck grew Dutch, as he
grew animated--"as she is pretty."

I was quite astounded at the energy and feeling with which this was said.
Dirck was such a matter-of-fact fellow, that I had never dreamed he could
be sensible to the passion of love; nor had I ever paused to analyze the
nature of our own friendship. We liked each other, in the first place, most
probably, from habit; then, we were of characters so essentially different,
that our attachment was influenced by that species of excitement which is
the child of opposition. As we grew older, Dirck's good qualities began to
command my respect, and reason entered more into my affection for him. I
was well convinced that my companion could, and would, prove to be a warm
friend; but the possibility of his ever becoming a lover, had not before
crossed my mind. Even then, the impression made was not very deep or
lasting, though I well remember the sort of admiration and wonder with
which I gazed at his flushed cheek, animated eye, and improved mien. For
the moment, Dirck really had a commanding and animated air.

"Why, Anneke is one of the prettiest girls in the colony!" my friend had
exclaimed.

"And your cousin?"

"My second cousin.--Her mother's father and my mother's mother were brother
and sister."

"In that case, I shall hope to have the honour of being introduced, one of
these days, to Miss Anneke Mordaunt, who is just turned of seventeen, and
is one of the prettiest girls in the colony, and is as good as she is
pretty."

"I wish you to see her, Corny, and that before we go home," Dirck replied,
all his philosophy, or phlegm, whichever the philosophy of other people may
term it, returning; "come; let us go back to the inn; our dinner will be
getting cold."

I mused on my friend's unusual manner, as we walked back towards the inn;
but it was soon forgotten, in the satisfaction produced by eating a
good, substantial meal of broiled ham, with hot potatoes, boiled eggs,
a beefsteak, done to a turn, with the accessions of pickles, cold-slaw,
apple-pie, and cider. This is a common New York tavern dinner, for the
wayfarer; and, I must say, I have got to like it. Often have I enjoyed such
a repast, after a sharp forenoon's ride; ay, and enjoyed it more than I
have relished entertainments at which have figured turkies, oysters, hams,
hashes, and other dishes, that have higher reputations. Even turtle-soup,
for which we are somewhat famous in New York, has failed to give me the
same delight.

Dirck, to do him justice, ate heartily; for it is not an easy matter to
take away his appetite. As usual, I did most of the talking; and that
was with our landlady, who, hearing I was a son of her much-esteemed and
constant customer, Major Littlepage, presented herself with the dessert and
cheese, and did me the honour to commence a discourse. Her name was Light;
and light was she certain to cast on everything she discussed; that is to
say, innkeeper's light; which partakes somewhat of the darkness that is so
apt to overshadow no small portion of the minds of her many customers.

"Pray, Mrs. Light," I asked, when there was an opening, which was not until
the good woman had exhausted her breath in honour of the Littlepages,
"do you happen to know anything of a family, hereabouts, of the name of
Mordaunt?"

"Do I _happen_ to know, sir!--Why, Mr. Littlepage, you might almost as well
have asked me, if I had ever heard of a Van Cortlandt, or a Philipse, or
a Morris, or any other of the gentry hereabouts. Mr. Mordaunt has a
country-place, and a very pretty one it is, within two miles and a half of
us; and he and Madame Mordaunt never passed our door, when they went into
the country to see Madame Van Cortlandt, without stopping to say a word,
and leave a shilling. The poor lady is dead; but there is a young image
of her virtues, that is coming a'ter her, that will be likely to do some
damage in the colony. She is modesty itself, sir; so I thought it could do
her no harm, the last time she was here, just to tell her, she ought to be
locked up, for the thefts she was likely to commit, if not for them she had
committed already. She blushed, sir, and looked for all the world like the
shell of the most delicate boiled lobster you ever laid eyes on. She is
truly a charming young lady!"

"Thefts of hearts, you mean of course, my good Mrs. Light?"

"Of nothing else, sir; young ladies are apt to steal hearts, you know.
My word for it, Miss Anneke will turn out a great robber, after her own
fashion, you know, sir."

"And whose hearts is she likely to run away with, pray? I should be pleased
to hear the names of some of the sufferers."

"Lord, sir!--she is too young to have done much _yet_, but wait a
twelvemonth, and I'll answer the question."

I could see all this time that Dirck was uneasy, and had some amusement in
watching the workings of his countenance. My malicious intentions, however,
were suddenly interrupted. As if to prevent further discourse, and, at the
same time, further _espionage_, my young friend rose from table, ordering
the horses and the bill.

During the ride to town, no more was said of Lilacsbush, Herman Mordaunt,
or his daughter Anneke. Dirck was silent, but this was his habit after
dinner, and I was kept a good deal on the alert in order to find the road
which crossed the common, it being our desire to go in that direction.
It is true, we might have gone into town by the way of Bloomingdale,
Greenwich, the meadows and the Collect, and so down past the common upon
the head of Broadway; but my mother had particularly desired we would
fall into the Bowery Lane, passing the seats that are to be found in that
quarter, and getting into Queen Street as soon as possible. By taking this
course she thought we should be less likely to miss our way within the town
itself, which is certainly full of narrow and intricate passages. My uncle
Legge had removed into Duke Street, in the vicinity of Hanover Square;
and Queen Street, I well knew, would lead us directly to his door. Queen
Street, indeed, is the great artery of New York, through which most of its
blood circulates.

It was drawing towards night when we trotted up to the stable, where we
left our horses, and obtaining a black to shoulder our portmanteaus, we
began to thread the mazes of the capital on foot. New York was certainly,
even in 1757, a wonderful place for commerce! Vessels began to be seen
some distance east of Fly Market, and there could not have been fewer than
twenty ships, brigs, and schooners, lying in the East river, as we walked
down Queen Street. Of course I include all descriptions of vessels that go
to sea, in this estimate. At the present moment, it is probable twice
that number would be seen. There Dirck and I stopped more than once,
involuntarily, to gaze at the exhibitions of wealth and trade that offered
themselves as we went deeper into the town. My mother had particularly
cautioned me against falling into this evidence of country habits, and
I felt much ashamed at each occurrence of the weakness; but I found it
irresistible. At length my friend and I parted; he to go to the residence
of his aunt, while I proceeded to that of mine. Before separating, however
we agreed to meet next morning in the fields at the head of Broadway,
on the common, which, as it was understood, was to be the scene of the
Pinkster sports.

My reception in Duke Street was cordial, both on the part of my uncle and
on the part of my aunt; the first being a good-hearted person, though a
little too apt to run into extravagance on the subject of the rights of the
rabble. I was pleased with the welcome I received, enjoyed an excellent hot
supper, to which we sat down at half-past eight, my aunt being fond of town
hours, both dining and supping a little later than my mother, as being more
fashionable and genteel. [9] As I was compelled to confess fatigue, after
so long a ride, as soon as we quitted the table I retired to my own room.

The next day was the first of the three that are devoted to Pinkster, the
great Saturnalia of the New York blacks. Although this festival is always
kept with more vivacity at Albany than in York, it is far from being
neglected, even now, in the latter place. I had told my aunt, before I left
her, I should not wait for breakfast, but should be up with the sun, and
off in quest of Dirck, in order that we might enjoy a stroll along the
wharves before it was time to repair to the common, where the fun was to
be seen. Accordingly I got out of the house betimes, though it was an hour
later than I had intended; for I heard the rattling of cups in the little
parlour, the sign that the table was undergoing the usual process of
arrangement for breakfast. It then occurred to me that most, if not all of
the servants, seven in number, would be permitted to enjoy the holiday;
and that it might be well if I took all my meals, that day, in the fields.
Running back to the room, I communicated this intention to Juno, the girl I
found doing Pompey's work, and left the house on a jump. There was no
great occasion for starving, I thought, in a town as large and as full
of eatables as New York; and the result fully justified this reasonable
opinion.

Just as I got into Hanover Square, I saw a grey-headed negro, who was for
turning a penny before he engaged in the amusements of the day, carrying
two pails that were scoured to the neatness of Dutch fastidiousness, and
which were suspended from the yoke he had across his neck and shoulders. He
cried "White wine--white wine!" in a clear sonorous voice; and I was at his
side in a moment. White wine was, and is still, my delight of a morning;
and I bought a delicious draught of the purest and best of a Communipaw
vintage, eating a cake at the same time. Thus refreshed, I proceeded into
the square, the beauty of which had struck my fancy as I walked through it
the previous evening. To my surprise, whom should I find in the very centre
of Queen Street, gaping about him with a most indomitable Connecticut
air, but Jason Newcome! A brief explanation let me into the secret of his
presence. His boys had all gone home to enjoy the Pinkster holiday, with
the black servants of their respective families; and Jason had seized the
opportunity to pay his first visit to the great capital of the colony. He
was on his travels, like myself.

"And what has brought you down here?" I demanded, the pedagogue having
already informed me that he had put up at a tavern in the suburbs, where
horse-keeping and lodgings were "reasonable." "The Pinkster fields are up
near the head of Broadway, on the common."

"So I hear," answered Jason; "but I want to see a ship and all the sights
this way, in the first place. It will be time enough for Pinkster, two or
three hours hence, if a Christian ought even to look at such vanities. Can
you tell me where I am to find Hanover Square, Corny?"

"You are in it now, Mr. Newcome; and to my fancy, a very noble area it is!"

"_This_ Hanover Square!" repeated Jason. "Why, its shape is not that of a
square at all; it is nearer a _triangle_."

"What of that, sir? By a square in a town, one does not necessarily
understand an area with four equal sides and as many right angles, but an
open space that is left for air and beauty. There are air and beauty enough
to satisfy any reasonable man. A square may be a parallelogram, or a
triangle, or any other shape one pleases."

"This, then, is Hanover Square!--a New York square, or a Nassau Hall
square, Corny; but not a Yale College square, take my word for it. It is so
small, moreover!"

"Small!--the width of the street at the widest end must be near a hundred
feet; I grant you it is not half that at the other end, but that is owing
to the proximity of the houses."

"Ay, it is all owing to the proximity of the houses, as you call it. Now,
according to my notion, Hanover Square, of which a body hears so much talk
in the country, ought to have had fifty or sixty acres in it, and statues
of the whole House of Brunswick, besides. Why is that nest of houses left
in the middle of your square?"

"It is not, sir. The square ceases when it reaches _them._ They are too
valuable to be torn down, although there has been some talk of it. My uncle
Legge told me, last evening, that those houses have been valued as high as
twelve thousand dollars; and some persons put them as high as six thousand
pounds."

This reconciled Jason to the houses; for he never failed to defer to money,
come in what shape it would. It was the only source of human distinction
that he could clearly comprehend, though he had some faint impressions
touching the dignity of the crown, and the respect due to its
representatives.

"Corny," said Jason, in an under tone, and taking me by the arm to lead me
aside, though no one was near, like a man who has a great secret to ask, or
to communicate, "what was that I saw you taking for your bitters, a little
while ago?"

"Bitters! I do not understand you, Jason. Nothing bitter have I tasted
to-day; nor can I say I have any great wish to put anything bitter into my
mouth."

"Why, the draught you got from the nigger who is now coming back across the
square, as you call it, and which you seemed to enj'y particularly. I am
dry, myself, and should wonderfully like a drink."

"Oh! that fellow sells 'white wine,' and you will find it delicious. If you
want your 'bitters,' as you call them, you cannot do better than stop him,
and give him a penny."

"Will he let it go so desperate cheap as that?" demanded Jason, his eyes
twinkling with a sort of "bitters" expectation.

"That is the stated price. Stop him boldly; there is no occasion for all
this Connecticut modesty. Here, uncle, this gentleman wishes a cup of your
white wine."

Jason turned away in alarm, to see who was looking on; and, when the cup
was put into his hand, he shut his eyes, determined to gulp its contents at
a swallow, in the most approved "bitters" style. About half the liquor went
down his throat, the rest being squirted back in a small white stream.

"Buttermilk, by Jingo!" exclaimed the disappointed pedagogue, who expected
some delicious combination of spices with rum. St. Jingo was the only
saint, and a "darnation" or "darn you," were the only oaths his puritan
education ever permitted him to use.

[Footnote 9: The dinner of the last half century is, in one sense, but a
substitute for the _petits soupers_ of the century or two that preceded. It
is so entirely rational and natural, that the cultivated and refined should
meet for the purposes of social enjoyment after the business of the day has
terminated, that the supper has only given place to the same meal under
another name, and at hours little varying from those of the past. The
Parisian dines at half-past six, remaining at table until eight. The
Englishman, later in all his hours, and more ponderous in all his habits,
sits down to table about the time the Frenchman gets up; quitting it
between nine and ten. The Italian pays a tribute to his climate, and has
his early dinner and light supper, both usually alone, the habits of the
country carrying him to the opera and the _conversazione_ for social
communion. But what is the American? A jumble of the same senseless
contradictions in his social habits, as he is fast getting to be in his
political creeds and political practices; a being that is _in transitu_,
pressed by circumstances on the one side, and by the habit of imitation on
the other; unwilling, almost unable, to think and act for himself. The only
American who is temporarily independent in such things, is the unfledged
provincial, fresh from his village conceit and village practices, who,
until corrected by communion with the world, fancies the south-east corner
of the north-west parish, in the town of Hebron, in the county of Jericho,
and the State of Connecticut, to be the only portion of this globe that is
perfection. If he should happen to keep a school, or conduct a newspaper,
the community becomes, in a small degree, the participant of his rare
advantages and vast experience!--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER V.

  "Here's your fine clams!
  As white as snow!
  On Rockaway these clams do grow."

  _New York Cries_.


It was some time before Jason's offended dignity and disappointment would
permit him to smile at the mistake; and we had walked some distance towards
Old Slip, where I was to meet Dirck, before the pedagogue even opened his
lips. Then, the only allusion he made to the white wine, was to call it
"a plaguy Dutch cheat;" for Jason had implicitly relied on having that
peculiar beverage of his caste, known as "bitters." What he meant by
a _Dutch_ cheat, I do not know; unless he thought the buttermilk was
particularly Dutch, and _this_ buttermilk an imposition.

Dirck was waiting for me at the Old Slip; and, on inquiry, I found he had
enjoyed his draught of white wine as well as myself, and was ready for
immediate service. We proceeded along the wharves in a body, admiring the
different vessels that lined them. About nine o'clock, all three of us
passed up Wall Street, on the stoops of which, no small portion of its
tenants were already seated, enjoying the sight of the negroes, as, with
happy "shining" faces they left the different dwellings, to hasten to the
Pinkster field. Our passage through the street attracted a good deal of
attention; for, being all three strangers, it was not to be supposed we
could be thus seen in a body, without exciting a remark. Such a thing could
hardly have been expected in London itself.

After showing Jason the City Hall, Trinity Church, and the City Tavern, we
went out of town, taking the direction of a large common that the King's
officers had long used for a parade-ground, and which has since been called
the Park, though it would be difficult to say why, since it is barely a
paddock in size, and certainly has never been used to keep any animals
wilder than the boys of the town. A park, I suppose, it will one day
become, though it has little at present that comports with my ideas of such
a thing. On this common, then, was the Pinkster ground, which was now quite
full of people, as well as of animation.

There was nothing new in a Pinkster frolic, either to Dirck, or to myself;
though Jason gazed at the whole procedure with wonder. He was born within
seventy miles of that very spot, but had not the smallest notion before, of
such a holiday as Pinkster. There are few blacks in Connecticut, I believe;
and those that are there, are so ground down in the Puritan mill, that they
are neither fish, flesh, nor red-herring, as we say of a nondescript. No
man ever heard of a festival in New England, that had not some immediate
connection with the saints, or with politics.

Jason was at first confounded with the noises, dances, music, and games
that were going on. By this time, nine-tenths of the blacks of the city,
and of the whole country within thirty or forty miles, indeed, were
collected in thousands in those fields, beating banjoes, singing African
songs, drinking, and worst of all, laughing in a way that seemed to set
their very hearts rattling within their ribs. Everything wore the aspect of
good-humour, though it was good-humour in its broadest and coarsest forms.
Every sort of common game was in requisition, while drinking was far from
being neglected. Still, not a man was drunk. A drunken negro, indeed, is by
no means a common thing. The features that distinguish a Pinkster frolic
from the usual scenes at fairs, and other merry-makings, however, were of
African origin. It is true, there are not now, nor were there then, many
blacks among us of African birth; but the traditions and usages of their
original country were so far preserved as to produce a marked difference
between this festival, and one of European origin. Among other things, some
were making music, by beating on skins drawn over the ends of hollow
logs, while others were dancing to it, in a manner to show that they felt
infinite delight. This, in particular, was said to be a usage of their
African progenitors.

Hundreds of whites were walking through the fields, amused spectators.
Among these last were a great many children of the better class, who had
come to look at the enjoyment of those who attended them, in their own
ordinary amusements. Many a sable nurse did I see that day, chaperoning
her young master, a young mistress, or both together, through the various
groups; demanding of all, and receiving from all, the respect that one of
these classes was accustomed to pay to the other.

A great many young ladies between the ages of fifteen and twenty were also
in the field, either escorted by male companions, or, what was equally as
certain of producing deference, under the dare of old female nurses, who
belonged to the race that kept the festival. We had been in the field
ourselves two hours, and even Jason was beginning to condescend to be
amused, when, unconsciously, I got separated from my companions, and was
wandering through the groups by myself, as I came on a party of young
girls, who were under the care of two or three wrinkled and grey-headed
negresses, so respectably attired, as to show at once they were
confidential servants in some of the better families. As for the young
ladies themselves, most were still of the age of school girls; though there
were some of that equivocal age, when the bud is just breaking into the
opening flower, and one or two that were even a little older; young women
in forms and deportment, though scarcely so in years. One of a party of two
of the last, appeared to me to possess all the grace of young womanhood,
rendered radiant by the ingenuous laugh, the light-hearted playfulness, and
the virgin innocence of sweet seventeen. She was simply, but very prettily
dressed, and everything about her attire, air, carriage and manner, denoted
a young lady of the better class, who was just old enough to feel all the
proprieties of her situation, while she was still sufficiently youthful to
enjoy all the fun. As she came near me, it seemed as if I knew her; but it
was not until I heard her sweet, mirthful voice, that I recollected the
pretty little thing in whose behalf I had taken a round with the butcher's
boy, on the Bowery road, near six years before. As her party came quite
near the spot where I stood, what was only conjecture at first, was reduced
to a certainty.

In the surprise of the moment, happening to catch the eye of the young
creature, I was emboldened to make her a low bow. At first she smiled,
like one who fancies she recognises an acquaintance; then her face became
scarlet, and she returned my bow with a very lady-like, but, at the same
time, a very distant curtsey; upon which, bending her blue eyes to the
ground, she turned away, seemingly to speak to her companion. After this,
I could not advance to speak, though I was strongly in hopes the old black
nurse who was with her would recognise me, for she had manifested much
concern about me on the occasion of the quarrel with the young butcher.
This did not occur; and old Katrinke, as I heard the negress called,
jabbered away, explaining the meaning of the different ceremonies of
her race, to a cluster of very interested listeners, without paying any
attention to me. The tongues of the pretty little things went, as girls'
tongues will go, though my unknown fair one maintained all the reserve
and quiet of manner that comported with her young womanhood, and apparent
condition in life.

"Dere, Miss Anneke!" exclaimed Katrinke, suddenly; "dere come a genttleum
dat will bring a pleasure, I know."

"_Anneke," I_ repeated, mentally, and "gentleman that will cause pleasure
by his appearance." "Can it be Dirck?" I thought. Sure enough, Dirck it
proved to be, who advanced rapidly to the group, making a general salute,
and finishing by shaking my beautiful young stranger's hands, and
addressing her by the name of "cousin Anneke." This, then, was Annie
Mordaunt, as the young lady was commonly called in the English circles,
the only child and heiress of Herman Mordaunt, of Crown Street and of
Lilacsbush. Well, Dirck has more taste than I had ever given him credit
for! Just as this thought glanced through my mind, my figure caught my
friend's eye, and, with a look of pride and exultation, he signed to me to
draw nearer, though I had managed to get pretty near as it was, already.

"Cousin Anneke," said Dirck, who never used circumlocution, when direct
means were at all available, "this is Corny Littlepage, of whom you have
heard me speak so often, and for whom I ask one of your best curtsies and
sweetest smiles."

Miss Mordaunt was kind enough to comply literally, both curtsying and
smiling precisely as she had been desired to do, though I could see she was
also slightly disposed to laugh. I was still making my bow, and mumbling
some unintelligible compliment, when Katrinke gave a little exclamation,
and using the freedom of an old and confidential servant, she eagerly
pulled the sleeve of her young mistress, and hurriedly whispered something
in her ear. Anneke coloured, turned quickly towards me, bent her eyes more
boldly and steadily on my face--and then it was that I fancied the sweetest
smile which mortal had ever received, or that with which I had just before
been received, was much surpassed.

"Mr. Littlepage, I believe, is not a total stranger, cousin Dirck," she
said. "Katrinke remembers him, as a young gentleman who once did me an
important service, and now I think I can trace the resemblance myself! I
allude to the boy who insulted me on the Bowery Road, Mr. Littlepage, and
your handsome interference in my behalf."

"Had there been twenty boys, Miss Mordaunt, an insult to _you_ would have
been resented by any man of ordinary spirit."

I do not know that any youth, who was suddenly put to his wits to be
polite, or sentimental, or feeling, could have done a great deal better
than _that_! So Anneke thought too, I fancy, for her colour increased,
rendering her ravishingly lovely, and she looked surprisingly pleased.

"Yes," put in Dirck with energy,--"let twenty, or a hundred try it if they
please, Anneke, men or boys, and they'll find those that will protect you."

"You for one, of course, cousin Dirck," rejoined the charming girl, holding
out her hand towards my friend, with a frankness I could have dispensed
with in her; "but, you will remember, Mr. Littlepage, or _Master_
Littlepage as he then was, was a stranger, and I had no such claim on
_him_, as I certainly have on you."

"Well, Corny, it is odd you never said a word of this to me! when I was
showing him Lilacsbush, and talking of you and of your father, not a word
did he say on the subject."

"I did not then know it was Miss Mordaunt I had been so fortunate as to
serve; but here is Mr. Newcome at your elbow, Follock, and dying to be
introduced, as he sees I have been."

Anneke turned to smile and curtsey again to Jason, who made his bow in
a very school-master sort of a fashion, while I could see that the
circumstance I had not boasted of my exploit gave it new importance in the
sweet creature's eyes. As for Jason, he had no sooner got along with
the introduction,--the first, I fancy, he had ever gone regularly
through,--than, profiting by some questions Miss Mordaunt was asking Dirck
about his mother and the rest of the family, he came round to me, drew me
aside by a jerk of the sleeve, and gave me to understand he had something
for my private ear.

"I did not know before that you had ever kept school, Corny," he half
whispered earnestly.

"How do you know it now, Mr. Newcome? since the thing never happened?"

"How comes it, then, that this young woman called you _Master_ Littlepage?"

"Bah! Jason, wait a year or two, and you will begin to get truer notions of
us New Yorkers."

"But I heard her with my own ears--_Master_ Littlepage; as plain as words
were ever called."

"Well, then, Miss Mordaunt must be right, and I have forgotten the affair.
I must once have kept a woman's school, somewhere^ in my younger days, but
forgotten it."

"Now this is nothing (nawthin', as expressed) but you? desperate York
pride, Corny; but I think all the better of you for it. Why, as it could
not have taken place after you went to college, you must have got the start
of even me! But, the Rev. Mr. Worden is enough to start a youth with a
large capital, if he be so minded. I admit he does understand the dead
languages. It is a pity he is so very dead in religious matters."

"Well--well--I will tell you all about it another time, you perceive, now,
that Miss Mordaunt wishes to move on, and does not like to quit us too
abruptly. Let us follow."

Jason complied, and for an hour or two we had the pleasure of accompanying
the young ladies, as they strolled among the booths and different groups of
that singular assembly. As has been said, most of the blacks had been born
in the colony, but there were some native Africans among them. New York
never had slaves on the system of the southern planters, or in gangs of
hundreds, to labour in the fields under overseers, and who lived apart in
cabins of their own; but, our system of slavery was strictly domestic, the
negro almost invariably living under the same roof with the master, or, if
his habitation was detached, as certainly sometimes happened, it was still
near at hand, leaving both races as parts of a common family. In the
country, the negroes never toiled in the field, but it was as ordinary
husbandmen; and, in the cases of those who laboured on their own property,
or as tenants of some extensive land-ford, the black did his work at his
master's side. Then all, or nearly all our household servants were, and
still are, blacks, leaving that department of domestic economy almost
exclusively in their hands, with the exception of those cases in which the
white females busied themselves also in such occupations, united to the
usual supervision of the mistresses. Among the Dutch, in particular, the
treatment of the negro was of the kindest character, a trusty field slave
often having quite as much to say on the subject of the tillage and the
crops, as the man who owned both the land he worked, and himself.

A party of native Africans kept us for half an hour. The scene seemed to
have revived their early associations, and they were carried away with
their own representation of semi-savage sports. The American-born blacks
gazed at this group with intense interest also, regarding them as so many
ambassadors from the land of their ancestors, to enlighten them in usages
and superstitious lore, that were more peculiarly suited to their race. The
last even endeavoured to imitate the acts of the first, and, though the
attempt was often ludicrous, it never failed on the score of intention and
gravity. Nothing was done in the way of caricature, but much in the way of
respect and affection.

Lest the habits of this generation should pass away and be forgotten, of
which I see some evidence, I will mention a usage that was quite common
among the Dutch, and which has passed in some measure, into the English
families that have formed connections with the children of Holland. Two of
these intermarriages had so far brought the Littlepages within the pale,
that the usage to which I allude was practised in my own case. The custom
was this: when a child of the family reached the age of six, or eight, a
young slave of the same age and sex, was given to him, or her, with some
little formality, and from that moment the fortunes of the two were
considered to be, within the limits of their respective pursuits and
positions, as those of man and wife. It is true, divorces do occur, but it
is only in cases of gross misconduct, and quite as often the misconduct is
on the side of the master, as on that of the slave. A drunkard may get in
debt, and be compelled to part with his blacks this one among the rest; but
this particular negro remains with him as long as anything remains. Slaves
that seriously misbehave, are usually sent to the islands, where the toil
on the sugar plantations proves a very sufficient punishment.

The day I was six, a boy was given to me, in the manner I have mentioned;
and he remained not only my property, but my factotum, to this moment.
It was Yaap, or Jacob, the negro to whom I have already had occasion to
allude. Anneke Mordaunt, whose grandmother was of a Dutch family, it will
be remembered, had with her there, in the Pinkster field, a negress of just
her own age, who was called Mari; not Mary, or Maria; but the last, as
it would be pronounced without the final a. This _Mari_ was a buxom,
glistening, smooth-faced, laughing, red-lipped, pearl-toothed, black-eyed
hussy, that seemed born for fun; and who was often kept in order by
her more sedate and well-mannered young mistress with a good deal of
difficulty. My fellow was on the ground, somewhere, too; for I had given
him permission to come to town to keep Pinkster; and he was to leave
Satanstoe, in a sloop, within an hour after I left it myself. The wind had
been fair, and I made no question of his having arrived; though, as yet, I
had not seen him.

I could have accompanied Anneke, and her party, all day, through that
scene of unsophisticated mirth, and felt no want of interest. Her presence
immediately produced an impression; even the native Africans moderating
their manner, and lowering their yells, as it might be, the better to suit
her more refined tastes. No one, in our set, was too dignified to laugh,
but Jason. The pedagogue, it is true, often expressed his disgust at the
amusements and antics of the negroes, declaring they were unbecoming human
beings and otherwise manifesting that disposition to hypercriticism, which
is apt to distinguish one who is only a tyro in his own case.

Such was the state of things, when Ma_ri_ came rushing up to her young
mistress, with distended eyes and uplifted hands, exclaiming, on a key that
necessarily made us all sharers in the communication--

"Oh! Miss Anneke!--What you t'ink, Miss Anneke! Could you ever s'pose sich
a t'ing, Miss Anneke!"

"Tell me at once, Mari, what it is you have seen, or heard; and leave off
these silly exclamations;" said the gentle mistress, with a colour that
proved she was unused to her own girl's manner.

"Who _could_ t'ink it, Miss Anneke! Dese, here, werry niggers have sent
all'e way to deir own country, and have had a lion cotched for Pinkster!"

This was news, indeed, if true. Not one of us all had ever seen a lion;
wild animals, then, being exceedingly scarce in the colonies, with the
exception of those that were taken in our own woods. I had seen several
of the small brown bears, and many a wolf, and one stuffed panther, in my
time; but never supposed it within the range of possibilities, that I could
be brought so near a living lion. Inquiry showed, nevertheless, that Mari
was right, with the exception of the animal's having been expressly
caught for the occasion. It was the beast of a showman, who was also the
proprietor of a very active and amusing monkey. The price of admission was
a quarter of a dollar, for adult whites; children and negroes going in for
half-price. These preliminaries understood, it was at once settled that all
who could muster enough of money and courage, should go in a body, and gaze
on the king of beasts. I say, of courage; for it required a good deal for a
female novice to go near a living lion.

The lion was kept in a cage, of course, which was placed in a temporary
building of boards, that had been erected for the Pinkster field. As we
drew near the door, I saw that the cheeks of several of the pretty young
creatures who belonged to the party of Anneke, began to turn pale; a sign
of weakness that, singular as it may appear, very sensibly extended itself
to most of their attendant negresses. Mari did not flinch, however; and,
when it came to the trial, of that sex, she and her mistress were the only
two who held out in the original resolution of entering. Some time
was thrown away in endeavouring to persuade two or three of her older
companions to go in with her; but, finding it useless, with a faint smile,
Miss Mordaunt calmly said--

"Well, gentlemen, Mari and myself must compose the female portion of the
party. I have never seen a lion, and would not, by any means, miss this
opportunity. We shall find my friends waiting for such portions of us as
shall not be eaten, on our return."

We were now near the door, where stood the man who received the money, and
gave the tickets. It happened that Dirck had been stopped by a gentleman of
his acquaintance, who had just left the building, and who was laughingly
relating some incident that had occurred within. I stood on one side of
Anneke, Jason on the other, while Mari was close in the rear.

"A quarter for each gentleman and the lady," said the door-keeper, "and a
shilling for the wench."

On this hint, Jason, to my great surprise, (for usually he was very
backward on such occasions,) drew out a purse, and emptying some silver
into his hand, he said with a flourish--

"Permit me, Miss--it is an honour I covet; a quarter for yourself, and a
shilling for Mari."

I saw Anneke colour, and her eye turn hastily towards Dirck. Before I had
time to say anything, or to do anything in fact, she answered steadily--

"Give yourself no trouble, Mr. Newcome; Mr. Littlepage will do me the
favour to obtain tickets for me."

Jason had the money in his fingers, and I passed him and bought the
tickets, while he was protesting--

"It gave him pleasure--he was proud of the occasion--another time her
brother could do the same for his sisters and he had six," and other
matters of the sort.

I simply placed the tickets in Anneke's hand, who received them with an
expression of thanks, and we all passed; Dirck inquiring of his cousin, as
he came up, if he should get her tickets. I mention this little incident as
showing the tact of woman, and will relate all that pertains to it, before
I proceed to other things. Anneke said nothing on the subject of her
tickets until we had left the booth, when she approached me, and with that
grace and simplicity which a well-bred woman knows how to use on such an
occasion, and quietly observed--

"I am under obligations to you, Mr. Littlepage, for having paid for my
tickets;--they cost three shillings, I believe."

I bowed, and had the pleasure of almost touching Miss Mordaunt's beautiful
little hand, as she gave me the money. At this instant, a jerk at my elbow
came near causing me to drop the silver. It was Jason, who had taken this
liberty, and who now led me aside with a earnestness of manner it was not
usual for him to exhibit. I saw by the portentous look of the pedagogue's
countenance, and his swelling manner, that something extraordinary was on
his mind, and waited with some little curiosity to learn what it might be.

"Why, what in human natur', Corny, do you mean?" he cried, almost angrily.
"Did ever mortal man hear of a gentleman's making a lady pay for a treat!
Do you know you have made Miss Anneke pay for a treat!"

"A treat, Mr. Newcome!"

"Yes, a treat, Mr. Corny Littlepage! How often do you think young ladies
will accompany you to shows, and balls, and other sights, if you make _them
pay_!"

Then a laugh of derision added emphasis to Jason's words.

"Pay!--could I presume to think Miss Mordaunt would suffer me to pay money
for her, or for her servant?"

"You almost make me think you a nat'ral! Young men _always_ pay for young
women, and no questions asked. Did you not remark how smartly I offered to
pay for this Miss, and how well she took it, until you stepped forward and
cut me out;--I bore it, for it saved me three nine-pences."

"I observed how Miss Mordaunt shrunk from the familiarity of being called
Miss, and how unwilling she was to let you buy the tickets; and that I
suspect was solely because she saw you had some notion of what you call a
treat."

I cannot enter into the philosophy of the thing, but certainly nothing is
more vulgar in English, to address a young lady as Miss, without affixing
a name, whereas I know it is the height of breeding to say Mademoiselle in
French, and am told the Spaniards, Italians and Germans, use its synonyme
in the same manner. I had been indignant at Jason's familiarity when he
called Anneke--the pretty Anneke!--Miss; and felt glad of an occasion to
let him understand how I felt on the subject.

"What a child you be, a'ter all, Corny!" exclaimed the pedagogue, who was
much too good-natured to take offence at a trifle. "You a bachelor of arts!
But this matter _must_ be set right, if it be only for the honour of my
school. Folks"--Jason never blundered on the words 'one' or 'people' in
this sense--"Folks may think that you have been in the school since it has
been under my care, and I wouldn't for the world have it get abroad that
a youth from my school had neglected to treat a lady under such
circumstances."

Conceiving it useless to remonstrate with _me_ any further, Jason proceeded
forthwith to Anneke, with whom he begged permission to say a word in
private. So eager was my companion to wipe out the stain, and so surprised
was the young lady, who gently declined moving more than a step, that the
conference took place immediately under my observation, neither of the
parties being aware that I necessarily heard or saw all that passed.

"You must excuse Corny, Miss," Jason commenced, producing his purse again,
and beginning to hunt anew for a quarter and a shilling; "he is quite
young, and knows nawthin' worth speaking of, of the ways of mankind. Ah!
here is just the money--three ninepennies, or three York shillings. Here,
Miss, excuse Corny, and overlook it all; when he is older, he will not make
such blunders."

"I am not certain that I understand you, sir!" exclaimed Anneke, who had
shrunk back a little at the 'Miss,' and who now saw Jason hold out the
silver, with a surprise she took no pains to conceal.

"This is the price of the tickets--yes, that's all. Naw-thin' else, on
honour. Corny, you remember, was so awful dumb as to let you pay, just as
if you had been a gentleman."

Anneke now smiled, and glancing at me at the same instant, a bright blush
suffused her face, though the meaning of my eye, as I could easily see,
strongly tempted her to laugh.

"It is very well as it is, Mr. Newcome, though I feel much indebted to
your liberal intentions," she said, turning to rejoin her friends; "it is
customary in New York for ladies to pay, themselves, for everything of this
nature. When I go to Connecticut, I shall feel infinitely indebted to you
for another such offer."

Jason did not know what to make of it! He long after insisted that the
young lady was 'huffed,' as he called it, and that she had refused to take
the money merely because she was thus offended.

"There is a manner, you know, Corny," he said, "of doing even a genteel
thing, and that is to do it genteelly. I much doubt if a genteel thing
_can_ be done ungenteelly. One thing I'm thankful for, and that is, that
she don't know that you ever were at the 'Seminarian Institute' in your
life;" such being the appellation Jason had given to that which Mr. Worden
had simply called a 'Boys' School.' To return to the booth.

The lion had many visitors, and we had some difficulty in finding places.
As a matter of course, Anneke was put in front, most of the men who were in
the booth giving way to her with respectful attention. Unfortunately,
the young lady wore an exceedingly pretty shawl, in which scarlet was a
predominant colour; and that which occurred has been attributed to this
circumstance, though I am far from affirming such to have been literally
the case. Anneke, from the first, manifested no fear; but the circle
pressing on her from without, she got so near the cage that the beast
thrust a paw through, and actually caught hold of the shawl, drawing the
alarmed girl quite up to the bars. I was at Anneke's side, and with a
presence of mind that now surprises me, I succeeded in throwing the shawl
from the precious creature's shoulders, and of fairly lifting her from the
ground and setting her down again at a safe distance from the beast. All
this passed so soon that half the persons present were unconscious of what
had occurred until it was all over; and what astonishes me most is, that I
do not retain the least recollection of the pleasure I ought to have felt
while my arm encircled Anneke Mordaunt's slender waist, and while she was
altogether supported by me. The keeper interfered immediately, and the lion
relinquished the shawl, looking like a disappointed beast when he found it
did not contain its beautiful owner.

Anneke was rescued before she had time fully to comprehend the danger she
had been in. Even Dirck could not advance to her aid, though he saw and
comprehended the imminent risk ran by the being he loved best in the world;
but Dirck was always so slow! I must do Jason the credit to say that he
behaved well, though so situated as to be of no real use. He rushed forward
to assist Anneke, and remained to draw away the shawl, as soon as the
keeper had succeeded in making the lion relinquish his hold. But, all this
passed so rapidly, as to give little opportunity for noting incidents.

Anneke was certainly well frightened by this adventure with the lion, as
was apparent by her changing colour, and a few tears that succeeded. Still,
a glass of water, and a minute or two, seated in a chair, were sufficient
to restore her self-composure, and she remained with us, for half an hour,
examining and admiring her terrible assailant.

And, here, let me add, for the benefit of those who have never had an
opportunity of seeing the king of beasts, that he is a sight well worthy to
behold! I have never viewed an elephant, which travelled gentlemen tell me
is a still more extraordinary animal, though I find it difficult to imagine
anything finer, in its way, than the lion which came so near injuring
"sweet Anne Mordaunt." I question if any of us were aware of the full
extent of the danger she ran, until we began to reflect on it coolly, after
time and leisure were afforded. As soon as the commotion naturally produced
at first, had subsided, the incident seemed forgotten, and we left the
booth, after a long visit, expatiating on the animal, and its character,
apparently in forgetfulness of that which, by one blow of his powerful paw,
the lion might have rendered fatal to one of the very sweetest and
happiest innocents of the whole province, but for the timely and merciful
interposition of a kind providence.

After the little affair of the tickets, I walked on with Anneke, who
declared her intention of quitting the field, her escape beginning to
affect her spirits, and she was afraid that some particularly kind friend
might carry an exaggerated account of what had happened to her father.
Dirck offered to accompany her home, for Mr. Mordaunt kept no carriage; or,
at least, nothing that was habitually used as a town equipage. We had all
gone as far as the verge of the Common with Anneke, when the sweet girl
stopped, looked at me earnestly, and, while her colour changed and tears
rose to her eyes, she said,--

"Mr. Littlepage, I am just getting to be fully conscious of what I owe to
you. The thing passed so suddenly, and I was so much alarmed, that I did
not know how to express myself at the time, nor am I certain that I do now.
Believe me, notwithstanding, that I never can forget this morning, and I
beg of you, if you have a sister, to carry to her the proffered friendship
of Anneke Mordaunt, and tell her that her own prayers in behalf of her
brother will not be more sincere than mine."

Before I could recollect myself, so as to make a suitable answer, Anneke
had curtsied and walked away, with her handkerchief to her eyes.




CHAPTER VI.

  "Nay, be brief:
  I see into thy end, and am almost
  A man already."

  _Cymbeline_.


As Dirck accompanied Miss Mordaunt to her father's house in Crown Street,
[10] I took an occasion to give Jason the slip, being in no humour to
listen to his lectures on the proprieties of life, and left the Pinkster
field as fast as I could. Notwithstanding the size and importance of New
York, a holiday like this could not fail to draw great crowds of persons
to witness the sports. In 1757, James de Lancey was at the head of the
government of the province, as indeed he had been, in effect, for much of
his life; and I remember to have met his chariot, carrying the younger
children of the family to the field, on my way into the town. As the day
advanced, carriages of one sort and another made their appearance in
Broadway, principally conveying the children of their different owners. All
these belonged to people of the first mark; and I saw the Ship that denotes
the arms of Livingston, the Lance, of the de Lanceys, the Burning Castle,
of the Morrises, and other armorial bearings that were well known in the
province. Carriages, certainly, were not as common in 1757 as they have
since become; but most of our distinguished people rode in their coaches,
chariots, or phaetons, or conveyances of some sort or other, when there was
occasion to go so far out of town as the Common, which is the site of the
present "Park." The roads on the island of Manhattan were very pretty and
picturesque, winding among rocks and through valleys, being lined with
groves and copses in a way to render all the drives rural and retired. Here
and there, one came to a country-house, the residence of some person of
importance, which, by its comfort and snugness, gave all the indications
of wealth and of a prudent taste. Mr. Speaker Nicoll had [11] occupied a
dwelling of this sort for a long series of years, that was about a league
from town, and which is still standing, as I pass it constantly in
travelling between Satanstoe and York. I never saw the Patentee myself, as
he died long before my birth; but his house near town still stands, as I
have said, a memorial of past ages!

The whole town seemed alive, and everybody had a desire to get a glance at
the sports of the Pinkster Field; though the more dignified and cultivated
had self-denial enough to keep aloof, since it would hardly have comported
with their years and stations to be seen in such a place. The war had
brought many regiments into the province, however, and I met at least
twenty young officers, strolling out to the scene of amusement, as I walked
into town. I will confess I gazed at these youths with admiration, and not
entirely without envy, as they passed me in pairs, laughing and diverting
themselves with the grotesque groups of blacks that were occasionally
met, coming in from their sports. These young men I knew had enjoyed the
advantages of being educated at home, some of them, quite likely, in the
Universities, and all of them amid the high civilization and taste of
England. I say all of them, too hastily; as there were young men of the
colonies among them, who probably had not enjoyed these advantages. The
easy air, self-possession, and quiet, what shall I call it?--insolence
would be too strong a word, and a term that I, the son and grandson of old
king's officers, would not like to apply, and yet it comes nearest to what
I mean as applicable to the covert manner of these young men--but, whatever
it was, that peculiar air of metropolitan superiority over provincial
ignorance and provincial dependence, which certainly distinguished all the
younger men of this class, had an effect on me, I find it difficult to
describe. I was a loyal subject, loved the King,--most particularly since
he was so identified with the Protestant succession,--loved all of the
blood-royal, and wished for nothing more than the honour and lustre of the
English crown. One thus disposed could not but feel amicably towards the
King's officers; yet, I will confess, there were moments when this air of
ill-concealed superiority, this manner that so much resembled that of the
master towards the servant, the superior to the dependent, the patron
to the client, gave me deep offence, and feelings so bitter, that I was
obliged to struggle hard to suppress them. But this is Anticipating, and is
interrupting the course of my narrative. I am inclined to think there must
always be a good deal of this feeling, where the relation of principal and
dependant exists, as between distinct territories.

I was a good deal excited, and a little fatigued with the walk and the
incidents of the morning, and determined to proceed at once to Duke Street,
and share the cold dinner of my aunt; for few private families in York,
that depended on regular cooks for their food, had anything served warm on
their tables, for that and the two succeeding days. Here and there a
white substitute was found, it is true, and we had the benefit of such an
assistant at half-past one. It was the English servant of a Col. Mosely, an
officer of the army, who was intimate at my uncle's, and who had had the
civility to offer a man for this occasion. I afterwards ascertained,
that many officers manifested the same kind spirit towards various other
families in which they visited on terms of friendship.

Marriages between young English officers and our pretty, delicate York
belles, were of frequent occurrence, and I had felt a twinge or two, on the
subject of Anneke, that morning, as I passed the youths of the 55th,
60th, or Loyal Americans, 17th, and other regiments that were then in the
province.

My aunt was descending from the drawing-room, in dinner dress--for that no
lady ever neglects, even though she dines on a cold dumpling. As I opened
the street-door, Mrs. Legge was not coming down alone to take her seat at
table, but, having some extra duty to perform in consequence of the absence
of most of her household, she was engaged in that service. Seeing me,
however, she stopped on the landing of the stains, and beckoned me to
approach.

"Corny," she said, "what have you been doing, my child, to have drawn this
honour upon you?"

"Honour!--I am ignorant of having even received any. What can you mean, my
dear aunt?"

"Here is Herman Mordaunt waiting to see you, in the drawing-room. He asked
particularly for _you_;--wishes to _see_ you--expresses his regrets that
_you_ are not in, and talks only of _you_ /"

"In which case, I ought to hasten up stairs in order to receive him, as
soon as possible. I will tell you all about it at dinner, aunt;--excuse me
now."

Away I went, with a beating heart, to receive a visit from Anneke's father.
I can scarcely give a reason why this gentleman was usually called, when
he was spoken of, and sometimes when he was spoken to, _Herman_ Mordaunt;
unless, indeed, it were, that being in part of Dutch extraction, the name
which denoted the circumstance (Hermanus--pronounced by the Hollanders,
Her_maa_nus,) was used by a portion of the population in token of the fact,
and adopted by others in pure compliance. But _Herman_ Mordaunt was
he usually styled; and this, too, in the way of respect, and not as
coarse-minded persons affect to speak of their superiors, or in a way to
boast of their own familiarity. I should have thought it an honour, at my
time of life, to receive a visit from Herman Mordaunt; but my heart fairly
beat, as I have said, as I went hastily up stairs, to meet Anneke's father.

My uncle was not in, and I found my visitor waiting for me, alone, in
the drawing-room. Aware of the state of the family, and of all families,
indeed, during Pinkster, he had insisted on my aunt's quitting him, while
he looked over some new books that had recently been received from home;
among which was a new and very handsome edition of the Spectator, a work
that enjoys a just celebrity throughout the colonies.

Mr. Mordaunt advanced to receive me with studied politeness, yet a
warmth that could not well be counterfeited, the instant I approached.
Nevertheless, his manner was easy and natural; and to me he appeared to be
the highest-bred man I had ever seen.

"I am thankful that the debt of gratitude I owe you, my
young friend," he said, at once, and without preface of any sort, unless
that of manner be so received, "is due to the son of a gentleman I so
much esteem as Evans Littlepage. A loyal subject, an honest man, and a
well-connected and well-descended gentleman, like him, may well be the
parent of a brave youth, who does not hesitate to face even lions, in
defence of the weaker sex."

"I cannot affect to misunderstand you, sir," I answered; "and I sincerely
congratulate you that matters are no worse; though you greatly overrate the
danger. I doubt if even a lion would have the heart to hurt Miss Mordaunt,
were she in his power."

I think this was a very pretty speech, for a youth of twenty; and I confess
I look back upon it, even now, with complacency. If I occasionally betray
weakness of this character, I beg the reader to recollect that I am acting
in the part of an honest historian, and that it is my aim to conceal
nothing that ought to be known.

Herman Mordaunt did not resume his seat, on account of the lateness of the
hour, (half-past one); but he made me professions of friendship, and
named Friday, the first moment when he could command the services of his
domestics, when I should dine with him. The army had introduced later hours
than was usual; and this invitation was given for three o'clock; it being
said, at the time, as I well remember, that persons of fashion in London
sat down to table even later than this. After remaining with me five
minutes, Herman Mordaunt took his leave. Of course, I accompanied him to
the door, where we parted with many bows.

At dinner, I told my uncle and aunt all that had occurred, and was glad to
hear them both speak so favourably of my new acquaintances.

"Herman Mordaunt might be a much more considerable man than he is,"
observed my uncle, "were he disposed to enter into public life. He has
talents, a good education, a very handsome estate, and is well-connected in
the colony, certainly; some say at home, also."

"And Anneke is a sweet young thing," added my aunt; "and, since Corny was
to assist any young lady, I am heartily glad it was Anneke. She is an
excellent creature, and her mother was one of my most intimate friends, as
she was of my sister Littlepage, too. You must go and inquire after her
health, this evening, Corny. Such an attention is due, after what has
passed all round."

Did I wish to comply with this advice? Out of all question; and yet I was
too young, and too little at my ease, to undertake this ceremony, without
many misgivings. Luckily, Dirck came in, in the evening; and my aunt
repeating her opinion before my friend, he at once declared it was
altogether proper, and that he thought Anneke would have a right to expect
it. As he offered to be my companion, we were soon on our way to Crown
Street, in which Mr. Mordaunt owned and inhabited a very excellent house.
We were admitted by Mr. Mordaunt himself, not one of his blacks, having yet
returned from the Pinkster field.

Dirck appeared to be on the best terms, not only with Herman Mordaunt, but
with his charming daughter. I had observed that the latter always called
him "_cousin_ Dirck," and I hardly knew whether to interpret this as a sign
of particular or of family regard. That Dirck was fonder of Anneke Mordaunt
than of any other human being, I could easily see; and I confess that the
discovery already began to cause uneasiness. I loved Dirck, and wished he
loved any one else but the very being I feared he did.

Herman Mordaunt showed me the way, up the noble, wide, mahogany-garnished
staircase of his dwelling, and ushered us into a very handsome, though not
very large, but well-lighted drawing-room. There sat Anneke, his daughter,
in the loveliness of her maiden charms, a little more dressed than usual,
perhaps, for she had three or four young and lovely girls with her, and
five or six young men; among whom were no less than three scarlet coats.

I shall not attempt to conceal my weakness. Only twenty, inexperienced and
unaccustomed to town society, I felt awkward and unpleasantly the instant I
entered the room; nor did the feeling subside during the first half-hour.
Anneke came forward, one or two steps, to meet me; and I could see, she was
almost as much confused, as I was myself. She blushed, as she thanked me
for the service I had rendered, and expressed her satisfaction that her
father had been fortunate enough to find me at home, and had had an
opportunity of saying a little of what he felt, on the occasion. She then
invited me to be seated, naming me to the company, and telling me who
two or three of the young ladies were. From these last I received sundry
approving smiles; which I took as so many thanks for serving their friend;
while I could not help seeing that I was an object of examination to most
of the men present. The three officers, in particular, looked at me the
most intently, and the longest.

"I trust, your little accident, which could have been of no great moment,
in itself, since you escaped so well, did not have the effect to prevent
you from enjoying the rare fun of this Pinkster affair?" said one of the
scarlet coats, as soon as the movement caused by my reception had subsided.

"You call it a 'little accident,' Mr. Bulstrode," returned Anneke, with a
reproachful shake of her pretty head, "but, I can assure you, it is not a
trifle, to a young lady, to find herself in the paws of a lion."

"_Serious_ accident, then; since, I see, you are resolved to consider
yourself a victim;" rejoined the other; "but, not serious enough, I trust,
to deprive you of the fun?"

"Pinkster fields, and Pinkster frolics, are no novelties to us, sir, as
they occur every season; and I am just old enough not to have missed one of
them all, for the last twelve years."

"We heard you had been 'out," put in another red-coat, whom I had heard
called Billings, "accompanied by a little army, of what Bulstrode called,
the Light Infantry."

Here three or four of the other young ladies joined in the discourse, at
once, protesting against Mr. Bulstrode's placing their younger sisters
in the army, in so cavalier a manner; an accusation that Mr. Bulstrode
endeavoured to parry, by declaring his hopes of having them all, not only
in the army, but in his own regiment, one day or other. At this, there was
a certain amount of mirth, and various protestations of an unwillingness
to enlist; in which, I was glad to see, that neither Anneke, nor her most
intimate friend, Mary Wallace, saw fit to join, I liked their reserve of
manner, far better than the girlish trifling of their companions; and, I
could see, that all the men respected them the more for it. There was a
good deal of general and disjointed conversation that succeeded; which
I shall not pretend to follow or relate, but confine myself to such
observations as had a bearing on matters that were connected with myself.

As none of the young soldiers were addressed by their military titles, such
things never occurring in the better circles, as I now discovered, and,
least of all, in those connected with the army, I was not able, at the
time, to ascertain the rank of the three red-coats; though I afterwards
ascertained, that the youngest was an ensign, of the name of Harris; a
mere boy, and the younger son of a member of Parliament. The next oldest,
Billings, was a captain, and was said to be a natural son of a nobleman;
while Bulstrode was actually the oldest son of a baronet, of three or four
thousand a year, and had already bought his way up as high as a Majority,
though only four-and-twenty. This last was a handsome fellow, too; nor had
I been an hour in his company, before I saw, plainly enough, that he was
a strong admirer of Anneke Mordaunt. The other two evidently admired
themselves too much, to have any very lively feelings on the subject of
other persons. As for Dirck, younger than myself, and diffident, as well as
slow by nature, he kept himself altogether in the back-ground, conversing,
most of the time, with Herman Mordaunt, on the subject of farming.

We had been together an hour, and I had acquired sufficient ease to change
my seat, and to look at a picture or two, which adorned the walls, and
which were said to be originals, from the Old World; for, to own the truth,
the art of painting has not made much progress in the colonies. We _have_
painters, it is true, and one or two are said to be men of rare merit, the
ladies being very fond of sitting to them for their portraits; but these
are exceptions. At a future day, when critics shall have immortalized the
names of a Smybert, and a Watson, and a Blackburn, the people of these
provinces will become aware of the talents they once possessed among them;
and the grandchildren of those who neglected these men of genius, in their
day--ay, their descendants to the latest generations--will revenge the
wrongs of merit and talent, to the end of civilized time. It is a failing
of colonies to be diffident of their own opinions; but I have heard
gentlemen, who were educated at home, and who possessed cultivated and
refined tastes, affirm that the painters of Europe, when visiting this
hemisphere, have retained all their excellence; and have painted as freely
and as well, under an American, as under a European sun. As for a sister
art, the Thespian muse had actually made her appearance among us, five
years before the time of my visit to town in 1757, or in 1752; a theatre
having actually been built and opened in Nassau Street in 1753, with a
company under the care of the celebrated Hallam, and his family. This
theatre I had been dying to visit, while it stood, for as yet I had never
witnessed a theatrical performance; but my mother's injunctions prevented
me from entering it while at college. "When you are old enough, Corny," she
used to say, "you shall have my permission to go as often as is proper; but
you are now of an age, when Shakspeare and Rowe might unsettle your Latin
and Greek." My task of obedience had not been very difficult, inasmuch as
the building in Nassau Street, the second regular theatre ever erected in
British America, was taken down, and a church erected in its place. [12]
The comedians went to the islands, and had not reappeared on the continent
down to the period of which I am now writing; nor did their return occur
until the following year. That they were expected, however, and that a new
house had been built for them, in another part of the town, I was aware,
though month after month passed away, and the much-expected company did not
appear. I had understood, however, that the large military force
collecting in the colony, would be likely to bring them back soon; and the
conversation soon took a turn, that proved how much interest the young, the
gay, and the fair, felt in the result. I was still looking at a picture,
when Mr. Bulstrode approached me, and entered into conversation. It will be
remembered, that this gentleman was four years my senior; that he had been
at one of the universities; was the heir to a baronetcy; knew the world;
had risen to a Majority in the army, and was by nature, as well as
training, agreeable, when he had a mind to be, and genteel. These
circumstances, I could not but feel, gave him a vast advantage over me;
and I heartily wished that we stood anywhere but in the presence of Anneke
Mordaunt, as he thus saw fit to single me out for invidious comparison,
by a sort of _tete-a-tete,_ or aside. Still, I could not complain of his
manner, which was both polite and respectful; though I could scarce divest
myself of the idea, that he was covertly amusing himself, the whole time.

"You are a fortunate man, Mr. Littlepage," he commenced, "in having had it
in your power to do so important a service to Miss Mordaunt. We all envy
you your luck, while we admire your spirit, and I feel certain the men
of our regiment will take some proper notice of it. Miss Anneke is in
possession of half our hearts, and we should be still more heartless to
overlook such a service."

I muttered some half-intelligible answer to this compliment, and my new
acquaintance proceeded.

"I am almost surprised, Mr. Littlepage," he added, "that a man of your
spirit does not come among us in times as stirring as these. They tell me
both your father and grandfather served, and that you are quite at your
ease. You will find a great many men of merit and fashion among us, and
I make no doubt they would contribute to make your time pass agreeably
enough. Large reinforcements are expected, and if you are inclined for a
pair of colours, I think I know a battalion in which there are a vacancy
or two, and which will certainly serve in the colonies. It would afford me
great pleasure to help to further your views, should you be disposed to
turn them towards the army."

Now all this was said with an air of great apparent frankness and
sincerity, which I fancied was only the more visible from the circumstance
that Anneke was so seated as unavoidably to hear every word of what was
said. I observed that she even turned her eyes on me as I made my answer,
though I did not dare so far to observe her in turn as to note their
expression.

"I am very sensible, Mr. Bulstrode, of the liberality and kindness of your
intentions," I answered steadily enough, for pride came to my assistance,
"though I fear it will not be in my power to profit by it at once, if ever.
My grandfather is still living, and he has much influence over me and my
fortune, and I know it is his wish that I should remain at Satanstoe."

"Where?" demanded Bulstrode, with more quickness and curiosity than
strictly comported with good-breeding perhaps.

"Satanstoe; I do not wonder you smile, for it has an odd sound, but it is
the name my grandfather has given the family place in Westchester. Given, I
have said, though translated would be better, as I understand the present
appellation is pretty literally rendered into English from the Dutch."

"I like the name exceedingly, Mr. Littlepage, and I feel certain I should
like your good, old, honest, Anglo-Saxon grandfather. But, pardon me, it is
his wish you should remain at Satansfoot?"

"Satanstoe, sir; we do not aspire to the whole foot. It is my grandfather's
wish that I remain at home until of age, which will not be now for some
months."

"By way of keeping you out of Satan's footsteps, I suppose. Well, these old
gentlemen are often right. Should you alter your views, however, my dear
Littlepage, do not forget me, but remember you can count on one who has
some little influence, and who will ever be ready to exert it in the behalf
of one who has proved so serviceable to Miss Mordaunt. Sir Harry is a
martyr to the gout, and talks of letting me stand in his place at the
dissolution. In that case my wishes will naturally carry more weight. I
like that name of Satanstoe amazingly!"

"I am infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Bulstrode, though I will confess I
have never looked forward to rising in the world by taxing my friends. One
may own that he has had some hopes founded on merit and honesty--"

"Poh! poh!--my dear Littlepage, honesty is a very pretty thing to talk
about, but I suppose you remember what Juvenal says on that interesting
subject--"_probitas laudatur et alget._" I dare say you are fresh enough
from college to remember that comprehensive sentiment."

"I have never read Juvenal, Mr. Bulstrode, and never wish to, if such be
the tendency of what he teaches--"

"Juvenal was a satirist, you know," interrupted Bulstrode a little hastily,
for by this time he too had ascertained that Anneke was listening, and
he betrayed some eagerness to get rid of so flagitious a sentiment; "and
satirists speak of things as they are, rather than as they ought to be.
I dare say Rome deserved all she got, for the moralists give a very sad
account of her condition. Of all the large capitals of which we have any
account, London is the only town of even tolerable manners."

What young Bulstrode would have ventured to say next, it is out of my
power to guess; for a certain Miss Warren, who was of the company, and
who particularly affected the youth, luckily called out at this critical
instant--

"Your attention one moment, if you please, Mr. Bulstrode; is it true that
the gentlemen of the army have been getting the new theatre in preparation,
and that they intend to favour us with some representations? A secret
something like this has just leaked out, from Mr. Harris, who even goes so
far as to add that you can tell us all about it."

"Mr. Harris must be put under an arrest for this, though I hear the colonel
let the cat out of the bag, at the Lt. Governor's table, as early as last
week."

"I can assure you, Mr. Bulstrode," Anneke observed calmly, "that I have
heard rumours to this effect for quite a fortnight. You must not blame Mr.
Harris solely, for your whole regiment has been hinting to the same purpose
far and near."

"Then the delinquent will escape, this time. I confess the charge; we have
hired the new theatre, and do intend to solicit the honour of the ladies
coming to hear me murder Cato, and Scrub; a pretty climax of characters,
you will admit, Miss Mordaunt?"

"I know nothing of Scrub, though I have read Mr. Addison's play, and think
you have no need of being ashamed of the character of Cato. When is the
theatre to open?"

"We follow the sable gentry. As soon as St. Pinkster has received his
proper share of attention, we shall introduce Dom-Cato and Mr. Scrub to
your acquaintance."

All the young ladies, but Anneke and her friend Mary Wallace, laughed, two
or three repeating the words 'St. Pinkster,' as if they contained something
much cleverer than it was usual to hear. A general burst of exclamations,
expressions of pleasure, and of questions and answers followed, in which
two or three voices were heard at the same moment, during which time Anneke
turned to me, who was standing near her, at the spot occupied by Bulstrode
a minute before, and seemed anxious to say something.

"Do you seriously think of the army, Mr. Littlepage?" she asked, changing
colour at the freedom of her own question.

"In a war like this, no one can say when he may be called on to go out," I
answered. "But, only as a defender of the soil, if at all."

I thought Anneke Mordaunt seemed pleased with this answer. After a short
pause, she resumed the dialogue.

"Of course you understand Latin, Mr. Littlepage, although you have not been
at the universities?"

"As it is taught in our own colleges, Miss Mordaunt."

"And that is sufficient to tell me what Mr. Bulstrode's quotation means--if
it be proper for me to hear."

"He would hardly presume to use even a Latin saying in your presence, that
is unfit for your ear. The maxim which Mr. Bulstrode attributes to Juvenal,
simply means 'that honesty is praised and starves.'"

I thought that something like displeasure settled on the fair, polished,
brow of Miss Mordaunt, who, I could soon see, possessed much character and
high principles for one of her tender years. She said nothing, however,
though she exchanged a very meaning glance with her friend Mary Wallace.
Her lips were moved, and I fancied I could trace the formation of the
sounds "honesty is praised and starves!"

"And _you_ are to be Cato I hear, Mr. Bulstrode," cried one of the young
ladies, who thought more of a scarlet coat, I fancy, than was for her own
good. "How very charming! Will you play the character in regimentals or in
mohair--in a modern or in an ancient dress?"

"In my _robe de chambre_, a little altered for the occasion, Unless St.
Pinkster and his sports should suggest some more appropriate costume,"
answered the young man lightly.

"Are you quite aware what feast Pinkster is?" asked Anneke, a little
gravely.

Bulstrode actually changed colour, for it had never crossed his mind to
inquire into the character of the holiday; and, to own the truth, the
manner in which it is kept by the negroes of New York, never would
enlighten him much on the subject.

"That is information for which I perceive I am now about to be indebted to
Miss Mordaunt."

"Then you shall not be disappointed, Mr. Bulstrode; Pinkster is neither
more nor less than the Festival of Whit-sunday, or the Feast of Pentecost.
I suppose we shall now hear no more of your saint."

Bulstrode took this little punishment, which was very sweetly but quite
steadily uttered, with perfect good-humour, and with a manner so rebuked
as to prove that Anneke possessed great control over him. He bowed in
submission, and she smiled so kindly, that I wished the occasion for the
little pantomime had not occurred.

"_Our_ ancestors, Miss Mordaunt, never heard of any Pinkster, you will
remember, and that must explain my ignorance," he said meekly.

"But some of _mine_ have long understood it, and observed the festival,"
answered Anneke.

"Ay, on the side of Holland--but when I presume to speak of _our_
ancestors, I mean those which I can claim the honour of boasting as
belonging to me in common with yourself."

"Are you and Mr. Bulstrode, then, related?" I asked, as it might be
involuntarily and almost too abruptly.

Anneke replied, however, in a way to show that she thought the question
natural for the circumstances, and not in the least out of place.

"My grandfather's mother, and Mr. Bulstrode's grandfather, were brother and
sister," was the quiet answer.

"This makes us a sort of cousins, according to those Dutch notions which he
so much despises, though I fancy it would not count for much at home."

Bulstrode protested to the contrary, stating that he knew his father valued
his relationship to Mr. Mordaunt, by the earnest manner in which he had
commanded him to cultivate the acquaintance of the family the instant he
reached New York. I saw by this, the footing on which the formidable
Major was placed in the family, everybody seeming to be related to Anneke
Mordaunt but myself. I took an occasion that very evening, to question the
dear girl on the subject of her Dutch connections, giving her a clue to
mine but with all our industry, and some assistance from Herman Mordaunt,
who took an interest in such a subject, as it might be _ex officio_, we
could make out no affinity worth mentioning.

[Footnote 10: Now, Liberty Street.]

[Footnote 11: The person meant here, was William Nicoll, Esquire, Patentee
of Islip, a large estate on Long Island, that is still in the family, under
a Patent granted in 1683. This gentleman was a son of Mr. Secretary Nicoll,
who is supposed to have been a relative of Col. Nicoll, the first English
Governor. Mr. Speaker Nicoll, as the son was called, in consequence of
having filled that office for nearly a generation, was the direct ancestor
of the Nicolls of Islip and Shelter Island, as well as of a branch long
settled at Stratford, Connecticut. The house alluded to by Mr. Littlepage,
as a relic of antiquity in _his_ day,--American antiquity, be it
remembered,--was standing a few years since, if it be not still standing,
at the point of junction between the Old Boston Road and the New Road, and
nearly opposite to tha termination of the long avenue that led to Rosehill,
originally a seat of the Watts'. The house stood a short distance above the
present Union Square, and not far from that of the present Gramercy. It
was, or is, a brick-house of one story, with a small court-yard in front;
the House of Refuge being at a little distance on its right. If still
standing, it must now be one of the oldest buildings of any sort, in a town
of 400,000 souls! As Mr. Speaker Nicoll resigned the chair in 1718, this
house must be at least a hundred and thirty or forty years old; and it may
be questioned if a dozen as old, public of private, can be found on the
whole island.

As the regular family residences of the Nicolls were in Suffolk, or on
their estates, it is probable that the abode mentioned was, in a measure,
owing to an intermarriage with the Watts', as much as to the necessity of
the Speaker's passing so much time at the seat of government.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 12: The church is now (1845) being converted into a Post-Office.]




CHAPTER VII.

  "Sir Valentino, I care not for her, I."

  "I hold him but a fool, that will endanger
  His body for a girl that loves him not."

  "I claim her not, and therefore she is thine."

  _Two Gentlemen of Verona_.


I saw Anne Mordaunt several times, either in the street or in her own
house, between that evening and the day I was to dine with her father. The
morning of the last named day Mr. Bulstrode favoured me with a call, and
announced that he was to be of the party in Crown Street, and that the
whole company was to repair to the theatre, to see his own Cato and Scrub,
in the evening.

"By giving yourself the trouble to call at the Crown and Bible, kept
hard-by here, in Hanover Square or Queen Street, by honest Hugh Gaine, you
will find a package of tickets for yourself, Mr. and Mrs. Legge, and your
relative Mr. Dirck Follock, as I believe the gentleman is called. These
Dutch have extraordinary patronymics, you must admit, Littlepage."

"It may appear so to an Englishman, though our names are quite as odd to
strangers. But Dirck Van Valkenburgh is not a kinsman of mine, though he is
related to the Mordaunts, _your_ relatives."

"Well, it's all the same! I knew he was related to somebody that I know,
and I fancied it was to yourself. I am sure I never see him but I wish he
was in our grenadier company."

"Dirck would do honour to any corps, but you know how it is with the Dutch
families, Mr. Bulstrode. They still retain much of their attachment to
Holland, and do not as often take service in the army, or navy, as we of
English descent."

"I should have thought a century might have cooled them off, a little, from
their veneration of the meadows of Holland. It is the opinion at home, that
New York is a particularly well affected colony."

"So it is, as I hear from all sides. As respects the Dutch, among
ourselves, I have heard my grandfather say, that the reign of King William
had a powerful influence in reconciling them to the new government,
but, since his day, that they are less loyal than formerly. The Van
Valkenburghs, notwithstanding, pass for as good subjects as any that the
house of Hanover possesses. On no account would I injure them in your
opinion."

"Good or bad, we shall hope to see your friend, who is a connection in some
way, as you believe, of the Mordaunts. You will get but a faint idea of
what one of the royal theatres is, Littlepage, by this representation of
ours, though it may serve to kill time. But, I must go to rehearsal; we
shall meet at three."

Here my gay and gallant major made his bow, and took his leave. I proceeded
on to the sign of the Crown and the Bible, where I found a large collection
of people, coming in quest of tickets. As the _elite_ of the town would
not of themselves form an audience sufficiently large to meet the towering
ambition of the players, more than half the tickets were sold, the money
being appropriated to the sick families of soldiers--those who were not
entitled to receive aid from government. It was deemed a high compliment
to receive tickets gratis, though all who did, made it a point to leave a
donation to the fund, with Mr. Gaine. Receiving my package, I quitted the
shop, and it being the hour for the morning promenade, I went up Wall
Street, to the Mall, as Trinity Church Walk was even then called. Here, I
expected to meet Dirck, and hoped to see Anneke, for the place was much
frequented by the young and gay, both in the mornings and in the evenings.
The bands of different regiments were stationed in the churchyard, and the
company was often treated to much fine martial music. Some few of the more
scrupulous objected to this desecration of the churchyard, but the army had
everything pretty much in its own way. As they were supposed to do nothing
but what was approved of at home, the dissenters were little heeded, nor do
I think the army would have greatly cared, had they been more numerous.

I dare say there were fifty young ladies promenading the church-walk when
I reached it, and nearly as many young men in attendance on them; no small
portion of the last being scarlet-coats, though the mohairs had their
representatives there too. A few blue-jackets were among us also, there
being two or three king's cruisers in port. As no one presumed to promenade
the Mall, who was not of a certain stamp of respectability, the company was
all gaily dressed; and I will confess that I was much struck with the air
of the place, the first time I showed myself among the gay idlers. The
impression made on me that morning was so vivid, that I will endeavour to
describe the scene, as it now presents itself to my mind.

In the first place, there was the noble street, quite eighty feet in width
in its narrowest part, and gradually expanding as you looked towards the
bay, until it opened into an area of more than twice that width, at the
place called the Bowling-Green. [13] Then came the Fort, crowning a sharp
eminence, and overlooking everything in that quarter of the town. In the
rear of the Fort, or in its front, taking a water view, lay the batteries
that had been built on the rocks which form the south-western termination
of the island. Over these rocks, which were black and picturesque, and over
the batteries they supported, was obtained a view of the noble bay, dotted
here and there with some speck of a sail, or possibly with some vessel
anchored on its placid bosom. Of the two rows of elegant houses, most of
them of brick, and with very few exceptions principally of two stories in
height, it is scarcely necessary to speak, as there are few who have not
heard of, and formed some notion of Broadway; a street that all agree is
one day to be the pride of the western world.

In the other direction, I will admit that the view was not so remarkable,
the houses being principally of wood, and of a somewhat ignoble appearance.
Nevertheless the army was said to frequent those habitations quite as much
as they did any other in the place. After reaching the Common, or present
Park, where the great Boston road led off into the country, the view was
just the reverse of that which was seen in the opposite quarter. Here, all
was inland, and rural. It is true, the new Bridewell had been erected in
that quarter, and there was also a new gaol, both facing the common; and
the king's troops had barracks in their rear; but high, abrupt, conical
hills, with low marshy land, orchards and meadows, gave to all that portion
of the island a peculiarly novel and somewhat picturesque character. Many
of the hills in that quarter, and indeed all over the widest part of the
island, are now surmounted by country-houses, as some were then, including
Petersfield, the ancient abode of the Stuyvesants, or that farm which, by
being called after the old Dutch governor's retreat, has given the name
of Bowery, or Bouerie, to the road that led to it; as well as the
Bowery-house, as it was called, the country abode of the then Lieutenant
Governor, James de Lancey, Mount Bayard, a place belonging to that
respectable family; Mount Pitt, another that was the property of Mrs.
Jones, the wife of Mr. Justice Jones, a daughter of James de Lancey, and
various other mounts, houses, hills, and places, that are familiar to the
gentry and people of New York.

But, the reader can imagine for himself the effect produced by such a
street as Broadway, reaching very nearly half a mile in length, terminating
at one end, in an elevated, commanding Fort, with its back-ground of
batteries, rocks and bay, and, at the other, with the common, on which
troops were now constantly parading, the Bridewell an I gaol, and the novel
scene I have just mentioned. Nor is Trinity itself to be forgotten. This
edifice, one of the noblest, if not the most noble of its kind, in all
the colonies, with its gothic architecture, statues in carved stone, and
flanking walls, was a close accessory of the view, giving to the whole
grandeur, and a moral. [14]

As has been said, I found the Mall crowded with young persons of fashion
and respectability. This Mall was near a hundred yards in length; and it
follows that there must have been a goodly show of youth and beauty. The
fine weather had commenced; spring had fairly opened; Pinkster Blossoms
(the wild honeysuckle) had been seen in abundance throughout the week; and
everything and person appeared gay and happy.

I could discover that my person in this crowd attracted attention as a
stranger. I say as a stranger; for I am unwilling to betray so much vanity
as to ascribe the manner in which many eyes followed me, to any vain notion
that I was known or admired. Still, I will not so far disparage the gifts
of a bountiful Providence, as to leave the impression that my face, person,
or air was particularly disagreeable. This would not be the fact; and I
have now reached a time of life when something like the truth may be
told, without the imputation of conceit. My mother often boasted to her
intimates, "that Corny was one of the best-made, handsomest, most active,
and genteelest youths in the colony." This I know, for such things will
leak out; but mothers are known to have a remarkable weakness on the
subject of their children. As I was the sole surviving offspring of my dear
mother, who was one of the best-hearted women that ever breathed, it is
highly probable that the notions she entertained of her son partook largely
of the love she bore me. It is true, my aunt Legge, on more than one
occasion, has been heard to express a very similar opinion; though nothing
can be more natural than that sisters should think alike, on a family
matter of this particular nature, more especially as my aunt Legge never
had a child of her own to love and praise.

Let all this be as it may, well stared at was I, as I mingled among the
idlers on Trinity Church Walk, on the occasion named. As for myself, my
own eyes were bent anxiously on the face of every pretty, delicate young
creature that passed, in the hope of seeing Anneke. I both wished and
dreaded to meet her; for, to own the truth, my mind was dwelling on her
beauty, her conversation, her sentiments, her grace, her gentleness, and
withal her spirit, a good deal more than half the time. I had some qualms
on the subject of Dirck, I will confess; but Dirck was so young, that his
feelings could not be much interested, after all; and then Anneke was a
second cousin, and that was clearly too near to marry. My grandfather had
always put his foot down firmly against any connection between relations
that were nearer than _third_ cousins; and I now saw how proper were his
reasons. If they were even farther removed, so much the better, he said;
and so much the better it was.

If the reader should ask me why I _dreaded_ to meet Anne Mordaunt, under
such circumstances, I might be at a loss to give him a very intelligible
answer. I feared even to see the sweet face I sought; and oh! how soft,
serene, and angel-like it was, at that budding age of seventeen!--but,
though I almost feared to see it, when at last I saw her I had so anxiously
sought approaching me, arm and arm with Mary Walface, having Bulstrode next
herself, and Harris next her friend, my eyes were instantly averted, as
if they had unexpectedly lighted on something disagreeable. I should have
passed without even the compliment of a bow, had not my friends been more
at their ease, and more accustomed to the free ways of town life than I
happened to be myself.

"How's this, Cornelius, _Coeur de Lion_!" exclaimed Bulstrode, stopping,
thus causing the whole party to stop with him, or to appear to wish to
avoid me; "will you not recognise us, though it is not an hour since you
and I parted? I hope you found the tickets; and when you have answered
'yes,' I hope you will turn and do me the honour to bow to these ladies."

I apologized, I am afraid I blushed; for I detected Anneke looking at me,
as I thought, with some little concern, as if she pitied my awkward country
embarrassment. As for Bulstrode, I did not understand him at that time;
it exceeding my observation to be certain whether he considered me of
sufficient importance or not, to feel any concern on my account, in
his very obvious suit with Anneke. Nevertheless, as he treated me with
cordiality and respect, while he dealt with me so frankly, there was not
room to take offence. Of course, I turned and walked back with the party,
after had properly saluted the ladies and Mr. Harris.

"_Coeur de Lion_ is a better name for a soldier than for a civilian;"
said Anneke, as we moved forward; "and, however much Mr. Littlepage may
_deserve_ the title, I am not certain, Mr. Bulstrode, he would not prefer
leaving it among you gentlemen who serve the king."

"I am glad of this occasion, Mr. Littlepage, to enlist you on my side, in
a warfare I am compelled to wage with Miss Anne Mordaunt," said the Major
gaily. "It is on the subject of the great merit of us poor fellows who have
crossed the wide Atlantic in order to protect the colonies, New York among
the number, and their people, Miss Mordaunt and Miss Wallace inclusively,
from the grasp of their wicked enemies, the French. The former young lady
has a way of reasoning on the matter to which I cannot assent, and I am
willing to choose you as arbitrator between us."

"Before Mr. Littlepage accept the office, it is proper he should know its
duties and responsibilities," said Anneke, smiling. "In the first place,
he will find Mr. Bulstrode with loud professions of attachment to the
colonies, much disposed to think them provinces that owe their very
existence to England; while I maintain it is English _men_, and that it
is not England, that have done so much in America. As for New York, Mr.
Littlepage, and especially as for you and me, we can also say a word in
favour of Holland. I am very proud of my Dutch connections and Dutch
descent."

I was much gratified with the "as for you and me;" though I believe I cared
less for Holland than she did herself. I made an answer much in the vein
of the moment; but the conversation soon changed to the subject of the
military theatre that was about to open.

"I shall dread you as a critic, cousin Annie," so Bulstrode often termed
Anneke, as I soon discovered; "I find you are not too well disposed to us
of the cockade, and I think you have a particular spite to our regiment.
I know that Billings and Harris, too, hold you in the greatest possible
dread."

"They then feel apprehensive of a very ignorant critic; for I never was
present at a theatrical entertainment in my life," Anneke answered with
perfect simplicity. "So far as I can learn, there never has been but one
season of any regular company, in this colony; and that was when I was a
very little and a very young girl--as I am now neither very large, nor very
old as a young woman."

"You see, Littlepage, with how much address my cousin avoids adding, and
'very uninteresting, and very ugly, and very disagreeable, and very much
unsought,' and fifty other things she _might_ add with such perfect truth
and modesty! But is it true, that the theatre was open only one season,
here?"

"So my father tells me, though I know very little of the facts themselves.
To-night will be my first appearance in _front_ of any stage, Mr.
Bulstrode, as I understand it will be your first appearance _on_ it."

"In one sense the last will be true, though not altogether in another. As
a school-boy, I have often played, school-boy fashion; but this is quite a
new thing with us, to be _amateur_ players."

"It may seem ungrateful, when you are making so many efforts, principally
to amuse us young ladies, I feel convinced, to inquire if it be quite
as wise as it is novel. I must ask this, as a cousin, you know, Henry
Bulstrode, to escape entirely from the imputation of impertinence."

"Really, Anneke Mordaunt, I am not absolutely certain that it is. Our
manners are beginning to change in this respect, however, and I can assure
you that various noblemen have permitted sports of this sort at their
seats. The custom is French, as you probably know, and whatever is French
has much vogue with us during times of peace. Sir Harry does not altogether
approve of it, and as for my lady mother, she has actually dropped more
than one discouraging hint on the subject in her letters."

"The certain proof that you are a most dutiful son. Perhaps when Sir Harry
and Lady Bulstrode learn your great success, however, they will overlook
the field on which your laurels have been won. But our hour has come, Mary;
we have barely time to thank these gentlemen for their politeness, and to
return in season to dress. I am to enact a part myself, at dinner, as I
hope you will all remember."

Saying this, Anneke made her curtsies in a way to preclude any offer of
seeing her home, and went her way with her silent but sensible-looking and
pretty friend. Bulstrode took my arm with an air of easy superiority, and
led the way towards his own lodgings, which happened to be in Duke Street.
Harris joined another party, making it a point to be always late at dinner.

"That is not only one of the handsomest, but she is one of the most
charming girls in the colonies, Littlepage!" my companion exclaimed, as
soon as we had departed, speaking at the same time with an earnestness and
feeling I was far from expecting. "Were she in England, she would make one
of the first women in it, by the aid of a little fashion and training; and
very little would do too, for there is a charm in her _naivete_ that is
worth the art of fifty women of fashion."

"Fashion is a thing that any one may want who does not happen to be in
vogue," I answered, notwithstanding the great degree of surprise I felt.
"As for training, I can see nothing but perfection in Miss Mordaunt as she
is, and should deprecate the lessons that produced any change."

I believe it was now Bulstrode's turn to feel surprise, for I was conscious
of his casting a keen look into my face, though I did not like to return
it. My companion was silent for a minute; then, without again adverting to
Anneke, he began to converse very sensibly on the subject of theatres and
plays. I was both amused and instructed, for Mr. Bulstrode was an educated
and a clever man; and a strange feeling came over the spirit of my dream,
even then, as I listened to his conversation. This man, I thought, admires
Anne Mordaunt, and he will probably carry her with him to England, and
obtain for her that fashion and training of which he has just spoken. With
his advantages of birth, air, fortune, education, and military rank, he can
scarcely fail in his suit, should he seriously attempt one; and it will be
no more than prudent to command my own feelings, lest I become the hopeless
victim of a serious passion. Young as I was, all this I saw, and thus I
reasoned; and when I parted from my companion I fancied myself a much wise
man than when we had met. We separated in Duke Street, with a promise on my
part to call at the Major's lodgings half an hour later, after dressing,
and walk with him to Herman Mordaunt's door.

"It is fortunate that it is the fashion of New York to walk to a dinner
party," said Bulstrode, as he again took my arm on our way to Crown Street;
"for these narrow streets must be excessively inconvenient for chariots,
though I occasionally see one of them. As for sedan chairs, I detest them
as things unfit for a man to ride in."

"Many of our leading families keep carnages, and _they_ seem to get along
well enough," I answered. "Nevertheless, it is quite in fashion even for
ladies to walk. I understand that many, perhaps most of your auditors, will
walk" to the play-house door this evening."

"They tell me as much," said Bulstrode, curling his lip, a little, in a
way I did not exactly like. "Notwithstanding, there will be many charming
creatures among them, and they shall be welcome. Well, Littlepage, I do
not despair of having you among us; for, to be candid, without wishing to
boast, I think you will find the ----th as liberal a set of young men as
there is in the service. There is a wish to have the mohairs among us
instead of shutting ourselves up altogether in scarlet. Then your father
and grandfather have both served, and that will be a famous introduction."

I protested my unfitness for such an amusement, never having seen such an
exhibition in my life; but to this my companion would not listen; and we
picked our way, as well as we could, through William Street, up Wall, and
then by Nassau into Crown; Herman Mordaunt owning a new house, that stood
not far from Broadway, in the latter street. This was rather in a remote
part of the town; but the situation had the advantage of good air; and, as
a place extends, it is necessary some persons should live on its skirts.

"I wish my good cousin did not live quite so much in the suburbs," said
Bulstrode, as he knocked in a very patrician manner; "it is not altogether
convenient to go quite so much out of one's ordinary haunts, in order to
pay visits. I wonder Mr. Mordaunt came so far out of the world, to build."

"Yet the distances of London must be much greater though _there_ you have
coaches."

"True; but not a word more on _this_ subject: I would not have Anneke fancy
I ever find it far to visit _her_."

We were the last but one; the tardy Mr. Harris making it a point always to
be the last. We found Anneke Mordaunt supported by two or three ladies of
her connection, and a party of quite a dozen assembled. As most of those
present saw each other every day, and frequently two or three times a day,
the salutations and compliments were soon over, and Herman Mordaunt began
to look about him, to see who was wanting.

"I believe everybody is here but Mr. Harris," the father observed to his
daughter, interrupting some of Mr. Bulstrode's conversation, to let this
fact be known. "Shall we wait for him, my dear; he is usually so uncertain
and late?"

"Yet a very important man," put in Bulstrode, "as being entitled to lead
the lady of the house to the table, in virtue of his birthright. So much
for being the fourth son of an Irish baron! Do you know Harris's father has
just been ennobled?"

This was news to the company; and it evidently much increased the doubts of
the propriety of sitting down without the young man in question.

"Failing of this son of a new Irish baron, I suppose you fancy I shall be
obliged to give my hand to the eldest son of an English baronet," said
Anneke, smiling, so as to take off the edge of a little irony that I fancy
just glimmered in her manner.

"I wish to Heaven you _would_, Anne Mordaunt," whispered Bulstrode, loud
enough for me to hear him, "so that the heart were its companion!"

I thought this both bold and decided; and I looked anxiously at Anneke,
to note the effect; but she evidently received it as trifling, certainly
betraying no emotion at a speech I thought so pointed. I wished she had
manifested a little resentment. Then she was so very young to be thus
importuned!

"Dinner had better be served, sir," she calmly observed to her father. "Mr.
Harris is apt to think himself ill-treated if he do not find everybody at
table. It would be a sign his watch was wrong, and that he had come half an
hour too soon."

Herman Mordaunt nodded assent, and left his daughter's side to give the
necessary order.

"I fancy Harris will regret this," said Bulstrode. "I wish I dared repeat
what he had the temerity to say to me on this very subject, no later than
yesterday."

"Of the propriety of so doing, Mr. Bulstrode must judge for himself; though
_repetitions_ of this nature are usually best avoided."

"No, the fellow deserves it; so I will just tell you and Mr. Littlepage in
confidence. You must know, as his senior in years, and his senior officer
in the bargain, I was hinting to Harris the inexpediency of always being so
late at dinner; and here is my gentleman's answer:--'You know,' said he,
'that excepting my lord Loudon, the Commander-in-chief, the Governor, and a
few public officers, I shall now take precedence of almost every man here;
and I find, if I go early to dinner, I shall have to hand in all the
elderly ladies, and to take my place at _their_ sides; whereas, if I go
a little late, I can steal in alongside of their daughters.' Now, on the
present occasion, he will be altogether a loser, the lady of the house not
yet being quite fifty."

"I had not given Mr. Harris credit for so much ingenuity," said Anneke,
quietly. "But here he is to claim his rights."

"Ay, the fellow has remembered _your_ age, and quite likely your
_attractions_!"

Dinner was announced at that instant, and all eyes were turned on Harris,
in expectation that he would advance to lead Anneke down stairs. The young
man, even more youthful than myself, had a good deal of _mauvaise honte;_
for, though the son of an Irish peer, of two months' creation, the family
was not strictly Irish, and he had very little ambition to figure in this
manner. From what I saw of him subsequently, I do believe that nothing but
a sense of duty to his order made him respect these privileges of rank at
all, and that he would really just as soon go to a dinner-table last,
as first. In the present case, however, he was soon relieved by Herman
Mordaunt; who had been educated at home, and understood the usages of the
world very well.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I must ask you to waive the privileges of rank in
favour of Mr. Cornelius Littlepage, to-day. This good company has met to do
honour especially to his courage and devotion to his fellow-creatures, and
he will do me the favour to hand Miss Mordaunt down stairs."

Herman Mordaunt then pointed out to the Hon. Mr. Harris, the next lady of
importance, and to Mr. Bulstrode a third; after which all the rest took
care of themselves. As for myself, I felt my face in a glow, at this
unexpected order, and scarcely dared to look at Anneke as we led the way to
the dining-room door. So much abashed was I, that I scarce touched the tips
of her slender little fingers, and a tremour was in the limb that performed
this office, the whole time it was thus employed. Of course, my seat
was next to that of the young and lovely mistress of the house, at this
banquet.

What shall I say of the dinner? It was the very first entertainment of the
sort at which I had ever been present; though I had acquired some of the
notions of town habits, on such occasions, at my aunt Legge's table. To my
surprise, there was soup; a dish that I never saw at Satanstoe, except in
the most familiar way; while here it was taken by every one, seemingly as a
matter of course. Everything was elegant, and admirably cooked. Abundance,
however, was the great feature of the feast; as I have heard it said, is
apt to be the case with most New York entertainments. Nevertheless, I have
always understood that, in the way of eating and drinking, the American
colonies have little reason to be ashamed.

"Could I have foreseen this dinner, Miss Mordaunt," I said, when everybody
was employed, and I thought there was an opening to say something to my
beautiful neighbour; "it would have made my father very happy to have sent
a sheepshead to town, for the occasion."

Anneke thanked me, and then we began to converse about the game.
Westchester was, and is still, famous for partridges, snipe, quails, ducks,
and meadow-larks; and I understood expatiating on such a subject, as well
as the best of them. All the Littlepages were shots; and I have known my
father bag ten brace of woodcock, among the wet thickets of Satanstoe, of
a morning; and this with merely a second class dog, and only one. Both
Bulstrode and Harris listened to what I said on this subject with great
attention, and it would soon have been the engrossing discourse, had not
Anneke pleasantly said--

"All very well, gentlemen; but you will remember that neither Miss Wallace,
nor I, shoot."

"Except with the arrows of Cupid," answered Bulstrode, gaily; "with these
you do so much execution _between you_," emphasizing the words, so as
to make me look foolish, for I sat between them, "that you ought to be
condemned to hear nothing but fowling conversation for the next year."

This produced a laugh, a little at my expense, I believe; though I could
see that Anneke blushed, while Mary Wallace smiled indifferently; but as
the healths now began, there was a truce to trifling. And a serious thing
it is, to drink to everybody by name, at a large table; serious I mean to
a new beginner. Yet, Herman Mordaunt went through it with a grace and
dignity, that I think would have been remarked at a royal banquet. The
ladies acquitted themselves admirably, omitting no one; and even Harris
felt the necessity of being particular with this indispensable part of
good-breeding. So well done was this part of the ceremony, that I declare,
I believe everybody had drunk to everybody, within five minutes after
Herman Mordaunt commenced; and it was very apparent that there was more
ease and true gaiety _after_ all had got through, than there had previously
been.

But the happy period of every dinner-party, is after the cloth is removed.
With the dark polished mahogany for a back-ground, the sparkling decanters
making their rounds, the fruit and cake baskets, the very scene seems to
inspire one with a wish for gaiety. Herman Mordaunt called for toasts, as
soon as the cloth disappeared, with a view I believe of putting everybody
at ease, and to render the conversation more general. He was desired to set
the example, and immediately gave "Miss Markham," who, as I was told, was
a single lady of forty, with whom he had carried on a little flirtation.
Anneke's turn came next, and she chose to give a sentiment, notwithstanding
all Bulstrode's remonstrances, who insisted on a gentleman. He did not
succeed, however; Anneke very steadily gave "The Thespian corps of the
----h; may it prove as successful in the arts of peace, as in its military
character it has often proved itself to be in the art of war." Much
applause followed this toast, and Harris was persuaded by Bulstrode to
stand up, and say a few words, for the credit of the regiment. Such a
speech!--It reminded me of the horse that was advertised as a show, in
London, about this time, and which was said 'to have its tail where its
head ought to be.' But, Bulstrode clapped his hands, and cried 'hear,' at
every other word, protesting that the regiment was honoured as much in the
thanks, as in the sentiment. Harris did not seem displeased with his own
effort, and, presuming on his rank, he drank, without being called on,
"to the fair of New York; eminent alike for beauty and wit, may they only
become as merciful as they are victorious."

"Bravo!" again cried Bulstrode,--"Harris is fairly inspired, and is growing
better and better. Had he said imminent, instead of eminent, it would be
more accurate, as their frowns are as threatening, as their smiles are
bewitching."

"Is that to pass for _your_ sentiment, Mr. Bulstrode, and are we to drink
it?" demanded Herman Mordaunt.

"By no means, sir; I have the honour to give Lady Dolly Merton."

Who Lady Dolly was, nobody knew, I believe, though we of the colonies
always drank a titled person, who was known to be at home, with a great
deal of respectful attention, not to say veneration. Other toasts followed,
and then the ladies were asked to sing. Anneke complied, with very little
urging, as became her position, and never did I hear sweeter strains than
those she poured forth! The air was simple, but melody itself, and the
sentiment had just enough of the engrossing feeling of woman in it, to
render it interesting, without in the slightest degree impairing its
fitness for the virgin lips from which it issued. Bulstrode, I could see,
was almost entranced; and I heard him murmur "an angel, by Heavens!" He
sang, himself, a love song, full of delicacy and feeling, and in a way to
show that he had paid much attention to the art of music. Harris sang, too,
as did Mary Wallace; the former, much as he spoke; the last plaintively,
and decidedly well. Even Herman Mordaunt gave us a strain, and my turn
followed. Singing was somewhat of a _forte_ with me, and I have reason to
think I made out quite as well as the best of them. I know that Anneke
seemed pleased, and I saw tears in her eyes, as I concluded a song that was
intended to produce just such an effect.

At length the youthful mistress of the house arose, reminding her father
that he had at table the principal performer of the evening, by way of a
caution, when three or four of us handed the ladies to the drawing-room
door. Instead of returning to the table, I entered the room, and Bulstrode
did the same, under the plea of its being necessary for him to drink no
more, on account of the work before him.

[Footnote 13: Mr. Cornelius Littlepage betrays not a little of provincial
admiration, as the reader will see. I have not thought it necessary to
prune these passages, their causes being too familiar to leave any danger
of their insertion's being misunderstood. Admiration of Broadway, certainly
not more than a third-class street, as streets go in the old world, is so
very common among us as to need no apology.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 14: The provincial admiration of Mr. Cornelius Littlepage was not
quite as much in fault, as respects the church, as the superciliousness of
our more modern tastes and opinions may lead us to suspect. The church that
was burned in 1776, was a larger edifice than that just pulled down, and,
in many respects, was its superior.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER VIII.

  "Odd's bodikins, man, much better: use
  Every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape
  Whipping? use them after your own honour
  And dignity: the less they deserve, the more
  Merit is in your bounty."

  _Hamlet_.


"Harris will be _hors de combat_" Bulstrode soon observed, "unless I can
manage to get him from the table.--You know he is to play Marcia this
evening; and, though a _little_ wine will give him fire and spirit for the
part, too much will impair its feminine beauties. Addison never intended
that 'the virtuous Marcia,' in towering above her sex, was to be picked
out of a kennel, or from under a table. Harris is a true Irish peer, when
claret is concerned."

All the ladies held up their hands, and protested against Mr. Harris' being
permitted to act a travestie on their sex. As yet, no one had known how the
characters were to be cast, beyond the fact that Bulstrode himself was to
play Cato, for great care had been taken to keep the bills of the night
from being seen, in order that the audience might have the satisfaction of
finding out, who was who, for themselves. At the close of each piece a bill
was to be sent round, among the favoured few, telling the truth. As Anneke
declared that her father never locked in his guests, and had faithfully
promised to bring up everybody for coffee, in the course of half an hour,
it was determined to let things take their own way.

Sure enough, at the end of the time mentioned, Herman Mordaunt appeared,
with all the men, from the table. Harris was not tipsy, as I found was
very apt to be the case with him after dinner, but neither was he sober.
According to Bulstrode's notion, he may have had just fire enough to
play the 'virtuous Marcia.' In a few minutes he hurried the ensign off,
declaring that, like Hamlet's ghost, their hour had come. At seven, the
whole party left the house in a body to walk to the theatre. Herman
Mordaunt did not keep a proper town equipage, and, if he had, it would
not have contained a fourth of our company. In this, however, we were not
singular, as nine in ten of the audience that night, I mean nine in ten of
the gentle sex, went to the theatre on foot.

Instead of going directly down Crown Street, into Maiden Lane, which would
have been the nearest way to the theatre, we went out into Broadway, and
round by Wall Street, the walking being better, and the gutters farther
from the ladies; the centre of the street being at no great distance from
the houses, in the narrower passages of the town. We found a great many
well-dressed people moving in the same direction with ourselves. Herman
Mordaunt remarked that he had never before seen so many hoops, cardinals,
cocked hats and swords in the streets, at once, as he saw that evening. All
the carriages in town rolled past us as we went down Wall Street, and by
the time we reached William Street, the pavements resembled a procession,
more than anything else. As every one was in full dress, the effect was
pleasing, and the evening being fine, most of the gentlemen carried their
hats in their hands, in order not to disturb their curls, thus giving to
the whole the air of a sort of vast drawing-room. I never saw a more lovely
creature than Anneke Mordaunt appeared, as she led our party, on this
occasion. The powder had got a little out of her fine auburn hair, and on
the part of the head that was not concealed by a cap, that shaded half her
beautiful face, it seemed as if the rich covering bestowed by nature
was about to break out of all restraint, and shade her bust with its
exuberance. Her negligee was a rich satin, flounced in front, while the
lace that dropped from her elbows seemed as if woven by fairies, expressly
for a fairy to wear. She had paste buckles in her shoes, and I thought I
had never beheld such a foot, as was occasionally seen peeping from beneath
her dress, while she walked daintily, yet with the grace of a queen, at my
side. I do not thus describe Anneke with a view of inducing the reader to
fancy her stately and repulsive; on the contrary, winning ease and natural
grace were just as striking in her manner, as were beauty, and sentiment,
and feeling in her countenance. More than once, as we walked side by side,
did I become painfully conscious how unworthy I was to fill the place I
occupied. I believe this humility is one of the surest signs of sincere
love.

At length we reached the theatre, and were permitted to enter. All the
front seats were occupied by blacks, principally in New York liveries; that
is to say, with cuffs, collars and pocket-flaps of a cloth different from
the coat, though a few were in lace. These last belonged to the topping
families, several of which gave colours and ornaments almost as rich as
those that I understand are constantly given at home. I well remember that
two entire boxes were retained by servants, in shoulder-knots, and much
richer dresses than common, one of whom belonged to the Lt. Governor,
and the other to my Lord Loudon, who was then Commander-In-Chief. As the
company entered, these domestics disappeared, as is usual, and we all
took our seats on the benches thus retained for us. Bulstrode's care was
apparent in the manner in which he had provided for Anneke, and her party,
which, I will take it on myself to say, was one of the most striking, for
youth and good looks, that entered the house that evening.

Great was the curiosity, and deep the feeling, that prevailed, among the
younger portion of the audience in particular, as party after party was
seated, that important evening. The house was ornamented as a theatre, and
I thought it vast in extent; though Herman Mordaunt assured me it was
no great things, in that point of view, as compared with most of the
playhouses at home. But the ornaments, and the lights, and the curtain, the
pit, the boxes the gallery, were all so many objects of intense interest.
Few of us said anything; but our eyes wandered over all with a species of
delight, that I am certain can be felt in a theatre only once. Anneke's
sweet face was a picture of youthful expectation; an expectation, however,
in which intelligence and discretion had their full share. The orchestra
was said to have an undue portion of wind instruments in it; though I
perceived ladies all over the house, including those in our own box,
returning the bows of many of the musicians, who, I was told, were
_amateurs_ from the army and the drawing-rooms of the town.

At length the Commander-In-Chief and the Lt. Governor entered together,
occupying the same box, though two had been provided, their attendants
having recourse to the second. The commotion produced by these arrivals had
hardly subsided, when the curtain arose, and a new world was presented to
our view! Of the playing, I shall not venture to say much; though to me
it seemed perfection. Bulstrode gained great applause that night; and I
understand that divers gentlemen, who had either been educated at home,
or who had passed much time there, declared that his Cato would have done
credit to either of the royal theatres. His dress appeared to me to be
everything it should be; though I cannot describe it. I remember that
Syphax wore the uniform of a colonel of dragoons, and Juba, that of a
general officer; and that there was a good deal of criticism expended, and
some offence taken, because the gentlemen who played these parts came out
in wool, and with their faces blacked. It was said, in answer to these
feelings, that the characters were Africans; and that any one might see, by
casting his eyes at the gallery, that Africans are usually black, and that
they have woolly hair; a sort of proof that, I imagine, only aggravated the
offence. [15] Apart from this little mistake, everything went off well,
even Marcia. It is true, that some evil-inclined person whispered that the
"virtuous Marcia" was a little how-came-you-so; but Bulstrode afterwards
assured me that his condition helped him along amazingly, and that it added
a liquid lustre to his eyes, that might otherwise have been wanting. The
high-heeled shoes appeared to trouble him; but some persons fancied it gave
him a pretty tottering in his walk, that added very much to the deception.
On the whole, the piece went off surprisingly, as I could see by Lord
Loudon and the Lt. Governor, both of whom seemed infinitely diverted.
Herman Mordaunt smiled once or twice, when he ought to have looked grave;
but this I ascribed to a want of practice, of late years, in scenic
representations. He certainly was a man of judgment, and must have known
the proper moments to exhibit particular emotions.

During the interval between the play and the farce, the actors came among
us, to receive the homage they merited, and loud were the plaudits that
were bestowed on them. Anneke's bright eyes sparkled with pleasure as she
admitted, without reserve, to Bulstrode the pleasure she had received, and
confessed she had formed no idea, hitherto, of the beauty and power of a
theatrical representation, aided as was this, by the auxiliaries of lights,
dress and scenery. It is true, the women had been a little absurd, and the
"virtuous Marcia" particularly so; but the fine sentiments of Addison,
which, though as Herman Mordaunt observed, they had all the accuracy and
all the stiffness of a pedantic age, were sufficiently beautiful and
just, to cover the delinquencies of the Hon. Mr. Harris. She hoped the
afterpiece would be of the same general character, that they might all
enjoy it as much as they had the play itself.

The other young ladies were equally decided in their praise, though it
struck me that Anneke _felt_ the most, on the occasion. That the Major had
obtained a great advantage by his efforts, I could not but see; and the
folly of my having any pretensions with one who was courted by such a
rival, began to impress itself on my imagination with a force I found
painful. But the bell soon summoned away the gallant actors, in order to
dress for the farce.

The long interval that occurred between the two pieces, gave ample
opportunity for visiting one's acquaintances, and to compare opinions. I
went to my aunt's box, and found her well satisfied, though less animated
than the younger ladies, in the expression of her pleasure. My uncle was
altogether himself; good-natured, but not disposed to award any indiscreet
amount of praise.

"Pretty well for boys, Corny," he said, "though the youngster who acted
Marcia had better been at school. I do not know his name, but he completely
took all the virtue out of Marcia. He must have studied her character from
some of the ladies who follow the camp."

"My dear uncle, how differently you think from all in our box! That
gentleman is the Hon. Mr. Harris, who is only eighteen, and has a pair of
colours in the ----th, and is a son of Lord Ballybannon, or Bally-something
else, and is said to have the softest voice in the army!"

"Ay, and the softest head, too, I'll answer for it. I tell you, Corny, the
Hon. Mr. Ballybilly, who is only eighteen, and has a pair of colours in
the ----th, and the softest voice in the army, had better been at school,
instead of undermining the virtue of the 'virtuous Marcia,' as he has so
obviously done. Bulstrode did well enough; capitally well, for an amateur,
and must be a first-rate fellow. By the way, Jane"--that was my aunt's
name--"they tell me, he is likely to marry that exceedingly pretty daughter
of Herman Mordaunt, and make her Lady Bulstrode, one of these days."

"Why not, Mr. Legge?--Anne Mordaunt is as sweet a girl as there is in the
colony, and is very respectably connected. They even say the Mordaunts are
of a high family at home. Mary Wallace told me that Herman Mordaunt and Sir
Henry Bulstrode are themselves related; and you know, my dear, how intimate
the Mordaunts and the Wallaces are?"

"Not I;--I know nothing of their intimacies, though I dare say it may be
all true. Mordaunt's father was an English gentleman of some family, I have
always heard, though he was as poor as a church-mouse, when he married one
of our Dutch heiresses; and as for Herman Mordaunt himself, he proved he
had not lost the instinct by marrying another, though she did not happen to
be Dutch. Here comes Anneke to inherit it all, and I'll answer for it that
care is had that she shall marry an heir."

"Well, Mr. Bulstrode is an heir, and the eldest son of a baronet. I am
always pleased when one of our girls makes a good connection at home, for
it does the colony credit. It is an excellent thing, Corny, to have our
interest well sustained at home--especially before the Privy Council, they
tell me."

"Well, I am not," answered my uncle. "I think it more to the credit of the
colony for its young women to take up with its young men, and its young men
with its young women. I wish Anne Mordaunt had been substituted for the
Hon. Ballyshannon to-night. She would have made a thousand times better
'virtuous Marcia."

"You surely would not have had a young lady of respectability appear in
public, in this way, Mr. Legge."

My uncle said something to this, for he seldom let "Jane" get the better of
it for want of an answer; but as I left the box, I did not hear his reply.
It seemed then to be settled, in the minds of most persons, that Bulstrode
was to marry Anneke! I cannot describe the new shock this opinion gave me;
but it seemed to make me more fully sensible of the depth of the impression
that had been made on myself, in the intercourse of a single week. The
effect was such that I did not return to the party I had left, but sought
a seat in a distant part of the theatre, though one in which I could
distinctly see those I had abandoned.

The Beaux Stratagem soon commenced, and Bulstrode was again seen in the
character of Scrub. Those who were most familiar with the stage, pronounced
his playing to be excellent--far better in the footman than in the Roman
Senator. The play itself struck me as being as broad and coarse as could be
tolerated; but as it had a reputation at home, where it had a great name,
our matrons did not dare to object to it. I was glad to see the smiles soon
disappear from Anneke's face, however, and to discover that _she_ found
no pleasure in scenes so unsuited to her sex and years. The short, quick
glances that were exchanged between Anneke and Mary Wallace, did not escape
me, and the manner in which they both rose, as soon as the curtain dropped,
told quite plainly the haste they were in to quit the theatre. I reached
their box-door in time to assist them through the crowd.

Not a word was said by any of us, until we reached the street, where two or
three of Miss Mordaunt's female friends became loud in the expression of
their satisfaction. Neither Anneke nor Mary Wallace said anything, and so
well did I understand the nature of their feelings, that I made no allusion
whatever to the farce. As for the others, they did but chime in with what
appeared to be the common opinion, and were to be pitied rather than
condemned. It was perhaps the more excusable in them to imagine such a play
right, inasmuch as they must have known it was much extolled at home, a
fact that gave any custom a certain privilege in the colonies. A mother
country has much of the same responsibility as a natural mother, herself,
since its opinions and example are apt to be quoted in the one case by the
dependant, in justification of its own opinions and conduct, as it is by
the natural offspring in the other.

I fancy, notwithstanding, this sort of responsibility gives the ministers
or people of England very little trouble, since I never could discover
any sensitiveness to their duties on this score. We all went in at Herman
Mordaunt's, after walking to the house as we had walked from it, and were
made to take a light supper, including some delicious chocolate. Just as
we sat down to table, Bulstrode joined us, to receive the praises he had
earned, and to enjoy his triumph. He got a seat directly opposite to mine,
on Anneke's left hand, and soon began to converse.

"In the first place," he cried, "you must all admit that Tom Harris did
wonders to-night as Miss Marcia Cato. I had my own trouble with the rogue,
for there is no precedent for a tipsy Marcia; but we managed to keep him
straight, and that was the nicest part of my management, let me assure
you."

"Yes," observed Herman Mordaunt, drily; "I should think keeping Tom Harris
straight, after dinner, an exploit of no little difficulty, but a task that
would demand a very judicious management, indeed."

"You were pleased to express your satisfaction with the performance of
Cato, Miss Mordaunt," said Bulstrode, in a very deferential and solicitous
manner; "but I question if the entertainment gave you as much pleasure?"

"It certainly did not. Had the representation ended with the first piece, I
am afraid I should too much regret that we are without a regular stage; but
the farce will take off much of the keenness of such regrets."

"I fear I understand you, cousin Anne, and greatly regret that we did not
make another choice," returned Bulstrode, with a humility that was not
usual in his manner, even when addressing Anneke Mordaunt; "but I can
assure you the play has great vogue at home; and the character of Scrub, in
particular, has usually been a prodigious favourite. I see by your look,
however, that enough has been said; but after having done so much to amuse
this good company, to-night, I shall feel authorised to call on every lady
present, at least for a song, as soon as the proper moment arrives. Perhaps
I have a right to add, a sentiment, and a toast."

And songs, and toasts, and sentiments, we had, as usual, the moment we had
done eating. It was, and indeed _is_, rather more usual to indulge in this
innocent gaiety after supper, than after dinner, with us; and that night
everybody entered into the feeling of the moment with spirit. Herman
Mordaunt gave "Miss Markham," as he had done at dinner, and this with an
air so determined, as to prove no one else would ever be got out of _him_.

"There is a compact between Miss Markham and myself, to toast each other
for the remainder of our lives," cried the master of the house, laughing;
"and we are each too honest ever to violate it."

"But Miss Mordaunt is under no such engagement," put in a certain Mr.
Benson, who had manifested much interest in the beautiful young mistress of
the house throughout the day; "and I trust we shall not be put off by any
such excuse from her."

"It is not in rule to ask two of the same race for toasts in succession,"
answered Herman Mordaunt. "There is Mr. Bulstrode dying to give us another
English belle."

"With all my heart," said Bulstrode, gaily. "This time it shall be Lady
Betty Boddington."

"Married or single, Bulstrode?" inquired Billings, as I thought with some
little point.

"No matter which, so long as she be a beauty and a toast. I believe it
is now my privilege to call on a lady, and I beg a gentleman from Miss
Wallace."

There had been an expression of pained surprise, at the trifling between
Billings and Bulstrode, in Anneke's sweet countenance; for, in the
simplicity of our provincial habits, we of the colonies did not think it
exactly in rule for the single to toast the married, or _vice versa_; but
the instant her friend was thus called on, it changed for a look of gentle
concern. Mary Wallace manifested no concern, however, but gave "Mr. Francis
Fordham."

"Ay, Frank Fordham, with all my heart," cried Herman Mordaunt. "I hope he
will return to his native country as straight-forward, honest, and good as
he left it."

"Mr. Fordham is then abroad?" inquired Bulstrode. "I thought the name new
to me."

"If being at home can be called being abroad. He is reading law at the
Temple."

This was the answer of Mary Wallace, who looked as if she felt a friendly
interest in the young Templar, but no more. She now called on Dirck for
his lady. Throughout the whole of that day, Dirck's voice had hardly been
heard; a reserve that comported well enough with his youth and established
diffidence. This appeal, however, seemed suddenly to arouse all that there
was of manhood in him; and that was not a little, I can tell the reader,
when there was occasion to use it. Dirck's nature was honesty itself; and
he felt that the appeal was too direct, and the occasion too serious, to
admit of duplicity. He loved but one, esteemed but one, felt for one only;
and it was not in his nature to cover his preference by any attempt at
deception. After colouring to the ears, appearing distressed, he made an
effort, and pronounced the name of--"Anneke Mordaunt."

A common laugh rewarded this blunder; common with all but the fair creature
who had extorted this involuntary tribute, and myself, who knew Dirck's
character too well not to understand how very much he must be in earnest
thus to lay bare the most cherished secret of his heart. The mirth
continued some time, Herman Mordaunt appearing to be particularly pleased,
and applauding his kinsman's directness with several 'bravos' very
distinctly uttered. As for Anneke, I saw she looked touched, while she
looked concerned, and as if she would be glad to have the thing undone.

"After all, Dirck, much as I admire your spirit and plain dealing, boy,"
cried Herman Mordaunt, "Miss Wallace can never let such a toast pass. She
will insist on having another."

"I!--I protest I am well pleased with it, and ask for no other," exclaimed
the lady in question. "No toast can be more agreeable to me than Anneke
Mordaunt, and I particularly like the quarter from which this comes."

"If friends can be trusted in a matter of this nature," put in Bulstrode,
with a little pique, "Mr. Follock has every reason to be contented. Had I
known, however, that the customs of New York allowed a lady who is present
to be toasted, that gentleman would not have had the merit of being the
first to make this discovery."

"Nor is it," said Herman Mordaunt; "and Dirck must hunt up another to
supply my daughter's place."

But no other was forthcoming from the stores of Dirck Follock's mind. Had
he a dozen names in reserve, not one of them would he have produced under
circumstances that might seem like denying his allegiance to the girl
already given; but he _could_ not name any other female. So, after some
trifling, the company attributing Dirck's hesitation to his youth and
ignorance of the world, abandoned the attempt, desiring him to call on
Anneke herself for a toast in turn.

"_Cousin_ Dirck Van Valkenburgh," said Anneke, with the greater
self-possession and ease of her sex, though actually my friend's junior by
more than two years; laying some emphasis, at the same time, on the word
_cousin_.

"There!" exclaimed Dirck, looking exultingly at Bulstrode; "you see,
gentlemen and ladies, that _it_ is permitted to toast a person present, if
you happen to respect and esteem that person!"

"By which, sir, we are to understand how much Miss Mordaunt respects and
esteems Mr. Dirck Van Valkenburgh," answered Bulstrode gravely. "I am
afraid there is only too much justice in an opinion that might, at the
first blush, seem to savour of self-love."

"An imputation I am far from denying," returned Anneke, with a steadiness
that showed wonderful self-command, did she really return any of Dirck's
attachment. "My kinsman gives me as his toast, and I give him as mine. Is
there anything unnatural in that?"

Here there was an outbreak of raillery at Anneke's expense, which the young
lady bore with a calmness and composure that at first astonished me. But
when I came to reflect that she had been virtually at the head of her
father's house for several years, and that she had always associated with
persons older than herself, it appeared more natural; for it is certain
we can either advance or retard the character by throwing a person into
intimate association with those who, by their own conversation, manners,
or acquirements, are most adapted for doing either. In a few minutes the
interruption was forgotten by those who had no interest in the subject,
and the singing commenced. I had obtained so much credit by my attempt at
dinner, that I had the extreme gratification of being asked to sing another
song by Anneke herself. Of course I complied, and I thought the company
seemed pleased. As for my young hostess, I knew she looked more gratified
with my song than with the afterpiece, and that I felt to be something.
Dirck had an occasion to renew a little of the ground lost by the toast,
for he sang a capital comic song in Low Dutch. It is true, not half the
party understood him, but the other half laughed until the tears rolled
down their cheeks, and there was something so droll in my friend's manner,
that everybody was delighted. The clocks struck twelve before we broke up.

I staid in town but a day or two longer, meeting my new acquaintances every
day, and sometimes twice a-day, however, on Trinity Church Walk. I paid
visits of leave-taking with a heavy heart, and most of all to Anneke and
her father.

"I understood from Follock," said Herman Mordaunt, when I explained the
object of my call, "that you are to leave town to-morrow. Miss Mordaunt and
her friend, Miss Wallace, go to Lilacsbush this afternoon; for it is high
time to look after the garden and the flowers, many of which are now in
full bloom. I shall join them in the evening and I propose that you young
men, take a late breakfast with us, on your way to Westchester. A cup of
coffee before you start, and getting into your saddle at six, will bring
all right. I promise you that you shall be on the road again by one, which
will give you plenty of time to reach Satanstoe before dark."

I looked at Anneke, and fancied that the expression of her countenance was
favourable. Dirck left everything to me, and I accepted the invitation.
This arrangement shortened my visit in Crown Street, and I left the house
with a lighter heart than that with which I had entered it. It is always so
agreeable to get an unpleasant duty deferred!

Next day Dirck and I were in the saddle at six precisely, and we rode
through the streets just as the blacks were washing down their stoops and
side-walks; though there were but very few of the last, in my youth. This
is a commodious improvement, and one that it is not easy to see how the
ladies could dispense with, and which is now getting to be pretty common;
all the new streets, I see, being provided with the convenience.

It was a fine May morning, and the air was full of the sweet fragrance of
the lilac, in particular, as we rode into the country. Just as we got into
the Bowery Lane, a horseman was seen walking out of one of the by-streets,
and coming our way. He no sooner caught sight of two travellers going in
his own direction, than he spurred forward to join us; being alone, and
probably wishing company. As it would have been churlish to refuse to
travel in company with one thus situated, we pulled up, walking our horses
until the stranger joined us; when, to our surprise, it turned out to be
Jason Newcome. The pedagogue was as much astonished when he recognised us,
as we were in recognising him; and I believe he was a little disappointed;
for Jason was so fond of making acquaintances, that it was always a
pleasure to him to be thus employed. It appeared that he had been down
on the island to visit a relative, who had married and settled in that
quarter; and this was the reason we had not met since the morning of the
affair of the lion. Of course we trotted on together, neither glad nor
sorry at having this particular companion.

I never could explain the process by means of which Jason wound his way
into everybody's secrets. It is true he had no scruples about asking
questions; putting those which most persons would think forbidden by the
usages of society, with as little hesitation as those which are universally
permitted. The people of New England have a reputation this way; and I
remember to have heard Mr. Worden account for the practice in the following
way: Everything and everybody was brought under rigid church government
among the Puritans; and, when a whole community gets the notion that it is
to sit in judgment on every act of one of its members, it is quite natural
that it should extend that right to an inquiry into all his affairs. One
thing is certain; our neighbours of Connecticut do assume a control over
the acts and opinions of individuals that is not dreamed of in New York;
and I think it very likely that the practice of pushing inquiry into
private things, has grown up under this custom.

As one might suppose, Jason, whenever baffled in an attempt to obtain
knowledge by means of inquiries, more or less direct, sought to advance his
ends through conjectures; taking those that were the most plausible, if
any such could be found, but putting up with those that had not even
this questionable recommendation, if nothing better offered. He was,
consequently, for ever falling into the grossest errors, for, necessarily
making his conclusions on premises drawn from his own ignorance and
inexperience, he was liable to fall into serious mistakes at the very
outset. Nor was this the worst; the tendency of human nature not being very
directly to charity, the harshest constructions were sometimes blended with
the most absurd blunders, in his mind, and I have known him to be often
guilty of assertions, that had no better foundation than these conjectures,
which might have subjected him to severe legal penalties.

On the present occasion, Jason was not long in ascertaining where we were
bound. This was done in a manner so characteristic and ingenious, that I
will attempt to relate it.

"Why, you're out early, this morning, gentlemen," exclaimed Jason,
affecting surprise. "What in natur' has started you off before breakfast?"

"So as to be certain not to lose our suppers at Satanstoe, this evening," I
answered.

"Suppers? why, you will almost reach home (Jason _would_ call this word
_hum_) by dinner-time; that is, your York dinner-time. Perhaps you mean to
call by the way?"

"Perhaps we do, Mr. Newcorne; there are many pleasant families between this
and Satanstoe."

"I know there be. There's the great Mr. Van Cortlandt's at Yonker's;
perhaps you mean to stop there?"

"No, sir; we have no such intention."

"Then there's the rich Count Philips's, on the river; that would be no
great matter out of the way?"

"It's farther than we intend to turn."

"Oh! so you _do_ intend to turn a bit aside! Well, there's that Mr.
Mordaunt, whose daughter you pulled out of the lion's paws;--he has a house
near King's-Bridge, called Lilacsbush."

"And how did you ascertain that, Jason?"

"By asking. Do you think I would let such a thing happen, and not inquire
a little about the young lady? Nothing is ever lost by putting a few
questions, and inquiring round; and I did not forget the rule in her case."

"And you ascertained that the young lady's father has a place called
Lilacsbush, in this neighbourhood?"

"I did; and a queer York fashion it is to give a house a name, just as you
would a Christian being; that must be a Roman Catholic custom, and some way
connected with idolatry."

"Out of all doubt. It is far better to say, for instance, that we are going
to breakfast at Mr. Mordaunt's-es-es, than to say we intend to stop at
Lilacsbush."

"Oh! you be, be you? Well, I thought it would turn out that some such place
must have started you off so early. It will be a desperate late breakfast,
Corny!"

"It will be at ten o'oclock, Jason, and that is rather later than common;
but our appetites will be so much the better."

To this Jason assented, and then commenced a series of manoeuvres to be
included in the party. This we did not dare to do, however, and all Jason's
hints were disregarded, until, growing desperate by our evasions, he
plumply proposed to go along, and we as plumply told him we would take no
such liberty with a man of Herman Mordaunt's years, position and character.
I do not know that we should have hesitated so much had we considered Jason
a gentleman, but this was impossible. The custom of the colony admitted
of great freedom in this respect, being very different from what it is
at home, by all accounts, in these particulars; but there was always an
understanding that the persons one brought with him should be of a certain
stamp and class in life; recommendations to which Jason Newcome certainly
had no claim.

The case was getting to be a little embarrassing, when the appearance of
Herman Mordaunt himself, fortunately removed the difficulty. Jason was not
a man to be thrown off very easily; but here was one who had the power, and
who showed the disposition to set things right. Herman Mordaunt had ridden
down the road a mile or two to meet us, intending to lead us by a private
and shorter way to his residence, than that which was already known to us.
He no sooner saw that Jason was of our company, than he asked that as a
favour, which our companion would very gladly have accepted as a boon.

[Footnote 15: In England, Othello is usually played as a black, while in
America he is played as a nondescript; or of no colour that is ordinarily
seen. It is not clear that England is nearer right than America, however;
the Moor not being a negro, any more than he is of the colour of a dried
herring.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER IX.

  "I question'd Love, whose early ray
  So heavenly bright appears;
  And love, in answer, seem'd to say,
  His light was dimm'd by tears."

  HEBER.


It was not long after the explanation occurred, as respects Jason, and the
invitation was given to include him in our party, before Herman Mordaunt
opened a gate, and led the way into the fields. A very tolerable road
conducted us through some woods, to the heights, and we soon found
ourselves on an eminence, that overlooked a long reach of the Hudson,
extending from Haverstraw, to the north, as far as Staten Island, to the
south; a distance of near forty miles. On the opposite shore, rose the
wall-like barrier of the Palisadoes, lifting the table-land, on their
summits, to an elevation of several hundred feet. The noble river, itself,
fully three-quarters of a mile in width, was unruffled by a breath of air,
lying in one single, extended, placid sheet, under the rays of a bright
sun, resembling molten silver. I scarce remember a lovelier morning;
everything appearing to harmonize with the glorious but tranquil grandeur
of the view, and the rich promises of a bountiful nature. The trees were
mostly covered with the beautiful clothing of a young verdure; the birds
had mated, and were building in nearly every tree; the wild-flowers started
up beneath the hoofs of our horses; and every object, far and near, seemed,
to my young eyes, to be attuned to harmony and love.

"This is a favourite ride of mine, in which Anneke often accompanies
me," said Herman Mordaunt, as we gained the commanding eminence I have
mentioned. "My daughter is a spirited horse-woman, and is often my
companion in these morning rides. She and Mary Wallace should be somewhere
on the hills, at this moment, for they promised to follow me, as soon as
they could dress for the saddle."

A cry of something like wild delight burst out of Dirck, and the next
moment he was galloping away for an adjoining ridge, on the top of which
the beautiful forms of the two girls were just then visible; embellished by
neatly-fitting habits, and beavers with drooping feathers. I pointed out
these charming objects to Herman Mordaunt, and followed my friend, at
half-speed. In a minute or two the parties had joined.

Never had I seen Anneke Mordaunt so perfectly lovely, as she appeared that
morning. The exercise and air had deepened a bloom that was always rich;
and her eyes received new lustre from the glow on her cheeks. Though
expected, I thought she received us as particularly acceptable guests;
while Mary Wallace manifested more than an usual degree of animation, in
her reception. Jason was not forgotten, but was acknowledged as an old
acquaintance, and was properly introduced to the friend.

"You frequently take these rides, Mr. Mordaunt tells me," I said, reining
my horse to the side of that of Anneke's, as the whole party moved on; "and
I regret that Satanstoe is so distant, as to prevent our oftener meeting
of a morning. We have many noted horse-women, in Westchester, who would be
proud of such an acquisition."

"I know several ladies, on your side of Harlem river" Anneke answered,
"and frequently ride in their company; but none so distant as any in your
immediate neighbourhood. My father tells me, he used often to shoot over
the fields of Satanstoe, when a youth; and still speaks of your birds with
great affection."

"I believe our fathers were once brother-sportsmen. Mr. Bulstrode has
promised to come and imitate their good example. Now you have had time to
reflect on the plays you have seen, do you still feel the same interest in
such representations as at first?"

"I only wish there was not so much to condemn. I think Mr. Bulstrode might
have reached eminence as a player, had not fortune put it, in one sense,
beyond his reach, as an elder son, and a man of family."

"Mr. Bulstrode, they tell me, is not only the heir of an old baronetcy, but
of a large fortune?"

"Such are the facts, I believe. Do you not think it creditable to him, Mr.
Littlepage, that one so situated, should come so far to serve his king and
country, in a rude war like this of our colonies?"

I was obliged to assent, though I heartily wished that Anneke's manner had
been less animated and sincere, as she put the question. Still, I hardly
knew what to think of her feelings towards that gentleman; for, otherwise,
she always heard him named with a calmness and self-possession that I
had observed was not shared by all her young companions, when there was
occasion to allude to the gay and insinuating soldier. I need scarcely say,
it was no disadvantage to Mr. Bulstrode to be the heir of a baronetcy, in
an English colony. Somehow or other, we are a little apt to magnify such
accidental superiority, at a distance from home; and I _have_ heard
Englishmen, themselves, acknowledge that a baronet was a greater man, in
New York, than a duke was in London. These were things, that passed through
my mind, as I rode along at Anneke's side; though I had the discretion not
to give utterance of my thoughts.

"Herman Mordaunt rode in advance, with Jason; and he led the party, by
pretty bridle-paths, along the heights for nearly two miles, occasionally
opening a gate, without dismounting, until he reached a point that
overlooked Lilacsbush, which was soon seen, distant from us less than half
a mile.

"Here we are, on my own domain," he said, as he pulled up to let us join
him; "that last gate separating me from my nearest neighbour south. These
hills are of no great use, except as early pastures, though they afford
many beautiful views."

"I have heard it predicted," I remarked, "that the time would come, some
day, when the banks of the Hudson would contain many such seats as that of
the Philipses, at Yonkers, and one or two more like it, that I am told are
now standing above the Highlands."

"Quite possibly; it is not easy to foretell what may come to pass in such a
country. I dare say, that in time, both towns and seats will be seen on the
banks of the Hudson, and a powerful and numerous nobility to occupy the
last. By the way, Mr. Littlepage, your father and my friend Col. Follock
have been making a valuable acquisition in lands, I hear; having obtained a
patent for an extensive estate, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Albany?"

"It is not so very extensive, sir, there being only some forty thousand
acres of it, altogether; nor is it very near Albany, by what I can learn,
since it must lie at a distance of some forty miles, or more, from that
town. Next winter, however, Dirck and myself are to go in search of the
land, when we shall learn all about it."

"Then we may meet in that quarter of the country. I have affairs of
importance at Albany, which have been too long neglected; and it has been
my intention to pass some months at the north, next season; and early in
the season, too. We may possibly meet in the woods."

"You have been at Albany, I suppose, Mr. Mordaunt?"

"Quite often, sir; the distance is so great, that one has not much
inducement to go there, unless carried by affairs, however, as has been my
case. I was at Albany before my marriage, and have had various occasions to
visit it since."

"My father was there, when a soldier; and he tells me it is a part of the
province well worth seeing. At all events, I shall encounter the risk and
fatigue next season; for it is useful to young persons to see the world.
Dirck and myself may make the campaign, should there be one in that
direction."

I fancied Anneke manifested some interest in this conversation; but we rode
on, and soon alighted at the door of Lilacsbush. Bulstrode was not in the
way, and I had the supreme pleasure of helping Miss Mordaunt to alight,
when we paused a moment before entering the house, to examine the view. I
have given the reader some idea of the general appearance of the place; but
it was necessary to approach it, in order to form a just conception of its
beauties. As its name indicated, the lawn, house, and out-buildings were
all garnished or buried in lilacs, the whole of which were then in full
blossom. The flowers filled the air with a species of purple light, that
cast a warm and soft radiance even on the glowing face of Anneke, as she
pointed out to me the magical effect. I know no flower that does so much
to embellish a place, as the lilac, on a large scale, common as it is, and
familiar as we have become with its hues and its fragrance.

"We enjoy the month our lilacs are out, beyond any month in the year," said
Anneke, smiling at my surprise and delight; "and we make it a point to pass
most of it here. You will at least own, Mr. Littlepage, that Lilacsbush is
properly named."

"The effect is more like enchantment than anything else!" I cried. "I
did not know that the simple, modest lilac could render anything so very
beautiful!"

"Simplicity and modesty are such charms in themselves, sir, as to be potent
allies," observed the sensible but taciturn Mary Wallace.

To this I assented, of course, and we all followed Mr. Mordaunt into
the house. I was as much delighted with the appearance of things in the
interior of Lilacsbush, as I had been with the exterior. Everywhere, it
seemed to me, I met with the signs of Anneke's taste and skill. I do not
wish the reader to suppose that the residence itself was of the very first
character and class, for this it could not lay claim to be. Still, it was
one of those staid, story-and-a-half dwellings, in which most of our
first families were, and are content to dwell, in the country; very much
resembling the good old habitation at Satanstoe in these particulars. The
furniture, however, was of a higher town-finish than we found it necessary
to use; and the little parlour in which we breakfasted was a model for an
eating-room. The buffets in the corners were so well polished that one
might see his face in them; the cellarets were ornamented with plated
hinges, locks, etc., and the table itself shone like a mirror. I know not
how it was, but the china appeared to me richer and neater than common
under Anneke's pretty little hand; while the massive and highly-finished
plate of the breakfast service, was such as could be wrought only in
England. In a word, while everything appeared rich and respectable, there
was a certain indescribable air of comfort, gentility, and neatness about
the whole, that impressed me in an unusual manner.

"Mr. Littlepage tells me, Anneke," observed Herman Mordaunt, while we were
at breakfast, "that he intends to make a journey to the north, next winter,
and it may be our good fortune to meet him there. The ----th expects to be
ordered up as high as Albany, this summer; and we may all renew our songs
and jests, with Bulstrode and his gay companions, among the Dutchmen."

I was charmed with this prospect of meeting Anneke Mordaunt at the north,
and took occasion to say as much; though I was afraid it was in an awkward
and confused manner.

"I heard as much as this, sir, while we were riding," answered the
daughter. "I hope cousin Dirck is to be of the party?"

Cousin Dirck assured her he was, and we discussed in anticipation the
pleasure it must give to old acquaintances to meet so far from home. Not
one of us, Herman Mordaunt excepted, had ever been one hundred miles from
his or her birth-place, as was ascertained on comparing notes. I was the
greatest traveller; Princeton lying between eighty and ninety miles from
Satanstoe, as the road goes.

"Perhaps I come nearer to it than any of you," put in Jason, "for my late
journey on the island must have carried me nearly that far from Danbury.
But, ladies, I can assure you, a traveller has many opportunities for
learning useful things, as I know by the difference there is between York
and Connecticut."

"And which do you prefer, Mr. Newcome?" asked Anneke, with a somewhat
comical expression about her laughing eyes.

"That is hardly a fair question, Miss;" no reproof could break Jason of
this vulgarism, "since it might make enemies for a body to speak all of his
mind in such matters. There are comparisons that should never be made, on
account of circumstances that overrule all common efforts. New York is
a great colony--a very great colony, Miss; but it was once Dutch, as
everybody knows, begging Mr. Follock's pardon; and it must be confessed
Connecticut has, from the first, enjoyed almost unheard-of advantages, in
the moral and religious character of her people, the excellence of her
lands, and the purity"--Jason called this word "poority;" but that did not
alter the sentiment--though I must say, once for all, it is out of my power
to spell every word as this man saw fit to pronounce it--"of her people and
church."

Herman Mordaunt looked up with surprise, at this speech; but Dirck and
I had heard so many like it, that we saw nothing out of the way on this
particular occasion. As for the ladies, they were too well-bred to glance
at each other, as girls sometimes will; but I could see that each thought
the speaker a very singular person.

"You find, then, a difference in customs between the two colonies, sir?"
said Herman Mordaunt.

"A vast difference truly, sir. Now there was a little thing happened about
your daughter, 'Squire Mordaunt, the very first time I saw her"--the
present was the _second_ interview--"that could no more have happened
in Connecticut, than the whole of the province could be put into that
tea-cup."

"To my daughter, Mr. Newcome!"

"Yes, sir, to your own daughter; Miss, that sits there looking as innocent
as if it had never come to pass."

"This is so extraordinary, sir, that I must beg an explanation."

"You may well call it extr'ornary, for extr'ornary it would be called all
over Connecticut; and I'll never give up that York, if this be a York
usage, is or can be right in such a matter, at least."

"I entreat you to be more explicit, Mr. Newcome."

"Why, sir, you must know, Corny, here, and I, and Dirck there, went in to
see the lion, about which no doubt you've heard so much, and Corny paid for
Miss's ticket Well, _that_ was all right enough, but----"

"Surely, Anneke, you have not forgotten to return to Mr. Littlepage the
money!"

"Listen patiently, my dear sir, and you will get the whole story, my
delinquencies and debts included, if any there are."

"That's just what she did, Squire Mordaunt, and I maintain there is not the
man in all Connecticut that would have taken it. If ladies can't be treated
to sights, and other amusements, I should like to know who is to be so."

Herman Mordaunt, at first, looked gravely at the speaker, but catching the
expression of our eyes he answered with the tact of a perfectly well-bred
man, as he certainly was, on all occasions that put him to the proof--

"You must overlook Miss Mordaunt's adhering to her own customs, Mr.
Newcome, on account of her youth, and her little knowledge of any world
but that immediately around her. When she has enjoyed an opportunity of
visiting Danbury, no doubt she will improve by the occasion."

"But, Corny, sir--think of Corny's falling into such a mistake!"

"As for Mr. Littlepage, I must suppose he labours under somewhat of the
same disadvantage. We are less gallant here than you happen to be in
Connecticut; hence our inferiority. At some future day, perhaps, when
society shall have made a greater progress among us, our youths will come
to see the impropriety of permitting the fair sex to pay for anything, even
their own ribands. I have long known, sir, that you of New England claim to
treat your women better than they are treated in any other portion of the
inhabited world, and it must be owing to that circumstance hat they enjoy
the advantage of being 'treated' for nothing."

With this concession Jason was apparently content. How much of this
provincial feeling, arising from provincial ignorance, have I seen since
that time! It is certain that our fellow-subjects of the eastern provinces
are not addicted to hiding their lights under bushels, but make the most
of all their advantages. That they are superior to us of York, in some
respects, I am willing enough to allow; but there are certainly points on
which this superiority is far less apparent. As for Jason, he was entirely
satisfied with the answer of Herman Mordaunt, and often alluded to the
subject afterwards, to my prejudice, and with great self-complacency. To
be sure, it is a hard lesson to beat into the head of the self-sufficient
colonist, that his own little corner of the earth does not contain all that
is right, and just, and good, and refined.

I left Lilacsbush, that day, deeply in love. I hold it to be unmanly to
attempt to conceal it. Anneke had made a lively impression on me from the
very first, but that impression had now gone deeper than the imagination,
and had very sensibly touched the heart. Perhaps it was necessary to see
her in the retirement of the purely domestic circle, to give all her charms
their just ascendency. While in town, I had usually met her in crowds,
surrounded by admirers or other young persons of her own sex, and there was
less opportunity for viewing the influence of nature and the affections on
her manner. With Mary Wallace at her side, however, there was always one
on whom she could exhibit just enough of these feelings to bring out the
loveliness of her nature without effort or affectation. Anne Mordaunt never
spoke to her friend without a change appearing in her manner. Affection
thrilled in the tones of her voice, confidence beamed in her eye, and
esteem and respect were to be gathered from the expectation and deference
that shone in her countenance. Mary Wallace was two years the oldest, and
these years taken in connection with her character, entitled her to receive
this tribute from her nearest associate; but all these feelings flowed
spontaneously from the heart, for never was an intercourse between two of
the sex more thoroughly free from acting.

It was a proof that passion was getting the mastery over me, that I now
forgot Dirck, his obvious attachment, older claims, and possible success. I
know not how it was, or why it was, but it was certain that Herman Mordaunt
had a great regard for Dirck Van Valkenburgh. The affinity may have counted
for something, and it was possible that the father was already weighing the
advantages that might accrue from such a connection. Col. Follock had the
reputation of being rich, as riches were then counted among us; and the
young fellow himself, in addition to a fine manly figure, that was fast
developing itself into the frame of a youthful Hercules, had an excellent
temper, and a good reputation. Still, this idea never troubled me. Of Dirck
I had no fears, while Bulstrode gave me great uneasiness, from the first.
I saw all his advantages, may have even magnified them; while those of my
near and immediate friend, gave me no trouble whatever. It is possible, had
Dirck presented himself oftener, or more distinctly to my mind, a feeling
of magnanimity might have induced me to withdraw in time, and leave him
a field to which he had the earliest claim. But, after the morning at
Lilacsbush, it was too late for any such sacrifice on my part; and I rode
away from the house, at the side of my friend, as forgetful of his interest
in Anneke, as if he had never felt any. Magnanimity and I had no further
connection in relation to my pretensions to Anneke Mordaunt.

"Well," commenced Jason, as soon as we were fairly in the saddle, "these
Mordaunts are even a notch above your folks, Corny? There was more silver
vessels in that room where we ate, than there is at this moment in all
Danbury! The extravagance amounts to waste. The old gentleman must be
desperate rich, Dirck?"

"Herman Mordaunt has a good estate, and very little of it has gone for
plate, Jason; that which you saw is old, and came either from Holland, or
England; one home, or the other."

"Oh! Holland is no home for me, boy. Depend on it, all that plate is not
put there for nothing. If the truth could be come at, this Herman Mordaunt,
as you call him, though I do not see why you cannot call him _'Squire_
Mordaunt, like other folks, but this Mr. Mordaunt has some notion, I
conclude, to get his daughter off on one of these rich English officers, of
whom there happen to be so many in the province, just at this time. I never
saw the gentleman, but there was one Bulstrode named pretty often this
forenoon,"--Jason's morning always terminated at his usual breakfast
hour,--"and I rather conclude he will turn out to be the chap, in the long
run. Such is my calculation, and _they_ don't often fail."

I saw a quick, surprised start in Dirck; but I felt such a twinge myself,
that there was little opportunity to inquires into the state of my friend's
feelings, at this coarse, but unexpected remark.

"Have you any particular reason, Mr. Newcome, for; venturing such an
opinion?" I asked, a little sternly.

"Come, don't let us, out here in the highway, begin to mister one another.
You are Corny, Dirck is Dirck, and I am Jason. The shortest way is commonly
the best way, and I like given-names among friends. Have I any particular
reason?--Yes; plenty on 'em, and them that's good. In the first place, no
man has a daughter,"--darter a la Jason,--"that he does not begin to think
of setting her out in the world, accordin' to his abilities; then, as
I said before, these folks from home" (hum) "are awful rich, and rich
husbands are always satisfactory to parents, whatever they may be to
children. Besides, some of these officers will fall heirs to titles, and
that is a desperate temptation to a woman, all over the world. I hardly
think there is a young woman in Danbury that could hold out agin' a real
title."

It has always struck me as singular, that the people of Jason's part of the
provinces should entertain so much profound respect for titles. No portion
of the world is of simpler habits, nor is it easier to find any civilized
people among whom there is greater equality of actual condition, which,
one would think, must necessarily induce equality of feeling, than in
Connecticut, at this very moment. Notwithstanding these facts, the love of
title is so great, that even that of serjeant is often prefixed to the name
of a man on his tombstone, or in the announcement of his death or marriage;
and as for the militia ensigns and lieutenants, there is no end to them.
Deacon is an important title, which is rarely omitted; and wo betide the
man who should forget to call a magistrate "esquire." No such usages
prevail among us; or, if they do, it is among that portion of the people of
this colony which is derived from New England, and still retains some of
its customs. Then, in no part of the colonies is English rank more deferred
to, than in New England, generally, notwithstanding most of those colonies
possess the right to elect nearly every officer they have among them. I
allow that we of New York defer greatly to men of birth and rank from home,
and it is right we should so do; but I do not think our deference is as
great, or by any means as general, as it is in New England. It is possible
the influence of the Dutch may have left an impression on our state of
society, though I have been told that the colonies farther south exhibit
very much the same characteristics as we do, ourselves, on this head. [16]

We reached Satanstoe a little late, in consequence of the delay at
Lilacsbush, and were welcomed with affection and warmth. My excellent
mother was delighted to see me at home again, after so long an absence,
and one which she did not think altogether without peril, when it was
remembered that I had passed a whole fortnight amid the temptations and
fascinations of the capital. I saw the tears in her eyes as she kissed me,
again and again, and felt the gentle, warm embrace, as she pressed me to
her bosom, in maternal thanksgiving.

Of course, I had to render an account of all I had seen and done, including
Pinkster, the theatre, and the lion. I said nothing, however, of the
Mordaunts, until questioned about them by my mother, quite a fortnight
after Dirck had gone across to Rockland. One morning, as I sat endeavouring
to write a sonnet in my own room, that excellent parent entered and took
a seat near my table, with the familiarity the relation she bore me
justified. She was knitting at the time, for never was she idle, except
when asleep. I saw by the placid smile on her face, which, Heaven bless
her! was still smooth and handsome, that something was on her mind, that
was far from disagreeable; and I waited with some curiosity for the
opening. That excellent mother! How completely did she live out of herself
in all that had the most remote bearing on my future hopes and happiness!

"Finish your writing, my son," commenced my mother, for I had instinctively
striven to conceal the sonnet; "finish your writing; until you have done, I
will be silent."

"I have done, now, mother; 'twas only a copy of verses I was endeavouring
to write out--you know--that is--write out, you know."

"I did not know you were a poet, Corny," returned my mother, smiling still
more complacently, for it _is_ something to be the parent of a poet.

"I!--I a poet, mother?--I'd sooner turn school-master, than turn poet.
Yes, I'd sooner be Jason Newcome, himself, than even suspect it possible I
_could_ be a poet."

"Well, never mind; people never turn poets, I fancy, with their eyes open.
But, what is this I hear of your having saved a beautiful young lady from
the jaws of a lion, while you were in town; and why was I left to learn all
the particulars from Mr. Newcome?"

I believe my face was of the colour of scarlet, for it felt as if it were
on fire, and my mother smiled still more decidedly than ever. Speak! I
could not have spoken to be thus smiled on by Anneke.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of, Corny, in rescuing a young lady from a
lion, or in going to her father's to receive the thanks of the family. The
Mordaunts are a family any one can visit with pleasure. Was the battle
between you and the beast, a very desperate conflict, my child?"

"Poh! mother:--Jason is a regular dealer in marvels, and he makes mountains
of mole-hills. In the first place, for 'jaws,' you must substitute 'paws,'
and for a 'young lady,' 'her shawl.'"

"Yes, I understand it was the shawl, but it was on her shoulders, and could
not have been disengaged time enough to save her, had you not shown so much
presence of mind and courage. As for the 'jaws,' I believe that was my
mistake, for Mr. Newcome certainly said 'claws.'"

"Well, mother, have it your own way. I was of a little service to a very
charming young woman, and she and her father were civil to me, as a matter
of course. Herman Mordaunt is a name we all know, and, as you say, his is a
family that any man may be proud of visiting, ay, and pleased too."

"How odd it is, Corny," added my mother, in a sort of musing, soliloquizing
way,--"you are an only child, and Anneke Mordaunt is also an only child, as
Dirck Follock has often told me."

"Then Dirck has spoken to you frequently of Anneke, before this, mother?"

"Time and again; they are relations, you must have heard; as, indeed, you
are yourself, if you did but know it."

"I?--I related to Anneke Mordaunt, without being too _near_?"

My dear mother smiled again, while I felt sadly ashamed of myself at the
next instant. I believe that a suspicion of the truth, as respects my
infant passion, existed in that dear parent's mind from that moment.

"Certainly related, Corny, and I will tell you how. My
great-great-grandmother, Alida van der Heyden, was a first cousin of Herman
Mordaunt's great-great-grandmother, by his mother's side, who was a Van
Kleeck. So, you see, you and Anneke are actually related."

"Just near enough, mother, to put one at ease in their house, and not so
near as to make relationship troublesome."

"They tell me, my child, that Anneke is a sweet creature!"

"If beauty, and modesty, and grace, and gentleness, and spirit, and sense,
and delicacy, and virtue, and piety, can make any young woman of seventeen
a sweet creature, mother, then Anneke is sweet."

My dear mother seemed surprised at my warmth, but she smiled still more
complacently than ever. Instead of pursuing the subject, however, she saw
fit to change it, by speaking of the prospects of the season, and the many
reasons we all had for thankfulness to God. I presume, with a woman's
instinct, she had learned enough to satisfy her mind for the present.

The summer soon succeeded to the May that proved so momentous to me; and I
sought occupation in the fields. Occupation, however, would not do. Anneke
was with me, go where I would; and glad was I when Dirck, about midsummer,
in one of his periodical visits to Satanstoe, proposed that we should ride
over, and make another visit to Lilacsbush. He had written a note, to say
we should be glad to ask a dinner and beds, if it were convenient, for a
day a short distance ahead; and he waited the answer at the Neck. This
answer arrived duly by mail, and was everything we could wish. Herman
Mordaunt offered us a hearty welcome, and sent the grateful intelligence
that his daughter and Mary Wallace would both be present to receive us. I
envied Dirck the manly feeling which had induced him to take this plain and
respectable course to his object.

We went across the country, accordingly, and reached Lilacsbush several
hours before dinner. Anneke received us with a bright suffusion of the
face, and kind smiles; though I could not detect the slightest difference
in her manners to either. To both was she gracious, gentle, attentive, and
lady-like. No allusion was made to the past, except a few remarks that were
given on the subject of the theatre. The officers had continued to play
until the ----th had been ordered up the river, when Bulstrode, Billings,
Harris, virtuous Marcia, and all, had proceeded to Albany in company.
Anneke thought there was about as much to be displeased with, as there was
to please, in these representations; though her removal to the country
had prevented her seeing more than three of them all. It was admitted all
round, however, that Bulstrode played admirably; and it was even regretted
by certain persons, that he should not have been devoted to the stage.

We passed the night at Lilacsbush, and remained an hour or two after
breakfast, next morning. I had carried a warm invitation from both my
parents to Herman Mordaunt, to ride over, with the young ladies, and taste
the fish of the Sound; and the visit was returned in the course of the
month of September. My mother received Anneke as a relation; though I
believe that both Herman Mordaunt and his daughter were surprised to learn
that they came within even the wide embrace of Dutch kindred. They did not
seem displeased, however, for the family name of my mother was good, and no
one need have been ashamed of affinity to _her_, on her own account. Our
guests did not remain the night, but they left us in a sort of a chaise
that Herman Mordaunt kept for country use, about an hour before sunset. I
mounted my horse, and rode five miles with the party, on its way back,
and then took my leave of Anneke, as it turned out, for many, many weary
months.

The year 1757 was memorable in the colonies, by the progress of the war,
and as much so in New York as in any other province. Montcalm had advanced
to the head of Lake George, had taken Fort William Henry, and a fearful
massacre of the garrison had succeeded. This bold operation left the
enemy in possession of Champlain; and the strong post of Ticonderoga was
adequately garrisoned by a formidable force. A general gloom was cast over
the political affairs of the colony; and it was understood that a great
effort was to be made, the succeeding campaign, to repair the loss. Rumour
spoke of large reinforcements from home, and of greater levies in the
colonies themselves than had been hitherto attempted. Lord Loudon was to
return home, and a veteran of the name of Abercrombie was to succeed him in
the command of all the forces of the king. Regiments began to arrive from
the West Indies; and, in the course of the winter of 1757-8, we heard at
Satanstoe of the gaieties that these new forces had introduced into the
town. Among other things, a regular corps of Thespians had arrived from the
West Indies.

[Footnote 16: As respects the love of titles that are derived from the
people, there is nothing-opposed to strict republican, or if the reader
will, democratic, principles, since it is deferring to the power that
appoints, and manifests a respect for that which the community chooses to
elevate. But, the deference to _English_ rank, mentioned by Mr. Littlepage,
is undeniably greater among the mass in New England, than it is anywhere
else in this country, at this very moment. One leading New York paper,
edited by New England men, during the last controversy about the indemnity
to be paid by France, actually styled the Due de Broglie "his grace,"
like a Grub Street cockney,--a mode of address that would astonish that
respectable statesman, quite as much as it must have amused every man
of the world who saw it. I have been much puzzled to account for this
peculiarity--unquestionably one that exists in the country--but have
supposed it must be owing to the diffusion of information which carries
intelligence sufficiently far to acquaint the mass with leading social
features, without going far enough to compensate for a provincial position
and provincial habits. Perhaps the exclusively English origin of the people
may have an influence. The writer has passed portions of two seasons in
Switzerland, and, excluding the small forest cantons, he has no hesitation
in saying that the habits and general notions of Connecticut are
more inherently democratical than those of any part of that country.
Notwithstanding, he thinks a nobleman, particularly an English nobleman, is
a far greater man in New England, than he is among the real middle-state
families of New York.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER X.

  "Dear Hasty-Pudding, what unpromised joy
  Expands my heart to meet thee in Savoy!
  Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam,
  Each clime my country, and each house my home,
  My soul is sooth'd, my cares have found an end:
  I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend."

  BARLOW.


The winter was soon drawing to a close, and my twenty-first birth-day was
past. My father and Col. Follock, who came over to smoke more than usual
that winter with my father, began to talk of the journey Dirck and I were
to take, in quest of the Patent. Maps were procured, calculations were
made, and different modes of proceeding were proposed, by the various
members of the family. I will acknowledge that the sight of the large,
coarse, parchment map of the Mooseridge Patent, as the new acquisition was
called, from the circumstance of the surveyors having shot a moose on a
particular ridge of land in its centre, excited certain feelings of avarice
within my mind. There were streams meandering among hills and valleys;
little lakes, or ponds, as they were erroneously called in the language of
the country, dotted the surface; and there were all the artistical proofs
of a valuable estate that a good map-maker could devise, to render the
whole pleasing and promising. [17]

If it were a good thing to be the heir of Satanstoe, it was far better to
be the tenant in common, with my friend Dirck, of all these ample plains,
rich bottoms, flowing streams and picturesque lakes. In a word, for the
first time, in the history of the colonies, the Littlepages had become
the owners of what might be termed an estate. According to our New York
parlance, six or eight hundred acres are not an estate; nor two or three
thousand, scarcely, but ten, or twenty, and much more, forty thousand acres
of land might be dignified with the name of an estate!

The first knotty point discussed, was to settle the manner in which Dirck
and myself should reach Mooseridge. Two modes of going as far as Albany
offered, and on one of these it was our first concern to decide. We might
wait until the river opened, and go as far as Albany in a sloop, of which
one or two left town each week when business was active, as it was certain
to be in the spring of the year, It was thought, however, that the army
would require mos' of the means of transportation of this nature that
offered; and it might put us to both inconvenience and delay, to wait on
the tardy movements of quarter-masters and contractors. My grandfather
shook his head when the thing was named, and advised us to remain as
independent as possible.

"Have as little as possible to do with such people, Corny," put in my
grandfather, now a grey-headed, venerable-looking old gentleman, who did
not wear his wig half the time, but was content to appear in a pointed
night-cap and gown at all hours, until just before dinner was announced,
when he invariably came forth dressed as a gentleman--"Have as little as
possible to do with these gentry, Corny. Money, and not honour, is their
game; and you will be treated like a barrel of beef, or a bag of potatoes,
if you fall into their hands. If you move with the army at all, keep among
the real soldiers, my boy, and, above all things, avoid the contractors."

It was consequently determined that there was too much uncertainty and
delay in waiting for a passage to Albany by water; for it was known that
the voyage itself often lasted ten days, or a fortnight, and it would be so
late before we could sail, as to render this delay very inconvenient. The
other mode of journeying, was to go before the snow had melted from the
roads, by the aid of which, it was quite possible to make the distance
between Satanstoe and Albany in three days.

Certain considerations of economy next offered, and we settled down on the
following plan; which, as it strikes me, is, even now, worthy of being
mentioned on account of its prudence and judgment. It was well known that
there would be a great demand for horses for the army, as well as for
stores, provisions, &c., of various sorts. Now, we had on the Neck several
stout horses, that were falling into years, though still serviceable and
good for a campaign. Col. Follock had others of the same description, and
when the cavalry of the two farms were all assembled at Satanstoe, there
were found to be no fewer than fourteen of the venerable animals. These
made just three four-horse teams, besides leaving a pair for a lighter
load. Old, stout lumber sleighs were bought, or found, and repaired; and
Jaap, having two other blacks with him, was sent off at the head of what my
father called a brigade of lumber sleighs, all of which were loaded with
the spare pork and flour of the two families. The war had rendered these
articles quite high; but the hogs that were slaughtered at Christmas had
not yet been sold; and it was decided that Dirck and myself could not
commence our career as men who had to buy and sell from the respective
farms, in any manner more likely to be useful to us and to our parents,
than this. As Yaap's movements were necessarily slow, he was permitted to
precede Dirck and myself by two entire days, giving him time to clear the
Highlands before we left Satanstoe. The negroes carried the provender for
their horses, and no small portion of the food, and all of the cider that
was necessary for their own consumption. No one was ashamed of economising
with his slaves in this manner; the law of slavery itself existing
principally as a money-making institution. I mention these little matters,
that posterity may understand the conventional feeling of the colony, on
such points.

When everything was ready, we had to listen to much good advice from our
friends, previously to launching ourselves into the world. What Col.
Follock said to Dirck, the latter never told me; but the following was
pretty much the form and substance of that which I received from my own
father--the interview taking place in a little room he called his "office;"
or "study," as Jason used to term it.

"Here, Corny, are all the bills, or invoices, properly made out," my father
commenced, handing me a small sheaf of papers; "and you will do well to
consult them before you make any sales. Here are letters of introduction
to several gentlemen in the army, whose acquaintance I could wish you to
cultivate. This, in particular, is to my old captain, Charles Merrewether,
who is now a Lt. Col., and commands a battalion in the Royal Americans. You
will find him of great service to you while you remain with the army, I
make no doubt. Pork, they tell me, if of the quality of that you will have,
ought to bring three half joes, the barrel--and you might ask that
much. Should accident procure you an invitation to the table of the
Commander-In-Chief, as may happen through Col. Merrewether's friendship I
trust you will do full credit to the loyalty of the Littlepages Ah! there's
the flour, too; it ought to be worth two half joes the barrel, in times
like these. I have thrown in a letter or two to some of the Schuylers, with
whom I served when of your age. They are first-rate people, remember, and
rank among the highest families of the colonies; full of good old Van
Cortlandt blood, and well crossed with the Rensselaers. Should any of them
ask you about the barrel of tongues, that you will find marked T--"

"Any of whom, sir; the Schuylers, the Cortlandts, or the Rensselaers?"

"Poh! any of the sutlers, or contractors, I mean, of course. You can tell
them that they were cured at home, and that you dare recommend them as fit
for the Commander-In-Chief's own table."

Such was the character of my father's parting instructions. My mother held
a different discourse.

"Corny, my beloved child," she said; "this will be an all-important journey
to you. Not only are you going far from home, but you are going to a part
of the country where much will be to be seen. I hope you will remember what
was promised for you, by your sponsors in baptism, and also what is owing
to your own good name, and that of your family. The letters you take with
you, will probably introduce you to good company, and that is a great
beginning to a youth. I wish you to cultivate the society of reputable
females, Corny. My sex has great influence on the conduct of yours, at your
time of life, and both your manners and principles will be aided by being
as much with women of character as possible."

"But, mother, if we are to go any distance with the army, as both my father
and Col. Follock wish, it will not be in our power to be much in ladies'
society."

"I speak of the time you will pass in and near Albany. I do not expect you
will find accomplished women at Mooseridge, nor, should you really go any
distance with the troops, though I see no occasion for your going with them
a single foot, since you are not a soldier, do I suppose you will find
many reputable women in the camp; but, avail yourself of every favourable
opportunity to go into good company. I have procured a letter for you, from
a lady of one of the great families of this county, to Madam Schuyler, who
is above all other women, they tell me, in and around Albany. Her you
must see, and I charge you, on your duty, to deliver this letter. It is
possible, too, that Herman Mordaunt----"

"What of Herman Mordaunt and Anneke, mother?"

"I spoke only of Herman Mordaunt himself, and did not mention Anneke, boy,"
answered my mother, smiling "though I doubt not that the daughter is with
the father. They left town for Albany, two months since, my sister Legge
writes me, and intend to pass the summer north. I will not deceive you,
Corny, so you shall hear all that your aunt has written on the subject.
In the first place, she says Herman Mordaunt has gone on public service,
having an especial appointment for some particular duty of importance, that
is private, but which it is known will detain him near Albany, and among
the northern posts, until the close of the season, though he gives out to
the world, he is absent on account of some land he has in Albany county.
His daughter and Mary Wallace are with him, with several servants, and they
have taken up with them a sleigh-load of conveniences; that looks like
remaining. Now, you ought to hear the rest, my child, though I feel no
apprehension when such a youth as yourself is put in competition with any
other man in the colony. Yes, though your own mother, I think I may say
_that!_"

"What is it, mother?--never mind me; I shall do well enough, depend on
it--that is--but what is it, dear mother?"

"Why, your aunt says, it is whispered among a few in town, a very few only,
but whispered, that Herman Mordaunt got the appointment named, merely
that he might have a pretence for taking Anneke near the ----th, in which
regiment it seems there is a baronet's son, who is a sort of relative of
his, and whom he wishes to marry to Anneke."

"I am sorry, then, that my aunt Legge listens to any such unworthy gossip!"
I indignantly cried. "My life on it, Anneke Mordaunt never contemplated so
indelicate a thing!"

"No one supposes Anneke does, or did. But fathers are not daughters, Corny;
no, nor mothers neither, as I can freely say, seeing you are my only child.
Herman Mordaunt may imagine all this in _his_ heart, and Anneke be every
thing that is innocent and delicate."

"And how can my aunt Legge's informants know what is in Herman Mordaunt's
heart?"

"How?--I suppose they judge by what they find in their own, my son; a
common means of coming at a neighbour's failings, though I believe virtues
are rarely detected by the same process."

"Ay, and judge of others by themselves. The means may be common, mother,
but they are not infallible."

"Certainly not, Corny, and that will be a ground of hope to you. Remember,
my child, you can bring me no daughter I shall love half as well as I
feel I can love Anneke Mordaunt. We are related too, her father's
great-great-grandmother----"

"Never mind the great-great-grandmother, my dear, good, excellent, parent.
After this I shall not attempt to have any secret from you. Unless Anneke
Mordaunt consent to be your daughter, you will never have one."

"Do not say that, Corny, I beseech you," cried my mother, a good deal
frightened. "Remember there is no accounting for tastes; the army is a
formidable rival, and, after all, this Mr. Bulstrode, I think you call him,
may prove as acceptable to Anneke as to her father. Do not say so cruel a
thing, I entreat of you, dearest, dearest, Corny."


"It is not a minute, mother, since you said how little you apprehended for
me, when opposed by any other man in the province!"

"Yes, child, but that is a very different thing from seeing you pass all
your days as a heartless, comfortless old bachelor. There are fifty young
women in this very county, I could wish to see you united to, in preference
to witnessing such a calamity."

"Well, mother, we will say no more about it. But is it true that Mr. Worden
actually intends to be of our party?"

"Both Mr. Worden and Mr. Newcome, I believe. We shall scarcely know how to
spare the first, but he conceives he has a call to accompany the army, in
which there are so few chaplains; and souls are called to their last dread
account so suddenly in war, that one does not know how to refuse to let him
go."

My poor, confiding mother! When I look back at the past, and remember the
manner in which the Rev. Mr. Worden discharged the duties of his sacred
office during the campaign that succeeded, I cannot but smile at the manner
in which confidence manifests itself in woman. The sex has a natural
disposition to place their trusts in priests, by a very simple process of
transferring their own dispositions to the bosoms of those they believe set
apart for purely holy objects. Well, we live and learn. I dare say that
many are what they profess to be, but I have lived long enough now to know
_all_ are not. As for Mr. Worden, he had one good point about him, at
any rate. His friends and his enemies saw the worst of him. He was no
hypocrite, but his associates saw the man very much as he was. Still, I am
far from wishing to hold up this imported minister as a model of Christian
graces for my descendants to admire. No one can be more convinced than
myself how much sectarians are prone to substitute their own narrow notions
of right and wrong for the Law of God, confounding acts that are perfectly
innocent in themselves with sin; but, at the same time, I am quite aware
too, that appearances are ever to be consulted in cases of morals, and
that it is a minor virtue to be decent in matters of manners. The Rev. Mr.
Worden, whatever might have been his position as to substantial, certainly
carried the external of liberality to the verge of indiscretion.

A day or two after the conversation I have related, our party left
Satanstoe, with some _eclat_. The team belonged equally to the Follocks and
the Littlepages, one horse being the property of my father, while the
other belonged to Col. Follock. The sleigh, an old one new painted for the
occasion, was the sole property of the latter gentleman, and was consigned,
in mercantile phrase, to Dirck, in order to be disposed of as soon as we
should reach the end of our journey. On its exterior it was painted a
bright sky-blue, while its interior was of vermilion, a colour that was and
is much in vogue for this species of vehicle, inasmuch as it carries with
it the idea of warmth; so, at least, the old people say, though I will
confess I never found my toes any less cold in a sleigh thus painted, than
in one painted blue, which is usually thought a particularly cold colour to
the feet.

We had three buffalo-skins, or, rather, two buffalo (bison) skins and one
bear-skin. The last, being trimmed with scarlet cloth, had a particularly
warm and comfortable appearance. The largest skin was placed on the
hind-seat, and thrown over the back of the sleigh, as a matter of course;
and, though this back was high enough to break off the wind from our heads
and necks, the skin not only covered it, but it hung two or three feet
down behind, as is becoming in a gentleman's sleigh. The other buffalo was
spread in the bottom of the sleigh, as a carpet for all four, leaving an
apron to come in front upon Dirck's and my lap, as a protection against the
cold in that quarter. The bear-skin formed a cushion for us in front, and
an apron for Mr. Worden and Jason, who sat behind. Our trunks had gone on
the lumber sleighs, that is, mine and Dirck's had thus been sent, while our
two companions found room for theirs in the conveyance in which we went
ourselves.

It was March 1st, 1758, the morning we left Satanstoe, on this memorable
excursion. The winter had proved as was common in our latitude, though
there had been more snow along the coast than was usual. Salt air and snow
do not agree well together; but I had driven in a sleigh over the Neck,
most of the month of February, though there were symptoms of a thaw, and
of a southerly wind, the day we left home. My father observed this, and he
advised me to take the road through the centre of the county, and get among
the hills, as soon as possible. Not only was there always more snow in that
part of the country, but it resisted the influence of a thaw much longer
than that which had fallen near the sea or Sound. I got my mother's last
kiss, my father's last shake of the hand, my grandfather's blessing,
stepped into the sleigh, took the reins from Dirck, and drove off.

A party in a sleigh must be composed of a very sombre sort of persons, if
it be not a merry one. In our case, everybody was disposed to good-humour;
though Jason could not pass along the highway, in York Colony, without
giving vent to his provincial, Connecticut hypercriticism. Everything was
Dutch, according to his view of matters; and when it failed of being Dutch,
why, it was York-Colony. The doors were not in the right places; the
windows were too large, when they were not too small; things had a
cabbage-look; the people smelt of tobacco; and hasty-pudding was called
"suppaan." But these were trifles; and being used to them, nobody paid much
attention to what our puritanical neighbour saw fit to pour out, in the
humility and meekness of his soul. Mr. Worden chuckled, and urged Jason on,
in the hope of irritating Dirck; but Dirck smoked through it all, with an
indifference that proved how much he really despised the critic. I was the
only one who resented this supercilious ignorance; but even I was often
more disposed to laugh than to be angry.

The signs of a thaw increased, as we got a few miles from home; and by the
time we reached White Plains, the "south wind" did not blow "softly," but
freshly, and the snow in the road became sloppy, and rills of water were
seen running down the hill-sides, in a way that menaced destruction to the
sleighing. On we drove, however, and deeper and deeper we got among the
hills, until we found not only more snow, but fewer symptoms of immediately
losing it. Our first day's work carried us well into the manor of the Van
Cortlandts, where we passed the night. Next morning the south wind was
still blowing, sweeping over the fields of snow, charged with the salt
air of the ocean; and bare spots began to show themselves on all the
acclivities and hill-sides--an admonition for us to be stirring. We
breakfasted in the Highlands, and in a wild and retired part of them,
though in a part where snow and beaten roads were still to be found. We had
escaped from the thaw, and no longer felt any uneasiness on the subject of
reaching the end of our journey on runners.

The second day brought us fairly through the mountains, out on the plains
of Dutchess, permitting us to sup at Fishkill. This was a thriving
settlement, the people appearing to me to live in abundance, as certainly
they did in peace and quiet. They made little of the war, and asked us many
questions concerning the army, its commanders, its force and its objects.
They were a simple, and judging from appearances, an honest people, who
troubled themselves very little with what was going on in the world.

After quitting Fishkill we found a great change, not only in the country,
but in the weather. The first was level, as a whole, and was much better
settled than I could have believed possible so far in the interior. As for
the weather, it was quite a different climate from that we had left below
the highlands. Not only was the morning cold, cold as it had been a month
earlier with us, but the snow still lay two or three feet in depth on a
level, and the sleighing was as good as heart could wish.

That afternoon we overtook Yaap and the brigade of lumber-sleighs.
Everything had gone right, and after giving the fellow some fresh
instructions, I passed him, proceeding on our route. This parting did not
take place, however, until the following had been uttered between us:

"Well, Yaap," I inquired, as a sort of close to the previous discourse,
"how do you like the upper counties?"

A loud negro laugh succeeded, and a repetition of the question was
necessary to extort an answer.

"Lor', Masser Corny, how you t'ink I know, when dere not'in but snow to be
seen!"

"There was plenty of snow in Westchester; yet, I dare say you could give
some opinion of our own county!"

"'Cause I know him, sah; inside and out, and all over Masser Corny."

"Well; but you can see the houses, and orchards, and barns, and fences, and
other things of that sort."

"'Em pretty much like our'n, Masser Corny; why you bother nigger with sich
question?"

Here another burst of loud, hearty "yah--yah--yahs succeeded; and Yaap had
his laugh out before another word could be got out of him, when I put the
question a third time.

"Well, den, Masser Corny, sin' you _will_ know, dis is my mind. Dis country
is oncomparable wid our ole county sah. De houses seem mean, de barns look
empty, de fencea be low, and de niggers, ebbery one of 'em, look cold,
sah--yes, sah--'ey look berry cold!"

As a "cold negro" was a most pitiable object in negro eyes, I saw by this
summary that Yaap had commenced his travels in much of the same temper of
superciliousness as Jason Newcome. It struck me as odd at the time; but,
since that day, I have ascertained that this feeling is a very general
travelling companion for those who set out on their first journey.

We passed our third night at a small hamlet called Rhinebeck, in a
settlement in which many German names were to be found. Here we were
travelling through the vast estates of the Livingstons, a name well-known
in our colonial history. We breakfasted at Claverack, and passed through
a place called Kinderhook--a village of Low Dutch origin, and of some
antiquity. That night we succeeded in coming near Albany, by making a very
hard day's drive of it. There was no village at the place where we slept;
but the house was a comfortable, and exceedingly neat Dutch tavern. After
quitting Fishkill we had seen more or less of the river, until we passed
Claverack, where we took our leave of it. It was covered with ice, and
sleighs were moving about it, with great apparent security; but we did not
like to try it. Our whole party preferred a solid highway, in which there
was no danger of the bottom's dropping out.

As we were now about to enter Albany, the second largest town in the colony
and one of the largest inland towns of the whole country, if such a word
can properly be given to a place that lies on a navigable river, it
was thought necessary to make some few arrangements, in order to do it
decently. Instead of quitting the tavern at daylight, therefore, as had
been our practice previously, we remained until after breakfast, having
recourse to our trunks in the mean time. Dirck, Jason and myself, had
provided ourselves with fur caps for the journey, with ear-laps and other
contrivances for keeping oneself warm. The cap of Dirck, and my own, were
of very fine martens' skins, and as they were round and high, and each was
surmounted with a handsome tail, that fell down behind, they had both a
smart and military air. I thought I had never seen Dirck look so nobly and
well, as he did in his cap, and I got a few compliments on my own air in
mine, though they were only from my mother, who, I do think, would feel
disposed to praise me, even if I looked wretchedly. The cap of Jason was
better suited to his purse, being lower, and of fox-skins, though it had a
tail also. Mr. Worden had declined travelling in a cap, as unsuited to his
holy office. Accordingly he wore his clerical beaver, which differed a
little from the ordinary cocked-hats, that we all wore as a matter of
course, though not so much so as to be very striking.

All of us had overcoats well trimmed with furs, mine and Dirck's being
really handsome, with trimmings of marten, while those of our companion
were less showy and expensive. On a consultation, Dirck and I decided that
it was better taste to enter the town in traveller's dresses, than to enter
it in any other, and we merely smartened up a little, in order to appear as
gentlemen. The case was very different with Jason. According to his idea a
man should wear his best clothes on a journey, and I was surprised to see
him appear at breakfast, in black breeches, striped woollen stockings,
large plated buckles in his shoes, and a coat that I well knew he
religiously reserved for high-days and holidays. This coat was of a light
pea-green colour, and but little adapted to the season; but Jason had not
much notion of the fitness of things, in general, in matters of taste.
Dirck and myself wore our ordinary snuff-coloured coats, under our furs;
but Jason threw aside all the overcoats, when we came near Albany, in order
to enter the place in his best. Fortunately for him, the day was mild,
and there was a bright sun to send its warm rays through the pea-green
covering, to keep his blood from chilling. As for Mr. Worden, he wore a
cloak of black cloth, laying aside all the furs, but a tippet and muff,
both of which he used habitually in cold weather.

In this guise, then, we left the tavern, about nine in the morning,
expecting to reach the banks of the river about ten. Nor were we
disappointed; the roads being excellent, a light fall of snow having
occurred in the night, to freshen the track. It was an interesting moment
to us all, when the spires and roofs of that ancient town, Albany, first
appeared in view! We had journeyed from near the southern boundary of
the colony, to a place that stood at no great distance from its frontier
settlements on the north. The town itself formed a pleasing object, as we
approached it, on the opposite side of the Hudson. There it lay, stretching
along the low land on the margin of the stream, and on its western bank,
sheltered by high hills, up the side of which, the principal street
extended, for the distance of fully a quarter of a mile. Near the head of
this street stood the fort, and we saw a brigade paraded in the open ground
near it, wheeling and marching about. The spires of two churches were
visible, one, the oldest, being seated on the low land, in the heart of the
place, and the other on the height at no great distance from the fort;
or about half-way up the acclivity, which forms the barrier to the inner
country, on that side of the river. Both these buildings were of stone, of
course, shingle tenements being of very rare occurrence in the colony of
New York, though common enough further east. [18]

I will own that not one of our party liked the idea of crossing the Hudson,
in a loaded sleigh, on the ice, and that in the month of March. There were
no streams about us to be crossed in this mode, nor was the cold exactly
sufficient to render such a transit safe, and we felt as the inexperienced
would be apt to feel in circumstances so unpleasant. I must do Jason the
credit to admit that he showed more plain, practical, good sense than any
of us, determining our course in the end by his view of the matter. As for
Mr. Worden, however, nothing could induce him to venture on the ice in a
sleigh, or _near_ a sleigh, though Jason remonstrated in the following
terms--

"Now, look here, Rev. Mr. Worden"--Jason seldom omitted anybody's
_title_--"you've only to turn your eyes on the river to see it is dotted
with sleighs, far and near. There are highways north and south, and if
that be the place, where the crossing is at the town, it is more like a
thoroughfare than a spot that is risky. In my judgment, these people who
live hereabouts ought to know whether there is any danger or not."

Obvious as was this truth, 'Rev. Mr. Worden' made us stop on terra firma,
and permit him to quit the sleigh, that he might cross the river on foot.
Jason ventured a hint or two about faith and its virtues, as he stripped
himself to the pea-green, in order to enter the town in proper guise,
throwing aside everything that concealed his finery. As for Dirck and
myself, we kept our seats manfully, and trotted on the river at the point
where we saw sleighs and foot-passengers going and coming in some numbers.
The Rev. Mr. Worden, however, was not content to take the beaten path,
for he knew there was no more security in being out on the ice, _near_ a
sleigh, than there was in being _in_ it, so he diverged from the road,
which crossed at the ferry, striking diagonally atwhart the river towards
the wharves of the place.

It seemed to me to be a sort of a holiday among the young and idle, one
sleigh passing us after another, filled with young men and maidens, all
sparkling with the excitement of the moment, and gay with youth and
spirits. We passed no less than four of these sleighs on the river, the
jingling of the bells, the quick movement, the laughter and gaiety, and the
animation of the whole scene, far exceeding anything of the sort I had
ever before witnessed. We were nearly across the river, when a sleigh more
handsomely equipped than any we had yet seen, dashed down the bank, and
came whirling past us like a comet. It was full of ladies, with the
exception of one gentleman, who stood erect in front, driving. I recognised
Bulstrode, in furs like all of us, capped and _tailed_, if not plumed,
while among the half-dozen pairs of brilliant eyes that were turned with
their owner's smiling faces on us, I saw one which never could be forgotten
by me, that belonged to Anneke Mordaunt. I question if we were recognised,
for the passage was like that of a meteor; but I could not avoid turning
to gaze after the gay party. This change of position enabled me to be a
witness of a very amusing consequence of Mr. Worden's experiment. A sleigh
was coming in our direction, and the party in it seeing one who was known
for a clergyman, _walking_ on the ice, turned aside and approached him on
a gallop, in order to offer the courtesy of a seat to a man of his sacred
profession. Our divine heard the bells, and fearful of having a sleigh so
near him, he commenced a downright flight, pursued by the people in the
sleigh, as fast as their horses could follow. Everybody on the ice pulled
up to gaze in wonder at this strange spectacle, until the whole party
reached the shore, the Rev. Mr. Worden pretty well blown, as the reader may
suppose.

[Footnote 17: Forty years ago, a gentleman in New York purchased a
considerable body of wild land, on the faith of the map. When he came
to examine his new property, it was found to be particularly wanting in
water-courses. The surveyor was sought, and rebuked for his deception, the
map having numerous streams, &c. "Why did you lay down all these streams
here, where none are to be found?" demanded the irritated purchaser,
pointing to the document. "Why?--Why who the d---l ever saw a map without
rivers?" was the answer. EDITOR.]

[Footnote 18: In nothing was the difference of character between the people
of New England, and those of the middle colonies, more apparent than in the
nature of the dwellings. In New York, for instance, men worth thousands
dwelt in humble, low, (usually one story) dwellings of stone, having
window-shutters, frequently within as well as without, and the other
appliances of comfort; whereas the farmer farther east, was seldom
satisfied, though his means were limited, unless he lived in a house as
good as his neighbour's; and the strife dotted the whole of their colonies
with wooden buildings, of great pretension for the age, that rarely
had even exterior shutters, and which frequently stood for generations
unfinished. The difference was not of Dutch origin, for it was just as
apparent in New Jersey or Pennsylvania as in New York, and I think it
may be attributed to a very obvious consequence of a general equality of
condition, a state of society in which no one is content to wear even the
semblance of poverty, but those who cannot by any means prevent it; but,
in which all strive to get as high as possible, in appearances at
least.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER XI.

  Bid physicians talk our veins to temper,
  And with an argument new-set a pulse,
  Then think, my lord, of reasoning unto love.

  YOUNG.


As the road from the ferry into the town ran along the bank of the river,
we reached the point where the Rev. Mr. Worden had landed precisely at
the same instant with his pursuers, who had been obliged to make a little
circuit, in order to get off the ice. I do not know which party regarded
the other in the greatest astonishment,--the hunted, or the hunters. The
sleigh had in it two fine-looking young fellows, that spoke English with a
slight Dutch accent, and three young women, whose bright coal-black eyes
betokened surprise a little mitigated by a desire to laugh. Seeing that we
were all strangers, I suppose, and that we claimed the runaway as belonging
to our party, one of the young men raised his cap very respectfully, and
opened the discourse by asking in a very civil tone--

"What ails the reverent gentleman, to make him run so fast?"

"Run!" exclaimed Mr. Worden, whose lungs had been playing like a
blacksmith's bellows--"Run! and who would not run to save himself from
being drowned?"

"Drowned!" repeated the young Dutchman, looking round at the river, as if
to ascertain whether the ice were actually moving--"why does the Dominie
suppose there was any danger of _that?_"

As Mr. Worden's bellows were still hard at work, I explained to the young
Albanians that we were strangers just arrived from the vicinity of New
York; that we were unaccustomed to frozen rivers, and had never crossed
one on the ice before; that our reverend companion had chosen to walk at a
distance from the road, in order to be in less danger should any team break
in, and that he had naturally run to avoid their sleigh when he saw it
approaching. The Albanians heard this account in respectful silence, though
I could see the two young men casting sly glances at each other, and that
even the ladies had some little difficulty in altogether suppressing
their smiles. When it was through, the oldest of the Dutchmen--a fine,
dare-devil, roystering-looking fellow of four or five-and-twenty, whose
dress and mien, however, denoted a person of the upper class,--begged a
thousand pardons for his mistake, quitting his sleigh and insisting on
having the honours of shaking hands with the whole of us. His name was
'Ten Eyck,' he said; 'Guert Ten Eyck,' and he asked permission, as we were
strangers, of doing the honour of Albany to us. Everybody in the place knew
him, which, as we afterwards ascertained, was true enough, for he had
just as much reputation for fun and frolic as at all comported with
respectability; keeping along, as it were, on the very verge of the pale
of reputable people, without being thrown entirely out of it. The young
females with him were a shade below his own natural position in society,
tolerating his frolics on account of this circumstance, aided as it was by
a singularly manly face and person, a hearty and ready laugh, a full purse,
and possibly by the secret hope of being the happy individual who was
designed by Providence to convert 'a reformed rake into the best of
husbands.' In a word, he was always welcome with them, when those a little
above them felt more disposed to frown.

Of course, all this was unknown to us at the time, and we accepted
Guert Ten Eyck's proffers of civility in the spirit in which they
were offered. He inquired at what tavern we intended to stop, and
promised an early call. Then, shaking us all round by the hand again
with great cordiality, he took his leave. His companion doffed a very
dashing, high, wolf-skin cap to us, and the black-eyed trio, on the
hind-seat, smiled graciously, and away they drove at a furious rate,
startling all the echoes of Albany with their bells. By this time Mr.
Worden was seated, and we followed more moderately, our team having
none of the Dutch courage of a pair of horses fresh from the stable.
Such were the circumstances under which we made our entrance into the
ancient city of Albany. We were all in hopes, the little affair of
the chase would soon be forgotten, for no one likes to be associated
with a ridiculous circumstance, but we counted without our host.
Guert Ten Eyck was not of a temperament to let such an affair sleep,
but, as I afterwards ascertained, he told it with the laughing
embellishments that belonged to his reckless character, until, in
turn, the Rev. Mr. Worden came to be known, throughout all that
region, by the nick-name of the "Loping Dominie."

The reader may be assured our eyes were about us, as we drove through the
streets of the second town in the colony. We were not unaccustomed to
houses constructed in the Dutch style, in New York, though the English mode
of building had been most in vogue there, for half a century. It was not so
with Albany, which remained, essentially, a Dutch town, in 1758. We heard
little beside Dutch, as we passed along. The women scolded their children
in Low Dutch, a use, by the way, for which the language appears singularly
well adapted; the negroes sang Dutch songs; the men called to each other
in Dutch, and Dutch rang in our ears, as we walked our horses through the
streets, towards the tavern. There were many soldiers about, and other
proofs of the presence of a considerable military force were not wanting;
still, the place struck me as very provincial and peculiar, after New York.
Nearly all the houses were built with their gables to the streets, and each
had heavy wooden Dutch stoops, with seats, at its door. A few had small
court-yards in front, and, here and there, was a building of somewhat more
pretension than usual. I do not think, however, there were fifty houses in
the place, that were built with their gables off the line of the streets.
[19]

We were no sooner housed, than Dirck and I sallied forth to look at the
place. Here we were, in one of the oldest towns of America; a place that
could boast of much more than a century's existence, and it was natural to
feel curious to look about one. Our inn was in the principal street,--that
which led up the hill towards the fort. This street was a wide avenue, that
quite put Broadway out of countenance, so far as mere width was concerned.
The streets that led out of it, however, were principally little better
than lanes, as if the space that had been given to two or three of the main
streets had been taken off of the remainder. The High Street, as we English
would call it, was occupied by sleds filled with wood for sale; sleds
loaded with geese, turkeys, tame and wild, and poultry of all sorts;
sleds with venison, still in the skin, piled up in heaps, &c.,--all these
eatables being collected, in unusual quantities as we were told, to meet
the extraordinary demand created by the different military messes. Deer
were no strangers to us; for Long Island was full of all sorts of game,
as were the upper counties of New Jersey. Even Westchester, old and well
settled as it had become, was not yet altogether clear of deer, and nothing
was easier than to knock over a buck in the highlands. Nevertheless, I had
never seen venison, wild turkeys and sturgeons, in such quantities as they
were to be seen that day in the principal street of Albany.

The crowd collected in this street, the sleighs that were whirling past,
filled with young men and maidens, the incessant jingling of bells, the
spluttering and jawing in Low Dutch, the hearty English oaths of serjeants
and sutlers'-men and cooks of messes, the loud laughs of the blacks, and
the beauty of the cold clear day, altogether produced some such effect on
me, as I had experienced when I went to the theatre. Not the least striking
picture of the scene, was Jason, in the middle of the street, gaping
about him, in the cocked-hat, the pea-green coat, and the striped woollen
stockings.

Dirck and myself naturally examined the churches. These were two, as has
been said already,--one for the Dutch, and the other for the English. The
first was the oldest. It stood at the point where the two principal streets
crossed each other, and in the centre of the street, leaving sufficient
passages all round it. The building was square, with a high pointed roof,
having a belfry and weathercock on its apex; windows, with diamond panes
and painted glass, and a porch that was well suited both to the climate and
to appearances. [20]

We were examining this structure, when Guert Ten Eyck accosted us, in his
frank, off-hand way--

"Your servant, Mr. Littlepage; your servant, Mr. Follock," he cried, again
shaking each cordially by the hand. "I was on the way to the tavern to
look you up, when I accidentally saw you here. A few gentlemen of my
acquaintance, who are in the habit of supping together in the winter time,
meet for the last jollification of the season to-night, and they have all
express't a wish to have the pleasure of your company. I hope you will
allow me to say you will come? We meet at nine, sup at ten, and break up at
twelve, quite regularly, in a very sedate and prudent manner."

There was something so frank and cordial, so simple and straight-forward in
this invitation, that we did not know how to decline it. We both knew that
the name of Ten Eyck was respectable in the colony; our new acquaintance
was well dressed, he seemed to be in good company when we first met him,
his sleigh and horses had been actually of a more dashing stamp than usual,
and his own attire had all the peculiarities of a gentleman's, with the
addition of something even more decided and knowing than was common. It is
true, the style of these peculiarities was not exactly such as I had seen
in the air, manners and personal decorations of those of Billings and
Harris; but they were none the less striking, and none the less attractive;
the two Englishmen being "macaronis," from London, and Ten Eyck being a
"buck" of Albany.

"I thank you, very heartily, Mr. Ten Eyck," I answered, "both for myself
and for my friend"--

"And will let me come for you at half-past eight, to show you the way?"

"Why, yes, sir; I was about to say as much, if it be not giving you too
much trouble."

"Do not speak of tr-r-ouple"--this last word will give a very good
notion of Guert's accent, which I cannot stop to imitate at all times in
writing--"and do not say your _fre'nt_, but your _fre'ntz_."

"As to the two that are not here, I cannot positively answer; yonder,
however, is one that can speak for himself."

"I see him, Mr. Littlepage, and will answer for _him_, on my own account.
Depent on it, _he_ will come. But the Dominie--he has a hearty look, and
can help eat a turkey and swallow a glass of goot Madeira--I think I can
rely on. A man cannot take all that active exercise without food."

"Mr. Worden is a very companionable man, and is excellent company at a
supper-table. I will communicate your invitation, and hope to be able to
prevail on him to be of the party."

"T'at is enough, sir," returned Ten Eyck, or Guert, as I shall henceforth
call him, in general; "vere dere ist a vill, dere ist a vay." Guert
frequently broke out in such specimens of broken English, while at other
times he would speak almost as well as any of us. "So Got pless you my dear
Mr. Littlepage, and make us lasting friends. I like your countenance, and
my eye never deceives me in these matters."

Here, Guert shook us both by the hand again, most cordially, and left us.
Dirck and I next strolled up the hill, going as high as the English church,
which stood also in the centre of the principal street, an imposing and
massive edifice in stone. With the exception of Mother Trinity, in New
York, this was the largest, and altogether the most important edifice
devoted to the worship of my own church I had ever seen. In Westchester,
there were several of Queen Anne's churches, but none on a scale to compare
with this. Our small edifices were usually without galleries, steeples,
towers, or bells; while St. Peter's, Albany, if not actually St. Peter's,
Rome, was a building of which a man might be proud. A little to our
surprise, we found the Rev. Mr. Worden and Mr. Jason Newcome had met at the
door of this edifice, having sent a boy to the sexton in quest of the key.
In a minute or two, the urchin returned, bringing not only the key of the
church, but the excuses of the sexton for not coming himself. The door was
opened, and we went in.

I have always admired the decorous and spiritual manner in which the Rev.
Mr. Worden entered a building that had been consecrated to the services of
the Deity. I know not how to describe it; but it proved how completely he
had been drilled in the decencies of his profession. Off came his hat, of
course; and his manner, however facetious and easy it may have been the
moment before, changed on the instant to gravity and decorum. Not so with
Jason. He entered St. Peter's, Albany, with exactly the same indifferent
and cynical air with which he had seemed to regard everything but money,
since he entered "York Colony." Usually, he wore his cocked-hat on the back
of his head, thereby lending himself a lolloping, negligent, and, at the
same time, defying air; but I observed that, as we all uncovered, he
brought his own beaver up over his eye-brows, in a species of military
bravado. To uncover to a church, in his view of the matter, was a sort of
idolatry; there might be images about, for anything he knew; "and a man
could never be enough on his guard ag'in being carried away by such evil
deceptions," as he had once before answered to a remonstrance of mine, for
wearing his hat in our own parish church.

I found the interior of St. Peter's quite as imposing as its exterior.
Three of the pews were canopied, having coats of arms on their canopies.
These, the boy told us, belonged to the Van Rensselaer and Schuyler
families. All these were covered with black cloth, in mourning for some
death in those ancient families, which were closely allied. I was very much
struck with the dignified air that these patrician seats gave the house of
God. [21]

There were also several hatchments suspended against the walls; some being
placed there in commemoration of officers of rank, from home, who had died
in the king's service in the colony; and others to mark the deaths of some
of the more distinguished of our own people.

Mr. Worden expressed himself well pleased with appearances of things, in
and about this building; though Jason regarded all with ill-concealed
disgust.

"What is the meaning of them pews with tops to them, Corny?" the pedagogue
whispered me, afraid to encounter the parson's remarks, by his own
criticism.

"They are the pews of families of distinction in this place, Mr. Newcome;
and the canopies, or tops, as you call them, are honourable signs of their
owners' conditions."

"Do you think their owners will sit under such coverings in paradise,
Corny?" continued Jason, with a sneer.

"It is impossible for me to say, sir; it is probable, however, the just
will not require any such mark to distinguish them from the unjust."

"Let me see," said Jason, looking round and affecting to count; "there are
just three--Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, I suppose. Waal, there's a seat
for each, and they can be comfortable _here_, whatever may turn up
_herea'ter_."

I turned away, unwilling to dispute the point, for I knew it was as
hopeless to expect that a Danbury man would feel like a New Yorker, on such
a subject, as it was to expect that a New Yorker could be made to adopt
Danbury sentiments. As for the _argument_, however, I have heard others of
pretty much the same calibre often urged against the three orders of the
ministry.

On quitting St. Peter's, I communicated the invitation of Guert Ten Eyck to
Mr. Worden, and urged him to be of the party. I could see that the notion
of a pleasant supper was anything but unpleasant to the missionary. Still
he had his scruples, inasmuch as he had not yet seen his reverend brother
who had the charge of St. Peter's, did not know exactly the temper of his
mind, and was particularly desirous of officiating for him, in the presence
of the principal personages of the place, on the approaching Sunday. He
had written a note to the chaplain; for the person who had the cure of the
Episcopalians held that rank in the army, St. Peter's being as much of an
official chapel as a parish church; and he must have an interview with that
individual before he could decide. Fortunately, as we descended the street,
towards our inn, we saw the very person in question. The marks of the
common office that these two divines bore about their persons in their
dress, sufficed to make them known to each other at a glance. In five
minutes, they had shaken hands, heard each man's account of himself, had
given and accepted the invitation to preach, and were otherwise on free and
easy terms. Mr. Worden was to dine in the fort, with the chaplain. We then
walked forward towards the tavern.

"By the way, Mr. ----," said Mr. Worden, in a parenthesis of the discourse,
"the family of Ten Eyck is quite respectable, here in Albany."

"Very much so, sir--a family that is held in much esteem. I shall count on
your assisting me, morning and evening, my dear Mr. Worden."

It is surprising how the clergy do depend on each other for 'assistance!'

"Make your arrangements accordingly, my good brother--I am quite fresh, and
have brought a good stock of sermons; not knowing how much might remain
to be done in the army. Corny," in a half-whisper, "you can let our new
friends know that I will sup with them; and, harkee--just drop a hint to
them, that I am none of your puritans."

Here, then, we found everything in a very fair way to bring us all out in
society, within the first two hours of our arrival. Mr. Worden was engaged
to preach the next day but one; and he was engaged to supper that same day.
All looked promising, and I hurried on in order to ascertain if Guert Ten
Eyck had made his promised call. As before, he was met in the street, and
the acceptance of the Dominie was duly communicated. Guert seemed highly
pleased at this success; and he left me, promising to be punctual to his
hour. In the mean time, we had to dine.

The dinner proved a good one; and, as Mr. Worden remarked, it was quite
lucky that the principal dish was venison, a meat that was so easy of
digestion, as to promise no great obstacle to the accommodation of the
supper. He should dine on venison, therefore; and he advised all three of
us to follow his example. But, certain Dutch dishes attracted the eye and
taste of Dirck; while Jason had alighted on a hash, of some sort or other,
that he did not quit until he had effectually disposed of it. As for
myself, I confess, the venison was so much to my taste, that I stuck by the
parson. We had our wine, too, and left the table early, in order not to
interfere with the business of the night.

After dinner, it was proposed to walk out in a body, to make a further
examination of the place, and to see if we could not fall in with an army
contractor, who might be disposed to relieve Dirck and myself of some
portion of our charge. Luck again threw us in the way of Guert Ten
Eyck, who seemed to live in the public street. In the course of a brief
conversation that took place, as a passing compliment, I happened to
mention a wish to ascertain, where one might dispose of a few horses, and
of two or three sleigh-loads of flour, pork, &c., &c.

"My dear Mr. Littlepage," said Guert, with a frank smile and a friendly
shake of the hand, "I am delighted that you have mentioned these matters
to me; I can take you to the very man you wish to see; a heavy
army-contractor, who is buying up everything of the sort he can lay his
hands on."

Of course, I was as much delighted as Guert could very well be, and left
my party to proceed at once to the contractor's office, with the greatest
alacrity; Dirck accompanying me. As we went along, our new friend advised
us not to be very backward in the way of price, since the king paid, in the
long run.

"Rich dealers ought to pay well," he added; "and, I can tell you, as a
useful thing to know, that orders came on, no later than yesterday, to buy
up everything of the soil that offered. Put sleigh and harness, at once,
all in a heap, on the king's servants."

I thought the idea not a bad one, and promised to profit by it. Guert was
as good as his word, and I was properly introduced to the contractor. My
business was no sooner mentioned, than I was desired to send a messenger
round to the stables, in order that my conveyance, team, &c., might make
their appearance. As for the articles that were still on the road, I had
very little trouble. The contractor knew my father, and he no sooner heard
that Mr. Littlepage, of Satanstoe, was the owner of the provisions, than
he purchased the whole on the guaranty of his name. For the pork I was to
receive two half-joes the barrel, and for the flour one. This was a good
sale. The horses would be taken, if serviceable, as the contractor did not
question, as would the lumber-sleighs, though the prices could not be set
until the different animals and objects were seen and examined.

It is amazing what war will do for commerce, as well as what it does
against it! The demand for everything that the judgment of my father had
anticipated, was so great, that the contractor told me very frankly the
sleighs would not be unloaded in Albany at all, but would be sent on north,
on the line of the expected route of the army, so as to anticipate the
disappearance of the snow and the breaking up of the roads.

"You shall be paid liberally for your teams, harness and sleighs," he
continued, "though no sum can be named until I see them. These are not
times when operations are to be retarded on account of a few joes, more
or less, for the King's service must go on. I very well know that Major
Littlepage and Col. Follock both understand what they are about, and have
sent us the right sort of things. The horses are very likely a little old,
but are good for one campaign; better than if younger, perhaps, and were
they colts we could get no more than that out of them. These movements in
the woods destroy man and beast, and cost mints of money. Ah! There comes
your team."

Sure enough, the sleigh drove round from the tavern, and we all went out
to look at the horses, &c. Guert now became an important person. On the
subject of horses he was accounted an oracle, and he talked, moved, and
acted like one in all respects. The first thing he did was to step up to
the animal's head, and to look into the mouth of each in succession. The
knowing way in which this was done, the coolness of the interference,
and the fine, manly form of the intruder, would have given him at once a
certain importance and a connection with what was going on, had not his
character for judgment in horse-flesh been well established, far and near,
in that quarter of the country.

"Upon my word, wonderfully good mouths!" exclaimed Guert, when through.
"You must have your grain ground, Mr. Littlepage, or the teeth never could
have stood it so well!"

"What age do you call the animals, Guert?" demanded the contractor.

"That is not so easily told, sir. I admit that they are aged horses; but
they may be eight, or nine, or even ten, as for what can be told by their
teeth. By the looks of their limbs, I should think they might be nine
coming grass."

"The near-horse is eleven," I said, "and the off-horse is supposed to
be----"

"Poh! poh! Littlepage," interrupted Guert, making signs to me to be
quiet--"you may _think_ the off-horse ten, but I should place him at about
nine. His teeth are excellent, and there is not even a wind-gall on his
legs. There is a cross of the Flemish in that beast."

"Well, and what do you say the pair is worth, Master Guert," demanded
the contractor, who seemed to have a certain confidence in his friend's
judgment, notwithstanding the recklessness and freedom of his manner.
"Twelve half-joes for them both?"

"That will never do, Mr. Contractor," answered Guert shaking his head. "In
times like these, such stout animals, and beasts too in such heart and
condition, ought to bring fifteen."

"Fifteen let it be then, if Mr. Littlepage assents. Now for the sleigh, and
harness, and skins. I suppose Mr. Littlepage will part with the skins too,
as he can have no use for them without the sleigh?"

"Have _you_, Mr. Contractor?" asked Guert, a little abruptly. "That
bear-skin fills my eye beautifully, and if Mr. Littlepage will take a
guinea for it, here is his money."

As this was a fair price, it was accepted, though I pressed the skin on
Guert as a gift, in remembrance of our accidental acquaintance. This
offer, however, he respectfully, but firmly resisted. And here I will take
occasion to say, lest the reader be misled by what is met with in works of
fiction, and other light and vain productions, that in all my dealings,
and future connection with Guert, I found him strictly honourable in
money matters. It is true, I would not have purchased a horse on his
recommendation, if he owned the beast; but we all know how the best men
yield in their morals when they come to deal in horses. I should scarcely
have expected Mr. Worden to be orthodox, in making such bargains. But, on
all other subjects connected with money, Guert Ten Eyck was one of the
honestest fellows I ever dealt with.

The contractor took the sleigh, harness, and skins, at seven more
half-joes; making twenty-three for the whole outfit. This was certainly
receiving two half-joes more than my father had expected; and I owed the
gain of sixteen dollars to Guert's friendly and bold interference. As soon
as the prices were settled, the money was paid me in good Spanish gold;
and I handed over to Dirck the portion that properly fell to his father's
share. As it was understood that the remaining horses, sleighs, harness,
provisions, &c., were to be taken at an appraisal, the instant they
arrived, this hour's work relieved my friend and myself from any further
trouble on the subject of the property entrusted to our care. And a relief
it was to be so well rid of a responsibility that was as new as it was
heavy to each of us.

The reader will get some idea of the pressure of affairs, and how necessary
it was felt to be on the alert in the month of March--a time of the year
when twenty-four hours might bring about a change in the season--by the
circumstance that the contractor sent his new purchase to be loaded up from
the door of his office, with orders to proceed on north, with supplies for
a depot that he was making as near to Lake George as was deemed prudent;
the French being in force at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, two posts at the
head of Champlain; a distance considerably less than a hundred miles from
Albany. Whatever was forwarded as far as Lake George while the snow lasted,
could then be sent on with the army, in the contemplated operations of the
approaching summer, by means of the two lakes, and their northern outlets.

"Well, Mr. Littlepage," cried Guert, heartily; "_that_ affair is well
disposed of. You got goot prices, and I hope the King has got goot horses.
They are a little venerable, perhaps; but what of that? The army would
knock up the best and youngest beast in the colony, in one campaign in the
woots; and it can do no more with the oldest and worst. Shall we walk rount
into the main street, gentlemen? This is about the hour when the young
ladies are apt to start for their afternoon sleighing."

"I suppose the ladies of Albany are remarkable for their beauty, Mr. Ten
Eyck," I rejoined, wishing to say something agreeable to a man who seemed
so desirous of serving me. "The specimens I saw in crossing the river this
morning, would induce a stranger to think so."

"Sir," replied Guert, walking towards the great avenue of the town, "we are
content with our ladies, in general, for they are charming, warm-hearted
and amiable; but there has been an arrival among us this winter, from your
part of the colony, that has almost melted the ice on the Hudson!"

My heart beat quicker, for I could only think of one being of her sex, as
likely to produce such a sensation. Still, I could not abstain from making
a direct inquiry on the subject.

"From _our_ part of the colony, Mr. Ten Eyck!--You mean from New York,
probably?"

"Yes, sir, as a matter of course. There are several beautiful English women
who have come up with the army; but no colonel, major, or captain, has
brought such paragons with him, as Herman Mordaunt, a gentleman who may be
known to you by name?"

"Personally too, sir. Herman Mordaunt is even a kinsman of Dirck Follock,
my friend here."

"Then is Mr. Follock to be envied, since he can call cousin with so
charming a young lady as Anneke Mordaunt."

"True sir, most true!" I interrupted, eagerly; "Anne Mordaunt passes for
the sweetest girl in York!"

"I do not know that I should go quite as far as that, Mr. Littlepage,"
returned Guert, moderating his warmth, in a manner that a little surprised
me, though his handsome face still glowed with honest, natural admiration;
"since there is a Miss Mary Wallace in her company, that is quite as much
thought of, here in Albany, as her friend, Miss Mordaunt."

Mary Wallace! The idea of comparing the silent, thoughtful, excellent
though she were, Mary Wallace, with Anneke could never have crossed my
mind. Still, Mary Wallace certainly _was_ a very charming girl. She was
even handsome; had a placid, saint-like character of countenance that had
often struck me, singular beauty and development of form, and, in any
other company than that of Anneke's, might well have attracted the first
attention of the most fastidious beholder.

And Guert Ten Eyck admired,--perhaps loved, Mary Wallace! Here, then, was
fresh evidence how much we are all inclined to love our opposites; to form
close friendships with those who resemble us least, principles excepted,
for virtue can never cling to vice, and how much more interest novelty
possesses in the human breast, than the repetition of things to which we
are accustomed. No two beings could be less alike than Mary Wallace and
Guert Ten Eyck; yet the last admired the first.

"Miss Wallace is a very charming young lady, Mr. Ten Eyck," I rejoined, as
soon as wonder would allow me to answer, "and I am not surprised you speak
of her in terms of so much admiration."

Guert stopped short in the street, looked me full in the face with an
expression of truth that could not well be feigned, squeezed my hand
fervently, and rejoined with a strange frankness, that I could not have
imitated, to be master of all I saw--

"Admiration, Mr. Littlepage, is not a word strong enough for what I feel
for Mary! I would marry her in the next hour, and love and cherish her for
all the rest of my life. I worship _her_, and love the earth she treads
on."

"And you have told her this, Mr. Ten Eyck?"

"Fifty times, sir. She has now been two months in Albany, and my love was
secured within the first week. I offered myself too soon, I fear; for Mary
is a prutent, sensible young woman, and girls of that character are apt
to distrust the youth who is too quick in his advances. They like to
be served, sir, for seven years and seven years, as Joseph served for
Potiphar."

"You mean, most likely, Mr. Ten Eyck, as Jacob served for Rachel."

"Well, sir, it may be as you say, dough I t'ink that in our Dutch Bibles,
it stands as Joseph served for Potiphar--but you know what I mean, Mr.
Littlepage. If you wish to see the ladies, and will come with me, I will go
to a place where Herman Mordaunt's sleigh invariably passes at this hour,
for the ladies almost live in the air. I never miss the occasion of seeing
them."

I had now a clue to Guert's being so much in the street. He was as good as
his word, however, for he took a stand near the Dutch church, where I soon
had the happiness of seeing Anneke and her friend driving past, on their
evening's excursion. How blooming and lovely the former looked! Mary
Wallace's eye turned, I fancied understandingly, to the corner where Guert
had placed himself, and her colour deepened as she returned his bow. But,
the start of surprise, the smile, and the lightening eye of Anneke, as she
unexpectedly saw me, filled my soul with delight, almost too great to be
borne.

[Footnote 19: The population of Albany could not have reached 4000 in
1758. Its Dutch character remained down to the close of this century,
with gradual changes. The writer can remember when quite as much Dutch
as English was heard in the streets of Albany, though it has now nearly
disappeared. The present population must be near 40,000.

Mr. Littlepage's description was doubtless correct, at the time he wrote;
but Albany would now be considered a first-class country town, in Europe.
It has much better claims to compare with the towns of the old world, in
this character, than New York has to compare with their capitals.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 20: There were two churches, of this character, built on this
spot. The second, much larger than the first, but of the same form, was
built _round_ the other, in which service was held to the last, when it
was literally thrown out of the windows of its successor. The last edifice
disappeared about forty years since.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 21: I cannot recollect one of these canopied pews that is now
standing, in this part of the Union. The last, of my knowledge, were in St.
Mark's, New York, and, I believe, belonged to the Stuyvesants, the patron
family of that church. They were taken down when that building was
repaired, a few years since. This is one of the most innocent of all our
innovations of this character. Distinctions in the House of God are opposed
to the very spirit of the Christian religion; and it were far more fitting
that pews should be altogether done away with, the true mode of assembling
under the sacred roof, than that men should be classed even at the foot of
the altar.

It may be questioned if a hatchment is now hung up, either on the dwelling,
or in a church, in any part of America. They were to be seen, however, in
the early part of the present century. Whenever any such traces of ancient
usages are met with among us, by the traveller from the old world, he is
apt to mistake them for the shadows "that coming events cast before,"
instead of those of the past.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER XII.

  "Then the wine it gets into their heads,
  And turns the wit out of its station;
  Nonsense gets in, in its stead,
  And their puns are now all botheration."

  _The Punning Society._


Guert Ten Eyck looked at me expressively, as the sleigh whirled round an
angle of the building and disappeared. He then proposed that we should
proceed. On ascending the main street, I was not a little surprised at
discovering the sort of amusement that was going on, and in which it seemed
to me all the youths of the place were engaged. By youths, I do not mean
lads of twelve and fourteen, but young men of eighteen and twenty, the
amusement being that of sliding down hill, or "coasting," as I am told
it is called in Boston. The acclivity was quite sharp, and of sufficient
length to give an impetus to the sled, that was set in motion at a short
distance above the English church; an impetus that would carry it past the
Dutch church--a distance that was somewhat more than a quarter of a mile.
The hand-sleds employed, were of a size and construction suited to the
dimensions of those that used them; and, as a matter of course, there was
no New Yorker that had not learned how to govern the motion of one of these
vehicles, even when gliding down the steepest descent, with the nicest
delicacy and greatest ease. As children, or boys as late in life as
fourteen even, every male in the colony, and not a few of the females, had
acquired this art; but this was the first place in which I had ever known
adults to engage in the sport. The accidental circumstance of a hill's
belonging to the principal street, joined to the severity of the winters,
had rendered an amusement suited to grown people, that, elsewhere, was
monopolized by the children.

By the time we had ascended as high as the English church, a party of young
officers came down from the fort, gay with the glass and the song of the
regimental mess. No sooner did they reach the starting-point, than three
or four of the more youthful got possession of as many sleds, and off
they went, like the shot starting from its gun. Nobody seemed to think it
strange; but, on the contrary, I observed that the elderly people looked
on with a complacent gravity, that seemed to say how vividly the sight
recalled the days of their own youth. I cannot say, however, that the
strangers succeeded very well in managing their sleds, generally meeting
with some stoppage before they reached the bottom of the hill.

"Will you take a slide, Mr. Littlepage?" Guert demanded, with a courteous
gravity, that showed how serious a business he fancied the sport. "Here
is a large and strong sled that will carry double, and you might trust
yourself with me, though a regiment of horse were paraded down below."

"But are we not a little too _old_ for such an amusement, in the streets of
a large town, Mr. Ten Eyck?" I answered, doubtingly, looking round me in
an uncertain manner, as one who did not like to adventure, even while he
hesitated to refuse. "Those king's officers are privileged people, you
know."

"No man has a higher privilege to use the streets of Albany, than Mr.
Cornelius Littlepage, sir, I can assure you. The young ladies often honour
me with their company, and no accident has ever happened."

"Do the young ladies venture to ride down _this_ street, Mr. Ten Eyck?"

"Not often, sir, I grant you; though that _has_ been done, too, of a
moon-light night. There is a more retired spot, at no great distance from
this street, however, to which the ladies are rather more partial. Look,
Mr. Littlepage!--There goes the Hon. Capt. Monson, of the ----th, and he
will be down the hill and up again before we are off, unless you hurry.
Take your seat, lady-fashion, and leave me to manage the sled."

What could I do! Guert had been so very civil, was so much in earnest,
everybody seemed to expect it of me, and the Hon. Capt. Monson was already
a hundred yards on his way to the bottom, shooting ahead with the velocity
of an arrow. I took my seat, accordingly, placing my feet together on the
front round, "_lady-fashion_," as directed. In an instant, Guert's manly
frame was behind me, with a leg extended on each side of the sled, the
government of which, as every American who has been born north of the
Potomac well knows, is effected by delicate touches of the heels. Guert
called out to the boys for a shove, and away we went, like the ship that is
bound for her "destined element," as the poets say. We got a good start,
and left the spot as the arrow leaves its bow.

Shall I own the truth, and confess I had a momentary pleasure in the
excitement produced by the rapidity of the motion, by the race we were
running with another sled, and by the skill and ease with which Guert,
almost without touching the ground, carried us unharmed through sundry
narrow passages, and along the line of wood and venison loaded sleighs,
barely clearing the noses of their horses. I forgot that I was making this
strange exhibition of myself, in a strange place, and almost in strange
company. So rapid was our motion, however, that the danger of being
recognised was not very great; and there were so many to divide attention,
that the act of folly would have been overlooked, but for a most untimely
and unexpected accident. We had gone the entire length between the
two churches with great success,--several steady, grave, and
respectable-looking old burghers calling out, on a high key, "Vell done,
Guert!"--for Guert appeared to be a general favourite, in the sense of fun
and frolic at least,--when, turning an angle of the Old Dutch Temple, in
the ambitious wish of shooting past it, in order to run still lower and
shoot off the wharf upon the river, we found ourselves in imminent danger
of running under the fore-legs of two foaming horses, that were whirling a
sleigh around the same corner of the church. Nothing saved us but Guert's
readiness and physical power. By digging a heel into the snow, he caused
the sled to fly round at a right angle to its former course, and us to fly
off it, heels over head, without much regard to the proprieties, so far as
postures or grace was concerned. The negro who drove the sleigh pulled up,
at the same instant, with so much force as to throw his horses on their
haunches. The result of these combined movements was to cause Guert and
myself to roll over in such a way as to regain our feet directly alongside
of the sleigh. In rising to my feet, indeed, I laid a hand on the side of
the vehicle, in order to assist me in the effort.

What a sight met my eyes! In the front stood the negro, grinning from ear
to ear; for _he_ deemed every disaster that occurred on runners a fit
subject for merriment. Who ever did anything but laugh at seeing a sleigh
upset?--and it was consequently quite in rule to do so on seeing two
overgrown boys roll over from a hand-sled. I could have knocked the rascal
down, with a good will, but it would not have done to resent mirth
that proceeded from so legitimate a cause. Had I been disposed to act
differently, however, the strength and courage necessary to effect such
a purpose would have been annihilated in me, by finding myself standing
within three feet, and directly in front of Anneke Mordaunt and Mary
Wallace! The shame at being thus detected in the disastrous termination of
so boyish a flight, at first nearly overcame me. How Guert felt I do not
know, but, for a single instant, I wished him in the middle of the Hudson,
and all Albany, its Dutch Church, sleds, hill, and smoking burghers
included, on top of him.

"Mr. Littlepage!" burst out of the rosy lips of Anneke, in a tone of voice
that was not to be misunderstood.

"Mr. Guert Ten Eyck!" exclaimed Mary Wallace, in an accent and manner that
bespoke chagrin.

"At your service, Miss Mary," answered Guert, who looked a little sheepish
at the result of his exploit, though for a reason I did not at first
comprehend, brushing some snow from his cap at the same time--"At your
service, now and ever, Miss Mary. But, do not suppose it was awkwardness
that produced this accident, I entreat of you. It was altogether the fault
of the boy who is stationed to give warning of sleighs below the church,
who must have left his post. Whenever either of you young ladies will do
me the honour to take a seat with me, I will pledge my character, as an
Albanian, to carry her to the foot of the highest and steepest hill in town
without disturbing a riband."

Marv Wallace made no answer; and I fancied she looked a little sad. It is
possible Anneke saw and understood this feeling, for she answered with a
spirit that I had never seen her manifest before--

"No, no, Mr. Ten Eyck," she said; "when Miss Wallace or I wish to ride down
hill, and become little girls again, we will trust ourselves with boys,
whose constant practice will be likely to render them more expert than men
can be, who have had time to forget the habits of their childhood. Pompey,
we will return home."

The cold inclination of the head that succeeded, while it was sufficiently
gracious to preserve appearances, proved too plainly that neither Guert
nor myself had risen in the estimation of his mistress, by this boyish
exhibition of his skill with the hand-sled. Had either of these young
ladies been Albanians, it is probable they would have laughed at our
mishap; but no high hill running directly into New York, the custom that
prevailed at Albany did not prevail in the capital. Small boys alone used
the hand-sled in that part of the colony, while the taste continued longer
among the more stable and constant Dutch. Of course, we had nothing to do
but to make profound bows, and suffer the negro to move on.

"There it is, Littlepage," exclaimed Guert, with a species of sigh; "I
shall have nothing but iced looks for the next week, and all for riding
down hill four or five years later than is the rule. Everybody, hereabouts,
uses the hand-sled until eighteen, or so; and I am only five-and-twenty.
Pray, what may be your age, my dear fellow?"

"Twenty-one, only about a month since. I wish, with all my heart, it were
ten!"

"Turned the corner!--well, that's unlucky; but we must make the best of
it. My taste is for _fun_, and so I have admitted to Miss Wallace, twenty
times; but she tells me that, after a certain period, men should look to
graver things, and think of their country. She has lectured me already,
once, on the subject of sliding; though she allows that skating is a manly
exercise."

"When a lady takes the trouble to lecture, it is a sure sign she feels some
interest in the subject."

"By St. Nicholas! I never thought of that, Littlepage!" cried Guert, who,
notwithstanding the great advantages he possessed in the way of face and
figure, turned out to have less personal vanity about him than almost any
man I ever met with. "_Lecture_ me she has, and that more than once, too!"

"The lady who lectures _me_, sir, will not get rid of me, at the end of the
discourse."

"That's manly! I like it, Littlepage; and I like _you_. I foresee we shall
be great friends; and we'll talk more of this matter another time. Now,
Mary has spoken to me of the war, and hinted that a single man, like
myself, with the world before him, might do something to make his name
known in it. I did not like that; for a girl who loved a fellow would not
wish to have him shot."

"A girl who took no interest in her suitor, Mr. Ten Eyck, would not care
whether he did anything or not. But I must now quit you, being under an
engagement to meet Mr. Worden at the inn, at six."

Guert and I shook hands, for the tenth or twelfth time that day, parting
with an understanding that he was to call for us, to accompany our party to
the supper, at the previously appointed hour. As I walked towards the inn,
I pondered on what had just occurred, in a most mortified temper. That
Anneke was displeased, was only too apparent; and I felt fearful that her
displeasure was not entirely free from contempt. As for Guert's case, it
did not strike me as being half so desperate as my own; for there was
nothing unnatural, but something quite the reverse, in women of sense
and stability, when they admire any youth of opposite temperament--and I
remembered to have heard my grandfather say that such was apt to be the
case,--wishing to elevate their suitors in their pursuits and characters.
Had Anneke taken the pains to remonstrate with me about the folly of what I
had done, I should have been encouraged; but the cold indifference of her
manner, not to call it contempt, cut me to the quick. It is true, Anneke
seemed to feel most on her friend's account; but I could not mistake the
look of surprise with which she saw me, Cornelius Littlepage, rise from
under her sleigh, and stand brushing the snow from my clothes, like a great
calf as I was! No man can bear to be rendered ridiculous in the presence of
the woman he loves.

Near the inn I met Dirck, his whole face illuminated with a look of
pleasure.

"I have just met Anneke and Mary Wallace!" he said, "and they stopped their
sleigh to speak to me. Herman Mordaunt has been here half the winter, and
he means to remain most of the summer. There will be no Lilacsbush this
season, the girls told me, but Herman Mordaunt has got a house, where he
lives with his own servants, and boils his own pot, as he calls it. We
shall be at home there, of course, for you are such a favourite, Corny,
ever since that affair of the lion! As for Anneke, I never saw her looking
so beautiful!"

"Did Miss Mordaunt say she would be happy to see us on the old footing,
Dirck?"

"Did she?--I suppose so. She said I shall be glad to see you, cousin Dirck,
whenever you can come, and I hope you will bring with you sometimes the
clergyman of whom you have spoken."

"But nothing of Jason Newcome or Corny Littlepage? Tell the truth at once,
Dirck; my name was not mentioned?"

"Indeet it was, t'ough; _I_ mentioned it several times, and told them how
long we had been on the roat, and how you trove, and how you had sold the
sleigh and horses already, and a dozen other t'ings. Oh! we talket a great
deal of you, Corny; that is, I dit, and the girls listened."

"Was my name mentioned by either of the young ladies, Dirck, in direct
terms?"

"To be sure; Anneke had something to say about you, though it was so much
out of the way, I can hardly tell you what it was now. Oh! I remember: she
said 'I have seen Mr. Littlepage, and think he has grown since we last
met; he promises to make a _man_ one of these days.' What could t'at mean,
Corny?"

"That I am a fool, a great overgrown boy, and wish I had never seen Albany;
that's what it means. Come, let us go in; Mr. Worden will be expecting us.
Ha! Who the devil's that, Dirck?"

A loud Dutch shout from Dirck broke out of him, regardless of the street,
and his whole face lighted up into a broad sympathetic smile. I had caught
a glimpse of a sled coming down the acclivity we were slowly ascending,
which sled glided past us just as I got the words out of my mouth. It was
occupied by Jason alone, who seemed just as much charmed with the sport
as any other grown-up boy on the hill. There he went, the cocked-hat
uppermost, the pea-green coat beneath, and the striped woollens and heavy
plated buckles stuck out, one on each side, governing the movement of the
sled with the readiness of a lad accustomed to the business.

"That must be capital fun, Corny!" my companion said, scarce able to
contain himself for the pleasure he felt. "I have a great mind to borrow a
sled and take a turn myself."

"Not if you intend to visit Miss Mordaunt, Dirck. Take my word for it, she
does not like to see men following the pleasures of boys."

Dirck stared at me, but being taciturn by nature, he said nothing, and we
entered the house. There we found Mr. Worden reading over an old sermon,
in readiness for his next Sunday's business; and sitting down, we began to
compare notes on the subject of the town and its advantages. The divine was
in raptures. As for the Dutch he cared little for them, and had seen but
little of them, overlooking them in a very natural, metropolitan sort of
way; but he had found so many English officers, had heard so much from
home, and had received so many invitations, that _his_ campaign promised
nothing but agreeables. We sat chatting over these matters until the tea
was served, and for an hour or two afterwards. My bargains were applauded,
my promptitude--the promptitude of Guert would have been more just--was
commended, and I was told that my parents should hear the whole truth in
the matter. In a word, our Mentor being in good-humour with himself, was
disposed to be in good humour with every one else.

At the appointed hour, Guert came to escort us to the place of meeting. He
was courteous, attentive, and as frank as the air he breathed, in manner.
Mr. Worden took to him excessively, and it was soon apparent that he and
young Ten Eyck were likely to become warm friends.

"You must know, gentlemen, that the party to which I have had the honour
of inviting you, will be composed of some of the heartiest young men in
Albany, if not in the colony. We meet once a month, in the house of an old
bachelor, who belongs to us, and who will be delighted to converse with
you, Mr. Worden, on the subject of religion. Mr. Van Brunt is very expert
in religion, and we make him the umpire of all our disputes and bets on
_that_ subject."

This sounded a little ominous, I thought; but Mr. Worden was not a man to
be frightened from a good hot supper, by half-a-dozen inadvertent words. He
could tolerate even a religious discussion, with such an object in view.
He walked on, side by side with Guert, and we were soon at the door of the
house of Mr. Van Brunt, the Bachelor in Divinity, as I nicknamed him. Guert
entered without knocking, and ushered us into the presence of our _quasi_
host.

We found in the room a company of just twelve, Guert included; that being
the entire number of the club. It struck me, at the first glance, that the
whole set had a sort of slide-down-hill aspect, and that we were likely to
make a night of it. My acquaintance with Dirck, and indeed my connection
with the old race, had not left me ignorant of a certain peculiarity in the
Dutch character. Sober, sedate, nay phlegmatic as they usually appeared
to be, their roystering was on a pretty high key, when it once fairly
commenced. We thought one lad of the old race, down in Westchester, fully a
match for two of the Anglo-Saxon breed, when it came to a hard set-to; no
ordinary fun appeasing the longings of an excited Dutchman. Tradition had
let me into a good many secrets connected with their excesses, and I had
heard the young Albanians often mentioned as being at the head of their
profession in these particulars.

Nothing could be more decorous, or considerate, however, than our
introduction and reception. The young men seemed particularly gratified at
having a clergyman of their party, and I make no doubt it was intended that
the evening should be one of unusual sobriety and moderation. I heard the
word "Dominie" whispered from mouth to mouth, and it was easy to see the
effect it produced. Most eyes were fastened on Van Brunt, a red-faced,
square-built, somewhat dissolute-looking man of forty-five, who seemed to
find his apology for associating with persons so much his juniors, in his
habits, and possibly in the necessity of the case; as men of his own years
might not like his company.

"And, gentlemen, it is dry business standing here looking at each other,"
observed Mr. Van Brunt; "and we will take a little punch, to moisten our
hearts, as well as our throats. Guert, yon is the pitcher."

Guert made good use of the pitcher, and each man had his glass of punch,--a
beverage then, as now, much used in the colony. I must acknowledge that the
mixture was very knowingly put together, though I had no sooner swallowed
my glass, than I discovered it was confounded strong. Not so with Guert.
Not only did he swallow _one_ glass, but he swallowed _two_, in quick
succession, like a man who was thirsty; standing at the time in a fine,
manly, erect attitude, as one who trifled with something that did not half
tax his powers. The pitcher, though quite large, was emptied at that one
assault, in proof of which it was turned bottom upwards, by Guert himself.

Conversation followed, most of it being in English, out of compliment to
the Dominie, who was not supposed to understand Dutch. This was an error,
however, Mr. Worden making out tolerably well in that language, when he
tried. I was felicitated on the bargains I had made with the contractor;
and many kind and hospitable attempts were made to welcome me in a frank,
hearty manner among strangers. I confess I was touched by these honest and
sincere endeavours to put me at my ease, and when a second pitcher of punch
was brought round, I took another glass with right good-will, while Guert,
as usual, took two; though the liquor _he_ drank, I had many occasions to
ascertain subsequently, produced no more visible effect on him, in the way
of physical consequences, than if he had not swallowed it. Guert was no
drunkard, far from it; he could only drink all near him under the table,
and remain firm in his chair himself. Such men usually escape the
imputation of being sots, though they are very apt to pay the penalty of
their successes at the close of their career. These are the men who break
down at sixty, if not earlier, becoming subject to paralysis, indigestion,
and other similar evils.

Such was the state of things, the company gradually getting into a very
pleasant humour, when Guert was called out of the room by one of the
blacks, who bore a most ominous physiognomy while making his request.
He was gone but a moment, when he returned with a certain sort of
consternation painted in his own handsome face. Mr. Van Brunt was called
into a corner, where two or three more of the principal persons present
soon collected, in an earnest, half-whispered discourse. I was seated so
near this group, as occasionally to overhear a few expressions, though
to get no clear clue to its meaning. The words I overheard were,
"old Cuyler"--"capital supper"--"venison and ducks"--"partridges and
quails"--"knows us all"--"never do"--"Dominie the man"--"strangers"--"how
to do it?" and several other similar expressions, which left a vague
impression on my mind that our supper was in great peril from some cause or
other; but what that cause was I could not learn. Guert was evidently the
principal person in this consultation, everybody appearing to listen to his
suggestions with respect and attention. At length our friend came out of
the circle, and in a courteous, self-possessed manner communicated the
difficulty in the following words:

"You must know, Rev. Mr. Worden, and Mr. Littlepage, and Mr. Follock, and
Mr. Newcome, that we have certain customs of our own, among us youths of
Albany, that perhaps are not familiar to you gentlemen nearer the capital.
The trut' is, that we are not always as wise and as sober as our parents,
and grandparents in particular, could wish us to be. It is t'ought a good
thing among us sometimes, to rummage the hen-roosts and poultry-yards of
the burghers, and to sup on the fruits of such a forage. I do not know how
it is with you, gentlemen; but I will own, that to me, ducks and geese got
in this innocent, game-like way, taste sweeter than when they are bought in
the market-hall: our own supper for to-night was a _bought_ supper, but
it has become the victim of a little enlargement of the practice I have
mentioned."

"How!--how's that, friend Ten Eyck!" exclaimed Mr. Worden, in no affected
consternation. "The _supper_ a victim, do you say?"

"Yes, sir; to be frank at once, it is gone; gone to a pullet, a steak, and
a potatoe. They have not left us a dish!"

"They!" echoed the parson--"And who can _they_ be?"

"That is a point yet to be ascertained, for the operation has been carried
on in so delicate and refined a way, that none of our blacks know anything
of the matter. It seems there was a cry of fire just now, and it took every
one of the negroes into the street; during which time all our game has been
put up, and has flown."

"Bless me! bless me! what a calamity!--what a rascally theft! Did you not
mark it down?"

"No sir, I am sorry to say we have not; nor do we apply such hard names to
a frolic, even when we lose our supper by it. It is the act of some of our
associates and friends, who hope to feast at our expense to-night; and who
will, gentlemen, unless you will consent to aid us in recovering our lost
dishes."

"Aid you, my dear sir--I will do any thing you can wish--what will you have
me attempt! Shall I go to the fort, and ask for succour from the army?"

"No, sir; our object can be effected short of t'at. I am quite certain
we can find what we want, only two or three doors from this, if you will
consent to lend us a little, a very little of your assistance."

"Name it--name it, at once, for Heaven's sake, Mr. Guert. The dishes
must be getting cold, all this time," cried Mr. Worden, jumping up with
alacrity, and looking about him, for his hat and cloak.

"The service we ask of you, gentlemen, is just this," rejoined Guert, with
a coolness that, when I came to reflect on the events of that night, has
always struck me as singularly astonishing. "Our supper, and an excellent
one it is, is close at hand, as I have said. Nothing will be easier than to
get it on our own table, in the next room, could we only manage to call old
Doortje off duty, and detain her for five minutes at the area gate of her
house. She knows every one of _us_, and would smell a rat in a minute, did
_we_ show ourselves; but Mr. Worden and Mr. Littlepage, here, might amuse
her for the necessary time, without any trouble. She is remarkably fond of
Dominies, and would not be able to trace _you_ back to this house, leaving
us to eat the supper in peace. After _t'at_, no one cares for the rest."

"I'll do it!--I'll do it!" cried Mr. Worden, hurrying into the passage, in
quest of his hat and cloak. "It is no more than just that you should have
your own, and the supper will be either eaten, or overdone, should we go
for constables."

"No fear of constables, Mr. Worden, we never employ them in our poultry
wars. All we, who will get the supper back again, can expect, will be
merely a little hot water, or a skirmish with our friends."

The details of the movement were now intelligibly and clearly settled.
Guert was to head a party provided with large clothes-baskets, who were to
enter the kitchen, during Doortje's absence, and abstract the dishes, which
could not yet be served, as all in Albany, of a certain class, sat down to
supper at nine precisely. As for Doortje, a negro who was in the house, in
waiting on one of the guests, his master, would manage to get her out to
the area gate, the house having a cellar kitchen, where it would depend on
Mr. Worden to detain her, three or four minutes. To my surprise, the
parson entered on the execution of the wild scheme with boyish eagerness,
affirming that he could keep the woman half an hour, if it were necessary,
by delivering her a lecture on the importance of observing the eighth
commandment. As soon as the preliminaries were thus arranged, the two
parties proceeded on their respective duties, the hour admonishing us of
the necessity of losing no time unnecessarily.

I did not like this affair from the first, the experiment of sliding down
hill, having somewhat weakened my confidence in Guert Ten Eyck's judgment.
Nevertheless, it would not do for _me_ to hold back, when Mr. Worden led,
and, after all, there was no great harm in recovering a supper that had
been abstracted from our own house. Guert did not proceed, like ourselves,
by the street, but he went with his party, out of a back gate into an
alley, and was to enter the yard of the house he assailed, by means of a
similar gate in its rear. Once in that yard, the access to the kitchen, and
the retreat, were very easy, provided the cook could be drawn away from her
charge at so important a moment. Everything, therefore, depended on the
address of the young negro who was in the house, and ourselves.

On reaching the gate of the area, we stopped while our negro descended to
invite Doortje forth. This gave us a moment to examine the building. The
house was large, much larger than most of those round it, and what struck
me as unusual, there was a lighted lamp over the door. This looked as if it
might be a sort of a tavern, or eating house, and rendered the whole thing
more intelligible to me. Our roystering plunderers doubtless intended to
sup on their spoils at that tavern.

The negro was gone but a minute, when he came out with a young black of his
own sex, a servant whom he was leading off his post, on some pretence
of his own, and was immediately followed by the cook. Doortje made many
curtsies as soon as she saw the cocked-hat and black cloak of the Dominie,
begging his pardon and asking his pleasure. Mr. Worden now began a grave
and serious lecture on the sin of stealing, holding the confounded Doortje
in discourse quite three minutes. In vain the cook protested she had taken
nothing; that her master's property was sacred in her eyes, and ever had
been; that she never gave away even cold meats without an order, and that
she could not imagine why _she_ was to be talked to in this way. To give
him his due, Mr. Worden performed his part to admiration, though it is true
he had only an ignorant wench, who was awed by his profession, to manage.
At length we heard a shrill whistle from the alley, the signal of success,
when Mr. Worden wished Doortje a solemn good-night, and walked away with
all the dignity of a priest. In a minute or two we were in the house again,
and were met by Guert with cordial shakes of the hand, thanks for our
acceptable service, and a summons to supper. It appears that Doortje had
actually dished-up everything, all the articles standing before a hot fire
waiting only for the clock to strike nine to be served. In this state,
then, the only change the supper had to undergo, was to bring it a short
distance through the alley and to place it on our table, instead of that
for which it was so lately intended.

Notwithstanding the rapidity with which the changes had been made, it would
not have been very easy for a stranger to detect any striking irregularity
in our feast. It is true, there were two sets of dishes on the table, or
rather dishes of two different sets; but the ducks, game, &c., were not
only properly cooked, but were warm and good. To work everybody went,
therefore, with an appetite, and for five minutes little was heard beyond
the clatter of knives and forks. Then came the drinking of healths, and
finally the toasts, and the songs, and the stories.

Guert sang capitally, in a fine, clear, sweet, manly voice, and he gave us
several airs with words both in English and in Dutch. He had just finished
one of these songs, and the clapping of hands was still loud and warm, when
the young man called on Mr. Worden for a lady, or a sentiment.

"Come, Dominie," he called out, for by this time the feast had produced
its familiarity--"Come, Dominie, you have acquitted yourself so well as a
lecturer, that we are all dying to hear you preach."

"A lady do you say, sir?" asked the parson, who was as merry as any of us.

"A laty--a laty"--shouted six or seven at once. "The Tominie's laty--the
Tominie's laty."

"Well, gentlemen, since you will have it so, you shall have one. You must
not complain if she prove a little venerable,--but I give you 'Mother
Church.'"

This produced a senseless laugh, as such things usually do, and then
followed my turn. Mr. Van Brunt very formally called on me for a
lady. After pausing a moment I said, as I flatter myself, with
spirit--"Gentlemen, I will give you another almost as heavenly--Miss Anneke
Mordaunt!"

"Miss Anneke Mordaunt!" was echoed round the table, and I soon discovered
that Anneke was a general favourite, and a very common toast already at
Albany.

"I shall now ask Mr. Guert Ten Eyck for his lady," I said, as soon as
silence was restored, there being very little pause between the cups that
night.

This appeal changed the whole character of the expression of Guert's face.
It became grave in an instant, as if the recollection of her whose name
he was about to utter produced a pause in his almost fierce mirth. He
coloured, then raised his eyes and looked sternly round as if to challenge
denial, and gave--

"Miss Mary Wallace."

"Ay, Guert, we are used to that name, now," said Van Brunt, a little drily.
"This is the tenth time I have heard it from you within two months."

"You will be likely to hear it twenty more, sir; for I shall give Mary
Wallace, and nobody but Mary Wallace, while the lady remains Mary Wallace.
How, now, Mr. Constable! What may be the reason we have the honour of a
visit from you at this time of night." [22]

[Footnote 22: In this whole affair of the supper, the reader will find
incidents that bear a striking resemblance to certain local characteristics
portrayed by Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, in her memoirs of an American Lady;
thus corroborating the fidelity of the pictures of our ancient manners,
as given by that respectable writer, by the unquestioned authority of Mr.
Cornelius Littlepage.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER XIII.

  "Masters, it is proved already
  That you are little better than false knaves;
  And it will go near to be thought so, shortly."

  _Dogberry_.


The sudden appearance of the city constable, a functionary whose person was
not unknown to most of the company, brought every man at table to his feet,
the Rev. Mr. Worden, Dirck and myself, included. For my own part, I saw no
particular reason for alarm, though it at once struck me that this visit
might have some connection with the demolished supper, since the law does
not, in all cases, suffer a man to reclaim even his own, by trick or
violence. As for the constable himself, a short, compact, snub-nosed,
Dutch-built person, who spoke English as if it disagreed with his bile, he
was the coolest of the whole party.

"Vell, Mr. Guert," he said, with a sort of good-natured growl of authority,
"here I moost coome ag'in! Mr. Mayor woult be happy to see you, and ter
Tominie, dat ist of your party; and ter gentleman dat acted as clerk, ven
he lectured old Doortje, Mr. Mayor's cook."

Mr. Mayor's cook! Here, then, a secret was out, with a vengeance! Guert had
not reclaimed his own lost supper, which, having passed into the hands of
the Philistines, was hopelessly gone; but he had actually stolen and eaten
the supper prepared for the Mayor of Albany,--Peter Cuyler, a man of note,
and standing, in all respects; a functionary who had held his office from
time immemorial;--the lamp was the symbol of authority, and not the sign of
an inn, or an eating-house;--the supper, moreover, was never prepared for
one man, or one family, but had certainly been got up for the honourable
treatment of a goodly company;--fifteen stout men had mainly appeased their
appetites on it; and the fragments were that moment under discussion among
half-a-dozen large-mouthed, shining negro faces, in the kitchen! Under
circumstances like these, I looked inquiringly at the Rev. Mr. Worden--and
the Rev. Mr. Worden looked inquiringly at me. There was no apparent remedy,
however; but, after a brief consultation with Guert, we, the summoned
parties, took our hats and followed Dogberry to the residence of Mr. Mayor.

"You are not to be uneasy, gentlemen, at this little interruption of our
amusements," said Guert, dropping in between Mr. Worden and myself, as we
proceeded on our way, "these things happening very often among us. You are
innocent, you know, under all circumstances, since you supposed that
the supper was our own--brought back by direct means, instead of having
recourse to the shabby delays of the law."

"And whose supper may this have been, sir, that we have just eaten!"
demanded Mr. Worden.

"Why, there can be no harm, now, in telling you the truth, Dominie; and I
will own, therefore, it belonged in law to Mr. Mayor Cuyler. There is no
great danger, however, as you will see, when I come to explain matters. You
must know that the Mayor's wife was a Schuyler, and my mother has some of
that blood in her veins, and we count cousins as far as we can see, in
Albany. It is just supping with one's relations, a little out of the common
way, as you will perceive, gentlemen."

"Have you dealt fairly with Mr. Littlepage and myself, sir, in this
affair?" Mr. Worden asked, a little sternly. "I might, with great
propriety, lecture to a cook, on the eighth commandment, when that cook
was a party to robbing you of your supper; but how shall I answer to His
Honour, Mr. Mayor, on the charge which will now be brought against me?
It is not for myself, Mr. Guert, that I feel so much concern, as for the
credit and reputation of my sacred office, and that, too, among your
disciples of the schools of Leyden!"

"Leave it all to me, my dear Dominie--leave it all to me," answered Guert,
well disposed to sacrifice himself, rather than permit a friend to suffer.
"I am used to these little matters, and will take care of you."

"I vill answer for t'at," put in the constable, looking over his shoulder.
"No young fly-away in All_pon_ny hast more knowletge in t'ese matters t'an
Mr. Guert, here. If any potty can draw his heat out of the yoke, Mr. Guert
can, Yaas--yaas--he know all apout t'ese little matters, sure enough."

This was encouraging, of a certainty! Our associate was so well known for
his tricks and frolics, that even the constable who took him calculated
largely on his address in getting out of scrapes! I did not apprehend that
any of us were about to be tried and convicted of a downright robbery;
for I knew how far the Dutch carried their jokes of this nature, and how
tolerant the seniors were to their juniors; and especially how much all men
are disposed to regard any exploit of the sort of that in which we had been
engaged, when it has been managed adroitly, and in a way to excite a laugh.
Still, it was no joke to rob a Mayor of his supper these functionaries
usually passing to their offices through the probationary grade of
Alderman. [23] Guert was not free from uneasiness, as was apparent by a
question he put to the officer, on the steps of Mr. Cuyler's house, and
under the very light of the official lamp.

"How is the old gentleman, this evening, Hans?" the principal asked, with
some little concern in his manner. "I hope he and his company have supped?"

"Vell, t'at is more t'an I can tell you, Mr. Guert. He look't more as like
himself, when he hat the horse t'ieves from New Englant taken up, t'an he
hast for many a tay. 'Twas most too pat, Mr. Guert, to run away wit' the
Mayor's _own_ supper! I coult have tolt you who hast your own tucks and
venison."

"I wish you had, Hans, with all my heart; but we were hard pushed, and
had a strange Dominie to feed. You know a body must provide _well_ for
company."

"Yaas, yaas; I understants it, and knows how you moost have peen nonplush't
to do sich a t'ing; put it was _mo-o-st_ too pat. Vell, we are all young,
afore we live to be olt--t'at effery potty knows."

By this time the door was open, and we entered. Mr. Mayor had issued orders
we should all be shown into the parlour, where I rather think, from what
subsequently passed, he intended to cut up Guert a little more than common,
by exposing him before the eyes of a particular person. At all events, the
reader can judge of my horror, at finding that the party whose supper I had
just helped to demolish, consisted, in addition to three or four sons and
daughters of the house, of Herman Mordaunt, Mary Wallace, and Anneke! Of
course, everybody knew _what_ had been done; but, until we entered the
room, Mr. Mayor alone knew _who_ had done it. Of Mr. Worden and myself
even, he knew no more than he had learned from Dootje's account of the
matter; and the cook, quite naturally, had represented us as rogues
feigning our divinity.

Guert was a thoroughly manly fellow, and he did us the justice to enter the
parlour first. Poor fellow! I can feel for him, even at this distance of
time, when his eye first fell on Mary Wallace's pallid and distressed
countenance. It could scarcely be less than I felt myself, when I first
beheld Anneke's flushed features, and the look of offended propriety that I
fancied to be sparkling in her estranged eye.

Mr. Mayor evidently regarded Mr. Worden with surprise, as indeed he did
me; for, instead of strangers, he probably expected to meet two of those
delinquents whose faces were familiar to him, by divers similar jocular
depredations, committed within the limits of his jurisdiction. Then the
circumstance that Mr. Worden was a real Dominie, could not be questioned
by those who saw him standing, as he did, face to face, with all the usual
signs of his sacred office in his dress and air.

"I believe there must be some mistake here, constable!" exclaimed Mr.
Mayor. "Why have you brought these two strange gentlemen along with Guert
Ten Eyck?"

"My orters, Mr. Mayor, wast to pring Dootje's 'rapscallion Tominie,' and
his 'rapscallion frient;' and t'at is one, and t'is ist t'ot'e."

"This gentleman has the appearance of being a _real_ clergyman, and that
too, of the church of England."

"Yaas, Mr. Mayor, t'at is yoost so. He wilt preach fifteen minutes wit'out
stopping, if you wilt give him a plack gownt; and pray an hour in a white
shirt." [24]

"Will you do me the favour, Guert Ten Eyck, to let me have the names of
the strangers I have the pleasure to receive," said the mayor, a little
authoritatively.

"Certainly, Mr. Mayor; certainly, and with very great pleasure. I should
have done this at once, had we been ushered into your house by any one but
the city constable. Whenever I accompany that gentleman anywhere, I always
wait to ascertain my welcome."

Guert laughed with some heart at this allusion to his own known
delinquencies, while Mr. Cuyler only smiled. I could see, notwithstanding
the severe measures to which he had resorted in this particular case, that
the last was not unfriendly to the first, and that our friend Guert had
not fallen literally among robbers, in being brought to the place where we
were.

"This reverend dominie," continued Guert, as soon as he had had his laugh,
and had ventured to cast a short, inquiring glance at Mary Wallace, "is a
gentleman from England, Mr. Mayor, who is to preach in St. Peter's the day
after to-morrow, by special invitation from the chaplain; when, I make no
doubt, we shall all be much edified; Miss Mary Wallace among the rest, if
she will do him the honour to attend the service--good, and angelic, and
_forgiving_, as I know she is by nature."

This speech caused all eyes to turn on the young lady whose face crimsoned,
though she made no reply. I now felt satisfied that Guert's manly, frank,
avowed, and sincere admiration had touched the heart of Mary Wallace, while
her reason condemned that which her natural tenderness encouraged; and the
struggle in her mind was then, and long after, a subject of curious study
with me. As for Anneke, I thought she resented this somewhat indiscreet,
not to say indelicate though indirect avowal of his feelings towards his
mistress; and that she looked on Guert with even more coldness than she had
previously done. Neither of the ladies, however, said anything. During
this dumb-show, Mr. Cuyler had leisure to recover from the surprise of
discovering that one of his prisoners was really a clergyman, and to
inquire who the other might be.

"That gentleman, then, is in fact a clergyman!" he answered. "You have
forgotten to name the other, Guert."

"This is Mr. Corny Littlepage, Mr. Mayor--the only son of Major Littlepage,
of Satanstoe, Westchester."

The Mayor looked a little puzzled, and I believe felt somewhat embarrassed
as to the manner in which he ought to proceed. The incursion of Guert upon
his premises much exceeded in boldness, anything of the kind that had ever
before occurred in Albany. It was common enough for young men of his stamp
to carry off poultry, pigs, &c., and feast on the spoils; and cases
had occurred, as I afterwards learned, in which rival parties of these
depredators preyed on each other--the same materials for a supper
having been known to change hands two or three times before they were
consumed--but no one had ever presumed, previously to this evening, to make
an inroad even on Mr. Mayor's hencoop, much less to molest the domains of
his cook. In the first impulse of his anger, Mr. Cuyler had sent for the
constable; and Guert's club, with its place of meeting being well known,
that functionary having had many occasions to visit it, the latter
proceeded thither forthwith. It is probable, however, a little reflection
satisfied the mayor that a frolic could not well be treated as a larceny;
and that Guert had some of his own wife's blood in his veins. When he came
to find that two respectable strangers were implicated in the affair, one
of whom was actually a clergyman, this charitable feeling was strengthened,
and he changed his course of proceeding.

"You can return home, Hans," said Mr. Mayor, very sensibly mollified in his
manner. "Should there be occasion for your further services, I will send
for you. Now gentlemen," as soon as the door closed on the constable, "I
will satisfy you that old Peter Cuyler can cover a table, and feed his
friends, even though Guert Ten Eyck be so near a neighbour. Miss Wallace,
will you allow me the honour to lead you to the table? Mr. Worden will see
Mrs. Cuyler, in safety, to the same place."

On this hint, the missionary stepped forward with alacrity, and led Mrs.
Mayoress after Mary Wallace, with the utmost courtesy. Guert did the same
to one of the young ladies of the house; Anneke was led in by one of the
young men; and I took the remaining young lady, who, I presumed, was also
one of the family. It was very apparent we were respited; and all of us
thought it wisest to appear as much at our ease as possible, in order not
to balk the humour of the principal magistrate of the ancient town of
Albany.

To do Mr. Mayor justice, the lost time had been so well improved by
Doortje, that, on looking around the table, I thought the supper to which
we were thus strangely invited, was, of the two, the best I had seen that
evening. Luckily, game was plenty; and, by means of quails, partridges,
oysters, venison patties, and other dishes of that sort, the cook had
managed to send up quite as good a supper, at ten o'clock, as she had
previously prepared for nine.

I will not pretend that I felt quite at my ease, as I took my seat at the
table, for the second time that night. All the younger members of the party
looked exceedingly grave, as if they could very well dispense with our
company; the old people alone appearing to enter into the scene with any
spirit. Anneke did not even look at me, after the first astounded look
given on my entrance; nor did Mary Wallace once cast her eyes towards
Guert, when we reached the supper-room. Mr. Mayor, notwithstanding, had
determined to laugh off the affair; and he and Mr. Worden soon became
excellent friends, and began to converse freely and naturally.

"Come, cousin Guert," cried Mr. Mayor, after two or three glasses of
Madeira had still further warmed his heart, "fill, and pledge me--unless
you prefer to give a lady. If the last, everybody will drink to her, with
hearty good-will. You eat nothing, and must drink the more."

"Ah! Mr. Mayor, I have toasted one lady, to-night, and cannot toast
another."

"Not present company excepted, my boy?"

"No, sir, not even with that license. I pledge you, with all my heart, and
thank you, with all my heart, for this generous treatment, after my own
foolish frolic;--but, you know how it is, Mr. Mayor, with us Albany youths,
when our pride is up, and a supper must be had--"

"Not I, Guert; I know nothing about it; but should very well like to learn.
How came you, in the first place, to take such a fancy to my cook's supper?
Did you imagine it better than Van Brunt's cook could give you?"

"The supper of Arent Van Brunt's cook has disappeared--gone on the hill, I
fancy, among the red-coats; and, to own the truth, Mr. Mayor, it was yours,
or nothing. I had invited these gentlemen to pass the evening with us. One
of our blacks happened to mention what was going on here, and hospitality
led us all astray. It was nothing more, I do assure you, Mr. Mayor."

"And so your hospitable feelings made your guests work for their supper, by
sending them to preach to old Doortje, while you were dishing up my ducks
and game?"

"Your pardon, Mr. Mayor; Doortje had dished-up, before she went to lecture.
Your cook is too well trained to neglect her duty, even to hear a sermon by
the Rev. Mr. Worden! But, these gentlemen were quite as much deceived as
the old woman; for, they supposed we were after our own lost goods, and
did not know that you dwelt here; and were as much my dupes as old Doortje
herself. Truth obliges me to own this much, in their justification."

There was a general clearing up of countenances, at this frank avowal; and
I saw that Anneke, herself, turned her looks inquiringly upon the
speaker, and suffered a smile to relieve the extreme gravity of her sweet
countenance. From that moment, a very sensible change came over the
feelings and deportment of the younger part of the company, and the
conversation became easier and more natural. It was certainly much in our
favour to have it known, we had not officiously and boyishly joined in
a gratuitous attempt to rob and insult this particular and unoffending
family, but that Mr. Worden and I supposed we were simply aiding in getting
back those things which properly belonged to our hosts, and getting them
back, too, in a manner of which the party we supposed we were acting
against, would certainly have no right to complain, inasmuch as they
had set the example. Guert was encouraged to go on further with his
explanations; which he did, in his own honest, candid manner, exculpating
us, in effect, from everything but being a little too much disposed
to waggery, for a minister of the church, and his pupil, who had just
commenced his travels.

Anneke's face brightened up, more and more, as the explanations proceeded;
and, soon after they were ended, she turned to me in a very gracious
manner, and inquired after my mother. As I sat directly opposite to her,
and the table was narrow, we could converse without attracting much
attention to ourselves; Mr. Mayor and his other guests keeping up a round
of reasonably noisy jokes, on the events of the evening, nearer the foot of
the table.

"You find some customs in Albany, Mr. Littlepage, that are not known to us,
in New York," Anneke observed, after a few preliminary remarks had opened
the way to further communication.

"I scarce know, Miss Anneke, whether you allude to what has occurred this
evening, or to what occurred this afternoon?"

"To both, I believe," answered Anneke, smiling, though she coloured, as I
thought, with a species of feminine vexation; "for, certainly, one is no
more a custom with us than the other."

"I have been most unfortunate, Miss Mordaunt, in the exhibitions I have
made of myself in the course of the few hours I have passed in this, to me,
strange place. I am afraid you regard me as little more than an overgrown
boy who has been permitted by his parents to leave home sooner than he
ought."

"This is your construction, and not mine, Mr. Littlepage. I suppose you
know--but, we will talk of this in the other room, or at some other time."

I took the hint, and said no more on the subject while at table. Mr. Mayor,
I suppose in consideration of our having gone through the exactions of one
feast already that evening, permitted us to leave the supper-room much
earlier than common, and the hour being late, the whole party broke up
immediately afterwards. Before we separated, however, Herman Mordaunt
approached me, in a friendly, free way, and invited me to come to his house
at eight next morning to breakfast, requesting the pleasure of Dirck's
company at the same time; the invitation to the latter going through me.
It is scarcely necessary to say how gladly I accepted, and how much I was
relieved by this termination of an adventure that, at one moment, menaced
me with deep disgrace. Had Mr. Mayor seen fit to pursue the affair of the
abstraction of his first supper in a serious vein, although the legal
consequences could not probably have amounted to anything very grave, they
might prove very ridiculous; and I have no doubt they would have brought
about a very abrupt termination of my visit to the north. As it was, my
mind was vastly relieved, as I believe was the case also with that of the
Rev. Mr. Worden.

"Corny," said that gentleman, after we had wished Guert good-night, and
were well on our way to the inn again, "this second supper has helped
surprisingly to digest the first. I doubt if our new acquaintance, here,
will be likely to turn out very profitable to us."

"Yet, sir, you appeared to take to him exceedingly, and I had thought you
excellent friends."

"I like the fellow well enough too; for he is hearty, and frank, and
good-natured; but there was some little policy in keeping on good terms
with him. I'm afraid, Corny, I did not altogether consult the dignity of my
holy office, this morning, on the ice! It is exceedingly unbecoming in a
clergyman, to be seen running in a public place like a school-boy, or a
youngster contending in a match. I thought, moreover, I overheard one
of those young Dutchmen call me the 'Loping Dominie;' and so, taking
altogether, it struck me it would be wisest to keep on good terms with this
Guert Ten Eyck."

"I see your policy, sir, and it does not become me to deny it. As for
myself, I confess I like Guert surprisingly, and shall not give him up
easily; though he has already got me into two serious scrapes in the short
time we have been acquainted; He is a hearty, good-natured, thoughtless
young fellow; who, Dutchman-like, when he does make an attempt to enjoy
life, does it with all his heart."

I then related the affair of the hand-sled to Mr. Worden, who gave me some
of that sort of consolation, of which a man receives a great deal, as he
elbows his way through this busy, selfish world.

"Well, Corny," said my old master, "I am not certain you did not look
more like a fool, as you rolled over from that sled, than I looked while
'loping' from our friends in the sleigh!"

We both laughed as we entered the tavern; I, to conceal the vexation I
really felt, and Mr. Worden, as I presume, because he was flattered with
the belief that I must have appeared quite as ridiculous as himself.

Next morning I proceeded to Herman Mordaunt's residence at the earliest
hour the rules of society would allow. I found the family established in
one of those Dutch edifices, of which Albany was mainly composed, and which
stood a little removed from the street--having a tiny yard in front, with
the _stoop_ in the gable, and that gable towards the yard. The battlement
walls of this house diminished towards the high apex of a very steep roof
by steps, as we are all so much accustomed to see, and the whole was
surmounted by an iron weathercock, that was perched on a rod of some
elevation. It was always a matter of importance with the Dutch to know
which way the wind blew; nor did it comport with their habits of minute
accuracy, to trust to the usual indications of the feeling on the skin, the
bending of branches, the flying of clouds, or the driving of smoke; but
they must and would have the certainty of a machine, that was constructed
expressly to let them know the fact. Smoke might err, but a weathercock
would not!

No one was in the little parlour into which I was shown by the servant
who admitted me to the house, and in whom I recognised Herman Mordaunt's
principal male attendant, of the household in New York. How pleasantly did
that little room appear to me, in the minute or two that I was left in it
alone. There lay the very shawl that Anneke had on, the day I met her in
the Pinkster Field; and a pair of gloves that it seemed to me no other
hands but hers were small enough to wear, had been thrown on the shawl,
carelessly, as one casts aside a thing of that sort, in a hurry. A dozen
other articles were put here and there, that denoted the habits and
presence of females of refinement. But the gloves most attracted my
attention, and I must needs rise and examine them. It is true, these gloves
might belong to Mary Wallace, for she, too, had a pretty little hand, but I
fancied they belonged to Anneke. Under this impression, I raised them to my
lips, and was actually pressing them there, with a good deal of romantic
feeling, when a light footstep in the room told me I was not alone.
Dropping the gloves, I turned and beheld Anneke herself. She was regarding
me with an expression of countenance I did not then know how to interpret,
and which I now hardly know how to describe. In the first place, her
charming countenance was suffused with blushes, while her eyes were filled
with an expression of softened interest, that caused my heart to beat so
violently, that I did not know but it would escape by the channel of the
throat. How near I was to declaring all I felt, at that moment; of throwing
myself at the feet of the dear, dear creature, and of avowing how much and
engrossingly she had filled both my waking and sleeping thoughts during
the last year, and of beseeching her to bless the remainder of my days, by
becoming my wife! Nothing prevented this sally, but the remark which Anneke
made, the instant she had gracefully curtsied, in return to my confused and
awkward bow, and which happened to be this:

"What do you find so much to admire in Miss Wallace's gloves?" asked the
wilful girl, biting her lip, as I fancied, to suppress a smile, though
her cheeks were still suffused, and her eyes continued to give forth that
indescribable expression of bewitching softness. "It is a pair my father
presented to her, and she wore them last evening in compliment to him."

"I beg pardon, Miss Mordaunt--Miss Anneke--that is--I beg pardon. Is there
not a very delightful odour about those gloves--that is, I was thinking so,
and was endeavouring to ascertain what it might be by the scent."

"It must be the lavender with which we young ladies are so coquettish as to
sprinkle our gloves and handkerchiefs--or it may be musk. Mary is rather
fond of musk, though I prefer lavender. But what an evening we had, Mr.
Littlepage! and what an introduction you have had to Albany and most of
all, what a master of ceremonies!"

"Do you then dislike Guert Ten Eyck as an acquaintance, Miss Anneke?"

"Far from it. It is quite impossible to _dislike_ Guert; he is so manly; so
ready to admit his own weaknesses; so sincere in all he does and says; so
good natured; and, in short, so much that, were one his sister, she might
wish him to be, and yet so much that a sister must regret."

"I thought last evening that all the ladies felt an interest in him,
notwithstanding the numberless wild and ill-judged things he does. Is he
not a favourite with Miss Wallace?"

The quick, sensitive glance that Anneke gave me, said plainly enough that
my question was indiscreet, and it was no sooner put than it was regretted.
A shadow passed athwart the sweet face of my companion, and a moment of
deep, and, as I fancied, of painful thought succeeded. Then a light broke
over all, a smile illumined her features, after which a light girlish laugh
came to show how active were the agents within, and how strong was the
native tendency to happiness and humour.

"After all, Corny Littlepage," said Anneke, turning her face towards me
with an indescribable character of fun and feeling so blended in it, as
fairly to puzzle me, "you must admit that your exploit in the hand-sled was
sufficiently ridiculous to last a young man for some time!"

"I confess it all, Anneke, and shall have a care how I turn boy again in
a strange place. I am rejoiced to find, however, that you look upon the
foolish affair of the slide as more grave than that of the supper, which I
was fearful might involve me in serious disgrace."

"Neither is very serious, Mr. Littlepage, though the last might have proved
awkward, had not the Mayor known the ways of the young men of the town.
They say, however, that nothing so bold has ever before been attempted in
that way, in Albany, great as are the liberties that are often taken with
the neighbours' hen-coops."

And she laughed, and this time it was naturally, and without the least
restraint.

"I hope you will not think it shabby in me, if I seem to wish to throw
all the blame on this harum-scarum Guert Ten Eyck. He drew me into both
affairs, and into the last, in a great measure, innocently and ignorantly."

"So it is understood, and so it would be understood, the moment Guert Ten
Eyck was found to be connected with the affair at all."

"I may hope, then, to be forgiven, Anneke?" I said, holding out a hand to
invite her to accept it as a pledge of pardon.

Anneke did not prudishly decline putting her own little hand in mine,
though I got only the ends of two or three slender delicate fingers; and
her colour increased as she bestowed this grace.

"You must ask forgiveness, Corny," she answered,--I believe she now used
this familiar name simply to show how completely she had forgotten the
little spleen she had certainly felt at my untoward exhibition in the
street.--"You must ask forgiveness of those who possess the right to
pardon. If Corny Littlepage chooses to slide down hill, like a boy, what
right has Anneke Mordaunt to say him nay?"

"Every right in the world--the right of friendship--the right of a superior
mind, of superior manners--the right that my----"

"Hush!--that is Mr. Bulstrode's footstep in the passage, and he will not
understand this discussion on the subject of my manifold rights. It takes
him some time, however, to throw aside his overcoats, and furs, and sword;
and I will just tell you that Guert Ten Eyck is a dangerous master of
ceremonies for Corny Littlepage."

"Yet, he has sense enough, feeling enough, _heart_ enough to admire and
love Mary Wallace."

"Has he told you this, so soon! But, I need not ask, as he tells his love
to every one who will listen."

"And to Miss Wallace herself, I trust, among the number. The man who loves,
and loves truly, should not long permit its object to remain in any doubt
of his feelings and intentions. It has ever appeared to me, Miss Mordaunt,
as a most base and dastardly feeling in a man to wish to be certain of a
woman's returning his love, before he has the manliness to let his mistress
understand his wishes. How is a sensitive female to know when she is safe
in yielding her affections, without this frankness on the part of her
suitor? I'll answer for it that Guert Ten Eyck has dealt thus honestly and
frankly with Mary Wallace."

"That is a merit which cannot be denied him," answered Anneke, in a low,
thoughtful tone of voice. "Mary has heard this from his own mouth, again
and again. Even my presence has been no obstacle to his declarations, for
three times have I heard him beg Mary to consider him as a suitor for her
hand, and entreat her not to decide on his offer until he has had a longer
opportunity to win her esteem."

"And this you will admit, Miss Mordaunt, is to his credit, is manly, and
like himself?"

"It is certainly frank and honourable, Mr. Littlepage, since it enables
Miss Wallace to understand the object of his attentions, and leaves nothing
to doubt, or uncertainty."

"I am glad you approve of such fair and frank proceedings;--though but a
moment remains to say what I wish, it will suffice to add, that the course
Guert Ten Eyck has taken towards Mary Wallace, Cornelius Littlepage would
wish to pursue towards Anneke Mordaunt."

Anneke started, turned pale; then showed cheeks that were suffused with
blushes, and looked at me with timid surprise. She made no answer; though
that earnest, yet timid gaze, long remained, and for that matter, still
remains, vividly impressed upon my recollection. It seemed to express
astonishment, startled sensibility, feminine bashfulness, and maiden
coyness; but it did not appear to me that it expressed displeasure. There
was no time, however, to ask for explanations, since the voices of Herman
Mordaunt and Bulstrode were now heard at the very door, and, at the next
instant, both entered the room.

[Footnote 23: The American Mayor is usually a different person from the
English Mayor. Until within the last five-and-twenty or thirty years, the
Mayor of New York was invariably a man of social and political importance,
belonging strictly to the higher class of society. The same was true of the
Mayor of Albany. At the present time, the rule has been so far enlarged, as
to admit a selection from all of the more reputable classes, without any
rigid adherence to the highest. The elective principle has produced the
change. During the writer's boyhood, Philip Van Rensselaer, the brother of
the late Patroon, was so long Mayor of Albany, as to be universally known
by the _sobriquet_ of "The Mayor."--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 24: This opinion of the constable's must refer to the notion
common amongst the non-Episcopal sects, that the value of spiritual
provender was to be measured by the quantity. Preaching, however,
_might_ be overdone in the Dutch Reformed Churches; for, quite within my
recollection, a half-hour glass stood on the pulpit of the Dutch edifice
named in the text, to regulate the dominie's wind. It was said it might be
turned _once_ with impunity; but wo betide him who should so far trespass
on his people's patience as to presume to turn it _twice_.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER XIV.

  "My beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by,
  With thy proudly arch'd and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye--

  "Thus, thus I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains:
  Away! who overtakes me now, shall claim thee for his pains."

  _The Arab to his Steed_.


Bulstrode seemed happy to meet me, complaining that I had quite forgotten
the satisfaction with which all New York, agreeably to his account of the
matter, had received me the past spring. Of course, I thanked him for his
civility; and we soon became as good friends as formerly. In a minute or
two, Mary Wallace joined us, and we all repaired to the breakfast-table,
where we were soon joined by Dirck, who had been detained by some affairs
of his own.

Herman Mordaunt and Bulstrode had the conversation principally to
themselves for the first few minutes. Mary Wallace was habitually silent;
but Anneke, without being loquacious, was sufficiently disposed to
converse. This morning, however, she said little beyond what the civilities
of the table required from the mistress of the house, and that little in as
few words as possible. Once or twice I could not help remarking that her
hand remained on the handle of a richly-chased tea-pot, after that hand
had performed its office; and that her sweet, deep blue eye was fixed on
vacancy, or on some object before her with a vacant regard, in the manner
of one that thought intensely. Each time as she recovered from these little
_reveries_, a slight flush appeared on her face, and she seemed anxious to
conceal the involuntary abstraction. This absence of mind continued until
Bulstrode, who had been talking with our host on the subject of the
movements of the army, suddenly directed his discourse to me.

"I hope we owe this visit to Albany," he said, "to an intention on your
part, Mr. Littlepage, to make one among us in the next campaign. I hear of
many gentlemen of the colonies who intend to accompany us in our march to
Quebec."

"That is somewhat farther than I had thought of going Mr. Bulstrode,"
was my answer, "inasmuch as I have never supposed the king's forces
contemplated quite so distant a march. It is the intention of Mr. Follock
and myself to get permission to attach ourselves to some regiment and to go
forward as far as Ticonderoga, at least; for we do not like the idea of
the French holding a post like that, so far within the limits of our own
province."

"Bravely said, sir; and I trust I shall be permitted to be of some
assistance when the time comes to settle details. Our mess would always be
happy to see you; and you know that I am at its head, since the Lt. Colonel
has left us."

I returned my thanks, and the discourse took another direction.

"I met Harris, as I was walking hither this morning," Bulstrode continued,
"and he gave me, in his confused Irish way--for I insist he is Irish,
although he was born in London--but he gave me a somewhat queer account
of a supper he was at last night, which he said had been borne off by a
foraging party of young Albanians, and brought into the barracks, as a
treat to some of our gentlemen. This was bad enough, though they tell me
a Dutchman always pardons such a frolic; but Harris makes the matter much
worse, by adding that the supperless party indemnified itself by making
an attack on the kitchen of Mr. Mayor, and carrying off his ducks and
partridges, in a way to leave him without even a potatoe!"

I felt that my face was as red as scarlet, and I fancied everybody was
looking at me, while Herman Mordaunt took on himself the office of making a
reply.

"The story does not lose in travelling, as a matter of course," answered
our host, "though it is true in the main. We all supped with Mr. Cuyler
last evening, and know that he had much more than a potatoe on the table."

"All!--What, the ladies?"

"Even to the ladies--and Mr. Littlepage in the bargain," returned Herman
Mordaunt, casting a glance at me, and smiling. "Each and all of us will
testify he not only had a plenty of supper, but that which was good."

"I see by the general smile," cried Bulstrode, "that them is a _sous
entendu_ here, and shall insist on being admitted to the secret."

Herman Mordaunt now told the whole story, not being particularly careful
to conceal the more ludicrous parts, dwelling with some emphasis on the
lecture Mr. Worden had delivered to Doortje, and appealing to me to know
whether I did not think it excellent. Bulstrode laughed, of course; though
I fancied both the young ladies wished nothing had been said on the
subject. Anneke even attempted, once or twice, to divert her father from
certain comments that he made, in which he spoke rather lightly of such
sort of amusements, in general.

"That Guert Ten Eyck is a character!" exclaimed Bulstrode, "and one I am
sometimes at a loss to comprehend. A more manly-looking, fine, bold young
fellow, I do not know; and he is often as manly and imposing in his
opinions and judgments, as he is to the eye; while, at times, he is almost
childish in his tastes and propensities. How do you account for this, Miss
Anneke?"

"Simply, that nature intended Guert Ten Eyck for better things than
accident and education, or the want of education, have enabled him to
become. Had Guert Ten Eyck been educated at Oxford, he would have been a
very different man from what he is. If a man has only the instruction of a
boy, he will long remain a boy."

I was surprised at the boldness and decision of this opinion, for it was
not Anneke's practice to be so open in delivering her sentiments of others;
but, it was not long ere I discovered that she did not spare Guert, in the
presence of her friend, from a deep conviction he was not worthy of the
hold he was sensibly gaining on the feelings of Mary Wallace. Herman
Mordaunt, as I fancied, favoured his daughter's views in this behalf; and
there was soon occasion to observe that poor Guert had no other ally, in
that family, than the one his handsome, manly person, open disposition,
and uncommon frankness had created in his mistress's own bosom. There was
certainly a charm in Guert's habitual manner of underrating himself, that
inclined all who heard him to his side; and, for myself, I will confess I
early became his friend in all that matter, and so continued to the last.

Bulstrode and I left the house together, walking arm and arm to his
quarters, leaving Dirck with the ladies.

"This is a charming family," said my companion, as we left the door; "and I
feel proud of being able to claim some affinity to it, though it is not so
near as I trust it may one day become."

I started, almost twitching my arm away from that of the Major's, turning
half round, at the same instant, to look him in the face. Bulstrode smiled,
but preserved his own self-possession, in the stoical manner common to men
of fashion and easy manners, pursuing the discourse.

"I see that my frankness has occasioned you some little surprise," he
added; "but the truth is the truth; and I hold it to be unmanly for a
gentleman who has made up his mind to become the suitor of a lady, to make
any secret of his intentions;--is not that your own way of thinking, Mr.
Littlepage?"

"Certainly, as respects the lady; and possibly, as respects her family; but
not as respects all the world."

"I take your distinction, which may be a good one, in ordinary cases;
though, in the instance of Anneke Mordaunt, it may be merciful to let
wandering young men, like yourself, Corny, comprehend the real state of the
case. I very well understand your own particular relation to the family
of the Mordaunts; but others may approach it with different and more
interested views."

"Am I to understand, Mr. Bulstrode, that Miss Mordaunt is your betrothed?"

"Oh! by no means; for she has not yet made up her mind to accept me. You
are to understand, however, that I have proposed to Herman Mordaunt, with
my father's knowledge and approbation, and that the affair is _in petto_.
You can judge for yourself of the probable termination, being a better
judge, as a looker-on, than I, as a party interested, of Anneke's manner of
viewing my suit."

"You will remember I have not seen you together these ten months, until
this morning; and I presume you do not wish me to suppose you have been
waiting all that time for an answer."

"As I consider you an _ami de famille_, Corny, there is no reason why there
should not be a fair statement of things laid before you, for that affair
of the lion will ever render you half a Mordaunt, yourself. I had proposed
to Anneke, when you first saw me, and got the usual lady-like answer that
the dear creature was too young to think of contracting herself, which was
certainly truer then than now; that I had friends at home who ought to be
consulted, that time must be given, or the answer would necessarily be
'no', and all the usual substance of such replies, in the preliminary state
of a negotiation."

"And there the matter has stood ever since?"

"By no means, my dear fellow; as far from that as possible. I heard Herman
Mordaunt, for he did most of the talking on that side, with the patience
of a saint, observed how proper it all was, and stated my intention to
lay every thing before my father, and then advance to the assault anew,
reinforced by his consent, and authority to offer settlements."

"All of which you got, by return of vessel, on writing home?" I added,
unable to imagine how any man could hesitate about receiving Anneke
Mordaunt for a daughter-in-law.

"Why, not exactly by return of vessel, though Sir Harry is much too
well-bred to neglect answering a letter. I never knew him to do such a
thing in his life; no, not when I have pushed him a little closely on the
subject of my allowance having been out before the quarter was up, as will
sometimes happen at college, you know, Corny. To tell you the truth, my
dear boy, Sir Harry's consent did _not_ come by return of vessel, though an
answer did. It is a confounded distance across the Atlantic, and it
takes time to argue a question, when the parties are 'a thousand leagues
asunder.'"

"Argue!--What argument could be required to convince Sir Harry Bulstrode of
the propriety of your getting Anneke Mordaunt for a wife, _if you could?_"

"Quite plain and sincere, upon my honour!--But, I love you for the
simplicity of your character, Corny, and so shall view all favourably. If I
_could!_ Well, we shall know at the end of the approaching campaign, when
you and I come back from our trip to Quebec."

"You have not answered my question, in the mean time, concerning Sir Harry
Bulstrode."

"I beg Sir Harry's and your pardon. What argument could be required to
convince my father?--Why, you have never been at home, Littlepage, and
cannot easily understand, therefore, what the feeling is precisely in
relation to the colonies--much depends on that, you know."

"I trust the mother loves her children, as I am certain the children love
their mother."

"Yes, you are all loyal;--I will say that for you, though Albany is not
exactly Bath, or New York, Westminster. I suppose you know, Littlepage,
that the church upon the hill, yonder, which is called St. Peter's, though
a very good church, and a very respectable church, with a very reputable
congregation, is not exactly Westminster Abbey, or even St. James's?"

"I believe I understand you, sir; and so Sir Harry proved obstinate?"

"As the devil!--It took no less than three letters, the last of which was
pretty bold, to get him round, which I did at last, and his consent, in
due form, has been handed in to Herman Mordaunt. I contended, with some
advantages in the affair, or I never should have prevailed. But, you will
see how it was. Sir Harry is gouty and asthmatic both, and no great things
of a life, at the best, and every acre he has on earth is entailed; just
making the whole thing a question of time."

"All of which you communicated, of course, to Anneke and Herman Mordaunt?"

"If I did I'll be hanged! No, no; Master Corny, I am not so green as
that would imply. You provincials are as thin-skinned as _raisons de
Fontainbleau_, and are not to be touched so rudely. I do not believe Anneke
would marry the Duke of Norfolk himself, if the family raised the least
scruple about receiving her."

"And would not Anneke be right, in acting under so respectable a feeling?"

"Why, you know she would only marry the duke, and not his mother, and
aunts, and uncles. I cannot see the necessity of a young woman's making
herself uncomfortable on that account. But, we have not come to that yet
for I would wish you to understand, Littlepage, that I am not accepted, No,
no! justice to Anneke demands that I should say this much. She knows of Sir
Harry's consent, however, and that is a good deal in my favour, you must
allow. I suppose her great objection will be to quitting her father, who
has no other child, and on him it _will_ bear a little hard; and, then,
it is likely she will say something about a change of country, for you
Americans are all great sticklers for living in your own region."

"I do not see how you can justly accuse us of that, since it is universally
admitted among us that everything is better at home than it is in the
colonies."

"I really think, Corny," rejoined Bulstrode, smiling good-naturedly, "were
you to pay the old island a visit, now, you yourself would confess that
some things _are_."

"I to visit!--I am at a loss to imagine why I am named as one disposed to
deny it. Had it been Guert Ten Eyck, now, or ever Dirck Follock, one might
imagine such a thing,-but I, who come from English blood, and who have an
English-born grandfather, at this moment, alive and well at Satanstoe, am
not to be included among the disaffected to England."

Bulstrode pressed my arm, and his conversation took a more confidential
air, as it proceeded. "I believe you are right, Corny," he said; "the
colony is loyal enough, Heaven knows; yet I find these Dutch look on us
red-coats more coldly than the people of English blood, below. Should it
be ascribed to the phlegm of their manners, or to some ancient grudge
connected with the conquest of their colony?"

"Hardly the last, I should think, since the colony was traded away, under
the final arrangement, in exchange for a possession the Dutch now hold in
South America. There is nothing strange, however; in the descendants of the
people of Holland preferring the Dutch to the English."

"I assure you, Littlepage, the coldness with which we are regarded by the
Albanians has been spoken of among us; though most of the leading families
treat us well, and aid us all they can. They should remember that we are
here to fight, their battles, and to prevent the French from overrunning
them."

"To that they would probably answer that the French would not molest them,
but for their quarrel with England. Here we must part, Mr. Bulstrode, as
I have business to attend to. I will add one word, however, before we
separate, and that is, that King George II. has not more loyal subjects in
his dominions, than those who dwell in his American provinces."

Bulstrode smiled, nodded in assent, waved his hand, and we parted.

I had plenty of occupation for the remainder of that day. Yaap arrived with
his 'brigade of sleighs' about noon, and I went in search of Guert, in
whose company I repaired once more to the office of the contractor. Horses,
harness, sleighs, provisions and all were taken at high prices, and I was
paid for the whole in Spanish gold; joes and half-joes being quite as much
in use among us in that day as the coin of the realm. Spanish silver has
always formed our smaller currency, such a thing as an English shilling, or
a sixpence, being quite a stranger among us. Pieces of eight, or dollars,
are our commonest coin, it is true, but we make good use of the half-joe in
all heavy transactions. I have seen two or three Bank of England notes in
my day, but they are of very rare occurrence in the colonies. There have
been colony bills among us, but they are not favourites, most of our
transactions being carried on by means of the Spanish gold and Spanish
silver, that find their way up from the islands and the Spanish main. The
war of which I am now writing, however, brought a great many guineas
among us, most of the troops being paid in that species of coin; but the
contractors, in general, found it easier to command the half-joe than the
guinea. Of the former, when all our sales were made, Dirck and myself had,
between us, no less than one hundred and eleven, or eight hundred and
eighty-eight dollars in value.

I found Guert just as ready and just as friendly on this occasion, as he
had been on the previous day. Not only were all our effects disposed of,
but all our negroes were hired to the army for the campaign, Yaap excepted.
The boys went off with their teams towards the north that same afternoon,
in high spirits, as ready for a frolic as any white youths in the colony. I
permitted Yaap to go on with his sleigh, to be absent for a few days, but
he was to return and join us before we proceeded in quest of the 'Patent,'
after the breaking up of the winter.

It was late in the afternoon before everything was settled, when Guert
invited me to take a turn with him on the river in his own sleigh. By this
time I had ascertained that my new friend was a young man of very handsome
property, without father or mother, and that he lived in as good style
as was common for the simple habits of those around him. Our principal
families in New York were somewhat remarkable for the abundance of their
plate, table-linen, and other household effects of the latter character,
while here and there one was to be found that possessed some good pictures.
The latter, I have reason to think, however, were rare, though occasionally
the work of a master did find its way to America, particularly from Holland
and Flanders. Guert kept bachelor's hall, in a respectable house, that had
its gable to the street, as usual, and which was of no great size; but
everything about it proved that his old black housekeeper had been trained
under a _regime_ of thorough neatness; for that matter, everything around
Albany wore the appearance of being periodically scoured. The streets
themselves could not undergo that process with snow on the ground; but once
beneath a roof, and everything that had the character of dirt was banished.
In this particular Guert's bachelor residence was as faultless as if it had
a mistress at its head, and that mistress were Mary Wallace.

"If she ever consent to have me," said Guert, actually sighing as he spoke,
and glancing his eyes round the very pretty little parlour I had just been
praising, on the occasion of the visit I first made to his residence that
afternoon; "if she ever consent to have me, Corny, I shall have to build
a new house. This is now a hundred years old, and though it was thought a
great affair in its day, it is not half good enough for Mary Wallace. My
dear fellow, how I; envy you that invitation to breakfast this morning!
what a favourite you must be with Herman Mordaunt!"

"We are very good friends, Guert,"--for, with the freedom of our colony
manners, we had already dropped into the familiarity of calling each other
'Corny' and 'Guert'--"we are very good friends, Guert," I answered, "and, I
have some reason to think, Herman Mordaunt does not dislike me. It was in
my power to be of a trifling service to Miss Anneke, last spring, and the
whole family is disposed to remember it."

"So I can see, at a glance; even Anneke remembers it. I have heard the
whole story from Mary Wallace; it was about a lion. I would give half of
what I am worth, to see Mary Wallace in the paws of a lion, or any other
wild beast; just to let her see that Guert Ten Eyck has a heart, as well as
Corny Littlepage. But, Corny my boy, there is one thing you must do; you
are in such favour, that it will be easy for you to effect it; though I
might try in vain, for ever."

"I will do anything that is proper, to oblige you, Guert, for you have a
claim on me for services rendered by yourself."

"Pshaw!--Say nothing of such matters; I am never happier than when buying
or selling a horse; and, in helping you to get off your old cattle, why,
I did the King no harm, and you some good. But, it was about horses I was
thinking. You must know, Littlepage, there is not a young man, or an old
man, within twenty miles of Albany, that drives such a pair of beasts as
myself."

"You surely do not wish me to sell these horses to Mary Wallace, Guert!" I
rejoined, laughing.

"Ay, my lad; and this house, and the old farm, and two or three stores
along the river; and all I have, provided you can sell me with them. As
the ladies have no present use for horses, however, Herman Mordaunt having
brought up with him a very good pair, that came near running over you and
me, Corny; so there is no need of any sale; but I _should_ like to drive
Mary and Anneke a turn of a few miles, with that team of mine, and in my
own sleigh!"

"That cannot prove such a difficult affair; young ladies, ordinarily,
consenting readily enough to be diverted with a sleigh-ride."

"The off-one carries himself more like a colonel, at the head of his
regiment, than like an ignorant horse!"

"I will propose the matter to Herman Mordaunt, or to Anneke, herself, if
you desire it."

"And the near-one has the movement of a lady in a minuet, when you rein
him in a little. I drove those cattle, Corny, across the pine-plains, to
Schenectady, in one hour and twenty-six minutes;--sixteen miles, as the
crow flies--and nearer sixty, if you follow all the turnings of the fifty
roads."

"Well, what am I to do? tell this to the ladies, or beg them to name a
day?"

"Name a day!--I wish it had come to _that_. Corny, with my whole soul. They
are two beauties!"

"Yes, I think everybody will admit _that_," I answered innocently; "yet,
very different in their charms."

"Oh! not a bit more alike than is just necessary for a good match. I call
one Jack, and the other Moses. I never knew an animal that was named
'Jack,' who would not do his work. I would give a great deal, Corny, that
Mary Wallace could see that horse move!"

I promised Guert that I would use all my influence with the ladies, to
induce them to trust themselves with his team, and, in order that I might
speak with authority, the sleigh was ordered round to the door forthwith,
with a view first to take a turn with me. The winter equipage of Guert Ten
Eyck was really a tasteful and knowing thing. I had often seen handsomer
sleighs, in the way of paint, varnish, tops and mouldings; for to these he
appeared to pay very little attention. The points on which its owner most
valued his sleigh, was the admirable manner in which it rested on its
runners--pressing lightly both behind and before. Then the traces were
nearer on a level with the horses, than was common; though not so high as
to affect the draft. The colour, without, was a sky-blue; a favourite Dutch
tint; while within, it was fiery-red. The skins were very ample: all coming
from the grey wolf. As these skins were lined with scarlet cloth, the
effect of the whole was sufficiently cheering and warm. I ought not to
forget the bells. In addition to the four sets buckled to the harness, the
usual accompaniment of every sort of sleigh-harness, Guert had provided two
enormous strings (always leathern straps), that passed from the saddles
quite down under the bodies of Jack and Moses; and another string around
each horse's neck, thus increasing the jingling music of his march, at
least fourfold beyond the usual quantity. [25]

In this style, then, we dashed from the door of the old Ten Eyck-house; all
the blacks in the street gazing at us in delight, and shaking their sides
with laughter--a negro always expressing his admiration of anything, even
to a sermon, in that mode. I remember to have heard a traveller who had
been as far as Niagara, declare that his black did nothing but roar
with laughter, the first half-hour he stood confronted with that mighty
cataract.

Nor did the blacks alone stop to admire Guert Ten Eyck, his sleigh and his
horses. All the young men in the place paid Guert this homage, for he
was unanimously admitted to be the best whip, and the best judge of
horse-flesh, in Albany; that is, the best judge for his years. Several
young women who were out in sleighs, looked behind them, as we passed,
proving that the admiration extended even to the other sex. All this Guert
felt and saw, and its effect was very visible in his manner as he stood
guiding his spirited pair, amid the woodsleds that still crowded the main
street.

Our route lay towards the large flats, that extend for miles along the west
shore of the Hudson, to the north of Albany. This was the road usually
taken by the young people of the place, in their evening sleigh-rides not a
few of the better class stopping to pay their respects to Madame Schuyler,
a widow born of the same family as that into which she had married, and
who, from her character, connections and fortune, filled a high place in
the social circle of the vicinity. Guert knew this lady, and proposed that
I should call and pay my respects to her--a tribute she was accustomed to
receive from most strangers of respectability. Thither, then, we drove as
fast as my companion's blacks could carry us. The distance was only a few
miles, and we were soon dashing through the open gate, into what must have
been a very pretty, though an inartificial, lawn in the summer.

"By Jove, we are in luck!" cried Guert, the moment his eyes got a view of
the stables: "Yonder is Herman Mordaunt's sleigh, and we shall find the
ladies here!"

All this turned out as Guert had announced. Anneke and Mary Wallace had
dined with Madame Schuyler, and their coats and shawls had just been
brought to them, preparatory to returning home, as we entered. I had heard
so much of Madame Schuyler as not to approach this respectable person
without awe, and I had no eyes at first for her companions. I was well
received by the mistress of the house, a woman of so large a size as to
rise from her chair with great difficulty, but whose countenance expressed
equally intelligence, principles, refinement and benevolence. She no sooner
heard the name of Littlepage, than she threw a meaning glance towards
the young female friends, mine following and perceiving Anneke colouring
highly, and looking a little distressed. As for Mary Wallace she appeared
to me then, as I fancied was usually the case whenever Guert Ten Eyck
approached her, to be struggling with a species of melancholy pleasure.

"It is unnecessary for me to hear your mother's name, Mr. Littlepage," said
Madam Schuyler, extending a hand, "since I knew her as a young woman. In
_her_ name you are welcome; as, indeed, you would be in your own, after
the all-important service I hear you have rendered my sweet young friend,
here."

I could only bow, and express my thanks; but it is unnecessary to say how
grateful to me was praise of this sort, coming, as I knew it must, from
Anneke in the first instance. Still, I could hardly refrain from laughing
at Guert, who shrugged his shoulders, and turned towards me with a look
that repeated his ludicrous regrets he could not see Mary Wallace in a
lion's paws! The conversation then took the usual turn, and I got an
opportunity of speaking to the young ladies.

After the character I had heard of Madam Schuyler, I was a good deal
surprised to find that Guert was somewhat of a favourite. But even the most
intellectual and refined women, I have since had occasion to learn, feel a
disposition to judge handsome, manly, frank, flighty fellows like my new
acquaintance, somewhat leniently. With all his levity, and his disposition
to run into the excesses of animal spirits, there was that about Guert
which rendered it difficult to despise him. The courage of a lion was
in his eye, and his front and bearing were precisely those that are
particularly attractive to women. To these advantages were added a seeming
unconsciousness of his superiority to most around him, in the way of looks,
and a humility of spirit that caused him often to deplore his deficiencies
in those accomplishments which characterize the man of study and of
intellectual activity. It was only among the hardy, active, and reckless,
that Guert manifested the least ambition to be a leader.

"Do you still drive those spirited blacks, Guert," demanded Madam Schuyler,
in a gentle, affable way, that inclined her to adapt her discourse to the
tastes of those she might happen to be with; "those, I mean, which you
purchased in the autumn?"

"You may be certain of that, aunt,"--every one who could claim the most
distant relationship to this amiable woman, and whose years did not render
the appellation disrespectful, called her "aunt"--"you may be certain of
that, aunt, for their equals are not to be found in _this_ colony. The
gentlemen of the army pretend that no horse can be good that has not what
they call _blood_; but Jack and Moses are both of the Dutch breed, and the
Schuylers and the Ten Eycks will never own there is no "blood" in such a
stock. I have given each of these animals my own name, and call them Jack
Ten Eyck and Moses Ten Eyck."

"I hope you will not exclude the Littlepages and the Mordaunts from your
list of dissenters, Mr. Ten Eyck," observed Anneke, laughing, "since both
have Dutch blood in their veins, too."

"Very true, Miss Anneke; Miss Wallace being the only true, thorough,
Englishwoman here. But, as Aunt Schuyler has spoken of my team, I wish I
could persuade you and Miss Mary to let me drive you back to Albany with
it, this very evening. Your own sleigh can follow and your father's horses
being English, we shall have an opportunity of comparing the two breeds.
The Anglo-Saxons will have no load, while the Flemings will; still I will
wager animal against animal, that the last do the work the most neatly, and
in the shortest time."

To this proposition, however, Anneke would not consent; her instinctive
delicacy, I make no doubt, at once presenting to her mind the impropriety
of quitting her own sleigh, to take an evening's drive in that of a young
man of Guert's established reputation for recklessness and fun, and who was
not always fortunate enough to persuade young women of the first class to
be his companions. The turn the conversation had taken, nevertheless, had
the effect to produce so many urgent appeals, that were seconded by myself,
to give the horses a trial, that Mary Wallace promised to submit the matter
to Herman Mordaunt, and, should he approve, to accompany Guert, Anneke and
myself, in an excursion the succeeding week.

This concession was received by poor Guert with profound gratitude; and he
assured me, as we drove back to town, that he had not felt so happy for the
last two months.

"It is in the power of such a young woman--young angel, I might better
say," added Guert, "to make anything she may please of me! I know I am an
idler, and too fond of our Dutch amusements, and that I have not paid the
attention I ought to have paid to books; but let that precious creature
only take me by the hand, and I should turn out an altered man in a month.
Young women can do anything they please with us, Mr. Littlepage, when they
set their minds about it in earnest. I wish I was a horse, to have the
pleasure of dragging Mary Wallace in this excursion!"

[Footnote 25: As it is possible this book may pass into the hands of others
than Americans, it maybe well to say that a sleigh-bell is a small hollow
ball, made of bell-metal, having a hole in it that passes round half of
its circumference, and containing a small _solid_ ball, of a size not to
escape. These bells are fastened to leathern straps, which commonly pass
round the necks of the horses. In the time of Guert Ten Eyck, most of the
bells were attached to small plates, that were buckled to various parts
of the harness; but, as this caused a motion annoying to the animals, Mr.
Littlepage evidently wishes his readers to understand that his friend, Ten
Eyck, was too knowing to have recourse to the practice. Even the straps are
coming into disuse, the opinion beginning to obtain that sleigh-bells are
a nuisance, instead of an advantage. Twenty years since, the laws of most
large towns rendered them necessary, under the pretence of preventing
accidents by apprising the footman of the approach of a sleigh; but more
horses are now driven, in the state of New York, without than with bells,
in winter.

"Sleigh," as spelt, is purely an American word. It is derived from "slee,"
in Dutch; which is pronounced like "sleigh." Some persons contend; that
the Americans ought to use the old English words "sled," or: "sledge." But
these words do not precisely express the things we possess. There is as
much reason for calling a pleasure conveyance by a name different from
"sled," as there is for saying "coach" instead of "wagon." "Sleigh" _will_
become English, ere long, as it is now American. Twenty millions of
people not only can make a word, but they can make a language, if it be
needed.--EDITOR.]




CHAPTER XV.

  "When lo! the voice of loud alarm
  His inmost soul appals:
  What ho! Lord William, rise in haste!
  The water saps thy walls!"

  _Lord William_.


The visit to Madam Schuyler occurred of a Saturday evening; and the matter
of our adventure in company with Jack and Moses, was to be decided on the
following Monday. When I rose and looked out of my window on the Sunday
morning, however, there appeared but very little prospect of its being
effected that spring, inasmuch as it rained heavily, and there was a fresh
south wind. We had reached the 21st of March, a period of the year when a
decided thaw was not only ominous to the sleighing, but when it actually
predicted a permanent breaking up of the winter. The season had been late,
and it was thought the change could not be distant.

The rain and south wind continued all that day, and torrents of water came
rushing down the short, steep streets, effectually washing away everything
like snow. Mr. Worden preached, notwithstanding, and to a very respectable
congregation. Dirck and myself attended; but Jason preferred sitting out a
double half-hour glass sermon in the Dutch church, delivered in a language
of which he understood very little, to lending his countenance to the rites
of the English service. Both Anneke and Mary Wallace found their way up
the hill, going in a carriage; though I observed that Herman Mordaunt was
absent. Guert was in the gallery, in which we also sat; but I could not
avoid remarking that neither of the young ladies raised her eyes once,
during the whole service, as high as our pews. Guert whispered something
about this, as he hastened down stairs to hand them to their carriage,
when the congregation was dismissed, begging me, at the same time, to be
punctual to the appointment for the next day. What he meant by this last
remembrancer, I did not understand; for the hills were beginning to exhibit
their bare breasts, and it was somewhat surprising with what rapidity a
rather unusual amount of snow had disappeared. I had no opportunity to
ask an explanation, as Guert was too busy in placing the ladies in the
carriage, and the weather was not such as to admit of my remaining a moment
longer in the street than was indispensably necessary.

A change occurred in the weather during the night, the rain having ceased,
though the atmosphere continued mild, and the wind was still from the
south. It was the commencement of the spring; and, as I walked round to
Guert Ten Eyck's house, to meet him at breakfast, I observed that several
vehicles with wheels were already in motion in the streets, and that divers
persons appeared to be putting away their sleighs and sleds, as things of
no further use, until the next winter. Our springs do not certainly come
upon us as suddenly as some of which I have read, in the old world; but
when the snow and winter endure as far into March as had been the case with
that of the year 1758, the change is often nearly magical.

"Here, then, is the spring opening," I said to Dirck, as we walked along
the well-washed streets; "and, in a few weeks, we must be off to the bush.
Our business on the Patent must be got along with, before the troops are
put in motion, or we may lose the opportunity of seeing a campaign."

With such expectations and feelings I entered Guert's bachelor abode;
and the first words I uttered, were to sympathize in his supposed
disappointment.

"It is a great pity you did not propose the drive to the ladies for
Saturday," I began; "for that was not only a mild day, but the sleighing
was excellent. As it is, you will have to postpone your triumph until next
winter."

"I do not understand you!" cried Guert; Jack and Moses never were in
better heart, or in better condition. I think they are equal to going to
Kinderhook in two hours!"

"But who will furnish the roads with snow? By looking out of the window,
you will see that the streets are nearly bare."

"Streets and roads! Who cares for either, while we have the river? We often
use the river here, weeks at a time, when the snow has left us. The ice has
been remarkably even the whole of this winter, and, now the snow is off it,
there will be no danger from the air-holes."

I confess I did not much like the notion of travelling twenty miles on the
ice, but was far too much of a man to offer any objections.

We breakfasted, and proceeded in a body to the residence of Herman
Mordaunt. When the ladies first heard that we had come to claim the
redemption of the half-promise given at Madam Schuyler's, their surprise
was not less than mine had been, half an hour before, while their
uneasiness was probably greater.

"Surely, Jack and Moses cannot exhibit all their noble qualities without
snow!" exclaimed Anneke, laughing, "Ten Eycks though they be!"

"We Albanians have the advantage of travelling on the ice, when the
snow fails us," answered Guert. "Here is the river, near by, and never was
the sleighing on it, better than at this moment."

"But, it has been many times safer, I should think. This looks very much
like the breaking up of winter!"

"That is probable enough, and so much greater the reason why we should not
delay, if you and Miss Mary ever intend to learn what the blacks can do. It
is for the honour of Holland that I desire it, else would I not presume so
far. I feel every condescension of this sort, that I receive from you two
ladies, in a way I cannot express; for no one Knows, better than myself,
how unworthy I am of your smallest notice."

This brought the signs of yielding, at once, into the mild countenance of
Mary Wallace. Guert's self-humiliation never failed to do this. There was
so much obvious truth in his admission, so sincere a disposition to place
himself where nature and education, or a _want_ of education had placed
him, and most of all, so profound a deference for the mental superiority of
Mary herself, that the female heart found it impossible to resist. To my
surprise, Guert's mistress, contrary to her habit in such things, was the
first to join him, and to second his proposal. Herman Mordaunt entering the
room at this instant, the whole thing was referred to him, as in reason it
ought to have been.

"I remember to have travelled on the Hudson, a few years since," returned
Herman Mordaunt, "the entire distance between Albany and Sing-Sing, and
a very good time we had of it; much better than had we gone by land, for
there was little or no snow."

"Just our case now, Miss Anneke!" cried Guert. "Good sleighing on the
river, but none on the land."

"Was that near the end of March, dear Papa?" asked Anneke, a little
inquiringly.

"No, certainly not, for it was early in February, But the ice, at this
moment, must be near eighteen inches thick, and strong enough to bear a
load of hay."

"Yes, Masser Herman," observed Cato, a grey-headed black, who had never
called his master by any other name, having known him from an infant; "yes,
Masser Herman, a load do come over dis minute."

It appeared unreasonable to distrust the strength of the ice, after this
proof to the contrary, and Anneke submitted. The party was arranged
forthwith, and in the following manner:--The two ladies, Guert and myself,
were to be drawn by the blacks, while Herman Mordaunt, Dirck, and any one
else they could enlist, were to follow in the New York sleigh. It was hoped
that an elderly female connection, Mrs. Bogart, who resided at Albany,
would consent to be of the party, as the plan was to visit and dine with
another and a mutual connection of the Mordaunts, at Kinderhook, While the
sleighs were getting ready, Herman Mordaunt walked round to the house of
Mrs. Bogart, made his request, and was successful.

The clock in the tower of the English church struck ten, as both sleighs
drove from Herman Mordaunt's door. There was literally no snow in the
middle of the streets; but enough of it, mingled with ice, was still to be
found nearer the houses, to enable us to get down to the ferry, the point
where sleighs usually went upon the river. Here Herman Mordaunt, who was in
advance, checked his horses, and turned to speak to Guert on the propriety
of proceeding. The ice near the shore had evidently been moved, the river
having risen a foot or two, in consequence of the wind and the thaw, and
there was a sort of icy wave cast up near the land, over which it was
indispensable to pass, in order to get fairly on the river. As the top of
this ridge, or wave, was broken, it exposed a fissure that enabled us to
see the thickness of the ice, and this Guert pointed out in proof of its
strength. There was nothing unusual in a small movement of the covering of
the river, which the current often produces; but, unless the vast fields
below got in motion, it was impossible for those above materially to change
their positions. Sleighs were passing, too, still bringing to town, hay
from the flats on the eastern bank, and there was no longer any hesitation.
Herman Mordaunt's sleigh passed slowly over the ridge, having a care to the
legs of the horses, and ours followed in the same cautious manner, though
the blacks jumped across the fissure in spite of their master's exertions.

Once on the river, however, Guert gave his blacks the whip and rein, and
away we went like the wind. The smooth, icy surface of the Hudson was our
road, the thaw having left very few traces of any track. The water had
all passed beneath the ice, through cracks and fissures of one sort and
another, leaving us an even, dry, surface to trot on. The wind was still
southerly, though scarcely warm, while a bright sun contributed to render
our excursion as gay to the eye, as it certainly was to our feelings. In
a few minutes every trace of uneasiness had vanished. Away we went, the
blacks doing full credit to their owner's boasts, seeming scarcely to touch
tke ice, from which their feet appeared to rebound with a sort of elastic
force. Herman Mordaunt's bays followed on our heels, and the sleighs had
passed over the well-known shoal of the Overslaugh, within the first twenty
minutes after they touched the river.

Every northern American is familiar with the effect that the motion of a
sleigh produces on the spirits, under favourable circumstances. Had our
party been altogether composed of Albanians, there would probably have been
no drawback on the enjoyment, for use would have prevented apprehension;
but it required the few minutes I have mentioned to give Anneke and Mary
Wallace full confidence in the ice. By the time we reached the Overslaugh,
however, their fears had vanished; and Guert confirmed their sense of
security, by telling them to listen to the sounds produced by his horses'
hoofs, which certainty conveyed the impression of moving on a solid
foundation.

Mary Wallace had never before been so gay in my presence, as she appeared
to be that morning. Once, or twice, I fancied her eyes almost as bright as
those of Anneke's, and certainly her laugh was as sweet and musical. Both
the girls were full of spirits, and some little things occurred that
gave me hopes Bulstrode had no reason to fancy himself as secure, as he
sometimes seemed to be. A casual remark of Guert's had the effect to bring
out some of Anneke's private sentiments on the subject; or, at least, so
they appeared to be to me.

"I am surprised that Mr. Mordaunt forgot to invite Mr. Bulstrode to be one
of our party, to-day," cried Guert, when we were below the Overslaugh. "The
Major loves sleighing, and he would have filled the fourth seat, in the
other sleigh, very agreeably. As for coming into this, that would be
refused him, were he even a general!"

"Mr. Bulstrode is English," answered Anneke, with spirit, "and fancies
American amusements beneath the tastes of one who has been presented at the
Court of St. James."

"Well, Miss Anneke, I cannot say that I agree with you at all, in this
opinion of Mr. Bulstrode," Guert returned, innocently. "It is true, he is
English; that he fancies an advantage, as does Corny Littlepage, here; but
we must make proper allowances for home-love and foreign-dislike."

"'Corny Littlepage, here,' is only _half_ English, and that half is
colony-born and colony-bred," answered the laughing girl, "and he has loved
a sleigh from the time when he first slid down hill--"

"Ah! Miss Anneke--let me entreat--"

"Oh! no allusion is intended to the Dutch church and its
neighbourhood;--but, the sports of childhood are always dear to us, as are
sometimes the discomforts. Habit and prejudice are sister hand-maidens; and
I never see one of these gentlemen from home, taking extraordinary interest
in any of our peculiarly colony usages, but I distrusted an extra amount of
complaisance, or a sort of enjoyment in which we do not strictly share."

"Is this altogether liberal to Bulstrode, Miss Anneke," I ventured to put
in; "he seems to like us, and I am sure he has good reason so to do. That
he likes _some_ of us, is too apparent to be concealed or denied."

"Mr. Bulstrode is a skilful actor, as all who saw his Cato must be aware,"
retorted the charming girl, compressing her pouting lips in a way that
seemed to me to be inexpressibly pleasing; "and those who saw his Scrub
must be equally convinced of the versatility of his talents. No, no; Major
Bulstrode is better where he is, or will be to-day, at four o'clock--at the
head of the mess of the ----th, instead of dining in a snug Dutch parlour,
with my cousin, worthy Mrs. van der Heyden, at a dinner got up with colony
hospitality, and colony good-will, and colony plainness. The entertainment
we shall receive to-day, sweetened, as it will be, by the welcome which
will come from the heart, can have no competitor in countries where a
messenger must be sent two days before the visit, to ask permission to
come, in order to escape cold looks and artificial surprise. I would prefer
surprising my friends from the heart, instead of from the head."

Guert expressed his astonishment that any one should not always be glad
and willing to receive his friends; and insisted on it, that no such
inhospitable customs _could_ exist. I knew, however, that society could not
exist on the same terms, in old and in new countries--among a people that
was pressed upon by numbers, and a people that had not yet felt the evils
of a superabundant population. Americans are like dwellers in the country,
who are always glad to see their friends; and I ventured to say something
of the causes of these differences in habits.

Nothing occurred worthy of being dwelt on, in our ride to Kinderhook. Mrs.
Van der Heyden resided at a short distance from the river, and the blacks
and the bays had some little difficulty in dragging us through the mud to
her door. Once there, however, our welcome fully verified the theory of
the colony habits, which had been talked over in our drive down. Anneke's
worthy connection was not only glad to see her, as anybody might have been,
but she would have been glad to receive as many as her house would hold.
Few excuses were necessary, for we were all welcome. The visit would retard
her dinner an hour, as was frankly admitted--but that was nothing; and
cakes and wine were set before us in the interval, did we feel hungry in
consequence of a two hours' ride. Guert was desired to make free, and go to
the stables to give his own orders. In a word, our reception was just that
which every colonist has experienced, when he has gone unexpectedly to
visit a friend, or a friend's friend. Our dinner was excellent, though not
accompanied by much form. The wine was good; Mrs. van der Heyden's deceased
husband having been a judge of what was desirable in that respect.
Everybody was in good-humour; and our hostess insisted on giving us coffee
before we took our departure.

"There will be a moon, cousin Herman," she said, "and the night will be
both light and pleasant. Guert knows the road, which cannot well be missed,
as it is the river; and if you quit me at eight, you will reach home in
good season to go to rest. It is so seldom I see you, that I have a
right to claim every minute you can spare. There remains much to be told
concerning our old friends and mutual relatives."

When such words are accompanied by looks and acts that prove their
sincerity, it is not easy to tear ourselves away from a pleasant house. We
chatted on, laughed, listened to stories and colony anecdotes that carried
us back to the last war, and heard a great many eulogiums on beaux and
belles, that we young people had, all our lives, considered as respectable,
elderly, commonplace sort of persons.

At length the hour arrived when even Mrs. Bogart herself admitted we ought
to part. Anneke and Mary were kissed, enveloped in their furs, and kissed
again, and then we took our leave. As we left the house, I remarked that a
clock in the passage struck eight. In a few minutes every one was placed,
and the runners were striking fire from the flints of the bare ground. We
had less difficulty in descending than in ascending the bank of the river,
though there was no snow. It did not absolutely freeze, nor had it actually
frozen since the commencement of the thaw, but the earth had stiffened
since the disappearance of the sun. I was much rejoiced when the blacks
sprang upon the ice, and whirled us away, on our return road at a rate even
exceeding the speed with which they had come down it in the morning. I
thought it high time we should be in motion on our return; and in motion
we were, if flying at the rate of eleven miles in the hour could thus be
termed.

The light of the moon was not clear and bright, for there was a haze in the
atmosphere, as is apt to occur in the mild weather of March; but there was
enough to enable Guert to dash ahead with as great a velocity as was at all
desirable. We were all in high spirits; us two young men so much the more,
because each of us fancied he had seen that day evidence of a tender
interest existing in the heart of his mistress towards himself. Mary
Wallace had managed, with a woman's tact, to make her suitor appear even
respectable in female society, and had brought out in him many sentiments
that denoted a generous disposition and a manly heart, if not a cultivated
intellect; and Guert was getting confidence, and with it the means of
giving his capacity fairer play. As for Anneke, she now knew my aim, and I
had some right to construe several little symptoms of feeling, that escaped
her in the course of the day, favourably. I fancied that, gentle as it
always was, her voice grew softer, and her smile sweeter and more winning,
as she addressed herself to, or smiled on me; and she did just enough of
both not to appear distant, and just little enough to appear conscious; at
least such were the conjectures of one who I do not think could be properly
accused of too much confidence, and whose natural diffidence was much
increased by the self-distrust of the purest love.

Away we went, Guert's complicated chimes of bells jingling their merry
notes in a manner to be heard half a mile, the horses bearing hard on the
bits, for they knew that their own stables lay at the end of their journey,
and Herman Mordaunt's bays keeping so near us that, notwithstanding the
noise we made with our own bells, the sounds of his were constantly in our
ears. An hour went swiftly by, and we had already passed Coejeman's, and
had a hamlet that stretched along the strand, and which lay quite beneath
the high bank of the river, in dim distant view. This place has since been
known by the name of Monkey Town, and is a little remarkable as being the
first cluster of houses on the shores of the Hudson after quitting Albany.
I dare say it has another name in law, but Guert gave it the appellation I
have mentioned.

I have said that the night had a sombre, misty, light, the moon wading
across the heavens through a deep but thin ocean of vapour. We saw the
shores plainly enough, and we saw the houses and trees, but it was
difficult to distinguish smaller objects at any distance. In the course of
the day twenty sleighs had been met or passed, but at that hour everybody
but ourselves appeared to have deserted the river. It was getting late for
the simple habits of those who dwelt on its shores. When about half-way
between the islands opposite to Coejeman's and the hamlet just named,
Guert, who stood erect to drive, told us that some one who was out late,
like themselves, was coming down. The horses of the strangers were in a
very fast trot, and the sleigh was evidently inclining towards the west
shore, as if those it held intended to land at no great distance. As it
passed, quite swiftly, a man's voice called out something on a high key,
but our bells made so much noise that it was not easy to understand him. He
spoke in Dutch, too, and none of our ears, those of Guert excepted,
were sufficiently expert in that language to be particularly quick in
comprehending what he said. The call passed unheeded, then, such things
being quite frequent among the Dutch, who seldom passed each other on the
highway without a greeting of some sort or other. I was thinking of this
practice, and of the points that distinguished our own habits from those of
the people of this part of the colony, when sleigh-bells sounded quite near
me, and turning my head, I saw Herman Mordaunt's bays galloping close to
us, as if wishing to get alongside. At the next moment the object was
effected, and Guert pulled up.

"Did you understand the man who passed down, Guert?" demanded Herman
Mordaunt, as soon as all noises ceased.

"He called out to us, at the top of his voice, and would hardly do that
without an object."

"These men seldom go home, after a visit to Albany, without filling their
jugs," answered Guert, drily; "what could he have to say, more than to wish
us good-night?"

"I cannot tell, but Mrs. Bogart thought she understood something about
'Albany,' and 'the river.'"

"The ladies always fancy Albany is to sink into the river after a great
thaw," answered Guert, good-humouredly; "but I can show either of them that
the ice is sixteen inches thick, here where we stand."

Guert then gave me the reins, stepped out of the sleigh, went a short
distance to a large crack that he had seen while speaking, and returned
with a thumb placed on the handle of the whip, as a measure to show that
his statement was true. The ice, at that spot, was certainly nearer
eighteen than sixteen inches thick. Herman Mordaunt showed the measure
to Mrs. Bogart, whose alarm was pacified by this positive proof. Neither
Anneke nor Mary exhibited any fear; but, on the contrary, as the sleighs
separated again, each had something pleasant, but feminine, to say at the
expense of poor Mrs. Bogart's imagination.

I believe I was the only person in our own sleigh who felt any alarm, after
the occurrence of this little incident. Why uneasiness beset _me_, I cannot
precisely say. It must have been altogether on Anneke's account, and not in
the least on my own. Such accidents as sleighs breaking through, on our New
York lakes and rivers, happened almost every winter, and horses were often
drowned; though it was seldom the consequences proved so serious to their
owners. I recalled to mind the fragile nature of ice, the necessary effects
of the great thaw and the heavy rains, remembering that frozen water might
still retain most of its apparent thickness, after its consistency was
greatly impaired. But, I could do nothing! If we landed, the roads were
impassable for runners, almost for wheels, and another hour might carry
the ladies, by means of the river, to their comfortable homes. That day,
however, which, down to the moment of meeting the unknown sleigh, had been
the very happiest of my life, was entirely changed in its aspect, and I no
longer regarded it with any satisfaction. Had Anneke been at home, I could
gladly have entered into a contract to pass a week on the river myself,
as the condition of her safety, I thought but little of the others, to my
shame be it said, though I cannot do myself the injustice to imagine, had
Anneke been away, that I would have deserted even a horse, while there was
a hope of saving him.

Away we went! Guert drove rapidly, but he drove with judgment, and it
seemed as if his blacks knew what was expected of them. It was not long
before we were trotting past the hamlet I have mentioned. It would seem
that the bells of the two sleighs attracted the attention of the people on
the shore, all of whom had not yet gone to bed; for the door of a house
opened, and two men issued out of it, gazing at us as we trotted past at
a pace that defied pursuit. These men also hallooed to us, in Dutch, and
again Herman Mordaunt galloped up alongside, to speak to us.

"Did you understand these men?" he called out, for this time Guert did not
see fit to stop his horses; "they, too, had something to tell us."

"These people always have something to tell an Albany sleigh, Mr.
Mordaunt," answered Guert; "though it is not often that which it would do
any good to hear."

"But Mrs. Bogart thinks they also had something to say about 'Albany,' and
the 'river.'"

"I understand Dutch as well as excellent Mrs. Bogart," said Guert, a little
drily; "and I heard nothing; while I fancy I understand the river better.
This ice would bear a dozen loads of hay, in a close line."

This again satisfied Herman Mordaunt and the ladies, but it did not satisfy
me. Our own bells made four times the noise of those of Herman Mordaunt;
and it was very possible that one, who understood Dutch perfectly, might
comprehend a call in that language, while seated in his own sleigh, when
the same call could not be comprehended by the same person, while seated in
Guert's. There was no pause, however; on we trotted; and another mile was
passed, before any new occurrence attracted attention.

The laugh was again heard among us, for Mary Wallace consented to sing
an air, that was rendered somewhat ludicrous by the accompaniment of the
bells. This song, or verse or two, for the singer got no further on account
of the interruption, had drawn Guert's and my attention behind us, or away
from the horses, when a whirling sound was heard, followed immediately by
a loud shout. A sleigh passed within ten yards of us, going down, and the
whirling sound was caused by its runners, while the shout came from a
solitary man, who stood erect, waving his whip and calling to us in a loud
voice, as long as he could be heard. This was but for a moment, however, as
his horses were on the run; and the last we could see of the man, through
the misty moon-light, he had turned his whip on his team, to urge it ahead
still faster. In an instant, Herman Mordaunt was at our side, for the third
time that night, and he called out to us somewhat authoritatively to stop.

"What can all this mean, Guert?" he asked. "Three times have we had
warnings about 'Albany' and the 'river.' I heard this man myself utter
those two words, and cannot be mistaken."

"I dare say, sir, that you may have heard something of the sort," answered
the still incredulous Guert; "for these chaps have generally some
impertinence to utter, when they pass a team that is better than their own.
These blacks of mine, Herman Mordaunt, awaken a good deal of envy, whenever
I go out with them; and a Dutchman will forgive you any other superiority,
sooner than he will overlook your having the best team. That last man had a
spur in his head, moreover, and is driving his cattle, at this moment, more
like a spook than like a humane and rational being, I dare say he asked if
we owned Albany and the river."

Guert's allusion to his horses occasioned a general laugh; and laughter is
little favourable to cool reflection. We all looked out on the solemn and
silent night, cast our eyes along the wide and long reach of the river, in
which we happened to be, and saw nothing but the calm of nature, rendered
imposing by solitude and the stillness of the hour. Guert smilingly renewed
his assurances that all was right, and moved on. Away we went! Guert
evidently pressed his horses, as if desirous of being placed beyond this
anxiety as soon as possible. The blacks flew, rather than trotted; and we
were all beginning to submit to the exhilaration of so rapid and easy a
motion, when a sound which resembled that which one might suppose the
simultaneous explosion of a thousand rifles would produce, was heard, and
caused both drivers to pull up; the sleighs stopping quite near each other,
and at the same instant! A slight exclamation escaped old Mrs. Bogart; but
Anneke and Mary remained still as death.

"What means that sound, Guert?" inquired Herman Mordaunt; the concern he
felt being betrayed by the very tone of his voice. "Something seems wrong!"

"Something _is_ wrong," answered Guert, coolly, but very decidedly; "and it
is something that must be seen to."

As this was said, Guert stepped out on the ice, which he struck a hard blow
with the heel of his boot, as if to make certain of its solidity. A second
report was heard, and it evidently came from _behind_ us. Guert gazed
intently down the river; then he laid his head close to the surface of
the ice, and looked again. At the same time, three or four more of these
startling reports followed each other in quick succession. Guert instantly
rose to his feet.

"I understand it, now," he said, "and find I have been rather too
confident. The ice, however, is safe and strong, and we have nothing to
fear from its weakness. Perhaps it would be better to quit the river
notwithstanding, though I am far from certain the better course will not be
to push on."

"Let us know the danger at once, Mr. Ten Eyck," said Herman Mordaunt, "that
we may decide for the best."

"Why, sir, I am afraid that the rains and the thaw together, have thrown so
much water into the river, all at once, as it might be, as to have raised
the ice and broken it loose, in spots, from the shores. When this happens
_above_, before the ice has disappeared below, it sometimes causes dams to
form, which heap up such a weight as to break the whole plain of ice far
below it, and thus throw cakes over cakes until walls twenty or thirty
feet high are formed. This has not happened _yet_, therefore there is no
immediate danger; but by bending your heads low, you can see that such a
_break_ has just taken place about half a mile below us."

We did as Guert directed, and saw that a mound had arisen across the river
nearer than the distance named by our companion, completely cutting off
retreat by the way we had come. The bank on the west side of the Hudson was
high at the point where we were, and looking intensely at it, I saw by the
manner in which the trees disappeared, the more distant behind those that
were nearer, that we were actually in motion! An involuntary exclamation
caused the whole party to comprehend this startling fact at the same
instant. We were certainly in motion, though very slowly, on the ice of
that swollen river, in the quiet and solitude of a night in which the moon
rather aided in making danger apparent than in assisting us to avoid it!
What was to be done? It was necessary to decide, and that promptly and
intelligently.

We waited for Herman Mordaunt to advise us, but he referred the matter at
once to Guert's greater experience.

"We cannot land here," answered the young man, "so long as the ice is in
motion, and I think it better to push on. Every foot will bring us so much
nearer to Albany, and we shall get among the islands a mile or two higher,
where the chances of landing will be greatly increased. Besides, I have
often crossed the river on a cake, for they frequently stop, and I have
known even loaded sleighs profit by them to get over the river. As yet
there is nothing very alarming;--let us push on, and get nearer to the
islands."

This, then, was done, though there was no longer heard the laugh or the
song among us. I could see that Herman Mordaunt was uneasy about Anneke,
though he could not bring her into his own sleigh, leaving Mary Wallace
alone; neither could he abandon his respectable connection, Mrs. Bogart.
Before we re-entered the sleighs, I took an occasion to assure him that
Anneke should be my especial care.

"God bless you, Corny, my dear boy," Herman Mordaunt answered, squeezing
my hand with fervour. "God bless you, and enable you to protect her. I was
about to ask you to change seats with me; but, on the whole, I think my
child will be safer with you than she could be with me. We will await God's
pleasure as accident has placed us."

"I will desert her only with life, Mr. Mordaunt. Be at ease on that
subject."

"I know you will not--I am _sure_ you will not, Littlepage; that affair of
the lion is a pledge that you will not. Had Bulstrode come, we should have
been strong enough to----but Guert is impatient to be off. God bless you,
boy--God bless you. Do not neglect my child."

Guert _was_ impatient, and no sooner was I in the sleigh than we were once
more in rapid motion. I said a few words to encourage the girls, and then
no sound of a human voice mingled with the gloomy scene.




CHAPTER XVI.

  He started up, each limb convulsed
  With agonizing fear,
  He only heard the storm of night--
  'Twas music to his ear.

  _Lord William_.


Away we went! Guert's aim was the islands, which carried him nearer home,
while it offered a place of retreat, in the event of the danger's becoming
more serious. The fierce rapidity with which we now moved prevented all
conversation, or even much reflection. The reports of the rending ice,
however, became more and more frequent, first coming from above, and then
from below. More than once it seemed as if the immense mass of weight that
had evidently collected somewhere near the town of Albany, was about to
pour down upon us in a flood--when the river would have been swept for
miles, by a resistless torrent. Nevertheless, Guert held on his way;
firstly, because he knew it would be impossible to get on either of the
main shores, anywhere near the point where we happened to be; and secondly,
because, having often seen similar dammings of the waters, he fancied
we were still safe. That the distant reader may understand the precise
character of the danger we ran, it may be well to give him some notion of
the localities.

The banks of the Hudson are generally high and precipitous, and in some
places they are mountainous. No flats worthy of being mentioned, occur,
until Albany is approached; nor are those which lie south of that town, of
any great extent, compared with the size of the stream. In this particular
the Mohawk is a very different river, having extensive flats that, I have
been told, resemble those of the Rhine, in miniature. As for the Hudson,
it is generally esteemed in the colony as a very pleasing river; and I
remember to have heard intelligent people from home, admit, that even the
majestic Thames itself, is scarcely more worthy to be visited, or that it
better rewards the trouble and curiosity of the enlightened traveller. [26]

While there are flats on the shores of the Hudson, and of some extent, in
the vicinity of Albany, the general formation of the adjacent country is
preserved,--being high, bold, and in some quarters, more particularly to
the northward and eastward, mountainous. Among these hills the stream
meanders for sixty or eighty miles north of the town, receiving tributaries
as it comes rushing down towards the sea. The character of the river
changes entirely, a short distance above Albany; the tides flowing to that
point, rendering it navigable, and easy of ascent in summer, all the way
from the sea. Of the tributaries, the principal is the Mohawk, which runs
a long distance towards the west--they tell me, for I have never visited
these remote parts of the colony--among fertile plains, that are bounded
north and south by precipitous highlands. Now, in the spring, when the vast
quantities of snow, that frequently lie four feet deep in the forests, and
among the mountains and valleys of the interior, are suddenly melted by the
south winds and rains, freshets necessarily succeed, which have been known
to do great injury. The flats of the Mohawk, they tell me, are annually
overflown, and a moderate freshet is deemed a blessing; but, occasionally,
a union of the causes I have mentioned, produces a species of deluge that
has a very opposite character. Thus it is, that houses are swept away;
and bridges from the smaller mountain streams, have been known, to come
floating past the wharves of Albany, holding their way towards the ocean.
At such times the tides produce no counter-current; for it is a usual
thing, in the early months of the spring, to have the stream pour downwards
for weeks, the whole length of the river, and to find the water fresh even
as low as New York.

Such was the general nature of the calamity we had been so unexpectedly
made to encounter. The winter had been severe, and the snows unusually
deep; and, as we drove furiously onward, I remembered to have heard
my grandfather predict extraordinary freshets in the spring, from the
character of the winter, as we had found it, even previously to my quitting
home. The great thaw, and the heavy rains of the late storm, had produced
the usual effect; and the waters thus let loose, among the distant, as
well as the nearer hills, were now pouring down upon us in their collected
might. In such cases, the first effect is, to loosen the ice from the
shores; and, local causes forcing it to give way at particular points, a
breaking up of its surface occurs, and dams are formed that set the stream
back in floods upon all the adjacent low land, such as the flats in the
vicinity of Albany.

We did not then know it, but, at the very moment Guert was thus urging
his blacks to supernatural efforts--actually running them as if on a
race-course--there was a long reach of the Hudson, opposite to, for a short
distance below, and for a considerable distance above the town, which was
quite clear of stationary ice. Vast cakes continued to come down, it is
true, passing on to increase the dam that had formed below, near and on
the Overslaugh, where it was buttressed by the islands, and rested on the
bottom; but the whole of that firm field, on which we had first driven
forth that morning, had disappeared! This we did not know at the time, or
it might have changed the direction of Guert's movements; but I learned it
afterwards, when placed in a situation to inquire into the causes of what
had occurred.

Herman Mordaunt's bells, and the rumbling sound of his runners, were heard
close behind us, as our own sleigh flew along the river at a rate that I
firmly believe could not have been much less than that of twenty miles in
the hour. As we were whirled northward, the reports made by the rending of
the ice increased in frequency and force. They really became appalling!
Still, the girls continued silent, maintaining their self-command in a most
admirable manner; though I doubt not that they felt, in the fullest extent,
the true character of the awful circumstances in which we were placed. Such
was the state of things, as Guert's blacks began sensibly to relax in their
speed, for want of wind. They still galloped on, but it was no longer with
the swiftness of the wind; and their master became sensible of the folly of
hoping to reach the town ere the catastrophe should arrive. He reined in
his panting horses, therefore, and was just falling into a trot, as a
violent report was heard directly in our front. At the next instant the ice
rose, positively, beneath our horses' hoofs, to the height of several feet,
taking the form of the roof of a house. It was too late to retreat, and
Guert shouting out "Jack"--"Moses," applied the whip, and the spirited
animals actually went over the mound, leaping a crack three feet in width,
and reaching the level ice beyond. All this was done, as it might be, in
the twinkling of an eye. While the sleigh flew over this ridge, it was with
difficulty I held the girls in their seats; though Guert stood nobly erect,
like the pine that is too firmly rooted to yield to the tempest. No sooner
was the danger passed, however, than he pulled up, and came to a dead halt.

We heard the bells of Herman Mordaunt's sleigh, on the other side of the
barrier, but could see nothing. The broken cakes, pressed upon by millions
of tons weight above, had risen fully ten feet, into an inclination that
was nearly perpendicular; rendering crossing it next to impossible, even to
one a-foot. Then came Herman Mordaunt's voice, filled with paternal agony,
and human grief, to increase the awe of that dreadful moment!

"Shore!--shore!--" he shouted, or rather yelled--"In the name of a
righteous Providence, to the shore, Guert!"

The bells passed off towards the western bank, and the rumbling of the
runners accompanied their sound. That was a breathless moment to us four.
We heard the rending and grinding of the ice, on all sides of us; saw
the broken barriers behind and in front; heard the jingling of Herman
Mordaunt's bells, as it became more and more distant, and finally ceased;
and felt as if we were cut off from the rest of our species. I do not think
either of us felt any apprehension of breaking through; for use had so
accustomed us to the field of the river, while the more appalling grounds
of alarm were so evident, that no one thought of such a source of danger.
Nor was there much, in truth, to apprehend from that cause. The thaw had
not lasted long enough materially to diminish either the thickness or the
tenacity of the common river ice; though it was found unequal to resisting
the enormous pressure that bore upon it from above. It is probable that
a cake of an acre's size would have upheld, not only ourselves, but our
sleigh and horses, and carried us, like a raft, down the stream; had there
been such a cake, free from stationary impediments. Even the girls now
comprehended the danger, which was in a manner suspended over us,--as the
impending wreath of snow menaces the fall of the _avalanche_. But, it was
no moment for indecision or inaction.

Cut off, as we were, by an impassable barrier of ice, from the route taken
by Herman Mordaunt, it was necessary to come to some resolution on our own
course. We had the choice of endeavouring to pass to the western shore,
on the upper side of the barrier, or of proceeding towards the nearest of
several low islands which lay in the opposite direction. Guert determined
on the last, walking his horses to the point of land, there being no
apparent necessity for haste, while the animals greatly needed breath. As
we went along, he explained to us that the fissure below cut us off from
the only point where landing on the western shore could be practicable. At
the same time, he put in practice a pious fraud, which had an excellent
effect on the feelings and conduct of both the girls, throughout the
remainder of the trying scenes of that fearful night; more especially on
those of Anneke. He dwelt on the good fortune of Herman Mordaunt, in being
on the right side of the barrier that separated the sleighs, in a way to
induce those who did not penetrate his motive, to fancy the rest of the
party was in a place of security, as the consequence of this accident. Thus
did Anneke believe her father safe, and thus was she relieved from much
agonizing doubt.

As soon as the sl